Tag Archives: galaxy

Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[May 8, 1970] Tower of Glass (June 1970 Galaxy)

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Be sure to tune in tonight at 7PM Pacific for a terrific Science Fiction Theater!

a panel showing the words IN COLOR, with each letter in a different color.

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

It shouldn't happen here (or anywhere)

It was a scene out of Saigon or Prague.  It shouldn't be happening in Middle America.  On May 4, Ohio National Guardsmen, shot four Kent State students dead, wounding ten more.  Here's what we know:

On April 30, President Nixon announced that U.S. troops had entered Cambodia, expanding the war in Southeast Asia.  This sparked mass May Day protests across the country.  After the Kent State ROTC building was burned down over the weekend, Kent Mayor LeRoy Satrom asked Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes to dispatch the National Guard to the campus.

Clashes between students and law enforcement escalated, with several students reportedly being stabbed by guardsman bayonets.  Calls for the Guard troops to be recalled were refused.  This set the stage for Monday's tragedy.

It is not certain what triggered the firing.  Eyewitnesses said about 600 protestors surrounded a company of 100 Guardsmen and began pelting them with rocks and hunks of concrete.  A single shot rang out, whether from a guardsman's rifle or someone else's firearm, is unknown.  Without a warning, the guardsmen then began a three second volley, half of them pointing their guns into the air, the other aiming levelly—into the milling crowd of boys and girls.

Ohio National Guard members move toward students at Kent State University

Amont the dead were William K. Schroder, 19, a sophomore from Lorain, Ohio; Jeffery Miller, 19, a freshman from Plainview, New York; Sandra Lee Scheuer, 20, a junior from Youngstown, Ohio; and Allison Krause, a 19-year-old freshman from Pittsburgh.  John Cleary, 19, a freshman from Scotia, New York; Dean Kahler, a 20-year-old freshman from East Canton, Ohio; and Joseph Lewis, just 18, from Massillon, Ohio, were reported in critical condition at Robinson Memorial Hospital in nearby Ravenna.  They were not all protestors—indeed, Miss Krause had just telephoned her parents to express disgust at the demonstration. 

A wave of new protests is wracking the country, now with fresh ammunition.  And it is ammunition that is at the center of this outrage, for the Guard did not use tear gas, rubber bullets, or blanks.  Never mind if they should have been on the campus at all.  At the very least, their rules of engagement should not have incurred collateral deaths on innocent students.

There are just two positive consequences of this tragedy.  The first is that if the goal of calling in the Guard was to cow protestors, it has backfired spectacularly.  The second is that, on May 5, President Nixon announced that American troops would be withdrawn from Cambodia in seven weeks.  How much this decision is in reaction to the demonstrations and how much is due to the heavier-than-expected resistance of the Communists is presently unknown.

I suppose there's one more result—I've been radicalized, and I plan to start marching.  It's something I've always supported in the abstract, but observed a modicum of restraint, recalling Tom Lehrer's sentiment, "It takes a certain amount of courage to get up in a coffee house or college auditorium and come out in favor of the things that everybody else in the audience is against – like peace, and justice, and brotherhood, and so on."

But now we see that the audience doesn't all agree, and some of them shoot.  I know I'm in the over-30 untrustworthy set, but you'll see my grizzled mug in among the protestors in the weeks to come.

Congratulations, Dick—you managed something Lyndon couldn't.

Shards

And so I plunge into fiction, hoping for a relief from the growing madness.  I am greeted with more madness: each of the stories in The latest issue of Galaxy is broken into pieces, with their ends crammed into the latter half of the magazine, as if written like some strange BASIC program with too many GOTO commands.  Nevertheless, it's the stories that count.  How are they?

Picture of a multi-armed spacecraft sliding into a disc of blackness in front of the Moon
cover by Jack Gaughan illustrating The Moon of Thin Reality

Continue reading [May 8, 1970] Tower of Glass (June 1970 Galaxy) →

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[April 10, 1970] A Style in Treason (May 1970 Galaxy)

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[Be sure to tune in tonight at 7PM PDT for Science Fiction Theater!  It's Nimoytacular—plus Apollo 13 pre-launch coverage!]

A color photograph of Leonard Nimoy and a white woman standing together in front of a curtain.  He is looking down and to the right of the frame and the woman's eyes are closed as she leans on his shoulder.

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

Backlash in D.C.

50,000 people marched on Washington last week protesting the course of the Vietnam War.  Sure, you think, another day ending in "y", right?

Except these kooks were protesting for the war!

A black and white photograph of a pro-war protest outdoors in Washington DC.  Government buildings are in the background.  In the foreground a group of white women are holding up a long banner which reads Let's Demand Victory in Vietnam. The woman at the center of the banner is holding two American flags crossed over her chest.  Behind them a crowd of people are holding up signs.  The only one legible reads In God We Trust.
Photo taken by Tom Norpell

Organized by a fundamentalist coalition, religious fervor dominated the gathering.  That said, there were plenty of Birchers and Nazis in attendance, too, making this a truly ecumenical demonstration.

A black and white photograph of white men marching down a city street while carrying banners on long poles.  At the top of each pole is a symbol of a lightning bolt inside a circle.  Beneath that a sign reads NSRP, the acronym for the National States Rights Party.  The banner extending down from the sign also has the circle-and-lightning-bolt motif, with God Bless America written above and below it. A crowd of onlookers is in the background.
Photo taken by Tom Norpell

There were even counter-counter protestors.

A black and white photograph of a white man with chin length dark hair standing outdoors.  He is wearing a knit cap and leather jacket and smoking a cigarette. He has his hands in his pockets and is frowning.  Over his jacket he is wearing a pillowcase with arm and head holes cut in the seams.  On it is painted Thou Shalt Not Kill. -God.  The center of the O in Not has a button attached to it showing a hand making a peace sign. A woman in an overcoat and rain hood is standing behind him.
Photo taken by Tom Norpell

Which poses the question: can Nixon still call them a "silent" majority?

A black and white photograph from a newspaper showing more of the people attending the pro-war protest.  In the center front is a man in a wheelchair holding an Merican flag, with another man standing behind him guiding the chair.  A woman to his left is holding a sign with multiple slogans pasted on it, including Stand Up for America and Wallace 72. In the background other protesters are carrying American flags as well as other signs, mostly reading In God We Trust or Victory in Vietnam. The newspaper caption reads: March for Victory: Some of the estimated 50,000 people who took part in the parade advocating victory in Vietnam as they assembled in Washington yesterday.

Calm after the storm

There's really nothing to protest in the latest issue of Galaxy, which offers, in the main, a pleasant reading experience.

A color photograph of the cover of the May 1970 edition of Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine Along the left side are listed stories by David Gerrold, James Blish, Avram Davidson, and Arthur C. Clarke.  The image shows a blue and black blob-like shape with multiple eye-like orbs embedded in it, against a yellow background.  Other orbs extend upwards from the blob, attached by black threads.  Parts of the blob seem to have been pulled up like pieces of dough around these upper orbs. The upper orbs have, from left to right, a green-cast image of half of a man's face (the other half is in shadow); A red-cast image of a man standing and looking outward; and a star or galaxy against a backdrop of outer space.
by Jack Gaughan for A Style in Treason

Continue reading [April 10, 1970] A Style in Treason (May 1970 Galaxy) →

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Book, Conventions/Performances, Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[February 8, 1970] Boldly going to the Region Between (March 1970 Galaxy)

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

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

A pleasant Escapade

Little fan conventions are popping up all over the place, perhaps thanks to the popularity of Star Trek.  The first adult science fiction show on the small screen, Trek not only thrilled existing fans (who have been putting on conclaves since the '30s), but has also galvanized millions of newfen who previously had lived outside the mainstream of fandom.

Last weekend, I went to a gathering of Los Angeles fans called "Escapade".  It differs from most fan conventions in that it focuses almost exclusively on science fiction and fantasy on the screen rather than in print.  Moreover, the emphasis is not on the SFnality of the works, but on the relationships and interactions of the characters.  This is the in-person culmination of the phenomenon we've seen in the Trekzines, where the stories and essays are about Spock or Kirk or Scotty—the people, not so much the adventures they go on.

Another distinction is that most of the attendees were women.  Most SF conventions, while not stag parties, are male-dominated.  The main difference I noted was that panels were less formal, more collaborative.  Instead of folks sitting behind a table and gabbing with each other, they were more like discussion groups…fannish teach-ins, if you will.  I really dug it.

If Escapade represents the future of fandom, then beam me up.  I'm sold!

And since the photos are back from the Fotomat, here's a sample of what I snapped:

Photo of a bearded man in glasses and a paisley shirt holding up a copy of a fanzine next to a tall woman in a Trek gold tunic flashing the Vulcan salute
That's David, holding up the latest issue of The Tricorder (#4) and Melody dressed as a Starfleet lieutenant

Photo of a dark-haired woman in a blue Star Trek uniform, smiling at the camera. She is carrying books in one arm, and behind her are tables of fannish items for sale.
And here's Melody again in sciences blue—who says you can't make a Vulcan smile?

A picture of a smiling brunette woman in a ribbed white sweater, sitting on the floor with an equally smiling baby about one year old.
If you can't recruit a fan…make one!  (this one isn't Lorelei's…but it's probably giving her ideas)

An image projected onto a wall, showing an image from the Star Trek episode 'The Enemy Within', where Kirk is drinking, faced by a Security woman in a beehive hairdo.
Lincoln Enterprises had a stall in the Huckster Hall—I got this clip from The Enemy Within!

The New Thing in America

It's been eight years since folks like Ballard and Aldiss started the New Wave in the UK.  It's leaked out across the Pond for a while, but this is the first time an issue of a Yank mag has so embraced the revolutionary ethos.  The latest issue of Galaxy was a surprise and delight that filled my spare moments (not many!) at the aforementioned convention.  Let's take a look.

Cover of Galaxy magazine featuring a ghostly male figure half-submerged in a multi-hued representation of the universe, dozens of planets swirling near him
cover by Jack Gaughan

Continue reading [February 8, 1970] Boldly going to the Region Between (March 1970 Galaxy) →

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[January 8, 1970] Slow Sculpture, Fast reading (the February 1970 Galaxy Science Fiction)

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

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

A little off the top

And so it begins.  For eight years, NASA enjoyed an open budget spigot and, through persistence and endless shoveling of money (though a fraction of what's spent on defense, mind you), got us to the Moon.  Now the tap has been cut to a trickle, and the first casualties are being announced.

Black and white photo of Apollo manager George Low speaking into a microphone in front of a NASA press backdrop.
Apollo manager George Low at a press conference on the 4th

Of the 190,000 people employed at the space agency, a whopping 50,000 are going to get the axe before the end of the year.  Saturn V production is being halted.  Lunar missions are going down to a twice-per-year cadence (as opposed to the six in thirteen months we had recently).

Apollo 20, originally scheduled to land in Tycho crater in December 1972, has been canceled.  Astronauts Don Lind, Jack Lousma, and Stuart Roosa now get to cool their heels indefinitely.  Apollos 13-16 will go up over the next two years followed by "Skylab", a small orbital space station built from Saturn parts.  Then we'll get the last three Apollo missions.

After that… who knows?  If only the Soviets had given us more competition…

Oh, and in the silly season department:

Cartoon drawing of a man holding a newspaper looking out at an apple core shaped moon. The paper reads IT COULD SAY A GREAT DEAL ABOUT THE MOON TO THE VERY CORE. NASA SCIENTIST DECLARES INTENT TO PROPOSE NUCLEAR BLAST ON THE MOON.

On the 6th, Columbia University's Dr. Gary V. Latham, seismologist and principal seismic investigator for Apollo program, withdrew his proposal that an atomic bomb be detonated on the Moon.  You'll recall Apollo 12 sent the top half of Intrepid into the lunar surface so the seismometers Conrad and Bean had emplaced could listen to the echoes and learn about the Moon's interior. 

Latham got some pretty harsh criticism of his idea, so he dialed things back, suggesting NASA should find way to hit the Moon hard enough to create strong internal reverberations. Let's hope they don't use Apollo 13…

A sampling from the upper percentiles

The news may be dour on the space front, but the latest issue of Galaxy is, in contrast, most encouraging!

The February 1970 cover of Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine featuring a long-haired abstractly drawn woman in a psychedelic art style that resembles stained glass.
by Jack Gaughan, illustrating "Slow Sculpture"

Continue reading [January 8, 1970] Slow Sculpture, Fast reading (the February 1970 Galaxy Science Fiction) →

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[November 12, 1969] Leadership initiatives (December 1969 Galaxy)

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Tune in, starting November 13, for twelve days of Apollo 12 coverage!

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

Happy Anniversary

A year ago, Richard Milhouse Nixon won the Presidency in part on his "secret plan" to get us out of Vietnam.  A few months into his term, besieged by increasingly strident demands for progress, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger urged patience.  If things weren't resolved by November, then we would have cause to complain.

Last week, President Nixon revealed his plan for "Vietnamization" in a prime time television address.  It called for eventual turning over of the reins of war to the South Vietnamese.  However, the President refused to set a timetable for this turnover, saying that such would lead to undue Communist advantage.  Nixon suggested that America might step down its bombing by, say, 20%, and see if the North Vietnamese match our draw-down, but the Paris peace talks are dead, and the U.S. would stay the course as long as was necessary.

The President concluded by asserting that the "silent majority" of Americans was behind his plan, and that no foreign power could defeat the United States: defeat could only come from within.

Well, you can imagine that this statement, tantamount to a continuation of President Johnson's pre-1968 policies, did not sit well with a lot of folks, including a host of Congressmen.  The unquiet minority also plans to make their voices heard in a second Moratorium march in a few days.  We'll see if it has more impact than the last one.

In Other News

If Nixon's address was something of a disappointment, in contrast, the latest issue of Galaxy makes for consistently pleasant reading:


by Jack Gaughan and Phoebe Gaughan

Continue reading [November 12, 1969] Leadership initiatives (December 1969 Galaxy) →

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[October 12, 1969] My country, right or… (November 1969 Galaxy)

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

Justice delayed

The new Supreme Court, whose prime continuity to the old one is the preservation of the name "Warren" in its Chief Justice, is now in session—minus one Justice…for now.

Warren Burger has taken over from Earl Warren, and one can already feel the rightward lurch of our nation's highest judiciary.  Now, President Richard Milhouse Nixon plans to careen the Supreme Court in an even more conservative direction.

Tricky Dick's nomination to fill the seat left when LBJ's nominee, Abe Fortas, didn't get the job, is Clement F. Haynsworth.  Haynsworth is currently a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (Atlantic coast of the Upper South), a position he has held since being appointed their by Ike in 1957.  The Senate Judiciary Committee on October 9th approved 10-7 the consideration of Justice Haynsworth.

The road ahead is far from clement for Haynsworth, however.  For one, he bought 1000 shares of Brunswick (the bowling company) just before publishing a ruling he helped make on said company.  After the heightened scrutiny on ethics that accompanied the Fortas nomination, Haynsworth is under an intense microscope.  Labor groups maintained that he should have recused himself from a case involving a textile mill; he owned shares of a company that did business with the mill.

Critics of the storm say this is just tit for tat after the Fortas fight, rather than for any substantive reason.  What's really at stake is Haynsworth is a reactionary.  He affirmed the decision by local authorities to close the Prince Edward County schools to avoid integration, he upheld the constitutionality of school voucher programs used to fund segregated private schools, and he supported the management of the Darlington Manufacturing Company in South Carolina when it closed down to avoid its employees unionizing.

Will Haynsworth make it on the bench?  It's hard to imagine he will.  If a Republican minority was sufficient to deny Fortas a seat, then a Democratic majority will surely roadblock Haynsworth.  If and when this happens, the question is whether Nixon will double down or conciliate.  At stake this season are decisions on the tax exempt status of churches, the death penalty, punitive drafting of war protesters, and the rights of Black Americans.

Stay tuned…

Entertainment delayed

Just as we're playing the waiting game to see the direction jurisprudence goes in America, so the latest issue of Galaxy science fiction makes it clear that the future of SF, particularly in the pages of the former queen of the genre, is as yet uncertain.


by Jack Gaughan (as are, presumably, all of the other illustrations in this magazine)

Continue reading [October 12, 1969] My country, right or… (November 1969 Galaxy) →

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[September 12, 1969] Earthshaking (October 1969 Galaxy)

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

Time for a change

My local rag, The Escondido Times-Advocate, isn't much compared to, say, The Los Angeles Times.  But every so often, they are worth the subscription fee (beyond the TV listings and the funnies).  Take this article, for instance, which might well be at home in a Willy Ley column:

Basically, CalTech has a new timepiece with more precision, accurate to the hundredth of a second, so that when it is used in conjunction with a seismometer, earthquakes can be better mapped.  More excitingly, the new clock weighs just eight pounds—less than a tenth that of the hundred-pound monster it replaces.

Transistors have made it to geology.

We hear all about small computers and more efficient satellites, but this story really drives home just how quickly the miniaturization revolution is diffusing to all walks of life.  Is a computerized pocket slide rule or a Dick Tracy phone that far off?

Making waves


by Gray Morrow

A lot has happened this year at the old gray lady of science fiction, Galaxy.  They changed editors.  They lost their science columnist.  And as we shall see from the latest issue, things are starting to change, ever so slightly.

Continue reading [September 12, 1969] Earthshaking (October 1969 Galaxy) →

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[August 14, 1969] Twin tragedies (September 1969 Galaxy)

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

Murder in Hollywoodland

Senseless mass death is no stranger to the headlines these days.  We've had the Boston Strangler.  The Texas sniper.  The Chicago nurse murderer.  But this last week, southern California got a shocking introduction into this club.

At least seven were killed on the nights of the 8th/9th and then the 9th/10th, including Valley of the Dolls actress, Sharon Tate (pregnant with her first child), in two Los Angeles neighborhoods: ritzy Beverly Crest and SilverLake.  At first, the scenes were so grisly and bizarre that police suspected some kind or ritual.  Jay Sebring, the famous hairstylist who gave Dr. McCoy his "brainy" JFK-style hair-do, and Tate were found stabbed, tied up and hanging on alternate sides of the same rafter, both wearing black hoods.  Market owners Leon and Rosemary La Bianca, the SilverLake victims murdered on the second night, were similarly hooded, the latter with red X marks carved into her body.


Wheeling Sharon Tate from her home

Homicide squads are currently swarming the San Gabriel Valley, and while Inspector Harold Yarnell and medical examiner Thomas Noguchi had no insights to offer when they appeared before NBC's cameras on the 10th, police do see connections.  "Pig" was scrawled on the door of the Tate home, while "Death to Pigs" was found on the home of the La Biancas, formerly the residence of Walt Disney.  Police have not indicated whether they believe the homicides were done by the same person or persons, or if a copycat was inspired by the first murders.

It's shocking, senseless, and tragic.  While the murders took place in upper class homes (one of the deceased was heir to the Folger coffee fortune), the motive appears not to have been robbery.  Just angry, hateful death.  It's not a happy time in the Southland right now.

Death in New York

While not of the same magnitude, at least in terms of human misery, nevertheless the latest issue of Galaxy science fiction is so bad, that one wonders if someone is trying to put the institution down.


by Donald H. Menzel

Humans, Go Home!, by A. E. van Vogt


by Jack Gaughan

A married human couple, immortal but catching the death-wish that has killed most of humanity, has lived on the world of Jana for 400 years.  They have used that time to accelerate the development of the humanoid species there, urging 4000 years of technological advance in that time—in part through the use of Symbols, abstract concepts made real by the power of belief.  The Janans have their own problems: the women don't like procreation or children, and the men must rape them to propagate the species.

Eventually, the humans are put on trial for their efforts, and (I'm told) we learn there is a lot more to the setup than meets the eye, and that everything the characters believe is actually some kind of falsehood.

I found this first piece impenetrable, giving up about halfway through.  Thankfully, a friend of mine, who is fonder of Van Vogt, gave the piece a write up in his 'zine.  That's good, as I was dreading having to slog through this one and analyze it, as if it were a book report for a hated school-assigned novel.  At 50 years old, I'm allowed to pick my poison.

One star.

Martians and Venusians, by Donald H. Menzel


by Donald H. Menzel

Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences at Harvard offers up his clairvoyant images of Martian wildlife, complete with pictures (q.v. the cover).  I wonder if Dr. Menzel has an eight-year old child who really wanted to get published, as well as some blackmail leverage on Galaxy editor Jakobssen, because I can't see any other way this peurile, pointless piece ever saw print.

One star.

Out of Phase, by Joe Haldeman

Braaxn the G'drellian is the adolescent member of an alien anthropological team.  He was selected to infiltrate the humans for his shape-changing abilities; unfortunately, the youth also has a racial fetish for the infliction and appreciation of pain—common to all of his kind at that age.

Can he be stopped before he unleashes a terror that will exterminate the entire human race?

An unpleasant, but competently written story.  Haldeman is new, so of course, there's a "clever" twist to finish things off.

Three stars

The Martian Surface, by Wade Wellman

Wellman's wishful thinking in poetry is that, despite the obvious hostility of the Martian surface, life could still somehow cling to it.  Written to coincide with the arrival of the new Mariners, it is no more or less accurate for their flyby.

Three stars.

Passerby, by Larry Niven


by Jack Gaughan

A ramscoop pilot stumbles upon a professional people-watcher in a park.  The "rammer" has a story to tell, a tale of being lost among the stars, and of the titanic alien he encounters in the blackness of space.

This is one of Niven's few stories not set in "Known Space", and it's a simple one.  That said, it reads well, particularly out loud, and there is the usual, deft detail that Niven imparts with just a few, well-chosen words.

Janice liked it, but thought it rather shallow.  Lorelei, on the other hand, loved that it had a philosophical message beyond the good storytelling.

So, four stars, and easily the best piece of the issue (not much competition…)

Citadel, by John Fortey


by Jack Gaughan

Aliens descend on Earth, erecting mysterious edifices and offering the secrets of the universe.  Twenty years later, most of humanity is under their thrall; those who enroll for alien "classes" invariably leave society and end up part of the worldwide hive mind.  One organization has a plan to infiltrate the extraterrestrials, to at least find out what's going on, if not stop them.

But can they handle the truth?

Answer: probably, especially if they've seen The Twilight Zone.

Nice setup, but a really novice tale.

Two stars.

Revival Meeting, by Dannie Plachta


by M. Gilbert

A "corpsicle" wakes up after a century, but instead of finding a cure for his disease, he finds he's been roused for a more sinister purpose.

This story doesn't make much sense, and it's also about the bare minimum one can do with the concept of frozen people (again, Niven's covered these bases pretty thoroughly with The Jigsaw Man and A Gift from Earth.

Two stars.

For Your Information (Galaxy, September 1969), by Willy Ley

For reasons that will shortly become apparent, it's a real pity that this non-fiction column is not one of Ley's best.  It's a scattershot on rocket fuel (well, the oxidizer one combines with the rocket fuel to make it burn), modern pictographic writing, and the latest crop of satellites.

It's just sort of limp and dry, a far cry from the scintillating stuff that helped make early '50s Galaxy such a draw.

Three stars.

Dune Messiah (Part 3 of 5), by Frank Herbert


by Jack Gaughan

It is astonishing how little Frank Herbert can pack into 50 pages. In this installment, Paul Atreides, Emperor, is trying to make sense of a recurring vision, that of a moon falling (his precognition having been hampered by the presence of a clairvoyant "steersman"—the spice-addicted navigators of the space lanes).

He visits the Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit, whom he has locked up in prison, to let her know that his consort, the Fremen Chani, is finally pregnant (despite Paul's wife, Irulan, furtively feeding her contraceptives for years).  But Paul also knows that the birth of the heir will mean Chani's death.

Then Paul heads out to the house of a desert Fremen, father of the girl who had been found dead by Alia last installment.  The Emperor heads out there at the girl's invitation—she's not actually alive, but rather, her form has been taken by a shapeshifting assassin.

At the home, Paul meets a dwarf who warns him of impending danger.  Whereupon, an atomic bomb explodes overhead.

Along with the endless viewpoint changes and the nonstop italicized thought fragments, we also have more of the innovation Herbert came up with for this book: repetition of dialogue through slightly different permutation.  Seriously, the whole story so far could have been a novelette, and we're almost done!

Anyway, I didn't hate Dune, but I felt it was overrated.  This sequel, however, is just wretched.

One star.

Credo: Willy Ley: The First Citizen of the Moon (obituary), by Lester del Rey


by Jack Gaughan

And now the real tragedy—Willy Ley is dead.  He was only 62.

I knew that he was a science writer who fled Nazi Germany.  I did not know how integral he was to the field of rocket science.  A key member of the German rocketry club, he was a mentor to Wehrner von Braun.  The key difference between the two is Ley immigrated to the U.S.A. rather than serve Der Fuhrer.  Von Braun did not.

Ley went on, of course, to be one of the most esteemed science writers—up there with Asimov, at least in his main fields, zoology and rocketry.  He died less than a month before Armstrong and Aldrin stepped on the Moon.  Denied the Holy Land, indeed.

I have no idea whether there are more Ley articles in the pipeline.  There was supposed to be a new, twelve-part series, but who knows if it was ever completed or submitted.

Sad news indeed.  Four stars.

Autopsy report

Galaxy hasn't topped three stars since the June hiatus accompanying editor Pohl's departure/sacking, but this is, by far, the worst issue of the magazine in a long time.  Was Pohl fired for his declining discernment?  Or did he accept a bunch of substandard stuff as a flip of the bird to the new ownership?

Whatever the answer, I certainly hope things improve soon.  Without Ley, without quality stories, Galaxy is heading for the skids, but quick.




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[July 8, 1969] Nowhere fast (August 1969 Galaxy)

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It's Moon fortnight!

We are broadcasting LIVE coverage of the Apollo 11 mission (with a 55 year time slip), so mark your calendars. From now until the 24th, it's (nearly) daily coverage, with big swathes of coverage for launch, landing, moonwalk, and splashdown.

Tell your friends!

Broadcast Schedule

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

The Warm War

If you, like me, are a regular watcher of Rowan and Martin's Laugh In, you might be excused for having a rather simple view of the current situation in the Middle East.  According to that humorous variety show, Israel devastated the armies of its Arab neighbors in June 1967, and (to quote another comedian, Tom Lehrer), "They've hardly bothered us since then."

It's true that the forces of the diminutive Jewish state took on Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, like David against Goliath, smiting armies and air forces in just six days, ultimately ending up in occupation of lands that comprise more area than Israel itself.

But all has not been quiet…on any front.  Hardly had the war ended that both Israelis and Arabs began trading significant shots.  A commando raid here, a bombing mission there, a naval clash yonder—none of it rising to the level of a mass incursion, but nevertheless, a constant hail of explosives.  Last summer, Egyptian President Nasser, eager to recover prestige he lost in the '67 debacle, declared a "War of Attrition".  The fighting has escalated ever since.

Just the other day, the Egyptians and Israelis exchanged artillery fire across the Suez Canal—the current de facto border between the nations—for twelve hours.  Two Israelis were wounded; the Egyptians are keeping mum about any of their losses.  Last month, Israeli jets buzzed Nasser's house in Cairo, which Jerusalem claims is the reason for the recent sacking of the Egyptian air force chief and also Egypt's air defense commander.


Israeli mobile artillery shells Egyptian positions

The United Nations views this conflict with increasing concern, worried that it might expand, go hot, and possibly involve bigger powers.  The Security Council this week is working on a resolution calling for an arms embargo against Israeli unless the state abandon its plans to formally annex East Jerusalem, taken from Jordan two years ago.

It seems unlikely that the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) or Prime Minister Golda Meir will buckle to foreign pressure, however.  Nor can we expect that President Nasser, Jordan's King Hussein, or the coup-rattled government of Syria to be particularly tractable either.  The beat goes on.

Same ol'

One generally looks to science fiction for a refreshing departure from the real world, but as the latest issue of Galaxy shows, sometimes you're better off just reading the funnies.


by John Pederson Jr.

Continue reading [July 8, 1969] Nowhere fast (August 1969 Galaxy) →

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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 10, 1969] Points West and Above (July 1969 Galaxy)

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

The Orient

Thanks to centuries of tradition, we tend to think of the Far East as…well…east!  But for us, going to Japan means a 12-hour flight west—literally into tomorrow, as we cross the International Date Line to do it. 

This week marked the beginning of our fourteenth trip to Japan.  How things have changed since we first went back in 1948, when flying via Northwest Orient meant an entire day of travel with multiple stops.  Travel these days is practically instantaneous by comparison.

We were even able to hop on a same-day domestic flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka, which is where I'm writing this.  I've been able to develop my first roll of color film, the results of which I am happy to share:

The Alient

The latest issue of Galaxy is, like this month's IF, the first under the helm of Ejler Jakobsson, and it's also a month late.  Will it be more interesting than the rather dull IF?  Well, it's certainly different.  After all, the lead piece is one I would have expected to appear in Analog.  Why wouldn't Campbell want the sequel to the incredibly popular and presumably lucrative Dune.  Dunno… but here it is:


by Dan Adkins

Continue reading [June 10, 1969] Points West and Above (July 1969 Galaxy) →

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