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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[December 7, 1964] Panic On The Streets Of London (Doctor Who: THE DALEK INVASION OF EARTH)

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By Jessica Holmes

Are you ready for the most ambitious serial Doctor Who has yet done? I hope so, because that’s what I’ve got for you today: The Dalek Invasion Of Earth! We’re welcoming Terry Nation back into the writer’s chair, and coming face to face with a familiar foe.

WORLD’S END

A promising title if I ever saw one.

There are two things you’ll immediately notice when this episode starts: one, the bloke with the silly helmet, and two, the great big poster informing us that it is forbidden to dump bodies in the river. Well, I’d have thought that was a given, but I guess not, because without so much as a glance at the poster the man walks down to the water, rips off his helmet, and drowns himself.

Moments after the man’s body goes floating off, the TARDIS arrives, and the gang pile out to see what’s what, and come to the conclusion they’re in London. Probably.

No sooner have they started looking around than there’s a terrible rumble, sending a bridge collapsing on top of the TARDIS. It’s not the most subtle way the gang have been kept in a location long enough for a story to happen, but I’ll take it.

Susan hurts her ankle trying to climb a wall, and being the caring, nurturing grandfather he is, the Doctor scolds her for being irresponsible and threatens her with “…a jolly good smacked bottom.”

Susan is how old, now? Fifteen? Perhaps Sixteen?

I don’t even know what to make of it.

I didn’t take the Doctor as one for corporal punishment. If we pretend the incident with the rock and the caveman didn't happen, he’s pretty pacifistic. So, yes. Weird.

Moving on!

The Doctor and Ian go off to a nearby warehouse in search of cutting tools, and we’re shooting on location again! It’s nice to let the actors stretch their legs. They don’t like being cooped up. In the warehouse, the Doctor finds a calendar, and at last we know the year they've landed in: 2164.

Back by the river, Barbara spots the man from earlier floating in the water, and as she scrambles away, a stranger accosts her, urging her to come with him.

In the warehouse, Ian and the Doctor discover a body, wearing the same strange helmet as the man in the river. The doctor theorises that it’s an ‘extra ear’ for picking up high-frequency radio waves. Upon closer examination, they realise this man was stabbed to death. Things are looking a bit grim in future-London.

The Doctor and Ian can’t disturb the dead for long, as a strange noise outside calls them to the window, where they spot an actual flying saucer.

Why are alien spaceships always saucers? How do they even launch? Do the little green men throw them from a mechanical arm like an intergalactic space frisbee?

Susan and Barbara arrive at some sort of hideout, where they meet a bunch of men who are part of an underground resistance movement. They’re in need of cooks. I am going to be very generous and assume that everyone else is too busy to cook, and that they weren’t just waiting for a woman to turn up so they could have something other than spam.

I’ll get around to introducing people properly when they become relevant to the plot. It’s hard to keep track of names when lots are thrown at you at once. Even harder when everyone talks fast and their diction isn’t quite clear. I did spend longer than I’m proud of referring to each character in my head as ‘that guy’, or ‘that other bloke’.

Up rolls another chap, and I mean that literally because he uses a wheelchair. This is Dortmun, and he’s a scientist. Am I imagining things or are folks who use wheelchairs in sci-fi always the sciency type? Or evil. Or both.

Barbara’s introduced to him with the fact she can cook, and when Susan is asked what she can do, she responds, “I eat.” I wish she was funny like that more often. Sometimes I wonder if the writers forget she’s a teenager, because she doesn’t do much teenager-ish stuff, like this sort of backchat.

Back by the river, Ian and the Doctor spot the ‘no dumping bodies’ poster, and the Doctor’s only comment is that it’s a stupid place to put a poster, under a bridge where nobody’s likely to spot it. Great sense of perspective you have there, Doc.

They don’t get to ruminate on the sign for long, as they find themselves surrounded by a whole gang of men wearing those strange helmets. They don’t look at all friendly. Ian decides to try the diplomatic approach, but all that gets is a bunch of raised whips (of all the weapons, why a whip?) and a droned order for them to stop. The two prepare to jump into the river and swim for it.

However, there's something in the water…

The surface ripples, and out comes a familiar eyestalk, followed by a plunger, and the Doctor and Ian turn to find their way blocked by none other than a Dalek. The reveal is absolutely fantastic, and a delightful/horrifying surprise. Well, if you didn’t know the title of the serial, that is.

Now we’re cooking on gas.

THE DALEKS

The Dalek, having made a suitably dramatic entrance, questions the robo-men (yes, that’s what the men with helmets are called, and yes, I do think it’s a very silly name) as to why these two humans were allowed to get so close to the river. I wonder why they’re so keen on keeping people out?

The Doctor gets lippy as per usual with the Dalek, who informs him that it’s heard that kind of talk before from many different leaders of humans, and all were destroyed. Because the Doctor has more gob than sense, he keeps on taunting the Dalek that you can’t really be the master of Earth unless you’ve killed everything else on it, which seems to get under the Dalek’s metal skin. After all, it’s only the humans they’ve conquered. They’re not the masters of the dung beetle. Or the guinea pigs.

Down in the rebel hideout, we see about a dozen or so members of the resistance. Ah, I’ll let them off on the cooking thing, then. They aren’t all blokes. Mostly, but not all. There’s a very brisk blonde woman who seems to be in a leadership role. She’s Sally.

Meanwhile, Dortmun and Tyler, a resistance fighter, are discussing an attack. Tyler is of the opinion that it’s a stupid idea, doomed to failure. I don’t know. Just climb some stairs and throw rocks at their eyestalks. What are they going to do, scream at you?

Dortmun, however, has perfected a new bomb, that should in theory destroy the Daleks’ outer shells. However, he insists it doesn’t need testing because it works on paper. Sure, Dortmun. That’s how science works. No need to test your weaponry to make sure it a) won’t blow up in your face, and b) will actually kill whatever you want dead.

No wonder the Daleks took over.

Ian and the Doctor arrive at the flying saucer they saw before, where there’s even more Daleks about. Ian is confused, as when they last met the Daleks, they were all destroyed. However, as the Doctor points out, that was about a million years in the future. The Dalek invasion of Earth is a much earlier part of Dalek history. Time travel is fun!

These Daleks have discs on their backs, perhaps accounting for their increased mobility, as if you recall on Skaro they could only move on metal. As an invasion force, they’ve had to adapt. I don’t know why they didn’t keep that adaptation into the future, but there you have it. I mean, there's an obvious Doylist explanation, that being 'the Daleks were meant to be a one-off villain', but that's not as fun as speculating the in-universe reasoning, is it?

Back in the resistance hideout, Susan makes the acquaintance of a young rebel, David. David examines some headgear recovered from dead robo-men, and Jenny explains to Susan that the robo-men were once Dalek prisoners, before they were operated on and turned into mindless drones to aid the invasion. The same thing happened to her brother. However, the effect of the operation eventually wears off, so over time, the robo-men lose their minds and start trying to kill themselves. That’s what the man who jumped in the river was doing. What a truly grim idea.

On the Dalek ship, the Doctor and Ian remark on how impressively built the saucer is, and how inescapable it seems. Or it might just be that they really want the viewer to notice how nice and big and not-made-of-cardboard the set is. Still, the Doctor has hope that he can figure a way out of this mess. However, the Daleks are taking an interest in him, and his clear intelligence.

The Doctor and Ian are shoved in a cell with a man called Craddock, who is a total pessimist, but does give us a lot of useful exposition. Ready? Here we go.

The Dalek invasion of Earth began with a bombardment of meteorites about ten years ago. Then, after the showers had passed, people started dropping dead of some strange new plague, absolutely devastating the human population, and wiping out the continents of Asia, Africa, and South America.

All that remained of human civilisation was divided up into little communities of survivors, too small and spread too far apart to mount any sort of resistance.

Then the saucers started landing, and the Dalek invasion of Earth began in earnest, razing cities to the ground. The few humans left were either captured and made into robo-men, or shipped off to toil in mines.

The only thing they don’t know is why. What is it the Daleks want? For some reason, the Daleks are making humans dig a deep hole in the ground in Bedfordshire. Why Bedfordshire? I don’t know. I don’t even know what’s in Bedfordshire. Bedford, I presume. Look, I’m a northerner; we don’t pay much attention to anything south of Birmingham.

The Daleks make a final ultimatum to the rebel humans. Surrender, and they will be spared. Rebel, and the Daleks will destroy London, and with it all the males, females, and "descendants". Honestly I’m a little surprised there are many kids left in this harsh world. This is a genuinely dark serial, and do you know why? It's because it feels real.

There’s nothing here that hasn’t happened in the real world, only with us it was humans doing it to other humans in the name of land, wealth, or ideology. Genocide, torture, slavery. It's all-too-familiar, and may hit uncomfortably close to home for some viewers.

So, the strike against the Daleks will go ahead as planned. If it succeeds, it might just be the kick up the backside humanity needs to turn the tide of the war.

But how will they get close enough to the Daleks? Barbara has a plan. Some of the rebels will don the robo-men’s headgear, and escort a bunch of 'prisoners' right into the Dalek ship. They won't know what hit them!

In the saucer, Ian finds a Thing. I’ll call it the puzzle-box, because I was puzzled watching the whole thing. There’s a magnet inside, and with some faffing about with a magnifying glass, another magnet, and some light, the Doctor manages to get it out. With the two magnets, he’s able to break the magnetic lock on the cell door. However, his success is short-lived, as it turns out that the Daleks put the puzzle-box in the cell as a test to find prisoners intelligent enough to turn into robo-men.

Night falls, and the rebels prepare to attack, while inside the saucer, the robo-men prepare the Doctor for his operation.

Hold on a moment. I have to adjust my glasses, because unless I’m very much mistaken, I believe some of those Daleks aren’t Daleks at all. In fact, I think they might be cardboard cutouts. They’re in the shadows, but when light passes over them they appear curiously flat. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss it thing, so I think it’s quite a clever way to make the invasion force look bigger without breaking the budget.

And the attack begins! Barbara, David and Susan start lobbing bombs, and in the ensuing chaos the rebels slip aboard the ship.

However, the Daleks order the robo-men to proceed with the Doctor’s operation as planned. He’s unconscious, on the table, and the operation is about to begin.

DAY OF RECKONING

These episode titles are quite biblical, aren’t they? I suppose that’s one way to get the kids into church. ‘Go to Sunday School or the Daleks’ll getcha!’

The rebels find and release the Doctor before it’s too late, but an absolutely awful high pitched whistle distracted me from the struggle. I don’t know what the sound effect was supposed to be, but it made my ears very unhappy.

Ian rushes into the ship to help the rebels escape, and Barbara leaps into the fray. What follows is a battle that could do with some more foley work, as there’s no real sense of impact whenever bombs go off or someone gets hit with a Dalek deathray. The ray makes a noise, yes, but not at the point of impact. The result is a scene which looks and feels not like a hard-fought battle with lives on the line, but like a bunch of people throwing themselves around a soundstage.

The music’s annoying too. It’s very repetitive. While repetition can be used to great effect in a score to create a sense of tension, it isn’t here. It's just irritating.

After the battle, most of the rebels are dead or wounded. Dortmun’s bombs were useless. What's worse, Barbara is the only companion to make it back to the rebel hideout. The others are nowhere to be found.

However, Dortmun still has hope for his ultimate bomb. He prepares to head across London to the Civic Transport Museum (the most alluring and exciting of all London’s museums) to work on his weapon.

He’d better be quick about it. The Daleks aren’t going to forgive an attack like that. Their saucer departs, and we spot a member of the missing gang: Ian! He’s alive, for now, and his suit is in surprisingly good condition.

Along comes a robotised Craddock with a rebel prisoner in tow, Larry, and Craddock informs Ian that he’s to be robotised. But Ian's not going down without a fight!

In the struggle, Larry succeeds in ripping Craddock's headgear off, killing him. With the immediate threat dealt with, he and Ian hide the body, and crawl into a hiding space under the floor.

Meanwhile, Susan is alive, and on the run with David. They listen in horror as they hear some unseen survivor running from the Daleks, screaming for the family they killed, and his agonising execution. It’s quite a harrowing scene that has echoes of real, recent history.

Traumatised, Susan proposes to David that he could come with them in the TARDIS, and get away from this horrible invasion. However, he says he can’t just run away. This is his planet. His fight.

It’s a bit of an alien concept to Susan, who has never really belonged in any time or place.

They run into another survivor, and who should he have with him but the Doctor! He doesn’t look too good, but at least he’s alive.

The man drops off the Doctor and hurries on his way. He’s making for Cornwall. It's quiet down there. The weather's pretty nice too. Lovely spot for a summer holiday. He gets about ten paces before running straight into some Daleks.

Elsewhere in London, Barbara and Jenny are helping Dortmun get across the city, which even in the 2200s still isn’t properly wheelchair accessible.

But this sequence is the best part of The Dalek Invasion Of Earth (so far). Why? Well, see for yourself.

Daleks outside the Palace of Westminster. Amazing. Absolutely iconic and I mean that sincerely. I want a poster of this. I want it on a T-Shirt. I want it printed on a mug.

Cue the montage! Daleks in Trafalgar Square! Daleks at the Albert Memorial! This is what location shooting is for. I don’t care if the rest of the series takes place in my shed, it’s worth it to see a Dalek surrounded by pigeons, further proving that Daleks are not the masters of Earth, because pigeons bow to no man, or alien pepperpot.

Unfortunately, we don’t get to see Daleks at Buckingham Palace, which makes me very sad.

Anyway, they get to the museum and Dortmun perfects his bomb, now totally guaranteed to pierce the Dalekenium casing of the Daleks. Bit on the nose, but fair enough.

He’d like to run it by another scientist, though. He’s learned from his earlier mistake. What he needs is a Doctor. Barbara theorises the Doctor might have started heading north to the mines, while Jenny, ever optimistic, is doubtful he’s even alive.

All the same, there’s nothing left for them in London, so the group decide to start making for Bedford. However, before they leave, Dortmun slips away, leaving his notes behind, and goes to face the Daleks. He rises from his chair (yes, ambulatory wheelchair users exist, and I’m glad that the episode doesn’t make a huge deal of it), and lobs his new bomb at the Daleks. They gun him down without hesitation.

I'm not sure if his bomb really worked. There was an explosion, but I couldn't tell if it did any damage. What I’m also unsure of is why he did it. He might have limited mobility but he’s by no means expendable. They don’t even know if the Doctor’s alive! What if there’s nobody to take over his work?

It strikes me as a senseless sacrifice.

Elsewhere in London, the Doctor is regaining some of his mobility. Susan wants to head north to meet with David, but the Doctor would rather head back to the TARDIS, causing them to butt heads as the Doctor questions whether Susan still respects his authority.

David comes back, and reports sightings of Daleks on the river. The Doctor, appearing to have had a change of heart, decides that when he’s more mobile they should start heading north as planned. I’m not sure what changed his mind, but as I think I’ve said before, it’d be a bit of a rubbish story if they just went back to the TARDIS and vworped off whenever they got into trouble.

On the saucer, Ian’s talking to Larry, who mentions something about the Daleks possibly wanting to get at Earth’s magnetic core, as the ship lands. Welcome…to Bedford! It’s not the most exciting spot to pick as the epicentre of an alien invasion, but there you go.

Back in London, some robo-men come along, carrying something heavy. The Doctor, Susan and David have yet to leave, so they hide, and listen, as the large box begins to tick.

It would appear they're sitting right next to a bomb!

So ends this episode, which in all honesty I found a bit limp. Once it was established that the main characters all made it through the battle, most of the plot threads were stuck spinning their wheels, taken up by characters discussing whether or not they should go to Bedford. However, the chase sequence through London saved it and turned it into my favourite of these three episodes.

Final Thoughts

What a serial! This is definitely the most ambitious yet, the sort of story you’d normally only see on film. It has an impressive scope and sense of scale; most stories up to now have only concerned a few dozen people at most. This concerns the future of humans as a species! The Daleks look absolutely great, as does the interior set of the Dalek saucer.

We’ve also got some interesting characters knocking about. Except David. Sorry, Susan, I know you like him, but he’s dull as ditchwater. Sally and Dortmun, on the other hand? I'd be interested in getting to know them better.

I’m going to hold fire on a more in-depth analysis of the story, the world, and the Daleks themselves until I’ve seen all there is to see, but believe me, there’s a lot to dig into here. Not only is this a big story on the surface, I do believe it to be even bigger on the inside. I’m genuinely excited to see where this goes from here, and to come back here and prattle on about it later this month.

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Book, Magazine, Science / Space Race, Serial

[December 5, 1964] Steady as she goes (January 1965 IF)

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by Gideon Marcus

A tale of two missions

Mariner 4, launched November 28, 1964, is on its way to Mars.  Shortly after launch, the smart folks at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (some of whom I met last weekend!) determined that Mariner was going to miss its destination by some 200,000 kilometers.  So they calculated the nudge it would take to deflect the ship toward a closer rendezvous with the Red Planet.  This morning, the little spacecraft was ordered to fire its onboard engines for a 20 second burn, and it now looks like Mariner will come within just 10,000 kilometers of its target!

On the other side of the world, the Soviets have informed the world that their Zond 2 probe, launched two days after Mariner 4, needs no course correction.  On the other hand, on Dec. 2, it was reported that the probe is only generating half the power it's supposed to.

Similarly, in the science fiction magazine world, no fewer than three magazines got new editors this year (Fantasy and Science Fiction, Science Fantasy, and New Worlds), and two of them have the same editor with a different name (Amazing's and Fantastic's Cele Goldsmith is now Cele Lalli).

But in Fred Pohl's trinary system of Galaxy, Worlds of Tomorrow, and IF, not only is leadership unchanged, but so is content.  Nowhere is that clearer than in the January 1965 issue of IF, which like its predecessors, is an uneven mix of old and new authors, old and new ideas, and generally inferior but not unpleasant work. 

In other words, on course, but running on half-steam.

The Issue at Hand


by Gray Morrow

In many ways, this is not the issue Pohl wanted on the news stands.  The cover doesn't illustrate any of the contents of the issue; it's supposed to go with Jack Vance's novel, The Killing Machine.  But since that story ended up in book print before it could be serialized, it was pulled from appearing in the magazine.  Instead, we got the sequel to Fred Pohl's and Jack Williamson's The Reefs of Space, which had the virtue of being an IF-exclusive series and co-written by the editor. 

It's a good thing Pohl had it in his back pocket!

Starchild (Part 1 of 3), by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson


by Gray Morrow

Hundreds of years from now, the solar system is ruled by the Plan of Man, a computer-led collective in which everyone's lives are ordered, and dissent is rewarded with a quick trip to the body banks for organ harvesting.  But out in the stellar outskirts, in the frigid birthplace of comets, the steady creation of matter in the universe provides rich feeding grounds for the fusorians.  These cosmic plankton eaters in turn create vast reefs in space, homes to the seal-like spacelings and their predators, the dragonesque pyropods.  These reefs have also become shelters for Terran dissidents yearning to be free.  The Reefs of Space told the tale of their first human visitors.

Starchild is the story of Machine Major Boysie Gann, a spy sent to Polaris station to suss out traitors to the Plan.  He ends up kidnapped to the Reefs and then made a messenger to the Planner, the human liaison with the Planning Machine.  Mysteriously teleported back to Earth, Boysie bears with him The Writ of Liberation: if the Plan of Man does not end its attempts to subjugate the free people of the Reefs, the "Starchild" will blacken the Sun…

I was a bit chary of this serial at the beginning.  Williamson is a pulp writer from the way-back, and it shows.  Pohl can be brilliant, but Reefs was more pedestrian (except for the gripping middle section).  But Starchild kept me going the whole way, sort of a Cordwainer Smith "Instrumentality" story, though with less poetry.

Four stars so far.

Answering Service, by Alma Hill

A Boston fan and writer, Hill is new to my ken but has apparently been published since 1950. Service shows us a world where the SPCA has won, cats and other "aggressive" animals are tolerated only in zoos, and mice are overrunning the world without check.  One man is determined to reverse this situation.

Utterly forgettable.  Two stars.

The Recon Man, by Wilson Tucker


by Nodel

A young man wakes up from an amnesiac coma with a push to his back out the door of a house.  Onto a Heinlein moving road he goes, along with dozens of other male commuters to some mysterious labor destination.  A spitfire, himself, the other drones are so many zombies.  Only the pink jumpsuited women have any personality; they seem to run the show.

The man is harnessed to a machine, tasked with creating bacon by conceptualizing it so it can materialize in front of him.  He soon gets bored with this role and makes neckties and carpentry tools instead.  This shuts down the assembly line early, and one of the female supervisors takes him home to see what's wrong with him. 

Slowly, memories of a fatal car crash, centuries before in 1960, coalesce in the man's mind.  How did he get to this strange world?  For what purpose?  And how long does he have to live?

Recon Man is a neat little mystery with a truckload of dark implications.  I liked it a lot.  Four stars.

Vanishing Point, by Jonathan Brand


by Gray Morrow

This is the second outing by Brand, his first being a disappointment.  He fares better with this one, a space story within a bedtime story (the framing is cute but not particularly necessary) about Earth travelers on the first emissary mission to an alien race.

The place chosen for first contact is a sort of mock-Earth made by the aliens, a beautiful park of a world stocked with all sorts of game.  It even has a centenarian, human caretaker.  But neither the park, nor the old man, are what they seem.

Not bad.  Three stars.

The Heat Racers, by L. D. Ogle

Then we come to our traditional IF "first", the piece by a heretofore unpublished author (or at least an unpublished pseudonym).  This one is a vignette about a race of anti-grav sailboats.  I think.  The motive force and levitative technologies are never really explained.

Another trivial piece.  Two stars.

Retief, God-Speaker, by Keith Laumer


by Jack Gaughan

And last up, we have yet another installment in the increasingly tiresome saga of Retief, the diplomatic superspy of the future.  This one involves a race of money-grubbing, seven-foot, theocratic slobs, and the diminutive, subterranean aliens they mean to wipe out like vermin.  Can Retief establish formal relations with the former while saving the latter?

By the end of the novelette, you probably won't care.  This is easily the goofiest and most heavy-handed entry in the series.  I think it's time for Laumer to cut his losses.

Two stars.

Summing Up

All told, this month's issue is more "half a loaf" than "curate's egg".  The parts I liked were lots of fun, and as for the dreary bits, at least they made for quick reading.  I've said before that Pohl doesn't really have enough good material for three mags, but he could have a dynamite pair.

On the other hand, IF is a place to stick new authors and off-beat stories.  I just wish they were more consistently successes!

Maybe 1965 will be the year IF gets a mid-course correction…

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Book, Magazine

[November 29, 1964] All-star (December 1964 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

The Big Guns

Thanksgiving is over, and the holiday season will officially begin tonight with the lighting of the first of the Hannukah candles.  After that, it's just a short skip and a jump to that more widely celebrated holiday.

I am, of course, referring to the Winter Solstice.

It is an appropriate season, then, for science fiction's most-read magazine, Analog, to finish its year of publication with a bang.  Fantasy and Science Fiction is fond of issuing "All-Star" magazines, in which the majority of the authors are big names.  The December 1964 Analog isn't so dubbed, but nevertheless, it's chock full of heavy hitters.  Let's take a look!

Armed Assault


by Robert Swanson

Tempestuous Moon, by Joseph H. Jackson

It has been the subject of wives' tales and farmers' almanacs that the phases of the Moon have an effect on the weather.  In particular (they maintain), some points in the lunar cycle are likelier to be rainy than others.  And now Analog has got a breathless article confirming the folk wisdom.  Take that, doubting eggheads!

It's true that (editor) Campbell is notorious for printing the worst pseudoscience pieces, and Jackson's article is mostly blather.  However, if his data be accurate, they are compelling.  While the phases of the Moon should have no effect on the Earth, per se, they do correspond to geometries between the Sun and the Moon with respect to the Earth.  And both of those bodies do have a profound effect on our planet every day in the form of tides.  I can conceive that a strong tide, for instance when the Sun and Moon's forces combine to cause Spring Tides, might create lower atmospheric pressures, reducing the amount of moisture the air can hold, causing rains.  Neap Tides would have the opposite effect.

Or it could all be garbage.  Are there any pieces in reputable journals?

Plague on Kryder II, by Murray Leinster

Calhoun the interstellar Med Service man and his adorable pet/assisant, Murgatroyd, are back.  This time, they are investigating an impossible plague, one which seems to suppress the immune system rather than directly infecting the body.  Worse, this disease kills tormals, the monkey-like race that Murgatroyd belongs to.  Since this latter is an impossibility, tormals being immune to all diseases, Calhoun suspects foul play.


by Kelly Freas

I love the Med Service stories.  Sadly, they are suffering from the same malaise that has infected all of Leinster's writing to date.  It causes him to write only in short, declarative statements, often repeating himself for no reason.  Also, this tale's solution is given mostly in exposition, which kills the fun of the mystery.

Still, even substandard Calhoun and Murgatroyd is pretty fun, and the picture of the sick tormal is too cute for words.  Three stars.

Shortstack, by Leigh and Walt Richmond


by Kelly Freas

The latest vignette by the Richmonds is an odd one, more a dramatized advertisement for a unique power generator.  It uses the heat differential between the top and bottom of a plastic cylinder to drive an engine and also to distill water.

Harmless, kind of interesting.  Three stars.

Contrast, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

A man trapped out in a wilderness that would give Deathworld a run for its money gets buzzed by an obnoxious tourist.  When said sightseer falls out, the hermit takes his skimmer and rides to safety.  The moral of the story: don't take what you have for granted, and a stint in the muck might do you good.

Enjoyable, despite the smugness of the ending.  Three stars.

Sweet Dreams, Sweet Princes (Part 3 of 3), by Mack Reynolds


by Robert Swanson

We return to the world of the early 21st Century, where society has stratified into stagnancy: in both East and West, the top 1% rule everything, the bottom 90% are jobless and tranquilized, and only the middle 9% have any real agency.  Last time, Estruscan professor and gladiator-extreme, Denny Land, had just won a tripartite contest over custody of a Belgian scientist who had invented anti-missile missiles, something with the potential to destabilize the world.

But when the Americans go to pick up the scientist, he has disappeared!  And rather than express disconcertment, Land's boss, Joe Mauser seems almost unsurprised…

Land goes back to his old school with a promotion and bump in caste, but he can't hide his frustration and disenchantment.  Reenter Bette Yarborough, who recruits Land into the Sons of Liberty to try to upend the whole rotten world order.  And then comes an even unlikelier ally in the cause — former foe and Sov-world agent, Yuri Malshev.  Together, can the three create a revolution?

And what if the revolution has already happened, and nobody knows?

This installment was the most engaging, well-paced and thoughtful, though there may have been one too many wheels within the wheels.  Perhaps a Part IV would not have been amiss.  I was grateful that Bette turned out not to just be a love interest (though more than one female in the universe would have been nice).  If anything, Denny and Yuri had more chemistry…

Anyway, four stars for this segment.  Call it three and a half for the novel as a whole.  I appreciate that Reynolds is willing to make "if this goes on" predictions.  I wonder how right he will prove to be…

Rescue Operation, by Harry Harrison


by Adolph Brotman

An alien astronaut crash lands on the shore of an Adriatic village.  Injured and barely conscious, he is taken to a local scientist for help.  But can an effective treatment be developed in time?

This simple story is given depth and emotion by the unusually talented Harrison, who will probably get my nomination for one of the year's best authors.  Four stars.

The Equalizer, by Norman Spinrad


by Adolph Brotman

In Israeli's Negev desert, a scientist wrestles with his conscience — and his superior — over the the new bomb he's invented.  On the one hand, it will give the little Jewish state inordinate power; on the other hand, power never remains exclusively owned for long. 

An interesting think piece whose title has a double meaning.  Three stars.

High Marks

Well, color me surprised!  Analog, normally a disappointing performer, scored a respectable 3.2 stars — second only this month to the superlative Galaxy (3.6).  Science Fantasy and Worlds of Tomorrow both scored an even 3 stars, largely thanks to better-than-average long pieces balancing out less impressive small ones.

And on the negative side of the ledger, we have a lackluster IF (2.8), a still-Davidson weighted Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.6), and Cele G. Lalli's mags did worst of all: Fantastic got just 2.3 stars, and Amazing broke the two barrier, scoring a jaw-dropping 1.9.  What happened?

Women published just 5 and a half of all the stories in magazines this month, all of them very short.  Betty Friedan would be rolling in her grave, and she's not even dead!

Ah well.  1965 approaches, a chance to wipe the slate and start anew.  But before then, you will want to see our Galactic Stars awards when they come out in a few short weeks!  Then you won't have to wade through the dross to get the gems — we'll have done the work for you.

Happy Holidays!

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 21, 1964] Bridging the Gap (December 1964 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

I'll Cross That Bridge When I Come To It

Citizens of the Big Apple now have a new way to travel between Staten Island and Brooklyn, with the official opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The structure is named for the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, said to be the first European to sail into the Hudson River, way back in 1524. It is the longest suspension bridge in the world, spanning a little over four-fifths of a mile.


Note to proofreader: The name of the bridge has one z, the name of the man has two. Go figure.

More than five thousand people attended the opening ceremony on November 21st, including New York City Mayor Robert Ferdinand Wagner II and New York State Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Even President Johnson supplied a congratulatory speech.


The official motorcade crossing the bridge after the gold ribbon was cut. I don't think they had to pay the fifty cents that you or I would have to pay to get across.

If you'll allow me to stretch a metaphor to the breaking point, popular music can serve as a bridge between people of differing backgrounds, something we Americans could use during these times of racial strife. Case in point, as Rod Serling might say, is the fact that the Motown hit Baby Love, by the trio known as the Supremes, has been at the top of the US charts all month, and shows no sign of going away any time soon.


That makes the Supremes the first Motown act to reach Number One twice. Don't believe me? Ask any girl, or boy for that matter, who listens to Top 40 radio.

Appropriately, the latest issue of Fantastic features a lead novella about crossing the immense gap between the stars.

Why? To Get To The Other Side


Cover art by Lloyd Birmingham.

The Unteleported Man, by Philip K. Dick


All interior illustrations in this issue by George Schelling.

Rachmael ben Applebaum is a man with some serious problems. His father recently died, apparently by suicide. (There are hints that this may not be the case, but the question is never resolved.) Rachmael inherited the family business, which happens to involve faster-than-light starships. Not much faster, however; it still takes many years to reach their destinations.

Applebaum Enterprises is in ruins, because the rival company Trails of Hoffman has control over teleportation technology that reduces the travel time to minutes. In this future overpopulated world, millions of people have already paid a small fee to be zapped to Whale's Mouth, a planet orbiting the star Fomalhaut. The teleportation machine only works one way, so nobody has ever returned. The sole evidence for what things are like on Whale's Mouth comes via broadcasts from the planet. They make the place sound like a paradise compared to Earth.


Two minor characters in the story, considering a long-distance move.

Trails of Hoffman deliberately became a major stockholder in Applebaum Enterprises, so Rachmael now owes them a huge debt. They also have the legal right to ownership of the only starship he still possesses. Desperate to find out what's really happening on Whale's Mouth, he engages the services of Listening Instructional Educational Services, derisively known as Lies, Incorporated. Despite the name, the organization is actually interested in the truth. They serve as a private espionage agency for their clients.

What follows is a complex tale of plots and counter-plots, involving not only the groups I've noted above, but the United Nations, which is now a powerful world government, dominated by a reunited Germany. After many adventures that could have come out of a very strange, futuristic James Bond novel, Rachmael manages to set out alone on his starship, willing to spend eighteen years getting to Whale's Mouth and another eighteen years on a return flight to Earth. Meanwhile, Trails of Hoffman, Lies Incorporated, and the UN have their own plans, not to mention the folks on Whale's Mouth.

As usual for this author, there's a complicated background, plenty of twists in the plot, and multiple viewpoint characters. Also typical is the fact that things are not always as they seem. It's obvious from the start that Whale's Mouth isn't the Utopia it claims to be, but it's also not quite what Rachmael fears it might be. One of the organizations mentioned above seems to be an enemy, but turns out to be an ally. Even the title of the story is misleading.

As I've hinted, the story has the flavor of spy fiction, mixed with a lot of science fiction concepts. Although the mood is serious, even grim, there's a touch of satire and absurdity. (One character fears losing his job to a trained pigeon.) The plot always held my interest, and the characters are intriguing. (Some meet with sudden, unpleasant ends, so don't get too attached to them.)


See what I mean?

My one quibble is that the novella stops in an open-ended fashion. Perhaps the author intends to expand it into a novel.

Four stars.

I Am Bonaro, by John Starr Niendorff

Here's an odd little story by an author completely unknown to me. A disheveled old man stumbles out of a boxcar, unable to speak, wearing a sign around his neck, bearing the words in the title. He wanders around, holding out a sponge to everyone he meets. Flashback sequences reveal his miserable childhood, when he developed the power to change himself into anything in order to escape his tormentors. The end explains his current condition, and the reason for the sponge. The whole thing is weird enough to be worth a look.

Three stars.

IT, Out of Darkest Jungle, by Gordon R. Dickson

Written in the form of a screenplay, this is a spoof of bad science fiction monster movies. You've got the young, handsome scientist, the beautiful assistant who loves him, the older scientist who makes an amazing discovery, and the monster. It's all very silly, and almost too close to what it's making fun of. (It makes me feel like I saw this thing on Shock Theater.) Readers of Famous Monsters of Filmland may get a kick out of it.

Two stars.

They're Playing Our Song, by Harry Harrison

In this very short story, a quartet of long-haired rock 'n' roll musicians, pursued by screaming teenage girls, turn out to be something other than ordinary superstars. This broad parody of the Beatles has an ending you'll see coming a mile away.

One star.

The Fanatic, by Arthur Porges


As the blurb suggests, sensitive readers may wish to skip this story.

The title character believes that alien invaders take the form of animals. He thinks he can detect them, because their behavior is slightly different from that of ordinary animals. He uses very disturbing methods in his quest to discover the truth. The conclusion is predictable.

I have to confess that there's a certain horrifying effectiveness to the narrative, but it's not one that most readers will enjoy.

Two stars.

Merry Christmas From Outer Space, by Christopher Anvil

Told through letters and interstellar messages, this is a comedy about Earthlings and aliens. Two rival extraterrestrial forces are hidden on Earth. One places a mind-disrupting device near the other's location. It turns out that the thing was pointed the wrong way, leading to a series of confused messages between a writer and a science fiction magazine.


I guess this is the machine that causes all the trouble.

You could easily take out the stuff about the aliens, and wind up with a mundane farce about miscommunication. Unless you find back-and-forth exchanges about payment and cancelled checks to be funny, I doubt you'll be amused.


Could this be the author having his story accepted by the editor?

One star.

Worth Paying The Toll?


OK, so this isn't the right bridge. Sue me.

By coincidence, a copy of the magazine costs just as much as crossing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. (I doubt toll collectors will accept it instead of cash.) Making an analogy between the two, I'd say that the structure starts off strong enough, but the quality of the architecture drops off rapidly after that, ending with a big splash into a metaphorical ocean of poor-to-mediocre stories.

Of course, things could be worse, if you happened to be crossing the Tacoma Narrows Bridge on November 7th of 1940.


The hopeful beginning.


The tragic end.

Let's just be thankful that reading a bad story isn't as dangerous as crossing a poorly designed bridge.

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Magazine

[November 19, 1964] Ding Dong (December 1964 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Avram is Gone

Way back in March 1962, Robert Mills left the editorship of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  He turned over the reins to a writer of repute, a man who had published many a story in this and other mags: Avram Davidson.

It seemed auspicious — after all, who better for the most literate of SF periodicals than one of the more literary authors in the genre.  Instead, the last two and a half years have seen the decline of the once proud magazine continue apace.  Certainly, there have been standout stories and even issues (for instance, Kit Reed's To Lift a Ship came out in that first Davidson issue — and I liked it so much, I included it among the fourteen stories in Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963).

But successes aside, F&SF is mostly a slog these days, filled with uninspired and/or overly self-indulgent stories.  The only thing that kept my going was the rumor, confirmed this Summer, that Avram had decided to give up the editorship to focus more on his writing.  And so, we have this month's issue, the first in what may be called "The Ferman Era". 

Mind you, I'm sure most of the stories were picked by (and certainly submitted to) Davidson, so I don't expect miracles.  Join me on the tour of the newest F&SF, and let's see what, if anything, has changed!


by Jack Gaughan

Buffoon, by Edward Wellen

For the most part, Ed Wellen is a mediocre writer, mostly turning in lamentable stuff, occasionally contributing acceptable though not brilliant fare.

This time around, we have the story of an alien who poses as an Aztec at the time of Montezuma.  His goal is to become a thrice-sold slave so that he can ultimately be the blood sacrifice made every 52 years.  It's all part of an elaborate prank on the indigenes, which is explained in the story's last page.

Despite the seeming light nature of the plot, it's actually rather humorless, a sort of "you are there" piece on the Aztecs.  Something one might sell to National Geographic, but with a veneer of SF to make it salable to F&SF.  I vacillated between three and two stars; there are some nice turns of writing in there, lots of historical detail, but the whole thing was more tedious than enjoyable.  It certainly lacked the charm of the Aztec-themed serial that recently came out on England's Doctor Who.

So, a high two.

The Man with the Speckled Eyes, by R. A. Lafferty

Mr. Lafferty often turns in fun, whimsical tales.  But this one, about a mad-eyed fellow who claims to have invented anti-gravity, and who makes disappear the corporate bigwigs who dismiss his claims, doesn't really go anywhere.  There're some vivid scenes, some Hitchcock Presents-type horror, and then roll credits.

An ending would have been nice.  Two stars.

Plant Galls, by Theodore L. Thomas

Our resident scientific "expert" waxes rhapsodic about stimulating plant galls (think vegetable callouses) with new carbohydrate sprays.  Imagine!  Like magic, all you have to do is spray a field and you get a giant, cancerous mass of food!

Except Mr. Thomas has forgotten about the second law of thermodynamics — it takes resources to make the spray, doesn't it?

One star.

From Two Universes …, by Doris Pitkin Buck

Of Univacs and Unicorns, which have never met.  This poem is the seed for an F&SF-sponsored context: write a story involving both, and you might win $200!

Three stars, I guess.

On the Orphans' Colony, by Kit Reed

Abject loneliness can make one do crazy things.  On a hostile world, a young orphan opens the barred doors of his commune, seduced by the maternal sirensong of an otherwise repulsive being.  But what horror has he unleashed upon his barracks-mates?

Vivid.  Three stars.

Wilderness Year, by Joanna Russ

After the bomb, the sub-surface survivors only go above ground as a rite of passage.  Of course, they are given the most advanced devices to ensure their safety.

This is a throwaway joke tale, which the punchline nicely arranged to occur at the top of the page turn where it can be most effective.  Certainly not the best Joanna Russ can offer, but not bad.

Three stars.

Somo These Days, by Walter H. Kerr

A poem about sensory deprivation becoming the new, hip rage with all the kids.  I imagine it's a commentary on how our teens are plugged into their transistor radios these days, ignoring the outside world. 

Silly.  Two stars.

A Galaxy at a Time, by Isaac Asimov

Strangely uncompelling piece by Dr. A about close-packed galaxies wracked by mass supernovae.  It just didn't grab me like his articles usually do.

Three stars.

Final Exam, by Bryce Walton

A variation on the Last Man/Last Woman cliche.  In this one, Last Man doesn't want to commit until a battery of psychological tests determines the potential pair's compatibility.

Forgettable: 2 stars.

The DOCS, by Richard O. Lewis

This would-be Lafferty tale is about a guy whose attainment of multiple doctorates is undercut by his lack of empathy.  Facile, with a dumb ending.

Two stars.

The Fatal Eggs, by Mikhail Bulgakov

Ah, but almost half the book is taken up by a gem.  The Fatal Eggs is a reprint from the early days of the Soviet Union, an arch piece about a scientist who discovers a mysterious red ray.  Said ray not only stimulates the reproduction of animals, but the resulting creatures are fearsome and enormous.

I would not have thought that a 40 year-old piece, translated from Russian, could be so compelling, so colloquially humorous, and delightfully satirical (and thus banned, though our Soviet correspondent, Rita, also read and enjoyed it). 

Definitely a four star piece, and I am sad to learn (at the very end) that this is a condensed version!  With Bulgakov's story, the journey is as fun as the plot, and I would have enjoyed more comedic scenes of life in 1920s Russia.

Four stars.

All things must pass

Well, we made it.  On the one hand, half of this month's issue represents a nadir for the magazine.  On the other, The Fatal Eggs is wonderful.  On the third hand, it's an aged reprint.  Well, any constipation requires time to relieve itself.  I'm willing to give Joe Ferman, our new editor (and the owner's son) a chance to prove himself. 

How about you?

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[November 17, 1964] A Continuing Adventure In Space And Time (Doctor Who: Planet Of Giants)

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By Jessica Holmes

Hello again, everybody, and welcome back to our adventure through Time and Space on Doctor Who! This second series is off to an excellent start, courtesy of Louis Marks, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it. In excruciating detail, no less. Let’s get stuck in to Planet Of Giants, shall we?

PLANET OF GIANTS

AWOOOGA, AWOOOGA. We’re barely a minute in and already things are going wrong aboard the good ship TARDIS. As the Doctor brings her in to land, the doors start opening by themselves. Fortunately, the companions manage to get them closed and they land safely. Or do they? The Doctor is very agitated about the doors opening, but doesn’t do a good job of explaining what it is that’s bothering him. Something strange is afoot, that’s for sure.

The companions struggle to close the TARDIS doors

Something very strange indeed, as the Doctor sincerely apologises to Barbara in case he was rude to her under pressure. Goodness, he really has mellowed out, hasn’t he?

However, when they try to look outside with the scanner, it blows up, as if it were trying to display something ‘too big for its frame’. Pardon? I am quite certain that the Doctor is a bit more than 12 inches tall, yet Bill Hartnell has yet to explode out of my television screen in a shower of glass.

Oh, and apparently the reason that the doors opened during landing was the ‘space pressure’ being too high. No, I’m not sure what that means either.

Still, it’s all over now. Time to see what sort of planet we've landed on.

A rocky one, by the looks of it. So far, so normal.

And then Barbara finds a dead earthworm. Sound ordinary? You haven’t seen the size of it.

The Doctor and Barbara examine a giant earthworm.

A few moments later, Ian and Susan come upon some massive ant eggs, followed by a giant dead ant.

I think we can guess what’s really happening on this so-called 'planet of giants'.

Ominous music builds as Ian comes upon a gigantic matchbox. Prepare for me to gush over the set design quite a lot over the course of this article. It really is very good and creative, and there has been a definite step up in quality, boding well for the rest of the series. That, or they spent all the budget on Planet Of Giants, and the rest of the series will be taking place in my back garden.

Image: Ian and Susan discover a giant matchbox the size of a car.

And the points go to Susan for working out what’s going on first: this isn’t a planet of giants after all. They’ve shrunk!

So, the rock formations? Paving stones. They’re between the paving stones on someone’s charming garden path. Basically, when the doors opened during landing, the space pressure made the TARDIS and all its occupants shrink… or something. No, I don’t buy it either.

But then everything goes dark and there’s a thunderous sound, as a man walks overhead on the garden path. Susan runs to hide, but when she comes out, Ian is nowhere to be found. He fell inside the massive matchbox. And he’s stuck inside!

Watching William Russell fling himself from side to side to simulate being jostled about in the matchbox is hilarious but slightly undermines the drama of the situation.

Oh dear. Mr Regular-Sized-Human (or, as he’d probably prefer, Farrow) has a cat. That might be a bit dangerous. What also might be dangerous is the scientific research he’s involved in. Something involving a powerful insecticide, one so powerful it’ll kill absolutely everything it touches that isn’t a plant.

Naturally, he’s withholding approval on the project on account of the risk to the ecosystem. However, the financier of the project, a man called Forester, stands to lose an awful lot of money if this doesn’t go through. Farrow, however, isn’t budging.

So, what’s a man to do? He pulls a gun, that’s what.

Forester brandishes his gun.

Now we have the first indications that the dealings going on at full scale are going to be important to the Doctor and his companions, as a dead insect drops out of the sky, carrying with it a strong chemical whiff. And Barbara raises a pertinent question: can whatever’s killing the insects kill them too?

They don’t have long to worry about that, as they hear the sound of a distant cannon. Well, that’s what it sounds like to them, anyway. A few minutes later, they come across Farrow’s lifeless body, and as the Doctor notes, there’s a whiff of gunpowder in the air.

Farrow's face fills the frame. The companions are shorter than his nose.

I have to say, we’re off to a great start. Creative set design and cold-blooded murder in the first twenty minutes of story. And, what’s more, a cute little enormous kitty just showed up. What’s not to love?

DANGEROUS JOURNEY

Not to worry, folks. The Doctor and Ian know just how to avoid being eaten by a gigantic housecat. You just stay still until it gets bored and wanders off. I’ve never had a cat before, but that sounds about right.

Close-up of cat's eyes
You know what I'd like to see? A planet of giant cats.

The companions wonder if they should do something about the whole murder problem, but the Doctor points out they’re tiny and it’s not as if they can do anything right now.

Along comes an enormous leg to imperil them, and Ian and Barbara make a break for the closest shelter they can find: Farrow’s briefcase.

Up at normal scale, Forester has been joined by a scientist. He’s got a white lab coat and everything, because I suppose scientists dress like that all the time. Forester tells him that it was an accident, but the scientist isn’t fooled, concluding upon examination of the body that Farrow was shot through the heart from some feet away. There are no powder burns around the bullet hole.

Forester makes Smithers his accomplice.

Neither of them are too upset about the death of an innocent man, though. The scientist, Smithers, is more upset that this means he’ll have to scrap the research.

Smithers does have a somewhat noble motive, though. He wants to save people from famine, which is very commendable of him. Thing is, if you go wantonly killing every single living thing that isn’t a plant in your field, you’re really just sowing the seeds of a future famine that’ll be far worse. I’d think a scientist would know that, especially one specialising in research into pest control with regards to agriculture.

The men head into the lab, taking Farrow’s briefcase with them, before heading out to hide the body. Ian and Barbara don’t enjoy the ride much. In Barbara’s words, it’s worse than the Big Dipper. I have to admit, as much as I like the Big Dipper, it is a rather rough ride. Grand National (the rollercoaster, not the horse race), on the other hand, is a must-do if you ever happen to visit Blackpool.

Barbara rubs her ankle as Ian looks on.
To be fair, bumps and bruises do tend to happen when you ride the Big Dipper.

The Doctor and Susan emerge from hiding, and seeing the briefcase gone, realise that it must have been taken inside. The Doctor attempts to climb into a drainpipe, finding that it stinks to high heaven of the stuff on the dead insects. So of course they decide climbing into it is a great idea. Um, guys? Does the phrase ‘toxic fumes’ mean anything to you?

Inside, Ian and Barbara come upon some enormous grains of wheat that are covered in some sticky stuff. Not knowing what the sticky stuff is, Barbara goes ahead and touches some of it. Smart.

Unnoticed by Ian, Barbara picks up a giant seed.
You'd think after the debacle with the Aztecs, Barbara would refrain from picking up everything she sets eyes on.

Ian has a good idea about using the paperclips in the briefcase to make a chain they can climb down, and hopefully make it back to the others. Barbara would like a look in the briefcase for herself, as her suspicion grows that her hands are covered in insecticide.

Meanwhile in the pipe, the Doctor is regretting every single decision he’s made in his life. It’s not as bad as it could be, though. The chemical runoff from the lab has corroded the inside of the pipe, so there’s plenty of hand and footholds.

Back in the house, as Ian struggles to get the briefcase open, a housefly turns up behind Barbara. It’s quite a lifelike puppet, with moving joints and everything. Barbara sees it, and faints, though it’s not clear if it’s the sight of the bloody big fly or the symptoms of poisoning setting in.

Barbara is confronted by a giant housefly.
Imagine a planet of giant insects, though. I'd be having nightmares for weeks.

Meanwhile, Smithers and Forester have hidden the body, though Smithers is very upset with Forester for involving him in this whole sordid business.

Susan and the Doctor make it up the drainpipe and emerge at a plughole which is really pretty neat. We haven’t had so many unique sets before, I’m sure of it.

The Doctor and Susan stand at the rim of a gigantic plughole.
Incy Wincy Doctor climbed up the water spout…

Barbara wakes up from her fainting spell, to be told by Ian that the fly flew off, then landed on the seeds and died instantly. Well, that doesn’t bode well. Barbara, now might be a good time to tell Ian about the fact you touched them, too.

But that’ll have to wait, as they hear Susan calling from the sink, and begin climbing down the plug chain towards her and the Doctor.

Outside, Smithers and Forester have just finished mopping up the blood. Now it’s time to wash their hands.

Uh-oh.

Hearing the men coming, Ian and Barbara climb back up the chain, and the Doctor and Susan start heading down the pipe.

Smithers notices the dead fly, and gets excited about how effective the insecticide is, and we get into a scene which did seem a bit inconsistent to me. Forester says something about Farrow lying about the effects of the insecticide in the report, which I don’t quite understand. I thought Smithers and Forester were on the same page about Forester killing Farrow to prevent him revealing the destructive truth of the formula and putting an end to the project. Unless Smithers thinks his work is perfectly sound, and Farrow was going to turn in a false report for his own gain? I don’t know.

The point is Forester is going to doctor the report.

Meanwhile, Farrow fills up the sink and washes his hands, while the Doctor and Susan cower in the drainpipe below.

And then he pulls the plug.

CRISIS

Ian announces to Barbara (and the viewer) that the tap has been turned on with the Doctor and Susan still being in the sink. Thank you, Ian, we can see that.

Barbara fears the Doctor and Susan have drowned, so she and Ian go to find out.

Not to worry, Barbara. It turns out that the Doctor and Susan were hiding in the overflow pipe, so managed to avoid the deluge, and out they pop, reuniting the gang at last. I swear this lot get separated so often they should make a habit of holding hands everywhere they go. Or perhaps the Doctor should put his companions on a leash.

The Doctor and Susan hide in the overflow pipe
Down came the rain and washed poor Doctor out…

The sink set is my favourite from this serial. It’s quite simple, but the layout makes for some really cool looking shots, and it’s a very good replication of a kitchen sink.

Forester finishes doctoring the report, and puts in a call to Farrow’s department in Whitehall, pretending to be the dead man. However, the operator on the other end doesn’t seem convinced.

Forester uses a handkerchief to muffle his voice as he makes a phone call.
Now is not the time to be making a prank call, Mr. Forester.

Our companions continue their trek across the lab and come across a notepad, upon which is written a chemical formula. Could it be the pesticide? Barbara suggests that knowing what it is might help them find a cure for it. Nobody else sees the value in curing it if they can simply prevent it from being used, as Barbara still hasn’t told anyone about her predicament. It’s rather pertinent information, Barbara. I suppose she doesn’t want to make a fuss. That’s… very British of her. I’m so proud.

The notebook is too big to read, so they map it out into Susan’s own notebook, and discover, after a bit of chemistry talk that goes over my head, that the insecticide doesn’t wear off or weaken over time. Meaning? Once you put it on a field, there it’ll stay. Forever. Seeping into the soil, into the groundwater.

The companions stand on a large pad of paper.

To say that would be a disaster would be an understatement. Apart from the ecological collapse that would ensue, imagine eating food contaminated with a pesticide this deadly. Even touching contaminated produce would slowly kill us.

At the sound of all this, Barbara gets quite agitated, but she still, for some reason, doesn’t tell the others. Come on, Barbara. They might start getting their bums in gear if you mention the teensy little fact that you might be about to drop down dead.

It’s not as if the others haven’t noticed. They ask her if she’s all right, but she just brushes them off. It’s a bit of a contrived way of ramping up the tension. At least, I assume that’s the intention. Can’t we have the tension ramped up with everyone being tense and worrying if they’ll manage to get Barbara back to full-size before her itty-bitty insect-sized body goes kaput?

The group decides to make an attempt at using the phone. For some reason. It struck me, as I was brushing my teeth later that night (sorry, I’m feeling a bit slow on the uptake lately), that it’d be quicker to just go back to the TARDIS, get back to proper size, and then use the phone to get the authorities.

The Doctor, Susan, and Ian shout into a giant telephone receiver.
I don't know what they were expecting.

Then again, the sight of everybody bellowing down the phone, loudly and slowly like a Brit in Benidorm trying to order some sangria, is pretty funny.

It doesn’t work, of course. Worse still, Barbara isn’t doing well at all, and she collapses. She comes around before Ian comes along, but the game’s up. She tries to tell him that she’s fine, but he grows suspicious when she won’t let him touch her hands or her handkerchief, and then she passes out again. Sniffing the handkerchief, the Doctor realises she’s suffering from the effects of the insecticide.

The rest of the companions examine an unconsious Barbara.

Barbara comes around just in time for a good scolding from the Doctor for not telling anyone sooner. Thank you, Doc. I was about to climb into the screen and tell her myself. However, Barbara won’t let the others take her back to the ship until they’ve put a stop to the insecticide threat. Now, that’s very nice and noble and all, but I think it’d be a lot easier at full-scale, don’t you?

Speaking of full-scale, Forester and Smithers are finishing up their dirty business, when Smithers says he wants to go back to the lab and have another look at Farrow’s notes. Behind his back, Forester pulls the gun out again, and loads it.

Back with the companions, the Doctor and Ian are being wonderful role models for children, by which I mean they decide to start a fire in order to draw the attention of the neighbours. The Doctor quite literally giggles and rubs his hands with glee at the thought of a bit of arson. I love him.

A man listens in on a telephone call with the phone operator.

A call comes through for Farrow, but all is not as it seems, as the operator has Farrow’s superior listen with her as Forester ‘hands over’ the phone to Farrow. The pair of them agree that it sounds like he’s just impersonating Farrow.

The group are working on their arson plan. They’ve found themselves a gas tap, so now all they need to do is find a way to light it. Ian enlists Susan to help him strike a match, not an easy task when said match might as well be a battering ram.

Ian and Susan handle a giant matchstick.
And I struggle to get a normal match lit.

The plan’s simple enough. The Doctor has spotted a pressurised flammable canister nearby the gas tap. If they light the gas, the can will heat up, and eventually explode. The difficult part will be getting far enough away from the can before it goes boom.

While they’re doing that, Forester finally admits to Smithers the full truth of why he murdered Farrow— with a gun pointed at his chest. Looks like he’s tidying up all the loose ends.

The companions take cover, and the two men come back into the lab just as the can blows, scattering shrapnel in Forester’s face. With Forester blinded, Smithers grabs the gun, which is promptly taken from him by the police constable who has just materialised. Did the operator call him? I can only assume so, but that was a bit quick, wasn’t it? Or did he just hear the can explode? Pretty convenient that there was a passing bobby.

A police constable arrests Forester and Smithers.

As the companions make a break for it, the Doctor grabs one of the contaminated seeds, wrapping it in his cloak to ensure he doesn’t poison himself. The group get back to the TARDIS without any trouble, and the Doctor sets about restoring them to proper size, Ian watching in amazement as the seed the Doctor brought appears to shrink before his very eyes. Of course, the seed isn’t shrinking— they’re growing.

Now at full size and having managed to get a good drink of water, Barbara does seem to be doing better. Gee. That’s just a bit convenient. The scanner’s still broken, though, so who knows where they’ll end up next?

The companions are back in the TARDIS.
I wish I could cure all my illnesses with a sit down and a nice glass of water.

Final Thoughts

So, here we are, at the end of the first serial of the new series.

I can’t help but think that this story would have been over in five minutes if Barbara had just told everyone about the pesticide on her hands. They could have just gone back to the TARDIS to fix their size problem, then given the police a quick ring. Barbara healed, day saved, devastating environmental disaster averted. Easy.

That issue of the plot being over instantly if everyone used their brains aside, this is a very enjoyable serial. I found the three episodes to be just the right length for this story. The three-act structure is tried, tested, and approved by generations of storytellers. An issue I found with the previous series of Doctor Who was that the serials were sometimes quite poorly-paced, with some of them overstaying their welcome by an episode or two. Planet Of Giants, however, keeps up a lively pace all the way through, with no filling.

We’ve also seen a pretty excellent demonstration of the phrase ‘the road to Hell is paved with good intentions’. It applies pretty well to Smithers. Not so much with Forester. But with Smithers, yes. In his hopes of ending famine, he became an accessory to murder, and almost poisoned all our farmland.

Also, perhaps the most important factor for why I like this serial: it’s fun. Everybody wrestling with comically-oversized household objects is funny, there’s a bit of ick-factor with the giant bugs, and we’ve also got a serious murder drama subplot with an environmental twist!

It’s a scarily plausible story, tiny people aside. Modern pesticides can, and have, saved millions of lives from their boost to crop yields, but at the same time, it’s important to be careful that we’re using them safely and responsibly, with proper oversight (q.v. the troubles with DDT, and the issues brought up in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring). Honesty and integrity won out on Doctor Who, but will the same be true for us? I don’t know.

4 out of 5 stars

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[November 15, 1964] Veteran's Triumph (December 1964 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Marching as to War

November 11 used to be the federally mandated holiday set aside for the honoring of World War I veterans.  After "The Great War" was eclipsed by later conflicts, the day's scope became more general, dedicated to veterans of all wars.  And so, parades like this one in Walla Walla, Washington, featuring soldiers from as far back as the Spanish American War, have become an annual tradition.

Of course, in Las Vegas, it was a day like any other.  Well, the show must go on…

It is no surprise that, given this particularly bloody century (which saw the American Civil War, two world wars, the Korean War, the Russian Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, the Chinese Civil War, etc. etc.) that war is a perennial theme in science fiction.  But where war was once portrayed in a patriotic light, or at least, merely as an exciting backdrop for adventure, we are now starting to see a decidedly cynical tinge to modern SF war stories. 

And there is no finer example of this trend than this month's superb issue of Galaxy.  Read on and find out why:

The Starsloggers, by Harry Harrison

The biggest military science fiction hits of the last five years run the gamut from novels like Heinlein's ultra-jingoistic Starship Troopers and Dickson's Hornblower-esque Dorsai! at one end, through the more nuanced "Joe Mauser" series by Reynolds and the latest Starwatchman, by Bova, to anti-war pieces like Dickson's Naked to the Stars.

But there has never been such a biting, such an accurate, and such an eminently readable satire of the veteran's experience as Harry Harrison's new novel, The Starsloggers.

Bill, a backwoods hick with dreams of becoming a Technical Fertilizer Operator, is shanghaied into This Man's Space Navy.  Thus ensues months of grueling, dehumanizing boot camp under the merciless lash of the fanged Drill Sergeant, Deathwish Drang.  But these torments are as nothing when the entire training division is drafted into an all-out war against the saurian "Chingers", whose greatest offense is that they exist. 

Bill is pressed into serving as a fusetender, sweating profusely while he watches for the big red band on the six-foot weapons fuse to turn black, and then replacing it with another monstrous device.  It's a position that normally takes the better part of a year to learn the intricacies of, but needs must, and somehow Bill and his brood learn the ropes in about fifteen minutes.

Along the way, Bill meets such notable characters as "Eager Beager", a perennially smiling chap who loves to shine everyone else's boots; Tembo, a proselytizing zealot who refuses offers to muster out; a nameless ship's chaplain who doubles as the laundry officer…and on and on.  All of them are ridiculous, yet strangely plausible.

Ultimately, Bill ends up in a Southeast Asia analog, fighting to preserve a 10-mile square postage stamp of land against a limitless enemy in the foggy jungle.  This is the kind of story where the protagonist is punished for bravery and rewarded for self-interest, and suffice it to say, by book's end, The Starsloggers earns the ironic subtitle: Bill, the Galactic Hero.

Satire is hard.  Comedic satire is harder.  It's easy for a story to devolve into silliness, and it's harder still to maintain the joke and readability throughout novel length.  Harrison manages to lambast every sacred cow in the military barn, all while making a story with just enough reality and interest to keep the pages turning.

The Starsloggers should be required reading for anyone who reads Starship Troopers, if anything to keep too many Eager Beagers from enlisting.  Five stars.

The Rules of the Road, by Norman Spinrad

In this, Norm Spinrad's second appearance outside of Analog, a death-defying mercenary is hired to explore an alien dome that has mysteriously appeared on Earth.  Nine men have gone in before; none came out.  Can the mercenary survive the strange geometries and lethal traps of the dome?  And what will he be when he comes out?

An interesting piece, though perhaps 20% too padded and without a great deal of consequence.  Three stars.

Ballad of the Interstellar Merchants, by Sheri S. Eberhart

The third poem from this author; a pleasant 24th Century space shanty.  I imagine someone will put music to it and we'll hear it at Westercon next year.  Three stars.

For Your Information: The Rarest Animals, by Willy Ley

The latest from Veelee, the good German, is a piece on endangered species thought to be extinct…but aren't!  It's quite good, except it just abruptly stops without any kind of conclusion.  I hope he didn't have a heart attack at the end!

Three stars.

The Monster and the Maiden Roger Zelazny

One of the genre's newer lights offers up this silly little piece, about virgin sacrifice and turnabout.  It's worth a chuckle.  Three stars.

A Man of the Renaissance, by Wyman Guin

Last time we saw Wyman Guin, he offered up a political piece set in a delightfully unique world.  With Renaissance, the author has outdone himself. 

The story is set on a water world, on whose oceans float islands of vegetation-lashed pumice.  Their dwellers are reduced to a resource poor and medieval existence.  But one latter-day Leonardo, Master of the Seven Arts, would risk love, limb, and life to effect a daring plan: to bind three small land masses together.  To accomplish this, he must overcome prejudice and adversity, and plain, hide-bound stubborness.

Renaissance starts a little choppily, confusing since the context only comes gradually, and I found the combat scenes a little inexpert.  But everything else, particularly the worldbuilding, is simply marvelous.  I tore through it in no time…and then found myself trying to figure out how to make a wargame out of the setting!

Four stars.

Let Me Call Her Sweetcore, by David R. Bunch

Bunch, of course, is best known for his tales of Moderan, where humanity has become increasingly roboticized.  Sweetcore seems to take place in an adjacent universe; it is a love story about an old man, his overly emotional robot, and the girl robot whom it falls in love with.

I both appreciated the story's juxtaposition of the maudlin machine and its emotionless master, while at the same time being annoyed with the stereotypical portrayal of love and marriage.

A low three stars.

To Avenge Man, by Lester del Rey

We end with another robot story, which is also a war story.  Sam, a sentient Mark I machine assigned to a small moonbase, is left behind when the scientific team is recalled to Earth.  Shortly thereafter, the planet flares into myriad pinpoints of brilliance before going dark.  Now Sam is truly alone.

The first half of the piece, where Sam becomes fully actualized after reading the base library, is quite compelling.  But the latter half, in which Sam looks for humanity's remains in vain, deduces that we were destroyed by Wellesian aliens, and leads a galactic crusade to punish them, is both redundant and revealed in the story's prologue.

Sadly, this reduces what could have been a four star story to readable three.

Yin's Yang

I lamented that this month's IF was decidedly subpar, and per Victoria Silverwolf, Worlds of Tomorrow wasn't much better.  But Galaxy, the old warhorse of Editor Fred Pohl's stable, remains a sterling example of how to do science fiction right.  Just the Harrison and the Guin would have made a full, 4.5 star issue of F&SF.  It's ones like these that have kept me a faithful subscriber for 14 years, and I don't see myself bugging out any time soon.

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[November 11, 1964] Unloading (December 1964 Amazing)

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by John Boston

The festivities continue, albeit muted, at the University of California at Berkeley, where the administration continues its clumsy and tone-deaf standoff with students and some faculty who are demanding rather ordinary political rights in the public places of what amounts to their home town.  From this distance, it seems the administration is unable to let go of its usual habits of exercising authority in order to deal with the rather concrete issues raised by the students (whose cause now has a name, the Free Speech Movement), practical resolution of which really should not be difficult.  The FSM’s view of its own righteousness creates another sort of rigidity, no doubt strengthened by the American Civil Liberties Union’s announcement that the disputed restrictions violate the First Amendment and that the ACLU would intervene on behalf of the students who were suspended. 

For example, last month’s demonstration around and on top of the police car was resolved with an agreement to establish a committee to discuss and make recommendations about campus political behavior and its control.  So the administration proceeded to name the members of the committee without consulting with the FSM, which responded that the committee was illegitimate and should be disbanded.  The committee went forward anyway and heard a procession of witnesses telling it that shouldn’t exist.  This argument was settled within a couple of weeks with an agreement on the membership of an expanded committee.  One wonders why that conversation couldn’t have been had in the first place, avoiding the antagonism and waste of time.

Meanwhile, University president Clark Kerr made a speech at the Chamber of Commerce in which he said “Students are encouraged, as never before, by elements external to the University.” A few days later, he said at a news conference that he believed some of the demonstrators “had Communist sympathies.” Where have we heard that before?  It’s the standard line of the southern segregationists: we didn’t have any problems until the Communist-inspired outside agitators came, and just the thing to say about people with whom you are supposedly trying to make peace—some of whom just returned from contending with the southern segregationists.

On the substance of the dispute, the university’s explanations for its positions sometimes read like self-parody, like this statement by the Dean of Students: “A speaker may say, for instance, that there is going to be a picket line at such-and-such a place, and it is a worthy cause and he hopes people will go. But, he cannot say, `I'll meet you there and we'll picket’.”

The FSM, for its part, has continued to threaten a return to civil disobedience if it didn’t get some concrete results from its demands, and held a rally on November 9.  Some students resumed staffing tables to solicit funds and members for their causes, the practice that started this controversy.  The University then dissolved the agreed-upon joint committee, an action denounced by FSM.  And there, more or less, things stand.

The best judgment on the management of this dispute is probably the one pronounced by Casey Stengel to the 1962 New York Mets: “Can’t anyone here play this game?”

The Issue at Hand


By Robert Adragna

One might seek refuge from this tedious stalemate in the December Amazing, but one would be disappointed.  The issue features a “complete short novel” which exemplifies the literary philosophy “Got no ideas today, but I’ll throw some random crap together and make it move fast enough and nobody will know the difference.”

The Further Sky, by Keith Laumer


By Robert Adragna

The featured story is Keith Laumer’s The Further Sky, in which the disgusting and ill-tempered reptilian Niss are the honored guests (actually, the secret conquerors) of the pusillanimous Syndarch dictatorship of Earth.  Our hero Ame, after being treated contemptuously by a Niss, is visited by a very old guy talking about their Navy days together (which didn’t happen).  The old guy is also the one who just stole a scout spaceship from Pluto, and he boasts about killing Niss.  Ame helps him sneak away when some Niss and Syndarch types come looking, and later finds him dead.  But very much alive is Jimper, a foot-high character adept with a tiny crossbow who says he’s an ambassador from the King of Galliale—er, where?—and he is, or was, with Jason, the deceased senior citizen.

Ame and Jimper have to flee, since Syndarch and Niss are after them, so Ame befuddles a few functionaries, swipes a Syndarch spaceship, and they head for Pluto by way of Mars.  On Pluto they crash-land and struggle across the mountain ice, just ahead of Niss pursuers, and there it is, the portal to Galliale, a sunny and bucolic land of more little people—but whose king, the ample Tweeple, the Eater of One Hundred Tarts, does not know Jimper despite his being an ambassador. 

The king says Ame has to go into the nearby tower to slay the dragon, and Jimper comes with him, and there’s no dragon but there is a glowing cube which proves to be a portal to yet another world, and when the dragon (more like a giant centipede) shows up, they flee through the portal, where godlike four-dimensional beings, one of whom calls them fleas and wants to dispose of them, inform them that they are in the Andromeda galaxy three million years in their past, and explain the time travel gimmick that has been obviously in the wings all along, as well as the relationship among all the various species of beings involved (some of whom I have not bothered to name), and they materialize a spaceship for Ame and Jimper that will get them home at the right time, and don’t the Brits have a phrase for this sort of thing?  Oh, right—“load of old bollocks.” One star for tiresome and unconcealed cynicism in the service of a word count.

The Quest of the Holy Grille, by Robert F. Young


By Robert Adragna

Speaking of tiresome loads, Robert F. Young is back with The Quest of the Holy Grille, one of a series, or cluster, or infestation, of stories about sentient automobiles.  This one begins, “Housing had never been one to go chasing after girlhicles,” and there’s much more about girlhicles and boyhicles, who collectively make up manmobilekind, and towards the end there is some discussion of whether one of the characters is a virginhicle.  This goes on for 31 pages.  Pffft!  Begone!  One star.

The Last of the Great Tradition, by James R. Horstman

The short stories are by no-names, or worse.  James R. Horstman has no prior genre appearances, and his The Last of the Great Tradition is a well enough written but rather obvious satire of a snake-oil salesman who switches to the Wisdom of the Flying Saucers line, and receives poetic justice.  He is assisted by his servant (sic) George Washington Carver-Spokes, who speaks in cliched dialect of the sort that I hoped had gone out with Irvin S. Cobb (1876-1944, and good riddance).  Two stars and a bad taste in the mouth. 

The Day They Found Out, by Les Dennis

Les Dennis, another newcomer, contributes The Day They Found Out, a vignette about Recognition Day, on which all the kids are supposed to bring their pets to school so they can receive a lesson in what real life is about.  It would be shocking if it weren’t so obvious. This guy probably read The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and thought, “Hey, I can do that too.” Well, not really.  It’s capably enough done for what it is, so two grudging stars.

The Moths, by Arthur Porges


By George Schelling

The above-mentioned “worse” is Arthur Porges, who could justly be said to have extinguished himself in his prior appearances.  Porges is back with The Moths, which attempts to carry a little more weight than his previous trivialities, not very successfully.  A disgraced and alcoholic entomologist who is dying of cancer in his hovel encounters a rare moth which proves to be a mutant, absorbing energy from a flame rather than being destroyed.  Fade to not very interesting symbolism.  Two stars, being generous.

Philip Jose Farmer: Sex and Science Fiction, by Sam Moskowitz

Sam Moskowitz’s new “SF Profile” is a departure.  Titled Philip Jose Farmer: Sex and Science Fiction, it features a writer with no work from the ‘30s and ‘40s for Moskowitz to dwell excessively on, and purports to be a subject matter survey as well as an author profile.  It starts off by dismissing the observations on the subject by scholar G. Legman (no sex in SF except in the chambers of mad scientists) as accurate enough but dated, since he stopped looking in 1949.  But now here’s Farmer!  Whose first published SF was the 1952 novella The Lovers, featuring an affair between a human male and an alien female with an insectile life cycle (book version not published until 1961 by the reasonably intrepid Ballantine Books).  Moskowitz notes a modest bump of sexual subject matter immediately after The Lovers, but then says maybe things were going that way anyway (citing earlier examples), but before that the genre magazines were pretty puritanical (but here are the exceptions, some quite amusing), and what there was of sex in SF appeared in hardcover books. 

Why this reticence?  “The answer most probably is that science fiction is a literature of ideas.  The people who read it are entertained and even find escape through mental stimulation.” Oh . . . kay.  Moskowitz then moves on to a brief account of Farmer’s somewhat ill-starred life (he had to stop writing and take a job at a dairy, publishing next to nothing during the late 1950s), ending with an unusually sharp summation of his strengths and weaknesses as a writer.  Surprisingly, this turned out to be one of Moskowitz’s better articles.  Four stars.

Summing Up

Well, that was pointless, wasn’t it?  The fiction is all well below the waterline, with the longer stories by bigger names half-buried in the muck.  The only thing worth reading is the Moskowitz article (except for Robert Silverberg’s book reviews, which roll along in unassuming excellence).  Next month we are promised a “powerful” novel by Roger Zelazny, which might be worth waiting for, and a “rollicking” Jack Sharkey story, which—oh, never mind.

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[November 9, 1964] Shall We Gather At The River? (January 1965 Worlds of Tomorrow)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

You Only Live Twice


Cover art by Richard Chopping

I trust that the spirit of the late Ian Fleming will forgive me for stealing the title of the last James Bond novel to be published during his lifetime. (Rumor has it that at least one more may be published posthumously.) Those evocative four words bring to mind the notion of life after death.

Since the dawn of consciousness, human beings have pondered the possibility of an afterlife. From reincarnation to oblivion, from Paradise to Gehenna, countless visions of an existence after death have filled the imaginations of poets, prophets, and philosophers.

But what about science fiction writers?

Few SF stories dealing with the subject come to mind. There are, of course, many tales of fantasy about survival beyond the grave, often comic versions of Heaven or terrifying visits to Hell. Science fiction, with its disdain for mysticism (despite a weakness for pseudo-scientific premises that are just as fantastic) generally ignores the question.


This 1962 novel is a rare exception.

It is remarkable, then, that almost half of the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow consists of a novella with a large cast of characters who have all died and been resurrected, without the need for a supernatural explanation.


Cover art by George Schelling.

Wanted: Dead or Alive

In fact, a few of the other pieces in the magazine feature characters who may have died, and who may have come back to life, although these are more ambiguous than the lead story.

Day of the Great Shout, by Philip Jose Farmer


Illustrations by Virgil Finlay.

A man who knows he died finds himself alive, nude, hairless, in a young and healthy body, floating in empty space, surrounded on all sides by countless others in his condition. After falling through the void and having a dream about an encounter with God, he wakes up on a new world.

(The author never gives this planet a name. The fact that the stars are different, along with other details, make it clear that it's not Earth. For convenience, let's call it Riverworld, based on the most notable physical feature of the place.)

All around him are other naked, bald people, mostly in a state of panic. One can't blame them, since this afterlife doesn't resemble anything they imagined. When they calm down a bit, it becomes clear that they are now in the valley of a wide river, surrounded on both sides by impassible mountains. A curious device, obviously making use of extremely advanced technology, provides them with food, and even luxury items such as tobacco and lipstick.


A fellow who has an unfortunate encounter with the device proves that it's possible to die a second time.

By this time, we find out that our protagonist is the famous Victorian adventurer Richard Francis Burton. It might be a good idea to list the other characters who play major roles during his adventures on Riverworld.

Dramatis Personae, in order of appearance:

Monat Grrautuft, an alien who died on Earth during the Twenty-First Century.

Kazzintuitruuaabemss, an ape-man who died sometime during the dawn of humanity. Fortunately for the reader, he'll be called just Kazz for the rest of the story.


Kazz in battle.

Peter Frigate, a writer born in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1918. If that sounds familiar, that's because his time and place of birth are identical with the author's. Given that he has the same initials, it's clear that's he meant as a fictionalized self-portrait. He died during the same incident that led to the death of the alien.

Alice Pleasance Hargreaves, the woman who inspired Lewis Carroll to write Alice in Wonderland.

Lev Ruach, a man who also died at the same time as Frigate and the alien. (It turns out that a grave misunderstanding between aliens and Earthlings led to both being wiped out. The main reason for this apocalyptic incident, I think, is so the author doesn't have to deal with people from the far future. Everyone who has ever died on Earth is now alive on Riverworld, so limiting the timescale from prehistory to the Twenty-First Century makes his job a little less daunting than it might be.)

Gwenafra, a seven-year-old girl who died in ancient Gaul. We find out later that children who died before the age of five are somewhere else, not specified.

These are just the good guys. After some time passes, given the nature of humanity, war and slavery develop on Riverworld. Burton and his companions battle the forces of the infamous Nazi leader Hermann Goering and Tullios Hostilios, a legendary king of Rome, long before it became a Republic and then an Empire.

After this violent conflict, our heroes find out that a man is not what he seems to be, and we learn something about the origin and purpose of Riverworld.


The discovery involves the ability of Kazz to see things that the others can't detect.

The premise is a fascinating one, and Farmer develops the setting in convincing detail. There's plenty of action, and a generous number of science fiction concepts to hold the reader's interest. My only complaint is that the story is open-ended, with Burton ready to continue exploring Riverworld. I suspect that a sequel or two is in the works, perhaps leading to a full novel.

An anticipatory four stars.

Field Weapons Tomorrow, by Joseph Wesley

The first of two nonfiction articles in this issue imagines what the equipment used by an ordinary foot soldier of the near future might be like. Sensitive radar detects enemies, and small missiles of various kinds serve to identify and destroy targets. The author makes use of a couple of fictional characters to demonstrate the technology, enlivening a rather dry subject.

An interested three stars.

Retreat Syndrome, by Philip K. Dick


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Starts with a guy stopped for speeding in his futuristic vehicle. This mundane beginning soon turns weird as the fellow moves his hand through the dashboard of his one-wheeled car as if it weren't there. We're firmly in the territory that the author explored in previous works; what is reality?

Flashing back reveals that the man remembers killing his wife with a laser gun when she threatened to reveal plans for a revolution against Earth by colonists on Ganymede. His psychiatrist advises a visit to the woman, who is apparently alive and well on Earth.


Did this happen or not?

The guy thinks he's been brainwashed, and that he's not on Earth at all, but still on Ganymede. A mind-altering drug may be involved.

The truth is a little more complicated than that. The fellow winds up committing what promises to be an endless cycle of attempted murders that might not be real.

Touches of what Simone de Beavuoir might call (sexual) 'oppression' make reading an otherwise intriguing story uncomfortable. We're told that the woman intended to betray the revolution out of petty spite and female bitterness. Another direct quote from the protagonist:

Like all women she was motivated by personal vanity and wounded pride.

That's a pretty wide-sweeping indictment of half the human race, even if we accept the fact that the main character isn't in his right mind. Trying to ignore this unpleasant part of the story, I found it to be compelling, with one of the author's more accessible plots.

A slightly offended four stars.

The Pani Planet, by R. A. Lafferty


Illustration by Norman Nodel.

The commander of a military expedition on an alien planet dies. The only native inhabitant who bothers to speak to the humans offers to fix the broken man. Rejecting this as ridiculous, the new leader buries the dead officer, who treated the aliens decently, and initiates a new, harsher policy. You won't be surprised to find out that the deceased commander returns to life. Of course, not all is what it seems to be.

Typical for the author, this story combines whimsy with tragedy. There's comedy in the broken English of the alien, and the tale ends with a joke, but there's also torture and death. The details of the plot are gimmicky, but it's worth reading.

An ambiguous three stars.

Stella and the Moons of Mars, by Robert S. Richardson

Our second nonfiction article rehashes material that appeared in the December 1963 issue of the magazine. Once again, we go over the remarkable fact that Jonathan Swift seems to have predicted that Mars would prove to have two moons, long before they were discovered, in his satiric classic Gulliver's Travels. After talking about the history of the sighting of the satellites, and discussing their known and speculative properties, the article half-seriously suggests that Swift might have seen them through a telescope and slyly announced the fact in the pages of his book. At least the author is honest enough to admit that this hypothesis is impossible, given the limitations of telescopes in Swift's time. We learn a little about the moons of Mars, but the rest is old hat.

An overly familiar two stars.

The Dead Ones, by Sydney van Scyoc

Once again we have death and revival, of a sort. A man is horribly injured in an industrial accident, and is presumed to be near death. Not much later, he turns up perfectly fine. His son-in-law smells something fishy, and finds out the truth about the mysterious health care system of this future world. There's a twist ending you may see coming.

This story features some of the most implausible happenings I've ever read. First of all, you have to believe that one secretive company controls all health care. Secondly, you have to accept that nobody minds the fact that they experience loss of memory during routine physical exams. Thirdly, you have to presume that the hero is the only person who has ever questioned the fact that many people approach death from disease or injury, yet are completely healed right away in some unseen manner.

A skeptical two stars.

Manfire, by Theodore L. Thomas


Illustrations by Jack Gaughan.

The bizarre, and probably imaginary, phenomenon known as spontaneous human combustion becomes a worldwide plague in the near future. (The author calls it pyrophilia, but that seems like a very misleading term. The victims of this horrible death certainly don't love it!) Governments make use of all possible resources in an attempt to solve the problem.

Off to secure the remains of a victim.

The United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare contacts an eccentric, reclusive genius to see if he can help.


Our hero.


A victim.

The fellow investigates things in his own way, eventually setting up a team of experts to work on the mystery from a strictly theoretical viewpoint.


He also makes sure that they have plenty of booze.

Other than some gruesome scenes of people being consumed by flames coming out of their bodies, and investigators collecting the grisly remains for study, there isn't much to this story other than the main character's method of attacking the problem. The point seems to be that throwing a bunch of highly intelligent people in a room and having them come up with speculative hypotheses is superior to the methodical collection of data. I'm not sure I agree with that, since both are important. The explanation for the rise in spontaneous combustion reveals some ingenuity on the part of the author, but is rather anticlimactic.

A disappointed two stars.

Can These Bones Live?

Like people, most stories have a limited lifetime. A lucky few gain something like immortality, reprinted in anthologies that survive when others fade away. The two authors named Philip have a good chance of seeing their creations resurrected from the pages of the magazine, into new bodies in the form of books. The other writers, maybe not as much. Only time can tell, and, like the afterlife, nobody really knows anything about the future.

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Book, Magazine

[November 7, 1964] Landslides and Damp Squibs (December 1964 IF)

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by Gideon Marcus

In Your Heart, You Knew He Was Wrong

It's been a month for dramatic political change.  In the Soviet Union, Khruschev was deposed after eight years in power, and the British Labor party came to the fore after thirteen years in the wilderness.  And in the United States, the reactionary politics of Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater have been loudly repudiated: Lyndon Johnson has been elected President in the biggest landslide in recent memory.

On his coattails, Democrats have ascended to high offices around the country.  In the Senate, Robert Kennedy beat incumbent Ken Keating for the open New York seat, Joseph D. Tydings trounced incumbent James Glenn Beall in Maryland, and Joseph M. Montoya smashed appointed incumbent Edwin L. Mechem in New Mexico.  Only in California did former hoofer George Murphy win against the Democrat, Pierre Salinger, in something of an upset.  What's next for the Golden State?  Ronald Reagan as Governor?!

And in the House, Democrats picked up a whopping 37 seats.  This means that the party of Jackson and Roosevelt (#2) has not only the White House, but veto-proof control of both houses of Congress.  It's likely that The Great Society will continue unabated through the next two years.

Even in the science fiction world, revolutions are happening.  Avram Davidson is leaving his post at F&SF (thank goodness), and Cele Goldsmith, at the helm of Fantastic and Amazing, has gotten married. 

But with this month's IF, editor Fred Pohl's neglected third daughter, things are not only business as usual, they're a little worse…

The Enemy is Us


by Gray Morrow

When Time Was New, by Robert F. Young

We begin with a tale of time travel.  Howard Carpenter, a native of 2156 A.D. Earth, has gone back to the late Cretaceous in his "Triceratank", designed to fit in with the Mesozoic fauna.  His mission is to find out why there is a modern human skeleton lying in 80 million year old strata.

But once there, he finds two children, Marcy and Skip, who are on the run from kidnappers.  But these kids aren't time travelers — they're actually space travelers from a contemporary (to the far past) Martian civilization!


by Gray Morrow

Thus ensues an adventure whose style and subject matter would make for a fine kiddy comic or Danny Dunn adventure, but which is somewhat jarring for a grown-up mag.  Also, I find it highly improbable that a race of humans identical to those on Earth (specifically, the blonde, blue-eyed kind) would arise on Mars, and 80 million years ago, no less.  A slightly lesser quibble is the appearance of Brontosaurs; they were long extinct by the Cretaceous period. 

And then there's the relationship between the 32 year old Carpenter and the 11 year old, however precocious, Marcy.  It's all very innocent and largely on Marcy's part. I can't say more without spoiling the story, but in the end, we get a situation not unlike the reveal in The Twilight Zone episode, The Fugitive.  I didn't mind it all that much, but some may find it off-putting.

Anyway, I'm sure John Boston would give the story one star, two at best.  But Robert Young, even at his worst, is still a pretty good author, and despite the story's flaws, I did want to know what was coming next.

So, a low three. 

The Coldest Place, by Larry Niven

Niven, a brand new author, takes us to the coldest place in the universe, home to a most unique kind of lifeform.  The kicker, revealing the setting, is interesting, as are the various concepts Niven introduces in the piece.  On the other hand, there's really a bit too many ideas here for the short space allotted, so the story doesn't really go anywhere.

I have a suspicion that, given proper time to develop, this author may be one to watch. 

Three stars.

At the Top of the World, by J. T. McIntosh


by Nodel

Two hundred years after the last war, Gallery 71, deep underground, prepares for Ascension Day.  What awaits them on the surface?  Is there even a sky?  Or all the legends just mythical doubletalk?

It's a good setting for a story, not dissimilar to the author's previous 200 Years to Christmas, but the ending is both a fizzle and a letdown.  Also, I could done with less of the author's unconscious sexism.  No father admirers his daughter's "exquisite curves" and I would have expected a greater role for women in the piece than two teenagers of little consequence.

Another low three.

Pig in a Pokey, by R. A. Lafferty

Lafferty, whose middle name would be whimsy if it didn't start with an A., offers up a duel of wits between a porcine head-collector and the human who would claim the former's asteroid.

Neither foul nor fine (which makes it "fair", I guess), it's over before you know it.

Three stars.

The Hounds of Hell (Part 2 of 2), by Keith Laumer


by Ed Emshwiller

The bulk of the issue is taken up with the conclusion to Keith Laumer's latest novel.  Last time, John Brandeis was on the run from a horde of demonic dog things who assumed human guise and filched human brains.  Brandeis went so far as to have his body highly cyberneticized so that he could fight the hell hounds on an even footing.  With the help of the feeble-minded sailor, Joel, he managed to give them the slip.

But not for long.  Upon arriving in America, Brandeis' worst fears are realized: the aliens have taken over key positions of authority, probably throughout the world.  Worse, when he lures one of them to a remote spot in Colorado, in the hopes of ambushing and interrogating one of the invaders, Brandeis is, in turn, ambushed and killed.

And when he wakes up, it's in the body of a 70 foot tank, waging a war against other brain-run tanks on the Moon!


by Ed Emshwiller

Hounds of Hell has a lot of promising threads.  It could have been an exploration of what it is to be human in an increasingly inhuman body.  The robot tank angle, brilliantly explored in prior stories, could have been developed as a sort of prequel to those pieces.

The problem is, we never learn a damned thing about Brandeis, nor do we really care about the world that the Hell Hounds have taken over.  The only character with any substance is Joel, and he plays a minor role.  In the end, Hounds is a series of action scenes that aren't even up to the author's normally decent standard.

Two stars; two and a half for the book.

The Results

IF used to be Galaxy's experimental twin.  It was a magazine with rawer authors and more outré stories.  Now that Pohl has to spread his material three ways, IF seems to be the dumping ground for the least worthy stuff.

This month, at least, it wasn't worth the 50 cent cover price.  A poor issue to accompany the Christmas subscription renewal drive!

[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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