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[December 6, 1965] Are You Sitting Comfortably? Then I'll Begin (Doctor Who: The Daleks’ Master Plan [Part 1])

December 6, 2020 Jessica Holmes 2 Comments

By Jessica Holmes

Buckle up, everyone. We’re about to start the longest serial of Doctor Who yet. I hope you’ve got a comfy chair and a pot of tea.

THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS

Poor Steven isn’t feeling too well since his run in with the sharp end of a poisoned sword, so the Doctor leaves him in the care of Katarina while he goes to search for an antitoxin.

Wait, no, apparently we’re not following that, we’re following two blokes called Bret and Kert, who are sitting in a rainforest and trying to contact their superiors.

Nope, no, we’re actually watching a couple of nameless bald men doing… something or other. To be more accurate, we’re watching a couple of people watching the bald men and having a nice chat rather than paying attention to the call coming in. It seems that the men we just saw were from the Space Security Service that those men were from in that one-off episode a few weeks ago, come to search for their long-dead comrades.

The fate of the universe can wait though, because the people in the control room are busy watching a television interview with a man with very silly eyebrows. This is Mavic Chen, and he’ll be important later. From the name and the lousy makeup, I think he’s meant to be Chinese. The makeup’s distracting and more importantly, racist. There’s no excuse for this sort of thing, common as it may be. At least they had the good sense not to give him a ridiculous fake accent.

Chen’s banging on about how the solar system has enjoyed tranquility in recent years, promising that they can look forward to an everlasting period of peace and prosperity that will spread throughout the universe and it’ll be sunshine, lollipops, rainbows, et cetera. Laying on the dramatic irony pretty thick, aren’t we?

In the jungles of the planet Kembel, the two men begin to fear that something’s following them. I will give you three guesses what that something could possibly be.

Surprise! It’s a Dalek.

Injured, Kert tells Bret to go on without him, and he bravely goes to face the Daleks — who promptly shoot him dead.

Bret flees through the forest, tripping over his own feet and dropping the transmitter, breaking it. Well, it’s not very well made if it broke that easily. He should get his money back. He’s on the brink of despair when the TARDIS materialises close by.

The Doctor and Katarina emerge, and the Doctor sends Katarina back inside to look after Steven while he searches for some antitoxin. Finding the door locked, Bret follows after the Doctor, and orders him at gunpoint to hand over the key.

Inside the TARDIS, Katarina tends to Steven, still under the impression that she’s dead and travelling through the underworld. Bret enters the TARDIS, and Katarina, bless her, thinks he’s come to help, and he tricks her into locking the Doctor out of the TARDIS.

However, he doesn’t get away with it for long, because like an absolute numpty he left the key in the door and didn’t pay enough attention to Steven, who whacks him over the back of the head when he’s not looking.

Bret doesn’t strike me as one of the SSS’ best operatives. James Bond, he is not.

As the Doctor lets himself back into the TARDIS, a spaceship passes overhead, and at the Dalek base the Daleks prepare to receive guests.

The Doctor restrains Bret in the TARDIS with a ‘magic chair’ (magnetic), but the cross-examination will have to wait, because he still needs to look for the city he spotted in his earlier foray into the forest. He narrowly misses a Varga plant as he explores and soon comes upon the skeletal remains of Corey, his tape recording lying just a few feet away from him.

He collects the tape and proceeds to the city, where he realises to his horror who the occupants are.

Back in the TARDIS, Bret inquires as to what’s wrong with Steven. When Katarina explains he has poison in his blood, Bret actually makes himself useful and offers her the use of some tablets he has to hand. Katarina decides to trust him and gives Steven the medicine. Let’s just hope it doesn’t backfire.

As the Daleks greet their guest and newest ally, Mavic Chen, the Doctor hurries back to his ship, only to find the door open and a gang of Daleks surrounding the box.

Uh-oh.

DAY OF ARMAGEDDON

Hiding in the bushes, the Doctor watches from a distance as the Daleks examine his ship. They speak of something called Operation Inferno, which will require them to retreat to a safe distance.

Meanwhile, Mavic Chen makes a friend. Say hello to Zephon, the master of the Fifth Galaxy.

Zephon expresses surprise that Chen, being from our solar system (Why is our solar system THE Solar System? Surely any system with a star and things orbiting that star is a solar system, isn’t it? Why do we qualify for the definite article?) is allying himself with the Daleks. Well, being in charge of one star system is nice enough, but Chen has greater ambitions.

The Daleks are all too aware of Chen’s ambitions, which is why they’re planning to exterminate him and all their other accomplices when they’ve outlived their usefulness. That sounds very in-character for them, but I don't know how pragmatic it would be, considering that the galaxies the leaders represent would likely consider the Daleks' actions to be an act of war and retaliate in kind.

Stephen wakes up in the forest feeling very confused, but looking a tad healthier. The tablets seem to have worked. He has Bret and Katarina to thank. When the Daleks came, Bret convinced Katarina to release him so that they could all escape. The Doctor finds the group, and Katarina fills him in on what happened while Bret spies on the Daleks, who have flamethrowers now.

The Doctor and Katarina help Steven limp back towards the TARDIS before the flames reach them (wait, I thought it was his shoulder that was hurt, not his leg?), but Bret points out that it’s probably a trap. I suppose they’ll have to just stay put and roast then.

Stephen and the Doctor start bickering over what to do until Bret interrupts and tells them essentially to shut up, leaving the Doctor speechless for once in his life. He recovers quickly.

The Daleks get to work burning the forest. I obviously need more sleep because for a moment I thought they were toasting marshmallows on the fire. In my defence, the Dalek flamethrowers are shaped just like a marshmallow on a stick.

The fire slowly catches up to the gang as the Doctor and Bret have another bickering match, and the Doctor finally comes up with a third option: hide in the Dalek city. It’s the last place they’ll expect!

Chen has a chat with Zephon before the gathering of PT Barnum’s freakshow rejects comes to order, with Zephon waiting outside a while, for plot convenience’s sake I presume.

The Doctor and company arrive at the Dalek city and admire the pretty shiny spaceships, at least until Bret recognises Mavic Chen’s. He's deeply troubled, but the others see their getaway vehicle: they decide to steal it.

Along comes Zephon, and they run for cover. Come to think of it, I suspect that he might walk like that because the chap in the costume can’t actually see where he’s going. Bret subdues him, and the Doctor steals his clothes so that he can disguise himself and sneak into the meeting. I’m in awe at the sheer audacity of the plan. He gives Bret the tape for safekeeping before he goes, and even Bret, who doesn’t particularly get along with the Doctor, is impressed with his courage.

While the others go to steal the ship, the Doctor arrives fashionably late to the meeting. He learns that the Daleks have almost completed something called a Time Destructor, which needs only a core and it’ll be ready to use. Mavic Chen smugly presents the core, an emm of pure Taranium, the rarest substance in the universe.

Outside, Zephon wakes up and begins to struggle against his restraints as the others barge onto Chen’s ship and start tying up the crew.

All seems to be going well, until Zephon manages to set off an alarm. It might be a blessing in disguise however, as in all the pandemonium the Doctor is able to swipe the Taranium core from under Mavic Chen’s nose.

He’ll have to hurry, though. Bret’s about to take off– and he’s not planning to wait for stragglers.

DEVIL’S PLANET

The Doctor shows up in the nick of time, and off they go, fleeing the Daleks. The Daleks don’t fail to notice them going, but refrain from blowing the ship out of the sky. They’ve realised that the Taranium core is missing, and they need to get it back.

Chen’s all too happy to throw Zephon under the bus for the loss of the core. Sure, it was Chen who went and left it unattended on the table, but the Daleks see fit to blame Zephon, as it was his lateness to the meeting that allowed the Doctor to infiltrate it and steal the core. The Daleks find him guilty of negligence, and execute him for his failure.

Born diplomats, the Daleks are. Really this should start a war but apparently Zephon's galaxy won't mind their leader being murdered.

On the ship, the Doctor’s coming to like having Katarina around. She learns by watching and listening, sparing him from constant questions. He’s eager to teach her though, and I find his enthusiasm endearing.

They finally get around to playing the tape, which doesn’t really tell them anything new but will come in handy when urging Earth to take action, and the Doctor proclaims that “The Daleks will stop at anything to prevent us!”

Well, if that’s the case, all you have to do is mildly inconvenience them and they’ll leave you alone. I’m well used to Hartnell’s line flubs by now, but that one did amuse me.

The Daleks make their move as the ship passes by a prison planet, Desperus, an entire world used for dumping convicts. Basically, it’s Space Australia. Sorry, Kaye. I couldn’t resist.

Then the Daleks force the ship to land on Desperus, where a gang of convicts soon learn of the ship’s arrival and begin plotting to take it for themselves.

As the rest of the crew work on getting the ship up and running again, Katarina spots lights in the distance. It’s the three convicts, Kirksen, Garge and Lars, approaching. Kirksen ends up being waylaid by an aggressive bird, and the other two carry on without him.

In preparation for their arrival, the Doctor drops a cable from the ship into the murky swampwater beneath the entrance, and Katarina activates the current as Garge and Lars attempt to approach. There’s a flash of light and both men scream, then drop down unconscious.

It’s not long before the ship’s ready for takeoff once more, and Bret notices that the outer door is open for some reason, but it’s probably nothing to worry about. The crew leave Desperus as the Daleks crash-land, and it looks like everything’s going brilliantly for about five seconds.

Then Kirsken pops out of the airlock, grabs Katarina, and all hell breaks loose.

THE TRAITORS

Holding Katarina hostage, Kirksen demands to be taken to Kembel. It wouldn't be my first choice for a hideaway, that's for sure. I don't do well with humidity or screaming Nazi space monsters with cooking and plumbing tools for arms.

Back on Kembel, the Daleks receive a message from the pursuit fleet, saying they’re ready to continue the mission. The Daleks kindly take the burden off their plungers and tell Chen to go instead, having worked out that the fugitives are heading for Earth. With that settled, the Daleks treat the pursuit ship with patience and understanding, inviting them to return to Kembel.

Of course, the moment they break communications, they order the ship blown up as punishment for failing the mission. I think a lot of us have had bosses like that.

Back on the stolen ship, Bret obviously isn’t about to turn and fly back the way he came. He tries to catch Kirksen off guard with a sudden change of direction, but it doesn’t work, causing Kirksen to retreat into the airlock, dragging Katarina with him. They could open the exterior doors and rid themselves of him, but that would kill Katarina too. However, he’s not coming out until they agree to take him to Kembel. The longer they take to make a decision, the longer Katarina’s in danger from him. He’ll kill her if they don’t change course.

The Doctor finally cracks and orders Bret to do as Kirksen says, with Stephen backing him up. However, there’s one person whose opinion nobody asked, and she’s taking matters into her own hands.

Katarina manages to get one arm free of Kirksen’s grip, reaching desperately for something on the wall. By the time the others realise what she’s about to do, it’s too late. The airlock blows open, sucking both Kirksen and Katarina into the vacuum of space.

At last, a moment of silence as everyone processes what just happened. Stephen isn’t sure that Katarina did it on purpose, but the Doctor gives her more credit than that, and I happen to agree with him.

“She didn't understand. She couldn't understand. She wanted to save our lives and perhaps the lives of all the other beings of the Solar System. I hope she's found her Perfection. Oh, how I shall always remember her as one of the Daughters of the Gods. Yes, as one of the Daughters of the Gods."

Excuse me, I have a little something in my eye. Does this count as the first death of a companion? She wasn’t around for very long, but do you need to be to count as a Companion? To me, if you’ve travelled in his TARDIS by the Doctor's consent, you’re a companion, even if you were only around for a handful of episodes. It’s a proper punch to the gut. We always assume, don’t we, that whatever happens the Doctor and his closest friends will always make it out alive. Here is a stark reminder that travelling with the Doctor is not safe. A single lapse in judgement can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

It’s a bit of a pity, because I thought Katarina still had a lot of potential. I suppose that makes it even sadder in a way. The Doctor was so keen to show her the wonders of the cosmos, and now she’ll never get to see them.

And just to rub it in, there’s a shot of the poor girl’s lifeless body drifting away through the void. I hope it was at least quick.

Let’s check in with the baddies. With the threat of the ultimate punishment for failure hanging over his head, Chen meets with his subordinate Lizan, and Karlton, the head of the Space Security Service. He tells them to recall all available agents to Earth so that they can catch Earth’s greatest traitor: Bret Vyon.

It turns out that Karlton is in on the plot with Chen to sell Earth out to the Daleks. Chen will be at the Daleks’ right hand, and Karlton will be at Chen’s, if all goes according to plan. Karlton puts one of his best agents on the job, Sara Kingdom. The actress might look familiar to you if you also watched The Crusade earlier this year.

The Doctor and company make a bumpy landing at the ‘Experimental Station’, and Bret cautiously leads the group inside, where he hopes to meet with someone he can trust with the information.

Chen briefs Kingdom on her mission, conveniently leaving out the bit about the Daleks. She’s apparently unwaveringly loyal, but there’s no sense in risking it.

Bret fills his ally Daxtar in on the things they’ve learned, and it seems that Daxtar is eager to help. However, when Daxtar asks about the whereabouts of the Taranium, the Doctor realises he’s not to be trusted. Why? Because they never mentioned that the core is made of Taranium. Bret turns on his ally, and shoots him dead before the Doctor has a chance to find out who else might be in on the conspiracy, prompting the hero’s anger.

Moments later, Kingdom shows up. It would seem that she and Bret know one another. For a moment, Bret is pleased to see her, hoping that she might be on their side. All hopes are dashed when she demands the Taranium. I don’t think Bret is a very good judge of character.

Bret struggles with Kingdom, buying the others enough time to get out, but leaving him alone with a woman even more trigger happy than he is. He barely gets his hand an inch towards his gun before Kingdom fires on him, killing him instantly.

We’re racking up quite a body count of major characters, aren’t we? I don’t know that I’d call Bret a companion, as he only appears in this one serial, unlike Katarina who was introduced at the end of the previous serial. Additionally, he never actually travels in the TARDIS. He tries, but just ends up tied to a chair, which doesn’t count. I had quite liked having him around, though. It might have been interesting to see how his character might have developed.

With Bret dead and the Doctor and Steven on the run, Kingdom orders her subordinates to secure all the exits. The fugitives must be killed on sight.

Final Thoughts

This would be a much better start to the serial if it didn’t take so long to get to the point. This serial could have benefited from a more ruthless editor: I often noticed scenes that would have benefited from being trimmed down, and a fair amount of characters telling one another things that the audience already knows.

How will it turn out? Will the story unfold into a grand epic, or a bloated mess? We’ll have to wait and see. I just know that, with eight episodes more for me to write about, I’m going to need to drink my body weight in coffee.

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Serial

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

November 30, 2020 Gideon Marcus 10 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

The Thrill of Combat

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

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

One War after Another

by Kelly Freas

Beehive (Part 1 of 2), by Mack Reynolds

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

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

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

by Kelly Freas

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

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

Warrior, by Gordon R. Dickson

by Kelly Freas

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

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

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

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

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

Three stars.

Heavy Elements , by Edward C. Walterscheid

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

Three stars.

Mission "Red Clash", by Joe Poyer

by Gray Morrow

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

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

Two stars.

Countercommandment, by Patrick Meadows

by Domenic Iaia

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

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

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

One star.

One Million Deaths is a Statistic

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

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

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

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

You won't want to miss it!

And speaking of stars…

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

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

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Magazine

[November 20, 1965] A fine cup of coffee (December 1965 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

November 20, 2020 Gideon Marcus 5 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

The Peak of Flavor

I mentioned in my review of last month's issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction that that venerable veteran of the genre had finally returned to form under the guidance of editor Joe Ferman. I'm happy to announce that this doesn't seem to be a fluke. Indeed, reading the current issue was such a delight that it proved difficult to confine myself to just one story a day.

Yet that's what I did, in large part because each story was strong enough to leave a lasting impression, and like with of a good cup of coffee, sometimes you want to savor the flavor after each sip.

So come along with me on a tour of the December 1965 Fantasy and Science Fiction, at the end of which, I suspect you'll do your best Tony Randall impression of a DJ, smack your lips, and exclaim, "That's good coffee."

An Overflowing Cup

by Bert Tanner (illustrating Jack Vance's The Overworld)

Breakthrough Gang, by Gordon R. Dickson

Breakthrough Gangship Four, crewed by a small clutch of psionic women and men, is Earth's hole card in an interstellar war against the rapacious Kinsu. If they can stall the retreat of the alien armada long enough for the bulk of the Terran fleet to arrive, the haughty race will have to recognize human superiority and call off the struggle.

But on the eve of activating their ship's secret weapon, tactitian Dave Larson hesitates, certain that though they may win the battle, doing so spells doom for the human race. Worse yet, this catastrophe seems to have been ordained from an event preceding contact with the Kinsu, perhaps even from a point in human prehistory!

And this inevitability has nothing to do with the Kinsu or human races, but chessmasters far older than either…

There are some parallels between this story and Bova's Stars, won't you hide me? in the January 1966 Worlds of Tomorrow, though not in a more than coincidental way. If you read them side by side, you'll understand what I mean.

I wavered between awarding three and four stars to this piece, ultimately settling on three. There's a lot of neat concepts in here, and the story makes you think, but the middle third is repetitive and the last third a bit too dependent on "as you know" exposition.

In coffee terms, the aroma is pleasant if unsubtle. But in the end, the value's in the drinking. Let's dive in for our first sip, shall we?

by Gahan Wilson

O'Grady's Girl, by Leo P. Kelley

At the sunset of her life, an old teacher and her pupil meet Mr. Death and his retinue — and it's most unlike any characterization of the Grim Reaper I've ever seen.

A quintessentially F&SF-ian tale, it's delicious and full-bodied, just lovely. Five stars.

The Convenient Monster, by Leslie Charteris

Stories of The Saint don't often veer into the realm of the supernatural. This one starts with a sheep and dog that seem to have been prey for the Loch Ness Monster, and Charteris builds it slowly and inexorably to a murder plot that may or may not involve Old Nessie.

Come for the Scottish scenery, stay for the striking denouement. This java's got bite.

Four stars.

The Firmin Child, by Richard H. Blum

In this first story ever produced by the author's pen, an unhappy and somewhat dysfunctional couple right out of the 1958 sleeper, No Down Payment, find themselves not up to the task of raising a precocious but increasingly erratic, child. At first, it seems the boy may be a high functioning autist, but we come to realize that his strange behaviors, almost a channeling of other's emotions, derive from something more bizarre.

Some blends of coffee have a bitter undertone. I give Blum four stars for creating a vivid work, but I can't say I enjoyed the aftertaste…

Water, Water, Everywhere, by Isaac Asimov

What's bigger: The Dead Sea or The Great Salt Lake? Is the Caspian Sea really a sea? How many oceans are there in the world? These and dozens of other hydrographical brain teasers come free in your latest issue of F&SF, courtesy of Dr. Isaac Asimov!

I kid, but geography's a science, too, and one of my favorites. Four stars.

Minor Alteration, by John Thomas Richards

Walter Bird is plagued by nightly dreams in which he is John Wilkes Booth, and each day/night brings him 24 hours closer to his date with history at the Ford Theater. Can he prevent tragedy? Should he?

Richards' tale apparently sat in a drawyer at F&SF HQ for several years before finally being printed. It doesn't cover much new ground, and the alternate universe it explores is rather implausible. I can see why the piece languished.

Still, even if it's the weakest tea…er….coffee in the cup, it's not bad. Three stars.

The Overworld, by Jack Vance

And now we come to the very last swallow. Will it satisfy or leave us wanting?

Worry not. One can always count on Jack Vance for an unusual and interesting tale, and he doesn't disappoint now. Instead, he offers up the first of the tales of Cugel the Clever, a (literally) lowbrow peddler of fake charms in a magical world. Cugel is reduced to thievery when his wares don't sell, but he is quickly caught in the act by the powerful Ioucunu the Laughing Magician. Thenceforth, he is dispatched on a mission for the angered mage, to find a particular violet lens in the far land of Cutz.

If Fritz Leiber's and Robert Howard's creations had mated, this new world of Vance's might have been the result. Delightfully overwrought but always readable, I look forward to the promised next four stories in the series.

Four stars.

Good to the Last Drop

Do we really have a four star mug of F&SF steaming before us? I do believe so! It's been a long time since Mercury Press' science fiction mag delighted me so, but I can't say I'm sorry it happened.

So why don't you cap off your science fiction buffet this month with a delicious helping of F&SF? Smooth, rich, goes down easy. Good to the last drop.

The holidays are coming! Looking for the perfect gift for a niece, nephew, or other young relative? Kitra is the hopeful, found family novel that they've been waiting for. Buy a copy for them today…and perhaps one for yourself!

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 16, 1965] Crime and Punishment (January 1966 Worlds of Tomorrow)

November 16, 2020 Victoria Silverwolf 6 Comments

by Victoria Silverwolf

Breaking The Law On Stage

An incident in the United Kingdom earlier this month caught my attention and made me think about the limitations on artistic expression. The play Saved by Edward Bond had its premiere on November 3rd at the Royal Court Theatre in London. What does this have to do with violations of the law? Well, that requires a bit of explanation, particularly for those of us on this side of the Atlantic.

You see, ever since 1843, all plays produced for the public in England have to be licensed by the Lord Chamberlain. (Please don't ask me to explain what a Lord Chamberlain might be. That's far beyond my feeble American mind.)

The current Lord Chamberlain refused to grant a license to Saved unless it were severely censored. The folks at the Royal Court Theatre put it on anyway, trying to get around the letter of the law by calling it a private performance. From what I hear, they're going to get in trouble with the authorities anyway.

A scene from the play, in which a baby is stoned to death. You can see why this might be considered controversial.

Justice Between The Pages

Fittingly, many of the stories, and even a nonfiction article, in the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow deal with criminals and crimefighters, in literal or in metaphorical ways.

Cover art by Mclane. Once again, the only thing I can find out about this artist is a last name.

Project Plowshare (Part Two of Two), by Philip K. Dick

Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

It takes a while for the crime aspect of this novel to show up. Meanwhile, let's recap a bit.

In the future, the Cold War has evolved into a purely symbolic struggle. Each side has a psychic who uses drugs to perceive visions of designs for weapons. The trick is that these things are really used to manufacture odd consumer items. The ruling government, capitalist or communist, fools the public into thinking it's winning the arms race. When threatening alien spacecraft show up, the two powers bring the psychics together, hoping that they will be able to come up with a real weapon.

The invaders, who never directly appear in the story.

Things get pretty darn complicated in the second half of the novel. We find out quickly that the weapon designs perceived by the psychics come from a trashy comic book, which doesn't offer much hope for victory against the aliens. They're a serious menace, as we learn when entire cities disappear behind obscuring mists. Meanwhile, romance blooms between the two psychics, leading to a classic example of the Eternal Triangle.

Jealousy rears its green-eyed head.

Add in androids and time travel, and you've got a convoluted plot that leaves the reader dizzy. Oh, and the criminal subplot I hinted at above? That comes in the form of a nasty fellow who, for his own petty reasons, plots to assassinate members of the government who rejected him. He even kills folks who were foolish enough to join his conspiracy.

A man and his gun.

The author tosses everything but the kitchen sink into this yarn. At times, I thought he was making fun of science fiction, given the large number of mixed-up SF elements. There's definitely a touch of satire here and there, but it's not a comic novel. Some parts, in fact, are tragic. It definitely held my interest throughout, even if the climax seems to be thrown together hastily.

Four stars.

The Sleuth in Science Fiction, by Sam Moskowitz

The indefatigable historian of fantastic fiction traces the development of detective stories in the field. Starting with a nod to Edgar Allan Poe, he delves into the dusty pages of very early pulp magazines. Much of the stuff he digs up has to do with lie detection technology. This article takes the reader up to about 1930, and a sequel is promised.

Moskowitz certainly has an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject. I can admire his scholarship, but the resulting essay makes for very dry reading.

Two stars.

Sunk Without Trace, by Fritz Leiber

The weird creatures on the cover of the magazine appear in this story. One of them has a dream about an object that landed on their world, while his more practical wife insists that he get back to processing the seaweed that serves as their food. It's clear from the start that the thing is a spacecraft from Earth — the editor's blurb gives it away, too — but the rest of the plot may be a bit more surprising.

There's not much to this work other than the premise and the setting, but those are intriguing enough to make it worth a look. Of course, Leiber is incapable of writing a bad sentence, so the style adds a lot. Overall, it's a decent effort from an author who often does much better.

Three stars.

At Journey's End, by J. T. McIntosh

Illustrations by Dan Adkins.

We jump right into a confrontation between criminals and law enforcement, in a particularly crude form, near the beginning of this story of a starship on its way to a new home for humanity.

After decades of travel, it seems that tensions among the crew have reached the boiling point. A couple of murders result, and the captain acts as judge, jury, and executioner, killing those guilty on the spot. Without giving too much away, let's just say that justice is truly blind here, playing no favorites at all.

After this grim opening, we watch the ship approach the planet. They have a big surprise waiting for them when they arrive. It all leads up to a darkly ironic ending.

Our three protagonists, awaiting their fate.

At first glance, I thought the first part didn't have much to do with the resolution. After musing over it for a while, however, I realize that the author intended the two scenes to provide a sort of thematic contrast. Some of what happens may be predictable. Taken as a whole, this is a serviceable, if undistinguished, story.

Three stars.

Stars, Won't You Hide Me?, by Ben Bova

In this case, the criminal is the human race as a whole, and the punishment comes from aliens determined to wipe out the entire species. When the story begins, in fact, there is only one human being left alive, alone in his automated spaceship, wandering through the cosmos in an attempt to escape judgment.

During his eons-long journey, which leads him across gigantic distances in space, he learns of humanity's crime and discovers what became of Earth. The climax leads to a final scene of almost unimaginable immensity.

The most notable thing about this story is the vastness of the author's vision. I don't think I've read anything that covers such enormous amounts of time, except maybe the works of Olaf Stapledon. In addition to that, there's a great deal of emotional appeal. If you think Bova is just a decent science writer, you may be surprised.

Five stars.

How To Understand Aliens, by Robert M. W. Dixon

Let's get away from criminology for a while and talk about linguistics. The author imagines the difficulty of communicating with the inhabitants of other worlds. As examples, he creates beings who spend most of their time burrowing underground, as well as aliens who fly. The point seems to be that culture has an important effect on language, and it's not just a matter of translating things word-for-word.

Dixon seems to know his stuff, as evidenced by his discussion of human languages unfamiliar to most speakers of English. The fictional aliens make the article more readable than just a dry discussion of the topic.

Three stars.

Buggaratz, by John Jakes

The military has its own system of justice, dealing with such crimes as lack of discipline. That's a problem for the commander of a small outfit on another planet. The only function of the unit is to produce inflatable uniforms as toys. Given this dull and trivial chore, it's not a shock to find out that things have gotten awfully lax around the place.

A visit from an inspecting officer threatens to expose how badly the situation has gotten out of hand. The presence of the habit-forming substance named in the title doesn't help matters.

This is a pretty silly comedy, with maybe a trace of satire directed at military thinking. It's an inoffensive bit of fluff, unlikely to make much of an impression on you.

Two stars.

Riverworld, by Philip Jose Farmer

Illustrations by Jack Gaughan.

As you may recall, one year ago the magazine offered Farmer's novella Day of the Great Shout, wherein everybody who ever lived on Earth was resurrected on a planet dominated by one huge river. This new tale takes place in the same setting.

The hero is cowboy movie star Tom Mix. Along with a woman who lived during the time of Moses, and a man who died nearly two thousand years ago, he sails down the river, escaping a brutal religious dictatorship. The trio join forces with some friendly folks from the Renaissance, and war breaks out with the bad guys.

A battle along the river.

There's lots of violent action, to be sure, but that's not really the most important part of the story. The author deals with religion in ways that may seem blasphemous to many readers.

The identity of the fellow traveling with Tom Mix is clear from the start, but I won't reveal it here. Suffice to say that this is likely to be the most controversial part of the story. The fact that the two men look almost exactly alike raises a lot of questions in my mind, which seem likely to remain unanswered.

Farmer has his hands on a strong premise here, with lots of possibilities. (Another story in the series is promised for the next issue.) I'll definitely keep reading to find out who else I'll run into along the river.

Four stars.

The Verdict

In the case of The People v. FP et al., the court dismisses all charges against PKD and PJF, with special commendation for BB. The other defendants are released with a warning to avoid tedium in the future, an admonition particularly directed at SM and JJ. The court further directs FP, leader of the accused, to retain the services of a good lawyer, in case of further charges in the future.

I don't think this guy ever lost a case.

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

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

November 12, 2020 John Boston 5 Comments

by John Boston

Off Days

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

by Hector Castellon

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

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

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

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

by Norman Nodel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the Sand Planet, by Cordwainer Smith

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

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

by Jack Gaughan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Comet Doom, by Edmond Hamilton

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

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

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

Restricted Area, by Robert Sheckley

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

by Greisha Dotzenko

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

Final Exam, by Chad Oliver

by Ashman

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

Summing Up

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

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 10, 1965] Strangers in Strange Lands (December 1965 Galaxy)

November 10, 2020 Gideon Marcus 3 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Time for the Stars

I was having a lovely conversation with fellow traveler Kris about the mixed reviews for the British anthology show, Out of the Unknown. Some critics are saying the stories aired would have been better served in a conventional setting rather than on Mars or wherever.

Indeed, this has been a common complaint for decades, that science fiction should be uniquely SF with stories that depend on some kind of scientific difference/unique setting, even if many of the trappings are familiar.

Galaxy is a magazine that has led this charge since its inception in 1950 and it therefore comes as no surprise that this month's issue features a myriad of settings that are in no way conventional, backdrops for stories that could take place in no genre but science fiction.

Citizens of the Galaxy

by John Pederson, Jr.

The Mercurymen, by C. C. MacApp

On the face of things, Mercury would seem a most inhospitable planet for colonization. Until this year, the general conception of things was that the innermost planet of our solar system was tidally locked, presenting just one baked hemisphere eternally toward the sun, while the other remained in perpetual frigid night.

by Gray Morrow

C. C. MacApp offers up a most imaginative tale set on this half-cooked world. The planet, or at least the twilight zone between the hot and cold sides, is overrun with the vines of a plant, the interiors of which are large enough and contain sufficient air and water to support human inhabitants. How they plant came about or how the settlers came to dwell in them is a mystery, but hundreds of years later, the colonists have reverted to near savagery. The ecosystem of the vines provides most of their needs: latex for vacuum suits, luminescent mold for light, oxygen-producing fungus for air. But for precious metals and for new soil for crops, the denizens must venture into the airless waste outside.

Similarly, population pressure periodically forces tribes to split, members of a certain age tasked to form a new settlement further along the vine. The Mercurymen is the tale of Lem, eldest son of a recently expired chief, who leads a party out over the bleak landscape of Mercury in search of a new hope. Along the way, he must deal with a deadly environment, hostile tribes, and treachery within the group.

Because so many of the concepts are alien, even as the characters are human, The Mercurymen can occasionally be a detailed, hard read. Nevertheless, I appreciated MacApp's world building quite a lot, and I was carried along with Lem on his engaging, difficult adventure. The novella would merit expansion into full length novel though the following discovery may require a complete change in setting to make it work:

From Nature, Volume 208, Issue 5008, pp. 375 (October 1965):

Rotation Period of the Planet Mercury, by McGovern, W. E.

The recent radar measurements of Mercury indicate that the period of rotation of the planet is 59 +/- 5 days1. This result is in complete disagreement with the previously quoted value of 88 days based on the visual observations of the markings on Mercury2-6. In this communication we show that the same visual observations can not only be reconciled with the radar-determined rotation period of Mercury but, in addition, can be used to derive an improved value for the period of rotation of the planet, namely, 58.4 +/- 0.4 days.

Yes, Mercury isn't tidally locked at all, and the stories that made use of this presumption are now all obsolete. Editor Pohl may even have known this even when he put this issue to bed, as the news first broke in June.

Still, it's a good story, and again, you can squint your eyes and pretend it takes place on a different one-face world entirely.

Three stars.

Galactic Consumer Reports No. 1: Inexpensive Time Machines, by John Brunner

The latest Galaxy non-fact article is written in the style of the venerable magazine Consumer Reports, offering evaluation of six cut-rate personal time machines.

The aforementioned Kris noted that there seem to be two John Brunners: one who writes Hugo-worthy material like The Whole Man and Listen! The Stars… and another who churns out hackwork. I'd say this piece is representative of a third Brunner, neither outstanding nor unworthy. It's a cute piece, although I would have appreciated a little more time travel in it.

Three stars.

Laugh Along With Franz, by Norman Kagan

by John Giunta

In a disaffected future, "None of the Above" (the so-called "Kafka" vote) threatens to become the electoral candidate of choice.

More pastiche of outlandish societal explorations than tale, I found myself falling asleep every few pages. I'm afraid Norm Kagan continues not to do it for me.

One star.

For Your Information: The Healthfull Aromatick Herbe, by Willy Ley

A rather defensive Willy Ley discusses the history of tobacco in his latest science article. It's actually pretty interesting, though I am no closer to taking up the still-ubiquitous pasttime than I was before.

Four stars.

The Warriors of Light, by Robert Silverberg

by Jack Gaughan

In the previously published story, Blue Fire, Silverberg introduced us to an Earth of the late 21st Century, one that worships the Vorster cult. Vorster and his disciples cloak the scientific pursuit of immortality with a bunch of religious mumbo jumbo, complete with a rosary of the wavelengths of light.

Warriors of Light is not a sequel to Blue Fire, per se. Instead, it is a story from a completely different perspective, that of an initiate of Vorsterianism who is recruited by a heretical group to steal some of the cult's deepest serets.

Reportedly, Silverbob produces 50,000 words of salable material per week, enough to make it seem like SF is his full time career even though it's just a fraction of his overall output. Light is not the brilliant piece that its predecessor was, but the Cobalt-90 worshipping future Earth remains an intriguing setting, and I look forward to the next story that takes place therein.

Three stars.

"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman, by Harlan Ellison

In Ellison's latest tale, The Master Timekeeper, a.k.a. the Ticktockman, is the arbiter of justice for a chronologically regulated humanity. Everything runs to schedule; tardiness is punishable by the lost of years from one's lifespan. There is no room for deviation, nonconformity.

Yet one clownish fellow, known as The Harlequin, cannot be restrained. His antics distract, his capers disrupt, his personality compells. This dangerous threat must be stopped. But in erasing the heretic, can even the master inquisitor escape just a little of the nonconformist contagion?

This is the most symbolic of Ellison's work to date, and with a deliberate, almost juvenile storytelling aspect that veers toward the Vonnegutian. I appreciate what Harlan is doing here, but there's a lack of subtlety, a ham-handedness that makes the piece less effective than much of his other work.

Oh, my telephone is ringing. One moment.

Ah. Harlan says I'm an ignorant so-and-so and if I withdrew my head from my seat, I might be able to better comprehend his work. (Note: this is not an exact transliteration).

Anyway, three stars.

The Age of the Pussyfoot (Part 2 of 3), by Frederik Pohl

by Wallace Wood

Last up is the continuation of last month's serial by editor Pohl, who is indulging himself in his first love, writing. Forrester, who died in the late 1960s only to be ressurrected in the 25th Century when medical technology was up to the task, has run out of dough and has become employed by the one boss who will have him, an alien from Sirius, member of a race with whom Earth is currently in a Cold War.

In this installment, we learn about how this state of not-quite conflict came to be, as well as about the Forgotten Men, the penniless humans who make a living outside of normal society. We also learn how difficult it is to survive when one cannot pay the bill on one's "joymaker," the ubiquitous hand-held combination telephone, personal computer, and electronic valet.

Let us hope that we never get so reliant on this kind of technology that we find ourselves similarly helpless without them!

Pussyfoot continues to be entertaining and imaginative, far more effective in execution of its subject than similarly themed Kagan piece, though less satirical in its second installment than its first.

Four stars.

Beyond This Horizon

My Heinlein motif for the article section titles may be a little misplaced given that R.A.H. doesn't appear in the pages of Galaxy this month. Call it artistic license since his most recent novels are coming out (or have come out) in sister mags Worlds of Tomorrow and IF.

Anyway, at the very least, the stories in the December 1965 Galaxy hold to the Heinlein tradition of fundamentally incorporating unique settings. No transplanted Westerns or soap operas here!

For the most part, it works, resulting in a solid 3-star issue. Why don't you pick up a copy, Space Cadet, and see if you agree!

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[November 8, 1965] You Must Be Mythtaken (Doctor Who: The Myth Makers)

November 8, 2020 Jessica Holmes 1 Comment

By Jessica Holmes

Yes, I am quite proud of myself for that title. This month, we’re taking a trip back to a time where the line between myth, legend and fact becomes blurred. Doctor Who has a new producer in John Wiles, who has some big boots to fill, and a new writer for this serial, one Donald Cotton. Let’s dive in and see how they got on.

TEMPLE OF SECRETS

Let’s establish one thing immediately: this serial makes a number of breaks from the popular accounts of the siege of Troy. To establish a second thing, I don’t mind this. It’s a legend. There might be a kernel of truth in there somewhere, but most of it was probably made up so that it would make a good story. Well, except for the bit about fighting the river god. That definitely really happened.

The real problem here is the music. Who in the world signed off on this?! It sounds as if they fitted a below-average marching band with shock collars, gave them sheet music that had been half-eaten by a dog, then made them perform drunk with no rehearsal, and giving them an electric jolt every few seconds.

It’s just noise! I have heard more pleasant primary school music recitals.

It would perhaps be more bearable if I had something to watch, but my picture quality is very poor once again. I think it must be the weather where I live.

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor and his companions watch the unfolding fight between Achilles and Hector on the monitor, and the Doctor makes the spiffing decision to go and ask these nice chaps where and when they’ve landed.

It’s at that point that Hector practically dares the Fates to toy with him, as he mockingly challenges Zeus himself to come down and save Achilles, who is at his mercy. So when there’s a bright light and an old man pops out of a magically appearing box, he’s more than a little taken aback, and that gives Achilles the opportunity to run him through.

Achilles mistakenly believes the Doctor to be Zeus, having appeared to him in the guise of an old beggar (which made me chortle), and the Doctor doesn’t bother to correct him.

Having learnt where he is, the Doctor attempts to return to his TARDIS, but Achilles begs him to stay, showing him the camp of Agamemnon, where the Greeks have spent the last ten years sitting outside the walls of a rather well-executed miniature model of Troy.

The Doctor and Achilles meet Odysseus (yes, THAT Odysseus), who is just a total jerk, as my American friends would put it. The Doctor has a quiet giggle to himself as Odysseus sarcastically comments that Achilles probably just chased Hector around the city until he got tired rather than facing him in honest combat.

Odysseus isn’t at all convinced that the Doctor is Zeus, and after examining his tiny ‘temple’, insists that he accompany them back to the camp. After they all leave, a Trojan patrol comes out of hiding, recovering Hector’s helmet and discovering the ‘temple’ for themselves.

Steven gets tired of waiting inside the TARDIS and goes to find the Doctor, leaving Vicki behind to rest her injured ankle, which I had forgotten all about.

In the Greek camp, Meneleus, husband of Helen (the face that launched a thousand ships, but doesn’t appear in this story) is frankly bored of this whole siege. If Paris wants Helen, he can keep her.

…I see why she left him.

Agammemnon, however, is not ready to give up, and he threatens to issue a challenge to Hector on Meneleus’ behalf.

Luckily for Meneleus, that’s when Achilles gets back and informs them that Hector’s crossed the Styx.

Odysseus arrives shortly after with the Doctor in tow. The Doctor tries to prove his divinity by revealing hidden truths, such as the fact that Agamemnon’s wife is unfaithful, but it seems just about everyone knew that except the kings, who refuse to believe it without proof.

Agamemnon finds himself in a difficult position, and decides to imprison the Doctor, unwilling to risk killing him and incurring the wrath of the gods, or releasing him and having him spill all their secrets to the Trojans.

Odysseus eavesdrops outside the tent, where he’s met by a mute spy, Cyclops. Probably no relation. Cyclops tells Odysseus, through hand gestures, that he spotted a stranger coming to the camp. Investigating, Odysseus finds Steven and takes him captive, accusing him of being a spy.

Attempting to maintain his cover, the Doctor prevents the Greeks from killing Steven on the spot, telling them that if they take him to his temple tomorrow, he’ll perform a miracle and smite the spy.

Well, they’ll be quite happy to take him to the plain, but he’d better hope for bad weather… because the TARDIS is gone.

Again.

He really does have a habit for misplacing it, doesn’t he?

SMALL PROPHET, QUICK RETURN

I can’t decide whether I like this pun or whether I want to steal all of the writer’s pencils.

When the time comes for ‘Zeus’ to do some smiting, the Doctor finally caves and admits that he’s not Zeus, leading to him and Steven being captured and interrogated.

Meanwhile, the TARDIS has found its way behind the walls of Troy. Paris, Hector’s brother, is feeling rather pleased with himself for having captured a Greek shrine of some sort.

His sister Cassandra tells him to get rid of it. Naturally, he ignores her. She points out that it was unguarded, and it’s about the right size for somebody to hide inside. Has he perhaps considered it’s a trap? Doesn’t this all sound rather familiar?

Their father, King Priam, soon joins the party and attempts to prise the door open, as inside Vicki frantically searches for something to wear. For heaven’s sake, just put on a bedsheet and you’ll fit right in.

After listening to the Doctor and Steven’s true accounting of who they are and how they came to be here, Odysseus figures that they wouldn’t dare tell him such a blatantly absurd story unless they were actually telling the truth, which is questionable logic but then again none of the great thinkers have been born yet (and boy, does it show!), so perhaps we shouldn’t be too harsh. He agrees to release them on the condition that they help him take the city. Oh, and they only have two days to do it.

In Troy, Cassandra is about to burn the TARDIS as an offering to the gods when Vicki finally emerges, introducing herself as a traveller from the future. All that time in there and you couldn’t come up with any cover story at all?

Cassandra accuses her first of being a pagan goddess of the Greeks (which is confusing, as at least in The Iliad’s version of events, which is what this serial is mostly based on, the Trojans worshipped the same gods), and then of being a false prophet, though Paris points out that Cassandra doesn’t have a monopoly on reading entrails and having weird dreams.

Vicki explains that she’s not prophesying, she’s just recalling her knowledge of history, which is different. Cassandra still insists that they should kill her, while Paris argues the opposite. In the end, Priam kindly assures Vicki that she shall die when HE says so, and not a moment earlier. How very…comforting.

Oh, and the name will have to go if she’s staying. Vicki sounds far too weird for their liking, so the king re-names her Cressida. How rude.

But that name does ring a bell…

Meanwhile , the Doctor and Steven are trying to come up with ideas for breaching the city, and Steven brings up the wooden horse. The Doctor shoots the idea down, as nobody would actually be stupid enough to fall for that.

A messenger arrives to inform Odysseus that he’s been volunteered on Achilles’ behalf to go and answer a challenge from Paris, but Odysseus isn’t about to fight heel-boy’s battles. Steven volunteers to go instead, and allow Paris to take him as his prisoner so that he can search for Vicki. Odysseus thinks it’s suicide, but acknowledges that it is at least very brave.

With him gone, the Doctor keeps coming up with ideas. Tunnelling’s been tried already, but how about flight?

Steven surprises Paris as he very quietly and hesitantly calls out for Achilles, necessitating a change of loincloth on Paris’ part. He astutely observes that Steven isn’t Achilles. Lowering his voice, he admits to thinking that really this whole thing seems to have got a bit out of hand, and he doesn’t really fancy killing anyone who isn’t Achilles anyway.

Well maybe you should have thought about that before running off with a married woman, hmm?

That said, he has a point.

He reluctantly starts fighting, and Steven has to pretend to lose, because let’s face it, Steven could eat Paris for breakfast if he were actually trying.

It’s very funny when a baffled Paris asks ‘I beg your pardon?’ and then Steven has to actually talk him into accepting his surrender, buttering him up by pretending that the Greeks tell all sorts of extraordinary tales about Paris. He sure would like to tell some of those tales within earshot of the Trojans, and gosh, wouldn’t they all be very impressed with Paris for capturing this great Greek warrior? Cough, cough. Hint, hint.

Nonplussed but a little flattered, Paris agrees to take Steven back to the city, and the pair leave, watched by Cyclops as they go.

In the city, Priam treats Vicki to a slap-up meal courtesy of his cousin Aeneas’ smuggling operation, and regales her with tales of just how much the Trojans like horses. They really, really like horses. There’s such a thing as liking horses too much, you know.

Vicki recalls a legend she once heard regarding Troy and horses, and Priam tries to press her about it. She changes the subject by asking about Troilus, the king’s youngest son. He’s rather good looking, isn’t he?

There’s a bit of a random, out-of-nowhere line on not putting too much stock into good looks, as that will only get you into trouble. Just take Paris and Helen. Paris is a nice looking bloke, popular with the ladies, and also a total cowardy-cowardy-custard. He got all taken with Helen’s beauty, and before you know it there’s a decade-long war.

‘Shame he didn’t meet a nice sensible girl like you,’ he tells Vicki. ‘It’s character that counts, not good looks.’

Ouch! Talk about a back-handed compliment.

Priam hastily apologises, insisting he didn’t mean it like that, and is about to press Vicki on what she knows of the war again when Paris marches Steven into the room, pleased as punch.

Shocked to see each other, Vicki and Steven blurt out one another’s names, and Cassandra realises at once that they must know each other.

If ‘Cressida’ knows this Greek, what more proof do they need that she’s a spy? There’s only one thing to be done with spies. They must be put to death.

DEATH OF A SPY

I was quite disappointed that this episode didn’t start with a punny title. Some might consider that a good thing, though.

Tired of Cassandra’s zealotry, Paris intervenes to stop the guards dispatching Vicki and Steven. Priam is willing to believe Vicki when she says she’s not a spy, but she’ll have to prove herself. She will have to use her divine powers to aid Troy against the Greeks. If not, she’ll be burnt. In the meantime she will have to stay in the dungeons, but Priam assures her that it’s actually rather nice down there.

At least he’s affable, but I think all the men in this story have one brain cell between them and they’re playing pass-the-parcel with it.

Don't look so unimpressed, Odysseus. It's not as if you've got any better ideas.

The Doctor continues to pursue his idea for a very anachronistic flying machine. I think if you left him to his own devices for long enough he’d end up inventing the aircraft carrier several millenia early.

However, he’s not too keen on the idea of testing his invention, something Odysseus would very much like to see him do.

In the dungeons of Troy, Vicki and Steven are visited by Cyclops, who Steven tells to warn the Greeks not to attack until the day after tomorrow, so that they can buy Vicki some time. It’s then that the king’s youngest son, Troilus, visits ‘Cressida’ in her cell.

He brings her some food, and she coaxes him into sitting and talking with her.

Meanwhile, the Doctor abandons his idea of using flying machines, claiming to have made a mistake in his calculations. If you ask me, I think he was just scared of trying out his contraption.

With no better options available he finally suggests the idea of building a wooden horse. He explains the legendary plan, and Odysseus actually seems quite taken with it. So is Meneleus, once the Doctor explains to him that they’re building the horse, not looking for an actual fifty-foot-tall equine.

Maybe there is someone stupid enough to fall for it, after all.

In Vicki’s cell, she’s getting rather cosy with Troilus, and poor Steven no doubt feels very awkward as the chatting turns to outright flirting. Troilus even asks at one point whether Steven is really just Vicki’s friend or if he’s something more. Someone’s a little jealous!

When he finally leaves, Steven mocks Vicki for being so unsubtle. She retorts that she was only doing what she could to get them both out of prison. But was that really all there was to it?

Unfortunately for the pair of them, it looks like their message to delay the attack won’t reach the Greeks. Cyclops gets caught as he leaves the city, and is swiftly killed by a Trojan soldier.

The Greeks finish building their horse in an astonishingly short amount of time. Wait, where did they get the wood? There don’t seem to be any trees nearby. They’d have to travel and cut the lumber and transport it back and assemble it…and they did all that in a few hours? Yes, I’m nitpicking a fictional retelling of a pseudo-historical event that almost certainly did not happen, but it’s my job.

The Doctor waits with Odysseus and his soldiers inside the horse, but the Doctor isn’t at all happy about it. In one memorable line that I am very, very surprised made it past the censors, Odysseus snaps that the Doctor is making him “…as nervous as a Bacchante at her first orgy.”

I beg your pardon?

I think you’ll find that a Bacchante is a female ROMAN follower of the ROMAN god, Bacchus. The Greek equivalent would be a Maenad, a female follower of the Greek equivalent, Dionysus.

The nonsense they’ll allow in children’s television these days!

Soon Troilus comes to Vicki in her cell and tells her that the Greeks have all left. The king thinks that she’s been a good luck charm after all, and has ordered her release. Unfortunately Steven isn’t as lucky.

The Trojans start bringing the horse into the city, much to Cassandra’s dismay. As annoying as she can be, she's the only person in the city with half a brain.

The Trojans think they’ve won… but it’s only a matter of time.

HORSE OF DESTRUCTION

The title of this episode sounds like it lost its nerve halfway to being a pun. That, or it’s just a stupid title. I know that Doctor Who likes ‘Noun of Adjective’-style titles, but ‘Horse of Destruction’ just sounds silly.

Cassandra says that the horse is a trick, an obvious trick, and the arrival of the ‘temple’ has brought nothing but bad luck, just as she said. Well, a stopped clock is right twice a day.

They notice ‘Cressida’ seems to have vanished, and Troilus goes to look for her while Cassandra sends her maidservant, Katarina.

Vicki releases Steven from the dungeon, telling him about the horse problem, and Steven wonders if his message got through. Well, chum, take a look at the great big horse standing in the town square and tell me what you think.

Perhaps it’s something in the water?

Troilus finds that his ‘Cressida’ has gone missing, and Cassandra starts screaming, yet again, about finding her and burning her. Cassandra, I like the mythical version of you, but all that screeching is giving me a headache.

Vicki returns to the palace, and they grill her on where she’s been. She manages to placate them, and the king goes with his children to investigate the horse, leaving Vicki alone with Katarina.

The Doctor grows thoroughly sick of Odysseus’ company, and finally snaps. He thoroughly tells him off, but the 'hero' pays him no mind.

Is there a Doctor in the horse?

Troilus returns for Vicki, who warns him to leave the city and find Steven (or as Troilus knows him, Diomedes) out on the plain. He takes her advice and takes his leave. Moments later, the Greeks emerge from the horse and begin dispatching the Trojan sentries. The Doctor looks on helplessly, dismayed at all the bloodshed.

Troilus doesn’t find ‘Diomedes’ out on the plane, but he does find Achilles. He doesn’t have long to wonder if ‘Cressida’ played him false before Achilles attacks. It’s a tough fight, but Achilles catches his heel on a bush and stumbles, enabling Troilus to deliver him a mortal blow. However, the dying Achilles summons the last of his strength and thrusts his sword at Troilus, gravely wounding him. So much for sending him out of harm’s way.

At least it's more dignified than dying of an arrow to the heel.

The Greeks open the gates of Troy, letting the rest of the army inside the city. The royal family barely have time to realise what’s happening before Odysseus bursts into the palace, and they realise that all is lost.

Vicki and the Doctor find each other in the chaos, and Vicki sends Katarina to find Steven before taking the Doctor into the TARDIS to talk to him.

However, wearing the guise of a Greek soldier doesn’t do Steven any favours. He gets a nasty wound in the shoulder before Katarina finds him and brings him safely back to the Doctor.

Vicki emerges from the TARDIS. In a curious gesture she hugs the ship before turning and walking back into the city. The Doctor watches in concern as she goes, but makes no attempt to stop her.

Odysseus attempts to prevent the Doctor from leaving, but the Doctor doesn’t have to put up with his nonsense any more. As the TARDIS vanishes, Odysseus wonders if he really was a god after all.

But where’s Vicki?

Out on the plains, Troilus is wailing over ‘Cressida’s betrayal quite hilariously, thoroughly chewing the scenery. He settles down once she turns up and explains herself. She couldn’t just leave him and allow him to think she’d betrayed him. Besides, she belongs here now.

Excuse me? You flirt for five minutes with this guy and you decide to go and live in the Bronze Age? Vicki, that’s the teenage hormones talking. What was the Doctor thinking letting her go?

Aeneas conveniently shows up, and Troilus and Cressida go to join him in building a new Troy. I can think of a lovely spot on the Italian peninsula which should do quite nicely.

And then they kiss. How romantic.

No, I don’t buy it. I’m sorry, but I just don’t. That’s twice now that Doctor Who has written off a teen-aged companion by making her fall in love with a bloke she’s just met, This time it feels less believable than it did with Susan, for whom it made sense as an ending to her arc, but Vicki showed no signs of being ready to stop travelling. In addition, Susan and David had been through more together, whereas Vicki apparently falls in love with Troilus after one chat in a prison cell.

The Doctor is a terrible guardian. Who in any universe would think it’s a good idea to leave a teen-aged girl in a warzone? Absolutely nothing good could come of that.

However, he’s more worried about Steven right now, who has taken a turn for the worse and badly needs drugs. I suppose whatever the Doctor is a Doctor of, it’s not medicine.

Katarina, who looks to be well on her way to being Vicki's replacement in the TARDIS crew, think she’s died and that the Doctor is a god. Who does that make him, I wonder? Hades?

Final Thoughts

The Myth Makers is a very enjoyable serial with many funny moments. I found myself laughing aloud in parts, having fun all the way. Donald Cotton does appear to have the knack for comic writing. With a number of cast members already established as comic actors, it’s no surprise that it turned out to be as funny as it did. Conversely, I think the serial is at its weakest when it’s trying to be more serious.

Vicki’s sendoff doesn’t make much sense to me, as it feels like too abrupt an ending for her story. I cannot speak to what may be going on behind the scenes at the BBC, but I suspect that Maureen O’Brien might have been a casualty of whatever shake-ups the new producer has in store. Only time will tell, but this has been the weakest companion departure so far. That's a real pity, as I liked Vicki a lot. She was witty, intelligent, kind, inquisitive, and just a delight to have around. O’Brien and Hartnell had excellent chemistry together. I feel quite sorry for our leading man now that all of his old long-term castmates have left.

Perhaps Katarina will be able to fill the hole Vicki left. It would be quite interesting to see how a girl from ancient Troy would react to all the weird, wonderful and horrible things out there in the Doctor’s universe.

I wonder what she’d make of a Dalek?

3.5 out of 5 stars

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Movies

[November 4, 1965] The Best Bad Science Fiction Wrestling Can Offer (A Review of Two Films of El Santo)

November 4, 2020 Ginevra Gafaro 1 Comment

Ginevra Gafaro

There is nothing that hits the spot like a good bad science fiction film. For the best bad science fiction, there is nothing quite so satisfying as the genre of masked wrestler movies.

These films are required to balance plot, science fiction, and actual wrestling all while operating on a tight budget and being filmed in a short number of weeks. The ingenuity required of the cast and crew is nothing short of extraordinary. There are no stunt doubles and little room for error.

Two of the best examples of the new genre, Invasion of the Zombies and Samson Versus the Vampire Women, are now showing in a double feature at the Fort Lauderdale Thunderbird Drive In Theater — dubbed in English, but I've seen the originals, and I had to see them again in any format possible, they're that good.

Why These Films are Good

The plots of both films follow a simple premise: science fiction shenanigans occur and the best person to help resolve it is the masked wrestler Samson. It is easy to extrapolate how it ends from there. The beauty of these films is in the fast pace that keeps viewers at the edge of their seat and frankly, that they offer some of the most impressive wrestling matches ever seen on the screen.

The masked wrestler himself, El Santo.

Both of these films star actual masked wrestler Rodolfo “El Santo” Guzman Huerta essentially playing himself on the big screen. Both films are produced by Alberto Lopez with cinematography by Jose Ortiz Ramos. Starring opposite El Santo is Jaime Fernandez who technically plays a character named Detective Rodriguez in one film and a character named Inspector Carlos in the other, but it is easy to imagine them as the same character.

Invasion of the Zombies

Title shot from the original film, Santo Contra Los Zombies. This was later released in English under the name Invasion of the Zombies.

Invasion of the Zombies opens exactly as you might expect: on a ring match between Samson and another wrestler. The bout is a combination of choppy greco wrestling and some impressive lucha libre moves. One lovely highlight is when Samson jumps, grabs his opponent around the neck with his ankles and throws him flat on his back over on the other side of the ring. Incredible.

Gorgeous.

The match goes on for about ten minutes before the actual plot begins (which is just fine). A young woman, Gloria, reaches out to local police after her father disappears. He had just finished his book on zombies. Three detectives agree to take the case, and they head over to her house to investigate. They find no leads but they do meet her uncle and his dedicated caretaker, who are distraught about the missing relative.

The film cuts to three men breaking into a jewelry store while moving in unison. They use what appears to be a laser wand to burn through a jewelry vault. A man walks in and shoots one of the three men. The bullets don’t affect him in the slightest, not even when one is shot directly in his head! The shooter is knocked unconscious by what is clearly a zombie and the three robbers leave. As they approach their getaway car, the police attempt to stop them. Again, bullets have no effect on these men, who are all obviously zombies, and the police are easily defeated.

Three robbers, who may or may not be zombies, empty out safe deposit boxes.

And Now For Samson

The officers explain the events to the police chief back at their station. No one uses the word zombie but it’s pretty clear this was not the typical robbery. The police chief calls local masked wrestler Sampson for help on his audio/visual communications system. Clearly the strange circumstances can only be resolved with his assistance.

Samson talks with the Police Chief regarding his request for assistance.

Meanwhile the private investigators looking for the missing professor come to the same conclusions as the police chief: they decide to ask Samson for his help in their investigation. No explanation is given, but really, at this point does anyone need to provide one?

Samson somehow manages to use his communications system to spy on the black hooded villain controlling robbers. He sees the villain order the three robbers to steal children from the local orphanage. Samson rushes over to stop them. When he arrives, the zombies have children under each arm and the orphanage is on fire.

Zombies steal children from the orphanage and light it on fire. Because they're evil.

Luring them outside to fight in the grass, a three-on-one battle ensues, Samson keeping them busy until the police appear. The good guys then all band together to stop the three robbers and yet the robbers still manage to defeat them. Not all is lost; the zombies escape without stealing any children.

The officers manage to identify the robbers and are shocked to discover they are all dead men. It is at this point that someone proposes that these people are zombies. The police chief cannot believe it.

To The Shock of No One, Things Escalate

The black hooded villain decides something must be done about Samson. He abducts Samson’s next wrestling opponent and injects him with an unknown substance.

In the ring match against Samson, the opponent shows superhuman strength and skill, nearly choking Samson to death. Samson notices something strange under his opponent's tights and pulls open the hem of his pants. The tug causes smoke to pour out from the pants and the opponent falls over in the ring. His body disappears right in front of everyone, leaving behind a strange belt on fire.

The villain then decides to try to kidnap the Mayor and Gloria. Like you do.

The villain gives his orders to his three favorite zombies.

Samson and the team of detectives trace the villain down to his lair, Samson battling the villain while the police fight the zombie horde. He manages to slay him and break the zombie controlling machine. The identity of the villain is revealed and the zombies disappear in a mesmerizing special effect.

Zombie Horde.

Here the story ends with a beautiful comment from Samson: “When men violate the rules of God, they become victims of their own misdeeds.” It is a more thoughtful ending than one would expect for a movie about a masked wrestler fighting zombies.

Samson Versus the Vampire Women

Original title shot of Santo vs. Las Mujeres Vampiro, later released in English under the title Samson vs. the Vampire Women

Samson Versus the Vampire Women starts strong with haunting music and beautiful close ups. A vampire woman, Tundra, slips from her coffin to awaken three male vampires from their slumber. The men have been chained to granite slabs while the women rest comfortably in underground coffins.

The aesthetics of their home are stunning, a fine line between Gothic and Grecian. The special effects on the audio render the opening monologue nearly unintelligible but the beauty of the film makes it irrelevant.

The film cuts to a young woman, Diana, playing Moonlight Sonata on the piano for her brother and father. She stops playing and claims she felt summoned by the face of a beautiful woman.

This is the beautiful woman Diana believes is watching her. She's right.

Diana and her brother retire for the evening, leaving their father to pull out some papers covered in large hieroglyphics. He starts to translate the document, stating that in 200 years a descendant of the woman named Rebecca will be called when she turns 21 to be put through the rituals of the vampire women.

This appears to be a universe where 200 years prior, people recorded information by using rudimentary hieroglyphics as a cipher to prevent the information from falling into the wrong hands. This is the only explanation one can surmise for the use of hieroglyphics spelling out gibberish and being read in the wrong order.

The professor calls Samson for assistance on his audio/visual communications device. Samson enters his office through the balcony, and the professor explains that Samson is the masculine equivalent of Rebecca with the condensed force of masculine strength. The actor's ability to deliver that bit of dialogue is impressive. The professor asks Samson for his assistance in keeping his daughter Diana safe. It is believed that she is the descendant of Rebecca. It’s either that, or she’s the descendant of Sappho.

The professor speaks with his friend Samson. I wonder how they became friends.

It is very important for you to know that Samson spends this entire film wearing tights, his mask, and an optional cape. It’s a good look.

Samson looking very handsome in his shirt optional attire.

We Now Interrupt Your Plot for Wrestling

Here the film cuts to Samson at a wrestling match. The match goes on for quite a while, but it’s composed of excellent fight choreography. And if you didn't come here for the wrestling, why did you come here?

Afterwards, the film moves back and forth between some quick scenes:

The vampire woman from the beginning of the movie bites Diana’s neck and drinks her blood before running off. The Carmilla similarities are off the charts.

The vampire leans down to drink Diana's blood.

A group of vampire women corner a man and drain him of blood in their lair.

The vampires discuss how they will take Diana on her 21st birthday. It is just as absurd as you can imagine, a cross between a high school girls sleepover and a cult militia. I am torn at this point in the movie. On one hand, clearly Diana would be happy with these young women considering that this is being presented as some sort of destiny plot. On the other hand, she can do better.

The vampires gather to discuss the abduction of Diana. My enemy, rubber bat on a string, makes an appearance.

In the evening, the professor throws a birthday party for Diana. The front door is guarded by two men who are charged with making sure no one enters without an invitation. A male and female vampire put him into a trance and slip in among the party guests. Not proficient at mingling, the vampires are discovered and Samson shows up to fight them. He manages to drive them off. A man is found dead from vampire bites. The group gathers to discuss next steps.

Two vampires walk into a party. They talked their way into an invitation.

Plot Relevant Wrestling Commences

Samson is forced to leave in order to fight in his next wrestling match. His opponent wears a black mask and fights with inhuman strength. Things are touch and go but Samson unmasks his opponent only to reveal a hideous vampire face. The spectators and officials riot. In the confusion, the vampire escapes and is next seen abducting Diana in a taxi.

Nearby officers try to stop the vampire while wrestling fans riot.

Her father consults his books and thus determines the location of the vampire lair. Samson immediately heads over… and walks into a trap. The vampires chain him down on one of the granite coffins but the foxy Samson manages to escape. He keeps the vampires busy but they pin him down, reaching for his mask. Just as they are about to reveal him, the sun comes in from the windows and sets the vampires on fire. A few manage to escape to the underground lair, but Samson is determined to stop them. He grabs a flaming torch and sets all of their coffins to blaze.

Samson sets fire to the vampire coffins.

Triumphant, Samson carries Diana out of the lair. He hands her back to her family and drives off into the distance.

It Sounds Terrible. Why Bother Watching?

So is it worth watching a pair of import SF films about a wrestler fighting the evil forces of the supernatural? In a word, yes. Invasion of the Zombies offers some stunning visuals and a clever version of zombies not seen before on the silver screen. Using a belt and computers to control zombies? Brilliant. Similarly, the soundscaping in Samson Versus the Vampire Women really cannot be overpraised — creepy, haunting, and beautiful in equal measures. And El Santo is always a joy to watch, one of the greatest athletes to appear on the silver screen.

True, there is also some awful film making. Invasion of the Zombies doesn’t even bother to attempt to explain why a masked wrestler is the ideal person to fight zombies or search for a man in a missing persons case. For every jaw dropping action sequence in both films, there was at least one very stupid on screen event. The ancient Egyptian bit was particularly enraging.

But the gravest sin of all, dear readers, is the use of a cheap rubber bat on a visible string in multiple shots of Samson Versus the Vampire Women. The bats weren’t even necessary for the film’s progression.

Still, for all the faults, at the heart of both films is a sincerity. Their creators clearly tried to make a product greater than the sum of its parts. That the films end up a joy to watch despite their admitted flaws is evidence that the creators have succeeded.

These two movies are truly some of the best bad science fiction that wrestling has to offer.

Samson waves goodbye.

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[October 31, 1965] Finished and Unfinished Business (November 1965 Analog)

October 31, 2020 Gideon Marcus 2 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Spooks and SF

All Hallow's Eve is upon us, that annual moment when the barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead is at its weakest. The departed spirits of those with unfinished business return to fulfil their goals. And puckish souls, alive and passed, spread mischief.

And amidst all this, there is candy.

In this light, the November 1965 issue of Analog is the perfect companion for Halloween. There are familiar faces, a significant departed face, delicious trifles, and sad tricks.

Tricks and Treats

John Schoenherr

Down Styphon!, by H. Beam Piper

If you read H. Beam Piper's Gunpowder God this time last year, you're familiar with Calvin Morrison, a Pennsylvania cop who got whisked to an alternate world where Aryan tribes settled the Americas and the precursors to our Amerinds stayed in Asia. Calvin encountered a feudal patchwork where the United States had been, and he quickly took advantage of his military prowess and knowledge to help break the gunpowder monopoly of the House of Styphon, becoming Lord Kalvan of the principality of Hostigo in the process.

If you haven't read Gunpowder God, you'll be rather lost reading Down Styphon!, which is a direct sequel. After winning its first battle against its neighbors, Hostigo now finds itself about to be attacked by neighboring Nostor and a host of Styphon-funded mercenaries. Only by developing a mobile force and the science of military cartography can Kalvan and Hostigo hope to repel the vastly superior forces of the invaders.

Down Styphon! is little more than a campaign log, chronicling the ebb and flow of the fight from the initial preparations, to the attempted Nostorian breakthrough, to their ultimate rout. It's clearly a middle third to a novel of Kalvan's story, started in Gunpowder God. Indeed, the tale ends on a cliffhanger: it is clear that Styphon has one more trick up their sleeve and will not go down without a fight.

The problem, of course, is that readers of Analog may never get a conclusion to this tale. Sadly, Mr. Piper took his own life last November, and Down Styphon! is touted as the author's last published story.

On the other hand, a novel of Lord Kalvan (Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen) came out recently, and it may well have the resolution to the story. It's also possible that editor John Campbell will license the last part of the book to finish the saga in Analog.

One hopes so. While Down Styphon! is clearly incomplete and focused primarily on a single battle, it is yet one of the best and most riveting recountings of a military campaign I've read. There is such rich detail that I could easily see Avalon Hill making a wargame out of it.

So I give this tale four stars for what it accomplishes and in appreciation for what it could have been (and perhaps might be — fingers crossed).

Even Chance, by John Brunner

John Schoenherr

A young Kalang tribesman in the remote mountains of Java rushes to meet a party of foreign anthropologists. He bears a shard of a crashed vehicle, one he's certain will convince the expedition to regale him with gifts, as had happened during the War when a pilot had set down his crate and had to be nursed back to health.

But the fragment is highly radioactive, and the craft it comes from is not of Earthly construction.

That's a great setup for a story, but in (the oddly titled) Even Chance, the setup is the whole story. You know its outcome from the beginning, and the thing reads like something from the 1940s.

A high two — it's not offensive, but it could use finishing.

A Long Way to Go, by Robert Conquest

Kelly Freas

A Mr. Randall from modern day is transported 500 years into the future. Unlike other contemporaries who had made the trip, Randall is allowed to keep his memories of the 20th Century even if it means he'll have trouble adjusting to the 26th, the better for anthropologists to study him.

At the end, however, it is decided that it is better for Randall to be acclimatized after all. The time traveler takes the news philosophically, noting that the future seems to have solved all of today's problems. But, his future host sadly informs him, they have unique problems of their own.

Once more, we have a fine setup to a story that fails to go anywhere. Indeed, I'm not quite sure what the point of the tale was.

Another high two.

Some Preliminary Notes on FASEG, by Laurence M. Janifer and Frederick W. Kantor

Here's a cute quasi-scientific piece on the generation of fairy godmothers, done in the style of a short journal article.

Three stars.

Onward and Upward with Space Power, by J. Frank Coneybear

On the other hand, Coneybear's longwinded piece on steam power in space keenly suffers for want of an introduction, a conclusion, and subheadings. I suppose it's better than pseudoscience, but Analog really needs a dedicated science writer like F&SF's Asimov and Galaxy's Ley.

Space Pioneer (Part 3 of 3), by Mack Reynolds

Kelly Freas

At last we come to something that does finish: Reynolds' latest serial. When last we left Ender Castriota (who had assumed the identity of Rog Bock to join the roster of the colony ship Titov on its way to complete a blood feud against the last of the Peshkopi clan, rumored to be on the vessel), the colony of New Arizona had been attacked by natives. As the first intelligent aliens encountered by humanity, their presence on the planet not only poses an existential threat to the new settlement, it also invalidates the colonial charter.

A war ensues, egged on by the Captain of the Titov, who, not wanting to see his lucrative opportunity fade away, insists the aliens are simple animals. That these "animals" wield crossbows and religious totems makes no difference to him.

Curiously, the "kogs" (as the indigenes are derogatorily called) are extremely humanoid in appearance. Stranger still, they appear to be confined to the island on which the Titov landed. I'm sure you can guess, as I did, the true origin of the "aliens."

Space Pioneer's third part is, like Down Styphon!, primarily a chronicle of battle and, like the Piper story, a deftly executed one. Reynolds is good at that kind of thing. The Peshkopi feud issue is resolved, and not as I expected it to be, and there is some good development of the relationship between Castriota and Zorilla, the one member of the colonial board who seems to be a decent man. I was disappointed that Cathy Bergman, advocate for the non-charter member colonists had a minimal role in the third segment, however.

All told, I'd give Part Three four stars, and the book as a whole three and a half. Good stuff, but it likely won't make the nomination for this year's Galactic Stars.

Assorted Sweets

With all of its ups and downs, Analog clocks in at exactly three stars. However, as with any Halloween grab bag, you can always skip the candy you don't like and concentrate on what you like. There's certainly much to enjoy in this month's first and last thirds.

Analog is surpassed this month by Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.7), Science Fantasy (3.2), and New Worlds (3.1).

Campbell's magazine is better than this month's largely reprint Fantastic (2.8) and the perennially lackluster IF (2.6).

Only one story out of the 30 new pieces was written by a woman, which makes Science Fantasy the winner of this month's SF equal opportunity award without trying very hard.

Sad as that statistic may be, there was far more worthy reading this month than usual. One could easily fill two big magazines with nothing but 4-star stuff.

So grab yourself this month's digests, stuff them in your trick or treat bag, and have a swell spooky holiday of haunting. I know I will!

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 24, 1965] "What time is it?" (October Galactoscope)

October 24, 2020 Jason Sacks 4 Comments

By Jason Sacks

Well, so far this has been a great month. Last week saw the end of a dynamite World Series, in which Sandy Koufax, the greatest pitcher of his generation, showed himself to be one of the greatest Jews of his generation as well. It was tremendously meaningful to my family that Sandy refused to start Game 1 for the Dodgers against the Minnesota Twins since the day coincided with our holy day of Yom Kippur.

As Sandy said, "I've taken Yom Kippur off every year for the last 10 years. It was just something I've always done out of respect."

As if that wasn't good enough, Koufax dominated games 5 and 7 of the series, with his electric fastball mowing down batters in a pair of crucial shutout victories. The Twins played well, and were outstanding American League champs – Tony Oliva is a monster – but it seems the Koufax gave the Dodgers the edge, and turned the '65 Series into a classic.

At the movie theatre, my wife and I caught The Bedford Incident last week at our favorite theatre here in north Seattle. If you haven't had a chance to see it yet, the film is well worth a night out — if, that is, you can handle an intense and sometimes bleak drama.

Richard Widmark turns in a powerful performance as a zealous battleship captain on the search for an elusive Soviet nuclear submarine. Also featuring Sidney Poitier and Martin Balsam, this black and white drama treads similar ground to last year's thrilling Fail Safe and ends in a similarly dramatic way.

The Hunter Out of Time, by Gardner F. Fox

If it seems like I'm dragging my feet a bit before talking about my entry for this month's Galactoscope, well, you're right. Gardner Fox's new novel is the epitome of mediocrity, a book that will give you 40¢ worth of excitement but not a whole lot more. The fantastic Mr. Fox is a prolific author who churns out more books and comic book stories than nearly anyone else living. Sometimes that causes him to create some delightful work. Other times it seems like he is just delivering words just to deliver him a paycheck. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that – I'm sure the man has a mortgage to pay – but it also represents a lost opportunity.

See, this book starts out with one of the most striking first lines I can remember.

I saw myself dying on the other side of the street.

The first page builds on that momentum, with the protagonist describing his body as "blood oozed over my fingers where I held that awesome wound."

I mean, seriously, how can you read a first page like that without feeling like you have to read more? Mr. Fox is an old pro and he clearly knows some classic tricks. As I read that book, I leaned back, took a deep breath, and readied myself for a page-turning thrill ride.

Cover by Gray Morrow

But, dear reader, I'm sorry to inform you that all the best writing in The Hunter Out of Time happens on the first couple of pages. It soon turns out that the man who falls to Earth is a time traveler from the far, far future who traveled back through a supposedly impregnable barrier to steal the man's identity. The time traveler is named Chan Dahl and soon other time-displaced men come to our time, confuse our guy, Kevin Cord for Dahl, and that unleashes the most obvious and cliched adventure you can imagine.

There's little in The Hunter Out of Time you haven't seen before. Fox gives us fantastic devices, headspinning time travel with seemingly arbitrary rules, and the obligatory beautiful, weak babe from the future. Of course Cord uses his native 20th century skills to overcome his opposition, of course Cord and the woman fall in love, and of course Fox leaves room for a sequel if somehow people want to read more of this frightfully ordinary pap.

I could go on and on about this book, but hey, it costs 40¢, it'll take you a couple hours to read, and it's got a pretty nice cover by artist Gray Morrow. I'd rather spend my time watching young Warren Beatty in Mickey One in the theatres, but you won't hate this book and it's pleasing enough entertainment for a rainy Seattle Sunday.

2 stars.

Solid Fuel

by John Boston

The rising star John Brunner has produced ambitious work such as The Whole Man and the upcoming The Squares of the City, both from Ballantine in the US, and a raft (or flotilla) of unpretentious upscale-pulp adventures for Ace Books. Some of the best of the latter were mined from the UK magazines edited by John Carnell.

by Jacks

But there’s a lot more. Brunner has been one of the mainstays of the UK magazines for a decade, but much of his best magazine work has not been reprinted because it’s too short for separate book publication and too long to fit in the usual anthologies or collections. The UK publisher Mayflower-Dell, previously distinguished by its unsuccessful attempt to bring Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure to the British public, remedies a bit of this omission with Now Then, a collection of three novellas, two from the Carnell magazines and the other, his first professional sale, from Astounding in 1953.

Some Lapse of Time

The book opens with the energetically clever and creepy Some Lapse of Time, from Science Fantasy #57 (February 1963). Dr. Max Harrow is having a bad dream of a group of starving people living in ruins, one of whom is holding a human finger bone in his hand. He wakes and there is someone at his door: the police, because a tramp has collapsed in his garage. The tramp proves to be suffering a rare disease (heterochylia, an inability to metabolize fats, which become lethal) that Harrow is uniquely qualified to recognize, his infant son having died of it only recently, and which should have made it impossible for the tramp to survive to adulthood. The tramp also has clamped in his hand a human finger bone—the same bone, the end of the left middle finger, as in Harrow’s dream.

Unintelligible to the hospital staff, the tramp proves when examined by a philologist to speak a badly distorted version of English, like one might expect a primitive and isolated group to use. Meanwhile, Harrow’s marriage is blowing up under the emotional stress caused by his son’s death and his own preoccupation. When his wife slams the car door in his face, she catches his hand in the door and severs the end of his left middle finger, which falls down a gutter. Meanwhile, the tramp is sent for a head x-ray, but he turns out to be so radioactive that not only do the films turn out unusable but he has to be put in strict isolation.

Brunner brings all these elements to a thoroughly grotesque resolution—it doesn’t entirely work, but is a grimly ingenious nice try. Others apparently think so too; it is rumored that a dramatization will be broadcast later this year in the BBC’s Out of the Unknown TV series. Four stars.

Imprint of Chaos

Next up is Imprint of Chaos, also from Science Fantasy (#42, August 1960), one of a number of outright fantasies Brunner contributed to that underrated magazine. This one introduces us to a character mainly called “the traveler,” who we are repeatedly told has “many names but one nature,” unlike the rest of us who I suppose contain multitudes.

The traveler has been appointed (by whom, or Whom, or What is not explained) as a sort of metaphysical supervisor over part of the universe, charged with ensuring the primacy of order over chaos. He is on his way to Ryovora, a formerly sensible town where they have now decided they need a god.

So the traveler nips out to our Earth and snatches the unsuspecting Bernard Brown from a hike in the wood, tells him he’s unlikely to find his way home, but gives him directions to Ryovora. There, to his discomfiture, Brown is welcomed as a god, and when the next city over hears about it and sends over their god, Brown sends it packing in terror. Then the Ryovorans say they could have done it themselves (though they didn’t), and excuse Mr. Brown, after a final scene where he and the traveler bruit the futility and undesirability of magic.

A fantasy writer bad-mouthing magic may seem incongruous, but this rationalist in spite of himself really hates it, and comes not to praise magic but to bury it, though only after enough colorful magical episodes to entertain the rubes. Here the tension is more extreme than usual. His earlier fantasies mostly featured incursions of magic into the world of ordinary salt-of-the-earth types. Here, the entire setting is exotically magical, and the story is told in the fey and pompous cadences of high fantasy.

For example, from a conclave of the necromantic elite of Ryovora: “The Margrave nodded and made a comforting gesture in the air. He said, ‘But this cannot be the whole story. I move that we—here, now, in full council—ask Him Who Must Know.’” Brunner walks the edge of parody at times (“Tyllwin [a particularly powerful magician] chuckled, a scratching noise, and the flowers on the whole of one tree turned to fruit and rotted where they hung.”). But the story is clever and entertaining and merits its three stars, towards the high end.

Thou Good and Faithful

Thou Good and Faithful is older; as mentioned, it is the first story Brunner sold to an SF magazine—and it was featured on the cover of the top-of-the-market Astounding (March 1953 issue). Moreover, the readers voted it best in the issue, and it was quickly picked up by Andre Norton for her pretty respectable YA anthology Space Pioneers. Not a bad start for an 18-year-old! Though Brunner has had some second thoughts about showing us his juvenilia; the acknowledgements note it appeared in the magazine “in a somewhat different form.” I haven’t compared the two texts, though there’s clearly some updating; in this version Brunner refers to something as “maser-tight,” and masers were barely invented when this story was first published.

The story is for most of its length a bog-standard though well-turned rendition of a basic plot: find a planet, there’s a mystery, what’s going on, are we scared? The mystery is an idyllic Earth-type planet inhabited only by robots, who presumably didn’t make themselves; what happened to the makers? The final revelation is partly in the direction of, say, Clarke’s Childhood’s End, and partly in the one suggested by the story’s title, so in the end it’s much more high-minded than the puzzle story it starts out as. This is all older news nowadays than it was in 1953, but it too merits a high three stars.

Summing Up

Now Then is a solid representation of the mid-length work of this very readable and thoughtful writer, and there’s enough in the Carnell back files for several more worthwhile volumes of Brunner novellas.

Two by Two

by Gideon Marcus

The Journey has made a commitment to review every piece of science fiction released in a year (or die trying). In pursuit of this goal, I've generally tried to finish every book I've started, and if unable to, I simply don't write about it.

It occurs to me, however, that the inability to finish a book is worth reporting on, too. And so, here are reports on two of this summer's lesser lights:

Arm of the Starfish, by Madeleine L'Engle

The latest from Madeline L'Engle, author of the sublime A Wrinkle in Time, starts promisingly. Adam Eddington is a freshman biology minor tapped to work with a Dr. O'Keefe on the Atlantic island of Gaia off the coast of Portugal. O'Keefe (a grown up Calvin, from Wrinkle) is working with starfish, zeroing in on an immortality treatment. Just prior to Adam's departure from Kennedy Airport, he runs across the beautiful young daughter of an industrialist, Kali, who warns Adam to stay away from the sinister-looking Canon Tallis, who is chaperoning the O'Keefes' precocious daughter, Poly.

Adam finds himself embroiled in international intrigue, not knowing who to trust. This is exciting at first, but a drag as things go on. Gone is the quietly lyrical prose of Wrinkle, replaced by a deliberately juvenile style leached of color. Events happen, one after another, but they are both difficult to keep track of and largely uninteresting. By the time Adam made it to Gaia, about halfway through the book, I found myself struggling to complete a page.

Life's too short. I gave up.

Quest Crosstime, by Andre Norton

Cover by Yukio Tashiro

Andre Norton has come out with the long-awaited sequel to her parallel universe adventure, The Crossroads of Time, starring Blake Walker. The universe Walker lives in is a bit like that of Laumer's Imperium series and Piper's Paratime stories: there's one Earth that has mastered the art of crossing timelines, and it has built an empire across these alternate Earths.

On Vroom, the imperial timetrack, there had been a devastating war that killed most of the female population, making them particularly precious. Also, mutation has made psionic ability the rule rather than the exception. The timeline is ruled by an oligarchy of 100 meritocrats.

At the start of Crosstime, Walker is dispatched to assist Marfy, whose twin sister, Marva, has been lost amongst the timeless — and all signs point to a kidnapping. Of course, the allure of all parallel universe books is the exploration of what-if, and so Walker and Marfy's trek spans a dead Earth where life never arose, a strange saurian Earth where sentient turtles and lizardmen rule, and ultimately, an interesting timeline in which Richard III won the battle of Bosworth Field while Cortez lost the battle of Tenochtitlan. By the Mid-20th Century, there is a Cold War between Britain and the Aztec Empire along a militarized Mississippi river. It is to this world that Marfy and her abductors are tracked, and it turns out that the kidnapping is part of a plot to topple Vroom's Ancien Regime.

True to form as of late, Norton sets up some genuinely interesting background, but the characters are as flat as the pages they appear on. This time, I made it through two thirds of the book, partly on momentum from the first book in the series, which I rather enjoyed. In the end, however, disinterest won out.

Call it two stars for both books.

Don't miss the next exciting musical guest episode of The Journey Show, October 24 at 1PM Pacific!

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction