Over here in Britain the summer season is truly with us. Doctor Who is taking its annual break, the temperature reached 88 recently, and the free concerts in Hyde Park are in progress, having so far featured such performers as Donovan, Richie Havens, The Rolling Stones and the new merger of Traffic and Cream (tentatively called Blind Faith).
Clapton, Baker, Grech and Winwood jam together in the park
In this kind of heat, I personally find there is nothing better than setting up a blanket in the garden and reading a short story collection. Thankfully, I recently got hold of two I was interested in.
I will start with the angriest young man of Science Fiction, Harlan Ellison:
His introduction seems to be primarily aimed at critics that try to apply easy labels to his fiction like avant-garde, new wave, or sci-fi (this last apparently coming in vogue with mainstream critics over the more common SF from fan circles). Whilst I get his point that it can be reductive to simply group J. G. Ballard and Samuel R. Delany together as if the were two pulp hack writers pumping out the same work, I also think there is value to talking about how this new type of fiction differs from what came before.
I also think Ellison is just being his usual grouchy self.
The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World
The titular story in this collection was previously published in Galaxy last year. However, Ellison was so unhappy with his changes, he has vowed to never write for Pohl again. Then again, given that Pohl is not actually an editor anymore that seems like an easy promise to keep.
I have read the piece three times and I am not sure what to make of it. It seems to posit madness coming from somewhere outside of us, Crosswhen (which seems to be either alternate timelines or another dimension) but yet also at the beginning of the universe.
In addition there are only 2 very minor edits made between this version and the magazine. One is changing one word to give clarity of linear time, the other is a paragraph describing the creature being placed in amber. These clearly were meaningful enough to cause a major fallout between Pohl and Ellison but the reason for this is a mystery to me.
Two stars, I guess?
Along the Scenic Route
To the best of my knowledge this is original to this collection, although it may have appeared in one of the “adult” magazines he sometimes writes for.
In this future, the freeways have become a battleground, where drivers duel in customised cars. When an ordinary driver is annoyed by the top ranked duellist in the world, he becomes involved in the conflict.
As a non-driver, I rarely relate to stories involving cars and this is no exception. It seems to be saying something about the stress and competition of driving the L.A. freeways, but I am honestly unsure what.
Two Stars
Phoenix
From the March edition of If. Red travels across the desert, determined to complete the expedition with one member already dead.
A disappointing effort from Ellison that started out in an interesting literary style but became cliché driven and dull by the end.
David gave this a low three stars, but I will drop it down to two.
Asleep: With Still Hands
Once again, a piece emerging out of the pages of If (Last July). For six centuries the Sleeper has sat at the bottom of the Sargasso sea, keeping the peace of the world. Any thoughts of war can be stopped by his telepathy. However, a specially trained group are determined to free the world from this Sleeper.
This feels to me like a drawn out version of Harry Lime’s speech in The Third Man:
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock
Atmospheric but not as deep as Ellison clearly thinks it is.
In this case I will stick to David’s 3 stars, albeit a low one.
Santa Claus vs. S. P. I. D. E. R.
This came in last year’s festive themed issue of F&SF. To most people, Kris Kringle is a jolly fellow who makes toys, however he lives a double-life as a secret agent. He is brought in to bring down an extra-terrestrial threat taking over America’s top politicians, known only as S.P.I.D.E.R.
Joke stories are always going to be subjective. Whilst I understood the satirising going on, it didn’t really appeal to my sensibilities.
I am with our editor on the rating of Three Stars.
The Pitll Pawob Division
From the December issue of If, it tells the story of an encounter with a strange egg.
Honestly just feels empty, over-described and lacking substance.
One Star
The Place with No Name
This one was only just published in last month’s F&SF. In order to escape from the law, Norman Mogart accepts a mission from an indescribable entity, which will involve him travelling into the jungle to a place with no name.
Not quite one that I would have expected from Ellison, instead what Philip K. Dick might have written for 1930s Weird Tales. Whilst a little odd, it still had a strong sense of atmosphere that pulled me along.
I agree with our esteemed editor’s ranking of Four Stars.
White on White
Apparently, this one was previously published in men’s magazine Knight, but is certainly new to me. I was also initially confused if it was meant to be linked to the prior story (but I do not believe so).
A gigolo is staying with the Countess on the Aegean when she decides to climb a mountain. Going to the top he finds a surprising example of true love.
A vignette lower on SF and high on taboos. Reminds me of the weaker stories in recent issues of New Worlds.
One Star
Run for the Stars
For the next few we are jumping back to the earlier days of Harlan’s career, with this tale from 1957. Earth is at war with the Kyban empire. Talent, a drug addict, is forced by the resistance into a desperate gambit to defeat the alien invaders. To be turned into a human bomb.
This is the second longest piece in the collection but it took me the longest to read because I found I would keep losing interest and just skim read over sections. It is not terrible and asks some interesting questions, but it is too long and his style is yet to mature.
Two Stars
Are You Listening?
I was surprised to see this 1958 story here as you can still get it in Earthman Go Home (the paperback title for Ellison Wonderland). Albert Winsocki wakes up one day to discover that people can no longer see or hear him, what has happened?
Ellison does good work creating the atmosphere of panic here, however the point is made very clumsily. Not one of his better works.
Three Stars
S.R.O.
We are finishing our late 50s trilogy with this tale from 1957’s Amazing. An alien spaceship lands in the middle of New York. But rather than invading, they appear to simply want to put on a show. Of course, there are always people on hand to make money from such an opportunity.
Similar to the previous tale, Ellison creates a good atmosphere but the points being made are nowhere near as skilful. Enjoyable in a 50s Galaxy kind of way.
Three Stars
Worlds to Kill
Back to more recent tales, with this one from If in March 1968. It follows crippled mercenary Jared and his battles around the universe.
As you would expect from Ellison, this is not John Carter of Mars. Instead, it is a dark and cynical take on the universe. It doesn’t quite have enough meat on its bones for me but is still pretty good.
Rudy has finally gotten out of the army on medical, only to find his fiancée Kris in a marijuana-drenched squat in downtown LA. Is he just not “with it” anymore? Or is something more sinister going on?
This won a Galactic Star so clearly many of my fellow Journeyers believe it is a five-star story. Personally I am keeping it at Four Stars.
A Boy and His Dog
By far the longest story in the collection is an expansion of the novelette version published in New Worlds recently. In a post-nuclear world, a boy, Vic, and his canine meet a young woman, Quilla, and follow her to a secret underground city.
There is no real difference in the story other than verbosity. To take one example, here is the New Worlds text:
Blood and I crossed the street and came up in the blackness surrounding the building, it was what was left of the YMCA.
And here is the unedited text in this collection:
Blood and I crossed the street and came up in the blackness surrounding the building. It was what was left of the YMCA.
That meant “Young Men’s Christian Association”. Blood taught me to read.
So what the hell was a young men’s christian association. Sometimes being able to read makes more questions than if you were stupid.
The full text adds slightly more texture to the world but does not actually advance anything. So it probably depends if you like even more Harlan for your buck or prefer him in small doses.
Personally, I give both versions Four Stars.
So, whilst it may be Ellison’s biggest collection, these are not necessarily his best stories. What it does do well is it shows his range, from simple didacticism to the obscure. From only marginally SFnal tales to alien wars. Maybe he has a point that he isn’t just an avant-garde new wave sci-fi writer?
New Writings in SF-15, Ed. By John Carnell
With more volumes than many monthly magazines manage, New Writings continues on. This time the theme is psychological. How do Carnell’s crew deal with this one?
Report from Linelos by Vincent King
Probably my favourite writer from these pages returns with a more experimental story than usual. These are the tapes of two consciousnesses:
Consciousness A: The internal monologue of an energy being that believes itself to be a God
Consciousness B: A tale of Linelos, a strange world where Arthurian knights go on quests with machine guns, dodging napalm dropped from biplanes.
What do these two narratives have to do with each other? And what could they mean?
I am always happy to see authors stretch themselves. King continues with his trademark medieval-futurism but adds new stylistic touches to it. And even though the explanation at the end combines two of the standard twists of the genre, he does so elegantly, such that I did not suspect them before I was told.
Five Stars
The Interrogator by Christopher Priest
Whilst this young fan had appeared in a couple of issues of Impulse he recently declared his intention to focus on professional writing. If this story is anything to go by, he has a good career ahead of him
Dr. Elias Wentick was stationed in the Antarctic when a mysterious government man named Astroude approached him about identifying a strange jet fighter. Now he finds himself in an otherwise empty prison. He will occasionally be interrogated, with Astroude wanting the answer to apparently pointless questions.
As you can probably tell this draws a lot from Darkness at Noon and The Trial, but it has a great atmosphere and enough original touches to stand out.
A high four stars
When I Have Passed Away by Joseph Green
Green has been writing for the US magazines for the last few years; nice to see him back here.
At Outworld University on Earth, two humans, Halak and Caal, had become inseparable from two She’waan, Phe’se and Princess Sum’ze. One day, the two She’waan abruptly leave without explanation. Four years later, Caal receives a message from Sum’ze (now Queen) that she desperately needs his help.
With Phe’se’s help they work in secret on the matriarchal world of Achernar Six. All She’waan women over thirty transform into gaseous clouds, a fate Halak and Caal are determined to save Phe’se from. However, as Queen Sum'ze lies dying, different factions are fighting to claim the throne for themselves.
This is the briefest summary I can manage to give of this tale but there is a lot more going on. It represents a fascinating combination of old and new. I was really impressed with the sense of wonder Green manages to evoke, reminiscent of Clark Ashton Smith, and it involves a number of concepts from the pulp era. However, it is also focussed on the development of women’s bodies and works as an interesting metaphor on how women of a certain age are treated by society at large.
Four Stars
Symbiote by Michael G. Coney
To the best of my knowledge this is a debut piece from Coney, presaging what I hope will be a great career.
On an alien world the humans find the Chintos, monkey-like creatures that become incredibly popular as pets on Earth. Soon everyone has one riding on their shoulders. Centuries later humans have become like beasts of burden for their host Chintos, who now do all the thinking and humans all the movement. We follow census taker Joe-Tu as they arrive in a village that is faced with flooding.
This marks an interesting reversal of some conventional concepts of SFnal storytelling. Firstly, instead of humanity’s bodies being diminished by machines, it is our minds as that are diminished as the Chintos do our thinking for us and we simply play. Secondly, the Chintos are not parasitic invaders, but a result of mankind’s folly who feel sorry for and want to help us. The ending is a little weaker than I would like, but the piece is a very good first effort.
Four Stars
The Trial by Arthur Sellings
The late great author apparently still has a few stories left to be published. In this future the Galactic Council, largely run by Earth, controls many worlds. The only rivals to their power they have found are the Vyrnians, gangly purple humanoids nicknamed Hoppos. When one Vryn is arrested and put under a truth drug, he reveals himself to be a missing human space captain and is put on trial for treason. But how did this happen? And why?
This is a fascinating piece critiquing colonialism; however, your enjoyment of this will probably depend on how much you like courtroom dramas. Thankfully, I find great pleasure in them.
Five Stars
Therapy 2000 by Keith Roberts
Since the collapse of Science Fantasy/Impulse, the former sub-editor has remained largely absent from the SF scene. Even if he is not always my favourite author, it is nice to see him back.
In a world filled with noise, ad man Travers is obsessed with trying to remove auditory sensation from his life, even to the extent of damaging his ears and angering everyone around him.
I personally suffer when there is an intensification of external stimuli so I related to the character of Travers. Whilst this story posits a future where the silence is only available to the rich, in modern metropolitan life it can still be hard to find five minutes of peace and quiet. Roberts is able to show that very well with his vivid descriptions. One of his better works.
Four Stars
And so another New Writings triumph under Carnell’s belt. Like the sunny weather we have been experiencing, long may it continue.
If the title for this article sounds familiar, it's because you've heard the (just released) single from John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "bed in". The Beatle and his new bride are living examples of Counter Culture. But just what is "Counter Culture"? Theodore Roszak has thoughts…and Kris has thoughts on those thoughts!
By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall
All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned…
The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'
The Times They Are A-Changin', Bob Dylan
A spectre is haunting the campuses of the West, the spectre of the counter culture. All the powers of the Technocrats have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre.
Wait, you may well ask, I thought this was a contemporary review, not a poor pastiche of a 120-year-old piece of political economy? However, this is the central speculation of Theodor Roszak in his latest book: that these are the core oppositional forces of our time.
But what is the Technocratic Society and what is the Counter Culture?
Everything you think, do and say, is in the pill you took today
In the case of the former, Roszak sees Technocracy as the governing by experts from a certain class with the aim of a routinised control over human interaction. This can be observed in our democratic political system where the two main parties in most Western nations usually are not concerned with creating vastly different Utopian systems. More often, it is a competition of seeming the most competent to deliver state run social services, defence and economic growth. Even in the Soviet Union, there is not much talk these days of instituting a worldwide proletarian revolution, compared with speeches on improving the efficiency of grain harvests or increasing housing stocks.
Robert McNamara, Technocrat Extraordinaire
The technocrats themselves are rarely the presidents or prime ministers; they are merely the salesmen. Roszak sees them as the upper-level bureaucrats or the studious quiet men of the cabinets. Robert McNamara is a prime example of this tendency, moving between running Ford Motor Company, the World Bank and the US Defence Department and applying the same philosophy, one he outlined in his recent book, The Essence of Security:
…the real threat to democracy comes, not from overmanagement, but from undermanagement. To undermanage reality is not to keep it free. It is simply to let some other than reason shape reality…Vital decision making, particularly in policy matters. This is partly, though not completely, what the top is for.
You may well ask, what is the problem with this? Well, Roszak outlines the tecnocratic viewpoint thusly:
1. All problems are purely technical in nature, and, therefore, if it is not technical, it cannot be a problem. Depression -> More Pills. Rioting in the cities -> More police.
2. Their end is always the right end and any friction against this is a lack of communication. This can be solved by the Marketplace of Ideas.
3. However, the only people who can truly understand these principles and implement them are this technocratic elite. And, it just so happens, that a good sign that you are one of those qualified to understand these issues is that you are already a part of the governmental or corporate structure.
Want Sexual Promiscuity? Buy A Boat!
And he does not see New Authoritarianism as only occurring in government business but creeping into all aspects of life. Take the example of Playboy, which appears at first to be approving of sexual permissiveness; but, in reality, the articles and photos create an association between sex and wealth for men, whilst reducing women to men’s playthings: making half the population repress themselves whilst striving to reach these elite heights, whilst the other half become accepting of this attitude by the rich and powerful. This viewpoint can be seen again in the trial of Lady Chatterly’s Lover where the argument of the prosecution was:
Is it a book you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?
In fact, Roszak goes further, to state there is a mystification that has happened in the technocracy. Where, in the best Orwellian manner, language is used to obfuscate reality. Where the bombing in Vietnam is referred to as an “escalation” or dictatorial communist regimes refer to themselves as “democratic republics”. If an individual challenges this, the technocrats will merely dismiss them as not understanding the complexity of the issue.
So, what is the solution for this? Well that comes in its opposition.
God is Alive, Magic is Afoot
Allen Ginsberg protesting to legalise marijuana
Counter Culture appears to be derived from the term “contraculture”, defined by Yinger in 1960 as:
wherever the normative system of a group contains, as a primary element, a theme of conflict with the values of the total society, where personality variables are directly involved in the development and maintenance of the group's values, and wherever its norms can be understood only by reference to the relationships of the group to a surrounding dominant culture.
This, though, is almost a decade older and could be seen as merely a standard part of society, like the Bright Young People of the Jazz Age. And the young have usually been the radicals. For example, in 17th Century England, many of the radical protests were led by the London Apprentice Boys, the militant student movement of the day. So what is the difference between the rebellions of yesteryear and the counter culture of today?
The difference is two-fold. First off, the traditional left-right axis does not really create an opposition to technocracy but a support of it. The communist, the fascist and the liberal all accept the need for rational efficiency and control of life by an elite, whether that be the bureaucrat, the camp commandant or the head of a Fortune 500 company. So even the most aggressive of demagogues are no longer opposing the technocracy, merely wishing to be a part of it.
The Disquieting Duckling by Asger Jorn
Secondly, the theories behind the opposition are not predominantly coming down from the elite but up from artists. Early examples include Situationists like Asger Jorn or Beat Poets like Allen Ginsberg, who themselves draw more from the tradition of Blake and Children’s Art than Joyce and Van Gogh. See for example Ginsberg’s Howl:
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!
Protest by Students For A Democratic Society
The reason, Roszak claims, this opposition is taking root within the youth movements is also a feature of the technocracy. As the bureaucracy of business has grown bigger and the need for rigid routine labour has diminished, intellectual thought is more valuable among workers. Therefore, experts like Dr. Spock have pushed parents away from regimented childcare towards exploration, and governments have moved children away from the factory floor to longer and longer periods of education. When this kind of student is suddenly ordered to cut his hair and put on a uniform to join the army or the corporation, he naturally rebels against it.
Whilst Roszak acknowledges there is no manifesto of the nebulous group but that what is required is:
…the subversion of the scientific world view, with its entrenched commitment to an egocentric and cerebral mode of consciousness. In its place, there must be a new culture in which the non-intellective capacities of the personalities – those capacities that take fire from visionary splendor and the experience of human communion – become the arbiters of the good, the true and the beautiful.
How will this be achieved? One area Roszack has little time for is the overuse of psychedelics. Whilst he acknowledges they may have use for skilled practitioners:
There is nothing whatever in common between a man of…experience and intellectual discipline sampling mescaline, and a fifteen-year-old tripper whiffing airplane glue.
In fact, he sees the current expansion of psychotropic drugs as having more in common with the technocracy, promising a quick granting of insight that is only superficial and built on a few getting rich whilst causing unhappiness to the many. No different to the barbiturates or alcoholic beverages marketed to the masses.
Protestors putting flowers in the guns of military police
Roszak goes through a number of different facets of the counter culture and their opposition to the technocratic rationality, from anti-schools to trying to levitate the Pentagon. I have to wonder sometimes if the free-wheeling rejection of rationality extends to his writing. I consider myself reasonably well-read and knowledgeable, but I found myself reaching for dictionaries and other reference material (or just plain scratching my head) trying to understand what he was talking about. He tends to work best in generalities, when he is (to steal a phrase for Kant) critiquing pure reason. When he goes into specifics, such as an entire chapter looking at how Marcuse and Brown attempt to reconcile Marx and Freud, Roszak moves away from insightful investigation to navel-gazing.
He spends some time comparing this movement to nascent Christianity and, by extension, suggesting how this movement over time could change the mode of Western thought. There is one problem I have with this, one he even acknowledges in passing: the fact that people enter and depart with ease and that there are a lot of tourists involved. This is not just the more egregious examples, like Burberry selling expensive imitations of Chinese Communist Army uniforms. Mick Jagger, an LSE drop-out with a public drug bust under his belt seems like the perfect candidate for the Counter Culture. But, whilst he may sing that “the time is right for violent revolution” or “my name is a number, a piece of plastic film”, the group is reportedly planning to tour the US with major venues and able to charge high ticket prices, and he seems just as at home among the accoutrements of wealth as any banker.
Overall, "The Making of a Counter Culture" is interesting as polemic and critique, for, as Roszak puts it:
What is of supreme importance is that each of us should become a person, a whole and integrated person in whom there is manifested a sense of human variety genuinely experienced, a sense of having come to terms with a reality that is awesomely vast.
But as prophecy? That is for the young to show us.
I was asked by our esteemed editor to explain the issues going on in Northern Ireland today, having seen it reported in the American Press. He noted:
If I'm getting it in my podunk local rag several days in a row, it's news.
And, honestly, it is even surprising to see the Six Counties mentioned in the UK press. Although most people are vaguely aware it is part of the country, and may have heard of the discrimination going on from such documentaries as The Orange and The Green, it probably occupies no more daily thought than the situation in South Texas occurs to the average Seattle housewife. In fact, the only discussion of the region I can recall from the first half of 1968 was whether any of the new coinage was going to have an Ulster logo on it.
Water supplies have been disrupted by explosions near Belfast
So, try to imagine one day turning on Walter Conkrite to see him telling you that barricades had been erected across San Antonio to keep the police out, bombs had gone off in Houston, Mexico had gone to the UN to ask for a peacekeeping force to be sent in and house representatives from the region were asking for the entire local government to be shut down.
That's an analogy. I am going to do my best to explain what is happening in specific. Whilst I will attempt to balance both sides’ views in this situation, even the basic choice of words is liable to inflame some people. As an example, my mother (English-born but from an Irish family and has lived in the Republic for many years) recently had her flight forced to land in Belfast rather than Shannon. She opined to the man in the seat next to her “you'd think they could get us an airport in the same country”. The man’s angry response was “I think you will find Belfast is in the same country!”
All this to say, apologies for any offence caused to readers.
A Pre-History
Illustration of the Battle of the Boyne, which cemented Protestant rule in Ireland.
The roots of the current issues weave incredibly far back, but I will attempt to be brief. Since the Middle Ages, the English crown had attempted to gain control of its neighboring Island. This process was slow and the Hiberno-Norman Lords operated with a largely free hand, meaning that 400 years after the start of the process the majority of Ireland was still nominally independent.
During the Tudor and Stuart periods, the Anglo-Scottish governments attempted to gain more centralised control over Ireland. However, this was regularly rejected by many of the Irish inhabitants and was met with violence. A solution was seen in plantations, the giving of land to settlers at the expense of the native Irish farmers.
The biggest of these was James I’s plantation of Ulster. Following the Nine Years War and the subsequent fleeing of many Irish nobles, James gave land to new protestant British landholders, who were also banned from using any native labour and had to import British workers, predominantly Scottish Presbyterians and English Anglicans.
Via a combination of conflicts around religion in Britain (e.g. The Gunpowder Plot, The Civil War, The Glorious Revolution) and rebellions against these settlements in Ireland, the Catholic Irish’s landholding and political power was almost completely removed. As such, there ended up a situation of minority rule, somewhat equivalent to British colonies in the Caribbean.
With the removal of legal restrictions on Catholics in Britain in the 19th Century, steps were taken to attempt to ameliorate the situation in Ireland but it was slow going and regularly blocked by Unionist supporters, both through laws and with extra-legal violence. By the time the UK parliament finally passed a bill on the subject in 1920 the sides had become hardened.
Map of Partition
The solution devised was for a partition of the Island, with most of Ireland being made the independent Irish Free State (now Republic) and the majority Protestant Six Counties of Ulster remaining part of the United Kingdom with a devolved parliament in Belfast. Whilst Sinn Fein took 97% of seats in the Irish parliament unopposed, the Ulster Unionists under James Craig won 77% of the seats in the North in election under STV (the Single Transferable Vote, a system by which a voter can rank their choices).
The early years of this new situation were not peaceful, with Civil War in the South and tit-for-tat sectarian killings in the North. Craig was determined to crack down on dissent and have “a Protestant Government for a Protestant People.” The police force was militarized, the electoral system changed, seats gerrymandered, and many other measures were put in place to keep what was already a Protestant controlled region firmly in that state.
The Silence Breaks
Whilst things still remained fraught for the Catholic population, the level of violence from before the Second World War was not as visible under Craig’s successor Basil Brooke. He was a hardliner allowing for little dissent, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA)’s border campaign in the late 50s did not gain much support in either region. (More on the IRA shortly.)
Instead, it was bigger world events that began to foment change. With the Civil Rights movement in America gaining publicity, organisations were formed in Northern Ireland to highlight anti-Catholic discrimination, such as the Campaign for Social Justice and Homeless Citizen’s League. At the same time an economic downturn in the region and Brooke’s ill health led to him resigning the premiership in 1963. He was succeeded by the more moderate Captain Terence O’Neill.
Now, it should not be thought O’Neill is some sort of radical republican. However, he did want to improve relations between the Catholic and Protestant communities of Ulster, and between the Northern and Southern parts of the island of Ireland. He encouraged twinning between organizations of both denominations and met the Irish Taoiseachs on multiple occasions.
Following on from the CSJ’s publicising of wide-spread discrimination, a number of more active campaign organisations formed. Two of the most important are The Northern Irish Civil Rights Association (NICRA) and The Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC). The former has been organising large scale marches calling for political reform, anti-discrimination legislation and demilitarisation of the police. DHAC is more particularly focussed on housing discrimination, taking part in sit-down protests and disrupting public meetings to get this message across.
Finally, all this took place against the backdrop of a change of British government, from Conservative to Labour. Whilst the Ulster Unionists caucus with the Conservatives in Westminster, Labour draws a significant share of its support from Catholics in Scotland and England. As such, it is much more in the interest of Wilson to encourage reform in Northern Ireland than it was for Macmillan. And with the passing of the Race Relation Acts in Britain it gave further impetus for change.
These factors have put the need for reform on the agenda, with O’Neill promising a move to one-man one vote, an ombudsman to address complaints of discrimination and the withdrawal of special police powers.
And overall, the vast majority of people had been happy with current progress. A pre-election survey at the start of the year showed 52% of Ulster voters thought improvements were being made at about the right pace (57% of Catholics and 49% of Protestants) with 62% supporting the principle of one man-one vote (92% Catholics and 48% of Protestants, with 20% in the latter group being unsure).
So, who could possibly be upset by these changes? Well, to start with, Home Affairs Minister William Craig and Rev. Ian Paisley.
The Policeman and The Priest
William Craig was a rising star in the Ulster Unionist government. Nicknamed ‘the battering ram’, he played a big part in the election of O’Neill to the post of Prime Minister, and had been a significant ally to him, in particular in the PM’s attempts at modernization of the Irish economy. After criticism from UUP colleagues of Craig’s cavalier attitude to planning policy and the need for O’Neill to take a stronger line against Republicanism, Craig was moved to Home Affairs, making him in charge of policing Northern Ireland.
Whilst not being totally opposed to some reform, Craig’s position is that discrimination claims and the civil rights movement are actually covers for radical republican activity. Their demands are purely designed to make them seem reasonable people, whilst they secretly seek a united republic of Ireland.
Outside of government, opposition to Civil Rights primarily centers around Reverend Iain Paisley. The leader of the fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and close friend of Bob Jones, Jr., Paisley believes the Pope to be the Antichrist, with services commonly including the Hymn “Our Father Knew The Rome of Old and Evil is Thy Name”. Even though the actual congregation size of the Free Presbyterian Church is estimated to be small, Paisley has an outsized influence, regularly holding stunts such as heckling bishops who meet with Catholic counterparts and encouraging police to pull down Irish flags.
Paisley is no stranger to being in trouble with the law. In 1966 he was first arrested when, after contributing to a riot with a march he made through a Catholic area, he refused to be bound over to keep the peace. Then, in the same year, he was successfully sued for libel when he claimed the arresting police had committed perjury against him.
In November of last year, Craig banned all protest marches except for “customary marches”. By customary he was referring to those by Protestants like the Orange Lodge, making it seem like a discriminatory measure to stop Catholic Civil Rights marches. When DHAC and NICRA defied these orders, Paisley and his supporters showed up with counter-protestors and riots ensued. Even though Paisley was arrested for his part in this, Craig squarely put the blame on the Civil Rights movement, claiming the IRA were involved, and used special powers to call up police reinforcements. Following this and other public disagreements on policy, O’Neill called for his resignation.
What is their main problem? It is largely a slippery slope argument. They believe that Civil Rights will lead to Nationalist involvement in Government. This along with the growth of the Catholic population in recent years, may lead to one day a union of the North and South. This they see as both being a challenge to their own personal identity (as they see themselves as British rather than Irish, loyal to the Queen rather than a republic in Dublin) and a fear that they will be subject to Catholic law.
The Irish constitution states in Article 44 that the Catholic church has a “special position” in Ireland. Whilst this was an attempt to keep things secular whilst appeasing the Catholic majority, unionist critics point to the influence of the Catholic Church on policies in the republic such as the ban on divorce and birth-control. And whilst the situation is not as bad as in the North there have been cases of anti-Protestant discrimination in the South, such as the Mayo librarian controversy and the Fethard-On-Sea boycott.
But what do those on the other side want? Let us have a look at two of these groups, People’s Democracy and the Irish Republican Army.
The Grass Is Always Greener
People's Democracy sit-down protest
Following the attacks on NICRA marches by the RUC and loyalists, People’s Democracy formed at Queen’s University Belfast at the end of last year. Whilst having a 5 point programme containing similar demands to the larger Civil Rights organizations, they believe that these can only be achieved in a united socialist republic of Ireland.
Whilst not engaging in violent activity, PD are also much less willing to back down in the face of political pressure. Whilst other civil rights agreed to a one month halting of marching in January in order to calm things down, People’s Democracy organized large scale marches throughout the North and refused to be rerouted away from Protestant areas by the police. These marches were ambushed throughout their routes by Loyalists, resulting in many injuries from protestors.
IRA members in 1922
Of course, People’s Democracy are not even close to the level of the IRA. This force began its existence just after World War I as a guerilla force fighting the British for Irish independence. During the Civil War the organization split between the pro-treaty Irish Free-State Army and the anti-treaty group who retained the IRA monicker.
In spite of their defeat in the Civil War and the later declaration of the Irish Republic, the organization has continued to exist up to the present day and ran an armed attempt to overthrow the government of Northern Ireland at the start of the decade. And, whilst the Border Campaign failed, they do not appear to be vanishing any time soon.
As an outlawed organization, details of IRA activities are hard to come by. However, there have been reports of recruitment drives for a “new IRA”, including bomb threats being called into the London Press Association by a purported member. One thing that seems sure, they have not lost any of their radicalism, as a member said to Ulster TV recently:
“I believe the British occupation can only be terminated by physical force”
This kind of statement underlines one of the real points of tension.
Yes, much of the population considers themselves British but they have been in the country for centuries. O’Neill can trace his family line back to the medieval kings of Northern Ireland and the Paisley name has been common in the region since the 17th Century. When Republicans regularly talk about ‘getting the British out’, many unionists fear they do not just mean a change of governmental administration, but want the wholesale expulsion or murder of people whose families were living in the region before the Mayflower crossed the Atlantic.
Things Fall Apart; The Centre Cannot Hold
RUC dealing with a NICRA protester
In spite of opposition from left and right, O’Neill must have felt pretty confident at the start of the year. With Craig out of Government and Paisley heading to prison, it seemed the more reactionary voices were losing ground, whilst the biggest Civil Rights groups had agreed to suspend activity temporarily, and his reforms were proceeding through the Northern Irish parliament.
The problems started coming after the aforementioned clashes during the PD marches. The RUC made a heavy-handed attempt to keep the peace in the predominantly Catholic Bogside area of Londonderry. Community activists actually managed to drive the police out and erected barricades to control the area themselves. Even a radio station was established claiming to be the voice of “Free Derry.”
With this being seen by the Unionist authorities as a direct challenge to the Ulster government, crackdowns came swiftly. The plans to end the special powers act were reversed, calling up the paramilitary b-specials and O’Neill stated that there needs to be "less talk about Civil Rights and more talk about Civil Responsibility". Needless to say, this did not go down well with many in the movement.
However, the decline in social order happening at the same time as O’Neill was pushing through reforms was seen as rewarding the mob by some in his own party. Following two high-profile resignations and some calls from many of his other MPs to resign, the NI PM decided to call an election and take his mission to the voters. Pro-O’Neill candidates were the largest winners, taking 44% of the vote and allowing him to continue as Prime Minister. But, in a sign of things to come, Anti-O’Neill Unionists and Nationalists both got around 23% of the vote each.
During the negotiations for the passing of one-man one-vote, a series of bomb explosions took place around Northern Ireland taking out a church, water, and electricity supplies. In addition, firebombs destroyed nine post offices. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, with the RUC blaming the IRA, and the IRA claiming it is the Stormont authorities trying to:
“copy Hitler’s Reichstag fire stunt to…extend coercion and suppress free speech.”
The community police in “Free Derry”
In response the government called up over 1000 B-specials and asked for British troops already stationed in Northern Ireland to guard key installations. The RUC came down heavily on anything they saw as disorder with the predictable response of barricades once again going up in Derry. Even with Paisley in prison, the loyalist response continued, with his wife declaring she was organizing loyalist volunteers to “assist” the police.
As newly elected Unity MP Bernadette Devilin told the House of Commons, it appears that Northern Ireland is at the start of a civil war. Discontent has moved past the point where it is purely about civil rights; now each side feels the other is untrustworthy and violent.
Some have posited the best solution would be to shut down the Northern Irish parliament and RUC, instead instituting a period of temporary rule from Westminster, with the British Army patrolling the streets instead. However, the lessons of fifty years ago are still foremost in many politicians’ minds, and they would no more wish to get involved directly on the island of Ireland again than they would like to send troops to Vietnam.
Another suggestion was made by the Irish government to the United Nations, to send in a peacekeeping force to administer the region. This did not get passed and probably did more harm than good. The Republic has never officially recognized the North as a separate country, and them trying to send in foreign soldiers reinforces the fears of Unionists that there is a conspiracy to annex Ulster.
And whilst O’Neill managed to get the one-man one-vote bill through the Northern Irish parliament, he was forced to resign by his party a few days later. His successor has promised to honour the former PM’s reforms, but, so far, the only response to the current crisis has been tighter laws and more police crackdowns.
The Calm, Preceding The Storm?
Change of direction, or just changing the drapes?
Although things have been quiet over the last month, this seems to be both sides assessing the new government. Simply replacing O’Neill with the mild-mannered Chichester-Clark is not actually resolving the underlying issues. One-Man, One Vote was only one part of the demanded reforms of the Civil Rights movement, but we see that any attempt to move further is likely to lead to strong reaction in some quarters.
Ulster Unionist MP Samuel Knox Cunningham recently told The Times that working with Nationalists was equivalent to:
“Hitler[‘s decision] to absorb Austria, the same solution was adopted and the coalition brought about the takeover of Austria. Let it be clear that the Unionists are determined to keep Ulster part of the United Kingdom and there will be no coalition with Republicans, Nationalists or another party with aims at overthrowing the constitution.”
Whilst Frank Gogharty, chairman of NICRA, stated at a recent meeting that Stormont reforms were:
“just a clever ploy by Unionists to split the movement…I expect the mailed fist to clampdown in six months…Stormont will move in and take most of the powers from local councils.”
At the same time, no measures have been put in place to placate any other underlying issues, unemployment sits a 7% in Northern Ireland, compared with 3.5% in the UK as a whole, with some predominantly Catholic areas like Derry seeing 1 in 5 working men without a job. Housing stock continues to be alarmingly short in the region. But the new regime has yet to announce any new economic schemes.
Unfortunately, this looks to only be temporary
As the marching season begins, attitudes harden and the economic situation looks to be worsening, I cannot see how the sunny weather can continue. Clouds are forming on the horizon and I worry that what happened in March will look like a playground scrap when the storm breaks.
[We've got another wonderful haul of books for you this month, many of which are well worth you're time. Be sure to read on 'til the end—you'll definitely catch the reading bug!]
By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall
The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith by Josephine Saxton
Josephine Saxton is British author so, of course, her first book is about apocalypses and sexual awakening. However, it's a particularly skilled one.
The story: an unnamed teenage boy is wandering across the desolated British landscape alone, after an unexplained event has killed off all the other people. He comes across a baby girl and decides to bring her up. Together they try to understand the world that was left behind and what it means to be an adult.
You might assume this is either the usual “New Adam and Eve” story, or some kind of shock piece. However, Saxton manages to negotiate between these two paths skillfully. She describes the sexual emergences of both of them in matter-of-fact terms, which grounds the story within the dream-like atmosphere they inhabit.
As we go through, their comprehension of the world changes from child-like to a clear understanding of the facts of life. Even though their eventual relations could come across as disturbing given the age difference between the two, and the fact The Boy brought her up like a little sister, Saxton manages to largely negate this. She is able to show the passage of time well and, more importantly, give us the thought processes of both our leads to show they have free-will and are fully in control of their choices. For example:
She studied this for some time, and came to the conclusion that this was a drawing of a penis, and at what she had read and seen, she became hot all over, and in an excitable state.
There is also a clear sense throughout the text about the importance of symbolism. The Boy is constantly dismissing the importance of words and symbols but The Girl slowly shows him that deeper meaning is important.
For me, the key message that is brought out here is that they need to wipe away the sins of the past. The things that brought this world into being. When The Girl is bathing she sings about washing away her troubles in the River Jordan. And, when she gives birth, she insists on doing it in a place of death “to eradicate the source of evil here”. There is a central concept that simply them growing up and continuing the human race is not enough. Things have to change.
I picked up this novel as I knew it was related to The Consciousness Machine, one of my favourite novellas of last year. The connection raises significant questions. However, to discuss this requires mentions of later revelations of both works. As such, if you want to avoid knowing these facts, please feel free to skip to the next review.
As the name suggests, the novella is about a machine, WAWWAR, that can take the images of the unconscious mind and display them on a screen. The technician Zona is trying to decipher the meaning of The Boy and The Girl’s journey. There is also another piece of material relating to the hunt for a wild animal. These secondary and tertiary narratives are completely absent from the novel, which only contains The Boy and Girl’s tale in its totality.
As such, the conclusion of the book version is not about Zona learning the nature of the Animus, but The Boy, The Girl and The Baby deciding it is time to go home. So, they get on a bus, pay the conductor and go back to a fully furnished suburban house. The Girl then decides to get an early night as there is nothing on television on Tuesdays and puts the baby to sleep.
Now, a simple explanation for this could be we are literally seeing the film that was recorded by the WAWWAR. However, no hint of that is given and I think that is too large a leap to expect the average reader to make.
But to read it purely as a science fiction tale causes just as many problems. This sharp turn is nowhere hinted at in the text and in fact contradicts several core points created. Even if you could somehow accept the idea that The Boy went to live in a town that has been uninhabited, how does he have a house? How has he never seen a fully grown adult woman before? How does The Girl know about contemporary television schedules? How is the home not only still available to them after decades away, but with the utilities on?
So, what are we to make of this strange choice? There is no reason I could imagine that would force Saxton to expunge this frame from the longer book form. And the novel is indeed a good bit more explicit than the novella. So, a choice we must assume it is.
I like to believe it is opening us up to the freedom to understand the text in our own way. Zona’s meta-commentary on the events is merely one way of understanding a dream. You could also just as easily contend that the explosion in the chemist, shortly before they leave the town of Thingy, actually killed them all, suburbia representing the afterlife and Zona being like the angels in 40s cinema, discussing their existence.
Or, perhaps, the Town of Thingy really does exist and is a time displaced retreat. Something akin to Hawksbill Station. Where couples facing marital difficulties can be de-aged, grow-up together, and learn how to become one unit again, before being brought back at the same moment they left. And then The Consciousness Machine is actually just a dream The Girl has after she goes to bed.
I don’t know what Saxton intended, but I also do not think it matters. The journey and feel of the novel is excellent and how you choose to view it is just as valid as those watching the WAWWAR.
Humanity has made its first steps into interstellar space, settling the worlds of the Pleiades. In so doing, they have brushed across the domain of the mysterious Moldaug—a frustratingly humanoid but not quite human alien race with a fleet strength comparably to Terra's. After decades of peaceful coexistence, the Moldaug suddenly make claim to all the Pleiades. The Old Worlds of Earth, Mars, and Venus, reeling from a kind of space phobia, offer to relinquish their own claims to the Frontier. This only makes things worse for two reasons: 1) the Moldaug inexplicably find the offer offensive, and 2) the Frontier is not Earth's to give, for they had fought and won independence a dozen years prior! (For more on this story, see the novelette Hilifter.)
by Jack Gaughan (and cribbed from the novelization of Three Worlds to Conquer, as I learned from my friend, Joachim Boaz—the art makes much more sense for the original title)
Enter Cully O'Rourke When, the man most responsible for the Frontier's independence. When the veteran spacejacker returns to Earth to treat with the Old World's government, he is thrown into a floating prison with hundreds of other Frontiersmen, rendered impotent to cause more mischief. But in that very prison, he learns from an imprisoned anthropologist the explosive secret that foretells Armageddon between humans and the Moldaug…unless someone can bring the two races into true understanding.
Thus begins a tale that involves Cully's jailbreak, piracy on high space, and political turmoil in three realms.
This is a frustrating book because it has such potential, and there are many things to like in it. The gripping beginning, the well-realized triune nature of the Moldaug (each being-unit comprises three tri-bonded individuals), the subtle difference in morality between the two species (Right/not-Right vs. Respectable/not-Respectable—though one could argue that this is a thinly guised variation of the Japanese concept of "Face"), the rich setting, the final confrontation between Cully and the Moldaug Admiral Ruhn…these are all compelling.
But Dickson falls into the issues he had with his Dorsai series: one mastermind (our hero) knows every move and countermove, and everything breaks his way. As a result, the only drama comes in seeing the master plan unfold, not how said hero responds to adversity. In stories like this, one can see the author laying out the stepping stones, guiding a path so that the protagonist never makes a misstep.
The other issue is the virtual absence of women. I know people have given me grief for harping on this issue since I started this 'zine in 1958, but come on, people—it's 1969. We have women leading Israel and India. On Star Trek, a third of the crew of the Enterprise is female. A few years back, Rydra Wong led a crew of misfits to save the galaxy. So when the only human female character in all of the Frontier and the Old Worlds serves just to be a romantic foil (and to be ignored at the one juncture that she has critical information!), and she is the sole woman amongst a cast of dozens of men, the world Dickson builds starts to feel a little hollow.
Edmund Cooper is a British writer who has been active since the '50s, and up until recently I've not had the pleasure to read any of his work. He put out a novel just a month or two ago, and now here he is again, with a short collection called News from Elsewhere, featuring eight stories, only one of which is original to the collection. It was published in Britain last year but only just now got an American edition, courtesy of Berkley Medallion. Overall it's a mixed bag, since it looks like Cooper likes to repeat himself (there are three or four stories here about space expeditions), but the strongest material does make me curious for more. Let's take a look.
This is the only story to be first published in News from Elsewhere, and it’s… fine. It’s basically a fable, set in an icy and desolate world, about a young woman and her infant son as they travel with “the People of the Spur,” on a religious pilgrimage. The problem is that the woman’s son is a half-breed, a child-by-rape whose father is a “Changeling,” of a fellow humanoid race that whose members have hairy and thorny ridges on their backs. The woman tries to keep her son’s racial status a secret, but in trying to evade her people she literally falls into a chasm—and certain death. Cooper’s style here is almost childlike; there is barely any dialogue, and by the end it becomes clear what message we’re supposed to take from what is admittedly a harrowing adventure narrative. Cooper also saves the answer to the question “Is this science fiction or fantasy?” for the end, although I’m not sure why he treats it like a twist.
We jump from the newest story to one of the oldest, first published as “The End of the Journey” in the February 1956 issue of Fantastic Universe. “M 81: Ursa Major” is a space opera that asks a rather troubling question: “How do we know when we’re dead?” Or, to phrase it less threateningly: “How can we tell the difference, subjectively speaking, between being dead and being unconscious?” An experimental ship uses scientific mumbo jumbo to skirt the fact that it’s impossible to travel at the speed of light. The results are tragic, but also very strange—not least for the deeply jaded captain, who has a hunch that things will go wrong indeed. This is a story with a loose plot and only one genuine character to speak of, but it’s anchored by a strong idea. It’s the kind of story that was commonplace a decade and a half ago, but which now strikes me as a bit refreshing. I almost feel nostalgic about this sort of thing.
Four stars, but I understand if someone reads it and is not as impressed.
The Enlightened Ones
This one originally appeared in Cooper’s first collection, Tomorrow’s Gift. It’s the longest in the collection, and frankly, I’m not sure the length was justified. Long story short, a team of space explorers makes first contact with a race of hominids, who at first seem like primitive humans but who turn out to have a major advantage over the humans—only the humans are too concerned with what to do with the hominids at first to notice anything amiss. It’s a trite premise, even by the standards of a decade ago, that’s elevated by Cooper’s acute pessimism with regards to the notion of human supremacy. In this distant future it’s said that the Eskimos, Polynesians, and some other indigenous groups on Earth have been driven to extinction. Certainly the Campbellian protagonists do not come off well for the most part, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that “The Enlightened Ones” (such an immediately ironic title) was printed in Fantastic Universe and not Astounding/Analog.
First published in the 1963 collection Tomorrow Came, which may sound unfamiliar because it never got an American printing. “Judgment Day” is the most British-sounding of the lot so far, to the point where it reads like the late John Wyndham at a hefty discount. At first it doesn’t even register as SF. The narrator and his wife are in the park one day when people around them start having violent seizures—too many in one place for this to be a random occurrence. Soon the narrator’s wife falls victim as well, and for much of the story we may be wondering about not just the cause, but the context for all this. What does any of this mean? The narrator meets a soldier who promptly feeds him enough information to stun an elephant, the result being that we’re told about something important that basically happens outside the confines of the page and which has already come to an end by the time the narrator hears about it. It’s rather inelegant, never mind that the SFnal element already feels outdated somehow.
Two stars.
The Intruders
Cover art by Virgil Finlay.
This one first appeared as “Intruders on the Moon” in the April 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe. Yes, this surely does read like an SF adventure story from a dozen years ago. A team of explorers land on our moon to investigate the massive crater that is Tycho, for mining as well as the slim possibility of discovering intelligent life. (Something I wish to make clear at this point is that Cooper’s characters are not usually “characters” in the Shakespearian sense; they do not tend to have distinguishable personalities.) Miraculously, however, one of the crew discovers footprints in the sand near Tycho—rather large footprints with very long strides, indeed too much to be a human’s. The explorers go looking for this “Man Friday” of theirs, but they soon learn to regret it. “The Intruders” is pretty straightforward for how long it is, and while its quaint vision of man’s landing on the moon would have been acceptable last decade, I can’t imagine there being much interest in a story of its sort now.
One of Cooper’s earliest stories, and a hand-me-down from Tomorrow’s Gift. A team of space explorers (oh God, not again) lands on “Planet Five,” where there doesn’t seem to be any organic life—save for a species of butterfly. The butterflies have a power over the human explorers they remain unaware of until it’s too late. But it’s not all bad: the explorers also have with them a smartass robot named Whizbang, who emerges as the story’s single genuine character. The autonomous robot comes off more human than the actual humans, although this may be Cooper’s intention, as he uses this disparity at the end of the story to somewhat chilling effect. I’m sensing repetition in the story selection, but I do tepidly recommend this one. If nothing else it comes close to “M 81: Ursa Major” in conveying Cooper’s thesis on the strenuous nature between human rationality and things in our universe which may be beyond human understanding.
A strong three stars.
The Lizard of Woz
Cover art by Virgil Finlay.
This one first appeared in the August 1958 issue of Fantastic Universe, and it’s the crown jewel of the collection. “The Lizard of Woz,” aside from having an incredible title, is different from the others in that it is an outright comedy (albeit of a morbid hue), but it also is told from an alien’s perspective. Ynky is a member of a highly advanced race of alien lizards, who has been sent to Earth so as to determine if it is fit for “fumigation,” i.e., genocide on a planetary scale. The people Ynky comes into contact with (an American, then a Russian, then a third I would prefer to keep a secret) are caricatures, which is all well and good. Cooper pokes fun at both sides of the Iron Curtain, but overall this is a story about the absurdity of the notion of racial supremacy. We’re told constantly that the lizards of Woz are a superior race, yet they also have slave labor and are casually murderous with other sentient races, not to mention Ynky himself is rather slow-witted. Since this is a comedy, and a pretty silly one to boot, some people will be irritated by the antics, but I laughed several times over the span of its mere ten pages.
Finally we have “Welcome Home,” which first appeared in Tomorrow Came and so this marks its first American appearance. Looking back at that time, it seems now like the early ‘60s were simply an extension (or the semi-stale leftovers) of the ‘50s, at least with regards to SF, because this story reads as a few years older than it is. A team of explorers (for the last time, we swear it) land on Mars, which is suspected of possibly hosting life, but if so life on Mars would be far down on the evolutionary ladder. As it turns out, a mysterious pyramid, a sophisticated structure, has drawn the explorers’ attention. This is a first-contact story—of a sort. The twist, which I won’t say here (although you can safely guess it), seemed oddly familiar to me. As with a few other stories in the collection, “Welcome Home” is about the conflict between the West and the Soviets, although it’s not of a ham-fisted sort. It’s fine, but nothing special or surprising.
Three stars.
by Jason Sacks
The Sky is Filled with Ships by Richard C. Meredith
It's the year 979 of the Federation, or the year 3493 in the old calendar. Captain Robert T. Janas of the Solar Trading Company, Terran by birth and starman by occupation, is journeying back to his home planet at a time Terra is in great peril.
The Federation, long bloated and often brutal, is facing a massive rebellion among its vast and angry colonies. A truly titanic armada of thousands of warships from hundreds of solar systems is streaming to Earth via subspace wormholes to gain freedom for the colonies. Janas knows the defense of his home planet will be a futile gesture. There is no possible way even the enormous Terran space fleet can overcome the overwhelming odds and passions of the furious rebels and their massively armed fleet.
Janas knows, too, that a victory by the rebels will spiral mankind down to a new dark ages, just as brutal and destructive as that of Europe after the fall of Rome. Only Janas has the insight and plan to preserve a smidgen of the wisdom — not by saving Terra but by making the Solar Trading Company one of the few institutions to survive and preserve galactic knowledge.
I'm not familiar with the fiction of Richard C. Meredith, but I'm curious to read more by him based on this book. I was pretty intrigued by lead character Janas, who has a nice kind of fish-out-of-water feel to him as he wanders around Earth. That alienation presents a clever, illuminating aspect of the character. I enjoyed having a protagonist who is both a highly self-assured man and who also feels uncomfortable at times due to certain aspects of Earth's culture.
For instance, there's a slightly poignant feel to his annoyance at Earth fashions- like a colonial returned to his home only to find it dramatically different from the place he left. Janas is a stiff military man on a planet where the men dress like harlequins and the women wear fashions which leave them bare-breasted and proud.
But all that discomfort contrasts with the depiction of Janas as a man of action. Like a classic sci-fi hero, Janas brings his own plans and friends to the office of Al Franken, leader of the STC but too blinded by his own hubris to understand he is the problem. Captain Janas literally drags Franken into a plot which will ensure the fall of the ruling Franken family and the survival of Janas's beloved STC.
Meredith adroitly alternates chapters of this palace intrigue with scenes of the armada flying through subspace and showing the massive devastation which the rebel fleet creates on its journey. Those invasion scenes have a breathless, telegraphical quality to them which convey a massive sense of urgency.
As the book winds up, Meredith also does a clever thing: in late chapters he shows brief snippets of events all around the planet Earth as the reality of the Terran apocalypse become clear. In East Asia an angry mob kills their governor and his whole family; in Australia, a cult climb a mountain and await their ends; a rural farmer stands at his barn door, shotgun in hand, waiting to do his small part.
Mr Meredith in his younger days
Mr. Meredith, just over the age of 30, has created a clever and fun novel. There are points in which The Sky is Filled with Ships reads like a pretty standard potboiler sci-fi actioner, with square-chinned heroes fighting for noble causes. In that way it feels a bit of a throwback to the golden John W. Campbell days.
But I appreciated how the actions of our hero were focused on preserving society, which gave him a nobility which stood out on the page. As well, the scenes of oncoming invasion are exciting and had me quickly turning the pages.
I finished this relatively slim novel in one night. And though Meredith is no John Brunner, Philip K. Dick, or Harlan Ellison, he makes no effort to create literary science fiction with this novel. The Sky is Filled with Ships achieves what Meredith set out to create: an intriguing, exciting novel which will make me seek out some of his shorter fiction while I wait for the next thrilling novel by him.
This is the fifth in a series of novels under the collective title of Children of Violence. The others are Martha Quest (1952), A Proper Marriage (1954), A Ripple from the Storm (1958), and Landlocked (1965). I haven't read the others.
A little research reveals that they all deal with Martha, the child of British parents working on a farm in colonial Africa. She's born in about 1920. The four novels all take place in southern Africa. As a teenager, Martha leaves home to work in a city. As the years go by, she is married and divorced and married again. She has a daughter whom she leaves in the care of others. She becomes involved in leftwing politics.
None of the earlier books have speculative elements. The newest one is different. At well over six hundred pages, it's also roughly twice as long as any of the previous volumes.
The sheer length and the very large number of characters and incidents make it difficult to offer a brief summary. I'll do what I can. Keep in mind that I'm leaving out the vast majority of the content of this massive novel.
Martha is now in London in about 1950. She gets a job as a secretary/housekeeper for a man who is married to a woman who is in and out of mental hospitals. She winds up living in the same household for many years, becoming involved with many other members of his family and their acquaintances.
Just to pick one example out of dozens, the man's brother is a scientist who defects to the Soviet Union. He leaves behind his wife and young son. The woman is a Jewish refugee from the Holocaust. When her husband leaves, she kills herself.
That's enough of a dramatic plot for a complete novel, but it only takes up a small portion of the book. Rather than attempt to relate any other events of equal importance, let me try to give you some idea of what the novel is like as a whole. Taking my inspiration from its title, I'll consider it as four different kinds of book in one.
Psychological Novel
Much of the text consists of Martha's interior monologues. She often looks at herself as if she were an outsider. At times, she withdraws from the rest of the world and spends time in a meditative, introspective state.
Novel of Character
Although Martha is the most important character, we also spend a great deal of time with lots of other people. In one section, the point of view shifts to Martha's elderly mother, who leaves Africa in order to visit her daughter. All the secondary characters are described in detail. There are so many of them that I sometimes lost track of who was related to whom. A dramatis personae for this book would take up several pages.
Social Novel
A large number of social and political issues come up in the novel. Just off the top of my head, these include Communism and anti-Communism, psychiatry, post-war austerity evolving into 1960's hedonism, the youth movement, the relationship between the sexes, the media, the environment, the military, espionage, homosexuality, colonialism and anti-colonialism, and economics. At times the novel resembles a series of debates.
Science Fiction Novel
You were wondering when I'd get to that! They take a while to show up, but speculative themes eventually make an appearance. The novel suggests that people diagnosed as schizophrenic are actually clairvoyant and telepathic. They are treated as mentally ill because they have visions and hear voices.
More to the point, the book's lengthy appendix consists of documents, mostly letters from Martha and other characters, describing how the United Kingdom and other parts of the world are devastated by what seems to be a combination of pollution, accidental release of nerve gas, plague, and radiation from nuclear weapons. Martha ends up with a small number of survivors on a tiny island. In true science fiction fashion, children born there have highly developed psychic powers.
Giving this book a rating is very difficult. Some people are going to hate it, and find slogging through very long sentences and paragraphs that go on for a page or more not worth the effort. Others will consider it to be a major literary achievement of great ambition.
I have very mixed feelings. At times I found it highly insightful; at other times I found it tedious.
Three stars, for lack of a better way to rate it.
by Cora Buhlert
A Five and Dime James Bond: Zero Cool by John Lange
This weekend, I attended a convention in the city of Neuss in the Rhineland. Luckily, West Germany has an excellent network of highways, the famous Autobahnen, so the three and a half hour trip was quite pleasant.
I left at dawn and took the opportunity to have breakfast at the brand-new service station Dammer Berge. Service stations are not exactly uncommon – you can find them roughly every fifty to sixty kilometers along the Germany's Autobahnen. There's always a parking lot, a gas station, a small shop, a restaurant and sometimes a motel, housed in fairly unremarkable buildings on either side of the highway.
Dammer Berge, however, is different. Billed as the service station of the future, the restaurant is a concrete bridge which spans the highway, held up by two steel pylons. The structure is spectacular, a beacon of modernism, though sadly the food itself was rather lacklustre: a cup of coffee that tasted of the soap used to clean the machine and a slice of stale apple cake.
But I'm not here to talk about architecture or food, but about books. Now the trusty paperback spinner rack at my local import bookstore does not hold solely science fiction and fantasy. There is also a motley mix of gothic romances, murder mysteries and thrillers available. And whenever the science fiction and fantasy selection on offer does not seem promising, I reach for one of those other genres. This is how I discovered John Lange, a thriller author whose novel Easy Go I read last year and enjoyed very much. So when I spotted a new John Lange novel named Zero Cool in that spinner rack, I of course picked it up.
Zero Cool starts with Peter Ross, an American radiologist who's supposed to present a paper at a medical conference in Barcelona. And since he's already in Spain, Ross plans to take the opportunity for a holiday on the nearby Costa Brava in the seaside resort of Tossa de Mar.
One of John Lange's greatest strengths is his atmospheric descriptions. His skills are on full display in Zero Cool in the descriptions of the rugged Costa Brava with its picturesque fishing villages turned holiday destination for package tourists from all over Europe. It's obvious that Lange has visited Spain in general and the Costa Brava in particular.
That doesn't mean that Lange doesn't take poetic licence. And so his protagonist Peter Ross notes that the beaches of the Costa Brava are full of beautiful women in bikinis with nary a man in sight. As someone who has actually visited said beaches, I can assure you that this isn't true. Like anywhere on the Mediterranean coast, the beaches of Tossa de Mar contain a motley mix of old and young, of men, women and children, of attractive and not so attractive bodies. And yes, there are women in bikinis, too. Ross has holiday fling with one of them, a British stewardess named Angela.
But in spite of what the cover may imply, Zero Cool is not a romance set in an exotic location, but a thriller. And so Ross finds himself accosted on the beach by a man who begs him not to do the autopsy or he will surely die. Ross is bemused—what autopsy? In any event, he is on vacation and besides, he's a radiologist, not a pathologist, dammit.
Not long after this encounter, Ross is approached by four men in black suits who could not seem more like gangsters if they wore signs saying "The Mob" 'round their necks. The men want Ross to perform – you guessed it – an autopsy on their deceased brother, so his body can be repatriated to the US. Ross protests that he is a radiologist, not a pathologist, but the men are very insistent. They offer Ross a lot of money and also threaten to kill him if he refuses.
In the end, Ross does perform the autopsy – not that he has any choice, because he is abducted at gunpoint. To no one's surprise, the four gangsters from central casting are not all that interested in how their alleged brother died, but want Ross to hide a package inside the body. Once again, Ross complies, since finding himself on the wrong end of a gun is very persuasive.
Up to now, Zero Cool seems to be a fairly routine thriller about an everyman who gets entangled in a criminal enterprise. But the novel takes a turn for the weird, when the body vanishes and people start dying horribly, mutilated beyond recognition. Ross not only finds himself a murder suspect – in a country which still garrottes convicted criminals – but other parties also show an interest in the missing body and the mysterious package inside. These other parties include Tex, a cartoonish Texan in a ten gallon hat, the Professor, a bald man who uses mathematics to predict the future and is basically Hari Seldon, if Hari had applied his skills to crime rather than to trying to save humanity from the dark ages, and – last but not least – the Count, a Spanish nobleman with dwarfism, who collects perfume bottles and lives in a castle with a mute butler, a flock of murderous falcons and a Doberman named Franco.
With its exotic locales (well, for Americans at least, since for West Germans the Costa Brava no longer feels all that exotic, when you can book a flight there via the Neckermann mail order catalogue), beautiful but duplicitous women and colourful villains, Zero Cool feels more like a James Bond adventure than a serious thriller. As for the mystery package, it doesn't contain anything as mundane as drugs (which was my initial suspicion), but a priceless emerald stolen by the Spanish conquistadores in Mexico. It all culminates in a showdown at the Alhambra palace in Granada, where Ross finds himself dodging bullets, poison gas and the razor-sharp talons of the Count's murder falcons.
It's all a lot of fun, though it still pales in comparison to the James Bond novels and films, which Zero Cool is clearly trying to emulate. Because unlike the suave agent on her majesty's secret service, Peter Ross just isn't very interesting. He literally is an everyman, an American doctor – and note that John Lange is the pen name used by a student at Harvard medical school who is financing his studies by writing thrillers – bouncing around Spain and France. In fact, Ross is probably the least interesting character in the whole novel. Furthermore, the fact that Ross is a radiologist, though constantly brought up, contributes nothing to the resolution. He might just as well have been a paediatrician or a gynaecologist or any other type of doctor for all it matters.
But even a lesser effort by John Lange is still better than most other thrillers in the paperback spinner rack. If John Lange becomes as good a doctor as he's a writer, his patients will be very lucky indeed.
An outrageous adventure. Three and a half stars.
(As mentioned above, John Lange is a pen name. However, I have it on good authority that his real name is "Michael Crichton" and that he has just published a science fiction novel under that byline. I haven't yet read it, but my colleague Joe has, so check out his review.)
The story begins in the town of Piedmont, Arizona, in the United States. It’s a pretty unremarkable town, with one small exception: just about everyone in the town is lying dead in the street, all except for two men who traveled to Piedmont to recover some lost government property and an odd figure in the town of corpses who happens to be walking their way. Upon the apparent death of the two men, an investigation gets underway, ultimately led by a clandestine government group called Project Wildfire.
Project Wildfire is the brainchild of Dr. Jeremy Stone, a bacteriologist possessing so many awards and degrees that the story paints him as a modern-day Da Vinci, a man above men. His team includes Dr. Charles Burton, a pathologist; Dr. Mark Hall, a surgeon, and the only unmarried man on the team—the odd man as the story puts it; and lastly, Dr. Peter Leavitt, a microbiologist. The four men quickly fall into their roles as they uncover the cause of whatever killed an entire town full of people in one night and try to prevent it from spreading.
They do this working out of a secure, state-of-the-art research facility with a list of protocols to prevent the escape of diseases, viruses, and other deadly pathogens, longer than a football field. Part of the appeal of the story is the detailed descriptions of all the computers, machines, and medical facilities that the four doctors use in their quest. Crichton’s depiction of even the smallest details of the workings of every inch of the Wildfire facility give a grounded feel not only to the base but to the descriptions he provides of the microorganism at the heart of this story: the Andromeda Strain itself. Crichton beautifully has his characters follow the scientific method we all learned in grade school, as Stone and the others start with observation, then move to hypothesis, then experimentation. Every solution in the book is arrived at through the efforts of brilliant men under tremendous pressure. It is truly exciting to witness them work as each discovery and dead end leads to new discoveries and new dangers.
The pacing of The Andromeda Strain felt fitting to me. I never felt as if I was waiting for something to happen. Each scene in every chapter was packed with purpose and direction, each page wasted no space. Every character had a job to do, and each was one of the best in the world at that job. Regarding the characterizations, although the story is set in modern times, these men often felt as if they were the stoic men of bronze from 1950’s serials. The characters felt dated, but the problems they tackled were quite modern.
By the end of the book, the characters and the circumstances reached a good stopping point. The object of worry, the Andromeda Strain itself, proved a challenge that had taxed the heroes of the story to their very limits. Some issues are addressed, and others are left unresolved. In my own zeal for the story, I’ve taken great pains to avoid revealing too much of the plot. It is best experienced in real time. All I can say is that the journey this book takes you on is worth the time investment. It’s a stellar read.
But not a perfect one. This is a story that begins with the end in mind. With all the truly amazing events that unfold in the book, what stands out most are the constant reminders from the narrator that the story was already over. This was my first time reading a book written by Mr. Crichton. I don’t know if he employs this technique in his other works, but I would have preferred that he kept his internal monologuing to himself. In one instance, a character forgets to replicate an action that he had performed on some lab rats. Narrator: “Later we learned that was a mistake.” In another, a character makes assumptions about a biological process. Narrator: “That action wasted days of our time.” The narrator frequently shares tidbits of the future, a narrative tool I would call “Poor Man's Foreshadowing.” The Andromeda Strain is such an engaging and suspenseful tale that I wished to remain in the present throughout my reading without Crichton yanking me out of it, offering glimpses of a future I wanted to reach without shortcuts.
That minor gripe aside, The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton is a thrilling mystery with high stakes. It is the kind of fact-based science fiction that I enjoy the most.
Speaking at the US Embassy today, Herman Kahn, director of the Hudson institute, gave his predictions of the coming “post-industrial culture”. As a result of the massive amount of technological change coming and the secularization of society, he predicts that by 1985, there will emerge five major personality types: neo-materialist, neo-epicurian, neo-stoic, neo-gentleman and anti-establishment types who could be called neo-cynics.
Need both of these cars in your life? You may be a neo-materialist
The neo-materialist is a person who is advancement oriented, but simply because they are interested in gaining a large income so they can consume as much as possible. This would be the kind of person who would get a brand new Cadillac every year because they cannot bear to be seen in last-year’s model.
Southern California barbeque, the epitome of the neo-epicurian lifestyle
The neo-epicurian is a home-oriented individual who values socializing with friends and family above all else.
The kind of environment a neo-stoic might be happy in
The neo-stoic is the devoted bureaucrat or soldier. One who gets their satisfaction from doing their duty well, as opposed to gaining material reward.
Superhero, Inventor, Explorer, Polymath. Is Reed Richards a true neo-gentleman?
The neo-gentleman is the modern renaissance man. The kind of person for whom the gaining of a new skill is a purpose in itself. For example, a trained physicist who will suddenly decide to complete a marathon.
Two very different types of people, similar only in their dislike of post-industrial capitalist society
The final group are the anti-establishment neo-cynics. These are the groups that reject what is offered by contemporary society and want to replace it with something different. This is a broad camp containing those from the peaceful progressives, like the hippies, to violent reactionaries, like the KKK.
The coming challenge will be ensuring the satisfaction of the four establishment groups. In doing so it would keep down the number of neo-cynics, who, if they become large enough, would cause the breakdown of society.
This is a tougher task than it first appears. If black people are all stuck in low-paid jobs, the materialists among them will be unhappy and they may turn to anti-social methods to achieve their goals. Or, if the Vietnam War ends in the fall South-East Asia to the Communists, neo-stoics in government jobs may no longer feel satisfied serving an incompetent regime that sent thousands of people to die for nothing.
Or to put it in simplified terms, if liberal capitalism is to survive everyone needs access to prosperity, community, rewarding work and self-improvement.
This is one possible look at our future that has come from America to British shores. Another is in the form of Star Trek. Not on the small screen but in comic books.
Meet the Star-Trekkers
Now the adaptation of a television show into strip form is not surprising. I have read everything from Burke’s Law through The Monkees to Crossroads in British comic books. What is unusual is they have done it for a programme that has not aired in the UK yet, and so will have little to no name recognition among Century 21 readers.
As the name might suggest, Joe 90 Top Secret is a comic book setup primarily to support Gerry Anderson’s new TV show about the pre-teen superspy. As that is only one strip of the five required (and the other Gerry Anderson shows remain in TV Century 21 and Tornado) others were needed to fill the requisite pages. One is an original weird sports story. The others are recent telefantasy series The Champions and Land of the Giants.
For the final central colour strip Star Trek was chosen. As I said I am not sure what the thought process behind this was. There are other adventure series airing that might well have appealed to this kind of audience such as Department S, Virgin of the Secret Service, The Legend of Jesse James or The Tyrant King. But, whatever the reason for the selection, I am glad they did it as it has produced a fascinating space adventure series.
Roll Call
A number of people have asked me this so I want to confirm these are not the same strips being published by Gold Key in the USA. They are made by completely different people, with the American ones done by an Italian team, whilst the British have the home-grown pairing of Angus Allan and Harry F. Lindfield.
There is one similarity though: none of those involved would have been able to see the show. As such both have developed their own takes based on the information provided to them.
Some of this is just simple confusion, with the Captain being referred to as Kurt and Kirk at different times, but I have been told many of the elements are different. So, what actually happens in these adventures?
Each story involves the crew of the Universe Star Ship Enterprise, exploring new planets in distant galaxies. Usually the Captain will try to establish peaceful contact with an alien race but will inevitably be drawn into a violent conflict that he will have to use his ingenuity to resolve.
There are two main crew members who feature in these stories. The first is Captain Kurt\Kirk, the lead who takes on the main action roles. Although ostensibly a diplomat, he is rarely diplomatic, happy to throw his weight around or kill without mercy if it will protect his crew or be for the greater good.
His sidekick is Mr. Spock the ship’s “living computer”. He is a technical and scientific genius able to provide miraculous solutions, whenever it is called for by the story. Also fiercely loyal to the Captain, happy to obey his orders without question and take over command duties in his absence.
We do meet some others, such as the helmsman Mr. Bailey and Dr. McCoy, however they are rarely used differently from the large numbers of crew members doing various space-age jobs or suffering grisly fates (the fatality rate for this ship is rather high).
Two of the Space Bugs
Whilst the Enterprise itself is capable of inter-galactic and hyper-space travel, it primarily operates as the main command post. Much of the travelling in orbit and to planets is completed by the Space Bugs, wagons launched from the Enterprise capable of both space and terrestrial flight, and with weaponry to operate like fighter jets.
Multiple repair wagons in action
The other type of craft we see commonly are the Repair Wagons. As the name would suggest they are similar to the Bugs (although with the patterning of New York Taxis) but instead of weaponry they are outfitted with repair gear. Given how often the Enterprise gets bashed about, they are a common feature.
Now you understand the setting, what about the stories?
Opening the Logbook
(I am giving these each a name based on the most common descriptors in the story recaps of each issue)
Story 1: Planet of Robots
The Enterprise is pulled against its will down on to a planet entirely inhabited by robots, who attempt to take all the crew prisoner. After escaping, Kurt and Spock discover that a million years ago a humanoid race built the robots and left them to reproduce. However, their power is now running out.
The robots need the power rods from the Enterprise to continue their civilization, however without them the ship is useless. Kurt converts the rods into explosive devices and puts them right in the main power core of the robots, destroying them entirely.
Kurt’s questionable choice
It is a curious choice to have the opening story being one that is so downbeat. Here Kurt chooses genocide as a means of safeguarding his crew. Even the records of the million year old human civilization are likely blown up. But I also think it is what makes it fascinating. Rather than a comforting silly tale, it acts as a statement of intent, that these are not all going to be jolly japes in space.
Story 2: Mutiny!
In the middle of exploring Crucial-3, Spock realizes the planet is about to blow-up. The landing party manages to make it back just in time, but their minds have been altered by the planet’s pollen. Angered at nearly being killed they demand they not be assigned to further landing parties and Spock to lead all of them in future. When Kirk refuses, he, Bailey, Sulu and McCoy are marooned in a Bug.
Eventually managing to make planetfall on Vultra, the four outcast crew are met by Zella, the planet’s dictator. It is revealed Vultra, like Crucial-3 is also on the verge of destruction and Zella demands to be taken off. Whilst Kirk refuses to help Zella unless they can concoct a plan to evacuate the whole planet, Zella is able to duplicate Kirk’s voice pattern and take control of the bug.
Meanwhile, on board the Enterprise, Spock is leading the fight against the mutineers whilst also searching for a counter-spore. When Zella flies up in the Bug the mutineers believe it is an attack from Kirk and destroy the craft with their laser-ray gun. Believing the Captain is dead, Spock takes the risk of surrendering to the mutineers whilst unleashing the counter-spore in spray form. It works and the crews’ minds return.
Back down on Vultra, with Zella gone, Kirk is able to work with their scientists to adapt their primitive spacecraft to interplanetary travel and help launch a planet-wide evacuation. Seeing these strange makeshift craft, Spock sends a team down to investigate. Kirk and the others are able to reboard the Enterprise and together they guide the Vultrans to a new home.
Even though the shortest tale, this one is a bit more plot heavy than the others. I appreciated the way Allan and Lindfield manage to balance the dual narrative. Whilst there is still some plot convenience (not sure how the Captain was able to get all those primitive craft reworked so quickly with only a doctor and a couple of pilots to help) it moved along in an exciting way.
In contrast to the previous story, we are able to see Kirk’s strong moral character. Even though he is almost killed by the violent primitive aliens on Vultra, he is more keen to protect them, than Zella who is trying to schmooze him. And he objects to any punishment of the mutineers on the grounds that they were not in their right minds.
Story 3: The Space Zoo
On the hyper-spatial planet Angoma, Kirk is engaged in ceremonial gladiatorial combat. After completing the ritual, Kirk has a meeting with King Kut, the leader of the pacifist gorilla inhabitants. However, their discussions are interrupted when they are told people have just vanished. Helping with the investigation the landing party go to the site of the disappearance when they are taken away in a beam of light.
They find they have been teleported to an alien zoo, on a planet of preying mantises. Unable to communicate with their captors the crew break out at night using their lasers and break into the Mantis’ teleport room. Unfortunately they don’t land back on Angorma but on a world of human cannibals. However, Spock has followed the transport beam’s signal in the Enterprise and rescue everyone. Back on Angroma the Enterprise crew is able to teach the Gorilla people an alternative to gladiatorial combat—soccer!
This is definitely my least favourite of the stories published so far. Space zoos are too much of a cliché for my tastes. This one also incorporates Planet of the Apes and “dangerous savages” for no reason I can work out. There is something interesting in the idea of the insectoid life simply unable to consider mammalians to be civilized but it isn’t well explored.
Story 4: Caught in a War
Coming into a new planetary system, the Enterprise is attacked by a surprise missile barrage. After they are immobilized, a fleet of ships comes to greet them. It turns out the twin planets of Nuofo and Hytar are in a state of civil war with their leaders Ari and Irf determined to rule both.
Against his better judgement, Kirk agrees to be a mediator but neither side is willing to back down. In the middle of these discussions an invasion of the Enterprise is launched, apparently by Ari’s forces. Beating them back, Kirk demands an explanation from Ari but he denies all knowledge. Sick of this, he sends crews to arrest them both, destroying their defence fleets and forcing them to talk.
However, ships are still dropping missiles on cities, in spite of both leaders being in prison and their forces being depleted. They come to realise a third people, the Desta, have been attacking disguised as Hytar and Nuofo ships in order to create the conflict.
After extracting a promise to hold democratic election and abide by the result from both parties, Kirk orders the Enterprise to take out the Desta. The Universe Star Ship soon makes short work of the attackers and they permanently retreat. Two weeks later, elections are held under Kirk’s guidance. A third-party candidate wins by an overwhelming majority, bringing peace and unity back to the two planets.
Whilst I am not entirely convinced of Kirk’s methods (although it seems he is just trying to do his best in an impossible situation), it is the most exciting of the four stories. We see mass space battles throughout and giant fleets that I imagine no one could afford on screen. And, although it is a bit muddled, I do appreciate the message on the pointlessness of civil war to solve leadership disputes.
Trans-Atlantic Futures After all that Star Trekking, a Captain needs his rest
Having shown this strip to Americans who have watched the show, the general opinion is that it is not bad but doesn’t quite feel the same. Rather it resembles things from the earliest days of the televisual Star Trek, when they are trying to figure out what the rules would be.
Given all the positive things I have heard about the series, I am hoping we get it on British screens soon. However, in the meantime, I get to enjoy these stories. They are the kind of space adventure I prefer. Those that are willing to move beyond the simple derring-do of Dan Dare and Jet-Ace Logan to give more complexity. Something akin to the Trigan Empire stories.
I was interested in reading this month’s Ace Double because I’d never read any Rackham, but had heard some good things about his writing. Ipomoea turned out to be a mixed bag, a pacy adventure story with some interesting themes that didn’t quite live up to its early promise.
Cover of Ipomoea
The story takes place in a future society where interplanetary travel is as easy as taking an ocean liner is now, and a small number of people are making it rich on a trio of exoplanets which are within easy reach of Earth’s solar system. Our protagonist, Sam Hutten, is the son of one of those exoplanetary billionaires, but he has rejected his father and is now working as a sociologist on Earth. He receives, and obeys, a request to visit his father but clearly the request is more than social: assassination attempts, and contact with mysterious government agents investigating a new super-addictive drug going by the name of “Happy Sugar” (and derived from plants of the Ipomoea genus, hence the title), are to follow. When Hutten’s father turns up dead, Hutten investigates and finds a plot for universal domination by another of the billionaires, involving the drug and some gems capable of mentally conditioning their wearer.
There’s some very good and timely ideas here. The drug plot clearly draws on anxieties in the news about the possibility that the “tune in, turn on, drop out” culture of today might make people susceptible to influence by Communists or worse. There are also some good SFnal touches of imagined technology, with humanoid robots and a character who has, Frankenstein-like, been formed through melding three different people (meaning he lacks an ego and is therefore conveniently immune to psionic suggestion).
However, what I found most intriguing about the novella was the initial setup of a world where Japan has become the dominant economic and cultural power. Rackham’s argument is that the Japanese will come to this position through their production of cheap goods at low prices: “They made their stuff cheap not in competition, not to undercut anyone else, but because it could be made cheap.” Through pursuing excellence for its own sake, rather than in pursuit of conquest, they become top nation. While I’m not thoroughly convinced at the idea that the Japanese are non-competitive, the country’s recent technological and economic progress suggests that a Japanese-dominated twenty-first century might not be an outside possibility. This idea that success is achieved through non-competition and selflessness becomes a thematic link through the book, in that the villain enslaves his victims psionically through appealing to their subconscious desires, and it is only through sublimating the ego that one can resist.
Unfortunately, a lot of this early setup goes by the wayside. Apart from a few brief scenes, we don’t actually get much sense that this world is Japanese-influenced. Although this might be excused on the grounds that the villains, on the exoplanet, appear to be Europeans and into the idea of racial purity, one would expect a bit more comment on the distinction between their worlds and Earth from our protagonist.
Furthermore, we never get much exploration of why Hutten became estranged from his family, or why he became a sociologist beyond that this allows him long passages of exposition on the nature of society. Indeed, by about three-quarters of the way in Hutten’s profession appears to have been forgotten, as the story takes a sharp twist into James Bond territory. Hutten and his special agent friends must bring down a villain who is depressingly keen on making speeches explaining his plans for universal domination, and the resolution is telegraphed rather obviously to the reader.
It’s even more disappointing since, early in the story, Hutten argues, based on the rise of the Japanese, that “world domination will not work, either through force or persuasion… No government can long persist against the will of the governed,” which suggests that, if that theme were pursued, the villain would be defeated through collective action on the part of the people. Instead, we get superheroes with convenient powers saving the day, without any challenge to the economic status quo that, for all Hutten’s speechifying about the Japanese values of doing well by doing good simply for its own sake, has allowed eight billionaires to dominate its economy. A more self-aware novella might have made something of the cognitive dissonance between Hutten’s theories and the fact that the world he’s in doesn’t work that way at all (to say nothing of Hutten’s complete obliviousness of this problem), but not this one.
Two and a half stars, mostly for the setup.
Cover of The Brass Dragon
I won’t say too much about the second half of the double, The Brass Dragon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It’s an oddly good fit with the Rackham but for the wrong reasons, namely that it also sets up an intriguing mystery only for the revelation to prove rather disappointing.
The story revolves around Barry Cowan, a young man who turns up in a Texas hospital with no memory of his past life other than a vague impression that he used to live in California, a few disconnected memories of some place that may or may not be Earth, and a little brass statue of a dragon in his pocket. The mystery builds as he is found by his (very normal) family and returned home, but is stalked by strange people apparently looking for something in his possession, and who threaten him and his family. Is he a time-traveler? An arrival from a parallel universe? An alien in human form?
About halfway through the narrative, his memory is restored, and everything falls into place for himself and for the reader. In case anyone here is planning on reading this, I won’t reveal too much other than to say that it becomes a fairly straightforward, even banal, space adventure. I’m also not quite sure who the intended audience is: the age of the protagonist (eighteen) suggests it’s supposed to be a juvenile, but there’s no real reason why he couldn’t be an adult.
A funny thing happened to me on the way to my magazines recently. I had already read my copy of Six Gates From Limbo, from Michael Joseph when I saw it was being serialized in If. I delayed my reading of these issues but I did look at my colleague David’s reviews of them. This is when a few odd things occurred to me.
Firstly, it took place over two issues which also contained many other stories, yet my issues of If were not particularly thick to make up for this. In addition, I noticed David’s reviews stated how rushed the story seemed, when no such point had occurred to me.
Now I know magazines do cut down stories, but this had no explanation as this was essentially a novella version. When New Worlds is forced to cut down, they have given summaries of what has been excised and have been the subject of attacks in fanzines for losing parts of the original content. I have not yet seen anyone had comment on this in the case of If.
So, in the obsessive way I like to do things, I performed a chapter-by-chapter wordcount comparison to see what was lost. By my estimation, the serialized form constitutes only around 40% of the novel length!
This is not as much of a change between the novelette and novel versions of Flowers For Algernon but not dissimilar to the different versions of Drowned World. As such I thought some in-depth investigating was in order.
To start with, where have the changes been made? The answer is, throughout. The only chapter which appeared to be in-tact is the final one. This makes some sense as the final discussion between Rex and Regina is necessary to accentuate the themes. In addition, it is the shortest so there is less to remove.
The only other without much cut from it is the next shortest chapter, Rex’s return to Limbo from Mercury. From the rest, all have between 40 and 80% of their content removed.
As such, the central plot remains predominantly the same. Three people awake in an idyllic artificial environment with six portals to other planets. They investigate through them but find each flawed in some way. They have to work out what has happened and what they will do about it.
What changes between the novel and magazine versions are the details and emphasis. To take the “return to Limbo” chapter that I mentioned before, the start provides a good example of what is often removed:
Here are the first few paragraphs in its serialized form:
His awakening in Limbo was the worst of the three he had experienced, but there was one good thing about it. Regina was there. She was crying. Vaguely he gathered he’d been gone seventeen days.
Tiny as she was, she had virtually carried him home and left him in the bathroom.
An hour later, desperately tired and weak, but clean, he managed to stagger to bed. He was surprised and hurt that Regina wasn’t anywhere upstairs.
Then through his fatigue he sniffed and found enough energy to get out of bed again. Regina was cooking grilled steak…
He went down in his pajamas. When he arrived, Regina was pouring the wine.
And in the book form:
Regina got him back to the house with some difficulty. She was crying – vaguely he gathered he’d been gone seventeen days. In Limbo it was night. She had rushed to the Gateway in her nightdress the moment she sensed his return.
This awakening was the worst of the three because he had no sleep and little food on Mercury. Only some twelve hours after the ordeal of transference, it had been repeated. The thirst was familiar, and the hunger, but this time there was also a desperate lassitude and weakness that put talking out of the question, other than the occasional gasped word.
Again he had his memory unimpaired and he wanted to restore himself the way that seemed natural to him, by crawling in the bushes, chewing fruit, drinking clear water and bathing in the lake. But the lake, Regina reminded him, was seven miles away, and the house less than one mile.
Tiny as she was, she had virtually carried him home and left him in the bathroom.
An hour later, desperately tired and weak, but clean, he managed to stagger to bed. He was surprised and hurt that Regina wasn’t anywhere upstairs.
Then through his fatigue he sniffed and found enough energy to get out of bed again. Regina was cooking grilled steak…It couldn’t be fresh killed meat, because Regina on her own would certainly not have killed a cow or a bull but it smelled far fresher than anything he had smelled in Mercury.
He went down in his pyjamas. When he arrived, Regina was pouring the wine.
As you can see the facts given are largely the same, but the serialized form lacks any reasoning or flavour. You do not need to know that Rex welcomes the return to the naturalness of life in Limbo compared to the artificiality of Mercury via his thoughts on food as a restorative, but it highlights the themes and makes him a more fleshed-out character.
But are there more substantive changes? Limbo is much more thoroughly explored in the novel, with details of the flora and fauna greatly expanded, along with the nature of their maintenance. With this it is also made explicit the parallels with Adam and Eve, with Regina believing the gateways are the serpent, along with many references to Greek mythology.
Another key element is that the magazine does not contain Rex’s vivid dreams. I can see that they could seem superfluous but I would argue they are, in fact, important for understanding the ending.
I do feel the book length version is more likely to appeal to the hippy crowd, with its rejection of society and the ecological themes.
As David noted, many of the planets get short shrift in the magazine version and that is definitely a notable difference. In addition to much more detail and complexity applied to the transfers, the six gateway worlds are expanded, even Mercury which had the longest section in the magazine. Along with the aforementioned discussions on the artificiality of food, there are also mentions of isolation, suicide kiosks, people overdosing on Pex and other such features of the city.
Possibly the most frustrating excision is almost an entire chapter laying the groundwork about the people on Cresta, why they are central to the final plan and then subsequent sections on what happened as a result. It is instead reduced to Rex making the gateway switch and saying he told someone on the planet about it. Which, even with the final chapter intact, likely makes it confusing for most readers.
So, would my opinion be that the book version is better? Unfortunately not, for there is another element that was expunged by Pohl and it is one I wish McIntosh had not included in his novel: the poor treatment of Regina. (Those of a sensitive disposition may be advised to skip the rest of this section).
Regina in sexual slavery on Landfall. Not linked to her womanhood in magazine form.
McIntosh’s restrained descriptions of Regina in the serial brought praise from David. Unfortunately, this is definitely not the case in its book form. There Rex sees her as a “girl”, a young nineteen to his twenty-five, with regular descriptions of how pert her breasts are and “child-like” her body is. This is until she is almost raped and turned into a sex slave on Landfall. It is only at that point he can see her as a woman.
Unfortunately, this isn’t even the first rape scene. After his return from Mercury, Rex attempts to rape Regina declaring:
I waited, remember? But after a man and woman are wed, with or without ceremony, after they made love, he can’t rape her. You’re mine, Regina.
Mr. McIntosh is certainly not a devotee of Betty Friedan or Simone de Beauvoir.
If you want my judgement each version succeeds and fails in different ways. Somewhere there is a full length-version which removes the questionable details but continues to expand on the more interesting themes and ideas McIntosh draws out.
Two Stars for both variations
by Brian Collins
Both of the novels I got for this month did not work out, sadly; but interestingly they're failures of different breeds, or rather they fail in different ways. I've read much of what Anne McCaffrey has written over the past few years while this is my first time reading Kenneth Bulmer. Both are pretty close in age, indeed being of the literary generation that preceded the New Wave. How have they adapted—or more importantly, how have they not?
Anne McCaffrey technically debuted over fifteen years ago, though she has only been writing consistently for the past few years. In those few years she has built quite the following. She became the first woman to win a Hugo in any of the fiction categories, and her Pern and "The Ship Who…" stories have undoubtedly been popular. I'm not a fan.
Decision at Doona is a new standalone novel from McCaffrey, with a premise that will sound familiar for those who remember the Good Old Days of science fiction—the early '50s, incidentally when McCaffrey sold her first story. It's the future, and humanity is scouting for habitable planets, mainly because there's no room left on Earth. Humans live in alcoves, like bees, and have basically depleted the planet's resources. Finding a planet fit for human colonization would already be difficult, but there's an extra criterion: the planet must be devoid of intelligent life comparable to mankind. Doona at first seems like the perfect candidate—until it isn't. The Hrrubans, a race of cat-like aliens, already live on Doona, keeping their existence secret from the first human scouts. The Hrrubans are about as "civilized" as the humans, but that's not going to help either party, as mankind finds itself at an impasse.
So, a first-contact narrative in which, by sheer coincidence, two advanced races meet on a planet which doesn't strictly belong to either of them. The humans are haunted by the collective memory of having encountered another intelligent race before, the Siwannese, which ended tragically. I will say, how the Siwannese became extinct is not what you would expect if you're familiar with colonialism in the Americas. Then again, I'm not sure McCaffrey did much research with regards to real-world colonialism. To give McCaffrey some credit she does delve into the subject, which is an inherently thorny one, with characters even referring to Christopher Columbus with some shame. The central question of the novel, though, that of whether the Hrrubans are indigenous to Doona (if they are then the humans must pull out, and if not then there's room for cooperation), is an odd one that assumes would-be colonizers have the best intentions with a would-be indigenous population.
The strangely tone-deaf optimism and belief in colonizers as basically good people (as opposed to people actively perpetuating a system of death and imprisonment) is a tune that will sound familiar to Analog subscribers. Indeed it's here where I think McCaffrey's key to success lies. While I'm not personally fond of McCaffrey's writing, it's not hard to see why she has become so popular in the past few years. Reading her must be a comfort for a lot of people. After all, in McCaffrey's world it's 1959 and not 1969. Ike is still in office, and Jack Kennedy is a strapping young senator—and alive. Vietnam is a country without any acreage in the minds of suburban Americans. Unfortunately Jack Kennedy is dead and so are we, in some metaphysical sense. We have cast the runes against our own souls. But for McCaffrey, and indeed for the humans within this novel, nothing much has changed since 1959. The distant future will not be too different from how it was in the Good Old Days. Now isn't that a comforting thought?
To make matters more worrying, McCaffrey is just not a very good writer. Even comparing her to some other conservatives (and I do believe McCaffrey is a conservative) in the field, like Poul Anderson and Larry Niven, her worlds and aliens are not as vibrant. Anderson, whose politics are very different from mine, can still be interesting because of his moodiness and at times surprising moral complexity, whereas McCaffrey might be living under a rock. The Hrrubans reminded me somewhat of Niven's Kzinti, but whereas the Kzinti can be easily distinguished from spacefaring humans, McCaffrey's aliens are more analogous to American indigenous peoples. And Doona itself is such a boring location, with barely any thought or writing given to description and mechanics. Surely we deserve better than this.
I got mailed this new Bulmer, a British import, because Kris Vyas-Myall is a Bulmer fan and I've not read any of his work before. This may have been a bad idea for a starting point. Firstly, what the hell is this cover? Who is responsible? The artist is uncredited so I'm actually not sure. The novel itself is evidently an attempt on Bulmer's part to get hip with the kids, so to speak. The Ulcer Culture is a dystopian SF novel all about drugs (especially drugs), sex, and violence; and yet I was still bored for much of it.
The plot doesn't really exist, and anyway it would be hard to summarize. The world of the novel is more the point, ya know. It's the future, in what I have to think is fish-and-chips merry goddamn England, and it's "the Age of Material Plenty." There are two groups of people, the Uppers (haha) and the workers, with the former keeping the latter in check with a hallucinogen called Joy Juice. The welfare state has gotten out of hand, with workers lounging around experiencing lifelike hallucinations, having a far-out time as it were. The real problem starts when, for no apparent reason, these hallucinations which normally would provide fantasies for the workers start turning nightmarish. Is the drug supply going bad? Are people's bodies adapting to the drug and having adverse effects? Who really killed Jack Kennedy? Why am I asking you?
Now, science fiction has had a storied history with drugs. When Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World almost forty years ago, he theorized that drugs could be used to pacify the proletariat and reinforce subservience, through a Freudian understanding of pleasure. Baby wants nipple, baby cries until he gets nipple, baby acquires nipple, baby stops crying. Huxley would later change his mind profoundly on the subject of drug use, although it seems Bulmer has not gotten the memo. The problem for the reader is that The Ulcer Culture reads like a middle-aged conservative's attempt at trying to understand the hedonistic antics of the younger generation. This is a "New Wave" novel, but within limits. Sexuality plays a major role, yet women only appear in the margins and to a symbolic capacity; and despite the lack of female interest there's no mention of homosexuality. I thought the British were all about buggering each other. Is that the word? And there's basically no swearing either—no "cock," no "pussy," not even a token "fuck" thrown in as a treat.
At first I was led to believe Bulmer knew what he was doing, but then I realized he's merely puppeteering the corpse of some nonexistent New Wave writer with this outing—which, mind you, is a failure in writing that was not due to laziness or cowardice. I don't like it, but I at least respect the effort.
There has been an invasion at my trusty local import bookstore, an invasion of scantily clad, muscular Barbarians, sporting furry loincloths and horned helmets and brandishing gigantic swords and axes, while equally scantily clad maidens cling to their mighty thews.
The genre that Fritz Leiber dubbed "swords and sorcery" was born forty years ago almost to the day, when Robert E. Howard's "The Shadow Kingdom" was published, instigating a veritable invasion of sword-wielding heroes and heroines into the pages of Weird Tales, Strange Tales and Unknown. The first Barbarian boom only lasted a little more than ten years, cut short by the death or defection of many of its authors as well as World War II paper shortages and changing reader tastes.
However, in the past ten years, Barbarian scouts have occasionally made forays into a landscape dominated by science fiction, making camp in the pages of Fantastic in the US and Science Fantasy in the UK, recruiting fans and authors penning new adventures for modern day Barbarians. Then, four years ago, the walls were breached with the runaway success of Lancer's Conan reprints and the Barbarian hordes invaded the bookstore. Nowadays, there is more sword and sorcery on the shelves than there ever was during the genre's heyday in the thirties.
These days, whenever I go to my local import bookstore, half-naked Barbarians greet me from the paperback spinner rack, illustrated by Frank Frazetta, J. Jones or their lesser imitators. And I have to admit that I inevitably reach for the books with these striking covers to read the blurb on the back. For while not every scantily clad Barbarian can hold a candle to Robert E. Howard's Conan or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser or even John Jakes' Brak, even the lesser entries into the genre are at the very least entertaining.
The latest Barbarian to invade the bookstore shelves is the aptly named Kothar, Barbarian Swordsman, penned by pulp and comic book veteran Gardner F. Fox with a stunning cover by the talented J. Jones. The tagline promises that Kothar is "the mightiest fantasy hero of the enchanted, terrifying world before – or beyond – recorded time". With such hyperbole, how could I resist?
Two Distinguished Scholars – or are they?
However, the slim paperback does not open with Barbarian action. Instead, we get an introduction penned by one Donald MacIvers PhD. There are a lot of literary scholars in the world, but the number of academics who take pulp fiction and science fiction and fantasy seriously can be counted on both hands and Donald MacIvers PhD is not one of them. Fascinating…
MacIvers opens his introduction with a quote from Albert Kremnitz, whom he describes as "a German philosopher who is no longer widely read". Indeed, Albert Kremnitz is so little read that even my sixteen volume 1908 edition of the encyclopaedia Der Große Brockhaus has never heard of him. Hmm, the plot thickens…
MacIvers quotes Kremnitz stating that even though the Industrial Revolution would seem to have driven mysticism back, while science, technology and reason reign supreme, mysticism would rise again roughly in the middle of the twentieth century, bringing about a new Age of Heroes. For someone not even Der Große Brockhaus has heard of, Albert Kremnitz is certainly prescient.
MacIvers then informs us that this new Age of Heroes will lead to "the recreation of mythological supermen, or, as [Kremnitz] predicted with amazing insight, the invention of heroes so magnificent, so fantastically endowed with super-powers, that they exist only in the fantasy projections of man. Such a superhero is Kothar – Barbarian Swordsman."
At this point, I was beginning to suspect that Gardner F. Fox, who after all created the original Flash, Hawkman, Doctor Fate, and many other superheroes for National Comics, was pulling our collective leg here and that both Donald MacIvers PhD and Albert Kremnitz, a German philosopher so obscure that even Der Große Brockhaus has never of him, were in truth just alternate identities of Gardner F. Fox, who promptly describes himself as a "distinguished American writer".
Besides, Fox in the guise of Donald MacIvers PhD actually makes an interesting point here, namely that the disenchantment of modern life has given birth to our desire for larger than life heroes, be they the costumed superheroes of comic books, the square-jawed spacemen and brass-bra wearing maidens of golden age science fiction or the muscular and scantily clad Barbarians that have invaded our newsstands and bookstores of late. The reasons these stories are so popular, no matter how much literary scholars may decry them, is because we need them to escape our day to day reality for just a little while.
To quote MacIvers or rather Fox, "Kothar – Barbarian Swordsman is an epic hero for any age, but it would appear that our age needs him more than any other."
Bad Luck Barbarian
After this introduction, we get – no, not sword-swinging action, but a prologue informing us that "The Universe is old. Old!" just in case we didn't get it the first time. Fox sets the stage by telling us that Kothar's adventures take place eons after mankind has conquered the stars and "an empire of Man was spread throughout the universe. This empire died more than a billion years ago, after which man himself sank into a state of barbarism." So Kothar's world is closer to Jack Vance's Dying Earth than Robert E. Howard's Hyborean Age.
Once this prologue, billed as a fragment of "The Lord Histories of Satoram Mandamor", is over, we at last meet our hero, Kothar – Barbarian Swordsman. Though it seems that Kothar is not long for this world or any other, for at the beginning of the story "The Sword of the Sorcerer" (like the Conan, Kull or Fafhrd and Gray Mouser books, the novel is a fix-up of three novelettes) the sellsword Kothar is grievously wounded, having just lost a battle. On the run from enemy soldiers intent on capturing him and flaying him alive, Kothar stumbles into an ancient crypt, where he encounters the shrivelled corpse of the sorcerer Afgorkon. Raised from the dead by Queen Elfa, Afgorkon bestows upon Kothar the magical sword Frostfire, forged from a meteorite and able to cut through any substance, even steel. However, the blade comes with a curse, for as long as he wields Frostfire, Kothar must remain poor and possess nothing. Since Kothar is a mercenary, who fights strictly for gold and treasure, this is of course a problem.
However, before Kothar can figure out how to lift the curse upon his sword, he first has to defeat Lord Markoth, who has dethroned Queen Elfa. To no one's surprise, he succeeds, but not without picking up a second curse in the form of Red Lori, a beautiful witch in the employ of Markoth, whose spirit keeps haunting Kothar by day and night, appearing in a cup of ale and in his dreams, even though her body is imprisoned in a silver cage in Queen Elfa's castle.
The relationship between Kothar and the vengeful witch who haunts him is fascinating, especially since Red Lori is not above occasionally aiding Kothar, for none shall harm him until Red Lori has had her vengeance. It's almost a twisted love story.
After restoring Queen Elfa to her throne, Kothar, his devoted horse Greyling and the magical sword Frostfire, take off for more adventures and are hired to find "The Treasure in the Labyrinth", a treasure which happens to be guarded by all sorts of traps and monsters. After fighting his way through these traps and monsters – and rescuing a lovely and grateful maiden – Kothar faces the final guardian, a Minotaur straight out of Greek legend. Naturally, Kothar prevails and slays the Minotaur, but he is in for a surprise, for the Minotaur turns into a beautiful woman, the lover of a sorcerer who was cursed by his rival. Kothar has managed to lift this curse, though he still cannot lift his own and is promptly double-crossed by his employers, too, losing the treasure to them. However, Kothar's treacherous employers don't get to enjoy the treasure for long, before poetic justice strikes again…
In the final story, Kothar meets "The Woman in the Witch Wood", Lady Alaine of Shallone, who is forced to live alone in the woods, unable to leave due to a spell cast by the villainous Baron Gorfroi. Lady Alaine asks Kothar's help to free her and her people from this evil spell and sneak into the castle to slay the Baron and retrieve the means by which Lady Alaine is kept imprisoned, a lock of her white hair kept in a golden coffin. Unsurprisingly. Kothar succeeds, only to find himself double-crossed yet again by Lady Alaine who uses her magic to turn him into a dog. However, this time around, Kothar expected betrayal and in turn tricks the Lady Alaine…
Pure Barbarian Fun
Regardless of what Donald MacIvers PhD has to say, the adventures of Kothar are not as good as the works of past masters like Robert E. Howard, C.L. Moore and Clark Ashton Smith nor are they quite up to the standard set by the best of the modern practitioners of the genre such as Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny or Joanna Russ.
That said, Kothar – Barbarian Swordsman, is a lot of fun. It's the sort of book you will devour in one sitting – I did, interrupted only by consulting Der Große Brockhaus about the mysterious Albert Kremnitz – and smile throughout. Kothar may not be the most original of heroes, though there is enough to distinguish him from the other Barbarians clogging up bookshelves, and his adventures may not be the most original either, though there is usually at least one or two surprising twists. And while "the distinguished American author Gardner F. Fox" may not be Robert E. Howard or Fritz Leiber – but then who is? – he is a skilled enough writer to weave thoroughly entertaining tales. He is certainly a better writer than Lin Carter who pens similar stories.
I was debating how to rate this book. It's not a masterpiece nor Hugo material, but is so much fun that I shall give it four stars anyway. And should Mr. Fox ever decide to revisit Kothar – who after all is still suffering from the dual curse of sword-induced poverty and a sexy witch haunting him – I will certainly pick up further adventures of the sellsword from Cumberia.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory may have discovered clues to the origins of life in space. Looking at interstellar clouds, believed to be where planets and stars are formed, traces of formaldehyde have been detected.
140’ Radio Telescope at Green Bank, responsible for this discovery
The reason this is important is that it is a sign of the presence of methane, formaldehyde occurring in the oxidation process. From the Miller-Urey experiments, it is widely believed that for primitive life to occur, you need a reducing atmosphere to allow complex molecules to form. Along with already detected ammonia and water, these appear to show the elements needed for a reducing atmosphere are already present in these clouds.
If this is found to hold up, we may be a step closer to understanding the birth of life on Earth.
On British television, we are also seeing a kind of rebirth. Of Out of the Unknown without the driving force of Irene Shubik.
Out of the Unknown
With Shubik’s departure for The Wednesday Play, following the commissioning of scripts, it has been up to new producer Alan Bromly to make them a reality.
In many ways Bromly is the opposite of Shubik, an old hand at directing and TV production back to the early 50s, but with little experience in Science Fiction. Rather he has made a name for himself across a range of different productions, most notably the anthology slot BBC Sunday Night Theatre, soap opera Compact and films such as The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp.
So how did it turn out?
(I would like to take a brief moment to thank my colleague Fiona for using her contacts at the BBC to provide us with colour publicity photos. I am still using a Black & White set at home).
Big Prophets, Short Returns
The hunt for good science fiction begins.
This series of plays opens with a well-known novel, Robert Sheckley’s Immortality Inc. Even though this does a reasonable job of condensing the story into a 50-minute slot, and it bounces along quite nicely, I find both versions a bit soulless. I just find I am not really invested in who gets the body, which is a big problem for the central conflict.
“Why, yes I do look a lot younger than Cushing did, let’s not go on about it…”
Different issues plague the other novel adaptation of the season, Asimov’s The Naked Sun.
The script makes an effort to place this as a sequel to the 1964 production of The Caves of Steel, with Bailey opening the story talking about “Caves of Steel”, his delight at being partnered again with Daneel, and Secretary Minim referencing the previous case in Brooklyn. Even if Paul Maxwell (Fireball XL-5’s Steve Zodiac) is no Peter Cushing, he still does well paired-off against relative newcomer David Collings.
As people know of the original novel, the case is pretty interesting and, even if at times it feels a bit overwrought with all the yelling, the twists and turns of the story kept me engaged. The problem stems from the conversations largely being communicated through viewscreens. Unfortunately, whilst Rudolph Cartier is an experienced director (and did a great job on Level Seven), he fails to give it flair Saville did in The Machine Stops.
Herbie awakes to find himself in yet another Asimov adaptation
Of course, Shubik could never choose just one Asimov script, so our second is Liar! Robot romantic comedies seem to have become a regular feature of Out of the Unknown (see also Andover and the Android, Satisfaction Guaranteed) but this one missed the mark for me somewhat.
This has never been my favourite of Asimov’s Robot stories and the teleplay has similar issues. I find the psychic robot too contrived and I really don’t enjoy how much of it is built around Calvin’s attraction to her colleague.
It is well-made and Gifford gives a great performance as the robot psychologist (now her third on-screen depiction), so it will probably appeal more to others. But it is not entirely to my tastes.
“I am no longer just Captain Blue, I am now also Captains Lilac, Pink, Fuschia, Green and Khaki”
The third big name writer to be adapted in this run is Clifford Simak and his stories are the ones that tread into the most traditionally SFnal territory, starting with the first contact tale of Beach Head.
I will concede that it looks excellent, with the unusual design of the robots and the aliens being particularly noteworthy. However, this was the weakest installment for me, with three different problems.
Firstly, not all of the performances are pitched right, particularly Ed Bishop playing the lead role very broadly. This is more important in this story where neither the robots nor the aliens speak or emote. As such we rely on the human actors to carry the weight.
Secondly, the action in the first half is divided between robots outside and humans inside, making the pacing glacial until the aliens arrive.
Finally and most significantly, as Victoria said in her review of the original tale, this is not a particularly good example of a puzzle story and it doesn’t add up to much. So, however much it is nice to look at, you spend your time going through a lot of dull content for a rather empty ending.
Set course for planetfall…again!
The other Simak marks another first for Out of the Unknown, Shubik electing to remake a script already done for Out of this World, Target Generation.
Even those SF fans who did not catch its first use will find the tale a familiar one. It is not that it is not a good exploration of the standard themes about blind faith and static thinking leading to our doom, just not one with many surprises. Possibly one for the casual viewer not so aware of science fiction cliches.
Medical Marvels
Channeling his inner Timothy Leary to find the truth in a pill
The Yellow Pill is also a script reused from Out of This World, actually being the first episode of that series, yet I felt its restaging works better than the Simak. This is because it is somewhat more unusual in its content.
Whilst its staging could feel a bit old fashioned, largely only utilising a single set, this play-like feeling adds to the sense of unreality we are meant to experience. Add into this a strong script, great performances and the questioning of what is real, and it still feels fresh.
The most important use of futuristic medical devices, removing bags under the eyes
The Yellow Pill is only one of several scripts that concentrate on the medical aspects of technological progress. Kornbluth’s The Little Black Bag looks at what might happen if future medical equipment ends up in the past.
Even though I feel this has a solid idea at its core, the episode could have done with a bit of a reworking. It does have some great moments (particularly in the last ten minutes), however the pacing goes back and forth too much for my tastes. I also found that parts are over-explained, whilst other vital questions are left hanging.
The generation gap on show
Michael Ashe’s The Fosters (an original for OOTU) seems at first like it might be a piece of domestic drama about the conflict between respectable middle-class families and rebellious youth. But it unfolds nicely in little moments, with the titular couple’s unusual knowledge and strange eating habits bringing with it unease and tension. Even though the end reveal is a bit of a letdown, the journey is a strong one.
Pregnancy screening has come a long way from HIT
Even though the UK’s fertility rate has been steadily declining for the last few years, overpopulation is still a major topic among SF writers. Brian Hayles (of Ice Warrior fame) continues that discussion in 1+1=1.5, an original where the wife of a population control officer becomes pregnant for the second time.
The result is a bit of a mixed bag. It has interesting elements with the catchy jingles on population control, reminiscent of The Year of the Sex Olympics, and it has in its lead roles the great pairing of Bernard Horsfall and Julia Lockwood.
However, I found the mystery of how Mary got pregnant was overemphasized, resulting in a rather dull conclusion, when I would have preferred a focus on the more interesting human side.
The Human Element
“I wonder if I can get the cricket on this?”
This human element can be seen in the final of the original productions, Donald Bull’s Something in the Cellar. This is a Nigel Kneale-esque production, putting a science fictional twist on the gothic haunted house story.
I will concede it does stretch out a bit, but it is still spooky and character driven, with the voice of the “mum” being particularly unsettling.
Two Worlds, how to choose between them?
This kind of character-driven storytelling is also present in John Wyndham’s Random Quest, a story of dual time-scales.
Whilst I was never as much of a fan of this Wyndham as some of his other works, and found the script a bit drawn out, I cannot fault the production overall. The design of the parallel universe England is well realized, with the Edwardian touches being very clever. It would also be easy to find the whole conceit rather confusing, but the crew did a great job of helping the audience understand the split in the narrative.
Apparently, this has gone down extremely well and there has even been interest floated in adapting it for the big screen.
An inebriated Hale doesn’t realise the trouble coming to him
Even though the original story, as Mark noted, is nothing special, this is a largely straight adaptation raised up by a number good choices:
• The casting of George Cole and Peter Halliday as Hale and Wilson respectively.
• Jeremy Paul expands the wider implications of the tale, making mentions of problems of inflation, sexuality and psychological breakdown.
• Making the death of Wilson the mid-point of the story, rather than the ending.
• Douglas Camfield’s direction making it a creepy tale of paranoia instead of a farce.
I do find it curious Shubik chose it for the same season as the conceptually similar Immortality Inc., but this one shines rather than dulls in comparison.
“It is all quite simple. You are actually a science fiction writer, in a dream, that is drawing from SF cliches, that is part of a teleplay on BBC2, which is adapted from a novelette, originally published in Astounding Magazine.”
The series is finished with one of its finest ever productions, Get Off Of My Cloud.
Adapted from the excellent story Dreams are Sacred by Peter Phillips (well known to British readers due to its inclusion in the highly regarded Spectrum III anthology) it is a comical take on the cliches of pulp science fiction whilst also asking questions about the nature of fantasy versus reality.
As well as transferring the setting to the UK and adding in some wonderful Britishisms (Raymond Cusick did the design work for this episode and his incorporation of Daleks and the TARDIS are marvelous) it also builds on the idea of our childhood fears and looks at how we conquer them.
The Queen is Dead, Long Live the King
Just a few of the excellent SF anthologies currently available at your local bookshop
Whilst there have been teething troubles in a few of the stories, overall, I have enjoyed this season. It continues to show the value of the science fiction anthology series which, just like its paperback equivalent, offers a great way to explore a multitude of themes and ideas.
Whatever mysteries are unlocked by scientists, I have no doubt that SF writers will continue to find interesting questions to explore and there will be a place for this kind of television.
Following their marriage in Gibraltar, experimental artist Yoko Ono and her husband, John Lennon, did something unusual for their honeymoon. In Amsterdam they stayed in bed… for peace.
In complete contrast to the infamous Two Virgins album cover, they were fully attired and let the press observe them for 8 hours a day during their week long stay. They said they wanted to promote peace via staying put and letting their hair grow out.
Is this a way to use their fame for a good cause? Or a stunt to drum up publicity? Whatever the case may be, it has drummed up a lot of media attention and discussion. And it is also certain the modern media has made communication of a message across the world easier than ever before.
Whether or not it will have any lasting effect remains the question, both for this protest and the short-lived quarterly magazine, Famous Science Fiction.
The cover and first internal art illustrate the main novella for this issue, the first in Diffin’s Dark Moon series. This was first published in Astounding’s May 1931 issue.
The original, looks better in colour
In this tale, earthquakes and tidal waves are plaguing the Earth, and mysterious creatures are attacking airliners. This all seems related to a new satellite that has entered orbit, a “dark moon” (named as such because it can only be seen when it transverses other bodies).
Travelling to explore this world are Chet Bullard and Walter Harkness, two Howard Hughes-esque business magnates, pursued by their rival Herr Schwartzmann.
It is full of the cliches of the day, including villainous Central Europeans, radium powered weapons, rescuing of a damsel-in-distress and giant insectoid and serpentine monsters. It also has the usual tendency of pulp fiction for over-description to the point of redundancy.
However, it moves along well, like a Douglas Fairbank adventure movie, with enough derring-do to keep you entertained. In addition, it makes more efforts than most short stories to place us fully in this future world, with mentions of a prior invasion from mole people living under the Earth and explanations of the fashions of the 1970s (apparently Harkness dresses much the same way I do in my profile picture).
This is a hard story to truly judge as it is really only the first section of a trilogy of tales. The cover image doesn’t take place until three quarters of the way through and they soon simply return to Earth. If it was written today, it probably wouldn’t gain more than two stars. However, I will be generous, in due deference to age, and give it a low Three Stars.
Art and Artiness by Lester Del Rey
This is the text of Del Rey’s speech that he was unable to give at the 1967 WorldCon. In essence, it is a broad-side against the New Wave. Whilst there are some interesting points that could be discussed, such as whether man in a crisis acts selfishly or selflessly, it comes across to me more as a poorly considered rant including such statements as:
“Art has been used as a cop-out for incompetent craftmanship.”
“It isn’t reality or integrity these writers are using. Instead, they’re using a cheap excuse for doing lazy work.”
“They have moved from the college writing class to the too-easy sale of stories without the need to rub against the real world of action under stress. They are empty men, and the only reality they can fully know is the pettiness of their character.”
So, Lester, allow me a quick retort.
Let us start be considering the ABC of the British New Wave (Aldiss, Ballard & moorCock). Starting with biography, Aldiss served in Burma with Royal Signal Corps and Ballard spent World War 2 in a Japanese internment camp. These seem reasonable environments for observing men under stress. None of the three, to the best of my knowledge, attended university creative writing courses.
Moving on to the craft itself. With the significant shrinking of the short fiction markets over the last ten years, I think it is hard to claim that the new wave get “too-easy sales”. Looking at the new fiction we reviewed last month at GJ, only around a quarter of it could be described as new wave in the broadest definitions. And it should be noted we don’t regularly review some of the pulpier publishers like Belmont and Arkham House. Indeed most of those we have are published in New Worlds, a magazine largely kept afloat by Moorcock churning out the better end of pulp adventures in a tea-fuelled fugue state.
Which leads us to the other point, these kinds of writers have shown they can indeed write and appreciate the “good-old stuff” very well at various points in their careers. Moorcock started off his career with the Sojan the Swordsman stories to back-up Tarzan Adventures. Whilst Aldiss wrote his take on H. G. Wells in The Saliva Tree and has edited collections of old-style adventures such as All-About Venus. Whilst this is not true for Ballard, it can be certainly be seen in plenty of others like Dick, Ellison and Silverberg. To misquote the late President, they choose to write in this style, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. There are just as many examples of this style of writing done poorly as there is done well. Just as is the case if you pick up a copy of Amazing in the 20s or Astounding in the 40s.
I do not mean to downplay the value of the former styles of SF (I wouldn’t be reviewing this magazine if I didn’t think it had value) but to show the flaws in Del Rey’s attacks. This is not a considered essay on the value of old-style writing but an ill-conceived personal attack on other writers without much more useful content than you could find in any rambling fanzine letter. A shame to see this from an old hand who should know better.
One Star
The Eld by Miriam Allen deFord
In each generation in each province is born an Eld, an individual able to spit venom, who is the approver of all culture to be produced. This is the story of how Rhambabja’s Eld was forced to kill himself for breaking his sacred duty of impartiality.
This is the first original for the magazine and feels a bit of an odd one. I think it is a criticism of critics but all wrapped up with a strange love triangle and in a world without much depth. At least it is short, readable and still more coherent than Del Rey’s speech.
A low two stars
The Eternal Man by D. D. Sharp
Reclusive scientist Herbert Zulerich, discovers the elixir of life. However, he forgets an important element in the formula and remains alive, but completely unable to move. With no friends to speak of, will anyone be able to help him regain his mobility?
This vignette was first published in Gernsback’s Science Wonder Stories in August 1929, but is probably better known for being the earliest story included in Conkiln’s legendary anthology A Treasury of Science Fiction.
Apparently, it is featured on many fans “best” lists, although I am not sure I know why. As well as the writing style being poor, it is not particularly original either. It is a basic adaptation of an old fairytale concept combined with the lonely immortal conceit, and even my enjoyment of those kinds of stories cannot overcome its predictability. Add on to that the need to state the moral in neon lights at the ending and I just think the whole thing is very poor.
This very short piece is the other original for the magazine. Receiving a prophecy of their destruction, Cuitlazuma, ruler of the Aztec nation, commissions his scientists to find the secret of eternal life.
Well-meaning but clumsy is the best way to describe this vignette. It attempts to subvert the common European misconceptions of the pre-Columbian Mexico, but it does not feel entirely successful.
Two Stars
First Fandom by Robert A. Madle
Madle here discusses the formation and work of the First Fandom group. These are people involved in SF pre-1938 and work to celebrate it. Such activities include the First Fandom Hall of Fame (so far given to E. E. Smith, Gernsback, Keller & Hamilton) and publication of the First Fandom Magazine.
Not rating this as it is more of an advertisement than an article.
Why The Heavens Fell by Epaminondas T. Snooks, DTG
Illustration by Frank R. Paul
The biography reveals this was written by C. P. Mason, the associate editor of Wonder Stories and published in the same magazine in 1932. The DTG, stands for “Don’t Tell Gernsback”.
Whatever the writer’s name may be, this story tells of Prof. Shnickelfritz and his various inventions. The problem is the power required to run them at the level wanted is huge due to the law of inverse squares. As such, a lobbying effort begins for the government to repeal it.
Lowdnes makes a big deal out of the fundamental flaw in the story, that the US congress cannot repeal universal laws. However, the real problem is it’s a joke story that is not particularly funny. We are told it is intended to mock unscientific science fiction but it ends up being a dull shaggy dog story.
The opener here comes from Astounding’s July 1930 edition and is the first of Wright’s series of Cmdr. John Hanson adventures. This premier installment is, surprisingly, structured as a reminiscence of the older Hanson on a classified adventure from his youth. The so called “forgotten planet” (for its name is now scrubbed from all records) has risen in revolt against the Alliance and threatens war with the universe. In order to avoid loss of life Hanson is sent to try to show the inhabitants the error of their ways.
This is a pretty standard space opera of the 30s, the kind of sub-Doc Smith adventures that littered the magazine pages. Whilst the frame is somewhat interesting it contains a number of unexamined questionable choices that dragged the tale down for me.
Two Stars
A Glance Ahead by John Kendrick Bangs
The story dates from 16th December 1899 in Harper’s Weekly and republished in Bangs’ collection, Over The Plum Pudding in 1901. Richard Lupoff gives a great introduction to the man, elucidating on his biography and many works.
After falling asleep on Christmas Eve 1898, Dawson wakes up in 3568. A world where people are immortal consciousnesses with choices of bodies, the government runs all industries for everyone’s good, and poverty has been eliminated.
This is another of the Looking Backward style tales, much in vogue towards the end of the last century. Unfortunately, it is not a particularly good example. It is told through a conversation between Dawson’s incorporeal form and his valet, with lots of ejaculation from Dawson of “my word”. Also, several of the ideas would be silly even for the time, such as everyone having so many gold coins from the wealth created that all their cellars are full (paper money was already common as were cheques, whilst Bellamy hypothesized an electronic card-based system). Finally, his utopian views are very much rooted in the rich white society of the time. To take just one example:
“The Negro, Mr. Dawson, if the histories say rightly, was an awful problem for a great many years. He has so many good points and so many bad that no one knew exactly what to do about him. Finally the sixty-third amendment was passed ordering his deportation to Africa. It seemed like a hardship at first, but in 2683 he pulled himself together and today has a continent of his own. Africa is his, and when nations are at war together they hire their troops from Africa. They make splendid soldiers, you know.”
Interesting as a historical artifact, but little more.
One Star
Space Storm by Harl Vincent
The only original in this issue represents what maybe the last work of this recently deceased master of the pulp era.
Within this tale the Hyperion, an outdated space freighter, has been crippled by a magnetic storm and is trying to limp its way back to Earth. We follow second mate Tom Gardner as he suddenly finds himself in command of a failing ship and a mutinous crew.
Having been in correspondence with Vincent, Lowdnes is able to share that he had to give up writing due to his engineering career, and had only been able to take it up again upon retirement. This is a real shame as, unlike some of his contemporaries, he has clearly continued to evolve over the intervening years, with a good understanding of character and clean prose.
I will admit this style of story is not to my tastes so I will give it Three Stars but I wouldn’t be surprised if Niven fans rated it higher.
The Borders of Science Fiction by Robert A. W. Lowdnes
Lowdnes wades headfirst into the contentious subject of “what is science fiction?”. He gives his own idea that “how essential to the story is the science of science element” should be the deciding factor in borderline cases.
This is an interesting concept, but I find he stretches things in his argument. Stating that therefore A Connecticut Yankee and Glory Road are science fiction and almost all works of the New Wave such as The Crystal World are not because “if the [scientific element] was removed the story would be unchanged” feels odd to me.
Still, I enjoy seeing attempts like this. Whilst I favour a broader definition, my other half would favour it being even more rigid (they refuse to even accept Orwellian fiction or scientific disaster stories as SF). More discussion is always welcome.
Three Stars
Death From the Stars by A. Rowley Hilliard
Illustration by M. Marchioni
This comes from Gernsback’s Wonder Stories of October 1931 and seems to replace the previously advertised Thief of Time by S. P. Meek.
George Dixon and Julius Humboldt seek to discover if life can exist on meteorites. To do this they combine the powder of a meteorite with animal and plant matter into a block. However, whilst observing it, the rays from it horrifically change George. He now radiates death to anything near him. Can Julius help restore his friend?
I found the entire thing hard-to-read pseudo-scientific gobbledygook.
One Star
First Fandom by Robert A. Madle
Madle uses the column this issue to discuss what happened at the last meeting of First Fandom at Baycon. Given they have their own magazine, can they not just print this there?
The Derelict of Space by Ray Cummings
Illustration Frank R. Paul
Our last tale was first published in the 1931 Fall issue of Wonder Stories Quarterly, from a plot outline by William T. Thurmond.
A ship’s crew discover a long-lost vehicle floating in space. This device was one Ronald Deely had disappeared in decades ago, claiming he could use it to travel in time. This derelict “Ship of Doom”, as it is nicknamed, did not have any space travel capacity, so what happened?
Before this I had yet to read anything of Ray Cummings I had enjoyed and, whilst this is better than some, I still have not. The solution to the mystery will probably be obvious to most readers within the first few pages and, for a story that relies on character interactions everyone is remarkably wooden. There are some atmospheric moments but that is all I can think to recommend it.
A low Two Stars
The Final Reckoning
Just a quick look at the other readers' views of the stories in the penultimate 3 issues. We are actually pretty aligned on much of it, although I rate the Sharp and Campbell stories lower. I was sure why Lowdnes says the Silverberg is an original when I have a copy in my Nebulas. However, after conversing with the author he said that US editors generally pay little attention to UK publications, so it is probably simply a case of ignorance.
An Ending?
In the editorial and letters pages Lowdnes reveals that the magazine is no longer on a regular schedule, cannot accept any more subscriptions and contains no details of future contents. This is apparently due to the problems of distribution on American newsstands making the financial situation untenable.
A few other places you can get the “Good Old Stuff”
Magazine of Horror had these problems a few years back and was able to return so we will have to see if Famous does too. However, I wonder if anthologies are now filling this niche, bringing in a mix of 30+ year old SF with newer pieces.
Whatever the case, it appears its current 15 minutes in the spotlight is up. But if it does return, you can be sure we will be here to cover it.
Is ten books a record for the Galactoscope? Lucky we have so many folks reading furiously for the Journey. And it's a good thing, because amidst the dross and mediocrity, there's a couple of gems…
Kate Wilhelm is perhaps better known for her debut short story, "The Mile-Long Spaceship" (1963) and Clone (1965), the Hugo Award nominated novel written in collaboration with Theodore L. Thomas. Perhaps you've read her work in Orbit, edited by her husband, Damon Knight.
The ominous title of this book, Let the Fire Fall, promises fire, brimstone, and a violent alien invasion—but the bad guys in this story aren't the extraterrestrials. The plot: A spaceship inhabited by pregnant alien women lands in small town America. The aliens are friendly, and clearly hope to be welcome on this new planet they’ve discovered. One vile and opportunistic man named Obie Cox– under normal circumstances, a small-town philanderer of no account, blessed with uncommon charisma–manages to worm his way to the pulpit. One there, he takes advantage of humanity’s rampant xenophobia and the ineffectuality of Earth’s bureaucracy through flat-out lies, hate, and fear mongering. What he wants is control and he achieves that by weaponizing humanity’s worst traits and using them to brainwash the populace and plunging the world into dystopian chaos.
At first, Wilhelm’s strangely familiar-feeling and deliberately matter-of-fact writing style, peppered with many clever twists of phrase, seems to capture the spirit of Ray Bradbury or an episode of the Twilight Zone. What we get, instead, is a riveting and decidedly tragic tale of First Contact gone awry in a world populated by an almost irredeemable cast of humans.
Wilhelm’s courage and ambitiousness in attempting to capture the vile side of human nature is admirable. Still, even a forward thinking and imaginative author such as herself cannot seem to escape the discriminatory views of our time. Let the Fire Fall perpetuates the sexist view that women must be submissive to men and even the women important to the plot are given no initiative to steer their own destinies. While Wilhelm is progressive enough to acknowledge the existence of homosexuals, the way she characterizes homosexuality as one of the “vices” permitted by the villainous Obie Cox’s vaunted religion suggests a personal disapproval of such individuals. (To be fair, what her characters feel, even the "good" ones, doesn't necessarily reflect Wilhelm's feelings on a subject.)
In any wise, Let the Fire Fall is an excellently written novel. The author’s insight and ability to imagine a dark future, all too possible, are incredible. I love this book but I hated reading it. The way it mirrors our current reality where opportunistic charlatans have risen to political power by preying on the gullibility of the American populace fills me with trepidation. Let the Fire Fall is an insidiously horrifying and damning condemnation of the human race. This book will make you squirm and fret about the world as we know it, and the future of our species. You will not feel comfortable reading this book. You should not.
Daphne du Maurier has been a favourite of mine for a long while. I read Rebecca in my teens and have slowly been building up a collection of her writings. However, she has only had one truly SFnal release to date, the marvellous collection The Apple Tree, most notable for containing the original short story of The Birds.
That was until this year, when she followed in the footsteps of fellow literary darlings Naomi Mitchison and Virginia Woolf and put out a book on a mainstay of science fiction, time travel.
Dick Young goes down to visit his old university friend Professor Magnus Lane in Cornwall. Dick agrees to be the test subject of the Professor’s new alchemical invention and finds himself transported back in time to the era of Edward III’s infancy. The story follows Dick and Magnus’ trips back and forth between the 14th and 20th centuries.
What Du Maurier always does well is give a real sense of atmosphere to her tales. As is usual in her books Cornwall takes on the mysterious atmosphere of Bronte’s Yorkshire and Doyle’s Dartmoor: a strange wild place where anything can happen. She also illustrates well the sense of dislocation Dick feels moving between the periods, making him feel like an outsider in both.
Cover by Susan Einzig
And yet, I don’t feel like it did anything particularly new or interesting here. The children’s book Tom’s Midnight Garden explores similar themes better for me. Also, in spite of the period being underserved in historical narratives, I didn’t feel like I gained much more insight or understanding of it than I would have done from an encyclopedia summary.
This almost reads like one of those historical stories that had a touch of added SFnal content to get into the magazines. Of course, that is not the case here (DuMaurier could release her shopping list and it would be a best seller) and this is still a good read, but I did not feel like it is doing anything exceptional nor is it destined to be one of my favourites.
As John Carnell has now edited as many editions of New Writings as Ian Flemming wrote James Bond novels, he is entitled to enjoy himself. As such, he says this volume is entirely composed of stories he personally loved, rather than mixing in some he knew were good but not to his taste. But how much do my feelings ally with his?
Blood Brother by James White
We start with the always reliable James White with another tale of Sector General.
Following on from Vertigo, a team is returning with Surreshun to “Meatball” to assess the species' medical needs and to locate the manufacturers of their responsive organic tools. Unfortunately, the native entities of the planet believe that Surreshun was kidnapped by the crew of the Descartes and are not keen to let this happen again.
This once again is a fascinating exercise from White, trying to imagine a wholly alien species from our understanding and the problems it could cause. The natives of “Meatball” have an inbuilt dislike of anything similar to themselves and have no central form of government but exist in a deep layer of animal life. How to communicate ideas like friendship to a species like that is a true challenge.
What White is always great at is giving us a sense of how diverse the species in the Galactic Federation are, whilst still making it seem like an everyday occurrence at the hospital. For example:
Despite the fact that one species was covered in thick silver fur and crawled like a giant caterpillar and the other resembled a six-legged elephant, they were fairly easy to deal with because they had the same atmosphere and gravity requirements as Conway. But he was also responsible for a small ward of Hudlars, beings with hide like flexible armour plate whose artificial gravity system was set at five Gs and whose atmosphere was a dense high-pressure fog – and the odd-ball TLTU classification entity hailing from he knew not where who breathed superheated steam. It took more than a few hours to tidy up such a collection of loose ends…
He continues to know what he does well and produces the most consistently strong series currently ongoing in Science Fiction.
Four Stars
If You're So Smart by Paul Corey
Ibby has a mental disability and suffers from regular seizures, so lives permanently at a mental hospital. He also helps out in the animal testing lab. However, he may be able to understand the animals better than the scientists.
A pedestrian tale, poorly told. Whilst I have heard that Corey is an American writer and journalist of some renown, I am only familiar with him from his awful appearance in New Worlds earlier in the decade. Apparently he has an SF novel out from Robert Hale but this isn’t inspiring me to pick it up.
A low Two Stars
The Ballad of Luna Lil by Sydney J. Bounds
Gerard The Rhymer wrote The Ballad of Luna Lil many centuries ago. This work analyses the historical accuracy of the tale to the real life of Captain Bartholomew “Black Bart” Sparrow, a space free trader, and Lily La Lune, singing star of the videos.
I am a great lover of analyses of fictional works and this one doesn’t disappoint. It turns what could be a standard pulpy adventure into an exploration of a fictional universe, containing fascinating ideas and raising questions about the power of art.
A high Four Stars
The Eternity Game by Vincent King
In a tale told from four perspectives (A, G, P & Z), two different species find themselves in the Place, attempting to survive in their collapsing galaxy.
We learn from the introduction that Vincent King is also a visual artist and Carnell describes this work as being like an abstract painting. I am not sure I agree with that, it is certainly not as obscure as some of the writings of Ballard, Burroughs, or Farmer. Rather, you have a puzzle that fits together by the end.
I don’t think it is quite as effective as his usual Medieval Futurism, but still a worthy piece.
Four Stars
Tilt Angle by R. W. Mackelworth
The Earth has entered a new Ice Age, and Tomas and Donna are sent on a mission from the City to find food stores. But is this parasitic existence right or sustainable?
Another one of these Frozen Earth tales that have been popping up a lot recently in the UK (we do like to moan about the weather). Whilst evocatively told, it feels abrupt and incomplete. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw further stories in this world.
Three Stars
The Song of Infinity by Domingo Santos
Once again we have a work in translation, this time from a Spanish author. He is apparently well known in his own country but I am not aware of any prior translations into English. This one was selected and translated by the late great Arthur Sellings.
We get the internal monologue of an astronaut who finds himself accidentally floating through space without any hope of rescue.
This is a well told and melancholic tale but one that nevertheless didn’t really affect me as much as I felt it was trying to.
Three Stars
Green Five Renegade by M. John Harrison
Astronaut of the Green 5, Chad Redeem, encounters alien life forms. Discovering them to be naïve and peaceful compared to the human race, he goes on the run rather than risk his knowledge of them becoming known to the authorities.
Oh dear, I am not sure what happened here. Even putting aside some weird printing errors, it is overwritten, cliché driven and full of creepy descriptions of women. I know Harrison can do a lot better so I am surprised to see this come from his pen.
One Star
So, the good ship New Writings continues steadily on its course. Some good works, some poorer, still generally very much in Carnell’s usual mode. Much the same crew manning the rigging with nary a woman in sight*. Whilst it may not always be the most exciting voyage, it shows little signs of leakage. Onward!
*I believe it has now been over 5 years since Carnell published a story by a woman, the last being Dial SCH 1828 by Gweneth Penn-Bull in December ‘63’s Science Fantasy.
by Gideon Marcus
Ace Double 72400
The High Hex, by Laurence M. Janifer and S. J. Treibich
Here is the sequel to Target: Terra that nobody asked for. In this one, the African space station has begun broadcasting a menacing message, all chants and tribal drums, that seems to presage a heating up of the White/Black cold war. The crew of Space Station 1 are recalled to duty and tasked with infiltrating the second station. The plot is thickened with robots and destructive aliens, and the Africans aren't the bad guys after all.
If you enjoyed the gaggish and frivolous tone of the first book, you'll like this one. Otherwise…you won't.
If you read and enjoyed the four stories of John Grimes, a space captain running the rim of galactic space, then this is an opportunity to get all of them in one convenient package. In this fix-up, they are unchanged, with only short concluding scenes added to each piece to link them together.
They all appeared in IF, where David gave them three stars apiece. I see no reason to change his assessment.
by Victoria Silverwolf
War And No Peace
Two new novels deal with armed conflict, international or domestic. One takes place in the very recent past, but not the one with which we're familiar. The other is set in the near future, one we'd like to avoid. Let's start with something that didn't happen less than two years ago.
If Israel Lost the War, by Richard Z. Chesnoff, Edward Klein, and Robert Littell
Uncredited cover art.
In the tradition of Bring the Jubilee (1953) by Ward Moore (the Confederacy wins the American Civil War) and The Man in the High Castle (1962) by Philip K. Dick (the Axis wins the Second World War), this book reverses the result of a war.
The title makes that obvious, of course. We're talking about the so-called Six Day War (June 5 through 10, 1967), in which Israel triumphed over a coalition of Arab nations.
I know less about military stuff than almost anybody, so I won't try to analyze the war. However, there seems to be general agreement that Israel's preemptive strike, devastating the Egyptian Air Force and giving Israel complete control over the skies, was a key factor in the victory.
What if Israel didn't attack first? What if Arab forces destroyed most of Israel's air power instead?
That's the premise of the novel. The result is overwhelming victory for the Arab nations, with Israel's territory soon being divided up among them.
The book's map, showing the progress of the imagined conflict.
The occupying forces initiate a reign of terror. As in many wars, looting, rape, and murder follow the victory. The big winner is Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who dominates his allies and intends to create a new, bigger United Arab Republic.
(The UAR was the name given to the union of Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961. The United Arab Republic is still the official name of the nation better known as Egypt.)
As I said, I'm no expert on war, so I don't know how plausible this scenario might be. It assumes closely coordinated action among the Arab states, which is questionable. It also presumes that Arab aircraft would be able to bypass Israel's early warning defense system. (There are even some lines in the book that indicate that this is unlikely.)
So how is the book as a work of fiction? Well, given the fact that the three authors are journalists (all working for Newsweek), it's no surprise that it reads like nonfiction. There are a few minor fictional characters, but all the major ones are real people. We follow politicians and military leaders from Israel, the Arab nations, the USA, and the USSR.
The work is obviously very pro-Israel. (Richard Z. Chesnoff is married to an Israeli woman, and used to live on a kibbutz.) Whether one sees the book as reasoned justification for Israel's preemptive strike, or as anti-Arab propaganda, it is sure to stir up controversy. Judged strictly on its literary merits, I'd have to say that it's readable enough. The authors are definitely more interested in getting their message across than in creating a work of art.
Three stars.
The Jagged Orbit, by John Brunner
Let's turn from an imaginary past to a speculative future.
Cover art by Diane and Leo Dillion.
The race problem in the United States is much worse in the year 2014 than it was in our own time. Some cities (Detroit, Washington, etc.) are under the control of kneeblanks, while others are still firmly dominated by blanks.
Oh, you're not familiar with those terms? Maybe it'll help if I point out that blank is derived from the Afrikaans word blanc (white) and that kneeblank (often just knee) comes from nieblanc (not white.)
This is a sample of the book's futuristic terminology, which takes some time to get used to. It's not as difficult as the slang in A Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess, but it requires a little effort.
Anyway, ordinary citizens are forced to defend themselves with serious weapons, supplied by arms dealers. The dominant supplier of deadly devices is a family-run corporation that resembles the Mafia.
That's the background. What about the story? Well, it's complicated. There are a lot of important characters and a lot of plot threads. Let me try to come up with a greatly oversimplified synopsis.
There's a psychiatric institute under the direction of a megalomaniac who treats his patients with extreme isolation from society. One of the inmates is a kneeblank soldier who suffered a breakdown in war, but who now seems perfectly sane. In fact, he's an electronics genius.
A woman who produces enigmatic prophecies while under the influence of drugs (as in ancient times, she's called a pythoness) performs at the institute. A fellow who exposes scandals on television (the book calls him a spoolpigeon) records her act. He also happens to be married to one of the patients.
Meanwhile, a kneeblank spoolpigeon gets kicked out of Detroit by the city's kneeblank mayor, at the instigation of a blank South African. (The tragic situation of apartheid is still going strong in 2014.)
In addition to that, a kneeblank revolutionary who put kneeblanks in control of much of the United Kingdom is on his way to the United States. Even though US officials are terrified of him, he easily gets through customs.
What does this all have to do with a secret project of the arms dealers? Suffice to say that the kneeblank soldier I mentioned above isn't what he seems to be.
I've only given you a vague hint of what the novel is like. In addition to the convoluted plot, there's the narrative style. The first two chapters, for example, consist of a single word split into two parts. Many of the chapter titles are very long and often satiric. In the middle of the book, Brunner provides quotes from real newspaper articles about the American race problem.
The climax involves science fiction themes that are more speculative than those found earlier in the book. These may strain the reader's suspension of disbelief.
This novel isn't as groundbreaking as the author's stunning masterwork Stand on Zanzibar, but it's pretty close in quality.
Four stars.
by David Levinson
A Familiar Refrain
In music, it’s common for artists to cover an old standard or just something someone else has already done. Usually, they have a different approach that may be about the same, worse, or better. Once in a while, they’ll take an old song and make entirely their own (Jimi Hendrix and Frank Sinatra have a singular talent for this).
There’s a similar phenomenon in science fiction. Someone comes up with an interesting idea—time travel, alien invasion, what have you—and eventually almost everybody tries to see what they can do with the concept. Harry Harrison’s latest novel is just such a work. How well did he do?
Two Aztec villages lie on either side of a river in a valley long isolated from the outside world. We soon learn that things are not as they seem. The serpent-headed goddess Coatlicue is a physical presence that stalks the river bank at night, and typical Aztec features include blonde hair and blue eyes.
Into this world is born Chimal, a young man with a penchant for asking uncomfortable questions. When he inadvertently causes the death of the high priest (and the sun fails to rise, because there is no one to say the necessary prayer), Chimal must flee the valley. The society he finds outside the valley is no less hidebound and no fonder of questions with uncomfortable answers.
Although I’ve talked around it for the benefit of those who would like to experience the surprise on their own, I suspect many of you have figured out what’s going on. Although Harrison adds one or two interesting flourishes, the novel follows the expected course to one of the standard endings. Indeed, the story follows such a predictable course, I found myself more interested in what happened centuries earlier to create the situation or what is going to happen a few decades after the end.
Is it worth your time? Maybe. Is it worth your money? Definitely not, especially not at hardback prices.
Dickson has been busy as of late, with his serial Wolfling currently running in Analog, and with a new paperback original alongside it. Spacepaw is a less serious novel and seems to be aimed at a younger readership, which is fine by me. It takes place on Dilbia, the same planet featured in Dickson's 1961 novel Special Delivery. Like that earlier novel it features the Dilbians, a race of nine-foot-tall bear-like aliens who are not exactly hostile but who certainly have a curious way of going about things.
Bill Waltham is an agriculture scientist sent to Dilbia, supposedly to meet up with Lafe Greentree, his on-site superior, and Anita Lyme, a "trainee assistant" working under Greentree. The problem (actually two problems) is that Greentree is not here: he had sustained an injury whose severity the off-planet hospital is strangely vague about disclosing, and Anita has been taken captive by a pack of Dilbian outlaws. The only possible help Waltham can get are the mischievous Dilbian the Hill Bluffer (that's his name, the Hill Bluffer) and a Hemnoid named Mula-ay (italics not mine). The Hill Bluffer is not terribly useful and Mula-ay seems to be working for a third party—in Waltham's favor or not remains to be seen.
This novel is basically a comedy of manners. To rescue Lyme and convince the Dilbians to pick up agricultural skills (the race is a rural lot that lives off the fat o' the land), Waltham will have to adapt to Dilbian customs. The black-furred giants are a comical lot, with silly names like More Jam, Perfectly Delightful, and Grandpa Squeaky; they even give Waltham a Dilbian name, "Pick-and-Shovel," which the serious-minded human does not appreciate. The leader of the outlaws, Bone Breaker, is pretty affable despite his name and occupation. The stakes are kept somewhat low, even when Waltham is duped into accepting a duel to the death, which is fitting for a comedy, even if doesn't leave the reader with much to think about.
Dickson's brand of humor is unlikely to spark laughter, but it's effective at often invoking a smirk. Waltham himself is a bit of a wet blanket, but the comedy mostly stems from this straight-laced hero type being forced to deal with some deeply unserious aliens. Lyme is a bit of a shrew, but Dickson does write her as competent and independent-minded, even if I suspect he does not think very highly of her.
A solid three out of five stars, possibly four for young readers.
A good deal less enjoyable is a new Gothic horror novel I picked up, by an author I've never heard of before. Despite having been published this year, The Tormented reads like a fossilized dinosaur, but not one of the interesting ones. It's a pastiche of late-19th century supernatural horror. I'm sure Daniels likes Henry James and Arthur Conan Doyle, but unfortunately she is not remotely as good a wordsmith as James or even Doyle.
Sharon Aldrich lived on a New Orleans plantation called The Pillars until both her parents died, and it turns out all the money had dried up. After a stint or two abroad she returns to The Pillars as governess for a new family that's moved in, the Beaumonts. Craig Beaumont and his wife Emily are stuck in a loveless marriage while Emily's sister, Sarah, tags along as a third wheel. Cassie, Craig's daughter, is a reasonably well-adjusted child despite the fact that she had witnessed a horrific death in the family not long ago. And there seems to be a ghost problem on the plantation. The place is most certainly haunted (it takes all of about five minutes upon Sharon's arriving for a ghost to start whispering in her ear), and worse yet, Sharon must now deal with a dysfunctional upper-class family.
You would think that at only 160 pages this would be a densely packed narrative, but it's not. There's quite a bit of padding. Most of the wordage is dialogue, with characters often getting into arguments with each other and then almost immediately apologizing for causing a fuss. Emily and Sarah are major shrews, and Sharon is not much better. It soon becomes clear Sharon and Craig like each other but are hesitant to take action, what with the whole marriage thing. Even the ghost does not pose much of a threat. No wonder the Confederacy lost. The Tormented is probably a few thousand words longer than James's The Turn of the Screw, but feels shorter because it spins its wheels so often. Not much actually happens, and despite the New Orleans setting Daniels injects practically no atmosphere into her writing.
The most damning part is that this is 1969, not 1889. I kept thinking, "Why play such an old and tired genre straight? What point is Daniels trying to make by doing this?" After having read the whole thing, I still don't know.
We've got a whopping ten titles for you to enjoy this month. Part of it is the increased pace of paperback production. Part is the increased number of Journey reviewers on staff! Enjoy:
From the author of Stand on Zanzibar, and also a lot of churned-out mediocrity, comes this mid-length novel. Can it reach the sublimity of last year's masterpiece, or is it a rent-payer? Let's see.
The band "Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition" (great name, that) have a bit of a Be-in on a deserted beach south of London. Their frivolity is marred by the appearance of a flight-suited zombie, half his face eaten away.
Strange happenings compound: the lushy Mrs. Beedle, who lives in a wreck of a home by the beach, suddenly starts appearing in two places at once. Those who encounter her find themselves doused with some kind of acid. Meanwhile, Rory, a DJ on the pirate radio ship Jolly Roger, hauls up a fish on his line that transforms halfway into a squid before breaking free.
The local constabulary, as well as the scientific types in the vicinity, are increasingly alarmed and then mobilized, as the true nature of what they're dealing with is determined: an alien or mutated being with the power to digest and mimic anything it encounters.
In premise, it's thus somewhat akin to Don A. Stuart's (John W. Campbell Jr.) seminal "Who Goes There". In execution, it's not. The rather thin story is developed glacially, with lots of slice-of-life scenes that are not unpleasant to read, but don't add much. Indeed, one could argue that it is possible to unbalance things too far in the direction of "show, don't tell"—Double, Double is written almost like a screenplay, with endless little cliff-hangers, and always from the point of view of the various characters.
Beyond the writing, the premise is fundamentally flawed: digestion is never 100% efficient. Heck, I don't think it's 10% efficient. And this creature can not only digest but duplicate, down to memories? Color me unconvinced. Also, we are lucky that it chose to come to land as quickly as it did—if it had just stayed in the sea, all of the sea life in the world would have been these… things… in very short order.
All told, this is definitely a piece written for the cash grab, perhaps even a recycled, rejected script for the TV anthology Journey to the Unknown. It's not a bad piece of writing, but I'll be donating it to my local book shop when I'm done.
Three stars.
by Brian Collins
For my first book reviews as part of the Journey, I got some SF and fantasy in equal measure. Neither are really worth it, but here we can see the difference between a deeply flawed novel and one that is virtually impossible to salvage.
I know it’s only been a few months since Piers Anthony hit us with his second novel, Sos the Rope, but he has already given us another with Omnivore. That’s three novels in two years! For all his faults, you can’t say he’s lazy. It’s quite possible that in thirty years there will be more Piers Anthony novels than there are stars in the sky.
Omnivore is a planetary adventure, not dissimilar from what Hal Clement or Poul Anderson would write, but with some of those “lovable” Anthony quirks. Here’s the gist: A superhuman agent named Subble is sent to investigate three explorers who have returned to Earth from the “dangerous but promising” planet Nacre, each with his/her trauma and secrets as to what happened. Why did eighteen people die while exploring Nacre prior to these three, and what did they bring back with them? There’s Veg, who as his nickname suggests is a vegetarian; Aquilon, an emotionally fraught woman who now has a case of shell shock; and Cal, gifted with a brilliant intellect but cursed with a frail body. Veg and Cal love Aquilon and Aquilon loves both men. Romantic tension ensues. Anthony pulled a similar love triangle in Sos the Rope, but for what it's worth this one is not quite as painful.
Nacre itself is the star of the show, and it would not surprise me if Anthony were to return to this setting in the future. It’s a fungus-rich planet in which the land is covered in an unfathomable amount of “dust”—spores from airborne fungi. There’s so much airborne fungi, in fact, that the sun has been more or less blocked out, and the animal life has adapted not only to low-light conditions but to move about with only one (big) eye and one limb. Clement would have surely treated this material with more scientific enthusiasm, but Clement sadly is no longer producing his best work and this novel is a serviceable substitute for the not-too-discerning.
Omnivore is Anthony’s best novel to date; unfortunately it’s still not good. There are two crippling problems here. The first is that Anthony simply cannot help himself when it comes to writing women unsympathetically, and the first section of the novel (there are four, each focusing on a different character) is the worst. Veg, while heroic, is unfortunately a woman-hater. I don’t necessarily have an issue with characters having unsavory flaws, but the problem is that this dim view of women bleeds into the rest of the novel to some degree. It should come as no surprise that Aquilon, the sole female character, is also the only one driven purely by emotions as opposed to intellect. Subble himself may as well be a robot, but Anthony writes him as a human so that he can a) take drugs, and b) seduce Aquilon.
The second is that it’s clear that this novel is About Things, but I can’t figure out what those Things could be. There is obvious symbolism at work. The trio of explorers play off of elements (herbivore/carnivore/omnivore, brains/brawn/beauty, and so on), but I’m not sure what statement is being made here. This is especially glaring in a year where we got many SF novels that are About Things; indeed 1968 might’ve been the year of SF novels that try to say Something Very Important. Omnivore might’ve been fine in the hands of a Clement or Anderson, but rather than be true to itself (an Analog-style adventure yarn), it has delusions of importance. It doesn’t help that Anthony gives us a puzzle narrative, but then takes seemingly forever to tell us what the puzzle actually is. The solution, thus, is unsatisfying.
At the rate he’s progressing, Anthony may be able to pen a decent novel in another few years. Two out of five stars, maybe three if it had caught me in a very forgiving mood.
Swordmen of Vistar, by Charles Nuetzel
Cover by Albert Nuetzell
Now we have the latest in what's proving to be an avalanche of heroic fantasy releases, and this one is simply painful to read. We know something is amiss just from looking at the title; to my recollection Nuetzel never used "swordman" or "swordmen" in the novel itself, which leads me to wonder what he could've been thinking. The writing between the covers is no less clumsy.
Thoris is a galley slave, in an ancient world not far off from the mythical Greece of Perseus and Pegasus, when he and the princess Illa find themselves possibly the only survivors of a shipwreck. Thoris falls in love with Illa before the two have even had a full conversation together. They first arrive at an island of cannibals before escaping, only to fall into the clutches of the tyrannical Lord Waja and his sword(s)men of Vistar. Also imprisoned is the wizard Xalla, who is father to a woman named Opil whom Thoris had saved earlier. With no other options, Thoris makes a deal with Xalla to vanquish Waja and then free the wizard—on the ultimate condition that Thoris also take Opil as his bride.
The back cover compares Thoris to Conan the Cimmerian and John Carter of Mars, and indeed Swordmen of Vistar is supposed to be a rip-roaring adventure with a damsel in distress, a morally ambiguous wizard, and a giant snake. One problem: the prose is some of the most ungainly I've ever laid eyes on. Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard were not tender in their use of the English language, but they had a real knack for plotting which Nuetzel lacks. This is a 220-page novel and surprisingly little happens in it. I hope you still like love triangles, because this novel also has one. Lord Waja and his top henchmen are defeated by the end of the eleventh chapter, but we still have two more to go with Opil as the final obstacle. We need to pad out this already-short book, obviously.
With how much I've been reading about love triangles, I think God may be telling me to try acquiring a second girlfriend. If I were Thoris I would be stuck with a tough choice. Do I pick the tough-minded woman who clearly appreciates my swordsmanship, or the haughty princess who's been degrading me for much of the novel? Sure, the former threatens to kill me if I refuse her, but nobody's perfect.
By the way, Nuetzel may be excusing the awkward prose by stating in the preface that the Thoris narrative is a translation of an ancient manuscript that some academic had written up and given to him. Unfortunately academics, by and large, are terrible writers with no ear for English, and this shows in the "translation." It doesn't help that yes, this is derivative of the John Carter novels, along with a few other things; and while Robert E. Howard's Conan stories are often About Something, Nuetzel doesn't really have anything to say. If you've read hackwork in this genre then the good news is that you've already read Swordmen of Vistar, and so can save yourself the trouble of buying a copy.
Basically worthless, although the illustrations (courtesy of Albert Nuetzell) are at least decent. One out of five stars.
Bill Jarrett is a galactic adventurer, a man who spans the stars to find excitement, glory and money. He’s a flirt and a fighter and the kind of guy who can work himself out of situations. But when Jarrett gets abducted, has a mind-controlling creature strapped to his head, and is sent to overthrow a man who he’s told is a dictator, Jarrett finds himself in a situation he might not be able to win.
Well, yeah, of course, Jarrett does end up winning in the situation he finds himself in, with the help of his friends and a few mechanical contrivances. Because of course he does. As a galactic adventurer, that’s what you might expect from him.
The Star Venturers is an entertaining Ace novel, a quickie star-spanner with a handful of ideas which might stick to your brain. Author Kenneth Bulmer occasionally throws in a small element of satire or self-awareness which enlivens the plot; there’s a bit of a feeling of the author kind of winking at us as he tells this story. But there’s not nearly enough of that stuff to make this book stand out.
Bulmer does play a bit with an interesting concept, the sort of self-learning machine, a kind of artificially intelligent creature called a frug (which Jarrett nicknames Ferdie the Frug) which is placed on a person’s forehead like a headband and which compels the person to follow orders lest they feel horrific agony.
Mr. Bulmer with his wife Pamela
Bulmer takes pains to imply that the device is both mechanical and semi-sentient, a kind of uncaring vicious machine which Jarrett sometimes reasons with and almost treats like a pet – if the pet was a giant tumor which could only cause pain, that is. This idea of artificial intelligence dates back at least to the first robot stories, but the author gives the idea a fresh coat of paint here, and that concept is a real highlight for me.
Other than that, this is a pretty basic space fantasy Ace novel, which is entertaining for its two hour reading time but which will have you quickly flipping over to read the novel by Dean Koontz on the other side. At least it’s not About Things or Very Important. Instead The Star Venturers is just forgettable.
On the other hand, the flip side of this Ace Double is pretty memorable. Dean R. Koontz, an author new to me, has delivered a fascinating satire of a world which is easy to imagine and just as easy to dread.
In the near future, post apocalyptic America, television rules our world. All the people in America live for a special show which all can experience viscerally. That TV show, called The Show, has seven hundred million subscribers. Those subscribers watch a continuing story, kind of a soap opera, about the characters on the screen. But they don't just watch the characters, they also feel the same emotions as the characters. They feel empathy and pain for the characters. In a real way the characters and viewers are bonded.
Because the actors are so well known, so much a part of their audience's lives, even the act of replacing an actor can be tremendously fraught with stress and worry. The act of leaving The Show can be freeing but also terrifying. And when lead actor Mike Jorgova leaves The Show, it makes his life much more complicated. He becomes untethered, is trained to become part of a revolution, and discovers the deeper frightening truths behind a world he scarcely understood.
Young author Dean Koontz delivers a clever and exciting story which shows tremendous potential. He does an excellent job of creating his world in relatively few words, delivering character in just a few broad strokes and creating memorable villains and settings. The end action set-piece, for instance, is built with real suspense and ends with a thrilling struggle which is filled with energy.
Dean Koontz
Along with that aspect, young Mr. Koontz delivers two more elements which separate this book from many of its peers.
First, he paints a fascinating future which seems like a smart extension of McLuhan's concept that "the medium is the message." Koontz creates a TV show which feels like reality, in which the characters live in some semblance of real life while engaging in exaggerated, bizarre actions. That's a concept which feels all the more possible these days, with controversies about the Smothers Brothers and Vietnam dominating headlines about television in 1969.
Koontz also delivers a series of philosophical asides which discuss human evolution from village to society and the ways mass media both shrinks the world and expands our horizons. Nowadays we know everything about people who live across the world but nothing about the people who live next door to us, and that gap only promises to get wider. As our social networks grow, the strengths of our connections only shrink.
This is heady stuff for an Ace Double – and I've only touched on a few of the many ideas shared almost to overflowing here. In fact, the book is chockablock full of ideas but the ambition is a bit high for their achievement. Like many a new author, Koontz has many, many ideas he wants to explore but there are a few too many on display. Nevertheless, despite its thematic density, The Fall of the Dream Machine reads like a rocketship, hurtling ahead until it lands gracefully, sharing a thrilling journey for the readers.
Keep your eye on Mr. Koontz. I predict great things from him.
Poetry has always had a strange place in science fiction. Long before appearing in Hugo Gernsbeck’s magazines, poets have been attempting to explore fantastic themes. However, in spite of their regular presence in almost every SFF periodical, and many fanzines, they rarely seemed to be talked about, nor are they represented in either the Nebulas or the Hugos (although we here give out Galactic Stars to them).
Enter John Fairfax and Panther publishing, who have put together this anthology of responses to the space age. The selection inside is varied. Some are original and some are reprints. Some are SFnal, some are fantastical, others closer to reality. And, as the editor puts it:
Some poets are optimistic about the space odyssey, others view it with cynicism…and other poets do not care if man steps into space or the nearest bar so long as human relations begin with fornication and end with death.
As this book contains almost 50 separate pieces, I cannot hope to cover them all here; rather I want to give an overview and highlight some of the best.
Possibly due to my natural cynicism, Leslie Norris’ poems were among my favorites. He is willing to engage deeply with the future, but believes the same problems we have down here will continue there. For example, in Space Miner we hear of the fate of those travelling to distant worlds for such a job:
He had worked deep seams where encrusted ore,
Too hard for his diamond drill, had ripped
Strips from his flesh. Dust from a thousand metals
Stilted his lungs and softened the strength of his
Muscles. He had worked the treasuries of many
Near stars, but now he stood on the moving
pavement reserved for cripples who had served well.
Just a small part of one of his moving poems that raise interesting questions about where we are headed.
Closely related is John Moat’s Overture I. His works concentrate less on the science fiction but still wonder if we are heading in the right direction:
That twelve years’ Jane pacing outside the bar,
Offering anything for her weekly share
Of tea; those rats now grown immune to death –
I ask you, in whose name and by what power
Have you set out to colonize the stars?
This is only an extract and continues in that fashion. It ponders if what we are bringing to other planets is something they would care for.
Not all are so negative. Some, instead, write about the wonder and artistic possibilities of space travel. Robert Conquest (who SF fans may know from his anthologies or short fiction in Analog) produces a Stapledon-esque epic among the stars in Far Out:
While each colour and flow
Psychedelicists know
As Ion effects
Quotidian sights
Of those counterflared nights.
Yet Conquest still asks within, what is the value of these views to the artist? A complex piece for sure.
There are probably only two other names you have a reasonable chance of recognizing inside: D. M. Thomas and Peter Redgrove, both for their occasional appearances in the British Mags. As you might expect these are among the most explicitly science fictional. For example, in Limbo Thomas gives us a kind of verse version of The Cold Equations, whilst Redgrove’s pieces are trains of thoughts of two common character types of SFF.
However, it should not be thought others have written repetitively on the theme. These poems include such diverse topics as the difficulties of copulation in space, how to serve tea on a space liner, the first computer to be made an Anglican bishop, and explorers getting absorbed into a gestalt entity.
The biggest disappointment for me are the poems from the editor. It is to be expected Fairfax would have a number of pieces inside but, unfortunately, they are among the most pedestrian. For example, his Space Walk:
Around, around in freefall thought
The clinging cosmo-astronaut,
Awkward and expensive star
Dogpaddles from his spinning car.
The poem has nothing inherently wrong with it, but it does not feel insightful, nor does it do anything experimental. It more feels like what would win a middle-school poetry competition on the Space Race. Probably deserving of a low three stars but little more.
I feel, at least in passing, I need to point out we have the recurring problem of the British scene. In spite of the number of poems contained within, none of the poets appears to be woman. There are no shortage of women poets, either in the mainstream or within the fanzines, so I find it hard to believe there were no good pieces available. Hopefully, this can be remedied in a future volume. The Second Frontier, perhaps?
Either way, this is still a fabulous collection. Of course, it will not be for everyone. Poetry is probably the most subjective form of literature, and not everyone likes to sit down to read more than forty poems in a row. However, the selection here is a cut above what we tend to see from our regular science fiction writers (looking at you, de Camp and Carter) and I hope it helps raise the form to higher standards and recognition.
Four Stars for the whole anthology with a liberal sprinkling of fives for the poems I have called out.
Four new novels suggest the seasons, at least for those of us living in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. Let's start with the traditional beginning of the year, as opposed to our modern January.
Cover art by Margery Gill, who also supplies several interior illustrations.
The first thing you see when you open the book is musical notation. The melody is said to be a very old French tune, and it plays a major part in the plot.
Those of you who can read music may be able to whistle along with the boy.
Christina, known as Kirsty, is a schoolgirl whose mother died a while ago. Her father remarried, this time to a much younger woman. Like many stepchildren, Kirsty resents her.
An opportunity to escape the awkward situation for a while comes when Kirsty gets a job picking fruit in Norfolk. She moves away from her home in Suffolk and lives with a kindly elderly couple.
Strange things start to happen when she hears music coming from an empty room next to her attic bedroom. She meets a local boy who experienced amnesia and sleepwalking when he stayed in the house. More alarmingly, he almost drowned when he walked toward the sea in a trance.
In addition to this mystery, which involves the supernatural, there are multiple subplots. Kirsty has to learn to get along with her young stepmother. A schoolfriend has no father, an alcoholic mother, smokes, admits to having tried marijuana, and is later arrested for shoplifting. One of her two young brothers suffers an accident.
Despite all this going on, and a dramatic climax, the novel is rather leisurely. The author captures the voice of her young narrator convincingly, and never writes down to her readers. There's a love story involved, and the book might be thought of as a Gothic Romance for teenage girls. In addition to this target audience, adults and even boys are likely to get some pleasure from it.
Two young men are hiking when they get lost in a storm. They wind up in a tiny village with only a handful of people living there. It seems that a dam under construction is going to flood the place, so most folks have moved out.
They spend the night in the home of an elderly couple whose son was killed in World War Two. (That may not seem relevant, but it plays a part in the plot.) The other inhabitants of the doomed village are an ex-military man, his adult son and daughter, a somewhat shady fellow, and the former showgirl who lives with him.
Things get weird when this quiet English village develops a tropical climate overnight. Bizarre plants, some like hot air balloons and some like birds, show up. The surrounding countryside changes into a land of earthquakes and volcanoes. What the heck happened?
We soon find out that people from a time thousands of years from now use time travel to transport folks hundreds of thousands of years into the future. Why? Because the future people face an all-encompassing disaster, and want to start human life all over again in the extreme far future.
(They only select folks in the past who were going to be wiped out of history anyway. The village was just about to be buried under a huge landslide, leaving no evidence behind.)
The rest of the book shows our reluctant time travelers exploring, figuring out a way to survive, and fighting among themselves. The two young women pair up with a couple of the men, but not in the way you might expect.
Near the end, the plot turns into a murder mystery, which seems a little odd. The conclusion is something of a deus ex machina. Otherwise, it's an OK read. The characters are interesting.
Fall is a time of nostalgia and anticipation. We gaze at the past, and ponder the future. Our next book features a lead character who has a lot to look back on, and plenty to concern him coming up.
The book takes its title from a famous painting by 19th century Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin.
The artist created several versions of the work. This is one of them.
Francis Sandow, our narrator, started off as a man of our own time. (There are hints that he fought in Vietnam, or at least somewhere in Southeast Asia.) He went on to travel on starships in a state of suspended animation, so he is still alive many centuries from now. In fact, he's one of the wealthiest people in the galaxy.
(Some of this is deduction on my part. The narrator only offers bits and pieces of his life throughout the text. The same might be said about the book's complex background. The author makes the reader work.)
Francis made his fortune by creating planets as an art form. If that isn't god-like enough for you, he's also an avatar of an alien deity, one of many in their pantheon. It's unclear if this is a manifestation of psychic power or a genuine case of possession. The mixing of religion and science in an ambiguous fashion is reminiscent of the Zelazny's previous novel Lord of Light.
Somebody sends Francis new photographs of friends, enemies, lovers, and a wife, all of whom have been dead for a very long time. He also gets a message from an ex-lover (still alive) stating that she is in serious trouble.
This sets him off on an odyssey to multiple planets, as he tracks down an unknown enemy. Along the way, he participates in the death ritual of his alien mentor. The climax takes place on the Isle of the Dead, a place he created on one of his planets as a deliberate imitation of Böcklin's painting.
The bare bones of the plot fail to convey the exotic mood of the book, or Zelazny's style. His writing is informal at times; in other places, he uses extremely long, flowing sentences you can get lost in.
As I've suggested, this novel requires careful reading. Stuff gets mentioned that you won't understand until later, so be patient. I found it intriguing throughout. If the ending seems a little rushed, that's a minor flaw.
About fifty years before the novel begins, aliens arrived on Earth with what seemed to be benevolent intent. Well, you know what they say about Greeks bearing gifts.
The Kaltichs brought longevity treatments and advanced medical techniques that could replace any damaged organ. The catch is that Earthlings have to pay a high price for these things.
There's also the problem of overpopulation. The Kaltichs promised to give humans the secret of instantaneous transportation to a large number of habitable planets. It's been half a century, and we're still waiting.
Because the longevity treatments have to be renewed every ten years, and the Kaltichs deny them to anybody they don't like, Earthlings are subservient to them. We have to call them sire, and punishment with a special whip that inflicts extreme pain follows any transgression.
Our protagonist, Martin Preston, is a secret agent for S.T.A.R., the Secret Terran Armed Resistance. (I guess we're still not over the spy craze, with its love of acronyms.) The agency asks him to imitate a Kaltich and infiltrate one of their centers, which are off limits to humans.
(I should mention here that the Kaltichs are physically identical to Earthlings. That seems unlikely, but it's a plot point and we get an explanation later.)
Because the previous fellow who tried this had his hands cut off and sent back to S.T.A.R., Martin understandably refuses. An incident occurs that changes his mind. With the help of a brilliant female surgeon (who, like most of the women in a James Bond adventure, is gorgeous and sexually available), he sets out on his dangerous mission.
What follows is imprisonment, torture, escape, killings, double crosses, and the discovery of the big secret of the Kaltichs, which you may anticipate. The book is similar to a Keith Laumer slam bang thriller, if a little more gruesome. Hardly profound, but it sure won't bore you.
Three stars.
There you have it, folks. Take ten and enjoy all the new novels coming out. We'll be back next month to help you figure out which ones to put at the top of the pile.
![[July 22, 1969] Let The Sunshine In (More July Books)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/690722covers-672x372.jpg)
![[July 6, 1969] Everybody's talking about Revolution, Evolution… (The Making of a Counter Culture by Theodore Roszak)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/CC1-261x372.jpg)
![[June 14, 1969] Boys and Girls From The North Country (The Conflict in Northern Ireland)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Troubles-5.png)
![[May 16, 1969] Strange Dreams (May Galactoscope)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/690516covers-672x372.jpg)
![[May 14, 1969] The Enterprise crosses the Atlantic (Star Trek in Joe 90 Comics)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Brit-Trek-9.png)
![[April 16, 1969] The Men from Ipomoea (April 1969 Galactoscope)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/690416covers-672x372.jpg)
![[April 2, 1969] A New Beginning? (Out of the Unknown: Season Three)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Picture3.jpg)
![[March 31, 1969] 15 Minutes of Famous (Famous #8 & 9)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/690406famousx2-618x372.jpg)
![[February 18, 1969] (February Galactoscope)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/690218covers-672x372.jpg)
Art by Paul Lehr
![[January 14, 1969] Ten for the road (January Galactoscope)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/690114covers-672x372.jpg)
