Not all movies show up in theaters. Movies made for television began a few years ago, at least here in the USA, with a thriller called See How They Run. There have been quite a few since then.
A similar phenomenon is the fact that theatrical movies are frequently altered for television. Of course, films are often cut for broadcast, either to reduce the running time or to remove material deemed inappropriate for the tender sensibilities of American viewers.
But did you know that new footage is sometimes added to movies before they show up on TV? That's because they're too short to fill up the time slot allotted to them.
An example is Roger Corman's cheap little monster movie The Wasp Woman. In theaters, it ran just over an hour. On television, new scenes increased the length by about ten minutes.
Wasting time in front of the TV screen recently, I came across such an elongated theatrical film, as well as one made for television only. Let's take a look at both.
This thing began life in 1963 under the a much less laughable title.
Anybody who went to see this movie pushed the panic button.
The Madmen of Mandoras (somehow they lost the word The on the poster) was a low budget flick that lasted about an hour (although it probably seemed a lot longer than that if you were stuck watching it.)
Dramatic lettering, dramatic clouds.
New stuff was added to the beginning of the film to make it long enough to show up on TV. Unlike The Wasp Woman, they gave it a new title.
Apparently, the American television audience needs everything spelled out for them.
That gives away the movie's only plot twist, but at least it's truth in advertising.
Let's get the new stuff out of the way. We begin with a scientist carrying some important papers out of a lab.
Secure scientific facility or local high school?
The guy is almost immediately killed when his car blows up.
Exploding car number one.
The fellow was carrying the formula for an antidote to a deadly gas. Somebody doesn't want that information to get out.
Big news!
This event draws the attention of some kind of intelligence agency. The boss (who turns out to be working with the bad guys, although that doesn't really have much to do with the plot) assigns a couple of operatives to investigate the incident.
Secret agents or college students?
The man's long hair and mustache and the woman's short skirt provide evidence that we're not in 1963. Don't get too attached to these characters, because pretty soon the woman is shot dead and the man is killed another way.
Exploding car number two.
At this point, we go back to the original movie. After demonstrating the deadly power of the gas by showing a film of an elephant lying down, the scientist who knows the antidote for the stuff and his young beatnik daughter are kidnapped.
It's quite obviously just taking a nap.
Our nominal hero is the husband of the scientist's older daughter. Some guy reveals enough information to the married couple to send them off to the fictional Latin American nation of Mandoras (you know, the place where they have madmen) before getting shot dead. The protagonists deal with the problem of his corpse by stuffing it in a phone booth.
"When in Mandoras, stay at the luxurious Mandoras Hotel."
Another guy shows up and provides exposition. It seems that a team of Nazi doctors worked to preserve the Führer for future use at the end of the war. (In other words, They Saved Hitler's Brain.)
"We must save Charlie Chaplin's life!"
The two lovebirds act like ordinary tourists despite this remarkable bit of information. They happen to run across the younger daughter in a local nightclub. The kidnappers gave her some money and told her to have a good time, as long as she didn't contact anybody at home. She seems perfectly fine with this arrangement, despite the fact that her father is still in the hands of the bad guys.
Little sister doing the Twist, proof that we're in 1963.
Since we're in a nightclub, we have to kill time with a dance act. After all, we have a whole hour of movie to fill.
A little something for the leg men in the audience.
Somehow or other our heroes wind up in the secret headquarters of the Madmen of Mandoras. Dad is being tortured with bright lights and loud noises in an attempt to get him to reveal the secret of the antidote. Like a lot of other things in the film, this doesn't make much sense, since the bad guys just want to stop the antidote from being used.
"Let me out of this movie! I can't stand it any more!"
Then we get our big shock scene, which might have been surprising if the title didn't give it away.
As an example of the film's close attention to detail, note that the swastika is backwards.
Director Larry Buchanan made some very cheap films during the past few years. Starting last year, he's been responsible for extremely low budget color remakes — uncredited, of course — of old black-and-white science fiction and horror films. These are intended to be sold directly to television. Zontar, the Thing From Venus, for example, is obviously based on Roger Corman's 1956 flick It Conquered the World.
His latest effort in this vein is, in my opinion, very loosely inspired by the beach moviePajama Party (which doesn't actually take place on the beach, but you know what I mean.)
Don't believe me? I don't blame you, but I'll provide some evidence in a bit. Let's get started.
Even the titles are cheap.
We start with a few scenes of women suddenly disappearing, whether they're playing tennis, at a restaurant, or taking a shower. Don't pay any attention to this, as it never comes up again.
The plot really starts at a government facility.
Does NASA really need a lot of decoding?
They get a message from outer space that says — you guessed it — Mars Need Women. Thanks for reminding me what movie I'm watching!
A Martian appears from nowhere, without even the shimmering effect seen on Star Trek. His name is Dop, and he's played by Tommy Kirk, star of some Disney movies. He also played a Martian named Go Go in — a-ha! — Pajama Party. Coincidence? I think not.
"Make fun of my name and I'll disintegrate you."
Dop explains that some kind of problem with the Martian Y chromosome has resulted in men outnumbering women by one hundred to one. (That's a lot worse than Five to Twelve.)
The Martians would like to have five Earth women volunteer to journey to the red planet to solve the problem. (I'm not a geneticist or a mathematician, but that seems like an awfully small number to repopulate a whole planet.)
No dice, so we get some scenes of military types communicating on the radio.
This speaker gets so much screen time it's practically a guest star.
There's also a bunch of stock footage of planes flying around.
"I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth . . ."
This accomplishes nothing. The Martians decide to land on Earth and grab five women themselves. (Like I said, forget about their ability to just make women vanish.)
The Martian spaceship, not to be confused with the Enterprise.
Five Martians hide out in an abandoned ice factory and make plans.
"We will conquer these puny Earthlings with the advanced technology of flashlights and headphones."
First they have to disguise themselves as Earthlings. This requires some criminal activity. A gas station supplies cash and a map of the city. (I would have thought the Martians would be advanced enough to find their way around, but I guess not.)
"I sure hope this place has a men's room."
Next is borrowing a car. So much for using their power of teleportation for getting from point A to point B.
"Oh, cool, it's got AM/FM radio."
Then they need some clothes. This leads to a scene in which they reveal that Martians gave up wearing ties fifty years ago.
"Would this be too dressy for a kidnapping?"
Dop and one of his buddies spot an announcement for a lecture by a brilliant scientist. We're told that her book Space Genetics won a Pulitzer Prize.
A lecture on sex in space? Must be a science fiction convention.
Doctor Marjorie Bolen is played by Yvonne Craig, best known for playing Batgirl on the popular Batman TV show. So the audience can tell she's a genius, she sometimes wears spectacles.
"Why Doctor Bolen, you're beautiful without your glasses!"
Pretty soon Dop and Bolen (sounds like a law firm) are on a date at a local planetarium. Guess what's on display.
Irony!
Meanwhile, the other Martians stalk their intended targets. The first is an exotic dancer.
A guy far away from home? Of course he goes to a strip club!
Next is an airline stewardess.
"Coffee, tea, or me?" (Yeah, I stole that from the title of a recent book. Sue me.)
Third is a homecoming queen.
"Two, Four, Six, Eight, Who Will We Repopulate?"
Last is a painter. That doesn't quite fit with the other three, who are typical male fantasies of desirable women, but I guess they needed some variety.
"I call this one Portrait of the Artist as an Impending Victim of Abduction."
Naturally, the disappearances are big news.
"Oh, look what's showing on TV tonight."
The authorities seem powerless to stop them.
"Martians, Shmartians, let's see what Little Orphan Annie is up to."
Suffice to say that romance blooms between Dop and Bolen, even though we're told Martians gave up love long before they gave up ties. The kidnapped women are rescued and the Martians go home, apparently to face the extinction of their species.
"Let's see, Mrs. Marjorie Dop. Nah, it would never work."
A very silly film indeed.
One star.
Surely there's something better on television than these two losers.
Without a doubt, Australia’s most famous musical export would have to be The Seekers, the folk-pop quartet from Melbourne who burst onto the international stage in 1964 and have given The Beatles and The Rolling Stones a run for their money when it comes to Top Ten hits. So, even with persistent rumours for some months that the band might soon break up, it comes as something of a surprise that, at the height of their fame, The Seekers announced in July that they have decided to go their separate ways.
The Seekers at the 1966 Royal Command Performance at the London Palladium
Singing for their Supper
The Seekers – Athol Guy (28), Keith Potger (27), Bruce Woodley (26) and Judith Durham (25) – formed in Melbourne in 1962. But how did a group of clean cut, coffee-house musicians – all of them with middle-class day jobs – become a hot property in the booming British pop scene and a household name on three continents?
When the group was formed, none of its members were newcomers to the local music scene. The three male members had all attended the same Melbourne school and had their own bands before forming a new “doo wop” band, the Escorts, with singer Ken Ray. This group then transformed into The Seekers in 1962 as the folk music movement grew in Melbourne.
At the same time, Miss Durham, blessed with perfect pitch and originally planning to become an opera singer, was carving out a place in the local jazz scene. As the lead vocalist with a top Melbourne jazz band, “Judy” Durham had already released an EP with a local record label. With her beautiful and versatile voice, she can sing jazz, opera, blues and gospel – and there is no question that Judith Durham’s vocal talents have been a major factor in The Seekers’ success over the past six years.
When Ken Ray married and left the Seekers, Miss Durham was working at the same advertising agency as Athol Guy, and he recruited her as Mr. Ray’s replacement, creating The Seekers as we know them today: Judith Durham, the lead vocalist, also performing piano and tambourine; Athol Guy on double bass and vocals; Keith Potger on twelve-string guitar, banjo and vocals; and Bruce Woodley on guitar, mandolin, banjo and vocals.
On the cover of The Seekers first album, Keith Potger was replaced by former Seeker Ken Ray, because his day job as a radio producer at the Australian Broadcasting Commission barred him from involvement in a commercial enterprise. (L-R: Judith Durham, Ken Ray, Bruce Woodley and Athol Guy).
Breaking Into the Australian Charts
Miss Durham’s golden voice and the group’s folk-influenced sound quickly made them popular in Melbourne, although they were largely unknown outside it. When her previous connection with local record label W&G provided the opportunity for a recording contract, The Seekers released their debut album "Introducing The Seekers" in 1963, opening the way to reach a national audience.
In the liner notes for the album, The Seekers described their approach to their music: “We don't claim to be folk singers in the true sense of the word. Then again, we don't regard ourselves as being ‘commercial’. Why? Because we sing the songs we like, the way we like and the way we think people will like to hear them. No long-haired ethnic purity for us, it's more fun our way.”
Two tracks were released as singles, with their version of Australia’s unofficial national anthem “Waltzing Matilda” charting in the Top 40 in Melbourne, and the Top 100 nationally. Obviously, people did like to hear The Seekers singing what they liked, their way.
Sailing Away to International Fame
Since the 1950s, many Aussie entertainers seeking fame and fortune have headed off to Britain to try their luck in its larger, more vibrant entertainment industry, and in 1964, The Seekers decided that the time had come for them to follow suit. With a year-long contract to work as the house band on a cruise ship, the group departed Australia in March.
The Seekers planned to work in the UK and get some exposure for their music during the ten-week layover there before working the return cruise to Australia. Shrewdly, the group sent copies of their album and promotional photographs ahead of them to London talent agencies, hoping this might help them line up some work once they arrived. The tactic was successful, and once in London in May, the group discovered that a top agency had taken them on and already booked them on national TV shows, and on the UK variety theatre and club circuit.
Their planned “working holiday” almost immediately turned into a full-time career, with important London bookings and television appearances, a UK recording deal and the release of their first UK single, “Myra”. This was quickly followed by two studio albums and, at the end of 1964, their first big hit “I’ll Never Find Another You”.
What made The Seekers (deprecatingly described by some in the British press as “three bank tellers and a secretary” due to their conservative style of dress and a lifestyle that was definitely not “sex, drugs and rock’n’roll”) such a marketable property in a British pop scene fuelled by teen angst and teenage rebellion?
Internationally successful folk acts like Peter, Paul & Mary had paved the way for The Seekers’ sound, the product of Judith Durham’s pure and powerful voice and the “nice harmonies” of the three men. With their clean-cut good looks, equally clean-cut voices and quiet dress, they appealed to English squares because they represented something they could understand and feel comfortable with, while at the same time their catchy tunes and soulful ballads, and their sheer musical talent attracted a wide range of audiences. The conservative BBC loved them, because their music contained no offensive lyrics, and their performances no outlandish behaviour, meaning that they received a large amount of air time on radio and television, which gave them wide exposure.
A Match Made by a Manager
Many of the catchy tunes that repeatedly propelled Seekers to the top of the charts, commencing with “I’ll Never Find Another You” (apparently recorded at the famous Abbey Road Studios by day while The Beatles were recording there at night), were written expressly for The Seekers by singer-songwriter-producer Tom Springfield, brother of Dusty Springfield. In a clever move, the agent managing The Seekers introduced them to Mr. Springfield shortly after he had split with his sister. Tom Springfield felt that The Seekers’ style of singing and performance would suit the particular kind of music he preferred to write. He became their resident songwriter, signing the group to his production company.
In November 1964 “I'll Never Find Another You” became a massive worldwide hit, reaching Number 1 in Australia and the UK, and Number 4 in the US. It also rated highly in Europe and eventually sold 1.75 million copies worldwide. This earned The Seekers a place in the record books as the first Australian pop group to have a Top 5 hit simultaneously in the Australian, UK and US markets, as well as the first to sell over a million copies of a single.
A World of Their Own
You could say that 1965 was the year that The Seekers conquered the world, with hit after hit rising up the charts! “A World of Our Own”, “Morningtown Ride”, and my favourite, “The Carnival is Over”, were all Top Ten hits, as was their 1965 album release. With its melody apparently drawn from a Russian folk song, “The Carnival is Over” reached Number 1 in the UK, even overtaking The Rolling Stones' “Get Off My Cloud”! I’ve heard that the single sold over 90,000 copies per day in Britain, which is no mean feat.
The Seekers receiving their gold record in Australia for "The Carnival is Over"
Winning the Top of the Pops Best New Group of 1964, The Seekers starred in the New Musical Express “All-Star Poll Winners Concert” in April 1965, on a bill that included the cream of the British pop scene – The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Cliff Richard, Dusty Springfield, The Who and The Yardbirds: The Seekers would go on to outsell them all in 1966! Then followed a breakthrough performance in June on The Ed Sullivan Show – the first time any Australian musicians had appeared on US television.
The Seekers during their first performance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1965
The Seekers' amazing success was repeated in 1966, commencing with a sell-out concert tour of Australia, during which they filmed their first Australian TV special, “At Home with the Seekers”. There was also a successful collaboration with Paul Simon (of Simon & Garfunkel fame), which produced “Someday, One Day”, another major hit. Bruce Woodley then co-wrote several songs with Mr. Simon, including “Red Rubber Ball”, released on The Seekers 1966 UK Top 10 album “Come the Day”.
In November, The Seekers appeared on the bill at the prestigious Royal Command Performance concert at the London Palladium, before H.M. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Finally, in December, the group released what became their biggest hit, and highest charting American release.
“Georgy Girl”, the title song for the film of the same name, reached Number 3 in the UK, Number 1 in Australia, and Number 1 on the US Cashbox Top 100 in February 1967, ultimately selling 3.5 million copies worldwide. Jim Dale and Tom Springfield, the song’s writers, were nominated for the 1967 Academy Award for Best Original Song of 1966, although The Seekers had to pass up the opportunity to perform at the awards ceremony due to a prior booking in the UK. Unfortunately for them, the Oscar was won by the title song of the film Born Free.
The Seekers at the Myer Music Bowl, a publicity shot for "The Seekers Down Under"
While touring Australia in March last year, The Seekers appeared at a concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, which is claimed to have drawn an audience of 200,000 – the largest concert audience ever in the southern hemisphere according to the Guinness Book of Records. (Though rumour has it that the audience figure is somewhat exaggerated, because visitors to the annual Moomba festival occurring in the vicinity were also counted!). During their 20-minute performance, the group was accompanied by the Australian Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hector Crawford, also a producer of radio, film and television. Film of this performance was included in The Seekers’ second Australian TV special, “The Seekers Down Under,” which drew a record audience of over 6 million!
A scene from "The Seekers Down Under", showing the group in Canberra
By this time Miss Durham apparently felt the need to branch out on a musical career of her own, and recorded a debut solo single, "The Olive Tree", which was released in June last year, while The Seekers were on a North American tour. For The Seekers as a group, the hits just kept on coming, for both their single releases and their most recent album, “The Seekers Seen in Green”. But when Judith Durham’s second solo single, “Again and Again”, appeared at the end of last year, it sparked early rumours that the group might split up.
During their North American tour, The Seekers joined fellow Aussie performers Rolf Harris, Normie Rowe and Bobby Limb in the special “Australia Day at Expo 67” concert in Montreal, that became the first official satellite broadcast into Australia. They also made another appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, singing “Georgy Girl”, which has turned out to be their last US hit.
The Seekers performing at the Australia Day concert broadcast via satellite to Australia from Expo 67
Our Last Goodbye
Though we didn’t know it at the time, when The Seekers returned to Australia last December, it was to be their final Australasian tour. But in a fitting finale to their career, The Seekers’ rapid rise to international fame was crowned with Australia’s highest honour: in January, they were collectively named “Australians of the Year for 1967”. This was the first time that a group, rather than an individual, has received this prestigious national recognition.
The Seekers with Australian Prime Minister John Gorton and his wife after receiving the "Australians of the Year" award.
During this tour, they also filmed their final Australian TV special, “The World of the Seekers”. Filmed in colour for international distribution, the programme was first screened in cinemas (so we could see it in colour, lacking colour television in this country) before being broadcast nationally to outstanding ratings.
At some point during the tour, Miss Durham informed her band mates that she intended to leave The Seekers in the middle of the year, although the swirling rumours of their impending break-up were consistently denied and laughed off, even a few weeks before the split was announced.
Despite knowing that their days of performing together were coming to a close, The Seekers recorded a final single, “Days of My Life”, in April, which sadly has proved less than successful. A final UK album, “Live at The Talk of the Town” has also been recorded and will be released later this year. A compilation album, “The Seekers — Greatest Hits” has just been released here in Australia (quick work by the record company, that one!).
When The Seekers publicly announced in the UK on Wednesday 3 July that they were breaking up, they insisted that they had never intended to go on performing indefinitely. “It’s getting far too complicated, and should be run as a cold hard business, which means it has now reached a stage we never wanted it to,” they said in a group statement. “It is time for us to part. We are all at a stage where we should be growing up as individuals, not as a group”. This rather suggests that Miss Durham was not alone in her desire to branch out into a solo career, and her decision to depart simply accelerated something that was already in train.
The Seekers made their last appearance together in a 50 minute television special on 9 July, rapidly arranged by the BBC. “Farewell The Seekers”, which has not yet been screened in Australia, was reportedly an emotional experience on screen and off, attracting an audience of more than 10 million viewers. When the lights went down, the carnival was over, and an amazing chapter in Australia’s musical history had drawn to a close. I wonder what will come next for the former Seekers?
There are some months where the space shots come so quickly that there's scarcely time to apprehend them all, much less report on them! Every other day, it seems, the newspaper has got a headling about this launch or that discovery, and that's before you get to the announcements about the impending moon missions.
So, in rapid-fire style, let's see how many exciting new missions I can tell you about on a single exhale (while you stand on one leg, no less…that's a Jewish joke).
A Pair of Yankee Explorers
On August 8th, a Scout rocket took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base (the Western Test Range) in Southern California carrying the two latest NASA science satellites. It was a virtual duplicate of the launch nearly four years ago of Explorers 24 and 25: a balloon for measuring air density in the upper atmosphere, and a more conventional satellite with an array of instruments for surveying the Earth's ionosphere. Affectionately dubbed "Mutt and Jeff", these two craft were sent into polar orbit (hence the Pacific launch site). If you're wondering why NASA is repeating itself, that's because the sun has a profound effect on the Earth's atmosphere. It is important to measure its impact throughout the 11 year solar cycle, from minimum to maximum output, to better understand the relationship between the solar wind and the air's upper layers.
Not much can go wrong with a balloon, but Explorer 40, after deploying its spindly experiment arms, suffered a malfunction. Its solar panels are not delivering as much power as they should. NASA is confident, however, that this will not compromise the mission, which is planned to last more than a year.
Alphabet Soup
Time was, we gave proper names to our satellites. Now it's all acronyms and arcane jumbles of letters and numbers. That's all right. I can decipher them for you!
Advanced Technology Satellite (ATS) 4
August 10 marked the launch of "Daddy Longlegs" ATS 4, the fourth of seven satellites in this series.
Some of you may remember ATS-1–you may recall that ATS-1 helped relay the first worldwide "Our World" broadcast last year.
ATS-1 is actually still working, just like its two siblings. ATS-2, launched April 5, 1967 was judged a failure since the second stage of its carrier rocket malfunctioned, stranding it in an eccentric orbit. Still, the several science experiments onboard have returned information on cosmic rays and such in space. ATS-3, which went up November 5, 1967, was the last to ride an Atlas Agena D rocket. Armed with a panoply of experiments, including two transceivers, two cameras, and a host of radiation detectors, that satellite worked perfectly, returning the first color picture of the entire Earth!
ATS-4, unlike its predecessors, is a strictly practical spacecraft, carrying no science experiments, but makes up for it in engineering marvels. One is a a day-night Image Orthicon Camera, a teevee transmitter that would provide continuous color coverage of the world from high up in geosynchronous orbit (i.e. orbiting at the same rate as the Earth turns, keeping it more or less stationary with respect to the ground). Another is a microwave transmitter, turning ATS into a powerful communications satellite like its progenitor
ATS-4 also was to test out a gravity gradient stabilization system, basically using the subtle gradations of the Earth's pull on the satellite's arms to keep it oriented in orbit. Finally, ATS-4 has an ion engine aboard. These drives, perfect for space, work by shooting out Cesium electrons. They are incredibly economical compared to conventional rockets, but their thrust is quite low, meaning they must be fired continuously to have an appreciable effect on velocity.
Sadly, as with ATS-2, ATS-4's Atlas Centaur failed on the second stage, stranding the satellite in a low, largely useless orbit. Well, I guess that's why you launch lots of them!
ESSA 7
We haven't given the ESSA series of satellites much love, which I suppose is what happens when a technology stops being novel and instead becomes routine, even essential. After all, who reports on every airplane that takes off anymore?
But it's worth talking about the latest satellite, ESSA 7, launched August 16, to summarize what the system has done for us over the last several years.
There were eleven satellites in the TIROS series of weather craft, the first launched in 1960. In February 1966, with the launch of ESSA 1, the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA) took over the cartwheel satellites, making the series officially operational.
All of them have worked perfectly, launched into sun-synchronous polar orbits about 900 miles up that circle the Earth from north to south as the planet rotates eastward beneath. So perfect is ESSA 7's orbit that it will cross the equator at virtually the same time every day, drifting from that time table by only four minutes every year.
ESSA satellites have returned 3000 warnings of hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones, reporting not just on the existence but the intensity of these dangerous storms. As of May 27 of this year, ESSA satellites had taken a million photos of the Earth's weather–that's $42 per picture, since the total launch cost of an ESSA is $6 million.
An image of Tropical Storm Shirley taken August 19, 1968
Up in the Kosmos
If we had to cover the launch of every Kosmos (Cosmos) satellite out of the Soviet Union, we'd have to go to a daily schedule. There's such a thing as too much of a good thing, right?
But the Russkies are putting them up on the average of one a week, so it's worth sampling them occasionally to keep tabs on all the stuff they're putting in orbit. Especially since the Kosmos is a catch-all designator, even more broad than our Explorer series. It includes military satellites, science satellites, weather satellites, even automatic tests of the Soyuz spacecraft.
Here's a brief outline of the launches this last month:
Kosmos 230
This is a typical Soviet launch press release:
The Soviet Union launched another Cosmos satellite today and the Sputnik was reported functioning normally, Tass, the official Soviet news agency, said. The device, Cosmos 230, is sending information to a Soviet research center for evaluation.
We know it was launched July 5 into a 48.5 degree inclined orbit, that it soars between 181 and 362 miles above the Earth, and that it's still in orbit as we speak, circling the Earth every 92.8 minutes.
As for what it's for… well, your guess is as good as mine. That said, it's probably not a spy satellite. How do I know? Read on, and I'll show you what a spy sat looks like so you can spot them yourself!
Kosmos 231
The Soviet Union has launched another satellite in its program of exploring outer space, the official Tass news agency said Thursday. It said Cosmos 231 was launched Wednesday [July 10] and is functioning normally. The latest Cosmos is orbiting the earth once every 89.7 minutes in a low orbit from 130 miles to 205 miles. Its angle to the earth was 65 degrees.
Seems innocuous enough, right? Doesn't tell you anything more than the other one. Except…
First tip-off: the angle. A zero degree angle would be along the equator, never leaving 0 degrees latitude. A 90 degree angle is polar, heading due north and south. The lower the angle, the narrower a band of the Earth a satellite covers.
A 65 degree angle is sufficient to cover a wide swathe…including all of the continental United States.
The altitude is quite low, too. The closer, the better–if you want to look at something from orbit.
But the real kicker is this: the spacecraft reentered on July 18, just eight days after launch. Normally, when you send a science satellite up, you want it to stay in orbit as long as possible to get more back for your buck…er…ruble. You only deorbit a spacecraft (and make no mistake–Kosmos 231 had to have been deorbited; its orbit wasn't that low) when there's something onboard you want to get back. Like a person…or film.
We know there wasn't anyone onboard Kosmos 231. The Soviets would have told us. By the way, I'm not the only one who thinks the Kosmos was a spy satellite, taking pictures in orbit and then landing the film for processing. There's a blurb in the July 15th issue of Aviation Weekly and Space Report which says the same thing. And they reached that conclusion before the craft even landed, just based on the orbit!
By the way, if you're wondering what the Soviet spy satellites look like, we actually have a better idea of theirs than ours! We're pretty sure they're based on the Vostok space capsules used to carry cosmonauts. In fact, it's an open question whether or not the spy sat was evolved from the Vostok or the other way around!
Kosmos 232
Launched July 16, its orbital parameters were as follows: 125 to 220 miles in altitude, 89.8 minute orbit, 65 degree inclination. The newspaper article I read noted that the satellite's path was a common one, and predicted the satellite would be recovered in eight days.
Sure enough, it was on the ground again on July 24.
Sound familiar?
Kosmos 233
Here's another oddball: launched on the 18th, the Soviets didn't release news of its orbiting until at least the 20th. It's in a near polar orbit, soaring up to 935 miles, grazing the Earth with a perigee of 124 miles.
That's no spy sat. In fact, I'd guess this one might be a bonafide science satellite, exploring the Earth's Van Allen Belts. But it could just as easily be the equivalent of our Transit navigational satellites or something. We won't know until and unless the Communists publish scientific results.
Kosmos 234
Launched July 30, it soared from 130 to 183 miles up with a period of 89.5 minutes and an inclination of 51.8 degrees. Low orbit? Check. Cryptic announcement describing its purpose as "the continued exploration of outer space"? Check. But the inclination's a bit low. Better wait for more information.
Oh wait. It landed August 5. Pretty sure we know what this one was!
Kosmos 235
Up August 9, down August 17. Orbit went from 126 to 176 miles, period was 89.3 minutes, and the inclination was exactly the same as before–51.8 degrees.
I'm not sure the significance of the different inclinations. Maybe it's a matter of the rocket or the launch location. Generally, the higher the inclination, the more expensive the shot in terms of fuel since the rocket doesn't get the extra boost of the Earth's rotation.
Operator?
It's been a while since we covered the Molniya communications satellites, one of the few Soviet series we do know something about. July 5 marked the launch of the ninth comsat in the series, zooming up to a high, not quite geosynchronous, orbit, where it has a nice vantage of the whole of Asia.
This launch comes less than three months after the orbiting of Molniya H, the eighth in the series. Whether Molniya I is replacing its predecessor, which may have been faulty, or whether the ninth Molniya is simply acting as a backup, is not certain. The latter seems unlikely, though. When Molniya G went up just three weeks after Molniya F, it was widely believed that the Russians had sent up two to make sure they could televise their annual November Moscow parade to the other Communist countries.
That's all folks!
That's the big news for this month. The rest of the year is going to be really exciting, what with the upcoming launch of Apollo 7 and Zond 5. We're about to enter a new phase of manned lunar exploration. That said, we promise to keep covering the significant shots closer to home, too. For us, all space missions are out of this world!
The prime crew for Apollo 7 (l-r) Astronauts Donn F. Eisele, Command Module Pilot; Walter Cunningham, Lunar Module Pilot; and Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Commander
The Cassiopeia Affair by Chloe Zerwick & Harrison Brown
In Redo Valley, Virginia, a radiotelescope complex in the late 20th century hunts for extra-terrestrial intelligence. One night Max Gaby detects a signal coming from Cassiopeia 3579. Inside there is a two-dimensional picture being sent out via binary.
Can you solve the binary-code puzzle?
This provides proof of an alien intelligence.
At the same time, conflict is brewing between Russia and China, one that could plunge the world into nuclear war. Is this evidence of intelligent life among the stars the greatest hope we have for peace?
Yes, this is yetanotherstory of RadioAstronomy. These are now becoming as regular in science fiction as space adventures and superhuman mutants, but this stands out as a wonderful example. I believe this is the first fiction from the pair, with Zerwick being primarily a visual artist and Brown being a scientist. Together they have created something masterful.
Although much of the novel is taken up by discussions of scientific theories or information on how to programme radio telescopes, it is raised up by excellent writing and a real understanding of character. Whilst Judith Merrill criticised it for being dull, I never found it so. It was a book I was dying to pick up whenever I got the opportunity. It is a testament to the authors that it never felt dry.
Regarding the characters, it is a huge cast, but one where they all feel considered and with depth, not merely props for discussion. These include Max Gaby as the wide-eyed believer, Barney Davidson the grouchy cynic, Rudolph Calder the Machiavellian hawk and Adam Lurie the disillusioned drunk who is secretly sleeping with Gaby’s wife.
Throughout there are little moments that make it feel real, such as Gaby calling Adam up at 4 am about a possible sighting and Adam grumpily insisting on having his shower and coffee first, or when someone tries to bribe Davidson and he threatens to kill him.
The characters are not perfect either, we regularly change perspective and sometimes see that they are downright unpleasant. But it is made clear we are not meant to sympathise with everyone’s point of view, rather to gain an insight into their motivations.
It also tries to consider the politics of the situation carefully. It demonstrates how different factions will react and what they will want to do with this information. A particularly interesting, if depressing, touch is that the hawks on both sides of the Iron Curtain distrust Gaby as he is a refugee from Hungary in 1956. This element gives it both a sense of excitement and verisimilitude that is often missing from these heavier works.
These kinds of harder science fiction stories are not usually the ones that appeal to me. However, I was enthralled. It may be even more enjoyed by fans of Clarke and Niven and I would not be surprised to see it on the Hugo ballot next year.
This is the third in a series of novels dealing with alternate universes. The first was Worlds of the Imperium. The Noble Editor gave it a moderately positive review.
Both books featured a fellow named Brion Bayard, a man from our own universe who went on to be an agent for the Imperium, a British/German empire that dominates another version of Earth.
Bayard plays a small but important role in this new novel, but the main character is a man named Johnny Curlon. He's also the narrator. Let's say hello to him.
Johnny is a big, strong guy who lives in Florida and runs a fishing boat. The story starts off with some tough hoods trying to intimidate him, but he deals with them easily. At this point, I thought I was reading one of John D. MacDonald's Florida-based suspense novels, particularly those featuring Travis McGee, a big, strong guy who owns a houseboat.
(If you haven't read them, give 'em a try. They're really good.)
Anyway, we find out this is a science fiction novel when Johnny gets rescued from his floundering boat, which the bad guys have sabotaged, by our old pal Brion. He carries Johnny around in a vehicle that can not only travel between universes, but is able to pass through solid matter and become invisible. Mighty handy little gizmo.
Naturally, Johnny is confused by all this. It seems that he's the key to preventing lots of universes from being wiped out by something called the Blight (capital letter and all.) There are antagonists eager to use Johnny for their own purposes.
At this point, Johnny's knife, which is actually part of an ancient sword handed down to him by his ancestors, gets reunited with another part of the ancient weapon. That's our first hint that this SF novel is going to seem a lot like a fantasy adventure.
Johnny winds up working with a fellow who is very obviously the main bad guy. (Obvious to the reader, anyway, although it's quite a while until Johnny catches on.) They travel to a universe whose only human inhabitant is a stunningly beautiful woman, straight out of a sword-and-sorcery story. She even has a pet griffin, and there's a giant around.
(This middle section of the book reminds me of Robert A. Heinlein's novel Glory Road. That was science fiction disguised as fantasy. This one is fantasy disguised as science fiction, to some degree.)
After leaving that magical place with another piece of the sword, the villain takes Johnny to the universe he wants to rule. It's a place where Richard Lionheart didn't die in battle, but lived to be a weak ruler. He wound up surrendering his kingdom to the French, so France is still in control of England, which is called New Normandy.
(Brion already told Johnny that he was the last descendent of the Plantagenets, so it all ties together, sort of.)
The bad guy's plan would come at the cost of destroying a bunch of universes. (You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs, I guess.) Can our hero set things right? (Go ahead, take a guess.)
In typical Laumer fashion, this is an action-packed yarn that moves at a dizzying pace. It's not as tightly plotted as some, and I'd say it's the weakest book in the Imperium series. The middle section — you know, all that fantasy stuff — seems to come from another novel entirely. There's a lot of pseudoscientific blather trying to explain what's going on, and none of it makes any sense.
Nine years ago John Breton nearly lost his wife. Now, a decade later, he and Kate are drifting apart, their knives out at every opportunity, their marriage a fast cooling ember. John has thrown himself bodily into his geological consulting business, and his wife has picked a hobby John has no interest in, befriending Miriam Palfrey, an automatic writer. At a typical crashingly dull dinner party with the Palfreys, characterized by endless sniping, John decides only profound drunkenness will get him through the night.
Whereupon he receives a call:
"You've been living with my wife for almost exactly nine years–and I'm coming to take her back."
Because nine years ago, Kate had died. Two years into their marriage, a stupid fight had compelled Kate's husband to stay home, while she trooped through the night, headed for a party she would never attend, intercepted by a brutal rapist and killer.
John, calling himself Jack at the time, was devastated, wracked with guilt. More than this: he began to be unhinged from time, taking trips weekly to the scene of the crime. Jack resolved to stop Kate's murder, even if it meant rending the very fabric of space and causality.
Two timelines were created: Timeline A, in which Jack led a lonely, monomaniacal life, and Timeline B, in which a sleek and unappreciative John enjoyed his misbegotten wife, the fruits of the labor of his alter ego.
Thus, Jack hatched a plan–move sideways to Timeline B…and fill John's shoes, whether he liked it or not.
But the law of conservation of energy is a hard fact, in the multiverse as well as the universe. Jack Breton's actions threaten not only the rocky relationship of Kate and John, but also the whole of humanity.
According to the book's blurb, this is Shaw's third book, but the first to achieve wide distribution. I don't know what his first book was, but I read his second, Night Walk last year. Between that and his short stories, it was clear Shaw was a gifted author just waiting to grow out of his adolescence.
With The Two-Timers, he has done so.
I picked the book up just before bed and had to force myself to put it down. Eight hours later, it was in my hands again, and it did not leave until I'd finished the story come lunchtime (it was a welcome companion as I waited in the courthouse for a jury duty that never materialized).
The characters are vividly, deeply realized, all of them evolving throughout the story. We initially hate John and sympathize with Jack, but neither of the Bretons is wholly irredeemanble, nor sympathetic. And Kate is no prize to be won; she is an independent entity with her own virtues, failings, and feelings. Shaw reminds me a bit of Larry Niven, drawing people with quick, deft strokes. But Shaw has a sensitive style, working more with emotions than hard science. It's the people that matter in this piece; the SFnal content is exciting, necessary, but secondary.
The pacing in the book is exquisite, from the painful depiction of a marriage gone sour at the beginning, to the arrival of Jack, through the resolution of the resulting triangle. The interspersed scenes of the slow collapse of the physical universe around them are deftly handled, as is the closing in of Lieutenant Blaize Convery, the detective who knows Breton saved his wife nine years ago; he just can't figure out how.
As Lorelei (who picked up the book on my recommendation and tore through it in short order) notes, aside from the poetic writing, the real triumph of the book is that you get so many viewpoint characters, and so many changing perspectives on these characters, and none of it is confusing. It's just masterfully done.
It's a hard book to read in parts. The emotions here are fraught ones, and there are some rather unpleasant (though never gratuitous) scenes. Nevertheless, these are emotions that must be explored, and thankfully, the mystery and the brilliant writing carry you past them, as well as the satisfying resolution of the threesome's story. My only quibble is that the end doesn't quite work, logistically, though it makes sense thematically. And as Lorelei notes, it's a touch rushed.
Nevertheless, The Two-Timers is a terrific work, definitely a strong contender for my Hugo ballot next year.
We Americans love a good revolution story. After all, our nation was founded by a rebellion, and the appeal of an underdog throwing off an oppressor has been popular since David threw a rock at Goliath.
C.C. MacApp takes a stab at the theme with his latest book, Omha Abides, a tale of the 35th Century. 1500 years before, the Gaddyl had conquered the Earth. The amphibian aliens did not succeed without a fight, but their advanced technology, particularly their craft-shielding Distorters, proved decisive. Human civilization was shattered, the population reduced to a bare fraction, many of them condemned to slavery. Meanwhile, the Gaddyl build their own fiefdoms amidst the ruins of the human cities and built an interstellar teleport transit hub in Arizona.
Now Earth is a hunting preserve, humanity largely quiescent. The North American continent is home to just 25 million people…and half a million overlord Gaddyl. The humans who are not slaves roam in bands or live in primitive statelets. They have no hope of taking back the planet, until a series of events precipitously brings success in their reach.
Our hero is Murno, a freed man who lives with his family in Fief Bay, once known as San Francisco. A new, cruel lord has ascended to the fief throne, and he has decided that no longer shall free humans be off limits to hunting parties.
At the same time, Murno is contacted by the underground. He is entrusted with three items, two of them Gaddyl, and one of ancient human make, which he is tasked to take east, beyond the Sierras, beyond the mysterious Grove, even past the mighty Rockies, to where the mythical deity named "Omha" waits.
If you had a subscription to the recently defunct magazine, Worlds of Tomorrow, you may have read about half of this book. Victoria Silverwolf reviewed Under the Gaddyl Tree, which comprises about the first third of the book, and Trees Like Torches, which contains bits from the middle. Victoria gave both stories three stars and felt they were competent, but nothing special.
Often, the expansion of stories into a novel results in something less than the sum of its parts. The opposite occurs in this case. Now, instead of just being isolated, mildly interesting adventure stories, now Murno's encounters with Gaddyl, blue mutant humans, a giant grove of telepathic trees, and so on, gird a compelling plot. Humanity shouldn't have a chance against the Gaddyl. But neither should an electron, per classical physics, be able to jump energy levels. But thanks to quantum physics and the Uncertainty Principle, given a short enough period of time, an electron can possess abnormal amounts of energy.
Similarly, a confluence of circumstances makes for a successful rebellion opportunity. Because humanity had been waiting for its chance. The telepathic Blues had spies in pivotal places. There was an underground poised for action. There really is an Omha (and you can guess what its nature is early on, which will also clue you in on how to pronounce the word).
Add the trigger of the Gaddyl getting a bit too complacent and a bit too cruel, as well as the theft of some vital technologies, and a human victory becomes plausible.
The pacing of the book is a little off. Much of the human victory isn't even detailed until the last 25 pages of the book (though it turns out that's not really too short a span; MacApp pulls it off). Also, much reference is made to Murno baffling his alien pursuers with "trail puzzles", a phrase with which I'm not familiar, and whose meaning I still don't apprehend. Occasionally, the story does lapse into conventional adventure fare–more like a tale of the American West than the American future.
But, it's a book with real cinematic quality to it; the scenes in California were particularly resonant for me, a Golden State native. The Gaddyl are portrayed perhaps a touch too human, but I appreciated the range of types, from scoundrel to honorable enemy. And as an American, I suppose I've got as much a soft spot for overthrowing tyranny as anyone.
Four stars.
by Mx. Blue Cathey-Thiele
Last year's pairing of E.C Tubb and Juanita Coulson's has gotten an encore. In fact, both novels are sequels. My esteemed colleague and editor had favorable reviews of both, so I was excited to read them:
Earl Dumarest, the itinerant interstellar provocateur and do-gooder from The Winds of Gath returns in Derai, hunting news of Earth. On his way he takes a job escorting the Lady Derai of the House of Caldor back to her family on the planet Hive. He soon determines that Derai is a telepath. Her father sent her to the college of Cyclans to treat the constant fear and nightmares brought on by hearing the minds of those around her. Derai ran away from the college, where Cybers (once-humans with emotion and sensation excised who now can connect to a collective mind) wanted to use her genetics, turning her into a mindless vessel to bear telepathic children. Her home planet has its own risks – her uncle wants to take over the House, planning to assassinate her father and half-brother, and marry Derai to her cousin to gain legitimacy.
Dumarest keeps much of his thoughts to himself, both from the other characters and the reader, but cannot keep his developing feelings for Derai from her telepathic ability. He carries himself as a man who has seen too much. He inspires loyalty, and in those he has helped that is understandable, but it also comes from some who have only just met him. One man he meets through a mutual friend takes the chance of being burned to death to get a blade to Dumarest in a deadly maze arena.
Dumarest almost seems to resist the plot, needing to be pushed into each new quest. At times, his struggle as a character made him feel like a disparate individual, one side grim and withdrawn, another altruistic at great cost to himself; it's as if author Tubbs had two distinct directions for the novel in mind, and was unable to find the balance between them. Dumarest's staid demeanor only allows him to rebuff so much, and he is, if reluctantly, still prompted to aid disenfranchised travelers, save a gambler from himself, and compete in a tournament to prolong the head of Caldor House's life. Each time he intends to leave the House to its own devices, his feelings for Derai bring him back.
Tubb has a lurid, graphic style of description. It's equally evocative of beauty and violence. In a particularly unsettling set of scenes, Dumarest barely escapes being eaten alive like his companions by bird-sized bees. For how memorable the depictions of the insects were, I anticipated them playing a larger role in the overall story. The scenes stuck with me for several days due to the excessively grisly details.
Something else that ate at my brain: thanks to medical advancements and travel stasis Dumarest and Derai are chronologically far older than they seem, but Derai was described as childlike far too often for my liking. Tubb could have left it at one use of "nubile".
Geoff is a member of the Federation, the galactic government introduced in Coulson's Crisis on Cheiron. He embarks on what could be a suicide mission to the protectorate of Deliayan, Pa-Lüna. Both humans and Deliyans have been exploiting the people of Pa-Lüna, tricking them into indentured servitude. When a man is murdered right in front of him over a stone, Geoff investigates, finding the stone in question has strange, enchanting properties. He and Tahn, a Pa-Lünan, set out for the protectorate, and they meet Nedra, priestess of a mysterious goddess.
From the outset, he is on a clock: a past planetary mission left his team dead, and him with the lingering impacts from a past poisoning that flares, causing him pain and debilitating him with growing frequency. The nature of his sense of duty and outlook, framed by his limited lifespan, is compelling.
Geoff is a skeptic, both of motive and means. He views the people of Pa-Lüna with a mix of respect and condescension, but Geoff witnesses the tangible effects of the stones of song. They induce a euphoria and they, or their "goddess", can heal the sick and injured and strengthen her followers over time. Does the Goddess bestow gifts freely or are her worshipers trading one form of servitude for another, framed in a softer light? Are the powers of the Stones and the goddess's telepathic messages divine or an advanced, but still mortal mechanism?
I appreciated the exploration of what is becoming a new trend in sci-fi–rejecting overt military intrusions and favoring a system that furthers a newly-contacted culture's sovereignty. It's not a bad direction to go, though authors vary in degrees of patronizing the native people of these worlds, from treating them roughly as equals to regarding them as "primitive" beings who need protecting. And it does say something that it takes someone from outside the system to truly put things in motion, no matter how long change has been brewing. Having the fight be against not just an alien threat but also a human, institutional threat asks if human expansion is truly helping, needs tempering, or if it is causing more harm in the end.
All in all, a solid book. Had I not recently read several other books with a similar premise I would have liked it even more. However, I can't fault Coulson for the trends of this year. She created a rich tapestry and I would be happy to explore her worlds and characters in future stories.
At an event at the Institut Français in London recently, I was able to see the newly-translated animated film Asterix the Gaul (made in 1967, but only released in English this year). While it’s not a great adaptation, it is nice to see a series that’s only growing in popularity in the French-speaking world getting wider exposure.
Asterix the Gaul movie poster
In case you’ve missed the Asterix phenomenon, some background. Asterix le Gaulois, or Asterix the Gaul, is a Franco-Belgian comic from the writing and drawing team of Goscinny and Uderzo, originally serialised in 1959, with the first album coming out in 1961. Since then it’s only become more and more popular, with the ninth album, Asterix et les Normands (Asterix and the Normans) reaching 1.2 million sales in its first two days of release earlier this year.
On the face of it, Asterix might seem an unlikely hit. The story is a humourous historical fantasy, starting with a “what if…” premise to the effect that, after Caesar conquered Gaul and, as any schoolchild studying Latin knows, divided it into three parts, a small Gaulish village remained unconquered, due to their druid having invented a magic potion that gives the drinker super-strength. Our protagonist, Asterix, is a diminutive but sharp-witted warrior; his best pal is Obelix, a giant who has permanent super-strength due to having fallen in a vat of magic potion as a baby. Together, they have adventures traveling around Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, resisting Romans and meeting interesting, if frequently ethnically stereotyped, people.
Asterix' pal Obelix is a menhir salesman. He's barely in this story.
However, if you have a chance to read the albums, you can see the appeal. The puns are thick, heavy and groanworthy (particularly as regards the character names: the Gauls all have names ending in -ix, meaning we get people called Assurancetourix and Abracourix, and the Romans in -us, giving us Humerus and Fleurdelotus), and the anachronism humour nonstop. Additionally Goscinny and Uderzo have a lot of affectionate fun with projecting stereotypes of modern European nations back onto their Roman past equivalents. The story of plucky, likeable people resisting an oppressor is one with relevance to all political stripes. The Romans are always comically stupid and the violence cartoonish, keeping the tone from getting too heavy for children.
Asterix and Panoramix resisting Roman oppression
The series has appeared in English translation twice before now, both times in English children’s comics (Valiant and Ranger) and on neither occasion faithful, transporting the action to ancient Britain in the apparent belief that British audiences would be incapable of sympathising with French characters. However, word at the Institut is that an approved translation by Anthea Bell is currently in production and should be released next year.
Our hero was described in one English translation as an "ancient Brit with bags of grit." No, really.
The film Asterix the Gaul is a 70-minute animation, apparently originally planned as a telemovie but instead winding up in cinematic release. The visuals are, for the most part, decently done, and it has a jaunty theme tune by Gerard Calvi. The English voice cast are for the most part adopting American accents (the main exceptions being Stopthemusix the Bard and Julius Caesar, who are both using British received pronunciation), which seems an odd decision as French comics popular in other markets, such as Tintin, don’t generally do well in the American sphere, and it might be better to try and sell to the wider English-speaking world.
The plot more or less follows that of the comic album Asterix le Gaulois, the first adventure in the series. Roman centurion Phonus Balonus (Caius Bonus in the original comic), wanting to know the secret of the Gauls’ super-strength, sends a spy into the village disguised as a Gaul. Upon learning that the secret is the potion brewed by druid Panoramix, the Romans kidnap him, with Phonus Balonus planning to use his strengthened legions to become Emperor. Asterix sneaks into their camp with a view to rescuing Panoramix, but, on finding his friend in good spirits and having fun winding up the Romans, Asterix surrenders and joins him, with the pair living a luxurious life at the Romans’ expense. Finally Panoramix pretends to give in, but in fact brews a potion which makes the drinkers’ hair and beards grow uncontrollably. Realising that they can’t keep the gag going indefinitely, Panoramix pretends to brew an antidote, while also secretly furnishing Asterix with a small amount of magic potion. When the pair make their escape, they run into Caesar himself, who has come to investigate the mysterious goings-on in person.
Julius Caesar does not approve of Panoramix's beard-growing potion.
The decision to adapt the first book in the series, and without the input of the creators, is arguably the film’s biggest problem. A lot of the running gags and characters which have contributed to the series’ appeal, such as Obelix’s tiny dog Idéfix and the ongoing feud between fishmonger Ordraflfabétix and blacksmith Cétautomatix, were worked out in later volumes, and the story feels thin without them. Although Asterix has never exactly been known for its female characters (there are exactly two women regulars, both stereotypes and only one having an actual name), in the film the village seems to be a homosexual commune, with no women or children at all. Goscinny and Uderzo were reportedly very unhappy with this movie, and it’s a shame they weren’t involved, as they could have revised their earlier story to include this later material.
The translation is generally serviceable. The punning names are retained and even arguably improved, with the bard Assurancetourix becoming Stopthemusix and Abraracourcix the chief becoming Tonabrix. The narration has a few heavy-handed gags like “Caesar had a lot of Gaul,” and there are more subtle jokes for those who remember their classics, like Phonus Balonus proposing to his second-in-command Marcus Sourpus that they form a triumvirate (not knowing that a triumvirate is, by definition, made up of three men). There’s a long and rather unfunny sequence with a singing ox-cart driver that feels like it’s just in to fill time, but there is also a blink-and-you-miss-it moment where Panoramix appears to be gathering marijuana in the woods.
That's some suspicious-looking smoke. Panoramix.
All in all, while it’s not the best introduction to the series, it gives English-speaking audiences a general flavour. It’s good to see a cartoon series where the main character lives by his wits more than his fists, and where bullies are shown as hapless incompetents who can be defeated by ridicule. Reportedly a new film is in production, based on Asterix et Cleopatre (Asterix and Cleopatra), with the creators’ full involvement, and I look forward to seeing if it is an improvement.
There's an interesting piece by Ted White in May's Science Fiction Review. He talks about how the magazines are on a slow, inexorable decline due to a number of factors. The biggest is that SF mags used to be just one subgenre of the myriad pulps, all of which had their lurid covers prominently displayed at every corner newsstand. Sure, the SF pulps weren't exactly of a piece with their mystery, Western, and thriller brethren, but Joe Palooka didn't care, grabbing the most attractive issues. So, SF thrived, making a profit even if it sold just 25% of a print run.
Note Astounding (now Analog) in the upper left and Amazing in the upper right
Then the pulps died in the 50s, partly due to changing tastes, mostly due to the collapse of American News Company, the main distributor for monthly mags (and comics). The remaining SF mags were consigned to lesser shelves, all by themselves. The average schmo got his entertainment from TV.
The profit mark has now risen to 50%–in other words, at least half of the issues printed must sell for the run to break even. This makes it very risky for the mags to try to expand their market by printing more issues. If they, say, print 50K and sell 35K, well and good. But if they then print 200K and sell 96K…they've lost money on the run.
Add to that even SF people are losing interest in mags, lured by paperbacks and the new paperback anthologies, and dismayed (as I have been) by the declining quality of stories over the last ten years. The only thing that keeps us subscribing is inertia and brand loyalty. That'll wear off unless the magazines manage to turn the ship.
The magazines have been around for almost half a century. Assuming they are around in the 21st Century, and if this trend continues, they will service an increasingly small fraction of the SF-interested community. They will be like the horseshoe crab: living fossils, unchanged for 300 million years, clinging to life in a wildly different environment.
But that's all speculation. For now, enough good stuff still comes out in the mags to keep me buying. Though the high variability of the latest issue of F&SF may cause me to revisit that policy…
Over Hill and Dale
by Chesley Bonestell—this is the same nebula featured repeatedly in the Star Trek episode "The Alternative Factor"
Ogre!, by Ed Jesby
It's been four years since Ed Jesby offered up his first tale, Sea Wrack, which was so-so. His sophomore tale, Ogre!, is an improvement.
Knut the Ogre takes a nap sometime in the Middle Ages. When he awakes, covered in loam and with mushrooms growing in his ears, he finds he has slept clear through to the 20th Century. There (then), the seven-foot beast befriends a timid bookie on the run from the Mob. You see, Ogres are actually misunderstood creatures, quite nice and mild despite the calumny heaped upon them by humans.
Together, Knut and the bookie (and the bookie's seamstress pal) hatch a scheme to get the bookie off the hook and out of the business. And of course, it involves horses:
To Harry the plan seemed to be basically sound: after all the way to make money was on the races; there was no better way. You took bets or you made them, all other ways of earning a living were mysterious, square, or the result of inheritance.
It's really a charming tale, and it put me in a charitable mood for the rest of the issue. More fool me…
Four stars.
Butterfly Was 15, by Gilbert Thomas
A scurrilous German scientist has learned how to manipulate others with the judicious use of electrodes and remote transmitters. He meets his match when he locks horns with a traditional psychologist with methods of his own.
This is supposed to be a funny piece. I found its themes of mind control and Ephebophilia to be thoroughly repellent.
Once again, we turn to our friend, Brian, who will likely never volunteer for anything ever again…
by Brian Collins
We now find ourselves in the final installment of the latest F&SF serial, but unfortunately it’s so long as to encompass nearly half the novel. We run into trouble before we’ve even jumped into the story proper, as the recap section commits the grievous sin of telling us about things that we have not been able to read for ourselves. At the end of the previous installment you may recall that Sos and Sol are about to fight in the battle circle to see who takes custody of Sola and Soli, Sol’s wife and adopted daughter respectively. Apparently, between installments, Sos lost the fight, and is now journeying up “the mountain” to commit ritual suicide.
I do not understand how this happened. It could be that Anthony had turned in an early draft of the novel and had intended to write the fight scene between Sos and Sol, but all the same, this is such a glaring oversight as to show incompetence. I was confused at first because I thought I had somehow missed the ending of the previous installment, but no, I had not missed anything; it’s just that the fight and its immediate aftermath were kept “offscreen.”
Now up to date, we find Sos who, naturally, does not die on his way up this freezing mountain, but falls unconscious and is rescued by a small society of people who are somewhere between the crazies (the civilized people) and the nomads who roam the wasteland. We come across the second major female character of the novel (foreboding music plays), who, as you would expect, goes unnamed at first. She’s a short athletic girl whom Anthony repeatedly calls childlike and “Elfen,” but also attractive, which makes me wonder if Anthony might be appealing to a certain subspecies of male reader here. The girl steals Sos’s bracelet and makes him work for it, all but forcing him into taking her as his wife. As if the institution of marriage were not already filled with holes, the system presented in this novel may be fit for ants, spiders, and other small invertebrates, but not actual humans.
Since this is at least theoretically the last stretch of the narrative, in which we find our hero at his lowest point before he rises from the darkness, I need not go into great detail as to what happens next—except for one thing: Sosa (for that is her name now) reveals that she’s been desperate to find a husband, having gone through several men already, because she feels great angst at not being able to produce a child. Infertility is often sad news, to be sure, but in a world where contraception is presumably hard to acquire, I can’t imagine this strikes Sos’s ears as too sad; after all, he’s still committed to Sola in his heart.
Piers Anthony seems to understand women about as much as I understand the inner workings of a submarine.
Having given up his rope in his fight with Sol (another major detail we are not told about until after the fact), Sos has not only regained his confidence but taken up fists as his new weapon. I don't recall if we get his new full name (as men in the novel’s world have a monosyllable followed by their weapon of choice), but Sos the Fist sounds…….
Anyway, there is an inevitable rematch, and this time Sos is victorious. The ending here implies that there may be a sequel in the works, but I’m not waiting to see what Anthony does next. 1 out of 5 stars for this installment, and barely 2 out of 5 stars for the novel.
Someone in the zines was complaining that magazines never run worthy poetry anymore, that back in the golden days of the 50s, most of the pieces were memorable.
Keeping up the trend, De Camp offers up a snatch of doggerel comparing the titanic beasts of yore with the primate beasts of now. Pretty pat stuff.
It is amazing the lengths to which people will go to maintain a sinecure. Harry Van Deventer is the richest man in the world, senile and filled with infantile rage and a teen's hormones. His hangers-on can only manage him by keeping his surroundings perfectly controlled—a willing nurse here, an emergency surgery to fix a day's incaution there. But even a 24/7 watch can slip up…
It's hard to imagine a man both so utterly terrible and yet so rich and powerful that so many would endure so much to keep him alive. But I suppose venality trumps all.
Three stars.
The Evaporation of Jugby, by Stephen Barr
Wadsworth Jugby is a big zero, a department store Vice President-without-portfolio, mediocre in every way. He finally gets the opportunity to live life from a different perspective when his friend, Dan Byron, invents a psyche-swapping machine. Intoxicated by his exchange, he eagerly agrees to expand the scope of the experiment, round-robining with six other folks. The end is…well, given away by the title.
Fluff, with one funny line:
"Jugby could suggest a puzzled frown without lowering his eyebrows-some monkeys can do this."
Two stars.
The Dying Lizards, by Isaac Asimov
Last month, the Good Doctor had a terrific article on the dinosaurs. This month, unfortunately, he indulges in speculation, which never works out well.
The topic this time 'round is the sudden death of the dinosaurs. He advances various climatic and medical hypotheses, discarding each one in turn. He poopoos the idea of mammals being "superior" as we existed alongside dinosaurs for most, if not all, of their tenure on Earth. Asimov leaves off with the suggestion that an external event caused it, specifically a nearby supernova that spiked radiation-induced mutations.
Again, I have trouble seeing how the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and icthyosaurs and pleisiosaurs could all have destructive mutations but not the birds and mammals. I think Ike's cute idea that dinosaurs evolved intelligence and killed themselves with powerful weapons, which would have occurred in the blink of an paleontological eye and thus escape excavation, is more plausible.
Three stars.
A Scare in Time, by David R. Bunch
The demarkations of time, the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and centuries, have met in their onion dome. Tired of being measured and metered by humanity, they plot their ultimate revenge…only to have it foiled by human ingenuity.
A cute modern fairy tale. Three stars.
The Moving Finger Types, by Henry Slesar
Twilight Zone department: Legget couldn't figure out what was wrong with his life. It was like his every move was laid down in a script, and he'd lost the page. Little did he know, that's exactly what had happened.
A fun bit on predestination told in Slesar's competent screenwriter fashon.
Four stars.
by Gahan Wilson
Mixed feelings
You can see my problem. If you read from either end of this issue, you've got a good 30 pages of material (and you can count Merril's book column, too, though I rarely agree with her assessments, and her tastes are drifting far afield of SF these days). But if you read through the middle, that's a lot of one-star territory to slog through. A lot.
Is half a loaf better than none? More importantly, is it worth fifty cents a month?
I’ve reviewed some frightening movies in this magazine before – the existential middle-aged angst of Seconds, the gothic horror of Ingmar Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf and the eerie uncanny feeling of Planet of the Vampires, among others. But I’ve never reviewed a movie that’s scary in quite the same way as the new movie Targets.
Targets is frightening because it’s so real. It’s loosely based on the story of the Texas Tower Sniper. This real-life horror happened on August 1, 1966, when a seemingly ordinary man, a Marine veteran named Charles Whitman, climbed the long stairs of the Main Building at the University of Texas with rifles and a sawed-off shotgun and then began indiscriminately opening fire during a class break on campus.
Whitman killed 14 people that day, students walking on the campus mall and people shopping along distant Guadalupe Street, people cowering and people walking innocently. 31 more were injured, stark and frightening numbers we all hope will never be reached again.
A news photo from that terrible day in Austin, Texas.
As subsequent news reports shared, Whitman was a man with a bit of a broken life. He was an orphan who was adopted by an exacting family in which the father was never satisfied. He served in the Marines but never saw battle, instead studying engineering. At the time of his shooting, it seems he was in an unhappy marriage and struggling with mental health. And though we might try to guess what caused Whitman to snap that day, in the end, the inner life of Charles Whitman will always be a mystery. And in that lack of closure lies perhaps the greatest horror of all, because Whitman is a Rorschach test, a person onto whom we can project our own confusion, our fears and our worries about the modern world.
The blurry line between fiction and reality
In Targets our killer has the banal name of Bobby Thompson, played by Tim O’Kelly. Thompson lives in the quiet and peaceful San Fernando Valley. He’s in his 20s, lives with his parents and seems like an ordinary young man who suddenly seems to get into his head to… murder his family brutally.
Director Peter Bogdanovich, in his feature debut, does a fantastic job of creating that shock value for viewers, as we are lulled into a calm, false sense of security. Everything at the Thompson house seems very calm and serene on the surface, very 1968 you might say, in which everything seems quite placid on the surface of things.
And just like in our terrible year of assassinations and wars and riots in the streets, below the surface of a seemingly peaceful existence is an unbelievable amount of roiling turmoil desperately trying to escape.
But in this movie, Bogdanovich also brings in another element, one that really gives this film a smartly designed feeling of tension. Because there’s another plot in this film. Boris Karloff essentially plays himself in this movie, in documentary-like scenes in which washed-up old horror actor Byron Orlok decides he is out of step with the times. Nobody likes his outdated style of horror anymore. His work and his style are no longer relevant, so Orlok has decided to return to London to retire.
Mr. Bogdanovich on the left, Mr. Karloff on the right.
But Orlok’s companion, film director Sammy Michaels – played by director Bogdanovich! – persuades Orlok to make one final public appearance in Los Angeles. They decide to attend a premiere of his final film at a drive-in in LA suburb Reseda and arrange his appearance there.
As the day goes on, we witness two parallel threads. In one, we see Orlok make his preparations to attend the premiere and hear him talk about the changes in modern society from his time in the limelight. In the other, deeply chilling thread, we witness Thompson on top of an oil tank in the San Fernando Valley, assassinating innocent people who are just driving down the freeway.
Those assassination scenes feel like they take an eternity because of the smart ways Bogdanovich, designer Polly Plott and cinematographer László Kovács compose the scene: with bland, sun-washed colors, an alienating sense of distance, the random way Thompson seems to be sprawled on the tanker floor. And his escape is also presented in an equally powerful, equally bland way. Though an oil company employee discovers him, that man is dispatched in an un-cinematic manner and Thompson’s escape does not present him in a light that makes the assassin heroic in any way.
Eventually Thompson flees to a movie theatre, the same theatre where Orlok’s film will be premiering. In an ironical fulfilment his own fears, Orlok’s is rendered irrelevant by the real-world horrors of 1968. We see a few scenes of the film. It looks like a Roger Corman adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story, and ten years ago that film would have fit the times well. But 1968 requires sterner horrors. ‘68 requires Rosemary’s Baby and The Hour of the Wolf and the more existential fears of Planet of the Apes and 2001: A Space Odyssey. It perhaps requires a different type of horror as in The Devil Rides Out. And it requires the profoundly upsetting horror of Targets.
Targets is not a perfect film. It’s a bit fannish feeling, no surprise because Bogdanovch is a prominent writer for film journals and reportedly is working on a documentary of the great director John Ford. Orlok is named after the lead character in the classic 1922 German expressionistic vampire film Nosferatu – a film student reference if I ever heard one – and the slightly postmodern feel of the Orlok scenes take away from the horror of the massacre.
The drive-in before it was full.
But despite that, in this year of Kennedy and King, when Cronkite is talking over scenes from Vietnam every night at 6:00 and American cities are on fire, Targets hits close to the bone. I had real trouble overcoming my sheer personal horror at the events on the screen. In other words, I appreciated the artfulness of this movie but it took every force of will to keep myself in my seat and not walk out on it. Sometimes horror is too difficult to face, or maybe it’s too pervasive to face directly. Maybe we need something more indirect to allow ourselves to appreciate the fear. Poor innocent pregnant Rosemary isn’t like us. But Bobby Thompson? Any of us can snap, for no reason. That evil within every one of us is the most frightening thing I can imagine.
3½ stars – but again, be warned this is a very upsetting film.
The only big news this year is that The New York Giants and New Orleans Saints have switched divisions. The New York Giants had finished second in the Century Division last year and will bring competition to the Dallas-dominated Capitol Division. Hopefully they will not just beat up on Philadelphia and Washington, but if they do, with the advantage of short bus rides to those cities, they’ll be all the more able to knock Dallas off their perch.
Yankee stadium where the Giants played the Packers last October; that's Frank Sinatra and Lee Remick in the foreground.
Meanwhile, the Saints finished dead last in the Capitol Division last year and might do better against the softer teams at the bottom of Century – namely Pittsburgh and St. Louis. They should be pretty evenly matched with St. Louis, and it’ll be fun to see two hot weather teams wrestle it out early in the season, as they do September 29.
The league negotiated these moves to make the divisions more evenly matched, and if that comes to pass, it is good news for football fans. Who wants to watch a one-sided slaughter?
At the draft earlier this year, the Minnesota Vikings traded for the first pick, which they spent on Ron Yary from UCSC, an offensive tackle. This is the first time the number one draft pick was an o-lineman, and about time, I say! Coaches underestimate the vital importance of the line. And Yary is well worth the pick. As a junior, he was moved to the offensive line from defensive line (where he was a PAC-8 all star) and was a consensus All-American as a junior and a unanimous choice in 1967. He was the 1967 winner of both the Outland Trophy and the Knute Rockne Award, awards that annually go to the nation's top collegiate lineman. During Yary's three seasons, the Trojans compiled a 24-7-1 record. I think Minnesota will be well pleased with their pick for many years to come!
The beleaguered Vikings traded their QB Fran Tarkenton to New York for the draft pick. Despite the player it gained them, I cannot agree with being so profligate. Tarkenton threw four TDs in his first game, which was also the Viking’s first game, and no rookie quarterback has accomplished that feat since. For the past six years, Minnesota has suffered the problems typical of a young team, and Tarkenton has been one of their bright spots, leading 8 of the first 10 wins the team had in his first three years. Sure, they only had three wins last year, but remember they had three ties, too. What Tarkenton needed was a stronger offensive line to give his arm time, and now they have it – but no Tarkenton.
We’ll see if Tarkenton provides the spark to take New York forward from their 7-7 season. They’ll also be happy to be away from the constant spanking by the Cleveland Browns, and as that rivalry has been so one-sided lately no one will miss it. While they managed to win one this year, the last time they won against their division rival was five years ago, losing six straight games! I’d be nervous if I were Dallas!
The Giants play their first division game against Dallas on November 10th – though I wish it were in New York for the snow. But if the fine weather and fine home field refs manage to squeak a victory for Dallas, they’ll have to face New York again in New York in December, and I guarantee they won’t win that one. Not a fan of Dallas; I think the team is weaker than their record shows. They got lucky with some simple mistakes and questionable calls in their playoff win against the Browns last year, as was clearly evident when they were easily defeated in the next round by Green Bay.
The Packers and the Cowboys face off at the "Ice Bowl" which culminated last season
Speaking of the Browns, yes, I am pleased that the only team to come close to them is leaving the division, but they don’t need the help. Remember that their record in their “bad year” 1966 was 9-5, same as it was last year. It was pure politics and stat voodoo that kept them out of the playoffs for one year. Last year proved that.
Running Back Leroy Kelly went for over 1,000 yards rushing for the second straight season, along with 11 touchdowns, while Ernie Green, now out of the shadow of Jim Brown, went for over 700 yards for the second year. Frank Ryan showed he’s not so old and beat up after all, throwing for 20 TD passes.
I think Browns head coach Blanton Collier’s done a lot to re-shape the team after the 52-14 playoff loss to Dallas. (I have questions about the officiating in that game, but besides I guarantee the results would have been different in Cleveland. Warm-weather teams don’t play hard in the cold.) Perhaps too much, but it can’t be denied that a lot of our stars are aging out and young blood will do them well.
It’ll be strange to see the Browns without place kicker Lou “The Toe” Groza, who has announced his retirement – yes for the second time, but this time for real. He made 11 of his 23 field goals last year and is the last member of the original Browns team from 1946. For twenty-one seasons he has been a reliable offensive tackle and kicker, helping the team win eight league championships. He holds the NFL record for most points scored by a single player, most field goals made and most extra points made. 234 field goals, 641 extra points, and 1,349 points total! For a man who started out on the offensive line! 1,603 points if you count the pre-NFL years. Groza, at 44, has much of life ahead of him, but the game of football will forever be changed by his presence.
He will be succeeded, but not replaced, by Don Cockroft, who was drafted out of Adams State last year in the third round, a gifted young kicker who will have the advantage of a year studying under Lou.
The Browns spent their early draft picks shoring up the defense. Marvin Upshaw from Trinity will be the only rookie on the tough D-line. John Garlington and Wayne Meylan, from LSU and Nebraska respectively, will join the linebacker core. With a strong, veteran offensive line and two great running backs behind them, Frank Ryan won’t have much to worry about at QB but hiding when and where he hands the ball off.
The season looks pretty soft, too, starting off with the Saints and the Cowboys, who, I repeat, are not as good as their record shows, with two pretty-much guaranteed wins against Pittsburgh and one more chance to beat up New York as a non-division game. I know I say this every year, but this time I feel almost bored with how sure I am. The Browns will go all the way. The Cowboys will find when they have a real division rival in the Giants they won’t even make the playoffs.
But the real winners are the fans. This promises to be a hard-hitting, hard-playing season.
Courtesy of my friends at Royal Holloway’s student and staff film club, I’ve been able to see two horror films recently released in the UK, which will soon have their stateside debut. One is a little patchy but still provides entertainment for the horror fan; the other is already being rightly hailed as a classic of British horror cinema.
Torture Garden
Torture Garden is an anthology movie, a subgenre I quite like as it allows the chance to show shorter, more compact narratives along a particular theme. This one, also, is written by Robert Bloch, a master of short, wickedly pointed, stories.
Burgess Meredith as Doctor Diabolo. Can you guess who he really is?
Through the framing device of a carnival horror-show hosted by Doctor Diabolo (Burgess Meredith), who offers customers a glimpse of their possible sinister fates, this film brings us four narratives linked by a common theme of people being driven by desire or ambition to commit horrible deeds. In the first, a man (Michael Bryant), desperately in debt, murders his uncle (Maurice Denham) to get his hands on his inheritance, only to find out that his uncle’s source of income is more supernatural and sinister than he believed. In the second, an ambitious film starlet (Beverly Adams) learns that Hollywood is, in fact, run by literal immortals, and is given the chance to join them. In the third, a celebrity pianist (John Standing) becomes the object of a rivalry between his fiancée (Barbara Ewing) and a possessed piano. In the final story, a Poe collector (Jack Palance) finds that a rival enthusiast (Peter Cushing) has managed to capture the ultimate piece of Poe memorabilia—the undead writer himself.
As the above should indicate, the film has an excellent cast, and is produced by Milton Subotsky, whom readers of this journal should remember from the two Doctor Who movies. Amicus, the production company, has form on producing anthology movies, having put out Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors three years ago. The strongest segments are the first and last, with the first story featuring a credibly demonic cat, and the final one providing a wry metaphor for the way in which collectors—and fans—enter into exploitative relationships with writers.
Peter Cushing is of course one of the best things in the movie.
The film unfortunately lacks the cohesion of the best anthology movies. While, as I noted, there’s a linking theme between the episodes, it doesn’t particularly connect to the framing story, and, while it shares the concept with Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors of people being shown how to avoid a disastrous fate, the “twist” at the end is nowhere near as clever as the one in the earlier movie. The Hollywood segment is poorly characterised, full of excuses to show women in their underwear, and has an antisemitic subtext that made me rather uncomfortable (I suspect that Bloch, himself of Jewish ancestry, was trying to satirise the idea of a Jewish cabal running Hollywood, but it doesn’t quite manage to convey the right tone). While I quite like the concept of a sentient piano becoming attached to its owner, it’s difficult to find its attacks on its human rival anything other than ridiculous. Two and a half out of five stars.
The Devil Rides Out
Based on a novel by Dennis Wheatley, produced by current kings of the UK horror scene Hammer Films, and starring Christopher Lee, The Devil Rides Out is a much more polished and focused production.
Lee plays Nicholas, Duc de Richelieu, who, together with his friend Rex van Ryn (Leon Greene) has come to the UK to visit his late friend’s son Simon (Patrick Mower), in whom he takes an avuncular interest, only to learn that Simon has fallen in with a Satanic cult. The story follows de Richelieu and van Ryn’s efforts to rescue Simon and a young female cultist named Tanith (Nike Arrighi) from the clutches of Satanic priest Morcata (Charles Gray). Adapted by Richard Matheson, the plot is a fairly straightforward one of (supernatural) good versus (supernatural) evil, without any of the twists and ironies of many recent horror movies, and, much as I enjoy those, I also found the narrative here refreshing and satisfying.
Christopher Lee is horrified at a Satanic orgy
Simon is played by a newcomer on the scene, Patrick Mower, who is certainly one to watch; although handsome and strong-jawed, he has a sinister quality which makes the idea of him falling in with Satanists believable. It’s good to see Christopher Lee playing a hero for once, escaping his usual typecasting as a monster, even if the chemistry between him and Charles Gray isn’t quite as compelling as that between him and Peter Cushing. There is a very well-done giant spider effect at one point, and fans of vintage cars will be delighted by all the 1920s and 1930s roadsters on display. There are elements of the new folk-horror genre in the scenes of English cultists cavorting in the woods of Hampshire.
Less positively, the film draws some associations between non-White people and Satanism that left me rather uncomfortable: the heroes are all English (and upper-class), but the cult boasts African and Indian members, and, when a demon is summoned at one point, it takes the form of a grinning, pop-eyed and semi-clad Black man. The spider aside, some of the effects are rather unconvincing, and the cult has so many members that one wonders how it manages to keep itself secret. There’s a slight hint of the exploitation genre that seems unfortunately popular now, and the fact that the youth in question aren’t inherently evil but are being led astray by an older person (and need to be rescued by another older person) doesn’t do much to mitigate that.
Charles Gray as cult leader Mocata
Nonetheless, this is Hammer on good form, providing a strong narrative with a satisfying conclusion and a lot of credible shocks and tension. The combination of good source material with a competent screenplay and plenty of talent behind and in front of the camera is a sure winner. Four out of five stars.
If you, like Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley (and me), soldiered through the four days and nights of GOP convention coverage, you saw the drama unfold in Miami Beach as it happened. Dick Nixon came into the event a "half-inch" shy of having the nomination sewed up, his chief competition coming from New York governor Nelson Rockefeller. California governor Ronald Reagan, best known for his Chesterfield cigarette ads, coyly denied that he was a candidate…until he suddenly was, in a desperate bid to court "the New South".
The suspense was all a bit forced. By Day Two, it was understood that the New Jersey delegation, which had been putatively firm in supporting native son Senator Clifford Case through the first ballot so as to be able to play kingmaker later on, was now breaking for Nixon. On Day Three, South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who had expressed that his first and second choices were Ronald Reagan, suddenly declared his support for Nixon.
And so, after endless seconding speeches for candidates who had no intention of being President, like Governor Hatfield of Oregon and "dead duck" Governor Romney of Michigan, Nixon won on the first ballot.
After that, the only unknown was who would be his running mate. The South made loud objections to any GOP liberals being tapped, like New York mayor John Lindsay and Illinois Senator Charles Percy. The smart money was on a Southerner like John Tower of Texas or Howard Baker of Tennessee. So everyone was surprised when Maryland governor Spiro Agnew got the nod at a press conference the morning of Day 4, overwhelmingly winning the ballot that night (though not without loud protest from Romney's Michigan contingent).
Why Agnew? Here were a couple of comments from the NBC reporter pool after the convention:
"It's not that Agnew adds anything to the ticket; it's that he doesn't take anything away."
"Everybody loves Agnew–no one's ever heard of him!"
Agnew, who is kind of a Southerner, and kind of a liberal, but who has recently come out in favor of strong "law and order" (which means urging cops to shoot Baltimoreans if they steal shoes), will enable Nixon to retain his chameleon qualities while Agnew acts as attack dog. And since being the actual Vice Presidency is worth exactly one half-full bucket of warm piss, it doesn't really matter that Agnew is brand new to large scale politics.
Long story short, Nixon is the One, which we've known since February. God help us all.
Live from New York!
When Galaxy first appeared in 1950, it was also "the One", breathing fresh new air into the science fiction genre. 18 years later, it is still a regular on the ballot for the Hugo Award. Last month's was a superlative issue; does this month's mag maintain that level of quality?
Silverbob presents a richly drawn future world, one in which humanity has soared to great heights only to stumble back to savagery twice. Now, thousands of years later, Earth is in its Third Cycle. The planet is an intergalactic backwater, and its people are rigidly divided into castes.
Our heroes are a Watcher, a Flier, and a Changeling. The first, whose viewpoint we share, is an aged itinerant, hauling in a wagon his arcane tools with which he clairvoys the heavens three times a day (or is it four? The author says both.) for any signs of an alien invasion. The Flier Avluela, the only woman in the story, is a spare youth who is able to soar on dragonfly wings when the cosmic wind is not too strong. And finally, there is Gorman, who has no caste, yet has such a broad knowledge of history that he could pose as a Rememberer.
art by Jack Gaughan
All roads lead to Rome, so it is said, and indeed the three end up in history-drenched Roum, where the Watcher finds the city overcrowded with his caste. The cruel Prince of Roum, a Dominator, takes a shine to Avluela, compelling her to share his bed. This incenses Gormon, the crudely handsome mutant, who vows his revenge.
Gormon has the advantage of knowing that justice will not be long delayed–the alien invasion is coming, and he is an advance scout…
There's something hollow about this tale, rather in the vein of lesser Zelazny. Oh, it's prettily and deliberately constructed, but the story's characters are merely observers rather than actors. The stage is set and the inevitable happens. When the alien conquest occurs, it is our Watcher who sounds the alarm, but it is implied others were about to do so (why they did not cry out the night before when the invasion first became apparent is left an inadequately explained mystery). It's a story that doesn't really say or do anything.
Beyond that, I object to the lone female existing to be loved and/or raped, depending on the man involved. She is there to be a pretty companion, a object of pity, a tormented vessel. I suppose the small mercy is she is not also a harpy, as Silverberg is occasionally wont to present his women.
Anyway, I give it just three stars, but I imagine it'll be a Hugo contender next year…
A weird mix of sex, cannibalism, and archetypes. I found it distasteful and out of place.
One star.
Find the Face, by Ross Rocklynne
One of science fiction's eldest veterans offers up this romantic piece. It has the old-fashioned narrative framework, with an aged tramp freighter captain describing the day he was contracted by a wealthy widow, and what ensued afterwards. The widow's husband and family had been lost in a space accident, but somehow, his face remained, etched across the sky in cosmic clouds and star clusters. The widow saw this phenomenon once, and she was determined to find from what vantage in the universe it could be reliably observed again.
The captain, meanwhile, was looking for Cuspid, the planet whence the green horses that sired his favorite racer came. Together, they went off on their separate quests, and in the process, found the one thing neither had been looking for: new love.
It's something of a mawkish story and nothing particularly memorable. That said, it is sweet, almost like a romantic A. B. Chandler piece, and I appreciated the two characters being oldsters rather than spring chickens. Moreover, these were not ageless immortals, but silver-haired and wrinkle-faced septuagenarians.
In the early 21st Century, Project Ozma continues, despite fifty years of drawing a blank; even with the efforts of dozens of astronomers, hundreds of staff, and the entire survey calendar of the great Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, not a single extraterrestrial signal has been encountered. Low morale and lack of purpose are the rule amongst these dispirited sentinels.
This is an odd story, with much discussion and development, but no resolution. At times, the author hints that a message is forthcoming, or maybe even already being received, if only the listeners could crack the code to understand it. But the climax to the tale has little to do with the story's backbone, and, as with Nightwings, the characters drift rather than do.
It feels like the beginning of a novel, not a complete story. Larry Niven could probably have done a lot more with the piece in about half the space.
Three stars.
For Your Information: Mission to a Comet, by Willy Ley
Now this piece, I dug. Willy Ley talks about why comets are important to understanding the early history of the solar system, and which ones could feasibly be approached with our current rocket and probe technology. The little chart with all the astronomical details of the Earth-approaching comets was worth the piece all by itself. I particularly liked the idea of Saturn for a "swing-around" mission to catch up with Halley's Coment from behind!
We truly live in an SFnal reality. Five stars.
The Wonders We Owe DeGaulle, by Lise Braun
art by Brock
Newcomer Lise Braun offers up a droll travel guide to a mauled Earth. It seems a French bomb that exploded in Algeria sundered our planet's crust, sinking half the Americas and turning the Sahara into a stained glass plain.
It's mildly diverting but Braun's clumsy writing shows her clearly a novice. I think the setting would have served better as background than a nonfact piece.
Lastly, the conclusion to Leiber's latest serial, a sort of fairytale version of a hard science epic. The "Specter" is really a spaceman named de la Cruz, a gaunt, eight-foot figure kept erect by an electric exoskeleton, denizen of a circumlunar colony. He has been the centerpiece of a Mexican revolution, which is trying to throw off the literal yokes (cybernetic and hypnotic) forced upon the Mesoamerican race by post-Apocalyptic Texans. The spaceman's comrades include two quite capable and comely freedom fighters, Raquel Vaquel, daughter of the governor of Texas province, and Rosa ("La Cucaracha"), a high-spirited Chicana; then there's Guchu, a Black Buddhist, reluctantly working with the ofays; Dr. Fanninowicz, a Teutonic technician with fascist sympathies; Father Francisco; and El Toro, a charismatic leader in the revolution.
In this installment, de la Cruz finally makes it to Yellow Knife, where he wishes to lay claim to a valuable pitchblende (uranium) deposit. Unfortunately, the Texans have gotten there first–and what they have established on the site finally reveals just what all those purple-illumined towers they've been planting across the North American continent are for. 'T'ain't nothin' good, I can assure you!
Last month, I read a fanzine where someone complained that this was a perfectly good story ruined by being turned into a tongue-in-cheek fable. Certainly, I felt the same way for a while. By Part II, however, I was fully onboard. While this last bit didn't thrill me quite as much as the middle installment, it's still a worthy novel overall. When it comes out in paperback, pick it up.
Four stars for this section and for the serial as a whole.
art by Jack Gaughan
Roll Call
Like the Republican convention, the outcome seemed certain, but a few twists and turns along the way did create a bit of doubt. But in the end, if this month's Galaxy is perhaps not all the magazine we hoped it would be, nevertheless, it's one we can live with.
For the time being, Galaxy remains The One. May it continue to be so for four more years.
![[August 30, 1968] TV or Not TV, That is The Question (<i>They Saved Hitler's Brain</i> and <i>Mars Needs Women</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled-2.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
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![[August 26, 1968] No time for a breath (Summer space round-up)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/680826essa7.jpg?resize=629%2C372&ssl=1)
![[August 24, 1968] Here, There, and Nowhere (August 1968 Galactoscope)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/680824galactoscope.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[August 22, 1968] Vive de Gaul– Asterix the Gaul Movie](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/H0472-L230456154.jpeg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[August 20, 1968] A tale of two issues (September 1968 <i>Fantasy and Science Fiction</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/680820cover.jpg?resize=659%2C372&ssl=1)
![[August 18, 1968] The Horror is Real (<i>Targets</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/680818targets.jpg?resize=500%2C372&ssl=1)
![[August 16, 1968] Brown is the color of my true love team (the NFL in 1968)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/680824cowboyspackers.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[August 14, 1968] The World, the Flesh and Charles Gray (the horror movies <i>Torture Garden</i> and <i>The Devil Rides Out</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/680814posters-1.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[August 12, 1968] <i>Galaxy's the One</i>? (the September 1968 <i>Galaxy</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/680812cover-1-scaled.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
