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[September 14, 1969] More Gems from the Pulps: Bran Mak Morn by Robert E. Howard and Jirel of Joiry by C.L. Moore

September 14, 2024 Cora Buhlert 2 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

For a Modern West Germany

The streets of West Germany are currently plastered with campaign posters, because a federal election, the sixth since 1949, will happen on September 28.

1969 CDU campaign poster — This campaign poster by the conservative CDU reminds us that the chancellor is important.

1969 SPD campaign post Willy Brandt — This SPD campaign poster features foreign secretary and vice chancellor Willy Brandt and asks people to vote for him so we can live in peace tomorrow.

SPD campaign post 1969 Karl Schiller — This SPD campaign poster features the popular secretary of the economy Karl Schiller, who promises a stable economy and secure jobs.

1969 SPD campaign poster featuring Helmut Schmidt — This SPD campaign poster features social democratic floor leader Helmut Schmidt who promises to create a modern Germany with vigour and energy.

1969 campaign post FDP — The liberal party FDP forgoes the usual black and white headshot and promises to abolish antiquated customs and laws.

The posters are eerily similar across parties, usually consisting of a party logo, a slogan in Helvetica typeface and a black and white photo of a candidate. Hereby, the conservative CDU mainly points out that they provide the current chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger and that he does a good job (which is debatable).

1969 SPD campaign poster — This SPD campaign poster features images of the modern West Germany they want to create and also reminds voters that the SPD "has the right men".

The SPD, meanwhile, has made "For a modern Germany" the focal point of their campaign, though the tagline "We have the right men" made quite a few woman voters grumpy. In response, the SPD launched a campaign where women – both celebrities like actress Inge Meysel and ordinary citizens like Johanna Lammers, miner's wife from Castrop-Rauxel – explain why they vote SPD.

SPD campaign poster Johanna Lammers — Johanna Lammers, miner's wife from Castrop-Rauxel, poses with her sewing machine in this SPD campaign flyer and praises secretary of the economy Karfl Schiller for preserving mining jobs.

SPD campaign flyer Inge Meysel — Popular actress Inge Meysel explains why she votes SPD in this campaign flyer.

In general, it is notable that the SPD enlisted several celebrities, including writers Günther Grass, Siegfried Lenz and Heinrich Böll, actors Romy Schneider, Götz George, Marianne Hoppe, Sabine Sinjen, Inge Meysel, Horst Frank and Horst Tappert, TV personalities Peter Frankenfeld and Hans-Joachim Kuhlenkampf, directors Victor de Kowa and Wolfgang Menge and singer Katja Ebstein, to campaign for them, something that is common in the US, but almost unheard of in West Germany.

SPD campaign poster with celebrities — This SPD campaign poster lists all the celebrities who endorse the SPD.

A Small Step

But whatever the outcome of the September 28 election, it's very likely that the current great coalition of the conservative CDU and the social-democratic SPD will not continue.

Due to its large majority, the great coalition actually got a lot done in its three years in office, for better or for worse. Under "for worse", most people would classify the controversial and unpopular emergency powers act, which passed last year – in spite of massive protests.

On the positive side, there is the Great Reform of the Criminal Code, which passed in June and took effect on September 1, which got rid of outdated laws (many of which dated back to the Third Reich or even the Second German Empire) and brought particularly morality related offences more in line with our modern age.

Among other things, adultery is no longer a criminal offence in West Germany. The so-called "Kuppelei" paragraph, which under the guise of combating prostitution forbade landlords from renting apartments and hotels from renting rooms to unmarried couples, and prevented parents from allowing their adult children's boyfriend or girlfriend to sleep over, has been significantly modified.

But most importantly, homosexual relationships between men have been decriminalised, at least if both participants are over twenty-one and there is no employment or service relationship between them. Homosexual prostitution remains illegal.

These are small steps forward, especially since most of the legal limitations applied to homosexual relationships between men do not apply to heterosexual relationships or relationships between women. But they are important steps, because every year between two thousand and three thousand men are tried and convicted for consensual homosexual relationships on the basis of a law dating back to the Second German Empire and significantly tightened by the Nazis.

The end of WWII is often viewed as a liberation, but for homosexual men incarcerated by the Nazis it was anything but, for they remained in prison, while other victims of Nazi persecution were set free. And while the Federal Republic of Germany distanced itself from the Third Reich, it displayed the same zeal in persecuting homosexual men. In 1950, the public prosecution of Frankfurt on Main dragged some 170 men into court on homosexuality charges, based on the questionable statements made by a nineteen-year-old male prostitute named Otto Blankenstein, later revealed to be a notorious liar. Many of the accused were found guilty and jailed, six men committed suicide, others lost their jobs or were forced to flee Germany.

Otto Blankenstein, the nineteen-year-old male prostitute who set off an unprecedented persecution of homosexual men in Frankfurt on Main in 1950, when he ratted out his clients to save himself from prison.

In the light of events such as those that happened in Frankfurt nineteen years ago, the decriminalisation of homosexual relationships between consenting adults is an important step forward. And indeed, the immediate effect of the new law was not the sudden eruption of homosexual orgies in West German streets that conservatives feared but that many men who had been convicted under the old law were set free, because there was no reason to keep them in jail any longer.

More Treasures from the Pulps

But while old and outdated laws are best left behind, older fiction is often ripe for rediscovery. Particularly the pulp magazines of thirty to forty years ago contain many hidden gems and secret treasures just begging to be rediscovered by a new generation of readers. And thanks to the twin success of Lancer's Conan reprints and the Ballantine paperback editions of The Lord of the Rings, many other fantasy works from the first half of the century are coming back into print.

I recently got my hands on two paperbacks reprinting some fantasy gems that until recently could only be found in the crumbling pages of thirty to forty year old copies of Weird Tales.

The enormous success of Lancer's Conan series has also brought other works by Robert E. Howard, either long forgotten or never published at all, back into print. In a previous article, I already took a look at recent reprints of the adventures of Kull of Atlantis, Solomon Kane, and Almuric, as well as Wolfshead, a collection of horror stories by Robert E. Howard. Now another of Howard's heroes from the pages of Weird Tales has made it into paperback form.

The Last King of the Picts: Bran Mak Morn by Robert E. Howard

Bran mak Morn Paperback — cover by Frank Frazetta

Nowadays, Robert E. Howard is mainly remembered as the father of what Fritz Leiber called sword and sorcery. However, Howard was also fascinated by history and wrote a lot of historical fiction, with or without fantastic elements. The Bran Mak Morn stories sit on the boundary between fantasy and history. The titular hero is the king of the Picts, a native tribe living in Scotland in ancient times.

Howard was clearly fascinated by the Picts, because they appear throughout his work. The best friend and frequent saviour of Kull of Atlantis is a Pictish warrior named Brule the Spearslayer. The Picts also appear in two Conan stories, "Beyond the Black River" and "The Treasure of Tranicos", where they are portrayed as fierce warriors and sworn enemies of Conan's people, the Cimmerians.

The Bran Mak Morn stories take the Picts out of fantasy and into history, though it must be noted that Howard's Picts bear scant resemblance to what little we know about the actual ancient inhabitants of Scotland. Mostly set in Roman Britain during the second or third century AD, the stories recount the conflict between the technologically superior Roman colonisers and the Picts, who at this point in their history have devolved into Neanderthal-like primitives. Their king Bran Mak Morn knows that his people are doomed, but he is not willing to go down without a fight.

The Lost Race by Robert E. Howard — Cororuc is about to meet an unpleasant fate in "The Lost Race" by Robert E. Howard-

Though the first story in this collection, "The Lost Race", does not feature Bran Mak Morn at all, but instead follows Cororuc, a traveller in Roman Britain, who is captured by Picts and taken to their underground lair. The Picts are described as diminutive – in Howard's time some historians believed they were pygmies – and the likely source of legends about dwarves and little people. They are quite hostile and want to burn Cororuc at the stake – after a history lesson delivered by their chief. But Cororuc's life is spared due to the intercession of a werewolf he'd saved earlier.

"The Lost Race" is one of Robert E. Howard's earliest stories, published in the January 1927 issue of Weird Tales, when Howard was only twenty-one, and is clearly the work of a beginning writer. Three stars.

Bran Mak Morn does appear in "Men of the Shadows", though once again the protagonist is another character, a Norseman who became a Roman citizen and legionnaire. He's part of a squad sent north of Hadrian's Wall on a mysterious mission. The legionnaires are slaughtered in a series of battles with the Picts, until only a handful remain. The survivors try to make it back to safety beyond Hadrian's Wall, but are picked off one by one, until there is only a single survivor who is captured and brought before Bran Mak Morn himself. The Picts want to kill him, but Bran spares his life and also reveals the reason why the legionnaires were sent into Pictish territory, namely because a wealthy Roman had taken a liking to Bran's sister and wanted to take her for his own. Bran's refusal to kill the legionnaire leads to a staring contest between Bran and a Pictish wizard upset that Bran is forgetting the old ways. Bran wins the contest, whereupon the wizard launches into a lengthy explanation of the history of the Picts and also prophesizes the fall of the Roman Empire.

This story was never published in Howard's lifetime and it's easy to see why. It's a disjointed mess and Howard forgets both the plot and even the protagonist, once the wizard launches into the extended history of the Picts. We never even learn what happened to the legionnaire. Perhaps he was bored to death by the lecturing wizard. Two stars.

Kings of the Night by Robert E. Howard — A ghostly Kull appears on the battlefield in the interior art for "Kings of the Night".

In "Kings of the Night", Bran Mak Morn is preparing for battle against a Roman legion marching on his land. Bran's Picts have joined forces with Gaels and Britons, but Bran also needs to persuade a group of Norsemen to join the battle. However, their chief has been killed and the Norsemen refuse to fight until they find a new leader. So the Pictish wizard Gonar casts a spell and conjures up none other than Kull of Atlantis, brought forward through time. Kull is understandably confused and mistakes Bran for his Pictish friend Brule the Spearslayer, implying that Bran is a descendent of Brule. However, he also agrees to lead the Norsemen into battle. But is the victory worth the price in blood?

First published in the November 1930 issue of Weird Tales, this is a highly enjoyable story and the return of Kull of Atlantis is most welcome, though it's interesting that Bran outbroods even the traditionally broody Kull. Four stars.

Worms of the Earth by Robert E. Howard — Bran Mak Morn confronts the witch Atla who wants his body in "Worms of the Earth".

"Worms of the Earth" starts with an incredibly visceral and brutal crucifixion scene. A Pict is executed for killing a Roman merchant who'd swindled him. Presiding over the execution is Titus Sulla, Roman governor of Eboracum (nowadays known better by its British name York), as well as a Pictish emissary. Unbeknownst to the arrogant Sulla, this emissary is none other than Bran Mak Morn in disguise.

Infuriated by the way the Roman colonisers treat his people. Bran vows revenge upon Titus Sulla and he is willing to go to great lengths to get it. And so against the warnings of the wizard Gonar, Bran enlists the aid of the titular worms, the remnants of a pre-human civilisation who may be descendants of the Serpent Men from the Kull stories. But in order to find the worms, Bran first has to consult the witch Atla, who is not entirely human herself, and whose price is nothing less than Bran's virtue. So Bran leans back and thinks of the Picts, while Atla has her way with him.

Bran finally locates the worms and they agree to help him get his revenge on Sulla. But things don't go the way Bran expects…

Published in the November 1932 issue of Weird Tales, this is a great story, which perfectly balances sword and sorcery, history and horror. "Worms of the Earth" is the highlight of this collection and worth the price of admission alone. Five stars.

"The Night of the Wolf" is another story which remained unpublished during Howard's lifetime. Set during Arthurian times, it's the tale of Cormac Mac Art, an Irish reiver who gets embroiled in a conflict between Vikings and Picts in the Shetland Islands, where Cormac tries to negotiate the release of an important prisoner.

"The Night of the Wolf" is a well written story full of action and excitement, but I'm not quite sure why it was included in this collection, because it is not a Bran Mak Morn story, even though the Picts appear. Four stars.

Weird Tales December 1931 — The statue of Bran Mak Morn gloomily looks on, as the kidnapped Irish maiden Moira is about the escape a forced marriage by the only means she can.

Bran Mak Morn does appear in "The Dark Man", at least after a fashion — because the story is set in the ninth century during the Viking invasion of Ireland, i.e. at a time when Bran is long dead. Instead, he appears in the form of a statue that is worshipped by the surviving descendants of the Picts.

Our hero is an Irish outlaw named Turlogh Dubh O'Brien who's on a mission to rescue his childhood sweetheart Moira, daughter of an Irish chieftain, who was kidnapped by Vikings. Turlogh comes across the statue of Bran and decides to take it along. He crashes the forced wedding of Moira to the Viking chief Thorfel and takes bloody vengeance. The statue of Bran, the titular dark man, comes in handy as well, for where Bran goes, or rather his statue goes, the Picts are not far behind and they are still formidable warriors.

First published in the December 1931 issue of Weird Tales, "The Dark Man" is another fine historical adventure story and unlike "The Night of the Wolf", it has at least some connection to Bran Mak Morn, albeit rather tenuously. Four stars.

I have to admit that I was very eager to finally get my hands on Robert E. Howard's Bran Mak Morn stories. Though I have no Scottish ancestry, I recognise the parallels between Bran and his Picts struggling against Roman rule and the history of my own homeland. For just like the historical Picts, my own ancestors, the Germanic tribes of Northern Germany, managed to kick the Romans out of North Germany and drive them back beyond the Limes Germanicus in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD.

Postcard of the Hermann Monument near Detmold, which reminds us that Arminius knocked the Romans out of their sandals somewhere around here.

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest is extremely important to German history. The so-called Hermann Monument near Detmold, a 53 meter tall statue of the Cherusci chieftain Arminius a.k.a. Hermann, is a popular destination for school trips and much beloved. Whenever I'm in the area, I always pay a visit to good old Arminius, even if the statue is not even remotely accurate and the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest most likely did not take place anywhere near Detmold. Archaeologists are still looking for the actual location of the battle

Arminius is to the Germans what the Gaul leader Vercingetorix is to the French, a national hero who fought back against the arrogant Roman invaders. Unlike Vercingetorix, Arminius was victorious and lived to tell the tale. And just like the fictional Bran Mak Morn, Arminius was driven by vengeance, for according to legend he was an officer in the Roman army who turned against his former allies, when the Romans paraded his pregnant wife Thusnelda naked through the streets of Rome in triumph. The veracity of the tale of Thusnelda is debatable, but it is a compelling story and always made me sympathise with Arminius. Bran's story and motivation, though entirely fictional, are just as compelling and I'm sure that Arminius and Bran would find a lot to talk about over a jug of ale or mead.

For all that, the actual collection is a little bit of a letdown. Robert E. Howard just didn't write very many stories about Bran Mak Morn, so Dell topped off the collection with unpublished stories and fragments, poems, juvenilia and vaguely related stories that feature the Picts.

Nonetheless, "Worms of the Earth" is a top tier Howard story and most of the other stories are at the very least entertaining, even if Bran isn't actually in them.

Four stars.

Women's Lib, Sword and Sorcery Style: Jirel of Joiry by C.L. Moore

The yellowing pages of Weird Tales contain treasures beyond the stories of Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, whose work Arkham House is doing a good job of keeping in print. One of those treasures that I was extremely excited to get my hands on are the stories C.L. Moore wrote about the medieval French swordswoman Jirel of Joiry. At last the stories are available again for the first time in more than thirty years.

Weird Tales October 1934 — Jirel kisses the Black God in Margaret Brundage's cover art for the October 1934 issue of Weird Tales.

"Black God's Kiss" first appeared in the October 1934 issue of Weird Tales and introduced Jirel of Joiry to the world. The story opens with the iconic and much imitated scene of the warlord Guillaume conquering Castle Joiry. The captured lord of the castle is brought before Guillaume in full armour. When Guillaume orders his captive's helmet removed, the Lord of Castle Joiry is revealed to be a lady, the red-haired firebrand Jirel. Guillaume is quite delighted by this discovery and forces a kiss on Jirel. Jirel is considerably less delighted and tries to bite his throat out.

The revealing of Jirel's gender is an iconic scene and remains impactful even thirty-five years later. I can only imagine how female readers in 1934 reacted to this revelation, even if the surprise was spoiled both by Weird Tales cover artist Margaret Brundage and interior artist H.R. Hammond.

Black God's Kiss interior art — H.R. Hammond's interior art for "Black God's Kiss" sadly spoils the revelation of Jirel's gender.

For her troubles, Jirel is thrown into her own dungeon, but she quickly escapes, plotting revenge against the overbearing Guillaume. She has no illusions about what Guillaume will do to her, namely rape her and then either kill her or sell her into slavery. So she goes to see Father Gervase, the resident priest of Castle Joiry, to ask for his help and forgiveness. For in order to avenge herself on Guillaume, Jirel is willing to descend into hell itself. And luckily, there happens to be a passage to the underworld deep beneath the foundations of Castle Joiry. It's interesting how much this scene mirrors the scene in "Worms of the Earth" where Bran Mak Morn plots revenge against Titus Sulla. Both Bran and Jirel are willing to do whatever it takes, even if it means selling their soul (and in Bran's case, his body) and enlisting demonic aid. And in both cases, their spiritual advisors, respectively Gonar or Gervase, strongly advice against this course of action, noting that some weapons are too terrible to use.

Like Bran, however, Jirel is determined and so she descends into the underworld beneath the castle. The bulk of the story is given over to Jirel's journey through the underworld and the fantastic things she encounters there. It is notable that even though Jirel wears a crucifix which she has to discard in order to enter the underworld and has a theological argument with a Catholic priest earlier in the story, the dreamlike land underneath Castle Joiry does not resemble the traditional Christian depictions of hell in the slightest—it is much stranger.

Jirel finally finds the titular black god in a temple in the middle of a lake of fallen stars and begs him to give her a weapon against Guillaume. The black gods grants her this wish, but just like Bran Mak Morn in "Worms of the Earth", Jirel realises that the revenge she gets isn't what she wanted after all.

This is an amazing story that stands shoulder to shoulder with the best the sword and sorcery genre has to offer. Five stars.

Only two months later, in the December 1934 issue, Weird Tales published the sequel to "Black God's Kiss" entitled "Black God's Shadow". Jirel is still haunted by the events of the previous story. She's having trouble sleeping, the memories of Guillaume forcing a kiss on her keep resurfacing and by night, Jirel hears Guillaume's voice, begging her to save his soul from hell.

Jirel's feelings towards Guillaume are very conflicted. On the one hand, he was an overbearing pig who assaulted her, but on the other hand Jirel was also attracted to him. So she decides to descend into the underworld once more to save Guillaume's soul. But in doing so, Jirel will not only have to fight the black god, but also her own conflicted emotions and come to terms with what happened to her.

This story is more quiet and philosophical than its predecessor and the battles Jirel fights are purely in her mind. From a psychological standpoint, this story is fascinating, because Jirel's feelings and reactions mirror those of women who have been sexually assaulted or raped, suggesting that Guillaume did more than merely steal a kiss.

An unusual but excellent story. Five stars.

"Jirel Meets Magic" first appeared in the July 1935 issue of Weird Tales. The title is rather weak, especially since Jirel already encountered more than her share of magic in her first two adventures.

The story opens with Jirel leading the charge against a castle, whence the evil wizard Giraud has fled. Once again, the hotblooded Jirel is out for vengeance, because Giraud had ambushed and killed some of her men. However, as Jirel and her men comb the castle, Giraud is nowhere to be found. Bloody footprints lead to a window, which doubles as a portal into a fantastic world. Undeterred, Jirel climbs through the window in pursuit of Giraud and quickly finds herself tangling not just with the wizard, but also with his patroness, the sorceress Jarisme.

This story establishes what will become a pattern with the Jirel of Joiry stories, namely that Jirel keeps venturing into fantastic dream landscapes. "Jirel Meets Magic" is not quite as dark as the Black God duology, but still a great story. Five stars.

Weird Tales January 1936 — Not Jirel either, but a strikingly erotic cover for a Seabury Quinn story, courtesy of Margaret Brundage.

"The Dark Land" opens with Jirel lying in bed in her castle, mortally wounded in battle. Father Gervase is called in to give her the last rites, when Jirel abruptly vanishes. When she comes to, she finds herself in yet another fantastic dreamland called Romne. Its king Pav informs Jirel that he saved her from death, because he wants her to be his bride. Jirel has other ideas, especially once she learns what happens to Pav's discarded wives…

Published in the January 1936 issue of Weird Tales, this is a good story, but not quite as strong as the previous tales. Four stars.

"Hellsgarde" opens with Jirel on her warhorse outside the haunted castle of Hellsgarde. The castle, we learn, has been shunned and abandoned for two hundred years, ever since its previous lord stole a mysterious treasure and was tortured to death by those eager to take that treasure for themselves.

Jirel has come to Hellsgarde for just this treasure, though she doesn't want it for herself. No, a villainous nobleman named Guy of Garlot has taken several of Jirel's men hostage and demands the treasure of Hellsgarde as ransom.

As the previous stories have shown, Jirel is perfectly willing to descend into hell itself and so she enters the haunted castle to face of the horrors awaiting her within. As for Guy of Garlot, he fares about as well as all overbearing men who try to force Jirel to do something against her will.

First published in the April 1939 issue of Weird Tales, "Hellsgarde" is a very much a haunted house story, but what a haunted house story it is. Five stars.

Reading the Jirel of Joiry stories in the year of the lord 1969, it's hard to image that these stories are already more than thirty years old, because they feel so very modern, both with regard to Jirel's adventures in psychedelic dreamlands and her conflicts with overbearing men which many a modern feminist will sympathise with. Jirel is very much a heroine for the 1960s, a strong woman willing to brave even hell itself to get what she wants.

C.L. Moore only ever wrote six stories about Jirel of Joiry (one of which, a story featuring Jirel and Moore's interplanetary outlaw Northwest Smith, is not included in this collection) and sadly retired from writing altogether after the untimely death of her husband Henry Kuttner eleven years ago. However, the Jirel stories are so good that I hope that Moore will eventually return to writing and revisit this groundbreaking character.

If you are looking for the two-fisted adventures of Conan or the hijinks of Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, this collection is very much not that. Jirel's adventures are internal conflicts given form in her journey through dreamlike and often nightmarish landscapes. Nonetheless, these stories are among the best the sword and sorcery genre has to offer. Five stars.

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Book, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 8, 1969] Another Orbit around the sun (Orbit 5)

September 8, 2024 Kris Vyas-Myall Leave a comment

By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

Having a teacher first as a mother, and now one for a wife, I think of the year as mirroring the school terms, with the new year beginning in September. But, looking at the newspapers, it doesn’t appear the world has changed much in the last twelve months.

On the home front, the troubles in Northern Ireland keep getting worse, with the presence of British troops now seeming to be resented by both sides. Meanwhile, The Conservative party base is pushing the party to take a harder anti-immigration line, and union chiefs clash with the Wilson government.

British Troops in Ulster, caught in the middle of escalating violence.

Peace talks over Vietnam are once again being held in Paris and apparently going nowhere, there are continued conflicts in the middle East and the Junta in Greece seems as unstable as ever. A harsh crackdown has just finished in Czechoslovakia and the Soviets are still making threatening noises at the rest of Eastern Europe.

Scenes from the streets of Prague, one year on from the Soviet Invasion.

But, whilst the depressing politics of our time continues, so does the regularity of publishing. As such another anthology arrived in the post for me to review.

Orbit 5

Somerset Dreams by Kate Wilhelm

We open with another tale from the ever-reliable Mrs. Damon Knight. Here Janet Matthews returns to her hometown of Somerset after working in medicine in New York, where she wishes to look after her disabled father. At the same time, a Dr. Staunton is in town to study dreams. Annoyed by his pomposity Janet decides to join in with the project.

This is beautifully described, albeit with some unusual turns of phrase, but it goes on far too long for my tastes, only really becoming more SFnal towards the end. There are also a lot of interesting concepts, but I am not convinced they are explored well enough here to justify their inclusion.

Three Stars

The Roads, the Roads, the Beautiful Road by Avram Davidson

Highway Chief Craig Burns loves his vast new road constructions and does not accept any argument to the contrary. However, one day he misses his turn-off and finds himself in a labyrinth of tunnels and cloverleaf interchanges.

This is the kind of joke story Davidson used to regularly publish when editing F&SF, a feature I have not missed. Add on to this my general dislike of vehicular tales and I was not well disposed to this at all.

A very low two stars

Look, You Think You've Got Troubles by Carol Carr

Hector, A Jewish father is estranged from his daughter, Lorinda, because of her marrying a form of Martian plant-life named Mor. Months later, the parents receive a letter from her, saying she is pregnant and asking them to come visit her on Mars.

I believe this is the first story from a well-known fan (and wife of Terry Carr) and it marks a strong start. It follows the familiar routes you have likely seen on television programmes but they are not as common in the SF realm. In addition, this is told using a great tone of voice that makes it feel believable.

Four Stars

Winter's King by Ursula K. Le Guin

King Argaven XVII of Karhide is having a recurring visions of executing a crowd of protesters. This madness is attempted to be treated by physician Hoge, but what could be the real cause?

I was originally unsure if this planet is indeed meant to be Gethen from The Left Hand of Darkness, as it is only referred to as “Winter” and the gender changes in the book are not referenced here. However, its connections to the Ekumen seem to confirm that it does indeed take place on the same world.

I found this a confusing read. I started again four times and afterwards I was constantly jumping back and forth to try to get to grips with what was happening. It does not have the usual easy style of Le Guin, instead told through a series of “pictures”. Honestly, I am scratching my head over what to make of it.

Three Stars, I guess?

The Time Machine by Langdon Jones

Jones seems to be emerging as one of the great polymaths of English SF. He has been involved in editing New Worlds for a number of years now, writes prose and poetry, has produced photographic cover art, is helping the Peake estate put together new editions of the Gormenghast trilogy and has an original anthology coming out in a couple of months. Amazingly he still had time to sell this tale to Orbit.

In an unnamed prisoner’s cell sits a photo of Caroline Howard. We hear the story of his past relationship with her and the construction of a time machine to see her again.

This tale is told in a passive distanced voice with the connection of the four different situations not immediately obvious. As such, I imagine it will be alienating to some, but I found it quite beautiful and cleverly constructed.

The titular Time Machine is not a HG Wells type of mechanical construct but a strange device containing a Dali painting and creating a “concrete déjà vu”. This may actually mean that it does not really “work” as such but these are merely the memories and delusions of the prisoner. I believe the ambiguity is intentional on the part of the author and makes the tale all the stronger.

Some may find the conclusion and meaning of the tale a bit mawkish, but I liked it a lot.

A high four stars

Configuration of the North Shore by R. A. Lafferty

John Miller goes to analyst Robert Rousse to resolve an obsession he has had for the last 25 years, to reach the mythical Northern Shore. In order to cure this desire, they sail there in dreams.

Whilst I am a fan of what Mr. Jones does, the same cannot be said of Mr. Lafferty. As such this may work better for other people, but I found it all a little silly.

Two Stars

Paul's Treehouse by Gene Wolfe

Sheila and Morris’ son has been in a treehouse since Thursday and is refusing to come down. As they work with their neighbour to try to get him out, disorder is spreading throughout the town.

This is probably the Gene Wolfe story that has impressed me most so far. Not that it is brilliant, but it is well told and has a solid theme. Hopefully the start of an upswing in his writing.

A high three stars

The Price by C. Davis Belcher

The millionaire John Phillpott Tanker is in a traffic accident that caves in his skull. Whilst his body is still alive, he is braindead. After several tests the doctors conclude he is medically dead and use his organs to save a number of people. Whilst this is controversial, journalist Sturbridge writes a number of articles to win the public around. However, in a surprising turn of events, the recipients of the organ donations sue the Tanker’s estate claiming they are still the living John Phillpott Tanker.

These organ transplant stories are becoming a subgenre in their own right, and, unfortunately, this is among the poorer examples. Lem told a better version of this story in three pages last month than Belcher told in 27.

A low two stars

The Rose Bowl-Pluto Hypothesis by Philip Latham

At a track-meet at the Rose Bowl, three athletes all ran 100 yards in less than 9 seconds. If this wasn’t surprising enough, a whole set of other new running records were set that afternoon. What could be happening?

This spends a lot of time doing pseudo-scientific explanations for something incredibly silly. I was annoyed at having read it.

One star

Winston by Kit Reed

The Wazikis buy the four-year-old child of geniuses as a status symbol. Whilst he has an IQ of 160 they soon grow frustrated he is not yet able to win crossword competitions or answer any trivia question they pose.

This story irritated me for a number of reasons. First off, there is more than a whiff of eugenics about the concept here, with the child of a college professor being inherently smarter than this family with a name we seem to be encouraged to read as Eastern European or North African. At the very least, the way the Wazikis are portrayed feels classist.

Secondly, the fact that smart people are selling children to less intelligent people seems to imply that earning potential and IQ are inversely related. But the Wazikis see Winston as an investment, so are they just meant to be stupid and bad with money?

And then the story is just unpleasant with the amount of child abuse taking place in it. Maybe I am overly sensitive, as I am from the gentler school of parenting, but I found it to be gratuitous instead of aiding the storytelling.

One Star

The History Makers by James Sallis

John writes to his brother Jim about his arrival on Ephemera, a planet where the inhabitants live on a separate time-plane to humanity.

Sallis gives us another epistolary tale which, as usual, is written in a literary style and full of artistic allusions (including, strangely, the second mention of the same Dali painting in this anthology. I blame Ballard). I am not sure this has the same depth as his other works but it is still a wonderfully atmospheric read.

Four stars

The Big Flash by Norman Spinrad

The US military has a problem. Their war against a guerrilla insurgency in Asia is not going well and they want to use tactical nuclear weapons to sort it out. However, the public are squeamish about this sort of thing. The solution? Using a violence obsessed rock group The Four Horseman, to spread their message.

A biting critique of both the American military-industrial complex and the hippy groups selling out. Incredibly timely, clever and disturbing.

A high four stars, bordering on five.
(I recently discussed this with some friends over at Young People Read SF if you want to see more of our thoughts.)

The Cycle Continues

Some of the same artists, still in UK charts a year on

And so we complete another Orbit anthology, with it feeling pretty similar to the last one.

The main difference is that there is more New Wave influence creeping in (having stories by two of the editors of New Worlds will do that) but many prior authors reappear, doing similar things. Some of it brilliant, some mediocre, the rest best forgotten.

Will either Orbit or our politics break out of this cycle by autumn 1970? Only time will tell.

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[August 6, 1969] Gay Power! (The Stonewall Inn Protests)

August 6, 2024 Erica Frank 2 Comments

[With folks like Chip Delaney and Ursula Le Guin pushing the boundaries of sex and gender, it's important to understand that they don't work in a vacuum. Everything is contextual. And late last month, the context lurched forward to catch up with the creative…]

by Erica Frank

A little over a month ago, the police in New York City decided they'd had enough of gay people (and probably hippies and activists too; you know all us freak-types stick together) and raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. Stonewall is a gay bar that's been around since the 1930s, originally as a speakeasy. It's technically a private club — since it couldn't get a liquor license — and has faced frequent raids for no reason other than willingly hosting people considered outcasts. The warrants are usually based on "illegal sale of alcohol." But Stonewall is hardly the only establishment that slides past a liquor license; just one that faces frequent raids because the cops know most of the clientele can't fight back.

The raid on June 28th sparked unexpected resistance — and several days of protest, making national news. My local anti-cop paper, the Berkeley Barb, ran an article about it.

Newspaper clipping of the start of an article about the Stonewall protests, by Leo E. Laurence
The article also has a mention of poet Alan Ginsberg saying, "We are one of the largest minorities in the country, ten per cent you know. It's about time we did something to assert ourselves."

The Village Voice also had some strong words. "Gay Power Comes to Sheridan Square," it announced: "The forces of faggotry, spurred on by a Friday night raid on one of the city's largest, most popular, and longest lived gay bars, the Stonewall Inn, rallied Saturday night in an unprecedented protest against the raid and continued Sunday night to assert presence, possibility, and pride until the early hours of Monday morning."

The raid began small — a few cops, trapping people in the bar and releasing them one at a time, deciding whether they were innocent customers or "instigators" of perverse crimes. The mood was festive and playful ("favorites would emerge from the door, strike a pose, and swish by the detectives") until the paddywagon arrived and arrested three of the queens in drag.

The police have a policy: Men "dressed as men" are released, even if they have heavy makeup; men dressed "partially" as women are sometimes released; men dressed "fully" as women are arrested — after being groped by a police woman to establish their identity. (If they can prove they have had a sex-change operation, they're released.)

At Stonewall, after the first few arrests and the subsequent harassment of a lesbian woman, the mood darkened. The crowd that had been ejected from the bar met with Friday night tourists and party-seekers and turned against the police.

End result: 13 arrests, charges ranging from "assault on an officer" (someone threw something in their direction) to selling alcohol without a license (the bar staff), and two cops injured. Saturday morning, Stonewall put up a sign that said they'd re-open that night — and they did.

The broken windows were boarded up — and covered with activist slogans and signs saying "Support Gay Power." Saturday night had a flamboyant protest in the street, with kissing and posing and chanting slogans. The police sent out their Tactical Patrol Force (TPF) to break up the crowd and keep the protest contained, pushing people around and refusing new entry to the area, until the activity dispersed at around 3 am. (I have to wonder if the cops take credit for that. It's a very rare party, no matter how sparkling, that continues that late.)

Sunday night had fewer chants but more "fag follies," as the Voice calls them. Alan Ginsberg visited, and called the crowd beautiful, and yelled "Defend the fairies!" as he departed.

Following the raid: The Village Voice faced a protest of its own for refusing to publish the word "gay" in an ad, but using the terms "dykes" and "faggots." Some gay men and lesbians proudly declare themselves to be "fags" or "dykes" — but others prefer more respectful terms, and the Voice does not consider their wishes.

An ad for "Cruise by Gay Computer" showing two sexy, naked men (with bent legs covering their private parts) on top of an archway.
This is not the ad the Voice refused to run, but as you can see, the Berkeley Barb has no such prejudice.

Several groups of people found each other or re-connected at the protests — the new Gay Liberation Front held its first march on July 27th but that certainly won't be its last. The GLF name was coined by Marsha P. Johnson, a drag queen formerly of the Daughters of Bilitis. It was designed to be provocative and loud, rather than quietly polite like of some "homophile" groups.

Marsha protesting in front of New York City Hall

The Gay Liberation Front has recently (this last week) published its statement of purpose:

"We are a revolutionary homosexual group of men and women formed with the realization that complete sexual liberation for all people cannot come about unless existing social institutions are abolished. We reject society’s attempt to impose sexual roles and definitions on our nature. We are stepping outside these roles and simplistic myths. We are going to be who we are. At the same time, we are creating new social forms and relations, that is, relations based upon brotherhood, cooperation, human love, and uninhibited sexuality. Babylon has forced us to commit to one thing … revolution."

And may it be a glorious, vibrant, and triumphant revolution, full of kissing in the street and ending with the right to express joyous love and pleasure without fear of violence.

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[July 6, 1969] Everybody's talking about Revolution, Evolution… (The Making of a Counter Culture by Theodore Roszak)

July 6, 2024 Kris Vyas-Myall 7 Comments

If the title for this article sounds familiar, it's because you've heard the (just released) single from John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "bed in". The Beatle and his new bride are living examples of Counter Culture. But just what is "Counter Culture"? Theodore Roszak has thoughts…and Kris has thoughts on those thoughts!

By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned…

The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx

Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'

The Times They Are A-Changin', Bob Dylan

A spectre is haunting the campuses of the West, the spectre of the counter culture. All the powers of the Technocrats have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre.

Wait, you may well ask, I thought this was a contemporary review, not a poor pastiche of a 120-year-old piece of political economy? However, this is the central speculation of Theodor Roszak in his latest book: that these are the core oppositional forces of our time.

But what is the Technocratic Society and what is the Counter Culture?

Everything you think, do and say, is in the pill you took today

In the case of the former, Roszak sees Technocracy as the governing by experts from a certain class with the aim of a routinised control over human interaction. This can be observed in our democratic political system where the two main parties in most Western nations usually are not concerned with creating vastly different Utopian systems. More often, it is a competition of seeming the most competent to deliver state run social services, defence and economic growth. Even in the Soviet Union, there is not much talk these days of instituting a worldwide proletarian revolution, compared with speeches on improving the efficiency of grain harvests or increasing housing stocks.

Robert McNamara, Technocrat Extraordinaire

The technocrats themselves are rarely the presidents or prime ministers; they are merely the salesmen. Roszak sees them as the upper-level bureaucrats or the studious quiet men of the cabinets. Robert McNamara is a prime example of this tendency, moving between running Ford Motor Company, the World Bank and the US Defence Department and applying the same philosophy, one he outlined in his recent book, The Essence of Security:

…the real threat to democracy comes, not from overmanagement, but from undermanagement. To undermanage reality is not to keep it free. It is simply to let some other than reason shape reality…Vital decision making, particularly in policy matters. This is partly, though not completely, what the top is for.

You may well ask, what is the problem with this? Well, Roszak outlines the tecnocratic viewpoint thusly:
1. All problems are purely technical in nature, and, therefore, if it is not technical, it cannot be a problem. Depression -> More Pills. Rioting in the cities -> More police.
2. Their end is always the right end and any friction against this is a lack of communication. This can be solved by the Marketplace of Ideas.
3. However, the only people who can truly understand these principles and implement them are this technocratic elite. And, it just so happens, that a good sign that you are one of those qualified to understand these issues is that you are already a part of the governmental or corporate structure.

Want Sexual Promiscuity? Buy A Boat!

And he does not see New Authoritarianism as only occurring in government business but creeping into all aspects of life. Take the example of Playboy, which appears at first to be approving of sexual permissiveness; but, in reality, the articles and photos create an association between sex and wealth for men, whilst reducing women to men’s playthings: making half the population repress themselves whilst striving to reach these elite heights, whilst the other half become accepting of this attitude by the rich and powerful. This viewpoint can be seen again in the trial of Lady Chatterly’s Lover where the argument of the prosecution was:

Is it a book you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?

In fact, Roszak goes further, to state there is a mystification that has happened in the technocracy. Where, in the best Orwellian manner, language is used to obfuscate reality. Where the bombing in Vietnam is referred to as an “escalation” or dictatorial communist regimes refer to themselves as “democratic republics”. If an individual challenges this, the technocrats will merely dismiss them as not understanding the complexity of the issue.

So, what is the solution for this? Well that comes in its opposition.

God is Alive, Magic is Afoot

Allen Ginsberg protesting to legalise marijuana

Counter Culture appears to be derived from the term “contraculture”, defined by Yinger in 1960 as:

wherever the normative system of a group contains, as a primary element, a theme of conflict with the values of the total society, where personality variables are directly involved in the development and maintenance of the group's values, and wherever its norms can be understood only by reference to the relationships of the group to a surrounding dominant culture.

This, though, is almost a decade older and could be seen as merely a standard part of society, like the Bright Young People of the Jazz Age. And the young have usually been the radicals. For example, in 17th Century England, many of the radical protests were led by the London Apprentice Boys, the militant student movement of the day. So what is the difference between the rebellions of yesteryear and the counter culture of today?

The difference is two-fold. First off, the traditional left-right axis does not really create an opposition to technocracy but a support of it. The communist, the fascist and the liberal all accept the need for rational efficiency and control of life by an elite, whether that be the bureaucrat, the camp commandant or the head of a Fortune 500 company. So even the most aggressive of demagogues are no longer opposing the technocracy, merely wishing to be a part of it.

The Disquieting Duckling by Asger Jorn

Secondly, the theories behind the opposition are not predominantly coming down from the elite but up from artists. Early examples include Situationists like Asger Jorn or Beat Poets like Allen Ginsberg, who themselves draw more from the tradition of Blake and Children’s Art than Joyce and Van Gogh. See for example Ginsberg’s Howl:

Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!

Protest by Students For A Democratic Society

The reason, Roszak claims, this opposition is taking root within the youth movements is also a feature of the technocracy. As the bureaucracy of business has grown bigger and the need for rigid routine labour has diminished, intellectual thought is more valuable among workers. Therefore, experts like Dr. Spock have pushed parents away from regimented childcare towards exploration, and governments have moved children away from the factory floor to longer and longer periods of education. When this kind of student is suddenly ordered to cut his hair and put on a uniform to join the army or the corporation, he naturally rebels against it.

Whilst Roszak acknowledges there is no manifesto of the nebulous group but that what is required is:

…the subversion of the scientific world view, with its entrenched commitment to an egocentric and cerebral mode of consciousness. In its place, there must be a new culture in which the non-intellective capacities of the personalities – those capacities that take fire from visionary splendor and the experience of human communion – become the arbiters of the good, the true and the beautiful.

How will this be achieved? One area Roszack has little time for is the overuse of psychedelics. Whilst he acknowledges they may have use for skilled practitioners:

There is nothing whatever in common between a man of…experience and intellectual discipline sampling mescaline, and a fifteen-year-old tripper whiffing airplane glue.

In fact, he sees the current expansion of psychotropic drugs as having more in common with the technocracy, promising a quick granting of insight that is only superficial and built on a few getting rich whilst causing unhappiness to the many. No different to the barbiturates or alcoholic beverages marketed to the masses.

The actual means for this "subversion" to come about are nebulous. Rather, he sees that this will be developed over time through such concepts as the “Politics of No-Politics” and the de-centralised Utopian thought of Paul Goodman.

The Armies of the Night

Protestors putting flowers in the guns of military police

Roszak goes through a number of different facets of the counter culture and their opposition to the technocratic rationality, from anti-schools to trying to levitate the Pentagon. I have to wonder sometimes if the free-wheeling rejection of rationality extends to his writing. I consider myself reasonably well-read and knowledgeable, but I found myself reaching for dictionaries and other reference material (or just plain scratching my head) trying to understand what he was talking about. He tends to work best in generalities, when he is (to steal a phrase for Kant) critiquing pure reason. When he goes into specifics, such as an entire chapter looking at how Marcuse and Brown attempt to reconcile Marx and Freud, Roszak moves away from insightful investigation to navel-gazing.

He spends some time comparing this movement to nascent Christianity and, by extension, suggesting how this movement over time could change the mode of Western thought. There is one problem I have with this, one he even acknowledges in passing: the fact that people enter and depart with ease and that there are a lot of tourists involved. This is not just the more egregious examples, like Burberry selling expensive imitations of Chinese Communist Army uniforms. Mick Jagger, an LSE drop-out with a public drug bust under his belt seems like the perfect candidate for the Counter Culture. But, whilst he may sing that “the time is right for violent revolution” or “my name is a number, a piece of plastic film”, the group is reportedly planning to tour the US with major venues and able to charge high ticket prices, and he seems just as at home among the accoutrements of wealth as any banker.

Overall, "The Making of a Counter Culture" is interesting as polemic and critique, for, as Roszak puts it:

What is of supreme importance is that each of us should become a person, a whole and integrated person in whom there is manifested a sense of human variety genuinely experienced, a sense of having come to terms with a reality that is awesomely vast.

But as prophecy? That is for the young to show us.

Four Stars

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[June 14, 1969] Boys and Girls From The North Country (The Conflict in Northern Ireland)

June 14, 2024 Kris Vyas-Myall Leave a comment

By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

I was asked by our esteemed editor to explain the issues going on in Northern Ireland today, having seen it reported in the American Press. He noted:

If I'm getting it in my podunk local rag several days in a row, it's news.

And, honestly, it is even surprising to see the Six Counties mentioned in the UK press. Although most people are vaguely aware it is part of the country, and may have heard of the discrimination going on from such documentaries as The Orange and The Green, it probably occupies no more daily thought than the situation in South Texas occurs to the average Seattle housewife. In fact, the only discussion of the region I can recall from the first half of 1968 was whether any of the new coinage was going to have an Ulster logo on it.

Water supplies have been disrupted by explosions near Belfast

So, try to imagine one day turning on Walter Conkrite to see him telling you that barricades had been erected across San Antonio to keep the police out, bombs had gone off in Houston, Mexico had gone to the UN to ask for a peacekeeping force to be sent in and house representatives from the region were asking for the entire local government to be shut down.

That's an analogy. I am going to do my best to explain what is happening in specific. Whilst I will attempt to balance both sides’ views in this situation, even the basic choice of words is liable to inflame some people. As an example, my mother (English-born but from an Irish family and has lived in the Republic for many years) recently had her flight forced to land in Belfast rather than Shannon. She opined to the man in the seat next to her “you'd think they could get us an airport in the same country”. The man’s angry response was “I think you will find Belfast is in the same country!”

All this to say, apologies for any offence caused to readers.

A Pre-History

Illustration of the Battle of the Boyne, which cemented Protestant rule in Ireland.

The roots of the current issues weave incredibly far back, but I will attempt to be brief. Since the Middle Ages, the English crown had attempted to gain control of its neighboring Island. This process was slow and the Hiberno-Norman Lords operated with a largely free hand, meaning that 400 years after the start of the process the majority of Ireland was still nominally independent.

During the Tudor and Stuart periods, the Anglo-Scottish governments attempted to gain more centralised control over Ireland. However, this was regularly rejected by many of the Irish inhabitants and was met with violence. A solution was seen in plantations, the giving of land to settlers at the expense of the native Irish farmers.

The biggest of these was James I’s plantation of Ulster. Following the Nine Years War and the subsequent fleeing of many Irish nobles, James gave land to new protestant British landholders, who were also banned from using any native labour and had to import British workers, predominantly Scottish Presbyterians and English Anglicans.

Via a combination of conflicts around religion in Britain (e.g. The Gunpowder Plot, The Civil War, The Glorious Revolution) and rebellions against these settlements in Ireland, the Catholic Irish’s landholding and political power was almost completely removed. As such, there ended up a situation of minority rule, somewhat equivalent to British colonies in the Caribbean.

With the removal of legal restrictions on Catholics in Britain in the 19th Century, steps were taken to attempt to ameliorate the situation in Ireland but it was slow going and regularly blocked by Unionist supporters, both through laws and with extra-legal violence. By the time the UK parliament finally passed a bill on the subject in 1920 the sides had become hardened.

Map of Partition

The solution devised was for a partition of the Island, with most of Ireland being made the independent Irish Free State (now Republic) and the majority Protestant Six Counties of Ulster remaining part of the United Kingdom with a devolved parliament in Belfast. Whilst Sinn Fein took 97% of seats in the Irish parliament unopposed, the Ulster Unionists under James Craig won 77% of the seats in the North in election under STV (the Single Transferable Vote, a system by which a voter can rank their choices).

The early years of this new situation were not peaceful, with Civil War in the South and tit-for-tat sectarian killings in the North. Craig was determined to crack down on dissent and have “a Protestant Government for a Protestant People.” The police force was militarized, the electoral system changed, seats gerrymandered, and many other measures were put in place to keep what was already a Protestant controlled region firmly in that state.

The Silence Breaks

Whilst things still remained fraught for the Catholic population, the level of violence from before the Second World War was not as visible under Craig’s successor Basil Brooke. He was a hardliner allowing for little dissent, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA)’s border campaign in the late 50s did not gain much support in either region. (More on the IRA shortly.)

Instead, it was bigger world events that began to foment change. With the Civil Rights movement in America gaining publicity, organisations were formed in Northern Ireland to highlight anti-Catholic discrimination, such as the Campaign for Social Justice and Homeless Citizen’s League. At the same time an economic downturn in the region and Brooke’s ill health led to him resigning the premiership in 1963. He was succeeded by the more moderate Captain Terence O’Neill.

Now, it should not be thought O’Neill is some sort of radical republican. However, he did want to improve relations between the Catholic and Protestant communities of Ulster, and between the Northern and Southern parts of the island of Ireland. He encouraged twinning between organizations of both denominations and met the Irish Taoiseachs on multiple occasions.

Following on from the CSJ’s publicising of wide-spread discrimination, a number of more active campaign organisations formed. Two of the most important are The Northern Irish Civil Rights Association (NICRA) and The Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC). The former has been organising large scale marches calling for political reform, anti-discrimination legislation and demilitarisation of the police. DHAC is more particularly focussed on housing discrimination, taking part in sit-down protests and disrupting public meetings to get this message across.

Finally, all this took place against the backdrop of a change of British government, from Conservative to Labour. Whilst the Ulster Unionists caucus with the Conservatives in Westminster, Labour draws a significant share of its support from Catholics in Scotland and England. As such, it is much more in the interest of Wilson to encourage reform in Northern Ireland than it was for Macmillan. And with the passing of the Race Relation Acts in Britain it gave further impetus for change.

These factors have put the need for reform on the agenda, with O’Neill promising a move to one-man one vote, an ombudsman to address complaints of discrimination and the withdrawal of special police powers.

And overall, the vast majority of people had been happy with current progress. A pre-election survey at the start of the year showed 52% of Ulster voters thought improvements were being made at about the right pace (57% of Catholics and 49% of Protestants) with 62% supporting the principle of one man-one vote (92% Catholics and 48% of Protestants, with 20% in the latter group being unsure).

So, who could possibly be upset by these changes? Well, to start with, Home Affairs Minister William Craig and Rev. Ian Paisley.

The Policeman and The Priest

William Craig was a rising star in the Ulster Unionist government. Nicknamed ‘the battering ram’, he played a big part in the election of O’Neill to the post of Prime Minister, and had been a significant ally to him, in particular in the PM’s attempts at modernization of the Irish economy. After criticism from UUP colleagues of Craig’s cavalier attitude to planning policy and the need for O’Neill to take a stronger line against Republicanism, Craig was moved to Home Affairs, making him in charge of policing Northern Ireland.

Whilst not being totally opposed to some reform, Craig’s position is that discrimination claims and the civil rights movement are actually covers for radical republican activity. Their demands are purely designed to make them seem reasonable people, whilst they secretly seek a united republic of Ireland.

Outside of government, opposition to Civil Rights primarily centers around Reverend Iain Paisley. The leader of the fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and close friend of Bob Jones, Jr., Paisley believes the Pope to be the Antichrist, with services commonly including the Hymn “Our Father Knew The Rome of Old and Evil is Thy Name”. Even though the actual congregation size of the Free Presbyterian Church is estimated to be small, Paisley has an outsized influence, regularly holding stunts such as heckling bishops who meet with Catholic counterparts and encouraging police to pull down Irish flags.

Paisley is no stranger to being in trouble with the law. In 1966 he was first arrested when, after contributing to a riot with a march he made through a Catholic area, he refused to be bound over to keep the peace. Then, in the same year, he was successfully sued for libel when he claimed the arresting police had committed perjury against him.

In November of last year, Craig banned all protest marches except for “customary marches”. By customary he was referring to those by Protestants like the Orange Lodge, making it seem like a discriminatory measure to stop Catholic Civil Rights marches. When DHAC and NICRA defied these orders, Paisley and his supporters showed up with counter-protestors and riots ensued. Even though Paisley was arrested for his part in this, Craig squarely put the blame on the Civil Rights movement, claiming the IRA were involved, and used special powers to call up police reinforcements. Following this and other public disagreements on policy, O’Neill called for his resignation.

What is their main problem? It is largely a slippery slope argument. They believe that Civil Rights will lead to Nationalist involvement in Government. This along with the growth of the Catholic population in recent years, may lead to one day a union of the North and South. This they see as both being a challenge to their own personal identity (as they see themselves as British rather than Irish, loyal to the Queen rather than a republic in Dublin) and a fear that they will be subject to Catholic law.

The Irish constitution states in Article 44 that the Catholic church has a “special position” in Ireland. Whilst this was an attempt to keep things secular whilst appeasing the Catholic majority, unionist critics point to the influence of the Catholic Church on policies in the republic such as the ban on divorce and birth-control. And whilst the situation is not as bad as in the North there have been cases of anti-Protestant discrimination in the South, such as the Mayo librarian controversy and the Fethard-On-Sea boycott.

But what do those on the other side want? Let us have a look at two of these groups, People’s Democracy and the Irish Republican Army.

The Grass Is Always Greener

People's Democracy sit-down protest

Following the attacks on NICRA marches by the RUC and loyalists, People’s Democracy formed at Queen’s University Belfast at the end of last year. Whilst having a 5 point programme containing similar demands to the larger Civil Rights organizations, they believe that these can only be achieved in a united socialist republic of Ireland.

Whilst not engaging in violent activity, PD are also much less willing to back down in the face of political pressure. Whilst other civil rights agreed to a one month halting of marching in January in order to calm things down, People’s Democracy organized large scale marches throughout the North and refused to be rerouted away from Protestant areas by the police. These marches were ambushed throughout their routes by Loyalists, resulting in many injuries from protestors.

IRA members in 1922

Of course, People’s Democracy are not even close to the level of the IRA. This force began its existence just after World War I as a guerilla force fighting the British for Irish independence. During the Civil War the organization split between the pro-treaty Irish Free-State Army and the anti-treaty group who retained the IRA monicker.

In spite of their defeat in the Civil War and the later declaration of the Irish Republic, the organization has continued to exist up to the present day and ran an armed attempt to overthrow the government of Northern Ireland at the start of the decade. And, whilst the Border Campaign failed, they do not appear to be vanishing any time soon.

As an outlawed organization, details of IRA activities are hard to come by. However, there have been reports of recruitment drives for a “new IRA”, including bomb threats being called into the London Press Association by a purported member. One thing that seems sure, they have not lost any of their radicalism, as a member said to Ulster TV recently:

“I believe the British occupation can only be terminated by physical force”

This kind of statement underlines one of the real points of tension.

Yes, much of the population considers themselves British but they have been in the country for centuries. O’Neill can trace his family line back to the medieval kings of Northern Ireland and the Paisley name has been common in the region since the 17th Century. When Republicans regularly talk about ‘getting the British out’, many unionists fear they do not just mean a change of governmental administration, but want the wholesale expulsion or murder of people whose families were living in the region before the Mayflower crossed the Atlantic.

Things Fall Apart; The Centre Cannot Hold

RUC dealing with a NICRA protester

In spite of opposition from left and right, O’Neill must have felt pretty confident at the start of the year. With Craig out of Government and Paisley heading to prison, it seemed the more reactionary voices were losing ground, whilst the biggest Civil Rights groups had agreed to suspend activity temporarily, and his reforms were proceeding through the Northern Irish parliament.

The problems started coming after the aforementioned clashes during the PD marches. The RUC made a heavy-handed attempt to keep the peace in the predominantly Catholic Bogside area of Londonderry. Community activists actually managed to drive the police out and erected barricades to control the area themselves. Even a radio station was established claiming to be the voice of “Free Derry.”

With this being seen by the Unionist authorities as a direct challenge to the Ulster government, crackdowns came swiftly. The plans to end the special powers act were reversed, calling up the paramilitary b-specials and O’Neill stated that there needs to be "less talk about Civil Rights and more talk about Civil Responsibility". Needless to say, this did not go down well with many in the movement.

However, the decline in social order happening at the same time as O’Neill was pushing through reforms was seen as rewarding the mob by some in his own party. Following two high-profile resignations and some calls from many of his other MPs to resign, the NI PM decided to call an election and take his mission to the voters. Pro-O’Neill candidates were the largest winners, taking 44% of the vote and allowing him to continue as Prime Minister. But, in a sign of things to come, Anti-O’Neill Unionists and Nationalists both got around 23% of the vote each.

During the negotiations for the passing of one-man one-vote, a series of bomb explosions took place around Northern Ireland taking out a church, water, and electricity supplies. In addition, firebombs destroyed nine post offices. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, with the RUC blaming the IRA, and the IRA claiming it is the Stormont authorities trying to:

“copy Hitler’s Reichstag fire stunt to…extend coercion and suppress free speech.”

The community police in “Free Derry”

In response the government called up over 1000 B-specials and asked for British troops already stationed in Northern Ireland to guard key installations. The RUC came down heavily on anything they saw as disorder with the predictable response of barricades once again going up in Derry. Even with Paisley in prison, the loyalist response continued, with his wife declaring she was organizing loyalist volunteers to “assist” the police.

As newly elected Unity MP Bernadette Devilin told the House of Commons, it appears that Northern Ireland is at the start of a civil war. Discontent has moved past the point where it is purely about civil rights; now each side feels the other is untrustworthy and violent.

Some have posited the best solution would be to shut down the Northern Irish parliament and RUC, instead instituting a period of temporary rule from Westminster, with the British Army patrolling the streets instead. However, the lessons of fifty years ago are still foremost in many politicians’ minds, and they would no more wish to get involved directly on the island of Ireland again than they would like to send troops to Vietnam.

Another suggestion was made by the Irish government to the United Nations, to send in a peacekeeping force to administer the region. This did not get passed and probably did more harm than good. The Republic has never officially recognized the North as a separate country, and them trying to send in foreign soldiers reinforces the fears of Unionists that there is a conspiracy to annex Ulster.

And whilst O’Neill managed to get the one-man one-vote bill through the Northern Irish parliament, he was forced to resign by his party a few days later. His successor has promised to honour the former PM’s reforms, but, so far, the only response to the current crisis has been tighter laws and more police crackdowns.

The Calm, Preceding The Storm?

Change of direction, or just changing the drapes?

Although things have been quiet over the last month, this seems to be both sides assessing the new government. Simply replacing O’Neill with the mild-mannered Chichester-Clark is not actually resolving the underlying issues. One-Man, One Vote was only one part of the demanded reforms of the Civil Rights movement, but we see that any attempt to move further is likely to lead to strong reaction in some quarters.

Ulster Unionist MP Samuel Knox Cunningham recently told The Times that working with Nationalists was equivalent to:

“Hitler[‘s decision] to absorb Austria, the same solution was adopted and the coalition brought about the takeover of Austria. Let it be clear that the Unionists are determined to keep Ulster part of the United Kingdom and there will be no coalition with Republicans, Nationalists or another party with aims at overthrowing the constitution.”

Whilst Frank Gogharty, chairman of NICRA, stated at a recent meeting that Stormont reforms were:

“just a clever ploy by Unionists to split the movement…I expect the mailed fist to clampdown in six months…Stormont will move in and take most of the powers from local councils.”

At the same time, no measures have been put in place to placate any other underlying issues, unemployment sits a 7% in Northern Ireland, compared with 3.5% in the UK as a whole, with some predominantly Catholic areas like Derry seeing 1 in 5 working men without a job. Housing stock continues to be alarmingly short in the region. But the new regime has yet to announce any new economic schemes.

Unfortunately, this looks to only be temporary

As the marching season begins, attitudes harden and the economic situation looks to be worsening, I cannot see how the sunny weather can continue. Clouds are forming on the horizon and I worry that what happened in March will look like a playground scrap when the storm breaks.

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[March 28, 1969] Life Beyond Conan: The Other Heroes of Robert E. Howard

March 28, 2024 Cora Buhlert 4 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

A New President

West Germany has a new president, the seventy-year-old Social Democrat Gustav Heinemann, who up to now was secretary of justice in the grand coalition cabinet. Heinemann was elected with the narrowest of majorities, beating his conservative opponent by only six votes.

Gustav Heinemann and Helmut Schmidt — West Germany's new president Gustav Heinemann is sharing a laugh with Social Democratic floor leader Helmut Schmidt.

The West German president is mainly a ceremonial figure; he has very little political power. The president is also elected by the members of the West German federal and state parliaments rather than the people. Apparently, we cannot be trusted to elect our own president, because our parents and grandparents elected Paul von Hindenburg more than forty years ago.

But even though I had no chance to vote for Gustav Heinemann, I welcome his election, because I've come to know Mr. Heinemann as a highly principled politician who stands for peace and justice and opposed the rearmament of West Germany.

In his first speech after his election, Gustav Heinemann promised that he wanted to be a president for the people, even if the people did not get to elect him. Personally, I believe that he is exactly the right president for these difficult times.

More than just Conan

When Lancer started reprinting the adventures of Conan the Cimmerian three years ago, exactly thirty years after Robert E. Howard's untimely death, they not only pushed the already simmering revival of the genre Fritz Leiber called sword and sorcery into overdrive, but also opened the floodgates for other vintage fantasy stories and novels to come back into print.

No longer do you have to sift through the crumbling pages of Weird Tales or Unknown or pay extortionate prices for Gnome Press or Arkham House hardcover reprints to track down an early adventure of Conan or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. On the contrary, the heroes of yesteryear are right there in the spinner rack of your local newsstand, gas station, grocery store or bookstore, sporting striking covers by talented artists like Frank Frazetta or J. Jones. The sword and sorcery revival has truly been a boon for fans of vintage weird fiction.

Among the authors of yesteryear coming back into print is none other than Robert E. Howard himself. For while Howard will probably always be associated with Conan first, he was extremely prolific, penning more than two hundred stories in various genres in his short life. In this article, I want to take a look at some of the other Robert E. Howard heroes whose adventures you can find on the shelves right now.

The Philosophical Atlantean: King Kull

Spurred on by the success of their Conan reprints, Lancer made a foray into the rest of Howard's oeuvre and reprinted the adventures of Howard's other Barbarian hero, Kull of Atlantis.

Like Conan, Kull is a wandering adventurer who winds up becoming king of the civilised kingdom of Valusia after slaying the previous ruler. Kull only appeared in two stories in Weird Tales, though the ever enterprising L. Sprague de Camp found several unpublished and sometimes unfinished Kull stories in Howard's trunk (and I have it on good authority that it really is a trunk), had Lin Carter finish the incomplete stories and assembled King Kull.

Because of his superficial similarities to the Cimmerian Barbarian, Kull is considered a prototype Conan. But that would be unfair, because even though they are both adventurers turned kings, Kull is a very different character from Conan, quieter, more introspective, more philosophical, more – dare I say it – gullible.

The Conan stories cover the entire spectrum of Conan's career, from teenaged thief to middle-aged king. The Kull stories, on the other hand, focus almost entirely on his time as King of Valusia – with one exception. Because for Kull we get something we never got for Conan: the story of why he left his home Atlantis in the first place. And no, it's not for the reason you think.

"Exile of Atlantis" introduces us to a teenaged Kull, an outsider adopted into a tribe of Atlantean barbarians. Most of the story is given over to a hunting expedition as well as a dream sequence, where Kull sees his future as king. But what spurs Kull into leaving home is seeing a young woman from his village about to be burned at the stake for daring to fall in love with a Lemurian pirate. Kull is disgusted by this and mercy-kills the woman before the flames can reach her. Then he flees, pursued by furious tribespeople.

"Exile of Atlantis" was never published during Howard's lifetime and it's easy to see why—it's more vignette than story. But it does set the tone for the adventures that follow and introduces Kull both as a perpetual outsider as well as someone who is willing to question and defy tradition, if necessary. Finally, forbidden love as well as Kull's firm believe that love should trump tradition, custom and law is a recurring theme throughout the stories, as Kull helps several young couples to get together with their one true love, against legal and parental opposition.

"The Shadow Kingdom" was the first of the two Kull stories published during Howard's lifetime in the August 1929 issue of Weird Tales and very much sets the stage for what is to follow. The story introduces us to King Kull, as he is watching a parade in his honour, while musing about identity, the nature of reality and the great questions of life.

However, Kull has more immediate problems to deal with, because the Pictish ambassador, Ka-nu the Ancient, warns him of a conspiracy in his own court and sends one of his warriors, Brule the Spear-Slayer, to aid and protect Kull. Those who have read the Conan stories have encountered the Picts before. Based on the ancient inhabitants of Scotland, the Picts reoccur throughout Howard's work, though Howard's Picts bear no resemblance to their historical counterparts.

Kull is initially irritated by Brule, who seems to know the royal palace better than Kull himself. But the two men quickly become fast friends, when Brule informs Kull that an ancient pre-human race of shapeshifting Serpent Men has invaded the kingdom and the royal palace and are quietly replacing guards, courtiers and councillors and are planning to murder and replace Kull, too.

Hugh Rankin: The Shadow Kingdom — Hugh Rankin's interior art for "The Shadow Kingdom" shows Kull and Brule battling the Serpent Men.

"The Shadow Kingdom" is a chillingly paranoid story reminiscent of John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?" and the 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers, though it predates both. Apparently, there are folk who believe that the Serpent Men from "The Shadow Kingdom" really existed and still exist today, similar to how some people believed that the Shaver Mysteries which infested Amazing Stories some twenty years ago were real.

After their ordeal in "The Shadow Kingdom", Brule remains Kull's constant companion and frequently has to rescue his friend from conspirators and assassins as well as from Kull's own gullibility and tendency to get lost in his thoughts. In "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune", the only other Kull story published during Howard's lifetime, Kull becomes fascinated with the House of Thousand Mirrors inhabited by the wizard Tuzun Thune and keeps gazing into those mirrors, wondering whether he is real or merely a mirror image himself. Just as Kull is about to be sucked into the mirror completely, Brule appears, kills the wizard and smashes the mirrors.

Interior art: The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune — Brule has smashed the mirror and the wizard, once again saving Kull, in the interior art for "The Mirrors of Tusun Thune".

"The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune" will seem familiar to anybody whose ever visited a hall of mirrors at a fun fair or carnival. The story "Delcardes' Cat" also clearly appears to be inspired by travelling fun fairs and fraudulent sideshow attractions. This time around, Kull becomes fascinated with Saremes, an ancient and wise talking cat owned by the noblewoman Delcardes who asks Kull's permission to marry a commoner. Kull has deep and philosophical discussions with Saremes and never once wonders why this regal feline is always carried around by the masked slave Kuthulos.

Things come to a head, when Saremes informs Kull that his friend Brule is in danger and that Kull must dive into a lake inhabited by an ancient amphibian race to rescue him. Brule, however, is not in danger, but once again has to rescue Kull from a plot by his archenemy, the skull-faced wizard Thulsa Doom. As for the cat, she may be wise and ancient and beautiful, but she obviously cannot speak. Instead, her voice was provided by the masked slave Kuthulos. It's easy to imagine Howard witnessing a similar performance in a small carnival somewhere in rural Texas in his youth.

"By This Axe I Rule!" features yet another plot against Kull, instigated by disgruntled noblemen and a rabble-rousing poet. Kull himself, meanwhile, is depressed that some people still mourn the tyrannical king Borna whom Kull slayed and replaced and that even the Cult of the Serpent Men still has worshippers. Kull is also frustrated that even as king he is still constrained by the ancient laws of Valusia, such as a law which forbids free men to marry slaves, even though a young nobleman petitions Kull to allow him to wed the slave girl Ala with whom he has fallen in love. Not long thereafter, Kull meets Ala herself and confesses to her that even as a king, he is still slave to Valusia's cruel ancient laws.

The conspirators strike that night and invade Kull's bedchamber. Kull fights them off with battle axe, but there are too many of them. However, he is saved in the nick of time, because Ala overheard the plot against the king and sounded the alarm. Grateful, Kull takes his battle axe to smash the stone tablets containing Valusia's outdated laws and declares that he is the law now. Then he personally sees to it that Ala and her lover are allowed to marry.

If "By This Axe I Rule!" seems a little familiar, that's maybe because it is. For after the story failed to sell, Howard rewrote it as "The Phoenix on the Sword", the story which introduced Conan the Cimmerian to the world. But while "The Phoenix on the Sword" is a great story, I still prefer "By This Axe I Rule!" because the touching love story between Ala and the young nobleman and the scene of Kull taking his battle axe to the outdated laws of Valusia are sadly absent from the Conan story.

It is notable how many of the Kull stories are concerned with forbidden love and how Kull is clearly frustrated by outdated marriage laws keeping lovers apart until he literally smashes those laws to pieces. Considering that the US Supreme Court struck down state laws forbidding mixed race marriages in several southern states only two years ago (not using a battle axe), I for one can only cheer on Kull and his creator.

But while there is a lot of romance in the Kull stories, Kull himself has no romantic entanglements with women – very much unlike Conan – and even muses at one point that the love of a woman is not for him. One can see homoerotic undertones in Kull's relationship with Brule, though Howard could not clearly spell this out in the late 1920s. Or maybe Kull just prefers celibacy.

It may be blasphemy, but I prefer Kull to Conan. Everybody who enjoys the adventures of the Cimmerian Barbarian should pick up King Kull.

Five stars.

The Avenging Puritan: Red Shadows

Another Robert E. Howard character who predates Conan is Solomon Kane, a sixteenth century Puritan who is on a mission from God (or so he believes) "to ease evil men of their lives". The idea sounds fascinating, but once again the Solomon Kane stories are only found in forty-year-old issues of Weird Tales and have never been reprinted. Until now.

Luckily, my friend Bobby, who shares my interest in the works of Robert E. Howard and other Weird Tales authors of yesteryear, sent me a copy of Red Shadows, a collection of all the Solomon Kane stories, including those that were never published and sometimes not even finished during Howard's lifetime. Red Shadows is a hardcover volume with interior illustrations by J. Jones published by the small press Donald M. Grant Publisher Inc. which also published two collections of Howard's humorous westerns about a very big, very strong and not very bright hillbilly named Breckenridge Elkins and his chaotic family. Sadly I don't own either of those.

The Solomon Kane stories, however, are excellent, mixing historical adventure of the sort that used to be found in the pages of the pulp magazine Adventure with horror elements. Unlike with Kull, we never learn why Solomon Kane does what he does. There are hints, particularly in the poems included in the collection, that Kane was always a violent man and sailed with Sir Francis Drake, but we never learn how Solomon Kane came by his strong religious convictions or how he came to believe that he is on a mission from God.

Early stories show Solomon Kane wandering around England and later the Black Forest in Germany, tangling with pirates and observing several cases of vengeance from beyond the grave. These are fine adventure stories and suitably spooky gothic morality tales. But then Solomon Kane's wanderings literally take him into the heart of darkness with the novelette "Red Shadows", first published in the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales.

Weird Tales August 1928 — C.C. Senf's cover for the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales shows the villainous Le Loup murdering a young woman.

"Red Shadows" begins in France, where Solomon Kane finds a mortally injured young woman by the side of the road and comforts her as she dies. Before she draws her final breath, the woman tells Kane that she was assaulted and left for dead by a bandit named Le Loup. "Men will die for this," Kane vows darkly and embarks onto a hunt for Le Loup and his associates which will take him several years and across the world.

Kane finally tracks down Le Loup in a village in the darkest heart of Africa. When the opponents finally come face to face, Le Loup asks Kane whether the woman he murdered was Kane's bride, wife, or sister and is stunned when he learns that Kane had never met the young woman before that fateful day.

In the course of "Red Shadows", Kane also meets and befriends N'Longa, an African shaman, a so-called juju man. Though a sympathetic character, N'Longa initially appears to be an outdated and racist stereotype speaking broken English. However, as Solomon Kane and N'Longa share further adventures, it gradually becomes clear that N'Longa is much more than a mere stereotype. Not only is his magic real, he is also clearly the smartest person in the Solomon Kane stories. Indeed, N'Longa even calls out Kane on his prejudices at one point. Finally, N'Longa also gives Kane a magical weapon, an ancient juju staff, which turns out to be the biblical Staff of Solomon, now wielded by his latter day namesake.

Pulp fiction set in Africa is often full of offensive and downright racist caricatures. Howard does not completely manage to avoid these pitfalls, when describing Kane's wanderings through Africa, encountering vampires, harpies, hidden cities and monsters sealed away in ancient tombs. However, it is also notable that Solomon Kane himself makes no racial distinctions between the people he helps and is as willing to save an angelic blonde English girl from being sacrificed to an ancient god as he is to protect an African village from winged monsters and liberate African slaves from their Arab captors.

Weird Tales June 1930 — Hugh Rankin's colourful cover art for the June 1930 issue of Weird Tales illustrates the Solomon Kane story "The Moon of Skulls", where Kane rescues the kidnapped English girl Marilyn from the African vampire queen Nefari.

During his wanderings through Africa, we also see Kane's religious convictions gradually crumbling. As a devout Puritan, he initially abhors magic, but he also sees that N'Longa's magic, though not even remotely Christian, is nonetheless a force for good as is the Staff of Solomon, which predates both Judaism and Christianity.

Solomon Kane is a complex and fascinating character. He has the religious zeal of Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins, memorably portrayed by Vincent Price (who would be perfect to play Solomon Kane) on film last year, only that he is a heroic figure, whereas Hopkins is the darkest of villains.

Gothic horror at its very best.

Five stars.

The Time and Space-Displaced Fugitive: Almuric

Almuric is an oddity even for Robert E. Howard's extremely varied oeuvre. It's his sole foray into Burroughs style planetary romance and one of only two novels Howard wrote. Almuric was serialised posthumously in Weird Tales from May to August 1939 and reprinted by Ace in 1964.

Taking his cue from Burroughs' Barsoom novels, Almuric opens with a framing story. The scientist Professor Hildebrand recounts his meeting with Esau Cairn, whom the Professor describes as "definitely not a criminal", but "a man born in the wrong time". Cairn stumbles into Hildebrand's observatory while on the run for murdering the corrupt politician Boss Blaine (don't worry, he had it coming), the police hot on his heels. Cairn is determined to go down fighting and die in a shootout with the police just like Bonnie and Clyde, who to Howard were not just the subject of a popular movie, but outlaws who operated in his home state of Texas and were shot dead not far from his hometown Cross Plains. Luckily, Professor Hildebrand has a better idea and uses a machine he invented to teleport Cairn to the planet Almuric.

Once there, Cairn takes over as the narrator and has the sort of adventures you would expect from a Burroughs style planetary romance. He encounters the local wildlife as well as a species of ape men named the Guras. After putting his boxing skills to good use and proving his mettle, Cairn is adopted into a tribe of Guras and falls in love with Athla, daughter of the chief. Lucky for Cairn, female Guras look like regular human women.

More adventures follow, as Cairn is captured by a rival tribe, has to fight various monsters and must rescue Athla from a species of winged humanoids called the Yagas whose queen Yasmeena not only has carnal designs on Cairn, but also wants to sacrifice Athla to her gods.

In theory, Robert E. Howard would seem to be the perfect writer for a Burroughs style planetary romance. In practice, however, Almuric is the weakest work by Howard I've read so far. The novel feels choppy and disjointed and there are lengthy passages where Cairn gives us all sorts of information about the world of Almuric and its inhabitants. This is very uncommon for Howard who normally doesn't resort to lengthy encyclopaedic descriptions, but integrates the information into the plot. It almost feels as if Howard's private notes about the world of Almuric, similar to "The Hyborian Age" essay which details the world of Conan, had somehow ended up in the novel itself.

So why is Almuric so different from Howard's other works? The answer is simple. Almuric was published posthumously and very likely remained unfinished at the time of Howard's death and was completed by another writer. We do not know who this writer was, since Weird Tales does not credit them. A likely suspect is fellow Weird Tales author as well as Howard's literary agent Otis Adalbert Kline, who penned several planetary romances himself. Alas, Kline died in 1946, so we will never know for sure.

Even a weak novel by Robert E. Howard is still better than those by many other writers at their best.

Three and a half stars.

Lovecraftian Terrors: Wolfshead

Following the success of their Conan reprints, Lancer is gradually branching out into other works by Robert E. Howard and brought us not only King Kull, but also Wolfshead, a collection of seven horror stories by Robert E. Howard with a striking cover by Frank Frazetta.

Unsurprisingly, the titular story, which appeared in the April 1926 issue of Weird Tales, published when Howard was only twenty years old, is a werewolf story and apparently the sequel to another story, which Lancer in their infinite wisdom chose not to include. "Wolfshead" is not a bad story by any means, though very much the work of a beginning writer.

Weird Tales April 1926 — "Wolfshead" was the first Robert E. Howard story to make the cover of Weird Tales, illustrated by E.M. Stevenson.

In "The Horror From the Mound", first published in the May 1932 issue of Weird Tales, Howard puts his unique spin on that other classic monster of modern horror, the vampire. However, his vampire is not residing in a coffin in the bowels of a castle in Transylvania, but much closer to home (at least from Howard's point of view) in an Indian burial mound in Texas, which a white rancher unwisely disturbs after having been warned not to do so by his Mexican neighbour.

Weird Tales May 1932 — The cover of the May 1932 issue of Weird Tales features a vampire, but not Howard's vampire.

The remaining stories are clearly influenced by H.P. Lovecraft and his Cthulhu Mythos and feature mysterious tomes of black magic and unspeakable monsters from beyond. The Lovecraft influence is not that surprising, since Lovecraft and Howard did not just both write for Weird Tales, but were also pen pals who kept up a voluminous correspondence, much of which apparently survives and will hopefully see print someday.

But even though they influenced each other, Robert E. Howard was a very different writer than H.P. Lovecraft and also brings a very different sensibility to his stories. For while Lovecraft's protagonists tend to be driven mad by their encounters with the unspeakable, Howard's protagonists usually fight the monster or die trying, though the poet Justin Geoffrey, protagonist of "The Black Stone", does go mad after an encounter with a cursed stone, an unspeakable cult and a terrifying monster.

Weird Tales November 1931 — The cover of the November 1931 issue of Weird Tales does not illustrate "The Black Stone", but it's still a great cover.

Howard's stories also have a wider range of settings from Texas via Ireland, France and Hungary all the way to Middle East, which is the setting of "The Fires of Asshurbanipal", which combines Lovecraftian horror with the high adventure of the Conan stories.

Weird Tales, December 1936 — The cover of the December 1936 issue of Weird Tales by J. Allen St. John illustrates Robert E. Howard's "The Fires of Asshurbanipal"

"The Valley of the Worm" and "The Cairn on the Headland", include two more subjects that are dear to Howard's heart, reincarnation and Norse mythology. "The Valley of the Worm" features James Allison, a terminally ill man on his deathbed, remembering a previous life as Niord, a Norse tribesman who fights a giant snake in a scene strikingly illustrated by Frank Frazetta on the cover and later takes his revenge on a monstrous Lovecraftian entity that slaughtered his tribe. The Picts, another subject that clearly fascinated Howard judging by their repeated appearances in his stories, also show up. Apparently, Howard wrote several stories about James Allison remembering his past lives and I hope that all of them will eventually see print again.

"The Cairn on the Headland" is set in Ireland, where the two-fisted scholar James O'Brien not only relives the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 AD, in which he took part in a previous life as the Irish warrior Red Cumal, but also has to save Ireland from the wrath of the Norse god Odin who took part in said battle disguised as a Viking chieftain and lies buried in the titular Cairn, which O'Brien's villainous companion unwisely disturbs. Howard has Irish ancestry and was clearly fascinated by the history and mythology of his forebearers.

Wolfshead includes but a small selection of the many horror stories that Howard wrote, but it also offers a taste of how varied Howard's works were. I hope that this is but the first of many collections of Robert E. Howard's horror stories to come.

A great and varied horror collection by a true master of the genre.

Four and a half stars.

There's Gold in Them Pulps and in That Trunk, Too: Other Howard works we may hopefully see again soon

The untimely death of Robert E. Howard is one of the great tragedies of our genre. Whenever I read a Howard story and marvel at what a great writer he was, I also mourn all the stories he never got to write, all the tales that remain untold. Howard pivoted to the more lucrative western market towards the end of his life, but would he have returned to Conan or even Kull or Solomon Kane later in life, just as his nigh contemporary Fritz Leiber keeps returning to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser? We will never know.

However, the success of the Conan reprints is giving us the chance to explore the rest of Howard's work. Another Howard hero, Bran Mak Morn, last king of the Picts who defends his people against Roman occupiers, is set to be reprinted later this year. There is still so much more to discover such as the tales Howard wrote for Weird Tales' sister magazine Oriental Stories and other adventure-focussed pulps like Top-Notch or Thrilling Adventure, featuring the adventures of the American treasure hunter Kirby O'Donnell and the Texan gunfighter Francis Xavier Gordon a.k.a. El Borak in Kurdistan and Afghanistan at the turn of the century. For Oriental Stories, Howard also wrote several historical stories set during the Crusades, which are allegedly excellent.

Thrilling Adventures December 1936 — Francis Xavier Gordon a.k.a. El Borak is a cover boy for the December 1936 issue of Thrilling Adventures.

Oriental Stories February 1931 — Donald von Gelb's striking cover art for the February 1931 issue of Oriental Stories illustrates Robert E. Howard's "Red Blades of Black Cathay", co-written with his friend Tevis Clyde Smith.

For the infamous shudder pulps, Howard penned several tales featuring the occult investigator Steve Harrison and for Weird Tales, he wrote the Fu Manchu type thriller "Skull Face". Howard also had a funny side, which is in full display in the humorous westerns featuring the big and dumb hillbilly Breckenridge Elkins as well as his stories featuring the boxing sailor Steve Costigan, which first appeared in the pulp magazine Fight Stories. I've read one of the Steve Costigan stories and it was hilarious. I hope that eventually we will get to read them all.

Thrilling Mystery February 1936 — This gruesome cover of the February 1936 issue of Thrilling Mystery illustrates Robert E. Howard's story "Graveyard Rats".

And then, of course, there is also Howard's trunk of unpublished stories. Who knows what gems still lurk in there?

Bravo March 24, 1969 — Belgian Italian singer Salvatore Adamo is not only the second bestselling musician in the world after The Beatles, but also adorns the cover of the latest issue of the West German teen magazine Bravo.

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

[August 12, 1968] Galaxy's the One? (the September 1968 Galaxy)

August 12, 2023 GalacticJourney 8 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Live from Miami Beach!

If you, like Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley (and me), soldiered through the four days and nights of GOP convention coverage, you saw the drama unfold in Miami Beach as it happened. Dick Nixon came into the event a "half-inch" shy of having the nomination sewed up, his chief competition coming from New York governor Nelson Rockefeller. California governor Ronald Reagan, best known for his Chesterfield cigarette ads, coyly denied that he was a candidate…until he suddenly was, in a desperate bid to court "the New South".

The suspense was all a bit forced. By Day Two, it was understood that the New Jersey delegation, which had been putatively firm in supporting native son Senator Clifford Case through the first ballot so as to be able to play kingmaker later on, was now breaking for Nixon. On Day Three, South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who had expressed that his first and second choices were Ronald Reagan, suddenly declared his support for Nixon.

And so, after endless seconding speeches for candidates who had no intention of being President, like Governor Hatfield of Oregon and "dead duck" Governor Romney of Michigan, Nixon won on the first ballot.

After that, the only unknown was who would be his running mate. The South made loud objections to any GOP liberals being tapped, like New York mayor John Lindsay and Illinois Senator Charles Percy. The smart money was on a Southerner like John Tower of Texas or Howard Baker of Tennessee. So everyone was surprised when Maryland governor Spiro Agnew got the nod at a press conference the morning of Day 4, overwhelmingly winning the ballot that night (though not without loud protest from Romney's Michigan contingent).

Why Agnew? Here were a couple of comments from the NBC reporter pool after the convention:

"It's not that Agnew adds anything to the ticket; it's that he doesn't take anything away."

"Everybody loves Agnew–no one's ever heard of him!"

Agnew, who is kind of a Southerner, and kind of a liberal, but who has recently come out in favor of strong "law and order" (which means urging cops to shoot Baltimoreans if they steal shoes), will enable Nixon to retain his chameleon qualities while Agnew acts as attack dog. And since being the actual Vice Presidency is worth exactly one half-full bucket of warm piss, it doesn't really matter that Agnew is brand new to large scale politics.

Long story short, Nixon is the One, which we've known since February. God help us all.

Live from New York!

When Galaxy first appeared in 1950, it was also "the One", breathing fresh new air into the science fiction genre. 18 years later, it is still a regular on the ballot for the Hugo Award. Last month's was a superlative issue; does this month's mag maintain that level of quality?

cover by Jack Gaughan

Nightwings, by Robert Silverberg

Silverbob presents a richly drawn future world, one in which humanity has soared to great heights only to stumble back to savagery twice. Now, thousands of years later, Earth is in its Third Cycle. The planet is an intergalactic backwater, and its people are rigidly divided into castes.

Our heroes are a Watcher, a Flier, and a Changeling. The first, whose viewpoint we share, is an aged itinerant, hauling in a wagon his arcane tools with which he clairvoys the heavens three times a day (or is it four? The author says both.) for any signs of an alien invasion. The Flier Avluela, the only woman in the story, is a spare youth who is able to soar on dragonfly wings when the cosmic wind is not too strong. And finally, there is Gorman, who has no caste, yet has such a broad knowledge of history that he could pose as a Rememberer.

art by Jack Gaughan

All roads lead to Rome, so it is said, and indeed the three end up in history-drenched Roum, where the Watcher finds the city overcrowded with his caste. The cruel Prince of Roum, a Dominator, takes a shine to Avluela, compelling her to share his bed. This incenses Gormon, the crudely handsome mutant, who vows his revenge.

Gormon has the advantage of knowing that justice will not be long delayed–the alien invasion is coming, and he is an advance scout…

There's something hollow about this tale, rather in the vein of lesser Zelazny. Oh, it's prettily and deliberately constructed, but the story's characters are merely observers rather than actors. The stage is set and the inevitable happens. When the alien conquest occurs, it is our Watcher who sounds the alarm, but it is implied others were about to do so (why they did not cry out the night before when the invasion first became apparent is left an inadequately explained mystery). It's a story that doesn't really say or do anything.

Beyond that, I object to the lone female existing to be loved and/or raped, depending on the man involved. She is there to be a pretty companion, a object of pity, a tormented vessel. I suppose the small mercy is she is not also a harpy, as Silverberg is occasionally wont to present his women.

Anyway, I give it just three stars, but I imagine it'll be a Hugo contender next year…

When I Was Very Jung, by Brian W. Aldiss

art by Brock

A weird mix of sex, cannibalism, and archetypes. I found it distasteful and out of place.

One star.

Find the Face, by Ross Rocklynne

One of science fiction's eldest veterans offers up this romantic piece. It has the old-fashioned narrative framework, with an aged tramp freighter captain describing the day he was contracted by a wealthy widow, and what ensued afterwards. The widow's husband and family had been lost in a space accident, but somehow, his face remained, etched across the sky in cosmic clouds and star clusters. The widow saw this phenomenon once, and she was determined to find from what vantage in the universe it could be reliably observed again.

The captain, meanwhile, was looking for Cuspid, the planet whence the green horses that sired his favorite racer came. Together, they went off on their separate quests, and in the process, found the one thing neither had been looking for: new love.

It's something of a mawkish story and nothing particularly memorable. That said, it is sweet, almost like a romantic A. B. Chandler piece, and I appreciated the two characters being oldsters rather than spring chickens. Moreover, these were not ageless immortals, but silver-haired and wrinkle-faced septuagenarians.

More of that, please. Three stars.

The Listeners, by James E. Gunn

art by Dan Adkins

In the early 21st Century, Project Ozma continues, despite fifty years of drawing a blank; even with the efforts of dozens of astronomers, hundreds of staff, and the entire survey calendar of the great Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, not a single extraterrestrial signal has been encountered. Low morale and lack of purpose are the rule amongst these dispirited sentinels.

This is an odd story, with much discussion and development, but no resolution. At times, the author hints that a message is forthcoming, or maybe even already being received, if only the listeners could crack the code to understand it. But the climax to the tale has little to do with the story's backbone, and, as with Nightwings, the characters drift rather than do.

It feels like the beginning of a novel, not a complete story. Larry Niven could probably have done a lot more with the piece in about half the space.

Three stars.

For Your Information: Mission to a Comet, by Willy Ley

Now this piece, I dug. Willy Ley talks about why comets are important to understanding the early history of the solar system, and which ones could feasibly be approached with our current rocket and probe technology. The little chart with all the astronomical details of the Earth-approaching comets was worth the piece all by itself. I particularly liked the idea of Saturn for a "swing-around" mission to catch up with Halley's Coment from behind!

We truly live in an SFnal reality. Five stars.

The Wonders We Owe DeGaulle, by Lise Braun

art by Brock

Newcomer Lise Braun offers up a droll travel guide to a mauled Earth. It seems a French bomb that exploded in Algeria sundered our planet's crust, sinking half the Americas and turning the Sahara into a stained glass plain.

It's mildly diverting but Braun's clumsy writing shows her clearly a novice. I think the setting would have served better as background than a nonfact piece.

Two stars.

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

art by Jack Gaughan

Lastly, the conclusion to Leiber's latest serial, a sort of fairytale version of a hard science epic. The "Specter" is really a spaceman named de la Cruz, a gaunt, eight-foot figure kept erect by an electric exoskeleton, denizen of a circumlunar colony. He has been the centerpiece of a Mexican revolution, which is trying to throw off the literal yokes (cybernetic and hypnotic) forced upon the Mesoamerican race by post-Apocalyptic Texans. The spaceman's comrades include two quite capable and comely freedom fighters, Raquel Vaquel, daughter of the governor of Texas province, and Rosa ("La Cucaracha"), a high-spirited Chicana; then there's Guchu, a Black Buddhist, reluctantly working with the ofays; Dr. Fanninowicz, a Teutonic technician with fascist sympathies; Father Francisco; and El Toro, a charismatic leader in the revolution.

In this installment, de la Cruz finally makes it to Yellow Knife, where he wishes to lay claim to a valuable pitchblende (uranium) deposit. Unfortunately, the Texans have gotten there first–and what they have established on the site finally reveals just what all those purple-illumined towers they've been planting across the North American continent are for. 'T'ain't nothin' good, I can assure you!

Last month, I read a fanzine where someone complained that this was a perfectly good story ruined by being turned into a tongue-in-cheek fable. Certainly, I felt the same way for a while. By Part II, however, I was fully onboard. While this last bit didn't thrill me quite as much as the middle installment, it's still a worthy novel overall. When it comes out in paperback, pick it up.

Four stars for this section and for the serial as a whole.

art by Jack Gaughan

Roll Call

Like the Republican convention, the outcome seemed certain, but a few twists and turns along the way did create a bit of doubt. But in the end, if this month's Galaxy is perhaps not all the magazine we hoped it would be, nevertheless, it's one we can live with.

For the time being, Galaxy remains The One. May it continue to be so for four more years.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[December 6, 1966] Welcome to the Space Prison: Space Patrol Orion, Episode 6: "The Space Trap"

December 6, 2021 Cora Buhlert 2 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

A New Government and Ghosts of the Past

Since December 1, West Germany has a new government and a new chancellor after the coalition government between the conservative CDU/CSU and the liberal party FDP broke apart in October.

The new chancellor is 62-year-old Kurt Georg Kiesinger, an unremarkable and not very intelligent man. What makes his election problematic is that Kiesinger was not only a member of the Nazi Party, but high-ranking official in the foreign ministry during the Third Reich. Considering that West Germany was not very thorough about purging former Nazis from public life, having an ex-Nazi occupying the highest office in the land sends a disastrous signal.

Ludwig Ehrhard and Kurt Georg Kiesinger — The new West German chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger (on the right) with his predecessor Ludwig Ehrhard (left).

We can only hope that this government will not last long, because it is a so-called great coalition between the conservative CDU/CSU and the social-democratic party SPD, whose political aims are normally diametrically opposed. Besides, two SPD members of the new government, foreign secretary Willy Brandt and secretary for inner German issues Herbert Wehner, were driven into exile by Nazi persecution. I can't imagine them putting up with a former Nazi chancellor for long.

Space Spores and Droning Bores

Compared to the political situation in West Germany, "Die Raumfalle" (The Space Trap), the latest episode of Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffs Orion (Space Patrol – The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship Orion) was much more enjoyable.

Space Patrol Orion episode 6 — Paperwork is the bane of McLane's life.

The episode starts with Commander Cliff Alister McLane (Dietmar Schönherr) receiving his latest orders from General Wamsler (Benno Sterzenbach). It's yet another routine mission (and we all know how well those tend to go for the Orion 8): Collect space dust in order to investigate the panspermia theory, which causes Wamsler's aide Spring-Brauner (Thomas Reiner) to drone on and on about the panspermia theory, i.e. the theory that life did not originate on Earth, but is distributed through the universe via spores hitching a ride with space dust, asteroids, meteorites, etc… The theory is the brainchild of Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius, who also developed the theory of a global greenhouse caused by industrial carbon dioxide emissions, which played a role in the Orion episode "The Battle for the Sun". One of the writers is apparently a fan.

"Are you sure you want us to go on this mission?" McLane interrupts Spring-Brauner's monologue, "After all, we might disprove the theory and what would you talk about then?"

Raumpatrouille Orion episde 6 — Lieutenant Spring-Brauner (Thomas Reiner) drones on about the panspermia theory, much to the annoyance of General Wamsler (Benno Sterzenbach) and Commander McLane (Dietmar Schönherr)

General Wamsler has another mission for McLane as well. Science fiction author Pieter Paul Ibsen (Reinhard Glemnitz), winner of the Utopia Award (no reference to the Hugo Awards, alas), wants to accompany the Orion on a mission. And since Ibsen is the future son-in-law of the secretary of interplanetary affairs, he gets his wish. McLane is as thrilled about this as you can imagine.

Raumpatrouille Orion — The Orion 8 receives clearnace for take-off by a traffic control officer (Christine Isensee).

An Unwanted Passenger

Raumpatrouille Orion episode 6 — Ibsen meets the Orion crew.

No one aboard the Orion is keen on having Pieter Paul Ibsen – nicknamed Pie-Po by the crew – along for the ride. Hasso Sigbjörnson threatens bodily harm should Ibsen enter the engine room, and Atan Shubashi (F.G. Beckhaus) complains about Ibsen's novels, where no one lands on planets anymore, they just de- and rematerialize. I wonder if this is a reference to Star Trek's transporter, though both shows probably debuted too close together to have influenced each other.

Only Helga Legrelle (Ursula Lillig) seems quite taken with Ibsen and flirts with him. And once security officer Tamara Jagellovsk (Eva Pflug) notices McLane's reaction, she decides to join in to make him jealous. The kiss between McLane and Tamara at the climax of episode 6 is not addressed in this episode, though the relationship between these two has noticeably shifted. General Wamsler remarks that the Orion crew believes that Tamara is a sophisticated android, but her behaviour towards McLane suggests that she is a lot more human than that.

Ibsen wants to pilot one of the Orion's Lancet shuttles. After all, he has completed a training class. Worse, Ibsen insists on flying alone without backup. McLane is not happy about this, but finally relents. Besides, Ibsen's flight will be controlled by a guide beam, so what could go wrong?

Everything, it turns out. To begin with, Ibsen switches off the guide beam, insisting that he can fly the Lancet on his own, and promptly drifts off course. Worse, spatial disturbances interrupt communications between the Lancet and the Orion. Finally, Ibsen is forced to land on a barren asteroid. He tries to take off again twice, but each time, the Lancet cannot leave the asteroid's gravity field. Ibsen leaves the craft to determine what's wrong and is promptly captured by armed men.

Meanwhile, the Orion is desperately trying to contact Ibsen, while back on Earth, General Wamsler and Lieutenant Spring-Brauner are desperately trying to hail the Orion to satisfy the secretary of interplanetary affairs (Hans Epskamp) who is worried about his future son-in-law.

He is absolutely right to be worried, too, for when we next see Ibsen, he is tied to a chair, being interrogated by an unseen voice and threatened with two glass bulbs emitting so-called "omicron rays" on either side of his head. The unseen voice is very interested in the Orion and her crew. Ibsen, who is not the sort of person to withstand interrogation for long, spills the beans. He is then ordered to hail the Orion, tell them that he was forced to land on the asteroid Mura and ask them to pick him up.

Prison Asteroid

The Orion crew are relieved to hear that Ibsen is alive and well, but surprised that he ended up on Mura, because he was nowhere near Mura when they lost contact.

However, picking up Ibsen will pose a problem, because the only ships authorised to land on Mura are supply ships and the vessels of the Galactic Security Service GSD. Luckily, McLane has a member of the GSD on board in the form of Tamara who authorises the mission. McLane's brief conversation with Tamara not only demonstrates that McLane is still jealous of Ibsen, much to Tamara's amusement, but also gives us some additional worldbuilding details.

Mura, it turns out, is a prison asteroid, which is why it's off limits to everybody except the GSD. McLane is appalled at banishing people to a barren asteroid for the rest of their lives, whereupon Tamara replies that Mura is really quite humane. After all, they used to imprison or execute offenders, so Mura is surely an improvement. McLane asks if the inhabitants of Mura are all criminals; Tamara replies that a lot of them are malcontents and some actually used to be celebrities.

The opening narration of every episode (courtesy of veteran actor Claus Biederstedt) presents Space Patrol Orion as a utopian fairy tale from the future, but this brief conversation between Tamara and McLane adds some anti-utopian notes. For not only is the Earth government perfectly willing to let its own citizens die, as demonstrated in episode 2, and willing to launch a preemptive strike against anybody they perceive to be a threat, as seen in episode 6, they also dump malcontents, criminals and troublemakers on barren asteroids in deep space. Combined with the hints last episode that Earth suffered widespread environmental devastation, these new revelations put some wrinkles in the image of a democratic utopian future.

Unfortunately, the episode promptly undermines these hints that life on Earth and its space colonies in the year 3000 AD is not as pleasant as it has been presented so far by making the prisoners on Mura irredeemable villains. For at least the prisoners we see are no mere malcontents, but criminals and murderers.

Behind Bars

As soon as the Orion lands on Mura, they receive a call showing them Ibsen strapped to a chair and about to have his brain fried by omicron rays. The same sinister voice that interrogated Ibsen informs the Orion crew that Ibsen will be killed unless they surrender.

Ibsen is a pain in the backside and no one aboard the Orion likes him, but as McLane points out, they can't just let him die either. So the crew surrenders and is immediately surrounded by armed men and taken to the command center. The male and female crew members are locked up in separate cells, while McLane is taken to meet the leader of the prisoners.

This leader – and unsurprisingly also the owner of the sinister voice we heard before – turns out to be a man called Tourenne, a scientist who developed a devastating weapon known as paralysis rays, and decided to test it on human subjects, killing countless people. Tourenne is utterly unrepentant of the crime which got him exiled to Mura. In many ways, Tourenne is reminiscent of the Nazi scientists who conducted experiments that killed hundreds of people and were still allowed to continue their work after the war.

But while Tourenne may not be repentant, he is certainly furious at the Earth government that sent him to Mura. Therefore, he and his followers plan to hijack the Orion and defect to the Frogs. McLane is horrified; surely not even an archvillain like Tourenne would side with the Frogs against humanity. Tourenne, on the other hand, hates the Earth government so much that he would side with the devil himself.

The Return of Dr. Mabuse?

So far, Space Patrol Orion hasn't offered any memorable villains. The Frogs usually remain off stage and are only briefly glimpsed. She, leader of Chroma, was not a villainess but rather someone whose legitimate aims collided with those of the Earth government. Indeed, the closest thing to evil we've seen in Orion so far are unscrupulous generals like Marshall Kublai-Krim or Sir Arthur.

Tourenne, on the other hand, is not only memorable, but also a true villain. Played by Wolfgang Büttner with a sinister air, Tourenne is a monster who delights in inflicting pain and wants to kill the entire Orion crew. In his megalomania and sadism, Tourenne reminded me of Dr. Mabuse, the supervillain who starred in eight films between 1922 and 1964. The cinematography with its sharp black and white contrasts, which keeps Tourenne in the shadows with only part of his face visible, is reminiscent of the heyday of German expressionism in the 1920s and makes the Mabuse parallels even more notable. And considering that Dr. Mabuse is a malevolent spirit who jumps from body to body, it's quite possible that Tourenne is his latest host.

Though strapped to a chair, McLane tries to persuade Tourenne that killing him and the rest of the Orion crew would be a big mistake, because no one but the crew can fly the ship. Tourenne reveals that there are space fleet officers incarcerated on Mura, including a commander who murdered his astrogator in a fit of jealousy.

McLane insists that technology has progressed so quickly that even a spaceship commander won't be able to make heads nor tails of the Orion's controls after a few years on Mura. Tourenne, however, isn't buying it. He threatens to murder Ibsen in front of McLane's eyes, because he certainly doesn't need a science fiction writer. Then he'll kill Tamara, who as security officer isn't required to fly the Orion either. And then Helga and so on…

Women in Prison

Meanwhile, Tamara and Helga find themselves locked up together in a cell. Both initially assumed that they were the reason the prisoners captured the Orion, since a prison asteroid will have a severe lack of women. The look on Tamara and Helga's faces at this prospect suggests that they found Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as unappetising as I did. But since they haven't been sexually abused yet, Tamara notes that the prisoners appear to be more interested in the Orion than in any of her crew.

Raumpatrouille Orion 6 — Locked up: Helga and Tamara on Mura

However, the chronic lack of women on Mura gives Tamara and Helga an idea. And so Tamara hides out of sight, while Helga proceeds to hail the guard on the intercom system to flirt with him and also to inform him that Tamara has escaped. When the guard enters the cell to investigate, Tamara and Helga overpower and disarm him. Thus far, the two female members of the Orion crew have often been shown at odds with each other, so it's good to see them working together. Furthermore, Helga, who has often been sidelined, gets plenty to do in this episode.

Tamara and Helga force the guard to open the cell in which Hasso, Mario and Atan have been imprisoned. Together, they make their way back aboard the Orion. Hasso hails Tourenne and informs that he has overloaded the energy system. If Tourenne does not release McLane and Ibsen, Hasso will blow up the Orion and Mura along with it. There are shades of the recent Star Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver" in Hasso's bluff, but Hasso manages to sell it convincingly, because few people manage to put more contempt in the word "swine" than Claus Holm.

Tourenne seemingly relents and lets McLane and Ibsen go, but of course he still has an ace up his sleeve. For once the Orion tries to take off, it is pulled down to the surface of Mura again. The same thing happened to Ibsen's Lancet earlier. The prisoners have set up a magnetic dome, which absorbs any energy that is deployed to break through it.

Reaction and Counterreaction

A gloating Tourenne hails McLane and demands to be let aboard the Orion. He also informs McLane that his men took all weapons, so the crew are helpless. The crew still has the one ray gun that Tamara took from the guard she and Helga overpowered, but Tourenne forces McLane to relinquish the weapon, after he threatens to strip-search the crew, "which the ladies would find quite unpleasant".

So McLane is disarmed. He gives coded instructions to his own crew, while keeping Tourenne and his men in the dark. And because the Orion crew are so well attuned to each other, they understand just what McLane plans. Mario launches a Lancet against the magnetic dome, briefly breaking open the dome and allowing the Orion to escape. The ship is badly shaken and the crew uses the resulting confusion to take out Tourenne and his men with impressive judo skills. Helga and Tamara actually hold their own better than their male comrades.

Once all the villains are sedated, the Orion makes her way back to Earth and also calls space patrol headquarters who have been frantic to reach them. The secretary for interplanetary affairs immediately demands to talk to Ibsen, only to be informed that Ibsen got so drunk when the Orion crew celebrated their escape that he can't talk right now. The secretary is indignant and we suspect his daughter, Ibsen's fiancée, will be furious. Let's hope it's not to late to call off the wedding.

A Prison Thriller in Space

I know I'm repeating myself, but Raumpatrouille Orion really keeps getting better with every episode. If the final episode of this series manages to keep the promise set by the first six, it promises to be stellar.

Star Trek and Raumpatrouille Orion have no way of influencing each other due to airing too close together, but both shows tackle similar themes. And so Star Trek had a space prison episode with "Dagger of the Mind" some three weeks before Orion followed suit with "The Space Trap".

Though very different, both episodes managed to comment on the ethics of prisons, punishment and rehabilitation. I suspect that two different science fiction shows airing on two different continents tackling the same theme is due to the fact that in the real world, prison system still rely on facilities and procedures developed in the 19th century and are in dire need of reform.

Both Star Trek and Raumpatrouille Orion assume that the death penalty will no longer be an issue in the future (though Star Trek apparently threatened a character with the death penalty in "The Menagerie"), but then the death penalty thankfully seems to be on its way out. West Germany abolished the death penalty in 1949, though East Germany still executes people on occasion, most recently concentration camp doctor Horst Fischer who was guillotined in July of this year. In the US, many states retain the death penalty, though executions are increasingly rare. The last US execution to date was that of James French, a murderer who was eager to die and was granted his wish in August 1966. He cracked a joke about "French fries", before he was electrocuted.

Trial of Horst Fischer — Concentration camp doctor Horst Fischer, the last person executed in East Germany, at his trial earlier this year.

Murderer James French, who went to the electric chair with a joke on his lips in August.

Unfortunately, Orion undercuts the criticism of the ethics of exiling criminals and troublemakers to Mura by making Tourenne not a misunderstood malcontent, but a sadistic villain. We don't learn a lot about the other prisoners; the only one whose crime is described is a murderer.

But even though "The Space Trap" misses an opportunity for social criticism, it's still an excellent episode. Let's see if the last episode of this series can uphold the high standard set by its predecessors.

Five stars

Taptoe Magazine — December 6 is St. Nicholas Day, celebrated here on the cover of the Dutch magazine taptoe.

Sinterklaas — St. Nicholas greets children during a parade through the town of Horn in the Netherlands.

St. Nicholas kindergarten — St. Nicholas visits children in a West German primary school.

St. Nicholas presents — And in the morning, many German and Dutch children will find a gift from St. Nicholas on their doorstep.

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Book, Fashion, music, politics, sports

[April 12, 1966] The Degenerate Modern Era

April 12, 2021 Erica Frank 1 Comment

by Erica Frank

Interesting Times

It's been a tumultuous half a year since my last article. In that time, the world of music and activism has grown tremendously. Joan Baez has released a new album with several anti-war songs and has relentlessly protested against the Vietnam war. Ken Kesey has begun his "Acid Test" concert-parties in San Francisco, and the headline band is often the Grateful Dead, formerly known as the Warlocks. Timothy Leary was arrested for pot smuggling – maybe he should've stuck to the more legal LSD. Poll taxes are now illegal, and formerly-obscene racy novel Fanny Hill is now protected by the first amendment and can be freely published. In the midst of all these political and social changes, Time Magazine is asking, "Is God Dead?" raising cries of "blasphemy" from conservative preachers across the nation.

Time Magazine, April 8 1966, asking the hard questions.

It is at that last point where I wish to begin, because I feel entirely qualified to answer that question: No, God is not dead; God is a female and Her name is Eris, Goddess of Discord.

The Best of All One True Religions

I can say this confidently because I have come into possession of the new scripture for our age, the Principia Discordia, or, How the West Was Lost, "beeing the Officiale Handebooke of the Difcordian Societye and A Beginning Introdyctun to The Erisian Misterees."

Yes, as is common with many of the younger folk involved in today's spiritual movements, I have apparently fallen prey to a religious cult, this one centered around the divine principles of Disorder and Chaos.

The Sacred Chao, drawing on the Taoist "yin and yang" symbolism–a circle divided into the Hodge and Podge, with a Pentagon on the Hodge side and the Golden Apple of Discord on the Podge side.

Principia was written by "Malaclypse (the Younger), Omniscient Polyfather of Virginity-in-gold" and "Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, Bull Goose of Limbo and Protector of Switzerland" in 1963; they distributed copies made on Jim Garrison's Xerox printer. Garrison is a New Orleans lawyer with a penchant for going after corrupt judges: a laudable goal, but likely a frustrating career choice. I can understand why his office assistants might pray to spirits of Chaos.

The Principia describes what we know of Eris (not much, but that she was worshipped by the ancient Greeks as goddess of strife and discord, and the Romans thereby named her Discordia) and her part in the Myth of the Apple of Discord – a retelling of the Greek myth of the start of the Trojan war. Much of the fable is lost in my copy of the book, alas. Perhaps later editions will contain the complete text.

The Discordian Society purports to provide false but comforting answers to questions like, "why do today's leaders ignore the principles of science and instead embroil us all in totalitarianism and war?" It promotes "unworkable principles of discord" with the intent of providing a workshop for the insane, and thus keeping them out of the mischief they can create as "Presidents, Ambassadors, Priests, Ministers and other Dictators."

I love this book. Five golden apples. Please, seek out a copy at a bookstore near you, or demand to have one provided instead of a bible when you check into a hotel.

The Psychedelic Revolution

No religious movement would be complete without its music, and the music of the Age of Chaos is, in a word, "trippy." As in, it is often accompanied by acid trips, the experience of being under the influence of LSD. Kesey and his Merry Pranksters are at the heart of the psychedelic movement, and the Grateful Dead – formerly the Warlocks – are playing its tunes.

Can YOU pass the Acid Test? Poster for one of Ken Kesey's events. Possibly used as an actual test: if the spiral starts spinning, it's working!

In January, they played at the Filmore in San Francisco. From that set, "Death Don't Have No Mercy" is memorable – somber and poignant. In February, they were at the Ivar Theater and played "I Know You Rider," a traditional folk ballad that's one of their staples. Their version as The Warlocks was heavier on drums, more "rock" and less "folk blues." Their bluesy-rock music with long instrumental sections is the perfect background for Kesey's entirely legal, if a little unorthodox, LSD experiments.

But the Grateful Dead aren't the only ones directing the swirling energies of modern life into something more profound. Joan Baez's newest album, "Farewell, Angelina," includes both the anti-war title song, written by Bob Dylan, and "Sagt Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind" – Pete Seeger's German translation of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

She is in West Germany right now, involved in the Easter peace demonstrations. She and her fellow marchers are trying to get governments around the world to realize that we cannot solve problems caused by poverty, fear, and violence by creating more of all three.

Wherein the Law Is Less of an Ass Than Usual

While we among the lunatic fringe are often at odds with our governments (especially when those governments are dedicating incredible amounts of our tax dollars toward killing people whom we don't want dead), occasionally we get a bright moment, a win for tolerance and a step toward true democracy. This past month, we have had both.

On March 24th, the U.S. Supreme Court found that Virginia's state poll tax was unconstitutional. Harper vs Viriginia State Board of Elections brought some of the protections of the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act to state laws. Justice Douglas delivered the ruling, including:

[T]he interest of the State, when it comes to voting, is limited to the power to fix qualifications. Wealth, like race, creed, or color, is not germane to one's ability to participate intelligently in the electoral process.

The court noted that the state may decide who is qualified to vote, based on reasonable criteria. States may disagree about the age of adulthood, or which crimes are so terrible that committing one removes a person's right to vote. But states do not have the right to declare soldiers non-residents, nor to apportion representatives differently for urban and rural areas. And now, it is established that "Voter qualifications have no relation to wealth nor to paying or not paying this or any other tax."

Poll tax receipt from Alabama, showing a fee of $3–the price of a pair of sneakers–to vote for the year. Anyone who misplaced their receipt would not be permitted to vote.

No more shutting people out of voting because they're poor… or because their wallet was recently stolen… or because of a fire in their home… or because the receipt got damaged… or because the election official decided it was illegible… or whatever other excuse a district had decided on, as a way to keep anyone who wasn't white and wealthy away from the polls.

More Books to Read

Tom Lehrer fans rejoice! On March 21st, we scored a victory for smut: Cleland's Fanny Hill, also known as Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, originally published in 1749, is now legal to distribute throughout the US. Memoirs vs Massachusetts overturned the ban in Massachussets which followed the ban (and removal thereof) in New York.

The court ruled that the book has obvious literary and historical value, proving that it cannot be held obscene by the Roth test, and that since it is not linked to any illegal activities, there is no justifiable reason to censor it. The no-longer-obscene racy novel is now available to be printed by any publisher that cares to do the typesetting… and is willing to accept the hit to their reputation.

Includes the New York State Supreme Court decision – possibly even Desmond's dissent, which points out that "it describes to the last intimate physical detail numerous instances not only of prostitution but of voyeurism, transvestism, homosexuality, lesbianism, flogging, seduction of a boy, etc., etc."

Speaking of "reputation for publishing the wrong books"… Ace has been soundly castigated for their unauthorized editions of Lord of the Rings. The backlash against Ace was strong enough that they have offered repayment to Tolkien (which he has accepted), and have agreed to stop publishing and not reprint the book. Ballantine is now publishing fully authorized versions that pay royalties, and they are selling as fast as stores can get them.

However, it's likely that, without Ace's bold (and arguably unethical) plan, we would never have seen these books in paperback. Tolkien had initially refused to publish them in "so degenerate a form," and it is likely US publishers declined to republish in hardcover, as they didn't believe a big enough market existed. The hardcover books were a whopping $5.95 each; the Ace paperbacks were 75 cents. Ballantine's paperbacks, which factor royalties into their price, are 95 cents.

The hardcovers sold an estimated 15,000 copies… the paperbacks have sold almost eight times that many in a handful of months. So let's give a cheer for degenerate publishing and hope for a long and happy future of access to forbidden books!

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[April 4, 1966] A Bookstore to Remember (City Lights)

April 4, 2021 Vicki Lucas Leave a comment

by Victoria Lucas

I will never forget that afternoon when I first saw Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

It might have been a weekend, but I spent many evenings after work in North Beach, either going to see The Committee (improv) at 622 Broadway, a movie at an independent moviehouse, or volunteer at the Playhouse theater. So I would often pass his bookstore, walking from my apartment (now at Army and 25th) or taking the cable car. It was still light, in any case. He was surrounded by a crowd, but I had a height advantage from the lay of the land at the off-grid intersection of Columbus and Broadway, and he could see me and I him. It seemed to me that our eyes locked and my world changed. (Cue romantic music.)

Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr in "Affair to Remember"

But not for long. (Music stops abruptly with the sound of a needle scratching a record.) He went off with some people and that was that. End of story. My affair to remember (thank you very much, Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, but no thanks) was with the bookstore and not with the poet. (In any case, I'm now seeing someone, and we're moving in together.)

As for the books, I should admit that I was a virgin when it came to political bookstores. This was my very first time coming into contact with leftist publications and ideas beyond Ramparts Magazine and Stop-the-War demonstrations. That was only foreplay to the heavy breathing of anarchism and leftward utopianism, and the airy sparkle (or existential wail) of life among the poets.

One of Ferlinghetti's books from City Lights Publishers

This is particularly heavy for me since I'm currently working for a band of lawyers who are creating this type of bank card like the Diner's Club or gasoline or department store cards. (They call it "MasterCard," including Crocker Bank.) I am learning far too much about both how lawyers operate (meetings for which I type minutes but that never happened) and how Xerox machines work (some days I'm just all over black plastic dust that doesn't come off easily–one has to stir the stuff occasionally, you see) and how the frequent repairmen do too.

I'm not entirely sure which is the real me, the junior legal secretary or the beatnik-in-waiting. But I'm pretty sure it's the beatnik; like the Zen koan of the man dreaming he's a butterfly vs. the butterfly dreaming he's a man, I think I'm the butterfly.

So walking into that bookstore is an experience both warm and scary, both imaginary and real, the lights glinting off the windows, the chairs all occupied before I get there, the discussions I hear, and the erotic feel of the books themselves. I've learned it's the only all-paperback bookstore, that City Lights became a publisher 2 years after Ferlinghetti opened the bookstore, and that (with the help of the ACLU) Ferlinghetti beat a rap after publishing Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" for the first time ("obscenity"–when even I know it's the government that's the obscenity). (Oops, sorry, did I just violate a norm? It must be the butterfly fluttering inside me.)

The "obscene" book

My affair will only end (and maybe only temporarily?) when I leave San Francisco. I keep coming back to California: born in LA, move to Tucson, move to San Francisco. What's next? Only time will tell.

I digress. I love North Beach. I wander around there every weekend. I think my new boyfriend and I will settle here for a spell close by. And then maybe I can spend even more time wandering from the Spaghetti Factory to City Lights to the Playhouse to The Committee and beyond.

The "obscene" bookstore

In the meantime, I sometimes take the cable car (and/or I walk) to City Lights. After seeing that there was no pressure to buy (an important part of the experience, given my still impecunious state), I take advantage of what appears to be a policy that no one bothers people who read the books or even the magazines. They also have great bulletin boards with notices of readings, concerts, plays, everything that's Going On. The more people inside the windows in the brightly lit store, reading, the more come in from outside–and maybe buy something. I don't buy very much at City Lights, but I am becoming familiar with a lot of titles, a lot of poetry, and a lot of polemics, politics, Asian and Indian religions, new ideas.

As I caress the new ideas, and they sweet-talk me, I still find an analytical spirit within me that doubts that their ideas of the future are any more valid than other promises I've heard. I resist the temptation to embrace them fully, even though I am also pushed into the arms of the left by Pacifica Radio (KPFA/KPFB with studios in SF & Berkeley) and its reports from the Vietnam front sent by intrepid reporters from the Christian Science Monitor who manage to elude the US government and find out what's really happening there. I try to be clear-eyed about what I swallow, but sometimes it's not so easy to avoid becoming emotional about the fate of the human species.

And then there's my new boy friend. Mel is an insurance inspector (steam boiler) who has spent much of his life at sea, a graduate of the Merchant Marine Academy. While having a girl in every port, he became seriously leftist and went to meetings of the Communist Party at one time. (He finally rejected the Party as being too reactionary.) We have both decided, I think, that the only hopeful politics are radical, but nonviolent and seriously sexual.

Sometimes I feel like the City Lights logo

We met because he is a sometime actor and poet who wants to make films. So do I, and we met in such a group–but I want to write for them. In the group we met a filmmaker who only lacked a camera. Marks that we were, we bought him a camera, believing that we would be working together. Guess who absconded with the camera–it wasn't us. So we bonded over the loss and resolved to be less gullible. But we still believe in each other and try not to believe everything we read or hear (or everyone who asks for money).

So Mel has had to put up with my affair with the bookstore–after all, we aren't married (yet). He reads, but he's not in love with print as I am. Meanwhile, please excuse me while I get back to my copy of The Berkeley Barb, for which I occasionally write.

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Galactic Journey

Tag Archives: politics

[September 14, 1969] More Gems from the Pulps: Bran Mak Morn by Robert E. Howard and Jirel of Joiry by C.L. Moore

[September 8, 1969] Another Orbit around the sun (Orbit 5)

[August 6, 1969] Gay Power! (The Stonewall Inn Protests)

[July 6, 1969] Everybody's talking about Revolution, Evolution… (The Making of a Counter Culture by Theodore Roszak)

[June 14, 1969] Boys and Girls From The North Country (The Conflict in Northern Ireland)

[March 28, 1969] Life Beyond Conan: The Other Heroes of Robert E. Howard

[August 12, 1968] Galaxy's the One? (the September 1968 Galaxy)

[December 6, 1966] Welcome to the Space Prison: Space Patrol Orion, Episode 6: "The Space Trap"

[April 12, 1966] The Degenerate Modern Era

[April 4, 1966] A Bookstore to Remember (City Lights)

55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction