by Gideon Marcus

Dip in Road

A week has gone by since Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28 year-old worker on Robert F. Kennedy's campaign, lost her life.  Of course you've read the news.  She went to Martha's Vineyard for a reunion with other campaign workers, where she met the last surviving Kennedy brother, Teddy.  According to the Senator, Mary Jo was a bit tipsy, so he offered to drive her home.  His car ended up off a bridge.  He survived; she did not.

A tragedy.  Moreover, it is a far from clear-cut strategy.  Kennedy says he tried to save Kopechne, but that he was too exhausted to succeed—but he failed to call the police, who might have been able to help.  Indeed, he called his lawyer instead.  Last weekend, the Senator pled guilty to leaving the scene of the crime.

It's also unclear just what Kennedy and Kopechne were doing on the deserted dirt road that led to the scene of the accident.  It wasn't on the way home.  Was something clandestine in the works?  Was Teddy also sozzled?

There's a lot of talk about what this incident means for Kennedy's career, how he's not going to be able to run for President in '72, etc.  Perhaps this was all an innocent accident.  Maybe the only lesson we should get from all of this is that it's not smart to drive under the influence.

All we know at this time is that there as many questions as answers, as well as inconsistencies in the Senator's testimony.  I hope, for the Kopechne family's sake, if nothing else, that more is learned in the days to come.

In any event, once again, a Kennedy career has come to a sudden, unexpected halt.

Steady as she goes

If the political news is chaotic, such cannot be said for the latest issue of Analog, mostly composed of the plodding "problem" stories the magazine is known for.  However, amidst the tired tales is one standout that is definitely worth your time.

by Kelly Freas

The Teacher, by Colin Kapp

by N. Blakely

On a distant world, evolution is locked in the Jurassic—reptiles rule the globe.  Except these deadly dinosaurs are near intelligence, and quickly crowding out the race of sentient humanoids that shares the planet.  Enter "The Gaffer", a spaceman from Earth who walks the fine line between providing the skills and technology to defeat the reptiles, and avoiding becoming deified, unduly influencing the native culture.

Sounds a bit Star Trek, doesn't it?

The story is competently written, though Edgar Rice Burroughs was far better at pitting technological man vs. primeval monster.  I appreciated the acknowledgment that cultural and technical exchange is a dicey subject.  I'm not sure with some of the assumptions, particularly that any group exposed to Terran culture is doomed to adopt its worst qualities.

Anyway, three stars.

The Timesweepers, by Keith Laumer

by Vincent Di Fate

This one starts out as the tale of a time traveler whose job is to repair the past from the meddlings of earlier time travelers… and it sort of ends that way, too!  But in-between, it's a beautiful onion of adventure, moving at breakneck speed as the scope of the universe of time-lines expands into infinity.  It is both gripping adventure as well as the apotheosis of time travel stories, and Laumer manages it all in just thirty pages.  At first, I thought things were moving a bit quickly, but once I got to the end, I realized they'd taken just the time they needed.

I've often observed that there is "funny" Laumer and there is "serious" Laumer, and that the latter is the more worthy (though the ex-USAF officer makes a pretty good living on his endless parade of Retief stories, so what do I know?) The Timesweepers is serious Laumer, and it's seriously good.  It'd make a phenomenal movie someday.

Five stars.

Minds and Molecules, by Carl A. Larson

Somewhere in this turgid mass of verbosity are some interesting concepts: injectable "memory" RNA that teaches, or at least aids memory.  Drugs that stimulate enzymes to abet sanity and tranquility.

But man, this is just too hard to read to be a useful science article.

Two stars.

Chemistry … AD 1819, by William Henry, M.D., F.R.S.

Excerpts from a 150 year old chemical tome, illustrating how the useless powders of today might be the miracles of tomorrow.  And also a cautionary tale against sampling your own wares… lead is a poor flavor-additive!

Three stars.

Pressure, by Harry Harrison

by Peter Skirka

Three men descend in a bathyscape not to the bottom of the ocean, but to the surface of Saturn.  Their mission: to install a matter transmitter in the seething, cryogenic sea that comprises the sixth planet's lower atmosphere for scientific study.  Getting there's not the problem—it's getting back!

A decent technical tale with a lesson on morality and the role of the test pilot at the end.  Definitely a dash-off for cash rather than one of Harrison's more subtle, worthy tales.  Interestingly, Harry's time in England betrays itself; the name he chose for the base orbiting Saturn is the prosaic "Saturn One".

Three stars.

All Fall Down, by John T. Phillifent

by Vincent Di Fate

An interstellar transport suffers a malfunction and must make planetfall to effect repairs.  The problem: they make landing amidst the only civilized place on the planet, which proves to be an autocracy that immediately impounds the ship and enslaves the crew.  Worse yet, they're the second bunch from Terra to get this treatment; the first is a team of anthropologists who showed up a year before.

But Lennox, a bright young man with a computer-augmented brain, knows how to sell the local autocrat on a scheme that looks promising, but will ultimately be his undoing, affording the Terrans a chance to escape.

Phillifent, who also writes as John Rackham, is rarely brilliant, and he isn't here.  Once again, we have entirely human aliens.  I don't mind so much when Mack Reynolds uses his interstellar federation as a setting for interesting geopolitical stories—in that case, the planets are all human colonies with latitude to develop any societies they like.  But when the aliens are just people, the whole thing seems contrived.

There is also never an explanation for why the stranded ship had to interact with the planetary civilization at all, which was restricted to a small peninsula.  The indigenes could not help with repairs, so why not park in the woods and leave the natives alone?

But most of all, the story just isn't particularly interesting.

Two stars.

Androtomy and the Scion, by Jack Wodhams

by Vincent Di Fate

A spy is subject to a new torture, one that leaves his body completely at the mercy of his captors.  It involves the insertion and cultivation of…something…inside the spy's brain.

Now that they have complete control over him through the judicious incitement of pain, they expect him to become the perfect double-agent.  But the technique they use has a blind spot—and some hidden advantages.

Tolerable, though not particularly plausible, adventure.  Three stars.

Womb to Tomb, by Joseph Wesley

by Leo Summers

In the far future, human combatants are shielded from the shock of high G space maneuvers by being encased within and filled with something akin to amniotic fluid.  Since liquid is not compressible, they suffer no ill physical effects (once the requisite hookups are installed).  The only problem—the soldiers sent out to fight revert to infancy, so seductive is the prospect of being returned to even a virtual womb.

This story is a reasonably placed mystery, and the proposed technology is pretty neat.  It's just the stupid Twilight Zoney ending that kills it.  Someone will probably nick the idea for their own piece, just dumping the dopey conclusion.

Three stars (because the innovation is nifty, even if the end is dumb).

Starved for choice

If not for the Laumer, this would be a thoroughly disposable issue.  But that Laumer…

All told, we end up just north of three stars, putting us akin with Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.1) and New Worlds (3), ahead of Galaxy (2.8) and Venture (2.8), and behind New Writings 15 (4.3) and Fantastic (3.4)

On the plus side, the four and five star works would fill nearly three digests.  This is, however, largely due to the superlative New Writings and the serial that takes up most of Fantastic, so if you're looking for bang for your buck, those are the places to go.

Oh—the Hugo nominees have been announced.  I can't say I much fancy the choices, but there's at least one in each category that isn't too bad.  We'll, of course, have the results after Labor Day.

Until then… excelsior!

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