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[May 3, 1961] Passing the Torch (June 1961, Galaxy, 2nd Half)

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Something is changing over at Galaxy magazine.

Horace Gold, Galaxy's editor, started the magazine in 1950, near the beginning of the post-pulp digest boom.  He immediately set a high bar for quality, with some of the best authors and stories, and including a top-notch science columnist (this was before Asimov transitioned from fiction).  Galaxy only once won the Best Magazine Hugo (in 1953, and that one it shared), but it paid well, eschewed hoary cliches, and all-in-all was a pillar of the field.  It was the magazine that got me into reading science fiction on a regular basis.

Warning bells started to clang in 1959.  The magazine went to a bi-monthly schedule (though at a somewhat increased size).  Author rates were slashed in half.  Gold, himself, suffering from battle fatigue-induced agoraphobia, became more erratic.  This new Galaxy was not a bad mag, but it slipped a few rungs. 

Fred Pohl came on last year.  He was not officially billed as the editor, but it was common knowledge that he'd taken over the reigns.  Pohl is an agent and author, a fan from the way-back.  I understand his plan has been to raise author rates again and bring back quality.  While he waits for the great stories to come back, he leavens the magazines with old stories from the "slush pile" that happen not to be awful.  In this way, Galaxy showcases promising new authors while keeping the quality of the magazine consistent.

The June 1961 Galaxy is the first success story of this new strategy.

Last issue, I talked about how Galaxy was becoming a milquetoast mag, afraid to take risks or deviate far from mediocrity.  This month's issue, the first that lists Pohl as the "Managing Editor," is almost the second coming of old Galaxy — daring, innovative, and with one exception, excellent. 

Take Cordwainer Smith's Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons, in which an interplanetary ring of thieves tries to steal from the richest, and best defended planet, in the galaxy.  Smith has always been a master, slightly off-center in his style; his rich, literary writing is of the type more usually seen in Fantasy and Science Fiction.  Kittons is ultimately a mystery, the nature of the unique (in name and nature) "kittons" remaining unknown until the last.  A brutal, fascinating story, and an unique take on the future.  Five stars.

Breakdown is by Herbert D. Kastle, one of the aforementioned novices.  Despite his green status, he turned in an admirable piece involving a farmer who finds the world increasingly differing from his memories.  Is he sliding across alternate universe?  It is a cosmic prank?  A gripping story, suitable for adaptation to The Twilight Zone.  Four stars.

The one dud of the issue is Frank Herbert's A-W-F Unlimited: thirty pages of pseudo-clever dialogue and inner monologue set in a mid-21st Century ad agency as its star executive attempts to fulfill a recruiting drive contract for the space corps.  I got through it, but only by dint of effort.  1 star.

Poul Anderson has another entry in his Time Patrol series, though My Object all Sublime does not betray this fact until the end.  It's a slow, moody piece; the reflections of a man from the far future, flung into the worst areas of the past as punishment for a nameless crime.  In one thought-provoking passage, the condemned man notes that being from the future in no way guarantees superiority in the past, for most people are not engineers or scientists with sufficient knowledge to change the world.  Moreover, they arrive penniless, and who can make a difference without money?

This is actually a problem I've considered (i.e. what I'd do if ended up stuck far back in time).  While I probably wouldn't recognize salt-peter if I smelled it, I suspect just introducing germ theory and Arabic numerals would be enough to carve a niche.  Zero must be the most influential nothing in the history of humanity…  I rate the story at four stars.

Rounding out the issue is Fred Saberhagen's The Long Way Home.  Two thousand years from now, a (surprisingly conventional) man and wife-run mining ship discovers an enormous spacecraft out among the planetoids near Pluto.  How it got there and where it's going pose enigmas that should keep you engaged until the end of this competently written tale.  Three stars.

In sum, the June 1961 Galaxy weighs in at a solid 3.5 stars.  If you skip the Herbert, you end up with a most impressive regular-length magazine.  Given that Pohl also edits Galaxy's sister mag, IF (also a bi-monthly, alternating with Galaxy), I am eagerly looking forward to next month!

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Magazine

[Oct. 2, 1960] Second-rate fun (November 1960 IF Science Fiction)

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Galaxy's little sister, IF Science Fiction has settled into a predictable format.  Filled with a number of "B" authors, mostly neophytes, it generally leads with a decent novelette, and the rest of the stories are two and three-star affairs.  I don't think the blame can be put on IF's shadow editor, Fred Pohl (Horace Gold is all but retired these days, I understand).  Rather, this is about the best quality one can expect for a penny a word. 

That said, the stories in IF are rarely offensively bad, and perhaps some day, one of these novices learning the ropes of writing in the minor leagues will surprise us with a masterpiece.

Preamble out of the way, let's take a look at the November 1960 issue:

Jim Harmon is actually quite the veteran, and he has a knack for interesting, off-beat writing.  His novelette, Mindsnake, depicts a future where interstellar teleportation is possible, but fraught with risk.  Only the Companions, colloquially known (and disparaged) as Witches, can keep a traveller's mind intact over the long journey.  Good stuff, and original.  Four stars.

Then we have the short Superjoemulloy by unknown Scott F. Grenville.  How can the most powerful man challenge himself?  By creating a superior version of himself, of course.  Three stars.

Now, I was a bit dismayed to find Daniel Keyes in the Table of Contents.  Whenever I see a "big name" in IF (and there is no question that Keyes is a big name: he won the Hugo this year for Flowers for Algernon), the story is usually a second-rater.  Sure enough, The Quality of Mercy, which clunkily mixes sentient computers with organ transplants and mandated euthanasia, is a bit of a talky mess.  Two stars.

R.A. Lafferty is a fellow who may surprise us some day.  He seems to be enjoying an upward trajectory with his stories, not just in quality but in venue.  McGonigal's Worm, in which every animal on Earth loses the ability to breed, is sort of a poor man's Brain Wave.  Read it, and you'll see what I mean.  Three stars.

Esidarap ot Pirt Dnuor is an engaging little tale of tourism in a rather backward place, brought to us by Lloyd Biggle, Jr, who spends much of his time appearing in Fantastic.  I liked it, but I'm afraid I didn't get the final joke–an Un-Prize to anyone who can explain it to me.  Three stars.

I was gratified to find that, per his book review column, Fred Pohl liked much the same stories in Aldiss' Galaxies like Grains of Sand as I did.  On the other hand, he liked Dickson's Dorsai! far more than me.  Perhaps the novelization (titled The Genetic General) is better than the serial.

William Stuart is back with another well-written story that doesn't quite hit the mark.  Don't think about it is a low-grade F&SF-style tale that takes too long to get to its kicker, and whose kicker lacks kick.  Three stars.

That brings us to Frank Herbert's Egg and Ashes, told from the point of view of a charming if horrifying little symbiote (parasite?) I felt like the beginning was better than the ending, but I do like the way Herbert turns a phrase.  Three stars.

The issue ends with The Impersonator, the third story ever published by Robert Wicks.  In the midling future, the Earth is threatened by an impending Ice Age thanks to humanity's rapacious exploitation of the planet's resources.  A host of outrageous plans are developed to fix the problem: from salting ice fields with carbon dust, to altering the axial tilt of the planet, to tapping the heat from the Earth's core.  It's not a great story, but I liked Wicks' satirical presentation of "doubling down" in an attempt to thwart catastrophe.  Three stars.

As you can see, this isn't the best crop of stories.  On the other hand, minor league games draw crowds, too.  And the tickets are cheaper….

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Par for the course (February 1959 Astounding; 1-19-1959)

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It is still truly a man's world, at least between the covers of Astounding magazine.  I recognize that we live in a culture where men aren't allowed to take cooking or shorthand classes (these are women's topics, after all), but I'd like to think that science fiction writers are more progressive.

Perhaps I'm the one who's wrong, however.  Maybe women will remain "separate but equal" into the foreseeable future…

Ahem.  Where was I?  Ah, yes.  The rest of February 1959's Astounding.  To be fair, the remaining four stories actually range from decent to good.  They are typical in their construction: an interesting set-up, a presented conundrum, and then a "gotcha" ending, but the execution is generally competent.  Each had an interesting tidbit that stood out to me, a place where the writer dared to dream–or failed to do so.  I'll point each one out as I go.

Hi Diddle Diddle is by Calvin M. Knox (Robert Silverberg–why he needed a pseudonym, I'm not sure; perhaps Campbell wants us to think more than one person writes for his magazine).  I think Campbell would call it a "funny" story, but it's pretty decent stuff about the crew of a small moonbase trying to come up with a way to synthesize food for provisions on the moon.  There are no women in the small crew, of course, though there is a line to suggest that is not always the case.  And, of course, everybody smokes.  Even on the moon, where air is (presumably) at a premium.

What I found compelling was Silverberg's conjecture that, by 1995, there would be eight moon bases: three American, three Soviet, one Chinese, and one Indian.  Moreover, by then, the Cold War will have thawed considerably.  I'm happy when any writer remembers there is more to the world than the Eagle and Bear, and I think the timeline is quite plausible.  As for the story, well, as I said above, it's pretty formulaic, but competently written.  Like all of Silverberg's stuff.

So far as I can tell, Peter Baily, author of the next story, Accidental Death, has not written anything else.  That would set up alarm bells that he is someone's pseudonym, but none of my reliable sources can tell me if that truly be the case.  In any event, Baily's tale is of Earth's first interstellar ship, and the first contact it makes with a race of creatures that possesses the ability to adversely affect probability.  A "Jinx" race, if you will.  Not a bad story, but the part that stuck out to me is when the protagonist, dictating his last thoughts for posterity, suggests that his memoir would make big news if someone could get it to a radio station or a newspaper office.  Baily's story takes place in a future with starships, but media is stuck in 1940.  It just goes to show that science fiction writers need be careful to avoid the intrusion of current (or even latter)-day items and technologies lest they kill the verisimilitude.

Frank Herbert is a newish writer.  His Missing Link is nothing special.  A Terran spacer is involved in first contact with an alien race with delusions of superiority.  The Earther soon puts the alien in its place with go ol' Terran ingenuity.  Lest I forget what magazine I'm reading.

Finally, The Professional Touch by "Leonard Lockhard" (actually the duo, Charles L. Harness and Theodore L. Thomas) is a fascinating, satirical piece on patent law, and its many current deficiencies.  It's worth reading just as a treatise on the subject, particularly on the topics of "obviousness" and "flash of genius," and just how arbitrary are those tests that determine the worthiness of a patent. 

All told, 3 stars.  Nothing terribly offensive.  Nothing strikingly original.  I'm looking forward to further installments of the Leinster series, though.



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