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[December 31, 1969] …for spacious skies (January 1970 Analog)

[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Pan Am makes the going great!

Thousands turned out in Everett, Washington, for the roll-out of the first jumbo jet ever built.  The "wide-bodied" Boeing 747 can carry a whopping 362 passengers; compare that to the 189 carried by the 707 that inaugurated the "Jet Age" a decade ago. Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) took delivery of the aircraft, which flew to Nassau, Bahamas, thenceforth to New York.

photo of an enormous jet, parked on the ground on a sunny day. There are also observing members of the public, of which there seem to be about 4. The top half of the jet is white with a horizontal turquoise stripe that extends all the way around. Above the stripe, there are the words PAN AM in large black letters. The bottom half of the plane is polished, reflective metal, and there is an open hatch on the left side, closest to the photographer. On the right side of the image, we can see the stairway allowing passengers to depart. On the left side of the image, there is a small barrier of folding wood signs between the photographer and the jet. The barrier surrounds a group of 3 trucks and 8 or so technicians, as well as the platform ladders that reach from the ground to the open hatch.

Originally scheduled for regular service on Dec. 15, things have been pushed back to January 18.  That's because 28 of the world's airlines have placed orders for 186 of these monsters, including American Airlines, which has ordered 16.  Since their shipment won't arrive until June, and as air travel is strictly regulated in this country by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), which ensures fairness of rates, routes, and other aspects of competition, the CAB ordered a delay until Pan Am leases American one of its fleet.

As impressive as the 747 is, it constitutes something of a bridge, aeronautically speaking.  Very soon, we will have supersonic transports plying the airlanes.  Eventually, we may even have hypersonic derivatives of the reusable "space shuttle", currently under development at NASA.  The jumbo jet will allow for economical, subsonic flights until passenger travel goes faster than sound, at which point, the 747 will make an excellent freighter. 

These are exciting times for the skies!  And with that, let's see if we've also got exciting times in space…

John Campbell makes the going… hard

A beautiful color photo of the Saturn V launch, a syringe piercing the grey heavens, and a beam of fire below. The great orange cloud created by takeoff forms sharp relief against the Florida trees.

What Supports Apollo?, by Ben Bova and J. Russell Seitz

Apropos of the aeronautically pioneering theme, the first piece in this issue is a science article on what supports the Apollo, literally: the enormous Vehicle Assembly Building, where the three stages of the Saturn V are put together; the crawler that the rocket rides to the launch pad, and the 30-story gantry at the launch pad.

photo of a gantry tower constructed of metal struts. In the background, there is the Saturn V, attached to a similar structure. They are both on large platforms that seem to float above the ground.
The mobile launcher (left) and the Saturn on the crawler (right)

It's a lot of numbers told in a wide-eyed fashion, but I enjoyed it.  The pictures are nice, too.

Four stars.

The Wild Blue Yonder, by Robert Chilson

Illustrated by Vincent DiFate. Two-panel illustration, light dusty black linework on white background. On the right panel there is a White man in a white suit with a dark tie, facing the viewer. He looks like a pimply Ronald Reagan, and is awkwardly holding a fantastical gun as though it is a cigarette holder. On the left panel, there is a White man in a black suit, sitting at a computer console, facing away from the viewer. In the background of these images is a dusty cloudform meant to represent an atomic blast, but looks more like a hurricane.
by Vincent diFate(right)

Engineer Ted Halsman had bought an old mine in rural Ohio and stuffed it with all kinds of advanced equipment.  When the mine explodes with the force of an atomic blast, Halsman goes on the run, asserting that his discovery will warp the future of humanity if it escapes his clutches.

Told in documentary fashion, this story goes on waaaaay too long.  Along the way, much speculation is made about the nature of the blast, and how it might require rewriting the laws of physics.  That the speculations are patently absurd does a bit to foreshadow the joke ending.  On the other hand, that ending is also rather implausible.

Beyond that, we're meant to sympathize with Halsman, who idly dreams of returning to civilization, decades after successfully escaping from it.  That he murdered half a dozen people in cold blood while fleeing is glossed over.

Two stars.

The Proper Gander, by A. Bertram Chandler

Illustration by Leo Summers, black linework on white background. A White man in Western wear has pulled his pickup truck to the side of a road in the Southwestern United States, and has ended up stuck in a gulch. He has stepped out to look at the Black woman in Star Trek robes who has stepped out of a flying saucer-type spaceship. There is a cactus between them.
by Leo Summers

A thoroughly humanoid flying-saucer pilot is reprimanded for being too showy about his jaunts to Earth.  His bosses decide the best defense against discovery is hiding in plain sight: a saucer is ordered to land in front of a commuter, and out strolls a vivacious, thoroughly humanoid "Officer's Comfort Second Class" who claims she is from Venus.  Since modern humans know Venus is uninhabitable, the saucer people figure that future sightings will be written off as gags or delusions.

This story is both stupid and sexist, both in spades.  One star.

Curfew, by Bruce Daniels

A young Martian by the name of Matheson comes to Earth for the reading of his uncle's will.  Said uncle was an inventor and a corporate spy, and his legacy includes some rather valuable patents that could be explosive in the wrong hands.  Others are already after the secret, and in addition to dodging them, Matheson must meet with a shady unknown at night, outside the safety of his hotel.

Therein lines the inspiration for the story's title: as a solution to the crime problem, there is a night-long curfew enforced by mechanical beasts and aircraft.  Can Matheson brave the rigors of his homeworld long enough to claim his prize?

This piece is somewhat juvenile in tone, but not bad.  Three stars.

The Pyrophilic Saurian, by Howard L. Myers

Illustration by Leo Summers. Black lines on white background depict an enormous sauropod, either formed out of vegetation or with vegetation growing all over its body. In the background, there is a second sauropod, rubbing against a rocket ship. A palm frond the size of the rocket ship has fallen against its side. In the foreground, there is the legend
by Leo Summers

This story appears to take place in the same universe as "His Master's Vice", because that's the other place we've seen Prox(y)Ad(miral)s.  In this tale, we've got a prison escapee named Olivine who has made a break with four other convicts.  He heads out to a planet that he knows (as a former ProxAd) has been restricted and bears a resource of great value.  Of course, the suspicious ease of Olivine's escape suggests that the authorities have a reason for letting him and his band scout out this world for them…

It's cute, in a Chris Anvil sort of way, though the space patrol must have been close to prescient to anticipate all of the twists and turns the story takes.  Three stars, barely.

In Our Hands, the Stars (Part 2 of 3), by Harry Harrison

Illustration by Kelly Freas. Two-panel drawing. Left panel is a paunchy person in a too-tight black wetsuit-spacesuit, firing a ray gun at unseen pursuers. Right panel is another person wearing a wetsuit-spacesuit, carrying something over their shoulder that could be a grey sack, a person, or a large dead animal. The right panel wetsuit-spacesuit person appears to have a very large set of buttocks. The figures are in pools of light, next to something that looks like a jet. In the background there is a city at night, but it is drawn so dark and smudgy that it is impossible to make out much detail
by Kelly Freas

And now, Part 2 of the serial started last month, in which an Israeli scientists flees to Denmark to develop anti-gravity.

In this installment, Denmark builds a proper anti-grav spaceship, adapted from a giant hovercraft.  We learn that its pilot likes to sleep around, and his wife is being leaned on by the CIA to steal secrets from the project.  In all of this issue's 50 pages, the only scene that really matters is when the discoverer of the effect, Leif Holm, newly minted Minister for Space, gives a speech from the Moon.  The rest is superfluous building scenes or bits with the pilot's wife, who exists solely to be weak, vulnerable, and jealous, so she can be traitorous.

"Did you read about our Mars visit?" is a line that is actually in the book, and I thought at that point, "No!  But I'd have liked to!"

Also, can a diesel tractor really work on the Moon even with oxygen cylinders?  And are the Danestronauts doing anything to sterilize their equipment, or are they just blithely contaminating the Moon?

I'm really not enjoying this one very much.  Harrison is sleepwalking.  Two stars.

The Reference Library: To Buy a Book (Analog, January 1970), by P. Schuyler Miller

Miller prefaces his book column with a fascinating piece on how books are distributed.  In short, they aren't…not for very long, anyway.  The titles sit on shelves for a vanishingly brief time, and unless the booksellers know they can sell a bunch, chances are they won't bother ordering any.  The profit margin's just not there.  This is a phenomenon I know very well as an author, and I don't imagine the paradigm will change for the next half century or so (until we all switch over to digital books, computer-delivered, as Mack Reynolds predicts).

There's also a nice plug for Bjo Trimble's Star Trek Concordance, a comprehensive encyclopedia of all topics from the show.  Then Miller gushes over a trio of reprint Judith Merril novellas, Daughters of Earth, the recently novelized Leiber serial, A Specter is Haunting Texas, and the very recently novelized Silverberg serial, Up the Line.  His praise is slightly muted for Alexander Key's juvenile, The Golden Enemy.

Having reservations

photo of a young brunette woman, sitting at a computer and wearing a headset. She is wearing a short-sleeved ribbed sweater, and is smiling over her shoulder at the camera.
Thérèse Burke checks reservations for the Irish airline, Air Lingus.

Well.

It is appropriate that, on the eve of the dawn of a new era of air travel, Analog is continuing a serial about a new era of space travel.  But despite that subject matter, this issue is straight out of Dullsville, continuing a flight into mediocrity that has been going on for many years now.

With a score of 2.5, this month's issue is only beaten to the bottom by the perennial stinker, Amazing (2.4).  It is roughly tied with New Worlds (2.5), and exceed by IF (2.7), Vision of Tomorrow (3.2), and Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.5).

Aside from that superlative last magazine, it's been something of a drab month: you could take all the 4-5 star stuff and you'd have less than two full magazine's worth.  And women wrote just 4% of the pieces.

Is this any way to run a genre?



[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]


Follow on BlueSky

[May 31, 1968] Euler's Issue (June 1968 Analog)


by Gideon Marcus

Constants

The universe is based on a host of magic numbers.  Without them, the cosmos would be entirely different and probably uninhabitable.  Some of these "constants" are familiar to the layman, Pi perhaps being the most so.  Engineers are familiar with electron-Volts and atomic masses.  Chemists know Avogadro's number, the relationship between atomic mass and metric mass.  Mathematicians know e.

e is a truly fascinating number.  Roughly equal to 2.71828, it is the fundament of exponential growth. For example, if you have a $1 compounded annually at 100% interest, at the end of a year you'll have $2. If you have $1 compounded monthly at 100% interest, at the end of the year you'll have $2.62. If you have $1 compounded continuously (i.e. over an infinite number of instants), you will have $2.71828 at the end of the year.

In calculus, if you integrate the function e to the x power, you get… e to the x power!  Conversely, of course, the derivative of e to the x is e to the x.  That means that e to the x is the one function whose rate of change is the same as its position is the same as its acceleration.

What does this have to do with Analog Science Fiction, particularly this latest issue?


by Kelly Freas

Well, when you have the same editor for 30 years, and he hires the same writers every issue, and he has a rigid editorial policy that eschews innovation and prioritizes certain pseudo-scientific fetishes, you end up with a certain kind of consistency.  Not necessarily a desirable consistency, but consistency nevertheless.  Read on, and you'll see what I mean.

e gad

The Royal Road, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

You know you're in trouble when Chris Anvil gets the cover.  Actually, this continuan of the saga of Captain Roberts and his crew of two isn't so bad.  Previous installments had the trio serendipitously developing a mind-control ray and using it to wrest a planet from a despotic computer.  Then the three posed as nobility to sway said planet further.  It was all very glib and distasteful, and I didn't like it.

This story spends two thirds of its length rehashing the events of those stories for new readers and then bringing the trio back, making it a quartet (with Bergen from a story in the December 1967 issue), and unleashing them on a new problem.  A somewhat primitive planet is fractured into more than a dozen petty kingdoms, and the Interstellar Patrol needs a majority of them to agree in order to establish a base.  In the last third of Royal Road, we get the solution to this conundrum. It mostly involves creating an economic catastrophe that only kingdoms favorable to the Imperial Patrol are equipped to address, thus putting these kingdoms on top.  Anvil does note that the gambit could have killed millions, so at least things aren't quite so glib as before.

At least now the quartet of Captain Roberts has been transformed into a sort of Retief series.  Anything's an improvement.  Anyway, I didn't hate it.  A low three stars, I guess. 

No Shoulder to Cry On, by Hank Davis


by Leo Summers

After the vastly superior alien federation shows up on Earth, a sociologist is brought back to see what he assumes will be their advanced technology.  Instead, it turns out that humans have been quite a bit more successful than the ee-tees, at least in one vital field.

A Twilight Zone episode writ small, but inoffensive.  Three stars.

Duplex, by Howard L. Myers


by Kelly Freas

Kent is a person with a literal split personality.  His left half is under the control of a silent partner, dubbed "Pard", while Kent, nominally the "dominant" personality, runs the right half.  Together, they lead a pleasant life as an extremely successful concert pianist.  That is until Pard gets them both tangled up in a spy conspiracy that threatens not just the world…but themselves!

I liked the story's handling of mental handicaps, and it's a pleasant piece overall.  Three stars, but the highest three stars in the issue.

It's RIGHT Over Your Nose!, by Ben Bova


by Kelly Freas

In this science-ish article, Bova suggests that quasars, highly red-shifted quasi-stellar radio sources, may in fact be Bussard ramjets run by aliens.  Thus, rather than being natural phenomena of tremendous power far outside the galaxy, they are artificial phenomena of middlin' power within.

I tend to prefer natural over artificial solutions to problems.  Plus, why is every star-drive in the galaxy going away from us?

Still, it's readable, if breathless.  Three stars.

The Mind Reader, by Rob Chilson


by Leo Summers

Robot mini-planes prove to be decisive in the next Southeast Asian war.  This story is told mostly in dialogue between two people in a sort of "As you know, Bob…" fashion.

The concept is interesting and unique.  The story is not compellingly told.  Two stars.

Satan's World (Part 2 of 4), by Poul Anderson


by Kelly Freas

Finally, we have the next installment in Satan's World, which started last month.  The crew of Muddlin' Through was split up when David Falkayn was abducted by Serendpity Inc., a galactic information clearing house.  This provoked Polesotechnic League magnate Nicholas Van Rijn to take a personal hand in things, sending Adzel the saurian centaur to retrieve the poor lad. 

Turns out Falkayn (predictably) had been brainwashed.  It also turns out that Serendipity is working with, perhaps in the thrall of, a race of mysterious aliens known as the Elders.  The ulterior motive of this ostensibly neutral organization suggests some new power may be planning some kind of galactic conquest.

Meanwhile, Chee Lan the foul-mouthed Cynthian and Falkayn head to the world Serendipity told him about in part one–the frozen world in a cometary orbit that is closing in on its star, Beta Crucis.  This will cause its cryosphere to melt, revealing a mother-lode of precious metals.  But Van Rijn's team isn't the only one interested in the world, aptly dubbed "Satan".  Twenty UFOs have just dropped out of hyperspace in the vicinity, and they don't look friendly…

Anderson has a lot of tics I don't like, particularly his drawing of characters as…well, assemblages of tics.  Adzel is a placid Buddhist, Falkayn is a cipher, Chee Lan is a salty Little Old Lady from Pasadena, and Van Rijn is a lustier, more Dutch version of Raymond Burr's Ironside.

The author also devotes lots of ink to the physical descriptions of his astronomical creations, which I'm sure are fascinating to some, but perhaps are most gratifying for the three cents a word they earn him.

That said, just as I start to get bored, I find myself turning the page and reading on.  So, another three star segment.

Less than Three

So, just like the constant "e", Analog clocks in at just under three.  Indeed, that's how I feel about the magazine as a whole lately.  Sure, there are better issues than others, and sure, there are some standout pieces, but for the most part, I find myself doing anything–cleaning the bathroom ceilings, cataloging my 45s, sorting stamps–rather than read Analog.  Not that I hate the experience when I get to it.  It simply doesn't give the thrill of anticipation that Galaxy still gives me after all of these years.  Even F&SF, which hasn't been terrific since 1962, retains residual goodwill.

Of course, this month's Analog clocks in at 2.9 (rounding up 2.85), which is better than Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.6).  But it's worse than Galaxy (3.1) and IF (3.3).

It was a really thin month for magazines, and out of the four that were published, the better-than-three-star stories would barely fill one of them.  At least women wrote 11% of new fiction pieces, which is on the higher end lately.

Well, here's hoping that next month's Analog picks a different constant to ape, if it can.  And let's hope it's not Planck's Constant!






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