By Jessica Holmes
The third series of Doctor Who comes to a close, and it ends on a high note! Ian Stuart Black returns as a writer to bring us a high-concept sci-fi thriller set in modern London: The War Machines.
Continue reading [July 18, 1966] Arrivals and Departures (Doctor Who: The War Machines)
This month's Galactoscope features a pair of tales from two of the genre's bigger names. Just the sort of mid-summer pick-me-up to get you through the Dog Days… Siriusly!"
by Gideon Marcus
October the First is Too Late, by Fred Hoyle
Fred Hoyle, a prominent British astronomer and also a popular science fiction author (recently of A for Andromeda fame) has come out with quite an interesting little novel. October the First is Too Late is several things in one, which I suppose makes sense given the subject.
The story begins in modern day. Our protagonist, Richard, is a rather prominent composer coming off a disappointing show in Germany. He meets up with an old college buddy, a brilliant physicist (John Sinclair), and the two head off to the Scottish Highlands for a trek. It's a pleasant jaunt with one odd episode: halfway through, John disappears for 30 hours, and when he turns up, he is missing a birthmark he's had all his life.
Coincident with this, the interplanetary rocket for which John prepared some of the experiments has detected odd emanations from the Sun. Perhaps they are modulations of an extraterrestrial beacon system, or maybe their tremendous energies have a more sinister purpose. Sinclair and our viewpoint character head to Hawaii to process the latest data — only to find themselves hurled into a crazy, splintered world. Hawaii is alright, and Fiji, and maybe England. But the rest of the world has become a jumble of different timezones, assembled like a strange jigsaw puzzle.
Why has this happened, and if it be an artificial occurrence, who is responsible?
October is a strange, meandering piece. It hardly does anything for 52 pages, then becomes an exciting voyage of discovery. The last third is something else yet again, something like G.C. Edmondson's The Ship that Sailed the Time Stream. It shouldn't work, with its chatty digressions and frequent scientific/philosophical expositions…and yet it does. October is a highly readable, breezily intelligent novel. It's one I can see myself picking up again for a few more reads, and I imagine it could appear on next year's Hugo ballot.
Four stars.
The Judgment of Eve, by Edgar Pangborn
by John Boston
Edgar Pangborn is one of the finer writers and more luminous spirits to grace SF’s disreputable precincts. After winning the International Fantasy Award for his second SF novel, A Mirror for Observers (1954), he took a detour and published a historical novel, Wilderness of Spring (1957), and a contemporary novel, The Trial of Callista Blake (1961). But in 1964 he returned to SF with Davy, a post-nuclear-war story which made the Hugo ballot and to my taste probably should have won.
Davy portrayed a world centuries after nuclear war in which our present society's knowledge has mostly been lost, and the remainder forbidden by a repressive church. That is, absolutely nothing original; the book was made by the characters and by the vivid detail in which Pangborn imagined a world whose outlines have grown all too familiar during the post-Hiroshima course of SF. The frame is that Davy is writing a memoir of his picaresque adventures, with a goodly dollop of libertarian philosophizing along the way. The result is sometimes reminiscent of Mark Twain, though hints of Jubal Harshaw drift in occasionally.
by Lawrence Ratzkin
Pangborn’s new novel The Judgment of Eve is another, and less satisfactory, kettle of fish. It is set about 30 years after the war, which it turns out involved few actual bombs, but a long siege of plagues, greatly depopulating the world but not irradiating it. Eve Newman, 28 years old, lives with her elderly and blind mother in a farmhouse far down a gravel side road; they’ve had no contact with other humans for many years, except for Caleb, seemingly a half-witted mutant.
Then three guys show up at the door, fleeing from a repressive settlement, and of course they are all smitten by young Eve, and she is smitten by the idea of having a mate. But she has to make a choice, obviously (at least in this book’s moral universe). So she sets them all a task: go forth and figure out what love is, and report back at the beginning of October, a few months away. The rest of the book consists of the separate accounts of what each suitor does and finds before their reunion at Eve’s place.
Sounds like a fairy tale, and if you don’t figure it out on your own, the point is rubbed in by a brief reading from Grimm before Eve issues her orders. Further, this purports to be a critical edition of the Judgment of Eve legend by scholars of later centuries, meaning that as you read the novel, obtrusive commentary pops up all too frequently concerning the relative plausibility of this and other versions, with occasional bursts of sarcasm concerning competing scholarly points of view.
It’s unusual to see a writer so gifted get in his own way so conclusively. Pangborn is an unassumingly graceful stylist and a compelling story-teller, with a special talent for portraying physical settings and for convincingly developing the inner life of his characters. The supposed critical commentary here has about the same effect on the reading experience as auto horns honking outside the window, while the fairy-tale frame distances the reader from the otherwise engaging story and characters.
But still, most of the time it’s a pleasure to read. Pangborn’s failure is more worthwhile than many writers’ successes. Three and a half stars.
by Victoria Silverwolf
There has been intense heat in many major cities in the eastern United States this month, particularly over the Independence Day weekend. On Sunday, July 3, New York City reached an all-time high for that date with a temperature of 107 degrees. Newark wasn't far behind, at 105 degrees, and Philadelphia was close, with 104.
And Long Island, too.
As if editor Frederik Pohl wanted to help us forget about the blistering heat wave, the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow is centered around a topic that is literally chilling.
Cover art by Paul E. Wenzel.
Before we step into the freezer, however, let's take a look at the lead story, mistakenly called a Complete Short Novel on the title page, although even the magazine's table of contents admits that it's just a novelette.
Heavenly Host, by Emil Petaja
Illustrations by Jack Gaughan.
Our hero's name is Kirk. If what I read in the trade papers is correct, that is also the name of the main character in the upcoming science fiction television series Star Trek. I assume that's just a coincidence. I guess Kirk is a good, manly name.
Anyway, this Kirk serves aboard a spaceship. He's a bit of a rebel, and winds up punching the tyrannical captain of the vessel. He's thrown into the brig, but manages to escape in a sort of lifeboat. (The implication is that the captain and the ship's cook kind of encouraged him to get away.)
This seems to be a case of jumping out of the frying pan and landing in the fire. (Pardon the corny metaphor. The heat must be getting to me.) Kirk winds up on a planet that is covered with a tangle of stinky vines. He manages to survive by eating the smelly plant and drinking rainwater, but life is hardly pleasant. There are holes here and there in the vines, so Kirk goes down to take a look around.
Exploring the world below.
After narrowly escaping being devoured by a giant worm, Kirk discovers that there's a wondrous Utopia under the odoriferous flora. He meets a beautiful woman, dancing gracefully, who quickly starts smooching on him and takes him on a boat ride.
A self-propelled gondola is the best way to travel in style.
At this point, the reader figures that the woman is just a figment of Kirk's imagination. Her name is Sombra, Spanish for shadow, which seems at first to be another hint that she's a phantom. Besides that, we already know that Kirk has imaginary conversations with his wise Mexican grandfather. However, she and the lovely community wherein she dwells turn out to be quite real.
Is this the Emerald City of Oz?
It seems that a bunch of colonists landed on the planet long ago, and managed to create a society without want, the population devoting all its time to artistic endeavors. This seemingly impossible task, they say, was done with the help of a benign deity called Hur. Kirk and Sombra are in love, of course, and he's eager to marry her, but things change when he gets his first look at the god responsible for this paradise.
Kirk meets Hur.
This is a strange story. It starts off as a tale of survival, becomes something of a wish-fulfillment fantasy, adds a touch of horror, and ends in an ambiguous fashion. I wouldn't call it boring, but I never believed anything that was happening. (One major quibble occurs to me: the people in the utopian city claim that they depend on folks like Kirk showing up to avoid inbreeding. Am I supposed to believe that people randomly land on this seemingly worthless planet frequently?)
Two stars.
Immortality Through Freezing, by Long John Nebel, et al.
This is actually an abridged transcript of a panel discussion broadcast on a New York City radio station. The topic is the possibility of freezing people at the moment of death and reviving them in the future, when medical technology will be able to cure their ailments and bring them back to life.
Besides the host, radio personality Long John Nebel, the group included Frederik Pohl, editor of this very magazine; R. C. W. Ettinger, who wrote a book on the subject, an excerpt from which appeared in the second issue of Worlds of Tomorrow; Joseph Lo Presti, an ophthalmologist; Shirley Herz, a public relations consultant; and the famous pianist/comedian Victor Borge.
That's an oddly mixed group of folks, and I wonder if they just happened to grab whoever was hanging around the radio station at the time. In any case, the guests discuss the definition of death and whether extreme cold could keep people in a state of suspended animation. This is nothing new to science fiction fans, and it pretty much just rehashes the previous article I mentioned. At least the subject matter might help you feel a little cooler and beat the heat.
Two stars.
Deliver the Man!, by Ray E. Banks
Illustrations by Norman Nodel
A starship is on its way to a conference of various alien civilizations. It seems that Earth is considered as something of a backwater, worthy only of being conquered. The ambassador aboard the vessel must reach the meeting on time and manage to convince the extraterrestrials otherwise.
Complicating matters is the fact that Martian colonists, now the enemies of Earth, attack the ship while it's on its way. A space battle follows.
A female warrior in a dogfight in space.
Our hero comes to the rescue of an inexperienced pilot, saving her bacon when she faces two opponents at once. She is hurt but survives the skirmish, only to face further challenges aboard the vessel.
Injured in battle.
There's a planet that insists the ship wait around while they celebrate an anniversary, so that the ambassador will be much too late to save Earth from destruction. The captain stays behind, allowing the vessel to sneak away, although he knows this will mean his death when the deception is discovered. An unpleasant fellow takes command, leading to a love triangle that ends in tragedy.
A crime of passion.
As if that weren't enough trouble, there's the possibility that an alien spy, disguised as a human being, is aboard the ship, intending to sabotage the mission. More deaths follow.
Another murder aboard ship.
All seems hopeless by the end, until our hero steps up and does what has to be done. The conclusion involves the ship's navigator, an eccentric woman who also serves as the hero's love interest.
The enigmatic navigator.
There's certainly enough action going on to satisfy readers looking for slam-bang adventure. The hero has so many obstacles in his way that it almost becomes ludicrous. You also have to assume that starship officers are going to act in completely irrational ways out of sexual jealousy.
Although partly depicted as objects of lust, it was nice to see women aboard the ship in important positions. The navigator, in particular, is an interesting character, although you'll probably figure out what role she plays in the plot.
Two stars.
The Most Delicious Foe, by Lawrence S. Todd
Illustrations by the author.
Our hero runs a business that will perform just about any service for the right fee. (I was reminded of Robert A. Heinlein's 1941 story "–We Also Walk Dogs". Proofreader, please note that the dash and quotation marks are part of the story's title.)
His latest job is to stop a war between two alien species. Each one wants to eat the other. The reptilian aliens just think the centipede-like aliens are tasty, while the centipede-like aliens savor the experience of imagining the lives of the reptiles while devouring them.
Two reptilian aliens read the news. Yes, the text states that they wear tam-o'-shanters.
Our hero has to figure out a way to please the appetites of both species in order to prevent wholesale slaughter.
Who is having whom for dinner?
As you can tell, this is a silly story, apparently intended as a comedy, although nothing particularly funny happens. The author is much better known as a cartoonist and illustrator, and he might want to stick to that line of work in the future.
Two stars.
Tom Swift and the Syndicate, by Sam Moskowitz
The indefatigable historian of all things related to science fiction delves into the subject of children's adventure books of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the title suggests, the main focus is on the countless stories of Tom Swift and his amazing inventions. However, the article also includes many other endless series, such as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. The bulk of these were plotted by a single man and actually written by a bunch of authors under house names. The Tom Swift, Jr., series continues to this day.
As usual, the author possesses an absolutely astounding amount of information about the subject. Also as usual, the resulting essay is less than compelling.
Two stars.
Homogenized Planet, by Allen Danzif
Illustrations by Dan Adkins.
One of the members of an exploration team on Mars goes off for several days, much longer than he could possibly survive with his limited air supply. Incredibly, he comes back just fine. In fact, he can survive in the extremely thin Martian atmosphere without any problems.
The other folks sedate him and strap him down during the voyage back to Earth. I guess they don't want to take the chance that he's really a Martian shapeshifter or something. Despite their precautions, things start to go wrong. People change from one person into another, or disappear entirely.
An eerie transformation.
At this point, you might think of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s 1938 novella Who Goes There?, with its shapeshifting alien. (Not so much the 1951 movie The Thing from Another World, which eliminated the shapeshifting. On the other hand, I was reminded of the 1958 film It! The Terror from Beyond Space.)
However, things turn out quite differently than expected, and the mood changes drastically. When we finally find out what's really going on, the premise is of some interest, but it requires pages and pages of exposition. The story really grinds down to a halt during its last section.
Two stars.
Island of Light, by Lawrence A. Perkins
Illustrations by Arkin. I have not been able to discover the artist's last name. Could it possibly be Alan Arkin, the star of this year's hit comedy The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming? He's had a couple of stories published in Galaxy.
In the near future, a city in the northwestern part of the United States takes drastic measures against crime. There is only one way to get into the place, which has expanded so greatly that it takes up part of three states. The normal activities of everyone in the city are recorded, so that computers can predict their whereabouts at any particular time with reasonable accuracy. There are many other methods used to ensure that it is nearly impossible to get away with a crime.
Citizens of Utopia?
A detective from outside the city arrives to observe the local crimefighters. A woman is beaten and robbed, left alive but in a coma. The investigation demonstrates the city's unusual methods, and reveals something about the visiting detective.
The premise is an interesting and provocative one, raising many questions about the proper way to balance freedom and security. Frankly, this story came as something of a relief after all those outer space adventures. The biggest flaw is that it's full of long expository speeches, as the local detective explains things to his guest.
Three stars.
Well, that was a disappointing issue, not doing much to take my mind off the hot weather. Perhaps the best way to use it would be to flap the pages against your face to cool down. Either that, or read it while sitting in a room made nice and comfortable by modern technology.
You don't really need to wear a snowsuit while running an air conditioner.
Tune in to KGJ, our radio station, for the coolest and the hottest hits!
by Janice L. Newman
Sibyl Sue Blue was not what I expected.
Set in the futuristic year of 1990, Rosel George Brown’s Sibyl Sue Blue takes place in a world both like and unlike today’s world of 1966. Sibyl is a tenacious and smart detective working for the city’s homicide department. When a series of bizarre ‘suicides’ start plaguing the city’s youth, she’s called in to investigate. As she follows the clues, she’s drawn into increasingly strange events, from trying alien drugs to being invited to join a spacefaring millionaire on an off-world jaunt.
Sounds like fun, right? Yet when Judith Merril told me the other day that she’ll be reviewing it in an upcoming issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction, she mentioned that “…under all the froth and fun and furious action, there is more acute comment on contemporary society than you are likely to find in any half dozen deadly serious social novels.”
She’s right!
The cover of Sibyl Sue Blue shows her smoking her signature cigar.
Continue reading [July 10, 1966] Froth, Fun, and Serious Social Commentary (Sibyl Sue Blue)
by Gideon Marcus
The Big Bang
The Americans and Soviets have signed onto a Partial Test Ban Treaty, restricting nuclear tests to deep underground. The Chinese and French are under no such obligation, however. Not only have the Chinese detonated two (or was it three?) atomic devices in the open air, but now the French have begun their own series of above-grown tests.
These big bombs are being burst on the French Polynesian atoll of Moruroa. I don't know what the indigenous South Seas population thinks of the blasts, but I imagine their opinions will sour as quickly as their strontium-90 laced milk.
The Big Fizzle
by Gray Morrow
The French may be making a big noise in the Southern Hemisphere, but Fred Pohl, editor of IF, Worlds of Tomorrow, and the formerly august Galaxy, has barely been squeaking by. Indeed, the August 1966 issue of Galaxy is the most feeble outing I've read in a long time.
The Body Builders, by Keith Laumer
by Nodel
Opening things up, Keith Laumer extrapolates a future that is a straight-line evolution of our current boob tube culture. Since so many of us are content to live vicariously, eyes plastered to the small screen, why not take things a few steps further? And so a large portion of humanity lives flat on their backs, plugged into life support machines. Their senses are hooked into humanoid surrogates of plastic and metal, optimized for task, emphasized for beauty.
Our protagonist is a prize fighter, or at least, he remote controls a synthetic boxer. Another artificial being provokes our hero into a duel while he's inhabiting his sport model body rather than his brawler suit. So he goes on the lam. Troubles, high jinks, and happy endings ensue.
Elements remind me of Robert F. Young's Romance in a Twenty-First Century Used-Car Lot (shuttling around in personally molded chassis) and Steel (human boxer steps into the ring against a robotic opponent), but this is a nice new spin.
Three stars.
Heresies of the Huge God by Brian W. Aldiss
A giant creature, thousands of miles long, crashes into the Earth. Its bulk causes tremendous damage, alters our seasons, and thoroughly discombobulates our society. This after-the-fact chronicle of the millennium following the alien's arrival is both unsettling and rather funny.
Four stars.
For Your Information: Scheherazade's Island by Willy Ley
This month's science column details the unusual creatures that inhabited Madagascar until quite recently: Big birds, giant lemurs, and other exotics. They may, indeed, yet live there in remote areas of the enormous island.
Interesting topic but bland presentation. Three stars.
The Piper of Dis by James Blish and Norman L. Knight
by Gray Morrow
Authors Blish and Knight return us to the overcrowded world of 2794 on which ten trillion humans live. In this installment, the asteroid Flavia is headed toward Earth, where it will cause tremendous damage. Millions of North Americans must be evacuated to the spare town of Gitler. There are two wrinkles: 1) a convention of the Jones family is currently occupying the city, and they must be evacuated out before refugees can be evacuated in; 2) an insane criminal member of the Jones family, Fongavaro, doesn't want anyone in the city lest he be extradited back to his home in Madagascar.
Actually, there's another wrinkle: it's a dreary potboiler of a story in an implausible world. I hope this is the last piece in the series.
Two stars.
Among the Hairy Earthmen by R. A. Lafferty
What if the Renaissance was really the work of bored aliens? In this typically whimsical piece, a band of seven humanoid cousins arrive at medieval Europe and make history their plaything.
This one of those tales that's all in the telling, and the telling is pretty charming. Three stars.
The Look, by George Henry Smith
Women, hare-brained slaves to fashion that they all are, succumb to trends so horrendous that no man can bear to look at them. It's the plot of a pair of homosexual fashion designers to ensure they have all of mankind to themselves. Or so we're meant to think. The "twist" is that it's actually a ploy of Alpha Centaurians to depopulate the Earth.
If we had a negative counterpart to the Galactic Stars, this would win the prize. One star.
Heisenberg's Eyes (Part 2 of 2) by Frank Herbert
by Dan Atkins
Last issue, we were treated to the first half of Frank Hebert's latest short novel. It takes place in a far (like tens of thousands of years from now far) future in which the human race has completely stagnated in technology, society, and biology. The "Optimen", sterile ubermenschen who are essentially immortal, rule over the mostly sterile humans whose offspring are all produced out of womb and with scrupulous surgical control.
Last installment, the Durant couple had stolen their embryo from under the noses of the Optimen with the help of the Cyborgs, a competing sub-race of humanity that has traded their emotions for computerized sturdiness. The Durant embryo, due to some unexplained quirk, is the first bog-standard human to be spawned in millennia. Able to reproduce, it may hold the key to toppling the static society of humanity.
This installment begins with the Durants stealthily escaping the megalopolis of Seatac. This takes up most of the part, and is ultimately pointless as the triumvirate of rulers is aware of their attempt the entire way. The Durants, their assisting Cyborgs, as well as Svengaard, the surgeon they had taken hostage, are summoned before a full council of the Optimen for punishment. Violence breaks out. Two of the triumvirate are killed. Calapine, the impulsive, simpering woman of the ruling trio, is both outraged and excited by the new feeling of mortality. Nevertheless, she is committed to destroying her captives before they destroy the current order.
Until it is pointed out that the order is just its own kind of death, a sentence of eternal boredom. In any event, it's doomed to failure since even the immortals need increasing doses of enzymes to stay alive, a situation that is quickly becoming untenable.
There is a solution! It turns out that being implanted with an embryo produces all the enzymes one needs to stay alive indefinitely. So women (and men) can be installed with pre-tykes that are made to gestate for thousands of years, and that will keep them alive forever. Thus, humanity can return to some sort of natural (if prolonged) rhythm.
Never minding the utter implausibility of, well, everything about this book, all of the above could probably have been written in about 20 pages. But when you're paid by the word, and you're one of the hottest authors in the genre (I can imagine a half century from now that Dune will replace The Bible as the most-read book in the world; there ain't no justice), I suppose sentences must flow.
Two stars for this part, two and half for the whole book.
Who Is Human? by Hayden Howard
by Jack Gaughan
Starting in medias res, we have the latest story of the Esks: people who look like Eskimos, but are actually born in a month and raised to adulthood in five years. In this installment, which really does not stand alone as a separate story, we learn that the Esks have been artificially created by alien visitors. We are meant to believe that 1) the Esks pose an intolerable risk to the human race as we will soon be outbred and replaced by them, and 2) no one will actually believe our protagonist, Dr. West, when he explains the true nature of the Esks. Everyone maintains they're just plain ol' Eskimos.
This is the silliest, most contrived set of premises. The Esks are already starving due to overpopulation, and thus applying for relief. Once free food starts being doled out, the unnatural increase in population will be known. This may spell adversity for the real Inuit (and the Canadian budget) but it hardly threatens world domination. And it's not like we have a Puppet Masters situation here; the Esks don't possess other humans. They just live alongside them.
Maybe there will be a better explanation down the road. Two stars.
Summer Slump
It's a pretty sad affair when Galaxy clocks in at a bare 2.5 stars. On the other hand, as Michael Moorcock informed us last month, it is not uncommon for magazines to save their weakest material for the summer, when readership is at its lowest. Let us hope that's what is going on here!
Ah well. At least the summer music is good:
Tune in to KGJ, our radio station!
by Gideon Marcus
Common meaning
Every so often, a science fiction magazine editor has enough of a backlog to run a "themed" issue. For instance, there was the time Fred Pohl bunged together an issue of IF with stories all by someone named Smith. This time around, Analog editor John Campbell has accumulated a supply of tales on the subject of communication.
The problem with themed issues, of course, is that quality is often secondary to topic. But not always. Let's see how the July 1966 Analog fares before we make a hasty conclusion!
Five by Five (plus two)
by John Schoenherr
The Message, by Piers Anthony and Frances Hall
by John Schoenherr
Mysterious Thargans have settled amidst the tiny human colony on Tau Ceti. Though not overly aggressive, they aren't terribly congenial either. But they are very inquisitive, about our technology, our physical capabilities, and our mental talents. And their spaceship has a lot of cargo space — enough to fit a thousand slaves, for instance…
Rivera, a linguist who speaks the alien tongue, is tapped to assess the danger posed by the Thargans. And when disaster inevitably strikes, he must recapitulate an era early in his life, when he managed to foil four would-be muggers not by force, but by the right verbal approach.
An interesting tale by a pair of newish writers, though a bit choppy and with flattish characters.
Three stars.
The Signals, by Francis Cartier
by Kelly Freas
For the last half-decade, astronomers have been training their radio telescopes upon the stars, hoping to eavesdrop on transmissions from an intelligent alien race. So-called Project Ozma hasn't found anything yet, and Cartier's tale explains why. It's not that aliens aren't trying, it's just that we don't know how to listen. Or more accurately, the fundamental theory of communication is too different between the species for intelligible contact.
Something of a throwaway piece, it is nevertheless cute and probably not far from the truth. Three stars.
An Ounce of Dissension, by Martin Loran
by Kelly Freas
Quist of the interstellar Library corps is visiting the planet Rayer after a long trip through space. Upon landing, the brutalist police troops burn his entire stock of books. The planet is ripe for a revolution, but it needs a catalyst to do so. Luckily, in Quist's cargo is a crate-sized book printer with a very large memory core…
Essentially a smug Fahrenheit 451, I can see why this piece appealed to Campbell. But it takes too long to get where it's going, and it utilizes enough straw men to staff all the fields of Iowa.
Two stars.
Meaning Theory, by Dwight Wayne Batteau
This nonfiction piece is all about how the communication of information destroys meaning, and the imparting of meaning destroys information…or something like that. Frankly, I couldn't make heads or tales of it. The pictures are cute, the graphs seem useful, the text is in English. Perhaps someone smarter than me will glean something from it.
Or maybe not. One star for this failure to communicate.
The Ancient Gods (Part 2 of 2), by Poul Anderson
by John Schoenherr
Last issue, the crew of the starship Meteor had space-jumped 200 million light years from Earth to a feeble red dwarf out in intergalactic space. They had hoped to establish trade relations with the advanced "yonderfolk" of the system. Instead, they transitioned into real space too close to the next planet closer to the sun and crash landed. Only six were left alive.
Hugh Valland, oldest of the more-or-less immortal group of spacers, hatched a plan to salvage a lifeboat so as to make the interplanetary trek to the yonderfolk planet. But such a massive undertaking would require more than the half dozen remaining crew. Luckily, intelligent (if primitive) beings exist on the swampy world. Contact was made with the Azkashi, and it looked as if the plan might work. As the first half came to a close, it seemed we might be getting a Flight of the Phoenix story.
Instead, the second half begins with Hugh taken prisoner by the Askashi while the related but more advanced Gianyi abscond with the captain and the mentally unstable Yo Rorn. It is quickly determined that the Gianyi are in the telepathic thrall of the Ai Chun, a race perhaps a billion years old. They have stagnated to almost fossilization, and no amount of parley can dissaude them from their goal to strip the downed spaceship for its valuable metal and to work the humans as slaves until they die. The captain escapes, and with Valland (who is freed by the Azkashi), plans a battle for their liberty.
Much of this installment is given to the war between the human-led Azkashi and the Ai Chun-controlled Gianyi. It is effectively told, but the outcome is never in doubt, and I found myself less enamored with this wide swath of the text. Long story short, there are happy endings and Hugh is ultimately reunited with his long lost love (of whom much is sung but little is known).
What I liked: Poul Anderson is a bard, and his stories are lyric performances. His wistful, archaic prose is sometimes ill suited to its subject, but it works here. The characters are nicely drawn and compelling. The unique setting and the nifty aliens are all cutting edge science. I appreciated the frank polygamy practiced by the captain and his genuine puzzlement with Valland's monogamy. There's also the suggestion that strict heterosexuality is not observed in the far future.
What I was less delighted with: I felt like Anderson marked a lot of time with the war sequences, which did not bring much new to the table. The acute lack of women, both on the crew of the Meteor and among the aliens (they exist in the background to do domestic chores, just like Earth females) marked another missed opportunity. I also suspect that the Ai Chun and Gianyi are supposed to be metaphors for China — grand but hidebound. Certainly Anderson draws a stated parallel between the Azkashi and the American Indians (for whom the author has an obvious fondness; viz. his tale in Orbit). The racial comparisons made me slightly uncomfortable, though it's a minor thing and I could be wrong.
Finally, the revelation of Mary O' Meary's current condition in the story's epilogue is a bit trite, and quite unbelievable. Here's the thing (and don't read on until you've either read the end or in the event you don't mind me giving away the gimmick): Mary has been dead for thousands of years, having passed away just before the advent of immortality. She died at the age of nineteen. This means that the immortal romance between she and Hugh could have lasted a few years at the most.
Now look, I love my wife more than anything. If she passes before me, I may well stay single for the rest of my life. But she and I have been together almost 30 years. I balk at the idea that a teenage fling could possibly compel me to asceticism for thousands of years. At that point, it's less about love and more a case of emotional masturbation.
Anyway, it's a solid three and a half stars. I can imagine some ticking it up to a full four stars and others finding it all a bit tedious and giving it just three.
Survivor, by Mack Reynolds
by Kelly Freas
The threat of nuclear war looms, raising tensions to the breaking point. When the klaxons go off, signalling the end of the world, millions flee the cities to find refuge, fighting over the quickly dwindling resources.
But have the bombs actually fallen, or is it all a miscommunication?
The premise to Survivor is pretty darned silly — that everyone will lose their collective minds out of fear. I do believe that, in the case of a false alarm, there'd be panic and rioting and looting and mass disruption. But not to the point that society completely breaks down such that both sides aren't even able to wage the war that frightened everyone in the first place!
Two stars.
The Missile Smasher, by Christopher Anvil
by Kelly Freas
Lastly, Anvil offers up a predictably slight tale of a series of rocket launch mishaps, the discovery of the focused light projector that is causing it, and the removal of said projector by a government troubleshooter.
I think it's meant to be funny or something. It's not very good.
Two stars.
Wrong number
I'm afraid a common theme did little to elevate the current issue. Indeed, in many cases, background noise might have been preferable to signal. All told, the July Analog clocks in at a dismal 2.3 stars, placing it at the bottom of the heap. The top is dominated by paperback-format periodicals: New Writings #8 (3.9), Fantastic (3.4), and Orbit #1 (3.4)
The middle of the pack is composed of the usual suspects: Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.1), Impulse (3.1), New Worlds (2.8) and If (2.7).
Women were responsible for a whopping 14% of this month's output of new fiction (mostly thanks to Orbit, which featured five female authors). If you took all the really good stuff published this month, you could comfortably fill two magazines. Or just buy New Writings and Orbit!
So, whither Analog? Will there be another theme next month, one that will drag the magazine ever closer to the dreaded 2-star rating? Will it plunge even without a common thread? Or will we get a sudden reversal, the kind we've seen several times over the past few years?
Stay tuned!
Speaking of tuning, tune in to KGJ, our radio station! Our theme is quality and diversity!
by John Boston
Donald A. Wollheim’s and Terry Carr’s World’s Best Science Fiction: 1966—second in this series—is here, so it’s time for the usual pontificating, hand-wringing, viewing with alarm, etc., as one prefers. This one comes with not one but two blurbs from Judith Merril, their competitor, though the editors say nothing about her anthology series, the next volume of which is due at the end of the year.
The editors have regrettably pulled in their horns a little on the “World” front. There are no translated stories in this volume, unlike the first; the editors claim that they read plenty of them, but them furriners just don’t cut the mustard. More precisely, if not more plausibly, “what they have lacked is the advanced sophistication now to be found in the American and British s-f magazines.” Suffice it to say that there are virtues other than “advanced sophistication” and they may often be found outside one’s own culture.
by Cosimo Scianna
Nor is there anything here from any of the non-specialist markets that have been publishing progressively more SF in recent years. The only item here that did not originate in the US or UK SF magazines is Arthur C. Clarke’s Sunjammer, originally in Boys’ Life but quickly reprinted last year by New Worlds, and then by Amazing early this year.
So it’s a rather insular party. But my main complaint last year was that too much of the material was too pedestrian, and the book excluded writers who are pushing the envelope of the genre, like Lafferty, Zelazny, Ellison, and Cordwainer Smith. The editors seem to have been listening. This year they’ve got Ellison and Lafferty, though they seem to have missed their chance at Smith, and Zelazny is still among the missing. More importantly, the book as a whole is livelier than its predecessor.
This is not to say the pedestrian has been entirely banished. Witness Christopher Anvil’s The Captive Djinn, the only selection from that rotten borough Analog, yet another story about the clever Earthman outwitting cartoonishly stupid aliens. Anvil has written this story so often he could do it in his sleep, and most likely that is exactly what happened.
There is a lot more of the standard used furniture of the genre here, but at least it’s mostly done more cleverly and skillfully than dreamed of by Anvil. In Joseph Green’s The Decision Makers (from Galaxy), Terrestrials covet the watery world Capella G Eight, but it’s already occupied by seal-like amphibians with group intelligence though not much material culture. Is this the sort of intelligence that should ordinarily bar colonization outright? The “Conscience”—a bureaucrat in charge of making these decisions—thinks so, but proposes to split the baby, allowing colonization but providing that the humans will alter the climate to provide more dry land for the amphibians. Of course, behind the bien-pensant speechifying, a still small voice says, “We’re just now starting to get rid of colonialism here, and you want to start it up again?” And another: “Ask the American Indians about the promises of colonists.”
Less weighty thoughts are on offer in James H. Schmitz’s Planet of Forgetting (from Galaxy), involving a fairly standard space war scenario with chase on unknown planet, with the wrinkle that some of the local fauna seem to be able to make people briefly forget where they are and what they are doing. At the end of this smoothly rendered entertainment, suddenly the wrinkle becomes a mountain range.
Similar cleverness-as-usual is displayed in Fred Saberhagen’s Masque of the Red Shift (from If), one of his popular Berserker series, in which a disguised Berserker robot appears and wreaks havoc on a spaceship occupied by the Emperor of the galaxy and his celebrating sycophants. But it is promptly outsmarted and done in by the Emperor’s brother, who is resurrected from suspended animation and lures the Berserker into the clutches of a “hypermass,” which seems to be what scientists are starting to call a “black hole.” (Though on second thought, I’m not sure that “cleverness” is quite le mot juste for a story that falls back on the dreary cliche that a galaxy-spanning human civilization will find no better way to govern itself than an Emperor.) Jonathan Brand’s Vanishing Point (If) is an alien semi-contact story, in which the functionaries of the Galactic Federation have created an artificial habitat, a sort of Earth-like theme park complete with human curator, for the human emissaries to wait in and wonder what is really going on.
Engineering fiction is represented by Clarke’s slightly pedantic Sunjammer (as noted, Boys’ Life by way of New Worlds), concerning a yacht race in space, and by Larry Niven’s livelier Becalmed in Hell (F&SF), whose characters—one of them a brain and spinal column in a box, with vehicle controlled by his nervous system—get stuck on the surface of Venus (updated with current science) and have to improvise a primitive solution to get home.
There are a couple of near-future satires representing very different styles and targets of the sardonic. Ron Goulart’s Calling Dr. Clockwork (Amazing) is a lampoon of the medical system; protagonist visits someone in the hospital, faints at something he sees there, wakes up in a hospital bed himself attended by the eponymous robot doctor, and can’t get out as his diagnosis shifts and things seem to be falling apart in the institution. Fritz Leiber’s The Good New Days (Galaxy) is a more densely populated slice-of-slapstick extrapolating the welfare state, with a family living in futuristic but cheaply made housing (“They don’t build slums like they used to,” complains one character), with the TV on every minute, and Ma trying to avoid the demands of the medical statistician who wants her vitals, and everyone struggling to get and keep multiple make-work jobs (the protagonist just lost his job as a street-smiler), and things are all falling apart here, too, and a lot of the sentences are almost as long as this one. The two stories are about equally amusing, which means above standard for Goulart and a little below standard for Leiber.
So that’s the ordinary, and a higher quality of ordinary than last year.
A few items are unusual if not extraordinary. R.A. Lafferty’s In Our Block (If) is an amusing tall tale about various odd characters with unusual talents residing in the shacks on a neglected dead-end block, like the woman who will type your letters but doesn’t need a typewriter (she makes the sound effects orally), and the man who ships tons of merchandise out of a seven-foot shack without benefit of warehouse. It has lots of slapstick but not much edge, unlike the best by this idiosyncratic writer. Newish writer Lin Carter (two prior appearances in the SF magazines, a lot in the higher reaches of amateur publications), in Uncollected Works (F&SF), extrapolates the old saw about monkeys on typewriters reproducing the works of Shakespeare, in the direction of Clarke’s The Nine Billion Names of God, leading to an unexpected and subtle conclusion.
In Vernor Vinge’s Apartness, from the UK’s New Worlds, the Northern War has destroyed the Northern Hemisphere, and generations later, an expedition from Argentina discovers people encamped in Antarctica, living in primitive conditions, who prove to be the descendants of white South Africans who fled from the uprising that followed the war and eliminated whites from the continent. (Interesting that this American writer didn’t find a market for it at home.) They are not pleased to be discovered by darker-skinned explorers and try to drive them off. The well-sketched background makes this more than an exercise in irony or just revenge.
On to the extraordinary—three of them, not a bad showing. Traveler’s Rest, by David I. Masson, also from New Worlds, depicts a world where time varies with latitude, passing slowly at the North Pole (though subjectively very fast), where a furious—and possibly futile—high-tech war is in progress with an unknown and unseeable enemy. Life proceeds more mundanely in the southern latitudes. Protagonist H is relieved from duty, travels south, reorients himself to current society, establishes a career, marries and procreates over the years. He's known now as Hadolarisondamo, since names are longer in the slower latitudes. Then, middle-aged, he is called back to duty, and arrives 22 minutes after he left. This world’s nightmarish quality is highlighted by the dense mundane detail of the normal life of the lower latitudes; the result is a tour de force of strangeness.
Harlan Ellison’s “Repent, Harlequin!” said the Ticktockman (from Galaxy) is a sort of dystopian unreduced fraction. In outline, it’s a simple story of a future world where punctuality is all; if you’re late, your life can be docked. One man can’t take it any more and dresses up in a clown suit and goes around disrupting things until he gets caught by the Master Timekeeper (the Ticktockman), brainwashed, and forced to recant publicly—though the end hints that his legacy lives on. In substance, it’s business as usual; in style, it’s a sort of garrulous stand-up routine, and quite a good one. It’s best read as a purposeful affront to the usual plain functional (or worse) prose of the genre (a reading consistent with the story’s theme) and a persuasive argument for opening up the field a bit stylistically.
The other outstanding item here—best in the book to my taste—is Clifford D. Simak’s Over the River and Through the Woods (Amazing), in which a couple of strange kids appear at a farmhouse in 1896 and address the older woman working in the kitchen as their grandma. The gist: Ordinary decent person confronted with the extraordinary responds with ordinary decency. It’s plainly written without a wasted word, deftly developed, asserting its homely credo with quiet restraint—a small masterpiece amounting to a summary of Simak’s career. Simak is one writer who should ignore Ellison’s advice—and vice versa, no doubt.
The upshot: Not bad. Better than not bad. The field is taking small steps away from business as usual, and the usual seems to be getting a little better. The kid may amount to something some day.
[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…]
By Jessica Holmes
Hello again, my friends, and welcome to another summary and review of the latest serial of Doctor Who. After a disappointing last several stories, I’m pleased to say that for the last few weeks Doctor Who has once again been a highlight of Saturday tea-time in my house. Whom do we have to thank for this turnaround? A new face in the writers’ room, Ian Stuart Black. Black’s story is everything Doctor Who should be: smart, exciting, and most importantly it has something to say. Let’s take a look at The Savages.
Oh, and I haven’t forgotten to fill in the episode names. Apparently we aren’t bothering with them any more.
Continue reading [June 20, 1966] First Impressions Can Be Misleading (Doctor Who: The Savages)
by Gideon Marcus
Hot Times
Summer is looming, and it looks like we're in for another riot season. I suppose it only stands to reason given that inequality still runs rampant in a nation ostensibly dedicated to equality. This time, the outrage boiled over in Chicago, and the group involved was of Puerto Rican extraction.
Things started peacefully, even jubilantly: June 12 saw thousands gather for the Puerto Rican pride parade. But after the festivities, the cops shot Cruz Aracelis, 21, and violence erupted. For three days, police cars were overturned, property went up in flames, and people were hurt (and some died). Despite the exhortations of the community's leaders, the rioting continued, and it was not until Mayor Daley promised much-needed reforms that the outbreaks lapsed, on June 15.
Tectonic shifts are rarely gradual. Similarly, we lurch toward progress with the accompanying devastation of an earthquake. Just as we're starting to build for seismic destruction in California, if we want to see riot summers a thing of the past, we'll need to build real systems for equality sooner rather than later.
Eye of the Storm
Chicago may burn, Kansas may be savaged by tornadoes, and Indonesia might be going to hell in a hand basket, but the latest Fantasy and Science Fiction is by comparison pretty mellow stuff. Indeed, it's a pretty unremarkable issue even compared to recent issues of F&SF! Still, there's good reading in here. Take a break from the outside world's madness and join me:
by Chesley Bonestell
Founder's Day, by Keith Laumer
Retief author Keith Laumer departs from comedic satire for a reasonably straight story. In a future borrowed from Harrison's Make Room! Make Room!, the only escape from Earth's 29 billion inhabitants is a five year journey in stasis to Alpha Centauri 3. But what really lies at the end of a grueling journey that includes a savage boot camp and the stripping away of all humanity?
A competent piece, Founder's Day nevertheless is no more than that. This story of friction between colonist and transport crew could have been set in 19th Century Australia as well as space. Laumer doesn't really bring anything new, in concept or execution.
Three stars.
The Plot is the Thing, by Robert Bloch
Psycho author Robert Bloch doesn't do much fantasy these days, but his turns are always slickly done. In this vignette, young heiress Peggy is the portrait of disassociation, abandoning reality for the Late Show, the Late Late Show, and the All Night Show — any program that will give her the horror flicks she craves. But when drastic medical intervention rescues her at the brink of death, is it salvation, or merely the gateway to greater unreality?
No surprises but the usual excellent execution.
Four stars.
by Gahan Wilson
Experiment in Autobiography, by Ron Goulart
The best part of Goulart's latest story is the double-meaning in the title. One gets the impression that the absurd lengths to which the protagonist, a free-lance writer, must go to collect his ghosting fee, is only slightly removed from reality.
Three stars for Goulart fans; knock one off for everyone else.
Brain Bank, by Ardrey Marshall
Sturm is a brilliant mathematician cut down in the prime of his life. Too valuable to be left to molder, Sturm is brought back as a disembodied brain, forced to offer his expertise to all who request it: students, businessmen, colleagues. He is a true slave with no human rights and the fear of being switched off perpetually hanging over him. Especially when an old rival, now a tenured professor who made his reputation by stealing the work of his T.A.s and associates, becomes Sturm's latest client.
In setup, it's not unlike Calvin Demmon's vignette The Switch, which appeared in F&SF last year. But the execution here is breezy, the story more of a potboiler.
I don't know if I buy the premise, but I can easily imagine a much put-upon sentient computer in the same situation. The rather conventional adventure story overlies some thoughtful philosophy.
Three stars.
Man in the Sea, by Theodore L. Thomas
Is oxygenated water the solution to problems posed by deep sea diving? What about direct oxygenization of blood? Some neat ideas that I can't immediately poke holes in for once.
Four stars.
The Age of Invention, by Norman Spinrad
This flip piece posits that our current art culture, and the ease with which it is manipulated, is no new thing at all. Indeed, it's been with us since we've been recognizably human.
Fun fluff. Three stars.
Balancing the Books, by Isaac Asimov
The latest article from The Good Doctor is about conservation of charge and mass in the subatomic particles. I suspect the material could have been covered in a piece as short as Thomas' column. Padded to ten pages, it loses its punch.
Three stars.
Revolt of the Potato Picker, by Herb Lehrman
A spud farmer, one of the last dirt agriculturalists in a time of yeast and lichen hydroponics, buys a sentient tractor to do his harvesting. All is well until the robot's sensitive side comes to the fore. Instead of devoting its (her?) time to picking and peeling, all it (she?) wants to do is pursue artistic interests.
Meant to be a winking, nudging joke of a story, I found it both distasteful and also just kind of stupid.
Two stars.
The Manse of Iucounu, by Jack Vance
At last, the meanderings of Cugel the Clever come to a close. Banished to the ends of the Dying Earth by Iucounu, the mage he was trying to rob, Cugel at last finds a way home with the treasure he was sent to find. The key turns out to be a misadventure with sapient rats and a liaison with a sorcerer liberated from their clutches.
Like the rest of the series, it wobbles between wittily imaginative and routine, too episodic to really engage. If anything, it feels like a modern day, rather adult Oz story. With a thoroughly unpleasant though sometimes entertaining antihero.
Call it four stars for this entry and three and a half for the series as a whole.
Emerging from Solace
There are issues of F&SF that astound, leaving an indelible impression. There have been others (not recently) that are better left to gather dust on the shelf (if not utilized for kindling next winter). The July 1966 issue lies on neither extreme. But if you find yourself wanting a quiet weekend away from the strife of the real world, this issue will be a fine companion.
by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall
Space has been big news in the British press recently. Not the current struggles of America’s Gemini-9 link-up, but rather the saga of the UK’s presence in the ELDO.
The European Launch Development Organization was formed by a treaty signed in 1962 between Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands for the development of a three-stage rocket launch for satellite use (you can read an excellent report Kaye Dee did on the project two years ago). However, the new British Labour government has been unhappy with the increasing costs and with the fact that Britain was paying around 40% of the cost rather than investing in its own rocket program, like some of the other nations have been.
The issue apparently came to a head when estimates for the Europa 1 launcher had risen to £150m, with no expectation of much practical use before 1969. For the last week negotiations had been happening feverishly to try to come up with a solution, with concerns that Britain would have no involvement in space in the future and the whole Eldo project could end up being scrapped.
Thankfully, a solution has been found. Britain will still be involved but their share of the cost will be reduced to 27%, whilst other countries shares increasing to meet this shortfall, making the payments between the largest countries more equitable.
New Writings in SF 8
Space is also the main theme of this quarter’s New Writings anthology, with new angles used to look at the familiar subject.
Before we start on the stories, can we address the fact that these Dobson hardbacks are incredibly ugly to look at? They are just the same image and format reproduced in different colors each time. The Corgi paperback editions all have much more attractive covers which are likely to intrigue the reader:
Could the publishers please make more effort? Or at least give us some variety after two years of the same dust jacket?
Anyway, on to the stories, let us see what Carnell’s crew comes up with:
The Pen and the Dark by Colin Kapp
We have the return of Kapp’s Unorthodox engineers for a third installment (one in Carnell’s New Worlds and the other in New Writings 3). These stories seem to have fans enough to encourage more tales in this world, although I have personally not been enamored by what has been presented so far.
This time the team go to investigate a strange phenomenon on the planet Ithica. An alien vessel had appeared there, then vanished, leaving a mysterious pillar of darkness. The whole area appears to defy their understanding of physics and so the team must investigate further.
I have read some people find the stilted, unnatural dialogue in this series as a great way to give his world depth. To me it is just irritating, as it does not stray far enough from our own language to read as much other than wooden. This was also compounded for me by the fact that it is filled to the brim with scientific jargon I struggled to understand. I have a suspicion it may have been made up, as they say at the end:
And even if they’d tried to tell us, I doubt our capacity to have understood. Try explain the uses and construction of a Dewar flask to an ant – and see who gets tired first.
However, what I did appreciate was the atmosphere of adventure into the unknown he creates which dragged me along this obscure journey. Perhaps more one for the Niven fans out there?
Three stars
Spacemen Live Forever by Gerald W. Page
Page is a new writer to me but has apparently had a couple of pieces published in the American magazines. Here he produces a very grim take on the long intergalactic voyage.
Torman Graylight is first officer on a ship transporting a sleeping population to a new planet. He is the only person awake apart from second officer Kelly. But when Kelly dies in an accident, Graylight’s loneliness gets the better of him and he decides to wake one of the sleepers. But will this be enough for the two of them to survive the years of travel through the void of space?
Whilst these kinds of grim nihilistic tales are not generally to my taste, I do appreciate the skill with which he presents the atmosphere, giving us a real sense of hopelessness and isolation.
Four Stars
The Final Solution by R. W. Mackelworth
Mackelworth also serves up a grim vignette, this one on the inherent self-destructiveness of fascism. In this future, human racial supremacists (closely modelled on Nazis) encounter another species with similar ideology on The Rose World. They decide to do a series of tests to determine racial hierarchy.
Even though short it is a very poignant and necessary piece on the ease with which militarism and racism can take over a society. The only parts that stop me from giving it a full five stars are that some of the elements (e.g., calling the alien leader Slan) and the ending make the story a little too explicit, but it is still a very strong short.
A high four stars
Computer’s Mate by John Rackham
Captain Sven Soren is piloting the Stellar One through the gaps between atoms as a means of breaching light-speed, with the first attempt to Vega. To achieve this, they need a massive computer to control the ship’s complex mechanisms. Coming with it is Grant Wilson, whose job is to care for the machine and act as the link between crew and computer.
Their first “star-jaunt” is a success, with them finding an Earth style world and its inhabitants. However, the crew are distrustful of Wilson as he himself acts like a computer and are unwilling to heed his warnings of the dangers ahead.
I have decidedly mixed feelings about this piece. Whilst it is nice to see a story about a mentally disabled person (particularly where he gets to be the hero, rather than a victim) the abuse of the rest of the crew because of his differences still feels out of place. There are also large sections which are just philosophizing on the nature of life and humanity, which can be interesting at times but often seem to be used at the expense of the women crew members. And whilst it is nice to see multiple women involved in spaceship operations, they are not really shown to do much that is positive.
I think I will go straight down the middle and give it three stars.
Tryst by John Baxter
On the outer reaches of an Asimov-esque galactic empire, there is a barren, nearly forgotten colonized world called Dismas. their only real link with the central imperium is an annual ship sent to help support the colony and bring back any saleable merchandise.
However, on this shipment all the boxes of equipment sent instead contain boxes of rose petals and the new machines are made from paper and foil. Even the ship in orbit is mysteriously deserted. The young rebellious Nicholas is sent to take the ship back to Centre and find out what has happened.
This is a thoroughly sensory story, beautifully described with a real sense of wonder and melancholy. Unfortunately, the ending was a bit of a disappointment for me and the only thing keeping it from a full five stars.
Four stars
And of course, at last we come to the obligatory Keith Roberts tale! This time making up the final third of the anthology. However, this piece does not seem to have any relation to the space theme of the rest of the book, rather being one of artificial intelligence.
In the twenty-second century, Megan Wingrove is named as a co-respondent in a major divorce case, between famous painter Henry Davenport and his wife Ira Davenport, with it being claimed Megan had an affair with Henry whilst working as their maid and Ira’s companion. What makes this case unusual is that Megan is a synth, a kind of advanced robot with an organic skin and muscle structure.
As well as seeking damages for mental anguish, Ira wants to have Megan destroyed for being dangerous and behaving immorally. We observe the case unfolding as they debate as to whether or not it is possible for a human to have a sexual relationship with a synth and whether a synth can be deemed to be responsible.
I was initially cynical that Keith Roberts would be able to do this kind of tale justice but he manages to produce both a really tense courtroom drama as well as delving into questions of consent and love. This story manages to be applicable to real life (you could see the same questions emerging in a similar situation with a domestic servant) whilst also being distinctly science fictional. He gives more thought to what it would mean for human emotions and longings to hit up against our technological capabilities than I can think of in any similar story.
I am as surprised as anyone to find myself giving a Keith Roberts story a full five stars!
Back to Earth
Readjusting their focus back to traditional science fictional subjects and having a nice mix of new and old talents has really brought out the best in Carnell’s anthology series. Here they put new perspectives on these subjects and come out with a marvelous selection. Even the stories I didn’t like as much I think may have more to do with my personal foibles than the quality of the writing.
Hopefully, this can continue in issue #9 and not regress to the poor state of affairs we saw in the prior collection.
Tune in to KGJ, our radio station! Nothing but the newest and best hits!
![[July 18, 1966] Arrivals and Departures (<i>Doctor Who</i>: The War Machines)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/660718trapthemachine-672x372.jpg)
![[July 14, 1966] October's Judgment (July Galactoscope)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/660714coversjpg-672x372.jpg)
![[July 12, 1966] Cool It! (August 1966 <i>Worlds of Tomorrow</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Worlds_of_Tomorrow_v04n01_1966-08_0000-2-672x330.jpg)
![[July 10, 1966] Froth, Fun, and Serious Social Commentary (<i>Sibyl Sue Blue</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Sibyl_Sue_1966-452x372.jpg)
![[July 8, 1966] South Pohl (August 1966 <i>Galaxy</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/660708cover-672x372.jpg)
![[June 30, 1966] Not Reading You (July 1966 <i>Analog</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/660630analog-500x372.jpg)
![[June 24, 1966] Increments: <i>World's Best Science Fiction: 1966</i>, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/wollheim-66-cover-449x372.png)
![[June 20, 1966] First Impressions Can Be Misleading (<i>Doctor Who</i>: The Savages)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/660620underarrest-672x372.jpg)
![[June 16, 1966] Calm Spots (July 1966 <i>Fantasy and Science Fiction</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/660616cover-672x372.jpg)
![[June 12, 1966] Which Way to Outer Space? (New Writings In SF 8)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/New-Writings-in-SF8-Cover-259x372.jpg)