Tag Archives: science fiction

Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[July 20, 1970] The Goat without Horns…among other things (August 1970 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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

Of horses and streams

Tom Paine is trying the most desperate of Hail Mary passes.  Aviation Weekly just published a piece that the NASA administrator is pitching the idea of an international space station with at least six astronauts from a number of countries, possibly even from behind the Iron Curtain, to be launched in the Bicentennial year of 1976.

The price?  Diverting Apollos 15 and 19 to the Skylab program, scheduled to start in 1972, and shifting Apollos 17 and 18 to the new space station.  As a result, only two more Apollo missions would fly to the Moon.

There's some logic to this—after all, the Soviets have given up on the Moon, and we've already been twice.  Moreover, the Reds are now focusing on orbital space stations (if the recent Soyuz 9 flight and the prior triple Soyuz mission are any indication).  Shouldn't we change course, too?

I have to think this idea a plan to save the Space Shuttle.  With Senators Proxmire and Mondale sharpening their knives to gut the space agency's budget, Paine figures that the way to keep the next-generation orbital launch vehicle in business is to give it a fixed destination.  After all, once the two Apollos have been used, the only way to get astronauts to the station will be on the Space Shuttle.

A Space Shuttle Orbiter docks with the NAR Phase B Space Station using a module deployed from its payload bay and linked to the docking port atop its crew cabin. Image credit: North American Rockwell.
A Space Shuttle Orbiter docks with the NAR Phase B Space Station using a module deployed from its payload bay and linked to the docking port atop its crew cabin. Image credit: North American Rockwell. (text by David Portree)

The timing is awfully tight, though.  The Shuttle won't be done until at least 1977, which means the station will have to lie fallow for a while until the vehicle is online.  That's assuming the advanced station can even be developed and deployed in six years, which seems doubtful.  Skylab is just an adapted Saturn V upper stage.  This proposed station would probably be something entirely new.

In any event, it seems foolish to squander Kennedy's legacy and barely scratch the surface of the Moon, scientifically speaking, when an infrastructure for further exploration is already in place.  Shifting course so rapidly stinks of desperation.  As Walter Matthau once said, playing a gambler in an episode of Route 66, "Scared money always loses."

Of dolphins and dreams

The realm of science isn't the only dubious one this month.  Take a gander at the latest issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction to see what I mean…

Cover of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction's August issue, featuring 'The Goat Without Horns' by Thomas Burnett Swann and 'Isaac Asimov on astrology'-- the cover illustration is a black-haired nude white woman facing away from the viewer, standing thigh-deep in a claret sea and peering downward. Three improbably large & erect black dorsal fins tightly orbit her, cutting a circular wake, and an onyx platform floats above, out of her reach. Three crescent moons hang large in the sky, the largest one refracted through the only other feature projecting from the waves-- left of the woman is an enormous lenticular crystal within which is embedded vertically a chalky nude man, twisted to face the moon. Red and white flares lay a track of parabolic arcs charting from the horizon towards the crystal.
Cover by Bert Tanner

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 19, 1970] Dips in road (Maze of Death, The Eternal Champion…and others—July Galactoscope #2)

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For our second of July's Galactoscopes, we have quite the mixed bag: two winners and two losers.  Aren't you glad you've got us to navigate the dross for you?

Covers of four books. The first cover is for the novel Quest for the Future by A E van Vogt. The illustration shows a huge, green, tentacled monster about to eat a human whole. Text at the bottom right corner says: In the palace of immortality, all the probabilities of time are waiting for you. The second cover is for the novel The Eternal Champion by Michael Moorcock. The illustration shows a man sitting on a throne, holding a sword in one hand and a big, shiny crystal ball in the other. A naked woman is kneeling in front of him, pouring a drink into his mouth. The third cover is for the novel Anti-Man by Dean R Koontz. The illustration shows a multitude of people struggling to walk in order. In the foreground, a human face is half covered by a hand. The palm of the hand shows the eye that the hand covers on that face. Text in the middle says: Sam was a miracle being—and a curse to a dangerously overpopulated planet. The fourth cover is for the novel A Maze of Death by Philip K. Dick. The illustration shows blue clouds half-covering an orange setting sun. Beneath the clouds, half-closed eyes look downward.

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 18, 1970] Two-star three step (July 1970 Galactoscope)

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We're breaking up this month's Galactoscope in two—and the dross leads the back. The next three books are all sub-mediocre, but the reviews are well worth the price of admission!

Covers of three books. The first cover is for the book A Harvest of Hoodwinks by Robert Lory. The illustration shows a man in an astronaut suit standing at the entrance of a cave, carrying a lamp. The floor, walls and ceiling of the cave are covered in thick webs. Text on the cover says, Sleight of hand in sciences and sorceries. The second cover is for the book Masters of the Lamp by Robert Lory. The illustration shows a human figure wearing a white robe, standing atop a pillar. Next to the human figure is a floating black octopus. Below, a human face is surrounded by five small planets. Text on the cover says, Send a spy to find a god. The third cover is for the book Operation Ares by Gene Wolfe. The illustration shows three flying saucers over a field where people and wolves are standing.

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 16, 1970] Journey Behind the Iron Curtain, Journey into Space

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BW photo of Jason Sacks. He's a white man, with short light hair, rectangular glasses, and headphones.
by Jason Sacks

We here at the Journey pride ourselves on our international reach and viewpoint. We have writers from across the world, and we love to read work from a full spectrum of countries.

While we've dabbled a bit with Eastern European and Soviet fiction, this has been a bit of a blind spot for this zine.So when The Traveller asked me to review a new anthology of SF from behind the Iron Curtain, I jumped at the opportunity.

Other Worlds, Other Seas is a new anthology of  science fiction stories from Socialist countries, published by prestige publisher Random House and edited by expert Darko Suvin. Suvin was born in the Yugoslav province of Croatia, and emigrated to Canada where he teaches at McGill University in Montreal.

Suvin still has deep ties to his native region, and has gained a reputation as one of the foremost critics and experts on SF from that area of the world. As part of that effort, Suvin has assembled a collection of fiction from some of the most prominent writers from that region.

As Suvin himself says, this is by design a quick overview. Other Worlds, Other Seas is only 200 pages long, so longer pieces were unavailable, as were stories from countries like East Germany for various reasons.

What Suvin compiled here is a classic mixed bag of stories. A handful of tales here are brilliant, a handful feel pointless. Allow me to break down that roster below. Cover of 'Other Worlds, Other Seas, Science-Fiction Stories From Socialist Countries' in yellow text. featuring a surreal mountainscape with an appendage encircled by a disc sprouting from it. The bottom text reads in red 'Selected, edited and with a preface by DARKO SUVIN'. 

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

[July 6, 1970] The Day After Judgment (August/September 1970 Galaxy)

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

Hello, Louie!

Enough talk about Cambodia, Israel, and the Race Problem.  How about some happy news for a change? 

Satchmo, sometimes known as Louis Armstrong, had a birthday this last Independence Day.  The famed trumpter and gravel-throated crooner, known for his ear-splitting smile and breaking racial barriers, has just finished his seventh decade.

"It's awful nice to be breathing on your 70th birthday, let alone feeling in the pink," he observed.

Photo of a smiling Louis Armstrong, with a cigarette and a bottle of cognac.

A big tribute was held in Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium for Armstrong on July 3rd, perhaps the most influential jazz musician since the genre was born.  While he did not puff his cheeks to blow his horn (he is still recovering from a kidney infection), he did sing for his audience, joined by a number of fellow jazz greats.  Proceeds from the event will go to the Louis Armstrong Statue Fund.

So, happy birthday to New Orleans' favorite son.  What a wonderful world.

Hello, Jimmy!

As Galaxy approaches its 20th birthday, I see it has reverted to the format the magazine took back in 1958: it is once again an overlarge bi-monthly (like sister mag IF, which means we essentially get three mags every two months).  On the one hand, this makes room for bigger pieces, like the superlative story that headlines this month's issue.  On the other hand, it means more room for dross like Heinlein's new serial that taillines the book.

Read on.  You'll be grateful I did the screening for you…

The cover of <i/>Galaxy. It shows a silver rocket, resembling a wide-winged airplane, speeding towards a futuristic city that is engulfed in an inferno of green, yellow, and red. A banner on the cover says, in all capital letters, 'LARGER THAN EVER — 32 MORE PAGES!'
Cover by Jack Gaughan

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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 2, 1970] Matters of conscience (August 1970 Venture)

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by David Levinson

A piece of the rock

Anyone who pays more than casual attention to U.S. domestic news is probably aware of the Black Power movement, but how many have heard of the Red Power movement? Those whose ancestors were in what is today the United States have been shamefully treated. They’ve been repeatedly driven from their homes and sacred lands, seen treaty after treaty ignored and violated, been robbed of their languages and religions, and much more. Now some of them are trying to regain some of what they’ve lost.

Back in 1963, the federal prison on the island of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay was declared no longer fit for purpose and shut down. A Sioux woman living in the area recalled that the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie promised that land occupied by the federal government would revert to the native peoples if it was no longer in use. In March of the following year, she and several others staged a four-hour occupation of the island and filed a claim. They left when threatened with felony charges.

Last October, a fire destroyed the San Francisco Indian Center, and the loss of the space reminded Native Americans in the Bay Area of one of the proposals for the use of Alcatraz by those earlier protesters. On November 20th, a group of 89 people calling themselves Indians of All Tribes set out to reach Alcatraz, with fourteen of them successfully reaching the island. They have since been joined by many more; there are a few hundred people there now.

Some of the occupiers a few days after arriving on Alcatraz standing before a painted sign with an eaagle reading 'INDIAN LAND'.Some of the occupiers a few days after arriving on Alcatraz.

There have been difficulties. Water and electricity are particular problems. Many hippies flocked to the island until non-Indians were prohibited from staying overnight. A fire in early June destroyed several buildings. And in May, the government began the process of transferring Alcatraz to the National Park System in order to blunt the occupiers’ claim.

However, they’ve garnered a lot of attention and support, including from many celebrities. They have also inspired other protests in favor of Indian rights. After a Menominee woman in Chicago was evicted following a rent strike over repairs not being made, a protest camp was set up in a nearby parking lot, starting with a tepee borrowed from the local American Indian Center. Since it’s right next to Wrigley Field, where the Cubs play baseball, it’s gotten a lot of attention and has been dubbed “little Alcatraz” in the local press.

Will all of this achieve anything? Maybe. The scuttlebutt in Washington is that Nixon is planning a proposal to Congress sometime this month regarding Indian rights. There are no details right now, but it’s expected that he will call for greater self-determination and an end to forced assimilation.

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Magazine/Anthology, Science / Space Race, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 30, 1970] Star light… per stratagem (July 1970 Analog)

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

Up in the Sky

Apollo 13 may have made for great TV, but it's been terrible for NASA.  This morning, in testimony before Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, NASA Administrator Dr. Thomas O. Paine reviewed the results of the Apollo 13 accident investigations and announced that the next (Apollo 14) mission had been postponed to Jan. 31, 1971–a three month delay.  I imagine this is going to snarl up the meticulously planned schedule of Apollos 15-19, especially since Skylab is supposed to go up somewhere in that time frame.

A color image showing three satellites orbiting the Earth against a background of stars.  The orbit is indicated by a circle.  The image is titled Skylab Program Major Areas of Emphasis.  The satellite on the left is aiming a beam of light up at the top of the image, and is labeled Science: Solar Astronomy.  The satellite in the middle is aiming a beam of light down at the earth and is labeled Applications: Earth resources, materials, processing.  The satellite on the right does not have a light and is labeled Long Duration Missions: Habitability, Medical, and Work Effectiveness.

…If any of these missions happen.  In a recent poll of 1520 Americans, 55% said they were very worried about fate of Apollo 13 astronauts following mission abort, 24% were somewhat worried, 20% were not very worried, and 1% were not sure.  More significantly, a total of 71% expected fatal accident would occur on a future mission.  Perhaps its no surprise that the American public is opposed by 64% to 30% to major space funding over the next decade. 

The scissor-wielders on Capitol Hill are heeding the call.  Yesterday, Sen. Walter F. Mondale (D-Minn.), for himself, Sen. Clifford P. Case (R-N.J.), Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.), and Sen. Jacob
K. Javits (R-N.Y.), submitted an amendment to H.R. 17548 (the Fiscal Year 1971 Independent Offices and HUD appropriations bill.  Not a happy one.

It would reduce NASA's R&D appropriation by $110 million–which just happens to be the amount requested by NASA for design and definition of space shuttle and station.

A color diagram labeled Mission Evolution Through Hardware Commonality.  The legend explains the color coding of the vehicles.  Green: Space Station Module; Red: Space Shuttle; Orange: Nuclear Shuttle; Yellow: Tug.  The diagram has a black background and shows Earth in the top left corner, the Moon slightly left of center beneath, and Mars near the right corner of the image.  Curved lines connect Earth to Mars and to the Moon, and orbital circles surround each, with Earth having two orbitals.  On the smaller Earth orbital, three bodies are depicted.  An orange Nuclear Shuttle has a red space shuttle above it.  A Space Base and a Low Earth Orbit Space Station are both green and yellow.  On the outer orbital sits a green and yellow Synchronous Orbit Station.  On the surface of the moon, a green and yellow Lunar Base is perched, with a green and yellow Lunar Orbit Station on its orbital. On the curve leading from Earth to Mars, an orange Orbit Launch Vehicle carries a green Mars Spacecraft.  An unlabeled green satellite is on the Mars orbital, with a green Mars Base sitting on its surface.

Mondale excoriated the proposal: "This project represents NASA’S next major effort in manned space flight. The $110 million. . .is only the beginning of the story. NASA’s preliminary cost estimates for development of the space shuttle/station total almost $14 billion, and the ultimate cost may run much higher. Furthermore, the shuttle and station are the first essential steps toward a manned Mars landing. . .which could cost anywhere between $50 to $100 billion.  I have seen no persuasive justification for embarking upon a project of such staggering costs at a time when many of our citizens are malnourished, when our rivers and lakes are polluted, and when our cities and rural areas are decaying."

A black and white photo of Walter Mondale, a white man with dark hair wearing a suit and tie.  He is looking to the right of the viewer with a neutral expression.

This seems a false choice to me.  Surely there is such wealth in this country that we can continue the Great Society and the exploration of space, especially if we gave up fripperies like, oh I don't know, the war in Cambodia.  To be fair, I know Fritz Mondale opposes the war, too, but we're talking a matter of scale here–the shuttle and station are going to cost peanuts compared to the outlay for the military-industrial complex.

That said, maybe Van Allen is right, and we shouldn't be wasting money on manned boondoggles, instead focusing on robotic science in space.  On the third hand… "No Buck Rogers, no Bucks." 

What do you think?

Down on the Ground

A color image of the front cover of the July 1970 edition of Analog.  Beneath the magazine title, the featured story is listed: Per Stratagem by Robert Chilson.  Below, a large brown insectoid creature stands on six legs against a yellow background. It has four tentacles emerging from the top of its body and is wearing a tool belt with a pouch on it around the lower part of the carapace.  It is angled away from the viewer, such that the only feature visible on its pointed head is its large open mouth full of humanoid teeth.  Facing it, a white man with gray hair wearing a brown shirt and pants stands in a doorway, looking at the creature with a look of concern.  Another humanoid figure is in shadow behind him.
Illustration by Leo Summers

Well, if we lose our ticket to space in the 1970s, at least we'll have our dreams.  Thank goodness for science fiction, and even for the July 1970 issue of Analog.  Dreary as this month's mag is, it's got enough in it to keep it from being unworthy.

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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 24, 1970] In love with "Ishmael in Love" (July Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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

Mazel tov!

This article is going to be short on news as the Marcus family has been occupied this past week.  The Journey has had its first inter-staff wedding!  The Young Traveler and Trek Correspondent Elijah broke the glass under the chupah on the 19th.  Sadly, the pictures aren't back from the Fotomat, so in lieu of that, here is a shot from my nephew David's wedding to Ada Argov in Israel from 1962.

Very blurry black-and-white photograph of a couple at their wedding. The bride is wearing a translucent veil and a slim, sleeveless, unadorned white dress. The groom is wearing a plain white shirt, black pants, and a conic hat.

The issue at hand

Between last-minute dress alterations and sifting through RSVPs, I managed to snatch time to read the stories of this month's Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  Unlike the marriage of Lorelei and Elijah, it is not a flawless affair, but it is also not without its charms.  Let's take a look:

Cover for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for July 1970. It announces stories by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, L. Sprague de Camp, Joanna Russ, Barry Malzberg, and Sterling Lanier. The cover illustration shows two men in long robes, one with a wizard hat and the other with a horned helmet. At the center of the illustration is a human face with mechanical eyes.
by Ronald Walotsky

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[June 22, 1970] We’ll All Go Together When We Go (Doctor Who: Inferno [Parts 5-7])

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By Jessica Holmes

We last left the Doctor trapped on a parallel world, surrounded by fascists, monsters, and fascist monsters. Does the final serial of this year’s run go out in a blaze of glory, or does it all go up in smoke?

Welcome to the end… of Inferno.

The drilling facility with smoke billowing out and an eerie red glow.
This looks perfectly normal…

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 17, 1970] Time and Again (June Galactoscope Part Two!)

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So many books this month, and this time, we've got all superlatives.  Check out the second June Galactoscope!

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