By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

There has been a steady rise in complaints about the state of current TV in the liberal society. It is commonly held up as the cause of declining moral standards and a crude form of entertainment. The Times decided to look into this and had a team watch through and analyse the 284 hours of television in the first week of April. Of these almost 60% of them contained no hint of violence, vulgarity or sexual content.

Looking at the violent content 19 of the hours are from the news, documentary or sport. And others include such broad definitions as children’s fairy tale containing a threat of “losing your head”. Among the remaining violent content, it is predominantly American films and television, in particular Westerns. If the Western was the cause of growing societal violence, it would be declining from its domination of large and small screens.

Jackanory, source of violence?

On the other-hand vulgarity tends to come from British comedies in later evening and these are on the milder side of expletives. It tries to make headlines out of 47 uses of the word “bloody” in one week, but this is skewed by the fact that Braden’s Week ran an episode discussing if the word was still offensive.

Braden’s Week: Too vulgar for TV?

Finally, nudity and sexual content is barely present. There are a couple of bedroom scenes and double-entendres, but full nudity or sexual acts are absent. The closest is in a cigar commercial where a woman emerges from the sea in a wet t-shirt.

Are Manikin’s Cigars causing a breakdown of Britain’s morals?

If that is the case, then where should we look for the riding tide of sex and violence? One MP has a theory, witchcraft! Gwilym Roberts MP has been calling on the Home Secretary to introduce legislation against anyone who claims to practice witchcraft as it leads to drugs and blackmail. This will certainly be news to most of the witches I know.

Malcolm Leigh’s recent “documentary”

Whatever the cause, the panic over the current changes in society continues apace. It also seems highly present in the short SF of Britain, as its sole surviving magazine is certainly not limiting their bloodshed:

Vision of Tomorrow #8

Cover illustration by Kevin Cullen

Editorial: Full Circle by Philip Harbottle

Once again, Gillings’ sorting through his archives unearthed an unpublished story from John Russel Fearn. This one was incomplete, as it was meant to be the first part of a round robin story intended for Future Fiction. At the same time the cover illustration came in unsolicited which, coincidentally, worked very well for the Fearn story. As such Bounds has used both the text and image to complete the tale.

Lost in Translation by Peter Cave

Illustration by Eddie Jones

The sole survivor of the Newtonian recounts what happened to the other 18 members on the Delta 4 expedition. They discovered a chain of planets that give off no spectroscopic readings and contains a form of life that does not seem to resemble any known form of matter.

This is a perfectly reasonable, but ultimately forgettable, first contact story. If you had told me it was a 20 year old reprint, I would have believed you.

A low Three Stars

Finally, Readers’ Poll results for Issue #3. I personally would have put Stableford as my top choice and not have had Nixhill Monsters in my top 4, but not too far off my own selection.

The Custodian by Lee Harding

Photo illustration by Lee Harding

Asian war lords launched a series of bacteriological missiles. When the fallout mutated a virus, it destroyed much of the world’s population and drove many of the survivors insane. In the aftermath, Carl Bleeker meets Deidre Ashton, a young woman, in an abandoned house in the mountains. Bleeker wants to keep it as a repository of knowledge, whilst Ashton wants to find other survivors. Together they try to work out how to live in this strange new world.

In the introduction we are told that Harding set out to create a story that is entirely derived from the history and culture of Australia. Initially I didn’t see much difference between this and one of the many mid-western post-nuclear survival stories Americans seem so fond of, but as it goes on it becomes much more about the relationship between the coastal settler population and the interior Aboriginal people.

Bleeker and Ashton are interesting characters. Firstly, I was expecting this to follow the standard Silverbergian format where the old-grizzled man sleeps with the innocent young woman but this is not the nature of their relationship. What they both want and need is friendship. Also, Ashton counters our expectations as to how she will be described:

This was no fey young girl but a capable woman already versed in the grim techniques of survival.

She was dressed for travel: a heavy maroon sweater and dark gray slacks made her sex ambiguous from a distance…Once she might have been petite; now her small frame verged on skinny…But underneath this fragile exterior he could detect uncommon strength.

Yet they are not meant to be paragons of virtue. We see they have their own problems and prejudices to overcome, in particular regarding the indigenous peoples.

It is not an easy tale to read but certainly a worthwhile one.

A high Four Stars

Fantasy Review

Kathryn Buckley gives a positive review to Thorns by Robert Silverberg whilst feeling that Hauser’s Memory by Curt Siodmak is good on science but poor on art. John Foyster reviews the Wollheim collection Two Dozen Dragon Eggs, saying it is not amazing but still worthwhile, and Donald Malcolm heaps praise on The World Jones Made by Philip K. Dick (declaring it “a minor classic”) and The Journal of Paraphysics, an odd choice given it is full of subjects such UFO-ology, Arthurian mysticism and psi-powers.

Transference by K. W. Eaton

Illustration by Eddie Jones

Dr. Martin Lewis, an English psychiatrist, has been selected by the Capellans, controllers of the Federation, for an unusual task. The Shurans, the oldest and wisest race in the galaxy, are afflicted with some kind of species-wide neurosis. In interviewing a Shuran geologist, Teremen, Dr. Lewis must work out what has happened to them.

Once again this is a darker and deeper tale than it first appears, however it is one that I don’t think that can be done justice in a vignette. Probably a novelette would be more suitable.

Three Stars

Fixed Image by Philip E. High

Illustration by James Cawthorn

When Jim Bowls is first brought into the mental institution after taking an unusual cocktail of drugs, he seems like a standard delusional patient, believing himself to be a dog. It turns out to be more complex, as he can:

1) Spread his delusion to other patients
2) Physically transform himself if he so wishes

For the sake of both science and mankind, M’Guire and Saranac must work out what is really happening here.

I feel like drugs and mental institutions have become to recent British Publications what spaceships and time machines were to 30s American magazines. This another reasonable tale in a familiar mode.

Three Stars

The Scales of Friendship by Kenneth Bulmer

Illustration by Eddie Jones

This story marks the return of Bulmer’s “Galactic Bum” Fletcher Cullen. Here he wakes up in damp and dark alley near Klank, a Rolphollan (a species that looks like a bone dustbin with a large single eye on the side). They have both had their drinks spiked and had all their money taken. They must try to avoid those people trying to kill them and uncover the conspiracy behind it.

This is a little better. The alien races created are more interesting, there are some great little touches hinting at the wider universe, and the story is action-packed. The problem remains though that it is all a little thin and I have no interest in reading about Cullen. By the end I was glad it was over.

Two Stars

The Ghost Sun by John Russell Fearn & Sydney J. Bounds

Illustration by Eddie Jones

In a distant galaxy, the Elders of the Tormah find an Earth ship approaching from the direction of the Ghost Sun. These insectoid beings go inside the TERRA to find all the humans dead and attempt to translate their last words to discover their fate.

The weakness of this story is actually stated in the Harbottle’s introduction, this was intended to be the first part of a round-robin serial, so it doesn’t really go anywhere. The aliens just discover the last moments of the Earth crew and then leave.

And (despite what Harbottle may believe) Fearn is not an interesting or important enough author for an uncompleted scrap to be worth our time reading it. JRF has produced worse work but this could have been written by any reasonably talented SF author for Astounding in the 40s.

Two Stars

The Impatient Dreamers: The Way of the Prophet by Walter Gillings

Illustration for John Russell Fearn story Death at the Observatory

In the final part of Gillings’ excellent series, he concludes by tying off some loose ends, talking about what HG Wells was up to (and how much he disliked John Russell Fearn being described as HG Wells II), another short-lived magazine Modern Wonder, and a meeting between members of The Worlds Says ltd. and the Science Fiction Association on a new magazine called New Worlds.

Next week the story will be taken up by another attendee of that meeting and the next big editor in British publishing, the young Mr. John Carnell.

This does feel a bit of a fragmentary conclusion to the series, but still very insightful and, overall, it has been easily the highlight of Visions. I only hope Carnell can keep up its high quality.

Four Stars

The Planet of Great Extremes by David A. Hardy

Illustration by David A. Hardy

David Hardy’s tour of the solar system continues with Mercury.

This is much the same as the last issue: dryly rattled off facts and figures more like another encyclopedia entry rather than a piece of genuine insight, but it probably achieves the objective of giving the uninitiated a feel for what it might be like to visit Mercury.

Three Stars

Quite the Horror Show

Outside of The Custodian there is little in the way of memorable content here. A couple of months ago I thought this was the best publication on the market, it has now slipped back into the doldrums.

I don't think this is to do with the level of violence or not in these tales. It is that Harbottle is in love with the SF of 20-30 years ago so much, it feels like he is not only repeating that era in much of what he selects but that he is also repeating himself.

I do imagine though that this would shock Mary Whitehouse and The National viewers and Listeners Association. Will they start running an SF readers branch soon too?

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[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]

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