It's hard to believe it was just six years ago that the Renaissance Pleasure Faire started in the suburbs of Los Angeles:
"Counterculture" didn't even have a name yet (I think we were calling it "contraculture"), but already, there were folks weary of the modern age, casting their eyes back to a simpler time. You know, when there were far more things that could kill you, and much fewer opportunities to escape drudgery…
Anyway, I reported on our last foray into the past a couple of years ago. These days, the back-to-then movement is stronger than ever, with the Society for Creative Anachronism exploding (do they have a thousand members now?) and Renaissance Faires catching on. They are a good fit for the Pagans and hippies and folks looking for an escape.
We're not immune to the lure. Here are some scenes from this month's event:
You may recognize the fellow in blue
What really makes the Faire such a delight is the attention to detail. Everywhere you go, there are actors and actress really playing a part, making the whole thing an exercise in living history. Of course, as my "character" styles himself a member of the Habsburg clan, you can bet I razzed the Queen when she paraded by with her foppish retinue.
Nevertheless, I hope the Faire retains its purity, prioritizing the spirit of the event rather than descending into a kind of cynical capitalism. Though, I suppose, that's what the original faires were all about…
Alas!
Speaking of cynical capitalism, I feel that Analog editor stays on the job these days just for a paycheck (and a podium for his irrascible editorials—which he then compiles and sells in book form!) While the latest issue isn't terrible, it certainly doesn't scrape the heights it achieved "back in the day."
by Leo Summers
Artifact, by J. B. Clarke
The name of J. B. Clarke is unknown to me. Perhaps he's Arthur Clarke's little brother (sister?) His writing isn't bad, nor even is the premise, but the execution of this first tale of his…
by Leo Summers
A beach ball-sized orb appears in interplanetary space. When an Earth spaceship tries to pick it up, it zips away at faster-than-light speeds a couple of times, as if to demonstrate that it can, and then becomes docile. After it is picked up, the humans assessing the artifact determine that it was deliberately sent to jump-start our technology. But was the rationale benevolent or otherwise?
This would have been a great story had not Clarke explained from the very beginning that the scheme was a plot by the evil Imperium to instigate a diplomatic incident a la the Nazis asserting a Polish attack against the Germans on September 1, 1939. This would give the rapacious aliens legal precedent to annex our planet. Moreover, we learn that an agent of the "Web", the galactic federation of which the Imperium constitutes a small portion, is already on Earth, guiding our assessment of the artifact.
As a result, there's no tension. We know everything will turn out fine. Indeed, it's a strangely un-Campbellian story in that humans aren't the smart ones in the end. But because there are no decisions to be made, no suspense to the outcome, the story falls flat.
Two stars.
Zozzl, by Jackson Burrows
by Leo Summers
This one gets closer to the mark. It stars a big game hunter whose quarry is a telepathic beast. The creature's natural defense is to access your fears and throw pursuers into a nightmare world, repelling them. It's a neat concept, and Burrows (another name with which I am unacquainted), renders the dream sequences quite effectively.
While we learn a bit about our hero's past and motivations, he never really has to solve any puzzles to win his prize. He just wins in the end. There needs to be more.
Still, I really dug the idea, and there's definitely potential for Jackson. Three stars.
Dramatic Mission, by Anne McCaffrey
by Leo Summers
Here's the latest installment of the The Ship Who. This series stars Helva, a profoundly disabled woman who, at a young age, was turned into a cybernetic brain for a starship. Together with a series of "brawns", the human component of the ship's crew, she has been on all kinds of adventures.
In this story, we learn that brain-ships can earn their independence (paying off the debt of their construction) and fly without brawns, and that many vessels strive for this status. But Helva prefers to ride with company—indeed, she insists on it.
Well, her wish is granted. Short-listed for a priority mission to Beta Corvi, Helva is tasked to transport a troupe of actors to a gas giant in that system, where they will perform Romeo and Juliet for a bunch of alien jellyfish in exchange for an important chemical process.
The problem is the drama that unfolds before the drama: Solar Prane, the star, is dying from chronic use of a memory-enhancing drug. His nurse is deeply in love with him. His co-star and ex-lover is jealous and stubbornly insists on sabotaging the production. It is up to Helva to be the grown-up in the room and save the day.
There is so much to like about this story, so many neat, unique things about the setting and characters, that it's a shame McCaffrey can't help getting in her own way. She loves writing waspish, unlikeable characters, and her penchant for including casual, off-putting violence reminds me of what I don't like about Marion Zimmer Bradley.
This is one of those pieces I'd like to see redone by someone more talented and sensitive. Zenna Henderson, maybe, if I wanted to see the soft tones enhanced, or Rosel George Brown (RIP) if I wanted something a little lighter and funnier.
The planet of Terex has turned into a death trap for the terran Space Force. Invited in to deal with an insurgency problem, a combination of religious proscriptions against advanced technology and a flourishing black market that loots what munitions are allowed in, the human troops are not only made into sitting ducks but laughing stocks.
Enter a canny colonel of the Interstellar Corps, whose bright idea is to suffuse all incoming logistics with explosives so that, when they are stolen, they explode. Deterrent and humiliation, all in one.
It may seem that I've given away the plot…and I have. It's given away fairly early on, and the rest of the story is simply an explication of the plan's success.
I should have liked the story less than I did, but it reads pretty well. Three stars.
The Ghoul Squad, by Harry Harrison
by Leo Summers
A rural sheriff digs in his heels at the notion of government agencies harvesting the organs of newly dead victims of traffic accidents in his jurisdiction. He sticks to his principles even at the cost of his own life, decades later.
The human sphere of stars has begun to brush against the part of the galaxy claimed by the loosely knit Morah, aliens with a talent for profound modification of bodies, internally and externally. In the middle of sensitive negotiations between the two empires over a contested bit of space, a bipedal creature runs amok at the space dock. It is impossible to determine if the being is a Morah made to look like a human or a human made to look like a Morah. Ultimately, the fate of the two empires rests on this hapless person.
Easily the best story in the issue, both interesting and well written, though it still rates no more than four stars.
Give me the past
Short story SF appears to be on the decline in general, with only four magazines out this month. Of them, Fantasy and Science Fiction was by far the best, garnering 3.4 stars, but Fantastic and New Worlds both barely made three stars, and Mark, who covers the last mag, has been grumbling about all the newfangled, outré stuff.
As a result, you could fill just one digest-sized magazine with all the good stuff that came out this month. In other statistical news, women produced just 8% of all the new fiction this month.
It's enough to make you long for the (romanticized) good ol' days…but who knows what the future holds?
[We've got another wonderful haul of books for you this month, many of which are well worth you're time. Be sure to read on 'til the end—you'll definitely catch the reading bug!]
By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall
The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith by Josephine Saxton
Josephine Saxton is British author so, of course, her first book is about apocalypses and sexual awakening. However, it's a particularly skilled one.
The story: an unnamed teenage boy is wandering across the desolated British landscape alone, after an unexplained event has killed off all the other people. He comes across a baby girl and decides to bring her up. Together they try to understand the world that was left behind and what it means to be an adult.
You might assume this is either the usual “New Adam and Eve” story, or some kind of shock piece. However, Saxton manages to negotiate between these two paths skillfully. She describes the sexual emergences of both of them in matter-of-fact terms, which grounds the story within the dream-like atmosphere they inhabit.
As we go through, their comprehension of the world changes from child-like to a clear understanding of the facts of life. Even though their eventual relations could come across as disturbing given the age difference between the two, and the fact The Boy brought her up like a little sister, Saxton manages to largely negate this. She is able to show the passage of time well and, more importantly, give us the thought processes of both our leads to show they have free-will and are fully in control of their choices. For example:
She studied this for some time, and came to the conclusion that this was a drawing of a penis, and at what she had read and seen, she became hot all over, and in an excitable state.
There is also a clear sense throughout the text about the importance of symbolism. The Boy is constantly dismissing the importance of words and symbols but The Girl slowly shows him that deeper meaning is important.
For me, the key message that is brought out here is that they need to wipe away the sins of the past. The things that brought this world into being. When The Girl is bathing she sings about washing away her troubles in the River Jordan. And, when she gives birth, she insists on doing it in a place of death “to eradicate the source of evil here”. There is a central concept that simply them growing up and continuing the human race is not enough. Things have to change.
I picked up this novel as I knew it was related to The Consciousness Machine, one of my favourite novellas of last year. The connection raises significant questions. However, to discuss this requires mentions of later revelations of both works. As such, if you want to avoid knowing these facts, please feel free to skip to the next review.
As the name suggests, the novella is about a machine, WAWWAR, that can take the images of the unconscious mind and display them on a screen. The technician Zona is trying to decipher the meaning of The Boy and The Girl’s journey. There is also another piece of material relating to the hunt for a wild animal. These secondary and tertiary narratives are completely absent from the novel, which only contains The Boy and Girl’s tale in its totality.
As such, the conclusion of the book version is not about Zona learning the nature of the Animus, but The Boy, The Girl and The Baby deciding it is time to go home. So, they get on a bus, pay the conductor and go back to a fully furnished suburban house. The Girl then decides to get an early night as there is nothing on television on Tuesdays and puts the baby to sleep.
Now, a simple explanation for this could be we are literally seeing the film that was recorded by the WAWWAR. However, no hint of that is given and I think that is too large a leap to expect the average reader to make.
But to read it purely as a science fiction tale causes just as many problems. This sharp turn is nowhere hinted at in the text and in fact contradicts several core points created. Even if you could somehow accept the idea that The Boy went to live in a town that has been uninhabited, how does he have a house? How has he never seen a fully grown adult woman before? How does The Girl know about contemporary television schedules? How is the home not only still available to them after decades away, but with the utilities on?
So, what are we to make of this strange choice? There is no reason I could imagine that would force Saxton to expunge this frame from the longer book form. And the novel is indeed a good bit more explicit than the novella. So, a choice we must assume it is.
I like to believe it is opening us up to the freedom to understand the text in our own way. Zona’s meta-commentary on the events is merely one way of understanding a dream. You could also just as easily contend that the explosion in the chemist, shortly before they leave the town of Thingy, actually killed them all, suburbia representing the afterlife and Zona being like the angels in 40s cinema, discussing their existence.
Or, perhaps, the Town of Thingy really does exist and is a time displaced retreat. Something akin to Hawksbill Station. Where couples facing marital difficulties can be de-aged, grow-up together, and learn how to become one unit again, before being brought back at the same moment they left. And then The Consciousness Machine is actually just a dream The Girl has after she goes to bed.
I don’t know what Saxton intended, but I also do not think it matters. The journey and feel of the novel is excellent and how you choose to view it is just as valid as those watching the WAWWAR.
Humanity has made its first steps into interstellar space, settling the worlds of the Pleiades. In so doing, they have brushed across the domain of the mysterious Moldaug—a frustratingly humanoid but not quite human alien race with a fleet strength comparably to Terra's. After decades of peaceful coexistence, the Moldaug suddenly make claim to all the Pleiades. The Old Worlds of Earth, Mars, and Venus, reeling from a kind of space phobia, offer to relinquish their own claims to the Frontier. This only makes things worse for two reasons: 1) the Moldaug inexplicably find the offer offensive, and 2) the Frontier is not Earth's to give, for they had fought and won independence a dozen years prior! (For more on this story, see the novelette Hilifter.)
by Jack Gaughan (and cribbed from the novelization of Three Worlds to Conquer, as I learned from my friend, Joachim Boaz—the art makes much more sense for the original title)
Enter Cully O'Rourke When, the man most responsible for the Frontier's independence. When the veteran spacejacker returns to Earth to treat with the Old World's government, he is thrown into a floating prison with hundreds of other Frontiersmen, rendered impotent to cause more mischief. But in that very prison, he learns from an imprisoned anthropologist the explosive secret that foretells Armageddon between humans and the Moldaug…unless someone can bring the two races into true understanding.
Thus begins a tale that involves Cully's jailbreak, piracy on high space, and political turmoil in three realms.
This is a frustrating book because it has such potential, and there are many things to like in it. The gripping beginning, the well-realized triune nature of the Moldaug (each being-unit comprises three tri-bonded individuals), the subtle difference in morality between the two species (Right/not-Right vs. Respectable/not-Respectable—though one could argue that this is a thinly guised variation of the Japanese concept of "Face"), the rich setting, the final confrontation between Cully and the Moldaug Admiral Ruhn…these are all compelling.
But Dickson falls into the issues he had with his Dorsai series: one mastermind (our hero) knows every move and countermove, and everything breaks his way. As a result, the only drama comes in seeing the master plan unfold, not how said hero responds to adversity. In stories like this, one can see the author laying out the stepping stones, guiding a path so that the protagonist never makes a misstep.
The other issue is the virtual absence of women. I know people have given me grief for harping on this issue since I started this 'zine in 1958, but come on, people—it's 1969. We have women leading Israel and India. On Star Trek, a third of the crew of the Enterprise is female. A few years back, Rydra Wong led a crew of misfits to save the galaxy. So when the only human female character in all of the Frontier and the Old Worlds serves just to be a romantic foil (and to be ignored at the one juncture that she has critical information!), and she is the sole woman amongst a cast of dozens of men, the world Dickson builds starts to feel a little hollow.
Edmund Cooper is a British writer who has been active since the '50s, and up until recently I've not had the pleasure to read any of his work. He put out a novel just a month or two ago, and now here he is again, with a short collection called News from Elsewhere, featuring eight stories, only one of which is original to the collection. It was published in Britain last year but only just now got an American edition, courtesy of Berkley Medallion. Overall it's a mixed bag, since it looks like Cooper likes to repeat himself (there are three or four stories here about space expeditions), but the strongest material does make me curious for more. Let's take a look.
This is the only story to be first published in News from Elsewhere, and it’s… fine. It’s basically a fable, set in an icy and desolate world, about a young woman and her infant son as they travel with “the People of the Spur,” on a religious pilgrimage. The problem is that the woman’s son is a half-breed, a child-by-rape whose father is a “Changeling,” of a fellow humanoid race that whose members have hairy and thorny ridges on their backs. The woman tries to keep her son’s racial status a secret, but in trying to evade her people she literally falls into a chasm—and certain death. Cooper’s style here is almost childlike; there is barely any dialogue, and by the end it becomes clear what message we’re supposed to take from what is admittedly a harrowing adventure narrative. Cooper also saves the answer to the question “Is this science fiction or fantasy?” for the end, although I’m not sure why he treats it like a twist.
We jump from the newest story to one of the oldest, first published as “The End of the Journey” in the February 1956 issue of Fantastic Universe. “M 81: Ursa Major” is a space opera that asks a rather troubling question: “How do we know when we’re dead?” Or, to phrase it less threateningly: “How can we tell the difference, subjectively speaking, between being dead and being unconscious?” An experimental ship uses scientific mumbo jumbo to skirt the fact that it’s impossible to travel at the speed of light. The results are tragic, but also very strange—not least for the deeply jaded captain, who has a hunch that things will go wrong indeed. This is a story with a loose plot and only one genuine character to speak of, but it’s anchored by a strong idea. It’s the kind of story that was commonplace a decade and a half ago, but which now strikes me as a bit refreshing. I almost feel nostalgic about this sort of thing.
Four stars, but I understand if someone reads it and is not as impressed.
The Enlightened Ones
This one originally appeared in Cooper’s first collection, Tomorrow’s Gift. It’s the longest in the collection, and frankly, I’m not sure the length was justified. Long story short, a team of space explorers makes first contact with a race of hominids, who at first seem like primitive humans but who turn out to have a major advantage over the humans—only the humans are too concerned with what to do with the hominids at first to notice anything amiss. It’s a trite premise, even by the standards of a decade ago, that’s elevated by Cooper’s acute pessimism with regards to the notion of human supremacy. In this distant future it’s said that the Eskimos, Polynesians, and some other indigenous groups on Earth have been driven to extinction. Certainly the Campbellian protagonists do not come off well for the most part, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that “The Enlightened Ones” (such an immediately ironic title) was printed in Fantastic Universe and not Astounding/Analog.
First published in the 1963 collection Tomorrow Came, which may sound unfamiliar because it never got an American printing. “Judgment Day” is the most British-sounding of the lot so far, to the point where it reads like the late John Wyndham at a hefty discount. At first it doesn’t even register as SF. The narrator and his wife are in the park one day when people around them start having violent seizures—too many in one place for this to be a random occurrence. Soon the narrator’s wife falls victim as well, and for much of the story we may be wondering about not just the cause, but the context for all this. What does any of this mean? The narrator meets a soldier who promptly feeds him enough information to stun an elephant, the result being that we’re told about something important that basically happens outside the confines of the page and which has already come to an end by the time the narrator hears about it. It’s rather inelegant, never mind that the SFnal element already feels outdated somehow.
Two stars.
The Intruders
Cover art by Virgil Finlay.
This one first appeared as “Intruders on the Moon” in the April 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe. Yes, this surely does read like an SF adventure story from a dozen years ago. A team of explorers land on our moon to investigate the massive crater that is Tycho, for mining as well as the slim possibility of discovering intelligent life. (Something I wish to make clear at this point is that Cooper’s characters are not usually “characters” in the Shakespearian sense; they do not tend to have distinguishable personalities.) Miraculously, however, one of the crew discovers footprints in the sand near Tycho—rather large footprints with very long strides, indeed too much to be a human’s. The explorers go looking for this “Man Friday” of theirs, but they soon learn to regret it. “The Intruders” is pretty straightforward for how long it is, and while its quaint vision of man’s landing on the moon would have been acceptable last decade, I can’t imagine there being much interest in a story of its sort now.
One of Cooper’s earliest stories, and a hand-me-down from Tomorrow’s Gift. A team of space explorers (oh God, not again) lands on “Planet Five,” where there doesn’t seem to be any organic life—save for a species of butterfly. The butterflies have a power over the human explorers they remain unaware of until it’s too late. But it’s not all bad: the explorers also have with them a smartass robot named Whizbang, who emerges as the story’s single genuine character. The autonomous robot comes off more human than the actual humans, although this may be Cooper’s intention, as he uses this disparity at the end of the story to somewhat chilling effect. I’m sensing repetition in the story selection, but I do tepidly recommend this one. If nothing else it comes close to “M 81: Ursa Major” in conveying Cooper’s thesis on the strenuous nature between human rationality and things in our universe which may be beyond human understanding.
A strong three stars.
The Lizard of Woz
Cover art by Virgil Finlay.
This one first appeared in the August 1958 issue of Fantastic Universe, and it’s the crown jewel of the collection. “The Lizard of Woz,” aside from having an incredible title, is different from the others in that it is an outright comedy (albeit of a morbid hue), but it also is told from an alien’s perspective. Ynky is a member of a highly advanced race of alien lizards, who has been sent to Earth so as to determine if it is fit for “fumigation,” i.e., genocide on a planetary scale. The people Ynky comes into contact with (an American, then a Russian, then a third I would prefer to keep a secret) are caricatures, which is all well and good. Cooper pokes fun at both sides of the Iron Curtain, but overall this is a story about the absurdity of the notion of racial supremacy. We’re told constantly that the lizards of Woz are a superior race, yet they also have slave labor and are casually murderous with other sentient races, not to mention Ynky himself is rather slow-witted. Since this is a comedy, and a pretty silly one to boot, some people will be irritated by the antics, but I laughed several times over the span of its mere ten pages.
Finally we have “Welcome Home,” which first appeared in Tomorrow Came and so this marks its first American appearance. Looking back at that time, it seems now like the early ‘60s were simply an extension (or the semi-stale leftovers) of the ‘50s, at least with regards to SF, because this story reads as a few years older than it is. A team of explorers (for the last time, we swear it) land on Mars, which is suspected of possibly hosting life, but if so life on Mars would be far down on the evolutionary ladder. As it turns out, a mysterious pyramid, a sophisticated structure, has drawn the explorers’ attention. This is a first-contact story—of a sort. The twist, which I won’t say here (although you can safely guess it), seemed oddly familiar to me. As with a few other stories in the collection, “Welcome Home” is about the conflict between the West and the Soviets, although it’s not of a ham-fisted sort. It’s fine, but nothing special or surprising.
Three stars.
by Jason Sacks
The Sky is Filled with Ships by Richard C. Meredith
It's the year 979 of the Federation, or the year 3493 in the old calendar. Captain Robert T. Janas of the Solar Trading Company, Terran by birth and starman by occupation, is journeying back to his home planet at a time Terra is in great peril.
The Federation, long bloated and often brutal, is facing a massive rebellion among its vast and angry colonies. A truly titanic armada of thousands of warships from hundreds of solar systems is streaming to Earth via subspace wormholes to gain freedom for the colonies. Janas knows the defense of his home planet will be a futile gesture. There is no possible way even the enormous Terran space fleet can overcome the overwhelming odds and passions of the furious rebels and their massively armed fleet.
Janas knows, too, that a victory by the rebels will spiral mankind down to a new dark ages, just as brutal and destructive as that of Europe after the fall of Rome. Only Janas has the insight and plan to preserve a smidgen of the wisdom — not by saving Terra but by making the Solar Trading Company one of the few institutions to survive and preserve galactic knowledge.
I'm not familiar with the fiction of Richard C. Meredith, but I'm curious to read more by him based on this book. I was pretty intrigued by lead character Janas, who has a nice kind of fish-out-of-water feel to him as he wanders around Earth. That alienation presents a clever, illuminating aspect of the character. I enjoyed having a protagonist who is both a highly self-assured man and who also feels uncomfortable at times due to certain aspects of Earth's culture.
For instance, there's a slightly poignant feel to his annoyance at Earth fashions- like a colonial returned to his home only to find it dramatically different from the place he left. Janas is a stiff military man on a planet where the men dress like harlequins and the women wear fashions which leave them bare-breasted and proud.
But all that discomfort contrasts with the depiction of Janas as a man of action. Like a classic sci-fi hero, Janas brings his own plans and friends to the office of Al Franken, leader of the STC but too blinded by his own hubris to understand he is the problem. Captain Janas literally drags Franken into a plot which will ensure the fall of the ruling Franken family and the survival of Janas's beloved STC.
Meredith adroitly alternates chapters of this palace intrigue with scenes of the armada flying through subspace and showing the massive devastation which the rebel fleet creates on its journey. Those invasion scenes have a breathless, telegraphical quality to them which convey a massive sense of urgency.
As the book winds up, Meredith also does a clever thing: in late chapters he shows brief snippets of events all around the planet Earth as the reality of the Terran apocalypse become clear. In East Asia an angry mob kills their governor and his whole family; in Australia, a cult climb a mountain and await their ends; a rural farmer stands at his barn door, shotgun in hand, waiting to do his small part.
Mr Meredith in his younger days
Mr. Meredith, just over the age of 30, has created a clever and fun novel. There are points in which The Sky is Filled with Ships reads like a pretty standard potboiler sci-fi actioner, with square-chinned heroes fighting for noble causes. In that way it feels a bit of a throwback to the golden John W. Campbell days.
But I appreciated how the actions of our hero were focused on preserving society, which gave him a nobility which stood out on the page. As well, the scenes of oncoming invasion are exciting and had me quickly turning the pages.
I finished this relatively slim novel in one night. And though Meredith is no John Brunner, Philip K. Dick, or Harlan Ellison, he makes no effort to create literary science fiction with this novel. The Sky is Filled with Ships achieves what Meredith set out to create: an intriguing, exciting novel which will make me seek out some of his shorter fiction while I wait for the next thrilling novel by him.
This is the fifth in a series of novels under the collective title of Children of Violence. The others are Martha Quest (1952), A Proper Marriage (1954), A Ripple from the Storm (1958), and Landlocked (1965). I haven't read the others.
A little research reveals that they all deal with Martha, the child of British parents working on a farm in colonial Africa. She's born in about 1920. The four novels all take place in southern Africa. As a teenager, Martha leaves home to work in a city. As the years go by, she is married and divorced and married again. She has a daughter whom she leaves in the care of others. She becomes involved in leftwing politics.
None of the earlier books have speculative elements. The newest one is different. At well over six hundred pages, it's also roughly twice as long as any of the previous volumes.
The sheer length and the very large number of characters and incidents make it difficult to offer a brief summary. I'll do what I can. Keep in mind that I'm leaving out the vast majority of the content of this massive novel.
Martha is now in London in about 1950. She gets a job as a secretary/housekeeper for a man who is married to a woman who is in and out of mental hospitals. She winds up living in the same household for many years, becoming involved with many other members of his family and their acquaintances.
Just to pick one example out of dozens, the man's brother is a scientist who defects to the Soviet Union. He leaves behind his wife and young son. The woman is a Jewish refugee from the Holocaust. When her husband leaves, she kills herself.
That's enough of a dramatic plot for a complete novel, but it only takes up a small portion of the book. Rather than attempt to relate any other events of equal importance, let me try to give you some idea of what the novel is like as a whole. Taking my inspiration from its title, I'll consider it as four different kinds of book in one.
Psychological Novel
Much of the text consists of Martha's interior monologues. She often looks at herself as if she were an outsider. At times, she withdraws from the rest of the world and spends time in a meditative, introspective state.
Novel of Character
Although Martha is the most important character, we also spend a great deal of time with lots of other people. In one section, the point of view shifts to Martha's elderly mother, who leaves Africa in order to visit her daughter. All the secondary characters are described in detail. There are so many of them that I sometimes lost track of who was related to whom. A dramatis personae for this book would take up several pages.
Social Novel
A large number of social and political issues come up in the novel. Just off the top of my head, these include Communism and anti-Communism, psychiatry, post-war austerity evolving into 1960's hedonism, the youth movement, the relationship between the sexes, the media, the environment, the military, espionage, homosexuality, colonialism and anti-colonialism, and economics. At times the novel resembles a series of debates.
Science Fiction Novel
You were wondering when I'd get to that! They take a while to show up, but speculative themes eventually make an appearance. The novel suggests that people diagnosed as schizophrenic are actually clairvoyant and telepathic. They are treated as mentally ill because they have visions and hear voices.
More to the point, the book's lengthy appendix consists of documents, mostly letters from Martha and other characters, describing how the United Kingdom and other parts of the world are devastated by what seems to be a combination of pollution, accidental release of nerve gas, plague, and radiation from nuclear weapons. Martha ends up with a small number of survivors on a tiny island. In true science fiction fashion, children born there have highly developed psychic powers.
Giving this book a rating is very difficult. Some people are going to hate it, and find slogging through very long sentences and paragraphs that go on for a page or more not worth the effort. Others will consider it to be a major literary achievement of great ambition.
I have very mixed feelings. At times I found it highly insightful; at other times I found it tedious.
Three stars, for lack of a better way to rate it.
by Cora Buhlert
A Five and Dime James Bond: Zero Cool by John Lange
This weekend, I attended a convention in the city of Neuss in the Rhineland. Luckily, West Germany has an excellent network of highways, the famous Autobahnen, so the three and a half hour trip was quite pleasant.
I left at dawn and took the opportunity to have breakfast at the brand-new service station Dammer Berge. Service stations are not exactly uncommon – you can find them roughly every fifty to sixty kilometers along the Germany's Autobahnen. There's always a parking lot, a gas station, a small shop, a restaurant and sometimes a motel, housed in fairly unremarkable buildings on either side of the highway.
Dammer Berge, however, is different. Billed as the service station of the future, the restaurant is a concrete bridge which spans the highway, held up by two steel pylons. The structure is spectacular, a beacon of modernism, though sadly the food itself was rather lacklustre: a cup of coffee that tasted of the soap used to clean the machine and a slice of stale apple cake.
But I'm not here to talk about architecture or food, but about books. Now the trusty paperback spinner rack at my local import bookstore does not hold solely science fiction and fantasy. There is also a motley mix of gothic romances, murder mysteries and thrillers available. And whenever the science fiction and fantasy selection on offer does not seem promising, I reach for one of those other genres. This is how I discovered John Lange, a thriller author whose novel Easy Go I read last year and enjoyed very much. So when I spotted a new John Lange novel named Zero Cool in that spinner rack, I of course picked it up.
Zero Cool starts with Peter Ross, an American radiologist who's supposed to present a paper at a medical conference in Barcelona. And since he's already in Spain, Ross plans to take the opportunity for a holiday on the nearby Costa Brava in the seaside resort of Tossa de Mar.
One of John Lange's greatest strengths is his atmospheric descriptions. His skills are on full display in Zero Cool in the descriptions of the rugged Costa Brava with its picturesque fishing villages turned holiday destination for package tourists from all over Europe. It's obvious that Lange has visited Spain in general and the Costa Brava in particular.
That doesn't mean that Lange doesn't take poetic licence. And so his protagonist Peter Ross notes that the beaches of the Costa Brava are full of beautiful women in bikinis with nary a man in sight. As someone who has actually visited said beaches, I can assure you that this isn't true. Like anywhere on the Mediterranean coast, the beaches of Tossa de Mar contain a motley mix of old and young, of men, women and children, of attractive and not so attractive bodies. And yes, there are women in bikinis, too. Ross has holiday fling with one of them, a British stewardess named Angela.
But in spite of what the cover may imply, Zero Cool is not a romance set in an exotic location, but a thriller. And so Ross finds himself accosted on the beach by a man who begs him not to do the autopsy or he will surely die. Ross is bemused—what autopsy? In any event, he is on vacation and besides, he's a radiologist, not a pathologist, dammit.
Not long after this encounter, Ross is approached by four men in black suits who could not seem more like gangsters if they wore signs saying "The Mob" 'round their necks. The men want Ross to perform – you guessed it – an autopsy on their deceased brother, so his body can be repatriated to the US. Ross protests that he is a radiologist, not a pathologist, but the men are very insistent. They offer Ross a lot of money and also threaten to kill him if he refuses.
In the end, Ross does perform the autopsy – not that he has any choice, because he is abducted at gunpoint. To no one's surprise, the four gangsters from central casting are not all that interested in how their alleged brother died, but want Ross to hide a package inside the body. Once again, Ross complies, since finding himself on the wrong end of a gun is very persuasive.
Up to now, Zero Cool seems to be a fairly routine thriller about an everyman who gets entangled in a criminal enterprise. But the novel takes a turn for the weird, when the body vanishes and people start dying horribly, mutilated beyond recognition. Ross not only finds himself a murder suspect – in a country which still garrottes convicted criminals – but other parties also show an interest in the missing body and the mysterious package inside. These other parties include Tex, a cartoonish Texan in a ten gallon hat, the Professor, a bald man who uses mathematics to predict the future and is basically Hari Seldon, if Hari had applied his skills to crime rather than to trying to save humanity from the dark ages, and – last but not least – the Count, a Spanish nobleman with dwarfism, who collects perfume bottles and lives in a castle with a mute butler, a flock of murderous falcons and a Doberman named Franco.
With its exotic locales (well, for Americans at least, since for West Germans the Costa Brava no longer feels all that exotic, when you can book a flight there via the Neckermann mail order catalogue), beautiful but duplicitous women and colourful villains, Zero Cool feels more like a James Bond adventure than a serious thriller. As for the mystery package, it doesn't contain anything as mundane as drugs (which was my initial suspicion), but a priceless emerald stolen by the Spanish conquistadores in Mexico. It all culminates in a showdown at the Alhambra palace in Granada, where Ross finds himself dodging bullets, poison gas and the razor-sharp talons of the Count's murder falcons.
It's all a lot of fun, though it still pales in comparison to the James Bond novels and films, which Zero Cool is clearly trying to emulate. Because unlike the suave agent on her majesty's secret service, Peter Ross just isn't very interesting. He literally is an everyman, an American doctor – and note that John Lange is the pen name used by a student at Harvard medical school who is financing his studies by writing thrillers – bouncing around Spain and France. In fact, Ross is probably the least interesting character in the whole novel. Furthermore, the fact that Ross is a radiologist, though constantly brought up, contributes nothing to the resolution. He might just as well have been a paediatrician or a gynaecologist or any other type of doctor for all it matters.
But even a lesser effort by John Lange is still better than most other thrillers in the paperback spinner rack. If John Lange becomes as good a doctor as he's a writer, his patients will be very lucky indeed.
An outrageous adventure. Three and a half stars.
(As mentioned above, John Lange is a pen name. However, I have it on good authority that his real name is "Michael Crichton" and that he has just published a science fiction novel under that byline. I haven't yet read it, but my colleague Joe has, so check out his review.)
The story begins in the town of Piedmont, Arizona, in the United States. It’s a pretty unremarkable town, with one small exception: just about everyone in the town is lying dead in the street, all except for two men who traveled to Piedmont to recover some lost government property and an odd figure in the town of corpses who happens to be walking their way. Upon the apparent death of the two men, an investigation gets underway, ultimately led by a clandestine government group called Project Wildfire.
Project Wildfire is the brainchild of Dr. Jeremy Stone, a bacteriologist possessing so many awards and degrees that the story paints him as a modern-day Da Vinci, a man above men. His team includes Dr. Charles Burton, a pathologist; Dr. Mark Hall, a surgeon, and the only unmarried man on the team—the odd man as the story puts it; and lastly, Dr. Peter Leavitt, a microbiologist. The four men quickly fall into their roles as they uncover the cause of whatever killed an entire town full of people in one night and try to prevent it from spreading.
They do this working out of a secure, state-of-the-art research facility with a list of protocols to prevent the escape of diseases, viruses, and other deadly pathogens, longer than a football field. Part of the appeal of the story is the detailed descriptions of all the computers, machines, and medical facilities that the four doctors use in their quest. Crichton’s depiction of even the smallest details of the workings of every inch of the Wildfire facility give a grounded feel not only to the base but to the descriptions he provides of the microorganism at the heart of this story: the Andromeda Strain itself. Crichton beautifully has his characters follow the scientific method we all learned in grade school, as Stone and the others start with observation, then move to hypothesis, then experimentation. Every solution in the book is arrived at through the efforts of brilliant men under tremendous pressure. It is truly exciting to witness them work as each discovery and dead end leads to new discoveries and new dangers.
The pacing of The Andromeda Strain felt fitting to me. I never felt as if I was waiting for something to happen. Each scene in every chapter was packed with purpose and direction, each page wasted no space. Every character had a job to do, and each was one of the best in the world at that job. Regarding the characterizations, although the story is set in modern times, these men often felt as if they were the stoic men of bronze from 1950’s serials. The characters felt dated, but the problems they tackled were quite modern.
By the end of the book, the characters and the circumstances reached a good stopping point. The object of worry, the Andromeda Strain itself, proved a challenge that had taxed the heroes of the story to their very limits. Some issues are addressed, and others are left unresolved. In my own zeal for the story, I’ve taken great pains to avoid revealing too much of the plot. It is best experienced in real time. All I can say is that the journey this book takes you on is worth the time investment. It’s a stellar read.
But not a perfect one. This is a story that begins with the end in mind. With all the truly amazing events that unfold in the book, what stands out most are the constant reminders from the narrator that the story was already over. This was my first time reading a book written by Mr. Crichton. I don’t know if he employs this technique in his other works, but I would have preferred that he kept his internal monologuing to himself. In one instance, a character forgets to replicate an action that he had performed on some lab rats. Narrator: “Later we learned that was a mistake.” In another, a character makes assumptions about a biological process. Narrator: “That action wasted days of our time.” The narrator frequently shares tidbits of the future, a narrative tool I would call “Poor Man's Foreshadowing.” The Andromeda Strain is such an engaging and suspenseful tale that I wished to remain in the present throughout my reading without Crichton yanking me out of it, offering glimpses of a future I wanted to reach without shortcuts.
That minor gripe aside, The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton is a thrilling mystery with high stakes. It is the kind of fact-based science fiction that I enjoy the most.
Way back in 1956, Joseph Ferman was the owner of Mercury Publishing, which produced several magazines, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He believed there was a place in the crowded SF market for a new magazine. The genre was changing; space opera was out, problem stories and stories with a narrower focus were in. The closure of Planet Stories the previous year meant no one was running SF with a hint of adventure and excitement. Joe decided to fill that gap, and a new magazine was born.
The first issue of Venture Science Fiction was dated January 1957 (which means it hit the stands in November or December of 1956). The editor was Robert P. Mills, who was the managing editor over at F&SF under Tony Boucher, with Boucher listed as the advisory editor. The cover by Ed Emshwiller went to a Poul Anderson Psychotechnic League story, Virgin Planet, later expanded to a novel of the same name. Other stories included a science fiction mystery by Isaac Asimov (The Dust of Death) and a controversial Ted Sturgeon tale (The Girl Had Guts), which allegedly made some readers physically ill.
The issue also had a note from the publisher, explaining what he hoped the magazine would be. Every story would have to be well told, and every story had to have “pace, power, and excitement.” But those things also wouldn’t take the place of character and sense.
Venture came out regularly every other month for 10 issues, but it never stood out in a crowded market. There were plenty of big-name authors, and you might recognize a story or two, but none were big stories that will be remembered as classics. This is where Asimov’s science essays ran before moving to F&SF. The magazine may be best remembered as the place that Sturgeon’s Law was first proposed in full: “Ninety percent of everything is crud,” along with its two corollaries.
The first and last covers for the first run of Venture. Art in both by Ed Emshwiller
What happened? It’s hard to say, but it has been suggested some of the content was too much for the times. There was more gore and sex than was considered acceptable, but which would fit right in today. As a result, new readers may have been put off, and old readers may have decided to go elsewhere. The chaos in the magazine market following the collapse of American News Distribution, which held a near monopoly on magazine distribution, in mid-1957 can’t have helped matters. In any case, the final issue was dated July 1958.
“Wait,” I hear our British and Australian readers say, “wasn’t there a magazine by that name in the early ’60s?” There was! The British version of Venture ran from September 1963 to December 1965. It carried reprints from the American edition of F&SF, even though that magazine also had a British version. The Australian edition was identical, just dated two months later, folding in February 1966.
Another try at the brass ring
The Fermans père et fils have decided to give Venture another try. Maybe they should have told someone. Galaxy Publishing has launched a few new magazines in the last few years, and they always made a big deal of it in their other mags several months in advance. Beyond a very small notice in last month’s F&SF, I haven’t heard a thing about it. Seems like a questionable marketing strategy.
Ed Ferman will be editing Venture as well as F&SF, but since it’s going to be quarterly, it shouldn’t be too much extra work. Along with stories, there’s a book review column by Ron Goulart. A particularly biting review column; Ron doesn’t seem to like much. Presumably, this will be a regular feature.
Another apparent recurring feature (it is, at least, listed as a “department” along with the book reviews) is the return of Ferdinand Feghoot. Feghoots, for the uninitiated, are very short – usually around half a page – stories ending in a pun. They ran in F&SF for a time, up until a few years ago, and the Traveler generally left them out of his reviews. Since puns may be the most subjective form of humor and it will be nearly impossible to cover them without giving away the joke, I will maintain this policy. Should they disappear, I will mention it. At the very least, they tend to be considerably better than the atrocious Benedict Breadfruit stories that appeared in Amazing several years ago.
This singularly unattractive cover is by Bert Tanner.
Before we get to the stories, we need to talk about this cover. At first glance, I thought this was a coffin and a bat, so I assumed it was a horror mag and moved on. It was only when I went back a second time that I realized it was what I was looking for. Cover art should grab the eye and make you want to pick it up. That’s especially true for a new magazine that’s had essentially no advertising. This does none of that. I do like the logo, though.
One day, the sun turns red, and a spaceship the size of Rhode Island appears in orbit around the Earth. Two apparently human beings appear, claiming to be from the center of the galaxy. They bear warning of the approach of a threat which will wipe the galaxy almost clean of life. Earth will be allowed to provide one person to aid in the defense against the threat. The person they choose is graduate art student Miles Vander.
Vander is searching for the creative equivalent of “hysterical strength,” the sort of thing that allows a small woman to lift a car to rescue her trapped child. He is changed by the aliens so that he can draw on the rest of humanity for a poorly explained resource and perhaps pass it on to the Center Aliens. What he finds when he reaches the Battle Line is less than encouraging.
I have no idea what’s going on here, but it’s almost the only art in the issue. Art by Bert Tanner
If I’d been handed this without a byline, I’d have said it was by Dickson once I got to the military stuff, so if you’re familiar with his work, you should have some idea what you’ll think of this. Much as in the recent Wolfling, the story goes on too long after the climax in order for Dickson to wax philosophic for a while. Otherwise, it was pretty good.
According to my sources, this “complete novel” has actually been condensed. It hasn’t suffered too much from the Reader’s Digest treatment. A few things might make a bit more sense, but they’re not really necessary to enjoy the story.
Three stars.
July 24, 1970, by K.M. O’Donnell
It’s no secret that K.M. O’Donnell is Barry Malzberg, who was briefly the editor of Amazing and Fantastic. This story was probably inspired by his time there. It’s in the form of a letter from an editor to a writer, gently trying to dissuade the author from submitting the story without rejecting it outright. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, which the story actually calls attention to, and doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s told pretty well.
Three stars.
The New Science, by Don Thompson
Four grad students attempt to use the university computer to tease out the valid aspects of witchcraft, in the same way that alchemy led to chemistry. There are unintended consequences. Like the previous story, there’s nothing new here, but it’s told reasonably well.
Three stars.
Troubling of a Star, by Bryce Walton
After searching 10,000 worlds without finding a trace of life, an expedition plans to go home. The captain is reluctant, but has little choice. With the rest of the crew already in suspended animation, he makes a discovery.
This story is far too long and is overwrought. I have no idea what the author wanted to say, and much of it doesn’t make sense.
Two stars.
The Topic for the Evening, by Daphne Castell
A married couple discuss local events and some of the women in town. The husband oversteps his bounds.
Yet another tale covering well-trod ground, but told well enough. I liked this better, though, when it was Gladys’s Gregory or Conjure Wife.
A low three stars.
Nine P.M., Pacific Daylight Time, by Ronald S. Bonn
Maybe the reason no time traveler has ever appeared is that no one has built a receiver. A “Mad Scientist” has now done so and invites a prominent science writer to be there when he powers it up. He may not have thought this through all the way.
Old ground again, but quite well told.
A high three stars.
Hold Your Fire!, by Larry Eisenberg
Eisenberg came up with brilliant and obnoxious chemist Emmett Duckworth back in 1967 and probably should have left him there. But with a story both here and in Galaxy this month, it looks like we’re in for more not very funny stories. In this one, Duckworth is annoyed by the sounds of a rifle competition on campus.
Two stars.
Summing up
Is there room for another SF magazine in the current market? Maybe, though the failure of Worlds of Tomorrow and the intermittent at best appearances of International Science Fiction and Worlds of Fantasy argue against it. If Venture is going to be successful in its second incarnation, it’s going to need a couple of things.
The first is promotion. An easily missed, three line announcement in F&SF isn’t going to cut it. The three magazines I mentioned in the previous paragraph were all heavily promoted in IF and Galaxy in both editorials and half-page ads for several months before they hit the newsstands. Another aspect of promotion is an eye-catching cover. The art on this issue is terrible. As I said, I was looking for this magazine and almost missed it. F&SF doesn’t have interior illustrations, but the covers are usually quite good.
The other important aspect is standing out. Especially for a quarterly, you need people talking about your magazine. Running a (condensed) novel might work if it’s really good. Hour of the Horde is decent, but it’s not going to generate word of mouth. A really outstanding story (or a really controversial one) would also work. The retreads in this issue, no matter how well-told, don’t cut the mustard.
We’ll see how things look this summer when the next issue is due.
Four years ago (has it been that long?) Mariner 4 became the first space probe to sail by Mars. This event instantly destroyed a thousand dreams. The 21 grainy, black and white pictures returned by the spacecraft's TV cameras showed a cratered, lunar-type surface. The Martian atmosphere was found to be less than 1% as dense at the surface as that of Earth. Gone was the romantic Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Leigh Brackett.
These findings should not have come as such a surprise—the abundance of craters and the thin atmosphere had already been suspected before Mariner 4 ever got there. But the photographic evidence was the final nail in the coffin. Mars is dead.
Or is it?
Mariner 4 was a rather limited spacecraft. We only got 21 pictures, after all. And while 7 millibars may not seem like much, that's a veritable atmospheric blanket compared to the Moon or Mercury. We need more data.
This is why a second generation of spacecraft, Mariners 6 and 7, are being sent to Mars. These are heavier spacecraft with more sophisticated equipment: infrared and ultraviolet radiometers (measuring Martian energy output in those wavelengths), a better TV camera, and the ability to reprogram the spacecraft in flight, as needed.
Mariner 6 took off last week on the 24th, and Mariner 7 will blast off March 21st. We've yet to have both members of a Mariner pair make it to its destination (Mariner 1 and Mariner 3 both had mishaps), but hope springs eternal. Come this summer, perhaps around the same time a man sets foot on the Moon, we will unveil more mysteries of the fourth planet.
I have a private joke that every Chris Anvil story for Analog begins (Mad Lib style):
[Military Rank] [WASPy male name] of [military organization] [verbed] down the [corridor/hall/base] lightly touching his [weapon] clipped to his [clippable article of clothing].
"Trap" did nothing but reinforce this cliché, and I hunkered down for a slog of a novella.
Instead, I got a reasonably interesting, technical tale about peaceably dealing with implacable aliens, who possess an unbeatable weapon. In this case, the planet is a swampy wasteland, the aliens have the ability to teleport anywhere they've been before, and the humans and Centrans (in an alliance since the 1956 story, "Paradise Planet") must find a way to make peace before the aliens find a way to teleport onto every ship and planet in both empires.
It starts a bit slow, but I found myself compelled. Certainly better than the fare Anvil usually offers us in Analog. Three stars.
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, by R. E. Allen
How does Mannie supply all the movies and music producers with the top talent? Why, by dowsing over each of the actor's/musician's headshots with a divining rod, of course!
Not much of a story. Not much science fiction. Two stars.
They're Trying to Tell Us Something (part 1 of 2), by Thomas R. McDonough
This month's science article is on those enigmatic, recently discovered interstellar radio beacons known as pulsars. Beeping on the radio dial on the average of once a second (some are faster, some are slower), they are significant for their unwaveringly precise timing and for their enormous power output—some one billion times the power output of all of Earth's civilizations!
There is a lot of interesting information in this article, but what annoys me is that McDonough seems convinced that pulsars are the work of "Little Green Men" (LGM), and presents his article accordingly. Nowhere in the piece is the general accepted wisdom that the regularity of the signals and the fact that they seem to carry no information (not to mention their tremendous power) indicates that pulsars are rapidly rotating stars, and likely rapidly rotating, collapsed dead stars called "neutron stars".
This isn't esoteric knowledge I gleaned from The Astrophysical Journal—it's from the Sunday Supplement of Escondido's rag of a paper, The Times-Advocate. So, its exclusion from McDonough's piece must be conscious, and that makes his arguments suspect. Perhaps he'll discuss neutron stars in the next piece, but they really should have been front and center.
Three stars.
Minitalent, by Tak Hallus
by Leo Summers
Alice Culligan, third mate and computer officer on the space ship Iphigenia, witnessed a crime: gun runners had smuggled cruel "nervers" to a race of aborigines. They were caught, but the company they're working for looks to get away scott free. They will do anything to ensure that verdict—including silencing Miss Culligan forever.
But Alice has an ace up her sleeve: a minor talent for telekinetics. And in a computerized world, sometimes a little push is all that's needed…
Similarly premised as Larry Niven's sublime "The Organleggers", this tale (Tak Hallus' first) is not as deftly told. That said, it is pretty good, and I liked the heroine very much. It's clearly in the vein of, say, James H. Schmitz, so if you like him, you'll like this.
By the way, Tak Hallus is simply Arabic for "pseudonym", so who knows? Maybe it really is Schmitz!
An assassin named Jagen performs a job and, with the help of a teleportation system, escapes The Great Despot's justice. But is there any ultimate evasion the efficient robot machines of the Despot's police force?
The well-written piece is really a setup for the philosophical question posed at the end. The answer is surprising for such a libertarian mag as editor Campbell's.
And now, the conclusion of Wolfling. By Gordy Dickson.
Jim Weil, archaeologist and Ace of All Trades (the term "bannou" (万能) is even more appropriate), had infiltrated the High-Born empire he was sent to detachedly examine, becoming a general in its armies. Having discovered a plot to destroy the imperial warrior race of Starkiens, Jim quickly returned to the throne world to thwart a plot on the Emperor, himself. He is successful in defeating the pretender, the Emperor's cousin, but now he must return to Earth and face treason charges for possibly incurring the imperial wrath on humanity.
In a dramatic courtroom scene, Jim explains his actions, how they saved the Earth, and the true origin of humanity vis. a vis. the High-Born. Did we come from them, or did they come from us?
The answer is rather disappointing, more along the lines of something I'd expect written in the pulp era than modern times. In addition, all of the energy-saber dueling seemed unnecessary; when everyone can teleport at whim, how do you keep your foe in the same room long enough to dispatch him? Or keep your foe from materializing behind you?
But most of all, I had expected a statement against eugenics, but instead got something of a defense of it. If not for the skilled writing, I might rate it more poorly.
Three stars for the serial as a whole.
On to the numbers!
You know, it's been quite a month! With Analog clocking in at 3.4 stars, it's near the top of the heap rather than taking its usual place in the middle. Ahead of it were Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.4) and IF (3.5). The good news is, the spread was pretty narrow: Galaxy scored 3.3, New Worlds 3.2, New Writings 14 3. Only Amazing scored below the three-line (2.7), and it was still better than usual.
In other vital statistics, women produced 11% of the new fictional content. The superior stuff this month would fill three full-sized magazines. Given that there were seven published this month, that's a good ratio.
Stay tuned for the end of next month when we find out how April's magazines do…and how Mariner 7 flies!
Is ten books a record for the Galactoscope? Lucky we have so many folks reading furiously for the Journey. And it's a good thing, because amidst the dross and mediocrity, there's a couple of gems…
Kate Wilhelm is perhaps better known for her debut short story, "The Mile-Long Spaceship" (1963) and Clone (1965), the Hugo Award nominated novel written in collaboration with Theodore L. Thomas. Perhaps you've read her work in Orbit, edited by her husband, Damon Knight.
The ominous title of this book, Let the Fire Fall, promises fire, brimstone, and a violent alien invasion—but the bad guys in this story aren't the extraterrestrials. The plot: A spaceship inhabited by pregnant alien women lands in small town America. The aliens are friendly, and clearly hope to be welcome on this new planet they’ve discovered. One vile and opportunistic man named Obie Cox– under normal circumstances, a small-town philanderer of no account, blessed with uncommon charisma–manages to worm his way to the pulpit. One there, he takes advantage of humanity’s rampant xenophobia and the ineffectuality of Earth’s bureaucracy through flat-out lies, hate, and fear mongering. What he wants is control and he achieves that by weaponizing humanity’s worst traits and using them to brainwash the populace and plunging the world into dystopian chaos.
At first, Wilhelm’s strangely familiar-feeling and deliberately matter-of-fact writing style, peppered with many clever twists of phrase, seems to capture the spirit of Ray Bradbury or an episode of the Twilight Zone. What we get, instead, is a riveting and decidedly tragic tale of First Contact gone awry in a world populated by an almost irredeemable cast of humans.
Wilhelm’s courage and ambitiousness in attempting to capture the vile side of human nature is admirable. Still, even a forward thinking and imaginative author such as herself cannot seem to escape the discriminatory views of our time. Let the Fire Fall perpetuates the sexist view that women must be submissive to men and even the women important to the plot are given no initiative to steer their own destinies. While Wilhelm is progressive enough to acknowledge the existence of homosexuals, the way she characterizes homosexuality as one of the “vices” permitted by the villainous Obie Cox’s vaunted religion suggests a personal disapproval of such individuals. (To be fair, what her characters feel, even the "good" ones, doesn't necessarily reflect Wilhelm's feelings on a subject.)
In any wise, Let the Fire Fall is an excellently written novel. The author’s insight and ability to imagine a dark future, all too possible, are incredible. I love this book but I hated reading it. The way it mirrors our current reality where opportunistic charlatans have risen to political power by preying on the gullibility of the American populace fills me with trepidation. Let the Fire Fall is an insidiously horrifying and damning condemnation of the human race. This book will make you squirm and fret about the world as we know it, and the future of our species. You will not feel comfortable reading this book. You should not.
Daphne du Maurier has been a favourite of mine for a long while. I read Rebecca in my teens and have slowly been building up a collection of her writings. However, she has only had one truly SFnal release to date, the marvellous collection The Apple Tree, most notable for containing the original short story of The Birds.
That was until this year, when she followed in the footsteps of fellow literary darlings Naomi Mitchison and Virginia Woolf and put out a book on a mainstay of science fiction, time travel.
Dick Young goes down to visit his old university friend Professor Magnus Lane in Cornwall. Dick agrees to be the test subject of the Professor’s new alchemical invention and finds himself transported back in time to the era of Edward III’s infancy. The story follows Dick and Magnus’ trips back and forth between the 14th and 20th centuries.
What Du Maurier always does well is give a real sense of atmosphere to her tales. As is usual in her books Cornwall takes on the mysterious atmosphere of Bronte’s Yorkshire and Doyle’s Dartmoor: a strange wild place where anything can happen. She also illustrates well the sense of dislocation Dick feels moving between the periods, making him feel like an outsider in both.
Cover by Susan Einzig
And yet, I don’t feel like it did anything particularly new or interesting here. The children’s book Tom’s Midnight Garden explores similar themes better for me. Also, in spite of the period being underserved in historical narratives, I didn’t feel like I gained much more insight or understanding of it than I would have done from an encyclopedia summary.
This almost reads like one of those historical stories that had a touch of added SFnal content to get into the magazines. Of course, that is not the case here (DuMaurier could release her shopping list and it would be a best seller) and this is still a good read, but I did not feel like it is doing anything exceptional nor is it destined to be one of my favourites.
As John Carnell has now edited as many editions of New Writings as Ian Flemming wrote James Bond novels, he is entitled to enjoy himself. As such, he says this volume is entirely composed of stories he personally loved, rather than mixing in some he knew were good but not to his taste. But how much do my feelings ally with his?
Blood Brother by James White
We start with the always reliable James White with another tale of Sector General.
Following on from Vertigo, a team is returning with Surreshun to “Meatball” to assess the species' medical needs and to locate the manufacturers of their responsive organic tools. Unfortunately, the native entities of the planet believe that Surreshun was kidnapped by the crew of the Descartes and are not keen to let this happen again.
This once again is a fascinating exercise from White, trying to imagine a wholly alien species from our understanding and the problems it could cause. The natives of “Meatball” have an inbuilt dislike of anything similar to themselves and have no central form of government but exist in a deep layer of animal life. How to communicate ideas like friendship to a species like that is a true challenge.
What White is always great at is giving us a sense of how diverse the species in the Galactic Federation are, whilst still making it seem like an everyday occurrence at the hospital. For example:
Despite the fact that one species was covered in thick silver fur and crawled like a giant caterpillar and the other resembled a six-legged elephant, they were fairly easy to deal with because they had the same atmosphere and gravity requirements as Conway. But he was also responsible for a small ward of Hudlars, beings with hide like flexible armour plate whose artificial gravity system was set at five Gs and whose atmosphere was a dense high-pressure fog – and the odd-ball TLTU classification entity hailing from he knew not where who breathed superheated steam. It took more than a few hours to tidy up such a collection of loose ends…
He continues to know what he does well and produces the most consistently strong series currently ongoing in Science Fiction.
Four Stars
If You're So Smart by Paul Corey
Ibby has a mental disability and suffers from regular seizures, so lives permanently at a mental hospital. He also helps out in the animal testing lab. However, he may be able to understand the animals better than the scientists.
A pedestrian tale, poorly told. Whilst I have heard that Corey is an American writer and journalist of some renown, I am only familiar with him from his awful appearance in New Worlds earlier in the decade. Apparently he has an SF novel out from Robert Hale but this isn’t inspiring me to pick it up.
A low Two Stars
The Ballad of Luna Lil by Sydney J. Bounds
Gerard The Rhymer wrote The Ballad of Luna Lil many centuries ago. This work analyses the historical accuracy of the tale to the real life of Captain Bartholomew “Black Bart” Sparrow, a space free trader, and Lily La Lune, singing star of the videos.
I am a great lover of analyses of fictional works and this one doesn’t disappoint. It turns what could be a standard pulpy adventure into an exploration of a fictional universe, containing fascinating ideas and raising questions about the power of art.
A high Four Stars
The Eternity Game by Vincent King
In a tale told from four perspectives (A, G, P & Z), two different species find themselves in the Place, attempting to survive in their collapsing galaxy.
We learn from the introduction that Vincent King is also a visual artist and Carnell describes this work as being like an abstract painting. I am not sure I agree with that, it is certainly not as obscure as some of the writings of Ballard, Burroughs, or Farmer. Rather, you have a puzzle that fits together by the end.
I don’t think it is quite as effective as his usual Medieval Futurism, but still a worthy piece.
Four Stars
Tilt Angle by R. W. Mackelworth
The Earth has entered a new Ice Age, and Tomas and Donna are sent on a mission from the City to find food stores. But is this parasitic existence right or sustainable?
Another one of these Frozen Earth tales that have been popping up a lot recently in the UK (we do like to moan about the weather). Whilst evocatively told, it feels abrupt and incomplete. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw further stories in this world.
Three Stars
The Song of Infinity by Domingo Santos
Once again we have a work in translation, this time from a Spanish author. He is apparently well known in his own country but I am not aware of any prior translations into English. This one was selected and translated by the late great Arthur Sellings.
We get the internal monologue of an astronaut who finds himself accidentally floating through space without any hope of rescue.
This is a well told and melancholic tale but one that nevertheless didn’t really affect me as much as I felt it was trying to.
Three Stars
Green Five Renegade by M. John Harrison
Astronaut of the Green 5, Chad Redeem, encounters alien life forms. Discovering them to be naïve and peaceful compared to the human race, he goes on the run rather than risk his knowledge of them becoming known to the authorities.
Oh dear, I am not sure what happened here. Even putting aside some weird printing errors, it is overwritten, cliché driven and full of creepy descriptions of women. I know Harrison can do a lot better so I am surprised to see this come from his pen.
One Star
So, the good ship New Writings continues steadily on its course. Some good works, some poorer, still generally very much in Carnell’s usual mode. Much the same crew manning the rigging with nary a woman in sight*. Whilst it may not always be the most exciting voyage, it shows little signs of leakage. Onward!
*I believe it has now been over 5 years since Carnell published a story by a woman, the last being Dial SCH 1828 by Gweneth Penn-Bull in December ‘63’s Science Fantasy.
by Gideon Marcus
Ace Double 72400
The High Hex, by Laurence M. Janifer and S. J. Treibich
Here is the sequel to Target: Terra that nobody asked for. In this one, the African space station has begun broadcasting a menacing message, all chants and tribal drums, that seems to presage a heating up of the White/Black cold war. The crew of Space Station 1 are recalled to duty and tasked with infiltrating the second station. The plot is thickened with robots and destructive aliens, and the Africans aren't the bad guys after all.
If you enjoyed the gaggish and frivolous tone of the first book, you'll like this one. Otherwise…you won't.
If you read and enjoyed the four stories of John Grimes, a space captain running the rim of galactic space, then this is an opportunity to get all of them in one convenient package. In this fix-up, they are unchanged, with only short concluding scenes added to each piece to link them together.
They all appeared in IF, where David gave them three stars apiece. I see no reason to change his assessment.
by Victoria Silverwolf
War And No Peace
Two new novels deal with armed conflict, international or domestic. One takes place in the very recent past, but not the one with which we're familiar. The other is set in the near future, one we'd like to avoid. Let's start with something that didn't happen less than two years ago.
If Israel Lost the War, by Richard Z. Chesnoff, Edward Klein, and Robert Littell
Uncredited cover art.
In the tradition of Bring the Jubilee (1953) by Ward Moore (the Confederacy wins the American Civil War) and The Man in the High Castle (1962) by Philip K. Dick (the Axis wins the Second World War), this book reverses the result of a war.
The title makes that obvious, of course. We're talking about the so-called Six Day War (June 5 through 10, 1967), in which Israel triumphed over a coalition of Arab nations.
I know less about military stuff than almost anybody, so I won't try to analyze the war. However, there seems to be general agreement that Israel's preemptive strike, devastating the Egyptian Air Force and giving Israel complete control over the skies, was a key factor in the victory.
What if Israel didn't attack first? What if Arab forces destroyed most of Israel's air power instead?
That's the premise of the novel. The result is overwhelming victory for the Arab nations, with Israel's territory soon being divided up among them.
The book's map, showing the progress of the imagined conflict.
The occupying forces initiate a reign of terror. As in many wars, looting, rape, and murder follow the victory. The big winner is Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who dominates his allies and intends to create a new, bigger United Arab Republic.
(The UAR was the name given to the union of Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961. The United Arab Republic is still the official name of the nation better known as Egypt.)
As I said, I'm no expert on war, so I don't know how plausible this scenario might be. It assumes closely coordinated action among the Arab states, which is questionable. It also presumes that Arab aircraft would be able to bypass Israel's early warning defense system. (There are even some lines in the book that indicate that this is unlikely.)
So how is the book as a work of fiction? Well, given the fact that the three authors are journalists (all working for Newsweek), it's no surprise that it reads like nonfiction. There are a few minor fictional characters, but all the major ones are real people. We follow politicians and military leaders from Israel, the Arab nations, the USA, and the USSR.
The work is obviously very pro-Israel. (Richard Z. Chesnoff is married to an Israeli woman, and used to live on a kibbutz.) Whether one sees the book as reasoned justification for Israel's preemptive strike, or as anti-Arab propaganda, it is sure to stir up controversy. Judged strictly on its literary merits, I'd have to say that it's readable enough. The authors are definitely more interested in getting their message across than in creating a work of art.
Three stars.
The Jagged Orbit, by John Brunner
Let's turn from an imaginary past to a speculative future.
Cover art by Diane and Leo Dillion.
The race problem in the United States is much worse in the year 2014 than it was in our own time. Some cities (Detroit, Washington, etc.) are under the control of kneeblanks, while others are still firmly dominated by blanks.
Oh, you're not familiar with those terms? Maybe it'll help if I point out that blank is derived from the Afrikaans word blanc (white) and that kneeblank (often just knee) comes from nieblanc (not white.)
This is a sample of the book's futuristic terminology, which takes some time to get used to. It's not as difficult as the slang in A Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess, but it requires a little effort.
Anyway, ordinary citizens are forced to defend themselves with serious weapons, supplied by arms dealers. The dominant supplier of deadly devices is a family-run corporation that resembles the Mafia.
That's the background. What about the story? Well, it's complicated. There are a lot of important characters and a lot of plot threads. Let me try to come up with a greatly oversimplified synopsis.
There's a psychiatric institute under the direction of a megalomaniac who treats his patients with extreme isolation from society. One of the inmates is a kneeblank soldier who suffered a breakdown in war, but who now seems perfectly sane. In fact, he's an electronics genius.
A woman who produces enigmatic prophecies while under the influence of drugs (as in ancient times, she's called a pythoness) performs at the institute. A fellow who exposes scandals on television (the book calls him a spoolpigeon) records her act. He also happens to be married to one of the patients.
Meanwhile, a kneeblank spoolpigeon gets kicked out of Detroit by the city's kneeblank mayor, at the instigation of a blank South African. (The tragic situation of apartheid is still going strong in 2014.)
In addition to that, a kneeblank revolutionary who put kneeblanks in control of much of the United Kingdom is on his way to the United States. Even though US officials are terrified of him, he easily gets through customs.
What does this all have to do with a secret project of the arms dealers? Suffice to say that the kneeblank soldier I mentioned above isn't what he seems to be.
I've only given you a vague hint of what the novel is like. In addition to the convoluted plot, there's the narrative style. The first two chapters, for example, consist of a single word split into two parts. Many of the chapter titles are very long and often satiric. In the middle of the book, Brunner provides quotes from real newspaper articles about the American race problem.
The climax involves science fiction themes that are more speculative than those found earlier in the book. These may strain the reader's suspension of disbelief.
This novel isn't as groundbreaking as the author's stunning masterwork Stand on Zanzibar, but it's pretty close in quality.
Four stars.
by David Levinson
A Familiar Refrain
In music, it’s common for artists to cover an old standard or just something someone else has already done. Usually, they have a different approach that may be about the same, worse, or better. Once in a while, they’ll take an old song and make entirely their own (Jimi Hendrix and Frank Sinatra have a singular talent for this).
There’s a similar phenomenon in science fiction. Someone comes up with an interesting idea—time travel, alien invasion, what have you—and eventually almost everybody tries to see what they can do with the concept. Harry Harrison’s latest novel is just such a work. How well did he do?
Two Aztec villages lie on either side of a river in a valley long isolated from the outside world. We soon learn that things are not as they seem. The serpent-headed goddess Coatlicue is a physical presence that stalks the river bank at night, and typical Aztec features include blonde hair and blue eyes.
Into this world is born Chimal, a young man with a penchant for asking uncomfortable questions. When he inadvertently causes the death of the high priest (and the sun fails to rise, because there is no one to say the necessary prayer), Chimal must flee the valley. The society he finds outside the valley is no less hidebound and no fonder of questions with uncomfortable answers.
Although I’ve talked around it for the benefit of those who would like to experience the surprise on their own, I suspect many of you have figured out what’s going on. Although Harrison adds one or two interesting flourishes, the novel follows the expected course to one of the standard endings. Indeed, the story follows such a predictable course, I found myself more interested in what happened centuries earlier to create the situation or what is going to happen a few decades after the end.
Is it worth your time? Maybe. Is it worth your money? Definitely not, especially not at hardback prices.
Dickson has been busy as of late, with his serial Wolfling currently running in Analog, and with a new paperback original alongside it. Spacepaw is a less serious novel and seems to be aimed at a younger readership, which is fine by me. It takes place on Dilbia, the same planet featured in Dickson's 1961 novel Special Delivery. Like that earlier novel it features the Dilbians, a race of nine-foot-tall bear-like aliens who are not exactly hostile but who certainly have a curious way of going about things.
Bill Waltham is an agriculture scientist sent to Dilbia, supposedly to meet up with Lafe Greentree, his on-site superior, and Anita Lyme, a "trainee assistant" working under Greentree. The problem (actually two problems) is that Greentree is not here: he had sustained an injury whose severity the off-planet hospital is strangely vague about disclosing, and Anita has been taken captive by a pack of Dilbian outlaws. The only possible help Waltham can get are the mischievous Dilbian the Hill Bluffer (that's his name, the Hill Bluffer) and a Hemnoid named Mula-ay (italics not mine). The Hill Bluffer is not terribly useful and Mula-ay seems to be working for a third party—in Waltham's favor or not remains to be seen.
This novel is basically a comedy of manners. To rescue Lyme and convince the Dilbians to pick up agricultural skills (the race is a rural lot that lives off the fat o' the land), Waltham will have to adapt to Dilbian customs. The black-furred giants are a comical lot, with silly names like More Jam, Perfectly Delightful, and Grandpa Squeaky; they even give Waltham a Dilbian name, "Pick-and-Shovel," which the serious-minded human does not appreciate. The leader of the outlaws, Bone Breaker, is pretty affable despite his name and occupation. The stakes are kept somewhat low, even when Waltham is duped into accepting a duel to the death, which is fitting for a comedy, even if doesn't leave the reader with much to think about.
Dickson's brand of humor is unlikely to spark laughter, but it's effective at often invoking a smirk. Waltham himself is a bit of a wet blanket, but the comedy mostly stems from this straight-laced hero type being forced to deal with some deeply unserious aliens. Lyme is a bit of a shrew, but Dickson does write her as competent and independent-minded, even if I suspect he does not think very highly of her.
A solid three out of five stars, possibly four for young readers.
A good deal less enjoyable is a new Gothic horror novel I picked up, by an author I've never heard of before. Despite having been published this year, The Tormented reads like a fossilized dinosaur, but not one of the interesting ones. It's a pastiche of late-19th century supernatural horror. I'm sure Daniels likes Henry James and Arthur Conan Doyle, but unfortunately she is not remotely as good a wordsmith as James or even Doyle.
Sharon Aldrich lived on a New Orleans plantation called The Pillars until both her parents died, and it turns out all the money had dried up. After a stint or two abroad she returns to The Pillars as governess for a new family that's moved in, the Beaumonts. Craig Beaumont and his wife Emily are stuck in a loveless marriage while Emily's sister, Sarah, tags along as a third wheel. Cassie, Craig's daughter, is a reasonably well-adjusted child despite the fact that she had witnessed a horrific death in the family not long ago. And there seems to be a ghost problem on the plantation. The place is most certainly haunted (it takes all of about five minutes upon Sharon's arriving for a ghost to start whispering in her ear), and worse yet, Sharon must now deal with a dysfunctional upper-class family.
You would think that at only 160 pages this would be a densely packed narrative, but it's not. There's quite a bit of padding. Most of the wordage is dialogue, with characters often getting into arguments with each other and then almost immediately apologizing for causing a fuss. Emily and Sarah are major shrews, and Sharon is not much better. It soon becomes clear Sharon and Craig like each other but are hesitant to take action, what with the whole marriage thing. Even the ghost does not pose much of a threat. No wonder the Confederacy lost. The Tormented is probably a few thousand words longer than James's The Turn of the Screw, but feels shorter because it spins its wheels so often. Not much actually happens, and despite the New Orleans setting Daniels injects practically no atmosphere into her writing.
The most damning part is that this is 1969, not 1889. I kept thinking, "Why play such an old and tired genre straight? What point is Daniels trying to make by doing this?" After having read the whole thing, I still don't know.
Winter is the wet season for Southern California, and we've been just drenched these past weeks. I understand seven inches of rain fell in the Los Angeles area, causing terrible mudslides, property damage, and injury. Apparently, things were made worse by a spate of arson last year that got rid of the stabilizing undergrowth.
Ontario's Foothill Boulevard looking west toward Red Hill Country Club Drive, flooded. (Daily Report photo)
I've had many friends ask if we're alright, afraid we might have been swept downstream in the torrent. Rest assured that Vista is disaster-proof (knock on wood), and our house is at the top of a hill. We had some deep pools of water in the backyard, but they've since drained. Our neighbors have gotten invaded by bugs seeking refuge from the storm, though.
A man runs past a station wagon that was washed two blocks down Carnelian Avenue, along with part of the road surface. (Daily Report photo)
Ups and Downs
If the physical world is getting washed away, one edifice that manages to stand firmly, if not always proudly, is Analog, science fiction's most popular magazine. Has this month's issue slid at all, or is it holding fast? let's see:
We're back in the world of psionic talents, perhaps related to the stories that involve ladies in towers. A pair of politicians want to pass a law protecting and enabling the psionically adept, legitimizing things like professional prognosticators and psychic manipulators. A Luddite strawman, name of Zeusman, is against it.
Meanwhile. Ruth is the wife of Lajos, a precog. She is frustrated because she has an unidentified talent, and also because she really wants to be a mom. Eventually, the latter frustration is relieved, and her daughter ends up demonstrating what Ruth's power really is.
Aside from the tale beginning with ten pages of conversation that reads more like a Socratic dialogue than a story, I just find McCaffrey's writing so flat and amateur. I'm sure all the psi stuff was music to editor Campbell's ears, including lines like "Those who truly understand psionic power need no explanation. Those who need explanation will never understand," but it doesn't work for me. Beyond that, McCaffrey's attitudes on the relations of the sexes is so atavistic, although I suppose she gets points for talking about sex at all. Maybe Campbell likes that, too.
Two stars.
You'll Love the Past, by J. R. Pierce
by Leo Summers
A time traveler from the 21st Century takes a trip in a time machine to the 24th Century. A war has transformed society: America is now largely mixed race, with the whitest of the population an inbred and stupid group. Socially, the continent is organized into placid socialist cooperatives run by religious Brothers, advanced technology provided by the Japanese. It's the sort of world one can be happy in…provided one is favored by the status quo. Every so often, one of the non-favored tries to escape.
Not a bad story, even if it seems to be obliquely casting aspersions on Communists of darker hue.
Three stars.
The Man Who Makes Planets, by G. Harry Stine
Photos by G. Harry Stine
A nifty piece by Analog's resident rocket enthusiast about a fellow who makes model planets for a living. I'd get one for my house, but they're a bit pricey—a quarter of a hundred large!
Four stars.
Extortion, Inc., by Mack Reynolds
by Leo Summers
Yet another piece set in the (anti-) Utopian future of People's Capitalism, where North America has become a stratified welfare state, and money is a thing of the past.
Rex, last of the private dicks, is engaged by a government minister to find out who stole the plans for a miniaturized nuclear bomb, and why said criminal is blackmailing him, threatening to distribute the plans should a ransom not be paid promptly.
The solution to this mystery is actually trivial, and the story isn't quite long enough for what it's trying to do. Nevertheless, I always find this setting interesting. And perhaps prescient. There was piece in last week's newspaper about the National Urban League's proposal for a universal income…
Back in part one, Jim Kiel was sent from Earth to study the intergalactic empire whose fringes were discovered when a Terran probe made it to Alpha Centauri. An anthropologist and ubermensch, Jim is essentially a spy, though the High Born of the empire don't know that—they think that he's an interesting curiosity, favored for his bullfighting skills and independent thinking.
This installment begins just after Jim's first encounter with the Emperor, a genial, capable man who, nevertheless, seemed to suffer a stroke. A stroke that no one but Jim noticed. Much of this middle installment is devoted to Jim's navigation of High Born society, attempting to master the reading machines to determine if Earth really is a long-lost colony of the empire or something else, and also how he discovers and foils an insurrection attempt with designs on incapacitating the empire's leader. In the last portion, Jim is promoted to the equivalent of a Brigadier General and sent to quell a rebellion. This is actually a trap designed to kill him, but he neatly sidesteps it. Now he wants to know why he's marked for death.
The pot continues to boil. There's a lot of the flavor of Dickson's Dorsai series, but with a different, perhaps even more interesting, setting.
Four stars.
A Chair of Comparative Leisure, by Robin Scott
by Leo Summers
A stammering professor somehow manages to be the most magnetic, as well as effective at conveying information. Does his technique go beyond the verbal?
(Yes. He has the power of psychic projection. Whoopee. Two stars.)
Calculating the damage
You win some, you lose some, and this month's issue clocks in at exactly three stars. While nothing could compare with the superlative four-star Fantasy and Science Fiction, three stars is still lower than New Worlds (3.3) and Galaxy (3.2). It does beat out IF (2.8) and Fantastic (2.2), however.
You could fill as many as three issues with good stuff out of the six that were put out—in large part thanks to how great F&SF was this month. Nevertheless, women contributed very little of that, with only 6.67% of new fiction written by female writers, most of that Anne McCaffrey's drudge of a story.
Still, in an uncertain world, I can't complain too much. Especially since, mudslides or no, the Post Office still manages to get me my magazines on time!
First, there was the stirring flight of Apollo 8, a bit of unmitigated good that gave the holiday season additional poignancy. And then, just last week, the crew of the Pueblo were finally released. Vietnam peace talks appear to be stumbling forward.
On a more personal level, I got to prepare the Galactic Stars for the year, which involves reading all of the four and five star stories recommended by my colleagues. For one month, everything I read is terrific.
It is in this euphoric mode that I get ready for tonight's New Year's celebration…and present to you the last of this month's magazines, the January 1969 Analog.
A galaxy-spanning empire makes contact with Earth. Amazingly, the denizens of the sprawling star-society appear to be humans, though the ruling caste is distinctive due to selective breeding—onyx white, seven feet tall, and brilliant. Because of the clear relation between the species, the prevailing belief is that Earth is some kind of lost colony.
by Kelly Freas
James Keil, bullfighter extraordinaire, is adopted by the High-born for display at the Throne World. Keil is also a trojan horse, dispatched by the United Nations to gather information about the non-alien aliens.
The hidebound High-born possess tremendous powers, from teleportation to matter conversion, but they are also just as petty and Machiavelian as any Earthers. Keil's only ally is Ro, a (comparatively) dark-skinned High-born tasked with caring for the High-born queen's menagerie.
Dickson spins an interesting tale, detailing how the "Wolfling", Keil, walks the diplomatic tightrope, navigating a literal lion's den all through his FTL journey to the heart of the galaxy. Though the story featueres eugenics, it is clear that the tale is an indictment rather than an endorsement. Of course, the message might have been more strongly made were Keil's surname "Chang" or "Ojukwu".
Four stars so far.
The Hidden Ears, by Lawrence A. Perkins
by Leo Summers
A renegade UFO on the lam breaks through the cordon placed around Earth by the interstellar fuzz, taking refuge in the barn of a rural homestead. The cops scratch their carapaced heads for a while, until they figure out a way to locate the hidden fugitive. The genuinely amusing conclusion is the one bright spot in an otherwise frivolous story.
Two stars.
The Other Culture, by Ted Thomas
by Kelly Freas
If ever the word "pedestrian" described a story, it's now. Thomas strings the most colorless sentences together, most of which are superfluous, and none of which are more than adequate.
The plot? The Weather Council has to decide who will be prioritized for the increasingly demanded amount of world rainfall. Because, as we all know, that's the kind of minor issue that is solved at a single conference.
That would be silly enough, except for the bombshell dropped about a quarter-way into the story: continental drift is suddenly speeding up, and all land masses will reunite as Pangaea in half a century.
Turns out this (ludicrous) plan is the work of BROW, the Brotherhood of the World, a rival underground (no pun intended) society. But this potentially disastrous plan also, fortuitously, contains the solution to the water problem.
"Culture" is a talky, ridiculous story with no merits whatsoever. It makes no scientific sense—moving continents around like bumper cars will produce a million 1906 San Franciscos—and the prose is dull as dishwater, as are all of the "characters".
One star.
"On a Gold Vesta … ", by Robert S. Richardson
This is a pretty neat piece about how we measure the density, size, and albedo (reflectiveness) of the myriad minor planets in the solar system. All of these values are related, and without a firm grasp of at least one of them, it's virtually impossible to estimate the others. A little short, but valuable.
Four stars.
Classicism, by Murray Yaco
by Kelly Freas
It's been eight years since we last heard from Mr. Yaco, and quite frankly, he might as well have stayed in hiding. This is the "funny" tale of a young engineer from the last planet that believes in "classical economics". He is sent to the big universe to become a cog in the command economy—specifically, to manage planet-wide garbage operations. In his spare time, he works on perfecting a teleportation system, which he hopes to sell at great profit.
Too silly to be truly offensive; too lightweight to be worth your time. Two stars.
Krishna, by Guy McCord
by Kelly Freas
Last year, Mack Reynolds…er… "Guy McCord" wrote a tale about Caledonia, a strange planet that was an odd combination of Scots and American Indian societies. Krishna is a direct sequel, and a much better (though incomplete) story.
John of the Hawks is now a man, Raid Cacique for his clan, in fact, when Outworlders return. The villain of the last piece, Mr. Harmon, is now wearing the black cloak of an acolyte of Krisha. His ship, the Revelation, houses a bunch of missionaries who offer cures to all diseases if only they will partake of soma, a powerful hallucinogen. Those who ingest soma become peaceful, one with Krishna…but also sterile and apathetic. Obviously, such is anathema to the hardscrabble, lusty Caledonians.
"McCord" balances the clan politics with the Outplanet menace much better this time around, and John's endeavor to "steal" Alice Thompson for a bride is pretty gripping. I don't mind that this novella is obviously the first (second?) installment in a novel, and I look forward to the next one.
Four stars.
We rate it
The word for this month is "vicissitudes". On the face of it, none of the magazines did very well—Analog finished at 2.9 stars, well above Amazing (2.4 stars), but below New Worlds (3 stars), Galaxy (3.1 stars), IF (3.2 stars), and Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.3 stars).
Yet, every mag save Amazing had at least one four-star story in it. Several had more than one. If you took all the good stuff this month, you could fill two magazines with it and have some quite good reading ahead of you. Women contributed 12% of the new fiction published, which is on the high end.
So, a foreboding or auspicious sign for the New Year, depending on whether you fill your scotch half full or half empty with soda. Either way, here's looking forward to a lovely 1969 with you all. May your holiday season be bright!
Fred Pohl opens up this month's issue of Galaxy with a summary of the letters he's received from readers on how they would, in 100 words or fewer, successfully resolve the war in Vietnam. He has great faith in the power of harnessing a bunch of smart folks to spit out solutions to problems. I honestly don't know how useful someone's cursory stab at peace in Southeast Asia can be, even if it's from the pen of a clearly clever person like Judith Merril or Larry Niven.
He did, however, talk about a different kind of brain-tapping, one that has me very excited. There's something called Sigma, which is a scientific way of presenting scenarios to people and assessing their likelihood, feasability, and desirability. A consensus can then be reached and a mass-mind prediction derived.
And as it turns out, I recently was sent a copy of Probe a 14-volume compilation of technological predictions made by the folks at TRW's Space Technology Laboratories—the folks who gave us Pioneers 0, 1 and 2, Explorer 6, Atlas Able, Pioneer 5, the Orbiting Geophysical Observatory, and parts of the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module. I've only just started perusing it, but it makes for fascinating reading. Of course, only time will tell if their predictions are accurate, or if they're even asking the right questions.
Of course, science fictioneers have been predicting the future in their own way for half a century. And while the stories in this issue may not depict situations that ever come to pass, I have to say that are, at least, quite entertaining!
by Sol Dember, illustrating Building on the Line
Perris Way, by Robert Silverberg
by Jack Gaughan
I had not expected a continuation of the story, "Nightwing," but "Perris Way" is a direct sequel. The tale picks up with our nameless Watcher, whose profession of scanning the skies for alien invasion, is no longer relevant as the invasion has come and succeeded, heading toward Perris (Paris) with his companion, the former Prince of Roum. That latter, a member of the Dominator caste, was blinded during the invasion by the alien-in-disguise Gormon for forcing himself upon the Flier, Avluela, whom Gormon loved. The two arrived at France's former capital to become members of the guild of Rememberers.
The erstwhile Watcher becomes an apprentice, and during his training discovers the true history of Earth and the hubristic crime that warranted the alien invasion. His halcyon half-year with the Rememberers is abruptly terminated when the Prince shames the guild with a tactless act. The Watcher, caught on the horns of a dilemma comprising the remedy to a Rememberer's anger versus (perhaps misplaced) loyalty to the Prince, comes up with a solution that ultimately pleases no one. It also leaves room for a Part 3, which, if a novelization be forthcoming, is probably necessary to reach the appropriate length.
Silverbob's language is exquisite. His poetic SFnal prose is probably even better than Zelazny's, and more approachable than Delany's. His history of Earth is as fascinating as any that has been drawn. On the other hand, he never treats his women well, and they are always sex objects, one way or another. Contrast that with James Schmitz's Dr. Nile Etland, showcased just last month in Analog, lest someone want to lecture me on how "this is just the way things are." Women do not exist just to be scenery, as much as those who hum "I'm a Girl Watcher" and hound the bosomy New Yorker Francine Gottfried on the way to work might like to think so.
It's still terrific stuff, but I can't give it more than four stars.
Keep Moving, by Miriam Allen deFord
Science fiction stories often play with the premise, "If this goes on…" DeFord, one of the genre's most venerable authors, offers up a 22nd Century in which freeways pave virtually every square inch of the planet, and commuter culture has become the norm. People don't even have homes anymore—they simply live in their cars, driving constantly to obtain food, entertainment, and presumably working while moving.
One man decides he's had enough and founds the "Live-In" movement, boldly staying put in one place over night. This crazy idea wins the casual endorsement of dozens and the fervent support of one particular woman, a rather famous poet. The ensuing partnership proves unstoppable.
Absolutely silly, but also quite charming. Three stars.
Building on the Line, by Gordon R. Dickson
by Gray Morrow
Clancy and Plotchin are mismatched, feuding workers on the Line, a galaxy-spanning set of teleporter stations. The two are building a set of Starlinks on the hostile world of XN-4010 when its incorporeal, gibbering race of "hobgoblins" unleashes a meteorite storm upon them. Plotchin is incapacitated, maybe dead, but there is hope that an experimental cryogenic unit in the man's suit might be sustaining him.
Clancy decides that staying put and waiting for rescue is less desirable than making the 36-mile trek back to the main exploration ship. And so, with Plotchin in his arms, he begins the brutal trek through the ice and near-vacuum of XN-4010, the hobgoblins nibbling at his psyche the entire way. This bit is truly thrilling, reminiscent of the middle section of Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel when our heroes are making a similar journey across the frozen wastes of Pluto.
The denouement, however, is a rather windy extolling of the virtues of heroic men expanding the horizons of mankind. It all felt a little hollow, especially as it is intimated that the hobgoblins may not be malicious but simply trying to defend their world from an onslaught of human tourists. That, to me, was the more important point, and it was tossed aside. Framed differently, Line's premise could have made an excellent novel, with themes similar to those explored brilliantly in Silverberg's The Man in the Maze. Alas.
Still, it's beautifully written, and the first two thirds are a wild ride.
Four stars.
For Your Information: My Friend, the Nautilus, by Willy Ley
This is quite a neat piece, definitely a throwback to Willy's better days. It's really the evolutionary history of mollusks, with an eventual focus on nautiloids and their relatives, the ammonites. No, this is not a Pennsylvania religious sect but a prolific family of shelled mollusks that thrived during the Age of Dinosaurs.
Given that octopuses (Ley calls the plural 'octopi', tsk tsk) are shockingly intelligent, and ammonites were advanced nautiloids, I think stories about sapient Mesozoic shellfish would be fascinating. Be sure to credit me with the idea if you use it.
Four stars.
The Market in Aliens, by K. M. O'Donnell
An unscrupulous fellow runs a brisk trade in sapient aliens. He has occasional twinges of guilt, but he perseveres, nevertheless.
This is a dark, ugly story. Looking back on it, I think I have to give it four stars. It says a lot with a little.
Locust Years, by Douglas R. Mason
by Brock
In the not too far future, universities literally recreate the past, casting lines through time to reel in prehistorical happenings for student viewing. But when a construction accident summons a wounded mastodon and opens up a time vortex, no one is safe—up to and including humans from other time frames!
This is an interesting story, if initially difficult to apprehend. Probably the best thing the author has written to date. Three stars.
This one's about bitter, middle-aged man, reeling from the recent loss of his wife and his ejection from the board of the company that made his fortune. Said company has discovered the secret of synthetic life, starting with the recreation of dinosaurs, and with the aim of creating complete humans. Ostensibly, the man hates his father-in-law, erstwhile partner in the endeavor, for his lack of morality, and for the coldness he has hitherto shown his family. In fact, there is something deeper going on, and a rift that may not be mendable, even as the father-in-law attempts to attone.
I found myself moved by this one. Definitely one of Aldiss' better efforts of late.
Four stars.
Eeeetz Ch, by H. H. Hollis
by Dan Adkins
I had gone into this one expecting from the title some sort of joke story. It's not.
Dolphins are hot news this decade. From Flipper to People of the Sea to World of Ptavvs, the idea of porpoises being partner sapients is catching on in a big way. Hollis' story details the visit of the junior Senator from Hawaii, Ramon Coatl (presumably of Filipino ancestry), to a Caribbean research center. There, the dolphin called Andy but really named Eeeetz Ch is being fitted with artificial hands and tested on advanced machinery. But the tests go both ways—the two scientists working with him (a man and a woman, the woman being the senior engineer; Silverbob, take notes) are fitted with artificial gills that plug into a plate surgically embedded in their sternums.
There's doesn't exactly seem to be a plot to the whole thing, until it's done, and you understand the stakes of Coatl's visit. Hollis says a lot about intelligence and handicaps, about technology and ethics, without spelling it out too heavy-handedly. Most impressively, all of the characters are extremely well realized. Andy the dolphin, in particular, is an alien. A likeable, sympathetic one, but not human.
This is my favorite story of the issue. It's both conventional and new, prosaic and profound. It made me laugh a couple of times. It kept me riveted.
Five stars.
Like, wow!
What a contrast, huh? Last month, Galaxy finished at a dismal 2.4. This month, we're at 3.9, probaby the best mag of the year. It reminds me of the old Gold days of the early '50s. Of course with a spread like that, it's hard to make any solid predictions, but at least there's always a chance every month that Galaxy will knock it out of the park like it did this month.
That's something to look forward to!
(oh, and dig the cool offer on the back of the mag—Trek is everywhere!)
Two new science fiction novels take readers from the dry land to the depths of the sea, and down from the sky in a burst of flames. Will they make proper use of the traditional four elements of ancient times, and reach the exalted level of the aether, that fabled quintessence that was of a more refined nature than the others? Let's find out.
Canada's Gift to American Science Fiction
Alberta-born writer Gordon Rupert Dickson, now living in the USA, has been publishing fiction since 1950. It's hard to say that there's a particular kind of Dickson story. He's written light comedy, such as the Hoka series with fellow Minnesotan Poul Anderson (currently a resident of the San Francisco region), all about aliens who look like teddy bears and cause trouble by imitating human beings. He's written entertaining adventure stories, some for a juvenile audience. In recent years, he's gained notice for more serious and thoughtful works.
His novella Soldier, Ask Not(Galaxy, October 1964), part of the Dorsai series, won the Hugo award, and the novelette Call Him Lord (Analog, May 1966) won the Nebula award less than a month ago. Will his latest novel add to his reputation?
The Past is Prologue
Cover art by Richard Powers.
It's something of a challenge to jump into The Space Swimmers without any preparation. The author throws a complex background at you in bits and pieces, and it's obvious that a lot has gone on before the novel begins. That's because it's a direct sequel to the novelette Home from the Shore(Galaxy, February 1963).
Cover art by Jack Gaughan.
Surf 'n' Turf
In brief, humanity has split into land dwellers and ocean dwellers. The sea people have developed abilities that make them valuable space explorers. Humans encounter the so-called space swimmers, beings that are gigantic in size but tiny in mass, beyond Mars. They die every time people try to capture them. This causes the sea folk to rebel, and withdraw their services from the space vessels of the land folk. The result is war, with the land dwellers destroying the underwater communities of the ocean dwellers.
This is where the novel begins. The war has cooled off slightly, although the land folk sometimes hunt the sea folk for sport, in the tradition of Richard Connell's famous story The Most Dangerous Game.
Our hero is Johnny Joya, who more-or-less instigated the rebellion of the sea folk in the novelette. He lives in isolation in the frigid waters of the Arctic with his young son Tomi after the death of his wife during the war. Tomi has even greater abilities than his father. The sea people can communicate with dolphins, but Tomi can also communicate with killer whales. Father and son become involved in an attempt to reconcile the two branches of humanity.
It seems the space swimmers can teleport instantaneously from one place in space to another. If Tomi can communicate with one of the mysterious creatures, he may be able to discover the secret of interstellar travel. Complicating matters is the fact that both sides have developed doomsday weapons that could wipe out the other.
I've only scratched the surface of a novel that has a heck of a lot going on in only one hundred and sixty pages. I haven't mentioned major characters or important subplots. Suffice to say that Dickson keeps things moving at a brisk pace.
There's a certain vagueness in some of the book's concepts that leads to confusion at times. We're told more than once that the ability of the sea people to communicate with dolphins is not telepathy, but this is left unexplained. Johnny works on problems by making use of so-called analogs (a nod to the magazine of the same name?) but I didn't understand how this was supposed to work.
It may seem unlikely that the sea people are willing to completely destroy life on land through a series of devastating earthquakes, and that the land people are willing to destroy all life in the ocean through modified disease organisms. The way each of these terrifying weapons is described, it seems as if either one would completely wipe out both sides. The fact that we live in an age of Mutually Assured Destruction (to make use of a term coined by Hudson Institute researcher Donald Brennan, appropriately known as MAD) may add some plausibility to this part of the book.
Worth reading, but I don't think it will win any awards. Three stars.
Sterling Silver
Native New Yorker Robert Silverberg has been an extremely prolific author in multiple fields since 1954. Not all of his work has been notable for its quality, it must be admitted, but he won a Hugo award in 1956 as the Most Promising New Author, beating out Harlan Ellison, Frank Herbert, and Henry Still. (Who? He hasn't published anything since 1961. Sic transit gloria mundi.)
I won't mention the many sex novels he's published under multiple pseudonyms, except to say that eroticism plays an important role in Those Who Watch, his latest novel (unless another one comes out while I'm writing this, given his speed at the typewriter.)
Three Times Two Equals Six
Anonymous cover art.
Aliens have been monitoring Earth for centuries, cruising the skies in flying saucers hidden from human eyes by a screening device. One of the hundreds of saucers filling the atmosphere has a disastrous failure, causing it to explode over New Mexico. The three crewmembers bail out, landing in separate areas and sustaining serious injuries.
The trio consists of two males and a female, all part of a mating group. (We'll find out later that such a triad is normal for the aliens, although sometimes it's two females and a male.) Although not described in any detail, the extraterrestrials are small beings, each one wearing an artificially created human body. Their real bodies are intimately connected with their external disguises, so they experience the pain of their damaged human bodies and other sensations.
At this point, the narrative alternates among the three aliens and the human being each one encounters.
One extraterrestrial appears to be an ordinary man of middle years. A young American Indian boy, living in a pueblo that keeps its traditional ways only to attract tourist dollars, brings him food and water while he recovers from a spine injury that renders him paralyzed. In exchange, the highly intelligent lad, who figures out very quickly that he's dealing with an alien, learns about the other's native world. He also acquires a piece of advanced technology that could be deadly.
Another alien takes the form of an extraordinarily handsome young man. He gets aid from a young widow with a small child. The two fall in love, in the first of two human/alien couplings we'll see.
Paralleling this is the mating between the female alien, disguised as a voluptuous woman, and a military man, bitter because a medical problem kept him from becoming an astronaut. He and the widow eventually come together, after their alien lovers leave Earth.
Meanwhile, rival aliens, who also have hundreds of unseen flying saucers orbiting the planet, try to track down the three, in order to charge them with violating an agreement not to land on Earth. (There seems to be a sort of Cold War going on between the two species. Neither one is supposed to be on the surface of the planet, but they both have secret agents on Earth.)
This is a leisurely novel, despite the attempt to create suspense in the form of the enemy aliens. Much of it consists of conversations between each of the three aliens and the human being that renders aid. The two sexual encounters between a lonely human being and a benign extraterrestrial may be too much of a good thing.
The sections of the novel about the American Indian boy are probably the best. The author avoids stereotyping Indians, and shows a great deal of empathy for their situation in modern society. Silverberg displays a gift for characterization in his intimate portraits of the three humans; perhaps not quite so much for the aliens.
He's still a promising, if not quite so new, author. Three stars.
by Gideon Marcus
Ring in the Old
If Silverberg is a new old hand (or an old new hand), and Dickson is a plain old hand, then Murray Leinster is the oldest of hands. In fact, Will Jenkins (Leinster's real name) has been a pubished author of scientifiction since 1919–before the genre even had a name. Suffusing his work with a patina of scientific accuracy, up through the '50s, his name was a welcome one on the masthead of any magazine. I particularly enjoyed his Med Series tales of Dr. Lincoln Calhoun and his pet/assistant, Murgatroyd.
Those happy days are years in the past, and as John Boston and I can tell ya, his latest works have been phoned in…from a booth in Duluth that hasn't been serviced in decades. Thus, it was with trepidation that I picked up Leinster's latest, Miners in the Sky.
It's actually not bad.
Set in the lawless rings of the planet Thutmose, a Saturn analog in a star system far from Earth, it details the perils faced by a space miner named Donne. He's no sooner set foot on the trade asteroid of Outlook, a sizable rock within Thutmose's rings, when his little "donkeyship" explodes. He quickly deduces that word has (mistakenly) gotten out that he has discovered the Big Rock Candy Mountain, a bonanza rock laden with the "abyssal crystals" that facilitate solar system travel. Donne must get off Outlook as soon as possible: his partner, Keene, is stuck on the ringlet they are mining. He may run out of air, or worse, already have also been the target of an assassination. Complicating things is the arrival of Keene's sister, Nike, who insists on coming with Donne. So begins a long chase through the rings of Thutmose, with a murder-inclined criminal on Donne and Nike's heels.
I had worried that the story would be simply a gussied up Western, but there's a bit of physics and a lot of pretty description of the Thutmosian locale that makes Miners reasonably SFNal. To be sure, it is written in Leinster's current mode: all short sentences, lots of exclamation marks, and characterization as shallow as a kiddie pool. Add to that the several times Leinster points out that, as a woman, Nike "instinctively" looks to a man for help.
Miners in the Sky will definitely win no awards. It is yet another in a long line of stories cranked out on autopilot to pay the bills. Still, I don't regret the time I took reading the book. Sometimes, all you need is a little adventure.
No matter if you don’t believe in Santa Claus. Judith Merril is back with another volume of her annual anthology, 11th Annual Edition the Year’s Best S-F (sic), from Delacorte Press just in time for the Christmas trade. If you missed the boat on Christmas, surely you can make it work for Valentine’s Day.
by Ziel
The overall package is familiar: 384 pages thick, a crowded contents page, a short introduction, but lots of running commentary between items, sometimes about the stories or authors and sometimes, it seems, about whatever crosses Merril’s mind as she assembles the book. There is the usual Summation at the end, but the extensive Honorable Mentions listing is gone, though she mentions some items that didn’t make the cut in the Summation and commentary.
The contents are eclectic as usual, but let Merril tell it: “The stories and poems and essays here have been selected from as wide a range as I could cover of books and periodicals published here and in England last year. About half the entries are from the genre magazines. The rest are from books and from such diverse sources as Mademoiselle and Escapade, The Colorado Quarterly and the Washington Post, Playboy and the Saturday Review (and Ambit and King in England).” “Of the year” in the title is notional at best. This volume includes a story by Jorge Luis Borges, The Circular Ruins, which dates from 1940, and an . . . item . . . by Alfred Jarry, who died in 1907.
The usual disclaimer is here, too. From the Introduction:
“This is not a collection of science-fiction stories.
“It does have some science fiction in it—I think. (It gets a little more difficult each year to decide which ones are really science fiction—and frankly I don’t much try any more.)”
Unfortunately this year’s book falls short of most of its predecessors to my taste. Unusually, some of the selections by the biggest-name authors are strikingly lackluster. Isaac Asimov’s Eyes Do More than See, from F&SF, is a short piece of annoying pseudo-profundity about the down side of becoming a disembodied energy being. Gordon R. Dickson’s Warrior (from Analog), part of his militaristic Dorsai series, gives us a protagonist who is such a comprehensive superman that his enemies are rendered helpless by his mere presence, and the story turns quickly into self-parody. J.G. Ballard is represented by one very fine story, The Drowned Giant, from Playboy, and another, The Volcano Dances, which reads like a parody of his recurrent theme of humans happily pursuing self-destructive obsessions: his protagonist takes up residence near a volcano that’s about to blow, refuses all entreaties to leave, and at the end is apparently heading towards it as the volcano’s rumbling becomes more ominous.
There is a decided swerve this year towards the British magazines New Worlds and Science Fantasy, with four stories from each here. The best of this lot is David I. Masson’s Traveler’s Rest (New Worlds), which depicts a world where the passage of time varies with latitude, much faster at the North Pole where a furious high-tech war is ongoing, and more slowly towards the equator where people live more or less normal lives. In some of the others, it is quite unclear what is going on, and purposefully: two of them are (or seem to be) narrated by mental patients (David Rome’s There’s a Starman in Ward 7 and Peter Redgrove’s long poem The Case (both from New Worlds)). Josephine Saxton’s The Wall (Science Fantasy) is a strange, haunting, allegorical-seeming story of lovers who never meet except through a small hole in a wall dividing a world that seems like some sort of artificial construct that they don’t understand and is unexplained to the reader.
As always, Merril has harvested some stories from non-genre sources, most sublimely Jorge Luis Borges’s The Circular Ruins, from 1940. It’s a metaphysical fantasy about a man who travels in a canoe to a ruined temple to carry out a mission: “He wanted to dream a man: he wanted to dream him with minute integrity and insert him into reality.” This story, resonantly translated from the Spanish, is the find of the book. Also noteworth is Game, by Donald Barthelme, from the New Yorker, about two guys locked in an underground bunker charged with dispatching nuclear missiles as ordered. They have gone months without relief and are pretty much nuts; it is strongly hinted that the war has happened and they’re never getting relieved. Gerald Kersh’s Somewhere Not Far from Here, from Playboy, is about some ragged revolutionaries against an unidentified tyranny; its portrayal of men struggling in extremity in mud and blood, in a seemingly hopeless cause, may be hokey but it contrasts sharply and favorably with Dickson’s absurd power fantasy of an effortlessly irresistible conqueror, discussed above. But there are also a number of less meritorious, and sometimes outright distasteful items from the non-SF press, including a remarkably sexist story by Harvey Jacobs, The Girl Who Drew the Gods, from Mademoiselle, of all places.
Summing Up
There’s a lot in this big book that’s perfectly adequate, but not so much that made me seriously glad to have read it, and a fair amount that seems silly, trivial, or distasteful. The best of the lot to my taste are mostly mentioned above; others include Arthur C. Clarke’s Maelstrom II, R.A. Lafferty’s Slow Tuesday Night, Johnny Byrne’s Yesterday’s Gardens, and Walter F. Moudy’s The Survivor. The other two-thirds of the book’s contents are things I don’t imagine I will ever think of again.
Interestingly, Merril herself expresses dissatisfaction with the current state of American SF, which she attributes to the lack of a “combining force” or “focal center”: “We have the writers; we have the markets; we have the readers. But nothing is happening to bring them together.” She compares this situation unfavorably to that in the UK. I don’t find this explanation very convincing. I am convinced that Merril would have a better book if she included a few longer stories and accepted a shorter contents page, and dropped a few of the less substantial items from prestigious sources.
As the Los Angeles Dodgers might say—wait ‘til next year.
This latest book by short story veteran, Arthur Sellings, starts with a literal bang. A factory has blown up, and Adolphe Quy, an eccentric inventor is the culprit. Seems he was doing experiments with an organic room-temperature superconductor, which got overloaded. But in the process, something even bigger was discovered: practical antigravity.
With a setup like that, you'd think this short novel would be about the effect such an invention would have on humanity. Indeed, for the first forty pages or so, Sellings seems to be taking forever to start the plot. Then you realize you've been anticipating the wrong book. The Quy Effect is about the trials and tribulations of a discredited inventor doing his best to bring to light a technology only he believes in.
Which means, of course, that there were two ways the book could have gone that would have been deeply dissatisfying. One is the John Campbell route, in which it is made obvious that everyone but Quy (pronounced 'kwe') is a moron, and the whole book is a satire of our stupid society that quells the inspirations of unsung geniuses. The other is the British route, which would have Quy end up in an insane asylum, the work being sold as "darkly humourous."
Thankfully, despite Sellings actually being British, he avoids both of these potentialities. Instead, The Quy Effect is a quite interesting set of character studies, one that kept me glued to the pages. It really is not certain throughout the entire book whether or not Quy will succeed. Nor does it seem that the odds are artificially stacked against him. Quy, in many ways, made the bed he's stuck in. Now he has to find his way out.
And while science, for the most part, takes a backseat in this book, I did appreciate the bit where Quy dismisses rocket-powered spaceflight as an economic dead end:
Rockets have got as much future as the dirigible airship had. A certain beauty, a kind of glamour, but too damn dangerous and cumbersome and expensive. Riding space in a pint-sized canister on top of a thousand tons of high explosive—that's not the way. We've got all the energy we want, if we can only use it. We shouldn't have to rely, in this day and age, on crude chemical reaction. Subject a man to ruinous accelerations because we have to carry a giant-size gas tank a minimum distance. What we need is more like a nuclear-powered submarine. Point its noise in the air and float up.
Only time will tell if he is right, but I've made similar assertions since Sputnik. I'm delighted to see the latest results from Explorer satellites, to watch the Olympics live from Tokyo (at 3 A.M., Pacific), and I thrill at grainy videos of spacewalking astronauts. But for the kind of mass space exodus so much of our science fiction is based on, I suspect Sellings' mouthpiece is right—rockets won't do the trick.
Anyway, going by the Budrys yardstick of quality (if one enjoys reading the book, it's good), The Quy Effect is very good, once one accepts it for what it is.
And what it is garners a full four stars.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics; Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Entropy
It wasn't very long ago that I reviewed this young author's first novel. It's obvious that he keeps banging away at the typewriter steadily, because here comes another one.
Anonymous cover art, and a misleading blurb. Ending the human race isn't the goal of anybody in the story. And I don't think that calling a novel agonizing is a way to help sales.
I don't know about you, but when I pick up a book I like to look at the stuff that surrounds the text first. Front and back cover, dedication, preface or introduction, afterword, whatever. Let's flip this paperback over and see if we can learn anything.
Is it really possible for a new book to be a classic?
This blurb isn't much more accurate. The Brotherhood of Assassins isn't the dictatorship; that's the Hegemony. Allow me to explain.
Several centuries in the future, long after the two sides of the Cold War got together to avoid total destruction, the combined government known as the Hegemony rules the solar system. The oligarchy in charge controls every detail in the lives of their subjects, known as Wards. Any violation of the rules is punishable by death. The sheep-like Wards mostly accept this, because the Hegemony offers them peace and prosperity.
The Democratic League is an underground organization, literally and metaphorically. It opposes the Hegemony, and is willing to use violence to overthrow it. The novel begins on Mars, where Boris Johnson, a member of the Democratic League, is part of an elaborate plot to assassinate one of the oligarchs. The motive is to convince the Wards that the Democratic League is a serious threat to the Hegemony.
The third player in this deadly game is the Brotherhood of Assassins. Despite the name, the first thing this bunch does is prevent the killing of the oligarch. Like other things they've done in the past, this action seems completely random. Both the Hegemony and the Democratic League think of the Brotherhood of Assassins as deranged fanatics, dedicated to the philosophical writings of the fictional author Gregor Markowitz. Quotations from this fellow's books, which have titles like The Theory of Social Entropy and Chaos and Culture, introduce each chapter in the novel.
The story jumps around the solar system, with plenty of plots and counterplots, ranging from political intrigue within the oligarchy to mass violence. At times, the book reads like a cross between Ian Fleming and Keith Laumer. But Spinrad is trying to say something more profound, I think.
The Hegemony represents any established Order. The Democratic League represents the opposition to that Order. Ironically, that very opposition becomes part of a new Order. The Brotherhood of Assassins represents Chaos, working against both of the other groups. (In another touch of irony, this often means working with one or the other. Such paradoxes, we're told, are part of Chaos.)
There's a major plot twist about halfway through the novel that I won't reveal here. Suffice to say that something found in a lot of science fiction stories changes the situation drastically, leading to a dramatic ending involving the Ultimate Chaotic Act.
The book certainly held my interest. I'm not sure what to think about all the discussion of Order and Chaos, but it was intriguing. At times the novel is melodramatic. Overly familiar science fiction elements appear frequently, from moving sidewalks to laser guns.
One peculiar thing is that there are no female characters in the book, not even a minor one playing the typical role of the Girl. The closest we get to acknowledging that two sexes exist is a line describing a crowd of Wards as placid, indifferent-looking men and women. The Wards are just cannon fodder, casually slaughtered by the three competing forces, so they remain pretty much faceless.
That reminds me of the fact that there are no Good Guys in this novel. All sides are willing to kill to achieve their goals, including wiping out innocent bystanders. The author's sympathies seem to be with the forces of Chaos, but they definitely have as much blood on their hands as the forces of Order. (Why else would they call themselves the Brotherhood of Assassins?)
![[May 31, 1969] When eras collide (June 1969 <i>Analog</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/690531analogcover.jpg?resize=665%2C372&ssl=1)
![[May 16, 1969] Strange Dreams (May Galactoscope)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/690516covers.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[April 12, 1969] A New Venture (May 1969 <i>Venture</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Venture-1969-05-Cover.jpg?resize=494%2C372&ssl=1)
The first and last covers for the first run of Venture. Art in both by Ed Emshwiller
This singularly unattractive cover is by Bert Tanner.
I have no idea what’s going on here, but it’s almost the only art in the issue. Art by Bert Tanner![[March 1, 1969] Beyond this Horizon (March 1969 <i>Analog</i> and Mariner 6)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/690301cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[February 18, 1969] (February Galactoscope)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/690218covers.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
Art by Paul Lehr
![[January 28, 1969] Slidin' (February 1969 <i>Analog</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/690128cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[December 31, 1968] Auld Lang Syne (January 1969 <i>Analog</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/681231cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[October 8, 1968] Probing the future (November 1968 <i>Galaxy</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/681008cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[April 14, 1967] Earth, Air, Fire, and Water (April 1967 Galactoscope)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/670414covers.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[January 14, 1967] First batch (January Galactoscope)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/670114covers.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
