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[June 30, 1966] Not Reading You (July 1966 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Common meaning

Every so often, a science fiction magazine editor has enough of a backlog to run a "themed" issue.  For instance, there was the time Fred Pohl bunged together an issue of IF with stories all by someone named Smith.  This time around, Analog editor John Campbell has accumulated a supply of tales on the subject of communication.

The problem with themed issues, of course, is that quality is often secondary to topic.  But not always.  Let's see how the July 1966 Analog fares before we make a hasty conclusion!

Five by Five (plus two)


by John Schoenherr

The Message, by Piers Anthony and Frances Hall


by John Schoenherr

Mysterious Thargans have settled amidst the tiny human colony on Tau Ceti.  Though not overly aggressive, they aren't terribly congenial either.  But they are very inquisitive, about our technology, our physical capabilities, and our mental talents.  And their spaceship has a lot of cargo space — enough to fit a thousand slaves, for instance…

Rivera, a linguist who speaks the alien tongue, is tapped to assess the danger posed by the Thargans.  And when disaster inevitably strikes, he must recapitulate an era early in his life, when he managed to foil four would-be muggers not by force, but by the right verbal approach.

An interesting tale by a pair of newish writers, though a bit choppy and with flattish characters. 

Three stars.

The Signals, by Francis Cartier


by Kelly Freas

For the last half-decade, astronomers have been training their radio telescopes upon the stars, hoping to eavesdrop on transmissions from an intelligent alien race.  So-called Project Ozma hasn't found anything yet, and Cartier's tale explains why.  It's not that aliens aren't trying, it's just that we don't know how to listen.  Or more accurately, the fundamental theory of communication is too different between the species for intelligible contact.

Something of a throwaway piece, it is nevertheless cute and probably not far from the truth.  Three stars.

An Ounce of Dissension, by Martin Loran


by Kelly Freas

Quist of the interstellar Library corps is visiting the planet Rayer after a long trip through space.  Upon landing, the brutalist police troops burn his entire stock of books.  The planet is ripe for a revolution, but it needs a catalyst to do so.  Luckily, in Quist's cargo is a crate-sized book printer with a very large memory core…

Essentially a smug Fahrenheit 451, I can see why this piece appealed to Campbell.  But it takes too long to get where it's going, and it utilizes enough straw men to staff all the fields of Iowa.

Two stars.

Meaning Theory, by Dwight Wayne Batteau

This nonfiction piece is all about how the communication of information destroys meaning, and the imparting of meaning destroys information…or something like that.  Frankly, I couldn't make heads or tales of it.  The pictures are cute, the graphs seem useful, the text is in English.  Perhaps someone smarter than me will glean something from it.

Or maybe not.  One star for this failure to communicate.

The Ancient Gods (Part 2 of 2), by Poul Anderson


by John Schoenherr

Last issue, the crew of the starship Meteor had space-jumped 200 million light years from Earth to a feeble red dwarf out in intergalactic space.  They had hoped to establish trade relations with the advanced "yonderfolk" of the system.  Instead, they transitioned into real space too close to the next planet closer to the sun and crash landed.  Only six were left alive.

Hugh Valland, oldest of the more-or-less immortal group of spacers, hatched a plan to salvage a lifeboat so as to make the interplanetary trek to the yonderfolk planet.  But such a massive undertaking would require more than the half dozen remaining crew.  Luckily, intelligent (if primitive) beings exist on the swampy world.  Contact was made with the Azkashi, and it looked as if the plan might work.  As the first half came to a close, it seemed we might be getting a Flight of the Phoenix story. 

Instead, the second half begins with Hugh taken prisoner by the Askashi while the related but more advanced Gianyi abscond with the captain and the mentally unstable Yo Rorn.  It is quickly determined that the Gianyi are in the telepathic thrall of the Ai Chun, a race perhaps a billion years old.  They have stagnated to almost fossilization, and no amount of parley can dissaude them from their goal to strip the downed spaceship for its valuable metal and to work the humans as slaves until they die.  The captain escapes, and with Valland (who is freed by the Azkashi), plans a battle for their liberty.

Much of this installment is given to the war between the human-led Azkashi and the Ai Chun-controlled Gianyi.  It is effectively told, but the outcome is never in doubt, and I found myself less enamored with this wide swath of the text.  Long story short, there are happy endings and Hugh is ultimately reunited with his long lost love (of whom much is sung but little is known).

What I liked: Poul Anderson is a bard, and his stories are lyric performances.  His wistful, archaic prose is sometimes ill suited to its subject, but it works here.  The characters are nicely drawn and compelling.  The unique setting and the nifty aliens are all cutting edge science.  I appreciated the frank polygamy practiced by the captain and his genuine puzzlement with Valland's monogamy.  There's also the suggestion that strict heterosexuality is not observed in the far future.

What I was less delighted with: I felt like Anderson marked a lot of time with the war sequences, which did not bring much new to the table.  The acute lack of women, both on the crew of the Meteor and among the aliens (they exist in the background to do domestic chores, just like Earth females) marked another missed opportunity.  I also suspect that the Ai Chun and Gianyi are supposed to be metaphors for China — grand but hidebound.  Certainly Anderson draws a stated parallel between the Azkashi and the American Indians (for whom the author has an obvious fondness; viz. his tale in Orbit).  The racial comparisons made me slightly uncomfortable, though it's a minor thing and I could be wrong.

Finally, the revelation of Mary O' Meary's current condition in the story's epilogue is a bit trite, and quite unbelievable.  Here's the thing (and don't read on until you've either read the end or in the event you don't mind me giving away the gimmick): Mary has been dead for thousands of years, having passed away just before the advent of immortality.  She died at the age of nineteen.  This means that the immortal romance between she and Hugh could have lasted a few years at the most.

Now look, I love my wife more than anything.  If she passes before me, I may well stay single for the rest of my life.  But she and I have been together almost 30 years.  I balk at the idea that a teenage fling could possibly compel me to asceticism for thousands of years.  At that point, it's less about love and more a case of emotional masturbation.

Anyway, it's a solid three and a half stars.  I can imagine some ticking it up to a full four stars and others finding it all a bit tedious and giving it just three.

Survivor, by Mack Reynolds


by Kelly Freas

The threat of nuclear war looms, raising tensions to the breaking point.  When the klaxons go off, signalling the end of the world, millions flee the cities to find refuge, fighting over the quickly dwindling resources. 

But have the bombs actually fallen, or is it all a miscommunication? 

The premise to Survivor is pretty darned silly — that everyone will lose their collective minds out of fear.  I do believe that, in the case of a false alarm, there'd be panic and rioting and looting and mass disruption.  But not to the point that society completely breaks down such that both sides aren't even able to wage the war that frightened everyone in the first place!

Two stars.

The Missile Smasher, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

Lastly, Anvil offers up a predictably slight tale of a series of rocket launch mishaps, the discovery of the focused light projector that is causing it, and the removal of said projector by a government troubleshooter.

I think it's meant to be funny or something.  It's not very good.

Two stars.

Wrong number

I'm afraid a common theme did little to elevate the current issue.  Indeed, in many cases, background noise might have been preferable to signal.  All told, the July Analog clocks in at a dismal 2.3 stars, placing it at the bottom of the heap.  The top is dominated by paperback-format periodicals: New Writings #8 (3.9), Fantastic (3.4), and Orbit #1 (3.4)

The middle of the pack is composed of the usual suspects: Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.1), Impulse (3.1), New Worlds (2.8) and If (2.7).

Women were responsible for a whopping 14% of this month's output of new fiction (mostly thanks to Orbit, which featured five female authors).  If you took all the really good stuff published this month, you could comfortably fill two magazines.  Or just buy New Writings and Orbit!

So, whither Analog?  Will there be another theme next month, one that will drag the magazine ever closer to the dreaded 2-star rating?  Will it plunge even without a common thread?  Or will we get a sudden reversal, the kind we've seen several times over the past few years?

Stay tuned!

Speaking of tuning, tune in to KGJ, our radio station!  Our theme is quality and diversity!




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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 14, 1966] Aliens, Housewives and Overpopulation: Orbit 1, edited by Damon Knight

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by Cora Buhlert

Whale Hunt on the Rhine

Moby Dick on the Rhine
Moby Dick swims past the Duisburg copper smelter.

All of West Germany is currently kept on tenterhooks by Moby Dick. No, I'm not talking about the classic novel by Herman Melville, but about our very own re-enactment thereof on the river Rhine.

On May 18, the skipper of a Rhine barge reported having seen "a white monster" in the polluted waters of the Rhine near Duisburg. The river police initially assumed that the man was drunk, but other sightings were reported as well. The unfortunately named Dr. Wolfgang Gewalt (his surname literally means "violence"), director of the Duisburg Zoo, identified the creature as a beluga whale, which had somehow managed to swim 450 kilometres upstream.

Hunting Moby Dick
Dr. Gewalt and his crew hunt Moby Dick with stun guns and bow and arrow.

Discovering his inner Captain Ahab, Dr. Gewalt decided to capture the white whale and have it transported to his brand-new dolphinarium. However, he was about as successful as his literary counterpart and so Moby Dick, as the whale was nicknamed by the locals, repeatedly eluded the traps laid for him, with the aid of some people who believe that the whale should be free back to swim the ocean and not imprisoned in a too small basin.

Diving bell vessel Carl Straat
The specialist diving bell vessel "Carl Straat" with a tugboat on the Rhine. The "Carl Straat" was built in 1963. My Dad designed the handling gear for the diving bell.

Eluding his would-be captors, Moby Dick even swam as far upstream as the West German capital of Bonn, where he interrupted a parliamentary press conference, most likely to protest the treatment he had suffered at the hands of the West German police as well as the heavy pollution of the Rhine, which turned the pristine white skin of a whale a splotchy grey. However, there is a happy ending, because Moby turned around and made it back to the North Sea unharmed.

Moby Dick in Bonn cartoon
A cartoonist's impression of Moby Dick interrupting the parliamentary press conference, much to the chagrin of Chancellor Ludwig Ehrhard.

All-new Anthology, All-new Stories:

Moby's adventures are enough to keep the entire country at the edge of their seats. But nonetheless, I still found the time to read the new science fiction anthology Orbit 1, edited by Damon Knight, which I picked up from the trusty spinner rack at my local import bookstore. The blurb on the backcover promised nine brand-new stories by the best science fiction authors working today, so how could I resist?

Orbit 1, edited by Damon Knight

"Staras Flonderans" by Kate Wilhelm

Kate Wilhelm is not only one of the best up and coming science fiction authors, she also happens to be married to Orbit editor Damon Knight. That said, Knight wasn't playing favourites here, because Kate Wilhelm's contribution to the anthology is a genuinely good story.

A scout craft with a three person crew, two humans and the alien Staeen, approaches a derelict starship. The lifeboats are gone and the ship was abandoned by her crew in a hurry. However, our three brave explorers have no idea why, since the ship was in perfect working order. Nor is this the first time something like this has happened; other ships have been found abandoned as well.

Kate Wilhelm explores the mystery of the abandoned starship not through the eyes of the two human crewmen, but of the alien Staeen, who is described as looking like an inverted tulip at one point. Staeen is a truly alien creature, who can survive on land, underwater, in deep space and in high radiation environments. He is an empath, several millennia old and humans are ridiculously short-lived to him. In fact, Staeen's people, the Chlaesan, refer to humans as "Flonderans", which means "children" in their language. Staeen's human crewmates, two big, burly spaceman that would be at home in any issue of Analog, clearly have no idea how their comrade views them.

Staeen uses his empathic abilities and realises that the crew abandoned the ship in a fit of irrational panic. But whatever caused that blind panic is still out there, as our three brave explorers are about to find out…

At its heart, this story is a neat mystery in space that would have been at home in Planet Stories or Thrilling Wonder Stories twenty years ago. What sets it apart is Staeen's uniquely alien view of the world as well as Kate Wilhelm's writing skills.

Four stars.

"The Secret Place" by Richard McKenna

I wasn't familiar with the work of Richard McKenna, who passed away two years ago at the way too early age of fifty-one. So "The Secret Place", which was found among his papers after his death, is my first exposure to his work.

First-person narrator Duard Campbell recounts his strange wartime adventures. As a young geology student, Campbell was part of a team that was supposed to track down a uranium mine in the Oregon desert. For in 1931, a boy named Owen Price was found dead with claw marks on his back as well as some gold ore and a piece of uranium oxide in his pocket. When uranium suddenly becomes vitally important with the onset of WWII, the US Army sends a team to locate the source of the uranium oxide. The chief geologist Dr. Lewis believes that this venture is futile, because the area in question is a volcanic high plateau, where uranium does not naturally occur.

When the team departs, only Campbell is left behind. He wants to prove Dr. Lewis wrong and find the uranium vein. So he hires Owen's sister Helen, who can see things no one else can see, as his secretary to pry the secret of the uranium mine out of her. But the game Campbell plays with Helen quickly becomes dangerous for them both.

I enjoyed the vivid descriptions of the Oregon countryside, though I have no idea how accurate they are. The ending is a bit abrupt, though, and the central mystery is not really resolved, probably because McKenna died before he could finish the story.

Three stars.

"How Beautiful With Banners" by James Blish

James Blish needs no introduction to the readers of the Journey.

Dr. Ulla Hillstrøm is a scientist who runs into problems when her living spacesuit merges with a native creature, described as a floating cloak, during a research mission of the Saturn moon of Titan.

Dr. Hillstrøm realises that the cloak is trying to mate with her spacesuit. She notes a second cloak creature and deduces that it might be jealous, so she tries to use the second creature to separate the cloak creature from her spacesuit. However, she is only partly successful, because the separation destroys the spacesuit. The last thing Dr. Ulla Hillstrøm sees before she freezes to death is the mating dance of the cloak creatures.

Beautifully written, but inconsequential. The stereotype of the icy female scientist who never knew love and companionship is overused. Science fiction writers, please go and meet some actual women scientists.

Two stars

"The Disinherited" by Poul Anderson

Poul Anderson is another author who needs no introduction.

The government of an overpopulated future Earth ends the galactic exploration program and recalls scientific personnel and spaceship crews. Understandably, no one is very happy about this.

"The Disinherited" follows two characters. Jacob Kahn is a starship captain and has been for a very long time due to the time dilation effect of travelling at lightspeed. Kahn is also an Israeli Jew, something which should not be unusual, considering how many science fiction writers are Jewish, but which sadly still is. Kahn's first mate is Native American, his chief engineer is from India, the assistant chief engineer from Africa. Anderson presents us a still all too rare future populated by people other than white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, though most of them are still male.

David Thraikill is a scientist whose family has been living on the planet Mithras for three generations now and who has never been to Earth. As a result, Thraikill and the rest of the scientists do not want to leave Mithras, because this is their home now. Kahn tries to persuade them to leave by explaining that the human inhabitants of Mithras cannot maintain a high level of technology in the long run and that there will also be conflicts with the native population of Mithras, a race of peaceful kangaroo-like beings. Because as history shows, this is what always happens when one group of humans comes in contact with another group and colonises their homeland…

Considering how prolific Poul Anderson, it's no surprise that his works can be hit and miss. "The Disinherited" definitely falls on the "hit" side and offers a look at the dark side of colonialism, something our genre rarely explores.

Five stars

"The Loolies Are Here" by Allison Rice

Allison Rice is the only unfamiliar name in Orbit 1. However, the biographic note explains that Allison Rice is a joint penname used by Jane Rice, whose stories have been brightening up the pages of Unknown, Astounding and F&SF for more than twenty years now, and Ruth Allison, a mother of five and new writer.

The first person narrator – we later learn that she shares the name the authors have chosen to publish this story under – is a harried housewife and mother of four, who is dealing with a torrent of bad luck, appliances breaking down, children and pets misbehaving, etc… One day, she finds tiny footprints on the floor and wonders whether the loolies – mischievous goblins whom her sons blame for their own misbehaviour – are not real after all. Eventually, the narrator sees a bonafide loolie in the bathroom during a massive storm. But even though the loolie causes chaos, he does help the narrator get even with her useless husband.

"The Loolies Are Here" is very much a humour piece and the voice of the harried housewife and mother certainly rings true. In many ways, this story reminded me of Shirley Jackson's collection of semi-autobiographical short stories Life Among the Savages. It's a good story, but as a humorous domestic fantasy story, it doesn't really fit into what is otherwise a science fiction collection.

Four stars

Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson

"Kangaroo Court" by Virginia Kidd

Virginia Kidd is a well known name in genre circles as a member of the Futurians, poet, magazine publisher, literary agent, former roommate of Judith Merril and former wife of James Blish. Now she can also add short fiction writer to her resume.

A future Earth, where war is a thing of the past and space travel has been outlawed, receives strange messages from outer space, followed by the landing of a spaceship. A military officer named Tulliver Harms puts himself in charge of dealing with the alien Leloc, whom he is convinced must be dangerous – after all, they're aliens. Harms plans to annihilate the Leloc.

The only potential obstacle to this plan is the newly appointed liaison officer Wystan Godwin, who had no idea what is going on due to having spent the past few months on a retreat in monastery in Tibet. Harms does his best to keep Godwin busy and in the dark, but eventually Wystan gets to parley with the kangaroo-like Leloc, who are not just very alien, but who also believe that Earth is their long lost colony. Wystan has to muster all his diplomatic skills to avoid genocide or all-out war.

"Kangaroo Court" is an amusing story about how diplomacy rather than violence wins the day, featuring some truly alien aliens. However, it also goes on far too long and particularly the expositional sections in the middle about kangaroos, marsupials and the impossible nature of the Leloc spacedrive made my eyes glaze over like the gizmospeak in a bad Analog story.

Three stars

"Splice of Life" by Sonya Dorman

Sonya Dorman burst onto the scene a few years ago and has since established herself as one of our most exciting new writers.

"Splice of Life" opens with a young woman – she's only ever addressed as Miss D. – coming to after a car accident, just in time for a doctor to stick a hypodermic into her eyeball. The eye was injured in the accident and Miss D. worries that she may lose it. The doctors and nurses reassure her, but both Miss D. and the reader realise that something is not quite right in this hospital.

A neat tale of medical horror with a ending that packs a punch.

Four stars

"5 Eggs" by Thomas M. Disch

Thomas M. Disch is another newish author, who was one of Cele Goldsmith-Lalli's discoveries back when she was editing Fantastic and Amazing.

The unnamed writer protagonist of "5 Eggs" has been left by his lover Nyctimene on the eve of their engagement party. Gradually, we learn that Nyctimene was not quite human, but some kind of bird alien, as the reference to the figure from Greek mythology suggests. However, Nyctimene has left something behind: a basket of eggs. But leaving eggs lying around the house can be quite dangerous.

This story is well written, but there isn't much of a plot and the final twist is not as shocking as Disch probably thinks it is. The recipe for Caesar salad sounds good, though.

Two stars

Pure Food-Oil ad
If you're planning on making Thomas M. Disch's recipe for Caesar salad, mind the eggs.

"The Deeps" by Keith Roberts

British writer and artist Keith Roberts has been gracing the covers and pages of Science Fantasy and New Writings in SF for several years now, though this is his first US publication, as far as I know.

"The Deeps" starts with the by now familiar dystopian vision of an overpopulated Earth (for another recent take on this theme see Make Room, Make Room! by Harry Harrison, reviewed here by our own Jason Sacks). This time around, the ingenious solution to the overpopulation problem is cities on the ocean floor.

Mary Franklin is a suburban housewife living in one of those undersea cities. One day, her teenaged daughter Jen goes off to a dance and doesn't come home. Mary goes searching for her, wondering whether the children who grow up under the sea are not becoming steadily more fishlike.

"The Deeps" is well written. Roberts captures both Mary's frustration with her husband and her fear for Jen, though I wonder whether a frantic mother searching for her missing child would really spend two pages describing the infrastructure of undersea living. Atmospheric, but not a whole lot of plot and marred by long stretches of exposition.

Three stars

Summary Judgment

The Orbit anthology series is certainly off to a good start. The quality of the stories varies, but they do offer a good overview of the range of science fiction writing today.

Of the nine stories in this anthology, four are written by women. If we count Jane Rice and her collaborator Ruth Allison separately, we have five male and five female authors. Of course, women make up fifty-one percent of the Earth's population, so an anthology with fifty percent male and fifty percent female contributors shouldn't be anything unusual. However, in practice there are still way too many magazine issues and anthologies that don't have a single female contributor, so an anthology where half the authors are women is truly remarkable.

Three and a half stars all in all

Café on the Bremen market square
Enjoying the summer sun with a cup of coffee, a slice of snow mousse cake and a good book on Bremen's market square.
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Serial

[May 31, 1966] Worth Remembering (June 1966 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Decoration Day

First the war, then the licking of wounds.  Not all wounds are physical.  After the Civil War rent this nation in two, spring became a time for remembering the dead, their blood shed in almost incomprehensible numbers.  In 1868, the ritual honoring of fallen veterans became an official holiday known as Decoration Day (for the decoration of graves).  Over time, the name changed to Memorial Day, and last month, President Johnson proclaimed the custom's birthplace to be Waterloo, New York, the event first occurring a century ago.

The last Civil War veteran passed away in 1956, but this year's Memorial Day still found us licking our wounds.  Indeed, last week marked the bloodiest seven days for American soldiers since Korea: 966 casualties in Vietnam alone, 146 of them fatal.  Will next year's day of remembrance be worse?

The Issue at Hand

A cute segue would be in poor taste at this juncture, so I'll simply proceed to the review.  The latest issue of Analog drew my attention with its striking astronomical cover.  Let's turn the page and see what delights and disappointments Herr Campbell has for us this month.


by Chesley Bonestell

The Ancient Gods (Part 1 of 2), by Poul Anderson

In the letter column, Poul Anderson talks about discovering a beautiful painting by Chesley Bonestell.  It depicts a the night sky as seen from a planet perhaps 200,000 light years north of the Milky Way.  I would guess that this painting, as well as perhaps a viewing of last year's film, Flight of the Phoenix, provided the inspiration for the author's latest tale. 


by John Schoenherr

I shall give nothing else away save that those who know me know I'm a sucker for astronomically correct tales of exploration, and that Flight of the Phoenix got my nomination for the Best Dramatic Hugo.

Four stars so far.

Early Warning, by Robin S. Scott


by Stan Robinson

Lee is a big man, a skilled man, a man whose job is to throw monkey wrenches into supposedly foolproof systems like the D.C./Kremlin Hotline and Pentagon intelligence computers.  Is he a double-agent?  A mole?  Or something more?

There's really not enough to this story to engage; it feels more like a fragment of a Joe Poyer thriller than a complete piece.  Just some workmanlike action writing and a smug, Campbell-pleasing sting. 

Two stars.

CWACC Strikes Again, by Hank Dempsey


by Gray Morrow

"Hank Dempsey" (I have it on reliable information that this is a pseudonym for Harry Harrison, apparently trying to make the big lucre by pushing all of Campbell's buttons) is back with CWACC: the Committee for Welfare, Administration, and Consumer Control, last seen last year.  Pronounced "Quack," the goal of this two-person operation is the support and representation of eccentric inventors.  You see, to the scientific community, they're just kooks, but we all know that those industrious garage inventors produce way more of the world's innovation than the anonymous folks in white coats.  Right?

Anyway, in this episode, CWACC's administrator teams up with an enemy, the local kook-catching flatfoot, to rescue a CWACCer, whose invention is being used by con artists to sucker in, of all people, the police commissioner.  Along the way, "Dempsey" gets some pseudo-scientific shots in, like the assertion that the common cold can be defeated by sufficient vitamins in one's diet. 

Vaguely readable garbage.  One star.  I hope it was worth selling your soul for four cents a word, Harry!

Live Sensors, by Carl A. Larson

This nonfiction article started auspiciously, promising to compare the biological sensors with which animals are naturally equipped to the most refined artificial detectors.  The overall package is lacking, however.  There are lots of interesting tidbits on the capabilities of creatures, but they are interspersed with larder passages that don't do too much.  Never do we find out how we might utilize or at least learn from natural sensing devices. 

It would also help if Analog employed subheadings.  Three stars.

Stranglehold, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

My nephew David rang me the other day (on Sunday, when the rates are lowest) to tell me how much he enjoyed the new Chris Anvil story.  This may be a ringing endorsement (ha ha!) but I always take David's recommendations with a grain of salt, especially where Anvil is concerned.

A scout team following up on a lost comrade lands on a planet despite receiving a warning that such would be dangerous.  Once planetside, they find themselves subjected to illusion after terrifying illusion, only their unshakeable monitors telling the truth about reality (why wouldn't their perception of the monitors also be changed?)

Turns out the inhabitants have some kind of telepathy and can change their perception of reality and those of others.  After the team escapes with their rescued friend, they determine that a race with psychic phenomena cannot develop science since they fudge the results to their liking.  Contrarily, a race that chooses a scientific path atrophies psychic phenomena because…well, just because.

Therefore, all races, including humanity, have psychic potential, and it's only because we chose the path of science that spoonbending isn't more prevalent.  Q.E.D.

Gee, I wonder how this story got published.

What I really don't understand is what possible advantage the alien trait of mass hallucination affords.  If it were real transmutation being employed in this story, there might be something to it, but there isn't.  A being that thinks it is having its physical needs met when it is not quickly becomes a sick and/or dead being.  Maybe it's more of a reality enhancer, as in the first Cugel the Clever story, which I guess would make more sense.

Anyway, Stranglehold feels like what would happen if Bob Sheckley ever wrote for Campbell.

Two stars.

Escape Felicity, by Frank Herbert


by Kelly Freas

In Frank Herbert's latest, a lone interstellar scout plunges his ship deep into a nebulous cloud.  He is determined to fight off the "push" that causes all of his corps to return to Earth after a certain point.  But is the compulsion programmed in by BuPurs to keep scouts from going native?  Or is there an external agency involved?

I found this one of Herbert's more compelling pieces, though it falls apart a bit at the end.  And it feels like the title is a pun in search of a story; I can't figure out its applicability to this one.

Three stars.

Doing the Math

Thus, Analog ends up near the bottom of the pack with a 2.6 star rating, only beating out the mostly-reprint (and consistently lackluster) Amazing 2.5.  Ahead of Campbell's mag are New Worlds (3.1), Galaxy (3.1), Impulse (3.0), IF (3.0), and Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.8).

Worthy material comprised about an issue-and-a-half out of six this month.  Women produced 11.25% of the new fiction, at the high end of the usual range.

All told, June 1966 may not be remembered in times to come, particularly as impressive as last month was.  But, as noted at the beginning of the article, sometimes having to remember is painful.

Until next month…

If you need a mood-lifter now, tune in to KGJ, our radio station!  Nothing but the newest and best hits!




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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 22, 1966] No Man's Land (Women of the Prehistoric Planet and Further Female Filled Fantasy Films)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Where The Boys Aren't
With apologies to Connie Francis.

One of the more unusual themes of science fiction and fantasy is a society entirely made up of women. I won't claim to have discovered the origin of this idea, but digging deep into old bound periodicals reveals that the early feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman dealt with it as far back as 1915, in Herland, a novel serialized in her own magazine, The Forerunner. Flipping carefully through these old, dusty pages, I found out that it deals with a group of male explorers who come across a remote land populated only by women.


Maybe someday it will appear in book form. Until then, good luck tracking it down.

(If you know Perkins at all, it's probably because of her classic psychological horror story The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), which has been reprinted many times.)

Jumping forward in time, we find Philip Wylie dealing with a similar theme in his 1951 novel The Disappearance. Notably, this work not only features a world without men, but also one without women.


If memory serves, the question What Happened? is never answered.

Another important example is the novella Consider Her Ways (1956) by John Wyndham, in which a modern woman travels mentally to a future time when all men died from a virus.


It was even adapted into an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

A few years later we got a couple of examples from authors who are probably better known to science fiction fans than the general public, unlike Wylie and Wyndham.

World Without Men (1958) by Charles Eric Maine takes place in the far future, long after no male babies have been born. The women of this time discover a frozen man from the past, kept in suspended animation by the extreme cold.


They may have forgotten men, but they remembered hair dye and lipstick.

In Poul Anderson's novel Virgin Planet (1959), a man arrives on a world that has not seen one of his sex for many centuries.


He doesn't seem upset by the situation.

I'm sure there are many other examples of which I am not aware (and I'm deliberately ignoring an old story uncovered by my esteemed colleague John Boston a while ago). Let's turn our attention to cinematic versions. It turns out that we can divide them into two types.

Just Some Old Fashioned Girls
With apologies to Eartha Kitt.

First of all, we have movies about women in prehistoric times, or, in a similar fashion, primitive tribes of women dwelling in some remote part of the globe. For some reason or other, these nontechnological ladies have become separated from their menfolk, either deliberately or by chance.

The earliest example of which I am aware is Prehistoric Women (1950). The film has no English dialogue, only some kind of cavewoman language. A helpful narrator tells us what's going on. A group of tough cookies decide they would rather live without men, only capturing them when they're needed for mating. Our movie's hero teaches them the error of their ways, while taking the time to invent fire making.


Apparently the women invented makeup, hair styling, and the miniskirt.

Coming up fast on its heels was Wild Women (1951), demonstrating the other variety of primitive women flicks. In this case, the isolated females exist in modern times, somewhere in darkest Africa (although they're all Caucasians.) They run into a safari of male explorers, and hijinks ensue, as well as a lot of stock footage.


As you can tell from this poster, the movie has a much more interesting alternate title.

Slightly different in theme, but so utterly goofy that I feel compelled to mention it, is The Wild Women of Wongo (1958). Introduced by Mother Nature herself, this bizarre film deals with two primitive tribes. One consists of good-looking women and unattractive men; the other has the opposite problem. When yet another group shows up, this one made of of ape-men, the two tribes finally get together and trade partners.


Did I mention the talking parrot who provides a running commentary?

Planet of the Dames
With apologies to Pierre Boulle.

Next we have a surprisingly large number of movies in which astronauts wind up on another world full of women. The oldest one I know is, perhaps not surprisingly, a comedy.

Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953) sends the two comics to Venus. That's right, Venus. At no point does anybody go to Mars. Go figure. Anyway, the planet is full of beautiful women, and no men.


Featuring the Miss Universe contestants seems appropriate.

The same year brought us the more serious, but just as silly, Cat-Women of the Moon, in which the title characters are the sole survivors of the ancient Lunar civilization. There are also a couple of big spiders.


The resemblance of the Hollywood Cover Girls to felines is minimal.

Not to be outdone, the British demonstrated that they can make movies just as goofy as American ones. 1956 offered Fire Maidens from Outer Space, set on the thirteenth moon of Jupiter (whichever one that might be.) Adding a touch of class is the presence of classical music on the soundtrack. As you'd expect, the Fire Maidens wear miniskirts, but these are inspired by ancient Greek designs.


In the United States, from was changed to of, for no good reason I can see.

A couple of years later, we got what is probably the most expensive movie yet of this specific kind. Queen of Outer Space (1958) was written by Charles Beaumont, later to pen several episodes of Twilight Zone, from an idea by the noted playwright Ben Hecht. With those big names at the typewriter, you'd think it would be something other than just another variation on the same old theme. Not so, although Hollywood scuttlebutt has it that it was intended as a spoof. Anyway, the plot has astronauts journey to Venus, where they find a bunch of beauties ruled by a tyrannical monarch.


Contrary to popular belief, Zsa Zsa does not play the Queen of Outer Space.

Probably not last, but maybe least, the same year somebody decided to remake Cat-Women of the Moon and call it Missile to the Moon. Words fail me.


More emphasis on the giant spider, less on the feline females.

Double Trouble
With apologies to Otis Rush.

With all of that background in mind, let's take a look at a newly released film with a title that seems to promise a combination of the two kinds of movies discussed above.

Assuming anything in this poster is at all accurate, it's hard for me to see how a skirmish between savage planet women and female space invaders is the battle of the sexes.

We begin aboard the good ship Cosmos One, which looks like a golden flying saucer zooming through interstellar space. In command is Admiral David King, who provides the audience with some helpful exposition by dictating his log entry for the day.


Wendell Corey as Admiral King. Hey! He was in Agent for H.A.R.M. too!

It seems that the admiral's flagship, as well as Cosmos Two (never seen in the movie) and Cosmos Three are on their way back from Centaurus, carrying refugees from a failed colony world. (I'm guessing this is supposed to be Alpha Centauri.) We'll soon find out that the Centaurans are all played by actors of Asian ancestry. (Was the colony founded by Asian space explorers? The film doesn't say.) The crews of the starships are all played by Caucasian actors.

Aboard Cosmos One are some male officers, a couple of female communications technicians (who wear very tight trousers), and a couple of engineering guys, one of whom, to my horror, proves to be our movie's comic relief. There is also one Centauran, a young woman named Linda. (All the other Centaurans we'll meet have Asian-sounding names. Why is Linda different? Because, as we'll learn later, she's actually only half-Centauran. I guess that's why she's on the flagship.)


Irene Tsu as Linda. Hey! She was in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini too!

In the first of many painful scenes involving our would-be comedian (Lieutenant Red Bradley, if you must know), he does some clumsy flirting with the communication gals. After being rebuffed, he makes a remark about how they shouldn't treat him like a Centauran. Oops. Linda happens to be standing right there, and Bradley has to make a feeble apology for his prejudiced remark.


Paul Gilbert as Bradley, with a typical expression.

The incident introduces the film's theme of discrimination, albeit in a ham-fisted fashion. This is brought out more forcefully aboard Cosmos Three (using the same set as the interior of Cosmos One but with different actors.) The Centaurans, accusing the crew of treating them like slaves, take over the ship.


A communications officer tied up by the rebels. Later she'll reveal that she hates all Centaurans. Admittedly, this is after the mutiny, and when she has a broken arm.

The hijacked spaceship hurtles towards a star called Solaris, if I heard the dialogue correctly. (I understand there's a Polish SF novel with the title Solaris, by one Stanislaw Lem, but it has not yet appeared in English translation. If this is an allusion, it's a darned obscure one.)

Cosmos Three crashes into, you guessed it, a prehistoric planet. Among the survivors is a Centauran woman who happens to be married to one of the ship's officers. (At least not all the folks among the crew are bigots.)


From left to right, the Centauran woman, some guy with an injured head, the woman's husband, and the woman who hates Centaurans.

One of the Centauran rebels shows up and attacks the officer. It turns out to be the Centauran woman's brother. In what must be an incredibly painful moment of decision, she shoots her brother (with a plain old gun, not one of the blasters we'll see later) to save her husband.

Back at Cosmos One, Admiral King defies his commanders at home by turning back to search for survivors of the wreck of Cosmos Three. (The implied subplot of King risking his career leads to nothing, so don't worry about it.)

At this point we introduce the idea of time dilation at velocities near the speed of light, a pretty sophisticated notion for a low budget sci-fi flick. The journey to the prehistoric planet will take three months of ship time, but eighteen years of planet time. I was impressed by this plot element, but they ruin it later by claiming that the time difference has something to do with how quickly the planet rotates.

Anyway, the crew explores the planet, running into things like a giant lizard, which they quickly wipe out with a blaster. (I told you it would show up.) They also have to cross a pool of some kind of deadly liquid on a log. Unfortunately, the way this is filmed, you can tell that they could have easily walked around it.

Worst of all, the movie comes to a complete stop as we endure a comedy routine from Lieutenant Bradley. In addition to relating an anecdote that only leads up to a very weak pun, he demonstrates his supposed karate skills. He manages to do a really impressive forward flip during this scene, landing flat on his back, so I'll admit the actor is quite agile. If nothing else, I have to say that I've never heard anybody make the exact same kind of karate shout.


HI_KEEBA!

Due to all the planet's dangers, not counting the comic relief, Admiral King doesn't allow any of the other crewmembers to take shore leave. Security on Cosmos One must be pretty lax, because Linda, who is sick of being cooped up inside, escapes. She quickly gets in trouble, but is rescued by a local inhabitant named Tang. (The fact that he has the same designation as a brand of drink mix doesn't seem to have occurred to any of the filmmakers.)


Roberto Ito as the unfortunately named Tang.

Tang takes Linda back to his cave and covers her with furs. When he reveals that he had to remove her wet clothing, she slaps him silly. Not to be outdone, he slaps her back. Naturally, this leads to them smooching.


An intimate moment in Tang's bachelor pad.

It turns out that Tang is the son of the Centauran woman and her officer husband. (Remember them?) Weirdly, he's got their bodies frozen in perfect condition in an ice cave. You might think this would put a damper on his burgeoning romance, but Linda doesn't seem too upset.

The folks on Cosmos One are worried about Linda, so they set out to find her. We learn that Linda is actually Admiral King's daughter. This doesn't come as a big surprise, as it was already hinted at by Jung, an older Centauran man on the ship.


Kam Tong as Jung and Merry Anders as Lieutenant Karen Lamont share a moment of concern with Admiral King.

Let me pause a moment to describe a pointless scene that occurs somewhere around here. One of the communications officers puts on some cha-cha music and starts dancing in a hip-swaying manner. (Remember those very tight trousers.) Of course, this draws the attention of the lecherous Lieutenant Bradley. It's a really odd moment, that doesn't have anything to do with anything else.

Out of the blue, some cavemen we've never seen before attack Tang and Linda. The rescue team happens to be right there, and they stupidly injure Tang with a blaster. They grab Linda so they can drag her back to the ship, and Tang runs off.


Linda screams as she sees Tang leave. By the way, she's wearing a dress that belonged to Tang's mother, which is in amazingly good condition and fits her perfectly.

Oh, if you're wondering when we're going to see the women of the prehistoric planet, you might as well relax. Unless you count the female survivors of the crash landing, or Linda, there aren't any. From what I've been able to learn, some scenes involving cavewomen will be added to the slightly racier European version of the movie.


Not for innocent American eyes.

Linda isn't very happy to be back aboard Cosmos One. Admiral King eventually agrees that his daughter would be happier with Tang, so off she goes. (I forgot to mention the big volcanic explosion, courtesy of stock footage, that adds some drama, but doesn't alter the plot in any way.)


Linda temporarily returns to the ship. Note that she is now wearing the fetching mini-sarong that Tang gave her.

We then get the film's shocking twist ending, which you'll see coming a mile away. (Stop reading if you want to be surprised, which you won't be.) As Cosmos One heads out into space, Admiral King looks back at the prehistoric planet, and tells us that it is called Earth. That's right, the oldest and corniest plot in science fiction. I guess Tang and Linda are supposed to be Adam and Eve (although I don't know how the briefly seen cavemen and the unseen-in-America cavewomen figure into things.) It just goes to show you that you shouldn't monkey around with worn-out clichés.


Also not in the American version, although Tang does have a chimpanzee companion.

Well, so much for sticking with the topic of this article! The title of this cheap little picture, best suited for mocking, led me down the garden path. No tribe of primitive women isolated from men, no astronauts landing on a planet full of lonely females. I guess I'll have to wait for the next cinematic example of the genre.


Coming soon!




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Magazine/Anthology

[March 31, 1966] Shapes of Things (April 1966 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Change

Out in the world of music, there's a change brewing. One can hear it in the experimentation of the Beatles' Rubber Soul album or the otherworldly tinge of The Yardbirds' latest hit, Shapes of Things. I've been long planning to write an article on the musical scene, and I'd best get it done quickly before the landscape changes entirely!

My friend and associate, Cora Buhlert, has noted that although the Stones and Beatles are popular in Germany, the number one hit right now is the syrupy Schlager tune by Roy Black, "Ganz in Weiß" (All in white). In other words, even in times of great flux, conservative forces remain steadfast, like stubborn boulders in a stream.

Oh look — it's time to review the latest issue of Analog.

Stagnation


by Kelly Freas

Moon Prospector, by William B. Ellern

It would be hard to find a more emblematic story of the reactionary SF outlet that is Analog than this, the lead story in the April issue. Set early in E.E. Smith's Lensman series, it apparently got the full blessing of "Doc" Smith just a few days before he died! That's pretty remarkable.

The story, however, isn't. A lunar prospector in is semi-sentient "creeper" gets a distress call. Turns out an old buddy has been buried in the aftereffects of a meteor shower, and ol' Pete has to dig him out. But what was the fellow doing out in that quadrant of the Moon to begin with, and does it have anything to do with a centuries-old missile base abandoned around there?


by Kelly Freas

There's no water on the Moon, so I suppose it's appropriate that the story, itself, is dry as a bone. Perhaps it would have been more exciting if I'd had some stake in the universe. Maybe I'd have thrilled at the mention of the Solar Patrol being evolved into a Galactic Patrol. The fact is, I didn't care for Doc Smith's stories much when I was a kid, so they evoke no nostalgia for me now.

Two stars.

Rat Race, by Raymond F. Jones


by Kelly Freas

A century and a half in the future, when a completely computer-planned economy has resulted in plenty for all of humanity, a fellow decides to recreate the hobby of model train running (though not in the destructive manner of the Addams family, more's the pity).

This hobby runs the fellow afoul of the Computer, for when he tries to make his own trains, he is accused of attempting his own production, which will upset the finely balanced economy and lead to scarcity. Our protagonist must find a way to satisfy the human urge to create while not upsetting the economic apple cart. The story ends with the suggestion that do-it-yourselfism will spread and eventually topple the current order.

It's a pleasant-enough story, and I suppose the "stick-it-to-communism" sentiment appealed to editor Campbell. On the other hand, while I appreciate that some folks really like to build things even when they could just be bought (and I have to think that hobbyist building would not break a planned economy), the notion that we've become too centralized and folks should all be able to be self-sufficient, making a living from the land, is unworkable.

The fact is, we've long since populated the Earth beyond its ability to sustain a society of independent farmers. The great island cities, the vast modern nations, they only support their teeming millions through coordinated and interconnected systems. The writer in the air-conditioned apartment, who bangs out a paean to independent living before catching a television show and then popping off to the deli for dinner, is a dreamer, not a visionary.

Three stars.

The Easy Way Out, by Lee Correy


by John Schoenherr

Aliens conduct a survey of planet Earth, evaluating its species for aggressive tendencies. After coming across a grizzly bear and a wolverine, and then the human family that has adopted the latter, they decide Earth is more trouble than it's worth.

Typical Campbellian Earth-firsterism. Two stars.

Drifting Continents, by Robert S. Dietz


by John Holden

If it's a crackpot theory that flies in the face of the scientific establishment, chances are you'll read about it in Analog. But sometimes a theory is crackpot, flies in the face of the scientific establishment, and is probably right. As someone born in earthquake country, I've probably heard more about "continental drift" than many. It's the idea that the continents very slowly move around the globe. It's why the coasts of South America and Africa seem like edges of the same torn newspaper. It explains why there are similar fossils at similar depths across continents that are nowhere near each other…today.

It's a theory I found little reference to in my science books of the 50s, including Rachel Carson's seminal The Sea Around Us. But damned if Dietz doesn't make some very compelling arguments. I would not be surprised if continental drift, as has happened recently with the Big Bang Theory and global warming, did not become thoroughly accepted this decade.

Five stars.

Who Needs Insurance?, by Robin S. Scott


by Kelly Freas

Pete "Lucky Pierre" Albers has always been blessed with good fortune. Twenty years a pilot, he has always managed to avoid even the slightest injury, despite 8500 hours of flying time. He first suspected that his lucky streak was not completely due to chance after a harrowing mission over Ploesti left his B-24 with just one working engine. That tortured device not only held together all the way back to Libya, but it spun with the 800 horsepower needed to keep the plane in the air. After the crash landing, Albers found a little gray box attached to the driveshaft.

Twenty years later, over Vietnam, Colonel Albers was in a bullet-riddled Huey whose engine somehow held together long enough to get him and his charges back to base. Sure enough, a little box was installed on the engine.

Clearly someone, or something, has taken an interest in Albers' survival. It's up to Albers and his closest friends to discover the secret.

I really enjoyed this story, told in narrative fashion. It's a fun mystery, the details are evocative, and I like when a piece includes a competent woman scientist (in this case, Marty the programmer, with her pet 2706).

Four stars.

A Sun Invisible, by Poul Anderson


by Domenic Iaia

With this latest installation in the adventures of David Falkayn, the momentum gained by the magazine comes to a shuddering halt. Anderson's writing is of widely varying quality, and the adventures of this troubleshooting young protogé of Nicholas van Rijn are among the worst.

The plot takes forever to develop, but it's something about a planet of Germanics looking to take on the Polesotechnic League by working with the belligerent Kroaka. The trick is that Falkayn has to figure out where the would-be enemies make their home. By getting the female leader of Neuheim drunk and talkative, Falkayn learns enough astronomical clues to deduce the star around which the insurgents' planet revolves. Falkayn stops the threat and gets the girl.

I do like the astronomy Anderson weaves into these stories and I also appreciated the seamless way he introduced a new pronoun for an alien race with three sexes. Other than that, it's a deadly dull story, and smug to boot. Falkayn is like a boring, Sexist Retief.

Two stars.

Computation

After all that, the conservative reef that is Analog finishes near the bottom of the pack, though that is as much due to the relative excellence of the other mags that came out this month. Campbell's mag clocks in at a reasonable 3 stars, beating out the truly bad, all-reprint Amazing (2.3).

Above Analog, starting at the top, are Impulse (3.5), Galaxy (3.4), IF (3.3), New Worlds (3.1), and Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.1).

It was something of a banner month for SF mags, actually. Enough worthy stuff was printed to fill two full-size mags (and if you take out Amazing, that means a full third of everything printed was four stars and up). Also, women produced 11.5% of the new fiction published this month, the highest proportion I've seen in a long time. We'll see if this trend holds out.

That's it for March! April is a whole new ballgame, starting with the next issue of IF. I'm very keen to see how that magazine does now that the excellent Heinlein serial has ended (I've high hopes for the Laumer/Brown novel.)

Until then, all we can to is keep trying to discern the pattern of Shapes of Things to Come…

Don't miss the next exciting Adventure-themed episode of The Journey Show, taking you to the highest peaks, the deepest wildernesses, the coldest extremes, the vacuum of space, and the depths of the sea. April 3 at 1PM — book your (free) ticket for adventure now!)




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[February 22, 1966] A New Age? Impulse and New Worlds, March 1966

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

This is a particularly exciting time with the British magazines this month. After the announcement of the end of Science Fantasy in the February issue, we now have Impulse, “The NEW Science Fantasy”, as it says on the cover, and a bigger, bolder, thicker New Worlds – albeit with a shilling rise in the price of each.

Do I get extra value for my extra two shillings a month? I’m looking forward to finding out.

Well, the cover of the new Impulse is interesting. There’s nothing like selling yourself with a roster of names on the cover – and the list is impressive, admittedly. The cover artwork is reasonable too. Gone are the Keith Roberts covers (more about him in a moment) to be replaced with a rather unusual cover by “Judith Ann Lawrence”, though we may also know her as Mrs. James Blish.

As Kyril points out in his as entertaining as ever Editorial, there is even a theme to the issue, that of “Sacrifice”. Sounds intriguing.

To this month’s actual stories.

The Circulation of the Blood, by Brian W. Aldiss

We start this issue with the return of one of the current and most vocal exponents of the New Wave, Brian Aldiss.  Clem Burke is an oceanologist who has returned to his tropical idyll to meet his wife and son after spending six months investigating ocean currents. We discover over the course of the story that he and his team have discovered a new virus carried by microscopic copepod that seems to imbue immortality upon the creatures who ingest it.

This is typical Aldiss, in that the story that at first reads as if it is a travelogue of tropical islands. It could almost be published in any magazine. However this is Aldiss, and what the author then does is reveal a science-fictional element gradually, by which time of course the reader is hooked. What we end up with is a world on the edge of major irretrievable evolutionary change from which there is no going back.

Brian would hate me for saying this, as he’s not a fan of the author’s writing, but to me this one felt like it had a touch of the John Wyndham “global catastrophes" about it, although it leaves the reader wondering “What happens next?” at the end. It is about what would be the consequences of what will happen when this secret discovery is revealed to the world, and the effects afterwards, on society, on relationships and on the world’s ecology. A good start. 4 out of 5.

High Treason, by Poul Anderson

From a story that’s rather British in tone to a stridently American tale. Edward Breckenridge is a space pilot currently imprisoned and on trial for treason. The reason is that he was the commander of an attack force given the job in a last ditch effort of wiping out the enemy’s home planet, but who took an alternative decision, sacrificing his own family and career to do so.

I have always thought of Poul as a right-wing writer, and consequently this story is something I didn’t expect. To begin with it reads like a typical sf Space Opera tale from the States, with its roots in Doc Smith’s Lensmen, all about honour and loyalty, but then takes a left turn into the unexpected.

It shows us that when difficult choices have to be made, the answer is far from simple and leaves us with the moral dilemma – would you, faced with a relatively benign enemy, make the same decision?

Whilst the tone of the story is what I would expect in the American magazines, this one is a tale that I don’t think you’d find in Analog. Surprising. 4 out of 5.

You and Me and the Continuum, by J.G. Ballard

And then from a story that appears at first to be traditional to one that is most definitely not. If Aldiss is often seen as “the voice” of New Wave, then here is perhaps the group’s leading exponent, making a welcome return to the British mags.

Ballard has set himself quite a challenge here, as the banner suggests: “The theme of sacrifice led me to think of the Messiah, or more exactly, the second coming and how this might happen in the twentieth century.”

Written in that typically fractured, disjointed manner, the disparate pieces together make up a story which doesn’t quite reach its lofty ideals yet must be admired for its ambition. Deliberately provocative, ambitiously subversive, the story is filled with phrases that remain in the memory after the story has been read. One where the parts may be greater than the sum of the whole. 4 out of 5.

A Hero’s Life, by James Blish

The banner on this one tells me that for the first time this is the first original piece published in Britain from this American author (admittedly living in Britain). I’m sure that you will know him for his Cities in Flight series of stories if nothing else,  although I know him more for his literary criticism as much as his fiction writing.

It is a strange story about a poisoner on a Romanesque planet where being a traitor is a valuable trade. As a traitor Simon de Kuyl is given untouchable status, but he is about to have his twelve days of grace expire. The story is about how he manages to use his wits to survive, finding himself playing a complex game with the planet’s leaders. Lyrical, a bit grim, one that seems to combine Samuel Delany’s style of grimy underworld writing and when de Kuyl is tortured produces stream of consciousness gibberish with more than a touch of the lyrical Jack Vance. It’s ambitious, but feels a little like it’s trying too hard. 3 out of 5.

The Gods Themselves Throw Incense, by Harry Harrison

Friend and colleague of Mr. Aldiss, here’s another name that seems to be forever in the British magazines at the moment. This time Harry is into Space Opera mode, but not the farce of Bill, the Galactic Hero (thank goodness!), but instead a darker, more visceral story.

The explosion of the spaceship Yuri Gagarin leads to a motley trio of survivors in an emergency capsule. With oxygen running out and rescue unlikely for at least a few weeks, the story is how they survive – which means that one of them needs to make the ultimate sacrifice in order for the others to live. A story which examines what could really happen when people are put under significant life-changing stress. Like Poul Anderson's story this month, this is not a story of honour or glory, nor is it particularly pleasant, but it is memorable. 3 out of 5.

Deserter, by Richard Wilson

Continuing the theme of sacrifice, Richard’s story tells of William Leslie, a soldier who with an impending war coming, marries Betty. The couple are immediately separated, because – wait for it! – it’s a war of the sexes! Bill deserts to meet Betty, and does so, but is then arrested and sent for a court-marshal. It all seems a little silly. Not the best story in the issue. 2 out of 5.

The Secret, by Jack Vance

Having mentioned the lyrical American Hugo-winning author already, here he is, with a coming-of-age story. Rona ta Inga lives in idyllic tropical paradise with food, shelter and all the company he could want. However, one day as the oldest of the group, he, like many of his friends and predecessors before him, feels the urge to sail away to the West, where he discovers "the secret" and his innocent child-like life is changed. It’s a one-trick tale, but well done. Precise wordage mingles with metaphor. 3 out of 5.

Pavane, by Keith Roberts

This is the first of what I believe will be many stories spread over the next few months, and something a little different from Mr. Roberts, who in this same issue we are told has taken on the responsibility of assistant editor.

Pavane is an alternate history where Elizabeth I was assassinated in 1588. As a result, Protestantism has not taken hold in England and Roman Catholicism still dominates the world. With the Roman Catholic view of science being one of suspicion, and innovation supressed, inventions have not as developed as they have been here today. Although it is still the 1960’s, here we have Keith’s descriptions of this strange new-yet-old world which runs a feudal system and where communication is not through telegraph or radio (electricity not invented) but by flags.

The story is focussed upon the duties of Rafe Bigland, a signaller whose job is to pass semaphore flag messages down the line to the next semaphore station in a distinctly more rural England. It shows us Rafe’s job at a semaphore station and through a bit of history how he got to this prestigious position. Think of it like a particularly British Lord Darcy story.

I’m not sure where it is going – presumably we will discover more in later stories set in the same world – but I enjoyed the worldbuilding and the sense of timelessness that pervades this slower pace of life. There is a deliberately shocking ending, which I guess does fit with the overall theme of the issue. 4 out of 5.

Summing up Impulse

Well, this one hits the ground running. What a superior issue! Impulse covers an impressive range of story. From Space Opera to alternative history to New Wave, each story this month combines this impressive variety of styles from a host of well-known authors to create an all-star issue. There’s little I didn’t like about this one. I particularly enjoyed the Aldiss, the Poul Anderson and the Keith Roberts, though if I had to pick a weak story it would probably be Richard Wilson’s Deserter, which was a little overwrought.

We seem to have started well. Can this month’s New Worlds compete?

Onto this month’s New Worlds

The Second Issue At Hand

After last month’s rally against the old guard, this month Mike Moorcock is attempting that perennial theme of trying to summarise what Science Fiction means to him and how fans can make it matter. It’s a nice summary for all those jumping on board at this point, but I’ve read similar before.

To the stories!


Illustration by James Cawthorn

The Evil That Men Do (Part 1), by John Brunner

I think we’ve had a bit of resurgence with John Brunner in the magazines of late. I was under the impression that even with the use of various pseudonyms, the magazines had lost him to the US magazines and writing novels, but in the last few months we’ve had stories (The Warp and the Woof Woof, last month) and non-fiction articles (Them As Can, Does in the January 1966 issue) in these pages, and now a novel split into two parts. This is different though in that it is less science fiction and more of a horror novel.

Godfrey Rayner’s party-piece is that he is a hypnotist, although he really uses the skill as a psychological tool. When persuaded to perform at a party, he does so reluctantly, to find the quiet young girl Fey Cantrip is upset by the process. Whilst not Rayner’s intended participant, Fey goes into a trance and talks of a nightmare involving a white dragon. When Rayner discusses what has happened with his psychiatrist friend Dr. Laszlo, they are surprised to find that Laszlo has a patient in Wickingham Prison who has recounted what sounds like the same dream (and the reason for one of the silliest covers I've seen on New Worlds lately.)

Lots of setting up here, which reads well but then just as the story gets going, it stops. What is the connection between the two dreamers and why are they having identical dreams? We’ll find out next month. This is OK, and reads easily, but as this is something with more of a Fritz Leiber / Weird Tales vibe about it, it’s not typical Brunner, and I would argue not his best. Kudos for trying something different, though. 3 out of 5.


Illustration by Douthwaite

The Great Clock, by Langdon Jones

One of the points that’s surprised me lately in New Worlds is that Langdon Jones manages to pull a double shift. Not only is he the Assistant Editor, but he’s managing to create a line of intriguing fiction as well. They haven’t always worked for me, but I can’t deny that they are usually quite ambitious both in style and content. This one’s another allegorical one, about a naked man who finds himself giving his life’s service to the working of a giant clock. I get the idea that it is probably about the passage of time and the uselessness of spending an entire life giving service to a machine. Some nice descriptions of the workings of this enormous edifice, but in the end it seems rather pointless. It wouldn’t happen inside Big Ben, now, would it? Weirdly, it rather made me think of the film Metropolis. 3 out of 5.

From ONE, by Bill Butler

A poem, from a new name to the magazines. It’s about burning animals and dinosaurs. Marks for effort, but it doesn’t stir me to any kind of emotion. 3 out of 5.


Illustration by James Cawthorn

Psychosmosis, by David I. Masson

And another story from who is probably my favourite ‘new’ author of the moment – this is his third story in three successive months. Again, this story is quite different, this time set in some kind of primitive cultured society.

To begin with, it is about a death in a tribal village, which leads to a naming-feast and much partying. However, in the aftermath Nant, one of the husbands is missing, followed by his newly-renamed wife Mara (once named Nira) in something referred to as a “double-vanishing.” We discover that they have passed over into The Inside, a realm where the village cannot see or hear them.

We then have two worlds – the first, the Faded lands of The Hard of Hearing, which is a harsh and difficult life with a language to match, whilst those who have passed over to The Inside, the Invokers, have a life of relative pleasure and luxury, which is again reflected in the language.

Returning to the land of the Hard of Hearing there is a boar hunt. Tan is regarded as a hero for surviving and killing many animals. However, like Nant and Mara before, when he goes to find his girlfriend Danna it seems that she has gone missing. He searches for her, eventually dies and passes over to the Inside where he meets all of his friends again, including Danna.

As is often the case on a first read of Masson's stories, I’m not quite sure what it all means. All the story really does is depict two opposing societies – is it an allegory for Heaven and Hell, for example? – but it is entertaining enough. as Masson manages to indulge in his love of language to depict the differences in society and lifestyle. The second tribe are, according to the author, ‘saved’, whilst the others are doomed, as shown by the last sentence.

Not sure that this one entirely works for me, but it is still impressive. 3 out of 5.


Illustration by Douthwaite

The Post-Mortem People, by Peter Tate

Another new name to the magazines, or at least me. A strange tale of men and women who go around literally rubber-stamping dying people with their time of death in order to allow organ harvesting. The latest in another depressing dystopian setting, this one is typically sombre and actually rather unsettling. 3 out of 5.

The Disaster Story, by Charles Platt

Charles’s presence in the magazine in recent months has been a constant, with often well-received stories and entertainingly grumpy reviews in New Worlds. The Disaster Story is an attempt by the author to become deliberately more Ballardian, beginning with the statement “This is an attempt to isolate and express the ingredients which endow a distinct type of science fiction with unusual appeal.”

Well, they do say that imitation is the best form of flattery and if so then Ballard should be pleased. There’s nothing like ambition, but whilst The Disaster Story echoes Ballard in its visually dramatic and lyrical imagery and like some of Ballard’s tales is made up of short, discordant paragraphs, it is not as good as Ballard. Compare with Ballard’s story in this month’s Impulse and this is weaker, though a brave attempt. 3 out of 5.


Illustration by James Cawthorn

For A Breath I Tarry, by Roger Zelazny

I mentioned how much I enjoyed Roger’s writing when I reviewed Love is an Imaginary Number in the January 1966 issue of New Worlds. It seems that Mike Moorcock is similarly impressed, as here’s another story. I think that this one is just as good, if not better. It is a post-apocalyptic tale about Frost, who is a sentient computer created by Solcom, with dominion over half of the Earth. Over ten thousand years, Frost has taken on a hobby – that of studying Man, even though Man has long gone. At the South Pole there is the Beta-Machine, created by Solcom to work in a similar way over the Southern Hemisphere. Solcom now watches over both of them from space.

Opposing Solcom is Divcom and The Alternate, a computer system originally meant as a back-up to Frost and The Beta that through a chance accident to Solcom has also been activated. The two systems have spent the last few thousand years trying to remove the other – Frost claiming that the Alternative should not have been made operative in the first place, Divcom claiming that Solcom has been damaged and needs replacing. Over time this has created a somewhat uneasy but stable peace.

When Mordel, a robot created neither by Solcom or Divcom, strikes up a conversation with Frost, they find that they have a common interest – to study humans. This leads to Frost and Mordel examining a human relic – a book on Human Physiology – and then sharing of ideas on what is the nature of Man. This leads to Frost becoming determined to attain Manhood, and much of the rest of the story is about how far it goes towards that.

This story of god-like machines wanting to comprehend and even become like Man is thoughtful and well written and shows that Roger is writing material that is setting the standard across the Atlantic. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this one nominated for Awards in the next few months. Robots with personalities and a conscience – I wonder what Asimov would make of it? 4 out of 5.


Illustration by Douthwaite

Phase Three, by Michael Moorcock

Nice to see the editor as author again. This is the third Jerry Cornelius story (having first been seen in issues 153 and 157). Moorcock mixes cultural references with pagan mythology and strange happenings in time through the actions of his action-hero and his side-kick, Miss Brunner. (Where has Cornelius's wife gone to, I wonder?) This time Jerry goes to Scandinavia to try and find his brother Frank who appears to be “in a bad way” following the events of the previous story.  Frank leaves a strange map:

which Jerry and Miss Brunner use to track Frank down, to a place with secret Nazi constructions in some variant of the Hollow Earth theory. In terms of the bigger picture, it all seems to be connected to the super-computer mentioned in the last story.

Wildly imaginative, if supremely improbable, the rattling pace almost covers up the fact that this is an extract of a novel soon-to-be-published. As an extract, it doesn’t make much sense. But then that may be the point. 3 out of 5.

Book Reviews

We start with a big-hit reviewer this month. J.G. Ballard takes up the mantle and reviews The Childermass, Monstre Gai and Malign Fiesta by Wyndham Lewis. Must admit, I always confuse Wyndham Lewis with the already-mentioned-this-month John Wyndham, he of The Day of the Triffids fame, but Ballard makes a good case for reading Wyndham Lewis.

James Colvin, the Editor-by-Another-Name, tackles the paperbacks. He reviews J G Ballard’s story collection The Fourth Dimensional Nightmare in some detail before going onto a very brief mention of Isaac Asimov’s latest British releases.

Keeping that literary viewpoint he then reviews Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse and Jorge Luis Borge’s Fictions which, as expected, is regarded as “sublime”, and then Ray Cummings’s Tama of the Light Country for a bit of contrast. (As an old pulp story it does not fare well.)

Lastly Colvin mentions, but actually does little more than list, a number of Philip K Dick recent publications, stating at the end that they are “much, much better than most sf published recently.”

Like Moorcock, not content with just having a story in this issue, Assistant Editor Langdon Jones, under the heading Rose Among Weeds reviews The Rose by Charles L. Harness. It sells the book well, although as it is published by the same publisher as this magazine, I did cynically wonder whether it masquerades as subtle promotion. Given the reviewer’s usual sense of scorn (so-British!) I hope not.

There are no Letters pages this month.

Summing up New Worlds

In an appropriate moment of serendipity, the back cover subtly points out that this is the 160th issue and the first to have 160 pages. I have been quite positive about the changes in New Worlds in recent months, but the extra space seems to have reenergised the magazine even further. The weaker spots for me are the Brunner and the Platt, but even they are not bad, just eclipsed by the Zelazny and the Masson, both of which are excellent. The range is broad, and perhaps not for everyone, but if I was to point out an issue that epitomises the changes that sf has experienced in the last couple of years this would probably be it. From intangible horror to post-apocalyptic dystopia and decay, from culture bending satire and even a search for meaning, from Ballard-esque imagery to poetry, it is, dare I say it, a diversely classic issue. Moorcock’s editorial summing this up forms the impressive structure upon which current sf can be exhibited.

Summing up overall

Difficult choice this month. Both magazines seem to have benefitted from the extra space more page-age provides. I think that both editors have pulled out all the stops and produced better than average issues – I hope that it lasts. Impulse has hit the ground running, and I liked the the fact that both issues have managed to combine quality writing from both British and American writers to create a varied issue. Overall, I liked more of Impulse than I did New Worlds, but the Zelazny story in New Worlds is perhaps the best I’ve read this month.

So: Impulse has the edge, although – and I say this very rarely – in my opinion both issues are worth reading this month – despite me being two extra shillings down on the deal.

This is a wonderful sign for the future of sf here in Britain. What is also great is that comparing what we get here with what you get in the USA, the difference to me is quite apparent. Absolutely nothing wrong with that – in my mind, a broad genre is a sign of strength, not weakness. We really do seem to be entering some sort of new Golden Age.

To reflect this – next month, more Ballard in New Worlds!

Until the next…



 

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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 14, 1965] Expect the Unexpected (January 1966 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's . . . a Meteor? A Satellite? A Flying Saucer?

Things got off to a bang earlier this month, in a most unexpected way. On the evening of December 9, folks in Canada and the United States saw a fireball in the sky. According to witnesses, something crashed in the woods near the town of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania.

(Cue eerie theremin music.)

The US military and state troopers sealed off the area and began a search. So far, they haven't reported finding anything.

(That's what they want you to think.)


Isn't this the way The Blob started?

After eliminating things like a plane crash, the authorities seem to think the most likely suspect is a meteor that exploded in the atmosphere. (Vocabulary lesson for today: A very bright meteor, particularly one that blows up spectacularly, is known as a bolide.) It might possibly be debris from a satellite, some suggest. Of course, you and I know it's really little green men . . .

Another Song of Solomon?

Almost as surprising as a blazing visitor from outer space is a modern pop song with lyrics that are a couple of thousand years old. The Byrds are currently at the top of the American music charts with their version of Turn! Turn! Turn!

Composed by folk singer Pete Seeger, almost all the words are taken from the Old Testament book Ecclesiastes, supposedly written by King Solomon. The exceptions are the title, repeated several times, and the closing line I swear it's not too late, emphasizing the song's antiwar message.


She don't care about grammar either, I guess.

What Do You Expect For Four Bits?

Appropriately, the latest issue of Fantastic is full of unexpected happenings.


Cover art by James B. Settles, taken from the back cover of the August 1942 issue of Amazing Stories.


The best copy I can find of the original. Please excuse the tiny print. I doubt this is a very accurate representation of the planet Uranus anyway.

Six and Ten Are Johnny, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.


Cover art by Barye Phillips and Leo Summers.

From the very first issue of Fantastic comes this tale of an unexpected encounter on a distant world.


Illustrations by Virgil Finlay.

A shuttle carries a survey team from a starship down to the surface of the planet. The crew has an uneasy feeling about the place, for no obvious reason. They land on a plateau above a dense jungle. They are shocked to meet Johnny, who claims to be the sole survivor of a lost starship. Things get even weirder when some of the crew members vanish, and the others claim that they never even existed.


Officers from the starship join the survey team in an attempt to figure out what's going on.

Everybody seems to be in a dazed condition, except the protagonist. That's because he's got a metal plate in his head, which protects him from having his mind controlled by the alien organism that makes up the jungle.


The wild-eyed madman in this picture is actually our completely sane hero, who is trying to protect a colleague from the creature's telepathic powers.

This is a grim little science fiction horror story with a feverish, eerie mood. I'm not sure I believe the way the alien organism works, or if the behavior of the crew is plausible. (Would you really bring a bunch of dogs on a starship to test if a planet's atmosphere is breathable? Of course, the real reason they're present is so they can go crazy and bark wildly, like in any scary movie.) Not the most profound story in the world, but a competent spine chiller.

Three stars.

Wonder Child, by Joseph Shallit


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

The January/February 1953 issue of the magazine supplies this account of an invention with unexpected effects.


Illustrations by Ed Emshwiller (better known as Emsh.)

A married couple would like to have a child, but they don't want to deal with all the work of raising it from infancy. They happen to know a scientist who has created a gizmo that will speed up the nerve growth of a fetus in the womb. Their son develops rapidly, sparing them a lot of trouble with things like toilet training.


He also develops a precocious interest in sex.

Despite some problems with teachers, neighbors, and other kids, things seem to be going pretty well. What they don't know is that their acquaintance is a classic Mad Scientist, who has also given the child increased aggression. It's not hard to see that things won't work out for the best.

I found both the technology and the behavior of the characters implausible. The ending of the story left a bad taste in my mouth. I suppose the author does a decent job portraying a pair of self-centered bohemian parents, but they're not much fun to read about.

Two stars.

Axe and Dragon (Part Two of Three), by Keith Laumer

Let's take a break from reprints and turn to the latest installment in this new novel.


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

As you may recall, the improbably named Lafayette O'Leary wound up in a strange, supposedly imaginary world through self-hypnosis. He has some control over things, creating food, drink, clothing, shelter, and the like. However, the place has a stubborn reality of its own.

After surviving a duel in a slapstick fashion, he winds up being framed for the kidnapping of the land's beautiful princess. Much running around follows, with O'Leary even creating a secret door for himself, so he can escape into it.


He also briefly returns to the so-called real world, where he runs afoul of the law.

Determined to clear his name, he sets out to rescue the princess from a fabled giant and his supposed dragon. Complicating matters is the king's magician, who has more advanced technology than you'd expect in this steam-powered world, and who seems to know more about what's going on than he admits.


There's also a big guy.

The mood remains very light, with even more comedy than the first part.  The breakneck pace of events holds the reader's attention.  Even if the whole thing could be dismissed as much ado about nothing, it provides adequate, forgettable entertainment.

Three stars.

What a Man Believes, by Robert Sheckley


Cover art by Vernon Kramer.

Back to reprints with this tale of the afterlife, from the November/December 1953 issue.


Illustrations by Henry C. Pitz.

A guy who didn't expect anything after death winds up in an oddly accommodating Hell.  It seems he has a choice of eternal punishment: he can undergo physical torture, fight wolves, or drift in a boat.


He can also climb a mountain.

Predictably, he selects the boat, preferring endless boredom to unending agony.  This leads to an ending that, well, didn't make a lot of sense to me.  I suppose some irony is intended, but it falls flat.

Two stars.

Three Wishes, by Poul Anderson


Wraparound cover art by Richard Powers.

A nice old man makes an unexpected discovery in this yarn from the March/April 1953 issue.


Illustration by Dick Francis.

The elderly fellow is Papa Himmelschoen.  If that sounds familiar, you're probably thinking of Papa Schimmelhorn, a character created by Reginald Bretnor in the story The Gnurrs Come from the Voodvork Out back in 1950.  Anderson's old man has a similar thick accent, so I assume this is a deliberate allusion.

Anyway, the kindly Papa mends a pair of pants for a neighbor, and gets a little statue of a fairy as payment.  It comes to life when, in a burst of gaiety, he kisses it.  His reward is three wishes.  Since he's completely happy with his life, he doesn't know how to use his wishes.  The solution to his problem isn't completely satisfying, and involves a bit of circular reasoning.

This is a trivial work from a talented writer.  The mood is pleasant enough, and Himmelschoen is a lot less obnoxious than Schimmelhorn, but it doesn't add up to much.

Two stars.

Phoney Meteor, by John Beynon


Cover art by J. Allen St. John.

From the yellowing pages of the March 1941 issue of Amazing Stories comes this piece, by an author better known as John Wyndham.


Illustration by Jay Jackson.

Neatly wrapping up the magazine with an incident similar to the one I mentioned at the start of this article, this story involves a mysterious object falling to Earth.  Since the setting is England during the Second World War, the local folks treat it as a possible Nazi weapon. 

Alternating sections of narration reveal that it's really a spaceship, carrying a large number of aliens from their dying world.  It's obvious from the start, and the illustration, that they're tiny beings, so Earth seems like a planet full of giant monsters.

That's about all there is to the story.  Beynon/Wyndham writes well enough, but I found the accounts of life in England during the Blitz more interesting than the science fiction stuff.

(Everybody seems very coolheaded when faced with this potentially deadly object.  I suppose that's a bit of wartime propaganda, to maintain morale.  Keep Calm and Carry On, and all that.)

Two stars.

Did It Meet Your Expectations?

I wasn't expecting this issue to be so weak, ranging from so-so to below average.  I can understand the financial reason for using so many reprints — I believe the publishers have full rights to the stories and art, so they don't have to pay anything for them — but it results in a lot of disappointing early work from well-known writers.  If I were in a worse mood, I'd be tempted to tell the editor exactly where he can go with all these old relics.


Cartoon by Ray Dillon.  It's a reprint, too, from the same issue as Poul Anderson's story.




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Magazine/Anthology, Serial

[December 2, 1965] Superiority Complex (January 1966 IF)

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by David Levinson

Some people are objectively better at some things than everybody else. Sandy Koufax can pitch a baseball better than almost anybody, and Muhammad Ali is arguably the best boxer we’ve seen in his weight class in a long time.


The problem arises when that excellence in a specialized area leads to an assumption of excellence in other, unrelated areas. I certainly wouldn’t turn to either of the aforementioned men for suggestions on nuclear policy or to bring peace to South-east Asia. Worse still is when whole groups assume superiority over others based solely on an accident of birth.

Heart of Darkness

Last month, I discussed the difficulties faced by the United Kingdom in handing over power to the locals in Rhodesia due to an unwillingness on the part of the white government under Ian Smith and the Rhodesian Front to share power with Black Rhodesians. Alas, the situation has now collapsed completely. On November 5th, the colonial governor declared a state of emergency, blaming Smith and two African nationalist organizations, the Zimbabwe African People’s Union and the Zimbabwe African National Union.


Ian Smith signs the Unilateral Declaration of Independence

On the 11th, the Smith government unilaterally declared independence. Within hours, the United Nations Security Council condemned the action 10-0 with France abstaining. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson has been granted the authority to rule Rhodesia by decree, though what good that might do is hard to see. Wilson steadfastly refuses a military solution and expects economic embargoes to force Smith to capitulate. But with two neighboring nations, South Africa and the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, more than willing to ignore any embargoes, it is likely to be a long time before we see a resolution to this situation.

Conflicts Great and Small

Fittingly, there’s plenty of superiority, assumed and otherwise, in this month’s IF. Let’s get to it.


This art for “Cindy-Me” bears absolutely no relation to the story. Art by Morrow

Moonrakers, by Poul Anderson

At some point in the past, a terraformed Mars broke away from Incorporated Earth. The asteroids were colonized from there, and now, while the larger asteroids like Ceres and Pallas remain loyal to Mars, the smaller bodies are seeking their independence. The asterites are pirating Martian shipping to Jupiter with the tacit support of Earth. Because Mars has privatized most government functions, the Interplanetary Shippers’ Association has hired private investigator James Church to solve the piracy problem. His solution proves to be rather unorthodox.


An asterite salvager makes a big score. Art by John Giunta

Initially, I wondered why this story didn’t appear under Anderson’s Winston Sanders by-line, but the differences soon became apparent. Most notably, he seems to pointing out several of the flaws in his noble asterite society in that series. Earth is also somewhat less awful.

Just as a fix-up novel consists of several short pieces cobbled together to make a book, one could argue this is a fix-up novelette cobbled together from several vaguely connected vignettes without the benefit of any connecting material. We jump from incident to incident with few clues as to how we got there or how it all hangs together. This might work better fleshed out to full novel length. On the whole, it’s not objectively terrible, but I expect better from Poul Anderson. Just barely three stars.

Cindy-Me, by Don F. Briggs

Cindy and her twin brother, our unnamed narrator, are on the run from Old Ralph and trying to get to Aunt Ag. They have incredible psychic powers, but even that might not be enough to evade Ralph and his Watchers.

Briggs is this month’s first-time author. I’m not terribly impressed. The pieces don’t really fit together very well, and the tone shifts a few times. Some of that is due to the author’s attempt to play with the reader’s expectations, but he doesn’t quite achieve his aim. The title and references in the story make the twins sound like a gestalt being, but they come off as two individuals. They also grow increasingly unpleasant, which is part of the point, but they’re hard to take. Two stars.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (Part 2 of 5), by Robert A. Heinlein

Last time around, Heinlein introduced us to the Moon of 2075, a penal colony on the edge of a revolution. At the end of the installment, Mannie, a computer technician, is dragooned into leading said revolution by his tutor, Professor de la Paz, a subversive from Hong Kong Luna named Wyoming Knott, and an intelligent computer nicknamed Mycroft.

Begin Part Two:

Mannie, Wyoh and Prof discuss political philosophy for a while, and then Mike is brought into the conspiracy. He predicts food riots in seven years and cannibalism in less than ten. He also calculates that a rebellion has about a one in seven chance of success and is a bit puzzled when his friends find those odds acceptable. Loonies are gamblers by nature.

What follows is a summary of eleven months of revolutionary organization and planning. Mike creates the persona of Adam Selene to head the revolution. They set up a few fake companies with the purpose of funding the revolution and building a secret electromagnetic cannon, because Mike says they will need to “throw rocks” at Earth. Also of note is the recruitment of eleven-year-old red-head Hazel Meade to oversee the children being used to distribute subversive literature and follow guards. Mannie, Wyoh and Prof start wearing heavy weights, since Mike predicts that at least one of them will need to visit Earth at some point. As the installment ends, Mannie drops in to visit a friend who acts as a judge. This will apparently have a great effect on the course of the revolution.


Our four protagonists. Art by Morrow

There’s not much to say about this one, since it’s just Heinlein setting the final pieces on the board. With any luck, the action will get under way next time. As a standalone, the installment suffers, though it’s actually enjoyable. I’m sure when it’s all together between two covers you won’t even notice.

But that does give me a chance to talk about Mannie’s voice. The Loonie patois is composed of American and Australian vernacular (Mike is a “dinkum thinkum”) and a few Russian loan words along with some Russian grammar, like the lack of definite articles. It works very well and is much easier to read than the Nadsat of A Clockwork Orange. Mannie is one of Heinlein’s best narrators in a long time.

Of final note is young Hazel Meade. I’m pretty sure we’ve met her before. At least, I can think of another Hazel with a family of red-heads and a granddaughter named Meade. She also says her name is on the monument to the revolution back on Luna. Yes, I’m fairly sure this is Grandma Hazel from Heinlein’s The Rolling Stones.

As noted, not much happens, but it has that Heinlein readability. Three stars.

Mr. Jester, by Fred Saberhagen

A severely damaged Berserker has its brain placed in a new ship. This flips a switch installed by the Builders during the testing phase of their destructive creations. A switch that renders the Berserker harmless. Meanwhile on Planet A, which has been cut off from contact with the rest of the human galaxy for a while, a man is accused of making jokes. As punishment, he is sent to an observation post on the edge of the system, where he encounters the harmless Berserker. Together they return to Planet A.


Oh, that’s not creepy at all. Art by Gaughan

This story bears a lot of similarities to Harlan Ellison’s Repent, Harlequin. Indeed, had they come out a year apart, rather than a month, I’d suspect one of inspiring the other. Maybe Fred Pohl suggested the same story seed to both authors. I’ve regularly praised Saberhagen for bringing something fresh to this series every time. The story is still fresh, but for me it doesn’t quite work. It’s not something I can really pin down, but this is the least of the Berserker stories, and I prefer Harlan’s take on the concept. Just barely three stars.

A Planet Like Heaven, by Murray Leinster

On the planet Dorade, the Dorade Corporation harvests kamun logs from a deadly, mobile tree using animal workers. As usual, the Home Office sends new instructions with the regular ship and only delivers them just before departure to keep the local managers from objecting. Headquarters is demanding a doubling of production and has instructions on how to achieve this. Orders which appall local manager Chalmers and head overseer of the workers Burke. Neither man feels he can defy orders, since that would mean quitting and then they’d have to pay for their passage back home, which would bankrupt them. The next ship brings no less than the president of the corporation, who takes charge of the operation, disgusted by the local men’s failures.


Chalmers and one of his best workers. Art by Adkins

Murray Leinster has been off his game lately. Here, he returns to form at long last. This is a good story that makes its point clearly and reasonably consicely. Alas, while it’s obvious from the text, it’s never explicitly stated until the final line that the workers are elephants. The illustration gives that away and detracts somewhat from the punch of the ending. A pity, but still a solid three stars.

The Smallness Beyond Thought, by Robert Moore Williams

Two scouts are hiking a desert canyon, collecting rocks. Finding an interesting piece of quartz, they pull out an odd device to test it. After this, we are given the history of the strange hermit who has lived here for decades beyond memory and built a number of strange structures and walkways that go nowhere. He also seems to be friends with the local rattlesnakes. Finally, we meet Ed Quimby, the number two man at the nearby observatory, who befriends the hermit after a fashion, and unwittingly gets involved when an outsider seems to be after the hermit.


Someone approaches the smallness beyond thought. Art by Gaughan

Williams presents us with a number of mysteries and resolves none of them. We learn nothing about the hermit, the (possibly two groups of) people after him or why they want him. We do learn the function of the odd structures, but nothing of their purpose. On top of that, the hermit has an incredibly annoying accent. And this all goes on and on for over thirty pages, leaving us none the wiser as to what has happened. A very low two stars.

Summing Up

Well, the stories this month are certainly full of people exerting an assumed superiority over others, from government goons to corporate heavyweights. And just like in real life, they’re frequently very wrong. Unfortunately, this time out the stories produced aren’t all that great. Let’s put this one in the books and hope for better efforts (and some actual action from Heinlein) next month.


At least it doesn’t seem to be a Gree story.




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Magazine/Anthology, Serial

[September 20, 1965] Unfinished Business (October Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Leaving things hanging

There's something compelling about things left incomplete – from Schubert's Unfinished Symphony to President Kennedy's first term.  In the gaps of what could have been, we can fill in countless possibilities rather than just the one.

This month's Fantasy and Science Fiction (like this month's Galaxy, an "All-Star" anniverary issue) trades almost exclusively in incompletes, its pieces ending in ellipses dots rather than hard stops.

Does this make for an effective magazine?  Let's dig in and find out:

Beginnings…


by Chesley Bonestell

… And Call Me Conrad (Part 1 of 2), by Roger Zelazny

Hundreds of years from now, a war-ravaged, radiation-scoured Earth is little more than a colony of the blue-skinned Vegans who lease our planet out of historical curiosity.  Humanity is much reduced, confined to the former backwaters of civilization. 

Against this backdrop, we are introduced to Conrad Nomikos, head of the world's antiquities preservation bureau, who is tapped to escort a Vegan journalist as the alien gathers information for a travelogue of blasted Earth.

But there is far more to Conrad than he likes to let on.  Something of a rogue, and possessed of pretenatural strength, skills, and psychic abilities, he is actually Konstantin Karaghiosis – mutated into a Methusaleh by radiation and erstwhile leader of a radical anti-Vegan colonial movement that had, decades before, spiked Vegan ambitions to take all of Earth.

Now Conrad finds himself embroiled in multiple intertwined plots as the Vegan journalist becomes the target of an assassination attempt, his mission to Earth having a more significant goal than just a John Gunther volume.  Conrad, too, is personally imperiled, though who wants him dead and why are open questions.

This first part of a serial leaves off just as the second attempt on Conrad's life (if such they were; he cannot be certain) has failed.  It looks as if Conrad may well have to resume the revolutionary mantle of Konstantin to navigate the crisis.

Zelazny can sometimes be a tough pill for me to swallow.  One of the Journey's regular readers observed that he's done more than any current SF writer to bring Hemingway to our genre, and I feel that Roger sometimes trades readability for that stylistic choice.  That said, after a somewhat plodding beginning, the fleshed out background and advanced storyline becomes quite compelling.

Call it three stars for now, but with potential for the ending (if and when it come) to raise things retrospectively.

Mirror, Mirror, by Avram Davidson

Milquetoasty fan of A. Merritt spends his spare hours scouring local second-hand shops for jade mirrors with which to escape our reality into something more fantastical and swashbuckling.  What he doesn't count on is someone from another reality with a similar passion finding their way to his world.

As a premise, it's a fantastic mirror to works like The Incomplete Enchanter.  As a vignette, however, it suffers for an overlong beginning (relative to the length of the piece) and the lack of a real resolution.  In this case, unfinished means unsatisfying.

Three stars.


by Gahan Wilson

(here's a rather pointless doodle by Mr. Wilson, one that doesn't even pertain to our genre; the reason for its inclusion escapes me)

The Future, Its Promoters and False Prophets by E. Brandis and V. Dmitrevskiy, and
Replies by Poul Anderson and Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury and Mack Reynolds

Here's an interesting piece: a critique of American science fiction by two Soviets followed by replies by the authors specifically mentioned (including reference to Asimov's foreword to More Soviet Science Fiction).  It makes for a fascinating debate, one that is clearly ongoing.  I hope F&SF continues to cover it.

Five stars.

No Jokes on Mars, by James Blish

A journalist is sent to the Red Planet to check up on a colleague whose work has become perfunctory and cynical.  While on a tour of the Martian wilderness, her escorts poach a pomander from the pouch of a native dune-cat; the aromatic ball is of high value on Earth as a perfumed ornament, but its heist dooms the Martian creatures (who prove to be sentient) to a slow death.  Can she make it off Mars with the story?

It's a good story, but it suffers both for its 1950s depiction of Mars and the extremely sudden ending, which I ended up reading several times, wondering if I'd missed a paragraph or two somewhere.  Here, the unfinished nature left me wanting rather than dreaming.

Three stars.

The Glorious Fourth, by Jack Sharkey

Three astronauts from Earth land on an Eden teeming with an ecology so vigorous that its creatures refuse to die.  One of the crew, despairing of service under the martinet captain, goes native – literally.  And while the process is pleasant for him, the interaction between the remaining two and the planet's life forms is ultimately less enjoyable.

Jack Sharkey's byline is one I'm normally wary of, but he delivers a decent story here, and the vague ending, only hinting at the horrors the two spacemen will face (and the reason for their unpleasantness), is effective.

Three stars.

Minutes of A Meeting At The Mitre, by Robert F. Young

Old Nick meets Samuel Johnson.  With a punchline telegraphed from the beginning, the only motivation for this piece seems to be Young's desire to do a Boswell pastiche. 

Well, the story may have finished, but it's clear that the hoary "Deal with the Devil" subgenre of fantasy is not.

Two stars.

The Land of Mu, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor picks up where he left in his elementary physical particles, this time discussing the differences between electrons and mu mesons (muons).  It's an absolutely fascinating piece, and it's very clear from its conclusion that there is still so very much we don't know about the universe's tiniest components.

Five stars.

Something Else, by Robert J. Tilley

A punctilious, nature-hating music professor crashlands on a deserted planet with only a clarinet and box of jazz music spools to keep him company.  Well, not quite deserted: there is also a solitary shaggy alien with the ability to mimic music perfectly.  Thus begins an interspecies friendship.

Perhaps intentionally, the ultimate story in this collection does have a definite ending, which is sadly to its detriment.  Rather than building to some kind of revelatory peak offering some sort of interesting insight on the human condition, there is, instead, a pointless downer of a conclusion, better suited to a lesser episode of The Twilight Zone.  Tilley, the piece's author, is also about 20% more wordy than he needs to be.

Three stars.

Endings?

I would say that this month's reliance on the unfinished story had mixed results.  However, at the very least, I am now looking forward to the conclusion of the Zelazny piece; at most, I find my thoughts returning to the other uncertain endings, imagining the myriad outcomes that might have better resolved these otherwise unsettled lines.

Art reflects reality indeed!

Our next Journey Show: At the Movies, is going to be a blast!

DON'T MISS IT!




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[August 26, 1965] Stag Party (September 1965 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Boys Only Club?

A very curious phenomenon has taken place over the last several years.  When I started writing the Journey, women were a rising force in professional science fiction. In 1959, three of the six "Best New Authors" were women (Rosel George Brown, Kit Reed, and Pauline Ashwell – all Journey favorites). About 10% of the stories (and 25% of what was worth reading) was produced by women. Both Amazing and Fantastic, two of the main science fiction monthly digests, were helmed by Cele Goldsmith.

Then…something happened. Over the last few years, the appearances of women in magazines has dwindled to a trickle. There are fewer appearing in novels, too (and since women tended to produce short fiction more often than long form, this change was particularly noticeable). As of this month, no single title across all of the published magazines was done under a sole female byline. Five of the last 45 novels this year were written by four women – two were by Andre Norton, who writes under a masculine byline.

Cele Goldsmith became Cele Lalli and left her editor position. This was probably not a result of her getting married but rather due to a change in her two magazines to a reprints-mostly format.

Though the loss of women in SF has not always hurt the quality of fiction produced, (indeed, this was one of the better months in a long time), I've no doubt that this development is bad for the genre in the long run. The fewer perspectives, the less diversity of viewpoints, the more our stories are going to fall into ruts. A wider pool of authors also creates better work as more talented folks get a chance to rise to the top. I don't know why the genre has become bereft of one half of the population, but I hope the situation changes soon.

Still Plugging Along

As I said, this month was, despite the alarming paucity of women SF contributors, surprisingly and refreshingly good. This month's Analog, so often a turgid relic, was a pleasant read from back to front. Let's take a look inside:


by Kelly Freas

Space Pioneer (Part 1 of 3), by Mack Reynolds


by Kelly Freas

A nameless fellow wangles passage on the s/s Titov, a future-day Mayflower carrying 2000 colonists to New Arizona.  His goal is not exploring a new world, however – it's the assassination of the last of the Peshkopi clan. the would-be killer having gotten a tip that Peshkopi was slated to make the interstellar jaunt on the old freighter.

Inadvertently taking on the role of Roger Bock, holder of one of the mission's ten financial shares, the assassin quickly finds himself embroiled in a growing conflict between the mistreated passengers, little more than chattel in the holds, and the comparatively pampered crew and shareholders.  By the end of Part One, the identity of the Peshkopi is yet unknown to "Bock", but it is strongly implicated that it is actually Cathy Bergman, the elected representative of the colonists.  Of course, by the end of the serial's installment, Bock has much bigger things to worry about than his initial mission…

Pioneer is typically competent Reynolds stuff, even though the milieu is more Leinsterian.  If I have any complaint, it's that the science fiction trappings are virtually nonexistent.  This could be a story set in the 18th Century.

That said, I do enjoy the rather unflattering portrayal of colonist (and presumably planetary) exploitation, and the inclusion of developed female characters is nice.  Reynolds is usually good about that.

Four stars thus far.

The Life of Your Time, by Michael Karageorge


by Kelly Freas

On sublight but relativistic trip to Tau Ceti, the starship Emissary makes a shocking discovery: while time dilation affects the crew, slowing down the passage of time for their physical bodies and for the ship's systems, their minds remain at the speed of their original reference point – Earth.  Thus, to them, their bodies increasingly become prisons as their minds experience minutes, ultimately hours, for every second their bodies sense.  It's a story of tragedy, discovery, and triumph.

And a very unusual one for Analog.  It reminds me a bit of Niven's Wrong Way Street, featuring a gender-balanced and ethnically mixed crew (though they are all explicitly and deliberately Americans).  I don't know who Michael Karageorge is, but he definitely hit a triple on his first outing (and I dug the brand new concept of the hydrogen ramscoop ship).

Four stars.

LUT the Giant Mover, by Lyle R. Hamilton

The nonfiction article is both interesting and disappointing.  You can't fault the subject matter, which is the new launch facilities at Cape Kennedy.  But like most articles in Analog, it suffers for lack of subheadings and a coherent narrative.

So, three stars.  At least it's not about dowsing!

Computers Don't Argue, by Gordon R. Dickson


by John Schoenherr

Here is a dark cautionary tale about relying too heavily on computers, in which a fellow is sent a reader's club book by mistake, and is ultimately arrested and executed when he refuses to pay for it.

I get what they're trying to say, but the story takes place next year and while there is merit to avoiding overreliance on automated systems, there are just too many places where human involvement in the system would have broken the digital positive feedback loop. I hope. On the other hand, who knows?

A low three stars.

Test in Orbit, by Ben Bova


by Kelly Freas

Better is this story of a near-future conflict in space: Chet Kinsman, a USAF Captain with a week left to his hitch, is tasked to fly into space on an X-20 derivative and inspect an unknown satellite suspected of being an orbital bomb.  A mortal combat ensues.

I enjoyed all of this piece except the ending, which was both a little maudlin and should have had some falling action after the reveal.  Still, I think Ben Bova is a promising author, and I look forward to more of his stuff.

Three stars.

Psi for Sale, by Walter Bupp


by Kelly Freas

We've seen a lot of installments in the story of "Lefty" Walter Bupp, a telekinetic doctor with the grammar of a mook.  This time, John Berryman (the author's real name) offers us a look at Bupp's prehistory as well as the early history of the organization created for the benefit of American psychics.

I like the series, and this one was probably my favorite installment.  Perhaps a little superfluous, but still welcome (and it was neat to see a piece from the perspective of Maragon, the "Grand Master" of the "Lodge").

4 stars.

Say It with Flowers, by Winston P. Sanders


by Kelly Freas

Last up, we get another piece set in a future history in which the asteroid belt has won independence from the Earth.  Written under Poul Anderson's throwaway pen name, these are usually dry, technical stories of lesser appeal. 

This time, we get a fairly compelling tale about a Lieutenant in the "asterix" space service who is apprehended by North American forces on a courier mission.  It turns out that the message he is transmitting is carried on his person in an unique (but utterly telegraphed and unsurprising) way.

I liked the piece fine enough, though this line irked:

"The revolutionaries were so short of manpower that quite a few women held high rank."

An omission of that line would have gone a long way.  I don't need the suggestion that women are only able to succeed when there ain't enough men to do the work – especially when it's obvious that women can do the work.

Anyway, three stars.

Y marks the spot


Note, for the first time, the lack of women in the Journey round-up image – this one is of an IBM demonstration in Ethiopia.

Distressing lack of women authors aside, this was a good month for science fiction in magazines.  Analog clocked in at a respectable 3.5 stars, ahead of Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.2, largely thanks to its opening novella) and IF (2.9, dragged down by the Doc Smith serial).

Finishing roughly equivalent were Fantastic (3.5), New Worlds (3.5), and Science Fantasy (3.4).  If we include New Writings in SF #5 (3.5), which is a quarterly in book form but feels like a magazine, that makes the numbers even better.

So a mixed pleasure this month.  Let's hope this trend of female non-production reverses itself soon and results in even better times to come!




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