Tag Archives: robert sheckley

Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

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

4 Comments


by Victoria Silverwolf

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

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

(Cue eerie theremin music.)

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

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


Isn't this the way The Blob started?

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

Another Song of Solomon?

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

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


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

What Do You Expect For Four Bits?

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


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


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

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


Cover art by Barye Phillips and Leo Summers.

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


Illustrations by Virgil Finlay.

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


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

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


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

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

Three stars.

Wonder Child, by Joseph Shallit


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

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


Illustrations by Ed Emshwiller (better known as Emsh.)

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


He also develops a precocious interest in sex.

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

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

Two stars.

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

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


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

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

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


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

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


There's also a big guy.

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

Three stars.

What a Man Believes, by Robert Sheckley


Cover art by Vernon Kramer.

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


Illustrations by Henry C. Pitz.

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


He can also climb a mountain.

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

Two stars.

Three Wishes, by Poul Anderson


Wraparound cover art by Richard Powers.

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


Illustration by Dick Francis.

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

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

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

Two stars.

Phoney Meteor, by John Beynon


Cover art by J. Allen St. John.

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


Illustration by Jay Jackson.

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

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

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

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

Two stars.

Did It Meet Your Expectations?

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


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




</small

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

[November 12, 1965] Doldrumming (December 1965 Amazing)

5 Comments


by John Boston

Off Days

The December Amazing, boasting Cordwainer Smith, Murray Leinster, Edmond Hamilton, Robert Sheckley, and Chad Oliver, looks promising despite the hideous front cover by Hector Castellon.  Unfortunately, the unifying theme of the issue is Off Days of Big Names.


by Hector Castellon

But first, let’s survey the terrain.  The Smith and Leinster stories are new, and informed rumor has it they are the first purchases of the new editor after the exhaustion of Cele Lalli’s leavings.  They are long, so the three reprints make up a smaller proportion of the magazine than in the previous issue, less than half of the total page count.  Almost all the the issue’s contents are fiction.  The editorial is one page, as is the letter column, and that’s it: no article, no book reviews.

The editorial by Joseph Ross cocks a fairly vapid snook at outside critics of SF, most recent example being Kurt Vonnegut, who isn’t entirely outside, and the letter column—both the letters and the editor’s responses—are calculated to cheer on the magazine and celebrate the true pulp quill, with a sideswipe at the previous editor’s attempts at something a little more elevated.

Killer Ship (Part 2 of 2), by Murray Leinster

The longest item is the conclusion of Murray Leinster’s serial Killer Ship, which inhabits the subgenre of Reactionary Science Fiction.  This is not a political designation, but a description of stories that suggest—nay, insist—that the future will, conveniently for the lazy reader and writer, not be much different from the past.  This one began last issue with: “He came of a long line of ship-captains, which probably explains the whole matter.”


by Norman Nodel

There follows a genealogy of the protagonist Captain Trent’s space- and sea-faring ancestors back to the eighteenth century, followed by several paragraphs about the similarity between the dangers of space travel and those of eighteenth-century sea voyaging, complete with Trent’s ancestor sailing into port with the hanged bodies of pirates swinging from the yardarms.  There’s no indication of what Trent knows or how he has been influenced by these ancestors’ doings, so how his lineage “explains the whole matter” is a bit murky.

A couple of pages later, after it is disclosed that the ship-owners who have hired Captain Trent for a trading voyage in pirate-infested waters, er, space, would be just as happy if he gets pirated so they can collect the insurance: “It didn’t bother him.  He came of a long line of ship-captains, and others had accepted similar commands in their time.”

Six pages further on, when it appears Trent’s ship has spotted a lurking pirate: “The report of a reading on the drive-detector was equivalent to a bellowed ‘Sail ho!’ from a sailing brig’s crosstrees.  Trent’s painstaking use of signal-analysis instruments was equal to his ancestor’s going aloft to use his telescope on a minute speck at the horizon.  What might follow could continue to duplicate in utterly changed conditions what had happened in simpler times, in sailing-ship days.”

Later still: “The arrival of the Yarrow in port on Sira was not too much unlike the arrival of a much earlier Captain Trent at a seaport on Earth in the eighteenth century.” I will spare you the extensive elaboration.  And I can’t resist one more, towards the end as the Captain and his men are mustering for the final battle: “When they gathered, crowding, to get into the Yarrow’s spaceboats, the feel of things was curiously like a forgotten incident in the life of a Captain Trent of the late eighteenth century.” (Again, spare the details.) There is no suggestion that the current Captain Trent is in any way aware of this incident.  Hey, the author just said it’s forgotten!

At this point it is tempting to ask, Why bother?  Why not just swing by the library and pick up a stack of old C.S. Forester novels, and take your eighteenth century straight?

Another conspicuous feature is its pervasive verbosity.  Consider the following passage, right after the discovery that there’s another spaceship lying low very close.  Trent throws a switch that turns on the signal-analyzing instruments and goes to work.  Now:

“There was silence save for that small assortment of noises any ship makes while it is driving.  It means that the ship is going somewhere, hence that it will eventually arrive somewhere.  A ship in port with all operating devices cut off seems gruesomely dead.  Few spacemen will stay aboard-ship in a spaceport.  It is too still.  The silence is too oppressive.  They go aground and will do anything at all rather than loaf on a really silent ship.  But there were all sorts of tiny noises assuring that the Yarrow was alive.  The air apparatus hummed faintly.  The temperature-control made small, unrelated sounds.  Somewhere somebody off-watch had a tiny microtape player on, the Aldonian music too soft to be heard unless one listened especially for it.”

Next: “The signal-analyzer clicked.” Intermission over!  Story starts up again! 

And here’s another one, short but telling.  Captain Trent and the captain of a pirate-bashed ship whose crew Trent has rescued are about to travel from one ship to the other.  “The Yarrow’s bulk loomed up not forty feet away, but beneath and between the ships lay an unthinkable abyss.  Stars shown up from between their feet.  One could fall for millions of years and never cease to plummet through nothingness.” Then they snap on lines and are hauled across the 40 feet, sans plummeting or any actual risk or fear of it.

A little later (we’re up to page 29 of the October issue), there is a long description of the pirates repairing the damage to their ship that Captain Trent inflicted by ramming them.  This is actually a nice vivid word-picture.  But then:

“While this highly necessary work went on, the stars watched abstractedly.  They were not interested.  They were suns, with families of planets of their own; besides, some of them had comets and meteoric streams and asteroid belts to take up their attention.  There was nothing really novel in mere mechanical repair-work some thousands of millions of miles away from even the nearest of them.”

And it goes on, and on, appearing everywhere like water seeping up through the floorboards of a flooding house.  It’s enough to make a body wonder if paying by the word is really such a good policy.

Oh, yes, there is also a story here, fitfully visible through the padding and the constant eruptions of the eighteenth century.  Trent takes on a job carrying a cargo through pirate territory, partly to make some money and party because he hates pirates.  He has an encounter with some pirates, captures some of their crew, and rescues the boss’s daughter (boss meaning owner of the pirated spaceship, and also a planetary president).  She thinks he’s the cat’s meow for rescuing her, and he sort of likes her too, but duty calls.  Then everybody foolishly thinks it’s safe to travel again because Trent defeated this lot of pirates.  The boss’s daughter gets kidnapped by pirates again.  Trent cleverly figures out where she and the other hostages must be, goes there with his crew, confronts the pirates in their lair, rescues boss’s daughter again, wedding bells clearly to follow. 

There are some clever plot twists along the hackneyed way, as one would expect from a guy who’s been at this for well over four decades.  There are also characters, sort of.  Captain Trent is the strong laconic guy who may have inner turmoil but keeps it to himself.  Everybody else is essentially a cartoon, notably Trent’s crew, who play a big part in his success, and who are essentially a bunch of roughnecks the Captain has recruited from barroom brawls and who follow him because he’s a pretty good brawler too.  Finally, there is the definitive happy ending: “This novel will be published in the winter by Ace Books under the title ‘SPACE CAPTAIN.’ ”

One star for both parts.  That’s the average of two stars for smooth professionalism, and zero stars for polished vacuity; life’s too short to waste time on this.

On the Sand Planet, by Cordwainer Smith

All right, Henry, wheel that one out and release it to the next of kin.  Who’s on the next slab?  Oh, Cordwainer Smith.  Sounds promising.  Except . . . 

On the Sand Planet seems to be the last in the Instrumentality series featuring one Casher O’Neill that began with On the Gem Planet and On the Storm Planet, with Three to a Given Star tangentially related.  They were all published in Galaxy, to considerable praise from the Traveler.  But . . . if the others appeared in Galaxy, what is this one doing here at the bottom of the market?  Unfortunately, suspicions confirmed.


by Jack Gaughan

Casher O’Neill has been on a mission to relieve his home planet Mizzer of the tyrant Wedder, and to that end has circuitously toured the galaxy and has obtained various superpowers, apparently courtesy of T’ruth, an Underperson derived from a turtle.  That’s all before this story opens.  Now, he’s landing on Mizzer again, walks into town and into Wedder’s citadel, and using his superpowers, rearranges Wedder’s head and portions of his supporting anatomy, turning him into a pussycat.  Metaphorically, I mean.  While he’s at it, Casher restores the intelligence of an idiot child. 

Now that Casher is done with his life’s work, he drops in on his mother, who has mixed feelings about him, and his daughter, who has her own life and would just as soon he went away.  So he decides to go to the Ninth Nile (this city Kazeer is at the confluence of a whole lot of Niles, it seems), though he is warned he will need iron shoes for the volcanic glass.

At the Ninth Nile, Casher meets D’alma, an elderly dog-underperson and an old acquaintance, who accompanies him, first to the gaudy City of Hopeless Hope, where everyone seems to be engaged in the practice of one religion or another, and D’alma warns that they are “the ones who are so sure that they are right that they never will be right.” Then, to the place of the Jwinds, “the perfect ones,” who destroy intruders who don’t meet their high standards.  But Casher, who contains multitudes in his enhanced cranium, is too much for them.  On to Mortoval, where a gatekeeper lets them pass when Casher again musters his superpowers to invoke “old multitudes of crying throngs.” The gatekeeper asks, “How can I cope with you?”

“ ‘Make us us,’ said Casher firmly.
“ ‘Make you you,’ replied the machine.  ‘Make you you.  How can I make you you when I do not know who you are, when you flit like ghosts and you confuse my computers?’ ”

On to Kermesse Dorgueil, where D’alma warns “here we may lose our way because this is the place where all the happy things of this world come together, but where the man and the two pieces of wood never filter through,” and a guy named Howard explains, “We live well here, and we have a nice life, not like those two places across the river that stay away from life,” and they make no claim to perfection. 

Here Casher encounters a woman, Celalta, who is dancing and singing, having resigned as a lady of the Instrumentality, and Casher recruits her as traveling companion by grabbing her wrist and not letting go.  Also he introduces himself by telepathy-dump, including “the two pieces of wood, the image of a man in pain,” and tells her it’s “the call of the First Forbidden One and the Second Forbidden One and the Third Forbidden One.” The Trinity, like you’ve never seen them (or it) before!  I guess.

Onward, past the Deep Dry Lake of the Damned Irene, resisting the temptation to lie down with the skeletons and die, to “the final source and the mystery, the Quel of the Thirteenth Nile,” where there are trees and caves, and fruits, melons, and grain growing, and evidence that other people used to live there, and also some surviving chickens running around.  Celalta declares, “We’re Adam and Eve in a way.  It’s not up to us to be given a god or to be given a faith.  It’s up to us to find the power, and this is the quietest and last of the searching places.” Et cetera.  Celalta says she’ll start the fire if O’Neill will go catch some chickens.

Well, this is pretty ridiculous.  It’s obviously some sort of religious allegory, reminding me a little of my ill-fated glancing encounter with The Pilgrim’s Progress, told in an often sonorous style but a plain vocabulary, like a negotiation between the King James Bible and Fun with Dick and Jane (that’s not a complaint).  But the point is a little elusive.  I get that at least one of the two is thinking about Adam and Eve, since she says it straight out.  But then what?  Mr. Smith owes us one more story in the series, catching up with Casher and Celalta and their inevitable children after ten years or so in isolation, living on feral chickens roasted in a cave.  But you know it won’t happen.

Two stars for this shaggy God epic.  As exasperating follies go, it’s at least readable and amusing.

The Comet Doom, by Edmond Hamilton

The reprints are an exceedingly mixed bag.  Surprisingly, the best is also the most archaic, Edmond Hamilton’s The Comet Doom, from the January 1928 Amazing.  There’s a big green comet passing by, and it turns out it’s inhabited by atomic-powered metal beings with tentacles who used to have organic bodies but gave them up.  These folks have about used up the comet’s resources and want to replenish their stores by carrying off a handy planet, ours to be precise.  In fact they have just yanked the Earth out of its orbit.  To further their scheme, they land on a lake island and snatch our heroes, Coburn and Hanley, and offer them metal bodies and immortality if they will help out in the liquidation of their species.

Hanley goes for it, Coburn escapes.  About this time, Marlin—the story’s narrator—is passing by the island in a boat which is half-destroyed by the comet, swims to shore, and encounters Coburn, who recruits him to the human cause.  They attack the cometeers and Coburn is killed, but the already-transplanted Hanley, in a final moment of human loyalty, destroys the machine that is steering Earth towards the comet, along with the comet-people present.  Doom is foiled.

This one is reasonably readable, mostly done in a style that reflects close attention to H.G. Wells, with echoes of both The Star and The War of the Worlds, despite the pulpish plot.  Two stars by today’s standards, probably a standout by those of its time.

Restricted Area, by Robert Sheckley

The other reprints are from the brief high-budget, and relatively high-brow, flowering of the Ziff-Davis magazines during 1952 and 1953, immediately after the magazine went from pulp size to digest size.  Robert Sheckley’s Restricted Area, from the June-July 1953 Amazing, is one of the slick but empty and cartoony pieces he produced in quantity at the beginning of his career, along with the more incisive ones. 


by Greisha Dotzenko

Space explorers land on a paradisical planet–wonderful climate, no germs, no rocks, lots of colorful friendly animals ready to hang out and play, and a giant steel shaft ascending to the clouds.  But after a while, the animals start to slow down and keel over.  Connect the dots.  Glib and facile, and the author knows it—this one hasn’t been in any of Sheckley’s multiple collections to date.  Two stars, barely.

Final Exam, by Chad Oliver


by Ashman

Final Exam by the sometimes redoubtable Chad Oliver, from the November/December 1952 Fantastic, is also from what we might call the Intermission, or Respite, between the Ziff-Davis magazines’ last gasp as pulps and their monotonous and purposely formulaic low-budget era of the mid- and late 1950s.  Like much of Oliver’s work, it reflects his anthropological bent (actually, a pretty straight-line bent—he’s become an anthropology professor at the University of Texas), but strikes an unusually sour note.  Professor La Farge’s class in Advanced Martian History is on a field trip to see and condescend to some of the colorful and primitive surviving Martians, but the time for the Martians to turn the tables has arrived in this heavy-handed satire.  Two stars, barely. 

Summing Up

Well, a couple more hours we’ll never get back, and not much to show for it, except an eccentric misfire from a sometimes brilliant writer, and a tolerable relic of a bygone era.  Next?

[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…]




5 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 22, 1965] Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (November 1965 Fantastic)

6 Comments


by Victoria Silverwolf

Days of Our Lives

I'm stealing the name of a new soap opera, due to premiere on NBC next month, because it sums up the way that past, present, and future came together in the news this month.

Yale University put an item known as the Vinland Map on public display on October 12. This is a map of the world, said to date back to the Fifteenth Century, which seems to indicate that Norsemen visited the Americas long before Christopher Columbus. In case you're wondering about the date, it was Columbus Day, in a nice bit of irony.


A detail of the Vinland Map. That's Greenland to the right, and a chunk of North America to the left.

As you might expect, there's controversy over whether this is the real thing or a forgery. Today, nobody knows for sure if this visitor from yesterday is genuine, but maybe we'll find out tomorrow.

If authentic, the Vinland Map is a voice from the past. In a similar way, folks in the present are trying to send a message to the future.

On October 16, the penultimate day of the New York World's Fair, a time capsule was lowered into the ground. (A similar object was buried nearby, during the 1939 World's Fair.) It is scheduled to be opened in the year 6939. (I'm a little skeptical as to whether such a thing can really survive and be found nearly five thousand years from now, but I like the idea.) The contents include . . . well, see for yourself.


People in that distant era will also know that we weren't very careful about spelling.

The Beatles seem destined to represent the artistic achievements of our time, if somebody actually finds the time capsule, opens it, and figures out how to play a record. They are once again at the top of the American popular music charts this month, and show no signs of leaving that position any time soon.

The latest smash from the Liverpool lads is, appropriately, called Yesterday. Unlike their other hits, it's a slow, melancholy song about lost love. Paul McCartney plays acoustic guitar and sings, backed by a string quartet. The other Beatles do not perform on the record, so it's really a McCartney solo performance.


By the way, Act Naturally is a remake of a Number One song by Buck Owens. The Beatles go Country-Western!

Flipping Through the Calendar

Given the peculiarities of the publishing business, it's no surprise that I'm reading the November issue of Fantastic in October. With their policy of filling about half the magazine with reprints, it's also not a shock to discover that we go back in time to fill up the pages. First up, however, is a new story set in a strange world that mixes up the past and the present.


Cover art by Julian S. Krupa. It's actually taken from the back cover of the July 1939 issue of Amazing Stories.


Look familiar? We'll hear more about the Space Devastator later.

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


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Our hero is one Lafayette O'Leary, an ordinary working stiff, living in a crummy boarding house. He has a lot of intellectual curiosity, performing experiments in his tiny room and reading obscure books. He happens to find a Nineteenth Century volume on hypnotism, and learns about a technique whereby he can experience a dreaming state, while remaining aware that he is dreaming, and exercising some control over it.

(This isn't so crazy a premise as it might seem. More than fifty years ago, the Dutch psychiatrist Frederik Willem van Eeden coined the term lucid dream for such states of mind.)

Of course, he gives it a try. He winds up in a world that seems to be a bit medieval, a touch Eighteenth Century, a tad modern, and partly straight out of a fairy tale. The limitations on his ability to alter this dream world — if that's what it is — show up when he tries to give himself a set of fancy modern clothes, and winds up dressed like somebody in a swashbuckling movie.


Lafayette, ready for action.

At first, he enjoys the situation, happily replacing the lousy wine in a tavern with fine Champagne. Thought to be a wizard, he gets mixed up with the local equivalent of the cops. Still thinking this is just a dream, he tries to disappear, with only partial success.


Our hero tries to vanish, but can't quite do it.

Lafayette winds up in the palace of the King, where he is thought to be a prophesized hero, destined to save the realm from an ogre and a dragon. He also meets the King's magician, who seems to know more about what's going on than he admits. For one thing, he's responsible for the steam-powered coaches and electric lights in this otherwise nontechnological world.


The magician looks on as Lafayette admires himself.

Eventually, our hero meets the King's beautiful daughter, as well as the master swordsman who is her current boyfriend. Jealousy rears its head, and a challenge to a duel arises.

Lafayette assumes that his opponent, like everybody else in this world, is just a product of his imagination. Therefore, he reasons, the foe can't really be any better with a sword than he is. It looks like he might be in for an unpleasant surprise.


Tune in again for the next exciting chapter!

So far, at least, the tone of this novel is very light. Laumer almost seems to be parodying his own tales of the Imperium, with the protagonist finding himself in alternate realities. Unlike those serious stories, this one is a comedy. The people inhabiting the dream world speak in a mixture of archaic language and modern slang. The police are about as effective as the Keystone Kops. It's entertaining enough to keep me reading, but hardly profound.

Three stars.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Ray Bradbury

The rest of the magazine consists of stuff from the old days, both the prose and the art. First we have a piece with a title that is fitting for my chosen theme. It comes from the May 1947 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones, for what looks like a very odd story.

The protagonist is a would-be writer, reduced to pawning his typewriter due to his failure to find his way into print. (Surely based on the author's own early years, I assume.) He comes home to find a strange device. It sends him messages from the far future.


Illustration by Virgil Finlay.

Tomorrow's world is a dreary place, under the rule of a brutal dictator. A woman sent the machine back in time, insisting that the writer kill the remote ancestors of the tyrant. If he doesn't, the woman will be executed. If he does, the future will change, and she won't remember him at all. Since he's fallen in love with her, he will lose her either way. Besides this dilemma, he faces the moral crisis of murdering two innocent people.

This early work shows Bradbury developing his style, although it is not yet fully formed. You may think that's a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, it's got some emotional appeal, some passages of poetic writing, some implausibilities, and some lapses in logic. The ethical problem at the heart of the story — would you kill Hitler's ancestors? — is an important one, but here it's mostly used as a plot point.

Three stars.

I'm Looking for "Jeff", by Fritz Leiber

From the Fall 1952 issue of Fantastic comes this horror story, created by a master of the macabre (and other things.)


Cover art by Leo Summers. The Capote story is his very early work Miriam, which is a fine, eerie tale.

A bartender claims that a mysterious woman shows up regularly, although the owner of the joint can't see her. The reader is aware right from the start that she's a ghost.


Illustration by Emsh.

She uses her feminine wiles to pick up a customer, offering her affection in return for a promise to do something particularly violent to somebody named Jeff. The fellow, entrapped by her seductive charms — even the scar that runs across her face doesn't mar her beauty — agrees. He encounters Jeff, and makes a terrifying discovery.

There are no surprises in this variation on the classic theme of vengeance from beyond the grave. What elevates it above the usual ghost story is truly fine writing. The woman's first appearance, when she is a barely detectable wisp, is particularly fascinating.

Four stars.

Wild Talents, Inc., by Robert Sheckley

The September/October 1953 issue of Fantastic supplies this comic yarn.


Cover art also by Leo Summers, what little you can see of it.

As you'd expect, the company named in the title deals with people who have psychic powers. It's pretty much an employment agency for such folks. Their latest client presents a problem.


Illustration by Emsh

It seems the fellow can observe anyone, at any location. Unfortunately, he's very much an oddball. His only interest is in recording their sexual activities in excruciating detail. The guy in charge of the company has to figure out a way to protect the public from this Peeping Tom, while making use of his peculiar ability in an acceptable way.

The whole thing is pretty much a mildly dirty, mildly clever, mildly amusing joke. You might see it as a spoof of the kind of psi-power stories that appear in Analog far too often. A minor effort from an author who is capable of much sharper satire.

Two stars.

Tooth or Consequences, by Robert Bloch

Another comedy, this time from the May 1950 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Arnold Kohn

It starts off like a joke. A vampire walks into a dentist's office . . .. It seems even the undead need to have their cavities filled. The vampire also swipes blood from the supply kept refrigerated in the same medical building. When the red stuff is then secured under lock and key, to prevent further thefts, the vampire tells the dentist he better get some of it for him, or else. There's a twist at the end you may see coming.

I suppose there's a certain Charles Addams appeal to the image of a fanged monster sitting in a dentist's chair. Otherwise, there's not much to this bagatelle.

Two stars.

The Eye of Tandyla, by L. Sprague de Camp

We go back to the May 1951 issue of Fantastic Adventures for this sword-and-sorcery yarn, one of a handful of stories in the author's Pusadian series. (The best-known one is probably the novel The Tritonian Ring, also from 1951.)


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones

The setting is far back in time, long before recorded history. (The story goes that de Camp wanted to create a background similar to the one appearing in Robert E. Howard's tales of Conan, but in a more realistic fashion.) A wizard and a warrior must steal a magical gem from the statue of a goddess for their King, or be executed. Their plan involves disguising themselves with sorcery and sneaking into the place.


Illustration by Virgil Finlay.

To their amazement, it proves to be really easy to grab the jewel. So simple, in fact, that they smell a rat. They cook up a scheme to put the gem back in its place, steal a similar one from another place, and present that one to the King instead. Complications ensue.

You can tell that this isn't the most serious story in the world. The plot resembles a farce, with its multiple confusions and running back and forth. It's got the wit often found in Fritz Leiber's work of this kind, but not quite the same elegance. I'd say it's above the level of John Jakes, or even — dare I say it? — Howard himself, if not quite up to the very high standard of Leiber.

Three stars.

Close Behind Him, by John Wyndham

The January/February issue of Fantastic is the source of this chiller.


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg. The so-called new story by Poe is actually Robert Bloch's completion of a fragment.

Two crooks rob the house of a very strange fellow. The guy catches one of them in the act, so the hoodlum kills him.


Illustration by Paul Lundy.

The pair make their getaway, but are followed by blood-red footprints wherever they go. You can bet things won't go well for them.

This is a pretty decent horror story, nicely written, although — once again! — not up to the level of Fritz Leiber, particularly since we've got an example of his excellent work in the field of tales of terror in this very issue.

Three stars.

Space Devastator, by Anonymous

I'm not sure if I should even mention this tiny article, excerpted from the pages of the July 1939 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Robert Fuqua.

Anyway, it's less than a page long, and speculates about a huge station in orbit, equipped with a bunch of big mirrors.


Illustration by Julian S. Krupa

The notion is that such a thing could destroy entire populations from space by focusing the sun's rays and burning up cities. Casual mention is made of the fact that it could supply solar energy as well. I suppose it's imaginative for 1939, but it's so short — the original version was probably somewhat longer — that you can't get much out of it.

Two stars.

What Day is Good for You?

Today comes out a big winner over Yesterday and Tomorrow in this month's Fantastic. Leiber's contemporary ghost story is clearly superior to tales set in the future or in the legendary past. Otherwise, this isn't that great an issue, ranging from OK to below average.

You might well get more entertainment out of an award-winning film, such as this Italian comedy, which got the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film last year. Sophia Loren plays three different women, and Marcello Mastroianni three men, in a trio of lighthearted tales of love.


For some reason, every poster I've seen for this movie features Loren in her underwear. I wonder why that might be.

And you'll definitely enjoy the next exciting musical guest episode of The Journey Show, October 24 at 1PM Pacific!




6 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine, Serial

[September 14, 1965] The Face is Familiar (October 1965 Galaxy)

5 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

In all the old familiar places…

All summer long, the Traveler family's television tradition has included the game show, Password.  Though it may seem odd that such a program should rival in importance to us such stand-outs as Secret Agent and Burke's Law, if you read my recent round-up of the excellent TV of the 64-65 season, you'll understand why we like the show.

Sadly, the September 9 episode marked the beginning of a hiatus and, perhaps, an outright cancellation of the show.  No more primetime Password, nor the daily afternoon editions either.  Whither host extraordinaire Allen Ludden?

Apparently, What's my Line!  Both Ludden and his wife, Betty White, were the mystery guests last week; I guess they had the free time.  They were absolutely charming together, and it's clear they are still very much in love two years into their marriage.

Speaking of anniversaries, Galaxy, one of the genre's most esteemed monthly digests, is celebrating its 15th.  To mark the occasion, editor Fred Pohl has assembled a table of contents contributed by some of the magazine's biggest names (though I note with sadness that neither Evelyn Smith nor Katherine MacLean are represented among them).  These "all-star" issues (as Fantasy and Science Fiction calls them) often fail to impress as much as ones larded with newer writers, but one never knows until one reads, does one?

So, without further ado, let's get stuck in and see how Galaxy is doing, fifteen years on:

The issue at hand


by John Pederson, Jr.

The Age of the Pussyfoot (Part 1 of 3), by Frederik Pohl

The editor of Galaxy has a penchant for providing a great deal of his own material to his magazines.  Normally, I'd be worried about this.  It could be a sign of an editor taking advantage of position to guarantee sale of work that might not cut the mustard.  And even if the work is worthy, there is the real danger of overcommitment when one takes on the double role of boss and employee.

That said, some editors just find creation too fun to give up (yours truly included) and in the case of Pohl, he usually turns in a good tale, as he has for decades, so I won't begrudge him the practice.

Indeed, Pussyfoot is a welcome addition to the mag.  A variation on the classic The Sleeper Awakes theme, in this case, the time traveling is done via the rather new technology of cryogenics.  Indeed, protagonist Charles Forester, 37-year old erstwhile fireman, is one of the very first corpses to be frozen circa 1969, and wakes up in the overcrowded but utopian world of 2527 A.D.


by Wallace Wood

Feeling immortal (with some justification – no one really dies anymore; they just get put on ice until they can be brought back, often within minutes) and also wealthy (but $250,000 doesn't stretch as far as it used to) Forester takes a while to really come to grips with his new situation, always just a touch too clueless for his own good, and perhaps plausibility.

Very quickly, he learns that things are not perfect in the future: being immortal means one can be murdered on a lark and the culprits go unpunished.  Inflation has rendered Forester's fortune valueless.  He must get a job, any job.  But the one he finds that will employ an unskilled applicant turns out to be the one no one wants: personal assistant to a disgusting alien!

There's some really good worldbuilding stuff in this story, particularly the little rod-shaped "joymakers" everyone carries that are telephone, computer terminal, personal assistant, drug dispenser, and more.  I also liked the inclusion of inflation, which is usually neglected in stories of the future.  It all reads a bit like a Sheckley story writ long, something Sheckley's always had trouble with.  It's not perfect, but it is fun and just serious enough to avoid being farce.

Four stars for now,

Inside Man, by H. L. Gold

The first editor of Galaxy started out as a writer, but even though he turned over the helm of his magazine four years ago (officially – it was probably earlier), he hasn't published in a long time, so it's exciting to see his byline again.  Inside Man is a nice, if nor particularly momentous, story about a fellow with a telepathy for machines.  And since machines are usually in some state of disrepair, it's not a very pleasant gift.

Three stars.

The Machines, Beyond Shylock, by Ray Bradbury

Judith Merril sums up Bradbury beautifully in this month's F&SF, describing him as the avatar of science fiction to the lay population, but deemed a mixed bag by the genre community.  His short poem, about how the human spirit will always have something robots do not, is typically oversentimental and not a little opaque.  And it's not just the font Pohl used.

Two stars.

Fifteen Years of Galaxy — Thirteen Years of F.Y.I., by Willy Ley

The science columns of Willy Ley comprised one of main draws for Galaxy back when I first got my subscription.  In this article, Ley goes over the various topics of moment he's covered over the last decade and a half, providing updates where appropriate.  It's a neat little tour of his tenure with the magazine.

Four stars.

A Better Mousehole, by Edgar Pangborn

Pangborn, like Bradbury, is another of the genre's sentimentalists.  When he does it well, he does it better than anyone.  This weird story, told in hard-to-read first person, said protagonist being a bartender who finds alien, thought-controlling blue bugs in his shop, is a slog.

Two stars.

Three to a Given Star, by Cordwainer Smith

Oh frabjous day!  A new Instrumentality story!  This one tells the tale of three unique humans sent off to pacify the gabbling, cackling cannibals of Linschoten XV: "Folly", once a beautiful woman and now a 11-meter spaceship; "SAMM" a quarter-mile long bronze statue possessing a frightening armory; and "Finsternis", a giant cube as dark as night, and with the ability to extinguish suns.


by Gray Morrow

Guest appearances are made by Casher O' Neill and Lady Ceralta, two of humanity's most powerful telepaths whom we met in previous stories.

I've made no secret of my admiration for the Instrumentality stories, which together create a sweeping and beautiful epic of humanity's far future.  Three has a bit of a perfunctory character, somehow, and thus misses being a classic.

Still, even feeble Smith earns three stars.

Small Deer, by Clifford D. Simak

In Deer, a fellow makes a time machine, goes back to see the death of the dinosaurs, and discovers that aliens were rounding them up for meat… and that they might come back again now that humanity has teemed over the Earth.

A throwback of a story and definitely not up to Simak's standard.  A high two (or a low three if you're feeling generous and/or missed the last thirty years of science fiction).

The Good New Days, by Fritz Leiber

On an overcrowded Earth, steady work is a thing of the past.  Folks get multiple part time gigs to fill the time, including frivolous occupations like smiling at people on the way to work.  Satirical but overindulgent, I had trouble getting through it.  Two stars.

Founding Father, by Isaac Asimov

Dr. A was lured back into the world of fiction after an eight-year almost complete hiatus; apparently he can be cajoled into almost anything.  In Father, based on this month's cover, five marooned space travelers try to cleanse a planet of its poisonous ammonia content before their dwindling oxygen supplies run out.

It's a fair story, but I had real issues with the blitheness with which the astronauts plan to destroy an entire ecosystem that requires ammonia to survive.  In the end, when terrestrial plants manage to take root on the planet, spelling doom for the native life, it's heralded as a victory.

Two stars.

Shall We Have a Little Talk?, by Robert Sheckley


by Jack Gaughan

Bob Sheckley was a Galaxy staple (under his own name and several pseudonyms) for most of the 1950s.  His short stories are posssibly the best of anyone's, but he eschewed them for novels that just didn't have the same brilliance.

Well, he's back, and his first short story in Galaxy in ages is simply marvelous.  It involves a representative of a rapacious Terra who travels to a distant world to establish relations, said contact a prelude to its ultimate subjugation.  But first, he has to establish meaningful communications.

Fiercely satirical and hysterical to boot, Talk is Sheckley in full form.

Mun, er, five stars.

Summing up

In the end, this all-star issue was, as usual, something of a mixed bag.  Still, there's enough gold here to show that the river Gold established is still well worth panning.  Here's to another fifteen years!

[Journey Press now has three excellent titles for your reading pleasure! Why not pick up a copy or three? Not only will you enjoy them all — you'll be helping out the Journey!]




5 Comments Leave A Comment
Book, Magazine

[May 8, 1965] Skip to the end (June 1965 Galaxy)

5 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

Impatience

Normally, I'd open up with a discussion at length of the news of the day.  Like how the United States is still knee-deep in the Dominican Republic, losing soldiers to snipers every day despite the ceasefire between the current military-civilian junta government and the supporters of ousted President Bosch.

Or that Collie Wilkins Jr. was acquitted by a 10-2 hung jury in a trial for the murder of civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo, shot in her car after the Selma rallies.  Wilkins' defense attorney's statements included language so profane and racist that I cannot transcribe them here.

Or that the comedy/news show, That was the Week that Was, had its final show on May 4th.

And then, having given my report, I'd tie it pithily to the subject at hand, namely the June 1965 Galaxy science fiction digest.  But the fact is, there's lots to cover and I'm anxious to get it all down while it's still fresh in my mind.  So, you'll just have to pretend that I was clever and comprehensive in my introduction.  On to the important stuff:

Bob Sheckley and friends


by George Schelling

As is happening more and more often, the king-sized bi-monthly, Galaxy, is dominated by a short novel this month.  This time, it's by a fellow who probably was the best SF short story writer of the 1950s.  Bob Sheckley has turned to novels of late with something less than (to my mind) great success. The Journey of Joenes, The Status Civilization, Time Killer — none of them were triumphs, though some disagree.  Will this time be different?

Mindswap, by Robert Sheckley

Young Marvin Flynn is bored to death of living in the bucolic New York town of Stanhope, desperate enough to risk "mindswap."  And so, Marvin exchanges minds with the Martian, Aigeler Thrus.  Unfortunately, Thrus' body was currently occupied by the unscrupulous Ze Kraggash, who had taken residency to elude the police after a crime.  Thrus is entitled to his body; Kraggash has Flynn's.  This leaves Flynn six hours to find a body, any body, or be extinguished forever.


by George Schelling

An increasingly frantic Flynn ends up bopping across the galaxy, first as a collector of sentient ganzer-eggs on Melde, somewhere near Aldeberan; then on to Celsus for a stint as a professional victim wearing a ticking time bomb gift; and ultimately to a reality-bending place called The Twisted World.

It's complete fluff, vaguely satirical and fun-pointing, but for the most part, pointless.  I went along with it, mildly amused for about 60 pages, before my tolerance ran out and I skimmed the rest.  Unlike Harrison's brilliant and cutting Starsloggers, Mindswap is just self-indulgent…and far too long. 

Two stars.

Servant Problem, by Otis Kidwell Burger

On the dreary, sandstorm-plagued planet of Dexter, there's little for the married couples to do but drink and kvetch about their house-servants, a race of off-putting aliens that only look like middle-aged spinsters.  After an endless seven pages of this stuff, we learn that the servants are actually the masters, and the humans are being evaluated for their level of social development.  Turns out they're in the emotional equivalent of kindergarten.

Yeah, I didn't get it either.  Two stars.

Blue Fire, by Robert Silverberg

Nat Weiner, visitor from newly terraformed Mars, the "Sparta of space," arrives on Earth to sample the luxuries of an overcrowded, decadent world.  Assigned to escort him is Reynolds Kirby, a "major bureacrat who gets paid like a minor one."  Together, they attend a spiritual gathering of the devotees of Vorster, a pseudo-scientific cult that preaches the unity of humanity and worships at the altar of the cobalt reactor. 

Vorsterism is just one of many avenues of relief against the physical and mental crush of living amongst 10 billions; hallucinogens are also popular, and the upperclassmen, like Kirby, favor the sensory deprivation "Nothing Chambers".  Cosmetic replacement of external features with metal and plastic substitutes is popular. 


by Jack Gaughan

As the tour of the once-proud homeworld progresses, Weiner becomes increasingly belligerent, resolved to steal a Vorster nuke and put it to "worthwhile use" as an energy-generating reactor on Mars.  Through Kirby's interactions with Weiner, and with the Vanna, a Vorsterian with a face modifed to inhuman grotesqueness, Kirby comes to see his own life as a hollow shell of an existence and reconsiders all of his carefully created precepts.

Blue Fire is a day-in-the-life of a fellow on the edge of a midlife crisis in a tired world.  With deft writing and vivid imagery, Silverberg accomplishes in 25 pages what usually takes Philip K. Dick a full novel.

Five stars.

Think of a Man, by Karen Anderson

Poetess Anderson offers up a latter-day space shanty.  It might make a decent filk, but it will likely leave no great impression on you.

Three stars.

For Your Information: The Observatory on the Moon, by Willy Ley

Observatory on the Moon, by Donald H. Menzel

An Eye For Selene, by R. S. Richardson

The idea that astronomy is better conducted on the Moon than Earth is an old one.  Not only is Earth's celestial neighbor airless, but its slow rotation makes it much easier to do long film exposures.

This should be a fascinating topic; instead, this is probably the least interesting article Ley's ever written.  A truly disappointing development for a column that was a major selling point when I first began my subscription to Galaxy 15 years ago. 

The short counterpoint following the main article is equally undistinguished.  Richardson's comments, on the other hand, are interesting. 

Barely three stars for the lot.

Devil Car, by Roger Zelazny

Sam Murdock speeds across the Great Central Plain of a post-apocalyptic United States in his sentient car, name of Jenny.  His monomaniacal mission: to destroy the black Devil Car and his minions, who have been savaging the continent.  Though Murdock's conviction never wavers, Jenny is torn between her programmed loyalty to her driver, and to the Devil Car's sirensong call to join his pack.

Plausible?  Not for a second.  Slick and enjoyable?  Absolutely.  Four stars, and I'll bet this gets optioned for a movie or episode of a Twilight Zone revival.

One Face, by Larry Niven


by Nodel

Last up is the third short story from this promising new writer, which may or may not take place in the same universe as his recent short novel, World of Ptavvs.  The passenger liner, Hogan's Goat, has an accident in hyperspace on the way to Earth.  It ends up at the right place but billions of years in the future.  The Sun is a burned out husk, and humanity's home is an airless world with one face permanently locked toward its star.  With no way home and nowhere to go, Verd Spacercaptain, his crew and passengers, and their increasingly debilitated computer Brain must find a way to survive.

I'm not entirely sold on the science of this piece, but Niven has a way of creating a very rich world in just a few pages.  It's also obvious that Niven is a new writer: his cohort has no problem with presenting women as equal partners and in roughly equal numbers to men; moreover, he displays no preference in terms of skin tone or ethnicity.

Four stars.

Satisfaction

How to judge the latest Galaxy?  It contains a full issue's worth of slag, but then again, it contains almost a full issue's worth of gold.  Perhaps it needs to be a regular length bi-monthly?

Especially since editor Pohl is crowing about how next month's novel will be even longer, and by Frank Herbert.

God help us all…

Our last three Journey shows were a gas!  You can watch the kinescope reruns here).  You don't want to miss the next episode, May 9 at 1PM PDT, a special Arts and Entertainment edition featuring Arel Lucas, Cora Buhlert, Erica Frank…and Dr. Who producer, Verity Lambert! Register today and we'll make sure you don't forget.




5 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine

[November 5, 1963] Beginning to see the light (November 1963 Gamma)

4 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

There's a change brewing, slowly but surely.  If you've been anywhere near a radio, TV set, or newspaper, you know that the spark lit by the Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education has kindled into a fire, a burning energy to make Black people in America "Free at Last."  We've seen it in countless marches, integrating schools, the new civil rights legislation slowly working its way through Congress, and (sadly) the deplorable counterattacks by reactionary white supremacists.

The battleground also exists on television.  Black people have been few and far between on the little screen: Jack Benny's assistant, Rochester; the dispatcher on Car 54 Where are You?; Ethel Waters playing a dying blues star on Route 66 (and not a dry eye in that house); non-speaking Marines on the set of The Lieutenant. 

Last week marked a refreshing change in the right direction.  First, there was an episode of East Side/West Side, a dramatic look at social workers in New York City.  A Black actor was cast in the role of a psychiatrist, diagnosing the outlook for a mentally impaired individual.  It was a breakthrough for me because it was the first time I saw a Black man cast as the erudite smart one of an ensemble cast.  Moreover, I believe I've seen this character before, which would make him semi-recurring. 

This week's episode of East Side/West Side did not feature the psychiatrist, but (even better) focused on a Black family and the hardships they endured after they lost their young child.  It starred James Earl Jones, whom I know from his stage work, as well as several other actors and actress with whom I was not familiar, but who all turned in excellent performances. 

Last week, there was an episode of The Great Adventure, an educational series spotlighting important moments in American history, depicting the story of Harriet Tubman, who helped thousands of slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad in the 19th Century. 

And this week, actor/playwright Ossie Davis appeared on the game show, To Tell the Truth!

It's happening, little by little, in all walks of life.  There is light at the end of this tunnel.

And speaking of welcome surprises, I'm happy to present the second issue of the science fiction quarterly, Gamma.  After last month's dreadful line of mags, it was such a relief to have reading material I could look forward to. 

Gamma styles itself as a kind of F&SF plus, getting the best stories with the highest literary merit.  So far, they're doing great.  Gamma 2 is, despite the gorgeous cover by Dollens, really more of a fantasy/horror mag, as befits its publication date, occurring as it did just before Halloween and Dia de los Muertes.  So light the hearth, put a kettle on, and prepare to enjoy a fiendishly pleasant experience:

The Granny Woman, by Dorothy B. Hughes

Novelist Hughes offers up an evocative tale of the Ozarks in which a professor from the city investigates the recent death of The Granny Woman, widely rumored to be a witch.  Was it natural causes, or did the village-folk hex the reputed hexer?  Not sf, not even really fantasy, but a lovely tale just the same, and suitably spooky for the holidays.  Four stars.

The Old College Try , by Robert Bloch

An over-eager colonial administrator is dispatched to an alien world to oversee the native mine workers, ignoring the advice from his laid-back predecessor that it is often better to get along than steam headlong into the winds of tradition.

It's a competently written, Sheckley-esque satire with a joke ending you'll see a mile away.  Bloch, the author of Psycho, is one of the more effective horror writers out there, but he didn't strain his talents making this piece.  Three stars.

Michael, by Francesca Marques

Every five year old dreams of going on an adventure, but are the aliens calling Michael real or a sign of his mental instability?  Told from the point of view of his older sister, this is a beautiful vignette with an excellent sting in its tail.  Well done, Francesca, especially for a first tale!  Four stars.

Deus Ex Machina by Richard Matheson

Robert Carter, 34, accountant and father, lives a perfectly normal life until the morning he simultaneously bumps his head and cuts his throat — exposing the wires and oil that betray his robotic origin.  Has Carter gone mad or is he on his way to discovering the truth of the world? 

It's not a bad piece, but like Bloch, Matheson (possibly the finest sff screenplay writer in the business) did not devote much effort this passable but forgettable work.  Three stars.

The Kid Learns, by William Faulkner

Where Gamma 1 featured an early genre piece by Tennessee Williams, this time around, it's William Faulkner's turn.  The Kid Learns dates back to 1925 and involves a young crimelord aspirant who tangles with a rival and ends up on a date with death.  Good, not great, but I did appreciate that I had to read twice to understand what had happened.  Three stars.

King's Jester, by Jack Matcha

An overagitated corporate executive hires a Court Jester to lighten the mood, but the contract only serves to facilitate a complete breakdown — of the president and the company.  A overly heavy piece that thuds to an ending, I wasn't particularly impressed.  Two stars.

Here's Sport Indeed! by William Shakespeare and Ib Melchior

Ib Melchior, son of opera star Lauritz Melchior, has combed the works of The Bard to assemble the damnedest tale of planetary exploration you ever read.  An utterly insane exercise, and one that tickled me in all the right places.  Five stars.

Portfolio by Burt Shonberg

Here's something nifty: The fellow behind the weird paintings in the film, The House of Usher, has provided several new weird compositions just for this issue.  Worth a look.  5 stars.

The Undiscovered Country, by William F. Temple

History is filled with episodes wherein rapacious foreigners kidnap the local princess.  In this case, her highness is a telekinetic from Pluto, and Earthers are the bad guys.  A well-told story marred by the utterly human form of the aliens despite their wildly differing climate, as well as the moral implications: we should be rooting for the girl, but the story is written sympathetically to the terrans.  Three stars.

The Gamma Interview: Robert Sheckley

You better believe I turned to this piece first, and I was not disappointed.  Bob, now situated in Italy and sustaining a shamefully low output to our genre, discusses his views on science fiction and his role in it.  Five stars of goodness from one of the field's greats.

Castaway, by Charles E. Fritch

Gamma's editor once again takes up the quill for his own publication, much to the benefit of the issue.  His story about a shipwrecked Earther, whose planetary imprisonment outlasts the endurance of his physical body, is just beautiful.  Five stars.

Something in the Earth, by Charles Beaumont

As with the last issue, both of Twilight Zone's most featured guest writers make an appearance here (Matheson is the other one).  Sadly, Beaumont's tale of Earth's last patch of forest and the fellow who appoints himself its defender is overly sentimental and not particularly insightful.  Two stars.

I'm Only Lonesome When I'm Lonely, by William F. Nolan

For some people, drifting from cocktail party to cocktail party, living on scotch and the company of others, is a way of life.  But as Nolan's story demonstrates, it's always possible to have too much of a good thing.  An impressively dialogue-reliant piece.  Four stars.


artwork by Luan Meatheringham

Sombra y Sol, by Ray Bradbury

Sadly, the mag ends with the softest of whimpers as everyone's (but mine) favorite "sf" author presents a sort of prose poem, likening the death of little Raimundo during the Day of the Dead to the bull's inevitable end in the arena.  Dry, affected, and just plain bad.  One star.

Well, I hate to end on a sour note.  The fact is, this issue is well worth the 50 cent price, rough patches aside.  Get yourself a copy while you can.

Based on the quality of this and the last issue, I'd get a subscription, too.  And perhaps you can catch reruns of The Great Adventure and East Side/West Side next summer.  That would make your 1964 quite bright, indeed!

4 Comments Leave A Comment
Conventions/Performances, Magazine

[Oct. 17, 1962] It's Always Darkest… (The November 1962 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

8 Comments

[if you’re new to the Journey, read this to see what we’re all about!]


by Gideon Marcus

Ah F&SF.  What happened to one of my very favorite mags?  That's a rhetorical question; Avram Davidson happened.  The new editor has doubled down on the magazine's predilection for whimsical fantasy with disastrous (to me) results.  Not only that, but it's even featuring fewer woman authors now than Amazing, of all mags.  I am shaking my head, wishing this was all some Halloween-inspired nightmare.  But no.  Here it is in black and white with a forty cent price tag.  Come check out this month's issue…but don't say I didn't warn you:

The Secret Flight of the Friendship Eleven, by Alfred Connable

We all know astronauts are lantern-jawed, steely eyed, terse test-pilots.  Great for getting the job done, not so great for poetic inspiration.  Eleven is the tale of a corps of artistic types selected specifically so as to describe their journeys in more approachable terms.  But space has the last laugh.

Every so often, a brand new author knocks one out of the park on the first at bat.  This is not one of those cases.  For satire to work, it has to be clever, and this is just mundanely droll.  One star.

Sorworth Place, by Russell Kirk

It's October, so ghost stories are thoroughly appropriate.  This one, however, set in a battered Scottish castle, is neither original nor particularly engaging.  Two stars.

Card Sharp, by Walter H. Kerr

I really have no idea what Kerr's poem is about.  Even Davidson's explanation is no help.  One star.

Hop-Friend, by Terry Carr

Thus begins about twenty pages of relative quality, an island of the old F&SF in a sea of lousiness.  Newish author Carr finds his feet with this sensitive and striking tale of first contact between Human and Martian.  Introverts can never fathom extroverts, and similarly, xenophobes find xenophiles, well, alien!  But extroverted xenophiles, even from different species, are birds of a feather.  Four stars (even if Carr's Mars conforms more to older theories of the Red Planet's atmosphere).

Pre-Fixing it Up, by Isaac Asimov

How many rods in a furlong?  How many grains in a pennyweight?  I have no idea…and with the metric system, it doesn't matter.  The Good Doctor explains the ins, outs, and many merits of the new standard that lets you measure everything from an atom to a universe with a series of easily manipulated units.  Four stars.

Landscape With Sphinxes, by Karen Anderson

Back into the sea with a Sphinx-themed riddle: What earns four stars at its prime, two stars when it doesn't try, and three stars most of the time?  The Anderson family of writers.  No matter how good an author one is, it takes more than a promising beginning to make a story.  Two stars for this third of a vignette.

Protect Me from My Friends, by John Brunner

There is a fine line between innovation and illegibility.  I read Brunner's first person account of an overwhelmed telepath twice (it's short), and I still don't like it.  Two stars.

You Have to Know the Tune, by Reginald Bretnor

Another half tale from the fellow we know better as Grendel Briarton (of Feghoot "fame" — and that entry is truly bad this month).  Industrialist on the way to Africa hears a tale of the pied bassoonist of the veldt only to find it's likely no legend.  Trivial.  Two stars.

The Journey of Joenes (Part 2 of 2), by Robert Sheckley

As any of my readers knows, no greater fan of Robert Sheckley walks the Earth.  His short stories are funny, thought-provoking, chilling, clever — by turns or all at once.  In the last decade, he wrote enough to fill six excellent collections, none of which will ever leave my library.

Where he falters is novels.  Somehow, Sheckley can't keep the pace for 150 consecutive pages, and the result is, while never bad, never terrific.  Cases in point: Time Killer and The Status Civilization.  Bob seems to be cognizant of this weakness.  In his latest book, The Journey of Joenes he attempts to overcome it by writing a novel composed of short, somewhat independent narratives.  The result is something that is, to my mind, no more successful than his previous book-length works.  You may, of course, disagree.

Joenes is a pure satire, putatively written in a post-apocalyptic 30th Century Polynesian.  It details the life of Joenes, an American-born Tahitian power engineer, who is one of the few to survive the worldwide cataclysm.  The tale is told by others: Polynesian historians; excerpts from the memoirs of Joenes' beatnik companion, Lum; edifying tales recorded anonymously. 

There is a plot — Joenes comes to the United States, winds up before a Court on the charge of sedition, is sentenced to a mental hospital for the Criminally Insane, flees to become a professor of Polynesian Cultural Studies, goes into government, and ultimately escapes nuclear anhilation.  This, however, isn't the point.  Rather, we see our own modern culture through a mirror darkly, distorted not just as a satire of our society, but of legend in general.  The history of the United States is mixed liberally with that of Ancient Greece.  Historical and mythical personages are referenced with equal frequency.  It's effectively done, essentially doing for 20th Century America what Homer did for 12th Century B.C. Greece.

Joenes is clearly an attempt by the author to make the philosophical treatise for the 1960s, the equivalent of Stranger in a Strange Land or Venus Plus X.  The satire is approachable, even for the layman, and there is some sex in it.  Whether it succeeds wildly like Heinlein's piece or fizzles like Sturgeon's, only time will tell. 

I can only speak for myself.  While Sheckley is always readable, I felt that the joke went on too long, particularly in the latter portions.  Perhaps I'm just too close to the subject matter he was aping.  In any event, I give Joenes three stars.  If this kind of thing is your bag, I suspect you'll rate it more highly.

And that's that for this month.  More disappointment in 130 pages than I've seen in a long time, if ever.  When I do the Galactic Stars next month, I'm certain F&SF won't be on the list, and that saddens me.  Nevertheless, I hope against hope that this is just a phase, and the once proud digest will someday return to its former glory.  Time will tell…

8 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine

[September 18, 1962] On the Precipice (October 1962 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

12 Comments

[if you’re new to the Journey, read this to see what we’re all about!]


by Gideon Marcus

Are the times changing?

Summer threatens to change to Fall, and the kids are going off to high school and college.  Is this just another turn of the wheel, or are we on the verge of something different, what Historian of Science Thomas Kuhn might call a new "paradigm?"

I had this feeling once before.  In '53, right after Korea, and after Stalin died, America seemed poised on the edge of an unprecedented era of stability.  Well, really stagnation.  The pendulum had swung heavily in the direction of conservatism.  Black soldiers had come home from the war and were being treated worse than ever.  Ditto women, who had for a while gotten to enjoy some of the rights of men while they were off to war.  The swing music from the prior two decades had gotten overripe and shmaltzy, only somewhat mitigated by the western, blues, and latin music I was able to tune into on nights with clear reception.  The one truly bright spot was science fiction, which had been booming since the late '40s.

Then rock and roll hit, and boy was it a breath of fresh air.  Sure, you couldn't hear Black songs on White stations, but there's no color bar on the airwaves.  Fragile 78 records gave way to durable 45s.  The vacuum tube started to step aside for the transistor.  We were building the missiles that would soon blast us to orbit.  At the same time, sf started to wane.  We went from forty magazines to six over the course of the decade. 

This, then, has been the recent paradigm.  Here we are nine years later, but Elvis and the Everley Brothers still dominate the airwaves.  A new President has asked us what we could do for our country, not what it could do for us; tasking us to go to the Moon before the decade is out, but Black men must still fight even for the right to go to school or ride a bus in much of the nation.  There are now ten thousand Russian troops in Cuba and ten thousand American soldiers in South Vietnam, but are these transitory brush fires or the tip of a belligerent iceberg?

Are the 1960s going to be a continuation of the 1950s?  Or are we overdue for a new epoch?  You tell me.  I'm no soothsayer. 

I suppose in one way, the shift has already happened.  The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction has become quite different since new editor Avram Davidson took over earlier this year.  It's not bad, exactly, but it has meandered even further into the literary zone.  This has rendered one of my favorite mags almost unreadable on occasion.  The October 1962 issue does not have this problem, for the most part, but it's not great.

Enough dilly-dallying.  Here's the review:

A Kind of Artistry, by Brian W. Aldiss

The son of a baroque and decadent far future Terra journeys across the galaxy to make contact with a most unusual alien intelligence.  Upon his glorious return, he must decide if he has the strength to break the stultifying conditioning of his inbred upringing.

Aldiss wishes he were Cordwainer Smith, and he just isn't.  Nevertheless, despite some rough patches, there are some good ideas here.  The extraterrestrial has a wildly implausible biochemistry, but the meeting of species is genuinely gripping.  Three stars.

There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, by Robert F. Young

Overpopulation continues to be the theme of many of our current science fiction stories.  A common concept is the idea that excess population can be shipped to the stars, but as any student of history knows, neither England, Spain, France, Portugal, nor any other country ever became empty as a result of colonization.  We can't expect spaceships to change that equation. 

Neither does Young.  His story is cute, if one-note, holding our interest for as long as the idea can be stretched.  Three stars.

Twenty-Four Hours in a Princess's Life, With Frogs, by Don White

What if all the fairy-tale princesses were pals, all living together in Hans Christian Andersonville with intersecting storybook plotlines?  Aurora, Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel… the whole neurotic gang of them.  Don White explores that possiblity in a clever, funny piece that makes me hope that Disney never tries to combine its franchises.  What a mess that would be!  Four stars.

Inquest in Kansas (A Modern American Ballad) by Hyacinth Hill

The unknown Ms. Hill (I understand she may be Virginia Anderson) has a poetic piece about a woman seduced from her home and family by a unicorn.  Whether you find it horrifying or liberating depends on how you infer her life history.  Two stars, as it didn't grab me.

Measure My Love, by Mildred Clingerman

What a fascinating, almost excellent, but ultimately disappointing piece this was.  Dodie is a youngish spinster whose actress cousin, Althea, has a penchant for melodramatic love affairs.  When Althea's irresistible romantic nature meets the immovable, unwinnable affections of a married man, Dodie takes her cousin to the local witch, Maude, to cure her of her of broken heart.  Turns out the "witch" is more than meets the eye, but it's an open question whether or not her panoply of equipment can remedy Althea's condition. 

Clingerman is one of the most seasoned veterans our field, and her work has a pleasantly old-fashioned tone to it — appropriate both for the era (just post-war) and the protagonist portrayed.  The story moves you along the plot, slowly unfolding things to maintain your interest.  What hurt Measure for me was that, near the end, Maude mentions that she might also be able to cure Dodie's "little problem," hitherto undiscussed but strongly hinted at.  But then the problem turns out to be something completely different from what I expected (given the close relationship of the cousins, and Dodie's unending patience where things Althea-related are concerned). 

I wonder if I guessed wrong, or if the ending was changed at the editor's insistence for being a bit too…unconventional.  Either way, it turned a four-star story into a three-star one.  I'm probably being unfair, but unsatisfying endings sit poorly with me.

Slow Burn, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor touches on one of my favorite scientific topics — the theory of Phlogiston and how its research eventually led to the discovery of oxygen.  It's one of those fascinating models that almost but not quite got things right, like impetus theory in the 13th Century ultimately led to the concept of momentum.  I mentioned Kuhn's "paradigms" earlier, and Phlogiston is a perfect example of the concept.  Four stars.

The Unfortunate Mr. Morky, by Vance Aandahl

One of my readers once said that Mr. Aandahl really wants to be Ray Bradbury.  Surely, there must be loftier goals.  In any event, this incomprehensible piece about the connection between time travel and the profusion of milquetoast personalities isn't worth your time.  On the other hand, it's only a few pages, so you might as well see why I gave it only one star (and perhaps you'll disagree with me).

The Journey of Joenes (Part 1 of 2), by Robert Sheckley

At long last, Bob Sheckley has come back to us.  It's my understanding that he's been writing mainstream mysteries and such, which probably pays better than sf.  His latest work, which Editor Davidson says is a hacked up version of the novelized form due out later this year, follows the adventures of Joenes, an American ex-power engineer raised in Polynesia.  His pilgrimage to the Mainland to find his destiny is a series of satirical vignettes told from a foreign and futuristic perspective that turns the story into a kind of dark Canterbury Tales.

It's a fun read, though I hope there's light at the end of the tunnel.  Sheckley is better at short stories than novels, so the format plays to his strengths.  I do have to wonder why F&SF prints chopped up novels to fill up half of two consecutive magazines.  I expect that of Ace Doubles, not a high-end digest.  Three stars so far.  We'll see what happens.

And so we find ourselves on the other side of another issue.  On the face of things, it seems to reinforce the trend that F&SF is in a new and duller era.  Will we soon have enough data points to know if the larger world has changed, too?

12 Comments Leave A Comment
Book

[November 6, 1960] Take Five (Store of Infinity by Robert Sheckley)

3 Comments

There are few folks who have taken greater advantage of the Silver Age of science fiction (i.e. the Post-War boom and bust of the digests) than Robert Sheckley.  As of last month, the fellow had already published four collections of his works.  The beneficiaries of this production are Bob's pocketbook…and every reader who gets hands on his stuff.  Sheckley's mastery of the science fiction short story, whether straight, humorous, cynical, or downright horrific, is legendary.

Now, Notions: Unlimited, Sheckley's fourth collection, just came out in June.  Moreover, I'd had reason to believe that November would be a month of slim pickings for new fiction.  Imagine my surprise (and delight!) at finding yet another Sheckley collection on sale.

This one, Store of Infinity, may be my favorite of them all.

All of the stories are reprints of magazine stories, and there are no clunkers in the bunch.  Going through in order, we have:

The Prize of Peril (May 1958 Fantasy and Science Fiction): In the near future, the most popular gameshow on television is a live manhunt.  At every turn, the fugitive is pursued not just by would-be killers, but also a camera crew and a vapidly excited host.  Can a contestant survive?  And what price victory?  The theme was recycled for a part of Sheckley's recent novel, The Status Civilization.

The Humours (originally Join Now in December 1958 Galaxy): This rewrite is substantively similar to the original, but the premises are completely different.  In the future, it is possible to transfer parts of one's personality to a perfectly realistic android.  In the original story, this was done to address a labor shortage on Mars and Venus; individuals would split their personalities in three to work on all of the solar system's inhabited planets simultaneously.  In The Humours, the split is therapeutic, a remedy for Multiple Personality Disorder.  Both tales feature the journey of the "original" (at least, the personality piece inhabiting the human body) to reintegrate his brother personas.  A fun ride.

Triplication (May 1959 Playboy): A set of three humorous vignettes, the kind that are usually droll and forgettable.  Sheckley does it better.

The Minimum Man (June 1958 Galaxy): Who is best equipped to investigate a wild planet for colonization?  Not trained mercenaries, not seasoned jungle trekkers, not veteran explorers–for though they may survive the ordeal, their experience will not tell you if your average, civilization-softened settler can handle the place.  No, you want to send the least qualified pioneer possible.  If he can survive, anyone can.  Sounds like a silly premise, but it's really a beautiful story of a clod, his robot, and an untamed world.  Probably my favorite piece of the book.

If the Red Slayer (July 1959 Amazing): When resurrection technology is perfected, what's to keep a soldier from fighting forever in an endless war?  Nothing, apparently.  A bitter story with an ironically light touch; contrast with the jingoistic Dorsai! and Starship Troopers. 

The Store of the Worlds (September 1959 Playboy): Would you give up ten years of your life and your worldly possessions for a jaunt to an alternate Earth where all of your dreams have come true?  And just what kind of world would you have to have come from to make this trade appealing.  I tell you, Bob Sheckley is reason enough to get a subscription to Heffner's magazine…you read it for the articles, don't you?

The Gun without a Bang (June 1958 Galaxy): A silent weapon may be great for an assassin or a spy, but not so great against dumb animals.  After all, it is the loud report of a rifle as much as anything that scatters the wolfpack.  Still, a bangless gun can have some utility…  The weakest story of the collection, which is to say it gets three stars rather than four or five like the others.

The Deaths of Ben Baxter (July 1957 Galaxy): An excellent multiple-timeline story in which folks from a doomed future attempt to thwart their fate by adjusting the past.  The critical juncture involves the meeting of the same two men in three disparate settings (British, Hindu, and familiar New York).  My second favorite piece. 

4.5 stars.  Pick it up while you can!

3 Comments Leave A Comment
Book

[September 4, 1960] Flawed jewel (The Status Civilization, by Robert Sheckley)

6 Comments

Readers of my column know of my affection for Bob Sheckley's work.  A fellow landsman, he has turned out a regular stream of excellent short stories over the past decade.  He's already published four collections, and they are all worth getting.

But though Sheckley gets an A for his shorter works, his novel-writing talents earn him, at best, a B-.  He's written two thus far, both of them novelizations of serials.  One was the tepid adventure, Timekiller.  The other, The Status Civilization, was serialized in Amazing earlier this year.  It just came out in book form; I'll let my readers tell me if it's been substantially changed.

The novel has a great hook: Will Barrent, age 27, wakes up from the deepest of sleeps to find he has no memories of his former existence, not even his name.  Then he is informed that he is guilty of a murder he can't remember, and is sentenced, along with several hundred other mind-wiped criminals, to spend the rest of his days on the prison planet, Omega.

Like Devil's Island and Australia, this convict-ruled place of exile is a society completely apart.  New arrivals start with the rank of peon, and only through a long period of virtual slavery can they rise in status.  Or they can get away with murder, literally, and take the fast elevator. 

Omega is a paradoxical hell world where evil is lauded, even canonized.  There is law, and it is strictly enforced.  And yet, status only comes when one successfully evades the law.  Usually, this involves surviving the punishments for transgression–generally some kind of public gladiatorial spectacle.  Of course Barrent (without much explanation) is able to survive these trials by combat and do quite well for himself.

Despite this, Barrent becomes increasingly confident that he is not a murderer, and this eventually lands him in the hands of an underground group of non-violent political criminals, whose goal is to somehow return to an Earth they know nearly nothing of.  Barrent is sent on a lone mission of reconnaissance to his forgotten homeworld, which turns out to be the mirror image of Omega, or perhaps just the other side of the same coin. 

The Status Civilization is an entertaining but unsatisfying read.  Stylistically, it feels unpolished, even rushed.  I see less of Bob Sheckley here and more of Murray Leinster on a bad day.  Whole episodes of the story are glossed over, particularly some potentially exciting action bits. 

Sheckley introduces us to a pair of fascinating worlds: Omega, where evil is lauded, and status is gained by murder; and Earth, where society is static, and status fixed.  Neither society is stable.  Both will fail at some point, though there is the suggestion that in their violent union, salvation might be found. 

These are topics worthy of significant elaboration, but Sheckley gives them rather minimal treatment.  Upon further reflection, I determined that he gave them the minimum treatment possible to effectively convey them.  I admire his economy of words (The Status Civilization is quite a short novel), but I was left feeling hungry for more.

Which brings us to an interesting literary question: need a story be further written if it accomplishes what it was made to do?  In this case, I'm going to say yes.  I think Sheckley could have had a masterpiece to his name with this one if he'd just put it through the ringer one more time.  It needs to either be longer or better-written. 

As it is, however, The Status Civilization is worth reading.  The questions it raises are compelling, even if they are incompletely answered by the author, and the writing, while workmanlike, is engaging.

3.5 stars.

[By the way, the World Science Fiction Convention is going on as we speak in Pittsburgh.  I'll have a report on the con and the 1960 Hugo Awards in a few days.  If you are an attendee, please feel free to add your anecdotes!]

6 Comments Leave A Comment