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[June 20, 1965] Ace Quadruple (June Galactoscope #1)

June 20, 2020 Kris Vyas-Myall Leave a comment

[Kris Vyas-Myall and Cora Buhlert team up to cover two of the better Ace Doubles to have come out in a while. Enjoy!]

by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

The Ballad of Beta-2, by Samuel R. Delany, and Alpha, Yes! Terra, no!, by Emil Petaja (Ace Double M-121)

I have generally been disappointed by the Ace Doubles so far this year. Those I have read have seemed to me to be quite old fashioned and I had been wondering if they were going to be heading into a more conservative route with them this year. Thankfully, this new Double I have found has been one of their best:

The Ballad of Beta-2 by Samuel R. Delany

I have been a fan of all four of Delany’s Ace novels, however I approached this with some excitement but also trepidation. For three of those former works were in the same Toron series and The Jewels of Aptor was also set in a similar post-catastrophe future. So, whilst I know he is an excellent writer I wondered how he would do with a generation starship story. I can definitively say he has not only succeeded but produced his best work to date.

This is an interesting take on the well-worn theme, where the generation starship became obsolete long before the crew reached their destination. The inhabitants found hyperdrive had resulted in the systems already being colonized and they themselves were outdated relics who were simply content to live on their ships. At the same time, it appears some form of reversion has taken place and those on board lack much of the knowledge they would have had at the start of the voyage.

Galactic anthropology student Joneny is forced to do an assignment on these Star Folk’s culture, specifically the titular “Ballad of Beta-2”. Originally Joneny assumes that the ballad is nothing but meaningless “cotton candy effusions”, but as he investigates further, he discovers this may hold the truth of what terrible fate befell the Star Folk on their long voyage.

This story starts off fairly leisurely and I assumed this was going to be a sedate academic kind of novel, travelling around exploring the starships. However, as it goes on you do discover that the terror listed on the front cover is justified, my heart pounding as I read some passages. And it should be said there are multiple unforeseen twists within its pages.

Delany clearly has a gift for poetry, with the ballad itself being a beautiful piece and with a clearer understanding of metre and imagery than may others in the fantasy field. He also uses a number of other clever literary devices which I loved, such as building up a mosaic story from framed narratives.

Throughout this Delany explores numerous interesting ideas. First is the value of the fantastic in storytelling and how easily it is dismissed by literary critics (something I am sure we have all seen).

Second is the problem of unchecked biases in academia. The only first-hand account Joneny can find is the original contact when the Star Folk entered the system and the Ballad was only picked up by sending in a robot to record, which the original anthropologist changed the lyrics he thought were clearly incorrect. It is off the back of this information that the common truth about the nature of the Star Folk is held.

Third is the danger of cultural assumptions. Thinking about who is civilized and what it truly means to be human. Throughout we are called on to challenge what we think we know and reassess that which we hold to be true.

Then this also acts as a reality check on the space romances, that see an ease to zipping around the universe, showing how hard this could really be. But then the story dives further into the dangers of anti-intellectualism and religious fundamentalism.

I could keep on about all the ways this work is fascinating. It should be noted this part of the Double is pretty short, only 96 pages, but within it he crafts a story with more depth than most writers manage in triple that time. And yet I would not say any of the concepts are treated at a surface level, he weaves it all together like a stout rope and you can see more ideas every time you look closer.

Needless to say, I fell in love with this short novel. I would recommend it for everyone, but it is not for the faint of heart or those looking for a light read. It is tough, intellectually challenging and really brutal at times.

Delany has once again proven himself to be one of the most exciting new voices in science fiction. If he is not to be my favourite writer of the year, someone else is going to have to produce something spectacular in the next six months!

Rating: Five Stars

Alpha Yes, Terra No! by Emil Petaja

Emil Petaja is an old hand of the genre but has been out of the writing game for almost a decade, only just beginning to sell new short stories and (I believe) this is his first novel. As such I was very curious what it would be like.

Humanity has fully conquered the Solar System and is preparing interstellar ships for further expansion. In Alpha Centauri they had been initially deflecting ships with their barrier, but the tribunal has decided it will be necessary to wipe out humanity completely.

The novel opens with an alien from Alpha Centauri arriving in San Francisco and ending up mingling with the homeless of the city. This person (who is initially called The Tourist but who will have more names as the story unfolds) has psychic powers and uses them to take a look at the differences in humanity and what life is like on Earth. However, his mission is not authorized, and a tracker has been sent to kill him.

Trying to summarize beyond this jumping on point seems like a fool’s errand as it become very complex. This story then evolves into a tapestry of life across the solar system, all of it linked together through a range of different characters, touching on ideas of power, mythology, belief and humanity.

Petaja makes a real effort to show what a future of ever-growing space colonization would be like rather than purely projecting the present into the future. This drive is leaving ordinary people’s lives in shambles as everyone has their eyes on space; crime and unemployment are rampant. Drug use is common. The natives of the planets that are being colonized are being exploited but it only manifests as power for a small number and as a means to fuel further expansion.

The author has an easily readable style which is useful as what he is doing could easily collapse under its own weight but somehow, he manages to juggle it. There were times when I would have to backtrack to check I was indeed following everything that was happening, but I never found myself becoming lost. I do think he could possibly have done more if this had been a full-length novel rather than squeezed down into one half of a Double, but he still works admirably with the page count he is given.

I expect this will be compared to Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land (although that itself is an old concept, dating at least as far back as Montaigne’s Of Cannibals) but it is really doing something different. This more a dialogue on humanity’s future weighing up the optimistic and pessimistic views we have emerging in science fiction and considering whether there is something worth saving in us.

So overall, Petaja’s return has proved to be a welcome surprise and I will be interested to see what he comes up with next. He clearly has a great affinity with Finnish myths, so perhaps a book based around that would be welcome?

Rating: Four Stars

by Cora Buhlert

The Rithian Terror and Off Center by Damon Knight (Ace Double M-113)

Summer has come to West Germany, though you wouldn't know it by the wet and miserable weather we've been having.

Nonetheless, there are some good news. My hometown team Werder Bremen has won the West German football (soccer to our American friends) championship for the 1964/65 season.

Werder Bremen 1965 champion — The Werder Bremen team celebrates winning the 1965 West German football championship

The 83rd Kieler Woche, one of the biggest sailing regattas in the world, kicks off today in Kiel-Eckernförde. In addition to the sailing competition, there is also a parade featuring 23 tall ships from all over the world.

Kieler Woche 1965 — The West German police boat SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN and the French tall ships ETOILE and BELLE POULE, the Swedish tall ships GLADAN and FALKEN and the Chilean tall ship ESMERALDA at the Kieler Woche.

Poster Kieler Woche 1965 — This striking minimalist poster, designed by Michael Engelmann, advertises the 1965 Kieler Woche sailing regatta.

On to reading: In the spinner rack of my local import bookstore, I came across yet another Ace Double, No. M-113 to be precise. This one contained a novel as well as a short fiction collection by Damon Knight. In the past, I have enjoyed Damon Knight's works of literary criticism, so how would his fiction stand up?

Monster Hunt

Quite well, it turns out. The novel The Rithian Terror starts out with Security Commissioner Thorne Spangler, currently the most important official in the Earth Empire, on the hunt for a monster. That monster, the titular Rithian terror, is a tentacled horror that can take on the appearance of anybody it wishes. Seven Rithians came to Earth, but only one is still at large.

However, Spangler is certain he has the monster cornered. After all, there are house by house searches and roadblocks on every street, where everybody has to pass through a scanner. This is the one test a Rithian can't pass, for the scanner detects human skeletons and Rithians have none.

Spangler is accompanied by Jawj Pembun, an official from Manhaven, one of Earth's colony worlds, which recently gained its independence. Manhaven has regular contact with the Rithians, so Pumbun was brought in as an expert.

Spangler clearly resents Pembun's involvement in what should be his moment of glory. For starters, Pembun comes from a small backwater planet, one that only gained its independence, because the Earth Empire with its 260 planets let them. Furthermore, Pembun speaks in heavy dialect, while the Empire prizes precise language. Finally, Pembun is a black man, descended from African and Caribbean colonists, and Spangler is the sort of person who is very bothered by this and not shy about expressing it.

I have to admit that after the first fifteen pages or so, I came close to throwing the book against the nearest wall. There are enough racists in the real world, so I really don't need to spend time with racist characters while reading. However, I quickly realised that Knight was a better author than that. For even though Spangler may be the POV character, we're not meant to sympathise with him or his Empire. After all, Spangler and the Empire he serves are rigid, overorganised, xenophobic, have a massive superiority complex and are racist to boot. Spangler is also unpleasant in his personal life, a social climber who only courts his girlfriend Joanna because she is a member of a patrician family and will be useful to him. At one point, he even hits Joanna.

As a result, I quickly found myself sympathising with Pembun and cheered as he deflated Spangler and his smug compatriots. For starters, those scanners at every roadblock that Spangler is so proud of won't work, for while Rithians don't have skeletons, they could just swallow one to pass the test. Also, if the Empire wants to capture a Rithian alive, then maybe shooting six of the seven Rithians who crashlanded on Earth dead is not the best idea. Finally, Pembun casually drops the bombshell that the Rithians have hypnotic abilities as well as a nasty sense of humour.

A Game of Spies

What began as the hunt for an alien spy quickly turns into a game of cat and mouse between Spangler and Pembun. Spangler decides that Pembun must be a traitor and wastes a lots of resources trying to catch him redhanded. But the meeting of supposed offworld insurrectionists Spangler has his forces storm only turns out to be a Christmas party, where Pembun hands out gifts to children while dressed up as a legendary figure called the Grey Parrot.

While Spangler fails at every turn due to his rigid mindset, Pembun's unorthodox methods get results. And so Pembun manages to unmask the Rithian two thirds through the novel, using the Rithian's sense of humour against him. It turns out that the alien is posing as a junior member of the very committee dedicated to hunting him down. However, in the attempt to apprehend the Rithian, the alien is killed and Colonel Cassina, the military official the Rithian had hypnotised into giving him access to the security headquarters, is grievously wounded.

However, the crisis is not yet over. For the Rithians have planted bombs on Earth as leverage against the Empire. The key to the location of the bombs is in Colonel Cassina's head, only Cassina will not talk. And once Spangler's people finally manage to extract the message, destroying the Colonel's mind in the process, it turns out to be useless.

For Pembun points out that even though language has frozen and standardised in the Empire with every word having only a single meaning, it continued to evolve on the colony planets, where the same term can have many different meanings. So the location given in the message could be anywhere on Earth. Spangler and his security forces have no chance of locating the bombs. The Empire is finished, destroyed by its own rigidity, and so is Spangler's career. However, Spangler and Pembun have developed a grudging respect for each other and Pembun offers him a place on his homeworld Manhaven. Spangler's girlfriend Joanna, who up to now had refused to marry him, knowing fully well that Spangler wanted her not for herself, but for her position, agrees to go with him.

A Tale with Multiple Meanings

As a linguist, I enjoyed that the solution to the central mystery of the novel lies in the ambiguity of language. Another thing I liked was that Pembun's native tongue, which he occasionally speaks throughout the novel, is a Creole based on French, Spanish and English. I have no idea if Knight used a real Creole language, but it certainly feels convincing enough.

Just like the solution of the linguistic mystery, The Rithian Terror is a novel with multiple layers and meanings. On the surface, it is a hunt for a literal bug-eyed monster that has infiltrated Earth. However, it is also a John Le Carré like spy novel about two agents, both nominally on the same side, trying to outmanoeuvre each other. Finally, The Rithian Terror is a novel about colonialism and the slow decline and death of empires.

It is this last aspect that is also the most topical, for in the past fifteen years, we have seen the once great colonial empires of Britain and France as well as smaller powers like Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy slowly fall apart, as more and more nations in Africa, South East Asia and the Caribbean gain independence. And it is certainly no accident that Pembun, the representative of a newly independent world, is also a black man speaking Creole, while his counterpart Spangler is an overly rigid white man with the proverbial stick shoved up his backside. Knight makes it very clear to which of these two very different men the future belongs.

Four stars.

Off Center

Of Immigrants and Dolpins

Off Center, the second half of this Ace Double, is a collection of five pieces of short fiction originally published between 1952 and 1964.

The first story "What Rough Beast?" is the story of a young immigrant named Mike Kronski trying to make his way in America. However, Mike is not the simple East European immigrant he appears to be. He comes from far further afield, from an alternate universe. He also has the ability to bend reality to his will and has accidentally changed his world into ours.

Through a series of misadventures, Mike meets a young woman called Anne with burn scars on her body. He uses his ability to heal Anne's scars, which causes Anne's father and a greedy friend to capture Mike to exploit him. Mike tries to run away and is shot. In his terror, he accidentally erases New York from existence. Only Anne remains. Mike takes her to a different version of New York, where she can feel at home, and then departs to a new reality, hoping that this time, he will fit in.

A touching tale about the alienation and profound sense of homesickness many immigrants feel. Knight captures Mike's voice and his imperfect English well. Our editor Gideon Marcus also loved the story.

"Second Class Citizen" is the story of researcher Charles Craven and the subject of his studies, the dolphin Pete. Craven has taught Pete to understand and speak English, spell simple words and even do chemical experiments. While Craven patronisingly presents Pete to some visitors, we learn from background conversations that there is an international crisis going on. Craven is convinced that this crisis will blow over, like any other crisis before.

However, Craven is wrong, for shortly after the visitors have left, the TV program is interrupted for a special bulletin before dropping out altogether. Craven correctly deduces that war has begun and manages to dive to the underwater station of his research base just before heat bombs fall all around him. Craven survives the attack, but once his food runs out, he will be doomed, unless he manages to catch enough fish to survive. However, Craven has no idea how to catch fish. Then Pete appears, easily catching the fish. The roles are reversed now, the teacher has become the student.

An interesting story about the way humans treat animals, but too short to make much of an impact. Gideon Marcus feels the same in his review of the story.

Of Ghosts, Gods and Martians

The novella "Be My Guest" is the story of Kip Morgan, a young man who finds himself possessed by four bickering ghosts after a poisoning attempt gone wrong. Kip also has another problem, he as well as two women of his acquaintance have become invisible to everybody but each other.

The novella follows Kip through his increasingly desperate attempts to get rid of his unwanted tenants and solve his invisibility problem. Kip finally realises that everybody had multiple ghosts living inside them and that these ghosts influence their decisions. He also realises that his invisibility problem is a form of quarantine to keep Kip from talking about the ghosts. Eventually, he blackmails some very powerful ghosts inhabiting the body of a rich man into lifting the quarantine and make sure that he and the two women are given only beneficial and helpful ghosts. Finally free, Kip also realises that the woman he thought he loved is not the person who's really good for him.

"Be My Guest" is an fascinating attempt at a science fictional ghost story. Knight viscerally conveys Kip's growing desperation. It does feel a little long, though, and would probably have worked better as a novelette or short story.

"God's Nose" is a short vignette that does exactly what it says on the tin. The unnamed narrator and his female friend debate what the nose of God would look like. Eventually, her lover Godfrey arrives. He has a very prominent nose.

Inconsequential without much in the way of plot or point.

The final story "Catch That Martian" feels very much like a mix between The Rithian Terror and "Be My Guest". Once again, we have a dangerous alien, the titular Martian, who can take on the appearance of any human being. And once again, we have people abruptly taken out of the real world and turned into "ghosts". A young police officer is determined to crack the mystery of the ghosts and catch the Martian in the act. He deduces that the ghosts must have annoyed the Martian somehow, mostly via making noise, and that the Martian has a taste for musical theatre. So the narrator traces the Martian to a Broadway theatre, determined to apprehend him. But before he can give chase, he falls into the orchestra pit, straight onto a bass drum.

Well written and Knight once again captures the distinctive voice of his first person narrator perfectly. However, the story is also slight and a little silly, particularly compared to the two similar stories in this Ace Double.

All told, Off Center is a nice collection that showcases Knight's writing skills, even though some of the stories are a little slight.

Three stars.

[Don't miss the next episode of The Journey Show, featuring singer-songwriter Harry Seldon. He'll be playing a mix of Dylan, Simon, and some unique original compositions!]

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Book

[February 26, 1965] Dare to be Mediocre (February Galactoscope #2)

February 26, 2020 GalacticJourney 2 Comments

This second Galactoscope for February involves entries from both sides of the Atlantic. It also introduces our newest writer, a most interesting Briton who we are most grateful to have; there's so much going on in the UK these days!

Dare by Philip Jose Farmer

By Jason Sacks

I’ve become a big fan of Philip Jose Famer over the years. Which is why I’m frustrated I didn’t enjoy his newest book, Dare, as much as I wanted to.

Like most of you, I became familiar with Farmer when I first read his famous short story “The Lovers.” I was captivated by Famer’s smart prose, his intriguing depiction of love between a human and alien, and most of all by his focus on human emotions while exploring thoroughly unique alien worlds.

Farmer has continued to build that reputation over the last decade, culminating in (at least to me) his imaginative world building with his outstanding 1964 novella “The Day of the Great Shout”, which was set in his fantastical and intriguing Riverworld. With that story, it began to feel like Farmer was on the verge of taking his next leap forward as a writer, fulfilling the promise he showed during his first fecund period, during the 1950s, when he was nominated as Most Promising New Talent.

Unfortunately, Dare doesn’t quite demonstrate the virtuosity one expects from our current group of budding science fiction masters.

Oh, Dare has elements of uniqueness and sparks of something special. The world Farmer creates is broad and diverse, with clues dropped of the same sorts of cosmic chessmasters who might have created the Riverworld.

The planet Dare is a fantastical place, part utopia and part dystopia, inhabited by a heady and fascinating mix of humans and fantasy-like creatures.

In one of the most interesting twists (which doesn’t pay off in the book) the humans on this planet are the members of the original Jamestown settlement on Earth, who landed in Virginia at the dawn of the era of colonization and then disappeared before the next boatload of Brits landed in America. Farmer answers the lingering mystery of their disappearance in the most science-fiction way possible: these settlers have been kidnapped to that aforementioned alien world, in which they find themselves attempting to survive and continue the way of life for which they left England in the first place.

As happens with every generation, where parents set rules, the children will defy the rules. Love will find its way, even if the love is between two different species.

The other inhabitants of the planet are a curious mix of creatures which seem to emerge from Terran mythology. There are mandrakes and talking dragons and annoying unicorns – a clever running gag of the book paints unicorns as stupid, emotional animals and far from childrens’ fantasies – and a group of satyr type creatures. Naturally the satyrs cavort about in the nude and naturally the human boy falls in love with a female of the species named R’li.

A triple novel?

Dare really reads like three books – or maybe three short stories – under one cover.

The first third of the book dwells mainly on the romance between Jack and R’li. This section is sweet and a bit sexy and reminds me of a variant on “The Lovers”. Much of the middle third of the book shows the humans’ fury at the boy’s indiscretion, and is full of action and intrigue. However, the charm of the first third is tossed away for more of a violent, action-adventure story, and the transition between those two sections happens awkwardly, making the book feel like it’s arguing with itself. In the last third, Farmer takes the plot into more of a science fiction battle territory as a ship arrives and changes everything on the planet.

None of these storylines cohere well with the others. There’s a feeling that Farmer wrote three short stories set in this world and then just grafted them together, never mind that the tone shifts wildly and the book doesn't effectively build to a satisfying conclusion. A reader finishes this book a bit stunned, unsure what to make of the mysterious mélange Farmer has delivered.

More than that, there’s just so much here that feels underdeveloped. I wanted to learn more about the dislocation the Virginians felt, to understand more about the alien society, and to understand what force brought all these creatures to the planet. Unusually for Farmer, this book felt more about the surface and less about the depth, making for a jarring and ultimately frustrating read.

I still hope for good things from Farmer, but Dare represents a step backwards on the road to mastery.

Rating: 2 stars

New Writings in SF 3

by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

If you've been a science fiction fan in Britain anytime in the last decade you likely know John Carnell. He was an editor on Britain’s first fanzine, New Worlds, before the war and revived it as a professional fiction venue in the '40s. He then further expanded to Science Fantasy and Science Fiction Adventures, becoming rather like Britain’s version of Frederik Pohl.

However, with the latter shutting down last year and declining sales on the other two titles, Carnell decided to take another leaf from Pohl’s book to move away from publishing magazines and become a literary agent, and to try his hand at publishing original anthologies.

His stated aims in the first publication were as follows:

Only publish either original stories or those not likely seen by the vast majority of readers
Introduce new short fiction to the general public rather than just science fiction afficionados
Introduce new styles, ideas and writers to the genre

I can definitely say he has been successful in the first one and probably in the second, but I am not so sure on the final point.

Firstly, most of the writers had already been writing for New Worlds; the only truly new ones so far have been John Rankine & G. L. Lack. And I would not say this work is that experimental — rather it has been solid in established fields. Ironically these aims seem like they might be being better achieved by Moorcock and Bonfiglioli in their new management of Carnell's old magazines.

What we have had in the previous two issues of New Writings are solid stories of the type we would expect from these writers, even those like Brian Aldiss (whose work I always love). I would never place these works among their top range, but even the lower tier authors brought over from Carnell’s last years on New Worlds are still producing readable work for the first two volumes as well as #3, which I shall now discuss:

The Subways of Tazoo, by Colin Kapp

In our first story we follow an archeological dig as they attempt to uncover an extinct civilization on a hostile world. The story is largely told through rather unnatural conversation, but the way it unfolds and gives us more information about the Tazoon is rather interesting. A low three stars.

The Fiend, by Frederik Pohl

Speaking of Pohl, his influence appears again with this reprint from Playboy (described wonderfully by Carnell as “an American magazine devoted to the broadest of broad policies of masculine appeal”). Here Pohl attempts a dark tale of an interstellar voyage captain’s obsession with a frozen passenger, but comes across as creepy in the wrong way. Two stars for me but one that may appeal to other new wavers.

Manipulation, by John Kingston

The first of two stories by regular Science Fantasy contributor Keith Roberts (under, what I believe is, a new pseudonym) where he gives us a stylish and evocative tale of a man dealing with having psychic powers. This fresh take, whilst not as highly experimental as is being published by Moorcock, represents the closest to the fulfillment of Carnell’s stated aims. Four stars.

Testament, by John Baxter

The return of another New Worlds regular with this vignette on survival in a dying world. These kinds of apocalypses are very much in vogue right now but Baxter manages a deft and memorable work. Four stars.

Night Watch, by James Inglis

A second very short piece in a row. This one treads over some well-worn ground but does it well. A solid three stars.

Boulter's Canaries, by Keith Roberts

In his second story for the anthology Roberts asks, is there a scientific explanation for ghosts? The resulting answer is less satisfactory than other recent attempts. Two stars.

Emreth, by Dan Morgan

This is a story from an old hand returning to SF writing after a four-year hiatus. It has incredibly strong and memorable moments but doesn't tie well enough together for me to get beyond three stars.

Space Master, by James H. Schmitz

Schmitz, as a longstanding and prolific American author, seems like an odd fit to finish out this collection. If you like the kind of work he does you may enjoy this story, I personally do not. Two stars.

In Conclusion

So overall this is pretty much down the middle. None of the stories within seem destined to be all-time classics but none are truly awful; even those I disliked I can see they may well appeal to others. Solid and competent work.

By all accounts these collections have been pretty well received by the science fiction buying public over here, and along with increasing sales on New Worlds and Science Fantasy, it seems like British Science Fiction is in safe hands.

Like Watching a Movie

by Gideon Marcus

Another month, another Ace Double. This one is designated M-111, and like most of the rest of the books in the series, it offers two mildly interesting adventure stories. In this case, I felt the writing exceptionally vivid; both books would make good film adaptations, I think.

Fugitive of the Stars, by Edmond Hamilton

by Jack Gaughan

Horne, 1st Navigator on the Vega Queen, makes landfall on the Fringe planet of Skereth. Skereth is on the verge of accepting an invitation to join the galactic Federation of planets, and they are sending the envoy, Morivenn, to effect the union. In a back alley on Skereth's capital, Horne and his 2nd Navigator are beset by hoodlums, and the latter crewman is rendered unable to work. Luckily, an eager-beaver Skerethian named Ardric is a qualified 2nd Navigator.

He's also an anti-Federation agent, and he manages to destroy the Vega Queen, killing most of its passengers and crew before getting away. Horne is courtmartialed for negligence, but he flees justice before he can be sentenced. Now on the hunt for Ardric, his goal is to clear his name — and discover what secret makes Skereth is so hell-bent on staying out of the Federation.

If this plot sounds familiar, it may be because you read the novella on which it's based (basically the latter two thirds of the book) came out as Fugitive of the Stars in one of the last issues of Imagination more than seven years ago.

by Malcolm Smith

Thus, there's no way the title is meant to evoke the current TV show staring David Janssen (The Fugitive, natch). In any event, Edmond Hamilton (Mr. Leigh Brackett) does a fine job with this riproaring space opera, and the expansion into a full-length novel only improves the story. The best exchange in the book is this one, while Horne and Morivenn's daughter, Yso, are dogfighting Ardris' goons in hover cones:

Yso: "What's the matter? Haven't you ever seen a woman fight before?"

Horne: "When I was in the Navy, some of my best men were women. Are you Navy?"

Yso: "Skereth Planetary."

Three and a half stars.

Land Beyond the Map, by Kenneth Bulmer

by Jerome Podwil

Rollie Crane, a listless dilettante millionaire, had a traumatic experience as a child. On a road trip through Ireland, his father, using a strange half-map, drove his family's car into a strange alternate dimension. Therein, the ground heaved with chaos, clanking treaded things chased them, and strange towers bisected the horizon. All of this lay half-forgotten until the stormy night that Polly Gould arrived at Crane's mansion with stories about a similar map, which had swallowed her former boyfriend and his new love many years prior.

The two decide to return to Ireland and search every antique bookshop until they find the map. But what will they find when they reach the uncharted zone? And who is this sinister McArdle character who shows up to warn them off their task? Worst yet, what are these floating baleful eyes that burn with golden fire and vaporize at a glance?

I have to say that prolific British author Kenneth Bulmer had never really impressed me to date. Land, on the other hand, is a fun romp. In many ways, it feels like an Edgar Rice Burroughs story, with little reliance on technology, captivating scenery, and two strong characters who clearly fancy each other but can't confess their feelings until the very end.

Where the tale falls down is the conclusion, in which Crane has no real role. He watches lots of exciting things happen, but he affects them not at all. It's a shame and something of a cheat; surely Bulmer could have given Crane and/or Gould something to do at the climax.

So, three and a half stars for a pleasant time whose imagery will stay with you even if the plot doesn't.

(by the way, I've now learned that this story is also a reprint of sorts, an expansion of Map Country from the February 1961 Science-Fantasy. It seems largely the same — just fuller.)

by Brian Lewis

That's it for February! March promises to be a light month for books — good thing since we've been flooded with magazines! Stay tuned…

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[January 4, 1965] Madness: 2, Sanity: 1 (January Galactoscope)

January 4, 2020 Victoria Silverwolf 3 Comments

[January's edition of the Galactoscope offers three novels in two books. Be warned — there's madness afoot!]

by Victoria Silverwolf

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun

Now that you've got the Doublemint Gum jingle running through your head, allow me to explain my reason for annoying you. The Ace Double Series has been going for more than a decade, offering two novels in one. Two short novels, to be sure; some are really novellas. Others are short story collections, as we'll see in today's review. The pair of mini-books are bound in what the printing industry calls dos-a-dos. (Sounds like a square dancing term to me.) That is, each half of the volume is upside down, compared to the other half. Sometimes both parts are by the same writer, sometimes not.

Let's take a look at Ace Double M-109, featuring G. C. Edmondson's first novel, as well as several briefer pieces from the same pen.

Mister Edmondson or Señor Edmondson y Cotton?

I can come up with no better way to introduce the author than by allowing him to speak for himself, in the blurb that comes with the book in question.

I don't know how seriously to take all of that, but it certainly makes for interesting reading. I hope the novel (yes, I'll get around to it eventually) proves to be at least as fascinating.

Appetizers Before the Main Course

Cover art by Jack Gaughan

Stranger Than You Think is a collection of all the Mad Friend stories that have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction to date. Because our Noble Host has already reviewed these tales, I won't go into detail.

Suffice to say that they all feature the narrator and his Mad Friend in rural Mexico, and deal with time travel, alien probes, reincarnation, and such things. The tone is very light, and the stories are about ten percent plot and ninety percent local color. They remind me, a bit, of R. A. Lafferty and Avram Davidson. In general, the series is inoffensive but forgettable.

The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream

Also by Gaughan

I told you I'd get around to it.

Our hero is Ensign Joseph Rate, commander of the good ship Alice, a unique vessel in the United States Navy of the modern era. You see, Alice is a wooden sailing ship, although she also has a diesel engine for emergency use. The idea is that she can engage in countermeasures against enemy submarines without making sounds that would reveal her position.

At the moment, Alice is engaged in testing new equipment, requiring the presence of an elderly meteorologist and his young assistant. Unknown to his motley crew, Rate is also supposed to investigate criminal activities aboard her.

All of this fades into insignificance, when lighting strikes Alice at the same time the ship's cook is messing around with a new way to distill illicit booze. (Believe it or not, this plays an important part in the plot.)

Full Speed Backwards

If you've read the title of the novel, it won't come as a big surprise to discover that Alice gets zapped back in time a millennium or so, as well as leaving the warm ocean area near San Diego for colder waters, somewhere between Ireland and Iceland. A battle with a Viking raider ensues, followed by a slightly less violent meeting with a merchant ship. Among the cargo she's carrying is a Spanish Gypsy, enslaved by the Norsemen. She winds up aboard Alice, and serves as the novel's main source of sex appeal. Besides that, she's also clever and a tough cookie, so I'll give the author some credit for that.

Here We Go Again

Skipping over most of the first half of the novel, we reach a point where Rate tries to duplicate the circumstances that led to this situation. This doesn't work out very well, because Alice doesn't return to her home, but instead jumps back another thousand years, and winds up somewhere in the Mediterranean.

After encountering Arab slave traders who temporarily take control of Alice, the time travelers eventually wind up on a rocky island, populated by goats and several naked young women, who are more than willing to supply the crew with plenty of wine and other carnal pleasures. There's an explanation for what seems like a sailor's fantasy, which involves another inadvertent visitor from the future, this time the madame of a brothel/speakeasy in 1920's Chicago.

A lot more happens before we reach the end of the novel, including battles with Roman warships and the misadventures of the only religious fanatic aboard Alice, a male virgin who finds himself in intimate situations with more than one alluring lady.

Worth the Voyage?

Although it's impossible to take the novel's version of time travel seriously, the plot doesn't stop for a second, always keeping the reader's interest. As you may have guessed, there's quite a bit of sexual content, which tends to be more teasing than explicit. There's also a lot of violence, given the constant attacks on Alice by just about every vessel that meets her.

The tone of the book ranges from darkly comic to intensely dramatic, with a bit of satire in the form of the religious fanatic. This character may raise some eyebrows among readers of faith, although his version of Christianity is clearly of the extremist variety. The ending raises the possibility of a sequel, but whether such a book will ever appear is up to the tides of time.

Three stars.

A Little Mental Illness for the New Year (The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich by Philip K. Dick)

by Jason Sacks

This is the fourth Philip K. Dick novel released in the last several months, and I’ve read them all. Clearly science fiction’s most surrealistic writer is in the midst of an unusually fecund period, one in which his astounding fiction seems channeled directly from the writer’s brain onto the printed page. And while that unfiltered creativity makes for fascinating reading, Dick’s latest fiction shows him to be wrestling with some intense personal issues, including dislocation and mental health concerns.

Those recent works (The Penultimate Truth, The Clans of the Alphane Moon, Martian Time-Slip and his most recently published novel, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich) share a lot in common with each other. All three books demonstrate a mind in constant motion, continually distracted and probing, with ideas seeming to spark from every page in a cascade which starts out as thrilling, becomes tiring, and ultimately proves to be overwhelming. Ideas, interesting and odd, bonkers and basic, philosophical and dully grounded, seem to flow from Mr. Dick as freely as the sweat which constantly seems to be on the foreheads of each and every one of his neurotic protagonists.

Eldrich starts from a template similar to his Dick’s other novels. Most Dick novels feature a neurotic protagonist, and this book is no exception. This time he is named Barney Mayerson and he is a wealthy man in a low-numbered conapt building (a major sign of status) with a great job as the New York Pre-Fash consultant at influential company P.P. Layouts. But Mayerson has problems – oh nellie does he have problems. As the book begins, the businessman wakes up with a hangover, a strange woman in his bed and, most frightening of all, a draft notice which will cause the UN to send him to Mars. That sounds like the beginning of a film noir, but as we follow Mayerson, he slips into a different sort of darkness than the doomed protagonists of our darkest films.

To help him escape the draft, Barney has purchased a robot named Dr. Smile, intended to help Mayerson avoid the draft by making him even more neurotic than he seems. But even the robot isn’t perfect; it calls him by the wrong name and doesn’t seem to pay close attention to Barney, adding to the seemingly endless list of degrading events Barney experiences in the first few pages — and far from the final humiliation he experiences in the book.

Like so many lead characters in recent Dick novels – poor doomed Norbert Steiner in Time-Slip and lovelorn, oblivious Chuck Rittersdorf in Alphane pop immediately to mind – Barney Mayerson is a confused man. He is neurotic, uncertain, perhaps mentally ill. He has tremendous problems relating to the women most important to him, especially his wife. He even gives up all hope of avoiding the draft and instead volunteers to go to Mars, simply to get away from a source of tangled neurotic pain. It is tough to spend time with Steiner, Rittersdorf or Mayerson, because they are so uncertain of themselves despite their apparent success. These are so conscious of their own flaws, their own massive insecurities, that we can understand why these feel rejected by the worlds which surround them. As readers, we want to reject them as well, want to follow characters with some measure of self-assurance, like Trade Minister Tagomi in Dick’s 1963 masterpiece The Man in the High Castle.

Taken one at a time, each of the recent Dick books provide an intriguing portrait of men whose own demons sabotage their own best aspirations. Seen together as a collection of books, it’s hard not to see some authorial autobiography flowing through these characters. After all, if Mr. Dick is writing his books so quickly, how can he avoid writing himself into his stories?

If we take that assertion as fact as part of my essay (and I would be delighted to hear counterarguments in the letters page), then Palmer Eldrich is the most frightening of all Dick’s novels so far. Because at its heart, and in the great thrust of its cataclysmic conclusion, is a break with peaceful reality that actually makes me worry about the author.

Without going too deep into the reasons why – part of the joy of this fascinating book lies in the ways Dick explores his shambolic but complex plot – Barney ends up on Mars and discovers that nearly all the Martian colonists are miserable and drug-addled. Their experience on Mars is so wretched and soul-crushing that only psychedelic drugs, shared among groups of colonists, provide a brief break from their mind-numbing lives.

Barney is responsible for helping a new drug to come to Mars, cleverly called Chew-Z, which promises better highs and more transcendent experiences. But as readers soon discover, the new drug also creates a schizophrenic experience, one in which the terrifying Palmer Eldrich comes to dominate Martian society – and much more – in a way that terrifies everyone who considers it. Eldrich is a terrifying creature, with steel teeth, a damaged arm, and an approach to the world which builds misery.

In truth, Barney Mayerson has unleashed a demon, and it’s not spoiling much in this book to say that by the end you will feel the same fear Barney and the rest of society begin to feel.

Eldrich, thus, is a deeply unsettling book, and fits Dick’s recent output in a way which makes me feel concerned for the author. It is the third out of the four recent novels to deal explicitly with mental illness (in fact, mental illness provides the central storyline of Alphane and a key secondary storyline in Martian Time-Slip). It’s intriguing that Dick sees in science fiction the opportunity to put the readers in the mindset of a man experiencing a schizophrenic break, a psychotic episode, or battling debilitating depression, but the continual presence of such ideas suggests a man whose life is also battling similar breaks.

If Mr. Dick is obsessed with mental illness, does he see that illness in himself when he looks in the mirror? And if we readers purchase Mr. Dick’s books in which mental illness takes a central role, are we aiding his therapy or abetting his continual wallowing?

Palmer Eldrich is not an easy book to read, not once it gets going and we start to realize the depths of Meyerson’s, and Dick’s problems. The plot ambles and wanders and is dense with philosophy and allusion. For a 200-page book, this is no quick Tarzan or Conan yarn. Instead, it is a deeply upsetting, deeply complex look into the disturbed psychology of both its lead character and its author. After consuming so many Dick novels all in succession, I’m craving something much lighter. Neuroses are exhausting.

4 stars

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 11, 1964] December Galactoscope

December 11, 2019 Cora Buhlert 4 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

The season of giving is upon us. For women, perfumes like the classic scent Tosca are the most popular gifts, while men tend to find ties, socks and underwear under the tree.

Personally, I think that books are the best gifts. And so I gave myself Margaret St. Clair's latest, when I spotted it in the spinner rack at my local import bookstore, since I enjoyed last year's Sign of the Labrys a lot. Even better, this book is an Ace Double, which means I get two new tales for the price of one. Or rather, I get six, because one half is a collection of five short stories.

Message from the Eocene by Margaret St. Clair (Ace Double M-105)

An alien in trouble

The first half is a brand-new science fiction novel called Message from the Eocene. The protagonist, a being named Tharg, is tasked with transporting a cosmic guidebook across hostile territory. The reader learns in the first paragraph that Tharg is not human, because he has a triple heartbeat. Tharg lives on Earth, but the Earth of billions of years ago (long before the Eocene, so the title is a misnomer), a world of volcanos and methane snow, devoid of oxygen. Tharg "breathes" via microorganisms inside his body that break down metallic oxides to oxygenate his blood and has extrasensory perception.

Tharg is in trouble, for a mysterious enemy is trying to thwart his mission. This enemy turns out to be the Vaeaa, a legendary alien race, who are believed to have deposited Tharg's people on Earth in the first place.

Tharg is taken is taken prisoner, but not before he manages to hide the book inside a volcano (it has a protective casing). Under interrogation, Tharg has an out-of-body experience. As a result, his consciousness remains, when his body dies during an escape attempt, to witness the extinction of both his people and the Vaeaa, though the Vaeaa manage to set up a projector on Pluto to keep out further cosmic guidebooks first.

Over billions of years, Tharg's spirit observes life arise and evolve on Earth. Tharg realises that the book might help with his condition, but he has no way to retrieve it. So Tharg decides to ask the Earth's new inhabitants for help. But how to make himself known, considering that Tharg is a bodyless spirit being and never was human in the first place?

Misadventures and miscommunications

The rest of the novel chronicles Tharg's attempts to communicate. Tharg's first attempt targets the Proctors, a Quaker family in 19th century England. This goes disastrously wrong, because not only do the Proctors come to believe that their house is haunted – no, Tharg also gets trapped in the house. Taken on its own, the Proctor segment feels like a Victorian ghost story, except that the ghost is a desperate disembodied alien. The insights into the lives of 19th century Quakers are fascinating, but then Margaret St. Clair is a member of the Society of Friends.

Tharg's next attempt targets Denise, who lives with her husband Pierre in a French colony in the South Pacific. Denise has extrasensory perception, making her the ideal subject. But once again Tharg only succeeds in giving Denise nightmares and causing hauntings in the mine Pierre oversees. Worse, the superstitious miners blame Denise for the hauntings. They kidnap the couple and give Denise hallucinogenic herbs to increase her abilities. Now Denise is able to communicate with Tharg long enough to realise that he wants them to recover the book.

So Pierre uses his mining job to blast a hole into a mountain at the very spot where Denise insists the book is hidden. After some trouble with Vietnamese workers – an incident St. Clair uses to explain that oppression during colonial times has left the Vietnamese angry and frustrated, which leads to violence, a lesson that is highly relevant to the situation in Vietnam today – Denise and Pierre manage to retrieve the book. Alas, once they open the protective casing, the book bursts into flame and is destroyed.

Tharg now sets his sights on the projector the Vaeaa installed on Pluto to keep future cosmic guidebooks away from Earth. For if another book were to arrive, Tharg might finally be able to escape his condition.

Sacrifices and success

There is another time jump to 1974, when strange things happen. An experiment detects a purely theoretical particle, a sea captain sees a mermaid, Canadians dance under the Northern lights and a Tibetan monk has a vision. Tharg views these events as signs that another guidebook is on the way. But due to the projector on Pluto, it will never reach Earth.

In order to shut down the projector long enough to let the book through, Tharg has to dissolve himself in the collective consciousness of humanity, which will also mean his annihilation. So Tharg sacrifices himself and the book is picked up by an expedition to Venus. The novel ends with Tharg waking on the astral plane in a replica of his original body, just as the US-Soviet crew of the spaceship to Venus is about to open the book.

This is a strange and disjointed, but fascinating novel. Though Tharg is one of the rare truly alien aliens of science fiction, he is nonetheless a likeable protagonist and the reader sympathises with his plight. Tharg is also an unlikely messiah, sacrificing himself to assure the future of humanity.

Humanity being uplifted and our minds and bodies evolving is a common theme in our genre. However, Message from the Eocene offers a very different variation on this theme compared to what you'd find in the pages of Analog, even if psychic abilities are involved. The enlightenment offered by the book is reminiscent of both Buddhism and various occult traditions, while its arrival alludes to the so-called Age of Aquarius that astrologers believe will arrive soon.

In a genre that is still all too often peopled solely by white American men, the humans Tharg encounters are of all genders, races, nationalities and religions and all are portrayed sympathetically. For if the alien Tharg does not discriminate based on superficial criteria, then maybe neither should we. It is also notable that even before they receive the book, St. Clair's near future Earth is a more peaceful place than our world, where China has withdrawn from Tibet and the US and USSR cooperate in space.

Message from the Eocene is a story of failed communication, but also a story of evolution and enlightenment and overcoming one's limitations. Given the state of the world today, this may be just the message humanity needs.

Four and a half stars.

Three World of Futurity by Margaret St. Clair

Three Worlds and five stories

Three Worlds of Futurity, the other half of this Ace Double, is a collection of five short stories originally published between 1949 and 1962. The three worlds in question are Mars, Venus and Earth.

In "The Everlasting Food", Earthman Richard Dekker finds that his Venusian wife Issa has changed after lifesaving surgery. One night, Issa announces that she is immortal now, that she no longer needs to eat and that energy sustains her. Soon thereafter, she leaves, taking their young son with her. Richard takes off after her to get his son back, Issa's human foster sister Megan in tow. After many trials and tribulations, they finally find Issa – only for Richard to lose his wife and son for good. But while Richard is heartbroken, he has also fallen in love with Megan.

"The Everlasting Food" is a curious mix of domestic science fiction in the vein of Zenna Henderson and Mildred Clingerman and planetary adventure in the vein of Leigh Brackett, and never quite gels. I did like Megan, who is described as dark-skinned, by the way, but Issa is hard to connect to and Richard, though well meaning, falls for Megan a little too quickly. Furthermore, the villain feels like an afterthought who comes out of nowhere.

"Idris' Pig" opens on a spaceship to Mars. George Baker is the ship's resident psychologist. His cousin Bill is a courier and passenger aboard the same ship. When Bill falls ill, it's up to George to deliver the object Bill was supposed to deliver, a blue-skinned sacred pig. However, Bill can only give George very vague instructions about where to deliver the pig and so the pig is promptly stolen. And so George has to retrieve it with the help of Blixa, a young Martian woman. As a result, George gets mixed up with drug dealers and Martian cults, involved in an interplanetary incident and lands in jail. He also completely forgets about the woman he has been trying very hard not to think about and falls in love with Blixa.

This is an utterly charming story, a science fiction screwball comedy reminiscent of Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby. A hidden gem and true delight.

"The Rages" is set in an overmedicated Earth of the future. Harvey has a perfect life and a perfect, though sexless marriage. However, he has a problem because his monthly ration of euphoria pills has run out. And without euphoria pills, Harvey fears the oncoming of the rages, attacks of uncontrollable anger, which eventually lead to a final rage from which one never emerges. The story follows Harvey through his day as he meets several people and tries to get more pills. Gradually, it dawns upon both Harvey and the reader that the pills may be causing the very rages they are supposed to suppress. The story ends with Harvey throwing all of his and his wife's pills away.

This is a dystopian tale in the vein of Brave New World and Fahrenheit 541. The future world St. Clair has built is fascinating, if horrifying, and I would have liked to see more of it. However, Harvey is a thoroughly unlikeable character, who almost rapes two women in the course of a single novelette. Maybe Harvey could have rediscovered his messy humanity without resorting to sexual violence.

"Roberta" is the shortest and most recent story, first published in Galaxy in October 1962, reviewed by our editor Gideon Marcus here. Roberta is a confused young woman with the unfortunate tendency to kill men. Robert is the phantom who won't leave her alone. Eventually, it is revealed that Roberta had a sex change operation and that "Robert" represents her former self, as do the men she kills.

Transsexualism is a subject that science fiction almost never addresses, even though our genre is ideal for it. After all, there are transsexuals living in our world right now and science offers possibilities to make it much easier for them to live the lives they want to. So I applaud Margaret St. Clair for tackling what is sadly still a taboo topic (and for having her heroine utter another taboo word, "abortion"), though I am troubled that science fiction's only transsexual heroine (so far) is also a multiple murderer.

In "The Island of the Hands", Dirk dreams about his wife Joan who died in a plane crash at sea. He hires a plane to check out the coordinates from his dream and crashes on an invisible island. Dirk finds Joan's plane and a dead body and also meets Miranda, a young woman who suspiciously resembles Joan. He is on the Island of the Hands, Miranda informs them, where everybody can shape their heart's desire from mythical mist. Dirk tries to shape Joan, but fails. He spends the night with Miranda, who confesses that Joan is still alive, but trapped in the mist. Dirk goes after her and rescues Joan, only to learn that there is a very good reason why Miranda looks so much like an idealised version of Joan.

It's no surprise that this story was first published in Weird Tales, since it has the otherworldly quality typical for that magazine. "The Island of the Hands" reminded me of the 1948 Leigh Brackett story "The Moon That Vanished", where another heartbroken widower finds himself faced with a magical mist that shapes one's heart's desire.

All in all, this is an excellent collection. Not every story is perfect (though "Idris' Pig" pretty much is), but they are all fascinating and make me want to read more of Margaret St. Clair's work.

Four stars for the collection.

[But wait! There's more!]

by Gideon Marcus

False Finishes

After such a remarkable pair of books, I hate to sully this edition with less than stellar reviews. But the year is almost up, and there are a lot of books to get through. So, here is a trio of novels that start promisingly and then fizzle out.

The Greks Bring Gifts, by Murray Leinster

If you can get past the punny title, Gifts grabs your interest from the first. In the near future, the humanoid Greks land in a miles-long spaceship. They were just sailing by, training a class of Aladarian engineers, and thought they'd pop in to give humanity a myriad of technological gifts. The aliens are welcomed with riotous joy — after all, soon no one will have to work more than one day a week, and all the comforts of the world will be evenly distributed.

But one fellow, Jim Hackett, is suspicious. Despite being a brilliant young physicist, he was rejected as a candidate to learn Grek science after failing to comprehend it. Was he just not bright enough? Or were the Greks feeding us gobbledegook to keep us ignorant? And then, why did the Greks abruptly leave after six months, just as desire for the fruits of their wondrous technology was peaking, but the ability to sate said desire was lacking? Finally, after the Grek ship had left, why did an archaeologist party find the bones of Aldorians in the ship's waste ejecta? And worse yet, those of humans?

So Hackett and his fiancee, the capable Dr. Lucy Thale, work together to reverse engineer the Grek technology so that, when they return to a world whose populace is fairly begging for them to come back, Earth can stand against them and provide for its own.

What begins as a fascinating mystery quickly proves overlong. Leinster is much better with short stories, before his Hemmingway-esque style can wear thin. The endless repetition of certain phrases and epithets brings to mind the devices Homer used to make The Illiad easier to recite from memory, but they don't do a reader any favors. As for characterization, Leinster might as well have named the characters A, B, and C for all the color they possess. A shorter story would have made that issue stand out less.

Anyway, it's an interesting storyline; it would make a good movie, but as is, it's a mediocre novel. Three stars.

Arsenal of Miracles (ACE Double F-299), by Gardner F. Fox

From the notable pen of comics writer and, now, SF author Gardner Fox, we have a brand new ACE novel. And this one isn't a short 120-pager. No, this time we've got 157 pages devoted to the adventures of Bran Magannon, formerly an Admiral of a Terran space fleet, vanquisher of the invading Lyanir, and now a discredited exile, wandering across the known and unknown galaxy. Arsenal starts off beautifully, like a space age Fritz Leiber fantasy. A nearly penniless Bran arrives on the desolate world of Makkador to make traveling funds through gambling. There, he throws dice against, and loses to, the lovely Peganna, queen of the Lyanir. And then we learn Bran's tragic past: how he divined how to defeat the seemingly invincible Lyanir ships; how he negotiated for the Lyanir to be given a sanctuary world within the Terran Cluster of stars. How Bran was betrayed by an ambitious subordinate, who sabotaged the talks, discredited Bran, and condemned the Lyanir to inhabit a radioactive wasteland of a planet.

But now Bran has an ace up his sleeve — he has discovered the ancient portal network of the Crenn Lir, a precursor race that once inhabited countless worlds. If Bran and Peganna can find the Crenn Lir arsenal before they are caught by Terran and Lyranir agents, they might be able to negotiate with the Terrans as equals and secure a sanctuary for the weary aliens.

I tore through the first third of this book, but things slowed halfway through. I grew irritated that there was exactly one female character in the book, though I did appreciate the natural and loving relationship Peganna and Bran shared. What promises to be a galaxy-trotting adventure with big scope and ideas ends up a rather conventional story on a very few settings. Things pick up a bit in the final third, but I found myself comparing the endeavor unfavorably to Terry Carr's Warlord of Kor, a somewhat similarly themed Ace novel from last year.

Three and a half stars.

Endless Shadow (ACE Double F-299), by John Brunner

With the Fox taking up so much space in the Ace Double, the second title must needs be short. Luckily, John Brunner's Bridge to Azazel, which came out in February's issue of Amazing, fit nicely. Both lengthwise and thematically: Endless Shadow also features teleportation across the stars, in this case involving a Terra reestablishing contact with farflung space colonies.

The general consensus among the Journey's various readers is that this was a premise with a lot of potential, but that Brunner failed to deliver satisfactorily. Ratings ranged from two to three and a half stars. Call it an even three.

Books to Come

These days, there are almost more books coming out than a fellow (or even a band of fellows) can read! So, to make sure we cover all of the important books of 1964, there will be a second Galactoscope in a couple of days. May they be more akin to the stellar St. Clairs than the disappointing Leinster/Fox/Brunner.

[Holiday season is upon us, and Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963), containing some of the best science fiction of the Silver Age, makes a great gift! Think of it as a gift to friends…and the Journey!

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 20, 1964] Apocalypses and other trivia (Galactoscope)

September 20, 2019 Jason Sacks 7 Comments

[Don't miss your chance to get your copy of Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963), some of the best science fiction of the Silver Age. If you like the Journey, you'll love this book (and you'll be helping us out, too!)]

[This month's Galactoscope features two global catastrophes, two collections, and four authors you've almost certainly heard of!]

by Jason Sacks

The Penultimate Truth, by Philip K. Dick

Like many fans, I first became really aware of Philip K. Dick after he won the 1963 Hugo Award for Best Novel for his remarkable The Man in the High Castle. That book dazzled in its chronicle of an alternate history in which the Nazis and Japanese won World War II (which opened up many areas of thought and conversation for me and my friends) as well as in its brilliant world-building and the fascinating, multifaceted characters at the heart of Dick's award-winner.

High Castle was also an amazingly tight novel, packing a dense plot into its mere 240 pages. As many of us Dick fans have learned, not all of his works are quite so tightly plotted. I adored his Martian Time-Slip and Dr. Bloodmoney from last year, but those books tended to both delight and annoy in their meandering, nearly stream-of-consciousness styles.

The newest Philip K. Dick novel, The Penultimate Truth (just out in paperback from Belmont) fills a bit of the gap between his ’62 masterpiece and the challenging ’63 books. This thoroughly delightful book wanders a bit but always held me in its comforting grasp.

The Penultimate Truth is shambolic and episodic, but that approach serves the work well. Its main characters are living shambolic lives, which Dick depicts as full of odd episodes which occasionally have great and beautiful moments of transcendence, even in the post-apocalyptic wasteland in which the book is set.

Note that this review will reveal elements of the book, comments that "spoil", if you will, so skip down to the next review if you love surprises in your fiction.

In the future world of this book, much of humanity lives in massive underground bunkers, nicknamed anthills, in which they build weapons and medical devices for the nuclear war they believe is ravaging the surface of the Earth. When Nick St. James, the president of one anthill, makes his way to the surface, St. James discovers his people have been lied to. The world on the surface has survived nuclear devastation and has emerged into a unique and odd civilization. Needless to say, the revelation of the relatively peaceful world surface changes nearly everything.

What makes this novel so special, though, is that those revelations don't change the way St. James views his world. He doesn’t become a noble crusader for truth or a vengeful destroyer of the new civilization. Instead our protagonist goes the opposite way of most heroic leads. Instead of rebelling, he goes out of his way to allow the world to stay in its current state. He will not let the truth of his world change life in the anthill. The penultimate truth of the story is the truth behind the nuclear war. But the ultimate truth is more powerful: it is the special bond society creates, the relationships created and enduring for decades, and the lies and half-truths that are necessary to perpetuate that society.

This description makes The Penultimate Truth sound heady and brainy, and it is filled with a intriguing level of intelligence and wisdom about human nature. But it is also has the several elements we have come to expect from Dick’s finest work.

First and foremost, this is an exciting story, with scenes of high adventure, escapes and shootouts which keep the reader turning the page. There are mysteries piled upon mysteries, characters who shift and change as the story proceeds only to have them revealed in ways for which the reader was foreshadowed but for which he likely could not have anticipated.

Secondly, this is a wise and fascinating study of human nature. The Penultimate Truth is about jealousy and lust for power balanced with trust and love for family and friends. It sets stability and chaos in opposite sides of the metaphorical coin in ways few other novels of any type have explored, and in doing so shows the power of novelistic science fiction in the hands of a master of the medium.

Thirdly, this book seems to explode with ideas, from the anthills (an idea Dick has explored in some of his short fiction such as “Second Variety”) to the vast demesnes in which the surface dwellers live, to the vast conspiracies used to keep ordinary people following their leaders. In fact, it is in that last set of ideas that Dick falls down a bit for me. I had trouble imagining a government systematically lying to its people in the way described here. In a world in which leaders are elected by the governed, there is no reason for leaders to lie to their people. [Oh, my sweet country mouse…(Ed.)]

And the last element I’ve come to love in Dick’s work comes from the very end of the book. In my mind there are two endings to this novel, and in fact I won’t reveal them here so you can experience them yourself. But I’m curious how many readers wish The Penultimate Truth had ended with the deeply ironic penultimate chapter as its conclusion as opposed to those who preferred the redemptive final chapter.

Throw in some gorgeously descriptive language and you have one of the finest science fiction novels of 1964. I hope Mr. Dick brings home another Hugo next year from London.

4.5 stars

by Gideon Marcus

Tongues of the Moon, by Philip J. Farmer

Three years ago, just before John Boston started reviewing Amazing for us, Philip Jose Farmer had a short story called Tongues of the Moon. The tale began with a literal bang: the Axis of southern nations launched a preemptive strike on the Communist Northern Hemisphere (including a subjugated United States kept pacified with skull-mounted pain inducers!), and the entire world was destroyed. At the same time, the "Axes" attacked their enemies throughout the solar system — from Mercury to the Mars, Copernicus to Callisto. Our hero, a scientist named Broward, is caught in a crossfire at what was supposed to be a lunar peace conference. Together with the monomaniacal American, Scone, he manages to escape the fight and deactivate the central pain induction center on the Moon. Now free agents, Scone finds himself the leader of some of the very few human beings left alive. Can he knit together a new human race from the four hundred survivors representing dozens of nations and ideologies? Can a viable culture be created when men outnumber women 4:1?

These are all excellent questions, and I'm not surprised that Farmer decided to expand his novelette into a full novel. Unfortunately, what could have been a fascinating sociological study is subverted in favor of a fairly pedestrian adventure story and a series of treasure hunts.

In the expanded portion of the book, Broward is dispatched to the ruined Earth to find a planet-destroying bomb. The plan is to destroy the last significant Axis presence in the system, their colony on Mars, so that the Moon is safe. But Broward recognizes paranoia when he sees it, and he is reluctant to carry out Scone's plan, which will cause yet more decimation of the human population. He also, understandably so, has issues with Scone's plan to condemn the remaining women to forced multiple marriages. And so begins a merry excursion — to the caves of Siberia, the undersea domes of the Mediterranean, the vastness of outerspace, the tunnels of Mars. Tongues never stops to take a breath, and each sequence is more or less self-contained. The most interesting bit involves the Siberian expedition, when Broward takes along as co-pilot the last Jew in the world (and probably the last person of Japanese extraction, too). In this section are tantalizing hints of what the story might have been. Alas, all development is tossed for more running and chasing.

It has been said of Farmer that he is "always almost good", which is not nearly as nice as "almost always good." This latest book continues the trend. Someday he'll make a masterpiece. Until then, he's just a decent writer who can never quite deliver.

3.5 stars

by Rosemary Benton

Ace Double: "The Million Year Hunt" by Kenneth Bulmer and "Ships to the Stars" by Fritz Leiber

Ace Double novels are always a treat. Even though they are largely reprints of stories from the 1950s I always feel like I have rediscovered something special when I pick up one of these books at the bookstore. This month's release features titles by veteran authors Fritz Leiber and Kenneth Bulmer. Given the styles of each author I was intrigued to see how they would read back to back. Sadly to say, this was not one of the better lineups from Ace.

"The Million Year Hunt" by Kenneth Bulmer

Kenneth Bulmer's contribution to this month's Ace Double follows the adventures of a scrap yard worker turned savior of the human race. The story begins as we drop in on the aftermath of a prank pulled by protagonist Arthur Ross Carson, a mischievous young colonist on a back-water planet with few prospects. In short order he finds himself contending with the unjust killing of his fiancé Lucy, startling news of his parentage, and the piteous million-year mission of an alien conscious that enters his body. This is a lot to unwrap within less than 150 pages, and that's not even the full extent of the plot. Bulmer goes on to reveal a slew of converging political schemes to control the universe, including a program to selectively breed a successor to lead the intergalactic police force known as the Galactic Guard.

I felt like I was reading a much larger story that had been brutally and awkwardly chopped down to fit a page count limit. Up to the very last sentence the story is rife with major plot points that are not resolved, gawky transitions of emotion within the cast of characters, and plot twists that feel last minute and cheap. I can't overstate the issue that lies with the jerking sensation the reader gets as the story shifts from scene to scene. So awkward and halting was the pace that I just couldn't believe Bulmer was the one to give it a final proof read before sending it to publication. There was just no way a man as prolific as him could have been satisfied with this story, a public presentation by which he would be judged as a writer, going to press in the state it's in.

If "The Million Year Hunt" is indeed the butchered result of a much larger manuscript, then the most tragic victims of its murder were the emotional transitions of the characters and the quirky, adventurous and lighthearted atmosphere that was so desperately trying to take hold. The easy and funny dialogue between Arthur Ross Carson and the alien conscious that strapped itself to him nervous system is very entertaining to read. Their banter actually comprises some of the best scenes in this story. Instead of clunky exposition their conversations dynamically teased out information on their respective pasts, personalities, and surroundings.

If only Bulmer could have let the characters be themselves stumbling through space on adventures loosely tied to an end goal, specifically Carson's mission of revenge and his origin as the "savior" of the Galactic Guard, then this would have been a fantastic story. Unfortunately in its current state "The Million Year Hunt" is not a story that should have made it to print.

[Apparently, The Million Year Hunt is a fix-up of sorts, created from Scarlet Denial in Science Fiction Adventures No. 26, and Scarlet Dawn in Science Fiction Adventures No. 28. Both came out in 1962, published in the United Kingdom. The text is unchanged from the originals. (ed)]

"Ships to the Stars" by Fritz Leiber

On the other side of this Ace Double is a collection of six short stories by power house actor and novelist Fritz Leiber. In contrast to Bulmer's story, Leiber's "Dr. Kometevsky's Day", "The Big Trek", "The Enchanted Forest", "Deadly Moon", "The Snowbank Orbit", and "The Ship Sails at Midnight" are all well structured with tight plots and developed characters. Leiber's writing also demonstrates a more measured understanding of how to maintain the flow of a story. The tendency of his characters to repeatedly ponder the effects fear has on them makes them fragile, fallible, and very true to the duality of human nature. They want to know and see everything, but there are limits to what they can understand and what their eyes have access to. Leiber's inclusion of these relatable and basic human failings forms a tension in his stories that would be otherwise missing if he had held full faith in humanity's ability to rationalize everything with science.

The strongest short stories in this small selection were "The Big Trek" and "The Ship Sails at Midnight". In these two tales the reader can really see Leiber's deep connection with the gothic authors whom he draws inspiration from. In "The Big Trek" Leiber writes from the first-person perspective of a man joining a feverish march of bizarre beings from across the universe. The employment of fluctuating space and loose concepts of time's passage echoes William Hope Hodgson's "The House on the Borderland" (1908) and pretty much any piece by Edgar Allan Poe. The narrator's awe and trepidation touched with excitement are also very similar to Arthur Machen's inner voice within "The White People" (1904).

Like H. P. Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany, Leiber's strongest talent as a writer is keeping his characters grounded by the weighty truth that humans are far from the most powerful forces in the universe. All of Leiber's stories have humans sprinting to stay out of the way of some larger, stronger entity charging through with little interest in our species’ plight. "The Ship Sails at Midnight" best encapsulates this with its accompanying message that humans have such potential but are so readily self-sabotaging.

The joy of reading Fritz Leiber’s short stories greatly made up for my disappointment in Kenneth Bulmer’s novella. Fast paced, thoughtful and touching, they make this Ace Double a worthwhile purchase. I will absolutely be looking forward to reading more of his work in the future.

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[August 11, 1964] Leigh Brackett Times Two: The Secret of Sinharat and People of the Talisman (Ace Double M-101)

August 11, 2019 Cora Buhlert 8 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

So far, this summer has been cold and rainy. Even the cheery tunes of "Liebeskummer lohnt sich nicht" (Heartache does not pay) by Swedish singer Siw Malmkvist, which has been number 1 in Germany for almost as long as it has been raining, can't dispel the summer gloom.

However, rain outside means it's the perfect time to read. And so I was lucky to spot Leigh Brackett's latest in the spinner rack at the local import bookstore. Now a new novel by the queen of space opera, is always a reason to rejoice. And the latest Ace Double offers not one but two new novels by Leigh Brackett.

Though upon closer examination The Secret of Sinharat and People of the Talisman are not so new after all, but expansions of two novellas first published as "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" and "Black Amazon of Mars" in Planet Stories in 1949 and 1951 respectively.

The two novels are more closely connected than Ace Doubles usually are, because not only are both by the same author, but they also feature the same character, Eric John Stark, intergalactic mercenary and outlaw and hero of several stories by Leigh Brackett.

The Wild Man from Mercury

Eric John Stark is a fascinating character. An Earthman born in a mining colony on Mercury, Stark was orphaned as a young child and adopted by natives who named him N'Chaka, the Man Without a Tribe. A few years later, Stark was orphaned a second time, when the tribe that adopted him was exterminated by miners from Earth who wanted the natives' resources for themselves. The miners put Stark in a cage and would have killed him, too, if Stark hadn't been rescued by Simon Ashton, a police officer from Earth. Ashton took the young Stark in and raised him to adulthood.

Though outwardly a civilised man, inside Stark is still N'Chaka, the wild boy from Mercury. There are parallels between Eric John Stark and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan, who was one of the inspirations for the character according to the foreword by Edmond Hamilton, Leigh Brackett's husband. Eric John Stark is also a black man, something which is sadly still much too rare in our genre. Though you wouldn't know it from the covers, as both Planet Stories cover artist Allan Anderson as well as Ed Emshwiller, covers artist for the Ace Double edition, portray Stark as white.

Stark has little time for human civilisation, but a lot of sympathy for the plight of downtrodden natives throughout the solar system. He involves himself in an endless chain of uprisings and guerrilla campaigns, which are reminiscent both of the Indian wars, which were still within living memory when Brackett was born, as well as the various anticolonial movements currently sweeping through Africa and Asia. Stark's activities as a mercenary and weapons smuggler naturally bring him into conflict with the Terran authorities.

This conflict comes to a head in the opening pages of The Secret of Sinharat, which finds Stark on the run with Terran police officers led by Stark's mentor and surrogate father Simon Ashton in hot pursuit. Stark is facing twenty years in prison due to his role in a failed native uprising on Venus, but Ashton offers him a deal. Kynon, a Martian warlord, is planning to lead the desert tribes into a holy war with the help of off-world mercenaries. If Stark joins Kynon's army as an agent for Ashton, the Terran authorities will forget about Stark's crimes.

I really enjoyed the relationship between Stark and Ashton. Both men clearly have a lot of respect for each other and Ashton is probably the only person in the solar system Stark truly cares about. Ashton also clearly cares about Stark, but is not above using their relationship and Stark's sympathies for barbarian tribes, who – as Ashton reminds him – will suffer most from Kynon's holy war, to get Stark to agree to the deal. I would have loved to see more of Simon Ashton and his past with Stark. Alas, he only appears in the opening chapter, then Stark is on his own.

Martian noir

Stark meets with Kynon and steps into a nest of snakes. For starters, Kynon is a fraud who claims to have rediscovered the titular secret, a device which can transfer a person's consciousness into a new body and therefore guarantees eternal life. Kynon is also surrounded by a cast of shady characters who wouldn't seem out of place in the one of the noir movies for which Leigh Brackett wrote the screenplay. There is Delgaun, a Martian gangster, Luhar, a Venusian mercenary and old enemy of Stark's, the Martian femme fatale Berild, who is both Kynon's and Delgaun's lover and seduces Stark as well, and Fianna, Berild's sweet and innocent maid who also takes a shine to Stark. None of these characters are what they seem and all but one will be dead by the end of the novel, either at each other's hands or at Stark's.

The Secret of Sinharat is chockfull of exciting action scenes and atmospheric descriptions of the dying Mars. Stark takes us on a tour of a Martian opium den, survives a deadly sandstorm and a gruelling trek through the blistering desert and explores the ancient city of Sinharat and the mysteries that lurk in its catacombs.

A Strangely Familiar Story

The Secret of Sinharat is a highly entertaining novel, which also seemed oddly familiar, though I knew that I couldn't have read the earlier magazine version. However, I realised that The Secret of Sinharat bore several parallels to a novel I reviewed two months ago for Galactic Journey: The Valley of Creation by Leigh Brackett's husband Edmond Hamilton, the expanded version of a story first published in 1948. The protagonist of both novels is a mercenary recruited to fight someone else's holy war, who realises that he is fighting on the wrong side. Both novels feature ancient technology which can transfer human consciousness into other bodies and both protagonists find themselves subjected to said technology. Both protagonists even share the same first name, Eric.

Of course, there are also differences. The Valley of Creation is set on Earth, in a hidden valley in the Himalaya, while The Secret of Sinharat is set on Mars. And Eric John Stark is a much more developed and interesting character than the rather bland Eric Nelson. Nonetheless, the parallels are striking. Edmond Hamilton and Leigh Brackett are not known to collaborate like C.L. Moore and her late husband Henry Kuttner did. But given the similarities of both stories and the fact that they were written around the same time, I wonder whether Brackett and Hamilton did not both write their own version of the same basic idea.

Into the Gates of Death

People of the Talisman, the other novel in this Ace Double, opens with Eric John Stark once again in a fistful of trouble. A dying friend entrusts Stark with the story's plot device, the talisman of Ban Cruach, an ancient king who founded the city of Kushat to guard a mountain pass known as the Gates of Death in the polar regions of Mars. Stark's friend stole the talisman, but now wants to return it, because without the talisman, Kushat and all of Mars are in grave danger.

Stark wants to honour his friend's dying wish. But before he can fulfil his mission, he is captured by raiders who take him to their leader, Lord Ciaran, yet another Martian warlord who wants to unite the tribes and lead them to victory over the decadent cities. Though Lord Ciaran is a much more interesting and memorable character than Kynon from The Secret of Sinharat. Ciaran is the illegitimate child of a Martian king who never acknowledged him. Hungry for revenge and power, Ciaran dresses in black armour, wields a battle axe and always wears a steel mask.

Ciaran wants Stark to join his army, but Stark is wary, probably due to his previous bad experiences with Martian warlords. Of course, Ciaran also wants the talisman and since Stark refuses to hand it over or say where it is, Ciaran has him brutally whipped.

Stark escapes. Half dead, he makes it to Kushat to warn the city of Ciaran's attack, but has a hard time convincing the city guard of the danger. Nor can Stark reveal that he has the talisman, for the rulers of Kushat have kept its disappearance a secret and would kill Stark to preserve it.

Ciaran Unmasked

Ciaran's forces attack after all and in the pitched battle that follows, Stark faces off against Ciaran himself. Before striking the killing blow, Stark rips off the warlord's mask and gets a surprise that has already been spoiled both by Ed Emshwiller as well as by Allan Anderson on the original Planet Stories cover. For underneath the black mask, the warlord is a striking woman. The unmasking scene is reminiscent of a similar scene in "Black God's Kiss" by C.L. Moore, the story that introduced the swordswoman Jirel of Joiry to the world.

Ciaran is a fabulous character, a strong warrior woman, which is still all too rare in our genre even thirty years after Jirel of Joiry first took off her helmet. Though fascinated by Stark, Ciaran immediately decks him after he has unmasked her. Later, Ciaran tells Stark, "I did not ask for my sex. I will not be bound by it." I suspect Leigh Brackett agrees with her.

Every woman Stark meets in the two novels falls for him and Stark is only too happy to dispense "kisses brutal as blows" (apparently, Simon Ashton's education did not include how to properly treat the other sex). And so Stark falls in lust with Ciaran, even though she had him whipped half to death only days before.

Stark escapes with the talisman and a caravan of refugees through the Gates of Death to seek Ban Cruach's secret with Ciaran and her forces in hot pursuit. A battle ensues in which Ciaran is taken prisoner.

Now the novel takes a sharp turn into Lovecraftian territory. For beyond the Gates of Death lies an ancient city inhabited by alien beings (unlike the humanoid Martians Stark normally deals with). Initially, the aliens claim that they just want to be left in peace. But they quickly show their true colours and attack the humans.

Stark and Ciaran wind up fighting back to back. They escape and Ciaran agrees to leave Kushat alone and conquer the city of her deadbeat father instead. Stark goes with her in what may well be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Fiction versus Reality

I thoroughly enjoyed both novels, though they are clearly relics of an earlier age. Leigh Brackett's Mars with its deserts, ancient cities and even older ruins most likely does not exist, just as Mariner 2 revealed that the fog-shrouded Venus with its swamps and oceans that is a staple of pulp science fiction does not exist either. In fact, I suspect that the reason why Ace has not reprinted the third Eric John Stark adventure "Enchantress of Venus" (which I read in German translation a few years ago) is that the red gas ocean of Venus which Brackett described so evocatively is no longer plausible in our brave new age of space exploration.

Of course, it is the fate of most science fiction that it will eventually become outdated as science and knowledge march on. But even though we know that the solar system Leigh Brackett described is not plausible, the Eric John Stark stories still remain glorious adventure tales with a protagonist who is a lot more complex than the standard square-jawed heroes of pulp science fiction.

Something everyone can enjoy, rain or shine!

Bremen City Parliament building topping out — It stopped raining long enough to celebrate the topping out of Bremen's new city parliament building, sitting right next to the 13th century St. Petri cathedral

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]

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Book

[April 16, 1964] Of Houses and World Building (Jack Vance's The Houses of Iszm/ Son of the Tree and Andre Norton's Web of the Witch World)

April 16, 2019 Rosemary Benton 2 Comments

by Rosemary Benton

March and April have been very satisfying months in terms of science fiction literature that really revels in the art of creating alien worlds and cultures. Between Andre Norton's next installment in the Witch World series, Web of the Witch World, and the Ace Double release of Jack Vance's novellas The Houses of Iszm and Son of the Tree, science fiction readers had their pick of genre crossing science fiction. Andre Norton's book was, like much of her works, a solid science fiction and fantasy blend with technology and supernatural elements working side by side to create a world of complicated politics and alliances. Jack Vance, on the other hand, displays an ability to write classic science fiction with a hint of sinister terror lurking at the heart of his stories.

Ace Double F-265: The Houses of Iszm / Son of the Tree, by Jack Vance

The book can be viewed here and purchased here

The Houses of Iszm (originally published in a shorter form in “Startling Stories” magazine, 1954) and Son of the Tree (“Thrilling Wonder Stories” magazine, 1951) are both older stories of Jack Vance's, but ones which have yet to show their age. In keeping with each other, the plot twist of both stories centers around strange societies with strange practices designed to keep an intellectual stranglehold on valuable information and technology. Vance likewise reuses similar settings and pacing in both stories, making them feel as if they could be long lost relatives of each other both existing in the same universe but not aware that they were related.

The Houses of Iszm follows the unassuming adventure of Earthling botanist Aile Farr's visit to the planet Iszm. While there he hopes to observe the unique and highly coveted native flora that the native peoples have shaped in wondrous ways. Through thousands of years of selective breeding the people of Iszm have evolved a form of plant that serves both as their domicile, their plumbing system, and their source of food and hydration. Only recently has Earth set up one sided trade relations through the house growing classes of the Iszic. The man who holds a monopoly on this off world house trade is the human industrialist K. Penche.

Unwilling to part with their trade secrets, the Iszic are the only ones in the universe who have access to the coveted techniques for the rearing of plant domiciles. Despite innumerable attempts to smuggle female seeds, cuttings or saplings off planet there has never been a successful attempt, although that doesn't stop the greedy and the blindly altruistic from trying – for the sake of personal riches or for the sake of the universe's homeless who would benefit from a self growing and repairing shelter. Aile Farr is one of the latter, and through a mix of professional curiosity in plants, bad timing, and naiveté he finds himself caught in the middle of one such ambitious attempt to get a Iszic house seed off world.

The book can be viewed here and purchased here

On the flip side of this Ace Double is Son of the Tree. This Jack Vance story unfolds around the revenge driven, and unassumingly named, Joe Smith of Earth. Traveling across the universe on whatever money he can gather, Joe is in pursuit of a man named Harry Creag who had an affair with Joe's wife, Margaret. Along his pursuit of the elusive adulterer, Joe comes to a feudal world whose ruling class is unified around a religion that worships a massive tree called The Tree of Life. Just trying to make enough money in order to continue his pursuit of the man who stole the heart of his wife, Joe becomes entangled in the dangerous back stabbing of opposing regimes vying for control of the minds of the planet's laity, as well as the natural resources of the newly industrializing neighboring planet Ballenkarch. He soon finds himself as an unwilling pawn in the mechanizations of many dangerous missionaries, spies and military personnel who see him as a means to their end. Joe struggles just to survive, but he is inexorably drawn into the intrigue as an active player.

While The Houses of Iszm is less plot heavy than Son of the Tree, it shows a more sinister world. In Son of the Tree there is no misunderstanding that literally billions of lives are at stake in the political power play between the Druids, the Mangs, and the Ballenkarts. But by the end of Son of the Tree the evil of the people-consuming Tree of Life and its offshoot is revealed and measures are being taken to stop its slaughter of the Druid laity. Granted, Harry Creath admits that it will be a blood soaked venture, but he suggests that it will give back purpose and self determination to the peasants on the Druid's world. There is a sense of justice by the end of the book, even if it is a bitter justice. The Druid laity will be free in time, Ballenkart has avoided disaster by killing the sprout of the Tree of Life that was planted in its soil, and the Mangs have not conquered the planet.

There is no such justice to be found in The Houses of Iszm. There isn't even any societal change, positive or negative, brought about through the suffering and sacrifice of the people caught in the heist of the Iszic house seed. After the initial field raid that Farr witnesses on Iszm, Farr is tested and questioned to see if he had any hand in the plot to steal the house cultivation secrets of the planet. Part of this interrogation involves him being shown the newest experiments the Iszic are testing – the merger of animal and plant to create new potential structures. The animal part of this experimentation is a living, sentient being that was captured during the raid and lobotomized. He was then “planted” before scientists coaxed vegetation to grow from his body.

It's a nightmarish concept, and one for which the Iszic face no consequences. Granted, the experiment is a failure, but the reader is not shown that the experiments will halt, or even that there is any remorse felt by the Iszic for what they are doing to the poor being. Indeed, it's safe to say that there will be other people who will be tortured in the same manner. After Farr leaves the planet and begins his journey to Earth, there is no sign that things will be anything but business as usual in the labs of Iszm. The plot continues on without a backwards glance.

This sense of “take what you can and run” is pervasive throughout The Houses of Iszm. Justice seems to be only that which you bargain for as in Farr's sale of the smuggled seed to K. Penche, or the quick cover up of the death of the Iszic after the final confrontation at K. Penche's house. More than anything, it seems as if the creed of Jack Vance's worlds is "he who can afford to buy the power (female house seeds, knowledge of the true nature of the Tree of Life, etc.) makes the rules."

It would be interesting to see these two stories merged to tie up some of the loose story elements in both books. For instance, what if the tree Aile Farr sold to K. Penche became the horrendous Tree of Life on Kyril? It being a male sprout Penche purchased from Farr, combined with the fact that Iszic house growing secrets would never be given up willingly, then Penche would be required to spend his resources learning to reverse engineer the Iszic growing techniques for the sake of mass producing tree homes. Zhde Patasz of Iszm made it very clear to Farr during his visit that trees are semi-sentient and directly interact with their occupants in a symbiotic way. But there is such a thing as a mad tree. An organic man-made monstrosity created in a lab for the purpose of mass marketing at an affordable price would be an very interesting origin story for the Druid's sacred tree.

Although at times wavering unsteadily between fun action adventures and pessimistic commentary on the balance of power, Jack Vance's works have definitely fired my imagination. I look forward to reading more of his work in the very near future.

Web of the Witch World by Andre Norton

Picking up shortly after the conclusion of Witch World, Web continues with the trials of the citizens of Estcarp and their allies as they fight to save Loyse of Verlaine from kidnappers and contain another attempt by the Kolder to return to the home dimension of the former witch Jaelithe, the Earth man Simon Tregarth, Loyse, Koris of Gorm. As in its predecessor Witch World, Norton's focus on the balance of power (both technological and supernatural) alongside the geo-political intrigue remains crucial to the advancement of the plot. But also just like Witch World there is little development in the characters' personalities.

The book can be viewed here and purchased here

It's not hard to empathize with Norton's characters, but it's difficult to rationalize why we should be invested in them. Other than the hardships endured by their physical characteristics (plain faced Loyse or oddly shaped Koris), or the duties of their positions (Falconer, Witch, Border Warder, etc.), what can be said about any of these people who inhabit the the lands of Witch World? To say that any one of them is persistent, brave or intelligent is too generic a statement since these descriptors apply to all of them. Koris could be said to be the more brash of the primary protagonists, but even that is tempered by a seemingly universal understanding amongst the characters that the greater good of Estcarp and the protection of Loyse could be jeopardized with too much bravado.

In both Witch World and Web of the Witch World there are precious few characters who will act outside of the universally held objectives of their respective groups – all Kolder (native Kolder as well as their agents) work for the goal of cross-dimensional conquest, and all Estcarp allies work for the wills of the Guardians. Putting the two stories side by side the only characters who felt as if they evolved somewhat into distinguishable people were Aldis and Simon Tregarth.

As mistress to Yvian, Aldis is in a precarious position of power that could easily be lost should Yvian tire of her company or if he should recapture his runaway bride Loyse and cement a union between his territory and Verlaine. We see her exhibit cunning, duplicity, manipulation and forethought in Witch World, as well as a hardened self-serving determination to survive in a society where women are secondary accessories to the lives of the men who rule them. Sadly, only a little of this characterization survives into the plot of Web of Witch World before it is overridden by the mind control of the Kolder. Once an unpredictable and capricious character who added an edge to the chapters she appeared in, the Kolder force her to take wooden actions with nearly none of her classic cunning.

Simon Tregarth, the man from another Earth, is one who I desperately wanted to see evolve from his flat personality in Witch World. Thankfully, in Web of Witch World he does mature somewhat as a character. Between the time when the first book ended and the second one begins Simon and Jaelithe have married. It feels like a massive waste not to have been privy to the turmoil that must have been present within Jaelithe during that time as she officially sacrifices her Witch power, her position amongst the leadership of Estcarp, and sole possession of her physical body for her love of Simon. Apparently she must have come to terms with the trade, because things seem to be peaceful between them until one morning when both she and Simon feel a call of the power. Elatedly she declares that she feels whole again and goes off on her path in the plot, leaving the reader with some of the first real insight we have had into Simon – and that insight is that he is wildly insecure about this return of Jaelithe's power.

In only a handful of instances does the writing dive back into Simon's head to analyze this development in their relationship and how it affects Simon, but through it we are treated to a small character arc in which a character is motivated to action by more than a call to a greater good or service. Simon goes through an initial bout of self doubt that he wasn't enough to make Jaelithe feel whole since the loss of her power. Now that she has it back he's worried that she will begin to prioritize her role as a magic user over her relationship to him. He worries that her career as a Witch will pull them apart from each other physically as well as emotionally. He even begins to resent her as “defecting” from him until he starts to realize that that kind of thinking is playing into the hands of the Kolder who intend to drive a wedge between all those who oppose them. Ultimately Simon realizes that Jaelithe's reestablished connection with magic is not a threat to their marriage. He comes to see her as an equal and a powerful ally in the fight against the Kolder.

Andre Norton's Witch World is shaping up to be a series that will be most appreciated by fans of fast action political epics. It's not a series for those who are looking for a character study, or for a story that develops due to interplay between unique and interesting people. Again, as I said about Witch World, Norton has laid the foundations of a world with many interesting facets. The inter-dimensional travel, technology so advanced people have reverted to calling it magic, and deeply divided cultures are fun, but this world building takes far more precedence in the plot than the people within it.

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Book

[January 4, 1964] Something borrowed, something blue (Ace Double F-253)

January 4, 2019 Gideon Marcus 8 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Every good New Year's begins with a resolution. Mine is to have the Journey review every single new SFF book that comes out in 1964 (that we can get our hands on, anyway). I figure there's only about 30-40, and this way, we can make truly informed Galactic Stars recommendations.

All journeys begin with a single step, and as luck would have it, the first novel of the new year to hit the book stands was an Ace Double, two-for-one deals that often feel like less of a value than a single novel.

This was one of those times…

The Twisted Men, by A.E. Van Vogt

Sometimes an Ace Double is an original piece (like One of our Asteroids — see below). Sometimes it's a reprint like Isaac Asimov's Foundation (in his unfortunate case, chopped up into The 1,000 Year Plan). I've also seen expansions of novellas (e.g. Brunner's Listen! The Stars! and Anderson's Let the Astronauts Beware!) and fix-up novels (for instance, Leigh Brackett's Alpha Centauri or Die!— a fusion of two separately published stories).)

The Twisted Men is yet another kind of Ace book: a compilation of unrelated pieces with no attempt to bind them.

I suspect the main motivation for these reprints was price. None of these stories are younger than 12 years old, and they are not among author Van Vogt's better works. They appear to be unaltered versions of what came out in the magazines, so what you're getting are original pieces from the end of the Pulp Era.

The Twisted Men

The sun is about to go nova, and Averill Hewitt is the lone scientist convinced of the fact. His only solace after being labeled a fool and ostracized is the commissioning of an interstellar colony ship, The Hope of Man. Relief turns to consternation when the ship returns after just six years — far too soon for the trip to have been successful. Worse yet, when he forces his way aboard the ship, he finds the crew virtually frozen in time, their bodies foreshortened with Lorentz contraction of the variety encountered at close to light speeds.

It's a thrilling set-up, but it's not how physics works. Some efforts are made to blame the effect on unusual zones of space a la Anderson's Brain wave, but they're feeble, indeed. For the most part, it's a science mystery with bad science crossed with a vapid thwart-the-spacejacking tale.

Two stars.

The Star-Saint

On a newly colonized world, engineer Leonard Hanley faces two problems: rampaging sentient boulders and a half-alien hunk assigned to the colony to deal with them. Hanley tries to counter the stony threat himself, and fails. The womenfolk coo over (and fraternize with) the hunk. Ultimately, said hunk placates the rock beings and ships out, possibly leaving behind a brood of quarter-breeds.

It's readable enough, but it doesn't make much sense nor does it do women any favors with its characterizations.

Two stars.

The Earth Killers

This one was actually passable. During the test flight of a Mach 9 "rockjet," Captain Kane Field encounters an ICBM bound for Chicago, part of an overwhelming attack on the United States. Not only is he unable to stop the missile, but upon landing, he is court-martialed for his inability to identify the rocket's country of origin, insisting that the warhead came from directly overhead.

Kane breaks out of his imprisonment and hijacks his plane, taking it around the nation in an attempt to find the real culprits. I guessed the answer; you might, too.

Parts of the story feel grounded and realistic (Killers takes place in 1964, and the rockjet is close kin to the real-life X-15). Others, including the bit where Kane gasses up his ride as easily as one fills up a Studebaker, strain credulity. Nevertheless, it's a fun read and the best piece of the Double.

Three stars.

One of our Asteroids is Missing, by Calvin M. Knox

The "blue" half of the double (because it's the title with the blue-shaded background on the spine, natch) takes place in the far-future year of 2019. John Storm is a youth with a yen to make it rich in the asteroid belt. Apparently, in 55 years, driving spaceships will be about as easy as driving mules was for the '49ers. At least, that's what I got from the quick travel times and comparative ease of operation.

Anyway, Storm, a blond-haired, blue-eyed Viking of a young man, finds an eight mile wide hunk of precious metals after two years of prospecting. With visions of dollar signs dancing in his head, he stakes a claim on Mars and then heads home to his fiancee in New York. But there, he finds that his papers were never properly processed — in fact, not only does his claim not exist, but per the nation's records, neither does he!

Storm's suspicion that something underhanded is afoot is reinforced when a set of goons makes an attempt on his life. This compels the miner to head back to the Belt to check up on his claim, brushing aside the objections of his bride-to-be ("Space is a lousy place for a woman," he says. "I wouldn't want the responsibility of your safety up there.")

Sure enough, Storm discovers a fleet of Universal Mining Cartel spaceships preparing to make off with his prize. This is a bold and unusual move. Sure, the asteroid is a valuable one, but it's penny-ante to a big conglomerate like UMC. Why risk law suits, bad publicity, and attempted murder charges?

The answer to this question is pretty obvious, but I'll let you figure it out. A hint: this plotline is well-trodden ground, including appearances in Raymond Jones' The Alien and Murray Leinster's The Wailing Asteroid (and that's just books I've covered).

Of course, you may give up before you get to the revelation. One of our Asteroids is not great fiction, with lots of literary shortcuts and pretty uninspiring writing. Also, for the most part, you could transfer the entire story with hardly an alteration to a Western setting. This is probably why the author insisted on using a pseudonym so as to not tarnish his good name (said writer being none other than the not-at-all blond and blue-eyed, Robert Silverberg.)

2.5 stars.

***

Next up: The President and the traveler — see the intersection of JFK and the Journey…

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[November 17, 1963] Galactoscope (Three Ace Doubles!)

November 17, 2018 Gideon Marcus 4 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Here at the Journey, we read virtually every piece of science fiction and fantasy published. Our goal is not only to provide you with a complete encyclopedia of available works, but also to ensure we can make informed decisions come award-giving time.

Now, that's a lot of printed words. It used to be that I would publish a separate article for each book, but with such a big backlog of books waiting to be reviewed, I decided it'd be best to do the queue all at once, like they do in the review columns of the various magazines (for instance, Amazing's "Spectroscope").

As it turns out, the volumes you'll hear about today are all Ace Doubles (published with two complete books back-to-back and reversed), so if you're a fan of these odd blue-and-whites, this will help you manage your 1963 shopping list.

Alpha Centauri or Die!, by Leigh Brackett

Leigh Brackett is a legend. One of the relatively few women in the SFF arena, she is also a renowned scriptwriter, having penned the screenplay for The Big Sleep and Rio Bravo. Brackett has managed to keep plugging along in Hollywood in spite of the prevailing opinion of the last decade that women just don't get "male" genres like crime dramas and westerns.

Her SFF works have been recommended to me with increasing volume and frequency so I was delighted to have a chance to enjoy her latest novel, luridly titled (as all Ace Doubles are) Alpha Centauri or Die!. This book is really two stories in one: Part 1 involves a rebel movement on Mars led by the human, Kirby, and his love, the Martian humanoid named Shari. They dare to steal a manually controlled space ark, filled to the brim with colonists eager to emigrate, and evade the robotic sentinel spaceships that patrol the solar system. Their destination: an inhabitable planet in the triple Alpha Centauri system.

There's a lot of action and chases, both planetbound and in the black gulf between the stars, culminating in a an exciting scene in which a squad from the fleeing Lucy Davenport boards and deactivates a pursuing robot fighter ship.

Part 2 takes place on the newly colonized world, which shortly after settlement, is besieged by unseen, psionically equipped aliens that kidnap terrans via teleportation. Will this diabolical race end the colony, or is it all a misunderstanding?

That the two sections are so different in subject matter and tone is no coincidence. Alpha Centauri or Die! is a fix-up of two stories from the early 1950s, both published in Planet Stories. I'd only previously read The Ark of Space (on which Part 1 is based) so I can't tell you if the two tales were ever meant to be linked. In any event, the resultant novel is not a great introduction to Brackett's works. Particularly frustrating is the short shrift the women characters get, even at the hands of a woman author. With the exception of Shari, they are a herd of complaining housewives. The Martian heroine fares a bit better, joining the raiding party against the robot starship and using her esper powers to help deduce the nature of the beasts of Alpha Centauri, but her exploits point out just how alone she stands in representation of an entire gender.

Aside from that, Alpha Centauri or Die! is a competent but not groundbreaking action piece, slightly less than the sum of its parts, not progressing far from the pulp era in which Brackett made her first appearances.

Three stars.

Legend of Lost Earth, by G. McDonald Wallis

It's common practice in SFF for women to initialize their first names (or flat-out take on male pseudonyms). I have been told vociferously by one of my readers that this practice has nothing to do with any bias against women in the genre; nevertheless, it is puzzling that men don't seem to do it. In any event, the "G." stands for Geraldine, and this is her second Ace Double, the first being The Light of Lilith, which I have not read.

Lost Earth takes place on the dusty, red world of Niflhel, its atmosphere foul with the soot of a million mines. Even the memory of Earth, destroyed by a human-caused catastrophe, is taboo. But Giles Chulainn is seduced by the teachings of a secret society that keeps the half-remembered dream of their home planet alive. A cat and mouse game ensues, with Giles taking on the role, by turns, of a subversive, a double, and then a triple agent.

The true nature of the barren colony world and its connection with the lost verdant fields of Earth is ultimately revealed, though by the time you get there, you might not care, having been increasingly bombarded with a bamboozle of pseudo-scientific mysticism, Celtic legend, and plot incoherence. Nevertheless, Lost Earth does have a strong first half and a nice flavor throughout. Three stars.

Captives of the Flame, by Samuel R. Delany

Delany is another author I'm catching on his second Ace book, the first being The Jewels of Aptor, which came out last year. He is noteworthy for being the first black SF novelist (I believe; correct me if I'm wrong).

Captives of the Flame takes place on a blasted Earth, the remnants of humanity confined to just one city and its adjacent shoreline and islands. Around it lies a radioactive barrier that has constricted over the years: just two generations before, it engulfed the city's neighboring polis, forcing its inhabitants to flee. It is implied early on that the barrier is not of human origin.

The novel details the efforts of a mismatched band of heroes, including an exiled member of the royal family rendered invisible by the radiations, a young woman acrobat/thief, and an ambitious Duchess, to determine the true nature of the alien incursion and to use the extraterrestrials' powers to right the bellicose, corrupt human government.

On the plus side, the novel features an interesting world and a refreshingly varied set of characters, male, female, and alien. On the red ink side of the ledger, the plot is sketchy, and viewpoints shift with little warning or context. I have to wonder if this is the author's fault or simply a result of Ace's hatchety editing style.

Three stars.

The Psionic Menace, by Keith Woodcott

Those in the know are aware that "Keith Woodcott" is a pseudonym for English writer, John Brunner. And those who have followed this column since the arrival of author Mark Yon will soon find that The Psionic Menace is an Ace-style retitling of Crack of Doom, which appeared under the Woodcott name in two issues of New Worlds last year. It's about a universe-spanning psychic distress call, and the efforts humanity takes to decipher it.

It is word for word the same book, which means you will enjoy it as much (or little) as the serialized version. Mark gave it three stars.

The Rebellers, by Jane Roberts

What a beginning on this one! Gary Fitch is an artist on a crushingly overpopulated Earth. His job is to take old classics and make copies as vehicles for conveying government propaganda. He and his colleagues live under lock and key in a barracks, barely receiving enough sustenance for survival. Yet their situation is the enviable one for outside their prison walls lies the teeming masses of humanity, hungrier and denied access to the books and artworks the painters have.

One day, rioting plebeians storm the prison walls, providing Fitch an opportunity to escape — from the frying pan into the fire. The artist hooks up with an insurgent organization, "The Rebellers" (why not simply "The Rebels?") but their motives aren't as simon-pure as advertised. Worse yet, a virulent plague is spreading, threatening to wipe out the human race once and for all. Can Fitch take over the remnants of local government to avoid complete catastrophe?

Roberts' book starts out strong but resolves abruptly and rather implausibly. For instance, it is discovered that the plague largely affects pregnant women and mandatory birth control becomes the linchpin on which combating the virus turns. If birth control is so ubiquitous and effective, why wasn't it in common use before our planet was choked with people?

This is the first novel by Roberts, whose short fiction I've greatly enjoyed. While this book is a mixed success, she may get the hang of the form in time for her next effort. In any event, it's nice to see her back after a four-year hiatus.

Three stars.

Listen! The Stars!, by John Brunner

Last up is the novelization of John Brunner's Listen! The Stars!, a novella that appeared in Analog last year. The tale of the "Stardroppers," who use extra-dimensional telescopes to plumb the unknown depths of the universe was one of my favorites from Brunner. In fact, I gave it a Galactic Star.

Unlike The Psionic Menace, this Ace version is significantly revised. The story's no different, and all the same scenes are there, but Brunner (or the editor) has padded every paragraph with enough extra words to fill 96 pages. Or maybe Analog's editor, John W. Campbell, had cut the original to fit the pages of his magazine.

In any event, both versions are good, worthy of five stars. If you want a shorter read, find the magazine, and if you want something lengthier, well, you get this and the Roberts novel, too.

So there you have it, a typical grab bag of Ace production. A good half of it was scoured from the pages of the magazines, and only the Brunner (under his own name) really hits it out of the park. Still, at 20 cents a novel (40 cents for a double), all of it at least readable, you could do a lot worse.

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[May 14, 1963] Behind the times (Ace Double F-195)

May 14, 2018 Gideon Marcus 5 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

This morning, Gordo Cooper's Faith 7 Mercury spacecraft didn't blast off into the heavens. It's the kind of disappointment that makes one look in science fiction for a bit of solace. And so, I have for you, that reliable well of SF adventure (and often mediocrity), the latest Ace Double. This particular one features two wildly different tales, and yet, both have an air of age about them (in a creaky-jointed way, not a venerable one) that ensures that neither will be stories for the ages. Nevertheless, they scratch an itch while we wait for NASA to get its act together. Let's take a look:

Battle on Venus, by William F. Temple

A lone spaceship descends through the thick clouds of the Venus, humanity's first expedition to the Second Planet, only to land in the midst of a planetary war. Automated torpedo ships, mini-tanks, and oversized buzzsaw wheels terrorize the barren landscape, which is strangely devoid of people. When the terran spacecraft is damaged in the fighting, wet-behind-the-ears crewman, George Starkey, is sent off in a helicopter to find assistance. At the end of the grueling trek lies maturity, love, and revelation of the source of the madness that's afflicted the misnamed Planet of Love.

Several factors make Battle on Venus feel like a throwback. For one, Temple's Venus is wildly archaic in conception, with a breathable atmosphere and comfortable temperatures. Its inhabitants are human in all but name. And the romantic subplot could have been lifted (like virtually everything else) straight from a Burroughs novel — all it needed was a scene in which the characters exclaimed that they'd always loved each other; they were just certain the other party didn't return their feelings.

That said, two things make Venus work as a story, if not as science fiction. For one, the British Temple writes in a mildly droll manner that makes the book feel like a deliberately ironic satire. Some of the conversational exchanges are genuinely funny, and occasionally even border on profound. Temple may not conform to the rules of science, but there is internal consistency, in plot and in style.

But the big selling point for Venus is Mara, a Venusian native who is clever, resourceful, well-developed, and (miracle of miracles) even gets to be the viewpoint character for a decent portion of the book. She is the real protagonist of the story, far more than the rather hapless George, and you can't help but like her.

It takes a little while for Venus to engage, but once it does, it's a fun (if frivolous) read. Three stars.

The Silent Invaders, by Robert Silverberg

After ten long years among the stars, Major Abner Harris is coming home to Earth. Except the Major is actually Aar Khiilom of the galaxy-spanning Daruu, and his mission is to covertly make humanity allies of his race against the squamous Medlin. His disguise as a human, which runs surgically deep is perfect — too perfect. He quickly falls in love with a terran named Beth Baldwin…who turns out to be a Medlin in similar disguise.

It turns out that not only are the Daruu the bad guys of the galaxy, but that the Medlin have been coaxing the birth of a new generation of humans, ones with such telepathic and physical prowess that they will be come the new masters of the galaxy, ending the petty existing squabbles. Aar must choose between carrying out his mission or becoming a traitor to his people.

Robert Silverberg ("Silverbob") wrote the first version of Invaders five years ago, publishing it in the October 1958 Infinity shortly before that magazine disappeared forever. That original was a third the length of the novelization. The plot is identical, however, and 90% of the language was carried over verbatim. The novel adds local color and ratchets up Aar's uncertainty, both of which don't hurt the story.

What does hurt the story is Silverberg's immature style. He wrote the bulk of this in his 20s, before he'd obtain much life experience, and it shows. The emotions don't ring true, and there is an amateur quality to the writing. Moreover, while the setup is interesting, the introduction of the race of superhumans is a handwave too far. The book just isn't big enough for two big revelations.

As a piece of far future worldbuilding, particular with regard to technology, Invaders is something of a success (I particularly liked a scene in which a cabbie is unsure as to the location of an address, so he asks his computer to guide him). But as a story, and as a piece of literature (such as it is), it's barely fair. 2.5 stars.

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Message from the Eocene by Margaret St. Clair (Ace Double M-105)

Three World of Futurity by Margaret St. Clair

55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction