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Magazine/Anthology, Serial

[August 2, 1965] Expansion and Contraction (September 1965 IF)

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by David Levinson

It seems like the world gets a little smaller every day. Jet planes are gradually replacing larger propeller-driven planes in the passenger market, reducing the time it takes to get from one place to another. As they become more ubiquitous even the middle class may be able to travel like the jet set. Communications satellites are making it possible for news to spread faster, and we can even see some events on television as they happen on the other side of the world.

On the other hand, the world seems to be getting bigger, too. We hear constantly about remote places where this conflict or that independence is taking place. The wealth of human knowledge is growing so fast, it’s almost impossible to keep up. Growing, shrinking, let’s look at some things that have done one or the other lately.

A long shortcut

France and Italy are now closer. Not diplomatically, and it’s not conclusive proof of continental drift, but the time to travel between them has shrunk thanks to the opening of a tunnel underneath Mont Blanc. The two countries agreed on building the tunnel in 1949, but excavation didn’t begin until a full decade later, with a company from each country drilling from their own side. The excavations met on August 4th, 1962, with an axis variation of a mere 5 inches. The tunnel was inaugurated at a ceremony on July 16th, attended by French President Charles de Gaulle and Italian President Giuseppe Saragat, and opened to traffic three days later.

At 8,140 feet below the surface, the two-lane highway tunnel is the deepest operational tunnel in the world, and at 7.2 miles, it is also the longest highway tunnel, some three times longer than the previous record holder, the Honshu-Kyushu tunnel in Japan. The travel distance from France to Turin is now 30 miles shorter, and the distance to Milan is 60 miles shorter.


Presidents de Gaulle and Saragat in front of the Mont Blanc tunnel connecting Chamonix to Courmayeur during the official inauguration

Flash!

Kodak made a big splash when they introduced the Instamatic camera two years ago. Like the venerable Brownie, the Instamatic makes it easy for amateurs to take snapshots. There’s even a model with a built-in flashgun that takes so-called peanut bulbs. The problem with those is that bulbs have to be removed before you can take another shot with the flash, and they get very, very hot. Kodak, working together with Sylvania Electronics, has come up with a solution: the flashcube.

As the name suggests, it’s a cube with a mount that connects to the camera on the bottom, and four flashbulbs around the sides. Trigger the shutter, the flash goes off, the cube rotates 90° and it’s ready for another picture immediately. Plus, by the time you’ve taken the fourth picture, parts of the cube should be cool enough to touch, so you can replace it right away. This should mean lots more candid snaps and a lot less dragging everybody outside to squint into the sun at family gatherings. A big innovation in a very small package.


$100 is a little pricey, but there are less expensive models, and we are talking about a lifetime of memories

An electrifying performance

The folk world had their horizons expanded last week, perhaps to their dismay. Despite his bad boy antics off stage last year, Bob Dylan was the most eagerly anticipated act at this year’s Newport Folk Festival, but his performance was met with a chorus of boos. It seems young Mr. Dylan felt that Alan Lomax was rather condescending when introducing the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at a workshop on Saturday the 24th and decided he would play electric to prove to the organizers they couldn’t keep it out. He hastily assembled a band from a couple of members of the Butterfield Band and some others and spent Sunday afternoon rehearsing. The crowd was shocked at the sight of Dylan accompanied by an electric band, and the short set of “Maggie’s Farm”, “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Phantom Engineer” was met with both boos and cheers. MC Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary) dragged Dylan out for a quick acoustic encore of “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”. The crowd exploded and begged for another encore.

So why the booing? Ask three different people and you’ll get four different answers. Some say it was folkies mortally offended at the mere presence of electric instruments or a rock sound, others that fans were upset at the shortness of the set and the fact that the band used most of their allotted 15 minutes for tuning and switching instruments and/or poor sound quality. Some will tell you it was definitely the fans booing, others blame the press or even the organizers. We may never know the truth of the matter, but there’s no question that Bob Dylan has made another big impact on music.

Dylan with electric guitar and harmonica. Completely different from his usual acoustic guitar and harmonica. (Band not shown)

The Mysterious Doctor X

If you drop by your local library and take a look at the Sunday New York Times for July 25th (assuming they carry it and it has already come in) and flip to the list of best sellers, you’ll see a new title, Intern by Doctor X. It is, by all reports, a rather harrowing account of a young doctor’s period of interning at a hospital a few years ago, taken from his daily journal. The names, as Jack Webb would say, have been changed to protect the innocent, and the doctor has chosen a pseudonym to further protect confidentiality. “What has that got to do with science fiction,” you ask. Well, a little bird told me that Doctor X is in fact a reasonably well-known science fiction writer. Since he has good reasons for concealing his identity, I won’t give it away, but I will say that I once thought he was a pseudonym for Andre Norton and that his last name closely resembles a different medical profession mostly practiced by women.

Another hint: It’s not Murray Leinster or James White

It’s bigger, but is it better?

As promised last month, IF is now 32 pages longer, making it the same size as its bi-monthly sister publication Worlds of Tomorrow. Fred Pohl claimed that’s enough for two more novelettes, four or five short stories, a complete short novel, or an extra serial installment. How well did the editorial team make use of that extra room this month? Let’s take a look.


A deadly duel begins. Art by McKenna

Under Two Moons, by Frederik Pohl

We open in medias res in a seedy corner of Marsport. Secret agent Johan Gull is tied to a pillar in a room full of gunpowder as a beautiful woman sticks a lit matchcord in his mouth and then declares her love for him. After escaping, he goes for a shave and retrieves a jacket not his own, but which holds a key that lets him access headquarters behind the barber shop. A seemingly reasonable bit of spycraft, until he has to go for a shave every time he needs to go to a different department. He meets with .5, the head of the agency, who speaks only through his personal secretary. His new assignment is to go to Syrtis Major and investigate a couple of prospectors who claim to have been granted powers by beings from a flying saucer. Are the Black Hats behind it, or something more?

Aboard the submarine taking him to his destination, he once again meets the mysterious woman. She helps him escape from the submarine when it is sabotaged, and together they struggle through the Martian desert. They’re saved by the appearance of Tars Tarkas riding a thoat. It seems they’ve stumbled into Barsoomland, and Tars is a robot. Eventually, they make their way to Heliopolis. Further spy shenanigans take place, culminating in a big showdown in a casino.


I love you Meestah Gull. I expect you to die. Art by Wallace Wood

It’s quite the zany – at times bordering on insane – send-up of James Bond, more so the movies than the books. Gull is a drunk, a womanizer, and unbelievably stupid. Only a few hours pass between the first scene and the woman’s appearance on the submarine, yet he has no idea who she is, and she has to remind him several times throughout the story.

While it isn’t bad, the humor really isn’t to my taste. There’s a sort of overly arch cleverness to it that grates. Worse, the first thing we get with 32 extra pages is a 32 page story by the editor. Admittedly, Fred has a problem in that the best market for the kind of thing he writes is the trio of magazines he oversees, and I’m sure there’s a process for deciding whether or not to buy one of the boss’s stories, but it’s not a good look. It might have been better to wait a couple of months before running this one. The flying saucer aspects of the story probably also prompted the longish editorial. Three stars, at the low end for me, maybe higher for you.

Moon Duel, by Fritz Leiber

On the rim of Gioja crater, the unnamed narrator and his partner Pete are setting up a miniradar when Pete is killed by a sniper on the other side of the crater. The killer is a “crusoe”, one the many aliens marooned on Earth’s moon, all of whom fight and kill each other and the growing number of humans for the scarce resources that allow them to survive. The narrator manages to get off a few quick shots and a mayday signal. What follows is a deadly game of cat and mouse for the hours it will take for help to arrive. But at one point the antagonists begin an attempt at communication.

This is a very atypical story for Fritz Leiber. Even though I tend to think of him primarily as a writer of fantasy and horror, he’s no stranger to science fiction. “A Pail of Air” is one of my favorite stories. But the science comes on very strongly here, often shouldering aside character, which is Leiber’s real strength. It’s also shoehorned in at times, such as the clumsy footnote about the muzzle velocity of the narrator’s weapon. The climax also shares a factor with the rather poor Men of Good Will by Ben Bova and Myron R. Lewis, although Leiber is far more scientifically rigorous. Still, I’m not sure Leiber can write a bad sentence, and there is some genuine tension. To be honest, I probably would have liked this more if someone else’s name had been on it and I’d come in with a different set of expectations. Three stars.

The Planet Player, by E. Clayton McCarty

Archaeologist Charles Maxwell has joined the expedition to planet S-60 to investigate signs of a lost civilization. He gets off to a poor start with Litzanov, the expedition’s director. The director is a prickly authoritarian, who as it turns out is completely tone deaf and greatly annoyed by “sound in a measured tempo”. Maxwell, on the other hand, had dreams of being a concert pianist, has brought his guitar along, and reacts badly to being pushed around. Early in the journey, a stowaway is discovered, a fifteen-year-old deaf-mute known to the crew as Binky, the son of an early space scout. Bothered by the way the crew handles the boy, Maxwell takes him under his wing.

When they arrive at the planet, Litzanov proves to be a glory-hound. All photographic and video records are carefully rehearsed and staged to put him front and center, depicted as a wise man of science. The team also discovers massive structures made of a crystalline material which resonates to slight touches, though not to hard blows. At the heart of the alien complex, they find a theater with the remains of the dead in every seat. Spot checks all around the world find evidence that every single inhabitant of the planet died at the same instant, utterly without warning. The team probes the mystery, and as we are warned at the beginning, not everyone will survive.

Talk about a dead audience. Art by David A. Kyle

What a beautiful story. It’s not without its flaws; the reader figures out what destroyed this civilization and what is going to happen to the expedition fairly quickly, and the rather quick and easy decoding of the written language is highly improbable. But that all gets washed away by the ending, especially the final paragraph. This is McCarty’s second story. His first, Small One, was overly long and lacked subtlety, though Gideon rather liked it. This one however is excellent. A solid four stars.

M’Lord Is the Shepherd, by Leigh Richmond and Walt Richmond

From Moonbase One, M’Lord oversees the development of the people of Alterra. Although they are 50,000 to 100,000 years from being ready to be contacted by the Galactics, M'Lord has received orders to get them to that stage within 200. The Korm’aans are predicted to sweep through that spiral arm of the galaxy and the Galactics need an ally. That sort of forced stimulation usually destroys those subjected to it, but while a weak ally is preferable, a planet that can be used without interference from a native race is acceptable.

M’Lord decides that electric current is the ideal way to carry out his orders. First, he introduces the battery. After 75 years have passed, he sends his chief teslar down to the planet to get them to use 60 cycle alternating current. The results are astonishing. After only a few decades, the Alterrans are reclassified from “Sheep” to “Predator”. In fact, they represent a greater threat than Korm’aan. The solution is to fill the atmosphere with ultra-high frequency, ultra-short wave broadcasts. This attempt fails and he is ordered to apply hypnotic stupidifiers. This too fails, and the Alterrans are predicted to take over the galaxy within 500 years. The Galactics and Korm’aans have made common cause, and M’Lord must now act as ambassador and plead for no retribution.

Great Ghu, the Richmonds have escaped from Analog! The whole thing is ridiculously obvious, with the possible exception of the teslar. Unless you’ve read up on the early days of electricity, remember some of the articles Hugo Gernsback wrote back in the 1910s and 1920s, or have some reason to measure magnetic flux, you’ve likely not heard of Nikola Tesla. In any case, the question is why Campbell didn’t want this one. I mean, it has humans as the biggest, meanest, fiercest thing the galaxy has ever seen. Maybe he was put off by the scientific advancement of the last century or so coming from aliens rather than the natural superiority of northwestern Europeans. I should also note that it was only during the writing of this review that I realized the M’Lord is not a contraction such as one would use to address an English judge, but rather an alien name with obligatory apostrophe. A very low 2 stars.

Giant Killer, by Keith Laumer

On the planet Rockamorra, the CDT mission under Ambassador Splitwhistle is about to become the first formally credentialed embassy on the planet – a veritable coup over the Groaci – when Retief arrives late and tries to persuade the ambassador not to go through with it. He fails, but Splitwhistle really should have listened. It seems he has committed himself and his people (except Retief, who refused to go through the ceremony) to slaying a dragon. After the ambassador gets everybody thrown in jail by refusing to carry out his duly appointed task, it’s up to Retief, with a slight assist from Ben Magnan, to save the day.


The ambassador is supposed to kill it with a sword. Retief has a different plan. Art by Gaughan

I said last month that Retief’s shtick is getting stale. All the usual beats are here: the mission gets in trouble because no one listens to Retief, Retief enlists the aid of a slick talking local, Ben Magnan blunders about and accidentally helps, Retief saves the day. The only thing missing is a pulchritudinous female to offer her affections as a reward. Laumer seems to just be going through the motions in order to turn out one of these every month. I suppose it’s an easy, guaranteed sale. We’re promised the start of a Retief novel next month. We’ll see if the extra room for development of plot and character is a good thing or not. A low three stars, but probably a firm three if you’re new to the series.

Alien Artifact, by Dannie Plachta

A billion miles beyond the orbit of Pluto, the patrol ship Solar Sea picks up a large object on radar. It proves to be a giant ship, the alien artifact of the title. The crew explores and makes a shocking discovery.

Dannie Plachta is this month’s new writer. This short tale is afflicted with the desire for a Twilight Zone shock ending. While not a poor representative of the form, it’s not all that shocking either. And even at 2 and a half pages, the story is a bit long for what’s in it. On the other hand, it’s a decent freshman effort. I vacillated between two and three stars. The writing isn’t bad, and I wouldn’t immediately roll my eyes on seeing Plachta’s name again in the table of contents. Plus, it’s short. So, three stars, I guess.

Gree’s Damned Ones, by C. C. MacApp

Steve Duke has been infiltrated into a Gree punishment detail. The others aboard the transport have sinned against Gree, but are being given a chance to redeem themselves. Steve is here to find out why Gree and its slaves are showing great interest in a planet near the center of the galaxy.

Placed in charge of a large unit, Steve is ordered to make his way to an enormous cliff in some distant mountains and find a way to report back. The first night out, he finally activates the device that will give him his orders from the Birds of Effogus. Unfortunately, he left the device containing the means to let the Birds know exactly where he is so they can null in back in camp. He’ll just have to complete his mission and get back.

After a long and dangerous journey, Steve’s group meets up with another, under the leadership of Fazool, the B’Lant Steve befriended and betrayed in the first Gree story. Fortunately, Fazool was brain-burned and doesn’t recognize Steve, though in moments of distraction he does call him Jen. Ultimately, the two of them are the only ones to penetrate to the final mystery of the planet.


Steve and one of the B’Lants under his command encounter some dangerous plant life. Art by Giunta

I’m getting tired of these Gree stories. After a couple of dismal outings, the last couple have been better, but it’s time for MacApp to wrap this saga up. This one offers some interesting mysteries, and most of it is taken up by a sort of Arthur C. Clarke travelogue melded with a pulp jungle adventure. The end is rather perfunctory and raises as many questions as it answers, while seeming to move the war against Gree at least to the end of the mid-game. Still, it’s readable for the most part. A low three stars.

Skylark DuQuesne (Part 4 of 5), by E. E. Smith

The revolution on Ray-See-Nee in the Chloran galaxy is a success, but the locals whom Dick Seaton has put in power are worried about their first report back to the Chloran headquarters. The daily report shouldn’t be a problem, but the change in government will be closely scrutinized, and the reporter will likely die or have his mind shattered and will certainly give the game away. Fortunately, Seaton once went frontal lobe to frontal lobe against the Supreme Great One of the Chlorans and won. (Ignore the fact that that was halfway across the universe. Chlorans are Chlorans everywhere.) So Seaton makes the call and successfully dupes the bad guys. That taken care of, the Skylarkers head off to more familiar regions to repair the Valeron and come up with a way to improve coordination and reaction times on a planet-sized vessel.

Cut to the Jelmi. After some friendly political maneuvering, Mergon is now in charge. He picks out an uninhabited Tellus-type planet, and the Jelmi set about created an armed and well-defended base. Contact is made with the Llurdi, and after the Jelmi demand independence, the Llurdi throw everything they have at their former slaves. Holding out by the skin of their teeth, the Jelmi then contact the Llurdi, give them the teleporter, and restate their desire to live in peaceful independence. Being supremely logical, the Llurdi agree.

Meanwhile, repairs to the Valeron are complete, but Seaton is extremely fidgety. He only calms down once they start heading back to their new friends in the Chloran galaxy. It seems the woman who aided him in the revolution and her mother are witches, and they put a spell on him to summon him back. The new government is trying to weed out corruption, but are facing a lot of resistance from corrupt elements that are left over and new corrupt elements who want a piece of the graft. There’s a big shoot-out and the problem is resolved.

The Fenachrone are withering in Llurdi captivity. On his deathbed, their leader sends out a mental distress signal and makes contact with DuQuesne. The latter offers to help them and teleports their leader and a couple of others to his ship. He then heads for the Llurdi galaxy, as are the Skylarkers, who have figured out how DuQuesne tricked them and where the Jelmi must have come from. The leader of the Llurdi detects the Valeron (the DQ is shielded to the point of invisibility) and sends out a powerful mental probe. The Skylarkers read the probe as an attack and throw up their shields. The Llurdi decide they must attack and so throw everything at the Valeron. Seaton counterattacks and as the two forces are nearing mutual destruction, Seaton is mentally contacted by Mergon of the Jelmi. To be concluded.


Dick Seaton takes a call. Art by Morrow

Only one more installment to go. I must admit there is a certain crude vigor here that… well, it hasn’t grown on me, but I’m less offended by it than I was. It still doesn’t make a lot of sense, it’s still badly plotted, Smith still starts paragraphs with “wherefore”, but I guess I can see the nostalgic appeal if you first read Smith at an impressionable and less discerning age. Two stars.

Summing up

Before wrapping this up, let’s talk about the art. At least since I took on reviewing IF the interior art has been provided by a steady stable of four: Gray Morrow, Norman Nodel, Jack Gaughan and John Giunta. For me, Morrow is far and away the best of them, but he’s been tied up with Skylark for four issues now. I’m also not a big fan of Nodel’s smudgy look or Gaughan’s abstract elements. Still, all four are good, but there’s been a lack of freshness. This month saw two new additions. Wally Wood, of course, is primarily a comic artist (and former studio partner of Harry Harrison), but he’s done some illo work for IF’s sister publications, although we haven’t seen him for a couple of years. David Kyle is a long-time fan (he’s the man who got his fellow Futurians banned from the first Worldcon), occasional artist and rarely author. While there’s really nothing stylistically all that different, both artists have injected enough of a difference to seem fresh.

So, has IF made good use of its expanded space? It’s hard to say. Skylark DuQuesne continues to weigh the magazine down, and I think we’ll have to wait a couple of months to see what Fred Pohl does once it’s gone. As I noted above, no matter what you might think of the story, running a piece written by the editor which is exactly as long as number of new pages is not really the best way to start. On the other hand, we have eight titles this month, which increases the chances of there being something for everybody. And next month, Pohl is trying out another innovation. As one serial ends, we’ll also start another. If the typical serial is three parts, that’s an increase from four a year to six. That also raises the chances of more good work. Only time will tell.




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Magazine/Anthology, 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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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 14, 1965] The New Dispensation (August 1965 Amazing)

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by John Boston

Continuity and Change

Yeah, yeah, I know that’s the most boring headline since the last time Hubert Humphrey made a speech.  But that’s what everybody (well, somebody) wants to know: how is the new Amazing different, or not, from the old one?

Some things we already knew.  It’s still digest size, now bimonthly, with 32 more pages for a total of 162.  On the cover there is a piece of retro-continuity; the new regime has dropped the old title logo for the older title logo, the one used from October 1960 to December 1963, with very minor variations—an improvement, to my taste.  There’s a fairly generic cover by Alex Schomburg (I am certain the departed editor Lalli had a closet full of these) portraying, as you see, a guy in a loincloth brandishing a spear at a giant computer: Progress vs. Savagery, or Regimentation vs. Natural Freedom, as you prefer.  It is said on the contents page to illustrate Keith Laumer’s Time Bomb.  It does not.  There are a number of interior illustrations.  Coming Next Month has not returned.


by Alex Schomburg

And on the contents page . . . oh no.  The blazing insignia of continuity are . . . Ensign De Ruyter and Robert F. Young.  Forty-six pages of Robert F. Young.  Well, let us keep an open mind; here, brace it with this two-by-four.  Anyway, it’s a mistake to infer too much from this month’s fiction contents, since the new management will likely be burning off the inherited Ziff-Davis inventory for some months.

The non-fiction includes another of Robert Silverberg’s articles on scientific hoaxes, and Silverberg’s book review column—good signs if they are signs, but they too may just be what Lalli left behind.  Ironically, the review column is devoted entirely to reprints, ranging from Wells to Sturgeon.  There is also an editorial, in which Sol Cohen—listed on the contents page as Editor and Publisher—first demonstrates that he can be just as boring as his predecessor in editorializing Norman Lobsenz, and then offers a lame explanation of his plans regularly to publish reprints from old issues of the magazine. 

As for the reprints themselves, Cohen has gone for big names, with early short stories from Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury: respectively, The Weapon Too Dreadful To Use from the May 1939 issue, and Final Victim (with Henry Hasse), from February 1946.  Each is accompanied by an unsigned introduction, shorter and less bombastic than those by Sam Moskowitz for the “SF Classic” selections of the Ziff-Davis years.  The original illustrations are reprinted along with the stories.

Time Bomb, by Keith Laumer

Keith Laumer’s novelet Time Bomb begins with Yondor, the son of the chief, going over the mountain to look around.  And he sees—danger!  Wounded on the way back, he makes his way home and reports to the chief that their way of life is at risk and they must act!  But the chief doesn’t want to hear it—hey!  Wake up back there!  If you’re bored, do something useful, like listing all the stories you’ve read that begin with this particular cliche.


by Nodel

Anyway, these primitive characters are the descendants of a human outpost, now menaced by the evil alien Tewk, and Yondor gets away from their attack and into a machine with a transportation system requiring only that he sit in a chair and pull a lever and he’ll be somewhere else.  This is a convenient substitute for a plot, as Yondor blunders his way from place to place before learning enough to get back, rescue his people, and smite the bad guys.  As generic melodrama goes, it’s smooth and clever enough that it might be mildly entertaining, say, if one were stuck in an airport waiting for a late plane.  Two stars.

The City of Brass, by Robert F. Young


by Gray Morrow

On the other hand, remarkably, Robert F. Young’s The City of Brass is actually fairly amusing, and not offensively stupid like most of his other rehashes of myths, legends, testaments, etc.  Billings of Animannikins, Inc., has flown in his time sled back to the days of the Arabian Nights in order to kidnap Scheherazade, here rendered Shahrazad, bring her back to the present so his employers can work up a facsimile for public performance, and then return her to her fate.  But Billings kicks some wires in the sled out of place and they wind up stranded in the age of the Jinn (which proves to be about 100,000 years in the future), not far from the Jinn’s brazen city of the title.

Shahrazad is undaunted.  She doesn’t much like Jinn, and is in possession of a Seal of Solomon (here rendered Suleyman) with which she proposes to force all the Jinn into bottles and seal them up.  Billings considers this a reckless plan, and goes out to reconnoiter, setting in train a ridiculous plot involving ridiculous revelations about the Jinn, their origin, and what has happened to humanity in the intervening millennia.  This actually might have made it into John W. Campbell’s fantasy magazine Unknown if he had run short of material one month.  Young’s familiar sentimentality about beautiful women and the men who are captivated by them threatens to take over, but the story ends quickly enough not to ruin the comic mood.

Three stars.  I’ll put that two-by-four back in the shed.

The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use, by Isaac Asimov


by Julian Krupa

The reprints from Amazing’s past nicely illustrate the problems with reprinting from Amazing’s past.  Asimov’s The Weapon Too Dreadful To Use is his second published story and shows it, with stilted writing, cliched characters and dialogue, and a muddled point.  Humans have occupied Venus and are oppressing the natives, though supposedly racial discrimination and hostility have been eliminated on Earth.  (Not too plausible.) The protagonist and his Venusian friend Antil trek to the ruins of a Venusian city and visit the science museum, which is largely intact, but no one has looked at it in living memory.  (Even less plausible.) In a formerly sealed room, Antil finds the eponymous weapon, which can destroy people’s mental functions at interplanetary distances.  (Plausibility meter breaks.) Venus rebels, Earth sends troops, Venus destroys the minds of a lot of them, Earth backs down and grants independence.  It’s clear there’s a smart guy here trying to figure out how to write stories, but he’s not there yet.  Two stars.

Final Victim, by Ray Bradbury and Henry Hasse


by Hadden

Bradbury and Hasse’s Final Victim is much worse.  It is essentially a Bat Durston—a transplanted Western—about a bad deputy, excuse me, Patrolman, Skeel, who always kills the fugitives he is supposed to apprehend.  His superior Anders knows his excuses are no good but can’t do anything, until Miss Miller, the sister of Skeel’s most recent kill, who has proven to be innocent of the accusation against him, decides to go after Patrolman Skeel.  Anders, noting “the firm line of her chin, the trimness of her space uniform, the hard bold blueness of her eyes which he imagined could easily be soft on less drastic occasions than this,” decides to set her up to ambush Skeel herself out on the plains, I mean asteroids, and take revenge.  But when things get really tough, Miss Miller faints.  I stopped there.  Forget stars.  One mud pie.

The Good Seed, by Arthur Porges

Arthur Porges’s The Good Seed, as mentioned, is another in the series about Ensign De Ruyter.  As usual it has some Earth guys at the mercy of treacherous primitive aliens, and they solve their problem with a scientific gimmick that you might find in the Fun with Science column of a kids’ magazine.  One star.

John Keely’s Perpetual Motion Machine, by Robert Silverberg

Robert Silverberg comes to the rescue in his article about a guy who managed to make a pretty good career out of the perpetual motion con, but ironically might have had a better one developing the means of his fraud in the light of day.  This is by far the best story in the issue, despite the fact that it is apparently true.  Four stars.

Summing Up

Well, that was dismal, wasn’t it?  Except for the Mitigation of Robert F. Young (can someone make a ballad out of that?) and Silverberg’s matter-of-fact competence at storytelling and -finding, nothing to see here, move on, move on.

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




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Magazine/Anthology

[July 8, 1965] Saving the worst for first (August 1965 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Milestones

Galaxy has now finished 15 years of publication, two thirds of it under the tenure of H. L. Gold and the last five years with Fred Pohl as editor.  If Analog (ne Astounding) is representative of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, and Fantasy and Science Fiction represents the literary fringes of the genre, then Galaxy is emblematic of Science Fiction's Silver Age. 

Now, in the editorial for this month's issue, Pohl notes that Galaxy has evolved with the times and is a different magazine from the one that debuted with an October 1950 cover date.

I'm not sure I agree.  The magazine still looks largely the same, there's still a Willy Ley article in the middle, and the contents still feel roughly within the same milieu: a bit "softer" than the nuts and bolts in Analog, a little meatier than the often light fare of F&SF.  Certainly nothing so avant-garde as what we're seeing from the "New Wave" mags in the UK.

In any event, Pohl undercuts his own assertion by trumpeting next month's issue, which will feature nothing but alumni from the early days of the magazine.  I'm quite looking forward to it, and clearly Pohl is, too.

And after reading this month's issue, boy can I see why…

Recipe for Disaster


by Gray Morrow

Do I Wake or Dream?, by Frank Herbert

The creator of Dune and other lesser titles dominates the current issue: a full 119 pages are devoted to this short novel.  I was dreading it last month, and my dread was well-founded.  Here's the premise:

A giant sphere of a ship, the Earthling, is headed out of the solar system toward Tau Ceti.  On board are six normal human crew, two thousand frozen and dehydrated people, and a thousand embryos.  The humans are all genetic duplicates (with full memories, natch) of actual people, and their main job is to tend the ship-controlling disembodied human brains of "defectives" that have been integrated and trained for the task since birth (a la McCaffrey's The Ship who Sang or Niven's recent series starring Eric the Cyborg).

One by one, the three brains go nuts and either commit suicide or have to be shut down.  Two of the tending crew are murdered in the process.  Now the remaining four have to decide whether to turn back or not.  Complicating the decision is the fact that running the ship without a built-in brain is virtually impossible — the ship has been designed to be extremely delicate to handle, even to the point of having artificial crises pop up just to keep the crew on their toes!

Ultimately, the crew decides to thaw a frozen doctor (so they have, you know, one woman in their ranks) and then, together, create an artificial computer brain to run the ship.

And if that's not enough random factors to juggle, it is also noted that the Earthling is the seventh ship to have its brains all give up.  So this problem has happened twenty one times (what is it that Einstein is reputed to have said about the definition of madness?) And the last time humanity tried to build a sentient computer, the computer, the installation in which it was developed, indeed the entire island disappeared off the face of the Earth into some other dimension, destination unknown.

Herbert is nothing if not ambitious.


by John Giunta

He is, however, also a lousy writer.  I said as much after reading the sprawling, tedious, and humorless Dune World and its second half, Prophet of Dune.  One of my readers suggested that Herbert's third-person omniscient perspective, switching viewpoint characters almost every line, accented by (often superfluous) musings in italics was a deliberate stylistic choice to render the telepathic resonance shared by users of the spice melange.  But he uses the exact same style in Do I Wake, and there is nothing supernatural in this book.

I also found the overt anti-woman prejudice annoying, with the woman doctor character starting out pumped full of anti-sex drugs to keep her from being too excited all the time (one of the men debates taking some, himself, because he worries he'll be too attracted to the doctor; he decides against it because they reduce intelligence.  Fine for her, though.) Even the drawing of the doctor features her tawdrily topless.

Then there is the endless technical jargon that is not only gibberish, but often archaic gibberish: describing the ship's computer's "relays" (as opposed to transistors or microcircuits) is anachronistic for modern times, more so for machines of the future.

So, not only is Do I Wake a distinct displeasure to read, but it also is utterly implausible every step of the way.  At the Journey, we attempt to review everything in the genre that gets put to print, but we refuse to do it to the point of mortification.  I gave up on page 40, and you should feel no shame if you follow suit.

One star.

Peeping Tommy, by Robert F. Young

Yet another Robert F. Young reworking of a fable.  It keeps you engaged until the end, which is typically terrible.

Two stars.

The Galactic Giants, by Willy Ley

The one bright spot in the issue is Ley's competent science article, the majority of which is devoted to giant stars.  The rest deals with tape as a medium for data storage.

Interesting stuff.  Four stars.

Please State My Business, by Michael Kurland

A traveling salesman from the future ends up in the wrong century.  High jinks ensue.  Well, given that the story starts with a sexual assault and ends with a whimper, the jinks are rather low.

Two stars.

The Shipwrecked Hotel, by James Blish and Norman L. Knight


by Gray Morrow

Seven hundred years from now, the Earth houses One Trillion Humans in relative comfort.  This piece details the unfortunate saga of the "Barrier-hilthon", a beach-ball shaped hotel loosely anchored in the South Pacific.  Thanks to some literal bugs in the system, it becomes unmoored, ultimately crashing into an undersea mountain.  A rescue follows.

Hotel could have made an excellent novel by Arthur C. Clarke — a cross between A Fall of Moondust and Dolphin Island.  As is, it's not only surprisingly amateur, but it's also just sort of lifeless, more plot thumbnail than story.

I was a bit surprised as Hotel's expository style did not feel like James Blish at all (I don't know who Norman L. Knight is).  Then I got to the end where it says the story was by James H. Schmitz and Norman L. Knight.  I'm not sure whether its Blish or Schmitz, but Schmitz makes a lot more sense.  Schmitz is often good, but he's also often not, and in just this sort of way.

Two stars.

Galaxy Bookshelf, by Algis Budrys

I don't normally devote inches to the book columns. Nevertheless, I've given Budrys a long rope since he came on few months ago, and I can now say with certainty that not only is his judgment orthogonal to mine, but his writing is impenetrable, too.  This is a pity.  I've liked much of the fiction Budrys has written (at least long ago when he was writing consistently), and I used to greatly value Galaxy's book reviews. 

All Hope Abandoned

Wow.  That was just dreadful.  The only faint praise I can damn with is that the Herbert novel was so bad, it meant I didn't have to waste time on 80 pages of the magazine.  This is, without a doubt, the most worthless issue in the Galaxy series.

At least the bar to clear for next month is nice and low!

If you need to get the bad taste out of your mouth (and I know I do!) come register for this week's The Journey Show! 

We'll be discussing the latest fashion trends of 1965, and we have some amazing guests including the founder of Bésame Cosmetics.  Plus, you'll get to see the Young Traveler show off her newest outfits!

DON'T MISS IT!




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[July 2, 1965] Gallimaufry (August 1965 IF)

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by David Levinson

A gallimaufry is a kind of stew. Like any stew, it’s composed of a bunch of things thrown together and so has also come to mean any sort of hodge-podge. Since I haven’t been able to come up with some sort of overarching theme this month (and perhaps because, as I write this, I skipped lunch and it’s a couple of hours until dinner), let’s just look at the mish-mash of things that caught my eye (and ear) this month.

The British Invasion continues

On June 12th, the Beatles were named Members of the British Empire. That’s the lowest level of honor granted by the British government, but unsurprisingly a lot of old fuddy-duddies are unhappy with popular musicians being so honored. Member of the Canadian House of Commons Hector Dupuis complained, “British royalty has put me on the same level as a bunch of vulgar numbskulls.” According to my research, apart from seven and a half years in the Canadian Parliament, Mr. Dupuis’ main contribution to society is selling insurance. I’m not sure he’s the one who ought to be complaining about the comparison.


James P. McCartney, George Harrison, John W. Lennon and Richard Starkey showing their medals. You didn’t think his parents named him Ringo, did you?

Sticking with music for the moment, lately I’ve really been enjoying For Your Love by the Yardbirds. It’s a catchy little number that’s been moving up the charts the last few weeks and unusually features a harpsichord. The band took over as the house band at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, England when the Rolling Stones went on to bigger things and then acted as the backing band for Sonny Boy Williamson when he toured Great Britain in early 1964. They’ve had a bit of airplay with some old blues numbers, but this is their first real hit. Alas, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. One of their guitarists, a young man by the name of Eric Clapton, has left the band, unhappy with the move to a more commercial sound. He’s since been replaced by Jeff Beck. Let’s hope that Mr. Clapton is content with the relative obscurity of the blues scene.

The Miracles of Technology

On June 14th, a test planned by American and French doctors and communications experts sent an electrocardiogram from a ship at sea to a hospital in France. The ECG was taken from a passenger aboard the SS France in the Atlantic Ocean and transmitted via facsimile machine first to Cornell University hospital, then RCA Communications, Intelsat, D'Liaisons Radiotelephotographiques de France and then to Boucicaut Hospital in Paris. The image that arrived in France was clear enough for doctors to use for diagnosis. Look for this technique to be used in earnest in the future.


Facsimile technology has been used in meteorology for several years. Its use in remote diagnostic medicine shows promise.

Eppur si muove

The British journal Nature dated June 19th included a paper by astronomers Gordon Pettengill and Rolf Dyce titled "A Radar Determination of the Rotation of the Planet Mercury". They have determined that the planet Mercury is not tidally locked to the sun, but rather has a rotation period of approximately 59 days. That means a day on Mercury is about two-thirds as long as its year. Bad news for Larry Niven, whose very first story, “The Coldest Place”, hinged on the planet always showing the same face to the sun, but those are the breaks in the science fiction game.

An IFfy stew

Speaking of science fiction (and the magazine Niven first appeared in) what is Fred Pohl putting on our plate in this month’s IF? Let’s take a look at the ingredients.


Retief makes his way across town. Art by Gaughan

Trick or Treaty, by Keith Laumer

Things are looking grim for the Terran cause on the planet Gaspierre. The planetary parliament is set to decide if they’re going to be neutral, on the side of the Terries, or support the warlike Krultch, and the presence of a Krultch warship heavily outweighs that of the CDT mission under Ambassador Sheepshorn. Anti-Terry riots are blowing up all over, and Krultch soldiers walk the streets with impunity.

We open with Retief using his usual good relations with the locals to get lodgings for a troupe of Terran entertainers (if four people can be said to constitute a troupe). On his way back to the embassy, Retief cripples a couple of Krultch soldiers (they did start it) and learns from the local police that the Terrans are confined to their embassy until the ambassador is due to make his speech to parliament. After a brief consultation with the ambassador, Retief escapes the embassy, makes his way across town and enlists the aid of the entertainers in tossing a monkey wrench in the Krultch plans. Will he succeed in tipping the balance in Earth’s favor? Of course, the only question is how. Will he win the favors of the lovely, red-headed acrobat with the tattoo? Unusually, no, or at least not on the page.


The Krultch captain gets the drop on Retief. Right where Retief wants him. Art by Gaughan

I’m on record as a fan of Retief, but even I have to admit that things are getting a little stale. To carry on with the stew analogy, this is an onion that’s gone a little spongy or a rubbery carrot. The means by which Retief and friends take the wind from the Krultch’s sails are deeply improbable, bordering on the ridiculous. On the plus side, Ambassador Sheepshorn is one of the best names Laumer has come up with in ages. Is that Sheeps-horn or Sheep-shorn? I suspect that the ambassador and the author have very different opinions on that. In any case, long-time readers of the series will likely find this one a bit dull, though newcomers might enjoy it more. However, it’s not the best entry point for the series. A low three stars.

Against the Odds, by John Brunner

On the planet Galrex, an apparent crank is making a scene outside the office of the Superintendent of Galactic Records, warning that the human race is in danger. Superintendent Motice Bain emerges from his office and agrees to listen to the man’s concerns.

Falkirk, as his name proves to be, once planned to make a career in archaeology studying the vanished civilization of the planet Gorgon. The story goes that the natives of Gorgon had learned to manipulate luck and ultimately bored themselves to death. The planet was originally found three or four hundred years earlier by one of the pioneering starscouts, Morgan Wade, who supposedly figured out the lost secret and ultimately became extremely wealthy. Eight or nine years before the time of the story and before Falkirk could go to Gorgon and begin digging, a starship made an emergency landing on the planet. It took several weeks for a needed spare part to arrive, but once the ship was repaired the crew managed to destroy all that was left of the ancient civilization when taking off. Now every member of that crew is the ruler of a planet. Falkirk is convinced that these ten men are going to take over the galaxy.

Using the example of the birthday problem, which shows that it takes a remarkably small number of people to ensure that two members of the group share a birthday, Bain points out to Falkirk that in a galaxy of two trillion people, it isn’t that unlikely for ten of them to become important. After a despondent Falkirk leaves, Bain gets down to business.

There’s a twist at the end of this tale that anybody who has been reading science fiction for more than a handful of years can see coming. It’s a reasonably well told story, but a far cry from the more modern sort of stories that Brunner is capable of writing. Apparently, IF is where he sends his more old-fashioned work. It’s not bad, it’s just not anything special. Three stars.

We Hunters of Men, by Bruce McAllister

Edmond Reud is out hunting scalps when he is attacked by another hunter. He kills the attacker and takes the other man’s scalp. Ignoring the “mind-prickling” that urges him to go toward the Minced Mountain, which touches the ocher-colored sky, he returns to the underground city to exchange his scalps for pellets. Eventually, he reaches the Minced Mountain and meets an old man trapped there by a broken leg. Without pellets, the old man has had his long-term memory return. Together, they solve the mystery of the “mind-prickling”.

Interspersed throughout this are naval communiques between a ship orbiting the planet Tinni and Base Roquefort. It seems that Tinni was one of twelve planets beset by the Judicians, who managed to close the planet in a charge field when they lost the war. The navy believes that the Judicans’ weapons were destroyed, but because they are physically weak they must have found some way to control the human population. They did manage to get a device through the field which will home in on charge field generators and send out cortex wave emissions to get humans to come and tinker with the generators.


The scalper scalped. Art by Giunta

This is McAllister’s second story, and it’s not very good. Clearly the pellets affect memory and are addictive, giving the Judicians a way to get the humans to kill each other, but I fail to see how the system was originally imposed. Further the tonal shift between the two narratives is rather jarring. That on the planet is somewhat grim and rather fitting to the circumstances, while the naval communiques are rather light and a bit jokey. On the other hand, McAllister is only 18 and does show some raw talent. If he spends some time working at his craft and honing his skills he could be a decent writer down the line. But this story? Two stars.

The Crater, by J. M. McFadden

Insurance investigator Johnny Andrews appears to be on vacation in Hawaii. Actually, he’s on the trail of a group that has hijacked two shipments of irillium somewhere between the asteroids (at a guess, it’s never specified) and landing at the docks in North Africa. Waikiki is a good spot to observe the ships entering parking orbit and firing their retrorockets for landing. He figures he’s on the right track, since a couple of suspicious characters have started watching him.

After observing the next hijacking from out beyond the surf line, he manages to get pictures of the two goons, but they grab him before he can contact his home office. He’s bundled into an interisland subway and taken to Wailuku, the main city on the rather rural island of Maui. Johnny escapes and takes refuge in Fenner’s Grill, the best Mexican restaurant in the islands run by a fellow of Chinese extraction who goes by the name Manuel. From Manuel (who is seemingly related to everyone on the island), Johnny learns of the mysterious group which has taken over the ranch in Haleakala crater. With Manuel’s help, he infiltrates the ranch and sets out to thwart the hijackers for good.


Manuel and Johnny discover some really high tech cattle ranching. Art by Nodel

McFadden is this month’s first-time author. According to Fred Pohl, he’s a former naval officer and has already sold another story to IF. Beginning authors are often advised “Write what you know.” I’d bet that McFadden spent a fair amount of time stationed in Hawaii and was likely a radar officer. Anyway, this one was a rather fun adventure tale with a good dose of humor. Maybe a bit of Keith Laumer influence here. Also Manuel is a great sidekick who feels like a real islander without being an offensive stereotype. Three stars.

Patron of the Arts, by Fred Saberhagen

As the Berserker fleet closed in on Sol, the artistic treasures of Earth were loaded aboard the museum ship Franz Hals to be carried to safety at Tau Epsilon. Aboard are a two man crew and famous artist Piers Herron, a man who has lost all interest in living and with it his ability to create. The ship is captured by a Berserker and the crew killed, but Herron is kept alive for observation. He attempts to paint the Berserker and he and the Berserker, using one of its smaller remote units, discuss the meaning of art on the basis of Titian’s Man with a Glove.

Herron tries to capture his captor, while the subject looks on. Art by Gaughan

I mentioned above that Retief is getting stale. Saberhagen has certainly avoided that problem in his Berserker series. Each of the stories has been very different, even when the settings have been similar, such as one or more people being held captive by the great killing machines. That’s most likely because these stories are really about people. In the hands of many other authors, this series would be one massive space battle after another, while with Saberhagen the one story that actually was about a space battle had a tight focus on some of the people involved.

This is an ambitious story, and while that ambition carries it a long way, it doesn’t quite hit the mark. There’s a subplot about a stowaway that really doesn’t work. If Roger Zelazny wrote a Berserker story, this might well be it, and he might have gotten all the way to where Saberhagen was trying to take it. A high three stars, and I mourn what could have given it that fourth.

Skylark DuQuesne (Part 3 of 5), by E. E. Smith

As DuQuesne watches, Dick Seaton launches a brutal counterattack against the mysterious force that struck at the end of the last episode. The Skylark of Valeron, grievously damaged, beats a hasty retreat, and DuQuesne slinks away toward Earth. Seaton has identified their attackers as Chlorans, the bad guys from the last book. Apparently, intelligent life which develops on any Earthlike (or Tellus-type, as Smith would have it) world will be human. They might be green or squat and hairless, but still human. Any intelligent life that develops on a world with a chlorine atmosphere will be Chlorans, and so on. Look, if you shout at every bit of nonsense science in this thing, you’ll lose your voice and probably frighten your neighbors. Just go with it.


The Skylark of Valeron takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Art by Gray Morrow

Seaton hatches a plan to find an enslaved human world in the Chloran controlled galaxy and find or create a resistance. That will give the Skylarkers a base of operations to fight the Chlorans. Naturally, all of the men volunteer to be the one to go down and carry out the plan while all of their wives object. They leave the choice of the best person to the ship’s Brain. It, of course, chooses Seaton. He goes down to the planet chosen by the Brain, meets the resistance, turns them into an effective fighting force and snatches the planet from the clutches of those humans who willingly serve their Chloran masters.

Meanwhile, DuQuesne returns to Earth and looks up Stephanie “Hunkie” de Marigny, brilliant scientist and the one woman who can come close to piercing the armor of cynicism and disdain he’s wrapped himself in. While his agents buy up all the materials he needs to build his own Valeron, Blackie and Hunkie go on a date (Dutch at her insistence). Afterwards, he hotfoots it off to the opposite side of the universe from the Chloran galaxy, finds an uninhabited Earthlike world and, using the plans he got from Seaton, builds his new ship, which he dubs the DQ.


Dick Seaton settles a labor dispute with his foreman. Art by Gray Morrow

Although the “wherefores” continue to fly, this installment is a small step up from last month. In fact, the stuff involving Seaton setting up his resistance movement actually isn’t all that bad. Of course, Smith crams a novel’s worth (or at least a novella’s) of material into 15 or 20 pages. DuQuesne also moves back toward being a slightly more complex villain than he was last time. Two stars.

Summing Up

So, what does the dish that Fred Pohl has given us look like overall? A couple of ingredients that aren’t as fresh as they might be, but are still acceptable; a couple of tasty morsels, not quite gourmet but good; one that’s not very good, but under normal circumstances would be drowned out by the other ingredients; and then there’s the giant lump of meat that’s really gone off at the end. Outside of Skylark, there does seem to be a slight uptick in quality over the way things have been over the last year or so. That or Skylark is making the rest of the stuff look good by comparison.

Every cloud, so they say, has a silver lining. Skylark has been a big black cloud lowering over IF for a while and will continue to do so for a couple of months. The demands it has made on space (originally intended to be just three installments) has made the editorial team take a look at some of their production procedures. Starting next month IF will have 32 more pages in every issue. Fred says that’s enough for two more novelettes, four or five short stories, a complete short novel, or an extra serial installment. Best of all, the price is staying at 50¢. Five months of Doc Smith is a heavy price to pay, and 32 pages isn’t going to make up for Amazing and Fantastic going bimonthly and running more reprints, but it’s a step in the right direction.




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Magazine/Anthology, Serial

[June 2, 1965] Heck in a Handbasket (July 1965 IF)

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You don't want to miss this week's episode of The Journey Show, with a panel of professional space historians while Gemini 4 orbits overhead! Register now!


by David Levinson

May has been a chaotic month. War – and not just in the places you might be aware of – unrest, political ups and downs. I’ve frequently found myself thinking of the opening stanza of W. B. Yeats’s marvelous The Second Coming. Hopefully, no rough beasts are slouching anywhere.

Signs of War

The month got off to a bad start in the wee hours of the first when Communist and Nationalist Chinese naval forces clashed off the coast of Tungyin Island. The next day, President Johnson went on television to explain the American invasion of the Dominican Republic. There, at least, American troops have since begun to be replaced by OAS forces.

Less well-known to American readers, though perhaps known to our British audience and certainly to those in Australia, is the ongoing conflict on the island of Borneo. For the last couple of years as part of granting former colonies their independence, the United Kingdom has been working to establish the nation of Malaysia on the Malay Peninsula and nearby islands which have been under British control. Some of those areas are in northern Borneo, and President Sukarno of Indonesia would prefer that all of Borneo, at the very least, go to his country. There have been several skirmishes between British and Malaysian forces on the one side and the Indonesian army on the other. Australian forces have borne the brunt of much of the fighting. Just last week, units of the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment crossed into Indonesian territory and clashed with Indonesian troops along the Sungei Koemba river. This looks to be the first move in a larger effort, and we can expect further fighting through the summer.


Private Neville Ferguson of the 3RAR patrols near the Sarawak-Kalimantan border

Signs of Unrest

On May 5th, several hundred people carried a black coffin to the draft board in Berkeley, California in a protest march against U.S. involvement in the Dominican Republic. Once there, 40 young men, mostly students at the university, burned their draft cards. On May 22nd, another protest march descended on the Berkeley draft board. This time, 19 men burned their draft cards, and LBJ was hanged in effigy. This second march was likely protesting American involvement in Viet Nam.

Another form of protest has been sweeping American university campuses: the teach-in. Back in March, some 50 professors at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor planned a one day strike to protest the war in Viet Nam. Facing opposition from Governor George Romney and the legislature, they turned it into an all-night event featuring debates, lectures, films and music. It was dubbed a “teach-in,” the name being modeled on the sit-ins of the civil rights movement.

Several more of these events have taken place on college campuses around the country since then. A teach-in at the University of California at Berkeley on May 21st-22nd drew a crowd estimated at 30,000 people. (Honestly, if they’re not careful, that town’s going to get a reputation.) Speakers included Dr. Benjamin Spock, Norman Mailer, comedian Dick Gregory, several members of the California Assembly, journalist I. F. Stone, Mario Saavio of the Free Speech Movement (as you might expect), and many others. Expect to see more of these when people go back to university in the fall.


Folk singer Phil Ochs performs at the Berkeley teach-in

Signs of Peace?

Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan once said, “Jaw, jaw is better than war, war.” As ineffective as the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne might be, even Retief would probably agree with the sentiment. There has been good and bad news on the diplomatic front in the last month. West Germany formally established diplomatic relations with Israel on May 12th. Of course, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iraq promptly broke off relations with West Germany in retaliation. Cambodia also broke off diplomatic relations with the United States on May 3rd. Detractors say it was because Newsweek ran an article accusing Prince Sihanouk’s mother of engaging in various money-making schemes. It probably had more to do with American bombing raids on North Vietnamese supply lines running through Cambodian territory. Hmmm, I guess that’s mostly bad news.

Signs of Improvement

And in the realm of science fiction, particularly my little corner of the Journey, I have good news: while the quality of IF had shown a noticeable decline of late, there’s quite an uptick with this month's issue.


Abe Lincoln goes spearfishing in “The Last Earthman”. Art by McKenna

Research Alpha, by A. E. van Vogt and James H. Schmitz

Barbara Ellington is a typist at Research Alpha, a private research and development firm. She works directly for the number two man at the company, John Hammond, as an assistant to his secretary Helen Wendell. While she is getting some water from a drinking fountain, Dr. Henry Gloge, head of the biology division, secretly injects her with his current project, the Omega serum. Gloge also injects her boyfriend, Vince Strather, a hot-headed young man who is pressuring her towards “premarital intimacy”.

Through a meeting between Hammond and Gloge, we learn that the Omega Point Stimulation project is intended to push an organism through a million years of evolution over a course of four injections. Thus far, none of the test subjects – all giant salamanders known as hellbenders – has survived the third injection, and very few have survived even the second. Gloge is convinced that he would have more success with higher order animals. That is the reason he has abandoned proper research protocols and injected Barbara and Vince, both of whom he is ready to kill if either of them reacts badly.

Barbara responds well, while Vince does not. Hammond and Wendell begin to notice strange readings on a scale the reader is not privy to. There is clearly more to these two than meets the eye, and they appear to have connections around the world. Meanwhile, Barbara figures out what’s going on and begins to take control of her fate.


Does anyone else expect to see James Bond walk into that circle, turn and shoot? Art by Gaughan

The blurb on the cover claims this story is written by “[t]wo of science fiction’s greatest writers”. That’s overstating the case to the point of outright falsehood. Van Vogt is a fairly polarizing writer. Some writers (Phil Dick and Harlan Ellison come to mind) and a segment of the fan community love his work, others hate it. Damon Knight, for example, absolutely savaged him back in 1945 in a review of The World of Null-A. His plots are flimsy and his characters paper thin. On top of that, he spent the better part of a decade selling Dianetics to gullible Angelenos, rather than writing. He kept his name in front of the fans through reprints and fix-ups and has only recently started writing again. Schmitz, on the other hand, is a sound writer who does very good characters and isn’t afraid to put women front and center. But somehow he doesn’t seem to stay on anyone’s radar between stories.

So, I came to this rather long piece with a great deal of trepidation. But I liked it a lot. At a guess, I’d say the basic plot is van Vogt’s and most of the writing is Schmitz’s. Sure, evolution absolutely doesn’t work that way, but this sort of thing has been a part of science fiction since at least Edmond Hamilton’s “The Man Who Evolved,” and we saw it not too long ago on The Outer Limits. Barbara could easily have been a victim who eventually drops the unworthy Vince for the handsome and charismatic John Hammond, the man who actually solves the problem. But she isn’t and she doesn’t. She takes charge, out-thinks the superman and wraps things up the way she wants. I wavered between giving this a high 3 or a low 4. After thinking about it, I decided that Barbara’s characterization is enough to put the story over the top. Four stars.

The Last Earthman, by Lester del Rey

A thousand years after the discovery of faster-than-light travel, the Earth is relegated to a myth, its name largely forgotten. That is because, soon after the human Diaspora into the galaxy, a war was fought on Earth that devastated the environment, leaving behind a few tens of thousands of survivors, whose fertility has gradually decayed.

Twenty years before the start of the story, Egon from the planet Dale crashed on Earth, finding a mere handful of survivors, though the planet itself is again bountiful. While traveling with them to the Ember Stake for one of their rituals, he fixed an ancient mechanism and awoke Herndon, a man who had been placed in suspended animation during the war. He was supposed to have awakened after a time to help put civilization back together, but something went wrong. Now, Egon, Herndon, and Cala, a sterile young woman, are the only ones left. They are returning to the Ember Stake so that Herndon can be placed back in suspended animation when he dies. As they approach, a ship appears in the sky.

This is a melancholy piece, but one tinged with hope. It’s also a reminder that del Rey can really write when he puts his mind to it. It’s hard to say more without giving the whole story away. A solid three stars.

The Fur People, by D. M. Melton

On Mars, there is enough air in the deep canyons and ancient seabeds to support life. The most important life form is a lichen from which it is possible to derive an anti-aging drug. This has brought the moss hunters. As in any gold rush, some men make their fortune, some manage to make enough to get by, while others barely scrape by and still others disappear entirely. The other life form of note is the rock puppies, cute and sociable little creatures that some find endearing and share food and water with, and others find annoying and use for target practice.

Moss hunter Bart “Lucky” Hansen, traveling with an orphaned rock puppy, is contemplating his route when he decides on a whim to take a risky shortcut across a high plateau. On the way, he encounters a young woman, clearly fresh from Earth, staggering across the desert. He rescues her and gets her to safety in a deep canyon. After explaining that she was attacked by a group of moss hunters, she hijacks Hansen’s sand car and heads for the nearest dome. Hansen is picked up by the group chasing her and travels with them until they catch up with the woman. Hansen then manages to get to her side, and the two of them try to figure out a way to escape.


The girl and Hansen meet again. Art by Giunta

Melton is this month’s first time author. It shows. The title, along with Hansen wondering why fur people are always nicer than skin people, really gives the game away. There’s also the fact that the young woman at the heart of this story never gets a name and is always referred to as “the girl”. (From this, I infer that the D in the author’s name is more likely to stand for Daniel than Dorothy.) Still, it’s not a bad first effort, and I wouldn’t mind seeing more from this author. A low three stars.

In Our Block, by R. A. Lafferty

Intrigued by the shanties that have sprung up on a dead-end block and the fact that a shack seven feet on a side put out enough 8” x 8” x 3’ cartons to fill a 40 foot trailer in one morning, Art Slick and Jim Boomer take a walk around the block. On the way, they meet several odd people.

That’s it. That’s the whole story. But it’s quintessential Lafferty. If you like Lafferty, you’ll like this story; if you don’t, you won’t. Three stars.

Wow, this is turning out to be a pretty good issue. What could possibly spoil it?

Skylark DuQuesne (Part 2 of 5), by E. E. Smith

Oh. Right. Sigh.

Seaton and Crane have commandeered the output of hundreds of planets and set up a production area covering ten thousand square miles to create defenses. Against one man. Seaton then interacts with several characters I presume are from the earlier novels. No point to it, just old familiar faces for the fans. Following all that, Seaton receives the message sent out by DuQuesne at the end of the last installment. After being filled in on DuQuesne’s encounter with the Llurdi, Seaton invites him to the Skylark of Valeron for further consultation.

Cut to the Jelmi, still fleeing the Llurdi. On the way, their senior scientist just happens to invent teleportation (as you do). Now they need to find a solar system emanating enough sixth-order energy to screen them from their enemies. After nearly a month of searching, the finally find the Earth’s solar system. Finding the Moon uninhabited, with only a couple of abandoned American and Russian outposts, they deem it suitable for their purposes, land in secret, and begin building a superdreadnaught (sic) to be called the Mallidaxian.

Then they kidnap an exotic dancer and a man she keeps running into by accident from a Florida beach. Why? Because they’re puzzled by her job and the Earth concept of shame. Then the Jelmi pat the couple on the heads, promise them a couple of quarts of diamonds as compensation, and send them home. After going on a bender, the two of them decide to contact a Norlaminian Observer, who kicks the problem upstairs until it reaches Dick Seaton. Now he knows about the Jelmi.

DuQuesne arrives at the Skylark of Valeron and is stunned by its size. Overcome with jealousy, he plans once again to destroy the Skylarkers and set himself up as emperor of a galaxy. Seaton hands over plans of his ship so that DuQuesne can build his own. Then DuQuesne uses a bit of subterfuge to send Seaton and company off to Galaxy DW-427-LU, which the Llurdi are worried about, while he runs off to make contact with the Jelmi.

Having done so, DuQuesne cons the Jelmi, who blithely hand over their plans for the teleporter and ask him to contribute to their genetic diversity (the old-fashioned way). Then it’s back to Earth where he hires half a dozen assassins. Finally, he catches up with the Skylark of Valeron and teleports his killers aboard. Fortunately for the good guys, the gravity aboard is set low for the comfort of some visitors. The killers are killed, and Seaton dives for a control helmet, suspecting rightly that DuQuesne is behind the attack. But at that moment a klaxon sounds. The Skylark of Valeron is under an attack so massive that its defensive screens will surely fail in a matter of seconds. To be continued.


Probably the Mallidaxian, but it could be DuQuesne’s Capital D. Art by Morrow

Last month, I said there was some decent line-by-line writing. Not this time. It’s full of lengthy and pointless digressions. That whole episode with the dancer goes on forever and is only there so that Seaton and DuQuesne can find out about the Jelmi without Seaton actually contacting them. Worse still, Marc DuQuesne goes from a marginally complex figure to an absolute mustache-twirling villain motivated entirely by jealousy and megalomania. But the thing that annoyed me most was the excessive use of the word “wherefore”. It crops up at least half a dozen times in the sense of “as a result” or “knowing that” and it limps badly. I stumbled over it every time. I think it’s a bit of antiquated slang usage and it’s bad. I still haven’t thrown the magazine across the room, so I guess this gets a very, very low two stars.

Summing Up

Other than the toxic exercise in nostalgia that pollutes the end, this is a pretty good issue. If we’re lucky, it’s an indication that IF is coming out of the doldrums. If we aren’t, it’s an indication that Fred Pohl knows how bad Skylark DuQuesne is and that a lot of readers aren’t going to be happy with the pages it’s taking up, wherefore and as a result he’s pulling out all the stops and running the very best stuff he has in the barrel as compensation. That could mean once this is over, he’ll have a lot of mediocrity that needs to run.




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[May 22, 1965] Goodbye and Hello (June 1965 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Departures and Arrivals

One of the more intriguing events this month was the death of a celebrity, although not one you're likely to see in the obituary column. A tortoise known as Tu'i Malila (meaning King Malila in the Tongan language, although she was female) died on the sixteenth of May. Why is this notable? Well, they say she was one hundred and eighty-eight years old, a ripe old age, even for a tortoise.

The story goes that Captain Cook gave her to the royal family of Tonga way back in 1777, making her nearly as old as the good old USA. Some dispute this story, although there is no doubt that she lived in Tonga for a very long time indeed. No stranger to royalty, she greeted the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II when that monarch visited Tonga, a British protectorate, in 1953.


That's Elizabeth on the left, Tu'i Malila on the ground. You knew that, right?

As we bid farewell to this extraordinary reptile, we greet a new British import at the top of the American popular music charts. Herman's Hermits, hailing from Manchester, England, hit Number One this month with their version of Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter, a song first performed by actor Tom Courtenay in a British television play a couple of years ago.

Unlike many of the singers in British rock 'n' roll bands, lead man Peter Noone makes no attempt to disguise his accent. If anything, it sounds like he's exaggerating his Mancunian way of talking. (Yes, I just now learned the word Mancunian, and I'm showing off.)


Nobody in the band is named Herman. Go figure.

Exit Cele, Enter Joseph

My esteemed colleague John Boston has already reported, in fine detail, on the Ziff-Davis company selling Amazing and Fantastic to Sol Cohen. Editor Cele Goldsmith Lalli will remain with Ziff-Davis, working on their publication Modern Bride. Frankly, I think that's a step up for her, given the minimal interest that the publisher had in their fiction magazines.

Joseph Wrzos, using the more Anglo-Saxon name Joseph Ross, will be the editor, under the direction of Cohen. Fantastic will contain reprints from old issues of the two Ziff-Davis magazines, as will Amazing. The sister publications will alternate bimonthly publication. Of course, they will continue to publish new stories purchased by Lalli for a while, given the exceedingly slow way the publishing industry works. I hope that Wrzos will also offer previously unseen work once these run out.

As we lift a glass of champagne to Cele, and bid her a fond bon voyage as she sets sail for the world of wedding dresses and honeymoons, let's take a look at the last issue that will bear her name.


Cover art by Gray Morrow

Thelinde's Song, by Roger Zelazny

You may recall the story Passage to Dilfar in the February issue, which introduced the character Dilvish the Damned. He was a mysterious figure indeed, and that tale provided only hints as to his strange nature. This one gives us some of his background.

A young sorceress sings a ballad about Dilvish and the evil wizard Jelerak. Her mother warns her not to speak the name of the villain aloud, lest she draw the attention of one of his wicked minions. She then relates the encounter between the half-elf Dilvish and the sorcerer, as Jelerak was about to sacrifice a virgin in order to work his black magic.

Jelerak turned the heroic Dilvish into stone, and sent his soul to Hell. A couple of centuries later, Dilvish managed to return to life, this time with a talking steel horse as his mount. The rest of the story shows us why it's a bad idea to speak the name of Jelerak.

Although Dilvish only appears in flashback, he dominates the story, becoming a fascinating character. The author's style is poetic, creating a memorable sword-and-sorcery adventure. I hope we see more tales in this series.

Four stars.


This anonymous illustration appears at the end of the story. It has nothing to do with anything in the magazine.

The Destroyer, by Thomas N. Scortia

The setting is some time after a limited nuclear war, which apparently more-or-less destroyed Asia. The Western world, it seems, recovered nicely, leading to a society well on its way to a technological utopia. People travel by riding some kind of electromagnetic beams. For all intents and purposes, this is pretty much flying like Superman.

Anyway, the protagonist is the head of something called the Genetic Bank, which controls the manipulation of plant and animal genes. A government agent asks him to report any evidence of human genetic tampering, which is a crime so severe that it carries the only death penalty left on the book.

The hero investigates the case of a young boy named Julio. Although classified as severely mentally disabled, he has somehow managed to create a pair of magnetic blocks that produce a stream of energy between them.

Meanwhile, the main character's love interest, a woman just back from Titan, is dying from a fungus acquired on that moon of Saturn. When Julio removes a mole from the man's hand, just by thinking about it, you can predict what's going to happen at the end. Along the way the government agent gets involved in things, seeing Julio as a threat to the planet.

There are very few surprises in this tale of a kid with superhuman mental powers. The background is somewhat interesting, even if implausible. The premise that Earth folk have become timid and complacent, compared to those who explore the Solar System, was intriguing, but didn't lead to much. The notion that there is something inherently wrong with the accepted view of science, compared to the way the boy thinks, was unconvincing. Overall, I got the feeling that I've read this stuff before, as if it were a mediocre story from Analog.

Two stars.

The Penultimate Shore, by Stanley E. Aspittle, Jr.

A writer completely unknown to me spins a dream-like fantasy with hints of allegory. A man named Cipher winds up on a deserted shore after a shipwreck. Half-sunken into the ocean are the ruins of a city. He has visions of a boy and girl in the waves. A woman named Huitzlin, the Aztec word for hummingbird, emerges from the sea and becomes his lover. An old man called Thanatos shows up as well. It all leads up to Cipher's final fate.

I really don't know what to make of this story. It's full of beautiful and evocative descriptions, but the author's intention is opaque. The character's names are suggestive, but the symbolism is unclear, except for the way that Thanatos is explicitly connected with death. If nothing else, it made me think, which is a good thing, I suppose.

Three stars.

The Other Side of Time (Part Three of Three), by Keith Laumer

Our universe-hopping narrator escapes from the prehistoric world where he wound up last time with the help of his ape-man buddy from another reality. The hairy fellow explains that the evil folks from yet another parallel cosmos — another type of ape-men — destroyed the hero's home world.

All seems lost, until the buddy suggests that it might be possible to travel to that universe in such a way that the narrator arrives there before it's wiped out. In a nutshell, time travel.

The hero shows up just a short time before things are going to go very badly indeed. Not only does he face the menace of the invading ape-men, he has to convince the local authorities of his identity. Then there's the mysterious burning figure he encountered in the first installment; what does that have to do with anything?

After the relatively calm mood of the second part, the conclusion of the novel returns to the frenzied pace of the first part. There's also a lot of scientific double talk to try to justify the odd way that time travel operates in this story. It held my interest, even if I didn't believe in anything that was happening for a moment. Compared to the highly enjoyable middle section, the rest of the novel is merely a decent enough science fiction action yarn.

Three stars.


Another piece of filler art. I actually like this abstract image.

The Little Doors, by David R. Bunch

Two pages of pure surrealism from the the magazine's most controversial author. Some white egg-shaped things come out of the little doors of the title and onto an egg-shaped stage. Rectangular black things show up, open the lids of the egg-things, put pieces of themselves inside, and pull out small stones of multiple colors.

If the author is trying to make some kind of serious point, he doesn't help matters by called the stage ogg, the white things loolbools, and the black things guenchgrops. Maybe it's just my dirty mind, but I got the feeling that this was some kind of bizarre metaphor for human reproduction. I have to give it a little credit for sheer weirdness.

Two stars.


Has someone been doodling on the page?

Phog, by Piers Anthony

The inhabitants of a strange world face the menace of a seemingly sentient cloud of poisonous gas, as well as the deadly beast that lurks inside it. After losing his sister to the thing, a boy grows up to build an elaborate trap for it. Capturing and destroying the cloud and the creature is not at all easy, coming only at great cost.

The author certainly shows plenty of imagination. The way in which the young man uses sunlight, the cloud's only weakness, is interesting. Other than that, the plot proceeds just about the way you expect it to.

Three stars.

Silence, by J. Hunter Holly

Because the Noble Editor wishes to keep track of the number of female authors published in the genre magazines, allow me to point out the J stands for Joan. She's published half a dozen or so science fiction novels. I believe this is her first short story to see the light of day.

In an overpopulated future full of noisy gadgets, the level of sound increases to the point where people no longer hear. Their ears still work, you understand; it's just that their brains turn off the sensation of hearing. Music is just something that causes needles to move around on dials.

The protagonist is one such musician. He regains his hearing, in a society that has completely forgotten about sound, by blocking out all sources of noise, until his brain regains its lost function. His attempt to bring his rediscovery of real music to audiences leads to an ironic ending.

The premise is intriguing, if not the most believable one in the world. I found it hard to accept that music would survive in the way the story suggests among people who can't hear it. I'll admit that I liked the downbeat conclusion.

Three stars.

Before We Say Farewell

We have a typical issue of the magazine, with some high points, some low points, and a lot in the middle. I'd like to take a moment to look back on the editor's time with the publication. She introduced promising new writers like LeGuin, Disch, and Zelazny, who have already proved their worth. More questionably, she published the unique work of Bunch, which certainly tests the limits of fantastic literature. She also helped Leiber get back to the typewriter, which justifies her career all by itself. I'm sure we all wish her well in her new line of work.

Thanks, Cele!




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[May 14, 1965] Keep A Civil Tongue In Your Head (July 1965 Worlds of Tomorrow)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

The Four Forbidden Topics

Gathered around the dinner table with the family, or just chatting with friends, it's generally a good idea to avoid controversial subjects. Religion and politics, for example, are likely to lead to unpleasant arguments. Maybe Uncle Fred is a Goldwater buff, and Cousin Sue goes all the way with LBJ. Possibly you've got buddies who belong to different faiths, or none at all. Better to let sleeping dogs lie, and talk about something else.

The topic of money, or economics in general, may not be as controversial, but talking about how much you've got, or what somebody else earns, is generally considered to be in bad taste. As for sex, well, that's usually too personal to discuss, particularly if the kiddies are around.

Maybe it's a sign of the times, or maybe it's the influence of the British New Wave on science fiction, but the lead serial in the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow deals with religion, politics, and economics. That leaves sex, which shows up at the end of the magazine, like a tempting dessert.


Cover art by John Pederson, Jr.

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


Illustrations by Jack Gaughan

As indicated in the picture above, this novel takes place in a world of flying cars and other futuristic stuff. More relevant to the plot is the fact that automation results in a majority of folks being unemployed, but enjoying a reasonably comfortable existence in an affluent welfare society.

The protagonist hosts a radio show dealing with flying saucers, reincarnation, and other weird stuff. He's dating the daughter of the tycoon who owns the station, mostly in an attempt to move up to a position in television. Dad, daughter, and the station manager all belong to a right-wing organization dedicated to ferreting out commies and pinkos. (To give you some idea of this group, they think of the John Birch Society as too liberal.)

The manager asks our hero to check out the revival meetings of a preacher whom they suspect of subversion. He's supposed to be on a date with his wealthy girlfriend, so she reluctantly tags along.

The preacher speaks in vaguely religious language of an eccentric sort, frequently making reference to something called the All-Mother. What he really talks about, however, is the world's economic system, condemning wasteful practices such as pointless changes in car design, fads and fashions that come and go, planned obsolescence, and conspicuous consumption.

This is too much for the rich woman, so she heckles him. The preacher loses his temper and rants against makeup, fancy clothing, and elaborate hairdos. The next thing you know, the woman changes her ways, dressing simply and avoiding cosmetics. Not that she agrees with the guy, you understand; it's just that those things make her itch unbearably. Pretty soon the same thing happens to women all over the world, ushering in an era of down home, farm girl fashions.


Crisis in the radio studio!

The preacher winds up on the protagonist's radio show. Things get out of control, so the fellow goes into another tirade, this time against radio and, by extension, television.

The reader is way ahead of the characters by this point, so it's not a big surprise when all broadcasting goes haywire, forcing people to abandon their favorite forms of entertainment. With all those unemployed folks desperate for something to fill their hours, there's a sudden shortage of comic books and magazines. Bars and movie theaters are packed to overflowing. Even the preacher's revival meetings attract huge crowds, just because they have nothing else to do.


Would you buy a used car from this man?

Although not comic in tone, the novel has a strong satiric edge to it. The setting may be some years from now, but the author is really talking about today. The targets of his barbed examination of modern society are overproduction and excess consumption, as well as the seductive power of the electronic media.

The style is very readable, carrying you along as you follow the misadventures of the hapless hero. The preacher's astonishing ability to transform the world may not be particularly plausible, but once you swallow the premise the way it plays out is enjoyable.

Reynolds likes to play games with politics, and perform thought experiments with different economic systems, so I predict the second half of the novel will portray a new society, possibly a utopian one. We'll see if I'm right a couple of months from now.

Four stars.

Coming Out Party, by Robert Lory


Illustration by Norman Nodel

This brief tale begins with a young woman getting ready for the event mentioned in the title. Our first hint that something strange is going on is the fact that she's stark naked in front of her parents. The ceremony is also full of nude women. (Sorry, ladies, all the erotic content of this issue is obviously aimed at a male audience.)

I dare not say anything else about what happens, except to mention that the shock ending is an effective one. This is one of those stories that depends entirely on the twist in its tail. It succeeds at the modest goal it sets for itself.

Three stars.

The Shape of Us to Come, by Michael Girsdansky

Let's take a break from controversial topics of discussion and learn something about the way people might alter their bodies in the future. The author considers the fact that viruses inject their genetic information into the cells of other organisms, using the biological machinery of their hosts to reproduce themselves. The article speculates about the possibility of harnessing this ability to alter the genetics of humans in desirable ways.

Using this technique to treat diseases such as cancer seems reasonably plausible. The suggestion that the body might be changed in radical ways, to ensure survival on alien worlds, is a little less so. In any case, it's an interesting subject, and I learned something about viruses.

Three stars.

World of the Spectrum, by Emil Petaja


Illustrations by John Giunta

Take a look at that picture. We've got a muscular hero with a bladed weapon and a big, ugly monster. Am I reading the wrong magazine? Is this a sword-and-sorcery yarn, rescued from the yellowing pages of Weird Tales?

That's what it seems like at first, but we soon find out that this world of mighty barbarians fighting bizarre creatures exists for the amusement of the upper class on Earth, who vicariously experience the thrill of battle through a kind of telepathic sensory television.

The hero is in mental communication with a woman he thinks of as a princess in a castle located at the top of a cliff that nobody can climb. Naturally, he overcomes impossible odds and reaches the place, only to discover that things are not what they seem.


Don't look down!

The woman is actually a member of the upper class, who secretly belongs to a group of folks working to overthrow their repressive society. She uses a teleportation device to bring the man to Earth, teaching him about the place and enlisting him in her struggle. After many adventures, she confronts the ruler of the world, who turns out to be truly grotesque.


The heroine is shocked by what she sees.

Despite the science fiction explanation for everything, the story feels more like a fantasy adventure. The ruler of Earth might as well be another hideous monster for the hero to destroy. At first, the woman seems to be nothing more than a sexually provocative nitwit, but this is only a role she plays in order to further her plans. The main flaw is the need for a lot of expository dialogue to explain the complex background, with people telling each other things they should already know.

Three stars.

Lunar Weapons Tomorrow, by Joseph Wesley

Before we move on to sex, let's talk about something much less shocking, like war. (There's something wrong with that sentence, but I'll think about it later.)

The author starts this piece about military use of the Moon by dismissing the idea that it could be used to launch missiles at an enemy on Earth. He points out that this method is more difficult, more expensive, less effective, and less defensible than other ways of destroying the planet. Somehow I'm not reassured.

He goes on to imagine lunar military installations, assuming that these will be common in about twenty years or so. His prediction is that these will engage in a kind of lukewarm war, neither one completely destroying the other lest it be wiped out as well. Instead, the opposing forces make relatively minor forays against each other, fighting for territory in a futuristic version of the trench warfare of World War One.

The dry and rather frightening subject of this article is made more readable through the use of a fictional soldier on the Moon. We follow him as he watches for an enemy advance, and even engages in hand-to-hand combat, of a sort, in a spacesuit.

Three stars.

A Glass of Mars, by Robert F. Young


Illustrations by Gray Morrow

The version of the Red Planet depicted in this story is closer to the imaginings of Ray Bradbury than what most scientists believe. Maybe the Mariner 4 spacecraft, now on its way to Mars, will tell us who's right. Anyway, the plot takes place at least a full generation after people colonized the planet, building on the ancient ruins of the long-vanished Martians.

The main character is a new arrival, with romantic ideas about the distant past. In sharp contrast, his secretary, born on Mars, is all about the present. Like other women native to the planet, she is sexually assertive, openly boasting about her measurements, calling herself a sex machine, and offering to sleep with her boss (with the assumption that they will be married soon after.)

While commuting across the surface of Mars, the fellow is miraculously transported to the past. He meets a Martian woman, as delicately beautiful and demure as he imagined.

(In just about all ways except language, the Martian is completely human. We're told, more than once, that she has hyacinth hair. This rather obscure metaphor is taken from Edgar Allan Poe's ode To Helen, and it's not much clearer in the original. The allusion seems designed to suggest the man's dreamy vision of the ancient Martian woman, as romantic as Poe's poem.)


The ancient Martian and the modern human. Gentlemen, which one would you pick?

Without giving too much away, let's just say that the man's assumptions aren't completely accurate. I expected this to be a simple fable about the superiority of the past over the vulgarity of the present, but it's a little more complex than that. The author, no stranger to sentimental love stories and idealization of women, almost seems to be chiding himself for his romantic tendencies. The plot is pure fantasy, of course, but if you can get past that, it's worth a look.

Three stars.

Shall We Talk About It?

Overall, this was a pretty decent issue. Nothing was less than average, and the serialized novel was a high point. Maybe I'm just in a good mood. In any case, I would caution you to make sure that you discuss the themes raised in the magazine only under the right circumstances. Remember what Mom told you!


She didn't mention money or sex. Two out of four ain't bad.





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Magazine/Anthology, Serial

[May 12, 1965] Da Capo (June 1965 Amazing)

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by John Boston

Changing of the Guard

So here we are at the end of the Ziff-Davis Amazing and the editorship of Cele Lalli.  What’s next?  The magazine doesn’t say.  “Coming Next Month” is conspicuous by its absence, as are interior illustrations.  But the story is being told elsewhere.  The banner headline on Science Fiction Times for last month—if “banner” is the word for large crude mimeographed lettering—says “ ‘AMAZING’ AND ‘FANTASTIC’ GO BI-MONTHLY & ADD 32 PAGES,” just above “DON FORD IS DEAD!”

The first post-Z-D issue will be the August Amazing, and thereafter the magazines will be published in alternate months as the new owner and editor try to build circulation, by leaving each issue on sale for a longer time, in preparation for a return to monthly publication.  The new publisher, as previously disclosed, will be Sol Cohen, and now it is announced that the managing editor—presumably, the guy who picks the stories—will be Joseph Ross, actual name Joseph Wrzos, but he is showing mercy to native English spellers.

Part of the plan for the new Amazing (and the new Fantastic too) is to use reprints as part of the contents, along with the original illustrations, a policy the SF Times describes as a “well-liked” recent feature of the Ziff-Davis Amazing.  Well-liked by some, no doubt, but most of the stories seemed to me to have only historical interest. 

Worse, even partial reliance on reprints from Amazing is a bad bet at least for any long term, since Amazing has been pretty mediocre through most of its history.  During the 1930s it fell progressively further behind the limited competition of the day, both in circulation and in interest, and then was purchased by Ziff-Davis and put in the charge of the notorious Ray Palmer, whose instruction to writers is said to have been “Gimme bang-bang.” From 1938 to 1949 Palmer filled the magazine with formulaic and juvenile adventure fiction, much of it produced by a coterie of local Chicago writers who mostly published little or nothing elsewhere, with much of their output in Amazing appearing under “house names” (pseudonyms maintained by the publisher for work by multiple writers).

The magazine enjoyed a brief renaissance (well, maybe a nascence) starting in 1953 when it switched from pulp to digest size and, more importantly, raised its pay rates, attracting bigger names and better material.  But it didn’t last; the rates were cut, and the magazine reverted by late 1954 to calculated mediocrity: mostly formulaic contents written by a new stable of regulars, though they kept some of the old house names, such as the durable Alexander Blade, a byline that flourished from 1940 to 1958.  Little improvement was visible until about 1959, when new editor Cele Goldsmith began her salvage operation.

So the past of Amazing is a barrel whose bottom will be scraped quickly, full of fish mostly not worth shooting.  One hopes for something more forward-looking as well from the new regime.

The Issue at Hand


by Gray Morrow

This final Ziff-Davis issue exemplifies the decidedly mixed bag of the Cele Goldsmith/Lalli regime: a potboiler of a serial from a prominent writer, an exercise in the higher self-parody by one of her best-known discoveries, a brief inconsequential story by a completely unknown new writer . . . the inescapable nemesis Robert F. Young . . . and David R. Bunch, the writer the readers loved to hate.  Not only is his story flagged and illustrated on the cover, but Bunch is also profiled and quoted extensively in the final editorial.  (Usually they’re by Lobsenz, but this one isn’t signed.  Lalli, maybe, at last?) This celebration of Bunch might be viewed as a final gesture of defiance from the editorial team, especially given the cover illustration of a robot waving two sledge hammers in fury.  But . . . probably not.  After all, Lalli is sticking around Ziff-Davis to edit Modern Bride.

The Corridors of Time (Part 2 of 2), by Poul Anderson

The largest fiction item is the conclusion of Poul Anderson’s perfectly adequate but neither inspired nor inspiring serial The Corridors of Time, the title of which is unfortunately literal.  Our hero Lockridge has been hired by the beautiful, enigmatic, and imperious Storm Dalloway to help her find some buried treasure in Jutland, but what she’s really about is a time war.  Turns out there are two contending factions, the Wardens and the Rangers, the former (Storm’s side) supporting a relaxed social philosophy consonant with matriarchal religion and traditional knowledge, the latter supporting a more regimented view consonant with science and patriarchal religion (to oversimplify grossly—and it is a bit of a set-up on Anderson’s part). 

So how does this time war work?  Well, there’s the rub, or lack of one.  Unlike its predecessors—Leiber’s Change War series, Jack Williamson’s The Legion of Time, Anderson’s own Time Patrol stories—in this one, you can’t change history.  So . . . what’s the point?  Well, as the synopsis (presumably written by Anderson) puts it, an agent can “become part of it, setting the mark of his own civilization on a culture and thus building up reserves for a final showdown.” That’s not changing history?  Maybe just a little?

This makes no sense at all, and undermines the story.  The time travel mechanism doesn’t help either.  The Corridors of Time are just that, long corridors buried in the earth at various places, with access to various times over spans of a few thousand years; just walk or ride down the corridor, and you go 35 days per foot, and you take the exit you want for the time you want, and also you can have chases and shootouts up and down the corridor, as happens within the first few pages.  As icons of the imagination go, this is pretty unimaginative.

On the plus side, Anderson gets to chase his characters around various historical eras, which Anderson seems to know well and in most cases to prefer to the present, and Lockridge reluctantly finds himself with an appealing Neolithic girlfriend (setting up an . . . unusual . . . triangle with Miss Dalloway), and ultimately Lockridge decides not to go back to the Twentieth Century, in a final affirmation of the barbarian virtues.  Overall, perfectly readable product, but below standard for a writer who has done much better.  Three stars, barely.  There’s a note indicating an expanded version is to come from Doubleday later.

The Furies, by Roger Zelazny

Roger Zelazny’s novelet The Furies is ridiculous—purposefully so, it seems.  The author spends the first six pages in exposition, introducing us to Sandor Sandor, catastrophically disabled, but also a non-idiot savant with encyclopedic knowledge and memory of places all around the galaxy; Benedick Benedict, who upon shaking hands with another person, becomes privy to all that person’s most shameful secrets, which he proceeds to gossip about—and his talents extend to inanimate objects and animals; Lynx Links, who “looked like a beachball with a beard” but by calling is the galaxy’s most accomplished assassin; and (former) Captain Victor Corgo, “the man without a heart” (literally, replaced by a machine), formerly “a terror to brigands and ugly aliens, a threat to Code-breakers, and a thorn in the sides of evil-doers everywhere,” but now gone wrong.

The first three of these are the Furies, so-called by the author after the ancient Greeks’ “chthonic goddesses of vengeance” (says the Britannica), here retained by the authorities to chase down Corgo, a sort of Captain Nemo figure who has turned against humanity based on outrages we need not recount.  The story is rendered throughout in extravagant language and stylized dialogue.  A mid-range sample of the former:

“One time the Wallaby [Corgo’s spaceship] was a proud Guardship, an ebony toadstool studded with the jewel-like warts of fast-phase projectors.  One time the Wallaby skipped proud about the frontier worlds of Interstel, meting out the unique justice of the Uniform Galactic Code—in those places where there was no other law.  One time the proud Wallaby, under the command of Captain Victor Corgo of the Guard, had ranged deep space and time and become a legend under legendary skies.”

So what we have here is midway between a technical exercise and a barroom bet.  Zelazny has taken about the most hackneyed materials available and tried to render them publishable by pure force of his considerable writing skill, no doubt enhanced by his theatrical background, and he has succeeded.  That is, he has dazzled enough rubes to get this into print, and has considerably amused me.  If the young Shakespeare had started out in comic books (the names and talents of the Furies certainly suggest comic-book superheroes), the result might have been similar.  Four stars, but watch it, guy: you can’t get away with this more than once.  Or can you?

The Walking Talking I-Don't-Care Man, by David R. Bunch

As for Bunch (and speaking of extravagant language) the latest Moderan tale The Walking Talking I-Don’t-Care Man is made of that, though it’s more straightforward and lucid than some of its predecessors.  The titular Man has had himself entirely replaced with metal, unlike Bunch’s protagonist in his Stronghold who still hangs on to his flesh-strips.  The Man purports to have resolved the great philosophical dilemma of human existence by giving up humanity . . . but he still wouldn’t mind finding God and going after it with his sledge hammers. 

One could conclude that this meditation, or harangue, on last things might be the end of the Moderan series . . . except the point seems to be that last things really aren’t last.  But hey, four stars, at least in the spirit of “best of breed,” which I’d say this is for Bunch.  Note to future bibliographers: the commas in the title on the cover do not appear inside the magazine.

Rumpelstiltskinski, by Robert F. Young

And now comes the inexorable reckoning: Robert F. Young, square athwart the road, and no shoulder to slip by on.  First the bad news: Rumplestiltskinski is another of Young’s affected fairy tale rehashes, beginning “Once there was a miller who was car-poor but who had a luscious dish of a daughter named Ada.” The good news: it’s quite short and ostentatiously pointless, a sort of shaggy fairy story, perhaps signifying that Young is getting tired of himself.  Let me encourage him in that.  One star.

Satyr, by Judith E. Schrier

Finally, and almost imperceptibly, we have Satyr, a (very) short story by Judith E. Schrier.  Who?  Precisely—no one else has heard of her either, at least according to the available indexes.  An unmarried older woman works the night shift as a computer operator and the computer professes its love, she realizes how masculine it is, etc. etc. to the obvious end. Slickly written, at least.  Two stars, barely.

Lo! The Poor Forteans, by Sam Moskowitz

Sam Moskowitz plays out his season (rumor having it that he won’t be part of the new Amazing) with Lo! The Poor Forteans, a moderately interesting biographical sketch of Charles Fort and history of the Fortean movement, such as it is or was.  There is also some rambling and mostly perfunctory discussion of the Fortean influence in science fiction, much of which we know about because the authors (like Edmond Hamiliton and Eric Frank Russell) have commented on it, but much of which is questionable (The Children’s Hour by Lawrence O’Donnell a/k/a C.L. Moore?  I doubt it).  Moskowitz has also omitted some other fairly obvious candidates like Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters.  Moskowitz also tediously belabors his own disdain for Forteanism.  But still, three stars, chiefly for the history and not the commentary.

Summing Up

The Ziff-Davis Amazing under Lalli was always full of promise but never managed to deliver on it for more than a month or two at a time.  It winds down on a respectable note, with above-average stories from two of its most characteristic authors, plus a competent middle-of-the-road serial.  Quo nunc vadis Amazing?

Speaking of changed circumstances at publishing houses, please read this — it's important!




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Book, Magazine/Anthology

[May 8, 1965] Skip to the end (June 1965 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Impatience

Normally, I'd open up with a discussion at length of the news of the day.  Like how the United States is still knee-deep in the Dominican Republic, losing soldiers to snipers every day despite the ceasefire between the current military-civilian junta government and the supporters of ousted President Bosch.

Or that Collie Wilkins Jr. was acquitted by a 10-2 hung jury in a trial for the murder of civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo, shot in her car after the Selma rallies.  Wilkins' defense attorney's statements included language so profane and racist that I cannot transcribe them here.

Or that the comedy/news show, That was the Week that Was, had its final show on May 4th.

And then, having given my report, I'd tie it pithily to the subject at hand, namely the June 1965 Galaxy science fiction digest.  But the fact is, there's lots to cover and I'm anxious to get it all down while it's still fresh in my mind.  So, you'll just have to pretend that I was clever and comprehensive in my introduction.  On to the important stuff:

Bob Sheckley and friends


by George Schelling

As is happening more and more often, the king-sized bi-monthly, Galaxy, is dominated by a short novel this month.  This time, it's by a fellow who probably was the best SF short story writer of the 1950s.  Bob Sheckley has turned to novels of late with something less than (to my mind) great success. The Journey of Joenes, The Status Civilization, Time Killer — none of them were triumphs, though some disagree.  Will this time be different?

Mindswap, by Robert Sheckley

Young Marvin Flynn is bored to death of living in the bucolic New York town of Stanhope, desperate enough to risk "mindswap."  And so, Marvin exchanges minds with the Martian, Aigeler Thrus.  Unfortunately, Thrus' body was currently occupied by the unscrupulous Ze Kraggash, who had taken residency to elude the police after a crime.  Thrus is entitled to his body; Kraggash has Flynn's.  This leaves Flynn six hours to find a body, any body, or be extinguished forever.


by George Schelling

An increasingly frantic Flynn ends up bopping across the galaxy, first as a collector of sentient ganzer-eggs on Melde, somewhere near Aldeberan; then on to Celsus for a stint as a professional victim wearing a ticking time bomb gift; and ultimately to a reality-bending place called The Twisted World.

It's complete fluff, vaguely satirical and fun-pointing, but for the most part, pointless.  I went along with it, mildly amused for about 60 pages, before my tolerance ran out and I skimmed the rest.  Unlike Harrison's brilliant and cutting Starsloggers, Mindswap is just self-indulgent…and far too long. 

Two stars.

Servant Problem, by Otis Kidwell Burger

On the dreary, sandstorm-plagued planet of Dexter, there's little for the married couples to do but drink and kvetch about their house-servants, a race of off-putting aliens that only look like middle-aged spinsters.  After an endless seven pages of this stuff, we learn that the servants are actually the masters, and the humans are being evaluated for their level of social development.  Turns out they're in the emotional equivalent of kindergarten.

Yeah, I didn't get it either.  Two stars.

Blue Fire, by Robert Silverberg

Nat Weiner, visitor from newly terraformed Mars, the "Sparta of space," arrives on Earth to sample the luxuries of an overcrowded, decadent world.  Assigned to escort him is Reynolds Kirby, a "major bureacrat who gets paid like a minor one."  Together, they attend a spiritual gathering of the devotees of Vorster, a pseudo-scientific cult that preaches the unity of humanity and worships at the altar of the cobalt reactor. 

Vorsterism is just one of many avenues of relief against the physical and mental crush of living amongst 10 billions; hallucinogens are also popular, and the upperclassmen, like Kirby, favor the sensory deprivation "Nothing Chambers".  Cosmetic replacement of external features with metal and plastic substitutes is popular. 


by Jack Gaughan

As the tour of the once-proud homeworld progresses, Weiner becomes increasingly belligerent, resolved to steal a Vorster nuke and put it to "worthwhile use" as an energy-generating reactor on Mars.  Through Kirby's interactions with Weiner, and with the Vanna, a Vorsterian with a face modifed to inhuman grotesqueness, Kirby comes to see his own life as a hollow shell of an existence and reconsiders all of his carefully created precepts.

Blue Fire is a day-in-the-life of a fellow on the edge of a midlife crisis in a tired world.  With deft writing and vivid imagery, Silverberg accomplishes in 25 pages what usually takes Philip K. Dick a full novel.

Five stars.

Think of a Man, by Karen Anderson

Poetess Anderson offers up a latter-day space shanty.  It might make a decent filk, but it will likely leave no great impression on you.

Three stars.

For Your Information: The Observatory on the Moon, by Willy Ley

Observatory on the Moon, by Donald H. Menzel

An Eye For Selene, by R. S. Richardson

The idea that astronomy is better conducted on the Moon than Earth is an old one.  Not only is Earth's celestial neighbor airless, but its slow rotation makes it much easier to do long film exposures.

This should be a fascinating topic; instead, this is probably the least interesting article Ley's ever written.  A truly disappointing development for a column that was a major selling point when I first began my subscription to Galaxy 15 years ago. 

The short counterpoint following the main article is equally undistinguished.  Richardson's comments, on the other hand, are interesting. 

Barely three stars for the lot.

Devil Car, by Roger Zelazny

Sam Murdock speeds across the Great Central Plain of a post-apocalyptic United States in his sentient car, name of Jenny.  His monomaniacal mission: to destroy the black Devil Car and his minions, who have been savaging the continent.  Though Murdock's conviction never wavers, Jenny is torn between her programmed loyalty to her driver, and to the Devil Car's sirensong call to join his pack.

Plausible?  Not for a second.  Slick and enjoyable?  Absolutely.  Four stars, and I'll bet this gets optioned for a movie or episode of a Twilight Zone revival.

One Face, by Larry Niven


by Nodel

Last up is the third short story from this promising new writer, which may or may not take place in the same universe as his recent short novel, World of Ptavvs.  The passenger liner, Hogan's Goat, has an accident in hyperspace on the way to Earth.  It ends up at the right place but billions of years in the future.  The Sun is a burned out husk, and humanity's home is an airless world with one face permanently locked toward its star.  With no way home and nowhere to go, Verd Spacercaptain, his crew and passengers, and their increasingly debilitated computer Brain must find a way to survive.

I'm not entirely sold on the science of this piece, but Niven has a way of creating a very rich world in just a few pages.  It's also obvious that Niven is a new writer: his cohort has no problem with presenting women as equal partners and in roughly equal numbers to men; moreover, he displays no preference in terms of skin tone or ethnicity.

Four stars.

Satisfaction

How to judge the latest Galaxy?  It contains a full issue's worth of slag, but then again, it contains almost a full issue's worth of gold.  Perhaps it needs to be a regular length bi-monthly?

Especially since editor Pohl is crowing about how next month's novel will be even longer, and by Frank Herbert.

God help us all…

Our last three Journey shows were a gas!  You can watch the kinescope reruns here).  You don't want to miss the next episode, May 9 at 1PM PDT, a special Arts and Entertainment edition featuring Arel Lucas, Cora Buhlert, Erica Frank…and Dr. Who producer, Verity Lambert! Register today and we'll make sure you don't forget.




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