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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[January 14, 1967] First batch (January Galactoscope)

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Big, But . . .


by John Boston

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.


by Gideon Marcus

The Quy Effect, by Arthur Sellings

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


by Victoria Silverwolf

Agent of Chaos, by Norman Spinrad

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?)

Overall, a provocative but frustrating book.

Three stars.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[September 2, 1966] On the Edge (October 1966 IF)

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by David Levinson

Big Trouble in China

Back in May, I wrote about the political maneuvering going on in China, and I predicted purges would follow. Rarely have I been so sorry to be right. On August 13th, Mao Tse-tung announced a purge of Party officials as part of the Cutural Revolution. And he has a frightening new tool to carry out his will.

At the end of May, a group of high school and university students calling themselves Red Guards embraced the principles of the Cultural Revolution and hung up posters criticizing university administrators. Originally condemned as counterrevolutionaries and radicals, they were officially endorsed by Mao early in August. On the 18th, a mass rally was held in T’ien-an-min Square in Peking. A reported one million students listened to speeches by various Party officials. Mao appeared in military fatigues for the first time in years, a look favored by the Red Guards.

On the 22nd, they began putting up posters “advising” people to abandon bourgeois habits such as Western clothing and warned shopkeepers against selling foreign goods. They gave people a week before they would “take action”. Since then, the Red Guards have run amok. On the 26th, they gave foreigners and bourgeois Chinese to the end of the day to leave Peking. They poured into the Tibetan capital Lhasa, destroying ancient relics, vandalizing shrines and abusing monks. Now, word has come out that they are beating and killing people in the Ta-hsing and Ch’ang-p’ing districts of Peking, and the police have been ordered to look the other way. This is likely to get worse before it gets better, and however it ends won’t be pretty.


Soong P’in-p’in, a Red Guard leader, pins an armband on Mao Tse-tung.

Life on the edge

This month’s IF features not one, but two stories set on the edge of the galaxy, and just about everyone else is on the edge in some way or another.


Amazingly well done for Dan Adkins. Art by Adkins

TV by the Numbers, by Fred Pohl

We rarely mention editorials, but this one’s interesting. A recent discussion with Murray Leinster about one of his patents that lets TV studios use a photograph of a set backdrop in place of the physical thing got Fred to thinking. A single line on a black-and-white TV screen consists of around 420 phosphor dots that are either on or off. With 525 lines to a frame, it would take a string of 220,000 ones and zeros to describe one frame. A 25 billion digit number would be enough for a one hour show; 600 billion for 24 hours. But you probably need a lot less. In the thirtieth of a second between frames, most of those dots don’t change, so it should be possible to find a way to tell the TV to only change certain spots from the last frame. Could there come a day when not only the stage sets, but even the actors aren’t real?

Neutron Star, by Larry Niven

Out-of-work space pilot Beowulf Shaeffer is facing debtor’s prison when an alien blackmails him into taking on a suicide mission. The puppeteers (something like a headless, three-legged centaur with Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent puppets for arms) have a near-monopoly on spaceship hulls, which are supposed to be impervious to everything except visible light. But something reached through one of their hulls and reduced two scientists studying a neutron star to bloody smears. Now Shaeffer finds himself following the exact same course, and he has to figure things out before he meets the same end.


Beowulf Shaeffer aboard his invisible starship. Art by Adkins

A nice little problem story. While the answer may seem obvious to the reader, that answer is incomplete. There’s a subtle bit more to it that the puppeteers can’t see, and the reason they can’t see it means a sizeable bonus for Shaeffer. Another detail has Shaeffer recording everything happening, so there is some record if he’s killed. In an interesting coincidence, a voice recording is being analyzed for the first time in the investigation of a plane crash in Nebraska last month.

Three stars.

Your Soldier Unto Death, by Michael Walker

The centuries-long war with the Kreekal has ground to an end. With their hive-like society, the alien soldiers were specially bred to fight. Ultimately, humanity began raising soldiers from birth to do two things: to hate Kreekan soldiers and to be good at killing them. Now that the war is over, what do you do with 5 billion soldiers who are barely human?

While there’s some apparent skill in the writing, Walker is this month’s new writer — and you can tell. The pieces don’t quite fit together, and most of the story consists of people sitting around talking about things. The germ of a good story is here, but the author just isn’t up to it.

A high two stars.

Snow White and the Giants (Part 1 of 4), by J. T. McIntosh

In the quite English country town of Shuteley, sweltering under the hottest summer on record, Val Mathers wishes something would happen. His marriage to Sheila is in a rough situation, partly because of a difference over whether to have children, partly because of his mentally handicapped sister Dina, who lives with them, and partly because his old school friend Jota seems to have tried to force himself on Sheila three years earlier. Now Jota is on his way back from his job in Cologne, Dina is worried about the fairies in the garden, and a strange group of young tourists has appeared in town.

With one exception, these tourists are all very tall and very fit. The women wear dresses that seem to disappear occasionally, causing a commotion. The exception, whom Val dubs Snow White for her fair skin and dark hair, differs from the others only in her size. They all behave a bit oddly and when asked where they’re from, they reply “Here.” Even stranger, they all seem to know Val and are expecting Jota. After Jota arrives in town, he and Val decide to investigate where the strangers are camping. To be continued.


Val and Sheila investigate strange lights at the bottom of the garden. Art by Gaughan

It’s difficult to judge where this is going, since this installment is almost all McIntosh setting the scene. None of the characters are terribly appealing. Val is passive, Sheila short-tempered, and Jota obnoxious. Honestly, it feels like McIntosh could have moved the story forward a lot more quickly.

McIntosh tends to be hit or miss, and his biggest weakness is his female characters. That’s on display here with the childlike Dina and the mysterious Miranda (Snow White’s real name). Worst of all is Sheila, who is snappish and unpleasant toward Val and his sister – but the narrative ignores her reasons for being that way. The biggest would seem to be Jota’s assault, and Val’s attitude seems to be “he shouldn’t have done it, he’s promised not to do it again and he’s going away, so let’s just pretend it didn’t happen.” Awful.

Two stars for now.

Handy Phrase Book in Fannish, by Lin Carter

Any in-group tends to develop its own lingo. This month Our Man in Fandom takes a look at the slang commonly used by science fiction fans. He starts off with a look at various fanacs (fan activities) and the different types of fans, from the sercon (serious, conservative fan) to the faaan (the obnoxious kid in a propellor beanie). Then he looks at the various names given to and taken by prominent fans, such as Forrest J. Ackerman (4e, 4SJ, etc.) or OMF himself (LinC). He wraps things up with the fannish (or fenly) fondness for nonsense words that serve as catch-alls, like vombic and fout. LinC is clearly having fun, but it’s all a bit breathless and shallow.

A low three stars.

Tunnel Warrior, by Joseph P. Martino

World War III has somehow managed to keep the exchange of atomic weapons to East and West Germany. The fighting is still ongoing, but the front is now in tunnels deep underground. Sergeant Alvin Hodge has been ordered to accompany a group of military geologists to the front lines so they can test out a new method of determining where the Russians are digging.


Sgt. Hodge examines what’s left of the city of Kassel. Art by Gray Morrow

The military action bits are fair, but the overall premise is just ridiculous. Even if the nuclear exchange were confined to the German border, there’s just no way the fighting would be limited to such a small area. This story would be much better served by setting it on the Moon or some alien planet with a more believable reason for the combat to be underground.

A high two stars.

On the Edge of the Galaxy, by Ernest Hill

Colonel Geoff Carruthers and his exploratory team have spent 5 years on planet VX91/6 supposedly looking for titanium and zirconium, but achieving nothing. Now they face a military inspection.


The inspecting general meets Rastus. Art by Virgil Finlay

I have no idea what was going on in this story, and I’m not sure any of the characters do either. What a confused mess.

Barely two stars.

The Spy Game, by Rachel Cosgrove Payes

A letter of complaint from an angry parent to the makers of the Interstellar Secret Agent Kit.

Humor is subjective, but I doubt many people will find this funny. Much of it is clearly attempting to satirize aspects of modern society, but it rather fails at that, too.

Two stars.

Edge of Night, by A. Bertram Chandler

In the first installment, Commodore John Grimes led a volunteer group to a parallel universe to investigate the origins of a mysterious spaceship. There, they found humanity on the Rim of the galaxy enslaved by intelligent rats and vowed revenge. The rats are mobilizing against Grimes and his crew, but the one place they aren’t contacting is the planet Stree. In his universe, Grimes was the first human to land on that planet and make contact with the psychic philosopher lizards who live there, a peaceful and positive contact. Reaching Stree with subterfuge and a bit of luck, Grimes finds himself expected and recognized.

It seems that the Wise Ones of the Streen know their lives in every universe. They have also come up with a plan to stop the rats by “killing the egg before it hatches.” To do so, one of them will take Grimes and his ship centuries into the past to keep the ship bearing the mutated ancestors of the rat people from reaching Port Forlorn.


Serressor and Mayhew pilot the ship backwards in time. Art by Gaughan

One thing really stood out to me here. As they’re getting ready to stop the ancestors of the rats, Grimes contemplates the fact that he’s about to commit genocide, and it bothers him. Not a lot, but it’s far more than Dick Seaton can say. Once again, I thought it was a four-star story while I read it, but cooled on it later. It’s a big airy dessert, delicious but a bit lacking once it’s finished.

A high three stars for this installment and the novel as a whole.

In the Bone, by Gordon R. Dickson

Harry Brennan sets out on humanity’s first interstellar journey aboard the John Paul Jones, a ship so small it’s almost an extension of himself. On the fifth Earth-like world he finds, he enounters an intelligent alien. The alien strips him of his ship, telling him to go and be a beast. Harry goes mad and becomes little more than an animal, but gradually his humanness returns.


Still more beast than man, Harry makes his way into the alien’s ship. Art by Virgil Finlay

The plot is so Campbellian, I wonder what it’s doing here. Dickson can usually handle this sort of story, but he’s not at his best. He’s too direct in telling us the point at the beginning and end, and the style holds the reader at a distance.

A low three stars.

Summing up

Well, that was a mediocre issue. One exciting read that isn’t as good when you think about it, two fair works from authors who can do better, and a whole lot of filler, including a poor start to a long serial. Fingers crossed that next month turns out better.


Every one of those could go either way. All four are going to have to come up heads to counterbalance McIntosh.

And if you are in Cleveland (physically or in spirit) this weekend, be certain to join us for the showing of the first Star Trek pilot at 7pm Eastern (4pm Pacific!).




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Magazine

[April 30, 1966] Ormazd and Ahriman (May 1966 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Good News and Bad News

The ancient Persians believed in two roughly co-equal deities: Ormazd, the God of Creation and Light, and Ahriman, the God of Destruction and Darkness.  Unlike, say, the dual concept of the Chinese Yin and Yang, one was decidedly good and the other bad.  Indeed, these twin deities may have inspired the near parity of the Christian God and Satan.

Apparently, these forces hold sway even today.  This month's Analog started off so well, it bid fair to be a contender for best magazine of the month.  Then about half way, the influence of Ahriman took ascendance, and the issue faded away to a truly dreadful ending.  Ah well.  I come not to bury John Campbell but to review him.  At least we start with the good stuff…

Mixed Bag


by John Schoenherr

The Wings of a Bat, by Paul Ash

Anyone who's anyone knows that Paul Ash is really Pauline Ashwell, one of 1958's Hugo nominated Best New Writers — and boy, she's still just great.

Her latest tale stars a middle-aged doctor cum veterinarian stationed at Indication One on the shores of Lake Possible.  Cycads and dinosaurs dominate the landscape, and with good reason: Indication One is based sometime in the Cretaceous!  Against all of his instincts and inclinations, said doctor is tasked with raising a baby pteranadon named Fiona. 

Part country vet story, part mining camp adventure, this tale is by turns and sometimes simultaneously witty and exciting.  I loved it so much, I immediately read it a gain, this time aloud to the family as their bedtime story on two consecutive nights.

If this doesn't get nominated for the Hugo and/or the new SFWA Nebula awards, there's something wrong with the universe.  Five stars!

Call Him Lord, by Gordon R. Dickson


by Kelly Freas

Centuries from now, when Earth is just one of many hundreds of human planets, the crown prince of the Empire is dispatched to humanity's cradle for a tour.  One man is tasked to be his bodyguard, escorting the arrogant man-child as he rides, wenches, and bullies his way across the countryside.  But is this a mere sight-seeing tour…or a test?

While the story is slightly overdrenched in testerone and stoic manliness, Dickson is an excellent writer and his tale compels.  I dug it.  Four stars.

The Meteorite Miners , by Ralph A. Hall, M.D.

Earth has been the site of countless meteor impacts, many of them secondary strikes of ejecta loosed from prior events.  What we learn from the mineral concentrations at these craters can tell us a lot about the primordial history of our planet…and even the universe.

It's a fascinating topic, and it should have gripped me, but the presentation was a bit too abstruse and disjointed to hold my attention.  It took me several sessions to finish.

Three stars.

Titanium – The Wonder Metal (uncredited, but probably John W. Campbell, jr.

The piece is followed by another non-fiction article, this time a more lay-oriented essay on titanium, what makes it great, and what made it so hard to use economically. 

It's fine.  Three stars.

Two-Way Communication, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

When an inventor develops a universal receiver that allows the owner to transmit right into an announcer's microphone, chaos ensues.  Is it the ultimate democracy or a recipe for anarchy?

In this cute story, Anvil argues the former.  With constant and immediate input (and censure) the vast wastelands of radio and television are made verdant with quality programming.  The author forgets two important factors: 1) most TV and much radio isn't live these days, so interruptions at the source wouldn't have as much effect as depicted — this isn't 1951 after all; 2) people are jerks — interruptions would be constant and annoying.

Still, it was not unpleasant reading.  Call it a low 3 stars.  Ormazd and Ahriman are wrestling, but neither has ascendance.  Yet.

Under the Wide and Starry Sky…, by Joe Poyer


by Leo Summers

In this edge-of-the-future story (indeed, the depicted Gemini 9 mission is scheduled to occur less than three weeks from now), one astronaut is lost during an extravehicular jaunt.  His partner must use all of his wits to rescue him before their oxygen and fuel run out.

Joe Poyer has written a couple of other stories for Analog, both of which showed a fair ability when it came to depicting technology but little talent for characterization or detailed plot.  Starry Sky plays to the author's strengths, presenting a nice little Marooned-esque tale in a vivid fashion.  It ends quickly enough that you don't mind where it's undeveloped.

Three stars.  There are stars of light among the black sky.

The Alchemist, by Charles L. Harness


by Kelly Freas

Ah, here's where it all goes to Hell.  This long, flip, utterly unengaging tale manages to combine alchemy, psionics, making the Russians look stupid, and making scientists look stupid, all in one sure-to-please-the-editor package. 

This is truly an example of Ahrimanic possession as the last story by the author was one I liked very much.  But The Alchemist?  One star.  Feh.

Doing the math


Geraldine "Gerry" Myers, mathematician at the Mission Planning and Analysis Division at the Manned Space Craft Center in Houston

As might be expected from such a violent collision of positive and negative forces, the whole thing ends up about a wash: 3.1 stars.  This puts it above IF and New Worlds (3 stars) as well as Worlds of Tomorrow (2.6)

The May 1966 Analog finishes below Impulse (3.2), Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.5), and the astonishing, but mostly reprints, Fantastic (4).  Thus, Analog is the dead median for this month!

Nevertheless, it has contributed two stories to one of the best months for 4 and 5 star material since the Journey began.  You could fill three big magazines with nothing but excellent stuff.

Women did so-so in April, only writing ~6% of new material, though Judy Merril had a good reprint in Impulse.

And so, the battle between good and bad (quality) continues.  Will Ormazd be ascendant next month?  Or will Ahriman have the final laugh?  Stay tuned…

[Don't miss the next (and FINAL) episode of The Journey Show:

1966 and the Law — smut, marriage, voting rights, justice, and more. With Erica Frank and Ethan Marcus! With special musical guest, Nanami!

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Serial

[November 30, 1965] War is Swell (December 1965 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

The Thrill of Combat

It was just twenty years ago that the second war to end all wars drew to an explosive close. Two titans of tyranny (and their little brother) were defeated by the Arsenal of Democracy.  Clearly, World War 2 was "the good war:" there's a reason it is now as popular on television and in wargames as the Western and the Civil War.

And just in time.  After the sloggish stalemate of Korea and the painful "escalatio" in Vietnam (credit to Tom Lehrer), war needs to be fun again.  I suppose it's no surprise that war is not only a common theme in science fiction, but the good and fun kind of war is the thread that ties together the December 1965 issue of Analog, notoriously the most conservative (reactionary?) of the outlets in our visionary genre.

One War after Another


by Kelly Freas

Beehive (Part 1 of 2), by Mack Reynolds

Ronny Bronston, forgettably faced but utterly competent agent for Earth's "Section G" is back.  Last we saw him, he'd been on the trail of interstellar troublemaker, Tommy Paine, spurring revolution on dozens of worlds.  Turned out that Paine was actually Section G, itself, skirting the non-interference clauses of the galactic charter to ensure that the colony worlds didn't stagnate.

In Beehive, we find out why: a century ago, the first sentient alien was found.  Well, actually, its corpse — it had been a casualty of a war of extermination.  And we still don't know who their enemy was, or if they'll soon be knocking on our doors.  That's why the super secret service has been surreptitiously trying to speed of progress on all of the colony worlds so that when the aliens do come, we'll be as ready as possible.

One of the more successful colonies, the putatively libertarian but actually authoritarian world of Phrygia appears to be making a play to turn the galactic society into an Empire, and Bronston is dispatched to get the facts on the ground.  But when he gets there, the agent discovers that the wheels have wheels within them, and the Phrygian dictator knows far more about the alien threat than Section G.


by Kelly Freas

While this serial has a definite hook of a cliffhanger, for the most part, it's not Reynolds' best…or even his middlin'.  There's a glib, breezy quality to it that is both smug and serves to reduce the tension.  The central idea is repugnant, too — that Earth knows best, and their underhanded means of stimulating progress are justified.  But then Campbell probably didn't watch that recent documentary on how the CIA messed up in Guatemala.

Anyway, I'll keep reading, but it's two stars right now.

Warrior, by Gordon R. Dickson


by Kelly Freas

Another sequel and another war.  In Dickson's Dorsai universe, humanity has spread to thirteen worlds, each focusing on an aspect of cultural development.  The Dorsai have made war their profession, turning it into a sublime art, and they are the most esteemed and feared mercenaries.

In the novella/novel, Soldier, Ask Not, we were introduced to twin brother generals, Kenzie and Ian Graeme.  The former is a charismatic leader, the latter a sullen but matchless strategician.

Ian Graeme returns in Warrior, traveling to Earth to seek justice for 32 of his men, slaughtered when their glory-hunting captain disobeyed orders to lead a hopeless charge.  The officer was court martialed and executed, but Graeme knows that the real culprit is his gangster brother.  Warrior tells the tale of Graeme and the brother's eventual and climactic confrontation.

There are a lot of inches in this story devoted to the obvious prowess of Mr. Graeme, his dark eminence, his barely suppressed strength, his intimidating military demeanor that requires no uniform, etc. etc.  Frankly, it all runs thin early on.

Still, it's a pretty good story (breathlessly recommended by my nephew David…but then so was Beehive), and the display of Dorsai tactics, trapping the brother within the trap being laid for Graeme, was effective.

Three stars.

Heavy Elements , by Edward C. Walterscheid

Ever wonder how the transuranium elements were fashioned?  Walterschied returns for a very comprehensive article on the subject.  There's a lot of good information here, and it's reasonably well delivered.  It's also very dense (no pun intended), certainly not in the Asimov style.  It took me a few sittings to get through.

Three stars.

Mission "Red Clash", by Joe Poyer


by Gray Morrow

Joe Poyer's first story is essentially the Analog version of the MacLean novel, Ice Station Zebra.  The pilot of a next-generation recon plane, the hypersonic X-17, is forced to bail out over Norway after being shot down by a Russian interceptor.  Now he, and the three men dispatched from the nuclear cruiser John F. Kennedy, must evade squads of Soviets and survive frigid conditions to get critical intelligence back to our side.

Told with technophiliac details so lurid that I felt it belonged under rather than on the counter, there's not much of a story here.  Mission lacks context, characterization, and conclusion, leaving a competently told middle section of an unfinished novel.  It's low budget Martin Caidin.

Two stars.

Countercommandment, by Patrick Meadows


by Domenic Iaia

Last up, a computer scientists is rushed to NORAD to find out why, three hours after World War 3 was declared by the Chinese, the Big Brain has not executed a countersrike.  And why, despite the efforts of the enemy, their missiles haven't launched either.

This is a two page story padded to ten with the gimmick that the computers, having access to our most sacred documents, which all speak to the sanctity of human life, could not in good conscience end humanity.

It might work in Heinlein's new serial currently running in IF.  It makes no sense for computers of 1970s vintage, and it comes off as mawkish.

One star.

One Million Deaths is a Statistic

This war-soaked issue of Analog scores a dismal 2.2, barely beating out the truly awful Amazing (1.8).

Above it, we have IF (2.6), New Writings #6 (2.9), Galaxy and New Worlds (3), Science Fantasy (3.1), and the superlative Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.9)

In keeping with the (not entirely accurate) notion that war is a "man's game", there were no entries by women this month.  Zero.  Goose egg.  Color me dismayed.

And on that note, we are done with all of the science fiction magazines with a 1965 cover date.  Rest assured, we have compiled all of the statistics from the past year, and our Journey-Vac will be spitting out a fine edition of the '65 Galactic Stars at the end of next month. 

You won't want to miss it!

And speaking of stars…

If you caught my review last year of Tom Purdom's I Want the Stars, then you know why I was so excited at the chance to reprint it. And now it can be yours! This new Journey Press edition also comes with a special 'making-of' section.

Get yourself a copy, and maybe one for a friend!




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Magazine

[November 20, 1965] A fine cup of coffee (December 1965 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

The Peak of Flavor

I mentioned in my review of last month's issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction that that venerable veteran of the genre had finally returned to form under the guidance of editor Joe Ferman.  I'm happy to announce that this doesn't seem to be a fluke.  Indeed, reading the current issue was such a delight that it proved difficult to confine myself to just one story a day.

Yet that's what I did, in large part because each story was strong enough to leave a lasting impression, and like with of a good cup of coffee, sometimes you want to savor the flavor after each sip.

So come along with me on a tour of the December 1965 Fantasy and Science Fiction, at the end of which, I suspect you'll do your best Tony Randall impression of a DJ, smack your lips, and exclaim, "That's good coffee."

An Overflowing Cup


by Bert Tanner (illustrating Jack Vance's The Overworld)

Breakthrough Gang, by Gordon R. Dickson

Breakthrough Gangship Four, crewed by a small clutch of psionic women and men, is Earth's hole card in an interstellar war against the rapacious Kinsu. If they can stall the retreat of the alien armada long enough for the bulk of the Terran fleet to arrive, the haughty race will have to recognize human superiority and call off the struggle.

But on the eve of activating their ship's secret weapon, tactitian Dave Larson hesitates, certain that though they may win the battle, doing so spells doom for the human race.  Worse yet, this catastrophe seems to have been ordained from an event preceding contact with the Kinsu, perhaps even from a point in human prehistory!

And this inevitability has nothing to do with the Kinsu or human races, but chessmasters far older than either…

There are some parallels between this story and Bova's Stars, won't you hide me? in the January 1966 Worlds of Tomorrow, though not in a more than coincidental way.  If you read them side by side, you'll understand what I mean.

I wavered between awarding three and four stars to this piece, ultimately settling on three.  There's a lot of neat concepts in here, and the story makes you think, but the middle third is repetitive and the last third a bit too dependent on "as you know" exposition. 

In coffee terms, the aroma is pleasant if unsubtle.  But in the end, the value's in the drinking.  Let's dive in for our first sip, shall we?


by Gahan Wilson

O'Grady's Girl, by Leo P. Kelley

At the sunset of her life, an old teacher and her pupil meet Mr. Death and his retinue — and it's most unlike any characterization of the Grim Reaper I've ever seen.

A quintessentially F&SF-ian tale, it's delicious and full-bodied, just lovely.  Five stars.

The Convenient Monster, by Leslie Charteris

Stories of The Saint don't often veer into the realm of the supernatural. This one starts with a sheep and dog that seem to have been prey for the Loch Ness Monster, and Charteris builds it slowly and inexorably to a murder plot that may or may not involve Old Nessie.

Come for the Scottish scenery, stay for the striking denouement.  This java's got bite.

Four stars.

The Firmin Child, by Richard H. Blum

In this first story ever produced by the author's pen, an unhappy and somewhat dysfunctional couple right out of the 1958 sleeper, No Down Payment, find themselves not up to the task of raising a precocious but increasingly erratic, child.  At first, it seems the boy may be a high functioning autist, but we come to realize that his strange behaviors, almost a channeling of other's emotions, derive from something more bizarre.

Some blends of coffee have a bitter undertone.  I give Blum four stars for creating a vivid work, but I can't say I enjoyed the aftertaste…

Water, Water, Everywhere, by Isaac Asimov

What's bigger: The Dead Sea or The Great Salt Lake?  Is the Caspian Sea really a sea?  How many oceans are there in the world?  These and dozens of other hydrographical brain teasers come free in your latest issue of F&SF, courtesy of Dr. Isaac Asimov!

I kid, but geography's a science, too, and one of my favorites.  Four stars.

Minor Alteration, by John Thomas Richards

Walter Bird is plagued by nightly dreams in which he is John Wilkes Booth, and each day/night brings him 24 hours closer to his date with history at the Ford Theater.  Can he prevent tragedy?  Should he?

Richards' tale apparently sat in a drawyer at F&SF HQ for several years before finally being printed.  It doesn't cover much new ground, and the alternate universe it explores is rather implausible.  I can see why the piece languished.

Still, even if it's the weakest tea…er….coffee in the cup, it's not bad.  Three stars.

The Overworld, by Jack Vance

And now we come to the very last swallow.  Will it satisfy or leave us wanting? 

Worry not.  One can always count on Jack Vance for an unusual and interesting tale, and he doesn't disappoint now.  Instead, he offers up the first of the tales of Cugel the Clever, a (literally) lowbrow peddler of fake charms in a magical world.  Cugel is reduced to thievery when his wares don't sell, but he is quickly caught in the act by the powerful Ioucunu the Laughing Magician.  Thenceforth, he is dispatched on a mission for the angered mage, to find a particular violet lens in the far land of Cutz.

If Fritz Leiber's and Robert Howard's creations had mated, this new world of Vance's might have been the result.  Delightfully overwrought but always readable, I look forward to the promised next four stories in the series.

Four stars.

Good to the Last Drop

Do we really have a four star mug of F&SF steaming before us?  I do believe so!  It's been a long time since Mercury Press' science fiction mag delighted me so, but I can't say I'm sorry it happened.

So why don't you cap off your science fiction buffet this month with a delicious helping of F&SF?  Smooth, rich, goes down easy.  Good to the last drop.

The holidays are coming!  Looking for the perfect gift for a niece, nephew, or other young relative?  Kitra is the hopeful, found family novel that they've been waiting for.  Buy a copy for them today…and perhaps one for yourself!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[October 2, 1965] Gimmickry (November 1965 IF)

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by David Levinson

When I was a boy, a gimmick was either much the same thing as a gadget or the sort of device a crooked casino owner would use to make sure the roulette wheel comes up 22. These days, of course, it means an ingenious new angle or a trick to draw attention in advertising. It can also be the sort of thing that makes a story work or at least that the author hopes will make the story interesting.

America’s Pastime

Baseball is no stranger to gimmicks. From sending midgets up to bat to exploding scoreboards, owners and general managers will do anything to get fans to come out to the park. After starting the season by losing 21 of their first 26 games, the Kansas City Athletics have been mired in the cellar all season. Desperate to get people into the stands as the season winds down, owner Charlie Finley came up with a couple of gimmicks in the last month. September 8th, was Campy Camp Night and regular shortstop Bert “Campy” Campaneris played all nine positions in a single game. Up against the Los Angeles Angels (or I guess California by that time, speaking of gimmicks), Campy started at shortstop and moved from position to position each inning. In the eighth, he took the mound and even switch pitched, throwing right-handed to right-handed batters and left-handed to left-handed batters. Alas, while catching in the ninth, Campy was injured in collision at the plate and had to sit out a few games.

On the 25th, Finley invited several old player from the Negro Leagues to be present when Satchel Paige took the mound against the Boston Red Sox. At 59, he’s the oldest person ever to play in the big leagues (and at 34 Athletics’ manager Haywood Sullivan is the youngest manager). Satch sat in a rocking chair in the bullpen between innings, being served coffee by a “nurse”. He pitched three innings, giving up only one hit. He came out to the mound to start the fourth, but as planned he was removed. The lights were dimmed, and the crowd held up lighters and lit matches and sang “The Old Gray Mare” as Paige walked off.


Left: Bert Campaneris. Right: Satchel Paige, with “nurse”

Baseball also saw a couple of milestones. On September 9th, Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitched a perfect game against the Chicago Cubs. (For non-baseball fans, that means Koufax and the Dodgers did not allow a single opposing player to get on base through any means.) Pity Cubs pitcher Bob Hendley, who gave up only one hit in the game. Four days later, on the 13th, San Francisco Giants player Willie Mays became the fifth player and first Black player to hit 500 career home runs. Congratulations to both men, whose teams, at the time of writing, are still vying to see which will make it to the World Series. Good luck to both (though I’m rooting for the Dodgers).


Left: Sandy Koufax. Right: Willie Mays

Gimmicks good and bad

This month’s IF is not without its gimmicks. Let’s get to it.


In orbit around a collapsed star. Art by Morrow

Tiger Green, by Gordon R. Dickson

Exploration Team Five-Twenty-Nine has run into more than they can handle on the second planet of Star 83476. There are communication problems with the natives, the jungle is trying to digest their ship and eight of the twelve men in the team have gone violently insane. Navigator Jerry McWhin can feel a berserk rage building in him. As tempers flare among the remaining crew, Jerry locks the others in sick bay and heads for the native village in a bid to resolve the situation.


Jerry and the natives attempt to cure his madness. Their ideas of what either of those terms means may differ. Art by Adkins

Despite its flaws, this is a pretty solid story. There was probably room for some cuts in the first third or so to improve the pacing, and the need for several pages of expository dialog to explain what happened is a real weakness. All of which have cost the story a fourth star. Nevertheless, Dickson seems to have matured into a very good writer. He does still need to work on his female characters (of whom there are none in this story), but otherwise I look forward to a lot more from him. Three stars.

Time of War, by Mack Reynolds

Atomic war has devastated the Earth. Handfuls of civilians struggle to survive in the few areas where the radiation isn’t lethal. Alex remotely operates a “beetle” from a base on the Moon, hunting and killing civilians who may or may not be from the other side. The enemy, the Comics, do the same, flying their manned buzz-fighters from a super-sputnik in orbit.

A rather bleak tale. I rather wonder if the two sides really would attempt to utterly wipe out enemy civilians, eventually not caring if their victims were on the other side or not. I also question if it would be possible to remotely operate an aerial vehicle on Earth from the Moon, let alone engage in dogfights. The time delay of over a second each way ought to make that virtually impossible. In any case, the gimmick here lies solely on the nature of the Comics. It’s clear what Reynolds was trying to do, but that’s not enough for this piece. It either needs a lot more plot or a lot fewer words. A high two stars.

Masque of the Red Shift, by Fred Saberhagen

Seven years after the Battle of Stone Place, Felipe Nogara, the ruler of Esteel and arguably the most powerful man in the galaxy, has brought his flagship Nirvana outside the galaxy to examine a collapsed star (sometimes called a black hole). The body of his half-brother Johann Karlsen, the hero of Stone Place, who recently put down a rebellion on Flammland has arrived in cryogenic suspension. Most believe Karlsen the victim of a plague, but Nogara has had him frozen, because he feared his brother’s growing popularity.

Meanwhile, a second courier – carrying Janda, the leader of the rebellion, brain-damaged by his treatment since his arrest, and his sister Lucinda – is captured by a new form of Berserker. The Berserkers will use Janda’s body to sneak a killing machine aboard the Nirvana to make sure that Karlsen is dead.


”We willingly bring in the semblance of the terror outside!” Art by Gaughan

Saberhagen continues to impress. The Berserkers could easily have become a simple gimmick for stories about space battles. Instead, he uses them as a backdrop to write stories about people. Another author might also have paralleled the Poe story which inspired this much more closely. It’s quite good, though not quite enough for four stars; a very high three stars.

Retief’s War (Part 2 of 3), by Keith Laumer

We left Retief crashed in the jungle and threatened with becoming dinner. Naturally, he manages to talk his way out of that and instead begins uniting diverse tribes of Quoppina to fight the Voion. An emissary sent out to parlay with “Tief-Tief” proves to be Groaci General Hish, disguised, like Retief, as a native. Upon learning that the human women who also crashed in the jungle have been captured, Retief allows himself to be taken prisoner. It turns out the women have escaped, so he does as well and trails them through the wilderness, making new allies along the way. He finally catches up with them, but the mysterious Fifi has left to try and reach the army forming to fight the Voion. To be concluded.


Retief makes a friend. Art by Gaughan

There’s really not much to this installment, just Retief bantering with various natives and General Hish. There’s a hint of humor in his escape, but it could have been a lot funnier. A low three stars.

The Lonely Hours, by W. I. McLaughlin

George Rock is fleeing through space from a creature that lives in the dark between galaxies. He has a plan to set a psychic trap for it using the corpse of a creature composed of ion sheets. This somehow involves visions of Ahab and burning witches.

McLaughlin is this month’s new writer. Fred must be desperate for stories from unpublished writers, because this is awful. None of it makes any sense, and the protagonist is unpleasant. One star.

The Doomsday Men, by Kenneth Bulmer

Robin Carver is a member of ridforce. If his team can get to the body of someone who died violently within 3 minutes of death, he can explore that person’s memories to find out how they died. He was once an agent of the Americas, but was declared unstable when his wife abandoned him and their infant daughter. While investigating the death of a “gaiety girl”, he thinks he sees his now teenage daughter at a wild party in the victim’s memory.

Carol Bursham is a scientist working for Whitcliffe, the man who invented the process that allows the investigation of the minds of the recently dead. They are trying to come up with a way of recording those minds, so that there will be less pressure on the few people who can handle immersing themselves in someone else’s mind. She and Carver discover a plot which threatens the Shield which seals the Americas off from the threat of atomic attack and the rest of the world. A plot which reaches into the upper echelons of society.


Carver makes a disturbing discovery in the mind of a murder victim. Art by Morrow

Line by line, the writing is sound and there are some interesting pieces here, but they fit together poorly. The ending also involves both a rather abrupt shift in attitudes that isn’t earned and an implication that doesn’t make much sense. Points for having a couple of female characters who actually do things and aren’t there just to be rescued. On the other hand, the way Carol thinks about men is very clearly written by a man. Still, it’s a reasonably decent read. Three stars.

Summing Up

Another issue that just sort of meanders around, deviating for the most part only slightly from average. The real problem here is the story from the first-timer. The IF First program is a seemingly good idea, but it could very easily turn into just a gimmick if the editors start sacrificing quality just to run a story from a new author. There’ve been some good stories to come out of the policy, but so far I think the only real success has been Larry Niven. Well, while there’s life, there’s hope.




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Book, Magazine, Serial

[September 6, 1965] War and Peace (October 1965 IF)

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by David Levinson

War is something of a constant in human history, with nearly every generation facing at least one. Fifty years ago, the great powers of Europe – with a late assist from the United States – fought the “war to end war” (a phrase probably coined by H. G. Wells). Twenty years later, we got to do it all again. And ever since, brushfire wars have flared up around the globe almost continually. War permeates our language and culture even in times of peace. In his State of the Union address last year, President Johnson referred to his Great Society program as a “war on poverty”. It even shows up in our entertainment: war movies are popular; there must be half a dozen TV shows in the new fall line-up set during the War or with military themes (more if you count spy shows); and one of the current best selling novels is a barely fictional account of the U. S. Army’s special forces, The Green Berets. Sometimes it’s enough to make you believe we really are on the Eve of Destruction.


The rawness of the recording makes it that much more powerful

The War in Viet Nam

On August 5th, America got a rather shocking look at the war in Viet Nam. CBS reporter Morley Safer accompanied a Marine unit to the village of Cam Ne, where they came under sporadic fire from the Viet Cong. Communist forces soon withdrew as the Marines advanced. As they entered the village, the Americans found a number of entrenchments and a few booby traps. Their orders were to destroy any village from which they received fire, so the villagers were herded into the nearby fields, and the Marines set fire to the homes with flamethrowers and cigarette lighters. Despite the villagers’ pleas to be allowed to remove their personal belongings, everything, including all the rice stores, was destroyed. Four old men who couldn’t understand the soldiers’ English were arrested. The public is understandably outraged. Alas, most of the ire seems to be directed at CBS and Mr. Safer. President Johnson is also said to be livid.


A Marine uses his lighter to set fire to a peasant hut

War at the foot of the Roof of the World

On August 5th, several thousand Pakistani soldiers crossed into Indian-controlled Kashmir disguised as civilian locals. The belief was that the local Muslim population would rise up and welcome their coreligionists. Instead they reported the intruders to the Indian authorities. Ten days later, the Indian army crossed the ceasefire line. Thus far, both sides have made progress. As this is written, India has captured the Haji Pir pass, roughly 5 miles inside Pakistani territory, though there are also reports of a massive push by Pakistani forces. Hopefully, another ceasefire can be brought into effect and a long-term peaceful solution can be found.


Indian forces in the Haji Pir pass

War across time and space

War is also a prominent feature of this month’s IF. As one war ends, another begins, along with a couple more and a very uneasy peace negotiation.


There are three living being depicted here. Art by Gaughan

Retief’s War (Part 1 of 3), by Keith Laumer

The natives of the planet Quopp are part insect, part machine and come in a variety of forms, each making up their own tribe. There has also been a sizable human presence for a century or so, to the point that there are human farmers and traders who have lived their whole lives on the planet. Now the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne has decided it is time for a native government to be established and, in the person of Ambassador Longspoon, has chosen the Voions to form the government and the Federal police force. Unfortunately, all the other tribes on the planet see the Voions as bandits and thugs.

As usual, Second Secretary and Consul Jame Retief has learned several of the local dialects and made friends with many of the common folk. There follow a number of adventures. He discovers crates of weapons labeled as educational material, which he manages to divert. Despite severe restrictions on tourism, a shipload of young women is requesting emergency permission to land. Their captain, by the name of Fifi, seems to know Retief, but he has no idea who she is. Defying orders, Retief grants them permission to land, but the ship crashes out in the jungle. Then there’s an attack on the embassy using smoke bombs which appear to be of Groaci manufacture.

Prime Minister Ikk has Retief arrested, hoping to find out where his guns are. He declares he is executing a coup, after which Retief makes his escape. Retief manages to disguise himself as a native with some help, and steals a barely flight worthy spaceship. He crashes in the jungle and is captured by some Ween, who call him Meat-fall-from-sky. As the situation goes from bad to worse, some more Ween drag in a Voion, loudly pointing out that he is a member of the Planetary Police. To be continued.


Meet the bad guys. While other Quoppians like colors, the Voions prefer basic black. Art by Gaughan

I’ve noted over the last few months that Retief is getting stale, as if Laumer is just going through the motions. This time around, he’s writing with more verve. It feels like Laumer is enjoying himself again. Maybe it’s because there’s more room. Retief pulls off at least three escapades here that would normally have had to resolve the whole situation in a shorter piece. So even though we’re getting all the usual story beats, there’s more flavor to it all.

That said, I’m hoping for a bit more depth as the story progresses. Laumer has set things up for some solid satire on colonialism as well as the sort of Cold War proxy conflicts that are really just colonialism in different clothing. The colonial powers frequently set one tribe over all the others, and it was often the least liked tribe, even before they wound up in charge, just as the CDT has done here with the Voions. We’ll have to wait and see if Laumer makes use of the situation he’s created. Three stars for now.

A Leader for Yesteryear, by Mack Reynolds

When his time capsule materializes above deep water, Lucius Rostock is barely able to escape it before it sinks. He is rescued by some very surprised fishermen and brought to shore. The local people take him in, and Lucius discovers that he is neither where nor when he expected to be. Rather than the future, he is in the distant past. Gradually, he learns the language and finds out where fate has brought him, though he is rather taken aback at how unwarlike the people are.

To say more would give the whole story away. I figured out where and when Lucius found himself quite a while before he did, though I suspect Reynolds expected the reader to do that. I also figured out who the text implies Lucius will become, although that is never spelled out. What I didn’t see coming was who Lucius is. The end really caught me by surprise. I do have a couple of quibbles with this otherwise very good story. There’s an odd gap in the languages that Lucius knows, which would have allowed him to communicate much sooner (but not without some difficulty, nevertheless). Also, the final paragraphs – even though the reveal did catch me by surprise – are a bit stilted and clumsy. Still, a solid three stars.

The Smiling Future, by Miriam Allen deFord

In an overpopulated world where nearly everyone works at producing enough food to keep the human race alive, an intelligent dolphin appears on the California coast and summons the world government to a summit meeting. Five hundred years of dumping radioactive waste into the oceans has resulted in highly intelligent, technologically advanced dolphins. In need of more room, they are planning to flood the world, but one faction has an offer to help preserve the human race.

What bleak, bleak story. It’s made worse by the plodding narrative style, too. Mrs. deFord has been in the writing business for well over 40 years, and up until recently her work has been generally very good. She does spend most of her time writing mysteries, even winning an Edgar a few years ago, and I admit I don’t read all that much in the genre, so perhaps her level of quality there has held steady. But her work in science fiction and fantasy has really fallen off in quality. Two stars.

Origin of Species, by Robert F. Young

Alan Farrell has traveled to the Upper Paleolithic in search of an anthropology professor and his secretary, who have gone missing. Exiting his own mammothmobile (regular readers may remember a similar concept with dinosaurs in Young’s “When Time Was New”), he finds first the professor’s “paleethnologivehicle” and then the professor’s body, apparently killed by Neanderthals. Farrell presses on, searching for the secretary, Miss Larkin, on whom he is developing a crush based solely on her picture and very wholesome résumé.

Eventually, he discovers a cave guarded by a force field, some Neanderthals who shoot blue sparks out of their mouths, and Miss Larkin. As the two make their escape, Farrell is shocked to learn first that the Neanderthals are bringing in what appear to be Cro-Magnon people as prisoners through some sort of portal, and second that Miss Larkin is not the wholesome girl she seemed to be, but rather an ecdysiast attempting to better her lot in life. Will the pair be able to stop aliens from using Earth as a prison? Will Farrell learn that exotic dancers can be nice girls, too? It’s Young. What do you think?


Honestly, this picture tells you everything you need to know about this story. Those gorillas are supposed to be Neanderthals. Art by Morrow

The good news is that Young hasn’t written another modern take on a myth or fairy tale, nor has he written one of his overly sentimental romances. The bad news is that he attempted to write a sex farce (I think). Without the sex. Farrell is a dope, who took forever to figure out the mystery of the spark-shooting Neanderthals, and a hypocrite. He developed his low opinion of strippers by… visiting strip clubs. Two stars.

Purpose, by Edward V. Dong

All life on Earth has been destroyed by an interstellar nucleonic storm. All that is left is the Machine. It was created to save the human race, but failed. In the last moments, technician John Michelson reprogrammed the Machine to be a monument to Man and to wait for new life to appear in the solar system. Eventually, the Machine is freed of its programming and seeks fulfillment.

Dong is this month’s first time author, and I suspect this story was written for F&SF’s Univac/unicorn contest. I’m not terribly impressed. It really felt like I’d read this before. Indeed for most of its three pages I was expecting something along the lines of Asimov’s “The Last Question”. That’s not quite where the author went with his story, but he didn’t get where he was trying to go either. Two stars.

An Ounce of Emotion, by Gordon R. Dickson

Tyrone Ross and Arthur Mial are the Earth delegation on their way to attempt to broker a peace between the Laburti and Chedal using a computer known as a statistical analysis instrument, or Annie. Earth is in Laburti space and, if war breaks out, could be devastated. Unfortunately, the two men hate each other with an inexplicable passion and have from the moment they met. Ross, the viewpoint character, is the technician who can run Annie, while Mial is a diplomat and ostensibly in charge.

Tempers flare between the two as Mial grows ever more high-handed and seems to be making a corrupt deal with the Chedal. Ross goes so far as to attempt to kill Mial, though he fails. Can Ross keep Mial from wrecking the negotiations? And why would Earth send two people who are so incapable of getting along?


I’m not sure why Annie is blowing up here. That didn’t happen. Art by Giunta

The situation Dickson has created feels rather implausible, even given the explanation at the end. Nevertheless, it’s a decent story, if you can get past the tense atmosphere between the two human characters. Gordy has really settled in as a solid writer who rarely wastes his readers’ time. Three stars.

Short Trip to Nowhere, by Robert Moore Williams

Jim Eiler comes home late. His wife Marta is already asleep, as is his three-year-old daughter Nelda. As he slides into his anti-gravity bed and plugs in the cords of the sleep machine, a voice in his head cheerily greets him. There’s a nasty fight with his wife, and eventually he agrees to call in their friend Harold, a psychiatrist. Eventually, it turns out the voice is coming from Nelda’s imaginary friend, who isn’t so imaginary after all. Then Nelda disappears.

This is another one I felt I had already read in better form. Williams is clearly using Peter Pan as his basis, but there were other resonances. Though different, I was strongly reminded of both Henry Kuttner’s “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” and Mark Clifton’s “Star, Bright”. The bitter relationship between the Eilers makes for an unpleasant read and serves no real purpose, when it could have prompted Nelda’s search for something happier. Instead it’s just bickering. Two stars.

Skylark DuQuesne (Part 5 of 5), by E. E. Smith

Sigh. This story does not deserve a detailed summary. In a nutshell, using Ray-See-Nee magic the Skylarkers and friends come up with a new way to combine mind power. They devise a whole bunch of new science and use it to solve the Chloran problem for good. A final solution, you might say. They take the stars from one galaxy and smash them into the stars of planets the Chlorans live on, while taking all the planets with humans living on them and moving them to a third galaxy. And they called Edmond Hamilton the planet killer.

Midway through this attack, the Chlorans counterattack, leaving Seaton and Crane unconscious. DuQuesne leaps into the breach and finishes the job. Afterwards, he proposes to Hunkie de Marigny and the two go off to conquer a galaxy on the rim of the universe. The end. At last.


Dick Seaton gets what’s coming to him. Art by Morrow

Let’s start with the slightly less egregious denouement. From the title of this novel, one would expect that we would witness the redemption of Blackie DuQuesne. He does decide that there is room enough in the universe for both him and Dick Seaton and he does open up his shell just a little bit to let someone else in. But that’s as far as it goes. He still plans to make himself the emperor of a galaxy. Worse, he openly states that he’s planning a program of eugenics, one based not just on sterilization, but extermination. Marc C. “Blackie” DuQuesne remains an evil man to the end.

And then there’s Dick Seaton. In my review of Part 1, I declared Seaton to be a war criminal, based on his destruction of the Fenachrone homeworld in an earlier novel. Here, after general discussion of what to do about the Chlorans – including a proposal to convert them – he compares the Chlorans to a cancer that must be rooted out (a disgustingly familiar argument) and comes up with a plan to kill every single Chloran before they spread to other galaxies. There are nearly 150 million Chloran planets. We’re talking about the deaths of trillions at the very least. War criminal doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Zero stars for genocide and an ending that completely poisons an otherwise mediocre novel whose only redeeming feature is excessive nostalgia.

Summing up

Well, a bleak issue for a bleak month. It got off to a decent start, though the Reynolds story does have a dark tone to it. The Dickson was unpleasant, but in a good way. It was intended to be so and to make readers think. Other than that, poor efforts topped off by a steaming pile of genocide and eugenics. But at long last, it’s over. Do we have anything to look forward to? Let’s hope so.


A wraparound cover this month, so here it is in all its glory. Art, as before, by Gaughan




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[August 26, 1965] Stag Party (September 1965 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Boys Only Club?

A very curious phenomenon has taken place over the last several years.  When I started writing the Journey, women were a rising force in professional science fiction. In 1959, three of the six "Best New Authors" were women (Rosel George Brown, Kit Reed, and Pauline Ashwell – all Journey favorites). About 10% of the stories (and 25% of what was worth reading) was produced by women. Both Amazing and Fantastic, two of the main science fiction monthly digests, were helmed by Cele Goldsmith.

Then…something happened. Over the last few years, the appearances of women in magazines has dwindled to a trickle. There are fewer appearing in novels, too (and since women tended to produce short fiction more often than long form, this change was particularly noticeable). As of this month, no single title across all of the published magazines was done under a sole female byline. Five of the last 45 novels this year were written by four women – two were by Andre Norton, who writes under a masculine byline.

Cele Goldsmith became Cele Lalli and left her editor position. This was probably not a result of her getting married but rather due to a change in her two magazines to a reprints-mostly format.

Though the loss of women in SF has not always hurt the quality of fiction produced, (indeed, this was one of the better months in a long time), I've no doubt that this development is bad for the genre in the long run. The fewer perspectives, the less diversity of viewpoints, the more our stories are going to fall into ruts. A wider pool of authors also creates better work as more talented folks get a chance to rise to the top. I don't know why the genre has become bereft of one half of the population, but I hope the situation changes soon.

Still Plugging Along

As I said, this month was, despite the alarming paucity of women SF contributors, surprisingly and refreshingly good. This month's Analog, so often a turgid relic, was a pleasant read from back to front. Let's take a look inside:


by Kelly Freas

Space Pioneer (Part 1 of 3), by Mack Reynolds


by Kelly Freas

A nameless fellow wangles passage on the s/s Titov, a future-day Mayflower carrying 2000 colonists to New Arizona.  His goal is not exploring a new world, however – it's the assassination of the last of the Peshkopi clan. the would-be killer having gotten a tip that Peshkopi was slated to make the interstellar jaunt on the old freighter.

Inadvertently taking on the role of Roger Bock, holder of one of the mission's ten financial shares, the assassin quickly finds himself embroiled in a growing conflict between the mistreated passengers, little more than chattel in the holds, and the comparatively pampered crew and shareholders.  By the end of Part One, the identity of the Peshkopi is yet unknown to "Bock", but it is strongly implicated that it is actually Cathy Bergman, the elected representative of the colonists.  Of course, by the end of the serial's installment, Bock has much bigger things to worry about than his initial mission…

Pioneer is typically competent Reynolds stuff, even though the milieu is more Leinsterian.  If I have any complaint, it's that the science fiction trappings are virtually nonexistent.  This could be a story set in the 18th Century.

That said, I do enjoy the rather unflattering portrayal of colonist (and presumably planetary) exploitation, and the inclusion of developed female characters is nice.  Reynolds is usually good about that.

Four stars thus far.

The Life of Your Time, by Michael Karageorge


by Kelly Freas

On sublight but relativistic trip to Tau Ceti, the starship Emissary makes a shocking discovery: while time dilation affects the crew, slowing down the passage of time for their physical bodies and for the ship's systems, their minds remain at the speed of their original reference point – Earth.  Thus, to them, their bodies increasingly become prisons as their minds experience minutes, ultimately hours, for every second their bodies sense.  It's a story of tragedy, discovery, and triumph.

And a very unusual one for Analog.  It reminds me a bit of Niven's Wrong Way Street, featuring a gender-balanced and ethnically mixed crew (though they are all explicitly and deliberately Americans).  I don't know who Michael Karageorge is, but he definitely hit a triple on his first outing (and I dug the brand new concept of the hydrogen ramscoop ship).

Four stars.

LUT the Giant Mover, by Lyle R. Hamilton

The nonfiction article is both interesting and disappointing.  You can't fault the subject matter, which is the new launch facilities at Cape Kennedy.  But like most articles in Analog, it suffers for lack of subheadings and a coherent narrative.

So, three stars.  At least it's not about dowsing!

Computers Don't Argue, by Gordon R. Dickson


by John Schoenherr

Here is a dark cautionary tale about relying too heavily on computers, in which a fellow is sent a reader's club book by mistake, and is ultimately arrested and executed when he refuses to pay for it.

I get what they're trying to say, but the story takes place next year and while there is merit to avoiding overreliance on automated systems, there are just too many places where human involvement in the system would have broken the digital positive feedback loop. I hope. On the other hand, who knows?

A low three stars.

Test in Orbit, by Ben Bova


by Kelly Freas

Better is this story of a near-future conflict in space: Chet Kinsman, a USAF Captain with a week left to his hitch, is tasked to fly into space on an X-20 derivative and inspect an unknown satellite suspected of being an orbital bomb.  A mortal combat ensues.

I enjoyed all of this piece except the ending, which was both a little maudlin and should have had some falling action after the reveal.  Still, I think Ben Bova is a promising author, and I look forward to more of his stuff.

Three stars.

Psi for Sale, by Walter Bupp


by Kelly Freas

We've seen a lot of installments in the story of "Lefty" Walter Bupp, a telekinetic doctor with the grammar of a mook.  This time, John Berryman (the author's real name) offers us a look at Bupp's prehistory as well as the early history of the organization created for the benefit of American psychics.

I like the series, and this one was probably my favorite installment.  Perhaps a little superfluous, but still welcome (and it was neat to see a piece from the perspective of Maragon, the "Grand Master" of the "Lodge").

4 stars.

Say It with Flowers, by Winston P. Sanders


by Kelly Freas

Last up, we get another piece set in a future history in which the asteroid belt has won independence from the Earth.  Written under Poul Anderson's throwaway pen name, these are usually dry, technical stories of lesser appeal. 

This time, we get a fairly compelling tale about a Lieutenant in the "asterix" space service who is apprehended by North American forces on a courier mission.  It turns out that the message he is transmitting is carried on his person in an unique (but utterly telegraphed and unsurprising) way.

I liked the piece fine enough, though this line irked:

"The revolutionaries were so short of manpower that quite a few women held high rank."

An omission of that line would have gone a long way.  I don't need the suggestion that women are only able to succeed when there ain't enough men to do the work – especially when it's obvious that women can do the work.

Anyway, three stars.

Y marks the spot


Note, for the first time, the lack of women in the Journey round-up image – this one is of an IBM demonstration in Ethiopia.

Distressing lack of women authors aside, this was a good month for science fiction in magazines.  Analog clocked in at a respectable 3.5 stars, ahead of Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.2, largely thanks to its opening novella) and IF (2.9, dragged down by the Doc Smith serial).

Finishing roughly equivalent were Fantastic (3.5), New Worlds (3.5), and Science Fantasy (3.4).  If we include New Writings in SF #5 (3.5), which is a quarterly in book form but feels like a magazine, that makes the numbers even better.

So a mixed pleasure this month.  Let's hope this trend of female non-production reverses itself soon and results in even better times to come!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[July 18, 1965] The Prodigal Returneth (September 1965 Worlds of Tomorrow)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

It's Great To Be Back

Those of you who keep track of minutiae may have noticed that I haven't been around these parts for a while. Blame it on seismic changes in the world of magazine publishing. To wit, the fact that Fantastic will now be published bimonthly removed that magazine from the newsstands for a couple of months, in order to have it alternate with sister publication Amazing. I had to wait until the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow arrived on my doorstep before I could get back to the typewriter and churn out a review. Let's get started, shall we?

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder


Cover art by George Schelling, illustrating a macabre scene from Fritz Leiber's story

Maybe it's only because I haven't done this for a while, but I look forward to analyzing this issue with more enthusiasm than usual. Let's see if I retain my critical passion as we make our way through the crisp white pages of the youngest member of Frederik Pohl's family of publications.

Catch a Tartar, by Gordon R. Dickson

The hero of this lighthearted romp through the cosmos is one Hank Shallo, a jolly giant of a man, fond of beer and singing. When he's not belting out a tune or quaffing a brew, he works as a deep space scout, seeking out new planets for humanity. The woman who gives him his assignments is a certain Janifa Williams, a statuesque blonde who would like him to settle down on Earth with her.


Illustrations by Norman Nodel. This is not Janifa, by the way, but a no-nonsense physician who treats our hero for a hangover.

Janifa arranges to meet Hank on a colony world with a serious problem. It seems that the computer that controls the planet's environment, so people can live there, thinks it's a god. It demands a human sacrifice before it will go back to work. Hank is the lucky fellow who's supposed to be offered up to the mechanical deity. There's an escape plan, but Hank has a scheme of his own.


Hank arrives.

Complicating matters is the presence of the guy who created the computer, a mad genius who is in love with Janifa. Hank has to figure out a way to defeat the computer, save Janifa from the unwelcome advances of the scientist, and retain his happy-go-lucky lifestyle.


The madman, Janifa, and a few of her many admirers.

Hank is a likable rogue and something of a con artist, as he uses his wits to get the better of everyone. I found the story to be more enjoyable than most attempts at science fiction comedy, which tend to be full of sophomoric slapstick. The female characters are decorative, to be sure, but also intelligent, competent, and professional. It's not the most profound tale in the world, but worth reading.

An amused three stars.

The Light Outside, by C. C. MacApp

This strange little story consists of a series of messages, ranging from prayers to scholarly articles, over a very long period of time. (That's true in one sense, but not in another. Confused? That's how I felt when I started reading.) We eventually figure out that the beings responsible for these writings live at a much faster pace than those who are observing them, known as the Watchers. At the end we learn something more about the Watchers, and those who are watched.

The narrative structure tends to have a cold, distant feeling to it, so it's hard to connect with the story on an emotional level. On the other hand, the premise is original and interesting.

An intrigued three stars.

The Tinplate Teleologist, by Arthur Sellings


Illustration by Brock. I have been unable to find out anything about this artist, not even his or her full name.

Davie — more formally, DA 38341 — is an obsolete household robot, kicked out of his home when a more advanced model takes his place. He has a limited amount of time to find somebody to purchase him, at a price hardly anybody is willing to pay for an old machine. If he fails, he goes back to the factory to be turned into scrap metal.

The episodic plot follows Davie as he meets a sympathetic but powerless dealer in used robots, a bitter robot who plans to rob a human being, the elderly inhabitants of a retirement community who welcome his help, but can't afford to pay for him, and an impoverished painter who finally gives him the opportunity to save himself from the junkyard.

This sentimental yarn feels like a science fiction fairy tale. Davie is one of those meek, gentle characters who overcome all obstacles with quiet bravery. Mix a little Asimov with a little Bradbury and you might have something like this slick tearjerker.

A wistful three stars.

Theories Wanted, by Robert S. Richardson

The author presents various astronomical mysteries, offers hypothetical solutions, and suggests that amateurs might be able to help professionals figure things out.

I had to let out a weary sigh when the article began with the hoary old chestnut of trying to account for the Star of Bethlehem in scientific terms. To nobody's surprise, Richardson thinks a nova is the most plausible explanation, if any is needed. (I guess he's read Arthur C. Clarke's decade-old story The Star.)

I was more interested in the peculiar star Mira Ceti, which varies in brightness in irregular ways. It also has a much fainter companion star, difficult to observe, which presents a similar enigma. I would have preferred an entire article about Mira Ceti.

Other subjects include the Trojan asteroids, which occupy a stable point in Jupiter's orbit, and a comet known as P/1925 II. Like a smorgasbord, there are several items to choose from, and not all of them are tasty.

A highly variable three stars.

At the Institute, by Norman Kagan


Illustrations by Gray Morrow

This razor-sharp satire takes the narrator through the halls of a research institute full of eccentric scientists involved in outrageous projects. We get our first hint of how wild things are going to get when he has to ride a tank (see above) through a ring of solid uranium to get into the place. After encountering a number of researchers working on experiments as bizarre as anything found in Jonathan Swift's Balnibarbi and Laputa, he meets the director of the place.


The infantile director and the narrator, facing the institute's defense system. Please excuse the way I had to fold the magazine to show you the whole picture.

Although the narrator seems at first to be the voice of sanity, exposing the madness of so-called pure research, it turns out that his own more practical studies are equally insane. The author casts a jaundiced eye at all aspects of science and government.

The story moves at a breakneck pace, with jokes, puns, paradoxes, and lampoons of human foibles in nearly every sentence. The tone reminds me of the recent novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, in the way it mixes surreal comedy with a dark view of humanity's tendency to destroy itself.

A sardonic four stars.

Cyclops, by Fritz Leiber

Three astronauts set out on a journey to investigate why an interstellar vessel, under construction in orbit around the Moon, is out of communication with Earth. Similar problems in the past turned out to be minor, so the spacemen aren't too worried. During the voyage, they discuss the possibility of life existing in empty space. Since one of the astronauts is psychic, it's not a big surprise that their speculations turn out to be all too real.

Although the plot is predictable, this is an effective science fiction horror story, full of striking images. As you'd expect from Leiber, it's very well written. A minor work from a major author.

A frightened three stars.

Of Godlike Power (Part Two of Two), by Mack Reynolds


Illustrations by Jack Gaughan

Let's recap. Part One of the novel took us to a near future United States of flying cars and automated bars. More importantly, it's a place where most people are unemployed, but enjoy a reasonably comfortable life in a prosperous welfare state. The protagonist is the host of a radio talk show dealing with UFO's and other speculative stuff. His job leads him to an eccentric preacher who has the ability to prevent people all over the world from enjoying certain pleasures of which he does not approve. His miraculous power strikes first at female vanity, eliminating makeup, fancy hairdos, and fashionable clothing. The next targets are radio, television, and movies. The lack of entertainment for the jobless masses leads to chaos.

In Part Two, the radio host, one of the few people who know the reason for these sweeping changes, is forced to join a massive government project designed to investigate and solve the problem.


Forced, as in men with guns come to get him.

The guy manages to convince the authorities that the preacher is responsible. Meanwhile, almost all fiction and comic strips become unreadable, another sign of his power. (He leaves certain things alone, such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Pogo, proving he has good taste.)


An example of a distorted text. I think it says something like He took aim right at her . . .. I can't read the last word.

Our hero visits the preacher's rural community, which proves to be almost entirely self-sufficient. He is reunited with the preacher's daughter, whom he met in Part One, and romance blooms.


Her real name is Sue, and she's got other secrets.

When the real story reaches the public, the radio host has to save the preacher from an angry mob, then work out a compromise with him. In return for undoing at least some of his miracles, he'll get the chance to broadcast his socioeconomic message to the world.


Rescuing his future father-in-law.

Beneath the surface of a semi-comic plot, the author deals with a lot of serious issues. He considers overproduction, excessive consumerism, waste of natural resources, automation, shallow media, lack of meaningful work, mob violence, authoritarianism, and a bunch of other things. It takes a special kind of skill to mix all this stuff into an entertaining novel.

A thoughtful four stars.

Feasting on the Fatted Calf

(That's just a metaphor. I don't eat meat.)

I'm delighted to see that I came back to write about an above-average issue of the magazine. Everything was worth reading, even if not all of it was outstanding. There was a welcome variety, from comedy to horror, with a large serving of satire. You can choose among the breezy style of Dickson, the savage bite of Kagan, and the elegance of Leiber, to name just a few. All in all, it made for a very pleasant homecoming.


The first novel about Captain Horatio Hornblower. Good stuff.




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[July 16, 1965] To Fresh Woods (August 1965 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Shifting Vistas

The universe is changing.

One of the fundamental tenets of quantum physics is that one cannot observe the universe without fundamentally affecting it.  In ancient times, the stars and planets were objects of mystery.  They lay fixed in crystal spheres; they influenced human affairs with strange forces; they were Gods; they were little fires.

And then we observed them with telescope, and the fuzzy waveforms collapsed into particles.  The stars were just the Sun's brethren.  Planets were actually spheres of matter, and the Earth was one of them.  These discoveries did not make the celestial bodies any less interesting, but it did more narrowly confine the bounds of their possible natures.

Still, that left lots of wiggle room for imagination.  Why, Venus must be a primeval swamp or perhaps a vast desert.  Mars was clearly the home of an elderly civilization, huddling close to their dying canals.  Even the Moon might be home to a hardy lichen on its surface (and perhaps a society of aliens beneath it — perhaps they nourished themselves on green cheese).

Then came the Pioneers, Rangers, and Mariners.  The Pioneers told us that the Moon had no atmosphere at all, and the Rangers confirmed that Luna was a dead, cratered world.  Then Mariner 2 dashed our carefully wrought picture of Venus, revealing a searing inferno of a planet. 

Now Mariner 4, which zoomed just 6000 feet over the surface of Mars on July 14, has slain another fantasy land.  Preliminary data show that the Red Planet has a much thinner atmosphere than expected and no magnetic field.  Without significant erosion from wind and rain, and without a liquid core to drive vulcanism and resurfacing, Mars is probably a cratered wasteland like the Moon.  We'll know more when photos start coming in (look for an article on the 20th from Kaye Dee).

Again, this does not make Venus or Mars any less interesting…to science.  But for science fiction, the stories are yet again constrained.  They still exist: Niven's recent Becalmed in Hell takes place in the new Venus; perhaps he'll be the first to set a story on the new Mars.  But for the most part, increased knowledge has excluded our solar system from fantastic speculation. 

It's no surprise, then, that the very newest science fiction, that coming out in our monthly magazines, has turned to other settings: other dimensions and faraway stars.  Or focused closer to home, offering up cautionary and satirical stories of human, terrestrial society.

Though it cautiously stays on the safe side of the weird, more nuanced New Wave that has started to flood the pages of our books and digests, this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction offers a nice survey of the current frontier of science fiction:

The issue at hand


by Bert Tanner

The Masculinist Revolt, by William Tenn

At the dawn of the 21st Century, the feminist revolt is complete and there is, with one exception, complete equality between the sexes.  This doesn't sit well with one P. Edward Pollyglow, a clothier who finds that demand for his made-for-men jumpsuits has dropped to nil.  So he tries to restore le difference between the sexes by reviving that most manly of garments, the codpiece.  In so doing, he sets off a revolution that restores men's clubs, dueling, and other brands of overt masculinity. 

There are two major flaws in this story.  The first is that the piece has no real through line.  Things happen, get more ridiculous, and the masculinist revolt eventually overripens and collapses.

The second flaw is the doozy, however.  From the second page:

Women kept gaining prestige and political power.  The F.E.P.C. started policing discriminatory employment practices in any way based on sex.  A Supreme Court decision (Mrs. Staub's Employment Agency for Lady Athletes vs. The New York State Boxing Commission) enunciated the law in Justice Emmeline Craggly's historic words: "Sex is a private, internal matter and ends at the individual's skin.  From the skin outwards, in family chores, job opportunities, or even cloting, the sexes must be considered legally interchangeable in all respects save one.  That one is the traditional duty of the male to support his family to the limit of his physical powers–the fixed cornerstone of all civilized existence.

I'm sure everyone was fine until the part at the end (bolding added by me).  It straw(wo)mans the feminist movement.  What women want to day is equality, the freedom to pursue a life as unfettered in opportunity, as rewarding in ambition and compensation as that enjoyed by men.  I don't know any women espousing for equality in all fields and a free ride on the back of men. 

Thus, what could have been a piquant tale is a flop at the beginning and end, destroying the value of any droll cleverness inbetween.

One star.


I'm not sure how this month's Gahan Wilson piece does any more than fill a page.

Explosion, by Robert Rohrer

The starship Southern Cross, crewed by a mixed complement of Terrans and feline Maxyd, encounters an ancient missile that threatens to destroy the ship if its shields are not raised in time.  Unfortunately for two Maxyd, repairs had been underway when the Captain made his fateful decision, and they are killed.  The missile turns out to be a dud.

However, the ancient hatred between the two races of the crew, only thinly papered over since a brutal war in recent memory, flares brightly.  A mutiny ensues, completing what the ancient alien warhead could not.

In defter hands, I suppose this could have been something.  As is, Explosion is both heavy handed and forgettable.  Two stars.

Crystal Surfaces, by Theodore L. Thomas

In the future, Thomas posits, data will be stored not with chemical residue (pen/pencil) or magnetic charging (computer tape) but the careful positioning of atoms.  Thus, information will be stored and conveyed at the maximum possible density.

Neat idea.  Three stars.

Everyone's Hometown Is Guernica, by Willard Marsh

A starving painter adopts a scraggly kitten and, almost simultaneously, is consumed with an art idea he must commit to canvas.  As he pours his soul into his work, the kitten disappears, replaced by an alluring, independent woman who cooks and cleans for him, never saying a word.  I won't betray the ending, which is powerful, sad and poetic. 

This is definitely the standout piece of the issue.  Four stars.

The 2-D Problem, by Jody Scott

Things slip into mediocrity again with the subsequent nonsensical piece from Jody Scott.  Apparently, folks from Callisto have the ability to translate fiction into reality.  This becomes problematic when one Callistan, slated to be an ambassador of sorts to Earth, gets a hold of a comic book and brings Little Orphan Annie to life.  Flat life, but life nevertheless.

It's never explained how this power works, and the humor is about as flat as the story's subject matter.

Two stars.

First Context, by Laurence M. Janifer and S. J. Treibich

Speaking of Mariner, it is the subject for this punchline-focused vignette in which the human race gets fined by aliens for letting a probe go errant into a restricted zone.

First Context is like one of those four panel comics that should have ended on panel three.

Two stars.

Behind the Teacher's Back, by Isaac Asimov

A sequel of sorts to Asimov's article in the April issue on the uncertainty principle, Dr. A. describes the discovery of the third of the four presently known fundamental forces of the universe.  There's nothing in here I didn't already know, thanks to my time as an astrophysics major, but the energy version of the uncertainty principle is one of my favorite subjects.

You tell me if he succeeded in conveying what he was trying to convey.

Four stars.

A Stick for Harry Eddington, by Chad Oliver

By the turn of the 21st Century, retirement comes at 50 and boredom soon after.  What's left to do when one's salad days are in the rear view mirror, the kids are off to college, and the spouse fails to excite?  Have your mind exchanged with someone from a "primitive" culture, one which still values the important things in life!

Stick seems more a vehicle to denigrate the upcoming decadent, materialistic life we seem to be headed for.  On the other hand, the sting in the story's ending is pretty clever.

A solid three stars.

The Immortal, by Gordon R. Dickson

Hundreds of parsecs behind enemy lines, the ancient fighting ship La Chasse Gallerie, struggles its way home over a series of ten light-year hops.  Its pilot and sole crewmember, who left Earth a young man, is now a staggering two hundred years old.  Yet he continues to fend off enemy interceptors, always gustily singing one French shanty or another.

Back on Earth, it is concluded that this survivor, who has somehow pushed the boundaries of the human life span, might hold the key to immortality.  A risky penetration and rescue mission is executed.

The first ten pages of this story are rather dry and slow, and I can't help but think they could have been condensed into a page or two.  Also marring this piece is the melodramatic portrayal of the leader of the rescuing task force, a bitter battle-fatigued man with a death wish, and the geriatric specialist assigned to his ship.

But The Immortal eventually hits its stride, and if the end result is not perfection, it is not unsatisfying.

Call it a high three stars.

The New Frontier

Science fiction, like science, seems to be in a transitional stage.  As writers explore the new, as-yet unsurveyed realms of the universe, the resulting stories should only grow in quality and scope.  Until, of course, some new probe upends everything again!

What frontier's literary exploration do you look most forward to?




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