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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 8, 1968] Hippies and Robots (July-December 1968 Playboy)

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by Erica Frank

I have once again dipped into the magazine of "entertainment for men" who want to feel intellectually superior while they browse photos of mostly-naked women they like to imagine are sexually available to them.

October 1968 Playboy cover, featuring a woman in a short silver-white dress with long angel sleeves, holding a bunny mask near her face

There are some good stories. Some good political commentary. Some funny cartoons. And a whole lot of self-aggrandizing pontification, and a lot of wealthy white men insisting they know what's best for everyone, especially women.

The Fully Automated Love Life of Henry Keanridge by Stan Dryer (July)

Our protagonist, Henry Keanridge, has a wife, a mistress, and two girlfriends; he manages the scheduling for this complex arrangement of obligations and secret-keeping via a computer. That's our science fiction aspect. He works at a trucking company, and he has fed his own name into the system as a truck, and the four women as "stops" on his route, and it manages his schedule, reminds him of birthdays and holidays, and so on.

Hyman Roth artwork showing a giant woman covered by machines; a man is at a control panel
Hyman Roth's art led me to believe this story had more substance than it does.

Here's a quote: "Before their affair, Dee had been a girl of impeccable virtue. She would no more have thought of having a love affair than of, say, not wearing a hat to church." That tells you everything you need to know about both Dee and Henry.

As a story: Two stars, providing you can tolerate Henry's male chauvinist perspective on life.
As science fiction: One. I read it so you don't have to.

Masks by Damon Knight (July)
This one, unlike many of Playboy's stories, is unquestionably science fiction. Medical technology, full-body prosthesis, what happens to a human when you put his brain in a robot body? They can't get the robot to look fully human, can't give it a full range of facial expressions–that's okay, though; he can wear a mask.

But the project's funding is uncertain, so our protagonist–unnamed for the first half of the story–may have to justify his right to "two hundred million a year" in medical expenses, when normal full disability support is $30,000.

Two stars. Probably would've been three if it weren't for the sudden gratuitously violent twist.

Silverstein Among the Hippies by Shel Silverstein (July)
Shel Silverstein comments on the Hashbury community, mostly by drawing cartoons of hippies. They're clever and often insightful.

Newsstand guy argues with Shel, "I mean, why do these punks have to rebel and protest and try to change the whole damn world?"
Why indeed? Headlines include: Detroit Burning, Kill 720 Viet Cong, Sniper Kills Six, Self, New Fallout Danger Warned, Girl Raped, Alabama Riot, War in Sinai…

The Trouble with Machines by Ron Goulart (August)
Maximo is a machine, a robot designed to hunt and kill the reporter who keeps criticizing technology companies. Maximo is disguised as a refrigerator which will be delivered to the reporter's house. …Maximo has, or acquires, some interests of its own, and runs off before it reaches its assigned destination.

This one had a plot twist I didn't see coming (wow, the sexy lady is actually a person! She is part of the plot!) and a story resolution that, while not groundbreaking, doesn't leave confusing loose ends.

A solid three stars.

More Silverstein Among the Hippies by Shel Silverstein (August)
He's back! Or maybe he just hasn't managed to escape yet.

Shel faces a row of hippies holding signs with letters: L G L Z D R G S
"It was supposed to say 'LEGALIZE DRUGS'… but E is out trying to score, A and I are on an acid trip, the other E just got busted, and U was simply too strung out to show up!"

Playboy Interview: Stanley Kubrik (September)
This is not just an interview; it begins with a few pages of biography and background information showing how Kubrick got his start in film: "He quit his job at Look, raised $20,000–mostly from his father and his uncle–and began shooting 'Fear and Desire'… Though rejected by all major distributors, 'Fear and Desire' toured the art-house circuit and eventually broke even."

On the one hand: It's got some solid information about how his career led up to 2001. On the other: Four pages in all-italics is hard on the eyes. Next time, Playboy, consider using a scene divider of some sort and leaving the introduction more readable.

For the actual interview, Kubrick is very full of himself. 2001: A Space Odyssey showcases his VISION!!! It has a MESSAGE!!!… which he is not going to explain, of course, because he is an artist–would we better appreciate La Gioconda (that's "the Mona Lisa" to us plebes) if Leonardo had explained why she was smiling? (I wish that were a made-up example. It is not; he directly compared his film to the Mona Lisa.)

Some words and phrases he throws around in the interview: Cosmos, man's destiny, the lumpen literati (he's not fond of his critics), grandeur of space, chrysalis of matter, tendrils of their consciousness… he does like to talk about his grand ideas. Much of the interview is him saying "What if…?" and the interviewer politely feeding him the next question. He did manage to say a few things I agreed with, including, "Why should a vastly superior race bother to harm or destroy us?"

Two and a half stars. I am neither a film buff nor an arts buff, so much of this is tedious to me. If you like rich guys with an interest in science fiction showing off their education, there's 16 pages of it here.

Fortitude by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
This is a story in teleplay script format, beginning with a discussion between the esteemed Dr. Norbert Frankenstein and his guest, Dr. Little. Frankenstein's assistant, Tom Swift, occasionally comments with details. His patient, Sylvia Lovejoy, is now only a head attached to a machine–apparently a popular concept in Playboy these days; new writers should consider submitting stories with similar themes as it seems like they're buying.

Sylvia's every mood is controlled by complex machinery, except occasionally a small spark of her former self begs to be allowed to die. Dr. Frankenstein has foreseen this desire, and has programmed her robot arms to be unable to point a gun at herself or bring poison to her lips.

Four stars; the reader is left wondering if Sylvia has any possible route to escape, even after the circumstances of her vigil have changed.

Here Comes John Henry! by Ray Russell (September)
John Henry is the first man on the moon–or rather, the first man to land on the moon and come back. The first lunar landing mission is a Black man teamed up with a Russian as a show of international cooperation. The media have a field day making corny slogans about the duo, often playing on tacky racial slurs. John Henry is not bothered by tacky media coverage; he's just thrilled to be going to the moon.

The two guys have a lot in common, it turns out, starting with their names. The other fellow is Ivan "Vanya" Genrikhovich–"John, son of Henry" in Russian. Both are from Georgia, just from different parts of the globe. Both are from the capital city. Both are descendants of slaves. ("My father's father was a serf," Vanya says.) They are becoming great friends, bonding over their shared joy of space, taking pictures on the moon… until they notice that their fuel measurement is a bit low.

Not a lot low. Not low enough that the ship can't make it back. It just… can't carry both of them back. They quickly realize they have been set up: this mission has been calculated down to the last ounce, the last paperclip's worth of mass. Someone decided that only one of them should come home, and didn't bother to tell either of the pilots.

I won't spoil the solution they find, because it's worth reading; it's so much better than the one proposed in Godwin's "The Cold Equations." Five stars.

Mr. Swift and His Remarkable Thing by Jeremiah McMahon (October)
Two modern hippies, Mommababy and Daddybaby, have settled down to suburban life after the unplanned arrival of Frankenbaby five years ago. They try to be properly hip and permissive, but Mommababy does not like their neighbor, Mr. Smith, who is making some kind of sculpture-thing in his back yard. It's ugly, and Mr. Smith is always walking around muttering things like "Is the missing factor X?"

She doesn't want Frankenbaby playing in Mr. Smith's yard. Frankenbaby, however, has his freedom: after he's sent to his room, his parents spend the evening focusing on the "good things–flowers, beards, sideburns and beads." Mommababy considers checking on Frankie at bedtime, but Daddybaby warns her against being overprotective, so Frankie manages to slip out of the house. They discover him missing after the great explosive blasts from next door rock the house.

It turns out the weird sculpture was a rocket ship, and Mr. Smith and Frankenbaby have blasted off. It's unclear if they have a destination or are just going on a joyride.

Another solid three stars: This is an enjoyable read; it just doesn't really have a point—much like Mommababy and Daddybaby.

What's Your SQ (Sexual Quotient)? (October)
"A man's love life—whether he be single or married—is intimately related to his business career, to his social pastimes and even to the car he drives."

This is a 54-question personality quiz; each question has 3 options, with a key provided at the end for interpreting the results. It tells readers that, if none of the answers seems to apply, just pick the one that seems least unlikely.

It is, of course, expecting all participants to be heterosexual men of reasonable wealth in 1968 America. "You" own a car, have a job, have an active sex life with women (which will usually be called "girls"), and so on. These biases are visible throughout the quiz.

Moreover, it is assumed that you perceive sex as something you do for personal reasons only, not a shared activity of mutual pleasure.

Question 17 from the quiz, asking about the reader's concerns during sexual intercourse. The three options are: Performing as well as others, premature ejaculation, and maintaining an erection.
You are not, of course, concerned with whether your partner is enjoying herself.

The end result: Men's personalities can be sorted into three categories, although most men will have a blend of all three. Type A: "a Don Juan or a 'phallic narcissist'; a ladykiller." Type B: "his sense of security is strongly dependent upon being loved, cared for, and emotionally supported by others; he feels unworthy of this attention." Type C: "dedicated to fighting intemperance and immorality in all its forms; inflexible in both body and mind."

I can't figure out how to give this stars. I can say: If you're not a heterosexual man with the common mundane biases of current late-1960s America, the "analysis" after the quiz isn't going to be useful to you.

Colorless in Limestone Caverns by Allan Seager (November)
Our protagonist, Reinhart, is a dislikeable sort of fellow who tortures animals in the name of science and gets himself acclaim and tenure for it. He orders some blind cave fish on a whim, planning on researching their feeding habits, but instead, a change comes over him: From the first day he acquires them, he spends all day in the lab staring at them, and he becomes quiet and unresponsive at home. He feels a great kinship with the fish.

His wife worries. His mother worries. He thinks about fish. His wife and mother call in psychiatrists. He snaps out of his lethargic funk, speaks blithely of the research he's going to do, apologizes about worrying his family, and goes back to normal.

Two stars. I kept waiting for the story to start, and then it was over.

Scrutable Japanese Fare by Thomas Mario (November)
This article has nothing remotely science-fictional about it, and it is not related to the new-trending cultural shifts of which I am so fond. It's about dining in Japan, and since Gideon visits there occasionally, I thought I'd read it. It's one page of actual article followed by 10 recipes.

It mentions sukiyaki, shabu shabu–which it claims is a great food for dinner parties; host and guests share preparation activities–and tempura with random ingredients, "gleefully scattered over the tray in no fixed pattern." It talks about Japanese steakhouses that cook on a metal slab at the dining table, and describes how to prepare warm rice wine for best enjoyment.

It includes several recipes: Broccoli salad with golden dressing, cabbage salad with soy dressing, sesame dipping sauce, scallion dipping sauce, chicken yakitori, shrimp tempura, (which it insists should be eaten hot rather than prepared in advance; "One device for party service is to hire a domestic geisha who will fry and deliver it in large batches"), tempura batter & sauce, Japanese steak dinner and the shabu shabu the article begins by praising.

I found myself mildly disappointed by the lack of pictures of any of the food, and that the recipes aren't clear about how many servings they make–the "Japanese steak dinner" wants 4 lbs of steak, cut into ¾" cubes! That's not dinner for two or even for a family–that's the whole dinner party's meal. The recipes also don't list which cooking implements they need; that's folded into the narrative instructions.

Not rating for stars. It's a pleasant enough read, and the recipes are nice, although they lack a few details from being well-made.

Ad for Barbarella the movie
Coming soon to a theatre near you! Finally, you can see the actual scenes from the pictorial review earlier this year.

The Mind of the Machine by Arthur C. Clarke (December)
Clarke discusses whether computers can be said to truly think (…no, despite a few radical fanatics here and there), and what it might mean to society if they could, or they gain the ability in the future. He takes it as a foregone conclusion that they will:

…[T]he fact that today's computers are very obviously not "intellectually superior" has given a false sense of security—like that felt by the 1900 buggy-whip manufacturer every time he saw a broken-down automobile by the wayside."

He also has a very narrow view of how the future needs to play out:

The problem that has to be tackled within the next 50 years is to bring the entire human race, without exception, up to the level of semiliteracy of the average college graduate. This represents what may be called the minimum survival level; only if we reach it will we have a sporting chance of seeing the year 2200.

Although there's some obvious pandering to those who believe themselves the intellectual elite, he does cover a lot of the current trends in computer development, and a reasonable amount of speculation about possible future ones, albeit with, like the SQ test above, a lot of unmentioned biases.

Three stars; a nice review of the current state of scientific development and good suggestions about what might come next.

Wealth versus Money, by Alan Watts (December)

Alan Watts is neither a science fiction writer nor a scientist; he is a philosopher and zen buddhist guru. However, his article begins with an emphatic statement that the United States of America will cease to exist by the year 2000–which puts it firmly in the realm of fantastic speculation, as much as any of the stories I've reviewed.

He points out that a nation has two definitions: One, its geography, biology, and acknowledged physical boundaries; the other, its culture and sovereignty as recognized by its people and others. He points out that this second aspect of the USA is on the verge of destroying the first, and that much of this problem is caused by the conflation of money and wealth.

Money is assigned by the government. It is a deliberately limited resource. Wealth is a matter of valuable resources that has nothing to do with numbers written on slips of paper. Money is a measurement—purportedly of wealth, but as with any measurement, it can be applied in multiple ways.

"[T]rue wealth is the sum of energy, technical intelligence, and raw materials," he says. And he continues to point out that mankind is not separate from the world around us, but part of it—"like a whirlpool is to a river"—we cannot "conquer" or "invade" our own home, and our best chance of survival in the future is to recognize the value of leisure and enjoy the wealth that surrounds us.

Four stars (although I am likely biased in this rating); I have a great fondness for anything that can make Playboy—an overtly libertarian, capitalistic publication—recognize other approaches to life.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[November 28, 1968] Puppet on a String (Star Trek: "Plato's Stepchildren")

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Who Is the True Child of Plato?


by Erica Frank

This week's Star Trek began with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beaming down to a planet in response to a medical distress signal. The sensors showed no signs of life, indicating that the Enterprise desperately needs new sensors, as this is the third time in recent weeks the sensors have failed to show the people who would soon be assaulting our crew.

They met the "Platonians," the remnants of a near-immortal race that idolized Earth's ancient Greek civilization and patterned their own after it—or at least, patterned their outfits after it. They have extremely powerful psychokinetic abilities but no infection resistance whatsoever.

Are we to believe these people have never gotten a papercut in the last 2500 years? I shall endeavor to convince myself that their susceptibility to infection is a recent development—that for thousands of years, their environment lacked the bacteria that caused infections in open wounds. Now that it's somehow evolved on their planet, they have no defenses against it.

The Platonians were very grateful for McCoy's medical assistance—so much so that they insisted he stay with them to treat any future injuries they may have. And rather than petition the Federation for volunteer doctors who would love to talk Greek philosophy, they decided that kidnapping with a side of torture and mockery was the way to go.


Welcome to Platonius; your compliance with the local dress code is appreciated—and mandatory.

Plato recognized four primary virtues: Courage, moderation, wisdom and justice. Yet we see none of these in their society—if you can call a group of fewer than four dozen a "society," with no children and no growth or change. (Kirk might've called them out for being stagnant, if he weren't busy calling them out for being despotic bullies.) Instead, we have a pack of apathetic lotus-eaters with a penchant for ridiculing anyone who doesn't have their power.

I saw the Platonians and thought, I am so damned tired of stories where psychic powers turn everyone who has them into bratty tyrants. I was delighted to realize that such is not the story here.

Parmen called himself a "philosopher-king," but he was neither. We saw no hint of philosophical insight from him, and no rulership other than "I am stronger than everyone else, so do what I say or I will kill you." He claimed to live in "peace and harmony," but his "peace" was nothing but the threat of force and humiliation.

Alexander, treated as a slave and court buffoon, had the best understanding of Plato's principles. He immediately argued in favor of the strangers' lives, and was punished for it—which he had to know would happen. He did not want access to the power that had tortured him for so long; he only wanted to escape it. He was understandably enraged with Parmen and wanted to kill him, but when Kirk asked, "Do you want to be like him?"—he immediately dropped the knife.

Alexander warned Kirk about the conditions on Platonius, heedless of any future punishment. He wanted very much to get away from the people who had tortured him for thousands of years, but he did not try to dissuade Kirk and his crew from acquiring the same power that had been used against him for so long. He recognized that corruption is not a matter of power itself, but how it's used, and he had enough faith left to trust his new allies. And when he had a chance at revenge—he turned away from it.


Kirk talks Alexander out of a suicide mission.

Parmen said, "We can all be counted upon to live down to our lowest impulses"—but that's not true. Alexander declined the opportunities for both power and murder. Parmen wants to believe that anyone would turn into a tyrant if given enough raw power… because he doesn't want to acknowledge that the man his court keeps as "a buffoon" has a better understanding of Plato's principles than him and his thirty-odd courtiers.

I can imagine that, in the future, the Platonians are in for some shocking changes. Kirk's report will bring visitors to a planet where psychokinesis is available a few hours after receiving an injection—think of the construction projects that could be done, with no need for clamps or glue to hold pieces in place while they are being assembled. Think of the art that could be created by multiple brushes working together from different angles. Think of the surgeries, with no hands getting in the way, no tool handles blocking the surgeon's view, no gauze compresses interfering with the stitching, because the nurse can pinch the blood vessels shut with a thought.

…And then think of what the Platonians had instead: A sterile world of indolence and petty cruelty.

Five stars.

Katharsis


by Mx. Blue Cathey-Thiele

We get multiple time references in this episode, and many of them are incompatible. They arrived on this planet 2500 years ago, but Philana is only 2300. She was 117 and Parmen 128 when they married. The voyages of the Enterprise take place about two centuries after 1990, according to Kirk in Space Seed, so none of those times match with Plato's lifespan. This is frustrating at first glance, but now I'm inclined to think it works. The Platonians live in a stylized world, based on the appearances and ideas that they have handpicked from Greece and Greek philosophy. It's a facade, set dressing that props up their own personal desires and calls it harmony. I suggest that the infection that McCoy treats is also a ploy, one that Alexander tried to protest before Philana cut him off.

Platonians make the crew move and speak – this is either an incredibly complex set of movements all being controlled at once to move the mouth, lungs, and vocal chords to shape sounds, or a manipulation of the brain itself to force those actions. If they have that much control over bodies that belong to others, surely they can control their own and facilitate healing, or prevent infection from taking hold. Alexander would not necessarily know this though, as he doesn't have that ability, and the others constantly reinforce their control over him. As far as he knows, they did last thousands of years without injury.

Whether the anniversary Parmen references is actually that of 2500 years or not, it is all set up as a performance. He and Philana lead the Platonians in a voyeuristic farce, torturing the crew explicitly and more subtly by making them think that there was ever a choice to leave at all, making McCoy feel complicit in his friends’ pain.


Convulsed with agony, Kirk fights his manipulation

“Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete (composed of an introduction, a middle part and an ending), and possesses magnitude; in language made pleasurable, each of its species separated in different parts; performed by actors, not through narration; effecting through pity and fear the purification of such emotions.” Aristotle, the Poetics

The spectacle of it all reflects aspects of Greek tragedies, interestingly, something Plato's student Aristotle had many thoughts on and wrote about in a reply to Plato's Republic. Through the pain of the “playthings”, Philana and Parmen draw satisfaction. The landing party takes center stage, suitable protagonists for a tragedy, noble and with character traits to be exploited; McCoy's empathy, Spock's stoicism and self control, Kirk's confidence and pride. Uhura's bravery in facing fear and Christine's affection are also twisted to cut right where they are most vulnerable. While the Platonians hardly seem to feel any pity for their victims, they certainly gain an emotional release from the suffering they inflict.

Would I say I enjoyed this episode? Not much of it! But it was a good episode, the way that the crew and Alexander reached out to each other in actions and words amidst the pain was powerful.

5 stars

Refuting Acton's Dictum


by Gideon Marcus

"Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely"

In many ways, "Plato's Stepchildren" is "The Menagerie" redux: a race of humanoids rendered decadent by their superpowers.  "Stepchildren" takes things a step further.  The big-headed Talosians were at least willing to do things on their own behalf, including zapping Pike unconscious with a sleepy staff.  The Platonians refuse to lift a finger, even to that final confrontation between Parmen and Kirk.  How easy it would have been for the 37 Platonians to simply throw something at Kirk, or to step forward for personal combat.  Yet they all shrink at the image of Alexander with a knife.

Perhaps it is the nature of the power that so atrophies the Platonians.  After all, the Talosian power was that of illusion.  The Platonians really do have physical mastery of their environment.  Either way, the lesson is clear: power is an irresistible narcotic.

Which is why it's so refreshing when it isn't.

McCoy, in creating a telekinesis potion (and that was an excellent scene combining science and computers in a logical fashion a la "Wolf in the Fold"), has unlocked a frightful Pandora's Box.  Who wouldn't want those kinds of powers?  Answer: Kirk doesn't.  He much prefers to do things for himself.  Alexander doesn't.  He's seen what happens to those who partake.


Alexander, handsome star of the show

And can we just turn a spotlight on Michael Dunn's performance as Alexander?  In an episode characterized by excellent performances, Alexander yet shines.  Humble, noble, resourceful, admirable, vengeful, not to mention the incredible physical control he displays, alternating from painful hobbling to acrobatic feats as he is "thrown around" by Parmen.  Bravo.  I could not have loved Dunn's character half so much were he not so well-realized, nor would the lesson to be learned from the Platonian's folly have been so effective.

There's not much to this episode—just a few sets, a lot of talking, a lot of torture.  On the other hand, with such tools, Aeschylus created Prometheus Bound, and I think "Plato's Stepchildren" will be as enduring a classic.

Five stars.

In the Face of Oppression


by Lorelei Marcus

Fear is power.  It is a tool of control, wielded to maintain hierarchy and oppression.  Plato's stepchildren (the Platonians) reveled in the fear they caused in others, or seemed to cause, and the sense of control it gave them.

Yet Uhura said, even as her body moved against her will, "I am not afraid."  While the Platonians had physical control, her defiance was a resistance, a crack in the facade of their total dominion.

I have to wonder if Nichelle Nichols was at all afraid acting this scene, for her kiss with Shatner, too, was a kind of resistance.  What ripples and backlash will this episode create?  What consequences will she, the actress, have to face?  Perhaps she found strength, like Uhura drew courage from the Captain's prior steady influence, because she was not the first.


The performance of the actors, so clearly resistant, undercuts any torrid interpretations

Last year, Nancy Sinatra had an hour long musical special featuring several of her groovy tunes strung together through a loose narrative exploring her life and the people in it.  It was an all-star cast, including dance numbers arranged by the choreographer for Hullabaloo and cameos from several members of the Rat Pack.  Two of the numbers, successively, featured Dean Martin and then Sammy Davis Jr.  Both were duets, and both ended with Nancy kissing them, much like a girl kisses her uncle, or performers kiss in greeting/departing.  The kisses were sweet and harmless—and very deliberately staged for impact, particularly the latter kiss.  When Sammy and Nancy kiss, it looks impromptu, but the performers deliberately caused the embrace to occur at the end of the shooting day, right before Sammy had to leave, such that the director couldn't demand a retake.


Black meets white on Movin' with Nancy

I don't know if there has been much reaction to that kiss, but I have seen Sammy host Hollywood Palace a few times since, and his activist spirit only burns brighter and more fervently the more he appears.  He's trying to drive change and inspire others to follow.  That kiss was only one of example of his efforts.

And with Star Trek and Nichelle Nichols following in his footsteps, not to mention groundbreaking movies like Guess who's coming to dinner?, I think that momentum is building.

In the face of a fearsome enemy, the two primary human reactions are paralysis and/or anger.  Plato's stepchildren evoked both as I watched our beloved characters manipulated like puppets.  It also inspired me, in the face of overwhelming crisis and inequality, to not be afraid.  Indeed, I will hold onto my fury and let it drive me, until we have the power to overcome our oppressors.

Five stars.

[Come join us tomorrow (November 29th) for the next thrilling episode of Star Trek!  KGJ is broadcasting the show live with commercials and accompanied by trekzine readings at 8pm Eastern and Pacific.  You won't want to miss it…]




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[October 31, 1968] How the Western was won (Star Trek: "Spectre of the Gun")

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by Janice L. Newman

This is Not a Test

Star Trek continues to surf the New Wave in this week’s episode, Spectre of the Gun. While the plot incorporated many things we’ve seen before (both in and outside of Star Trek) it combined and presented these elements in new and innovative ways.

Continue reading [October 31, 1968] How the Western was won (Star Trek: "Spectre of the Gun") →

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[October 4, 1968] (Star Trek: "The Enterprise Incident")

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by Erica Frank

This episode begins with Kirk acting strangely, and everyone on the Enterprise has noticed. He is snappish, angry, arbitrary; he gives orders that defy Federation law and threatens people who argue with him.

His crew is loyal; they have been through many hardships together—so when he orders them into the Romulan Zone, they obey, although they are obviously nervous.


The Captain's orders are final

They are, of course, discovered, surrounded by Romulan vessels of a new, Klingon design. Kirk and Spock are compelled to beam aboard the Romulan ship to discuss matters, in exchange for two Romulan prisoners sent to the Enterprise. Kirk insists their location is a matter of instrument error: by the time they discovered the mistake, they were too deep in Romulan territory to get away quickly. The Romulan Commander (the first woman flag officer we have met in the show) says that sounds like—well, she doesn't call it the produce of a hind end of a male cow, because she is being politely formal, and this is a television show for families (and the Romulans may not have cattle), but she obviously indicates that it sounds implausible to her.


Color her unconvinced

Spock… confirms her opinion. Says the captain has been irrational recently. That he ordered them past the Neutral Zone. Kirk gets angry and threatens him, and is removed to the Romulan brig. Later, he injures himself enough that they call McCoy to attend him, and he attacks Spock. Spock defends himself with the "Vulcan death grip," an attack we haven't seen before, that looks surprisingly similar to the mind-meld grip.


The closer Jim gets, the worse he looks…

The Romulans send the captain's body back to his ship while the Romulan Commander attempts to convince Spock that he'd be much happier in the Romulan empire.

Have we seen this before?

McCoy revives Kirk. (I wonder if anyone actually thought Kirk died.) Kirk tells a select few people that his supposed insanity was a ruse, a form of dodging accountability in case they were captured. This is an undercover mission. 

The interesting part of the episode, for me, is the Romulan Commander's discussions with Spock. She attempts to seduce him in multiple ways, first laying out how much more power he'd have in the Romulan empire, and when Spock says he does not want command of a ship, she switches tactics. She offers him fine Vulcan food, which he admits is better than what's on the Enterprise. Pours him drinks—first a clear blue-green liquid, and later something orange, served in small glasses like liquor. Spock eats tiny food on toothpicks, and relaxes with her.

She puts herself into the bargain: "Romulan women are not like Vulcan females; they're not… dedicated to pure logic." She drapes herself enticingly, making sure he knows what she's offering. She whispers her name in his ear, and he tells her it's beautiful.


Oiling her traps

At each point, he makes appreciative comments, tells her that the offer is indeed a good one. That he can tell he'd have more power, more freedom, more creature comforts in the Romulan empire.

Eventually, he agrees to her terms: he will lead a small party of Romulans aboard the Enterprise, and from there order the ship to surrender at a Romulan port, her flagship at its side.

It doesn't matter what the terms are. He's lying. He's obviously lying—at least, it's obvious to anyone who knows him. Maybe outsiders who think Vulcans are actually emotionless would believe that Spock agreeing that the food is good means he's content to betray his heritage and his captain and wander off to a government with helmets designed to cover pointed ears.

Predictable but not boring

Instead, it turns out Spock was stalling for time so Kirk could sneak back to the Romulan ship in disguise and grab the new cloaking device. Scotty then has to install and use it before the Romulans get their phasers online—of course there's a deadline. But if we didn't believe Spock used a death grip on Kirk, we weren't going to believe the Romulans would succeed in blowing up the Enterprise. We wonder how they will escape, but not whether.

We could see the Commander convincing herself that her seduction was working—and we could also see Spock watching her reactions, feeding her facts that would convince her that he agreed, without actually admitting to being moved by her offer. Since he's a Vulcan, she doesn't expect him to offer an emotional reaction—and she fails to notice that not only is his enthusiasm lacking, so is any admission that he's actually been persuaded.

He says that the food is better than what the Enterprise has—he doesn't say that he'd leave his position for it. "Please give up your career; we have better snacks" is not going to work on anyone who actually likes their job.

Four stars. I loved the nuanced interactions between them, and I could tell something was off about Kirk but wasn't sure what until McCoy revived him.

Rewriting the present


by Gideon Marcus

Somewhere in North Korea, 83 American sailors and officers are interned, their captain occasionally forced to make confessions as to why his spy ship, the U.S.S. Pueblo, was inside Communist waters in January of this year.  I'm sure you all remember the news—air units were redeployed from Vietnam to Japan, the U.S.S. Enterprise (the aircraft carrier, not Kirk's ship) was stationed off the North Korean coast, and there were rumbles of an impending World War 3.  Indeed, if it hadn't been for the North Vietnamese launching their Tet holidays offensive at the end of January, shifting our focus, who knows where things might have ended up?

With The Enterprise Incident, the metaphor couldn't be more blatant.  The Romulans have been remolded.  Gone are the Kriegsmarine/Roman hybrids that populated "Balance of Terror".  Now they are cloaked in Orientalism, down to the little sideburns Joanne Linville sports, with their smooth speech reminiscent of every movie that features a sinister Red Chinese or Korean.  Vina's exotic theme from "The Cage" has been reworked for the Romulan Commander (effectively, I might add).  The defense-minded Romulans, who showed no interest in capturing the Enterprise when it violated the Neutral zone in "The Deadly Years", suddenly want nothing more than the prize of one of Star Fleet's finest vessels, a greed that proves their undoing.

And so, the American public gets to have its cake and eat it, too.  The Romulan Commander has the right of it when she accuses Kirk of entering Romulan space on a Federation-sanctioned espionage mission to get the cloaking device.  Yet, thanks to a series of Mission: Impossible-style exploits, the "good guys" get away with not only bearding the lion, but stealing the lioness. Rah, rah.  We win.


For ease of maintenance, you can't beat the easy-to-remove Cloaking Device!

This episode is only the latest in what has become a kind of motif.  Earlier this year, John Wayne's "The Green Berets" (the movie that took Sulu away from us for much of Trek's second season) turned Vietnam into World War 2, complete with a platoon with soldiers named Muldoon and Kowalski—and precious few black troops.  David Janssen, no longer a fugitive, plays a jaded reporter, who comes to learn the value of the American presence in Southeast Asia.  And so, contrary to any news you might have read this year, we win the war in Vietnam.

And just last month, the movie Anzio came out, detailing that SNAFU of a landing on the Italian coast in January 1944.  Robert Mitchum plays…a jaded reporter, who comes to learn the pointlessness of the American presence in southern Europe.  Thus, the anti-war movement comes to World War 2.

Mind you, "The Enterprise Incident" is better than either of those two movies.  It's superlatively paced, the dialogue crackles, the chemistry between Nimoy and Linville is palpable, and Shatner makes a convincing Romulan.  I'm even getting used to Scotty's new hairdo.  But the flag-waving has not been so blatant since "The Omega Glory".  Juxtaposed with the nauseating Nixon ad that aired halfway through, lambasting American policy in Vietnam and promising "peace with honor", the episode just didn't sit well with me.

Four stars.  Just have your Maalox tablets handy.

The Lady IS the Tiger


by Janice L. Newman

I’ll admit, when I watched The Enterprise Incident the other night, at first I was frustrated by the behavior of the Romulan Commander. But upon watching the tape we made of the episode with our trusty “Videocorder”, my feelings changed.

Women have an interesting, inconsistent place in the Star Trek universe. Sometimes they are slaves or seemingly exist only to titillate the male characters, like Shahna or Kara (the dancer from “Wolf in the Fold”). Sometimes they have positions of power and importance, like Uhura, Commissioner Nancy Hedford, or Sylvia. Yet even the women in the latter group often give up their position or power when tempted by romantic love. I originally thought the Romulan Commander fell into this same trap, but upon re-watching the episode, I realized I was wrong.

The Romulan Commander is doing her job.


These boots are made for commanding

When the Enterprise flew into the neutral zone, what a plum it must have seemed had fallen into their lap. After the ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ response from “The Deadly Years”, perhaps the Romulans re-evaluated their policy for when a ship like the Enterprise strayed into their territory. Or perhaps this particular commander was just especially ambitious. Regardless, rather than immediately blowing up the ship, she looked for a way to capture it and its wealth of intelligence. Knowing that the crew would surely self-destruct rather than let themselves be taken, she sought a crack in their armor that she could exploit.

Her interest in Spock thus becomes a rational, considered strategy rather than that of a woman letting her heart overrule her mind. She is believably attracted to him, but she is also doing her duty. If she can ‘turn’ Spock, and if he then orders the crew to surrender rather than self-destructing, not only will she win the starship, but the cooperation of a high-ranking Starfleet officer.

Perhaps her reach exceeds her grasp. Perhaps she is too greedy. With the benefit of hindsight and inside knowledge of Kirk’s and Spock’s personalities, it’s easy to be judgemental and say, “She should have just blown up the ship,” or “She should have known better.” But these are still better than, “She should have been thinking with her head rather than her heart.”

When her actions are viewed as those of an ambitious Romulan Commander who wants to get ahead and who is loyal to her people, they make perfect sense. After all, how many times has Captain Kirk used seduction to manipulate women and get what he wants? Can we blame the Romulan Commander for taking a gamble and trying the same? She may have lost, but I can’t help but respect her for trying.

I also appreciated Spock’s acknowledgement that no other outcome was possible, because she would not have truly respected him if he’d made such a choice. No matter how attracted to him she might have been, in the end she would merely have been using him, and they both know it. If there were any doubts that she was seducing him for political more than personal reasons, this line lays them to rest.

Three and a half stars.

The bounty


by Mx. Blue Cathey-Thiele

Two officers beam onto a ship. The captain is confident and capable, skilled at manipulation, and fools even the audience. One provides a distraction and the other collects a valuable asset in a dangerous gamble.

No, I don't mean Kirk stealing the cloaking device.

It was a neat trick and one that allowed the Enterprise to escape without a trace, but I would argue that it was not the actual mission goal, or at least, not the only mission goal. As Kirk and Spock went up against the Commander – who could serve as the Romulan answer to Captain Kirk – this was yet another layer of the ruse. Romulan technology is advanced, but what is more powerful? Knowledge.

It was only in "Balance of Terror" that Romulans were even seen for the first time in a century. Additionally, Starfleet intelligence had already told some of the Bridge crew that Romulans were now using Klingon ship design. Between a cloaking device and the weapons capability to obliterate entire outposts, why switch to a design that the Fleet is not only more familiar with but has dealt with more often? The Enterprise could be destroyed before they ever make contact with a ship past the Neutral Zone. An alliance with the Klingons could change the terms of the Organian peace treaty. Klingon/Federation battles may not be possible but bringing in allies might circumnavigate the way the Organians neutralized fighting capabilities. Finding a way to disrupt a power consolidation such as that seems a far more compelling reason to risk losing the Enterprise or potentially igniting a new conflict with the Romulans.


Spock obtains the real prize of the expedition

With Kirk "dead" and the more immediate threat "discovered", Spock was free to act. He and the Commander shared cultural information, confirming aspects of what the species knew of each other. He also had time to observe Romulan command structure, the quarters of the Commander, and possibly even collect information from her mind. This would be a gamble, as they share distant ancestry and Spock can be vulnerable when connecting with another mind, but not inherently riskier than the plan for Kirk.

Whether they escape with the cloaking device or intelligence, Starfleet gains something to use.

5 stars

Mission: Possible


by Joe Reid

In his letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul says, “…I am made all things to all men, that I by all means save some.” This episode, “The Enterprise Incident”, epitomized becoming many things to a varied audience.  This episode skillfully blended multiple themes and genres into a cohesive quilt that when looked at from a distance you realize isn’t a quilt at all.  It is a beautiful tapestry, a singular thing that through different sets of eyes will reveal itself differently. 

In the past I complained about episodes that attempted to do too many things in one airing: “The Gamesters of Triskelion” comes to mind.  The different themes in that episode were not blended, to the point of being jarring.  “The Enterprise Incident” presents a military thriller, a heist story, a secret agent tale, a romance, and a science fiction story all rolled into one.  This unified, multifaceted story is not the only reason that I loved this episode.  Here are some other reasons:

It didn’t go out of the way to tell the audience what was happening.  The events told the story.  There was no long explanation from Captain Kirk as to what was happening.  We were given no reason why Romulans were flying Klingon ships.  There was no discussion as to why the commander of the Romulans was female and whether that was common.  The audience was given no revelation as to whether or not Romulan commander had feelings for Spock or if she was simply tricking him.  In this episode things were what they were, and it was up to the audience to make sense of the event for themselves.  An intelligent tale for intelligent viewers.


Even Subcommander Tal is impressed

Another reason to love this episode is because of the amount of respect that was given to the Romulans.  There were not overtly evil, mustache twirling, or stupid enemies in this episode.  The Romulans made no logical missteps in the episode.  Their actions were based on information that they verified.  The Romulan commander didn’t take it for granted that Kirk lost his sanity, she allowed the information to be verified by both Spock and Bones before believing it.  The Romulans monitored transmissions from their own ship and acted when they discovered alien/human signals.  They remained vigilant and intelligent in every scene.  Spock and the others didn’t defeat the Romulans, they simply outmaneuvered them by being slightly more clever in the way they responded to the information that each person had at the time.  Outside of Kirk faking his death, no one was even killed in this episode, which for Star Trek is rare.

Seeing what came before it, I would have thought it impossible for Star Trek to tell a unique and novel multifaceted story, representing so many things to so many people, without speaking down to the audience.  I’m happy to say that they successfully completed the mission in more ways than one.  For that I am grateful.

Five stars




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[September 26, 1968] Brain drain: (Star Trek: "Spock's Brain")

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[Star Trek is back for its third season!  Accordingly, we've devoted a great many inches to this rather uneven debut….]


by Janice L. Newman

This week we gathered all our friends together to start off a new season of Star Trek. We served dinner, then put our little portable color set outside and everyone enjoyed the lovely late summer night.

Well, everyone except me, that is. I was stuck inside with a VERY nasty cold that, oddly enough, no one else wanted to share with me. It made watching Spock’s Brain a lonely experience, but it did give me space to focus on the episode without being distracted by gasps, groans, or laughter—except my own, that is.

With the recent threats of cancelation and huge fan response, I expected NBC to put their best foot forward starting the new season. For Season 2 they knocked it out of the park with Amok Time. Could they do it again?

In a word, no.

Continue reading [September 26, 1968] Brain drain: (Star Trek: "Spock's Brain") →

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[July 8, 1968] Let the Sunshine In (Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical)

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by Erica Frank

Hair is a rapturous celebration of free love, higher consciousness, sexual adaptability, racial integration, and anti-authoritarianism. It's a critique of political corruption, the tragedies of war, and religious oppression. Also there is nature-based spirituality.

Hair is a debauched glorification of sex, drugs, perversion, profanity, and rebellion. It mocks public service, patriotism, and the church. Also there are fart jokes.

Pick one. Or take two; they're cheap. Everyone's got an opinion and none of them are the "real truth" about this complex and colorful stage production.

Note that the more positive description involves more words. It's easier to say something is bad–depraved, degenerate, vile, corrupt, and so on–than to praise something that doesn't fit into the established storytelling patterns of the day. And this musical–and its album–steps well off the common path to get its points across.

It's transcendental meditation versus the implacable forces of orthodoxy, and the prize at stake is the souls of a swarm of young people hanging out in Central Park.

Hair album cover

The cover is so striking you might not realize that the hair is not an artistic cloud-of-lightning addition–that's Steve Curry, who plays Woof in the Broadway cast.

Talk About Your Plenty, Talk About Your Ills

The music is incredible. From the opening "Aquarius" with its drumbeats and slow crooning that suddenly shifts to a cascading list of delightful assumptions of what the new era will bring, to the lascivious "Sodomy," to the jubilant "I Got Life," to the poignant "Easy to be Hard," the songs compel emotions with a shifting array of perspectives. The titular "Hair" is rebellious without hostility; "Don't Put It Down" is irreverent without contempt; "Three-Five-Zero-Zero" is stark and accusatory; "Good Morning Starshine" is bright and hopeful.

It's easy to get caught up in the music and miss the message–after all, the message is multi-directional and possibly contradictory. There's no one single theme I can point to and say, "this, this is the true message of Hair."

A scene from a performance last year, before the play hit Broadway.

It's anti-war, anti-draft. Those parts are simple enough. But it doesn't talk about war's influence on communities or even society–it talks about deaths of strangers happening far away, and young men who are afraid or (not unreasonably) unwilling to march off to fight and possibly die. This is not like Mark Twain's War Prayer; it's not a reminder that one side "winning" means another side enduring sorrows and agonies. This is instead, a view of war from the perspective of confused teenagers: A lack of comprehension why anyone would want to fight when the world seems on the verge of so many social and spiritual breakthroughs, when there is so much beauty and bliss and they could be partying instead.

War Is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things

Sheila leads the tribe in chanting for peace and freedom. Claude denounces his parents for coupon-clipping and wanders the streets looking at daffodils. Hud quotes Muhammad Ali from the New York Times last year, saying, "The draft is white people sending black people to make war on yellow people to defend the land they stole from the red people."

Muhammad Ali and friends at the Houston courthouse after he refuses to be drafted

Muhammad Ali and friends leaving the Armed Forces induction center in Houston after Ali refused the draft – April 28, 1967. | AP

There is something very true about that. And yet it is also facile, a simplification of a complex political situation. It boils the draft down to "why is this wrong for me" without consideration of why one nation might take up arms on behalf of another.

I do not think the US should be in Viet Nam at all, and we certainly shouldn't be drafting soldiers to send there. But my reasons for these beliefs are not discussed in Hair, which is focused on its "haggle of hippies" and their interests, which do not include political theory.

The play is obviously, overtly anti-racist. It denounces segregation and discrimination, speaks out against the white historical practice of "colonizing" by killing anyone who get in their way. But it does so by having black characters proudly claim the slurs thrown against them as badges of honor, by showing native peoples as "noble savages," insightful and wise but speaking with broken English. It does not show that some black people are uncomfortable with gutter slang, and would like to be lawyers, doctors, or professors, rather than street dancers and "President of the United States of Love." It does not show that some people hold all Americans, not just "the Establishment," in contempt. It celebrates white girls dating black boys and vice versa; there's no equal jubilation over black people who want nothing to do with the communities of their historical oppressors.

It's not inaccurate so much as it's incomplete, showing only narrow aspects of multi-faceted problems, a view so limited it could reasonably be called deliberately misleading. It preaches that peace, love, and tolerance can overcome all conflicts, settle all disagreements, glossing over any disputes that have their roots in limited resources or incompatible cultural differences.

The Politics of Ecstasy

It would be easy to dismiss the play as a performance of Timothy Leary's admonition to "Turn on, tune in, drop out," and to say the "core" message is "ignore all the rules; just enjoy yourselves."

Poster fort Human Be-In in 1968

Poster for the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park in 1967.

And while there's plenty to support that claim–lots of sex and drugs and, every time things get a bit too serious, Berger makes crude jokes–there's something deeper as well. The hippies wrestle with politics, survival, and their sense of self. They try to find their own identities in a community that's aggressively cooperative, in contrast with the large society that seeks to erase them.

For all the fun and festivities, there is a dark undertone that cannot be banished by any amount of song and merriment. As the story pushes toward the conclusion Claude fears so deeply, he is left with the awareness that, while his community will share his joys, they don't know how to lessen his worries or sorrows. We, the audience, are stuck also realizing that these cheerful, carousing people, who hug freely and seem devoid of jealousy or malice, are fighting an unwinnable battle against forces they do not wish to comprehend, because even naming the foe would lose the innocence that allows their tribe to exist at all.

Five stars. The highs are lively and charming, and the lows are breathtakingly bleak.




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Magazine/Anthology, Science / Space Race

[June 18, 1968] I Just Read It for the Stories (February-June 1968 Playboy)

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by Erica Frank

Introduction

After looking over Playboy in January and finding Vonnegut's gem of a story, I decided to check out the next few issues. This time I skipped all the political commentary (which is mostly "money is good and women should wear fewer clothes") and focused on the stories and articles potentially of interest to science fiction fans.

March 1968 Playboy cover - a naked woman with a bunny painted on her back looks over her shoulder
Cover of March 1968's Playboy. I found this the least-boring cover of the set – the only one that looks like she's having fun.

I read everything that looked remotely like it might be a science fiction story, even though some of them were a stretch. I also looked at the science-related articles. There are quite a few of them, since this covers a five-month period.

A Day in the Life of…, by Ralph Schoenstein (February)
The full title of this story is "A Day in the Life of President George Romney—Or Robert Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King, Charles Percy, Hubert Humphrey, Nelson Rockefeller, Lurleen and George Wallace." It's a satire inspired by Jim Bishop's A Day in the Life of President Johnson, speculating about the biographies of other potential presidents. I had hoped this involved some kind of parallel universe setting, or time travel… but no. This is just mild political commentary, a few paragraphs of satirical character study on each.

Romney awakens at 5 a.m. and scowls at his wife for addressing him by his first name. Kennedy leaps from his bed and cartwheels into the bathroom. Nixon polls his public to find out if he should get out of bed in the morning. Reagan is refraining from sex for the duration of his presidency to avoid the risk of marks. King never smiles and never argues. Humphrey worships LBJ and calls him "Big Daddy."

As satire: 3 stars. As science fiction: 1 star–there's some vague hint of multiple universes, but that's all.

Hat Trick, by Robert Coover (February)
Certainly interesting. A magician performs a hat trick – pulling bunnies, doves, another hat, and eventually, a whole assistant out of his hat. And then the story turns dark. This had some surprising twists and a disturbing ending.

4 stars; this one will stick with me.

The Chronicle of the 656th, by George Byram (March)
The set-up: a former student brings his professor a locked box, found buried under a house he'd purchased. The box contains Civil-War-era documents and objects – and a notebook dated 1944. After establishing that this was not a hoax, he'd read through the notebook: an entire army combat team had vanished from their WWII training area and found themselves in 1864. They help win a major Civil War battle, although several of the team members are conflicted – their families and ancestors are from the South.

The writing is good, but the story is not. Everyone dies, so there's no time paradox to address. It reads like normal fiction, not like a series of diary entries. I guessed the big secret as soon as they established what happened. (Secret atomic bomb testing sent them back in time! How shocking!) This must be what the mundanes think science fiction is supposed to be.

2 stars. Unless you enjoy war stories, in which case, it may be 3.

The Origin of Everything, by Italo Calvino (March)
This "story" is two vignettes that take place at the beginning of the universe – one before the Big Bang (or, mostly before), and one a bit after. They are both whimsical explorations of the idea of "people" in places where people obviously cannot exist.


The art by George Suyeoka nicely captures the feel of the story.

There's a surreal conjunction the everyday and the cosmic: Mrs. Ph(i)Nko taking Mr. De XuaeauX to bed, but since they are all in a single point before the expansion of the universe,

…"it isn't a question of going to bed, but of being there, because anybody in the point is also in the bed. Consequently, it was inevitable that she should be in bed also with each of us.

After the creation of the universe, all of the residents of the point hope to find Mrs. Ph(i)Nko again, but alas, she cannot be found; only the memory of her love for them all survives.

In the second vignette, astral children play marbles with hydrogen atoms; one child has stolen all the new atoms, and one of his companions then tricks him with fake atoms made of junk.

4 stars; this was delightful.

The Bizarre Beauties of "Barbarella" (March)
This is a pictorial review of the movie that's coming out later this year, based on the French comic, "The erotic space adventures of Barbarella." I'm not familiar with the comic, but I gather it has

  • Beautiful women
  • Wearing very few clothes
  • Having sex
  • In space


The Black Queen enjoys a dream interlude with the angel Pygar, whom she's forced to obey her will.

Fashion of the future on the planet Lythion

Barbarella rescues Pygar, and then Pygar rescues Barbarella.

I'm not rating this, but I am looking forward to the movie when it comes out.

Bucking the scientific Establishment, by Theodore J. Gordon (April)
This is a nonfiction article about innovative scientists who were initially faced with derision and insults, and were later proved to be correct. …Or rather: this is an article about innovative historical scientists, and a handful of current scientists whose theories are still considered more in the category of "crackpot" than "fact," which the author would like you to believe are very plausible, as shown by the fact that several other scientists used to be considered crackpots but are now lauded as groundbreakers in their fields.

Author seems to have skipped over the thousands of so-called scientists who were widely believed to be crackpots and later were still believed to be crackpots.

2 stars. Reasonably entertaining writing; good facts; bad science.

Papa's Planet, by William F. Nolan (April)
This is short and I wish it were forgettable. Fortunately, it's incoherent enough that most of the details will fade with time. Philip, our protagonist, is Cecile's fourth husband; her father recently died and left him the deed to a planet. The story is obviously not meant to be taken seriously ("Five million miles out from Mars, we turned sharp left and there it was: Papa's Planet"), and while it's obviously science fiction–the planet is inhabited by nothing but Hemmingway clones–there's not really any actual story here. (Is this what the mundanes think science fiction is?)

2 stars. It's not anything like good but it's not overtly bad enough for me to rank it at 1 star.

The Annex, by John D. MacDonald (May)
I had hopes for this one. It started out interesting: a nurse tending an unconscious patient, discovering he's dislodged his IV needle. Then it shifts perspective entirely: Mr. Dave Davis visits a huge, strange building, in the process of being torn down while its residents refuse to leave. There are hints that he's on some kind of assignment from an agency; he tries not to reveal exactly why he's visiting or how he got access. His guide, Mrs. Dorn, refuses to let him find his own way, insisting he'd just get lost. (It is clear that yes, he would quickly get lost.) When they reach his destination–

The story loses focus. It gets a bit surreal; while I generally enjoy surreal–see my notes about the Calvino story above–this lacks the whimsy or allure that would allow it to be more than somewhat nonsensical. Then the story shifts back to the nursing ward, where Silvia Dorn is a nurse, her beloved Dave is being kept alive by machines, and the reader is obviously meant to draw meaning from these details in a way that eluded me.

3 stars, I suppose–I can tell there's a decent story here even if it seems to want a set of assumptions I don't share.

Henne Fire, by Isaac Bashevis Singer (May)
This is told folktale-style, a story of Jewish fantasy (of a sort) rather than classic science fiction. Henne Fire is a terrible woman–she has been so awful, all her life, that she basically became a demon. Or perhaps she was born as one. She was nasty to everybody. Eventually, she became prone to random attacks of hellfire–her clothing would catch fire, or little flames would start around her. She could not even move into the poorhouse; nobody wanted a boarder who would catch houses on fire. She pleaded with the rabbi to help her, and eventually, the town made her a small brick house–basically a shack made of stone, with a tin roof.

Illustration by Bernard McDonald

The neighbors might've just shunned her after that, but one of her daughters married a rich American and started sending her money. Suddenly everyone wanted to befriend her. (This did not make her a nicer person.) One day people noticed that Henne hadn't been around for a few days, and they found her remains at home–a burnt skeleton, sitting in a chair with no mark of fire on it.

3 stars; entertaining enough.

The Dead Astronaut, by J. G. Ballard (May)
After the space age is decades past–shut down after a bloody history of orbital accidents–a married couple awaits the crash landing of their friend who died 20 years ago, so they can gather his remains.

Charle Schorre's illustration is eye-catching and does not actually capture the tone of this semi-post-apocalyptic story.

I enjoyed this story, although it is not a happy tale and it does not end well for anyone. I especially enjoyed: Mrs. Groves had been (was still?) in love with the astronaut, and her husband does not seem to have been jealous–mostly amused, and a bit concerned for her. I did not enjoy: The revelation of the ominous secret (a bit too predictable), and the final moments where the husband says, "I never asked you–" and then looks at her, and realizes he has his answer.

What that answer was, what the question was, I do not know. This was obviously written for men of a certain class, of a certain culture, who would understand the unspoken words. I can recognize the poignancy of the ending but I don't know what actually happened.

3 stars. If I'd been part of the intended audience, it probably would be 4.

The Snooping Machine, by Alan Westin (May)
Another nonfiction piece, positing a cashless, computer-data-driven society by 1975. It mentions that computer tape is so efficient a storage medium that one could hold 2000 pages of data for each of America's two hundred million citizens in a single room, on as few as a hundred reels of tape.

It discusses some history of government data-gathering, which includes both "big brother" hysteria and a pressing need for accurate data on which to base decisions. (Which regions need better school funding? Which areas might need new roads?) Government officials have admitted it may be impossible to separate personal identity details from the data they need, and that sorting out the conflicting interests in privacy and data is an ongoing problem.

3 stars. A nice overview of data technology and both the problems and possibilities it brings, but a bit pedantic in approach.

The Man from Not-Yet, by John Sladek (June)
Epistolary fiction, told through letters. Two friends in 1772 discuss an incident some ten years past, in which they had a visitor who claimed to be from the future. He was questioned by Samuel Johnson, who asked disparaging questions–"You will want to tell me no doubt of carriages that operate without benefit of horses. Of engines that carry men through the air like birds. Of ships without sails."

The visitor is astounded that he has guessed the future so correctly, but Johnson just scoffs, until the man offers to bring him to the future. They visit his time machine; the two enter the device; after a few moments of silence, it glows and explodes, leaving Dr. Johnson in the wreckage but the traveler gone.

The remaining few letters let the readers know what happened, while the men themselves remain unaware.

3 stars. I have little interest in this kind of historical fiction, and there is almost no point to the story: too much exposition with a "gotcha" twist at the end.

Ghost, by Hoke Norris (June)
The protagonist of this story is a somewhat conservative, ambitious man who has a "ghost" that speaks to him constantly, urging wild and rebellious acts. The ghost was the previous inhabitant of his body, and he cannot get rid of it even though he is now in control. He is also dating the boss's wife's sister (instead of the girl he loves). He wants the money and status that comes with the high-class connections but he also wants the comfort and joy he finds with Marie; he is caught between these two issues (with the ghost constantly berating him for his ambition) until Marie turns up pregnant.

They have a fight, he goes for a walk, and everything changes.

4 stars–this one will (heh) haunt me.

Conclusion

Playboy is about on par with most science fiction magazines for quality, and better than some… if you can accept that it has only one to three pieces per issue that are relevant to science fiction fans. Although the stories are okay, with some much better than that, many of the best-written stories have dark themes or unhappy endings or both. It seems the average Playboy reader is not expected to be interested in stories of otherworldly exploration or how technology might solve our problems, but how people with psychic powers or spaceships are just as likely to be miserable as the average person today. It's heavy on pedantic verbosity and all rather depressing.

If you also like the libertarian politics, there is more entertainment per issue, and of course, if your interests include pictures of young women with their shirts off, it has quite a bit to offer.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[March 14, 1968] Bugs in the machine (Star Trek: "The Ultimate Computer")

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The MT Soul


by Joe Reid

Brothers and sisters, I am quite simply over the moon.  I feel rewarded and fulfilled due to what I just witnessed.  Above all else, I feel something that I haven’t felt in a while as a lover of Star Trek.  I feel respected.  As I enjoy the last few sips of my cocktail, I take pleasure in divulging my thoughts on “The Ultimate Computer”.  It was very good!  The end.


Liquor infused levity aside, I suppose I am obligated to expand on my thoughts.  The episode got off to a roaring start, with the Enterprise arriving at a space station with a visibly upset Kirk having been summoned to that station sans explanation.  When Kirk asked for an explanation, he was told that his explanation would be beamed aboard.  Commodore Wesley beamed in, someone who both Kirk and Spock appeared acquainted with.  Wesley told them that they were to participate in war games to test a new computer that would be installed on the Enterprise, replacing most of the crew.  Twenty crew members would be left aboard.

After the new M5 multitronic unit was installed, shrinking the crew, we met the tall and off-putting Dr. Richard Daystrom, creator of the M5.  He was a man lacking several human pleasantries, in that he was dismissive of people but very focused on and protective of the M5.  The two most human members of the crew, Bones and Scotty, caught Daystrom’s ire in the subsequent exchanges, demonstrating his preference for machines over men.


The new sheriff in town.

As the new M5 equipped Enterprise started its tour, it made a trip to a planet.  M5 took extra initiative, navigating the ship into its orbit and even picking assignments for an away team. It excluded Kirk and Bones, who it deemed to be unnecessary for the mission.  This bothered Kirk, who was already feeling put upon, having a computer taking on more of this job than he surmised.  The M5 also started turning off parts of the ship that were absent of crew members for some unknown reason.

Leaving the planet, the ship found itself under a sneak attack as a part of the war games Wesley had planned.  The M5 took complete control of the Enterprise, dispatching the attackers swiftly with weapons at 1% power as the exercise demanded.  This earned the M5 a success report from Wesley and Kirk a (perhaps joking) slight from the commodore, when Wesley called Kirk Captain “Dunsel”; dunsel referring to a part on a ship that serves no purpose.


"Good job, Captain Useless!"

Things were looking good for the M5 and Daystrom was very pleased with the outcomes, while Kirk flirted with depression at the thought of the day’s events.  It was at this time that the M5 took a bad turn, starting by its destroying (unprovoked) an automated ore freighter.  The crew quickly became adversarial toward the M5, which now had completely taken control of the ship.  All efforts to get control back from the rogue computer failed, even costing an engineer (not Scotty, thank heaven) his life.


Posthumous hazard pay is in order.

Daystrom was undeterred in his defense of his creation, not wanting to disconnect the M5, a sentiment which didn't change even as the real war games started when M5, using weapons at 100%, utterly defeated a group of starships and killed everyone on the Excalibur.  Daystrom didn’t even try to stop his creation until the M5 was threatened with destruction by the other ships.


Here comes the Piper.

In the end, it took Kirk, using his ironclad logic against the M5, which contained Daystrom’s embedded fears but also his morality, to prevail.  He prevented an attack not using the wizardry of technology, but by trusting in the intelligence, will, and heart of men.  Proving that spaceships still need men at the helm.

I loved this episode.  It had great acting, fantastic camera direction, an intelligent original story, and best of all, there was little to no exposition to explain what was happening to the audience.  We had to infer what everything meant based on the story elements provided.  Again, it was very good.

5 stars.

Homo ex machina


by Gideon Marcus

Star Trek, like much science fiction, often tries to convey messages in its stories.  Sometimes, it does so hamfistedly, other times contradictorily.  In "The Ultimate Computer", the show presented not one, but two themes simultaneously, and did so with subtlety and cleverness. Bravo.

Firstly, "Computer" addresses the specter of automation.  The episode does not endorse Luddism.  It is clear that someday at least some of the 430 jobs on the Enterprise will be performed by computer–indeed, halfway through the episode, the ship comes across a completely robot-controlled DY-500.  In other words, M-5's revolution is not the automation of spaceships, but the next development in their automation.

The dialogue between Bones and Kirk on the captain's impending obsolescence, as well as the undercurrent of tension between the captain and Commodore Wesley (who puts on a blustery front, but probably is no happier about M-5's ramifications than Kirk), are some of the best parts of the episode.

It should also be noted, that whenever computers have gone amok, it is not their fault: in "The Changeling", Nomad's functioning got cross-contaminated with Tan Ru's.  In "Court Martial", the ship's computer is deliberately tampered with by Ben Finney.  Even Landru in "Return of the Archons" only did what it was programmed to do.  In other words, computers are useful, inevitable, and desirable tools.

But this is not just a story of steam replacing sail, or iron horses replacing ponies.  It's about what happens when too much reliance is placed on automation without sufficient involvement of humans.  It's a cautionary tale in the same vein as Failsafe (the book or the movie).  No matter how sophisticated computers get, or what shortcuts their developers take to leapfrog their development, in the end, humans are necessary–to guide them, to control them, to maximize the utility of them.


The missing link–sane oversight.

One can quibble over details; this story was told in a dramatic way so as to get its point across in 50 minutes, and in doing so, there are some inconsistencies and some let-downs (the final confrontation between Kirk and the M5 is about two exchanges too short).  But for me, "The Ultimate Computer" feels like a return to form, one of the rare episodes of the second season that recaptured the essence of the first in feel, in technical proficiency, and coherence.

Four and a half stars.

Annoyingly Predictable


by Erica Frank

The M-5 is supposed to be able to run a ship normally crewed by four hundred with just 20 people. Of course, that turns out to be a lie, not because it can't, but because it doesn't bother with little details like, oh, following regulations, obeying the captain, and not killing people.

How the hell did this computer get approved for take-control-of-a-starship testing? And when Daystrom started to make excuses for it ("You don't shut off a child when it makes a mistake!"), why didn't Kirk immediately reply with, "You don't give a child command of a starship, either. And if a child grabs control of the family car and rams into another car – you don't let the child keep control. Shut this off NOW, or we'll start shooting our phasers into its circuit banks."

("But that would leave us floating dead in space!" he might answer. And Kirk could respond, "I'm sure someone will be along shortly to pick us up.")

Instead, Kirk lets it keep control long enough to kill over 60 people before getting Daystrom out of the way. Then he manages to use third-grade logic to get it to shut itself down: "What is the penalty for murder?" "Death." (Except we know otherwise – the only crime in the Federation with a death penalty was visiting Talos IV.) Unable to cope with the awareness that it violated its internal morality, it collapses.

…Where was that logic when it was shooting at the other ships? Why didn't the super-computer recognize the "laws of God and man" before it had broken them? Why didn't Kirk insist Daystrom talk it out of shooting before it had killed anyone? Shouldn't its logic work faster and more efficiently than a human's?

But we wouldn't get much story if the M5 had immediately recognized it was stuck between "defend myself" and "kill humans, whose protection is my purpose." So it couldn't notice that until the damage was done, its creator was unconscious, and Kirk was earnestly explaining exactly what it had done wrong.

As Snoopy might say: Bleah.

Just as dull as all the "psychic powers create sadistic manipulators" stories.

The acting was good. The story pacing was good. The explanations of the technology were good. Yet another "I liked everything but the plot" episode. Two stars.

Hey McCoy – got another Finagle's Folly lying around? I could use a drink.


"Here's to Erica, at least."



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[February 28, 1968] Zero for the Price of Two (Star Trek: "By Any Other Name")

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by Janice L. Newman

This week’s Star Trek episode starts in one genre and ends up in another, ultimately making a promise it just can't deliver on.

The story opens with the Enterprise responding to a distress signal and landing on an out-of-the-way planet. They encounter aliens that appear human, who immediately commandeer the ship. When the landing party attempts to resist, the aliens make a chilling example: they turn two members of the landing party (both garbed in red) into small, strangely-shaped objects, apparently by removing all the water from their bodies and leaving the concentrated essential salts and minerals. One of these objects is crushed before Captain Kirk’s eyes, while the other is restored to his normal human state.

I want to take a moment to note how compelling this part is. It could have been corny in a different kind of show. Yet it’s unexpectedly effective as Kirk crouches over the powdery remains of one of his crewmembers, shocked. There’s no gore or blood, yet it is genuinely horrific.

Continue reading [February 28, 1968] Zero for the Price of Two (Star Trek: "By Any Other Name") →

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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[January 6, 1968] Entertainment for Men (January 1968 Playboy)

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by Erica Frank

An unexpected place for science fiction

When I saw January's issue of Playboy, my first thought was, of course, "Ugh, mostly-naked women being exploited", including a Gidget-lookalike, wearing a lot fewer clothes than Gidget normally does.

Cover of January 1968 Playboy

And then I saw some of the contributors: Kurt Vonnegut (author of Cat's Cradle), Shel Silverstein (author of both the heart-twisting The Giving Tree and very clever Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book), Arthur C. Clarke, Ogden Nash (whose poetry I love), Ray Bradbury…

And I thought, well, it's pricey—more than double the price of most science fiction magazines—no doubt because of the, ahem, artistic photography. But I could get it just for the articles. (That's the joke, anyway.)

The shopkeeper at the store where I saw it refused to sell it to me. I was confused, but they were adamant. But I persevered, and found a less-discriminatory site that didn't care who acquired their wares.

My first thought was: There's certainly a lot of magazine for my buck-twenty-five! This anniversary edition has over 250 pages, and while a lot of that is advertisements, they don't skimp on the actual text.

Two science fiction stories, two articles by science fiction authors, some poetry, some futuristic art… and an article about religion and hippies.  That's well within my interests.

The Yellow Room, by John Cheever
Cheever is mostly published in The New Yorker, with some stories in Playboy, Esquire, and The Saturday Evening Post. He is not known for his science fiction, and if this story is typical, I can understand why.

Our protagonist is a rich fellow afflicted with the cafard, either a form of depression or just the ennui of someone wealthy enough to pay a psychiatrist a dollar a minute for therapy. (Mister, just skip half a dozen sessions and buy yourself a motorcycle, okay?) The doctor declares him sexually repressed—a "transvestite homosexual," caused by sculptures of his body-building father being used prominently at several hotels and opera houses. Our narrator denounces the guy as a charlatan and stops attending sessions.

After that, he starts gallivanting around the globe in search of the perfect room, one with yellow walls, which he is certain will end his cafard. I suspect half the purpose of the story is to give the reader the fantasy of jaunting from hotel to hotel without worrying about price, attending a job, or having family obligations. Eventually, he finds such a room, but it is owned by someone who won't sell her house. So, noticing that she is a heavy drinker, he plies her with expensive alcohol until she winds up in a car accident—and buys the house after her death.

It does, in fact, cure him, or at least, he feels energetic and happy in the room with yellow walls.

So where's the science fiction? His mother, a dilettante traveler, writes letters informing him that when she stays at hotels, she has dreams of the previous tenants of the beds. This is done in great detail over several pages, but does not seem to connect to the plot, if you can call it a plot.

The writing itself is good enough, if one enjoys overly intellectual rich man's pontification as a writing style. The story, however, begins nowhere, goes nowhere, and is packed with nothing but descriptions of a jet-set lifestyle and the protagonist's ego. Two stars.

God and the Hippies, by Harvey Cox
This article compares modern hippies to St. Francis of Assisi, and notes that modern "welfare society" allows a level of leisure that has turned to ecstatic exploration, meditation, and a strong interest in Oriental spirituality. Modern Protestant Christianity, he points out, is "squarer than American culture," and focused on dominion over nature instead of harmony with it.

The choice is no longer Christian, Jew, or atheist. Christianity will also have to recognize that in a postindustrial, leisure society, people will have more time for meditation and
for cultivating the kinds of religious practices that have been so highly developed in some Oriental countries—and so underdeveloped in the West.

Wanda declares she has found true love with "Grok the Guru."
A scene from the "Little Annie Fanny" comic strip at the end of the issue.

He then talks about three aspects of hippie culture that seem to clash most with Christianity: Drugs, aversion to work, and open sexuality. He points out that current drug laws are discriminatory in both focus and enforcement: that there is no rational reason for alcohol to be legal but marijuana a felony, and that the marginalized are penalized more heavily than the wealthy for infractions. He says the Calvinist work ethic may not make sense in a computer civilization—that we will soon all have more leisure time, and that hippies are not wasting it on "TV and bowling leagues," but taking to poetry, art, and philosophy. He even mentions that space travel will likely take many years, and require travelers who know how to stay alert and interested in life with no entertainments but each other. And, given that this article is in Playboy, of course it is in favor of erotic pleasure.

The article is a little starry-eyed about hippies (they are not all as idealistic and passionate as he seems to think) but does a nice job of showing the conflicts between hippies and much of modern society, especially how hippie ideals often clash with Christian morality. Four stars.

Welcome to the Monkey House, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Welcome to the Monkey House is a delightful change from the previous story. Our setting is future-Earth; population 17 billion humans. They are required to take "ethical birth-control pills," which remove all the pleasure from sex without actually preventing it, three times a day, or face a penalty of $10,000 and 10 years in jail. Not many people will risk the cost of a cheap house to skip their mandated medications, but "notorious nothinghead Billy the Poet" has been spotted heading for the local Suicide Parlor, where he no doubt intends to seduce someone.

The workers at the parlors are referred to as "pretty, tough-minded, highly intelligent girls":

All Hostesses were virgins. They also had to hold advanced degrees in psychology and nursing. They also had to be plump and rosy, and at least six feet tall.

America had changed in many ways, but it had yet to adopt the metric system.

This story contains forced drug use, kidnapping, forced withdrawal, rape, and various other crimes, all in a very implausible future. It addresses themes of moral vs practical science—specifically, sexual abstinence vs contraception—written in a style that seems packed with science fiction clichés until it turns darkly philosophical.

While I was rolling my eyes at some of the "facts" of the future world, I couldn't stop reading. Five stars.

Death Warmed Over, by Ray Bradbury
Bradbury is a fan of the old classic horror movies: Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Bela Lugosi's Dracula, The Body Snatcher, and other "monster movies." He does not care for the newer, more intellectual films: Our Man Flint, Charade, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He intensely dislikes horror-comedies like I Was a Teenage Werewolf. The point of horror, he says, is to take the universal fear of death, give it a face, a shape, a name… and conquer it.

I may not fully agree with his conclusion, but he argues his points eloquently. Four stars.

When Earthmen and Alien Meet, by Arthur C. Clarke
Clarke ponders how we might find evidence of extraterrestrials and what proof of their existence would do for humanity. In most cases, he points out: Nothing. Finding the ruins of an alien civilization on the moon might spark more space exploration, but after a few interesting photos make the news rounds, most people would shrug. The moon is a long ways off, and other stars even farther, and what is or isn't out there isn't relevant to their lives.

Most of this article is pondering methods of contact or verification, like finding ruins, receiving the equivalent of television broadcasts, or actual direct communication—although he points out this is not likely anytime soon. He goes on to quote a number of science fiction stories that deal with various possibilities, throws in a number of science facts that the general public may not be aware of but science fiction readers often are (e.g. how long a rocket would take to travel the four light-years to Alpha Centauri: 25,000 years), and declares the importance that we learn "to change, or at least to control, the atavistic urges programed into our genes," so we can take our rightful place among the stars.

Image of a strangely colored man viewed through a round window
"Could an alien tell the difference between a man and, for example, a bear—or would he conclude that the automobile was our dominant life form?"

If these were new ideas to me, the article might be intriguing and pleasant, instead of heavy and pedantic. Two stars.

City of the Future, by R. Buckminster Fuller
Last October, Fuller gave a speech in which he referred to "Spaceship Earth," building on Adlai Stevenson's 1965 description of our planet as a spaceship, one with limited resources that we must preserve. Fuller is widely considered an architectural visionary, and in this article, he talks about some possible structures for futuristic cities based on pyramids.

The city plan consists of "three triangular walls of 5000 living units apiece" forming a tetrahedron; each unit has a spacious terrace and a sky view. The interior receives sunlight through openings every 50th floor.

A picture of a tetrahedron-pyramid superimposed on a photo of Tokyo
Artist's rendition of the 200-story city set outside Tokyo, with a view of Mount Fuji.

It's a lovely idea. The article itself talks about the history of housing construction, vehicle constraints of the past, and assumes we will soon have the ability to make giant floating pyramid cities. While he dismisses several potential drawbacks with a wave of the hand, claiming that that this is both technologically and politically viable, it's interesting reading. Three stars.

This & That
Ogden Nash's poetry turns out to be a page of somewhat-racy limericks with artwork by Ron Rae.

A teenage protester named Lil
Cried, "Those CIA spies make me ill!
First they bugged our martinis,
Our bras and bikinis,
And now they are bugging the pill."

Cartoon drawing of a topless woman with a tiny CIA agent in her underwear.

They're all about that level of clever – a nice chuckle, nothing memorable.

The article, "The New Girl," by John Clellon Holmes is all about "postfeminism," how "girls" (not women, even when he's talking about adults) these days are free to explore their true selves. The New Girl, he says, is "self-emancipated, unabashedly sexy, charmingly individualistic and a joy to the men in her life."

I love the artwork. I hate the article. Didn't finish reading it; I don't need to hear a man going on about how feminism was about "attacking men's privilege" more than women's rights (and it's over), and women's self-exploration properly leads them to being sexy girlfriends.

Psychedelic picture of a 'New Girl' in a miniskirt with a rainbow-ish sunrise behind her

Silverstein's article is a series of cartoons and a few photos about him visiting Hollywood. They're fun.

Shel interviews a high school student, who says "Oh sure, I can tell you about the sex clubs and the pot smoking and the LSD trips, but if you want to know about the free-speech movement and the student political demonstrations, you'll have to ask one of the older kids!"

And of course, what would a review of Playboy be without a mention of scantily-clad beautiful women? Miss January is a 20-year-old blonde who recently moved back to her home town of Detroit. She looks very alluring in a black sheer negligee in the centerfold, but they're quick to point out that she's really a fun-loving gal. Her housewarming gifts included the new party game, Twister.

Photo of Miss January in a negligee next to a photo of her and friends playing Twister

Humor?

Playboy is known for its jokes. Or at least, in some crowds, it's known for its jokes. The magazine is riddled with cartoons, both full-page color and quarter-page sketch art adorning the articles and stories, and it has a monthly page, "Playboy's Party Jokes," with a couple-dozen supposedly humorous anecdotes.

After the third one where the punchline seemed to be "and they HAD SEX!!!", I started counting:
Punchline is adultery: 5
Punchline is "women are sexual property": 5
Punchline is rape: 6
Punchline is nudity: 4
Punchline is kinky sex: 3
Punchline is "women want money for sex": 4
Punchline is sex: 14
Not sexual jokes: 22 (some of these are Santa/holiday themed)

Cartoon drawing of a man entering a holiday party room; he's carrying a bundle of plants and says 'Hey everyone! Mistletoe!' Most of the partygoers are already tangled in deep kisses.
This is one where the punchline seems to be "people have sex."

The whole magazine is very much For Men, even on theoretically neutral articles. The Playboy Adviser is Playboy's equivalent to Dear Abby, mostly about relationships. Playboy's advisor, however, is nameless. It's moderately decent advice with a politely sexist bias. All the questions are from men; they universally refer to the women in their lives as "girls." 

As much as I enjoyed the Vonnegut story and was intrigued by Cox's article on hippies, I don't think I'll be buying the next issue.

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