Tag Archives: miriam allen deford

Magazine, Serial

[January 18, 1965] Doors also open (February 1965 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

8 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

Eulogy for One

I opened this month's Fantasy & Science Fiction to the sad news that author Richard McKenna had passed away.  He was quite an excellent author, one who (like me) started writing fiction late in life.  That he was only to devote eight years to a career he'd hoped to last for sixty is a tragedy for all concerned.  Here's his obituary in full.

It is perhaps the fittest balm that the February 1965 issue of F&SF is the first really good one in a long time.  New editor Joe Ferman may have finally exhausted the dreck his predecessor, Avram Davidson, had assembled.  Aside from the improvement in quality and the inclusion of an honest-to-goodness science fiction story, I note there is only one piece in what I'd call the "joke" category, and there are four entries by women.  F&SF has traditionally published the most women per capita, but under Davidson's reign, that distinction had been surrendered.

So let's welcome back this return to form (long may it last).  Come take look:

The Issue at Hand


by Jack Gaughan

Marque and Reprisal, by Poul Anderson

Perhaps a hundred years from now, Earth's World Federation, beginning to settle the stars, runs into the humanoid Aleriona in the disputed Phoenix sector.  A misunderstanding ensues, and after Alerion ships slaughter the human population of New Europe with nuclear missiles, they occupy the planet.

Accidents happen.  Surely the decimation of half a million people is not worth risking interstellar war over, especially on the eve of establishing formal trade relations between Earth and Alerion.  Except, as we learn early on, most of those 500,000 colonists aren't dead.  They are holed up in New Europe's mountains, hoping for a rescue effort that the Federation is unwilling to mount.  Thus, the information is suppressed, its purveyors ostracized.

This all sits poorly with Gunnar Heim, a former space cruiser captain.  If not the Federation as a whole, surely at least one nation will stand up for New Europe.  And indeed, France would do so — if it had its own navy, which it does not in this future enlightened time.

But the Federation was never a signatory to the 1856 Declaration of Paris, which outlawed Letters of Marque…

This story takes a little while to get going, and it has a little bit too much of the protagonist talking to himself, which is one of Poul Anderson's idiosyncrasies.  It also lacks a single woman character.  On the other hand, it has many things going for it.  It is a space story, something the magazine has been sorely lacking for a long time.  It is an interesting story (ditto).  And it derails itself halfway through with a completely unexpected plot twist; I always appreciate it when an author can pull this off.

I'm giving it four stars even though it ends on a cliffhanger.  If there isn't a sequel, I'll eat my hat.

The Sin of Edna Schuster, by Willard Marsh

Mrs. Schuster engages in a tryst with a passionate, mysterious man named Raoul, an expatriate from some Latin country.  It becomes quite clear at the end that he is not quite of this world.

I am going to refrain from rating this one.  It's quite well written, but I fail to recognize the fable/myth it references at the end, so I cannot tell how effective it is at what it's trying to do.

Please enlighten me?

Mrs. Pribley's Underdog, by Sue Sanford

Aging widow Pribley discovers and becomes quite fond of an alien she finds on her lawn, one best described as a looking like an organic vacuum cleaner.  But if this is the extraterrestrial her scientist brother has been in mental communication with, why is it that it is suddenly incapable of anything more than the most rudimentary thoughts?

It's cute, the "joke" story I mentioned.  Three stars.

Time and the Sphinx, by Leah Bodine Drake

Here's a lovely piece about Time as personified aspect, and the Egyptian goddess-in-stone he comes to loathe.  Can he defeat her with his withering powers?  And will he be pleased with the outcome?

Four stars.

Harmony in Heaven, by Isaac Asimov

In which the Good Doctor discovers Kepler's Third Law and proceeds to draw up a number of tables.  It's exciting as it sounds (although, to be fair, Dr. A. is never bad).

Three stars.

The Switch, by Calvin Demmon

The Professor has been dead for a century, but his soul lives on in a box as gray as he was when he passed.  Every few months, he is switched on by some 21st Century student who wants first-hand knowledge of life in the 20th. 

Is this immortality?  Or a kind of hell?  Either way, I found it poignant.  Four stars.

Look Up, by Karen Anderson

The subject of this poem is the Tomorrowland that is space.  The quality is not up to Karen's usual snuff.  Two stars.

The Absolutely Perfect Murder, by Miriam Allen deFord

How best to eliminate a pesky spouse?  Kill their father before the spouse can be born, of course!  But, as is always the case with stories, there's an unforeseen wrinkle.

Nothing new with this piece, but neither is there anything offensive.  A low three stars.

The Placebo Effect, by Theodore L. Thomas

Our science springboardist suggests that the Placebo Effect, which is real, could be developed into a perfect cure, if only we could find the perfect placebo for every malady.

You'll quickly spot the logical fallacy, but as satire, it's kind of fun.

Three stars.

The Deadeye Dick Syndrome, by Robert M. Green, Jr.

Against the admonitions of a crackpot occultist, Tom Fish heads out to the desert.  And in the pre-dawn dark, he comes face to face with the "vast black thing, poised like a crow over the moon."  Suffused with a thrilling energy, he returns to his town only to find he is now utterly despised by all — liked Deadeye Dick from H.M.S. Pinafore.  Only the fruitcake can save Fish from an imminent lynching.

It starts excitingly, ends confusingly, and there is entirely too much quoting and name-dropping of Charles Fort and Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, but I hesitate to give it lower than three stars just because I am largely ignorant of the work of those three men.

Dialogue in a Twenty-First Century Dining Room, by Robert F. Young

Last up is a short piece in script form detailing how a scrupulously average couple in a deliberately average society manage to beat the wondrous Bartlett's quoting rowk bird into insipid inanity.

Good for what it is.  Three stars.

Celebration for All

And so, we say good-bye to a bright star, but we see the rosy-fingered dawn of a reborn F&SF.  Sadness and hope in equal measures.  Things could be worse.  I'll drink to both.


by "Moonman82"

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




8 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 8, 1964] It's War! (The October 1964 Galaxy and the 1964 Hugos)

9 Comments

[We have exciting news!  Journey Press, the publishing company founded by the team behind Galactic Journey, has just launched its first book.  We know you will enjoy Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963), a curated set of fourteen excellent stories introduced by the rising stars of 2019. 

If you enjoy Galactic Journey, you'll want to purchase a copy today — available physically and virtually!]


by Gideon Marcus

It's a War, Man

No matter which way you look these days, fighting has broken out somewhere.  Vietnam?  War.  The Congo?  War.  Yemen?  War.

Worldcon?  You'd better believe it's war.

Back in May, the committee putting on this year's event (in Oakland, called Pacificon II) decided that Walter Breen would not be allowed to attend.  For those of you living in a steel-plated bubble, Breen is a big-name fan in the SF and coin-collecting circles with a gift for inciting dislike in direct proportion to one's proximity.

Oh, and he's also a child molester.

Now there has been much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over the draconian action taken by the Pacificon committee, likening the arbitrary action to McCarthy's witch trials of the last decade.  As a result, fandom has largely resolved itself into two camps, one defending the attempt to evict Breen from organized fandom, the other vilifying it.

I know we're a kooky bunch of misfits and our tent should be pretty inclusive, but ya gotta draw the line somewhere, don't you?  And what may have been fine for Alexander doesn't hold in the 20th Century.  I guess it's clear which side I fall on.

Well, despite the protests and the boycotts that tainted the Worldcon (which were part of what deterred me from attending this year), they still managed to honor what the fans felt was the best science fiction and fantasy of 1963.  Without further ado, here's how the Hugos went:

Best Novel

Here Gather the Stars, by Clifford Simak (63 votes)

Nominees

For the first time, the Journey had reviewed all of the choices for Best Novel before the nominating ballots had even been counted.  While we didn't pick the Simak for a Galactic Star last year, it's not a bad book, certainly better than the Heinlein and the Herbert, probably better than the Norton.  I suspect the reason the Vonnegut finished so low is that, as a mainstream book, fewer had read it.  Or perhaps just because it was so weird.

Short Fiction

The No Truce with Kings by Poul Anderson (93 votes)

Nominees

We got all of these this year, too.  The Anderson was our clear favorite, being the only one on the list to rate a Galactic Star.  The rest are in the order we had rated them.  Sadly, because this category encompasses so many stories, a great number got cheated out of recognition.  Perhaps they will divide the categories by length in the future.

Best Dramatic Presentation

None this year — insufficient votes cast for any one title to create a proper ballot.

I bet this will change next year what with so many SF shows coming out this Fall season (Rose Benton has got an article coming out in two days on this very subject!)

Best Professional Magazine

Analog ed. by John W. Campbell, Jr. (90 votes)

Nominees

It looks like people voted for the magazines in rough proportion to subscription rates, though F&SF did disproportionately well.  I am happy to say that this is the year we start covering Science-Fantasy…in its new incarnation under the editorship of Kyril Bonfiglioli.

Best Professional Artist

Ed Emshwiller (77 votes)

Nominees

Book covers are showing their influence on the voting — Krenkel and Frazetta don't do the SF mags. 

Best Fanzine

AMRA (72 votes)

Nominees

  • Yandro (51 votes)
  • Starspinkle (48 votes)
  • ERB-dom (45 votes)
  • No Vote (52 votes)
  • No Award (6 votes)

(isn't it interesting how close the ERB fanzine's tally is to Savage Pellucidar's…)

I was glad to see that Warhoon, which is full-throatedly in favor of Walter Breen, was not in the running.  Starspinkle, which makes no secret of its disdain for Breen, is the only one of these I read regularly.

Also, while Galactic Journey was not on the ballot again (for some reason), we did get a whopping 88 write-in votes.  So, unofficially, we are the best fanzine for 1964.  Go us!

Best Publisher

Ace Books (89 votes)

Nominees

  • Pyramid (79 votes)
  • Ballantine (45 votes)
  • Doubleday (35 votes)
  • No Vote (25 votes)
  • No Award (11 votes)

I should keep track of who is publishing what for next year.  The problem is, I usually read novels in serial format.

And that's it for my Hugos report.  It'll be interesting to see if fandom's scars heal at all by next year.

Veterans of Foreign Wars

Given the turmoil in the papers and in fandom, it's not surprising that war is a common theme in science fiction, too.  In fact, the October 1964 issue of Galaxy is bookended by novellas on the subject; together they take up more than half the book.  They also are the best parts.


by George Schelling

Soldier, Ask Not, by Gordon R. Dickson

Centuries from now, after humanity has scattered amongst a dozen or more stars, the species has splintered to specialize in particular traits.  The eggheads of Newton focus on scientific advance while the Cassidans make the building of starships their trade.  The mystical Exotics have devoted their lives to nonviolent pursuit of philosophy.  The Dorsai, of course, are renowned galaxy-wide for their military prowess.  And the hyper-religious "Friendlies" are committed to faith.

Our story's setting is the wartorn Exotic world of St. Marie, where Dorsai mercenaries have been employed to topple the Friendly mercenaries who had conquered the world years prior.  Newsman Tam Olyn has learned that the Friendlies' mission is a forlorn one, and he hopes to leverage that information to force the Christian zealots to do something desperate, illegal, to win the fight.  For Olyn has a grudge to settle with the Friendlies, having watched them slaughter without mercy an entire company of surrendered soldiers several years back.


by Gray Morrow

Set in the same universe as Dickson's prior Dorsai stories, Soldier is a more mature piece, asking a lot of hard questions.  Is Olyn's zeal any less than that of the Friendlies, any more laudable?  If Olyn's actions cause the destruction of an entire sub-branch of humanity, can the species' collective psyche withstand the loss of one of its vital components? 

Of course, the situation turns out to be far more complex than Olyn thought, with the Friendly commandant and the Dorsai commander proving to be independent variables beyond his control.  In the end, nothing goes as planned.

Soldier is not perfect.  It's overwritten in places, although since the tale is a first-person account written by a war correspondent, I wonder if this was intentional.  The omniscience of the Exotic, Padma, who has an understanding of events and factors that would make even Hari Seldon jealous, is a bit convenient as a storytelling device.  The idea that humanity has evolved in a few centuries, not just societally but mentally, such that vital components of our minds have been bred out of existence, is difficult to swallow.

But Dickson is a good writer, and I found myself turning the pages with avid interest. 

Four stars.

Martian Play Song, by John Burress

A variation of patty-cake that will make you chortle.  Three stars.

Be of Good Cheer, by Fritz Leiber

The first of two robot stories, this is a letter from Josh B. Smiley, Director-in-Chief of Level 77's Bureau of Public Morale to one Hermione Fennerghast of Santa Barbara.  It seems she just can't be happy living in a mechanically run world, where robots ignore the people, where people seem to be increasingly scarce, and where both the indoors and outdoors are being reduced to dull grayness.  Smiley does his best to reassure her that all is for the best, but the Director's verbal smile increasingly comes off as forced.

It's cute while it lasts, forgettable when it's over.  Three stars.

The Area of "Accessible Space">, by Willy Ley

Mr. Ley offers us a list of near-Earth celestial targets that could be reached in the near future by rockets and probes.  The author is quite optimistic about our prospect, in fact: "There can hardly be any doubt that a mission to a comet (unmanned) will be flown before a man lands on the moon."

Anyone want to lay odds?

Three stars.

How the Old World Died, by Harry Harrison

Robot story #2: computerized automata are programmed with one overriding desire — to reproduce.  Soon, they take over the entire world, having deconstructed our buildings and machines to make more of them.

The twist ending to the story is not only ridiculous, but it also is in direct contradiction to events described earlier.  Sure, perhaps the narrator (a crotchety grandpa who remembers the good old days) is not reliable.  But if that be true, then 90% of the story is invalid, and what was the point of reading it?

Two stars.

The 1980 President, by Miriam Allen deFord


by Hector Castellon

Have you noticed that every President of the United States elected in a year ending in zero ultimately dies in office?  Perhaps that's why, in 1980, the two big parties have nominated candidates they wouldn't mind losing (though they'd never admit it publicly).

A cute idea for a gag story, I guess.  Except, in this case, the parties have been maneuvered into their actions by alien agent, The Brown Man, and his goal is racial harmony and equality.

Yeah, I found the whole thing a bit too heavy-handed for my tastes, too.  I've liked deFord a lot, but her work lately has seemed kind of primitive, more at home in a less refined era of science fiction.

Three stars, barely.

The Tactful Saboteur, by Frank Herbert


by Jack Gaughan

From bad to worse.  This unreadable piece involves a government with a built in Department of Sabotage to ensure things don't run too smoothly.  I guess.  Maybe you'll get more out of it than I did.

One star.

What's the Name of That Town?, by R. A. Lafferty

A supercomputer is tasked with discovering an event not from the evidence for its existence, but from the conspicuous lack of evidence.  Lafferty's piece is an inverse of deFord's — a great idea rather wasted on a feeble laugh. 

Another barely three-star story.

Maxwell's Monkey, by Edgar Pangborn

What if the monkey on your back was a real monkey?  This monkey is a clunker.

Two stars.

Precious Artifact, by Philip K. Dick

Humanity emerges victorious from a war with the "proxmen", and Milt Biskle, a terraformer on Mars, is granted the right to return to Earth.  He does so only reluctantly, subconsciously dreading a trip to his overcrowded homeworld.

Once there, he is wracked with fears that the teeming masses of people, the burgeoning skylines are all imaginary.  Underneath, he is certain, lies nothing but ruins, smashed by the proxmen — who were actually triumphant and project this illusion to keep the few remaining humans sane.

But there is a level of truth even deeper…

A minor effort from a major author, Dick's latest warrants three stars.

The Children of Night, by Frederik Pohl


by Virgil Finlay

Lastly, Galaxy's editor picks up the pen to deliver a tale of marketing in the early 21st Century.  It's a topic near and dear to Pohl's heart, he having started out as a pretty successful copywriter, and it's no surprise that he often returns to this subject in his stories.

In this particular case, Pohl's protagonist is "Gunner", a fixer for the world's most reputable (and infamous) publicity firm.  They're the kind who'd even try to reform Hitler's image if the were enough Deutschmarks in the deal.  And in 2022, Moultrie & Bigelow's client is no less than the Arcturan insectoids who tried to wipe out humanity in a decade-long interstellar war.  I mean, how do you sell the public on a bunch of stinky bugs who killed indiscriminately and conducted experiments on children that would make Mengele blanch? (Who am I kidding — the bastard would take notes.)

Unlike many of the author's other marketing stories, this one is played straight; and while I don't know that I buy the ending, no one would argue that Fred Pohl can't write.

Four stars.

Picking up the Pieces

At times, the latest issue of Galaxy feels like a battlefield, with definite winners and losers.  In the end, though, this kind of war is a lot more palatable than the other ones going on in the world. 

At four bits, that's affordable and welcome R&R.

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




9 Comments Leave A Comment
Fashion, music, politics, sports, Magazine

[August 21, 1964] The Good News (September 1964 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

4 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

Reversing the trend

The United States is the richest country in the world.  By any reckoning, we measure in superlatives: biggest economy, strongest military, most movies, coolest cars.  But there is one outsized statistic we shouldn't bury in gloss — 19% of Americans live in poverty.

Several months back, newly installed President Johnson took an unscheduled trip through Appalachia, the poorest part of our country.  This region, between the Eastern seaboard and the Plains states, north of the agrarian South and the Industrial North, has traditionally been an economic backwater.  Shocked by what he found, LBJ promptly declared a War on Poverty, seeking to continue the efforts of President Roosevelt to bring up the nation and, in particular, Appalachia.

Yesterday saw a great step forward taken in that direction.  President Johnson signed into law the Economic Opportunity Act, designed to help the poorest families find their way out of their economic quagmire.  This will be achieved a number of ways, largely through the creation of new task forces and funding of groups whose goal is poverty relief. 

For instance, the newly created Job Corps and Neighborhood Youth Corps will provide work and training for the underskilled and underemployed.  Work Study college grants and Adult Basic Education will ensure that the poor are not barred from employment by illiteracy or lack of education.  There are also loan and grant programs for individuals and agencies. 

It's a smart system, not a simple redistribution of wealth but an investment in the next generation of Americans.  I have a lot of confidence that it will be successful — provided, of course, that the money gets put to good use.  Time will tell.

Big and small scale

Just as the White House has endeavored to improve the lot of Americans, so has Fantasy and Science Fiction's editor worked to address a disturbing trend.  In fact, this month's issue is easily the best one of the magazine that I've read in a while, and it's not even an "All-Star Issue".  It's just good.

So for those of you who came to hear me flog F&SF, you're going to be disappointed…

Mel Hunter's cover shows a post-Mariner 2 Venus, a cloudy inferno.  It's a beautiful piece, though it pertains to no story in this issue and is, perhaps, a better fit for Analog. 

The stories, on the other hand, are pure F&SF:

Chameleon, by Ron Goulart

Ron Goulart writes these flip, droll little pieces, with deft skill (if not great consequence).  This particular one stars Ben Jolson, member of a corps of secret agents whose special talent is shapeshifting.  People, animals, furniture, these superspies transform instantly and apparently without regard for mass considerations.  Jolson is a particularly adept, if eccentric, agent, grudgingly tasked with getting the prime minister of Barafunda to make a proclamation against the practice of using soulless, mass-produced people as slave labor.  By any means necessary: becoming a trusted adviser, inciting violence, even becoming the PM herself.

Goulart keeps things real enough to avoid farce, light enough to avoid melodrama.  If you like Laumer's Retief or Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat stories, this will be right up your alley. 

Four stars.

A Miracle Too Many, by Alan E. Nourse and Philip H. Smith

Dr. Stephen Olie discovers that being able to miraculously cure with a touch is a curse as well as a blessing.  Both Nourse and Smith are physicians, so it's no surprise that this piece involves the medical profession.  I liked everything but the ending, which felt a bit lazy.

Three stars. 

Slips Take Over, by Miriam Allen deFord

Ms. deFord, who is 76 today (Many Happy Returns!) offers up a tale of a man who slips between parallel timelines as easily and inadvertently as we might get lost on the streets of an unfamiliar city.  It's a neat idea, with the kind of great creepy atmosphere deFord is good at, but she doesn't do much with the story.  Plus, there are inconsistencies regarding what items do and do not travel with the hapless universe-crosser.

Three stars.

Olsen and the Gull, by Eric St. Clair

Eric, the husband of famed author Margaret St. Clair, is an author in his own right.  This is his first story not to be written for children and involving SFF elements.  In this case, it's a shipwrecked lout of a sailor whose only entertainment is to crush the eggs of the multitudinous seagulls while chanting "tromp tromp tromp."  One enterprising bird undertakes to distract Olsen the sailor by teaching him the art of summoning… with amusing and unfortunate results.

Four stars.

Carbonaceous Chondrites, by Theodore L. Thomas

Even Thomas' little column, usually sophomoric in the extreme, isn't bad this month.  He posits that the carbon compounds being found in certain meteorites are evidence of extraterrestrial life — but not the way you think!

Three stars.

Four Brands of Impossible, by Norman Kagan

The longest piece of the issue is by a new writer, a student at New York City College.  As befits a novice, the story, about a mathematician tapped to develop an illogical logic, is somewhat unfocused.  Moreover, when it's all done, I'm not exactly sure that anything of importance has happened.

On the other hand, there are bits in the story that are quite compelling, about space research, the value of an automated presidency, the folly of racism, etc., and I will remember the novelette for these if nothing else.

Thus, three stars.

The New Encyclopaedist-II, by Stephen Becker

A mock encyclopaedia article, about Jacob Porphyry, who reversed the trend toward malaprop and literary inanity by making his books hard to read.

It's cute once you get into it.  Three stars.

Theoretical Progress, by Karen Anderson

This first of two poems by Karen Anderson (Poul's other half), is a modern-day send-up of Antigonish. 

I liked it.  Four stars.

Investigation of Galactic Ethnology, by Karen Anderson

On the other hand, the second poem, a limerick, is barely worth a pained smirk. 

Still, that's the appropriate reaction to a well-delivered pun.  Three stars.

Elementary, by Laurence M. Janifer and Michael Kurland

Raise your hand if you want to murder your agent.  Goodness, there are a lot of you!  I shouldn't be surprised…I'm not even convinced that they're a necessary evil these days.  Anyway, this story is about a pair of authors who decide to put paid to their 10% bloodsucker only to find their efforts repeatedly thwarted.

This is another piece with a great beginning and middle, but the ending didn't quite work for me.  Perhaps you'll feel differently.

Three stars.

The Haste-Makers, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor's non-fiction article is on catalysts this time around.  I learned a great deal, but then chemistry has never been my bag.  The big revelation I got out of the piece was that catalysts aren't magic but merely a side effect of our living in an oxygen-filled environment (just like airplanes no longer boggle the brain when you realize that they don't fly on nothing — air just happens to be invisible).

Four stars.

The Deepest Blue in the World, by S. Dorman

When the stars become a battlefield, the men will go off to fight and die, and women will be brought to the Wedding Bench to conceive and rear the next batch of soldiers.  If they resist their breeding lot in life, it's prison and the mines for them.

A chilling story by an author with an uncanny vision of female subjugation.  A strong four stars.

Inconceivably Yours, by Willard Marsh

A bachelor worries that the failure of a contraceptive will end his bachelor days, but one God's curse is another man's blessing.  A fair story with a delicious title.

Three stars.

The Star Party, by Robert Lory

The astrologers presume to know a lot about people.  Unfortunately, master star-teller Isvara picked the wrong two Madison Avenue party attenders to cast readings on.  It's a nice little tale, though the astronomical inaccuracy at the end was unfortunate.

Three stars.

A Crown of Rank Fumiter, by Vance Aandahl

Last up, we have young Vance Aandahl, who started out strong and has been delivering weak tea indeed for several years.  This piece, about a recluse who, in the midst of death finds his humanity, is a refreshing change of direction — and thus a perfect capper for a surprisingly strong issue.

Four stars.

Summing up

I don't know that any of these stories hit it out of the park for me, but there were plenty of good pieces and no clunkers in the lot.  Even Davidson's introductions were entertaining.  This issue will certainly be a contender for best magazine this month.

More good news: F&SF has several foreign editions.  They've just started a Spanish edition, Minotauro, the first issue of which arrived by mail the other day.  My daughter, who is learning the language in high school, is currently working her way through Damon Knight's What Rough Beast and enjoying it, even translated.  So, if you speak Spanish, and you want a "best-of" issue of the magazine, you could do worse than to pick up a copy!

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




4 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine

[June 30, 1964] A big Delta (June 1964 Gamma)

1 Comment


by Gideon Marcus

Heading South

After four lovely days in the Japanese capital, we hopped the train for points southwest, toward the center of the country.  Sadly, we were just a few months too early to take the new "bullet train" which will be debuted in October in time for the Olympics.  The trip thus took many hours, but the scenery was nice (this year's "rainy season" hasn't been very) and I got a lot of reading done.

Nagoya is Japan's "fourth" city, after Tokyo/Yokohama, Osaka, and Fukuoka.  A drab, gray and brown place, it nevertheless was a must-stay location for us given its proximity to so many of our friends: A husband-and-wife couple teach at the local university, our dear friend Hideko (now recently married!) lives in Osaka, and a friend I met when she visited America, Juuri, lives in nearby Shizuoka.

And, of course, there is the super-energetic Nanami, who teaches schoolchildren in Nagoya.

Dan and Jen, whose nieces were visiting at the time, took us up to old Inuyama castle.  This is one of the few original castles still intact.  It gave us a commanding view of the area.

We also explored the nearby town of Oobu, and we were welcomed into a local home.  Here's the bedroom of a little boy who lived there.

The bustling, brash city of Osaka was as smoky and wild as ever.  Western culture has thoroughly soaked the place: clothing, music, and food.

The Issue at Hand

Somehow in the midst of all this, I found time to read and review the latest Gamma, a new magazine whose first two issues had greatly impressed me.  Sadly, it seems that the stock of great fiction the editors had accumulated prior to launch has been exhausted, and what's left is so much trunk work, the substandard stories by big names that hadn't sold elsewhere.  Pity.


by Morris Scott Dollens

The Girl of Paradise Planet, by Robert Turner

The first story illustrates my point well.  Here is a piece by a veteran, with a thousand stories to his credit, and it's just mediocre.  A fellow on vacation on a pleasure planet goes SCUBA-diving and encounters a young girl under the waves.  She's not a mermaid — she has a full complement of human limbs, yet she can breathe underwater.  The vacationer quickly falls in love, to the annoyance of his shrewish wife, and spends endless hours with his newfound paramour. 

Said romance feels solipsistic, like something a fourteen-year-old might come up with, including plenty of the protagonist's thoughts and precious few of the object of his intention.  In fact, near the end, we are led to doubt that the encounter was real at all, which would have made a lot more sense given the sketchiness of the girl's character, who prefers not to talk but rather mostly perform aquatic acrobatics.  And smooch.

Alas, it turns out the girl is real.  Joy for our hero, disappointment for us.  A weak three stars.


by Luan Meatheringham

(speaking of illustrations, Gamma has employed young Luan Meatheringham to produce drawings.  While the pieces are nice, in a fanzine-ish way, they don't relate to any of the stories, and I'm not sure why they're here, taking space.)

The Feather Bed, by Shelly Lowenkopf

Shelly (a man, despite the name) Lowenkopf writes of a future where, upon the expiration of copyright after 56 years, literary works are destroyed to a copy, and replacements commissioned as a kind of artistic welfare.  When a writer refuses to finish his assignment to rewrite King Lear he is fired, eventually becoming a plumber — an industry in which pipes are torn out and replaced every three years.

I like stories about a future with rampant unemployment and the need for makework, but this one doesn't make a lot of sense, even by its own rules (no good argument is made against creating new works) and the piece doesn't work as satire, either, because I'm not sure what it's supposed to be satirizing. 

Two stars.

Angel Levine, by Bernard Malamud

A down-on-his-luck tailor is visited by a shabby, black Jewish angel, who (eventually) eases the man's pain.

Not much to say about this one.  Three stars for atmosphere and dialect.


by Luan Meatheringham

The (In)visible Man, by Edward W. Ludwig

Here's a piece about a man who is such a nonentity that the world completely ignores him, and he is able to lead a life of crime.  That is, until the fellow finds love and confidence, causing him to become visible again.

I might have enjoyed this story more had Ellison not done it so much better in The Forces that Crush six years ago.

Three stars.

Inside Story, by Miriam Allen deFord

From the pen of one of the genre's most venerable creators comes the tale of a sentient world and the tsuris of a cold given it by a four-being scount team from the Galactic Federation.

Cute, but this is the sort of thing Bob Sheckley used to do, and much better.

Three stars.

The Birth, by George Clayton Johnson

We've seen a lot of Johnson on TV, particularly us fans of The Twilight Zone.  This forgettable piece, a first person account of the creation of Frankenstein's Monster, does not even have a Serlingesque twist to redeem it.

Three stars for competent writing.


by Luan Meatheringham

The Gamma Interview: Soviet Science Fiction

The most worthy piece of the issue is an interview with "Ivan Kirov", editor of a Moscow publishing house that produces science fiction.  It is worth picking this issue up just for this piece, even though it has an unfortunate ediorial accident that omits a crucial line.

Five stars.

Buttons, by Raymond E. Banks

Along similar lines, Banks offers up the story of a dying spaceman who transfers his consciousness to a set of computerized buttons until such time as his persona might be restored to a human body.  Said spaceman decides he likes being a disembodied being better.

It's well-written, but like the rest of the pieces in this magazine, it doesn't really go anywhere.

Three stars.


by Luan Meatheringham

Society for the Prevention, by Ron Goulart

Goulart is known for writing humorous pieces, so this light-hearted tale of the fortunate intersection of an interstellar merchant, his shipment of alien pots which are actually extraterrestrial invaders, and some rabid anti-capitalists is right up the author's alley.

Entertaining, though frivolous.  Three stars.

The Snail Watcher, by Patricia Highsmith

Finally, mystery writer Highsmith presents the tale of a man whose love for snails ultimately proves his undoing.  The moral: molluscs are for eating, not voyeuring.

Yet another atmospheric piece that doesn't do much.  Three stars.


by Luan Meatheringham

Summing Up

Thus ends one of the most mediocre collections of digest-sized pages I've ever read.  I have to wonder if this is a momentary blip, or if Gamma is doomed to be short-lived.  Only time will tell.

And now, off to Hiroshima!  See you in two days…

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




1 Comment Leave A Comment
Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[February 17, 1964] Breaking Taboos (April 1964 Worlds of Tomorrow)

2 Comments

[Due to an oversight (clearly!), Galactic Journey was not included on Locus' Awards Ballot this year.  If you're a fan of the Journey, we be grateful if you'd fill us in under Fanzine!]


by Victoria Silverwolf

Until a decade or so ago, science fiction rarely dealt with erotic themes in an open way.  That began to change with Phillip José Farmer's famous story The Lovers (1952), which deals with a love affair between a man and a female humanoid.  Her alien reproductive system, described in detail, is the key to the plot.

Equally groundbreaking was The World Well Lost (1953) by Theodore Sturgeon.  This gentle, beautifully written story depicts homosexuality in a sympathetic way.

SF writers are now free to look inside the bedroom.  But are they ready to peer into the bathroom?  The lead novella in the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow represents a first step inside.


Cover by Paul E. Wenzel

The Dark Light-Years, by Brian W. Aldiss

By sheer chance, humans and aliens arrive at almost the same time on an uninhabited world.  The aliens look like hippopotamuses with six limbs and two heads.  The humans kill most of the aliens at first sight, taking two prisoners.  (Right away, we know that the author is going to depict the human species as violent and xenophobic.) Not only are the aliens repulsive to human eyes, their behavior is offensive in the extreme.

(Sensitive readers may wish to skip the rest of this review.)

The aliens live in their own excrement, considering this the most important part of their culture and religion.  All attempts to communicate with the aliens fail, partly due to the disgust they elicit from their captors.

The plot is more complicated than I've made it sound, starting with a man who has lived on the aliens' home world for many years.  A long flashback describes the first encounter between the two species.

The point of view shifts to that of the aliens, and we learn their history.  The climax returns to the beginning, and ends in tragedy. 

This sounds like a very grim story, but it's also full of satire and dark humor.  The author offers a couple of scatological puns.  It would be easy to dismiss this as a schoolchild writing naughty words on a blackboard, but the intent is more serious than that.  Despite a jumpy narrative technique, the story powerfully portrays the impossibility of understanding between radically different beings.

Four stars.

Package Deal, by James Stamers

A married couple retire to another planet.  Their alien hosts provide what they need in the form of boxes that change into everything from booze to houses.  Things don't work out well.

That's all there is to the plot.  The absurd concept is played for laughs, and doesn't achieve any.  The two women in the story are a fat, nagging shrew and a teasing sexpot.

One star.

The Apprentice God, by Miriam Allen DeFord

In free verse, the author describes how a tentacled being accidentally damaged a tiny world while studying it.  The knowledge that it contained sentient creatures leads to profound remorse.  Although the outcome of the poem is inevitable, the style is elegant and stately.

Three stars.

The Urban Hell, by Tom Purdom

This article describes the ways in which large cities might exist in the future, and compares this to science fiction's visions of tomorrow's metropolises.  Giant residential skyscrapers surrounded by parks?  Horizontal cities designed for automobiles?  Downtowns consisting of low buildings, with a mixture of houses, shops, and factories?  All of these ideas are presented in an interesting and informative way.

Four stars.

Name of the Snake, by R. A. Lafferty

A Catholic priest journeys to a planet of aliens who claim to be without sin.  (I wonder if this is a response to James Blish's 1958 novel A Case of Conscience, which has the same theme.) He admits they lack human vices, but discovers they have new evils of their own.

The author manages to create a serious theological fable that is also full of wit.  The ending, in particular, makes use of a cliché from magazine cartoons in a new and meaningful way.

Four stars.

Under the Gaddyl, by C. C. MacApp

Alien invaders have ruled Earth for many years.  Most human beings are slaves.  A privileged few are free, allowed to struggle for survival in primitive conditions.  When escaped slaves steal an alien weapon, even free humans are in danger.  The hero and his family make a hazardous journey to escape the vengeful aliens.  Mutant humans show up at one point.  They play an important role in the story, but seemed forced into the plot.

This is a typical science fiction adventure story.  It is competently told and holds the reader's attention, but there is little new to be found here. 

Three stars.

Summing Up

Publishing a story that is certain to offend many readers shows boldness on the part of editor Frederik Pohl.  The other contents of the magazine are far less daring, although most of them are worth reading.

Those of you with sharp eyes will notice that Day of the Egg by Allen Kim Lang, announced on the front cover, does not appear.  That's not the only error.  My copy has many of the pages in the wrong order, making reading a chore.  I hope the habits of the aliens in the Aldiss piece didn't shock the designers and printers into forgetting how to do their jobs.




2 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine

[March 18, 1963] The Missing Piece (April 1963 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

7 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

In prior articles, the latest news has headlined and set the stage for the SFnal reviews that followed.  This week, however, the news is all internal, filled with tidbits like

"YOUNG TRAVELER LEADS ACADEMIC LEAGUE TO DISTRICT CHAMPIONSHIPS!"

and

"FIVE YEARS OF R&D CULMINATES IN PRODUCT LAUNCH FOR TRAVELER-HELMED COMPANY!"

And yet, amongst the turmoil created by Mundac the Destroyer, we manage to continue the Journey — our most prized endeavor.  It helps that we now have a tremendous constellation of volunteer writers, allowing us to return to a every-other-day schedule for the first time in four years.  Still, I must do my part.

And so, amidst preparations for the Young Traveler's birthday party, I carved out time to read the April Fantasy and Science Fiction.  It is the inverse of last month's, which was forgettable or worse — until the last story.  This month's is surprisingly good… except for the last few stories.  A fair exchange, I think…

Fast Trip, by James White

Fritz Leiber recently wrote about how computers will soon be advanced enough to beat the best humans at chess in The 64-Square Madhouse.  Anne McCaffrey has written a tale of human brains cybernetically fused computers to control spaceships (The Ship Who Sang).  Now, returns my favorite SF-writing Ulsterian with his own spin on things.  In Fast Trip, we see what happens in a world where pilots are exclusively trained on their own spaceship, for whom swapping craft is as uncomfortable as swapping right-handed gloves with a fellow half your size… and with two left hands.  A good technical thriller.  Four stars.

Still Shall the Lovers, by Doris Pitkin Buck

A poem on how real stars shall always pale in brilliance to those in new lovers' eyes.  Three stars.

Place of Refuge, by Robert J. Tilley

A quick quality dip as Bristolian Tilley writes of the real world as if it be the nightmare, and vice versa.  Uninspired.  Two stars.

The Short and Happy Death of George Frumkin, by Gertrude Friedberg

A playwright, herself, Friedberg turns her hand to a Moderan-esque tale in which a nonagenarian playwright with an electric heart enjoys a brief flash of youthful energy when he's taken off batteries and plugged into the house line.  It's cute.  Three stars.

The Rigid Vacuum, by Isaac Asimov

There are few compound words I like better than "Luminiferous Ether," and fewer people I'd ask to explain this light-conveying substance than The Good Doctor Asimov.  Four stars for the first half of what looks to be a Two Parter.

Tell Me, Doctor – Please, by Kit Reed

Ms. Reed has recently moved and left no forwarding address, sadly terminating our burgeoning correspondence.  As a result, I have no authorial insight for this tale.  Nevertheless, Doctor is a strange and moving piece on dependence and torture as operatives of an evil state attempt to extract the secret of time travel from a bedridden exile from the future.  Difficult to read, and the ending is a strange Matryoshka that I'm still not sure I understood.  But like so much of Reed's stuff, it grips.  Four stars.

Kindergarten, by Fritz Leiber

A straightforward piece on learning the basic X-Y-Zs in a most unusual (and yet, the most commonplace) of settings.  Four stars.

The Voyage of the "Deborah Pratt", by Miriam Allen deFord

F&SF, more than any other SFF digest, is a haven for ghost stories.  This one, involving a 19th Century brig on the Gold Coast run, makes no great advances in plot.  Ah, but the telling, and the subject matter (far more horrific than the fantastic elements), are superb.  Five stars, and sure to be anthologized many times.

The Old Man of the Mountains, by Terry Carr

Over time, certain names in our genre incite a Pavlovian response in me.  For instance, Sheckley provokes a grin.  Garrett incites nausea.  Carr, a newish writer and long-time Big Name Fan, definitely brings about positive reactions, having now impressed me several times in rapid succession.  This pastoral piece, set in the mountains of Oregon, features the reunion of a country-turned-city boy, and the ornery cuss who knew his uncle many years before.  Like the deFord, the quality is in the telling.  Four stars.

My Son, the Physicist! by Isaac Asimov

Here's an inconsequential short-short from a fellow who has mostly abandoned science fiction.  I understand Asimov got a princely per-word sum for this piece, and it was used to adorn an advertisement for Hoffman Electronics in one of last year's Scientific Americans.  Three stars.

The World Must Never Know, by G. C. Edmondson

I really want to like Edmondson, a fellow San Diegan and one of the few non-Whites who has made it into the ranks of the SFF genre (he's Mexican).  But this latest in the series of stories set South of the Border, guest-starring a Mestizo who met an extraterrestrial policeman (to the former's profit, and the latter's dismay), is just too affected.  Two stars.

The Histronaut, by Paul Seabury

I didn't think I'd ever meet a time travel/alternate history story I didn't like, but Seabury managed to produce one.  One page of story preceded by many pages of dithering and nonsense.  And that single page isn't worth the wait.  One star.

Not Counting Bridges, by Robert L. Fish

Finally, a piece on the growing footprint of space devoted to the transit, maintenance, and storage of motor vehicles.  Two stars, careening toward one had it been longer than two pages.

That's a pretty sour note to leave a magazine that still scored a decent 3.2 stars on the Galacto-Meter.  If you stop before the Edmonson, I think you'll find your time thoroughly rewarded.

Speaking of which, I'm now off to jump on the giant trampoline we rented for the birthday party.  If I spot any X-15s on the way down, I'll be sure to snap a photo…




7 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine

[February 15, 1963] New Kid in Town (April 1963 Worlds of Tomorrow)

6 Comments

[If you're in in Southern California, you can see the Journey LIVE at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore in San Diego, 2 p.m. on February 17!]


by Victoria Silverwolf

Frederik Pohl must not be busy enough editing Galaxy and If.  Now he's added another bimonthly magazine to his roster with the appearance of the first issue of Worlds of Tomorrow.

There hasn't been a new American science fiction magazine on the newsstands for about five years, and none of them survived for very long.  (Anybody remember Saturn?) It's been more than a decade since any magazine of SF which is still published in the USA was launched.  If and Fantastic are the most recent success stories. 
Given the death of so many periodicals in the field over the last ten years, the publishers are taking a risk.  Let's take a look at the contents of the premiere issue and see if the quality of fiction justifies their hazardous venture.

People of the Sea (Part 1 of 2) , by Arthur C. Clarke

The magazine begins in fine form with a new novel from this talented British writer.  Set in the middle of the next century, it follows the adventures of a teenage boy as he stows away on a hovercraft bound for Australia.  Barely surviving the sinking of the vessel, he winds up on a small island near the Great Barrier Reef.  He encounters scientists who can communicate with dolphins, and plays an important part in their project.  The first section of this installment is full of fast-paced action.  The second section is mostly a travelogue of this part of the Pacific.  However, the reader's interest never fades, because the author's descriptions are always fascinating.  Clarke obviously knows and loves the Great Barrier Reef, and he writes about the sea as compellingly as he does about space.  One minor quibble is the fact that this novel seems intended for younger readers.  Much like Heinlein's so-called juveniles, it is likely that adults will enjoy it as well.  Four stars.

X Marks the Pedwalk, by Fritz Leiber
This is a brief account of a future war between pedestrians and drivers.  The government steps in to keep the level of violence within certain limits.  Although Leiber is incapable of writing a bad sentence, it's a very minor piece.  Two stars.

The Long Remembered Thunder, by Keith Laumer

A government agent investigates a mysterious transmission coming from a small town.  It involves a recluse who is nearly a century old and the woman he loved at the turn of the century.  The story begins as a realistic tale of intrigue, but eventually becomes an account of a vast conflict across dimensions.  It held my interest, but the climax was too fantastic for my taste.  Three stars.

Where the Phph Pebbles Go, by Miriam Allen deFord

Aliens play a game of throwing rocks.  Some of the stones escape their low-gravity planet and wind up landing on other worlds.  They realize this might draw unwanted attention, so they come up with a plan to eliminate the problem.  This comic tale is inoffensive, but not very amusing.  The author tosses in several silly words like the one in the title.  Two stars.

Third Planet, by Murray Leinster

This story takes place in a future where humanity easily travels hundreds of light-years, but the Cold War is still going on.  The Communists have the upper hand, as they are willing to start a nuclear war if the West ever refuses to give in to their demands.  While this is happening, a starship discovers a planet much like Earth, but with no life.  The reason for this involves a device located on another planet in the same solar system.  The alien technology threatens to destroy the Earth, but also promises to save it.  The author's treatment of the Reds is heavy-handed, depicting them as gleefully plotting to destroy the opposing side without mercy.  There's mention of an implausible scientific law which states that all solar systems must be similar to our own.  Two stars.

Heavenly Gifts, by Aaron L. Kolom

A housekeeper who works at a facility where scientists are attempting to contact other planets uses their equipment to broadcast what she thinks of as prayers.  She asks for simple things like an electric blanket, and they miraculously appear from nowhere.  Meanwhile, radioactive materials begin to disappear from Earth, leading to panic in the governments of the USA and the USSR.  This is a trivial comedy with a weak ending.  Two stars.

The Girl in His Mind, by Robert F. Young

A man purchases the services of an alien (but very humanoid) prostitute.  She has a human girl living in her home, purchased as a slave when the child lost her parents.  After this opening scene, the reader enters the bizarre landscape of the man's mind, where he wanders through scenes of his past while pursuing a woman whom he believes murdered her father.  Meanwhile, three women from his childhood chase him.  The transition between these sections of the story is disorienting, but we eventually find out what's really happening.  Like many stories from this author, the plot involves a man's obsessive love for a woman.  It's strange enough to hold one's attention, but may be too Freudian for many.  Three stars.

To See the Invisible Man, by Robert Silverberg

We end on a high note with this excellent story from a prolific author whose work has not often been distinguished.  He creates a future society where a man guilty of the crime of being cold-hearted is sentenced to a year of symbolic invisibility.  A mark on his forehead warns all who see him that they must act as if he does not exist.  The author goes into a great deal of detail as to how this strange form of punishment might work.  At first, the man enjoys the ability to commit petty crimes without consequences.  He soon discovers the many disadvantages of invisibility, from the fact that he will not receive medical treatment, even if he is dying, to the intense loneliness of complete isolation.  At the end of the story, he learns to reach out to his fellow human beings, even at great cost.  This is a unique and compelling tale, with an important point to make.  Five stars.

If the editor continues to publish stories of the quality of People of the Sea and To See the Invisible Man (while filling up pages with fair-to-middling work), we may still be reading Worlds of Tomorrow when we are living in the world of tomorrow.

[P.S. If you registered for WorldCon this year, please consider nominating Galactic Journey for the "Best Fanzine" Hugo.  Your ballot should have arrived by now…]




6 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine

[May 31, 1962] Rounding Out (June 1962 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

7 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

Ah, and at last we come to the end of the month.  That time that used to be much awaited before Avram Davidson took over F&SF, but which is now just an opportunity to finish compiling my statistics for the best magazines and stories for the month.  Between F&SF's gentle decline and the inclusion of Amazing and Fantastic in the regular review schedule, you're in for some surprises.

But first, let's peruse the June 1962 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and see if, despite the new editor's best efforts, we get some winners this month (oh, perhaps I'm being too harsh – Editor is a hard job, and one is limited to the pieces one gets.)

Such Stuff, by John Brunner

Thanks to recent experiments, we now know what people cannot survive long when deprived of the ability to dream.  But what about that bedeviled fellow who enjoys an escape from nightmares?  And what if your mind becomes the vessel for his repressed fantasies?  A promising premise, but this Serling-esque piece takes a bit too much time to get to its point.  Three stars.

Daughter of Eve, by Djinn Faine

After an interstellar diaspora, there are but two remaining groups of humans on a colony world.  One is a large population of radiation-sterilized people; the other comprises just one man and his young daughter, the mother having died upon planetfall.  From the title of the story, you can likely guess the quandary the sole fertile man is faced with.  The childlike language of the viewpoint character (the daughter) is a bit tedious, but this first story by Virginia Faine (nee Dickson – yes, that Dickson) isn't bad.  It stayed with me, and that's something.  Three stars.

The Scarecrow of Tomorrow, by Will Stanton

Reading more like a George C. Edmondson tale than anything else, this pleasantly oblique tale describes the encounter between two farmers and a murder of crows…with a partiality for things Martian.  I reread the ending a half-dozen times, but I'm still not quite sure what it all means.  Nicely put together, though.  Three stars.

The Xeenemuende Half-Wit, by Josef Nesvadba

During the War, a prominent German rocket scientist is stumped by a thorny guidance problem.  Can his savant son help him out?  And is it worth the price?  Another moody, readable piece from Nesvadba.  I'm sure there's a point, but I'm not quite sure what it is.  Three stars.

The Transit of Venus, by Miriam Allen deFord

I don't usually go for expositional stories, but deFord makes this one work, particularly with the story's short length.  In a world of regimentedly liberal mores, one prude dares to turn society on its ear with a scandalous go at winning the Miss Solar System beauty pageant.  A fun piece from a reliable veteran.  Three stars.

Power in the Blood, by Kris Neville

I didn't much like this story when it was It's a Good Life on The Twilight Zone, and I like it less here.  Some addled old woman with the power to destroy slowly deteriorates the world until there's naught left but wreckage.  Disjointed, unpleasant, and just not good.  One star.

The Troubled Makers, by Charles Foster

About the reality-challenged psychic who bends reality to his will, and the Watusi Chief who helps him around.  You've seen versions of this story a dozen times or more in this magazine over the years, but it's not a bad variation on the theme.  An assiduous copy of the mold from a brand new writer.  Three stars.

The Egg and Wee, by Isaac Asimov

I normally enjoy the Good Doctor's essays, and this one, comparing the ovae of various creatures and then segueing to a discussion of the smallest of biological creatures, isn't bad.  But it misses the sublimity that his work can sometimes achieve.  Three stars.

Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: LI, by Grendel Briarton

Mr. Bretnor's latest is much worse than normal, perhaps in Garrett territory.  But, I've never included these puns in my ratings, so I shan't now.  Lucky for F&SF.

The Fifteenth Wind of March, by Frederick Bland

Penultimately, we've got the jewel of the issue.  As magical winds scour the Earth with increasing frequency and intensity, one thoroughly ordinary British family attempts to find shelter before it's too late.  Both extraordinary and humdrum at once (no mean feat), it's a poignant slice of unnatural life.  Four stars.

The Diadem, by Ethan Ayer

Mr. Ayer's first printed story involves two women and the goddess that connects them.  It tries hard to be literary, but is just unnecessarily hard to read.  Two stars.

It should be clear to one with any facility with math (and who read every article this month) that the June 1962 F&SF was not the prize-winner this month.  In fact, the Goldsmith mags took surprising first and second place slots with 3.4 and 3 stars for Fantastic and Amazing, respectively.  Galaxy and Analog tied at 2.7 stars.  F&SF rated a middlin' 2.8, but it may have had the best story, though some will argue that Fantastic's The Star Fisherman earned that accolade.  It also had the laudable achievement of featuring the most woman authors…though two is hardly an Earth-shattering number. 

Speaking of women, the next article will feature women in the army.  And on that progressive note…ta ta for now!

7 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine

[November 8, 1961] Points East (Air Travel and the December 1961 Galaxy)

Video 4 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

How small the world has gotten!

Less than a decade ago, trans-oceanic travel was limited to the speed of a propeller.  If you journeyed by boat, as many still do, it would take two weeks to cross the Pacific.  Airplanes were faster – with a couple of stops, one could get from California to the Orient in less than two days.  As a journalist and travel columnist, I spent a good amount of time in both hemispheres during the early 1950s.  I got to be quite seasoned at the travel game.

I have to tell you, things are so much faster these days.  The jet engine has cut flight times in half, taking much of the tedium out of travel.  Oh, sure, I always had plenty to do in the air, between writing and reading and planning my next adventures, but for my poor fellow travelers, there was little to do but drink, smoke, and write letters.  For hours and hours. 

These days, the Journey is my primary occupation.  I can do it from anywhere, and I often do, bringing my family along with me.  As we speak, I am writing out this article with the roar of the Japan Airlines DC-8's jets massaging my ears, music from pneumatic headphone cords joining the mix.  It's a smooth ride, too.  It would be idyllic, if not for the purple clouds of tobacco smoke filling the cabin.  But again, I suffer this annoyance for half the time as before.  I'll abide. 

We've just lifted off from Honolulu, and in less than 8 hours, we will touch down at Haneda airport, in the heart of Tokyo, Japan's capital.  We will be in the Land of the Rising Sun for two weeks, visiting friends and taking in the local culture.  I'll be sure to tell you all about our adventures, but don't worry.  I've also brought along a big stack of books and magazines so I can continue to keep you informed on the latest developments in science fiction.  Moreover, I'm sure we'll see a movie or two, and we'll report on those, too.

Speaking of reports, I've just finished up this month's Galaxy Science Fiction.  I almost didn't recognize this December issue as it lacks the usual fanciful depiction of St. Nick.  Instead, it features an illustration from Poul Anderson's new novel, The Day After Doomsday, whose first part takes up a third of the double-sized magazine.  As usual, I won't cover the serial until it's done, but Anderson has been reliable of late, and I've high hopes.

The rest of the magazine maintains and perhaps even elevates Galaxy's solid record.  The first short story is Oh, Rats!, by veteran Miriam Allen DeFord (the first of three woman authors in this book!) Rats reads like an episode of The Twilight Zone — I could practically hear Serling's narrating voice as the story of SK540, a super-rat bent on world domination, unfolded.  Tense and tight, if not innovative.  Three stars.

Willy Ley has returned to original form with his latest non-fiction article, Dragons and Hot-Air Balloons.  Did the Montgolfier brothers get their lighter-than-aircraft ideas from the Chinese?  Have balloons been around since the Middle Ages?  Has the winged ancestor of the pterosaurs been discovered?  And, as an aside, did the Nazis really invent the biggest cannon ever?  Good stuff.  Four stars.

Satisfaction Guaranteed is a cute tale of interstellar commerce by Joy Leache.  Washed up salesman and his assistant try to figure out a profitable-enough endeavor for the elf-like denizens of Felix II such that they might join the Galactic Federation.  It's a genuinely funny piece.  I've only one complaint: very early on, it is made clear that the woman assistant is the brains of the operation, yet she feels compelled to give credit the the fellow.  I prefer my futures looking a little less like the present!  Three stars.

Now, Algis Budrys, on the other hand, has no trouble breaking with the familiar entirely.  His Wall of Crystal, Eye of Night, involving a corporate executive whose plan to release television's successor is thwarted by a seemingly immortal competitor, is a chilling mystery.  Just what gift did the Martians grant the businessman's rival to make him so powerful?  And was it really a boon after all?  Four stars.

R.A. Lafferty tones his whimsical style down just a touch in his latest, Rainbird.  It's a sort of biography of one Higgston Rainbird, an inventor who could have been, in fact was the greatest tinkerer in human history.  It just goes to show that a person's greatest ally, and also one's greatest impediment, is oneself.  Four stars.

An Old Fashioned Bird Christmas is Margaret St. Clair's contribution, delivered in that off-beat, slightly macabre, but ever-poetic fashion that is her trademark.  A story of good vs. evil, of Luddism vs. progress, archaic religion vs. new, and with a strong lady protagonist to boot!  Four stars.

We're treated to a second piece of science fact by Theodore L. Thomas, called The Watery Wonders of Captain Nemo.  Thomas praises the literary great, Jules Verne, for his writing skill, but then excoriates the French author's use (or rather, lack of use) of science.  Every technical aspect of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is evaluated and picked apart.  To hear Thomas tell it, Verne knew about as much about science as his contemporary laymen…perhaps less.  An interesting blend of education and critique.  Three stars.

The issue is wraps up with a bang: The Little Man who wasn't Quite, by William W. Stuart, is a hard-hitting piece about the horror that lies at the bottom of Skid Row.  A sensitive piece by a fellow who seems to know, it's the kind of gripping thing Daniel Keyes might have turned in for F&SF.  Five stars.

And so Galaxy ends the year on a strong note.  Fred Pohl, now firmly in the editor's seat, has done a fine job helming one of s-f's finest digests into the 1960s.  This is the kind of magazine that could win the Hugo – it may well secure the Galactic Star this year.  It all depends on how F&SF is this month, the two are that close.

Next up… an article from our British correspondent, Ashley Pollard!

Magazine

[May 21, 1961] Pineapple Upside-down Month (June 1961 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

15 Comments

Have you ever heard/seen Karl Orrf's Carmina Burana?  It's an opera of sorts, the performance of a set of medieval poems to music.  It is likely that you're at least familiar with its opening number, the catchy Oh Fortuna!.  Well, having seen Carmina, I can tell you that even Orff knew there wasn't much to the rest of the piece – as evidenced by the fact that Oh Fortuna! gets performed twice, once at the beginning and once at the end.  You can snooze through the rest.

This month's Fantasy and Science Fiction is like Carmina: a tremendous beginning followed by a largely snoozeworthy remainder.  I suppose that, if you want to complete the analogy, you can simply read the opening piece again after finishing the book.  You probably will.

For Cordwainer Smith's Alpha Ralpha Boulevard is one of the best stories I've read in a long time.  Most tales of the future are either frustratingly conventional or completely opaque.  Not so in Boulevard, which features a world dominated by "Instrumentality", an omniscient computer dedicated to the happiness of humanity.  16,000 years from now, after a placid, highly regulated existence, people are, at last, offered the luxury of uncertainty (or at least the illusion thereof). 

With just a few subtle strokes of his pen, Smith presents the trappings of an alien yet utterly believable world: the trio of reborn humans, programmed to think themselves French; the compelling homunculi, servant animals bred into a mockery of the human shape; the servile androids; the contrived movie-set surroundings; the ancient, decayed ruins of the old technology.  Moreover, Boulevard has a great story, the quest for meaning in a predestined world.  It's a masterpiece – evocative and brilliant.  Five stars.

Arthur C. Clarke's Crime on Mars is an adequate (but not exceptional) little art heist mystery.  I find it interesting that he publishes these very straight sf stories here rather than other, perhaps more suited, mags.  Perhaps there wasn't room in the other digests (or perhaps F&SF pays the best rates!) Three stars.

George, on the other hand, by John Anthony West, is a dreadful slog: a henpecked husband slowly succumbs to a creeping paralysis over the course of an evening; the story is told mostly in shrill exchanges between the afflicted and his spouse.  One Star. 

Doris Pitkin Buck's Birth of a Gardener is another domestic dispute piece with some vague nonsense about anti-matter.  Although Gardener makes good use of Buck's personal expertise in horticulture, her knowledge of science is less complete.  Two stories.

Mark Twain's reprinted A Curious Pleasure Excursion, an advertisement for a comet ride in the style of the great ocean cruises of the last century, is clever and funny — an all-too-brief island of quality in an sea of dreck (to continue the sailing metaphor).  Four stars.

Go for Baroque is the second woman-penned piece in the magazine, by mystery writer Jody Scott.  I think it's about a crazy time traveler who cures the sane of our world with his chaotic, exuberant madness.  Maybe.  It's hard to tell.  It is written in this "modern" style that I see more and more in more literary places, half stream-of-consciousness, half nonsense.  I really don't like it.  Two stars.

By popular demand, I include this month's pun-ishment, the latest tale of Ferdinand Feghoot.  Read at your personal peril.

Older writers are interesting.  They tend to stick to old techniques and clichés even as they adapt them to current themes.  Miriam Allen Deford's, The Cage, reads like a Lovecraft tale, complete with a mad scientist regaling a young reporter of his horrifying plan.  In this case, it is the breeding of a race of super-insects to supplant humanity in the event of a nuclear war.  But the author somehow elevates the story to something more than the sum of its parts, steering it subtly to a thoughtful conclusion.  Three stars.

What do you get when you combine the carefree misogyny of Randall Garrett with the increasingly impenetrable prose of (the once masterful) Avram Davidson?  Why, Something Rich and Strange, about a connoisseur of seafood and women who sails off to find a mermaid to love, a task at which he is ultimately successful.  With many pages devoted to lurid descriptions of pescatory cuisine, I had a strong suspicion that the tale would end with the protagonist eating his fishy sweetheart.  Rather, it turns out that the siren is an old hag with, nevertheless, admirable culinary talents.  The punchline is thus, "She's not much to look at, but she sure can cook!"  One star.

So perhaps I may end up owing my friend, Mike, a beer or two after all, since he may be right that 1961 will not be F&SF's year to win the Best Magazine Hugo.  Normally my favorite of the Big Three SFF digests, F&SF came in at the bottom of the heap this month at just 2.75 stars.  Compare this to Analog's 3 stars, and Galaxy's stellar 3.5 stars. 

On the plus side, this month saw the most stories by women: four out of twenty-two.  I won't call it a trend until I see this proportion again, of course.  Interestingly, the top contenders for Best Story were both written by Cordwainer Smith.  Maybe the fellow should start his own magazine…

15 Comments Leave A Comment