Welcome to the last of our three discussions about an anthology of original fantasy and science fiction that's drawing a lot of attention. Love it or hate it, or maybe a little of both, it's impossible to ignore. I showed you the full wraparound cover the the first time, and offered a closer look at the front the second time, so here's the back cover. It gives you a convenient list of the authors.
As before, I'll give each story the usual star rating as well as using the colors of a traffic light to indicate how dangerous it might be.
A woman desperately tries to escape her pursuers. Flashbacks tell us more about this dystopian world.
Saying anything more would lessen the impact of this intense little story. Ellison's introduction compares it to the work of Shirley Jackson, and that's a fair analogy. It's deceptively quiet and matter-of-fact at times, but full of icy horror at its heart.
Four stars. YELLOW for unrelieved grimness.
The Happy Breed, by John T. Sladek
In the near future, machines take care of all our problems, leaving us to enjoy a life of leisure. Of course, what the machines think is best for us may not agree with our own ideas.
This dark satire on automation isn't exactly subtle. It makes its point clearly enough, and follows it to its logical conclusion. The details of the characters' degeneration make it worth reading.
Three stars. YELLOW for cynicism.
Encounter with a Hick, by Jonathan Brand
Our smart aleck narrator tells us how he met a fellow from a less sophisticated background and what happened when he told the man something about the origin of his planet.
You'll probably figure out the punchline of this extended joke. Despite its predictability, I enjoyed the story's wise guy style. Others may find the narrator annoyingly smug.
Three stars. YELLOW for a wry look at deeply held beliefs.
From the Government Printing Office, by Kris Neville
Set at a near future time when childrearing has changed in an eye-opening way, this yarn is told through the eyes of a kid who is only three and one-half years old. Adults are bewildering creatures indeed!
The quirky choice of viewpoint, with its combination of precocity and naiveté, is what makes this story worth a look. I'm not quite sure what the author is saying about parents and children, but it's provocative.
Three stars. YELLOW for an unflattering portrait of Mom and Dad.
All over the world, people with Romany ancestors feel compelled to return to a place that vanished long ago. But what will disappear next?
This synopsis fails to capture the author's eccentric style and unusual combination of whimsy and oddball speculation. If you like Lafferty, you'll enjoy it. If not, you won't. Like many of his works, it's something of a tall tale and a shaggy dog story. I dug it.
The narrator witnesses a woman and a dwarf set up a strange menagerie at night, not far from where a carnival is in progress. The mystery of the cages deepens as visitors show up.
I find this story difficult to describe. It's quite a bit different from the author's jagged, chopped up pieces for New Worlds, and from his decadent tales of Vermillion Sands. It's very subtle, and there seems to be more than meets the eye. The premise evokes thoughts of Ray Bradbury, but only in an extremely subdued way. Maybe haunting is the word I'm looking for.
Four stars. GREEN for intriguing writing.
Judas, by John Brunner
A robot sets itself up as God. One of the people who created it sets out to destroy the false deity.
The plot is simple enough, and the analogy between the worship of the robot and Christianity is made crystal clear. You may predict the twist ending, given the story's title.
Three stars. YELLOW for religious themes.
Test to Destruction, by Keith Laumer
The leader of a group of rebels is captured by the forces of a dictator. They use a gizmo to retrieve information from his brain. Meanwhile, in what has to be the wildest coincidence of all time, aliens approaching Earth also probe his brain, in order to learn how to conquer humanity. The combination is explosive.
Looking at my synopsis, I get the feeling that this isn't the most plausible story in the world. Since it's by Laumer, you know it's a fast-moving adventure yarn. As a matter of fact, it's so lightning-paced that it makes his other stories look slow. The reader is left breathless. There's a serious point made at the end, but mostly it's just a thrill ride.
The delightfully named Harrison Wintergreen is a guy who has always gotten what he wanted out of life. As a kid, baseball cards. As a young man, women. As an adult, tons of money. Now he's got terminal cancer. Can he triumph over the ultimate challenge?
As Ellison says in his introduction, this is a funny story about cancer. Sick humor, to be sure. Bad taste? Well, maybe, but I think you'll get a kick out of it.
Replace a bullfight with a battle between man and car, and you've got this tongue-in-cheek tale. All the details of a traditional corrida del toros are here, transformed to fit the automotive theme.
Space explorers are raised from childhood to be absolutely free of sexual characteristics. It's impossible to tell if they started off as female or male; they are completely neuter in every way. People known as frelks are attracted to them.
Amazingly, this is the first short story Delany ever sold, although others have already appeared in magazines. It's superbly written, as you'd expect, and explores sex and gender in completely new, profound ways.
Five stars. RED for unimagined forms of human sexuality.
20 20 Hindsight
Looking back at the book as a whole, it's clear that the level of stories is generally high, with a few clunkers. Not all the stories are dangerous, and they could have been published elsewhere. A few are truly groundbreaking. The Silverberg, Leiber, and Delany are the best. The Sturgeon is the biggest disappointment. The Farmer is going to start the most arguments. Put on your reading glasses, fasten your seat belt, and give it a try.
Happy New Year, everyone! We’re off to a cracking start this year with a spy thriller that really gives Patrick Troughton the chance to show off his (very good) acting chops and (very questionable) dialect skills. Let’s get stuck into Doctor Who: The Enemy Of The World.
EPISODE ONE
After all the cold weather of the last few episodes, a trip to the sunny seaside in the year 2018 is just the sort of thing the Doctor and his companions need. However, the Doctor’s refreshing dip in the briny is cut short when a gang of assassins try to fill him up with lead.
Fleeing into the sand dunes, the gang are almost cornered when the assassins’ boss shows up with a helicopter—but fortunately, she’s here to rescue them. It seems there has been a case of mistaken identity.
It’s a jolly exciting first few minutes, that’s for sure.
Their saviour Astrid (Mary Peach) takes the group to her bungalow, where she turns on the charm. The Doctor very much enjoys her attentions until she asks him if he wouldn’t mind doing her a favour. One that will very likely get him killed. She wants to introduce him to her boss, Giles Kent (Bill Kerr)… as soon as they get away from the assassins still in hot pursuit, leaving a dead assassin in Astrid’s living room and an exploded helicopter in her back garden.
See, it appears that the Doctor has a doppelganger. Again. Last time this happened (St. Barthomew's Eve), it was a French bishop, but this time it’s a Mexican would-be dictator by the name of Ramón Salamander.
The Doctor’s uncanny resemblance to Salamander (other than the questionable accent, brown-face and neat hairdo) could be an incredible boon to those who wish to bring Salamander down. But would that be a good thing? To all appearances, Salamander is an absolute godsend, having invented a technology to capture sunlight and use it to aid crop growth in disaster-stricken areas. It also happens that he has an uncanny ability to predict when and where these disasters will strike, and is always the first to offer aid.
It all seems a bit too good to be true for Kent, but the Doctor isn’t entirely convinced. Maybe they shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth? Then again, this horse might be Trojan.
Powerful men have a habit of dropping dead around Salamander, with his cronies taking their places. Kent claims that Salamander ruined his career when he got too close to the truth, but it could all just be sour grapes. There’s only one way to know for sure. The Doctor must become Ramón Salamander, and break into his research station to find out the truth about his plans for the world.
With a few weeks to practice, he could pull it off, though he’s still not sure he’s even willing to try it.
But Kent won’t give him a few weeks to practice, or even a few minutes to think. Thanks to a call from him, the head of United Zone security, Donald Bruce (Colin Douglas) is on the way. If he sees the Doctor out-of-character, he’ll put him under arrest for impersonating Salamander.
The only way out is to put on a flawless performance.
The Doctor hastily changes into some smarter clothes and gives his hair a brush while the others stall Bruce, who understandably has questions about the dead man in Astrid’s living room. It’s not exactly easy to explain away, but fortunately the Doctor doesn’t miss his cue, emerging in character as Ramón Salamander.
It is so weird.
EPISODE TWO
The Doctor finds himself very much thrown in at the deep end as Bruce demands an explanation for his presence here. But who is Bruce to demand explanations of the great Ramón Salamander? Nobody! And so he refuses to explain himself—and the ruse works.
The Doctor is still unconvinced he’s even aiding the right side, but Jamie encourages him to go along with things. I think he’s enjoying this.
Jamie, Victoria and Astrid rocket over to the Central European Zone to begin infiltration. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Kent go to observe Salamander’s research station from a cabin just outside the restricted area.
As for the real Salamander, he is warning the leader of the Central European Zone, Denes (George Pravda), about an impending eruption in a long dormant volcanic area in Hungary. I don’t think any volcanoes in Hungary have actually erupted for hundreds of thousands of years, but Salamander insists he knows all about volcanoes, so who am I to disagree?
However, Denes (by the way it’s pronounced ‘Denesh’) is doubtful about the risk.
Meanwhile, Astrid manages to plant a bomb on Salamander’s balcony, providing Jamie the opportunity to turn up at the right time to ‘save’ Salamander. A grateful Salamander offers Jamie a job with his household guard, and Jamie even manages to finagle a job in the kitchens for Victoria.
It turns out that Denes is in league with Astrid, and knows that Salamander is probably going to try and replace him with a more loyal stooge. He just can’t think of a reason that the most likely candidate, Fedorin (David Nettheim), should betray him.
Well, aside from petty ambition, it looks like Salamander is very talented at finding ways to motivate people. He finds incriminating information, then holds it against them as insurance. Whether the incriminating information is true or not is irrelevant, it looks real and that’s all that matters. Fedorin reluctantly agrees to Salamander’s plan to remove Denes from power, and right on cue…
BOOM! A whole mountain range erupts in a glorious montage of stock footage, to the undisguised awe of Salamander and the dismay of all others present.
Well, doesn’t that seem a little convenient?
It certainly seems so to Denes, who storms in and accuses Salamander of somehow causing this disaster. Because this is Doctor Who and Salamander is very obviously the baddie, he’s probably right… but you must admit that this is quite an eccentric accusation.
And it makes it very easy for Salamander to discredit Denes. He demands Bruce (who has just arrived) to arrest him, and Bruce complies. With the United Zone security forces at Salamander’s beck and call, why bother with all the manipulation? He could just seize power by force at this point. Seems like he’s just making more work for himself. Or perhaps he needs the hero-worship as much as he wants the power that comes with it.
EPISODE THREE
Though Denes is out of power and in handcuffs, that still isn’t enough for Salamander, who orders Federin to finish Denes off with a vial of poison. I think Salamander could stand to learn a thing or two about the art of subtlety.
Then again, when you’re powerful enough you can get away with this sort of thing.
While working in the kitchens under a comically dour chef, Victoria makes the acquaintance of Salamander’s food taster, Fariah (Carmen Munroe). Fariah is a less than willing employee of Salamander, but the exact nature of his hold on her is unclear. Nevertheless, she seems to hold quite a bit of soft power in his household, able to vouch for Jamie when a guard gets a little too suspicious of him. She warns Victoria that Salamander is bad news, and that she should get well away from him as fast as she can.
The Doctor and Kent, meanwhile, have learned of the disaster in Europe and are wondering how Salamander could have predicted it…or caused it. Kent has a theory. A suspicious amount of funding went into Salamander’s research station, far more than should have been required for its stated purpose of solar energy storage. However, when he tried to prove that there was something dodgy about how Salamander was handling the funds, the proof mysteriously vanished, replaced with falsified documents.
Having learned of Denes’ arrest, Astrid starts putting plans into place to attempt a rescue, pretending to be a messenger in order to do so. However, when no message actually arrives for him, Salamander gets suspicious as to what this stranger is doing in the presidential palace, and orders his guards to follow her.
Meanwhile, Fedorin gets an opportunity to poison Denes’ food, but finds himself unable to follow through. Salamander is of course very understanding when Fedorin returns to him, full poison vial in hand. He even offers him a drink… poisoned with the very toxin that Fedorin was supposed to deliver to Denes.
Well, if Fedorin didn’t see it coming, that’s on him.
At 11 on the dot, Jamie creates a distraction, but Astrid’s side of the plan goes awry. Not only does she fail to help Denes escape, he gets a bullet in the back. Then there’s a very abrupt cut to a new scene, with Jamie and Victoria captured and Astrid nowhere in sight. It feels like the scene was cut about a minute too early, which is odd for what is otherwise a very well paced serial.
Once the guards haul the pair away, Bruce finally gets a chance to ask Salamander what he was doing in Australia…which of course is news to Salamander. And the penny drops for the pair of them. Someone is impersonating him.
And we know Who.
Final Thoughts
Oh, this is an excellent start. Really excellent. It is very refreshing to have a different flavour of plot for once. No aliens (other than the Doctor), no bug-eyed monsters, just some intrigue and a fun spy plot. It might be a tad complicated in places, but I think kids are smart enough to keep up.
Troughton’s great as the Doctor, but he also makes a fantastic villain. Ramón Salamander has flair, panache, and a genuine sense of menace. In fact, he wouldn’t be out of place in a James Bond film. The one thing I don’t care for is the brownface and that absurd accent. Troughton is more than capable of distinguishing Salamander as an entirely different character to the Doctor without the assistance of such things. It’s not just the voice, he carries himself in a new way, emotes differently, his entire essence is just completely altered from when he’s playing the Doctor. I was genuinely impressed, and I really look forward to seeing how the two characters interact in the future.
Following on the heels of an episode that I found to be problematic, with the introduction of the outer space ghostly version of Jack the Ripper, Star Trek fans everywhere have been gifted with an episode that is a successful combination of the sci-fi and comedy genres. Brothers and sisters, “The Trouble with Tribbles” was well written, well-acted, and well scored. It was not just good sci-fi and good TV; I would go as far as considering it an instant classic, a technicolor rendition of some of my favorite comedies in the vein of Dick Van Dyke or Lewis and Martin.
The episode started off giving a small a hint to what was in store. The Enterprise was speeding along in space. Kirk, Spock, and Chekov were meeting to discuss the upcoming mission to Space Station K-7. It is at the meeting that Chekov makes a quip about the Klingons being so close to K-7 that we could smell them. It’s then that Spock jumped in, playing the straight man, letting him know that smelling people in space was illogical. The actor who played Chekov was able to stretch his comedic legs in this episode. The young man took almost every opportunity to make funny statements about how everything was either discovered by or invented by Russians.
Davidushka Ivanov, now sporting his own hair!
Soon after the Enterprise got an emergency distress call from the K-7 space station. They rushed in to come to the rescue with their phasers ready to blast and found that there was no emergency or attack to speak of. Kirk was angered by this and butted heads with the Federation official that was just the type of weasel to get under Kirk’s skin. It was here where we started to see a series of gags being set up. We had one situation where everyone else knew about a magical new grain except Kirk, which irked him to no end. Scotty turned from bookish to a bad influence on young officers by getting into a fight when someone insulted the Enterprise. A salesman named Cyrano Jones, trying to make a few space bucks and get free drinks from the bar on K-7, unleashed a locust swarm of cute, furry, rapidly multiplying critters that ended up getting in everything, everywhere. These "tribbles", the namesake of the episode, were the glue that bound this ensemble together. Yes, they were troublesome, but it was in a way that made for a fun time.
Enough fun for everyone!
By ensemble I also mean the cast. All the actors had plenty of lines and were important to the story, the Klingons included. We also saw the crew showing off comedic timing, slapstick antics, and giving each other funny looks when things went awry. All of the characters and situations that were set up in the episode were hilarious and served the story well. The tribbles and the Klingons made this episode very Star Trek and the wonderful acting made the comedic notes hit their marks.
"Hey, plebe in the back–thanks a lot for the help!"
By the end of the episode there were a mess of tribbles, a mess of a brawl, and a mess of a situation that Kirk and crew had to fix. Which they did to the satisfaction of all. I’ve purposefully kept the small details of the episode to myself, so as not to diminish the joy of anyone who hasn’t seen this episode. This episode needs to be watched. Check your local listings to find out when the next airing happens in your area. It will be worth your time.
Five stars
Cute, but Dangerous
by Robin Rose Graves
It’s easy to understand the appeal of Tribbles. Soft fur, sweet purring to melt your heart and a friendly disposition (that is, if you aren’t a Klingon). It’s no wonder someone thought these would make an excellent pet! Or the perfect merchandise, as Cyrano Jones noted, their prolific nature made for easy stock.
As Bones investigated Tribble biology after Lt. Uhura agreed to part with one of her Tribbles’ offspring, he concluded that Tribbles are “born pregnant” or “bisexual” in nature, meaning they are capable of impregnating themselves. This made me wonder what kind of environment Tribbles originated from that would cause them to evolve these unique features. For one, they are obviously a type of prey, producing more offspring than will live to maturity. Not only are Tribbles prolific, but they waste no time in reproducing, suggesting that Tribbles have a short lifespan and are so endangered in their native environment that they can’t waste time in finding a mate. If a Tribble does not immediately produce, they risk extinction.
But while not actively aggressive, Tribbles proved to be, as the episode title suggested, troublesome.
Not to mention cumbersome.
Without their natural predators to keep their numbers in check, Tribbles multiplied out of control. In this episode, it was rather comedic how they spread throughout the Enterprise and gobbled up an entire supply of grain. But imagine if this episode took place on planetside instead, how devastating the effects of these adorable little critters could be. They live to eat and reproduce and as we’ve seen with the grain, Tribbles never seem to get their fill. On a foreign planet without predators, they would devour entire crops and local flora into extinction, causing colonies to starve, as well as any other grazing alien life – and should those grazing prey die, their predators would in turn starve. Tribbles might be the universe’s cutest bioweapon. Clearly there are laws to prevent the spread of harmful alien life, as at the end of the episode, Cyrano Jones faces 20 years in prison.
On the other hand, if Tribbles are edible and nutritious for humans, I’d argue they’d make the perfect source of protein for space traveling vessels.
"Tribbles and beans for dinner again?"
Even if Tribbles aren't tasty, they probably will make for some tres chic fur coats.
The concept of invasive species (a la rabbits in Australia) is an interesting aspect of space travel which science fiction doesn’t often address. This episode does so well and all the while being delightfully entertaining.
Five Stars.
A soldier, not a diplomat?
by Erica Frank
One of the fascinating parts of this episode was comparing Kirk's interactions with the Klingons to those with his own government officials.
With captain Koloth of the Klingons, he is cordially hostile: Both he and they are aware that their governments are rivals, bordering on enemies. There is no official warfare between them, but they both seem to know it's coming someday. They smile and talk politely while they are both aware that they would cheerfully kill each other to protect their people.
The station master does not have the authority to deny them access, but Kirk apparently does, since he can set rules about their visit. But he also knows that just saying "go away" without reason will escalate the hostilities, so he confines himself to requiring guards on them. There's no way to know if the resulting bar fight was better or worse than whatever would have happened if the Klingons had had free access to the station.
Nobody is happy to be here and yet everyone is smiling. Except for Spock. He doesn’t count.
On the other hand, we have Kirk's relations with Baris, the Agricultural Undersecretary. With him, he is not cordially hostile, but shows outright, direct animosity. He chafes under the forced authority. This is not because he can't follow orders (he obeyed the "Code 1 Emergency" call without question), but because he believes the Undersecretary has poor judgment and is wasting valuable resources–that is to say, the Enterprise's resources and crew's time. And he's not at all shy about telling him, even in front of the Klingons, that he's unhappy to comply.
In the end, the Undersecretary's fears were pointless; no number of guards could have protected the already-poisoned grain. And the presence of the Klingons turned out to be a blessing: without them, and the tribbles' shrieking anger (or fear), they would not have identified Darvin. They might have noticed that the tribbles didn't like him–but without the Klingons for comparison, they wouldn't have known why. They probably would not have uncovered his role as an enemy agent.
We don't have any evidence that Koloth was aware of the plot at all, but once it was discovered a Klingon agent poisoned the grain, he'd be under heightened scrutiny. Kirk gives him an easy out: Leave the area immediately, and nobody has to go through an interrogation that might kick off a war. Kirk can afford to be generous; after all, they did provide him a convenient way to spot their turncoat.
The only question left in my mind: Who are the people of Sherman's Planet, and why don't they get to choose which government will rule their skies?
Five stars.
Strange new worlds
by Lorelei Marcus
I appreciate any Star Trek episode that expands the scope of its fictional universe, but "Trouble with Tribbles" was a special treat. We get an expansion of the Federation's internal structure and range of command: not only is there an undersecretary of agriculture, but the Federation appears to be directly responsible for new colony projects. Private venture still seems to be a driving motivation for the seeding of new planets, but the Federation is in charge of approving and carrying out the operation as the central governmental figure in the universe. The Enterprise and her twelve sister ships comprise Starfleet, the Federation's military arm, tasked to defend against hostile alien empires.
Speaking of which, we also get our third glimpse of the Klingons, still at odds with Starfleet over space territory, and our first mention of the Organian Treaty after its establishment. The Treaty plays a decent role in the episode, and it's so refreshing to see a science fiction series utilize elements from previous episodes to create a believable and concrete universe. I enjoyed the anthology format of Twilight Zone, and even the more episodic nature of the first season of Star Trek, but I am loving this new direction for continuity across episodes even more.
My favorite part of this week's show, however, was the variety of new characters and locations. Getting to see several rooms in and the exterior of the deep space station K7 was very exciting. The completely new sets and models brought the station to life, and emphasized how narrow our perspective on The Enterprise really is. The adventures on Kirk's ship are but a narrow sliver of the possible stories to be told in the Star Trek universe.
Dig this nifty two-person transporter!
Furthermore, this was one of the few instances we get to see members of the Federation who are not part of Starfleet. The tribble tradesman in particular interests me, because he represents a world of people we have yet to see. Nearly everyone we've encountered so far comes from fairly similar backgrounds, either Starfleet Academy trained, a colonist, or an alien. Cyrano Jones is just an asteroid-hopping merchant, probably with little traditional education, and from unknown origins. He is the common man, working to earn enough credits to make a living, and the type of person we hardly see as we are led to the fringes of the galaxy aboard The Enterprise. He reminds us that there are billions of people out there within a thriving bureaucratic and economic structure that spans the galaxy, all of which is just offscreen. Never before have I seen such an ambitious attempt to portray a universe with such depth through the medium of television.
Five stars.
This is the face you'll be making if you don't join us for Trek tomorrow!
Join us at 5:00 PM Pacific (8:00 Eastern) or at 8:00 PM Pacific (11:00 Eastern)!
There are some things you can count on in life: death, taxes, the North Vietnamese violating their own Christmas truce more than a hundred times.
But sometimes, life deals you surprises. For instance, who knew that Hubert Humphrey was still alive? Yet he must be kicking for he is currently in Africa on a goodwill tour of the continent.
And, as a fellow exclaimed when I gave him a preview of my thoughts on this month's issue of Analog, "A five star story in Analog? Really?"
Well, it's true. Read on and find out how it happened!
Expect the unexpected
The Bugs That Live at -423°, by Joseph Green and Fuller C. Jones
First off, a very long article on the teething troubles faced by the developers of the Centaur rocket. This powerful second stage is used atop Atlas and Titan missiles to send big payloads to Earth's orbit and beyond. To do so, it uses liquid hydrogen as a fuel, which entails a whole host of problems.
There is a lot of good information in here, but as is often the case in Analog science articles, its presentation is confusing. There are no section breaks, so the whole thing runs together such that even I, a professional space historian, found my eyes glazing over.
I've no idea if "Joseph Green" is the same one who writes science fiction for UK magazines. Probably not.
Anyway, three stars.
There is a Tide, by R. C. FitzPatrick and Leigh Richmond
by Kelly Freas
A couple of years ago, R. C. FitzPatrick started a series of stories about a surgeon who has perfected the technique of human brain transplants. The first story was mildly interesting but prolonged, and the second veered heavily into the uncomfortable zone of eugenics. After all, the transplant of a healthy brain requires a donor body…and it's hard to find ones that aren't inhabited, and don't even the feeble minded have the right to their own corpus?
Tide is the third story in the series, and by far the best. There are two parallel, intersecting plots. One involves a brilliant young physicist with inoperable cancer, who comes to the surgeon's sanatorium to wait for a suitable "transplant" candidate. The second pertains to a self-styled "Duke" of organized crime. Intelligent, ruthless, and aging, the mob boss wants a healthy body to get a new lease on life. Surprisingly, the surgeon is willing to take the Duke's case, even before the mafioso breaks out the threats.
There are some important distinguishing characteristics between Tide and its predecessors. For one, it is now stressed that only the truly brain-dead are eligible "donors". It's not a matter of finding more value in a smart brain and a moronic one; only a virtually untenanted body is acceptable. The writing is far more compelling in this piece, too, with lots of interesting asides that flesh out the characters and the world they inhabit.
But most importantly, the ethical issue is confronted head on. It doesn't matter if the AMA or politicians or ethicists oppose the technology of brain transplants. Once that genie is out of the bottle, someone will take advantage of it–if not the scrupulous, then the unscrupulous. As the first (somewhat) successful human heart transplants of this month have shown, this technology is no longer a pipe dream. We will someday have to face this issue. I felt this story did a better job of addressing this problem than Niven's (still pretty good) The Jigsaw Man, which came out a couple of months ago.
So how did FitzPatrick manage to write such a good story when his others were middling or worse? You'll notice the second name in the byline. I have a strong suspicion that Leigh Richmond is responsible for most of this piece. Certainly, she's the new variable.
Five stars.
… And Cauldron Bubble, by Bruce Daniels
by Kelly Freas
Of course, what goes up…
Bubble is a piece in epistolary form about a near future in which the United States has scientifically developed dowsing and other hocus pocus into a full cabinet department. This would be a frivolous but diverting piece in F&SF, but knowing as I do that Analog's editor, John Campbell, actually believes in the efficacy of dowsing, well, it reads like propaganda.
Bova offers up this two-page cautionary tale about the dangers of overdirection of scientific development. It kind of steps on its own toes to make its message, though.
Two stars.
Such Stuff As Dreams …, by Sterling E. Lanier
by Kelly Freas
A dashing young space navy commander signs up to join a top secret spy organization that has the real power in the galaxy. He is subjected to a number of tests, mostly to try his patience, before being given the final exam: a test of survival on an alien world. The dangers are of monstrous, almost unbelievable proportion, and the candidate wonders why.
Lastly, the conclusion to what will likely be a three-part fixup novel. The planet of Pern is faced with deadly peril: the Red Star approacheth, and with it, onslaughts of deadly rhysome "threads" that despoil all living things that they touch. The only defense is fire-breathing, telepathic dragons flown by specially selected riders. The problem is only one of the six dragonrider weyrs is still in operation, and that one is woefully understaffed.
F'lar, the head rider, thought he had a solution to this problem when he learned that Lessa, the rider of the dragon queen Ramoth, discovered the ability to ride her mount through time. Last installment, the weyrleader sent his brother and a team back in time ten years to raise a new crop of dragons. Unfortunately, living more than once in the same time is detrimental to one's health, and the endeavor was largely a failure. Now, the only hope lies in the past, and an historical ballad about the wholesale departure of five weyrs some four hundred years ago–to destinations unknown…
There are the bones of an interesting novel here, although the gratuitous use of time travel as a plot point usually creates more problems than it solves. Also, By His Bootstraps stories tend to be dull since you already know what's going to happen.
But the biggest problem here is that McCaffrey just isn't quite up to the story she's trying to tell. A fine teller of short stories (The Woman in the Tower and The Ship Who Sang being standout examples), she struggles with the longer format. Her characters are shallow and unpleasant. The "romantic" relationship between Lessa and F'lar is disturbing when it isn't annoying. Lessa's theme song might well be, "He Shook Me, and It Felt Like a Kiss", and the only ones privy to F'lar's love for Lessa are the readers since the weyrleader is determined never to show affection for his lady. Ugh.
The doggerel that prefaces each chapter completes the mask of mediocrity on this promising tale. Perhaps a combo of Jack Vance and Rosel George Brown (R.I.P.) could have done Dragonrider justice. And maybe, as my colleague David suggests, a story between the first and second parts could have smoothed the transition (something to be fixed pending novelization?)
It really is a shame since it's rare to get a sweeping epic from the perspective of a woman, and the first part made me hopeful. As is, this last segment, and the three-part story as a whole get three stars.
Doing the math
When you put it all together, the January 1968 issue of Analog ends up at 3.1 stars, just on the positive end of the ledger. That actually puts it at the #2 spot for the month, just edging out IF (3.1), and losing to Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.3). The rest of this month's mags finished below the middling mark, with Fantastic at 2.9, New Writings at 2.8, and the abysmal new Beyond Infinity garnering just 1.5. As a result, though six magazines were released, you could fill just two of them with four and five star stories.
The big surprise, though, is the resurgence in feminine participation. Women contributed 13% of the new short fiction produced this month. While still a low number, it is comparatively enormous. And more surprisingly, the bulk of the woman-penned work (at least by pages) was published in Analog.
If even fuddy duddy Campbell can produce a progressive mag, I think we've got good times in store as the calendar turns to 1968! Happy New Year indeed…
‘Twas a few nights before Christmas when we all gathered around our TV set for the newest episode of Star Trek. I felt a pang of fear more suited to October than December when I saw the episode’s byline: this was yet another Robert Bloch script.
Robert Bloch gave us What Are Little Girls Made Of? and Catspaw. It’s clear he has a taste for fantasy and horror, but less interest (or at least less skill) when it comes to writing science fiction. I hoped that this episode would be different. And for a while, it seemed like it was.
The episode opens with a scene on Argelius, a ‘pleasure planet’ where dwells a society of hedonists. Before the opening credits even play, though, one of the planet’s resident’s is murdered and Scotty is found holding the knife!
The circumstantial evidence is damning, but Scotty can’t remember anything. McCoy expresses concern that Scotty recently suffered a concussion and may therefore not be responsible for his actions. After some discussion with Hengist, an imported bureaucrat from Rigel Four, and Jaris, the plant’s prefect, McCoy and Kirk are allowed to beam down a “psycho tricorder”. This device, operated by a pretty lieutenant who beamed down with it, will supposedly produce a record of all of Scotty’s conscious and subconscious actions from the past day, enabling him to demonstrate that he isn’t guilty.
Unfortunately, the machine must be operated in private. Why is this unfortunate? Because no sooner are Scotty, the machine, and the lieutenant left alone together, than there’s a scream and Scotty is found once again standing over the body of a murdered woman.
"I can't leave you alone for a second!"
Since the modern approach to finding the truth hasn’t worked (and no one considers sending down another lieutenant, maybe a male one this time?) Jaris states that his wife, Sybo, will use her empathic contact talent to discern the truth. As she prepares herself for the ritual, we’re introduced to a couple of other interested parties: the father and the fiance of the first woman to be murdered. The fiance shamefacedly admits that he was ‘jealous’, clearly a great taboo in this hedonistic society.
Sybo begins her ritual, which is set up much like a seance. The group hold hands while seated around a low table, the lights are off, and Sybo cries out that there is evil present, finishing with a shouted, “Redjack! Redjack!” and a scream. When the lights come up, she is on her feet in front of Scotty, who watches with horror as she collapses, a knife clearly visible in her back.
"Don't give it to me, Scotty! I don't want it!"
Up to this point I was actually enjoying the episode. I love mysteries, and have consumed plenty of the greats: Conan Doyle, Dickson Carr, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, you name it. I was ready for this to be a locked-room mystery with an unexpected solution.
Well, it did have an unexpected solution. But it wasn’t discovered via clever logic or deduction.
After the death of Sybo, Kirk and McCoy convince a grieving Jaris that the ship’s computer can give them the name of the murderer if they feed it enough data. When they begin doing so, their extrapolations make sense – at first. But Kirk and the others make increasingly ridiculous leaps of logic (which always turn out to be true) until they reach the inevitable conclusion:
It turns out the murderer is…JACK THE RIPPER! Who is actually an alien entity who FEEDS ON FEAR! Who upon discovery proceeds to shed his body and TAKE OVER THE SHIP’S COMPUTER!
"Either these are slides of my last prostate exam, or we're in trouble…"
It’s as silly as it sounds. It was particularly frustrating, in fact, because the mystery could have had a satisfying ending with the unexpected reveal that the nebbishy Hengist was actually the murderer. There was no need for the melodrama and lightshow and supernatural elements.
But this was a Robert Bloch script. I guess you get what you pay for.
The first half was four stars (it would have been five if it had had a satisfying resolution). The second half was two stars. Averaging it out, I give the episode as a whole three stars.
Something Blue
by Joe Reid
As a dedicated watcher of Star Trek, I look forward to the discovery of the aliens they encounter. Not every episode showcases new alien life, but it happens often enough and it is fun enough to keep things fresh. This week I found myself disappointed with the creature. It came off as if Bloch attempted to follow the popular advice given to young brides when crafting this week’s creature. There was something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. The “Wolf in the Fold” as the title of the episode alluded to, was a hodgepodge of disparate things that didn’t really work for me.
Starting with something old. The creature of the week was made out to be something ancient and evil. How ancient, you might ask? Around 80 years in the past from today (1967). Granted that might seem old to a character in the far-flung future. My patience was further strained by the addition of “Jack the Ripper” as the creature's identity. To me, it came off as a cheap trick, including a recent historical boogie-man to be the antagonist.
"Jack the Ripper?! Isn't that dumb?"
Something new and something borrowed took the form of the creature being composed of traits that were done better in other episodes of Star Trek. In previous episodes, as recent as this season, we were introduced to “The Companion” in “Metamorphosis” and the smoke monster from last week’s “Obsession” with examples of non-physical aliens. Even in last season’s “Charlie X”, we saw powerful aliens that didn’t have bodies. Non-corporeal aliens were new and better represented in these other episodes. Borrowing from them so near to the last use of the concept feels ill timed, and it reduced the impact for me. Even the crew wasn’t surprised by the unfolding of the monster's nature when they figured it out.
All these parts together, the ancient killer with no body, unless it does have one, as it did at times so that it could eventually be killed, the invisible spirit-like apparition wandering through the cosmos with a penchant for killing attractive young women and framing hapless men, was not that interesting or entertaining once the creature was fully revealed near the end. Granted, this episode had some redeeming elements: the mystery, the action, the colors, the costumes, the beautiful exotic ladies, and the crew of the Enterprise. All would have been better served by anything other than reused concepts and popular English criminals.
This all brings me to my final thought on the episode. Regarding something blue. Rather than being something within the episode, the blue comes is the countenance of the audience. Specifically, myself. This episode made me blue at the end because I have come to expect better from this show. I hope that the upcoming episode will see improvements and avoid use of borrowed concepts.
Two stars.
by Lorelei Marcus
The second sex in Star Trek
What do a brilliant, alluring dancer, a regal high priestess descendant, and a competent lieutenant, high in McCoy's medical team, have in common? They exist only to be murdered for their sex.
I was tantalized by a new alien culture that, like the Vulcans, 200 years ago achieved societal pacifism by rejecting emotions like hatred and jealousy. Yet unlike the Vulcans, they chose to keep positive emotions such as love. What an appealing concept for a love-starved culture like our own, that feeds on foreign war and internal inequality. There is something to learn from Argelius II and its successful methods for preventing all war and violence.
Make love, not war.
Except, these are not the virtues Captain Kirk, or McCoy, or Scotty draw from this planet. They only see that the women here are free to have sex with whom they choose, and enjoy it frequently. Of course that means Argelius II is a pleasure planet, obsessed with hedonism (because apparently free love isn't a concept in the Federation?) Even then, they miss who that pleasure is for. Argelius II is not Orion, with slave girls and servitude. In this society, women are not here for men's enjoyment. They have sexual equality to men, and can choose who and who not to sleep with, and anyone using violence or pressure to force sex is the highest taboo. If only the highest officers of the Enterprise (a ship with a crew evenly divided by sex) saw that.
Every time I heard Kirk talk about women I felt a growing distance from my own species. "The women here… I know a place where the women…" Women are not things, we are not objects, we are people. Generalizing us as "the women" strips away that humanity until all that remains is the imprinted fantasies of men. Seeing the heroes of one of my favorite shows on television speak this way was revolting. Even logical Spock was not immune, claiming "women are more prone to fear and horror," a completely baseless generalization.
But perhaps the most offensive fault of the episode was the women themselves. Never before have I seen so many interesting female characters introduced in quick succession, only to be discarded just as quickly. Narratively, this episode reinforces the dehumanization of women by using them as plot devices rather than characters. Structurally, inside the story and out, women are something else from men; women are not human.
These views do not fit with the universe of Star Trek. Even the promising concepts of Argelius II's society directly contradict such ideology. I suspect the personal opinions of the writer bear some of the responsibility for this disconnect.
Three stars, one for each woman who deserved more time on the screen.
A few of my favorite things
by Gideon Marcus
We've complained in previous episodes about how Kirk always knows the answers, and that his deductions are taken as the truth because he says so. Sure, intuition is a captain's prerogative (as he asserts in "Obsession"), but sometimes, it seems more lazy writing than preternatural abilities.
That's why I really enjoyed (parts of) "Wolf in the Fold". In particular, I like that in the future, lie detectors are infallible, and computers have vast data banks and ability to correlate seemingly unrelated facts. Spock was able to simply ask the ship's computer, based on what had been discussed in the room, who the killer was and even the physical nature of said killer.
"Don't blame me. I just report what the script tells me to."
What impressed me was how real it felt. In some shows (e.g. Lost in Space or The Twilight Zone), the computer is an anthropomorphic being with emotions and human motivations. It reasons like a person, not like a machine. In other shows, a computer has as much independent capacity as a toaster–all it can do is strictly interpret the programs of its human tenders.
The Enterprise's computer strikes a middle path, drawing logical conclusions from existing data at the request of the crew. Imagine one day being able to speak into your pocket computer, the FriendlyVac 2000, and ask something like, "What is the best way to get to Pismo Beach?" or "Which stock is outperforming its capitalization?" or "What color is the most popular for fashion this week?"
Science fiction's job isn't to predict the future, but Robert Bloch has created a convincing possible eventuality, and I dug it.
I also appreciated Scotty's performance this episode. He was near tears in frustration and guilt at appropriate moments. He also put on a great smile at the beginning. Speaking of great smiles, how about that Sulu?
I was less enamored with the fourth act, in which the Enterprise is put in its weekly requisite degree of peril. The show would have been a lot better as a futuristic version of Burke's Law, I think.
Also, while Shatner didn't hunch his shoulders or do the sideways saunter, his verbal tics were in full evidence this episode. It is a shame, given how nuanced and strong his performances were last season, that he has elected to become a caricature of himself. Memorable? Yes. But not in a good way.
Maybe no saunter, but plenty of punctuated swagger.
For these reasons and the ones articulated above, I give "Wolf in the Fold" two and a half stars.
Well, we're finally going to get to see this "Tribble" thing folks have been buzzing about for a few months. Let's hope we have more fun than Kirk!
Join us tomorrow at 5:00 PM Pacific (8:00 Eastern) or at 8:00 PM Pacific (11:00 Eastern)!
Happy holidays everyone! This is my favorite time of the year–not because presents are exchanged or because the days are finally getting longer again, but because I get to present to you the very best science fiction published in the last twelve months. Even better, since I can't possibly consume it all myself, I get to read all the recommendations of my esteemed colleagues, the better to distill it down to a few sure picks.
Sure, there are other "must-read" lists. The Hugos. The Nebulas. But no other list is as comprehensive, so thoroughly vetted, so absolutely certain to be filled with excellent material than the Galactic Stars.
Thus, without further ado, here are the Galactic Stars for 1967! Results are in order of voting for the winners, alphabetical order by author for the honorable mentions.
—— Best Poetry
——
There seems to be less and less professionally published SF poetry every year. Luckily, the fanzines are picking up the slack–particularly the new Trekzines! These are the three poems that caught our eye:
An excellent line-up this year, and a sign that science fiction is becoming an equal opportunity employer. An additional 16 stories made the longlist, and nominating was a tough choice this year!
Two things of note: sword and sorcery appears to be on an upswing (no pun intended), and Richard McKenna may attain more success posthumously than while he was alive.
Only nine stories from the longlist didn't make the nominations, including a piece by the promising David Redd.
Once again, we have a lot of novellas (and Niven's The Soft Weapon barely missed making it off the longlist). It's nice to see this length getting more love.
Delany yet again clinches the top spot, although it was a much nearer thing this year. A tale of a far-future Earth, bereft of humans and lapsed (evolved) into mythology.
ㅤ Camp Concentration, by Thomas M. Disch
Tom Disch is right behind Chip Delany with this four-part serial. The inmates of Camp Archimedes are given a deadly disease that boosts intelligence. Intellectual. Provactive. Weird.
This year's crop is a nice mix of New Wave and more conventional (but no less modern) tales. Seven longlist novels didn't make the final cut. Again, hard decisions had to be made. Interestingly, a full third of the nominees (and the longlisters) were women. It used to be that women did well at the shorter lengths but petered out as the stories lengthened, but this trend appears to be reversing.
Did you know that Jenkins (aka famed SF author Murray Leinster) invented front projection? It's true, and this amazing article tells all about it.
ㅤ A New Look at Vision, by Dr. Christopher Evans
Once again, Asimov doesn't take the top spot. He did get five of the 17 longlist entries, however. There was one lone woman on the longlist: Margaret L. Silbar for The Quark Story.
—— Best Magazine/Collection
——
New Worlds: 3.28 stars, 5 Star nominees (nine issues)
The Devil His Due: 3.23 stars, 1 Star nominee, (anthology)
F&SF: 2.98 stars, 9 Star nominees (12 issues)
Science Fantasy/Impulse: 2.97 stars, 0 Star nominees (only three issues before folding)
Orbit 2: 2.92 stars, 3 Star nominees, (anthology)
Fantastic: 2.92 stars, 1 Star nominee (six issues)
New Writings 10: 2.28 stars, 1 Star nominee, (anthology)
IF: 2.9 stars, 8 Star nominees (12 issues)
Analog: 2.89 stars, 4 Star nominees (12 issues)
Famous Science Fiction 2.84 stars, 0 Star nomineees (three issues)
Galaxy: 2.82 stars, 5 Star nominees (six 1.5x size issues)
Amazing: 2.50 stars, 1 Star nominee (six issues)
Worlds of Tomorrow: 2.48 stars, 1 Star nominee (only two issues before folding)
—
We lost two magazines this year: Worlds of Tomorrow and Science Fantasy. On the other hand, this seems to be the last year Fantastic and Amazing will be composed mostly of reprints as Harry Harrison took over this month. New Worlds and F&SF remain Journey favorites, which marks us as Commie Pinko New Wavists, I suppose.
Yandro
ㅤ
For a while, the genzine that the Coulsons built was starting to look like a trekzine. They've pulled it back some, of late.
Amra
Australian Science Fiction Review
The Crewman's Log (Trekzine)
Niekas
Riverside Quarterly
Science Fiction Times (news)
Tolkien Journal
Witzend (comic art)
Someone observed recently that it makes sense for Edgard Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard and L. Frank Baum to have dedicated societies with hundreds of members. But fer Chrissakes–Tolkien only wrote two books! (Okay, that's not strictly true, but you take the meaning).
The trekzines range from drekzines to charming. Spockanalia was a great effort–a prozine quality trekzine mentored by the Coulsons. But it's The Crewman's Log, with its charming stories, that won me over.
—— Best Author
——
Samuel R. Delany
Surprise, surprise…
Honorable Mention
Larry Niven
Fritz Leiber
The winner is the prince of the New Wave, while the runner ups include a scion of the new hard sf and a distinguished gentleman of the genre. A nice balance, I think!
I'd say 1967 was even better than 1966 in terms of content. Some months, we were hard pressed to keep up, what with all the books, the magazines, the anthologies, the shows, and the movies (this last, the one anemic medium for SF). But it was worth every minute! We hope you enjoy the fruits of our labor.
Centuries divide Captain Kirk's escapades to the edges of the galaxy from Captain Hornblower's dashing adventures on the high seas. Still, there remains a structure that echoes across this gap of time, something inextricably human in its tendency towards order and organization. Both the naval ships of old and the starships of the future operate with efficiency and grace due to the rigid military structure their crew hierarchies are built on. Every person has a job to accomplish, and ideally, all will attempt to do so to the best of their ability for the sake of their own lives, and the ship's.
Hornblower is a clear inspiration for Kirk. In James Blish's novelization of Trek episodes, both Hornblower and Kirk are tone deaf!
What has changed in the days since wooden ships is the enemies that threaten such lives. The British Navy fought against Napoleon's rebel forces, man against man. The Enterprise has similar foes in the Klingons and Romulans. However, there are times when Kirk and his crew must face creatures that are totally alien and beyond human understanding. The results of such encounters rely both on the brilliance and competence of the captain, and mental fortitude of his people.
We see that fortitude tested in Captain Kirk in The Obsession. It begins with a routine planetary survey, as a landing party of Kirk, Spock, and a few security officers explore and analyze the planet's resources. Suddenly, Kirk smells the sickly sweet odor of honey, and goes on guard, calling for red alert and ordering the security men to patrol with armed phasers. His fear is quickly justified as the security team is attacked by an amorphous sparkling cloud. It drains the blood from two of the officers' bodies, killing them, and attacks the third, all before any of them have the chance to fire their phasers. Distraught, Kirk returns to the ship with Spock, before the cloud has a chance to attack them, too.
Occupational hazard.
Clearly shaken by the encounter, Kirk orders the Enterprise to remain in orbit, a direct contradiction of their original mission to rendezvous with the USS Yorktown and collect perishable vaccines for a deadly plague. He chooses to delay, knowing full well it may cause deaths planetside in a Federation colony. Everyone in the crew is startled by this order, but no one dares question him.
A crew aghast.
Kirk attempts another landing party, this time ready to face his unknown foe head on. He brings Ensign Garrovick, a security officer fresh from the Academy with a notable last name. Despite their preparations, two more security personnel end up dead, and Garrovick is relieved from duty for hesitating to fire a split second too long.
Garrovick doing his job.
Concerned by Kirk's harshness, and anxious about the time pressure of their other mission, McCoy and Spock corner Kirk, threatening to label him unfit for duty due to medical reasons. Throughout the episode, Kirk has been hinting to McCoy and Spock both to analyze records from eleven years ago, believing it will justify his actions. Finally, left with no choice, he reveals why: eleven years ago, on Kirk's first deep space assignment as an ensign, his ship the USS Farragut was attacked by an entity just like the one they are fighting now. Two hundred of the crew were killed in the encounter, along with his first skipper–a Captain Garrovick (the ensign's father). Kirk blames himself for these deaths because of his failure to fire at the entity when he had the chance. He insists the creature is sentient and has malicious intent, and claims he communicated with the creature when it attacked him.
Kirk explains himself.
McCoy and Spock are doubtful that what they are facing is intelligent, but they decided to trust Kirk's intuition. The hunt continues. The entity takes to space, and after a thrilling chase, the Enterprise fires every weapon available to try and destroy it. Nothing is effective.
The creature – Spock is convinced it's intelligent now by its behavior – attempts to enter the ship through the impulse vents. It almost kills Garrovick, but they manage to flush the cloud back into space, and the odor it leaves behind tells Kirk it intends to return home to spawn.
Kirk smells something funny.
Kirk sacrifices two more days to return to the planet and risks his and Garrovick's life planting an antimatter bomb, the only way he can think to kill the creature. He is successful, and so sure of it, he need not even check the scanners before returning to his former mission.
Escaping in the nic-o-tine.
There is a strong implication that Kirk formed some sort of psychic bond with the creature after it attacked him eleven years ago. With that in mind, his erratic and illogical behavior begins to make sense. This was not a traumatized Captain lurching blindly for revenge, but rather the one person in the galaxy who could truly comprehend the depths of this creature and the danger it posed. It is a testament to the loyalty of the crew and the validity of a captain's intuition that the Enterprise was able to succeed.
Ralph Senensky's sharp direction and Art Wallace's tight script made for a very strong and thought-provoking episode. The military structure of the enterprise shone through the characters' competence, and emotions were high and tense thanks to excellent delivery from all the leads and Stephen Brooks' (Garrovick) body language. The episode's most spectacular feat was its intertwining of personal, interpersonal, and galactic-scale struggle into one seamless experience that evoked human history and human nature itself.
Five stars.
Respect for the Mission
by Joe Reid
At first, I sincerely hoped that we were not seeing a pattern for upcoming entries in the series. This was the second episode in a row, last week's episode being “The Deadly Years”, where Kirk’s command was challenged by his own crew, because they saw him as incapable to lead. Until now the crew of the Enterprise had been incredibly loyal to their captain. The only time that I remember the crew turning on Kirk of their own volition was early in this season in “Mirror, Mirror”. Granted that it wasn’t really our Kirk, but a twisted alternate universe version of him.
If I were to use what happened in the last couple of episodes as foreshadowing of what is to come, the future doesn’t look good for the captain of the Enterprise. In “The Deadly Years”, Kirk’s body and mind started to fail due to rapid aging. The crew noticed it and were troubled by it, yet they were incredibly hesitant to turn on their captain and Spock had to be forced to hold a hearing to test the competence of the captain. Even after he proved that he was not capable to lead the crew still refused to vote against him.
In “Obsession”, there seemed to be a lot less resistance for the senior staff to turn on the captain. This time instead of being forced into a hearing, the crew threatened Kirk with action to remove him from command, because they disagreed with his decision to pursue a smoke monster instead of delivering time sensitive medicine to sick people on another world.
Senior officers confront the captain.
It was nearly unthinkable that the crew would doubt the orders of the captain. Kirk once stated that when he gave an order he expects that it be followed. Kirk’s orders have now been receiving a degree of scrutiny that didn’t exist before. This leads me to wonder where this will all lead. If the crew started as loyal followers, then became reluctant betrayers, and after that becoming thoughtful opposers, what will they become next as they grow more accustomed to bucking Kirk’s leadership?
If the crew continues to participate in this erosion of respect for their captain I fear that mutiny might be in store for our hero. Should mutiny darken the bridge of the Enterprise there would only be one person to blame: Captain James T. Kirk. If Kirk is swept from his position, it will be because he put himself ahead of the mission, when in truth the mission is more important than the man.
If the crew acts against their captain in the future, they will be completely justified in their actions. They arrested the mirror universe Kirk, held a hearing which ousted the geriatric Kirk, and warned an out-of-control Kirk this week. The crew of the Enterprise has repeatedly shown that they value the mission first and will support that captain if he guides them to completing that mission. It is good to see that the crew of the Enterprise will fight to complete their missions, even if they must fight their own captain to do it.
Although not a terrific episode, due to the an arguably slow and repetitive plot, along with strange actions being taken by some characters, Spock included, this was a thought provoking episode showing a counter to previously unchecked power.
Three stars
Tragedy and Truth
by Janice L. Newman
Star Trek is a show that rewards dedicated watching from week to week. Not only do we learn more about the universe our favorite characters inhabit, but every once in a while we learn more about the characters themselves.
We’ve learned a great deal about Captain Kirk over the course of a season and a half. We’ve learned that he was ‘a stack of books with legs’ back in school, and that he was terrible with women; both traits that he seems to have left behind at some point, since we rarely see him reading, and he’s seduced his share of human women, androids, female-shaped aliens, and the like (in fairness, he was usually captured or kidnapped first).
We also learned that he endured a great tragedy as a teenager, having been one of the few survivors of a terrible masacre on Tarsus Four. And in this week’s episode, we learn that, on his very first assignment out of the academy, he survived another tragedy. One can only wonder the guilt that Captain Kirk must have suffered when 200 of the crew and the captain of the ship were all killed, but he survived. Perhaps this survival of two horrific events drove him to take more responsibility. Perhaps it was a crucible that changed him, eventually transforming him from a bookish, awkward young man to the charismatic captain that we all know today. Would he break, I wonder, if he endured what Decker did? Or would his past experience of tragedy make him better able to move forward afterward, as a broken bone strengthens when it heals?
I can’t help but wonder what else we’ll learn about other characters in the future. I would love to know more about McCoy’s, Uhura’s, Sulu’s, or Scotty’s pasts. Hopefully we’ll see some stories that focus on them, not just on Spock and Kirk.
As to the rest of the episode, I was less impressed. It felt too staged, too unreal somehow, with the characters posing more like actors in a play than people living their lives. There are a few standout scenes, the best of which is when Garrovick throws himself on his bed, covers his eyes, and jerks in a convulsive sob before the camera cuts away. But overall there was much I found unconvincing.
Three stars.
RED ALERT! The 'zines we're reading tomorrow before the next episode of Star Trek have some troubling news. Tune in for a very special bulletin!
Join us at 5:00 PM Pacific (8:00 Eastern) or at 8:00 PM Pacific (11:00 Eastern)!
Ever since Harlan Ellison started flapping his gums about how dangerous his new anthology Dangerous Visions is, it seems a seal has been broken.
First, Michael Moorcock started putting nudes on the covers of his newly taken-over New Worlds. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction started using the word "shit" liberally. And this month, every other story features sex in varying degrees of luridity.
I'm not complaining, mind you. These things have existed in books and in avante-garde publications like Playboy for years. But it's always a bit startling to find the words you hear commonly on the street suddenly appearing in previously staid venues. Sort of like how Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf shocked everyone. As fellow traveller John Boston noted, with books and girlie mags, one knows what one is getting into. But with media that enjoys wider distribution, which could be viewed or read by the the little old lady from Peoria as much as the hippie in San Francisco, editorial tends toward the conservative.
Does an influx of liberality mean the content is improved? Let's read the latest issue of F&SF and find out!
The issue at hand
by Ed Emshwiller
They Are Not Robbed, by Richard McKenna
Richard McKenna died three years ago, but his rate of publication has, if anything, increased. His latest story maintains the quality of work that made his loss so much mourned.
The setup: about 15 years from now, aliens arrive and solve our energy crisis. They also set up cultural exchanges, but the the transactions have a seemingly sinister component. Folks with a certain prerequisite are able to go inside, disappearing for a while before returning with a large check in hand. Aldous Huxley is one of the more famous transactees, but their numbers grow and grow.
Over time, it is determined that each of the selected humans has a certain "tau factor" that has an unknown effect on their behavior and powers. It is only known that the tau factor is measurable…and that it is gone once the humans come back.
Normal humans (those without the tau factor) become jealous, enforcing increasingly rigid restrictions on the tau-enabled humans, with ghettos a foreseeable future. Meanwhile, exchange after exchange begins to disappear.
Amidst this backdrop, we are introduced to our hero, Christopher Lane. Already half dropped out from society, he learns that he is blessed with the tau factor, and upon entering an exchange, learns that it enables him to step out of phase with time. This gives him access to a fairyland world divided into little islands of time. There he meets his true love and hatches a plan to sever his ties with the old Earth before the last exchange closes forever.
As for the sex content, much is made of pulchritude of Christopher's vapid and Earthbound girlfriend (we even learn the color of her pubic hair: black). In this case, the focus on mechanical, unsatisfactory love-making is contrasted with the more elevated relations Chris enjoys out of time.
Only barely science fiction, it is nevertheless a good read. Four stars.
The Turned-off Heads, by Fritz Leiber
The issue takes a bit of a tumble with the next short-short. This exploration of pop culture and the evolving relation of mankind to machinekind is affectedly outré and rather pointless. At least it's short, and I suppose Leiber gets points for forecasting fashion.
Two stars.
by Ed Emshwiller
I See a Man Sitting on a Chair, and the Chair Is Biting His Leg, by Harlan Ellison and Robert Sheckley
Here's a piece that reads like it could have been in Dangerous Visions. I'm not sure how much was written by Ellison and how much by Sheckley, but it definitely reads like a fusion of their styles.
Our "star" is Joe Pareti, a man whose prime distinction from the rest of the Earth's teeming, over-educated billions is his ability to harvest "goo." This gray, mucousy sludge has choked the planet's oceans and now provides humanity's main source of food. It also has an alarming tendency to writhe, occasionally forming itself into grotesque parodies of animal life.
The goo also, on rare occasion, infects its harvesters. In an act of carelessness, Pareti succumbs, losing all of his hair overnight. His doctor warns that greater changes may be in store, but given that only six cases preceded Joe's, all of them wildly different in their courses, nothing more can be determined.
It doesn't take long for Joe to find out. In short order, every woman finds him irresistible. A life of increasingly exotic sexual escapades is frustrated when inanimate objects also start to make advances on the former goo farmer. Will he succumb to their inorganic advances? What happens if he says no?
This is a weird piece. But, like most things by Ellison and Sheckley, it's a good piece. Four stars.
Light On Cader, by Josephine Saxton
A young undertaker, bade by his mother's dying wish, climbs Cader Idris in Wales on a raw, misty morning. At the summit, he encounters his life's desire…or maybe an unearthly trap.
That's it. There's really not much to this story–except flavor and texture, which is competently done.
Three star.
Crack in the Shield, by Arthur Sellings
This UK author offers up a glimpse of life in the 22nd Century. The development of the personal shield, and (for the less wealthy) shields for structures, causes society to fracture into a myriad of animal-totemed clans. Each has laid claim to a province of the economy: Bees make food, Peacocks are in advertising, etc. Assured immortality by falling in line within this strict societal structure, imagination largely disappears.
The only hope for the race lies with those who voluntarily give up their shields. Crack is the story of Philip Tawn, Peacock, who is driven to do just that.
I found this an implausibly optimistic piece, but Sellings writes it well enough. It's also a bit more fuddy-duddy than the rest of the mag, but I suppose balance has its place.
Three stars.
The Seventh Metal, by Isaac Asimov
Last issue, I praised Doc A.'s article on the ancient discovery and use of the first seven metals (what a kitschy store in Borrego Springs, where I spent the weekend, described as "the seven mystic metals"). Left undiscussed in that piece was mercury, remarkable among the first seven for being the only one that is a liquid at usual temperatures.
Asimov does a fine job talking about element Hg (and why it has that abbreviation). Four stars.
Lunatic Assignment, by Sonya Dorman
Sonya Dorman's tale is of "Four men, dressed in limp white shirts and slacks," each with his own madness. Keepsy, a pervert who sleeps with his hand on his crotch, has a maelstrom of a mind, betrayed all the more by his frustrated desire to project normalcy. Arrigott, having no sense of ego, has trouble with the word "I". Fomer is a schizoid, an empty vessel. And Braun, their leader, has barely suppressed desires to rape and ravage.
But the world is an asylum, and someone has to run it.
I can't say I quite understood this piece, but it is memorable. Three stars.
In His Own Image, by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
by Ed Emshwiller
Lastly, we have the tale of Gordon Effro, a spacewrecked sinner who ends up at a lifeboat station at the edge of space. He washes up at a station inhabited by a mad proselytizer with a coterie of robotic disciples. All Effro wants to do is drink himself blind until the rescue ship arrives, but the wild-eyed Christian has other plans.
I liked this story quite a lot up to its conclusion. There are a number of ways this story could have ended. Biggle chose perhaps the least satisfying, the most conventional.
Thus, three stars.
Can I open my eyes?
As it turns out, the stories with smut were my favorites. However, I don't think their salacious content was what sold me; rather, they were just the most interesting of the pieces. On the other hand, perhaps McKenna and Ellison/Sheckley were able to write so effectively because they felt less fettered when they produced these pieces.
I guess only time will tell if 1967 marked an experimental flirtation with sex in science fiction…or if it presaged an SFnal revolution!
Another year draws to a close, and so does this serial. Let’s take a closer look at the ending of The Ice Warriors.
EPISODE FOUR
As the Ice Warriors train their cannon on Victoria, I have to wonder: how do they do anything with those great big digger-game claws of theirs?
While I’m pondering this, the Ice Warriors decide that Victoria is more useful as live bait than dead meat, and refrain from killing her. At the Doctor’s urging, Victoria makes a run for it, with an Ice Warrior in… lukewarm pursuit.
Waddling like people from a Fisher Price set.
Desiring to find out what kind of reactor the Ice Warrior ship has (as Victoria had no idea what she was looking at), the Doctor decides to go have a look for himself, taking a vial of ammonium sulphide with him for protection.
The Doctor invents a new drinking game: take a shot every time Victoria gets captured.
I enjoy how blasé he is about the idea of getting deliberately captured. After the billionth time being taken captive by the baddie of the week, it probably gets a bit dull. Still, at least he probably has his recorder to keep him amused.
Meanwhile, Victoria continues to run from the Ice Warrior. Perhaps she would move faster if she wasted less oxygen screaming her lungs out. It’s not doing her much good, and it’s not making the already unstable glacier any safer.
Not for the Ice Warrior, anyway. Just as it catches up to her, a well-timed avalanche buries the pair of them, killing the Warrior and trapping Victoria.
Jamie meanwhile starts to recover from his injury, but to his distress discovers that the alien weapon has left him paralysed from the waist down. Penley and Storr, concerned for the lad, debate how best to help him. Storr has the bright idea of befriending the aliens and asking for their help—‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and all that. Well, I can’t fault a chap for wanting to see the best in people. Even when those people are eight feet tall and have a violent streak.
Nice pants.
Storr heads out onto the ice with Penley chasing after him, and both find something unexpected. Storr finds Victoria, and Penley finds the Doctor. Upon learning from Victoria that the aliens want to destroy the scientists’ base, Storr is even more eager to make their acquaintance.
Unfortunately, the Ice Warriors do not share his eagerness to work together. Already angry with Victoria for running away and costing him one of his warriors, Varga sees no use for Storr, and kills him before he even gets a chance to ask about some help for Jamie. Not that Varga would have given it.
To amend my previous statement: I can’t fault a man for being trusting, but I can fault him for trying to conspire to blow up a load of people because he doesn’t like them.
And it looks like Victoria is back at square one. I think of plot threads like this as a walk around the block. It might look like you’re going places and doing things, but you just end up back where you started with sore feet.
Meanwhile, the Doctor has a look at Jamie, and assures him that he will regain the use of his legs—as long as he gets some proper medical care and supervision. A reluctant Penley agrees to take Jamie back to the base while the Doctor goes ahead to meet with the Warriors.
Things get off to a rocky start on that front. The Ice Warriors are good enough to open the exterior airlock at the Doctor’s knock, but then seal him inside, demanding to know who he is… under threat of explosive decompression!
EPISODE FIVE
In true Doctor fashion, he gets out of the situation by giving the Ice Warriors an absolute non-answer. He’s a ‘scientist’.
I wouldn't count that as a valid response, but apparently it's good enough for the Ice Warriors, who let him in.
Meanwhile, Penley and Jamie run into trouble as they traverse the wilderness, as they hear the not-so-distant howl of wolves…before coming face to face with a bear.
Awwww.
Oh, I mean ‘oh no, how scary!’
Luckily, Penley manages to stun it.
The Ice Warriors start asking the Doctor tricky questions, beginning to realise that he’s not really here to offer help, but to spy, and confiscate his communication device.. The Doctor warns them that sooner or later the base will have to use the Ioniser, whatever the consequences. Back at base, Clent takes his meaning. But what if the Ioniser makes the alien ship blow up? The contamination could be disastrous. But if he doesn’t use the ioniser, the glacier will advance and Europe will be consumed by ice.
Unsure of what to do, he puts the question to the computer. And the computer doesn’t know. Being purely logical, it’s risk-averse, and tells him to wait for more information. Realising the computer is no help, Clent decides to… uh… do as it says and wait around.
I thought he was gearing up for a big impressive leadership moment, but it looks like he was just being pompous.
Threatening to kill Victoria, the Ice Warriors start asking what the base’s power source is. Though she protests not to tell them, the Doctor says they’ll find what they need at the base.
These Ice Warriors are extremely accepting of evasive answers, aren’t they?
Satisfied, the Ice Warriors immediately begin planning to attack the base, to which Victoria protests ‘you can’t be so inhuman!’
Gee, what gave it away, Victoria? Was it the hissing, the scales, or the fact they’re literally from Mars?
Penley and Jamie make it to the base, where Clent is not exactly pleased to see his ex-colleague. The dynamic between Clent and Penley is actually my favourite part of this entire serial. There’s a real sense of mutual resentment, betrayal, and a heaping helping of bitterness.
They’re like a couple of divorcees.
It doesn’t take long before they’re at each others’ throats, and a heated argument quickly devolves into a scuffle, resulting in Penley and Jamie getting stunned and locked away in a recovery room.
Honestly, the human dynamics in this serial are more interesting to me than the alien threat. It’s a while since we’ve had a serial without any aliens or robots or whatnot. Perhaps we could do with a few more from time to time?
The Ice Warriors prepare to assault the base, and Victoria’s incessant wailing for once comes in useful, providing a cover for the Doctor to whisper his plan to her.
Of course, it doesn’t really help that she keeps halting her sobs to whisper back to him.
Somehow, their guard doesn’t notice.
The Doctor’s plan more or less consists of throwing his vial of ammonium sulphide at the floor and hoping the alien likes it less than he and Victoria will. See, ammonium sulphide is better known…as a stink-bomb. Because it stinks.
Also it’s highly flammable, corrosive, and toxic.
Probably not the best thing to be dropping in a confined space.
Silly ideas like this are what happen if you get all your escape tactics from the Beano.
He who smelt it dealt it.
EPISODE SIX
The Ice Warriors fire on the base, but show restraint, offering Clent the opportunity to surrender. Clent, of course, is defiant, but not stupid. Not in this circumstance, anyway. He offers to speak with Varga, promising no traps or conditions.
Unaware that the Doctor and Victoria are on the cusp of escaping, Varga agrees, taking his remaining warriors with him.
Clent’s command begins to slip, however, as I’m not the only one frustrated with his lack of direct action and insistence on obeying the computer. One of the scientists even tries to destroy it, though it doesn’t go well for him. Not about to give up, he tries to attack the Ice Warriors when they arrive, resulting in a swift death. Alas, poor guy-whose-name-I-didn’t-pay-attention-to.
Varga demands the base’s mercury isotopes. One problem. The base doesn’t have mercury isotopes. Varga decides to power down the reactor (and with it, the Ioniser) and take a look for himself. Clent continues to impotently protest, but given that he’s about as much use to Varga as a chocolate teapot, it’s only Varga’s mercy keeping him alive right now. He’d better stop testing him.
As for the Doctor, he’s doing mischief as usual, tampering with the Warriors’ sonic cannon to make it resonate with water more. He assumes (and I’d love to know what made him come to this conclusion) that the Ice Warriors have a higher water content in their bodies. He reckons that it should knock the Warriors out and give the humans a nasty headache.
Or it might kill them.
Penley has his own idea for dealing with the Ice Warriors, turning up the heating to the point that it becomes very uncomfortable for them, and the Doctor risks using the cannon. The Ice Warriors certainly don’t enjoy that. Oddly enough, they remain conscious, while the humans are knocked out.
And yet the aliens still retreat, with the humans entirely at their mercy.
Am I just tired, or does this not make sense?
The Doctor and Victoria hurry back to the base, finding the inhabitants unconscious but otherwise unharmed by the look of it. Meanwhile, Varga and his crew return to their ship.
The scientists start powering the ioniser back up again, but Clent is fearful of using it on what he now knows (thanks to the Doctor) is the alien ship’s ion reactor.
The computer of course tells him not to do it. It’s time for a human to make a decision around here—but Clent isn’t up to the task, nor is his second-in-command, who is even more fanatically devoted to the computer than he is.
If you listen closely, you can hear the writer screaming at you that overreliance on technology is bad.
You might have noticed I haven’t mentioned Victoria in a while. That’s because she simply disappears from the plot after she and the Doctor leave the ship.
With Clent going to pieces, Penley takes over, coolly directing the scientists to increase the Ioniser to full strength. When questioned about the possibility of the Ice Warriors breaking free of the ice, he simply replies that at full power, the Ioniser can melt rock.
Not realising that their number is up, the Ice Warriors frantically try to find a little bit of power for their ship to take off. It looks like they might manage it as their control panels start to light up…and then to their horror they realise that it’s not power that’s making them do that. It’s heat.
A small explosion spares them a terribly drawn-out death by roasting, which would be rather dark for teatime television.
With the scientists very relieved to find that Penley’s risk paid off and that they’re not dead, Clent admits a grudging respect for him. It looks like they might reconcile their differences after all.
Not that the Doctor will be around to see it. In typical fashion, he and Jamie (now back on his own two feet) slink off to the TARDIS while everyone else is distracted, off to the next adventure.
Final Thoughts
So, that was The Ice Warriors! Is it just another ‘base-under-siege’ plot or is it something more? Hmm… yes and no. It certainly has ambitions to be something more.
I’ll start with the Ice Warriors themselves.
They were fine, but there’s nothing about them that I can extrapolate into a philosophical ramble. They’re just quite standard and not especially interesting. As I said, the humans in this are a lot more interesting, particularly Penley and Clent—especially when you put them in a room together. The actors have great chemistry, and I have no doubt the characters have a long and storied past.
As I said, they are just like a divorced couple.
Now, onto something a bit meatier.
It’s ever so subtle, but there’s a recurring theme of overreliance on computers for decision-making being a bad thing. Subtle… as a sonic cannon to the face.
“We trust the computer. It is our strength and our guide.”
You might forget they’re talking about a machine and not a deity.
Technological reliance and religious fanaticism, in this future, seem one and the same. That’s a pretty interesting notion, and I see where the writer is coming from. There’s a definite decline in mainstream religion these days, but that’s not to say that people are turning away from belief itself– quite the opposite, really. They’re just turning to other avenues in their search for an elusive higher power. Who’s to say that one day we won’t make our own?
Ultimately, it’s a Humanist fable. Nothing magically changed to enable the resolution of the plot. The dilemma presented didn’t suddenly offer a simple solution. The humans survived through faith in themselves—not in a Deus Ex Machina.
Whilst reading the Times a couple of months I was surprised to see a mention of my favourite SF periodical turn up.
Source: The Times 28th September 1967
As regular readers of the publication will know they have managed to get a new publisher (Stonehart) and are continuing on with only a single month’s break to reorganize. What interested me most was the third paragraph, that there were some more adventure stories he was writing specifically for the US market. I have not come across The Jade Man yet but The Twilight Man actually is the book form of his The Shores of Death already released.
And I was able to discover that The Jewel in the Skull was coming out in America in December.
Now Moorcock’s adventure stories are a mixed bag. For every Elric there is a Michael Kane. But with such an anti-endorsement from the writer himself, how could I not want to read it?
In one of my favourite kind of settings, post-apocalyptic fantasy, the world has returned to a state of medieval kingdoms fighting each other, with modern technology treated as ancient sorceries people struggle to understand.
This book is primarily set in the Europe of this future, where the dark empire of the Granbretans is attempting to conquer the continent in the name of its King-Emperor. The powerful kingdom of Kamarg remains independent with Count Brass and his fortress of Castle Brass. Baron Meliadus of Kroiden attempts to gain their support for the empire but is thrown out when he attempts to rape the Count’s daughter Yisselda. Swearing an oath by the Runestaff to control the count and seize his daughter for himself he concocts a plan to do so.
In the dungeons of Londra is the rebellious Duke of Köln, Dorian Hawkmoon. He gives Hawkmoon an offer he can’t refuse, granting him his lands back and his freedom if he goes to Castle Brass, kidnaps Yisselda and brings her back to London. As additional motivation, a black jewel is implanted in his skull. This will allow the Granbretans to monitor him at all times and they can also use it to destroy his mind whenever they choose. And so Hawkmoon rides to Castle Brass on this fraught mission.
When I first opened this book I was worried this was going to be another Barbarians of Mars, with some incredibly overwritten descriptions and cod-Shakesperean dialogue. Thankfully, the style soon settles down and we get something much thicker than the Sub-Tolkien fantasy at first suggested. In fact there are some wonderful choices of imagery, a kind of combination of the gothic and the psychedelic.
As you can probably see from the description, this is not a setup where there are any easy heroes. It is also fascinating to see a tale where the British are explicitly setup as “The Dark Empire”, with people regularly suggesting the entire nation has gone insane and our representative of them a manipulative rapist. Instead, our lead character is a German, the inverse of what you will see whenever you go to the cinema.
This is only the first story in a series, so there is a lot left to be told, but, overall, this is an interesting and entertaining fantasy.
Four stars
by Victoria Silverwolf
Synchronicity
As fate would have it, I recently read two new science fiction novels featuring psychiatrists named Paul. In addition to that, both protagonists are involved with women who have a hard time pronouncing that name. Other than this odd coincidence, the books have little in common, except that they both involve people who have traveled a long distance.
The first mental health professional we'll meet is Paul Marlowe. He's a psychiatrist aboard the starship Gloria Mundi. (Given the familiar Latin phrase containing those words, that seems like asking for trouble.)
When the novel opens, he's in prison on an alien world. Two other members of the crew, captured at the same time, are dead. Before all this happened, the nine remaining folks aboard the ill-fated vessel disappeared while exploring the planet. For some reason, the locals have supplied him with a concubine, even in prison. That's the woman who can't pronounce Paul correctly. Her name, by the way, is Mylai Tui.
Meanwhile, Gloria Mundi destroys itself, as it's programmed to do when all the crew is gone for a certain amount of time. Sounds like a design flaw to me, but the idea is to keep it from falling into the hands of hostile aliens.
With no way to return to Earth, Paul Marlowe decides to fit into his new world. He does this by creating a second self, in a way. When acting like one of the locals, he calls himself Poul Mer Lo. This mental exercise allows him to control his emotions when witnessing things like child sacrifice.
(I couldn't help wondering if this was a sly allusion to Poul Anderson, whose first name is famously difficult to pronounce unless you're Scandinavian.)
Paul pretty much accepts Mylai Tui as his wife, although he was already married to one of the missing crew members. The marriage was one of convenience, mostly, although the two were fond of each other. Paul left his true love back on Earth, because he wanted to travel to the stars so badly. Be careful what you wish for!
A parallel to Paul's double identity is found in the local god-king, a young man who often takes on a second persona as a peasant, in order to speak freely with Paul in a way he can't as a divine ruler. Their relationship, in which the god-king is eager to learn Earth ways from Paul, may be the most intriguing part of the book. It also creates some suspense, as the god-king is only allowed to rule for a year, after which he is ritually killed.
The plot really begins when Paul and some local companions make a dangerous journey through enemy territory and deadly jungles to an ice-covered mountain. He makes an extraordinary discovery, learns what happened to the missing crew members, and even finds out why the inhabitants of the planet are very similar to Earthlings but have only four fingers on each hand.
The alien culture is interesting and vividly portrayed. Paul is not a very sympathetic protagonist. He beats Mylai Tui when she struggles to pronounce his name correctly, for one thing. The latter half of the book turns into a quest adventure, which is fine if you like that sort of thing. The revelation at the end of the trek to the mountain strains credibility. Overall, a mixed bag.
Our next psychiatrist is Paul Fidler. He works at a mental hospital. You'll get to know him well, because much of the book consists of his interior monologues. They're set off from the rest of the text in the manner I'll demonstrate in the next paragraph.
–I hope the editor likes this article.
Paul has doubts about his career and his marriage. He also has a habit of imagining the way that things might have gone badly in the past. It's kind of the opposite of the wistful thinking we probably all do. You know, something like If only such-and-such had happened. Besides all this, he hides the fact that he had a nervous breakdown some time ago from everyone, even his wife.
After spending some time with this sad fellow, the plot gets going when a badly injured man staggers into a pub. He claims a naked woman attacked him. Could it be one of the inmates at the hospital?
Nope. Paul soon runs into the woman, a tiny little thing, sort of like the diminutive Sister Bertrille. Don't worry, she doesn't fly.
As I've indicated, she has trouble saying Paul correctly. She speaks an unknown language, but manages to indicate that her name is Arrzheen. That gets distorted into Urchin by the folks at the hospital, which fits her pretty well.
Much of the book deals with Paul's attempt to solve the mystery of Urchin. What was she doing naked in the woods on a cold, rainy night? How did such a small woman, who hardly seems out of her teens, severely injure a much bigger man? (We'll find out later it was self defense.) Why can't expert linguists identify her speech or her written language? Why does she seem baffled by ordinary objects?
A strange form of mental illness, or something else? (Hint: this is a science fiction novel.)
Urchin proves to be extraordinarily intelligent, and she picks up English quickly. Paul's marriage falls apart completely. Through the use of hypnosis, he learns more about Urchin. He tries to help her adjust to the outside world.
Let's just say that things go a little too far. After some misleading hints about Urchin, we find out the truth at the very end. Don't expect a happy ending.
As with the Cooper's novel, the protagonist is not always very likable. What he does at the end may disturb you. The book seems almost like introspective mainstream fiction, with a science fiction premise forced into it. It's more to be admired than loved, I think.
Three stars.
by Gideon Marcus
The fourth book for this Galactoscope turns out to be another kind of fourth book: Emil Petaja has written the fourth (and final?) book in his science fiction translation of the Finnish national epic, The Kalevala. It's an unusual novel in that it stars a villain, of sorts. Let's learn more about the…
Kullervo Kasi is a most unlovely man. Born of the chance interaction between a rent in the universe and a random act of sex, he is half human/half evil energy. Physically, he is a gnome-like character, though not without a strong back. Humans instinctively recoil from him. When we first meet him, he is on one of the thousands of colonies of humanity, the race exiled to the stars after their home world had been exhausted. Kullervo is bullied near to death, from which he escapes by a jump into a chasm to (he believes) his doom.
But Louhi the star witch has other plans. She takes Kullervo under her wing, unlocks the intelligence lying dormant in his genes as the reincarnation of the ancient Kalevalan anti-hero, Kullervo, and sends him to the wasted Earth. His mission: to destroy any remnants of humanity–the Vanhat race–that may yet survive on the ruined world.
This is for whom we should be rooting?
Well, yes. It's hard not to feel sorry for Kullervo. He was born with a handicap; his human tormentors have no such excuse. Once he arrives on Earth, and through cunning, endurance, and not a little (if grudging) selflessness, surmounts obstacle after obstacle, one can't help admiring the guy. In the end, if he is not exactly the hero of the story, he certainly is the catalyst for a great good.
Such an unusual protagonist is refreshing, indeed. Plus, Petaja really can spin a quill, offering a neo-pulp adventure with a mythical base. His depictions of the rusting supercities, the floating junk islands, and the recovering crags of Scandinavia have a rich, Burroughsian flavor. I particularly enjoyed Kullervo's adventures with Billyjo, a renegade coast-dweller. Their run-in with the pirates of the roving islands, and Kullervo's short-term subjugation to Queen Fiammante, reminded me somewhat of my favorite Baum book, John Dough and the Cherub. I also found interesting the implication that Kullervo, hideous as he was, had a strange appeal to women–both Fiammante and Louhi make him their lover, and the people who treat Kullervo poorly are invariably men.
Tramontane is not a great book: for one thing, it's not science fiction, but space opera. It's also not consistently written: the middle third is excellent, but the last third lags a touch and is quite literally a deus ex machina situation. Still, it is a thoroughly enjoyable book, and it stands well enough alone (I haven't read any of the other books in the series: Saga of Lost Earths, The Star Mill, or The Stolen Sun.)
Three and a half stars.
(Note: Tramontane comprises one half of Ace Double H-36; the other half is Moorcock's The Wrecks of Time, previously reviewed by Mark Yon. The Ace version has apparently been butchered to fit the format, the greatest casualties being the naughty bits.)
by Cora Buhlert
Sex in the Real World
The most shocking film of the year is currently playing in West German cinemas. It's called Helga – Vom Werden des menschlichen Lebens (Helga – About the Development of Human Life) and has caused scores of cinema goers to faint.
But what exactly is so shocking about Helga? Well, Helga is a movie about – gasp – sex. The plot is simple. An interviewer asks pedestrians in the street about sex education and birth control. Next we meet the protagonist: Helga (newcomer Ruth Gassmann), a naïve young woman pregnant with her first child. Like many women, Helga knows very little about her body and what is happening inside her womb. Luckily, a kindly gynecologist explains the mechanics of conception and pregnancy to Helga and the viewer. The movie then follows Helga through her pregnancy and also documents the birth of her child. It's this birth scene – shot in full, gory detail – that makes particularly male viewers faint in the cinema… and hopefully think twice before impregnating a woman.
In spite of the frank scenes, Helga is not pornography, but an educational film intended to teach West Germans about human sexuality. Shot in a pseudo-documentary style and interspersed with animations showing the human reproductive system, Helga does what parents and schools all too often fail to do, namely teach young and not so young people about their bodies. The film was produced by West German Secretary of Health Käte Strobe, a sixty-year-old lady from Bavaria and unlikely champion of sex education.
West German Secretary of Health and champion of sex education Käte Strobel
But don't take my word for it. Because American International has purchased the distribution rights for Helga, so you can soon see it in a theatre near you.
I wasn't enamoured with John Norman's debut novel Tarnsman of Gor and didn't plan on reading the sequel. However, December 6 is St. Nicholas Day and since St. Nick was kindly enough to put a copy of Outlaw of Gor into my stocking, I of course felt obliged to read and review it.
When I reviewed Tarnsman of Gor earlier this year, I noted that John Norman was obviously inspired by the Barsoom novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. This influence is even more marked in Outlaw of Gor, for while Tarnsman opened with protagonist and first person narrator Tarl Cabot, Outlaw uses a Burroughs type framing device and opens with the statement of an attorney named Harrison Smith, who describes at great length his relationship with Cabot, Cabot's physical appearance, his mysterious disappearance and reappearance.
Years later, Cabot and Smith rekindle their acquaintance. Eventually Cabot hands Smith the manuscript for Tarnsman of Gor and vanishes again. Smith publishes the manuscript, as the law of framing devices demands, as well as the sequel, which he finds waiting for him on his coffee table.
It is helpful to briefly recapitulate the previous book in an ongoing series for the reader, but the statement of Harrison Smith goes on for pages upon pages. Nor does the novel need a framing device, because this is 1967, not 1912, and readers are accustomed to fantastic adventures in alien worlds by now.
A Gorean Travelogue
The story proper finally starts with Tarl Cabot giving us an extended description of the Gorean scenery, customs, flora and fauna. One of my complaints about Tarnsman was that the opening third of the novel was a dull and interminable lump of information, because Norman was an inexperienced writer uncertain how to present information about his world to the reader. I had hoped that Norman's writing skills would have improved by his second book. Sadly, they have not.
After a trek through the wilderness, Tarl Cabot finds his hometown Ko-Ro-Ba destroyed by the Priest-Kings and its people, including Cabot's father and his mate Talena, scattered to the four winds. Cabot himself is now an outlaw and decides to avenge himself on the Priest-Kings. Again, the parallels to Burroughs are notable, because John Carter also found himself separated from his hometown and wife upon his return to Barsoom and forced to deal with overbearing godlike beings in The Gods of Mars back in 1913. Indeed, many things in Tarnsman and Outlaw of Gor only happen to Tarl Cabot because they happened to John Carter first.
Before meeting the Priest-Kings, Cabot pays a visit to the city of Tharna, which is remarkable for two reasons. One, all Goreans, regardless of their origin, are welcome in Tharna. Two, Tharna is ruled by a woman and – unlike the rest of Gor – women are revered in Tharna and not treated as slaves or possessions.
It's a Women's City… or is it?
The position of women and the institution of slavery on Gor played an important role in Tarnsman and crops up again in Outlaw. And indeed, the descriptions of Gorean slave girls seem to be what attracts many readers to these books. As a modern man of the Sixties, Tarl Cabot abhors slavery and the oppression of women in general, though it is not clear, if the author shares these views, since the narrative repeatedly notes that the slave girls are happy with their lot after initial resistance and that the free women of Gor, who are kept locked up and only venture outdoors in heavy veils, comparable to practices in many Muslim countries, which are thankfully modernising, secretly envy the slave girls their relative freedom. These aspects make the Gor books more disturbing than a simple Burroughs pastiche should be.
Compared to other Gorean cities, Tharna is described as a grey and depressing place full of grey and depressed men. Apparently, treating women like human beings tends to make cities grey and men depressed. In general, Cabot seems inordinately concerned with cities and their appearance, at one point comparing the run-down New York City unfavourably to Gorean cities. I wonder if Cabot (and his creator) blames women for the sorry state of New York City, too.
Revenge of the Masked Lesbians
Cabot has only been in Tharna for a few hours, when he is approached with an offer to kidnap the Tatrix Lara, the city's ruler. He refuses, finds himself framed for a crime and condemned to die in the arena for the amusement of the Tatrix and the haughty masked women of Tharna. Cabot also learns the reason why Tharna is uncommonly hospitable towards strangers – because they are enslaved to labour in the fields or mines. What is more, men are viewed as little more than animals in Tharna and the women are forbidden from loving men, though encouraged to love each other.
Cabot manages to escape with the help of his tarn, the giant bird creatures warriors of Gor ride into battle. However, rather than continuing his journey to see the Priest-Kings, Cabot instead decides to liberate Tharna from the haughty masked lesbians. Needless to say he succeeds and decrees that what the masked lesbians of Tharna need is a man and some good old fashioned Gorean slavery to teach them how to love. Reader, I puked.
Honestly, just read Burroughs
Tarnsman of Gor was mildly spicy Burroughs pastiche. But while John Norman's fascination with slavery, whips, hoods and shackles was already evident, I did not sense anything prurient or anti-feminist in Tarnsman.
Outlaw, however, is another matter. Particularly the second half of the novel and its anti-feminist conclusion gave me the same creepy crawly feeling that Piers Anthony's Chthon did. Worse, since Cabot has neither found the Priest-Kings nor his true love Talena by the end, I fear there will be at least one more Gor book. However, I will not read it.
If you like swashbuckling adventures on alien worlds, Edgar Rice Burroughs' entire catalogue is back in print and the excellent planetary adventures of Leigh Brackett are easy enough to find as well. If you like the spicier aspects, there is plenty of sleaze to be found in the paperback spinner racks, some of it – so I am reliably informed – written by genre stalwarts such as Robert Silverberg and Harlan Ellison under pseudonyms.
However, don't bother with Outlaw of Gor or its predecessor.
One star.
St.Nicholas and his helper Knecht Ruprecht deliver treats and presents to kids in Bremen's historical Schnnor neighbourhood
There's a new novel out by Ted White, the longtime assistant editor for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Despite its goofy title, the new Secret of the Marauder Satellite is a wonderful quick read with some clever turns of phrase and interesting insights into its lead character.
Our lead is a young man named Paul Williams, recently graduated from "space cadet" school (as he half-dismissedly calls it) and ready for his first major assignment, aboard a satellite orbiting the Earth which also works as a staging site for mankind's further trips through the Solar System.
As you might imagine from a book like this, Paul is a bit of a prodigy in a space suit. He receives a plum assignment, as a roving salvage man assigned to pick up space junk and haul it back to the station for recycling. With resources short on the station, such a job is extremely useful and important. But during his second mission in that role, Paul makes a fateful and surprising discovery which indicates mankind might not have been the first race to orbit Earth's moon.
White separates his prose from his peers with its vividness of description and clever ways he brings common events to life. For instance, he explains why rocket launches require countdowns in the kind of matter-of-fact detail that had me nodding my head, and his explanation of gravitational inertia is as elegant as it is concise.
Mr. White
But the element that really elevates this book is the way White explains Paul's inner life. We learn early on that Paul is an introvert and has trouble talking with people. But White takes pains to show readers Paul's vast intelligence and his completely broken childhood, with Paul's arrogant unfeeling parents seldom giving their small child more than a smidge of attention as they slept and drank their ways through their hedonistic lives. With this background, it becomes clear why Paul was motivated to be a high achieving astronaut, but it also explains why he had trouble with peers and with members of the opposite sex.
Secret of the Marauder Satellitepacks a lot into its short length, and every word was necessary. This book teases at the potential for Ted White to deliver a masterpiece, but its brief length does work against the story. The story moves at a breakneck speed but that rapid pace doesn't quite give the reader enough time to consider all the impacts of its events. Ignore the goofy title and spend an enjoyable couple of hours with Paul White.
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He who smelt it dealt it.
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