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[November 2, 1968] Role Models (December 1968 IF)

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by David Levinson

The passing of a great

As I sat down to write this article, I heard the news of the death of Lise Meitner. If that name isn’t familiar to you, it should be. Einstein once called her “the German Marie Curie,” which might be understating things. She is arguably the most important woman physicist of the 20th century and possibly one of the most important theoretical physicists, period.

Born in Vienna in 1878, she became only the second woman to earn a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna in 1905. She later moved to Germany and worked at the University of Berlin. There, she and Otto Hahn discovered the most stable isotope of the element protactinium, which she dubbed protoactinium before dropping the second “o.” In 1939, she and Hahn, along with Otto Robert Frisch and Fritz Strassmann, discovered and explained nuclear fission. There are also at least two nuclear phenomena which bear her name.

Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner circa 1912.

Meitner was able to escape Nazi Germany in 1938 with the help of Niels Bohr. She settled in Sweden, where she spent the rest of her professional life. Her role in the discovery of nuclear fission garnered her a lot of celebrity after the end of the War; she was even interviewed by Eleanor Roosevelt on her radio show. She was a popular speaker and instructor and traveled extensively to the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

She received numerous accolades throughout her career, and the institute that oversees Germany’s first research nuclear reactor bears her and Hahn’s names. But the Nobel eluded her. Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1944 for the discovery of nuclear fission (ignoring not only Meitner, but also Frisch and Strassmann). The Nobel committee plays things pretty close to the vest, but word is that Lise Meitner was nominated many times in the fields of physicist and chemistry. In 1966, President Johnson honored her with the Enrico Fermi Award.

After retiring in 1960, she moved to the United Kingdom to be closer to family and continued giving lectures. She was in poor health in recent years, unable to attend the Fermi Award ceremony. She died in her sleep at the age of 89.

Lise Meitner in 1963.

Stereotypes

As Lise Meitner’s life shows, women play an active and important role in science, and ought to do so in science fiction as well. Unfortunately, there seem to be fewer women writing SF than there were a decade ago, and there don’t seem to be all that many as key characters in stories either. Two of the stories in this month’s IF don’t have any, two offer mothers, two more femmes fatale, and as far as the first story goes, the less said the better.

A previously unknown piece by the late Hannes Bok, probably the last new Bok cover ever.

The Holmes-Ginsbook Device, by Isaac Asimov

This absurd story is ostensibly about coming up with a better way than microfiche to present printed information (no one has ever heard of putting words on a page and stacking those pages into a book). The "message" is that staring into a microfiche reader keeps you from staring at women. It's patently offensive. And not in a way that challenges our acceptance of societal norms like something in Dangerous Visions. Women are here only the be ogled and groped.

He looks familiar. Art by Gaughan

One star and a guaranteed winner of the Queen Bee Award.

The Starman of Pritchard’s Creek, by Julian F. Grow

Young Widder Poplowski has set her cap for Dr. Hiram Pertwee. He might be inclined to encourage her, but her nine-year-old son is a hellion, and her motherly love is excessively fierce. While picnicking along Pritchard’s Creek, the three of them encounter a talking, self-propelled steam engine and a living trash heap. Getting kicked in the head by his horse may be the least of Pertwee’s problems.

Whatever it is, it ain’t natural. Art by Wood

This is our third encounter with Dr. Pertwee, and it’s a good bit better than the last. This one is well-suited to the western theme, and the doctor’s voice is very well done. I’d say the tone aims to imitate Twain, but doesn’t come close. Of course, not coming close in an attempted imitation of Twain leaves a lot of room to still be good.

Three stars.

If… and When, by Lester del Rey

This month, del Rey looks at couple of areas where science and science fiction keep overtaking each other: there’s too much free oxygen on Venus, the steady-state theory might not be dead yet, and quantum particles that move faster than light.

Three stars.

The Canals of Santa Claus, by Bram Hall

Three wildcat miners are forced to put down on an uncharted planet. They dub the planet Santa Claus for its black growths that resemble Christmas trees (Yule was taken), but can’t explain the regularity of their spacing or the canals of salty water that flow without any change in elevation.

Hall is this month’s new author, and it’s not bad for a freshman effort. There’s nothing really new or groundbreaking, but it’s well handled, and there’s a bit of a sting in the tail.

Three stars.

The Comsat Angels, by J.G. Ballard

Since 1948, the world has become aware of a boy genius roughly every other year. Invariably, they fade from public view after a year or two, never seeming to live up to the potential they showed. A television production team begins digging into the story, but are soon broken up and reassigned. What shadowy organization is pulling the strings?

I’ve never been a fan of Ballard’s work, which I generally find too avant-garde and over laden with allusion and symbolism. This story, however, has a beginning, a middle, and an end (in that order) and lacks the ennui and decadence of the Vermilion Sands stories. I enjoyed it, with two complaints. First, the boy genius discovered in 1965 is Robert Silverberg of Tampa, Florida. He would be a good deal younger than science fiction’s own Silverbob (who isn’t from Florida), and the name pulled me out of the story every time he’s mentioned. None of the others seem to have been given the name of someone else from the genre or elsewhere, so it struck me as odd. Secondly, the connection to comsats seems very strained. But otherwise an enjoyable story.

A high three stars from me; others might like it better.

The Tin Fishes, by A. Bertram Chandler

Continuing his tour of the planets he once opened and charted, Commodore John Grimes has arrived on the water world of Melisse. Giant, unkillable starfish are attacking the huge oysters the natives use to grow pearls, the planet’s only export. Since both of the major Rim officials are incompetents he had posted to a place he thought they could do no harm, he figures it’s his duty to investigate.

Chief Wunnaara may be the only reliable person on the planet. Art by Virgil Finlay

This is a fairly standard Grimes story, with a bit of mystery and spy thriller thrown in. Entertaining enough if you like this sort of thing. I was a bit put off by the ease with which Grimes went to bed with the prime suspect, considering he’s spent the last several stories missing his wife very much. I guess mores and morals are different out on the Rim.

Three stars.

The Pawob Division, by Harlan Ellison

I’m not even going to try to describe this story by Harlan Ellison. It’s full of silly, made-up words like phlenged and thrillip’d to describe the use of alien senses and whatnot. I suspect that if it had been sent in by an unknown, it would have been sent back, maybe with an encouraging letter to keep trying.

A low two stars.

The Computer Conspiracy (Part 2 of 2), by Mack Reynolds

Professor Paul Kosloff heads into Common Europe and Common Eur-Asia to try and find out who’s behind the plot to tamper with the computer records of the United States of the Americas. Somehow, the bad guys seem to know his every move.

More action exactly like the action in Part 1. Art by Gaughan

Part 1 of this serial was so heavy on (poorly delivered) exposition, I predicted this installment would have lots of story. I was wrong; there’s just as much exposition in this half. The action is also just as over detailed; I don’t know what an “Okinawa fist” is, nor does knowing what the protagonist shouts as he delivers a karate blow tell me anything. All in all, it winds up being a typical, if slightly subpar, Mack Reynolds adventure. But it might be worth revisiting in 50 years or so to see how well Mack did at prognosticating the effects of an increasingly interconnected world.

Three stars for this installment and the novel as a whole.

Summing up

Maybe the awful first story influenced my impression of the rest of the issue, and some of these stories deserve better ratings. On the other hand, this is the second issue in a row with a one-star story, and that’s a rating I very rarely give. With the two worst stories coming from the two biggest names in the issue, I’m starting to wonder at some of the editorial decisions being made. But Galaxy doesn’t seem to be doing quite this poorly. At least Fred has promised another Hugo winners issue next year, so we have something to look forward to.

There’s the Zelazny we were promised. This issue really needed it.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 20, 1968] Giants among Men (November 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Black Power

The politics of race have been an actively displayed part of the Olympics as long as I can remember.  Who can forget boxer Joe Louis defeating Max Schmelling at the 1936 Summer Games in Nazi Berlin?  So it should come as no surprise that, at a time when the race crisis in America has reached a fever pitch, that there should be an expression of solidarity and protest at this year's quadrennial event in Mexico City.

The fellows with their hands "clenched in a fist, marching to the [Mexico City] War" (to paraphrase Ritchie Havens) are medal-winning sprinters Tommie Smith (Gold) and John Carlos (Bronze) who had just won the 200-meter finals.  Peter Norman of Australia (Silver), while making no physical gesture, is wearing the same "Olympics Project for Human Rights" medal as his fellow winners.

Why did the winners present this display? I'll let Carlos speak for himself with his comments at a post-race, press conference:

We both want you to print what I say the way I say it or not at all.  When we arrived, there were boos.  We want to make it clear that white people seem to think black people are animals doing a job.  We want people to understand that we are not animals or rats.  We want you to tell Americans and all the world that if they do not care what black people do, they should not go to see black people perform.

If you think we are bad, the 1972 Olympic Games are going to be mighty rough because Africans are winning all the medals."

Carlos added, responding to press references to "Negro athletes" said,

I prefer to be called 'black'…If I do something bad, they won't say American, they say Negro.

Smith and Carlos, described by the Los Angeles Times as "Negro Militants", have been expelled from the Games by International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage.  This is the height of hypocrisy—how many times have we heard "we don't mind if Negroes protest; we just get upset when they riot and burn things"?  Yet, here we have two men, American sports heroes, who peacefully highlight the plight of the Afro-American in our fraught country, and they're the bad guys?

With anti-Brundage feelings piqued and the U.S. expected to win today in the 400 and 1,600 meter relay finals (with nary a white man on competing on the teams), it is quite possible further displays of solidarity will be presented during the playing of our National Anthem.

Right on, brothers.

Speculative Power

It is with this as backdrop that I finished this month's issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which also leads with a powerful image.  Does it deliver as striking a message?  Let's read on and see:


by Gray Morrow

Once There Was a Giant, by Keith Laumer

Ulrik Baird is an interstellar merchant carrying a cargo of ten flash frozen miners in need of medical attention.  In the vicinity of the low-gravity planet Vangard, his drive goes out, sending him hurtling toward the planet.  But the planet is quarantined, off limits to outsiders.  Nevertheless, Baird has no choice—a landing will happen one way or another; if it's a hard landing, the miners won't survive.  Grudgingly, interstellar traffic control grants him clearance and coordinates to touch down softly.  The approach is too fast for safety, and so Baird ejects, parachuting down, his frigid charges ejected safely in a separate, parachuting pod.

All according to Baird's plan.

Under the name of Carl Patton, Baird meets up with the last surviving man on Vangard, a 12 foot behemoth with the nickname 'Johnny Thunder'.  Together with his 7' mastiff, the giant insists on accompanying Patton to where the pod of miners landed somewhere in the frozen wastes.

Again, all according to plan.

The plan is, in fact, quite clever, and this story marks a rare return to form for Laumer, who has been phoning it in of late.  This is a story Poul Anderson would have woven liberally with archaicisms and mawkish sentiment.  Laumer plays it straight, sounding more like E.C. Tubb in his first (the good) Dumarest story.

What keeps the tale from excellence is its resolution.  Ultimately, Laumer provides the Hollywood ending, where everyone's a winner (more or less).  His moral is roughly the same as Dickson's in this month's Building off the Line: some men are Real Men to be envied.  The story even has a riveting travel sequence that takes up much of the story.  An interesting bit of synchronicity.

I think I like this one better than Dickson's, but I still would have prefered something more downbeat, more nuanced.  Four stars.

The Devil in Exile, by Brian Cleeve

Brother, here we go again.

Old Nick and his right-hand demon, Belphagor, were thrown out of the underworld by unionized hellions.  An attempt to get Jack O'Hara, formerly a common drunk, lately a crime boss, to cross the union lines to bring the Devil back to power backfired when O'Hara took charge of The Pit.

Now, down to their last pence, Lucifer and friend pose as upper crust Britishers and miraculously (is that the word?) become heads of the Ministry of Broadcasting.  Their debaucherous fare quickly wins over not just the terrestrial airwaves, but also those in Hell, and the Prince of Lies is restored to his rightful throne.  Finis.

This installation is as tiresome and would-be-but-not-actually funny as the other two.  Good riddance.

Two stars.


by Gahan Wilson

Coins, by Leo P. Kelley

In the time of Afterit, decades after The Bomb poisoned the world with its radioactive seed, humans have given up making decisions.  After all, that's what brought about the Apocalypse, isn't it?  Men making decisions?  Instead, life is reduced to a series of 50/50 chances, each determined by the flip of a common coin.

Vividly written, but the premise (and the story's ending) are better suited to the comics.  Anyone remember Batman's nemesis Two-Face from the '40s?

Three stars.

A Score for Timothy, by Joseph Harris

Timothy Porterfield is one of the world's greatest mystery writers.  When he passes away after a long career, this seems to be the end—after all, does not death write the final chapter?  Perhaps not, with the help of a medium with a flair for automatic writing.  Nevertheless, there is still one final twist to the tale of Timothy…

Well wrought, atmospheric, and you're never quite sure how it will turn out.  I liked it.  Four stars.

Investigating the Curiosity Drive, by Tom Herzog

Curiosity killed the cat, but could it not also kill the human?  And if one's goal is to test to determine whether or not curiosity be the salient feature of any sentient being, isn't it vital that one pick a being who isn't wise to your test?

This is a silly story, ultimately building to a joke that isn't worth the trip.  Two stars.

The Planetary Eccentric , by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor discusses the discovery of Pluto and how it simply can't be the "Planet X" Percival Lowell was looking for.  He does not quite so far as to say that it's not a planet at all, however, as some have opined.

Good article.  Four stars.

Young Girl at an Open Half-Door, by Fred Saberhagen

The Museum of Art is haunted, it seems.  Every night, an elusive prowler sets off the alarms in two of rooms housing prize exhibits.  When a troubleshooter is dispatched, he finds the intruder is on something of a salvage mission, rescuing the art as insurance against an impending disaster.  More importantly, said troubleshooter finds love…

It's a well-told story, and the ending is suitably chilling, though I found the romantic elements a bit too rushed for plausibility.  Four stars.

The Kings of the Sea, by Sterling E. Lanier

In this, the second shaggy dog story of Brigadier Ffelowes, we return to 1938 Sweden for a brush with gods that make the Aesir look like Johnny-Come-Latelies.  It's sort of Lovecraftian and not as compelling as the first tale Ffelowes recounted, which took place in the Caribbean.  Not bad; just sort of pedestrian.

Three stars.

Stepping down from the podium

You know, it's nice to be able to step away from the real world for a while.  There are important things going on that one must keep tabs on, causes to support, but everyone needs a break.  Thankfully, this month's F&SF, while it presents no absolute stand-outs, nevertheless presents no real clunkers, and it finishes at 3.4 stars—well above the 3-star line.

And that's something to salute!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 20, 1968] It comes and goes (October 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Out and in

Being something of a geography buff, one of my favorite games is to go to a thrift shop and inspect their globe collection.  I can generally tell what year a globe was manufactured from the configuration of countries.  And while we haven't had anything like the banner year of 1960, when more than a dozen African states sprang into existence, nevertheless, there are still enough changes every year to keep the game going.

For instance, this month, the Kingdom of Swaziland with its 400,000 denizens, achieved independence from the United Kingdom.  The second-smallest African country, is not entirely free, of couse.  It is completely surrounded by South Africa, with all transportation lines running through Pretoria.  The money is South African.  All telegraph lines go through South Africa.  As for their economy, it's mostly propped up by British hand-outs.

But they do have sovereignty, something South Africa tried to snatch from them time and again, but which was thwarted by the British.  Plus, the new country has vast mineral reserves of asbestos and iron, plus forests and fertile soil.  So King Sobhuza I just might make a go of things.

Going the other way, the people of West Irian (formerly Netherlands New Guinea) have has been annexed as Indonesia's 26th province.  Six years ago, the United Nations stepped in to stop a budding conflict between the Dutch and the Indonesians, who both laid claim to the region.  Now the 800,000 poverty-stricken inhabitants are officially under the auspices of General Suharto.  Sometime soon, they will be given the choice between independence and a union with their neighboring would-be superpower.  It is anyone's guess how free and honest the local elections can be under the Suharto dictatorship (i.e. don't expect a free West Papua any time soon…)


The Morning Star Flag—which you won't see flown until and unless the Irians get independence…

Good and bad

Speaking of mixed bags, this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction has much to recommend it, but then there's all the rest of the magazine.  See for yourself:


by Ronald Walotsky

The Meddler, by Larry Niven

Bruce Cheeseborough, Jr. is a private dick operating some time in the near future.  While in the course of waging a one man crusade against the new crime boss, Lester Dunhaven Sinclair, a certain meddler crosses his path.  Said meddler first appears as a nebbishy, softish man, but he quickly betrays himself as a protean blob, possessed of all manner of wondrous powers.  The "Martian" offers to help the detective, granting him invulnerability, the gift of flight, time dilation…but Cheeseborough finds the tilting of the scales unsporting.

Still, when the detective makes his final assault on Chez Sinc, it's going to take every resource he has, from human wit to alien marvel, to come out the other end alive…

The Meddler is a brilliant piece of genre hybridization, combining hard-boiled noir with cunning science fiction.  Every piece of the story's myriad puzzles is meticulously laid out, so that an astute reader can figure out the revelations just before they materialized.  Beyond that, the piece is funny as well as perfectly paced.

Five stars, and a nice broadening of the author's talents.

Time Was, by Phyllis Murphy

Picture a man so obsessed with saving time, that he applies the art of speed reading to life.  You know: skipping over most of it, trying to absorb only the salient points.  Except, how do you know which bits are the important ones?  And what if you lose the ability to focus on any given thing in the pursuit of apprehending everything?

This story reminded me of a friend who insisted a person must do several things at once to be truly efficient.  If she read the paper, she listened to the radio.  When we watched television together, she'd inevitably crochet.  Remarkably efficient…except half the time, she lost track of the show's plot and had to ask us what was going on.

Three stars.

The Wide World of Sports , by Harvey Jacobs

They say that football is a bloody sport, but it's nowhere near as bloody as whatever Jacobs is describing in this story, featuring machine guns, the slaughter of all audience members of a certain name, and general mayhem.

This story would be more effective if it made a lick of sense and/or had a plot.  Two stars.


by Gahan Wilson

Coffee Break, by D. F. Jones

There's a Laugh-In bit where the projected news break underneath the action runs, "The United Nations today voted unanimously on everything; UN police are still looking for who put grass in the vents."

This story covers the exact same ground, but it takes much longer to do it, and not in nearly as funny a manner.

Two stars.

Dance Music for a Gone Planet, by Sonya Dorman

Fiddling after Rome is burnt?  A tinge of hope for a post-apocalyptic ode?

I'm not sure—I found this one a bit too obtuse to understand.  Maybe I'm the obtuse one.

Two stars.

Possible, That's All!, by Arthur C. Clarke

The Other Good Doctor takes umbrage at Asimov's assertion that nothing can go faster than light.  He offers up some counterexamples, but they're honestly rather feeble, and the article is not particularly coherent.

Three stars.

Try a Dull Knife, by Harlan Ellison

Eddie Burma is an empath, life of the party, and he has so much to give.  Folks are drawn to his magnetic personality like moths to flame, but, unknowingly, each takes a little bit from Burma in each encounter.  This is the price of popularity: eventually, there can be nothing left of you, the you behind the glamor and charm, because no one wants you.  They just want what rubs off.

If you've heard this refrain before, it's because Ellison delivered a soliloquy on the subject in his last collection, From the Land of Fear.  Harlan is afeared that no one really loves him; they just love The Talent that resides within his physical husk.  Readers of that collection also have encountered Knife in its embryonic form, a snippet of it among the story fragments at the beginning of the book.

Anyway, I've said it before and I'll say it again: if your soul overlaps with Harlan's, then his writing resonates with you as The Truth.  If you are much unlike the man (as, for instance, I am), then you can admire the way he strings words together, but they don't move much.

Three stars for me.  Four stars, perhaps, for you.

Segregationist, by Isaac Asimov

Organ transplants are the topic du jour in both science and science fiction.  I find it particularly interesting that much is made of the muddled identity of a person when they incorporate the parts of other humans (viz. Van Scyoc's A Trip to Cleveland General in this month's Galaxy).  This time around, Asimov takes things a step further: are humans less human if they have metal hearts?  And are robots more human if they incorporate biological components?

I liked this story, one of the better pieces Dr. A has done since largely going on fiction hiatus after the launch of Sputnik.

Four stars.

The Ghost Patrol, by Ron Goulart

Speaking of crossed genres, Ghost Patrol is the latest in the Max Kearny series about an art director who solves occult crimes in his spare time.  These yarns range from hilariously clever to limp.

This one, about a free doctor beset both by celebrity ghosts and Bircher anti-freeloaders, belongs, sadly, in the latter category.

Two stars.

Little Found Satellite, by Isaac Asimov

This month's piece is worth it for the funny anecdote that forms its preface.  The rest is a pleasant, if not particularly deep, history of Saturn's telescopic observation.  The piece culminates in the discovery of Saturn's tenth moon, Janus, just outside the ring system.

Four stars.

The Fangs of the Trees, by Robert Silverberg

At a recent convention, my daughter led a panel entitled "Plants vs. People", in which the panelists and audience discussed green menaces of various kinds.  Triffids, killer ragweed, stuff like that.  I wish I'd had Fangs as an example, as it's a good one.

Zen Holbrook is runs a plantation on a world countless light years from Earth.  His trees produce a valuable, hallucinogenic-juiced fruit.  They're also quasi-sentient, something like ultra-advanced Venus Fly Traps.  Though he tries to keep his relationship with his trees strictly business, he can't help ascribing them personalities, giving them names, and treating them like pampered pets.

Which makes it all the more difficult when he gets news that all of the trees in Sector C have been afflicted with "rust", a disease that not only spells their impending death, but has the risk of spreading throughout the whole planet.  Holbrook must kill his friends lest an entire world's economy die.  Further complicating the matter is his 15-year old niece, Naomi, who would rather die than see the grove decimated.

It is implied, though never specifically stated, that there is no less destructive way to solve the problem: not only must the trees die, but so must an entire species of benign hopper-bear—a link in the infection cycle.  Lord knows what that will do the local ecosystem, but "the needs of the many…"

It's an interesting, thought-provoking piece, composed with Silverberg's usual excellence, though I'm not quite sure which side we're supposed to take, if any.  Like, do we all need to grow up and realize that ecological destruction is a valid and important necessity?  Or is Zen actually the villain?  I could have done without so much of the Uncle's attraction for his niece, too, even if it was supposed to say…something…about Zen's character.  I know that the word for people who ascribe the emotions of an author's creation to the author himself is "moron" (at least, per Larry Niven), but Silverbob sure includes a lot of just-pubescent minors in his stories…

Four stars.

Whaddaya make of that?

If you read judiciously, this month's mag is terrific, kind of like how, if you parse the news in just the right way, it's all positive developments.  Look deeper, and the seams show.  Still, whether the news or the magazine are half full or empty all depends on your temperament, I suppose.

I guess I'll leave with the wishy washy conclusion that's always true: things could be worse!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[August 20, 1968] A tale of two issues (September 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Split Personality

There's an interesting piece by Ted White in May's Science Fiction Review.  He talks about how the magazines are on a slow, inexorable decline due to a number of factors.  The biggest is that SF mags used to be just one subgenre of the myriad pulps, all of which had their lurid covers prominently displayed at every corner newsstand.  Sure, the SF pulps weren't exactly of a piece with their mystery, Western, and thriller brethren, but Joe Palooka didn't care, grabbing the most attractive issues.  So, SF thrived, making a profit even if it sold just 25% of a print run.


Note Astounding (now Analog) in the upper left and Amazing in the upper right

Then the pulps died in the 50s, partly due to changing tastes, mostly due to the collapse of American News Company, the main distributor for monthly mags (and comics).  The remaining SF mags were consigned to lesser shelves, all by themselves.  The average schmo got his entertainment from TV.

The profit mark has now risen to 50%–in other words, at least half of the issues printed must sell for the run to break even.  This makes it very risky for the mags to try to expand their market by printing more issues.  If they, say, print 50K and sell 35K, well and good.  But if they then print 200K and sell 96K…they've lost money on the run.

Add to that even SF people are losing interest in mags, lured by paperbacks and the new paperback anthologies, and dismayed (as I have been) by the declining quality of stories over the last ten years.  The only thing that keeps us subscribing is inertia and brand loyalty.  That'll wear off unless the magazines manage to turn the ship.

The magazines have been around for almost half a century.  Assuming they are around in the 21st Century, and if this trend continues, they will service an increasingly small fraction of the SF-interested community.  They will be like the horseshoe crab: living fossils, unchanged for 300 million years, clinging to life in a wildly different environment.

But that's all speculation.  For now, enough good stuff still comes out in the mags to keep me buying.  Though the high variability of the latest issue of F&SF may cause me to revisit that policy…

Over Hill and Dale


by Chesley Bonestell—this is the same nebula featured repeatedly in the Star Trek episode "The Alternative Factor"

Ogre!, by Ed Jesby

It's been four years since Ed Jesby offered up his first tale, Sea Wrack, which was so-so.  His sophomore tale, Ogre!, is an improvement.

Knut the Ogre takes a nap sometime in the Middle Ages.  When he awakes, covered in loam and with mushrooms growing in his ears, he finds he has slept clear through to the 20th Century.  There (then), the seven-foot beast befriends a timid bookie on the run from the Mob.  You see, Ogres are actually misunderstood creatures, quite nice and mild despite the calumny heaped upon them by humans.

Together, Knut and the bookie (and the bookie's seamstress pal) hatch a scheme to get the bookie off the hook and out of the business.  And of course, it involves horses:

To Harry the plan seemed to be basically sound: after all the way to make money was on the races; there was no better way. You took bets or you made them, all other ways of earning a living were mysterious, square, or the result of inheritance.

It's really a charming tale, and it put me in a charitable mood for the rest of the issue.  More fool me…

Four stars.

Butterfly Was 15, by Gilbert Thomas

A scurrilous German scientist has learned how to manipulate others with the judicious use of electrodes and remote transmitters.  He meets his match when he locks horns with a traditional psychologist with methods of his own.

This is supposed to be a funny piece.  I found its themes of mind control and Ephebophilia to be thoroughly repellent.

One star.

Sos the Rope (Part 3 of 3), by Piers Anthony

Once again, we turn to our friend, Brian, who will likely never volunteer for anything ever again…


by Brian Collins

We now find ourselves in the final installment of the latest F&SF serial, but unfortunately it’s so long as to encompass nearly half the novel. We run into trouble before we’ve even jumped into the story proper, as the recap section commits the grievous sin of telling us about things that we have not been able to read for ourselves. At the end of the previous installment you may recall that Sos and Sol are about to fight in the battle circle to see who takes custody of Sola and Soli, Sol’s wife and adopted daughter respectively. Apparently, between installments, Sos lost the fight, and is now journeying up “the mountain” to commit ritual suicide.

I do not understand how this happened. It could be that Anthony had turned in an early draft of the novel and had intended to write the fight scene between Sos and Sol, but all the same, this is such a glaring oversight as to show incompetence. I was confused at first because I thought I had somehow missed the ending of the previous installment, but no, I had not missed anything; it’s just that the fight and its immediate aftermath were kept “offscreen.”

Now up to date, we find Sos who, naturally, does not die on his way up this freezing mountain, but falls unconscious and is rescued by a small society of people who are somewhere between the crazies (the civilized people) and the nomads who roam the wasteland. We come across the second major female character of the novel (foreboding music plays), who, as you would expect, goes unnamed at first. She’s a short athletic girl whom Anthony repeatedly calls childlike and “Elfen,” but also attractive, which makes me wonder if Anthony might be appealing to a certain subspecies of male reader here. The girl steals Sos’s bracelet and makes him work for it, all but forcing him into taking her as his wife. As if the institution of marriage were not already filled with holes, the system presented in this novel may be fit for ants, spiders, and other small invertebrates, but not actual humans.

Since this is at least theoretically the last stretch of the narrative, in which we find our hero at his lowest point before he rises from the darkness, I need not go into great detail as to what happens next—except for one thing: Sosa (for that is her name now) reveals that she’s been desperate to find a husband, having gone through several men already, because she feels great angst at not being able to produce a child. Infertility is often sad news, to be sure, but in a world where contraception is presumably hard to acquire, I can’t imagine this strikes Sos’s ears as too sad; after all, he’s still committed to Sola in his heart.

Piers Anthony seems to understand women about as much as I understand the inner workings of a submarine.

Having given up his rope in his fight with Sol (another major detail we are not told about until after the fact), Sos has not only regained his confidence but taken up fists as his new weapon. I don't recall if we get his new full name (as men in the novel’s world have a monosyllable followed by their weapon of choice), but Sos the Fist sounds…….

Anyway, there is an inevitable rematch, and this time Sos is victorious. The ending here implies that there may be a sequel in the works, but I’m not waiting to see what Anthony does next. 1 out of 5 stars for this installment, and barely 2 out of 5 stars for the novel.


by Gideon Marcus

Faunas, by L. Sprague de Camp

Someone in the zines was complaining that magazines never run worthy poetry anymore, that back in the golden days of the 50s, most of the pieces were memorable.

Keeping up the trend, De Camp offers up a snatch of doggerel comparing the titanic beasts of yore with the primate beasts of now.  Pretty pat stuff.

Two stars.

Harry's Golden Years, by Gahan Wilson

It is amazing the lengths to which people will go to maintain a sinecure.  Harry Van Deventer is the richest man in the world, senile and filled with infantile rage and a teen's hormones.  His hangers-on can only manage him by keeping his surroundings perfectly controlled—a willing nurse here, an emergency surgery to fix a day's incaution there.  But even a 24/7 watch can slip up…

It's hard to imagine a man both so utterly terrible and yet so rich and powerful that so many would endure so much to keep him alive.  But I suppose venality trumps all.

Three stars.

The Evaporation of Jugby, by Stephen Barr

Wadsworth Jugby is a big zero, a department store Vice President-without-portfolio, mediocre in every way.  He finally gets the opportunity to live life from a different perspective when his friend, Dan Byron, invents a psyche-swapping machine.  Intoxicated by his exchange, he eagerly agrees to expand the scope of the experiment, round-robining with six other folks.  The end is…well, given away by the title.

Fluff, with one funny line:

"Jugby could suggest a puzzled frown without lowering his eyebrows-some monkeys can do this."

Two stars.

The Dying Lizards, by Isaac Asimov

Last month, the Good Doctor had a terrific article on the dinosaurs.  This month, unfortunately, he indulges in speculation, which never works out well.

The topic this time 'round is the sudden death of the dinosaurs.  He advances various climatic and medical hypotheses, discarding each one in turn.  He poopoos the idea of mammals being "superior" as we existed alongside dinosaurs for most, if not all, of their tenure on Earth.  Asimov leaves off with the suggestion that an external event caused it, specifically a nearby supernova that spiked radiation-induced mutations.

Again, I have trouble seeing how the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and icthyosaurs and pleisiosaurs could all have destructive mutations but not the birds and mammals.  I think Ike's cute idea that dinosaurs evolved intelligence and killed themselves with powerful weapons, which would have occurred in the blink of an paleontological eye and thus escape excavation, is more plausible.

Three stars.

A Scare in Time, by David R. Bunch

The demarkations of time, the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and centuries, have met in their onion dome.  Tired of being measured and metered by humanity, they plot their ultimate revenge…only to have it foiled by human ingenuity.

A cute modern fairy tale.  Three stars.

The Moving Finger Types, by Henry Slesar

Twilight Zone department: Legget couldn't figure out what was wrong with his life.  It was like his every move was laid down in a script, and he'd lost the page.  Little did he know, that's exactly what had happened.

A fun bit on predestination told in Slesar's competent screenwriter fashon.

Four stars.


by Gahan Wilson

Mixed feelings

You can see my problem.  If you read from either end of this issue, you've got a good 30 pages of material (and you can count Merril's book column, too, though I rarely agree with her assessments, and her tastes are drifting far afield of SF these days).  But if you read through the middle, that's a lot of one-star territory to slog through.  A lot.

Is half a loaf better than none?  More importantly, is it worth fifty cents a month?

Only you can decide…




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[July 22, 1968] Shades and Shadows (August 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Hail to the Chief

I mentioned a few months back that Tony Boucher, one of the original editors for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction had passed away.  Because of the vagaries of publication, it took this long for F&SF to solicit eulogies for Tony and get them in print.  But a finer tribute, I can't imagine.

Some of SF's greatest luminaries pay their respects: Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Randall Garrett, Philip K. Dick, Avram Davidson…but what impressed me even more was how many prominent women authors appear, too–Judith Merril, Mildred Clingerman, Margaret St. Clair, Miriam Allen DeFord.  It is fitting that so many of the fond rememberers are women; F&SF, particularly in the Boucher years, was by far the biggest SF publisher of woman-penned SFF.

Those were great days, the Boucher reign, when virtually every issue was a winner (sort of like the Gold days at Galaxy).  And half the stories we picked for our anthology of SF by women from 1953-57, some of the very best science fiction of the time, came from the pages of F&SF.

It is a shame that the appearance of these names from yesteryear evoke a pang of loss perhaps greater than the passing of Mr. Boucher.  Except for a few notable rallies, F&SF has been on a slow, inexorable downward trend since 1959, it's last superlative year.  This issue is no exception.  While it is not crammed with wholly unworthy material, nor is it anywhere near the standards it used to maintain.

Let me show you…


by Gahan Wilson

The House that Tony Built

The Devil and Jake O'Hara, by Brian Cleeve

I was less than enthusiastic about Brian's last story about Old Nick, in which Satan is cast out of hell along with a lowly sidekick when the souls of Hell unionize and go on strike.  This one is a step downward.

All Lucifer needs to break the strike is one measly member of the damned who will cross the picket lines and turn the power back on in the underworld.  He sets his eyes on an Irish lush who sells his soul for a bottle of quality whiskey.  His daughter adds a few amendments to the deal, but it doesn't really matter.  Ultimately, the sot goes to Hell, though the result is not what the Prince of Darkness wants.

There's just too much affected dialect, meandering, and oh-so-cleverisms.  What could be a workable premise is, instead, tedious.  And this is from someone who likes Deal-with-the-Devil stories.

Two stars.

Sos the Rope (Part 2 of 3), by Piers Anthony

[As with last time, Brian has graciously offered to stand in so I don't have to suffer through Anthony's latest "masterpiece"…]


by Brian Collins

To show once again that democracy is a flawed system, Piers Anthony is now a Hugo nominee! I can scarcely fathom some people’s enthusiasm for his debut novel Chthon getting nominated for Best Novel. His second novel, Sos the Rope, may redeem itself by the final installment, but the chances of it recovering are not high. There is one positive that can be said of this middle installment immediately: it’s short.

Not much happens here, and at only about 25 pages there isn’t much opportunity for Anthony to bless us with his worst habits, all involving women. To recap, it’s America a good century after a nuclear catastrophe, and two rogues, Sos and Sol, agree to a one-year partnership while the latter builds a tribe, one combatant at a time. The two are good friends and respect each other as warriors, but Sos is weaponless while Sol is unable to beget children of his own. Their friendship is complicated when Sol’s wife in name only, Sola, takes a strong liking to Sos and the two eventually have sex behind Sol’s back, leaving Sola pregnant with Sos’s child. This is unfortunate for everyone, including the reader. But by now the one-year contract has run out and Sos and Sol agree to part ways, with Sos returning to a crazy-run hospital where he grew up and where he learned to read.

Another positive thing I can say is that since Sola is virtually absent in this installment, and since Sol only appears at the beginning and end, we’re taken away from the plot to be given more of an explanation as to the workings of this post-apocalyptic world. It’s during his time away from Sol’s tribe that Sos finally decides to take on another weapon—this one the long heavy rope of the title. It’s about halfway through the novel that we finally get the weapon that would become part of the hero’s name. I still cannot properly describe how much I object to the naming system Anthony concocted here. It only gets more aggravating when Sos eventually returns to the tribe and finds that Sol now has a daughter named—wait for it—Soli. Sos and Sola still want each other but the latter refuses to give up Sol’s name and Sol himself refuses to give up his adoptive daughter. A fight in the battle circle, possibly to the death, ensues!

Anthony still cannot write compelling action scenes, and he still cannot write women above the level of depicting them as instigators of doom. A recurring implication here is that Sos and Sol would turn out fine, at worst going down different paths amicably, if not for Sola’s meddling. At the same time I was not offended so much this time.

If I turn my head on its side I might be able to stretch this installment to 3 stars, because it is a relatively painless experience and even mildly enjoyable in a few places, but that implies a tepid recommendation and I can’t lie to readers like that. Strong 2 out of 5 stars.


by Gideon Marcus

The Twelfth Bed, by Dean R. Koontz


by Gahan Wilson

This one takes place in a futuristic rest home, where the aged are confined in their last years under the beneficent but iron care of robot wards.  One day, a young accountant is checked into the home by mistake.  Try as he might, he can't get out…until he brews a revolt.

Koontz is a writer with a lot of promise, and he did manage a 4-star tale last month, but most of his stories have some kind of issue.  For this one, it's that the setup is a bit too contrived to really engage sympathy.  Maybe it's supposed to be satire, but again, it plays things to straight if that's the case.  Moreover, I read a similar (and better) story in Fantastic three years ago (Terminal, by Ron Goulart).

Anyway, three stars, and keep trying Dean!

2001: A Space Odyssey, by Samuel R. Delany and Ed Emshwiller

Two of my more favorite people provide reviews of Kubrick/Clarke's epic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.  They are interesting perspectives, one from a vivid fictioneer, and one from a gifted illustrator and artist. 

Chip (Delany) actually favored the original three-hour version that was cut within a week of its premiere, asserting that the irony of the HAL segment is sharper, and the disorientation of the weightlessness scenes settle in more viscerally.  I don't know if that kind of glacial pacing would have been an improvement, but on the other hand, the only time I felt even slightly restless when I watched the film was during the transit scene near the end, so maybe I missed out.

Emsh praises the effects and spends most of his time discussing them rather than the story, which he seems to find serviceable, if not stellar.

It's a better pair of reviews than, say, Robert Bloch's blistering affair (in which Bob calls the monolith a "cylinder" for some reason–sadly, I can't remember where I saw it.  A fanzine, I think.)

Four stars.

Death to the Keeper, by K.M. O'Donnell

This piece is book-ended by the protestations of a producer of a television program, disclaiming all responsibility for what ensued on his show, Investigations.  It seems he hired a has-been actor to re-enact the recent assassination of a public figure (presumably, echoing the murder of JFK).  The actor went meshuginnah and actually assured that he actually got killed in a sort of expiation of public sins.  We know this from the interminable, raving diary the actor left behind explaining his motivations.

I really don't know what to make of this story.  While I'm not the biggest fan of J.G. Ballard, I found his utlization of the Kennedy assassination (and other cultural touchstones) to be more effective.  Certainly more readable, despite the outré nature of his composition.  O'Donnell just seems like he's trying too hard.

And as with his earlier story satirizing war, it's clear he believes in writing ten words when two would suffice.

One star. 

A Sense of Beauty, by Robert Taylor

It is the last night of a short-lived affair, for the male half is leaving.  And not just away from his lover, but from Earth.  You see, he is an alien, sort of, a member of an extraterrestrial race of humans, and Earth is doomed to soon be consumed in a natural nova.  He was sent to our world to gather our finest art treasures, these to form a legacy of our lost race.

The tale is reasonably well executed, but its effectiveness is reduced both by the mawkishness of the scenario and that of its participants (the woman is hysterical, the man poor at communicating), as well as the fact that, again, this feels like a story I've read before, one that was done better.  I just can't remember which one it was…

Maybe Taylor, who is a novice, will realize his potential with a more original story next time out.  For now, three stars.

The Terrible Lizards, by Isaac Asimov

I was just thinking that I wanted a nice survey on what we know about dinosaurs in 1968, and the good Doctor has presented one.  As a bonus, he tell us some horrible things about Sir Richard Owens, a preeminent dino-hunter in the last century.

I enjoyed learning the greek roots of the various dinosaur names as well as the relationship between dinosaurs, mammals, birds, crocodiles, and turtles.

Four stars.

Soldier Key, by Sterling E. Lanier

Lanier is another newcomer, but this is his second story, and he seems to have found his footing very quickly.  This is the tale of a British Brigadier, the sort with decades of experiences and a knack for storytelling.  Apparently, Lanier has a whole treasure chest of stories that the Brigadier will tell, which we'll get to see as F&SF publishes them.

This particular piece involves the time the Brigadier went Caribbean island-hopping in a small boat with his friend, Joe, and two local seamen, Maxton and Oswald.  They learn of Soldier Key, a little spit of land inhabited by the queerest of ex-Britishers, dedicated to an unholy church and with an unhealthy adoration for giant hermit crabs.

The plot is Lovecraftian, but without the undercurrent of racism (indeed, the story is quite anti-racist).  I found it engaging, thrilling, and also satisfying.  Not just horror for horror's sake, but threaded with light–the light provided by decent human beings remaining human in the face of inhumanity.

Four stars.

Urban blight

Well, that wasn't all bad, thankfully.  Still, 2.4 is a pretty dismal aggregate.  Compare that to the 3.3 average for 1959.  Also, for all the female participation in the eulogizing, there are no fiction stories from women this issue.  In fact, there have been only six stories by women this entire year.

We could stand to go back to the '50s in more ways than one…


Tony Boucher, with friend, in 1954




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 26, 1968] To far off lands (July 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Points East

It's been so very long since I could offer a travelogue from my favorite of countries, Japan.  But now, after four years (and a stop at the Fotomat to develop pictures), I finally have a dual treat for you–vacation slides and a review of the latest issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction!

But instead of dumping either of them on you all at once, how about we take a simultaneous trip, both to the Orient and to vistas even further off?


by Jack Gaughan

For this article, I have the invaluable assistance of Mr. Brian Collins, a fellow 'zine editor with a penchant for pain.  To wit, after reading this month's issue, he offered to take a stab at the lead story.  As I have no qualms with anyone stabbing Piers Anthony, here goes…

Sos the Rope (Part 1 of 3), by Piers Anthony


by Brian Collins

Piers Anthony has appeared here and there over the past few years without making much of a fuss, with his first SF novel, Chthon, being decidedly uncontroversial among the Journey people (read: everyone I know hates it). That was last year, and now we already have the beginning of his second SF novel, Sos the Rope, which Ed Ferman introduces as a “successful” contest novel “of superior quality.” I don’t wish to call Ferman a liar, but I shiver to think of what the standard must be for contest-winning SF novels for this to be deemed a success.

The premise is simple—too simple. It’s been a century since a nuclear holocaust apparently sent mankind back to its early hunter-gatherer ways, with “society” being reduced to mostly roaming tribes with little hotspots of civilization maintained by “the crazies,” people who somehow retain the ways from before the holocaust. We start with a duel between two warriors, both named Sol, who fight in a circle to see who gets to keep both the name and the right to use all the standard weapons of combat. The loser is thus named Sos, and he becomes not only weaponless but Sol’s (the winner’s) servant; but it’s not all bad, for Sol is not some wandering rogue but a man with a vision, as he wants to build an empire from scratch. A nameless woman who witnesses the duel joins the two and, in a rather haphazard ceremony, becomes Sol’s wife and takes the name of Sola, as is the custom. Apparently people here can change names the way one changes pairs of shoes.
Thus the story starts as something of a road trip narrative that at first sounds like it may be adventure fantasy a la Conan, but is actually science fiction—although Anthony puts in the minimum effort to justify the setting. We also have a lust triangle (I wouldn’t say love, for any reasonable person can’t suppose that Sos and Sola are in love) as Sos and Sola are clearly attracted to each other, but Sola wants Sol’s title while Sol has no affection for Sola. We find out at one point that indeed Sol can’t satisfy his wife as he’s all but said to be a eunuch. “Sol would never be a father. No wonder he sought success in his own lifetime. There would be no sons to follow him.” This does not stop Sos and Sola from eventually doing the dirty deed and the latter getting very pregnant. I continue to suffer.

My experience with Anthony up to this point was basically nil (though, of course, my friends at the Journey tell me stories), but I can already sense a profound distrust of women running through his writing. The way marriage works in the novel’s world is that women literally do not have names and presumably no property rights unless hitched to a man, whereupon they take their husband’s name with just a letter added to it. There is no signed contract, and marriage can be made and ended upon the exchanging of a bracelet. This notion of wife-as-property went out with the Dark Ages, but Anthony has revived it so as to a) generate conflict, and b) give us an excuse to view female characters through the lens of someone who might as well be picking out clothes in a store. There is much ogling at Sola’s physique, including a couple situations where she shamelessly tries to seduce Sos.

The battle circle scenes are not even strikingly written. By the time we get to the climax, where Sol, in recruiting men for his empire, is about to take on a massive brute named Bog (all the men seem to have monosyllables for names), I struggled not to put down my issue and do something better with my life. However, because I feel Anthony can do (and maybe has done) worse, I’m inclined to give this installment a generous 2 out of 5 stars.


by Gideon Marcus

The above was actually written before we went to Japan.  On the 10th, we took off from Los Angeles, the Boeing 707 we flew in now a nostalgic experience rather than a new one (we're so spoiled!) Because of our speed, we were in daylight the entire time, and yet, when we landed at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, it was already the next day thanks to the international date line.

Just in time for me to read this story about a completely different kind of trip…

The Psychedelic Children, by Dean R. Koontz

The effects of LSD are still relatively unexplored.  Some believe that the psychedelic effects of a "trip" suggest the unlocking of psionic potential.  And what if that psionic potential was inheritable…

It is the near future, and Laurie, Frank's wife, is having an episode.  Her psi powers come in waves; when they peak, they must be channeled outward in a fiery blaze lest they destroy her.  So Frank drives her out to the countryside (furtively, for the psi-capable children of Acid-droppers are all sought by the authorities) so Lauren can vent her energies.

The next day, a patrolman and his robot assistant show up at their door…

Koontz paints a vivid world in a few deft strokes, creating a memorable story with a nice ending.  Koontz is still a bit new, and it shows in some awkward turns of phrase and a less than expertly rendered final act.  Nevertheless, it's a good story, both SFnal and fantastic.

Four stars.

We spent our first week in Tokyo, down by the harbor in the Hamamatsuchou area.  Tokyo is different from other metropolises–from the air, it's an endless cityscape, and on the ground, it seethes with activity.  Commuters rush by in endless streams, on foot and by train.  It should be oppressive, but the fundamental politeness and regimentation of Japanese society, at least in the urban areas, somehow makes it all bearable.  It's much different from, say, the noisy stink of New York City or the sprawling gray of Los Angeles.

Speaking of regimentation and programming…

Key Item, by Isaac Asimov

I was prepared not to like the Asimov story as his best fiction-writing days seem long behind him, and they now tend to be gimmick-ended vignettes.  But this one, in which a scientist figures out why a sentient MULTIVAC computer has stopped answering requests, was pretty gratifying–and most surprising.

Four stars.

Tokyo also distinguishes itself from other cities in its random beauty.  Personal space is at a premium, and so Japanese people decorate everything with thought and an aesthetic eye.  Even storefronts and random streetscapes become scenic.

Ultimate Defense, by Larry Brody

If the last story dealt with a mechanical brain, Ultimate Defense features a bionic wonder, a genetically engineered super human.  Jarvis Raal is under suspicion of murder, and it is up to a harried public defender to get him off.  How he does so involves an interesting twist on the subject of race.

I love the way Brody hints at an integrated future (a necessary underpinning of the story), and the story's conclusion is a lovely jab at centuries of bigotry.  My only complaint is stylistic: Brody ends every other paragraph with a punchy, one-line, standalone.  It lacks effectiveness in the repetition.

Four stars.

After five lonely nights in Tokyo (all of our friends in the capital had moved away or drifted out of sight since our last visit), we made our way on the Shinkansen for the first time in four years.  It's still as thrilling an experience as ever, zooming past the countryside as fast as a Cessna can fly.  Our destination was Nagoya, a rather ugly, industrial city in the country's center.  After Tokyo, it looked curiously American with its Western-style grid of streets designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  It was the least we could do after flattening the city during World War 2.

However, the urban sprawl of Nagoya was in some ways lovelier than Tokyo for the people who live in it.  The Chubu/Osaka region is home to the greatest concentration of friends in Japan, both foreign and indigenous.  After meeting up with Jen and Dan, two professors who work at Nagoya University (Dan is half-Japanese, Jen is full Minnesotan), we got a call from Nanami, whom you may remember from our previous Japan-based articles and her appearance on The Journey Show.

Well, not only had she recently gotten married, but her husband and she had formed a jazz duet.  They invited us out to a coffee shop to watch them perform, and they were just terrif.

The ability to go all over Japan at great speed, manifesting almost at will, calls to mind the next story…

Remote Projection, by Guillaume Apollinaire

This ancient, translated piece starts off as one kind of thing and ends up very much another.  A messiah, calling himself Aldavid has appeared simultaneously throughout the globe.  Though he simply prays and gives sermons, his effect is electric.  Jews start emigrating en masse to Palestine, Jewish bankers are incarcerated so that they cannot empty their coffers in the support of Zionist goals, and gentiles grudgingly concede that they might have backed the wrong horse 2000 years before.

So it's a religious fantasy, right?  Then why does the messiah look suspiciously like a no-good-nik con artist, murderer, and crackpot inventor that our narrator character recalls from earlier life?  The end of the tale is all science fiction (well, scientific romance; we didn't have "scientifiction" yet), and pretty prescient.

Three stars; four if the old style tickles your fancy.

It is said that being invited into the home of a Japanese family is quite the honor for a Westerner.  Well, we were more than honored when Nanami and her husband, Tomoki, insisted we join them for a home-cooked meal of okonomiyaki at their lovely little house.  Afterwards, we had an impromptu jam session.  I sang Kyu Sakamoto's Ue wo muiteru arukou, which you know States-side as Sukiyaki (Nanami had ended their jazz concert with the song, too.) It was an absolutely sublime experience.

Speaking of sublime…

The Sublimation World, by John Sladek

John Sladek offers up this pastiche of a certain New Wave pioneer (the story is ostensibly by a J. G. B??????) If you've read any Ballard, and especially if you've read a lot of Ballard, you will see that Sladek skewers him with absolutely convincing parody.  After all, imitation is the sincerest form of mockery.  Yet he also manages to tell his own tale and put his own spin on things.  Brilliant stuff.  I read it aloud to Janice immediately upon finishing it, and it was difficult to avoid breaking up.

Five stars.

Nanami's pad wasn't the only place we ate well.  One morning in Nagoya, I found a little restaurant serving soba.  And not just soba, but cold soba.  And not just cold soba, but cold soba with fried onion on top.  WITH a side of curry rice.  I can tell you, I didn't eat lunch that day!

That was food for my stomach.  Now, how about some food for the mind?

Little Lost Satellite, by Isaac Asimov

Dr. A's first fictional story was Marooned off Vesta, so it is appropriate that he finally do an article about the titular asteroid.  He doesn't have too much to say because there isn't much to be learned from a point of light–the best we can resolve the tiny object with terrestrial telescopes.  He does make some rather half-baked theories as to the origin of Vesta and other asteroids, suggesting they might be former moons of the big planets, their rotation rates indicative relics of the worlds they once orbited.

Mostly, we're left with questions.  Three stars.

Beyond Words, by Hayden Howard

Last up, we have the fellow whose Esk tales in Galaxy started promisingly, meandered terribly, and ended…decently.  The fellow can write, sometimes.  And indeed, he does a decent job with this story, about a fellow who went into the desert to revert to language-less savagery.

But when you can't speak anymore, how can you defend yourself against a murder charge?

Three stars.


by Gahan Wilson

Heading for home

And so, 12 pleasant vacation days and 130 pages of F&SF go by.  Aside from the disappointing beginning, which I thankfully didn't have to read, the magazine definitely compelled me to return to F&SF next month.  Just as we fully intend to return to the lovely land of Japan next year, this time.

Mata ne!  (until next time!)




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[May 20, 1968] Dying, deflating, and deorbiting (June 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Fading Echoes

It sometimes astounds me how long Galactic Journey has been around.  Eight years ago, we covered the launch of Echo 1, a big balloon shot into orbit so that NASA eggheads could use it as a cosmic message relay.  More importantly, it was an artificial beacon, proof at a time when the Americans were losing the Space Race, that we had established a visible presence in outer space.

In just a few days, Echo 1 will be no more.  Though the air at Echo's altitude is, to terrestrial standards, a fine vacuum, there is enough there to pull at the satellite.  For the past eight years, the tug has slowed down Echo, and this month, it will fall out of orbit, plunging into the atmosphere, where it will burn up.

All things must pass, and Echo had a good run, but still, it's a little sad.

Which brings us to this month's issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. 

Last month, we lost Anthony Boucher, who helmed F&SF for much of the '50s.  His term was excellent, and he also wrote some great stories, too, my favorite being The Quest for St. Aquin He was only 56.

Since Boucher's tenure, F&SF has been an inconsistent magazine.  There have been good issues of F&SF, and there have been less than good ones.  The latest is one of the latter kind, and its underwhelming quality serves only to make us pine all the more for what we've lost.


by Ronald Walotsky

The Consciousness Machine, by Josephine Saxton

Zona Gambier is a mental technician, proficient in the usage of WAWWAR, a device that has revolutionized psychotherapy.  It dredges the animus of one's mental dysfunction, bares it to the possessor, and in doing so, cures the ailing person of any psychological malady.  It is thus a matter of great consternation when she finds that her patient, Thurston Maxwell's, animus does not seem to correspond to his condition–namely a predilection for sexual assault.

The imagery WAWWAR produces is the story of a teenage boy living ferally, hiding from all of humanity, until he comes across a newborn, still attached to her just-dead mother.  He raises the child, somehow providing for it, until she is old enough to be an adoptive sister.  Later, as an adult, they become lovers.  Finally, they have a child together, completing a kind of circle.

Ultimately, we find out what this story means, and whose animus it actually is.  The writing is rather nice, but the explanation at the end is ad hoc, and I certainly wouldn't call the piece science fiction.  Science-esque, perhaps.

Three stars.

Of Time and Us, by David R. Bunch

Better poetry than some, worse than others.  I'm not sure I care for the sentiment, espousing the futility of humanity against the infinity of chronology.

Three stars.


by Gahan Wilson

The People Trap, by Robert Sheckley

Overpopulation stories have been de rigeur for more than a decade now, to the point where the genre is a bit overripe.  Especially given that, according to articles I've been reading lately, the population growth rate has been steadily declining in the First World for most of the '60s.  Now, will that continue?  There are an awful lot of Baby Boomers coming of age, and perhaps the trend will reverse itself.  But it does seem that large families, at least in the West and other developed areas, are falling out of fashion.

Which is why Sheckley's satire of overpopulation stories, in which a mild-mannered father, tired of sharing his one-room flat with five others (with five more on the way), enters a deadly competition, is a breath of fresh air.  Along with 60 other participants, he must complete a foot-race through the wilds of New York City, populated by the lowest forms of humanity.  His prize: one of the last free-standing acres of land on the continent.

Very quickly, you see that the thing is a lampoon, and as such, it's quite tolerable.  Indeed, it's the closest thing to an old-style Sheckley story I've read in a long time, and old-style Sheckley is one of my favorites.

Four stars.

Settle, by Ann MacLeod

A couple buys a fixer-upper.  Soon, the man of the house starts losing pieces of himself.  First a toe, then a foot, onto his leg and torso, until he is just a head.  Still, he goes on repairing elements of the home, determined to make it livable.  Eventually, he is just a set of teeth and a bit of brain, mowing the lawn by mouth, until he is crushed under the knee of his toddler son.  The end.

Per the editor's preface, this story is about how a money pit takes its toll in flesh from its owners.  I'm glad that was explained to me, because otherwise, I'd have no idea.

One star.

Backtracked, by Burt Filer

Author Burt Filer is apparently married to Settle's author, Ann MacLeod.  His tale is the superior of the two.

A man in his mid-30s wakes up to find his body ten years older.  Apparently, he has "backtracked"–a decade from then, he swapped physical forms with his younger self (which apparently destroys the future incarnation so as to prevent paradoxes).  He has no memory of the next ten years, nor why he chose this particular date to come back to.

All he knows is that his polio-crippled leg is now reasonably robust, and that his wife is not altogether happy with his new, somewhat weathered, appearance.

Eventually we do find out what would motivate a man to give up a decade of life, and it's a reasonable justification.

Three stars.

At the Heart of It, by Michael Harrison

This is both an old tale and an old-fashioned tale.  It details the tragic story of a bookseller who discovers a profane book, one that teaches the reader the art of transferring one's soul into an inanimate object.

There are no surprises, and the kicker comes at the end, like all its Weird Tales brethren.  I imagine this would have been humdrum in the 30s and it certainly doesn't cut the mustard now.

Two stars.

Counting Chromosomes, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor explains the relatively new science of genetics and the role chromosomes, which are essentially punch cards that govern cell reproduction, have in them.  He spends a good deal of time on sex chromosomes, and the effects that mutated sex chromosomes have on human beings.

Fascinating stuff, but there is an air of eugenics about his discussion, particularly in calling chromosomally abnormal human beings "defectives" and describing the recent exclusion of Ewa Klobukowska from women's sports on the basis of an extra Y chromosome as a positive development, ensuring competitions remain "sportsmanlike", rubbed me the wrong way.

Three stars.

The Secret of Stonehenge, by Harry Harrison

In this vignette, archaeologists armed with a time-traveling camera send it back to find out why and when Stonehenge was created.  Turns out that the camera leaves chronological echoes, afterimages that last long after the camera has departed.  Of course, it is these images, that, to primitive Britons, could only have been a sign of the gods, that spurred the creation of Stonehenge.

Harry should know better.  We've known since 1963 that Stonehenge was an astronomical calculator, able to predict eclipses and solstices.  It was built where it was because it needed to be to function properly.

In any event, the far more exciting (and dangerous) discovery is that long-range time travel can be used to communicate with the past, but this was not touched upon.

Two stars.

Sea Home, by William M. Lee

The first long-term permanent underwater residence has been completed.  However, it quickly becomes apparent that Sea Home has a problem: its five long-term crew, already at depth, are undergoing physiological changes.  It appears to be linked to the special air mixture they're breathing to alleviate pressure issues; their blend includes oxygen, helium, and sodium hexaflouride–the latter two ingredients serving as a kind of buffer, one very light, and one very heavy.

There's a lot wrong with this story.  For one, it's a novelette for a one-gimmick story.  Lee tries to add color and reasonably competent writing to hide the fact, but there are simply no mysteries to keep you intrigued beyond the central one.

And the central one is stupid.  The premise is that the absence of nitrogen triggers all sorts of biological miracles.  Free from the shackles of nitrogen, our bodies become more efficient, our brains get smarter, our skin sprouts tiny fields of gills fer Chrissakes.  It reminds me of the early stories about long-term weightlessness, when, because we had no data, sf writers filled in the blanks any way they wanted.

Except we do have data.  Gemini 7 was in space for 14 days, its crew breathing a pure, 5psi oxygen atmosphere.  None of them got any smarter or developed vacuum-breathing gills or what-have-you.

Dumb.  Two stars.

Cithaeronion farewell

As you can see, this issue is sort of like the work of a taxidermist.  It looks like F&SF, many of its contents are familiar, but the breath of life is missing.  Would that someone new could come along and instill the esteemed publication with the vigor it enjoyed under its past master.

Lest all we have left is fading echoes…




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[April 30, 1968] (Partial) success stories (May 1968 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Chertona Dyuzhina (Baker's Dozen)

Luna 14 is the Soviet Union's latest space success story.  Launched April 7, it slipped into lunar orbit a couple of days later and began relaying data.  Per TASS, the spacecraft is still working fine, returning space weather reports and mapping the moon's hidden contours through the wobbling of its path due to lunar gravity.

No pictures have been returned, nor has there been any mention of an onboard camera.  However, since Luna 12 (launched October '66) did have one, it is generally believed that Luna 14 has one too–and it broke.  We'll probably never know.

Campbell's Seven

The latest issue of Analog is also not an unmixed bag.  However, it's still the best issue of the mag by a long shot since January.  That's something worth celebrating!


by Chesley Bonestell

Satan's World (Part 1 of 4), by Poul Anderson

David Falkayn is back!  The fair-haired protoge of Polesotechnic League magnate Nicholas van Rijn has been sent to Earth to find untold fortune.  More specifically, to inquire at Serendipity Inc., storehouse of all the universe's lore, for the quickest route between Point A (Falkayn) and Point B (wealth).  It's amazing what can be done with computers in the Mumblethieth Century!


by Kelly Freas

To do so, he puts himself at the mercy of the board of Serendipity, becoming a guest on their lunar estate.  His crewmates, Adzel the monastic saurian who talks like Beast from The X-Men, and Chee, who talks like Nick Fury from Sgt. Fury, stay behind…and worry.

With good reason, for Falkayn has been shanghaied, purportedly in love with one of the Serendipity board, but probably brainwashed or something.  Van Rijn gives Adzel and Chee the green light to investigate.

Falkayn stories are always somewhere in the lower middle for Anderson–serviceable but unexciting.  Once again, the author utilizes some cheap tricks to move things along, even calling them out in text in an attempt to excuse them (the long explanation of Serendipity's modus operandi; the sudden coincidence of a call by a critical character, etc.) None of the characters is particularly interesting, perhaps because of the extremely broad brush with which they're described, particularly Van Rijn.

Nevertheless, mediocre is pretty good for a Falkayn story, and I'm kind of interested.  Plus, Anderson's astronomy is always pretty good.

Three stars so far.

Exile to Hell, by Isaac Asimov


by Kelly Freas

This story is remarkable for being the first time Isaac has appeared in Analog (the magazine was Astounding when wrote for Campbell).  It is otherwise unremarkable–this vignette is written in '40s style, with a hoary "twist" ending, which was already incorporated as one of many elements in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Two stars.

Conquest by Default, by Vernor Vinge


by Kelly Freas

This one surprised me: alien anarchists, who by their law are forbidden to have polities larger than 10,000 people, take over a recovering post-nuclear Earth.  The Terrans are worried that they will suffer a fate similar to that of the Cherokees–annihilation, assimilation, relocation, or a combination of all three. 

Told from the point of view of one the conquerers, it very much seems like this will be one of those fatuous Campbellian tales where it turns out that free enterprise and libertarianism are the superior forces, and that the solution to "the aboriginal problem" has a neat and obvious solution.

But the story has a sting in its tail.

I had not expected to find an anti-capitalist, anti-libertarian screed in the pages of Analog, much less an acknowledgement of the American genocide…yet there it is!  And because the viewpoint character is an alien (and a comparatively sympathetic one, at that), the full impact of the story is saved for the end.

Four stars.

His Master's Vice, by Verge Foray


by Kelly Freas

Prox(y)ad(miral) Elmo Ixton lands his patrol ship, the sentient craft, Rollo, on the planet of Roseate on the trail of a rebel proxad who has gone to ground and recruited a network of criminal accomplices.  The agoraphobic and irritable Ixton ingratiates himself with very few people, but he does get his man…in time for the tables to be turned when the renegade takes over his ship.

Luckily, Rollo is not about to become an unwitting accomplice.

Not bad.  I didn't much like the Gestapo methods with which the "good guys" extracted the truth from suspects, though.

Three stars.

Fear Hound, by Katherine MacLean


by Kelly Freas

In late 20th Century New York, the city seethes with a despair so palpable, it almost seems the echoes of one person's broadcast pain.  Indeed, that is exactly what it is.  And the Rescue Squad, a corps of intellectual empaths, are on the case to find the source before s/he perishes in anguish, and in the process, telepathically pushes hundreds, maybe thousands more, to the brink of insanity or even death.

There's a lot of neat stuff in this one.  Obviously, you have to buy telepathy as plausible (something Campbell obviously does).  Given that, the idea of a group of people tracking down injured folk by their subtle telepathic emanations, and the unconscious mass effects these have on others, is pretty innovative. MacLean writes in the deft, immediate style that has made her one of SF's leading lights for two decades; the dreamy, choppy execution fits the circumstances of the story.

On the other hand, the bits about smart people essentially providing the brain for dozens of sub-average IQ types through unconscious telepathic links was something I found distasteful. There are also a few, lengthy explainy bits that could have been better worked in, I think.

A high three stars.

Project Island Bounce, by Lawrence A. Perkins


by Kelly Freas

The alien Ysterii arrive on an Earth not unlike that depicted in Conquest by Default.  Here, the crisis is that the blobby amphibians prefer the archipelagos of Asianesia to the dry expanses of Eurica.  This is causing a trade imbalance that will ultimately not only destabilize the world, but potentially lead to a cut-off of peaceful relations with the galaxy altogether.

Perkins doesn't tell the story very well, especially compared to Vinge's writing, and the "solution" is dumb. Two stars.

Skysign, by James Blish


by Leo Summers

Carl Wade, a Berkeley radical type finds himself trapped on an alien vessel floating above San Francisco.  As memory returns to his headachey brain, he recalls the he was the one "lay volunteer" among dozens of men and women chosen as ambassadors for their various technical expertise.

Now, Carl and a hundred-odd humans are prisoners in the gilded cage of the ship, offered all manner of food and a fair bit of recreation.  But they are nevertheless under the control of the alien crew, humanoids in skintight suits, with the ability to teleport and put the human captives to sleep at any time.

That is, until Carl, with the help of the Jeanette Hilbert, a brilliant meteorologist, figure out how to wrest control of the whole system from the aliens.  That's only half the story, since Carl and Jeanette have differing ideas on what to do with absolute power.

I liked this story, and Blish does a good job of putting us in the boots of a not-entirely savory character.  I find it particularly interesting that our radical protagonist is something of a jerk; I originally thought that this might be a subtle, anti-leftist dig, but Blish is an outspoken peacenik, so I think he just wanted to create a nuanced character.

Four stars.

Batting Average

Analog thus ends up at a reasonable 3.1 stars–not stellar, but certainly worth the 60 cents you pay for it (less if you have the subscription, of course).  That puts it at the bottom of the new mags (vs. IF and Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.5), but better than the reprints (Fantastic (2.7) and Amazing (2.0)).  The magazine average for the month was 3.1.

All told, if you took the four and five star stories of this month and squished them into one mag…well, you'd need one and a half. That amounts to about 40% of all new fiction this month. Again, not bad.

The sad news is only one story this month was woman-penned, making up for 4.3% of the newly published works.  And that one was MacLean's, meaning Analog wins this month's pink ribbon in a mass forfeit.

Well, I suppose you take your victories where you find them.  At least we ended up on the positive side of the ledger this month…




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 20, 1968] A treat for the senses (May 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Pleasures of the Flesh

There are lots of different kinds of science fiction, from the nuts-and-bolts problem-solving variety one might call the Astounding style, to the literary style of the British New Wave, to the softly surreal speculation that often characterizes Galaxy.  This month's issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction is one of the more sensual mags I've read in a long time, putting you, the reader, firmly into the viewpoint of its protagonists.  From an SFnal perspective, the pickings are pretty slim, the speculations rather shallow.  But from a visceral point of view, well, each story sends you pretty far out, making for a perfectly satisfactory experience whose highlights come, welcomely enough, at the beginning and the end.


by Russell Fitzgerald (this suggestive cover is a little frustrating as it gives away the end of the story it illustrates…)

Strange New Worlds

Lines of Power, by Samuel R. Delany

First up, and rightfully so, is the latest novella by a man who has taken SF by storm.  It is set in or around the year 2050, when the world has been knit by endless power cables, providing no limit of electricity and prosperity.  The lines are laid out by self-contained crawler units (think the highway patrol motor homes from Rick Raphael's Code Three).  By the middle of the 21st Century, all of the world, from Siberia to Antarctica has been knit with energy.

But there are occasional holdouts.  One such Luddite concentration is in Canada, where a flight of future-day motorcyclists, soaring on winged choppers, have made their haven in the woods.  These "angels" are violently opposed to the encroachment of the self-described "demons" and "devils" that comprise the Power Corps crew of the "Gila Monster".

It is progressive in the extreme, with women bosses and free love: interracial, intergenerational, and any-sexual.  Modern-day (1968) hangups are completely discarded in a manner that Purdom pioneered and Delany has perfected.  At the heart of the story is the moral question, one we've seen explored on Star Trek several times–is it right to give the fruit of knowledge to those who actively reject it?

Like all Delany stories, this is a highly sensory piece, although it also requires close reading, as Delany likes to be a bit sparse with his linking sentences.  It's a simple story.  You will find no revelations, and the characters are bit shallow.  Chip (the name by which the author traditionally goes) has his kinks and tics, and they are all on display here, suggesting that this was a labor of love, but not necessarily too much effort.

Thus, a pleasant, but slightly hollow four stars.  You could start a magazine with much worse!


by Gahan Wilson

The Wilis, by Baird Searles

This is a beautifully told spotlight on an opera company, from the pen of someone as experienced with the field as, say, Leiber is with the theater.  Honestly, the supernatural components are almost superfluous, coming as they do at the end of the story, with little surprise and rather clunky integration.  But without them, I suppose the piece would not have been published, at least in this magazine.

Three stars, as well as the prediction that we won't ever see anything by Mr. Searles again–this was obviously a very personal piece, and I would be surprised if he has more ideas in him.  But you never know!

Gifts from the Universe, by Leonard Tushnet

Another fellow who writes what he knows is Leonard Tushnet, whose pieces have a delightful yiddish tinge to them.  Here, a retailer of gifts happens upon a wholesaler in ceramics whose stock is beautiful beyond compare–and at such a deal as to prices!  But the rather unusual wholesaler only accepts silver as currency, and his tenure and his wares have a definite expiration date…

You'll enjoy it; you'll even remember it.  A pleasant three stars.

Beyond the Game, by Vance Aandahl

The second-darkest piece of the issue comes from a young man who filled the pages of F&SF in the early '60s but then disappeared in 1964.  He returns with the tale of Ernest, a boy trapped in a sadistic game of dodge ball, huddled for safety behind the broad backsides of two of his teammates.  When the sadistic Miss Argentine (who may be a robot) notices the cowering tyke, she commands all of the kids to teach him a lesson.  In doing so, she unlocks the child's unearthly powers, which facilitate his escape.

Nicely told, this feels like it was conceived by Aandahl when he was quite young, and he waited until he was deft enough with writing that he could effectively put it to paper.  It's fine for what it is, which isn't all that much.  Three stars.

Dry Run, by Larry Niven

Now for the darkest piece, a fantasy from a fellow I normally associate with straight-forward "hard" SF (though I suppose The Long Night, which also appeared in F&SF, was also an exception).

Murray Simpson grips the wheel of his Buick, cigarette smoldering between his white knuckles, the stiffening body of his Great Dane in the trunk.  The dead dog is Simpson's doing, a dry run for the murder of his wife.

An accident forestalls the culmination of Simpson's plan.  Those who judge in life-after-death decide to find out how things might have otherwise played out.

Upon first reading this decidedly unpleasant tale (not just the subject matter; the depiction of a San Diego freeway traffic jam is too spot on for any local's comfort!) I was inclined to give it three stars.  After reading it aloud to my family as their bedtime story, the piece came to life for me.

Thus, four stars.

Backward, Turn Backward, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor takes a stab and planetary rotations and axial tilts in this month's science fact article.  I do appreciate that he advances his own theories as to what caused both the "direct" (counter-clockwise) rotations of most of the planets (the natural spiraling in of the bodies as they coalesced) as well as what caused Uranus to spin on its side and Venus to spin retrograde (perhaps collisions early in formation).

It's still a somehow dry and shallow piece.  I'm not quite sure what I want from Isaac, but he's not quite doing it for me these days.

Three stars.

A Quiet Kind of Madness, by David Redd

In the snowy winter wastes of Finland, lone huntress Maija comes across a strange creature, shivering and near death.  He looks something like a polar bear, but not quite.  As she nurses him back to health, she discovers he is intelligent, telempathic, and from an entirely different world.  When they sleep, her new Snow Friend takes her to his place-without-men, a warm place of perpetual sunshine.  It is a paradise to Maija, who would just as soon leave our world behind.

For a man pursues her, the relentless Igor, who six months tried to have his way with her, and is now back to claim her again.  But it is not just fear of Igor that spurs her on, rifle in hand, to fend off the man, but fear for Snow Friend, who will be just a pretty pelt to Igor.

As with Redd's previous story, Sundown (which also features a snowy landscape–Redd must have a deep familiarity with icy terrain), Madness is vivid and compelling, and more artfully told than Sundown.  It's almost a contemporary Oz story, with Snow Friend a refugee from a magical land.  It's also a beautiful character study, of the bitter and solitary Maija, of the not-entirely-bad Igor, of the well-meaning but still male Timo, and of the sweet, alien Snow Friend.

This time, it is not for lack of deftness that this piece falls just short of five stars, nor for its almost incidental fantastic qualities, but simply because the end is not quite satisfying–almost as if Redd, himself, was unsure how to conclude the piece.

Still, it kept me hooked.  A high four stars, and my favorite piece of the magazine.

Back to reality

As my colleague Kris puts it (and Kris insists it originated with me), Fantasy and Science Fiction's experiment at being a monthly version of Dangerous Visions appears to be paying off.  The May 1968 issue scores a solid 3.5 stars with no clunkers in the mix.  If none of the stories quite achieves classic status, well, maybe next month.

I only wonder where all the women went, given that the pages of F&SF were once the bastion of SFnal femininity.  Maybe they're all writing Star Trek scripts.

In any wise, pick up this issue and enjoy.  In this tumultuous day and age, it's nice to breathe the rich air of other worlds for a while.

Speaking of other worlds, come join us tonight at 8pm (Eastern and/or Pacific) for the rerun of "The Doomsday Machine", one of Star Trek's best episodes!

Here's the invitation!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[March 20, 1968] Missed opportunities (April 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

A week is a long time in politics

The British Prime Minister Harold Wilson is fond of noting that a lot can change in just seven days.  In American politics, the last seven days have witnessed a lifetime of tumult.

It was just last year that President Johnson was polling in the 70s.  When Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, stand-offish, brainy, tepid in his commitment, took to the field last November, few took his insurgent, Anti-Vietnam-War campaign seriously.  Least of all, President Johnson, who did not even apply to be on the ballot in New Hampshire's primary, scheduled for March 12.

Then the Tet Offensive happened, giving lie to the idea of slow but steady progress in Southeast Asia.  The Credibility Gap between the populace and the President became a canyon, and when the dust had settled, Senator McCarthy had garnered just 230 votes less than LBJ in the year's first Democratic primary.

Just a few days latter, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who had last year demurred from running, referring anti-war supplicants in McCarthy's direction, decided to throw his hat in the ring.  The Democratic insurgency has become a full-on party civil war.

Johnson's complacence reminds me of Georges Ernest Boulanger, who in January 1889 was elected deputy for Paris and seemed on the verge of leading a personal coup against the Third Republic.  But on the fateful day of January 27, when the crowds roamed the streets and chanted his name, the would-be despot was nowhere to be found.  Turned out he had missed his moment, lost in the arms of his mistress rather than under arms with his supporters.

Who knows where all this is headed?  It just goes to show that even the most promising candidate can fail for lack of sufficient focus on the goal.  And this leads me into discussion of this month's issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction.


by Bert Tanner

Burned batch

Have you ever been careless in the kitchen, not so much as to ruin dinner, but to render it far less palatable than it could have been?  All of the stories this month are missing something.  Their imperfection lies in missing some quality, or in some cases, an overcooking of sorts.  The result is a handful of ideas that could have been good in others' hands, or perhaps with more expert editing, or more time and care in production.

Flight of Fancy, by Daniel F. Galouye

After a long hiatus, the author of the brilliant Dark Universe returns to the pages of science fiction with this, probably the best piece of the issue.

Frank Proctor is an ad man, miserable in his career and his life, shackled to a beautiful woman who insists on tormenting him with affair after affair.  But he stubbornly refuses to divorce her, knowing it means financial ruin.  His only solace is his recurrent dreams in which he has the ability to fly.  He knows it is a stress reaction, but at least it is a moment's surcease.

A greater balm arises: at a company beach party, Frank falls asleep by the shore and immediately begins to soar in his dream.  While apparently still in slumber, he meets a lovely young lady, who also possesses the ability to fly.  Happily, she is still there when he wakes, and he assumes he must have been sleeping with his eyes open for her to infiltrate his sleep.

Of course, romance is inevitable.  But what of his Frank's scheming wife, and will the pictures she took of him and his new love put him over a barrel?  The ending is ultimately a happy one, if a bit pat.

This is a well-crafted and vivid story.  My only real issue is it feels a bit like wish-fulfillment, and I have to wonder if Galouye just went through a messy divorce.

Four stars.

Dead to Rights, by R. C. FitzPatrick

Crime boss Angelo Amadeo is rubbed out by his second.  When the instrument of Angelo's death turns stoolie, the second's devotees enlist a surgeon to recall Angelo to life, reasoning that if Angelo is not dead anymore, then he never could have been murdered.

The problem is, Angelo's body is brought back to life, but the soul inside is most definitely not his.  Instead, the reborn inhabitant preaches love of fellow man and everlasting life in the adoration of God.

You can see where this is going.

Too much effort is made to make this a "funny" piece, and the conclusion is obvious from the start.  Two stars.


by Gahan Wilson

Without a Doubt Dream, by Bruce McAllister

Antonio and his lovely wife, Alba, wake up one day to find their pine-ensconced villa suddenly surrounded by endless desert.  Worse, the insinuating sands are slowly creeping in, destroying all that they touch.  Antonio reasons that only his psychic ability is shielding them, but his doubt in the same talent is causing him to lose the battle.

McAllister describes this all in an earnest, somber tone, and he successfully captures the feeling of a pair of foreign protagonists.  However, the piece ends rather abruptly, and without a great deal of evolution of the story.  Moreover, the tone is a bit too one-dimensional.

Thus, for this third piece by this promising, 19-year old author, I give three stars.

Demon, by Larry Brody

Pinchok, a simple blue-collar worker who happens to be the denizen of another plane, is summoned to Earth in a pentagram by a would-be three-wisher.  When Pinchok turns out to be rather useless as a genie, the summoner decides maybe Pinchok should devote his talents to crime…for the benefit of the human, of course.

The concept of demons just being aliens in another dimension, and the art of demonology more a kind of kidnapping (with the implication that it might work the other direction, too, with humans becoming the demons) is an intriguing premise.

This tale, while pleasant enough, just doesn't do enough with it, however.  Three stars.

The Superior Sex, by Miriam Allen deFord

William, an astronaut, finds himself the newest member of an all-male harem, subject to an imperious and beautiful mistress.  He cannot recall how he got there, but he can recall being from a world dedicated to the principle (if not the assiduous practice) of equality between the sexes.  Thus, he rankles at his new role, and in an interview with his mistress, exclaims that he would rather die than live subjugated.

Of course, the truth of his situation is more complex than it first seems.

This is almost a great story.  DeFord, an ardent women's libber before the phrase was coined, has a promising message in this piece that is then muddled by its ending.  Too bad.

Three stars.

The Time of His Life, by Larry Eisenberg

One of science fiction's few writer/scientists offers up this tale of a middle-aged scientist resentful of forever being in the shadow of his Nobel-winning father, who covets his son's wastrel youth.  Said elder has now invented a kind of time travel, but it ages or youthens the traveler rather than sending him elsewhen.  In the end, both father and son get what they want.

A decent Twilight Zone-esque piece.  Three stars.

The Dance of the Sun, by Isaac Asimov

This month, the good Doctor discusses the phases of the inner planets with respect to the Earth.  He also notes that Dr. Richardson had done a similar piece for Analog a few months back.  Frankly, I was more impressed with Richardson's; I found Asimov's dry and difficult to follow.  And astronomy was my major!

Two stars.

Muscadine, by Ron Goulart

Mr. Muscadine is an android programmed to produce great books.  The secret to his success is the idiosyncrasies fundamentally coded into his electronic brain.  But as his eccentricities spin out of control, his agent finds himself conspiring with the android's programmer toward a drastic solution.

Goulart can write well, and he can also write funny.  He does neither here.  Two stars.

Final War, by K. M. O'Donnell

Finally, an anti-war piece in the vein of Heller's Catch 22.  It features a Private Hastings, a war-addled First Sergeant, and an indecisive Captain, whose unit spends three days a week capturing a forest, three days a week being driven from the forest, and Mondays resting.  What follows is the usual silliness of war, including friendly fire, endless red tape, and general insanity.

Harrison did it MUCH better in his Starsloggers.  This one meanders for way too long in a singular vein.  Two stars.

Expected results

With a limp offering like this, it's no surprise that this issue ends up on the wrong side of three stars.  It's a shame.  Joe/Ed Ferman's mag is often one of the frontrunners in the field.  But with a month like this, I suspect Mercury Publishing is going to have an upset when compared against its competitors for April 1968.

Luckily, science fiction is an endless primary, and a month is a very very long time.




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