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[November 20, 1969] You say you want a revolution… (December 1969 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

November 20, 2024 Gideon Marcus 4 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

When you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out

250,000 miles from Earth, the astronauts of Apollo 12 are circling the Moon, photographing Earth's neighbor for future landing sites before coming home. And in the nation's capital, the city is still reeling from the footsteps of 250,000 protesters who marched on Washington in the largest anti-war event in American history.

This second "Vietnam Moratorium Day" followed on the heels of last month's nationwide protests, to which President Nixon responded with apathy and his November 4th speech, in which he touted his secret timetable for "Vietnamesation"—the turning over of defense of South Vietnam to President Thieu's government, and also played up his support from "The Silent Majority" of Americans.

The protest movements have still fallen short of the planned nationwide strike, and this latest one has been eclipsed by the Moon landings. Nevertheless, they are making waves. In addition to the quarter million in Washington D.C., 100,000 marched in San Francisco in the West Coast's largest peace demonstration in history.

That demonstration was, in fact, peaceful. Not so the march on Washington, where extremists, protesting the trial of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and six "Yippies" for allegedly inspiring the Chicago Democratic Convention riots last year, clashed with police and were driven back by tear gas.

There is no word, as yet, if there will be a third Moratorium march in time for the Holidays, but one can probably expect more such outbursts from the Unsilent Minority so long as there is no end in sight to the Vietnam War, which has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 Americans so far.

The say that it's the institution

Last year, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction won the Hugo for Best Science Fiction Magazine. It was a bit of a surprise since 1968 was hardly one of the magazine's best years—but then, 1968 wasn't a consistently great year for any magazine. However, if one were to judge F&SF's 1969 output solely on the basis of this month's issue, one's estimation of the magazine would, indeed, be justifiably high! Read on with pleasure:

by Ed Emshwiller

Bye, Bye, Banana Bird, by Sonya Dorman

In the not too far future, the Earth is under a world government, humanity has a few extraterrestrial colonies, and the Planetary Patrol, thoroughly integrated by race and sex, keeps the peace both at home and among the stars.

This is the tale of Roxy Rimidon, a young "Pippa" recruit who goes through a rigorous Basic Training before receiving her first assignment: to the Dominion of Cuba to investigate the sabotage of banana shipments to the agricultural colony of Vogl.

It's light, interesting, suspenseful, and (refreshingly) from the female perspective—sort of Heinlein's Starship Troopers meets Pauline Ashwell's Lysistrata Lee stories. What's not to like?

The only thing dragging this tale down is its lack of balance. Half the story is boot camp, and the other half is the assignment. On the other hand, if this novelette is merely setup for a clutch of Rimidon stories, then all is forgiven.

Four stars.

Hunting, by Robin Carson

Norman Hart is a deer hunter who, despite years of trying, has yet to bag a single buck. This time, with the help of a grizzled huntsman, and a little magic, he just might get what he's after.

Even if it's not what he intended…

There are a lot of Twilight Zone-y ways this amiable piece could have ended, and I had to ruminate for a while to decide if I liked the one Carson chose. Ultimately, I did.

Four stars.

by Gahan Wilson

The Adventure of the Martian Client , by Manly Wade Wellman and Wade Welman

What if Arthur Conan Doyle's twin titans, Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger, worked together? And what if the case they were on took place during the Martian conquest as depicted by H. G. Wells?

The result might be something like this, the first collaboration between SF veteran Manly Wade Wellman and his son. The tone is right; the ending is a touch anti-climactic.

Three stars.

The Falcon and the Falconeer, by Barry N. Malzberg

A Christmas story: a bunch of naval personnel on the backwater Rigel XIV decide to hold a nativity pageant among the natives. It was a natural fit, what with the indigenes all looking like, and having much the mental attitude, of terrestrial donkeys. But between the aliens' telepathic abilities and the religious inclinations of the crewman chosen to play the Infant, an unintended miracle occurs.

'Tis the season, indeed! A fun, nicely laid out piece, with properly rising tension and multiple viewpoints…but ultimately trivial and forgettable.

Three stars.

Lord of Sensation, by Leonard Tushnet

"Joe Roland was a modest man. He disclaimed any great genius as the cause of his phenomenal success…but a genius he nevertheless was, if a genius is one who builds the germ of an idea into an overwhelming craze."

The secret to M.I.T. graduate Roland's success? Capitalizing on the augmentation of the senses. First, he electronically enhances the sound of The Murderers, a second-rate rock band, to leave club-goers in ecstacy. But the extra vibrations cause long-term hearing and psychological damage, so Roland turns, one by one, to the other four senses, with both increasing victories and correspondingly deeper consequences.

A fun cautionary tale on the importance of doing research before experimenting directly on humans.

Three stars.

The Luxon Wall, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor offers up a fascinating discussion on tachyons, those hypothetical particles that only travel faster than light, and what that hyperluminal universe they inhabit might be like.

Dig it. Four stars.

Formula for a Special Baby, by Julian F. Grow

Dr. Hiram Pertwee, late of Vermont, now somewhere out West, has yet another run-in with an extraterrestrial. This one arrives on a flying teacup speaking German, dressed in lederhosen, and accompanied by a voluptuous cat-woman. His mission is to go to Bavaria and whisper a strange incantation to a baby there. Pertwee is shanghaied to be his guide.

Aside from being the first in the now four-part series of stories to reveal the exact year in which they occur (1879), the most that can be said for "Baby" is that it is another Pertwee tale.

Which isn't bad. They're fun, if not literature for the ages. Three stars.

We are doing what we can

What a pleasant issue that was! Not a clunker in the bunch, and some fine reading besides. Keep it up, Fermans père et fils, and you might just take another golden rocketship home again next Worldcon!

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

[November 14, 1969] To Experiment or Not To Experiment, That is the Question. (The New S. F. & Vision of Tomorrow #2)

November 14, 2024 Kris Vyas-Myall Leave a comment

By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

Among musicians right now, there seems to be a split around whether to look towards an experimental future or an idealized past for their inspiration.

Both in pop music and SF, nudity and sex remain sources of controversy.

The most explicit examples of Futurism come from two recent singles, Zager and Evans’ In the Year 2525 and David Bowie’s Space Oddity. But there is also the debut album from King Crimson, featuring the song 21st Century Schizoid Man, The Moody Blues’ space inspired LP, and Pink Floyd performed a new piece recently in honour of the Moon Landing. In addition, the music industry is pushing what is acceptable sexually whether that be in artwork, such as the Blind Faith cover above, or interesting choices of sounds on pop songs.

Did the Kinks have a point about preserving village greens?

On the other hand, at this time last month 4 of the top 5 singles were all country influenced songs, from Bobbie Gentry, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. Now, there has always been some country influence in the charts (as shown by Jim Reeves having 7 posthumous top 20 singles and counting) but it is certainly reaching a new level when the Beach Boys and Rolling Stones are both trying it out. In addition, folk is also growing, often with a nostalgic edge, in such songs as Fairport Convention’s Who Knows Where the Time Goes or Donovan’s Atlantis.

These differences can also be seen in SF and, perhaps, there is no clearer division than that which can be observed between the two publications I am reviewing today.

The New S.F., ed. by Langdon Jones

Cover by Colin Mier

An introduction by Michael Moorcock

Who else would you choose but Moorcock to introduce this selection of New Wave authors? Here he talks about how the “new SF writers” or “New Worlds group” have moved beyond spaceships and monsters to do more person-centric poetic pieces.

Fourteen Stations on the Northern Line by Giles Gordon

Fourteen different men observe an unnamed woman to different degrees of lechery as she walks up a hill. She fails to notice them as she has other things on her mind.

If it was not in this collection, it would probably not be considered SF, more akin to a Joyce than a Gernsback, only approaching the latter with the surrealism of the mind.

Moorcock’s introduction notes this as an example of a “compacted novel”, one that could be extended to a traditional novel but that would blunt the impact significantly. I cannot determine if I wanted this to be longer, shorter or reworked, but something is amiss. The metaphor, though obvious, is a good one (what passenger on a train pays attention to the small commuter stations?) and the difference in the inner lives of the observer and observed make a solid basis. But it left me wanting something better from it.

Three Stars

The Peking Junction by Michael Moorcock

A Jerry Cornelius story from his creator. In this episode, Europe has been devastated by American bombs (of course Europe still supports their allies in this action) and our dandified spy goes to China to deal with a downed American plane. His mission is complicated by the fact that he falls in love with one of the Chinese generals.

One interesting element here is Moorcock explicitly calls out the connection between Cornelius and his other tales:

Having been Elric, Asquiol, Minos, Aquilinus, Clovis Marca, now and forever he was Jerry Cornelius of the noble price, proud prince of ruins, boss of the circuits. Faustaff, Muldoon, the eternal champion…

There was always a suggestion of this previously, and The Blood Red Game (Science Fiction Adventures, 1963) and A Cure for Cancer both feature multiple universes, but I believe this is the first time we get it confirmed that this is not simply a case of repeated motifs.

Looking at it in this manner, we see the biting contemporary satire evolving into a more epic struggle and Moorcock’s other heroes as more than just throwaway fantasy figures. Rather there is a degree of tragedy in them having to deal with these various forces of order and chaos, making horrific choices for, what they hope, is the greater good (which rarely ends well).

A High Four Stars

Fast Car Wash by George MacBeth

A car gets cleaned… that is the entire story.

Moorcock calls this a readymade poem. I am assuming forthcoming are also a transcription of microwave instructions and George MacBeth’s shopping list.

One star

The Anxiety in the Eyes of the Cricket by James Sallis

Another Jerry Cornelius story, who is seemingly becoming to the New Wave what the Cthulhu tales have become to SF horror. This vignette apparently takes place shortly after the end of The Peking Junction (although Moorcock indicates this is better read as an alternative version) as JC returns to England a broken man. He stays in the house of his friend Michael, a man who predicted the apocalyptic future. They spend their time drinking and having sex between watching devastation from their window and discussing the nature of guilt.

A much quieter tale and more introspective than the other Cornelius tales with a good dose of metafiction (if Michael is not surnamed Moorcock, I will eat my hat) added in. It is also incredibly bleak, with cities burning, Britain used as America’s crematorium, and Cornelius a broken man now simply looking for his missing family. But it is all the more powerful for it.

Five Stars

The New Science Fiction: A Conversation between J. G. Ballard & George MacBeth

This is the transcription of part of a discussion on BBC Radio 3 (formerly the Third Programme) last year titled The New Surrealism. In this extract, J. G. Ballard explains why he moved away from linear storytelling.

I missed this on its broadcast and I am very pleased it was reproduced here. Ballard manages to explain eloquently what he is trying to achieve in his stories and it has given me an increased appreciation for his work. Two sections I want to call out here as particularly incisive:

…one has many layers, many levels of experience going on at the same time. On one level might be the world of public events, Cape Kennedy, Vietnam, political life, on another level the immediate personal environment, the rooms we occupy, the postures we assume. On a third level, the inner world of the mind. All these levels are, as far as I can see them, equally fictional, and it is where these levels interact that one gets the only kind of inner reality that in fact exists nowadays.

…Burroughs’s narrative techniques… [are] an immediately recognisable reflection of the way life is actually experienced, that we live in quantified non-linear terms – we switch on television sets, switch them off half an hour later, speak on the telephone, read magazines, dream, and so forth. We don’t live our lives in linear terms in the sense that Victorians did.

Recommended for fans and confused readers alike.

Five Stars

So Far from Prague by Brian W. Aldiss

Another of Aldiss’ tales of Europeans in India. This time Slansky, a Czech filmmaker, is staying in a Das’ hotel outside Delhi when he hears of the Soviet invasion, He wants to get back home to help resist the attack, Das thinks they should be concentrating on their joint film project on the nature of time. Things get even more complicated when Slansky discovers there is a Russian guest in the room below his.

Interestingly, this manages a similar feel to Sallis’ piece even though it is contemporary rather than apocalyptic and could only be considered SFnal in the broadest sense. Here it is an exploration of the age-old argument of whether art can or should be apolitical, with this sense of gloom and despair. An important reminder that worlds are being blown up outside our window, not just in our magazines.

Four Stars

Direction by Charles Platt

An unnamed man has an argument at home. In response he gets drunk in a pub and then wanders around London in an inebriated haze.

Another piece where I am not sure the point of it, nor what it is doing in an SF anthology. There are some interesting writing techniques but that is all I can see to recommend it.

A low two stars

Postatomic by Michael Butterworth

We are told of four impossible beings, who may or may not be the same character across different time periods.

Not sure what its purpose is but it is certainly evocative.

Three Stars

For Thomas Tompion by Michael Moorcock

Moorcock completes his trilogy of entries with a four-line poem, addressed to the father of English clock-making.

Simple but well done for what it is.

Three stars

A Science Fiction Story for Joni Mitchell by Maxim Jakubowski

A science fiction writer has grown dissatisfied with the genre; instead he wants to write neo-psychedelic pop songs and tales of drug journeys. However, he has a deadline to hit, and the adventures of Coit Kid vs. the Subliminal Police don’t write themselves. Anyway, there is no chance of his other ideas intruding on a good old-fashioned science fiction story, is there?

A hilarious take on writing, modern pop music and science fiction cliches. It is done in a series of cut up pieces but logical rather than disparate. The whole exercise is delicious and I am going to be remembering many of the lines for some time.

Five Stars

The Communicants by John Sladek

This novella is a fragmented narrative, telling of a disparate set of people who work at Drum Inc., a technology company which provides a wide variety of services over phone lines and dreams of superseding Bell as the national monopoly.

Members of this organisation include Marilyn, who keeps getting mysterious calls that simply say “Marilyn, he loves you”, Sam Kravon, who is being driven mad by his job in Estimates, Phil Wang, the Art Director who is sure people are questioning his loyalty to the US, Ray, a cripple who is being constantly shuffled between departments, and David, who believes reality is refrangible.

At the same time, there are hints of experiments going on within the company that are of interest to the CIA.

Partially this is an extension of his multiple-choice form tales from New Worlds, with these regularly interrupting the text. And partially this is an experiment of split narratives, with the narrative like a butterfly flitting between different stories with such regularity that I wondered if I could use a flow chart.

Whilst it is an interesting experiment, it goes on for far too long (at almost 70 pages, far longer than anything else in this collection) and the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

Three Stars

Seeking a Suitable Donor by D. M. Thomas

An organ donor before their surgery contemplates his journey to this point.

The strange alignment of the text doesn’t add much to this tale of familiar themes but a perfectly reasonable example.

Three Stars

The Holland of the Mind by Pamela Zoline

Graham, Jessica and their child Rachel take a holiday from the US to Amsterdam in 1963. However, visiting the Venice of the North is not going to help them outrun their problems.

This is a tricky one to review. On the one hand it is beautifully written but shocking look at depression and the breakdown of a marriage, counterpointing the history of the Netherlands with their personal situation.

On the other, it is barely SFnal. There is one moment towards the end which could be taken as such. But it could also be taken as metaphorical and\or natural phenomena. As such I was partially disappointed. It reminded me somewhat of Morris’ travelogue Venice.

However, I adore Morris’ writing. As such I am happy to give it the benefit of the doubt and judge it as a piece of literary short fiction. On those grounds it is brilliant.

Five Stars

Quincunx by Thomas M. Disch

As the name suggests, this is made up of five vignettes:

• Chrysanthemums: Mr. Candolle ponders the meaning of chrysanthemums in hospital rooms
• Representation: The narrator speaks of his lost love Judith
• The Death of Lurleen Wallace: A circular tale of princes, presidential campaigns and books
• Mate: A letter from former lovers which also deals with a correspondence chess match
• The Assumption: Miss Lockesly teaches her class about death

I am not sure though what shape we are meant to form. To some extent they are all about endings in different ways but no consensus is reached nor are they particularly profound.

Two Stars

Thus ends this experiment of a book, one which I have rated all over the place. To change a famous quote, there is a thin line between genius and drivel. This anthology erases it.

Vision of Tomorrow #2

Cover Illustration: Gerard Alfo Quinn

Issue #2 has finally arrived. No explanation is given for the delay other than “circumstances beyond our control”. Whatever the reason, we shall now dive into the contents:

Quarry by E. C. Tubb

Illustrated by Gerard Alfo Quinn

Quelto Daruti is a prisoner of the Federation. he decides to make use of an obscure law. The Quarry-Hunt. He is to be hunted across the harsh landscape of Zen to sanctuary. If he can make it alive, he will be pardoned, but the only person who ever managed it before died of their wounds soon afterwards.

Durati however has two advantages the authorities do not know about. Firstly, he is a telepath. Secondly, the Terran league are very interested in his survival

Yes, it is yet another spin on The Most Dangerous Game, but a pretty good one. Stylistically it can be heavy at times, but this is made up for when it is action packed.

Just sneaks in at four stars.

Strictly Legal by Douglas Fulthorpe

Illustrated by James

The intelligent spider-creatures of Proxima Centauri claim ownership of Earth’s Moon, on the grounds that it detached from one of their planets when it was molten. At first everyone assumes this is a joke. However, it turns out they are in deadly earnest, and the legal implications of the case will have devastating consequences.

This is a slippery slope argument delivered with all the subtlety of a brick through a window. The style is readable enough, but it requires so many “what-ifs” to make the idea work, I am not surprised everyone inside this piece of fiction assumes it is all a joke.

Two Stars

Moonchip by John Rankine

Millenia ago a small piece of metal fell to Earth. It has now been mined and ended up part of a car, one that is involved in a strangely high number of fatal accidents. But that is just coincidence, right?

I found this to be a dull and violent tale with little purpose. Maybe if you enjoy hoary old horror stories or car-based fiction it will appeal to you, but not to me.

One Star

A Judge of Men by Michael G. Coney

Illustrated by Eddie Jones

Scott travels with the trader Bancroft to the planet Karumba, the only source of Shroom (a kind of puff ball that can be woven) in the galaxy. The Shroom harvest is lessening as the planet gets colder and Karumbans may face extinction. However, having seen how humans treat animals in zoos, they refuse to allow any scientific help from humanity. Bancroft is willing to respect the Kamburans' wishes, the young ambitious Scott, however, is determined to solve the mysteries of this world, no matter what anyone else may think.

This did not go in the direction I expected. This started out seeming like it was merely going to be an experiment in xenobiology and the effects of planetary tilt but it went into much deeper territory around what it means to be a person, respect for native belief systems and the responsibility of ethical science.

My only complaint is it was too short to address all of the areas it touched on properly. I would love to see it expanded into one-half of an Ace Double.

A high four stars

Frozen Assets by Dan Morgan

Larry is a used air-car salesman who, with his fiancée Olivia is determined to find a way to get rich quick according to their realist philosophy. The first scheme involves being married to a wealthy divorcee but it turns out the pre-nuptial agreement states that Olivia won’t get any money from accidental death until after five years.

Larry then discovers there is a cure for cirrhosis of the liver, a condition his rich uncle Frank was cryogenically frozen with. He hopes to revive Frank and take control of his estate, however Frank is not quite as witless as Larry supposes.

This is the kind of story I dislike. It requires the setting up of a series of silly rules people follow, explaining them as they go along. In addition, it wends all over the place, barely sticking in one place for more than a moment.

One star

The Impatient Dreamers 2: Aims and Objects by Walter Gillings

Filling in the gap between installments 1 and 3, we learn of Gillings' efforts to show that there is a strong enough market for science fiction in Britain to support a magazine.

This series continues to be excellent and contains a lot of fascinating details. Such as that Britain at this time didn’t have specialist fiction magazines at all and that Len Kippin just would hand out leaflets wherever he saw SF on sale.

Five Stars

Echo by William F. Temple

Illustrated by B. M. Finch

The Saurian Venusians have taken over the body of Richard Gaunt by use of a temporary echo of the personality of Narvel. They intend to steal the secrets of Organic Materials Inc., however, it turns out that being a human is harder than it seems.

I actually covered this last year in Famous, and I was planning to just reprint my review from there. However, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to look for any changes. I was taken aback that it was almost entirely rewritten. The plot remains identical but the prose is almost a complete overhaul. To compare one of the more similar sections:

Famous version:

Being a mammal, without previous experience, was to me a series of surprises, mostly unpleasant.
Gaunt, I knew, had the social habit of drinking whiskey. I first drank whiskey on the Pacific with a couple of engineers from Minneapolis.
After a while, I remarked with some concern. “Darn, it, the grav-motors are failing.”
This sometimes happened on space trips, and until they were repaired everyone had to endure free fall. I’d felt the beginning of free fall coming on; at least, I felt I was beginning to float. And I said so.
The two men looked at me strangely, then at each other.
“One whiskey on the rocks and he’s floating,” laughed one.

And the Vision version:

I became a Tyro mammal among experienced mammals.
My deficiencies first began to show on the spaceship to Earth. On the passenger list I was Richard Gaunt. I was Gaunt, physically. I did my best to act like him personally.
I knew he had this social habit of drinking whisky. I gave it a whirl at the bar with an engineer from Minneapolis.
After two whiskies, I remarked, ‘What’s gone wrong with the grav-motors?’
My companion looked at me strangely.
‘They seem okay to me. Sure I’s not the whisky hitting you? This special space brew is potent, you know, if you’re not used to it.’

Now, the scene being depicted has the same purpose: Narvel giving an example of not being used to certain human situations with impersonating Gaunt by his lack of familiarity with Whisky causing him to think there is an issue with the grav-motors. But the feel is completely changed. The prior version is concentrating on feelings and giving it a more comedic sense. The new version is more cerebral and philosophical about the nature of identity.

I still have a number of problems with the text but the changes make it clearer to me what he is trying to do. As such it jumps up a little bit in my ratings.

A low three stars

Undercover Weapon by Jack Wodhams

Illustrated by James

The Fiberphut fabric disintegrator was developed as a means of removing bandages without damaging the skin underneath. When the army look to test its possible military applications, Lt. Cladwell makes his own duplicate model at home. He and his brother-in-law are determined to make a fortune from this device…along with many amorous encounters along the way.

This is the kind of unfunny sex comedy that seem to be growing in popularity at the cinema these days. I don’t like it there and I don’t like it here. I am a little surprised to see this included given last month’s stated “no pornography” policy, but I guess as nothing is described it is considered “good clean fun” by Harbottle. I, on the other hand, find it lecherous and dull.

One Star

Dancing Gerontius by Lee Harding

Illustrated by A. Vince

The elderly on welfare are generally kept in a dream-like state in specialist facilities. However, annually they participate in Year Day, where a combination of drugs and advanced machinery allow them to participate in a period of bacchanalian hedonism. We follow Berensen’s experiences as he is crowned King for the day.

An evocative piece that did not go in the direction I expected it to. Quite haunting by the end.

Four Stars

Minos by Maurice Whitta

Illustrated by Eddie Jones

The final piece is by a new writer to me. The colony-ship Launcelot crash lands on Amor VII, killing almost ¾ of the occupants, including all the women. Another ship primarily composed of women also makes landfall, but contact is lost. From the Guinevere there start emerging minotaur like creatures that attack the men of Launcelot, what could have happened?

This whole piece is kind of a muddle, smelling to me of new author problems. The concepts are good and the point an interesting one. At the same time the action sequences are well written. The problem is structural. For such a small piece too much time is spent in irrelevant sections and the more poignant parts are rushed.

It is not bad though and I hope that Mr. Whitta can sort the issues out in the future.

A low Three Stars

Story rankings from issue 1, my main surprise is seeing the fascinating Lem below the woeful Coney, but each to their own.

Fantasy Review

Illustrated by Philip Harbottle

Ken Slater reviews Timepiece by Brian N. Ball (which he did not enjoy) and Harry Harrison’s Deathworld 3 (which he did). We then have a new reviewer, Kathryn Buckley, covering Stand on Zanzibar in a highly complementary manner. Perhaps trying to balance coverage of the New Wave along with the Good Old Stuff?

Best of Both Worlds?

Additional illustration by Eddie Jones

In both my SF and my music, I am generally drawn towards the future facing experimental works, preferring Colosseum and Chip Delany over The Band and Edgar Rice Burroughs. But I also appreciate both have their advantages and place.

Doing a Sunday afternoon of gardening is wonderful accompanied by some Neil Young or Townes van Zandt. Just as an adventurous tale of daring-do might not be as accomplished as one of Ballard’s cut up stories, it can be a more fun and easy read.

So, whilst neither is perfect, with both the above publications showing successes and failures, I like to think that science fiction is big enough to have both our swashes buckled and our minds expanded.

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 12, 1969] Leadership initiatives (December 1969 Galaxy)

November 12, 2024 Gideon Marcus 9 Comments

Tune in, starting November 13, for twelve days of Apollo 12 coverage!

by Gideon Marcus

Happy Anniversary

A year ago, Richard Milhouse Nixon won the Presidency in part on his "secret plan" to get us out of Vietnam. A few months into his term, besieged by increasingly strident demands for progress, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger urged patience. If things weren't resolved by November, then we would have cause to complain.

Last week, President Nixon revealed his plan for "Vietnamization" in a prime time television address. It called for eventual turning over of the reins of war to the South Vietnamese. However, the President refused to set a timetable for this turnover, saying that such would lead to undue Communist advantage. Nixon suggested that America might step down its bombing by, say, 20%, and see if the North Vietnamese match our draw-down, but the Paris peace talks are dead, and the U.S. would stay the course as long as was necessary.

The President concluded by asserting that the "silent majority" of Americans was behind his plan, and that no foreign power could defeat the United States: defeat could only come from within.

Well, you can imagine that this statement, tantamount to a continuation of President Johnson's pre-1968 policies, did not sit well with a lot of folks, including a host of Congressmen. The unquiet minority also plans to make their voices heard in a second Moratorium march in a few days. We'll see if it has more impact than the last one.

In Other News

If Nixon's address was something of a disappointment, in contrast, the latest issue of Galaxy makes for consistently pleasant reading:

by Jack Gaughan and Phoebe Gaughan

Editor Eljer Jakobsson introduces a new act by artist Vaughn Bodé. Looks like it will be funny, nudie, SF cartoons. Sure, why not?

Also of interest is Budrys' Bookshelf column. I often don't agree with his taste, but I generally enjoy the way he writes his reviews. I found it interesting that Isaac Asimov's unwanted advances toward women have now become so commonplace that Budrys felt he had to alloy his review of the Good Doctor's latest, Opus 100, in his very first paragraph:

"Now you take Isaac Asimov… Well, taking him from the pages of Opus 100, his hundredth book (Houghton Mifflin Company, $5.95), one finds him so various, so beautiful and new that it is only with a wrench of the mind one recalls the last time he pinched one's wife's bottom."

By the way, there is no Willy Ley column (RIP), and they have not found a replacement science writer.

Jamboree, by Jack Williamson

In the future, robots rule, adults are forbidden, and children are raised in Boy Scout-styled prison camps. Two twelve-year-olds attempt a revolution, but quickly learn the futility of resistance.

A bleak story with a downer ending, but at least it's memorable.

Three stars.

Half Past Human, by T. J. Bass

This novella is heralded as a "novel complete in this issue." It is, at least, a complete story, and not a bad one.

The premise: five thousand years from now, three trillion humans infest the planet. They all live underground, the surface being reserved for the cultivation of crops. Virtually no animals have survived into this dark future, so the few remaining individuals, the "I people", living on the surface, mostly get their protein from cannibalism. The underground people have all been evolved for docility, a trait phenotypically displayed by a lack of a fifth toe (presumably the pinky toe). These four-toes are known as "Nebishes".

When I first read about this setup, I assumed this was going to be a satirical, tongue-in-cheek story. It's not, except maybe for a few, farcical touches here and there. What it is is the story of Moses Eppendorff, a comparatively enterprising four-toe, who discovers a new food source and is rewarded with a trip Outside. Eschewing the typical Outside activity—going on a Hunt for I people—he instead takes a hike up a mountain, experiencing solitude for the first time.

He also encounters Moon, a 200+ year-old I person, his 200+ year-old dog, and a sentient spear from the before-times who calls itself Toothpick. Encouraged to abandon the underworld, Moses wanders with these companions, learning about the world including some fascinating biological changes the surface dwellers have evolved to avoid capture/kill. Ultimately, in the most jokey, but blessedly understated, part of the book, Moses, carrying his staff, leads the I-people to what they think is the promised land.

It's actually a pretty good yarn, one of the better overpopulation stories out there. It does an interesting job of contrasting modes of humanity by population density, and Bass creates a compelling world. The prose is occasionally clunky, and the transitions are such that the individual segments don't always dovetail seamlessly, but for a new writer (his first story came out last year), he shows a lot of promise.

Three stars.

Eternity Calling, by John Chambers

An alient bloodsucker, a semi-independent member of a sentient collective, happens upon a human starship. Its one inhabitant is a preacher looking for souls to save. By the end, the shaken terrestrial leaves convinced that the alien has a closer analog to a soul than he does.

This story starts so promisingly, with the extraterrestrial viewpoint vividly drawn. The latter half of the story is a simple dialogue, and not a particularly impactful one at that.

Two stars.

The Year of the Good Seed, by Roger Zelazny and Dannie Plachta

A terran explorer is drawn to a star for its pulsating bursts of energy. It turns out the inhabitants have a tradition of celebrating every quarter century with a pyrotechnic display. Specifically, they detonate nuclear bombs in orbit!

Of course, such activities are purely for their aesthetic appeal. Like the Chinese and their gunpowder firecrackers, the aliens wouldn't dream of using such devices for warfare. At least, they hadn't thought of it until humans gave them the idea…

Rather a silly story, and not as clever as the authors think it is. Two stars.

Downward to the Earth (Part 2 of 4), by Robert Silverberg

Continuing the tale of Edmund Gunderson, former bigwig at the former company colony on steamy Nildoror. Last installment, Gunderson was seeking permission from the native elephantines to travel to the Mist Country, where the Nildoror are reborn, though we don't know why Edmund wants to go there. His request is granted, provided he return with a human named Cullen, who has committed a nameless crime.

So, with a Nildoror escort, Gunderson goes on a long trek across the countryside. A highlight of this jaunt include Edmund's recounting of the event that shocked him into accepting the sentience of the natives, despite their having no formal civilization. Another is when he comes across two dying humans, hosts to an extraterrestrial parasite, and has to decide whether to put them out of their misery.

I wasn't sold on the piece last time, but I now feel I've gotten over the hump and can really live inside not just Gunderson's mind, but also that of his guide, the Nildoror named Srin'gahar. I prefer brooding Silverbob (q.v. The Man in the Maze and Hawksbill Station) to Zelazny look-a-like or borderline-smut Silverbob.

Four stars for this bit, and elevating the work as a whole.

Oracle for a White Rabbit, by David Gerrold

Human Analogue Robot, Life Input Equivalents (HARLIE) is a sapient machine designed to mimic as well as analyze the thought processess of people. One day, Harlie goes on a jag, producing reams of nonsense poetry. These outbursts always follow the mass intake of human-produced modern art.

But is the problem the torrent of non-rational input, or is there something broken inside the computer? Is it a malfunction at all?

I'm not sure that I'm completely sold on the premise or the story, but I have to concede, it feels very modern. David Gerrold, by the way, is the hip young man who penned the script for the Trek episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles". I think this is his first traditionally published science fiction.

Three stars, and let's see where he goes next!

Horn of Plenty, by Vladimir Grigoriev

The inventor, Stepan Onufrievich, happens upon a decayed sign in Moscow, which exhorts citizens to deposit their scraps. It depicts a cornucopia with a man shoveling scrap into one end, producing consumer goods out the other.

Inspired, Onufrievich sets out to build a real Horn of Plenty…and he succeeds! But, this being the Soviet Union, happy times do not last long.

Of course, this story is fantasy, not science fiction, but the satire is nicely biting. I am surprised this one made it past the censors. I am also quite impressed with the translation job: the story reads breezily and charmingly.

Four stars.

Doing the math

Per my Galacto-sliderule, this issue finishes at a modestly entertaining 3.1 stars. That's a little deceptive as the novella and the Silverberg really are at the high end of their ratings, and the two-star stories are short. I feel that Jacobsson is transforming his magazine into something more current. Pohl did an admirable job, but the new Galaxy may end up once again in the vanguard of science fiction digests.

Just in time for the 20th anniversary of the magazine. Keep it up, Eljer!

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 8, 1969] Arabesques (December 1969 Fantastic)

November 8, 2024 Victoria Silverwolf 3 Comments

by Victoria Silverwolf

From Arabia to Japan

The collection of Middle Eastern folktales known in English as Arabian Nights or One Thousand and One Nights is familiar to folks all over the world. Case in point, as Rod Serling might say, is the recent Japanese animated film Senya Ichiya Monogatari, which is loosely based on the collection.

Japanese poster for the film. I don't know if it will ever show up elsewhere.

I should point out that this is not a cartoon intended for children. Like the work which inspired it, it contains considerable erotic material. If it ever gets released in the USA, it might get the infamous X rating.

I bring this up because the latest issue of Fantastic contains the first part of a new novel inspired by the same source as the film.

Cover art by Johnny Bruck

As is often the case lately, the cover is (ahem) borrowed from a German publication.

Die Herrscher der Nacht (The Ruler of the Night) is the title of the German translation of Jack Williamson's 1948 novel Darker Than You Think.

Editorial, by Ted White

The editor begins by telling us how the magazine's lead serial (see below) fell into his hands. Long story short, it failed to find a publisher, got reviewed in a fanzine, Ted White read it and liked it. He then goes on to relate the big changes in Fantastic and its sister publication Amazing. My esteemed colleague John Boston has already discussed this in detail, so let me give you the Reader's Digest version. Higher price, more words, only one reprint per issue. Nuff said.

No rating.

Hasan (Part One of Two), by Piers Anthony

Illustrations by Jeff Jones.

More than half the magazine consists of the first installment of this Arabian Nights fantasy adventure.

Hasan is a rather naive and foolish young man, living in Arabia around the year 800 or so. He meets a Persian alchemist who demonstrates how to turn copper into gold. His mother warns him not to trust this fire-worshipping infidel, but Hasan's greed overcomes what little common sense he possesses.

The wicked Persian kidnaps him and takes him on an ocean journey to the island of Serendip. (We call it Ceylon nowadays—the magazine provides a helpful map).

Despite this, Hasan still trusts the alchemist enough to perform the dangerous task of being carried to the top of a mountain by a roc, in order to gather the stuff needed to transform copper into gold. The poor sap doesn't realize that the Persian intends to leave him stranded on the peak, where he'll starve to death.

Suffice to say that, with a lot of dumb luck, Hasan makes his way to an isolated palace inhabited by seven beautiful sisters, who adopt him as their brother. He goes on to witness birds change into even more beautiful women, one of whom he is determined to have for his bride. (She has little say in the matter.)

Seeing her naked while she is bathing makes him fall madly in love.

Without giving away too much, let's just say that the further adventures of Hasan and the bird woman will appear in the next issue.

The author appears to be well acquainted with One Thousand and One Nights, given his accompanying article on the subject (see below.) As far as I can tell, he captures the flavor of this kind of Arabian folktale in a convincing way. Despite the fact that the hero is kind of a dope, and that the female characters (except Hasan's long-suffering mother) mostly exist to be alluringly beautiful, this half of the novel makes for light, entertaining reading.

Three stars.

Morality, by Thomas N. Scortia

Illustration by Bruce Jones.

It's obvious from the start that this is a science fiction version of the myth of the Minotaur, although the author doesn't make this explicit until the end. The legendary monster is an alien stranded on Earth, forced to serve an ambitious king while trying to contact his own kind.

There's not much more to this story than its retelling of the old tale. It plays out just as you'd expect.

Two stars.

Would You? by James H. Schmitz

A wealthy fellow invites an equally rich acquaintance to make use of a magic chair. It seems that it has the ability to allow the person seated in it to change the past.

I hope I'm not revealing too much to state that neither man chooses to alter his past, preferring to leave well enough alone. That seems to be the point of the story. A tale of fantasy in which an enchanted object is not used is unusual, I suppose, if not fully satisfying.

Two stars.

Magic Show, by Alan E. Nourse

A couple of guys watch a magic show at a cheap carnival. One of them heckles the magician, who invites him to take part in his greatest feat.

You can probably see where this is going. No surprises in the plot. I have to wonder why a real, powerful magician works at a lousy little carnival.

Two stars.

X: Yes, by Thomas M. Disch

An unspecified referendum always appears on the ballot in every election. Everybody knows that the proper thing to do is vote No. A woman chooses to vote Yes, just as children vote Yes during their mock elections.

Can you tell that this is an odd little story? I'm not sure what the author is getting at, unless it's something about conformity and rebellion. At least it's not a simple, predictable plot. Food for thought, I guess.

Three stars.

Big Man, by Ross Rocklynne

The April 1941 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this wild yarn.

Cover art by J. Allen St. John.

I can't argue with the accuracy of the title. A gigantic man — he's said to be one or two miles tall — walks through the Atlantic Ocean to Washington, D. C. The behemoth is under the control of a Mad Scientist, who intends to take over the United States government and run things the way he thinks they should be run.

Illustration by Robert Fuqua.

It's up to a heroic pilot and his girlfriend (who, in an incredible coincidence, turns out to be the sister of the young fellow who was transformed into the giant) to defeat the Mad Scientist and end the reign of terror of the Big Man.

Boy, this is a goofy story. I think the author saw King Kong too many times. The premise is, of course, absurd, and it's treated in the corniest pulp fiction manner imaginable.

One star.

Alf Laylah Wa Laylah — A Essay on The Arabian Nights, by Piers Anthony

As part of the magazine's Fantasy Fandom column, this article is reprinted from the fanzine Niekas. It discusses One Thousand and One Nights in detail, comparing English translations and offering examples of the kinds of tales it contains. Copious footnotes, some serious and some playful. The author clearly knows his subject.

Three stars.

Fantasy Books by Fritz Leiber and Fred Lerner

Leiber quickly gives a positive review of Captive Universe by Harry Harrison, praises Walker and Company for reprinting science fiction classics in handsome hardcover editions, defends the use of strong language in Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad, gives thumbs up to A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle, and talks about Eric R. Eddison's fantasy novels. He ends this rapid-fire essay by comparing the way that Heinlein, Spinrad, and Eddison describe a woman's breasts. (The latter excerpt is a really wild bit of outrageously purple prose.)

Lerner, in an article reprinted from the fanzine Akos, talks about two nonfiction books about J. R. R. Tolkien. He dismisses Understanding Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings by William Ready as poorly written and overly interpretive, and praises Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings by Lin Carter for its discussion of epic fantasy in general.

No rating.

… According to You, by various

The letters from readers offer both praise and criticism. One of the editor's replies reveals that sales of the magazine went down when Cele Goldsmith was in charge, even though the quality of fiction improved. I hope that's not a bad omen for the way Ted White is taking the publication.

No rating.

Worthy of Scheherazade?

Not a great issue, although Anthony's novel and related essay are well worth reading. The new stuff is so-so and the reprint is laughably poor. It might be better to watch an old movie instead.

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 2, 1969] Love and Hate (December 1969 IF)

November 2, 2024 David Levinson 1 Comment

by David Levinson

A paper dragon

Back in April, I wrote about a border skirmish between the Soviet Union and China. That wasn’t the end of the matter. The Soviets went on a minor diplomatic offensive, trying to get India to join an alliance against China and to pull North Korea back into the Soviet orbit. Violence flared up again in August on the Terekty River on the border between the Sinkiang region of China and the Kazakh SSR. As in April, both sides accused the other of crossing the border.

Rumor has it that Soviet Foreign Minister Alexei Kosygin attempted to contact the Chinese government in an effort to calm tensions and reopen negotiations on the border. His efforts were reportedly rudely rebuffed by Chairman Mao. At the funeral of Ho Chi Minh in early September, the Soviet and Chinese delegations went out of their way to avoid being in the same room with each other, even attending the funeral at different times.

When Kosygin left Hanoi on September 11th, his plane was denied entry into Chinese airspace, forcing a long detour. But while the plane was refueling in India, Kosygin was informed that the Chinese were ready to talk. He promptly flew to Peking, where he and Chinese Foreign Minister Chou Enlai met at the airport. They agreed to reinstate diplomatic relations and reopen talks on the border.

l. Soviet Foreign Minister Alexei Kosygin, r. Chinese Foreign Minister Chou Enlai

Despite that, Mao continued to ramp up his hostile rhetoric towards the Soviets. China also began moving large numbers of troops north to the border regions. That was followed by two unannounced nuclear tests at the end of September, most notably China’s largest detonation to date (3 megatons) on the 29th. The very next day, Chinese Defense Minister Lin Biao put the armed forces on the highest level of alert.

And then on October 9th, Mao blinked. China announced that they would no longer claim territory annexed by Tsarist Russia over the last 300 years through “unequal treaties.” The only concession demanded is that the Soviet Union acknowledge that the treaties were unfair. The status quo has been restored, and the only result of six months of high tension is several ulcers and a huge sigh of relief around the world.

Love among the ruins

Love runs through most of the stories in this month’s IF. Not as a romantic theme, but rather as an examination of the ways in which it affects the events of the stories and is in turn affected by events.

Vaguely suggested by Ancient, My Enemy. Art by Gaughan

Ancient, My Enemy, by Gordon R. Dickson

Udbahr is a hell world. Daytime temperatures are so high it is impossible for humans to survive outside of special shelters. On top of that, protein is so scarce, the only source for the natives are each other or the humans who have come to prospect and explore the ruins of an ancient civilization.

One such person is Kiev Archad, currently acting as a guide for female graduate student Willy Fairchild. Unfortunately, she is full of ideas that don’t mesh well with the ways in which humans and Udbahrs interact. Despite that, a relationship develops between the two. The final obstacle to their romance is a native named Hehog, who has decided that he and Kiev are ancient enemies, reborn every generation to take turns killing each other.

Hehog taunts Kiev. Art probably by Gaughan

This is not the Dickson story I was expecting. From the title, I thought this would be one of his military pieces, maybe a new Dorsai tale. This is personal in a way those stories aren’t, and it’s very, very good. But Dickson didn’t quite hit the mark for me. He never really sells the relationship between Kiev and Willy; worse, even though Kiev is the viewpoint character, we never really get into his head, which makes the ending a bit inscrutable. And for all that, and because I know Dickson is capable of doing better, I have to lower my rating. Don’t be surprised to see this one nominated for a lot of awards, though.

A very, very high three stars.

Now No One Waits, by Neil Shapiro

Wrecked on a dead world, a man and a woman have little hope of rescue. They spend their time in meaningless sex and exploring the ruins of a lost civilization.

The doomed couple study the map room. Art by Gaughan

Shapiro seems to be a new writer, though he isn’t this month’s IF first; maybe he has a sale or two outside science fiction. In any case, the writing is solid for the most part. The ending, though, didn’t seem to grow naturally from what came before and also felt rather obscure. A writer with potential.

A slightly below average three stars.

What Time Was That?, by Barry Malzberg

Malzberg offers us a New Wave tale of the invention of a time machine, told in first, second, and third person. It mostly works.

Three stars.

A crackpot’s time machine. Art probably by Gaughan

Heroes Die But Once, by Norman Spinrad

A newlywed couple are exploring the galaxy, hoping to find a habitable world and make their fortune. They find one, but they also find aliens who decide to stress test their relationship.

I don’t know if this is a printing error or a deliberate choice, but it’s awfully hard to read. Art by Gaughan

A reasonable effort by Spinrad, with more than a touch of Ellisonian cynicism. It’s not a pleasant read, but then it’s not trying to say pleasant things.

Three stars.

The New Thing, by John Brunner

From the title and author, I was expecting a piece satirizing the New Wave. Instead, it’s an examination of what happens to societies in the extremely far future when a sort of interstellar Guinness Book of Records makes it clear that there truly is nothing new under the sun (or any other star).

Waiting rooms will never change. Art probably by Gaughan

It’s a bit long-winded and consists almost entirely of people sitting around and talking. Nevertheless, it mostly works.

Three stars.

In the Beginning, by Glenn Chang

This month’s official new author asks if love can endure beyond the end of all things. The theme is jejune, and the ending rather trite, but the author is only 18. He shows promise, and more experience with the real world could result in some good stories.

Three stars.

The Story of Our Earth (Part 4), by Willy Ley

Ley’s history of the planet has reached the Carboniferous period. He talks about the origins of coal (no matter what Sinclair Oil may say, it wasn’t dinosaurs) and how our understanding of the period has changed. From there he moves to the Earth’s first ice age and the Permian period. He focuses on the primitive reptiles of the time and the importance of teeth to paleontologists.

Four stars.

The Man Who Would Not, by James E. Gunn

It’s hard to say anything about this without giving the whole thing away. In essence, it’s a conversation about the end of an experiment. Beyond that, I’ll only say that it is both downbeat and hopeful.

Four stars.

Art by Gaughan

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

Honestly, I just don’t feel motivated to summarize the end of this serial. Aliens, a guy with memories he can’t quite explain, blah, blah, blah. The hero triumphs in the end. Sort of. Everybody on Earth is dead except for a few hundred people in south-eastern Nebraska. If you’re familiar with Laumer, he does this better in other books; if you aren’t, this is not a good place to start.

A low three stars for this part (some of the action is OK) and barely three stars for the whole thing.

The hero and an ally fight an invader. Art by Gaughan

Summing up

I’m starting to feel like I know what IF is going to be like under the new management. Just looking at the scores, it doesn’t seem all that different from the Pohl days. That’s true for the peaks and averages, but the lows don’t seem to be as low. Plus, the overall tone is fresher. My only real complaint is the art being all Gaughan all the time, and uncredited. We’re not getting his best work. Otherwise, I’d say IF is looking good as we move into a new decade.

Sounds like the big story would have fit right in this month.

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

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

October 31, 2024 GalacticJourney 2 Comments

Science Fiction Theater Episode #10

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

by Gideon Marcus

Inside Lebanon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time will tell.

Inside Analog

by Vincent Di Fate

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

Gottlos, by Colin Kapp

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

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

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

Three stars.

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

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

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

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

One star.

Weapon of the Ages, by W. Macfarlane

by Leo Summers

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

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

Two stars.

The Ambassadors, by as by J. B. Clarke

by Leo Summers

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

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

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

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

One star.

Shapes to Come, by Edward Wellen

by Vincent Di Fate

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

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

This is comic book level stuff. Two stars.

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

by Kelly Freas

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

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

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

Tam and familiar faces at a local gathering of Vikings

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doing the math

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

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

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

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

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 24, 1969] How sweet it isn't (November 1969 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

October 24, 2024 Gideon Marcus 6 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Rats!

A study just completed by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare has concluded that cyclamates may cause bladder tumors in rats.

How does this affect you?

Decades ago, it paid to be plump. It was a sign of wealth and health. It was attractive! These days, we're in the Grape Nuts generation, and it's now all about fitness and being slender. How to reconcile the popularity of fizzy sweet sodapop and the desire to cut sugar from our diets (despite the Sugar Council telling us it's good for us)?

Early this decade, a slew of soft drinks came out, sweetened not with sugar, but with a blend of artificial sweeteners—saccharin and cyclamates. Diet Rite and Tab may not have tasted just like Coke and Pepsi, but they did the job and preserved the waistline.

But now, thanks to the HEW report, soft drink companies are all pulling their cyclamate sodas off the market as of February 1, 1970. Grab your vintage colas while you can, because they won't exist come next spring!

What does the future hold for diet sodas? Well, for now, saccharin is still legal, though by itself, it's a bit bitter (remember the "sach" tablets Winston Smith put in his coffee in 1984)? There is talk of putting sugar back into diet sodas…just less of it.

And, since this is a science fiction 'zine, we can always speculate that new and better sweeteners will be developed. Maybe even on purpose this time—did you know that both saccharin and cyclamates were discovered by accident? Constantin Fahlberg was researching coal tar derivatives and forgot to wash his hands before going for lunch, when he discovered saccharine was discovered in 1879. And grad student Michael Sveda was working on anti-fever drugs in 1937; some got on a cigarette, and when he took a drag, it tasted sweet.

Cue the commercials:

Bob: My cigarette just isn't doing it for me anymore.
Larry: Try mine! It's new.
Bob: Hey! Not bad…sweet!
Larry: You better believe it.

by Jack Gaughan

Of course, with a lede like the one I just wrote, you can guess that the latest issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction is less than palatable.

The Mouse, by Howard Fast

Three-inch aliens descend to Earth in a teeny saucer and smarten up a little mouse to be their telepathic eyes and ears to scout out the world. When the rodent's work is done, he is heartbroken to find that the aliens must leave, abandoning him to a life of loneliness, the sole example of his kind. Despondent, he kills himself.

Not only is the story an unecessary downer (the mouse was exposed to the worst humanity had to offer, but also the best—couldn't he have found human friends to love?) but it's written clunkily, as though Howard dashed it off quickly, and didn't bother to correct it. It's the kind of work I do if I neglect to read my work aloud before sending it in to a publisher.

Two stars.

A Feminine Jurisdiction, by Sterling E. Lanier

The latest Brigadier Ffellowes shaggy dog tale has him stranded just after the Nazi invasion of Crete (how timely!) on an Aegean island lost to time, housing a trio of mythical sisters. One of them has, shall we say, a stony-eyed gaze. Of course, we know the Brigadier will escape (how else could he live to tell the tale?) but the fun is in the how.

I could have done without the casual sexism. World-traveler Ffelowes surely could not have forged his opinion on matriarchies solely on this one stacked-deck example. Beyond that, the well Lanier plumbed for material is a little mined out. Still, it's a competent and entertaining yarn.

Three stars.

Penny Dreadful, by Ron Goulart

A ghost writer cum secret agent (or is it the other way around?) is on one of the planets of the Barnum system, a frequent Goulart setting, mostly known from his Ben Jolson stories. All he wants to do is collect his fee from deadbeats. In the process, he ends up cleaning up local politics.

Goulart, at his best, does light, spy/detective stuff really well. This is not his best. Indeed, it's among his worst—incomprehensible and somehow incomplete.

Two stars.

The CRIB Circuit, by Miriam Allen deFord

A young computer operator, who died of cancer in 1970, is revived after five centuries of cold sleep. But the Brave New World she wakes up into is not interested in welcoming her as a citizen, but only as a temporary subject of study before she is to be put down again. Must keep the population constant, you see! Can Alexandra come up with a way to extend her second life?

I had thought her solution would be a variation on the Scheherazade shtick from 1001 Arabian Nights, but it's actually a bit cleverer. There's also a nice sting in the tail of the piece. I should have seen it coming; that I didn't is a credit to DeFord's writing.

Four stars, and my favorite piece of the ish.

Come Up and See Me Some Time, by Gilbert Thomas

A pre-teen genius builds a psychic space ship and prepares to head off into another dimension, presumably to be reunited with his murdered mother. But not before giving an ostentatious and horrific reply to his father, who we learn is responsible for his wife's death.

Told from the point of view of the father, the tale is just silly. It's more of a mood piece than anything, and frankly, I didn't care enough about the schmuck to get into his head.

One star.

After the Bomb Cliches, by Bruce McAllister

Martin Potsubay is convinced The End Is Nigh. So he builds a bomb shelter, and when the air raid sirens begin to blow, ensconces himself inside. But the trumpets keep blowing, and in the end, there's no way to avoid Armageddon…or the heavenly recruitment officers!

This is definitely my favorite McAllister piece to date, bordering right between three and four stars. On reflection, I think I'll finally give him the win.

Four it is (but I still like the deFord better!)

The Sin of the Scientist, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor takes Oppenheimer's "physicists have known sin" line and runs with it, defining "sin" in a scientific sense, and discussing which scientists have committed it. His answer is an interesting one.

Three stars.

Diaspora, by Robin Scott

A catastrophe has rendered the Earth uninhabitable, and just one small colony of 400 humans is left. Establishing themselves on a kind world, farm yields explode and the settlement prospers. Yet, their puritannical leader refuses to loosen the reins of privation. One rebellious type chafes under the tyrant, and so he plots an escape, establishing himself as an independent concern. This proves instrumental to the colony's success…and as it turns out, all according to plan.

This story is decently written, but the overly deterministic nature of the premise is a turn-off. The idea that the colony was founded with the expectation that it would need a malcontent to ensure its success, and that a ten-year agenda could be stuck to so as to carry out the plan, beggars belief. It's the kind of thing I expect from Analog.

Three stars.

After the Myths Went Home, by Robert Silverberg

Future-dwellers get bored of reconstituting historical personages, so they turn to reviving mythical people. After having their fill of hanging out with the whole panoply of (Western) legends, from Adam to Hercules to JFK, they banish them, too. But the result is there's never a hero around when you need one…

Silverbob phoned this one in. It has the veneer of literariness, but it just coats a hollow interior.

Two stars.

Ptui!

Like soda without sweetener, the latest F&SF was a bland mouthful. Still, the two good pieces are enough to keep me going, albeit with ever fading enthusiasm.

But perhaps next year, the editors will find the right formula to spice up their wares…

by Gahan Wilson

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 20, 1969] There was a ship (November 1969 Venture)

October 20, 2024 David Levinson 3 Comments

by David Levinson

”There was a ship,” quoth he.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Northwest to Alaska

Almost from the moment Europeans discovered the Americas, they’ve been looking for a sea route to Asia across the top of the continent. Dubbed the Northwest Passage by the English (because they were trying to travel west), the name stuck, and the route has been of interest ever since. The McClure Arctic expedition showed there was a sea route in 1850, though much of it was blocked by ice, and the journey was partially completed by sledge. Roald Amundsen became the first to go from Atlantic to Pacific entirely by ship between 1903 and 1906.

When oil was discovered last year at Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic coast of Alaska, attention turned once again to the Northwest Passage. A pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to a mostly ice-free port like Anchorage or Valdez faces a number of technological and legal challenges, so, even though planning is well underway and several hundred miles of pipe have already been ordered, oil companies are taking a look at the viability of shipping through the Northwest Passage.

Enter the SS Manhattan, an oil tanker owned and operated by the Esso company; she’s also the largest merchant vessel registered in the United States. She has been refitted with an icebreaker bow by the Finnish shipbuilder Wärtsilä, which built a huge ice tank to help optimize the design.

The SS Manhattan breaking through the ice of the Northwest Passage.

The Manhattan left Pennsylvania in August and sailed for Alaska under the command of Captain Roger A. Steward. Sea ice in the M’Clure Strait forced her take a more southerly route through the Canadian Arctic archipelago. After she reached Prudhoe Bay, a token barrel of crude oil was placed aboard, and the return voyage began. The ship cleared the Passage on September 14th, becoming the first commercial vessel to make the transit.

Is the Northwest Passage now open for commerce? Maybe, maybe not. The Manhattan required the support of several American and Canadian coast guard icebreakers to get through. Also the legal challenges a pipeline faces may be nothing compared to the sea route. Canada considers all waters in the Arctic archipelago to be internal waters, not an international shipping lane. In fact, at one point a group of Inuit hunters stopped the ship and demanded the captain request permission to pass through Canadian territory. He did so, and permission was granted.

So there are legal problems. Whether the Passage can be used year-round is also unknown. There’s talk of sending another ship this winter to see if the way is open then. Time will tell, but I’m betting on the pipeline.

Involving, but avoiding, calamity

There’s something about a shipwreck that seems to resonate with people. From The Wreck of the Hesperus (the bane of schoolchildren for nearly a century) to A Night to Remember (something of a disaster itself at the box office), wrecks are found all through popular entertainment. Science fiction is no exception, although the ships are usually in space. This month’s Venture offers no fewer than three ship related disasters, not to mention a plane crash and a global disaster.

Thankfully, the issue itself is not a disaster. Quite the contrary, actually.

Art by Tanner

This issue’s cover is a slight improvement over the last. It’s recognizably science fiction, and there’s a second color.

Plague Ship, by Harry Harrison

The route from the Moon to Mars is supposed to be a milk run. But then a meteorite strike leaves the ship’s doctor, on his first ever space trip, the only surviving officer. After that, disaster follows fast and follows faster, to paraphrase Poe. The disease hinted at by the title isn’t even the last dreadful thing to befall the ship.

Disaster strikes the Johannes Kepler. Art by Tanner

The constant occurrence of a new disaster every few pages sometimes feels a bit overdone, but that may be the result of the condensed novel format. A full novel would give the characters some room to breathe between incidents. I enjoyed this a lot, but a little voice in the back of my head kept whispering that someone with more of a naval background, say A. Bertram Chandler, would have made this more believable.

A high three stars.

In Alien Waters, by Richard E. Peck

A scoutship crewed by water-breathing aliens crashes on a habitable world. They’re searching for intelligent life, even highly improbable surface dwellers, but don’t sense any. They effect repairs and attempt to take off. Interspersed with this story is a man reminiscing about the wreck of a ship he was on.

A somewhat abstract view of one of the aliens. Art by Keller

This is a decent story, but it’s weakened by the interwoven narratives. It quickly becomes obvious what ship the human narrator is talking about, which leaves the final line without any punch. The story might have been better served if Peck had moved more of that thread to the end, so it isn’t so obvious. That or relied a lot less on the impact of the final line.

Three stars.

IQ Soup, by Larry Eisenberg

Eisenberg inflicts another of his awful Emmett Duckworth stories on us. This one is even stupider than usual. The only nice thing I can say about it is that it’s less than a full page long.

One star

Basic, by Christopher Anvil

Another of Anvil’s tales of the Interstellar Patrol and their unusual methods of recruitment and training. It’s much like the others, and there isn’t much more to say. It’s clearly meant to come before Test Ultimate in the September Analog, but reading order shouldn’t make much difference.

A low three stars.

Escape Velocity, by Robin Scott

Astronaut Hogate struggles to fight down his fears as he sits on the launch pad. He’d be fine if there was something to do, but whenever they pause the countdown all he can do is think about everything that brought him to this place. When his capsule fails to make orbit, he’s forced to try out an experimental escape pod.

Ground Control to Major Tom. Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong. Art by Keller

You might want to listen to David Bowie’s recent single while reading this one. This is very good, but I’m not sure Scott is quite up to what he was trying to achieve; it falls just short of the four stars it could have been.

A high three stars.

The Snows Are Melted, the Snows Are Gone, by James Tiptree, Jr.

In a world apparently devastated by nuclear war, a girl with no arms and a very intelligent wolf undertake a journey to investigate some wild humans. It’s difficult to say much more about this without telling the whole story, but it is so much more.

A girl and her wolf. Art by Bhob Stewart

The timing is difficult, but if this wasn’t written in response to Harlan Ellison’s A Boy and His Dog, I’ll eat my hat. I will admit that I’m not entirely sure about what Tiptree was trying to say right at the very end, but it’s an impressive piece. My only complaint is really that the girl manages to do a couple of things much faster than it seems she ought to even with wolf assistance. Initially, that was enough to pull it under the four-star line, but I’ve changed my mind. Either way, Tiptree is now officially an author to watch.

Four stars.

Summing up

Another issue of Venture in the books. It’s getting better, though maybe not quite up to the standards of its parent magazine, F&SF. The biggest improvement has to be in the art. Tanner’s cover is better than the previous issue’s, though it still leaves a lot to be desired, and the addition of other (dare I say better) artists inside is a step up. I’m particularly taken with the two pieces signed "Keller". They’re sort of a combination of psychedelic and Art Nouveau that works very well.

More of all of this, please, except for Emmett Duckworth and maybe Chris Anvil.

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[October 12, 1969] My country, right or… (November 1969 Galaxy)

October 12, 2024 Gideon Marcus 2 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Justice delayed

The new Supreme Court, whose prime continuity to the old one is the preservation of the name "Warren" in its Chief Justice, is now in session—minus one Justice…for now.

Warren Burger has taken over from Earl Warren, and one can already feel the rightward lurch of our nation's highest judiciary. Now, President Richard Milhouse Nixon plans to careen the Supreme Court in an even more conservative direction.

Tricky Dick's nomination to fill the seat left when LBJ's nominee, Abe Fortas, didn't get the job, is Clement F. Haynsworth. Haynsworth is currently a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (Atlantic coast of the Upper South), a position he has held since being appointed their by Ike in 1957. The Senate Judiciary Committee on October 9th approved 10-7 the consideration of Justice Haynsworth.

The road ahead is far from clement for Haynsworth, however. For one, he bought 1000 shares of Brunswick (the bowling company) just before publishing a ruling he helped make on said company. After the heightened scrutiny on ethics that accompanied the Fortas nomination, Haynsworth is under an intense microscope. Labor groups maintained that he should have recused himself from a case involving a textile mill; he owned shares of a company that did business with the mill.

Critics of the storm say this is just tit for tat after the Fortas fight, rather than for any substantive reason. What's really at stake is Haynsworth is a reactionary. He affirmed the decision by local authorities to close the Prince Edward County schools to avoid integration, he upheld the constitutionality of school voucher programs used to fund segregated private schools, and he supported the management of the Darlington Manufacturing Company in South Carolina when it closed down to avoid its employees unionizing.

Will Haynsworth make it on the bench? It's hard to imagine he will. If a Republican minority was sufficient to deny Fortas a seat, then a Democratic majority will surely roadblock Haynsworth. If and when this happens, the question is whether Nixon will double down or conciliate. At stake this season are decisions on the tax exempt status of churches, the death penalty, punitive drafting of war protesters, and the rights of Black Americans.

Stay tuned…

Entertainment delayed

Just as we're playing the waiting game to see the direction jurisprudence goes in America, so the latest issue of Galaxy science fiction makes it clear that the future of SF, particularly in the pages of the former queen of the genre, is as yet uncertain.

by Jack Gaughan (as are, presumably, all of the other illustrations in this magazine)

Downward to the Earth (Part 1 of 4), by Robert Silverberg

The amazingly prolific Silverbob begins a serial that has elements of Delany (the incorporation of music and the choppy presentation…which may be a printing error knowing Galaxy) and Zelazny (the wild, decadent planet and weary protagonist).

Edmund Gunderson used to run Holman's World, a jungle planet with two sentient races—philosophical elephants and brutish apes—in order to collect the serpent worm venom that is a fundamental catalyst of tissue regeneration.

Ten years later, Holman's World is now Belzegor, reverted to the ownership of the pachyderm nildoror. The human infrastructure is rapidly succumbing to tropical rot, and who knows how long humanity will keep contact with the world?

Amid this backdrop of decay, Gunderson returns to the planet he ruled…purpose unknown. All we know is that his mission lies somewhere in the backwoods, and he requires nildoror permission to go there. We find out Gunderson is a bigot who cannot quite abide the idea that the nildoror are sentient beings rather than animals, but he does seem to be trying to break free of his bigotry. We also learn that the nildoror are now closely associating with the primate sulidor and even employing them as servants. Finally, it is revealed that drinking raw serpent venom causes the brief transfer of souls between alien and human. Whether this is imaginary or real is not yet known.

Silverberg has set up a lot of pieces, but not much has happened yet. The writing is competent, though not gripping. As with the Haynsworth decision, the jury is still out on this one.

Three stars.

Pennies, Off a Dead Man's Eyes, by Harlan Ellison

Old man Jedediah Parkman is dead at the age of 82, and all of the people he's helped over the years are coming to his funeral to pay respects. This includes an alien with the power of camouflage and lethal envelopment, who is passing for human for his survival. At the funeral, he witnesses a beautiful white woman (most out of place given the part of town and the race of Parkman and the other attendees) who takes the silver coins from atop Parkman's eyes.

What is her motivation? Why is she there? And just what connection does our storyteller have to Parkman?

This is one of the few Ellison stories that harnesses the writer's great talent to say something beyond what's on Harlan's mind/heart at the moment. It's also real SF, unlike so much of his work.

Five stars.

The Dirty Old Men of Maxsec, by Phyllis Gotlieb

Outside: the City. Cramped, stagnant, spartan. Its only compensation: the citizens are immortal, thanks to "the J."

Inside: MaxSec. A maximum security community populated by criminals whose only punishment is to be deprived of immortality.

The paradox: the people of MaxSec are reportedly happier, freer, and more innovative than the people of the City.

The story: Fenthree is a somewhat cynical citydweller, blackmailed into infiltrating MaxSec to find its secrets. He is quickly found out and imprisoned, to be an unwitting vessel for MaxSec's revenge on the outside world.

From there, the perspective of the story grows, now including Corrigan, strongman of MaxSec who is the architect of the retribution plan. To Linnaeus Ganzer, nearly 400 years old, developing the creeping death for Corrigan's plan. To Luz, the last lovely woman in MaxSec, catalyst to plans within plans.

A meandering, occasionally flippant, occasionally opaque piece, Gotlieb's is an interesting counterpoint to last month's "The Rock", covering the concept of a coordinated prison exile a la Australia of a couple centuries ago. That it also manages to make some interesting comments on the effects of immortality on society at the same time is impressive, although the two speculative threads do not interweave perfectly.

Three stars.

How to Kidnap a Moon, by Robert S. Richardson

Richardson is an astronomer whom we normally find in the pages of Analog. This article details the energy concerns for bringing the two moons of Mars into orbit around the Earth for easier access.

There isn't much discussion of how one might practically arrange such things—it's all just orbital mechanics and erg tabulations. It is also unclear how it would be easier to bring the rocks here for investigation rather than exploring them in situ. On the other hand, if we're ever to mine Phobos and Deimos (or by extension, any of the asteroids), I suppose there might be merit to bringing the planetoids home. If anything, they could be hollowed out and turned into natural space stations.

Anyway, three stars.

Broke and Hungry, No Place to Go, by Ron Goulart

A man whose job is to tell the computer which unnecessary mouths on the dole to eliminate (in the pursuit of efficiency) finds that he is now on the chopping block.

This is the kind of minor tale we might have found in one of the minor magazines last decade. Ron is phoning it in.

Two stars.

For Your Information (Galaxy Magazine, November 1969), by Willy Ley

In this posthumous piece, Willy Ley discusses the suggestion that the death of the dinosaurs was caused by an excess of radiation—from the periodic flipping of the magnetic poles or the explosion of a nearby supernova. He seems unconvinced, and he even goes so far as to say that the extinctions might not even have been that sudden.

Three stars.

Dead End, by Norman Spinrad

Another bleak man-on-the-dole story. This time, a fellow who is dissatisfied with having nothing meaningful to do, decides to go to the last natural preserve in the country. It is a 10 mile by 10 mile stretch of wilderness with none of the comforts of home. When he decides he isn't enjoying being cold and hungry any more than he was enjoying being bored and fed, he tries to summon a recovery robot. But his call bracelet doesn't work…may never have been designed to work. A trap to weed out malcontents?

Mack Reynolds has extrapolated this kind of world with far more success, and Bob Sheckley has written satires like this with far more wit and barb. Spinrad can be great, but this is lesser Spinrad.

Two stars.

Dune Messiah (Part 5 of 5), by Frank Herbert

Last up, a very short final installment of the third (or second, depending on how you count them) Dune book. The plotters against Paul Atreides offer him a ghola (resurrected clone) of the newly dead Chani, Paul's true love. Knowing this will make Muad'Dib a thrall to the shadowy interests of a myriad of anti-Imperial organizations, Paul refuses. Then he goes out into the desert to die, as is the fitting end for blind Fremen. The Emperor leaves behind a newborn pair of twins, one male and one female, both fully sapient in the same manner that Paul's sister was conceived, Alia's mother having been high on the spice melange at the time.

In the end, this is very much a bridge book. All of its bits could have been condensed to a five-page faux encyclopedia article included at the beginning of the next book, with very little action and not a whole lot of interest, save the mildly engaging Duncan Idaho/Hayt bits in the last installment.

So, two stars for this bit and two stars overall. Just read the summarizing precis (almost as long as this last installment!) and the few pages of the story in this issue, and you'll be fine.

A Cautious Look to the Future

It's even harder to read the tea leaves when it comes to the future of Galaxy. On the one hand, by the numbers, this issue didn't crack three stars. On the other, the Silverberg could become a knockout, the Herbert is (blessedly) over, the Gottlieb was interesting, if not stellar (and the first woman-penned piece in how long?), and the Ellison was unusually excellent. Ley is dead, and that is a blow, but perhaps Richardson will replace him. His article certainly seems like an audition, though it wasn't as good as other pieces by him I've read in, say, Analog.

So, for news on Haynsworth and news on Galaxy… I guess we're playing the waiting game!

See you then.

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Book, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[October 8, 1969] Suddenly . . . (November 1969 Amazing))

October 8, 2024 John Boston 3 Comments

by John Boston

. . . Amazing has become a normal science fiction magazine. (Stop snickering.) It’s been moving in that direction, but this November issue’s editorial says: “Beginning this issue, our old policy of reprints has been thrown out the window. . . . We will be publishing one, and only one classic story in each issue, and it will be a bonus to the fully new contents of the magazine.” Or, as the cover blurb puts it, “ALL NEW STORIES plus a Famous Classic.”

by Johnny Bruck

That phrase may seem oxymoronic, but here’s how editor White figures it: the magazine, with its new, smaller typefaces allowing more wordage, now contains about 70,000 words of new material, plus another 15,000 words, making a total per issue greater than any of the other SF magazines and allowing him to call the remaining reprints bonuses. Thus the booster’s reach exceeds the mathematician’s grasp, but I’m not complaining.

Promotion aside, congratulations to White for finally prying publisher Sol Cohen loose from his prolonged insistence on filling as much as half the magazine with reprints of (euphemistically) uneven quality. White says he “cannot truly say it was a result of my actions alone”—presumably meaning Cohen had been softened up by the complaints of his predecessors—but good for him for finally getting it done.

So what we have here are one quite long serial installment, a novelet, and two short stories, plus a reprinted short story from 1942, all new, as well as the usual complement of features. As promised last month, there is a science article by Greg Benford and David Book, and as then implied, Dr. Leon E. Stover is conspicuous by his absence, and not missed.

A book review column, shorter than usual but just as vehement, features editor White’s praise of Lee Hoffman’s The Caves of Karst and a new reviewer, Richard Delap, whaling on Bug Jack Barron: “Science fiction’s answer to Valley of the Dolls has now made the scene with all the pseudo-values of its mainstream counterpart unrevised and intact in a transposition to pseudo-sf.” Delap also doesn’t care much for the new collection of old stories The Far-Out Worlds of A.E. van Vogt, but this disappointment is expressed more in sorrow than in gusto. These two reviews are reprinted from a fanzine, but Delap will be contributing regularly to this column going forward.

The fanzine reviews and letter column fill out the issue. In the letter column, White notes that James Blish has moved to England and his book reviews will be less frequent. Other highlights of the letter column include Joe L. Hensley complaining in kind about the misspelling of his name on last issue’s cover, Bob Tucker reviving his 36-year-old beef about staples, to White’s consternation, and both White and John D. Berry, the fanzine reviewer, weighing in on the purpose of that column in response to a complaining reader. White takes issue with a reader who thinks the use of “sci-fi” is only a minor problem, and announces to another reader that he has dropped the movie reviews for the present. He also notes that he continues to write stories but his agent insists on sending them to Playboy—where, I note, nothing by White seems yet to have appeared.

Oh, the cover. I almost forgot. It’s the good cover by Johnny Bruck that we’ve been waiting for—not especially attractive, but very interesting. Foregrounded is an African-looking face peering out from what at first looks like the fur-lined hood of one of the Inuit or other far-North American peoples, but on closer examination is a collage of partial images of pieces of equipment and (I think) living things. It’s a surreal picture that, unusually, doesn’t look like imitation Richard Powers. Provenance is the German Perry Rhodan #250, from 1966.

On the contents page, Greg Benford’s story Sons of Man is listed as “The story behind the cover.” White said last issue that he doesn’t have control over the covers, but he’s been able to commission stories, including Benford’s, to be written around the pre-purchased covers. So I guess Sons of Man is actually the story in front of the cover. Inside, the story is illustrated by none other than editor White—his first professionally published art. It’s adequate, but he shouldn’t quit his day job. In other interior illustration news, Mike Hinge has done small illustrations for the headings of the editorial, book reviews, and other departments.

A. Lincoln, Simulacrum (Part 1 of 2), by Philip K. Dick

The biggest news in this issue is Philip K. Dick’s serial, A. Lincoln, Simulacrum. Per my practice, I won’t read and rate this until both installments are available, but there’s plenty of talk about the novel here. White’s editorial says without elaboration that it is totally uncut—in fact, it’s “slightly revised and expanded” for its appearance here.

by Mike Hinge

White does leave us with a bizarre anecdote. Several years ago, he showed Dick a photo of himself looking rather like Dick (both with full beards and dark-rimmed glasses). Dick asked for a copy, since his agent was after him to provide a photo for a British edition of The Man in the High Castle. So Dick sent the photo of White—and it appeared on the book. White says: “So here’s a chance to say, ‘Thanks, Phil,’ for the chance to associate myself, albeit deceitfully, with one of his best books.”

About the novel, White says:

“. . . Phil told me, ‘I put a lot of myself into this one—I really sweated into it.’ It’s more of a novel of character than any previous Philip K. Dick novel, and in writing and scene construction it approaches the so-called ‘mainstream’ novel. It is also something of a ‘root’ novel, planting as it does in 1981 many of the themes and constructs which pop up in later books of his loose-limned future history. And it is the first and only Philip K. Dick novel to be told in first person by its protagonist.”

Sons of Man, by Greg Benford

by Ted White

Greg Benford’s Sons of Man is a well crafted story using the familiar device of telling two unrelated stories in parallel, gradually revealing that they are not so unrelated after all. In one, Livingstone, who has moved to the northwestern wilderness to get away from civilization, finds a man named King collapsed in the snow near his cabin with severe burn injuries of no obvious origin, then sees a face peering into his window, and later, bare footprints two feet long. King’s been Sasquatch hunting and they seem to be hunting him back.

Meanwhile, on the Moon, Terry Wilk is trying to make sense of the records of an ancient spacecraft that crashed after visiting Earth early in human prehistory. Members of the New Sons of God cult are looking over his shoulder to make sure he doesn’t find out anything heretical. The story reads like it might develop into a series but stands on its own. The style seems a little awkward at the beginning, as if it’s something Benford started earlier in his career and came back to later, but overall, it’s very readable, cleverly assembled, and generally enjoyable. Four stars.

A Sense of Direction, by Alexei Panshin

Alexei Panshin’s short story A Sense of Direction is set in the same universe of “the Ships” as his Nebula-winning Rite of Passage. The interstellar Ships lord it over the people of the colonies that they established. Arpad, whose father married into a planetary culture and left (was left by) his Ship, was reclaimed for the Ship when his father died. He’s miserable in its unfamiliar culture, and makes a break for it during a landing on another planet. But the folkways there are so bizarre and repellent that he quickly changes his mind and sneaks back. So, like most of Panshin’s work, it’s Heinleinian: The (Young) Man Who Learned Better, capably done but just a bit too schematic and pat. Three stars.

A Whole New Ballgame, by Ray Russell

Ray Russell contributes A Whole New Ballgame, a compressed soliloquy on a theme previously aired by Larry Niven (in The Jigsaw Man), with a first-person semi-literate narrator. It’s just about perfect in its small compass and inexorable logic. Four miniature stars.

Sarker’s Joke Box, by Raymond Z. Gallun

The “Famous Classic” this month is Sarker’s Joke Box, by Raymond Z. Gallun, from the March 1942 Amazing. It’s yet another testament to the corrupting effects of Ray Palmer’s editorship. It begins: “Clay Sarker had me covered with his ugly heat-pistol. Kotah, the little Venusian scientist he’d held captive for so long, crouched helplessly chained, there, in one corner of Sarker’s cavernous mountain hideout. My life wasn’t worth the cinders in a discarded rocket-tube.” “Gimme bang-bang” wins out again! Pull out your copy of the June 1938 Astounding Science-Fiction, or the anthology Adventures in Time and Space, and compare Gallun’s much classier Seeds of the Dusk to this one.

by Robert Fuqua

But the story is not a total loss. The narrator is a cop, and he and his buddies have rousted Sarker out of his last stronghold in the Asteroid Belt. Now he’s trapped in a cave on Earth while the other cops are closing in. But Sarker—“that black-souled demon of space”—turns his heat-pistol on Kotah and then on his own apparatus that fills the cave, which blows up quite satisfactorily, then enters a metal cylinder and closes and seals it behind him. When the main body of cops arrive, they try to penetrate it, but—it’s neutronium! They can’t scratch it. And to compound matters, Sarker’s lawyer appears and announces that since they’ve declared Sarker to be in custody, they’ve got to try him within 60 days or he goes free. So the cops redouble their efforts to get through the neutronium. At this point, the story turns into a scientific puzzle without (much) further resort to hokey melodrama. It’s perfectly readable and commendably short. Three stars.

The Columbus Problem, by Greg Benford and David Book

Greg Benford’s second appearance in the issue is the first “Science in Science Fiction” article, done with David Book. It’s called The Columbus Problem and it starts out with a quotation from a Poul Anderson novel about a spaceship arriving at a new star system: “The instruments peered and murmured, and clicked forth a picture of the system. Eight worlds were detected.” Benford and Book then explain just how difficult and time-consuming it would actually be to detect the planets of an unfamiliar star system upon arrival at it, with our present technology or likely enhancements of it. They do a fine job of plain English explanation without becoming tedious. It beats hell out of Frank Tinsley’s earlier science articles for Amazing and edges Ben Bova’s. Four stars.

Summing Up

So, deferring judgment on the serial, here’s a lively issue of which much is quite good and nothing is a chore to read. Amazing!

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction