Tag Archives: people's capitalism

Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

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

April 4, 2024 Gideon Marcus 1 Comment

by Gideon Marcus

Mars ho!

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

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

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

Mack ho!

by Kelly Freas

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

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

by Kelly Freas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hey But No Presto, by Jack Wodhams

by Leo Summers

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

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

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

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

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

Three stars.

Cultural Interference, by Walter L. Kleine

by Leo Summers

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

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

Two stars.

Opportunist, by Guy McCord

by Kelly Freas

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

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

I din't like it. Two stars.

Oh ho!

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

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

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

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[January 28, 1969] Slidin' (February 1969 Analog)

January 28, 2024 Gideon Marcus 1 Comment

by Gideon Marcus

Mudslides

Winter is the wet season for Southern California, and we've been just drenched these past weeks. I understand seven inches of rain fell in the Los Angeles area, causing terrible mudslides, property damage, and injury. Apparently, things were made worse by a spate of arson last year that got rid of the stabilizing undergrowth.

Ontario's Foothill Boulevard looking west toward Red Hill Country Club Drive, flooded. (Daily Report photo)

I've had many friends ask if we're alright, afraid we might have been swept downstream in the torrent. Rest assured that Vista is disaster-proof (knock on wood), and our house is at the top of a hill. We had some deep pools of water in the backyard, but they've since drained. Our neighbors have gotten invaded by bugs seeking refuge from the storm, though.

A man runs past a station wagon that was washed two blocks down Carnelian Avenue, along with part of the road surface. (Daily Report photo)

Ups and Downs

If the physical world is getting washed away, one edifice that manages to stand firmly, if not always proudly, is Analog, science fiction's most popular magazine. Has this month's issue slid at all, or is it holding fast? let's see:

by Kelly Freas

A Womanly Talent, by Anne McCaffrey

by Kelly Freas

We're back in the world of psionic talents, perhaps related to the stories that involve ladies in towers. A pair of politicians want to pass a law protecting and enabling the psionically adept, legitimizing things like professional prognosticators and psychic manipulators. A Luddite strawman, name of Zeusman, is against it.

Meanwhile. Ruth is the wife of Lajos, a precog. She is frustrated because she has an unidentified talent, and also because she really wants to be a mom. Eventually, the latter frustration is relieved, and her daughter ends up demonstrating what Ruth's power really is.

Aside from the tale beginning with ten pages of conversation that reads more like a Socratic dialogue than a story, I just find McCaffrey's writing so flat and amateur. I'm sure all the psi stuff was music to editor Campbell's ears, including lines like "Those who truly understand psionic power need no explanation. Those who need explanation will never understand," but it doesn't work for me. Beyond that, McCaffrey's attitudes on the relations of the sexes is so atavistic, although I suppose she gets points for talking about sex at all. Maybe Campbell likes that, too.

Two stars.

You'll Love the Past, by J. R. Pierce

by Leo Summers

A time traveler from the 21st Century takes a trip in a time machine to the 24th Century. A war has transformed society: America is now largely mixed race, with the whitest of the population an inbred and stupid group. Socially, the continent is organized into placid socialist cooperatives run by religious Brothers, advanced technology provided by the Japanese. It's the sort of world one can be happy in…provided one is favored by the status quo. Every so often, one of the non-favored tries to escape.

Not a bad story, even if it seems to be obliquely casting aspersions on Communists of darker hue.

Three stars.

The Man Who Makes Planets, by G. Harry Stine

Photos by G. Harry Stine

A nifty piece by Analog's resident rocket enthusiast about a fellow who makes model planets for a living. I'd get one for my house, but they're a bit pricey—a quarter of a hundred large!

Four stars.

Extortion, Inc., by Mack Reynolds

by Leo Summers

Yet another piece set in the (anti-) Utopian future of People's Capitalism, where North America has become a stratified welfare state, and money is a thing of the past.

Rex, last of the private dicks, is engaged by a government minister to find out who stole the plans for a miniaturized nuclear bomb, and why said criminal is blackmailing him, threatening to distribute the plans should a ransom not be paid promptly.

The solution to this mystery is actually trivial, and the story isn't quite long enough for what it's trying to do. Nevertheless, I always find this setting interesting. And perhaps prescient. There was piece in last week's newspaper about the National Urban League's proposal for a universal income…

Three stars.

Wolfling (Part 2 of 3), by Gordon R. Dickson

by Kelly Freas

Back in part one, Jim Kiel was sent from Earth to study the intergalactic empire whose fringes were discovered when a Terran probe made it to Alpha Centauri. An anthropologist and ubermensch, Jim is essentially a spy, though the High Born of the empire don't know that—they think that he's an interesting curiosity, favored for his bullfighting skills and independent thinking.

This installment begins just after Jim's first encounter with the Emperor, a genial, capable man who, nevertheless, seemed to suffer a stroke. A stroke that no one but Jim noticed. Much of this middle installment is devoted to Jim's navigation of High Born society, attempting to master the reading machines to determine if Earth really is a long-lost colony of the empire or something else, and also how he discovers and foils an insurrection attempt with designs on incapacitating the empire's leader. In the last portion, Jim is promoted to the equivalent of a Brigadier General and sent to quell a rebellion. This is actually a trap designed to kill him, but he neatly sidesteps it. Now he wants to know why he's marked for death.

The pot continues to boil. There's a lot of the flavor of Dickson's Dorsai series, but with a different, perhaps even more interesting, setting.

Four stars.

A Chair of Comparative Leisure, by Robin Scott

by Leo Summers

A stammering professor somehow manages to be the most magnetic, as well as effective at conveying information. Does his technique go beyond the verbal?

(Yes. He has the power of psychic projection. Whoopee. Two stars.)

Calculating the damage

You win some, you lose some, and this month's issue clocks in at exactly three stars. While nothing could compare with the superlative four-star Fantasy and Science Fiction, three stars is still lower than New Worlds (3.3) and Galaxy (3.2). It does beat out IF (2.8) and Fantastic (2.2), however.

You could fill as many as three issues with good stuff out of the six that were put out—in large part thanks to how great F&SF was this month. Nevertheless, women contributed very little of that, with only 6.67% of new fiction written by female writers, most of that Anne McCaffrey's drudge of a story.

Still, in an uncertain world, I can't complain too much. Especially since, mudslides or no, the Post Office still manages to get me my magazines on time!

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 6, 1968] Who's the one? (December 1968 Galaxy)

November 6, 2023 Gideon Marcus 1 Comment

by Gideon Marcus

Dashed hopes

It really looked like it was going to be a happy Halloween. On October 31st, President Johnson made the stunning announcement that he was stopping all bombing in Vietnam. This was in service to the Paris peace talks, which subsequently got a huge shot in the arm: not only were the Soviets on board with the negotiations, but the South Vietnamese indicated that, as long as they had a seat at the table, they were in, too.

The holiday lasted all of five days. In yesterday's paper, even as folks went to the polls to choose between Herbert Humphrey and Tricky Dixon (or, I suppose, Wacky Wallace), the news was that South Vietnam had pulled out. They didn't like that the Viet Cong, the Communists in Vietnam (as distinguished from the North Vietnamese government), were going to get a representative at the talks. So they're out.

It's not clear how this will affect the election. As of this morning, it was still not certain who had won . Nevertheless, it is clear that Humphrey's chances weren't helped by the derailing of LBJ's peace plans. If a Republican victory is announced, it may well be this turn of events led to the sea change.

Well, don't blame me. My support has always been for that "common, ordinary, simple savior of America's destiny," Mr. Pat Paulsen. After all, he upped his standards—now up yours.

Respite

Once again, a tumultuous scene provided the backdrop to my SFnal reading. Did the latest issue of Galaxy prove to be balm or bother? Read on and find out:

by John Pederson Jr. illustrating One Station of the Way

The Sharing of Flesh, by Poul Anderson

by Reese

Evalyth, military director of a mission to a human planet reverted to savagery after the fall of the Empire, watches with horror as her husband is murdered, then butchered by one of the planet's inhabitants. Cannibalism, it turns out, is a way of life here; indeed, it is considered essential to the rite of puberty for males.

The martial Evalyth vows to have her revenge, tracking down the murderer, Mora, and taking him and his family back to their base, where they are subjected to fearsome scientific examinations. But can she go through with executing the killer of her husband? And does Mora's motivation make any difference?

There' s so much to like about this story, from the exploration of the agony of love lost, to the examination of relative morality, to the development of the universe first introduced (to me, anyway) in last year's A Tragedy of Errors. It doesn't hurt that it stars a woman, and women are integral parts of this future society, with none of the denigrating weasel words that preface the introduction of female characters in Anderson's Analog stories (could those be editorial insertions?)

This is Anderson at his best, without his archaicisms, multi-faceted, astronomically interesting, emotionally savvy.

Five stars.

One Station of the Way by Fritz Leiber

by Holly

Three humaniforms watch on cameloids as the star descends in the east. Sure enough, at a home in the east, a divine being prepares to impregnate a local female so that she will bear a divine child.

Heard this story before? There's a reason. But the planet of Finiswar is not Earth, the aliens are not remotely human, and the white and dark duo who pilot the spaceship Inseminator are anything but gods.

An excellent, satirical story. Four stars.

Sweet Dreams, Melissa by Stephen Goldin

A little girl is told a bedtime story about a big computer that stopped doing its job right. That's because the machine couldn't think of casualties and war statistics as simple numbers, battle strategies as abstract puzzles. The problem is its personality; if the computer's mind could be reconciled with its function, the machine could work again. But can any mind be at peace with such a frightful purpose?

A simple piece like this depends mostly on the telling. Luckily, Goldin is up to the task. Four stars.

Subway to the Stars by Raymond F. Jones

by Jack Gaughan

Harry Whiteman is a brilliant engineer with a problem: he's too much of a "free spirit" to keep a job, or a wife. Desperate, when the CIA approaches him about a singular opportunity, he takes it, though the resents being bullied into it.

In deepest, darkest Africa, the Smith Company is working on…something. Ostensibly a mining concern, it produces no gems. On the other hand, whatever it is is important enough that the Soviets have based missiles in a neighboring country—pointed right at the company site!

Whiteman is hired, for his irreverence more than his ability, and begins work as a double-agent. Once on location, he finds the true purpose of the site: it's a switching station of an intergalactic railroad station! But it turns out that the folks at the Smith Company also have multiple agendas…

A mix of Cliff Simak's Here Gather the Stars (Way Station) and Poul Anderson's Door to Anywhere, it is not as successful as either of them. It takes too long to get started, and then it wraps up all too quickly. It's genuinely thrilling as Whiteman peels back the multiple layers of the Smith operation and the factions within it, and when the missiles do find their target, the resultant chaos is compelling, indeed. But then it turns into a quick, SFnal gimmick story better suited to Analog than Galaxy.

I think I would have rather seen Simak takes this one on as a sequel to his novel. Jones just wasn't quite up to it.

Three stars.

For Your Information: The Discovery of the Solar System by Willy Ley

As it turns out, the science article in this month's issue addresses two issues on which I've had keen recent interest. The first is on the subject of solar systems, and if they can be observed around other stars. Ley discusses how the gravity of an unseen companion can cause a telltale wiggle as the star travels through space, since the two objects orbit a common center of gravity (rather than one strictly going around the other).

In the other half of the article, Ley explains how atomic rocket engines work: shooting heated hydrogen out a nozzle as opposed to burning it and shooting out the resultant water out the back end—it is apparently twice as strong a thrust.

What keeps this article from five stars is both pieces are too brief. For the first half, I'd like to know about the stellar companions discovered through astrometry. He mention's Sirius' white dwarf companion, but what about the planets Van de Kamp claims to have discovered around Barnard's Star and so on? As for the atomic article, I'd like to know what missions a nuclear engine can be used for that a conventional rocket cannot.

Four stars.

A Life Postponed by John Wyndham

by Gray Morrow

Girl falls in love with cynical jerk of a boy. Boy decides there's nothing in the world worth sticking around for, so he gets himself put in suspended animation for a century. Girl follows him there. He's still a cynical jerk, but she doesn't care because she loves him. They live happily ever after.

I'm really not sure of the point of this story, nor how it got in this month's issue other than the cachet of the author's name.

Two stars.

Jinn by Joseph Green

It is the year 2050, and aged Professor Morrison, stymied in his attempts to make food from sawdust, is approached by a brilliant young grad student. Said student is brilliant for a reason: he is a Genetically Evolved Newman or "Jinn", with a big brain and bigger ideas. The student has solved Morrison's problem. However, another Jinn wants humanity to go to the stars, and he fears if the race gets a full belly, they'll lose interest.

The conflict turns violent, the point even larger: is there room for baseline homo sapiens in a world of homo superior?

Green doesn't paint a particularly plausible future, but there are some nice touches, and the points raised are interesting ones. I'd say it's a failure as a story but a success as a thought-exercise, if that makes sense.

So, a low three stars.

Spying Season by Mack Reynolds

by Roger Brand

We return, once again, to Reynolds' world of People's Capitalism. It is the late 20th Century, and the Cold War adversaries have reached a more or less peaceful coexistence. The greater challenge is existential: ultramation has taken away most jobs, and the majority of the populace is on the dole. How, then, to avoid stagnation for humanity?

In this installment, Paul Kosloff is an American of Balkan ancestry, one of the few in the United States of the Americas who still has a steady job, in this case, that of teacher. He is tapped by the CIA to go on sabbatical in the Balkan sector of Common-Europe. Ostensibly, his job is not to spy for the USAs, but to sort of soak in the culture of the area over a twelve-month span.

Very quickly, Kosloff finds himself entagled with an underground revolutionary group, with law enforcement, and with several fellows who enjoy sapping him on the back of the head.

Suffice it to say that all questions are answered by the end, the major ones being: why an innocuous pseudo-spy should be a target, why the CIA would send him on a seemingly pointless mission in the first place. In the meantime, you get a bit more history of this world and some tourist-eye view of Yugoslavia. In other words, your typical, middle-of-the-road Reynolds story.

Three stars.

Counting the votes

While not as stellar as last month's issue, the December 1968 Galaxy still offers a more satisfying experience than, well, most anything going on in "the real world". It clocks in at a respectable 3.45, which brings the annual average to 3.23.

Compare that to the 2.81 it scored last year, and given that Galaxy is once again a monthly, I think it's safe to say that, at least in one way, "Happy days are here again."

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[October 2, 1968] Future History Lessons (November 1968 IF)

October 2, 2023 David Levinson 4 Comments

by David Levinson

Saving the past

Around the turn of the century, the British in Egypt set out to regulate the flooding of the Nile by building a dam at Aswan, near the First Cataract, a little under 150 miles north of what is today the border between Egypt and Sudan. They limited the height of the dam in order to prevent the submergence of the island of Philae and the many monuments there, but still raised the height twice by the mid-1930s. The reservoir nearly overflowed the top in 1946, and it became increasingly clear that the dam’s storage capabilities were insufficient for modern Egypt.

King Farouk favored the construction of dams in Sudan and Ethiopia, where cooler temperatures would mean less loss of water due to evaporation, but when he was overthrown, the new government under Nasser preferred a larger dam at Aswan under Egyptian control. One of the reasons for the nationalization of the Suez Canal was that shipping fees would pay for the new dam. The change in plans alarmed archaeologists, who pointed out that the entirety of the ancient province of Nubia would be flooded, inundating numerous ancient monuments and sites. In 1959, Egypt and Sudan appealed to UNESCO for help, and thus was born the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia.

The most impressive of the monuments to be rescued are the temples of Abu Simbel, built by Ramses II in the mid-13th century B.C. to commemorate his victory at the Battle of Kadesh. Best known is the Great Temple, dedicated to Amun, Ra-Horakty, Ptah and the deified Ramses himself. The entrance is flanked by four statues of the pharaoh, each over 65 feet tall. Nearby is a temple dedicated to Hathor and Ramses’ favorite wife Nefertari.

Ramses gets a face lift.

But how do you rescue something like that? A freestanding temple can be taken apart stone by stone and rebuilt elsewhere. This was done with the temple of Kalabsha, in work funded and supervised by West Germany. The Ramesseum was carved into sandstone cliffs. One suggestion was to build a clear freshwater dam around the temples and create underwater viewing chambers. Instead, an international team of archaeologists, engineers, and heavy construction experts have spent the last four years carefully carving the entire site into enormous blocks with an average weight of 20 tons and moving the whole thing to a new site some 650 feet back from the Nile and over 200 feet higher. The work is finished, and on September 22nd the reconstructed Ramesseum was opened to the public. Let’s hope that the many other rescue projects are just as successful.

Optimists and pessimists

This has been a rough year all around the world, and so it’s natural to turn to our entertainment to make us feel better. Unfortunately, the trend in science fiction seems to be toward unhappy endings, and this month’s IF seems to lean more to the pessimistic side. It also takes us to Ancient Egypt in the far future.

The Waw is bored. Art by Vaughn Bodé

The Computer Conspiracy (Part 1 of 2), by Mack Reynolds

Regular readers of the big American SF magazines will be familiar with Mack Reynolds’ People’s Capitalism, in which every citizen is granted Inalienable Basic shares that pay dividends that are enough to live off, while the more ambitious can earn Variable Basic shares and move up in the world. Meanwhile, the Universal Credit Card serves all economic and identification functions. All of that is made possible by a massive computerized data bank. What if a hostile power could tap into that data bank, or worse yet change or erase the data?

Action in the subway of abandoned Manhattan. Art by Gaughan

This first half of Reynolds’ new novel is delivered mostly in the form of lectures telling the protagonist things he already knows. Reynolds can usually make this sort of thing interesting, but normally he doesn’t rely on pages of dialogue for his exposition. Much of it seems to be based on Vance Packard’s The Naked Society from a few years ago, which he explicitly mentions. This is interspersed with a couple of action scenes, one of which is overly detailed to the point of being interesting only to practitioners of karate, and the other is largely taken from the recent Among the Bad Baboons. All in all, not Reynolds’ best work, but I don’t see how the second half can be anything but story, so the whole thing should be better.

A low three stars.

If… and When, by Lester del Rey

This month, del Rey delves into the science of ecology, which studies the interrelationships of living things and their environment. It’s the sort of thing that will be crucial in establishing a colony on another planet, but it’s rarely dealt with in science fiction, except as an occasional aside. It’s also sadly neglected in the real world, though that’s beginning to change. There’s a lot here for SF writers to explore.

Four stars.

Creatures of Light, by Roger Zelazny

Sometime in the distant future, all of humanity lies between the poles of the House of Life, ruled over by Osiris, and the House of Death, ruled over by Anubis. Now, an old threat is returning from outside, and various factions must take steps to stop it.

Anubis and Osiris determine the fates of humanity. Art by P. Reiber

The obvious comparison here is to Zelazny’s Lord of Light, though the “gods” here make the spacemen pretending to be the Hindu gods look like apemen banging rocks together. As Arthur C. Clarke wrote in a letter to Science earlier this year, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” It’s all very Zelazny in terms of style and construction. However, there’s no actual story here; it’s just the author introducing various characters and establishing the conflict.

It says on the cover that this is an excerpt from an upcoming novel. That’s enough to save its rating, but the Lord of Light excerpts that ran in F&SF were much more successful as stand-alone pieces. I’m probably interested in seeing the whole thing, but something with a bit more of a traditional structure (if possible) would have been better.

A tentative three stars.

Where the Time Went, by James H. Schmitz

Everyone is familiar with those times when you set out to get a lot done, and suddenly it’s the end of the day and you’ve accomplished next to nothing. That happens to writer George Belk every day until his agent puts him in touch with someone who can help.

I suspect Schmitz was inspired by a couple of days like those George describes. It’s a cute story, but it doesn’t play to any of the author’s strengths, especially his ability to create characters.

Three stars.

Now That Man Is Gone, by James Blish

The Waw has been nine years old for over 2,000 years. Humanity has been extinct for 1,994 years. The aliens who care for him call him the Waw, because he is the Next-to-Last, but there is no sign of the Ya. Until now.

Art uncredited

This is the most optimistic story in the issue, which seems odd coming from Blish, though it is tinged with melancholy as well. It’s also the inverse of a concept that forms the core of many Ray Bradbury stories. Nice enough, but nothing special.

Three stars.

Wizard Ship, by F. Haines Price

Primitive tribesman Hin bravely boards a ship of the gods which has descended from the sky. He soon figures out that the gods are mere mortals who plan to sell him into slavery. The three unscrupulous spacers aboard also don’t realize that primitive isn’t the same as stupid.

Price is this month’s new author, and it shows in his writing. The story is too long, and the darkly ironic ending isn’t worth the trip.

A low two stars.

Bookmobile, by Charles L. Harness

A report from an alien librarian describes how humanity lost the ability to read thanks to everything moving to audio.

What an incredibly stupid story; nothing about it makes any sense. It ignores the fate of the deaf when everything is spoken and nothing is written, which is odd considering a key point is that the librarian can’t hear. I’m also not sure how you look things up when it’s all audio. Harness is an attorney, you’d think he would find that important.

One star, because it makes me angry every time I think about it.

The Perfect Secretary, by Mike Kirsch

On the day Albert Willis opens his new business, a strange man offers him a free trial of an automatic secretary. It can write articles and letters, retrieve reference materials from a host of locations, and pretty much do his job for him. It’s rather more than he or its makers suspect.

Willis is presented with his new secretary. Art by Wallace Wood

An awful story about awful people being awful. And it comes with another dark ending. Kirsch seems to be another new author, though maybe he’s sold things in other genres. The writing is decent enough, but all the characters are horrible.

Two stars.

Summing up

That’s another month of IF in the bag. There sure are a lot of familiar authors here not putting their best foot forward. And Zelazny’s piece really deserves a grade of Incomplete. There’s not even enough there to tell us what the rest is going to be like. Add in all the attempts at being dark and gritty, and the whole thing’s rather unsatisfying. At least the serials are back.

Science fiction from A(simov) to Z(elazny). That Zelazny piece might be another part of the new novel.

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[July 10, 1968] Back in the Saddle Again (August 1968 Galaxy)

July 10, 2023 Gideon Marcus 5 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Not F-UN

Bjo Trimble, a superfan from the wayback, put together a fan shindig in Los Angeles last weekend. Called F-UN Con, it is not only an SF convention, but it's also the first Star Trek convention, with a whole day of programming dedicated to the show.

This article is not about F-UN Con.

Why did we fly to the Bay Area this past weekend rather than trundling up to L.A., which is closer? Well, we know the gang in 'Frisco, and they've been putting together informal conclaves every year. We couldn't very well shuck tradition just for a new event, even if it's nominally in our back yard.

It was a good decision. For one thing, they had a bit of Star Trek up there–this lovely reproduction of the captain's chair.

And now that The Prisoner is showing in the States, we're getting some lovely costumage, too!

Speaking of traditions that are worth upholding, the latest issue of Galaxy feels like a return to the quality of yore. Usually, magazines pack their summer issues with their least impressive offerings, but such was not the case this time around. Take a trip with me!

by Vaughn Bodé

Among the Bad Baboons, by Mack Reynolds

by Vaughn Bodé

Mack Reynolds continues his stories of life under "People's Capitalism" in the '80s, this time focusing on the last of the Bohemians, living in the decaying ruins of Greenwich Village. With most of the country now on the dole, and white flight having been taken to its logical extreme, the cities are now all but abandoned, save for the "babboons"–lawless squatters–and the "hunters", who go downtown to shoot for thrills.

This story is more a vehicle for philosophical discussion than plot, and I found the end a bit distasteful. That said, there are some fascinating suppositions in this tale. One is that the current regime, in which prospective authors send their manuscripts to editors, who then publish them through traditional channels, will be supplanted by a revolutionary new process. In the '80s, any author can take their novel (or story, or artwork) to a computer and have it stored for infinite reproduction. These reproductions can then be read on a tv-phone (or in the case of art, facsimile duplicated).

This means that anyone can be a writer or an artist, and anyone can appreciate any work, any time. And since everyone is on the dole anyway, why not be an artist or a writer? Well, it does mean there's a lot more competition, and it's harder to become a phenomenon, but on the other hand, there's no barrier to entry.

Now, Reynolds assumes most people won't want to be artists, and they will be content to watch 24 hours of television a day while tranked up on cheap drugs. Maybe he's right. But as someone who already publishes nontraditionally (what is Galactic Journey and The Fantasy Amateur Press Association if not decentralized publishing), it's an exciting prospect.

Three stars, for the ideas, if anything.

Going Down Smooth, by Robert Silverberg

by Brock

Silverbob puts on his best Ellison impression with this tale of a therapist computer gone nuts listening to neurotic patients all day.

It's not bad, but it doesn't go anywhere. I'd stick with the original.

Three stars.

A Specter is Haunting Texas (Part 2 of 3), by Fritz Leiber

by Jack Gaughan

I really had not been looking forward to this second installment of Leiber's tale. Last time, as you recall, a spaceman-actor had landed in post-apocalyptic Texas (now ruler of all North America save the two Black republics in the southwest and southeast) to 1) perform in a short tour and 2) make good on a pitchblende claim in the Yukon. The eight-foot tall, cadaverous, cybernetic thespian was recruited in a hit on the current President of Texas, whereupon he escaped to join causes with the revolutionary Mexican underclass.

It was all a bit silly, and while I appreciated what Leiber was doing, it didn't quite resonate with me. This time, however, the needle fell into the groove. As Chris Crockett La Cruz assumed the role of La Muerta, spurring the downtrodden Mexicans with promises of Vengeance and Death, Leiber's writing took on sublime proportions. The way he navigates the line between satire and seriousness so deftly, with such beautiful language and characterization, even as the characters are all caricatures, is an accomplishment for the ages.

Five stars for ths installment.

For Your Information: In Australia, the Rain …, by Willy Ley

The topic for this month's non-fiction piece is an interesting one: the artificial lakes, rivers, and resulting hydropower systems of Australia. The presentation, however, leaves much to be desired. I want to know the impact of these developments, both on settlement and on the environment, not be given pages of details of their precise geographical location.

Three stars.

The Time Trawlers, by Burt K. Filer

by Dan Adkins

A thousand years from now, humans will fish the future just as they now fish the seas. As the solar system's population grows to number into the quadrillions, our race must pluck planets from 30 billion A.D. to plunder them for their resources. An 18-year old fisherman with "the knack" for finding rich worlds, decides he doesn't want to do it anymore after seeing what the process does to already-inhabited planets. He embarks on a one-man crusade against the practice, hatching a novel scheme to bring it to an end.

Never mind the silliness of the premise, or the fact that culture looks pretty much like 20th Century Earth in the tale. It's a good story, well-told. Sure, it feels a bit like early vintage Galaxy, but I like that era!

Four stars.

The Star Below, by Damon Knight

by Jack Gaughan

Thorinn, that diminutive traveler introduced in The World and Thorinn and later in The Garden of Ease, has returned. This time, he has stumbled across an enormous warehouse filled with all manner of wondrous items. From rich garments to strange engines to a talking box, all are marvels to the medieval-minded explorer.

Of course, it's at this point that our suspicions are confirmed that the myriad of worlds Thorinn passes through are all parts of a giant generation ship, this being the cargo hold. What makes this segment so compelling is the description of these (to us) more-or-less familiar items to a man with no conception of technology. The interactions between Thorinn and the little computer, particularly the way the box learns English, feel very natural. I only wish Thorinn could have taken the box with him; it'd make an interesting companion.

Four stars.

HEMEAC, by E. G. Von Wald

by Joe Wehrle

Long ago, the robots took over the human power plants, and they also claimed a number of human hostages, who they began to educate in their own, logical images. But the robots are breaking down, and the "renegade" humans are pounding at the gates.

What is HEMEAC, a teenaged robot-trained youth supposed to think when his teachers all start behaving erratically and the wild people defile the sacred halls of cybernia?

This is another tale with a classic (i.e. '50s) sense to it. I particularly enjoyed the rendering of the robots, and HEMEAC's not-entirely-successful attempts to make rigid his thought processes.

Four stars.

Missed it by THAT much

Put it all together, and you get an issue that soars almost to four stars in quality–surely to contend for the best magazine of the month. It's reads like this that keep me going, and also cause me to commend editor Pohl for keeping the proud publication on an even keel. I know some disagree with his lambasting of the New Wave (and, indeed, Pohl is not averse to printing examples of it), but I think there is value to the continued production of novel, interesting, but also conventional SF prose.

I can't wait for next month!

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction