Unions have been a positive for workers. They’re why we have the 40-hour work week, overtime pay, paid time off, why blue collar workers are able to buy a house, not to mention not owing their soul to the company store; I’m old enough to remember when none of those things were a given. Of course, as human institutions, they are also flawed, and where money and power flows, those flaws can turn to worse things. That’s what gives many politicians—and the editor of a certain science fiction magazine—a pretext to rail against them.
One of the most important unions this century has been the United Mine Workers of America. Much of that stems from the four decades of leadership by John L. Lewis, who died last June. Lewis took a well-earned retirement in 1960 and was replaced by his vice president Thomas Kennedy. Old and in poor health, Kennedy was largely a caretaker and was soon followed by Lewis’ chosen successor, W.A. “Tough Tony” Boyle.
Lewis ran the UMWA with an iron fist, ignoring demands by the rank-and-file for a greater say in the union. He maintained his power through skill, charisma, and reputation. Boyle has run things with a similar style, but lacks most of what kept Lewis in charge. There’s even a feeling among the membership that he tends to favor the interests of the mine owners over the workers.
Enter Joseph “Jock” Yablonski. He was one of the leading figures in the opposition to Boyle’s policies. He had also been the president of the UMW’s District 5 until Boyle unilaterally stripped him of office in 1965. Last May, Yablonski announced he would challenge Boyle for the UMW presidency in the December election and was formally nominated in September. Boyle won the election on December 9th by an almost 2-to-1 margin, and Yablonski conceded. However after seeing the detailed election results, Yablonski promptly asked the Department of Labor to investigate the election. On the 18th, he also filed five civil lawsuits in federal court against the UMW over a variety of irregularities.
On January 5th, Yablonski’s older son, Kenneth, discovered the bodies of Yablonski, his wife Margaret, and their 25-year-old daughter Charlotte in their home in Clarksville, Pennsylvania. The next day 20,000 miners in West Virginia staged a one-day wildcat strike in protest against Tony Boyle, who they believe is responsible for the murders. Hours after the Yablonskis were buried, several of his supporters met with his attorney to plan further actions to reform the union.
As I write, the police have no leads. A $60,000 reward has been offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction. I don’t want to point any fingers without evidence, but an awful lot of people close to Yablonski are looking hard at Tony Boyle and the acrimony surrounding last month’s election.
Corrupt institutions
Most of this month’s Venture is given over to the new Keith Laumer novel, which spends quite a while with miners. But it and the other stories in the issue deal with corruption, both institutional and personal.
A not very representational image for Laumer’s new story. Art by Bert Tanner
Lt. Ban Tarleton is the son of an admiral and a proud member of the United Planetary Navy. He firmly believes in the status quo and holds no truck with rebellious Hatenik philosophy. But a purge leads to his discovery of some unpleasant facts, eventually resulting in him being cashiered from the Navy and sentenced to permanent exile on a harsh Class I planet. There, he finds work as a miner and makes a discovery that may give him the power to bring the whole system down.
Ban must use his best friend’s corpse as a trap. Art by Bert Tanner
Laumer is probably best known for his comedic stories, particularly those about the interstellar diplomat Retief, but he mostly writes serious stuff. Those tales come in two flavors: two-fisted adventure and thoughtful pieces that frequently tug at “masculine” emotions like duty and sacrifice. The Star Treasure is very much in the former category, but it also differs from Laumer’s usual approach.
Laumer’s typical adventure protagonist is an old-school Competent Man writ very large. Ban, on the other hand, blunders from episode to episode, generally succeeding through dumb luck. Laumer also tends to go wildly off the rails, often to the point of the surreal, investing his protagonists with incredible powers or giving them an alien background of which the were unaware. This one goes off the rails, too, but it’s right at the end. That usually happens around the mid-point. I guess this counterbalances The Seeds of Gonyl, where it happens on page one.
An ambitious but untalented colonel is captured and tortured by the enemy. There are a number of science-fictional elements.
Looks more like Neil Diamond to me. Art by Craig Robertson
It’s hard to say much about this story without simply retelling it. There is one thing that kept me from liking it: The colonel has a cat, and the cat dies. Twice. I understand how it fits in the story, but it put me off completely.
Anyway, McIntyre seems to be new. I don’t know if that V. hides a Virginia or a Virgil and can’t make a guess based on the writing either. Either way, there are signs of some solid talent. More from this author would not be amiss—just leave the cats alone.
Objectively three stars, but only two from me for reasons already stated.
Disposal, by Ron Goulart
You probably don’t think about how much trash you and your family generate. Someone in the house takes the cans to the curb on the appointed day and brings back the empties once the truck has been by. What would happen if that didn’t happen? What if there wasn’t a nearby dump you could take the trash to yourself? Goulart asks those questions with a slight science-fictional twist.
Although the story takes place in Goulart’s old stomping grounds of San Francisco, I recall reading that he recently moved to New York City. It would have been after the great garbage strike of a couple years ago, but he may have been inspired by horror stories from the locals. His typical satirical style is fully in evidence, but he keeps the outright wackiness in check.
Three stars.
Standoff, by Robert Toomey
A human and an alien find themselves on opposite sides of an asteroid after their ships were destroyed in combat. Hostilities are extreme, and neither side takes prisoners. If they work together, the two might find a way for both to survive.
As the situation of the story became clear to me, I expected something like John Boorman’s 1968 film Hell in the Pacific (starring Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune). That might have been Toomey’s original inspiration, with a possible assist from the 1965 Frank Sinatra feature None But the Brave, but that’s not where the story goes. The ending might be darker than either of those films.
A high three stars.
Summing up
Elsewhere in the issue, we get a “super Feghoot,” which is twice the usual length at a full page. Unfortunately, the pun is extremely tortured, resulting in one of the worst Feghoots I’ve ever read. Meanwhile, Ron Goulart has finally found a book he likes. Two, in fact. One is a Doc Savage reprint, the other A Wilderness of Stars, an anthology edited by William F. Nolan. Most of the stories seem to be from the 1950s. I’m not to sure that Ron is all that keen on the modern state of science fiction, even the old fashioned stuff.
So, a rather middle-of-the-road issue. However, it’s dominated by the condensed novel, far more so than any of the previous issues. If we have to have a novel in every issue, let’s at least make it something shorter so we can have a couple more stories as well.
Wellen’s written some good stuff, so I hope this more than the pot-boiler thriller it appears to be.
Every December, the American Geophysical Union holds its Fall Meeting in San Francisco. There, a number of papers are presented on a wide variety of topics in fields such as geology, oceanography, meteorology, space, and many more. Usually, it might produce a paragraph or two in the back pages of your newspaper on an attempt to predict earthquakes or some new information about the Moon, but this year’s meeting garnered headlines (hardly front page news, but more than just filler). Most of attention went to the proposal to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon to build up a seismological picture of our neighbor and the news that Apollo 12 was struck by lightning twice as it rose into the skies above Florida. However, it was another article that caught my eye.
Most of the column inches went to a presentation by Dr. E.D. Goldberg of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. He spoke of the “complex ecological questions” raised by the amount of toxic substances we’re dumping into the ocean. The use of lead in gasoline results in 250,000 tons winding up in the ocean every year, over and above the 150,000 tons that are washed there naturally. Oil tankers and other ships discharge a million tons of oil into the sea annually, with the result that there are “cases of fish tasting of petroleum.” Mackerel had to be taken off the market in Los Angeles due to unacceptable levels of DDT, while in Japan 200 people were poisoned and 40 died before authorities traced the cause to mercury discharged into Minimata Bay by a chemical company. Dr. Goldberg asked, “Will [pollution] alter the ocean as a resource? Will we lose the ocean?”
Dr. Edward D. Goldberg of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, California
That seems like the sort of pollution we can do something about. Perhaps more concerning is the warning provided by J.O. Fletcher of the Rand Corporation. Fletcher is a retired Air Force Colonel, best known for being part of the crew that landed a plane at the North Pole and for establishing a weather station on tabular iceberg T-3 (now known as Fletcher’s Ice Island), which is still in use. He called carbon dioxide the most important atmospheric pollutant today. It is responsible for one-third to one-half of the warming thus far in the 20th century. The human contribution may surpass that of nature within a few decades. Global warming could increase the melting of the polar ice caps and change the Earth’s climate.
Col. Fletcher (r.) on his ice island in 1952. This was the most recent photo of him I could find.
Fletcher’s warning was underscored by Dr. William W. Kellogg of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who stressed the need to educate people that “man has got to change his way.” He added that global climate is going to have to become a problem that can be managed.
Dr. William W. Kellogg of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colorado
If the warnings of Fletcher and Kellogg sound familiar, that’s because you read it in IF first. Back in the April, 1968 issue, Poul Anderson had a guest editorial talking about the dangers of increased warming. In the August issue of the same year, Fred Pohl had an editorial warning about increasing levels of carbon dioxide. [And Isaac Asimov wrote about it back in 1958! (ed.)] An article from UPI has a much wider reach than IF, and people are more likely to take working scientists more seriously than a couple of science fiction writers. Let’s hope they pay attention.
Pressure Tests
It’s not uncommon for authors to put their characters through the wringer, pushing them to or even past their breaking point. Some would argue it’s the best way to get a story out of a setting and characters. Several of the stories in this month’s IF have taken that approach, though one subject has an awfully low tolerance for stress.
Cover by Gaughan. Supposedly suggested by Whipping Star, but it looks more like it illustrates Pressure Vessel to me.
Pressure Vessel, by Ben Bova
Robert O’Banion is second in command on a mission into the depths of Jupiter, looking for life. Grieving over the loss of his wife, he only feels truly comfortable when he is connected to the ship and its computer, flying the vessel like it’s his own body. Add in a general sense of urgency and friction between the scientific and military members of the small crew, and there’s a lot of tension.
Art by Gaughan: O’Banion hooked up to the ship.
Bova has written a couple of stories about Dr. Sidney Lee, in which humanity is desperately seeking the aliens who built the strange machines on Titan, still working after millennia or even longer. Lee doesn’t appear in this story, but the protagonist’s wife knew Lee on Titan and fell in love with him there. There are some flaws in the tale—notably the protagonist’s psychological suitability for the mission—but it’s still very strong.
Four stars.
A Matter of Recordings, by Larry Eisenberg
Another of Eisenberg’s awful Emmett Duckworth stories. This time, Duckworth has come up with a way to record memories so they can be played back to anyone. The usual nonsense follows.
Two stars.
Can recordings made in a harem stop a revolution? Art uncredited, but probably by Gaughan
Prez, by Ron Goulart
Norbert Penner is looking forward to spending the winter alone with his girlfriend on her family’s palatial estate. Unfortunately, he doesn’t like her dog, the titular Prez. Worse, thanks to cybernetic enhancements, Prez can talk and has the intelligence of a 10-year-old. He’s able to make very clear that the feeling is mutual without having to pee on Penner’s leg.
Prez recharging his batteries. Art by Gaughan
This is a fairly typical Goulart comedy, though not as wacky as some. If you like those—and I do—you’ll like this one.
Three stars.
The Cube, by C.M. Drahan
Humans and the E-tees have been at war from the moment they first made contact. The Telepath chosen as humanity’s representative for the truce talks on a remote planetoid seems remarkably unsuited for the task.
Art by Gaughan
Drahan is this month’s new author. Unfortunately, there’s no biographical information, so I don’t know anything about the person behind the initials. It’s a decent debut. Bits of the story may come across as confused with a casual reading, but careful attention should make everything clear. This is an author I’m willing to see more from.
Three stars.
A Game of Biochess, by T.J. Bass
On a layover at a space station, tramp trader Spider meets Rau Lou during a chess game (biochess refers to a game against a biological opponent, rather than a computer). The two hit it off, but not on a sexual level. When Spider has a big score that will let him upgrade his ship to a two-person crew, Olga the ship’s computer suggests Rau Lou. However, she has disappeared, so Spider and Olga go looking for her.
Spider makes his way to the wreck of Rau Lou’s ship. Art by Gaughan
Bass is shaping up to be a pretty good writer. He still needs to work on throwing around medical terminology (Bass is a doctor), but he has reined it in this time. I only had to pull down my dictionary once. Otherwise, this is a fine story with a nice twist at the end.
A high three stars.
Hired Man, by Richard C. Meredith
A human mercenary working for an alien employer is the only survivor of a raid on a human settlement. The pay is excellent, and the offer for a six-month extension will set him up for a long time.
Power armor, but this mercenary is no Johnny Rico. Art by Gaughan
All the previous Meredith stories I can think of have been brutal war tales with depth. This one is no different. The ending hits the protagonist with a question the reader has probably been asking all along.
Four stars.
Fruit of the Vine, by George C. Willick
The smuggling of flora and fauna between the worlds of the Federation is punishable with death. Somehow, grape varieties suitable for wine-making have reached almost every world. This story weaves three threads together: the official search for the smugglers, a group known as the Entertainers, and a skid row bum staggering through a winter night.
Art by Gaughan
There are a lot of flaws in this story. It’s fairly obvious how two of the three threads tie together, the whole thing is too long, and the set-up is a little hard to believe. While the desire to keep potentially hazardous plants and animals from moving between worlds is commendable, are there really 49 habitable worlds where people can and are willing to eat the local produce from the moment they arrive? But it’s told well.
Three stars.
Dry Run, by J.R. Pierce
General Devlin, D.I.A., is a special adviser to the Prime Minister on the Panda War. In this case, D.I.A. stands for Demon In Attendance, not Defense Intelligence Agency. His job seems awfully easy.
Probably not Devlin. Art by Gaughan
This is a fun, little story that proposes something I’m sure many of us have thought at times. The Vietnam analog is obvious, but not overdone. While it might be trivial, the whole thing doesn’t overstay its welcome.
The alien Caleban Fanny Mae has signed an unbreakable contract with the human Mliss Abnethe, allowing herself to be whipped. The flagellations are killing Fanny Mae, and if she dies nearly every sentient being in the galaxy will die with her. It’s up to Saboteur Extraordinaire Jorj McKie to stop Mliss.
In this installment, McKie tracks Mliss to an impossibly primitive planet, where he finds himself imprisoned. We also learn that there is someone else driving Mliss to do what she’s doing. Time travel may also be involved. To be continued.
McKie favors the Bond school of defusing traps by walking into them. Art by Gaughan
I’m not sure if I really like this story, but it is keeping my interest. In many ways, this feels more like the Frank Herbert who wrote The Dragon in the Sea than the navel-gazer we’ve seen of late. There’s more action in the first chapter of this installment than in the whole of Dune Messiah. It remains to be seen how well he handles the interesting questions he’s asked so far.
Three stars.
Summing up
Elsewhere in the magazine, Lester del Rey is back in form, offering actual criticism over mere review. He might be the best reviewer in the magazines right now. I’d say his only competition is Joanna Russ over in F&SF. Meanwhile, Ejler Jakobsson’s answers in the letter column offer quite a bit of news. Philip José Farmer is working on a Riverworld novel, the promised new issue of Worlds of Tomorrow is coming soon, and there will be news about the IF First program in the near future.
All in all, not a bad issue. A couple of excellent stories and only one clunker out of nine. Jakobsson is turning out to be a fine replacement for Fred Pohl.
[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]
by Gideon Marcus
Pan Am makes the going great!
Thousands turned out in Everett, Washington, for the roll-out of the first jumbo jet ever built. The "wide-bodied" Boeing 747 can carry a whopping 362 passengers; compare that to the 189 carried by the 707 that inaugurated the "Jet Age" a decade ago. Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) took delivery of the aircraft, which flew to Nassau, Bahamas, thenceforth to New York.
Originally scheduled for regular service on Dec. 15, things have been pushed back to January 18. That's because 28 of the world's airlines have placed orders for 186 of these monsters, including American Airlines, which has ordered 16. Since their shipment won't arrive until June, and as air travel is strictly regulated in this country by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), which ensures fairness of rates, routes, and other aspects of competition, the CAB ordered a delay until Pan Am leases American one of its fleet.
As impressive as the 747 is, it constitutes something of a bridge, aeronautically speaking. Very soon, we will have supersonic transports plying the airlanes. Eventually, we may even have hypersonic derivatives of the reusable "space shuttle", currently under development at NASA. The jumbo jet will allow for economical, subsonic flights until passenger travel goes faster than sound, at which point, the 747 will make an excellent freighter.
These are exciting times for the skies! And with that, let's see if we've also got exciting times in space…
John Campbell makes the going… hard
What Supports Apollo?, by Ben Bova and J. Russell Seitz
Apropos of the aeronautically pioneering theme, the first piece in this issue is a science article on what supports the Apollo, literally: the enormous Vehicle Assembly Building, where the three stages of the Saturn V are put together; the crawler that the rocket rides to the launch pad, and the 30-story gantry at the launch pad.
The mobile launcher (left) and the Saturn on the crawler (right)
It's a lot of numbers told in a wide-eyed fashion, but I enjoyed it. The pictures are nice, too.
Four stars.
The Wild Blue Yonder, by Robert Chilson
by Vincent diFate(right)
Engineer Ted Halsman had bought an old mine in rural Ohio and stuffed it with all kinds of advanced equipment. When the mine explodes with the force of an atomic blast, Halsman goes on the run, asserting that his discovery will warp the future of humanity if it escapes his clutches.
Told in documentary fashion, this story goes on waaaaay too long. Along the way, much speculation is made about the nature of the blast, and how it might require rewriting the laws of physics. That the speculations are patently absurd does a bit to foreshadow the joke ending. On the other hand, that ending is also rather implausible.
Beyond that, we're meant to sympathize with Halsman, who idly dreams of returning to civilization, decades after successfully escaping from it. That he murdered half a dozen people in cold blood while fleeing is glossed over.
Two stars.
The Proper Gander, by A. Bertram Chandler
by Leo Summers
A thoroughly humanoid flying-saucer pilot is reprimanded for being too showy about his jaunts to Earth. His bosses decide the best defense against discovery is hiding in plain sight: a saucer is ordered to land in front of a commuter, and out strolls a vivacious, thoroughly humanoid "Officer's Comfort Second Class" who claims she is from Venus. Since modern humans know Venus is uninhabitable, the saucer people figure that future sightings will be written off as gags or delusions.
This story is both stupid and sexist, both in spades. One star.
Curfew, by Bruce Daniels
A young Martian by the name of Matheson comes to Earth for the reading of his uncle's will. Said uncle was an inventor and a corporate spy, and his legacy includes some rather valuable patents that could be explosive in the wrong hands. Others are already after the secret, and in addition to dodging them, Matheson must meet with a shady unknown at night, outside the safety of his hotel.
Therein lines the inspiration for the story's title: as a solution to the crime problem, there is a night-long curfew enforced by mechanical beasts and aircraft. Can Matheson brave the rigors of his homeworld long enough to claim his prize?
This piece is somewhat juvenile in tone, but not bad. Three stars.
This story appears to take place in the same universe as "His Master's Vice", because that's the other place we've seen Prox(y)Ad(miral)s. In this tale, we've got a prison escapee named Olivine who has made a break with four other convicts. He heads out to a planet that he knows (as a former ProxAd) has been restricted and bears a resource of great value. Of course, the suspicious ease of Olivine's escape suggests that the authorities have a reason for letting him and his band scout out this world for them…
It's cute, in a Chris Anvil sort of way, though the space patrol must have been close to prescient to anticipate all of the twists and turns the story takes. Three stars, barely.
And now, Part 2 of the serial started last month, in which an Israeli scientists flees to Denmark to develop anti-gravity.
In this installment, Denmark builds a proper anti-grav spaceship, adapted from a giant hovercraft. We learn that its pilot likes to sleep around, and his wife is being leaned on by the CIA to steal secrets from the project. In all of this issue's 50 pages, the only scene that really matters is when the discoverer of the effect, Leif Holm, newly minted Minister for Space, gives a speech from the Moon. The rest is superfluous building scenes or bits with the pilot's wife, who exists solely to be weak, vulnerable, and jealous, so she can be traitorous.
"Did you read about our Mars visit?" is a line that is actually in the book, and I thought at that point, "No! But I'd have liked to!"
Also, can a diesel tractor really work on the Moon even with oxygen cylinders? And are the Danestronauts doing anything to sterilize their equipment, or are they just blithely contaminating the Moon?
I'm really not enjoying this one very much. Harrison is sleepwalking. Two stars.
The Reference Library: To Buy a Book (Analog, January 1970), by P. Schuyler Miller
Miller prefaces his book column with a fascinating piece on how books are distributed. In short, they aren't…not for very long, anyway. The titles sit on shelves for a vanishingly brief time, and unless the booksellers know they can sell a bunch, chances are they won't bother ordering any. The profit margin's just not there. This is a phenomenon I know very well as an author, and I don't imagine the paradigm will change for the next half century or so (until we all switch over to digital books, computer-delivered, as Mack Reynolds predicts).
There's also a nice plug for Bjo Trimble's Star Trek Concordance, a comprehensive encyclopedia of all topics from the show. Then Miller gushes over a trio of reprint Judith Merril novellas, Daughters of Earth, the recently novelized Leiber serial, A Specter is Haunting Texas, and the very recently novelized Silverberg serial, Up the Line. His praise is slightly muted for Alexander Key's juvenile, The Golden Enemy.
It is appropriate that, on the eve of the dawn of a new era of air travel, Analog is continuing a serial about a new era of space travel. But despite that subject matter, this issue is straight out of Dullsville, continuing a flight into mediocrity that has been going on for many years now.
With a score of 2.5, this month's issue is only beaten to the bottom by the perennial stinker, Amazing (2.4). It is roughly tied with New Worlds (2.5), and exceed by IF (2.7), Vision of Tomorrow (3.2), and Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.5).
Aside from that superlative last magazine, it's been something of a drab month: you could take all the 4-5 star stuff and you'd have less than two full magazine's worth. And women wrote just 4% of the pieces.
Is this any way to run a genre?
[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]
I had low expectations for Captain Nemo and the Underwater City, thinking it would be a bit of enjoyably fluffy escapism. For the most part this is true, but it does have a few things to recommend it beyond that.
Poster for Captain Nemo and the Underwater City
The Nautilus rescues a small band of survivors from a shipwreck, and takes them to, yes, an underwater city founded by Captain Nemo (Robert Ryan) called Templemer (everyone pronounces it Temple-mere, which makes it sound like a small town in the Home Counties or possibly a plantation in the Old South). They include a plucky and intelligent widow (Nanette Newman) with a young son (Christopher Hartstone), a rugged-faced American senator (Chuck Connors), two comedy Cockney wide-boys (Bill Fraser and Kenneth Connor), a cute and suspiciously well-behaved kitten (name unknown), and an engineer who is clearly about to go over the edge of sanity (Allan Cuthbertson).
Templemer is a utopian community where food and drink and education are free, everyone lives their best lives, and gold is as common as steel is for us. At this point I rolled my eyes, expecting that the surface people would all decide that There’s No Place Like Home and plot to escape this perfectly decent hippie paradise; however, in fact, the newcomers are divided on that point, and their reasons for wanting to leave or stay are all in character and plausible.
Nemo's guests are less than thrilled at their accommodation.
The movie explores the frequently-asked question of our time: whether it’s better to engage with the problems of society or just to tune in, turn on and drop out, building a better world outside instead. Nemo and his cohorts have definitely chosen the latter, while Senator Fraser’s reason for wanting to return to the surface is to do the former. The story explicitly takes place at the time of the American Civil War, and Nemo has undergone an ethnic shift to become an American. This gives the implication that Nemo is rejecting his own country’s troubles by retreating to Templemer and, consequently, inviting comparisons with the modern USA (and with Ryan himself, well known as a pacifist and an outspoken critic of the American government). Although the movie seems to want us to side with Senator Fraser, I personally remain unconvinced.
There's also some nice modelwork, even if it's often hard to see.
Of course, there are a lot of preposterous things that are overlooked or else are simply there to drive the story along. There’s a giant manta ray for our heroes to fight, which I suppose is a change from the usual giant squid. There’s only the briefest explanation of where Templemer’s population come from. The engineer’s mental collapse is so heavily telegraphed that I kept wishing someone would try and help the poor man rather than let him become another plot complication. There’s also a very long and very boring sequence where Nemo shows his guests around Templemer’s undersea farming setup, which contributes little to the story and isn’t particularly engaging and mostly seems to be there to show off the fact that MGM spent money for an expensive and complicated underwater shoot.
In short, I wouldn’t urge you to rush out and see it, but if it’s on at your local cinema and you have time to kill during the holidays, you could do worse. Two and a half stars.
by Jason Sacks
Marooned
What if the real heroes of NASA weren’t the astronauts but instead the ground crew? What if the astronauts were all either bland or jerks, while Mission Control were all brave, steadfast problem solvers to a man? What if a movie with those premises promised a thrilling story but delivered leaden action?
Imagine that movie, and you’ll get something like Marooned, a new film from director John Sturges seemingly released to capitalize on America’s fascination with the space program and our incipient worries about space failures. We might expect Marooned to be a thrilling and au courant film about man's perils in space. But Marooned is more concerned with the men on the ground than the men in space. That fact helps make for a slow trudge of a film.
As the film begins, three astronauts played by Richard Crenna (The Real McCoys, Slattery's People, The Sand Pebbles), James Franciscus (The Investigators) and Gene Hackman (Hawaii, Bonny and Clyde) have completed their assignment to spend several months working in an orbiting laboratory. As the pilots begin their efforts to return to Earth, however, they find the thrusters malfunctioning on their rocket. It will take a heroic effort from the ground crew, led by Gregory Peck (needs no introduction) and David Janssen (The Fugitive), to return the astronauts to Earth. But will that dedicated crew succeed before oxygen runs out in the space capsule? And how will a hurricane at Cape Kennedy affect the rescue efforts?
It's an intriguing narrative for a movie (not to mention a book), and it's certainly very on-target for our country’s current obsessions. Marooned had the promise to be something pretty special; instead, it is a conservative, hide-bound, badly-acted failure.
Much of the film’s failure comes from an odd decision by the filmmakers: instead of focusing on the astronauts, the film spotlights their ground crew, particularly the efforts of their brave leader, Gregory Peck, to save the spacemen. In theory this could be a logical approach to the story which harnessed celebrity charisma to add seriousness to the rescue effort. Peck is a longstanding, proven screen presence. He gives the film a feeling of gravitas. But, come on, film fans: would you rather watch Gregory Peck struggle though rescue contingencies or spend more time with the astronauts trying to come up with plans? Without Cronkite (or even Chet and David) to spice things up, I can't imagine an audience is interested in watching the efforts of a bunch of white-shirt-and-tie men reading long lists of protocols off checklists, scene after tedious scene.
All that focus on protocols makes the film feel slow. But that very same slowness feels like a deliberate approach to the story. This is a workmanlike film which focuses on the amazing power of bureaucracy to solve complex problems. Solving these problems takes time, and it’s important to be able to be systematic and mark important items off a checklist. If only this movie had been cut to a crisp 90 minutes, the filmmakers’ gambit might have worked. Instead, Marooned is sluggish.
Peck seems to phone his role in. The intended gravitas from his role comes across more as torpor than as professionalism. Janssen and Franciscus bring their usual decent TV-level acting to their roles. But Hackman is especially badly selected for his role – his character, Buzz Lloyd, is impulsive and self-centered. Viewers grow tired of Buzz's histrionics and wonder how in the world someone like that made it through astronaut school. It's surprising to see Hackman perform so poorly after he recently delivered fine performances in Bonnie and Clyde and Downhill Racer, so hopefully this was just an anomaly. With his rugged good looks, Hackman looks more like a cop than an astronaut.
The film offers viewers a few small moments with the astronauts' wives. Those moments perhaps convey the most sense of the astronauts' peril, since the wives are allowed to actually emote. Veteran actresses Lee Grant (Peyton Place, In the Heat of the Night), Mariette Hartley (Star Trek: All Our Yesterdays) and Nancy Kovack (Star Trek: A Private Little War) have all done good work in the past. Here they are called upon to do little more than look concerned and show a little attitude. The actresses actually execute their assignments with aplomb. I especially enjoyed Kovack's frustrated resignation about the life she signed up for as the wife of an astronaut. She conveys a lot in small gestures and facial expressions.
The ending, again slow, is genuinely captivating nonetheless, and takes a few surprising twists. I became very invested in this film in its last 20 minutes and wish we had more scenes like these. Though it was a bit hard to root for these dull men to be rescued, the attention to detail around astrophysics and international cooperation were stellar.
John Sturges is usually an excellent director of action movies – see Bad Day at Black Rock, The Magnificent Seven or The Great Escape. But he probably shouldn’t have journeyed into space with our boring astronauts. Marooned just never comes alive like The Magnficent Seven did: the characters never popped, the action never coruscated, and the direction lacked flash.
But there’s a deeper problem here as well. One of the reasons The Great Escape was such a smash hit was that many viewers could see themselves in the zealous Steve McQueen, endlessly looking to escape his prison life. McQueen’s Virgil Hilts felt like a counterculture hero on the run, not dissimilar to the characters in Easy Rider or Bonnie and Clyde. But Marooned is a conservative, conventional movie. Its message is to trust the government, pray for the best to happen, and follow rules. Marooned is a film for Nixon’s Silent Majority and feels woefully out of place next to this year’s big hit films like Butch Cassidy, Midnight Cowboy, and Goodbye, Columbus.
[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]
by Gideon Marcus
We at the Journey have a special treat for you this holiday season. Look beneath all the discarded paper and shed pine needles and gelt wrappers—why, it's a complete list of The Best Science Fiction (and Fantasy) of 1969! With SFnal output on the rise, there's a good chance you haven't been able to keep up.
Don't worry; we've got you covered. Anything on this list is worth reading/watching. Just peruse the Journey library, settle into your coziest chair, and enjoy the week before New Year's!
—— Best Poetry
——
Joanna Russ at last year's Baycon, Harlan Ellison trying to steal her thunder in the background
It used to be that poetry abounded in professional science fiction. You can still find it in the fanzines (particularly a lot of cloying, 'I love Spock' stuff in the trekzines), but it's largely died out in the mags for sale. Luckily, this year we had a compendium of pro-poetry in the form of Frontier of Going: An Anthology of Space Poetry, which provided the last three entries above.
The standout was Joanna Russ' poem, and when you read it, you'll see why.
A doctor decides the world is too sick to survive… and he makes sure of it by personally spreading disease across the globe.
ㅤ Pennies, Off a Dead Man's Eyes, by Harlan Ellison
Love knows no allegiance to race…human or otherwise.
We've got more entries this year, in part because the venues are so disparate, catering to different tastes. Not all of us loved all of the stories here, but at least one person did, which means a chunk of our readers will too!
As with the short story section, there were only two stories a lot of people truly enjoyed, but all of these are good reads. It is notable that this is the first category that we see women (at least, women writing under female names—one never knows!) coming to the fore. This is a contrast to prior years when women would often be stronger in shorter lengths, largely because F&SF was the one mag that consistently published women.
A case of mistaken intention pits incomprehensible aliens vs. the medical corps of Sector General. If you like this series, you'll love this installment.
The world is drowning, and only a handful can be saved by fleeing to the Moon. As Brian put it:
"Would mankind be able to survive without our possessions, and even our waste? Would we be able to bury Shakespeare, or even personal items which possess only sentimental value, for the sake of the race’s survival? Blish supposes we wouldn’t."
Novellas are an odd duck, length-wise, so we are often starved for choice. This year, however, though the options were fewer, the quality was pretty darned high.
The story of an American POW during World War 2, culminating in the Dresden firebombing. Vaguely SFnal, such trappings are really there so the author could approach the traumatic material at a distance. Big for a reason.
One of Dick's less comprehensible and yet somehow more compelling works, combining a grab-bag of innovations, commentaries on commercialism, and questionings of reality.
We've got it all: fantasy, science fiction, satire, psychedelia. And more sex than ever. There's nothing really "conventional" or "traditional" here. Even the Anderson is more outré than usual.
Dr. Isaac Asimov: feminist. This is a fascinating piece on the second-class history of women in society. How does a fellow with a troublesome "handsy" problem produce such a brilliant piece on sexism? I guess we all contain multitudes.
It is a sad, yet fitting epitaph for science writer Willy Ley that there are three pieces concerning him this year—two by him, and one about him. Rest in peace, my friend.
—— Best Magazine/Collection
——
New Writings 14-15: 3.7 stars, 3 Star nominees, (two anthologies)
F&SF: 3.1 stars, 11 Star nominees (12 issues)
IF: 3.1 stars, 5 Star nominees (11 issues)
New Worlds: 3 stars, 5 Star nominees (11 issues)
Galaxy: 3 stars, 12 Star nominees (11 issues)
Vision of Tomorrow: 2.9 stars, 2 Star nominees (3 issues)
Venture: 2.8 stars, 0 Star nominees (3 issues)
Analog: 2.7 stars, 1 Star nominee (12 issues)
Fantastic: 2.6 stars, 1 Star nominee (six issues)
Amazing: 2.6 stars, 0 Star nominees (six issues)
Orbit 5: 2.6 stars, 1 Star nominee, (one anthology)
Famous Science Fiction 1.9 stars, 0 Star nominees (one issue)
Frontier of Going: An Anthology of Space Poetry 3 star nominees (one anthology)
—
The main conclusions we draw from this line-up are:
New Writings really pushes Kris' buttons! (I generally rate the stories therein about one star less than Kris does, but Kris is more enamored of the new style than me).
F&SF is living up to its reputation (it won the Hugo this year).
Analog really needs a new editor.
—— Best Publisher
——
Ace: 3 Star nominees
Hodder & Stoughton 2 Star nominees
Knopf: 2 Star nominees
Doubleday: 1 Star nominee
Delacorte 1 Star nominee
MacMillan 1 Star nominee
F&SF 1 Star nominee
Ballantine 1 Star nominee
Pyramid 1 Star nominee
Avon 1 Star nominee
—
My friend, Tom Purdom, said this of Ace a few years ago:
"Ace is an attractive beginner’s market because you just have to satisfy two requirements. You have to create a good action-adventure plot and you have to set it in a colorful, interesting future. The editor of Ace Books, Donald A. Wollheim, has been a science fiction fan since was a teenager in the 1930s. He grew up reading the science fiction pulps and sometimes argues that science fiction is a branch of children’s literature—a genre whose core audience consisted of bright teenage boys. He doesn’t object if your novel includes things like good prose, interesting characters, and an original view of the future. But anybody who understands science fiction and its history can look at the covers of a rack full of Ace Doubles and know what the basic requirements are."
And so, Ace combines action, adventure and (often) solid writing—and a lot of ouput. A recipe for sweeping this category every year!
This list keeps growing every year. The recent paperback boom is partly responsible, but also, we're seeing each magazine develop its own stable of promising artists. Interestingly, perennial Schoennherr didn't make the list. Jack Gaughan, a favorite of everyone else, never seems to make much impression on the Journey staff.
Is it science fiction? Well, it's something—and as a swan song for The Monkees, it can't be beat. I guess if it's SFnal, its closest analog would be New Worlds magazine.
We didn't get a lot of good choices this year. As Kris observed, it's easier to crank out million-dollar kitchen-sink films and hope for a 100x return rather than produce a $10 million film and hope for a 10x return, even if the profits are roughly the same, all told.
—— Best Comic Book
——
Trigan Empire (Look & Learn)
X-Men (Marvel)
Honorable Mention
Amazing Spider-Man (Marvel) Captain America (Marvel) Doctor Strange (Marvel) Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD (Marvel) Night Master (Showcase) Tiny Tania In Space (Sally) Valerian & Laureline (Dargaud)
–
A nice mix of Marvel titles and stuff from overseas. National (D.C.) is conspicuously absent. They're pretty bad this year.
I have some reservations about giving SFT the crown since it stopped publication in April, but it got the most votes. Trumpet is noteworthy for including Niven's "Down in Flames", which reveals The Truth behind his Known Space stories. The last two 'zines are both put out by Ruth Berman, the former of which is a particularly literate trekfiction mag.
And that's that for this year! Season's Greetings to all, and here's to another year of terrific science fiction!
[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]
Here it is, nearly 1970! What does the UK have to look forward to in the next decade? Already we’ve got a new Doctor Who, a new all-live-action series from the Andersons, and a new currency is coming in. I hope we’ll join the common market and help build a revived Europe. I for one am feeling optimistic.
Meanwhile, what is my favourite provocative pop artist up to? Miss Ono and her husband have launched a festive anti-war campaign, with a giant poster in Piccadilly Circus (and eleven other cities around the world) reading WAR IS OVER IF YOU WANT IT. It makes a change from adverts for American soft drinks and I appreciate the sentiment. None of the photos I took turned out, but here's the art for the poster.
On to New Worlds. Who are making up for the last couple of issues by giving us some actual SF, with actual illustrations. There’s even a story by a woman! It’s not Pam Zoline though; she’s contributing to this issue, but as an illustrator not a writer. I’ll take what I can get.
Cover by R. Glyn Jones.
Lead-In
Saying (rightly) that the media is overwhelmed with predictions of 1970, which are becoming “as dull as the next moonshot” the editors are celebrating their theme of looking forward to 1980. How many (if any) of the stories actually follow the theme? Let’s find out!
Michael Butterworth: Concentrate 3
Illustration by Charles Platt.
A very short prose piece followed by a poem. I like the imagery of an astronaut freaking out with the feeling of stars crawling over his face but otherwise it seems to read like several opening lines mashed together. Nothing to do with 1980. Two stars.
Graham Charnock: The Suicide Machines
Illustration by R. Glyn Jones, who gets everywhere this issue.
A more developed imagining of a near-future Britain, in an Oxford which has been given fully over to tourism by dull and tedious businesspeople, with “feedies”, a sort of android, as guides and entertainers. Jaded with sex, they seek instead to force the feedies to commit suicide for their pleasure. No indication that this takes place in 1980. Three stars.
R. Glyn Jones: Two Poems, Six Letters
As the title says. Two quatrains, containing only six letters. Not sure the experiment does all that much. Nothing to do with 1980. One star.
A fun short piece about near-future man buying a holographic sensory-stimulation greeting card, which leaves the reader wondering wickedly about the recipient and the occasion. Nothing to do with 1980. Four stars.
Hilary Bailey: Baby Watson 1936-1980
Photo by Gabi Nasemann.
This is one of the standout stories for me this issue, if one of the least SF (though one of the only ones to involve 1980). It’s a story in the Heat Death of the Universe vein, making the familiar strange by looking at the lives of ordinary women, with the same surname and born in the same year. It’s a sad story for me, highlighting the way in which the scientific and creative potential of women is squandered on a world not yet ready to accept them as equals. Five stars.
Harlan Ellison: The Glass Teat
Design by unknown artist.
Ellison saves himself some work by writing his usual TV column, but as if it were 1980. Although I wouldn’t have known that if the Lead-In hadn’t told me. It’s a 1980 where the US is at war in various developing nations, has a liar for a President, and is subject to rampant acts of terrorism at the hands of its own citizens. I suppose it’s a “if this goes on…” piece. Two stars.
John Clark: What is the Nature of the Bead-Game?
Photo by Roy Cornwall.
An experimental essay, containing 25 statements and questions the writer apparently posed at the 1969 Third International Writers’ Conference. The aim appears to be the usual New Worlds trick of juxtaposing sentences and having the reader discern meaning from the juxtaposition. Nothing to do with 1980. Three stars.
Nice to see Jerry Cornelius back with us, though I confess after the efforts of other writers Moorcock’s original version is a little disappointing. Too few descriptions of Jerry’s clothes, I think. There’s a brief mention of 1980 in order to keep this in with the theme, though there are also brief mentions of 1931, 1969, 1970, 1936 and many other years. Otherwise it’s just your usual Cornelius stuff. Two stars.
Thomas M. Disch: Four Crosswords of Graded Difficulty
Not really my favourite Disch (ha ha) of the year. Experimental poems; the first one made me laugh but the others seemed not very interesting. Nothing to do with 1980. One star.
J.G. Ballard: Coitus 80: A Description of the Sexual Act in 1980
Illustration by Charles Platt.
Familiar Ballard stuff this: a brief description of a sexual encounter interspersed with clinical descriptions of plastic surgery related to the genitals and breasts, in order to convey a sense of scientific alienation behind a simple, familiar act. I confess I hadn’t thought what goes into a vaginoplasty or phalloplasty before. It at least takes place in 1980. Three stars.
Brian W. Aldiss: The Secret of Holman-Hunt
A mock essay about an incredible breakthrough taking place in 1980 (yes!). The narrator discovers a way of unlocking the potential of the mind using the art of pre-Raphaelite painter William Holman-Hunt. No more implausible than The Stars My Destination, I suppose, but it failed to hold my attention. Two stars.
Sladek gives us a plausibly dystopian 1980s where computers can call each other up from anywhere in the world, where people’s fertility and happiness are controlled by drugs, and where everything is made of plastic. I find this vision of the future sadly compelling, though of course Sladek has to remind us that he’s Sladek through cutting the columns up and putting them out of order and sideways. Four stars.
M John Harrison, The Nostalgia Story
Another of these stories that are made up of disconnected snippets with the reader invited to make their own connections. One of these is entitled “Significant Moments of 1980” so I suppose it’s on theme. Two stars.
Joyce Churchill: Big Brother is Twenty-One
Illustration by James Cawthorn.
A short essay on Nineteen Eighty-Four, concluding that Huxley was closer to the mark than Orwell: the coming dystopia will most likely be a capitalist one in which we convince ourselves we are happy through the acquisition of material goods, rather than a socialist one based on a war footing. Not exactly looking forward to 1980, but at this point I’ll stretch the definition. Four stars.
Jack Trevor Story: The Wind in the Snottygobble Tree part 3
Photo by Roy Cornwall.
This isn’t getting any better as it goes on, though Story is making it clearer what the situation is with his protagonist (he’s not actually a secret agent, just pretending he is, however, in doing so, he’s wound up being mistaken for a genuine one). Nothing to do with 1980. One star.
Book Reviews: M John Harrison and John Clute (rendered as “John Cute” in the table of contents)
The usual suspects review the usual volumes. Nothing to do with 1980.
Obituary for James Colvin
Spoof obituary for a pseudonym of Barrington J. Bayley and Michael Moorcock. Nothing to do with 1980.
Out of 17 items, eight actually have something to do with the 1980s, broadly defined, and only five have anything to do with 1980 specifically. Nonetheless, this does feel like a more SF-related and livelier New Worlds than we’ve had in a while. Perhaps the new decade will give them a new lease on life? We can only hope!
[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]
First off, hello from the United Kingdom! I have been moved over to a new office here, which has been quite the process! Nice people, but quieter than I expected. Now, to business.
Sometimes I feel like a pair of fuzzy dice — seemingly longhaired, but then you press me and it turns out I’m square underneath. Ray Bradbury has made a name for himself in the mundane world, but amongst the Galactic Journey, I may be his last full-throated supporter. Into this shaky environment comes his newest book, I Sing The Body Electric!, a title whose exclamation point is doing its darnedest to get us excited about a collection of reprints, albeit a pretty good one.
That better version would be 3.5 stars, but the reality is 2, and 1 if you support Irish independence.
“Tomorrow’s Child”
A child is accidentally born into a different dimension than his human parents, making the baby appear to be a glowing blue pyramid with tendrils. While the parents want to love their child, its strange outer appearance and behavior ostracizes them from their community. But they eventually realize that their love for their child is more important to them than the rest of the world.
This story is beautiful and touching, but also rather sad. I think that Bradbury is very good at quiet, reflective moments, and I wonder if this is what growing up in the Levittowns of the world has been like for these younger hippies. Hopefully, things will improve, now that we’re moving away from the blood-soaked Piscean and into the Aquarian astrological age,.
3.5 stars.
“The Women” (1948)
During a day at the beach, a woman fights to keep her husband from being seduced and destroyed by the spirit-intelligence of the ocean. She tries valiantly, but the ocean always wins in the end.
Written during Bradbury’s horror days, I would be curious how this reads now from a female perspective, especially in concert with books like Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman.
4 stars.
“The Inspired Chicken Motel”
Memories of nomadic life during the poverty of the Great Depression, told from a child’s perspective. There are multiple possible meanings of the story, but I suspect that it is simply a story written to evoke nostalgia within Bradbury’s mainstream audience.
3 stars.
“Downwind from Gettysburg” (1969)
A mechanical Lincoln has been assassinated, for a second time…the plot does not strictly matter.
When they are not horror stories, Bradbury’s plots are a surface on which to draw, not a firm structure. Nobody writes chaos, true animal chaos, quite as well as Bradbury. When it was reviewed by Erica Frank in June, it seemed much less significant. With Agnew’s recent statements to the press, and the current trial of Lt. Calley, this is a story that struck much closer to home.
4 stars.
“Yes, We’ll Gather At the River”
The last day of a town that is being cut off by the construction of a highway, implied to be the 101 in California. Not SF or fantasy, but very poignant, and good reading to remember sad times in a good way.
4 stars.
“The Cold Wind and the Warm” (1964)
A warning, first off — Bradbury’s Irish impressions are terrible things. He reminds me of a beloved relative of mine, who busts out his “Grandma Murphy” impression every St. Patrick’s day, to the embarrassment of all. But unlike “The Terrible Conflagration Up At the Place” (Bradbury is never quite so dated as when he tries to be modern), there is too much good in this story to dislike it. Odd men have come to Dublin, strangely feminine and well-heeled, and these visitors wish to experience autumn, with all its cold and changing leaves. This reminded me of Lin Carter and Randall Garrett's "Masters of the Metropolis" and some of my own experiences here in Wales.
4 stars; 3.5 if you can’t forgive the impressions.
“Night Call, Collect”
The poem at the beginning is beautiful, although not quite as intellectual as it may think. A story on Mars, though a different and more cynical one than seen in his Chronicles. Possibly a more personal story, that of an old man driven mad and destroyed by the Martian masterpiece he created in his youth.
3 stars.
“The Haunting of the New”
We had one bad story set in Ireland, and one good one, and we didn't really need a third in this collection. Moreover, it need not have been set in Ireland, as it is so deeply a California tale. The story concerns the type of home colloquially known as a “dream palace”, known for its parties and orgies, which burned down in disgust at its own evil. (Feeling a bit guilty for how you exited our SF world, Mr. Bradbury?) The house is rebuilt, but rejects the attempts to continue its old life.
I am harsh on this story because it speaks to me uncomfortably.
A sickly-sweet rewriting of “The Veldt” (Saturday Evening Post, 1950) for the mundane set. A widower and his children decide on purchasing an electric grandmother, carefully constructed. For those who could not stomach Dandelion Wine (Gourmet, 1953)
2 stars.
“The Tombing Day” (1952)
A short, broad, earthy and practical story, poking fun (not unkindly!) at the demands we put on the dead and the old; and of the ways that nostalgia is a poison if imbibed too long.
4 stars (technically 3.5; gains another 0.5 due to its placement after the worst story)
“Any Friend of Nicholas Nickelby’s Is A Friend of Mine” (1966)
A Green Town story! Hooray! I love the Green Town stories, and I sometimes wonder what it would be like to live in a place like that. It seems very alien, but also very beautiful. In fact, the Green Town stories inspired me to start calling a lunch I sometimes make for myself (PB&J sandwich, apple, glass of milk) a “Bradbury”, which makes it sound better than “George’s grocery day”.
The story itself concerns a man who arrives in Green Town, living the life and writings of Charles Dickens. He obviously cannot be — the real Dickens is long dead — but who is he, really? What does it mean to “be” someone? If one life is a failure, can it be shed for a more shining one? Has a wonderfully sweet and romantic ending, which I find unusual for Bradbury. His depictions of marriage and romantic relationships more often depict it as a punch-clock job on a good day, and nerve-grating misery on a bad one.
4 stars.
“Heavy-Set” (1964)
I have trouble believing that this story was sent to Playboy, of all publications, let alone that they published it. The story of a childlike, thirty-year-old man in a disturbing relationship with the mother he lives with, a man who is as scornful of women as he is avoidant of them, a man transforming his body into a glorious shrine to nobody and nothing. This is not Playboy, this is the anti-Playboy, the story of a man who does exactly what their overpriced pamphlet says, and it only makes him more isolated and disturbed. It made my skin crawl all the way through, and I do not know if I will read it again.
4 stars.
“The Man in the Rorschach Shirt” (1966)
Now, this story is entirely within the Playboy house style, although avoiding the general tendencies towards sexism and rape. A story of a big, boisterous but kindly intellectual fellow, who quits his psychiatric practice to wander around using his loud Rorschach shirt to help psychoanalyze passersby. There’s not much more to the story, but it’s a comfortably breezy ride.
3.5 stars.
“Henry the Ninth” (1969)
Previously reviewed by The Traveler, I enjoyed this story more than he did. Far from Bradbury’s loving descriptions of good weather, the story seemed more symbolic than anything else. The world is moving on from British homogeneity and Empire, from its old literary heroes to new ones. I do not pretend to psychoanalyze, although I hear things, sometimes.
3.5 stars.
“The Lost City of Mars” (1967)
And then, Bradbury comes out with a story that manages to blend his old strengths with the sensory depth of the New Wave, about a group of would-be adventurers seeking an abandoned Martian city. They all have their own reasons for seeking the city, and different hopes for what they will find. The bitter aftertaste of this story is the realization Bradbury can still write good SF and good horror, he can keep up with the New Wave trends, he’d just rather put out pedestrian product because—I assume—he’d rather work on his golf game. With a growing horror like the mechanical Martian city closing in, I am reminded of Kipling, who put out the beautiful “Harp-song of the Dane Women” while otherwise deep into his late-period mediocrity.
4 stars.
“Christus Apollo”
A poem for Christmas in the Space Age. A perfect end piece for the book, the year, and the decade. Would be better if it rhymed, but not by much.
3.5 stars.
Finishing this collection, I am left unsure as to whom this will please. This collection is largely reprints of already-published work, so I suppose people who want a more durable copy of his magazine stories will be happy. With the exception of the last two pieces, the seemingly random ordering of the stories means that it’s hard to grab onto anything very long.
If there’s a theme that resonates throughout the collected stories, it is the fear that your best work is long behind you, and now the only thing to look forward to is a sliding decline into irrelevance and the grave. Ray, man, if that’s how you really feel, it doesn’t have to be like this! There will always be a place for you to crash, in this new-old place across the sea.
3 stars for the collection as a whole.
[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]
[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]
by Gideon Marcus
Being #2… stinks
On the scene at the launch of Apollo 12, President Nixon assured the NASA technicians that America was #1 in space, and that it wasn't just jingoism—it was true!
Well, even a stopped clock, etc. In fact, all accounts suggest the Soviet space program had some serious setbacks last year, the results of which will be felt through at least to 1971. Schedules got shifted as large rockets were earmarked for purely military service in response to the escalating (now calmed) Sino-Soviet crisis. But the biggest issue was reported in Aviation Weekly last month: apparently, the Soviets lost a Saturn-class booster on the launch pad before liftoff last summer. I hadn't even heard that such a thing was in development! The rocket's loss has set back the USSR's manned space program by at least a year, resulting in tepid non-achievements like their recent triple Soyuz mission rather than the construction of a space station or a trip to the Moon.
This is actually the rocket from the Soviet film The Sky Calls (American title: Battle Beyond the Sun)
It didn't help that the Soyuz pads were occupied during the summer as the Soviets tried to match our lunar efforts. It may well be that their Saturn was rushed to service too soon, and similar gun-jumping may have caused the loss of the Luna 15 sample-return mission.
Speaking of which, in September, the Soviets launched Kosmos 300 and 305. Both of them were heavy satellites that went into the orbit usually used for lunar Zond missions. And then they reentered shortly thereafter…in pieces. It's not certain if these were to be circumlunar flights or retries of Luna 15. Either way, they didn't work out, either.
Meanwhile, the Apollo mission moves blithely along. Apollo 13 will go to the Moon next March to Fra Mauro, a landing site photographically scouted out by the Apollo 12 folks. This chapter of the Space Race is well and truly over, won by the forces of democracy championed by such luminaries as Spiro Agnew.
That's a good rock
Speaking of Apollo 12, you may recall earlier this month I talked about analysis of the Moon rocks brought back by Apollo 11. A similar report has come out about the rocks brought back by Conrad and Bean. Dr. Oliver A. Schaeffer of New York State Univ. at Stony Brook says they are only 2.2 to 2.5 billion years old—1-2 billion years younger than the Armstrong and Aldrin's samples. This means some kind of surface activity was ongoing on the comparatively quiet Moon—meteorite strikes and/or vulcanism, we don't know yet.
NASA astronaut Charles "Pete" Conrad, commander of the Apollo 12 mission, holds two moon rocks he and Alan Bean brought back to Earth. Taken last month at Manned Spacecraft Center's Lunar Receiving Laboratory.
Also, Dr. S. Ross Taylor of Australian National Univ. says the Apollo 12 samples contain about half the titanium as the Apollo 11 rocks and also more nickel, though otherwise, their chemistry is similar. Thus, the Moon is far from homogeneous, and we have just scratched the surface (so to speak) of the mystery that is the Moon. As we get more samples from more sites, a better picture will come together, but it will undoubtedly take time; imagine trying to contemplate all of Earth's geologic diversity from just two short digs?
Ben Dane is a widower with a bad heart, stranded by a blizzard at his friend Harp's house. When the home is beset by a furry, anthropoid monster, the two give chase. Is it a crazed lunatic? An alien? The Abominable Snowman?
Pangborn really lets you live inside his characters, vividly depicting the Maine land and farmscape as well as the personalities that populate his stories. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the tale's telling, which takes its time, satisfied with the redolence of its scenery. The real problem is the uninspired ending; what we have here, aside from the liberal sprinkling of four-letter words, is a piece that could have come out in Weird Tales thirty years ago.
Three stars.
Books (F&SF, January 1970), by Joanna Russ
Ms. Russ has come into her own as a columnist—her review of Day of the Dolphin was so funny that I was compelled to read it aloud to my wife. She goes on to damn Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron with faint praise, agreeing only with the simple premise that all men have their price. Russ gives highest marks to Jack Vance's Emphyrio, which our Victoria Silverwolf enjoyed.
Indeed, Russ' opinions mirror those of our own staff, though Jason liked Dophin more than Joanna did.
Russ ends her piece with a tepid review of a tepid anthology: Best SF: 1968, edited by Harry Harrison.
A Matter of Time and Place, by Larry Eisenberg
The name "Emmett Duckworth" inevitably elicits a weary sigh, for this series following the offbeat adventures of an inventor are invariably stupid.
Such is the case here where Duckworth is pressed into service by the Pentagon to make a host of ambitious but unworkable weapons. In the end, he discovers that there is a conservation of local entropy: the more domestic disorder in America, the more peaceful the world becomes.
Every scientific assertion in the story is ludicrous. It doesn't even work as farce. One star.
by Gahan Wilson
E Pluribus Solo, by Bruce McAllister
The last bald eagle, locked inside the Smithsonian for its protection, is under attack. A mercenary with a vicious falcon sidekick has been hired to dispatch this American icon. All that stands between them is one overmatched security guard…
This is a gruesome story, and I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, but the end is redeeming.
On the edge of three and four stars. I guess I'll flip it to the latter.
This is a genuinely funny piece. A fellow takes his Rambler American to the seedy shop in his village to be serviced. What he doesn't know until too late is that his car has been stud serviced by another vehicle…and his car is now pregnant.
The only failing to this story is that it doesn't end. It just sort of trails off, either too soon or too long after the punchline is delivered. The implied biology of cars is fascinating, though. They seem to be like Gethenians from Left Hand of Darkness: all are capable of giving birth, but they can take on either sexual role.
Four stars.
A Third Hand, by Dean R. Koontz
A genetic freak dubbed Timothy is cooked up in a DoD lab. Armless and legless, and with only one eye, he is nevertheless one of humanity's most gifted members. That's because he has an IQ of 250+ and Gil Hamilton's ability to psionically manipulate small items at close range. Eventually, he is given prosthetic arms and legs to give him a "normal" life—sort of a flip side to McCaffrey's The Ship Who… series (where deformed brains are turned into spaceship control centers).
But that's just setting up the character. The story starts when Timothy witnesses the death of his guitarist buddy over the visiphone at the hands of a notorious crime boss. The handicapped genius applies all of his resources toward bringing the fiend to justice.
Koontz throws a lot of interesting future tech into his story: home printers that reproduce daily photostatted newspapers; androids that uncannily imitate their owners; floating death machines called Hounds. What he doesn't do is anything with his protagonist. Timothy is unique in all ways except mindset, which is not only conventional, but not even particularly brilliant. In the event, his main distinction is his limited telekinesis, and if you've read Niven's "The Organleggers", then you certainly won't get much out of this.
Highway 150 is haunted, and all the cargo-haulers know it. And it's because of a mean young cuss called Joe Indian, who runs an old Mack with a load of turkeys, transported in the most inhumane way possible. What's his story, and how is the spectral visitation ended? You'll have to read to the end to find out.
A fine ghost story, by a trucker for truckers, originally published in Overdrive, a trucker mag, in 1967. Four stars.
Bughouse, by Doris Pitkin Buck
Two couples at a personal soirée. One of the husbands suggests that they might all be a little mad, and he proposes to prove it by having them all eat an Oriental bug poison (which should have no effect on humans—unless they're "buggy").
A slight, but interestingly written, piece. Three stars.
The Lunar Honor-Roll, by Isaac Asimov
This month's science article has a touching book-end: Ike's dad apparently lived long enough to experience not only the flight of the first aircraft but also the first lunar mission, passing away a couple of weeks after the flight of Apollo 11. A fan of science fiction, he instilled a love of learning and educating that has served The Good Doctor well. The meat inside the reminiscence is a nice piece on the naming of the Moon's prominent features. Why are so many 16th Century, medieval, and Greek astronomers honored? Why do we have Alps and Apennines on the Moon as well as lakes, seas, and an ocean?
Worth reading. Five stars.
A Delicate Operation, by Robin Scott
Getting a brilliant doctor out of East Germany to freedom in the West is tough at the best of times. A "white" operation, where a double is sent in so the target can escape, is considered unworkable because no suitable man can be found for the job. A "black" op (smuggling out as hidden cargo) is planned, but when the latter fails, it seems all hope is lost. That is, until Dr. Celia Adams, a supremely talented British biologist, takes matters into her own hands. Can she succeed where the cynical, oversexed CIA veteran (the ostensible hero of our story) cannot?
This is a tight, fun story whose ending you'd likely only guess because you know it has to be SFnal given where it was published. Much is made of the East German doctor being gay, which turns out to be fundamental to the plot.
Four stars.
Seasons Greetings!
Well that was a fine repast (even if the two cover authors turned in the lesser works). And we're now up to a two-magazine streak. Will 1970 be the year F&SF truly deserves the Hugo it won in August? That would be something to celebrate, indeed!
[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]
What with the frigid temperatures, tornado gusts, and a decidedly worrisome storm brewing in New England (that may just materialize on Christmas day itself), it seems apropos to find a fashionable silver lining… in ski suits!
An interpretive fall choreographed by Vogue to express the woes that befall us this blustery, frigid holiday season.
Being from sunny Southern California, I don’t often experience the joy of fresh white powder on the mountains except when I glance up at Mt. San Antonio from my mailbox. For many, however, heading to the slopes is a multigenerational tradition that’s been usurped by the chic upper echelons of the sports world. But while the '60s cemented skiing as a resort hobby for the wealthy, it looks to me like the '70s will usher in a fresh take on athletics as a symbol of the middle class.
This trend perfectly suits sports such as skiing and tennis, which both have a rich history that transcends economic class. Modern tennis is rooted in summertime lawn sports such as the humble handball played by medieval French monks, and skiing has been a means of countryside transportation for thousands of years all over the world.
The Dunlop Volley court sneaker worn by Aussie tennis superstars is emblematic of this cross-class shift back towards accessibility and practicality in these sports. The shoe is “a bit of tent canvas glued to some tyre tread,” as one squash hobbyist put it. It’s lightweight, flexible, and has absolutely no bells or whistles. They’re easily affordable too, which has turned them into an icon of middle class Australia.
The original Dunlop Volleys from the late 1960s with its simple blue lining and distinctive white tread.
Rod Laver wearing his volleys on the court in the late 60s.
Ski suits seem to be following a similar trend. Skiing in the sixties was typified by its stretch pants and trapeze coats, both of which were agile but severely lacking insulation. The trend continues this year, combined with classic woolen socks and geometric patterns that are taking the slopes by storm.
Ernst Haas captures the modern elegance of the slopes in this photoshoot for Sports Illustrated, 1969. Geometric, high contrast patterns have become the rage of high ski fashion this year.
You’ll also find a new idea (perhaps one should say a refreshingly old idea) on those white summits, however. A warmer style that isn’t so demure and slim, designed specifically for resorts in Aspen and Telluride. This new look is made by people that eat, breathe, and sleep snow without the immediate access to fireplaces and hot cocoa. It celebrates athleticism rather than postcard moments, and returns skiing to its roots: exploration, adventure, and conquest.
Ernst Engel designed this safari ski suit, styled with an Abercrombie & Fitch mitts and muffler set. This trend will overwhelm the long willowy lines of stretch pants, no question about it.
You can see this shift already in the November 1969 issue of Vogue, where a shiny chocolate vinyl ski suit is photographed with a hardy wool muffler set. It features an insulated safari jacket cut long with four large patch pockets and a set of military-inspired epaulettes. The look is so reminiscent of the intrepid spirit of the turn of the century that Nelly Bly would have killed to wear it when she circumnavigated the world.
C.B. Vaughan, world-renowned speed skier, has had a hand in this transition too, selling skiwear of his own design to fellow Vermonters and resort-goers from the trunk of his car. His so-called “super pants” are bound to make it big in the coming years. The design is focused on performance with heavy-duty zippers and Velcro to keep the cold at bay while simultaneously discarding the refinery of wealthy plankers that never felt authentic to him.
An example of C.B. Vaughan's earliest super pants with zippers on the center back of each pant leg and a smart leather pant on the inside ankle to protect the leg from a skier's boots as they strafe downhill.
I applaud C.B. Vaughan’s perfect timing and dogged determination! The combination of working-class gumption, resort sports, and industrial materials is bound to inspire a generation angling to influence the world from the streets up. Brands like CB Sports and Volley will certainly shape the pedestrian-chic look of sports in the seventies. With the New Year nearly upon us, I can’t wait to see what’s in store…
Even if I do have to squint to see it from my mailbox.
[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]
A generation or two from now, the Earth is recovering from a devastating war between the Western World and the Chinasian alliance. At first, the latter was winning, surging into Australia and with a plan to cross the Bering Strait. Then things bogged down. Eschewing the use of nuclear weapons (for an unexplained reason), the death rate became fantastic.
One day, the war just stopped. Or, more specifically, someone stopped them. Sounds like a positive development, but whoever did it is now exerting dictatorial control over the globe, futzing with governments, economies, even population growth rates and somehow slowing the age of human maturity!
Now, a decade after the war, Michael Standard, a battered veteran of the Australian front, is the one man who can stop the war-stopper. He is equipped with a prosthetic arm which is set to fire its hand like a cannon when face to face with the entity who styles himself "The Rim".
In many ways, Earthrim is a conventional action yarn, not too different from the series hero paperbacks like the new "Executioner" series. Standard is an irascible brute who lurches from fight to fight, surviving by animal cunning and will to live. The world Nick Kamin (a new author) creates is not particularly visionary. There is one lady character, and she is a prostitute, existing for the sole purpose of 1) being Standard's lover, and 2) getting Standard to Rim.
But Kamin does some interesting stuff. He begins the story with a compelling hook: Standard is put under to have his prosthetic arm's shoulder put back into its socket, which brings a hapless doctor into the plot. Then we get scenes from Standard's past, woven in quite deftly, making his character more interesting and his personality a bit more palatable (though how he acts like a moron most of the time, but can whip out an erudite observation on topology is a bit strange).
The other characters are actually well drawn, from Jeannine the prostitute to Dr. Graystone. Even the cops on the trail of Standard get decently fleshed out, though their role is somewhat incidental. Kamin is also a compelling author. He's got the modern style down pat, and the lurid mode works well for Ace Doubles.
The biggest problem with the book is the revelation at the end that no character has exercised free will. Everything that happens is ultimately the will of Rim or Condliffe, the fellow who equipped Standard with the arm-gun. The journey is interesting. The writing is good. But the story is a steel lattice that the characters can only inhabit, not change.
Three and a half stars.
Phoenix Ship, by Leigh and Walt Richmond
by Jack Gaughan
The Richmond husband-and-wife team (supposedly, the wife does the typing, with the husband sending telepathic instructions from his living room easy chair) has another Ace Double for us. Stanley Thomas Arthur Reginald (S.T.A.R.) Dustin is an Earther, nephew to an asteroid belt-dwelling rabble-rouser named Trevor Dustin. Stan's dad wants his son to be nothing like his uncle, so he enrolls him in an arctic university for a proper indoctrination…er…education. Said education is most unusual. Stan gets weekly "inoculations" and then is given a series of exams. The questions are highly technical—impossible to answer without years of classes. Yes somehow, unconsciously, Stan seems to have the answers floating in the back of his mind.
Not content to let his hindbrain do the work, Stan spends all of his waking hours studying so that he could pass the tests even without the mysterious, subconscious aid. As a result, after four years, Stan has one of the most remarkable minds in the solar system. He finishes his schooling just in time for his uncle to lead a rebellion against Earth, winning independence for the Belt through a series of brilliant space naval maneuvers.
This makes Stan persona non grata on Earth, whereupon the school's headmaster sneeringly informs Stan that he has been drafted into the Marines, and he will have to report for duty in two weeks as one of Earth's finest. Well, Stan won't stand for that—he skips town, heads to orbit, and then off to the Belt…where he has a date with destiny and a second war with Earth.
Written in a much (much!) more juvenile vein than the Kamin, this is an odd duck of a book. With its cardboard characters, mustache-twirling villains, perfunctory inclusion of a single female (to be the love interest, natch), and its basic plot, it feels like something out of the 30s. On the other hand, the loving detail lavished on things like weightless maneuvers, dealing with explosive decompression, and space station construction are pulled from the current pages of Popular Science. There are tantalizing details on living in the Belt. Most interesting was that virtually all of its denizens are scarred or deformed, testament to the hostile environment, but no less human for it. Anderson and Niven have written about Belters, but the Richmonds have taken the first, if clumsy, steps to flesh out living in the Belt, I think.
The problem is neither Anderson nor Niven wrote this book, and the Richmonds really weren't up to it. The subject matter required twice its length. At the hands of a Heinlein, it could have been a second The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. As is, it's an occasionally entertaining, but largely turgid and by-the-numbers throwaway.
Speaking of husband and wife writing teams… Lord of the Stars is a new juvenile sf adventure co-created by the husband-and-wife team of Jean and Jeff Sutton. Stars is readable and fun, but lacks the fire and flash of the best juveniles.
Like many juveniles, Stars is a coming-of-age story which tells the story of how a young boy discovers a world around him much more complex and interesting than he ever could have expected. As in many of these types of books, Danny has a destiny to fulfill, and as he learns of his destiny, the boy also learns the creature who had mentored him is evil, and he meets his true friends along the way.
Hmm, it occurs to me there is a lot of familiar archetyping in that description. That archetyping is a big part of the strength and weakness of this book. Because sophisticated readers know basically how a story like this will proceed, we're looking for signposts that indicate a different viewpoint or more complexity – as in the recent Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin. But the Suttons aren't after the same level of complexity as Panshin was, and that leaves this book as merely an average juvenile sf yarn.
Cover by Albert Orbaan
The Suttons center Lord of the Stars around Danny June. As we meet Danny, he's all alone on a mysterious planet. He's been lost on the planet since his parents' colonist ship blew up, wandering the planet with the help of an amazing telepathic octopus-creature named Zandro. Zandro has incredible abilities and is extremely intelligent, guiding our boy in his means to survive the planet, and seeming to groom Danny for a greater fate.
But others want Danny as well. The great Galactic Empire, spanning thousands of stars, is after Danny. In chapter two we are introduced to the 17th Celestial Sector of the Third Terran Empire, led by Sol Houston, who see Danny as the kind of creature who can destroy their empire.
That aspect of the book is dully familiar, but at least the Suttons bring in a bit of playfulness with the names of the Galactic leaders. For reasons lost in the fog of time, the names Sol and Houston are legendary, so the leader of the empire is named Sol Houston. And so on, names explained in fun and clever asides which added to my pleasure with this book.
Similarly, there's an amusing tangent in which a set of Empire bureaucrats try to figure out what they can do to affect the lives of Danny and his friends. The bureaucrats fall into an almost talmudic debate about which regs to follow, which rules can be broken. It's in those moments one can see real-life arguments with governments and school boards made manifest. (Jean Sutton works as a high school teacher while Jeff Sutton works as an aerospace consultant, so both know plenty about bureaucracy).
But the core of the book centers around Danny, his great psychic powers, and the attempts by his friends and allies to break Danny away from Zandro's influence. Along the way, Danny battles the plans of Gultur, Lord of the Stars; communicates psychically in subspace with a group of androids; and makes friends.
All of this is quite fun, since the Suttons bring just the right amount of seriousness to bear with Lord of the Stars. This is also a well-written, crisp little novel — no surprise since Jeff Sutton has written fiction and nonfiction since he left the Marines after the War. Still, Danny comes across as bit of a cipher and the plot machinations are a bit creaky.
Overall, a pleasant novel that's a bit of a throwback but still is worth the read.
Three stars.
by Victoria Silverwolf
The Best Laid Schemes o' Mice an' (Space)Men
Two novels in which interstellar voyages gang agley (with a tip o' the Tam o' Shanter to Bobby Burns) fell into my hands recently. One is by a Yank, the other by a Brit. Let's take a look at 'em.
The Rakehells of Heaven, by John Boyd
Wraparound cover art by Paul Lehr
Atlanta-born Boyd Bradfield Upchurch writes under the penname listed above. He's whipped out a couple of previous novels quickly. The Last Starship from Earth came out last year, and The Pollinators of Eden just a few months ago.
This latest work starts with a psychiatrist interviewing a spaceman who came back from his voyage too early. More concerning is the fact that it was supposed to be a two-man effort, and his partner isn't with him.
The text quickly shifts to first person narration by the astronaut himself. His name is John Adams, better known as Jack. (I'm not sure if his name is supposed to be an allusion to the second President of the United States or not.) He's a Southern boy, just like the author.
His missing buddy is Keven "Red" O'Hara, a stereotypical Irishman who has a toy leprechaun as a good luck charm and wears underwear with green polka dots. (The latter is actually part of the plot.)
We get quite a bit of background about their days before the spaceflight. Suffice to say that, after an encounter with an old-fashioned fire-and-brimstone preacher and his nubile daughter, Jack gets religion and Red gets the girl. (He actually marries her but, as we'll see, that hardly ties him down.)
Their mission takes them to a planet in another galaxy. (There's no real reason the place has to be so far away. In other ways, this isn't the most realistic space voyage ever to appear in fiction.) The inhabitants are very human in appearance, the main difference being very long, strong legs that are used in about the same way as arms.
The aliens live in a logical, technologically advanced society with no apparent form of government. Society is made up of what are pretty much universities. The two Earthmen are welcomed, and even allowed to teach classes.
It should be noted that the locals wear extremely short tunics and nothing else, not even underwear. This very casual almost-nudity (which really conceals nothing) goes along with the fact that they consider sex to be no big deal, just something they do when they feel like it. Children often result, of course, and never know who their fathers are.
For Red, this is an opportunity to have relations with as many of the beautiful young women surrounding him as possible. Jack, on the other hand, wants to convert the natives to Christianity. That includes dressing modestly, courting the opposite sex chastely, etc.
Can you guess that this is going to backfire?
Complicating matters is the fact that Jack falls in love with one of the aliens. It seems that Earth doesn't consider extraterrestrials to be human unless they meet a long list of very specific conditions. That includes being able to defend their planet from invaders. (Obviously this is a cynical ploy on the part of Earthlings to be able to enslave any aliens who are weaker than they are.) In essence, Jack is marrying an animal, legally, unless he can prove they meet all the conditions.
Things reach a climax during the performance of an Eastertime Passion Play, meant to convey the story of Christ's sacrifice to the aliens, who are entirely without religion. (Red, nominally a Catholic, goes along with Jack's evangelism, mostly because he enjoys putting on shows.)
Yep, that's not going to go at all well either.
This is a satiric novel, not quite openly comic although it's got some farcical elements. There's also quite a bit of sex. This may be the only science fiction book I've read with a detailed description of a woman's genitalia.
The last part of the novel, which goes back to the psychiatrist, has a twist ending that doesn't quite make sense. Maybe the best way to describe this odd little book is to compare it to an episode of Star Trek combined with a dirty and blasphemous joke.
Three stars.
The Black Corridor, by Michael Moorcock
Cover art by Diane and Leo Dillon
Prolific author and controversial editor Moorcock needs no introduction to Galactic Journeyers.
A fellow named Ryan is aboard a starship heading for a supposedly habitable planet orbiting Barnard's Star. The trip will take five years, and three have already gone by. He's the only person awake on the ship. In hibernation are his wife, their two sons, and other relatives and friends.
(We'll find out, by the way, that a couple of the men have two wives each. This drastic change in Western European society [everybody is British] is taken for granted, with no discussion.)
Flashbacks take us to a future Earth that is rapidly disintegrating into chaos. Tribalism rears its ugly head. Ryan, the manager of a toy company, fires a kindly employee just because the fellow is Welsh. Things get much, much worse as the book continues. Ryan and the others hijack the starship in order to escape Earth, which they feel is doomed.
Aboard the ship, Ryan suffers nightmares. These are often surrealistic. At times, the text turns into words in all capitals that are placed on the page to form other words. These typographical tricks contrast strongly with the main parts of the narrative, which use simple language to convey truly horrific happenings.
It's hard for me to say much more about what happens, because Ryan is quite obviously experiencing a mental breakdown. You can't trust that what you're told is real.
This is a very dark and disturbing book. The New Wave narrative technique associated with the nightmares is a little gimmicky, but otherwise the novel is compelling in its portrait of both individuals and society in general falling apart.
(It should be noted that, according to scuttlebutt, many of the scenes set on Earth were written by Hilary Bailey, who is married to Moorcock. He rewrote that material, and added everything set in space. The resulting work is credited solely to Moorcock, apparently with Bailey's consent.)
Four stars.
by Brian Collins
Only one book from me this month, and unfortunately it's not a very good one. It's also, for better or worse, a familiar face. John Jakes has been writing at a mile a minute this year, with The Asylum World being what must be his fourth or fifth novel of 1969. Unlike some previous Jakes novels (a couple of which I reviewed), which lean more towards fantasy, this one is very much science fiction. If anything, the changing of genres is for the worse.
The year is 2031, and while mankind still lives on Earth, to an extent, a widespread race war between blacks and whites (I am not kidding) has resulted in not only Earth being split into Westbloc and Eastbloc (obviously a futuristic equivalent of our current cold war with the Soviets), but, I suppose on the bright side, a Noah's Ark of humanity has been established on Mars, where people live in domes, more or less in racial harmony. Sean Cloud is young, brash, and a "subadministrator" of this Martian colony. He's also hopelessly in love Lydia Vebren, who likes Sean but is hesitant due to his mixed racial heritage. Sean is half-black and half-white, is apparently unable to pass as the latter, and Lydia has a prejudice against black men.
There's also another, larger problem: a fleet of alien ships is making its way through the solar system, to Mars, possibly for peace, but also possibly to make war. The Martian colony does not have the armaments to defend itself, so Sean and Lydia are sent to Earth to bargain with the leadership in Westbloc, which itself is on the verge of turning to shambles.
The back cover says The Asylum World is satire, which strikes me as a bit odd, because in my experience satire is supposed to a) be humorous, and b) provide a topic on which the author may try to prove a point. No doubt this novel is Jakes's attempt at providing commentary on the current political climate in the U.S., especially racial strife over the past decade, not to mention that yes, tensions between the Americans and Soviets have resulted in us nearly blowing ourselves to bits at least once already. The problem is that I'm not sure what the hell he is trying to say, other than to make some center-of-the-road statements such as, for example, bemoaning the irrelevance of the family unit in this not-too-far future. There's a general sentiment of "Why can't we just get along and learn to speak honestly with each other?" which is all well and good, but men around my age and younger are dying. Sean's mixed racial heritage, which seems like it should be fodder for symbolic meaning (he is, after all, the offspring of two races, and now he must join Westbloc with Mars), but Jakes does very little with this.
I could continue to berate Jakes's political naivete, and I could also delve into how even at 170 pages this novel spins its wheels a fair bit (it really could have been a novella); but instead I'll focus some on how, despite taking place several decades into our future, The Asylum World strikes me as having been written only in the past year, maybe in the span of a month or two (why not? Michael Moorcock has written novels in a matter of days), and that I do not see how it could remain relevant in say, another ten years. When Sean comes to Earth he spends most of the novel at the "Nixon-Hilton." Sure. There's also the "Statue of the Three Kennedys." The bubbling conflict between Westbloc and Eastbloc is more or less what we are now dealing with, despite the very real possibility that the Soviet Union may not exist in 2031. Or indeed the United States. This seems like a novel written specifically to be published in 1969, so that readers may "get it" while it still gives the impression of being timely—at which point, having finished the novel in a day or two, said readers will toss it aside. At least Jakes is now slightly less at risk of having to beg for money on a street corner.
![[January 14, 1970] Root Rot (February 1970 <i>Venture</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Venture-1970-02-Cover-483x372.jpg)
A not very representational image for Laumer’s new story. Art by Bert Tanner
Ban must use his best friend’s corpse as a trap. Art by Bert Tanner
Looks more like Neil Diamond to me. Art by Craig Robertson
Wellen’s written some good stuff, so I hope this more than the pot-boiler thriller it appears to be.
![[January 2, 1970] Under Pressure (February 1970 <i>IF</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IF-1970-02-Cover-500x372.jpg)
Dr. Edward D. Goldberg of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, California
Col. Fletcher (r.) on his ice island in 1952. This was the most recent photo of him I could find.
Dr. William W. Kellogg of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colorado
Cover by Gaughan. Supposedly suggested by Whipping Star, but it looks more like it illustrates Pressure Vessel to me.
Art by Gaughan: O’Banion hooked up to the ship.
Can recordings made in a harem stop a revolution? Art uncredited, but probably by Gaughan
Art by Gaughan
Spider makes his way to the wreck of Rau Lou’s ship. Art by Gaughan
Power armor, but this mercenary is no Johnny Rico. Art by Gaughan
Art by Gaughan
Probably not Devlin. Art by Gaughan
McKie favors the Bond school of defusing traps by walking into them. Art by Gaughan![[December 31, 1969] …for spacious skies (January 1970 <i>Analog</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/691231cover-672x372.jpg)
![[December 28, 1969] Cinemascope: Two if by Sea, Three if by Space! (<i>Captain Nemo and the Underwater City</i> and <i>Marooned</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/691228posters-672x372.jpg)
Nemo's guests are less than thrilled at their accommodation.
There's also some nice modelwork, even if it's often hard to see.
![[December 26, 1969] A Wreath of Stars (the best science fiction of 1969!)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/691226stars-672x372.jpg)
![[December 24, 1969] At Last The 1980 Show: <i>New Worlds</i>, January 1970](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/NW19701-cover-672x372.png)
None of the photos I took turned out, but here's the art for the poster.
Cover by R. Glyn Jones.
Illustration by Charles Platt.
Illustration by R. Glyn Jones, who gets everywhere this issue.
Photo by Gabi Nasemann.
Design by unknown artist.
Photo by Roy Cornwall.
Illustration by Charles Platt.
Illustration by Pam Zoline.
Illustration by James Cawthorn.
Photo by Roy Cornwall.
![[December 22nd, 1969] Safety On! (<i>I Sing the Body Electric!</i> by Ray Bradbury)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Bradbury-Cover-595x372.jpg)
![[December 20, 1969] Stars above, stars at hand (January 1970 <i>Fantasy and Science Fiction</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/691220fsfcover-406x372.jpg)
![[December 18, 1969] Everyman's Sports (ski outfits of 1969!)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Vogue-matching-knit-ski-suits-e1734384341861-672x372.jpg)
![[December 16, 1969] Holiday haul (<i>Black Corridor</i> and the December Galactoscope)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/691216covers-672x372.jpg)
