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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 8, 1967] Four to go (December 1967 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

The New Frontier

Tomorrow, history will be made: the first Saturn V, largest rocket in the history of the world, will take off.  If successful, Project Apollo's launch vehicle will be "man-rated", and one hurdle between humanity and the moon will have been cleared.

Of course, we'll have full coverage of the event after it happens, but this sneak preview makes a dandy segue.  For today's article is on a literary type of explorer: Galaxy magazine.  Unlike Apollo, Galaxy, which started in 1950, is a tried, tested, and even somewhat tired entity.  Back in 1959, Galaxy moved to a larger, but bimonthly, format.  This has not been an entirely successful endeavor, and in few issues are the problems more glaring than in this one.  For if an editor needs to fill up 196 pages every other month (not to mention the 164 pages of one or two sister magazines), that editor's standards must sometimes slip…

The Old Frontier


by Gray Morrow

Outpost of Empire, by Poul Anderson

Out on the edge of space lies the mineral-poor planet of Freehold. Thinly settled by humans, and then also by the alien Arulians, it lies just outside the Empire.  A growing insurgency threatens to topple the existing order, and Ridenour, an imperial troubleshooter, is sent in to monitor the situation.


by Gray Morrow

Sounds pretty nifty, but it's not.  The first twenty pages of this seventy-page piece are nothing but characters explaining the story to each other.  Skimming the rest of the tale, I determined that it's all more of the same.  Moreover, Poul doesn't even try to disguise what he's doing.  He spotlights it by having his endlessly explaining protagonist marvel at what a pedant he's being–and when other characters do the same thing, he inwardly notes how much a pedant they're being.

As Kris notes:

Rule 1 of writing: If your characters are finding what you are doing contrived, so will the reader.

The whole thing is written in that archaic style Poul reverts to when given the chance, though there's no reason to do so in this book.  He also can't resist being a bit sexist, even in a story that takes place thousands of years from now.  Dig this gem:

"But in the parks, roses and Jasmine were abloom; and elsewhere the taverns brawled with merriment.  The male citizens were happily acquiring the money that the Imperialists brought with them; the females were still more happily helping spend it."

Because in the future, women don't work; they are parasites on the real producers–the men.

Feh.  One star.

That already gets us nearly halfway through the book.  Things do not immediately improve…

The South Waterford Rumple Club, by Richard Wilson


by Jack Gaughan

Aliens drop bags of counterfeit money on a small American town.  Economic collapse ensues, facilitating an extraterrestrial takeover.

I was about to write that Wilson was an unknown name to me, but looking through the archives, I see he's made several appearances in science fiction magazines over the past two years.  He's just eminently forgettable.  This story does not change the trend.  For one, he spends a couple of pages giving a history lesson as to why an influx of fake currency is such a deadly weapon–akin to anthrax and mustard gas.  And then we get a tedious demonstration of such an attack, followed by a couple of pages of (not well thought out) aftermath.

This is the sort of inferior stuff that filled the lesser mags of the '50s.  It doesn't belong here.

Two stars.

Thank goodness for Silverbob.  From here on, out, the issue is quite good.  But you have to make it to page 96!  (or simply skip the dross)

King of the Golden World, by Robert Silverberg

Elena, a human, has married Haugan, chief of a tribe of aliens that lives on an island dominated by twin volcanic mounts.  Theirs is a genuine love, despite their divergent evolutions, but full understanding still eludes the Earth woman.  Though the mountain on which the village is sited is clearly about to erupt, Haugan seems in no hurry to evacuate his people.  It is only on the eve of disaster that Elena learns the true, alien nature of Haugan's people.  Will she embrace it or be repelled?

This is really quite a sensitive story, timeless and nuanced.  I suspect it was influenced by Silverberg's recent nonfiction histories of the original American inhabitants (collectively referred to as "Indians").

Four stars.

For Your Information: Astronautics International, by Willy Ley

Ten years ago, it was enough to keep up with the Soviets and the Americans if you wanted to know what was up in space.  These days, Earth's orbit has become a truly international province, and this month's article focuses on the efforts of the non-superpowers, of which there are many.

As a space buff, articles on satellites always score extra marks with me, so I hope our tastes are aligned.  Four stars.

Black Corridor, by Fritz Leiber

A man awakens, naked, without memories, inside a featureless corridor.  Ahead of him lie two doors: one is labeled "Water", the other "Air".  Behind him a wall moves toward him implacably.  Choose…or die.

But beyond the first pair of doors is another, and another.  Is this a test?  Will the test end?  And what is its purpose?

Less a science fiction story and more a metaphor for life itself, this piece's worth depends solely on the execution.  Thankfully, Leiber is up to the task.

Four stars.

The Red Euphoric Bands, by Philip Latham

A comet is heading straight for an Earth on the brink of atomic war.  Is it our doom…or our salvation?

On the one hand, the storytelling and the science are quite excellent.  On the other, the conclusion is silly.  Moreover, there is a fundamental fault in this otherwise accurate piece: a comet with a two light year orbit would have a period of around six billion years–too high to serve the purposes of the story.

Thus, three stars.

Galactic Consumer Report No. 3: A Survey of the Membership, by John Brunner

The first galactic survey, conducted by Good Buy magazine, turned out to be something of a fiasco–too many beings responded, and they were just too variegated to provide anything like a profile of "an average consumer".  Yet, you couldn't call the exercise less than successful…

This series tends to be silly and throw-away, but this installment I liked a lot.  Why?  Because it's almost like a Theodore Thomas article from his F&SF column–a couple dozen story seeds all in one piece.  So many stories feature aliens that are little more than humans in costume.  This one presents some real aliens.  It also made me laugh a few times.

So, four stars.

Handicap, by Larry Niven


by Jack Gaughan

On the former Kzin world of Down, orbiting a feeble red dwarf, humans have established an agricultural colony.  In addition to its colorful history, Down offers another attraction: the Grogs.  These are comical-looking, human-sized creatures that have two phases in life.  At first, they are four-legged creatures with a dog-like intelligence.  In this form, they rove the deserts of Down, hunting and mating.  Eventually, the females anchor themselves to a rock, where they stay the rest of their lives.

And yet, these creatures have enormous brains, suggesting a great intelligence.  Why did they evolve them, and what can they do with them?  Garvey, an entrepreneur whose line is making prosthetics for "Handicapped" species, ones without manipulative organs of their own (e.g. dolphins, the enormous Bandersnatchi of planet Jinx), smells an opportunity.

Handicap, like last year's A Relic of Empire, expands what is becoming a sweeping common universe, tying in the Kzinti of The Warriors, the Thrintun of World of Ptavvs, and the hyperdrive era of Beowulf Shaeffer.  What I really like about Niven is that he isn't in a hurry to tell his story.  There are asides and subplots, weaving a meandering course through entertaining vignettes, before tying everything together at the end.  Niven's universe feels lived in, and all of its facets are interesting.  That there's a nifty story at the heart of Handicap is a bonus…though my eyebrows were raised a bit by this exchange:

Garvey: "For as long as we expand to other stars we're going to meet more and more handless, toolless, helpless civilizations.  Sometimes we won't even recognize them.  What are we going to do about them?"

Jilson (a guide): "Build Dolphin's Hands for them."

Garvey: "Well, yes, but we can't just give them away.  Once one species starts depending on another, they become parasites."

This feels a bit like an indictment of welfare, foreign aid…or assistance to the handicapped.  I would not jump to concluding that Garvey's views necessarily represent Niven's views, but I also would not be surprised, as he is a hereditary millionaire, and the plutocracy often thinks ill of public demands on their wealth.  I will simply note that I think Garvey is being short-sighted.  Isn't it worth the investment of a little charity to create an entirely new potential market of both imports and exports?  If you give away limbs to the crippled, schools to the poor, food to the starving, will they really just sit on their duffs?  Or will they simply now be unencumbered members of society, ready to participate fully?  I submit that equalization of opportunity through government assistance and charity actually serves capitalism rather than subverts it.

Well, that's a tiny quibble, and again, just because Garvey thinks this way doesn't mean the author does.  If anything, I'm glad he gave me something to think about–along with a good story!

Four stars.

The Fairly Civil Service, by Harry Harrison


by Jack Gaughan

A day in the life of the postal clerk of the future.  A particularly bad, seemingly endless day.  The kind that tries a person's soul…or tests one's abilities.

Harrison is reliably good.  He does not disappoint here.  Four stars.

To the Black Beyond

Having trudged through a barren literary landscape for half the span of a magazine, it was comforting to have solid ground to trod for the latter half.  But now that the Galaxy is done, I am once again adrift.  Who knows what lies in store within the covers of the next magazine or paperback that will cross my desk?  Like the expanses of space, it's all an unknown adventure.

Luckily, there are still enough treasures waiting to be found to make the journey worth it!



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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 14, 1967] Stuck in the Past (October 1967 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

The deuce, you say!

The other day, a BNF opined that I was kind of a sourpuss, not really liking anything I reviewed.  Moreover, he contended that my perspective is irretrievably tainted, and that I cannot appreciate fiction of the '60s with an objective eye.  Indeed, sometimes it seems like I don't like '60s science fiction much at all.

Well, he's right.

Sort of.  The thing is, I sometimes don't like the science fiction of the '60s…at least, not as consistently as I enjoyed the science fiction of the 1950s.

Perhaps it is a subjective thing.  After all, what can contend with the thrill I felt opening up my first issue of Galaxy (way back in Fall 1950!) and being bowled over by this new magazine's quality.  I had dabbled in SF before, but the age of the digest, what I like to term “The Silver Age” (if Campbell's Astounding heyday was “The Golden Age”) really sold the genre to me.

What a rush that first half decade was.  The efflorescence of magazines (at one point, there were forty SFF periodicals in print), the wide range of subjects.  Sure, there was a lot of crap.  After all, 90% of everything is crap.  But there was so much science fiction in the mags that if you stuck to the cream, you could be assured of month after month of nothing but quality readings.

And there were women.  After a swell in feminine participation in the 'zines of the late '40s and early '50s, there was a subsequent surge in women writing in the mid '50s—most notably in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, but lots of other mags, too.  SF has never been so eclectic.

What have we got these days?  Well, the paperback is putting paid to the mags, which means (as Spinrad noted recently) short form is drying up.  Paperback anthologies might remedy that situation someday, but they haven't yet.

As for the magazines, there are just six English-language ones left, two of them mostly reprints and one, Galaxy, a bimonthly since 1959.  You'd think with so many fewer slots for stories, the fiction would be better.  That turns out not to be the case.  I think the really good writers are saving their typing fingers for the sure bucks—the novels and the screenplays.  Or, at least their good stuff.

Case in point: this month's Galaxy.  It's got some big names, but is this the best they can offer what was once scientifiction's premier magazine?


by Gray Morrow, illustrating Transmogrification

A long slog

Damnation Alley, Roger Zelazny

About half of the mag is taken up with Zelazny's novella, Damnation Alley, about a trip across war-savaged America sometime in the near future.  Hell Tanner is a hellraiser, a criminal, a motorcycle enthusiast…and the best driver in the Western Hemisphere.  On the way to the Big House, he's offered a deal: take a vital shipment of drugs across the country from San Diego to Boston in an armored car; in return, he gets a full pardon.

Hell takes the deal, leading a three-car convoy into “damnation alley”, a scenic tour of blighted USA.  We're treated to violent storms that drop frogs and sharks from hundreds of miles away, giant mutant Gila lizards, radiated hellscapes, bandits, marauding biker gangs, and the occasional stretch of considerate humanity.  Now that I write this, it occurs to me it might make a pretty movie, at least of the B Class.


by Jack Gaughan

But B Class is all it would be.  Zelazny has written some of this field's best work recently, garnering well-deserved Hugo nominations and wins.  But Alley is lesser Zelazny, a mildly engaging but prosaic trip across a wild world.  Several times, I found my eyes unfocusing and a voice in the back of my mind muttering, “Why do I care?” The story doesn't say anything, feature anyone particularly interesting, nor really justify the Roger Corman monstrosities Tanner encounters.  What's left is competent writing.  It's not enough.

Three stars.

Poulfinch's Mythology, Poul Anderson


by Virgil Finlay

I always enjoy the conceit of aliens or far-future anthropologists examining current culture (and often coming to ridiculous conclusions).  One of my favorite examples was Horace Coon's 43,000 AD, where three alien archaeologists try to make sense of pre-nuclear America.

Poul Anderson, aided by the exquisite Virgil Finlay, has taken another stab at things, reducing the principal values of mid-century United States (at least as Anderson sees them) to a pantheon of idealized beings.

Some of the entries are funny, but I feel Anderson is going beyond satire to sell his own spin on America, one I'm not entirely on board with.  In particular, I can't agree with his unalloyed exaltation of “Keen”, God of Money, nor his lumping of the Klan with civil rights marchers in the form of “Brothergood” (whom he asserts “raped” Lady Liberty repeatedly).

Two or three stars, depending on your tastes.

For Your Information: The Worst of All Comets, Willy Ley

Ley's science article, on comets, is serviceable.  It's been a long time since his column has been the highlight of the magazine, though, as it was in the earlier part of the 1950s.

Three stars.

The Transmogrification of Wamba's Revenge, H. L. Gold


by Gray Morrow

How's this for a throwback?  H.L. Gold was Galaxy's first editor, helming the magazine through its first, most glorious decade.  But he started as a writer, and now he's back with this strange novelette.  Told from the viewpoint of an African “Pigmy” princess, it involves a western scientist, his treacherous wife, and an unscrupulous big game hunter.  When the hunter and wife start an amorous liaison, Princess Wamba mickeys them with a shrinking potion, reducing them to one tenth their normal size.

The scientist sees Nobel Prize written all over this development, and he undertakes a study of the Pigmy invention, which shrinks all animals except for Pigmies themselves.  Mildly droll high jinks ensue, followed by a surprisingly happy ending.

Very slight stuff, probably better suited for F&SF, but I appreciated the heroine and the sentiment, if not the science.

Three stars.

Understanding, George O. Smith


by R. Dorfman

Every so often, a story comes along with nothing overtly wrong with it, yet with such a profound soporific effect that multiple sessions are required.  Such is the case with this novelette, about an adolescent trapped in an alien city, being herded by the city government toward an unknown destination for an unknown purpose.  Only the appearance of an intelligent, talking dog named Beauregarde may prove an unanticipated wrinkle in their plans.

It's forty pages, and it induced four naps.  'Nuph said.  Two stars.

A Galaxy of Fashion, Frederik Pohl and Carol Pohl

Those who went to Nycon 3 or last year's Tricon were treated to Carol Pohl's “Galaxy of Fashion” at the annual costume ball.  For those who couldn't attend, here's an accompanying set of illustrations.  It's hard to imagine these styles catching on or being at all practical, but who knows?  Maybe mismatched pantleg length will be all the rage in a century.

Galaxy Bookshelf, Algis Budrys

Capping out the issue, the always literate Algis talks about the New Wave.  He notes that there is plenty good stuff coming out now, and it's not your grandpa's (or at least your father's) science fiction.  In particular, he praises the quartet of Aldiss, Ballard, Zelazny, and Delany.  He describes Aldiss as “the least talented” and Ballard “the least intelligent”, saving most of his praise for Delany, who he calls “less disciplined than Ellison”.

I suppose that's the price we pay, right?  The old scene is dead, and what's left is folks either picking its bones or forging something completely new.  The new stuff isn't always a success (I have no real use for Ballard), but it often is.  I guess the real problem is there just isn't enough being produced right now.  In the old days, you could skip the dross and still have plenty to read all the time.  Nowadays, there's only enough to read including the dross.

Which is why my articles haven't been quite so glowing lately.  Sorry about that.  It'd help if other people didn't always get the Delany stories…

But I still love what I do, and I still often love what I read.  Really.  Certainly, our Galactic Stars, our annual list of the year's best SF, are a testament to that.  Also, women seem to be coming back, to the benefit of our genre.  And if we leave the printed word, well, I've been unreserved in my adoration for Star Trek, what Campbell calls “the first adult science fiction show on television.”

So, my dear BNF friend, please understand that if I sometimes appear grumpy or overly critical of this genre we both love, it's because I have to sift through the kaka to get to the rose. And hey, it's not just me: Ted White, Joanna Russ, Algis Budrys, Judy Merril…they all have their grumpy days too, for the same reason.

Nevertheless, of course I still find gems, and I'm always delighted when I do.  And if you want more cheerful news that'll bring more folks to our field, well, tune in to the Galactic Stars.  I guarantee that slew of greatness will be a tonic for any doldrums!

Speaking of Star Trek, the new season starts TOMORROW!  Hope you'll join us, tiger…

Here's the invitation!



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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 31, 1967] Canceling waves (August 1967 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Phase shift

Every science fiction magazine has a stable of regular contributors.  Maybe there just aren't enough good writers to fill a magazine otherwise.  Perhaps it's a reflection of the conservative tendency to stick with what works.  Occasionally, you'll see a mag make an effort to recruit new talent, with mixed results.  Others, like Analog are famously steady.

Thus, it is usually with a heavy sigh that I open each new issue of John Campbell's mag.  It's not that his stable is bad per se.  But reading the same authors, month in and month out can get monotonous.  Also, because they are guaranteed spots, quality can be somewhat, shall we say, variable.

On the other hand, that variability means that it's rare that any single issue of Analog is all bad (or all good).  August 1967 Analog is no exception, with the bad turns being more than counteracted by the good ones.  Throw in an excellent science fact article from a newcomer, and this issue is one of the better mags of the month.

Interference pattern


by Chesley Bonestell

Starfog, by Poul Anderson

The latest Poul Anderson story inspired by a lovely Chesley Bonestell painting (this one of a planet around a red supergiant), is pretty neat.  The Makt, an incredibly primitive hyperdrive ship, makes planetfall at the farflung human colony of Serieve.  The crew are human, though of a somewhat radical type, far more resistant to radiation than baseline homo sapiens, and with a taste for arsenic salt.  More remarkable, they claim that their homeworld, Kirkasant, lives in another universe.  This universe is just a few hundred light years across, and jam packed with bright young stars.

Ranger Daven Laure and his sapient ship, Jaccavrie, are dispatched to Serieve to deduce just where Kirkasant is, and, if possible, to get the crew of the Makt home.  Easier said than done — how does one go looking for a pocket universe?  And if it posssess the properties described, then navigation in that electromagnetic hell would be virtually impossible.


by John Schoenherr

This is one of those highly technical stories that Anderson likes, but done with sufficient characterization that it doesn't require the Winston P. Sanders (Winnie the Pooh) alias that Anderson's lesser works go under.  Laure's solution to finding Kirkasant requires a bit too much overt hiding from the audience, but it is pretty clever, at least in a society of libertarian worlds motivated by little more than personal profit (a society that does make sense, in the context portrayed).

Four stars.

Babel II, by Christopher Anvil


by Rudolph Palais

Chris Anvil, on the other hand, is at a low ebb.  This piece is less of a story than a series of examples of how technical speak makes advanced technology all but inaccessible to anyone but the most arcane experts.  I suppose this is a point to be made, but I disagree with the conclusion that a user of technology must know everything about the technology.  That is, after all, the whole point of the new programming language, BASIC.  One can avail themselves of the nearest Big Iron computer and make sophisticated calculations without having the first clue how to IPL an operating system from a DASD.

Two stars.

The Misers, by William T. Powers

This month's science article is unusually excellent.  It's about the latest advances in digital imaging for astronomy, and how it might someday supplant the astronomical photograph.  Chatty and engaging, but not dumbed down, its only sin is length.  To be fair, there is a lot to cover.

Five stars.  An invaluable resource.

The Featherbedders, by Frank Herbert


by Leo Summers

Here's a real surprise: a Frank Herbert story I unreservedly like!

The Slorin are shapeshifters bent on infiltrating Earth's society for possibly sinister, but mostly benign purpose.  When a scattership breaks up before it can safely land, two members of the crew, Smeg and his son, Rick, go off looking for a rogue comrade who has gone native.

And how.  Using his mind control powers, this renegade has taken up residence in a small Southern town as a sheriff, maintaining order with an iron fist, thought control, and the use of hostages.  But when Smeg finally confronts the sheriff, he encounters an even deeper secret — one that threatens the entire Slorin operation.

Aside from the final twist, which I found a little superfluous, the only other off-putting issue is the use of the exact same poem that ends this month's F&SF story, Bugs.  One wonders if the poem was prominently featured a few months ago or something.

But all of Herbert's typical tics, including copious italics and ever-shifting viewpoints, are completely absent from the piece.  It's light rather than ponderous, but not overly frivolous.  I'd not have been surprised to find it in the pages of Galaxy in the first half of the last decade (when that magazine was at its zenith).

Four stars.

Cows Can't Eat Grass, by Leigh Richmond and Walt Richmond


by Kelly Freas

Galactic Surveryor Harry Gideon (great surname, by the way) is marooned on a planet that should have killed him.  Somehow, he has managed to find sufficient edible foods to sustain himself until relief arrives.  But all of their tests show the alien life to be completely toxic.  What's Gideon's secret?

The Richmond combo has produced some of the worst stuff Analog's printed, but they've gotten better of late (and I quite enjoyed their first book, Shockwave.  This latest piece is on the good end of things.

Three stars.

Depression or Bust, by Mack Reynolds


by Leo Summers

Reynolds, on the other hand, offers up another one of his history lessons wrapped in a throwaway story.  When Marvin and Phoebe Sellers decide to return their brand new freezer, it starts a chain that results in a national depression.  The only way to fix it is by reversing the trigger.

This is not only a rather pointless piece, it is so clumsily exaggerated, the characters made of straw (the President has never heard of the Depression, and it must be explained to him by an adviser).  And Reynolds can't help making a dig at Indians.  Reynolds has an issue with Indians.

One star.

Plugging in the oscilloscope

What have we got?  Two clunkers, one decent piece, and two good long ones, not to mention a great article.  That puts us at 3.2 on the star-o-meter.  Not bad at all! That barely beats out Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.2) and roundly trounces Galaxy (2.9), IF (2.8), Famous Science Fiction #1 (2.7), Famous Science Fiction #2 (2.4), and Amazing (2.4).

Only New Worlds (3.3) and Famous Science Fiction #3 (3.4) score higher.

For those keeping score, women wrote 9% of the new fiction pieces this month (including all the back issues of Famous). 

Last week, I wondered if a copy of a copy could be better than the original.  Thus far, it looks like the answer is no.  Keep it up, Analog!



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

[July 8, 1967] Family lines (August 1967 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Royal Families

The news always likes to focus on heads of state, especially when they are flashy or glamorous in some way.  From Princess Grace of Monaco to Crown Prince Akihito of Japan, these leaders are instant idols, somehow more compelling for having the reins (and reigns) of nations even though they presumably put their pants/skirts/obis on the same way as the common folk.

This week scored a triplet of spotlights.  For instance, in the island nation of Tonga, Taufaʻahau Tupou IV was crowned monarch in a ceremony that included a feast of 71,000 suckling pigs!  And that, by itself, tells you all you need to know about the current Jewish/Moslem population of Tonga…

Closer to home, El BJ, chief of the United States, has got his first grandson.  Patrick Lyndon Nugent is the newborn child of First Daughter Luci Nugent (neé Johnson).  There is no word, as yet, whether his toddler status will grant him deferment in the lastest draft lottery.

Finally, junta chairman General Nguyen Cao Ky, the flamboyant leader of South Vietnam since 1965, has decided not to run for President in the upcoming democratic (perhaps) September elections.  Premier Thiệu has been backed by the junta for the top role, instead, with Ky getting the Vice Presidential nod.  It's all a lot of musical chairs, anyway. After all, Ky has asserted that the only politician he admires is Hitler, which tells you all you need to know about the state of democracy in that country (and its current Jewish population…)

Watching Big Brother

Fred Pohl, one of the original Futurians and a pillar of the SF community, has had his hands full for nearly a decade.  After he took over the reins of Galaxy and the newly acquired IF from H. L. Gold, rather than sit on his laurels, he looked for new worlds to conquer.  Thus, Worlds of Tomorrow was launched in 1963.  But juggling three mags (plus a few reprint-only titles) was a challenging job, often resulting in uneven quality and occasionally right-out flubs.  For instance, last year's issue of Worlds of Tomorrow where the pages got all mixed up.

One would think, with WoT going out of publication, that things might be less hectic over at the Guinn Co. mags.  But, in fact, this month's issue of Galaxy is even more higgledy-piggledy, making reading a real challenge.


by Sol Dember

Which is a shame, because there's some quite good stuff in here (mixed with some mediocre stuff, to be sure).  Thankfully, you've got me to be your guide.  Just grab your compass, or you might get lost.

Hawksbill Station, by Robert Silverberg


by Virgil Finlay

One-way time travel is developed in the early 21st Century.  Since humanity is deathly afraid of creating paradoxes, the new portals are used by the totalitarian regime for just one purpose: shipping undesirables into the far past, a sort of Paleozoic Botany Bay.

Hawksbill Station is the one reserved for male subversives, established sometime in the late Cambrian (Silverberg repeatedly gives a date of two billion years ago, but of course, the Cambrian went from about 600-500 million B.C.) Our perspective is that of Barrett, the de facto head of the more than 100 settler/prisoners on the coast of what will one day be the Atlantic Ocean.  It is a community slowly decaying as its denizens age along with no greater purpose in life.  That is, until a new young convict arrives from the future, one who appears to be a government spy…

This is more of a travelogue than a story, and the ending comes on a bit abruptly.  But the characterization, the details, the setting are all so gripping that I tore through the novella in no time, despite the labyrinthine page distribution.

Four stars, and if it ever gets expanded into a novel, it could make five.

Angel, Dark Angel, by Roger Zelazny

In another future-set tale, society is maintained by a sort of corporate Angel of Death who, with the help of ten thousand teleporting assistants, brings death to citizens after they have made sufficient contribution to humanity (and are, perhaps, on the verge of being detrimental).

One noteworthy woman has cultivated the aesthetic race of spirules (depicted on the cover) as an antidote to the cold, mechanistic technology of her time.  A subordinate angel is sent to dispatch her, but things prove more complicated.

This is a middlin' Zelazny story, not an empty poetic suit like some, but not a near masterpiece like some of his other works.  Three stars.

We're Coming Through the Window, by K. M. O'donnell

Throwaway vignette about a fellow who keeps duplicating himself due to time travel and needs Fred Pohl's help to get out of it.

Cute.  Three stars.

Ginny Wrapped in the Sun, by R. A. Lafferty

Ginny seems to be a precocious four year old, but in fact, is actually just a baseline human, maturing at age 4 and going on as an upright monkey.  It's the rest of us who are evolutionary aberrations, having five times as many heartbeats that a creature our mass should have.  Inevitably, Lafferty suggests, we'll all go ape.

This tale doesn't really work, and it's a bit more impenetrable than Lafferty's usual fare.  Two stars.

For Your Information: A Pangolin Is a Pangolin, by Willy Ley

Ley's article on the strange mammal that is neither aardvark nor anteater nor armadillo is interesting, but not much more than you might get from a rather good encyclopedia entry.

Three stars.

9-9-99, by Richard Wilson

Two wizened old characters are determined to settle an old score since both have outlived their wagered death dates, the bet having been made back in the 30s.

Whether it is even possible for them to collect given the state of the Earth in the late '90s is another matter…

Good enough, I guess.  Three stars.


by Wally Wood

Travelers Guide to Megahouston, by H. H. Hollis


by Wally Wood

This is a very long, somewhat farcical account of a 21st Century evolution of the Astrodome, in which domes enclose whole cities.

Pretty dull stuff.  Two stars.

The Being in the Tank, by Theodore L. Thomas

An alien being materializes in the heart of a hellish hydrazine factory and demands to speak to the President.  But is he the real deal?

Forgettable, but inoffensive.  A low three stars.

Hide and Seek, by Linda Marlowe

A childhood game is adapted into a method of population control.  It has shock value, but little else.

Two stars.

The Great Stupids, by Miriam Allen deFord

Mad scientist makes everyone under 50 a mental moron, all in service of a rather lame joke at the end.  DeFord was once one of the stars of the genre, but her light has waned over the years.  Here's hoping she's a Cepheid variable and not a dying dwarf.

To Outlive Eternity (Part 2 of 2), by Poul Anderson


by Jack Gaughan

It is fitting that the final long piece of the issue is a sort of mirror image of Silverberg's novella in terms of strengths and weaknesses.  As we read in last month's installment, the ramscoop colony ship Leonora Christine suffered damage to its decelerators while traveling at near light speed on the way to Beta Virginis.  The solution: to accelerate to terrific velocities instead, plunging through the heart of the galaxy and out into the comparative emptiness of intergalactic space where repairs might be effected.

In this half, event after event conspires to force the Christine to travel ever faster and faster, ultimately spanning the lifespan of the universe and beyond in a matter of months.  The story is told as a series of problem-solving conversations spread out over the weeks, and each character largely exists solely to have these conversations.  Except for the women, of course, who are almost universally hysterics or hangers-on…except for the First Officer who ultimately whores herself out for the good of the crew.

In short, the setup and ideas are really neat, but its a plot outline, not a novel.  And where Poul Anderson does try to characterize, it's with quick stereotypes, and usually not agreeable ones.  As for setting, there really isn't one.  The crew of the Christine might as well be floating heads in blank spaces for all we really get to experience the ship.

Readable, but badly flawed.  Three stars.

Matrix Goose, by Jack Sharkey

Last up, some very familiar nursery rhymes as they might be rendered by robots–after the demise of humanity.  It's cute.  Three stars.


Perhaps my favorite example, art by Gray Morrow

Cross-eyed Kin

And so, Galaxy ends up a largely enjoyable, but unremarkable read — just under 3 stars in ranking.  Perhaps, with the demise of Worlds of Tomorrow further in the rear-view mirror, Pohl will be able to concentrate on (and concentrate the best stories into) his remaining mags.

On the other hand, perhaps he hasn't learned his lesson.  He's got a new magazine is coming out next month…



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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[May 12, 1967] There and Back Again (June 1967 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Living in the Past


Dancing on the main stage

The Renaissance Pleasure Faire has really taken off since it first opened in 1963.  Sort of a reaction to modern society, it is several acres of the 16th Century surrounded by semi-arid modern Southern California.  And as a refuge from the horrors of today (and sanitized to be free of the horrors of yesterday), it has become a prime sanctuary for hippies and other counter-culture freaks to enjoy some solace.


A typical scene–we pretend the "mundanes" aren't there…

And the Journey is no exception!


Iacobus of Constantinople (left) confers with Lord Sir Basil, Count of Argent (me!)


Lorelei has found her chosen weapon.


Captain Clara Hawkins (time traveling from the 17th Century) and Lorelei ride unicorns.


Good writers don't grow on trees, but some, like Elijah, play in them.


The whole gang.  Note associates Elijah (purple, third from left), Joe (center, back), Abby (gold, center front), Lorelei (to her right), and Tam (second from right).

Living in the Future

The pages of this month's Galaxy also offer an escape, and for the most part, a pleasant one!


by Gray Morrow

To Outlive Eternity (pt 1 of 2), by Poul Anderson

Things open with a literal bang.  The Leonora Christine, zooming through space at relativistic velocities on a mission of colonization, rams into a small nebula at near light speed.  Though the 50 or so crew and scientists are unhurt, the ship has lost its ability to decelerate.  It is now doomed to travel through the galaxy and beyond, its tau (or time) compression factor ever increasing, such that the entire life of the universe might pass in a lifetime.

Earth is now long in the past; can the Leonora Christine's complement effect repairs such that they can at least someday cease being a cosmic Flying Dutchman?


by Jack Gaughan

Poul Anderson, when he's got his blood high, fuses science and character better than most (when he's in it for the paycheck, he gets the science right, but the rest is dull as dishwater).  The near-light Bussard ramjet concept was explored recently in Niven's The Ethics of Madness, but this gripping tale promises to reward the reader more fully.

Four stars.

Mirror of Ice, by Gary Wright

Gary must have recently watched Grand Prix, for his tale of high-speed bobsledding of the future, with its 10% fatality rate per race, strongly evokes that vivid movie.  Or the author is just a big racing fanatic.  After all, such was the topic of his last story.

Anyway, perfectly acceptable, if not too memorable; I wonder if he'd originally intended this for Playboy…or Sports Illustrated!

Three stars.

Polity and Custom of the Camiroi, by R. A. Lafferty

A three-person anthropological team investigates the highly libertarian planet of Camiroi.  Society there is highly advanced, seemingly utopian, and utterly decentralized.  Sounds like a Heinleinesque paradise.  However, there are indications that the Terrans are being put on, mostly in an attempt to just get them to leave.

The result is something like what might have happened if Cordwainer Smith and Robert Sheckley had a baby.  That'd be one weird tot…but an interesting one.

Four stars.

The Man Who Loved the Faioli, by Roger Zelazny

The Faioli are ethereal beauties who appear in a man's (or a woman's?) last month of life.  Or perhaps they are the cause of impending demise.  In any event, they pay for the quick mortality with the most pleasant company imaginable, perhaps feeding on the emotional feedback.

Here is the tale of a man living-in-death (or dead in living?) who romances a Faioli and remains to tell about it.

Zelazny is capable of beautiful, effective prose, but sometimes, it seems he just waxes purple and hopes his readers can't tell the difference.  This one feels like the latter.

Three stars.

For Your Information: Another Look at Atlantis, by Willy Ley

Mr. Ley, Galaxy's science columnist, is back to form with this quite interesting article on all we know for certain (and it's not much!) about the mythical continent of Atlantis.  Worth a read.

Four stars.

Spare That Tree, by C. C. MacApp


by Dennis M. Smith

Inspector Kruger of the Interstellar Division is back (we first saw him in the January issue of IF).  This time, he's on the trail of a kidnapped tree, prized possession of an Emperor whom the galactic federation wishes to keep on the good side.

David observed that Laumer or Goulart could do a better job with these tales, and they are, indeed, the authors I was reminded of while reading this piece.  It starts out genuinely interesting and funny, but the last half meanders into a whimper.

A high two (or a low three, depending on your mood).

Howling Day, by Jim Harmon

In this epistolary, an agent keeps sending a spec script to the wrong kinds of publishing houses.  They all appreciate the quality of the work, but it's not quite right for what they put out.  Which makes sense–turns out it's not a spec script at all…

I found this one a bit tedious and old-fashioned.  Two stars.

The Adults, by Larry Niven


by Virgil Finlay

From the center of the galaxy comes Phthsspok, a super-intelligent, highly determined alien looking for a long lost colony.  He has reason to believe it is Earth…or was, hundreds of thousands of years ago.  Phthsspok is a Protector, with armored hide and hyper-reflexes.  Utterly beyond human capabilities.

Except, when Phthsspok runs across and kidnaps Jack Brennan, a Belter in his middle-40s, the connection between Protectors and humanity turns out to be closer than anyone expected.

Set in the same time and setting as World of Ptavvs, and featuring Lucas Garner and Lit Schaeffer from that book, The Adults is a fascinating read.  And it offers the compelling question: would you trade your sex and your outward humanity at age 45 for the privilege of immortality and extreme intellect?

Forty-four year olds in the audience, are you reading?

Four stars.

Alien's Bequest, by Charles V. De Vet

Wrapping things up, we have a new twist on The Puppet Masters.  It's mildly intriguing, and I am always happy to see De Vet's name, but ultimately, the story doesn't quite go anywhere.

Three stars.

Return to Reality

What a nice weekend that was!  First centuries past, then centuries to come.  I'm not sure I'm ready to face Vietnam, another summer of protests, or a second season of The Invaders.

Oh look!  The June issuse of Fantasy and Science Fiction has arrived.  Just in time…



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[February 28, 1967] The Big Stall (March 1967 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

The Big Push

After a year of build-up, air raids, and smaller actions, the United States and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam have opened up the largest offensive of the war.  Operation Junction Central involves some 50,000 troops pouring into the logistical heart of VC-controlled South Vietnam west of Saigon.  Their goal: to find the communist equivalent of the "Pentagon".  It's a classic hammer and anvil style operation, with nearly a thousand paratroopers forming the brunt of the anvil behind enemy lines.  The push is accompanied by the biggest logistical bombing raid we've seen in weeks.

Whether this colossal effort will bear fruit remains to be seen.  The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army have only seemed to grow despite constant combat.  More and more often, the fights occur on even, conventional terms rather than as furtive guerrila efforts.

But with half a million soldiers "in country", I suppose it was time to do something.  Perhaps the momentum of operations will switch to the allied forces.

Business as Usual

Analog editor John Campbell seems unaware that institutional decay has set in.  And with no great competitors from without, he is unwilling to change a formula for his magazine that has remained for the past two decades.  I suppose that, as long as he sells more than everyone else, he doesn't need to.

On the other hand, I read that Analog's monthly distribution is down from the 200K+ it enjoyed early in the decade.  Maybe the wolves at the door will instigate a sea change.  Or a palace coup…

In any event, until that happen (note the subjunctive mood), we can expect more issues like the one for March 1967.  Dull.  Uninspiring.


by John Schoenherr

The Time-Machined Saga (Part 1 of 3), by Harry Harrison

Harrison once again displays his near interchangibility with Keith Laumer, at least when he writes "funny" stuff (his dramatic prose is a notch above Laumer's, I think).  This serial involves a film company on the verge of bankruptcy.  Salvation appears in the form of a time machine.  Said "vremeatron" will not be used to alter history, purloin lost treasures from the past, or other, potentially lucrative (but old hat) endeavors.  No, instead, the movie house is going to travel back to A.D. 1000 to film the True Story of Leif Erickson…Hollywood style.

Said on-location filming will cut costs dramatically: no need to hire extras, no unions, and best of all, since the time machine can come back to the moment after it departed, no time involved!  (the production company still gets paid for the time it spends in the past, though).  What could go wrong?

I suspect we'll get the answer to that question next installment.

A tepid three stars thus far.  I could take it or leave it.

Radical Center, by Mack Reynolds


by John Schoenherr

In a piece designed for Campbell's reactionary heart, Reynolds writes about a time in the not-too-distant future when the trends of apathy, crime, and downright down-on-Americanism have reached a zenith.  A hack journalist, badly in need of a story, posits an imaginary illuminati bringing this malaise upon us intentionally.

Little does he know how right he is.

I can't help but deplore the sentiment behind and suffused into this piece.  Next, we'll have stories about how long hair is Ruining Society.  On the other hand, I feel Reynolds has something when suggests that unscrupulous forces will utilize apathy of the masses to allow their comparatively small blocs to sway policy.  Also, I really liked the line, regarding a clown of a politician, "He was laughed into office."

So two stars and a wrinkled nose.

Countdown for Surveyor, by Joseph Green

My eyes lit up at the title of this one.  I love pieces on the Space Race, and this inside dope promised to be exciting.

It wasn't.  It's as dull as reciting a checklist, and three times as long.

Two stars.

In the Shadow, by Michael Karageorge


by Kelly Freas

After a short piece (probably by Campbell) about ball lightning and free-floating plasma (interesting so far as it goes), we have the latest story by Michael Karageorge, whoever he is.

The space ship Shikari is exploring a new gravitational source zooming through our solar system.  It emits no light, but it has the mass of a star.  Is it a cold "black dwarf"?  A rogue neutron star?  Or something else entirely?

The characterization in this one can be reduced to a set of 3×5" index cards each with two or three words on them.  Things like "irritable, downtrodden genius".  "Absent-minded professor."  "Weeping woman."  "Comforting woman." 

On the other hand, the science is pretty neat, even if I don't buy it for a minute. 

I didn't hate it.  It's not as good as Karageorge's first story, though.  Three stars.

The Uninvited Guest, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

A shiny ellipsoid appears on a launch pad and starts to take nibbles out of everything: walls, roads, machinery, people.  It appears invulnerable to attack, but it also seems to be of failing vitality.  The problem, it is deduced, is that if the thing dies entirely, it will explode with the power of an atom bomb.

Can the alien visitor be thwarted or succored before time runs out?

For an Anvil story, it's not bad.  Which means a high two or a low three.  I'm feeling charitable today.

The Compleat All-American, by R. C. FitzPatrick


by Kelly Freas

A young man, good at anything he wants to be, is dragooned by his father into playing football.  His remarkable abilities, largely consisting of not getting hurt and performing miracles with the pigskin when under pressure, catch the eye of two government investigators.

After fifteen pages of shaggy dog fluff, we learn that said All-American is invulnerable and unstoppable.  He also, luckily, has no ambition.  Three more shaggy pages of dog fluff follow this revelation.

I guess this is what's under the barrel.  One star.

What's the score?

Half way around the world, forces clash in a titanic struggle between Democracy and Communism.  Or maybe it's pitched fight between a downtrodden people and the venal imperialists and their running dog lackeys.  However you characterize it, Something Big is Happening.

But here on the pages of Campbell's mag, not much of interest is happening at all.  Analog finishes at just 2.3 stars, by far the worst mag of the month.  Above it are Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.6), Fantastic (3.2), New Worlds (3.25), and IF (3.3). 

Things are actually worse than it seems.  Only the last of these mags was really outstanding (Fantastic is mostly reprints, New Worlds was basically an Aldiss novel with a few vignettes for ballast).

Adding insult to injury, just one woman-penned story came out this month, and there were only 25 pieces of fiction in all the magazines, period. 

Something's gotta change soon.  This can't go on forever…



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[January 31, 1967] The Law of Averages (February 1967 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Bump in road

Here, just a few days after human spaceflight's greatest catastophe, it's easy to begin to doubt.  Is this madcap race to the Moon, hanging on a construction leased out to the lowest bidders, all worth it?  The cost in money and lives?  We've lost six astronauts thus far; Elliot, Bassett and See were all killed in training accidents, but their souls are no less valuable than those of Grissom, White, and Chaffee.

Indeed, the Russians have already announced that they've given up.  With the war heating up in Vietnam, with society on Earth not yet Great, should we continue to bother?

The answer, of course, is yes.  Any man's death diminisheth me, as John Donne said, but as large as this tragedy looms in our vision now, it will be the smallest of footnotes compared to humanity's epic trek to the stars, which surely must come.  It is our species' saving grace that we recover from missteps and proceed more vigorously than ever.  And it is out there in the stars that we will find the answers to the riddles of the universe, the exciting frontiers, the possible partners in science and empathy.

Out there

This month's Analog offers a sneak preview of what this far future, when humanity is established in space, will look like..


by Kelly Freas

Pioneer Trip, by Joe Poyer


by Kelly Freas

On the first expedition to Mars, an electrical fire causes one member of a three-man crew to succumb to chemical-induced emphysema.  His condition, fatal if the ship does not turn 'round (though dubious even if it does) jeopardizes the mission.  The commander makes one decision; the stricken crewman another.

I'm not usually a fan of Joe Poyer, who writes as if he gets the same thrill from technical writing as others might from the works sold under the counter and wrapped in brown paper.  Nevertheless, this story was pretty affecting–and all the more poignant in light of last week.  A solid three star effort.

There Is a Crooked Man, by Jack Wodhams


by Kelly Freas

Science fiction usually explores the positive effects of technology.  This mildly droll story deals with how new advances are used for nefarious purposes.  Teleportation, brain transplant, mind-blanking frequencies, a precognition drug–these all lead to a race between criminal elements and the police.

Told in a bunch of very short snippets, it's a surprisingly readable, if not tremendous, tale.

Three stars.

The Returning, by J. B. Mitchel


by Leo Summers

A little spore, the only remaining particle of an alien expedition thousands of years old, is awoken by a flash flood through a desert air force proving ground.  The creature quickly awakens, eager to make contact with the sender of the modulated signals it is receiving.  To its dismay, the alien finds only a weaponized drone, hallmark of a savage society.  But the pacifistic being has other uses for the plane…

If J.B. Mitchel be "John Michel", then he is a veteran, indeed.  He first started writing in the 1930s, and I don't believe I've seen anything from him since I started the Journey.  His skill shows.  His prose is evocative, his descriptions vivid.  And I very much appreciate a story where the "monster from outer space" is basically a good guy, not bent on Earth's conquest.

Four stars.

The Quark Story, by Margaret L. Silbar

The one piece by a woman published in any SF magazine this month is this nonfiction article.  It's quite good. 

Last year, I read a lot of physics books for laymen.  The consensus has been that the menagerie of subatomic particles was reminiscent of the zoo of elements discovered by the late 19th Century.  There must be some underlying simplicity that results in the multiplicity.  For elements, it was electrons, protons, and neutrons.  For those and smaller elementary particles, the answer appears to be still smaller bits called "quarks".

It all makes perfect sense the way Ms. Silbar lays it out, even if editor John Campbell is a doubting Thomas about it.  The only fault to the article is it could have used another page or two to explain some of the trickier concepts (e.g. Pauli Exclusion Principle).

Four stars.

Amazon Planet (Part 3 of 3), by Mack Reynolds


by Kelly Freas

The final chapter of Mack Reynold's latest turns everything on its head.  In the first installment, we followed Guy Thomas, a would-be merchant, to the planet of Amazonia.  Said world is reputed to be utterly dominated by women, and men aren't allowed to escape.  Upon arriving, it was revealed that Thomas is none other than Ronny Bronston, Section G agent extraordinaire.

Part Two involved Bronston meeting up with a domestic masculine resistance movement, "The Sons of Liberty", several attempts on his life, capture and truth-drug doping by the Amazon government, and copious examples of an almost laughable communistic, female-run despotism.  At this point, I had to wonder what the normally sensitive Reynolds was trying to do.  His matriarchy was a paper-thin caricature.

Turns out it was all a big put-on, mostly at the instigation of the daughter of one of the world's leaders.  Amazonia has long since evolved beyond its primitive beginnings and is actually quite a good example of enlightened equality and meritocracy.  The trouble in paradise comes not from within, but without–at the hands of a rogue Section G agent.

Part Three is half adventure story and half political lecture (as opposed to Part One which was all lecture and Part Two, which was mostly adventure).  Nevertheless, Reynolds isn't bad at both, and I do appreciate his both subverting expectations and extrapolating an interesting political experiment. 

Three stars for this segment, and three and a half for the whole, which is greater than the sum of its parts.

Elementary Mistake, by Winston P. Sanders


by Kelly Freas

I really liked the setup on this one: there's no faster than light drive, but there are matter transmitters (a la Poul Anderson's story "Door to Anywhere" in Galaxy).  So ships are sent out at relatavistic speeds to set up teleporters on distant worlds.  The trip takes five or ten or twenty years for outside observers, but the actually crew experience only a matter of months.  And so, humanity spreads.

Only on the world of Guinevere, not only are none of the required minerals available to build the transmitter, but the atmosphere itself has an inebriating effect.  What's a creative crew to do?

It's a reasonable puzzle story, though I have trouble contemplating a world where calcium doesn't exist but strontium does in quantity.  The only thing I took umbrage with was 1) the lack of women on the exploration team, and 2) the explicit implication that the only thing women are good for is servicing men.

Given that this issue has both a great science article by a woman and the conclusion of a serial about a perfectly good planet run by women, this stag story set in the far future is particularly jarring.  But Anderson/Sanders has always had a problem with this, which strikes me as strange given that his wife is herself a science fiction writer.

Anyway, three stars.

Leading the pack

Speaking of averages, Analog, which had hitherto been relatively low in the ranks of magazines for several months suddenly emerges as the best of the lot, clocking in at a decent 3.3 stars.  That's partly because its competition is rather weak.  Only SF Impulse (3.1) finished above water.  All the others scored less than three stars: IF (2.9), Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.6), Worlds of Tomorrow (2.5), Galaxy (2.4), and Amazing (2.2).

Analog also, atypically, featured the most women contributors…since none appeared anywhere else!  Given that Lieutenant Uhura appears front and center on every episode of Star Trek, I think it's time literary SF caught up with its boob tube sibling.

Or we might end up with a much more lasting disaster!



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[December 31, 1966] Barriers to quality (January 1967 Analog)

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[Today is the last day you can sign up for next year's Worldcon if you want to be able to nominate Hugo candidates!  Sign up now!]


by Gideon Marcus

An argument for free trade?

Yesterday, Europe got a bit freer.  The nations of Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom–along with associate member, Finland, the constituents of the Europen Free Trade Association–removed all tarrifs on industrial goods sold between them.  These countries comprise Europe's "Outer Seven", in contrast to the "Inner Six" of the European Economic Community.  With this move, EFTA's economies may get a competitive boost against the traditional European powerhouses (France, West Germany, Benelux, and Italy).

The SF mag Analog is better suited to the EEC than EFTA.  With editor John Campbell at the helm, who personally reads and approves every item chosen from the slush pile, and who has a distinctive style (to the say the least), the magazine has really gotten itself into a rut.  Sometimes it manages to be good, but more often, as with this month, it's deadly dully.  Read on, and you'll see what I mean.

The issue at hand


by Chesley Bonestell

Supernova, by Poul Anderson


by Kelly Freas

David Falkayn, protegé of Nicholas van Rijn, returns in yet another astronomically interesting but utterly dull adventure.  This time, callow human Falkayn, and his trader team comprising the pacifist buddhist saurian, Adzel, the foul-mouthed racoon, Chee Lan, and the computer, Muddlehead, have visited a world about to be blasted by a nearby supernova.  The planet, at about a Year 2000 level of technology, is riven into several regional powers, and a system-wide crime syndicate has nation-like power.

Falkayn is struggling with determining who their team should work with to build a planetary shield when the decision is taken out of his hands: Chee Lan is abducted by the system's equivalent of the mob.  Falkayn's solution to his dilemma is supposed to be clever, but it feels obvious and uninspired.

Two stars.

A Criminal Act, by Harry Harrison


by Kelly Freas

Here's a piece inspired by the same Malthusian nightmare as the author's hit, Make Room, Make room.  A fellow and his wife have had three kids, one more than the law allows.  As a result, a kill-happy citizen is legally allowed to try to bump the dad off.  It's a duel to the death, either result of which will keep the population stable.

Bob Sheckley could have made this work.  Maybe.  In another magazine.

Two stars.

Bring 'Em Back Alive!, by Lyle R. Hamilton

The nonfiction article this month is about wind tunnels, heat shields, and retrorockets.  Not a bad topic, but Hamilton's overly breezy style doesn't quite work.

Three stars.

Amazon Planet (Part 2 of 3), by Mack Reynolds


by Kelly Freas

Last time around, author Reynolds took us back to the world of the United Planets, a loose galactic confederation of humans in which each planet is allowed whatever government, culture, demographics it likes.  This time, the planet is Amazonia, ruled by women and with the cultural iconography of the famed Greek warrior women.

Guy Thomas was a mild-mannered trade entrepreneur hoping to stoke an iridium/columbum trade between Amazonia and Avalon.  But at the end of the last installment, we discovered he was actually a secret agent.  In Part 2, we find out he's a UP spy, sent when a man from Amazonia made an unprecedented escape from the planet and pleaded for refugee status.  It seems there's a widespread masculine revolutionary movement.

Unfortunately for Thomas, he is quickly captured by the technologically superior Amazons and made to reveal his true identity: he is none other than Ronny Bronston, part of the mysterious Section G, whose explicit purpose is to topple regressive governments–in flagrant violation of the Federation's constitution.  Under truth drugs, Bronston spills the beans.  But before he can give further info, he is rescued by a member of his original escort party, a female soldier who has taken a shine to him.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire!

My nephew continues to rave about this series, whereas I find it mostly an excuse to discuss political theory interspersed with some boilerplate action sequences (which, to be fair, Reynolds has made a good career of).

Barely three stars and sinking.

The Old Shill Game, by H. B. Fyfe


by Kelly Freas

A robovendor is programmed to have an edge on his daily rounds at the concourse.  With the aid of a team of robotic shills, it attracts the attentions of human commuters and makes a killing.  Thus ensues a war between the robovendor's programming team and that of their competitors, each iteration making the android vending machine a bit smarter.

The road to Mike from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is paved with capitalism.

There's a good idea here, but the execution is a bit muddled and the whole thing just not very satisfying.  Two stars.

The Last Command, by Keith Laumer


by Kelly Freas

From one sapient robot to another: Keith Laumer returns with his answer to Saberhagen's Berserker series, only Laumer's Bolos are tanks rather than ships, and they apparently used to work for people rather than against them.

In this installment, a long-dead machine comes to life deep underground, nearly a century after its last conflict.  Certain that it has been imprisoned by the enemy, it roars to life, slowly making its way toward a city that has sprouted since its deactivation.  An old veteran of the old battle thinks he has the key to stopping this indestructible weapon of war.

It's a bit less polished than previous entries in the series, but I found the end touching.

Three stars.

Doing the math

Running the Star-o-vac, I find Analog scored just 2.5 stars–the worst of the month!  But this has been kind of a lousy month in general, so it's not certain that open trade is the answer.  After all, the British mags, New Worlds (3.3), and Science Fantasy (2.9), are rumored to be on the edge of extinction.  Fantastic (2.6) wasn't good this month, even with decades of reprints available.  IF (2.8) was thoroughly mediocre.  And while I liked Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.2), no one else seems to be enjoying the new serial.

On the other hand, there was exactly one story by a woman this month, and it was one of the best ones.  Maybe, instead of free trade between the current magazine contributors, we need a campaign to tap the as yet fallow resource: women writers.

Crazy, I know, but it's a thought.

[Today is the last day you can sign up for next year's Worldcon if you want to be able to nominate Hugo candidates!  Sign up now!]



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[November 12, 1966] A Family Tradition (December 1966 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Identical cousins

My brother Louis and I diverge quite a lot.  He's an observant Jew, I'm an atheist.  He served in World War 2 (drafted into the Navy), I did not.  He's an affluent pawnbroker.  I'm a writer of questionable success.

But where we differ the most is the subjects of our avocational devotion.  Lou loves opera.  Specifically operas written in 1812 between October and November.  I kid, but his musical tastes are really quite narrow; his radio knob never turns from the FM classical stations.  I am far more catholic in my interests, enjoying everything from classical, to the swing of my teen years, to the brand new sounds.

Also, Lou hates science fiction.

Interestingly, his son David (thus, my nephew), loves SF as much as I do.  Must be this newfangled "generation gap" we're starting to hear about. 

For the last 15 years or so, he and I have swapped recommendations, and he's even lent me some of his magazines.  Our tastes are not identical.  He recently canceled his subscription to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and he is a big fan of Analog.  But we have some strong overlap, particularly where it comes to Galaxy.  In fact, that picture is him in his San Pedro home enjoying this month's issue.

I am thankful that my own daughter, David's first cousin, is also a devoted science fiction fan.  I'd hate to have to throw her out of the house before her eighteenth birthday.

Kidding, again!  I'd surely wait for her to be of age before disowning her.

But, that's not anything we have to worry about, for we are all one big happy family of fen, and we all dug the December 1966 Galaxy — read on and see why!


by Paul E. Wenzel

The issue at hand


by Virgil Finlay

Door to Anywhere, by Poul Anderson

Humanity has developed teleportation technology, and Mars has become a hub for galactic exploration.  But a recent jaunt to the edge of the known universe caused the destruction of several portals and the loss of a senator's brother-in-law.  Now the politician has arrived on the Red Planet to investigate.

When Poul Anderson sets his mind to it, he can write.  Not only is this an effective story, with the mystery disclosed one layer at a time, but it is technically interesting.  It's the first depiction of teleportation I've read that takes relative velocities into consideration.  A trip to a nearby star could require hops to a dozen intermediaries across the galaxy, or multiple galaxies, to ensure the difference in relative momenta is not too great.  I also appreciated the political discussion over the virtues and peril of building a teleporter too close to the Earth.

Where the story falters to some degree is its characterization: Anderson is still in the Kowalski, Yamamoto, Singh habit of defining players by their nationality — and women are strangely absent.  Also, the Hoylean/Hubblean fusion of cosmological theories seems like a lot of gobbledegook.

Nevertheless, it's a riveting read.  Definitely four stars.

Children in Hiding, by John Brunner

I'm told there are two John Brunners.  One is the brilliant Englishman who produced Listen…the Stars! and The Whole Man, both Star-winners and Hugo nominees.  The other is the American who produces schlock.

The latter wrote Children in Hiding.  The premise: the children on a colony world are born healthy but never develop mental capacities beyond that of infants.  A terran troubleshooter is brought in to fix the problem.  He does, but not to the benefit of the colony.

There's a lot of angry dialogue and excessive use of exclamation points, and the end is just stupid.  I'll give the piece two stars because both Brunners write coherently, but all in all, it's a disappointing story.

The Modern Penitentiary, by Hayden Howard


by Jack Gaughan

Ah, and now we have another story of the Esks, a race of Eskimo/alien hybrids that spawn children every month.  Children that mature in five years.  Throughout the series, we've seen the Esks explode in population, exhausting their environment and crowding out the real Eskimos.  In this, they are facilitated by the do-gooder Canadians, who refuse to see the Esks for the meance they are.  Instead, they give the Esks food, relocate them to other areas, etc.

Only one man, Dr. West (who always conjures up the Lovecraft character), knows the truth.  When no one listened to his Cassandra cry, he tried to sterilize them with a disease (last story).  The plan backfired, killing 23 actual Eskimos.  For this, he was imprisoned in the nicest cell ever, complete with a therapeutic nurse-lover.  Modern Penitentiary details West's attempts to escape, as well as his rather difficult-to-read sexual adventures.

These installments stand less and less on their own, and they become more implausible every time.  Thankfully, we've only one left. 

Two stars.

For Your Information: The Sound of the Meteors, by Willy Ley

I really dug this article, all about whether or not one can hear a meteor.  It was timely, too, as I read it right before our trip out to the desert to stargaze last weekend.

Four stars (and enjoy these pictures of Borrego Springs!)

At the Bottom of a Hole, by Larry Niven


by Hector Castellon

The latest Niven story is another set on Mars, a locale we've visited in Eye of the Octopus and How the Heroes Die.  Hole takes place a good seventy years after the last story.  A smuggler on the run from Belter cops tries to take refuge on Mars at the old base.  He finds the crew long dead, murdered when someone, or several someones, slashed their bubble.  Was it Martians?

The story also features the return of Luke Garner and Lit Schaeffer from World of Ptavvs, tying Mars to that universe.  Along with this month's A Relic of the Empire, which ties Ptavvs in with The Warriors (featuring the Kzinti) and the Beowulf Schaeffer stories set several centuries hence, it appears Niven has knit together six hundred years of future history to play in.  Fun stuff!

Four stars.

Decoy System, by Robin Scott

This is a Mack Reynoldsy thriller featuring an American agent's meeting with his Soviet counterpart.  Some third party has been sabotaging both the US and USSR's early warning systems so that they will indicate massive nuclear strikes.  Aliens are determined to be the culprit.  An era of peace and cooperation ensues.

Of course, it was all a Yankee plot.  I think I'd have liked this story if I hadn't read the premise before (and seen it as recently as The Architects of Fear).  It feels a lot like an Analog story.  Also, it's a lot of buildup for an ending that is obvious early on.

Two stars.

The Palace of Love (Part 2 of 3), by Jack Vance


by Gray Morrow

Last time, if you'll recall, I hadn't been overly enamored with Jack Vance's latest novel, a direct sequel to The Star King.  Kirth Gersen, a rich and supertalented assassin, is on the hunt for Viole Falushe, one of the "Demon Kings" of crime who murdered his parents.  The prior installment took us to Earth, where Gersen, disguised as a reporter (working for a paper he has purchased), investigates Falushe's childhood home.  Back then, he was known as Vogel Filschner.  His best friend and inspiration, before he went into kidnapping and slaving, was the poet, Garnath. 

It is the houseboat-dwelling, nigh-incomprehensible Garnath, who provides Gersen his opportunity to meet and kill Falushe.  Along the way, he becomes increasingly entangled with Garnath's ward, "Zan Zu of Eridu", who is an exact likeness of Falushe's childhood infatuation. 

The first two thirds, in which Gersen plays a cat and mouse game with Falushe, is riveting.  The final section, which sees Falushe invite Gershen to his private sanctum ("The Palace of Love") in the far reaches of space, is heavy on description but light on interest. 

Still, I'd give this section four stars.  It'll be up to the last installment to determine if the whole affair ends up on the three or four star side of the ledger.

Primary Education of the Camiroi, by R. A. Lafferty

Last up, an obtuse piece on the differences in educational policy and success between two planets.  It's supposed to be whimsical (when isn't the word applied to Lafferty?), but it's mostly tired.

Two stars.

Summing up

Finishing up at 3.1 stars, I'd say Fred Pohl has done his job to keep Galaxy on our subscription lists for another year at least.  And I do mean our — you have to count me in, too!

[Speaking of stories you and your family will enjoy, Sirena, the second book in The Kitra Saga, is out!  Fun for adults, young and old.

Buy a copy…you'll be supporting me and getting a great read at the same time!]



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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 8, 1966] The Bare Hardly-Essentials (October 1966 Amazing)

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by John Boston

Last issue, the good news was that the customary editorial was dropped.  In this October Amazing, there’s more good news—the self-serving letter column is gone too.  Since there are only four items of fiction here, it makes for a scanty contents page.  That is not necessarily bad.


by Frank R. Paul

The cover is by Frank R. Paul, captioned Martian Spaceships Invade New York, reprinted from the back cover of the May 1941 Amazing.  Like last issue’s cover by James B. Settles, it is significantly cropped from the original.  The image also bears a very superficial similarity to last issue’s cover.  The difference between Paul and Settles, though, calls to mind Mark Twain’s remark about the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug.  Even in his waning days, Paul did archaic style with class. 

Ensign Flandry, by Poul Anderson

The main reason for the sparse contents page is the very long (100 pages) feature item, Poul Anderson’s Ensign Flandry.  Anderson began his series about Flandry, intelligence agent of the Terran Empire, desultorily, producing four shorter stories from 1951 to 1958.  Then there was a spasm of three novellas for Fantastic and Amazing in 1959 and 1960, all of which were transformed almost instantly into Ace Doubles.  Last year, however, most of the Flandry canon was compiled into hardcover collections from Chilton, Flandry of Terra and Agent of the Terran Empire.

Now Flandry is back with this novel, which suggests that Anderson intends to spin him into a character with the raffishness of James Bond and the career longevity of Horatio Hornblower, providing a framework and formula for potboilers as far as the eye can see.  That’s a fine plan for the author but not so good for the reader looking for something more than product.


by Gray Morrow

So: Ensign Flandry, age 19, is dispatched to Starkad, a remote planet inhabited by a seafaring species, the Tigery, and a sea-dwelling species, the Seatrolls, who are fighting a sort of proxy war, backed by the Terran Empire and Merseia respectively, with overtones (emphasis on the “overt”) of the Cold War and Vietnam. 

Flandry is there with his wise mentor, and they are trying to neutralize the soft-on-Merseia peacenik who is nominally on their side.  There is a lot of intrigue and double-dealing and opportunity for Flandry to be in danger and distinguish himself and become the bigger shot we’ve seen in the earlier stories.  Anderson being the professional he is, there’s a secret and a revelation at the end that trumps everything else that’s been going on, distinguishing the work from the wholly formulaic.  But still—it’s mostly formulaic, maybe decent airport reading if your plane is delayed.  Two stars.

The Space Witch, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

The Space Witch, by Walter M. Miller, Jr., from the November 1951 Amazing, is a piece of work, in the more extreme sense of that phrase.  Protagonist Kenneth Johnson has invited his ex-wife Marcia and her new milquetoast husband for a stay at his lake cottage.  His feelings are still raw, and Marcia is a self-centered and manipulative sexpot.  The overwrought psychodrama is interrupted by a mysterious dark cloud which generates an intense local storm, causing Ken and Marcia to take refuge in his boat as a gleaming metallic sphere appears and Marcia decompensates (“Own me like a piece of furniture, Kennie.  That’s what I want to be.”). 


by Edward Valigursky

The boat gets sucked out into the lake, Marcia drowns, Ken gets pulled into the sphere, and Marcia reappears, except it’s not really Marcia.  “We found it necessary to adopt her image, because she was the only thinkhuman [sic] available for detailed biosimulation.” Non-Marcia explains that she is a fugitive from her race and has been hiding on the Moon for 30 years watching Earth, but now her kin-aliens have tracked her down and are about to destroy the area for 150 miles around.  There ensues a discussion of options for preserving themselves and half of New England, which turns into more and higher-volume psychodrama and back-stabbing, and an ending that can only be described as twisted.  Miller’s first story, Secret of the Death Dome, was a bit crazy.  This one is a lot crazy, and Miller is getting better at crazy.  Three stars.

Mr. Dimmitt Seeks Redress, by Miles J. Breuer

Miles J. Breuer’s Mr. Dimmitt Seeks Redress (from the August 1936 Amazing) is about as tiresome as its title.  Mr. Dimmitt is a mild-mannered shrimp of a scientist.  His wife and children have been killed in a car accident caused by the reckless driving of the rich bully Graw.  Back in the lab, Dimmitt is accidentally exposed to an experimental substance that drastically slows time for him.  Initially he is frightened.  “He had read of persons who had tried a dose of cannabis indicia [sic] having terrifying experiences from the effects of the drug.  Was the effect of this thing going to be permanent?” It isn’t, but he doses himself again, goes out for a walk, sees Graw speeding (crawling, to Dimmitt) towards his house, and grabs Graw’s young son who is playing in the yard and puts him in the path of the car, too close to stop.  The gimmicky story has a gimmicky ending.  Two stars.

Eddie for Short, by Wallace West

Wallace West, he of the appalling The Last Man, seems to have learned some things in the course of two decades.  In Eddie for Short (from the December 1953-January 1954 issue), World War III seems to have killed everybody except Lita, a lounge singer in Miami, whose husband has just died of radiation poisoning at his post in the radio station that is broadcasting her, leaving everything going.  So, having not much else to do, she keeps on singing every night.


by Ernie Barth

Then, one night . . . someone is following her.  It’s Verna, a Negro woman from Key West, who speaks in a thick stereotypical accent, and who has heard Lita on the radio and trekked to Miami in search of her.  She’s going to take care of Lita, which is a good thing, since Lita turns out to be pregnant.  So Verna takes care of the household chores while Lita “literally hurl[s] herself” at the City Library and then at the local university, educating herself, since now it seems the world is not going to end (she’s convinced herself she’s carrying twins of opposite sex). 

It’s easy to make fun of this story’s racial stereotypes, but hey, it’s not bad for 1953, and West means well.  Also he’s a lot better writer than he was in 1929, and he’s still at it (he hit Analog and Magazine of Horror last year).  So, some positive reinforcement: three stars.

Summing Up

For a change, the reprinted material (some of it) has more going for it than the new material, and neither is too awful.  It’s a relief.

(And don't forget to tune in tonight at 8:30 PM (Pacific AND Eastern — two showings) for the world television premier of Star Trek!)

Come join us!

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