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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 16, 1965] Crime and Punishment (January 1966 Worlds of Tomorrow)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Breaking The Law On Stage

An incident in the United Kingdom earlier this month caught my attention and made me think about the limitations on artistic expression. The play Saved by Edward Bond had its premiere on November 3rd at the Royal Court Theatre in London. What does this have to do with violations of the law? Well, that requires a bit of explanation, particularly for those of us on this side of the Atlantic.

You see, ever since 1843, all plays produced for the public in England have to be licensed by the Lord Chamberlain. (Please don't ask me to explain what a Lord Chamberlain might be. That's far beyond my feeble American mind.)

The current Lord Chamberlain refused to grant a license to Saved unless it were severely censored. The folks at the Royal Court Theatre put it on anyway, trying to get around the letter of the law by calling it a private performance. From what I hear, they're going to get in trouble with the authorities anyway.


A scene from the play, in which a baby is stoned to death. You can see why this might be considered controversial.

Justice Between The Pages

Fittingly, many of the stories, and even a nonfiction article, in the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow deal with criminals and crimefighters, in literal or in metaphorical ways.


Cover art by Mclane. Once again, the only thing I can find out about this artist is a last name.

Project Plowshare (Part Two of Two), by Philip K. Dick


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

It takes a while for the crime aspect of this novel to show up. Meanwhile, let's recap a bit.

In the future, the Cold War has evolved into a purely symbolic struggle. Each side has a psychic who uses drugs to perceive visions of designs for weapons. The trick is that these things are really used to manufacture odd consumer items. The ruling government, capitalist or communist, fools the public into thinking it's winning the arms race. When threatening alien spacecraft show up, the two powers bring the psychics together, hoping that they will be able to come up with a real weapon.


The invaders, who never directly appear in the story.

Things get pretty darn complicated in the second half of the novel. We find out quickly that the weapon designs perceived by the psychics come from a trashy comic book, which doesn't offer much hope for victory against the aliens. They're a serious menace, as we learn when entire cities disappear behind obscuring mists. Meanwhile, romance blooms between the two psychics, leading to a classic example of the Eternal Triangle.


Jealousy rears its green-eyed head.

Add in androids and time travel, and you've got a convoluted plot that leaves the reader dizzy. Oh, and the criminal subplot I hinted at above? That comes in the form of a nasty fellow who, for his own petty reasons, plots to assassinate members of the government who rejected him. He even kills folks who were foolish enough to join his conspiracy.


A man and his gun.

The author tosses everything but the kitchen sink into this yarn. At times, I thought he was making fun of science fiction, given the large number of mixed-up SF elements. There's definitely a touch of satire here and there, but it's not a comic novel. Some parts, in fact, are tragic. It definitely held my interest throughout, even if the climax seems to be thrown together hastily.

Four stars.

The Sleuth in Science Fiction, by Sam Moskowitz

The indefatigable historian of fantastic fiction traces the development of detective stories in the field. Starting with a nod to Edgar Allan Poe, he delves into the dusty pages of very early pulp magazines. Much of the stuff he digs up has to do with lie detection technology. This article takes the reader up to about 1930, and a sequel is promised.

Moskowitz certainly has an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject. I can admire his scholarship, but the resulting essay makes for very dry reading.

Two stars.

Sunk Without Trace, by Fritz Leiber

The weird creatures on the cover of the magazine appear in this story. One of them has a dream about an object that landed on their world, while his more practical wife insists that he get back to processing the seaweed that serves as their food. It's clear from the start that the thing is a spacecraft from Earth — the editor's blurb gives it away, too — but the rest of the plot may be a bit more surprising.

There's not much to this work other than the premise and the setting, but those are intriguing enough to make it worth a look. Of course, Leiber is incapable of writing a bad sentence, so the style adds a lot. Overall, it's a decent effort from an author who often does much better.

Three stars.

At Journey's End, by J. T. McIntosh


Illustrations by Dan Adkins.

We jump right into a confrontation between criminals and law enforcement, in a particularly crude form, near the beginning of this story of a starship on its way to a new home for humanity.

After decades of travel, it seems that tensions among the crew have reached the boiling point. A couple of murders result, and the captain acts as judge, jury, and executioner, killing those guilty on the spot. Without giving too much away, let's just say that justice is truly blind here, playing no favorites at all.

After this grim opening, we watch the ship approach the planet. They have a big surprise waiting for them when they arrive. It all leads up to a darkly ironic ending.


Our three protagonists, awaiting their fate.

At first glance, I thought the first part didn't have much to do with the resolution. After musing over it for a while, however, I realize that the author intended the two scenes to provide a sort of thematic contrast. Some of what happens may be predictable. Taken as a whole, this is a serviceable, if undistinguished, story.

Three stars.

Stars, Won't You Hide Me?, by Ben Bova

In this case, the criminal is the human race as a whole, and the punishment comes from aliens determined to wipe out the entire species. When the story begins, in fact, there is only one human being left alive, alone in his automated spaceship, wandering through the cosmos in an attempt to escape judgment.

During his eons-long journey, which leads him across gigantic distances in space, he learns of humanity's crime and discovers what became of Earth. The climax leads to a final scene of almost unimaginable immensity.

The most notable thing about this story is the vastness of the author's vision. I don't think I've read anything that covers such enormous amounts of time, except maybe the works of Olaf Stapledon. In addition to that, there's a great deal of emotional appeal. If you think Bova is just a decent science writer, you may be surprised.

Five stars.

How To Understand Aliens, by Robert M. W. Dixon

Let's get away from criminology for a while and talk about linguistics. The author imagines the difficulty of communicating with the inhabitants of other worlds. As examples, he creates beings who spend most of their time burrowing underground, as well as aliens who fly. The point seems to be that culture has an important effect on language, and it's not just a matter of translating things word-for-word.

Dixon seems to know his stuff, as evidenced by his discussion of human languages unfamiliar to most speakers of English. The fictional aliens make the article more readable than just a dry discussion of the topic.

Three stars.

Buggaratz, by John Jakes

The military has its own system of justice, dealing with such crimes as lack of discipline. That's a problem for the commander of a small outfit on another planet. The only function of the unit is to produce inflatable uniforms as toys. Given this dull and trivial chore, it's not a shock to find out that things have gotten awfully lax around the place.

A visit from an inspecting officer threatens to expose how badly the situation has gotten out of hand. The presence of the habit-forming substance named in the title doesn't help matters.

This is a pretty silly comedy, with maybe a trace of satire directed at military thinking. It's an inoffensive bit of fluff, unlikely to make much of an impression on you.

Two stars.

Riverworld, by Philip Jose Farmer


Illustrations by Jack Gaughan.

As you may recall, one year ago the magazine offered Farmer's novella Day of the Great Shout, wherein everybody who ever lived on Earth was resurrected on a planet dominated by one huge river. This new tale takes place in the same setting.

The hero is cowboy movie star Tom Mix. Along with a woman who lived during the time of Moses, and a man who died nearly two thousand years ago, he sails down the river, escaping a brutal religious dictatorship. The trio join forces with some friendly folks from the Renaissance, and war breaks out with the bad guys.


A battle along the river.

There's lots of violent action, to be sure, but that's not really the most important part of the story. The author deals with religion in ways that may seem blasphemous to many readers.

The identity of the fellow traveling with Tom Mix is clear from the start, but I won't reveal it here. Suffice to say that this is likely to be the most controversial part of the story. The fact that the two men look almost exactly alike raises a lot of questions in my mind, which seem likely to remain unanswered.

Farmer has his hands on a strong premise here, with lots of possibilities. (Another story in the series is promised for the next issue.) I'll definitely keep reading to find out who else I'll run into along the river.

Four stars.

The Verdict

In the case of The People v. FP et al., the court dismisses all charges against PKD and PJF, with special commendation for BB. The other defendants are released with a warning to avoid tedium in the future, an admonition particularly directed at SM and JJ. The court further directs FP, leader of the accused, to retain the services of a good lawyer, in case of further charges in the future.


I don't think this guy ever lost a case.




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 10, 1965] Strangers in Strange Lands (December 1965 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Time for the Stars

I was having a lovely conversation with fellow traveler Kris about the mixed reviews for the British anthology show, Out of the Unknown.  Some critics are saying the stories aired would have been better served in a conventional setting rather than on Mars or wherever.

Indeed, this has been a common complaint for decades, that science fiction should be uniquely SF with stories that depend on some kind of scientific difference/unique setting, even if many of the trappings are familiar.

Galaxy is a magazine that has led this charge since its inception in 1950 and it therefore comes as no surprise that this month's issue features a myriad of settings that are in no way conventional, backdrops for stories that could take place in no genre but science fiction.

Citizens of the Galaxy


by John Pederson, Jr.

The Mercurymen, by C. C. MacApp

On the face of things, Mercury would seem a most inhospitable planet for colonization.  Until this year, the general conception of things was that the innermost planet of our solar system was tidally locked, presenting just one baked hemisphere eternally toward the sun, while the other remained in perpetual frigid night.


by Gray Morrow

C. C. MacApp offers up a most imaginative tale set on this half-cooked world.  The planet, or at least the twilight zone between the hot and cold sides, is overrun with the vines of a plant, the interiors of which are large enough and contain sufficient air and water to support human inhabitants.  How they plant came about or how the settlers came to dwell in them is a mystery, but hundreds of years later, the colonists have reverted to near savagery.  The ecosystem of the vines provides most of their needs: latex for vacuum suits, luminescent mold for light, oxygen-producing fungus for air.  But for precious metals and for new soil for crops, the denizens must venture into the airless waste outside.

Similarly, population pressure periodically forces tribes to split, members of a certain age tasked to form a new settlement further along the vine. The Mercurymen is the tale of Lem, eldest son of a recently expired chief, who leads a party out over the bleak landscape of Mercury in search of a new hope.  Along the way, he must deal with a deadly environment, hostile tribes, and treachery within the group.

Because so many of the concepts are alien, even as the characters are human, The Mercurymen can occasionally be a detailed, hard read.  Nevertheless, I appreciated MacApp's world building quite a lot, and I was carried along with Lem on his engaging, difficult adventure.  The novella would merit expansion into full length novel though the following discovery may require a complete change in setting to make it work:

From Nature, Volume 208, Issue 5008, pp. 375 (October 1965):

Rotation Period of the Planet Mercury, by McGovern, W. E.

The recent radar measurements of Mercury indicate that the period of rotation of the planet is 59 +/- 5 days1. This result is in complete disagreement with the previously quoted value of 88 days based on the visual observations of the markings on Mercury2-6. In this communication we show that the same visual observations can not only be reconciled with the radar-determined rotation period of Mercury but, in addition, can be used to derive an improved value for the period of rotation of the planet, namely, 58.4 +/- 0.4 days.

Yes, Mercury isn't tidally locked at all, and the stories that made use of this presumption are now all obsolete.  Editor Pohl may even have known this even when he put this issue to bed, as the news first broke in June.

Still, it's a good story, and again, you can squint your eyes and pretend it takes place on a different one-face world entirely.

Three stars.

Galactic Consumer Reports No. 1: Inexpensive Time Machines, by John Brunner

The latest Galaxy non-fact article is written in the style of the venerable magazine Consumer Reports, offering evaluation of six cut-rate personal time machines. 

The aforementioned Kris noted that there seem to be two John Brunners: one who writes Hugo-worthy material like The Whole Man and Listen! The Stars… and another who churns out hackwork.  I'd say this piece is representative of a third Brunner, neither outstanding nor unworthy.  It's a cute piece, although I would have appreciated a little more time travel in it.

Three stars.

Laugh Along With Franz, by Norman Kagan


by John Giunta

In a disaffected future, "None of the Above" (the so-called "Kafka" vote) threatens to become the electoral candidate of choice.

More pastiche of outlandish societal explorations than tale, I found myself falling asleep every few pages.  I'm afraid Norm Kagan continues not to do it for me.

One star.

For Your Information: The Healthfull Aromatick Herbe, by Willy Ley

A rather defensive Willy Ley discusses the history of tobacco in his latest science article.  It's actually pretty interesting, though I am no closer to taking up the still-ubiquitous pasttime than I was before.

Four stars.

The Warriors of Light, by Robert Silverberg


by Jack Gaughan

In the previously published story, Blue Fire, Silverberg introduced us to an Earth of the late 21st Century, one that worships the Vorster cult.  Vorster and his disciples cloak the scientific pursuit of immortality with a bunch of religious mumbo jumbo, complete with a rosary of the wavelengths of light.

Warriors of Light is not a sequel to Blue Fire, per se.  Instead, it is a story from a completely different perspective, that of an initiate of Vorsterianism who is recruited by a heretical group to steal some of the cult's deepest serets.

Reportedly, Silverbob produces 50,000 words of salable material per week, enough to make it seem like SF is his full time career even though it's just a fraction of his overall output.  Light is not the brilliant piece that its predecessor was, but the Cobalt-90 worshipping future Earth remains an intriguing setting, and I look forward to the next story that takes place therein.

Three stars.

"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman, by Harlan Ellison

In Ellison's latest tale, The Master Timekeeper, a.k.a. the Ticktockman, is the arbiter of justice for a chronologically regulated humanity.  Everything runs to schedule; tardiness is punishable by the lost of years from one's lifespan.  There is no room for deviation, nonconformity.

Yet one clownish fellow, known as The Harlequin, cannot be restrained.  His antics distract, his capers disrupt, his personality compells.  This dangerous threat must be stopped.  But in erasing the heretic, can even the master inquisitor escape just a little of the nonconformist contagion?

This is the most symbolic of Ellison's work to date, and with a deliberate, almost juvenile storytelling aspect that veers toward the Vonnegutian.  I appreciate what Harlan is doing here, but there's a lack of subtlety, a ham-handedness that makes the piece less effective than much of his other work.

Oh, my telephone is ringing.  One moment. 

Ah.  Harlan says I'm an ignorant so-and-so and if I withdrew my head from my seat, I might be able to better comprehend his work.  (Note: this is not an exact transliteration).

Anyway, three stars.

The Age of the Pussyfoot (Part 2 of 3), by Frederik Pohl


by Wallace Wood

Last up is the continuation of last month's serial by editor Pohl, who is indulging himself in his first love, writing.  Forrester, who died in the late 1960s only to be ressurrected in the 25th Century when medical technology was up to the task, has run out of dough and has become employed by the one boss who will have him, an alien from Sirius, member of a race with whom Earth is currently in a Cold War.

In this installment, we learn about how this state of not-quite conflict came to be, as well as about the Forgotten Men, the penniless humans who make a living outside of normal society.  We also learn how difficult it is to survive when one cannot pay the bill on one's "joymaker," the ubiquitous hand-held combination telephone, personal computer, and electronic valet. 

Let us hope that we never get so reliant on this kind of technology that we find ourselves similarly helpless without them!

Pussyfoot continues to be entertaining and imaginative, far more effective in execution of its subject than similarly themed Kagan piece, though less satirical in its second installment than its first.

Four stars.

Beyond This Horizon

My Heinlein motif for the article section titles may be a little misplaced given that R.A.H. doesn't appear in the pages of Galaxy this month. Call it artistic license since his most recent novels are coming out (or have come out) in sister mags Worlds of Tomorrow and IF.

Anyway, at the very least, the stories in the December 1965 Galaxy hold to the Heinlein tradition of fundamentally incorporating unique settings. No transplanted Westerns or soap operas here!

For the most part, it works, resulting in a solid 3-star issue. Why don't you pick up a copy, Space Cadet, and see if you agree!




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 2, 1965] Revolution! (December 1965 IF)

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by David Levinson

Americans have an odd relationship with revolution. They’re quite proud of their own, but extremely leery of anyone else’s. But revolution seems to be the natural order of things in the 20th century. Not all of them have been violent, nor have all of them been political. And no doubt we will see many more – political, scientific, economic, social and even sexual – before the decade, let alone the century is out.

Revolution turned upside-down

Since the end of the War, the major colonial powers of the 19th century have been gradually handing over control of their colonies to the native people. It hasn’t always been voluntary, nor has it always been smooth. But the British seem to be doing better than the others at handing over power. Most transitions have gone smoothly, though not perfectly. Until now.

Negotiations have been ongoing with Rhodesia since last year. The sticking point has been an improvement in the status of Black Rhodesians and an end to racial discrimination, insisted on by the United Kingdom. The white Rhodesian government led by Prime Minister Ian Smith is vigorously opposed the idea of equality for Blacks.

Talks broke down on October 8th over the issue of majority rule. With rumors circulating that Rhodesia will declare independence, the U. N. General Assembly voted 107-2 to call on the United Kingdom to use military force to prevent such an event. Ten days later, the Organization of African Unity passed a similar declaration. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson has gone to Rhodesia to continue negotiations, apparently without success. On the 30th, Wilson gave a press conference before returning home in which he stated that a unilateral declaration of independence would be treason, but that the United Kingdom would rely on trade sanctions and ruled out the use of military force against “kith and kin”. A peaceful resolution does not seem to be at hand.


Harold Wilson (l.) and Ian Smith (r.)

Revolutions start to finish

Americans may not like the idea of revolution in the real world, but as part of their national mythology it turns up frequently in fiction. This month’s IF is filled with revolution, both political and otherwise.


There’s no clue what this odd revolutionary slogan means. Fred Pohl promises an answer next month. Art by Morrow

Continue reading [November 2, 1965] Revolution! (December 1965 IF) →

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 24, 1965] "What time is it?" (October Galactoscope)

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By Jason Sacks

Well, so far this has been a great month. Last week saw the end of a dynamite World Series, in which Sandy Koufax, the greatest pitcher of his generation, showed himself to be one of the greatest Jews of his generation as well. It was tremendously meaningful to my family that Sandy refused to start Game 1 for the Dodgers against the Minnesota Twins since the day coincided with our holy day of Yom Kippur.

As Sandy said, "I've taken Yom Kippur off every year for the last 10 years. It was just something I've always done out of respect."

As if that wasn't good enough, Koufax dominated games 5 and 7 of the series, with his electric fastball mowing down batters in a pair of crucial shutout victories. The Twins played well, and  were outstanding American League champs – Tony Oliva is a monster – but it seems the Koufax gave the Dodgers the edge, and turned the '65 Series into a classic.

At the movie theatre, my wife and I caught The Bedford Incident last week at our favorite theatre here in north Seattle. If you haven't had a chance to see it yet, the film is well worth a night out — if, that is, you can handle an intense and sometimes bleak drama.


Richard Widmark turns in a powerful performance as a zealous battleship captain on the search for an elusive Soviet nuclear submarine. Also featuring Sidney Poitier and Martin Balsam, this black and white drama treads similar ground to last year's thrilling Fail Safe and ends in a similarly dramatic way.

The Hunter Out of Time, by Gardner F. Fox

If it seems like I'm dragging my feet a bit before talking about my entry for this month's Galactoscope, well, you're right. Gardner Fox's new novel is the epitome of mediocrity, a book that will give you 40¢ worth of excitement but not a whole lot more. The fantastic Mr. Fox is a prolific author who churns out more books and comic book stories than nearly anyone else living. Sometimes that causes him to create some delightful work. Other times it seems like he is just delivering words just to deliver him a paycheck. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that – I'm sure the man has a mortgage to pay – but it also represents a lost opportunity.

See, this book starts out with one of the most striking first lines I can remember.

I saw myself dying on the other side of the street.

The first page builds on that momentum, with the protagonist describing his body as "blood oozed over my fingers where I held that awesome wound."

I mean, seriously, how can you read a first page like that without feeling like you have to read more? Mr. Fox is an old pro and he clearly knows some classic tricks. As I read that book, I leaned back, took a deep breath, and readied myself for a page-turning thrill ride.


Cover by Gray Morrow

But, dear reader, I'm sorry to inform you that all the best writing in The Hunter Out of Time happens on the first couple of pages. It soon turns out that the man who falls to Earth is a time traveler from the far, far future who traveled back through a supposedly impregnable barrier to steal the man's identity. The time traveler is named Chan Dahl and soon other time-displaced men come to our time, confuse our guy, Kevin Cord for Dahl, and that unleashes the most obvious and cliched adventure you can imagine.

There's little in The Hunter Out of Time you haven't seen before. Fox gives us fantastic devices, headspinning time travel with seemingly arbitrary rules, and the obligatory beautiful, weak babe from the future.  Of course Cord uses his native 20th century skills to overcome his opposition, of course Cord and the woman fall in love, and of course Fox leaves room for a sequel if somehow people want to read more of this frightfully ordinary pap.

I could go on and on about this book, but hey, it costs 40¢, it'll take you a couple hours to read, and it's got a pretty nice cover by artist Gray Morrow. I'd rather spend my time watching young Warren Beatty in Mickey One in the theatres, but you won't hate this book and it's pleasing enough entertainment for a rainy Seattle Sunday.

2 stars.

Solid Fuel


by John Boston

The rising star John Brunner has produced ambitious work such as The Whole Man and the upcoming The Squares of the City, both from Ballantine in the US, and a raft (or flotilla) of unpretentious upscale-pulp adventures for Ace Books. Some of the best of the latter were mined from the UK magazines edited by John Carnell.


by Jacks

But there’s a lot more. Brunner has been one of the mainstays of the UK magazines for a decade, but much of his best magazine work has not been reprinted because it’s too short for separate book publication and too long to fit in the usual anthologies or collections. The UK publisher Mayflower-Dell, previously distinguished by its unsuccessful attempt to bring Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure to the British public, remedies a bit of this omission with Now Then, a collection of three novellas, two from the Carnell magazines and the other, his first professional sale, from Astounding in 1953.

Some Lapse of Time

The book opens with the energetically clever and creepy Some Lapse of Time, from Science Fantasy #57 (February 1963). Dr. Max Harrow is having a bad dream of a group of starving people living in ruins, one of whom is holding a human finger bone in his hand. He wakes and there is someone at his door: the police, because a tramp has collapsed in his garage. The tramp proves to be suffering a rare disease (heterochylia, an inability to metabolize fats, which become lethal) that Harrow is uniquely qualified to recognize, his infant son having died of it only recently, and which should have made it impossible for the tramp to survive to adulthood. The tramp also has clamped in his hand a human finger bone—the same bone, the end of the left middle finger, as in Harrow’s dream.

Unintelligible to the hospital staff, the tramp proves when examined by a philologist to speak a badly distorted version of English, like one might expect a primitive and isolated group to use. Meanwhile, Harrow’s marriage is blowing up under the emotional stress caused by his son’s death and his own preoccupation. When his wife slams the car door in his face, she catches his hand in the door and severs the end of his left middle finger, which falls down a gutter. Meanwhile, the tramp is sent for a head x-ray, but he turns out to be so radioactive that not only do the films turn out unusable but he has to be put in strict isolation.

Brunner brings all these elements to a thoroughly grotesque resolution—it doesn’t entirely work, but is a grimly ingenious nice try. Others apparently think so too; it is rumored that a dramatization will be broadcast later this year in the BBC’s Out of the Unknown TV series. Four stars.

Imprint of Chaos

Next up is Imprint of Chaos, also from Science Fantasy (#42, August 1960), one of a number of outright fantasies Brunner contributed to that underrated magazine. This one introduces us to a character mainly called “the traveler,” who we are repeatedly told has “many names but one nature,” unlike the rest of us who I suppose contain multitudes.

The traveler has been appointed (by whom, or Whom, or What is not explained) as a sort of metaphysical supervisor over part of the universe, charged with ensuring the primacy of order over chaos. He is on his way to Ryovora, a formerly sensible town where they have now decided they need a god.

So the traveler nips out to our Earth and snatches the unsuspecting Bernard Brown from a hike in the wood, tells him he’s unlikely to find his way home, but gives him directions to Ryovora. There, to his discomfiture, Brown is welcomed as a god, and when the next city over hears about it and sends over their god, Brown sends it packing in terror. Then the Ryovorans say they could have done it themselves (though they didn’t), and excuse Mr. Brown, after a final scene where he and the traveler bruit the futility and undesirability of magic.

A fantasy writer bad-mouthing magic may seem incongruous, but this rationalist in spite of himself really hates it, and comes not to praise magic but to bury it, though only after enough colorful magical episodes to entertain the rubes. Here the tension is more extreme than usual. His earlier fantasies mostly featured incursions of magic into the world of ordinary salt-of-the-earth types. Here, the entire setting is exotically magical, and the story is told in the fey and pompous cadences of high fantasy.

For example, from a conclave of the necromantic elite of Ryovora: “The Margrave nodded and made a comforting gesture in the air. He said, ‘But this cannot be the whole story. I move that we—here, now, in full council—ask Him Who Must Know.’” Brunner walks the edge of parody at times (“Tyllwin [a particularly powerful magician] chuckled, a scratching noise, and the flowers on the whole of one tree turned to fruit and rotted where they hung.”). But the story is clever and entertaining and merits its three stars, towards the high end.

Thou Good and Faithful

Thou Good and Faithful is older; as mentioned, it is the first story Brunner sold to an SF magazine—and it was featured on the cover of the top-of-the-market Astounding (March 1953 issue). Moreover, the readers voted it best in the issue, and it was quickly picked up by Andre Norton for her pretty respectable YA anthology Space Pioneers. Not a bad start for an 18-year-old! Though Brunner has had some second thoughts about showing us his juvenilia; the acknowledgements note it appeared in the magazine “in a somewhat different form.” I haven’t compared the two texts, though there’s clearly some updating; in this version Brunner refers to something as “maser-tight,” and masers were barely invented when this story was first published.

The story is for most of its length a bog-standard though well-turned rendition of a basic plot: find a planet, there’s a mystery, what’s going on, are we scared? The mystery is an idyllic Earth-type planet inhabited only by robots, who presumably didn’t make themselves; what happened to the makers? The final revelation is partly in the direction of, say, Clarke’s Childhood’s End, and partly in the one suggested by the story’s title, so in the end it’s much more high-minded than the puzzle story it starts out as. This is all older news nowadays than it was in 1953, but it too merits a high three stars.

Summing Up

Now Then is a solid representation of the mid-length work of this very readable and thoughtful writer, and there’s enough in the Carnell back files for several more worthwhile volumes of Brunner novellas.

Two by Two


by Gideon Marcus

The Journey has made a commitment to review every piece of science fiction released in a year (or die trying). In pursuit of this goal, I've generally tried to finish every book I've started, and if unable to, I simply don't write about it.

It occurs to me, however, that the inability to finish a book is worth reporting on, too. And so, here are reports on two of this summer's lesser lights:

Arm of the Starfish, by Madeleine L'Engle

The latest from Madeline L'Engle, author of the sublime A Wrinkle in Time, starts promisingly. Adam Eddington is a freshman biology minor tapped to work with a Dr. O'Keefe on the Atlantic island of Gaia off the coast of Portugal. O'Keefe (a grown up Calvin, from Wrinkle) is working with starfish, zeroing in on an immortality treatment. Just prior to Adam's departure from Kennedy Airport, he runs across the beautiful young daughter of an industrialist, Kali, who warns Adam to stay away from the sinister-looking Canon Tallis, who is chaperoning the O'Keefes' precocious daughter, Poly.

Adam finds himself embroiled in international intrigue, not knowing who to trust. This is exciting at first, but a drag as things go on. Gone is the quietly lyrical prose of Wrinkle, replaced by a deliberately juvenile style leached of color. Events happen, one after another, but they are both difficult to keep track of and largely uninteresting. By the time Adam made it to Gaia, about halfway through the book, I found myself struggling to complete a page.

Life's too short. I gave up.

Quest Crosstime, by Andre Norton


Cover by Yukio Tashiro

Andre Norton has come out with the long-awaited sequel to her parallel universe adventure, The Crossroads of Time, starring Blake Walker. The universe Walker lives in is a bit like that of Laumer's Imperium series and Piper's Paratime stories: there's one Earth that has mastered the art of crossing timelines, and it has built an empire across these alternate Earths.

On Vroom, the imperial timetrack, there had been a devastating war that killed most of the female population, making them particularly precious. Also, mutation has made psionic ability the rule rather than the exception. The timeline is ruled by an oligarchy of 100 meritocrats.

At the start of Crosstime, Walker is dispatched to assist Marfy, whose twin sister, Marva, has been lost amongst the timeless — and all signs point to a kidnapping. Of course, the allure of all parallel universe books is the exploration of what-if, and so Walker and Marfy's trek spans a dead Earth where life never arose, a strange saurian Earth where sentient turtles and lizardmen rule, and ultimately, an interesting timeline in which Richard III won the battle of Bosworth Field while Cortez lost the battle of Tenochtitlan. By the Mid-20th Century, there is a Cold War between Britain and the Aztec Empire along a militarized Mississippi river. It is to this world that Marfy and her abductors are tracked, and it turns out that the kidnapping is part of a plot to topple Vroom's Ancien Regime.

True to form as of late, Norton sets up some genuinely interesting background, but the characters are as flat as the pages they appear on. This time, I made it through two thirds of the book, partly on momentum from the first book in the series, which I rather enjoyed. In the end, however, disinterest won out.

Call it two stars for both books.

Don't miss the next exciting musical guest episode of The Journey Show, October 24 at 1PM Pacific!




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[October 22, 1965] Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (November 1965 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Days of Our Lives

I'm stealing the name of a new soap opera, due to premiere on NBC next month, because it sums up the way that past, present, and future came together in the news this month.

Yale University put an item known as the Vinland Map on public display on October 12. This is a map of the world, said to date back to the Fifteenth Century, which seems to indicate that Norsemen visited the Americas long before Christopher Columbus. In case you're wondering about the date, it was Columbus Day, in a nice bit of irony.


A detail of the Vinland Map. That's Greenland to the right, and a chunk of North America to the left.

As you might expect, there's controversy over whether this is the real thing or a forgery. Today, nobody knows for sure if this visitor from yesterday is genuine, but maybe we'll find out tomorrow.

If authentic, the Vinland Map is a voice from the past. In a similar way, folks in the present are trying to send a message to the future.

On October 16, the penultimate day of the New York World's Fair, a time capsule was lowered into the ground. (A similar object was buried nearby, during the 1939 World's Fair.) It is scheduled to be opened in the year 6939. (I'm a little skeptical as to whether such a thing can really survive and be found nearly five thousand years from now, but I like the idea.) The contents include . . . well, see for yourself.


People in that distant era will also know that we weren't very careful about spelling.

The Beatles seem destined to represent the artistic achievements of our time, if somebody actually finds the time capsule, opens it, and figures out how to play a record. They are once again at the top of the American popular music charts this month, and show no signs of leaving that position any time soon.

The latest smash from the Liverpool lads is, appropriately, called Yesterday. Unlike their other hits, it's a slow, melancholy song about lost love. Paul McCartney plays acoustic guitar and sings, backed by a string quartet. The other Beatles do not perform on the record, so it's really a McCartney solo performance.


By the way, Act Naturally is a remake of a Number One song by Buck Owens. The Beatles go Country-Western!

Flipping Through the Calendar

Given the peculiarities of the publishing business, it's no surprise that I'm reading the November issue of Fantastic in October. With their policy of filling about half the magazine with reprints, it's also not a shock to discover that we go back in time to fill up the pages. First up, however, is a new story set in a strange world that mixes up the past and the present.


Cover art by Julian S. Krupa. It's actually taken from the back cover of the July 1939 issue of Amazing Stories.


Look familiar? We'll hear more about the Space Devastator later.

Axe and Dragon (Part One of Three), by Keith Laumer


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Our hero is one Lafayette O'Leary, an ordinary working stiff, living in a crummy boarding house. He has a lot of intellectual curiosity, performing experiments in his tiny room and reading obscure books. He happens to find a Nineteenth Century volume on hypnotism, and learns about a technique whereby he can experience a dreaming state, while remaining aware that he is dreaming, and exercising some control over it.

(This isn't so crazy a premise as it might seem. More than fifty years ago, the Dutch psychiatrist Frederik Willem van Eeden coined the term lucid dream for such states of mind.)

Of course, he gives it a try. He winds up in a world that seems to be a bit medieval, a touch Eighteenth Century, a tad modern, and partly straight out of a fairy tale. The limitations on his ability to alter this dream world — if that's what it is — show up when he tries to give himself a set of fancy modern clothes, and winds up dressed like somebody in a swashbuckling movie.


Lafayette, ready for action.

At first, he enjoys the situation, happily replacing the lousy wine in a tavern with fine Champagne. Thought to be a wizard, he gets mixed up with the local equivalent of the cops. Still thinking this is just a dream, he tries to disappear, with only partial success.


Our hero tries to vanish, but can't quite do it.

Lafayette winds up in the palace of the King, where he is thought to be a prophesized hero, destined to save the realm from an ogre and a dragon. He also meets the King's magician, who seems to know more about what's going on than he admits. For one thing, he's responsible for the steam-powered coaches and electric lights in this otherwise nontechnological world.


The magician looks on as Lafayette admires himself.

Eventually, our hero meets the King's beautiful daughter, as well as the master swordsman who is her current boyfriend. Jealousy rears its head, and a challenge to a duel arises.

Lafayette assumes that his opponent, like everybody else in this world, is just a product of his imagination. Therefore, he reasons, the foe can't really be any better with a sword than he is. It looks like he might be in for an unpleasant surprise.


Tune in again for the next exciting chapter!

So far, at least, the tone of this novel is very light. Laumer almost seems to be parodying his own tales of the Imperium, with the protagonist finding himself in alternate realities. Unlike those serious stories, this one is a comedy. The people inhabiting the dream world speak in a mixture of archaic language and modern slang. The police are about as effective as the Keystone Kops. It's entertaining enough to keep me reading, but hardly profound.

Three stars.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Ray Bradbury

The rest of the magazine consists of stuff from the old days, both the prose and the art. First we have a piece with a title that is fitting for my chosen theme. It comes from the May 1947 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones, for what looks like a very odd story.

The protagonist is a would-be writer, reduced to pawning his typewriter due to his failure to find his way into print. (Surely based on the author's own early years, I assume.) He comes home to find a strange device. It sends him messages from the far future.


Illustration by Virgil Finlay.

Tomorrow's world is a dreary place, under the rule of a brutal dictator. A woman sent the machine back in time, insisting that the writer kill the remote ancestors of the tyrant. If he doesn't, the woman will be executed. If he does, the future will change, and she won't remember him at all. Since he's fallen in love with her, he will lose her either way. Besides this dilemma, he faces the moral crisis of murdering two innocent people.

This early work shows Bradbury developing his style, although it is not yet fully formed. You may think that's a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, it's got some emotional appeal, some passages of poetic writing, some implausibilities, and some lapses in logic. The ethical problem at the heart of the story — would you kill Hitler's ancestors? — is an important one, but here it's mostly used as a plot point.

Three stars.

I'm Looking for "Jeff", by Fritz Leiber

From the Fall 1952 issue of Fantastic comes this horror story, created by a master of the macabre (and other things.)


Cover art by Leo Summers. The Capote story is his very early work Miriam, which is a fine, eerie tale.

A bartender claims that a mysterious woman shows up regularly, although the owner of the joint can't see her. The reader is aware right from the start that she's a ghost.


Illustration by Emsh.

She uses her feminine wiles to pick up a customer, offering her affection in return for a promise to do something particularly violent to somebody named Jeff. The fellow, entrapped by her seductive charms — even the scar that runs across her face doesn't mar her beauty — agrees. He encounters Jeff, and makes a terrifying discovery.

There are no surprises in this variation on the classic theme of vengeance from beyond the grave. What elevates it above the usual ghost story is truly fine writing. The woman's first appearance, when she is a barely detectable wisp, is particularly fascinating.

Four stars.

Wild Talents, Inc., by Robert Sheckley

The September/October 1953 issue of Fantastic supplies this comic yarn.


Cover art also by Leo Summers, what little you can see of it.

As you'd expect, the company named in the title deals with people who have psychic powers. It's pretty much an employment agency for such folks. Their latest client presents a problem.


Illustration by Emsh

It seems the fellow can observe anyone, at any location. Unfortunately, he's very much an oddball. His only interest is in recording their sexual activities in excruciating detail. The guy in charge of the company has to figure out a way to protect the public from this Peeping Tom, while making use of his peculiar ability in an acceptable way.

The whole thing is pretty much a mildly dirty, mildly clever, mildly amusing joke. You might see it as a spoof of the kind of psi-power stories that appear in Analog far too often. A minor effort from an author who is capable of much sharper satire.

Two stars.

Tooth or Consequences, by Robert Bloch

Another comedy, this time from the May 1950 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Arnold Kohn

It starts off like a joke. A vampire walks into a dentist's office . . .. It seems even the undead need to have their cavities filled. The vampire also swipes blood from the supply kept refrigerated in the same medical building. When the red stuff is then secured under lock and key, to prevent further thefts, the vampire tells the dentist he better get some of it for him, or else. There's a twist at the end you may see coming.

I suppose there's a certain Charles Addams appeal to the image of a fanged monster sitting in a dentist's chair. Otherwise, there's not much to this bagatelle.

Two stars.

The Eye of Tandyla, by L. Sprague de Camp

We go back to the May 1951 issue of Fantastic Adventures for this sword-and-sorcery yarn, one of a handful of stories in the author's Pusadian series. (The best-known one is probably the novel The Tritonian Ring, also from 1951.)


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones

The setting is far back in time, long before recorded history. (The story goes that de Camp wanted to create a background similar to the one appearing in Robert E. Howard's tales of Conan, but in a more realistic fashion.) A wizard and a warrior must steal a magical gem from the statue of a goddess for their King, or be executed. Their plan involves disguising themselves with sorcery and sneaking into the place.


Illustration by Virgil Finlay.

To their amazement, it proves to be really easy to grab the jewel. So simple, in fact, that they smell a rat. They cook up a scheme to put the gem back in its place, steal a similar one from another place, and present that one to the King instead. Complications ensue.

You can tell that this isn't the most serious story in the world. The plot resembles a farce, with its multiple confusions and running back and forth. It's got the wit often found in Fritz Leiber's work of this kind, but not quite the same elegance. I'd say it's above the level of John Jakes, or even — dare I say it? — Howard himself, if not quite up to the very high standard of Leiber.

Three stars.

Close Behind Him, by John Wyndham

The January/February issue of Fantastic is the source of this chiller.


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg. The so-called new story by Poe is actually Robert Bloch's completion of a fragment.

Two crooks rob the house of a very strange fellow. The guy catches one of them in the act, so the hoodlum kills him.


Illustration by Paul Lundy.

The pair make their getaway, but are followed by blood-red footprints wherever they go. You can bet things won't go well for them.

This is a pretty decent horror story, nicely written, although — once again! — not up to the level of Fritz Leiber, particularly since we've got an example of his excellent work in the field of tales of terror in this very issue.

Three stars.

Space Devastator, by Anonymous

I'm not sure if I should even mention this tiny article, excerpted from the pages of the July 1939 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Robert Fuqua.

Anyway, it's less than a page long, and speculates about a huge station in orbit, equipped with a bunch of big mirrors.


Illustration by Julian S. Krupa

The notion is that such a thing could destroy entire populations from space by focusing the sun's rays and burning up cities. Casual mention is made of the fact that it could supply solar energy as well. I suppose it's imaginative for 1939, but it's so short — the original version was probably somewhat longer — that you can't get much out of it.

Two stars.

What Day is Good for You?

Today comes out a big winner over Yesterday and Tomorrow in this month's Fantastic. Leiber's contemporary ghost story is clearly superior to tales set in the future or in the legendary past. Otherwise, this isn't that great an issue, ranging from OK to below average.

You might well get more entertainment out of an award-winning film, such as this Italian comedy, which got the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film last year. Sophia Loren plays three different women, and Marcello Mastroianni three men, in a trio of lighthearted tales of love.


For some reason, every poster I've seen for this movie features Loren in her underwear. I wonder why that might be.

And you'll definitely enjoy the next exciting musical guest episode of The Journey Show, October 24 at 1PM Pacific!




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[October 18, 1965] Turn, Turn, Turn (November 1965 Fantasy & Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

The Winds of Change

History is divided into eras: The Stone Age, The Middle Ages, The Renaissance.  There are Golden Ages and Dark Ages.  The Jazz Age.  The Gilded Age.  One is never quite sure of a period's exact delineations, the precise moments of its beginning or end, until the next one is well on its way.  It is possible to tell when one is in an age, however, and also to feel keenly the wistful uncertain sense one gets in the doldrums between epochs.  Who can't have felt that way in the year succeeding President Kennedy's assassination, when his civil rights program, American involvement in Indochina, even the character of government in general hung in the balance.  And who can doubt that, for better or worse, the Johnson era has clearly begun?

I've lived through two sea changes in music.  The first was in 1954, when the overripe swing and schmaltz on the radio was overrun with a wave of rock and roll, particularly if you tuned into the Black stations (luckily, a radio tuner cannot easily be segregated).  By 1963, the winds of change had become muddled.  With folk, pop, motown, surf, and country vying for our eardrums, it was quite impossible to know then where the next two years would take us.  Then the Beatles spearheaded the biggest British invasion since 1812, and a new age was upon us.

Science fiction has its ages, too.  When I got into SF in a big way, the genre was clearly plumb in the middle of one.  It was 1954, four years after Galaxy's editor, Horace Gold, had thrown the gauntlet down at the feet of puerile pulp SF, five years after the new Fantasy and Science Fiction established a literary benchmark for the genre that has yet to be exceeded.  Science fiction primarily came in digest sized magazines, and the market was aflood with them.  Quality ranged from the penny-a-word mags which were little above the pulps that preceded them to stellar new fiction that burst beyond our solar system and ranged deep into our pysches.

As the 60s dawned, the genre had become anemic.  Almost all of the monthly digests had gone out of print.  The old stalwart, Astounding, had changed its name to Analog, but is fiction remained stolidly fixed in an older mode.  Gold retired from Galaxy and Fred Pohl struggled to keep it and its sister mags fresh as its reliable stable of authors left for greener (as in the color of money) pastures.  F&SF's helm passed on to Avram Davidson, whose whimsical style did the magazine few favors.

But the genre seems to have found its feet and is stomping off in a new direction.  Propelled by a "New Wave," again largely based in Britain, the science fiction I've been reading these days no longer feels like retreads of familiar stories.  They have the stamp of a modern era, an indisputable sense of 1960s.  And no single issue of a single magazine has represented this renaissance in SF better than the latest issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

A Fresh Breeze


by Gray Morrow (illustrating the many perils of … And Call Me Conrad (Part 2 of 2)

Come to Venus Melancholy, by Thomas M. Disch

Disch is one of the flagbearers of the new era.  In just three years, this new author has produced more than 20 stories, some of them quite brilliant.  In this one (set on an obviously pre-Mariner Venus), a lonely cyborg staffer of a trading post literally holds you captive while she tells the sad story of how she lost her love.

By turns horrifying and heartbreaking, it's a moving piece.  Four stars.

The Peacock King, by Larry McCombs and Ted White

Less effective though more experimental is this piece on the first successful hyperdrive jaunt.  After four failures, it is determined that the transition to hyperspace bears similarities to drug-induced schizophrenia.  One couple, so in love as to practically share a consciousness, is fed a regimen of psychoactives to prepare them for the trip.

Somewhat roughly written, and perhaps too short, it is nevertheless a fascinatingly "now" story delving into new territory.

Three stars.

Insect Attractant, by Theodore L. Thomas

This usually disappointing column of sf-story ideas masquerading as short science articles starts promisingly, discussing how insect pests could be eradicated through synthesis of female sex pheromones, which could then be sprayed to disrupt their breeding cycles.  A fine alternative to DDT.

But then he goes on to suggest that human females have similar pheromones, and that distillation and application of same could be used by marriage counselors, as if love is purely a matter of chemical compatibility. Perhaps the author has never been in love, let alone gotten married.  Of course, Mr. Thomas may have meant the piece in jest, though I also resented its casually sexist overtones.  Either way, it's not worth the page it occupies.

Two stars — and let's please 86 this column, Mr. Ferman?

… And Call Me Conrad (Part 2 of 2), by Roger Zelazny

When last we left Konstantin Karaghiosis, Minister for Cultural Sites on an atomics-devastated Earth, he was giving a tour of Greece to a blue-skinned Vegan, name of Cort Vishtigo, and his human entourage.  Ostensibly, the alien was on Earth to write a travelogue.  His true purpose is unknown, but the members of the Radpol movement believe Vishtigo's trip is a real estate survey, prelude to the Vegans buying up the planet to plunder.  An assassination attempt is in the offing, and Karaghiosis (virtually immortal and currently going by the name of Conrad) believes that the alien's bodyguard, Hassan, is the likely killer. 

That's the context, but the tale Zelazny weaves reads like a modern interpretation of mythology, with Conrad's party encountering a host of radiation mutated beasts, humans, and everything in-between.  Conrad is a tale of survival, of derring do, of proving worth.  It's also a pretty good mystery with a satisfying, if a touch too pat, ending.

At first, I was leery of Zelazny's style, a first person macho that threatens to become precious.  But there's enough self-deprecatory humor to make it work, and I found the pages flying.  There's enough action to keep it moving, enough depth to keep you thinking.

Four stars for this segment, and the novel as a whole is elevated to this rank as well.

El Numero Uno, by Sasha Gilien

It used to be that Death attended to matters personally.  Now, the business has boomed, and he requires field agents armed with legal contracts instead of scythes.  This particular case involves a harried operative on the sports beat and a particularly recalcitrant matador scheduled for expiration.

Good stuff in the style of Ron Goulart.  Four stars.

Squ-u-u-ush!, by Isaac Asimov

Having previously discussed the shortest measure of time, the largest measures of dimension, the hottest heat, and the coldest cold, the Good Doctor now explores the densest densities, starting with ordinary matter and proceeding the greatest crushes in the universe: the interior of giant stars.

Cutting edge stuff, and it's the first time I learned of neutronium, a state of matter even more compressed than that found inside a white dwarf.

Four stars.

A Few Kindred Spirits, by John Christopher

Last up, the much heralded author of No Blade of Grass offers up a tale combining a queer (in both senses of the word) group of dogs, the concept of reincarnation, and the pursuit of literary laurels.  A character study cum literal shaggy dog story, it's perhaps the most conventional piece of the issue — save for the rather daring (and refreshingly uncondemned) discussion of alternate sexual preferences.

Four stars.

The Sound of Shoes Dropping

It is clear that, after a long many-tacked jaunt in trackless seas, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction has set a bold new course.  I have high hopes and more than a little suspicion that this New Wave era has many more exciting years left to it.

After quite a few lean years, I'm finally getting my dessert again!




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

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by David Levinson

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

America’s Pastime

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

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


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

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


Left: Sandy Koufax. Right: Willie Mays

Gimmicks good and bad

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


In orbit around a collapsed star. Art by Morrow

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[September 16, 1965] Blessed Are The Peacemakers (November 1965 Worlds of Tomorrow)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Ain't Gonna Study War No More

As my esteemed colleague David Levinson recently noted, war is currently raging, as it so often does, in various places around the globe. Fortunately, voices are beginning to be raised against this lamentably common human evil.


Benjamin Spock, the famous baby doctor, leads a group of folks protesting the conflict in Vietnam on a march to the United Nations in April of this year.

Whether these peace-loving people will have any effect on the escalating presence of American forces in Southeast Asia remains to be seen. Meanwhile, we can turn to the pages of the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow for a fictional look at an unusual way to change war into peace.

They Shall Beat Their Swords Into Plowshares


The cover reproduces, in shrunken and edited form, various illustrations from the pen of Virgil Finlay, subject of an article within the magazine. I recognize the one in the middle, showing the face of a ape-man, as coming from the January 1965 issue. Maybe some of you clever readers can tell me the sources of the others.

Project Plowshare (Part One of Two), by Philip K. Dick


Illustrations by Gray Morrow. I don't know if that artist also came up with the rather eccentric, pseudo-archaic introductory paragraph shown here. Maybe it's the work of the author, or possibly editor Frederik Pohl. In any case, it's very odd, not really in keeping with the mood of the novel.

The time is the early twenty-first century. There are references to space travel within the solar system, but that's way in the background. We have the usual flying cars and such that we're used to in tales of the fairly near future.


Like I said, flying cars. Also, people wear capes and funny-looking hats.

Our main character — I can't really call him the hero — is one Lars Powderdry. I assume his peculiar name is an allusion to the phrase keep your powder dry, attributed to Oliver Cromwell. The intent must be ironic, as Lars does the exact opposite of getting ready for battle (the literal meaning) and is not otherwise prepared for future events (the metaphoric meaning.)

That requires some explanation. You see, Lars has a most peculiar job. He's a weapons fashion designer. This is even weirder than it sounds. It involves going into a trance, with the aid of mind-altering drugs, in order to enhance his natural psychic abilities. While in this state, he perceives images of complex designs for very strange weapons. These are passed along to military folks, who in turn give them to manufacturers.

Why, then, do I say that Lars is not keeping his powder dry? That's because the so-called weapons are nothing of the kind. The elites make the ordinary folks think they are, but in reality the designs are used to make unusual consumer products, generally of a trivial, frivolous nature.


Here's an example, taken from a sidebar in the magazine. Again, I don't know if this is the work of the author or the editor.

In order to fool the public, the manufacturers produce faked films showing the phony weapons in action. This situation came about because of a secret agreement between the two sides in the Cold War. The ignorant masses believe their governments are ready to attack the other side, while their rulers avoid the possibility of a real, destructive war.


An example of the deception in action. The zombie-like guys, supposedly criminals subjected to the mind-destroying guns shown here, are really robots.

Lars has a counterpart on the other side, a woman named Lilo Topchev. Although he doesn't know anything about her, having only seen a photograph so blurry that it doesn't reveal anything at all, he feels an unexplained attraction to her. (The author doesn't say, but maybe this has something to do with their extrasensory powers.)

There's another woman in his life as well. Maren Faine runs the Paris office of his weapons fashion house. She's also his mistress. They annoy each other much of the time, but there seems to be genuine affection between the two. Their relationship has a touch of sadomasochism to it. Maren enjoys mocking her lover, who is well aware that he's not as smart as she is.


Maren Faine. The artist nicely captures her personality. Intelligent, capable, self-assured, cynical, and maybe a little bit cruel.

While visiting her in Paris, Lars finds a device made from one of the ersatz weapons he dreams up in his trance states. The gizmo is a sphere that answers questions. For most people, it's just a toy, sort of like a super-fancy version of those Magic 8 Ball things most of us have fooled around with.


Did I have one of these things? Reply hazy, try again later.

Lars treats the sphere more seriously, asking it about himself. He gets some uncomfortable answers, discovering that his reservations about the way he's helping the elite deceive the public aren't really a matter of ethics, but due to his own fears of losing his psychic powers.


Lars and the mechanical oracle.

As if that were not enough of a painful look into his soul, Maren is a bit psychic herself, able to detect her lover's subconscious emotions. She knows about his obsession with Lilo, for example, explaining it in Freudian terms.

Things get complicated when satellites appear in orbit, not launched by either side. Robots sent to investigate the objects are destroyed. The assumption is that they are the work of hostile aliens. Faced with the possibility of an attack by extraterrestrials, the elite bring Lars and Lilo together in Iceland. Their mission is clear. Work together, using their psychic abilities to come up with a design for a real weapon, or face the consequences.


An agent for the other side shows Lars what the consequences will be.

There's lots of other stuff I haven't mentioned. In particular, an important subplot involves an unpleasant fellow named Surley G. Febbs, who is drafted to become one of the six average citizens who work with the military, dealing with the designs envisioned by Lars. It's not yet clear what part he'll play in the plot, but I suspect it will be a vital one.

Although not a comedy, there's a strong satiric edge to this novel. Both sides in the bloodless Cold War engage the services of the same private espionage agency, which gives them just enough information to keep them paying for more.

The many characters are complex and varied, with flaws and quirks that make them seem real. (A notable exception: There's one minor character whose only function seems to be to have the author describe her breasts.) I'm definitely interested enough to wonder what's going to happen two months from now.

Four stars.

Me, Myself, and Us, by Michael Girdansky

This nonfiction article deals with the connections between the two halves of the brain, and what happens when they are cut. The author goes on to describe a highly speculative way in which to give someone two separate personalities in one body, making reference to the well-known story Beyond Bedlam by Wyman Guin. The suggestion is that such a person would be the perfect spy.


Cover art by Emsh.

Although there's some interesting information here, I found it distressing to read. Not only is the suggested creation of a human being with two minds disturbing, but the author describes real surgical experiments on animals that are horrifying. Maybe that's only my squeamishness, but I wish he had just talked about those unfortunate people who have had the link between the hemispheres of their brains severed.

Two stars.

Last of a Noble Breed, by Mack Reynolds


Illustrations by Normal Nodel.

We begin in the city of Estoril, Portugal, a luxurious resort community. A couple married for only six months is there for business as well as pleasure. The husband, a nuclear engineer, is trying to win a position by meeting with various members of the European upper class.

In this future world, being an aristocrat is vital to one's success. Annoyed by the snobs and a little drunk, the man half-jokingly announces that his wife's grandmother was the hereditary Sachem of the Cherokees, which is true enough. This leads to a worldwide movement to have the United States government restore tribal lands to her people, even though the woman is only one-quarter Cherokee, at most. (Her grandmother, whom she met exactly once, might not have been one hundred percent Cherokee.)


Uncle Sam faces a problem. I'm not sure what that sign is supposed to say. Unfair to what? Queens? That doesn't make sense, as a Sachem is not at all a monarch.

This isn't the most plausible premise in the world, even for a comedy. There are some enjoyable bits of satire, and the author provides some accurate information about the Cherokee people, as far as I can tell. But the lighthearted mood doesn't match well with the truly tragic history of the Cherokees. The husband has a habit of calling his wife a squaw, which annoys me as much as it does her.

Two stars.

The Sightseers, by Thomas M. Disch

Rich people have themselves placed in suspended animation for thousands of years at a time, emerging to enjoy a lavish lifestyle for a while, then jumping back inside their time capsule. Oddly, things never seem to change. These time tourists stick to the fabulous hotels and restaurants that cater to them, which remain unaltered over millennia.

The only other people they encounter are the Nubians who serve their every whim. The suspension device breaks down, and a couple of the tourists, more curious than their much older consorts, investigate the world outside their sumptuous lodgings.

You'll probably predict the true nature of the Nubians, and why vast amounts of time appear to have no effect on the world. Although there are no surprises, the story is decently written. Disch has a knack for this kind of sardonic tale.

Three stars.

Virgil Finlay, Dean of Science Fiction Artists, by Sam Moskowitz

Here's a detailed biography and account of the career of a great talent. I don't know where the author dug up all of this information, but you'll learn a heck of a lot about the artist's life and work. There's only one problem.

No illustrations!

I know there are probably legal and budgetary reasons why this article doesn't include any examples of Finlay's drawings, but it's really frustrating to read about his artwork and not see it. In particular, Finlay's illustration for Robert Bloch's story The Faceless Gods, from the May 1936 issue of Weird Tales, is talked about quite a bit. We're told that readers were excited by it, and that H. P Lovecraft even wrote a poem about it. At least we get half of the poem, but we have no clue what the illustration looked like.

To save you from the same agony I underwent, I dug deep into piles of moldering old pulps and pulled out the drawing, as well as the complete poem. You're welcome.

Two stars.

Worldmaster, by Keith Laumer


Illustrations by John Giunta.

The narrator is the sole survivor of a huge space battle. Both sides were completely destroyed. It turns out that this was deliberate on the part of the admiral who directed his side of the battle. He held back his gigantic flagship, which would have won a victory without the loss of the other vessels in his fleet.

His plan is to return to Earth in command of the only remaining warship, and thus take control of the planet. (Apparently this takes place at a time when the Cold War has heated up, but only in space. We're told that planetary forces are of little importance.)


And there are flying cars.

He offers the narrator the opportunity to join him, but our hero refuses. A couple of goons try to kill him, but he overpowers them and manages to get back to Earth through trickery. What follows is a series of chases and fight scenes, as the narrator tries to stop the admiral's fiendish plan.


And there's a big fire.

Typical for the author in his action/adventure mode, this story moves at a breakneck pace, and features a protagonist who overcomes all obstacles with wits, fists, and not a little luck. It's an efficient example of that sort of thing.

Three stars.

Mother, Is the Battle Over?

We started off with peace disguised as war, and wound up with the aftermath of war. Was it worth fighting for? Well, Philip K. Dick's novel-in-progress definitely piques my interest, although I suspect it will not appeal to all tastes. The rest of the issue is something of a disappointment, like a hasty retreat after an inconclusive skirmish. At least the only casualties of the conflicts inside these pages are imaginary ones. There are far too many in the real world. I wish you all peace.


The design scrawled on this guitar case, spotted on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley this year, was created by British pacifist Gerald Holtom, as a symbol for the nuclear disarmament movement. It has since shown up a lot of places, as a sign for peace in general. I like it.




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Magazine/Anthology, Serial

[September 14, 1965] The Face is Familiar (October 1965 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

In all the old familiar places…

All summer long, the Traveler family's television tradition has included the game show, Password.  Though it may seem odd that such a program should rival in importance to us such stand-outs as Secret Agent and Burke's Law, if you read my recent round-up of the excellent TV of the 64-65 season, you'll understand why we like the show.

Sadly, the September 9 episode marked the beginning of a hiatus and, perhaps, an outright cancellation of the show.  No more primetime Password, nor the daily afternoon editions either.  Whither host extraordinaire Allen Ludden?

Apparently, What's my Line!  Both Ludden and his wife, Betty White, were the mystery guests last week; I guess they had the free time.  They were absolutely charming together, and it's clear they are still very much in love two years into their marriage.

Speaking of anniversaries, Galaxy, one of the genre's most esteemed monthly digests, is celebrating its 15th.  To mark the occasion, editor Fred Pohl has assembled a table of contents contributed by some of the magazine's biggest names (though I note with sadness that neither Evelyn Smith nor Katherine MacLean are represented among them).  These "all-star" issues (as Fantasy and Science Fiction calls them) often fail to impress as much as ones larded with newer writers, but one never knows until one reads, does one?

So, without further ado, let's get stuck in and see how Galaxy is doing, fifteen years on:

The issue at hand


by John Pederson, Jr.

The Age of the Pussyfoot (Part 1 of 3), by Frederik Pohl

The editor of Galaxy has a penchant for providing a great deal of his own material to his magazines.  Normally, I'd be worried about this.  It could be a sign of an editor taking advantage of position to guarantee sale of work that might not cut the mustard.  And even if the work is worthy, there is the real danger of overcommitment when one takes on the double role of boss and employee.

That said, some editors just find creation too fun to give up (yours truly included) and in the case of Pohl, he usually turns in a good tale, as he has for decades, so I won't begrudge him the practice.

Indeed, Pussyfoot is a welcome addition to the mag.  A variation on the classic The Sleeper Awakes theme, in this case, the time traveling is done via the rather new technology of cryogenics.  Indeed, protagonist Charles Forester, 37-year old erstwhile fireman, is one of the very first corpses to be frozen circa 1969, and wakes up in the overcrowded but utopian world of 2527 A.D.


by Wallace Wood

Feeling immortal (with some justification – no one really dies anymore; they just get put on ice until they can be brought back, often within minutes) and also wealthy (but $250,000 doesn't stretch as far as it used to) Forester takes a while to really come to grips with his new situation, always just a touch too clueless for his own good, and perhaps plausibility.

Very quickly, he learns that things are not perfect in the future: being immortal means one can be murdered on a lark and the culprits go unpunished.  Inflation has rendered Forester's fortune valueless.  He must get a job, any job.  But the one he finds that will employ an unskilled applicant turns out to be the one no one wants: personal assistant to a disgusting alien!

There's some really good worldbuilding stuff in this story, particularly the little rod-shaped "joymakers" everyone carries that are telephone, computer terminal, personal assistant, drug dispenser, and more.  I also liked the inclusion of inflation, which is usually neglected in stories of the future.  It all reads a bit like a Sheckley story writ long, something Sheckley's always had trouble with.  It's not perfect, but it is fun and just serious enough to avoid being farce.

Four stars for now,

Inside Man, by H. L. Gold

The first editor of Galaxy started out as a writer, but even though he turned over the helm of his magazine four years ago (officially – it was probably earlier), he hasn't published in a long time, so it's exciting to see his byline again.  Inside Man is a nice, if nor particularly momentous, story about a fellow with a telepathy for machines.  And since machines are usually in some state of disrepair, it's not a very pleasant gift.

Three stars.

The Machines, Beyond Shylock, by Ray Bradbury

Judith Merril sums up Bradbury beautifully in this month's F&SF, describing him as the avatar of science fiction to the lay population, but deemed a mixed bag by the genre community.  His short poem, about how the human spirit will always have something robots do not, is typically oversentimental and not a little opaque.  And it's not just the font Pohl used.

Two stars.

Fifteen Years of Galaxy — Thirteen Years of F.Y.I., by Willy Ley

The science columns of Willy Ley comprised one of main draws for Galaxy back when I first got my subscription.  In this article, Ley goes over the various topics of moment he's covered over the last decade and a half, providing updates where appropriate.  It's a neat little tour of his tenure with the magazine.

Four stars.

A Better Mousehole, by Edgar Pangborn

Pangborn, like Bradbury, is another of the genre's sentimentalists.  When he does it well, he does it better than anyone.  This weird story, told in hard-to-read first person, said protagonist being a bartender who finds alien, thought-controlling blue bugs in his shop, is a slog.

Two stars.

Three to a Given Star, by Cordwainer Smith

Oh frabjous day!  A new Instrumentality story!  This one tells the tale of three unique humans sent off to pacify the gabbling, cackling cannibals of Linschoten XV: "Folly", once a beautiful woman and now a 11-meter spaceship; "SAMM" a quarter-mile long bronze statue possessing a frightening armory; and "Finsternis", a giant cube as dark as night, and with the ability to extinguish suns.


by Gray Morrow

Guest appearances are made by Casher O' Neill and Lady Ceralta, two of humanity's most powerful telepaths whom we met in previous stories.

I've made no secret of my admiration for the Instrumentality stories, which together create a sweeping and beautiful epic of humanity's far future.  Three has a bit of a perfunctory character, somehow, and thus misses being a classic.

Still, even feeble Smith earns three stars.

Small Deer, by Clifford D. Simak

In Deer, a fellow makes a time machine, goes back to see the death of the dinosaurs, and discovers that aliens were rounding them up for meat… and that they might come back again now that humanity has teemed over the Earth.

A throwback of a story and definitely not up to Simak's standard.  A high two (or a low three if you're feeling generous and/or missed the last thirty years of science fiction).

The Good New Days, by Fritz Leiber

On an overcrowded Earth, steady work is a thing of the past.  Folks get multiple part time gigs to fill the time, including frivolous occupations like smiling at people on the way to work.  Satirical but overindulgent, I had trouble getting through it.  Two stars.

Founding Father, by Isaac Asimov

Dr. A was lured back into the world of fiction after an eight-year almost complete hiatus; apparently he can be cajoled into almost anything.  In Father, based on this month's cover, five marooned space travelers try to cleanse a planet of its poisonous ammonia content before their dwindling oxygen supplies run out.

It's a fair story, but I had real issues with the blitheness with which the astronauts plan to destroy an entire ecosystem that requires ammonia to survive.  In the end, when terrestrial plants manage to take root on the planet, spelling doom for the native life, it's heralded as a victory.

Two stars.

Shall We Have a Little Talk?, by Robert Sheckley


by Jack Gaughan

Bob Sheckley was a Galaxy staple (under his own name and several pseudonyms) for most of the 1950s.  His short stories are posssibly the best of anyone's, but he eschewed them for novels that just didn't have the same brilliance.

Well, he's back, and his first short story in Galaxy in ages is simply marvelous.  It involves a representative of a rapacious Terra who travels to a distant world to establish relations, said contact a prelude to its ultimate subjugation.  But first, he has to establish meaningful communications.

Fiercely satirical and hysterical to boot, Talk is Sheckley in full form.

Mun, er, five stars.

Summing up

In the end, this all-star issue was, as usual, something of a mixed bag.  Still, there's enough gold here to show that the river Gold established is still well worth panning.  Here's to another fifteen years!

[Journey Press now has three excellent titles for your reading pleasure! Why not pick up a copy or three? Not only will you enjoy them all — you'll be helping out the Journey!]




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Book

[September 10, 1965] So Many Thews (Lin Carter's The Wizard of Lemuria)

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by Erica Frank

A Bewildering Epic of Tiny Proportions

ACE Books is practically synonymous with "science fiction," but they also put out quite a bit of fantasy (for instance, most of the works of Andre Norton). The newest addition to their stable of fantasy authors is Lin Carter. His first foray into book-length (barely) work is, shall we say, ambitious…

The book is titled The Wizard of Lemuria but we don't meet the wizard until Chapter 4. There are 12 chapters. The first quarter of the novella-length book is spent introducing our hero, Thongor of Valkarth. He is, although a lowly barbarian mercenary, both mighty and honorable.

The book opens on the aftermath of a wager on a zamph race. Jeled Malkh—an officer and swordmaster—lost the wager, and attacked Thongor rather than pay up. Thongor quickly overcame him, shrugged off the bet, and offered to drink away their differences. Jeled refused and fought dirty, yet Thongor overcame him again, and again, offered him peace.

Very mighty. Very honorable. A man who doesn't like to kill other men, even cheating men.

Jeled Malkh accepted his offer of peace—then betrayed Thongor, stabbing him and throwing him in a cell. Thongor spends a lot of time in cells. Mighty he may be; clever he is not.

Cover for The Wizard of Lemuria
Gray Morrow's cover shows Thongor fighting a grakk from his air boat made of urlium, the weightless metal.

Thongor has friends, though, and one of them got him out of the cell. On his way out of town, he managed to steal an alchemist's experimental airboat. Thus equipped with exotic and fast transport, he aimed for the distant land of Kathool and promptly fell asleep.

He awoke to an attack by lizard-hawks, which battle you may see depicted on the book cover. Thongor did mightily well against them, as is his wont, but the boat was unmoving because its rotors had run down. Also, the winds had blown the boat far into the great jungle of Chush, and below him was one of the mighty dwarks, a jungle-dragon. In the ensuing fight, the boat crashed and he became lost in the jungle.

What would he do during the long watches of the night, still many hours away, when every dreaded predator of the jungles would be out roaming for food? How could he protect himself from the swift-footed poa that could out-race even a trained zamph—or from the man-eating zemedar with its six great arms—or the gigantic flying spiders?

His situation by night would be doubly dangerous, for due to the prevalence of slith in the trees, he would not be able to climb them and avoid the beasts.

By 25 pages into this story, I already had to keep track of twelve species, seven locations (not counting Lemuria itself), three status-related titles, and two deities. Four of these things would never be mentioned again.

Map of Lemuria
Not labeled on the map: the rivers Ysaar and Saan; the Mountains of Mommur surrounding the Dragon Isles; Sharimba, the "mightiest" mountain the range; Zharanga Tethrabaal, the Great Ocean; Neol-Shendis, the "Inner Sea" where the Dragon Isles lie.

Chapter 4 is where the actual plot began. Thongor was rescued by the Great Wizard of Lemuria, Sharajsha, who offers him a job: Help the wizard re-forge the great dragon-slaying sword and take on the remnants of the Dragon Kings, who are due to rise again and attempt to destroy the universe.

Fortunately, Sharajsha is wise, clever, talented, and resourceful, all traits that Thongor lacks. (Thongor, however, has mighty thews—iron thews, we are told—which is exactly what Sharajsha needs to face down the Dragon King hordes.) Sharajsha fixed up the damaged flying boat, and added a new mechanism, so that when one spring winds down, it winds up the other, so it will never again be left without power. With this perpetual motion machine neatly handwaved into existence, they set off on their journey together.


John Keely and one of his fraudulent perpetual motion motors, c. 1890

During their travels, Thongor acquires an ally, a Tsargolian nobleman named Karm Karvus, who was always referred to by both names, and princess/queen/Sarkaja Sumia, a beautiful woman whose throne had been usurped by evil priests.

I'm going to bypass the bulk of their adventures. The recurring sequence of events is: When Thongor gets himself captured (again), his allies in the flying ship look for the biggest scene of carnage and mayhem in the city to find and rescue him. 

Musical Interlude

Each chapter of the book begins with an excerpt of poetry (save one that opens with literature). These are Epic Tales of Battle and Legendary Feats of Yore. They are obviously intended to be sung, or at least recited with something of a tune, to make them easy for a non-literate culture to remember. I do not know what tunes Thongor and his friends may have used for them, but I have found music that works for each of them.

The War Song of the Valkarthan Swordsmen, Thongor sings in battle; he must be formidable indeed if he can hack and stab his way through swarms of enemies while keeping enough breath to belt out a tune.

"All day our swords drank deep and long
Of blood wine-red, of blood wine-strong!
Tonight in the red halls of hell
We'll feast with foes and friends as well!"

As you can clearly see, this sings beautifully to "Greensleeves," and I choose to believe that the tune is much older than originally believed.

Thongor's Saga is presumably written after the conclusion of the book.

"The sliding hiss of scales on stone,
Weird green-flame eyes in shadows black,
When Thongor faced the slorgs alone
And cold steel drove the nightmares back!"

This works nicely with "Greensleeves" as well, which is fitting, as Valkarthians probably don't have the imagination to use different tunes for their war-songs.

Diombar's Song of the Last Battle describes how the Dragon Kings were defeated several thousand years ago.

"From wild red dawn to wild red dawn
    we held our iron line
And fought till the blades broke in our hands
    and the sea ran red as wine.
With arrow, spear and heavy mace
    we broke the Dragon's pride,
Thigh-deep in the roaring sea we fought,
    and crimson ran the tide."

This is more complex, and needs a tune with more variety. It scans wonderfully to the theme song from Gilligan's Island.

The Rituals of Yamath, chanted while making offerings to the God of Fire:

"The naked virgins on thine altars plead
As scarlet flame on pallid flesh doth feed!
Lord of the Fire, drink down young lives like wine—
Hearts, limbs and breasts—their very souls—are thine!"

This was harder to track down, as iambic pentameter is common for poetry, not songs. However, I did verify that "Battle of New Orleans" works nicely. The sacrifices in the book happened long before 1814, so they must have originally used a different tune.

The Scarlet Edda, which contains the prophecy the wizard fears.

"Lords of Chaos dark the sky:
All the Sons of Men shall die.
Dragon-rune and blood of men:
Portals ope—to close again?
Naught can make the Portals fade,
Save the Sword by lightning made."

As is appropriate for such an otherworldly subject, it can be sung to "Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me."


Now you, too, can sing along with Sharajsha as he describes the impending doom of Lemuria.

Words of Wizardry

The vocabulary is downright dizzying. Five of "the nineteen gods" are mentioned by name; one is a goddess. At least 12 cities are mentioned; more than half of them are only mentioned once or twice, and they are not visited. The vorn is a measure of distance: 5,555 "strides," claimed to be roughly the same as our mile. You might expect that distances are only measured in vorn, but no: while the Mountains of Mommur are "a stupendous wall of rock almost two thousand vorn in length," the Inner Sea is "[l]ocked in by miles of mountains"—those exact same mountains.

The various species and cultures of Lemuria are more interesting than Thongor's adventures, which can be summarized as, "Thongor meets great danger; Thongor kills great danger; Thongor is overwhelmed by even greater danger but his friends come to his aid; Thongor then slays the source of the great danger."

A Lemurian Bestiary and Herbarium

Three different creatures have the honor of being the worst monster in Lemuria: the grakks, the drawks, and the zemadar. The grakks and drawks are tied for "fiercest and most deadly fighters," while the "man-eating" zemadar is "the most dreaded." (I don't know why they're called "man-eating." It seems that all the creatures and some of the plants eat men.)

Note: Some creatures are italicized. Some are not. I could not find any pattern in this.

Bouphar, animal: Possibly cow-like. Common food animal, often roasted; also used for leather. The meat is called "beef."

Dream-Lotus, plant: A flower with sedative properties; it works on men and beasts. "One grain [of the dust] will transport a man to the dreamworlds… for many hours."

Dwark, animal: Giant forest dragon found in Chush: 200' long armored body, 60' long neck, and teeth longer than Thongor's sword.

Grakk, animal: Lizard-hawk, a giant predatory flying creature, with 40' batlike wings and a barbed tail. The young are called grakklets.

Lotifer, plant: Huge trees in Chush, sometimes 200 yards tall. All seem infested with slith

Photh, animal: Its skin is used for making scarlet leather pouches.

Poa, animal: Fast predator in the jungle of Chush

Sarn, plant: Berries found in the jungle of Chush, used for making a wine popular in Thurdis.

Slith, plant: Deadly vampire flowers that cover the trees in Chush; they are used for executions in Thurdis. They have "soft petals like a yawning mouth, laying bare the triple rows of hollow fangs."

Slorg, animal: Dreaded woman-headed serpent of Lemuria's deserts. These are near-mindless beasts, that attack in swarms. They have green flame eyes.

Spider, giant flying, animal: Yet another danger in Chush. This one does not make an appearance.

Waterfruit, plant: Fruit from Chush, small enough to be eaten by the handful.

Wolf, green, animal: Sharajsha has a book bound in the fur of a green wolf.

Zamph, animal: Somewhat-draconic creature used for riding or racing. It is a descendent of the triceratops, and somewhat resembles a rhinoceros. The reins are attachehed to iron rings that pierce the ears, the only portion of it that is sensitive to pain. Sharajsha's is wide enough to seat two people.

Zemadar, animal (also spelled zemedar): The shape is never described. It has six arms (plus some number of legs), a triple row of foot-long fangs with poison that instantly paralyzes, a barbed tail, and is very fast; described as a "crimson juggernaut." One of these was the "Terror of the Arena" in Tsargol. It is only vulnerable at the eyes.

But is it any good?

The book is surprisingly readable considering how packed it is with specialized vocabulary, including terms that are only mentioned once. Thongor's story, although rather predictable, contains powerful imagery; this book would do well converted to a movie or comic series.

As a book, however… the plot is cliched; the men are stereotypes; the woman is devoid of personality; the outcome is exactly as expected. Two stars, and half of one of those was probably the fun of singing Diombar's song to "Gilligan's Island."

[Speaking of books, Journey Press now has three excellent titles for your reading pleasure! Why not pick up a copy or three? Not only will you enjoy them all — you'll be helping out the Journey!]




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