Tag Archives: fantasy & science fiction

Magazine/Anthology

[Oct. 10, 1959] Middle Ground (Nov. 1959 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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It's going to be a dreary month, if October's selection of digests is any indication.

Of course, my mood isn't buoyed by the fact that I must compose this article in long-hand.  I hate writing (as opposed to typing; and typing on an electric is sheer bliss).  On the other hand, I'm the one who chose to occupy much of the next few days in travel, and fellow airplane passengers don't appreciate the bang bang of fingers hitting keys.

I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let's start at the beginning, shall we?  As I write, I am enjoying my annual plane trip to Seattle for the purpose of visiting my wife's sister, myriad local friends, and to attend a small but lively science fiction convention.  This one is singular in that its attendees are primarily female, and its focus is woman creators.  People like Katherine MacLean, Judith Merril, Pauline Ashwell, Anne McCaffrey, etc. 

Once again, I get to ride in the speedy marvel that is the jet-powered Boeing 707.  San Diego to Seattle in just a few hours is a luxury to which I hope I never become jaded.  Although I will concede that the roar of jets is less pleasant a sound than the thrum of propellers. 

I made several attempts to read this month's Astounding, but I could find nothing in it I enjoyed.  I'll summarize that effort later.  In the meantime, I have just finished the November 1959 F&SF, and if you can read my chicken-scratch (I hope my editor cleans it up before publication), I'll tell you all about it.

F&SF often features brilliant stories.  Last month, the magazine had an unheard-of quality of 4.5 stars, just under the theoretical maximum of five.  This month, we're at the nadir end of quality.  It's readable but fluffy, forgettable stuff.

Story #1, The Martian Store by Howard Fast, recounts the opening of three international stores, ostensibly offering a limited set of Martian goods.  They are only open for a week, but during that time, they attract thousands of would-be customers as well as the attention of terrestrial authorities.  After the Martian language is cracked, it is determined that the Martians intend to conquer the Earth.  The result is world unity and a sharp advance in technological development.  Shortly thereafter, an American company begins production and sale of one of the Martian products, having successfully reverse engineered the design.

Except, of course, in a move that was well-telegraphed, it turns out the whole thing was a super-secret hoax by that company in order to create a demand for those putatively Martian products.  World peace was a by-product.  Thoroughly 3-star material.

G.C. Edmondson's From Caribou to Carry Nation is a gaudily overwritten short piece about transubstantiation featuring an old man who is reborn as his favorite vegetable… and is promptly eaten by his grandson.  Two stars, and good riddance.

Plenitude, by newcomer Will Worthington, is almost good.  It has that surviving-after-the-apocalypse motif I enjoy.  In this story, the End of the World is an apparent plague of pleasure-addiction, with most of the human population retreating into self-contained sacks with their brains hooked into direct-stimulation machines.  It doesn't make a lot of sense, but the quality is such that I anticipate we'll see ultimately see some good stuff from Worthington.  The editor says there are three more of his stories in the bag, so stay tuned.

There is a rather pointless Jules Verne translation, Frritt-Flacc, in which a miserly, mercenary old doctor is given a lordly sum to treat a patient only to discover that the dying man he came to see is himself.  Two stars.

Then there is I know a Good Hand Trick, by Wade Miller, about the magical seduction of an amorous housewife.  It's the kind of thing that might make it into Hugh Heffner's magazine.  Not bad.  Not stellar.  Three stars.

I'll skip over the second half of Starship Soldier, which I discussed last time.  That takes us to Damon Knight's column, in which he laments the death of the technical science fiction story.  I think Starship Soldier makes an argument to the contrary. 

Then we've got Asimov's quite good non-fiction article, C for Celerity, explaining the famous equation, E=MC^2.  I particularly enjoyed the etymology lesson given by the good doctor regarding all of the various scientific terms in common physical parlance.  I've been around for four decades, and my first college major was astrophysics, yet I never knew that the abbreviation for the speed of light is derived from the Latin word for speed (viz. accelerate).

James Blish has a rather good short-short, The Masks, about the futuristic use for easily applied nail polish sheets.  It's a dark story, but worthy.  Four stars.

Ending the book is John Collier's After the Ball, in which a particularly low-level demon spends the tale attempting to corrupt a seemingly incorruptible fellow in order to steal his body for use as a football.  Another over-embroidered tale that lands in the 2-3 star range.

That puts us at three stars for this issue, which is pretty awful for F&SF.  Given that Astounding looks like it might hit an all-time low of two stars, here's hoping this month's IF is worthwhile reading.  Thankfully, I've also picked up the novelization of Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, and it's excellent so far.

Back in a few days with a convention report and a book review!

—

P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns.  While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!

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Book, Magazine/Anthology

[Oct. 8, 1959] Shooting Stars (Heinlein's Starship Soldier)

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Robert Heinlein newest short novel is out, and my feelings toward it are much mixed.

If you have a subscription to The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy (FASF), you've no doubt read Heinlein's Starship Soldier, by turns a coming-of-age story, a depiction of boot camp life, and a clearing house for Heinlein's unique socio-poltical views.

In brief, it's the tale of Juan Rico, a young man of Filipino extraction, who enlists in the army on the eve of an interstellar war.  As a member of the Mobile Infantry, he is one of the few elite pilots of a suit of powered armor, which packs enough punch to take out a 20th century tank batallion.  Platoons of be-suited soldiers are ejected from orbital spacecraft, whereupon they parachute to the surface and engage the enemy.  In this book, the enemy is a race of intelligent, hive-minded bugs, whose capacity for perfect coordination gives them the upper hand in the first stage of the war.  While it is suggested that humanity eventually wins the war, it is never explicitly explained how.

Heinlein's future is unique: after the Disorders wracking all of the world's governments at the end of the twentieth century, groups of veterans take power throughout the world, eventually combining into a federal government under which only veterans attain citizenship.  The resulting society is depicted as liberal and pleasant.  One of the characters, a teacher of "History and Moral Philosophy" (a required high school course) explains that, as a system, it is no more arbitrary than any other democratic system where the franchise is barred from some on the basis of age, origin, or profession.  The teacher suggests that the system works not because veterans are any better or smarter than civilians, but because they've had "skin in the game," and thus prioritize the welfare of the whole over themselves.

I have trouble buying this: veterans are criminals about as often as anyone else (and the teacher even concedes this in the story), and given that the Roman Empire's citizenry was largely composed of veterans by the end of its existence, I don't know that history backs Heinlein's dream.

Still, there's no denying that the story is superbly written, and the society Heinlein depicts is interesting.  More importantly, Johnny Rico is a great character (if perhaps not sufficiently differentiated from Heinlein's other 18-year olds).  The first half of the short novel begins in medias res with Rico raiding a world of the Bugs' co-belligerents, the Skinnies.  The remainder of this installment deals with Rico's enlistment and training, which is incredibly realistic and engaging.  It ends with Rico as one of the 9% who make it through boot camp to become a space soldier.

Part two is also excellent though somehow more detached.  It is mostly told in recollection, describing the start of the Bug War and Rico's early involvement.  It segues into present tense with Rico entering Officer Candidate School.  The novel ends with Rico leading his old platoon with his father as platoon sergeant.  Near the end, we get a lot of moralizing from the mouth of one of Rico's later teachers with some vague anti-Communist screeds and analogies to the recent Korean War.  However, while there is much talk of the value of a military-run society, there is no reference to nudity or cats, so it's not quite all one might expect of a Heinlein novel.

Heinlein is a veteran, and he went through bootcamp and Navy O.C.S.  He knows whereof he speaks, and it shows.  I've no fault with the writing or the story.  My main issue is that the thing feels unfinished.  We have an excellent beginning, with hints of some really excellent depiction of future space combat (much better than as shown in Dickson's recent Dorsai!), then there is an engaging training montage, some good world set-up… and then it just ends.  It really needs a return to the style of the first half, with perhaps another battle to end the story as it began.

I understand Heinlein is releasing a stand-alone novel later this year.  Since the serial is too short for publication, I'm hoping he'll develop it further.  He was likely limited by the size of the vehicle (FASF), which was back to its usual 128 pages this month.

I will say this for the book.  Not only is there a nice, poly-ethnic cast, including a non-White protagonist, but women are a key part of the military.  Whereas the Mobile Infantry are generally (wholly?) male, the Navy is primarily female, and women make the best pilots.  In fact, it was Rico's high school sweetheart who enlisted first, and she distinguishes herself as much as Rico, though she is, sadly, incidental to the story. 

Next time, I'll discuss the rest of the magazine.  In the mean time, Ad Astra!

—

P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns.  While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!

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Magazine/Anthology

[Sep. 12, 1959] Best of the Best (October 1959 Fantasy and Science Fiction, second part)

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Statistics are (is?) fun.  There is a simple joy to compiling data and finding patterns.  Since the beginning of the publishing year, i.e. issues with a January cover date, I have been rating stories and magazine issues in aggregate.  This is partly to help me remember the stories in times to come and also to trace patterns of quality.  In a couple of months, I plan to have my own mini-Hugo awards; perhaps one of you might help me think of a catchy name.

I use a 1 to 5 star rating system, and until this month, individual issues varied between aggregate ratings of 2.5 and 3.5.  But this month, the October 1959 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction broke the curve scoring an incredible, unprecedented 4.5 stars.  That’s about as close to perfection as I can imagine, and I strongly urge all of you to get your hands on a copy while they remain at newsstands.

I talked about the first third of the book last week.  I’ve since finished the rest, and the quality has not dipped an inch. 

To be sure, Charles G. Finney’s The Gilashrikes is only decent.  A biologist mates his gila monster to his shrike, and the resulting hybrid, in an attempt to make up for their ignoble provenance, become the town moralists, enforcing virtue to an increasingly annoying degree.  I know of Finney from the much raved-about Circus of Dr. Lao, and Gilashrikes has a similar, whimsical quality.

Operation Incubus, by Poul Anderson, on the other hand, is fantastic in both senses of the word.  A newlywed magician couple, one a lycanthrope, the other an adept (relearning her trade after losing the maidenhood that was the source of much her power) go on a honeymoon only to run afoul of demonic predators.  It’s lyric, tasteful, and impacting.  Also very exciting.  It paints a universe much like ours, but with magic more intertwined with our lives.  Highly recommended.

Hassoldt Davis’ The Pleasant Woman, Eve is a Garden of Eden story starring God and the Wandering Jew discussing how to get the first humans to make more of themselves independently.  It’s very good, but it could have used an extra paragraph.  Perhaps space concerns dictated the abrupt ending.

The Pi Man is Alfred Bester’s latest tale of a haunted, pursued psychic.  In this case, the protagonist is sensitive to karmic patterns, and he must do good and hateful things, in turn, to maintain balance in the universe.  It’s very strangely written, and it took me a few pages to get into it, but I found the journey ultimately rewarding.

Finally, for the short stories at least (and they are all under 16 pages in length to accommodate Heinlein’s serial) is Avram Davidson’s Dagon.  I must confess that I did not quite understand this rather ominous tale of an American soldier’s rise to virtual Godhood in post-War China.  As the fellow becomes more powerful, he becomes more detached from reality, in the end becoming an intangible viewpoint on the world.–a literal goldfish in a bowl.  Perhaps that is the point—with power comes a loss of free will and agency.  Or perhaps it was just a comeuppance delivered by a mischievous old Chinaman.

As for the novel, Heinlein’s Starship Soldier, the first half is excellent, particularly in contrast to Dickson’s recent military serial, Dorsai!.  Oh, it’s got its share of Heinlein preaching through the mouths of characters, but he has to get it out somewhere.  I’ll devote a full article to the story next month.

As a teaser for the next article, I've just learned that the Soviets have launched their second lunar probe.  It only takes half a day to get there, so we'll know if it was a success in short order!

—

P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns.  While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!

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Magazine/Anthology

[Sep. 5, 1959] The Best (October 1959 Fantasy and Science Fiction; 1st part)

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Not too long ago, I lambasted the September 1959 issue of Astounding as the worst science fiction magazine I’d read in a long while.  This is not to say that it’s the worst of the bunch—I’m sure there are plenty of issues of B and C-level mags that constitute the nadir of written science fiction, although I don’t imagine there are too many of those publications still around. 

I’m happy to report that this month’s Fantasy and Science Fiction may well be the best single issue I’ve ever read.

I asked last time whether folks prefer whiz-bangery in their science fiction or not.  The overwhelming response was that gadgets aren’t important; characters, story, and writing are.  F&SF typically holds to a higher standard of writing, and this month, they’ve hit a zenith.

The incomparable Theodore Sturgeon has the first story, The Man who lost the Sea.  It’s told in a weird and effective 1st/2nd/3rd person style, about an explorer who has come to grief beside what appears to be a vast ocean.  As his thoughts become more lucid, it becomes clearer and clearer what has happened to him until we get the powerful reveal.  I understand Sturgeon has been making a concerted effort to get into the slicks (non-science fiction commercial magazines), and it’s a travesty that he hasn’t been more successful.  Oh well; the mainstream public’s loss is our gain.

Asimov has a great column this month entitled, The Height of Up, in which he discusses the coldest and hottest possible temperatures.  Ever wonder why our temperature scales (Fahrenheit, Celsius, Kelvin) have such weird and arbitrary end-points?  Dr. Asimov spells it out most entertainingly.The good doctor is definitely finding his feet with this column.  It was so good that I read a good half of it aloud to my wife as she put together a complicated piece of electronic equipment (a hobby of hers, bless her). 

I was delighted to find that Zenna Henderson has published another story, And a little child… It’s not exactly a story of the People, but it has the same sort of magical feel.  The viewpoint character is a grandmother on a two-week camping trip with family, particularly a young girl who can see things that others can’t.  Such things are monstrous, living creatures—the hills are alive, quite literally.  It’s really quite a lovely piece.

Finally, for today, we have Damon Knight’s compelling and cute To be Continued, about a sword-and-sandals fantasy writer (whose name’s first two thirds are “Robert E.”) who is compelled to write a tale of Kor the Barbarian after reading a work that the author had never written, but which only could have been authored by himself!

Peeking ahead, I see that Heinlein’s newest novel, Starship Soldier, is going to be among his best yet.  To accommodate the work, F&SF is a whopping 32 pages longer this month!

With the star-o-meter steadily quivering at 4-and-a-half stars, I’m eagerly anticipating the book’s second half.

However, the next time we chat, so to speak, it will not be about magazines, but about the 17th annual Worldcon going on right now in Detroit.  “Detention,” as it’s called this year, will last until the 7th, and I expect to have a full, breathless telephonic report in time for the 8th.

Last year, Worldcon was in my backyard (Los Angeles).  This year, Los Angeles is going to Detroit: an intrepid group of Angelinos, organized by the dynamo, Betty Jo Wells, embarked earlier this week on a road-trip across the country, Detroit-or-Bust.  I’ve reprinted “BJo’s” ad in its entirety for your entertainment. 

"TRAVELCON to the DETENTION — a different city every day. TravelCon plans are starting to shape up. Latest report from Bjo is that about 20 L.A. fans are already making plans to attend the Detention. Fans in the Berkeley area are organizing a group to join up with the Travel Con In L.A. For information and details, contact Betty Jo Wells, 2548 West 12th, Los Angeles 6, California."

Sadly, I was unable to spare time off from work for this event; it looks like fun.

—

P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns.  While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!

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Magazine/Anthology

East meets West (September 1959 Fantasy and Science Fiction, second half; 8-04-1959)

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A thousand pardons for my lateness.  It is partly to blame on mundane matters taking precedence, and partly to blame on my magazines showing up late this month.  Perhaps laziness is also a factor.  It's languidly warm this Summer.

We left off half-way through this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction.  Fifth in the line-up is Will Stanton's Who will cut the Barber's Hair? It is the very definition of a two-star story; I've had to go back several times to remember what it was even about.  In brief, a human from the far future, when creativity has disappeared, takes over a hayseed's body to experience a bizarre cocktail party and feel the full gamut of human emotions.  Utterly forgettable.

On the other hand, newcomer Joanna Russ' Nor Custom Stale stayed with me far longer than it ought to have given the silliness and simplicity of the premise.  A husband and wife shut themselves into a near-immortal house with the ability to generate Air and Food in limitless quantities.  They discover that adhering to an extremely regular schedule every day contributes to longevity.  In fact, the couple end up sleep-walking through thousands, if not millions, of years until the ultimate end of the Earth in a fashion recalling Leiber's A Pail of Air.  I don't know why I liked it so much, but I did, and I look forward to more by Ms. Russ.

Robert Graves' Interview with a Dead Man is a cute reprint from 1950 about an embalmed fellow who still finds time to write.  It's over almost as quickly as it begins, and it seems mortar for bricks, but I enjoyed it.

The Makers of Destiny, by Edward S. Aarons, is a direct sequel to his The Communicators, although it is so different in tone and content that I'd forgotten until recently, when I looked through my catalog of stories.  The world is rather fascinating–the Ten Day War erupts between East and West when an American bomber inadvertently bombs Moscow near the end of the century.  The United States and the Soviet Union are reduced to barbarism for decades, and the rest of the world shuns the erstwhile superpowers as pariahs.  Slowly, painfully, the United States reforms as a loose confederation with the aid of a group of psionically adept "Communicators." 

In the instant story, Private Mugrath is a soldier of the Northern Union fighting in the last battles of the 15-year Civil War, which has waged since 2050.  But he is more than that–he is an esper under the control of the Communicators.  Their goal is to alter the course of history through the creation of squad of psychic superhumans–but there is resistance, and whether that resistance is some fundamental property of the universe or a traitor in the organization, is unknown.

I liked it a lot.  Evocative, dramatic.

Last up is Leslie Bonnett's Game with a Goddess, a delightfully lusty (though oblique) tale of the ravishing of a comely acolyte by the Goddess of Love.  There aren't many stories dealing with the mythology of the Orient, and this story does a great job of conjuring the setting and style. 

Apropos of nothing, have you read Robert van Gulik's Chinese Detective novel, The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee?  It is excellent and lots of fun, a recreation of Ching dynasty mysteries set in the Tang dynasty. 

That's that for this issue.  A unremarkable but not unpleasant 3-star issue.  See you in two days.  I'm sure I'll have something for you!

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Magazine/Anthology

Dreams of Summer (September 1959 Fantasy and Science Fiction, first half; 7-28-1959)

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Hello, all.  I’d meant to report on the newest issue of IF, but the fershlugginer thing hasn’t arrived yet.  My Fantasy and Science Fiction is in my hot little hands, however, and it is off to a strong start.  Fasten your seatbelts!

The cover is quite lovely, and in fact, it is available for purchase if you are so inclined.  It features the next-generation upper stage being designed as we speak to turn the Thor and Atlas missiles into powerful orbital boosters.  The rocket is called “Vega.” I have heard rumblings, however, that the thing may not actually make it to fruition as the Air Force has a very similar booster in the works, and what’s the point of inventing the wheel twice, simultaneously?

Heading the issue is Edgar Pangborn’s The Red Hills of Summer.  Mr. Pangborn has not written very much—looking through my records, I see he did a whimsical story for Galaxy called Angel’s Egg way back in 1951.  Summer is almost excellent, the story of a generation ship arriving at an inhabitable planet after a 15-year journey.  The stakes are high—Earth has become bombed-out and nigh unlivable.  Four members of the crew, evenly divided by gender, must conduct a preliminary survey to ensure that the destination, called Demeter, will support the 300 colonists.

The ecology is a little too undeveloped to be plausible, and also a bit too terrestrial.  But the writing is sound, the situations tense and interesting.  It doesn’t quite hit 5 stars as it trails off more than ends.  Perhaps Pangborn will turn this into the opening section of a novel, which would be quite readable.

Asimov’s article is on infinity, and the many different types of infinite counting.  Engaging, but dry.

The next piece is called Quintet and is a bit of an experiment.  There are five pieces, two poetry and three prose, one of which was penned by a pre-teen, and the rest by four distinguished authors.  We’re supposed to guess who wrote what.  All of the prose pieces have substantial spelling and grammatical errors of a patently unbelievable nature.  This is, I suppose, an attempt to portray the writings of a juvenile.  They go too far, though, to be fair, correspondence written by my current employer look quite similar.  The conceit makes the pieces well-nigh unreadable.  I’m going to guess that the youngster penned one of the pieces of poetry (I’m guessing it’s the first of two).  We’ll see if I’m right next month.

Finally, for today, we have The Devil’s Garden, a “Murchison Morks” story by Robert Arthur, the same fellow who brought us Don’t be a Goose (and of similar vintage).  It is a light-hearted but creepy story of telepathic transference of pain as a form of punishment.  The resolution is satisfying and a little (but not very) surprising.  I enjoyed it.

In two days, I’ll have the rest for you.  Thus far, we’re in 3-star territory.

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Magazine/Anthology

The Bomb, the Clock, and the Devil (August 1959 Fantasy and Science Fiction; 7-02-1959)

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In this month’s F&SF editorial, editor Doug Mills reports that he’s gotten a number of complaints regarding the oversaturation of stories in the post-apocalyptic, time travel, and deal-with-the-Devil genre.  Mr. Mills’ response was that any genre can be oversaturated, but quality will always be quality, and F&SF will publish quality stories in whatever genre it pleases.  In fact, there are stories dealing with all three of the "oversaturated" genres in this issue.

What do you think?  I have to agree with Mr. Mills.  Personally, I can never get enough of After the Bomb stories, time travel is often a hoot, and the Devil features in relatively few tales these days, in my experience.   But I’d like your opinion on the matter.
I had not realized that Poul Anderson’s Time Patrol story had taken up so much of the current issue; there isn’t much left to review.  There is some goodness, however:

Rosebud, by Ray Russell, is teleological nonsense in a single-pager.  Damon Knight’s book review column deals with horror, and is interesting, as usual.  I wish he were still helming IF (come to think of it, I just received this month’s copy… I wonder who’s in charge.)

Kit Reed’s Empty Nest is well nigh unreadable, but I think it’s a horror about being eaten by anthropoid birds.

Obituary, by Isaac Asimov, is actually quite good, and one of his few stories from the viewpoint of a woman.  It involves domestic abuse, a truly evil (yet in a plausible and everyday sort of way) villain, and a satisfactory, grisly come-uppance.  I hope the good doctor is not writing from experience in this one…

Finally, we’ve got Pact, by Poul Anderson (under his pseudonym, Winston P. Sanders).  This is the aforementioned Devilish Deal story, and it is my favorite story of the issue.  I hear you gasp–an Anderson story is my favorite?  Yes!  It's clever all the way through, this story of a demon summoning a human in the hopes of consumating a contract.  Fine stuff.

My apologies for the shortness of this installment.  I'll make it up next time.  Perhaps.

P.S. One of the reasons I enjoy science fiction so much is the clever gadgets.  In Asimov's story, the villain uses a "desktop computer" with some sort of typewriter keys attached.  Boy, would that be a fine tool to have, and I've never seen the like in a story before.  Something to look forward to in a decade or two?



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Magazine/Anthology

I am Cyrus, King of the World (August 1959 Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1st half; 6-30-1959)

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For most people, the beginning of the month coincides with the 1st (or, as my late father might say, the “oneth”—i.e., May the “oneth” followed by May the “tooth”).  For me, and doubtless for most of my science fiction loving sistren and brethren, the month starts around the 26th, which is when the science fiction magazines hit the newsstands.

Of course, those who get their issues via mail-order get them at varying times, but in general, the last week of the month preceding the month preceding the cover date  (I did not stutter; the duplication is intentional) is when the goodies arrive.  For me, that’s The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (generally good), Astounding Science Fiction (often bad, but sometimes good), and on a bi-monthly and alternating basis, Galaxy (generally decent), and IF (quality as yet undetermined).  When these run out, I pray for interesting space news and/or interesting new novels.  Exhausting these, I turn to my collection of older books, preferably ones I have been given the right to distribute freely.

I am currently at the giddy start of a new month, and I’ve decided to eat my dessert first, tearing through the August 1959 F&SF.  Take my hand, and away we go!

Jay Williams generally sticks to juveniles, co-writing the Danny Dunn series, which are pretty fun if you’re the right age to enjoy them (pre-teen).  His Operation LadyBird opens up this month’s issue, and it’s a lighthearted romp on a Venus that a United Nations force has recently cleaned of a loathsome alien menace.  Turns out that we were actually called in (unwittingly) by Venusians (who look just like Hopi Indians) to act as exterminators.  I liked the story better when it was called Cat and Mouse, but the story is not without its charms, and it does feature a strong female character, a resourceful Soviet major.

Asimov’s column is good this month.  The Ultimate Split of the Second begins as a primer on measuring really big and small things.  The Doctor recommends using the time it takes light to travel certain small distances as really small units of time (i.e. a light meter, a light kilometer, etc.).  This the flip side to using light years, minutes, hours, for distance measuring.

Then he gives us a survey of the latest discoveries of subatomic particles, exciting new things that are the very bleeding edge of modern physics.  Their halflives are exceedingly small, so the nomenclature described above comes in handy to describe them. 

The prolific Carol Emshwiller (whose husband’s art graces the pages of many digests under the byline “EMSH”) has an interesting post-apocalyptic mood piece called Day at the Beach.  There’s not much to it; it is largely the depiction of a family in a ruined, but not extinguished, United States.  Gasoline is exorbitantly expensive, most citizens have lost all of their hair, mutations are legion, and there is not much law and order.  Diverting, forgettable.

Fantasist Marcel Aymé’s The Walker-Through-Walls is cute, though it is a reprint from 1943.  Our straight-laced protagonist discovers that, in mid-life, he has the ability to traverse walls as if they did not exist.  He resists exploiting this power, but little by little, he succumbs to temptation.  First, he terrifies his tyrannical boss, then he becomes a dashing, popular thief.  Ultimately, he becomes involved in a torrid affair that proves to be his undoing.  Well-written, somewhat fluffy.

Finally, for today, we have Poul Anderson’s latest Time Patrol story.  As you know, I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the good Swede, but this one is pretty good.  For those who don’t know, the Time Patrol is an organization based in the far future that recruits constables from across time to police for alterations in the timeline.  It’s a tough task, but it is made easier by the laws of the universe which have the time stream move along in a way not unlike a river—it takes a lot to get a substantial altering of course.
 Patrolman Manse Everard, nominally stationed in the late ‘50s, is approached by Cynthia, wife of his best friend, and object of Manse’s unrequited affections, to find her husband, who has disappeared without a trace some 2500 years in the past.  Unable to say no, Manse takes an unauthorized trip to the Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great to find his friend, who turns out to be none other than the King of Kings himself!  It’s an exciting but somewhat ironic and bittersweet story, and it gets extra stars for being about a rather unsung but personal favorite era of mine.

All told, the first half (and a little extra) of this issue has had no clunkers, but also no home runs, to mix my metaphors.  Call it 3.5?
See you in two days!



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Magazine/Anthology

Starting strong (July 1959 Fantasy and Science Fiction;6-13-1959)

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It's those haunting, evocatively written F&SF stories that keep me a regular subscriber.  July's issue opens with Robert F. Young's To Fell a Tree, about the murder (mercy killing?) of the tallest tree imaginable, and the dryad that lived within.  It'll stay with you long after you turn the last page, this sad, but not entirely desolate, tale.  So far, it's the best I've seen by Young.

Asimov's column, this month, is a screed against the snobbery of the champions of liberal arts and humanities to the practitioners of science.  I'm told that the rivalry is largely good-natured, but Dr. Asimov seems to have been personally slighted, and his article is full of invective. 

Avram Davidson's Author, Author is next: venerable British mystery writer is ensnared by the very butlers and baronets who were the subjects of his novels.  I found most interesting the interchange between the author and his publisher, in which the latter fairly disowns the former for sticking to a stodgy old format, the country-house murder, rather than filling pages with sex and scandal.  I found this particularly ironic as my wife is a mysteries fan who appreciates whodunnits of an older vintage, from Conan Doyle to Sayers.  She has, of late, become disenchanted with the latest, more cynical crop of mysteries.  I suspect she would have words for the publisher in Davidson's story.

For Sale, Reasonable is a short space-filler by Elizabeth Mann Borgese about a fellow soliciting work in a world where automation has made human labor obsolete.  Damon Knight's following book review column is devoted to The Science Fiction Novel, Imagination and Social Criticism, a book of essays written by some of the field's foremost authors.  It sounds like a worthy read.

Jane Roberts' Impasse hits close to home–a young lady loses her last living relative, her grandfather.  So great is her grief that, by an act of will, she returns him to life, though the old man is not too happy about it.  The story struck a chord with me as I lost my family when I was quite young, and I can certainly identify with the poor girl's plight.

The Harley Helix is another fill-in-the-space short short by Lou Tabakow, the moral of which is There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (i.e. the First Law of Thermodynamics).  Success Story, which I reviewed last time, is next.

Raymond E. Banks has the penultimate tale, with Rabbits to the Moon, a thoroughly nonsensical tale about the teleportation of creatures (including humans). Its only flaw, that the transported arrive without a skeleton, is made into a selling point.

Last up is The Cold, Cold Box by Howard Fast.  The richest man in the world becomes afflicted with terminal cancer and has himself frozen in 1959 so that the future can cure him.  But the members of his company's board of directors have a different agenda, particularly after they become the world's de facto controlling oligarchy. 

It's good reading all the way through, but it's the lead novella that really sells it.  3.5 stars, I'd say.

I'm off to the movies tonight, so expect a film review soon!

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Big Man ($100 contest; 5-11-1959)

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Want to make a quick $100? 

Fantasy & Science Fiction is running a contest this month (July 1959) related to one of the stories in the latest issue.  Of course, I immediately turned to page 87 to read the story. 

Success Story is the tale in question, and it's by a fellow whose work I'd never read before, a Ms. or Mr. H.M. Sycamore.  I'll tell you the whole plot since I don't have permission to reprint, and I suspect you'll all want a chance to get in on this contest before it's too late.

Stan Budzik has invented a time machine, or at least figured how to make one.  But he needs financial backing to get it off the ground to the tune of a whopping $7,000.  Enter Harry Bottomley, a diminutive young man with one suit and just over $7,000, the proceeds of a recent inheritance.

Through a series of mishaps, Mr. Bottomley ends up as the world's first time traveller, albeit unwillingly.  Unfortunately the guy, who already has a complex about his height, not only ends up one day in the future, he also finds himself just two-and-a-half feet tall!

It turns out that the expansion of the universe affects everything universally, including its denizens.  Harry, having missed out on a day of expansion, is half his former size in relation to everything else.  Naturally, this causes a near meltdown for Harry.  But what goes forward can also go backward.  Harry makes a return trip from the future to regain his original size, but this time, he travels back a little more than a day, and ends up a strapping 6 foot 4 inch hunk of a man.

Stan and his team realize they've hit upon something and sell "height therapy" to folks with Short Man's Syndrome.  The one complication, mentioned off-handedly in the story's conclusion, is that while volume changes, mass does not.  A 120-pound bantam Harry became a 120-pound hulk.  I imagine Mr. Bottomley became a "floater" if he was previously a "sinker."

Now for the contest: Stan figured out a profitable use for this time machine.  Can you?  Remember the parameters:

Anything can be sent through time, but it will shrink in size by a factor of two for each day it transits; conversely, it will double in size for each day it travels backward.  This makes it impractical for explorative time travel, I would think.  Mass stays constant.

Here's my idea:

Since mass stays the same, regardless of size, the device is not particularly useful for miniaturization.  On the other hand, one could make some awfully light dirigibles using canisters of gas sent back in time.  With the cost of helium not inconsiderable, I could see some definite use of this application.

For your chance at a crisp C-note, send your ideas to:

Success Editor
Fantasy and Science Fiction
527 Madison Ave.
New York 22, New York

If you'll send me a copy, I'll print it in this column so all can bask in your cleverness.

Next time, I'll review the rest of the magazine.  In the meantime, let's see your ideas!

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