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[July 18, 1968] Sweet and Sour (July 1968 Galactoscope)

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
In Watermelon Sugar First edition cover

I occasionally like to check out the authors I hear are very hip right now. It meant I read the excellent Last Exit to Brooklyn and the less great Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me.

Richard Brautigan is one I have heard praise heaped on over Trout Fishing in America but the title put me off (my father talks enough about it!) When I heard he had a more fantastical novel coming out this year I made sure to get a copy.

I am not sure what I was expecting but this book is weird!

It is set in a world that appears to have emerged after some kind of great disaster destroyed the prior civilisation. The people live around iDEATH where the main material for production is “watermelon sugar”. As well as apparently being very versatile in and of itself, the day of the week the watermelons are planted on dictates the type that grow and the different properties they will have.

People used to be hunted and eaten by “Tigers” (it is unclear if these are felines raised up to consciousness or humans that have descended to cannibalism) a fact people of iDEATH seemed to have accepted as a natural part of life. However, these have all been hunted now and what remains are statues to the fallen.

In addition, the narrator lacks a regular name and instead:

Just call me whatever is in your mind. If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago, somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer, that is my name. Perhaps it was raining very hard, that is my name. Or somebody wanted you to do something, you did it and they told you what you did is wrong, sorry for the mistake, and you had to do something else, that is my name.

Thankfully this fellow (who I will call Idle Thought) is the only one without a regular name.

Idle Thought is writing the first book in 35 years (the one we are reading) which starts off just recording little notes about his life or small events, similar to The Pillow Book by Sei Shônagon. This is disrupted by InBOIL who declares that he knows the truth of iDEATH and departs to live in the forgotten works, the large remnants of the past world.

Margaret begins to go to the forgotten works to forage for her collection and talks with InBOIL about his finds. A few weeks later, InBOIL and his gang return to show everyone the true meaning of iDEATH.

What does this all add up to? Honestly I am unsure. This is no “polytropic paramyth”, it has all the features of a regular short novel and Brautigan has a great narrative voice. You do not doubt that a land could exist where people have discovered how to spin fruit sugar of watermelons into a wide range of products.

The question is how literally are we meant to take the text? Is this meant to be a far future story where the new technology is beyond our understanding? A far-fetched satire of our current society? A fable about the nature of power and belief? Or something else? Are we even meant to consider Idle Thought a reliable narrator?

I don’t have any answers and can’t help but feel nonplussed by the ending. As a case of literary experimentation, it works better than many authors that attempt similar things (just check out some issues of New Worlds) but I am not sure about how to grade it as SF.

However, it is an experience I would recommend others try for themselves; I will give it four stars.

When Women Rule


by Victoria Silverwolf

Apologies to science fiction historian Sam Moskowitz for stealing the title of his essay, which appeared in the August issue of If last year.

No doubt Mister Moskowitz will add the novel I'm about to review to his list of future worlds dominated by females. Is it a worthy example? Let's find out.

Five to Twelve, by Edmund Cooper


Cover photograph by Reg Perkes.

We jump right into things with our protagonist, a fellow named Dion Quern, sneaking into a luxury apartment with burglary in mind. The place happens to be occupied by a female peace officer named Juno Locke aiming a laser pistol at him.

Futuristic crime novel? Well, not really.

After this opening scene, the author goes into full expository mode. It seems that birth control pills not only freed women from unwanted pregnancy, but it made them bigger, stronger, and smarter. (There's an implication here that, until this happened, they weren't as smart as men. I'll ignore that for now.)

Besides that, it also resulted in fewer boys being born and more girls being born. Now, in the late twenty-first century, men are outnumbered by women (you guessed it) five to twelve.

About three-quarters of women are powerful figures known as Doms. The rest, who have remained feminine (sic) are pretty much just baby machines, impregnated multiple times by artificial insemination. The Doms hire them to bear their adopted children.

Men who are fortunate to be partnered with Doms are known as Squires. Those who aren't are called Sports.

Dion is a Sport, making a living through petty crime and writing poetry on the side. He hates this woman-ruled world; however, as we'll see, he's a very mixed-up and contradictory character.

We last left him facing a cop with a pistol. Does she send him to jail? (Actually, a sort of mind-erasing facility.) Nope. She invites him to share a meal and then to bed.

There's an odd kind of love/hate relationship between these two throughout the book. Dion willingly becomes Juno's Squire. Sometimes they're passionate about each other, sometimes they're ready to kill each other.

Dion gets involved, more or less against his will (as I said, he's a very ambiguous character), in a plot to assassinate Queen Victoria II, as a symbolic act by rebellious men. Let's just say that it all leads up to a bittersweet ending for what has been, up to that point, a satiric novel.

The author's style is quirky. Everybody speaks in a weirdly affected way, full of puns and literary allusions. (The sole exception is one of the women who serve as baby machines, who plays an important part in the last part of the book.)

The big question, of course, is how sexist is it? Quite a bit, I'd say. There's a fair amount of complaining about the fact that this future world has lost its spirit of daring and adventure. (Of course, it has also eliminated war and poverty.) The baby machine is a nearly mindless character, interested only in love, sex, and reproduction, and the author seems to approve of her.

On the other hand, Dion is pretty much a jerk, even if we're supposed to sympathize with him at the end. Maybe the author is more of a misanthrope than a misogynist.

Not a great book. Two stars. Go see a movie instead.


Maybe not this one. It's pretty bad.


by Gideon Marcus

Assignment: Moon Girl, by Edward S. Aarons

I wasn't sure what to expect from this one. Well, that's not quite true. I had expected a silly story, maybe with lots of lurid bits. Instead I got…

Trapped in a pit, menaced by a tiger, cosmonaut Tanya Ouspanaya is nude and defenseless. She knows not why she is there–only that she has somehow returned from the moon, where she had been for days if not weeks. When escape seems impossible, and on the verge of losing all hope, a strange man speaking bad Russian arrives to rescue her.

Meet Sam Durrell, a CIA Agent on Tanya's trail. The story then rewinds to Durrell's assignment on the case, to his arrival in the allied (but dangerously independent) country of Iran, to his entanglement not only in international affairs, but a budding revolution. Tanya is the teaser, but the mysterious revolutionary General Har-Buri, with fingers of corruption in every government pie, is the key to the tale. And, of course, the evil Madame Hung and her comrade, the Chinese spy mastermind, Ta-Po, figure prominently, along with comrades of Durrell, both Western and Persian. It's all very complex, but ultimately quite manageable, and the solution to the mystery of Tanya's sudden appearance back on Earth less SFnal, and more cutting-edge plausible.

What I didn't realize, going into this book is that the Assignment books constitute a series, of which this one is number twenty six! Sam Durrell is a recurring hero, refreshingly not cut from the James Bond mold. He is intelligent, compassionate, resourceful. And Aarons is an equal opportunity author–if Tanya's introduction sounds like a bit of cheesecake, you'll be comforted to know that Durrell gets his naked time in the pit, too. In fact, Tanya is a strong character, never the prize, the damsel, nor the love interest. All of the characters are strong, actually, and vividly portrayed. But the real stand-out is the terrain of Iran, with which Aarons must have some conversance (or at least a long National Geographic subscription). The land of the Shahs is as real as any landscape in Dune.

It's a potboiler, but it's a good one, one I couldn't put it down. I may have to find more in the series…

Four stars.

Dimension of Miracles, by Robert Sheckley

Back in the 1950s, Robert Sheckley blazed a trail with the funniest, by turns dark and hopeful, short science fiction stories one could find. His main pad was Galaxy, but he made his mark elsewhere, too. Then came the 1960s, and Bob turned his energies to novel-length works. I'm sure it was lucrative–The 10th Victim got turned into a movie–but I wasn't really impressed by any of them.

Until now.

I brought Dimension of Miracles with me on the flight to Japan, and I had devoured the whole thing before we were far past Hawaii. Only the fact that I couldn't pound the keys on my typewriter without waking up the first class cabin kept me from dashing off a review right then and there.

Here's how it goes: Tom Carmody is a bland man, blandly handsome, blandly successful, blandly urbane. His bland life is made infinitely more colorful when an alien visitor appears in his home, announcing that he has won the Intergalactic Sweepstakes. What could Carmody do but accept the invitation to go to Galactic Central to collect his winnings? The Prize, it turns out, is a sentient box, purpose unknown. It soon turns out that Carmody was picked by accident, and the real winner is determined to secure the Prize for himself. The smiling faces of the clerks and awarders of Central are quickly shown to hide uncaring souls. Carmody is on his own against his rival. Worse than that, even should he withstand the challenge, Carmody has no idea how to get home, and no one is willing to help him.

Ultimately, going back to Earth requires not just knowing where it is, but also when it is (relativity is complicated), and also for Carmody to pick the right Earth, as there are an infinite number. Each succeeding section of the book details his misadventures as he tries to find his way home. Along the way, he treats with an omnipotent but marooned God, a family of intelligent dinosaurs, and a predator tailor-made just for Carmody who trails him across the galaxy and the eons.

It's all very farcical and stream-of-conscious-y, generally the sort of stuff I don't dig. This time around, however, Sheckley deploys his mastery of the short form to make every vignette absolutely delicious, while serving the greater whole along the way. Indeed, two bits of the story were released as short stories in and of themselves, virtually unchanged: Budget Planet, which was pleasant-enough in isolation, but better here, and ditto for Street of Dreams, Feet of Clay.

All along the way are some fascinating philosophical discussions, delivered better than Heinlein ever could. If there's any fault with the story, it's that things wrap up just a bit too quickly. Nevertheless, it's a great yarn, a story that will likely inspire other future tales of galactic hitchhikers. I imagine they won't be as well rendered as this one, however…

4.5 stars.


by Jason Sacks

Rite of Passage, by Alexei Panshin

As my friend John Boston chronicled last week, the prolific science fiction fan and analyst Alexei Panshin is an expert in the fiction of Robert Heinlein. John does an excellent job in his article of analyzing the complex relationship between Heinlein and Panshin, and he does a great job of digging into the approach Panshin takes to his analysis. If you haven't read John's piece, I recommend you give it a read.

Alexei Panshin's new novel, Rite of Passage, often reads as if Panshin tuned elements of Heinlein's juvenile fiction  to reflect Panshin's view of the world, thereby taking the energy and thoughtfulness of Heinlein and giving it a specifically Panshinian spin .


Cover by Leo and Diane Dillon

Heinlein is, of course, known for featuring teen and preteen protagonists in his juvenile space adventures. Panshin follows that element closely, but with an essential twist. Nearly all Heinlein's protagonists are boys. The main character of Rite of Passage is a pubescent girl named Mia Havero, who lives aboard a space ship which is composed of descendents of survivors of Earth's destruction. See, at the time we humans discovered we were going to destroy our world, a generational starship was launched. Mia is part of an undefined generation who only know of Earth from legends shared on the ship.

Over the years the ship has been used to colonize far-flung colonial worlds, with an uneasy and sometimes contentious trade policy existing between the colonies and the spaceship. This contentiousness is exacerbated by the fact that every ship-bound kid is expected to perform a rite of passage around their fourteenth birthday, taking a forced month-long trip to a colony world in order to experience life away from the ship and formally grow into adulthood.

When Mia and some friends are transported to a world that's both highly conservative and highly resentful of the ship, they end up experiencing an adventure that's more than a simple rite. Instead the young adults face real life and death situations. And those life and death situations help trigger the brilliantly nihilistic climax of the book, an epiphany of deep emotional angst which I predict will cause fans to debate this book quite a bit in fanzines this year.

A photo of Mr. Panshin from last September at Nycon.

As I've suggested, Mia Havero is a wonderfully perceptive lead character. Her energy and spirit are as strong as the greatest Heinlein heroes, but what really makes Mia stand out are her intelligence and insights. Panshin cannily has Mia be a student of philosophy, and that philosophic approach informs her actions. Her thoughts on stoicism, for instance, are charming, and, well, here are a few other thoughts which you might enjoy…

I can think of nothing sadder than to know that you might be more than you are, but be unwilling to make the effort.

or

If I had the opportunity, I would make the proposal that no man should be killed except by somebody who knows him well enough for the act to have impact. No death should be like nose blowing. Death is important enough that it should affect the person who causes it.

or

Maturity is the ability to sort the portions of truth from the accepted lies and self-deceptions that you have grown up with.

I emerged from this book deeply impressed by the way Panshin brings his main character and her friends to life. Mia Havero and her friends are unique people, full of dreams, ambitions and intelligent thoughts. They have complicated relationships with each other, with their parents and with their larger society. The characters fairly pop off the page and I know a few girls who remind me of Mia.

Mia is similar to Heinlein's heroes, but only somewhat similar. For instance, she's a highly competent hero who must go on a quest and who is alienated from planet-siders. Readers frequently see those elements in Heinlein's juveniles. But they don't often see characters who have sex, as Mia does. They don't often see the level of empathy Mia shows herself, her friends and the planet-siders. And perhaps most importantly, characters like Mia are seldom on the outside of their societies in Heinlein's fiction.

In fact, I was also deeply impressed by how well Panshin builds both the shipboard society and the planetside society. Both are complex and intriguing, quite well sketched out for the terse length of this novel. The sclerotic approach to governing the ship, for instance, feels a bit like the sclerotic authorities in many of Heinlein's novels, while the backwards approach of the colonists feels like something out of Pennsylvania Dutch country crossed with fascist war-mongering.

Mr. Panshin accepting his 1967 Hugo Award.

Mr. Panshin has shown that his analysis of Robert Heinlein isn't the only insightful writing he can do. This book is a definite candidate for Galactic Star for the year, and I won't be surprised if Mr. Panshin wins back-to-back Hugo Awards in '67 and '68.

4½ stars.




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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 12, 1968] The Pioneer and the Gorilla: Heinlein in Dimension, by Alexei Panshin

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by John Boston

A few years ago, when I was reading a lot of fanzines, I came upon an article impudently titled Heinlein: By His Jockstrap, concerning attitudes towards sex in the works of Robert Heinlein.  Wow!  This SF fandom is pretty racy!  Or so I thought. Not everyone appreciated that article, though, starting with Mr. Heinlein.


Alexei Panshin

The article’s author, Alexei Panshin, was a budding SF writer himself, having a few months earlier published the impressive Down to the Worlds of Men in If.  Since then he has published more stories of varying merit, and a just-published novel, Rite of Passage, which on a first and superficial reading seems quite impressive—and, not at all ironically, quite Heinleinesque.  He also published more articles about Heinlein in fanzines.  You’d think the guy was working on a book.

And of course he was.  But it’s more complicated than that.

The Pioneer by Invitation

According to Panshin, in another fanzine article, this one in the April 1965 Yandro, he was solicited by Advent: Publishers in 1964 to write a critical study of Heinlein’s fiction.  Advent publishes books about SF, such as Damon Knight’s In Search of Wonder, James Blish’s The Issue at Hand, and the symposium The Science Fiction Novel: Imagination and Social Criticism.  The proposed book would be the first book-length study of any writer from within the SF ghetto.  Panshin accepted and got to work.  He wrote to Heinlein, introducing himself, stating he was planning to write a book better than the “Jockstrap” article, and asking some questions about his life and work.  There was no response—to Panshin, anyway. 

Panshin also wrote to a number of others about Heinlein, later learning that Heinlein had been angered by these letters, and had seemingly discouraged the recipients from responding.  In any case he got few responses.  One who did respond was the widow of Sergeant A.G. Smith—the dedicatee of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers—who offered to let Panshin see Smith’s correspondence with Heinlein. 

The 800-Pound Gorilla

Heinlein was furious, and ultimately wrote Advent a letter, which Panshin has seen and which he describes as attacking his qualifications to write the book, accusing him of employing ungentlemanly, unethical, and in part dishonorable and illegal means of gathering material, and forbidding Advent to quote from Heinlein’s copyrighted works, use his name or picture, or do anything else requiring his permission.  He refused Advent’s offer to review the manuscript pre-publication, and reserved the right to sue or bring criminal action as appropriate if the book were published. 

Advent, successfully intimidated, then backed out and sent Panshin a $50 kill fee, leaving him with a completed book and nowhere to go with it.  His efforts to find a way to smooth things over were futile.  Panshin concluded his Yandro article by quoting the man himself:

“FARNHAM’S FREEHOLD, page 88: ‘ . . . a book need never die and should not be killed; books were the immortal part of man.  Book burners—to rape a defenseless friendly book.’ ”

So, what to do?  What Panshin did do was to break out portions of his book manuscript (some with substantial revisions) and submit them for publication in various fanzines, mostly the solemn and prestigious Riverside Quarterly.  Not surprisingly, after having all this impressive material published in a short period of time, Panshin last year received the first Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer.

Meanwhile, Advent had a change of heart.  After Panshin’s award, and also after it reorganized from a partnership to a corporation (thereby protecting the former partners, now owners, from personal liability), it would publish Panshin’s book after all.  And now we have it.

The Book


by Alex Eisenstein

So what exactly do we have?  It’s impressive within its (self-imposed) limits.  It is a work of genre criticism, explicitly in the vein of Knight’s In Search of Wonder, which is cited repeatedly.  It makes no effort to connect with the wider (some might say narrower) world of mainstream literary criticism.  Panshin obliquely justifies his genre focus by conceding that SF is “minor,” but “not because it is essentially trivial, like the endless number of locked-room mysteries, not because it is bound forever to repeat a single form, like the sonnet or Greek drama, and not even because most of its practitioners are second-rate or worse, though most of them are.

“Even the best science fiction is minor to the extent that most people are not prepared intellectually or emotionally to accept it.”

So there!  Fans are slans!  But seriously, this proposition provides at least a fig leaf of a basis for treating SF as its own discrete literary territory, though no one is required to agree.

Panshin then proceeds, year by year and story by story, to summarize and comment on all of Heinlein’s SF, and some non-fiction items, from the beginning through The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.  This material is divided into “The Period of Influence” (1940-42), “The Period of Success” (1947-58), and “The Period of Alienation” (1959-67).  These take up over half the book. 

It sounds deadly, but it is not; the length of the comments is proportional to the interest of the works and what Panshin has to say about them.  They get longer as he gets closer to the present, appropriately, since as he demonstrates, there’s a lot more wrong with the more recent books than many of the older ones.  Panshin is a plain and succinct enough writer that this long exercise mostly retains its interest and does not become wearying, at least to my taste.

Some of Panshin’s judgments are initially startling.  He says of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress—widely welcomed, after several weak books, with cries of “Heinlein is back!”—that it “has its interest, but it is not as a novel.  It is as a dramatized lecture.” To start, he concedes: “Line-by-line, it is fascinating reading” and “less flawed by sermons and constructional weakness” than his other recent books.  But he goes on to nail the book’s sentimentality, lapses of logic, and deficiencies of style (Panshin knows Russian and doesn’t think much of the “babu-Russian” in which the narrator thinks and speaks).  If (like me) you have reread this book and found it less captivating the second time around, Panshin tells you why, if you haven’t figured it out yourself.

Among many other judgments, Panshin thinks Beyond This Horizon and Have Space Suit—Will Travel are Heinlein’s best works, a view I suspect doesn’t command a majority among Heinlein readers.  (“Only a misanthrope could dislike Have Space Suit—Will Travel,” he says.  Calling Dorothy Parker!)

Panshin uncontroversially thinks Heinlein’s best work was done during his middle period, when “he was in solid control of his writing tools and nearly everything he did was first rate.” However, his pick for the five best books of this period are all juveniles, while he dismisses the Hugo-winning Double Star as “good light entertainment, but no more than that,” since Heinlein doesn’t provide a more detailed account of the workings of the political system in which his protagonist is working.  He says the generally well-regarded By His Bootstraps is “tightly constructed, as intricate as a bit of musical comedy choreography, and arrives at a destination”; but it lacks “anything to get your teeth into”; and, later on, he describes it as “neatly composed, if completely empty.” Continuing the latter theme: “Delilah and the Space-Rigger . . . is a smoothly-written but empty little bit of nothing about women breaking into previously all-male space jobs.” I hope Betty Friedan is not a Heinlein reader.  But whatever you think of Panshin’s opinions, he has his reasons and generally shows his work (the “Delilah” comment is an exception).

After slicing Heinlein’s work horizontally by time, Panshin slices it vertically by substance and method, with chapters labelled Construction, Execution, and Content.  (There’s also a short chapter on Heinlein’s non-fiction—if you were curious about Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry?, here’s your chance.) In these chapters he makes a number of observations about Heinlein’s modus operandi, of which some are quite acute while others seem a bit wandering and/or pointless. 

For example of the latter, under the subhead Attitude is a several-page digression-filled discussion of whether Heinlein’s works are realistic or romantic (realism wins, mostly).  The discussions of Context and Characterization are more fruitful.  Panshin says, “Characterizing situations has always been one of Heinlein’s strongest points, and I think it is safe to say that he has always done better with developing his societies than he has with developing individual characters.” Further: “Heinlein in general has preferred to show how things work in such consistent detail that his societies speak for themselves; they don’t need to be explained or justified.” He illustrates this point with an extensive discussion of the building of The Menace from Earth, in what is likely the most sustained attention that story has ever received.  He concludes: “Heinlein has by and large been able to build complex, consistent societies, the complexity coming from individual elements that fit together at the same time that they are used to further the story action,” this time taking Beyond This Horizon as his text and making a good case for its merits, at least in that regard. 

Concerning characterization, he says: “Heinlein’s characterization has not shown the variety that his contexts have, but in a way this makes very good sense.  Basically, Heinlein has used the same general characters in story after story, and has kept these characters limited ones.” And here we arrive at territory that most Heinlein readers will find familiar.  “There is one unique and vivid human Heinlein character, but he is a composite of Joe-Jim Gregory, Harriman, Waldo, Lazarus Long, Mr. Kiku, and many others, rather than any one individual.  I call the composite the Heinlein Individual.  . . .  It is a single personality that appears in three different stages and is repeated in every Heinlein book in one form or another.

“The earliest stage is that of the competent but naïve youngster. . . .  The second stage is the competent man in full glory, the man who knows how things work. . . .  The last stage is the wise old man who not only knows how things work, but why they work, too.” Other characters are barely individualized.  “Their most striking feature is their competence, reflecting that of the Heinlein Individual.” “After this small circle, Heinlein ordinarily relies on caricature, and he has a number of set pieces which he produces as needed.  One is that of Whining, Useless, Middle-Aged Mama. . . .  Matching this is the Pompous Male Blowhard. . . .  A third is the Nasty Young Weasel. . . .  Further caricatures could be named, but let’s stay with those.”

Fair cop!  But, says Panshin, this is all fine.  “Heinlein’s characters, it seems to me, are clear if not striking, and for his purposes this is probably enough. . . .  Heinlein has concentrated on developing unfamiliar contexts for his stories; if he were to populate these contexts with wild characters, the result might seem chaotic.” Note the similarity to C.S. Lewis’s observation, in his 1955 lecture On Science Fiction, recently published in his Of Other Worlds, that “[t]o tell how odd things struck odd people is to have an oddity too much. . . .”

There is much more about the what and how of Heinlein’s work, of varying interest and cogency, but you should read it yourselves; you will anyway, later if not now. 

Panshin sums up in the chapter titled “The Future of Heinlein”—not what Heinlein will do, but how he will be regarded, based on his work to date.  Here, however critical Panshin has been, his bottom line is unequivocal: “It is clear right now that even if his career were to be over, Heinlein would retain a historical place in company with Wells and Stapledon.” That’s because, first, of “the storytelling techniques that Heinlein developed and that have been generally copied within the field”—mainly the shift he exemplified from the basically speculative to the basically extrapolative, which by the way is what killed off the “sense of wonder” mourned by some.  “Heinlein’s insistence in talking clearly, knowledgeably, and dramatically about the real world destroyed forever the sweet, pure, wonderful innocence that science fiction once had. . . .  In a sense, Heinlein may be said to have offered science fiction a road to adulthood.”

Second, Panshin says, SF has mostly “concentrated almost as a matter of course on the atypical situation, the abnormal, the extraordinary.  It has never been willing to stand still and examine the ordinary person functioning normally in a strange context. . . .  We want variety in our fiction, to be sure, but the future is already strange.” Heinlein, says Panshin, “is the one science fiction writer who has regularly dealt with the strange-but-normal.” That’s a considerable exaggeration, but the more-than-a-grain of truth is that Heinlein has paid more consistent non-satirical attention than almost anyone else to the mundane details of life in his future and extraterrestrial settings, and it’s one of the more attractive and influential aspects of his work.

Panshin says he wouldn’t be surprised if Heinlein’s reputation is ultimately similar to Kipling’s.  Maybe so.  My own suspicion is that Heinlein’s reputation will diminish over the years, especially if he continues moving in the direction of his most recent works.  Panshin is right to predict that SF is “likely to receive increasing amounts of serious critical attention and regard” going forward, but I suspect that it is the growing sophistication and competence of its practitioners by the standards of general literature that will drive such a change.  It is those newer writers who will garner the broader recognition, and those they have learned from, like Heinlein, will be largely forgotten except by the remaining hard-core genre enthusiasts.

Summing Up

Heinlein in Dimension is not a great book, but it is a pioneering one, with much of interest and value, and is well worth reading, shortcomings and all.  Four stars.




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[January 16, 1968] Worthy programming (February 1968 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

On the small screen

A few weeks ago, President Johnson signed into effect the Public Broadcasting Act.  Its purpose, among other things, is to turn a decentralized constellation of educational stations and program producers into a government-funded network.  It's basically socialism vs. the vast wasteland.

Given the quality of programming I've seen produced by National Education Television, particularly on independent station KQED-San Francisco (e.g. "Jazz Casual" and "The Rejected"), I am all for this move.  Indeed, I've recently come across a show that has really sold me on public television.

NET Journal is a series on political matters of the day.  In December, they had a program that showed the results of a week-long workshop in which 12 affluent young men and women of a multitude of ethnicities lived together and discussed their prejudices.  What they determined was surprising to them, and maybe to us.  As we saw in the film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, even in the most bleeding heart liberal, there is prejudice; and it's not just directed from whites to minorities.

This week, we caught an interview with four journalists in Saigon.  Recently, LBJ and General Westmoreland have been cheerleading the effort in Vietnam, saying that the three-year commitment of half a million troops is bearing fruit.  The South Vietnam-based journalists dispute this rosy view.  They say progress has been slow, that the South Vietnamese army is hopelessly corrupt and must be reformed from the head down if it is to operate effectively without American support, and that we are not engaged in "nation-building" because there is currently no nation.  The elections are meaningless so long as there be no real choices to be made, so long as bribes and payoffs accomplish more than the rule of law.

Withering stuff.  Next week, the program will be on draft-dodgers.

On the small page

Galaxy Science Fiction is also an exellent, long-running source of information and entertainment.  This month's issue is a particularly good example.


by Jack Gaughan

A Tragedy of Errors, by Poul Anderson

Anderson has established a reputation for producing some of the "hardest" SF around, laden with astrophysical tidbits.  On the other hand, his quality varies from sublime to threadbare.  Luckily, his latest novella lies far closer to the former end of the scale.

Tragedy takes place in what appears to be the far future of his Polysotechnic League history.  The loose interstellar confederation of planets became an empire and subsequently went into decline a la the worlds in H. Beam Piper's Space Viking universe and Asimov's Foundation setting.  I really like these "after the fall" stories of folks trying to patch a polity back together, maybe better than it was before.


by Gray Morrow

This particular story is the tale of Roan Tom, Dagny, and Yasmin, the crew of the merchant-pirate Firedrake.  Their ship is in desperate need of repairs, and the only planet within range of the married trio is a Mars-sized world around a swollen orange sun.  Luckily, said world was once a human colony of the Empire and thus may have the resources needed to fix a starship.

Unluckily, the planet has been recently plundered by pirates, and the inhabitants do not take kindly to strangers–especially ones that call themselves "friends."

There's a lot to like about this riproaring tale of aerial maneuvers, overland evasion, and fast-talking diplomacy.  For one, two of the main characters are women, and highly competent ones at that.  Moreover, it is an ensemble cast, with each of the three coming into the spotlight for extended periods of time.

There is also a mystery of sorts, here…or several, really, all woven together: how does this undersized planet have an atmosphere?  Indications are that this is a young world, but why, then, does the dense planet have so little surface metal?  And why is the star so unstable, prone to devastating solar storms that play hell with the planet's weather?  Solving this astronomical puzzle proves key to addressing the Firedrake crew's more immediate problems.

Of course, you have to like detailed explanations of stellar and planetary parameters and phenomena.  I personally love this sort of thing, but others may find their eyes glazing.  On the other hand, there's plenty to enjoy even if you decide to let the science wash over you.  The sanguine antics of Roan Tom, the determined toughness of Dagny, the more refined and tentative brilliance of Yasmin.  These are great characters, and I'd like to see more of them.

Four stars.

The Planet Slummers, by Terry Carr and Alexei Panshin

A pair of young thrift store bargain hunters are, in turn, scooped up by a pair of alien specimen collectors.  I think the story is supposed to be ironic, or symbolic, or something.

Forgettable.  Two stars.

Crazy Annaoj, by Fritz Leiber


by Jack Gaughan

Ah, but then we have the story of a different couple: a superannuated trillionaire and a dewy (but flinty) eyed young starlet.  There's is a love fated for the ages, but not the way you might think.

Just a terrific tale told the way only Leiber (or maybe Cordwainer Smith) could tell it.

Five stars.

Street of Dreams, Feet of Clay, by Robert Sheckley


by Vaughn Bodé

Imagine moving to the city of the future: clean, architecturally pleasing, smog-free, crammed with creature comforts.  Now imagine the city is run by a computer brain…with the personality of a Jewish mother.

Bob Sheckley is Jewish, so I suspect he didn't have to strain his imagination much for this one.  Droll, but a little too painful and one-note to be great.

Three stars.

For Your Information: Epitaph for a Lonely Olm, by Willy Ley

This is a pretty dandy story about a sightless cave salamander that lives its whole life in the water, thus eschewing the amphibian portion of its nature.  Thanks to this creature, we have the concept of "neoteny"–the retention of juvenile traits for evolutionary advantage.  The blind, pale beast also ensured the fame of Marie von Chauvin, a 19th Century zoologist.

Four stars.

Sales of a Deathman, by Robert Bloch


by Jack Gaughan

How do we combat the exploding birth rate?  By making suicide sexy, thus exploding the death rate!

Bloch's modest proposal would be better suited to a three line comedy routine than a several-page vignette.  Three stars.

Total Environment, by Brian W. Aldiss


by Jack Gaughan

Crammed into a ten-story self-contained habitat, 75,000 persons of Indian descent live a life of increasing desperation and squalor.  At first, we are given to believe that the settlement is a natural response to the crushing pressure of overpopulation.  As it turns out, the Ultra-High Density Research Establishment (UHDRE) is actually a deliberate experiment in inducing psychic abilities through exposure to unique pressures.  Just 25 years ago, the site had a population of only 1500.  Now, teeming to bursting, the hoped-for psionic adepts are appearing–and an empire in a teapot is arising on UHDRE's Top Deck to take advantage of them.

Aldiss writes a compelling story.  One thinks it's just the second coming of Harrison's Make Room!  Make Room! until it isn't.  In some ways, this actually hurts the story, causing it to lose focus.  On the other hand, the setting is so well-drawn, and the situation suspenseful enough, that it still engages and entertains.

Four stars.

How They Gave It Back, by R. A. Lafferty


by Gray Morrow

The last mayor of Manhattan finds The Big Apple isn't worth the bother, now that it's degenerated into a ruined, gangland state run by a quintet of bandits.  Thankfully, the original owners will buy it back–for its original fee.

Again, this might have made a humorous short bit.  As is, you see the punchline from the first words (the title and illo help), and the slog isn't worth the ending.

Two stars.

The Big Show, by Keith Laumer


by Wallace Wood

Last up, a frothy adventure featuring a TV star recruited to infilitrate the last cannibal island in the South Pacific to thwart a nefarious Soviet scheme.  This is yet another in the recent spate of stories involving total sensory television in which hundreds of millions viscerally experience the lives of actors.

Unlike Kate Wilhelm's or George Collyn's spin on the subject, Laumer doesn't do very much with the gimmick.  Instead, it's another of his midly amusing but eminently forgettable yarns.

Two stars.

Summing up

Despite a sprinkling of clunkers, the latest Galaxy delivers the goods.  Two good novellas, a fine nonfiction piece, and an excellent Lieber short would have filled F&SF nicely.  So just pretend that the other stories don't exist and enjoy the good stuff.

And then tune in to NET Journal the next few weeks while you wait for the next issue!



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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 30, 1967] One door closes… (December 1967 Analog and Australia joins the Space Race!)

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by Gideon Marcus

Mags or paperbacks?

The latest issue of Yandro has got a nice piece from Ted White reviewing the latest (and best?) tome on science fiction by Alexei Panshin.  The best part of White's article is his gentle but lengthy disagreement over the status of magazines versus paperbacks.  Both White and Panshin agree that the paperback novel format is The Next Big Thing (indeed, it's already here), but they disagreed on their role and prospects.

Panshin sees the science fiction digests as a continuation of the pulps, with all the negative connotations attached thereto.  He thinks they will eventually die.  White strongly disagrees.  Firstly, he notes that pulp does not equal bad–many extremely talented authors got their start cranking out a half million words for the old mags.  Indeed, White says magazines are now populated by a stable of established writers who have perfected their trade while the paperbacks, since they are a buyer's market, will publish anything.  Essentially, the books have taken the role the magazines had in the glut days of the early '50s.

White goes on to say that paperbacks are great, but 1) mags are the main outlet for short stories, and some authors are just better at the short form, and 2) editors keep mags going for the love of it.  This means they are likely to survive longer than purely economic considerations would suggest.

It's a good piece.  I'd give it a read.

The issue at hand

Speaking of which, should you give the strikingly covered latest issue of Analog a read?  Well, if you're one of the 30,000 subscribers who gets it delivered, sure go ahead.  If you're eyeing it at a newsstand, you'll want to read further…


by John Schoenherr

Dragonrider (Part 1 of 2), by Anne McCaffrey

In Weyr Search, the first installment of this serial-in-all-but-name, we were introduced to planet Pern.  It is a fraught former Earth colony, severed from its homeworld for thousands of years and ravaged periodically by rhizomic attacks from a nearby world.  The only defense against the "threads" are fire breathing dragons ridden by telepathically connected humans.

The problem is it's been four centuries since the last attack and the "weyrs" of dragronriders have been allowed to go fallow.  Only Benden Weyr is left, and it is woefully undermanned and underdragoned.

This latest installment in the saga of Pern opens up sometime after the last.  Lessa, heir to the Hold of Ruatha and now Weyrlady by virtue of her communion with the dragon queen Ramoth, has shacked up with the F'lar, head of the dragonriders.  Not because the two like each other, but because that's the law: Weyrladies and Weyrleaders must get hitched.

The thread has begun to fall, and the dragons are sorely taxed to meet the challenge, teleporting in and out of the frigid between to intercept the alien spores.

(Note: What do you call it when a dragon relieves itself between?  An ICBM!)

Despite the perseverence of F'lar's crew, the thread has the upper hand–until Lessa accidentally discovers that dragons not only can teleport and telepath, but they can also time travel, too!  (telechron?) As one might expect, this changes the whole equation…but maybe not for the better.


by John Schoenherr

I dunno.  I was expecting a rousing Battle of Britain story, with never so much being owed by so many to so few.  The thread would start gradually, the brave fighters would fight to their limits, and through ingenuity and tenacity, eventually win.  The story would get extra points for being by and from the viewpoint of woman, a rare thing in science fiction, particularly in the mag that Campbell built.

Instead, the story is badly paced, lurching from scene to scene.  There is no build-up to the thread strike, no mounting of tension; it is just suddenly upon them.  McCaffrey throws psionic conceits against the wall to see which ones stick (Lessa not only discovers time travel, but she is the only one who can communicate with all of the dragons–unlike the other riders, who can only communicate with their bonded dragon).

Beyond that, the two main characters are thoroughly unlikeable, by turns yelling and sardonically sniping at each other.  An element of violence suffuses their interactions, with F'lar and Lessa's couplings being referred to as not less than rape.  It all feels very Marion Zimmer Bradley.  I've said before that Lessa feels like a wish-fulfillment character for the author.  This hypothesis is only becoming more concerning.

What's frustrating is I feel there could be an interesting story here in the hands of someone else.  Jack Vance has already written a thematically similar tale with his The Dragon Masters.  It's clear that Campbell wants Pern to be the next Dune, complete with striking Schoenherr covers.  Thus far, I'd say McCaffrey isn't up to the task.

I was originally going to give the installment a bare three stars, but I think I've talked myself out of it.

Two stars.

The Destiny of Milton Gomrath, by Alexei Panshin

In this short short, an orphaned garbage collector spends his life convinced that his existence of drudgery is a mistake, and that someone, somehow, will rectify the mistake some day.

Turns out he's right, but that may not be a good thing.

This could be the start of a mildly entertaining Laumer novel.  Instead, it ends right after the first punchline.

Blink and you'll miss it: three stars.

Whosawhatsa?, by Jack Wodhams


by Kelly Freas

Picture a world where a sex change is as complete and easy as an appendectomy…and reversible, to boot!  Now picture the most complicated legal case possible involving a married couple seeking a divorce, both parties of which have swapped genders.  And there are children involved, multiple paramours, probate issues, and a Strong Public Interest.

On the one hand, this story is a drag.  The attempts to make it "funny", mostly consisting of endless scenes in which the judge assigned the case contemplates suicide rather than attempt presiding, are a flop.  Also, one gets the feeling that if women's lib had advanced in the story as much as medical science, most of the legal issues and many of the social ones would be irrelevant.  Particularly if 1) we could extend the legal rights currently afforded women in the federal government to all women, and 2) we could approach homosexuality with a less than medieval attitude.

That said…

There is very interesting exploration of what it means to change genders and the motivations that underly the desire to make such a transition.  While the situation is made as ludicrous as possible, the subjects, for the most part, are taken seriously.  I actually found the piece remarkably progressive, especially for Analog.  Certainly, I've never read anything like it before.

Three stars.

Beak by Beak, by Piers Anthony


by Kelly Freas

An alien spacecraft orbits the Earth, neither communicating nor responding to communications.  Meanwhile, a red parrakeet arrives at the home of a bird-keeper and joins his avian pet family for a time.

This is a pleasant pastoral piece that tries a little too hard to get its message across.  Still, I'll read something like this a thousand times before I'll read Chthon again.

Three stars.

Venus and Mercury—Locked Planets? by R. S. Richardson

Dr. Richardson writes so-so science fiction, but I generally quite like his science fact articles.  This one talks about the newly discovered rotation rates of Venus and Mercury, as well as what they might mean in relation to the history of the solar system.

On the one hand, I learned a bit, and that's significant given that I know a lot of astronomy.  On the other, I felt the pictures were worth a thousand words, and I found myself skimming a lot of the text.  In other words, maybe 20 pages wasn't necessary to make the point (God help us–next month's science article will be 10,000 words!).

Still, four stars.

A Question of Attitude, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

A recruit for the interstellar patrol finds himself in an increasingly difficult series of imaginary tests, ones that stick him in mortal peril in a simulated alien planet environment.  He seems to fail each one, ending up "dead", yet the Lt. Colonel in charge of training seems to think he has promise.

Normally, Anvil and Campbell are a toxic combination.  This time around, the story is kind of interesting.  I also rather enjoyed the nihilistic suggestion that the recruit's success is measured in the degree of his failure, and also that passing the tests only means his life is about to get worse.  It fits with the whole zeitgeist of our current engagement in Vietnam.  Even if Joseph Heller did it better.

Three stars.

Psi Assassin, by Mack Reynolds


by Kelly Freas

Lastly, yet another of Reynolds' tales of Section G, the interstellar agency whose job is to make sure no human planet ends up too backwards, lest the race become prey to an ominous but yet unmet alien menace.  This time, a psionic assassin is sent to kill the head of a Latin dictatorship.  The problem: agent Ronny Bronston has already dispatched said leader and taken his identity!

We have all the hallmarks of a Reynolds Section G story: endless historical lectures (that never seem to have any object lessons beyond the mid-20th Century), flippant personalities that leach the story of any gravitas, the lone female agent (Reynolds never lets us forget her sex), and a happy ending.

Reynolds has done decent work with this series, but less often than not.

Two stars.

Doing the math

So who's right?  Alex or Ted?  Based on this month, I'd give the nod to Ted.  While Analog was on the mediocre side, managing just 2.8 stars, other magazines fared much better.  Both Galaxy and New Worlds scored 3.2 stars.  Fantasy and Science Fiction was also pretty good (3.1).  If was a bit tired, but par for the course (2.8), and while Amazing's 2.7 score puts it at the bottom of the pack, it actually is on an upward trend.

You could fill two magazines with all the superior stuff that came out this month, which is a good crop.  Sadly, McCaffrey wrote the only woman-penned piece, and it wasn't very good (though it was better than Poul Anderson's novella in Galaxy).

I give magazines at least a few more years…

But that's not all we have for today.  All the way from Australia comes this exciting stop press in the world of space news!:


by Kaye Dee

“Australia Joins the Space Club!”

Although Australia has supported American and British/European space efforts over the past decade, just yesterday, on 29 November we finally gained our own membership of the Space Club by placing our first satellite, WRESAT-1, into orbit. I’ve written articles previously about the first satellites of France and Italy, so it gives me great pride to report on Australia’s own satellite launch.


WRESAT-1 under construction in at the WRE

WRESAT-1 (WRE Satellite) has been a joint project of the Weapons Research Establishment (WRE) and the University of Adelaide, with significant support from the United States. In 1966, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) offered Australia a spare Redstone rocket from the ARPA-led Project Sparta programme at Woomera as a satellite launcher. Sparta has been the final phase of a US/UK/Australian re-entry physics research programme commenced in 1960, investigating radar-echo phenomena created by re-entering missile warheads. The Sparta team even offered to prepare and fire the Redstone for the WRE.

“A Rush Job!”

The scientists and engineers involved in the Australian upper atmosphere research programme took advantage of the proposal to move their instruments from sounding rockets to satellite. However, the Sparta launch offer placed the satellite project on a very tight schedule, as the spacecraft would have to be ready for launch by the end of 1967, when the Sparta project would be complete and the Americans returning home. So, in just 11 months Australia’s, WRESAT has been designed, constructed, tested and was finally launched on 29 November. Its development has been an example of local “make-do” ingenuity, as much of the testing equipment needed was not available in the country.

Australia’s first satellite has been designated WRESAT-1 because my WRE colleagues hope that it will have many successors. Australia doesn’t yet have a space agency like NASA, but the WRE is putting a proposal to the Australian Government for a national space programme, and we hope that it will be funded, with the WRE formally designated as the Australian national space agency.


Diagram showing the internal layout of WRESAT’s systems and scientific instruments

Given the short development period, WRESAT’s scientific payload consists of instruments similar to those already flown in the Australian sounding rocket programme conducted in conjunction with the University of Adelaide Physics Department. The university team has developed a suite of instruments to study solar and ultra-violet radiation, atmospheric ozone and molecular oxygen density, as well as measuring the temperature of the solar atmosphere.

“Going Up From Down Under”

After an aborted launch attempt on the 28th, the Redstone lifted-off flawlessly on the 29th to place WRESAT into a polar orbit, where it is being tracked, and its telemetry signals recorded, by NASA’s Satellite Tracking and Data Acquisition Network – a service also generously provided free to Australia.


WRESAT soars on its way to orbit from Launch Area 8 at Woomera

Because of its short development time, a solar array could not be designed for WRESAT, and the satellite is only battery-powered. This means it will have a very short operational lifespan, but we expect it to gather a large amount of data on the upper atmosphere that will provide a check on the data already gathered by sounding rockets.

Let’s hope that WRESAT-1 marks the start of Australia’s true Space Age, and that this country will soon “shine as brightly as the Southern Cross”, as President Johnson has put it in his congratulatory telegram on our first national launch!




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[September 30, 1966] Return to Base (October 1966 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

The Comfort of Old Friends

One of the brilliant things about the new show, Star Trek, is that it combines the storytelling breadth of a science fiction anthology show (a la The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits with the anchoring of a returning ensemble cast.  This has never really been done before (at least in the United States — the UK has Doctor Who and the various marionette shows).  In addition to the exciting new situations that arise every week, we can also enjoy watching our favorite characters grow over time.

Many science fiction magazines are like the older anthology shows, offering a brand new cast of characters and new ideas with every montly set of stories.  Others, like Analog, and in particular this month's issue, are like Star Trek, bringing us back to familiar territory for further explorations of a known universe.

I think both are valid formats, particularly if the established properties are successful.  Analog did a pretty good job this month.  Let's dive in…

The Issue at Hand


by John Schoenherr

Strangers to Paradise, by Christopher Anvil

Chris Anvil is an author who has occasionally shown flashes of promise — but always in other magazines.  In Analog, he has dug himself a rut with an anvil-weighted plow and happily buried himself in it.


by John Schoenherr

Strangers is yet another story that takes place in his galactic trade universe.  This one involves a ship whose gravitor has broken down, and whose crew has made planetfall to seek repairs.  Unfortunately, though the Michelin guide said there was a Class II repair facility on the colony world, it was never actually built.  Instead, the colonists proved so unruly that the computer running the outpost established draconian control.  The technicians who could override the machine exiled themselves rather than deal with either the colonists or the computer!

To fix their ship, the traders need help from the city dwellers.  But to get the help, they need the technicians back.  How do they repair the impasse?

I thought this might be setting up a Deathworld scenario, where the immigrants are the key to restoring harmony.  But this is Chris Anvil in Campbell's mag.  Instead, they accidentally develop a psychic projector, able to instill any emotion into any human at any range.  Over the course of many pages, they manipulate the entire planetary population in a haphazard fashion, ultimately getting what they need.  In the end, they consider dismantling the device as an unethical abomination…but decide to keep it.  Just too useful to destroy, you know.

I found this story quite distasteful.  Less glib than Anvil's other tales, but callous in a way that suggests support rather than condemnation for the actions of the shipwrecked crew.

Two stars.

The Sons of Prometheus, by Alexei Panshin


by Leo Summers

Sons sees the return of a fine new author who you've not only seen before, but who has even written a guest article for the Journey!  (the line between fan and pro in the 'zines is a blurry one.) This new tale appears to be set in the compelling timeline set up in What Size are Giants? and the amazing Down to the Worlds of Men.

The premise: on the brink of atomic self-destruction, Earth sends out more than a hundred colonies.  Fifteen years later, Earth is a radiated wasteland.  The only humans left live either in struggling settlements or rather comfortably as crew and passengers on starships.  This sets up a haves and have-nots situation.  The planeteers are primitive, suspicious folks.  The ship dwellers have limited resources to assist.

This particular tale involves a fellow named Tansman, who embeds himself on a plague-infested colony to conduct anthropological research.  His ultimate dilemma: does he offer what limited medicine he can to save a few, revealing himself, putting his mission and possibly his person in danger?  Or does he watch as the colonists die in droves?

It's a vivid story, though I feel it doesn't do quite enough with the setup.  It also stacks the deck a bit toward a certain outcome.  I also could have done without the extremely graphic, drawn out scene in which Tansman puts a suffering colonist out of his misery (warning: it's in the last third of the tale).

So, three stars, but I wouldn't mind seeing more in this setting.

Challenge: The Insurgent vs. the Counterinsurgent (Part 2), by Joe Poyer

With the non-fiction column, we return to last month's topic — namely counterinsurgency.  Poyer notes the great strides that have been made in tracking insurgents, using infrared, electronic bugs, even scent.  He correlates this increase in counterinsurgency effectiveness with the decline in successful insurgencies since 1956.  He makes the hopeful prediction that the golden age of guerrilas may be at an end.

The problem, of course, is that better counterinsurgents only addresses one prong of the problem.  As even Poyer notes, until the populace's needs are addressed, insurgency will thrive.  Moreover, I was reading in the latest diplomatic journals that few expect the United States to be successful in Vietnam, our latest counterinsurgent operation.  That is because the issue is an Asian problem, and the US has limited ability to project force and influence in another continent.  Vietnam is not a colony.  It is a sovereign country riven with civil war.  One way or another, they're going to have to solve their own issues.  Our presence is an ephemeral condition, and it is arguable that it is making the situation any better.

Three stars for an interesting read and lots of pretty charts, but I doubt the author's conclusion.

Romp, by Mack Reynolds


by Leo Summers

Back to the world of Joe Mauser, where the Earth of the 1980s is divided into four camps: the free countries of Latin America and Africa, Common Europe, the somewhat democratic SovWorld, and the "People's Capitalism" of the West.  The United States has calcified into economic castes, and upward mobility is virtually impossible.

Enter Rosy Porras, born into the long-dead job of pretzel twister.  He has figured out how to live a life of crime in an ostensibly crimeless world.  When his latest "romp" goes sour, he has to make a run for the border.  Can he make it in time?

I find the Mauser setting fascinating if based on increasingly unlikely premises.  This story is a bit too pat, but it's a competent thriller.  Three stars.

Too Many Magicians (Part 3 of 4), by Randall Garrett


by John Schoenherr

And now we return to the world of Lord Darcy, a timeline in which magic has displaced science, the Angevin Empire is squared against the Polish Confederation, and a Holmes analog is tasked with solving two murders.  We learned in the last installment that both were secret agents in the employ of HRM, and that their deaths are connected with a super secret magical confusion ray.

What we don't know is how one succumbed in a locked room, how Demoiselle Tia Einzig (accused of dealing in the Black Arts) of a southern slavic state was involved, or how certain was the loyalty of the murdered agents.

This continues to be a fun novel, and the setting is positively lavish.  If there's just one thing that's mildly unconvincing, it's the development of modern-style military ranks, as well as English colloquialisms, in a timeline that diverged from ours nearly a millennium ago.

Also, it can be a little tough to keep track of an intricate mystery spread out over four months of reading.  Nevertheless, four stars for another fine installment, and high hopes for a satistfying ending in October!

Reading the Results

It's a shame about the Anvil, as it drags the issue down to a straight 3 stars.  The issue feels better than that because it improves as it goes along.  Ah well. 3 still puts Analog alongside Alien Worlds (3.0) and just below Galaxy (rounds to 3 but was slightly above).

This makes Campbell's mag better than New Writings #9 (2.9),
Amazing (2.5), and IF (2.5) this month, and not as good as Impulse (3.2), New Worlds (3.3), or Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.3).

Worthy stuff (four and five stars) could easily fill two magazine's worth, but women wrote just 7.5% of the new fiction this month.  So much for the renaissance I predicted last month.

That wraps up the October 1966 magazines.  In two days, the November crop comes in!



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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[March 16, 1965] Browsing the Stacks (May 1965 Worlds of Tomorrow)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Did You Check the Card Catalog First?

If you're like me, when you enter a public or school library, or a bookstore, or any other place where volumes of written material are available for perusal, you wander around from place to place without any particular goal in mind. Of course, sooner or later you're going to wind up at the science fiction section. But along the way, you might find other kinds of fiction and nonfiction to pique your curiosity.


Students hard at work at Brigham Young University.They're probably not reading science fiction.

I thought about this pleasant little habit of mine when I looked at the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow. The stories and articles reminded me of other categories of writing. Take my hand, and we'll stroll through the paper corridors of this miniature book depository and find out what wonders await us.


Cover art by George Schelling.

What Size Are Giants?, by Alexei Panshin

Category: Westerns

We start off near novels by Zane Grey and other chroniclers of the Old West. This rootin', tootin' yarn begins with a gal settin' by herself readin' a book (appropriately enough) and not realizin' that she's about to be run over by a stampedin' herd of wild critters. Luckily for her, a fella in a covered wagon comes by and saves her. He's sort of a medicine show kind of city slicker, of the type that the local settlers don't cotton to.


Drawin' by Norman Nodel. That's a mighty funny lookin' horse you got there, friend.

OK, let me knock it off with the dialect before I drive both of us crazy. We're really on a colony planet, one of many settled about a century ago, when a large number of gigantic starships fled Earth just before a global war destroyed all of humanity. The colonists survive at a low level of technology, while the people who remain aboard the ships enjoy much more advanced devices. The colonists envy and resent the starship folk, and the people on the vessels look down on the settlers as peasants.

Our hero sneaks off one of the ships and lands on the planet, intending to help the colonists with better goods, and to encourage trade between isolated communities. Along for the ride is his buddy, an intelligent, talking bird. (The only explanation for this animal is that it's a one-of-a-kind mutant, which is a little hard to swallow.)

Things don't work out too well. Not only do the settlers figure out the man is one of the hated people from the starships, but he is also tracked down by an enforcer from the vessel, because interfering with a colony is a serious crime.


A very accurate rendition of the author's description of this unpleasant character.

Complicating matters is the fact that the stampeding beasts are about to go on the rampage again, threatening to destroy the local village and everyone in it. It all builds up to an exciting climax, as our tomboy heroine comes to the rescue.


Ride 'em, cowgirl!

This is a decent enough adventure story, if not particularly outstanding in any way. The author's style is plain but serviceable. It'll give ya somethin' to look at while you're sittin' around the campfire, waitin' for Cooky to rustle up some coffee and beans.

Three stars.

The Effectives, by Zenna Henderson

Category: Religion

Not far away from the Bibles, Korans, Torahs, and other sacred texts, we find this work of inspirational fiction from a skilled author known for the use of spiritual themes in her tales of the People.


Illustration by John Giunta.

KVIN (as shown above) is a devastating illness of unknown origin. Those who suffer from it die very quickly after feeling the first symptoms, which vary from person to person. The only treatment is to completely replace the victim's blood with donations from healthy volunteers. This doesn't always work, however.

There's a peculiar geographic pattern to the cure rate. It never works in the San Francisco area; works half the time near Denver; and is always effective at a particular area near a medical research center. A troubleshooter arrives at the place and tries to figure out what's going on.

The center is near a religious community that has turned its back on the modern world, something like the Amish. They supply the blood donations. There is no such community in the San Francisco region, and half of the blood donations at the Denver area come from such a community. Could there be a connection with the cure rates? The troubleshooter, a hardcore skeptic, performs a risky experiment in order to find out.

How you react to this fable may depend on your religious beliefs. You may think that the author has stacked the cards too much in favor of faith over materialism. The troubleshooter is something of a stereotype of the stubborn atheist, although I'll have to give the writer credit for depicting him as a man with the courage of his convictions, but willing to change his mind when presented with strong evidence.

Considered just as a work of science fiction, this story is very well-written, with interesting speculative content. It may not change anyone's opinions, but it's definitely worth reading.

Four stars.

The Alien Psyche, by Tom Purdom

Category: Psychology

Strolling over to the nonfiction, we find this article next to a large volume of Freud. The author wonders about the ways in which biological differences between human beings and the sentient inhabitants of other worlds may lead to differences in their minds. What kind of neuroses would be found among aliens that reproduce by fission, or are hermaphroditic?

The piece mostly deals with traditional Freudian analysis, although the author has to admit that there are many other schools of psychology, and that none of them are anywhere near an exact science. Maybe someday we'll know more about the workings of the mind, but for now this is all idle speculation.

Two stars.

Bond of Brothers, by Michael Kurland

Category: Spy Fiction


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Stuck between books by Ian Fleming and John le Carré is this tale of Cold War espionage. A fellow arrives at the secret headquarters of a US government agency, where his identical twin brother works. The brother is currently in a Soviet prison, after the Reds caught him spying. The only reason the protagonist knows about the headquarters, and his brother's location, is the fact that the twins have a telepathic link.

The hero manages to convince the head of the agency of this psychic connection, and volunteers to rescue his brother from the Commies. He goes undercover and faces many challenges in his quest to free his twin from their clutches.


Parachuting into the USSR.

The ESP gimmick isn't really relevant to the plot, which is a straightforward secret agent story. Some of Fleming's books, such as Thunderball and Moonraker, have more of a speculative feeling to them than this tale. I suppose it's an acceptable example of this sort of thing, but I felt a bit cheated by its appearance in a science fiction magazine.

Two stars.

Explosions in Space, by Ben Bova

Category: Astronomy

Passing by star charts and maps of the Moon, we arrive at the section of this tiny library dealing with the cosmos. We find an article dealing with things that go BOOM! in the heavens.

We begin with solar flares, and build up to entire exploding galaxies, with discussions of novae and supernovae along the way. The piece concludes with theories about the recently discovered, mysterious things known as quasars (quasi-stellar objects.) The author may not have the charm of Asimov, or the obscure knowledge of Ley, but he explains an interesting subject very clearly.

Four stars.

Dem of Redrock Seven, by John Sutherland

Category: Detective Stories

Leaning on some volumes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett — we'll ignore the bestselling works of Mickey Spillane and stick with the classics — is this hardboiled yarn about a tough investigator and his sexy secretary, working on a case that could spell disaster for civilization.

Oh, did I mention the fact that these characters aren't human beings? In fact, they're the mutated descendants of insects, long after people contaminated Earth with radiation and nearly died off. The giant, intelligent insects now have their own sophisticated society, and the few remaining humans are living like savages in uncontaminated areas. They're only a minor nuisance, until the mysterious death of a government worker leads the hero to a hidden threat that could mean the end of the insects.

Clearly meant as a parody of private eye stories, this tongue-in-cheek tale is kind of silly — giving the secretary a lisp is particularly goofy and pointless — but amusing at times. I'll admit that the author does a good job writing from the insect point of view, and you may find yourself cheering for the hero over those dastardly humans. Like the first story in this issue, this one features the female lead coming to the rescue of the hero, which is a nice touch.

Three stars.

Bogeymen, by Dick Moore

Category: War Stories


Illustrations by Jack Gaughan.

We'll head to the shelf that holds accounts of naval battles for this tale of combat with an enemy that remains unseen most of the time, like a submarine. Instead of sailing the seven seas, we're out in space, on a routine patrol of the inner solar system. The current situation between two vaguely defined rivals is hotter than a Cold War, although both sides refer to their violent encounters as accidents.


The patrol vessel, and that might be Mars at the top.

Word reaches the ship that a large force of enemy vessels is on its way to Mars from a base in the asteroid belt. Its target seems to be the friendly base on Phobos. Because it's extremely difficult to detect ships in the vastness of space, it's a matter of guesswork as to where the good guys should intercept the bad guys. It boils down to heading to the most likely place for them to appear and then waiting.


I have no idea what this is supposed to be.

Meanwhile, the crew alters its armed missiles, turning them into devices they can launch into space in order to increase the chances of detecting the enemy. The main character rather foolishly comes up with his own scheme for the armaments removed from the missiles, which lands him in very hot water indeed. He winds up having to go out in a one-person vessel in order to retrieve the arms, while risking own skin against the approaching enemy.


The hero in the small ship, I think, although this doesn't match the way I pictured it at all.

To be honest, I'm not sure if my brief synopsis is accurate at all. I found the technical aspects of the plot very hard to follow. The hero's actions are extremely unprofessional, putting the ship and crew in great danger just so he can play a hunch. The story also seemed quite long, as I slogged my way to the ending.

Two stars.

Have Your Library Card Ready

Is it worth a trip to the stacks? Maybe, maybe not. You've got one good story (although that judgement may be controversial) and one good article, along with other works ranging from poor to fair. I wouldn't go digging through musty old volumes to seek it out, but if it happens to be close, you might as well take a look. You might see something interesting.


She's only the librarian's daughter, but you really should check her out.




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Magazine/Anthology

[October 20, 1964] The Struggle (November 1964 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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[Have you gotten your copy of Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963)? It's got some of the best science fiction of the Silver Age, many of the stories first appearing in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction!)


by Gideon Marcus

The Good Fight

1964 has been a year of struggle.  The struggle to integrate our nation, the struggle against disorder in the cities, titanic power struggles in the U.S., the U.K. and now the U.S.S.R.  The struggle to hold on to South Vietnam, to preserve Congo as a whole nation.  The struggle of folk, rock, Motown, country, and surf against the inexorable British invasion.

So it's no wonder that this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction makes struggle the central component of so many of its stories.  This magazine is wont to have "All Star Issues" — this one is an "All Theme Issue":


by Ed Emshwiller

The Issues at Hand

Greenplace, by Tom Purdom

Purdom, who just wrote the excellent I want the Stars (review coming in the next Galactoscope), depicts a 21st Century in which immortality has created a stranglehold on politics.  Canny machine bosses can hold on to power indefinitely.  Nicholson is a man who would break this power, loading himself up on psychically enhancing drugs and personally investigating "Greenplace", a stronghold neighborhood of the 8th Congressional District.  There, he encounters resistance, violence, and a secret…

Remarkable for its melange of interesting ideas and surreal execution, it's a little too consciously weird for true effectiveness.  Three stars.

After Everything, What? by Dick Moore

Two thousand years ago, genetic supermen ruled the galaxy.  They weren't dictators; rather, they were created by humans to be the best that humanity could be (that's what the story says — I'm not endorsing eugenics).  After a century of dominance, they all died out.

It's a well-written piece, but the conclusion is obvious from the beginning: the ubermenschen struggled against boredom…and lost.

Three stars.

Treat, by Walter H. Kerr

It used to be that, on Halloween, people would wear scary masks so that when they encountered bonafide spooks on their day of free reign, they would be mistaken for compatriots.  Nowadays, the shoe is on the other foot — spooks can only freely walk the Earth on Oct. 31 since everyone mistakes their frightening faces for masks.

Cute?  Three stars.

Breakthrough, by Jack Sharkey

Here, the struggle is Man vs. Machine.  A chess-playing computer betrays its sentience by developing a sense of humor.  So its creator, tormented with feelings of inferiority, shoots the machine dead.

Sharkey can be good.  More often he can be bad.  Here, Sharkey is about as bad as he ever gets.

One star.

Dark Conception, by Louis J. A. Adams

When the Savior comes again, will it be in the form of another virgin birth?  And what happens when the new Mary happens to be Black?

This is the first piece of the issue that has some of the old F&SF power, but the ending doesn't pack a lot of punch since the conclusion is telegraphed, and the author doesn't do much with it.

Three stars for this missed opportunity of a tale.

One Man's Dream, by Sydney Van Scyoc

Against age, all mortals struggle in vain.  A Mr. Rybik has himself "tanked" in life-sustaining fluids in the hopes of purchasing a few more years.  But not for himself — he wants to preserve the other personality who lives in his head, the pulp adventurer called Anderson.  This Anderson is more real to him than even his wife or his kids, entertaining, sustaining, allowing Rybik to enjoy a life of vicarious excitement.

But when Rybik's money runs out, he finds that no one in the real world wants to pony up dough to save a crazy dreamer who neglected his family.  Can Anderson save him now?

Well crafted, it engages while it lasts, and then sort of fades away.  Like Anderson.

Three stars.

The New Encyclopaedist – III, by Stephen Becker

Another of these faux articles written for an encyclopaedia, copyright 2100 A.D.  This one details a latter day crusade against immorality by a McCarthy parody.  Mostly a bore, though there is one genuinely funny line.

Two stars.

Where Do You Live, Queen Esther? by Avram Davidson

Esther is a Creole house-servant.  Her struggle is with her employer, Eleanor Raidy, who treats her poorly.  In typically overwritten fashion, the author details Esther's revenge.  Only Avram can make seven pages feel like 20.

I understand Davidson is quitting the editorship of F&SF to devote more time to his writing.  If this is the kind of stuff we can look forward to, he might consider an altogether different career.  And it's a reprint, no less!

Two stars.

The Black of Night, by Isaac Asimov

Dr. A's article for the month details the struggle to answer Olbers' paradox: if the universe be infinite, and stars evenly distributed, why isn't the night sky as bright as the day's?

As one might guess, the issue is with the postulates.  Neither are correct, as we now know.  Asimov does his usual fine job explaining things for the layman.

Four stars.

On the House, by R. C. FitzPatrick

In the earlier story, Dark Conception, the husband of the pregnant Mary confronts Mary's doctor.  Both husband and doctor are Black, but the husband considers the doctor a "Tom" and won't be satisfied with mere equality:

"I don' want what you want, man.  I want what they got and for them to be like me now.  I want to lead me a lynch mob and hang someone who looks at one of our girls.  I want to rend me some of my land to one of them and let them get one payment behind.  I want them to try to send they kids to our school.  I want 'em to give me back myself like I was before, when I didn't hurt so bad that I better off dead."

Fitzpatrick's On the House is a deal with the Devil story, but the protagonist is a Black woman, and all she wants is to change places with "one of them". 

It's another piece that would do a lot better with development beyond the punchline, but I at least appreciate the variation on the theme.

Three stars.

Portrait of the Artist, by Harry Harrison

If there is going to be one struggle that defines the modern age, it's the struggle to reconcile automation with personal dignity.  Harrison, in this piece, shows the mental devastation that happens when even such an imagination-laden field as comic artistry can be done by a machine. 

It was pretty good up to the end where (if you'll pardon the unintentional pun, given how the story ends), Harrison fails to stick the landing.

Three stars.

Hag, by Russell F. Letson, Jr.

Is a witch's pox effective against modern vaccination?

Another pleasant (if forgettable) prose poem.

Three stars.

Oversight, by Richard Olin

Wacky doctor wins his struggle against aging by infusing his cells with planaria (flatworm) DNA.  It has unintended consequences.

Another story with an obvious ending — and this one doesn't make biological sense. 

Olin's last (and first) story was better.  Two stars.

The Third Coordinate, by Adam Smith

We end with the struggle to reach the stars.  The concept is novel: humanity has invented a teleporter, but while direction can be controlled, distance cannot.  What its operators need is three known destinations, coordinates that can be used to calibrate the device so that accurate ranging can be done.

Great idea.  Very poor execution.  Nothing happens for the first 20 pages but some of the clunkiest exposition and character development I've read in a while.  And there's no tension in the end, either.  Pilot succeeds, end of story.

Two stars, and a hope that the theme gets picked up by someone with more chops.

Summing Up

As it turns out, the biggest struggle this month was finishing the damned magazine.  Conflict is vital to any story, but it's only one component.  Execution and development matter, too.  Even Davidson's story intros have lapsed into badness.  I'm looking forward to the editor's departure from F&SF; any change has to be an improvement, right?

[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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Magazine/Anthology

[July 2, 1963] A New Point of View (Making Down to the Worlds of Men)

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[Last month, I was delighted to discover a brand-new author, Alexei Panshin, whose Down to the Worlds of Men was not just one of the best stories I'd read in a while, but also refreshingly starred a fourteen-year old girl on the verge of womanhood.  I reached out to Mr. Panshin to express how much I'd enjoyed the story.  Not only did he respond, he prepared the following article on the creation of his work.  Please enjoy this, as I did…


by Alexei Panshin

When I began trying to write stories in the summer of 1958, I was completely ignorant and totally inept. I proved as much that fall by writing an unpublishable SF novel, but I learned a lot in doing it. Mainly what I learned was to get my think-think out of the way and listen to the words I was being given to set down on paper.

After another year and a half with more rejections, while stationed at the headquarters of a US Army preventive medicine company in a compound outside Seoul, Korea, I got an idea for a science fiction story.  I was still bothered by the [male-]chauvinism and belligerence Heinlein had shown in Starship Troopers and I wanted to write a story with a devastating conclusion that I imagined Heinlein would endorse, but I would not [Specifically to illustrate the troubling aspects of Heinlein's views, Mr. Panshin clarified for me.  (Ed.)]. 

My approach to constructing a story at that point was to accumulate a number of key factors and then integrate them into one story.

I had just read Harper Lee's new novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, and as much as I liked it, I hadn't been completely convinced by her portrayal of the mentation of a six-year-old girl.  Neither had I been convinced by Heinlein's little girl character Peewee in another book I'd loved, Have Spacesuit–Will Travel.  As of that time, Heinlein had yet to include a female protagonist in any of his juvenile novels.

I had never attempted such a character in any story I'd written myself. And I was always trying to do something I hadn't done before in every story.  So a young female lead became my second factor.

Next, I'd just read an article in Astounding by G. Harry Stine called "Science Fiction Is Too Conservative."  In it, he proposed the idea — not actually new — of giant spaceships carrying colonies to the stars.  That was my third factor.

The final piece of my story fell into place when I picked up a new novel called Walkabout in the camp library.  The blurb spoke of a rite of passage in which Australian aborigine boys were sent off to survive for a month in the wild by themselves.

So there was my story: a young girl from a starship would be dropped on a human colony planet to survive for a month in order to become an adult and earn citizenship on her ship. But the starship would be offended by the colony and vote to destroy it.

Almost as soon as I thought of the story, I found myself transferred to the company detachment at Camp Red Cloud in Uijongbu. There I was drafted by the second lieutenant in charge to do his typing. This was the only opportunity to write that I would have during my two years of Army service and I made the most of it. Over the next several months, I wrote my story.  At 20,000 words, it was the second longest story I had yet attempted.

I sent the manuscript off to John W. Campbell at Astounding, by that time retitled Analog.  But while it was gone and then being returned to me I came to the conclusion that to bring off the devastating ending I aimed for, the story needed to be longer.  I submitted it again to Fred Pohl, editor of Galaxy and If, and then set to work on the longer version.

Pohl offered to buy my story, but only if I cut it in half.  I did the job in one night while on charge of quarters duty back at company headquarters. I typed furiously through the night rewriting the story and eliminating the overwhelming ending for which it existed while I listened on the radio as John Glenn orbited the planet three times.

And Pohl did buy the shortened story which he retitled "Down to the Worlds of Men" and published a year and a half later in the July 1963 issue of If following the serialization of Heinlein's Podkayne of Mars, which had a young female protagonist, though not one whose voice I believed in…

[Mr. Panshin has, in fact, written a great deal about his journey into authorship.  You can read more (and discover the other wonders he has for sale) at his publishing house.  Go!]

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Magazine/Anthology

[June 4, 1963] Booked passage (July 1963 IF)

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by Gideon Marcus

How quickly the futuristic becomes commonplace.  Just two years ago, I marveled about how fast one can cross the oceans by jet.  Now, on the eve of another trip to Japan (we really have joined the Jet Set, haven't we?) I look at the flight itinerary and grumble.  Why must we stop in Hawaii?  That adds several hours to the trip — it'll take more than half a day to get from LAX to Haneda.

Spoiled rotten, I tell you.

Speaking of travel stories, a fresh crop of science fiction digests has hit my mailbox.  Many of them will be joining me on my trip to the Orient, but I finished one of them, the July 1963 IF, pre-flight.  All of them feature some element of star-hopping, and so this issue sets a fine mood as we embark on our latest journey:

That Notebook Again, by Theodore Sturgeon

I find it interesting that editor Fred Pohl has gotten Ted Sturgeon to write his editorials for him.  I'm not complaining — it's always nice to see Sturgeon in print in any capacity.  This time around, he treats us to a number of technological proposals, a wishlist of inventions that should be right around the corner, given a little interest and effort.  I found his idea for a home TV-tape camera and player particularly titilating (and not farfetched — my nephew already audio-tapes television shows onto reel-to-reel).

The Reefs of Space (Part 1 of 3), by Jack Williamson and Frederik Pohl

A good third of the issue is given to a new serial (illustrated on the cover — EMSH is big in this issue, though I also like the work of Nodel, who is new to me).  Hundreds of years from now, Earth's population is highly regimented, its economy utterly socialized, under the authority of The Machine and its master Plan.  Dissent is punished by incarceration and the forced wearing of an explosive ring around one's neck.  Further disobedience results in one's "salvage" (dissasembly into component body parts for the use of others). 

Steve Ryeland is an experimental physicist, a touchy job to have when scientific advancement poses both boon and risk for the Plan.  At Reef's beginning, he has been a prisoner for three years, unaware of his crime, but consistently questioned about "spacelings," "fusorians," "reefs of space," and "jetless drive" — terms about which he knows nothing.  Adding to his confusion is a three-day gap in his memory.

And then comes the urgent summons — the Machine will have Ryeland discover the secret of the reactionless drive, and soon, or be sent to the Body Banks.  For at the edge of the solar system lies a biological construct, the tremendous analog of a coral reef created by organisms that live on interstellar hydrogen.  Not only does this alien structure pose a hypothetical threat to the Plan, but it affords sanctuary to a more existential opponent — the revolutionary-in-exile, Donderevo.  Can Ryeland accomplish his mission in time to save his hide and human society?  Is such a goal even worth fighting for?

It's an interesting concept for a novel, but the execution leaves a bit to be desired.  It suffers from the same plodding repetitiveness as Simak's concurrent serial in Galaxy, but betrays none of Simak's literary expertise.  The writing is simple, uninspired, and the scientific concepts (including Hoyle's steady-state theory, which I find uncompelling) feel dated.  Two stars, but with cautious hopes for the next installment.

The Faces Outside, by Bruce McAllister

Here is a short tale of a married couple, the last of humanity, mutated to live in a large alien aquarium with a host of other terrestrial life forms.  The Terrans have the last laugh when the male of the pair develops psychic powers and compels the aliens to commit mass suicide.

McAllister is the first and weaker of the two new authors featured in this issue.  His writing shows potential, though.  Two stars, trying hard for three.

Mightiest Qorn, by Keith Laumer

Another IF, another Retief story.  This time, the omnipotent but much-suffering Terran agent is tapped to investigate the sudden reappearance of the fearsome Qorn, a race of dreadnought-wielding, glory-seeking warriors who appear to have the power of teleportation.

Unfortunately, the Retief shtick is starting to wear thin (arguably, it raveled a while ago), and it's really time Laumer focused his attention to the more worthy efforts we know he's capable of.  The bright spot is that Retief's nominal boss, Magnan, is now pretty game to do whatever his "underling" says.  Some might call that progress.  Two stars.

In the Arena, by Brian W. Aldiss

Given up?  Take heart — it's all better from here.  Prominent British writer, Aldiss, gives us another man-and-woman pair in the thrall of aliens.  In this case, it is two gladiators performing for a race of insectoids who have conquered the Earth (but not all of humanity).  Call it Spartacus for the 30th Century.  It's a nicely written trifle.  Three stars.

Down to the Worlds of Men, by Alexei Panshin

14-year old Mia Havero is part of a society of human space-dwellers, resident of one of the eight galaxy-trotting Ships that represent the remains of Earth's high technology.  She and 29 other young teens are dropped on a primitive colony as part of a rite of passage.  There is always an element of danger to this month-long ordeal, but this episode has a new wrinkle: the planet's people are fully aware (and resentful) of the Ships, and they plan to fight back.  Can Mia survive her coming of age and stop an insurrection?

Panshin hits it right out of the park with his first story, capturing the voice of a young almost-woman and laying out a rich world and an exciting adventure.  Finally, I've got something I can recommend to the Young Traveler.  Four stars, verging on five.

The Shadow of Wings, by Robert Silverberg

The last story introduces Caldwell, an expert in the dead language of Kethlani.  He is called back from a family vacation when a real live Kethlan shows up, bearing the banner of peace.  Can the linguist overcome his revulsion of the alien's form and forge a partnership between the two species?

This piece could have been a throwaway save for Silvergerg's careful drawing of the Caldwell's personality.  I found myself wishing the story had been longer — certainly, it could have taken some of the pages away from the stale stories of the first half.  Four stars.

Like my impending vacation, this month's issue starts with a hard slog but ends with great reward.  I'd say that's the right order of things.  See you in Tokyo!

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