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[April 2, 1970] Being Human (May-June 1970 IF)

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A white man with short gray hair poses in front of a wooden wall. He is wearing a gray blazer, yellow shirt, and black necktie, and is smiling toward the left of the viewer.
by David Levinson

Counting coups

March saw not one, but two attempts to overthrow the established government in smaller countries. One failed, but the other looks like it may have succeeded.

A color geographic and political map of the Mediterranean basin, showing the island of Cyprus in the middle of the image.
Cyprus is the island south of Turkey, west of Syria, north of Egypt

Cyprus is a troubled nation. The populace is divided between those of Greek and Turkish decent, and the long-running hostility between Greece and Turkey spilled over to Cyprus. When the island sought independence from the United Kingdom, Greek Cypriots hoped for eventual union with Greece, which was not acceptable to Turkish Cypriots. The British were able to block annexation (or enosis, as it is called in Cyprus) as a condition for independence, but relationships within the island are so rocky that UN peacekeepers had to be brought in to keep the two populations from each other’s throats.

A major figure in the independence movement was Orthodox Archbishop Makarios III, who has led the country ever since. Before independence, he was a strong supporter of enosis, but was persuaded to accept that it would have to be put off as a hoped for future event. Makarios isn’t terribly popular with western leaders; he’s been a major voice in the Non-aligned Movement. Some in Washington have taken to calling him “the Castro of the Mediterranean.” In the last few years, he’s made himself unpopular at home as well. He’s taken away guarantees of Turkish representation in government and has also moved away from the idea of enosis. His justification is the Greek military coup of 1967, stating that joining Cyprus to Greece under a dictatorship would be a disservice to all Cypriots.

A white man with short gray hair poses in front of a wooden wall. He is wearing a gray blazer, yellow shirt, and black necktie, and is smiling toward the left of the viewer.Archbishop Makarios III visiting the Greek royal family in exile in Rome earlier this year.

On March 8th, somebody tried to kill Makarios. His helicopter was brought down by withering, high-powered fire. Makarios was uninjured, but the pilot was severely wounded. Fortunately, nobody else was on board. At least 11 people have been arrested, all of Greek heritage and strong supporters of enosis. Given the military nature of the weapons used, some are also accusing the Greek Junta of involvement.

Meanwhile in south-east Asia, Prince Norodom Sihanouk is out as the leader of Cambodia. Like Makarios, he hasn’t been popular in the west, due to his cozy relations with both the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. He’s also allowed Cambodian ports to be used for bringing in supplies for the North Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong, while also ignoring the use of Cambodian territory as part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

A color geographic and political map of the southeast Asian peninsula, with Cambodia in the center of the image.

Sihanouk was out of the country when anti-North Vietnamese riots erupted both in the east of the country and in Phnom Penh. Things quickly got out of hand, with the North Vietnamese embassy being sacked. By the 12th, the government canceled trade agreements with North Vietnam, closed the port of Sihanoukville to them, and issued an ultimatum that all North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong forces were to leave the country within 72 hours. When the demand wasn’t met, 30,000 protesters rallied outside the National Assembly against the Vietnamese.

On the 18th, The Assembly met and voted unanimously (except for one member who walked out in protest) to depose Sihanouk as the head of state. Prime Minister Lon Nol has assumed the head-of-state powers on an emergency basis. On the 23rd, Sihanouk, speaking by radio from Peking, called for an uprising against Lon Nol, and large demonstrations followed. A few days later, two National Assembly deputies were killed by the protesters. The demonstrations were then put down with extreme violence.

Two black and white photos.  On the left, Prince Sihanouk stands outside in front of several other men.  He has black hair and a concerned expression.  He is wearing a suit and tie and an overcoat, and is gesticulating with one hand while looking to the right of the photographer.  On the right, a head shot of Prime Minister Lon Nol.  He has gray hair and is wearing a black suit and tie.  He looks directly at the camera with a neutral expression.l: Prince Sihanouk in Paris shortly before his ouster. R: Prime Minister Lon Nol.

Where this will lead is anybody’s guess. The new government (it should be noted that the removal of Sihanouk appears to have been completely legal) has clearly abandoned the policy of neutrality and threatened North Vietnam with military action. Hanoi isn’t going to take that lying down; if the war spreads to Cambodia, will the Nixon administration expand American involvement? Add in Sihanouk urging resistance to Lon Nol and the deep reverence for the royal family held by many Cambodians, and it all looks like a recipe for chaos.

What is man

Some of the stories in this month’s IF deal directly or tangentially with what it is that makes humans human. The front cover also raises a question that we don’t have an answer to. We’ll get to that at the end; let’s look at the issue first.

The cover of the May-June 1970 edition of Worlds of If science fiction magazine. The magazine name and edition date are written in yellow across the top of the cover, except the word IF which appears in large white letters over a red rectangle.  Below this is a color painting of a white man's head staring directly out at the viewer. At the top of his head there are black lava-rock-like shapes that appear to be exploding out from his forehead.  The head appears to be emerging from a red and yellow pool of lava which is surrounded by dark swirls around the edge of the pool. At the bottom of the cover titles are listed: Novelette The Piecemakers, by Kieth Laumer; The Reality Trip by Robert Silverberg; Zon by Avram Davidson; Troubleshooter by Michael G. Coney. To the right the tagline of the magazine reads: If, the magazine of alternatives.Suggested by Troubleshooter. Art by Gaughan

The Reality Trip, by Robert Silverberg

What appears to be David Knecht is actually a small, crab-like alien inside a humanoid robot. He has spent 11 long years on Earth, studying it, possibly as reconnaissance for an invasion. Things start to go wrong when a young woman living in his residential hotel falls in love with him.

A black and white drawing of a crab like alien in a small white oval enclosure.  It is using its many legs to push levers and press buttons while looking at clocklike displays on the sides of the oval. Outside the oval what appear to be nerves and cells, drawn as lines and polygons and dots, drawn in white on a black background, flow outward from the levers and buttons.The real David Knecht. Art uncredited, but probably Gaughan

There’s the basis here for a really good story about alienation, isolation, and communication; Silverberg might even be the right person to write it. Unfortunately, he missed the mark. Not by much, but there’s a lack of emotion to the first person narrative, even when emotion is being expressed. There’s also the all too common Silverberg issue of highly sexualized descriptions of the female character. It’s especially off-putting and unnecessary coming from such a non-human character.

Three stars.

Troubleshooter, by Michael G. Coney

DeGrazza is a troubleshooter for Galactic Computers, sent out by the company whenever a client is having problems that no one else can solve. Following a disastrous mission which has left him shell-shocked, he’s called back from leave early to find out why spaceships in the Altairid system keep disappearing. Plagued by nightmares, if he can’t pull himself together he may soon be the victim of the next disappearance.

A black and white pen and ink drawing of a man staring directly at the viewer.  The background is shaded in cross hatches.  As in the cover image above, black lava rock like shapes appear to be exploding out of his forehead.Art uncredited, but since it’s nearly identical to the cover it must be by Gaughan

Combat fatigue, shell-shock, whatever they’re calling it these days for the boys coming back from Vietnam, science fiction has far too rarely dealt with that sort of trauma. When it has, it’s always the result of combat; this story takes the unusual step of pointing out that it’s not only war that can cause it. Coney isn’t quite up to his theme—downplaying DeGrazza’s mental state, for example—but he made a good effort.

A high three stars.

The Piecemakers, by Keith Laumer

Two-fisted interstellar diplomat Retief is back. He and his frequent boss Magnan have been sent alone to mediate a war between the Groaci and the Slox, neither of which has asked for or wants Terran meddling. The usual nonsense ensues.

A black and white drawing of a man and an alien having a conversation.  On the left, the man is in a tailcoat, dress pants, and knee high spats and is sitting on one of a series of mushroom-like growths, gesturing with one hand.  He is facing toward the alien, which resembles a huge bell-like flower rooted into the right side of the image, but with eyestalks and a tongue-like extrusion coming out of the inside of the flower bell.  Other, smaller bells appear to be growing from the side of the stalk.  The man's head is close enough to the bell to almost be inside it but not quite.As usual, Retief makes friends with the locals. Art probably by Gaughan

It’s been about a year since the last Retief story, and broad spacing between them helps. But it’s still the same old pattern. If you’re familiar with Retief, you know what you’re getting and if you’ll like it. If you aren’t, this isn’t the best place to start, but it’s not the worst either.

Three stars.

Human Element, by Larry Eisenberg

A wealthy young woman visits a gambling mecca and requests an android assistant. The good part is that Eisenberg isn’t trying to be funny; unfortunately, he doesn’t really develop his theme. He’s not helped by the fact that Robert Silverberg’s The Tower of Glass currently running in Galaxy is covering the same ground. It’s all right, but maybe I’m better disposed towards it for not being an Emmett Duckworth story.

Three stars.

The Nightblooming Saurian, by James Tiptree, Jr.

Tiptree’s latest is a trifle, really just a set-up for some not very funny scatological humor. It concerns a group of time traveling scientists studying pre-humans in Olduvai Gorge. They’re worried about budget cuts, but a non-scientific member of the team has promised a member of the budget committee a dinosaur hunt to get him to look favorably on the project. The problem, of course, is that Dr. Leakey’s proto-humans came tens of millions of years after the dinosaurs went extinct.

Barely three stars.

Reading Room, by Lester del Rey

A black and white image of an architectural drawing of a rectangular room, with an inward-opening door symbolized in the upper left corner.  In the center of the rectangle the title, Reading Room, written in a swooping serifed font. Below the title, the author's name, Lester Del Ray, is written in smaller block capitals.

This month, del Rey looks at three books he considers experimental in some way. The first is The Eleventh Galaxy Reader, where the experiment is that the stories were chosen by the readers. In 1968, Galaxy polled subscribers to determine the best stories of the year, with large cash prizes for the best. More clearly experimental is John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar. Unlike most reviewers, del Rey is neither hot nor cold (our own Jason Sacks gave it five stars); he enjoyed much of it, but feels that Brunner let form distract him from story. Finally, there’s Lord Tyger by Philip José Farmer, about an attempt to produce a real-life Tarzan. Lester isn’t too keen on the result, but he likes the honest look at the underlying ideas of Burroughs’ creation.

The Misspelled Magician (Part 1 of 2), by David Gerrold and Larry Niven

Two familiar names have teamed up to bring us a story about magic and science. Larry Niven should need no introduction for regular readers of science fiction over the last five years, while David Gerrold scripted a couple of Star Trek episodes and looks to be making the jump to print.

A human scientist has landed on an alien world and runs afoul of local customs, all told from the viewpoint of the locals. They see “Purple” (as they come to call him from what his translation device says his name is) as just another wizard, one who is trespassing on the turf of their own without making the proper overtures. This installment ends with local wizard Shoogar performing a mighty curse on Purple’s “nest,” leaving it in the river.

A black and white drawing of an alien landscape. In the foreground, a stampede of alien animals is running toward the left of the image.  A black bubble floats up from the animals, in which is written The Misspelled Magician, by David Gerrold and Larry Niven.  In the background a humanoid figure appears in silhouette between two clumps of trees.  It is raising one arm as if to shake its fist.The mud creatures rise to attack. Art by Gaughan

So far, so good. It’s a well-told examination of Arthur C. Clarke’s assertion that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. When Purple tries to explain that he uses science, not magic, his translator uses the same word for both terms.

But there’s a problem, a big one: the authors are trying to be funny. This mostly comes out in the names of the various local gods. For example, there’s Rotn’bair, the god of sheep, whose symbol is the horned box; his great enemy is Nils’n, the god of mud creatures, whose symbol is a diagonal line with an empty circle on either side (i.e. %). There’s a lot of this; the narrator’s two sons, who make bicycles, are named Wilville and Orbur. It really distracts from an otherwise good story.

Three stars for now, maybe less if you have a low tolerance for the humor.

Zon, by Avram Davidson

A man called Rooster crosses a wasteland, possibly many generations after WWIII, in search of a wife. His search takes him to a stronghold of Zons (clearly shortened from Amazons) just as their Mother King lies dying.

A black and white pen-and-ink drawing of an outside post-apocalyptic scene, with tattered tents and exposed building girders.  In the foreground a man stands facing away from the viewer.  His left hand is upraised in a wave and his right is pulling what looks like a leash that extends out of the image without showing what's on the other end.  In the background, groups of people appear to be fighting and arguing.  Some appear to be women and others are of indeterminate sex.Rooster arrives at the Zon burrough (that’s not a misspelling). Art by Gaughan

Apart from the last couple Orbits, it’s been a while since we’ve heard from Avram Davidson. This has that Davidson feel to it, but somewhat darker in tone than is usual for him. I don’t think I can say how well he handled certain aspects of a society completely without men, but it seems better than most would have done. And despite the darkness, it ends hopefully and beautifully.

A high three stars

Summing up

Another straight C issue. I keep hoping for something better, but I’m grateful we aren’t getting anything worse. I wonder, though, if there are clouds on the horizon. This is the second straight issue without an “IF first” new author and the fifth without an editorial. Look again at the cover; it’s dated May-June. Is this a one time thing, or is IF going bimonthly? What does that portend? Some word from the editor about what’s going on would be greatly appreciated.

Black and white text from the back of the magazine reads: Subscribe now to the new If, the magazine of alternatives. I’m not sure I’d subscribe without some explanation of what’s going on.




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