Well since last month we’ve had the Moon landing, which I’m sure you’ve read all about from my colleagues here at Galactic Journey. It was quite exciting here in England too, even if events were happening well into the early morning hours.
Programme description from The Radio Times, 12th July.
As the picture above from the Radio Times (the British BBC version of the TV Guide) shows, on July 12 I had chance to see Where No Man Has Gone Before. What a treat! How great to see Gary Lockwood from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I loved Sally Kellerman. Not a bad start.
On the 19th July we saw The Naked Time, and last Saturday we saw The City on the Edge of Forever, which was a wonderful episode, and perhaps my favourite so far. According to the Radio Times, I understand we next see A Taste of Armageddon. Although a limited run, I hope they are all as good as what we’ve seen so far (although my colleagues here suggest they might not be!)
Anyway, back to New Worlds, number 193. There are a number of changes this month, most noticeably the price reduced – from 5 shillings to 3 shillings and sixpence – but also the fact that it is a thinner magazine. This issue is down to 34 (admittedly A4-sized) pages this month, from 68 last – half the size of what was a usual issue. More on this later.
Cover by Charles Platt
After the last two impressive covers by Mal Dean, we’re back to boring old nondescriptive images this time. Another sign perhaps that things are being done on the cheap. Don’t think this is going to persuade readers to buy the magazine, though with most sales becoming subscription based, the cover is partly irrelevant. You’ve paid your money up-front, after all.
Lead-In by The Publishers
You might remember me last month commenting on New Worlds celebrating five years of being the new version of the magazine, with its new agenda and format. This month the editor (this issue, it’s Charles Platt) takes it further. The first line of the Lead In is a bold statement: New Worlds “is not a science fiction magazine.”
What was hinted at last month is now written in detail – an explanation of what has been going on recently, followed by a flag-waving, trumpeting statement of intent, a clarification and exemplification of what Michael Moorcock, Charles Platt, Langdon Jones and others have said pretty much since they took over about five years ago. This introduction tells us that the journey has not been easy. Here is the statement in full:
Jacobs last appeared with The Negotiators in the May 1969 issue. Gravity is a science-fiction story, despite what the editors proclaim, although the science fictional elements are really just background. A bored woman, married to an astronaut who has just gone into space, has an affair with a computer programmer. Cue lots of sexual references whilst meditating on the more esoteric elements of life, space and the universe. Oddly enough, I was not thinking about this whilst watching Apollo 11. 3 out of 5.
Poetry by D. M. Thomas
Four poems by D. M. – X, Grief, End of a Viking Settlement and Yseult. Little for me to say here, as normal. The first poem is “based upon The Cold Equations, a story by Tom Godwin”, although you’ll be hard pressed to find anything more than a general connection. This version is basically sex, allied with a different poem in the margin. 3 out of 5.
The Nash Circuit by M. John Harrison
Sketch by R. Glyn Jones
And here we have M. John Harrison’s go at a Jerry Cornelius story. This one is as diverse as ever – it has Albert Einstein, a visit to Vegas (the real one this month!), destruction at Madam Tussaud's waxworks, and a map of Vatican City. Like the Spinrad story last month, I enjoyed it, but Harrison’s is not as out-there as those stories previous to it. 3 out of 5.
And talking/typing of Norman Spinrad, here he is with a satirical story about war – an ongoing battle between protestors and the police and the military, written in that cut-up style we’ve seen before. It all ends up happily ever after at the end. 3 out of 5.
Like Father by Jon Hartridge
Photo by Gabi Nasemann
A new writer at New Worlds. The story of Fingest, a man devoted to satisfying his basest instincts, travelling from the 23rd century to create Mankind. A sort of anti-2001 A Space Odyssey, with Fingest producing a child in the Neolithic and then teaching it how to fight using weapons. It doesn’t end well. Moonwatcher, this is not! 3 out of 5.
Book Reviews by R. Glyn Jones
R. Glyn Jones (who seems to be everywhere this month!) reviews an art book by John Berger. No room for anything involving science fiction this month.
Summing up New Worlds
This is very much a slimline issue. Although cheaper, it is noticeably thinner, and with a limited range of photos and drawings throughout (no Mal Dean this month!), we seem to be pulling back on the reins a little here.
It almost feels like we’re back to the bad old days at the end of C. J. Carnell’s editorialship. I suspect that despite the pleas from the editor to keep buying, subscription-eers who were barely keeping an interest will bail out at this point, as regular buyers paying the same price for a magazine half its normal length cannot be a good thing.
And that’s a shame. Despite being shorter, it’s not a bad issue, even though the scores are determinably average.
What is important is that despite its shorter length, there’s still enough of it to be recognisably New Worlds – including D. M. Thomas’s poetry, but you can’t have everything.
However, it is at this point that I think New Worlds has become a magazine of more literary interest than anything vaguely science fiction – although I see that J. G. Ballard is back next month.
With that in mind, I should say that this issue is the last that I will review, at least for now.
For the record, I have reviewed every issue of New Worlds (and Science Fantasy and Impulse) since the September 1962 issue, number 122. Seven years on, and 71 issues of New Worlds, 15 issues of Science Fantasy magazine and 12 issues of Impulse later, I think it’s time for a rest, and to give a chance to give someone else at Galactic Journey to make comments. (Don’t worry, though – I’m sure that you are in very capable hands!)
It seems an appropriate point to step off here.
Looking back, I am still surprised how much the magazine has evolved, from a magazine with standard science fiction stories to what it is today – a deliberately provocative and determinedly different magazine, one that doesn’t rest on its laurels, nor goes quietly. Much of that is due to the sheer doggedness of Michael Moorcock, Charles Platt (who has edited this issue), Langdon Jones and others. It has been an interesting journey.
I have enjoyed my time here a great deal, and even when all of the prose has not been to my taste, I’d like to think that generally I have appreciated the effort (except perhaps the poetry!) I have always tried to be honest, which I hope has been entertaining and useful. I further hope at least some of the comments have been interesting and /or informative.
Despite my reservations, I will read future issues with interest and look forward to reading what others have to say about the issue, without feeling the need to judge or make comment – although I’m sure that may happen!
Thank you to everyone – the supportive team here at Galactic Journey, and to those of you who have passed on your (usually) kind comments. They have always been appreciated.
Aside from the stray short story I have to admit I had not read any of John Jakes’s novels, of which there have been many as of late—so many, in fact, that we folks at the Journey have not been able to cover every new Jakes book. Just this year alone we’ve gotten three or four Jakes novels, with at least one more already in the can as I’m writing this. So consider this a bit of “catching up,” for the both of us. Jakes started a new science-fantasy series a couple years ago with When the Star Kings Die, and this year he has put out not one, but two more entries in this series. For the sake of not overwhelming the reader, though, let’s just keep it to the first two entries… for now.
Humanity has spread across the stars in what is called II Galaxy, with a planet-spanning league of aristocrats called the 'Lords of the Exchange' (the titular star kings) keeping things in check. The star kings are supposed to live for centuries, being near-immortal, but something has been leading these long-lived aristocrats to early deaths. Maxmillion Dragonard (a name I certainly did not pull out of a hat) is a Regulator, one of the enforcers for the star kings, who starts out imprisoned for a bout of intensely violent behavior but is soon freed on the condition that he investigates why the star kings are dying young. He soon travels to the planet Pentagon, a backwater home to little in the way of technology or civilization, but which seems to house the answer to the mystery; and there he gets involved with a group of rebels who go by the 'Heart Flag'. Dragonard’s sense of loyalty gets split between his allegiance to the star kings, personified by a mischievous spy named Kristin, whom Dragonard quickly falls in love with, and the leaders of the Heart Flag group, Jeremy and his sister Bel.
If you read certain passages out of context you might think you’re reading an adventure fantasy yarn in the Robert E. Howard mode, which Jakes is no stranger to, but overall this is much more evocative of Leigh Brackett’s planetary adventures—low on scientific plausibility but high on swashbuckling action. We have swords and daggers, but also blasters and “electroguns,” not to mention spaceships. Another thing carried over from both Howard and Brackett is this heightened sense of sexuality—or to put it less charitably, the fact that there are only two female characters of note in this novel, and both of them want to jump Dragonard’s bones. Jakes also can’t help himself when it comes to focusing on the women’s breasts, especially Kristin’s. In fairness, Dragonard is a man who has just been broken out of prison, and ultimately this is not a very serious novel. When the Star Kings Die was published in 1967, although the Journey didn’t cover it then; but if not for the publication date you might think it was printed in 1947, possibly as a “complete” novel in the likes of Startling Stories and other bygone pulps. It seems deliberately retrograde, but it’s unobtrusive so far as that goes.
This is a short novel, such that I’m actually surprised Ace didn’t bundle it with another short novel or novella. Even so, with just 160 pages Jakes is able to give us a future world, somewhat believable power dynamics among the parties, a few good villains, and a climactic battle that manages to take up a good chunk of the text. Kristin, despite being Dragonard’s main love interest, is absent for much of the novel, but to compensate his growing admiration for Jeremy and budding affection for Bel are given ample room to develop. The trio’s tenuous but promising relationship at the end of the novel is undermined, however, by the fact that when we did get a follow-up to When the Star Kings Die it was not a sequel, but instead a distant prequel.
This novel does a few things well, but not exceptionally well; and, let’s face it, we’ve been here before. It’s fine, but nothing special.
Jakes’s ode to the sword-and-spaceship adventures of yore continues with The Planet Wizard, published just this year, although given that it’s about the same length as When the Star Kings Die I’m still a bit surprised it was not released as one half of an Ace Double. The Planet Wizard has a more focused narrative, and more than its predecessor it heavily uses the fantasy elements of the pulp material it’s clearly taking cues from; but even so it feels less like a full novel (certainly now that we have behemoths like Dune and Stand on Zanzibar in the field) and more like a somewhat constipated novella. I very much enjoy novellas myself, but not so much when they look bloated and could use a laxative.
Say goodbye to all the characters from that first novel, since here we’re jumping back over a thousand years in time; conversely all the characters featured in The Planet Wizard will have been long and safely dead by the time we get to When the Star Kings Die. Some cataclysmic event has pushed civilization across planets almost back to medieval times, with the planet Pastora having only a semblance of civilized humanity, with its sister planet Lightmark faring even worse. Superstition has taken over the minds of the masses. Swords and daggers have replaced firearms. Instead of spaceships we have “skysleds.” Magus Blackclaw (another name I did not just pull out of a hat) is a middle-aged “wizard” who lives with his beautiful daughter Maya. The problem is that Magus isn’t really a wizard, for magic doesn’t really exist in this world. Whilst on the run the two cross paths with a tenacious swordsman named Robin Dragonard, who as you may guess is an ancestor of the Maxmillion Dragonard of the first novel. Magus gets captured and put on trial, as a fraud; but the High Governors, the pseudo-Christian religious leaders of Pastora, have a proposition for Magus: go to Lightmark and rediscover the fallen commercial house of Easkod, and maybe these charges will be dropped.
Not only does Magus have to deal with the “Brothers” of Easkod, a league of mutated and vicious humans who watch over Easkod City, but the job to exorcize Easkod of its “demons” quickly turns into a race. Philosopher Arko Lantzman wants his hands on Easkod as an alleged treasury of technology that got lost after the cataclysm, while William Catto, a descendant of one of Easkod’s higher-ups (so he claims), wishes to return the house to its former glory. Given that this is a prequel to When the Star Kings Die, and thus knowing the basic history of the star kings themselves, you can guess the broad trajectory of The Planet Wizard. Given also that Robin (who sadly lacks the charisma of his descendant) will contribute to a bloodline that persists over a thousand years later, it’s safe to guess as to his fate. What keeps the tension alive is that unlike some prequels, wherein we already know the fates of the cast (a kind of dramatic irony granted to the reader), we’re unsure if Magus and Maya will come out of this ordeal unscathed. While Robin is a flatter character than Maxmillion, Magus is a rather fun protagonist, being a middle-aged confidence man who nonetheless does care deeply for his daughter, and goes above and beyond to rescue her when she inevitably gets kidnapped.
In a sense The Planet Wizard complements its predecessor, and I’m not sure if Jakes intended one to be the other’s both opposite and equal. Not better, nor worse, but at least different enough to not feel like a repeat. I do recommend both—if you can find copies below the retail price.
Three stars.
by Victoria Silverwolf
Initial Response
Two rip-roaring novels of space adventure fell into my hands recently, both by authors who use two initials instead of first and middle names. (Yes, I notice trivia like that.) Let's take a look.
Prolific British writer Edwin Charles Tubb (E. C. to you!) has been reviewed several times by Galactic Journeyers, including your not-so-humble servant. He usually earns three stars, once in a while a bit more. Will his latest novel earn him another C or C+ on his report card?
Wordiest cover I've ever seen. Pardon the lousy image.
I must have held the cameras at a bad angle.
A project to launch the first starship is under way, funded by the American government. What the boys and girls in Washington D. C. don't realize is that the folks behind the project believe that humanity is doomed to be wiped out by radioactivity. (There are hints that there have been a few limited nuclear wars, as well as a lot of atomic tests.) They plan to escape and find a world to colonize.
Meanwhile, a would-be dictator and his followers plan to stop the starship, by force if necessary. Don't worry about this subplot, because the vessel manages to leave Earth very early in the book, not without a lot of bloodshed.
(This brings up an odd thing about the book. The protagonists are just about as bloodthirsty as the antagonists. They're ready to destroy an entire community in order to launch the starship. Besides that, a lot of the folks aboard were literally kidnapped, forced to be colonists against their will.)
Pretty soon the escapees find a livable planet, which they name (with heavy irony) Eden. In addition to huge, deadly animals, the place has something in the atmosphere that ensures that any woman giving birth and her child will die.
The book has still barely started. A lot more goes on. There's an attempt at mutiny. There's the mysterious disappearance of the first probe to land on the planet, and its equally mysterious reappearance.
The author throws a lot at the reader, often at random. Some subplots don't lead anywhere. For example, we've got an attempt to activate the brain of a dead scientist in order to extract his knowledge. This is just dropped, and doesn't change anything. The whole thing reads as if it were written as quickly as possible, with a completely improvised plot.
American writer C. C. MacApp also has a fast hand at the typewriter, often showing up in If. He's been reviewed a lot here, generally getting three stars. Sometimes less, sometimes more. (Sounds a lot like Tubb, doesn't he?) Will his latest novel be below average, above average, or just plain average?
Cover art by John Berkey.
Wait a minute! I hear you cry. I thought we were talking about MacApp, not this Capps person!
Yep. C. C. MacApp is actually Carroll Mather Capps in real life. If you'll open the book, you'll see it's been copyrighted in the name of C. C. MacApp. Don't ask me why his real name is on the cover.
Anyway, our hero is an Earthman who caught an alien disease somewhere in space. Before killing him, it's going to make him blind. The good news is that some friendly, semi-humanoid aliens are willing to take him to a place where he can be cured, if he undertakes a mission for them. (The aliens recently arrived in the solar system and have the knowledge of faster-than-light travel, but haven't let humans in on the secret.)
His mission is to track down a renegade alien who kidnapped an alien scientist and stole a powerful piece of ancient technology from a species of extraterrestrials who vanished long ago. In order to do this, the aliens take him to a planet without a sun (hence the title) which is able to support life due to its internal heat.
His contact is a multi-tentacled space pirate with two snake-like heads. This roguish character takes him to a hospital, where a spider-like surgeon operates on his eyes.
Wouldn't you know it? There's a catch. The pirate blackmailed the surgeon into doing something to our hero's eyes so that he needs routine treatment with a certain chemical in order to keep his vision. As a side effect, the operation gave him the ability to see clearly in almost total darkness, even able to perceive radiation. This makes him a very useful tool of the pirate on this planet without natural illumination except starlight.
The guy goes along with the pirate, while also spying on him. Meanwhile, the local inhabitants of the planet spy on both him and the pirate. (There's a lot of spying in this book.) The renegade alien and the kidnapped victim show up, as well as other aliens intent on conquest.
I've only given you a synopsis of maybe half the novel. There are plenty of complications in store. The hero winds up on yet another planet, and finds out about the ancient vanished aliens.
The main difference between Tubb's book and this one is that McApp's is much more tightly plotted. There aren't any pointless subplots. As a bonus, the octopus-like pirate is an enjoyable character, usually several steps ahead of the hero. Not the most profound story ever told, but competent entertainment.
The Palace of Eternity is the first of Bob Shaw’s works that I’ve read. Shaw is a man of many talents, having worn a myriad of hats from taxi-driver to structural engineer and aircraft designer. He has added writing fiction to his repertoire with works such as The Two Timers, Night Walk, and his breakout short story, "Light of Other Days."
The Palace of Eternity is set in a distant and turbulent future where humanity has discovered FTL space travel, taken to the stars, and struggles to weather the onslaught of violent attacks from an alien species known as the Pythsyccans.
The protagonist, Mack Tavernor, is a battle-hardened former soldier who had been orphaned when the Pythsyccans devastated his childhood home. Naturally, Tavernor doesn’t view the Pythsyccans in a positive light but he also seems disillusioned enough with humanity to keep his own kind at arm’s length.
The Pythsyccans attack Mnemosyne, an idyllic, almost utopian world dubbed a haven for writers, artists, and other creators of varied talents. Tavernor, naturally, takes up arms against the invading enemy and dies in battle. This is where the story takes an interesting turn.
After shucking this mortal coil, Tavernor encounters the egons, a non-corporeal race of cosmic beings whose very existence is threatened by the proliferation of humanity’s FTL-ramjet technology, the Butterfly Ships. Tavernor, the newest egon, gets another lease on life, inhabiting the body of a newborn human child named Hal. The goal of his mission, to somehow interfere in the war between the humans and Pythsyccans in order to save the endangered egons.
The Palace of Eternity is a fantastic and eloquently written and fast-paced story that fires on all pistons where the things about science fiction that excite me are concerned. And yet…somehow, though, this book failed to move me. For all its eloquence and imaginativeness, I found myself unable to feel strongly about the characters and events of this story. It failed to fill me with a sense of wonder, even amidst the wondrous imagery. At first, I couldn’t put my finger on why.
It wasn’t just that much of the story felt glossed over—and probably should have been explored in greater detail. My main source of dissatisfaction was with the story’s main character’s development.
Mack Tavernor is admirable. He's truly a man's man in all the ways a man ought to be a man. Yet, I could not bring myself to either like or dislike him. At no point did I become emotionally invested in the things that happened to and around him. In short, as a protagonist, Mack falls flat. Lacking the kind of depth and complexity that makes fictional characters feel real in my mind, he is like soda pop that has lost its fizz.
Had Mr. Shaw given The Palace of Eternity the extent of thought and care it deserved, the book could have turned out to be a true phenomenon. It is, indeed, still an excellent and worthy read. Even so, I feel it's almost a tragic waste of the author's very clear intellect and truly wondrous imagination.
This is my first encounter with the fiction of the British cosmologist Fred Hoyle. A prominent astronomer with a long tenure at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, Hoyle is perhaps best known for a slew of rather controversial opinions. For instance, Dr. Hoyle has rejected the idea of the Big Bang, and for many years has promoted the idea that life on Earth began in the stars.
Yes, he is an eccentric, but Dr. Hoyle is quite a genius, really; a thoroughly unique figure and someone I would really enjoy meeting.
Dr. Hoyle is also a prominent science fiction writer. In collaboration with his son Geoffrey, he recently authored Rockets in Ursa Major, a thoroughly entertaining, if too brief, science fiction yarn reminiscent of the sort of thing which John W. Campbell might have published. If your kind of space fiction involves brilliant and fearless scientists battling bueaucracy and evil aliens, Rockets in Ursa Major is your kind of book.
I kind of giggled a bit when I realized the main characterof Ursa Major is a deeply accomplished and slightly eccentric scientist and that the book is told in first person – do you look in the mirror a bit too much, Dr. Hoyle? As the story begins, the genius Dr. Richard Warboys is at a very boring professional conference when surprising news pops up on the telly: a spaceship which has been lost for thirty years has suddenly reappeared, streaming towards Earth’s atmosphere.
Only a brilliant scientist can help the ship land! And only a brilliant scientist can help discover the ship's great secret of invading alien species! And only a brilliant scientist can fly a seeming suicide mission to battle those invaders! And only a brilliant scientist can figure out a complicated way to use solar flares to defeat those invaders! And, you guessed it, only a brilliant scientist can then fly towards the sun, release those solar flares and save our planet.
Are you shocked if I tell you that scientist's name is Dr. Dick Warboys?
So, yes, the plot of Rockets in Ursa Major is pure wish fulfillment: the 54-year-old Dr. Hoyle cast a genius scientist aged in his mid-30s as the man who basically singlehandedly saves Earth. And it’s all rather silly.
Dr. Hoyle
But Rockets is all tremendously fun, too, in that marvelously light-hearted way one might imagine Campbell publishing next to a Heinlein juvie or van Vogt brain-twister. I’m not sure if it’s the influence of the younger Mr. Hoyle the author, but this book moves at a kinetic speed, with almost too many twists and turns in its breathless style (I’m not sure why we needed a sequence in which Dr. Warboys breaks into the research college by stealing a boat and running through tunnels, for instance).
At the end of this book, the Hoyles hint at the possibility of a sequel. I would enjoy another thoroughly light-hearted and thoroughly indulgent visit with Dr. Warboys.
John Brunner is one of the most prolific science fiction authors of the latter half of this decade, to the extent that it sometimes feels hard to keep up with his work. I’ve always enjoyed Brunner’s work, which often manages to tread a fine line between smart concepts and exciting action. And I was a huge fan of his grand step into literary science fiction, the remarkable Stand on Zanzibar.
This month sees the release of a new Brunner, called Timescoop, but the zines are already reporting the autumn '69 release of another Brunner novel, called The Jagged Orbit [Actually, it's already been released—the Autumn release is a re-release (ed.)]. Based on the blurbs, Orbit sounds like another book of strong literary ambitions.
Timescoop, however, is not a novel of strong literary ambitions. It’s a goof, a novel in which Brunner played with some clever ideas and delivered a quick little satirical piece. Timescoop clears the palette between works of deep seriousness.
Our protagonist here is one Harold Freitas III, a self-obsessed inheritor of his family’s fortunes who is looking to live up to the legacy his father, recently deceased, has left to him.
Fortunately for Freitas, an amazing invention called the Timescoop has been invented, and he has control of it. The Timescoop can bring anything forward in time and allow it to live in the book’s present. Thus the Venus de Milo and Hermes of Praxiteles can exist – with their original arms – and so can people.
Imagine the Hermes – with arms – in a private house near you!
Looking to make a mark with publicity, Freitas brings forward nine of his ancestors in time and brings them to a family reunion broadcast throughout the galaxy. After all, men of the past were men of great virtue and character and the future world can learn from their insights. But… as one character states prophetically… “How much do we really know about these people? One always looks at the past through rose-colored –"
So Freitas brings forward nine of his ancestors – a steadfast medieval king and a medieval Crusader and a 17th century British merchant and a fire-and-brimstone preacher and a female cowboy, among others – and readies them to face the world and make Freitas famous.
But be careful what you wish for, and especially be careful what you create. Because these ancestors are not the good people Freitas wishes they could be. They are pederasts and nymphomaniacs, gluttons who are covered with filth and who have ancient racist attitudes. One even indulged in the slave trade.
Mr Brunner
Most of this is played for laughs, and it’s easy to imagine someone like Peter Sellers or Alec Guiness playing all the roles in a film adaptation, taking on silly voices while someone like Peter Cook keeps rolling his eyes at the chaos.
But there is also a small element of satire, a small joy at bringing down the rich and pompous and allowing their obsessions to blow up in their faces.
Timescoop is another quick little novel, and at a mere 156 pages it doesn’t wear out its welcome. But this is clearly Brunner relaxing and doing a small warmup for his next literary work.
In my first conversations with the Traveller, I was warned that some of the works I would cover here would be unpleasant. This is my first, and it does not even have the decency to be memorably terrible (Ole Doc Methuselah by L. Ron Hubbard), or bland yet competent (One Against Herculeum by Jerry Sohl). Light A Last Candle is knockoff Heinlein, wrapped in knockoff Doc Smith and shot through with attempts at imitating Bester.
Our main character is one of the few remaining humans on a planet. There’s “Mods” — modified humans — which our main character doesn’t like. Like a low-energy Gully Foyle, he doesn’t like anyone or anything very much. He doesn’t have a name, our main character, nor does “the girl”. She’s lucky, as all other female figures are called Breeders. The character our main character can stand the most is an old, fatherly figure simply referred to as Rutherford. They are the only two original humans, Free Men, left on the planet, which is mostly under the mind control of the Aliens, and their Mod slaves…or are they?
Social commentary is attempted, as are twists, and like in The Devil’s Own by Nora Lofts, the revelations provided to the reader are ultimately shallow. The more they appear, the more insignificant they are revealed to be. The Devil’s Own is in fact a rather poor comparison; since that is a fine book. In truth, the story Light A Last Candle most reminds me of is Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), with its clunky twists, bland characterization, pervasive male chauvinism, and failing to convey travel in a story that is ostensibly all about traveling. Distance is compressed like an accordion, details are skipped over, days pass offhandedly when we could be learning more about anything we are reading. This ultimately becomes a paucity of both showing and telling, which certainly is new to me. Like Star Man’s Son by Andre Norton, the book centers around bringing the reader to encounter different cultures in this alien future. Like The Weirdstone of Brisigamen by Alan Garner, that travel also takes place in tight, dangerous caves. In both of those books, however, distance and time were characters in themselves. You felt the pressure of travel, the hard work the characters put in, their sense of purpose.
The only talent that really appears throughout the work is a pervasive sense of disgust, of fleshy horror that I know William Hope Hodgeson in The Derelict and Arthur Machen in The Three Imposters did better sixty years ago. I think it's this author's first book, but his grouchiness is beyond his years.
I am writing this review as quickly as possible, because after finishing this book less than a half an hour ago, it is rapidly leaving my mind. I have filled this page with references to other works, so that the reader may enjoy books much better than this one.
As we are now into Summer here, the warmer weather leads to reflection, if not introspection, although I am quite excited about the next few months. Not only do we have the impending Apollo mission to land men on the Moon – and how exciting does that sound! – but as I mentioned last month we also have Star Trek starting on the BBC in July. Such news even reached the national newspapers here.
The only annoying part of that last event is that I understand that the Beeb will not show all of them but a selection, chosen from all three seasons. I hope I’m wrong, but as the series is filling in time between July and new Doctor Who in the Autumn, it sounds likely.
More positively, though, and partly based on the comments from my colleagues here at Galactic Journey, I feel that seeing any Star Trek at all has to be good. I’m just pleased that we will have chance to see them here, albeit in black and white – no colour telly luxury for me, I’m afraid. Most British viewers do not have colour televisions.
Another great cover by Mal Dean – that’s two in a row. This one is illustrating Norman Spinrad’s story, The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde.
Lead-In by The Publishers
It's not just me that's in a reflective mood this month – this Lead In points out that the magazine has been five years in its current format and brings us up to date with what’s been happening to the magazine over that time: financial worries, subscription issues, publisher issues and the refusal of certain shops to sell the magazine in public.
It’s a sobering read and yet in the end a positive one, celebrating that the magazine has lasted five years in its current format and with its new agenda.
Coincidentally, this introduction also tells us that Norman Spinrad is now a resident here in Britain, which may or may not be in part due to the publication of Bug Jack Barron in this magazine.
This may be one of the best Langdon Jones stories I’ve read. It’s not for the easily shocked – as is de rigueur for New Worlds. It’s sexually graphic and basically deals with the story of an incestuous relationship between a boy and his mother. I liked the time travel aspect of the story, although it’s not a new science-fiction thing. 4 out of 5.
Wherein Spinrad is the latest author to write about Mike Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius. (The last was Brian W. Aldiss in last month’s issue.) The Beatles, Russians, Mongolians, a facsimile of Las Vegas in China. Chaotic and satirical (what would you expect from the author of Bug Jack Barron? Not a bad effort, frankly. 4 out of 5.
Erogenous Zone by Graham Charnock
Drawing by Mal Dean
The fourth story based in Graham’s world, CRIM – the first was in New Worlds in November 1965, the third last month. It’s a strange world, where advertising is an essential part of society. It’s a two-act story, one where Craven Image (great name! – but also not-coincidentally ‘CR…IM’) is in a car accident and taken to the hospital afterwards, and another where a dying man is being watched by his daughter and her spouse. Not a story to make sense, but lots of vivid imagery and sex. The world is both odd and depressing, with talk of the Dresden bombings, amongst other things. I’m reminded of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 a little, although not quite as ‘out there’ as that. 3 out of 5.
A non-fiction article from Mr. Aldiss, with the promise of more to follow at a later date. It is written more as a monologue, combining Aldiss’s own life with ruminations of life, technology and H. G. Wells. Odd, but engaging. 4 out of 5.
Surface If You Can by T. Champagne
Drawing by Mal Dean
According to the Lead In, Terry Champagne is a sculptor and an author. Her first story here in Britain is about a young couple who rent a fallout shelter as a home, only to find themselves sealed in when what appears to be nuclear bombs fall outside. A surprisingly straightforward story, with a twist at the end, given the New Worlds treatment by including lots of sex and even necrophilia. There’s also cockroaches. 4 out of 5.
Circularisation by Michael Butterworth
And here’s this issue’s attempt to break down traditional prose format by creating a number of ‘radial-planographic condensed word image structures’, rotated around a point. As these things go, I quite liked the concept of these, although I disliked the fact that the author felt he had to explain them for pages at the end. The actual content is symbolic nonsense, of course. 3 out of 5.
An Experiment in Genocide by Leo Zorin
Artist drawings are unlabelled, but possibly by Mal Dean
Leo Zorin’s odd snippets of prose seem to be well-liked by New Worlds readers (or is that editors?) I’m less impressed by most, although this one was more accessible. This one’s about a pervert (actually described as such in the text!) wandering a world of Ballardian car accidents and grotesque characters that feel like they’ve mutated from Moorcock’s world of Elric. More visual, mixed-up imagery as a result. 3 out of 5.
Perjoriative by Robert E. Toomey Jr.
A story that begins with a one-armed man and a dwarf on a bus and ends with a mushroom cloud. A typical New Worlds story of oddness, reminiscent of the rant-y elements of Bug Jack Barron. 3 out of 5.
Book Reviews: Terrible Biological Haste by Kenneth Coutts-Smith Where Kenneth Coutts-Smith looks at the work of artist Aubrey Beardsley.
Book Reviews: Fourteen Shillings Worth of Grass by R. G. Meadley
R. G. Meadley reviews Gunter Grass’s Dog Years as well as a book of his poetry.
Book Reviews: Paperbag by Joyce Churchill
Joyce Churchill (also known as M. John Harrison) reviews some science fiction books, including Edmund Cooper’s “dated” Deadly Image, Anne McCaffrey’s Decision at Doona (from “the Enid Blyton of science fiction”), Michael Frayn’s satire The Tin Men, John Jakes’s The Planet Wizard, M. P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud and (unsurprisingly) saves the plaudits for Norman Spinrad’s Bug Jack Barron, lastly taking a pop at the editor of Ace Books, Donald A. Wollheim, with a quote from his review of Bug Jack Barron;
Book Reviews: The Sexual Gothic Private Eye Caper by Charles Platt
Charles Platt reviews The Image of the Beast by Philip Jose Farmer very positively.
Book Reviews: The Quality of Justice by David Conway
Back to the non-genre stuff. David Conway reviews a philosophical book on the quality and justice of our social practices.
Summing up New Worlds
I was surprised and pleased to find that on balance I enjoyed this more than the last issue. Spinrad makes a decent stab of a Jerry Cornelius story, the Langdon Jones is acceptable (a fairly standard science fiction idea given the New Worlds treatment of sex and incest) and some good work from new writers as well. I even found the poetry less annoying than usual, although I readily accept that I was more interested in the process of creating rather than the content of the poetry.
What was most memorable however was the fighting talk given by the editors at end of the Lead In at the beginning of the issue. As shown here, New Worlds has not been without its difficulties over the past five years, but based on this it looks like it is determined to fight for its place in a literary market.
The continuing voyage of the new-new-new New Worlds continues apace. (Apologies – I’m still recovering from being told that it looks like the BBC are finally – finally! – going to show Star Trek over here starting in the Summer!)
Well, that’s better!! After the succession of frankly dull covers with faces on, this is a breath of fresh air – scarily dark, vivid, startling – never has Jerry Cornelius looked more frightening. Should get casual readers interested!
Lead-In by The Publishers
The fact that we have two stories of Jerry Cornelius this month is heralded by the Lead-In, as it should.
As we reach the end of the story things begin to make some sense, although to some extent the point of the story is to be confusing, I think!
It is still non-linear, almost dadaist in its narrative structure. This is a story less about plot and more about the little vignettes, scattered across different times and different universes. At times the contradictory nature of these elements add to the confusion.
Keeping it simple, Jerry manages to retrieve the gizmo he has been chasing over the last three parts and we now know that it is important because it allows the user to control multiple universes and see all the alternatives at once. As a result, characters we thought had gone now reappear – Bishop Beesley, Jerry’s brother Frank, Mitzi, and most important to Jerry, his sister Catherine.
The Cure for Cancer is perhaps most important for being an indicator of the times. It is the sort of story I think you need to read with Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced? or the Beatles’ White Album playing in the background – both artists have been mentioned in the narrative. Its thoughts on race, war (deliberately satirising Vietnam) and sexual freedom are indicative of being made for an angry, disillusioned and, perhaps most of all, young readership. 4 out of 5.
Three Events of the Same View by John G. Chapman
Another one of those anti-religious stories New Worlds likes. In the first part, Pope Honorius is imprisoned in a castle by the cardinals after declaring there is no God. In the second, a domestic scene involving a garden shed and a request to store cadavers there before an Undertakers Convention. In the third, the view is from a Commandant in a concentration camp. Nice prose, but if there’s a connection, I couldn’t see it. 3 out of 5.
Playback by Granville Hawkins
An un-named narrator uses illegal equipment to play back a recording of sex. It unfolds that the recording is of his wife, who with their children has been killed in a destroyed London by the moralistic "Calvs". As a final act of defiance, our narrator shows the unlawful recording to the public by projecting it onto a chapel wall. It doesn’t end well. An odd yet memorable story, well written, graphically depicting a dystopian future – rather like Orwell’s 1984 meets the Night of the Long Knives, with racist hangings, castrations and sex. 3 out of 5.
Babel by Alan Burns
Drawing by Mal Dean
An author on his debut here. This is a story that has paragraphs, each a different story. In other words, this is Ballard-type pastiche, which could be good, but this is filled with such stream of consciousness nonsense that it feels like a bad hallucinogenic drug trip. For example: “Men are opening the Moon. Streams of wheels have springs of space.” 2 out of 5.
Between the Tracks by Ron Pagett and Tom Veich
A story with the same events repeated over and over, but slightly different each time. Most begin with a ‘boy’ travelling along ‘the tracks’ but things are not what they seem. Allegorical tale, with nods to Bradbury’s Martian stories, I noticed. Nicely done, but I’m not sure I ‘got it’. 3 out of 5.
Spoor by Alan Passes
Photograph by Gabi Nasemann
A story about a man searching for Jayne in a Royal Park. Along the way a number of people around him are suddenly eaten by dangerous animals – a lion, an alligator. At the end he finds Jayne fornicating with a gorilla. I get the impression that all this is meant to be funny (“Me Tarzan, you Jane”, perhaps?), but I just found it unpleasant and meaningless. Another dream-state tale. 2 out of 5.
Flower Gathering by Langdon Jones
Langdon Jones’s latest piece, text written out in pretty patterns (which is rapidly becoming a prose-thing that I hate) to say THE GARLANDS OF LOVE WEAVE FOR US – or is that WEAVE FOR US THE GARLANDS OF LOVE? I guess this is an attempt to give prose a new form, but for me pretty meaningless. 1 out of 5.
Sub-Entropic Evening by Graham Charnock
Photograph by Gabi Nasemann
We’re back in Graham’s CRIM-world for this one. (The first was in New Worlds in November 1968, the last in the March issue three months ago.) This is a story where nothing is what it seems, another set of descriptions written as if the people are in a drug-induced, dream-like state. Jones, Dragon, Velma, and Cat live near an Arena where people seen as enemies of the state are routinely incinerated, and there’s a music concert played by musicians which can cause blindness and death in some sort of suicide pact. It’s all vivid but odd and rather unpleasant. Not a place I’d want to live in, but I guess that is the point. 3 out of 5.
The Fermament Theorem by Brian W Aldiss
Drawing by Mal Dean
In which Brian Aldiss takes up the mantle to write a Jerry Cornelius story. Earlier in the year Mike Moorcock did say that the sharing of the Jerry Cornelius character was about to happen. Is it any good? It is such a confused mess of satire, social commentary and sex that readers will either think of it as a work of genius or be horrified by the unstructured elements claiming to be a story.
Drawing by Mal Dean
I enjoyed it, even if I’m not sure I understood it all. There’s a story in there about the origin of the solar system being allied to the Moon and sex, comments on popularism and culture, not to mention lots of obscure references to people such as astronomer and science fiction writer Fred Hoyle, the Archbishop of Canterbury and author Robert Graves. In summary, Aldiss manages to take the key characteristics of a JC story – fluid sexuality, references to culture, fashion and society – and turn them into a satirical commentary – I think. What I found most interesting was that although Cornelius barely appears in the story, Aldiss has managed to write a Jerry Cornelius story in Moorcock’s style. It doesn’t feel out of place in the Jerry Cornelius series, although lighter in tone than A Cure for Cancer. I’ll give it 4 out of 5, although I accept that it could score anywhere between 2 (unstructured mess) – and 5 (work of genius!) depending on the person reading it.
Book Reviews: Use Your Vagina by J. G. Ballard
Advertisement from the back cover for the reviewed book.
In which J. G. Ballard reviews in detail a “sexual handbook.” Wouldn’t happen in Analog!
Book Reviews: The Boy from Vietnam by M. John Harrison
More relevant, perhaps, Harrison reviews a collection of two stories, one by Aldiss and one by Ballard in a book entitled The Inner Landscape, with varying degrees of success. Harrison then claims that Aldiss is “on better form” with his collection of five novellas in Intangibles, Inc. Eric Burdick’s Old Rag Bone is a non-genre book seemingly dealing with Catholic guilt.
Lastly and in keeping with contemporary themes, Harrison reviews Norman Mailer’s Why Are We in Vietnam? reminding me that the magazine is sold in the US as well as England. The book was reviewed in more detail by Douglas Hill in the March 1968 issue of New Worlds.
Book Reviews: The Comrade from Ploor by James Cawthorn
James Cawthorn generously reviews E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Subspace Explorers as a book that “offers the kind of entertainment that made the good old days of sf what they were” (ie: not the sort of story found in New Worlds today!), Brother Assassin by Fred Saberhagen which “stretches credibility just a little” and John Brunner’s Double! Double! which has “no credibility whatsoever”. There’s also an Ace Double with Code Duello by Mack Reynolds and The Age of Ruin by John M. Faucett, a review of a new biography of Edgar Rice Burroughs by Richard A. Lupoff, World of the Starwolves—a space opera by Edmond Hamilton, and positive reviews of James H. Schmitz’s This Demon Breed and Hal Clement’s story collection, Small Changes. I was pleased to see some more traditional sf get some positive comments.
Book Reviews: The Machiavellian Method by R. Glynn Jones
R. Glynn Jones reviews a book on tyranny, which is most disconcerting for having photographs of Hitler’s teeth.
Book Reviews: Woman’s Realm by D. R. Boardman
Lastly, D. R. Boardman reviews The Tunnel by Maureen Lawrence, a “competent first novel”. Was mildly pleased to see that it has been written by an ex-academic who is local to me, but not really my sort of thing, being the story of “a bored lonely woman living a boring life”.
Summing up New Worlds
Good news: although the scores may not reflect it, this is a better issue than the last. Although not perfect, the magazine scores with the conclusion of the Moorcock serial and Brian Aldiss’s take on the character. They are recognisably similar yet different, both confusing and subversive. New readers will not have a clue, regular readers will appreciate the word play and anti-establishment satire.
On the other side of the coin, there is also lots of material by relative unknowns, the new lifeblood of the magazine. Most of it is acceptable, though rarely outstanding. For example, the Hawkins was OK, but like Obtuowicz’s story last month really was another unpleasant story without anything really new to offer, Alan Passes’ Spoor was just dreadful.
Yesterday the Vatican announced that more than forty saints have been removed from the official liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. How come? Because there's some serious doubt that these holy folks ever existed.
The most famous of these former saints is Christopher, patron of travelers. There are plenty of people with Saint Christopher medals hanging from the rear view mirrors of their cars, hoping for safe journeys.
A typical Saint Christopher medal. Note the infant Jesus carried on his back.
The story goes that Christopher (whose name, appropriately, means Bearer of Christ) carried the baby Messiah across a river. I guess we'll never know now how He made it. Perhaps He crawled on water.
Long Hair Music
I'm sure that ex-Saint Christopher will continue to be associated with a divine youth. In this modern age, what could be more associated with secular youth than the hippie movement? The popularity of the musical Hair is proof of the cultural importance of these groovy young people.
Further evidence, if any be needed, is the fact that Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, a medley of two songs from Hair performed by The 5th Dimension, has been Number One in the USA since the middle of April, and shows no signs of leaving that position anytime soon.
Maybe I'm prejudiced in the song's favor because I'm an Aquarius.
Bildungsroman
Fittingly, the latest issue of Fantastic is dominated by the first half of a new novel in which we see the main character develop from a child to a young adult.
Cover art by Johnny Bruck.
The cover is, as usual, borrowed from an issue of the German magazine Perry Rhodan.
What happened to the green halo around the sphere in the upper right corner?
Editorial: Don't, by Laurence M. Janifer
The associate editor tells us why writing is a bad career choice. Although the piece is intended to be humorous, I can't help feeling that there's a trace of true bitterness to it.
No rating.
Emphyrio (Part One of Two), by Jack Vance
Illustrations by Bruce Jones.
Taking up half the magazine, this initial segment begins with a bang. We witness our protagonist, Ghyl Tarvoke, held prisoner in a tower. His skull is cut open and his brain attached to a sinister device. His captors manipulate his mind, bringing him from a vegetative state to one where he is able to answer questions, but lacks the imagination to lie. The torturers want to know why he committed serious crimes before they kill him.
After this dramatic opening we go into a flashback. Ghyl is the son of a woodworker. They live on a planet that was colonized so long ago that Earth is just a legend. Centuries ago, a war devastated the place where they live. Wealthy and powerful people restored basic services and now rule as lords, collecting taxes from their underlings.
Ghyl and a friend sneak into the spaceport where the aristocrats keep their private starships.
Ghyl's father engages in the forbidden activity of duplication; that is, he builds his own device that allows him to make copies of old manuscripts. (Other forms of duplication are also illegal; everything has to be made by hand.) He eventually pays a very heavy price for his crime.
In what starts as a joke, Ghyl runs for mayor (a purely symbolic office, but one that might offer the possibility of changing the oppressive laws of the lords) under the nom de guerre of Emphyrio. This half of the novel ends just as the election is about to take place.
Vance is a master at describing exotic settings and strange cultures, and his latest work is a particularly shining example. I have failed to give you any idea of the novel's complex and detailed background. (Vance is the only SF author I know who can get away with the copious use of footnotes to explain the worlds he creates.) Ghyl and the other characters are very real, and their world seems like a place with millennia of history.
If I have to have a few minor quibbles, I might say that the novel (with the exception of the shocking opening scene) is very leisurely and episodic. Readers expecting an action-packed plot may be a bit disappointed. Personally, I found Ghyl's world fascinating.
Four stars (and maybe even leaning toward five.)
The Big Boy, by Bruce McAllister
The only other original work of fiction in this issue is a blend of science fiction and religious fantasy. Space travelers, including clergy, discover a galaxy-size, vaguely humanoid being deep in the cosmos. It manipulates stars and planets. An attempt to communicate with it yields a garbled message that seems to indicate that it is God. A clearer version of the message reveals something else.
I didn't really see the point of this story. The second version of the message isn't some big, shocking twist, but rather a slight modification of the original. (That's how I saw it, anyway, although the characters react wildly to it.)
Two stars.
On to the reprints! They all come from old issues of Fantastic, instead of the usual yellowing copies of Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures.
Time Bum, by C. M. Kornbluth
The January/February 1953 issue of the magazine supplies this comedy.
Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.
A con artist rents a bungalow from a married couple. He drops hints that he's from centuries in the future. Revealing his identity as a time traveler would be a capital offense in his future world, or so he convinces them. The plan is to have them bring him a fortune in diamonds that he can supposedly duplicate for them.
Illustration by David Stone.
This is an amusing little jape. The author has a good time making fun of time travel stories and science fiction in general. (The wife is a reader of SF magazines, tearing off the covers with their scantily clad space women.) It's a minor work, and you'll see the ending coming a mile away, but it's worth a chuckle or two.
Three stars.
The Opal Necklace, by Kris Neville
The very first issue of the magazine (Summer 1952) is the source of this horror story.
Cover art by Barye Phillips and Leo Summers.
The daughter of a witch living way back in the swamp marries a man from New York City. The witch warns her that she will always be a part of the swamp. She gives her daughter a string of opals, each one of which contains one of the husband's joys.
Illustration by Leo Summers.
When the marriage inevitably falls apart, the woman turning to booze and cheap affairs, she destroys the opals, one by one. The first time, this causes the death of the man's pet dog. It all leads up to a tragic ending.
Besides being an effective chiller, this is a very well-written story with a great deal of emotional power. The woman is both victim and villain. The reader is able to empathize with her, no matter how reprehensible her actions may be.
Four stars.
The Sin of Hyacinth Peuch, by Eric Frank Russell
This grimly comic tale comes from the Fall 1952 issue.
Cover art by Leo Summers.
A series of gruesome deaths occurs in a small town in France. They all happen near a place where a meteorite fell. Only the village idiot knows what is responsible.
Illustration by Leo Summers also.
Does that sound like a comedy to you? Me neither. The basic plot is a typical science fiction horror story, but the author treats it with dry humor. Frankly, I found it in questionable taste, and not very funny.
Two stars.
Root of Evil, by Shirley Jackson
A tale from a truly great writer comes from the March/April issue.
Cover art by Richard Powers.
A man places an ad in the newspaper offering to send money to anybody who writes to him. Sure enough, folks who send in a request get the cash. We see several people react to this strange ad in different ways. At last, we learn about the fellow giving away all this loot.
Illustration by Virgil Finlay.
I was expecting a lot from the author of the superb short stories The Lottery and One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts as well as the excellent novels The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I didn't get it. The initial premise is interesting, but the story fizzles out at the end.
Two stars.
What If, by Isaac Asimov
The same premiere issue that gave us Kris Neville's dark story of an unhappy marriage offers this sentimental tale from the Good Doctor about a happy one.
Illustration by David Stone.
A lovey-dovey couple are on a train. A strange little man sits across from them with a box that says WHAT IF in big letters. He doesn't say a word, but he shows them a glass panel that allows them to see what would have happened if they had not met the way they did.
This isn't the most profound story ever written, but it makes for very pleasant reading. The message seems to be that some people are truly meant for each other, and that things tend to work out for the best. An optimistic point of view, to be sure, but it will probably appeal to the old softy inside all of us.
Three stars.
Fantasy Books, by Fritz Leiber and Hank Stine
Leiber has high praise for the dark fantasy novel Black Easter by James Blish (I agree; it's very good) and the story collection A Glass of Stars by Robert F. Young, particularly noting the latter's skill with love stories. (I agree with that also.)
Although it's not a book, the column includes an appreciation of the supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows by Hank Stine.
No rating.
Worth Spending Your Youth On?
This was a pretty good issue, despite a couple of disappointments. The Jack Vance novel is clearly the highlight. If you'd rather skip the rest of the magazine, you can always read an old literary classic.
Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini is quite the character: a provocateur, author, leftist intellectual, and filmmaker. Despite his atheism and devotion to communism, his film The Gospel According to St. Matthew was nominated for multiple Oscars a few years ago, and indeed it's a lovely picture. Now we have Teorema, or Theorem in English, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival late last year to good reception. This is not, at first glance, a "genre" film, although it does have subtle supernatural elements, and like Pasolini's telling of the Jesus narrative it is deeply religiously concerned. It is also a political allegory, and the prudish might take issue with its erotic charge and depictions of homosexuality.
English poster for Teorema.
The film starts in a way that doesn't seem to connect with the proceeding plot, but at first glance it does at least make the film's nature as political allegory explicit. We have a documentary-like scene of a union leader being interviewed about something very strange happening recently: a factory owner has given said factory to his workers, seemingly out of a crisis of conscience. We're immediately met with some heady questions, such as: "Is it possible for the bourgeoisie to be transformed in the name of resolving class conflict? Is it even possible for the bourgeoisie to redeem itself, or are such redemptive acts merely the response to a crisis?" We also get a montage of a desert, near a volcano, which likewise seems unrelated to the plot at first.
Terence Stamp as the visitor.
We then cut to such an upper-class family, a husband (Massimo Girotti) and wife (Silvana Mangano) with their grown children, a son (Andrés José Cruz Soublette) and daughter (Anne Wiazemsky), plus a middle-aged servant (Laura Betti) who lives with the family. (These characters technically have names, but their names are not as nearly as important as the roles they play, so I'll be calling them by the latter.) The family receives a message one day that someone will be arriving soon—maybe for a party at the house that's been planned, but we're not told. We're also not told the name of this person, a handsome visitor played by the young British actor Terence Stamp. The visitor comes and hangs out at the party, but then, for no reason and without anyone objecting, stays with the family for days after the party has ended.
Silvana Mangano as the mother, with a shirtless Stamp.
Teorema is a film heavy on ideas and atmosphere, but rather light on dialogue. Viewers might get antsy at the general slowness of it, with the plot on its surface being very simple, and it's common for there to be no spoken dialogue for several minutes at a time. This is just as well. Those who are familiar with Italian productions know that it's customary in that country's film industry to shoot without sound, and then loop dialogue, music, and sound effects in editing. Non-Italian actors speak their preferred languages on-set and then are later dubbed over in Italian. Stamp only has a handful of lines or so, but each time it's clear that Stamp is not the person talking. Similarly Wiazemsky, a French actress, is not the person speaking her lines, and it seems the filmmakers couldn't be bothered to try syncing the dub actress's line reads with Wiazemsky's mouth movements. It's pretty rough dub work.
Father, daughter, and the visitor on the lawn.
The bad dubbing is occasionally distracting, but it's more than counterbalanced by the film's strong visual language, with Pasolini and cinematographer Giuseppe Ruzzolini working to oscillate between picturesque camera framings and frenzied movements that I have to think were achieved with a handheld camera. The at-times painterly camerawork helps heighten what must be the initial draw for many viewers, which is Stamp's physical beauty—a factor that also draws the members of the family, both the women and men, to him like moths like a flame. The servant is the first to fall under the visitor's spell, so affected is she that after seeing the visitor on the lawn one day she tries to commit suicide. Thankfully the visitor saves her, and not only that, but without any words exchanged between them he makes love to her. It doesn't take long for the mother to be the next "victim" of the visitor's charm, although the strange part of all this is that the visitor doesn't seem to have any ulterior motive for having sex with the people of the household one-by-one.
Anne Wiazemsky as the daughter, with Stamp's groin.
To call Teorema an erotic film, or "pornographic," or something like that, would be overselling it; but at the same time it does have an eroticism more often found in French and Italian productions as of late than here in the States. We even—dare I say it—at one point catch a glimpse of Stamp's… hot dog (and bun(s)). And yet despite having sex (offscreen) with people of both sexes, the visitor can't be easily categorized as heterosexual or homosexual, or even be said to have much sexual initiative. When he seduces the daughter, for instance, she literally takes him by the hand and guides him to her bedroom, after having taken pictures of him on the lawn. The strange paradox here, that the visitor is a seducer and yet also perfectly gentle with his partners, is that he retains a kind of nobility—even a purity. It's implied, and more or less confirmed later in the film, that the visitor is an angel that has taken on a human guise.
One of several pictures the daughter took of the visitor.
Up to about the halfway point, you could say the film is strange but not outright fantastic—that this is something even more unclassifiable: a somewhat erotic allegory that stands on the borderline between the real and the fantastic. But then, for no reason given, the visitor leaves. Clearly the family were expecting him to leave at some point, but the reality of the visitor finally leaving them (presumably forever) hits each of the household members like a truck. The daughter, perhaps being driven mad from keeping pictures of the visitor in a photo album, enters a catatonic state and is driven off to a mental hospital. The son gets out of this situation the best, having taken up painting as a hobby, his fate maybe aligning most with what Pasolini considers the best-case scenario for the bourgeoisie being transformed. The mother starts whoring herself out to young men who eerily resemble the visitor, yet she's unable to fill the hole the visitor had left in her life. The servant leaves the estate and returns to her native village, where she becomes a sort of prophet who can work miracles.
Andrés José Cruz Soublette as the son, who has turned to painting on glass.
Teorema is about 95 minutes long, and is split pretty close to evenly in half, between the visitor's stay and after he leaves. As such it doesn't have the three-act structure that we've come to expect from narrative filmmaking so much as two long acts, or maybe even six acts, with each half of the film having its own three-act narrative arc. Those who came to see Terence Stamp both will and will not be disappointed, since sadly he does leave halfway through the film, but he does make the most of what screentime he has, even with how few lines he is given. Once the visitor leaves, both the characters and the structure splinter, with the second half of the film being concerned with each of the members of the house trying to cope with the visitor's absence in different ways, with varying degrees of success. Curiously, the servant, the only one to come from a working-class background, is also the only one who seems to have been "blessed" by the visitor, resulting in the film's only overtly supernatural moments.
One of the mother's substitutes for the visitor.
When it comes to what little dialogue there is, most of it is taken up by a few extended monologues, one of which especially caught my attention. The father at one point takes a passage from the Book of Jeremiah, although it looks like Pasolini abridged it somewhat and reworded things for his own ends. Here is the passage from the King James translation, Jeremiah 20:7 to 20:10:
O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.
For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.
Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.
For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.
And here is the father's monologue:
You have seduced me, O Lord, and I let myself be seduced. You have taken me by force, and you have prevailed. I have become an object of daily derision, and all mock me. Yes, I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side. “Denounce him, and we will denounce him.” All my friends awaited my downfall. “Perhaps he will let himself be seduced. Then we shall prevail, and take our revenge upon him.”
There is a great deal that can be said about Pasolini's replacing "deceived" with "seduced," or the fact that the recontextualizing of the passage gives man's relationship with God a homoerotic implication. This is all an ambitious gambit for Pasolini, to combine the religious, political, and erotic, into a single concise narrative.
Laura Betti as the servant, levitating, the villagers watching in awe.
Speaking of the father, we finally learn about the context for the film's opening scenes, with the union leader and the desert. It turns out that the father is the factory owner who has given his property over to his workers, and also that he has humiliated himself in public by stripping naked in the middle of a train station. He sheds his material possessions about as far as humanly possible, and yet even as he wanders naked through the desert (how he got from the train station to the desert on foot is anyone's guess), it's clear that this relieving of wealth does not absolve the father, nor does it bring him happiness. The ending, strange as it is, is up to interpretation, but I have a feeling Pasolini believes it's impossible for the bourgeoisie to redeem itself.
Massimo Girotti as the father, naked in the desert, full of sound and fury.
I believe it was John W. Campbell who, many years ago now, said that if the stars appeared only once in a thousand years that men would surely go mad at the sight of them. (Of course I'm also referring to a certain beloved SF story, although I need not tell you its title.) Similarly, in Pasolini's film, the bourgeoisie are suddenly made aware of their own insignificance because of one divine and beautiful man. (I do not mean to say I find Terence Stamp attractive, although I do think it's fair to say, as an objective statement, that he is quite attractive. Yes.) It's a film about confronting the fantastic and turning to dust because you are unworthy of such a sight. It's a challenging film, maybe a bit too slow and structurally off-kilter, but I have to admit I also found it enticing.
With this issue of New Worlds, number 190, we now seem to be getting back to a regular monthly schedule and the new style seems to be bedding itself down into a regular format – although this being New Worlds I suspect that they would hate any hint of things becoming routine.
Quick recap, then. Recently Charles Platt and Michael Moorcock stepped away from full-time editorial duties, leaving the magazine in the capable hands of Langdon-Jones. His first issue last month was a corker, with the first publication of a Harlan Ellison story in Britain (although to be fair I had read some of his other work published in the American magazines beforehand.) As a result, the new mantra seems to be that New Worlds even though under new management will continue to publish cutting edge, controversial material that defies borders and descriptions.
Each issue seems to continue a confounding mixture of good, bad and weird prose, not to mention poetry. Its appeal to me seems to be that I never quite know what I’m going to get next, although with the poetry I have a fairly good (or is that bad?) idea.
We’re back to the odd pictures of people’s faces on the cover this month.
Lead-In by The Publishers
As is usual, information is given on the contributors. This month, Harvey Jacobs, Brian Aldiss, poet Libby Houston, science editor Dr. Christopher Evans, his secretary Jackie Wilson and a photo of author Marek Obtuowicz without any further detail.
The Moment of Eclipse by Brian W Aldiss
Photo by Gabi Nasemann
The Lead In tells us that Brian’s latest offering was inspired by Thomas Hardy’s Poem Inspired by a Lunar Eclipse written in 1902.
This however is a more contemporary work, about a modern film maker and his pursuit of Christiania, a woman he has met, despite the fact that she is married and with a son. So, a story of lust, combined with Aldiss’s quirky humour and his love of global places that we have read before – not to mention a parasitical worm that will frighten any devotees of Frank Herbert’s Dune!
I liked this generally – mainly because it shows Aldiss’s precise and illustrative prose without so much of the oddness exhibited in his recent Charteris stories. 3 out of 5.
This story is set in Vietnam as a dialogue between two negotiators hoping to cease the conflict there. Whilst the two characters grow closer, the war continues. A story that through vivid imagery and prose, at times sexual, basically suggests that war is bad, but that love may bring peace, or at least agreement. 4 out of 5.
Article: The Responsive Environment by Charles Platt
Platt interviews Keith Albarn, an architectural artist who makes furniture and buildings that adapt and can be rebuilt to individual needs. These range from a funfair in Margate to theatre design, educational toys, and a fun palace in Girvan, Scotland.
More fractured escapades with Jerry Cornelius. Much of this part has Jerry travelling the world in search of the missing techno-wotsit. Really though this gives Moorcock a chance to show us the world, from his own street of Ladbroke Grove, London, to trendy Soho and the King’s Road, Chelsea before going on to other places such as Las Vegas and Sumatra.
Cornelius meets his brother Frank again (last seen in the March 1966 issue of New Worlds as part of The Final Programme novel) and sister Catherine, in suspended animation, but really the story appears to mainly be a minor point whilst we examine the setting of a free world in decline. Most of these places have been bombed, London has an air-strike whilst Jerry is in it, Americans are filling the world with ‘advisors’ whilst dealing with civil riots of its own on home territory.
Things begin to make more sense and there’s a feeling that we might be drawing things to a close, as Jerry and the missing machine that he is in search of may be either the cause of the world chaos or the person most effective in having to deal with it. 4 out of 5.
Poems by Libby Houston
Image by Mal Dean
First thought: What must a young woman do to get published in New Worlds magazine? Write poetry, it seems, or be married to the magazine illustrator. (That is unfair, I know. New Worlds has championed women’s writing for years now, when they can get it.)
Six short poems here, and as such – they fill up space unremarkably. (Do bear in mind that I still find most poetry uninteresting, though.) At least they’re not written by the seemingly ubiquitous D. M. Thomas this month. 2 out of 5.
the hurt by Marek Obtuowicz
Photo by Gabi Nasemann
A new author. Sadly, this is one of those stories designed to try and shock without any real involvement on the part of the reader and filled with symbolism that seems meaningless.
Mostly dialogue based, it is a number of conversations between Peter and his sister, Pauline. Unsurprisingly, they discuss their lives in a depressingly bleak future, a world where sex seems meaningless and crying is forbidden. Perhaps even more unsurprisingly, Pauline is a brothel-owner and Peter and Pauline have an incestuous sexual relationship.
There’s something in there about emotional hurt being caused by events in the past, but I was too bored to look at it in detail. 2 out of 5.
The Dreams of the Computer by Dr. Christopher Evans and Jackie Wilson
Written as if a computer programme, filled with lots of “Answer Yes or No” and “Go to” statements, Dr. Evans, with the help of his secretary, responds in kind to J. G. Ballard’s prose story, How Dr. Christopher Evans Landed on the Moon in issue 187 (February 1969) of New Worlds. I liked it. There’s a nice sense of absurd humour in it, but it loses some of its impact by being not as original as the Ballard version. I am also not sure it makes sense if you’ve not seen Ballard’s original piece. 3 out of 5.
A bumper crop of reviews this month, though most are not science fiction-related.
Book Reviews: Back in the U.S.S.R. by R. Glynn Jones
R. Glynn Jones reviews Art and Revolution, a book about the work of Russian sculptor Neivestny, whose opposition to Kruschev has made him a heroic and revolutionary symbol.
Book Reviews: Twilight Crucifixion of the Beastly Black Sheep by M. John Harrison
Harrison reviews The Spook Who Sat by the Door, a polemic book about a Black CIA officer which is “an incitement to riot”, Behold the Man by Michal Moorcock (which we reviewed here when it was a serial story), The Twilight of the Vilp by Paul Ableman, which is “weary, contrived and too long”, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick, a novel which is “beautifully constructed yet disappointing”, and the wonderfully titled The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B, which is “moderately enjoyable”.
Book Reviews: Notes on the Management of a Spoiled Identity by Bob Marsden
Marsden reviews a book on the theory of game-play, a book on psychological theories and stratagems and a book on the discrepancy between what people think a person should be and what they really are. Nothing really of interest to me there. Moving on…
Book Reviews: From Alice with Malice by James Cawthorn
At last: Cawthorn reviews what we would broadly describe as fantasy and science fiction! Black Alice will be of interest here as it is written by two New Worlds regulars, Thomas M. Disch and John T. Sladek. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is well-received. So too a number of books by Michael Moorcock, including The Jewel in the Skull, The Ice Schooner and The Mad God’s Amulet. He then reviews a “disappointing” SF novel for younger readers, Undersea City by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson, and the “fairly entertaining” Twin Planets by Philip E. High. Lastly, and then rather oddly, Cawthorn reviews a book on rural uprisings in pre-Victorian England – who says New Worlds lacks diversity?
Book Reviews: Against the Juggernaut by John Clute
John Clute is a new reviewer here, although he has had fiction published in New Worlds before (A Man Must Die, November 1966.) Here he reviews a “simply godawful” book of poetry, Juggernaut by Barry McSweeney, a book by a new African writer who Clute describes as “an intelligent and urbane civil servant and diplomat, but a lame writer”, a novel about a group of Americans who translate the Oberammergau Passion Play into English and put it on in Texas as making the reviewer feel as if they had “just been forced to eat yesterday’s newspaper” and a detailed review on a book about the philosophy of Jean Paul Satre. They may not be books I would ever want to read myself, but at least the reviewer is entertaining.
Book Reviews: The Nondescript Heroes by Charles Platt
Platt reviews the autobiographical Gemini! by the recently-departed Apollo astronaut Virgil Grissom. He is disappointed by the book’s blandness and superficiality, eventually concluding that such an exciting and technological advancement is not served well by such pilots of limited expression.
Summing up New Worlds
Well, if New Worlds is all about ‘cutting edge, controversial material that defies borders and descriptions’, then this issue isn’t it. In fact, it is a solid yet rather conventional issue – admittedly conventional for New Worlds. There’s no photos of naked ladies, relatively little sex (although there is some – this is New Worlds, after all!) and stories that now seem rather typical of the new style of New Worlds.
In short, it is pretty much what to expect from the magazine, which is not a bad thing, but rather unmemorable, as it is not as determined to startle as some previous editions have been.
The most memorable thing about the issue is the new reviewer John Clute, who seems to be here to stir things up a little, although I do find it amusing to see both recently-retired editors Platt and Moorcock appearing in issues writing fiction and articles. Still around and not forgotten.
As I mentioned last month, this issue begins yet another new era for New Worlds. With the retirement of Mike Moorcock and Charles Platt from full-time editorialship in the last issue, it is Langdon Jones that steps up to the mark as editor this time.
For that reason alone, it should be an interesting one, but last month’s issue also pointed out that the April issue was going to have an apocalyptic theme:
The named list from last month.
With Mike Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius saving the world from destruction, the advert proudly declared, “Is The Apocalypse Already Upon us??” Gone is the optimistic, forward-looking shiny and new future as suggested by the SF of the 1950’s, and in its place we have post-apocalyptic gloom, doom, decay and squalor. It has been an ongoing theme in the magazine for the last few years.
To be fair, the white cover with a minimalist approach to titling and imagery, this month by the recently deceased Mervyn Peake, does not give an impression of 'gloom and doom'. Far from it. I found it more interesting than the recent generic covers. A good start.
Lead In by The Publishers
Much is made of the fact that this issue has the UK debut of the US’s enfant terrible Harlan Ellison.
In a post-apocalyptic US we are told of teenager Vic and his telepathic dog, Blood. Vic is a teenage boy who spends his time scavenging the world for basic needs—food, companionship, and sex—as well as generally avoiding other groups, known as roverpaks, doing the same thing. They meet Quilla June – unusual because most women live where it is safer, underground. Vic rapes Quilla June before they are attacked by another roverpak. Blood is hurt in the scuffle. Quilla June escapes and returns to her underground home of Topeka.
Determined to get food and find Quilla June, Vic leaves Blood on the surface and follows Quilla June underground, to discover that bringing Vic underground was the original plan by the subterranean city elders. New blood (see what Ellison did there?) is needed to replenish the depleted stock of men! Vic sees this as a great opportunity for sex with lots of different women, but soon tires of being basically a sex slave. He escapes back to the surface with Quilla June, only to find Blood hurt and in need of food to survive. The open ending leaves Vic with a quandary – does he leave Blood or feed Blood?
This one should activate all the seismic shockmeters: there’s sex, masturbation, rape, gore, violence, cannibalism, radioactive mutations and a distinct lack of morals and ethics as Vic and Blood try to survive. (It's a little concerning when I'm told that Ellison used his own dealings with gang culture in the US as inspiration for this story.)
As good as it is, that’s not to say that there aren't worrying elements – Quilla June’s change from rape victim to willing participant is a little jarring to me, but to some extent this reflects the brutal society Vic and Blood live in and the amoral stance that Vic has towards life. Unsurprisingly, when presented with a version of what pre-War domesticity is like, he rebels and runs away back to his previous life.
Undoubtedly memorable and a million miles away from the classic hero template of older SF work, A Boy and his Dog reinvents the apocalyptic adventure story and generally holds up. I found it bold, interesting, lively and yes, controversial. As good as Delany’s Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stonesback in the December issue. 5 out of 5.
The Ash Circus by M. John Harrison
And here’s M. John Harrison’s take on Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius (more of which later.) They do say that imitation is the best form of flattery, and here Harrison copies the beginning of Ian Fleming’s James Bond movie You Only Live Twice before having Jerry return to a decaying London, then travel to Scotland and Manchester to become inspired by Byron and then get involved in a putsch in London, before meeting the authoritarian Miss Brunner again.
It’s actually not bad as a mixture of James Bond and The Avengers television series, with the dark humour of Cornelius coming to the fore, but it is less out-there than Moorcock’s own Cornelius material (again – more of which later.) This may, of course, make the story more readable than some of Jerry’s other esoteric stories. 4 out of 5.
How the Sponsors Helped Out by Anthony Haden-Guest
Poetry – or rather a list of different things sent by companies to ‘The Front’ – Hamleys sent toys, IBM sent a brain, and so on. This being New Worlds the poem doesn’t miss throwing out a few choice expletives in the mixture – guess what Playboy sent? I dare not repeat the word here. Mildly amusing. 3 out of 5.
Labyrinth by D. M. Thomas
More poetry. Described as ‘a poem for light and movement’, Thomas manages to produce strange typewritten boxes that are at times undecipherable. A typical ‘form over content’ type piece. 2 out of 5.
Another one of Ballard’s stories where novels are compressed into paragraphs. The clever part is that each paragraph begins with the letters of the alphabet. Described as ‘An Entertainment for George MacBeth’, this one reads like the description of an exotic holiday beach party and also feels, rather oddly at times, like a James Bond plot – not the first time I’ve thought that for this issue. One of the more enjoyable of Ballard’s recent stories for me, perhaps because it feels a little more like the material Ballard was writing when I first noticed him. 4 out of 5.
Inside by J. J. Mundis
The inevitable 'naked lady of the month' picture.
Another strange story from J J Mundis after the rather odd ‘Luger’ story last month. This time, a depressing stream of consciousness story that’s all sex, drugs and allegory about being empty inside. Nothing really worth remembering. 2 out of 5.
For Czechoslovakia by George MacBeth
Yet more poetry, this time from the poet J. G. Ballard wrote for earlier. As expected, it is dark, gloomy and depressing, combining prose passages from The Diary of a German Soldier, written in 1939 interspersed with verses written by MacBeth using the process of automatic writing. I’m intrigued by the process, if less impressed by the poetry. 3 out of 5.
After Harrison’s version, we now return to the originator of the Jerry Cornelius stories.
More artwork by Mal Dean.
This month Jerry continues his meandering travels across time with Karen von Krupp to try and find Bishop Beezley. Lots of prose in small sections (with even an homage of J. G. Ballard in Ballard style lists of text), whose connections are rather obtuse, lots of sex and Miss Brunner – again! (see also M. John Harrison’s story.)
The plot’s undecipherable, but I feel that this is one you appreciate for the enthusiastic energy rather than the plot. Who knows what’s going on, but the writer clearly had fun writing it. 4 out of 5.
Book Reviews
A Turning World by Brian W. Aldiss
Where Aldiss muses on how perspectives change through time, throwing in a couple of reviews along the way – basically, a discussion on how others might see us in the future.
The Cannon Kings by Joyce Churchill
Referring to recent publications, Joyce Churchill (also known as M. John Harrison) writes about the importance of Germany’s armaments manufacturers in the first half of the 20th century.
A Slight Case of Tolkien by James Cawthorn
It is left to James Cawthorn to review the genre books. This month he looks at Jack Vance’s Catch A Falling Star, Robert Burnet (sic) Swann’s Moondust, Shirley Jackson’s The Sundial, Clifford Simak’s So Bright the Vision coupled with Jeff Sutton’s The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, James Blish and Norman L. Knight’s A Torrent of Faces, Ron Goulart’s ‘light-hearted’ The Sword Swallower and a well-deserved reprint of William Hope Hodgson’s horror classic, The House on the Borderland.
Summing Up
This one’s heavy on the espionage Bond-type vibes this month, what with not one but two Jerry Cornelius stories and a Ballard that reads like a Bond story in a Ballard style. As a first issue of the new regime with Langdon Jones as editor, it is not bad – although it may have been better had the Cornelius stories been spread out across different issues. Personally I like the stories, but they're not for everyone, and there's a lot of it here.
But then there’s the Harlan Ellison story that surpassed even my high expectations of his work. If the 'impending apocalypse' is represented by this story, then it's a memorable one to be sure, if decidedly downbeat. According to Ellison, the future is dark and tough.
I can’t see this one being published in the US in the usual science fiction magazines, but even allowing for its deliberate shock tactics, it really impressed – much more than say Bug Jack Barron, which tried to shock readers in a similar way, I think.
If I needed anything to show how much the British genre scene has changed in the last few years, this would be my example, albeit written by an American. Shocking and controversial, yes – but perhaps the best story I’ve read in New Worlds to date. A real coup for the new editorship.
It's a highly superior clutch of books this month around—plus a double review of the new Vonnegut…
by Victoria Silverwolf
Sophomore Efforts
By coincidence, the last two books I read were both the second novels to be published by their authors. Otherwise, they are as different as they could be.
Coleman's first book was something called Seeker From the Stars. I haven't read it, so I can't comment. In fact, I was completely unfamiliar with this author, so I asked my contacts in fandom and the publishing industry about him. I turned up a couple of interesting facts.
Firstly, he's one of the few Black science fiction writers. (The most notable is, of course, the great Samuel R. Delany.) That's a good thing for the field. The more variety of writers, the better the fiction.
Secondly, he's currently in jail for burglary. It seems that he's taken up writing while incarcerated. That seems like a decent path to rehabilitation, so let's wish him good luck while paying his debt to society.
But is the book any good? Let's find out.
At some time in the future, humanity has reached the far reaches of the solar system. However, a conglomeration of business interests known as the Five Companies has put a stop to further development of space science, unless they control it. They're so powerful that they have their own secret police. Not even the World Government or the Space Patrol can keep them from crippling research.
Our protagonist is Catherine Rogers. She is part of a private space research group that dares to defy the Five Companies. Trouble starts when a scientist shows up at their headquarters, shot by the secret police. Just before dying, he gives Catherine and her colleagues a book and a key to a hidden cache of highly advanced technology brought from another world.
We quickly find out that two aliens in the form of glowing spheres are on Earth. One of them is insanely evil. He kidnapped the other, who is essentially the queen bee of her species. He intends to mate with her against her will, forcing her to produce one hundred million offspring (!) who will be raised to be as wicked as himself.
He wants to feed off the life force of human beings, and teach his children to do the same, wiping out humanity. Complicating matters is the fact that the evil alien shares his mind with one of the leaders of the secret police, who wants to get his hands on the advanced technology.
This all happens very early in the book, and we've got a long way to go. Suffice to say that Catherine and her friends work with the good alien, who has enormous psychic powers, to defeat the bad one.
The author's writing style isn't very sophisticated, sad to say, nor is the plot. Much of the time I imagined this story as a comic book. On the good side, the pace keeps getting faster and faster. By the end, it makes Keith Laumer look like Henry James.
I also appreciate the fact that the heroes are of mixed races, and a large number of them are women. All in all, however, I have to confess that this is a disappointing work.
Randall's first novel was called Hedgerow. I haven't read that one either, but apparently it's a Gothic Romance without supernatural elements.
Unlike Coleman, I'm familiar with this author. She had two excellent stories published in Fantastic a few years ago.
Will she be as adept at a longer length? Let's take a look.
An automobile accident claims the lives of the parents of two sisters. Elizabeth (twenty-four years old) escapes without a scratch, but Gabrielle (nineteen) is severely injured. The two young women move into a house owned by the great-aunt of a doctor who cared for Gabrielle during her long and painful recovery.
The house is located on an island off the coast of New England, the perfect setting for a Gothic Romance. Elizabeth and the doctor fall in love, giving us the other mandatory element for this genre.
The first half of the book is narrated by Gabrielle. On the very first page she feels the presence of Alarice, a woman who lived in the house long ago. (She's the dead sister of the great-aunt. Throughout the book, there's a strong parallel between the two pairs of sisters, including a love triangle.)
It's obvious from the start that Gabrielle is mentally and emotionally unstable, after her traumatic experience, so it's not always clear what's real and what's not. The second half of the book is narrated by Elizabeth, who gives us a very different perspective on events, including the tragic accident.
I haven't mentioned a third narrator, who shows up only a few pages from the end, adding a genuinely chilling touch.
This is a beautifully written book, with great psychological insight into its characters. Besides gorgeous language that makes me want to read it out loud, it has a plot as intricately woven as a spider web. We witness the same things happen from different viewpoints, completely changing what we thought we knew.
Five stars.
by Brian Collins
This month's Ace Double is a very good one for both Fritz Leiber fans and readers in general. The quality packed into this Double is unsurprising, though, since it is all reprints. There's the short collection Night Monsters, which contains four stories that all run in the horror vein. Three of these stories were previously printed in Fantastic, and so Victoria covered them some years ago. The other half is The Green Millennium, one of Leiber's more overlooked novels, first published in 1953 and not having seen print in the U.S. in about fifteen years.
The longest story here is also the best, at least in terms of the sheer beauty of Leiber's prose. It's Southern California in the early '60s, and the narrator is recounting the strange ramblings of a friend of his who would disappear under mysterious circumstances. Said friend believes that not only is oil a corrupting force, but that oil might somehow be alive. The supernatural is never seen but is strongly alluded to, in passages so evocative, so oppressive, that they compare with Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The plot itself is rather structureless, but this doesn't matter because Leiber is so good at chronicling modern horrors such as industry and the urban landscape. I lived in California (in Pasadena) for a short time, and I'll be sure never to return.
Another contender for best in the collection is a more personal, more melancholy story. A middle-aged man, a chess-player, astronomer, and divorcee who reads somewhat like a stand-in for Leiber, sees a silhouetted figure behind him in the doubled mirrors he sees going up and down the stairs every night. Without giving away the ending, the apparition may be the ghost of a theatre actress he had met by chance who had committed suicide not long after their encounter. The man, in an attack of conscience, is confronted with a memory he had suppressed, of a person he had deeply wronged, though he didn't know it at the time. It's a ghost story, a striking portrait of guilt, and in a strange way, a love story.
As an unintended companion to the previous story, this one is interesting. It also features a ghostly woman who has been wronged, albeit the crime committed upon her is much worse. We're led to believe at first that this woman is simply a temptress, but while she may creep up on the unsuspecting male lead, she is not a totally malicious specter. "I'm Looking for 'Jeff'" is about a decade older than the other stories, and it certainly shows a restraint (given the horrific crime at the center) that Leiber would probably not show if he had written it today. My one real problem is the ending, which is an expositional monologue from a third party that explains the twist, rather than Leiber showing us what happened.
The last and shortest is also the most lighthearted; it's what you might call a horror-comedy. An actress is quite literally fading (her body is becoming more transparent) as her popularity is on the decline, so she resorts to a very old family ritual that might make her famous again—at a price. The satire is cute, although I think Leiber tackled something similar but better and more seriously in "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes." I'm also not sure about those rhyming couplets. It's fine, but ultimately minor.
Phil Gish is aimless and unemployed, but his life quickly gets turned upside down when he meets a green cat he takes an immediate liking to. He calls the cat Lucky, and like Lovecraft, who liked taking care of strays, he thinks of the animal as his own—only for Lucky to run off. Man gets cat, man loses cat, man goes looking for cat. This is the skeleton on which the book's plot is built, but it balloons into something much weirder and more convoluted.
The future America of The Green Millennium is dystopic, but not in ways we now take as obvious. Robots have become normalized, taking away much of human labor, and the people themselves are largely hedonists desperate for stimulation—not even for pleasure itself but more to fight off boredom. Despite being first published in 1953, it reads like something written in the past few years—in the wake of the New Wave and even something like Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. Certainly it could not have been serialized in the magazines of the time, what with the explicit references to sex and drug use.
The plot, at its core, is simple, but Leiber introduces a colorful array of characters, all of whom want Lucky as much as Phil does. These characters include, but are not limited to, a husband-wife wrestling duo, an analyst who sounds like he himself could use an analyst, a woman with prosthetic legs that hide what seem to be hooves for feet, a pack of corporate higher-ups who may as well be mobsters, actual mobsters, and a few others I have not mentioned. The green cat might be an alien, or a mutant, or a weapon devised by the Soviets, I won't say which.
I might sound inebriated as I'm trying to explain all this, but let me assure you that I haven't smoked or ingested marijuana in five months!
Leiber is a mixed bag when it comes to comedy: he can be pretty funny, but he can also write The Wanderer. The Green Millennium is a madcap SF comedy that was written at a time (the early '50s) when Leiber could seemingly do no wrong, and it demonstrates his keen understanding of things that haunt the modern American. Most importantly, it's just a lot of fun.
On a routine flight from Stockholm to London, sixteen travellers (eight women and eight men) with no connection to each other, find themselves whisked to another world. Their new environs are suggestive of nothing so much as a zoo habitat designed to be reminiscent of home. To wit: a strip of highway flanked by a supermarket and a hotel, complete with electricity and running water. Two automobiles sans engines. A few workshops. A nightly replenished supply of booze, groceries, and tools.
Russell Graheme, M.P., quickly takes charge of the unwilling emigrants, organizing exploration parties. Soon, contact is made with a medievalist enclave, a Stone Age encampment…and what appear to be flocks of fairies.
What is this world? Who brought them there? And to what end? Those are the key riddles answered in this terrific little new book.
It's sort of a cross between Cooper's book Transit (in which five humans are transported to an extraterrestrial island) and Philip José Farmer's "Riverworld" series (in which everyone who ever lived is transported, along with his/her culture, to the banks of an extraterrestrial world-river) with a touch of the whimsy of L. Sprague de Camp (viz. The Incomplete Enchanter). It reads extremely quickly, and what with the short chapters and quick running time, you'll be done with the novel (novella?) before you know it.
What really engaged me, beyond the tight writing and fine characterization, was the central message of hope throughout the book. In "Riverworld", the various cultures who find themselves alongside each other in the hereafter almost immediately form belligerent statelets; war is the constant in Farmer's series. But in Seahorse, it's all about making peaceful contact, working together, having a productive goal. There's no Lord of the Flies to this story (though it is not unmitigatedly happy, either). Cooper clearly has a positive view of humanity, or at least wants to inspire us toward his idealistic vision. Count me in.
Five stars.
Contrast this upbeat book with the other one I read recently…
By page 100, Gideon determined that Slaughterhouse Five is not a book one enjoys, but rather experiences.
Two thirds of the way through the book, Gideon realized he'd been hoodwinked. Slaughterhouse Five is not science fiction at all, but rather the author's attempt to convey his experiences as a POW in Nazi Germany during the War, culminating in his presence at the firebombing of Dresden (now sited in East Germany). The SFnal wrapping, in which Billy Pilgrim is abducted by 4D aliens who unstick him in time and incarcerate him in an extraterrestrial zoo, seems there mostly to get eyes on the book. Or maybe to maintain a certain detachment from the material by changing the genre from "memoir."
For the same reason Billy Pilgrim, the eternal schlemiel, gets to be the closest thing the book has to a hero rather than the author, himself. The only way Vonnegut could work through his battle fatigue and War-derived ennui was to make the protagonist as hopeless and hapless as possible, to reflect the flannel-wrapped blinders through which the author now sees the world. To Vonnegut, Earth is a pathetic stage on which man inflicts indignity on himself and then on others. Then they die. So it goes.
On or about page 81, Gideon got a little tired of the fairy-tale language Vonnegut employs. It worked in Harrison Bergeron, but it's a bit of a one-trick pony.
Somewhere along the line, Gideon figured that the inclusion of the starlet, Miss Montana (who exists to provide someone besides the enormous Mrs. Pilgrim for Billy to stick his hefty wang into) was so that, in addition to appealing to SF fans, the book would appeal to horny SF fans. And horny readers in general. And because S.E.X. s.e.l.l.s.
Kilgore Trout, if he existed, would probably be reprinted these days in Amazing.
About a third of the way in, Gideon determined that he would write the review of Slaughterhouse Five in the style of Slaughterhouse Five.
Whatever the book is not, it is, at the very least, a memorable account of the author's feelings toward and memories of those dark last months of the war. It is a poignant counterpoint to all the jingoistic WW2 films that have come out this decade, and perhaps a more suitable epitaph for the millions who died in that conflict. So it goes.
Four stars.
by Cora Buhlert
War is hell: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Last month, thousands of people gathered in Dresden to remember the victims of the Allied bombings in the night from February 13 to 14, 1945, the night from Shrove Tuesday to Ash Wednesday and never was a day more aptly named. These memorial gatherings happen every year and while the number of East German officials and politicians attending and the degree of belligerence in their speeches waxes and wanes with the greater political situation (East German officials like using the Dresden bombings for propaganda purposes as an example of the infamy of the West), one thing that remains constant is the number of Dresdeners who come to remember the dead and the nigh total destruction of their city.
The burnt out ruin of the Church of Our Lady in Dresden, once a jewel of Baroque architecture.The Semper opera house in Dresden after the bombings. The exterior is still standing, but the once gorgeous interior is burned completely out.
I have never seen Dresden before 1945, though my grandmother who grew up in the area told me it was a beautiful city and how much she missed attending performances at the striking Semper opera house, which was largely destroyed by the bombings and is in the process of being rebuilt (The proposed completion date is 1985). However, I have visited the modern Dresden with its constant construction activity and incongruous mix of burned out ruins, historical buildings in various stages of reconstruction and newly constructed modernist office and apartment blocks and could keenly feel what was lost.
Views of the modern rebuilt Dresden in postcard form
I also know survivors of the Dresden bombings such as my university classmate Norbert who witnessed Dresden burning as teenager evacuated to the countryside and who – much like Kurt Vonnegut – was forced to help with the clean-up work and body recovery and wrote a harrowing account of his experiences for the university literary magazine.
Of course, Dresden was not the only German city bombed. Every bigger German city has its own Dresden, that night when entire neighbourhoods were wiped out and thousands of people, the vast majority of them civilians, were killed. For my hometown of Bremen, the night was the night of August 18, 1944, when Allied bombers destroyed the Walle neighbourhood next to Bremen harbour (while miraculously missing most of the harbour itself, similar to how the bombing of Dresden miraculously missed the industrial plants on the outskirts of the city). My grandfather, a retired sea captain, lived in the Walle neighbourhood. He was one of the lucky ones and survived, though his home in a housing estate for retired seafarers was destroyed. I remember sifting through the still smoking rubble of Grandpa's little house with my Mom the next day, looking for anything that might have survived the bombs and the firestorm and finding only two bronze buddha statues that Grandpa had brought back from Thailand. These two buddhas now stand guard in my living room, the war damage still visible. Meanwhile, the street where Grandpa once lived no longer exists on modern city maps at all.
An aerial view of Dresden's old slaughterhouse, where Kurt Vonnegut was imprisoned and survived the bombing of the city.
This is the perspective from which I read Kurt Vonnegut's latest novel Slaughterhouse Five, which uses science fiction as a vehicle for Vonnegut to describe his experiences as a prisoner of war who survived the bombing of Dresden and – like my classmate Norbert – never forgot what he saw that night and in the days that followed.
The result, much like the contemporary Dresden with the burned out ruin of the Church of Our Lady overlooking a parking lot and a hyper-modern restaurant and entertainment complex sitting directly opposite the newly restored Baroque Zwinger palace, is jarring and incongruous. Vonnegut's protagonist is Billy Pilgrim, an American everyman whose suburban postwar life is disrupted when he is abducted by aliens and becomes unstuck in time, forced to revisit the bombing of Dresden over and over and over again.
No, this photo of the burnt out ruin of the Church of Our Lady in winter was not taken in 1945, but in 1960. It still looks the same today.A banner advertises an exhibtion of contemporary Soviet art, while the ruins of Baroque Dresden loom in the background.The ultra-modern restaurant complex Am Zwinger, the largest in all of East Germany, opened only last year – directly opposite the newly restored Baroque Zwinger palace.Aerial view of the ultra-modern restaurant complex Am Zwinger, which includes a self-service restaurant, the Radeberger beer cellar and the Café Espresso, pictured here. Just don't expect the coffee on offer to actually taste like espresso.Tourists lounge in the terrace café of the restaurant complex Am Zwinger, overlooking the recently rebuilt Baroque Zwinger palace.
Slaughterhouse Five is not so much a novel, it is a metaphor for the trauma of war, a trauma that still hasn't subsided even twenty-four years later but that keep rearing its ugly head again and again. Many veterans report having flashbacks to particularly traumatic experiences during the war – any war. But while those flashbacks are purely psychological, poor Billy Pilgrim physically travels back in time to the worst night of his life over and over again.
Barely a blip on the radar
The bombings of World War II loom large in the collective memory of people in Germany and the rest of Europe, yet they are comparatively rarely addressed in contemporary German literature. Der Untergang (The End: Hamburg) by Hans Erich Nossack from 1948, Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben (A Time to Love and a Time to Die) by Erich Maria Remarque (who was not even in Germany, but sitting high and dry in Switzerland during WWII) from 1954 and Vergeltung (Retaliation) by Gert Ledig from 1956 are some of the very few examples. It's not as if World War II plays no role in German literature at all, because we have dozens of war novels. However, these are all tales about the experiences of soldiers on the frontline, not about the civilians getting bombed to smithereens back home. Most likely, this is because war novels focus on the experiences of men (and note that both Slaughterhouse Five and Remarque's A Time to Love and a Time to Die focus on soldiers experiencing bombings and air raids) and the experiences of men are deemed important. Meanwhile, the people who suffered and died during the bombing nights of World War II were mainly women, children, old people, sick people, prisoners of war, concentration camp prisoners and forced labourers and their experiences are not deemed nearly as relevant.
Considering how utterly destructive the bombing of Dresden was, it's notable that it is barely a blip on the radar of German literature in both East and West. Erich Kästner's memoir Als ich ein kleiner Junge war (When I was a little boy) touches on the bombing of Dresden, where Kästner grew up, though the book is not about the bombing itself, which Kästner did not experience first-hand, because he was living in Berlin at the time. And for the twentieth anniversary of the Dresden bombings, Ulrike Meinhof, one of the brightest lights of West German journalism, penned a scathing article for the leftwing magazine Konkret, condemning Winston Churchill and Royal Air Force commander Arthur Harris for ordering the attack on Dresden under false pretences. "Was Winston Churchill a war criminal?" the cover of the respective issue of Konkret asked, while quite a lot of readers wondered why this was even a question.
So should Slaughterhouse Five, a work by an American author, albeit one who witnessed the bombing of Dresden first-hand, become the definitive account of the destruction of Dresden and of the bombing nights of World War II in general? I hope not, because I want to read more accounts by German civilians about the bombings of World War II. Nonetheless, I'm glad that Slaughterhouse Five exists, as an account about the horrors of war by one who has seen them. I'm also glad that this novel was published in the US, because too many Americans still consider the bombings of cities and civilians during World War II justified. Maybe Slaughterhouse Five will make some of them reconsider, especially since – as I said above – it wasn't just Dresden that was destroyed by bombing. It was also Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Rotterdam, Coventry, Guernica, Hamburg and right now, it's Hanoi. And the next generation's Billy Pilgrim is currently locked up in a bamboo cage in the Vietnamese jungle somewhere, watching the flames over Hanoi turn the sky blood red.
Not a pleasant book at all, but an important one. Four and a half stars.
And now for something much more pleasant. For after a difficult book like Slaughterhouse Five, you need a palate cleanser. Luckily, I found the perfect palate cleanser in The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs, a young American writer currently living in Britain. The Face in the Frost is thirty-year-old Bellairs' third book and his first foray in the fantasy genre.
John Bellairs
The novel starts off with a prologue that informs us that this is a book about wizards – just in case readers of Bellairs' previous two books, collections of Catholic humour pieces, are confused – and then introduces us to the setting, two adjacent kingdoms known only as the North and the South Kingdom. Such prologues can be dry and boring, but Bellairs' whimsical humour, which is on display throughout the book, makes them fun to read.
Once the introductions are out of the way, we meet our protagonist, the wizard Prospero ("not the one you're probably thinking of", Bellairs helpfully informs us) or rather his home, "a huge, ridiculous, doodad-covered, trash-filled two-story horror of a house that stumbled, staggered, and dribbled right up to the edge of a great shadowy forest of elms and oaks and maples", which Prospero shares with a sarcastic talking mirror which can offer glimpses of faraway times and places, though mostly, it's just annoying and also has a terrible singing voice.
Prospero's house, as illustrated by Marilyn Fitschen
This first chapter very much sets the tone for the entire novel, humorous and whimsical – with moments of dread occasionally creeping in. For Prospero has been plagued by bad dreams of late, he has the feeling that a malicious presence is watching him and finds himself menaced by a fluttering cloak, while getting a mug of ale from his own cellar. To top off Prospero's very bad day, he finds himself attacked by a monstrous moth that "smells like a basement full of dusty newspapers".
Luckily, Prospero's friend and fellow wizard Roger Bacon – and note that this time around, Bellairs does not inform us, that this is not the one we're thinking of, so this likely is the famed medieval scholar and creator of a talking brazen head – chooses just this evening to drop by for a visit, after having been kicked out of England, when a spell went awry and instead of constructing a wall of brass around the island in order to keep out Viking raiders, Bacon instead raised a wall of glass with predictable results.
As the two old friends discuss the day's events, it quickly becomes clear that something or rather someone is after Prospero and all that this is linked to a mysterious book that Bacon tried to locate on Prospero's behalf. However, it's late at night, so the two wizards go to bed, only to awaken in the morning to find the house surrounded by sinister grey-cloaked figures, sent by a rival wizard. There's no way out – except via an underground river that the two wizards navigate aboard a model ship, after shrinking themselves down to toy size.
A Magical Mystery Tour
What follows is a marvellous, magical quest, as Prospero and Bacon attempt to figure out just who is after Prospero and once they do, how to stop that villainous sorcerer from casting a spell that will plunge the whole world into everlasting winter. On the way, the two wizards encounter such fascinating locations as the village of Five Dials, which turns out to be an illusion, a magical Potemkin village of hollow houses inhabited by hollow people. They also escape all sorts of horrors their opponent sends against them such as a magical puddle that will capture a person's reflection, should they happen to look into it, and of course the titular face that appears in a frost-encrusted window to mock and menace Prospero.
Fantasy is experiencing something of a boom right now, triggered by the paperback release of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy and Lancer's reprints of Robert E. Howard's tales of Conan the Cimmerian. But while Conan has inspired a veritable legion of other fantastic swordsmen and barbarian warriors from Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné to Lin Carter's Thongor, Lord of the Rings has inspired very few imitators. Until now.
This does not mean that The Face in the Frost is a carbon copy of The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. Quite the contrary, it's very much its own story, even though the Tolkien inspiration is clear and was acknowledged by Bellairs. Furthermore, Bellairs' light and frothy tone makes The Face in the Frost a very different, if no less magical experience than Professor Tolkien's magnum opus.
The Face in the Frost is a delightful book, skilfully mixing humour and whimsy with horror and dread, and the illustrations by Marilyn Fitschen help bring the wonderful world of Prospero and Roger Bacon to life. The ending certainly leaves room for a sequel and I hope that we will get to read it sooner rather than later. At any rate, I can't wait to see what John Bellairs writes next.
A wondrous confection of whimsy, horror and pure joy. Five stars.
by Robin Rose Graves
Society Without Gender…
Another year, another Le Guin. For those tuning in for the first time, my introduction to Le Guin began two years ago, with her novel City of Illusions, which left me disappointed. Last year, I read A Wizard of Earthsea, where finally I saw Le Guin’s potential realized. When I saw she has another book coming out this year, I was interested, but reined in my expectations when I realized The Left Hand of Darkness would take place in the same universe as City of Illusions.
This is book four of the Hainish Cycle, but fortunately, you do not need to read these books in order to understand the story. In fact, I found little connection between this book and the previous one.
Genly Ai is an envoy sent to the snowy planet of Winter to convince the people to join the Ekumen (a sort of alliance between planets). Winter, or Gethen in their native language, is not as technologically advanced as the rest of the universe. They have yet to build airplanes, let alone a vehicle capable of space travel. Following an outsider’s perspective allows readers to learn about a new culture alongside the narrative main character.
As per my experience with her previous works, Le Guin excels at creating compelling and unique settings. Smaller, intermediate chapters offer folkloric stories from the planet of Winter to further enhance the reader’s understanding of Gethenian culture.
All the characters are human, though the Gethenians differ in one key way. They are completely androgynous except for once a month when they enter their reproductive cycle (known as “kemmer”) where they then shift into either male or female (as in they can either impregnate or become pregnant.) Which role a Gethenian will take on during kemmer is not predetermined and can change between cycles.
This confuses and occasionally disgusts Genly Ai, who regards all characters with he and him pronouns, perhaps because he is male and unable to empathize with or respect anyone who isn’t.
Without gender, Le Guin posits that there is no sexuality, no rape, no war. People who get pregnant are not treated as lesser. Children are raised by everyone, not just the person who gave birth to them. Jobs account for kemmer, giving time off for those experiencing their cycle, and special buildings are set aside for reproduction.
Contrasted with the world we live in today, this book subtly calls out the sexism of our own society, while also exemplifying how we may improve. I was pleasantly surprised by the feminist slant of this book.
Five stars.
Reflections in a Mirage, by Leonard Daventry
By Jason Sacks
Leonard Daventry is a British science fiction author whose work tends to follow standard pathways – until it doesn’t. As my fellow Galactic companion Gideon Marcus wrote about one of Mr. Daventry’s previous novels, Daventry likes to explore ideas of free love and complex relationships, using familiar set-ups with slightly surprising resolutions.
His latest book, Reflections in a Mirage, is an excellent demonstration of how Mr. Daventry takes on those challenges while delivering his own unique view of the world. Unfortunately, this novel is perhaps overly ambitious for its length. Mirage consequently falls short of the author’s clear goals.
We return to the lead character Daventry established back in 1965 in A Man of Double Deed: Claus Coman is a telepath, a so-called “keyman” who can create connections to minds of both humans and non-humans. Coman is enlisted to join a motley band of outcasts and criminals who journey to one of the many worlds which humanity has discovered among the vast stars: a forbidding but intriguing planet called Sacron. Coman at least has the comfort of traveling with longtime companion Jonl, a woman with whom he’s had a complex relationship.
But just as many British exiles to Australia rebelled against their crew, the group of 50 outcasts rebel against the crew of their space cruiser. A violent, vicious battle kills most of the men who can fly the cruiser, and terrible damage is visited upon the ship. They only have one choice: to land on the planet which is ironically called Paradise 1. Paradise 1 seems to be a desert world, nearly bereft of any life whatsoever, but there are hints the planet may be more complex than it initially seems.
In fact, we get an intriguing revelation towards the end of the book (with a few concepts which will be well understood by Star Trek fans), but I found myself hungering for more context of the deeper story. At a mere 191 paperback pages, I was constantly under the impression that Daventry had to cut out important elements to the story; its brevity leaves the conclusion feeling a bit unsatisfying.
Reflections in a Mirage is at its best when it explores the human relationships it depicts. Coman’s relationship with Jonl is at the center of the story and provides a happy connection where so many of the other connections are tenuous. Daventry spends some time showing Jonl’s relationship with other women on the colony ship – the men and women are partitioned away from each other – and alludes to furtive, loving relationships among the women. There are similar hints about some of the men's connections to each other, and a strong implication that this society accepts a full gamut of sexuality, from polygamy to homosexuality and even to asexuality.
All of that is very interesting, and places this novel firmly in a “new wave” mindset, but there’s just not enough of it to satisfy. Ultimately, Reflections in a Mirage has the potential to be great, but I felt Daventry needed at least 100 more pages to fully illuminate his story.
You’ll probably be more satisfied reading some of the other works in this column. (I do recommend the LeGuin and Vonnegut books.)
Vehicles travelling very rapidly were in the news this month, both in a good way and in a bad way.
On March 2, the French/British supersonic airplane Concorde made its first test flight in Toulouse, France. At the controls was test pilot
André Édouard Turcat.
Up, up, and away!
The plane reached a speed of 225 miles per hour (far below the speed of sound) and stayed in the air for twenty-seven minutes. Just a test, but expect a lot of sonic booms in the near future.
The same day, tragedy struck the Yellow River drag racing strip in Covington, Georgia. Racer Huston Platt was at the wheel of a car nicknamed Dixie Twister when it smashed through a chain link fence and hurdled into the crowd at 180 miles per hour.
Image of the disaster from a home movie taken by a spectator.
Eleven people were killed instantly. One later died in the hospital. More than forty were injured.
All this rushing around is likely to induce vertigo. Appropriately, the Number One song in the USA this month is Dizzy by Tommy Roe, a catchy little number that captures the feeling perfectly.
Even the cover art makes my head spin.
Speed Reading
With no less than thirteen stories in the latest issue of Fantastic, it's obvious that several of them are going to be quite short, resulting in quick reading.
The new stories slightly outnumber the reprints, at seven to six, but the old stuff takes up more than twice as many pages. Apparently today's writers like to finish their works at a quicker pace than their predecessors. Or maybe it's just a lot cheaper to buy tiny new works and fill up the rest of the magazine with longer reprints.
Cover art by Johnny Bruck.
As usual, the cover is also a reprint. It appeared on the German magazine Perry Rhodan a few years ago.
Also as usual, the original looks better.
Characterization in Science Fiction, by Robert Silverberg
This brief essay by the Associate Editor promotes more depth of character in the genre, and praises new authors Roger Zelazny, Samuel Delany, and Thomas Disch for their skill in that area of writing. Can't argue with that.
No rating.
In a Saucer Down for B-Day, by David R. Bunch
Illustration by Dan Adkins.
The magazine's most controversial writer returns with a tale that is closer to traditional science fiction than most of his works. The narrator is an Earthman who is returning to his home planet with an alien. He wants to show the extraterrestrial Earth's big annual celebration.
The author makes a point about a current social problem, maybe a little too obviously. Even if this had been published anonymously, it would be easy to tell it's by Bunch from the style. (Just the fact that the narrator says YES! more than once is a strong clue.) More readable than other stuff from his pen.
Three stars.
The Dodgers, by Arthur Sellings
A sad introduction tells us the author died last September. This posthumous work features an engineer and a physician who land on a planet where many of the alien inhabitants are suffering from weakness and green blotches on their skin. As soon as the humans arrive, a bag full of gifts for the extraterrestrials vanishes. The mystery involves an unusual ability of the aliens.
I hate to speak ill of the dead, but this isn't a very good story. The premise strains credibility, to say the least, and the ending is rushed.
Two stars.
The Monster, by John Sladek
Illustration by Bruce Eliot Jones
A fellow eager to be a space explorer replaces a guy who's been the only person on a distant planet for a long time. The world turns out to be a dreary, boring place. The environment is so bad that our protagonist can't go outside for more than a moment. His only company is a robot in the form of a woman.
The author makes his point clearly enough. You're likely to see it coming a mile away. Still, it's not a bad little yarn.
Three stars.
Visit, by Leon E. Stover
The Science Editor for Fantastic and Amazing (which must be an easy job; do they ever have any science articles?) gives us this account of aliens landing in Japan. The American military officers present consult with a science fiction writer and a cultural anthropologist. After a lot of discussion, the aliens finally come out of their spaceship.
For a story in which not much happens this sure goes on for a while. Much of the text consists of references to other SF stories. The ending is anticlimactic. It left me thinking So what?
Two stars.
Ascension, by K. M. O'Donnell
The introduction reveals that O'Donnell is a pseudonym for the editor.
But which editor?
Glancing at the table of contents, you see that the Editor and Publisher is Sol Cohen, and the Managing Editor is Ted White. Cohen or White?
Trick question! It's actually Barry N. Malzberg, who was very briefly editor for Fantastic and Amazing. (My esteemed colleague John Boston goes into detail about the situation in his article about the March issue of Amazing.)
Obviously this issue was assembled under the auspices of Malzberg. Nobody ever said the publishing industry was fast.
Anyway, this is a New Wave yarn about a future President of the United States. (The 46th, which I guess puts the story somewhere around the year 2024 or so.) Civil liberties are thrown out, the President has an advisor killed, he gets kicked out by the opposition and shot, the cycle goes on. Something like that.
You can tell it's New Wave (with an acknowledged nod to J. G. Ballard) because sections of the text are in ALL CAPITALS and it ends in the middle of a sentence. I suppose it's some kind of commentary on American politics.
Two stars.
The Brain Surgeon, by Robin Schaefer
Guess what? This is yet another pseudonym for Malzberg. Must have had trouble filling up the issue. (No surprise, given the miserly budget.)
A man sends away for a home brain surgery kit that he saw advertised on a matchbook cover. He gets the instruments and an explanatory pamphlet in the mail. But what can he do with it?
Something about this brief bit of weirdness appealed to me more than it should. There's not much to it, really, but what there is tickled my fancy.
Three stars.
How Now Purple Cow, by Bill Pronzini
A farmer sees a (you guessed it) purple cow in his field. There's some talk of UFOs in the area. Then there's a twist at the end.
Very short, without much point to it. A shaggy dog (cow?) story. A joke without a punchline.
One star.
On to the reprints!
The Book of Worlds, by Dr. Miles J. Breuer
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear with this pre-Campbellian work of scientifiction from the pages of the July 1929 issue of Amazing Stories.
Cover art by Hugh Mackay.
A scientist discovers a way to view the fourth dimension. This allows him to see a enormous number of worlds similar to our own Earth, at stages of development from the first stirrings of life to the future of humanity. What he perceives has a profound effect on him.
Illustration by Frank R. Paul.
I have to confess that I wasn't expecting very much out of a story from the very early days of modern science fiction. This was a pleasant surprise. The author clearly has a point to make, and makes it powerfully. What happens to the scientist at the end may strike you as either poignant or silly. Take your pick.
Three stars.
The Will, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The January/February 1954 issue of the magazine supplies this moving tale.
Cover art by Vernon Kramer.
The narrator's teenage foster son is dying of leukemia. The boy is obsessed with a television program about a time travelling hero called Captain Chronos.
(No doubt this was inspired by the author's work on the TV show Captain Video not long before the story was first published.)
Illustration by Jay Landau.
The boy has a plan, involving his collection of stamps and autographs. But does he have enough time left?
Just from this brief description, you probably already have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen. Despite the fact that the plot is a little predictable, however. this is a fine story. The emotion is genuine rather than sentimental. The ending is both joyful and sad.
Four stars.
Elementals of Jedar, by Geoff St. Reynard
Hiding behind that very British pseudonym is American writer Robert W. Krepps. This pulpy yarn comes from the May 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
Cover art by H. J. Blumenfeld.
A spaceship captain with the manly name of Ken Ripper and his motley crew of aliens from various worlds are in big trouble. Forced to land on a planet said to be inhabited by living force fields of pure malevolence, they have to figure out a way to escape with their lives.
Illustration by Rod Ruth.
Boy, this is really corny stuff. I have to wonder if it's a parody of old-time space opera. When the hero curses by saying Jove and bounding jackrabbits!, it makes me think the author is pulling my leg. The fact that one of the aliens on the spaceship is a humanoid twelve inches tall makes me giggle, too. Even if it's tongue-in-cheek, a little of this goes a long way.
Two stars.
The Naked People, by Winston Marks
This story comes from the September 1954 issue of Amazing Stories.
Cover art by Ralph Castenir.
The combination of a sore ear and a fight in a tavern sends the narrator to the hospital with a brain infection. When he comes out of his coma, he is able to see the ethereal figure of a unclothed man. The lecherous fellow is able to solidify himself sufficiently to have his way with a pretty nurse while she's unconscious and under his control.
Illustration uncredited.
Then a female ghostly being shows up, with an obvious interest in our hero. It seems that these folks have been hanging around, unperceived by normal people, since the dawn of humanity. They materialize enough to steal food and, to put it delicately, act as incubi and succubi.
I get the feeling that the author didn't quite know how to end the story. The hero fends off the advances of the lustful female being and saves the pretty nurse from the male one. He even marries her. But the naked people are still around, with all that implies.
An unsatisfying conclusion and a slightly distasteful premise make for a less than enjoyable reading experience.
Two stars.
And the Monsters Walk, by John Jakes
This two-fisted tale comes from the July 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
Cover art by Walter Popp.
The narrator starts off aboard a ship bound for England from the Orient. Burning with curiosity, he investigates the secret cargo hold, although the captain warned the crew this was punishable by death. He finds boxes containing humanoid creatures.
Barely escaping with his life, he makes his way to shore. Mysterious figures are out to kill him. On the other hand, a Tibetan mystic and a beautiful young woman try to help him. In return, they want his aid in combating a conspiracy to destroy Western civilization by using demons to slaughter world leaders.
Illustration by David Stone.
John Jakes is best known around here for his tales of Brak the Barbarian. Those stories proved that he had studied the adventures of Conan carefully. This yarn convinces me that he is also very familiar with the pulp magazines of the 1930's.
I'll give him credit for not being boring, anyway. The action never stops, although you won't believe a minute of it. The author's intense, almost frenzied style keeps you reading.
Three stars.
I, Gardener by Allen Kim Lang
Our last story comes from the December 1959 issue of the magazine.
Cover art by Ed Valigursky.
The narrator pays a visit to a prolific writer. He speaks to a very strange gardener, who proves to be something other than what he seems.
I'll leave it at that, because I don't want to give away too much about the simple plot. You may be able to figure out who the model for the writer is, given the title of the story and the fact that the character's name is Doctor Axel Ozoneff. (The introduction to the story makes it obvious, so I'd advise not looking at it.)
Not a great story.
Two stars.
Fantasy Books, by Fritz Leiber and Alexei Panshin
Leiber looks at novels by E. R. Eddison, and Panshin has kind words to say about The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle.
No rating.
Quickly Summing Up
Another average-to-poor issue, with only Miller's story rising above that level. At least most of the pieces make for fast reading, although a couple of the worst ones may make you furious at their lack of quality. You may be tempted to watch an old movie on TV instead.
From 1954, so it should show up on the Late, Late Show sometime soon.
![[July 28, 1969] <i>New Worlds – on a Budget</i>, August 1969](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/cover-august-69-672x372.jpg)
Programme description from The Radio Times, 12th July.
Cover by Charles Platt 
Photo by Gabi Nasemann 
Sketch by R. Glyn Jones 
Photo by Gabi Nasemann 
![[July 16, 1969] Not all Jake(s) (July 1969 Galactoscope)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/690716covers-672x372.jpg)
![[June 26, 1969] <i>Five Years… New Worlds</i>, July 1969](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/new-worlds-july-1969-672x372.jpg)
Cover by Mal Dean
Photo by Gabi Nasemann 
Drawing by Mal Dean 
Drawing by Mal Dean 
Unknown source. 
Drawing by Mal Dean 
Artist drawings are unlabelled, but possibly by Mal Dean 
Where Kenneth Coutts-Smith looks at the work of artist Aubrey Beardsley.
![[May 26, 1969] Cornelius Overload! <i>New Worlds</i>, June 1969](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/New-Worlds-mag-June-1969-672x372.jpg)
Drawing by Mal Dean 
Drawing by Mal Dean 
Photograph by Gabi Nasemann 
Photograph by Gabi Nasemann 
Drawing by Mal Dean 
Drawing by Mal Dean 
Advertisement from the back cover for the reviewed book. ![[May 10, 1969] Youth (June 1969 <i>Fantastic</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/COVERSMALL-672x372.jpg)
![[May 6, 1969] Touched by an Angel: <em>Teorema</em> (<em>Theorem</em>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/MV5BODA1ZWZiZWYtYjVhMC00ZGQxLWI1Y2MtM2VmYjg2MzQyMDM3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUzOTY1NTc@._V1_-672x372.jpg)
![[April 24, 1969] The Strange New Normal <i>New Worlds</i>, May 1969](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/New-Worlds-May-1969-672x372.jpg)
Cover by Gabi Nasemann 
Photo by Gabi Nasemann 
Image by Mal Dean 
A map of the Girvan Fun Palace, Image by Unknown 
Image by Mal Dean 
Photo by Gabi Nasemann 
![[March 24, 1969] Apocalypse Impending? <i>New Worlds</i>, April 1969](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/New-Worlds-April-1969-672x372.jpg)
The named list from last month.
Cover by Mervyn Peake.
In a post-apocalyptic US we are told of teenager Vic and his telepathic dog, Blood. Vic is a teenage boy who spends his time scavenging the world for basic needs—food, companionship, and sex—as well as generally avoiding other groups, known as roverpaks, doing the same thing. They meet Quilla June – unusual because most women live where it is safer, underground. Vic rapes Quilla June before they are attacked by another roverpak. Blood is hurt in the scuffle. Quilla June escapes and returns to her underground home of Topeka.
More poetry. Described as ‘a poem for light and movement’, Thomas manages to produce strange typewritten boxes that are at times undecipherable. A typical ‘form over content’ type piece. 2 out of 5.
The inevitable 'naked lady of the month' picture.
Artwork by Mal Dean.
More artwork by Mal Dean.
![[March 14, 1969 ] (March 1969 Galactoscope)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/690314covers-672x372.jpg)
![[March 10, 1969] Speed (April 1969 <i>Fantastic</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/COVERHALF-672x372.jpg)
