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Serial

[June 30, 1966] Not Reading You (July 1966 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Common meaning

Every so often, a science fiction magazine editor has enough of a backlog to run a "themed" issue.  For instance, there was the time Fred Pohl bunged together an issue of IF with stories all by someone named Smith.  This time around, Analog editor John Campbell has accumulated a supply of tales on the subject of communication.

The problem with themed issues, of course, is that quality is often secondary to topic.  But not always.  Let's see how the July 1966 Analog fares before we make a hasty conclusion!

Five by Five (plus two)


by John Schoenherr

The Message, by Piers Anthony and Frances Hall


by John Schoenherr

Mysterious Thargans have settled amidst the tiny human colony on Tau Ceti.  Though not overly aggressive, they aren't terribly congenial either.  But they are very inquisitive, about our technology, our physical capabilities, and our mental talents.  And their spaceship has a lot of cargo space — enough to fit a thousand slaves, for instance…

Rivera, a linguist who speaks the alien tongue, is tapped to assess the danger posed by the Thargans.  And when disaster inevitably strikes, he must recapitulate an era early in his life, when he managed to foil four would-be muggers not by force, but by the right verbal approach.

An interesting tale by a pair of newish writers, though a bit choppy and with flattish characters. 

Three stars.

The Signals, by Francis Cartier


by Kelly Freas

For the last half-decade, astronomers have been training their radio telescopes upon the stars, hoping to eavesdrop on transmissions from an intelligent alien race.  So-called Project Ozma hasn't found anything yet, and Cartier's tale explains why.  It's not that aliens aren't trying, it's just that we don't know how to listen.  Or more accurately, the fundamental theory of communication is too different between the species for intelligible contact.

Something of a throwaway piece, it is nevertheless cute and probably not far from the truth.  Three stars.

An Ounce of Dissension, by Martin Loran


by Kelly Freas

Quist of the interstellar Library corps is visiting the planet Rayer after a long trip through space.  Upon landing, the brutalist police troops burn his entire stock of books.  The planet is ripe for a revolution, but it needs a catalyst to do so.  Luckily, in Quist's cargo is a crate-sized book printer with a very large memory core…

Essentially a smug Fahrenheit 451, I can see why this piece appealed to Campbell.  But it takes too long to get where it's going, and it utilizes enough straw men to staff all the fields of Iowa.

Two stars.

Meaning Theory, by Dwight Wayne Batteau

This nonfiction piece is all about how the communication of information destroys meaning, and the imparting of meaning destroys information…or something like that.  Frankly, I couldn't make heads or tales of it.  The pictures are cute, the graphs seem useful, the text is in English.  Perhaps someone smarter than me will glean something from it.

Or maybe not.  One star for this failure to communicate.

The Ancient Gods (Part 2 of 2), by Poul Anderson


by John Schoenherr

Last issue, the crew of the starship Meteor had space-jumped 200 million light years from Earth to a feeble red dwarf out in intergalactic space.  They had hoped to establish trade relations with the advanced "yonderfolk" of the system.  Instead, they transitioned into real space too close to the next planet closer to the sun and crash landed.  Only six were left alive.

Hugh Valland, oldest of the more-or-less immortal group of spacers, hatched a plan to salvage a lifeboat so as to make the interplanetary trek to the yonderfolk planet.  But such a massive undertaking would require more than the half dozen remaining crew.  Luckily, intelligent (if primitive) beings exist on the swampy world.  Contact was made with the Azkashi, and it looked as if the plan might work.  As the first half came to a close, it seemed we might be getting a Flight of the Phoenix story. 

Instead, the second half begins with Hugh taken prisoner by the Askashi while the related but more advanced Gianyi abscond with the captain and the mentally unstable Yo Rorn.  It is quickly determined that the Gianyi are in the telepathic thrall of the Ai Chun, a race perhaps a billion years old.  They have stagnated to almost fossilization, and no amount of parley can dissaude them from their goal to strip the downed spaceship for its valuable metal and to work the humans as slaves until they die.  The captain escapes, and with Valland (who is freed by the Azkashi), plans a battle for their liberty.

Much of this installment is given to the war between the human-led Azkashi and the Ai Chun-controlled Gianyi.  It is effectively told, but the outcome is never in doubt, and I found myself less enamored with this wide swath of the text.  Long story short, there are happy endings and Hugh is ultimately reunited with his long lost love (of whom much is sung but little is known).

What I liked: Poul Anderson is a bard, and his stories are lyric performances.  His wistful, archaic prose is sometimes ill suited to its subject, but it works here.  The characters are nicely drawn and compelling.  The unique setting and the nifty aliens are all cutting edge science.  I appreciated the frank polygamy practiced by the captain and his genuine puzzlement with Valland's monogamy.  There's also the suggestion that strict heterosexuality is not observed in the far future.

What I was less delighted with: I felt like Anderson marked a lot of time with the war sequences, which did not bring much new to the table.  The acute lack of women, both on the crew of the Meteor and among the aliens (they exist in the background to do domestic chores, just like Earth females) marked another missed opportunity.  I also suspect that the Ai Chun and Gianyi are supposed to be metaphors for China — grand but hidebound.  Certainly Anderson draws a stated parallel between the Azkashi and the American Indians (for whom the author has an obvious fondness; viz. his tale in Orbit).  The racial comparisons made me slightly uncomfortable, though it's a minor thing and I could be wrong.

Finally, the revelation of Mary O' Meary's current condition in the story's epilogue is a bit trite, and quite unbelievable.  Here's the thing (and don't read on until you've either read the end or in the event you don't mind me giving away the gimmick): Mary has been dead for thousands of years, having passed away just before the advent of immortality.  She died at the age of nineteen.  This means that the immortal romance between she and Hugh could have lasted a few years at the most.

Now look, I love my wife more than anything.  If she passes before me, I may well stay single for the rest of my life.  But she and I have been together almost 30 years.  I balk at the idea that a teenage fling could possibly compel me to asceticism for thousands of years.  At that point, it's less about love and more a case of emotional masturbation.

Anyway, it's a solid three and a half stars.  I can imagine some ticking it up to a full four stars and others finding it all a bit tedious and giving it just three.

Survivor, by Mack Reynolds


by Kelly Freas

The threat of nuclear war looms, raising tensions to the breaking point.  When the klaxons go off, signalling the end of the world, millions flee the cities to find refuge, fighting over the quickly dwindling resources. 

But have the bombs actually fallen, or is it all a miscommunication? 

The premise to Survivor is pretty darned silly — that everyone will lose their collective minds out of fear.  I do believe that, in the case of a false alarm, there'd be panic and rioting and looting and mass disruption.  But not to the point that society completely breaks down such that both sides aren't even able to wage the war that frightened everyone in the first place!

Two stars.

The Missile Smasher, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

Lastly, Anvil offers up a predictably slight tale of a series of rocket launch mishaps, the discovery of the focused light projector that is causing it, and the removal of said projector by a government troubleshooter.

I think it's meant to be funny or something.  It's not very good.

Two stars.

Wrong number

I'm afraid a common theme did little to elevate the current issue.  Indeed, in many cases, background noise might have been preferable to signal.  All told, the July Analog clocks in at a dismal 2.3 stars, placing it at the bottom of the heap.  The top is dominated by paperback-format periodicals: New Writings #8 (3.9), Fantastic (3.4), and Orbit #1 (3.4)

The middle of the pack is composed of the usual suspects: Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.1), Impulse (3.1), New Worlds (2.8) and If (2.7).

Women were responsible for a whopping 14% of this month's output of new fiction (mostly thanks to Orbit, which featured five female authors).  If you took all the really good stuff published this month, you could comfortably fill two magazines.  Or just buy New Writings and Orbit!

So, whither Analog?  Will there be another theme next month, one that will drag the magazine ever closer to the dreaded 2-star rating?  Will it plunge even without a common thread?  Or will we get a sudden reversal, the kind we've seen several times over the past few years?

Stay tuned!

Speaking of tuning, tune in to KGJ, our radio station!  Our theme is quality and diversity!




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Serial

[May 31, 1966] Worth Remembering (June 1966 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Decoration Day

First the war, then the licking of wounds.  Not all wounds are physical.  After the Civil War rent this nation in two, spring became a time for remembering the dead, their blood shed in almost incomprehensible numbers.  In 1868, the ritual honoring of fallen veterans became an official holiday known as Decoration Day (for the decoration of graves).  Over time, the name changed to Memorial Day, and last month, President Johnson proclaimed the custom's birthplace to be Waterloo, New York, the event first occurring a century ago.

The last Civil War veteran passed away in 1956, but this year's Memorial Day still found us licking our wounds.  Indeed, last week marked the bloodiest seven days for American soldiers since Korea: 966 casualties in Vietnam alone, 146 of them fatal.  Will next year's day of remembrance be worse?

The Issue at Hand

A cute segue would be in poor taste at this juncture, so I'll simply proceed to the review.  The latest issue of Analog drew my attention with its striking astronomical cover.  Let's turn the page and see what delights and disappointments Herr Campbell has for us this month.


by Chesley Bonestell

The Ancient Gods (Part 1 of 2), by Poul Anderson

In the letter column, Poul Anderson talks about discovering a beautiful painting by Chesley Bonestell.  It depicts a the night sky as seen from a planet perhaps 200,000 light years north of the Milky Way.  I would guess that this painting, as well as perhaps a viewing of last year's film, Flight of the Phoenix, provided the inspiration for the author's latest tale. 


by John Schoenherr

I shall give nothing else away save that those who know me know I'm a sucker for astronomically correct tales of exploration, and that Flight of the Phoenix got my nomination for the Best Dramatic Hugo.

Four stars so far.

Early Warning, by Robin S. Scott


by Stan Robinson

Lee is a big man, a skilled man, a man whose job is to throw monkey wrenches into supposedly foolproof systems like the D.C./Kremlin Hotline and Pentagon intelligence computers.  Is he a double-agent?  A mole?  Or something more?

There's really not enough to this story to engage; it feels more like a fragment of a Joe Poyer thriller than a complete piece.  Just some workmanlike action writing and a smug, Campbell-pleasing sting. 

Two stars.

CWACC Strikes Again, by Hank Dempsey


by Gray Morrow

"Hank Dempsey" (I have it on reliable information that this is a pseudonym for Harry Harrison, apparently trying to make the big lucre by pushing all of Campbell's buttons) is back with CWACC: the Committee for Welfare, Administration, and Consumer Control, last seen last year.  Pronounced "Quack," the goal of this two-person operation is the support and representation of eccentric inventors.  You see, to the scientific community, they're just kooks, but we all know that those industrious garage inventors produce way more of the world's innovation than the anonymous folks in white coats.  Right?

Anyway, in this episode, CWACC's administrator teams up with an enemy, the local kook-catching flatfoot, to rescue a CWACCer, whose invention is being used by con artists to sucker in, of all people, the police commissioner.  Along the way, "Dempsey" gets some pseudo-scientific shots in, like the assertion that the common cold can be defeated by sufficient vitamins in one's diet. 

Vaguely readable garbage.  One star.  I hope it was worth selling your soul for four cents a word, Harry!

Live Sensors, by Carl A. Larson

This nonfiction article started auspiciously, promising to compare the biological sensors with which animals are naturally equipped to the most refined artificial detectors.  The overall package is lacking, however.  There are lots of interesting tidbits on the capabilities of creatures, but they are interspersed with larder passages that don't do too much.  Never do we find out how we might utilize or at least learn from natural sensing devices. 

It would also help if Analog employed subheadings.  Three stars.

Stranglehold, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

My nephew David rang me the other day (on Sunday, when the rates are lowest) to tell me how much he enjoyed the new Chris Anvil story.  This may be a ringing endorsement (ha ha!) but I always take David's recommendations with a grain of salt, especially where Anvil is concerned.

A scout team following up on a lost comrade lands on a planet despite receiving a warning that such would be dangerous.  Once planetside, they find themselves subjected to illusion after terrifying illusion, only their unshakeable monitors telling the truth about reality (why wouldn't their perception of the monitors also be changed?)

Turns out the inhabitants have some kind of telepathy and can change their perception of reality and those of others.  After the team escapes with their rescued friend, they determine that a race with psychic phenomena cannot develop science since they fudge the results to their liking.  Contrarily, a race that chooses a scientific path atrophies psychic phenomena because…well, just because.

Therefore, all races, including humanity, have psychic potential, and it's only because we chose the path of science that spoonbending isn't more prevalent.  Q.E.D.

Gee, I wonder how this story got published.

What I really don't understand is what possible advantage the alien trait of mass hallucination affords.  If it were real transmutation being employed in this story, there might be something to it, but there isn't.  A being that thinks it is having its physical needs met when it is not quickly becomes a sick and/or dead being.  Maybe it's more of a reality enhancer, as in the first Cugel the Clever story, which I guess would make more sense.

Anyway, Stranglehold feels like what would happen if Bob Sheckley ever wrote for Campbell.

Two stars.

Escape Felicity, by Frank Herbert


by Kelly Freas

In Frank Herbert's latest, a lone interstellar scout plunges his ship deep into a nebulous cloud.  He is determined to fight off the "push" that causes all of his corps to return to Earth after a certain point.  But is the compulsion programmed in by BuPurs to keep scouts from going native?  Or is there an external agency involved?

I found this one of Herbert's more compelling pieces, though it falls apart a bit at the end.  And it feels like the title is a pun in search of a story; I can't figure out its applicability to this one.

Three stars.

Doing the Math

Thus, Analog ends up near the bottom of the pack with a 2.6 star rating, only beating out the mostly-reprint (and consistently lackluster) Amazing 2.5.  Ahead of Campbell's mag are New Worlds (3.1), Galaxy (3.1), Impulse (3.0), IF (3.0), and Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.8).

Worthy material comprised about an issue-and-a-half out of six this month.  Women produced 11.25% of the new fiction, at the high end of the usual range.

All told, June 1966 may not be remembered in times to come, particularly as impressive as last month was.  But, as noted at the beginning of the article, sometimes having to remember is painful.

Until next month…

If you need a mood-lifter now, tune in to KGJ, our radio station!  Nothing but the newest and best hits!




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Magazine/Anthology

[April 30, 1966] Ormazd and Ahriman (May 1966 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Good News and Bad News

The ancient Persians believed in two roughly co-equal deities: Ormazd, the God of Creation and Light, and Ahriman, the God of Destruction and Darkness.  Unlike, say, the dual concept of the Chinese Yin and Yang, one was decidedly good and the other bad.  Indeed, these twin deities may have inspired the near parity of the Christian God and Satan.

Apparently, these forces hold sway even today.  This month's Analog started off so well, it bid fair to be a contender for best magazine of the month.  Then about half way, the influence of Ahriman took ascendance, and the issue faded away to a truly dreadful ending.  Ah well.  I come not to bury John Campbell but to review him.  At least we start with the good stuff…

Mixed Bag


by John Schoenherr

The Wings of a Bat, by Paul Ash

Anyone who's anyone knows that Paul Ash is really Pauline Ashwell, one of 1958's Hugo nominated Best New Writers — and boy, she's still just great.

Her latest tale stars a middle-aged doctor cum veterinarian stationed at Indication One on the shores of Lake Possible.  Cycads and dinosaurs dominate the landscape, and with good reason: Indication One is based sometime in the Cretaceous!  Against all of his instincts and inclinations, said doctor is tasked with raising a baby pteranadon named Fiona. 

Part country vet story, part mining camp adventure, this tale is by turns and sometimes simultaneously witty and exciting.  I loved it so much, I immediately read it a gain, this time aloud to the family as their bedtime story on two consecutive nights.

If this doesn't get nominated for the Hugo and/or the new SFWA Nebula awards, there's something wrong with the universe.  Five stars!

Call Him Lord, by Gordon R. Dickson


by Kelly Freas

Centuries from now, when Earth is just one of many hundreds of human planets, the crown prince of the Empire is dispatched to humanity's cradle for a tour.  One man is tasked to be his bodyguard, escorting the arrogant man-child as he rides, wenches, and bullies his way across the countryside.  But is this a mere sight-seeing tour…or a test?

While the story is slightly overdrenched in testerone and stoic manliness, Dickson is an excellent writer and his tale compels.  I dug it.  Four stars.

The Meteorite Miners , by Ralph A. Hall, M.D.

Earth has been the site of countless meteor impacts, many of them secondary strikes of ejecta loosed from prior events.  What we learn from the mineral concentrations at these craters can tell us a lot about the primordial history of our planet…and even the universe.

It's a fascinating topic, and it should have gripped me, but the presentation was a bit too abstruse and disjointed to hold my attention.  It took me several sessions to finish.

Three stars.

Titanium – The Wonder Metal (uncredited, but probably John W. Campbell, jr.

The piece is followed by another non-fiction article, this time a more lay-oriented essay on titanium, what makes it great, and what made it so hard to use economically. 

It's fine.  Three stars.

Two-Way Communication, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

When an inventor develops a universal receiver that allows the owner to transmit right into an announcer's microphone, chaos ensues.  Is it the ultimate democracy or a recipe for anarchy?

In this cute story, Anvil argues the former.  With constant and immediate input (and censure) the vast wastelands of radio and television are made verdant with quality programming.  The author forgets two important factors: 1) most TV and much radio isn't live these days, so interruptions at the source wouldn't have as much effect as depicted — this isn't 1951 after all; 2) people are jerks — interruptions would be constant and annoying.

Still, it was not unpleasant reading.  Call it a low 3 stars.  Ormazd and Ahriman are wrestling, but neither has ascendance.  Yet.

Under the Wide and Starry Sky…, by Joe Poyer


by Leo Summers

In this edge-of-the-future story (indeed, the depicted Gemini 9 mission is scheduled to occur less than three weeks from now), one astronaut is lost during an extravehicular jaunt.  His partner must use all of his wits to rescue him before their oxygen and fuel run out.

Joe Poyer has written a couple of other stories for Analog, both of which showed a fair ability when it came to depicting technology but little talent for characterization or detailed plot.  Starry Sky plays to the author's strengths, presenting a nice little Marooned-esque tale in a vivid fashion.  It ends quickly enough that you don't mind where it's undeveloped.

Three stars.  There are stars of light among the black sky.

The Alchemist, by Charles L. Harness


by Kelly Freas

Ah, here's where it all goes to Hell.  This long, flip, utterly unengaging tale manages to combine alchemy, psionics, making the Russians look stupid, and making scientists look stupid, all in one sure-to-please-the-editor package. 

This is truly an example of Ahrimanic possession as the last story by the author was one I liked very much.  But The Alchemist?  One star.  Feh.

Doing the math


Geraldine "Gerry" Myers, mathematician at the Mission Planning and Analysis Division at the Manned Space Craft Center in Houston

As might be expected from such a violent collision of positive and negative forces, the whole thing ends up about a wash: 3.1 stars.  This puts it above IF and New Worlds (3 stars) as well as Worlds of Tomorrow (2.6)

The May 1966 Analog finishes below Impulse (3.2), Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.5), and the astonishing, but mostly reprints, Fantastic (4).  Thus, Analog is the dead median for this month!

Nevertheless, it has contributed two stories to one of the best months for 4 and 5 star material since the Journey began.  You could fill three big magazines with nothing but excellent stuff.

Women did so-so in April, only writing ~6% of new material, though Judy Merril had a good reprint in Impulse.

And so, the battle between good and bad (quality) continues.  Will Ormazd be ascendant next month?  Or will Ahriman have the final laugh?  Stay tuned…

[Don't miss the next (and FINAL) episode of The Journey Show:

1966 and the Law — smut, marriage, voting rights, justice, and more. With Erica Frank and Ethan Marcus! With special musical guest, Nanami!

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Magazine/Anthology

[March 31, 1966] Shapes of Things (April 1966 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Change

Out in the world of music, there's a change brewing. One can hear it in the experimentation of the Beatles' Rubber Soul album or the otherworldly tinge of The Yardbirds' latest hit, Shapes of Things. I've been long planning to write an article on the musical scene, and I'd best get it done quickly before the landscape changes entirely!

My friend and associate, Cora Buhlert, has noted that although the Stones and Beatles are popular in Germany, the number one hit right now is the syrupy Schlager tune by Roy Black, "Ganz in Weiß" (All in white). In other words, even in times of great flux, conservative forces remain steadfast, like stubborn boulders in a stream.

Oh look — it's time to review the latest issue of Analog.

Stagnation


by Kelly Freas

Moon Prospector, by William B. Ellern

It would be hard to find a more emblematic story of the reactionary SF outlet that is Analog than this, the lead story in the April issue. Set early in E.E. Smith's Lensman series, it apparently got the full blessing of "Doc" Smith just a few days before he died! That's pretty remarkable.

The story, however, isn't. A lunar prospector in is semi-sentient "creeper" gets a distress call. Turns out an old buddy has been buried in the aftereffects of a meteor shower, and ol' Pete has to dig him out. But what was the fellow doing out in that quadrant of the Moon to begin with, and does it have anything to do with a centuries-old missile base abandoned around there?


by Kelly Freas

There's no water on the Moon, so I suppose it's appropriate that the story, itself, is dry as a bone. Perhaps it would have been more exciting if I'd had some stake in the universe. Maybe I'd have thrilled at the mention of the Solar Patrol being evolved into a Galactic Patrol. The fact is, I didn't care for Doc Smith's stories much when I was a kid, so they evoke no nostalgia for me now.

Two stars.

Rat Race, by Raymond F. Jones


by Kelly Freas

A century and a half in the future, when a completely computer-planned economy has resulted in plenty for all of humanity, a fellow decides to recreate the hobby of model train running (though not in the destructive manner of the Addams family, more's the pity).

This hobby runs the fellow afoul of the Computer, for when he tries to make his own trains, he is accused of attempting his own production, which will upset the finely balanced economy and lead to scarcity. Our protagonist must find a way to satisfy the human urge to create while not upsetting the economic apple cart. The story ends with the suggestion that do-it-yourselfism will spread and eventually topple the current order.

It's a pleasant-enough story, and I suppose the "stick-it-to-communism" sentiment appealed to editor Campbell. On the other hand, while I appreciate that some folks really like to build things even when they could just be bought (and I have to think that hobbyist building would not break a planned economy), the notion that we've become too centralized and folks should all be able to be self-sufficient, making a living from the land, is unworkable.

The fact is, we've long since populated the Earth beyond its ability to sustain a society of independent farmers. The great island cities, the vast modern nations, they only support their teeming millions through coordinated and interconnected systems. The writer in the air-conditioned apartment, who bangs out a paean to independent living before catching a television show and then popping off to the deli for dinner, is a dreamer, not a visionary.

Three stars.

The Easy Way Out, by Lee Correy


by John Schoenherr

Aliens conduct a survey of planet Earth, evaluating its species for aggressive tendencies. After coming across a grizzly bear and a wolverine, and then the human family that has adopted the latter, they decide Earth is more trouble than it's worth.

Typical Campbellian Earth-firsterism. Two stars.

Drifting Continents, by Robert S. Dietz


by John Holden

If it's a crackpot theory that flies in the face of the scientific establishment, chances are you'll read about it in Analog. But sometimes a theory is crackpot, flies in the face of the scientific establishment, and is probably right. As someone born in earthquake country, I've probably heard more about "continental drift" than many. It's the idea that the continents very slowly move around the globe. It's why the coasts of South America and Africa seem like edges of the same torn newspaper. It explains why there are similar fossils at similar depths across continents that are nowhere near each other…today.

It's a theory I found little reference to in my science books of the 50s, including Rachel Carson's seminal The Sea Around Us. But damned if Dietz doesn't make some very compelling arguments. I would not be surprised if continental drift, as has happened recently with the Big Bang Theory and global warming, did not become thoroughly accepted this decade.

Five stars.

Who Needs Insurance?, by Robin S. Scott


by Kelly Freas

Pete "Lucky Pierre" Albers has always been blessed with good fortune. Twenty years a pilot, he has always managed to avoid even the slightest injury, despite 8500 hours of flying time. He first suspected that his lucky streak was not completely due to chance after a harrowing mission over Ploesti left his B-24 with just one working engine. That tortured device not only held together all the way back to Libya, but it spun with the 800 horsepower needed to keep the plane in the air. After the crash landing, Albers found a little gray box attached to the driveshaft.

Twenty years later, over Vietnam, Colonel Albers was in a bullet-riddled Huey whose engine somehow held together long enough to get him and his charges back to base. Sure enough, a little box was installed on the engine.

Clearly someone, or something, has taken an interest in Albers' survival. It's up to Albers and his closest friends to discover the secret.

I really enjoyed this story, told in narrative fashion. It's a fun mystery, the details are evocative, and I like when a piece includes a competent woman scientist (in this case, Marty the programmer, with her pet 2706).

Four stars.

A Sun Invisible, by Poul Anderson


by Domenic Iaia

With this latest installation in the adventures of David Falkayn, the momentum gained by the magazine comes to a shuddering halt. Anderson's writing is of widely varying quality, and the adventures of this troubleshooting young protogé of Nicholas van Rijn are among the worst.

The plot takes forever to develop, but it's something about a planet of Germanics looking to take on the Polesotechnic League by working with the belligerent Kroaka. The trick is that Falkayn has to figure out where the would-be enemies make their home. By getting the female leader of Neuheim drunk and talkative, Falkayn learns enough astronomical clues to deduce the star around which the insurgents' planet revolves. Falkayn stops the threat and gets the girl.

I do like the astronomy Anderson weaves into these stories and I also appreciated the seamless way he introduced a new pronoun for an alien race with three sexes. Other than that, it's a deadly dull story, and smug to boot. Falkayn is like a boring, Sexist Retief.

Two stars.

Computation

After all that, the conservative reef that is Analog finishes near the bottom of the pack, though that is as much due to the relative excellence of the other mags that came out this month. Campbell's mag clocks in at a reasonable 3 stars, beating out the truly bad, all-reprint Amazing (2.3).

Above Analog, starting at the top, are Impulse (3.5), Galaxy (3.4), IF (3.3), New Worlds (3.1), and Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.1).

It was something of a banner month for SF mags, actually. Enough worthy stuff was printed to fill two full-size mags (and if you take out Amazing, that means a full third of everything printed was four stars and up). Also, women produced 11.5% of the new fiction published this month, the highest proportion I've seen in a long time. We'll see if this trend holds out.

That's it for March! April is a whole new ballgame, starting with the next issue of IF. I'm very keen to see how that magazine does now that the excellent Heinlein serial has ended (I've high hopes for the Laumer/Brown novel.)

Until then, all we can to is keep trying to discern the pattern of Shapes of Things to Come…

Don't miss the next exciting Adventure-themed episode of The Journey Show, taking you to the highest peaks, the deepest wildernesses, the coldest extremes, the vacuum of space, and the depths of the sea. April 3 at 1PM — book your (free) ticket for adventure now!)




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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[March 12, 1966] In Aid of Earth and Other Worlds (Jack Vance's Ace Double and Tom Purdom's latest)

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The Brains of Earth/The Many Worlds of Magnus Randolph

[Every so often, the Journey features a guest reviewer.  In this case, it is Keith Henson, a friend of our own Vicki Lucas.  Keith works at Heinrich GeoeXploration, studies for his degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Arizona, and owns two buildings with two apartments each, in one of which he lives. His interests include pyrotechnics and amateur rockets.


(Keith's in the cowboy hat)

He also digs scientificition, and he happened to pick up the new Ace Double hot off the shelves.  And so, without further ado, may I present Keith!]


by Keith Henson

Heading home from work I stopped off at my favorite bookstore. There near the bottom of the SF section is a new Ace Double, both by Jack Vance, 45 cents. Vance is one of the authors I read with pleasure since running into a copy of The Dying Earth.

Eliminating Mind Parasites

The Brains of Earth is a somewhat conventional SF story, with unlikeable aliens, and competent (for the most part) humans. The story starts with a description of events at the end of a war to rid the alien population of mind parasites (nopals) on the planet Ixix. This motivates the local aliens (Tauptu) to travel to Earth, which is saturated with nopals, and kidnap a scientist, one Paul Burke. The aliens remove his nopal (a painful task). They then assign Burke an impossible task (clear Earth of nopals) and return him to Earth. The rest of the story plays out as Burke discovers an even more serious mind parasite, the ghre, which are kept at bay by the nopals. Burke convinces the aliens that their problems are even worse than they think, and they set out on an expedition seeking the physical location of the mental projections.

I found it to be a decent story, consistent with good dialog, if not quite up to the standards of The Dying Earth.  Usually you can open a Vance story to any place and identify it as Vance by reading a few paragraphs.  I tried this with The Brains of Earth and it didn't work.  Still it's hard to award Vance less than three stars.

Short Stories of a Problem Solver

The other side of the double is The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph, a series of short stories set in exotic places (mostly planets). The stories feature an elderly goateed gentleman problem solver in detective mode. (Vance also writes mysteries.) The stories usually start with Ridolph in a financial bind of some kind and he outsmarts the people who took advantage of him, all in supercilious tones and Jack Vance's unique literary style. Applying the reading test to identify the story as Vance's, here is a sample that does work:

Magnus Ridolph sighed, glanced at his liqueur (Blue Ruin). This would be the last of these; hereafter he must drink vin ordinaire, a fluid rather like tarragon vinegar, prepared from the fermented rind of a local cactus.

Magnus Ridolph is more fun than the other side of the double, four stars. Altogether well worth the 45 cents.

The Tree Lord of Imeten, by Tom Purdom


by John Boston

Tom Purdom has had a dozen stories scattered among the SF magazines over the past near-decade, and one prior novel (and Ace Double half), I Want The Stars.  His second novel is also Doubled, back to back with Samuel Delany’s Empire Star, reviewed last month.  It’s called The Tree Lord Of Imeten, and is decorated with a John Schoenherr cover as dispirited and unattractive as that of its other half.


by John Schoenherr

The novel, however, could not be more different in style and spirit from Delany’s.  Purdom is solid, Delany mercurial; Purdom plays the game, Delany plays with the game.

The story opens in a human colony on an extrasolar planet, with protagonist Harold hiding behind a tractor with his bow and arrows, so the people who killed his father and best friend won’t shoot him too.  His childhood friend Joanne appears and conveys the bad guys’ offer: they can leave, with food and equipment, and go down from the human-inhabited plateau to the jungly lowlands, where there are sentient—or at least structure-building—inhabitants that nobody knows much about.

But what are these people on the plateau fighting about, and how did it get this bitter?  It’s not explained, which seems incongruous at first, but as the book progresses, it becomes clear that that’s part of the point. 

Harold and Joanne, pulling a wheeled cart full of supplies, first encounter the Itiji, sentient catlike animals who attack and are driven away, but clearly have language if not hands.  They then are found and captured by the other species, the Imetens, tree-dwelling primates with hands as well as language, the beginnings of ironworking, and of course conflict among tribes.  They also enslave the Itiji to pull their carts and bear their burdens. 

Harold first persuades the Imetens that he can be useful to them, and attains a reasonably safe and privileged position for Joanne and himself.  But he hates slavery, and soon enough contrives an escape for himself and Joanne and a number of Itiji slaves.  The Imetens do not take emancipation lightly, and war ensues.  Harold must help the Itiji by creating warmaking technology that they can use without hands, under his leadership of course, and ultimately brings peace after heroic feats at arms. 

The story is most basically about people cast out of their society who have to find a place in another one, since, as Purdom hints earlier (and notwithstanding Harold’s lone heroics), humans on their own are nothing in the long run.  That’s why Purdom was right not to explain what the colonists were fighting over; it can never matter again for his characters, who are now committed to a new life in a new tribe.

This is a well worked out book, dense with detail and invention, but the latter parts drag a bit, and also revert towards the standard fare of exotic-planet opera, with long descriptions of battle strategy and hand to hand combat and Harold’s exploits with sword and shield.  The ending also feels a bit rushed.  Three and a half stars, and high expectations for this promising writer’s future work.

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[February 26, 1966] Such promise (March 1966 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Tuckered out

Imagine training your whole life to run in the Olympics.  Imagine making it and competing in the quadrennial event, representing your nation before the entire world.  Imagine making perfect strides, outdistancing your competitors, sailing far out in front…and then stumbling.

Defeat at the moment of victory.


Ron Clarke of Australia, favored to win 1964's 10,000 meter race, is blown past at the last minute by American Billy Mills (and aced by Tunisia's Mohammed Gammoudi )

Every month, as a science fiction magazine reviewer, I am treated to a similar drama.  Usually, the law of averages dictates that no month will be particularly better or worse than any other.  But occasionally, there is a mirabilis month, or perhaps things are really getting better across the entire genre.  Either way, as magazine after magazine got their review, it became clear that March 1966 was going to be a very good month.  Not a single magazine was without at least one 4 or 5 star story — even the normally staid Science Fantasy turned in a stellar performance under the new name, Impulse.

It all came down to this month's Analog.  If it were superb, as it was last month, then we'd have a clean sweep across eight periodicals.  If it flopped, as it often does, the streak would be broken.

As it turns out, neither eventuality quite came to pass.  Indeed, the March 1966 Analog is sort of a microcosm of the month itself — starting out with a bang and faltering before the finish.

Frontloaded


by John Schoenherr

Bookworm, Run!, by Vernor Vinge


by John Schoenherr

Norman Simmonds is on the lam.  Brilliant, resourceful, and inspired by his pulp and SF heroes, he breaks out of a top security research facility in Michigan, his mind full of inadvertently espied government secrets.  His goal is to make the Canadian border before he can be punished for his accidental indiscretion. Thus ensues an exciting cat and mouse chase toward the border.

Did I mention that Norman is a chimpanzee?

With the aid of surgery and a link to the nation's most sophisticated computer, Norman is not only smarter than the average human, he has all of the world's facts at his beck and call.  His only limitation (aside from standing out in a crowd) is that he can only get so far from his master mainframe before the link is strained to breaking.  The pivotal question, then, is whether Canada lies inside or beyond that range.

Bookworm is a compelling story whose main fault comes (in keeping with this month's trend) near the end, when we leave Norman's viewpoint and instead are treated to a few pages' moralizing about why such technology must never be allowed to be used by humanity lest one person gain virtual godhood.  I have to wonder if that coda was always in the tale or if it was added by Campbell at the last minute to make less subtle the themes of the story.

Anyway, four stars for Vinge's first American sale (and second overall).  I look forward to what he has to offer next.

The Ship Who Mourned, by Anne McCaffrey


by Kelly Freas

Speaking of intelligence in unusual forms, The Ship Who Mourned is the sequel to the quite good The Ship Who Sang, starring a woman raised nearly from birth as a brain with a shapeship body.  In that first story, her companion/passenger/driver, Jennan, died, leaving Helva-the-ship distraught.

But with no time to grieve.  Her next assignment comes almost immediately: take Theoda, a doctor, to a faraway world so that she might treat the aftereffects of a plague that has left thousands completely immobile, trapped in their nonresponsive bodies.  Though Helva is initially frosty toward Theoda, they bond over their own griefs, and together, they manage to bring hope to the plague-blasted planet.

This is a good story.  I'm surprised to see it in Analog in part because the series got its start in F&SF, and also because the mag has been something of a stag party for a long long time (even more than its woman-scarce colleagues).  Despite enjoying it a lot, there is a touch of the amateur about it, a certain clunkiness of execution.  McCaffrey may simply be out of practice; it has been five years since her last story, after all.

Nevertheless, I suspect that the cobwebs will come right off if she can get back to writing consistently again.  A high three stars.

Giant Meteor Impact, by J.  E.  Enever

Asteroid impact seems all the rage this month.  Asimov was talking about it in his F&SF column, and Heinlein may soon be talking about it in If.  Enever describes in lurid detail the damage the Earth would suffer from an astroid a "meer" kilometer in width — and why an ocean impact is far, far scarier than one on land.

The author presents the topic with gusto, but a little too much length.  It wavers between fascinating and meandering.  Had we gotten some of the juicy bits included in Asimov's article, that would have made for a stellar (pun intended) piece.

As is, three stars.

Operation Malacca, by Joe Poyer


by Leo Summers

And it is here, at the two thirds mark, that we stumble.

Last we heard from Joe Poyer, he was offering up the turgid technical thriller, Mission "Red Clash".  This time, the premise is a little better: Indonesia has planted a 5 megaton bomb borrowed from the Red Chinese in the Straits of Malacca.  If detonated, it will wipe out the British fleet and pave the way for a takeover of Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines.  Only a washed out cetecean handler and his dolphin companion can save the day. 

Sounds like a high stakes episode of Flipper, doesn't it?

Well, unfortunately, the first ten pages are all a lot of talking, the dolphin-centric middle is utterly characterless, merely a series of events, and then the dolphin is out of the picture the last dull third of the story.

Unlike McCaffrey, my predictions for Joe's writing career are rather pessimistic.  But we'll see…

Two stars.

10:01 A.M., by Alexander Malec


by John Schoenherr

At 10:01 A.M., a couple of joyriding punks cause the hit and run murder of a little girl.  Within the space of an hour, they are swallowed by a floating "fetcher" car, hauled before a detective, thence to a judge, and capital sentence is rendered.

Malec writes as if he was taking a break from technical writing and could not shift gears into fiction writing. Compound that with a lurid presentation that betrays an almost pornographic obsession with the subject matter (both the technological details and the grinding of the gears of justice), and it makes for an unpleasant experience.

Two stars.

Prototaph, by Keith Laumer

And lastly, a vignette which is essentially one-page joke story told in three.  Who is the one man who is uninsurable?  The one whose death is guaranteed.

Except they never explain why his death is guaranteed.

Dumb.  One star.

Tallying the scores

And so Analog limps across the finish line with a rather dismal 2.6 rating.  Indeed, it is the second worst magazine of the month (although that's partly because most everything else was excellent). To wit:

Ah well.  At the very least, Campbell took some chances with this issue, which I appreciate.  And the first two thirds are good.  There was just a lot riding on the mag this month.  The perils of getting one's hopes up!

As for the statistics, I count 8.5% of this month's new stories as written by women, which is high for recent days.  If you took all of the four and five star stories from this month, you could easily fill three magazines, which is excellent.

Always focus on the positive, right?

The Journey is once again up for a Best Fanzine Hugo nomination — and its founder is up for several other awards as well!  If you've got a Worldcon membership, or if you just want to see what Gideon's done that's Hugo-worthy, please read his Hugo Eligibility article!  Thank you for your continued support.

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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[February 12, 1966] Past?  Imperfect.  Future?  Tense. (March 1966 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Straight From the Horse's Mouth

The Noble Editor and my Esteemed Colleagues always do a fine job of informing our fellow Journeyers about what's happening on Earth and in outer space. There is one small piece of news, however, which seems to have escaped notice.

The last episode of Mister Ed appeared on American television screens last week. For those of you fortunate enough not to be familiar with this program, it's about a talking horse.


The star of the program. I believe there are some human actors as well.

I find it remarkable that a show with a premise that does not lend itself to a large number of variations has lasted for more than five years. For those of you who are counting, that's five times as long as the excellent, groundbreaking series East Side/West Side.


George C. Scott as New York City social worker Neil Brock. He doesn't seem happy about being outdone by a loquacious equine.

To add insult to injury, Mister Ed wasn't even original, but an obvious imitation of a series of low budget movies about Francis the Talking Mule, who appeared in no less than seven films from 1950 to 1956.


In Hollywood, changing a talking mule to a talking horse is known as creativity.

How Green Was My Valley

If the success of Mister Ed proves that entertainment was less than perfect in the recent past, a new novel suggests that the future of popular literature may lead to some tension among sensitive readers.


Every Night, Josephine! is a nonfiction book about the author's dog. I can't seem to get away from animals, can I?

Jacqueline Susann's first novel, Valley of the Dolls, appeared in bookstores a couple of days ago. The word on the street is that it is quite racy. I expect the author will earn a fair amount of greenbacks from this fledgling work of fiction.

A Songbird Flies Back

In the world of popular music, even a song a few weeks old can seem dated. A little more than a year ago, multilingual British singer Petula Clark had a Number One hit in the USA with her upbeat number Downtown, which I quite like. I might even say her past success is far from imperfect.

Now she's back with another smash hit. It makes me a little tense to realize that My Love isn't as good a song as Downtown, but I have to admit that the lady can sing, and I wish her more success in the future.


You're going to the top of the charts, dear.

Half a Century for Half a Buck

Given the fact that Fantastic and its sister publication Amazing are now filling their pages with lots of reprints, not all of them classics, we have plenty of evidence that speculative fiction's past hasn't always been perfect. The latest issue goes back in time nearly fifty years, but also features a couple of new works. Appropriately, many of the stories deal with threats from the distant past, while the only futuristic tale describes a tense situation that may confront the people of tomorrow.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul, reprinted from the back cover of the November 1940 issue of Amazing Stories, as shown below.


I don't think this is a very accurate picture of what the surface of the moon Titan might be like.

The Bells of Shoredan, by Roger Zelazny


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

We've already met Dilvish, a warrior who escaped from Hell, a couple of times before. He returns to the material world to defend his homeland, with the aid of a being that takes the form of a steel talking horse. (There's that again! Francis and Ed, what hath thou wrought?)

In this adventure, he journeys to the ruins of an incredibly ancient, seemingly deserted citadel. His quest is to ring enchanted bells that will summon soldiers from the limbo where they have been trapped for an immense amount of time. Along the way, he acquires a temporary companion in the form of a priest.


The unlikely pair witness a ghostly battle.

Dilvish is an intriguing character, and the author gives readers just enough information about his past to make them want to know more. This sword-and-sorcery yarn is full of imaginative supernatural happenings and plenty of action. I could quibble about the author's attempt to sound archaic — he has a habit of inserting the word did before verbs in order to sound old-fashioned — but that's a minor point. Overall, it's a solid example of the form. I'd place it somewhere between Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, and a little bit higher than John Jakes.

Four stars.

Hardly Worth Mentioning, By Chad Oliver


Cover art by W. T. Mars.

From the pages of the May/June 1953 issue of the magazine comes this tale of unexpected rivals of humanity from the mists of prehistory.


Illustrations by Ernie Barth.

A team of archeologists digging in rural Mexico discovers a plastic disk in a layer of soil from pre-Columbian times. The apparent paradox leads the protagonist to discover that another humanoid species, distinct from Homo sapiens, has been directing human history since the beginning. They even have the ability to travel in time, in order to correct little mistakes, like leaving the plastic disk where it could be found centuries later.


An army of the time travelers arrives in an ancient Indian village.

When the archeologist discovers the truth, the humanoids hurt him in the worst way possible. Knowing that he cannot fight them directly, he resolves to protect the future of humanity in a different way.

The author is an anthropologist by profession, so his portrait of the related field of archeology is completely convincing. The price the protagonist must pay for learning too much carries a powerful emotional impact. I was pleased and surprised to find out that the story avoids a melodramatic battle between the two species, but instead ends in a quiet, hopeful, bittersweet fashion.

Four stars.

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


Illustration by Gray Morrow.

In the first two parts of this novel, we journeyed with our hero, one Lafayette O'Leary, into another reality, that he seemed to create through self-hypnosis. After many wild adventures, he wound up getting blamed for the disappearance of a beautiful princess. Now he sets out to rescue her from a legendary ogre and his dragon.

This segment starts off with an even more comedic tone than the others, bordering on the just plain silly. Lafayette meets with some folks who are obviously intended to be cartoon versions of Arabs. They remind me of a famous novelty song from a few years ago, Ahab the Arab, by comic singer Ray Stevens. As an example of the goofiness, at a feast they not only consume Chinese and Hawaiian dishes, but bottles of Pepsi.

Anyway, Lafayette goes on to acquire a loyal steed in the form of a friendly dinosaur, and finally meets the ogre. The ogre has a very strange brother indeed. After an unexpected scene of bloody violence in such a lighthearted story, Lafayette returns to the palace. He meets an old rival, learns the truth about the king's mysterious wizard, saves the princess, discovers who was behind her kidnapping, finds out about his own special background, and gets the girl (although maybe not in the way you'd expect.)

The whole thing moves at a furious, breakneck pace, so that you don't realize it doesn't always make a whole lot of sense. Lafayette's ability to change reality, for example, seems to come and go, depending on how the author needs to propel the plot. There's a scientific explanation, of sorts, from the so-called wizard about what's really going on, but it might as well just be pure magic. It's entertaining enough to keep you reading, but hardly substantial.

Three stars.

Keep Out, by Fredric Brown


Cover art by Clarence Doore.

The March 1954 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this brief tale, from a master of the short-short story.


Illustration by John Schoenherr.

From birth, a group of people are bred to survive on the surface of Mars. The narrator is one of these folks, and reveals their plans.

Some of Brown's tiny tales are masterpieces of a very difficult form. This one is not. I saw the twist ending coming. Maybe you will, too.

Two stars.

The People of the Pit, by A. Merritt


I have been unable to find out who drew this cover.

We jump back to the January 5, 1918 issue of All-Story Weekly for yet another yarn about danger from the remote past. It was reprinted in the March 1927 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

Some folks head for a remote part of the Arctic in search of gold. A man who is nearly dead crawls to their campsite and relates his strange story.

It seems that there is an immense pit, bigger than the Grand Canyon, beyond a chain of mountains. Not only that, but a gigantic set of stairs, carved in the remote past, leads down into it.

The fellow descends into the pit, and encounters bizarre beings who enslave him. He tells how he finally escaped, and managed to crawl his way back up to the surface.


Illustration by Martin Gambee.

This story reminds me of H. P. Lovecraft, with its unimaginably old structures and creatures who are almost beyond the ability of the human mind to conceive. Given the original date of publication, I presume Lovecraft was influenced by it. The author creates a genuine sense of weirdness and menace. The old-fashioned use of a narrative-within-a-narrative slows things down a bit, and it's mostly description rather than plot, but it's not bad at all.

Three stars.

Your Soul Comes C.O.D., by Mack Reynolds


Cover art by Leo Summers and Ed Valigursky.

Once you get beyond the face of Joseph Stalin on the front of the March 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures, you'll find the original appearance of this variation on a very old theme.


Illustration by Leo Summers.

A guy intends to summon a demon in order to exchange his soul for a good life. Before he can even perform the necessary ritual, however, a being appears, ready to make a deal. The man gains forty years of true love, prosperity, and a happy family. When it comes time to pay the price, he finds out what he bargained for.

A story like this depends entirely on the twist in the tail. I have to admit that the author took me by surprise and came up with a new version of the sell-your-soul premise.

Three stars.

How Did You Enjoy Today's Grammar Lesson?

Example of the past imperfect: I was reading Fantastic magazine yesterday.

Example of the future tense: I will finish this article today.

Well, that may not be the best way to study the structure of English, but it gives me something to think about while I sum up my feelings about this issue. For the most part, it was pretty good. Only the Fredric Brown reprint was disappointing, because I expected more from him. There was a good old story, and a good new story. The rest of the stuff was decent filler.

If you don't care for the way I'm acting like a language instructor, maybe you'd prefer something a little more technologically advanced.


Don't blame me if you don't like math.

The Journey is once again up for a Best Fanzine Hugo nomination — and its founder is up for several other awards as well! If you've got a Worldcon membership, or if you just want to see what Gideon's done that's Hugo-worthy, please read his Hugo Eligibility article! Thank you for your continued support.




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Magazine/Anthology

[January 31, 1966] Milk of Magnesia (February 1966 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Hornet's Nest

Last month, I wrote a rather savage review of the January 1966 issue of Analog, one of the more egregious examples of Campbellian excess married with an aggrieving nadir of quality.  In short order, my mailbox was deluged with denouncing letters asserting that:

  • Campbell, as the genius who founded modern Science Fiction, could do no wrong
  • I clearly could never understand why people appreciated Analog

It is instructive that when I give an issue of Analog a favorable review, which happens reasonably often, my mailbox stays empty.  But disparage the mighty Campbell at your peril!  Such are the occupational hazards of the Reviewer.

Anyway, what goes down must come up, and this month's issue of Analog is actually pretty good.  Let's take a look at the final mag of the month, shall we?

The issue at hand


by Kelly Freas

The Searcher, by James H. Schmitz

Two guards at an interstellar space port watch with momentary horror as a purple cloud of radiation erupts from a star yacht and devours them in an instant.  The alien marauder has traveled light years, from the dense nebula known as The Pit, in search of a purloined navigational beacon.  Meanwhile, a local professor with an eye to make a buck, is preparing to fence said beacon, hoping to do so before two private agents hired by the University League thwart his plans.

Thus ensues first a cloak and dagger story followed by a crime thriller and topped off with a mad chase from alien horror.


by Kelly Freas

I was excited to see James H. Schmitz' name on the cover as he's written some of my favorite works.  He also has a preference for writing women protagonists, which is refreshing. I'm afraid my review of this piece must be somewhat alloyed.  The concept is great, the characters are interesting, and I enjoyed the piece.  But.

I think the biggest problem with The Searcher is its length.  Had this been a novel length story, Schmitz could have unfolded the mystery of the alien's existence and motivations more organically, rather than relying on straightforward exposition.  We get a lot of solid chunks of explanation interspersing the action.  And it's certainly not the case that Schmitz can't write action; he does so quite admirably, beginning with the very first scene. 

Had I received this manuscript, I'd have asked for an expanded rewrite — and been happy to publish it!

As is, it's a promising but uneven three star work.

The Switcheroo Revisited, by Mack Reynolds


by John Schoenherr

A rather bumbling young Lieutenant in the KGB is dispatched to the United States to find a marvelous invention first depicted in the pages of a science fiction magazine (name unknown, but I think it starts with an A).  He's intercepted by the CIA, but rather than simply arrest him, instead they do their best to convince the agent that the fictional invention is real.  There's a cautionary sting at the end of the story.

Cute, but rather trivial for Reynolds.  I do enjoy how the author has woven a future history of the Superpowers, though, based on his extensive world travels.  The geopolitics and slang lend a tang of verisimilitude. Three stars.

Twin-Planet Probe, by Lee Correy

This is a fun piece that purports to report the results of the first Martian probe to the twin worlds of Earth and Luna, written so as to mirror the sparse and potentially misleading data obtained from Mariner 4.  The moral of the story is that we don't have enough data to make sweeping conclusions yet.

Four stars (and let's get some more data!)

An Ornament to His Profession, by Charles L. Harness

Patrick Conrad, once a chemist, later an attorney, and now a patent lawyer, is a haunted man.  Three years ago, he lost his chemist wife and their young daughter in a car accident.  This trauma has left him in something of a working daze, redoubling his vocational efforts in an effort to put the pain out of his mind.

His current problem: the patenting of a company chemical is threatened from several corners, most trivially by the impending poaching of Conrad's highly efficient secretary by another department, more seriously by a key team member's certainty that he has made a deal with the Devil to ensure success of the chemical's synthesis, and most critically by the revelation that the patent is based on a previously published college thesis.

Conrad must untangle all of these intertwined issues, all while wrestling with the pain of loss that seems also to be directly involved with the patent somehow.


by Kelly Freas

While Charles Harness is a name that may be unfamiliar to you, as it is a byline that has not appeared in more than a decade, Analog readers will certainly remember "Leonard Lockhard", a pseudonym for the combined talents of Harness and Theodore L. Thomas, who currently writes for F&SF.  I'm pretty sure Harness is a patent attorney in real life as his knowledge of the law seems prodigious.

In any event, Ornament is a beautiful story, lyrical and thoughtful — almost misplaced in this magazine, honestly.  I'm not quite sure I understood the ending, though I reread the piece to see if I had missed something; I may have simply missed a subtle reference.  In any event, it's my favorite story of the issue.

Four stars.

Minds Meet, by Paul Ash


by Kelly Freas

Lastly, we have the welcome return of Pauline Ashwell (a Campbell discovery from England who goes by both feminine and masculine bylines for some reason).  In this tale, a human and alien finally achieve true communication after seven years of frustratingly dissatisfying, if technically successful, discourse.  All it took was a little filthy intoxication.

A pleasant three stars.

Summing up

I'm sorry to disappoint those hoping to yell at me for "not understanding why people like Analog", but I liked this month's Analog.  Indeed, this issue virtually ties the (similarly returned to form) latest issue of Galaxy with a 3.4 rating, the best of the month.  Close behind are New Worlds (3.2), Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.1), and Science Fantasy (3).

Only IF (2.9) and Amazing (2.1) finished below the mediocrity line, and IF has the new Heinlein serial to commend it.

We are back to late 50s levels of female engagement in the genre: 10.2% of the new fiction was by women.  There was also a full two magazines' worth of superior content this month, more than twice as much as in December.  It really was a pleasure to be a fan this first month of January 1966!

Let's see how February fares…

The Journey is once again up for a Best Fanzine Hugo nomination — and its founder is up for several other awards as well!  If you've got a Worldcon membership, or if you just want to see what Gideon's done that's Hugo-worthy, please read his Hugo Eligibility article!  Thank you for your continued support.




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[October 31, 1965] Finished and Unfinished Business (November 1965 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Spooks and SF

All Hallow's Eve is upon us, that annual moment when the barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead is at its weakest. The departed spirits of those with unfinished business return to fulfil their goals. And puckish souls, alive and passed, spread mischief.

And amidst all this, there is candy.

In this light, the November 1965 issue of Analog is the perfect companion for Halloween. There are familiar faces, a significant departed face, delicious trifles, and sad tricks.

Tricks and Treats


John Schoenherr

Down Styphon!, by H. Beam Piper

If you read H. Beam Piper's Gunpowder God this time last year, you're familiar with Calvin Morrison, a Pennsylvania cop who got whisked to an alternate world where Aryan tribes settled the Americas and the precursors to our Amerinds stayed in Asia.  Calvin encountered a feudal patchwork where the United States had been, and he quickly took advantage of his military prowess and knowledge to help break the gunpowder monopoly of the House of Styphon, becoming Lord Kalvan of the principality of Hostigo in the process.

If you haven't read Gunpowder God, you'll be rather lost reading Down Styphon!, which is a direct sequel.  After winning its first battle against its neighbors, Hostigo now finds itself about to be attacked by neighboring Nostor and a host of Styphon-funded mercenaries.  Only by developing a mobile force and the science of military cartography can Kalvan and Hostigo hope to repel the vastly superior forces of the invaders.

Down Styphon! is little more than a campaign log, chronicling the ebb and flow of the fight from the initial preparations, to the attempted Nostorian breakthrough, to their ultimate rout. It's clearly a middle third to a novel of Kalvan's story, started in Gunpowder God.  Indeed, the tale ends on a cliffhanger: it is clear that Styphon has one more trick up their sleeve and will not go down without a fight.

The problem, of course, is that readers of Analog may never get a conclusion to this tale.  Sadly, Mr. Piper took his own life last November, and Down Styphon! is touted as the author's last published story.

On the other hand, a novel of Lord Kalvan (Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen) came out recently, and it may well have the resolution to the story.  It's also possible that editor John Campbell will license the last part of the book to finish the saga in Analog.

One hopes so.  While Down Styphon! is clearly incomplete and focused primarily on a single battle, it is yet one of the best and most riveting recountings of a military campaign I've read.  There is such rich detail that I could easily see Avalon Hill making a wargame out of it.

So I give this tale four stars for what it accomplishes and in appreciation for what it could have been (and perhaps might be — fingers crossed).

Even Chance, by John Brunner


John Schoenherr

A young Kalang tribesman in the remote mountains of Java rushes to meet a party of foreign anthropologists.  He bears a shard of a crashed vehicle, one he's certain will convince the expedition to regale him with gifts, as had happened during the War when a pilot had set down his crate and had to be nursed back to health.

But the fragment is highly radioactive, and the craft it comes from is not of Earthly construction.

That's a great setup for a story, but in (the oddly titled) Even Chance, the setup is the whole story.  You know its outcome from the beginning, and the thing reads like something from the 1940s.

A high two — it's not offensive, but it could use finishing.

A Long Way to Go, by Robert Conquest


Kelly Freas

A Mr. Randall from modern day is transported 500 years into the future.  Unlike other contemporaries who had made the trip, Randall is allowed to keep his memories of the 20th Century even if it means he'll have trouble adjusting to the 26th, the better for anthropologists to study him.

At the end, however, it is decided that it is better for Randall to be acclimatized after all.  The time traveler takes the news philosophically, noting that the future seems to have solved all of today's problems. But, his future host sadly informs him, they have unique problems of their own.

Once more, we have a fine setup to a story that fails to go anywhere. Indeed, I'm not quite sure what the point of the tale was.

Another high two.

Some Preliminary Notes on FASEG, by Laurence M. Janifer and Frederick W. Kantor

Here's a cute quasi-scientific piece on the generation of fairy godmothers, done in the style of a short journal article.

Three stars.

Onward and Upward with Space Power, by J. Frank Coneybear

On the other hand, Coneybear's longwinded piece on steam power in space keenly suffers for want of an introduction, a conclusion, and subheadings.  I suppose it's better than pseudoscience, but Analog really needs a dedicated science writer like F&SF's Asimov and Galaxy's Ley.

Space Pioneer (Part 3 of 3), by Mack Reynolds


Kelly Freas

At last we come to something that does finish: Reynolds' latest serial.  When last we left Ender Castriota (who had assumed the identity of Rog Bock to join the roster of the colony ship Titov on its way to complete a blood feud against the last of the Peshkopi clan, rumored to be on the vessel), the colony of New Arizona had been attacked by natives.  As the first intelligent aliens encountered by humanity, their presence on the planet not only poses an existential threat to the new settlement, it also invalidates the colonial charter.

A war ensues, egged on by the Captain of the Titov, who, not wanting to see his lucrative opportunity fade away, insists the aliens are simple animals.  That these "animals" wield crossbows and religious totems makes no difference to him.

Curiously, the "kogs" (as the indigenes are derogatorily called) are extremely humanoid in appearance.  Stranger still, they appear to be confined to the island on which the Titov landed.  I'm sure you can guess, as I did, the true origin of the "aliens."

Space Pioneer's third part is, like Down Styphon!, primarily a chronicle of battle and, like the Piper story, a deftly executed one.  Reynolds is good at that kind of thing.  The Peshkopi feud issue is resolved, and not as I expected it to be, and there is some good development of the relationship between Castriota and Zorilla, the one member of the colonial board who seems to be a decent man.  I was disappointed that Cathy Bergman, advocate for the non-charter member colonists had a minimal role in the third segment, however.

All told, I'd give Part Three four stars, and the book as a whole three and a half.  Good stuff, but it likely won't make the nomination for this year's Galactic Stars.

Assorted Sweets

With all of its ups and downs, Analog clocks in at exactly three stars.  However, as with any Halloween grab bag, you can always skip the candy you don't like and concentrate on what you like.  There's certainly much to enjoy in this month's first and last thirds.

Analog is surpassed this month by Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.7), Science Fantasy (3.2), and New Worlds (3.1).

Campbell's magazine is better than this month's largely reprint Fantastic (2.8) and the perennially lackluster IF (2.6).

Only one story out of the 30 new pieces was written by a woman, which makes Science Fantasy the winner of this month's SF equal opportunity award without trying very hard. 

Sad as that statistic may be, there was far more worthy reading this month than usual.  One could easily fill two big magazines with nothing but 4-star stuff.

So grab yourself this month's digests, stuff them in your trick or treat bag, and have a swell spooky holiday of haunting.  I know I will!




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Magazine/Anthology, Serial

[September 30, 1965] Big and Little Bangs (October 1965 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

The Big One

Billions of years ago, the entire universe was smaller than the head of a pin.  For an endless eternity, or perhaps just an instant, it remained in this state – and then it exploded outward with the force of creation, ultimately becoming all that we see today.

Until this year, this "Big Bang" theory was as yet unconfirmed.  It had stiff competition in the "Steady State" hypothesis, which postulated that the universe is indeed expanding, but because of matter being constantly created.  This was fundamental to the plot of Pohl and Williamson's recent novels set in the reefs of space at the edges of our solar system.

But last year, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey noticed an excess of radio noise in the receiver they were building, an excess that closely resembled the Cosmic Microwave Background predicted by physicists Ralph Alpherin, Robert Herman, and George Gamow.  This extremely low level but pervasive energy is what's left of the heat of the primeval explosion, reduced to microwaves by the expansion of the universe.


The Murray Hill facility where the echoes of the Big Bang were discovered

Smaller Ones

Here on Earth, it seems our planet is anxious to imitate the violence of the universe at large.  On September 28, the Taan Volcano off the coast of the Philippine island of Luzon exploded, killing hundreds of Filipinos.

And less of a bang and more of a blaaat, we've just finished ringing in the Jewish new year with the traditional blowing of a ram's horn.

The Littlest One

Meanwhile, editor John W. Campbell, Jr. seems content to not rock the boat, providing a mixed bag of diverting fare and stale garbage in the latest issue of Analog, a combination that is unlikely to knock anyone off their feet.


by John Schoenherr

Overproof, by Johnathan Blake MacKenzie

On a planet two hundred light years from home, a husband and wife pair of anthropologists come across a horrifying discovery.  The native Darotha, an amphibian race resembling across between a cat and an octopus, are eating humans.  At least, it seems that way – the Yahoos, apelike herd animals on their planet, bear a striking resemblance to homo sapiens.  Are the Darothans really mass murderers?  Or are looks deceiving?


by John Schoenherr

This is an interesting piece that Randall Garrett (under a pseudonym) has offered up.  Unusually for an Analog story, the Darothans are a well-drawn alien race and not played for inferiority – indeed, they are treated with sensitivity not only by the author but by the Terran colonists on the planet, who see them as exciting as potential partners and as an example of non-human society.  In the end, the story is essentially an inverse of Piper's Fuzzy stories, where the question is not whether the humanoid Yahoos possess the spark of humanity, but whether they don't.

It's not a perfect story.  The conclusion is pretty obvious from the beginning, it meanders and repeats a bit, but it's more subtle than what I usually see in Analog, and it kept me interested.

Three stars.

The Veteran, by Robert Conquest

Humans from the future, who have forgotten the art of war, summon someone from the past to lead them in a war against alien nasties.  Unfortunately for them, the person they've found is a devout pacifist.  But luckily, the fellow discovers the battle lust within that he needs to fulfill his role.

Rather offensive, simplistic, and for some reason, the aliens conquer our solar system in reverse order of distance from the Sun even though it's unlikely that they'd all be lined up so obligingly.

Two stars.

Snakebite!, by Alexander W. Hulett, M.D. and William Hulett

For some reason, Campbell saw fit to include this high school science project discussing the use of snake venom to produce antivenom blood serum in rodents.  As an actual article, it might have been mildly interesting, but in its current form, it's pretty pointless.

Two stars.

The Mischief Maker, by Richard Olin


by John Schoenherr

A story told in epistolary, Maker describes how a crackpot professor with a grudge stumbles across the great power of the Law of Analogy, which he uses to destroy the leaders of America through various bits of voodoo and witchcraft.  Truth be told, my eyes glazed over when the author mentioned the Hieronymous Machine, that psychic amplifier requiring no power source that editor Campbell is so enamored of.

Two stars.

Space Pioneer (Part 2 of 3), by Mack Reynolds


by John Schoenherr

Last but not least, we have the continuation of Reynolds' serial that began last month.  When last we'd seen the assassin impersonating Rog Bock, shareholder in the colonial venture on New Arizona, his masquerade had been discovered by at least one other shareholder.

Part 2 begins with the colony ship Titov landing on its virgin planet destination, so closely resembling Earth as to be a near twin.  The rapaciousness of the shareholders' goal becomes clear as the 2000 colonists find they have virtually no rights, that the shareholders plan to sell the valuable resource rights to outside entities almost immediately, and that the crew of the ship largely comprise ex-military personnel to make them a ready police force to keep the settlers in line.

Unrest threatens to boil over as the colony teeters on the brink of collapse, reeling from colonist indolence and sabotage by unknown persons – but by the end of this installment, they all have bigger concerns to worry about…

Again, Pioneer has only the barest trappings of science fiction.  Nevertheless, this is one of Reynolds' more deft tales, and I'm enjoying it a lot.

Four stars for this bit.

Seismographic Data

Where does this leave us for the month?  Well, Analog clocks in at just 2.7 stars, below Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.4), Science Fantasy (3.3), New Worlds (2.8), and Worlds of Tomorrow (2.8); it is just tied with the lackluster Galaxy.

It did manage to beat out the disappointing Amazing (2.6), IF (2.3), and the truly awful Gamma (1.5), however.

There were just two and a half pieces written by women (one was co-written) out of 58: 4.3%.  Surprisingly, the women-penned tales were all in the UK mags, which are usually all stag.  No women authors were included in either of the "All Star" Galaxy and F&SF issues this month, which is a real shame.  Where are Evelyn Smith and Margaret St. Clair?

Perhaps they are planning to return with a bang.  I certainly expect to herald their next stories with fireworks!

Looking for good science fiction by women?  Look no further than Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963), the bestseller containing 14 of our favorite stories of the Journey era!




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