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[May 6, 1970] Wondrous and Astounding (The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, Part One)

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A young white man with short hair wearing a navy P-coat, blue polo collar, and green t-shirt.
by Brian Collins

For those who don’t know, the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) was founded five years ago in what would become the first successful attempt at forming a professional writers’ association for science fiction writers—at least here in the States. With the SFWA came the Nebula, an award made to be on par with the Hugo in terms of prestige, but voted on by SFWA members rather than Worldcon attendees; in other words, an award by authors for authors. SF in the American “pulp” tradition (as differentiated from SF of the H. G. Wells sort) has been around for not quite 40 years, and those of the older generation have clearly taken on a retrospective attitude as of late. If the New Wave asks where SF might be heading, then those who’ve been in charge of the SFWA, including Damon Knight and Robert Silverberg, are now asking where SF has been.

We thus have a massive reprint anthology, published by Doubleday in a rather colorful hardcover edition, called The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One. It is, as far as I can tell, the largest SF anthology since Dangerous Visions, running 560 pages. We don’t often cover reprint anthologies at the Journey, but this one is a huge endeavor, and since most of the stories included predate the Journey it would be negligent to not cover it. It’s also such a long book that we have no choice but to split the review into multiple parts. Now, many of these stories are actually not new to me, although this knowledge does little to help me when it comes to evaluating some three decades of short SF.

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, edited by Robert Silverberg

Colour photo of a dustjacket whose spine declares it to be 'The Science Fiction Hall of Fame' (Vol 1) - Edited by Robert Silverberg.  The front matter of the cover gives pride of place to the list of the 27 featured authors, with decorations of lightning projectors taking up the outer corners, and the title is set against an illustrated 'space' background with a stylized Earth, Moon, and a pink Saturn with golden rings, with a boast that the book contains 'The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time Chosen by the Members of the Science Fiction Writers of America'.
Cover art by Sagebrush.

Introduction, by Robert Silverberg

Silverberg was President of the SFWA in 1967-68, incidentally around the time when his return to writing SF hit many readers in full force. He explains, as editor of this anthology, the method behind the madness with regards to voting for what stories would be included, followed by what Silverberg included at his own discretion to round out the book. SFWA members, being professionals, are of a certain age or older, but they were asked “to keep historical perspective in mind” with what they should pick. The idea, to paraphrase Silverberg, was to present a rough chronology of the American (as in published in the US, not necessarily written by an American) short SF story from the 1920s to 1964, the year before the SFWA was founded. The top 15 stories to get the most votes were included, while the rest are a mix of the next 15 runners-up and stories Silverberg picked himself.

A projected second volume will include stories that were too long to fit into Volume One, so presumably it will focus on novellas and long novelettes. Time will tell if said volume will come to fruition.

No rating.

A Martian Odyssey, by Stanley G. Weinbaum

Colour photo of the cover of the July 1934 issue of Wonder Stories (Hugo Gernsback Ed).  The illustration on the cover features what appears to be a New York air terminal to Sydney built atop arching buildings separated by broad boulevards and green pedestrian parks.  Small red winged vehicles with bubble canopies are flying passengers up to the platform for embarkation.
Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

When Weinbaum’s first SF story hit the July 1934 issue of Wonder Stories, it apparently came to readers as a revelation. Weinbaum became a star practically overnight, and then died just a year and a half later. “A Martian Odyssey” is in some ways horribly dated: in addition to emphasis on pulpy exploration of a much-inhabited Mars, the human characters are walking stereotypes. Jarvis, the American of the bunch, is only slightly less flat than his goofy-sounding comrades. Assuming you’ve read “A Martian Odyssey” before, though, you know you’re not here for the astronaut trying to make his way back to the ship, but rather the colorful alien life he encounters. The most memorable of all these aliens is, of course, Tweel, an ostrich-like creature who befriends Jarvis.

Weinbaum’s story was so popular, and he seemed to like his own creations enough, that he wrote a sequel. It’s hard to blame him, assuming your heart has not yet turned to stone. “A Martian Odyssey” reads poorly if taken seriously, but really it is not meant to be. This is a story for the young at heart. Those who are looking for creatively realized aliens in their SF can't do much better than Weinbaum.

Four stars.

Twilight, by John W. Campbell

Colour photo of the cover of the November 1934 issue of Astounding Stories.  The cover illustration depict what appears to be some sort of 'transparent' ship which is exhausting some green vapour out its nose, surrounded by a trio of men (two police officers and a brown-coated white man) attacking it with fire axes.  Several more blue-coated police officers are running onto the scene, firing pistols and calling back over their shoulders as though for more assistance.
Cover art by Howard V. Brown.

You and I know Campbell for—let’s say other things. But 35 years ago, he was in fact two of the most popular writers in the field. “Twilight” appeared in the November 1934 issue of Astounding Stories (now Analog), and was the first under Campbell’s “Don A. Stuart” pseudonym. The premise is simple: a man from the 31st century accidentally jumps ahead millions of years before landing in 1932. The framing narrative is inelegant, even by the standards of the time: we’re treated to one narrator before quickly switching to a different one, who then relays the man’s story in a second-hand fashion. What made “Twilight” special at the time was that it was one of the first mood pieces in genre SF writing, having much more of an emphasis on describing the decline of this far future than on plot or characters. The problem is that time really has devoured what once made “Twilight” special, revealing how painfully stilted Campbell’s style was at the time.

Campbell wrote a sequel, “Night,” although I’ve never read it.

Three stars.

Helen O’Loy, by Lester del Rey

Colour photograph of the cover of the December 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.  The cover illustration is for 'The Merman', and features a crowd of reporters gathered in front of an aquarium, marveling what appears to be a white man in suit jacket, shirt, trousers, shoes and tie, sitting underwater at the bottom of the 'Sand Shark' tank', entirely engrossed in his thoughts.
Cover art by Charles Schneeman.

It’s 1938, and not only has Campbell taken over as editor of Astounding, but he changed the name from Astounding Stories to Astounding Science Fiction. Lester del Rey was an up-and-coming writer at the time, whose “Helen O’Loy” was published in the December 1938 issue. Not only have I read this one before, but have even gotten into civil arguments with feminists over the story’s merits. No doubt there’s a sexist angle, with Helen being an android who looks and acts like the “ideal” housewife. What’s more forward-looking, and indeed more memorable, is the friendship between our leads, Phil and Dave, with Phil narrating. This is, on the one hand, a predictable and sentimental love triangle, but the fact that Phil and Dave’s friendship remains anchored despite their shared love of Helen means that while “Helen O’Loy” may not be that convincing in its romance, it’s surprisingly touching in its depiction of male friendship. It helps that del Rey does not waste the reader’s time with developing these characters.

A light four stars.

The Roads Must Roll, by Robert A. Heinlein

Colour photograph of the cover of the June 1940 issue of Astounding. The cover illustration for 'The Roads Must Roll' depicts a group of brown leather clad motorcyclists wearing goggles and helmets and brandishing pistols, riding in formation on what appear to be single-wheeled steel scooters flanking a tandem two-wheeled cycle completely enclosed in a metal & glass fairing
Cover art by Hubert Rogers.

Heinlein has been exceedingly popular for the past 30 years, although the Heinlein of 30 years ago is quite different from the man we know now. “The Roads Must Roll” appeared in the June 1940 issue of Astounding, and is an entry in what became known as Heinlein’s Future History. It’s vast in scope, and what it lacks in character psychology or even practical believability (a future America wherein mass transit happens on massive conveyor belts sounds ridiculous now, and possibly even to readers at the time), it compensates with genuine speculation. This one has been reprinted multiple times already and has even been adapted for radio more than once, although I’ve never been able to wrap my head around why it stood above a few other early Heinlein stories that I think are superior.

Another curious note is that “The Roads Must Roll” is bound nowadays to spark conversation, not for its ambitious if exposition-heavy depiction of the future, but for its overt anti-union sentiments. Heinlein was a New Deal Democrat at the time, but one would not guess this from the story’s politics.

A high three stars.

Microcosmic God, by Theodore Sturgeon

Colour photograph of the cover of the April 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The cover illustration two white men wearing brightly coloured and form-fitting one-piece outfits (one in green, the other quarters of blue & yellow), appearing to do battle with implements resembling brass walking sticks with small rounded balls at crown, but wielded as though bats.  A briefcase lays discarded in the grass, and a group of similarly dressed people crowded at the top of flight stairs seem to be just reacting to the fray and are beginning to descend
Cover art by Hubert Rogers.

The premise of a mad scientist who plays God was not new, even in 1941, but there are few stories, even today, that have the same level of zest and playfulness as Sturgeon’s “Microcosmic God,” from the April 1941 issue of Astounding. Sturgeon was very young at the time, and at this point he had mostly stuck to writing fantasy rather than SF; so it might’ve surprised readers who picked up that issue of Astounding that Sturgeon managed to write such a masterpiece of SF. James Kidder, the mad scientist in question, is actually not the villain of the story, but rather his banker, the vicious capitalist Mr. Conant, who takes advantage of Kidder’s talents. The race of microscopic people, whom Kidders calls Neoterics, are merely the icing on the cake.

Sturgeon has since written stories that are more heartfelt, or more sophisticated, or more perceptive of the human condition; but arguably, for sheer entertainment value, he has never topped “Microcosmic God.”

Five stars.

Nightfall, by Isaac Asimov

Colour photograph of the September 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.  The cover illustration is for Nightfall (by Isaac Asimov) and it features a crowd of people bearing torches running into the foreground across the floor of an observatory's open dome.  We can see through the aperture that in the background there is a great conflagration, and in the sky we see a dense field of stars.
Cover art by Hubert Rogers.

You and I both know the Good Doctor, although he has written very little SF as of late. Asimov was barely out of his teens when he wrote “Nightfall,” which appeared in the September 1941 issue of Astounding. The story of how Asimov came to write “Nightfall” is almost as famous among fans as “Nightfall” itself. Given its placement in the top 15 among SFWA voters, its inclusion was mandatory, although I’ve never found “Nightfall” to be that good. We all remember the premise and the ending it gives way to, which are both unforgettable, but truth be told, it also shows signs of a young writer who hasn’t quite found his voice yet. What we think of as Asimov’s trademark conciseness of language when it comes to his fiction isn’t here, nor is his rigorousness when it comes to SFnal implications. You can poke a few logical holes in the world of “Nightfall” if you feel like it.

Yet for its faults, this story about a world which has not known the darkness of night in 2,000 years is home to such powerful imagery, with its ending capitalizing on such a sense of existential terror, that it’s hard to discount.

Four stars.

The Weapon Shop, by A. E. van Vogt

Colour photograph of the December 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.  The cover illustration features a great black monolithic building picked out in the coloured lights of its windows in the middle distance.  A massive neon advertisement circling the building appears to promise 'Red Death, Green Living, White [..]'.  A vast translucent walkway stretches across the sky to the entry situated half-way up the building, and many people appear to be traveling along this path.
Cover art by William Timmins.

From the December 1942 issue of Astounding, this is actually the second entry in the Isher series, the first being “The Seesaw.” Those who have read The Weapon Shops of Isher but not “The Weapon Shop” as it had originally appeared will find this to be familiar ground. Fara is a decent upstanding citizen in a far-future empire who gets caught in the crossfire between said empire and the weapon shops—teleporting, seemingly magical shops that host all manner of weapons for civilians (cops and military are prohibited), with the infamous slogan: “The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.” Van Vogt’s politics are suspect, but in contrast to Asimov, this is better than his more recent work (his investing in Dianetics utterly derailed his career and seems to have sucked out most of the talent he once had). Whether you agree with the libertarian bent of “The Weapon Shop” or not, it’s a strange and thought-provoking piece that shows this once-great writer in his element.

Four stars.

Mimsy Were the Borogoves, by Lewis Padgett

Colour photograph of the February 1943 issue of Amazing Science Fiction.  The cover illustration shows (from behind) an older man wearing a uniform aiming what appears to be some sort of large ray-gun down across the room and down a corridor at a person with orange coveralls who is holding their hands above their head.
Cover art by William Timmins.

We now know that “Lewis Padgett” was a pseudonym for the late great Henry Kuttner and his wife C. L. Moore, a husband-wife team who at their best were really something else. “Mimsy” is one of the duo’s best and most haunting stories, being about a set of children’s toys from the far future that get accidentally sent back to what was then the present day, to an unassuming American family with their two kids. “Mimsy” appeared in the February 1943 issue of Astounding, but it could just as well have appeared a decade later in Galaxy, with its observations on the relationship between parents and their children being just as acute, and with Kuttner and Moore having such a fine ear for dialogue. The ending, which I dare not give away, could be seen as grim, transcendent, or most likely both at the same time, depending on one’s viewpoint. The exact scientific rationale for the children’s behavior might now sound quaint, but the implications of their playing are not.

Five stars.

Good, If Unbalanced

Despite the intent of presenting a rough chronology of genre SF in the American tradition, seven out of the first eight stories here are from Astounding, with six of those being from after Campbell took over the magazine. I have no doubt that many members of the SFWA feel they owe their careers to Campbell, and it doesn’t help either that the early ‘40s are considered by some (although not me, who would push the “Golden Age” back a decade to the early ‘50s) to have been the best era of American genre SF so far. Just one look at the table of contents will tell us that this bias in favor of Astounding during its glory days will persist for some time.

What struck me as a bit more conspicuous is the authors so far included, or rather how the stories selected are pretty much all from early in these authors’ careers, when they were quite young and hungry, so to speak. The problem is that some of these people have since gone on to bigger and better things, with these early outings really not showing them in the best light. As much as I love “Microcosmic God,” Sturgeon has since written superior and more mature short stories that are more indicative of his style. I’m sure Asimov will tell you he has written better than “Nightfall.” Del Rey was similarly in his early 20s when he wrote “Helen O’Loy.” “A Martian Odyssey” was Weinbaum’s first SF story, although one could argue he never really topped it. The voters seemed to have prioritized a story’s initial impact over whether the author has since written better.

These are minor gripes, ultimately, because those who are unfamiliar with SF of this vintage will find the contents so far to be (probably) entertaining as well as providing a useful (if biased) timeline for the history of the form. And we’re just getting started.

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


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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 14, 1969] More Gems from the Pulps: Bran Mak Morn by Robert E. Howard and Jirel of Joiry by C.L. Moore

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by Cora Buhlert

For a Modern West Germany

The streets of West Germany are currently plastered with campaign posters, because a federal election, the sixth since 1949, will happen on September 28.

1969 CDU campaign poster
This campaign poster by the conservative CDU reminds us that the chancellor is important.
1969 SPD campaign post Willy Brandt
This SPD campaign poster features foreign secretary and vice chancellor Willy Brandt and asks people to vote for him so we can live in peace tomorrow.
SPD campaign post 1969 Karl Schiller
This SPD campaign poster features the popular secretary of the economy Karl Schiller, who promises a stable economy and secure jobs.
1969 SPD campaign poster featuring Helmut Schmidt
This SPD campaign poster features social democratic floor leader Helmut Schmidt who promises to create a modern Germany with vigour and energy.
1969 campaign post FDP
The liberal party FDP forgoes the usual black and white headshot and promises to abolish antiquated customs and laws.

The posters are eerily similar across parties, usually consisting of a party logo, a slogan in Helvetica typeface and a black and white photo of a candidate. Hereby, the conservative CDU mainly points out that they provide the current chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger and that he does a good job (which is debatable).

1969 SPD campaign poster
This SPD campaign poster features images of the modern West Germany they want to create and also reminds voters that the SPD "has the right men".

The SPD, meanwhile, has made "For a modern Germany" the focal point of their campaign, though the tagline "We have the right men" made quite a few woman voters grumpy. In response, the SPD launched a campaign where women – both celebrities like actress Inge Meysel and ordinary citizens like Johanna Lammers, miner's wife from Castrop-Rauxel – explain why they vote SPD.

SPD campaign poster Johanna Lammers
Johanna Lammers, miner's wife from Castrop-Rauxel, poses with her sewing machine in this SPD campaign flyer and praises secretary of the economy Karfl Schiller for preserving mining jobs.
SPD campaign flyer Inge Meysel
Popular actress Inge Meysel explains why she votes SPD in this campaign flyer.

In general, it is notable that the SPD enlisted several celebrities, including writers Günther Grass, Siegfried Lenz and Heinrich Böll, actors Romy Schneider, Götz George, Marianne Hoppe, Sabine Sinjen, Inge Meysel, Horst Frank and Horst Tappert, TV personalities Peter Frankenfeld and Hans-Joachim Kuhlenkampf, directors Victor de Kowa and Wolfgang Menge and singer Katja Ebstein, to campaign for them, something that is common in the US, but almost unheard of in West Germany.

SPD campaign poster with celebrities
This SPD campaign poster lists all the celebrities who endorse the SPD.

A Small Step

But whatever the outcome of the September 28 election, it's very likely that the current great coalition of the conservative CDU and the social-democratic SPD will not continue.

Due to its large majority, the great coalition actually got a lot done in its three years in office, for better or for worse. Under "for worse", most people would classify the controversial and unpopular emergency powers act, which passed last year – in spite of massive protests.

On the positive side, there is the Great Reform of the Criminal Code, which passed in June and took effect on September 1, which got rid of outdated laws (many of which dated back to the Third Reich or even the Second German Empire) and brought particularly morality related offences more in line with our modern age.

Among other things, adultery is no longer a criminal offence in West Germany. The so-called "Kuppelei" paragraph, which under the guise of combating prostitution forbade landlords from renting apartments and hotels from renting rooms to unmarried couples, and prevented parents from allowing their adult children's boyfriend or girlfriend to sleep over, has been significantly modified.

But most importantly, homosexual relationships between men have been decriminalised, at least if both participants are over twenty-one and there is no employment or service relationship between them. Homosexual prostitution remains illegal.

These are small steps forward, especially since most of the legal limitations applied to homosexual relationships between men do not apply to heterosexual relationships or relationships between women. But they are important steps, because every year between two thousand and three thousand men are tried and convicted for consensual homosexual relationships on the basis of a law dating back to the Second German Empire and significantly tightened by the Nazis.

The end of WWII is often viewed as a liberation, but for homosexual men incarcerated by the Nazis it was anything but, for they remained in prison, while other victims of Nazi persecution were set free. And while the Federal Republic of Germany distanced itself from the Third Reich, it displayed the same zeal in persecuting homosexual men. In 1950, the public prosecution of Frankfurt on Main dragged some 170 men into court on homosexuality charges, based on the questionable statements made by a nineteen-year-old male prostitute named Otto Blankenstein, later revealed to be a notorious liar. Many of the accused were found guilty and jailed, six men committed suicide, others lost their jobs or were forced to flee Germany.

Otto Blankenstein
Otto Blankenstein, the nineteen-year-old male prostitute who set off an unprecedented persecution of homosexual men in Frankfurt on Main in 1950, when he ratted out his clients to save himself from prison.

In the light of events such as those that happened in Frankfurt nineteen years ago, the decriminalisation of homosexual relationships between consenting adults is an important step forward. And indeed, the immediate effect of the new law was not the sudden eruption of homosexual orgies in West German streets that conservatives feared but that many men who had been convicted under the old law were set free, because there was no reason to keep them in jail any longer.

More Treasures from the Pulps

But while old and outdated laws are best left behind, older fiction is often ripe for rediscovery. Particularly the pulp magazines of thirty to forty years ago contain many hidden gems and secret treasures just begging to be rediscovered by a new generation of readers. And thanks to the twin success of Lancer's Conan reprints and the Ballantine paperback editions of The Lord of the Rings, many other fantasy works from the first half of the century are coming back into print.

I recently got my hands on two paperbacks reprinting some fantasy gems that until recently could only be found in the crumbling pages of thirty to forty year old copies of Weird Tales.

The enormous success of Lancer's Conan series has also brought other works by Robert E. Howard, either long forgotten or never published at all, back into print. In a previous article, I already took a look at recent reprints of the adventures of Kull of Atlantis, Solomon Kane, and Almuric, as well as Wolfshead, a collection of horror stories by Robert E. Howard. Now another of Howard's heroes from the pages of Weird Tales has made it into paperback form.

The Last King of the Picts: Bran Mak Morn by Robert E. Howard

Bran mak Morn Paperback
cover by Frank Frazetta

Nowadays, Robert E. Howard is mainly remembered as the father of what Fritz Leiber called sword and sorcery. However, Howard was also fascinated by history and wrote a lot of historical fiction, with or without fantastic elements. The Bran Mak Morn stories sit on the boundary between fantasy and history. The titular hero is the king of the Picts, a native tribe living in Scotland in ancient times.

Howard was clearly fascinated by the Picts, because they appear throughout his work. The best friend and frequent saviour of Kull of Atlantis is a Pictish warrior named Brule the Spearslayer. The Picts also appear in two Conan stories, "Beyond the Black River" and "The Treasure of Tranicos", where they are portrayed as fierce warriors and sworn enemies of Conan's people, the Cimmerians.

The Bran Mak Morn stories take the Picts out of fantasy and into history, though it must be noted that Howard's Picts bear scant resemblance to what little we know about the actual ancient inhabitants of Scotland. Mostly set in Roman Britain during the second or third century AD, the stories recount the conflict between the technologically superior Roman colonisers and the Picts, who at this point in their history have devolved into Neanderthal-like primitives. Their king Bran Mak Morn knows that his people are doomed, but he is not willing to go down without a fight.

The Lost Race by Robert E. Howard
Cororuc is about to meet an unpleasant fate in "The Lost Race" by Robert E. Howard-

Though the first story in this collection, "The Lost Race", does not feature Bran Mak Morn at all, but instead follows Cororuc, a traveller in Roman Britain, who is captured by Picts and taken to their underground lair. The Picts are described as diminutive – in Howard's time some historians believed they were pygmies – and the likely source of legends about dwarves and little people. They are quite hostile and want to burn Cororuc at the stake – after a history lesson delivered by their chief. But Cororuc's life is spared due to the intercession of a werewolf he'd saved earlier.

"The Lost Race" is one of Robert E. Howard's earliest stories, published in the January 1927 issue of Weird Tales, when Howard was only twenty-one, and is clearly the work of a beginning writer. Three stars.

Bran Mak Morn does appear in "Men of the Shadows", though once again the protagonist is another character, a Norseman who became a Roman citizen and legionnaire. He's part of a squad sent north of Hadrian's Wall on a mysterious mission. The legionnaires are slaughtered in a series of battles with the Picts, until only a handful remain. The survivors try to make it back to safety beyond Hadrian's Wall, but are picked off one by one, until there is only a single survivor who is captured and brought before Bran Mak Morn himself. The Picts want to kill him, but Bran spares his life and also reveals the reason why the legionnaires were sent into Pictish territory, namely because a wealthy Roman had taken a liking to Bran's sister and wanted to take her for his own. Bran's refusal to kill the legionnaire leads to a staring contest between Bran and a Pictish wizard upset that Bran is forgetting the old ways. Bran wins the contest, whereupon the wizard launches into a lengthy explanation of the history of the Picts and also prophesizes the fall of the Roman Empire.

This story was never published in Howard's lifetime and it's easy to see why. It's a disjointed mess and Howard forgets both the plot and even the protagonist, once the wizard launches into the extended history of the Picts. We never even learn what happened to the legionnaire. Perhaps he was bored to death by the lecturing wizard. Two stars.

Kings of the Night by Robert E. Howard
A ghostly Kull appears on the battlefield in the interior art for "Kings of the Night".

In "Kings of the Night", Bran Mak Morn is preparing for battle against a Roman legion marching on his land. Bran's Picts have joined forces with Gaels and Britons, but Bran also needs to persuade a group of Norsemen to join the battle. However, their chief has been killed and the Norsemen refuse to fight until they find a new leader. So the Pictish wizard Gonar casts a spell and conjures up none other than Kull of Atlantis, brought forward through time. Kull is understandably confused and mistakes Bran for his Pictish friend Brule the Spearslayer, implying that Bran is a descendent of Brule. However, he also agrees to lead the Norsemen into battle. But is the victory worth the price in blood?

First published in the November 1930 issue of Weird Tales, this is a highly enjoyable story and the return of Kull of Atlantis is most welcome, though it's interesting that Bran outbroods even the traditionally broody Kull. Four stars.

Worms of the Earth by Robert E. Howard
Bran Mak Morn confronts the witch Atla who wants his body in "Worms of the Earth".

"Worms of the Earth" starts with an incredibly visceral and brutal crucifixion scene. A Pict is executed for killing a Roman merchant who'd swindled him. Presiding over the execution is Titus Sulla, Roman governor of Eboracum (nowadays known better by its British name York), as well as a Pictish emissary. Unbeknownst to the arrogant Sulla, this emissary is none other than Bran Mak Morn in disguise.

Infuriated by the way the Roman colonisers treat his people. Bran vows revenge upon Titus Sulla and he is willing to go to great lengths to get it. And so against the warnings of the wizard Gonar, Bran enlists the aid of the titular worms, the remnants of a pre-human civilisation who may be descendants of the Serpent Men from the Kull stories. But in order to find the worms, Bran first has to consult the witch Atla, who is not entirely human herself, and whose price is nothing less than Bran's virtue. So Bran leans back and thinks of the Picts, while Atla has her way with him.

Bran finally locates the worms and they agree to help him get his revenge on Sulla. But things don't go the way Bran expects…

Published in the November 1932 issue of Weird Tales, this is a great story, which perfectly balances sword and sorcery, history and horror. "Worms of the Earth" is the highlight of this collection and worth the price of admission alone. Five stars.

"The Night of the Wolf" is another story which remained unpublished during Howard's lifetime. Set during Arthurian times, it's the tale of Cormac Mac Art, an Irish reiver who gets embroiled in a conflict between Vikings and Picts in the Shetland Islands, where Cormac tries to negotiate the release of an important prisoner.

"The Night of the Wolf" is a well written story full of action and excitement, but I'm not quite sure why it was included in this collection, because it is not a Bran Mak Morn story, even though the Picts appear. Four stars.

Weird Tales December 1931
The statue of Bran Mak Morn gloomily looks on, as the kidnapped Irish maiden Moira is about the escape a forced marriage by the only means she can.

Bran Mak Morn does appear in "The Dark Man", at least after a fashion — because the story is set in the ninth century during the Viking invasion of Ireland, i.e. at a time when Bran is long dead. Instead, he appears in the form of a statue that is worshipped by the surviving descendants of the Picts.

Our hero is an Irish outlaw named Turlogh Dubh O'Brien who's on a mission to rescue his childhood sweetheart Moira, daughter of an Irish chieftain, who was kidnapped by Vikings. Turlogh comes across the statue of Bran and decides to take it along. He crashes the forced wedding of Moira to the Viking chief Thorfel and takes bloody vengeance. The statue of Bran, the titular dark man, comes in handy as well, for where Bran goes, or rather his statue goes, the Picts are not far behind and they are still formidable warriors.

First published in the December 1931 issue of Weird Tales, "The Dark Man" is another fine historical adventure story and unlike "The Night of the Wolf", it has at least some connection to Bran Mak Morn, albeit rather tenuously. Four stars.

I have to admit that I was very eager to finally get my hands on Robert E. Howard's Bran Mak Morn stories. Though I have no Scottish ancestry, I recognise the parallels between Bran and his Picts struggling against Roman rule and the history of my own homeland. For just like the historical Picts, my own ancestors, the Germanic tribes of Northern Germany, managed to kick the Romans out of North Germany and drive them back beyond the Limes Germanicus in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD.

Postcard of the Hermann Monument
Postcard of the Hermann Monument near Detmold, which reminds us that Arminius knocked the Romans out of their sandals somewhere around here.

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest is extremely important to German history. The so-called Hermann Monument near Detmold, a 53 meter tall statue of the Cherusci chieftain Arminius a.k.a. Hermann, is a popular destination for school trips and much beloved. Whenever I'm in the area, I always pay a visit to good old Arminius, even if the statue is not even remotely accurate and the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest most likely did not take place anywhere near Detmold. Archaeologists are still looking for the actual location of the battle

Arminius is to the Germans what the Gaul leader Vercingetorix is to the French, a national hero who fought back against the arrogant Roman invaders. Unlike Vercingetorix, Arminius was victorious and lived to tell the tale. And just like the fictional Bran Mak Morn, Arminius was driven by vengeance, for according to legend he was an officer in the Roman army who turned against his former allies, when the Romans paraded his pregnant wife Thusnelda naked through the streets of Rome in triumph. The veracity of the tale of Thusnelda is debatable, but it is a compelling story and always made me sympathise with Arminius. Bran's story and motivation, though entirely fictional, are just as compelling and I'm sure that Arminius and Bran would find a lot to talk about over a jug of ale or mead.

For all that, the actual collection is a little bit of a letdown. Robert E. Howard just didn't write very many stories about Bran Mak Morn, so Dell topped off the collection with unpublished stories and fragments, poems, juvenilia and vaguely related stories that feature the Picts.

Nonetheless, "Worms of the Earth" is a top tier Howard story and most of the other stories are at the very least entertaining, even if Bran isn't actually in them.

Four stars.

Women's Lib, Sword and Sorcery Style: Jirel of Joiry by C.L. Moore

Jirel of Joiry paperback

The yellowing pages of Weird Tales contain treasures beyond the stories of Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, whose work Arkham House is doing a good job of keeping in print. One of those treasures that I was extremely excited to get my hands on are the stories C.L. Moore wrote about the medieval French swordswoman Jirel of Joiry. At last the stories are available again for the first time in more than thirty years.

Weird Tales October 1934
Jirel kisses the Black God in Margaret Brundage's cover art for the October 1934 issue of Weird Tales.

"Black God's Kiss" first appeared in the October 1934 issue of Weird Tales and introduced Jirel of Joiry to the world. The story opens with the iconic and much imitated scene of the warlord Guillaume conquering Castle Joiry. The captured lord of the castle is brought before Guillaume in full armour. When Guillaume orders his captive's helmet removed, the Lord of Castle Joiry is revealed to be a lady, the red-haired firebrand Jirel. Guillaume is quite delighted by this discovery and forces a kiss on Jirel. Jirel is considerably less delighted and tries to bite his throat out.

The revealing of Jirel's gender is an iconic scene and remains impactful even thirty-five years later. I can only imagine how female readers in 1934 reacted to this revelation, even if the surprise was spoiled both by Weird Tales cover artist Margaret Brundage and interior artist H.R. Hammond.

Black God's Kiss interior art
H.R. Hammond's interior art for "Black God's Kiss" sadly spoils the revelation of Jirel's gender.

For her troubles, Jirel is thrown into her own dungeon, but she quickly escapes, plotting revenge against the overbearing Guillaume. She has no illusions about what Guillaume will do to her, namely rape her and then either kill her or sell her into slavery. So she goes to see Father Gervase, the resident priest of Castle Joiry, to ask for his help and forgiveness. For in order to avenge herself on Guillaume, Jirel is willing to descend into hell itself. And luckily, there happens to be a passage to the underworld deep beneath the foundations of Castle Joiry. It's interesting how much this scene mirrors the scene in "Worms of the Earth" where Bran Mak Morn plots revenge against Titus Sulla. Both Bran and Jirel are willing to do whatever it takes, even if it means selling their soul (and in Bran's case, his body) and enlisting demonic aid. And in both cases, their spiritual advisors, respectively Gonar or Gervase, strongly advice against this course of action, noting that some weapons are too terrible to use.

Like Bran, however, Jirel is determined and so she descends into the underworld beneath the castle. The bulk of the story is given over to Jirel's journey through the underworld and the fantastic things she encounters there. It is notable that even though Jirel wears a crucifix which she has to discard in order to enter the underworld and has a theological argument with a Catholic priest earlier in the story, the dreamlike land underneath Castle Joiry does not resemble the traditional Christian depictions of hell in the slightest—it is much stranger.

Jirel finally finds the titular black god in a temple in the middle of a lake of fallen stars and begs him to give her a weapon against Guillaume. The black gods grants her this wish, but just like Bran Mak Morn in "Worms of the Earth", Jirel realises that the revenge she gets isn't what she wanted after all.

This is an amazing story that stands shoulder to shoulder with the best the sword and sorcery genre has to offer. Five stars.

Only two months later, in the December 1934 issue, Weird Tales published the sequel to "Black God's Kiss" entitled "Black God's Shadow". Jirel is still haunted by the events of the previous story. She's having trouble sleeping, the memories of Guillaume forcing a kiss on her keep resurfacing and by night, Jirel hears Guillaume's voice, begging her to save his soul from hell.

Jirel's feelings towards Guillaume are very conflicted. On the one hand, he was an overbearing pig who assaulted her, but on the other hand Jirel was also attracted to him. So she decides to descend into the underworld once more to save Guillaume's soul. But in doing so, Jirel will not only have to fight the black god, but also her own conflicted emotions and come to terms with what happened to her.

This story is more quiet and philosophical than its predecessor and the battles Jirel fights are purely in her mind. From a psychological standpoint, this story is fascinating, because Jirel's feelings and reactions mirror those of women who have been sexually assaulted or raped, suggesting that Guillaume did more than merely steal a kiss.

An unusual but excellent story. Five stars.

Weird Tales
Not Jirel and Jarisme, but Margaret Brundage's cover art for "Avenger from Atlantis" by Edmond Hamilton.

"Jirel Meets Magic" first appeared in the July 1935 issue of Weird Tales. The title is rather weak, especially since Jirel already encountered more than her share of magic in her first two adventures.

The story opens with Jirel leading the charge against a castle, whence the evil wizard Giraud has fled. Once again, the hotblooded Jirel is out for vengeance, because Giraud had ambushed and killed some of her men. However, as Jirel and her men comb the castle, Giraud is nowhere to be found. Bloody footprints lead to a window, which doubles as a portal into a fantastic world. Undeterred, Jirel climbs through the window in pursuit of Giraud and quickly finds herself tangling not just with the wizard, but also with his patroness, the sorceress Jarisme.

This story establishes what will become a pattern with the Jirel of Joiry stories, namely that Jirel keeps venturing into fantastic dream landscapes. "Jirel Meets Magic" is not quite as dark as the Black God duology, but still a great story. Five stars.

Weird Tales January 1936
Not Jirel either, but a strikingly erotic cover for a Seabury Quinn story, courtesy of Margaret Brundage.

"The Dark Land" opens with Jirel lying in bed in her castle, mortally wounded in battle. Father Gervase is called in to give her the last rites, when Jirel abruptly vanishes. When she comes to, she finds herself in yet another fantastic dreamland called Romne. Its king Pav informs Jirel that he saved her from death, because he wants her to be his bride. Jirel has other ideas, especially once she learns what happens to Pav's discarded wives…

The Dark Land
Jirel faces off against Pav in the interior art for "The Dark Land"

Published in the January 1936 issue of Weird Tales, this is a good story, but not quite as strong as the previous tales. Four stars.

"Hellsgarde" opens with Jirel on her warhorse outside the haunted castle of Hellsgarde. The castle, we learn, has been shunned and abandoned for two hundred years, ever since its previous lord stole a mysterious treasure and was tortured to death by those eager to take that treasure for themselves.

Jirel has come to Hellsgarde for just this treasure, though she doesn't want it for herself. No, a villainous nobleman named Guy of Garlot has taken several of Jirel's men hostage and demands the treasure of Hellsgarde as ransom.

Hellsgarde
Jirel faces the ghosts haunting the Castle of Hellsgarde

As the previous stories have shown, Jirel is perfectly willing to descend into hell itself and so she enters the haunted castle to face of the horrors awaiting her within. As for Guy of Garlot, he fares about as well as all overbearing men who try to force Jirel to do something against her will.

First published in the April 1939 issue of Weird Tales, "Hellsgarde" is a very much a haunted house story, but what a haunted house story it is. Five stars.

Reading the Jirel of Joiry stories in the year of the lord 1969, it's hard to image that these stories are already more than thirty years old, because they feel so very modern, both with regard to Jirel's adventures in psychedelic dreamlands and her conflicts with overbearing men which many a modern feminist will sympathise with. Jirel is very much a heroine for the 1960s, a strong woman willing to brave even hell itself to get what she wants.

C.L. Moore

C.L. Moore only ever wrote six stories about Jirel of Joiry (one of which, a story featuring Jirel and Moore's interplanetary outlaw Northwest Smith, is not included in this collection) and sadly retired from writing altogether after the untimely death of her husband Henry Kuttner eleven years ago. However, the Jirel stories are so good that I hope that Moore will eventually return to writing and revisit this groundbreaking character.

If you are looking for the two-fisted adventures of Conan or the hijinks of Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, this collection is very much not that. Jirel's adventures are internal conflicts given form in her journey through dreamlike and often nightmarish landscapes. Nonetheless, these stories are among the best the sword and sorcery genre has to offer. Five stars.




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 10, 1966] Summer Reruns (July 1966 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Old Series Never Die, They Just Fade Away

Summertime is right around the corner, here in the Northern Hemisphere, and all patriotic Americans know what that means; reruns on television. Not only does this save the production companies money, it allows defunct programs to continue to appear on TV screens long after they're gone, like ghosts haunting a house. (Of course, they're easier to exorcise than traditional specters; just pull the plug.)

Two popular, critically acclaimed, and long-running series recently cast off this mortal coil, ready to enter the monochromatic afterlife of reruns.

Late last month, the courtroom drama Perry Mason slammed down the gavel for the last time with The Case of the Final Fade-Out. The story involved a television studio, so a large number of crew members made cameo appearances, pretty much as themselves. There was also a very special guest star.


That's executive producer Gail Patrick Jackson on the left and Hollywood columnist Norma Lee Browning on the right. The fellow in the middle? That's bestselling author Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of Perry Mason, dressed up for his role as a judge in the final episode.

At the start of this month, The Dick Van Dyke Show came to a conclusion with the appropriately titled episode The Last Chapter. Van Dyke's character, television writer Rob Petrie, finishes the book he's been working on for five years, and looks back on his life.


Because The Last Chapter was really just an excuse to reuse sequences from previous episodes, I'm offering you this scene from the penultimate episode, The Gunslinger. Surrounding Van Dyke in this Western parody are cast regulars Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Deacon.

I'm sure that both of these hit series will be reincarnated in American living rooms for quite a while.

Not all summer television programming consists of reruns, to be sure. There are so-called summer replacement series as well. In a week or so, we'll enjoy (or avoid) the first episode of The Dean Martin Summer Show (not to be confused with The Dean Martin Show, which has been going on since last year. Are you still with me?) It will be hosted by the comedy team of Dan Rowan and Dick Martin.


Rowan on the left and Martin on the right, in a scene from their 1958 Western spoof Once Upon a Horse. I wonder if they'll have any success as TV hosts.

A Home Run The First Time At Bat

Although it's not unknown for popular songs of yesteryear to return to the charts — auditory reruns, if you will — listeners are usually searching for something original. Newcomer Percy Sledge offers an notable example with his smash hit When a Man Loves a Woman. This passionate, soulful ballad, currently Number One in the USA, is not only the first song recorded by Sledge, it is the first song recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a city famous for its music studios, to reach that position.


Your fans mean it, Mister Sledge.

I've Seen This All Before

The reason I've been talking about reruns, before I get to the contents of the latest issue of Fantastic, isn't just the fact that they've been filling up the magazine with reprints for some time now. As we'll see, many of the old stories in this issue have reappeared several times before. Reruns of reruns, so to speak. Whether fans of imaginative literature will be willing to spend four bits for fiction they may have already read in collections or anthologies remains to be seen.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

Predictably, the front cover is also a rerun.


The back cover of the June 1943 issue of Amazing Stories. It looks better in the original version.

Before I get to the reruns, however, let's start with something new.

Just Like a Man, by Chad Oliver


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Three men are in an aircraft, flying over the surface of an Earth-like planet. A sudden storm forces them to abandon the vehicle, stranding the trio in an area resembling an African savannah. Because the place is full of leonine predators, they hightail it to the relative safety of a nearby rainforest.


Climbing one of the planet's gigantic trees in order to get away from the hungry cats.

They wind up far above the ground, among an unsuspected community of highly intelligent primates. These mysterious creatures help them survive, and even offer the possibility of reaching their home base, located five hundred miles away across uncharted wilderness.


Among the primates, who are not as hostile as shown here.

This is a decent tale of adventure, and the enigmatic primates are interesting. The planet is so similar to Earth — the feline predators are pretty much just lions — that you might forget you're reading a science fiction story. Overall, it's worth reading, if not outstanding in any way.

Three stars.

The Trouble With Ants, by Clifford D. Simak


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

From the January 1951 issue of Fantastic Adventures comes this final story in the author's famous City series. (By the way, the title of this work was changed to The Simple Way when it appeared in book form.)


Illustration by Rod Ruth. From this point on, all the illustrations are reruns from the original appearances of the stories.

In the far future, people are gone from Earth, with the exception of one fellow in suspended animation. Long ago, humans increased the intelligence of dogs, gave them the power of speech, and built robots to serve their needs. The canines, in turn, taught other animals to speak.

Complicating matters is the fact that a man caused ants to develop technology of their own, including robots the size of fleas. Now the ants are constructing a building, for an unknown purpose, which threatens to take over the planet.

An ancient robot returns from humanity's new home in a mysterious fashion. It seeks out the man in suspended animation as part of its quest to understand the ants.

Brought together as a fix-up novel in 1952, the City series won the International Fantasy Award the next year. It is usually considered a classic of science fiction, and has been reprinted many times.


One of the many editions of this work. Cover art by Ed Valigursky.

Highly imaginative, and with a sweeping vision of the immensity of time, Simak's tales also have a gentleness and intimacy that touches the reader's heart. The mood is one of quiet melancholy, and the acceptance of the fact that all things will pass away.

Although SF fans are likely to have read this story before, its quality makes it a welcome repeat. (One can rarely say the same thing about television reruns, or else viewers would stay glued to their screens.)

Five stars.

Where Is Roger Davis?, by David V. Reed


Cover art by Robert Fuqua.

Let's take a break from stuff that has already been reprinted multiple times, and take a look at the first reappearance of this yarn, taken from the yellowing pages of the May 1939 issue of Amazing Stories. (The author is unknown to me, but I have discovered that he also writes for comics, particularly Batman. Apparently a couple of episodes of the new television series are based on his scripts for the comic book.)


Illustrations by Julian S. Krupa.

Two young men working for a New York City tour bus encounter an invisible, telepathic Martian. One of them is seduced by the alien's plot to take over the world, and soon becomes a megalomaniac.


The fact that the Martian makes robbing a bank as easy as pie is another factor in his decision.

The other fellow has to figure out a way to keep the Martians from conquering Earth.

The mood of the story changes drastically from light comedy at the start to grim tragedy by the conclusion. Given the year it was written, I wonder if the dictatorial intentions of the first man were influenced by the rise of Fascism.

The author claims that this story is a true account, sent to him by the second man. There are also bits of imaginary news articles scattered throughout, in an attempt at verisimilitude. These don't work very well, particularly the long one at the end. The only thing I found mildly intriguing, if implausible, was the way the hero manages to plot against beings who can read his mind.

Two stars.

Almost Human, by Tarleton Fiske


Cover art by Harold W. McCauley.

The introductory blurb makes it clear that the author of this story, reprinted from the June 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures, is really Robert Bloch, using a rather absurd pseudonym. (As is common practice, this was done because he had another story in the same issue under his own name.)


Illustration by Rod Ruth.

A hoodlum makes his way into the secret laboratory of a brilliant scientist. His moll has been working for the guy, so the crook knows the genius has created a robot. The machine is being educated like a child. The gangster teaches it to be an invincible criminal, and to kill without mercy. As you'd expect, things don't work out very well.

This piece reads like hardboiled fiction from a crime pulp. The final scene is particularly gruesome, in typical Bloch style. The author shows a certain knack for the Hammett/Chandler mode, but that's about all I can say for it. Not that great a story, but somebody thought it was worth reviving for an anthology.


Cover art by Jack Gaughan.

Two stars.

Satisfaction Guaranteed, by Isaac Asimov


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

Speaking of robots, here's one of several stories about the robopsychologist Susan Calvin by the Good Doctor, from the April 1951 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustration by Enoch Sharp.

Calvin only plays a minor part in this story, which focuses on a rather mousy, insecure housewife. Her husband works for the same robotics firm as Calvin, so he brings home a test model of a new machine. It looks like a handsome young man, and is designed to be helpful around the house in many different ways. The husband goes off on a business trip, leaving his wife alone with the robot.

The housewife is frightened of it at first, but soon learns to accept it. It even helps her with home decorating, clothing, and makeup, so she learns self-confidence. A final, unexpected gesture on the part of the machine, seemingly out of character for a robot, wins her the envy of her snobbish acquaintances. Susan Calvin explains why the machine's action was a perfectly logical way of obeying the famous First Law of Robotics.


Anonymous cover art for a British edition.

The author must be fond of this tale, because he has already included it in two different collections of his work. The one shown above, as the title indicates, includes stories that take place on Earth rather than in space, despite the misleading illustration and blurb. The story also appears in an omnibus that brings together his two robot novels as well as several shorter works.


Cover art by Thomas Chibbaro.

Besides that, it is also included in the same Roger Elwood anthology as Bloch's story. My sources in the television industry tell me that it is being adapted for the British series Out of the Unknown, and should appear late this year. (Will there be American reruns? One can only hope.)

Is it worth all this attention? Well, it's not a bad yarn, if not the greatest robot story Asimov ever wrote. The housewife is something of a stereotype of an overly emotional female, dependent on a man for her happiness. (This is in sharp contrast to the highly intelligent and independent Doctor Susan Calvin.) At some point you may think that the author is violating his own rules about robot behavior, but it's all explained at the end.

Three stars.

A Portfolio – Virgil Finlay

I'm not sure if I should even discuss this tiny collection of illustrations by the great artist, but at least I can share them with you.


For The New Adam (1939) by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The magazine calls it The New Atom, which is an egregious error.


For Mirrors of the Queen (1948) by Richard S. Shaver.


For The Silver Medusa (1948) by Alexander Blade (pseudonym for H. Hickey.)

What can I say? His work is stunning.

Five stars.

Satan Sends Flowers, by Henry Kuttner


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

The January/February 1953 issue of Fantastic is the source of this variation on an old theme.


Illustrations by Tom Beecham.

A man sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for immortality. (The premise is similar to that of the Twilight Zone episode Escape Clause, but the twist ending is different.) He ensures that he will remain young, healthy, and all that, so Satan can't play any tricks on him. Obviously, he figures he'll never have to pay up.

The Devil demands surety in the form of certain subconscious memories the fellow possesses. After assuring him that he won't even know he's lost anything, the man agrees. Unafraid of either earthly punishment or damnation, he lives a life of total depravity.


His first crime is the murder of his mother.

Eventually, he persuades the Devil to give him back what he lost, even though Satan warns him that he won't like it. This turns out to be a bad idea.

Like most other stories in this issue, this one has already appeared in a book. (It acquired the new title By These Presents.)


Back and front cover art by Richard Powers.

I should mention that the husband-and-wife team of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore almost always collaborated, even if the resulting story appeared under only one name. Whoever might have been responsible for whatever parts of this work, it's a reasonably engaging tale. I'm not sure I really accept the explanation for what the man's unconscious memories represent, but I was willing to go along with it.

Three stars.

The Way Home, by Theodore Sturgeon


Cover art by Barye Phillips.

This quiet story comes from the April/May 1953 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustrations by David Stone.

A boy runs away from home. Along the way he meets a wealthy man and his glamourous female companion, in their fancy car; a man with an injured hand who has been all over the world; and a pilot in a beautiful airplane. Without giving too much away, it's clear from the start that these men represent possible future versions of himself.


Is this the road to the future, or to home?

Like Asimov's story, this piece has already appeared in two of the author's collections, but with a slight change in the title.


Cover art by Mel Hunter.

(I'm not sure if I should really count these as two different collections, because all the stories in Thunder and Roses already appeared, along with others, in A Way Home. Such are the vagaries of the publishing industry.)


Cover art by Peter Curl.

In any case, this is a beautifully written little story, subtle and evocative. To say much more would be to ruin the delicate mood it creates.

Five stars.

Worth Tuning In Again?


Cartoon by somebody called Frosty, from the same magazine as Satan Sends Flowers.

I wouldn't call this issue bad at all, although there were a couple of disappointing stories.  It's no big surprise that the Simak and the Sturgeon were excellent, and Finlay's art is always a delight.  It's enough to make you want to tear yourself away from all those reruns on television and turn to some literary reruns instead.


In the world of cuisine, reruns are known as leftovers.

Tune in to KGJ, our radio station!  Nothing but the newest and best hits!  Even the reruns are great!




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Magazine/Anthology

[July 12, 1962] ROUTINE EXCURSION (the August 1962 Amazing)

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by John Boston

Summertime, and the living is . . . hot and sticky, here in the near-South.  Also fairly boring, if one is not much interested in such local rustic amusements as hayrides and frog-gigging (if you have to ask, you don’t want to know.) There’s no better time to find a comfortable hiding place and read science fiction magazines, except possibly for all the other times.  Of course the season—any season—doesn’t guarantee merit, and the August 1962 Amazing is the usual mixed bag.

The issue leads off with the cover story Gateway to Strangeness by Jack Vance, which contrary to its title goes out of its way to avoid strangeness.  It’s the one about the martinet skipper who treats his young trainee sailors with brutal sternness—not to mention sabotage to create life-threatening problems for them to solve—but it’s good for them and makes men out of them, except for the one who’s dead.  In this case it’s a solar sail ship and not a windjammer, but the premise is just as tired regardless of medium.  The most interesting aspect is the description of operating a spaceship propelled by the “wind” of light and particles emanating from the Sun.  For a Vance story, that’s a judgment of failure: his talents lie elsewhere than hardware (see The Moon Moth in last year’s Galaxy and The Miracle Workers a few years ago in Astounding), but he seems determined sometimes to play to his weaknesses.  Two stars.

The other novelet here is James H. Schmitz’s Rogue Psi, in which humanity (via the members of a secret psi research project) confronts a “hypnotizing telepath” who can control or impersonate anyone, and has been interfering with humanity, and in particular its efforts to get off-planet, for centuries.  The showdown is brought about via “diex energy,” which amplifies psi powers.  This is all moonshine, but Schmitz is an engaging writer and has a knack for physical and experiential description that make his account of psychic goings-on better grounded than others we could name—none of the familiar “he stiffened his mind shield as Zork lashed out” sort of thing.  The deus ex machina, or ex hat, resolution even goes down smoothly.  Three stars for capable, even lively, deployment of material that otherwise would border on cliche. 

In between is the short story Passion Play by Roger Zelazny—who?  New writer, I guess, and the story is a heavily satirical vignette of a sort common from new writers—that is, it’s only barely a story.  In the future, it appears, robots have inherited the Earth, and one of them tells his story (in the present tense, no less), which involves ceremonially reenacting a crash from a famous auto race of the past (this one at Le Mans).  The guy is a glib writer, though—“After the season of Lamentations come the sacred stations of the Passion, then the bright Festival of Resurrection, with its tinkle and clatter, its exhaust fumes, scorched rubber, clouds of dust, and its great promise of happiness”—so we may hear from him again, more substantially.  Two stars, basted with promise.


One hopes not to hear further from Beta McGavin, the probably pseudonymous author of Dear Nan Glanders, an advice column from the future, a silly space-filler of which the best that can be said is that it distracts from Benedict Breadfruit, whose exploits continue here as well.  One star.

That’s it for the fiction contents, except for the second installment of Keith Laumer’s A Trace of Memory, to be discussed when it is completed next month.  As for non-fiction, Sam Moskowitz contributes C.L. Moore: Catherine the Great, another in his “SF Profiles” series, with considerable interesting biographical detail and more attention than usual for Moskowitz to her more recent work (possibly because there is so little of it).  Four stars.

But overall, this magazine is getting a little exasperating.  The year began well with several excellent stories by J.G. Ballard, Brian Aldiss, and Mark Clifton, but the streak did not continue.  For some months now the magazine’s high points have mostly been competent product like this month’s Schmitz story, nice tries like Purdom’s The Warriors, and trifles with promise like Zelazny’s story in this issue.  Enough promise; time for some more delivery.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 11, 1961] Spotlighting Women (The Second Sex in Science Fiction and Fantasy, Part 3)

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Here's a question I've gotten more than once: what is the point in spotlighting woman writers?  Shouldn't I simply point out the good stories as I find them, and if they happen to be written by women, bully for them?  Why should I create an artificial distinction?

Those are actually fine questions, about which I've given much thought.  I make no claims to being an expert, or even someone whose opinion should matter much to you.  All I have is my taste, my gut and (lucky for me) my own column in which to voice my opinions.  So take my words as strictly my viewpoint.

We live in a particular kind of world.  Men are the default: the default heroes, the default writers, even the default pronoun.  Open a history book, and it will be filled with the names of great men.  Women are a seeming afterthought.  You may not even have thought twice about it.  It seems "natural" that movies should star men, that books should star men, that men should be the generals, the presidents.

But, there is a change a brewing.  Black men universally won the right to vote in 1865.  Women secure duniversal suffrage in 1920, fully three generations after the least privileged men.  The gap is narrowing.  This year, a Black man became skipper of a U.S. Naval vessel.  1961 also marks the year a woman became a shipboard U.S. Naval officer for the first time.  Women are now just one generation behind the least advantaged of the men.  Someday, we may be on a level playing field, all races of men and women.

Science fiction is supposed to be forward-looking, yet socially it seems stuck in the present, or even the past.  One almost never reads about woman starship captains or woman presidents or woman…well… anything.  I don't think this is the result of deliberate collusion by the science fiction writing community.  It's just that society is the air we breathe.  We are unconsciously bound by its rules and traditions.  Unless something shakes up our viewpoints, we'll stick in our ruts and continue to accept this male-dominated paradigm as the natural order of things.

So when I spot something unusual that I think should be universal, I note it.  I encourage it.  I enjoy it.

Without further ado, part #3 of my encyclopedic catalog of the woman writers active as of this year of 1961:

Zenna Henderson: It should come as no surprise to any regular reader of my column that I love Zenna Henderson.  While her The People stories do not comprise all of her work, they are representative — unabashedly personal tales, bittersweet and feminine, utterly unlike anything else.  Henderson's science fiction career began early last decade and is one of the most vivid hallmarks of the divide between the digest and pulp eras.  I strongly recommend Rosemary Benton's recent article as a introduction to his brilliant author and her work.

Katherine MacLean: One rarely forgets first impressions, and MacLean made a significant one on me with Unhuman Sacrifice, single-handedly saving the November 1958 Astounding, the first magazine I ever reviewed for this column.

This was actually a sort of a rediscovery — she has been publishing stories since the late '40s, many of which I read in Galaxy.  I wonder if she's now near the end of her career.  Once a prolific writer, her pace slackened after 1953, and I've only seen one of her stories since Sacrifice, the good Interbalance.  Perhaps she's just busy with other things, or maybe she publishes in the few remaining magazines I don't cover on a regular basis.  In any-wise, Ms. MacLean is highly regarded, both by me and the general community.  Check her out, and don't miss her early work published under the name of her former husband, Charles Dye.

Anne McCaffrey: Speaking of first impressions, one of the fun aspects of my job as surveyor of our genre is spotting new authors as they arrive.  Ms. McCaffrey hit the ground running with her 1959 story, The Lday in the Tower.  She topped herself with the recent The Ship who Sang.  Two points make a line; if we continue the trend, it is clear that Ms. McCaffrey is destined to produce some pretty spectacular stuff.  I can't wait!

Judith Merril: There once was a SF club in New York City.  It was called the Futurians, it only lasted 8 years (ending around the same time as WW2), and it had an outsized impact on the genre.  The 1st WorldCon was a Futurian event, for instance, and its members included future famous personages such as Isaac Asimov and Fred Pohl. 

And Judith Merril (who was Mrs. Pohl for a little while).  She has been a pillar of the community ever since, both as a writer and a prolific anthologizer; she has produced a series of "Best of" books since 1956, and her taste is sharp.  My experience with her own writing has been mixed.  They comprise just two stories and a novel.  The stories were good, the novel was terrible (though Fred Pohl and P. Schuyler Miller liked it; what do I know>).  I suspect Judy will be around for a long time, so I imagine I'll have more on which to evaluate her by the next time I do one of these.

C.L. Moore: I may be stretching a point in calling Ms. Moore a current writer.  A veteran of the pulp era, Ms. Moore wrote most prolifically in partnership with her late husband, Henry Kuttner (who I knew best as Lewis Padgett).  He died in 1958, and I've not seen hide nor hair of her since.  For this reason, the Journey has covered none of her works, and while I'm sure I must have read some of Moore (psuedonymously, collaboratively, or solitarily), I couldn't tell you about any of those stories off the top of my head (though I do own the Galaxy Novel, Shambleau; perhaps I shall try it out.)

Andre Norton: Despite the name, Andre Norton is a woman, and she has enjoyed a burgeoning career since her debut a little over a decade ago.  She is given to florid, adventury prose, filled with strapping folks and derring-do.  In a recent review of one of Ms. Norton's latest books, Alfred Bester opined dismissively that perhaps women just can't write action.  Well, he's wrong.  Now, mind you, I haven't yet read much Norton.  I started Stargate, which failed to grab my interest, and I finished Crossroads of Time, which I quite enjoyed.  She's got a new one coming out this Summer, which I'll call the tie-breaker. 

Meanwhile, Bester hasn't published a story since 1959.  Maybe men just can't write science fiction anymore…

I'll have the fourth (and final) installment in this series sometime next month.  Cheer-i-o!

(Part one is here!)

(Part two is here!)

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