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Book

[May 24, 1964] The Darkest of Nights… ( June 1964)

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

With New Worlds magazine turning bi-monthly last month I find myself in the position of having nothing particular to report this month. I could talk about what I’ve seen at the cinema (Becket, with Peter O Toole and Richard Burton — very good) or on television (I’m still enjoying Doctor Who), but I usually turn to something to read for my entertainment.

So, what I’ve decided to review this month is perhaps something I should have commented on before. I am a subscriber to the British Science Fiction Book Club, and have been for many years. The club has been sending me a hardback book since 1953 for the princely sum of 6s and 6d (six shillings and sixpence, about $1.50?) a month. Initially it was bi-monthly, but has been so popular it soon changed to monthly.

The books are selected for readers by a panel, which has included at various stages Arthur C. Clarke, Kingsley Amis and coincidentally John ‘Ted’ Carnell, the recent editor of New Worlds.

Not all choices have been what we would call ‘current’ – some have been published elsewhere a year previously, for example – but in my opinion, they’re usually a good affordable read, or a chance to catch up on something I might have missed when first published.

This month’s selection (the 83rd!), The Darkest of Nights, is one you may not know in the US, but you may know the author.

Charles Eric Mayne is a British author who has transcended the boundaries of genre to become attractive to mainstream readers as well. I understand that “Charles Eric Maine” is the pseudonym of David McIlwain, a writer of science fiction novels since the 1950s. Like The Beatles, he’s from Liverpool. Previous novels that you may know include Spaceways (1953), Timeliner (1955) and High Vacuum (1956). His stories are usually fast-paced and combine current contemporary themes with the latest ideas in science and technology.

In terms of science-fictional themes, you may have noticed that British sf has taken some interesting developments in recent years. We’ve had the so-called “New Wave”, that I’ve spoken about here before, but perhaps less remarkably but more enduring has been the trend of apocalyptic novels, which have become popular with mainstream readers. Led by authors such as John Wyndham with his novels The Day of the Triffids (1951) and The Kraken Wakes (1953), there has been a burgeoning of similar stories in recent years. John Christopher’s The Death of Grass (1956) and The World in Winter (1962) are superior examples, in my opinion. Even J G Ballard has been tempted to go there, with his novel The Drowned World (1962).

At first glance, The Darkest of Nights is another of those end of the world stories.


(the Book Club covers are very, very dull – compare this original first British edition cover with the Book Club version above)

The story begins with a bang, although it is written about in that understated British way that downplays it.  A mutated virus has been spreading across Asia. The Hueste Virus begins with a sudden rise in body temperature to above one-hundred-and-five degrees before the victim lapses into a coma. The skin then goes dry and appears both grey and glossy. It seems to be fatal once caught, at least initially.

As the first recognised cases are in Japan, at first the virus is relatively unnoticed by the general public in Europe and North America.  Our lead character is Dr. Pauline Brant, who works for the International Virus Research Organisation in Japan and has first-hand experiences of the epidemic. Separated from her journalist husband Clive, she returns to England and begins work on an antivirus vaccine in England. She also begins a tentative relationship with fellow Doctor Vincent, despite not yet being divorced from Clive.

If you are a reader accustomed to the novels of John Wyndham, you may expect that when the virus eventually spreads to England, the nation shows the resolve and ‘stiff-upper-lip’ mentality that is typically expected – the so-called ‘Dunkirk Spirit’, shown in World War Two.

This doesn’t happen.

Being mainly set in England, there is an unsurprising focus on the consequences of the virus on social order. In such a stratified social situation, it may not surprise you that as the deaths mount up, the working-class feel that they are deliberately being abandoned by those in power whilst the rich entrepreneurs and higher elements of society are rumoured to be hoarding a cure in admittedly limited supply. 

We see the consequences of this when in the middle part of the novel the focus shifts to Pauline’s estranged husband Clive. He has decided to take up the offer of a new job given by his new girlfriend’s father, and leaves his journalist position at the Daily Monitor newspaper to become a reporter who, as part of a mobile film crew, will film the events to create movie records for official archives. When his team, including his girlfriend, arrive from the USA, we see through them the consequences of the world falling apart.

In London there is panic, looting and a breakdown of social order that is horrifying to read. With most of the politicians and decision makers locked away in bunkers, new secrecy laws are introduced. A public militia is formed to reflect the dissatisfaction of the general public who take on the police and the military across many cities, including London. This leads to armed battles and tanks on the streets of the British capital whilst many workers strike, objecting to the situation.  Would the fabric of society collapse as quickly as it is shown here? Perhaps not – it may be accelerated for the sake of entertainment – but it does read surprisingly realistically.

The idea of a ‘cure’ is more than a rumour. When research discovers that there are two forms of the virus – a lethal version referred to as AB virus and a harmless alternative called BA virus – the story becomes a race to create a vaccine from the BA virus that will cure without killing the host. This is a major development early on in the novel, although estimates suggest that even with the BA virus isolated, the deaths amongst the general population will be approximately fifty-per-cent. Pauline is given a difficult choice to make – should she try and help the masses with limited hospital care and a fifty-fifty chance of survival, or should she take the offer given of a position looking after the privileged decision-makers kept in protected underground bunkers?

The ending is perhaps the book’s weakest element, with a rather convenient meeting of the main characters that stretches credulity a little. It should not be too much of a surprise to the well-read s-f reader that things do not end well for everybody. Whilst the final battle is quite exciting, the story leaves things rather open-ended. Some characters, having seemed crucial at the beginning, become unimportant at the end. At least one appears to have been left redundant, with some other characters' fate left undisclosed. It seems a little rushed and a bit forced, which is a shame after such a good start.

Summing up

It's not the first time that Charles has written about global catastrophes – this bears some similarities to his novel The Tide Went Out (1958), which covered similar themes of global crisis around a nuclear weapon test that cracks the Earth open. One of the key characters there was also a reporter who had an extra-marital affair.

Similarities aside, I must say that The Darkest of Nights is engaging and at times even a little too close for comfort. It reads as if real, the plausibility enhanced by the scientific explanation given to describe the cause and effect of the virus, which to me, as a non-scientist, all sounds remarkably possible.

What is perhaps most scary is the bigger picture — that the source of the virus seems to be a random development that in reality could happen at any time. Whilst it is possible that it's a mutation created by nuclear testing or biological warfare, the most likely is that that it is an accidental, yet natural, evolution. It happened by chance, not deliberately.

Despite the unconvincing ending, I enjoyed a lot of this novel, which was a grisly, entertaining, and occasionally chilling read. Like Wyndham’s stories it is remarkably English in its style and tone, although darker and grimmer than anything Wyndham has written. In the end, perhaps the book’s biggest strength is that it made me appreciate that for all of our social ills, things could be a lot, lot worse. It’s not a New Wave story but it was grimly engaging.

4 out of 5.

And with that, I’ll leave it until the next issue of New Worlds arrives through the letterbox, which is probably when I’ll speak to you next. 

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




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Book

[May 16, 1964] A Mirror to Progress (Chester Anderson and Michael Kurland's Ten Years to Doomsday)

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by Jason Sacks

These days, our world is undergoing a sudden and dramatic transformation. Starting immediately after the War, and accelerating since, many former colonies are becoming free nations, ready to embrace their potential and individuality. As these new countries find their own ways toward futures separate from their former masters, we in the Western world are able to experience life from different perspectives. These perspectives show the exquisite diversity of the human race. We are given the rare privilege to experience perspectives different from our own, perspectives sometimes frightening, sometimes exciting, but always intriguing. In doing so, we provide these nations the ultimate freedom: they can dream big. They can embrace new technologies and different ways of looking at the world. They can shake off the repressive yoke of colonialism and allow themselves to achieve their true potential.

Ten Years to Doomsday, the delightful new novel by the writing team of Chester Anderson and Michael Kurland, is a charming exploration of many of these themes using a mix of farce and drama.

As the book begins, an evil race of aliens threatens the star-spanning Terran Alliance. The aliens’ path to Earth leads through a human-colonized world that seems particularly hapless. As we meet them, the settlers on the planet Lyff seem a quiet people. They have a rigid society which revolves around their king and petty nobility. Even after thousands of years of civilization, the people of Lyff haven’t passed beyond an agrarian lifestyle which barely provides greater than subsistence living.

After their initial reconnaissance, the aliens plan be back in ten years to conquer Lyff and then begin their implacable march through the Terran empire. A stand needs to be taken on this small world, and quickly. But the aliens have astounding technology. How can a tiny planet like Lyff possibly defend itself?

Thankfully the Terrans have a plan: send a team of three scientists to Lyff to help jumpstart the world’s technology. These men start with the introduction of the telegraph but very quickly things begin to take their own momentum and the colonials soon prove to be much more sophisticated than the Terran colonizers expected. What at first seems like indolence or a lack of ambition soon proves to provide a pattern for technological innovation far beyond what anyone could have expected. The arrogant Terrans learn there are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in their philosophy

Our late, lamented President Kennedy said 18 months ago that we chose to go to the moon because it is hard. But what if journeying through space was easy — if you applied the right approach to solving the problems?

Anderson and Kurland deliver a novelette which reflects our world back to us in a clever and satirical manner, spotlighting the often arrogant and dismissive attitudes of our post-colonial world. Just as with many former colonies in our world, the colonists on Lyff have far more potential than the Terrans could possibly imagine. It’s a heady and humbling idea that would translate to a variety of media. As a comic book fan, I would love to see this theme brought to my favorite medium, perhaps portraying a small country, maybe in Africa, that proves to be much more technologically advanced even than the United States.

In tone and style, this slim book — less than 160 pages — reminded me of The Mouse that Roared, one of my favorite films from about five years ago and a clever take on the arrogance rich countries bring to our discussion of smaller countries. Just as Grand Fenwick proves to be a stronger adversary than the rest of the world is ready to deal with, so Lyff proves to be a formidable foil.

And as with The Mouse that Roared, I was reminded again of the fallacy of underestimating those who seem on the bottom…because they may soon reach the top. Heck, maybe even my beloved Mets can crawl out of 10th place in the National League before the end of the decade!

4 stars.

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




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Book

[May 6, 1964] The Predicament: Transit by Edmund Cooper

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by Victoria Lucas

It Finally Came!

Just a wee plug.  My favorite publisher is Faber & Faber.  While I was wiping the drool from my face during a perusal of their last catalog, something caught my eye.  An interesting book, of course, but this time not a playbook (my usual fare, when I can afford it): it was a novel by a popular British author, Edmund Cooper.  If you saw “The Invisible Boy” (the movie), you saw a version of his The Brain Child, a book published the year before.  But the novel I finally counted my pennies and bought long distance was Transit.  The hype made it look delicious, and it had a February 1964 publication date.  So it arrived at last from the Isles.


Cover art by Brian Rigby

Richard Avery/Edmund Cooper

One of the things I learned about Cooper when I looked him up was that he has a number of pseudonyms: George Kinley, Broderick Duain, Martin Lester, … and Richard Avery.  On page one of Transit, in fact in sentence one I learned that the protagonist of this book is … Richard Avery.  I don’t know what that means that he was putting himself in this book, but perhaps it indicates somehow that Avery and Cooper share opinions about things?

In the first part of the book we learn mainly about Richard, but as he suffers “transit” to another planet in this “sector” of the galaxy, he — and we — are introduced to Barbara, then to Mary.  On the planet where Richard, Mary, and Barbara are marooned, we meet Tom, also late of London as well.  They find themselves in a “predicament.”


Edmund Cooper

Predicament under Achernar

The planet is the fourth orbiting Achernar, a blue giant in a binary system.  (The star is real; who knows about the planet.) The four strangers, already divided into two couples by the choices made by their kidnappers, find themselves on a beach of an island in a strange ocean, with just enough food to last them a single day, but with flashcards identifying useful and dangerous animals and plants, one gun and some ammunition for it, knives and hatchets, and general camping equipment, including tents.  Some of their personal belongings have arrived with them, although they don’t yet know how or why. 

The word “predicament” appears in this early characterization by the narrator, Richard: “The predicament … was, itself, neither clear nor sane.” Of course I looked up the word (as I always do when faced with any word that appears to be important or undefined).  Partridge’s Origins, “a short etymological dictionary of modern English,” delves into the earliest prototypes of the word, taking it back to the Latin for “proclaim.” It is something proclaimed, thus circumstantial, and by extension unpleasant.  One does not land in a predicament by one’s own power except by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Each of the protagonists looked down to see a crystal gazing up at them in Kensington Gardens or Hyde Park.  That was the wrong place at the wrong time that landed them on an island on another planet that had not heretofore been home to anything brighter than a crocodile-like creature.

From Kensington Gardens to The Garden

Like the garden populated only by Adam and Eve, this book concerns only four people (and some ghosts of the past haunting their brains) until close to halfway through the book, when unknown others make themselves known but not seen.  Before they begin to impinge on the solitude enjoyed by Tom and Mary, Richard and Barbara, the four (but especially Richard) are occupied by trying to figure out what has happened to them and why.  As they experience their first sunset under two moons, Richard considers the classic universe occupied by the 20th-century Christian, then continues, “But perhaps God had many children, and some of his children were adept at the manufacture of hypnotic crystals.  And other things.”

At first Richard misses London; then, as they camp out on an island on which they are apparently abandoned, he has a “vision of the morning rush hour packed with victims for the City’s concentration camp.” Richard considers that he is having entirely too many visions, and thinks, “Maybe I’m in a lovely nut-house in London” just before the hears the gunshots that herald the end of their idyl.  Instead of being ejected from a primeval garden by God, the two couples are rousted by what turn out to be another group of four dropped on the opposite shore of the island — but these are not humans.

Remaining Mum

To tell you any more about the plot would, I think, rob it of the elements of surprise on which Cooper depends to keep the story fresh.  I will disclose that it is an optimistic tale despite Richard’s and the other characters’ speculations, sufferings, and hardships.  Richard does speak of the “impossible unending promise of tomorrow,” and, particularly about their group, “the conspiracy of sex.” However, the really good thing about this book, aside from the quality of the writing, is the character development.  Most formulaic stories, including detective, romance, and science fiction — all of which Cooper has written — have little to no character development.  The people are often stock characters, Everyman or Everywoman, and they do not learn, change, or otherwise evolve during their stories.  This book is enough about evolution, change, development that I think perhaps “transit” is not just meant in terms of physically going from one place to another, but more like its synonym “movement” or the definition “pass through,” or (from the original Latin) “go across.”

Richard and his companions pass through many states of mind, grow and become different from the people they were when they first saw the crystals.  My criticisms below pale before this achievement.

The Demerits

You will be familiar with my first criticism.  It’s about the way women are generally treated in SF–even by women authors.  We are too helpless, too unintelligent, too timid to make our own decisions.  When they are first on the island, both women assert that “somebody has to be responsible for us” (the group of 4) and “make the decisions.” Barbara adds, “A man.” Of course it is Richard, who, despite a probationary period, remains the group leader afterward.  The women do learn to use weapons and to be responsible for themselves, but they do not make the decisions nor participate in them.

Second, the ending: I find it really unsatisfactory.  Without revealing too much, I feel as if Cooper, whose eighth novel this was, reached a word count and decided that was enough.  Perhaps he felt that with a wide-open future before his protagonists there was no need to expand further.  I’m too practical for that.  I want to know how their future could be accomplished with the tools they have, and I’m also pretty disappointed in the aliens who brought them to the garden.  The very qualities that they appreciate in the humans are the ones they seem to lack themselves.  Oh, well.  I say go read the book and see what you think.  I give it maybe 4 out of 5.  Pretty good.

Parting Note

And now for a word about my own future.  My own predicament is also “neither clear nor sane,” and I am doing the only thing I know to do about it, leaving for what I hope are greener pastures.  Look for me next month in San Francisco.

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




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Book

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

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by Rosemary Benton

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

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


The book can be viewed here and purchased here

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

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

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


The book can be viewed here and purchased here

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Web of the Witch World by Andre Norton

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


The book can be viewed here and purchased here

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Book, Movies

[Apr. 4, 1964] A taste of brine (the book and movie, The Amphibian)

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by Margarita Mospanova

In every reader’s life there comes a time which we all dread. A time we try to forget as soon as it happens. A time when we finish reading a book that by all accounts should be a delight but that instead bores us to tears and makes us wish time travel was real just so we could go back in time and skip the experience altogether.

And sadly, dear readers, that is exactly what happened to me when I turned the last page of The Amphibian.

But first things first.

The novel was written by Alexander Beliaev in 1927 and published just a year later, first in a magazine, and then as a stand-alone book. It was published in English in 1962 by Moscow’s Foreign Languages Publishing House.

The story is set in Argentina and follows Ichthyander, an adopted son of a world-renowned surgeon, Salvator. When he was but an infant, Ichthyander was very ill and to save his life Salvator transplanted a set of shark gills onto him, giving his son the ability to breathe underwater. Hence the name, as the parts of it come from Ancient Greek, translating to “fish” and “man”. The pair live a fairly idyllic life in large mansion, the father treating locals and the son spending much of his time playing in the ocean.

However, as Ichthyander grows older, he become more reckless, attacking Argentinian fishermen and returning their hauls back to the water. Until one day, one of the local pearl gatherers, Pedro Zurita, sees him, and realizing the boy’s potential as a pearl diver, tries to catch him.

That doesn’t sound too bad, you might say. And you would be right, the plot looks quite interesting. In theory. In practice, the story has been flung head first against a truly horrendous writing style, flat characters, and unnatural dialogues.

The Russian text reads like a badly done translation. It is all the more unfortunate, when the rest of Beliaev’s books (at least the ones I’m familiar with) are written perfectly well. I suppose the author wanted to mimic the often more abrupt style favored by Western writers, but if so, he failed. And failed spectacularly.

Therefore, it will not come as a surprise when I say: read the book in English. Ignore the original Russian text and skip right to the translated version. I dare say, you will find yourselves much more satisfied with the book than I did.

Still, there were a couple of passages, all of them describing nature, the ocean specifically, that hinted at what the book might have been had the prose been more… engaging. But they were few and far between.

Out of all the characters the only ones that had at least a small spark of life in them were Baltasar, Zurita’s right hand and the father of Ichthyander’s love interest (don’t start me on that particular train wreck), and Zurita’s mother, a cranky old woman. The rest were blander than cardboard.

(You might have noticed – I really didn’t like the book.)

And now we come to the crux of the problem. The book was bad. Why would I, or anyone else for that matter, bother to read it?

And the answer, dear readers, is that in 1962 it was made into one of the best movies I’ve ever seen in my life.

The Amphibian Man turned flat and uninteresting characters into real people, dry prose into stunning visuals. It has you gripping the edges of your seat, from the beginning to the very end. You fret over Ichthyander’s naive and innocent nature, tie yourself into conflicted knots over don Pedro’s actions, empathize with Salvator, and curse the cruel Argentinian policemen.

This is a movie that, I’m sure, we will be watching even after the turn of the second millennium, no matter how optimistic that sounds.

And The Amphibian is the book that made it possible. That alone turns it into a worthy read, even if nothing else does. That is why, at the end of it, I give The Amphibian one bookish and five cinematic stars out of five.

(Now go watch the movie!)

[And 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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[March 29, 1964] Five by Five (March Galactoscope)

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For your reading pleasure, Galactic Journey presents a quintet of the newest books in this month's Galactoscope…


by Victoria Silverwolf

The Prodigal Sun, by Philip E. High

I'm sitting here sipping some Earl Grey tea, nibbling a Bendicks Bittermint, listening to the Beatles on the radio; am I still in Tennessee?  I must be, because I'm holding Ace paperback F-255 in my hand, and that's an American publisher.  Then I take a closer look, and notice that the author is British.  I guess there's no way of getting around it; I'm a walking anglophile.

Philip E. High may not be very well known to those of us on this side of the Atlantic, but his stories have appeared in UK publications for about a decade.  I've had a chance to read a handful of them in New Worlds, thanks to fellow Traveler Mark Yon, who is very generous with lending copies of the magazine to Yanks. 

High also had the story Fallen Angel published in the June 1961 issue of Analog.  Our host was not impressed by it.  Overall, High seems to be a competent, if undistinguished, writer of science fiction.  Will his first novel confirm that opinion?  Is it worth forty cents?  Let's find out, starting with the front cover.

Was he there to teach Earth – or to rule it?

Well, that's a fairly interesting teaser.  The cover art is all right, I suppose, although it doesn't really grab me.  Let's take a look inside.

They wanted his secrets, but feared his presents

That should say presence, I think. 

Next we have a cast of characters.  That's a nice touch, as it allows me to flip back to the front when I forget who somebody is.  My only complaint is that it leaves out some important names.  Anyway, let's move on to the text.  Like most science fiction novels, it's well under two hundred pages long, so it's not a major investment in time.

The background is complex, requiring a lot of expository narration and dialogue.  Long before the novel begins, Earthlings settled a few extra-solar planets.  They ran into aliens, at about the same level of technology, who wanted one of these worlds for themselves, and a long and bloody interstellar war followed.  Eventually the humans won, but only at the cost of turning Earth into a brutal dictatorship.  Anyone suspected of disloyalty undergoes involuntary psychological conditioning, so that rebellious thoughts cause intense physical pain.

Into this dystopian world comes our hero, a young man named Peter Duncan.  As an infant, he was the only survivor of an accident in space, and was rescued by highly advanced aliens.  The rulers of Earth see him as a potential threat, but also as a possible source of technological secrets.  He has plans of his own, which I won't describe here, as they are not fully revealed until the end of the book.

The complicated, fast-moving plot also involves a bodyguard, a reporter, and a businessman who undergo important changes in their relationship with Duncan.  Thrown into the mix are enemy aliens, held as prisoners of war after hostilities end.  There is also a secret underground civilization, a love interest for the hero, and yet another set of aliens.  The novel shifts point of view often, sometimes several times within a single scene.

Near the end, developments come at a furious pace.  The revelation of Duncan's scheme, and the explanation of the novel's punning title, go beyond the limits of credulity. 

The book is full of interesting ideas; maybe too many.  Its basic theme can be expressed as Love Conquers All, which is not what you expect from a science fiction adventure story.  Many of the secondary characters are intriguing, although the protagonist is rather bland.  Often a villain turns out to be more complex than first thought, and earns the reader's sympathy.  The author's style is serviceable at best, with some clumsy phrasings.  Overall, it's a mixed bag, worth reading once, if you can spare a quarter, dime, and nickel, but not destined to become a timeless classic.

Three stars.

The Wanderer, by Fritz Leiber


by Jason Sacks


Cover by Bob Abbett

The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber is an odd book, a combination of two disparate elements which never quite come together for me.

The core plot of the story is that a new planet, nicknamed the Wanderer, has appeared in our solar system — and in fact appears in almost exactly the same spot as our moon. At first nobody knows what to make of this new celestial body, but most people feel a combination of awe and confusion about what this new interstellar visitor might mean and what its impact might be on our world.

Quickly, though, a tragedy which once was unimaginable becomes inevitable. The moon begins to disintegrate under the gravity of The Wanderer, which unleashes a devastating level of natural destruction. Because The Wanderer has a higher gravity than the moon, ocean tides increase geometrically in power, terrible tidal waves hit all oceans, earthquakes strike in California, rising ocean currents open Lake Nicaragua to the ocean, and floods strike much of the United Kingdom.

In the midst of this utter destruction, Leiber shows us the hearty survivors who battle the effects of the devastation. We follow a band of travelers in Florida who encounter unexpected racism, a group of UFO enthusiasts in California who battle tsunamis, violence and some actual flying saucers, a lunar explorer who sees the crisis up front, and a panoply of other ordinary and extraordinary people, from South Africa to Vietnam to New York to a lone sailor piloting a ship across the Atlantic.

The scenes with these characters provide The Wanderer with much of its power and momentum, as readers are swept up in the terrifying and all-too-human adventures of these hearty and terrified people. In fact, if Leiber had focused exclusively on the people and left the reason for the destruction a mystery, this might have been an even more satisfying book.

Instead, Leiber shows us the reason for the Wanderer’s presence. In those sections, the book falters. The reason the Wanderer journeys to our solar system is that the Earth is one of the remaining backwaters in the universe that’s not yet settled by a group of extraterrestrial beings looking to civilize nearly all of known space. Those beings need to use our solar system as a kind of refueling station.

The Wanderer is actually an artificial planet, filled with hundreds of levels of civilizations inhabited by creatures and cultures nearly unimaginable to most humans. Piloting the ship is a super-brilliant catlike creature named Tigerishka who captures one of the lunar explorers and explains to him the background of the plot. A rebel against the civilizers, Tigerishka is soon captured and put on trial before she runs away from her fate — but not before she and the human have some extraterrestrial intercourse.

Leiber spins up an epic tale with some memorable characters and startling situations, but the work feels a bit undercooked to me. The two key elements of the plot never quite connect with each other and the space trial comes from out of nowhere. There is precious little foreshadowing of Tigerishka’s presence, and I found the idea and execution of her to be a bit pulpy. I kept imagining the cover being similar to a Gernsback pulp with an attractive human body attached to a mysterious feline face.

Still, this is the kind of epic novel which would make for a fine film and likely a nomination for the award named for Mr. Gernsback. While I won’t be voting for it in next year’s Hugos, it’s easy see Mr. Leiber’s entertaining though flawed creation taking home honors.

Rating: three stars

[you can purchase this book or check it out at the library]

Marooned, by Martin Caidin


by Gideon Marcus

Some science fiction propels us to the farthest futures and remotest settings.  The latest book by Martin Caidin, better known by his aeronautical and space nonfiction, takes place on the very edge of tomorrow.  When the Soviets stun the world early in 1964 with the launch and docking of a pair of multi-crew spacecraft, NASA is directed to fill the space between Gordo Cooper's last Mercury flight and the increasingly delayed Gemini program.  Major Richard Pruett, a (fictional) member of the second cadre of astronauts, is tapped for a 49 orbit Mercury endurance mission, launched in July.

For three days, all goes perfectly, but at the moment of deceleration, Pruett's retrorockets refuse to fire, stranding the fellow in space.  Now, with just enough oxygen to last two more days, the hapless astronaut must somehow find a way to last three days — until the drag of the upper atmosphere seizes Mercury 7 and sends it plunging toward the Earth.

There is no question but that Caidin did his homework for the book.  Undoubtedly, the author has enough material for a lengthy reference on the Mercury program and the astronaut training process in general.  But within the gears and hard science, Caidin manages to draw a compelling profile of Pruett, sort of an amalgam of the seven Mercury astronauts.  From his first flight in a propeller plane, through a bloody stint in Korea, and past the rigorous astronaut indoctrination, Pruett gives the reader a first-person view of the experiences that make up the humans beneath the silver sheen of the spacesuit.

Marooned shines most brightly in the first and last thirds of the book.  The solitude and hopelessness Pruett's plight is vividly portrayed, and the pages fly up through about page 100.  The journey through astronaut training is more clinical, with few dramatizations to liven it up.  It will be interesting to neophytes, but any of us who read the Time Life series on the Mercury 7 (or the compilation We Seven) will find it dry.  Things pick up again when we learn of the daring rescue attempts being assembled to save Pruett from being America's first casualty in space.

With Marooned, Caidin accomplishes two goals in one book, delivering an exciting read and providing perhaps the most detailed summary of the Mercury program for the layman yet put to paper.

Four stars.

ace double F-261

The Lunar Eye, by Robert Moore Williams


Cover by Ed Valigursky

It is the year 1973, and Art Harper owns a service station on the freeway to the launch pad where soon a giant rocket will take the first twelve men to the moon.  His life had hitherto been one of complete and deliberate normality.  But then, a woman appears claiming to be one of the Tuantha, a society of humans that had gone to the moon millennia before and established a secret, highly advanced civilization.  She insists that Art is Tuanthan, too, placed with a human family like a changeling, and that he must come home.  Further complicating the mix is Art's brother, Gecko, who, while human, managed to sneak into the Tuanthan moon city during one of the frequent inter-planet teleport trips.  Now he wants to live in their lovely settlement, too.

The fly in the ointment is the upcoming lunar shot.  The Tuanthans are convinced that, should the two societies ever meet, the Earthers will dominate and ultimately exterminate them, just as the Europeans slaughtered the American Indians.  And so, the Tuanthans plan to sabotage the American lunar effort before the moon city is discovered. 

This latest book by Robert Moore Williams stands in stark contrast to Caidin's hyer-realistic Marooned.  Moore has been producing adventure stories since the '30s, and it shows.  Eye reads like something written in 1948, lacking any comprehension of technological improvements since then.  But the real flaws of the book are in its execution.  It starts out excitingly enough, and the first half reads quite quickly.  But then Art, Gecko, and the Tuanthan, Lecia, end up on the moon, and the whole thing becomes a slog of speeches and redundant scenes as the three are put on trial for treason for wanting to stop the destruction of the American moon rocket.

In fact, Williams' fiction production consists almost exclusively of novellas.  It's pretty clear he has no heart or endurance for longer works, and the padding required to cross the novel-length finish line is tiresome and obvious.  Finally, Eye is riddled with plot holes and story threads that go nowhere. 

A promising but ultimately sloppy piece: Two and a half stars.

The Towers of Toron, by Samuel R. Delany


Cover by Ed Emshwiller

On the other hand, Chip Delany's new work, a sequel to last year's Captives of the Flame, reflects an upward trend.  In the first book of the series, he introduced us to Toromon, capital of an island empire situated on Earth long after an atomic cataclysm.  The cast of characters was bewilderingly large: the decadent and young King Uske, his cousin; Prince Let, who was smuggled into the custody of the smarter, psionically gifted forest people; the capable and canny Duchess Petra; the noble and former prisoner, Jon, who along with Petra had been rendered invisible in dim light by the radiations that girdle Toron's imperial boundaries; the paternal forest person, Arkor; Tel, a poor fisherman's son; Alter, a thief and acrobat; Clea, a brilliant mathematician…

It was all a bit much, but now that I see the author is planning on doing more with the world, I can understand why he introduced so many players.  Towers does a fine job of continuing their stories, and I feel like I have a good handle on them all now.

Towers is set three years after Flame.  The empire has rediscovered the technology of matter transfer and is busy exploring the devastated planet.  A war has already been fought and won against the mutant insectoid tranu, and another is in progress against the mysterious ketzis.  It is a strange war, fought in nearly impenetrable mists thousands of miles from home.  The enemy is never seen, and its combatants (who include Tel, the fisherman's son), seem almost in a daze, unable to dwell much upon their pasts or their futures.  Meanwhile, Toromon is in increasing turmoil.  Prime Minister Chargill is assassinated.  The evil seed of the fiery enemy from the first book is discovered hidden in the mind of King Uske.  And Clea, seeking refuge in arcane mathematics after the death of her fiancee (that occurred in Flame), discovers a secret that could tear the entire empire asunder.

Tower is a significant improvement on Flame: better paced, more skillfully written, exciting.  It is no mean feat to juggle all of these viewpoints and still maintain a coherent whole.  Moreover, I appreciate the sheer variety of characters, including the prominence of several women.

I did find both fascinating and a little disturbing Delany's depiction of the three races of people that inhabit future Earth, with greater divergence than the paltry skin tone differences humanity has today.  They are practically different species, with the baseline humans being seeming to be more imaginative (though not necessarily smarter) than the "neo-neanderthals," and the forest people occupying a mental rung above the humans.  The neo-neanderthals are referred to as 'apes', and though they don't ever object, I can only imagine that the author (who is Black) is making a point.

If there's a down-side to the book, it's that it is a clear bridge to the next novel in the series, which has not yet come out.  All the threads do come to a satisfying resolution at the book's end, but the aftermath, and the coming (final?) battle with the cosmic Lord of the Flames is left for later.

Three and a half stars, and kinder disposition toward the first book.

[(this book and the others in the series can be purchased here)]

[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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[January 26, 1964] Sophomoric (Laurence M. Janifer's The Wonder War)

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by Gideon Marcus

About the Author

Laurence M. Janifer (born Larry M. Harris) is a youngish author from New York City.  He's distinguished himself as a science fiction writer of at least the second rank, having produced a number of pretty good short stories (including Sword of Flowers, which I awarded the Galactic Star).  Janifer also co-wrote the Queen Elizabeth serials with Randall Garrett, and those were decent reading.  Thus, his is a name I generally note as an encouraging sign when I see it listed in a magazine's table of contents.

Last year, Larry made the jump to the big time with the recent publication of his first novel, Slave Planet.  Fellow Traveler Erica Frank reviewed it in November and thought it a decent, if not unflawed read. 

Janifer must have been chained to the typewriter last year because his second book, The Wonder War came out just this month.  Given Janifer's track record, I was certain this next effort would be an improvement; thus, I invoked editorial privilege and insisted on being the one to review it.

Well, the joke's on me.

The Wonder War

The setup for Janifer's sophomore effort isn't bad: hundreds of years in the future, the Terran Confederation decides that competition is bad, and the surest way an extraterrestrial planet can develop the technology to become a competitor is through war.  After all, the fastest advances seem to come with the impetus of killing one's fellow.  So the Confederation places teams of spies on planets with the potential to become adversaries.  Their sole mission: to spike the warrior spirit by any means necessary.

The target in The Wonder War is the world of Wh'Gralb.  Not only are its inhabitants utterly humanoid (if a trifle shorter than average), but they are currently in a period like the Earth's 1930s.  Wh'Gralb's two continents are home to antagonistic nations, one a fascist dictatorship, the other a People's Republic.  War has broken out over an island rich in uranium.

Against this backdrop, we are introduced to our team: The sanguine beanpole of a team leader, Glone; the laconic Dempster; and the much put-upon viewpoint character, Plant.  Oh, and let's not forget the flattest, most obnoxious caricature — that of Raissa Renny, the girl.

You see, Raissa is the new Coordinator for Propaganda, an insufferable stuck-up know-it-all who is utterly incompetent, and annoying to boot.  Chicks, right?  The only thing she's got going for her is her knockout good looks.  If only she would keep her mouth shut, ya know?

Raissa is imprisoned about a third of the way through the book while checking up on one of the team's embedded agents, and she is not heard from again until the last few pages (when she is rescued, of course, since she can't do anything for herself).  Raissa still manages to be present, even in her absence, for Plant moons over her the entire time she's gone.  Since Janifer has given us nothing to find likable about the character, one can only assume its Raissa's appearance that has hooked Plant. 

Anyway, the rest of the book is a satire with two main points.  The first involves how easy it is to snarl up a bureaucracy in red-tape and shenanigans.  In fact, so successful are the team's efforts that not a single soldier on either side is killed despite both armies doing their damnedest at it.  The other deals with the futility of the team's mission — after all, no matter how long technology on the planet is suppressed, the Confederation will eventually establish trading relations, and Wh'Gralb will get The Bomb, hyperdrive, and whatever else it needs to be a competitor.  Per the epilogue (perhaps the best single page of the book), that's exactly what happens.

Again, these are interesting topics in theory.  The problem is, Janifer is writing for laughs and utterly failing at it.  I don't think I encountered a single lip-quirking quip in all of the book's short 128 pages.

Summing up

The Wonder War is an intriguing premise rendered stillborn by lousy execution; it's essentially an overlong Chris Anvil Analog story.  Worse, the tacked on love story and the offensive portrayal of Raissa just kills the thing.  It's not awful, exactly.  I mean, you can read it. 

You just won't ever get those hours back.

Two stars.

— — —

(Need something to cleanse your palate?  See all the neat things the Journey did last year!)




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[January 10, 1964] Journey to the Stars, Journey into the Self (Starswarm, by Brian Aldiss)

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by Jason Sacks

From many, one

Few things are more of a mixed blessing to a science fiction fan than a themed collection.

In the right hands – as with the epochal Foundation, The City and Martian Chronicles – the single-author themed collection tells a fascinating story in three dimensions, providing heft to an impact that even a full novel can’t always attain. Brian Aldiss’s new offering Starswarm doesn’t quite reach the levels of Asimov, Simak, or Bradbury but it is nevertheless an intriguing collection well worth reading.

With Starswarm, Aldiss delivers a different type of anthology than the above authors delivered. He explores inner landscapes as much as he does the alien worlds his characters inhabit. While each of these stories seems widely diverse in terms of exploring the complexity of the Starswarm, they nevertheless explore common themes of the dream of freedom, the need to break away from family, and the joy of exploration. In doing so, he makes the alien familiar. No matter how odd these characters may seem on the outside, Aldiss seems to be saying, they nevertheless share very human characteristics. This book helps bolster the assertion that Aldiss has grown into one of the foremost science fiction authors of ideas.

In Aldiss’s imagining, the Starswarm is a confederation of “two hundred and fifteen thousand planets” (as he says) and has lasted for eternities — long enough, in fact, for societies to have evolved in unique and unpredictable ways. This imaginative back-story promises a myriad of intriguing setups for readers, such as the complexities of managing such a diverse collection of planets and the unique biological imperatives of each one.

A look inside

“A Kind of Artistry” is written in a dense, ornate style which aims to approximate its alien argot. I often found the tale tough wading due to the large number of obscure words, but I responded to its powerful themes. This story tells the tale of Derek Ende, who hopes to stay with his Mistress (later shown to also be his mother) in his ancestral home but who is forced to explore the sentient planet the Cliff. In one key moment, the Cliff metaphorically takes Derek into its womb. In his emergence, Derek experiences a metaphorical rebirth made manifest in the story’s haunting final lines. The story can thus be read as a parable about the breakaway to adulthood as much as a tale of space exploration.

“Hearts and Engines” is a story of military conquering, as a brutal invading military force gives its soldiers drugs which turn them into a kind of berserker force abe to fight until their hearts burst. The other twist to this tale is that, as Aldiss writes, “they allow no weapon that cannot be carried by one man.” These warriors transform into other beings, but in doing so they brutalize their planet, their enemy and themselves. This is a thrilling tale which kept me on the edge of my seat as it went along, straight to its tragic ending.

“The Underprivileged” seemed the most clichéd story in the collection to me, a tale whose twist I figured out long before Aldiss turned the metaphorical tiger’s tale. Yet despite that, I found this story powerful. Tinged with disappointment yet with an odd level of sweetness and naïveté, this tale had an oddly intriguing resonance in light of our current post-colonial era in Africa.

“The Game of God” inverts the classic story of an explorer who has gone native with the story of “Daddy” Dangerfield, a man whose rocket ship crashes onto a primitive planet and who has been portrayed in popular fiction of the era as a kind of Tarzan-style adventurer. But Dangerfield is far from the hero people want him to be. This interesting story adroitly contrasts the myths of the heroic adventurer with the reality of a scared, scrawny man who refuses to learn anything about the planet he chooses to inhabit. A reader has to wonder if Aldiss is playing with the cliché of the great explorer, attempting to show that Western man is not fated to be the savior of every culture which seems inferior — a powerful and subtle statement. Aldiss also does an excellent job in this tale of creating a complex alien culture which feels very different from anything most readers can imagine — exactly what science fiction is great at.

“Shards” is easily the most dissonant and difficult story in this collection, a deliberately obscure and off-putting tale with a tiger’s tale ending that aims to redeem it. Though the story didn’t work for me, I admired Aldiss’s commitment to his narrative and the experimental way he explores the nature of human freedom in a world where genetic engineering transforms people into beings God could never have created.

“Legends of Smith’s Burst” is an odyssey of sorts, almost heroic fantasy, encompassing hidden castles, dogged heroes and endless wandering. Interestingly there is no female character at the center of this tale begging to be saved from the arch-villain, but the hero’s drive to succeed permeates everything. There are echoes of Tolkien and Lieber in this tale, though with an interesting science fiction twist.

“A Moon of my Delight” also highlights the selfishness of its protagonists, a ragged band of landholders and traders on a barren moon who are much more concerned with their sexual fulfillment than more spiritual ends. Though not at all sexually explicit, this is a story about adults — how they use and discard each other, how they ignore the things that don’t help them, and how they reluctantly find themselves forced into unwanted heroism. There’s a shocking death near the end of this story which took my breath away with its casual unfeeling style — a powerful moment in a subtly powerful story.

This collection wraps up with “Old Hundredth”, a meditative tale of mentors and mentees, end of lives and the power of music. It’s metaphorical and oddly powerful despite its sometimes obscure style.

Greater than the sum of its parts?

Several years ago my fellow writer Gideon Marcus wrote on this site about Brian Aldiss’s prior themed collection, Galaxies like Grains of Sand. He declared that “the style is inconsistent” and the book “[not] a complete success.” Several GJ commentators wrote in response to Mr. Marcus’s review, “there’s just something missing for me” and “I want to like this collection, and Brian Aldiss as a writer, more than I actually do.”

Perhaps this slim new volume, weak in physical coherence but strong in thematic power, will change the minds of some of my companions on this Galactic Journey. Aldiss takes us on a different journey than Simak, Asimov or Bradbury followed. I found my trip to the Starswarm to be fascinating.

4 stars.




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

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by Gideon Marcus

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

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

This was one of those times…

The Twisted Men, by A.E. Van Vogt

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

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

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

The Twisted Men

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

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

Two stars.

The Star-Saint

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

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

Two stars.

The Earth Killers

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

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

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

Three stars.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2.5 stars.

***

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

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Book

[December 31, 1963] A not unpleasant ordeal (Ordeal in Otherwhere by Andre Norton)

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[Today is the last day to get your Worldcon membership!  Register here to be able to vote for the Hugos.]


by Cora Buhlert

The Newest from Andre Norton

1963 is almost history and here in Germany, I'm getting ready for New Year's Eve. I have friends coming over, a bowl full of spaceman's punch, plenty of nibbles, champagne in the fridge, a record player with all the latest albums and fireworks to welcome the new year.

I've been a good girl and so Santa brought me presents, including science fiction paperbacks from the US. I dug into one of the books right on Christmas Eve, even before Gruß an Bord, a radio program sending greetings to the crews of German ships around the globe, had finished.

That book was Ordeal in Otherwhere by Andre Norton, whose real name is Alice Marie Norton. I've heard of Norton before, right here at the Journey, but so far I've never read anything by her. Time to rectify that.

Ordeal in Otherwhere is the sequel to a novel entitled Storm over Warlock. I haven't read it, though Terra – Utopische Romane ran a translation last year. Not that it matters much, for Ordeal in Otherwhere is perfectly understandable, even if you haven't read the earlier book.

The story, in brief

The novel starts with our protagonist, a young lady named Charis Nordholm, on the run. Via flashbacks, the reader learns that Charis came to the colony world Demeter with her father, a government education officer. The colonists, a religious cult, were wary of the government and considered Charis "unfemale" because of her education. Then disaster struck in the form of a plague, which first killed the government agents, including Charis' father, and then spread to the colonists, hitting only men and post-pubescent boys. The superstitious colonists blamed the government and hunted down survivors like Charis.

With any other author, this religion versus science conflict would have been the story, for there is certainly novel's worth of material here. And indeed, I wonder whether Andre Norton wrote that novel elsewhere. But here, the events on Demeter are merely background, By chapter two, Charis has left Demeter behind, never to be seen again except in a dream sequence. Though I wonder what became of the colonists and if they survived.

Charis' salvation come in the form of a dodgy trader whose rocket ship just happens to land at the very moment Charis is recaptured. The trader sells indentured workers to the colonists in exchange for Charis. A teenaged girl indentured to a space captain of questionable morality raises all sorts of unpleasant possibilities. But Norton's books are marketed as juveniles and so Charis' virtue remains intact. The trader sells Charis to the merchant captain Jagan who miraculously has no unsavoury designs either. Jagan has a trading permit for Warlock, a planet inhabited by matriarchal aliens, the Wyvern. The Wyvern refuse to negotiate with men, so Jagan needs a woman. The first one went mad, so now it's Charis' turn.

Charis manages to send a message to a government outpost on Warlock. But before help can arrive, she finds herself compelled to walk across Warlock to meet the Wyvern. En route, Charis also finds a friend, the curl-cat Tsstu. There is a dreamlike, almost psychedelic quality to Charis' journey. Andre Norton has a gift for evocative descriptions of alien landscapes, which she employs to full effect here.

Charis' sojourn among the Wyvern, who teach her telepathy and teleportation, is brief, then Charis uses her newfound abilities to return to the trading post, only to find it destroyed, everybody inside dead. However, Charis also meets a new allies, Survey Corps cadet Shann Lantee and his pet wolverine Taggi. Shann is the protagonist of Storm Over Warlock. He is also – and that's sadly still remarkable even in our otherwise progressive genre – described as a black man. Alas, the cover – an otherwise accurate illustration of Charis, Shann, Tsstu and Taggi – completely ignores this.

Shann believes pirates are responsible for the attack on the trading post. However, a mysterious spear found on site points at the Wyvern. Both theories are sort of correct, because outlaws have freed Wyvern males from female control and are using them as muscle. In retaliation, the Wyvern females want to attack all humans. Only Charis can prevent this.

After many travails, Charis finds Shann a prisoner of the Wyvern, unresponsive and trapped inside a dream. Joining forces with Taggi and Tsstu, Charis enters Shann's dream prison and breaks him out. In the process, a mental bond is forged between all four of them.

It turns out that the pirate attack is a corporate takeover. A company has sent mercenaries to gain control of Warlock.The mercenaries have taken over the government base. They also have a device that can nullify the Wyvern’s power. And only Charis, Shann and their animal companions can stop them.

Shann is taken prisoner once more, but Charis escapes and warns the Wyvern and Shann's boss Ragnar Thorvald. But the plan to retake the base hinges on Charis, who stumbles into the base, babbling about snakes. The mercenaries take her to the medbay, which conveniently is also where Shann is held, catatonic in an attempt to avoid interrogation. With help from Tsstu, Taggi and his mate Togi, Charis manages to revive him.

The novel culminates in a standoff between Charis, Shann, Taggi and Tsstu on one side and the Wyvern males on the other. Shann and Charis broker a peace between the Wyvern males and females, so no one can exploit the rift between the sexes (which makes me wonder how they manage to reproduce) anymore.

Thorvald is impressed and drafts Charis as well as Tsstu and Taggi into service. Charis doesn't mind, because by now she has become fond of Shann and not just because of their mind link either.

My Observations

Charis is a likable protagonist, a smart and resourceful young woman of the kind that is still too rare in our genre. She spends much of the novel reacting to events, but towards the end, Charis is clearly in control and even Thorvald must bow to her will. Charis also rescues Shann repeatedly.

Unfortunately, Charis is the only competent human female we encounter – all others are either aliens, animals, nameless colonists or Charis' crazed predecessor. Besides, neither the government nor the villainous corporation consider sending women to Warlock, though that's a no brainer. In many ways, human society or what we see of it is the polar opposite of Wyvern society, a world where men hold all the power and women, particularly educated women like Charis, are a rarity. In fact, I wonder if Norton wanted to make just this point or whether she unconsciously defaulted to genre conventions.

The genuinely alien Wyvern are neither portrayed as pure menace nor as beyond reproach – after all, the females control the males and consider them mindless brutes incapable of rational thought. The portrayal of an alien society where the rift between males and females is so great that they barely seem part of the same species brings to mind books such as Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex) by French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir or The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, both of which diagnose the same problem in our society. I have no idea whether Andre Norton has read either book, but Ordeal in Otherwhere almost feels like a response to these and similar works.

Ordeal in Otherwhere is science fantasy rather than science fiction. There are spaceships and blasters, but Norton never gives much detail about either. Even the nullifier, the device on which the plot hinges, is never described nor do we learn where it came from. Meanwhile, "the Power" is basically magic, controlled via mystical symbols. Norton even acknowledges this, since the Wyvern females are referred to as witches throughout the novel. This seems to be a recurring theme with Norton, as her earlier novel Witch World shows. 

The hint of romance between Charis and Shann feels like an afterthought. True, Charis is quite taken with Shann from their first meeting on and worries much more about him than she ever thinks about her late father. We don't know Shann's feelings, because we never get any insight into him; Charis is the sole point-of-view character. Nonetheless, the romance feels oddly chaste. There is no kiss, let alone more. Holding hands is as far as Charis and Shann go. Even when Charis searches the unconscious Shann for useful items or when they sleep huddled together in a cave, Shann's head resting in Charis' lap, there is no hint of physical passion. This total lack of sex is not limited to Charis and Shann either – absolutely no one in this novel, whether human or Wyvern, seems to have sex with the possible exception of Taggi and Togi, since they have cubs.

I'm no big fan of animal companions, since they often seem too anthropomorphic. However, I really liked Tsstu and Taggi. Both are fully rounded characters in their own right, yet it's clear that their thought processes are very alien, when Charis links with them. Animal companions seem to be another recurring theme with Andre Norton. At one point, Charis asks Shann whether he is a Beastmaster, which happens to be the title of an earlier Norton novel. Coincidentally, I had to look up what sort of animal a wolverine is. I had assumed a wolf-like creature, but it turns out a wolverine is what we call "Vielfraß" (eats a lot) in German.

Summing up

Overall, I enjoyed Ordeal in Otherwhere, though there are some issues with the novel. The plot moves at a brisk pace, so brisk that I occasionally had to flip back to check if I hadn't accidentally skipped a page or two. There is easily material for two or three novels here and so Ordeal in Otherwhere feels rushed. Nonetheless, I will seek out other books by Andre Norton.

An enjoyable adventure in the grand old planetary romance tradition. Four stars.

Happy new year, from all of us at the Journey!  Here's to a bright 1964…

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