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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

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

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by Gideon Marcus

Bump in road

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

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

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

Out there

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


by Kelly Freas

Pioneer Trip, by Joe Poyer


by Kelly Freas

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

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

There Is a Crooked Man, by Jack Wodhams


by Kelly Freas

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

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

Three stars.

The Returning, by J. B. Mitchel


by Leo Summers

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

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

Four stars.

The Quark Story, by Margaret L. Silbar

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

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

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

Four stars.

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


by Kelly Freas

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

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

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

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

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

Elementary Mistake, by Winston P. Sanders


by Kelly Freas

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

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

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

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

Anyway, three stars.

Leading the pack

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

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

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



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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

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

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


by Gideon Marcus

An argument for free trade?

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

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

The issue at hand


by Chesley Bonestell

Supernova, by Poul Anderson


by Kelly Freas

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

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

Two stars.

A Criminal Act, by Harry Harrison


by Kelly Freas

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

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

Two stars.

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

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

Three stars.

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


by Kelly Freas

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

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

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

Out of the frying pan and into the fire!

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

Barely three stars and sinking.

The Old Shill Game, by H. B. Fyfe


by Kelly Freas

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

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

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

The Last Command, by Keith Laumer


by Kelly Freas

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

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

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

Three stars.

Doing the math

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

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

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

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



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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 30, 1966] Marking time (December 1966 Analog)

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But first, please read this brief interlude!

As you know, in addition to Galactic Journey, I also run Journey Press, devoted both to republishing classics discovered while on this trek through time, but also to publish new works of science fiction in fantasy that (I hope!) live up to the quality and tradition of the classic works we offer.

If anyone would enjoy these works, we know it will be you.  This holiday season, pick up a title or three from Journey Press!  It's the best present you can give yourself, a loved one…and us!


by Gideon Marcus

Bogged down

With more than half a million American troops in Vietnam now, the South Vietnamese are starting to feel like they're living under occupation.  There's no doubt who's calling the shots these days.  The question is, is this surge of military force going to be enough to drag Ho Chi Minh to the bargaining table?

Despite the flow of optimistic figures from the Pentagon, it doesn't look like peace or even peace overtures will happen any time soon.  The closest we've gotten is securing a pair of holiday ceasefires.  So, expect a long slog and nightly death counts on the evening news for the forseeable future.  Better dead than Red, right?


American soldiers enjoy a Thanksgiving respite before heading off to combat again.  They may end up taking as long getting to Hanoi as it's taking Saunders and Kelly to get to Berlin.

In the trenches

Meanwhile, the December 1966 Analog constitutes a landmark of sorts — it's the last magazine of the year!  And, like Vietnam, it's often been a tedious, dragging affair.  This month is no different, though the magazine starts better than it ends.  Let's get our report from the front, shall we?

A quick note on the inside cover this month.  Yes, the one editor whose editorials I skip every month has bundled his loony screeds together and is offering them in book form. Or as Tom Lehrer put it:

Now there's a charge for what she used to give for free…

He even got Harry Harrison to shill for him.  I have to disagree with Harrison, though: while Campbell indeed may be "idiosyncratic, prejudiced, and annoying", he also is usually quite boring.

Don't fail to miss!

Amazon Planet (Part 1 of 3), by Mack Reynolds


by Kelly Freas

Mack Reynolds once again sets a tale in his loosely knit United Planets.  Humanity has sprawled across hundreds of stars, and one of the primary tenets of this community is that each colony expresses itself as it likes so long as it harms no other world.

As might be deduced from the title, this latest novel features a matriarchy planet, one where the "traditional" (read mid-20th Century) gender roles are reversed.  Well, not so much features, as this first third of the novel takes place not on "Amazonia", but on a freighter headed toward it.  There are only two passengers: Terran Guy Thomas, a deceptively mild trader with plans to open Amazonia up to the niobium trade, and Patricia O' Gara, refugee from the exceedingly puritanical colony of Victoria.

There's not a lot of action in this section.  Mostly crew mates talking about how terribly men are treated on Amazonia, Pat (and later a troop of Amazons) explaining how they're wrong, and Guy acting as something of a catalyst for discussion.  It's all rendered rather broadly, but simply the fact that this subject is even being discussed, and a matriarchy is not being played for laughs, is interesting.

I'm waiting to see where it goes; this could be an awful, sexist piece or it could be an enlightened one.  Only time will tell (though Reynolds has a good track record on this front).

Three stars.

The Weathermakers, by Ben Bova


by Leo Summers

Hurricane season is hotting up, and it's up to Ted, Jerry, Tuli, and Barney (the last a woman) of Project THUNDER to ensure none of these storms hits the Atlantic seaboard.  To accomplish this, they'll use cloud seeding planes and orbital lasers to increase the equilibrium of the systems, smoothing them out before they become rotating furies.

But when these methods prove insufficient, only true weather control on a national scale can save Washington D.C. from a devastating cyclone.

The Weathermakers is actually an excerpt from an upcoming novel, presumably the climax.  It's exciting enough, and the technology is interesting, although I have to wonder if pumping extra heat energy into the Earth's atmosphere isn't ultimately a dangerous thing.

It's all a bit gung ho and simplistic, more what I'd expect from a juvenile.  This is not a bad thing, of course.  We can use more juvenile authors of merit.

Four stars.

Cytoplasmic Inheritance , by Carl A. Larson

The nonfiction article this issue is an extremely abstruse, but not unreadable, piece on the role the cytoplasm plays in genetics.  Apparently, it's not all governed by DNA in the nucleus.

Biology's not my bag, and a lot of it went over my head, but I did read it and found interest in it.

Three stars.

The Blue-Penciled Throop, by L. Edey

It's all downhill from here.  First, we've got another in the epistolary Throop series, basically an excuse for Campbell to tell us how hard his job is as editor having to deal with a bunch of nincompoops.

Two stars.

The Price of Simeryl, by Kris Neville


by Leo Summers

The colony of Elanth has got itself in a bind.  The local government bought too much of the addictive Simeryl drug to pacify the indigenous Elanthians, who both are having trouble meeting their farm quotas and are spending too much time fighting the Coelanths, a vicious species that has enjoyed a recent resurgence.  Third Foreign Secretary Raleigh is sent to the planet to fact-find pending a solution.

Wow, that didn't take me long to write at all.  The story, on the other hand, is presented as a set of interminable interviews with various government officials, none of them pleasant or particularly distinctive from each other.  And in the end, there is no revelation.  The story is perhaps five times longer than it needs to be.  Even at its best, it's pointless.

Also, I'm getting a little tired of putative future governments with nary a woman to be found in them.  From Ann Rosenberg Hoffman to Margaret Chase Smith to Indira Gandhi, we've had many prominent female lawmakers and cabinet leaders.  It's time to feature women in our science fiction at least to the degree they are represented on 1966 Earth, and not just in extreme cases as depicted in the Reynolds this month.

One star.

Under the Dragon's Tail, by Philip Latham


by Leo Summers

Finally, "Philip Latham" (Dr. Robert S. Richardson, who writes great nonfiction), turns in a piece that's basically the day-to-day dreariness of an assistant planetarium manager.  That an asteroid is going to smack down in Griffith Park at the end is a mostly extraneous detail.

Two stars.

Looking Back

Well, that wasn't very good, was it?  Indeed, Analog sets a record of sorts: at 2.5 stars, it is the worst magazine of the month.  Slightly better, though still dismal, was Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.6).  Amazingly enough, Amazing beat out both of them with 2.9 stars.

Above the mediocrity line lie siblings Galaxy (3.1) and IF (3.2) The British mags top out the list with Impulse at 3.3 and New Worlds at a whopping 3.6!

There was exactly one story by a woman this month.  I had thought '66 would be better than '65 in this regard, but no dice.  To paraphrase Mrs. Rosenberg Hoffman, Assistant Defense Secretary under Truman, science fiction without women is an industry half-idle.  I hope things get better soon.

I guess we'll continue to mark time until then…

Did you remember to check out Journey Press?

Here's a helpful reminder!



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Serial

[December 31, 1965] Untermag (January 1966 Analog

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by Gideon Marcus

[Time is running out to get your Worldcon membership!  Register here to be able to vote for the Hugos next year.]

Ubermensch

There's no question that John W. Campbell's got an axe to grind.  Not too long ago, he wrote an editorial about how the bipedal humanoid form, the best, most efficient, most effective of body types, was the natural end result of evolution on an Earthlike planet.  In another screed, he opined that slavery warn't so bad, and that Black Americans did better ante-bellum than we think.

These aren't anomalies: from what Isaac Asimov and others have said (I've never met John personally), the editor of Analog has some very fixed views of the world, and they include a belief in a hierarchy of races, a natural superiority of some to others.

Because of this, the stories in his magazine tend to reflect this view, one way or another.  Either John adds these elements in post-production, or his authors know to include them as a way to guarantee a sale. Analog is a prestige publication, after all.

And lest you think that's John's quaint views are simply emblematic of the less-than-enlightened times we live in, I will simply point out that we review all science fiction mags at the Journey, and Analog definitely is the odd man out.

Anyway, this month's magazine is a particularly egregious example of the Campbellian Mystique.  Let's dig in, shall we?

Sein Kampf


by Kelly Freas

Second Seeded, by R. C. FitzPatrick


by Kelly Freas

In FitzPatrick's earlier story Half a Loaf, we were introduced to a revolutionary institute whose surgeons could transplant a healthy mind from a ruined body into the healthy body of a mental vegetable.  The story explored some of the ethical concerns involved and, while it didn't hit it out of the park, it was pretty interesting.

The sequel is dreadful.

A Marine Major, name of Adams, is killed along with his wife in action in Borneo.  Their infant son becomes brain dead from hypoxia, all hope of regaining cognitive functions lost.  Around the same time, the infant son of two concert pianists is in a car accident that kills his parents and leaves him a quadriplegic.  Thus, the stage is set for a human brain transplant; the new wrinkle is that the patient won't have memory of the event, will be raised by the extended Adams clan.

This would be fine, even interesting save for the endless screeds in favor of eugenics that come out of the mouths of the protagonist.  The basic argument is that there aren't enough "Great Men" in the world as it is (women, explicitly, don't count) so saving as many as possible through this surgical technique is of utmost importance.  Beyond that, it's vital that the transplanted infant brain be an Adams because the Adams family is amazing and has been so since the time of the Revolution.  As an "Adams," the pianist boy will not only be an exemplary person because his parents were prodigies, but his gonads will house Adams sperm, which will ensure the Adams genes continue.  The espouser of this view gets a bit vague and contradictory when asked if it's the actual genetics or simply the continuity of family that ensures the Adamses produce a Great Man every generation, but it's clear he tends toward the former (and this is borne out by events in the story). 

Two stars rather than one, because it's not badly written.  But yech.

Now, since I had to pay to read FitzPatrick and Campbell's offensive rant, you can get mine for free.  In my experience, all human beings are of roughly equal potential.  Sure, there are smart ones and stupid ones — abilities distribute in bell curves — but whether a person will be smart or stupid does not correlate to genetics.  This means that everyone, given resources and opportunity, can develop to the fullest of their physical capabilities.  They can be as smart, strong, and talented as is possible for them. 

There are almost three billion people on this planet.  Some of them are stupid.  Most of them are average.  Some of them are brilliant.  If we want more "Great Men", there are much better ways of growing them than cherry picking a few children with presidential surnames. 

One is to raise the standard of living for everyone so that all children have the ability to develop to their full potential.  LBJ has the right idea with his Great Society; I expect the next generation will see a lot more geniuses (and happiness) in Appalachia. 

Another is to broaden the pool from which "Great Men" are drawn.  Here's a crazy thought: what if women weren't excluded from the pool?  Wouldn't that, in and of itself, double the number of Great "Men"?  And indeed, that's just what's started to happen already.  I have written about the women scientists and engineers involved in space exploration.  Their work has been critical to the success of our space-related endeavors, and there is no guarantee that their contributions would have (or could have) been made by anyone else, at least at that juncture in history.

So I disagree with the the theme of Second Seeded.  Like all bad philosophies, it collapses in the face of empirical evidence to the contrary.  And on a related note, I disagree that future Presidents of the United States will all have to have socially acceptable WASP names like Adams, Lincoln, and Jackson (as one of the characters opines in the story).  Does anyone remember the fellow with the funny name of "Eisenhower"?  Or the Irish Catholic name of "Kennedy"?

I fully believe that we'll have a President in my lifetime with the "exotic" name of Takahashi, Singh, or Okoye.  Perhaps her first name will be Mildred.

Untropy, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

Shaggy dog tale about a trading vessel that gets lost in hyperspace in a zone where the laws of probability leave nothing to chance.  The way they get back is obvious, and the story is rather trivial, but it's not bad reading.

Three stars.

A Bit Player, by Lyle R. Hamilton

All about the evolution of telemetry and its application to missiles and space travel.  Long, engaging, but way too high level for me (and I majored in astrophysics!) it will probably go over your head as well.

Three stars.

Kelvin Throop Rudes Again!, by E. Silverman

My outspoken nephew, David, has a habit of dashing out discourteous memos when he's peeved.  He calls them "nastygrams".  In Throop, new author Silverman offers up a collection of memos (it's not really an epistolary story as there's no story) of a middle manager kvetching at subordinates and vendors.

Not science fiction.  Not good.  One star.

Beehive (Part 2 of 2), by Mack Reynolds


by Kelly Freas

And, at last, the conclusion of Beehive, which began last issue.  Genetics takes the fore again when we learn that the enemy "Dawnworlders" have divided themselves into rigid castes, and in so doing, have thus been able to progress to tremendous technological heights.  Of course, if non-caste human beings had been given millions of years to accomplish the same feats, I'm sure we could have…

Anyway, the second half of the story is just as glib and silly as the first, with lots of speeches and exposition.  I did appreciate that there was some self awareness that Section G of the United Planets is as much a dictatorship as Phrygia, home of Baron Max, the would-be galactic Mussolini.  This was alloyed by the constant reinforcement that the protagonist's sidekick is an Indian.  He's referred to as "the Indian" and he uses the words "squaw," "scalp," and "firewater," whenever he can.

This isn't the first time Mack Reynolds has had trouble with this particular ethnicity.

Anyway, there are some interesting Laumeresque bits, but for the most part, this is a Reynolds that can be skipped.

Two stars.

Calculating the damage

Feeding the pages of the January 1966 Analog into the Star-o-meter (and setting the machine to "destroy copy after processing") I get a result of 2.3 stars.  Depressingly, I'm sure this will be one of the more popular issues of the magazine this year.

How did the other mags fare this month?  Well, Worlds of Tomorrow and New Worlds both scored 3.3 stars.  The less daring Science Fantasy got 2.8 as did IF, even though the latter was buouyed by the new Heinlein serial.  Fantasy & Science Fiction turned in a disappointing 2.5 star performance, and the mostly reprints Fantastic barely got 2.4.

They were still all better than Analog.

Speaking of shallow selection pools, women continue to be barely represented, producing two of 36 fiction pieces for a whopping 5.5% share.  Better than the 0% of last month, I suppose.  All told, the truly good stories this month would struggle to fill the pages of IF, much less a bigger mag like Galaxy. 

Well, tomorrow is a new year.  Perhaps Janus will favor us with auspicious auguries, and our fortunes will turn around.  And hey…Campbell won't live forever.

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Serial

[November 30, 1965] War is Swell (December 1965 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

The Thrill of Combat

It was just twenty years ago that the second war to end all wars drew to an explosive close. Two titans of tyranny (and their little brother) were defeated by the Arsenal of Democracy.  Clearly, World War 2 was "the good war:" there's a reason it is now as popular on television and in wargames as the Western and the Civil War.

And just in time.  After the sloggish stalemate of Korea and the painful "escalatio" in Vietnam (credit to Tom Lehrer), war needs to be fun again.  I suppose it's no surprise that war is not only a common theme in science fiction, but the good and fun kind of war is the thread that ties together the December 1965 issue of Analog, notoriously the most conservative (reactionary?) of the outlets in our visionary genre.

One War after Another


by Kelly Freas

Beehive (Part 1 of 2), by Mack Reynolds

Ronny Bronston, forgettably faced but utterly competent agent for Earth's "Section G" is back.  Last we saw him, he'd been on the trail of interstellar troublemaker, Tommy Paine, spurring revolution on dozens of worlds.  Turned out that Paine was actually Section G, itself, skirting the non-interference clauses of the galactic charter to ensure that the colony worlds didn't stagnate.

In Beehive, we find out why: a century ago, the first sentient alien was found.  Well, actually, its corpse — it had been a casualty of a war of extermination.  And we still don't know who their enemy was, or if they'll soon be knocking on our doors.  That's why the super secret service has been surreptitiously trying to speed of progress on all of the colony worlds so that when the aliens do come, we'll be as ready as possible.

One of the more successful colonies, the putatively libertarian but actually authoritarian world of Phrygia appears to be making a play to turn the galactic society into an Empire, and Bronston is dispatched to get the facts on the ground.  But when he gets there, the agent discovers that the wheels have wheels within them, and the Phrygian dictator knows far more about the alien threat than Section G.


by Kelly Freas

While this serial has a definite hook of a cliffhanger, for the most part, it's not Reynolds' best…or even his middlin'.  There's a glib, breezy quality to it that is both smug and serves to reduce the tension.  The central idea is repugnant, too — that Earth knows best, and their underhanded means of stimulating progress are justified.  But then Campbell probably didn't watch that recent documentary on how the CIA messed up in Guatemala.

Anyway, I'll keep reading, but it's two stars right now.

Warrior, by Gordon R. Dickson


by Kelly Freas

Another sequel and another war.  In Dickson's Dorsai universe, humanity has spread to thirteen worlds, each focusing on an aspect of cultural development.  The Dorsai have made war their profession, turning it into a sublime art, and they are the most esteemed and feared mercenaries.

In the novella/novel, Soldier, Ask Not, we were introduced to twin brother generals, Kenzie and Ian Graeme.  The former is a charismatic leader, the latter a sullen but matchless strategician.

Ian Graeme returns in Warrior, traveling to Earth to seek justice for 32 of his men, slaughtered when their glory-hunting captain disobeyed orders to lead a hopeless charge.  The officer was court martialed and executed, but Graeme knows that the real culprit is his gangster brother.  Warrior tells the tale of Graeme and the brother's eventual and climactic confrontation.

There are a lot of inches in this story devoted to the obvious prowess of Mr. Graeme, his dark eminence, his barely suppressed strength, his intimidating military demeanor that requires no uniform, etc. etc.  Frankly, it all runs thin early on.

Still, it's a pretty good story (breathlessly recommended by my nephew David…but then so was Beehive), and the display of Dorsai tactics, trapping the brother within the trap being laid for Graeme, was effective.

Three stars.

Heavy Elements , by Edward C. Walterscheid

Ever wonder how the transuranium elements were fashioned?  Walterschied returns for a very comprehensive article on the subject.  There's a lot of good information here, and it's reasonably well delivered.  It's also very dense (no pun intended), certainly not in the Asimov style.  It took me a few sittings to get through.

Three stars.

Mission "Red Clash", by Joe Poyer


by Gray Morrow

Joe Poyer's first story is essentially the Analog version of the MacLean novel, Ice Station Zebra.  The pilot of a next-generation recon plane, the hypersonic X-17, is forced to bail out over Norway after being shot down by a Russian interceptor.  Now he, and the three men dispatched from the nuclear cruiser John F. Kennedy, must evade squads of Soviets and survive frigid conditions to get critical intelligence back to our side.

Told with technophiliac details so lurid that I felt it belonged under rather than on the counter, there's not much of a story here.  Mission lacks context, characterization, and conclusion, leaving a competently told middle section of an unfinished novel.  It's low budget Martin Caidin.

Two stars.

Countercommandment, by Patrick Meadows


by Domenic Iaia

Last up, a computer scientists is rushed to NORAD to find out why, three hours after World War 3 was declared by the Chinese, the Big Brain has not executed a countersrike.  And why, despite the efforts of the enemy, their missiles haven't launched either.

This is a two page story padded to ten with the gimmick that the computers, having access to our most sacred documents, which all speak to the sanctity of human life, could not in good conscience end humanity.

It might work in Heinlein's new serial currently running in IF.  It makes no sense for computers of 1970s vintage, and it comes off as mawkish.

One star.

One Million Deaths is a Statistic

This war-soaked issue of Analog scores a dismal 2.2, barely beating out the truly awful Amazing (1.8).

Above it, we have IF (2.6), New Writings #6 (2.9), Galaxy and New Worlds (3), Science Fantasy (3.1), and the superlative Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.9)

In keeping with the (not entirely accurate) notion that war is a "man's game", there were no entries by women this month.  Zero.  Goose egg.  Color me dismayed.

And on that note, we are done with all of the science fiction magazines with a 1965 cover date.  Rest assured, we have compiled all of the statistics from the past year, and our Journey-Vac will be spitting out a fine edition of the '65 Galactic Stars at the end of next month. 

You won't want to miss it!

And speaking of stars…

If you caught my review last year of Tom Purdom's I Want the Stars, then you know why I was so excited at the chance to reprint it. And now it can be yours! This new Journey Press edition also comes with a special 'making-of' section.

Get yourself a copy, and maybe one for a friend!




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Magazine

[February 10, 1961] Two for two!  (March 1961 Analog)

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Analog (my errant fingers keep wanting to type “Astounding”) was even better than last time.  This particular copy is a seasoned traveler, having ridden with me to the lovely shores of Kaua'i and back.  At long last, I've finished reading, and I can tell you about it.  A sneak preview: there's not a bad piece in the book!

In lieu of a serial, nearly half of the issue's pages are taken up with Mack Reynold's novella, Ultima Thule.  My nephew, David, was so enamored with this one that he specifically recommended it to me in a recent letter.  It's the story of Ronny Bronston, an agent employed by the mysterious Section G, responsible for maintaining mutual non-interference between the 2000 member planets of the Galactic Federation.  Bronston is sent on the trail of “Tommy Paine,” an elusive agitator who travels from planet to planet, upending the various status quos.  Can you figure out who Paine really is?  I particularly liked Bronston's 'assistant,' the highly capable, and delightfully reproachful Tog Lee Chang Chu.  Reynolds never has trouble writing good female characters.  Three stars.

Cliff Simak is back with another rustic-themed story, Horrible Example.  Can a robot programmed to be the town drunk rise to be more than the sum of his code?  A sensitive piece in that inimitable Simak style.  Four stars.

G. Harry Stine used to be a professional rocketeer—until his calls to action in response to Sputnik rubbed his superiors the wrong way.  Now, he is a technology evangelist.  In his latest piece, Sub-Mach Rockets, he explorers the much neglected field of rocketry at speeds below the speed of sound.  Makes me want to build a baby missile or two!  Three stars.

The next piece was written with tongue firmly in cheek, a bit of engineering fluff by Maurice Price descriptively entitled, An Introduction to the Calculus of Desk-Cleaning.  See Price illustrate the correlation between engineer output and desk-based chaos; it's surprisingly informative!  Four stars.

Next, we've got one of those “non-fact” articles, though it's just billed as fiction.  The Four-Faced Visitors of Ezekiel, by Arthur W. Orton, is a science fictional interpretation of the biblical book of Ezekiel.  It's as good an explanation for that bizarre book as any!  Three stars

Now, I admit it.  I am biased toward stories of interstellar travel with ships and captains and interesting situations.  Poul Anderson's Hiding Place is a wonderful puzzle cloaked in all the trappings I like: a refreshingly multi-racial starship crew finds itself trapped in deep space between a pirate fleet and a quickly diminishing provisions supply.  Only by making contact with a friendly alien ship do they have a hope of seeing the fires of home.  Unfortunately, said alien ship, a zoological vessel with a menagerie of beasts for its cargo, takes the humans for pirates and hides in the animal cages.  Can the terrestrials discern the sentient creatures from their beasts and plead their case in time?  Five stars.

That all adds up to a 3.5 star issue—well worth the half dollar you'll fork over at the newsstand (less if you buy a subscription, which, if the quality continues to be this good, might be a fine investment).

Aloha!

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