Tag Archives: 1968

Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 20, 1968] Dying, deflating, and deorbiting (June 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Fading Echoes

It sometimes astounds me how long Galactic Journey has been around.  Eight years ago, we covered the launch of Echo 1, a big balloon shot into orbit so that NASA eggheads could use it as a cosmic message relay.  More importantly, it was an artificial beacon, proof at a time when the Americans were losing the Space Race, that we had established a visible presence in outer space.

In just a few days, Echo 1 will be no more.  Though the air at Echo's altitude is, to terrestrial standards, a fine vacuum, there is enough there to pull at the satellite.  For the past eight years, the tug has slowed down Echo, and this month, it will fall out of orbit, plunging into the atmosphere, where it will burn up.

All things must pass, and Echo had a good run, but still, it's a little sad.

Which brings us to this month's issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. 

Last month, we lost Anthony Boucher, who helmed F&SF for much of the '50s.  His term was excellent, and he also wrote some great stories, too, my favorite being The Quest for St. Aquin He was only 56.

Since Boucher's tenure, F&SF has been an inconsistent magazine.  There have been good issues of F&SF, and there have been less than good ones.  The latest is one of the latter kind, and its underwhelming quality serves only to make us pine all the more for what we've lost.


by Ronald Walotsky

The Consciousness Machine, by Josephine Saxton

Zona Gambier is a mental technician, proficient in the usage of WAWWAR, a device that has revolutionized psychotherapy.  It dredges the animus of one's mental dysfunction, bares it to the possessor, and in doing so, cures the ailing person of any psychological malady.  It is thus a matter of great consternation when she finds that her patient, Thurston Maxwell's, animus does not seem to correspond to his condition–namely a predilection for sexual assault.

The imagery WAWWAR produces is the story of a teenage boy living ferally, hiding from all of humanity, until he comes across a newborn, still attached to her just-dead mother.  He raises the child, somehow providing for it, until she is old enough to be an adoptive sister.  Later, as an adult, they become lovers.  Finally, they have a child together, completing a kind of circle.

Ultimately, we find out what this story means, and whose animus it actually is.  The writing is rather nice, but the explanation at the end is ad hoc, and I certainly wouldn't call the piece science fiction.  Science-esque, perhaps.

Three stars.

Of Time and Us, by David R. Bunch

Better poetry than some, worse than others.  I'm not sure I care for the sentiment, espousing the futility of humanity against the infinity of chronology.

Three stars.


by Gahan Wilson

The People Trap, by Robert Sheckley

Overpopulation stories have been de rigeur for more than a decade now, to the point where the genre is a bit overripe.  Especially given that, according to articles I've been reading lately, the population growth rate has been steadily declining in the First World for most of the '60s.  Now, will that continue?  There are an awful lot of Baby Boomers coming of age, and perhaps the trend will reverse itself.  But it does seem that large families, at least in the West and other developed areas, are falling out of fashion.

Which is why Sheckley's satire of overpopulation stories, in which a mild-mannered father, tired of sharing his one-room flat with five others (with five more on the way), enters a deadly competition, is a breath of fresh air.  Along with 60 other participants, he must complete a foot-race through the wilds of New York City, populated by the lowest forms of humanity.  His prize: one of the last free-standing acres of land on the continent.

Very quickly, you see that the thing is a lampoon, and as such, it's quite tolerable.  Indeed, it's the closest thing to an old-style Sheckley story I've read in a long time, and old-style Sheckley is one of my favorites.

Four stars.

Settle, by Ann MacLeod

A couple buys a fixer-upper.  Soon, the man of the house starts losing pieces of himself.  First a toe, then a foot, onto his leg and torso, until he is just a head.  Still, he goes on repairing elements of the home, determined to make it livable.  Eventually, he is just a set of teeth and a bit of brain, mowing the lawn by mouth, until he is crushed under the knee of his toddler son.  The end.

Per the editor's preface, this story is about how a money pit takes its toll in flesh from its owners.  I'm glad that was explained to me, because otherwise, I'd have no idea.

One star.

Backtracked, by Burt Filer

Author Burt Filer is apparently married to Settle's author, Ann MacLeod.  His tale is the superior of the two.

A man in his mid-30s wakes up to find his body ten years older.  Apparently, he has "backtracked"–a decade from then, he swapped physical forms with his younger self (which apparently destroys the future incarnation so as to prevent paradoxes).  He has no memory of the next ten years, nor why he chose this particular date to come back to.

All he knows is that his polio-crippled leg is now reasonably robust, and that his wife is not altogether happy with his new, somewhat weathered, appearance.

Eventually we do find out what would motivate a man to give up a decade of life, and it's a reasonable justification.

Three stars.

At the Heart of It, by Michael Harrison

This is both an old tale and an old-fashioned tale.  It details the tragic story of a bookseller who discovers a profane book, one that teaches the reader the art of transferring one's soul into an inanimate object.

There are no surprises, and the kicker comes at the end, like all its Weird Tales brethren.  I imagine this would have been humdrum in the 30s and it certainly doesn't cut the mustard now.

Two stars.

Counting Chromosomes, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor explains the relatively new science of genetics and the role chromosomes, which are essentially punch cards that govern cell reproduction, have in them.  He spends a good deal of time on sex chromosomes, and the effects that mutated sex chromosomes have on human beings.

Fascinating stuff, but there is an air of eugenics about his discussion, particularly in calling chromosomally abnormal human beings "defectives" and describing the recent exclusion of Ewa Klobukowska from women's sports on the basis of an extra Y chromosome as a positive development, ensuring competitions remain "sportsmanlike", rubbed me the wrong way.

Three stars.

The Secret of Stonehenge, by Harry Harrison

In this vignette, archaeologists armed with a time-traveling camera send it back to find out why and when Stonehenge was created.  Turns out that the camera leaves chronological echoes, afterimages that last long after the camera has departed.  Of course, it is these images, that, to primitive Britons, could only have been a sign of the gods, that spurred the creation of Stonehenge.

Harry should know better.  We've known since 1963 that Stonehenge was an astronomical calculator, able to predict eclipses and solstices.  It was built where it was because it needed to be to function properly.

In any event, the far more exciting (and dangerous) discovery is that long-range time travel can be used to communicate with the past, but this was not touched upon.

Two stars.

Sea Home, by William M. Lee

The first long-term permanent underwater residence has been completed.  However, it quickly becomes apparent that Sea Home has a problem: its five long-term crew, already at depth, are undergoing physiological changes.  It appears to be linked to the special air mixture they're breathing to alleviate pressure issues; their blend includes oxygen, helium, and sodium hexaflouride–the latter two ingredients serving as a kind of buffer, one very light, and one very heavy.

There's a lot wrong with this story.  For one, it's a novelette for a one-gimmick story.  Lee tries to add color and reasonably competent writing to hide the fact, but there are simply no mysteries to keep you intrigued beyond the central one.

And the central one is stupid.  The premise is that the absence of nitrogen triggers all sorts of biological miracles.  Free from the shackles of nitrogen, our bodies become more efficient, our brains get smarter, our skin sprouts tiny fields of gills fer Chrissakes.  It reminds me of the early stories about long-term weightlessness, when, because we had no data, sf writers filled in the blanks any way they wanted.

Except we do have data.  Gemini 7 was in space for 14 days, its crew breathing a pure, 5psi oxygen atmosphere.  None of them got any smarter or developed vacuum-breathing gills or what-have-you.

Dumb.  Two stars.

Cithaeronion farewell

As you can see, this issue is sort of like the work of a taxidermist.  It looks like F&SF, many of its contents are familiar, but the breath of life is missing.  Would that someone new could come along and instill the esteemed publication with the vigor it enjoyed under its past master.

Lest all we have left is fading echoes…




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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 18, 1968] Four Out of Six Ain't Bad (May 1968 Galactoscope)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Stranger in a Strange Time

I was greatly impressed by Robert Silverberg's recent novel Thorns. It seemed to mark a new direction for a prolific author of competent, if undistinguished, science fiction. Will his new book reach the same level of quality? Let's find out.

The Masks of Time, by Robert Silverberg


Cover art by Robert Foster.

Christmas Day, 1998. A naked man appears out of nowhere, floating down from the sky. This fellow calls himself Vornan-19, and he claims to come from the year 2999.

With the year 2000 approaching, members of a worldwide apocalyptic cult fill the streets with wild orgies of sex and destruction. As you'd expect, the arrival of Vornan-19 changes things. Is he a fraud? A sign of the impending end of the world? Or proof that Earth will survive for many years to come?

Let's slow down a bit, in the same way the novel does at this point, and introduce some important characters.

The narrator is Leo, a physicist. He's working on time reversal. So far, all he's been able to do is transform a particle into an antiparticle, sending it backwards in time, but also causing it to be instantly destroyed. He's convinced that honest-to-gosh time travel is impossible, and therefore he thinks Vornan-19 is a phony.

Jack is a brilliant graduate student. He's been working on the theory of obtaining all energy from an atom (without the pesky side effect of a nuclear explosion), but he's not interested in any practical applications. For unclear reasons, he drops out and goes to live with his stunningly beautiful wife Shirley in a remote part of the Arizona desert.

The United States government sends Leo and a few other scientists to act as tour guides for Vornan-19, of a sort. They really want these geniuses to figure out if he's truly from the future. (Even if he isn't, he could be useful in convincing the cultists that the world isn't going to end in the year 2000.)

What follows is an episodic account of Vornan-19's encounters with people of the twentieth century. He causes chaos at a billionaire's party, in a mansion that keeps changing shape. He seduces men and women. Vornan-19 remains a mystery, revealing very little about himself or the world one thousand years from now. He becomes an object of religious devotion, leading to the book's dramatic but enigmatic conclusion.

After the intensity of Thorns, this is a surprisingly leisurely book. (I believe it is also the author's longest novel, at about two hundred and fifty pages.) We spend a lot of time with Leo, Jack, and Shirley before the narrator goes off with Vornan-19.

There's also quite a bit of sex. Jack and Shirley are nudists, and pretty soon Leo joins in. The group of scientists following Vornan-19 around includes both women and men, and we get to learn who's sleeping with whom, and who wants to sleep with whom, and who isn't sleeping with whom. Leo spends time with two prostitutes, one supplied by a grateful U.S. government, the other working at a legal, automated brothel.

(I've heard that Silverberg writes a lot of so-called adult novels under various pseudonyms, so maybe he's gotten into the habit of including this sort of thing.)

There's even a sex scene that serves as the book's climax. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the obvious pun.) We also find out why Jack ended his research, and what that has to do with Vornan-19.

This is an elegantly written novel that held my attention throughout. As I've indicated, it's hardly a thriller; the reader needs to be patient to fully appreciate it. There's a touch of satire and some interesting speculation about the technology of the near future.

Four stars.


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

The Programmed Man by Jeff and Jean Sutton

Programmed Man 1968 book cover

I sometimes like to read books by authors I know nothing about, in the hope of getting a nice surprise. Well, this one certainly is not nice!

What is there to like about this?
The plot? No, dull plodding sub-Reynolds spy nonsense.
The characters? Paper-thin, laden with racist stereotypes.
The style? Long run-on sentences and expository dialogue which are about as exciting as drying paint.

Feel free to miss out on such writing as:

"Are you talking about the Alphans or spacemen in general?"

"Spacemen in general." The Doctor lifted his eyes. "I'll have to admit, I often think the Alphans are more complicated than others."

"In what way?" asked York.

"They're rather inscrutable," Bendbow explained. "As a psychomedician, I realize they don't wear their emotions or thoughts as transparently as most of us. But that's a racial characteristic."

Don’t buy it. Don’t read it. Don’t even acknowledge it. See it coming down the street, run the other way.

Save yourself!

Indeed, so bad, so offensive is this book, with enough off-handed bigotry to make even John Campbell blush to publish it, that with the blessing of the Journey staff, we've inaugurated a brand new award for badness. If the Queen Bee is bestowed for conspicuous sexism (thank goodness we have a word for the phenomenon now!) then there is only one name for the "honor" The Programmed Man deserves:

The Grand Wizard.

Close up face from Invasion of the Bodysnatchers
You have been warned.


by Robin Rose Graves

The Reproductive System by John Sladek


Is it an anatomical textbook? No, it's the debut novel of John Sladek.

Scientists want to create a self-replicating machine. Why? To get a government funded grant of course.

Quickly this invention gets out of hand, with robots consuming large quantities of metal and electricity, multiplying and converting other machines into robots, displacing humans from their homes, and even killing them.

The story follows a large cast of characters, ranging from scientists to soldiers, love interests, foreign spies, reporters, et cetera. At times, it’s difficult to follow, particularly in one fast paced section of the book where nearly every paragraph hops to another character’s perspective. With a number of names to follow, characters are best distinguished by their quirks, and while sometimes they feel more like caricatures than characters, it makes for a funny read.

The tone of this book reminds me of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 or Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. Speaking of the latter, I can’t help but think this is a also response to the creation of the atomic bomb. The plot revolves around the negligent nature of scientific discovery without consideration of the consequences. Much like the atomic bomb, the reproductive system might solve a more immediate problem, but the lasting effects continue to hurt civilians who had nothing to do with the creation or any say in whether something like that should exist.

Possibly this is a response to Karel Capek’s play "R.U.R." a work that is referenced in the story. To spoil a forty year old play, the fatal flaw in the robot’s revolution is their dependency on humans to make more robots. I can see this being the inspiration for Sladek’s main conflict.

Author John Sladek

Though an American writer, Mr. Sladek is currently publishing overseas, and were it not for the hilarious title, my sister probably would not have bought this book as joke on her latest trip abroad. Hopefully it will come to the states soon.

I enjoyed reading this and it earned quite a few laughs from me. While lighter on the science side, The Reproductive System clearly comes from a love of science fiction, referencing many works that came before it. The ending is perhaps appropriately happy, though a bit too convenient for my taste, but I think that was intentional on Sladek’s part, ending on one last humorous critique of the genre.

I look forward to what Sladek will write next.

4 stars.


by Gideon Marcus

After Some Tomorrow, by Mack Reynolds

Are you a Mack Reynolds fan? Then you'll like this book because it is the essence of Mack Reynolds from top to bottom, incorporating all of his strengths and few of his weaknesses.

In brief: The time is the late 20th Century. The setting is the United American States. If you've read Reynolds' Joe Mauser stories, then you know this future Earth is both a utopia and a dead end. The Cold War still simmers, but the People's Capitalism of the UAS and the Communism of the SovWorld are now two sides of the same coin: automation has put most people out of work, and wealth is concentrated with the elite while everyone else is stuck in fairly rigid castes, most living on the dole and watching telly while tranked up on free drugs. Common Europe and the few neutral countries aren't much better off.

Mick Grant and Anna Enesco are scholarship students, awarded their grant from the Joshua Porsenna endowment for a very specific reason–both seem to have the talent of precognition. The plot thickens when the mysterious and (in most places) illegal Monad Foundation also offers both of them exorbitant grants. All the Monads want is for the two to study socio-economic texts, from Anarchism to Zapata, Communism to Technocracy. Throw in the involvement of both military and government intelligence, and you've got the makings for quite an exciting time! But Reynolds manages to throw in yet another twist before finishing this slim novel, revealing the identity of the mysterious Porsenna.

The pacing for this book is excellent. Not a single chapter concluded that didn't tempt me to move on to the next. The setting is fascinating and also disturbingly plausible, and the motivation of the Monadians makes a depressing amount of sense. Of course, this being Reynolds, the book is peppered with historical essays with subjects like the anarchist Bakunin and the Greek colony of Cumae. Somehow, Reynolds makes it work. Maybe it's because the subject material was germane or simply well-presented, but it never turned me off.

The only real disappointment I had was the Anna Enesco's evolution into a caricature. She is at first played for frigid but independent. Over time, she falls for Mick, but there's never really a pay-off scene that sells the attraction. It's just accepted as having happened. By the end, her dialogue is stilted in the extreme.

I think dialogue has always been Reynolds' weak point. The man has traveled the world and has a broad knowledge of things. He knows how to plot, how to pace, how to build a world, but his characters are simply pieces in that world (though Mick isn't badly drawn, if a bit dense).

Unfortunately, this book came out November of last year; I only got to it now. As a result, though I'm giving it four stars, it's too late to make last year's Galactic Stars. Still, I recommend it.


by Blue Cathey-Thiele

Ace Double H-59

The Time Mercenaries, by Phillip E. High

Captain Randall and his crew have been preserved inside their submarine for over a thousand years. When an alien species refuses all compromise and sets out to destroy human life to make space for their own ever-growing population, these men are revived. They find humanity has genetically suppressed aggression and can't fight back, even in self defense against the Nerne.

Randall is physically outmatched, but future technology defends against future threats, and using old tricks and weapons they are able to sneak attacks under the radar. He is assigned eager robots who join his crew. After one of his men accidentally discovers how to unlock aggression – in one of my least favorite segments, when he hits a woman who insults him after they have sex, after which they… fall in love immediately and decide to get married – Randall recruits more humans. An unanticipated ally comes in the Revain, who have been fending off the Nerne for centuries. These alien allies bring their advanced tech, ships, and pills that work just as well to unlock aggression.

In the end, what ends the war isn't overwhelming force or superior firepower – it's social disruption. Using the computing of the robots, and the methods of the past, they undermine the highest ranking Nerne and cause the population to question the waves of existing lives sacrificed for potential future life.

The Nerne aren't alone in upheaval. Humans have also had a shift. With aggression, passion was also suppressed. Visible violence was removed, but other insidious forms remained – the crew had been used as a sort of nearly-alive wax museum for years before revival as a grim reminder, the government overruled the people's say, sent political opponents to become aggressive "deviants", and tasked robots – who were capable of feeling – with fighting and "dying" for them. Randall is disgusted by modern humanity's hands-off approach that still puts others in the line of fire and at the callous disregard of life by the Nerne. He doesn't delight in war, but recognizes when violence is called for to stop more death.

High makes clever use of the change in times and thinking. They didn't swoop in and do more damage, they were simply unexpected. How did they make humans violent again? Punching them in the face! It sounds absurd, and it is! But in a society without aggression, no one would be able to take that first swing.

While the whole book is set in a theater of war it explores what it means to be peaceable and how that can, and can't be achieved. It also makes a compelling case for contraceptives, and against eugenics.

4 1/2 stars

Anthropol, by Louis Trimble

Anthropol member Vernay is sent on an undercover assignment to a planet that his organization recently made and lost contact with when their scout team was killed. He is conditioned to fit in with the people, once from Earth, who live on Ujvila. It's a society strictly ordered by sex and rank, with men as subservient. He joins up with resistance fighters, helping facilitate change through the planet's own people and systems. Vernay must work around the Galactic Military (Gal-Mil) who have the same end goal but use force. He is captured and tortured, then meets the political and spiritual leader, the Kalauz. She confirms the existence of an alien presence that Anthropol had previously thought only metaphorical. These small aliens operated replicated human-forms but are no longer a threat as planetary defense scans for them.

Lori, the Captain of the Gal-Mil presence, is captured and sent to a "joy-labor camp" where prisoners rarely live past two years. Vernay volunteers himself to the camp to break her out or die trying. They escape with rebel help.

Vernay puts together odd hints he has noticed through his time on the planet, and brings it to a head when he calls to see Rosid, a resistance leader. Many of the rebels are, in fact, Ngign aliens posing as Ujvilans. Trisk, an Ujvilan rebel and cousin to the Kalauz, is horrified to discover that her people's minds were destroyed to create duplicates for the aliens. Vernay finds the one weak spot on the constructed body, the Ngignians dying in moments without a means to filter the atmosphere. They reach the Kalauz, but she too has been replaced. Trisk destroys her body, and takes over as Kalauz, starting social reform.

The epilogue calls Vernay and Lori back to the planet, as Trisk had spent four years improving the world, only to regress it to the original state, spurring new revolutionaries.

Anthropol went from a political revolution plot to an alien takeover in the last moments of the book. Although clues lead up to it, the plot turned so many times in the final chapters that it seemed there was another book's worth of material that hadn't been fully incorporated. Since so much time was spent exploring alternative methods, having the ultimate defeat come by physically attacking and killing the aliens instead of using Anthropol tactics was a let down. Also, Trimble recreated a female/male style system among the women, with feminine, "pretty" women as leaders, and masculine women given the roles usually assigned to men. As a commentary on the treatment of the sexes, it fell short.

3 stars




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Movies

[May 16, 1968] Counting down, and a blast from the Past (Countdown (1967) and The Time Travelers (1964))

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by Janice L. Newman

When we learned that last year’s Countdown was playing in San Diego theaters, The Traveler and I decided to make a night of it and drive down to watch it. The Traveler is a space buff, of course, so it was a natural fit. Would I recommend it? Well, it depends.

The story is simple and straightforward, with few surprises. When the Russians send up a civilian astronaut to circumnavigate the moon, with three more astronauts presumably soon to follow and actually land, NASA implements an emergency plan to get a man on the moon at any cost. He’ll be stuck there for a year, provided he can find and enter a previously-sent shelter pod before his oxygen runs out. Public relations concerns force NASA to tap the less-qualified civilian Lee for the role rather than their first choice, Colonel Chiz. After many conversations, discussions, arguments, and training sequences, Lee is sent to the moon to land a few days after the Russians. What happens next is, shall we say, narratively predictable, but I'll let you watch the movie to see for yourself.


Lee and Chiz in the modified Gemini that will go to the moon–it's clear NASA helped Warner Bros. make this film.

The movie feels grounded in realism in a way that few modern space movies do. This is a story of the ‘here and now’, with current technology, fashion, and language. It’s a bold choice, and a risky one. With technology changing so quickly, it seems likely that the movie will soon feel dated and possibly even silly. Within a couple of years, it’s highly likely that either the Russians or the Americans will succeed in landing on the moon, and what then? The story will simply be a ‘could have been’, perhaps interesting in its time, but quickly forgotten as it is eclipsed by true events. Unless the movie ends up being prescient. Who knows?

While the story and visuals are deeply entrenched in the ‘now’, however, certain aspects of the movie feel groundbreaking: specifically, the way sound is handled, both the conversations between characters and the music. I’ve never seen a movie or play where characters talk over each other so much. It’s confusing and sometimes frustrating, trying to follow the thread of a conversation as other characters are shouting. It feels more like ‘real life’ in some ways; after all, real conversations are often filled with interruptions, stops and starts which almost never show up on screen or stage. The technique was used a bit too much, perhaps, as sometimes I thought that it continued to an unrealistic degree. The actors seemed a bit uncomfortable with it as well, a few times starting or stopping in an artificial way. I imagine after training in one kind of acting, to do something so different must have been disconcerting. This is not to say that the actors did a poor job. Duvall in particular impressed me, turning in a powerful performance as the bitter passed-over Colonel Chiz.


Everyone talking at once–Altman's invention.

The real star of the movie, though, was the music. Atonal and dissonant music is not new. Arnold Schoenberg, for example, spent the first half of the century writing music that sounds strange to Classically-trained ears. What is new, at least to me, is the use of dissonance in a mainstream movie soundtrack, and not just for a moment or two, but for most of the movie. The soundtrack eschews the Romantic-style orchestral music which is standard in most films, and instead uses eerie, unsettling themes that swell and fade with high-pitched notes and low groans, punctuated by the occasional pounding of timpani. Still orchestral, but not sweet. Not predictable in its progressions, but rather filled with deliberately clashing chords. It’s not quite to the level of atonality that Schoenburg ended up writing, but it’s unusual and fresh, and it does an amazing job of building tension even absent of every other factor. In some ways, the soundtrack might have been more suited to a horror movie! Is this the beginning of a new trend in movie music? I understand that Planet of the Apes, which came out after this film, uses similar dissonant themes. On the other hand, I understand that 2001 features The Blue Danube and Also Sprach Zarathustra, which are both undeniably fine pieces of music, but hardly ‘modern’. So I guess we’ll see!


It's the music that really sells the scene as Lee struggles with the lunar simulator.

So do I recommend the movie? For space buffs, yes, absolutely. The grounding in modern technology and the efforts at realism will be appreciated by people who know what they’re looking at (even if, as The Traveler pointed out to me, they used footage of the wrong rockets). For everyone else? The plot is paint-by-numbers. The fate of the Russian astronauts didn’t come as a surprise. Nor did Lee’s. The conflicts of the movie—with Chiz, between Lee and his wife, between the surgeon and the head of the project—are all more or less resolved by the end. Everything is tied up neatly, and that’s that.

But even if space isn't your bag, if you love music, especially modern and unusual music, this film may well be worth the price of entry!

Three stars.


by Gideon Marcus

What an interesting beast Countdown is.  Like the novel, Marooned, it is very much of its time.  As Janice notes, it's instantly dated.  But the test of the plot isn't whether or not it could happen now, but whether or not it was plausible at a certain time.

There is clearly a point of divergence from our universe in this movie.  In the chronology of Countdown, a back-up "Gemini to the moon" plan was prepared.  The Soviets had more luck with their program, and, indeed, a completely different program (no mention is made of Soyuz in the film; it must have been written before April 1967.) With those facts as a given, the events of the movie make sense, and indeed, make a fascinating counterfactual.


The Soviet craft is exclusively referred to as a "Voskhod" (with varying degrees of mangling in the mouths of American actors)

The basic thrust of the movie is still relevant, even if the facts are dated.  As we speak, Apollo 8 is being planned for a circumlunar flight toward the end of the year.  We know the Soviets have been planning for such an endeavor, too, linking up their Soyuz craft in orbit in preparation.  That flight around the moon wasn't in the cards until we were worried the Communists might beat us to the punch.  What corners are we cutting to make it possible?


This is the movie's mission, but it's also Apoll 8's trajectory.

There's a lot to like about this movie.  The acting is excellent.  I recognize Robert Duvall from his endless TV roles (including "The Inheritors" and "The Chameleon" episodes of The Outer Limits and "Miniature", an episode of The Twilight Zone), and James Caan from the episode of Hitchcock, penned by Harlan Ellison, with Walter Koenig.  The direction is innovative, naturalistic and tight.  Newcomer Robert Altman does a lot with a little: this is clearly a low budget film, using flagrantly inaccurate stock-footage rockets (Atlas Agena for the first Pilgrim flight; a Titan II for the second) instead of a Saturn.  I'm kind of surprised they didn't use Saturn 1 footage, honestly.


Ted Knight as a Shorty Powers type describes the mission.  Note the Saturn V in the drawings.


But this is what we actually see–a Titan-Gemini launch.

There are two main motifs that run through this film.  The first is difficulties in communication.  Altman has his actors constantly talking over each other, often failing to listen to each other.  This manifests itself technically when Stegler's radio gives out, punctuating conversation with frequent drop-outs.


Reacting to a failure to communicate.

The second is, of course, countdowns.  Robert Duvall recites the numbers from ten to zero a dozen times in the film.  Altman knows there is suspense in that little trick, and despite its frequent use, it isn't really overdone.


Duvall counting down.

If there's a problem with the film, it's that, despite all the flurry and tension and concerns, there are really no decisions to be made.  Like a spaceflight mission, the movie completes its pre-planned trajectory with little input from the characters along for the ride.

So I think I give it 3.5 stars.  The execution deserves five; as a narrative, it's barely a two.  On the other hand, let's be honest–were these events to play out in real life, with astronauts in peril on the way to the moon, we'd be absolutely riveted.  Of course, in that case, we wouldn't necessarily know everything was going to be all right in the end…

But there's more!  Enjoy this bonus review of a…lesser Sci-fi movie.


by Gideon Marcus


There was no "Love Machine" in the movie I saw. I have no idea what it's talking about.

I shoulda run when I saw the "American International Pictures" logo.

Alright, it's true that AIP doesn't always make shlock, but this time, they indubitably did.  1964's The Time Travelers, directed (sort of) by Ib Melchior and also co-written by him is an hour and a half you'll never get back.

But is that really so bad?

We open up on a "lab" where an "experiment" in time travel is taking place.  Three scientists and a dopey electrician occupy the far left side of the room.  A screen, positioned clearly for our benefit rather than the scientists', occupies the middle of the room, showing where the time window is currently focused.

When the screen refuses to show the future, Steve, the headstrong beefcakey one, decides to push the circuits to their maximum.  The result is as expected: things spark and catch fire.  But serendipitously, the screen becomes more than a window–it's now a portal!  The dopey electrician goes through to investigate, the bohunk and the goateed elder scientist (made of wood or some other unmoving substance) go after him.  When weird humanoid mutants show up and menace Carol, the remaining scientist, she clobbers them with fire extinguisher exhaust.  Then the portal starts to collapse.  She goes through to warn bohunk and goatee…but it's too late.  They're all trapped. 

107 years in the future!

Thus ensues a chase that pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the film, because it goes on for what feels like a good five minutes.  Here's where I realized that there was no budget for retakes or second unit work.  What they shot, they had, and if they were going to fill a movie's run-time, they were going to use every last bit of it.

What's really funny is the four of them hold off about a dozen mutants, armed with spears, by throwing rocks at them.  For some reason, the mutants never think to throw their spears… or rocks.

Anyway, they stumble upon a cave complex guarded by an electric gate.  An attractive older woman in form-fitting trousers (there's a lot of form-fitting trousers in this flick) greets them, accompanied by a bunch of creepy, but not ineffective androids, and brings them to their council chamber.  Turns out that only most of humanity died in an atomic calamity (depicted in stock footage narrated by the council leader, none other than John Hoyt, who is in everything, including the original Star Trek pilot).

But though the mutants increase their attacks every day, there is hope.  The future humans have discovered an inhabitable world around Alpha Centauri (which Alpha Centauri, they don't say…) and have built a starship to get there called… "Starship".  I'm amazed there are no British actors in the cast because that's a British name if I ever heard one.


John Hoyt and… Starship.


1964's finest.

It's all very When Worlds Collide, up to and including the extreme caucasianicity.

At first, the four time travelers are offered a berth on Starship.  This is great because dopey electrician (you can see the impact he had on me–I don't remember his name) has fallen in love with the assertive beauty in form-fitting trousers, Reena (none other than Miss Delores Wells, Playmate of the Month for June 1960; don't ask me how I know this).


Ahem. Form-fitting trousers.

I do like that about this film–men and women seem to share power pretty equally in this future.  Except when it comes to fighting.  Then it's all up to the menfolk and androids.

Anyway, Councilman Willard, a real jerk, insists that Starship can't accommodate any more people, so the time travelers have but one option–build a time portal back to the past.


"I don't wanna take 'em with us!

It's finished at the same time Starship is ready, and also when the mutants make their final attack.  Starship launches but then explodes, killing all on board.  The mutants fight their way to the time portal room, slaughtering many men in form-fitting trousers as well as androids.  We get to see one android catch fire and burn.  For about a full minute.  Because, after all, they shot it, so it's gonna get shown.


"So much for being a real boy…"

The portal is finished in time, the time travelers jump through, along with Reena, John Hoyt, and a few other trouser people, and they find themselves back in the lab at the moment of their fateful experiment.  But they find that time has frozen for them.  Their only hope is to jump through the screen, currently focused on the far future.  They emerge onto a landscape reminiscent of the end of When Worlds Collide…hmmm.

Then, because run-time was short, they recapped the entire movie at an accelerated (or speeded up) rate, I guess to indicate a time loop.  In fact, they do it twice before rolling credits.

Things that are bad:

  • The acting: even John Hoyt is bad.
  • The cinematography: "Hey, I set up the camera–you want I should move it?"
  • The pacing.
  • The science (Lord, the science).

Things that are good:

  • The score: sure, it doesn't always fit the action, but there is a groovy number that clearly influenced the theme of a certain show we all know and love…
  • The scene with the half-mutant refugee that Carol saves from Willard–but nothing more is done with this wasted opportunity.


    You can't see that his hands are deformed claws of flesh–I wanted to see more of this kid.

  • Delores Wells: look, I make it a point not to be a lech, but… vavavoom.
  • The magic tricks: several times, they lift stunts straight from Harry Blackstone's repertoire–they take off an android's head and put it back on; dopey electrician is "teleported" from a magic box.  It's like Vegas, but on film!
  • Superfan Forrest Ackerman has a cameo.


    Hey 4-E!

Two stars.  Don't fail to miss, even if it's tonight's Late Late Movie…unless you want a laugh and/or an eyeful of form-fitting trousers.




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Movies

[May 14, 1968] Bad Girls On Bikes (The Hellcats, The Mini-Skirt Mob, and She-Devils On Wheels)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Three For The Road

I've previously confessed my inexplicable enjoyment of beach movies. A similar vice to which I am addicted is my passion for films about motorcycle gangs.

This particular kind of cheap drive-in feature has exploded ever since the success of The Wild Angels last year.

There are already a bunch of these movies out there, all featuring guys on big bikes riding around, drinking beer, making out with chicks, getting into fights, and generally raising Cain.

But what if they weren't guys?

Three films I saw recently raised my hopes that I'd see the distaff side of things for a change. Not all of them met my expectations. Let's take a look.

The Hellcats

The poster for this low budget cycle flick certainly emphasizes the women in the cast. The trailer does the same thing, putting the names of five of the female characters right up there on the screen for all to see. But is that really what we get?

The movie starts with the funeral of one of the gang. The plot is both simple and difficult to follow, but let me do my best to explain it.

The dead member of the Hellcats was working with the cops. It seems that the cyclists are helping some gangsters push drugs, and he was informing on the crooks. The gangsters killed him, I guess. This isn't the most coherent movie in the world.

Anyway, they also kill one of the cops. The dead man's brother and girlfriend are our protagonists. They manage to join the Hellcats. Eventually, after a lot of random stuff happens, the Hellcats blame the gangsters for the death of one of their members and a big fight breaks out.

So where are all the tough biker chicks we're expecting? Well, they're around, but they don't do very much. Even the one-eyed blonde shown on the poster is a minor character. (You can see what she really looks like in the scene shown above. Not as scary as the poster.)

Not a good movie. Read a book instead.


Maybe not this one.

Quality of film: Two stars.
Bad Girl content: One star.

The Mini-Skirt Mob

The trailer for this somewhat more professionally made film makes it clear who the villainess is, and even features a knockdown, drag-out fight between the Bad Girl and the Good Girl. More false promises?

During the opening credits, I thought I had walked into the wrong theater and was watching a Western. Horses in a motorcycle movie? Well, it turns out the hero is a champion rodeo rider, although that has nothing to do with the story.

The cowboy has just married our Good Girl, played by Sherry Jackson. Hey, she was on Star Trek!

This makes our Bad Girl, played by Diane McBain, very mad. It seems she had a relationship with the cowboy some time ago, and doesn't want to let him go. Together with a few male sidekicks, she and the other members of a female gang called the Mini-Skirts give the newlyweds a hard time.

(Truth in advertising. The gang members really do wear miniskirts, as impractical as that may be on motorcycles. I'd hardly call them a mob, however, as there are only four of them. One of them, the leader's little sister, turns out to be not so bad after all.)

It all leads up to an out-and-out war, with rifles and Molotov cocktails as the weapons. People get killed. There's one death scene that's pretty darn gruesome.

The movie manages to create some suspense, and there are a lot of visually impressive scenes of the desert, courtesy of the state of Arizona.

Quality of film: Three stars.
Bad Girl content: Three stars.

She-Devils on Wheels

The trailer for this Florida-filmed epic reveals two things. It's got a bunch of Bad Girls, and it's really, really cheap.

The opening credits feature a painting of a screaming woman on a cycle. I hope you like it, because it shows up a lot. Between scenes, the same thing appears, spinning around like a record.

The Man-Eaters motorcycle club (their symbol is more cute than scary) have races to determine who has first pick from a bunch of men who are, apparently, just waiting around to be chosen as intimate companions for the night. When one member chooses the same guy too often, the others accuse her of being in love, which is against the rules. She has to drag the fellow behind her bike, leaving him a bloody mess, to prove her loyalty to the gang.

(There's a lot of fake blood in this thing. Director Herschell Gordon Lewis also gave the world extremely gory films such as Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs!,Color Me Blood Red, and A Taste of Blood.)

The two most interesting Man-Eaters are Queenie, the leader, and Whitey. The latter is — how should I put it? — zaftig? Rubenesque? Anyway, she's not your typical Hollywood starlet trying to look tough.

There's also Honeypot, a new member. She gets the plot going.

After the Man-Eaters have a fight with a male gang, defeating the boys easily, the guys get their revenge by kidnapping Honeypot and returning her a bloody mess. (Do you sense a pattern here?) The Man-Eaters set a trap for the leader of the men, leading to our big shock scene (which you may have spotted in the trailer.)

Make no mistake. This is a terrible movie. The acting is atrocious. (I understand that women who could ride motorcycles were hired, rather than women who could act.) But it delivers the goods. These are very Bad Girls indeed.

Quality of film: One star.
Bad Girl content: Five stars.

Overall, not very good movies. Sometimes you just have to go back to the classics.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[May 12, 1968] Slow And Steady… (Doctor Who: The Wheel In Space [Part One])

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By Jessica Holmes

We approach the end of another series of Doctor Who, and it’s been a bit of a rough one, hasn’t it? Other than the occasional standout, I feel that I’ve ended up finding every other story terribly repetitive. As I began to watch the last serial of the current run, I had hope that my faith in the series would be rewarded. After all, when Doctor Who is good, it’s really, really good, and this latest serial was scripted by David Whittaker (who wrote The Enemy Of The World, possibly my favourite story) based on a story by Kit Pedler (who is to the Cybermen as Terry Nation was to the Daleks). With a writing duo like that, things looked very promising for the serial. Was my faith rewarded? Let’s mull it over as I give you a quick rundown of The Wheel In Space.


EPISODE ONE

With Jamie still a bit sulky over Victoria’s exit from the TARDIS, things go from bad to worse for the lad as the time machine breaks down, leaving him and the Doctor stranded. To be on the safe side until he can get the TARDIS working again, the Doctor removes the doohickey that makes it appear bigger on the inside, the Time Vector Generator. The pair then split to search the rocketship for any crew or mercury for the TARDIS’ battery. They spend the better part of the episode doing this, with a break for lunch. That’s just what the kids want to watch: a couple of blokes operating a vending machine. The scene of them actually obtaining lunch is about as interesting as it sounds, but they do have a nice little discussion on how they think Victoria is getting on back on Earth.

They’re unable to find any mercury for the TARDIS, although the one place they haven’t searched is the rocketship’s control room. Unbeknownst to them, there is a countdown timer in there. But counting down to what? Out of ideas, and having at least confirmed that they’re safe for now, Jamie settles down for a nap.

Yes, it seems the ship is abandoned, drifting aimlessly…just like this serial.

There is however a robot making the rounds, and while the Doctor and Jamie are in the crew cabin, it seals shut their section of the ship.

This serial has slower pacing than 2001 (at least from what I've read), and that’s saying something.

With only a couple minutes left in the episode, something resembling action finally happens. The countdown in the control room hits zero. The ship lurches as it releases a number of silver spheres into space. The jolt  wakes Jamie up and knocks the Doctor over, resulting in a nasty crack on the head. A dazed Doctor uses the Time Vector Generator to unseal the door (it apparently works sort of like a high powered laser beam) and Jamie helps him escape the robot and run back to the cabin, again employing the TVG to see the robot off.

They’re safe for now, but the Doctor passes out from his injury.

Meanwhile, the crew of a nearby space station have discovered the drifting rocket ship. This is the Wheel, so called because it looks a bit like a wagon wheel from above. It’s an Earth vessel, observing deep space phenomena and warning spacecraft of potential hazards. They attempt to get in contact, and as they do so, something hits their outer hull. They don’t realise it yet, but it’s the silver spheres from the rocket ship.

Unable to hail the rocket on the radio, the crew of the Wheel are faced with a choice: should they leave the ship be, or blow it up on the off-chance that its autopilot is still active and may drive it into the station?

EPISODE TWO

Fortunately for the Doctor and Jamie, they have the Time Vector Generator, which Jamie flashes out the porthole in an attempt to get the attention of the space station. The Wheel detects the unusual signal, and sends some men over to investigate the rocket, soon finding the Doctor and Jamie and bringing them back to the Wheel.

Now we’re all together, let’s go over the crew of the Wheel. We’ve got Jarvis Bennett (Michael Turner), the station’s controller, who is quite high-strung and prone to stressing out. There’s also Dr. Gemma Corwyn (Anne Ridler), the medic and resident voice of reason, and the astrophysicist-librarian-maths-genius-wunderkind Zoe Heriot (Wendy Padbury). Filling out the cast are a few more or less interchangeable crewmembers of various nationalities portrayed with varying degrees of sensitivity.

Corwyn gives the Doctor and Jamie a thorough medical examination, finding that Jamie is perfectly fine but the Doctor, unsurprisingly, has a concussion.

With how long he’s been unconscious I’m surprised it’s not worse than that.

While the Doctor recovers, Zoe shows Jamie around the Wheeel, and the two don’t exactly hit it off. She laughs at his kilt, and he threatens her with a spanking. She seems quite delighted by the prospect. Make of that what you will.

For her part, though she likes him well enough, Corwyn is suspicious of Jamie’s story. He’s not exactly a good liar. Case in point: when asked, he told her that the Doctor’s name is ‘John Smith’, a name that is somehow conspicuously generic.  Corwyn and Bennett start to suspect that the Doctor and Jamie might be saboteurs. There has been growing opposition to the space program back on Earth.

Zoe and Jamie arrive at the Wheel’s control room just as Bennett is about to go ahead with blowing up the rocketship. Uh-oh, the TARDIS!

Meanwhile aboard said rocketship, the timer begins to count up. There’s something strange in the room, a couple of large…eggs? They begin to glow, and humanoid shapes become visible inside. They stir, and a silver-gloved hand punches its way out of the shell.

Could it be… the Cybermen?

EPISODE THREE

Wanting to delay the destruction of the rocket for obvious reasons, Jamie grabs some conveniently located spray-on quick-set plastic and sabotages the Wheel’s laser-gun. Bennett catches him in the act. Jamie couldn’t have picked a worse time to disable the gun.

Why? Because…well…because of a load of absolute poppycock, even by the lax standards of the programme. A star in the Hercules Cluster is about to go nova, and the radiation flux will fling asteroids and any other space flotsam right at the Wheel.

Science fiction writers, I’ve noticed, often have difficulties with understanding just how big space is. The cluster in question, formally designated Messier 13, is twenty-two thousand light-years away. Assuming the Wheel is situated at the edge of the solar system (its precise location isn’t made explicit, but given its stated purpose as an early warning system, observatory and halfway house for spacecraft heading into deep space, I think that makes the most sense), any nova in Messier 13 would pose about as much threat to it as farting ant in the Sahara.

I’m nit-picking, but only because I’m bored.

Because they don’t have enough problems already, some stowaways have weaseled their way aboard the station. Cybermats! One of the crew encounters one. Thinking it’s some sort of space bug, he hides it in a cupboard. While left to its own devices, it goes ahead and tucks into the entire ship’s stock of the material needed to repair the laser.

Meanwhile, the Cybermen are preparing the next phase of their plan. It seems that (somehow) they triggered the nova, and another that occurred the previous week. They are trying to lure the crew of the Wheel to board their rocket in search of more material with which to repair the laser. Pity they didn’t wake up earlier, they could have saved themselves a bit of bother.

The star in Messier 13 goes nova. As tempted as I am to go off on a tangent about the speed of light, I shall restrain myself and take off my insufferable know-it-all hat.

Zoe cheerfully informs the others of the danger they’re in. She’s not quite as good at tact as she is at reciting facts and figures. ‘All brain and no heart’, as one of the men describes her. Seems a little harsh if you ask me.

One of the hapless crew runs afoul of a swarm of cybermats. He doesn’t appear to have twigged that these things are about the size of a football. Just punt them! He encases one of them in quick-set plastic, but the others overwhelm and kill him in a spectacle of truly glorious over-acting. Poor fellow, choked to death on all that scenery he chewed.

Corwyn finds his body, though by then the cybermats have fled. She presents the encased cybermat to the Doctor, who x-rays it and discovers the true nature of the threat to the station.

Alas, it’s too late. A pair of men from the Wheel have already arrived on the rocket. They immediately run into the Cybermen, who swiftly bring them under the influence of a mind-control ray. Their first command? To take the Cybermen to the Wheel.

Final Thoughts

Doctor Who is a teatime show, but I almost nodded off a couple of times while watching the first couple of episodes. I’m genuinely surprised by this, given the track record of the writers and how much I usually enjoy the Cybermen. There’s just so much padding! The whole thing drags terribly, turning any potential for suspense into a slog.

The Cybermen themselves have had another design update. They're mostly the same as their previous appearance, but have now got a little notch at the corner of each eye that looks a bit like a teardrop, as well as a notch at the bottom of the mouth slit. I don't know, i think the entirely utilitarian, featureless design of the previous iterations was creepier. The mouth notch just looks a bit awkward.

Will the later half of the serial improve on things? Perhaps, now that the antagonists have deigned to show up.

We will have to wait and see.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[May 10, 1968] Horse race (June 1968 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Three and Two make Two

I imagine Vegas bookies are tearing their hair out trying to predict the Presidential race this year.  On January 1, the hard money would have been on President Johnson beating Governor George Romney in a fairly easy race.  Then McCarthy and Nixon won in New Hampshire.  The former sent LBJ announcing his resignation and the latter gave the former Vice-President the first victory of his own since 1950.

Then Bobby Kennedy jumped in, trying to steal McCarthy's lunch.  Inevitably, Vice President Humphrey threw his hat in the ring, instantly commanding the loyalty of most democratic party bosses.  Meanwhile, Romney's dropped out, but Nelson Rockefeller, who said he wasn't going to play this year, has jumped in.

So, who will face each other come Labor Day?  It's anyone's guess, especially since both McCarthy and Kennedy just won recent primaries.  I guess we'll have to see if the New York Governor's campaign has legs, and if Humphrey's position translates to delegates at the convention.

Stay tuned…

Nine to Rule Them All

It's similarly a horse race with the latest issue of Galaxy, which presents a solid batch of stories.  Which one is the best?  That's a hard choice, too!


by Paul E. Wenzel

But first, the editorial.  Remember a few months ago F&SF ran competing ads from SF authors for and against the war in Vietnam?

Well, now Pohl's mags are doing it.

Pohl (Galaxy's editor) says it's not just enough to bitch about it.  Someone needs to come up with a solution.  He figures SF fans are about the smartest people around, so why don't we try our hand at it?

So now there's a contest, first prize $1,000, details at the bottom of this article.  Of course, given that you can't devote more than 100 words to the issue, and given that the war has been going on since 1945, in one way or another, and given that a lot of smart people have been trying to fix this thing…I somehow feel 100 words is not enough.

Or as my friend the divorce lawyer likes to say: "Imagine trying to fix a car.  Now try to imagine fixing that car while another party is actively trying to dismantle it."

Yeah.  Lots of luck, Pohl.

On to the stories!

The Beast That Shouted Love, by Harlan Ellison


by Jack Gaughan

Ever wonder why all people seem to go psycho all of sudden?  Why a race with countless religious texts devoted to peace, harmony, and brotherhood just goes buggy every so often?

What if some other planet, in order to preserve their peace, harmony, and brotherhood, is beaming all their psycho energy to us?  Sort of a bad emotions disposal process.

This is one of Ellison's lesser pieces.  It probably means a lot to him, but it's rather disjointed and vague and not as profound as he wants it to be.

Three stars.

How We Banned the Bombs, by Mack Reynolds


by Vaughn Bodé

Right now, the world population is 3.5 billion and rising.  Naturally, this has been the cause of concern and the topic of more than a few science fiction stories.  Bombs is one of the lesser efforts.

Reynolds posits a Reunited Nations government so powerful that, in response to the Population Explosion, it can enforce a ten-year ban on childbirth through mandatory provision of contraceptives to women.  At the end of the ban, it turns out that the contraceptive drug's effect was permanent, and all human women are completely sterile.

This, by the way, is the end of the story.  The rest of it involves characters talking to each other, telling tales they all know about how the world ended up in this predicament (which doesn't make for much of a story).

The whole premise is silly.  The population in this projected, not-too-distant future is 3.5 billion, same as it is now, yet resources are so scarce, they're banning the production of alcohol so as to husband their grain crops.  Somehow, the ReUN can sterilize EVERY woman on Earth, none slipping through the cracks.  And then, no one foresees or predetermines that the universal contraception has adverse effects.

In the words of Laugh-In's Joanne Worley: "Dummmmmb!"

One star.

Detour to Space, by Robin Scott Wilson


(uncredited artist)

Object 3574 is circling the Earth in a polar orbit.  Unannounced, the General is convinced it's a secret Russkie bomb.  NASA's long-hair thinks otherwise.  The majority decides to send up an Apollo to check it out.  The object is covered in green slime and pebbled with tektites, suggesting extraterrestrial origin…

There's a lot to like about this tale, especially the sting at the end of it.  Scott convincingly describes the apprehension with which we Americans greet the arrival of a new star in the heavens.  I know I scour the papers and call my Vandenberg buddies whenever anything goes up to get some insight into otherwise classified launches.

Where the story beggars credibility is the use of Apollo spacecraft, launched from Vandenberg, to intercept 3574.  You just can't do it–there's no way to get a Saturn there.  Much more likely would be to send up an Air Force Gemini (they're making them for the planned Manned Orbiting Laboratory).  But that would have killed the story.

This is what happens when you know too much about a subject, reviewing a story by someone who doesn't quite know enough… three stars.

Daisies Yet Ungrown, by Ross Rocklynne


Joe Wehrle, Jr.

After the big bombs created the time-space Rift, God told Rickert to jump through with Sears catalog robots and claim a new world 350,000 trillion light years from Earth.  But this is so far away that God's grace cannot reach, and Lucifer's tool, the newcomer Dorothy, has arrived to take his planet away from him.

This is an odd, poetic story that you, at first, think is going to be satirical, sort of a cross between Sheckley and Bunch.  Instead, it's kind of pretty and sweet, way different than I was expecting.

Three stars.

For Your Information: Jules Verne, Busy Lizzy and Hitler, by Willy Ley

This is a pretty interesting piece on attempts using a gun rather than a rocket to fire a projectile, if not into space, at least a terrific distance.  Essentially, it's like a rocket, but with the propellant on the outside.

Long story short: rockets are better.  Four stars.

Waiting Place, by Harry Harrison


(uncredited artist)

A man taking the matter transmitter home finds himself in the future version of Devil's Island, a colony for hardened criminals.  Surely, there has been some kind of malfunction, for he can remember no crime.  But the wheels of justice never make a mistake, or do they?

This would be a fairly slight tale if not for the execution.  Luckily, Harrison (who I understand has just retired from the editor helm of Fantastic and Amazing) is a master of execution.

Four stars.

The Garden of Ease, by Damon Knight


by Jack Gaughan

As expected, the first adventure of Thorinn, a human raised by trolls in a Nordic nightmare, has a sequel.  Last time, the resourceful Thorinn had been tossed into a deep well as an offering to the gods to end a ceaseless winter.  Making his way through the caves he found, Thorinn discovered a hatch that opened not onto but above a new world.  This story details what he finds below.

In an almost Oz-like setting, the people of the Vale enjoy a life of complete ease.  The grasshopper men and the doughwomen and the fancymen and the children, they eat the food that grows on trees and bushes, they frolic, they discuss, and when they want adventure, they seal themselves up in the pleasure pods for the night…or sometimes an eternity.

Thorinn is the snake in the garden, slowly poisoning the place with his foreignness and his willingness to kill.  Ultimately, he hatches an escape plan, but not before leaving his mark.

This is an interesting episode, but not as compelling or as clever as the first one.  Three stars.

Booth 13, by John Lutz

Here's a new author, or at least, new to me.  John paints a grim future in which populational ennui has settled in.  All that's left is war, the tranquilizer lysogene, and the death booths.  If life gets just a bit too monotonous, there's always a quick and easy exit–and now, people are taking it in ever-increasing numbers.

It's not badly done, but my biggest issue is not enough explanation is given as to why everyone is so melancholy.  Perhaps that's the point–if you give everyone an easy out, even the mildest inconveniences can trigger a snap decision.  Or maybe the author is simply extrapolating from the current, profound American despondency.

At the very least, I liked it better than Sales of a Deathman.

Three stars.

Goblin Reservation (Part 2 of 2), by Clifford D. Simak


by Gray Morrow

Last time, if you recall, Pete Maxwell has gone off to do research at the crystal planet, a world with the accumulated knowledge of two universes (it had lived through the last Big Crunch).  The fading intelligences of the planet offered all of its wisdom in exchange for The Artifact, a featureless black object dating back to the Jurassic period.  When Maxwell got back to Earth, he found that he'd already come back, duplicated by some quirk of matter transfer, and died.

This datum takes a back seat to bigger concerns–the Wheelers, bags of insect colonies bent on acquiring the lore of the crystal planet, have already purchased The Artifact, and once it is in their possession, plan to take over the universe.  It is up to Maxwell, his tentative ally Carol, her sabre-tooth tiger Sylvester, their Neanderthal pal Alley Oop, the Ghost, William Shakespeare, the librarian who sold The Artifact, the goblin O' Toole, and several bridge-dwelling trolls to somehow stop the transaction before it's too late.

I must say, Simak pulls off a large set of emotional tones very well.  You feel the sense of impending dread when it seems the Wheelers have clinched the deal.  The comedic scenes are genuinely amusing.  Yet, there is a grounding to the story that keeps it from being Laumerian or Anvilian lampoon.  The revelations of the true nature of the fairies, little people, banshees, and whatnot are pretty good, too, though a bit abrupt.  Perhaps they'll have more time to breathe in the novel version.

The only bit I had trouble with was The Wheelers, for whom I felt sympathy once I learned their motivation.  There's an undertone of unconscious racism where they're concerned–they're bad because they're icky, different.  When you learn what their status had been vis-à-vis the crystal planet, it all becomes a bit more unsettling.

Nevertheless, pleasant reading by a master.  Four stars.

Picking a Winner

Well.  It's obvious which story was the loser here (let's just call the Reynolds tale 'Harold Stassen').  But as to a winner, well that's a little harder.  Several of the three-stars are quite nice; my four-star to the Harrison may be arbitrary.  We can exclude the Simak because it's a serial, but it anchors this and the last issue well.

I suppose in an issue where (all but one of) the stories are good, the real winner is…us.

Happy reading!  And don't forget to write to Pohl…




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Conventions/Performances

[May 8, 1968] A Visit to Thirdmancon, the 1968 British Science Fiction Convention

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by Alison Scott

A report of the Thirdmancon, Eastercon 1968

It’s hard to overstate the anticipation I had for Eastercon 1968. It was going to be the largest national convention ever, with over 200 fans expected! In the end I understand that something like 150 people turned up; still the largest British national convention yet.

Flyer for Thirdmancon, the 1968 Eastercon

Still Riding the Slow Train

I set off from Hoe Street station on Good Friday morning in a state of considerable expectation. My journey was quite tedious, involving travelling into the city, crossing town on the Metropolitan line, taking the express train, but only as far as Stockport, and then finally changing to a beautiful but majestically slow branch line down to Buxton. The convention had originally been planned for a town with a mainline station, something I considered frequently while stopping at stations with names like Hazel Grove, Disley, Dove Holes, and Chapel-en-le-Frith.

Authentic Georgian Piles

Buxton is a beautiful spa town that has perhaps seen slightly better days. That was certainly true of St. Ann’s Hotel, situated at one end of the once glorious but now dilapidated Georgian Crescent. I arrived to find someone waving a sword through his car window. This set the scene for a very vibrant but perhaps rather disorderly con.

A small car in front of a Georgian terrace building. The driver is waving a large sword.

I was in the overflow hotel, at the other end of the terrace, and there were a lot of fans milling around. It turned out that the hotel had misplaced their booking, and mine. Fortunately they quickly realised I was a lone female traveller and sorted me out with a tiny single room that I suspected might have previously been used to store laundry. The hotel appears to have retained many original features, like the plumbing, the lino, and the bedlinen. Ah well, all I’d be doing here was sleeping.

A membership card for Thirdmancon, the 1968 Easter convention for Alison Scott

A convention membership badge for Thirdmancon, with an abstract red and black design and the name Alison Scott

After I picked up my badge and programme book, I was a bit overwhelmed at how many fans were there. I was later told it was nearly 150; a huge number for an S-F convention! Quite a lot were local to the northwest, but there were fans from Ireland and several from America. This year the convention was being run by the Delta film group from Manchester, and so there was a lot of film-themed programming, including some of their own films, other films, and film related items. So some of the influx of fans was other film buffs. But not all by any means. Luckily I spotted Ella Parker, who had magisterially formed a one-woman tea salon in the lounge, having noticed that everyone would pass through that point. I was just happy to see a friendly face and fellow London Circle member.

Ella introduced me to a group of German fans. My German is terrible, but their English was quite good. They’re bidding to hold Germancon, the World SF Convention, in Heidelberg, West Germany in 1970; that will be quite the event I’m sure. The decision will be made at this year’s Worldcon in America. They were drumming up support but most fans were pretty supportive anyway and in fact the convention passed a motion of support for the bid. I spoke to some of the US fans about it, and they think that US fans are also enthusiastic about the idea of Worldcon going to a non-English speaking country for the first time.

An advertisement for Germancon, the bid to hold the 1970 World SF convention in Germany

After a little while, we all moved into the convention hall. It was very striking! Eddie Jones had painted a huge backdrop featuring an alien landscape and a giant red star; a fitting setting for our weekend conventioning.

Films and even more Films

After the opening ceremonies, horror film buff John Ramsey Campbell gave a talk accompanied by films. I myself am not a horror film buff, but John Ramsey is very entertaining. I hear he is a promising writer, but I’m not a horror fiction buff either.

A photo of a young man in glasses dressed rather inexpertly as a knight
John Ramsey Campbell in his Knight of St Fantony regalia (Photo credit: Stan Nicholls)

This led naturally into a film show, featuring the work of the Delta film club and promising an X-rated film! I think it was probably a humorous rather than a scandalous one, but I returned to my room to save my energy for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday Morning: Fully Charged

I arose on Saturday in good time for the panel about starting fan clubs. I have no plans to leave London, and surely London will always have the London Circle? But it was interesting to hear about other cities and their clubs.

I then spent some time milling about with other fans. Most people at the convention were wearing ordinary working clothes, but some were dressed in jeans and other trendy gear. But on Saturday morning I encountered what I think might have been the most extraordinarily dressed man I’ve ever met in my life. I checked my wristwatch but the Fancy Dress was not due for several more hours. He was wearing bright pink trousers, an orange Chinese silk jacket with dragons on it, and a rather odd hat that looked a bit like a fez. “Oh, meet Peter Roberts!” said Beryl Mercer. “He thinks this is stylish, but I’d say he’s just an exhibitionist.”

As I was travelling by train, I had no desire to pick up books or mags at the auction, and I took the opportunity to have a walk around Buxton. It’s a very lovely spa town, though it has rather fallen on hard times. The hot thermal baths closed a few years ago, and the natural spa bath is now a public swimming pool. Saturday lunchtime is never a great time to visit such a place, so a swim will have to wait for another visit.

What is this Solar System Thing Anyway?

I returned to the convention in time for the talk by a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, Alan Whittaker, “Life in the Solar System”. I think Mr Whittaker had judged his audience poorly; his talk was clearly aimed at people who had never heard anything of the planets rather than an audience who were deeply familiar with all nine of them. He could perhaps have altered his tone or content, given this, but chose not to.

By this time the con was running very late, and Ken Bulmer, giving his Guest of Honour speech, made great play of this. His speech was long but he delivered it at a furious pace. It was terrifically entertaining and we were all held spellbound. I didn’t take proper notes but Peter Weston told me later smugly that he had already made plans with Ken to republish his speech in the pages of his fanzine Speculation. Speculation is perhaps the best and most famous of current British fanzines. A small chunk of it was available to all at Thirdmancon in the form of the 'combozine', where samples of several current fanzines are bound together for distribution to convention members. This year’s combozine also featured Ethel Lindsay’s Scottische, the Bristol and District group’s Badinage, and Gothique.

After a second auction, the people who’d booked full board went off to dinner and some of the rest of us went out to explore alternatives in Buxton. There were not so many of these! But I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat as much dinner as the full board would be. When we returned, however, we discovered that the portion sizes on the set dinner were so small that some of the unhappy fans went out for a second dinner. According to Keith Freeman, the hotel manager was as unhappy as we were and swore he would never entertain the possibility of a science fiction convention again.

Nevertheless, our dinnertime woes were forgotten as soon as Eric Bentcliffe started his hilarious ‘Fandom Exposed’ slideshow. We were not sure what to expect, but of course this was a set of mostly funny and some fascinating slides from previous conventions, all narrated with great glee by Eric. This was followed by the Fancy Dress, won by Tony Walsh as “The Black Cloud”. I thought that Doreen Parker should have won for her turn as the girl from Cordwainer Smith’s “The Ballad of Lost C’Mell”.

Late Night Mayhem

Before we could all go and party, there was a grand jousting tourney, where Brian Burgess and Ted Tubb bashed each other with swords quite a lot. None of this had any noticeable effect on their very well-built suits of armour and eventually the entire thing was declared a draw.

A person wearing a home-made knight costume with black and yellow 'armour'. Onlookers appear amused.
I have no idea if this was Ted Tubb, Brian Burgess, or another challenging knight

Although there had been amiable parties on the Friday night, it was Saturday when they really got going. They were often very crowded; the rooms in this hotel were not large, and in some cases the siren call of free booze was enough to draw large numbers of fans, even if the free booze was the most questionable of home brews.

Ted Tubb had apparently brought a hogshead of home brewed wine, but I rather preferred the idea of Bill Pettit’s party with crates of perfectly good commercial beer. Oddly, so did everyone else, and I couldn’t get near it. The parties were spilling out into corridors and even staircases.

A group of science fiction fans, some in costume, standing cheering and drinking on a stairwell.
A stair party. Dave Kyle is in the centre here, and Bill Burns is to his right. Other fans are unidentified. (Photo credit: Howard Rosenblum)

Some of the more established femme fans took me under their wing. Although they insisted that all the fans were perfect gentlemen, it was clear that some of them might occasionally forget this fact after having a few drinks.

Eventually after far too much fun, I went to bed, glad that the first item on Sunday morning was the eminently skippable Annual General Meeting of the British Science Fiction Association

I did not feel quite so well on Sunday

I emerged a bit later for the second pro panel, which featured Christopher Priest, John Brunner, Ken Bulmer and Tom Disch, discussing “the difference between real life and fictional speculation.” You would expect it to be quite easy for these science-fiction professionals to spot the difference, really.

Four writers appearing on a panel.
Christopher Priest, John Brunner, Ken Bulmer, Tom Disch (showing the Eddie Jones backdrop)

The fan guest of honour was the winner of the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund, Steve Stiles. I was pleased to get a chance to chat to him over the weekend. I learnt of his shock at the recent news from America that has been covered so well in the Journey. It had quite discouraged him at the very start of his trip, but he was determined to make the best of it. His talk was very good, but was interrupted by hecklers! I later learnt that they had been set up by Stiles himself; a jolly jape but perhaps a slightly embarrassing one?

text:"Steve Stiles T.A.F.F. Man '68 is our Fan G.O.H. Hi Steve!" There is an illustration of a whimsical spaceship carrying a banner saying "UK or Bust!"
Art from the Thirdmancon programme book

Assorted Ceremonies

The evening session on Sunday was a presentation of “This is your fan life” by Eric Bentcliffe to convention chair Harry Nadler. This used audio tape, film, slides, personal reminiscences, and a rambunctious high-kick dance by what appeared to be the entire Liverpool SF group.

That was followed by the presentation of the Doc Weir Award, which is a cup, held for one year, given to ‘a fan who deserves a bit of public recognition’, and a certificate. This year it went to Mary Reed. She was clearly a popular choice, and delighted and overwhelmed with the award.


Mary Reed with her Doc Weir certificate (Photo credit: Stan Nicholls

Messages from the Future

Dave Kyle told us all about his recent viewing of Stanley Kubrick’s new film, “Year 2001, a Space Odyssey”. It was based, apparently, on a short story by Arthur C Clarke, but is very different now. Clarke is expanding his short story into a novel and I will be very interested to both read it and see the film. Apparently it is opening in the West End in just a couple of weeks. I do hope the London Circle will organise a visit!

Finally we had the mysterious, and perhaps slightly bizarre, Knights of St Fantony ceremony, in which three new knights were invested in the order – Beryl Mercer, Doreen Parker and Ken McIntyre. Phil Rogers became the new Noble Master. That concluded the formal proceedings, but there was still a lot of partying to be done.

We carried on carousing long into the night. I was encouraged to try some more of Ted Tubb’s home-brew wine but I have resolved never to make the same mistake twice. Nevertheless, I only just managed to get up in time for breakfast and to catch my train home.

The convention had some problems with cancelled and late running items, and a hotel that bordered on the hostile. However, I had a splendid time and would like to thank all the Delta Group for putting on the con.

Thanks to Sandra Bond, Claire Brialey, Bill Burns (both in person and here), FANAC, Rob Hansen, and Dave Langford for help with this article.



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Comics, TV

[May 6, 1968] Does Whatever A Spider Can! (Spider-Man Cartoon)

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by Jason Sacks

It's hard to be an adult fan of super-hero TV shows these days. The Marvel Super-Heroes cartoons by Grantray and Lawrence are notorious among fans for their super cheap animation. Batman limped through its third season, with its jokes worn out and its campiness turned up past 10 (don't talk to me about the "Joker's Flying Saucer" episode, please!). The new Fantastic Four cartoon is inane, poorly animated and plain annoying.

And then there's Spider-Man. And hey, at least the music in this cartoon is pretty good.

Most every weekend since September (football pre-emptions notwithstanding), we've been granted the pleasure of watching a certain web-head soar through the concrete towers of New York, stalking a never-ending crew of slightly inept criminals while evading the slings and barbs of the editor of the Daily Bugle, J. Jonah Jameson.

Every weekend I perk up when I hear this fun theme song. Seriously, you should pop out to see if your local Korvettes sells the 45 of this song because it (pardon the pun) swings!

Spider-Man, Spider-Man
Does whatever a spider can
Spins a web, any size
Catches thieves just like flies
Look out
Here comes the Spider-Man

Is he strong?
Listen bud
He's got radioactive blood
Can he swing from a thread?
Take a look overhead
Hey, there
There goes the Spider-Man

Oh yes, that gets me on my feet (granted, I really need that cup of Folgers, but still)…

What keeps me on my feet is… okay, waiting for the toaster to pop, but also to see which classic Spidey villain will appear in this episode. As you can see, we've gotten the Vulture, Electro, Green Goblin and many more on screen so far. It's been a delight to see how the production team modify Steve Ditko and John Romita's designs for the villains for the small screen.

Yeah, the designs have been kinda distorted compared to the original comic versions, but the cartoon designs have been fun.

Too bad the stories have been pretty subpar.

One of the few good things about the Marvel Super-Heroes cartoon is that the stories were – quite literally – torn from the pages of the actual comics stories. In this cartoon…less so.

For instance, an episode starring the Sandman as villain has Sandy stealing the largest diamond in the world for some unexplained reason. In another episode, Green Goblin takes up magic as a way of defeating our hero, when magic was never remotely a part of his M.O. Then there's the episode where Electro takes over an amusement park as a way of defeating Spider-Man. We never saw Stan Lee write that story. At least in the episode with Ditko-created villains The Enforcers, they are simply trying to rob a bank. That much makes sense!

I have to admit that despite my whining, the stories do maintain some fidelity to the comics. Just like Stan and John depict each month, Peter Parker is a genius scientist who also has a part-time job at the Daily Bugle, where he works for a nasty brutish J. Jonah Jameson and flirts with the pretty Betty Brant — though Betty is colored with red hair instead of her usual brown, for some reason. Perhaps they mixed her up with Pete's friend Mary Jane Watson).

It's in those sorts of moments, like when we see Peter struggle with his webbing recipe or complain about Jameson not paying enough, that this show becomes the most fun. I also never grow tired of JJJ blaming Spider-Man for every crime the villains commit, no matter how events turn out. You gotta appreciate Jameson's commitment to his own sort of false news! Of course, those moments also echo some of the finest Marvel stories we've seen so far.

There have even been a couple of episodes in which JJJ is basically the villain. In one, he pays for the construction of a suit for villain the Scorpion. Spidey beats Scorpion easily, but at least an effort was made to have Jameson show his hatred of Spider-Man in villainous form. In another episode, JJJ creates a spider-slayer, right out of a classic Ditko issue, but the animation is so awkward and cheap-feeling, that the story just loses its flair.

I guess I'm saying that this show seems cheap. We know from latter-day SatAM classics like Jonny Quest, Herculoids and Space Ghost that a TV cartoon doesn't have to look cheap. But the look at that panel above! You can see the producers didn't even draw in all of Spider-Man's costume, in the interests of saving time and money.

The animators also reuse scenes over and over again to the point of absurdity. If I drank a sip of coffee every time we see Spider-Man swing his web far above any office towers, I might not sleep for a week. The producers seem to have a basket of six or seven specific images of Spider-Man doing his webbing thing which they love to use over and over. I noticed the other week when watching the episode called "The Menace of Mysterio" how the animators will string all six of those images one after the next, then have an inset scene, and then repeat the sequence. I always find myself yawning and reaching for the coffee cup when I see those scenes.Once again, the notorious Grantray-Lawrence studio was behind this quickie cheapie, as they were behind the Super-Heroes show. G-L obviously had a few more dollars to spend on Spider-Man, but twice zero is still zero, and the production values doom this show to be second-rate.

But hey, the theme song and a lot of the incidental music is terrif!

Rumor has the show returning this fall. Hopefully ABC will up the show's budget and G-L will spend a few more dollars on the production of this show. In the meantime, I feel the same mockery for Spider-Man that the Green Goblin shows above. Get on your feet, Spider-Man, and make a fight of it!


by Gideon Marcus

Don't listen to old sourpuss there. While there are episodes that are less than terrific, there are several which are…terrific. Compared to the concurrently running Fantastic Four cartoon, and certainly to the virtually static Marvel "cartoons" of last season, Spider-Man is nothing less than a revolution.

The voice acting is stellar, with the fellow playing Spider-Man and Peter Parker doing an excellent job of distinguishing the two roles. JJJ is an absolute riot. As for the animation and art, the palette is also stunning, especially compared to the drab FF. And it's absolutely accurate; New York is chock full of pink buildings.

The animation is (for TV anyway) stellar, and the composition stands up to any comic book.


One of my favorite episodes, and a scene so good, it got incorporated into the end credits.

Is it a little goofy? Absolutely, though no more so than Batman, and it the show plays off the silliness with an infectious sense of fun.


Mysterio's true form may have been a tiny bit influenced by another contemporary character…


Alright–maybe The Rhino isn't the best villain.

In addition to the theme, Spider-Man has got one heck of a soundtrack, all boffo jazz like Herb Alpert was the band director.

So, give the show a watch. It's already in reruns on Saturday morning, and it's a stand-out. Would it have been nice to have more Green Hornet than Batman? Maybe. But for a cartoon, it sweeps the competition. If it's not exactly like the comic (which is actually currently the best in the Marvel stable), at least it's its own thing, and it does that thing pretty well.

And that's a headline I'll stand by…




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[May 2, 1968] The Thing with Feathers (June 1968 IF)

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by David Levinson

Hope, according to Emily Dickinson, is “the thing with feathers” which sings and never stops. Perhaps, but there are times when it becomes very hard to hear its song. After the devastating murder of Dr. King, with the war in Indo-China seemingly going nowhere, and with unrest growing in the streets of the Western world (Germany is only one example; France, Belgium, and Italy are all seeing similar problems), hope does seem to have fallen silent.

A glimmer of hope

Just over a year ago, I reported on a military coup and counter-coup in Sierra Leone which prevented the first peaceful transition of power between rival political parties in sub-Saharan Africa. Now, the National Reform Council led by Brigadier Andrew Juxon-Smith has been overthrown in turn. Calling themselves the Anti-Corruption Revolutionary Movement, a group of non-commissioned officers staged another coup, arresting Juxon-Smith and his deputy on April 19th and promptly named Colonel John Amadu Bangura Governor-General. He promised a quick return to civilian rule and followed through with the promise. Only three days later, Bangura stepped down, naming Siaka Stevens, who had been declared the winner of the election last year, as Prime Minister. At the same time, Banja Tejan Sie, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, became Governor-General. Stevens was sworn in (again) on April 26th. The restoration of civilian government is a promising sign.

l. New Governor-General Banja Tejan Sie. r. New Prime Minister Siaka Stevens.

Bleak House

While this month’s IF may not be the Slough of Despond, the two best stories in it are dark indeed. Perhaps to make up for the bleakness, Fred Pohl also goes looking for a bit of optimism. After running the ads for and against continuing participation in the war in Vietnam last seen in the March issue of F&SF (on facing pages, which is much more editorially balanced), Fred announces a contest looking for the best answers on what to do about Vietnam. They’re offering $100 each for the five best responses. That’s a nice chunk of change, but don’t hold out your hopes for solutions that won’t start World War III and/or are politically feasible.

No one has ever seen the prison of Brass from the outside. Art by Vaughn Bodé

Rogue Star (Part 1 of 3), by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson

Andreas Quamodian (Andy Quam to his friends) is a Monitor of the Companions of the Star. When his college crush Molly Zalvidar asks for his help, he rushes back to Earth, even though she chose Cliff Hawk over him nine years ago. Hawk and the Reefer (that is, someone from the Reefs of Space out beyond the orbit of Pluto) are attempting to create a rogue star, a sentient star which is not part of the galactic community. Shortly after Andy arrives in Wisdom Creek, the rogue star breaks free and begins to grow. To be continued.

A dangerous experiment goes awry. Art by Gaughan

I came to this sequel to The Reefs of Space and Starchild with some trepidation, because I didn’t much care for either of those. Both stories were incredibly pulpy, just weren’t all that enjoyable, and the second ended in a wave of mysticism. This story is set hundreds of years after the others, which at least gives it room to be its own thing. It’s still extremely pulpy, but at least it’s moderately interesting so far.

Three stars.

The Guerrilla Trees, by H.H. Hollis

Ace war correspondent Har-Gret “Haggie” Harker has come to planet B44(3) – known formally as La Selva and insultingly as YipYap – to cover Earth’s role in the civil war. Earth is backing the Yips as a strategic matter in the larger struggle against the bacterial empire of Betelgeuse and is throwing an increasing amount of money, materiel and men into the conflict, even though reports consistently claim the war is going well. The locals are dendroids, people resembling sentient, mobile trees. Haggie witnesses the burning of one of their groves (and some of the locals), banters with the boys in the press pool, and struggles with her growing feelings for commanding General Borgen Traven.

Art by Jeff Jones

This rather obvious Vietnam parallel is like nothing else Hollis has written. He’s been improving as a writer, but all his stories have been light in tone, especially those involving the scoundrel Gallegher. This, however, is deadly serious and very much on point. I have no doubt the Yips and Yaps are tree-like to comment the way the U. S. Army is using napalm and defoliants to destroy wide swaths of the jungle in Vietnam, and the bits with the press pool feel extremely realistic. I understand Hollis is a lawyer, but if you told me he’s been a war correspondent, I’d believe you. A couple of his tics from his lighter stories slip through here and there, but on the whole this is very good, though bleak.

Four dark stars.

Cage of Brass, by Samuel R. Delany

Former architecture student Jason Cage has been condemned to Brass, a prison for the worst offenders in the galaxy. Thanks to a quirk of architecture, he is able to converse with fellow inmates Hawk and Pig, telling them about his time in Venice and what brought him to his fate.

Cage about to commit his crime. Art by Gaughan

Another beautifully told tale by Delany. Apart from the opening and closing paragraphs, the entire story is dialogue, not even using tags like “he said,” and it works perfectly. Cage’s descriptions of Venice are appropriately poetic, and the voices of Hawk and Pig fit the characters wonderfully. Worth the price of the magazine all by itself.

Four stars.

The Mother Ship, by James Tiptree, Jr.

Max runs a small C.I.A. operation that fronts as a government ad agency. When Earth makes its first contact with aliens, the group will play a vital role. The aliens come from somewhere in the direction of Capella and look like attractive human women… eight and a half foot tall human women. But are they friendly or a threat?

What can frighten an eight foot tall woman? Art by Wehrle

This is a big improvement over Tiptree’s first effort. Max’s C.I.A. unit feels very real, much more George Smiley than James Bond. It makes me wonder if Tiptree has a background in intelligence, but see my earlier comments about H.H. Hollis. It’s a decent story, but – and it’s a big but – I’m not at all convinced by the sexual psychology that underlies the story. Still, it’s an improvement. If Tiptree stays out of John Campbell’s clutches, we might get a decent author out of it.

Three stars.

House of Ancestors, by Gene Wolfe

Joe is a construction worker on disability, with a nail lodged in his heart; stress or exertion could cause it to come loose and kill him. He won’t have surgery to have it removed, because if he dies during the operation his wife Bonnie and the child they’re expecting won’t be provided for. Or so he tells himself. The couple are on their way to the ‘91 World’s Fair to get a pre-opening look at The Thing, an enormous plastic model of a DNA molecule containing a series of exhibits on genetics. When their party can’t get in, the others leave Joe behind while they look for someone to open the building. Meanwhile, Joe makes his way inside and has several strange experiences while chasing a vandal who is wrecking the exhibits.

Joe in hot pursuit of the vandal. Art by Brand

Gene Wolfe makes his second appearance in IF with a much more straightforward tale than his first story. While I’m not entirely sure I believe the mechanisms in the The Thing that drive the story, it’s readable and fairly entertaining. What is lacks is the joy and pleasure in the use of language found in “Mountains Like Mice.”

Three stars.

Publish and Perish, by John Thomas

Gleason is an assistant professor at an unnamed university. An associate professorship has opened up, and he finds himself in competition with fellow assistant professor Farrington for the spot. Unfortunately, he was unaware of the university’s unorthodox method of determining who is best suited for promotion.

Both the title and artwork give much of the story away. Art by Brock

According to his bio, our new author is a film reviewer, so you’d expect his style to be much more visual than it is. It’s not a bad story, competently told, but I’d have gone running to the police.

A low three stars.

The Bird-Brained Navigator, by A. Bertram Chandler

Commodore John Grimes has been sent to the planet Tharn to resolve a problem that has grounded the Rim Griffon; the officers refuse to sail with each other or the captain, who has been abusive and insulting to all of them. He resolves the issue, but the navigator, whom the captain dubbed a bird-brain, deserts and joins a faction of local bad-guys. Grimes assists the authorities in tracking him down, but an untimely act of derring-do leaves him in the navigator’s clutches. He gives his parole, and will have to find a loophole in order to escape.

The other bird-brained navigator. Art by Vaughn Bodé

Grimes is becoming something of a staple in IF. Fortunately, Chandler is fairly adept at making the stories different enough to keep them interesting. How you feel about the other stories in the series should tell you if you’ll like this or not, and if you haven’t read one before, this is a fair entry point.

Three stars.

Summing up

All in all, this is a pretty good issue. A couple of stories may be forgettable, but none of them is really bad, and while two stories cast a pall over the issue, they are both very good. Which is better? I go back and forth. The Delany is beautiful and poetic as Delany often is; Hollis is saying something about a major issue of the day. Take your pick.

New Ellison is good, and at long last a new feature.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[April 30, 1968] (Partial) success stories (May 1968 Analog)

7 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

Chertona Dyuzhina (Baker's Dozen)

Luna 14 is the Soviet Union's latest space success story.  Launched April 7, it slipped into lunar orbit a couple of days later and began relaying data.  Per TASS, the spacecraft is still working fine, returning space weather reports and mapping the moon's hidden contours through the wobbling of its path due to lunar gravity.

No pictures have been returned, nor has there been any mention of an onboard camera.  However, since Luna 12 (launched October '66) did have one, it is generally believed that Luna 14 has one too–and it broke.  We'll probably never know.

Campbell's Seven

The latest issue of Analog is also not an unmixed bag.  However, it's still the best issue of the mag by a long shot since January.  That's something worth celebrating!


by Chesley Bonestell

Satan's World (Part 1 of 4), by Poul Anderson

David Falkayn is back!  The fair-haired protoge of Polesotechnic League magnate Nicholas van Rijn has been sent to Earth to find untold fortune.  More specifically, to inquire at Serendipity Inc., storehouse of all the universe's lore, for the quickest route between Point A (Falkayn) and Point B (wealth).  It's amazing what can be done with computers in the Mumblethieth Century!


by Kelly Freas

To do so, he puts himself at the mercy of the board of Serendipity, becoming a guest on their lunar estate.  His crewmates, Adzel the monastic saurian who talks like Beast from The X-Men, and Chee, who talks like Nick Fury from Sgt. Fury, stay behind…and worry.

With good reason, for Falkayn has been shanghaied, purportedly in love with one of the Serendipity board, but probably brainwashed or something.  Van Rijn gives Adzel and Chee the green light to investigate.

Falkayn stories are always somewhere in the lower middle for Anderson–serviceable but unexciting.  Once again, the author utilizes some cheap tricks to move things along, even calling them out in text in an attempt to excuse them (the long explanation of Serendipity's modus operandi; the sudden coincidence of a call by a critical character, etc.) None of the characters is particularly interesting, perhaps because of the extremely broad brush with which they're described, particularly Van Rijn.

Nevertheless, mediocre is pretty good for a Falkayn story, and I'm kind of interested.  Plus, Anderson's astronomy is always pretty good.

Three stars so far.

Exile to Hell, by Isaac Asimov


by Kelly Freas

This story is remarkable for being the first time Isaac has appeared in Analog (the magazine was Astounding when wrote for Campbell).  It is otherwise unremarkable–this vignette is written in '40s style, with a hoary "twist" ending, which was already incorporated as one of many elements in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Two stars.

Conquest by Default, by Vernor Vinge


by Kelly Freas

This one surprised me: alien anarchists, who by their law are forbidden to have polities larger than 10,000 people, take over a recovering post-nuclear Earth.  The Terrans are worried that they will suffer a fate similar to that of the Cherokees–annihilation, assimilation, relocation, or a combination of all three. 

Told from the point of view of one the conquerers, it very much seems like this will be one of those fatuous Campbellian tales where it turns out that free enterprise and libertarianism are the superior forces, and that the solution to "the aboriginal problem" has a neat and obvious solution.

But the story has a sting in its tail.

I had not expected to find an anti-capitalist, anti-libertarian screed in the pages of Analog, much less an acknowledgement of the American genocide…yet there it is!  And because the viewpoint character is an alien (and a comparatively sympathetic one, at that), the full impact of the story is saved for the end.

Four stars.

His Master's Vice, by Verge Foray


by Kelly Freas

Prox(y)ad(miral) Elmo Ixton lands his patrol ship, the sentient craft, Rollo, on the planet of Roseate on the trail of a rebel proxad who has gone to ground and recruited a network of criminal accomplices.  The agoraphobic and irritable Ixton ingratiates himself with very few people, but he does get his man…in time for the tables to be turned when the renegade takes over his ship.

Luckily, Rollo is not about to become an unwitting accomplice.

Not bad.  I didn't much like the Gestapo methods with which the "good guys" extracted the truth from suspects, though.

Three stars.

Fear Hound, by Katherine MacLean


by Kelly Freas

In late 20th Century New York, the city seethes with a despair so palpable, it almost seems the echoes of one person's broadcast pain.  Indeed, that is exactly what it is.  And the Rescue Squad, a corps of intellectual empaths, are on the case to find the source before s/he perishes in anguish, and in the process, telepathically pushes hundreds, maybe thousands more, to the brink of insanity or even death.

There's a lot of neat stuff in this one.  Obviously, you have to buy telepathy as plausible (something Campbell obviously does).  Given that, the idea of a group of people tracking down injured folk by their subtle telepathic emanations, and the unconscious mass effects these have on others, is pretty innovative. MacLean writes in the deft, immediate style that has made her one of SF's leading lights for two decades; the dreamy, choppy execution fits the circumstances of the story.

On the other hand, the bits about smart people essentially providing the brain for dozens of sub-average IQ types through unconscious telepathic links was something I found distasteful. There are also a few, lengthy explainy bits that could have been better worked in, I think.

A high three stars.

Project Island Bounce, by Lawrence A. Perkins


by Kelly Freas

The alien Ysterii arrive on an Earth not unlike that depicted in Conquest by Default.  Here, the crisis is that the blobby amphibians prefer the archipelagos of Asianesia to the dry expanses of Eurica.  This is causing a trade imbalance that will ultimately not only destabilize the world, but potentially lead to a cut-off of peaceful relations with the galaxy altogether.

Perkins doesn't tell the story very well, especially compared to Vinge's writing, and the "solution" is dumb. Two stars.

Skysign, by James Blish


by Leo Summers

Carl Wade, a Berkeley radical type finds himself trapped on an alien vessel floating above San Francisco.  As memory returns to his headachey brain, he recalls the he was the one "lay volunteer" among dozens of men and women chosen as ambassadors for their various technical expertise.

Now, Carl and a hundred-odd humans are prisoners in the gilded cage of the ship, offered all manner of food and a fair bit of recreation.  But they are nevertheless under the control of the alien crew, humanoids in skintight suits, with the ability to teleport and put the human captives to sleep at any time.

That is, until Carl, with the help of the Jeanette Hilbert, a brilliant meteorologist, figure out how to wrest control of the whole system from the aliens.  That's only half the story, since Carl and Jeanette have differing ideas on what to do with absolute power.

I liked this story, and Blish does a good job of putting us in the boots of a not-entirely savory character.  I find it particularly interesting that our radical protagonist is something of a jerk; I originally thought that this might be a subtle, anti-leftist dig, but Blish is an outspoken peacenik, so I think he just wanted to create a nuanced character.

Four stars.

Batting Average

Analog thus ends up at a reasonable 3.1 stars–not stellar, but certainly worth the 60 cents you pay for it (less if you have the subscription, of course).  That puts it at the bottom of the new mags (vs. IF and Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.5), but better than the reprints (Fantastic (2.7) and Amazing (2.0)).  The magazine average for the month was 3.1.

All told, if you took the four and five star stories of this month and squished them into one mag…well, you'd need one and a half. That amounts to about 40% of all new fiction this month. Again, not bad.

The sad news is only one story this month was woman-penned, making up for 4.3% of the newly published works.  And that one was MacLean's, meaning Analog wins this month's pink ribbon in a mass forfeit.

Well, I suppose you take your victories where you find them.  At least we ended up on the positive side of the ledger this month…




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