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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 2, 1969] Love and Hate (December 1969 IF)

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by David Levinson

A paper dragon

Back in April, I wrote about a border skirmish between the Soviet Union and China. That wasn’t the end of the matter. The Soviets went on a minor diplomatic offensive, trying to get India to join an alliance against China and to pull North Korea back into the Soviet orbit. Violence flared up again in August on the Terekty River on the border between the Sinkiang region of China and the Kazakh SSR. As in April, both sides accused the other of crossing the border.

Rumor has it that Soviet Foreign Minister Alexei Kosygin attempted to contact the Chinese government in an effort to calm tensions and reopen negotiations on the border. His efforts were reportedly rudely rebuffed by Chairman Mao. At the funeral of Ho Chi Minh in early September, the Soviet and Chinese delegations went out of their way to avoid being in the same room with each other, even attending the funeral at different times.

When Kosygin left Hanoi on September 11th, his plane was denied entry into Chinese airspace, forcing a long detour. But while the plane was refueling in India, Kosygin was informed that the Chinese were ready to talk. He promptly flew to Peking, where he and Chinese Foreign Minister Chou Enlai met at the airport. They agreed to reinstate diplomatic relations and reopen talks on the border.

l. Soviet Foreign Minister Alexei Kosygin, r. Chinese Foreign Minister Chou Enlai

Despite that, Mao continued to ramp up his hostile rhetoric towards the Soviets. China also began moving large numbers of troops north to the border regions. That was followed by two unannounced nuclear tests at the end of September, most notably China’s largest detonation to date (3 megatons) on the 29th. The very next day, Chinese Defense Minister Lin Biao put the armed forces on the highest level of alert.

And then on October 9th, Mao blinked. China announced that they would no longer claim territory annexed by Tsarist Russia over the last 300 years through “unequal treaties.” The only concession demanded is that the Soviet Union acknowledge that the treaties were unfair. The status quo has been restored, and the only result of six months of high tension is several ulcers and a huge sigh of relief around the world.

Love among the ruins

Love runs through most of the stories in this month’s IF. Not as a romantic theme, but rather as an examination of the ways in which it affects the events of the stories and is in turn affected by events.

Vaguely suggested by Ancient, My Enemy. Art by Gaughan

Ancient, My Enemy, by Gordon R. Dickson

Udbahr is a hell world. Daytime temperatures are so high it is impossible for humans to survive outside of special shelters. On top of that, protein is so scarce, the only source for the natives are each other or the humans who have come to prospect and explore the ruins of an ancient civilization.

One such person is Kiev Archad, currently acting as a guide for female graduate student Willy Fairchild. Unfortunately, she is full of ideas that don’t mesh well with the ways in which humans and Udbahrs interact. Despite that, a relationship develops between the two. The final obstacle to their romance is a native named Hehog, who has decided that he and Kiev are ancient enemies, reborn every generation to take turns killing each other.

Hehog taunts Kiev. Art probably by Gaughan

This is not the Dickson story I was expecting. From the title, I thought this would be one of his military pieces, maybe a new Dorsai tale. This is personal in a way those stories aren’t, and it’s very, very good. But Dickson didn’t quite hit the mark for me. He never really sells the relationship between Kiev and Willy; worse, even though Kiev is the viewpoint character, we never really get into his head, which makes the ending a bit inscrutable. And for all that, and because I know Dickson is capable of doing better, I have to lower my rating. Don’t be surprised to see this one nominated for a lot of awards, though.

A very, very high three stars.

Now No One Waits, by Neil Shapiro

Wrecked on a dead world, a man and a woman have little hope of rescue. They spend their time in meaningless sex and exploring the ruins of a lost civilization.

The doomed couple study the map room. Art by Gaughan

Shapiro seems to be a new writer, though he isn’t this month’s IF first; maybe he has a sale or two outside science fiction. In any case, the writing is solid for the most part. The ending, though, didn’t seem to grow naturally from what came before and also felt rather obscure. A writer with potential.

A slightly below average three stars.

What Time Was That?, by Barry Malzberg

Malzberg offers us a New Wave tale of the invention of a time machine, told in first, second, and third person. It mostly works.

Three stars.

A crackpot’s time machine. Art probably by Gaughan

Heroes Die But Once, by Norman Spinrad

A newlywed couple are exploring the galaxy, hoping to find a habitable world and make their fortune. They find one, but they also find aliens who decide to stress test their relationship.

I don’t know if this is a printing error or a deliberate choice, but it’s awfully hard to read. Art by Gaughan

A reasonable effort by Spinrad, with more than a touch of Ellisonian cynicism. It’s not a pleasant read, but then it’s not trying to say pleasant things.

Three stars.

The New Thing, by John Brunner

From the title and author, I was expecting a piece satirizing the New Wave. Instead, it’s an examination of what happens to societies in the extremely far future when a sort of interstellar Guinness Book of Records makes it clear that there truly is nothing new under the sun (or any other star).

Waiting rooms will never change. Art probably by Gaughan

It’s a bit long-winded and consists almost entirely of people sitting around and talking. Nevertheless, it mostly works.

Three stars.

In the Beginning, by Glenn Chang

This month’s official new author asks if love can endure beyond the end of all things. The theme is jejune, and the ending rather trite, but the author is only 18. He shows promise, and more experience with the real world could result in some good stories.

Three stars.

The Story of Our Earth (Part 4), by Willy Ley

Ley’s history of the planet has reached the Carboniferous period. He talks about the origins of coal (no matter what Sinclair Oil may say, it wasn’t dinosaurs) and how our understanding of the period has changed. From there he moves to the Earth’s first ice age and the Permian period. He focuses on the primitive reptiles of the time and the importance of teeth to paleontologists.

Four stars.

The Man Who Would Not, by James E. Gunn

It’s hard to say anything about this without giving the whole thing away. In essence, it’s a conversation about the end of an experiment. Beyond that, I’ll only say that it is both downbeat and hopeful.

Four stars.

Art by Gaughan

The Seeds of Gonyl (Part 3 of 3), by Keith Laumer

Honestly, I just don’t feel motivated to summarize the end of this serial. Aliens, a guy with memories he can’t quite explain, blah, blah, blah. The hero triumphs in the end. Sort of. Everybody on Earth is dead except for a few hundred people in south-eastern Nebraska. If you’re familiar with Laumer, he does this better in other books; if you aren’t, this is not a good place to start.

A low three stars for this part (some of the action is OK) and barely three stars for the whole thing.

The hero and an ally fight an invader. Art by Gaughan

Summing up

I’m starting to feel like I know what IF is going to be like under the new management. Just looking at the scores, it doesn’t seem all that different from the Pohl days. That’s true for the peaks and averages, but the lows don’t seem to be as low. Plus, the overall tone is fresher. My only real complaint is the art being all Gaughan all the time, and uncredited. We’re not getting his best work. Otherwise, I’d say IF is looking good as we move into a new decade.

Sounds like the big story would have fit right in this month.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 20, 1969] There was a ship (November 1969 Venture)

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by David Levinson

”There was a ship,” quoth he.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Northwest to Alaska

Almost from the moment Europeans discovered the Americas, they’ve been looking for a sea route to Asia across the top of the continent. Dubbed the Northwest Passage by the English (because they were trying to travel west), the name stuck, and the route has been of interest ever since. The McClure Arctic expedition showed there was a sea route in 1850, though much of it was blocked by ice, and the journey was partially completed by sledge. Roald Amundsen became the first to go from Atlantic to Pacific entirely by ship between 1903 and 1906.

When oil was discovered last year at Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic coast of Alaska, attention turned once again to the Northwest Passage. A pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to a mostly ice-free port like Anchorage or Valdez faces a number of technological and legal challenges, so, even though planning is well underway and several hundred miles of pipe have already been ordered, oil companies are taking a look at the viability of shipping through the Northwest Passage.

Enter the SS Manhattan, an oil tanker owned and operated by the Esso company; she’s also the largest merchant vessel registered in the United States. She has been refitted with an icebreaker bow by the Finnish shipbuilder Wärtsilä, which built a huge ice tank to help optimize the design.

The SS Manhattan breaking through the ice of the Northwest Passage.

The Manhattan left Pennsylvania in August and sailed for Alaska under the command of Captain Roger A. Steward. Sea ice in the M’Clure Strait forced her take a more southerly route through the Canadian Arctic archipelago. After she reached Prudhoe Bay, a token barrel of crude oil was placed aboard, and the return voyage began. The ship cleared the Passage on September 14th, becoming the first commercial vessel to make the transit.

Is the Northwest Passage now open for commerce? Maybe, maybe not. The Manhattan required the support of several American and Canadian coast guard icebreakers to get through. Also the legal challenges a pipeline faces may be nothing compared to the sea route. Canada considers all waters in the Arctic archipelago to be internal waters, not an international shipping lane. In fact, at one point a group of Inuit hunters stopped the ship and demanded the captain request permission to pass through Canadian territory. He did so, and permission was granted.

So there are legal problems. Whether the Passage can be used year-round is also unknown. There’s talk of sending another ship this winter to see if the way is open then. Time will tell, but I’m betting on the pipeline.

Involving, but avoiding, calamity

There’s something about a shipwreck that seems to resonate with people. From The Wreck of the Hesperus (the bane of schoolchildren for nearly a century) to A Night to Remember (something of a disaster itself at the box office), wrecks are found all through popular entertainment. Science fiction is no exception, although the ships are usually in space. This month’s Venture offers no fewer than three ship related disasters, not to mention a plane crash and a global disaster.

Thankfully, the issue itself is not a disaster.  Quite the contrary, actually.

Art by Tanner

This issue’s cover is a slight improvement over the last. It’s recognizably science fiction, and there’s a second color.

Plague Ship, by Harry Harrison

The route from the Moon to Mars is supposed to be a milk run. But then a meteorite strike leaves the ship’s doctor, on his first ever space trip, the only surviving officer.  After that, disaster follows fast and follows faster, to paraphrase Poe. The disease hinted at by the title isn’t even the last dreadful thing to befall the ship.

Disaster strikes the Johannes Kepler. Art by Tanner

The constant occurrence of a new disaster every few pages sometimes feels a bit overdone, but that may be the result of the condensed novel format. A full novel would give the characters some room to breathe between incidents. I enjoyed this a lot, but a little voice in the back of my head kept whispering that someone with more of a naval background, say A. Bertram Chandler, would have made this more believable.

A high three stars.

In Alien Waters, by Richard E. Peck

A scoutship crewed by water-breathing aliens crashes on a habitable world. They’re searching for intelligent life, even highly improbable surface dwellers, but don’t sense any. They effect repairs and attempt to take off. Interspersed with this story is a man reminiscing about the wreck of a ship he was on.

A somewhat abstract view of one of the aliens. Art by Keller

This is a decent story, but it’s weakened by the interwoven narratives. It quickly becomes obvious what ship the human narrator is talking about, which leaves the final line without any punch. The story might have been better served if Peck had moved more of that thread to the end, so it isn’t so obvious. That or relied a lot less on the impact of the final line.

Three stars.

IQ Soup, by Larry Eisenberg

Eisenberg inflicts another of his awful Emmett Duckworth stories on us. This one is even stupider than usual. The only nice thing I can say about it is that it’s less than a full page long.

One star

Basic, by Christopher Anvil

Another of Anvil’s tales of the Interstellar Patrol and their unusual methods of recruitment and training. It’s much like the others, and there isn’t much more to say. It’s clearly meant to come before Test Ultimate in the September Analog, but reading order shouldn’t make much difference.

A low three stars.

Escape Velocity, by Robin Scott

Astronaut Hogate struggles to fight down his fears as he sits on the launch pad. He’d be fine if there was something to do, but whenever they pause the countdown all he can do is think about everything that brought him to this place. When his capsule fails to make orbit, he’s forced to try out an experimental escape pod.

Ground Control to Major Tom. Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong. Art by Keller

You might want to listen to David Bowie’s recent single while reading this one. This is very good, but I’m not sure Scott is quite up to what he was trying to achieve; it falls just short of the four stars it could have been.

A high three stars.

The Snows Are Melted, the Snows Are Gone, by James Tiptree, Jr.

In a world apparently devastated by nuclear war, a girl with no arms and a very intelligent wolf undertake a journey to investigate some wild humans. It’s difficult to say much more about this without telling the whole story, but it is so much more.

A girl and her wolf. Art by Bhob Stewart

The timing is difficult, but if this wasn’t written in response to Harlan Ellison’s A Boy and His Dog, I’ll eat my hat. I will admit that I’m not entirely sure about what Tiptree was trying to say right at the very end, but it’s an impressive piece. My only complaint is really that the girl manages to do a couple of things much faster than it seems she ought to even with wolf assistance. Initially, that was enough to pull it under the four-star line, but I’ve changed my mind. Either way, Tiptree is now officially an author to watch.

Four stars.

Summing up

Another issue of Venture in the books. It’s getting better, though maybe not quite up to the standards of its parent magazine, F&SF. The biggest improvement has to be in the art. Tanner’s cover is better than the previous issue’s, though it still leaves a lot to be desired, and the addition of other (dare I say better) artists inside is a step up. I’m particularly taken with the two pieces signed "Keller". They’re sort of a combination of psychedelic and Art Nouveau that works very well.

More of all of this, please, except for Emmett Duckworth and maybe Chris Anvil.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial, Uncategorized

[October 2, 1969] Darkness, Darkness (November 1969 IF)

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by David Levinson

An unexpected, expected coup

To the surprise of almost no one, September 1st saw a military coup in Libya. King Idris has grown increasingly unpopular ever since the United Kingdom of Libya was proclaimed in 1951. His government was initially seen as weak, due to the federal structure of the kingdom, sharing power between the three main regions of the country: Cyrenaica in the east, Tripolitania in the northwest, and Fezzan in the southwest. After Idris dissolved the federal system in 1963, he was seen more as an autocrat. Always more a religious leader than secular, he was viewed by more progressive elements in the country as a hindrance to making Libya a modern nation. His government has also been widely seen as corrupt. Once one of the poorest countries in the world, Libya has grown rich in the last decade since the discovery of oil, but little of that wealth has gone beyond the king and his advisers.

So when Idris traveled to Turkey for medical treatment, everyone was expecting a coup. The king himself had offered to abdicate a few weeks earlier while he was on vacation in Greece. The blow was expected to come from Abdul Aziz Shahli, Chief of Staff of the Libyan Army, and his brother Omar, the royal councilor. The two are the sons of Idris’ longtime chief advisor, who had been murdered by a nephew of the queen.

King Idris from a couple of years ago.

But they were beaten to the punch by a group calling themselves the Free Officers Movement, no doubt inspired by Nasser’s Egyptian Free Officers who toppled King Farouk. The coup was swift, seemingly bloodless, and has been accepted in the country with no resistance and a fair amount of enthusiasm. The Revolutionary Command Council which heads the FOM quickly informed foreign diplomats that treaties and agreements would be respected and that foreign lives and property would be protected. Recognition of the new government followed almost immediately, including from the United States on the 6th.

Since then, a cabinet of eight ministers has been appointed to implement the policies of the Revolutionary Command Council. Six of ministers, including Prime Minister Soliman Al Maghreby, are civilians, and the two military men are not members of the RCC. The new government has announced that Libya will not be renewing the leases on British and American air bases as they come due over the next two years. That means Wheelus Air Base will be closing down next year, but the base’s importance has declined over the last few years, and there had already been discussions with the previous government about the U.S. withdrawing from Libya.

Libya’s new Prime Minister, Soliman Al Maghreby.

A deep but dazzling darkness

We’re all still wondering what direction Ejler Jakobsson is going to take the magazines he helms. Based on this month’s IF along with the story Survival in last month’s issue, I’d say he likes stories with a darker tone, because, boy, is this issue full of dark stories.

This month’s cover depicts nothing in particular. Art by Gaughan

Happiness Is a Warm Spaceship, by James Tiptree, Jr.

Fresh out of command school, Lieutenant Quent expects a plum assignment. After all, he finished high in his class and his father is an admiral. Instead, he’s assigned to a mere patrol boat, one of the first with an integrated crew of humans and aliens. The lieutenant doesn’t—quite—share his father’s extreme prejudices, but he’s going to have to make a lot of adjustments.

Deathly ill, the captain has some advice for his first officer. Art uncredited

This was really good, right up until the last two or three pages. The ending felt a bit confused, and the story seems to be saying integration isn’t a good thing. It’s not really clear on the point, because the very end seems to contradict that. Nevertheless, Tiptree continues to improve. I may not necessarily like what I read, but it always seems to hold my interest.

A high three stars.

To Kill a World, by Irwin Ross

When his wife died, Colonel Ward crawled into a bottle. Now he’s desk-bound and in command of an air force base, while the arrival of his commanding general signals that his career is over. But the landing of an alien spaceship changes the trajectory of his life.

An alien invader, or is it? Art uncredited

Here’s our first dark story. Once the action gets going, it seems fairly obvious how things will turn out. But Ross takes his tale in a different, more poignant direction, and it is much the better for it.

Four stars.

Genemaster, by Barry Alan Weissman

Far, far in the future, Earth is forgotten, and humanity has been messing with its genes so long that nobody looks what we would call human. When proof is found that humans came from a single world, an aristocrat with a zoo hires the protagonist to provide him with an Original human.

If the previous story went somewhere unexpected, this one goes exactly where you think it will. It also gets to the punchline far too easily. The only thing this story has going for it is the narration, which is brisk and engaging. I’d call it Zelaznyesque if the first-person narrator were more sarcastic. That’s just enough to pull it over the three-star line for me; you might think otherwise.

Barely three stars.

For Sacred San Francisco, by Alfred Coppel

A century or so after World War III, men are a scarce resource that the women of the city-states of the shattered United States go to war for. Jere is a fighter pilot for San Francisco. She survives being shot down and encounters a wild man.

A San Franciscan gunner, not our protagonist. Art uncredited

Back to darkness, though I can’t say much about it without giving away the ending. The story stands on its own, but would probably work better as part of a novel. Many aspects of the world Coppel has created go unexamined, and the consequences of the conclusion could be far-reaching.

Three stars.

The Story of Our Earth: The Conquest of the Land, by Willy Ley

Having taken us through the formation of the Earth and the emergence of life, Ley shows us the Devonian period, when life first crawled onto land. Unfortunately, the fossil record for this period is scarce (most creatures were soft-bodied and didn’t fossilize well), so he spends most of the article talking about trilobites. I think a few lines may be missing at the end, because it is very abrupt, but what we have is interesting and engaging.

Three stars.

By Civilized Standards, by Neal Barrett, Jr.

Barrett offers us a first contact story in which humans and aliens struggle to find a point of commonality. Eventually, they think they found one, but how well do the humans really understand? And once again a very dark story that’s also well-written.

A high three stars.

The Seeds of Gonyl (Part 2 of 3), by Keith Laumer

In Part 1, Jeff Mallory woke to find that three months had passed, his town in the thrall of alien invaders, and his daughter Lori missing and forgotten. He escaped, joined up with Lori’s best friend Sally, and wound up drafted by Colonel Strang, who believes it is the Chinese who have conquered his town.

As the story picks up, he discovers Lori in Strang’s camp, but she is a true believer in the colonel’s vision. He and Sally attempt to kidnap her and things go wrong. Sally is shot and Jeff must flee on his own. Guided by memories that don’t seem to be his own, he comes to a large house, where he meets a very old man named Gonyl. The old man claims to be an alien and explains what’s going on. As the story ends, Jeff expresses disbelief and demands the truth. To be concluded.

Gonyl is not in good shape. Art uncredited

This is all fairly typical for Laumer in adventure mode. There are a lot of elements he’s used before: two aliens who have lived on Earth for centuries, an imminent threat they were originally sent to stop, a hero plagued by strange memories who may be connected to the aliens. Much of this feels like he’s just going through the motions, and a lot of the action has been episodic, not really advancing the plot (though he may wind up bringing it all together in the end). Right now, it’s average at best.

A low three stars.

Appropriate Punishment, by Theresa M. Treadway

This month’s new author tells the story of an old man facing judgment on the last night of his misspent life. It’s extremely well-written, but rather trite. Worse, the ending could be read as supporting a racist stereotype; that’s probably not intended, but it’s there.

Three stars.

Judgment night. Art uncredited but clearly signed by Gaughan

I’ve been wondering if Jakobsson would carry on with the IF first program. The issues under his leadership have all had a new author, but there was no acknowledgment of the fact. This time, there’s a note at the top of the first page of the story announcing “an IF first,” and the author bio makes its return (though somewhat insultingly never referring to Miss Treadway by name; I’ll put that down to poor editing for now).

Summing up

With this issue, IF begins to at least feel different from the Pohl years. Not significantly better or worse, but different in tone. It’s a gloomy issue, though looking at each story individually it’s not quite as dark as the overall impression I initially came away with. I don’t mind too much; the best story in the issue is also the darkest. But let’s not overdo it either.

Right now, my biggest complaint is that the art is all uncredited. It all appears to be by Jack Gaughan, who was on the masthead last month (there isn’t one this month) as Associate Art Director. Maybe that’s a fancy way of saying he’s doing all the interior art now. I hope not. I like Gaughan’s work, but I also like a bit of variety.

Looks like another of Dickson’s military stories. Those are often quite good.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 4, 1969] Plus ça change (October 1969 IF)

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by David Levinson

Silly season

It’s considered a truism in journalism that nothing happens in August, so the papers run filler stories about silly things to make up their page count. Sure, Hurricane Camille killed hundreds as it raged from Mississippi to Virginia, and China and the Soviet Union are on the brink of war, but that doesn’t sell papers. Madison Avenue also has a truism: sex sells. Now, the two have come together.

Newsday columnist Mike McGrady was disgusted by the schlocky, sex-obsessed books that regularly make the best-seller lists, so he recruited a bunch of fellow journalists (19 men and five women, by one count) to write a deliberately bad, oversexed book. The result is Naked Came the Stranger, in which the editors worked hard to remove any literary value from the tale of a New York woman’s sexual escapades.

When the book sold 20,000 copies, McGrady and his co-conspirators decided they’d better come clean. Nineteen of them appeared on The Dick Cavett Show, being introduced as Penelope Ashe (the book’s purported author) and walking out to the strains of A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody. As a result of their confession and discussion of their motives, the book has become even more popular. And as of last Sunday, it’s on the New York Times list of best-sellers. You have to laugh to keep from crying.

Penelope Ashe, in part, with the cover model superimposed.

This puts me in mind of a similar literary hoax with a more sfnal connection. Back in 1956, radio host Jean Shepherd was unhappy with the way best-seller lists were being compiled and urged his listeners to ask their local bookstores to order I, Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing. He offered some vague hints about the plot, and many listeners who were in on the joke created references to the book elsewhere. Demand was so high, publisher Ian Ballantine convinced Theodore Sturgeon to knock out a quick novel based on an outline from Shepherd. Betty Ballantine wrote the last chapter as Sturgeon lay in exhausted sleep on the Ballantines’ couch after trying to write the whole thing in one sitting. The cover by Frank Kelly Freas is full of visual jokes and puns. The book is rumored to have gone to number one, but it doesn’t seem to have been on any lists, probably out of pique on the part of the list makers.


The pub sign features a shepherd’s crook and a sturgeon. Art by Frank Kelly Freas

New and old

I think we’re starting to see some of the influence of new editor Ejler Jakobsson. Editor Emeritus Fred Pohl doesn’t seem have ever had anything nice to say about the New Wave, while there is at least one story in this month’s IF with a nod in that direction. There’s a new printer, with a crisper typeface (though it seems better suited to a news magazine than fiction). No one’s mixed up their e’s and o’s, but instead of lines being printed out of order, some lines are just missing. Hopefully, that will be corrected in future issues.

Supposedly for Seeds of Gonyl. If so, it’s from later in the novel. Art by Gaughan

The Mind Bomb, by Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert appears to have tried to write a Philip K. Dick story. There’s a computer that keeps changing the world in an attempt to carry out its function, an unhappy marriage, and an old man who gets a glimpse of why the world he lives in is the way it is.

Art uncredited, maybe by Gaughan

Unfortunately, none of it works. The lines of reality aren’t blurred; people know the computer is changing things, just not why. And the marriage isn’t as unrelievedly grim as in a Dick story (thank goodness). We’re left with none of the good things that either author brings, and the flaws of both.

Two stars.

By Right of Succession, by Barry Malzberg

A man named Carson shoots the occupant of a motorcade. As he leaves the building he fired from, he’s met by a policeman who escorts him to his next destination on a strict timetable. Eventually, all is explained. Sort of.

Is that Nixon? Art uncredited

Here’s our New Wave—or New Wave-ish—story. It’s fine for what it is, but I don’t quite see the connection between the events and the explanation.

Three stars.

None But I, by Piers Anthony

When last we saw him, interstellar dentist Dr. Dillingham had been accepted as an instructor at the galaxy’s top dental school. Now he’s off to cure the oral ills of a long-buried robot that has vowed to kill the person that frees it from 10,000 years of imprisonment.

Dr. Dillingham meets his patient. Art by Gaughan

Anthony is developing a reputation at the Journey, and not a good one. That’s largely down to the way he writes women. Fortunately, none of that is on display here, possibly because the only female character is a highly efficient secretary who looks like a giant spider. We’re left with an inoffensive and mildly entertaining story, whose only flaw is that it specifically makes note of the old tale it is clearly modeled on of a genie with a similar vow.

Three stars.

Survival, by Steven Guy Oliver

A day in the life of an old man living in the irradiated ruins of a city.

Ignore the blurb. These aren’t the last people on Earth. Art by Gaughan

This month’s new author offers us a grim tale of life after World War Three. It’s very well written, but also very depressing, what I believe kids these days call “a real downer.” I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing more from Oliver. But did I mention that the story is grim?

Three grim stars.

Down on the Farm, by W. Macfarlane

Three agricultural salespeople were brought from Earth to a distant planet. Now their contract is up, and the local autocrat who hired them struggles to find a way to pay what they’re due. Unbeknownst to him, they have ulterior motives.

Erasmus Ballod is having a bad day. Art by Gaughan

A bit old-fashioned, but otherwise an enjoyable enough story. Ask me what it was about a month from now, and I won’t be able to tell you, but it didn’t waste my time. For some reason, Macfarlane’s name was left off the first page; fortunately he was credited in the table of contents.

Three stars.

The Story of Our Earth: 2. The First Traces of Life, by Will Ley

The second part of Willy Ley’s sadly incomplete final book looks at the latest theories as to how life began. He discusses the idea of the “primordial ooze” and how and why it has fallen out of favor. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of continental drift.

While still very good, this chapter didn’t engage me quite as much as the previous did. I can’t say if that’s down to my interest in the subject matter or the quality of Ley’s treatment of it.

A very high three stars.

The Seeds of Gonyl (Part 1 of 3), by Keith Laumer

Jeff Mallory wakes up to discover that three months are missing, the house shows little sign of cleaning and maintenance, and his wife and two younger children are frightened and worn down. Worst of all, no one remembers his oldest daughter, and her room doesn’t even exist. He soon learns that the town has been taken over by things that are barely human, which force everyone to work on a mysterious project.

Remembering that his daughter was planning to stay with a friend who lives well outside of town, Jeff makes his escape. At the friend’s house, he finds only the friend and several unpleasant occupiers, who tell him that the United States has fallen to Russian forces and that his town is a bombed-out, plague-ridden ruin.

He and Sally, his daughter’s friend, move on and are arrested by Russian military. But the Russians are working together with Americans led by a Colonel Strang, who tells him that the Russians were called in to fight the real occupiers, the Chinese. As the installment ends, Jeff finds himself drafted into Strang’s army. To be continued.

Tonight, the role of Colonel Strang will be played by Ronald Reagan. Art by Gaughan

So far, so Laumer. He may be influenced by some of his work on those books he wrote based on The Invaders, what with people not believing in the invading aliens. Honestly, the main thing that stands out to me in this part is the way young Sally abruptly and quickly throws herself at our hero. Jeff put up at least a token resistance so far, though there is a vague paragraph that suggests things could be otherwise. It plays uncomfortably.

Three stars so far, if you like this sort of Laumer story.

To the Last Rite!, by Perry Chapdelaine

One-Girk-Two is undergoing a field test to see if he will be promoted to One-Girk-One. If he passes, he will become the thinking portion of a composite creature called a Unit.

Our hero. Art by Gaughan

This is probably the Chapdelaine story I’ve enjoyed the most. Unfortunately, like all of Chapdelaine’s work, it’s too long. On the other hand, it didn’t go where I thought it was going. Best of all, it has nothing to do with Spork.

Three stars.

Machines That Teach, by Frederik Pohl

Fred took a trip to Tennessee A. & I. In Nashville, where Perry Chapdelaine is a professor of mathematics and is running a lab researching computer aided instruction. There, through a computer in the lab, a computer at Stanford in California administered a test to measure competence in mathematics. Neat stuff, even if the headline is misleading. Maybe even more interesting is the simple fact that he was able to use a computer in Tennessee to interact with another computer a couple thousand miles away

Three stars.

Summing up

We’re starting to see some of the new editor’s influence, though things aren’t really that different. I’m wondering if Jakobsson is going to continue the IF first program, running a story from a new author every month. The issues he’s been in charge of have had such a story, but he hasn’t called attention to it the way Fred did.

The other thing that stands out to me is that the interior art is all uncredited. Where I’ve indicated it’s by Gaughan, it’s because his signature is visible either on the piece reproduced here or a different piece for the same story. I’m not too keen on all the art coming from just one artist (although if the alternative is “art” by Dan Adkins…). More importantly, they give out Hugos for art. If we don’t know who did it, how do we know who to nominate and vote for?

Tiptree is the only name that means anything to me. A bit of a coin flip as an author, but definitely improving with every story.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial, Uncategorized

[August 2, 1969] Specters of the past (September 1969 IF)

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by David Levinson

La guerra del fútbol

Land reform has been a major issue in Central America since not long after the War. Honduras passed a land reform law in 1962 to take land illegally occupied by immigrants and squatters and give it to Hondurans. Most of the immigrants who have been displaced are Salvadorans, many of whom held their land legally. Thousands have been uprooted and sent back to El Salvador. Tensions between the two nations are high.

The two countries have also been vying for a spot in next year’s soccer World Cup. They faced each other twice in June, with the home team winning each time. Both events were marred by riots and other unpleasant incidents. On the eve of the playoff match in Mexico City on June 26th, El Salvador severed diplomatic ties with Honduras, claiming 12,000 Salvadorans had been forced to flee Honduras while the government did nothing.

Early July saw various border skirmishes, largely involving violation of air space. Honduras asked the Organization of American States to step in, but the OAS largely just dithered. On the 12th, Honduras claimed to have killed four Salvadoran soldiers on Honduran territory, and the next day six Honduran civilians were injured during an exchange of mortar fire.

War began on the evening of the 14th, when the Salvadoran air force launched a bombing raid on Honduran airfields. That was followed up by a two-pronged ground invasion. The Honduran air force struck back the next day, destroying 20% of El Salvador’s fuel reserves, but quickly fell back to a defensive posture. After early successes by El Salvador, both sides stalled due to a shortage of ammunition.

Salvadoran President and General Fidel Sanchez Hernandez inspecting the troops.

The OAS stepped in quickly after the war began and formed a committee to oversee the negotiation of a ceasefire. They were successful and a ceasefire was announced the evening of the 18th, going into effect at midnight. The Salvadoran army was given 96 hours to withdraw, but as the deadline approached they announced they were staying. They would respect the ceasefire, but demanded the Honduran government guarantee the safety of Salvadorans living in Honduras (300,000 people by some accounts, over 10% of the population of Honduras), the payment of reparations, and the punishment of the anti-Salvadoran rioters. At the time of writing, they are still in place. (As we go to press, El Salvador has withdrawn in the face of threatened sanctions by the OAS.)

It’s been a strange little conflict. The extensive air war was fought without a single jet, mostly P-51 Mustangs and F4U Corsairs. We’re not likely to see that again. Some are calling it the 100 Hour War, the length of time from the first bombing raid to the announcement of the ceasefire. Others are calling it the Football War (that’s soccer to Americans, Canadians, and Australians), reflecting some of the language used to report on the June matches and their role in escalating tensions. Whatever history knows it as, let’s hope it’s over.

The bad old days

For unstated reasons, IF failed to appear last month. It’s pretty clear that this September issue was intended to be dated August. If you look at the cover, you can see that the old month was overprinted with a black bar, and the new month was added below.

A robot carrying off a fainting human woman. It’s not as old-fashioned as you might think. Art by Chaffee

Brood World Barbarian, by Perry A. Chapdelaine

In the far future, our unnamed protagonist is captured on a primitive human world and brought to civilization to fight in the arena. There, he rises to Grand Champion, makes his escape, vows revenge, and winds up learning things.

Our hero digs his way through a mountain. Art by Gaughan, but uncredited

Chapdelaine writes well, and this is one of his better stories, but there are some caveats. First, he has a tendency to be long-winded, though when a writer is paid by the word, that’s to be expected. More he importantly, he nearly always writes stories about Van Vogt-style supermen, and that’s just not my bag. I’m also bored with future gladiatorial combat to the death, even if there is a reason for it here. It’s become a tired cliche.

Three stars.

And So Say All of Us, by Bruce McAllister

Art by Gaughan, but uncredited

Speaking of tired cliches, Bruce McAllister offers us a story of trying to find mental powers among the mentally ill. You’ll see where this one is going pages before it gets there. I think my problem with McAllister is his tendency to hint vaguely at depth and then suggestively waggle his eyebrows Groucho-like until you get it. He needs to dig into the depth more. This story, for example, would make an interesting first chapter to a novel or (significantly pared down) the first part of a novella or novelette that explores the consequences. He could be good, but he needs to put in more effort.

Three stars, but towards the lower end.

The Posture of Prophecy, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Art uncredited

This month’s new author gives us a tale of aliens discussing the impossibility of life developing on what is obviously Earth. Not exactly a new idea, but it takes a not uninteresting, dark turn at the end. I wouldn’t mind seeing more from this author, though perhaps with a little more originality.

Three stars.

Robot 678, by E. Clayton McCarty

Another uncredited piece. The style is reminiscent of Gaughan, but isn’t signed.

A cantankerous old prospector, along with his antiquated robot, winds up as the administrator of a nearly empty planet, decides to bring the daughter-in-law and grandchildren he’s never seen to live with him, the kids get in trouble, and the titular robot saves the day. Not McCarty’s best work, though acceptable. But can we please stop looking at the antebellum South through rose-colored glasses? Replacing slaves with intelligent robots or supposedly barely intelligent aliens doesn’t make it better; it just dehumanizes the millions of Black people who were held in bondage. This is at least the third story in just the last month to play this game, and it needs to stop. I’m about ready for William Tecumseh Sherman to go marching through science fiction.

Barely three stars.

Star Seeder, by T.J. Bass

Humanity’s first probe of the Andromeda galaxy held the means to plant numerous human colonies through the use of human zygotes raised by computers. This rapid expansion is opposed and blocked by aliens known as Dregs to humanity and Symbiots to themselves, but they will allow one human to be aboard. Zuliani earns the right to be that person through his victory in the Procyon Games. Humanity may have a way to get around the Dreg ban.

Art uncredited, but both illustrations in the story are clearly by Gaughan, though unsigned.

Bass is a doctor, and his sophomore effort once again puts his medical knowledge to use, though less gruesomely than his debut. He writes very well, and if he can find the time to pursue the craft, he could be someone to watch. I was particularly impressed with the misdirection of the comparison between the highly competitive humans and the somewhat collectivist Symbiots. The story makes a very different and much better point than you might be expecting.

But once again, I find myself being put off by blood sports in the far future. The first round of the Procyon Games is a round-robin of all-out unarmed fights in which anything is allowed, including potentially lethal blows. The Competitors are able to heal themselves somewhat between bouts, but it’s about as effective as a boxer’s trainer using styptic pencil on a cut that will need stitches after a fight.

A slightly high three stars.

The Last True God, by Philip St. John

An expedition under religious authority is seeking proof of the 20,000 year-old legend of lost Earth. On a planet bombed back into primitive savagery 1,500 years ago, they find the locals worshiping what seems to be a long dead robot. Primitive doesn’t mean stupid, and appearances can be deceiving.

The scene from the cover again. Art uncredited, but could be Gaughan.

Here’s another hoary old theme from the pulp days, but it feels fairly modern (though not at all New Wave). I’m reasonably sure that St. John is a pseudonym for Lester del Rey; at least, a story that originally ran under that by-line appeared in a collection of del Rey stories a year or so ago. When he puts his mind to it, del Rey can write some very good stories. This is certainly in the upper half.

A high three stars.

The Story of Our Earth: 1. How Long Is the Past?, by Willy Ley

Willy Ley comes over from Galaxy to begin the promised series on the history of the planet. Here he discusses estimates of the age of the Earth, from the calculations of Rabbi Hillel and Bishop Ussher to to the most recent scientific proposals. Along the way, he also talks about how and when the various geologic ages were proposed. The difference between a work he has taken the time to polish thoroughly and something knocked out for his monthly column is clear.

Alas, Willy Ley died suddenly at the end of June, just as this issue was going to press. I suspect the delay in publication is the result of the editors dithering over what to do with the incomplete series. They’ve decided to run those installments which were already delivered.

Four stars.

Reading Room, by Lester del Rey

Normally, I wouldn’t cover a book review column, but this is a new feature for IF. When this was announced in the last issue, I wondered if we really needed another venue for reviews. What del Rey gives us is closer to critical analysis than reviews. More so even than the most incisive commentary from Judith Merrill. What this most reminded me of is the reviews Damon Knight used to do fifteen or twenty years and mined for his In Search of Wonder. If the column maintains this level of quality, it’s worth the loss of a story or two.

Not rated.

The Towns Must Roll (Part 2 of 2), by Mack Reynolds

The mobile town cum artists’ colony of New Woodstock is on its way to South America. Shortly after crossing into Mexico, town sheriff Bat Hardin ran into a conspiracy of locals unhappy with the influx of gringos. As this installment begins, Bat has warned the town of the threat, but they vote to continue. At first the threat seems empty, but after Bat lets his guard down, the town is lured into a trap.

The wagon train rolls into an ambush. Art by Gaughan

I enjoyed the first half of this story, but this half doesn’t live up to the promise. It’s fine, and the battle scene is good; there’s just not enough here to justify the length. The whole thing could have been told in two-thirds of the wordage or less. This is average Reynolds. There’s a hint we’ll see more of Bat in the future, and that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. This one just ran out steam along the way.

Three stars for this installment and the novel as a whole.

The Cosmic Philosophy of K.E. Tsiolkovsky, by Alexis N. Tsevetikov

Tsiolkovsky is the father of Russian rocketry and is usually mentioned alongside Robert Goddard and Hermann Oberth. He also dabbled in philosophy, developing ideas that had as much to do with mysticism as rationality. Those ideas have been suppressed by the Soviet state as anti-materialist. This precis of his thought makes him sound like your everyday saucer nut.

Two stars.

Summing up

We’ve all been wondering what the changes in ownership and editor at IF and Galaxy will mean for the magazines. While some of Fred Pohl’s fingerprints are on this issue, we may be getting a clearer picture. Ejler Jakobsson’s first editorial for the magazine tells us that “IF is the magazine of infinite Alternatives.” I guess that means the science will be a little less “hard” than in Galaxy, but that’s all right. The letter col is given over to a letter by Anne McCaffrey in her role as SFWA Secretary asking a number of pertinent questions, all of which Jakobsson answers.

Reading the tea leaves from this issue, there’s a lot of non-fiction in a magazine that used to be exclusively fiction. I’ve had my say about the new book column. If the rest of Will Ley’s (sadly incomplete) series is as good as the first part, I’m all for it. But we could have done without the article on Tsiolkovsky’s nonsense.

On the art front, the illustrations are of the usual quality, but only the cover is credited. Most or all of the pieces are by Jack Gaughan, who is now on the masthead as Associate Art Director. I hope that doesn’t mean he’ll be the exclusive interior artist. I like his work, but I also like some variety. Either way, credit your artists!

A final hopeful note: In a conversation in the Journey offices, my colleague Kris rated Super Science Stories as the best magazine of the early 50s. Jakobsson was the editor for that incarnation of the magazine. Fingers crossed he can replicate that feat for the early 70s.

Every one of these authors is a coin flip when it comes to quality.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 2, 1969] Merging streams (August 1969 Venture)

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by David Levinson

Joining the mainstream

Every Sunday, the New York Times publishes a list of the best selling books of the last week. It tends to be a mix of high-brow, literary novels and potboilers—especially spy thrillers—along with the occasional gothic romance and a mystery once in a blue moon. But to the best of my knowledge, it’s never had a science fiction novel prior to this year. As of the latest list, it has not one but two, both of which have been reviewed here at the Journey. There’s even a third that could be said to have sfnal elements if you stand on your head and squint a bit.

In its tenth week on the list and slipping one spot to number six is Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Of course, Vonnegut is none too happy about his work being labelled science fiction. Meanwhile, Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain hit the list for the first time in eighth place. The potential third novel is Vladimir Nabokov’s Ada, or Ardor, which seems to be set on an Earth exactly like ours with a slightly different history or on a counter-Earth on the other side of the sun. Other than that, there doesn’t seem to be much science fiction in the plot, so I’m not really inclined to include it.

Does this mean our beloved genre has finally hit the big time? Probably not. As I said, Vonnegut doesn’t want to associate with us, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Crichton thinks of his book as a thriller. (I could be wrong, but that’s how it’s being marketed.) 2001 did all right at the box office, but was panned by critics (including some SF critics). Star Trek has been canceled, leaving Land of the Giants—a show so bad it makes Lost in Space look smart—the closest thing to SF on television. But just maybe the boundaries are weakening, even if we wind up having to sneak in the back door with those who won’t acknowledge us.

Sophomore or sophomoric?

The second issue of Mercury Publishing’s second attempt at Venture SF is on the stands. How is it? Well, before we crack it open, let’s look at the outside.

More geometric shapes and color washes. Art by Bert Tanner

If the last issue could be mistaken for a horror magazine, this one could easily be taken for a mystery. That’s probably the eye. Dell used to use an eye looking through a keyhole as the logo for their mysteries (and maybe still do; it’s been a while since I bought one), and this is very reminiscent of that. The best thing about the outside of the magazine continues to be the title logo.

The League of Grey-eyed Women, by Julius Fast

Diagnosed with terminal cancer, a desperate Jack Freeman will grasp at any straw. A Canadian doctor has had some small success injecting rats with artificial DNA, but his studies are nowhere close to being ready for human experimentation, no matter how much Jack begs. His beautiful, pale-eyed assistant, however, is willing to bend the rules, since she and the many women with gray eyes she knows have their own agenda. The treatment may cure Jack’s cancer, but it may kill him in other ways. It will certainly change his life.

This confused mess makes sense if you’ve read the book. Art by Bert Tanner

If the name Julius Fast sounds familiar, you may have read one of his well-received mysteries or one of his non-fiction books such as the one on Human Sexual Response by Masters and Johnson or last year’s book about the Beatles. (That or you’re thinking of Howard Fast, who wrote Spartacus, among many other things.) He’s not a complete stranger to SF, so he doesn’t make a lot of the mistakes that many mainstream authors do when trying to write our stuff.

That said, there are parts that don’t hold up if you think about them too hard. Some of those may be better propped up by things that were cut from this condensed version; others make no sense at all. Still, the narrative pulls the reader along, even despite Jack being a fairly unpleasant person early on. There’s enough here to make it worth reading, but you might want to see if your local library has a copy rather than spending your own money.

A solid three stars. The complete novel may come in a little higher, but probably not enough for another star.

With Ah! Bright Wings, by Edward Wellan

Pollution seems to be in the news more every day. In the last two weeks alone, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire (and not for the first time) and a pesticide spill in the Rhine caused a state of emergency in West Germany and the Netherlands. What if there’s more behind it than just industrialization and a lack of concern by the government and the companies producing most of the pollution? It’s an old theme in SF, but Wellan has come up with a moderately new twist. Unfortunately, the telling is as dry and dusty as the two UN bureaucrats who are the story’s protagonists.

A high two stars.

Bradbury on Screen: A Saga Perseverance, by F.E. Edwards

It’s no secret that Ray Bradbury loves the movies. He’s written a few, and several of his stories have been adapted for the big screen, but many more have never made it into or out of production. Those that do have not served the source material well. This article follows the career of Bradbury and his work in Hollywood. Interesting but inconsequential.

Three stars.

Dragon in the Land, by Dean R, Koontz

Over the years, the focus of the military has shifted to biological warfare. A virus escaped from a Chinese lab and is so devastating it brought down the Communist government. The American doctor heading the Analysis and Immunization team that is part of the military intervention in the country must struggle with his own sense of inadequacy, which stems from growing up in the shadow of his Nobel laureate father.

Plumbing the depths of the bombed-out lab. Art uncredited

Imagine if The Andromeda Strain had ended badly and someone had to enter the ruins of the lab to find the original team’s notes; that’s the action of this story in a nutshell. I don’t think Koontz has cribbed from Crichton. The timing of the two stories makes that nearly impossible, but it implies that both men have done their homework.

I keep saying that Koontz is getting close to breaking through. This might be it. It’s certainly the best thing he’s written so far. If he can maintain this level of depth and quality, he’s going to be a big name.

Four stars.

Project Amnion, by Larry Eisenberg

A story in the style of a magazine article on efforts to teach children in the womb, it ignores countless aspects of human physiological development, not just in the brain, but the whole body. Eisenberg has apparently never met a baby. The nicest thing I can say bout this one is that at least it’s not an Emmett Duckworth story.

A low two stars.

Pithecanthropus Astralis, by Robert F. Young

A caveman questions the wisdom of the elders and breaks the rules. While this piece lacks the saccharine romantic elements that have often led me to complain about Young (who has been largely silent in the last few years), it also lacks the positive elements that his past stories have had.

Two stars.

Summing up

Elsewhere in the issue, there’s a weak Feghoot and a word scramble to see how well you know your -ologies. The condensed novel is decent, and there’s one other good story, but the rest is trivial to terrible. The cover is bad and not designed to sell the magazine, and there still isn’t much in the way of promotion over in F&SF. If things don’t turn around soon, this incarnation of Venture isn’t even going to last as long as the 10 issues of the first go-round. Let’s hope things improve in the fall.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 2, 1969] The ever-whirling wheel (July 1969 IF)

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by David Levinson

A change is gonna come

Regular readers of Galactic Journey or of SF magazines in general may have noticed that neither Galaxy nor IF published last month. With a bit of detective work, I’ve put together what happened.

The clues are on the masthead. Editor Fred Pohl is now listed as Editor Emeritus, while the editor is Ejler Jakobsson. The publisher is no longer Robert M. Guinn, but Arnold E. Abramson, and Galaxy Publishing has been replaced by Universal Publishing. (That last worried me for a moment, but I quickly remembered that Amazing and Fantastic are put out by Ultimate Publishing under Sol Cohen.)

There’s also an editorial from Fred, talking about the changes. Most importantly, he’s stepping back to focus more on writing. That and the fact that he’s sticking around to look over the new editor’s shoulder (Fred’s words) for a while suggests his departure is voluntary and doesn’t suggest any misgivings about the new ownership on his part. Plus, we should be getting new stuff from him more often.

Who is Ejler Jakobsson? He had a few horror stories back in the late 30s, cowritten with his wife Edith, but if his name sounds familiar, it’s most likely because he was the editor for the revival of Super Science Stories from 1949-1951. Coincidentally, that magazine had been edited by Fred Pohl before it was shut down by wartime paper shortages.

What changes can we expect? Fred prefers to let us see them as they happen, but the promo for next month hints at some. IF is getting a book review column by Lester del Rey. That may or may not mean the end of his “If… and When” column. We’re also getting a twelve part series by Willy Ley, “The Story of Our Earth.” That might suggest some changes over at Galaxy.

Of course, the biggest question is what sort of stories Jakobsson will buy. It will be a while before we get a good feel for that, since there’s bound to be a backlog of stories selected by Pohl. It took several months for the Fermans over at Fantasy and Science Fiction to change the course set by Avram Davidson, but Ted White has wrestled Amazing and Fantastic into a new direction almost immediately. We’ll see, but we should have a good idea by the time we start the new decade.

A bang or a whimper?

Since this is the last issue under Fred Pohl’s leadership, it’s fair to ask what sort of note he goes out on. Will he put out a strong issue, go out on a high note and remind us why this magazine has won three straight Hugos? Or will it be utterly awful and make us glad he’s gone? Not to ruin the suspense, but the July issue is really just another typical, middle-of-the-road example. There’s some good stuff and some not so good. Let’s start with the cover.

Art credited only as couresy of Three Lions, Inc. but actually by German artist Johnny Bruck.

You may recall that the last issue had a similar uncredited cover that Robert Bloch apparently used for his story Groovyland. Once again we have a Johnny Bruck cover, originally for Perry Rhodan #102, which an American author has used for inspiration. This time Keith Laumer has come up with a story much more clearly based on the art than Bloch’s was. I’m not keen on this trend, though it’s slightly better than what they do over at Amazing and Fantastic.

Here’s the original art by Johnny Bruck.

The Towns Must Roll (Part 1 of 2), by Mack Reynolds

Long-time readers of Mack Reynolds’s work will be familiar with his stories of People’s Capitalism. That appears to be giving way to what he calls the Meritocracy. The biggest difference so far is the replacement of every citizen’s ten shares of Inalienable Basic with a Negative Income Tax.

In Mack’s latest novel, the NIT enables people to pick up and move to places anywhere in the world where the cost of living is lower. They often gather in rolling towns that consist of mobile homes that make the fanciest Airstream trailer look like a pup tent. Our protagonist is Bat Hardin, a man of mixed race who provides police services to a town on its way to South America. After crossing into Mexico, the town encounters unexpected hostility from the locals, including credible threats of extreme violence. Meanwhile, Bat’s authority in the town is being threatened by an extremely racist, newer resident. To be concluded.

Bat has been kidnapped to deliver a message: Gringos go home. Art by Gaughan

This is typical Reynolds of the better sort. He’s not just rehashing the same tired plot points, and while there’s the usual lectures on history and economics, they’re reasonably concise and to the point. Mack is quicker to point out the flaws in the system, but also subtler than usual. As a man who thinks he has no future in the Meritocracy because an Army test rated his IQ as 93, Bat is an interesting character, though he seems much brighter than that; we’ll see if whether that will be relevant to the plot or just Reynolds not being able to write someone of low average intelligence. Plus, we’ve got a tense situation. I look forward to seeing how this all plays out.

A solid three stars.

On the Dead Star, by Jack L. Austin

An explorer aboard a one-man scout, with only the ship’s computer intelligence for company, discovers an impossible structure on the surface of a Black Dwarf.

This month’s new author gets off to a good start. The writing was sound and the situation intriguing. Unfortunately, Austin loses his way. The story just goes on too long; it could easily have been half the length. As is often the case in such tales, the conclusion winds up being rushed. It doesn’t come out of nowhere, but the whole thing wraps up in a couple of paragraphs, with the action taking place off-screen. It could be better, but Austin is only 20 and has room to grow. I’ll give him a chance.

A low three stars.

Autohuman 14, by Bruce McAllister

This story of policeman Grabe Massel is hard to summarize without giving away the big mid-point revelation (though you’ll probably see it coming). Let’s just say he has a very close relationship with his car.

There’s probably a really good story to be told with this set-up, but I’m not sure this is it. There’s some excellent writing here, particularly the use of engine noise, but it also feels like there’s a barrier that dulls the impact of the narrative on the reader. Still, it may be the best thing McAllister has written. He may finally be getting close to a breakthrough.

Three stars.

Spork Conquers Civilization, by Perry Chapdelaine

Tarzan… er, Spork is back. This time he and the Ayor travel to a human-occupied planet and deal with an evil dictator. Along with the mix of A.E. van Vogt and Edgar Rice Burroughs that the previous stories have offered, this one has a large dollop of Doc Smith. There’s probably more to come, since Spork appears to be Lord Greystoke… er, a lost prince, but I’m not looking forward to seeing any of it.

Barely three stars.

Spork and an Ayor. Art by Reese

Authorgraphs: An Interview with Robert Bloch

In this month’s interview, Robert Bloch talks about discovering science fiction, learning his trade with the Milwaukee Fictioneers, particularly Stanley Weinbaum, and making ends meet during the Depression. I would have liked a few words about his relationship with H.P. Lovecraft, but it’s a good interview overall.

Three stars.

Portrait by Gaughan

The Half Man, by Keith Laumer

Long cut off from the rest of humanity, the planet Meries is being considered for reintegration into the human community. At some point in the past, the people and domestic animals of the planet became acquatic through genetic manipulation. Part of the team assessing the planet is Gon, the son of an itinerant trader and a local woman. Gon was raised on Earth and is having trouble making contact with the locals. He finally does so on the last day of the mission.

Gon has an encounter with a descendant of Earth dogs gone wild. Art by Barr

Keith Laumer tends to write stories that are either meant as humorous satire or two-fisted Competent Man adventures. Once in a while, though, he writes something deep and thoughtful. This is one of those rare occasions, despite the fact that it was written based on art created for another story in another language. Actually, it’s probably weaker for using that Johnny Bruck cover as the climax of the story. Still, it’s one of Laumer’s better pieces.

A high three stars.

A Day for Dying, by Charles Nuetzel

Charles Travers is arrested on false charges of treason and condemned to participate in the Tele-Games. His odds of survival are practically nil.

Nuetzel is unknown to me, but he’s apparently sold a few stories to a minor publisher and the semi-pro zine Spaceway. This story is fine, but nothing special. There’s a sting in the tail, but it doesn’t bite as hard as I think Nuetzel wanted it to.

Three stars.

If… and When, by Lester del Rey

How common is life in the universe? That’s a question that has had many answers over the years. Del Rey looks at those answers and how they’ve changed, along with the experiments and scientific findings that have caused those changes.

Four stars.

Where the Beast Runs, by Dean R. Koontz

Three hunters go after a creature that has killed several other groups just as experienced as they are. One of them will also have to confront a traumatic experience from his childhood.

The beast reflects Andy’s trauma back at him. Art by Adkins

With a few changes, this could have been a straight adventure set in Africa or South America. Like Bruce McAllister, Koontz shows a lot of promise, but never quite crosses the threshhold to being really good. He keeps getting close and does so here, but doesn’t quite get there.

Three stars.

Summing up

There it is. The last IF that is fully Fred Pohl’s. There’s nothing spectacularly good, but nothing spectacularly bad. As for the future under Ejler Jakobsson, we’ll have to wait and see. I’ll miss If… and When if it gets dropped for another book column. There’s also no letter column this month, but that might be to make space for some longer pieces as well as be an artifact of Pohl’s departure from the big chair. We are getting a new issue of Worlds of Fantasy in a few months. Let’s just hope that for IF and Galaxy all this, to paraphrase President Kennedy, symbolizes a beginning as well as an end, “signifying renewal as well as change.”

A sign of the changes to come. At least the Chapdelaine doesn’t look like more Spork.




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[April 12, 1969] A New Venture (May 1969 Venture)

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by David Levinson

History lesson

Way back in 1956, Joseph Ferman was the owner of Mercury Publishing, which produced several magazines, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He believed there was a place in the crowded SF market for a new magazine. The genre was changing; space opera was out, problem stories and stories with a narrower focus were in. The closure of Planet Stories the previous year meant no one was running SF with a hint of adventure and excitement. Joe decided to fill that gap, and a new magazine was born.

The first issue of Venture Science Fiction was dated January 1957 (which means it hit the stands in November or December of 1956). The editor was Robert P. Mills, who was the managing editor over at F&SF under Tony Boucher, with Boucher listed as the advisory editor. The cover by Ed Emshwiller went to a Poul Anderson Psychotechnic League story, Virgin Planet, later expanded to a novel of the same name. Other stories included a science fiction mystery by Isaac Asimov (The Dust of Death) and a controversial Ted Sturgeon tale (The Girl Had Guts), which allegedly made some readers physically ill.

The issue also had a note from the publisher, explaining what he hoped the magazine would be. Every story would have to be well told, and every story had to have “pace, power, and excitement.” But those things also wouldn’t take the place of character and sense.

Venture came out regularly every other month for 10 issues, but it never stood out in a crowded market. There were plenty of big-name authors, and you might recognize a story or two, but none were big stories that will be remembered as classics. This is where Asimov’s science essays ran before moving to F&SF. The magazine may be best remembered as the place that Sturgeon’s Law was first proposed in full: “Ninety percent of everything is crud,” along with its two corollaries.

The first and last covers for the first run of Venture. Art in both by Ed Emshwiller

What happened? It’s hard to say, but it has been suggested some of the content was too much for the times. There was more gore and sex than was considered acceptable, but which would fit right in today. As a result, new readers may have been put off, and old readers may have decided to go elsewhere. The chaos in the magazine market following the collapse of American News Distribution, which held a near monopoly on magazine distribution, in mid-1957 can’t have helped matters. In any case, the final issue was dated July 1958.

“Wait,” I hear our British and Australian readers say, “wasn’t there a magazine by that name in the early ’60s?” There was! The British version of Venture ran from September 1963 to December 1965. It carried reprints from the American edition of F&SF, even though that magazine also had a British version. The Australian edition was identical, just dated two months later, folding in February 1966.

Another try at the brass ring

The Fermans père et fils have decided to give Venture another try. Maybe they should have told someone. Galaxy Publishing has launched a few new magazines in the last few years, and they always made a big deal of it in their other mags several months in advance. Beyond a very small notice in last month’s F&SF, I haven’t heard a thing about it. Seems like a questionable marketing strategy.

Ed Ferman will be editing Venture as well as F&SF, but since it’s going to be quarterly, it shouldn’t be too much extra work. Along with stories, there’s a book review column by Ron Goulart. A particularly biting review column; Ron doesn’t seem to like much. Presumably, this will be a regular feature.

Another apparent recurring feature (it is, at least, listed as a “department” along with the book reviews) is the return of Ferdinand Feghoot. Feghoots, for the uninitiated, are very short – usually around half a page – stories ending in a pun. They ran in F&SF for a time, up until a few years ago, and the Traveler generally left them out of his reviews. Since puns may be the most subjective form of humor and it will be nearly impossible to cover them without giving away the joke, I will maintain this policy. Should they disappear, I will mention it. At the very least, they tend to be considerably better than the atrocious Benedict Breadfruit stories that appeared in Amazing several years ago.

Let’s take a look at this maiden issue.

This singularly unattractive cover is by Bert Tanner.

Before we get to the stories, we need to talk about this cover. At first glance, I thought this was a coffin and a bat, so I assumed it was a horror mag and moved on. It was only when I went back a second time that I realized it was what I was looking for. Cover art should grab the eye and make you want to pick it up. That’s especially true for a new magazine that’s had essentially no advertising. This does none of that. I do like the logo, though.

Hour of the Horde, by Gordon R. Dickson

One day, the sun turns red, and a spaceship the size of Rhode Island appears in orbit around the Earth. Two apparently human beings appear, claiming to be from the center of the galaxy. They bear warning of the approach of a threat which will wipe the galaxy almost clean of life. Earth will be allowed to provide one person to aid in the defense against the threat. The person they choose is graduate art student Miles Vander.

Vander is searching for the creative equivalent of “hysterical strength,” the sort of thing that allows a small woman to lift a car to rescue her trapped child. He is changed by the aliens so that he can draw on the rest of humanity for a poorly explained resource and perhaps pass it on to the Center Aliens. What he finds when he reaches the Battle Line is less than encouraging.

I have no idea what’s going on here, but it’s almost the only art in the issue. Art by Bert Tanner

If I’d been handed this without a byline, I’d have said it was by Dickson once I got to the military stuff, so if you’re familiar with his work, you should have some idea what you’ll think of this. Much as in the recent Wolfling, the story goes on too long after the climax in order for Dickson to wax philosophic for a while. Otherwise, it was pretty good.

According to my sources, this “complete novel” has actually been condensed. It hasn’t suffered too much from the Reader’s Digest treatment. A few things might make a bit more sense, but they’re not really necessary to enjoy the story.

Three stars.

July 24, 1970, by K.M. O’Donnell

It’s no secret that K.M. O’Donnell is Barry Malzberg, who was briefly the editor of Amazing and Fantastic. This story was probably inspired by his time there. It’s in the form of a letter from an editor to a writer, gently trying to dissuade the author from submitting the story without rejecting it outright. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, which the story actually calls attention to, and doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s told pretty well.

Three stars.

The New Science, by Don Thompson

Four grad students attempt to use the university computer to tease out the valid aspects of witchcraft, in the same way that alchemy led to chemistry. There are unintended consequences. Like the previous story, there’s nothing new here, but it’s told reasonably well.

Three stars.

Troubling of a Star, by Bryce Walton

After searching 10,000 worlds without finding a trace of life, an expedition plans to go home. The captain is reluctant, but has little choice. With the rest of the crew already in suspended animation, he makes a discovery.

This story is far too long and is overwrought. I have no idea what the author wanted to say, and much of it doesn’t make sense.

Two stars.

The Topic for the Evening, by Daphne Castell

A married couple discuss local events and some of the women in town. The husband oversteps his bounds.

Yet another tale covering well-trod ground, but told well enough. I liked this better, though, when it was Gladys’s Gregory or Conjure Wife.

A low three stars.

Nine P.M., Pacific Daylight Time, by Ronald S. Bonn

Maybe the reason no time traveler has ever appeared is that no one has built a receiver. A “Mad Scientist” has now done so and invites a prominent science writer to be there when he powers it up. He may not have thought this through all the way.

Old ground again, but quite well told.

A high three stars.

Hold Your Fire!, by Larry Eisenberg

Eisenberg came up with brilliant and obnoxious chemist Emmett Duckworth back in 1967 and probably should have left him there. But with a story both here and in Galaxy this month, it looks like we’re in for more not very funny stories. In this one, Duckworth is annoyed by the sounds of a rifle competition on campus.

Two stars.

Summing up

Is there room for another SF magazine in the current market? Maybe, though the failure of Worlds of Tomorrow and the intermittent at best appearances of International Science Fiction and Worlds of Fantasy argue against it. If Venture is going to be successful in its second incarnation, it’s going to need a couple of things.

The first is promotion. An easily missed, three line announcement in F&SF isn’t going to cut it. The three magazines I mentioned in the previous paragraph were all heavily promoted in IF and Galaxy in both editorials and half-page ads for several months before they hit the newsstands. Another aspect of promotion is an eye-catching cover. The art on this issue is terrible. As I said, I was looking for this magazine and almost missed it. F&SF doesn’t have interior illustrations, but the covers are usually quite good.

The other important aspect is standing out. Especially for a quarterly, you need people talking about your magazine. Running a (condensed) novel might work if it’s really good. Hour of the Horde is decent, but it’s not going to generate word of mouth. A really outstanding story (or a really controversial one) would also work. The retreads in this issue, no matter how well-told, don’t cut the mustard.

We’ll see how things look this summer when the next issue is due.




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[April 6, 1969] The Weight of History (May 1969 IF)

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by David Levinson

A simmering conflict

There’s trouble brewing in the east. The border between the Soviet Union and China has long been a point of contention, going back over 100 years when the Czars imposed a border treaty on a weakened imperial China. All the socialist brotherhood in the world wasn’t enough to fix the problem in the post-War years (admittedly, the Nationalist government complicated things), and things haven’t gotten better since the Sino-Soviet split.

An agreement was almost reached 1964, but some impolitic comments by Mao got out and prompted Khrushchev to block the deal. Sino-Soviet relations got very tense during the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia last summer, and the Chinese have been poking at the border, seemingly trying to get the Soviets to overreact.

The chief hot spot has been a small island in the Ussuri river claimed by both sides. Called Chenpao by the Chinese and Damansky by the Russians, it’s only 0.29 square miles; that’s a little over 185 acres or 17.5 American football fields. On March 2nd, a Chinese force surprised (or ambushed, depending on who you ask) a Soviet force on the island. After fierce fighting, both sides declared victory and withdrew. On the 15th, the Chinese shelled the island, pushing the Soviets back, but the afternoon saw a Soviet counterattack with tanks and mechanized infantry, which drove the Chinese off the island. The next day, the Soviets returned to recover their dead, which the Chinese allowed, but when they tried to recover a disabled T-62 tank (one of their newer models) the day after that, they were driven off by Chinese artillery. On the 21st, the Soviets sent a demolition team to destroy the tank, but the Chinese drove them back and recovered the tank themselves.

A map showing the location of Chenpao/Damansky Island

China is reportedly ignoring diplomatic overtures by the Soviets, and the situation remains tense. There are signs that China is preparing for a potential invasion by the Soviets, but the U.S.S.R. seems less inclined to escalate. It’s easy enough to want to sit back and watch a couple of powers hostile to the West fight, but both sides have the Bomb, and even a limited nuclear exchange could have severe consequences for the northern hemisphere.

Chinese soldiers pose with their captured Russian tank

Confronting the past

Though set in the future, most of the stories in this month’s IF have characters dealing with the events of the past. Or even experiencing them. But first a word about the art.

The cover illustrates Groovyland and is credited as courtesy of Three Lions, Inc., but see below

From what I can find out, Three Lions is a photo agency. If you want a picture of a boy eating ice cream or someone famous (they have a large collection of JFK photos from before he ran for president), they’ll license one to you. Apparently, they’re branching out into art. This is a reasonable illustration for the Bloch story in this issue, and I suspect Bloch used it as inspiration for his story. However, it was originally done by Johnny Bruck for the German magazine Perry Rhodan #216. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Bruck’s work has been repurposed many times as cover art for Amazing and Fantastic. I hope Galaxy Publishing isn’t going down the same road.

Here’s the original art by Johnny Bruck.

Groovyland, by Robert Bloch

An out of work screenwriter runs into a young woman at the employment office who offers him a place to stay. On the way back to her place, they hit a little green man, who says he’s here to conquer the world.  When they find out he can replicate any song he hears once, including harmonies and instruments, they and their housemates offer to help him. Things kick off at the titular Groovyland, a theme park in the desert west of Los Angeles. Unfortunately, everybody has their own agenda.

The entrance to one of Groovyland’s main attractions. Art by Gaughan

Humor is subjective, and I said in the teaser last month that I find Bloch’s humor to be hit or miss. Never before have I read a story, even a much shorter story than this, where almost every paragraph expects a rimshot. And the paragraphs that don’t want a rimshot are more than made up for by those that want multiple rimshots. Some of the satire works, a couple of the band names are mildly amusing, and there’s a decent story in there somewhere, but it’s all drowned out by jokes that deserve a chorus of boos and a hail of rotten vegetables.

Barely three stars.

If… and When, by Lester del Rey

This month, del Rey looks at the way the growth of scientific knowledge has gradually depopulated the science fiction solar system. In doing so, he also looks at the sort of things life needs to flourish, not just air and water, but energy as well. Luckily, it’s almost certain that life exists somewhere in the galaxy.

Three stars.

Mad Ship, by C.C. MacApp

Aboard a generation ship on its way to a distant star, something went horribly wrong (as things tend to in science fiction stories) and the personalities of various crew members that had been transcribed in to the ship’s computers fought a war among themselves. The people of Sinus B only have contact with the personality of Captain Gerlik who is mad, but keeps them alive. Now Pryboy Thorp finds himself making a perilous journey to the Nose Cone, for what reason he isn’t sure.

Pry makes a mad dash past a pairbot under the mad captain’s control. Art by Fedak

MacApp is a pretty good writer, and stories like this make me regret all the time he wasted on those awful Gree stories (some of which actually weren’t bad, and there weren’t anywhere near as many of them as loom in my memory). This is one of his better tales. Its biggest flaw is the description of the ship; I never felt like I understood how things were laid out. However, that doesn’t detract much from the enjoyment of the story.

A high three stars, falling just short of four.

Spork and the Beast, by Perry Chapdelaine

Spork is a human raised among the alien Ayor, whom he guided to a new way of living in the previous story. The crash of a ship bearing other humans leads to the Ayor exploring their solar system and encountering a grave danger on one of the inner planets.

Spork and one of the Ayor have lost their ship. Art by Reese

The adventures of Spork continue, and it looks like there’s more coming. The comparison to Tarzan is inevitable, but it’s Tarzan written by A.E. van Vogt in one of his more esoteric moods. If that sounds interesting to you, you might enjoy it. Unfortunately, neither of those things appeals to me very much, the combination even less so.

A low three stars.

Destroyer, by Robert Weinberg

The Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride again, and Destruction is their fifth. Or is that an illusion created to keep the mind of a man implanted into a killing machine sane and functioning?

Making his first professional sale, Bob Weinberg is an active fan with a special interest in the pulps. You may have encountered the reader’s guides he created last year for the works of Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. His freshman effort feels more like Zelazny than the pulps, but there’s a bit of Howard woven in there, too. It’s a good start, and I look forward to more from him.

A high three stars.

Toys of Tamisan (Part 2 of 2), by Andre Norton

In Part 1, dreamer Tamisan took Lord Starrex and his cousin Kas into a dream based on an alternative version of the history of their world. Unable to break the dream without both companions, she found Starrex, but now Kas is not where they expected to find him. She will have to enter a dream within a dream, in the hope of getting them all home.

Starrex fights to keep Tamisan safe while she tries to break the dream. Art by Adkins

I said last month that I’m not a fan of this kind of story, and this didn’t do anything to change my mind. It’s not Norton; give me some Time Traders or the Solar Queen, and I’ll happily read it. Even so, this is objectively not one of her better works. It’s never made clear whether they’re in a dream or have slipped into a parallel world, and the answer to that question has a big effect on the meaning of the ending. At least, apart from that issue, Norton writes well and entertainingly.

A low three stars.

Authorgraphs: An Interview with Lester del Rey

This month’s interview must have been easy to get, since del Rey is right there in the office. He expounds on his career, science fiction in general, critics, TV and movies. But Lester, you’re too young to be such a curmudgeon.

Three stars.

Portrait by Gaughan

Summing up

IF continues rolling down the middle of the road. Even that’s shaky. The three longest pieces are a low three stars at best. At least we got a good, if not great, MacApp story and a very promising new writer, if he’s not another one-shot wonder as so many of the IF firsts have been.

A new Reynolds novel could go either way, but that title invites comparisons to Heinlein.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[March 2, 1969] Dreams and reality (April 1969 IF)

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by David Levinson

A different kind of colonialism

When the Indian subcontinent gained independence, the Muslim and Hindu regions went their separate ways, contrary to the hopes of Gandhi. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced, and there have been several conflicts between India and Pakistan over the border. But there is another problem which is beginning to make itself felt.

There are two Muslim regions of the subcontinent separated by India, and so Pakistan is split into East and West Pakistan—but unlike East and West Germany, they are a united country. The west comprises the Punjab and points west to Afghanistan, while the east is made up of eastern Bengal and the Ganges delta. West Pakistan holds a majority of the population and almost all of the political power.

East Pakistanis have felt increasingly marginalized in the twenty-two years since independence. As an example, the only official language is the western Urdu, which uses the Arabic script, while Bengali, with its own script and long literary history, is ignored. Civil unrest in the east has grown, led by the Awami League under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. They aren’t asking for full independence, merely autonomy with Pakistan becoming a federation of two nations with joint defense and foreign policy.

President Ayub Khan’s rule is becoming increasingly shaky. It is widely believed that the 1965 election was fraudulent and he actually lost. The military now supports Zulifikar Ali Bhutto, and there have been massive student protests in the last couple of years. Ayub Khan thought he had a way to regain support, but it seems to have blown up in his face.

Ayub Khan greets LBJ in Karachi in 1967.

In January of last year, the government announced they had uncovered a plot for the secession of East Pakistan with the help of India. Over a thousand people were arrested, among them Sheikh Mujib. Originally, the plan was for a court-martial, but President Khan later opted for an open trial, perhaps thinking he could move public opinion his way before next year’s elections. As a result, the number of accused was reduced to 36.

The trial was set to begin in Dacca on February 6th, but public unrest resulted in a delay. Then on the 15th, Sergeant Zahurul Haq was shot and killed in his prison cell. When word got out, East Pakistan exploded. The rioters tried to set fire to the State Guest House where the judges and chief prosecutor were staying. The officials escaped, but some of the evidence was destroyed. A week later, the government dropped all charges, and the prisoners were released.

It’s a huge embarrassment for Ayub Khan, and it’s hard to see how he survives this politically. Meanwhile, Sheikh Mujib and the Awami League are riding high. Let’s hope that a peaceful resolution can be found.

Sheikh Mujib (center) emerges from prison.

Science fantasy

And now, this month's first magazine, featuring (like the Pakistans) a single entity with two names—Worlds of IF and Worlds of Tomorrow.

Once upon a time, the term science fantasy was another name for science fiction. These days, it usually refers to work that combines elements of both science fiction and fantasy. Spaceships and magic, that sort of thing. This month’s IF runs strongly in that direction, starting with a new serial from one of that movement’s most prominent authors.

Like I said, swords and spaceships. Art by Adkins

Toys of Tamisan (Part 1 of 2), by Andre Norton

At the urging of his cousin Kas, Lord Starrex buys Tamisan, a powerful action dreamer. Seeking to craft a dream that will impress a former adventurer, she hits on the idea of setting her creation in a place where the history of their city and world turned out differently. Before she can finalize her plans, Starrex demands her services, and Tamisan learns that both he and Kas will be sharing this dream, which has never been done before. The dream appears to be all too real, and Tamisan discovers that she can’t break out of it unless both of the other dreamers are with her. She finds Starrex, but Kas seems to be aboard the approaching spaceship. To be continued.

A spaceship approaches to meet a different welcome than it actually did. Art by Adkins

As you might expect from Norton, this is a well-written adventure, but it’s just not my cup of tea. The mix of science fiction and fantasy is similar to her Witch World books, and I haven’t really enjoyed those. The casual acceptance of Tamisan’s slavery—even if it’s not called that—is also very off-putting.

Three stars for now, but those who like this kind of thing might rate it higher.

Starbright, by E.G. Von Wald

Starbrights are gemstones that take ambient light and emit a color characteristic to the individual stone as long as the wavelength of the stone’s light is longer than that it takes in. Gem collector Sean Macnessa has come to the Aldebaran system, following a rumor of seven rare red starbrights. His search will involve him with local politics, a missing princess, and a Golden Ruberg.

The story is a trifling adventure tale, but it’s fun. It’s not overly long, the humor works, and the reader is given just enough information to work out the solution.

A solid three stars.

A Report on the Sixth International SF Film Festival, by Luigi Cozzi

What it says on the tin: a quick rundown of the festival held in Trieste, Italy. 2001 was naturally a big hit and the only film we covered here at the Journey. The big winner, though, was the British film The Sorcerers, which took awards for the film and its stars, Catherine Lacey and Boris Karloff (who died at the beginning of February).

Three stars.

That Season, by Lawrence Mayer

Humans are rare, maybe unique, among mammals in that they don’t have mating seasons in which females go into heat and males compete violently for access. But what if that changed? That’s the question new author Mayer asks, looking at the events right before, during, and immediately after one season a few generations after such a change. I’m not sure I agree with his conclusions—once could even argue he presents a best-case scenario—but he tells it well, particularly in exposition provided by showing us things rather than “As you know, Bob” conversations.

Three stars.

Spork of the Ayor, by Perry Chapdelaine

Expectations can have a large effect on how you feel about what you read. Where I grew up, “spork” was a humorous name for a spoon with tines on the end (spoon+fork=spork), so I was expecting a farce. Instead, Chapdelaine gives us a straightforward tale of a human raised among intelligent beings not of his kind, who must use his innate human skills to save his adoptive people.

Spork learns to use direct action against the Tepen. Art by Reese

From that picture and the title, you can probably tell that this is basically Tarzan, just with aliens and mental powers. It’s fairly typical of other Chapdelaine stories I’ve read: decently written, but much too long. From the loose threads at the end, it looks like we’ll be getting more. Unfortunately, I’ve never been a fan of Tarzan.

A low three stars.

If… and When, by Lester del Rey

This month, del Rey looks at the brain and sleep. He starts with electronarcosis, which may be able to cure insomnia and treat schizophrenia. He then discusses the idea of recording dreams and playing them back for others. Lester is making good use of his time in the Galaxy Publishing office. This is the third month in a row in which his article has directly referenced a story in the current issue of either IF or Galaxy. I like it; it gives the article a bit of extra relevance to the reader.

Three stars.

The Light Bearer, by William M. Lee

Pete Coghill is a biochemist with a knack for finding flaws in other people’s research. It hasn’t made him many friends, but management loves him. After accidentally dosing himself an LSD derivative, he has a strange encounter with a prominent scientist. It changes his life for the better, but he will have to pay for it one day.

This story isn’t what it looks like, or what Pete thinks it is. It’s actually quite fun and turns the whole concept on its head.

A high three stars.

Authorgraphs: An Interview with Jack Williamson

An interesting interview with an interesting man. Some of that’s down to the life he’s led so far, but some of it probably due to his being a university lecturer who knows how to engage his audience. This is the first time the interview has been with someone who isn’t in the issue, which contrasts with what I said about the del Rey article.

Jack Williamson. Art by Gaughan

Four stars.

Tourists Welcome, by Roger Deeley

The sleepy British town of Maxcombe Parva has been hit with a spate of car thefts in one night. Police sergeant Slocombe wonders if local poacher and con man Geoff Rye might know something. It’s not his style, but he has been known to sell tourists something he doesn’t actually own.

An amusing little tale, though it takes a dark turn right at the end.

Three stars.

Retief, the Long-Awaited Master, by Keith Laumer

The diplomatic mission Retief is on runs afoul of the Groaci, and it’s up to him to save everybody’s career and reputation. I’m going to keep a copy of that sentence on file; it will save time when reviewing the next Retief story.

Retief and Magnan meet the locals. Art by Gaughan

When this story was teased last month, I wondered if enough time had passed for it to feel fresh. The answer is no. Laumer isn’t just going through the motions, the way he was a few years ago, but these are all stamped out by the same cookie cutter. Only the frosting is different.

Three stars, but only recommended if you’re new to the series or are a really big fan.

Summing up

This is a typical middle-of-the-road issue. Rather than rehashing what I usually say at the end of theses articles, let’s talk about art. There’s not much of it, with only three stories being illustrated. No one seems to have paid much attention to it during layout either. The piece reproduced here for “Toys of Tamisan” ran on page 93 for “Spork,” and the piece reproduced here for that story ran on page 27 for “Tamisan.” You’d think somebody would have noticed that even the robots are posed much too naturally and dynamically to have been drawn by Adkins. The magazine really needs to do better with its art.

Bloch could be good or bad. His humor is hit or miss.




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