Tag Archives: robert bloch

Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 14, 1968] Long Time No See (August 1968 Fantastic)

6 Comments


by Victoria Silverwolf

Welcome Back, Comrade

It's been more than a quarter of a century since the Communist Party of the United States ran candidates for President and Vice-President. That was back in 1940, when Earl Browder and James W. Ford were nominated.


They didn't win.

This month, the Party chose Charlene Mitchell and Mike Zagarell for the honor.


Zagarell is technically too young to serve as Vice-President, but I don't think he'll have to face that problem.

Overdue Notice

One month isn't anywhere near as long as twenty-eight years, but the failure of a July issue of Fantastic to hit the shelves of drugstores and newsstands (in June, of course, given the proclivities of the publishing industry) may have caused as much anxiety among readers of imaginative fiction as the lack of a Commie candidate caused in Red voters.

Not to worry. My esteemed colleague John Boston has explained the situation in typically erudite fashion in his latest review of Amazing. I'll wait here while you go take a look.

Ready? Good. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's take a look at the August, not July, issue of Fantastic to see if our patience has been rewarded.


Cover art by Johnny Bruck.

Our first hint that the delay hasn't changed things very much, if at all, is the fact that the cover is once again a reprint from an issue of the popular German space opera serial Perry Rhodan.


The original always looks better.

The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar, by Fritz Leiber

We begin in promising fashion with our old pals Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, in another witty and imaginative adventure from the living master of sword-and-sorcery.


Illustration by Jeff Jones.

The two lovable rogues have gotten their hands on some incredibly valuable magic jewels. Each one of them tries to cash in on the stolen goods, making use of different fences.

The Mouser goes to a blind fellow, who has a nubile female assistant. Fafhrd seeks out a woman of mature years, who insists on an intimate encounter before the deal is completed. Suffice to say that things don't work out as they expect.

As you'd expect, this is a beautifully written and highly enjoyable tale. It's a bit lighter in tone that some other stories in the series; an anecdote rather than an epic, perhaps.

As a bonus, the likable character Alyx, created by Joanna Russ, makes a guest appearance. Obviously Leiber approves of the way Russ is influenced by his work, and he has acknowledged this in a gracious manner.

Four stars.

Fault, by James Tiptree, Jr.

A new writer makes his third appearance in print with this science fiction story. Narrated by a spaceman to an unknown listener over drinks, it tells how an inexperienced crew member got in trouble. It seems he clumsily injured an alien. Put on trial, he is found guilty and punished in a way the aliens can't convey to the humans. He seems perfectly fine, until strange things start happening.

What the aliens did to the fellow is the whole point of the narrative. It's pretty much a puzzle story. For that kind of thing, it's reasonably interesting. It could have appeared in Analog, except for the fact that the aliens aren't shown to be inferior to humans. It's not bad, but not outstanding in any way.

My advice to Mister Tiptree is to keep writing; the man shows promise.

Three stars.

Horror Out of Carthage, by Edmond Hamilton

Here come the reprints. This old-fashioned yarn comes from the September 1939 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Cover art by Harold W. McCauley.

Our cast of characters includes the manly hero, an older archeologist, and the latter's beautiful daughter. They're on a dig to locate the Temple of Moloch at the site of Carthage.


Illustrations by Jay Jackson.

Right away we're told that the daughter feels as if someone is trying to force her out of her body. It's no surprise, then, when the mind of a woman of the ancient vanished city takes possession of her physical form. Pretty soon our hero's mind goes far back in time to inhabit the body of a Carthaginian man.

The big problem is that Carthage is about to be wiped off the map by invading Romans. (The two folks from the doomed city came forward in time to escape that fate.) Can the hero find a way to save his beloved from being sacrificed to Moloch, and return to his own time with her? Come on, you know the answer to that already.


War, with elephants.

This is a typical old-time pulp adventure story, with characters who are walking archetypes. It's got some vivid scenes, so it's not boring. Carthage is constantly described as a wicked, barbaric place. That sounds more like Roman propaganda than accurate ancient history, but I'm no expert.

Worth a look for nostalgia buffs.

Three stars.

The Supernal Note, by Rog Phillips

The July 1948 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this unusual work.


Cover art by Arnold Kohn.

A mysterious entity sends a musical note from an ethereal realm to the material world. In mundane reality, a man strikes up a conversation with an airline stewardess. They are obviously attracted to each other, but eventually go their separate ways.


Illustration by William A. Gray.

This is a very strange story, and I have described it badly. The author creates a highly detailed mythological background, much of it difficult to comprehend. I'm not really sure what he's getting at. Did the musical note cause the pair to fall in love?

I found this peculiar tale rather haunting, if confusing. It's definitely not the same old thing, anyway.

Three stars.

When Better Budgies Are Built, by Bryce Walton

The November 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures is the source of this futuristic farce.


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

The narrator is a vacuum cleaner salesman. He gets pulled into the future by a guy using a forbidden time machine. It seems that two rival merchandisers, the only ones left in this new version of the USA, are about to start selling gizmos that will supply everything that anyone could want, for a price. The problem is that one of the corporations has an army of robots who are able to sell anything to anybody.


Illustration by William Slade.

What makes this even more alarming is the fact that the head of the company is a would-be dictator planning to use the robots to sell people on the idea that he should be their leader. In exchange for a piece of future technology that will make him rich when he goes back to his own time, the narrator figures out a way to defeat the irresistible robot salesman.

Pretty silly stuff, really. The plot depends on the robots being absolutely perfect at selling merchandise and ideas, without any clue as to how they do this. We don't get to find out what the narrator earns for his service, either.

The ending makes use of a stereotype about women that is more goofy than offensive.

Two stars.

The Frightened Planet, by Sidney Austen

This two-fisted, he-man yarn comes from the October 1948 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by James B. Settles.

A Cro-Magnon runs away from his tribe after a fight with the bullying leader. He witnesses a sphere arrive and discharge two men and a woman. After saving the trio from a wolf, he jumps into the vessel to escape a sabretooth tiger. The four go off to another planet.


Illustration by J. Allen St. John.

The folks on this world are under attack by green monsters. The Cro-Magnon defeats the creatures easily, while the effete males around him cower in fear. Naturally, the woman is instantly attracted to his manliness.

The author is obviously trying to promote the idea that men should be fearless warriors. The Cro-Magnon's contempt for the decadent males surrounding him is evident, and the author appears to share it.

Even if I ignore all that, as an adventure story it failed to hold my interest. There are parts of it where there seems to be something missing; one scene jumps to another without any kind of transition.

One star.

You Could Be Wrong, by Robert Bloch

Here's a tale of paranoia from the March 1955 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Ed Valigursky.

A guy gets fed up with everything being fake. He goes on and on about this, until his exasperated wife calls in a buddy to talk some sense into him.


Illustration by Virgil Finlay.

The two fellows argue about stuff being phony for a while. The guy reveals what he thinks is behind all these ersatz things. There's a twist ending you'll see coming a mile away.

Definitely a one idea story. It's like one of Philip K. Dick's what-is-reality tales, with all the subtlety and complexity surgically removed. Or maybe it's more like a clumsy version of Robert A. Heinlein's famous solipsistic nightmare They.

Anyway, not very good.

Two stars.

No Head for My Bier, by Lester del Rey

This screwball comedy comes from the September 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

A nutty scientist uses a gizmo to remove an actor's head, as far as anybody can tell. Apparently he can still talk and breathe and such. He tells the actor to get a job without his handsome face within a month, or stay that way forever.


Illustration by Robert Gibson Jones also.

The actor's head is stored, in some way or other, like a photographic negative. Only pure alcohol can make it go back to normal. Let's just say that beer and a cat are involved in the ridiculous climax.

This thing is even more of a lunatic romp than I have indicated. The nutty scientist does all kinds of impossible things, from teleportation to literally flying.

Of possible interest to fans of pure wackiness.

Two stars.

The Wrong People, by Ralph Robin.

Yet another comedy, from the November/December 1953 issue of the magazine.


Cover art by Vernon Kramer.

A married couple who pretty much dislike everything, including each other, inadvertently conjure up a being from somewhere else in space and time. The creature is friendly enough, it seems, even if it scares the daylights out of the humans at first.


Illustration by Ed Emshwiller.

After they calm down, they think it's some kind of genie or something, ready to offer them whatever they want. This misunderstanding doesn't end well, leading to a shockingly gruesome conclusion.

There seems to be a touch of satire here, although you have to dig deep to find it. The sudden change in mood at the end really threw me for a loop.

Two stars.

Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Princess of Mars, by Charles R. Tanner

The author retells the story of ERB's famous novel in the form of a humorous poem.


Illustration by Jim.

I found it too sophomoric for my taste in literary spoofing. I may be prejudiced, as I am not a fan of Burroughs.

One star.

Worth Waiting For?

This issue started off well, but quickly sank into mediocrity and lousiness. Amazing and Fantastic seem to have reached the bottom of the barrel when it comes to reprints. Too much thud-and-blunder adventure, too much stupid comedy. It's enough to make you sick.


Cartoon by Frosty, from the same issue as Ralph Robin's story.




6 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[January 16, 1968] Worthy programming (February 1968 Galaxy)

13 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

On the small screen

A few weeks ago, President Johnson signed into effect the Public Broadcasting Act.  Its purpose, among other things, is to turn a decentralized constellation of educational stations and program producers into a government-funded network.  It's basically socialism vs. the vast wasteland.

Given the quality of programming I've seen produced by National Education Television, particularly on independent station KQED-San Francisco (e.g. "Jazz Casual" and "The Rejected"), I am all for this move.  Indeed, I've recently come across a show that has really sold me on public television.

NET Journal is a series on political matters of the day.  In December, they had a program that showed the results of a week-long workshop in which 12 affluent young men and women of a multitude of ethnicities lived together and discussed their prejudices.  What they determined was surprising to them, and maybe to us.  As we saw in the film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, even in the most bleeding heart liberal, there is prejudice; and it's not just directed from whites to minorities.

This week, we caught an interview with four journalists in Saigon.  Recently, LBJ and General Westmoreland have been cheerleading the effort in Vietnam, saying that the three-year commitment of half a million troops is bearing fruit.  The South Vietnam-based journalists dispute this rosy view.  They say progress has been slow, that the South Vietnamese army is hopelessly corrupt and must be reformed from the head down if it is to operate effectively without American support, and that we are not engaged in "nation-building" because there is currently no nation.  The elections are meaningless so long as there be no real choices to be made, so long as bribes and payoffs accomplish more than the rule of law.

Withering stuff.  Next week, the program will be on draft-dodgers.

On the small page

Galaxy Science Fiction is also an exellent, long-running source of information and entertainment.  This month's issue is a particularly good example.


by Jack Gaughan

A Tragedy of Errors, by Poul Anderson

Anderson has established a reputation for producing some of the "hardest" SF around, laden with astrophysical tidbits.  On the other hand, his quality varies from sublime to threadbare.  Luckily, his latest novella lies far closer to the former end of the scale.

Tragedy takes place in what appears to be the far future of his Polysotechnic League history.  The loose interstellar confederation of planets became an empire and subsequently went into decline a la the worlds in H. Beam Piper's Space Viking universe and Asimov's Foundation setting.  I really like these "after the fall" stories of folks trying to patch a polity back together, maybe better than it was before.


by Gray Morrow

This particular story is the tale of Roan Tom, Dagny, and Yasmin, the crew of the merchant-pirate Firedrake.  Their ship is in desperate need of repairs, and the only planet within range of the married trio is a Mars-sized world around a swollen orange sun.  Luckily, said world was once a human colony of the Empire and thus may have the resources needed to fix a starship.

Unluckily, the planet has been recently plundered by pirates, and the inhabitants do not take kindly to strangers–especially ones that call themselves "friends."

There's a lot to like about this riproaring tale of aerial maneuvers, overland evasion, and fast-talking diplomacy.  For one, two of the main characters are women, and highly competent ones at that.  Moreover, it is an ensemble cast, with each of the three coming into the spotlight for extended periods of time.

There is also a mystery of sorts, here…or several, really, all woven together: how does this undersized planet have an atmosphere?  Indications are that this is a young world, but why, then, does the dense planet have so little surface metal?  And why is the star so unstable, prone to devastating solar storms that play hell with the planet's weather?  Solving this astronomical puzzle proves key to addressing the Firedrake crew's more immediate problems.

Of course, you have to like detailed explanations of stellar and planetary parameters and phenomena.  I personally love this sort of thing, but others may find their eyes glazing.  On the other hand, there's plenty to enjoy even if you decide to let the science wash over you.  The sanguine antics of Roan Tom, the determined toughness of Dagny, the more refined and tentative brilliance of Yasmin.  These are great characters, and I'd like to see more of them.

Four stars.

The Planet Slummers, by Terry Carr and Alexei Panshin

A pair of young thrift store bargain hunters are, in turn, scooped up by a pair of alien specimen collectors.  I think the story is supposed to be ironic, or symbolic, or something.

Forgettable.  Two stars.

Crazy Annaoj, by Fritz Leiber


by Jack Gaughan

Ah, but then we have the story of a different couple: a superannuated trillionaire and a dewy (but flinty) eyed young starlet.  There's is a love fated for the ages, but not the way you might think.

Just a terrific tale told the way only Leiber (or maybe Cordwainer Smith) could tell it.

Five stars.

Street of Dreams, Feet of Clay, by Robert Sheckley


by Vaughn Bodé

Imagine moving to the city of the future: clean, architecturally pleasing, smog-free, crammed with creature comforts.  Now imagine the city is run by a computer brain…with the personality of a Jewish mother.

Bob Sheckley is Jewish, so I suspect he didn't have to strain his imagination much for this one.  Droll, but a little too painful and one-note to be great.

Three stars.

For Your Information: Epitaph for a Lonely Olm, by Willy Ley

This is a pretty dandy story about a sightless cave salamander that lives its whole life in the water, thus eschewing the amphibian portion of its nature.  Thanks to this creature, we have the concept of "neoteny"–the retention of juvenile traits for evolutionary advantage.  The blind, pale beast also ensured the fame of Marie von Chauvin, a 19th Century zoologist.

Four stars.

Sales of a Deathman, by Robert Bloch


by Jack Gaughan

How do we combat the exploding birth rate?  By making suicide sexy, thus exploding the death rate!

Bloch's modest proposal would be better suited to a three line comedy routine than a several-page vignette.  Three stars.

Total Environment, by Brian W. Aldiss


by Jack Gaughan

Crammed into a ten-story self-contained habitat, 75,000 persons of Indian descent live a life of increasing desperation and squalor.  At first, we are given to believe that the settlement is a natural response to the crushing pressure of overpopulation.  As it turns out, the Ultra-High Density Research Establishment (UHDRE) is actually a deliberate experiment in inducing psychic abilities through exposure to unique pressures.  Just 25 years ago, the site had a population of only 1500.  Now, teeming to bursting, the hoped-for psionic adepts are appearing–and an empire in a teapot is arising on UHDRE's Top Deck to take advantage of them.

Aldiss writes a compelling story.  One thinks it's just the second coming of Harrison's Make Room!  Make Room! until it isn't.  In some ways, this actually hurts the story, causing it to lose focus.  On the other hand, the setting is so well-drawn, and the situation suspenseful enough, that it still engages and entertains.

Four stars.

How They Gave It Back, by R. A. Lafferty


by Gray Morrow

The last mayor of Manhattan finds The Big Apple isn't worth the bother, now that it's degenerated into a ruined, gangland state run by a quintet of bandits.  Thankfully, the original owners will buy it back–for its original fee.

Again, this might have made a humorous short bit.  As is, you see the punchline from the first words (the title and illo help), and the slog isn't worth the ending.

Two stars.

The Big Show, by Keith Laumer


by Wallace Wood

Last up, a frothy adventure featuring a TV star recruited to infilitrate the last cannibal island in the South Pacific to thwart a nefarious Soviet scheme.  This is yet another in the recent spate of stories involving total sensory television in which hundreds of millions viscerally experience the lives of actors.

Unlike Kate Wilhelm's or George Collyn's spin on the subject, Laumer doesn't do very much with the gimmick.  Instead, it's another of his midly amusing but eminently forgettable yarns.

Two stars.

Summing up

Despite a sprinkling of clunkers, the latest Galaxy delivers the goods.  Two good novellas, a fine nonfiction piece, and an excellent Lieber short would have filled F&SF nicely.  So just pretend that the other stories don't exist and enjoy the good stuff.

And then tune in to NET Journal the next few weeks while you wait for the next issue!



13 Comments Leave A Comment
Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[December 28, 1967] Stumbling Bloch (Star Trek: "Wolf in the Fold")

6 Comments


by Janice L. Newman

‘Twas a few nights before Christmas when we all gathered around our TV set for the newest episode of Star Trek. I felt a pang of fear more suited to October than December when I saw the episode’s byline: this was yet another Robert Bloch script.

Robert Bloch gave us What Are Little Girls Made Of? and Catspaw. It’s clear he has a taste for fantasy and horror, but less interest (or at least less skill) when it comes to writing science fiction. I hoped that this episode would be different. And for a while, it seemed like it was.

The episode opens with a scene on Argelius, a ‘pleasure planet’ where dwells a society of hedonists. Before the opening credits even play, though, one of the planet’s resident’s is murdered and Scotty is found holding the knife!

Continue reading [December 28, 1967] Stumbling Bloch (Star Trek: "Wolf in the Fold") →

6 Comments Leave A Comment
Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[November 2, 1967] Trouble and Toil (Star Trek: Catspaw)

3 Comments

Such stuff as dreams are made of


by Joe Reid

For the first several episodes, this second season of Star Trek was solidly impressive.  We got to attend a Vulcan wedding.  We saw a mythological deity from human antiquity in a sci-fi setting.  We saw a transistorized deity faced and defeated.  Then a dark alternate universe, followed by a giant cornucopia of doom!  I regret that I must mention the episode with the red colored rock lizard worshippers, since that was undoubtedly the low point of this season.  Sadly, this week’s episode, titled “Catspaw” comes very close to hitting the low that “The Apple” achieved.

Dear readers, in my opinion, futuristic sci-fi shows should avoid doing holiday themed episodes.  I have no desire to watch sci-fi episodes about Christmas or Thanksgiving.  Nor Easter, the 4th of July, Passover, Saint Patrick’s Day, or Columbus Day.  So, watching what clearly stood out as "made for Halloween" was disappointing.  Especially since I do not feel that the episode was served by the inclusion of said theme.

We started this seventh episode of the second season on the bridge of the Enterprise as our heroes awaited a report from the landing party composed of Scotty, Sulu, and a Crewman Jackson.  A message came in from Jackson, with no word about the others.  As Jackson beamed up to the ship, he arrived on the transport circle dead on arrival.  Then from the non-moving mouth of the dead man came a ghostly warning to leave the planets and that the Enterprise was cursed.


"There is a curse on you!  Also, you've left the oven on"!

Determined to find out the fates of Scotty and Sulu, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy beam down to the planet to find their people.  Arriving on the surface they find that it was a dark and foggy night.  What comes next, I was not expecting: As the trio begin their search, they are confronted by three ugly witch apparitions, and wouldn’t you know it they have a poem to share.  “Winds shall rise, and fog descend, so leave here all, or meet your end.” Poetry so bad that it even garners a negative review from Spock.


"Hail Captain Kirk, Thane of Cawdor!"

If that isn’t a blatant enough holiday reference, Kirk and the others soon find themselves at a dark and eerie castle.  Upon entering they are startled by a black cat which leads Kirk to make the first explicit Halloween reference of the night about trick or treat.  They follow the cat hoping to see where it would lead them only to be knocked unconscious as the floor collapsed below their feet.


"There's my litter box!"

They awaken to find themselves chained to the walls of a dungeon next to a skeleton that looks exactly like what it is: a Halloween decoration, or maybe a model skeleton from my kid’s science classroom.  As the doors to their cell open, we get our first looks at Scotty and Sulu as they enter the dungeon.  Both are under some sort of magic spell and can’t speak but make it clear that they will take Kirk and the others to the people in charge.


I hope they weren't paid by the line for this one…

They meet two aliens that have taken the forms of a wand-sporting wizard named Korob, and the beautiful witch, Sylvia.  Kirk, Spock, and McCoy find themselves at the mercy of powers that could endanger the Enterprise in orbit, conjure items out of thin air, and mind control their crewmembers.


Korob and Sylvia–a tale of two coiffures

It is here that the spooky themes began to subside as the magicians reveal themselves as truly alien, with little understanding of humans or even having physical bodies.  They need humans and our minds to allow them more of the new experiences that they had created.  An interesting premise, but since this is Halloween, it is drowned in hocus pocus.

In the end, Kirk is able to learn about and destroy the magic wand…er…transmuter, the item that allowed their powers to work.  The defeated aliens returned to their original forms and promptly die.  The conclusion of the episode comes fast with virtually no transition, save for a brief explanation from Kirk to his newly liberated crew.


"The missing pages of the script are right there."

Outside of the unnecessary holiday theme, this episode managed to stay true to the elements of what makes Star Trek good.  The characters' behaviors were consistent with what we have come to expect.  Kirk was smart and brave.  Spock was insightful, and others, so long as they were not mind controlled, behaved as they should.  Also the aliens had actual, explained reasons for their actions. All this combined made this episode passable and not the absolute debacle that “The Apple” was.

3 stars.

A fool thinks himself to be wise


by Janice L. Newman

It wasn’t a surprise to learn that the same author who wrote "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", one of the worst episodes of the first season, also wrote "Catspaw". Robert Bloch is famous for his horror writing, particularly the movie Psycho. But his horror fantasy scripts simply do not translate well to the grounded science fiction of Star Trek.

"Catspaw" was a frustrating experience. Not just because it didn’t feel at all like a Star Trek episode (and naysayers in the fanzines will no doubt comment, as they did with "Miri" in the first season, that they happened to catch this episode and weren’t impressed), but also because it had the potential to be an interesting episode but simply couldn’t make it work.

Firstly, the idea that the ‘collective unconscious fears’ of our species would be reflected in a gothic castle, Shakespearian witches, and black cats, is simply ridiculous. If there is some kind of collective unconscious for humanity, the reflection of it must necessarily be both much more chaotic and universal to the human experience. This flaw could have been overcome either by saying that the aliens drew their ideas of us from our popular culture, or perhaps that they drew on one particular crewmember’s unconscious fears. Alternatively, rather than using the traditional gothic symbolism, the show could have tried something more innovative, imagining what might frighten any human anywhere throughout all of history.

Another flaw was the pacing. The scene of Sulu unlocking everyone’s chains took far too long, for example, while the final scene felt rushed. The scenes on the bridge were dull, especially with the wooden DeSalle in charge.


"I am acting!"

A particularly annoying problem with the episode was that it set up situations to be resolved and then didn’t follow through. The most egregious example of this occurs when the bridge crew finally manage to ‘dent’ the forcefield around them—only to have the forcefield lifted by one of the aliens before they can escape it on their own. While I would have been mildly irritated at the similarity to "Who Mourns for Adonais?" if the crew had cleverly managed to escape, I was far more irritated that the crew was set up to escape and then not given the opportunity to do. What was the point of those scenes on the bridge, then?

The ‘horrific’ aspects to the story often came across as comedic instead. Perhaps the ugly witches might scare a young child watching the show, but the room full of adults I was watching with chuckled at their appearance and their sung proclamations. One of the saddest pieces of wasted potential was the aliens’ true appearance. They looked like little birds made of pipe cleaners, and when they came on the screen they got the loudest laugh of the evening. A scene which could have and should have been poignant or grotesque was again turned comedic by poor writing, pacing, and framing.

I’m torn as to what rating to give this episode. On one hand, it didn’t even feel like an episode of Star Trek. On the other, there were some interesting elements, and it wasn’t confusing like "The Alternative Factor" or dully exasperating like "The Apple". Plus, there was a cat. Still, when all is said and done, the wince-inducing scenes between Kirk and the Sorceress canceled out what good there could have been. I can’t give it more than one star.

Signifying Nothing


by Amber Dubin

It's ironic that this episode is called "catspaw" because the plot is about as cohesive as a heavily pawed ball of yarn; a tangle of threads that don't hold together or go anywhere.

The acting quality of the episode peaks early with the deeply convincing collapse of ensign Jackson off the transporter pad. Yet the fact that he is the only non-essential crewman sent down to this clearly hostile planet makes less than no sense. Continuing the madness, after Jackson's corpse is used to deliver a message of warning that's immediately ignored, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are subjected to another gratuitous display from disembodied witch heads spouting Shakespearian-esque poetry. You would think this theme of theater-obsessed eccentric illusion-projectors would continue, but you would be wrong, as the only further theatrical implications come in the form of the heavily made up and costumed Korob, whose appearance is given no explanation.


Though you must admit: the camera loves him!

In further defiance of explanation, the crew wakes up chained to the walls of a dungeon after the floor of the castle they enter haphazardly collapses beneath them. Next ensues an absolutely mystifying scene where a zombified Sulu painstakingly unlocks their restraints cuff by cuff. This gesture is immediately made unnecessary when they are teleported into a throne room with Korob, one of their captors. As we've seen in "Squire of Gothos" or "Who Mourns for Adonais?" Korob reveals himself to be overpowered alien attempting to understand the nature of man. He doesn't get too far in his speech, however, before he is upstaged by the real star of the play, the necklace-wearing black cat that transforms into Sylvia, a beautiful woman.

I was hoping Sylvia's introduction would lead to a McCoy-centered episode, as Bones seems to be unable to take his eyes off her.. necklace.. from the moment she enters. That theory is immediately banished as they are all teleported back to the dungeon and McCoy re-enters as a zombie (a role to which he is well-suited). The task of seducing the femme-fatale then predictably falls on Kirk, who delivers his clunkiest and least believable performance in the series so far as he outright fails in his attempt to make her feel too pretty to harm them any longer.

Despite this entirely nonsensical plot, somehow the biggest disappointment of the episode is yet to come as the aliens descend into madness. Korob is killed by a giant door, which is as easily avoidable as it is imaginary, making it therefore harmless to a being capable of casting such illusions. Even more absurdly, these magical beings, who are said to be powerful conjurors with no abilities of sensory perception, are suddenly revealed to resemble tiny, delicate bundles of exposed nerves.


Jim Henson presents: rejected muppets!

The episode abruptly ends, nothing is resolved, no one understands anything better and I'm baffled by the fact that a simple framing device of a crewman explaining Halloween to Spock at the beginning of the episode could have cleared up where these aliens got material for all the imagery in the episode. Instead, we spent more time watching Sulu unlock imaginary restraints than we do deciphering the nature or motivations of crusty blue pipe-cleaner puppet-gods.

Ridiculous. Two stars.


by Gideon Marcus

The Play's the Thing

I must confess–I did not hate this episode.  Not because it was good; heavens no!  It wasn't even Star Trek.  Just our favorite characters having a Halloween lark.  In fact, in my mind, I've completely disregarded it as a Star Trek episode.  Just as Spock and Uhura sometimes jam together in the lounge (why haven't we seen that this season?), and just as Kirk insists that real turkey be served on Thanksgiving, I've concluded that it is an Enterprise tradition that Halloween is celebrated with a big todo.

I can see Sylvia actually being Lt. McGivers' replacement, and with a minor in theatrics.  Once aboard the Enterprise, she began penning her magnum opus: a play involving all of the senior officers of the ship.  Suddenly, all the nonsensical bits make sense.  The beaming down of Scotty and Sulu as a landing party, the spooky settings and effects, the endless kissing scenes ("Oh, but Captain, these are vital to the plot!  Really, it won't breach protocol at all…")


"Did I hear a door slam?  Darn.  We'll have to do the whole take over!"

Taken as such, suddenly the episode is palatable.  It does move pretty well. Theo Marcuse is always a delight (and a genuine war hero, and he has a great last name; he's probably my cousin).  The score was nifty, particularly in the fight scene.  Less so in the five minute bit when Sulu unlocked Kirk's fetters.

And there was abundant display of a cat.  That, alone, is worth a star.

So, again, "Catspaw" isn't a good episode.  But I would watch it in reruns three times before I suffered through "The Apple" again…

Two stars.

Something Wicked this way Comes


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

I rather enjoyed this episode. As Amber said, it wasn't good. But it was fun. Maybe it's because I enjoy camp. I liked Theo Marcuse's silks and jewels and perfectly shaved eyebrows. I liked the kitschy sets – perhaps borrowed from a recent vampire flick? – and as other writers have noted, the cat was a special treat.

I was less impressed by how many of the so-called ‘collective unconscious fears' involved woman-hating. Crones and seductresses, liars and cheats, the non-crewwomen in this episode were like something from Jesse Helms' fever dreams, no collective I'm a part of.

Janice's proposition that the episode would have been better if it had featured truly universal fears sparks my imagination far more than anything in the episode itself. What truly scares everyone? In a world with apocalypse-worshiping churchgoers, can we say everyone is afraid of death? I would say that many, many of us are afraid of a nuclear attack from our friends across the Bering Strait, but people living outside of the blast zones could be reasonably excused from the universality of that fear.

Stepping away from the philosophical mindtwister Janice gives us and back to this rather silly episode, I am looking forward to seeing this one in reruns. There's just something so fun about our heroes getting tied up – several times – like maidens in a gothic novel.


I think the Captain is starting to enjoy it…

Watching Captain Kirk once again try to kiss his way out of trouble was made all the more fun when his captor/target caught him at his game and refused to play anymore. Despite Sylvia's embodiment of a mushy handful of cruel gender stereotypes, I found myself enjoying her time on screen more than almost anyone aside from the core cast. Cheers to Antoinette Bower for taking a two-dimensional role and turning it into something fun and memorable.

There were many, many, many ways this episode could have been improved. I would be disappointed if next week's episode shared in the same nasty stereotypes of women. I fear it will, as it centers on one of my least favorite characters in this series, Mr. Mudd.

Perhaps Sylvia will make a guest appearance and turn him into a toad before he hurts more women.

Three stars.

I don't know how likely it is that Mudd will get his comeuppance, but we can certainly hope!

The episode airs tomorrow night.  Here's the invitation! Come join us.

Also, copies of The Tricorder are still available — drop us a line for details!




</small

3 Comments Leave A Comment
Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 10, 1967] Jack the Ripper and Company (Dangerous Visions,Part One)

5 Comments


by Victoria Silverwolf

There's a new anthology of original science fiction and fantasy stories in bookstores this month. It's certain to be the topic of a lot of discussion among SF buffs, and maybe even some arguments.

It's also big; more than five hundred pages, and it'll set you back a whopping seven bucks. It's so big, in fact, that Galactic Journey is going to slice it into three pieces and discuss it in a trio of articles. (Why three? Because it's got thirty-three stories in it, and eleven articles would be silly.)

Let's dig into the first part of this mammoth collection and see if it's destined to be the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band of speculative fiction, or just another dud.

Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison


Wraparound cover art by the husband-and-wife team of Leo and Diane Dillon, who also provide an interior illustration for each story.

Before we get to the nitty-gritty of fiction, we've got no less than two forewords by Isaac Asimov and a lengthy introduction by the editor.

In The Second Revolution, the Good Doctor outlines the history of modern science fiction from Gernsback through Campbell, and into the New Wave. Astounding was the first revolution, you see, and now we're in the second one. That may be a little simplistic, but it gets the point across.

Harlan and I, on the other hand, is a personal essay about Asimov's relationship with the editor, ending with a teasing anecdote. Ellison adds a long footnote offering a different version of their first encounter.

More substantial is Thirty-Two Soothsayers, the editor's longwinded but endlessly entertaining and informative account of what this book is supposed to accomplish, and how it came to be. Ellison wanders all over the place in this piece, and it's a fun ride. In brief, the stories he chose are supposed to be both enjoyable and provocative, with new ideas that might not appear in the usual SF markets. We'll see.

(If you're wondering why thirty-two and not thirty-three, it's because one writer supplies two stories; but that's for another time.)

I should mention that each story comes with an introduction by the editor and an afterword by the author, except for the one case when those roles are reversed. You'll see what I mean in a while.

I'm going to do something a little different here. I'll rate the quality of each story with the usual one to five stars, but I'll also add an indication for how dangerous each one is. This will be determined by sexual content, violence, profanity, experimental narrative style, taboo subject matter, etc. GREEN = safe to proceed, YELLOW = caution indicated, RED = hazardous conditions.

Let's begin.

Evensong, by Lester del Rey

An unnamed character flees through the universe in an attempt to escape those who have overthrown his reign. To say anything else would give away the point of the story, which is an allegory.

Three stars. YELLOW for questioning the deeply held beliefs of some readers.

Flies, by Robert Silverberg

In a premise similar to his excellent novel Thorns, the author presents a severely injured astronaut who has been put back together by aliens. In this case, however, his body has been restored to normal, but his mind has been made more sensitive to the emotions of others. That doesn't work out well.

Silverberg has become a fine writer, one of the best now working. Like Thorns, this is an uncompromising look at human suffering.

Five stars. YELLOW for scenes of extreme cruelty.

The Day After the Day the Martians Came, by Frederik Pohl

Set in the very near future, this tale deals with humanity's reaction to the discovery of ugly, semi-intelligent lifeforms on the red planet. Mostly, people make nasty jokes about them. The intent of the story is to expose human prejudices, in a way that's about as subtle as a brick thrown through a window.

Three stars. YELLOW for dealing with a major social problem in the USA today.

Riders of the Purple Wage, by Philip Jose Farmer

This is, by far, the longest story in the book. It is also incredibly dense and fast-paced, so any attempt to describe the plot would be a miserable failure. That said, I'll just mention that it takes place in a very strange future, involves an artist and his tax-dodging ancestor, and contains a ton of wordplay. There are scenes of slapstick violence that are simultaneously hilarious and offensive. It's a wild rollercoaster ride, so keep your seatbelt tightly secured.

Five stars. RED for a Joycean narrative style and Rabelaisian humor.

The Malley System, by Miriam Allen deFord

In the future, the worst criminals receive a very unusual punishment. This is a grim story, that doesn't shy away from the horrors perpetuated by human monsters.

Three stars. YELLOW for violence.

A Toy for Juliette, by Robert Bloch

In a decadent future, a man uses the only time machine in existence to kidnap people from the past, in order to satisfy the whims of his sadistic granddaughter. He picks the wrong potential victim. This is a spine-chilling little science fiction horror story with a twist in its tail.

Three stars. YELLOW for sex, torture, and murder.

The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World, by Harlan Ellison

This is a direct sequel to the previous story, with an introduction by Bloch and an afterword by Ellison. An infamous murderer finds himself in the far future, where the inhabitants enter his mind in order to enjoy his sensations as he kills.

Written in an experimental, almost cinematic style, this is an unrelenting look at the evil that lurks inside all of us. Not for weak stomachs.

Four stars. RED for explicit violence.

The Night That All Time Broke Out, by Brian W. Aldiss

People get so-called time gas supplied to their homes through pipes. It allows them to enjoy better times in the past. As with any form of technology, things can go wrong. This is a light comedy with a unique premise.

Three stars. GREEN for whimsy.

The Man Who Went to the Moon – Twice, by Howard Rodman

A young boy takes a trip to the Moon by holding on to a balloon, becoming a local celebrity. Many years later, as a very old man, his only claim to fame is not as valued as it once was. Reminiscent of Ray Bradbury, this is a gentle, quietly melancholy tale.

Three stars. GREEN for wistful nostalgia.

Faith of Our Fathers, by Philip K. Dick

The Communist East has won a hot war with the Capitalist West. The protagonist is a bureaucrat given the task to determine which of two term papers truly represents the Party line. Meanwhile, a seemingly harmless substance allows him to perceive what appear to be multiple and contradictory truths about the Mao-like Party leader.

That's a vague synopsis, because this is one of the author's stories in which you've never quite sure what is real and what is illusory. Ellison strongly hints that it was written under the influence of hallucinatory drugs. Be that as it may, it's a provocative and disturbing look at the possible nature of reality.

Four stars. YELLOW for politics, drug use, and existential terror.

The Jigsaw Man, by Larry Niven

A man is sentenced to death for his crime. His organs will be harvested for transplant. Through a series of unusual circumstances, he manages to escape from prison, but his troubles aren't over yet.

The full impact of this story doesn't hit the reader until the very end, when we find out the nature of the man's offense.  Other than that, it's an ordinary enough science fiction action/suspense story.

Three stars.  GREEN for futuristic adventure.

One Down, Two To Go

So far, this is a fine collection of stories, without a bad one in the bunch.  Sensitive readers might want to stay away from the more dangerous ones, but most mature SF fans will enjoy it.




</small

5 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 10, 1967] Music To Read By (July 1967 Fantastic)

6 Comments


by Victoria Silverwolf

So May I Introduce To You The Act You've Known For All These Years.

The Beatles, that is.

I know, I know. By now you're a little tired of the Fab Four. Well, the release of their latest album in the USA early this month may change your mind.

(Those lucky folks in the UK got it late last month.)

After evolving from catchy, expertly crafted pop songs into new musical territory with the albums Rubber Soul and Revolver, the Liverpudlians have taken a giant leap.


You could spend hours just studying the cover art.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is extraordinary. It takes rock 'n' roll, mixes it up with other forms of popular music, adds more than a little modern psychedelic surrealism, and comes up with a genuine work of art. I'm afraid I'm going to wear out lots of phonograph needles listening to it over and over.

Because I've already got the songs from this album stuck in my head, let me suggest the ones you might listen to while reading the latest issue of Fantastic.


Cover art by Johnny Bruck.

The image on the front is stolen from one of the weekly German magazines featuring the adventures of space explorer Perry Rhodan.


Perhaps one of our German Journeyers can supply a translation.

The Narrow Land, by Jack Vance


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

The only new story begins with the birth of our hero, forcing his way out of an egg and fighting off others of his kind. He then grows up swimming in swampy water with other amphibian youngsters.

You can tell he's not a human being, can't you? All of the characters are of his species, but there are different kinds. The number of ridges on their heads indicates what variety they are.

One-ridge folks are the most common, and exist as fully developed males and females. Two-ridge types are sexually neuter. Three-ridge individuals are invariably male. As we'll learn later, there used to be a lot of them, but war with the two-ridge kind left only one alive. There's also one four-ridge being, a monster that preys on the one-ridge children.

Confused? So is our hero, as he tries to understand his world. As the title implies, it's a thin strip of inhabitable land between a region of cold, dark mist and an ocean of constant thunderstorms.

(The editorial blurb states that this is a planet with one side always facing its sun. This is not explicitly stated in the text. It explains why it's always twilight.)


There are also birds, but they are barely mentioned.

We'll get a detailed explanation for the various subtypes of aliens. Suffice to say that the main character leaves the water and is taken in by the two-ridge folks as one of their own. Later, however, he is labeled a freak, and has to escape to the realm of the three-ridge being. He learns a lot more about what's going on from that fellow, and comes up with a plan.

The story's setting and exotic alien biology is fascinating. The author does a good job of seeing things through the eyes of a character very different from a human being. The end comes rather suddenly, suggesting the possibility of a sequel.

Four stars.

(Suggested listening: Fixing a Hole, because the protagonist is trying to fill the gaps in his knowledge of the world.)

The Ship Sails At Midnight, by Fritz Leiber


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

This lovely and sad story comes from the September 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Illustrations by Henry Sharp.

The narrator is one of a quartet of jaded, world-weary intellectuals in a small college town. He's a writer. One is a philosopher, another is studying physics. The only woman in the group is a sculptor. They're all fairly skilled in their various fields, but far from brilliant.

The four meet a strikingly beautiful woman working as a waitress at an all-night diner. She doesn't say much, and reveals almost nothing about herself. Somehow or other, she brings out the best in each of them. They lose their cynicism, and produce works of genius.


She claims her name is Helen, suggestive of the ancient Greek myth of the Trojan War.

It's obvious from the beginning that she's from another world. If the illustration wasn't enough of a clue, the story starts with reports of a meteorite falling to earth and sightings of a UFO.

The narrator falls in love with Helen, and she returns his affection. A strange man shows up, telling her it's time to leave. She chooses to stay. It turns out that the other two men are in love with Helen as well, and had also won her heart. Jealousy rears its ugly head, leading to sudden violence.

(As a side note, it seems to me that the author very subtly suggests that the sculptress is in love with Helen too. This is somewhat disguised by the fact that she is engaged to be married to the physics student. I may be reading too much into this, but I would not be very surprised if Leiber, a sophisticated writer always ahead of his time, meant to offer hints of a lesbian romance.)

This is a beautiful and heartbreaking tale of joy won and lost.

Five stars.

(Suggested listening: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, because Lucy is as transcendent a creation as Helen.)

The Remarkable Flirgleflip, by William Tenn


Cover art by J. J. Blumenfeld.

The May 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures supplies this futuristic farce.


Illustration by Leo Summers.

At some unspecified time in the future, human activities are controlled by time travelers from an even more distant future. In particular, they forbid a researcher from inventing time travel, because it's not supposed to be invented until a later time.

(I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Time travel stories are confusing.)

The guy decides to invent it anyway, and to heck with the consequences. He tricks the narrator into getting sent to the Twentieth Century. The fellow just wants to go back to his own time. Complications ensue, partly because people of the future don't wear clothing.

After hiding in a garbage can for a while, he winds up with a wisecracking newspaper reporter. It seems his story makes for hot news, even if nobody really believes him.

This is a silly story, without much of the satiric edge often found in Tenn's sardonic yarns. As you can tell from the title, it's full of goofy invented words. That always annoys me in a science fiction comedy.

Two stars.

(Suggested listening: Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!, because it's the most whimsical song on the album.)

From This Dark Mind, by Rog Phillips


Cover art by Vernon Kramer.

The November/December 1953 issue of the magazine is the source of this look at tomorrow's psychiatry.

Using a device that gives a patient a word association test and analyzes it, the headshrinker is able to determine that a woman needs psychological surgery. This consists of altering her memory of an incident in her past.

As a secondary plot, another patient fails to show up for an appointment, and the psychiatrist suspects he's going to kill somebody. This part of the story turns into a kind of mystery, with a twist ending of sorts.

The background assumes that psychiatry is going to take over many of the functions of medical care. An outbreak of influenza among children, for example, is said to be caused by their anxiety over an event in the Little Orphan Annie comic strip!

At that point, I thought the author's intent was satire. As far as I can tell, however, the story is meant to be serious. The premise reminds me of the pseudoscience of Dianetics. (There's even a reference to pre-birth experiences as a source of mental disorders, which sure sounds like part of L. Ron Hubbard's nonsense to me.)

Setting aside my disdain for Dianetics, this isn't a very exciting story. There's some banter between the psychiatrist and his receptionist to fill up space. The two plots never come together, and they're resolved pretty much as you'd expect.

Two stars.

(Suggested listening: A Day In The Life, because the story takes place during one long day and night for the psychiatrist.)

The Man with the Fine Mind, by Kris Neville


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

This chiller comes from the January/February 1953 issue of the magazine.


Illustration by Leo Summers.

A man is at a party with his fiancée. He's drinking pretty heavily, and he doesn't seem to be too happy. He even thinks about killing her.

(Don't ask me why these two are engaged. They seem like a very unlikely couple indeed.)

She makes some remarks about how it's a shame he has to leave. He insists that he's staying. Things get weird when everybody at the party acts like he's gone. They ignore him completely. Figuring that this is some kind of cruel prank, he gets angrier and drunker. The situation ends badly.

I have to admit that I didn't fully understand this story. I wasn't sure if the guy had actually left, and some kind of unseen doppelganger was left at the party, or the other way around. Despite my confusion, and an unpleasant lead character, it held my interest.

Three stars.

(Suggested listening: With A Little Help From My Friends, because the protagonist was in desperate need of assistance from his acquaintances.)

The Ant with the Human Soul (Part Two of Two), by Bob Olsen


Cover art by Leo Morey.

Here's the conclusion of a novella that appeared (in one part) in the Summer 1932 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly.


Illustration by Morey also.

Last issue, we met a fellow who attempted suicide because his loss of religious faith led to his girlfriend leaving him. (Oddly, the guy remains a rather jolly, wisecracking sort.) A Mad Scientist rescued him. In return, the man agreed to undergo a bizarre experiment.

Part of his brain went into the body of an ant, so he could experience its sensations. (This involved a lot of shrinking and growing. That's one talented Mad Scientist.)

In this half, the guy's mind goes into several different kinds of ants. We learn about gentle farmers of fungus, aggressive warriors that enslave other ants, herders of aphids that live on the liquid they secrete, and so forth. It all winds up with the fellow regaining his faith in God, based on life among the ants, and going back to his sweetheart.

As in the first part, the main appeal of the conclusion is in the detailed description of the ant colonies. The author must have done a lot of research. Some of this stuff is a little too anthropomorphic, but otherwise it seems very accurate.

The subplot of attempted suicide and loss of faith seems way out of place with the rest of the story. It's not a comedy, but it's very lighthearted. (The man gives whimsical nicknames to the other ants, such as Sherlocka Holmes.) The premise is outrageous, of course, but go along with it and it's not a bad read.

Three stars.

(Suggested listening: When I'm Sixty-Four, because this is the oldest story in the issue, and the song is also a featherweight piece of fluff.)

Mr. Steinway, by Robert Bloch


Cover art by Augusto Marin.

From the April 1954 issue of the magazine we get this bit of dark fantasy.


Illustration by Bill Ashman.

The narrator is a woman who falls in love with a pianist. The musician practices an odd sort of meditation, in which he enters a trance. In this unconscious state, he communicates with everything, including inanimate objects.

In particular, he has a special relationship with his piano. Nicknamed Mr. Steinway, it was a gift from his mother, now deceased. The instrument has its own preferences. It doesn't like certain composers, for example.

As the two lovers grow closer, Mr. Steinway displays signs of jealousy. As you might imagine, this doesn't end well for anybody.

On a superficial level, this is just a spooky yarn about a haunted piano. There's a bit more to it than that, I think. The author does a pretty good job of writing from a woman's point of view, which is not always something you can say about a male writer. What happens to the narrator is more subtle and disturbing than you might expect.

(If they made this into a movie, her fate would be a little more openly violent, I think.)

Three stars.

(Suggested listening: She's Leaving Home, because the narrator is never going home again.)

I've Got To Admit It's Getting Better, A Little Better All The Time.

Well, that was a pretty decent issue, with only a couple of poor pieces, a very good new story, some readable reprints, and one great classic. Not as perfect a masterpiece as the latest Beatles album, but enough to keep smiles on our faces.


Mustaches and band uniforms optional.



6 Comments Leave A Comment
Book, Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[May 6, 1967] Stirred?  Shaken? (June 1967 Amazing)

4 Comments


by John Boston

Is something stirring at Amazing?  After several issues devoid of non-fiction features, this one starts a book review column by Harry Harrison, whose brief stint as nominal editor of the British magazine SF Impulse ended a few months ago.  Is a remake in order?  A change of guard in the wind?  There’s no hint.


by Johnny Bruck

The cover itself is also a change, not having been looted from the back files of Amazing or Fantastic Adventures.  The pleasantly lurid image of space-suited men watching or fleeing a battle of spacecraft is not credited, but other sources attribute it to a 1964 issue of Perry Rhodan, Germany’s long-running weekly paperback novella series, artist’s name Johnny Bruck.  I wonder if the publisher is paying him, or anyone.

Also perplexing is the shift in presentation on the cover.  Last issue, the display of big names was ostentatious.  Here, the only thing prominently displayed is “Winston K. Marks Outstanding New Story Cold Comfort,” sic without apostrophe.  Marks is one of the legion who filled the mid-1950s’ proliferation of SF magazines with competent and forgettable copy.  After a couple of stories in the early ‘40s, he reappeared with a few in 1953, contributed a staggering 25 stories in 1954 and 20 in 1955, and trailed off thereafter; he hasn’t been seen in these parts since mid-1959.  But here he is, name in lights, while Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, and Philip K. Dick are relegated to small type over the title.  Odd, and probably counter-productive, to say the least.

The Heaven Makers (Part 2 of 2), by Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert’s serial The Heaven Makers concludes in this issue.  Imagine an SF novel oriented to the reference points of Charles Fort, Richard Shaver, and soap opera.  And then imagine—this is the hard part—that it’s nonetheless pretty readable.

First, we are property!  Just like Charles Fort said.  You may think you understand human history, but everything you know is wrong!  Earth is secretly dominated by the Chem, a species of very short, bandy-legged, silver-skinned alien humanoids who have been made immortal, and also connected tele-empathically, by a discovery of one of their ancient savants—Tiggywaugh’s web (definitely sic).  Only problem is . . . they’re bored.  Eternity weighs heavily on them.  They must be entertained and distracted!

So, the Chem send Storyships around the galaxy, though Earth’s is the only one we see.  This ship rests on the bottom of the ocean, from which vantage the Chem shape history in large and small ways both by direct intervention and by remote manipulation and heightening of human emotional states.  The result: wars that might be settled quickly at the conference table can be prolonged and intensified, and susceptible individuals can be driven as far as murder.  These events are recorded, processed, spiced up with their own emotional track, and broadcast to pique the jaded souls of the Chem. 

One of the stars of this industry is Fraffin, proprietor of Earth’s Storyship, but he’s suspected of letting hints drop to Earthfolk about what’s going on, a major crime among the Chem.  Kelexel, posing as a visitor, has been sent by the authorities to get to the bottom of things, after four previous investigators have found nothing and, suspiciously, resigned.  But Kelexel is quickly corrupted himself.  Fraffin shows him a “pantovive” of a man manipulated by the Chem into murdering his wife, which Kelexel finds quite gripping.  He also becomes obsessed with the woman’s daughter, Ruth (the Chem are quite captivated by the physiques of humans, and can interbreed with them).  Fraffin, having found Kelexel’s vulnerability, sets out to procure her for him.  So three dwarfish figures show up at her back door, immobilize her with some sort of ray, and carry her away to be mind-controlled and ravished by Kelexel.

At this point, the nagging sense of familiarity I was feeling came into focus.  Herbert has reinvented Richard Shaver’s Deros!  Shaver, a former psychiatric patient, wrote up his delusions of sadistic cave-dwelling degenerates tormenting normal people, which (with much reworking by editor Ray Palmer) boosted Amazing’s mid-1940s circulation to unheard-of levels, until the publisher put an end to the disreputable spectacle a few years later.  Now Herbert has gussied up the “Shaver Mystery” for prime time!  The distorted physical appearance . . . check.  The mind control rays . . . check.  The underground caverns . . . not exactly, these characters are underwater instead.  But that’s a minor detail.


by Gray Morrow

Oh, yes, the soap opera part.  Up on dry land, Andy Thurlow, a court psychologist, is Ruth’s old boyfriend; she threw him over for someone else, who turned out to be a low-life.  Andy’s never gotten over it.  Her father, holed up after his Chem-driven murder of her mother, won’t surrender to anybody but Andy.  Meanwhile, Andy, who is wearing polarized glasses as a result of an eye injury, has started to see what prove to be manifestations of Chem activity, invisible to anyone else.  Andy also gets back with Ruth, who has moved out on her husband; he takes her back to the marital house and waits so she can pick up some possessions.  But the Chem snatch her as described, and her husband falls through a glass door and dies. 

Back at the Chems’ submarine hideout, Kelexel is having his way with the pacified Ruth, who, when he’s not using her, studies the Chem via the pantovive machine, learning more and more, while Kelexel harbors growing misgivings about the whole Chem enterprise.  Andy, up on land, is trying to persuade Ruth’s father the murderer to cooperate with an insanity defense while wondering if the strange manifestations he has seen account for Ruth’s disappearance.  The plot lines are eventually resolved in confrontations among Kelexel, Fraffin, Ruth, and Andy with dialogue that is more reminiscent of daytime TV than Herbert’s turgid usual.  In the end, Herbert actually makes a readable story out of this sensational and largely ridiculous material.  Three stars.

Cold Comfort, by Winston K. Marks


by Gray Morrow

Winston Marks’s "Outstanding New Story" Cold Comfort is an amusing first-person rant by the first man to be cryogenically frozen for medical reasons and revived when his problem can be cured.  He’s pleased enough with his new kidneys, but isn’t impressed by this brave new world in which corporations now overtly dominate the world, there’s a nine-million-soldier garrison in East Asia, etc. etc. E.g. , “I am only now recovering from my first exposure to your local art gallery.  Who the hell invented quivering pigments?” It’s at best a black-humorous comedy routine, but well enough done.  Three stars.

The Mad Scientist, by Robert Bloch


by Virgil Finlay

After Marks it is downhill, or over a cliff.  The Mad Scientist by Robert Bloch, from Fantastic Adventures, September 1947, is a deeply unfunny farce about an over-the-hill scientist who works with fungi, who has a young and beautiful wife with whom the protagonist is having an affair. They want to get rid of the scientist with an extract of poisonous mushrooms, but he outsmarts them, and what a silly bore.  The fact that the protagonist is a science fiction writer and the story begins with some blather about how dangerous such people are does not enhance its interest at all.  One star.

Atomic Fire, by Raymond Z. Gallun


by Leo Morey

Raymond Z. Gallun’s Atomic Fire (Amazing, April 1931) is a period piece, Gallun’s third published story, in which far-future scientists Aggar Ho and Sark Ahar (with huge chests to breathe the thin atmosphere, spindly and attenuated limbs, large ears, a coat of polar fur—evolution!) have discovered that the Black Nebula is about to swallow up the sun and kill all life on Earth. The solution?  Atomic power, obviously, to be tested off Earth for safety (the spaceship has just been delivered).  Unfortunately, their experiments first fail, then succeed all too well; but Sark Ahar’s quick thinking turns disaster into salvation!  As the blurb might have read.  Gallun had an imagination from the beginning, but the stilted writing makes this one hard to appreciate in these modern days of the 1960s.  Two stars.

Project Nightmare, by Robert Heinlein


by William Ashman

In Robert Heinlein’s Project Nightmare, from the April/May 1953 Amazing, the Russians deliver an ultimatum demanding surrender, since they’ve mined American cities with nuclear bombs.  The only hope is a colorful and miscellaneous bunch of clairvoyants to locate the bombs before they go off.  It’s a fast-moving but superficial, wisecracking story, a considerable regression for the author.  Some years ago he published an essay titled On the Writing of Speculative Fiction, and presented five rules for the aspiring writer.  I think this story must illustrate the last two: “4.  You must put it on the market.  5.  You must keep it on the market until sold.” I suspect Heinlein intended this one for the slicks, and when none of them would have it, started down the ranks of the SF mags until it finally came to rest in Amazing, which, compounding the indignity, managed to lose his customary middle initial.  Two stars.

The Builder, by Philip K. Dick


by Ed Emshwiller

Philip K. Dick’s The Builder (Amazing, December 1953/January 1954) is from his early Prolific Period—he published 31 stories in the SF magazines in 1953 and 28 in 1954, handily beating Winston K. Marks’s peak.  How?  With a certain number of tossed-off ephemerae like this one, in which an ordinary guy is obsessed for no reason he can articulate with building a giant boat in his backyard.  A rather peculiar boat too, with no sails or motor or oars.  And then: “It was not until the first great black drops of rain began to splash about him that he understood.” That’s it.  Two stars for this shaggy-God story which is unfortunately not shaggy enough.

Summing Up

Well, that was pretty dreary.  The issue’s only distinction is the unexpected readability of Herbert’s novel, which is the best, or least bad, of the serials this publisher has run.  The most one can say about the reprint policy is that it has its ups and downs, and this issue is definitely the latter.

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




4 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 16, 1967] The Generation Gap (May 1967 Fantastic)

3 Comments


by Victoria Silverwolf

Youth is Wasted on the Young

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
— attributed to Socrates

It's no secret that young people are rejecting many of the opinions of their elders these days. That's always been true to some extent, of course. However, with the hippie culture, the civil rights movement, and antiwar protests, all of which mostly involve young adults, the gap between the generations seems wider than ever.

In particular, once heavy bombing of North Vietnam began a couple of years ago (Operation Rolling Thunder, still going on intermittently), college students, led by such organizations as Students for a Democratic Society, started demonstrating against the war. On April 17, 1965, somewhere between fifteen thousand and twenty-five thousand people showed up at the nation's capital, in the largest protest to date.


SDS members and others during the March on Washington, almost exactly two years ago.

There have been many other protests since then, both in the United States and other nations. I don't mean to imply that these demonstrations consist entirely of young people, but they do seem to make up the majority of peace activists.

Just yesterday, thousands appeared at massive protests against the conflict in Vietnam in major cities across the United States. In New York City, well over one hundred young men burned their draft cards, followed by a speech by civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., at the United Nations.


The crowd fills Kazar stadium in San Francisco.

What does the parallel escalation of America's involvement in the war and the rejection of it by many young adults and their elders mean for the immediate future of the United States?  It's hard to say, but things look dark.  Just as the struggle for civil rights sometimes looks like a second Civil War, complete with bloodshed, the battle between Hawks and Doves threatens to tear the country apart along political lines.  Let's hope the nation is never as divided as it seems to be now.

Music to Argue With Your Parents or Children By

The tension between generations shows up in popular culture as well. A fine example of this happened recently. From late March until the middle of April, a cheerful little tune from the young folks who call themselves The Turtles was at the top of the American music charts. Happy Together is a great favorite of teenagers, I believe.


I like the part near the end, when the frequently repeated title changes to How is the weather.

Mom and Dad are likely to prefer the song that replaced it as Number One this week. Veteran crooner Frank Sinatra, assisted by daughter Nancy, currently has the nation's biggest hit with the much more traditional number Somethin' Stupid.


I'll refrain from commenting on the propriety of having father and daughter sing a love song together.

Catch a Wave

Not even speculative fiction escapes the conflict between generations. The so-called New Wave movement within the field, primarily in the United Kingdom, offers experimental, controversial, and sometimes incomprehensible stories to readers. The latest issue of Fantastic, a magazine which has been rather stodgy since it went to a policy of containing mostly reprints, mixes a bit of New Wave with plenty of Old Wave stuff.


Cover art by Malcolm Smith.

As usual, the cover reprints art from an old magazine. In this case, it's from the back cover of the July 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


The original looks a lot better.

The Ant with the Human Soul (Part One of Two), by Bob Olsen


Cover art by Leo Morey.

The whole of this Old Wave, pre-Campbell novella appeared in full in the Spring-Summer 1932 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly. I guess Fantastic didn't want to devote most of the magazine to it.


Illustrations by Morey also.

The narrator tries to kill himself by jumping into the ocean, but a scientist rescues him. The scientist suggests a bizarre scheme. He has a gizmo that can increase or decrease the size of anything, even living creatures. He combines that with neurosurgery in order to perform a weird experiment.

First, he'll increase an ant to the size of a human being. After that, he'll put a part of the narrator's brain into the ant's head. When he shrinks the ant back down to normal size, the narrator will experience everything the ant does, and will be able to control the ant's actions. In essence, he will become the ant.

After the strange transformation takes place, the narrator takes us on a guided tour of life in an ant colony. This first part ends with a cliffhanger, promising the reader that a violent event is about to occur.


Mad Science!

This is an odd story, not only because of the outrageous premise. The mood varies wildly. Some sections deal with the narrator's loss of religious faith, which drove him to attempt suicide. Others are very lighthearted, with playful banter between the two characters. The best part of it is the description of life as an ant, which is depicted in vivid, accurate detail.

Three stars, mostly for taking me into the ant colony.

The Thinking Seat, by Peter Tate


Cover art by Keith Roberts, better known to me as a writer.

The magazine calls this a new novelette, which is a half-truth. It's new to American readers, but it appeared in the November 1966 issue of the British publication New Worlds. My esteemed colleague Mark Yon reviewed it at that time, but let's take another look.


Illustration by Gray Morrow, which is the only truly new thing in the magazine.

The setting is the seacoast of California in the near future. The rugged shore has been replaced with artificial beaches of a tamer nature. The water is warmer, due to the discharge from a nuclear power plant. (I also got the impression that it made the water thicker, almost gelatinous, but I may be wrong about that. This New Wave story isn't always clear.)

A man and a woman with a strange relationship show up at a beatnik colony. She'd like to be more intimate with the fellow, but he doesn't seem interested. Instead, he becomes fascinated by a charismatic poet, who openly announces that he's going to take the woman away from the other man. Things come to a climax during an attempt to sabotage the nuclear power plant, as a way of protesting what it's done to the coast.

I have probably greatly simplified and distorted the plot, because this isn't the easiest story to understand. The narrative often stops to offer examples of obscure poetry, which adds more ambiguity. (Apparently the poet steals phrases from the Beat poets, but I don't know enough about their work to confirm that.)

I got the impression that this example of the Eternal Triangle, which ends badly, was really a case of repressed homosexuality. That's a theme you won't find in most Old Wave science fiction, to be sure. The whole thing works better as a study of the psychology of the three main characters rather than as science fiction.

Three stars, mostly for keeping me wondering about things.

A Way of Thinking, by Theodore Sturgeon


Cover art by Art Sussman.

The October-November 1953 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this supernatural chiller from the pen of one of the field's greatest stylists.


Illustration by Ernest Schroeder.

The narrator is a writer of science fiction and fantasy, who even mentions his work appearing in Amazing, so I assume it's a fictional version of the author. He tells us about an acquaintance who reacts to problems in unusual ways, often by thinking about things backwards. The fellow's brother is dying a slow, horrible death. The suggestion arises that it might have something to do a doll owned by the dying man's vengeful ex-girlfriend. The brother deals with the situation in his usual unorthodox manner.

This synopsis makes the story sound like a typical tale of voodoo, but that's misleading. I don't want to give too much away, but the plot goes in unexpected directions, and the climax is truly disturbing. Of course, given the author, it's very well written. It's not his most ambitious work, to be sure, but it succeeds as a horror story.

Three stars, mostly for the shocking conclusion.

The Pin, by Robert Bloch


Cover art by Mel Hunter.

From the December-January 1953-1954 issue of Amazing Stories comes another tale of terror.


Illustration by Lee Teaford.

An artist looking for a cheap studio comes across an abandoned loft. It's supposed to be empty, but there's a guy inside, surrounded by a huge pile of telephone books, directories, and so forth. The fellow stabs at random names in the books with a pin.

You may have already figured out that the pin causes the death of those whose names are selected. (The premise reminds me of Ray Bradbury's 1943 story The Scythe, as well as the 1958 movie I Bury the Living.) There aren't a lot of surprises in the plot, but it's an effective little thriller.

Three stars, mostly for creating an eerie mood.

Cold Green Eye, by Jack Williamson


Cover art by Richard Powers.

The March-April 1953 issue of the magazine offers yet another spooky tale. In its original appearance, it was called The Cold Green Eye. Don't ask me why they left out the first word.


Illustration by Ernie Barth.

The child of a pair of daring explorers is raised by Buddhist monks after his parents die in a mountaineering accident. He's adopted by an aunt back in the United States. She's a harsh disciplinarian, punishing the boy for what she thinks of as his heathenish ways. In particular, she hates flies and kills them whenever she can, while the child believes in reincarnation and that all living creatures should be protected. Things get strange when the kid uses the sacred scroll he has in his possession.

There's a good chance you'll see the ending coming, although it still raises goose bumps. What's more surprising is that the cruel aunt is a devout Christian, in contrast to the boy's gentle Buddhism. I didn't expect that from an American horror story from more than a decade ago. Maybe the author just thought it made for a good story, and wasn't really trying to say anything about the two faiths.

Three stars, mostly for aunt's comeuppance.

Hok Draws the Bow, by Manly Wade Wellman


Cover art by C. L. Hartman.

Here's a sequel to a story that was reprinted in the previous issue of Fantastic. It comes from the May 1940 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustrations by Robert Fuqua.

Once again our hero is Hok, a Homo sapiens fighting a war of extermination against sinister, cannibalistic Neanderthals. (It's best to forget about this story's version of prehistory and just think of it as a sword-and-sorcery yarn.) A fellow shows up bragging about his ability to project a spear farther than anybody else. That's because he's got a leather strap that he winds around it, sending it spinning.

The boastful man also has plan to take over Hok's clan, and he's particularly interested in Hok's pretty mate. He's made himself a god-like ruler over the Neanderthals, even teaching them basic military tactics. It looks like Hok's people will be wiped out, but our hero combines the man's strap and a throwing stick used by the Neanderthals to create a secret weapon.


That doesn't keep him from being captured. Fortunately, his mate has a throwing arm Sandy Koufax might envy.

The title and the opening illustration give away the fact that this story is about Hok inventing the bow and arrow. Other than that, it's an efficient adventure story.

Three stars, mostly for keeping things moving quickly.

Beside Still Waters, by Robert Sheckley


Illustration by Virgil Finlay.

The same issue as the Sturgeon story is the source of this tale. A spaceman lives on an asteroid, turning rock into soil that can grow crops and extracting oxygen from minerals. His only companion is a robot. The machine starts off only able to speak a few phrases, but over time the man teaches it to converse more fully. The story ends with a scene that tries to touch the reader's emotions.

The fact that the man can live on the surface of an asteroid unprotected, even if he somehow produces oxygen and food, is ludicrous. (Not to mention the fact that the asteroid's tiny gravity is going to send the oxygen out into space quickly.) The ending takes the plot into pure fantasy. An author best known for his wit tries to be sentimental here, and the result is bathetic.

Two stars, mostly for the excellent illustration.

Bridging the Gap

That was mostly a middle-of-the-road issue, coming to a sudden halt at the end. Maybe there's something to be said for mediocrity. If nothing else, both young and old can agree that the Old Wave and the New Wave have their ups and downs.


The late President Kennedy closes the generation gap.



3 Comments Leave A Comment
TV

[October 26, 1966] Star Trek: "What are Little Girls Made of?")

8 Comments

Fun with Binary!


by Lorelei Marcus

I'm loving this new show called Star Trek.  From innovative effects to nuanced plots to interesting characters, Star Trek has often been raising the bar for television's best from week to week.  Sadly, I missed the past two episodes due to scheduling conflicts (catching up through our fanzine's weekly episode recap and review).  But this week, I ensured that my sacred viewing time would not be overtaken by any babysitting jobs or midterm study sessions.

I sat down in anticipation, the dark viewing room hushed despite the several people who had joined me to watch.  Excitement thrummed through me as the thrilling, other-worldly theme started to play…

And in the end, "What are Little Girls Made of?", the seventh episode of the new show Star Trek, was a complete DISASTER!

…but I liked it anyway.

If you happened to miss the broadcast, I will do my best to recount the episode's plot for you, even though it is already rapidly receding from my memory:

Opening on the bridge of the Enterprise, Captain Kirk and Nurse Chapel (Majel Barrett), whom we first saw in Naked Time, stare worriedly at a blue planet.  We are informed that Dr. Roger Korby (Michael Strong), Chapel's fiancé, has been trapped on the planet for the past five years, presumed dead because the planet's surface has become too cold to sustain life (the system's sun is dying).

Shortly after this remark is made, Korby's voice comes over the radio, requesting that Captain Kirk beam down to the planet, alone, to witness an amazing discovery he's made!  Who could have foreseen this?


"Can Nurse Chapel come too?"  "Christine?  Oh sure.  She's a recurring character; that should be fine."

Kirk and Chapel are beamed down into an underground tunnel system where Korby has apparently been living.  Yet Korby is nowhere to be found, so Kirk orders down two security guards and heads off with Nurse Chapel to find her fiancé.


"Hey Matthews, you think anything bad will happen to us?"  "How could it?  My retirement's next week!"

Before long, they run into Korby's assistant, Dr. Brown, who decides that the most effective way of introducing himself is by standing in front of a giant stadium light.  This is one of the many instances of odd editing.  Brown turns off his giant headlight, Chapel recognizes him (now that she can see again) and Brown offers to take Kirk and Chapel to see Dr. Korby.  Oh, and Guard #1 (Matthews) mysteriously falls off a cliff in the hall and dies.  Who could have foreseen this?


Dr. Brown in front of the Bat Signal.

After a brief interlude where security guard #2 dies to a hulking alien creature (that looks like it just finished washing dishes at the Addam's house), we finally get to meet the man of the hour, Dr. Korby.  What proceeds is a grueling back and forth that consists of Korby rambling about how he must show and explain his discovery to Kirk, followed by continuous worried glances exchanged between Kirk and Nurse Chapel.

So what is Korby's amazing discovery that the whole episode has been building up to?

Completely lifelike androids!


Meet Andrea, one of Korby's androids, whose purpose is a complete mystery and not at all obvious.


For someone who has an important point he wants to explain, he sure takes a long time getting to it.

It turns out Korby's assistant has been an android all this time.  (Maybe he was standing in front of the headlight to recharge?) In a sudden scuffle with Kirk, he is shot by a phaser, exposing his circuits.

Korby doesn't seem too perturbed at the loss of his assistant, though.  He has Ruk instead (played by Ted Cassidy).  Ruk is an even more advanced android built by the old aliens who left the android-making machinery Korby's been studying and using for the past five years.  And not just to make sexy secretaries.  He can even entirely replicate a human being!  And he's going to show Captain Kirk how it's done.

Cut to Shatner lying completely naked strapped to a turntable.


"Good thing I wore my tear-off uniform today.  It made this transition much faster!"

If my summarization seems a bit disjointed or abrupt, it's because this is an absolutely faithful rendition of the pacing of the episode.  Anyway, Korby's experiment succeeds, creating an exact copy of Kirk, one that obeys Korby's orders.  Copy-Kirk beams up to the Enterprise to take control of the ship.

At this, you may gape.  What?  The kind, not-suspicious-at-all Korby had ill intentions all along?

The plot runs deeper.  Korby explains to Kirk that he has the technology not just to copy a person, but to transfer their soul into an immortal mechanized shell.  A shell that can be programmed and controlled to perfection, Kirk points out, refusing to help Korby with his plan.  Korby's plans rapidly fizzle out anyway.  When Kirk's mind was being transferred into copy-Kirk, he'd recited to himself a message he would never say: "Mind your own business, Mr. Spock — I'm tired of your half-breed interference, do you hear?"  It is delivered at the first encounter between copy-captain and First Officer.

Spock, a veteran of dealing with duplicate captains at this point, gets the message loud and clear and beams down to the planet's surface…with armed escort.


Ah, there's an evil duplicate of the captain on the ship?  It must be Tuesday."

Finally, we hit the climax.  After seemingly failing to win Andrea as an ally with a kiss, Kirk convinces Ruk to disobey his programming and attack Korby.  The doctor, without a second thought, zaps his thousand year old android with a phaser, poofing him from existence.  Then Andrea zaps copy-Kirk because he won't kiss her like real-Kirk did, and he disappears.  Then Kirk tries to wrestle the phaser from Korby and accidentally shoots Dr. Korby's hand, revealing him to be…an android all along!  Who could have foreseen this??!

Andrea walks in and kisses Korby.  The doctor, horrified that he has become more machine than man, and that Andrea has become more woman than machine, zaps both of them from existence. 

The end.

Well, that was an experience.  The editing, pacing, and writing for the episode were a complete mess.  Still, there were elements that I absolutely loved. The costuming and sets were gorgeous.  An expert combination of clever camera angles, colorful pink and purple lighting, and creatively designed walls really made you feel that the characters were in an otherworldly cave. 

Everyone on the planet's surface shared an interesting motif in their clothes, and Andrea's outfit was so daring, I wouldn't be surprised if they needed a censor on set while filming!  Still, my favorite costume was Ted Cassidy's — between his ominous makeup and his puffy sleeves and high collar, he really felt like something alien.

I also appreciated the acting, even if the actors didn't have much to work with.  All of the android characters had a slightly flat affect to their deliveries that made them seem not quite human.  Cassidy, as always, did a fantastic job.  Shatner was weaker without any of his crew members to play off of, but he still did well differentiating between real Kirk and android Kirk.

Finally, the special effects were topnotch as always.  We got the transporter effect and a few phaser beams, which never fail to amaze me, but we also got some incredibly effective split screens which actually made me forget the two Kirks were played by the same person!

So overall, I would say that this episode wasn't just bad, but hardly really felt like an episode at all.  The premise and logic were completely internally inconsistent, and the main plot points don't hang together at all.  However, I still enjoyed the show, because though the parts refused to fit together properly, they still had a lot of value on their own.

Three stars.

Wasted Potential


by Janice L. Newman

This episode was all over the place in terms of pacing. First, the mad scientist teases Kirk (and the audience) with some grand revelation, then the episode cuts directly to Kirk spinning naked on a giant turntable. Kirk’s message to Spock is cleverly done (and one of the best parts of the episode), but in the end, it makes no difference: Kirk convinces the androids with ‘logic’ and they mostly destroy each other after that point before Spock and his team can even arrive.

It’s a shame, because robot stories have a lot of potential. Between Asimov’s Robot stories, the recent deconstruction of same in Lester Del Rey’s A Code For Sam, and the use of robots in one of the current Space Patrol Orion episodes, metal men are a hot topic right now. Some of the nuanced takes from the early Star Trek episodes would have been interesting and welcome. For example, are the androids capable of independent thought and emotion? What are the moral implications of killing the androids, especially Ruk, who has been on the planet for centuries and is the last representative of a dead race? The androids’ plan to replace humans was obviously not desirable, but could the technology have been repurposed and used to better humankind?

Unfortunately, we didn’t get any thoughtful questions like these. Instead, we got a story in a traditional pulp mold with a newish villain: no bug-eyed aliens, but instead sinister machine-men. I can’t help but hope that the writers go back to storytelling that focuses on the gray areas instead of slam-bang black and white.

Two and a half stars.

Same ol', same ol'


by Gideon Marcus

I think my biggest problem with this episode is that we've seen so much of it before.  Eccentric scientist on a remote planet shacked up with an alien being who doesn't want to be found?  Check.  Two Kirks?  Check.  A bleak, frigid planet festooned with styrofoam rocks?  Check.  Even the score seemed largely recycled from previous episodes.  Added to that, the clunky pacing and the shallow treatment of potentially thought-provoking topics really dragged this episode into the lower tiers.  It's not offensive, it's just not very good.

Kudos where they are deserved: lovely costume design (though I kept expecting Hoss Allen to come out and host The Beat!!! what with the blue and green motif.

The split-screen effects were particularly good, especially with the slanted table.  Patty Duke could learn a thing or two (oh wait — she's been canceled). 

Ted Cassidy was quite effective as Ruk, easily the most interesting part of the episode.  Though I did keep expecting him to give his signature, "You raaang?" when he appeared. And I appreciated how quickly Spock deduced an imposter was on board.  Coming on the heels of "The Enemy Within", there really would be no excuse otherwise.

So, better than "Mudd's Women", which I would have rated two stars.  Let's call it two and a half, on par with "Where No Man Has Gone Before".

Distinguishing Features


by Erica Frank

In this episode, we see alien fashion disasters, two crewmember deaths, and a return of Shirtless Kirk. (Hurray!) We also get android love (or at least android emotions; it's all very confusing) and the continuation of the " barren landscape; underground dwelling with lumpy stone walls" motif for alien planets.


Let's make sure we cover the important parts of the episode.

My observations from this episode: Nurse Chapel seems like an open-minded, free-love kind of woman. Just a few episodes ago, she was declaring her deep and sincere love for Mr. Spock, and now we discover she's been engaged — and searching for her fiancé — this whole time! If Spock had been part of the landing party, she might've had some very interesting conversations with the both of them.

We did, however, get double shirtless Kirk. Double naked Kirk, in fact, when Doctor Korby throws him into the Carbon-Copy-o-Matic android machine and makes a copy of him, right down to his thoughts and memories.


Which one is the android? Spock will need to know; I'm not sure I care.

Other people have spoken about the plot, the characters, the pacing… which leaves me to mention the lighting, which was excellent, and the fashion choices, of which I have already provided the best in the show.

The lighting and scene direction was clear, showed faces well without obscuring the underground facilities, and made it very easy to follow what was happening. This is a nice change from episodes where it's either pulled back so far that you can't tell where the action is, or focused on two heads that might be anywhere, or dim and shadowed so you can't tell what's going on. The cinematography was excellent in this episode.

The costuming, though… Now I know why the crew members' uniforms change all the time. (Uhura's in red this week.) Obviously, the Terran government is trying to avoid whatever pitfalls destroyed the long-extinct alien races, and while they can't be certain that the aliens' taste in fashion was part of their destruction, they are taking no chances.


This, THIS, is supposed to be a representative of a race that conquered the very building blocks of matter and thought? They could create a whole society of whatever skills, talents, and physical abilities they needed, and this is how they chose to dress them?

Ruk's outfit isn't the only problematic one on the planet. Andrea-the-android was presumably clad to appeal to Dr. Korby. She wears a blue-and-black dress (if that's the word) that barely covers enough body parts to be legal to show on television. Really, this should've been the Enterprise crew's first clue that something was very wrong: unless they were sweltering in their uniforms, she should've been uncomfortable with that much skin showing.


Since it turned out the Korby we met was an android who cannot feel love or baser human urges, this must've been a remnant of the original Korby's interests.

Once we're all done reeling from the… interesting… clothing, we get to deal with the rest of the plot: they're all androids; Korby's gone mad and wants to take over the universe with more androids; Andrea's developing an unseemly level of emotions; Ruk is chasing Kirk through the caverns with intent to kill him, as he did with the two unsuspecting red-shirted crewmembers at the beginning of the episode.


Kirk hids from Ruk while holding a makeshift, err, weapon he's found in the caverns.

In the end, Kirk charms Andrea into turning on her associates; the power of Kirk Kisses is apparently stronger than android programming. Spock, of course, quickly identifies Robot Kirk and incapacitates him. By the end of the episode, all the androids are gone, and for reasons unknown, the Enterprise leaves with no mention of either acquiring or deliberately avoiding the amazing copy-android technology.

I would expect them to report the discovery to Earth to be studied by people less prone to become megalomaniacs. Even if the process cannot create a "soul," I would expect many people in similar circumstances to Korby — near death, badly injured or disabled — to have an interest in technology that could give extended life to their thoughts and memories. If nothing else, it would allow people to record their memoirs, complete their research projects, give messages to loved ones, and so on. I was surprised Kirk abandoned the machinery; I can imagine many good uses for such a device, and I expect that's exactly the kind of thing his "five-year mission" is intended to discover. Perhaps it was reported, and another crew, more scientifically oriented than set on exploration, will return to the planet to find out if it can be used without succumbing to the temptation to take over planets.

I agree with the comments above that say the episode was scattered. The action scenes were well-done, but the overall story and pacing jumped around too much. However, it was visually stunning, didn't involve evil mind-control, and brought up some interesting questions about the nature of humanity and the mind. Four stars: Three for the plot, characters, and direction, plus half a star for each naked Kirk.

(Join us tomorrow at 8:30 PM (Pacific AND Eastern — two showings) for the next exciting episode of Star Trek!)

Here's the invitation!



8 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 10, 1966] Summer Reruns (July 1966 Fantastic)

2 Comments


by Victoria Silverwolf

Old Series Never Die, They Just Fade Away

Summertime is right around the corner, here in the Northern Hemisphere, and all patriotic Americans know what that means; reruns on television. Not only does this save the production companies money, it allows defunct programs to continue to appear on TV screens long after they're gone, like ghosts haunting a house. (Of course, they're easier to exorcise than traditional specters; just pull the plug.)

Two popular, critically acclaimed, and long-running series recently cast off this mortal coil, ready to enter the monochromatic afterlife of reruns.

Late last month, the courtroom drama Perry Mason slammed down the gavel for the last time with The Case of the Final Fade-Out. The story involved a television studio, so a large number of crew members made cameo appearances, pretty much as themselves. There was also a very special guest star.


That's executive producer Gail Patrick Jackson on the left and Hollywood columnist Norma Lee Browning on the right. The fellow in the middle? That's bestselling author Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of Perry Mason, dressed up for his role as a judge in the final episode.

At the start of this month, The Dick Van Dyke Show came to a conclusion with the appropriately titled episode The Last Chapter. Van Dyke's character, television writer Rob Petrie, finishes the book he's been working on for five years, and looks back on his life.


Because The Last Chapter was really just an excuse to reuse sequences from previous episodes, I'm offering you this scene from the penultimate episode, The Gunslinger. Surrounding Van Dyke in this Western parody are cast regulars Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Deacon.

I'm sure that both of these hit series will be reincarnated in American living rooms for quite a while.

Not all summer television programming consists of reruns, to be sure. There are so-called summer replacement series as well. In a week or so, we'll enjoy (or avoid) the first episode of The Dean Martin Summer Show (not to be confused with The Dean Martin Show, which has been going on since last year. Are you still with me?) It will be hosted by the comedy team of Dan Rowan and Dick Martin.


Rowan on the left and Martin on the right, in a scene from their 1958 Western spoof Once Upon a Horse. I wonder if they'll have any success as TV hosts.

A Home Run The First Time At Bat

Although it's not unknown for popular songs of yesteryear to return to the charts — auditory reruns, if you will — listeners are usually searching for something original. Newcomer Percy Sledge offers an notable example with his smash hit When a Man Loves a Woman. This passionate, soulful ballad, currently Number One in the USA, is not only the first song recorded by Sledge, it is the first song recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a city famous for its music studios, to reach that position.


Your fans mean it, Mister Sledge.

I've Seen This All Before

The reason I've been talking about reruns, before I get to the contents of the latest issue of Fantastic, isn't just the fact that they've been filling up the magazine with reprints for some time now. As we'll see, many of the old stories in this issue have reappeared several times before. Reruns of reruns, so to speak. Whether fans of imaginative literature will be willing to spend four bits for fiction they may have already read in collections or anthologies remains to be seen.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

Predictably, the front cover is also a rerun.


The back cover of the June 1943 issue of Amazing Stories. It looks better in the original version.

Before I get to the reruns, however, let's start with something new.

Just Like a Man, by Chad Oliver


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Three men are in an aircraft, flying over the surface of an Earth-like planet. A sudden storm forces them to abandon the vehicle, stranding the trio in an area resembling an African savannah. Because the place is full of leonine predators, they hightail it to the relative safety of a nearby rainforest.


Climbing one of the planet's gigantic trees in order to get away from the hungry cats.

They wind up far above the ground, among an unsuspected community of highly intelligent primates. These mysterious creatures help them survive, and even offer the possibility of reaching their home base, located five hundred miles away across uncharted wilderness.


Among the primates, who are not as hostile as shown here.

This is a decent tale of adventure, and the enigmatic primates are interesting. The planet is so similar to Earth — the feline predators are pretty much just lions — that you might forget you're reading a science fiction story. Overall, it's worth reading, if not outstanding in any way.

Three stars.

The Trouble With Ants, by Clifford D. Simak


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

From the January 1951 issue of Fantastic Adventures comes this final story in the author's famous City series. (By the way, the title of this work was changed to The Simple Way when it appeared in book form.)


Illustration by Rod Ruth. From this point on, all the illustrations are reruns from the original appearances of the stories.

In the far future, people are gone from Earth, with the exception of one fellow in suspended animation. Long ago, humans increased the intelligence of dogs, gave them the power of speech, and built robots to serve their needs. The canines, in turn, taught other animals to speak.

Complicating matters is the fact that a man caused ants to develop technology of their own, including robots the size of fleas. Now the ants are constructing a building, for an unknown purpose, which threatens to take over the planet.

An ancient robot returns from humanity's new home in a mysterious fashion. It seeks out the man in suspended animation as part of its quest to understand the ants.

Brought together as a fix-up novel in 1952, the City series won the International Fantasy Award the next year. It is usually considered a classic of science fiction, and has been reprinted many times.


One of the many editions of this work. Cover art by Ed Valigursky.

Highly imaginative, and with a sweeping vision of the immensity of time, Simak's tales also have a gentleness and intimacy that touches the reader's heart. The mood is one of quiet melancholy, and the acceptance of the fact that all things will pass away.

Although SF fans are likely to have read this story before, its quality makes it a welcome repeat. (One can rarely say the same thing about television reruns, or else viewers would stay glued to their screens.)

Five stars.

Where Is Roger Davis?, by David V. Reed


Cover art by Robert Fuqua.

Let's take a break from stuff that has already been reprinted multiple times, and take a look at the first reappearance of this yarn, taken from the yellowing pages of the May 1939 issue of Amazing Stories. (The author is unknown to me, but I have discovered that he also writes for comics, particularly Batman. Apparently a couple of episodes of the new television series are based on his scripts for the comic book.)


Illustrations by Julian S. Krupa.

Two young men working for a New York City tour bus encounter an invisible, telepathic Martian. One of them is seduced by the alien's plot to take over the world, and soon becomes a megalomaniac.


The fact that the Martian makes robbing a bank as easy as pie is another factor in his decision.

The other fellow has to figure out a way to keep the Martians from conquering Earth.

The mood of the story changes drastically from light comedy at the start to grim tragedy by the conclusion. Given the year it was written, I wonder if the dictatorial intentions of the first man were influenced by the rise of Fascism.

The author claims that this story is a true account, sent to him by the second man. There are also bits of imaginary news articles scattered throughout, in an attempt at verisimilitude. These don't work very well, particularly the long one at the end. The only thing I found mildly intriguing, if implausible, was the way the hero manages to plot against beings who can read his mind.

Two stars.

Almost Human, by Tarleton Fiske


Cover art by Harold W. McCauley.

The introductory blurb makes it clear that the author of this story, reprinted from the June 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures, is really Robert Bloch, using a rather absurd pseudonym. (As is common practice, this was done because he had another story in the same issue under his own name.)


Illustration by Rod Ruth.

A hoodlum makes his way into the secret laboratory of a brilliant scientist. His moll has been working for the guy, so the crook knows the genius has created a robot. The machine is being educated like a child. The gangster teaches it to be an invincible criminal, and to kill without mercy. As you'd expect, things don't work out very well.

This piece reads like hardboiled fiction from a crime pulp. The final scene is particularly gruesome, in typical Bloch style. The author shows a certain knack for the Hammett/Chandler mode, but that's about all I can say for it. Not that great a story, but somebody thought it was worth reviving for an anthology.


Cover art by Jack Gaughan.

Two stars.

Satisfaction Guaranteed, by Isaac Asimov


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

Speaking of robots, here's one of several stories about the robopsychologist Susan Calvin by the Good Doctor, from the April 1951 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustration by Enoch Sharp.

Calvin only plays a minor part in this story, which focuses on a rather mousy, insecure housewife. Her husband works for the same robotics firm as Calvin, so he brings home a test model of a new machine. It looks like a handsome young man, and is designed to be helpful around the house in many different ways. The husband goes off on a business trip, leaving his wife alone with the robot.

The housewife is frightened of it at first, but soon learns to accept it. It even helps her with home decorating, clothing, and makeup, so she learns self-confidence. A final, unexpected gesture on the part of the machine, seemingly out of character for a robot, wins her the envy of her snobbish acquaintances. Susan Calvin explains why the machine's action was a perfectly logical way of obeying the famous First Law of Robotics.


Anonymous cover art for a British edition.

The author must be fond of this tale, because he has already included it in two different collections of his work. The one shown above, as the title indicates, includes stories that take place on Earth rather than in space, despite the misleading illustration and blurb. The story also appears in an omnibus that brings together his two robot novels as well as several shorter works.


Cover art by Thomas Chibbaro.

Besides that, it is also included in the same Roger Elwood anthology as Bloch's story. My sources in the television industry tell me that it is being adapted for the British series Out of the Unknown, and should appear late this year. (Will there be American reruns? One can only hope.)

Is it worth all this attention? Well, it's not a bad yarn, if not the greatest robot story Asimov ever wrote. The housewife is something of a stereotype of an overly emotional female, dependent on a man for her happiness. (This is in sharp contrast to the highly intelligent and independent Doctor Susan Calvin.) At some point you may think that the author is violating his own rules about robot behavior, but it's all explained at the end.

Three stars.

A Portfolio – Virgil Finlay

I'm not sure if I should even discuss this tiny collection of illustrations by the great artist, but at least I can share them with you.


For The New Adam (1939) by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The magazine calls it The New Atom, which is an egregious error.


For Mirrors of the Queen (1948) by Richard S. Shaver.


For The Silver Medusa (1948) by Alexander Blade (pseudonym for H. Hickey.)

What can I say? His work is stunning.

Five stars.

Satan Sends Flowers, by Henry Kuttner


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

The January/February 1953 issue of Fantastic is the source of this variation on an old theme.


Illustrations by Tom Beecham.

A man sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for immortality. (The premise is similar to that of the Twilight Zone episode Escape Clause, but the twist ending is different.) He ensures that he will remain young, healthy, and all that, so Satan can't play any tricks on him. Obviously, he figures he'll never have to pay up.

The Devil demands surety in the form of certain subconscious memories the fellow possesses. After assuring him that he won't even know he's lost anything, the man agrees. Unafraid of either earthly punishment or damnation, he lives a life of total depravity.


His first crime is the murder of his mother.

Eventually, he persuades the Devil to give him back what he lost, even though Satan warns him that he won't like it. This turns out to be a bad idea.

Like most other stories in this issue, this one has already appeared in a book. (It acquired the new title By These Presents.)


Back and front cover art by Richard Powers.

I should mention that the husband-and-wife team of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore almost always collaborated, even if the resulting story appeared under only one name. Whoever might have been responsible for whatever parts of this work, it's a reasonably engaging tale. I'm not sure I really accept the explanation for what the man's unconscious memories represent, but I was willing to go along with it.

Three stars.

The Way Home, by Theodore Sturgeon


Cover art by Barye Phillips.

This quiet story comes from the April/May 1953 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustrations by David Stone.

A boy runs away from home. Along the way he meets a wealthy man and his glamourous female companion, in their fancy car; a man with an injured hand who has been all over the world; and a pilot in a beautiful airplane. Without giving too much away, it's clear from the start that these men represent possible future versions of himself.


Is this the road to the future, or to home?

Like Asimov's story, this piece has already appeared in two of the author's collections, but with a slight change in the title.


Cover art by Mel Hunter.

(I'm not sure if I should really count these as two different collections, because all the stories in Thunder and Roses already appeared, along with others, in A Way Home. Such are the vagaries of the publishing industry.)


Cover art by Peter Curl.

In any case, this is a beautifully written little story, subtle and evocative. To say much more would be to ruin the delicate mood it creates.

Five stars.

Worth Tuning In Again?


Cartoon by somebody called Frosty, from the same magazine as Satan Sends Flowers.

I wouldn't call this issue bad at all, although there were a couple of disappointing stories.  It's no big surprise that the Simak and the Sturgeon were excellent, and Finlay's art is always a delight.  It's enough to make you want to tear yourself away from all those reruns on television and turn to some literary reruns instead.


In the world of cuisine, reruns are known as leftovers.

Tune in to KGJ, our radio station!  Nothing but the newest and best hits!  Even the reruns are great!




2 Comments Leave A Comment