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[February 16, 1970] Unassailable Fortresses? A Full-Five pair of issues: (Vision of Tomorrow #6)

February 16, 2025 Kris Vyas-Myall 1 Comment

By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

We are only in the second month of the new decade, but one thing seems to be clear. Women are no longer willing to be silent.

In Leeds, hundreds of women textile workers have walked out on unofficial strike. They are opposing the pay deal struck between their union and employer, claiming it is unfair that women will be getting smaller pay increases than their male co-workers.

At the other end of the social scale, the hallowed halls of Oxford is set to host the “Women’s Weekend”. Tired of being ignored and shouted down by men at other meetings, this will be an all-women conference to discuss women’s history and their current position in the world.

In a more literal sense, a woman’s voice can now be heard on British Pop Radio. After hiring an all-male team from Pirate Radio and Radio Luxembourg to start Radio 1, the BBC have finally branched out and employed their first woman DJ. Annie Nightingale is only thirty but has already had an impressive career, including working as a journalist, presenting numerous music television programmes, having a modelling career and running her own fashion boutique.

Whether this will lead to changes in British science fiction publishing remains to be seen. The Current Issue of Vision of Tomorrow’s only female representation is in its review columnists. Maybe we need to organize our own flying pickets?

However, maybe some of this atmosphere is affecting our writers, as all these stories are, in one way or another, about people trying to break out of their social circumstances. So, let’s walk through the stench of cigar smoke in this gentleman’s club and check out the contents:

Vision of Tomorrow #6

Cover Art by David A. Hardy

Whither SF? by Rev. John Clay

I would like to thank Philip Harbottle for realizing that he has run out of things to say and inviting in guest writers to open the magazine. Take note American publishers!

I was quite taken with this first installment, with the Reverend John Clay discussing the theological underpinnings of recent SF, q.v. Sheckley & Leiber, and going on to talk about how imagination is undervalued in our modern society.

Full-Five by E.C. Tubb

Illustrated by Eddie Jones

In the 21st Century there exists an incredibly powerful illicit drug called full-five. This has the power to give a sense of perfection to all five senses, for a short period of time. It is not chemically addictive, but it makes the real world seem like a nightmare in comparison.

When a chemist secretly making the drug is murdered, we follow how this impacts four different groups of people: his criminal associates; a rich customer and his dealer; a prize fighter; and the police investigating the case.

Given how well received his other works in Vision have been (including by yours truly) it is perhaps unsurprising Tubb would be allowed to take up a large portion of this month’s magazine. And he puts it to great use. Even with 16 pages at his disposal, it is not easy to create a fully visualized world, populated with solid characters. A lot of writers cannot even manage it in a novel.

I was worried at times it was going to be a case of an old man yelling at the young kids, but it is actually quite measured. It does get a touch didactic at points but this is necessary to give the different perspectives on full-five’s effect on society.

Even though I imagine others will question if I am taking something myself. I am giving this story a Full-Five Stars.

The Impatient Dreamers: Blast-Off

Reproduction of Issue 1 of Tales of Wonder. Cover by Nick

As the title suggests we now get into the real meat of things. With the British market finally starting to get its own specialist magazine titles in the mid-30s, there were some willing to take a chance on SF. This piece primarily focuses on the publication of Gillings’ Tales of Wonder and publisher Newnes’ plans for Fantasy.

Once again full of great detail, even more enhanced by the fact that he is now directly involved behind the scenes of both magazines. Possibly the most interesting part for me was the original guidelines Newnes put out for soliciting stories for Fantasy:

– No implausible flights of fancy, no weird fiction, no spiritual or ghost stories, no gore or sex, no animals with human attributes, no interplanetary travel, no medical or biological themes, and no time travel

– Stories particularly welcome are those envisaging new developments of existing technology, such as flight and television, or on future developments in warfare.

As you can probably imagine, Gillings was unimpressed by these limitations.

Continuing to cruise high at Five Stars

Fifth Commandment by John Brunner

Illustrated by Eddie Jones

The prolific John Brunner seems to have generally moved away from short fiction to the more lucrative book market, this being only his second new short story in the last 12 months.

Grumman lives in Retirement, a self-contained community providing all the needs of the elderly. But why does that make him feel so dissatisfied? And why does no one in Retirement have any children?

Not the most original story but fulfills its purpose well.

Three Stars

The Phoenix People by Richard A. Gordon

Illustrated by Eddie Jones

An expedition comes to visit an ancient planet called by its inhabitants “Earth”. The sentient population represent the longest recorded continual chain of evolution in the known universe, yet they seem to lack technological progress and are unresponsive to any queries. Just as the expedition is close to giving up, they discover an ancient buried spaceship, more advanced than any they have seen anywhere. What is it doing here?

I found this a fairly obvious tale, padded out with a level of verbosity that puts even me to shame. It is not bad as such, just rather dull and pointless.

Two Stars

The Visitors by Frank Bryning

Illustrated by Eddie Jones

Alien visitors are watching a galley sail across an inland sea. When one of the passengers goes overboard, they pick him up to investigate the species further.

This comes with a special “Vision Vignette” logo. Unfortunately, the contents are lacking in any superlative qualities. It is the kind of tale that would have been considered old hat a decade ago. However, it is short and reasonably written, which saves it from the bottom rung of the ranking ladder.

Two Stars

The Star-Mutants by Damien Broderick

Illustrated by Eddie Jones, who I believe has excelled himself in this issue

The generation starship Man’s Dream set off from Earth a century ago. Fifteen years into the voyage, an outbreak of psychosis infected those born on Earth, whilst the children born on the ship were unaffected. With the help of the computer system, the space-born quarantine the Earth-born and try to provide them with help. However, space radiation mutates their children and a conflict between the two emerges.

Now, a hundred years later, the Space-Born are being slowly pushed back to a smaller section of the ship. The Space-Mutants live in a jungle (an outgrowth of untended hydroponics plants) where they raid into the Space-Born territory. Captain Van of the Space-Born realizes the time has come to make a decision that is contrary to their programming. Either forgo their mission and integrate into Space-Mutant society, or wipe out the mutants completely.

At first glance this may seem to be just another variation on Aldiss’ Non-Stop, but it possesses some elements that raise it up. Firstly, this is quite a dark, mature story where our narrator is faced with an unwinnable scenario, whatever he does something will be lost. Secondly, it is very fast paced and action-packed, making it a very easy read in spite of the heavy subject matter.

Whilst there may be more mention of breasts than is strictly necessary in the story, women are present throughout and have varied pivotal roles. Lady Violence in particular lives up to her name and I would willingly read a novel of her future adventures.

Four Stars

Fantasy Review

Katheryn Buckley reviews Barefoot in the Head by Brian W. Aldiss and has more praise for it than we had for the original short stories in New Worlds. Don Malcolm spends some time covering the innumerable flaws in Chariot of the Gods? by Erich von Daniken but still advises readers to try it and make up their own minds.

Finally, Robert Conquest writes another attempt to take down the new wave in his “review” of The New SF. The quote marks are mine as he barely mentions the stories inside, instead choosing to decry experimentation, get angry that the initials “SF” can mean something other than science fiction, and making rambling references to the 1920s.

The belated poll results for issue #2. Apart from the high positioning of Moonchip I don’t particularly disagree with these rankings.

A Great Escape

Marianne Faithful in Girl on a Motorcycle. Not quite as good a role as Steve McQueen got.

So, overall a pretty good selection of tales in this issue of Vision of Tomorrow, and a worthy diversion from your troubles for an hour or so. No stories are truly bad and a couple are very good indeed.

Just like the characters above, let us hope that society progresses enough that women can break out of their social confines and allow their voices to be heard just as loudly as men. Imagine if one day we could pick up a magazine to be surprised to find there are no women featured in an issue, rather than when one turns up.

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

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Book, Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[February 12, 1970] Up Front (March 1970 Amazing)

February 12, 2025 John Boston 3 Comments

by John Boston

Let’s be up front. That is, the front of the March 1970 Amazing, depicting a space-suited person with outstretched arms following or yearning after or paying homage to an apparently departing spacecraft. The contents page says it’s by Willis, illustrating a story called “Breaking Point.” However, Ted White’s editorial says, first, that he’s contacted some “promising young artists” whose work will appear on future covers, but right now they’re “sifting” the European covers that they apparently buy in bulk and having stories written around them “whenever possible,” like Greg Benford’s “Sons of Man” a couple of issues ago. And this issue’s “Breaking Point” was written around the present cover, so the story illustrates the cover rather than vice versa.

by Willis

And now that we have that straight, who’s this Willis guy? Well, informed rumor has it that the cover is actually by our very familiar friend Johnny Bruck, from the German Perry Rhodan #201 from 1965. The style and subject matter certainly look like Bruck’s.

Moving on to more straightforward matters: the contents look much like the previous White issues, with a serial installment, several new short stories plus a reprint, editorial, book reviews, fanzine reviews, and letter column.

White’s editorial is mostly devoted to the tortuous history of his novel By Furies Possessed, serialized starting in this issue. This is another of his commendable efforts to educate the readership about How Publishing Works. And he says it in black and white! “It helps to Know Somebody, to Have Friends.” Well worth reading. White also notes the addition of Arnold Katz, Arnie to fandom, who as Associate Editor “will have the task of pouring [sic, I hope] through all those smouldering [ditto] old issues” looking for Classic Reprints. He also announces a new program of Reader Feedback: since he gets more letters than he can print, he will forward unprinted letters to the authors on whose work they comment, cutting up the letters concerning multiple stories. I wonder how long that laborious task can be maintained.

The book review column is its usually slightly incestuous but quite readable pool of contention, with editor White praising Ursula LeGuin’s new juvenile A Wizard of Earthsea as not at all juvenile, and Greg Benford praising White’s new juvenile No Time Like Tomorrow only a bit less fulsomely. Dennis O’Neil responds lukewarmly to The Andromeda Strain, Richard Lupoff offers qualified praise to Michael Moorcock’s The Black Corridor (“doesn’t quite make it, but it was a worthwhile effort . . . and will be equally worthwhile for serious readers of science fiction”), and—whoa! What’s this? Speaking of incestuous, or maybe recursive, Hank Stine is here to refute Richard Delap’s mild praise last issue of Harry Harrison’s Captive Universe: “This book is a crime. If it is as common a crime as the smoking of marijuana, it is no matter; the offense is the same. . . . There was simply no reason for this book to have been written and no reason to read it. . . . It could have been written twenty years ago”—and it was, “at least once a year since then.” (Sounds about right.)

And here’s Delap, pounding away at Josephine Saxton’s The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith. He praises the earlier, shorter version “The Consciousness Machine” published in F&SF, but . . . “In discarding the concept used in the shorter version—an emblematic fantasy of the subconscious recorded pictorially by a machine used in psychoanalysis—the author has left her tale stranded in a hazy, directionless waste, discarding all the original sf elements in favor of unnecessarily extended feminine symbolism.” (Actually, I liked it pretty well, though maybe that makes me hazy and directionless too.) Oh, and I see I skipped over Alexei Panshin’s very succinct praise of R.A. Lafferty’s Fourth Mansions, which concludes: “It’s a wild book full of prodigious lies, and I’ll probably read it again.”

The letter column is the usual mix of the inane and the intelligent, with some apparent self-parody (“The November Amazing is a groove! . . . The first installment of the Philip K. Dick novel was a trip! . . . Dick must be stoned out of his mind—on talent! And Ray Russell . . . came through with a mind-blower. . . .”). Or maybe it’s just part of the inane. Rocks are thrown at John J. Pierce’s anti-New Wave comments. The only news here about the magazine’s functioning is that its artists must be near at hand because its deadlines are too short, so mailing stories to the West Coast and receiving art by return mail is not feasible. The fanzine review column is full of fanzines, some analyzed with more nuance than I suspect goes into their production.

As for the fiction . . . it’s still a frustratingly mixed bag.

By Furies Possessed (Part 1 of 2), by Ted White

by Gray Morrow

White’s serial novel By Furies Possessed comes with a celebrity blurb. On the cover: “Big and powerful, gut-hard stuff!—Philip K. Dick.” Inside the magazine, there’s more, equally fulsome, from PKD. I will as usual withhold comment until the serial is complete. But looking through the first few pages, I see that White has rung a change on Tuckerization, Wilson Tucker's practice of giving his characters the names of prominent SF figures. White, the sometime jazz critic, has named his protagonist Tad Dameron. Tadd Dameron—birth name Tadley—was a respected jazz pianist, composer, and arranger who died young (1917-1965).

Breaking Point, by William C. Johnstone

Did I say straightforward above? Let me take that back. Breaking Point is blurbed as “Story Behind the Cover,” though the Cover is actually Behind the Story, as White’s editorial discloses. The author, William C. Johnstone, is there said to be “a writer new to SF and these pages, but he’s somewhat better known in Hollywood, where he has accumulated numerous TV and screen credits. He originally queried us about a novel he wanted to write, and the cover-story commission grew out of this. ‘Breaking Point’ is actually the opening story in a projected book-length series. You’ll be reading the rest of the stories here as fast as they’re written and we can publish them.” However, plausible gossip has it that Johnstone is actually a pseudonym of White, and the style is noticeably similar to White’s.

In any case, this introductory story is not actually a story. It is an introduction, or maybe a first chapter. A spaceship full of colonists-to-be, dormant in the Sleep of the Long Moment, malfunctions and breaks up into component modules. A crew member caught in a corridor outside the modules hangs onto one of them and dies when it hits atmosphere. (That must be what the cover is alleged to depict.) The module lands on an Earth-type planet (the four occupants are out breathing the air almost immediately). The viewpoint character, Aaron, awakes to discover that one of the others, Chaimon, is hysterical because his girlfriend was in a different module and now he’ll never see her again. Aaron, a psychotherapist, divines that their acquaintance was only a matter of days and Chaimon’s disturbance results from a vivid Dream of the Long Moment, and talks him down. Then they see a headlight racing across the valley below. There are people here! And that’s it, after seven pages. Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment, if any. Two stars, subject to revision.

Trial by Silk, by Christopher Anvil

Christopher Anvil’s Trial by Silk begins with a demonstration of the moral hazard of payment by the word. The good ship Starlight has been directed to an unnamed planet for shore leave, and Captain Engstrom is warning the crew of its perils—but he can’t explain them. He begins: “Men—ah—This is very difficult. I don’t quite know how—But it’s my duty to tell you, as a captain, that the—er—women—ah—on this planet—are . . . not—quite the way they seem.” And he goes on for some time in this vein, mentioning the food and drink, and concluding, “Whatever you do, don’t enjoy yourself. –I mean—You know what I mean! –Anyway—That’s it.” This spiel, and the description of the crew laughing during it and after it, and everybody talking and joking about it before they actually manage to get off the spaceship, goes on for four and a half pages.

by Ralph Reese

At that point, the story actually begins, and proves to be a discourse on other sorts of moral hazard. Upon entering the nearby city, the spacemen are met by beautiful women offering to show them the sights—the “fountains, pools, lakes, theatres, wine shops, a communal feast and barbecue center, free communal dwellings, drug shops, fume dispensaries, sizzle palaces.” The narrator, the ship’s first officer, asks what’s a sizzle palace? His guide says “It’s terrible. I can’t talk about it.” The sizzle palace has a skull and crossbones logo on it—as does, he notices, his guide’s hair clip, and the small bottle of highly captivating scent that she keeps applying. They go to a public feast site where food (mainly meat) and drink are constantly replenished, and people including crew members are compulsively stuffing their faces. He sees a cook seasoning meat from a box with the label Addicteen, also with skull and crossbones.

The narrator bails on this G-rated orgy and says to a doctor who is treating its casualties, “I’m from off-planet. What’s the purpose of this pleasure set-up?” The doctor responds with a bolus of Anvillean philosophy (i.e., Campbellian, but cruder): “Why, to let the unfit pleasure-lovers eliminate themselves! If you let them have their own way, they will wreck any civilization ever built—unless you make allowance to get rid of them. . . . Yes, you see, rot and corruption set into every civilization ever built, unless an iron discipline is imposed or some means is provided to exterminate the hedonists who spread the corruption. The best way to get rid of them, obviously, is to provide them with exactly what they want. It is the genius of our planet that we have worked out how to do it. The expense is really very modest, as long as you let them finish themselves off fast, so their numbers don’t become too great.”

So why couldn’t the captain, who has been to this planet before, explain that to the crew in just that many words? Because if he had, there wouldn’t be much of a story at all, let alone those delicious four and a half pages of remunerative surplusage at the beginning.

Speaking of philosophy, there’s an earlier exchange with the narrator’s alluring guide when he asks her why there’s hardly anybody around who looks older than 35. She explains that when people are worn out, they “take a recoup”—i.e., go into the recuperator, which renews them. Forever? No, most last until 28 or 29; 35 is “frightfully old.” She giggled. “Who would want to live that long?” So the recoup wears them out? “No, silly. Man was made for pleasure, and it’s the pleasure that wears him out, not the recoup.” The narrator protests that in this system, people lose half their lives. She says, “But shouldn’t a life be measured by the total amount of pleasure received; not by the years it lasts?” Narrator responds, “What about accomplishment?” and she says, “You belong up there with them!”—referring to the people who actually do the work of keeping the society going, who pass by above the fray on overhead walkways with disapproving looks—and she walks away.

So why didn’t this appear in Analog? Too unsubtle even for Campbell, maybe. It's a toss-up whether it is more tedious than offensive, or vice versa. Either way, one star.

I'm Too Big but I Love to Play, by James Tiptree, Jr.

by Michael Hinge

Matters are somewhat redeemed by the next item, James Tiptree, Jr.’s “I’m Too Big But I Love to Play,” which is a little reminiscent of A.E. van Vogt, or what van Vogt might be like if he had a sense of humor and his writing were less ponderous. The protagonist is an energy being who spends his life (Tiptree’s pronoun usage) sailing around the universe on energy currents, until the day he discovers Earth and the subtle energy exchanges of human communication and interaction. What fun! He tries to join in but can’t get it right, causing havoc wherever he goes. This Tiptree guy loves to play and he seems to be about the right size, though he, like his protagonist, needs to get a little more practice. Three stars.

The Tree Terror, by David H. Keller, M.D.

The “Amazing Classic” this issue is David H. Keller’s “The Tree Terror,” from the October 1933 Amazing, and it is actually a charming relic, unlike some of its decidedly un-charming predecessors. Keller is back on his usual theme—people mess with the natural order of things and disaster results. President Tompkins of Cellulose Consolidated needs more cellulose, because it’s essential to making “a thousand synthetic products.” And he needs lots of it, and cheap, and near to his factories. Horticulturist Simcox is ordered to do it or be fired.

So Simcox goes to work, consulting a paleo-botanist who tells him about club mosses, which (supported by stems) grew a hundred feet high during the Carboniferous and which we are now burning as coal. Then he talks to a biologist who is irradiating ferns, and figures out how to return club moss to its ancestral glory, and bingo! We’re in Sorceror’s Apprentice territory, starting with a test plantation in rural Nebraska and proceeding straightway to dense forests of club moss with roots so deep they can grow almost anywhere, and do. “Their falling trunks began to block the highways, arteries of commerce. Only by constant vigilance were the railroads kept open and safe.” Food crops are crowded out. Everyone flees to the cities to starve. (At least the club moss doesn’t grow in concrete.)

Now Simcox returns to confront Tompkins and demands that this captain of industry rise to the occasion. He’s brought with him an eccentric genius who has invented a machine that costs three dollars to make and will grind up club moss and turn it into food. Simcox tells Tompkins he’d better crank up his company to distribute these machines nationwide so the starving millions can go out and eat the club moss out of existence. “Broadcast it! Put food into the stomach and hope into the soul of the desperate men of the nation!” And you don’t have to pay the inventor, he’s too busy on his next invention. Harmlessly amusing, three stars.

Is Anybody Out There?, by Greg Benford and David Book

Greg Benford and David Book continue their “Science in Science Fiction” series with “Is Anybody Out There?,” which as you might suspect is about the prospects of intelligent life elsewhere than Earth. They lay out plainly and methodically the numerous questions that have to be answered en route to getting the big answer, and the current state of knowledge about each, and they don’t obscure the fact that most of their answers are essentially pulled out of the air, er, are very gross estimates. This lucid presentation is a pleasure to read compared with the run of SF mag science articles. Four stars.

Summing Up

Uneven. Promising. Disappointing. Have patience. The same things I said for years about the Goldsmith/Lalli version of the magazine, punctuated by transitory bursts of excellence. I am tempted to get a rubber stamp made. Meanwhile, how about one of those transitory bursts?

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

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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[February 10, 1970] Thirty Years To Go (The Year 2000, a science fiction anthology by Harry Harrison)

February 10, 2025 Victoria Silverwolf 2 Comments

by Victoria Silverwolf

Clarke and Kubrick Minus One

A recent film has made many of us aware of the first year of the next century. But what about the last year of this century?

(You do know that 2000 will be the last year of the twentieth century and not the first year of the twenty-first century, right? I thought so.)

A new anthology of original science fiction stories attempts to offer a glimpse of that evocative year to come.

The Year 2000, edited by Harry Harrison

Cover art by Pat Steir.

Obviously, all the stories take place three decades from now. Other than that, they have a wide range of themes and styles, from old-fashioned tales of adventure to commentary on social issues to New Wave experimentation. Let's take a look.

America the Beautiful, by Fritz Leiber

The narrator is a poet and scholar who travels to the United States on an academic tour. He stays with a typical American family and has an affair with the adult daughter of his hosts. Despite the fact that pollution has been eliminated and racism is no longer a problem, there's something about the place that makes him uneasy. Part of it has to do with the fact that the USA is still involved in small scale wars, similar to the current conflict in Vietnam.

Although there is a fair amount of futuristic content (rocket transportation between North America and Europe, for example), this reads almost like a mainstream story, something that might be published in a future issue of The New Yorker. It's impressionistic and introspective. Given that it's by Leiber, it's no surprise that it's very well written. Perhaps it's a bit too subtle for me.

Three stars.

Prometheus Rebound, by Daniel F. Galouye

An aircraft that uses the Earth's magnetic field gets in trouble. The huge plane, which looks like a flying saucer, keeps gaining altitude, beyond the control of the pilots. Can an elderly veteran flyer of World War Two help the crew save the lives of all aboard?

There's a ton of technical jargon throughout the story, the vast majority of which went way over my head. The plot depends on a character doing something really foolish.

Two stars.

Far from This Earth, by Chad Oliver

In Kenya, an area formerly used for raising cattle now serves as a wildlife preserve. The main character is a warden who has to prevent elderly people from following their traditional ways by tending cattle in the region. Part of the preserve is an amusement park, something like an African Disneyland. The protagonist visits the space-themed part of the park, which offers hope for his son's future.

The story offers a thoughtful look at culture change. The warden bitterly regrets what has been lost, but also welcomes improvements. He's an ambiguous sort, not always sympathetic, which adds depth of characterization. The author obviously knows the area and its culture very well, and depicts them vividly.

Four stars.

After the Accident, by Naomi Mitchison

The title disaster contaminated the Earth with radiation. Genetic testing is used to find out which persons would be likely to produce offspring without mutations. The narrator, a biologist and historian, meets a man who plans to send colonists to another world. She becomes pregnant with their child, who will have mutations that will allow it to survive on the planet.

This is a quietly disturbing story. The narrator's calm acceptance of the situation and decision to bear a mutant baby are the most chilling aspects of it. The speculative biology is convincing, the stuff about colonizing another planet less so.

Three stars.

Utopian, By Mack Reynolds

A social activist who was in suspended animation wakes up to find that the world has become the kind of paradise he imagined. There's no money, because everybody has everything they need. The folks who revived him tell him what they need from him.

The fellow went into suspended animation only because the people in the year 2000 used a sort of mental time travel to take over his mind and make him abscond with funds from his organization and then freeze himself. I found this aspect of the story gimmicky and implausible compared to the rest. The impact of the piece depends entirely on its punchline.

Two stars.

Orgy of the Living and the Dying, by Brian W. Aldiss

A man leaves his wife in England to work for a United Nations famine relief agency in India. He has an affair with a physician. When the facility is attacked by bandits, he battles them in an unusual way.

This synopsis makes the story sound like mainstream fiction, without futuristic elements. The main speculative premise is that the man hears voices, some of them seemingly precognitive. Excerpts of what he hears alternate with the narrative portion of the text, giving the work a touch of New Wave.

The author creates an evocative setting, if one that could easily be set today rather than in the year 2000. The man's lust for the doctor causes him to force himself on her at one point. It's hard to accept him as a hero later, when he comes up with a technological way to defeat the bandits. (This technique, by the way, is the part of the story that most evokes the feeling of science fiction, even if there is nothing futuristic about it.)

Three stars.

Sea Change, by A. Bertram Chandler

(The book just calls the author Bertram Chandler, but we know better than that, don't we? It's also no surprise at all that it's a sea story.)

A sea captain (of course!) who went into suspended animation for medical reasons gets thawed out, cured, and given a job commanding a gigantic, automated cargo ship. When things go wrong, he has to make use of his experience with sailing ships to save the day.

Chandler can't be beat when it comes to describing nautical stuff, and in this case he doesn't even have to pretend that his vessel is a starship. It may be hard to believe that a guy whose experience with ships is thirty years out of date would be given command of a futuristic vessel. It may also raise a few hackles to learn that the ship's troubles are caused by a female member of the crew, who messes everything up.

Three stars.

Black is Beautiful, by Robert Silverberg

New York City is populated almost entirely by Black persons, with only a few White commuters and tourists. The main character is an angry teenager who sees the mayor of the city as an Uncle Tom. He stalks a White teenager out of a sense of injustice and seeks revenge.

A White author writing from the point of view of a Black radical is taking a big chance, I think, and could be accused of depicting Black stereotypes. In this case, the gamble pays off pretty well. The teenager is passionate but naive, the Mayor cynical but effective. The story might be read as a debate between two styles of Black activism.

Four stars.

Take It or Leave It, by David I. Masson

Two sections of text alternate, both featuring the same characters. In one, they face challenges like local crime bosses and being forced to move in a technologically advanced society. In the other, they struggle to survive in a world devastated by a plague.

This reads almost like two different stories. The first one is full of futuristic slang and nouns used as verbs. (The word visited is replaced by visitationed, for example.) The second one has more direct language, but is very grim. People hunt cats to eat them, for one thing.

The tricks with language make the story difficult to read. Given the title, I wonder if the author is saying that an imperfect future is a lot better than a horrible one. This is one for New Wave fans.

Three stars.

The Lawgiver, by Keith Laumer

As a way to fight overpopulation in the United States, a controversial law makes it mandatory to terminate pregnancies unless the mother-to-be has a birth permit. (There's also the implication that she has to be married.) The Senator who pushed this law through Congress, against much opposition, confronts a woman made pregnant by his son.

Given the fact that abortion is only legal under certain circumstances in a handful of states, it seems unlikely that it would often be mandatory a mere thirty years from now. (And the story makes it clear that the procedure has to take place even if birth is imminent.)

The author doesn't seem to be making a case for or against abortion, as far as I can tell. The plot is melodramatic, throwing in a car crash to add excitement (and maybe some dark irony.) Still, I have to admit that it held my attention throughout.

Three stars.

To Be a Man, by J. J. Coupling

A fellow is seriously injured in battle and has almost all of his body except brain, eyes, and part of his spinal cord replaced by artificial parts, indistinguishable from the original. He returns from the war to confront his lover.

Much of the story consists of exposition, as the man explains in great detail how his new body works. This makes for dry reading. In sharp contrast to this is the sexual content: it seems that the fellow can be programmed to be a tireless sex partner. This results in an outrageous scene in which all the nurses in a battleground medical facility have an orgy with the guy. Pure male fantasy.

Two stars.

Judas Fish, by Thomas N. Scortia

A man works in a deep sea facility, altering the genetics of fish so that they will lead members of their species into the facility's chambers, to be processed into food for a starving world. Squid-like beings, having intelligence at least as great as humans, steal the fish away. The man's capture of one of the creatures leads to a strange transformation.

This is probably the most speculative story in the book, with a common science fiction theme that goes far beyond just extrapolating the next few decades. Not overly plausible, but readable enough if you're willing to suspend your disbelief.

Three stars.

American Dead, by Harry Harrison

Black guerrillas wage open warfare against the United States government, making use of weapons stolen from the military. An Italian journalist observes an assault by one of the Black commanders.

This is a gruesome vision of the worst possible outcome of current racial tensions in the USA. The manner in which the rebels fight is clearly based on tactics used by the Viet Cong. A powerful and disturbing tale.

Four stars.

Worth Waiting Thirty Years?

Overall, the book is OK, if not great. Some low points, some high points, mostly decent stories if not outstanding ones. Worth reading once, but don't expect it to be in print three decades from now.

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Book, Conventions/Performances, Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[February 8, 1970] Boldly going to the Region Between (March 1970 Galaxy)

February 8, 2025 Gideon Marcus 3 Comments

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

by Gideon Marcus

A pleasant Escapade

Little fan conventions are popping up all over the place, perhaps thanks to the popularity of Star Trek. The first adult science fiction show on the small screen, Trek not only thrilled existing fans (who have been putting on conclaves since the '30s), but has also galvanized millions of newfen who previously had lived outside the mainstream of fandom.

Last weekend, I went to a gathering of Los Angeles fans called "Escapade". It differs from most fan conventions in that it focuses almost exclusively on science fiction and fantasy on the screen rather than in print. Moreover, the emphasis is not on the SFnality of the works, but on the relationships and interactions of the characters. This is the in-person culmination of the phenomenon we've seen in the Trekzines, where the stories and essays are about Spock or Kirk or Scotty—the people, not so much the adventures they go on.

Another distinction is that most of the attendees were women. Most SF conventions, while not stag parties, are male-dominated. The main difference I noted was that panels were less formal, more collaborative. Instead of folks sitting behind a table and gabbing with each other, they were more like discussion groups…fannish teach-ins, if you will. I really dug it.

If Escapade represents the future of fandom, then beam me up. I'm sold!

And since the photos are back from the Fotomat, here's a sample of what I snapped:

That's David, holding up the latest issue of The Tricorder (#4) and Melody dressed as a Starfleet lieutenant

And here's Melody again in sciences blue—who says you can't make a Vulcan smile?

If you can't recruit a fan…make one! (this one isn't Lorelei's…but it's probably giving her ideas)

Lincoln Enterprises had a stall in the Huckster Hall—I got this clip from The Enemy Within!

The New Thing in America

It's been eight years since folks like Ballard and Aldiss started the New Wave in the UK. It's leaked out across the Pond for a while, but this is the first time an issue of a Yank mag has so embraced the revolutionary ethos. The latest issue of Galaxy was a surprise and delight that filled my spare moments (not many!) at the aforementioned convention. Let's take a look.

cover by Jack Gaughan

The Galaxy Bookshelf, by Algis Budrys

illustration by Jack Gaughan

Budrys' focus is on fandom this month. He notes that SF fandom differs from all others (that of James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Conan, etc.) in that we are omnivorous. We contain multitudes, digging all of the above and much, much more.

We also are directly responsible for the plaudits of our passion—whereas the Oscars, Edgars, and Silver Spurs (and Nebulas, for that matter) are given out by organizations, the Hugos are awarded by the fans themselves (well, those that have the $2-3 to shell out for a World Science Fiction Society membership). Which means that all the nominations that Galactic Journey (hasn't) got are really worth something!

After a lengthy and entertaining discussion of what fandom means to Budrys, he goes on to review the indispensable The Index of Science Fiction Magazines 1951-1965, compiled by Norman Metcalf. It's not only a useful reference, but it's fun to read what all your favorite authors have produced, and also to see the commonalities and differences of stories that end up next to each other when ordered alphabetically.

He also recommends Adventures in Discovery, an anthology of science fact articles by science fictioneers (including reliables like Asimov, Ley, and de Camp, but also unusuals like Silverberg and Poul Anderson). It's put together by my dear friend, Tom Purdom, and you can bet we'll be reviewing it soon, too.

Now on to the fiction!

The Region Between, by Harlan Ellison

illustration by Jack Gaughan

In Ellison's story, the universe is filled with warring factions: beings, societies, and races that play God with the lesser forces in an endless struggle for dominance. The other truth of Region: the soul is immortal, and death merely a transition. Your essence is also poachable, in death and in life—and a whole gaggle of Thieves has sprung up to take advantage of this. When the soul that is snatched from a still-living being is too valuable to one of the squabbling tin pot deities, that's when it calls in the Succubus. The Succubus deals in souls, too, thwarting the Thieves by replacing snitched spirits with ones from his collection.

One such is William Bailey, late of Earth, so tired of the pointlessness of it all that he picks euthanasia over enduring, but possessed of such anger at his lousy universe that he proves a true son-of-a-bitch. A real Excedrin headache. A turis. A pain in the ass. (Sound like any diminutive titans we know?)

Every body he inhabits, every pawn in every war, game, conquest, he subverts. Through logic and sheer force of will, he convinces the shell personality of his host to allow him control, enough to stick it to the Man who pulls the strings of His minions. And after each successful wrenching of the gears, the Succubus, too busy to note the peccadilloes of a single errant soul, tosses him off to his next assignment to wreak havoc.

It's the ultimate implementation of hubris and nemesis, an eye-stick against solipsism. Not only are you not God, but watch out: your dicking around with creation may be just the thing that causes your uncreation.

The New Wave has all kinds of literary and typographical tricks—if you read New Worlds, you've seen them all. This is the first time I've really seen them used fully in service of the story rather than being fripperous illumination. They are special effects for the printed page, as impressive as any Kubrick rendered in his 2001 for the cinema. I wouldn't want all of my stories to look like this, and Ghod help us if Ellison inspires a new New Wave of copycats who absorb the style and not the subtance.

But, my goodness, five stars.

The Propheteer, by Leo P. Kelley

illustration by Jack Gaughan

"We can predict crime with absolute precision. We can tell who will commit a crime and when. We can even predict the exact nature of the crime."

Sounds like Dick's story, The Minority Report, though in Kelley's piece, what keeps crime from happening isn't a trio of precogs, but one man who monitors and controls the chemical balance of every human on Earth, ensuring tranquility and crimelessness throughout the planet.

Except, that man twiddles meaningless knobs and dummy switches. Another man is in control of humanity, and he wields a stick, not an endocrine carrot…

It's a little too histrionic and pat, and less effective than the stories which preceded it (including an Analog story from 1962 by R. C. Fitzpatrick)

Two stars.

A Place of Strange, by George C. Willick

Humans teach primitive beings to hate, to fight. The moral, like something from a less than effective Star Trek episode is stated: "There must be a way for simple survival to change into civilization without war. There must be."

Indeed, there must be.

Two stars.

Downward to the Earth (Part 4 of 4), by Robert Silverberg

illustration by Jack Gaughan

Silverbob wraps up his latest serial, detailing the end of Gunderson's quest toward redemption on the colony he once administrated. Of course, it ends with the unveiling of the mystery of Rebirth, which is revealed in the dreamy, avant-garde style that typifies the rest of the story. We also learn the relationship between the two sapient races of Belzegor, the elephantine Nildoror and the apelike Sulidor. It is both fascinating and also a little disappointing. Without giving anything away, I suppose I was most interested in the concept of a world with two intelligent species sharing a planet; in Silverberg's story, it turns out they are less a pair of distinct beings and more two sides of the same coin.

There is a fascinating, hopeful note to the conclusion that elevates the story above a personal salvation story, even if the whole thing is more an exercise in building a setting than presenting an actual narrative.

I'd say four stars for this installment, three-and-a-half for the whole. It may get consideration for the Hugo, but the year is young, and I imagine there is better to come—probably from Silverberg, himself.

Sunpot (Part 2 of 4), by Vaughn Bodé

illustration by Vaughn Bodé

The adventures of the Sunpot continue, as does the illegible lettering. I was dismayed to see Belind Bump, who had appeared to be an intrepid heroine, reduced to a host for boobies. Fake boobies at that (as we are reminded multiple times throughout the strip).

A waste of space. One star.

Reflections, by Robert F. Young

Last up is this sentimental tale of two humans of the far future teleporting to Earth for a tour of the cradle of their race. Evolved far beyond our ability to ken, they are incorporeal beings of nostalgia and love.

Pleasant, but eminently forgettable. It's that style (the type is interestingly arranged in reflecting columns and meandering rivers) over substance thing I just worried about above.

Three stars.

Summing up

That's that for this experiment in printing. There were unfortunate casualties: the Silverberg was printed with compressed carriage returns between lines, which made it harder to read. Also, with all the illustrations and text tricks (not to mention the comic), we probably got about 80% of the usual content—the Silverberg compression notwithstanding.

The stuff that isn't the Ellison or the Silverberg (or the Budrys) is also pretty disposable. That said, the Ellison and the Silverberg comprise 80% of the issue, so who's complaining?

I definitely won't quit now… unlike Tony Curtis.

not quitting.' In smaller letters, there is an additional message: 'Get your I.Q. button from your local Unit of the American Cancer Society.'"/>
This campaign is everywhere—commercials, Laugh-In, the back inside cover of Galaxy…

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

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Fashion, music, politics, sports, Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[February 2, 1970] Deceptive Appearances (March 1970 IF)

February 2, 2025 David Levinson Leave a comment

by David Levinson

The Super Fight

Back in 1967, a radio producer by the name of Murray Woroner came up with the idea of using a computer to work out who the best heavyweight fighter of all time is. He polled 250 boxing writers and came up with a list of 16. He then worked closely with a programmer to input everything that could be determined about each boxer into a computer.

Match-ups were set up as a single-elimination tournament to be broadcast as a series of radio plays. Each fight was run through an NCR 315 computer the night before broadcast to create a blow-by-blow account of the fight. Woroner and boxing announcer Guy LeBow would then “call” the fight as if it were really happening. In the end, Rocky Marciano beat Jack Dempsey and was awarded a championship belt worth $10,000.

The arbiter, an NCR 315.

Ali was not happy. The computer had him losing in the quarter finals to Jim Jeffries, a boxer he has little respect for. He sued for defamation of character, asking for $1 million. They settled when Ali agreed to take part in a filmed version of a computerized fight between him and Marciano in return for $10,000 and a cut of the box office.

Last year, Ali and Marciano got together and sparred for over 70 rounds, filming a few different versions of events that the computer might predict. Marciano dropped 50 pounds and wore a toupee so he’d look more like he did in his prime. Ali probably had to get back in shape too, since he’s been banned from boxing for refusing induction into the army. Instinct seems to have taken over for both men. Ali bloodied Marciano’s nose and opened cuts over his eyes (Rocky always bled easily); at one point, Ali was so exhausted he refused to go back into the ring (until he got another $2,000) and could barely raise his arms enough to eat breakfast the next day. Filming ended just three weeks before Marciano was killed in a plane crash last Labor Day.

Armed with hours of footage and the top secret computer result, Woroner and his team put together a film they dubbed The Super Fight. On January 20th, it aired in 1,500 theaters in the US, Canada, and Europe via closed-circuit television, with viewers paying a whopping $5.00 a head.

How did it turn out? Ali is not happy. The computer had him knocked out in the 13th round. He’s talking about another defamation suit. Maybe he’ll change his mind when he finds out that was only in the US and Canada. European viewers saw Ali win by TKO. The producers are also talking about destroying all the prints.

Movie poster for the event. That “LIVE!” is a little deceptive, which is something else Ali is complaining about.

It’s a rather science-fictional concept we’ve seen in other guises. Maybe Murray Woroner got his original idea from the Star Trek episode “A Taste of Armageddon.” Of course, any statistician will tell you that a single simulation doesn’t really say anything. Rolling a die once doesn’t tell you if it’s fair; it takes hundreds or thousands of repetitions to determine that. But when the computer needs 45 minutes to determine the events of one match, this is the best that can be expected. For now.

Not what it looks like

Authors like to counter readers’ expectations. It’s a good way to evoke a response, particularly in a genre that has a fair number of cliches and formulas. Sometimes, the surprise comes from the author doing something that’s not what you expect that particular writer to do or say. This month’s IF offers some of both.

Art actually for “SOS,” rather than just suggested by. Maybe because it’s by Mike Gilbert, not the overworked Jack Gaughan.

SOS, by Poul Anderson

Some 2,000 years from now, the Earth’s magnetic field is fading, prior to a reversal of the magnetic poles. The feudalistic Westrealm and the communist Autarchy of Great Asia compete for dwindling resources as they search desperately for a way to survive the pending catastrophe. The Autarchy secretly invades a Westrealm research station on the dark side of the moon, preparatory to a surprise attack on the West’s space fleet. It’s up to the scientists to find a way to prevent it.

The invasion arrives. Art uncredited

This feels like a fairly typical Anderson story of the well-done sort all the way through. But then he hits the reader with a punch to the gut right at the end. The ending and the commentary from the author are surprising in light of most of his work. It’s a good story, but weakened by two things: the title completely gives away the resolution; worse, there’s a couple of paragraphs at the beginning that undercut the emotional impact of the ending.

A high three stars, but could have been better.

Telemart 3, by Bob Shaw

Shaw gives us the tale of an unpleasant man who married for money and his wife who seems intent on spending all of it. The problem is made worse by the titular device, which allows her to buy things from the comfort of her living room with instant delivery. It’s probably meant as commentary on consumerism, but feels more like a sexist rant about women and money.

Two stars.

Matters come to a head. Art by Gaughan

The Thing in the Stone, by Clifford Simak

After a car accident that killed his wife and child and may have given him brain damage, Wallace Daniels retired to the countryside of south-western Wisconsin, where he has visions that seem to let him go walking in the geologic past. There’s also something alive buried deep in the limestone, not to mention an unpleasant and shiftless neighbor. Not everything is as it seems.

Daniels finds himself in the deep past, before life has truly left the ocean. Art by Gaughan

This story has almost everything I don’t like about Simak: the pastoralism, wandering back and forth over the line between science fiction and fantasy, the slow progression. I understand why people like him, but he just isn’t for me. If you like those aspects of his work, you may like this one a lot.

Three stars for me, might be four for Simak fans.

The Ethics of Trade, by Timothy M. Brown

This month’s (official) new author gives us a series of letters from the operators of a company that provides dangerous animals to zoos to one of their clients. There’s nothing really new here, but it’s done fairly well. Brown does a good job of calling the letter writer into question, even though we only hear his side.

Three stars.

Rigellian wombats are very, very dangerous. Art by Gaughan

In the Silent World, by Ed Bryant

Julie is a co-ed with telepathy. As far as she know, she’s the only telepath in the world. At least, until an overwhelming cry of loneliness prompts another to contact her.

Julie, I suppose. Art uncredited, but looks like Gaughan

Nothing about this story is bad, but nothing is particularly outstanding either. I saw the ending coming almost as soon as the other telepath made contact. There’s not much more to say about it.

Three stars.

Traps, by Jack Dann and George Zebrowski

Planet 3-10004-2 can’t be approved for colonization until all land animals have been properly classified; Rysling has taken the contract to capture the last unclassified species. He’s puzzled by the presence of another ship and the cryptic messages left by its pilot. Even more puzzling is the effect the creature he’s after seems to have on him.

Rysling’s not sure who or what he is. Art by Gaughan

Dann seems to be a new author, but Zebrowski had a story in a collection that came out last month, so this isn’t quite an IF first. The premise and the powers of the creature are hard to buy, but it’s told well enough. There’s enough talent here to make the story readable; we’ll see if either author has any staying power.

Three stars.

Whipping Star (Part 3 of 4), by Frank Herbert

Herbert’s tale of Saboteur Extraordinary Jorj McKie and his efforts to stop a “reformed” sadist from causing the death of an alien, thus triggering the deaths of nearly every sentient being in the galaxy, plods along. Last month, I said the story was holding my interest and praised the action. Neither of those things is true this month. This installment is nothing but conversations. There are a couple of brief bits of action, but neither is more than a flash.

I’m also getting a little bored. There may not be enough here for a novel. The idea of examining communication without a common perspective is sound, but the whole thing might have been trimmed to a longish novella.

Three fading stars.

The bad guys make an ineffectual attempt to eliminate McKie. Art by Gaughan

The Time Judge, by Dannie Plachta

A criminal is dragged through time and condemned by the title character to a fitting punishment.

Here come da judge. Art by Gaughan

Actually, we don’t know if the punishment is fitting, since we’re never told the nature of the crime, just of the judge’s disgust. For that matter, the punishment wasn’t all that uncommon in its day. As with nearly every Plachta story, the nicest thing I can say is that it’s very short.

Two stars.

Love Thy Neighbor, by E. Clayton McCarty

Jake Terrell starts seeing something out of the corner of his eye. Then it jumps into his head, and he begins behaving oddly.

It’s a stretch, but I see how this connects with the story. Art uncredited

Another story that’s like a piece of popcorn. You consume it without really noticing it, nor is there anything memorable about it, good or bad. A decently told piece of filler.

Three low, but not too low stars.

All Brothers Are Men, by Basil Wells

Three alien religious fanatics are part of a conspiracy to drive humans off their world. Two of them started out as the personality of the third implanted into mind-wiped bodies. The years apart have undermined their commonality, and two of them may no longer believe in the cause.

Not sure what the paper airplane is doing here. Art by Gaughan

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this story is that the humans aren’t really in it. They’re a distant, never seen presence affecting the characters’ society in ways they don’t like. For a guy who started out 30 years ago and probably spends more time writing mysteries and westerns than SF, Wells has managed to stay up-to-date. This is by no means a New Wave tale, but it still manages to have a modern sensibility.

A very solid three stars.

Miscellany

Elsewhere in the magazine, the letters were almost universally in praise of the savaging Ejler Jakobsson gave John Campbell in two editorials over the latter’s piece on race and IQ. I particularly liked the point made by one writer, who notes that Campbell’s premise is based tightly on statistical analysis of something poorly defined and understood, while he flatly rejects statistical evidence indicating clear connections between smoking and lung cancer and heart disease.

Summing up

Looking over what I’ve written, this seems like a weak issue, but it’s not as bad as I make it sound. The Simak is undoubtedly the best in the issue; it might even be a four-star story, but my own prejudices keep me from rating it that high. The Anderson and Wells are fine stories, if not outstanding. The rest are mostly just there. The only really bad story is the Shaw (Plachta’s not bad, just stupid). Frank Herbert might manage to salvage his novel in the final episode, but I’m not holding my breath.

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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[January 31, 1970] Both sides now (February 1970 Analog)

January 31, 2025 Gideon Marcus 2 Comments

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

by Gideon Marcus

All night long

Woody Allen likes to quip that being "bi-sexual" (liking both men and women) doubles of your chance of getting a date on the weekend.

NASA has just doubled the amount of weather they can look at in a single launch. TIROS-M (does the "M" stand for "Mature"?) was launched from California on January 23rd into a two-hour orbit over the poles. 12 times a day, it circles the Earth, which rotates underneath. Unlike the last 19 TIROS satellites, TIROS-M can see in the dark. That means it gets and transmits a worldwide view of the weather twice a day rather than once.

More than that, the satellite is called the "space bus" because it carries a number of other experiments, measuring the heat of the Earth as well as solar proton radiation. Launched "pickaback" with TIROS-M was Oscar 5, an Aussie satellite that broadcasts on a couple of bands so ham radio fans can track signals from orbit. Maybe Kaye Dee will write more about that one in her next piece!

Clouds got in my way

If the distinctive feature of the Earth as viewed from space is its swaddling blanket of clouds, then perhaps the salient characteristic of this month's Analog is its conspicuous degree of padding. Almost all of the stories are longer than they need to be, at least if their purpose be readability and conveying of point. Of course, more words means more four-cent rate…

by Kelly Freas, illustrating "Birthright"

Birthright, by Poul Anderson

Emil Darmody is the manager for the terran trading station on the planet of Suleiman, a sub-jovian hulk of a world with a thick hydrogen atmosphere, primitive alien inhabitants, and a rare and valuable spice. When Burbites, an off-world alien race who are the main purchasers of the spice, drop robots to harvest the spice themselves, Darmody must find an ingenious way to stop them without inciting an interstellar incident. In doing so, he attracts the attention of trade magnate Nicholas Van Rijn, who likes the adventurous sort.

by Kelly Freas

If someone were to ask for a generic example of a story set in the Polesotechnic League, you could do worse than to pick this one. It has all the usual features: compelling astronomy and sufficiently alien beings; a bold, if naive, hero; women as competent professionals; daring-do; and a cameo by the corpulent and lusty Van Rijn.

Three stars.

Dali, for Instance, by Jack Wodhams

by Peter Skirka

And now, the padding begins. Golec is a truly alien being who wakes up one day in the form of a human on present-day Earth. Eventually, he recalls that the mind transference was intentional, a form of reconnaissance. The problem is, it's not reversible, and he finds his new body disgusting. Knowing that there may be others of his race on the planet in the same predicament, he seeks them out. Golec is told that he might as well go native. Things could be worse.

All of this should have been a one-page prelude to an actual story.

Two stars.

The Wind from a Star, by Margaret L. Silbar

I'm very happy to see Ms. Silbar back, as her last piece, on quarks, was excellent. This time, she talks about a topic near and dear to my heart: the solar wind.

I've actually just given a talk on this very subject, so most of what she says is familiar. It's nicely laid out, very interesting, and with some details that are new to me. Newcomers may find it a little abstruse, and as with her last piece, an extra page or two of explanation, or splitting things up into two, simpler articles, might have been in order. Asimov would have taken three or four (though, to be fair, he has half the space).

Four stars.

The Fifth Ace, by Robert Chilson

by Kelly Freas

The planet of Hyperica is the outpost of the Realm of Humanity closest to the "Empire", a separate polity of unknown constitution. One day, a liaison between the two governments brings a gift from the Empire: several giant cat-creatures in cages. They break out of confinement at the same time an Imperial spy-craft crashlands on Hyperica. The local Hypericans attempt to deal with both.

This one took me two reads to grasp for some reason. Much of the story is told from the point of view from the felinoids, who are intelligent and the real invasion, the spy ship being a decoy. There is a lot of description of the stratified human culture, a host of characters, and a great deal of lovingly depicted gore.

A lot of pages for not a lot of story. I did appreciate the portrayal of actual aliens, but I didn't need a page of explanation of how their retractable claws work.

Two stars.

In Our Hands, the Stars (Part 3 of 3), by Harry Harrison

by Kelly Freas

In this installment, the Daleth-drive equipped Galathea, takes off for Mars with an international contingent of observers. Shortly into the flight, both Soviet and American agents vie for control of the ship. The ending is not at all what I expected.

This is such a curious book, in some ways just a vessel for delivering polemics. Worthy polemics, perhaps, on the nobility and folly of national pride. Nevertheless, it's definitely not one of Harrison's best, with none of his New Wave flourishes, nor any of the progressive brilliance of, say, Deathworld. His characters are bland—Martha a particular travesty—and there's not much in the way of story. In fact, I think the whole thing could have been a compelling, four-star novella… forty or fifty pages, tops.

As is, the final installment keeps things from falling below three stars, but no more.

The Biggest Oil Disaster, by Hayden Howard

by Leo Summers

A man named Sirbuh ('hubris' backwards) has a penchant for wildcatting oil wells in the deep sea. When one of his digs creates the biggest oil spill in history, blackening California's beaches, Sibrah doubles down and calls for the use of a nuke to both seal it and create an undersea storage cavern. Sibrah's son, devastated by the environmental catastrophe and sickened by Sibrah's cold calculations, can only watch as the inevitable unfolds.

I assume this is a parable on the excesses of capitalism, though editor Campbell probably enjoyed it as an endorsement of the casual use of atomic weapons. Either way, it goes on far too long and repetitiously.

Two stars.

The Reference Library (Analog, February 1970), by P. Schuyler Miller

Miller is a great book reviewer; even though he's been writing for decades, and despite writing for the most conservative of the SF mags, he keeps an open mind. I'm afraid this year might have broken him, though. The New Wave claimed the Hugos, and so Schuy is trying to wrap his head around the New Wave. The result is a column that's a bit more scattered and less engaging than most.

He does have fun moments, though, particularly his review of Moorcock's The Final Programme:

"[Jerry Cornelius] is the Cthulhu mythos of the New Wave. Michael Moorcock..originated him in his "novel" but other authors are making him the antihero of their "stories" just as a group of authors did with the assumptions and beings created by H.P. Lovecraft..

May all of Lovecraft's most powerful entities help the poor befuddled soul who tries to fit all the Cornelius stories together."

Miller also reviews Asimov's Opus 100, which he liked better than Algis Budrys did. Perhaps Mrs. Miller hasn't had her posterior pinched by the Good Doctor.

Reading the data

It's not so much that Analog is bad these days, it's just that it isn't very good. The Star-O-Meter for this one pegged at 2.6. That's worse than virtually all the other mags/anthologies this month:

Fantastic (3.3)
Galaxy (3.3)
IF (3.1)
New Worlds (3.1)
New Writings #16 (3)
Vision of Tomorrow (3)
Venture (2.8)
Only Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.3) was worse, a most unusual state of affairs.

In the spirit of TIROS-M, here are some other vital figures for the month: ten magazines/anthologies were released this month (though Crime Prevention in the 30th Century only had two new stories). The four and five star stuff would fill three magazines, which I suppose is a normal distribution.

Women wrote 5% of new fiction. On the other hand, Silbar's piece means 33% of the nonfiction is by a woman. Progress!

Like NASA, the Journey is expanding its capacity to review the flood of new material. Let's pray for more stuff in the greater-than-three-star territory.

It's more fun to review "the day side" of fiction!

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

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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[January 22, 1970] Sergeant Pepper's New Wave Writers' Club Band: New Worlds, February 1970

January 22, 2025 Fiona Moore Leave a comment

by Fiona Moore

February’s rain and sleet freeze the toes right off the feet, as Flanders and Swann once sang. Still, there’s reason to celebrate: the Family Law Reform Act has come into effect, reducing the age of majority from 21 to 18 for most purposes, homosexual sex being a notable exception. Decimalisation continues apace, with the half-crown coin being taken out of circulation (don’t worry, you can exchange it at most banks).

Term has resumed at Royal Holloway College and my students are attacking the writings of Margaret Mead with their usual enthusiasm. However, there is also widespread unease among our Nigerian foreign student community over the capitulation of Biafra: many of them have had no news of their families, and are also concerned about when they will be able to go home. The university is rallying round to make sure everyone is housed, and there are jobs aplenty in Southwest London if they need to stay a while, but it is still an anxious situation for them.

Jubilant street scene in Lagos upon the news of surrender, January 12, 1970

No news of Yoko Ono after December’s festive anti-war campaign. Rumour has it she and her husband have gone off to New York for some reason, so I expect I’ll be covering her activities less often. What all this means for her husband’s band, I’m not sure.

On to New Worlds, which continues its trajectory back to being an SFF magazine, but unfortunately almost every story is suffering from a lack of originality this month.

Cover by Roy Cornwall

Lead-In

Mostly introducing new writers and illustrators to the magazine, as well as showcasing the pieces by Ballard and Watson, and drawing the reader’s attention to a new, presumably ongoing, feature of the publication—of which, more later.

Journey Across a Crater by J.G. Ballard

A piece about a crash-landed astronaut finding his way to civilisation. There are resonances with Ballard’s earlier story “You and Me and The Continuum” (Impulse Magazine 1:1, 1966), and also some vivid sexual imagery about car crashes, which makes sense given that the Lead-In tells us Ballard is currently working on a novel about these. Interesting enough as a revisitation of familiar Ballard themes but no new ground broken. Three stars.

Soul Fast by Gwyneth Cravens

Illustration, artist uncredited (possibly Charles Platt)

A story by a woman in New Worlds is always worth remarking on, particularly a woman who is a current editor of the New Yorker. However, I can’t help but notice that women writers in New Worlds always seem to get pigeonholed into writing about domestic or otherwise nurturing themes. This one, for instance, is about food and the role it plays in relationships. There are some interesting satirical commentaries on race and how over-privileged White Americans with superficial attitudes towards spirituality crib from Black and Asian cultures, which makes it worth checking out. Four stars.

Japan by Ian Watson

Illustration by Judy Watson

This is the standout piece of the issue. Watson, a Tokyo resident, introduces Japan to English readers in a surreal, outré travelogue emphasising the weird SF-ness of living in a country where the atmosphere isn’t breathable, earthquakes and fires are endemic, sexual fetishes are catered to in the mainstream media, and consumerism takes on the status of art. The illustrations are by Watson’s wife Judy. It’s beautifully written, though, having been to Japan once or twice myself, I worry that it’s over-emphasising the strangeness of the country to a point where it might simply confirm Europeans’ stereotype that the East is a bizarre and hostile place. Nonetheless, five stars.

Apocrypha by D.M. Thomas

A poem about the life of Jesus. It’s not terribly original, but I did find it engaging and nicely written. Three stars.

6B 4C DD1 22 by Michael Butterworth

Illustration by Alan Stephanson

Another not-terribly-original piece in the vein of “let’s drop acid and describe the resulting trip as an SFF story.” The mind-altered protagonist lurches back and forth between several different realities, some more surreal than others, with recurring characters playing different roles. I like Butterworth’s way with prose, and some of the metaphors and descriptions are genuinely arresting, but I’d like to declare a moratorium on anyone using Alice in Wonderland as an acid trip metaphor; it’s been done to death. Similarly, while I really like the accompanying art, it looks exactly the same as every other set of illustrations intended to show an acid trip (see above). Four stars.

A Spot in the Oxidised Desert by Paul Green

Illustration by John Bayley

A short prose poem from the point of view of a dying sentient tank in a future desert battlefield. Possibly the most innovative piece this issue. Four stars.

The Bait Principle by M John Harrison

Illustration by Ivor Latto

Patients in an asylum begin to share each other’s delusions, and, in doing so, bring them into reality, leading to an ailurophobe being tormented by human-sized cats. This is an amusing twist on the familiar crazy-people-are-actually-seeing-the-truth genre, but at the end of the day that’s all it is. Two stars.

The Wind in the Snottygobble Tree: Conclusion by Jack Trevor Story

Illustration by Roy Cornwall

Finally this serial lurches to an end, with some heavy-handed satire about the Catholic and Scientologist churches, spies and the police. I have the feeling that the story-so-far summary is in fact retroactively adding elements, but I’m not interested enough to go back and find out. The eponymous tree finally appears (it's a species of yew, apparently), but I don’t think it’s got much to do with the story apart from being a bit gross. One star.

A Vid by James Sallis

A short poem which didn’t really do much for me. Two stars.

Books

By Mike Walters, John T. Sladek and Douglas Hill. There’s a delightfully excruciating pun on the first page, although Walters has to contort his review in order to fit it.

Music

As regards the new feature I mentioned above: New Worlds now has a music column! This is certainly a welcome innovation, and I look forward to seeing whether the New Wave has a particularly distinctive take on album reviews.

Overall, I’d say the magazine is suffering this month from a lack of originality. Everything is competently written at worst and sometimes really beautiful, but most of it is things that have been done before. Even the music column is something we see over and over in other magazines, and whether the fact that the reviewers are from the usual New Worlds crowd will make a difference is uncertain.

Is the New Wave played out? Can it (and Mr. Yoko Ono’s musical career) survive into the new decade? Time will tell.

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

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[January 20, 1970] Jolly good Ffelowes (February 1970 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

January 20, 2025 Gideon Marcus 4 Comments

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

by Gideon Marcus

Up in the sky!

There are some intrepid women whose names are household words: Willa Brown, Jerrie Mock, Amelia Earhart. Others are not so familiar. The other day, I read the obituary for a pioneering soul I'd not known of before.

Blanche Stewart Scott was born in 1885. A native of Rochester, she was 25 when she drove a 25-horsepower Overland stock car from New York to San Francisco, her 69 hour journey marking the second time a woman had made a transcontinental drive.

This attracted the interest of aviation pioneer Glen Curtiss, who took her under his wing (so to speak) and trained her to fly. Apparently, Mrs. Scott had never seen an airplane before her coast-to-coast jaunt; she was caught in a traffic jam outside Dayton, Ohio, caused by a flying exhibition out of Wright Field.

After just three days of instruction, she made her first solo flight on September 5, 1910, from an airfield in Hammondsport—what may well be the first time an American woman piloted an aircraft.

Over the next four years, until she gave up flying, she suffered 41 broken bones in a number of crashes. She was one of the lucky ones: "Most of the early women fliers got killed," she once observed.

Scott's later career included working as a scriptwriter, film producer, and radio broadcaster in Hollywood. In 1948, she became the first woman to ever ride in a jet aircraft. During the '50s, she combed the country for vintage planes to stock the U.S. Air Force Museum near Dayton.

She died on January 12 at Genesee Hospital in her native town of Rochester, New York.

Down in the mud

by Michael Gilbert

Another pioneer of sorts had something of a flutter, if not yet a brush with death (I hope). The latest issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction is pretty bad…

From the Moon, with Love, by Neil Shapiro

Who says you can't still publish Adam and Eve stories? This time, our parabolic (is that the adjective form of parable?) two are "Dorn" and "Lara", respectively the Master and Mistress of Fortress Desire and Fortress Hope. They are young clones, the last two humans alive, residing in twin, invulnerable bastions on the Moon.

Three centuries after atomic apocalypse destroyed their planet, the two beings are still conducting weekly mutual bombardments, begun ages before by their predecessors. Then the "Ezkeel", alien guardians of Earth, return to unite them so that they can repopulate their home planet. I leave it to you to decipher the thinly disguised biblical reference in their race name.

Anyway, Shapiro manages to write both in a peurile fashion and for the Playboy set (perhaps the two aren't that divergent, after all).

One star.

M-1, by Gahan Wilson

Illustrator Wilson (he gets around; I see him drawing for Playboy too) takes a stab at short story writing. In this vignette, mysterious forces have erected a thousand-foot statue of Mickey Mouse in the Nevada desert. The point of the story, aside from the feeble joke ending, is to see how long it takes the reader to realize what has happened, as the figure is obliquely described as characters ascend it like a cliff face.

I got the joke halfway through page 2. The rest seemed superfluous.

Two stars.

Books (F&SF, February 1970), by James Blish

Blish tags in for Russ this month, reviewing five classic fantasies and one new novel:

James Branch Cabell: FIGURES OF EARTH,
James Branch Cabell: THE SILVER STALLION.
Lord Dunsany: THE KING OF ELFLAND's DAUGHTER.
William Morris: THE WOOD BEYOND THE WORLD.
Fletcher Pratt: THE BLUE STAR.

All from Ballantine Books, New York, paper, 95¢: 1969.

He likes and recommends all of them. I've read none of them…

He is less effusive about Josephin Saxton's THE HIERos GAMOS OF SAM AND AN SMITH. He appreciates the surrealism of it, but he would have preferred that this odd Adam-an-Eve story had remained in its own world rather than transitioning into ours.

by Gahan Wilson

His Only Safari, by Sterling E. Lanier

Brigadier Ffelowes relates of the time he went to the Kenyan highlands and came face to face with the man-eating monster that inspired the Egyptian god Anubis.

Lanier does a good job of reviving the pulp era for modern audiences. A brisk, taut read.

Four stars.

Watching Apollo, by Barry N. Malzberg

Our astronauts may be the stalwart vanguard of humanity, but they also have to shit, sometimes.

Three stars for this cheeky poem.

Initiation, by Joanna Russ

A precious homosexual and a straight-laced starship captain escape a spacewreck, landing on an odd human colony. In contrast to their overcrowded, overconfining Earth, the new world's people are free, untechnological, and possessed of profound psionic powers. The skipper is unable to adapt or understand. The Terran civilian, unpleasant and mistrustful, eventually loses his inhibitions (and, apparently, his proclivity for men), becoming one with the outworlders.

Told in a dreamlike fashion to suggest the odd psychic phenomena and the constant wordless communication, I found this story's affected style off-putting. Sex was described obliquely, less to avoid offense, it seemed; more as if Russ was embarrassed of describing the act.

I also didn't like anyone in the story, nor did I care much what happened to them. The alienness of the colonists would have had more impact had things started with a more familiar, constrasting viewpoint.

I understand this story is also actually a detached piece of a larger novel due out later this year. Perhaps it would make more sense in context.

Two stars.

The Tracy Business, by Gene DeWeese and Robert Coulson

Fans of the fanzine Yandro know who Robert "Buck" Coulson is (Juanita Coulson's husband). He and DeWeese write Man from U.N.C.L.E. novels under the name "Thomas Stratton".

This story follows a private dick hired by a shrewish woman to find out why her husband disappears every four weeks for three days, spending a boodle of money in the process. Hint: it's not another woman, and it's not blackmail.

It's a rather obvious tale, and unpleasant to boot. Two stars.

The Multiplying Elements, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor explains those "rare earths" that have their own separate spot on the periodic table, and also how they were first isolated from their containing ores. However, we have yet to learn why they occupy their own sub-table.

Chemistry is not my strong suit, and this article is necessarily incomplete, but I'll give it four stars for now.

Dream Patrol, by Charles W. Runyon

Way back in 1952, J.T.McIntosh (when he still was calling himself M'Intosh) wrote a neat story called Hallucination Orbit. The premise was that there were these solitary garrison stations at the edge of the solar system, manned for months at a time. Eventually, the folks stationed there started having hallucinations, which was the sign they needed to be relieved. The sentry of that story dreamed a succession of increasingly convincing female companions. The tension of that tale lay in our hero's increasingly challenging attempts to distinguish fantasy from reality.

It was a warm and ultimately sweet story, and it is one of my favorites. There's a reason it got republished in the Second Galaxy Reader (1953).

Dream Patrol has the same premise, except the illusions are caused by hostile aliens, and there is no cure. There's also a streak of misogyny to the whole thing. Hell, almost 20 years ago, McIntosh had women in his space navy; that's unfathomable to Runyon.

Two stars.

Autopsy report

Given how good last month's issue was, this abysmal 2.3-star mag is quite the surprise. Let's hope this constitutes an outlier. One prominent obituary this month is quite sufficient!

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

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[January 16, 1970] Strange Reports (Vision of Tomorrow #5 and New Writings SF-16)

January 16, 2025 Kris Vyas-Myall 2 Comments

By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

The news to start this decade seems to be unrelentingly gloomy. The crisis in Biafra is only worsening, Mainland China and the USSR are at each other’s throats, and, at home, the government appears paralyzed on how to deal with inflation or the Unions.

But I want to take a break from grim reality and talk briefly about one of my favourite new TV programmes of recent months, Strange Report.

It stars the unlikely team of Anthony Quayle (regular star of war films) as retired police detective Adam Strange; Kaz Garas (relative newcomer) as student and jack-of-all-trades Hamlyn Gynt; and Anneke Wills (Polly from Doctor Who) as model and artist Evelyn McClean.

Together the trio solve unusual crimes together. These have included such cases as a kidnapped Chinese diplomat, murders by witchcraft and the killing of a student demonstrator behind the Iron Curtain.

There are several reasons this appeals to me, and would to other SF fans I imagine. Firstly, even though it never becomes SFnal, the cases work from a viewpoint that feels very scientific. That no matter how odd things may seem, they will always have a rational explanation.

Secondly, the cases are willing to address complicated issues, without attempting to preach. Even in dealing with some clearly despicable characters, there is an attempt made to understand their point of view and give both sides of the argument. To me it feels like the writers have their own ideas but don’t want to patronise the viewer, we are encouraged to make up our own minds.

Finally, is the dynamic between our triumvirate of heroes. Much like in Star Trek, you get the sense that, in spite of their different viewpoints they all clearly care for and respect each other. It would have been easy to have Strange constantly belittling Evelyn and her trying to show that women could do things for themselves. But, instead, there is a respect and a willingness to listen. Perhaps that is what the terrible world outside our windows really needs?

Back in the pages of SF publications, we have our own strange reports. One coming in from Vision of Tomorrow and the other from New Writings:

Vision of Tomorrow #5

Cover by Gerard Alfo Quinn

The only point of interest in the introduction is it labelling itself as Britain’s only original SF magazine. I guess it is a point of debate if New Worlds still counts as science fiction or not.

Dinner of Herbs by Douglas R. Mason

Illustration by Jeeves

Fenella, a thought chandler at a dianetics lab, has gone to a villa to have a tryst with engineer Gordon Reid. Also staying with them is their domestic servant, a former psychologist android. But is three a crowd?

A darker and more complex tale than it first appeared. However, I think it would benefit from toning down the descriptive prose and upping the character work.

Three Stars

Technical Wizard by Philip E. High

Illustration by Alan Vince

Two empires in space have come into contact, the more technically advanced human empire and another larger one, populated by fox-like creatures. A single human is sent into the fox people’s empire on a broken-down old ship to warn them. A parapsychic plague has spread through the human empire almost destroying society. Gelthru and Feen have to determine if the human is telling the truth, or if it is all a magic trick to keep them from invading.

An interesting concept and I enjoyed how it made the human the other and the fox-people the protagonists. However, I feel like it needed some more editing to rise above the pack.

Three Stars

Flanagan's Law by Dan Morgan

Illustration by Jeeves

Capt. Terence Hartigan of the freighter Ladybug is finally given clearance to leave Calpryn, a planet where the main occupation, and entertainment, is lawsuits. However, five hours before blast-off O’Mara goes missing. Hartigan sets off to find him before they find themselves in more legal hot water, but the captain quickly becomes entangled in the planet’s labyrinthine bureaucracy.

I have previously failed to find Morgan’s satires either poignant or funny. This continues that trend but with the addition of some questionable Irish stereotyping.

One Star

Fantasy Review

Uncredited illustration

Kathryn Buckley reviews New Writings in SF-15, which she liked but not as much as I did, and John Foyster gives praise to The Black Flame by Stanley G. Weinbaum, Outlaws of the Moon by Edmond Hamilton, Kavin’s World by David Mason and Needle by Hal Clement.

One of the Family by Sydney J. Bounds

Illustration by Alan Vince

Having completed the terraforming of Phoebe-Four, Richard Daniels takes his wife Jane and son Kenny to the neighboring Phoebe-Five for a holiday. Whilst it is meant to be uninhabited they find an intelligent alien, who they call Alan. He quickly becomes like one of the family, but Dick finds his presence both annoying and a cause for concern.

A bit of an old-fashioned tale, but well-told and with a reasonable twist. Wouldn’t have looked out of place as an episode of The Outer Limits.

Three Stars

On Greatgrandfather's Knee by Jack Wodhams

Illustration by Dick Howett

Six-G GFM Frank (that is Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather on your mother’s side) tells Furn tales of early space travel. But with longevity meaning all the kids having over a hundred great relatives, these tales of adventure are a dull chore.

Whilst Wodhams captures well the boredom of kids having to visit older relatives, I am not sure what the point of it all is.

Two Stars

The Impatient Dreamers: Hands Across the Sea by Walter Gillings

Insignia of Gernsbeck’s Science Fiction League, designed by Frank R. Paul

This month Gillings discusses Gernsbeck’s Science Fiction League’s branches in England, the early days of New Worlds, fanzine Scientifiction and Gillings' talks with publishers to get a new British SF magazine off the ground.

I continue to adore this series.

Five Stars

Incubation by Damien Broderick

Illustration by Eddie Jones

Clive Soame notices a strange ad in the personals and concocts a scheme to sleep with a rich woman and take her money. However, the assignation Rogel and Silver were communicating about was much more complicated than he first thought.

Whilst not revolutionary, an interesting enough take on the lecherous man and alien conspiracy genre. Surprisingly, more than the science-fictional elements, I found myself enjoying the descriptions of Sydney. Very well painted.

Three Stars

Life of the Party by William F. Temple

Illustration by Eddie Jones

In San Remo, business magnate Mannheim and reporter Don both notice a jet disappear in mid-air. Following its route, they find themselves on a strange coastline, with a giant white cube standing alone by a desert. Entering the cube, they discover a translucent liquid wall leading to a kind of theatre-cum-hotel. The missing jet passengers are there but aged and confused. Don and Manny assume it will be simple to escape, but some force is determined to keep the visitors from leaving.

Taking up over a quarter of the magazine, this is easily the longest piece here, but it makes good use of its length, creating an eerie sense of the uncanny. However, the story is a pretty old one (at times I was recalling The Odyssey) and I was disappointed with the way the women characters were written.

Evens out at Three Stars

After Ragnarok by Robert Bowden

Illustrated by Gerard Alfo Quinn

The final piece is from an author who I believe is new (at the very least I have not seen him covered by my GJ comrades). After Ragnarok, the world lays shattered. Ottar and Ragnar sail the seas in their ship powered by the ancient technology of the diesel engine. There is a rumour that long ago, some of the gods escaped across the Bifrost, also called Orbit. But could it be possible they are returning? And what will that mean for the world?

Yes, it is another piece of post-apocalyptic-medieval-futurism (try saying that after a few drinks!) However, it has a good style and I have a soft spot for this type of story. The level of cynicism involved also makes it appeal to me.

Four Stars

Tomorrow’s Disasters by Christopher Priest

Instead of our usual preview of next issue’s contents, Priest gives us a short review of Three For Tomorrow. Needless to say, he adores it.

So that is it for the relative newcomer to the scene, but what about the old hand?

New Writings in SF-16, ed. by John Carnell

Even if we accept the contention that Vision of Tomorrow is the only British SF magazine, New Writings still helps keep up the national side with its regular doses of Carnellian science fiction. According to John Carnell, all the stories in this issue deal with problems that are galactic in scope. Let us see if that makes them Galactic Star worthy.

Getaway from Getawehi by Colin Kapp

Things don't get off to a great start with the return of Colin Kapp's Unorthodox Engineers. Here they are hired to help rescue a construction crew from Getawehi, a planet with an impossible orbit, where gravity is not perpendicular to the surface and 1+1=1.5079.

At almost fifty pages, reading through this was a major slog. These tales must have their fans, but I was personally glad when they disappeared from New Writings a few years back. According to our more learned editor, the concept is very, very, broadly viable, which raises it just above rock bottom for me.

A very low Two Stars

All Done by Mirrors by Douglas R. Mason

George Exton has developed a method of producing mirror images of himself, able to independently work on multiple tasks with the same degree of knowledge and skill as the original. But what is the cost to someone of doing this?

A well-worn trail is being beaten here, and not particularly effectively either.

Two Stars

Throwback by Sydney J. Bounds

Since the Great Change all humans have had the ability to connect via ESP. All that is, except for one person who is completely opaque to all psychic phenomena. Out of pity he is made the keeper of the Museum of Language, with access to all the books and knowledge of the world. Even though he gives weekly lectures, few care about anything other than the present. But when strange lights appear in the sky, only he can save the planet from total panic.

A tightly-told little tale. A bit obvious but enjoyable nonetheless.

Three Stars

The Perihelion Man by Christopher Priest

Capt. Farrell is grounded after an accident near Venus dulls his senses. Whilst pondering what to do with his life now, he is offered a unique opportunity to go back into space. 250 old nuclear satellites have been stolen and are now orbiting the sun, and Farrell may be the only person who can get them back.

This is Priest’s most impressive work to date. He has managed to skillfully produce an exciting adventure story that also has some interesting political elements. That is not to say it is as deep as a New Worlds piece, but it is a fun ride.

Four Stars

R26/5/PSY and I by Michael G. Coney

Hugo Johnson is an agoraphobe who has not left his apartment in two months and is believed to be at risk of killing himself. As such his psychoanalyst provides him with a roommate, robot R/26/5/PSY, or Bob for short. However, Bob is not designed to make Johnson’s life easier, not at all….

An interesting little psychological short. It felt like a combination of I, Robot, a Zola story, and The Odd Couple.

Four Stars

Meatball by James White

And we finish off with the return of White's Sector General and, as the name suggests, their continued explorations of the planet Drambo, nicknamed "Meatball". With the Drambons brought to the hospital station, they must now learn to interact with the numerous other species on board. At the same time Conway has to work out how to deal with the nuclear destruction taking place on the planet below.

It is possible that my memory is cheating me, but I don’t recall other Sector General tales focusing on a single case so much before. Maybe it is planned to be a novel fix-up? This piece definitely has the feel of a staging section, it spends a lot of time recapping earlier events and ends abruptly. Still rather interesting but does not stand alone or feel complete by the end.

Three Stars

Strange Brew, Read What’s Inside Of You

Evelyn and Strange ponder what we have just read

Whether on the page or the screen, it seems that if you put a group of talented people together and ask them to deal with imaginative scenarios, they can often strike gold…or at least silver. Even if there is little here that is likely to win a Galactic Star, there is plenty worth checking out.

Here's to many more years of Vision, New Writings, and Strange Report. The seventies may not be looking much like a decade of peace and harmony, but it can at least be one of good solid entertainment.

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

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[January 14, 1970] Root Rot (February 1970 Venture)

January 14, 2025 David Levinson Leave a comment

by David Levinson

A less perfect union

Unions have been a positive for workers. They’re why we have the 40-hour work week, overtime pay, paid time off, why blue collar workers are able to buy a house, not to mention not owing their soul to the company store; I’m old enough to remember when none of those things were a given. Of course, as human institutions, they are also flawed, and where money and power flows, those flaws can turn to worse things. That’s what gives many politicians—and the editor of a certain science fiction magazine—a pretext to rail against them.

One of the most important unions this century has been the United Mine Workers of America. Much of that stems from the four decades of leadership by John L. Lewis, who died last June. Lewis took a well-earned retirement in 1960 and was replaced by his vice president Thomas Kennedy. Old and in poor health, Kennedy was largely a caretaker and was soon followed by Lewis’ chosen successor, W.A. “Tough Tony” Boyle.

Lewis ran the UMWA with an iron fist, ignoring demands by the rank-and-file for a greater say in the union. He maintained his power through skill, charisma, and reputation. Boyle has run things with a similar style, but lacks most of what kept Lewis in charge. There’s even a feeling among the membership that he tends to favor the interests of the mine owners over the workers.

Enter Joseph “Jock” Yablonski. He was one of the leading figures in the opposition to Boyle’s policies. He had also been the president of the UMW’s District 5 until Boyle unilaterally stripped him of office in 1965. Last May, Yablonski announced he would challenge Boyle for the UMW presidency in the December election and was formally nominated in September. Boyle won the election on December 9th by an almost 2-to-1 margin, and Yablonski conceded. However after seeing the detailed election results, Yablonski promptly asked the Department of Labor to investigate the election. On the 18th, he also filed five civil lawsuits in federal court against the UMW over a variety of irregularities.

On January 5th, Yablonski’s older son, Kenneth, discovered the bodies of Yablonski, his wife Margaret, and their 25-year-old daughter Charlotte in their home in Clarksville, Pennsylvania. The next day 20,000 miners in West Virginia staged a one-day wildcat strike in protest against Tony Boyle, who they believe is responsible for the murders. Hours after the Yablonskis were buried, several of his supporters met with his attorney to plan further actions to reform the union.

As I write, the police have no leads. A $60,000 reward has been offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction. I don’t want to point any fingers without evidence, but an awful lot of people close to Yablonski are looking hard at Tony Boyle and the acrimony surrounding last month’s election.

Corrupt institutions

Most of this month’s Venture is given over to the new Keith Laumer novel, which spends quite a while with miners. But it and the other stories in the issue deal with corruption, both institutional and personal.

A not very representational image for Laumer’s new story. Art by Bert Tanner

The Star Treasure, by Keith Laumer

Lt. Ban Tarleton is the son of an admiral and a proud member of the United Planetary Navy. He firmly believes in the status quo and holds no truck with rebellious Hatenik philosophy. But a purge leads to his discovery of some unpleasant facts, eventually resulting in him being cashiered from the Navy and sentenced to permanent exile on a harsh Class I planet. There, he finds work as a miner and makes a discovery that may give him the power to bring the whole system down.

Ban must use his best friend’s corpse as a trap. Art by Bert Tanner

Laumer is probably best known for his comedic stories, particularly those about the interstellar diplomat Retief, but he mostly writes serious stuff. Those tales come in two flavors: two-fisted adventure and thoughtful pieces that frequently tug at “masculine” emotions like duty and sacrifice. The Star Treasure is very much in the former category, but it also differs from Laumer’s usual approach.

Laumer’s typical adventure protagonist is an old-school Competent Man writ very large. Ban, on the other hand, blunders from episode to episode, generally succeeding through dumb luck. Laumer also tends to go wildly off the rails, often to the point of the surreal, investing his protagonists with incredible powers or giving them an alien background of which the were unaware. This one goes off the rails, too, but it’s right at the end. That usually happens around the mid-point. I guess this counterbalances The Seeds of Gonyl, where it happens on page one.

Three stars.

Breaking Point, by V.N. McIntyre

An ambitious but untalented colonel is captured and tortured by the enemy. There are a number of science-fictional elements.

Looks more like Neil Diamond to me. Art by Craig Robertson

It’s hard to say much about this story without simply retelling it. There is one thing that kept me from liking it: The colonel has a cat, and the cat dies. Twice. I understand how it fits in the story, but it put me off completely.

Anyway, McIntyre seems to be new. I don’t know if that V. hides a Virginia or a Virgil and can’t make a guess based on the writing either. Either way, there are signs of some solid talent. More from this author would not be amiss—just leave the cats alone.

Objectively three stars, but only two from me for reasons already stated.

Disposal, by Ron Goulart

You probably don’t think about how much trash you and your family generate. Someone in the house takes the cans to the curb on the appointed day and brings back the empties once the truck has been by. What would happen if that didn’t happen? What if there wasn’t a nearby dump you could take the trash to yourself? Goulart asks those questions with a slight science-fictional twist.

Although the story takes place in Goulart’s old stomping grounds of San Francisco, I recall reading that he recently moved to New York City. It would have been after the great garbage strike of a couple years ago, but he may have been inspired by horror stories from the locals. His typical satirical style is fully in evidence, but he keeps the outright wackiness in check.

Three stars.

Standoff, by Robert Toomey

A human and an alien find themselves on opposite sides of an asteroid after their ships were destroyed in combat. Hostilities are extreme, and neither side takes prisoners. If they work together, the two might find a way for both to survive.

As the situation of the story became clear to me, I expected something like John Boorman’s 1968 film Hell in the Pacific (starring Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune). That might have been Toomey’s original inspiration, with a possible assist from the 1965 Frank Sinatra feature None But the Brave, but that’s not where the story goes. The ending might be darker than either of those films.

A high three stars.

Summing up

Elsewhere in the issue, we get a “super Feghoot,” which is twice the usual length at a full page. Unfortunately, the pun is extremely tortured, resulting in one of the worst Feghoots I’ve ever read. Meanwhile, Ron Goulart has finally found a book he likes. Two, in fact. One is a Doc Savage reprint, the other A Wilderness of Stars, an anthology edited by William F. Nolan. Most of the stories seem to be from the 1950s. I’m not to sure that Ron is all that keen on the modern state of science fiction, even the old fashioned stuff.

So, a rather middle-of-the-road issue. However, it’s dominated by the condensed novel, far more so than any of the previous issues. If we have to have a novel in every issue, let’s at least make it something shorter so we can have a couple more stories as well.

Wellen’s written some good stuff, so I hope this more than the pot-boiler thriller it appears to be.

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction