Tag Archives: john brunner

Magazine

[April 30, 1965] Back-door uprising(May 1965 Analog)

10 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

Pirates of the Caribbean

The Dominican Republic, half of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean, has never been a beacon of democracy.  The Trujillo dictatorship lasted three long decades, ending only in 1961 after his assassination.  The nation's first democratic elections, in 1963, brought Juan Emilio Bosch Gaviño to the Presidency.  In the same year, a military junta removed him from power, elevating Donald Reid Cabral to the position.

Reid was never popular, and on April 24, military constitutionalists and Dominican Revolutionary Party supporters launched a coup, José Rafael Molina Ureña taking the top post.  He lasted all of two days.  A counter coup restored the Reid government to power, although Reid, himself, had fled the country.

Meanwhile, the American military worked to evacuate some 3,500 U.S. citizens living in the country.  Just this morning, elements of the 82nd Airborne Division landed at San Isidro Air Base, on the outskirts of Santo Domingo.  Their mission is to enforce a ceasefire and guide the country back to democracy.

Thus, our nation is now involved in stabilizing missions on both sides of the globe.  Will this action mark a long term involvement?  Or, in the absence of a Communist menace (Haiti is not North Vietnam!) and with the aid of other O.A.S. nations, will this be a quick exercise to hasten Caribbean democracy?

Only time will tell.

Insurgency in the Old Country

At the very least, we can be certain that the Dominican involvement has no chance of developing into a nuclear confrontation (unlike Vietnam, where Sec. Def. MacNamara did not rule out that possibility).  So it's a conventional affair for now.

Appropriately, we now turn to the most conventional of science fiction magazines, the oft-hidebound Analog.  Like the Dominican Republic, it has been under a single strongman for several decades.  And yet, like that island nation, we occasionally see signs of progress.  Indeed, this latest issue has some refreshing entries, indeed.


by John Schoenherr

Trouble Tide, by James H. Schmitz

On the world of Nandy-Cline, herds of sea cows are abruptly and mysteriously disappearing from the costs of the Girard colonies.  Danrich Parrol, head of the Nandy-Cline branch of Girard Pharmaceuticals, teams up with Dr. Nile Etland, head of Girard's station laboratory, to find the cause of the vanishing food animals.  They suspect foul play from a rival company, Agenes.  The poisoning of a herd of mammalian but native fraya seems somehow connected, too.  The two embark on a forensic adventure that takes them across a thousand miles of coast and under miles of ocean.


by John Schoenherr

There are many features that make Tide stand out.  What a delightful story this is, with an interesting pair of protagonists and a cute scientific solution.  I appreciated the depiction of a planet as a big place, big enough to support many economies, colonies, and criminal activities.  I also particularly liked the appearance of female characters.  Indeed, Dr. Nile Etland is an equal partner in the investigation and is not a romantic foil — simply a competent scientist.

Why is this remarkable?  I had become so inured to the lack of female characters in my science fiction that I'd almost started to challenge my convictions.  Was it really fair of me to judge fiction (at least in part) by whether or not it included female characters?  Isn't modern SF just a reflection of the male-dominant society we live in?  Can we blame authors for writing "what they know?"

Yes, yes, and yes.  The erasure of women in any kind of fiction, particularly one that projects present trends into the future, is inexcusable.  Any portrayal of a world where women play minor roles or none at all isn't just unrealistic, it propagates a kind of ugly wish fulfillment.  That's why, when I get a story like Tide with realistic and positive representation of women (and, indeed, Schmitz has always been good in this regard) it's such a breath of fresh air.  Ditto the British import show, Danger Man, which regularly features competent professional women who are integral to the episodes.

It's what I want to see.  It's what I should be seeing.  That I'm seeing it in Analog of all places gives me hope.

Four stars.

Planetfall, by John Brunner


by Alan Moyler

A young Earth woman eagerly greets a young astronaut man, an ecologist on the crew of a starfaring colony with 2,500 residents that is making a brief stop.  She's set on falling in love with and departing with this exotic fellow, who represents freedom, the exotic, and most of all, purpose in life. 

He, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to jump ship, to escape the stultifying space-kibbutz life, to experience the beauty of humanity's Home.

Each of them poison each other's greener grass, and the encounter is an unhappy one.

If there's such a thing as a "meet cute," then this is a "meet ugly," but it's quite poignant.  Brunner does good work.  Four stars.

Magnetohydrodynamics, by Ben Bova

I really wanted to like this nonfiction article.  After all, it's about a genuinely scientific topic, a revolutionary one.  MHD allows the generation of power without moving physical parts, instead using magnetic fields and plasma.  It's the kind of technology required if we ever want to build fusion power plants.  Plus, Asimov likes the guy.

But boy is this piece dull.  It's not quite as dry as reading a patent, but it's in the same ballpark.  I've heard similar reviews of Bova's work in other magazines, so I can't be the only one who feels this way.

Anyway, two stars.

The Captive Djinn, by Christopher Anvil


by John Schoenherr

Captured human on a planet of cats at a 19th Century technology level outwits his jailers through the use of basic chemistry and the exploitation of the felines' stupidity.

If there were an award for "Story that best exemplifies Chris Anvil's work for John Campbell," this would win.  Two stars.

Beautiful art by Schoenherr, though.  He's definitely going to get a Galactic Star again this year!

The Prophet of Dune (Part 5 of 5), by Frank Herbert

And now we come to the greatest coup of all, the finale of the longest serial I've ever read in a magazine.

Technically, Dune is two serials, and there have been other five-part novels.  But Prophet of Dune is not a sequel to Dune World but the latter "novel's" conclusion.

It's been a long trek. It started with Duke Leto Atreides acquiring the fiefdom that included Arrakis, a desert planet and the only source of the spice melange. This cinnamon-smelling spice is an anti-agathic and also conveys a limited form of precognition.

For the Empire's rich, it livens food and lengthens lives.

For the Navigators' Guild, the spice allows its specialists to navigate the hazardous byways of hyperspace.

For the Bene Gesserit, a religious order of women, it facilitates their plans to manipulate history through the deliberate mixing of blood-lines; their hope is to eventually produce the "Kwisatz Haderach," a sort of messiah, a man with the powers of the Bene Gesserit.

Duke Leto was not long for his reign.  The Harkonnen family from whom Arrakis was transferred immediately schemed to regain it, attacking the planet, killing Leto, and forcing Leto's concubine, the Bene Gesserit Jessica, and their son, Paul, to go into hiding among the native "Fremen."  So ended the first serial.


by John Schoenherr

Baron Harkonnen installed a ruthless nephew on Arrakis with the goal of fomenting a rebellion. His plan would then be to take personal control, relax the tyranny, and turn the Fremen into the greatest army the Empire had ever seen, even more fearsome than the Saudukar, the Imperial guard.

Out in the desert, Paul spends a harsh two years learning the ways of the desert. Moisture is priceless, and all sand-dwellers wear water-recycling "still-suits."  The voracious sandworms are both a constant threat and a valuable commodity, for it is their waste that is refined into spice. 

While among the Fremen, Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother, transforming poisonous sandworm effluence into a substance that allows her to commune with all of her brethren, living and dead.  Because she does so while pregnant, her unborn daughter, Alia, gains the wisdom of a thousand women and is born an adult in a child's body.

Paul is initiated into Fremen culture, eventually assuming the mantle of Muad'Dib, savior of the desert people.  Under his leadership, the Fremen are united.  They will revolt, as Harkonnen expected, but the event will not unfold as the Baron desires.

In this final installment of Dune, Paul launches his attack even while the Padishah Emperor, himself, has visited the planet with five legions of Saudukar, and all of the great families have surrounded Arrakis with warships.  But the hopeless position of Muad'Dib turns out to be unbeatable: for Paul controls the production of spice.  Without it, the nobility is crippled, space is unnavigable.  Thus young Atreides emerges utterly triumphant with virtual control of the Empire, a bethrothal to the Emperor's daughter, and freedom for the people of Arrakis.

I have to give credit to Frank Herbert for creating a universe of ambitious scope.  There's a lot to Dune, and the author clearly has a penchant for world-building.  He takes from a wide variety of sources, particularly Arabic and Persian, creating a setting quite different from what we usually see in science fiction.  The result is not unlike the landscapes generated by Cordwainer Smith, whose upbringing included time in China, or Mack Reynolds, whose writing is informed by extensive travel behind the Iron Curtain and in the Mahgreb.

But.

There's plenty not to like, too.  Herbert is an author of no great technical skill, and his writing ranges from passable to laughably bad.  There wasn't so much of his third-person omniscient and everywhere-at-once in this installment, but it wasn't completely absent, either.  The writing is humorless, grandiose (even pompous), and generally not a pleasure to read. 

Beyond that, the work is highly reactionary.  I was originally pleased to see several female characters in the story.  Lady Jessica often is the viewpoint, though given Herbert's love of switching perspective every third line, that's not quite so noteworthy.  But in the end, even the most prominent women are limited to their medieval roles, that of wife and bearer of greatness.  Dune is a man's world. 

Then there are the fedayken, the people of the desert clearly modeled on the Arabs.  And who should lead them to freedom?  Not a local son, no; only T. E. Lawrence Jesus Atreides can save them. 

It's an unsettling subtext in our post-colonial times: a galactic empire, decadent and crumbling, requires an infusion of European boldness to restore it to vigor.  Is it any surprise that this novel came out in Analog?

So, on the one hand, I give this installment four stars.  It kept me interested, and I appreciated the intricacy of the conclusion.  Looking over my tally for the other seven parts of this sprawling opus, that ends us at exactly three stars. 

I think that's fair.  Some will praise the book for its vision and be undaunted by the quality of the prose or the offensiveness of its underpinnings.  Those folks will probably nominate it for another Hugo next year.  Others will give up in boredom around page 35.  I read the whole thing because I had to.  I didn't hate it; I even respect it to a degree.  But I see its many many flaws.

Let the adulatory/damning letters begin!

Running the Numbers

Once again, Analog finishes at the top of the heap; at 3.3 stars, it ties with Science-Fantasy.  It's been a good month for fiction overall, with New Worlds and Amazing scoring 3.2. 

Fantastic gets a solid 3 stars, and IF just misses the mark at 2.8. 
Fantasy and Science Fiction disappoints with 2.7, though its Zenna Henderson story may be the best of the month.

While women may be making a comeback as fictional characters, as writers, they're still conspicuously absent.  Only 2 of the 38 fiction pieces were written by women.

Perhaps it's time for a coup.  Summon the 101st Airborne!

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




10 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[April 28, 1965] Mermaids, Persian Gods and Time Travel New Worlds and Science Fantasy, April/May 1965

9 Comments

by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

We seem to be heading into warmer weather here in England. Say it quietly, but Spring might actually be here.

[Flowers in Stratford upon Avon]

First up: Science Fantasy.


[Art by Keith Roberts – who else?]

This month’s ‘arty’ cover is by the prolific Keith Roberts, who seems to be everywhere at the moment. His colour artwork was last seen on the cover of the January issue, this one to my mind is just as odd. Are British magazine covers meant to look like they are painted by a child? I despair, especially when I see the covers for the US magazines, which by comparison are so much more than what we get here. The best that can be said here though is that they reflect the changes in the magazines at the moment. They are determined to be different.

The Editorial this month mentions the up-coming British Worldcon later this year – now less than four months away! – and how to apply to attend. It also enquires about letters on the idea of genre and also mentions that there will be a letters page – soon! However, before readers get their hopes up that Science Fantasy will take on other New Worlds staples like the Ratings list – it’s not going to happen.

To the stories themselves.

The Impossible Smile (part 1), by Jael Cracken

Last month our first story was one by the up-coming Worldcon Guest of Honour, Brian Aldiss. This month – its actually the same, though Brian is writing under a pseudonym. (Why do authors do that?)

The Impossible Smile begins with an assassination. Jim Bull, leader of the British Republics is killed in his bathroom. The assassin escapes to a hall near Norwich, the nation’s capital, where Conrad Wyvern lives. It appears that the dictatorship are hunting for telepaths. Although Wyvern is working for the Republics in training new recruits, he is also a man with a secret, and a determination to revenge the apparent death of his sister.

The Impossible Smile is another dystopian future. It reminded me of the future depicted by Hilary Bailey in Moorcock’s New Worlds in the July/August 1964 issue. This covers similar ground but being Aldiss-by-another-name, is in my opinion, better written.

It is quite understated in the way it describes some of the horrors this future holds. Troops shoot citizens with little provocation and this seems to be accepted.

Suspects are taken for interrogation at the base on the Moon and, in a nod I rather suspect is to Orwell, all there work to try and support the supercomputer rather amusingly named ‘Big Bert’. (The American computer by comparison is amusingly named ‘Fall Guy’.)

Weirdly, The Impossible Smile comes across as a mixture of George Orwell’s 1984 and Ian Fleming’s James Bond, with a touch of A E van Vogt’s Slan, a combination I am sure is deliberate.  The general tone is a little uneven however, lurching from torture to comedy sometimes in the same paragraph.

Nevertheless, there’s a lot I liked about this one and a great cliff-hanger ending. Another strong start to an issue, and I look forward to the last part next month. 4 out of 5.

The Middle Ground, by Keith Roberts

Another issue, another Anita story by Keith Roberts.  This time, our teen-witch meets a lonely ghost, recently killed in a road accident. She discovers why the ghost is still haunting around The Dog and Duck and after a bizarre matchmaking ritual with the local witch Controller, manages to get the spirit to leave to a better place. A relatively minor tale, which has the blessed relief of there being a lack of Granny Thompson in this story, although she does appear briefly. Little to add here other than what has been said before. Fans will like it, others will remain unmoved. 3 out of 5.

Housel, by Alan Burns

A weird one. A housel appears to be a mental magnifier that transforms where you live into where you’d want to live, creating a virtual reality environment. This one sets things up nicely but when it attempts to add aliens and interplanetary warfare it becomes too silly and far-fetched for me. There’s an interesting idea here but when it is pushed to its extremes just wouldn’t work. 2 out of 5.

Vashti, by Thomas Burnett-Swann

Perhaps this month’s most anticipated story (at least, by me). Having taken on Greek mythology in the Blue Monkeys serial, which has been one of the highlights of recent Science Fantasy issues for me, this time around Thomas takes on Persian mythology in this novelette.

It is the story of the dwarf Ianiskos, who has moved from Greece to Persia with King Xerxes. Vashti is the King’s wife, who up to now has been barren, despite the King wanting children. Under the threat of death, Vashti leaves the King and returns to her land of Petra, followed by Ianiskos.

The land of Persia is an area rich in mythology to choose from and this is a great story, written in Burnett-Swann’s lyrical fashion. The way that Thomas rewrites these stories for contemporary audiences is still magical. 4 out of 5.

Timmy and the Angel, by Philip Wordley

Another story from Philip, last seen in the March 1965 issue. It is a minor tale to finish the issue on. A story of how an alien ambassador, who has taken the form of an angel, manages to get seven-year-old Timmy to use his latent telekinetic powers to make the Human Race take pause before launching themselves into Space. It’s a nice enough first contact story which trades on the innocence of children to do something for the greater good. Well-meaning and generally positive, it’s about as anti-war as you can get. Think of it as an alternative to Clarke’s Childhoods End, with aliens guiding humans towards mutual benefits for all. But in the end, perhaps not one that’ll be remembered for too long. 3 out of 5.

Summing up Science Fantasy

Another issue that I liked a lot. The Cracken/Aldiss serial is good, the Anita story acceptable, but the novelette by Thomas Burnett Swann is the best story of the issue by far. My only quibble with it is that it is very similar in style to the serial of a few months ago.

The Second Issue At Hand

This month’s New Worlds was heralded as being special and I was hoping for a bit of a treat.


[Art by Robert J. Tilley ]

The Robert J. Tilley cover though is a bit of a disappointment and looks rather cheap, although unusually the inside front cover shows us more than normal:

And what handsome chaps they all look! This might be promising, after all.

Oh, but hang on – the editorial is a guest one by none other than E J (John) Carnell, the recently deposed editor of New Worlds.

Now, I must admit that Mike Moorcock and the new staff of the magazines have always been respectful to the efforts made by John and valued his contribution to the genre, even when minor mortals such as myself have been less positive. As expected, this is a self-satisfying, rallying call acclaiming the importance of British SF, not just to us regular readers but also to the world.  It is a bold statement, which is uncharacteristic of us normally self-restrained Brits. Perhaps that’s why I’m uncomfortable about it.

Time Trap, by Charles L. Harness


[Art by James Cawthorn]

The novella begins in a court. Jon Troy and his telepath wife Ann are accused of murdering leader Provinarch Blogshak. The wife has been convicted already and put under some sort of drugged suspended animation, but Jon seems strangely unperturbed by his death sentence.  He manages to avoid incarceration on a legal technicality, expertly manoeuvred by his advocate Mr. Poole. On leaving court, Poole shows Jon that he as a special power that makes him extremely useful. Using his wife as a hostage, Jon is forced to help the not-really-dead Blogshak save the life of an alien renegade known as the Outcast. Jon is persuaded not to save it but to kill it. The reason for it is revealed by the end of the story.

This is one of those stories that seems to fit with many of the old clichés of science fiction. We have alien monsters, telepathic superpowers and big cosmic ideas that wouldn’t be out of place in a Golden Age space opera story. This is to such an extent that I thought it was meant to be an homage to those stories at first. However, what the editor Mike Moorcock doesn’t tell us is that this is a reprint of a story first published in 1948. As it makes some of the current writers look shabby, Harness deserves credit for writing an energetic tale – a debut story, as well – with big, ambitious aims, if a little lacking on the execution of the ideas. In fact, the story seems unbalanced. The court scenes at the beginning are good, but too long, with the result that the end is rushed and rather too convenient. There are some interesting and unusual ideas here, but in the end I was disappointed.  3 out of 5.

The Small Betraying Detail, by Brian Aldiss

And after the story in Science Fantasy, another story by Brian this month. However, this one is quite different. It tells of Arthur who is being taken to a TB sanitorium on the Norfolk coast. Whilst on the way he seems to see things around him, including his carers, change and then return back to ‘normal’. Is it that Arthur is now seeing reality or is it evidence of a psychotic break? Aldiss doesn’t make it clear, but the increasing discord between what is ‘real’ and what Arthur sees as an alternative relentlessly increases the disquieting nature of the story. Arthur’s perspective at the end brings things to an almost Lovecraft-ian conclusion. It is an unsettling piece and shows us that Aldiss can write dark stories as well as his usual humorous ones.  3 out of 5.

Nobody Axed You, by John Brunner

John Brunner, another stalwart of these pages over the last decade or so, gives us a novelette with a frankly awful pun-ish title. This one begins with what seems to be a decapitation with an axe, although in reality it is an actor watching his ‘performance’. Gene Gardner appears to kill people for entertainment on television in his weekly programme The Gene Gardner Show-to-Kill-Time. In his efforts to maintain his viewer ratings, measured by the number of deaths occurring by that method the week after the transmission, the actor is driven to gaining better and better DOA ratings.

The world setting is interesting in that the show's purpose seems to be to reduce the population by inspiring viewers to copy the programme. There is an overpopulation issue. A lack of reproduction is seen as a virtue, echoed in both nursery rhymes sung to children and the F-girls, who wear makeup that highlights this letter. (The F stands for 'Frigidity', which is seen as a social aspiration rather than an insult.)

I get the impression that Nobody Axed You is one of those stories that is intended to either amuse or shock – or possibly both! – but did neither for me. Instead it takes a good idea – how far will people go for future entertainment? – and ramps it up to such an absurd degree that it just becomes rather silly in the end. Some may see this as some form of future satire, but it lost that ever-so-important sense of believability fairly early on for me. It is a story with something to say, but seems to do it crudely, in my opinion.

Nevertheless, Nobody Axed You is about 3 out of 5 in the end.

Prisoner of the Coral Deep, by J G Ballard

Last time we had something new from J G it was slightly disappointing – an extract from a clearly bigger story that was to be published later as a novel. This one is different. It starts rather matter-of-fact-ly, with the lead character finding a seashell in a coastal cave where he is sheltering from a storm. He meets a mysterious and alluring woman (possibly a mermaid?) there, who encourages him to listen to the shell, when he appears to find himself somewhere else at another time. The siren has lured him into a strange future – or is it the past? This story is Ballard playing with time again. The reasons for this happening are unclear, yet it is quite vivid in its descriptions of what the man hears. It’s OK, but is it outstanding Ballard? Not really. It is a one-point idea in a short story. Remember to never talk to strange women at the seaside! 3 out of 5.

Alfred's Ark, by Jack Vance

The latest American import to this British magazine.  Is this an attempt to mollify the old guard? Possibly – after all, the recent reprint by Arthur C Clarke did very well in the readers ratings, as I will show later.

Alfred’s Ark is a short story of a small-town American farmer who decides to build an ark against an impending flood, and the effects on his town and his neighbours. As to be expected, it is well-written, very easily read, and pleasantly amusing, but somewhat out of step with the style of the new incarnation of New Worlds. And rather short. 3 out of 5.

The Life Buyer (part 2 of 3), by E.C. Tubb

So, here’s the second part of this three-part serial from a long-time SF writer.

At the end of last issue we were left with a cliff-hanger ending and a number of unresolved issues. Billionaire Marcus King seems to be the target of someone who is trying to kill him. Our hero-detectives Markham and Delmonte are still trying to find out why, but as we discovered last issue, it may be something to do with King’s major product, the krown, which is due to be rolled out into a new version. The krown, when fitted to your head can adapt mental and physical reactions and can allow others to experience your thoughts. It may even be a power-play on the part of King himself.

Tubb is still building this up to an ending and the pages turned easily. I still like this story, although as this is the second of three parts, there’s a lot of running about and checking up of suspects without much really happening. Still interested to see how it ends next month though. 4 out of 5.

Articles and Books

There are no Articles or Letters Pages this month, as the Editor admits that they’ve been left out to give more room to the fiction this month. Nevertheless, there is one small paperback review by James Colvin (aka Mike Moorcock), which is for a non-fiction collection of articles named Fads and Fallacies (in the Name of Science) by Martin Gardner. It seems well liked and thoroughly recommended.

Also welcome, although split across two pages, is a potted summary of the contributors in this issue.

Ratings this month for issue 148 (that’s the March 1965 issue). As I mentioned earlier, the reprint of Arthur C Clarke’s Sunjammer story took the top spot. As I said back then, it’s a good story, but it’s a reprint.  Whilst I’m pleased it did well – I love me a good Clarke story – it is very out of place in this new magazine.

Summing up New Worlds

Perhaps not unexpectedly, the 150th issue is good, but not entirely the treat I was hoping for. Some of the story choices are a little unusual – a 1940’s reprint, a lesser offering from one of our brightest stars at the moment, an unusual one from one of our other bright stars, a minor story from a Hugo Award winner –  but it’s a readable issue on the whole.

It is a little ironic that we have John Carnell writing a self-congratulatory Editorial for a magazine that has moved on so far from what he was selling about a year ago. This issue is not the absolute best New Worlds can do, but it does give a reader an idea of the scope and range of what is out there are the moment. It is still streets ahead of those last Carnell issues.

Summing up overall

Both magazines continue their runs of success for me. The Burnett- Swann novella is perhaps my favourite story of all, but what else could be the winning issue this month but the 150th issue of New Worlds? Even with an eclectic mix and the return of John Carnell…

And that’s it for this time. Until the next…

mall>

 

9 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine, Serial

[April 2, 1965] SPEAKING A COMMON LANGUAGE (May 1965 IF)

3 Comments


by David Levinson

The Common Tongue

March 7th was the first Sunday of Lent. It's a particularly special event this year as Catholics can now hear mass in their local language, rather than Latin. Pope Paul VI marked the occasion by conducting services in Italian at a small church near the Vatican. Mass in the vernacular is not required, but it is encouraged. This is one of the reforms instituted last year as a way to get parishioners more involved in the Catholic faith.

In Living Color

Color television appears to be moving beyond the fad phase. And for that to happen the broadcasters and receivers need to “speak the same language.” The signal the antenna on your roof receives carries a lot of different information. Most of it tells the TV set how bright to make each phosphor dot, some of it tells the speaker what sound to make. The color information is a subset of the brightness information.

In the United States, a standard was developed about a decade ago by the National Television System Committee, commonly known by the committee’s initials, NTSC. It works pretty well, but under poor transmission conditions the colors can shift. (The joke among signal engineers is that NTSC stands for “Never the same color.”) Europe is subject to geographic and weather conditions which are bad for NTSC and so the governments of Western Europe have been looking for a new system better suited to Europe. Two have been developed: the French SECAM (Séquentiel couleur à mémoire or sequential color with memory) and the German PAL (Phased Alternating Line).


Rectangular screens. That’s a big improvement.

On March 22nd, the France announced that they had signed an agreement with the Soviet Union under which the Russians will use a slightly modified form of SECAM. Two days later, a conference opened in Vienna to discuss a common system for Western Europe. Ultimately, the conference chose PAL. The French however are sticking to their guns, so while most of Europe will be using PAL, France and the East Bloc will be going with SECAM. So much for commonality.

Speaking of Common

This month’s IF certainly delivers a heap of the familiar, from old, familiar faces to old, familiar themes.


Art by Schelling

When Is a Robot? (Editorial), by Frederik Pohl

Normally, we don’t discuss editorials here (and when it comes to Analog that’s better for everyone’s sanity and blood pressure), but Fred touches on an interesting, science fictional and probably controversial topic that’s worth examining. He’s been reading The Semi-Artificial Man by Harold M. Schmeck, which discusses the ways in which doctors are using machinery to temporarily replace the functions of various organs. The example Fred offers is the dialysis machine which does the work of the kidneys, but other examples would be the pacemaker or the heart-lung machine.

Right now, these devices are mostly poor and, at best, temporary substitutes. But what happens when they offer better functions than the organs they replace? Electronic lungs that can breathe seawater or the noxious gases of Jupiter. Or prosthetic limbs that can allow their wearer to run faster or lift heavy things. Pohl introduces the term “cybernetic organism” or cyborg for short. The question he asks is if someone equipped with such replacements might become something other than human. Is there a point at which you become something other than you as your parts are replaced? This is related to what is known in philosophy the Ship of Theseus problem. You might be more familiar with the Grandfather’s Axe: This is my grandfather’s axe; my father replaced the handle and I replaced the head. In any case, it’s an interesting area of speculation, and there are probably several good science fiction stories to be told dealing with this.  [Nick Chooper a.k.a. The Tin Woodman has thoughts on the matter, too. (Ed.)]

Raindrop, by Hal Clement

Raindrop is a ten mile wide sphere of water orbiting the Earth. It was created by melting comets. At its core, is a rocky asteroid and whatever solids may have been contained in the comets. The water is protected from the vacuum of space by a self-repairing skin of genetically tailored algae. Because it came from comets, the water currently has a fairly high concentration of ammonia, which is slowly being broken down by algae, fungi, and various single-celled organisms. The original purpose of Raindrop was to find a way to produce food to help feed the 14 billion people on Earth, who are slowly crowding out arable land and facing a Malthusian catastrophe.

Orbiting nearby is a wheel-shaped space station which rotates to provide gravity for the scientists who come up to study Raindrop. There is only one permanent resident, Bert Silbert, who monitors and maintains both the station and Raindrop.

As the story opens, Raindrop has been purchased by a private group and a high-ranking member of the group, Aino Weisenan, has arrived with his wife Brenda and assistant Bresnahan (who never gets a first name). Silbert is showing Bresnahan around the Raindrop, providing tons of exposition and a couple of lessons in orbital mechanics. We learn that the Weisenans have brought lots of equipment and macroscopic life and are planning to settle Raindrop. Ultimately, we learn that they and the group they represent are the descendants of people who were illegally genetically tailored to live in low and zero gravity conditions. Bresnahan starts an argument with his boss about abandoning the original purpose of Raindrop, and he and Silbert find themselves abandoned at the core.


Aino Weisenan sets an anchor. Art by John Giunta

If you’re at all familiar with the work of Hal Clement, you undoubtedly are expecting a happy ending, and you won’t be disappointed. This is a very typical Clement piece, centered on one or two scientific principles and turning them into the solution to a problem. Unusually, he does make a small scientific error. There are a number of cargo loads, each weighing 1000 pounds on Earth. In the extremely low gravity of Raindrop, they weigh only a few ounces each, and the men handle them easily. But Clement has forgotten the difference between mass and weight. Those loads might only weigh a few ounces, but they should still have the inertia of a thousand pounds. Anyway, if you like Clement – and I do – you should like this. Three stars.

Guesting Time, by R. A. Lafferty

People suddenly begin appearing all over the world. The rate at which they appear increases exponentially until there are 10 billion of them in just two days. According to the arrivals, they are from Skandia, and they are shocked and saddened to see how few of us there are. They also announce that they are a token force just here for a short visit and haven’t brought their children with them.

We see the effects of this invasion largely through the eyes of the suburban Trux family and President Bar-John. Whole cities are built in people’s backyards — so many they carpet the ground, vehicular traffic is blocked, and pedestrian traffic is stacked five high, with people riding on each other’s shoulders. They start handing our fertility charms to help us with our obvious problems in having children.

Through all of this, most people seem to really like the friendly Skandians. The few dissenters appear as cranks and street-corner preachers. Aside from those, only government leaders try to do anything about the Skandians, but the visitors prove to be impervious to bullets. After a week, they begin to disappear, but promise to come back next week with the kids.

Although this story shares the theme of overpopulation with the previous story, there’s certainly nothing common about R. A. Lafferty and the language he uses. He’s a very odd duck. Generally speaking his stories and the ways he tells them should not work, yet they do. Not always and not for everyone, but enough so that his stories sell. I tend to find him a bit hit or miss, and this one comes very close to being a miss for me. I think my biggest complaint is that an additional 10 billion people scattered all over the world aren’t going to produce conditions that make Calcutta look like Wyoming. You can put it down to typical Lafferty hyperbole, but it nagged at me. Three stars, but just barely.

Sign of the Wolf, by Fred Saberhagen

A shepherd lad by the name of Duncan is having trouble with a wolf attacking the village sheep which are in his care. He is also hoping to have a mystical experience, which would allow him to attain adulthood. Through his wandering thoughts we learn that people are said to have come here from Earthland, which is somewhere in the sky, though most consider that to be allegorical. That dawn, he sees a bright flash in the sky and hopes that it is his vision.

The scene switches to a Berserker entering a star system. It is wary, because it senses defensive satellites in orbit around one of the planets. They should not be a problem, but if there are also planetary defenses, it could be destroyed. These are things it has learned during the centuries that Berserker and humans have been at war. As a test, it launches a missile at the planet, where it is destroyed by the satellites.

Duncan learns from a passing priest that too many people saw the flash for it to count as a private vision. Later he is visited by Colleen, a girl from his village. She stays too long and, after leaving Duncan, returns to him, because she can’t get home before dark. During her absence, Duncan has begun to hear voices from the ground, but following them would mean abandoning the sheep. Her return allows him to follow the voices to an unknown cave, where they are announcing that an attack is in progress and requesting a human to give “Order One.” Duncan’s response resolves the story.

This is interspersed with more scenes involving the Berserker. It continues to be wary, but remembers one other planet which had defensive satellites but no cities or radio, because the life there had gone to war with itself. Eventually, it sends down robotic units to begin eliminating life.

Saberhagen continues to keep these Berserker stories diverse and about a lot more than just killing machines and space battles. They’re about people. The parallels here between the wolf and the Berserker are pretty obvious, but they aren’t too heavy-handed. Indeed, Saberhagen handles it all with a fair amount of skill. A high three stars, with the obviousness of the parallel keeping it from that fourth star.

Way Station, by Irving E. Cox, Jr.

At Marstation, teacher Bruce Haywood is on trial for heresy against Orthodox Science. He has been telling his charges that it is safe to leave the airseal dome without a sacred helmet when performing the routines and rituals of the landing field. Through the trial, we get the story of his life through flashbacks. As a boy, he learned that the girders of the dome have neither glass nor an atomic energy field between them. As a student, he was allowed to read the actual works of St. Einstein and St. Darwin. In the end, he is cast out of the dome, though perhaps not to the fate he fears.


Honestly, this is the least ugly of the illustrations for this story. Art by Nodel

Irving Cox turned out quite a few stories during the 50s, averaging four or five a year. Most of them were sold to the lesser mags, but he had a few in Astounding and IF as well. His work has tapered off in the last few years, but he was never the sort of writer that would make you wonder “What ever happened to…?” A journeyman at best, and this continues that trend. Thing is, if you’re going to give your story the same name as last year’s Hugo-winning novel, then you had better hit a home run. At best, this is a bouncing single that got through because the shortstop was out of position. It’s not terrible, but I can’t find my way to giving it more than a high two stars. Maybe I was put off by the hideous art.

Strong Current, by David Goodale

Scout Ship 1014 is forced to make an emergency landing on the planet Toran. The three-man crew is barely able to escape the ship with a few supplies before it explodes. They know that the planet is inhabited, but the rest of the information was lost in the crash. They make their way to a coastal city, only to find it empty and its streets flooded. There don’t appear to be any ground-level doors, and there are a number of metal rods sticking out of the buildings, each of which gives off a strong electrical shock. Once they make their way into a building through the roof, they find many more metallic objects which give off shocks. Eventually, the youngest member of the crew figures things out, enabling them to make contact with the locals and to get in touch with the nearest base.

Goodale is this month’s new author, and he gives us a pretty good problem story, of the sort you might expect to find in Analog. In fact, I wondered why I wasn’t reading it there. Then I realized that 1) the person who solves the problem is a slender Asian, not one of the two brawny men of northern European extraction, and 2) the aliens are friendly, competent, and engage with the humans as equals. In any case, it’s a good story marred only by the author capping it off with a not very funny gag. A solid three stars.

The Altar at Asconel (Part 2 of 2), by John Brunner

When last we left our “heroes,” teenage mutant telepath Eunora was threatening to bend everybody to her will. Turns out she can’t. Not for any special reason. She just doesn’t have the power, which, frankly, is a rather poor resolution to a decent cliffhanger. In any case, Spartak then mentally browbeats her with the state she was in when she came aboard and all the awful things she would have to do in order to maintain her control if she had it. There’s that wonderful non-violence again. Vineta then takes over the girl and mothers her into joining their group and their cause.

Off they go to Asconel, deciding to bypass the resistance ensconced on an outer world of the star system. They land in secret on a small island, the only city of which has a temple to Belizuek, disguise themselves, and head for town. The brothers are distressed to see how far society has regressed in just a few years. We’re talking very far, from high-tech to pre-industrial, which seems like it ought to have taken decades.

Their entire plan consists of going to the local temple in order to find out why people have been so easily won over. During services they are exposed to a psychic vision of the galaxy and a mind of immense power. Spartak seems to have succumbed, but he’s just lost in thought about what he’s seen. Afterwards, they make contact with a man by the name of Tharl. By good luck and happenstance, he had served under Vix and has resisted Belizuek, because his wife and child were the first in their town to give themselves up for whatever unspeakable purpose people are being taken.

Spartak takes readings of the temple and discovers that the inner dome holds an atmosphere unlike that which humans can breathe. Unfortunately, they are caught. Spartak and Eunora escape, but Vineta is wounded and Vix and Tiorin are captured. A ceremony where they will willingly give themselves to Belizuek in the grand temple in the capital is announced and Spartak hatches a plan (involving, naturally, somebody else doing something violent) to free them and the rest of Asconel. Thanks to luck and coincidence, it succeeds.

In the end, Tiorin is the new Warden of Asconel. Spartak is planning to go out to the Big Dark, where humans are said to be building their own spaceships. Eunora will accompany him. Vix, unable to stay on the world where Vineta died, offers his ship and his services as pilot.


A montage of the heroes and villains. Art by Gray Morrow

It’s all really just fair to middling space opera. Not as much coincidence and excessive exposition as in the first installment, but some. There were also some dropped plot threads, like the injunction on Spartak to avoid violence and the loyal resistance on the outer planet. Neither really served any purpose in the story. I think I was most annoyed by the death of Vineta, more so because it happened off screen, so to speak. And apparently it was just so Vix would have a reason to go off with Spartak at the end.

I gave the first half a grudging three stars, and this half is better that the first, so I guess it gets three stars as well, as does the story as a whole. I’d probably feel less reluctant about that rating if this had been written by someone else. C. C. MacApp or J. T. McIntosh, for example. Brunner is a much better writer than this hackneyed stuff, and he fails to elevate it to something more. Alas, it seems like he has more of this story to tell.

Summing Up

A bit of a mixed bag of common elements this month: authors who’ve been around for a while, authors who are still fairly new, but have made names for themselves; two stories about overpopulation, two about societies that have lost their technological capabilities (two-and-a-half, if you count Asconel), a good, old problem story. It’s not as bad as last month, but it wasn’t that long ago that IF was one of the best magazines out there.


Speaking of space opera…

We had so much success with our first episode of The Journey Show (you can watch the kinescope rerun; check local listings for details) that we're going to have another one on April 11 at 1PM PDT with The Young Traveler as the special musical guest.  As the kids say, be there or be square!

3 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine

[March 12, 1965] Sic Transit (April 1965 Amazing)

4 Comments


by John Boston

No-Sale, Sale

The big news, previously rumored, is that Amazing and its stablemate Fantastic are to change hands.  The April Science Fiction Times just arrived, with the big headline “ ‘AMAZING STORIES’ AND ‘FANTASTIC’ SOLD TO SOL COHEN.” Cohen is the publisher of Galaxy, If, and Worlds of Tomorrow, but will resign at the end of next month to take up his new occupation. 

Why is this happening?  Probably because circulation, which had been increasing, started to decline again in 1962 (when I started reviewing it!).  The SF Times article adds, tendentiously and questionably, that “the magazine showed what appeared to be a lack of interest by its editors.” Read their further comment and draw your own conclusions on that point.

Whatever the reason, it’s done.  The last Ziff-Davis issues of both magazines will be the June issues.  Whether they will continue monthly is not known, nor is who will edit the magazine—presumably meaning Cele Lalli is not continuing. 

The Issue at Hand


by Paula McLane

The previous two issues were much improved over their predecessors.  Of course the improvement could not be sustained (viz. the current issue), but it has at least reverted to the slightly less mean than on some occasions.

The Shores of Infinity, by Edmond Hamilton


by George Schelling

Who was it who first said “If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you will like”?  Dorothy Parker?  Mark Twain?  Pliny the Elder?  Anyway, Edmond Hamilton’s latest in his backwards-looking saga of the far future featuring the Star Kings may not even rise to the level of that truism.  The generically titled The Shores of Infinity spends about 10 of its 33 or so pages on background and build-up, and then the generically named John Gordon of ancient (i.e., contemporary) Earth takes off to the capital of the Galaxy to hobnob with the Emperor in the imperial city of Throon. 

There, he learns of more rumors of the previously encountered mind-controlling menace, is sent off on a dangerous secret mission to investigate, is captured, victimized by treachery and benefited by its reversal, and the author seems as bored by the whole perfunctory and hackneyed business as I was.  It’s ostentatiously inconclusive, so we are guaranteed more.  To paraphrase W.C. Fields, second prize would be two more sequels.

A recurring theme here is Gordon’s alienation from the beautiful Princess Lianna.  This seems to be the special Woman Trouble issue of Amazing; see below.  (Note to Betty Friedan: if the viewpoint characters were female, it would of course be the Man Trouble issue.  Tell women more of them should be writing SF.) Also worth mentioning is the cover, by Paula McLane, which portrays a giant space-helmeted visage peering into a room where two small diaphanous figures are trying to close the door against him.  Obviously metaphorical, right?  Actually, it’s a quite literal rendering of a passing scene in the story.

Anyway, this one has little going for it except the usual space-operatic rhetoric (“The vast mass of faintly glowing drift that was known as the Deneb Shoals, they skirted.  They plunged on and now they were passing through the space where, that other time, the space-fleets of the Empire and its allies had fought out their final Armageddon with the League of the Dark Worlds.”) The problem with this decoration is there’s not much here to decorate.  Two stars, probably too generous.

No Vinism Like Chau-Vinism, by John Jakes


by George Schelling

John Jakes’s long novelet No Vinism Like Chau-Vinism [sic], the title obviously a play on the all too familiar song There’s No Business Like Show Business, inhabits the territory demarcated by Pohl and Kornbluth’s The Space Merchants, Ron Goulart on a good day, and the Three Stooges.  In the future, everything is showbiz.  The populace is entertained and distracted by constant scripted and broadcast warfare between commercial forces, in this case the American Margarine Manufacturers Association versus the United Dairy Expedition Force, fighting of course in Wisconsin.

The script is disrupted by the appearance of a real gun in the hands of the rogue margarineer (Jakes calls them margies) Burton Tanzy of the Golden-Glo Margarine Company, who executes a cow on live TV, initiating a slapstick plot in which among other things besides real guns, the fake commercial war turns into a real union dispute.  The protagonist Gregory Rooke of the Dairy forces must try to calm things down and restore order, lest the public get wind of the fraudulence of their world.  His chief antagonist proves to be his ex-wife, who has dumped him to pursue her overweening ambitions, consistently with the Woman Trouble motif, though things work out better for Rooke than for poor forlorn John Gordon.

This story is actually quite amusing; Jakes has a knack for the farcical tall tale.  Unfortunately it goes on too long and palls a bit by the end, keeping the final reckoning down to three stars.

De Ruyter: Dreamer, by Arthur Porges

Arthur Porges contributes Ensign De Ruyter: Dreamer, another in his tiresome series about the space navy guy who triumphs over cartoonishly stupid extraterrestrials through the clever use of basic science—in this case, it’s Fun with Electromagnetism.  These stories barely rise to the level of filler.  One star.

Greendark in the Cairn, by Robert Rohrer

Robert Rohrer continues in his “almost there” vein with Greendark in the Cairn, featuring a space captain who is either going nuts, or is being driven nuts by transmissions from the extraterrestrial enemy, but figures out how to defeat them and prevent himself from giving the game away.  It’s gimmicky and facile but well rendered.  Two stars, but do try again.

Speech Is Silver, by John Brunner

The earnest John Brunner undertakes a satire of American commercialism in Speech Is Silver, in which the protagonist Hankin is selected in the Soundsleep company’s “Great Search” for the man with the perfect voice for a program of sleep counseling—that is, counseling while one sleeps on how to handle the difficulties of the day.  Except of course that’s not really how things work, and his new-found fame destroys his life.  (Also—Woman Trouble again—his wife, who prodded him to enter the Soundsleep competition, leaves him, apparently because he was never ambitious enough, like Rooke’s wife in No Vinism [etc.].) At the point where Soundsleep decides to replace him with a younger near-double, Hankin detonates.

Like the Jakes story, this one is an acid satire on contemporary image-mongering American capitalism.  Its problem, aside from being too long (also like Jakes), is that it isn’t crazy enough.  Brunner’s calm and methodical style and storytelling muffle the plot’s antic qualities.  Maybe he should get Jakes to introduce him to the Three Stooges.

Two stars.

Religion in Science Fiction: God, Space, and Faith, by Sam Moskowitz

Sam Moskowitz forges on with Religion in Science Fiction: God, Space, and Faith, rendered on the cover as Science-Fiction Views of God With a Profile of C.S. Lewis.  It’s a rambling description of various SF stories on religious themes, starting reasonably interestingly with several older books that most readers will not have heard of, continuing with the promised account of C.S. Lewis, followed by Stapledon, Heinlein, Wyndham, Simak, Leiber, Keller, Bradbury, Blish, Miller, del Rey, Boucher, and Farmer.

In this recitation Moskowitz manages to miss Arthur C. Clarke’s Hugo-winning The Star and his equally well-known The Nine Billion Names of God; Isaac Asimov’s The Last Question; Leigh Brackett’s tale of a different sort of theocracy, The Long Tomorrow; Harry Harrison’s anti-theological polemic The Streets of Ashkelon; Katherine MacLean’s acerbic Unhuman Sacrifice; and, astonishingly, Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.  Remarkably, he says, “Heinlein, who introduced [religion] into the science fiction magazines, has long since tired of it as a focal plot device.”

But this (mis-)observation does not deter him from his conclusion: “Neverthess, the decision is made.  The science fiction writer has come to the conclusion that scientific advance will not mean the end of belief.  He feels certain that a truly convincing portrayal of a hypothetical future cannot be made without considering the mystical aspects of man.”

Can we say fallacy of composition?  Two stars: another “almost,” some interesting material, some of it unfamiliar, the whole brought down by Moskowitz’s fatuous generalizations.

Summing Up

So, mostly not too bad (except for the egregious Ensign Ruyter), but mostly not as good as it should and could have been either.  There have been issues that would make one regret that this regime is ending, but this isn’t one of them.




4 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine

[March 8, 1965] An Alien Perspective (April 1965 Galaxy)

9 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

Understanding the Other

Civilization is about building a society out of disparate units.  It has to go beyond the family and clan.  The key to organizing a civilization is empathy, recognizing that we are all different yet we share common values and rights.  Once we understand each other, even if we don't agree on everything, then we can truly create "from many, one."

Science fiction allows the exploration of cutting edge sociological subjects, one of them being the understanding of the "other".  That's because the genre has a ready-made stand-in for the concept: the alien.  Indeed, many science fiction stories are allegorical; they address colonialism, the Cold War, societal taboos, in ways that might currently be too touchy or on-the-nose for conventional fiction.  We can hope that, with the bottle uncorked, less allegorical stories will be required in the future. 

Of all the science fiction magazines that come out every month, I think Fred Pohl's trio of Galaxy, IF, and Worlds of Tomorrow has the strongest tradition of incorporating aliens (Analog also has aliens, but thanks to its editor's sensibilities, they are almost invariably both more evil and inferior to human beings; Campbell likes a certain kind of allegory…)

Meeting the Minds


by George Schelling (it says it illustates War Against the Yukks, but it doesn't)

This month's Galaxy is a case in point, with six of its nine tales involving aliens of one kind or another.  There's some good stuff in here, as well as a number of slog stories.  Let's look, shall we?

Committee of the Whole, by Frank Herbert


by Nodel

Watch your step — there's a rough patch right at the start. 

Whole is a meandering preach piece about an inventor who appears before a Congressional committee with news of a new, revolutionary invention.  I'll just tell you about it because the first two thirds of the story are less suspenseful than obtusely annoying: it's a ray gun.  Its applications are infinite, but the one most of the Congressmen are worried about is that every owner has a weapon more powerful than the atom bomb at their disposal.  And, because of the way the invention has been disseminated, everyone in the world has access to them.

The result, the inventor opines, is going to be a world of true libertarian equality.  "An armed society is a polite society" is how the expression goes.  It's the kind of naive sentiment that would go over well at Analog, but for adults, it's just ridiculous.  In equalizing humanity through armed neutrality, the inventor has made aliens of us all.  I'll wager that Earth's population of humans will be dead inside a week…and probably most of the animals. 

One star, and yet more disdain for the Herbert byline.

Wrong-Way Street, by Larry Niven

Ah, but then our fortunes truly turn around.  Wrong Way Street gives us the unplanned adventure of Mike Capoferri, a scientist stationed on the Moon late this century to investigate an alien base and space ship.  They have lain on the lunar plain for countless millions of years, and their provenance and function are completely unknown.  That is, until Mike unwittingly not only discerns the motive force for the space ship, but also activates it.  Here, understanding the alien way of thinking proved hazardous to Mike's health.  Can he get home?  Will the human race survive his journey?

This is author Niven's third story, and he continues with the same deftness he displayed with his recent short novel, World of Ptavvs.  I guarantee that the ending of Street will stay with you.

Four stars.

Death and Birth of the Angakok, by Hayden Howard


by Jack Gaughan

Peterluk is a young Eskimo out hunting when a horrifying bunch of one-eyed Seal People arrive.  He panics and entreats his powerful Grandfather, holed up in Peterluk's igloo, to aid him with his mystical powers.  But Grandfather is too weak to assist and, in the end, Peterluk is left to defeat one of the aliens with a conventional rifle.

When the Seal People ship surfaces from beneath the ice, much to Peterluk's surprise, it disgorges not aliens but white people in uniform.  And Peterluk begins to doubt the power, and even the human nature, of his strangely humped, ever demanding Grandfather.

Confusing at first, Angakok is actually a pretty neat tale of two types of aliens (human and truly extraterrestrial) as seen from the point of view of one completely naive to other cultures.  While the bones of the plot are fairly conventional, I appreciated the novel viewpoint.

Three stars.

Symbolically Speaking, by Willy Ley

Any meeting of the minds between human and alien will require a common symbology to convey ideas.  A science fiction writer looking for inspiration for such a symbol set could do worse than to read Willy Ley's latest science article for Galaxy, in which he discusses the evolution of symbols for the planets, alchemical substances, numbers, etc.

Fairly dry, but there's interesting information here.  Three stars.

A Wobble in Wockii Futures, by Gordon R. Dickson


by Gray Morrow, channeling Bill Gaines

Tom and Lucy Reasoner are a recurring pair in a series of stories, this being the fourth.  Sort of a "Nick and Nora" meets Retief, the stories of the Reasoners began charmingly enough, with Tom an interstellar diplomat with a mystery to solve, and Lucy his sometimes discerning assistant.

Last time around, Tom had not only gotten inducted into the interstellar assassin's guild, but he'd also catapulted Earth onto the galactic scene, dramatically increasing his home planet's clout.  Now the humans have gotten themselves hip-deep in a planetary investment that made turn out to be completely worthless.  Tom must find out who hoodwinked the Terrans and why before humanity is bankrupted.

This installation has the same problem as the last one — Lucy is sidelined and played for stupid, and the humor of the tale just isn't funny.  Dickson can, and usually does, do better.

Two stars.

Wasted on the Young, by John Brunner

The concept of the "teenager" is a fairly recent one.  It used to be that kids enjoyed a relatively short childhood before transitioning to the labor force and/or marriage.  Now there is an intermediate phase before adulthood during which a youngster can learn the ropes of grown-up society.

Brunner's latest story posits an even longer period of immaturity, one in which kids are given free credit until age thirty to do whatever they want.  The catch: once they reach their fourth decade, they have to pay back what they've spent by being productive members of society.  Thus, the wastrels find themselves indebted indefinitely, while those who lived a spartan life get to be free agents.

Hal Page, age 32, believes he knows a way to cheat the system…but in the end, society has use for people who have spent it all, even their life.

There's a great idea here, but I feel it was somewhat wasted on the gimmick (and not particularly logical) ending.  Still, three stars.

The Decision Makers, by Joseph Green


by Jack Gaughan

Allan Odegaard is a Practical Philosopher, a kind of emissary for humanity to other worlds.  His job is to judge whether a planet is inhabited by intelligent life or not; if so, Terran policy is to keep hands off.  As one would expect, such a determination is often strongly opposed by financial interests.

Capella G Eight is an ocean planet, though during times of Ice Age, three continents emerge from the sea as the water level drops.  Its dominant life form is a seal-like creature.  Though it possesses a relatively tiny brain pan, somehow it lives in a communal society and can use tools.  Is it intelligent?  Does the fact that these creatures live near a rich uranium deposit factor into Odegaard's decision?

We've seen this kind of story before — H. Beam Piper's Fuzzy series is probably the purest example, though J.F. Bone's The Lani People should also be noted.  It's a worthy subject, and Green does a pretty good job, though the ending is abrupt and not quite as momentous as I would have liked.

All in all, it's the best story I've seen from Green in an American publication (he tends to stick to the English side of the Atlantic.) Three stars.

Slow Tuesday Night, by R. A. Lafferty

We're back to Earth for this one.  We all know that the pace of life has only quickened over the generations.  Lafferty, whose middle name would be "whimsy" if the initial were a W. and not an A., writes of a future society in which society is speeded up a hundred-fold compared to now.  Fortunes are made and lost in minutes.  Marriages last an hour on a good night.  And a lifetime can be lived in a week.

It's cute, but the satire wears thin about halfway through.  Also, there are only two female characters, and their sole goal appears to be competing for the earliest wedding of the evening.

A low three, I guess.

Sculptor, by C. C. MacApp

Eight years ago, a disgraced spaceman abandoned his crewmates on an alien world, rushing home with a set of invaluable statues — and a hole in his memory about the affair.  Now he has been shanghaied by a criminal bent on returning to this world and plundering it for more of the exquisite figurines.

What race made these wrought-diamond minatures?  And why does the amnesiac spaceman feel such dread on the planet's surface?

This is another "they looked like us" yarn that has been around since Campbell kick-started the genre with Who Goes There (and Heinlein made it popular with The Puppet Masters).  It's so prevalent, in fact, that there's another example of it in this very issue! (Angakok) Despite not really treading on new ground, it may well be the best work I've seen from C. C. MacApp, a fairly recent author who never fails to never quite succeed.

Three stars.

War Against the Yukks, by Keith Laumer


by Gray Morrow

Six years ago, the Journey had the (dubious) pleasure of reviewing Missile to the Moon.  It was one of a long line of movies involving a man-less society, run by a bunch of sex-starved female beauties just waiting for a hunk to tip the order on its ear.

Laumer's latest is the same old story: this time, the men are an anthropologist and his stereotypically British assistant, who are whisked to Callisto where they encounter the last remnants of an ante-diluvian war between the sexes.  High Jinks ensue(s?)

Only the author's puissance at writing elevates this story above the level of dreck.  Even then, it's a disappointment.  I understand that satirizing a hoary cliche can be fun, but the whole point of Galaxy is that the magazine doesn't even acknowledge the existence of said cliches, much less indulge in them.

It really deserves two stars.  I'll probably give it three anyway.

Summit's End

This month's Galaxy was as alien-heavy as usual, and there was a broad variety of stories.  On the other hand, with the exception of the Niven, there were no stand-outs.  Indeed, the issue read more like an overlong issue of IF (which has also dipped in quality) than Galaxy of old.

Nevertheless, Ad Astra per Aspera.  What goes down must come up again, and when humanity finally does meet the alien denizens of the stars, should they exist, our starship crews will doubtless have been inculcated with the lessons learned in SF, particularly in magazines like Galaxy.




9 Comments Leave A Comment
Book, Magazine, Serial

[March 4, 1965] OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES (April 1965 IF)

1 Comment


by David Levinson

“Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt

When Gideon contacted me about taking on the reviews for IF, I took President Roosevelt’s words to heart and said, “Yes.” It’s tougher than it looks. I’m stretching some mental muscles I haven’t used in some time.

New Beginnings

March is a good time for new beginnings. Spring isn’t quite here yet, but its promise is apparent. Depending on where you live, the crocuses may have started to bloom, or at least the snowdrops. And until Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar almost exactly 2,000 years ago, it was the first month of the year (which is why our ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth months are named Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten). It even stuck around as the first month for some into the Eighteenth century under the Old Style.

So what’s new? Well, we have another new country: The Gambia. This tiny nation on the west coast of Africa was granted independence by Great Britain on February 18th. It closely follows the lower course of the Gambia River to its mouth on the Atlantic and is surrounded on three sides by Senegal. I wouldn’t rush out to buy a new map or globe any time soon. There are still plenty of colonies in Africa and elsewhere around the world seeking their independence.


The Duke of Kent at the official opening of Gambia High School during the independence celebrations

There’s also a new measles vaccine. Unlike the current vaccine, which requires a series of shots, this requires only a single injection. Fewer injections are bound to be a relief to children and their parents.

A little closer to the interests of the Journey, MGM has announced that Stanley Kubrick (Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove) is working on a science fiction film, tentatively to be called Journey Beyond the Stars. There isn’t much information at this time. It will be shot in Cinerama, and Arthur C. Clarke is apparently involved in some fashion. Maybe we can dare hope for more than ray guns and schlocky monsters.


Stanley Kubrick in the Dr. Strangelove trailer

What about IF?


Art by McKenna

Are we getting anything really new this month? Has Fred Pohl started to turn the decline in quality around? The answers are “A little” and “Not really”. As for the first question, five of the six authors in this issue are new enough that the Journey actually covered their first story. (Well, in the case of this month’s first time author you’ll have to wait a few paragraphs for that to be true.) For the second, read on.

The Altar at Asconel (Part 1 of 2), by John Brunner

Brother Spartak, a monk in a scholarly order on Annanworld, is just about to begin writing a history of his homeworld of Asconel, when he is interrupted by the arrival of his brother Vix. It turns out that these two are brothers to Hodath, the Warden of Asconel, who fell victim to a coup staged by the leaders of a cult (one of whom is a telepathic mutant) from the world of Brinze which worships Belizuek. Neither Brinze nor Belizuek is known to the monastery’s encyclopedic computer. The two leave, first to find their remaining brother, Tiorin, and then to make contact with the resistance in the Asconel system. But before leaving, Spartak is reminded by his abbot that he took a vow of non-violence and that committing a single violent act will forever bar him from returning.

Aboard his ship, Vix is attacked by an assassin. Spartak is able to stop the attack by rapidly reversing the ship’s artificial gravity. (Is slamming someone repeatedly into various surfaces not an act of violence, just because you only twisted a dial?) We also meet Vix’s mistress, Vineta, and learn that Vix is hot-headed and occasionally verbally abusive to her.


Art by Gray Morrow

They travel to Delcadore, hoping to get a lead on their brother. There, the ship is impounded by the Imperial bureaucracy and the brothers are dragooned into taking a telepathic mutant to the world of Nylock. They are psychologically conditioned to fulfill their assignment, but are able to delay take-off long enough to make contact with Tiorin and for him to come aboard. The delay is brought about by Spartak pointing a weapon at an administrator and threatening to shoot a bunch of people. (Is that an act of violence if he didn’t actually mean to go through with it?)

The mutant, a teenage girl named Eunora, is brought aboard in an artificially induced catatonic state. Spartak insists on bringing her out of it, and a few days later, she breaks the conditioning of the others. However, she has no interest in going to Asconel and is planning to condition them herself to take them where she wants to go. Once she figures out where that is.

That’s really not a lot of action for 47 pages. The rest is taken up by exposition. Some good, some of the “As you know, Bob” variety. We learn that there is a galaxy-wide human empire, but it is in decline, gradually contracting its borders. A few places that have left the empire, such as Asconel and Annanworld, have retained imperial values and systems, but others have lapsed into piracy and barbarism. The empire is nearly 9,000 years old and the ships are even older, created by an ancient vanished race and found by humans when they first ventured out to the stars.

John Brunner is the grand old man of this issue, having been writing since the early 50s. He has apparently written a couple of things in this setting before. The Brunner I’ve read before has been closer in tone to the newer British style. This is pure space opera. As is typical of space opera, the women characters don’t do too well. Vineta submits weakly to Vix’s abuse, though she may be developing an interest in Spartak, and there are at least some hints at a bit of depth. We don’t see much of Eunora, but she’s not off to a good start. The only other woman is the bureaucrat, described repeatedly as fat and foolish.

Despite the excessive exposition and reliance on coincidence, a tentative three stars for readability and some decent writing in spots.

What T and I Did, by Fred Saberhagen

An amnesiac wakes imprisoned in a Berserker. One eye is bandaged, and he assumes he is horribly disfigured, because the others trapped with him seem to be repelled by him.

It’s difficult to say much more about this without giving the whole thing away. If you read “The Stone Place” last month, the answer to at least some of the mystery will be obvious, but that’s far from the whole story.

This is Saberhagen’s fifth story about the dreaded Berserker killing machines. Clearly he does have more he can say with the Berserker stories, but I would like to see him stretch his legs a little more with something else. A solid, high three stars.

Across the Sea of Stars, by Jeff Renner

This is a poem which uses the title of at least one science fiction work in every line. The meter here (when the author sticks to it) is the sort of sing-song I associate with bad children’s poetry. The only good thing is that the poem is barely longer than the list of authors offered an apology. Renner had another bad poem in F&SF in March of last year. He shouldn’t quit his day job. One star for me, maybe two if you enjoy the game of figuring out how many of the referenced works you’ve read.

Gree’s Hellcats, by C.C. MacApp

Colonel Steve Duke is back. During a boring (for the reader) space battle, he learns that the Gree has a new species working for it. From pictures he took, the bird people figure out that these are “upgraded” animals. Col. Duke is once again sent behind enemy lines to investigate.


Art by Nodel

Once again, he spends some time in the bush. Once again, he waltzes into the enemy base by pretending to be wounded. After crawling around in the ductwork, he eventually locates some electronic devices being implanted in the creatures’ horns. He steals one and has the brilliant (read: blindingly stupid) idea of trying it out on himself. It proves to be some sort of computer-aided thinking device that also punishes thoughts against the Gree. Steve steals a spaceship with the aid of the device. The end.

Why hellcats? A reference to the Grumman F6F? The M18 tank hunter? The 12th Armored Division? Hellcats of the Navy starring Ronald Reagan? Mary Todd Lincoln? Who knows? Or cares? I’m not sure even the author does.

MacApp has written some decent stuff. “A Guest of Ganymede” comes to mind. Even the first of the Gree stories wasn’t bad, but this and the previous installment have been awful. If MacApp must write space opera, might I suggest a sequel to “Under the Gaddyl”? Two stars and no more Gree, please.

Our Martian Neighbors, by John McCallum

An astronaut has crashed in the Martian desert. After days struggling through the heat, he comes upon a glass dome. In it are two children and their mother. He can hear them speaking, but they can’t hear him desperately pleading for water.

McCallum is this month’s new author. He shows some skill, but the story is very unpleasant. Imagine a Mars story written by an evil Ray Bradbury. I’ve no idea why this got the cover. Well written, but only two stars for egregious cruelty and not really having a point.

White Fang Goes Dingo, by Thomas M. Disch

In 1970, the Masters, beings of pure energy, came to Earth. They took over the power grid and made pets of some humans, especially the beautiful and artistic. They use the Leash, some sort of electric stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain, and the pets are eager and glad for it. It is now a few generations later.

Our protagonist is known at various times in his life as Dennis White, White Fang, and Cuddles. He is the son of Tennyson White, who wrote a very popular book about Masters and pets through the allegory of dogs. A few years after White Fang’s birth, his mother left for another solar system and his father was captured and killed by wild humans, also called Dingoes. White Fang and his brother Pluto live in a poorly run kennel for a few years and are then adopted by a Master after meeting a human girl, Julie, on an abandoned farm. A decade later, White Fang and Julie are let off the leash while visiting Earth, but their Master never returns. Eventually, they are captured by Dingoes and get to see what is left of human civilization.


Art by Gaughan

You might expect this to be a broad comedy from the title. It isn’t. There is humor and satire here, but it’s subtle. The story is up to Disch’s usual standards, but might need more room to really develop. It’s either too long or too short. I can’t quite decide. A very high three stars; it’s missing that certain something to get a fourth.

Wrapping it up

So, are there signs of Pohl righting the ship? Not really. These are hoary old clichés for the most part. Space opera, a hostile but habitable Mars, humanity enslaved by aliens. Only Saberhagen and Disch do something new and different with them. Maybe Brunner will, too, but not this month. Come on, Fred. Don’t make me regret taking this gig.




1 Comment Leave A Comment
Magazine

[January 31, 1965] Janus, Facing Both Ways (February 1965 Analog)

4 Comments

[This is your chance to nominate Galactic Journey for Best Fanzine Hugo!  We feel that 1964…er…2019 was our best year yet, and appearing on the ballot is the greatest reward we could ask for.  Please help make it happen again!]


by Gideon Marcus

Facing the Future, Honoring the Past

January (likely) takes its name from Janus, the Roman god of new beginnings, and there have been few Januaries so worthy of this legacy than the latest one.

On January 20, Lyndon Baines Johnson took the oath of office of the President of the United States.  He had done so once before, on that tragic afternoon in November 1963.  This time, LBJ was sworn in on his own merit, having won the last general election in one of the biggest trouncings in history.  He has already outlined a bold agenda, expanding his Great Society with proposals to expand medicare and social security, combat poverty and joblessness, and further equalize the rights of all Americans.  Along with the Democratic supermajority in Congress, we are going to see legislative movement the likes of which have not been seen in more than twenty years.

Just four days later, Sir Winston Churchill, the United Kingdom's leader through most of World War 2, was felled by a brain hemorrhage at the age of 90.  His state funeral on the 29th was appropriately tremendous, and flags were lowered to half-mast throughout the world.  The Left seem to be on the move in Britain, too, with the Liberals winning their first victory in over a decade.  Have we arrived at an unfettered age of progress?

In the eddies of time

Not within the pages of John W. Campbell's Analog, which plugs along this month with the same combination of hard science fiction and workmanlike writing.  Moreover, Frank Herbert's Prophet of Dune neither begins nor concludes; it merely plods on.  Well, to be fair, the cover date is February 1965…


by Walter Hortens

Program for Lunar Landings by Joe Poyer

We are now four years on since President Kennedy's momentous declaration, to send Americans to the Moon and back before decade's end.  Joe Poyer's article outlines the phases of lunar exploration that will succeed Project Apollo's first missions.

Fascinating topic.  Rather dull execution.  Three stars.

The Mailman Cometh, by Rick Raphael


by Walter Hortens

The fellow who gave us depictions of government employed sewer rats and tales of high speed highway patrol is back with a story of far future mail delivery.  Centuries from now, automated mail drones will transport packages across the stars.  But it's up to the sweaty, stinky folk in orbiting stations to sort the stuff onto its final destination.

I don't know that I buy the setup, and this is more of "a day in the life" than something with an actual plot.  That said, Raphael always writes pleasantly, and he's not shy about writing good women characters.

Three stars.

Photojournalist, by Mack Reynolds


by Robert Swanson

It's a terrible thing to be a cameraman and miss the big scoop.  But how much worse must it be to be at all the right places at all the right times and never have your pictures published?

No one in modern day has ever seen Jerry Scott's shots, and he's been spotted everywhere, from Mussolini's hanging to the latest riots.  Is he unlucky?  Or does he have an entirely different audience?

Pretty good story, though with a page more in the middle than is necessary.  Plus, it gives Reynolds a chance to use some of his lingo from his Joe Mauser stories (which will instantly tip you off as to what's going on).

Three stars.

The Pork Chop Tree, by James H. Schmitz


by Hector Castellon

What ill could possibly be spoken of the trees of Maccadon?  All parts of them are edible.  They obligingly create hollows in themselves as shelters for animals and people alike.  Not one offensive characteristic has been cataloged.

Is there such a concept as too much of a good thing?

This story has a lot in common with Norman Spinrad's recent Child of Mind, though without the offensive bits.  And also the particularly interesting ones.

Three stars.

Coincidence Day, by John Brunner


by Leo Summers

In the NASEEZ (North American South Eastern Extraterrestrial Zoo), the most exciting time to visit is Coincidence Day, when all of the biorhythms of the assembled creatures line up, and they can all be viewed active at once.  The most sought-out resident is a tripodal alien dubbed Chuckaluck, a charming, easy-going soul. 

But is he the attraction, or the observer?

A whimsical, multilayered piece.  It almost feels like a story Sheckley would write were he British.

Four stars.

The Prophet of Dune (Part 2 of 5), by Frank Herbert


by John Schoenherr

Finally, a short installment of Part 2 of Book 2 of the Dune franchise.  Young Paul Atreides and his mother, Lady Jessica, have made it across the deadly desert of Arrakis to what counts for local civilization.  But do the still-suited, spice-addicted Fremen offer succor or peril?

This was actually one of the better spans of the story, though Frank Herbert still employs third person omniscient italic as his perspective.  Three stars.

What a happy surprise to find Analog near the top of the magazine pack this month, clocking in at 3.2 stars.  In fact, it was a rather stellar month in general, Galaxy getting an impressive 3.5 stars, BOTH Fantastic and Amazing earning 3.3 stars, Fantasy and Science Fiction returning to form with 3.2 stars, and the British New Worlds achieving 3.1 while Science Fantasy scored 3.

Only IF and Worlds of Tomorrow came over par, at 2.7 and 2.5 stars, respectively (though the latter did have the excellent Niven novella, Planet/World of Ptavvs).

On the other hand, out of a whopping 55 pieces of fiction, women only wrote four of them.  The ratio is getting worse, folks.

Meanwhile, speaking of endings, it appears Analog will be a slick for just one more month before returning to the rack with all the other digest sizes.  Apparently, there just wasn't enough advertising to sustain the bedsheet format.  I guess the Venn diagram of science fiction readers and cognac drinkers didn't intersect much…

I honestly won't miss the big magazine.  It fit awkwardly on my shelf.  What do y'all think?




4 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine, Serial

[January 22, 1965] With Apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein (February 1965 Fantastic)

3 Comments


by Victoria Silverwolf


The guy on the right doesn't seem too happy about all this.

The long-anticipated movie version of the smash hit stage musical The Sound of Music had sneak previews in Minneapolis and Tulsa this month, and is scheduled to show up in theaters across the nation in March. This sugary-sweet confection, very loosely based on the true story of the Trapp Family Singers, isn't really my cup of tea, but I thought I would pay tribute to the songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II by stealing the titles of some of the ditties that appear in it.

Caution: May cause diabetes.

Climb Ev'ry Mountain

Just a couple of days ago, Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as President of the United States for his first full term.


Chief Justice Earl Warren administers the oath of office.

The inaugural address was a short one. In the space of twenty minutes or so, he raised the issues of poverty, health care, literacy, and much more. A phrase about American lives lost in countries we barely know is surely a reference to the conflict in Vietnam. He even threw in a nod to the space program, mentioning the rocket that is heading toward Mars.

Those are a lot of steep, difficult mountains to conquer for any politician, so let's wish the President well.

Do Re Mi

I've complained before about some of the syrupy ballads that reach the top, so I was pleased to see two tunes more to my liking jump to Number One this month. Both are courtesy of the UK, so pip pip and cheerio to our friends across the pond!

Earlier this month, the Beatles made a big comeback on the American charts with their upbeat rock 'n' roll number I Feel Fine.


The big advantage of buying a record instead of going to a Beatles concert is that you can actually hear the song instead of screaming.

Even as I type this, the news reaches me that British songbird Petula Clark is now Number One in the USA, belting out a nifty tribute to the pleasures of big city living called Downtown.


Baby, it's her, as far as music fans go.

My Favorite Things

Like the rest of you, I'm a big fan of science fiction and fantasy stories, at least when they're done reasonably well. Let's take a look at the latest issue of Fantastic and hope for the best.


Cover art by Heidi Coquette.

A Fortnight of Miracles, by Randall Garrett

A magician, who is also handy with a quarterstaff, travels around with his familiar, a goblin. (In this world, that means an earth elemental.) They run into — literally! — a most unusual knight. Although he can talk and fight and do all kinds of knightly things, he's just an empty suit of armor. After a brief period of misunderstanding, the sorcerer and the goblin agree to help him find the wizard who put a curse on him.

Fortunately, all users of magic have to travel to a convention once per century or lose their powers, and it's going on right now. The knight also has to triumph at a jousting tournament, which is hard to do when you're just a suit of armor that doesn't weigh very much. Add in a lovesick wood nymph, the King of Faerie, and some Bad Guys, and you got a lighthearted fantasy adventure. It provides some amusement, although it's hardly profound.

Three stars.

Passage to Dilfar, by Roger Zelazny

If you studied Homer in school, you're familiar with the term in medias res. Like the Iliad and the Odyssey, this brief tale begins in the middle of things.

Our hero, Dilvish the Damned, is riding his talking metal horse, for which he sold part of his soul, from the site of a lost battle, in order to carry the news to a city threatened by the advancing enemy. Along the way lots of foes try to stop him, but he escapes them all. A final encounter with a a knight wearing invulnerable armor tests the skills of Dilvish and his steed.

This lightning-paced tale is very well written, but it reads like a few pages torn out of a much longer story. I hope the author eventually tells us more about the Damned fellow.

Three stars.

The Repairmen of Cyclops (Part Two of Two), by John Brunner


Illustration by George Schelling.

As you may recall from the previous installment, the Corps Galactica finds evidence that the ruling class of the planet Cyclops is somehow restoring body parts for those lost by the wealthy; a thing which should be beyond their level of medical technology. As strongly hinted at last time, that's because they're buying them from some sinister folks who exploit the population of a planet unknown to the Corps.

The Bad Guys convince their victims that they're suffering from a terminal illness, take them away, and pay their families, pretending to be a sort of hospice. Of course, they really murder them in cold blood, and sell them to the physician on Cyclops who takes care of the elite.

In the concluding half of this short novel, the Corps figures out what's going on and tries to stop it. Complicating matters is the fact that the woman who is the de facto ruler of Cyclops orders the Corps to abandon their base on the planet, even though this will cause great economic hardship for her world. She has her own motive, which involves the physician and one of the innocent inhabitants of the secret planet. It all leads up to a daring raid on the evil doctor's lair by the heroine, a highly skilled and experienced agent of the Corps.

That makes the plot sound melodramatic, and, indeed, the climax resembles something from a James Bond novel. However, the characters are believable, the background is complex, and the combination of violent action and political intrigue always held my interest.

Four stars.

Winterness, by Ron Goulart


Also by George Schelling. I like the white-on-black effect.

Set in the early part of the Twentieth Century, this tongue-in-cheek yarn involves a spiritualist and a married couple, both of whom are novelists. The woman believes in the medium's powers, the man does not. At a seance for a newspaper editor and his mistress, the skeptic falls into danger, and dark secrets are revealed.

I've made the story sound a lot more serious than it is. Although the plot isn't a funny one, the characters, the dialogue, and the narrative style are all good for some laughs. I particularly liked a bit of satire on the writing game of years gone by, with the woman producing sentimental novels with titles like Venetia; or Led Where Love Compels and the man turning out muckraking works like Soil and Steam.

Three stars.

The Vamp, by Thomas M. Disch

The narrator is an old-time movie actor, going back to the silent days, who is now the host of a TV kiddie show. He sees his ex-wife on the street, acting like a flirtatious 1920's flapper to the men who pass by, who don't seem interested. That's not a big surprise, since she's more than sixty years old, with hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, dead white skin, ruby lips, sharp teeth . . .

OK, you know where this is going, from the title if nothing else. The narrator never figures it out, so he invites her home for a very rare — in fact, bloody — steak. That leads to the story's joke ending.

The whole thing is just a trifle, but I liked it well enough. Maybe that's because the idea of turning a silent-screen star into a you-know-what tickled me. Or maybe because the story reminded me of the great old movie Sunset Boulevard. (I can definitely see a similarity between the Vamp and Norma Desmond.)

Three stars.

So Long, Farewell

Before I say goodbye, let me sum up my thoughts on this issue. Overall, it was pretty decent. No bad stories, although many of them were definitely minor works. That's a lot better than a magazine full of lousy fiction, so I won't complain when I read something good.

[If you have a membership to this year's Worldcon (in New Zealand) or did last year (Dublin), we would very much appreciate your nomination for Best Fanzine! We work for egoboo…]




3 Comments Leave A Comment
Book, Magazine, Serial

[December 23, 1964] Odds and Ends (January 1965 Fantastic)

2 Comments


by Victoria Silverwolf

A Hodgepodge of Happenings

It's the season for clearing out all that stuff you've got piling up in the closet, ready to greet the new year with a fresh start. With that in mind, and given the fact that no one news item dominated the headlines this month, allow me to throw out a few observations about what's been going on lately.

Italy joined the Space Age this month, with the launching of that nation's first satellite, as recently discussed in great detail by our own Kaye Dee.  Named the San Marco, the spacecraft rode on top of an American Scout rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Although this is primarily just a test flight, the satellite does carry a couple of instruments designed to study the ionosphere.


The San Marco is the striped, spherical object, shown here being loaded into the Scout rocket. It seems fitting that an object intended to soar into the heavens is named after a saint.

After months of surprisingly passionate debate over its design, a new flag will now symbolize the nation of Canada. Some English-speaking Canadians wanted to retain the Union Jack found in the old, unofficial flag, while many French-speaking Canadians objected. The current flag looks like a good compromise.


The old design, known as the Red Ensign. Besides everything else, it just looks messy.


The new design, which seems much more aesthetically pleasing to me.

The late Ian Fleming's master spy continues to draw moviegoers to the box office like flies to honey, as his latest cinematic adventure arrived in the USA this month.


I think that woman in the middle has been sunbathing too long.

A Miscellany of Music

Unlike some months earlier this year, December offered no overwhelmingly popular song at the top of the American charts. There were no less than four hits that reached Number One this month, and maybe we'll even hear from a fifth contender before 1965 arrives.

Spilling over from late November was Leader of the Pack by the girl group the Shangri-Las. I can't decide if this tragic tale of a romance ended by a fatal motorcycle accident is an example of a Teenage Death Song, or a tongue-in-cheek spoof of that macabre little genre.


These smiling ladies aren't saying one way or the other.

It would be hard to find a starker contrast with that bit of feminine adolescent angst than Lorne Greene's rendition of the cowboy saga Ringo. Obviously, the record is cashing in on the popularity of his hit television series Bonanza. Greene doesn't really sing so much as narrate this tale of the final confrontation between an outlaw and a lawman.


I wonder how many young people think this song is about the drummer for the Beatles.

It wasn't much later that Greene was outgunned by crooner Bobby Vinton, returning to the top of the charts with the tearjerking ballad Mr. Lonely.


The singer kindly provides the address of his official fan club right on the record sleeve.

Not to be outdone, the Supremes gave us their third smash Motown hit with the catchy little number Come See About Me.


And they're classy dressers, too.

A Smorgasbord of Stories

In a similarly generous fashion, the latest issue of Fantastic supplies a wide variety of short stories, as well as the first half of a novel.


Cover art by Emsh

The Girl in the Gem, by John Jakes


Interior illustrations also by Emsh

Here's another swashbuckling adventure of the mighty barbarian Brak, whom we've met many times before.

In unheroic fashion, our protagonist is passed out drunk in a seaside inn. A bunch of dwarfs rush in, armed with knives, but deliberately avoid hurting him. It's all part of a plot to frame him for robbery. You see, an earthquake tumbled the old palace into the ocean. Another one raised it up again. Meanwhile, the local king is dying. His daughter blackmails Brak with the threat of death for thievery if he doesn't undertake the dangerous task of rescuing her sister, who was imprisoned in a gigantic jewel, from the recently revealed palace. Of course, this means he has to defeat a hideous creature.


The mandatory monster

The author writes vividly and definitely keeps the action moving. This is the shortest tale of Brak yet, and it's got plenty of plot for its length. The characters are standard for the sword-and-sorcery genre, and a few incidents seem arbitrary. (Why are the royal servants who invade the inn all dwarfs?) Despite a lack of originality in some aspects, it's worth reading.

Three stars.

Journal of a Leisured Man, by Bryce Walton


Illustration by George Schelling

In a technologically advanced future, an accountant loses his job to a computer. Like many other people, he is forced to remain unemployed for the rest of his life. To add to his troubles, his faithless wife leaves him for another man.

The company that formerly employed the fellow makes automatons, in the form of animals, children, and adults. We witness some gruesome ways customers use these simulacra. In what seems to be at first an act of kindness, an employee of the company offers the man a synthetic duplicate of his wife, to do with as he pleases. You may predict the twist ending.

Although there are few surprises, the story has a certain grim power. It's not always pleasant to read, but is likely to remain in the memory.

Three stars.

On the River, by Robert F. Young

A man finds himself on a raft, floating down a river by day, staying at deserted inns on shore by night. He meets a woman in the same situation, and romance blooms. It soon becomes obvious that both of them attempted suicide, and that the river leads to death.

(The idea of an afterlife on a world dominated by a river also appears in the most recent issue of Worlds of Tomorrow. Given the delays in the publishing industry between writing a story and seeing it in print, this must be nothing more than a coincidence.)

I'm a sucker for this author's bittersweet love stories, so I enjoyed this one quite a bit. The conclusion may be obvious, but any other ending would have been inappropriate for a writer who wears his heart on his sleeve.

Four stars.

The Repairmen of Cyclops (Part One of Two), by John Brunner


Illustrations by George Schelling

A little research reveals that this novel is set in the same universe as two previous works, each published as one-half of an Ace Double. The series as a whole deals with what are known as Zarathustra Refugee Planets. Many centuries ago, the star which the colony planet Zarathustra orbited went nova. The inhabitants, fleeing the disaster, wound up populating a large number of planets. The Galactic Corps watches over these worlds, making sure that outsiders don't interfere with their development, while refraining from becoming overly involved themselves.


Cover art by Emsh


Also by Emsh

In the style of Philip K. Dick, the author uses many different viewpoint characters, so it takes a while before the main thrust of the plot becomes clear. The story mostly takes place on Cyclops, a relatively poor planet, although there is a wealthy upper class. An agent of the Galactic Corps, who was, I believe, the protagonist of Secret Agent of Terra, reviewed by our own Rosemary Benton some time ago, arrives after twenty years of service. Her reward for two decades of unpleasant, thankless work is considerable. She will have her youth restored, and her life extended for two centuries.

The extremely advanced medical technology of the Galactic Corps is one reason why the ruler of the planet resents them. (Although the government of Cyclops is, in theory, representative, she wields the real power.) There is also the fact that many natives of Cyclops were killed by the inhabitants of another world when they tried to make slaves of them. (I think these events also appeared in Secret Agent of Terra. Castaways' World does not seem to be as closely related to this new novel.)

The ruler's lover is an ex-spaceman who lost a leg in an accident. Although it was replaced, he is no longer allowed to serve on spaceships. While hunting the gigantic shark-like creatures who live in the oceans of Cyclops, he loses the same leg. After a brief stay in the local Galactic Corps hospital, he is whisked back to the care of his lover and her doctor. This creates a mystery for the Galactic Corps; how was the man's leg replaced, given the limited medical technology of Cyclops, and how do they expect to do it again? The author soon reveals the answer in scenes that take place on another world, where a sinister conspiracy takes advantage of unsuspecting victims.

Although a bit melodramatic in parts, this is an intriguing novel, full of richly defined characters, many of whom I have not even mentioned.


I haven't talked about these people.


I also haven't brought up these folks.

The author balances scenes of violent action with necessary exposition. It's interesting to note that the characters who are, I assume, the main protagonist and the primary antagonist are both powerful women. The complex background is fully developed, without becoming overwhelming.

Four stars.

Make Mine Trees, by David R. Bunch

The magazine's most controversial writer returns with another dark and strange story. This one is more comprehensible than most, and the title definitely helps you understand what's going on. The narrator, who is clearly as mad as a hatter, used some kind of formula to change his wife and her lover into trees. Now his young son is undergoing the same transformation. Typical for the author, the plot is much less important than the eerie mood and the eccentric style.

Three stars.

Multiple Choice, by John Douglas

A trio of young men, who have undergone a series of tests to become part of the elite, wait in a room for their final examination. They hear gunshots and screams from outside. Each one has a different theory about what's happening. Is it a hoax, designed to test their nerves? Are those who fail the last exam shot to death? Is it even possible that everyone is killed? The story's ending is inconclusive, which may be the point. Many readers will find the lack of a full resolution frustrating.

Two stars.

Something For Everyone?

Although the overall mood of the issue is on the dark side, there are all kinds of imaginative fiction to be found between its covers. From a heroic fantasy set in a distant past that never existed, to an adventure in deep space in the far future, and from a romantic parable of love and death, to a cynical portrait of tomorrow's dystopian society, there is enough variety to please just about every reader of speculative literature. You won't enjoy every story, but I don't think you'll dislike all of them. (If you do, turn to Robert Silverberg's book review column for more recommendations.)


He mostly reviews anthologies and collections in this particular column, so you've got lots to choose from.

2 Comments Leave A Comment
Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 11, 1964] December Galactoscope

4 Comments


by Cora Buhlert

The season of giving is upon us. For women, perfumes like the classic scent Tosca are the most popular gifts, while men tend to find ties, socks and underwear under the tree.

Tosca ad

Personally, I think that books are the best gifts. And so I gave myself Margaret St. Clair's latest, when I spotted it in the spinner rack at my local import bookstore, since I enjoyed last year's Sign of the Labrys a lot. Even better, this book is an Ace Double, which means I get two new tales for the price of one. Or rather, I get six, because one half is a collection of five short stories.

Message from the Eocene by Margaret St. Clair (Ace Double M-105)

Message from the Eocene by Margaret St. Clair

An alien in trouble

The first half is a brand-new science fiction novel called Message from the Eocene. The protagonist, a being named Tharg, is tasked with transporting a cosmic guidebook across hostile territory. The reader learns in the first paragraph that Tharg is not human, because he has a triple heartbeat. Tharg lives on Earth, but the Earth of billions of years ago (long before the Eocene, so the title is a misnomer), a world of volcanos and methane snow, devoid of oxygen. Tharg "breathes" via microorganisms inside his body that break down metallic oxides to oxygenate his blood and has extrasensory perception.

Tharg is in trouble, for a mysterious enemy is trying to thwart his mission. This enemy turns out to be the Vaeaa, a legendary alien race, who are believed to have deposited Tharg's people on Earth in the first place.

Tharg is taken is taken prisoner, but not before he manages to hide the book inside a volcano (it has a protective casing). Under interrogation, Tharg has an out-of-body experience. As a result, his consciousness remains, when his body dies during an escape attempt, to witness the extinction of both his people and the Vaeaa, though the Vaeaa manage to set up a projector on Pluto to keep out further cosmic guidebooks first.

Over billions of years, Tharg's spirit observes life arise and evolve on Earth. Tharg realises that the book might help with his condition, but he has no way to retrieve it. So Tharg decides to ask the Earth's new inhabitants for help. But how to make himself known, considering that Tharg is a bodyless spirit being and never was human in the first place?

Misadventures and miscommunications

Margaret St. Clair
Margaret St. Clair

The rest of the novel chronicles Tharg's attempts to communicate. Tharg's first attempt targets the Proctors, a Quaker family in 19th century England. This goes disastrously wrong, because not only do the Proctors come to believe that their house is haunted – no, Tharg also gets trapped in the house. Taken on its own, the Proctor segment feels like a Victorian ghost story, except that the ghost is a desperate disembodied alien. The insights into the lives of 19th century Quakers are fascinating, but then Margaret St. Clair is a member of the Society of Friends.

Tharg's next attempt targets Denise, who lives with her husband Pierre in a French colony in the South Pacific. Denise has extrasensory perception, making her the ideal subject. But once again Tharg only succeeds in giving Denise nightmares and causing hauntings in the mine Pierre oversees. Worse, the superstitious miners blame Denise for the hauntings. They kidnap the couple and give Denise hallucinogenic herbs to increase her abilities. Now Denise is able to communicate with Tharg long enough to realise that he wants them to recover the book.

So Pierre uses his mining job to blast a hole into a mountain at the very spot where Denise insists the book is hidden. After some trouble with Vietnamese workers – an incident St. Clair uses to explain that oppression during colonial times has left the Vietnamese angry and frustrated, which leads to violence, a lesson that is highly relevant to the situation in Vietnam today – Denise and Pierre manage to retrieve the book. Alas, once they open the protective casing, the book bursts into flame and is destroyed.

Tharg now sets his sights on the projector the Vaeaa installed on Pluto to keep future cosmic guidebooks away from Earth. For if another book were to arrive, Tharg might finally be able to escape his condition.

Sacrifices and success

There is another time jump to 1974, when strange things happen. An experiment detects a purely theoretical particle, a sea captain sees a mermaid, Canadians dance under the Northern lights and a Tibetan monk has a vision. Tharg views these events as signs that another guidebook is on the way. But due to the  projector on Pluto, it will never reach Earth.

In order to shut down the projector long enough to let the book through, Tharg has to dissolve himself in the collective consciousness of humanity, which will also mean his annihilation. So Tharg sacrifices himself and the book is picked up by an expedition to Venus. The novel ends with Tharg waking on the astral plane in a replica of his original body, just as the US-Soviet crew of the spaceship to Venus is about to open the book.

This is a strange and disjointed, but fascinating novel. Though Tharg is one of the rare truly alien aliens of science fiction, he is nonetheless a likeable protagonist and the reader sympathises with his plight. Tharg is also an unlikely messiah, sacrificing himself to assure the future of humanity.

Humanity being uplifted and our minds and bodies evolving is a common theme in our genre. However, Message from the Eocene offers a very different variation on this theme compared to what you'd find in the pages of Analog, even if psychic abilities are involved. The enlightenment offered by the book is reminiscent of both Buddhism and various occult traditions, while its arrival alludes to the so-called Age of Aquarius that astrologers believe will arrive soon.

In a genre that is still all too often peopled solely by white American men, the humans Tharg encounters are of all genders, races, nationalities and religions and all are portrayed sympathetically. For if the alien Tharg does not discriminate based on superficial criteria, then maybe neither should we. It is also notable that even before they receive the book, St. Clair's near future Earth is a more peaceful place than our world, where China has withdrawn from Tibet and the US and USSR cooperate in space.

Message from the Eocene is a story of failed communication, but also a story of evolution and enlightenment and overcoming one's limitations. Given the state of the world today, this may be just the message humanity needs.

Four and a half stars.

Three World of Futurity by Margaret St. Clair

Three Worlds and five stories

Three Worlds of Futurity, the other half of this Ace Double, is a collection of five short stories originally published between 1949 and 1962. The three worlds in question are Mars, Venus and Earth.

Thrilling Wonder Stories December 1950In "The Everlasting Food", Earthman Richard Dekker finds that his Venusian wife Issa has changed after lifesaving surgery. One night, Issa announces that she is immortal now, that she no longer needs to eat and that energy sustains her. Soon thereafter, she leaves, taking their young son with her. Richard takes off after her to get his son back, Issa's human foster sister Megan in tow. After many trials and tribulations, they finally find Issa – only for Richard to lose his wife and son for good. But while Richard is heartbroken, he has also fallen in love with Megan.

"The Everlasting Food" is a curious mix of domestic science fiction in the vein of Zenna Henderson and Mildred Clingerman and planetary adventure in the vein of Leigh Brackett, and never quite gels. I did like Megan, who is described as dark-skinned, by the way, but Issa is hard to connect to and Richard, though well meaning, falls for Megan a little too quickly. Furthermore, the villain feels like an afterthought who comes out of nowhere.

Startling Stories July 1949"Idris' Pig" opens on a spaceship to Mars. George Baker is the ship's resident psychologist. His cousin Bill is a courier and passenger aboard the same ship. When Bill falls ill, it's up to George to deliver the object Bill was supposed to deliver, a blue-skinned sacred pig. However, Bill can only give George very vague instructions about where to deliver the pig and so the pig is promptly stolen. And so George has to retrieve it with the help of Blixa, a young Martian woman. As a result, George gets mixed up with drug dealers and Martian cults, involved in an interplanetary incident and lands in jail. He also completely forgets about the woman he has been trying very hard not to think about and falls in love with Blixa.

This is an utterly charming story, a science fiction screwball comedy reminiscent of Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby. A hidden gem and true delight.

Fantastic Universe July 1954"The Rages" is set in an overmedicated Earth of the future. Harvey has a perfect life and a perfect, though sexless marriage. However, he has a problem because his monthly ration of euphoria pills has run out. And without euphoria pills, Harvey fears the oncoming of the rages, attacks of uncontrollable anger, which eventually lead to a final rage from which one never emerges. The story follows Harvey through his day as he meets several people and tries to get more pills. Gradually, it dawns upon both Harvey and the reader that the pills may be causing the very rages they are supposed to suppress. The story ends with Harvey throwing all of his and his wife's pills away.

This is a dystopian tale in the vein of Brave New World and Fahrenheit 541. The future world St. Clair has built is fascinating, if horrifying, and I would have liked to see more of it. However, Harvey is a thoroughly unlikeable character, who almost rapes two women in the course of a single novelette. Maybe Harvey could have rediscovered his messy humanity without resorting to sexual violence.

Galaxy October 1962"Roberta" is the shortest and most recent story, first published in Galaxy in October 1962, reviewed by our editor Gideon Marcus here. Roberta is a confused young woman with the unfortunate tendency to kill men. Robert is the phantom who won't leave her alone. Eventually, it is revealed that Roberta had a sex change operation and that "Robert" represents her former self, as do the men she kills.

Transsexualism is a subject that science fiction almost never addresses, even though our genre is ideal for it. After all, there are transsexuals living in our world right now and science offers possibilities to make it much easier for them to live the lives they want to. So I applaud Margaret St. Clair for tackling what is sadly still a taboo topic (and for having her heroine utter another taboo word, "abortion"), though I am troubled that science fiction's only transsexual heroine (so far) is also a multiple murderer.

Weird Tales September 1952In "The Island of the Hands", Dirk dreams about his wife Joan who died in a plane crash at sea. He hires a plane to check out the coordinates from his dream and crashes on an invisible island. Dirk finds Joan's plane and a dead body and also meets Miranda, a young woman who suspiciously resembles Joan. He is on the Island of the Hands, Miranda informs them, where everybody can shape their heart's desire from mythical mist. Dirk tries to shape Joan, but fails. He spends the night with Miranda, who confesses that Joan is still alive, but trapped in the mist. Dirk goes after her and rescues Joan, only to learn that there is a very good reason why Miranda looks so much like an idealised version of Joan.

It's no surprise that this story was first published in Weird Tales, since it has the otherworldly quality typical for that magazine. "The Island of the Hands" reminded me of the 1948 Leigh Brackett story "The Moon That Vanished", where another heartbroken widower finds himself faced with a magical mist that shapes one's heart's desire.

All in all, this is an excellent collection. Not every story is perfect (though "Idris' Pig" pretty much is), but they are all fascinating and make me want to read more of Margaret St. Clair's work.

Four stars for the collection.

[But wait!  There's more!]


by Gideon Marcus

False Finishes

After such a remarkable pair of books, I hate to sully this edition with less than stellar reviews.  But the year is almost up, and there are a lot of books to get through.  So, here is a trio of novels that start promisingly and then fizzle out. 

The Greks Bring Gifts, by Murray Leinster

If you can get past the punny title, Gifts grabs your interest from the first.  In the near future, the humanoid Greks land in a miles-long spaceship.  They were just sailing by, training a class of Aladarian engineers, and thought they'd pop in to give humanity a myriad of technological gifts.  The aliens are welcomed with riotous joy — after all, soon no one will have to work more than one day a week, and all the comforts of the world will be evenly distributed. 

But one fellow, Jim Hackett, is suspicious.  Despite being a brilliant young physicist, he was rejected as a candidate to learn Grek science after failing to comprehend it.  Was he just not bright enough?  Or were the Greks feeding us gobbledegook to keep us ignorant?  And then, why did the Greks abruptly leave after six months, just as desire for the fruits of their wondrous technology was peaking, but the ability to sate said desire was lacking?  Finally, after the Grek ship had left, why did an archaeologist party find the bones of Aldorians in the ship's waste ejecta?  And worse yet, those of humans?

So Hackett and his fiancee, the capable Dr. Lucy Thale, work together to reverse engineer the Grek technology so that, when they return to a world whose populace is fairly begging for them to come back, Earth can stand against them and provide for its own.

What begins as a fascinating mystery quickly proves overlong.  Leinster is much better with short stories, before his Hemmingway-esque style can wear thin.  The endless repetition of certain phrases and epithets brings to mind the devices Homer used to make The Illiad easier to recite from memory, but they don't do a reader any favors.  As for characterization, Leinster might as well have named the characters A, B, and C for all the color they possess.  A shorter story would have made that issue stand out less.

Anyway, it's an interesting storyline; it would make a good movie, but as is, it's a mediocre novel.  Three stars.

Arsenal of Miracles (ACE Double F-299), by Gardner F. Fox

From the notable pen of comics writer and, now, SF author Gardner Fox, we have a brand new ACE novel.  And this one isn't a short 120-pager.  No, this time we've got 157 pages devoted to the adventures of Bran Magannon, formerly an Admiral of a Terran space fleet, vanquisher of the invading Lyanir, and now a discredited exile, wandering across the known and unknown galaxy.  Arsenal starts off beautifully, like a space age Fritz Leiber fantasy.  A nearly penniless Bran arrives on the desolate world of Makkador to make traveling funds through gambling.  There, he throws dice against, and loses to, the lovely Peganna, queen of the Lyanir.  And then we learn Bran's tragic past: how he divined how to defeat the seemingly invincible Lyanir ships; how he negotiated for the Lyanir to be given a sanctuary world within the Terran Cluster of stars.  How Bran was betrayed by an ambitious subordinate, who sabotaged the talks, discredited Bran, and condemned the Lyanir to inhabit a radioactive wasteland of a planet.

But now Bran has an ace up his sleeve — he has discovered the ancient portal network of the Crenn Lir, a precursor race that once inhabited countless worlds.  If Bran and Peganna can find the Crenn Lir arsenal before they are caught by Terran and Lyranir agents, they might be able to negotiate with the Terrans as equals and secure a sanctuary for the weary aliens.

I tore through the first third of this book, but things slowed halfway through.  I grew irritated that there was exactly one female character in the book, though I did appreciate the natural and loving relationship Peganna and Bran shared.  What promises to be a galaxy-trotting adventure with big scope and ideas ends up a rather conventional story on a very few settings.  Things pick up a bit in the final third, but I found myself comparing the endeavor unfavorably to Terry Carr's Warlord of Kor, a somewhat similarly themed Ace novel from last year.

Three and a half stars.

Endless Shadow (ACE Double F-299), by John Brunner

With the Fox taking up so much space in the Ace Double, the second title must needs be short.  Luckily, John Brunner's Bridge to Azazel, which came out in February's issue of Amazing, fit nicely.  Both lengthwise and thematically: Endless Shadow also features teleportation across the stars, in this case involving a Terra reestablishing contact with farflung space colonies.

The general consensus among the Journey's various readers is that this was a premise with a lot of potential, but that Brunner failed to deliver satisfactorily.  Ratings ranged from two to three and a half stars.  Call it an even three.

Books to Come

These days, there are almost more books coming out than a fellow (or even a band of fellows) can read!  So, to make sure we cover all of the important books of 1964, there will be a second Galactoscope in a couple of days.  May they be more akin to the stellar St. Clairs than the disappointing Leinster/Fox/Brunner.

[Holiday season is upon us, and Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963), containing some of the best science fiction of the Silver Age, makes a great gift! Think of it as a gift to friends…and the Journey!

4 Comments Leave A Comment