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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[Oct. 31, 1969] Struggling to get out (November 1969 Analog)

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Science Fiction Theater Episode #10

Tonight (Oct. 31), tune in at 7pm (Pacific) for our special, Halloween-themed episode!

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Inside Lebanon

Feel that?  It's the calm before the storm.

For the past week, the nation of Lebanon has been rocked from within by "Palestinian" guerrillas.  Yesterday, at the behest of leaders in Cairo, Damascus, and Tripoli, the raiders settled down, awaiting what looks like will be a significant negotiation between Arab power brokers.

I'm no expert on the issue, but here's what I've gleaned.  When Israel declared independence in 1948, a significant percentage of the Arab population within the nascent nation's borders left the former mandate of Palestine.  Some fled violence, like that inflicted by classy folk such as Menachem Begin of the Irgun, a Jewish terrorist group.  Others left at the exhortation of their Arab brethren, who proclaimed that they were about to drive the Jews into the sea.

Hundreds of thousands of Arabs ended up in neighboring countries: Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon.  Indeed, exiled Arabs now comprise 12% of the population of Lebanon—fully 300,000 people.  They live in camps administrated by the draconian Lebanese Deuxième Bureau.

The "Palestinian Liberation Organization", founded in 1964 with the goal of "the liberation of Palestine", initiated terrorist attacks against Israel after The Six Day War in 1967.  Such are being carried out from enclaves in other countries with more or less tacit permission from those countries' governments.

The recent irruption in Lebanon arose from the Lebanese cracking down on these raids.  The violence, thwarted from heading southward, flooded internally—into Beirut, Tyre, Lebanese Tripoli, and other major cities.  Egypt, Syria, and Libya all leaned hard on the Christian Arab nation to let loose the reins on the guerrillas.  Lebanon has relented, and the negotiations will proceed shortly.  Participants will be Dr. Hassan Sabri El Kholi, personal envoy of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Libyan Interior Minister Mousa Ahmed, and guerrilla chief Yasser Arafat.  While there's no telling what the outcome will be, one has to imagine the Palestinians will be allowed to resume their raids into Israel again.

With the War of Attrition occupying Israel on its western and eastern fronts, it now looks as if the Jewish state is about to be busy defending from the north, too.  Most folk are betting on the Israeli Defense Force, but can the country survive under siege forever?

Time will tell.

Inside Analog


by Vincent Di Fate

Like Lebanon, the crisis facing Analog comes from within, as evidenced by the latest issue.  From without, the magazine looks like it always has—handsome, professional.  But within, one can see the rot.  Not that it's all bad; indeed, much of it is decent.  But what works is stagnant, and what doesn't work is very much the sort of thing we expect from long-toothed editor John Campbell.

Gottlos, by Colin Kapp

Starting off, we have what looks like a Bolo story—one of those Keith Laumer tales featuring a sentient, super-tank.  Unlike Laumer's stories, this one has a lot of action, with the Fiendish mauling dozens of opposing vehicles, overruning a command post, and then meeting its match with the arrival of the ebony Gottlos.

After Fiendish is destroyed, we learn that it was actually a remotely controlled tank.  Its pilot, Manton, had so thoroughly melded with the machine, that the result was a gestalt personality, one motivated by violence and vengeance.  With his vehicle destroyed, Manton falls into an apparent funk, shaken by the appearance of a more powerful machine.  The real terror of Gottlos is that it seems to need no radio controls at all.  Is it autonomous?  A kind of cybernetic beast?

Kapp has written more of a philosophical than predictive piece, describing how a society might decay under the strain of endless war and complete mechanization.  I appreciate Kapp's skill with English, but the story itself seemed a bit implausible in its setup.

Three stars.

Telepathy – Did It Happen?, by J. B. Reswick and L. Vodonik

Oh boy.  A pair of cranks conducted a telepathy experiment.  Here's the notion: telepathy is only reliable about 1-2% of the time.  But what's really happening, they suppose, is that there's just so much interference that the message gets clogged with static. If one conducts thousands of tests using a simple message, the errors will be reduced, and the message will stand out.

The setup they used involved a binary message and transmitter.  After many trials, the experimenters determined that had gotten the error down low enough to show that something had objectively been transmitted.  Of course, the researchers admitted that their data only supported this conclusion if you read the results backwards (i.e. if the 1s of the original message were logged as 0s and vice versa.)

Given the thin margins of success, if you gotta flip the results on their heads to get any kind of answer, I suspect it's all bogus.  Which is how I'm beginning to feel about psionics in general.

One star.

Weapon of the Ages, by W. Macfarlane


by Leo Summers

Humanity is hounded by vicious extraterrestrials when they try to go to the stars.  One pilot crashlands on a neutral world, is conducted to a mysterious weapon, and manages to wipe out a set of local marauders.  The weapon's use has side effects, one which the owner's race is prepared for, but not the human who fired it.

Macfarlane is trying for a cute sting-in-the-tail story, but the whole thing is nonsensical, so it lacks the desired impact.

Two stars.

The Ambassadors, by as by J. B. Clarke


by Leo Summers

A set of three disparate aliens makes contact with the galactic organization of which the humans are a member.  Said aliens claim to be vastly superior to our federation, but they say they'll be generous and give us a few technological wonders—if only we'll give them an example of one of our best starships, so they can gauge our level of progress.  Since homo sapiens has (per the story) an unique ability to sniff out a scam, a human is sent to investigate to see if the aliens are on the level.

Things that suggest the aliens are hoaxing: they showed up in a borrowed spaceship, no one has ever heard of their stellar confederation, and their "capital" planet is a smoggy wasteland.  Points in their favor: the three wear a common uniform and despite profound apparent racial differences, work together in perfect harmony.  Conclusion, they must represent an ancient and tight-knit federation!

Much is made of the fact that most species in the galaxy are bi-sexual.  Not that you'd know from this story, whose only female human is a "pert secretary."  The leader of the alien delegation is a female, to the surprise of the humans receiving them.  Cue the snide comments about how women always have to speak for the menfolk (the implication being that such arrogance is misplaced).  In the end, the gender of the aliens is the key to unpuzzling the obvious hoax.

Clarke spends a lot of time setting up a puzzle whose solution is apparent from nearly the beginning.  The characters have to be obtuse to make the story work.  Obtuse and sexist. 

One star.

Shapes to Come, by Edward Wellen


by Vincent Di Fate

A scientist in an isolated base on the Moon has completed his work: he has perfected a spore that will inject itself into any alien genetic structure, instilling an irresistible trust of the human form.  By seeding the stars with this spore, when we meet any extraterrestrials, they will necessarily greet us with love and affection.

But before the spore can be deployed, an alien armada shows up.  Can you guess what completely unexpected result ends the tale based on the story's setup?

This is comic book level stuff.  Two stars.

The Yngling (Part 2 of 2), by John Dalmas


by Kelly Freas

Concluding the two-part serial begun last ish, The Yngling latter half is choppy but worthy.

When we last left our hero, the psi-adept Nordic warrior, Nils Ironhand, he had been sent into the lion's den.  More specifically, to the domain of Kazi, an immortal (through soul transferrence into new bodies) who reigns through unbelievable cruelty.  His armies are poised at the doorstep of Europe, and in short order, more than thirty thousand of his "orc" hordes will sweep through the Balkans bent on rapine and ravagery.

Nils presents a condundrum to the psionic tyrant as his signature trait is the lack of an internal monologue.  Thus, his mind cannot be read, barely even sensed.  He also is completely without guile.  Interestingly, while this wordless mentality is portrayed as an unique characteristic, and perhaps a side effect of Nils' psi powers, it can't be that rare in the real world.  Indeed, one of the Journey's very own, Tam Phan, possesses this trait.  Now, Tam is also a fantastic warrior, so there may be a connection.


Tam and familiar faces at a local gathering of Vikings

In any event, after Nils gets to witness some particularly gruesome examples of Kazi's barbarism, he escapse, makes it back to Hungary, and organizes a resistance comprising Magyar, Ukrainian, Polish, and Bohemian knights…as well as hundreds of his kinsman, who have just crossed the Baltic, fleeing the impending Ice Age.  The resulting battle is lengthy, desperate, and strategic in detail.  Of course, you can guess who wins.

This is a tough book to rate!  It's firmly in the genre of magical post-Apocalypse, along with Omha Abides, Spawn of the Death Machine, Out of the Mouth of the Dragon, and so on.  I happen to like this genre, and while I'm growing to loathe psi stories, in these settings, I can just pretend it's a kind of magic, or maybe lost technology.

The key to writing this genre well, and Dilmas does, is to bathe it in sensuality and adventure.  In many ways, Nils is more akin to Conan than any scientifical hero you'd expect to find in Analog.  I also greatly appreciate that Dilmas manages to convey the most unspeakable of tortures completely obliquely.  A few artful words can chill far more than pages of explicit gore.

Too, I enjoyed the grand depiction of the battle, complete with fog of war and the uncertainty that accompanies it.  So vivid is this portion of the novel, that one could probably adapt a cracking wargame from it.  Jim Dunnigan, are you listening?

It's not all roses, of course.  As in the first half, the various sections of the novel don't quite hang together well, like bricks without mortar.  Much is bridged in shorthand.  Also, Nils having to retell the same story to half a dozen European lords to rally them against the orcs was a bit tiresome.  Perhaps all of these things will be smoothed when this story inevitably gets picked up by Ace.  Or maybe not—they like their books short.

Anyway, I'd give this installment four stars, three-and-a-half for the whole.  Fans of this sort of thing, like my nephew, David, may notch up their assessments a touch.

Doing the math

Boy, Analog has been bad lately.  I know it seems like I just keep saying it over and over again, but until these doldrums end, I'll have to find creative ways to repeat myself.

At 2.3 stars, Analog is by far the lowest in the pack.  IF got 3.1; Vision of Tomorrow got 3.2; even Amazing got 3.2; Galaxy got 2.9; so did Venture; Fantasy and Science Fiction got 2.7; and New Worlds got 2.8.

Women wrote about 10% of what was published this month, and you could fit all the four and five star stuff in two digests.  Given that eight came out for November, that's a pretty weak showing.

Perhaps if Ted White, Ed Ferman, Charles Platt, and Ejler Jakobsson went over to Condé Nast headquarters for a negotiation, Campbell might loosen the reins on his writers.  Couldn't hurt!




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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 16, 1969] The March Goes On (October 1969 Galactoscope)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Unusually for the Galactoscope, our monthly round-up of new science fiction publications, we're starting this article with a stop press. It's simply too big an item to ignore.

If you read the papers this morning, you know the big news was that the Mets played the winning game of the World Series last night, against the Orioles. Competing for inches on the front page was the largest, the most coordinated, the most widespread anti-war demonstration this country has yet experienced.


Demonstrators in Washington

One million people, in every state of the union, participated in Vietnam Moratorium Day. Originally planned as a nationwide strike, instead, attendees made highly their protests highly visible—and peaceful. A quarter of a million marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in the nation's capital, echoing Dr. King's march on Washington in 1963. 100,000 gathered in Boston, with similar numbers protesting in New York (where Mayor John Lindsay is rumored to have given tacit support) and Miami. My local rag reported that there were counter-protests, too, but I have to wonder how big they were.

Closer to home, 1,500 gathered in Los Angeles to burn their draft cards. And at Palomar Community College, just ten minutes from my home, hundreds of students gathered for a "Teach-In". When word got out that protestors might take down the flag in front of the student union, a squad of football players was stationed at its base. No altercation occurred.


Protestors at Palomar

Will this demonstration alter the course of a war, which has killed tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese? A spokesman for Richard Milhouse Nixon said last night, "I don't think the President can be affected by a mass demonstration of any kind." Comedian Dick Gregory retorted to the crowd in New York, "The President says nothing you kids do will have any effect on him. Well, I suggest he make one long-distance call to the LBJ ranch. "


Card-burners in Los Angeles

In any event, this may be just the first salvo fired in a peace offensive. Washington protest organizer Sam Brown said last night, "If there is no change in Vietnam policy, if the President does not respond, there will be a second moratorium."

And now on to book news—are this month's science fiction titles as noteworthy?


By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

Heartease by Peter Dickinson (as serialized in Look and Learn)

Cover of 1965 editions of Ranger and Look and Learn in a red folder
Copies of Ranger and Look and Learn from my collection inside the official binders

Regular readers of the Journey will probably know I am a big fan of British comic books. They may even recognize the name Look and Learn due to it containing the multi-Galactic Star winning Trigan Empire (formerly of Ranger).

However, I have not talked much about Look and Learn itself. It is by far the most expensive comic book on the market at 1/6-, almost triple the price of your standard copy of June or TV Century 21. In spite of this it has retained a significant market presence by presenting itself as an educational magazine for young people, in contrast to the naughtiness of Dennis the Menace, or the pulp space adventures of Dan Dare.

This, however, is not merely a trick. They have both some of the best comic strips on the market and non-fiction articles–better than you see in most magazines aimed at adults. Looking at the contents of a June issue we have:

  • Ongoing comic book adaptation of Ben-Hur
  • How to prevent forest fires and how to apply for a career in forestry
  • A short story on a Gypsy boy winning the Natural History Prize
  • The life of the current Prince of Wales
  • An interview with a Chicago police officer on what crime fighting was like in the 1930s
  • Story of the ship Emile St. Pierre in the American Civil War
  • How the Magna Carta came to be
  • Regular series of identification of coins, planes, stamps and trains
  • Rob Riley comic: Adventures and daily life of English school boys
  • Laugh with Fiddy: Short uncaptioned humour comics
  • Wildcat Wayne: Action adventures of a troubleshooter for an oil company
  • Trigan Empire: Tales from the history of an interstellar empire, centering around its ruling dynasty
  • Dan Dakota – Lone Gun: Western comic
  • Origin and meaning of the saying The Widow’s Mite
  • Diary entries from James Woodforde in 1786
  • The history of RADAR in British aviation
  • Ongoing prose serialization of The Mark of the Pentagram, a tale of slavery in the 18th century
  • How tea came to be imported to Britain
  • Marsh land reclamation efforts on river estuaries
  • How William and Dorothy Wordsworth influenced each other’s work
  • Picture series on how heavy loads have been transported over the centuries
  • Feature on the novel Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell
  • About the game Takraw
  • Picture series on Iceland.

As such, it is much easier for a kid to justify dropping their pocket money on this each week when they can also show their parents a page on the lifecycle of a butterfly and give them a series of facts from the life of Jane Austen between reading about spaceflight and the adventures of cowboys.

2 Black and White drawings, one of a two children sheltering from flames with clothes wrapped around their faces. The other of an otter with its tale being bitten by an otter.
Example illustations for I Am David (left) and Tarka the Otter (Right) (uncredited)

However, outside of the comic strips Space Cadet and Trigan Empire, SF content is rare inside. Keeping to its educational mode, it tends towards historical fiction or uncovering the natural world. With serials tending to be works like The Silver Sword, Tarka The Otter or I Am David.

In fact, I cannot recall any prose serials that have been science fiction, before now. As such, with adult responsibilities getting the better of me, I hadn’t paid too much attention to these pieces. It was only when flicking back through them recently that I perked up at the name Peter Dickinson.

Last year he published The Weathermonger, a book that was much enjoyed by the folks here. This was not only by the same author but Heartsease also takes places in England under The Changes. It was serialised in 10 parts (from 8th March to 10th May 1969).

This is set in an earlier time in the history of this world. Whilst Weathermonger is set when The Changes are a well-established way of life, this is in the earlier stages of these events. As we are told at the beginning:

This is a story about an England where everyone thinks machines are wicked. The time is now, or soon; but you have to imagine that five years before the story starts, because of a strange enchantment, people suddenly turned against tractors and buses and central heating and nuclear reactors and electric razors. Anybody who tried to use a machine was called a witch or stoned or drowned.

Margaret on her pony rearing as a bull charges at her.
Illustrator uncredited

In the Cotswolds, Margaret and her cousin Jonathan live with her Aunt Alice and Uncle Peter, plus two servants Lucy and Tim, the latter of which is unable to speak. Near their village, an outsider is found using a radio and is sentenced to be stoned as a witch.

The horror of witnessing the stoning seems to break Jonathan out of the hatred the adults have, so he works with Margaret, Lucy and Tim to free the man condemned for witchcraft. Hiding him he reveals his name is Otto, he is an American sent to investigate the situation in Britain when he was caught. The children agree to get him back to his ship.

However, the local Sexton, Davey Gordon, is still on the hunt for Otto. What’s more he is suspicious of Lucy and Tim, given the latter’s disability. They all form a plan to help him escape using an old tugboat called Heartsease.

Margaret and Lucy running holding petrol cans as the timber on the quayside burns around them
Illustrator uncredited

I can understand why this would appeal to the editors of Look and Learn. With the removal of technology, it resembles historical fiction and does not have the magical elements of The Weathermonger. In addition, it contains information on how locks work, so it can be marketed as educational.

It is a much smaller tale than The Weathermonger, just about young people trying to do the right thing as they get caught up in horrific events. But, for that, it becomes a bit of a deeper tale. As well as having plenty of adventure, it looks at how we treat others and posits some darker reasons why things may be happening than is revealed in the prior novel:

“…they’ve done so many awful things they’ve got to believe they were right. The more they hurt and kill, they more they’ve been proving to themselves they’ve been doing God’s will all along.”

Heartsease 1968 hardback Gollancz book cover
Gollancz book edition. Unknown illustrator

Based on some fag-packet-maths I estimate the word count here is somewhere between a third to a half of what is in the book version, so there is likely more story to be told.

But for this serialized form, I will give it Four Stars.


by Victoria Silverwolf

Bigger and Better?

Two novels that are expanded versions of earlier, shorter works fell into my hands recently. Will this added verbiage improve them? Let's find out.

Worlds of the Wall, by C. C. MacAppp


Anonymous cover art. Human and pterodactyl number one.

This book started life as a novelette called Beyond the Ebon Wall in the October 1964 issue of Fantastic. I reviewed it at the time, giving it two stars. That's not a good omen, but let's not give up hope.

Our hero is inside an experimental starship. He winds up near a planet that seems to be missing an entire hemisphere. Forget all this science fiction stuff, because the rest of the book is pure fantasy.

Landing on the weird world, the guy finds out that the place is divided in half by a gigantic wall. He sees two naked men fighting and an elderly fellow with a scarred face. The latter seems very familiar, which is a clue as to the novel's major plot twist.

The protagonist passes through the seemingly solid wall as if it weren't there. He meets a double for the elderly guy and hears a huge magpie recite an enigmatic poem. This begins an odyssey that involves becoming a galley slave, taking part in a hunt for a gigantic beast (which develops a bond with a hero), and battling a pirate captain allied with a sorcerer. It all winds up where it started.

This is the plot of the novelette, so what's new? The middle section of the novel, detailing the hero's adventures as a galley slave, is much longer. There's a vivid scene of the protagonist and his shipmates climbing down a gigantic cliff.

The new version is a slight improvement on the old one. The explanation for what's going on, involving multiple continua and time travel, still doesn't make much sense, but it's a little less incoherent that before.

Two and one-half stars.

Thbe Avengers of Carrig, by John Brunner


Cover art by Jack Gaughan. Human and pterodactyl number two.

A shorter version of this novel appeared in 1962 as half of an Ace Double, under the title Secret Agent of Terra. It was reviewed by my esteemed colleague Rosemary Benton, who gave the twin volume four stars as a whole.

The setting is a planet settled by human refugees from a nova that wiped out another colony world many centuries ago. The survivors have evolved into a medieval, feudal kind of society. Carrig is the dominant city-state. The place has an ancient ritual of choosing its leaders in an unusual fashion.

Contenders for the title of regent board gliders and try to kill the biggest and strongest specimen of the giant flying beasts that inhabit the planet. (The winner is called a regent because the creature is considered to be the true king.) If nobody slays the animal, which definitely puts up a good fight, the former regent retains the title.

A couple of strangers show up, one of whom easily kills the so-called king with what is obviously highly advanced technology. It's clear to the reader, if not the locals, that they're from another world. Along the way they kill a fellow who discovers their nefarious plan.

The victim was secretly an agent for the folks who keep an eye on refugee planets like this one, being careful to avoid interfering with their natural development, but also making sure other people don't take advantage of them.

When the dead man stops sending messages back to his superiors, they send a fledging agent, along with an older, more experienced one, to the planet to find out what happened. (The young agent is something of a snob and unpopular with the others, so this is one last chance for her to prove herself during what is supposed to be a routine mission.)

They don't know the bad guys are there (they think the deceased agent has gone silent for some other, less sinister reason) so they're taken completely by surprise when an enemy spaceship attacks. The young agent winds up in a frozen wasteland. We don't find out what happened to the older man until later.

As luck would have it, she joins forces with the fellow who was the favorite to become the next regent. Both of them win an unexpected ally in the form of one of the flying creatures, who turns out to be a lot more intelligent than they thought.

Like MacApp's novel, this is strictly an adventure story. The big difference is that Brunner offers a tighter, more unified plot (even if it does depend on some remarkable coincidences.) It's not a complex, ambitious work like Stand on Zanzibar or The Jagged Orbit, but it's highly competent entertainment.

Three and one-half stars.

Masque World, by Alexei Panshin


by Jason Sacks

Last year I reviewed the first book in Alexei Panshin's "Anthony Villers" series, Star Well . I praised the book for its wry, often post-modern take on heroic fiction, digging Panshin's frequent absurd sidebars and silly takes on events.

Now the third book of the Villers series is out, and Masque World offers much the same as his earlier book: it's absurd and wise, clever and sometimes frustrating, and a pretty delightful "shaggy dog" story.


cover by Kelly Freas

This time Villers and his pal, the Trog named Torve (a deliberately odd alien creature who is thoroughly uncanny for most people) have found their way to Delbalso, "a semi-autonomic dependency of the Nashuite Empire," as the introductory text informs us. When there, the duo gets deeply involved in all kinds of affairs in the kingdom, many centered around Villers's uncle Lord Semichastny who is obsessed and addicted to melons (did you know there are over 100 different types of melons? Semichastny  can tell you all about that topic, and many more, as if he's some sort of savant or young child in adult form).

Cultures are games played to common rules — for convenience. The High Culture, while not superior to very much, is a fair-to-middling game, and that is all.

There's also an angry robot bulter who seems to resent his subservient role and who tells spooky stories to the other mechanical creatures in  Semichastny's castle, and there's a Semichastny friend who gets transformed when he puts on a costume, and there's a cult who seem incredibly happy – perhaps too happy for their own good.

Monism promises only one thing, to make you very very happy. There is a catch, of course. To be happy as a Monist, you must accept Monist definitions of happiness. If you can — you have a blissful life ahead of you. Congratulations.

A lot of this story, therefore, centers around the idea of identity, how to shed identity and how to transform identity; how identity conforms to crowds and how identity stands alone. This all does a wonderful job of showcasing Panshin's elusive commentary on the human condition. As becomes clear by the end, it's the humor and commentary which matter here, not the story.

Do places dream of people until they return?

For the longest time I kind of fought this book, trying hard to make sense of the twists and turns of its plot. Until, that is, I realized that plot is meant to be arbitrary and somewhat confusing. Its twists and turns reflect the mindset of Mr. Panshin, and that and his wordplay – highlighted here as excerpts – are the key things he wants to share with readers.

Holidays are no pleasure for anyone but children, and they are a pleasure only for children only because they seem new. Holidays are no pleasure to those who schedule them. Holidays are for people who need to be formally reminded to have a good time and believe it is safer to warm up an old successful party than to chance the untried.

Masque World is very loose  and fun, a bit arbitrary and silly, and I enjoyed it alright. The book feels a bit indulgent at times, and Panshin's having a bit of a goof, but it's well worth 60¢ and 3 hours of your time.

The ending promises a fourth book in  the series, to be called The Universal Pantograph. I do hope we get to spend more time in this wildly discursve world of the one and only Anthony Villiers.

3 stars

The Shadow People, by Margaret St. Clair


by Tonya R. Moore

I had never encountered any works of fiction written by Margaret St. Clair before reading The Shadow People. The story’s premise is wonderfully dark and imaginative but the reader’s sense of wonder is drowned out by the book’s glaring faults.


cover by Jeff Jones

Aldridge, our hero, descends into a strange and alien underworld in search of his girlfriend who has gone missing. He finds her while navigating this strange dimension, but something about her has been irrevocably altered. Even so, Aldridge seeks a way back to the human world for himself and for the love of this life. When he/they finally returns to the surface, he finds that during his absence, human civilization was twisted into a dark, futuristic dystopia where people are now heavily policed and managed like cattle.

The fact that a female author would center a male character in her work feels like some kind of betrayal. I understand that science fiction tends to be a male-dominated genre, where only men can be the heroes and only men are expected to save the day. But Carol is the one who disappears into the fae realm first. Why does she need to sit on her laurels and wait for The Man to come and save her?

Furthermore, Carol is transformed into a mindless shell of a human, devoid of any ability to express any will of her own or even think for herself. Ultimately, The Man must dictate the woman’s fate. So much for the Women’s Rights Movement. There is a part of me that expects female authors to push back against such demeaning notions and St. Clair, in very bad taste, seems to capitulate to this male chauvinist ideology. Perhaps it was this bias that made it impossible for me to resonate with this story’s protagonist.

Aldridge is a canned character. He is everything a heroic male protagonist “ought” to be and possesses very little depth or complexity in personality. He responds “correctly” to every situation and never seems to doubt or question himself. This leaves a discerning reader with little choice but to question his humanity.

Another possible reason the story rankled was the way elves are portrayed in The Shadow People. St. Clair's version runs counter to the commonly held mental image of elves, portraying them as grotesque and malevolent, instead of beautiful, good-willed, and elegant. St. Clair’s elves are more like the lesser known spriggans of elven lore. This, I agree, is very clever of St. Clair but still, broadly classifying these beings as “elves” felt like needlessly shattering the average reader’s fanciful notions about fae-kind.

There are some disconcerting allusions here to the alienation and institutionalized oppression of the Negro people. As a black woman, I felt that there was a certain lack of sensitivity in drawing these parallels while also side-stepping the cruel reality plaguing modern society.

The imagery in The Shadow People is visceral and draws the reader into every moment. The events of the story are quite dramatic and would make a great film. For some reason, though, none of this resonated with me. I could not fully appreciate or enjoy reading this book nor could I quite rid myself of the vague suspicion that this author had to be a man, a misogynist at that, writing under the guise of a female author.

2.5 stars.

West of Sol


by George Pritchard

Postmarked the Stars


Cover by R. M. Powers

There is a phrase, deja vu, which refers to feeling or seeing something that you have not interacted with before, yet seems intensely familiar. These are now believed to be psychic echoes, but it is a useful term for Andre Norton's latest work, Postmarked the Stars. I was excited to begin this, as the last thing I read of hers was Star Man’s Son, which I enjoyed deeply and still own a copy of.

I want to emphasize that I did not hate this book, nor did I find it incompetent, but reading Postmarked feels like watching a piston engine. Smooth and efficient and automatic, but always quite obviously a machine. This is the fourth entry in the Solar Queen adventures, although no previous books need to be read to understand this one. The previous book in this series came out a decade ago, but I am not particularly familiar with what interest there was, or is.

Dane Thorson, assistant cargo master to the Free Trader ship Solar Queen, discovers that a strange, radioactive box on board is causing the creatures near it to change, becoming larger and more intelligent. Before the crew can figure out what to do with this information, the ship is caught in a tractor beam, and they are dragged to the planet’s surface. Dane, Tau the medical officer, and the psychic cat end up separated into a search party. A group of dead miners are found, an enormous insect monster is battled, before another tractor beam drags them and the planetary ranger onwards towards a secret base in unexplored territory. It all seems to be connected to that strange, radioactive stone!

Is there indeed gold in them thar hills?

One thing I have always enjoyed about Norton's writing, particularly given the genres she works in, is the equal footing she gives to non white characters. Even the names she gives to background characters vary in ways that speak to strength in differences amongst the stars — names from the Indian subcontinent right alongside Welsh, Jewish, and Chinese! For another example, a prospector type is introduced, and it's only mentioned half a chapter later that he is dark-skinned.

This story is a space Western, plain and simple. The recent movie, Moon Zero Two [review coming out October 18] is my immediate point of comparison, but this has been a rich vein in the genre for a long time. The potential for racism in the story is, for better or worse, replaced by that dullest of Westerns, the claim jumper plot, combined with the Pony Express or stagecoach robbery.

Norton has been publishing continuously for almost two decades at this point. Maybe she needs a break, taking a chance to look at the New Wave trends and use them for her own. I know that, given time, she can make them shine the way Star Man’s Son pushed the boundaries of boy’s adventure novels. Norton can do better, and has, but Postmarked the Stars does nothing at all.

Two stars.




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[Sep. 30, 1969] Decisions, decision (October 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Options in Space

Just two months ago, men set foot on the Moon.  It was the culmination of 12 years of American progress in space, nine years of manned flights.

And yet, it is also just the beginning.  This nation has built the infrastructure to begin a new era of space exploration and exploitation.  As of this moment, the National Air and Space Administration (NASA) has no formal plans for human spaceflight beyond the flight of Apollo 20 sometime in 1973, and a somewhat inchoate, 3-man space station project—this latter to utilize a converted Saturn rocket upper stage. 

In order to turn further dreams into reality, President Nixon has created a "Space Task Group", headed by Vice President Agnew and comprising luminaries like NASA chief Thomas Paine and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, to map what the next decade in outer space will look like.  They submitted their report, "The post-Apollo space program: directions for the future", on September 15.

The 29-page report outlines an ambitious set of proposals, even the most modest of which still sets lofty goals.  In short, the options are:

  1. Land a man on Mars by 1980; orbit a multi-person lunar station; orbit a 50-person space station in Earth orbit; develop a reusable spacecraft to shuttle personnel and supplies to and from these stations;
  2. The same, but with a deferred Mars landing; and,
  3. The same, but with no Mars landing.

With regard to the station, it appears that it won't be a all-of-a-piece spinning wheel as seen in 2001 or the old Collier's articles from the early '50s.  Instead, NASA will mass-produce station modules, which can be put together like Tinkertoys.

There are three options presented for military spaceflight, as well, but these are not fleshed out proposals, merely budget amount suggestions based on how hot or cool international tensions are over the next decade.

Only time will tell which of these options, or which portions of these plans will be implemented and when.  It is one thing for the Vice President to boost space (a consistent tradition since 1961!) It remains to be seen if Dick Nixon will commit this nation to a grand, interplanetary goal, in the vein of his erstwhile opponent, Jack Kennedy.

Options in Print

As the STG offers up a number of options for the future of human spaceflight, so Analog editor Campbell offers up a number of possible futures set further beyond in the latest issue of Analog.


by Kelly Freas

The Yngling (Part 1 of 2), by John Dalmas

It is the 29th Century, and the world is recovering from a disaster that killed off the overwhelming majority of its population.  Earth has reverted to the Dark Ages, at least in Europe.  In fact, the setting of the book strongly resembles the 9th Century, with food pressure impelling the Scandinavians to raid and settle the warmer climes to the south.  Meanwhile, an Oriental despot is plotting the takeover of Europe from his advance base in the Balkans.

The main difference between the future and our past is the existence of psi powers, specifically telepathy and precognition.  Though not widespread, it is common enough that possessors of these powers are recognized and valued.


by Kelly Freas

One such possessor is Nils Järnhand, a Svear from the frigid land of Svea.  Banished from his lands for an accidental manslaughter, he travels to many places, becoming perhaps Europe's greatest warrior.  He also develops his psi powers, using his telepathy to aid his interactions and his premonitory power to stay one step ahead of assailants.  His ultimate goal seems to be a date with destiny with the evil Kazi, the would-be dictator of all lands west of the Urals.

John Dalmas seems to be a new author, and his Nils is a character in the Conan mold—a superman who can be placed in a number of adventure scenarios.  His defining traits, asside from his martial puissance, is his adaptibility and his complete lack of an internal monologue.  He simply senses, processes, and acts, with no consideration or doubts.  This should make for a dull character, but somehow, Dalmas keeps things going, lively and interesting.  There are a couple of rough transitions where it seems thousands of words got pared for length considerations; perhaps they will be restored in the book version.

Anyway, I give it three stars for now, but it's possible the second part will raise my estimation.  I'm certainly enjoying it, at least.

A Relic of War, by Keith Laumer


by Vincent Difate

Three generations after the cataclysmic human/alien war, a battered sentient tank has become adopted by the citizens of a small town.  When a government man comes along intending to euthanize the old machine, the mayor is the first to defend their mascot.  But when Bobby the tank suddenly charges off, weapons armed, there is cause for all to reconsider their positions.

This is the Simakiest of Laumer's Bolo stories, pastoral and sensitive.  What I find so interesting about these tales is that so many take place long after the conflict for which the mammoth tanks were built.  Others would prefer to tell war stories, but not Laumer.

Four stories.

The Big Rock, by Robert Chilson


by Kelly Freas

A future-day Australia is set up on an airless world, importing criminals from six worlds whose citizens would rather offload the malcontents than pay the taxes for things like prisons and rehabilitation.  It's all part of a grand experiment: can a den of thieves become a self-sustaining population?

Chilson tells the story from the point of view of the intellectual (and much bullied) prisoner, Hargraves.  His tale is punctuated by scenes of a conversation in which one government official explains the experiment to another politician.

The setup is interesting—sort of a precursor to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress—and Chilson tells an interesting story…but the piece just ends.  Even the dialogue between the two bureaucrats doesn't tie things up.  We never find out how the experiment ends, or even if it can end successfully.

Three stars.

Proton to Proton, by R. Dean Wilson

Wilson proposes a mechanism for the abstruse but universal conversion of sunlight into the molecule ATP, which is fundamental to most biological processes.

I must confess, it's all beyond me, but then I've never taken a chemistry course in my life.

Three stars.

Test Ultimate, by Christopher Anvil


by Vincent Difate

Here is another tale of Anvil's "Space Patrol".  This time, a recruit is facing the final challenge before induction, one of courage.  He has to wade through a pool of giant piranha and then climb a 25-foot sheer facing.  Accompanying him on is a chipper guide, who exhorts him cheerfully to plunge on through, heedless of the danger.

Naturally, this is all simulated, so if said recruit gets eaten on the way, he'll only feel his death, not experience it.  Nevertheless, our hero smells something fishy (beyond what's in the pond), and responds accordingly.

It's cute, perhaps a trifle long.  Three stars.

Jump, by William Earls


by Vincent Difate

99 out of 100 Spacers have no trouble with Jump, that moment of transition between normal and hyper-space.  But Lacey is in that unlucky 1%, and despite a luminary career in the scout services, he finds he just can't take the experience anymore.  So he musters out at Titan base and tries to make a go of it as a civilian.  In the end, he determines space is in his blood, fear of the void between voids be damned.

There's not a lot to this tale, which could just as easily have been written about the Navy, with seasickness or fear of typhoons standing in for Jump aversion.  Plus, I was a bit turned off when the author had Titan be a Moon of Jupiter.  Titan orbits around Saturn!

Two stars.

Compassion, by J. R. Pierce

by Leo Summers

In the near future, New York becomes a protected enclave for Black Americans, not unlike the reservations for Native Americans (as Indians are beginning to be called).  The parallel is not specious—it is made in the story!

The heroine of the tale is Sari, a 20-year old tourguide from the Big Apple, whisked away by a handsome, middle-aged man as dark as she is, but representative of the mainstream world, progressing right along.  He introduces her to the modern era, gauges her considerable talents, and then sends her back to New York to be a leader of her society, someone who can bring promising souls into the wider world.

I'm not sure I like or buy the premise, but it is a nicely written piece, with enough consideration given both to the world (like something Mack Reynolds might spin) and to Sari's emotions and inner thoughts, to feel fleshed out.  Not much happens, but I enjoyed the story.

Three stars.

Doing the math

All in all, not a bad issue, really.  Unlike a lot of the rest of the slog this month, I never found myself dreading the next page of Analog.  Of course, a three-star average is hardly anything to brag about, but it does beat all the other collections of short SF this month, with the exception of Galaxy (3.2).

Lesser entries for October include:

You could take all the four and five star stuff and squeeze it into one overlarge magazine, and though women contributed 6.5% of the newly published material this month, you have to regard Orbit as a magazine, even though it's printed in paperback format.

We're definitely at a nadir for short SF these days.  Let's hope this is the bottom rather than a height compared to what's coming!




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Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 4, 1969] Plus ça change (October 1969 IF)

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by David Levinson

Silly season

It’s considered a truism in journalism that nothing happens in August, so the papers run filler stories about silly things to make up their page count. Sure, Hurricane Camille killed hundreds as it raged from Mississippi to Virginia, and China and the Soviet Union are on the brink of war, but that doesn’t sell papers. Madison Avenue also has a truism: sex sells. Now, the two have come together.

Newsday columnist Mike McGrady was disgusted by the schlocky, sex-obsessed books that regularly make the best-seller lists, so he recruited a bunch of fellow journalists (19 men and five women, by one count) to write a deliberately bad, oversexed book. The result is Naked Came the Stranger, in which the editors worked hard to remove any literary value from the tale of a New York woman’s sexual escapades.

When the book sold 20,000 copies, McGrady and his co-conspirators decided they’d better come clean. Nineteen of them appeared on The Dick Cavett Show, being introduced as Penelope Ashe (the book’s purported author) and walking out to the strains of A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody. As a result of their confession and discussion of their motives, the book has become even more popular. And as of last Sunday, it’s on the New York Times list of best-sellers. You have to laugh to keep from crying.

Penelope Ashe, in part, with the cover model superimposed.

This puts me in mind of a similar literary hoax with a more sfnal connection. Back in 1956, radio host Jean Shepherd was unhappy with the way best-seller lists were being compiled and urged his listeners to ask their local bookstores to order I, Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing. He offered some vague hints about the plot, and many listeners who were in on the joke created references to the book elsewhere. Demand was so high, publisher Ian Ballantine convinced Theodore Sturgeon to knock out a quick novel based on an outline from Shepherd. Betty Ballantine wrote the last chapter as Sturgeon lay in exhausted sleep on the Ballantines’ couch after trying to write the whole thing in one sitting. The cover by Frank Kelly Freas is full of visual jokes and puns. The book is rumored to have gone to number one, but it doesn’t seem to have been on any lists, probably out of pique on the part of the list makers.


The pub sign features a shepherd’s crook and a sturgeon. Art by Frank Kelly Freas

New and old

I think we’re starting to see some of the influence of new editor Ejler Jakobsson. Editor Emeritus Fred Pohl doesn’t seem have ever had anything nice to say about the New Wave, while there is at least one story in this month’s IF with a nod in that direction. There’s a new printer, with a crisper typeface (though it seems better suited to a news magazine than fiction). No one’s mixed up their e’s and o’s, but instead of lines being printed out of order, some lines are just missing. Hopefully, that will be corrected in future issues.

Supposedly for Seeds of Gonyl. If so, it’s from later in the novel. Art by Gaughan

The Mind Bomb, by Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert appears to have tried to write a Philip K. Dick story. There’s a computer that keeps changing the world in an attempt to carry out its function, an unhappy marriage, and an old man who gets a glimpse of why the world he lives in is the way it is.

Art uncredited, maybe by Gaughan

Unfortunately, none of it works. The lines of reality aren’t blurred; people know the computer is changing things, just not why. And the marriage isn’t as unrelievedly grim as in a Dick story (thank goodness). We’re left with none of the good things that either author brings, and the flaws of both.

Two stars.

By Right of Succession, by Barry Malzberg

A man named Carson shoots the occupant of a motorcade. As he leaves the building he fired from, he’s met by a policeman who escorts him to his next destination on a strict timetable. Eventually, all is explained. Sort of.

Is that Nixon? Art uncredited

Here’s our New Wave—or New Wave-ish—story. It’s fine for what it is, but I don’t quite see the connection between the events and the explanation.

Three stars.

None But I, by Piers Anthony

When last we saw him, interstellar dentist Dr. Dillingham had been accepted as an instructor at the galaxy’s top dental school. Now he’s off to cure the oral ills of a long-buried robot that has vowed to kill the person that frees it from 10,000 years of imprisonment.

Dr. Dillingham meets his patient. Art by Gaughan

Anthony is developing a reputation at the Journey, and not a good one. That’s largely down to the way he writes women. Fortunately, none of that is on display here, possibly because the only female character is a highly efficient secretary who looks like a giant spider. We’re left with an inoffensive and mildly entertaining story, whose only flaw is that it specifically makes note of the old tale it is clearly modeled on of a genie with a similar vow.

Three stars.

Survival, by Steven Guy Oliver

A day in the life of an old man living in the irradiated ruins of a city.

Ignore the blurb. These aren’t the last people on Earth. Art by Gaughan

This month’s new author offers us a grim tale of life after World War Three. It’s very well written, but also very depressing, what I believe kids these days call “a real downer.” I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing more from Oliver. But did I mention that the story is grim?

Three grim stars.

Down on the Farm, by W. Macfarlane

Three agricultural salespeople were brought from Earth to a distant planet. Now their contract is up, and the local autocrat who hired them struggles to find a way to pay what they’re due. Unbeknownst to him, they have ulterior motives.

Erasmus Ballod is having a bad day. Art by Gaughan

A bit old-fashioned, but otherwise an enjoyable enough story. Ask me what it was about a month from now, and I won’t be able to tell you, but it didn’t waste my time. For some reason, Macfarlane’s name was left off the first page; fortunately he was credited in the table of contents.

Three stars.

The Story of Our Earth: 2. The First Traces of Life, by Will Ley

The second part of Willy Ley’s sadly incomplete final book looks at the latest theories as to how life began. He discusses the idea of the “primordial ooze” and how and why it has fallen out of favor. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of continental drift.

While still very good, this chapter didn’t engage me quite as much as the previous did. I can’t say if that’s down to my interest in the subject matter or the quality of Ley’s treatment of it.

A very high three stars.

The Seeds of Gonyl (Part 1 of 3), by Keith Laumer

Jeff Mallory wakes up to discover that three months are missing, the house shows little sign of cleaning and maintenance, and his wife and two younger children are frightened and worn down. Worst of all, no one remembers his oldest daughter, and her room doesn’t even exist. He soon learns that the town has been taken over by things that are barely human, which force everyone to work on a mysterious project.

Remembering that his daughter was planning to stay with a friend who lives well outside of town, Jeff makes his escape. At the friend’s house, he finds only the friend and several unpleasant occupiers, who tell him that the United States has fallen to Russian forces and that his town is a bombed-out, plague-ridden ruin.

He and Sally, his daughter’s friend, move on and are arrested by Russian military. But the Russians are working together with Americans led by a Colonel Strang, who tells him that the Russians were called in to fight the real occupiers, the Chinese. As the installment ends, Jeff finds himself drafted into Strang’s army. To be continued.

Tonight, the role of Colonel Strang will be played by Ronald Reagan. Art by Gaughan

So far, so Laumer. He may be influenced by some of his work on those books he wrote based on The Invaders, what with people not believing in the invading aliens. Honestly, the main thing that stands out to me in this part is the way young Sally abruptly and quickly throws herself at our hero. Jeff put up at least a token resistance so far, though there is a vague paragraph that suggests things could be otherwise. It plays uncomfortably.

Three stars so far, if you like this sort of Laumer story.

To the Last Rite!, by Perry Chapdelaine

One-Girk-Two is undergoing a field test to see if he will be promoted to One-Girk-One. If he passes, he will become the thinking portion of a composite creature called a Unit.

Our hero. Art by Gaughan

This is probably the Chapdelaine story I’ve enjoyed the most. Unfortunately, like all of Chapdelaine’s work, it’s too long. On the other hand, it didn’t go where I thought it was going. Best of all, it has nothing to do with Spork.

Three stars.

Machines That Teach, by Frederik Pohl

Fred took a trip to Tennessee A. & I. In Nashville, where Perry Chapdelaine is a professor of mathematics and is running a lab researching computer aided instruction. There, through a computer in the lab, a computer at Stanford in California administered a test to measure competence in mathematics. Neat stuff, even if the headline is misleading. Maybe even more interesting is the simple fact that he was able to use a computer in Tennessee to interact with another computer a couple thousand miles away

Three stars.

Summing up

We’re starting to see some of the new editor’s influence, though things aren’t really that different. I’m wondering if Jakobsson is going to continue the IF first program, running a story from a new author every month. The issues he’s been in charge of have had such a story, but he hasn’t called attention to it the way Fred did.

The other thing that stands out to me is that the interior art is all uncredited. Where I’ve indicated it’s by Gaughan, it’s because his signature is visible either on the piece reproduced here or a different piece for the same story. I’m not too keen on all the art coming from just one artist (although if the alternative is “art” by Dan Adkins…). More importantly, they give out Hugos for art. If we don’t know who did it, how do we know who to nominate and vote for?

Tiptree is the only name that means anything to me. A bit of a coin flip as an author, but definitely improving with every story.




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[August 31, 1969] Over (and under) the Moon (September 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Being #2, they try…harder?

Last October, just after Apollo 7 went up, it looked as if the Soviets still had a chance at beating us to the Moon.  Their Zond 5, really a noseless Soyuz, had been sent around the Moon two months ahead of our Apollo 8 circumlunar flight.  Just a month later, the similar Zond 6 took off on November 16 and zoomed around the Moon before not just landing, but making a pinpoint landing in the Kazakh S.S.R. (near its launch site) with the aid of little wings.  Apparently, the prior Zond 5's splashing down in the Indian Ocean was not according to plan.

Shortly after the flight, the Soviets dropped the bombshell that Zond 6 could have been manned—and the next one might well be.

Well, as we all know, the Communists didn't beat us around the Moon.  Moreover, they didn't beat us to the Moon, either.  Remember all that talk about Luna 15 during the flight of Apollo 11?  That was the probe launched just before Columbia and Eagle, rumored to be a sample-return mission.  Well, it crashed into the aptly named Sea of Crises about 500 miles northeast of Eagle's landing site on July 21.  Had its mission been successful, the Soviets might have had bragging rights about getting the first batch of Moon rocks.

But, as the Ruskies found out after who knows how many unsuccessful Luna flights, only succeeding in 1966 with Luna 9, complicated maneuvers rarely work on the first time out.

That said, even with the clear American victory in the Moon race, the Soviets appear to still be going strong.  Earlier this month, Zond 7 sailed around the Earth's companion, landing on August 14.  Still no people onboard, but perhaps they worked out the communications troubles that reportedly plagued the last two Zond missions.

Whether these Zond flights presage an upcoming attempt with people onboard remains to be seen.  According to former NASA chief Jim Webb, the Soviets are also building a super rocket, which they will use to put cosmonauts on the Moon.  Put two and two together, and perhaps the early 70s will see the USSR catch up to and surpass the US.

Unless we get to Mars first…

Being #1, they've stopped trying

Analog has, for decades now, kept the title of the most-read science fiction magazine on the market.  On the other hand, editor John Campbell has been sitting on his laurels for a long time, producing an unexciting periodical for the past several years.  The latest issue of Analog only adds more fuel to the argument that perhaps it is time for the old don to step down and let someone vigorous take his place—at least to bring the magazine into the 1960s!


by Kelly Freas

Your Haploid Heart, by James Tiptree, Jr.


by Kelly Freas

A two-man team is sent from Earth to the planet of Esthaa.  Their mission: to determine of the humanoid inhabitants are, well, human.  The results may put to bed the two competing theories that explain the ubiquity of the human form in the galaxy: common evolution and random scattering, or independent, convergent evolution.

The Esthaans are a robust, beautiful people, but there is something somehow phony about them.  Meanwhile, they seem to be on the verge of completing a genocide against the primitive Flenns…who also appear to be a type of human.

What is the connection between the two races?  And why have the civilized Esthaans developed such an antipathy for the pathetic Flenns?  And is an earlier Terran expedition somehow the cause of all this?

There's some interesting biology wrapped up in this story (as suggested by the title), and since biology is not my specialty, I can't even begin to speculate how plausible it is.  But it's an interesting story, well-written, and easily the best I've read from newcomer Tiptree.

Four stars.

Starman, by W. Macfarlane


by Leo Summers

The assistant fifth mate on an interstellar tramp freighter decides to jump ship on a backwater world.  The natives have reverted to savagery after once having broadcast power and space travel.

Said starman soon learns that Stone Age living isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Luckily, there are a few relics of the old days left at his disposal.

This is a fun, if inconsequential, story.  The writing is breezy, fun, and tongue-in-cheek, though the casual slurs are somewhat offputting.  I'm also getting very tired of humans, humans everywhere instead of true E-Ts.

Three stars.

The Big Boosters of the U.S.S.R., by G. Harry Stine

Speaking of the Soviet super-booster—amateur rocketeer Stine conjectures as to the configuration and capability of the USSR's rocket stable.  Of course, given how secretive the Russians are, there's a lot of guesswork involved.

I appreciated it, but I have to wonder how accurate he is.  In particular, I'm not sure why he believes that Soyuz 1 was launched on a different rocket from the later Soyuz missions.  I've seen nothing to that effect.  Maybe he's talking about whatever is shooting up Zonds around the Moon.  Those are, after all, just stripped down Soyuzes.

Anyway, four stars.  We'll see how right he is in a decade or so…

Damper, by E. G. Von Wald


by Peter Skirka

A tyro hotshot joins the Weather Control Bureau and is dispatched to a small, Arabian country.  When a Soviet incursion threatens the peace, he shifts the focus of his rain-making efforts from irrigation to interdiction.

Aside from the casual and constant male chauvinism, I have a hard time buying weather control as an SFnal theme, particularly so thinly sketched out as it is in this story.  Orbital lasers (don't those count as space-based weapons?) pumped a lot of heat into the atmosphere to evaporate ocean water and create onshore winds—that heat doesn't go away.  What happens when the Earth warms up by several degrees thanks to all that extra heat?  Beyond that, the technique wouldn't work anyway: it takes more than wet air to make rain; you need some kind of condensate material.  That's why planes seed clouds with silver iodide so the water has something to coalesce around to make droplets.

Two stars.

Stimulus-Response, by Herbert Jacob Bernstein


by Kelly Freas

A trio of scientists are using electrodes and encephalograms to record brain patterns.  The goal is to train a dog to use specific thoughts to trigger its food dish.  In the process, the researchers accidentally teach the beagle how to telekinese.

Not only is this story a turgid bit of pseudo-engineering, but then it abandons science entirely to enter the region of Campbell's beloved psi.  Look, I can sort of enjoy psionics if I treat them like a kind of magic, but when they're mixed in with engineering to get a patina of respectability—and the story is deadly dull to boot—well, there's only one score for it.

One star.

In His Image, by Robert Chilson


by Leo Summers

A biologist synthesizes the first androids—they are human in all respects, save for their satyr-form lower halves.  Bred to be performers, they have been conscious just six months, but have the minds of college professors and the bodies of nubile goddesses.  When the Actors' Guild sues for an injunction against their use in the entertainment business citing unfair competition, a friendly reporter purchases one of them despite the fact that they are sentient and, for all intents and purposes, human. The goal is to force the courts to declare the androids fully human and thus exempt from measures against discrimination.

The question of whether or not androids are people has frequently been explored in science fiction, from the sublime Synth to the less than perfectly successful Trek episode Requiem for Methuselah.  Chilson's tale is… well, it's dull and kind of stupid.  The androids have no personality save for interchangeable sex kitten, the writing is uninspired, and the universe implausible.  It's not even clear what point Chilson is trying to make, so muddied are all the story's elements.  In the end, the plot of the story, such as it is, seems only to exist so we can have a trio of jiggly goat girls mincing around.

One star.

The Visitors, by Jack Wodhams


by Kelly Freas

Terrans land on the first inhabitable world ever found and make first contact with the natives.  Turns out "primitive" doesn't mean "defenseless."

This would be a two-star story, inoffensive but not noteworthy, except for the sheer number of words Wodhams wastes getting to his point.  Twenty pages that could easily have been condensed to, I dunno, five.

One star.

Crashlanding

Well, like the Soviets, Analog is churning issues out that look like winners, but really are just unimpressive retreads.  This one clocks in at 2.4, which is higher than Galaxy (2.2), but lower than Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.7), Visions of Tomorrow (2.8), Amazing (2.9). If (3.0), New Worlds (3.3).

Only one new piece of fiction was written by a woman, and if you took all the decent stuff published this month, you'd only be able to fill two digests—and that's with the extra paperback anthology this month.  Whither short SF?  Whither the Soviet space program?

I guess we'll see what happens next month…




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[July 31, 1969] Stranger than fiction (August 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Dip in Road

A week has gone by since Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28 year-old worker on Robert F. Kennedy's campaign, lost her life.  Of course you've read the news.  She went to Martha's Vineyard for a reunion with other campaign workers, where she met the last surviving Kennedy brother, Teddy.  According to the Senator, Mary Jo was a bit tipsy, so he offered to drive her home.  His car ended up off a bridge.  He survived; she did not.

A tragedy.  Moreover, it is a far from clear-cut strategy.  Kennedy says he tried to save Kopechne, but that he was too exhausted to succeed—but he failed to call the police, who might have been able to help.  Indeed, he called his lawyer instead.  Last weekend, the Senator pled guilty to leaving the scene of the crime.

It's also unclear just what Kennedy and Kopechne were doing on the deserted dirt road that led to the scene of the accident.  It wasn't on the way home.  Was something clandestine in the works?  Was Teddy also sozzled?

There's a lot of talk about what this incident means for Kennedy's career, how he's not going to be able to run for President in '72, etc.  Perhaps this was all an innocent accident.  Maybe the only lesson we should get from all of this is that it's not smart to drive under the influence.

All we know at this time is that there as many questions as answers, as well as inconsistencies in the Senator's testimony.  I hope, for the Kopechne family's sake, if nothing else, that more is learned in the days to come.

In any event, once again, a Kennedy career has come to a sudden, unexpected halt.

Steady as she goes

If the political news is chaotic, such cannot be said for the latest issue of Analog, mostly composed of the plodding "problem" stories the magazine is known for.  However, amidst the tired tales is one standout that is definitely worth your time.


by Kelly Freas

The Teacher, by Colin Kapp


by N. Blakely

On a distant world, evolution is locked in the Jurassic—reptiles rule the globe.  Except these deadly dinosaurs are near intelligence, and quickly crowding out the race of sentient humanoids that shares the planet.  Enter "The Gaffer", a spaceman from Earth who walks the fine line between providing the skills and technology to defeat the reptiles, and avoiding becoming deified, unduly influencing the native culture.

Sounds a bit Star Trek, doesn't it?

The story is competently written, though Edgar Rice Burroughs was far better at pitting technological man vs. primeval monster.  I appreciated the acknowledgment that cultural and technical exchange is a dicey subject.  I'm not sure with some of the assumptions, particularly that any group exposed to Terran culture is doomed to adopt its worst qualities.

Anyway, three stars.

The Timesweepers, by Keith Laumer


by Vincent Di Fate

This one starts out as the tale of a time traveler whose job is to repair the past from the meddlings of earlier time travelers… and it sort of ends that way, too!  But in-between, it's a beautiful onion of adventure, moving at breakneck speed as the scope of the universe of time-lines expands into infinity.  It is both gripping adventure as well as the apotheosis of time travel stories, and Laumer manages it all in just thirty pages.  At first, I thought things were moving a bit quickly, but once I got to the end, I realized they'd taken just the time they needed.

I've often observed that there is "funny" Laumer and there is "serious" Laumer, and that the latter is the more worthy (though the ex-USAF officer makes a pretty good living on his endless parade of Retief stories, so what do I know?) The Timesweepers is serious Laumer, and it's seriously good.  It'd make a phenomenal movie someday.

Five stars.

Minds and Molecules, by Carl A. Larson

Somewhere in this turgid mass of verbosity are some interesting concepts: injectable "memory" RNA that teaches, or at least aids memory.  Drugs that stimulate enzymes to abet sanity and tranquility.

But man, this is just too hard to read to be a useful science article.

Two stars.

Chemistry … AD 1819, by William Henry, M.D., F.R.S.

Excerpts from a 150 year old chemical tome, illustrating how the useless powders of today might be the miracles of tomorrow.  And also a cautionary tale against sampling your own wares… lead is a poor flavor-additive!

Three stars.

Pressure, by Harry Harrison


by Peter Skirka

Three men descend in a bathyscape not to the bottom of the ocean, but to the surface of Saturn.  Their mission: to install a matter transmitter in the seething, cryogenic sea that comprises the sixth planet's lower atmosphere for scientific study.  Getting there's not the problem—it's getting back!

A decent technical tale with a lesson on morality and the role of the test pilot at the end.  Definitely a dash-off for cash rather than one of Harrison's more subtle, worthy tales.  Interestingly, Harry's time in England betrays itself; the name he chose for the base orbiting Saturn is the prosaic "Saturn One".

Three stars.

All Fall Down, by John T. Phillifent


by Vincent Di Fate

An interstellar transport suffers a malfunction and must make planetfall to effect repairs.  The problem: they make landing amidst the only civilized place on the planet, which proves to be an autocracy that immediately impounds the ship and enslaves the crew.  Worse yet, they're the second bunch from Terra to get this treatment; the first is a team of anthropologists who showed up a year before.

But Lennox, a bright young man with a computer-augmented brain, knows how to sell the local autocrat on a scheme that looks promising, but will ultimately be his undoing, affording the Terrans a chance to escape.

Phillifent, who also writes as John Rackham, is rarely brilliant, and he isn't here.  Once again, we have entirely human aliens.  I don't mind so much when Mack Reynolds uses his interstellar federation as a setting for interesting geopolitical stories—in that case, the planets are all human colonies with latitude to develop any societies they like.  But when the aliens are just people, the whole thing seems contrived.

There is also never an explanation for why the stranded ship had to interact with the planetary civilization at all, which was restricted to a small peninsula.  The indigenes could not help with repairs, so why not park in the woods and leave the natives alone?

But most of all, the story just isn't particularly interesting.

Two stars.

Androtomy and the Scion, by Jack Wodhams


by Vincent Di Fate

A spy is subject to a new torture, one that leaves his body completely at the mercy of his captors.  It involves the insertion and cultivation of…something…inside the spy's brain.

Now that they have complete control over him through the judicious incitement of pain, they expect him to become the perfect double-agent.  But the technique they use has a blind spot—and some hidden advantages.

Tolerable, though not particularly plausible, adventure.  Three stars.

Womb to Tomb, by Joseph Wesley


by Leo Summers

In the far future, human combatants are shielded from the shock of high G space maneuvers by being encased within and filled with something akin to amniotic fluid.  Since liquid is not compressible, they suffer no ill physical effects (once the requisite hookups are installed).  The only problem—the soldiers sent out to fight revert to infancy, so seductive is the prospect of being returned to even a virtual womb.

This story is a reasonably placed mystery, and the proposed technology is pretty neat.  It's just the stupid Twilight Zoney ending that kills it.  Someone will probably nick the idea for their own piece, just dumping the dopey conclusion.

Three stars (because the innovation is nifty, even if the end is dumb).

Starved for choice

If not for the Laumer, this would be a thoroughly disposable issue.  But that Laumer…

All told, we end up just north of three stars, putting us akin with Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.1) and New Worlds (3), ahead of Galaxy (2.8) and Venture (2.8), and behind New Writings 15 (4.3) and Fantastic (3.4)

On the plus side, the four and five star works would fill nearly three digests.  This is, however, largely due to the superlative New Writings and the serial that takes up most of Fantastic, so if you're looking for bang for your buck, those are the places to go.

Oh—the Hugo nominees have been announced.  I can't say I much fancy the choices, but there's at least one in each category that isn't too bad.  We'll, of course, have the results after Labor Day.

Until then… excelsior!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 30, 1969] Anywhere but here (July 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Scenes from abroad

And so, our longest Japan trip to date has wrapped up.  We're still developing the many rolls of film we took, but here are some highlights from our vacation that included the cities Fukuoka, Amagi, Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo:


Nanami and The Young Traveler zoom down a slide in an eastern suburb of Nagoya


Nanami and her husband perform at a Nagoya jazz club


This is Nanami's baby, Wataru, and her mother-in-law, Haruko!


Lorelei poses in front of Ultraman, one of Japan's newest superheros


Lorelei has become smitten with kimono and yukata.  We had to buy a new suitcase to fit them all (and the model trains Elijah bought)

The trouble back home

On the doorstep to my house was a big pile of mail that my neighbor has kept for me.  In addition to sundry bills, the latest FAPA packet, and a handful of independent 'zines (including the latest from the James Doohan International Fan Club), there was the latest issue of Analog.  Interest piqued by the lovely (as always) Freas cover, I tore into the mag before unpacking.  Sadly, it was all downhill from there…


by Kelly Freas

… And Comfort to the Enemy, by Stanley Schmidt

When an exploration ship lands on a seemingly uninhabited planet, its rapacious, by-the-book commander rubs his hands with glee at the prospect of colonizing plunder.  But it turns out there are intelligent natives—it's just that their "technology" is actually the fine control of all of their fellow creatures creating a sort of artificial Deathworld.  When the invaders refuse to leave, they take a hostage, who they use as a communications go-between.  And then they unleash a deadly plague which ravages first the explorer ship and then their entire race.  How the colonizers get out of the predicament is somewhat clever.


by Kelly Freas

This one starts a bit slowly, and the explorers are all too human, even though they're supposed to be aliens.  However, once it gets moving, it's pretty good, and you can sympathize with both the planet dwellers and the decimated invaders.

Three stars.

The Great Intellect Boom, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

A pharmaceutical company stumbles upon a brain-booster pill.  Unfortunately, it promotes eggheaded learning, but not application of this learning.  As a result, the nation's economy stumbles as more and more citizens would rather discuss than do.

This is a pretty thinly veiled attack on academia and the intelligentsia, which surely must have tickled editor Campbell's reactionary heart.

One star.

The Mind-Changer, by Verge Foray


by Kelly Freas

Boy this one was a disappointment.  We last saw Verge Foray in a nice little piece called Ingenuity, which featured a post-atomic world where humanity was divided into psionically adept but primitive and regressing "Novos" and scientific, but conservative, "Olsaperns."  Starn was the hero of that story—a Novo with a rare gift of insight and intuition who managed to get in good with the technical Olsaperns.

This sequel story involves Starn's attempts to develop technology that will augment psionic powers such that they can rival or exceed the technology of the Olsaperns.  Fine and well, but really, this is just one of Campbell's "scientific" articles on psionics with a fictional coating.  I already find psi to be a pseudoscientific bore, but to try to add a veneer of respectability to it by invoking scientific trappings is distasteful in the extreme.

It's also a really boring tale.  One star.

The Choice, by Keith Laumer


by Kelly Freas

A three-astronaut explorer team from Earth is abducted by mysterious aliens who offer each of them a choice of fates—all of them some form of execution.  The two military members of the crew meet their fate boldly; the third is a far out civilian cat who doesn't cotton to his own extinction.  As a result, the story has a happy ending.

There is serious Laumer and there is funny Laumer.  Funny Laumer is usually the more trivial, and this is trivial funny Laumer.

Two stars.

The Man from R.O.B.O.T., by Harry Harrison


by Peter Skirka

A couple of years back, Harrison brought out the droll The Man from P.I.G., about a secret agent who goes undercover as a pig farmer.  The twist was that the pigs weren't his livestock but his accomplices.  In a similar vein, here we have the story of an agent who goes undercover as a robot salesman, but the robots are his accomplices.  Of course, given that the robots are intelligent, and one of them is even designed to look like the agent, one wonders why there needs to be human involvement at all in this case.

Anyway, the agent is dispatched to a rancher planet whose women folk all seem to be locked up, and whose men folk are all paranoid violence freaks.  Is it genetic?  Or is it in the cattle?

I always get "funny" Harrison (frex "The Stainless Steel Rat") and "funny" Laumer (e.g. "Retief") mixed up.  And here they're back to back!  Now I'll never disentangle them.

Two stars.

The Empty Balloon, by Jack Wodhams


by Peter Skirka

Last up, a throwaway story about a diplomat who thwarts a telepathic interrogation machine.  There's no real explanation as to how he does it, really, and most of the story exists to set up the lame ending.

Two stars.

Wow.  What a wretched month for magazine fiction!  With the exception of the atypically superlative New Worlds (3.6 stars), everything else was mediocre at best.  IF managed to break the three star barrier, but just barely (3.1), same as Fantasy and Science Fiction.  Amazing scored 2.6—which is a good month for that mag, while Galaxy got the same score, which constituted a bad month. 

Indeed, all of the better-than-average fiction would fill just one decently sized digest.  Incidentally, we had exactly one (1) short story produced by a woman, and the one woman-penned nonfiction this month was a biography…of a man.

It just goes to show that all the good stuff seems to be happening overseas these days.  I hope the next month of mags reinforces my decision to come home!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial, TV

[April 30, 1969] Eulogies (May 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Goodnight, Percy

If you're anything like me, Peyton Place is something that happened to other people.  After all, last season, the first primetime soap opera was scheduled opposite Laugh In, and before that, the 9:30 PM slot in the midst of ABC's insipid Tuesday-night line-up.

But now I feel a little bad that the groundbreaking show is being taken off the air.  Based on the 1956 book of the same name by Grace Metalious, the Massachusetts-set serial was salacious for the time, involving as it did a lot of S-E-X, divorce, blackmail, murder, and more.  Jack Paar called it "Television's first situation orgy."  Johnny Carson quipped that it was "the first TV series delivered in a plain wrapper."


Stars Diana Hyland (standing), Pat Morrow (in can), and Tippy Walker

At one point a few years ago, some 60 million folks tuned in each week for the fun.  But nowadays, when the local theater is going blue/stag, and Candy is a mainstream hit ("Is Candy faithful?  Only to the book!"), Peyton Place all seems a bit staid.  They tried to mix things up by bringing in more teen storylines and also integrating the cast by hiring Percy Rodrigues (Star Trek's Commodore Stone) as the local doctor.


with Ryan O'Neal

Still, you can't beat Dick and Dan, and the series plummetted in the ratings (really—what were they thinking, scheduling it across from Rowan and Martin?) After 514 episodes, the show is going off the air.  Which, of course, just means we'll see it endlessly in morning reruns opposite the regular soaps—and you can bet we'll get a revival sometime in the future.  In the meantime…


"Goodnight, Lucy.  Goodnight, Marshall Dillon.  And goodnight to all you kooks on Peyton Place."

Goodnight, Johnny


by Kelly Freas

ABC at least knew when to pull the plug on its sinking stone.  Analog editor John Campbell, while he did some brilliant work in the '30s and '40s, seems content to stuff his magazine with the dullest dreck that science fiction has to offer.  The latest issue is Exhibit 1 for the prosecution:

Dragon's Teeth, by M. R. Anver


by Kelly Freas

A peace conference on a neutral asteroid promises to end a brutal war between humanity and the alien Cadosians.  But a faction of extraterrestrials has plans to distrupt the summit by introducing a deadly virus.  The question is how they'll smuggle it in…or in whom?

This is a competently put together adventure/mystery—no more, and no less.  As such, it's a fine first effort from Mr. Anver, but nothing to write home about.

Three stars.

The Chemistry of a Coral Reef, by Theodore L. Thomas

Science writer and fictioneer Ted Thomas offers up a long piece on coral reefs and how they're made.  For an article on stuff that takes place in our oceans, it's awfully dry.  Well, at least I know now what they're made of: calcium carbonate.  Good for all those fish with indigestion, I guess.

Two stars.

Operation M. I., by R. Hamblen


by Leo Summers

Three weeks of hyperspace are crushingly dull, and the intergalactic service is worried about the morale of their solo couriers, who have to endure the period without diversion.  Apparently, books and booze aren't enough.

So the ship's computer on the latest FTL ship is programmed to act like a nagging mother-in-law so each pilot is more irritated than bored.

Terrible piece.  One star.

Persistence, by Joseph P. Martino


by Kelly Freas

This is a sequel to the story Secret Weapon.  The Terrans have now got a leg up on their war with the Arcani, now destroying 3-4x as many vessels as they are losing.  However, this proportion is still below what the Big Brains in military intelligence expected.  Our hero, Commander William Marshall, is certain that the aliens have developed Faster Than Light ("C+") communications and are using them to thwart our patrols.

The story is devoted to the reverse engineering of a captured Arcani corvette, tediously going through each electronic gizmo to see how it is wired and what it is wired to.  Eventually, the existence (or lack) of a C+ radio will be proven.

Once again, the story is dull as dirt, and worse, poorly edited.  There's an art to writing successive paragraphs using different words.  Martino will repeat set phrases several times in a row, the sign of an unfiltered brain-to-typewriter stream of consciousness.

Also, women of the future still remain in the 1950's, socially.

Two stars.

The Five Way Secret Agent (Part 2 of 2), by Mack Reynolds


by Kelly Freas

As we saw last month, Rex Bader, last of the private dicks in the People's Capitalism of America's late 20th Century, had been tapped by no fewer than five organizations to spy on each other as Bader went off to Eastern Europe and make contacts.  This passage explains it all:

He stared at the screen in disbelief.

This whole thing was developing into a farce. Roget wanted him to make an ultra-hush-hush trip into the Soviet Complex to contact his equal numbers with the eventual aim of creating a world government based on the international corporations.

Sophia Anastasis, of International Diversified industries, thought such a world government would upset the status quo to the detriment of what was once called the Mafia, and wanted all details.

John Coolidge and his group [the successor to the FBI] were afraid such changes would upset the governmental bureaucracy and the military machine and wanted to prevent it from happening. 

Colonel Simonov felt the same from the Soviet viewpoint, and wanted to maintain the status quo.

Dave Zimmerman was all in favor of world government but wanted the Meritocracy which would run it to be elected from the bottom up in each corporation, rather than being appointed.

And every damned one of them thought that their part of the operation was a secret.

Once Bader gets to Czechslovakia and Romania, the book reads like typical Reynolds: historical parallels (none after 1969, of course), tourism (we learn about the national drinks of the Warsaw Pact), and mildly droll high jinks.  It seems that Bader's cover is blown wherever he goes, suggesting a traitor somewhere in the works among his five employers.

There could have been a good mystery here, but it's all thrown in too little, too late.  Moreover, it's clear that this two-part serial is really just the first half of a longer book.

As a result, the whole is lesser than the sum of its parts.  I give this segment three stars, and three stars for the book as a whole (so far).

Initial Contact, by Perry A. Chapdelaine


by Kelly Freas

The Eridanians are coming!  Responding from signals broadcast by Project Ozma, an alien ship has been dispatched from Epsilon Eridani.  After twelve years at near light speed, the vessel is about to arrive—and the press is filled with concerns of an impending alien takeover. 

It all stems from a mistranslation of their latest message, suggesting their intent is conquest rather than coexistence.  In the meantime, there is a lot of Keystone Copping as the head of the Ozma IX project tries to tamp down on the paranoia.


by Kelly Freas

The best part of the story is the "universal message" broadcast by the Eridanians, hatched up by author Chapdelaine.  He explains it in the story—see if you can figure it out yourself.

But in the end, the story is rather pointless and forgettable.  Two stars.

Goodnight May

Doing the math, I find that April (postmarked May on the magazines) was a dreadful month for short science fiction.  Not a single magazine topped 3 stars, and Analog came in at a dismal 2.3.  For posterity, the rest were New Worlds (2.7), Venture (2.7), Amazing (2), Galaxy (3), and IF (3), and Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.7)

Even more disheartening: you could take all the 4-star works (nothing hit 5 stars this month) and barely fill a Galaxy-sized thick digest.  Women wrote 20% of all the new pieces published in April, which sounds impressive until you realize that six of the works were short poems in New Worlds, all by Libby Houston.

I am already hearing rumblings about Galaxy and IF's editor Fred Pohl getting the heave-ho, and Amazing's editorial musical chairs is legendary.  ABC dumped Peyton Place—is it time for someone to cancel John Campbell?




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[April 4, 1969] Hey, Mack! (April 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Mars ho!

Well, this is exciting!  For the first time ever, two identical Mariner probes are on their way to an interstellar destination.  On March 27, Mariner 7 blasted off for Mars, joining its sister, Mariner 6, which was launched last month. 

black and white photograph of an Atlas-Agena taking off from Cape Canaveral

Normally, twin probes are launched for redundancy, and it's a good thing.  Venus-boundMariner 1 died when its booster exploded back in '62.  Mars-bound Mariner 3 never hatched from its egg (the shroud of its Atlas-Agena rocket) back in 1964.  Mariner 5, which went to Venus in 1967, was a solo mission (indeed, a spare Mariner of the 3/4 class).

But now we've got two Mariners winging their way to the Red Planet, which means we'll get twice the coverage and a redundant set of data, always a welcome occurrence for scientists!  We'll have more on them when they pass by Mars in July.

Mack ho!

cover illustration of two white-suited futuristic cops beating a red-suited man underneath a futuristic monorail
by Kelly Freas

Just as we have two Mariners dominating the head of this article, so we have science fictioneer Mack Reynolds dominating this latest issue of Analog science fiction.  Under his own name, and under his pseudonym "Guy McCord", more than half of this issue is a Reynolds contribution.  If you like the guy, you'll like the mag.  If not…

The Five Way Secret Agent (Part 1 of 2), by Mack Reynolds

black and white illustration of a suited man on a pedestal facing five sinister figures, one a futuristic cop with a whip, one holding a gun, one with both, a woman with a hoop, and a bald man with his hand on his hips
by Kelly Freas

We once again return to the Reynolds' late 20th Century, where America languishes under the stratified People's Capitalism.  This novel is also the second adventure of one of the last private detectives, Rex Bader (whose first job was just a couple of months ago.  As with that freshman outing, Bader is offered a job that seems too good to be true, and he refuses, but no one else buys that he did.

In this case, the job was offered by the head of one of the world's biggest corporations.  He wants Bader to go to cross the Iron Curtain to contact other corporation buffs so as to help take down the Meritocracy—the powers that be that have entrenched themselves in the highest levels of society.

The mob also contacts Bader, wanting him to be their double agent.  Then the Defense Department gets involved.  Finally, a group of latter-day Technocrats make their pitch.  Presumably, the "fifth way" will be Rex Bader's own.

This book is typical Reynolds: the setting has been well established over the years, all the way back to the Joe Mauser, Mercenary days.  There are historical dissertations woven in at every opportunity, mostly on early 20th Century political theory.  The writing is serviceable, somewhat wry—a more grounded Keith Laumer.

What makes this particular piece stand out are the new wrinkles Reynolds introduces.  First, this is the first time we've learned how elections work in this world: it's based on income—one vote for every dollar earned (investment income does not impart voting rights).  Thus, the masses on "Negative Income Tax" have no franchise.

Reynolds continues to invent plausible future technology, too.  My favorite is the pocket TV/phone/credit card/identity all citizens carry.  A handy device, but also vulnerable to surveillance—which is done by computers which listen for key words; if they hear any, they alert a government agent.

So on the one hand, as far as quality of writing and enjoyment is concerned, I'd give this piece three stars.  But I admire Reynolds for doing stuff few others do, so I'm actually awarding four.

Hey But No Presto, by Jack Wodhams

black and white illustration of a short, ruddy man entreating a young man looking askance with hands at his sides, an image of him seated, eyes closed, in the background
by Leo Summers

Folks are being snatched out of psionic teleportation booths as they try to go to Earth.  They get sent to this backwater planetary resort where they are charged outrageous rates to stay in mediocre lodgings.  They stay because the cost to go home is set even higher.  An interstellar cop is sent to investigate.

This one-note tale is so padded, it could replace a warehouse of pillows.  One star.

They're Trying to Tell Us Something (Part 2 of 2), by Thomas R. McDonough

photo from below of a hard-hatted worker atop a radio telescope grid

Last month, Tom McDonough talked about pulsars—those rapidly beeping star-type objects—and did his darndest to convince us that they are artificial beacons operated by Little Green Men (LGM).

This second part is more of the same, though he actually does mention other possibilities, including the most fashionable one that they are rotating neutron stars.  My problem with this segment is it is heavy on the layman's lingo and light on the showing of work.  It all feels a bit fluffy.  Also, he talks about how pulsars emit light bursts at twice the frequency as their radio bursts, and he makes it seem like that's mysterious.  If the pulsar is really a rotating neutron star, then it makes sense for any emissions to be linked.  Why we only get radio signals from one side, I don't understand off the top of my head, but I suspect anyone with a Bachelors in Physics could tell me.

Three stars.

Cultural Interference, by Walter L. Kleine

black and white illustration of a flying saucer careening toward a planet, with inserts of a mustached man looking at a naked woman helping a naked man out of the saucer on the surface, a man in a cowboy hat with a sheriff's star, and two lab-coated men looking at a giant, narrow monolith
by Leo Summers

A couple of scientists begin an experiment with broadcast power.  Coincidentally, a couple of extraterrestrial spaceships accidentally intercept and soak up the power, causing them to crash.  Chaos ensues.

Wireless power seems to be the rage these days, figuring prominently in Keith Laumer's serial, And Now They Wake.  This particular tale is overpadded and pointless.

Two stars.

Opportunist, by Guy McCord

black and white illustration of a seated, wizened man wearing a Native American outfit done in tartan, a rock hut in the background
by Kelly Freas

This is the third tale of Caledonia, a backwards planet probably in the same universe as his United Planets tales in which every world has its own uniquely evolved political and social structure.  Caledonians all hail from a single crashed colony ship, and their culture is a mix of Scots and indigenous American, based on the few books that survived planetfall (shades of Star Trek's "A Piece of the Action".

In this installment, Caledonia has been largely subjugated by mining concerns from Sidon, and the native Caledonians must resort to guerrila tactics.  John of the Hawks, Chief Raid Cacique of the Loch Confederation is captured by the Sidonians and offered a job in their civilian government.  After being told the virtues of civilization and capitalism, he decides to hang up his claidheamhor and war bonnet and sell out.

I din't like it.  Two stars.

Oh ho!

three women operate a room full of line printers somewhere in the Soviet Union

Well now, here is a case of science fiction definitely being less compelling than science.  With the exception of the serial, this was a drab ish, barely scoring 2.7.  This puts Analog under Fantasy and Science Fiction (3), IF (3.1), Galaxy (3.5), and New Worlds (3.6).  Campbell's mag only beat out the usual losers: Fantastic (2.5), Famous #8 (1.8), and Famous #9 (2).

From eight mags, you could barely fill two big ones with the good stories this month, although part of the reason for that is Famous being so awful.  Women produced just 7% of the new fiction stories this month. 

I guess the moral is: read your newspapers and your Pohl (and UK) mags first.  Pick up Analog only if you've finished the rest.  Or if you really like Mack Reynolds…




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[March 1, 1969] Beyond this Horizon (March 1969 Analog and Mariner 6)

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photo of the face of a long haired man with glasses
by Gideon Marcus

On to Mars!

black and white photo of Mariner 6, a round probe with four rectangular solar panels jutting from it at right angles

Four years ago (has it been that long?) Mariner 4 became the first space probe to sail by Mars.  This event instantly destroyed a thousand dreams.  The 21 grainy, black and white pictures returned by the spacecraft's TV cameras showed a cratered, lunar-type surface.  The Martian atmosphere was found to be less than 1% as dense at the surface as that of Earth.  Gone was the romantic Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Leigh Brackett.

These findings should not have come as such a surprise—the abundance of craters and the thin atmosphere had already been suspected before Mariner 4 ever got there.  But the photographic evidence was the final nail in the coffin.  Mars is dead.

Or is it?

Mariner 4 was a rather limited spacecraft.  We only got 21 pictures, after all.  And while 7 millibars may not seem like much, that's a veritable atmospheric blanket compared to the Moon or Mercury.  We need more data.

This is why a second generation of spacecraft, Mariners 6 and 7, are being sent to Mars.  These are heavier spacecraft with more sophisticated equipment: infrared and ultraviolet radiometers (measuring Martian energy output in those wavelengths), a better TV camera, and the ability to reprogram the spacecraft in flight, as needed.

color photo of an Atlas Centaur rocket taking off from a red launch complex at night

Mariner 6 took off last week on the 24th, and Mariner 7 will blast off March 21st.  We've yet to have both members of a Mariner pair make it to its destination (Mariner 1 and Mariner 3 both had mishaps), but hope springs eternal.  Come this summer, perhaps around the same time a man sets foot on the Moon, we will unveil more mysteries of the fourth planet.

illustration of a blue-furred humanoid, stripped to the waist, looking at a viewscreen with crocodile-head humanoids waving primitive weapons furiously
by Kelly Freas

On to the stars!

Trap, by Christopher Anvil

line drawing of crocodile-headed alien holding a mouse trap clamped around the tale of a furry humanoid stripped to the waist
by Kelly Freas

I have a private joke that every Chris Anvil story for Analog begins (Mad Lib style):

[Military Rank] [WASPy male name] of [military organization] [verbed] down the [corridor/hall/base] lightly touching his [weapon] clipped to his [clippable article of clothing].

"Trap" did nothing but reinforce this cliché, and I hunkered down for a slog of a novella.

Instead, I got a reasonably interesting, technical tale about peaceably dealing with implacable aliens, who possess an unbeatable weapon.  In this case, the planet is a swampy wasteland, the aliens have the ability to teleport anywhere they've been before, and the humans and Centrans (in an alliance since the 1956 story, "Paradise Planet") must find a way to make peace before the aliens find a way to teleport onto every ship and planet in both empires.

It starts a bit slow, but I found myself compelled.  Certainly better than the fare Anvil usually offers us in Analog.  Three stars.

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, by R. E. Allen

How does Mannie supply all the movies and music producers with the top talent?  Why, by dowsing over each of the actor's/musician's headshots with a divining rod, of course!

Not much of a story.  Not much science fiction.  Two stars.

They're Trying to Tell Us Something (part 1 of 2), by Thomas R. McDonough

diagram of four pulsar graphs with amplitude of signal versus time

This month's science article is on those enigmatic, recently discovered interstellar radio beacons known as pulsars.  Beeping on the radio dial on the average of once a second (some are faster, some are slower), they are significant for their unwaveringly precise timing and for their enormous power output—some one billion times the power output of all of Earth's civilizations!

There is a lot of interesting information in this article, but what annoys me is that McDonough seems convinced that pulsars are the work of "Little Green Men" (LGM), and presents his article accordingly.  Nowhere in the piece is the general accepted wisdom that the regularity of the signals and the fact that they seem to carry no information (not to mention their tremendous power) indicates that pulsars are rapidly rotating stars, and likely rapidly rotating, collapsed dead stars called "neutron stars".

This isn't esoteric knowledge I gleaned from The Astrophysical Journal—it's from the Sunday Supplement of Escondido's rag of a paper, The Times-Advocate.  So, its exclusion from McDonough's piece must be conscious, and that makes his arguments suspect.  Perhaps he'll discuss neutron stars in the next piece, but they really should have been front and center.

Three stars.

Minitalent, by Tak Hallus

line drawing of a courtroom setting with an older judge with glasses, a steno clerk woman behind him, and a gallery of seal-like aliens, looking at a worksuited human with a gallery of humans behind him
by Leo Summers

Alice Culligan, third mate and computer officer on the space ship Iphigenia, witnessed a crime: gun runners had smuggled cruel "nervers" to a race of aborigines.  They were caught, but the company they're working for looks to get away scott free.  They will do anything to ensure that verdict—including silencing Miss Culligan forever.

But Alice has an ace up her sleeve: a minor talent for telekinetics.  And in a computerized world, sometimes a little push is all that's needed…

Similarly premised as Larry Niven's sublime "The Organleggers", this tale (Tak Hallus' first) is not as deftly told.  That said, it is pretty good, and I liked the heroine very much.  It's clearly in the vein of, say, James H. Schmitz, so if you like him, you'll like this.

By the way, Tak Hallus is simply Arabic for "pseudonym", so who knows?  Maybe it really is Schmitz!

Four stars.

From Fanaticism, or for Reward, by Harry Harrison

line drawing of a man with a beam rifle shooting at a robot that looks like a suit of armor
by Leo Summers

An assassin named Jagen performs a job and, with the help of a teleportation system, escapes The Great Despot's justice.  But is there any ultimate evasion the efficient robot machines of the Despot's police force?

The well-written piece is really a setup for the philosophical question posed at the end.  The answer is surprising for such a libertarian mag as editor Campbell's.

Five stars.

Wolfling (Part 3 of 3), by Gordon R. Dickson

line drawing of two stylized men in tunics dueling with glowing rods, a woman crouched over a body in the background
by Kelly Freas

And now, the conclusion of Wolfling.  By Gordy Dickson.

Jim Weil, archaeologist and Ace of All Trades (the term "bannou" (万能) is even more appropriate), had infiltrated the High-Born empire he was sent to detachedly examine, becoming a general in its armies.  Having discovered a plot to destroy the imperial warrior race of Starkiens, Jim quickly returned to the throne world to thwart a plot on the Emperor, himself.  He is successful in defeating the pretender, the Emperor's cousin, but now he must return to Earth and face treason charges for possibly incurring the imperial wrath on humanity.

In a dramatic courtroom scene, Jim explains his actions, how they saved the Earth, and the true origin of humanity vis. a vis. the High-Born.  Did we come from them, or did they come from us?

The answer is rather disappointing, more along the lines of something I'd expect written in the pulp era than modern times.  In addition, all of the energy-saber dueling seemed unnecessary; when everyone can teleport at whim, how do you keep your foe in the same room long enough to dispatch him?  Or keep your foe from materializing behind you?

But most of all, I had expected a statement against eugenics, but instead got something of a defense of it.  If not for the skilled writing, I might rate it more poorly.

Three stars for the serial as a whole.

On to the numbers!

black and white photo of a plump Black woman leaning over an eighth-grade white girl seated at a computer, a eight-grade black boy behind her, mathematical equations on the blackboard behind them all

You know, it's been quite a month!  With Analog clocking in at 3.4 stars, it's near the top of the heap rather than taking its usual place in the middle.  Ahead of it were Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.4) and IF (3.5).  The good news is, the spread was pretty narrow: Galaxy scored 3.3, New Worlds 3.2, New Writings 14 3.  Only Amazing scored below the three-line (2.7), and it was still better than usual.

In other vital statistics, women produced 11% of the new fictional content.  The superior stuff this month would fill three full-sized magazines.  Given that there were seven published this month, that's a good ratio.

Stay tuned for the end of next month when we find out how April's magazines do…and how Mariner 7 flies!




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