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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[January 8, 1969] Young Punks and Old Fogies (February 1969 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

I Heard It Through The Grapevine

I trust that singer Martin Gaye will forgive me for stealing the title of his current smash hit, which has been at the top of the American pop music charts since last month, and shows no signs of disappearing soon. (Gladys Knight and the Pips had a big hit with it not much more than a year ago, too.)


He's what's happening.

The reason for my musical theft is that certain information about the authors of the stories in the latest issue of Fantastic reached me through informal channels.

Open your ears, for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumor speaks?
— Henry IV, Part 2

I'll explain when the time comes. Meanwhile, let's take a look at a very mixed bag indeed.

Catch A Wave

(OK, I'll apologize to the Beach Boys as well.)


Cover art by William Baker.

Wow! A new piece of art on the cover. The grapevine tells me editor Barry N. Malzberg is shaking things up at Fantastic.

The editorial by Robert Silverberg, the magazine's new associate editor (so long, former-editor-turned-associate-editor Harry Harrison), makes the case that there's plenty of room in the world of imaginative fiction for both Old Wave and New Wave. Hear, hear.

This issue, which contains ten new stories as well as four reprints, should prove an excellent test case for his thesis. We've got old-fashioned yarns as well as experimental works.

First of all is a new tale from an author who bridges the gap between the opposing Waves. (Don't try to tell me his 1950 story Coming Attraction isn't a Dangerous Vision!)

Richmond, Late September, by Fritz Leiber


Illustration by Bill Baker.

Near the end of his life, Edgar Allan Poe encounters a mysterious, beautiful woman with whom he becomes obsessed. Their conversation suggests that Poe has a premonition of the coming American Civil War. The conclusion hints at the woman's true identity.

As you'd expect, this is elegantly written. Leiber obviously knows and loves the works of fellow fantasist Poe. The story is full of references to Poe's tales and poems. (Some might say too many.) The denouement is nicely subtle.

It's not a major piece (calling it Fritz Leiber's Greatest Short Story in the table of contents is hardly accurate) but well worth reading. High three stars or low four stars? I'm prejudiced in favor of both Poe and Leiber, so let's go on the high end.

Four stars.

Any Heads at Home?, by David R. Bunch

Hollywood used to call actor/director Erich von Stroheim The Man You Love To Hate, because of his many villainous screen roles. The controversial works of David R. Bunch, back when the magazine was edited by Cele Goldsmith (later Cele Lalli), made him The Writer You Love To Hate in the eyes of many conservative readers. He's back in form here.

The insane narrator (shades of Poe!) relates how he took the head of his dead, filthy rich boss out of his grave so he could kick it around. A visit from the police isn't the only thing he should worry about.

The bare bones (pun intended) of the plot make it sound like an ordinary horror story. What makes it unusual is the author's unique style. His familiar quirks are here. Certain words are printed in ALL CAPITALS, often with EXCLAMATION POINTS! Bunch uses hyphens to create new words like leather-cloppy and stone-feather. The whole thing seems to be written in a frenzy.

Whether you like this stuff or not is a matter of taste. I think it's fairly effective.

Three stars.

Bathe Your Bearings in Blood!, by Clifford D. Simak

After that bit of New Wave, we go back to the Old. This story from one of the greats comes from the December 1950 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by James B. Settles.

A newspaper man finds out his alarm clock and watch are both an hour fast. Just an odd coincidence? Maybe, but then there's the guy who calls the newspaper to report a sewing machine moving down the street by itself. Not to mention the rat-like machines hiding in the newspaper office, and the fact that the protagonist's typewriter prints out messages to him.


Illustration by Leo Summers.

The grapevine tells me this story has already been reprinted quite a few times, under the less melodramatic title Skirmish. The premise may remind you of the Twilight Zone episode A Thing About Machines. It's not bad, but it stops right at a dramatic moment, leaving things unresolved.

Three stars.

Back we go to new stuff; no less than half a dozen brief yarns before it's reprint time again. (Note that these six stories lack any illustrations. Maybe most of the art budget was blown on the cover.)

All in the Game, by Edward Y. Breese

An unscrupulous fellow finds himself in an extremely luxurious afterlife. His every desire is satisfied. There's a twist.

Sound familiar? Then you've seen another episode of Twilight Zone, namely A Nice Place to Visit. At least Simak has the excuse that he came first!

Two stars.

The Castle on the Crag, by P. G. Wyal

The previous story was new, but very traditionally narrated. This one is not. It starts like a satiric fairy tale (we're told that a princess is a White Liberal, and thus values poverty above all else) but then it jumps forward multiple centuries at a time, in several brief sections of text. A tree grows out of the dead body of the princess, an abbey is built on the ruins of her castle, etc. It builds up to a modern horror.

The point seems to be that nothing is permanent. This is a strange, dark story with a couple of remarks about religion that may raise some eyebrows. Not exactly pleasant reading, but interesting.

Three stars.

The Major Incitement to Riot, by K. M. O'Donnell

The grapevine tells me K. M. O'Donnell is actually editor Barry N. Malzberg. This surreal yarn consists of multiple conflicting versions of what caused violence to break out during the display of the gigantic death mask of a deceased official.

Weird stuff. Don't ask me what it means. The image of the huge mask is haunting, if nothing else.

Two stars.

The Life of the Stripe, by Piers Anthony

The army is running out of the stripes they use to designate rank. A sergeant is busted down to buck private so his can be reused. After his death, everybody who wears the stripe comes to a bad end. Is there a way to end the curse?

Not much to this beyond the premise. As military satire, it's not exactly Catch-22.

Two stars.

Slice of Universe, by James R. Sallis

As far as I can tell, this story involves a couple of aliens who speak in a complicated, song-like manner because they have multiple tongues. Their starship is operated, in some manner or other, by self-pitying, homesick birds. They explore the universe to its very end.

That's a very poor synopsis, because this piece is more of a dream-like prose poem than anything else. As such, I found it intriguing, if a little confusing. The aliens are really alien, that's for sure.

Three stars.

Reason for Honor, by Robert Hoskins

After World War Three, a couple of soldiers are the only ones left out of their unit. They see enemy troops approach. The encounter leads to an ironic conclusion.

Pretty grim stuff. Effective enough for what it is.

Three stars.

The Closed Door, by Kendall Foster Crossen

Back to reprints. This one comes from the August/September issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Gaylord Walker.

The grapevine tells me that the author's first name, despite the way it is spelled in the original magazine and in this reprint, is actually supposed to be Kendell. Gotta watch those vowels.


Illustrations uncredited.

Anyway, what we have here is a futuristic locked room mystery. The detective even mentions Gideon Fell, a fictional solver of such mysteries created by author John Dickson Carr.


Whodunit?

A humanoid alien is murdered in his hotel room, despite the fact that the door can only be locked or unlocked by his hand. Does a torn piece of paper bearing the letters COO hold the key to the crime?

Boy, this is a lousy story. It fails as science fiction and as a mystery. The solution depends on things the reader can't possibly know. Give me Lije Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw any day in the week.

One star.

The Origin of Species, by Jody Scott Wood

We interrupt our reprints for a couple of new pieces. (Again, no illustrations.)

Less than a page long, this one takes the form of a tirade by a tree-dwelling ape against those radicals who are walking on the ground and doing other outrageous stuff.

A satire about the previous generation (Old Wave?) complaining about those darn kids nowadays (New Wave?), I suppose. Whatever.

Two stars.

Grounds for Divorce, by Robert S. Phillips

A man goes to a lawyer asking to divorce his wife. It seems the fellow isn't satisfied with his sex life, compared to the images he sees of the old days.

You'll probably see the twist coming a mile away. A mildly Dangerous Vision.

Two stars.

This Planet for Sale, by Ralph Sholto

The pages of the July 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures supply this space opera.


Cover art by Walter Popp.

A couple of guys are in their spaceship, smuggling valuable cargo. Meanwhile, a father and daughter are in another spaceship. The two vessels run into an invisible planet that made its way into the solar system.


Illustration by Ernie Barth.

The daughter (in true science fiction fashion, this young adult woman is always called a girl) gets captured by the bad guy. The smuggler-turned-hero rescues her.

It all has something to do with the bad guy's plan to wipe out the indigenous population of the invisible planet and transport it somewhere else, in order to sell it to aliens. The bad guy also wants to do the same thing to Earth.

Pretty bad stuff. Nonsensical science, thud-and-blunder action. The nature of the smuggled cargo (kept concealed from the reader) solves everybody's problems (expect the bad guy, of course.)

One star.

The Day After Eternity, by Lawrence Chandler.

Another action/adventure yarn, this time from the February 1955 issue of the magazine.


Cover art by Henry Sharp.

The grapevine tells me that Lawrence Chandler was a house name (pseudonym shared by more than one writer.) Might be Howard Browne, might be Henry Slesar, might be somebody else. The grapevine doesn't know everything.


Illustration by Paul Lundy.

Another wandering planet comes into the solar system. This one seems to be stealing Earth's water. (Forget that. It has nothing to do with the plot.) Our manly hero and his manly buddies, plus a whole bunch of cannon fodder from other planets, set out to defeat the thing.

A telepathic psychiatrist comes along, because she's figured out that the planet is actually stealing minds. The cover illustration, for which the story was probably written, depicts a scene in which one of the buddies, who loves old cars, gets tricked by an illusion and blown up.

(At this point, I was reminded of Ray Bradbury's 1948 story Mars is Heaven!, which is much better.)

Everybody gets killed except the hero and the (ahem) girl. They bicker at first, but of course they wind up in love.

Two rotten old stories in a row. This one adds insult to injury by emphasizing the fact that the psychiatrist is old-fashioned because she doesn't expose her breasts.

One star.

Sour Grapes

There were some real stinkers in this issue, particularly the reprints from lesser known writers. Not all the new stuff was worthy either.

The grapevine tells me that Malzberg isn't happy with the magazine's reprint policy. Did he deliberately choose losers to make his point? The rumor mill also suggests that he won't be around long.

There were some decent stories here — it's hard to throw fourteen darts and not hit the target sometimes — but you might want to spend some time watching an old movie on TV instead.


This one is pretty good.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 10, 1967] Give 'Em Hell, Harry! (January 1968 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

There'll Be Some Changes Made

According to a story that may be apocryphal, somebody in the crowd shouted the phrase I'm using for the title of this article during one of Harry Truman's campaign speeches. True or not, we'll see how it relates to a major change in Fantastic magazine. Just to build up the suspense, however, let me digress and talk about another big change.

A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss

The British rock 'n' roll band known as the Rolling Stones, famous for gritty blues-driven music, went in a different direction recently. The new album Their Satanic Majesty's Request, released just a couple of days ago in both the UK and the USA, is full of the surrealism and dreamy psychedelic tunes to be found in the Beatles' groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.


Even the cover looks similar. Note that lack of words. If you don't know who these guys are, you must not be a fan.

I don't know if this album represents the future of the Stones, or if they did it just to gather some green (and I don't mean moss.) At least the groovy song She's a Rainbow is worth a listen while you stare at your lava lamp.

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun

With a new editor at the helm of Fantastic, there are certain to be changes coming, although it may take a while. The mills of the publishing world grind slowly, to be sure, so the latest issue probably doesn't yet reflect the taste of the current boss. If nothing else, however, it's got two new stories instead of the usual one. Thank goodness for small favors.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

One change that hasn't yet happened is using new cover art. This issue recycles the back cover of the July 1945 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Please excuse the faded, wrinkled, beat-up copy of the old magazine I had to use. Twenty-odd years haven't been kind to it. At least you can see the two big suns at the top and not just the two little ones to the side.

When Brahma Wakes, by Fritz Leiber


Illustration by Jeff Jones.

The fellow depicted above is none other than God. The God of the Bible, indeed, but also all the other deities. He hasn't checked on His creation for a while, and it seems to have been messed up by the Adversary, so he gets ready to take a look.

This version of the Almighty seems like a weary old man, wandering around His shabby surroundings, not sure what He should be doing. If you don't mind this kind of literary blasphemy, the main problem you'll have with this story is the fact that it comes to a dead stop when it becomes most interesting.

God never does take a look at things down below. It's almost like the first chapter of a much longer work.

Leiber is incapable of writing a bad sentence, of course, so it's not painful to read. I just wish there were more of it.

Three stars.

A Darkness in My Soul, by Dean R. Koontz


Also by Jones.

A fledgling writer — he's only had a couple of stories published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, both this year — offers this disturbing vision of the future.

After a quarter of a century and countless failures, a project to create superhuman beings has produced only two successes, if you can call them that. One is the main character, a outwardly normal man but with telepathic powers. The other is much more grotesque, a being that looks like a child with the face of a very old man. The latter is immensely intelligent, but his scientific discoveries are buried deep in his subconscious. The telepath dives into his mind in order to dig out vital information.

There's a lot more to the story than that. We've got the protagonist's Freudian sessions with a computer therapist, revealing the meaning of his dreams. The main character has a relationship with a woman who writes scandalous books. The author uses typographic tricks and symbolic fantasy sequences, adding more than a touch of New Wave writing. There's one heck of an ending.

The author displays great skill at creating an eerie mood. Maybe he should try writing out-and-out horror stories instead of creepy science fiction. In any case, this complex nightmare of neurosis shows great ambition for a newcomer.

Four stars.

Reservation Deferred, by John Wyndham

From the May/June 1953 issue of the magazine comes this wry tale of the afterlife.


Cover art by W. T. Mars.

A teenage girl is dying. She's not at all upset about this, because she's absolutely certain she's going to enjoy the bliss of Heaven. For some reason, the ghost of a slightly older woman appears.


Illustration by Charles J. Berger.

The dead woman has taken a peek at the various paradises created by men, and she doesn't much care for them. This changes the dying girl's attitude.

This featherweight jape has a pleasing feminist aspect to it. (Despite the fact that the ghost is wearing only a brassiere and underpants.) Like the Leiber and the Koontz, it may raise the hackles of folks who take their religious faith very seriously.

Three stars.

The Metal Doom (Part 2 of 2), by David H. Keller, M. D.

As I mentioned last time, this serialized novel first appeared in three issues of Amazing Stories back in 1932. Dig through the archives if you want to see the covers of those old magazines.


Illustration by Leo Morey.

Last time we saw how civilization fell apart when all metals dissolved into dust. Some folks set up strongholds in the country, where they could defend themselves against packs of desperate criminals.

This half of the novel wanders around quite a bit. One sequence involves a group of female physicians and other professionals living on their own. As soon as one of the male characters meets them, you know we're going to have a love story. You may not predict the fact that it involves a tiger.

In the most bizarre plot development, a horde of Tartars shows up, and we get a big battle scene. There's an explanation, of sorts, for how these landlocked nomadic warriors wound up in New England. The way the good guys defeat the bad guys is implausible, to say the least.

Eventually, our heroes figure out how to turn the dust back into metal. You'd think somebody would have discovered the secret long before, but what do I know. Interestingly, the main motivation for producing small amounts of metal is to make surgical instruments so childbirth isn't so dangerous for mother and baby.

The author seems to believe that city life is inherently corrosive to the human spirit, and suggests that society was ready to fall apart even if metal things hadn't crumbled away. I'm not convinced.

Overall, I didn't find the development of the apocalyptic premise as interesting as its introduction.

Two stars.

Undersea Guardians, by Ray Bradbury

This early work from a writer who is now something of a household name comes from the December 1944 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by James B. Settles.

A handful of the people killed when a German submarine destroyed their passenger ship turn into water-breathing ghosts or zombies, for lack of a better word. They spend their non-lives preventing Nazi subs from attacking Allied ships.


Illustration by Arnold Kohn.

This is something more than just wartime propaganda, although there's certainly some of that. The undead characters have their own motives and personalities. The most interesting are two women, one of whom is out for revenge, gleefully killing Germans, the other trying to protect the man she loves, who is sailing on a convoy.

We don't get much of the Bradbury touch, love it or hate it, with the exception of a few metaphors here and there. If I hadn't see the author's name, I never would have suspected it was his work.

Three stars.

They Fly So High, by Ross Rocklynne

This outer space yarn comes from the pages of the June 1952 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Walter Popp.

A spaceman holds a Mad Scientist prisoner aboard his vessel. The taunting genius has already rigged the ship to blow up, so the two of them go flying off towards Jupiter in their spacesuits.


Illustration by David Stone.

What follows is a strange odyssey on the surface (more or less) of the giant planet, and a change in the relationship between the two characters.

This is an odd story. It combines melodramatic space opera, vistas of a bizarre environment, and philosophical dialogues. I suppose the author is trying to say something about human thinking while telling a rattling good yarn, but much of its meaning escapes me.

Two stars.

The Sex Opposite, by Theodore Sturgeon

This tale of love, death, and biology comes from the Fall 1952 issue of the magazine.


Cover art by Leo Summers.

The plot begins in gruesome fashion, as a couple are murdered by street thugs. A coroner (male) reveals the weird thing about the bodies to a reporter (female). (I mention their sexes because it's relevant to the story.)

The two victims are Siamese twins, bound together at the chest. (You may have already guessed that this isn't quite true.) When an eerie, inhuman scream draws the protagonists out of the building, somebody destroys the bodies in a blazing fire.


Also by David Stone.

The coroner meets a woman with whom he shares an intimate but nonsexual evening. The reporter has the same kind of encounter with a man, but we only get to hear about it second-hand. What does this have to do with the bodies? And why should the reader run to the dictionary and look up the various definitions of the word syzygy?

This is an intriguing work that always keeps the reader's interest. It's a mystery, a romance, and good science fiction to boot. Maybe you should stir in a touch of horror as well. In any case, it's a solid work from one of the masters.

Four stars.

Never Go Back, by Charles V. De Vet

The magazine finishes with this time travel story, reprinted from the August/September 1953 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Gaylord Welker.

A guy goes back in time to prevent a childhood friend from drowning. The weird thing is that there's no sign of his own younger self, and even his mother denies such a child exists. When he returns to his own time, the scientist he worked with claims he never saw him before. What the heck is going on?


Illustration by Ernie Barth.

The author makes up some pretty weird rules about time travel. I have to admit they're unique, even if they don't make a lot of sense to me. The ending is gruesome enough for any horror fan.

Two stars.

I'm Just Wild About Harry

That's an overstatement, although I am hopeful that the new editor will bring some freshness to a magazine that has been dragging its feet for a while. This issue doesn't show any evidence of a major shift in policy yet. Time will tell. Meanwhile, just having double the usual amount of new fiction is enough to make me want to be kind to small animals.


I can't tell you anything about this drawing, which follows the Sturgeon story, except that it doesn't appear with the original publication of that work. It's probably a reprint from somewhere, but I have no evidence for that one way or another.



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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 16, 1967] The Generation Gap (May 1967 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Youth is Wasted on the Young

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
— attributed to Socrates

It's no secret that young people are rejecting many of the opinions of their elders these days. That's always been true to some extent, of course. However, with the hippie culture, the civil rights movement, and antiwar protests, all of which mostly involve young adults, the gap between the generations seems wider than ever.

In particular, once heavy bombing of North Vietnam began a couple of years ago (Operation Rolling Thunder, still going on intermittently), college students, led by such organizations as Students for a Democratic Society, started demonstrating against the war. On April 17, 1965, somewhere between fifteen thousand and twenty-five thousand people showed up at the nation's capital, in the largest protest to date.


SDS members and others during the March on Washington, almost exactly two years ago.

There have been many other protests since then, both in the United States and other nations. I don't mean to imply that these demonstrations consist entirely of young people, but they do seem to make up the majority of peace activists.

Just yesterday, thousands appeared at massive protests against the conflict in Vietnam in major cities across the United States. In New York City, well over one hundred young men burned their draft cards, followed by a speech by civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., at the United Nations.


The crowd fills Kazar stadium in San Francisco.

What does the parallel escalation of America's involvement in the war and the rejection of it by many young adults and their elders mean for the immediate future of the United States?  It's hard to say, but things look dark.  Just as the struggle for civil rights sometimes looks like a second Civil War, complete with bloodshed, the battle between Hawks and Doves threatens to tear the country apart along political lines.  Let's hope the nation is never as divided as it seems to be now.

Music to Argue With Your Parents or Children By

The tension between generations shows up in popular culture as well. A fine example of this happened recently. From late March until the middle of April, a cheerful little tune from the young folks who call themselves The Turtles was at the top of the American music charts. Happy Together is a great favorite of teenagers, I believe.


I like the part near the end, when the frequently repeated title changes to How is the weather.

Mom and Dad are likely to prefer the song that replaced it as Number One this week. Veteran crooner Frank Sinatra, assisted by daughter Nancy, currently has the nation's biggest hit with the much more traditional number Somethin' Stupid.


I'll refrain from commenting on the propriety of having father and daughter sing a love song together.

Catch a Wave

Not even speculative fiction escapes the conflict between generations. The so-called New Wave movement within the field, primarily in the United Kingdom, offers experimental, controversial, and sometimes incomprehensible stories to readers. The latest issue of Fantastic, a magazine which has been rather stodgy since it went to a policy of containing mostly reprints, mixes a bit of New Wave with plenty of Old Wave stuff.


Cover art by Malcolm Smith.

As usual, the cover reprints art from an old magazine. In this case, it's from the back cover of the July 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


The original looks a lot better.

The Ant with the Human Soul (Part One of Two), by Bob Olsen


Cover art by Leo Morey.

The whole of this Old Wave, pre-Campbell novella appeared in full in the Spring-Summer 1932 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly. I guess Fantastic didn't want to devote most of the magazine to it.


Illustrations by Morey also.

The narrator tries to kill himself by jumping into the ocean, but a scientist rescues him. The scientist suggests a bizarre scheme. He has a gizmo that can increase or decrease the size of anything, even living creatures. He combines that with neurosurgery in order to perform a weird experiment.

First, he'll increase an ant to the size of a human being. After that, he'll put a part of the narrator's brain into the ant's head. When he shrinks the ant back down to normal size, the narrator will experience everything the ant does, and will be able to control the ant's actions. In essence, he will become the ant.

After the strange transformation takes place, the narrator takes us on a guided tour of life in an ant colony. This first part ends with a cliffhanger, promising the reader that a violent event is about to occur.


Mad Science!

This is an odd story, not only because of the outrageous premise. The mood varies wildly. Some sections deal with the narrator's loss of religious faith, which drove him to attempt suicide. Others are very lighthearted, with playful banter between the two characters. The best part of it is the description of life as an ant, which is depicted in vivid, accurate detail.

Three stars, mostly for taking me into the ant colony.

The Thinking Seat, by Peter Tate


Cover art by Keith Roberts, better known to me as a writer.

The magazine calls this a new novelette, which is a half-truth. It's new to American readers, but it appeared in the November 1966 issue of the British publication New Worlds. My esteemed colleague Mark Yon reviewed it at that time, but let's take another look.


Illustration by Gray Morrow, which is the only truly new thing in the magazine.

The setting is the seacoast of California in the near future. The rugged shore has been replaced with artificial beaches of a tamer nature. The water is warmer, due to the discharge from a nuclear power plant. (I also got the impression that it made the water thicker, almost gelatinous, but I may be wrong about that. This New Wave story isn't always clear.)

A man and a woman with a strange relationship show up at a beatnik colony. She'd like to be more intimate with the fellow, but he doesn't seem interested. Instead, he becomes fascinated by a charismatic poet, who openly announces that he's going to take the woman away from the other man. Things come to a climax during an attempt to sabotage the nuclear power plant, as a way of protesting what it's done to the coast.

I have probably greatly simplified and distorted the plot, because this isn't the easiest story to understand. The narrative often stops to offer examples of obscure poetry, which adds more ambiguity. (Apparently the poet steals phrases from the Beat poets, but I don't know enough about their work to confirm that.)

I got the impression that this example of the Eternal Triangle, which ends badly, was really a case of repressed homosexuality. That's a theme you won't find in most Old Wave science fiction, to be sure. The whole thing works better as a study of the psychology of the three main characters rather than as science fiction.

Three stars, mostly for keeping me wondering about things.

A Way of Thinking, by Theodore Sturgeon


Cover art by Art Sussman.

The October-November 1953 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this supernatural chiller from the pen of one of the field's greatest stylists.


Illustration by Ernest Schroeder.

The narrator is a writer of science fiction and fantasy, who even mentions his work appearing in Amazing, so I assume it's a fictional version of the author. He tells us about an acquaintance who reacts to problems in unusual ways, often by thinking about things backwards. The fellow's brother is dying a slow, horrible death. The suggestion arises that it might have something to do a doll owned by the dying man's vengeful ex-girlfriend. The brother deals with the situation in his usual unorthodox manner.

This synopsis makes the story sound like a typical tale of voodoo, but that's misleading. I don't want to give too much away, but the plot goes in unexpected directions, and the climax is truly disturbing. Of course, given the author, it's very well written. It's not his most ambitious work, to be sure, but it succeeds as a horror story.

Three stars, mostly for the shocking conclusion.

The Pin, by Robert Bloch


Cover art by Mel Hunter.

From the December-January 1953-1954 issue of Amazing Stories comes another tale of terror.


Illustration by Lee Teaford.

An artist looking for a cheap studio comes across an abandoned loft. It's supposed to be empty, but there's a guy inside, surrounded by a huge pile of telephone books, directories, and so forth. The fellow stabs at random names in the books with a pin.

You may have already figured out that the pin causes the death of those whose names are selected. (The premise reminds me of Ray Bradbury's 1943 story The Scythe, as well as the 1958 movie I Bury the Living.) There aren't a lot of surprises in the plot, but it's an effective little thriller.

Three stars, mostly for creating an eerie mood.

Cold Green Eye, by Jack Williamson


Cover art by Richard Powers.

The March-April 1953 issue of the magazine offers yet another spooky tale. In its original appearance, it was called The Cold Green Eye. Don't ask me why they left out the first word.


Illustration by Ernie Barth.

The child of a pair of daring explorers is raised by Buddhist monks after his parents die in a mountaineering accident. He's adopted by an aunt back in the United States. She's a harsh disciplinarian, punishing the boy for what she thinks of as his heathenish ways. In particular, she hates flies and kills them whenever she can, while the child believes in reincarnation and that all living creatures should be protected. Things get strange when the kid uses the sacred scroll he has in his possession.

There's a good chance you'll see the ending coming, although it still raises goose bumps. What's more surprising is that the cruel aunt is a devout Christian, in contrast to the boy's gentle Buddhism. I didn't expect that from an American horror story from more than a decade ago. Maybe the author just thought it made for a good story, and wasn't really trying to say anything about the two faiths.

Three stars, mostly for aunt's comeuppance.

Hok Draws the Bow, by Manly Wade Wellman


Cover art by C. L. Hartman.

Here's a sequel to a story that was reprinted in the previous issue of Fantastic. It comes from the May 1940 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustrations by Robert Fuqua.

Once again our hero is Hok, a Homo sapiens fighting a war of extermination against sinister, cannibalistic Neanderthals. (It's best to forget about this story's version of prehistory and just think of it as a sword-and-sorcery yarn.) A fellow shows up bragging about his ability to project a spear farther than anybody else. That's because he's got a leather strap that he winds around it, sending it spinning.

The boastful man also has plan to take over Hok's clan, and he's particularly interested in Hok's pretty mate. He's made himself a god-like ruler over the Neanderthals, even teaching them basic military tactics. It looks like Hok's people will be wiped out, but our hero combines the man's strap and a throwing stick used by the Neanderthals to create a secret weapon.


That doesn't keep him from being captured. Fortunately, his mate has a throwing arm Sandy Koufax might envy.

The title and the opening illustration give away the fact that this story is about Hok inventing the bow and arrow. Other than that, it's an efficient adventure story.

Three stars, mostly for keeping things moving quickly.

Beside Still Waters, by Robert Sheckley


Illustration by Virgil Finlay.

The same issue as the Sturgeon story is the source of this tale. A spaceman lives on an asteroid, turning rock into soil that can grow crops and extracting oxygen from minerals. His only companion is a robot. The machine starts off only able to speak a few phrases, but over time the man teaches it to converse more fully. The story ends with a scene that tries to touch the reader's emotions.

The fact that the man can live on the surface of an asteroid unprotected, even if he somehow produces oxygen and food, is ludicrous. (Not to mention the fact that the asteroid's tiny gravity is going to send the oxygen out into space quickly.) The ending takes the plot into pure fantasy. An author best known for his wit tries to be sentimental here, and the result is bathetic.

Two stars, mostly for the excellent illustration.

Bridging the Gap

That was mostly a middle-of-the-road issue, coming to a sudden halt at the end. Maybe there's something to be said for mediocrity. If nothing else, both young and old can agree that the Old Wave and the New Wave have their ups and downs.


The late President Kennedy closes the generation gap.



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[October 16, 1966] Only the Lonely (November 1966 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf
with apologies to Roy Orbison

Solitary Confinement

To be a citizen of a nation inside another nation must be a very lonely feeling. Italy contains two of these countries, the tiny nations of San Marino and Vatican City. A third member of that exclusive club came into existence on October 4, when the former British colony of Basutoland won full independence, changing its name to the Kingdom of Lesotho. Lesotho is completely surrounded by the nation of South Africa.


King Moshoehoe II, constitutional monarch of Lesotho.

A Song for the Sorrowful

You don't have to be living in any of those three countries to feel lonely, of course. People experiencing that painful emotion might obtain some solace from the current Number One song on the American popular music charts. The Four Tops have a smash hit with their powerful ballad Reach Out (I'll Be There), with lyrics that are clearly aimed at a lonesome listener.


They seem to be reaching out to the record buyer.

Fiction for the Forlorn

Appropriately, the latest issue of Fantastic is full of stories featuring characters who are literally, or metaphorically, isolated.


Cover art by Bob Hilbreth, stolen from the December 1946 issue of Amazing Stories.


The original, illustrating a story that was part of the infamous Shaver Mystery.

Broken Image, by Thomas N. Scortia


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

The only new story in this issue features a protagonist who feels himself estranged from those around him, human or not.

His name is Baldur, and he has been surgically altered to resemble one of the humanoid aliens inhabiting a planet for which Earthlings have plans. It seems that humanity has evolved beyond sectarianism and violence, and seeks to bring the blessings of peace to other worlds.

(If I sound a little sarcastic, that's because the story's view of humanity is somewhat ambiguous. Baldur is completely loyal to the idea of Man as a perfect being, but his vision of the species is, as we'll see, a little distorted.)

One group of aliens oppresses another, going so far as to execute rebels in a particularly gruesome way.


Such as this.

The plan is to have Baldur act as a messiah for the lower class. Highly advanced technology allows him to perform healings and other miracles.

(At this point, you've probably figured out that Baldur is intended as a Christ figure. The oppressors are kind of like the Romans, the lower class is sort of like the Judeans, and so on. Given that analogy, some of what happens won't surprise you. The character's name also suggests an allusion to myths about the Norse god Baldr, sometimes spelled Balder or — a ha! — Baldur.)

There's a human woman, also in disguise, to help Baldur in his role as the savior of the oppressed. However, it turns out that she's hiding something from him, and that the folks in the starship orbiting the planet have schemes of which he is not aware.

This is a pretty good story, which held my interest all the way through. The Christian metaphor might be too blatant, and there's a twist ending that made me scratch my head. It explains why Baldur thinks of humanity as superior to other species, but I'm not sure if it really works.

(One interesting thing is that Baldur is not only physically changed, but mentally as well. His memories seem to be slightly distorted. Since we see everything from his point of view, although the story is told in third person, he serves as what some literary critics are starting to call an unreliable narrator. This all goes along with the twist ending.)

Three stars.

You're All Alone, by Fritz Leiber


Illustrations by Henry Sharp.

There's a title that suggests loneliness, for sure.

Before I get into the story itself, let me go over the rather complex history of the text. It seems that Leiber intended it to appear in Unknown, the fantasy magazine edited by John W. Campbell, Jr. as a companion to Astounding. Unknown died before the story could be published.

Leiber expanded the work from about forty thousand words to approximately seventy-five thousand, hoping to have a book publisher accept it as part of their fantasy line. The company stopped publishing fantasy before it sold.

Back to the drawing board! Leiber next sent it to Fantastic Adventures, who agreed to buy it if — guess what? — it was cut back to forty thousand words. It finally appeared in the July 1950 issue. That's the version that's been reprinted in the current issue of Fantastic.


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

We're not done yet! The seventy-five thousand word version wound up as one half of a double paperback, under the name The Sinful Ones. The publisher came up with the suggestive new title, altered the text slightly to make it racier, and added sexy chapter titles like The Strip Tease and Blonde Prostitute, trying to convince the reader that it was hot stuff.


Anonymous cover art. The companion novel, about a lady bullfighter, looks . . . interesting.

Back to the story itself. (At forty thousand words, it actually justifies, if just barely, its label by the magazine as a Complete Novel.)

Carr Mackay works at an employment agency in Chicago. A frightened young woman comes into his office, followed by a big blonde woman. The younger woman is obviously terrified of the blonde, but tries to ignore her. She talks to Carr, pretending to have a job interview, and asking him if he's one of them.


By the way, the blonde woman has a big, vicious, scary pet dog, but it's not anywhere near as large as shown in this illustration, or the cover of Fantastic Adventures!

Before leaving, she scribbles a note warning him to watch out for the blonde and her two male companions, and leaving a cryptic message to meet her at a certain location if he wants to learn more.

Of course, this all sounds like the paranoid ravings of a lunatic. Things get weirder when the blonde slaps the young woman across the face, and she forces herself not to react. Then a co-worker shows up, acting as if he's introducing Carr to somebody, but there's nobody there. Some kind of practical joke?

It's hard to deny that something strange is going on when Carr shows up at his girlfriend's place, and she goes through the motions of greeting and kissing him, but he's not where she apparently thinks he is. She ignores the real Carr, and continues to interact with an imaginary one.


She should really be smooching the empty air instead of a ghostly figure, but that's artistic license for you.

Although he's reluctant to accept the truth, Carr realizes that almost all humans are mindless automatons, just going through the motions like wind-up toys. Only a very few, like the young woman, the blonde and her companions, and himself, are conscious beings. He meets with the woman, leading to dangerous encounters with sinister folks and wild adventures in a world full of clockwork people and those who take advantage of the situation.


A moment of happiness in a public library after hours. I like the subtle hint that the light above their heads is an eye watching them.

The premise is a fascinating one, and the author conveys it in a convincing manner. There's some philosophical depth to the idea, too. Who among us hasn't felt like a cog in a big machine? It moves very quickly, almost like a Keith Laumer novel. (Maybe the longer version allows for more exploration of the concept.)

I could quibble that not everything about the plot is completely logical. Inanimate objects sometimes act as if they're part of the mindless mechanism of life, and sometimes don't. The conscious people are able to knock off the hats of the automatons, for example, and steal their drinks, but the keys of a piano move by themselves when the person supposed to be playing them isn't there.


The floating hands are more artistic license.

Despite this tiny flaw, and the fact that the ending seems rushed, it's an enjoyable short novel. As you'd expect from Leiber, it's well-written. As a bonus, it provides a vivid portrait of the city of Chicago, in all its bright and dark aspects.

Four stars.

Breakfast at Twilight, by Philip K. Dick


Cover art by Clarence Doore.

From the July 1954 issue of Amazing Stories comes this tale of a family isolated from their own time.


Anonymous illustration.

Mom, Dad, and three kids are enjoying a typical morning at home, although there's some kind of fog or smoke outside, and the radio isn't working. The lone boy heads off for school, but quickly comes back. There are soldiers everywhere blocking his way.

It turns out that their home is now seven years in the future. The Cold War has heated up, leading to a dystopian society. (Apparently a bomb caused the time travel effect.) The soldiers are stunned to see a woman and children out in the open, and are even more amazed at the food available in the house.

A political officer (another sign that the United States government has become authoritarian, along with the casually mentioned book burning) suggests that they wait for another bomb to send them back to their own time.

Although the plot is simple enough for an episode of Twilight Zone, this is a powerful story, sending a clear warning of the dangers of escalating world conflicts. (The theme seems even more relevant today, with the situation in Vietnam, than it did just after the Korean War.)

Four stars.

Scream at Sea, by Algis Budrys


Cover art by Vernon Kramer.

The January-February 1954 issue of the magazine provides this example of extreme loneliness.


Illustrations by Ernie Barth.

A man survives an explosion that destroys his ship. He manages to hang on to a piece of the vessel that's got some canned ham and water, so it serves him as a sort of raft. The ship's cat happens to escape the disaster as well.


The only other character in the story.

The author manages to create a true sense of isolation and desperation. It's not a bad piece, but there isn't a trace of science fiction or fantasy at all! There's a twist in the tail that would have been more appropriate for Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine than Fantastic.

(By the way, the editor's blurbs for the last two stories are backwards! I guess that's a sign of how little the publisher cares for these poorly funded magazines full of unpaid reprints.)

Three stars.

Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Artists Behind Him, by Anonymous

Serving as a coda is this portfolio of illustrations for stories by ERB that appeared in Amazing years ago.


For The Land That Time Forgot (1918, reprinted 1927), illustration by Frank R. Paul.


Same credits as above.


For The City of the Mummies (1941), illustration by J. Allen St. John.


For Black Pirates of Barsoom, same year, same artist.


For Goddess of Fire, same year, same artist.

I don't have much to say about these old-fashioned pictures. They're OK.

Three stars.

Some Solace For Solitude

If you're feeling lonesome, picking up a copy of this issue might provide some relief for a few hours. All the stories are worth reading, and a couple of them are better than average. If that doesn't raise your spirits sufficiently, visiting your neighbors might do the trick.


That astronaut won't be lonely. Cartoon by Frosty from the same issue as the Budrys story.




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[September 8, 1966] The Bare Hardly-Essentials (October 1966 Amazing)

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by John Boston

Last issue, the good news was that the customary editorial was dropped.  In this October Amazing, there’s more good news—the self-serving letter column is gone too.  Since there are only four items of fiction here, it makes for a scanty contents page.  That is not necessarily bad.


by Frank R. Paul

The cover is by Frank R. Paul, captioned Martian Spaceships Invade New York, reprinted from the back cover of the May 1941 Amazing.  Like last issue’s cover by James B. Settles, it is significantly cropped from the original.  The image also bears a very superficial similarity to last issue’s cover.  The difference between Paul and Settles, though, calls to mind Mark Twain’s remark about the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug.  Even in his waning days, Paul did archaic style with class. 

Ensign Flandry, by Poul Anderson

The main reason for the sparse contents page is the very long (100 pages) feature item, Poul Anderson’s Ensign Flandry.  Anderson began his series about Flandry, intelligence agent of the Terran Empire, desultorily, producing four shorter stories from 1951 to 1958.  Then there was a spasm of three novellas for Fantastic and Amazing in 1959 and 1960, all of which were transformed almost instantly into Ace Doubles.  Last year, however, most of the Flandry canon was compiled into hardcover collections from Chilton, Flandry of Terra and Agent of the Terran Empire.

Now Flandry is back with this novel, which suggests that Anderson intends to spin him into a character with the raffishness of James Bond and the career longevity of Horatio Hornblower, providing a framework and formula for potboilers as far as the eye can see.  That’s a fine plan for the author but not so good for the reader looking for something more than product.


by Gray Morrow

So: Ensign Flandry, age 19, is dispatched to Starkad, a remote planet inhabited by a seafaring species, the Tigery, and a sea-dwelling species, the Seatrolls, who are fighting a sort of proxy war, backed by the Terran Empire and Merseia respectively, with overtones (emphasis on the “overt”) of the Cold War and Vietnam. 

Flandry is there with his wise mentor, and they are trying to neutralize the soft-on-Merseia peacenik who is nominally on their side.  There is a lot of intrigue and double-dealing and opportunity for Flandry to be in danger and distinguish himself and become the bigger shot we’ve seen in the earlier stories.  Anderson being the professional he is, there’s a secret and a revelation at the end that trumps everything else that’s been going on, distinguishing the work from the wholly formulaic.  But still—it’s mostly formulaic, maybe decent airport reading if your plane is delayed.  Two stars.

The Space Witch, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

The Space Witch, by Walter M. Miller, Jr., from the November 1951 Amazing, is a piece of work, in the more extreme sense of that phrase.  Protagonist Kenneth Johnson has invited his ex-wife Marcia and her new milquetoast husband for a stay at his lake cottage.  His feelings are still raw, and Marcia is a self-centered and manipulative sexpot.  The overwrought psychodrama is interrupted by a mysterious dark cloud which generates an intense local storm, causing Ken and Marcia to take refuge in his boat as a gleaming metallic sphere appears and Marcia decompensates (“Own me like a piece of furniture, Kennie.  That’s what I want to be.”). 


by Edward Valigursky

The boat gets sucked out into the lake, Marcia drowns, Ken gets pulled into the sphere, and Marcia reappears, except it’s not really Marcia.  “We found it necessary to adopt her image, because she was the only thinkhuman [sic] available for detailed biosimulation.” Non-Marcia explains that she is a fugitive from her race and has been hiding on the Moon for 30 years watching Earth, but now her kin-aliens have tracked her down and are about to destroy the area for 150 miles around.  There ensues a discussion of options for preserving themselves and half of New England, which turns into more and higher-volume psychodrama and back-stabbing, and an ending that can only be described as twisted.  Miller’s first story, Secret of the Death Dome, was a bit crazy.  This one is a lot crazy, and Miller is getting better at crazy.  Three stars.

Mr. Dimmitt Seeks Redress, by Miles J. Breuer

Miles J. Breuer’s Mr. Dimmitt Seeks Redress (from the August 1936 Amazing) is about as tiresome as its title.  Mr. Dimmitt is a mild-mannered shrimp of a scientist.  His wife and children have been killed in a car accident caused by the reckless driving of the rich bully Graw.  Back in the lab, Dimmitt is accidentally exposed to an experimental substance that drastically slows time for him.  Initially he is frightened.  “He had read of persons who had tried a dose of cannabis indicia [sic] having terrifying experiences from the effects of the drug.  Was the effect of this thing going to be permanent?” It isn’t, but he doses himself again, goes out for a walk, sees Graw speeding (crawling, to Dimmitt) towards his house, and grabs Graw’s young son who is playing in the yard and puts him in the path of the car, too close to stop.  The gimmicky story has a gimmicky ending.  Two stars.

Eddie for Short, by Wallace West

Wallace West, he of the appalling The Last Man, seems to have learned some things in the course of two decades.  In Eddie for Short (from the December 1953-January 1954 issue), World War III seems to have killed everybody except Lita, a lounge singer in Miami, whose husband has just died of radiation poisoning at his post in the radio station that is broadcasting her, leaving everything going.  So, having not much else to do, she keeps on singing every night.


by Ernie Barth

Then, one night . . . someone is following her.  It’s Verna, a Negro woman from Key West, who speaks in a thick stereotypical accent, and who has heard Lita on the radio and trekked to Miami in search of her.  She’s going to take care of Lita, which is a good thing, since Lita turns out to be pregnant.  So Verna takes care of the household chores while Lita “literally hurl[s] herself” at the City Library and then at the local university, educating herself, since now it seems the world is not going to end (she’s convinced herself she’s carrying twins of opposite sex). 

It’s easy to make fun of this story’s racial stereotypes, but hey, it’s not bad for 1953, and West means well.  Also he’s a lot better writer than he was in 1929, and he’s still at it (he hit Analog and Magazine of Horror last year).  So, some positive reinforcement: three stars.

Summing Up

For a change, the reprinted material (some of it) has more going for it than the new material, and neither is too awful.  It’s a relief.

(And don't forget to tune in tonight at 8:30 PM (Pacific AND Eastern — two showings) for the world television premier of Star Trek!)

Come join us!

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[February 12, 1966] Past?  Imperfect.  Future?  Tense. (March 1966 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Straight From the Horse's Mouth

The Noble Editor and my Esteemed Colleagues always do a fine job of informing our fellow Journeyers about what's happening on Earth and in outer space. There is one small piece of news, however, which seems to have escaped notice.

The last episode of Mister Ed appeared on American television screens last week. For those of you fortunate enough not to be familiar with this program, it's about a talking horse.


The star of the program. I believe there are some human actors as well.

I find it remarkable that a show with a premise that does not lend itself to a large number of variations has lasted for more than five years. For those of you who are counting, that's five times as long as the excellent, groundbreaking series East Side/West Side.


George C. Scott as New York City social worker Neil Brock. He doesn't seem happy about being outdone by a loquacious equine.

To add insult to injury, Mister Ed wasn't even original, but an obvious imitation of a series of low budget movies about Francis the Talking Mule, who appeared in no less than seven films from 1950 to 1956.


In Hollywood, changing a talking mule to a talking horse is known as creativity.

How Green Was My Valley

If the success of Mister Ed proves that entertainment was less than perfect in the recent past, a new novel suggests that the future of popular literature may lead to some tension among sensitive readers.


Every Night, Josephine! is a nonfiction book about the author's dog. I can't seem to get away from animals, can I?

Jacqueline Susann's first novel, Valley of the Dolls, appeared in bookstores a couple of days ago. The word on the street is that it is quite racy. I expect the author will earn a fair amount of greenbacks from this fledgling work of fiction.

A Songbird Flies Back

In the world of popular music, even a song a few weeks old can seem dated. A little more than a year ago, multilingual British singer Petula Clark had a Number One hit in the USA with her upbeat number Downtown, which I quite like. I might even say her past success is far from imperfect.

Now she's back with another smash hit. It makes me a little tense to realize that My Love isn't as good a song as Downtown, but I have to admit that the lady can sing, and I wish her more success in the future.


You're going to the top of the charts, dear.

Half a Century for Half a Buck

Given the fact that Fantastic and its sister publication Amazing are now filling their pages with lots of reprints, not all of them classics, we have plenty of evidence that speculative fiction's past hasn't always been perfect. The latest issue goes back in time nearly fifty years, but also features a couple of new works. Appropriately, many of the stories deal with threats from the distant past, while the only futuristic tale describes a tense situation that may confront the people of tomorrow.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul, reprinted from the back cover of the November 1940 issue of Amazing Stories, as shown below.


I don't think this is a very accurate picture of what the surface of the moon Titan might be like.

The Bells of Shoredan, by Roger Zelazny


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

We've already met Dilvish, a warrior who escaped from Hell, a couple of times before. He returns to the material world to defend his homeland, with the aid of a being that takes the form of a steel talking horse. (There's that again! Francis and Ed, what hath thou wrought?)

In this adventure, he journeys to the ruins of an incredibly ancient, seemingly deserted citadel. His quest is to ring enchanted bells that will summon soldiers from the limbo where they have been trapped for an immense amount of time. Along the way, he acquires a temporary companion in the form of a priest.


The unlikely pair witness a ghostly battle.

Dilvish is an intriguing character, and the author gives readers just enough information about his past to make them want to know more. This sword-and-sorcery yarn is full of imaginative supernatural happenings and plenty of action. I could quibble about the author's attempt to sound archaic — he has a habit of inserting the word did before verbs in order to sound old-fashioned — but that's a minor point. Overall, it's a solid example of the form. I'd place it somewhere between Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, and a little bit higher than John Jakes.

Four stars.

Hardly Worth Mentioning, By Chad Oliver


Cover art by W. T. Mars.

From the pages of the May/June 1953 issue of the magazine comes this tale of unexpected rivals of humanity from the mists of prehistory.


Illustrations by Ernie Barth.

A team of archeologists digging in rural Mexico discovers a plastic disk in a layer of soil from pre-Columbian times. The apparent paradox leads the protagonist to discover that another humanoid species, distinct from Homo sapiens, has been directing human history since the beginning. They even have the ability to travel in time, in order to correct little mistakes, like leaving the plastic disk where it could be found centuries later.


An army of the time travelers arrives in an ancient Indian village.

When the archeologist discovers the truth, the humanoids hurt him in the worst way possible. Knowing that he cannot fight them directly, he resolves to protect the future of humanity in a different way.

The author is an anthropologist by profession, so his portrait of the related field of archeology is completely convincing. The price the protagonist must pay for learning too much carries a powerful emotional impact. I was pleased and surprised to find out that the story avoids a melodramatic battle between the two species, but instead ends in a quiet, hopeful, bittersweet fashion.

Four stars.

Axe and Dragon (Part Three of Three), by Keith Laumer


Illustration by Gray Morrow.

In the first two parts of this novel, we journeyed with our hero, one Lafayette O'Leary, into another reality, that he seemed to create through self-hypnosis. After many wild adventures, he wound up getting blamed for the disappearance of a beautiful princess. Now he sets out to rescue her from a legendary ogre and his dragon.

This segment starts off with an even more comedic tone than the others, bordering on the just plain silly. Lafayette meets with some folks who are obviously intended to be cartoon versions of Arabs. They remind me of a famous novelty song from a few years ago, Ahab the Arab, by comic singer Ray Stevens. As an example of the goofiness, at a feast they not only consume Chinese and Hawaiian dishes, but bottles of Pepsi.

Anyway, Lafayette goes on to acquire a loyal steed in the form of a friendly dinosaur, and finally meets the ogre. The ogre has a very strange brother indeed. After an unexpected scene of bloody violence in such a lighthearted story, Lafayette returns to the palace. He meets an old rival, learns the truth about the king's mysterious wizard, saves the princess, discovers who was behind her kidnapping, finds out about his own special background, and gets the girl (although maybe not in the way you'd expect.)

The whole thing moves at a furious, breakneck pace, so that you don't realize it doesn't always make a whole lot of sense. Lafayette's ability to change reality, for example, seems to come and go, depending on how the author needs to propel the plot. There's a scientific explanation, of sorts, from the so-called wizard about what's really going on, but it might as well just be pure magic. It's entertaining enough to keep you reading, but hardly substantial.

Three stars.

Keep Out, by Fredric Brown


Cover art by Clarence Doore.

The March 1954 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this brief tale, from a master of the short-short story.


Illustration by John Schoenherr.

From birth, a group of people are bred to survive on the surface of Mars. The narrator is one of these folks, and reveals their plans.

Some of Brown's tiny tales are masterpieces of a very difficult form. This one is not. I saw the twist ending coming. Maybe you will, too.

Two stars.

The People of the Pit, by A. Merritt


I have been unable to find out who drew this cover.

We jump back to the January 5, 1918 issue of All-Story Weekly for yet another yarn about danger from the remote past. It was reprinted in the March 1927 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

Some folks head for a remote part of the Arctic in search of gold. A man who is nearly dead crawls to their campsite and relates his strange story.

It seems that there is an immense pit, bigger than the Grand Canyon, beyond a chain of mountains. Not only that, but a gigantic set of stairs, carved in the remote past, leads down into it.

The fellow descends into the pit, and encounters bizarre beings who enslave him. He tells how he finally escaped, and managed to crawl his way back up to the surface.


Illustration by Martin Gambee.

This story reminds me of H. P. Lovecraft, with its unimaginably old structures and creatures who are almost beyond the ability of the human mind to conceive. Given the original date of publication, I presume Lovecraft was influenced by it. The author creates a genuine sense of weirdness and menace. The old-fashioned use of a narrative-within-a-narrative slows things down a bit, and it's mostly description rather than plot, but it's not bad at all.

Three stars.

Your Soul Comes C.O.D., by Mack Reynolds


Cover art by Leo Summers and Ed Valigursky.

Once you get beyond the face of Joseph Stalin on the front of the March 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures, you'll find the original appearance of this variation on a very old theme.


Illustration by Leo Summers.

A guy intends to summon a demon in order to exchange his soul for a good life. Before he can even perform the necessary ritual, however, a being appears, ready to make a deal. The man gains forty years of true love, prosperity, and a happy family. When it comes time to pay the price, he finds out what he bargained for.

A story like this depends entirely on the twist in the tail. I have to admit that the author took me by surprise and came up with a new version of the sell-your-soul premise.

Three stars.

How Did You Enjoy Today's Grammar Lesson?

Example of the past imperfect: I was reading Fantastic magazine yesterday.

Example of the future tense: I will finish this article today.

Well, that may not be the best way to study the structure of English, but it gives me something to think about while I sum up my feelings about this issue. For the most part, it was pretty good. Only the Fredric Brown reprint was disappointing, because I expected more from him. There was a good old story, and a good new story. The rest of the stuff was decent filler.

If you don't care for the way I'm acting like a language instructor, maybe you'd prefer something a little more technologically advanced.


Don't blame me if you don't like math.

The Journey is once again up for a Best Fanzine Hugo nomination — and its founder is up for several other awards as well! If you've got a Worldcon membership, or if you just want to see what Gideon's done that's Hugo-worthy, please read his Hugo Eligibility article! Thank you for your continued support.




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