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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 8, 1969] Arabesques (December 1969 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

From Arabia to Japan

The collection of Middle Eastern folktales known in English as Arabian Nights or One Thousand and One Nights is familiar to folks all over the world.  Case in point, as Rod Serling might say, is the recent Japanese animated film Senya Ichiya Monogatari, which is loosely based on the collection.


Japanese poster for the film.  I don't know if it will ever show up elsewhere.

I should point out that this is not a cartoon intended for children.  Like the work which inspired it, it contains considerable erotic material.  If it ever gets released in the USA, it might get the infamous X rating.

I bring this up because the latest issue of Fantastic contains the first part of a new novel inspired by the same source as the film.


Cover art by Johnny Bruck

As is often the case lately, the cover is (ahem) borrowed from a German publication.


Die Herrscher der Nacht (The Ruler of the Night) is the title of the German translation of Jack Williamson's 1948 novel Darker Than You Think.

Editorial, by Ted White

The editor begins by telling us how the magazine's lead serial (see below) fell into his hands.  Long story short, it failed to find a publisher, got reviewed in a fanzine, Ted White read it and liked it.  He then goes on to relate the big changes in Fantastic and its sister publication Amazing.  My esteemed colleague John Boston has already discussed this in detail, so let me give you the Reader's Digest version.  Higher price, more words, only one reprint per issue.  Nuff said.

No rating.

Hasan (Part One of Two), by Piers Anthony


Illustrations by Jeff Jones.

More than half the magazine consists of the first installment of this Arabian Nights fantasy adventure. 

Hasan is a rather naive and foolish young man, living in Arabia around the year 800 or so.  He meets a Persian alchemist who demonstrates how to turn copper into gold.  His mother warns him not to trust this fire-worshipping infidel, but Hasan's greed overcomes what little common sense he possesses.

The wicked Persian kidnaps him and takes him on an ocean journey to the island of Serendip. (We call it Ceylon nowadays—the magazine provides a helpful map).

Despite this, Hasan still trusts the alchemist enough to perform the dangerous task of being carried to the top of a mountain by a roc, in order to gather the stuff needed to transform copper into gold.  The poor sap doesn't realize that the Persian intends to leave him stranded on the peak, where he'll starve to death.

Suffice to say that, with a lot of dumb luck, Hasan makes his way to an isolated palace inhabited by seven beautiful sisters, who adopt him as their brother.  He goes on to witness birds change into even more beautiful women, one of whom he is determined to have for his bride.  (She has little say in the matter.)


Seeing her naked while she is bathing makes him fall madly in love.

Without giving away too much, let's just say that the further adventures of Hasan and the bird woman will appear in the next issue.

The author appears to be well acquainted with One Thousand and One Nights, given his accompanying article on the subject (see below.) As far as I can tell, he captures the flavor of this kind of Arabian folktale in a convincing way.  Despite the fact that the hero is kind of a dope, and that the female characters (except Hasan's long-suffering mother) mostly exist to be alluringly beautiful, this half of the novel makes for light, entertaining reading.

Three stars.

Morality, by Thomas N. Scortia


Illustration by Bruce Jones.

It's obvious from the start that this is a science fiction version of the myth of the Minotaur, although the author doesn't make this explicit until the end.  The legendary monster is an alien stranded on Earth, forced to serve an ambitious king while trying to contact his own kind.

There's not much more to this story than its retelling of the old tale.  It plays out just as you'd expect.

Two stars.

Would You? by James H. Schmitz

A wealthy fellow invites an equally rich acquaintance to make use of a magic chair.  It seems that it has the ability to allow the person seated in it to change the past. 

I hope I'm not revealing too much to state that neither man chooses to alter his past, preferring to leave well enough alone.  That seems to be the point of the story.  A tale of fantasy in which an enchanted object is not used is unusual, I suppose, if not fully satisfying.

Two stars.

Magic Show, by Alan E. Nourse

A couple of guys watch a magic show at a cheap carnival.  One of them heckles the magician, who invites him to take part in his greatest feat.

You can probably see where this is going.  No surprises in the plot.  I have to wonder why a real, powerful magician works at a lousy little carnival.

Two stars.

X: Yes, by Thomas M. Disch

An unspecified referendum always appears on the ballot in every election.  Everybody knows that the proper thing to do is vote No.  A woman chooses to vote Yes, just as children vote Yes during their mock elections.

Can you tell that this is an odd little story?  I'm not sure what the author is getting at, unless it's something about conformity and rebellion.  At least it's not a simple, predictable plot.  Food for thought, I guess.

Three stars.

Big Man, by Ross Rocklynne

The April 1941 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this wild yarn.


Cover art by J. Allen St. John.

I can't argue with the accuracy of the title.  A gigantic man — he's said to be one or two miles tall — walks through the Atlantic Ocean to Washington, D. C.  The behemoth is under the control of a Mad Scientist, who intends to take over the United States government and run things the way he thinks they should be run.


Illustration by Robert Fuqua.

It's up to a heroic pilot and his girlfriend (who, in an incredible coincidence, turns out to be the sister of the young fellow who was transformed into the giant) to defeat the Mad Scientist and end the reign of terror of the Big Man.

Boy, this is a goofy story.  I think the author saw King Kong too many times.  The premise is, of course, absurd, and it's treated in the corniest pulp fiction manner imaginable.

One star.

Alf Laylah Wa Laylah — A Essay on The Arabian Nights, by Piers Anthony

As part of the magazine's Fantasy Fandom column, this article is reprinted from the fanzine Niekas.  It discusses One Thousand and One Nights in detail, comparing English translations and offering examples of the kinds of tales it contains.  Copious footnotes, some serious and some playful.  The author clearly knows his subject.

Three stars.

Fantasy Books by Fritz Leiber and Fred Lerner

Leiber quickly gives a positive review of Captive Universe by Harry Harrison, praises Walker and Company for reprinting science fiction classics in handsome hardcover editions, defends the use of strong language in Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad, gives thumbs up to A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle, and talks about Eric R. Eddison's fantasy novels.  He ends this rapid-fire essay by comparing the way that Heinlein, Spinrad, and Eddison describe a woman's breasts.  (The latter excerpt is a really wild bit of outrageously purple prose.)

Lerner, in an article reprinted from the fanzine Akos, talks about two nonfiction books about J. R. R. Tolkien.  He dismisses Understanding Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings by William Ready as poorly written and overly interpretive, and praises Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings by Lin Carter for its discussion of epic fantasy in general.

No rating.

… According to You, by various

The letters from readers offer both praise and criticism.  One of the editor's replies reveals that sales of the magazine went down when Cele Goldsmith was in charge, even though the quality of fiction improved.  I hope that's not a bad omen for the way Ted White is taking the publication.

No rating.

Worthy of Scheherazade?

Not a great issue, although Anthony's novel and related essay are well worth reading.  The new stuff is so-so and the reprint is laughably poor.  It might be better to watch an old movie instead.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 14, 1968] Half a Loaf is Better Than None (October 1968 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

You don't have to be a sociologist to realize that the past few years have been one of cultural upheaval. The hippies, the struggle for civil rights, protests against the war in Vietnam; I could go on and on.

An example happened one week ago, when hundreds of women protested at the Miss America pageant. They asked to be treated as human beings, not as stereotyped images of artificial standards of beauty.


Members of the emerging Women's Liberation movement toss things like stiletto heels, makeup, and copies of Playboy magazine into a symbolic garbage can.

A recurring theme of these social changes is the desire for freedom. It can even be seen in popular culture. For nearly a month, for example, the number one song in the USA has been People Got to be Free by the Rascals.


They seem very serious about it.

This is a laudable goal, of course, and there's a long way to go before we can truly say that oppressed groups are liberated. An optimist might say we're halfway there.

Speaking of halfway . . .

Four of One, Half an Octad of the Other

I've been griping for quite a while about Fantastic filling its pages with reprints, along with one or two new stories per issue. Maybe somebody at the magazine heard me. Of the eight stories in the latest issue, only half are reprinted. That's progress!


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

You can see the cover screaming New at you. Ironically, the cover art is old. It served as the back cover of the March 1945 issue of Amazing Stories.


As you can see, they reversed it, covered up a pretty big part of it, and just generally made it look worse.

Did I say halfway? The four new stories take up somewhere between one-quarter and one-third of the magazine. They're all clustered together at the front.

The Sound of Space, by Ross Rocklynne

A spaceman returns from a two-year voyage to Alpha Centauri. He shows up at Triton, a moon of Neptune, where his fiancée is waiting for him.


Illustration by Jeff Jones.

She's upset because he hasn't aged at all. (This is supposedly an effect of weightlessness, which seems unlikely to me.) She also doesn't like the fact that space travelers are notorious for being irreligious. She takes him to church, and tells him that she's going to marry the pastor unless he goes back to Earth and ages in its gravity. The spaceman comes up with a wild scheme to show the woman and the pastor what deep space is really like.

The premise of gravity being the cause of aging isn't exactly plausible, to say the least. The story is written in an odd style, with verbal quirks. The woman inserts a fair amount of French into her speech. People often talk in flowery language that doesn't sound like anything anybody would really say. Folks are often referred to as Sir So-and-So (such as Sir Preacher); the spaceman even calls mortality Sir Death.

Two stars.

The Dragons of Telsa, by Arthur Porges

As an example of the care with which the magazine is put together, the cover and the table of contents call this yarn The Dragons of Tesla (note the change in spelling.)

Anyway, this is the latest in a series of science lessons disguised as fiction featuring the clever Ensign De Ruyter. In this tale, he and his captain explore the planet Telsa (not Tesla). It's hot and has an atmosphere without oxygen. There are a huge number of dangerous reptilian predators around.

(Herds of hundreds and hundreds of predators? That seems unlikely, given the typical predator-to-prey ratio you'd expect.)

After wiping out a whole bunch of the beasts with their ray guns, the unlucky pair run out of the energy that powers their weapons. They go hide in a cave, which just happens to have exactly the stuff that De Ruyter needs to save the day.

As I may have suggested above, the plot depends on a pretty outrageous coincidence. (Gosh, the cave has a pool of liquid rubidium and an object that's shaped like a shallow bowl! Just what we need to play Mister Wizard!)

It's like minor league Hal Clement.

Two stars.

Oaten, by K. M. O'Donnell

It's not a big secret that K. M. O'Donnell is actually Barry Malzberg, the magazine's new assistant editor. He's had a few New Wave stories published here and there.

This epistolary tale relates the misadventures of a sort of social psychologist, for lack of a better term, among aliens. He goes through a ritual, not understanding what's going on, leading to a bizarre climax.

I've supplied a pretty bad synopsis, because it's not easy to figure out what's going on. The nature of the so-called Oaten, for example, is particularly puzzling. Then there's that ending . . .

I really don't know what to make of this thing.

Two stars.

Where Is Mrs. Malcolmn?, by Susan A. Lewin

The magazine proudly announces that this is a first publication. That's not always a good sign. In another example of careful editing, the table of contents spells the character's name Malcolm, which looks more normal to me. The text makes it clear that it's really the less likely Malcolmn.


Uncredited photograph, one of three accompanying the story that pretty much all show the same thing.

A woman recovering from a heart attack investigates what she thinks is a water tower that appears out of nowhere. If you've ever read any science fiction before, you'll know exactly what happens.

There's not really much to say about this extremely predictable first story. Was it written just to go with the photographs? Lots of room for improvement, I suppose.

One star.

So much for new stuff. On to the reprints.

Lords of the Underworld, by L. Taylor Hansen

The April 1941 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this yarn.


Cover art by J. Allen St. John.

Three guys are fooling around in the California desert, doing archeological stuff. One of them very casually mentions that he's built a time machine. The main character (the other two disappear from the story quickly) sends himself back thousands of years.


Illustration by St. John also.

This leads to a rip-roaring adventure, as the hero defeats an evil empire nearly by himself. There's a beautiful princess to help him, a sinister cultist to destroy, vampire bats, a saber-toothed tiger, and, yes, a dinosaur. Lots of stuff goes on.

It's all nonsense, of course. There are some nice descriptions, but the whole thing is pretty darn goofy. The open-ended conclusion suggests a sequel, but I don't think there was one.

Two stars.

Between Two Worlds, by Milton Lesser

The December 1955 issue of the magazine is the source of this fantasy story.


Cover art by Edward Valigursky.

A meek fellow has dreams about being Jason from mythology. Of course, he really is living as the legendary hero. He falls in love with the warrior maiden Atalanta, fights with Hercules, wins the golden fleece, and so forth. If you've seen the nifty movie Jason and the Argonauts, you know what to expect. There's a surprise ending that's not surprising.


Illustration by Louis Priscilla.

This piece comes from a brief, odd period in the history of Fantastic when it was dedicated to wish fulfillment stories. Or, as you can tell from the cover, male fantasies. It's not as openly voyeuristic as the other stories seem to be, judging by their descriptions, although Atalanta is stark naked at one point.

As a retelling of an old story, it's OK. Otherwise, there's not much to it.

Two stars.

Bandits of Time, by Ray Cummings

This wild and wooly adventure comes from the December 1941 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Rod Ruth.

A mysterious fellow approaches a reporter and his blind girlfriend. He promises them a wonderful life if they'll meet him at a certain place in the middle of the night. He also says he'll restore the woman's sight.


Illustration by Ruth as well.

Understandably, the reporter is suspicious. He takes his girlfriend home and shows up at the designated place with a fellow newsman, hoping for a big story. Instead, he discovers that the woman has been kidnapped. She and the two reporters are sent two million years into the future.

The weird man who approached them has a mad scheme to set up his own private empire in a distant future when humanity has devolved to a primitive state. He takes along male criminals from all periods of history, as well as kidnapped women to mate with them.

Can the two heroes escape being executed by the insane dictator? Will the woman regain her sight? Will the seductive would-be empress prove to be an enemy or a friend?

Two time travel yarns from 1941, both of them full of nonstop action. This one isn't quite as wacky as the first one, although there's a revelation about the madman's identity that comes out of nowhere.

Two stars.

The Monument, by Henry Slesar

We finish up with a mood piece from the July 1956 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Ed Valigursky.

A small group of tourists are on a spaceship headed for the Moon. A couple of them complain a lot. The captain opens the observation window to show them something.


Illustration by William Llewellyn.

The plot is very simple. The story accomplishes what it sets out to do. Maybe that's enough.

Three stars.

Half Empty or Half Full?

Either I'm in a bad mood or this was a very weak issue. Maybe I should have given out some three star ratings to some of the stories, maybe not. My time might have been better spent making a sandwich.


A full loaf of diet bread counts as half a loaf of regular bread, doesn't it?




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Fashion, music, politics, sports, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[August 12, 1968] Galaxy's the One?  (the September 1968 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Live from Miami Beach!

If you, like Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley (and me), soldiered through the four days and nights of GOP convention coverage, you saw the drama unfold in Miami Beach as it happened.  Dick Nixon came into the event a "half-inch" shy of having the nomination sewed up, his chief competition coming from New York governor Nelson Rockefeller.  California governor Ronald Reagan, best known for his Chesterfield cigarette ads, coyly denied that he was a candidate…until he suddenly was, in a desperate bid to court "the New South".

The suspense was all a bit forced.  By Day Two, it was understood that the New Jersey delegation, which had been putatively firm in supporting native son Senator Clifford Case through the first ballot so as to be able to play kingmaker later on, was now breaking for Nixon.  On Day Three, South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who had expressed that his first and second choices were Ronald Reagan, suddenly declared his support for Nixon.

And so, after endless seconding speeches for candidates who had no intention of being President, like Governor Hatfield of Oregon and "dead duck" Governor Romney of Michigan, Nixon won on the first ballot.

After that, the only unknown was who would be his running mate.  The South made loud objections to any GOP liberals being tapped, like New York mayor John Lindsay and Illinois Senator Charles Percy.  The smart money was on a Southerner like John Tower of Texas or Howard Baker of Tennessee.  So everyone was surprised when Maryland governor Spiro Agnew got the nod at a press conference the morning of Day 4, overwhelmingly winning the ballot that night (though not without loud protest from Romney's Michigan contingent).

Why Agnew?  Here were a couple of comments from the NBC reporter pool after the convention:

"It's not that Agnew adds anything to the ticket; it's that he doesn't take anything away."

"Everybody loves Agnew–no one's ever heard of him!"

Agnew, who is kind of a Southerner, and kind of a liberal, but who has recently come out in favor of strong "law and order" (which means urging cops to shoot Baltimoreans if they steal shoes), will enable Nixon to retain his chameleon qualities while Agnew acts as attack dog.  And since being the actual Vice Presidency is worth exactly one half-full bucket of warm piss, it doesn't really matter that Agnew is brand new to large scale politics.

Long story short, Nixon is the One, which we've known since February.  God help us all.

Live from New York!

When Galaxy first appeared in 1950, it was also "the One", breathing fresh new air into the science fiction genre.  18 years later, it is still a regular on the ballot for the Hugo Award.  Last month's was a superlative issue; does this month's mag maintain that level of quality?


cover by Jack Gaughan

Nightwings, by Robert Silverberg

Silverbob presents a richly drawn future world, one in which humanity has soared to great heights only to stumble back to savagery twice.  Now, thousands of years later, Earth is in its Third Cycle.  The planet is an intergalactic backwater, and its people are rigidly divided into castes.

Our heroes are a Watcher, a Flier, and a Changeling.  The first, whose viewpoint we share, is an aged itinerant, hauling in a wagon his arcane tools with which he clairvoys the heavens three times a day (or is it four?  The author says both.) for any signs of an alien invasion.  The Flier Avluela, the only woman in the story, is a spare youth who is able to soar on dragonfly wings when the cosmic wind is not too strong.  And finally, there is Gorman, who has no caste, yet has such a broad knowledge of history that he could pose as a Rememberer.


art by Jack Gaughan

All roads lead to Rome, so it is said, and indeed the three end up in history-drenched Roum, where the Watcher finds the city overcrowded with his caste.  The cruel Prince of Roum, a Dominator, takes a shine to Avluela, compelling her to share his bed.  This incenses Gormon, the crudely handsome mutant, who vows his revenge.

Gormon has the advantage of knowing that justice will not be long delayed–the alien invasion is coming, and he is an advance scout…

There's something hollow about this tale, rather in the vein of lesser Zelazny.  Oh, it's prettily and deliberately constructed, but the story's characters are merely observers rather than actors.  The stage is set and the inevitable happens.  When the alien conquest occurs, it is our Watcher who sounds the alarm, but it is implied others were about to do so (why they did not cry out the night before when the invasion first became apparent is left an inadequately explained mystery).  It's a story that doesn't really say or do anything.

Beyond that, I object to the lone female existing to be loved and/or raped, depending on the man involved.  She is there to be a pretty companion, a object of pity, a tormented vessel.  I suppose the small mercy is she is not also a harpy, as Silverberg is occasionally wont to present his women.

Anyway, I give it just three stars, but I imagine it'll be a Hugo contender next year…

When I Was Very Jung, by Brian W. Aldiss


art by Brock

A weird mix of sex, cannibalism, and archetypes.  I found it distasteful and out of place.

One star.

Find the Face, by Ross Rocklynne

One of science fiction's eldest veterans offers up this romantic piece.  It has the old-fashioned narrative framework, with an aged tramp freighter captain describing the day he was contracted by a wealthy widow, and what ensued afterwards.  The widow's husband and family had been lost in a space accident, but somehow, his face remained, etched across the sky in cosmic clouds and star clusters.  The widow saw this phenomenon once, and she was determined to find from what vantage in the universe it could be reliably observed again.

The captain, meanwhile, was looking for Cuspid, the planet whence the green horses that sired his favorite racer came.  Together, they went off on their separate quests, and in the process, found the one thing neither had been looking for: new love.

It's something of a mawkish story and nothing particularly memorable.  That said, it is sweet, almost like a romantic A. B. Chandler piece, and I appreciated the two characters being oldsters rather than spring chickens.  Moreover, these were not ageless immortals, but silver-haired and wrinkle-faced septuagenarians.

More of that, please.  Three stars.

The Listeners, by James E. Gunn


art by Dan Adkins

In the early 21st Century, Project Ozma continues, despite fifty years of drawing a blank; even with the efforts of dozens of astronomers, hundreds of staff, and the entire survey calendar of the great Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, not a single extraterrestrial signal has been encountered.  Low morale and lack of purpose are the rule amongst these dispirited sentinels.

This is an odd story, with much discussion and development, but no resolution.  At times, the author hints that a message is forthcoming, or maybe even already being received, if only the listeners could crack the code to understand it.  But the climax to the tale has little to do with the story's backbone, and, as with Nightwings, the characters drift rather than do.

It feels like the beginning of a novel, not a complete story.  Larry Niven could probably have done a lot more with the piece in about half the space.

Three stars.

For Your Information: Mission to a Comet, by Willy Ley

Now this piece, I dug.  Willy Ley talks about why comets are important to understanding the early history of the solar system, and which ones could feasibly be approached with our current rocket and probe technology.  The little chart with all the astronomical details of the Earth-approaching comets was worth the piece all by itself.  I particularly liked the idea of Saturn for a "swing-around" mission to catch up with Halley's Coment from behind!

We truly live in an SFnal reality.  Five stars.

The Wonders We Owe DeGaulle, by Lise Braun


art by Brock

Newcomer Lise Braun offers up a droll travel guide to a mauled Earth.  It seems a French bomb that exploded in Algeria sundered our planet's crust, sinking half the Americas and turning the Sahara into a stained glass plain.

It's mildly diverting but Braun's clumsy writing shows her clearly a novice.  I think the setting would have served better as background than a nonfact piece.

Two stars.

A Specter is Haunting Texas (Part 3 of 3), by Fritz Leiber


art by Jack Gaughan

Lastly, the conclusion to Leiber's latest serial, a sort of fairytale version of a hard science epic.  The "Specter" is really a spaceman named de la Cruz, a gaunt, eight-foot figure kept erect by an electric exoskeleton, denizen of a circumlunar colony.  He has been the centerpiece of a Mexican revolution, which is trying to throw off the literal yokes (cybernetic and hypnotic) forced upon the Mesoamerican race by post-Apocalyptic Texans.  The spaceman's comrades include two quite capable and comely freedom fighters, Raquel Vaquel, daughter of the governor of Texas province, and Rosa ("La Cucaracha"), a high-spirited Chicana; then there's Guchu, a Black Buddhist, reluctantly working with the ofays; Dr. Fanninowicz, a Teutonic technician with fascist sympathies; Father Francisco; and El Toro, a charismatic leader in the revolution.

In this installment, de la Cruz finally makes it to Yellow Knife, where he wishes to lay claim to a valuable pitchblende (uranium) deposit.  Unfortunately, the Texans have gotten there first–and what they have established on the site finally reveals just what all those purple-illumined towers they've been planting across the North American continent are for.  'T'ain't nothin' good, I can assure you!

Last month, I read a fanzine where someone complained that this was a perfectly good story ruined by being turned into a tongue-in-cheek fable.  Certainly, I felt the same way for a while.  By Part II, however, I was fully onboard.  While this last bit didn't thrill me quite as much as the middle installment, it's still a worthy novel overall.  When it comes out in paperback, pick it up.

Four stars for this section and for the serial as a whole.


art by Jack Gaughan

Roll Call

Like the Republican convention, the outcome seemed certain, but a few twists and turns along the way did create a bit of doubt.  But in the end, if this month's Galaxy is perhaps not all the magazine we hoped it would be, nevertheless, it's one we can live with.

For the time being, Galaxy remains The One.  May it continue to be so for four more years.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 10, 1967] Give 'Em Hell, Harry! (January 1968 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

There'll Be Some Changes Made

According to a story that may be apocryphal, somebody in the crowd shouted the phrase I'm using for the title of this article during one of Harry Truman's campaign speeches. True or not, we'll see how it relates to a major change in Fantastic magazine. Just to build up the suspense, however, let me digress and talk about another big change.

A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss

The British rock 'n' roll band known as the Rolling Stones, famous for gritty blues-driven music, went in a different direction recently. The new album Their Satanic Majesty's Request, released just a couple of days ago in both the UK and the USA, is full of the surrealism and dreamy psychedelic tunes to be found in the Beatles' groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.


Even the cover looks similar. Note that lack of words. If you don't know who these guys are, you must not be a fan.

I don't know if this album represents the future of the Stones, or if they did it just to gather some green (and I don't mean moss.) At least the groovy song She's a Rainbow is worth a listen while you stare at your lava lamp.

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun

With a new editor at the helm of Fantastic, there are certain to be changes coming, although it may take a while. The mills of the publishing world grind slowly, to be sure, so the latest issue probably doesn't yet reflect the taste of the current boss. If nothing else, however, it's got two new stories instead of the usual one. Thank goodness for small favors.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

One change that hasn't yet happened is using new cover art. This issue recycles the back cover of the July 1945 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Please excuse the faded, wrinkled, beat-up copy of the old magazine I had to use. Twenty-odd years haven't been kind to it. At least you can see the two big suns at the top and not just the two little ones to the side.

When Brahma Wakes, by Fritz Leiber


Illustration by Jeff Jones.

The fellow depicted above is none other than God. The God of the Bible, indeed, but also all the other deities. He hasn't checked on His creation for a while, and it seems to have been messed up by the Adversary, so he gets ready to take a look.

This version of the Almighty seems like a weary old man, wandering around His shabby surroundings, not sure what He should be doing. If you don't mind this kind of literary blasphemy, the main problem you'll have with this story is the fact that it comes to a dead stop when it becomes most interesting.

God never does take a look at things down below. It's almost like the first chapter of a much longer work.

Leiber is incapable of writing a bad sentence, of course, so it's not painful to read. I just wish there were more of it.

Three stars.

A Darkness in My Soul, by Dean R. Koontz


Also by Jones.

A fledgling writer — he's only had a couple of stories published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, both this year — offers this disturbing vision of the future.

After a quarter of a century and countless failures, a project to create superhuman beings has produced only two successes, if you can call them that. One is the main character, a outwardly normal man but with telepathic powers. The other is much more grotesque, a being that looks like a child with the face of a very old man. The latter is immensely intelligent, but his scientific discoveries are buried deep in his subconscious. The telepath dives into his mind in order to dig out vital information.

There's a lot more to the story than that. We've got the protagonist's Freudian sessions with a computer therapist, revealing the meaning of his dreams. The main character has a relationship with a woman who writes scandalous books. The author uses typographic tricks and symbolic fantasy sequences, adding more than a touch of New Wave writing. There's one heck of an ending.

The author displays great skill at creating an eerie mood. Maybe he should try writing out-and-out horror stories instead of creepy science fiction. In any case, this complex nightmare of neurosis shows great ambition for a newcomer.

Four stars.

Reservation Deferred, by John Wyndham

From the May/June 1953 issue of the magazine comes this wry tale of the afterlife.


Cover art by W. T. Mars.

A teenage girl is dying. She's not at all upset about this, because she's absolutely certain she's going to enjoy the bliss of Heaven. For some reason, the ghost of a slightly older woman appears.


Illustration by Charles J. Berger.

The dead woman has taken a peek at the various paradises created by men, and she doesn't much care for them. This changes the dying girl's attitude.

This featherweight jape has a pleasing feminist aspect to it. (Despite the fact that the ghost is wearing only a brassiere and underpants.) Like the Leiber and the Koontz, it may raise the hackles of folks who take their religious faith very seriously.

Three stars.

The Metal Doom (Part 2 of 2), by David H. Keller, M. D.

As I mentioned last time, this serialized novel first appeared in three issues of Amazing Stories back in 1932. Dig through the archives if you want to see the covers of those old magazines.


Illustration by Leo Morey.

Last time we saw how civilization fell apart when all metals dissolved into dust. Some folks set up strongholds in the country, where they could defend themselves against packs of desperate criminals.

This half of the novel wanders around quite a bit. One sequence involves a group of female physicians and other professionals living on their own. As soon as one of the male characters meets them, you know we're going to have a love story. You may not predict the fact that it involves a tiger.

In the most bizarre plot development, a horde of Tartars shows up, and we get a big battle scene. There's an explanation, of sorts, for how these landlocked nomadic warriors wound up in New England. The way the good guys defeat the bad guys is implausible, to say the least.

Eventually, our heroes figure out how to turn the dust back into metal. You'd think somebody would have discovered the secret long before, but what do I know. Interestingly, the main motivation for producing small amounts of metal is to make surgical instruments so childbirth isn't so dangerous for mother and baby.

The author seems to believe that city life is inherently corrosive to the human spirit, and suggests that society was ready to fall apart even if metal things hadn't crumbled away. I'm not convinced.

Overall, I didn't find the development of the apocalyptic premise as interesting as its introduction.

Two stars.

Undersea Guardians, by Ray Bradbury

This early work from a writer who is now something of a household name comes from the December 1944 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by James B. Settles.

A handful of the people killed when a German submarine destroyed their passenger ship turn into water-breathing ghosts or zombies, for lack of a better word. They spend their non-lives preventing Nazi subs from attacking Allied ships.


Illustration by Arnold Kohn.

This is something more than just wartime propaganda, although there's certainly some of that. The undead characters have their own motives and personalities. The most interesting are two women, one of whom is out for revenge, gleefully killing Germans, the other trying to protect the man she loves, who is sailing on a convoy.

We don't get much of the Bradbury touch, love it or hate it, with the exception of a few metaphors here and there. If I hadn't see the author's name, I never would have suspected it was his work.

Three stars.

They Fly So High, by Ross Rocklynne

This outer space yarn comes from the pages of the June 1952 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Walter Popp.

A spaceman holds a Mad Scientist prisoner aboard his vessel. The taunting genius has already rigged the ship to blow up, so the two of them go flying off towards Jupiter in their spacesuits.


Illustration by David Stone.

What follows is a strange odyssey on the surface (more or less) of the giant planet, and a change in the relationship between the two characters.

This is an odd story. It combines melodramatic space opera, vistas of a bizarre environment, and philosophical dialogues. I suppose the author is trying to say something about human thinking while telling a rattling good yarn, but much of its meaning escapes me.

Two stars.

The Sex Opposite, by Theodore Sturgeon

This tale of love, death, and biology comes from the Fall 1952 issue of the magazine.


Cover art by Leo Summers.

The plot begins in gruesome fashion, as a couple are murdered by street thugs. A coroner (male) reveals the weird thing about the bodies to a reporter (female). (I mention their sexes because it's relevant to the story.)

The two victims are Siamese twins, bound together at the chest. (You may have already guessed that this isn't quite true.) When an eerie, inhuman scream draws the protagonists out of the building, somebody destroys the bodies in a blazing fire.


Also by David Stone.

The coroner meets a woman with whom he shares an intimate but nonsexual evening. The reporter has the same kind of encounter with a man, but we only get to hear about it second-hand. What does this have to do with the bodies? And why should the reader run to the dictionary and look up the various definitions of the word syzygy?

This is an intriguing work that always keeps the reader's interest. It's a mystery, a romance, and good science fiction to boot. Maybe you should stir in a touch of horror as well. In any case, it's a solid work from one of the masters.

Four stars.

Never Go Back, by Charles V. De Vet

The magazine finishes with this time travel story, reprinted from the August/September 1953 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Gaylord Welker.

A guy goes back in time to prevent a childhood friend from drowning. The weird thing is that there's no sign of his own younger self, and even his mother denies such a child exists. When he returns to his own time, the scientist he worked with claims he never saw him before. What the heck is going on?


Illustration by Ernie Barth.

The author makes up some pretty weird rules about time travel. I have to admit they're unique, even if they don't make a lot of sense to me. The ending is gruesome enough for any horror fan.

Two stars.

I'm Just Wild About Harry

That's an overstatement, although I am hopeful that the new editor will bring some freshness to a magazine that has been dragging its feet for a while. This issue doesn't show any evidence of a major shift in policy yet. Time will tell. Meanwhile, just having double the usual amount of new fiction is enough to make me want to be kind to small animals.


I can't tell you anything about this drawing, which follows the Sturgeon story, except that it doesn't appear with the original publication of that work. It's probably a reprint from somewhere, but I have no evidence for that one way or another.



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