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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 30, 1969] Capstone to a decade (December 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Atrocities in Vietnam

The news has been brewing for a while, and now it's on the front page: 1st Lieutenant William J. Calley Jr., a 26-year-old platoon leader stationed in Vietnam, has been "life or death" court martialed for the murder of 109 South Vietnamese civilians "of various ages and sexes."

head shot of a smiling Lieutenant Calley, in uniform

This so-called "My Lai incident" took place northeast of Quang Ngai city on March 16, 1968 in a village called Song My—code-named "Pinkville".  Calley, enraged at the death of his chief sergeant, appears to have ordered his unit to eliminate everyone in the hamlet.  Several of his men went on a bloody spree; others did what they could to avoid involvement.  One even shot himself in the foot so he could be medivaced out.  A number came forward with the story, which was investigated and then dismissed by the 11th Infrantry Brigade.  Letters to Congress have prompted the reopening of the case and investigation into the original investigation.

If Calley is convicted, he faces no less than life imprisonment, and death by firing squad is on the table.

The court martial comes on the heels of the July 21, 1969 charge of Green Beret commander, Col. Robert Rheault, and six of his officers with murder and conspiracy for the secret execution of a Vietnamese spy suspect.  Those charges were dropped two months later when the CIA, whose operatives were key witnesses, refused to cooperate.  Whether the government's tacit support of brutality increases or decreases the odds of Calley facing the music remains to be seen. 

Mediocrities in Print


by Kelly Freas

December's final magazine is Analog.  Let's hope this makes for pleasanter reading that the newspapers.

Turning first to the book review column, and skipping the editorial (for those who want recapitulations of Campbell's latest blatherings, go buy the collected volumes that have recently come out), P. Schuyler Miller offers up some nice coverage of translated Perry Rhodan books from West Germany.  He goes on to cover a Silverberg collection of antediluvian tales called The Calibrated Alligator.  They were written back when Silverbob was writing 50,000 words a week and rapidly killing himself.  The quality of his work was moderate; he devoted most of his energies to the kinds of books once sold below the counter, but which are now on brazen display in New York newstands.

Miller liked Timescoop, though he thought it lesser Brunner (but not least Brunner).  Pretty much what Jason said when he wrote about it.  He also thought much of Isle of the Dead, by Roger Zelazny, as did Victoria Silverwolf early this year.  Finally, before dispatching a bunch of reprints, he gives middlin' praise to Mack Raynolds' Time Gladiator, which is really just the serial Sweet Dreams, Sweet Princes, a People's Capitalism story so old, it still has Joe Mauser in it!  I liked the story, but I find Reynolds' near-future predictions fascinating, even if his writing is often just workmanlike.

This, by the way, is why I like Schuyler so much—he agrees with us!  (And he doesn't play favorites; coming out first in Analog doesn't automatically increase the score).

In Our Hands, the Stars (Part 1 of 3), by Harry Harrison


by Kelly Freas

That dopey looking sub-ship on the cover and as the headline illustration is, in fact, a submarine turned into a spaceship.  How did it happen?

Arnie Klein is an Israeli researcher who develops…something.  So explosive is this secret (literally—the story begins with his invention blowing up his laboratory) that he flees to Denmark, seeks asylum, and enlists the aid of his friend, Nobel Prize winner Ove Rasmussen.  The two work together to build a woking model of the contraption, and then install it in a submarine.

Pretty early on, it's obvious what the thing will do: generate antigravity.

All of this takes us to about Page 40 of the serial, and none of those pages are necessary.  The information conveyed in those dry ~10,000 words of text could easily have been woven into an in media res beginning—and Harrison is fully up to the task.  That he padded things out so much, with uninteresting characters and inconsequential events, suggests he's in it for the per-word rates.

Anyway, after the Blæksprutten is commissioned, a trio of Soviet cosmonauts find themselves marooned on the Moon with a limited oxygen supply.  Klein and Co. take their ship up to Luna and rescue them.  Meanwhile, down on Earth, there's some Cold War spy machinations of limited interest.

Harrison can do much better.  This is like cut-rate Mack Reynolds, really.  Anyway, 3 stars, I guess, but if it's all like this, we're going to end up in the 2.5 zone.

Is Biological Aging Inevitable?, by Capt. John E. Wrobel, Jr.

This is an interesting piece on what we think causes mortality (lots of options), what's being done about it (not that much, surprisingly), the effects of immortality on society (only positive ones listed), and the mythological underpinnings of mortality acceptance (quite interesting).

I found the article quite graspable, and the use of chapter divisions greatly improved readability.  Let's hope this becomes a feature for future nonfiction pieces.

Four stars.

Mindwipe, by Tak Hallus


by Vincent DiFate

"Tak Hallus" returns for his sophomore tale (his first, also appeared in Analog.) In this one, space-hand Ernest Schwab is on trial for a heinous crime: blanking the mind of the Terran governor of the planet Paria.  It turns out Schwab is one of the very few telepaths known to humanity—even he didn't know he had this power.  Now it is up to Public Defender Benson to prove that he was manipulated into action by another telepath rather than acting of his own volition.  Doing so will take Benson on an adventure, from the courtrooms of Earth to the tunnels of the burrowing indigenes of Paria…and place a bullseye on his own head for meddling!

This is a pretty neat piece.  It suffers for being rather workmanlike in execution, as if it were a little rushed, and I found the society of the future a bit too similar to that of the present (particularly the role of women).  Nevertheless, it captures interest and offers up a decent mystery as well as, in the process, presenting an interesting alien race.

Three stars.

Testing … One, Two, Three, Four, by Steve Chapman


by Leo Summers

A bird colonel, stuck in service to an electronic brain, is given the task of overseeing a trio of servicemen who are undergoing computerized tests qualifying them for extraterrestrial deployment.  What he doesn't realize (but what is obvious fairly early on) is that this assignment is, in fact, a test of his capabilities.

Not bad.  The sort of thing Chris Anvil might have come up with.

Three stars.

Superiority Complex, by Thomas N. Scortia


by Leo Summers

Things fall off a cliff for these last two vignettes, probably accepted more for their useful length than quality.  This one takes us to a time several generations after The Bomb wiped out half of humanity.  Researchers are trying to revitalize the race through eugenics, specifically tracking down the descendants of "Phil Jason", an exceptional man who wrote screenplays in old Hollywood until he blew his own brains out.  If society could manufacture more of his type, then perhaps it could be rejuvenated.

Turns out that "Phil" was really "Phyllis", and the spirit of her genius lives on throughout the human race…explaining why women always seem to rule from the shadows, preferring the power behind the throne rather than the throne itself (this is the story's contention, not mine).

A dumb, sexist piece.  One star.

Any Number Can Play, by Richard Lippa


by Vincent DiFate

A meteorologist man-and-wife team investigate anomolaus weather off the coast of Florida and find the wreck of an enemy warship that had been creating the storm.  Portentous intonations of "could this be happening globally?"

Weather control is all the rage these days, in fiction and nonfiction.  Personally I can't buy that all the silver iodide crystals and laser beams will have half the effect that, say, a century of industrial society is having on the Earth.  But I also take issue with attibuting harmful weather to malevolent foreign entities.  That road leads to Silly Science.  We had enough of that with folks like Lysenko.  What's next?  Railing against vaccinations?

One star.

End of the line

And so ends the last magazine of the calendar year—not with a bang, but with a 2.7 star whimper.  This puts it above Vision of Tomorrow (2.8), Fantastic (2.1), and the shockingly bad New Worlds (1.9), but well below Galaxy (3.1), If (3.2), Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.4), and The New S.F. (3.6)

Now that all the magazines are done, I can give you a sneak preview of what the Galactic Stars will look like.  Here are all of the mags/anthologies in order of average:

  1. New Writings 3.679824561
  2. Fantasy and Science Fiction 3.102574451
  3. IF 3.070572755
  4. New Worlds 3.030241097
  5. Galaxy 3.005917367
  6. Vision of Tomorrow 2.921091331
  7. Venture 2.824404762
  8. Analog 2.688902006
  9. Fantastic 2.645528083
  10. Amazing 2.622086594
  11. Orbit 2.571428571
  12. Famous 1.897435897

As you can see, Analog finished pretty close to the bottom, barely acing out the Ted White mags (which are on their way up).  Campbell's going to have to do better than this if he wants to keep his ~170,000 readers, I imagine.

In other statistics, women wrote just 3% of the new fiction this month, and the four and five star pieces would fill three small digests (out of the eight published).  Not an auspicious way to end the decade, but perhaps the '70s will offer up a New New Wave.

See you on the other side!

[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]


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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[Oct. 31, 1969] Struggling to get out (November 1969 Analog)

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Science Fiction Theater Episode #10

Tonight (Oct. 31), tune in at 7pm (Pacific) for our special, Halloween-themed episode!

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Inside Lebanon

Feel that?  It's the calm before the storm.

For the past week, the nation of Lebanon has been rocked from within by "Palestinian" guerrillas.  Yesterday, at the behest of leaders in Cairo, Damascus, and Tripoli, the raiders settled down, awaiting what looks like will be a significant negotiation between Arab power brokers.

I'm no expert on the issue, but here's what I've gleaned.  When Israel declared independence in 1948, a significant percentage of the Arab population within the nascent nation's borders left the former mandate of Palestine.  Some fled violence, like that inflicted by classy folk such as Menachem Begin of the Irgun, a Jewish terrorist group.  Others left at the exhortation of their Arab brethren, who proclaimed that they were about to drive the Jews into the sea.

Hundreds of thousands of Arabs ended up in neighboring countries: Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon.  Indeed, exiled Arabs now comprise 12% of the population of Lebanon—fully 300,000 people.  They live in camps administrated by the draconian Lebanese Deuxième Bureau.

The "Palestinian Liberation Organization", founded in 1964 with the goal of "the liberation of Palestine", initiated terrorist attacks against Israel after The Six Day War in 1967.  Such are being carried out from enclaves in other countries with more or less tacit permission from those countries' governments.

The recent irruption in Lebanon arose from the Lebanese cracking down on these raids.  The violence, thwarted from heading southward, flooded internally—into Beirut, Tyre, Lebanese Tripoli, and other major cities.  Egypt, Syria, and Libya all leaned hard on the Christian Arab nation to let loose the reins on the guerrillas.  Lebanon has relented, and the negotiations will proceed shortly.  Participants will be Dr. Hassan Sabri El Kholi, personal envoy of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Libyan Interior Minister Mousa Ahmed, and guerrilla chief Yasser Arafat.  While there's no telling what the outcome will be, one has to imagine the Palestinians will be allowed to resume their raids into Israel again.

With the War of Attrition occupying Israel on its western and eastern fronts, it now looks as if the Jewish state is about to be busy defending from the north, too.  Most folk are betting on the Israeli Defense Force, but can the country survive under siege forever?

Time will tell.

Inside Analog


by Vincent Di Fate

Like Lebanon, the crisis facing Analog comes from within, as evidenced by the latest issue.  From without, the magazine looks like it always has—handsome, professional.  But within, one can see the rot.  Not that it's all bad; indeed, much of it is decent.  But what works is stagnant, and what doesn't work is very much the sort of thing we expect from long-toothed editor John Campbell.

Gottlos, by Colin Kapp

Starting off, we have what looks like a Bolo story—one of those Keith Laumer tales featuring a sentient, super-tank.  Unlike Laumer's stories, this one has a lot of action, with the Fiendish mauling dozens of opposing vehicles, overruning a command post, and then meeting its match with the arrival of the ebony Gottlos.

After Fiendish is destroyed, we learn that it was actually a remotely controlled tank.  Its pilot, Manton, had so thoroughly melded with the machine, that the result was a gestalt personality, one motivated by violence and vengeance.  With his vehicle destroyed, Manton falls into an apparent funk, shaken by the appearance of a more powerful machine.  The real terror of Gottlos is that it seems to need no radio controls at all.  Is it autonomous?  A kind of cybernetic beast?

Kapp has written more of a philosophical than predictive piece, describing how a society might decay under the strain of endless war and complete mechanization.  I appreciate Kapp's skill with English, but the story itself seemed a bit implausible in its setup.

Three stars.

Telepathy – Did It Happen?, by J. B. Reswick and L. Vodonik

Oh boy.  A pair of cranks conducted a telepathy experiment.  Here's the notion: telepathy is only reliable about 1-2% of the time.  But what's really happening, they suppose, is that there's just so much interference that the message gets clogged with static. If one conducts thousands of tests using a simple message, the errors will be reduced, and the message will stand out.

The setup they used involved a binary message and transmitter.  After many trials, the experimenters determined that had gotten the error down low enough to show that something had objectively been transmitted.  Of course, the researchers admitted that their data only supported this conclusion if you read the results backwards (i.e. if the 1s of the original message were logged as 0s and vice versa.)

Given the thin margins of success, if you gotta flip the results on their heads to get any kind of answer, I suspect it's all bogus.  Which is how I'm beginning to feel about psionics in general.

One star.

Weapon of the Ages, by W. Macfarlane


by Leo Summers

Humanity is hounded by vicious extraterrestrials when they try to go to the stars.  One pilot crashlands on a neutral world, is conducted to a mysterious weapon, and manages to wipe out a set of local marauders.  The weapon's use has side effects, one which the owner's race is prepared for, but not the human who fired it.

Macfarlane is trying for a cute sting-in-the-tail story, but the whole thing is nonsensical, so it lacks the desired impact.

Two stars.

The Ambassadors, by as by J. B. Clarke


by Leo Summers

A set of three disparate aliens makes contact with the galactic organization of which the humans are a member.  Said aliens claim to be vastly superior to our federation, but they say they'll be generous and give us a few technological wonders—if only we'll give them an example of one of our best starships, so they can gauge our level of progress.  Since homo sapiens has (per the story) an unique ability to sniff out a scam, a human is sent to investigate to see if the aliens are on the level.

Things that suggest the aliens are hoaxing: they showed up in a borrowed spaceship, no one has ever heard of their stellar confederation, and their "capital" planet is a smoggy wasteland.  Points in their favor: the three wear a common uniform and despite profound apparent racial differences, work together in perfect harmony.  Conclusion, they must represent an ancient and tight-knit federation!

Much is made of the fact that most species in the galaxy are bi-sexual.  Not that you'd know from this story, whose only female human is a "pert secretary."  The leader of the alien delegation is a female, to the surprise of the humans receiving them.  Cue the snide comments about how women always have to speak for the menfolk (the implication being that such arrogance is misplaced).  In the end, the gender of the aliens is the key to unpuzzling the obvious hoax.

Clarke spends a lot of time setting up a puzzle whose solution is apparent from nearly the beginning.  The characters have to be obtuse to make the story work.  Obtuse and sexist. 

One star.

Shapes to Come, by Edward Wellen


by Vincent Di Fate

A scientist in an isolated base on the Moon has completed his work: he has perfected a spore that will inject itself into any alien genetic structure, instilling an irresistible trust of the human form.  By seeding the stars with this spore, when we meet any extraterrestrials, they will necessarily greet us with love and affection.

But before the spore can be deployed, an alien armada shows up.  Can you guess what completely unexpected result ends the tale based on the story's setup?

This is comic book level stuff.  Two stars.

The Yngling (Part 2 of 2), by John Dalmas


by Kelly Freas

Concluding the two-part serial begun last ish, The Yngling latter half is choppy but worthy.

When we last left our hero, the psi-adept Nordic warrior, Nils Ironhand, he had been sent into the lion's den.  More specifically, to the domain of Kazi, an immortal (through soul transferrence into new bodies) who reigns through unbelievable cruelty.  His armies are poised at the doorstep of Europe, and in short order, more than thirty thousand of his "orc" hordes will sweep through the Balkans bent on rapine and ravagery.

Nils presents a condundrum to the psionic tyrant as his signature trait is the lack of an internal monologue.  Thus, his mind cannot be read, barely even sensed.  He also is completely without guile.  Interestingly, while this wordless mentality is portrayed as an unique characteristic, and perhaps a side effect of Nils' psi powers, it can't be that rare in the real world.  Indeed, one of the Journey's very own, Tam Phan, possesses this trait.  Now, Tam is also a fantastic warrior, so there may be a connection.


Tam and familiar faces at a local gathering of Vikings

In any event, after Nils gets to witness some particularly gruesome examples of Kazi's barbarism, he escapse, makes it back to Hungary, and organizes a resistance comprising Magyar, Ukrainian, Polish, and Bohemian knights…as well as hundreds of his kinsman, who have just crossed the Baltic, fleeing the impending Ice Age.  The resulting battle is lengthy, desperate, and strategic in detail.  Of course, you can guess who wins.

This is a tough book to rate!  It's firmly in the genre of magical post-Apocalypse, along with Omha Abides, Spawn of the Death Machine, Out of the Mouth of the Dragon, and so on.  I happen to like this genre, and while I'm growing to loathe psi stories, in these settings, I can just pretend it's a kind of magic, or maybe lost technology.

The key to writing this genre well, and Dilmas does, is to bathe it in sensuality and adventure.  In many ways, Nils is more akin to Conan than any scientifical hero you'd expect to find in Analog.  I also greatly appreciate that Dilmas manages to convey the most unspeakable of tortures completely obliquely.  A few artful words can chill far more than pages of explicit gore.

Too, I enjoyed the grand depiction of the battle, complete with fog of war and the uncertainty that accompanies it.  So vivid is this portion of the novel, that one could probably adapt a cracking wargame from it.  Jim Dunnigan, are you listening?

It's not all roses, of course.  As in the first half, the various sections of the novel don't quite hang together well, like bricks without mortar.  Much is bridged in shorthand.  Also, Nils having to retell the same story to half a dozen European lords to rally them against the orcs was a bit tiresome.  Perhaps all of these things will be smoothed when this story inevitably gets picked up by Ace.  Or maybe not—they like their books short.

Anyway, I'd give this installment four stars, three-and-a-half for the whole.  Fans of this sort of thing, like my nephew, David, may notch up their assessments a touch.

Doing the math

Boy, Analog has been bad lately.  I know it seems like I just keep saying it over and over again, but until these doldrums end, I'll have to find creative ways to repeat myself.

At 2.3 stars, Analog is by far the lowest in the pack.  IF got 3.1; Vision of Tomorrow got 3.2; even Amazing got 3.2; Galaxy got 2.9; so did Venture; Fantasy and Science Fiction got 2.7; and New Worlds got 2.8.

Women wrote about 10% of what was published this month, and you could fit all the four and five star stuff in two digests.  Given that eight came out for November, that's a pretty weak showing.

Perhaps if Ted White, Ed Ferman, Charles Platt, and Ejler Jakobsson went over to Condé Nast headquarters for a negotiation, Campbell might loosen the reins on his writers.  Couldn't hurt!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[Sep. 30, 1969] Decisions, decision (October 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Options in Space

Just two months ago, men set foot on the Moon.  It was the culmination of 12 years of American progress in space, nine years of manned flights.

And yet, it is also just the beginning.  This nation has built the infrastructure to begin a new era of space exploration and exploitation.  As of this moment, the National Air and Space Administration (NASA) has no formal plans for human spaceflight beyond the flight of Apollo 20 sometime in 1973, and a somewhat inchoate, 3-man space station project—this latter to utilize a converted Saturn rocket upper stage. 

In order to turn further dreams into reality, President Nixon has created a "Space Task Group", headed by Vice President Agnew and comprising luminaries like NASA chief Thomas Paine and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, to map what the next decade in outer space will look like.  They submitted their report, "The post-Apollo space program: directions for the future", on September 15.

The 29-page report outlines an ambitious set of proposals, even the most modest of which still sets lofty goals.  In short, the options are:

  1. Land a man on Mars by 1980; orbit a multi-person lunar station; orbit a 50-person space station in Earth orbit; develop a reusable spacecraft to shuttle personnel and supplies to and from these stations;
  2. The same, but with a deferred Mars landing; and,
  3. The same, but with no Mars landing.

With regard to the station, it appears that it won't be a all-of-a-piece spinning wheel as seen in 2001 or the old Collier's articles from the early '50s.  Instead, NASA will mass-produce station modules, which can be put together like Tinkertoys.

There are three options presented for military spaceflight, as well, but these are not fleshed out proposals, merely budget amount suggestions based on how hot or cool international tensions are over the next decade.

Only time will tell which of these options, or which portions of these plans will be implemented and when.  It is one thing for the Vice President to boost space (a consistent tradition since 1961!) It remains to be seen if Dick Nixon will commit this nation to a grand, interplanetary goal, in the vein of his erstwhile opponent, Jack Kennedy.

Options in Print

As the STG offers up a number of options for the future of human spaceflight, so Analog editor Campbell offers up a number of possible futures set further beyond in the latest issue of Analog.


by Kelly Freas

The Yngling (Part 1 of 2), by John Dalmas

It is the 29th Century, and the world is recovering from a disaster that killed off the overwhelming majority of its population.  Earth has reverted to the Dark Ages, at least in Europe.  In fact, the setting of the book strongly resembles the 9th Century, with food pressure impelling the Scandinavians to raid and settle the warmer climes to the south.  Meanwhile, an Oriental despot is plotting the takeover of Europe from his advance base in the Balkans.

The main difference between the future and our past is the existence of psi powers, specifically telepathy and precognition.  Though not widespread, it is common enough that possessors of these powers are recognized and valued.


by Kelly Freas

One such possessor is Nils Järnhand, a Svear from the frigid land of Svea.  Banished from his lands for an accidental manslaughter, he travels to many places, becoming perhaps Europe's greatest warrior.  He also develops his psi powers, using his telepathy to aid his interactions and his premonitory power to stay one step ahead of assailants.  His ultimate goal seems to be a date with destiny with the evil Kazi, the would-be dictator of all lands west of the Urals.

John Dalmas seems to be a new author, and his Nils is a character in the Conan mold—a superman who can be placed in a number of adventure scenarios.  His defining traits, asside from his martial puissance, is his adaptibility and his complete lack of an internal monologue.  He simply senses, processes, and acts, with no consideration or doubts.  This should make for a dull character, but somehow, Dalmas keeps things going, lively and interesting.  There are a couple of rough transitions where it seems thousands of words got pared for length considerations; perhaps they will be restored in the book version.

Anyway, I give it three stars for now, but it's possible the second part will raise my estimation.  I'm certainly enjoying it, at least.

A Relic of War, by Keith Laumer


by Vincent Difate

Three generations after the cataclysmic human/alien war, a battered sentient tank has become adopted by the citizens of a small town.  When a government man comes along intending to euthanize the old machine, the mayor is the first to defend their mascot.  But when Bobby the tank suddenly charges off, weapons armed, there is cause for all to reconsider their positions.

This is the Simakiest of Laumer's Bolo stories, pastoral and sensitive.  What I find so interesting about these tales is that so many take place long after the conflict for which the mammoth tanks were built.  Others would prefer to tell war stories, but not Laumer.

Four stories.

The Big Rock, by Robert Chilson


by Kelly Freas

A future-day Australia is set up on an airless world, importing criminals from six worlds whose citizens would rather offload the malcontents than pay the taxes for things like prisons and rehabilitation.  It's all part of a grand experiment: can a den of thieves become a self-sustaining population?

Chilson tells the story from the point of view of the intellectual (and much bullied) prisoner, Hargraves.  His tale is punctuated by scenes of a conversation in which one government official explains the experiment to another politician.

The setup is interesting—sort of a precursor to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress—and Chilson tells an interesting story…but the piece just ends.  Even the dialogue between the two bureaucrats doesn't tie things up.  We never find out how the experiment ends, or even if it can end successfully.

Three stars.

Proton to Proton, by R. Dean Wilson

Wilson proposes a mechanism for the abstruse but universal conversion of sunlight into the molecule ATP, which is fundamental to most biological processes.

I must confess, it's all beyond me, but then I've never taken a chemistry course in my life.

Three stars.

Test Ultimate, by Christopher Anvil


by Vincent Difate

Here is another tale of Anvil's "Space Patrol".  This time, a recruit is facing the final challenge before induction, one of courage.  He has to wade through a pool of giant piranha and then climb a 25-foot sheer facing.  Accompanying him on is a chipper guide, who exhorts him cheerfully to plunge on through, heedless of the danger.

Naturally, this is all simulated, so if said recruit gets eaten on the way, he'll only feel his death, not experience it.  Nevertheless, our hero smells something fishy (beyond what's in the pond), and responds accordingly.

It's cute, perhaps a trifle long.  Three stars.

Jump, by William Earls


by Vincent Difate

99 out of 100 Spacers have no trouble with Jump, that moment of transition between normal and hyper-space.  But Lacey is in that unlucky 1%, and despite a luminary career in the scout services, he finds he just can't take the experience anymore.  So he musters out at Titan base and tries to make a go of it as a civilian.  In the end, he determines space is in his blood, fear of the void between voids be damned.

There's not a lot to this tale, which could just as easily have been written about the Navy, with seasickness or fear of typhoons standing in for Jump aversion.  Plus, I was a bit turned off when the author had Titan be a Moon of Jupiter.  Titan orbits around Saturn!

Two stars.

Compassion, by J. R. Pierce

by Leo Summers

In the near future, New York becomes a protected enclave for Black Americans, not unlike the reservations for Native Americans (as Indians are beginning to be called).  The parallel is not specious—it is made in the story!

The heroine of the tale is Sari, a 20-year old tourguide from the Big Apple, whisked away by a handsome, middle-aged man as dark as she is, but representative of the mainstream world, progressing right along.  He introduces her to the modern era, gauges her considerable talents, and then sends her back to New York to be a leader of her society, someone who can bring promising souls into the wider world.

I'm not sure I like or buy the premise, but it is a nicely written piece, with enough consideration given both to the world (like something Mack Reynolds might spin) and to Sari's emotions and inner thoughts, to feel fleshed out.  Not much happens, but I enjoyed the story.

Three stars.

Doing the math

All in all, not a bad issue, really.  Unlike a lot of the rest of the slog this month, I never found myself dreading the next page of Analog.  Of course, a three-star average is hardly anything to brag about, but it does beat all the other collections of short SF this month, with the exception of Galaxy (3.2).

Lesser entries for October include:

You could take all the four and five star stuff and squeeze it into one overlarge magazine, and though women contributed 6.5% of the newly published material this month, you have to regard Orbit as a magazine, even though it's printed in paperback format.

We're definitely at a nadir for short SF these days.  Let's hope this is the bottom rather than a height compared to what's coming!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[August 31, 1969] Over (and under) the Moon (September 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Being #2, they try…harder?

Last October, just after Apollo 7 went up, it looked as if the Soviets still had a chance at beating us to the Moon.  Their Zond 5, really a noseless Soyuz, had been sent around the Moon two months ahead of our Apollo 8 circumlunar flight.  Just a month later, the similar Zond 6 took off on November 16 and zoomed around the Moon before not just landing, but making a pinpoint landing in the Kazakh S.S.R. (near its launch site) with the aid of little wings.  Apparently, the prior Zond 5's splashing down in the Indian Ocean was not according to plan.

Shortly after the flight, the Soviets dropped the bombshell that Zond 6 could have been manned—and the next one might well be.

Well, as we all know, the Communists didn't beat us around the Moon.  Moreover, they didn't beat us to the Moon, either.  Remember all that talk about Luna 15 during the flight of Apollo 11?  That was the probe launched just before Columbia and Eagle, rumored to be a sample-return mission.  Well, it crashed into the aptly named Sea of Crises about 500 miles northeast of Eagle's landing site on July 21.  Had its mission been successful, the Soviets might have had bragging rights about getting the first batch of Moon rocks.

But, as the Ruskies found out after who knows how many unsuccessful Luna flights, only succeeding in 1966 with Luna 9, complicated maneuvers rarely work on the first time out.

That said, even with the clear American victory in the Moon race, the Soviets appear to still be going strong.  Earlier this month, Zond 7 sailed around the Earth's companion, landing on August 14.  Still no people onboard, but perhaps they worked out the communications troubles that reportedly plagued the last two Zond missions.

Whether these Zond flights presage an upcoming attempt with people onboard remains to be seen.  According to former NASA chief Jim Webb, the Soviets are also building a super rocket, which they will use to put cosmonauts on the Moon.  Put two and two together, and perhaps the early 70s will see the USSR catch up to and surpass the US.

Unless we get to Mars first…

Being #1, they've stopped trying

Analog has, for decades now, kept the title of the most-read science fiction magazine on the market.  On the other hand, editor John Campbell has been sitting on his laurels for a long time, producing an unexciting periodical for the past several years.  The latest issue of Analog only adds more fuel to the argument that perhaps it is time for the old don to step down and let someone vigorous take his place—at least to bring the magazine into the 1960s!


by Kelly Freas

Your Haploid Heart, by James Tiptree, Jr.


by Kelly Freas

A two-man team is sent from Earth to the planet of Esthaa.  Their mission: to determine of the humanoid inhabitants are, well, human.  The results may put to bed the two competing theories that explain the ubiquity of the human form in the galaxy: common evolution and random scattering, or independent, convergent evolution.

The Esthaans are a robust, beautiful people, but there is something somehow phony about them.  Meanwhile, they seem to be on the verge of completing a genocide against the primitive Flenns…who also appear to be a type of human.

What is the connection between the two races?  And why have the civilized Esthaans developed such an antipathy for the pathetic Flenns?  And is an earlier Terran expedition somehow the cause of all this?

There's some interesting biology wrapped up in this story (as suggested by the title), and since biology is not my specialty, I can't even begin to speculate how plausible it is.  But it's an interesting story, well-written, and easily the best I've read from newcomer Tiptree.

Four stars.

Starman, by W. Macfarlane


by Leo Summers

The assistant fifth mate on an interstellar tramp freighter decides to jump ship on a backwater world.  The natives have reverted to savagery after once having broadcast power and space travel.

Said starman soon learns that Stone Age living isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Luckily, there are a few relics of the old days left at his disposal.

This is a fun, if inconsequential, story.  The writing is breezy, fun, and tongue-in-cheek, though the casual slurs are somewhat offputting.  I'm also getting very tired of humans, humans everywhere instead of true E-Ts.

Three stars.

The Big Boosters of the U.S.S.R., by G. Harry Stine

Speaking of the Soviet super-booster—amateur rocketeer Stine conjectures as to the configuration and capability of the USSR's rocket stable.  Of course, given how secretive the Russians are, there's a lot of guesswork involved.

I appreciated it, but I have to wonder how accurate he is.  In particular, I'm not sure why he believes that Soyuz 1 was launched on a different rocket from the later Soyuz missions.  I've seen nothing to that effect.  Maybe he's talking about whatever is shooting up Zonds around the Moon.  Those are, after all, just stripped down Soyuzes.

Anyway, four stars.  We'll see how right he is in a decade or so…

Damper, by E. G. Von Wald


by Peter Skirka

A tyro hotshot joins the Weather Control Bureau and is dispatched to a small, Arabian country.  When a Soviet incursion threatens the peace, he shifts the focus of his rain-making efforts from irrigation to interdiction.

Aside from the casual and constant male chauvinism, I have a hard time buying weather control as an SFnal theme, particularly so thinly sketched out as it is in this story.  Orbital lasers (don't those count as space-based weapons?) pumped a lot of heat into the atmosphere to evaporate ocean water and create onshore winds—that heat doesn't go away.  What happens when the Earth warms up by several degrees thanks to all that extra heat?  Beyond that, the technique wouldn't work anyway: it takes more than wet air to make rain; you need some kind of condensate material.  That's why planes seed clouds with silver iodide so the water has something to coalesce around to make droplets.

Two stars.

Stimulus-Response, by Herbert Jacob Bernstein


by Kelly Freas

A trio of scientists are using electrodes and encephalograms to record brain patterns.  The goal is to train a dog to use specific thoughts to trigger its food dish.  In the process, the researchers accidentally teach the beagle how to telekinese.

Not only is this story a turgid bit of pseudo-engineering, but then it abandons science entirely to enter the region of Campbell's beloved psi.  Look, I can sort of enjoy psionics if I treat them like a kind of magic, but when they're mixed in with engineering to get a patina of respectability—and the story is deadly dull to boot—well, there's only one score for it.

One star.

In His Image, by Robert Chilson


by Leo Summers

A biologist synthesizes the first androids—they are human in all respects, save for their satyr-form lower halves.  Bred to be performers, they have been conscious just six months, but have the minds of college professors and the bodies of nubile goddesses.  When the Actors' Guild sues for an injunction against their use in the entertainment business citing unfair competition, a friendly reporter purchases one of them despite the fact that they are sentient and, for all intents and purposes, human. The goal is to force the courts to declare the androids fully human and thus exempt from measures against discrimination.

The question of whether or not androids are people has frequently been explored in science fiction, from the sublime Synth to the less than perfectly successful Trek episode Requiem for Methuselah.  Chilson's tale is… well, it's dull and kind of stupid.  The androids have no personality save for interchangeable sex kitten, the writing is uninspired, and the universe implausible.  It's not even clear what point Chilson is trying to make, so muddied are all the story's elements.  In the end, the plot of the story, such as it is, seems only to exist so we can have a trio of jiggly goat girls mincing around.

One star.

The Visitors, by Jack Wodhams


by Kelly Freas

Terrans land on the first inhabitable world ever found and make first contact with the natives.  Turns out "primitive" doesn't mean "defenseless."

This would be a two-star story, inoffensive but not noteworthy, except for the sheer number of words Wodhams wastes getting to his point.  Twenty pages that could easily have been condensed to, I dunno, five.

One star.

Crashlanding

Well, like the Soviets, Analog is churning issues out that look like winners, but really are just unimpressive retreads.  This one clocks in at 2.4, which is higher than Galaxy (2.2), but lower than Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.7), Visions of Tomorrow (2.8), Amazing (2.9). If (3.0), New Worlds (3.3).

Only one new piece of fiction was written by a woman, and if you took all the decent stuff published this month, you'd only be able to fill two digests—and that's with the extra paperback anthology this month.  Whither short SF?  Whither the Soviet space program?

I guess we'll see what happens next month…




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Fashion, music, politics, sports, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 31, 1969] Stranger than fiction (August 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Dip in Road

A week has gone by since Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28 year-old worker on Robert F. Kennedy's campaign, lost her life.  Of course you've read the news.  She went to Martha's Vineyard for a reunion with other campaign workers, where she met the last surviving Kennedy brother, Teddy.  According to the Senator, Mary Jo was a bit tipsy, so he offered to drive her home.  His car ended up off a bridge.  He survived; she did not.

A tragedy.  Moreover, it is a far from clear-cut strategy.  Kennedy says he tried to save Kopechne, but that he was too exhausted to succeed—but he failed to call the police, who might have been able to help.  Indeed, he called his lawyer instead.  Last weekend, the Senator pled guilty to leaving the scene of the crime.

It's also unclear just what Kennedy and Kopechne were doing on the deserted dirt road that led to the scene of the accident.  It wasn't on the way home.  Was something clandestine in the works?  Was Teddy also sozzled?

There's a lot of talk about what this incident means for Kennedy's career, how he's not going to be able to run for President in '72, etc.  Perhaps this was all an innocent accident.  Maybe the only lesson we should get from all of this is that it's not smart to drive under the influence.

All we know at this time is that there as many questions as answers, as well as inconsistencies in the Senator's testimony.  I hope, for the Kopechne family's sake, if nothing else, that more is learned in the days to come.

In any event, once again, a Kennedy career has come to a sudden, unexpected halt.

Steady as she goes

If the political news is chaotic, such cannot be said for the latest issue of Analog, mostly composed of the plodding "problem" stories the magazine is known for.  However, amidst the tired tales is one standout that is definitely worth your time.


by Kelly Freas

The Teacher, by Colin Kapp


by N. Blakely

On a distant world, evolution is locked in the Jurassic—reptiles rule the globe.  Except these deadly dinosaurs are near intelligence, and quickly crowding out the race of sentient humanoids that shares the planet.  Enter "The Gaffer", a spaceman from Earth who walks the fine line between providing the skills and technology to defeat the reptiles, and avoiding becoming deified, unduly influencing the native culture.

Sounds a bit Star Trek, doesn't it?

The story is competently written, though Edgar Rice Burroughs was far better at pitting technological man vs. primeval monster.  I appreciated the acknowledgment that cultural and technical exchange is a dicey subject.  I'm not sure with some of the assumptions, particularly that any group exposed to Terran culture is doomed to adopt its worst qualities.

Anyway, three stars.

The Timesweepers, by Keith Laumer


by Vincent Di Fate

This one starts out as the tale of a time traveler whose job is to repair the past from the meddlings of earlier time travelers… and it sort of ends that way, too!  But in-between, it's a beautiful onion of adventure, moving at breakneck speed as the scope of the universe of time-lines expands into infinity.  It is both gripping adventure as well as the apotheosis of time travel stories, and Laumer manages it all in just thirty pages.  At first, I thought things were moving a bit quickly, but once I got to the end, I realized they'd taken just the time they needed.

I've often observed that there is "funny" Laumer and there is "serious" Laumer, and that the latter is the more worthy (though the ex-USAF officer makes a pretty good living on his endless parade of Retief stories, so what do I know?) The Timesweepers is serious Laumer, and it's seriously good.  It'd make a phenomenal movie someday.

Five stars.

Minds and Molecules, by Carl A. Larson

Somewhere in this turgid mass of verbosity are some interesting concepts: injectable "memory" RNA that teaches, or at least aids memory.  Drugs that stimulate enzymes to abet sanity and tranquility.

But man, this is just too hard to read to be a useful science article.

Two stars.

Chemistry … AD 1819, by William Henry, M.D., F.R.S.

Excerpts from a 150 year old chemical tome, illustrating how the useless powders of today might be the miracles of tomorrow.  And also a cautionary tale against sampling your own wares… lead is a poor flavor-additive!

Three stars.

Pressure, by Harry Harrison


by Peter Skirka

Three men descend in a bathyscape not to the bottom of the ocean, but to the surface of Saturn.  Their mission: to install a matter transmitter in the seething, cryogenic sea that comprises the sixth planet's lower atmosphere for scientific study.  Getting there's not the problem—it's getting back!

A decent technical tale with a lesson on morality and the role of the test pilot at the end.  Definitely a dash-off for cash rather than one of Harrison's more subtle, worthy tales.  Interestingly, Harry's time in England betrays itself; the name he chose for the base orbiting Saturn is the prosaic "Saturn One".

Three stars.

All Fall Down, by John T. Phillifent


by Vincent Di Fate

An interstellar transport suffers a malfunction and must make planetfall to effect repairs.  The problem: they make landing amidst the only civilized place on the planet, which proves to be an autocracy that immediately impounds the ship and enslaves the crew.  Worse yet, they're the second bunch from Terra to get this treatment; the first is a team of anthropologists who showed up a year before.

But Lennox, a bright young man with a computer-augmented brain, knows how to sell the local autocrat on a scheme that looks promising, but will ultimately be his undoing, affording the Terrans a chance to escape.

Phillifent, who also writes as John Rackham, is rarely brilliant, and he isn't here.  Once again, we have entirely human aliens.  I don't mind so much when Mack Reynolds uses his interstellar federation as a setting for interesting geopolitical stories—in that case, the planets are all human colonies with latitude to develop any societies they like.  But when the aliens are just people, the whole thing seems contrived.

There is also never an explanation for why the stranded ship had to interact with the planetary civilization at all, which was restricted to a small peninsula.  The indigenes could not help with repairs, so why not park in the woods and leave the natives alone?

But most of all, the story just isn't particularly interesting.

Two stars.

Androtomy and the Scion, by Jack Wodhams


by Vincent Di Fate

A spy is subject to a new torture, one that leaves his body completely at the mercy of his captors.  It involves the insertion and cultivation of…something…inside the spy's brain.

Now that they have complete control over him through the judicious incitement of pain, they expect him to become the perfect double-agent.  But the technique they use has a blind spot—and some hidden advantages.

Tolerable, though not particularly plausible, adventure.  Three stars.

Womb to Tomb, by Joseph Wesley


by Leo Summers

In the far future, human combatants are shielded from the shock of high G space maneuvers by being encased within and filled with something akin to amniotic fluid.  Since liquid is not compressible, they suffer no ill physical effects (once the requisite hookups are installed).  The only problem—the soldiers sent out to fight revert to infancy, so seductive is the prospect of being returned to even a virtual womb.

This story is a reasonably placed mystery, and the proposed technology is pretty neat.  It's just the stupid Twilight Zoney ending that kills it.  Someone will probably nick the idea for their own piece, just dumping the dopey conclusion.

Three stars (because the innovation is nifty, even if the end is dumb).

Starved for choice

If not for the Laumer, this would be a thoroughly disposable issue.  But that Laumer…

All told, we end up just north of three stars, putting us akin with Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.1) and New Worlds (3), ahead of Galaxy (2.8) and Venture (2.8), and behind New Writings 15 (4.3) and Fantastic (3.4)

On the plus side, the four and five star works would fill nearly three digests.  This is, however, largely due to the superlative New Writings and the serial that takes up most of Fantastic, so if you're looking for bang for your buck, those are the places to go.

Oh—the Hugo nominees have been announced.  I can't say I much fancy the choices, but there's at least one in each category that isn't too bad.  We'll, of course, have the results after Labor Day.

Until then… excelsior!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 30, 1969] Anywhere but here (July 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Scenes from abroad

And so, our longest Japan trip to date has wrapped up.  We're still developing the many rolls of film we took, but here are some highlights from our vacation that included the cities Fukuoka, Amagi, Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo:


Nanami and The Young Traveler zoom down a slide in an eastern suburb of Nagoya


Nanami and her husband perform at a Nagoya jazz club


This is Nanami's baby, Wataru, and her mother-in-law, Haruko!


Lorelei poses in front of Ultraman, one of Japan's newest superheros


Lorelei has become smitten with kimono and yukata.  We had to buy a new suitcase to fit them all (and the model trains Elijah bought)

The trouble back home

On the doorstep to my house was a big pile of mail that my neighbor has kept for me.  In addition to sundry bills, the latest FAPA packet, and a handful of independent 'zines (including the latest from the James Doohan International Fan Club), there was the latest issue of Analog.  Interest piqued by the lovely (as always) Freas cover, I tore into the mag before unpacking.  Sadly, it was all downhill from there…


by Kelly Freas

… And Comfort to the Enemy, by Stanley Schmidt

When an exploration ship lands on a seemingly uninhabited planet, its rapacious, by-the-book commander rubs his hands with glee at the prospect of colonizing plunder.  But it turns out there are intelligent natives—it's just that their "technology" is actually the fine control of all of their fellow creatures creating a sort of artificial Deathworld.  When the invaders refuse to leave, they take a hostage, who they use as a communications go-between.  And then they unleash a deadly plague which ravages first the explorer ship and then their entire race.  How the colonizers get out of the predicament is somewhat clever.


by Kelly Freas

This one starts a bit slowly, and the explorers are all too human, even though they're supposed to be aliens.  However, once it gets moving, it's pretty good, and you can sympathize with both the planet dwellers and the decimated invaders.

Three stars.

The Great Intellect Boom, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

A pharmaceutical company stumbles upon a brain-booster pill.  Unfortunately, it promotes eggheaded learning, but not application of this learning.  As a result, the nation's economy stumbles as more and more citizens would rather discuss than do.

This is a pretty thinly veiled attack on academia and the intelligentsia, which surely must have tickled editor Campbell's reactionary heart.

One star.

The Mind-Changer, by Verge Foray


by Kelly Freas

Boy this one was a disappointment.  We last saw Verge Foray in a nice little piece called Ingenuity, which featured a post-atomic world where humanity was divided into psionically adept but primitive and regressing "Novos" and scientific, but conservative, "Olsaperns."  Starn was the hero of that story—a Novo with a rare gift of insight and intuition who managed to get in good with the technical Olsaperns.

This sequel story involves Starn's attempts to develop technology that will augment psionic powers such that they can rival or exceed the technology of the Olsaperns.  Fine and well, but really, this is just one of Campbell's "scientific" articles on psionics with a fictional coating.  I already find psi to be a pseudoscientific bore, but to try to add a veneer of respectability to it by invoking scientific trappings is distasteful in the extreme.

It's also a really boring tale.  One star.

The Choice, by Keith Laumer


by Kelly Freas

A three-astronaut explorer team from Earth is abducted by mysterious aliens who offer each of them a choice of fates—all of them some form of execution.  The two military members of the crew meet their fate boldly; the third is a far out civilian cat who doesn't cotton to his own extinction.  As a result, the story has a happy ending.

There is serious Laumer and there is funny Laumer.  Funny Laumer is usually the more trivial, and this is trivial funny Laumer.

Two stars.

The Man from R.O.B.O.T., by Harry Harrison


by Peter Skirka

A couple of years back, Harrison brought out the droll The Man from P.I.G., about a secret agent who goes undercover as a pig farmer.  The twist was that the pigs weren't his livestock but his accomplices.  In a similar vein, here we have the story of an agent who goes undercover as a robot salesman, but the robots are his accomplices.  Of course, given that the robots are intelligent, and one of them is even designed to look like the agent, one wonders why there needs to be human involvement at all in this case.

Anyway, the agent is dispatched to a rancher planet whose women folk all seem to be locked up, and whose men folk are all paranoid violence freaks.  Is it genetic?  Or is it in the cattle?

I always get "funny" Harrison (frex "The Stainless Steel Rat") and "funny" Laumer (e.g. "Retief") mixed up.  And here they're back to back!  Now I'll never disentangle them.

Two stars.

The Empty Balloon, by Jack Wodhams


by Peter Skirka

Last up, a throwaway story about a diplomat who thwarts a telepathic interrogation machine.  There's no real explanation as to how he does it, really, and most of the story exists to set up the lame ending.

Two stars.

Wow.  What a wretched month for magazine fiction!  With the exception of the atypically superlative New Worlds (3.6 stars), everything else was mediocre at best.  IF managed to break the three star barrier, but just barely (3.1), same as Fantasy and Science Fiction.  Amazing scored 2.6—which is a good month for that mag, while Galaxy got the same score, which constituted a bad month. 

Indeed, all of the better-than-average fiction would fill just one decently sized digest.  Incidentally, we had exactly one (1) short story produced by a woman, and the one woman-penned nonfiction this month was a biography…of a man.

It just goes to show that all the good stuff seems to be happening overseas these days.  I hope the next month of mags reinforces my decision to come home!




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Conventions/Performances, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 31, 1969] When eras collide (June 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Huzzah!

It's hard to believe it was just six years ago that the Renaissance Pleasure Faire started in the suburbs of Los Angeles:

"Counterculture" didn't even have a name yet (I think we were calling it "contraculture"), but already, there were folks weary of the modern age, casting their eyes back to a simpler time.  You know, when there were far more things that could kill you, and much fewer opportunities to escape drudgery…

Anyway, I reported on our last foray into the past a couple of years ago.  These days, the back-to-then movement is stronger than ever, with the Society for Creative Anachronism exploding (do they have a thousand members now?) and Renaissance Faires catching on.  They are a good fit for the Pagans and hippies and folks looking for an escape.

We're not immune to the lure.  Here are some scenes from this month's event:










You may recognize the fellow in blue

What really makes the Faire such a delight is the attention to detail.  Everywhere you go, there are actors and actress really playing a part, making the whole thing an exercise in living history.  Of course, as my "character" styles himself a member of the Habsburg clan, you can bet I razzed the Queen when she paraded by with her foppish retinue.

Nevertheless, I hope the Faire retains its purity, prioritizing the spirit of the event rather than descending into a kind of cynical capitalism.  Though, I suppose, that's what the original faires were all about…

Alas!

Speaking of cynical capitalism, I feel that Analog editor stays on the job these days just for a paycheck (and a podium for his irrascible editorials—which he then compiles and sells in book form!) While the latest issue isn't terrible, it certainly doesn't scrape the heights it achieved "back in the day."


by Leo Summers

Artifact, by J. B. Clarke

The name of J. B. Clarke is unknown to me.  Perhaps he's Arthur Clarke's little brother (sister?) His writing isn't bad, nor even is the premise, but the execution of this first tale of his…


by Leo Summers

A beach ball-sized orb appears in interplanetary space.  When an Earth spaceship tries to pick it up, it zips away at faster-than-light speeds a couple of times, as if to demonstrate that it can, and then becomes docile.  After it is picked up, the humans assessing the artifact determine that it was deliberately sent to jump-start our technology.  But was the rationale benevolent or otherwise?

This would have been a great story had not Clarke explained from the very beginning that the scheme was a plot by the evil Imperium to instigate a diplomatic incident a la the Nazis asserting a Polish attack against the Germans on September 1, 1939.  This would give the rapacious aliens legal precedent to annex our planet.  Moreover, we learn that an agent of the "Web", the galactic federation of which the Imperium constitutes a small portion, is already on Earth, guiding our assessment of the artifact.

As a result, there's no tension.  We know everything will turn out fine.  Indeed, it's a strangely un-Campbellian story in that humans aren't the smart ones in the end.  But because there are no decisions to be made, no suspense to the outcome, the story falls flat.

Two stars.

Zozzl, by Jackson Burrows


by Leo Summers

This one gets closer to the mark.  It stars a big game hunter whose quarry is a telepathic beast.  The creature's natural defense is to access your fears and throw pursuers into a nightmare world, repelling them.  It's a neat concept, and Burrows (another name with which I am unacquainted), renders the dream sequences quite effectively.

While we learn a bit about our hero's past and motivations, he never really has to solve any puzzles to win his prize.  He just wins in the end.  There needs to be more.

Still, I really dug the idea, and there's definitely potential for Jackson.  Three stars.

Dramatic Mission, by Anne McCaffrey


by Leo Summers

Here's the latest installment of the The Ship Who.  This series stars Helva, a profoundly disabled woman who, at a young age, was turned into a cybernetic brain for a starship.  Together with a series of "brawns", the human component of the ship's crew, she has been on all kinds of adventures.

In this story, we learn that brain-ships can earn their independence (paying off the debt of their construction) and fly without brawns, and that many vessels strive for this status.  But Helva prefers to ride with company—indeed, she insists on it.

Well, her wish is granted.  Short-listed for a priority mission to Beta Corvi, Helva is tasked to transport a troupe of actors to a gas giant in that system, where they will perform Romeo and Juliet for a bunch of alien jellyfish in exchange for an important chemical process.

The problem is the drama that unfolds before the drama: Solar Prane, the star, is dying from chronic use of a memory-enhancing drug.  His nurse is deeply in love with him.  His co-star and ex-lover is jealous and stubbornly insists on sabotaging the production.  It is up to Helva to be the grown-up in the room and save the day.

There is so much to like about this story, so many neat, unique things about the setting and characters, that it's a shame McCaffrey can't help getting in her own way.  She loves writing waspish, unlikeable characters, and her penchant for including casual, off-putting violence reminds me of what I don't like about Marion Zimmer Bradley.

This is one of those pieces I'd like to see redone by someone more talented and sensitive.  Zenna Henderson, maybe, if I wanted to see the soft tones enhanced, or Rosel George Brown (RIP) if I wanted something a little lighter and funnier.

Three stars.

The Nitrocellulose Doormat, by Christopher Anvil


by Peter Skirmat

The planet of Terex has turned into a death trap for the terran Space Force.  Invited in to deal with an insurgency problem, a combination of religious proscriptions against advanced technology and a flourishing black market that loots what munitions are allowed in, the human troops are not only made into sitting ducks but laughing stocks.

Enter a canny colonel of the Interstellar Corps, whose bright idea is to suffuse all incoming logistics with explosives so that, when they are stolen, they explode.  Deterrent and humiliation, all in one.

It may seem that I've given away the plot…and I have.  It's given away fairly early on, and the rest of the story is simply an explication of the plan's success.

I should have liked the story less than I did, but it reads pretty well.  Three stars.

The Ghoul Squad, by Harry Harrison


by Leo Summers

A rural sheriff digs in his heels at the notion of government agencies harvesting the organs of newly dead victims of traffic accidents in his jurisdiction.  He sticks to his principles even at the cost of his own life, decades later.

This story doesn't say anything Niven hasn't said (much) better in The Organleggers, The Jigsaw Man, and A Gift from Earth.

Two stars.

Jackal's Meal, by Gordon R. Dickson


by Leo Summers

The human sphere of stars has begun to brush against the part of the galaxy claimed by the loosely knit Morah, aliens with a talent for profound modification of bodies, internally and externally.  In the middle of sensitive negotiations between the two empires over a contested bit of space, a bipedal creature runs amok at the space dock.  It is impossible to determine if the being is a Morah made to look like a human or a human made to look like a Morah.  Ultimately, the fate of the two empires rests on this hapless person.

Easily the best story in the issue, both interesting and well written, though it still rates no more than four stars.

Give me the past

Short story SF appears to be on the decline in general, with only four magazines out this month.  Of them, Fantasy and Science Fiction was by far the best, garnering 3.4 stars, but Fantastic and New Worlds both barely made three stars, and Mark, who covers the last mag, has been grumbling about all the newfangled, outré stuff.

As a result, you could fill just one digest-sized magazine with all the good stuff that came out this month.  In other statistical news, women produced just 8% of all the new fiction this month.

It's enough to make you long for the (romanticized) good ol' days…but who knows what the future holds?




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial, TV

[April 30, 1969] Eulogies (May 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Goodnight, Percy

If you're anything like me, Peyton Place is something that happened to other people.  After all, last season, the first primetime soap opera was scheduled opposite Laugh In, and before that, the 9:30 PM slot in the midst of ABC's insipid Tuesday-night line-up.

But now I feel a little bad that the groundbreaking show is being taken off the air.  Based on the 1956 book of the same name by Grace Metalious, the Massachusetts-set serial was salacious for the time, involving as it did a lot of S-E-X, divorce, blackmail, murder, and more.  Jack Paar called it "Television's first situation orgy."  Johnny Carson quipped that it was "the first TV series delivered in a plain wrapper."


Stars Diana Hyland (standing), Pat Morrow (in can), and Tippy Walker

At one point a few years ago, some 60 million folks tuned in each week for the fun.  But nowadays, when the local theater is going blue/stag, and Candy is a mainstream hit ("Is Candy faithful?  Only to the book!"), Peyton Place all seems a bit staid.  They tried to mix things up by bringing in more teen storylines and also integrating the cast by hiring Percy Rodrigues (Star Trek's Commodore Stone) as the local doctor.


with Ryan O'Neal

Still, you can't beat Dick and Dan, and the series plummetted in the ratings (really—what were they thinking, scheduling it across from Rowan and Martin?) After 514 episodes, the show is going off the air.  Which, of course, just means we'll see it endlessly in morning reruns opposite the regular soaps—and you can bet we'll get a revival sometime in the future.  In the meantime…


"Goodnight, Lucy.  Goodnight, Marshall Dillon.  And goodnight to all you kooks on Peyton Place."

Goodnight, Johnny


by Kelly Freas

ABC at least knew when to pull the plug on its sinking stone.  Analog editor John Campbell, while he did some brilliant work in the '30s and '40s, seems content to stuff his magazine with the dullest dreck that science fiction has to offer.  The latest issue is Exhibit 1 for the prosecution:

Dragon's Teeth, by M. R. Anver


by Kelly Freas

A peace conference on a neutral asteroid promises to end a brutal war between humanity and the alien Cadosians.  But a faction of extraterrestrials has plans to distrupt the summit by introducing a deadly virus.  The question is how they'll smuggle it in…or in whom?

This is a competently put together adventure/mystery—no more, and no less.  As such, it's a fine first effort from Mr. Anver, but nothing to write home about.

Three stars.

The Chemistry of a Coral Reef, by Theodore L. Thomas

Science writer and fictioneer Ted Thomas offers up a long piece on coral reefs and how they're made.  For an article on stuff that takes place in our oceans, it's awfully dry.  Well, at least I know now what they're made of: calcium carbonate.  Good for all those fish with indigestion, I guess.

Two stars.

Operation M. I., by R. Hamblen


by Leo Summers

Three weeks of hyperspace are crushingly dull, and the intergalactic service is worried about the morale of their solo couriers, who have to endure the period without diversion.  Apparently, books and booze aren't enough.

So the ship's computer on the latest FTL ship is programmed to act like a nagging mother-in-law so each pilot is more irritated than bored.

Terrible piece.  One star.

Persistence, by Joseph P. Martino


by Kelly Freas

This is a sequel to the story Secret Weapon.  The Terrans have now got a leg up on their war with the Arcani, now destroying 3-4x as many vessels as they are losing.  However, this proportion is still below what the Big Brains in military intelligence expected.  Our hero, Commander William Marshall, is certain that the aliens have developed Faster Than Light ("C+") communications and are using them to thwart our patrols.

The story is devoted to the reverse engineering of a captured Arcani corvette, tediously going through each electronic gizmo to see how it is wired and what it is wired to.  Eventually, the existence (or lack) of a C+ radio will be proven.

Once again, the story is dull as dirt, and worse, poorly edited.  There's an art to writing successive paragraphs using different words.  Martino will repeat set phrases several times in a row, the sign of an unfiltered brain-to-typewriter stream of consciousness.

Also, women of the future still remain in the 1950's, socially.

Two stars.

The Five Way Secret Agent (Part 2 of 2), by Mack Reynolds


by Kelly Freas

As we saw last month, Rex Bader, last of the private dicks in the People's Capitalism of America's late 20th Century, had been tapped by no fewer than five organizations to spy on each other as Bader went off to Eastern Europe and make contacts.  This passage explains it all:

He stared at the screen in disbelief.

This whole thing was developing into a farce. Roget wanted him to make an ultra-hush-hush trip into the Soviet Complex to contact his equal numbers with the eventual aim of creating a world government based on the international corporations.

Sophia Anastasis, of International Diversified industries, thought such a world government would upset the status quo to the detriment of what was once called the Mafia, and wanted all details.

John Coolidge and his group [the successor to the FBI] were afraid such changes would upset the governmental bureaucracy and the military machine and wanted to prevent it from happening. 

Colonel Simonov felt the same from the Soviet viewpoint, and wanted to maintain the status quo.

Dave Zimmerman was all in favor of world government but wanted the Meritocracy which would run it to be elected from the bottom up in each corporation, rather than being appointed.

And every damned one of them thought that their part of the operation was a secret.

Once Bader gets to Czechslovakia and Romania, the book reads like typical Reynolds: historical parallels (none after 1969, of course), tourism (we learn about the national drinks of the Warsaw Pact), and mildly droll high jinks.  It seems that Bader's cover is blown wherever he goes, suggesting a traitor somewhere in the works among his five employers.

There could have been a good mystery here, but it's all thrown in too little, too late.  Moreover, it's clear that this two-part serial is really just the first half of a longer book.

As a result, the whole is lesser than the sum of its parts.  I give this segment three stars, and three stars for the book as a whole (so far).

Initial Contact, by Perry A. Chapdelaine


by Kelly Freas

The Eridanians are coming!  Responding from signals broadcast by Project Ozma, an alien ship has been dispatched from Epsilon Eridani.  After twelve years at near light speed, the vessel is about to arrive—and the press is filled with concerns of an impending alien takeover. 

It all stems from a mistranslation of their latest message, suggesting their intent is conquest rather than coexistence.  In the meantime, there is a lot of Keystone Copping as the head of the Ozma IX project tries to tamp down on the paranoia.


by Kelly Freas

The best part of the story is the "universal message" broadcast by the Eridanians, hatched up by author Chapdelaine.  He explains it in the story—see if you can figure it out yourself.

But in the end, the story is rather pointless and forgettable.  Two stars.

Goodnight May

Doing the math, I find that April (postmarked May on the magazines) was a dreadful month for short science fiction.  Not a single magazine topped 3 stars, and Analog came in at a dismal 2.3.  For posterity, the rest were New Worlds (2.7), Venture (2.7), Amazing (2), Galaxy (3), and IF (3), and Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.7)

Even more disheartening: you could take all the 4-star works (nothing hit 5 stars this month) and barely fill a Galaxy-sized thick digest.  Women wrote 20% of all the new pieces published in April, which sounds impressive until you realize that six of the works were short poems in New Worlds, all by Libby Houston.

I am already hearing rumblings about Galaxy and IF's editor Fred Pohl getting the heave-ho, and Amazing's editorial musical chairs is legendary.  ABC dumped Peyton Place—is it time for someone to cancel John Campbell?




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[April 4, 1969] Hey, Mack! (April 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Mars ho!

Well, this is exciting!  For the first time ever, two identical Mariner probes are on their way to an interstellar destination.  On March 27, Mariner 7 blasted off for Mars, joining its sister, Mariner 6, which was launched last month. 

black and white photograph of an Atlas-Agena taking off from Cape Canaveral

Normally, twin probes are launched for redundancy, and it's a good thing.  Venus-boundMariner 1 died when its booster exploded back in '62.  Mars-bound Mariner 3 never hatched from its egg (the shroud of its Atlas-Agena rocket) back in 1964.  Mariner 5, which went to Venus in 1967, was a solo mission (indeed, a spare Mariner of the 3/4 class).

But now we've got two Mariners winging their way to the Red Planet, which means we'll get twice the coverage and a redundant set of data, always a welcome occurrence for scientists!  We'll have more on them when they pass by Mars in July.

Mack ho!

cover illustration of two white-suited futuristic cops beating a red-suited man underneath a futuristic monorail
by Kelly Freas

Just as we have two Mariners dominating the head of this article, so we have science fictioneer Mack Reynolds dominating this latest issue of Analog science fiction.  Under his own name, and under his pseudonym "Guy McCord", more than half of this issue is a Reynolds contribution.  If you like the guy, you'll like the mag.  If not…

The Five Way Secret Agent (Part 1 of 2), by Mack Reynolds

black and white illustration of a suited man on a pedestal facing five sinister figures, one a futuristic cop with a whip, one holding a gun, one with both, a woman with a hoop, and a bald man with his hand on his hips
by Kelly Freas

We once again return to the Reynolds' late 20th Century, where America languishes under the stratified People's Capitalism.  This novel is also the second adventure of one of the last private detectives, Rex Bader (whose first job was just a couple of months ago.  As with that freshman outing, Bader is offered a job that seems too good to be true, and he refuses, but no one else buys that he did.

In this case, the job was offered by the head of one of the world's biggest corporations.  He wants Bader to go to cross the Iron Curtain to contact other corporation buffs so as to help take down the Meritocracy—the powers that be that have entrenched themselves in the highest levels of society.

The mob also contacts Bader, wanting him to be their double agent.  Then the Defense Department gets involved.  Finally, a group of latter-day Technocrats make their pitch.  Presumably, the "fifth way" will be Rex Bader's own.

This book is typical Reynolds: the setting has been well established over the years, all the way back to the Joe Mauser, Mercenary days.  There are historical dissertations woven in at every opportunity, mostly on early 20th Century political theory.  The writing is serviceable, somewhat wry—a more grounded Keith Laumer.

What makes this particular piece stand out are the new wrinkles Reynolds introduces.  First, this is the first time we've learned how elections work in this world: it's based on income—one vote for every dollar earned (investment income does not impart voting rights).  Thus, the masses on "Negative Income Tax" have no franchise.

Reynolds continues to invent plausible future technology, too.  My favorite is the pocket TV/phone/credit card/identity all citizens carry.  A handy device, but also vulnerable to surveillance—which is done by computers which listen for key words; if they hear any, they alert a government agent.

So on the one hand, as far as quality of writing and enjoyment is concerned, I'd give this piece three stars.  But I admire Reynolds for doing stuff few others do, so I'm actually awarding four.

Hey But No Presto, by Jack Wodhams

black and white illustration of a short, ruddy man entreating a young man looking askance with hands at his sides, an image of him seated, eyes closed, in the background
by Leo Summers

Folks are being snatched out of psionic teleportation booths as they try to go to Earth.  They get sent to this backwater planetary resort where they are charged outrageous rates to stay in mediocre lodgings.  They stay because the cost to go home is set even higher.  An interstellar cop is sent to investigate.

This one-note tale is so padded, it could replace a warehouse of pillows.  One star.

They're Trying to Tell Us Something (Part 2 of 2), by Thomas R. McDonough

photo from below of a hard-hatted worker atop a radio telescope grid

Last month, Tom McDonough talked about pulsars—those rapidly beeping star-type objects—and did his darndest to convince us that they are artificial beacons operated by Little Green Men (LGM).

This second part is more of the same, though he actually does mention other possibilities, including the most fashionable one that they are rotating neutron stars.  My problem with this segment is it is heavy on the layman's lingo and light on the showing of work.  It all feels a bit fluffy.  Also, he talks about how pulsars emit light bursts at twice the frequency as their radio bursts, and he makes it seem like that's mysterious.  If the pulsar is really a rotating neutron star, then it makes sense for any emissions to be linked.  Why we only get radio signals from one side, I don't understand off the top of my head, but I suspect anyone with a Bachelors in Physics could tell me.

Three stars.

Cultural Interference, by Walter L. Kleine

black and white illustration of a flying saucer careening toward a planet, with inserts of a mustached man looking at a naked woman helping a naked man out of the saucer on the surface, a man in a cowboy hat with a sheriff's star, and two lab-coated men looking at a giant, narrow monolith
by Leo Summers

A couple of scientists begin an experiment with broadcast power.  Coincidentally, a couple of extraterrestrial spaceships accidentally intercept and soak up the power, causing them to crash.  Chaos ensues.

Wireless power seems to be the rage these days, figuring prominently in Keith Laumer's serial, And Now They Wake.  This particular tale is overpadded and pointless.

Two stars.

Opportunist, by Guy McCord

black and white illustration of a seated, wizened man wearing a Native American outfit done in tartan, a rock hut in the background
by Kelly Freas

This is the third tale of Caledonia, a backwards planet probably in the same universe as his United Planets tales in which every world has its own uniquely evolved political and social structure.  Caledonians all hail from a single crashed colony ship, and their culture is a mix of Scots and indigenous American, based on the few books that survived planetfall (shades of Star Trek's "A Piece of the Action".

In this installment, Caledonia has been largely subjugated by mining concerns from Sidon, and the native Caledonians must resort to guerrila tactics.  John of the Hawks, Chief Raid Cacique of the Loch Confederation is captured by the Sidonians and offered a job in their civilian government.  After being told the virtues of civilization and capitalism, he decides to hang up his claidheamhor and war bonnet and sell out.

I din't like it.  Two stars.

Oh ho!

three women operate a room full of line printers somewhere in the Soviet Union

Well now, here is a case of science fiction definitely being less compelling than science.  With the exception of the serial, this was a drab ish, barely scoring 2.7.  This puts Analog under Fantasy and Science Fiction (3), IF (3.1), Galaxy (3.5), and New Worlds (3.6).  Campbell's mag only beat out the usual losers: Fantastic (2.5), Famous #8 (1.8), and Famous #9 (2).

From eight mags, you could barely fill two big ones with the good stories this month, although part of the reason for that is Famous being so awful.  Women produced just 7% of the new fiction stories this month. 

I guess the moral is: read your newspapers and your Pohl (and UK) mags first.  Pick up Analog only if you've finished the rest.  Or if you really like Mack Reynolds…




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[March 1, 1969] Beyond this Horizon (March 1969 Analog and Mariner 6)

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photo of the face of a long haired man with glasses
by Gideon Marcus

On to Mars!

black and white photo of Mariner 6, a round probe with four rectangular solar panels jutting from it at right angles

Four years ago (has it been that long?) Mariner 4 became the first space probe to sail by Mars.  This event instantly destroyed a thousand dreams.  The 21 grainy, black and white pictures returned by the spacecraft's TV cameras showed a cratered, lunar-type surface.  The Martian atmosphere was found to be less than 1% as dense at the surface as that of Earth.  Gone was the romantic Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Leigh Brackett.

These findings should not have come as such a surprise—the abundance of craters and the thin atmosphere had already been suspected before Mariner 4 ever got there.  But the photographic evidence was the final nail in the coffin.  Mars is dead.

Or is it?

Mariner 4 was a rather limited spacecraft.  We only got 21 pictures, after all.  And while 7 millibars may not seem like much, that's a veritable atmospheric blanket compared to the Moon or Mercury.  We need more data.

This is why a second generation of spacecraft, Mariners 6 and 7, are being sent to Mars.  These are heavier spacecraft with more sophisticated equipment: infrared and ultraviolet radiometers (measuring Martian energy output in those wavelengths), a better TV camera, and the ability to reprogram the spacecraft in flight, as needed.

color photo of an Atlas Centaur rocket taking off from a red launch complex at night

Mariner 6 took off last week on the 24th, and Mariner 7 will blast off March 21st.  We've yet to have both members of a Mariner pair make it to its destination (Mariner 1 and Mariner 3 both had mishaps), but hope springs eternal.  Come this summer, perhaps around the same time a man sets foot on the Moon, we will unveil more mysteries of the fourth planet.

illustration of a blue-furred humanoid, stripped to the waist, looking at a viewscreen with crocodile-head humanoids waving primitive weapons furiously
by Kelly Freas

On to the stars!

Trap, by Christopher Anvil

line drawing of crocodile-headed alien holding a mouse trap clamped around the tale of a furry humanoid stripped to the waist
by Kelly Freas

I have a private joke that every Chris Anvil story for Analog begins (Mad Lib style):

[Military Rank] [WASPy male name] of [military organization] [verbed] down the [corridor/hall/base] lightly touching his [weapon] clipped to his [clippable article of clothing].

"Trap" did nothing but reinforce this cliché, and I hunkered down for a slog of a novella.

Instead, I got a reasonably interesting, technical tale about peaceably dealing with implacable aliens, who possess an unbeatable weapon.  In this case, the planet is a swampy wasteland, the aliens have the ability to teleport anywhere they've been before, and the humans and Centrans (in an alliance since the 1956 story, "Paradise Planet") must find a way to make peace before the aliens find a way to teleport onto every ship and planet in both empires.

It starts a bit slow, but I found myself compelled.  Certainly better than the fare Anvil usually offers us in Analog.  Three stars.

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, by R. E. Allen

How does Mannie supply all the movies and music producers with the top talent?  Why, by dowsing over each of the actor's/musician's headshots with a divining rod, of course!

Not much of a story.  Not much science fiction.  Two stars.

They're Trying to Tell Us Something (part 1 of 2), by Thomas R. McDonough

diagram of four pulsar graphs with amplitude of signal versus time

This month's science article is on those enigmatic, recently discovered interstellar radio beacons known as pulsars.  Beeping on the radio dial on the average of once a second (some are faster, some are slower), they are significant for their unwaveringly precise timing and for their enormous power output—some one billion times the power output of all of Earth's civilizations!

There is a lot of interesting information in this article, but what annoys me is that McDonough seems convinced that pulsars are the work of "Little Green Men" (LGM), and presents his article accordingly.  Nowhere in the piece is the general accepted wisdom that the regularity of the signals and the fact that they seem to carry no information (not to mention their tremendous power) indicates that pulsars are rapidly rotating stars, and likely rapidly rotating, collapsed dead stars called "neutron stars".

This isn't esoteric knowledge I gleaned from The Astrophysical Journal—it's from the Sunday Supplement of Escondido's rag of a paper, The Times-Advocate.  So, its exclusion from McDonough's piece must be conscious, and that makes his arguments suspect.  Perhaps he'll discuss neutron stars in the next piece, but they really should have been front and center.

Three stars.

Minitalent, by Tak Hallus

line drawing of a courtroom setting with an older judge with glasses, a steno clerk woman behind him, and a gallery of seal-like aliens, looking at a worksuited human with a gallery of humans behind him
by Leo Summers

Alice Culligan, third mate and computer officer on the space ship Iphigenia, witnessed a crime: gun runners had smuggled cruel "nervers" to a race of aborigines.  They were caught, but the company they're working for looks to get away scott free.  They will do anything to ensure that verdict—including silencing Miss Culligan forever.

But Alice has an ace up her sleeve: a minor talent for telekinetics.  And in a computerized world, sometimes a little push is all that's needed…

Similarly premised as Larry Niven's sublime "The Organleggers", this tale (Tak Hallus' first) is not as deftly told.  That said, it is pretty good, and I liked the heroine very much.  It's clearly in the vein of, say, James H. Schmitz, so if you like him, you'll like this.

By the way, Tak Hallus is simply Arabic for "pseudonym", so who knows?  Maybe it really is Schmitz!

Four stars.

From Fanaticism, or for Reward, by Harry Harrison

line drawing of a man with a beam rifle shooting at a robot that looks like a suit of armor
by Leo Summers

An assassin named Jagen performs a job and, with the help of a teleportation system, escapes The Great Despot's justice.  But is there any ultimate evasion the efficient robot machines of the Despot's police force?

The well-written piece is really a setup for the philosophical question posed at the end.  The answer is surprising for such a libertarian mag as editor Campbell's.

Five stars.

Wolfling (Part 3 of 3), by Gordon R. Dickson

line drawing of two stylized men in tunics dueling with glowing rods, a woman crouched over a body in the background
by Kelly Freas

And now, the conclusion of Wolfling.  By Gordy Dickson.

Jim Weil, archaeologist and Ace of All Trades (the term "bannou" (万能) is even more appropriate), had infiltrated the High-Born empire he was sent to detachedly examine, becoming a general in its armies.  Having discovered a plot to destroy the imperial warrior race of Starkiens, Jim quickly returned to the throne world to thwart a plot on the Emperor, himself.  He is successful in defeating the pretender, the Emperor's cousin, but now he must return to Earth and face treason charges for possibly incurring the imperial wrath on humanity.

In a dramatic courtroom scene, Jim explains his actions, how they saved the Earth, and the true origin of humanity vis. a vis. the High-Born.  Did we come from them, or did they come from us?

The answer is rather disappointing, more along the lines of something I'd expect written in the pulp era than modern times.  In addition, all of the energy-saber dueling seemed unnecessary; when everyone can teleport at whim, how do you keep your foe in the same room long enough to dispatch him?  Or keep your foe from materializing behind you?

But most of all, I had expected a statement against eugenics, but instead got something of a defense of it.  If not for the skilled writing, I might rate it more poorly.

Three stars for the serial as a whole.

On to the numbers!

black and white photo of a plump Black woman leaning over an eighth-grade white girl seated at a computer, a eight-grade black boy behind her, mathematical equations on the blackboard behind them all

You know, it's been quite a month!  With Analog clocking in at 3.4 stars, it's near the top of the heap rather than taking its usual place in the middle.  Ahead of it were Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.4) and IF (3.5).  The good news is, the spread was pretty narrow: Galaxy scored 3.3, New Worlds 3.2, New Writings 14 3.  Only Amazing scored below the three-line (2.7), and it was still better than usual.

In other vital statistics, women produced 11% of the new fictional content.  The superior stuff this month would fill three full-sized magazines.  Given that there were seven published this month, that's a good ratio.

Stay tuned for the end of next month when we find out how April's magazines do…and how Mariner 7 flies!




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