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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 12, 1966] A Family Tradition (December 1966 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Identical cousins

My brother Louis and I diverge quite a lot.  He's an observant Jew, I'm an atheist.  He served in World War 2 (drafted into the Navy), I did not.  He's an affluent pawnbroker.  I'm a writer of questionable success.

But where we differ the most is the subjects of our avocational devotion.  Lou loves opera.  Specifically operas written in 1812 between October and November.  I kid, but his musical tastes are really quite narrow; his radio knob never turns from the FM classical stations.  I am far more catholic in my interests, enjoying everything from classical, to the swing of my teen years, to the brand new sounds.

Also, Lou hates science fiction.

Interestingly, his son David (thus, my nephew), loves SF as much as I do.  Must be this newfangled "generation gap" we're starting to hear about. 

For the last 15 years or so, he and I have swapped recommendations, and he's even lent me some of his magazines.  Our tastes are not identical.  He recently canceled his subscription to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and he is a big fan of Analog.  But we have some strong overlap, particularly where it comes to Galaxy.  In fact, that picture is him in his San Pedro home enjoying this month's issue.

I am thankful that my own daughter, David's first cousin, is also a devoted science fiction fan.  I'd hate to have to throw her out of the house before her eighteenth birthday.

Kidding, again!  I'd surely wait for her to be of age before disowning her.

But, that's not anything we have to worry about, for we are all one big happy family of fen, and we all dug the December 1966 Galaxy — read on and see why!


by Paul E. Wenzel

The issue at hand


by Virgil Finlay

Door to Anywhere, by Poul Anderson

Humanity has developed teleportation technology, and Mars has become a hub for galactic exploration.  But a recent jaunt to the edge of the known universe caused the destruction of several portals and the loss of a senator's brother-in-law.  Now the politician has arrived on the Red Planet to investigate.

When Poul Anderson sets his mind to it, he can write.  Not only is this an effective story, with the mystery disclosed one layer at a time, but it is technically interesting.  It's the first depiction of teleportation I've read that takes relative velocities into consideration.  A trip to a nearby star could require hops to a dozen intermediaries across the galaxy, or multiple galaxies, to ensure the difference in relative momenta is not too great.  I also appreciated the political discussion over the virtues and peril of building a teleporter too close to the Earth.

Where the story falters to some degree is its characterization: Anderson is still in the Kowalski, Yamamoto, Singh habit of defining players by their nationality — and women are strangely absent.  Also, the Hoylean/Hubblean fusion of cosmological theories seems like a lot of gobbledegook.

Nevertheless, it's a riveting read.  Definitely four stars.

Children in Hiding, by John Brunner

I'm told there are two John Brunners.  One is the brilliant Englishman who produced Listen…the Stars! and The Whole Man, both Star-winners and Hugo nominees.  The other is the American who produces schlock.

The latter wrote Children in Hiding.  The premise: the children on a colony world are born healthy but never develop mental capacities beyond that of infants.  A terran troubleshooter is brought in to fix the problem.  He does, but not to the benefit of the colony.

There's a lot of angry dialogue and excessive use of exclamation points, and the end is just stupid.  I'll give the piece two stars because both Brunners write coherently, but all in all, it's a disappointing story.

The Modern Penitentiary, by Hayden Howard


by Jack Gaughan

Ah, and now we have another story of the Esks, a race of Eskimo/alien hybrids that spawn children every month.  Children that mature in five years.  Throughout the series, we've seen the Esks explode in population, exhausting their environment and crowding out the real Eskimos.  In this, they are facilitated by the do-gooder Canadians, who refuse to see the Esks for the meance they are.  Instead, they give the Esks food, relocate them to other areas, etc.

Only one man, Dr. West (who always conjures up the Lovecraft character), knows the truth.  When no one listened to his Cassandra cry, he tried to sterilize them with a disease (last story).  The plan backfired, killing 23 actual Eskimos.  For this, he was imprisoned in the nicest cell ever, complete with a therapeutic nurse-lover.  Modern Penitentiary details West's attempts to escape, as well as his rather difficult-to-read sexual adventures.

These installments stand less and less on their own, and they become more implausible every time.  Thankfully, we've only one left. 

Two stars.

For Your Information: The Sound of the Meteors, by Willy Ley

I really dug this article, all about whether or not one can hear a meteor.  It was timely, too, as I read it right before our trip out to the desert to stargaze last weekend.

Four stars (and enjoy these pictures of Borrego Springs!)

At the Bottom of a Hole, by Larry Niven


by Hector Castellon

The latest Niven story is another set on Mars, a locale we've visited in Eye of the Octopus and How the Heroes Die.  Hole takes place a good seventy years after the last story.  A smuggler on the run from Belter cops tries to take refuge on Mars at the old base.  He finds the crew long dead, murdered when someone, or several someones, slashed their bubble.  Was it Martians?

The story also features the return of Luke Garner and Lit Schaeffer from World of Ptavvs, tying Mars to that universe.  Along with this month's A Relic of the Empire, which ties Ptavvs in with The Warriors (featuring the Kzinti) and the Beowulf Schaeffer stories set several centuries hence, it appears Niven has knit together six hundred years of future history to play in.  Fun stuff!

Four stars.

Decoy System, by Robin Scott

This is a Mack Reynoldsy thriller featuring an American agent's meeting with his Soviet counterpart.  Some third party has been sabotaging both the US and USSR's early warning systems so that they will indicate massive nuclear strikes.  Aliens are determined to be the culprit.  An era of peace and cooperation ensues.

Of course, it was all a Yankee plot.  I think I'd have liked this story if I hadn't read the premise before (and seen it as recently as The Architects of Fear).  It feels a lot like an Analog story.  Also, it's a lot of buildup for an ending that is obvious early on.

Two stars.

The Palace of Love (Part 2 of 3), by Jack Vance


by Gray Morrow

Last time, if you'll recall, I hadn't been overly enamored with Jack Vance's latest novel, a direct sequel to The Star King.  Kirth Gersen, a rich and supertalented assassin, is on the hunt for Viole Falushe, one of the "Demon Kings" of crime who murdered his parents.  The prior installment took us to Earth, where Gersen, disguised as a reporter (working for a paper he has purchased), investigates Falushe's childhood home.  Back then, he was known as Vogel Filschner.  His best friend and inspiration, before he went into kidnapping and slaving, was the poet, Garnath. 

It is the houseboat-dwelling, nigh-incomprehensible Garnath, who provides Gersen his opportunity to meet and kill Falushe.  Along the way, he becomes increasingly entangled with Garnath's ward, "Zan Zu of Eridu", who is an exact likeness of Falushe's childhood infatuation. 

The first two thirds, in which Gersen plays a cat and mouse game with Falushe, is riveting.  The final section, which sees Falushe invite Gershen to his private sanctum ("The Palace of Love") in the far reaches of space, is heavy on description but light on interest. 

Still, I'd give this section four stars.  It'll be up to the last installment to determine if the whole affair ends up on the three or four star side of the ledger.

Primary Education of the Camiroi, by R. A. Lafferty

Last up, an obtuse piece on the differences in educational policy and success between two planets.  It's supposed to be whimsical (when isn't the word applied to Lafferty?), but it's mostly tired.

Two stars.

Summing up

Finishing up at 3.1 stars, I'd say Fred Pohl has done his job to keep Galaxy on our subscription lists for another year at least.  And I do mean our — you have to count me in, too!

[Speaking of stories you and your family will enjoy, Sirena, the second book in The Kitra Saga, is out!  Fun for adults, young and old.

Buy a copy…you'll be supporting me and getting a great read at the same time!]



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[November 6, 1966] Starting Over (December 1966 IF)

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by David Levinson

Autumn is a strange time for new beginnings, but that seems to be something of a theme, both in life and in the latest edition of IF.

Carnival atmospheres

On October 5th, the highest appeals court in Texas ruled that Jack Ruby, the man who shot the man who shot President Kennedy, should be granted a new trial. The court said that, given the tremendous amount of publicity in Dallas about the shooting, the judge should have granted the request for a change of venue made by Ruby’s lawyer, Melvin Belli. The court also ruled that some statements made by Ruby to the police should have been excluded. Oddly, the court didn’t have a problem with people who watched the shooting on television being on the jury. The new trial will probably be the big news story early next year.


Jack Ruby shortly after his arrest.

The Texas court may have followed the Supreme Court ruling in Sheppard v. Maxwell back in June. In 1954, Dr. Sam Sheppard was convicted of the brutal murder of his wife Marilyn. He maintained that she was killed by a “bushy-haired” man, but he was tried and convicted in the press before he was even arrested. The story became a national sensation, and the jury was exposed to further declarations of Sheppard’s guilt in the press throughout the trial. Before the trial began, the judge even told Dorothy Kilgallen that Sheppard was obviously “guilty as hell.” Jury selection for a new trial began on October 24th, and the prosecution should have begun to present their case by the time you read this.


Sam Sheppard’s mug shot from 1954.

Rising from the ashes

In this month’s IF, it seems like almost everybody is starting over. Whether it’s their personal lives, civilization or the human race, they’re all trying to put things back together.


This doesn’t look like it has anything to do with the Niven story. And they got the title wrong. Art by Gaughan

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[September 14, 1966] All the Old Familiar Places (October 1966 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Where Men Have Gone Before

Last week saw the debut of the exciting science fiction anthology show Star Trek.  The opening narration describes a five-year mission, going "where no man has gone before."  Indeed, the second pilot of the program bore that very title.  Never mind that in two of the three episodes I've seen thus far (and in the sole episode yet officially aired), the featured space ship Enterprise went places men had gone before; the promise is still there.

This month's Galaxy, on the other hand, treads entirely familiar ground.  Not necessarily in the subject matter or the plots — these are reasonably fresh.  I mean that pretty much every story save the last constitutes the continuation of a prior story or setting.

Magazine editor Fred Pohl once explained that he has a reliable stable of authors for Galaxy.  As Pohl travels the country on various speaking engagements, he hits his writer friends up for new material.  Cordwainer Smith was on that list until his tragic passing last month.  Frank Herbert is (sadly) also on that list.  And so are most of the authors below.  I imagine each conversation with his pet authors eventually wanders around to "when do you think I might see more of…"

This isn't a bad thing, especially if you like the universes that get expanded.  On the other hand, it is the reason there about are twice as many Retief stories as there should be.

So let's see how this series of sequels fares:

Old Stomping Grounds


by Sol Dember

The Palace of Love (Part 1 of 3), by Jack Vance

In Vance's novel The Star King, we were introduced to Kirth Gersen.  Gersen is a vigilante, roaming the galactic space lanes to track down the elusive and nearly omnipotent "Demon Princes" of crime.  His first target, a fellow named Grendel, is defeated in the wild Beyond, the belt of untamed systems that ring the placid inner worlds.

Now, in Palace, Gerson applies the vast wealth of Grendel toward the next Demon Prince on his list, the volatile slaver and crime boss, Viole Falushe.  This time, the trail leads back to the original home of humanity, specifically, the portion of Europe known as Holland.


by Gray Morrow

I like Vance a lot, but this particular universe has never appealed to me.  Indeed, Palace has the exact same issues that plagued Kings.  At first, Vance's detailed setting descriptions and odd dialogue are compelling.  Over time, they just get tiresome.  Moreover, whereas in stories like The Dragon Masters or The Last Castle, Vance creates a rich world almost from nothing, filled with exciting new places and ideas, the far future in which Kirth Gersen resides feels almost unchanged from 20th Century Earth. 

I have a suspicion that the remainder of this book is going to be a slog.  Three stars so far.

How the Heroes Die, by Larry Niven


by Virgil Finlay

Larry Niven returns us to the Mars he set up in this year's short story, Eye of the Octopus.  The initial expedition that discovered evidence of indigenous Martians has been succeeded by a dozen humans in a bubble dome archaeological base.  When the natives prove elusive, tedium and frustration sets in.  One of the members of the all-male crew makes a pass at another.  Enraged, the target of his advances kicks him in the throat and watches him die.

Knowing that the rest of the team won't stand for it, murderous John "Jack" Carter plunges his Mars buggy through the dome in an attempt to release the air and kill his compatriots.  His plan fails, thanks to the fast reactions of the team.  Alf Harness, the party's linguist, heads out in pursuit.

The cat and mouse chase, with each of the two trying to outsmart the other such that only one can come back alive, working within the constraints of their air supply and their equipment at hand, is a pretty tight bit of writing.  I could have, however, done without the several paragraphs Niven devotes to the motivation of the crime: Lieutenant-Major Shute drafts a report to Earth explaining that a bunch of isolated men together always succumb to homosexuality.  Just like in the Navy.  Or boys-only schools.  Or the Third Reich (I'm not making these examples up).  The solution: Earth needs to send women with them, damn the Morality Leagues that frown on co-ed missions. 

This reminds me of stories I read last decade where female crew members were carried along solely for their convenient orifices.  I had hoped tales endorsing such notions were a thing of the past.  As for modern-day temperance leagues, while I recognize that cultures can regress, it seems to me that women have been serving alongside men for decades now.  Why, I recently saw an episode of Gomer Pyle featuring a woman Marine Captain.  I can't imagine that the trend over the next century is toward a reversal of that practice.

At least the characters in Heroes don't endorse the victim's murder.  The characters (and thus the author) seem to be saying that queers are people too, but that they are the sad creations of circumstance.  (Mr. Niven is apparently unacquainted with Dr. Kinsey, or the excellent documentary on homosexuality, The Rejected).

Three stars.

A Recursion in Metastories, by Arthur C. Clarke

Too short to describe.  A literary joke of unlimited scope if limited value.

Three stars.


by Jack Gaughan

The Ship Who Killed, by Anne McCaffrey


by Nodel

Many years ago, in The Magazine of Science Fiction, Anne McCaffrey introduced us to KH-834, the cybernetic spaceship.  The story was called The Ship Who Sang.  It involved the close relationship between the vessel's female resident brain, Helva, and the ambulatory "brawn" component, a man named Jennan. 

Jennan dies in that story, leaving Helva devastated but still spaceworthy.  She is detached from scout duty, instead being used for a sequence of odd job missions.  Her first, in which Helva's passenger is a doctor dispatched to a plague-ravaged world, was detailed in a recent Analog in a story titled The Ship Who Mourned.

And now Killed, appearing in yet another magazine.  This time, Helva is to be a metallic womb, ferrying a hundred thousand frozen fetuses to a world that has suffered a sterilizing catastrophe.  Her passenger is Kira, responsible for obtaining the unborn children from various worlds and taking care of them on their journey.  She has suffered the recent loss of her partner, too, and is expressedly suicidal.  Helva's orders are explicitly to avoid worlds on which suicide is legal.  Unfortunately, not all such worlds are cataloged…

One interesting bit is that Kira is a "Dylanist", part of a sect of cynical singer-songwriters who have almost deified ol' Bob.  She even plays "Blowin' in the Wind" at one point.  It's rather bold to extrapolate such a huge impact from something so recent as a popular singer (is there a rival faction known as "The Beatlers"?) And while it is possible that the former Mr. Zimmerman may go on to be so influential as to spawn religious adherents, McCaffrey fails to account for musical evolution: Kira employs the acoustic guitar in Killed, an instrument Dylan has already abandoned.

Such is the danger of precise prediction!

Anyway, that's just a side note.  The story itself has a reasonably good setup, but McCaffrey's writing style, filled to the brim with adverbs and acid repartee, just isn't doing it for me.  Each story in this series has been less compelling than the last.  This may explain why each one has been published in a new magazine; usually, editors hold onto writers as long as they can.

Two stars.

For Your Information: The Delayed Discovery, by Willy Ley

Willy Ley meanders through the history of atomic chemistry, covering a great many topics shallowly and without a lot of causality.  Asimov usually needs to trim his articles; Ley needed more connective tissue to make this one work.

Two stars.

Too Many Esks, by Hayden Howard


by Jack Gaughan

We're now four stories into the saga of the Esks, inhuman hybrids of Eskimos and an alien invader, who live above the arctic circle in Canada.  Esks grow to maturity in just five years.  Female Esks gestate and bear a child every month.  This new race has already outgrown its food supply, relying on government handouts to stay alive.

Dr. Joe West has been warning of a Malthusian nightmare for months now.  At last, some folks are starting to listen to him.  But the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, and West is concerned that once the hybrid Esks interbreed with humans (as one did with West), homo sapiens will be displaced by the more fecund breed.  Once this happens, there are signs that the original aliens will return to enslave the Earth.

And so, West hatches a plan to sterilize the Esks through biological warfare.  Like all of West's other endeavors against the Esks, the mission is a dismal and emotionally fraught failure.

These Esk tales oscillate between tedious and mildly engaging, all requiring a healthy dollop of suspension of disbelief.  I've been along for this ride long enough that I'm now kind of curious as to how it will end.

Three stars.

Planet of Fakers, by J. T. McIntosh


by McClane

McIntosh is an author with a long career.  He's written five-star stories, a number of pedestrian pieces, and a few truly awful ones.  Often, his works contain Sexist (or at least anti-feminine) portrayals of women.

So it was that I approached this last piece of the issue with some trepidation (especially given the weird art that suggested a sexual farce).

I am happy to report that I was pleasanty surprised.

Planet starts in medias res.  A tense trio, one man and two women, are subjecting a queue of persons to a test.  Their goal: to prove the humanity of each subject. 

Through adroit exposition, McIntosh slowly clues us in to the situation.  A colony of a few hundred has been besieged by an alien race of body possessors.  The fake humans are in telepathic communion with one another, so while it was once a trivial task to tell humans from sham-people, tests can only be used effectively once.  And the colonists are running out of tests.

While Planet does not take place in a preexisting universe, the bodysnatching genre has been around for decades, including such classics as Campbell's Who Goes There? and Heinlein's The Puppet Masters (and, of course, the 1956 movie which gave the genre its label).  Nevertheless, what McIntosh does with it is so deftly executed, and so neatly contrived, that's it's clear the old subject still has life in it.  At least in the hands of a master.

I'd originally planned to give it four stars, but it has stayed with me such that I think it earns a full five.

Dust Bowl's a comin'

With the exception of the standout final story, the October 1966 Galaxy is pretty mediocre stuff.  I think the lesson I've gotten is that fields can grow fallow, especially ones that weren't very fertile to begin with.

I think Pohl's writers would do themselves well to find some new land to plow.  And maybe Galaxy could use a more diverse set of farmers…

(If you're looking for something new, join us tomorrow at 8:30 PM (Pacific AND Eastern — two showings) for the next episode of Star Trek!)

Here's the invitation!

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[September 2, 1966] On the Edge (October 1966 IF)

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by David Levinson

Big Trouble in China

Back in May, I wrote about the political maneuvering going on in China, and I predicted purges would follow. Rarely have I been so sorry to be right. On August 13th, Mao Tse-tung announced a purge of Party officials as part of the Cutural Revolution. And he has a frightening new tool to carry out his will.

At the end of May, a group of high school and university students calling themselves Red Guards embraced the principles of the Cultural Revolution and hung up posters criticizing university administrators. Originally condemned as counterrevolutionaries and radicals, they were officially endorsed by Mao early in August. On the 18th, a mass rally was held in T’ien-an-min Square in Peking. A reported one million students listened to speeches by various Party officials. Mao appeared in military fatigues for the first time in years, a look favored by the Red Guards.

On the 22nd, they began putting up posters “advising” people to abandon bourgeois habits such as Western clothing and warned shopkeepers against selling foreign goods. They gave people a week before they would “take action”. Since then, the Red Guards have run amok. On the 26th, they gave foreigners and bourgeois Chinese to the end of the day to leave Peking. They poured into the Tibetan capital Lhasa, destroying ancient relics, vandalizing shrines and abusing monks. Now, word has come out that they are beating and killing people in the Ta-hsing and Ch’ang-p’ing districts of Peking, and the police have been ordered to look the other way. This is likely to get worse before it gets better, and however it ends won’t be pretty.


Soong P’in-p’in, a Red Guard leader, pins an armband on Mao Tse-tung.

Life on the edge

This month’s IF features not one, but two stories set on the edge of the galaxy, and just about everyone else is on the edge in some way or another.


Amazingly well done for Dan Adkins. Art by Adkins

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[August 2, 1966] Mirages (September 1966 IF)

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by David Levinson

The popular image of a mirage is a shining oasis in a desert replete with shady palm trees and sometimes dancing girls. That’s not how mirages work. We’re all familiar with heat shimmer, say on a hot, empty asphalt road, casting the image of the sky onto the ground and resembling water. Less common is the Fata Morgana, which makes it look as though cities or islands are floating in the sky. But the popular idea of the mirage remains: something beautiful and desirable, yet insubstantial.

Heat Wave

July was a real scorcher in the United States as a heat wave settled in over much of the Midwest. A heat wave might make a fun metaphor for passion if you’re Irving Berlin or Martha and the Vandellas, but as the latest hit from the Lovin’ Spoonful suggests, it can be a pretty unpleasant experience. As the mercury rises, people get pretty hot under the collar.

On July 12th, the Black neighborhoods on Chicago’s West Side exploded. The sight of children playing in the spray of a fire hydrant is a familiar one, but the city’s fire commissioner ordered the hydrants closed. The spark was lit when, while shutting off the hydrants, the police attempted to arrest a man, either because there was a warrant for his arrest (according to them) or because he reopened a hydrant right in front of them (according to the locals). As things escalated, stores were looted and burned, rocks were thrown at police and firemen and shots were fired. There were also peaceful protests led by Dr. Martin Luther King. Mayor Daley called in the National Guard with orders to shoot. Ultimately, the mayor relented. Police protection was granted to Blacks visiting public pools (all in white neighborhoods), portable pools were brought in and permission was given to open the hydrants.


Children in Chicago playing in water from a reopened hydrant

As things wound down in Chicago, they flared up in Cleveland. On the 18th in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Hough, the owners of the white-owned bar the Seventy-Niner’s Café refused ice water to Black patrons, possibly posting a sign using a word I won’t repeat here. Once again, there was looting and burning and the National Guard was called in. Things calmed after a couple of days, but heated up again when police fired on a car being driven by a Black woman with four children as passengers. It appears to be over now and the Guard has been gradually withdrawn over the last week. City officials are blaming “outside agitators” for the whole thing.

These riots are a stark reminder that the passage of the Civil Rights Act two years ago didn’t magically make everything better, and that problems also exist outside of the South. We have a long way to go before racial equality is more than just wishful thinking.


National Guardsmen outside the Seventy-Niner’s Café

Pretty, but insubstantial

Some of the stories in this month’s IF are gorgeously written, but lacking in plot. Sometimes that’s enough, sometimes it isn’t.


This fellow’s having a very bad day, but he’s not in The Edge of Night. Art by Morrow

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[July 2, 1966] The Big Thud (August 1966 IF)

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by David Levinson

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
– T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

Starting with a Bang

This month, we note with regret the passing of Monsignor Georges Lemaître on June 20th, at the age of 71. You are likely wondering who that was and what a Catholic priest has to do with the sort of things we usually discuss here at the Journey. Though not well known in America, Msgr. Lemaître was one of the most important theoretical astronomers of this century. After earning his PhD. in mathematics in his native Belgium, he spent a year at Cambridge under Arthur Eddington, who introduced him to modern cosmology, followed by a year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under Harlow Shapley. In 1927, he published a paper in a minor Belgian journal in which he proposed that the red shift of other galaxies could be explained by an expanding universe. That was two years before Edwin Hubble published his theory of a relationship between velocity and distance for extragalactic bodies. Lemaître also made a first estimation of the constant now called the Hubble constant.

Then in 1931, he suggested that the vectors of all the objects could be tracked backwards to a single point. He dubbed this the “primeval atom”. This is the beginning of the theory which Fred Hoyle called the “big bang” in contrast to his favored steady-state theory. The evidence in favor of Lemaître’s theory has mounted over the years, and it now looks to be the best explanation for the beginning of the universe. The Monsignor was also a mathematician and one of the first people to use computers for cosmological calculations. He was elected to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1946 and served as its president since 1960. Although a devout Catholic, he firmly believed that science and religion were not in conflict, but nevertheless should not be mixed.


Lemaître with Robert Millikan and Albert Einstein following a lecture at the California Institute of Technology in 1933.

Ending with a Whimper

They say an author should try to come up with a good opening line, or hook, to grab the reader’s attention. Things like “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen,” “It was a pleasure to burn,” or (one of my favorites) “If I had cared to live, I would have died.” It’s important to start with a bang, but all too often writers forget about a satisfying ending. Stories taper off into nothing, plot threads are never tied up, or ridiculous bits of action are introduced out of nowhere to get the author out of a corner they painted themselves into. Quite a few of the stories in this month’s IF start off promisingly, if not with a bang, and end not with a whimper, but a resounding thud.


No matter what the Table of Contents says, this outer space construction site has nothing to do with The Foundling Stars. Art by McKenna

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[June 10, 1966] Summer Reruns (July 1966 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Old Series Never Die, They Just Fade Away

Summertime is right around the corner, here in the Northern Hemisphere, and all patriotic Americans know what that means; reruns on television. Not only does this save the production companies money, it allows defunct programs to continue to appear on TV screens long after they're gone, like ghosts haunting a house. (Of course, they're easier to exorcise than traditional specters; just pull the plug.)

Two popular, critically acclaimed, and long-running series recently cast off this mortal coil, ready to enter the monochromatic afterlife of reruns.

Late last month, the courtroom drama Perry Mason slammed down the gavel for the last time with The Case of the Final Fade-Out. The story involved a television studio, so a large number of crew members made cameo appearances, pretty much as themselves. There was also a very special guest star.


That's executive producer Gail Patrick Jackson on the left and Hollywood columnist Norma Lee Browning on the right. The fellow in the middle? That's bestselling author Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of Perry Mason, dressed up for his role as a judge in the final episode.

At the start of this month, The Dick Van Dyke Show came to a conclusion with the appropriately titled episode The Last Chapter. Van Dyke's character, television writer Rob Petrie, finishes the book he's been working on for five years, and looks back on his life.


Because The Last Chapter was really just an excuse to reuse sequences from previous episodes, I'm offering you this scene from the penultimate episode, The Gunslinger. Surrounding Van Dyke in this Western parody are cast regulars Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Deacon.

I'm sure that both of these hit series will be reincarnated in American living rooms for quite a while.

Not all summer television programming consists of reruns, to be sure. There are so-called summer replacement series as well. In a week or so, we'll enjoy (or avoid) the first episode of The Dean Martin Summer Show (not to be confused with The Dean Martin Show, which has been going on since last year. Are you still with me?) It will be hosted by the comedy team of Dan Rowan and Dick Martin.


Rowan on the left and Martin on the right, in a scene from their 1958 Western spoof Once Upon a Horse. I wonder if they'll have any success as TV hosts.

A Home Run The First Time At Bat

Although it's not unknown for popular songs of yesteryear to return to the charts — auditory reruns, if you will — listeners are usually searching for something original. Newcomer Percy Sledge offers an notable example with his smash hit When a Man Loves a Woman. This passionate, soulful ballad, currently Number One in the USA, is not only the first song recorded by Sledge, it is the first song recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a city famous for its music studios, to reach that position.


Your fans mean it, Mister Sledge.

I've Seen This All Before

The reason I've been talking about reruns, before I get to the contents of the latest issue of Fantastic, isn't just the fact that they've been filling up the magazine with reprints for some time now. As we'll see, many of the old stories in this issue have reappeared several times before. Reruns of reruns, so to speak. Whether fans of imaginative literature will be willing to spend four bits for fiction they may have already read in collections or anthologies remains to be seen.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

Predictably, the front cover is also a rerun.


The back cover of the June 1943 issue of Amazing Stories. It looks better in the original version.

Before I get to the reruns, however, let's start with something new.

Just Like a Man, by Chad Oliver


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Three men are in an aircraft, flying over the surface of an Earth-like planet. A sudden storm forces them to abandon the vehicle, stranding the trio in an area resembling an African savannah. Because the place is full of leonine predators, they hightail it to the relative safety of a nearby rainforest.


Climbing one of the planet's gigantic trees in order to get away from the hungry cats.

They wind up far above the ground, among an unsuspected community of highly intelligent primates. These mysterious creatures help them survive, and even offer the possibility of reaching their home base, located five hundred miles away across uncharted wilderness.


Among the primates, who are not as hostile as shown here.

This is a decent tale of adventure, and the enigmatic primates are interesting. The planet is so similar to Earth — the feline predators are pretty much just lions — that you might forget you're reading a science fiction story. Overall, it's worth reading, if not outstanding in any way.

Three stars.

The Trouble With Ants, by Clifford D. Simak


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

From the January 1951 issue of Fantastic Adventures comes this final story in the author's famous City series. (By the way, the title of this work was changed to The Simple Way when it appeared in book form.)


Illustration by Rod Ruth. From this point on, all the illustrations are reruns from the original appearances of the stories.

In the far future, people are gone from Earth, with the exception of one fellow in suspended animation. Long ago, humans increased the intelligence of dogs, gave them the power of speech, and built robots to serve their needs. The canines, in turn, taught other animals to speak.

Complicating matters is the fact that a man caused ants to develop technology of their own, including robots the size of fleas. Now the ants are constructing a building, for an unknown purpose, which threatens to take over the planet.

An ancient robot returns from humanity's new home in a mysterious fashion. It seeks out the man in suspended animation as part of its quest to understand the ants.

Brought together as a fix-up novel in 1952, the City series won the International Fantasy Award the next year. It is usually considered a classic of science fiction, and has been reprinted many times.


One of the many editions of this work. Cover art by Ed Valigursky.

Highly imaginative, and with a sweeping vision of the immensity of time, Simak's tales also have a gentleness and intimacy that touches the reader's heart. The mood is one of quiet melancholy, and the acceptance of the fact that all things will pass away.

Although SF fans are likely to have read this story before, its quality makes it a welcome repeat. (One can rarely say the same thing about television reruns, or else viewers would stay glued to their screens.)

Five stars.

Where Is Roger Davis?, by David V. Reed


Cover art by Robert Fuqua.

Let's take a break from stuff that has already been reprinted multiple times, and take a look at the first reappearance of this yarn, taken from the yellowing pages of the May 1939 issue of Amazing Stories. (The author is unknown to me, but I have discovered that he also writes for comics, particularly Batman. Apparently a couple of episodes of the new television series are based on his scripts for the comic book.)


Illustrations by Julian S. Krupa.

Two young men working for a New York City tour bus encounter an invisible, telepathic Martian. One of them is seduced by the alien's plot to take over the world, and soon becomes a megalomaniac.


The fact that the Martian makes robbing a bank as easy as pie is another factor in his decision.

The other fellow has to figure out a way to keep the Martians from conquering Earth.

The mood of the story changes drastically from light comedy at the start to grim tragedy by the conclusion. Given the year it was written, I wonder if the dictatorial intentions of the first man were influenced by the rise of Fascism.

The author claims that this story is a true account, sent to him by the second man. There are also bits of imaginary news articles scattered throughout, in an attempt at verisimilitude. These don't work very well, particularly the long one at the end. The only thing I found mildly intriguing, if implausible, was the way the hero manages to plot against beings who can read his mind.

Two stars.

Almost Human, by Tarleton Fiske


Cover art by Harold W. McCauley.

The introductory blurb makes it clear that the author of this story, reprinted from the June 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures, is really Robert Bloch, using a rather absurd pseudonym. (As is common practice, this was done because he had another story in the same issue under his own name.)


Illustration by Rod Ruth.

A hoodlum makes his way into the secret laboratory of a brilliant scientist. His moll has been working for the guy, so the crook knows the genius has created a robot. The machine is being educated like a child. The gangster teaches it to be an invincible criminal, and to kill without mercy. As you'd expect, things don't work out very well.

This piece reads like hardboiled fiction from a crime pulp. The final scene is particularly gruesome, in typical Bloch style. The author shows a certain knack for the Hammett/Chandler mode, but that's about all I can say for it. Not that great a story, but somebody thought it was worth reviving for an anthology.


Cover art by Jack Gaughan.

Two stars.

Satisfaction Guaranteed, by Isaac Asimov


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

Speaking of robots, here's one of several stories about the robopsychologist Susan Calvin by the Good Doctor, from the April 1951 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustration by Enoch Sharp.

Calvin only plays a minor part in this story, which focuses on a rather mousy, insecure housewife. Her husband works for the same robotics firm as Calvin, so he brings home a test model of a new machine. It looks like a handsome young man, and is designed to be helpful around the house in many different ways. The husband goes off on a business trip, leaving his wife alone with the robot.

The housewife is frightened of it at first, but soon learns to accept it. It even helps her with home decorating, clothing, and makeup, so she learns self-confidence. A final, unexpected gesture on the part of the machine, seemingly out of character for a robot, wins her the envy of her snobbish acquaintances. Susan Calvin explains why the machine's action was a perfectly logical way of obeying the famous First Law of Robotics.


Anonymous cover art for a British edition.

The author must be fond of this tale, because he has already included it in two different collections of his work. The one shown above, as the title indicates, includes stories that take place on Earth rather than in space, despite the misleading illustration and blurb. The story also appears in an omnibus that brings together his two robot novels as well as several shorter works.


Cover art by Thomas Chibbaro.

Besides that, it is also included in the same Roger Elwood anthology as Bloch's story. My sources in the television industry tell me that it is being adapted for the British series Out of the Unknown, and should appear late this year. (Will there be American reruns? One can only hope.)

Is it worth all this attention? Well, it's not a bad yarn, if not the greatest robot story Asimov ever wrote. The housewife is something of a stereotype of an overly emotional female, dependent on a man for her happiness. (This is in sharp contrast to the highly intelligent and independent Doctor Susan Calvin.) At some point you may think that the author is violating his own rules about robot behavior, but it's all explained at the end.

Three stars.

A Portfolio – Virgil Finlay

I'm not sure if I should even discuss this tiny collection of illustrations by the great artist, but at least I can share them with you.


For The New Adam (1939) by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The magazine calls it The New Atom, which is an egregious error.


For Mirrors of the Queen (1948) by Richard S. Shaver.


For The Silver Medusa (1948) by Alexander Blade (pseudonym for H. Hickey.)

What can I say? His work is stunning.

Five stars.

Satan Sends Flowers, by Henry Kuttner


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

The January/February 1953 issue of Fantastic is the source of this variation on an old theme.


Illustrations by Tom Beecham.

A man sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for immortality. (The premise is similar to that of the Twilight Zone episode Escape Clause, but the twist ending is different.) He ensures that he will remain young, healthy, and all that, so Satan can't play any tricks on him. Obviously, he figures he'll never have to pay up.

The Devil demands surety in the form of certain subconscious memories the fellow possesses. After assuring him that he won't even know he's lost anything, the man agrees. Unafraid of either earthly punishment or damnation, he lives a life of total depravity.


His first crime is the murder of his mother.

Eventually, he persuades the Devil to give him back what he lost, even though Satan warns him that he won't like it. This turns out to be a bad idea.

Like most other stories in this issue, this one has already appeared in a book. (It acquired the new title By These Presents.)


Back and front cover art by Richard Powers.

I should mention that the husband-and-wife team of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore almost always collaborated, even if the resulting story appeared under only one name. Whoever might have been responsible for whatever parts of this work, it's a reasonably engaging tale. I'm not sure I really accept the explanation for what the man's unconscious memories represent, but I was willing to go along with it.

Three stars.

The Way Home, by Theodore Sturgeon


Cover art by Barye Phillips.

This quiet story comes from the April/May 1953 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustrations by David Stone.

A boy runs away from home. Along the way he meets a wealthy man and his glamourous female companion, in their fancy car; a man with an injured hand who has been all over the world; and a pilot in a beautiful airplane. Without giving too much away, it's clear from the start that these men represent possible future versions of himself.


Is this the road to the future, or to home?

Like Asimov's story, this piece has already appeared in two of the author's collections, but with a slight change in the title.


Cover art by Mel Hunter.

(I'm not sure if I should really count these as two different collections, because all the stories in Thunder and Roses already appeared, along with others, in A Way Home. Such are the vagaries of the publishing industry.)


Cover art by Peter Curl.

In any case, this is a beautifully written little story, subtle and evocative. To say much more would be to ruin the delicate mood it creates.

Five stars.

Worth Tuning In Again?


Cartoon by somebody called Frosty, from the same magazine as Satan Sends Flowers.

I wouldn't call this issue bad at all, although there were a couple of disappointing stories.  It's no big surprise that the Simak and the Sturgeon were excellent, and Finlay's art is always a delight.  It's enough to make you want to tear yourself away from all those reruns on television and turn to some literary reruns instead.


In the world of cuisine, reruns are known as leftovers.

Tune in to KGJ, our radio station!  Nothing but the newest and best hits!  Even the reruns are great!




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Serial

[January 8, 1966] Seems like old times (February 1966 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Nostalgia

Stop me if you've heard this one before ("Stop!  Stop!") but when I picked up that first issue of Galaxy Science Fiction magazine in October 1950, I was hooked.  I had encountered SF previously, as a kid with Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. G. Wells, and Jules Verne.  I'd devoured L. Frank Baum's works.  And through the 30s and 40s, I leafed through the odd issue of Astounding.  But it wasn't until I read H. L. Gold's mag that SF really seduced me.  Here were mature stories for adults going beyond the "gimmick" story.

In 1954, I became voracious, buying every mag in sight.  Some were worthy, like Fantasy and Science Fiction, Satellite, Beyond and (often) Astounding and Fantastic Universe.  Others were…less than worthy: Amazing, Infinity, Imagination, Super Science, and on and on.  But I read them all.  I was hooked.

Gold left the editorship in 1961, and the esteemed Fred Pohl took over.  The magazine has been in a bit of a holding pattern since the turn of the decade, rarely being outright bad, but rarely evoking the heights of those first few years of publication, when virtually every story was a stunner.

The latest issue is a stunning return to form. 

The Issue at Hand


by Virgil Finlay

Under Old Earth, by Cordwainer Smith

The enigmatic Mr. Smith has been a staple of Galaxy from early days, and I understand he is one of the folks Mr. Pohl regularly visits to obtain new stories.  Under Old Earth is the latest installment in the Instrumentality series, portraying a happy, fatuous humanity atop a slave class of altered beasts and robots. 

In this particular story, Sto-Odin, a dying Lord of the Instrumentality heads to the Gebiet, the vast underworld separate from the laws and enforced happiness of the surface world.  There, he expects to find the vital spark of humanity that can restore the race.  He encounters a self-styled Sun-God who has purloined a piece of the congohelion, a vast structure that regulates the output of stars, to make inhumanly powerful music.  And tending his altar is Santuna, dismayed with what the Sun-God has become, and destined for a great role in the eventual Rediscovery of Man.

As always, it is lyrical and lovely, different from anything else you'll ever read.  Four stars.


by Virgil Finlay

Courting Time, by Tom Purdom

The excellence continues with this marvelous treatment of polygamy in the mid-21st century on the eve of a great world fair: A composer in love with a woman comprising one eighth of an 8-way marriage wishes to become the next spouse in the cluster.  But he has strong competition in the form of a ruthless and irresistable playboy.  What's a lovelorn fellow to do?

Tom happens to be a friend of mine, and here are his notes on the genesis of this tale:

I got the idea several years before I wrote the story, when one of the older women in the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society told me she thought every woman needed four husbands, each one good at a different specialty–making money, romance, companionship, parenting.  I felt that would work for men, too.

Most stories about group marriage that I'd read, it seemed to me, were stories about group sex.  Courting Time is about the sociology of marriage.  It owes something to Morton Hunt's The Natural History of Love, a book about the history of Western ideas about sex and marriage.  Hunt concludes that our modern vision of marriage essentially demands that a two person relationship fulfill all the needs people once satisfied with their relationships with larger groupings like the extended family.  You're supposed to find one person who can be your business partner, sexual partner, romantic partner, parent to your children, and lifelong companion.  No single individual can do a five star job in all those roles.

I really liked the idea of the global world's fair.  The world fair in New York was going on at that time and I asked myself what a world fair might look like in the future.

I called the story "Courting".  I like one word titles.  Fred Pohl changed it to "Courting Time", querying my approval, which has more of a lilt.

Other than Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Courting Time is the only SF story dealing with polygamy I've read in recent history.  It's a very good story, though it could use a little more development with the protagonist's falling in love with each of the spouses.  Tom agrees with my four star assessment.

Read it!

For Your Information: The Wreck of La Lutine, by Willy Ley

160 years ago, the gold ship, La Lutine, was capsized in a storm off the coast of Holland.  Since then, numerous attempts of increasing sophistication have been made to recover the lost bullion, with limited success.  Ley's account of these efforts is fascinating — maybe the Journey should put together a recovery mission of its own!

Four stars.

The Echo of Wrath , by Thomas M. Disch

Little Ilisveta, an eight year old Martian, is bored with her rough frontier life and yearns for something better, something like the Earth-trotting days her grandfather Dmitri and grandmother Sally enjoyed some sixty years prior.  But such a life can never be.

Echo is a relatively unremarkable story until the end, which struck me in the gut with the force of a train.  You've done it again, Mr. Disch.

Four stars.

Where the Changed Ones Go, by Robert Silverberg


by Jack Gaughan

Just last issue, Robert Silverberg gave us the second in a series one might call Blue Fire, a collection of loosely related novellas set in a future where the secular scientific religion of Vorsterianism has achieved currency across the Earth. 

But not across the planets.  The aloof Martians and the arrogant Venusians will have no truck with the Vorsterians.  However, for some reason, the heretical Harmonists have managed to get a foothold on the hostile second planet from the Sun.  So Nicholas Martell, a Vorsterian minister from Earth discovers when he runs across Brother Mondschein (who we met in the last story), who warns Martell that his errand is futile.

Martell, who has undergone a massive physical alteration just to live on Venus, will not be easily deterred — especially as he seems to have found his first potential convert, a young boy with the power of telekinesis.

Silverberg's Venus might as well be a random alien world, so little resemblance does it bear to the actual Venus.  Astronomical quibbles aside, however, it's a fine story.

Four stars.

Eye of an Octopus, by Larry Niven

The first expedition to Mars finds Martians, and they're far more like (and unlike!) humans than they could have imagined.  Is the well they discover for drinking or something else?

A well-drawn little puzzle story.  We've taken to reading Niven stories, when they come out, at bedtime.  Janice appreciated the wealth of detail briefly described and gave it four stars.  Lorelei was less thrilled, giving it a solid three.

I'd split the difference if I could, but it's not a novel, so I can't.  I'd say it's a worthy three star tale.

In the Imagicon, by George H. Smith

What do you give to the man who has everything?  Why, nothing of course.  A whole lot of it. 

And vice versa.

Smith is a fellow who used to write for the lesser mags back in the 50s.  He's been AWOL pretty much since I started the Journey so, until I did some digging, I thought he was a new author rather than a veteran.

Anyway, Imagicon is a pretty obvious tale.  Not bad, just primitive by Galaxy's standards.  I wavered between two and three stars, but just as suspots are pale in comparison to their surroundings despite their great heat, so Imagicon suffers for being in the company of so many good stories.

Two stars.

Mulligan, Come Home!, by Allen Kim Lang

Okay, Imagicon does have the virtue of being next to the only dud story in the issue.  Lang's tale is about a fix-it man dispatched by the government to find the elusive trickster and malcontent Mulligan Mondrian.  Along the way, we get Mondrian's full life history, detailing his start as a two-bit con man and womanizer and onward to his culmination as a larger-than-life, interplanetary con man and womanizer.

Some cute turns of phrase, but the story collapses under the weight of its own attempted cleverness.

Two stars.

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


by Wallace Wood

At last, we come to the thrilling conclusion of The Age of the Pussyfoot, the misadventures of a 20th Century man unfrozen after death in a 26th Century utopia.  When last we left Chuck Forrester, he had not only been fired by his alien employer, he had unwittingly been an accomplice to the alien's escape from Earth.  But when the Sirian left, presumably to return at the head of an invasion, he left the penniless Forrester nearly $100 million.

But profound wealth does little to assuage the guilt of the man out of time, especially when he is abandoned by all his newfound friends and his romantic partner.  Is he the lynchpin to humanity's salvation or its ruin?

A sparkling, farcical story, just serious enough to keep your attention, Pussycat reads like a Sheckley short story at novel length (Pohl succeeds here where Sheckley, himself, usually can't quite make long pieces work).

That said, it's a little too sketchy and silly to merit four stars.  Call it three and a half — worth reading, but probably not good enough to clinch a Galactic Star this year.

Summing Up

What a good issue this was!  3.4 stars is nothing to sneeze at.  In fact, it might well end up being the best mag of the month, though we still have five more titles to review.  If you're a long time Galaxy reader, enjoy this breath of fresh air.  And if you're new to Galaxy, perhaps this issue will tempt you into a subscription, just as that first issue did for me more than fifteen years ago…




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 14, 1965] Expect the Unexpected (January 1966 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's . . . a Meteor? A Satellite? A Flying Saucer?

Things got off to a bang earlier this month, in a most unexpected way. On the evening of December 9, folks in Canada and the United States saw a fireball in the sky. According to witnesses, something crashed in the woods near the town of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania.

(Cue eerie theremin music.)

The US military and state troopers sealed off the area and began a search. So far, they haven't reported finding anything.

(That's what they want you to think.)


Isn't this the way The Blob started?

After eliminating things like a plane crash, the authorities seem to think the most likely suspect is a meteor that exploded in the atmosphere. (Vocabulary lesson for today: A very bright meteor, particularly one that blows up spectacularly, is known as a bolide.) It might possibly be debris from a satellite, some suggest. Of course, you and I know it's really little green men . . .

Another Song of Solomon?

Almost as surprising as a blazing visitor from outer space is a modern pop song with lyrics that are a couple of thousand years old. The Byrds are currently at the top of the American music charts with their version of Turn! Turn! Turn!

Composed by folk singer Pete Seeger, almost all the words are taken from the Old Testament book Ecclesiastes, supposedly written by King Solomon. The exceptions are the title, repeated several times, and the closing line I swear it's not too late, emphasizing the song's antiwar message.


She don't care about grammar either, I guess.

What Do You Expect For Four Bits?

Appropriately, the latest issue of Fantastic is full of unexpected happenings.


Cover art by James B. Settles, taken from the back cover of the August 1942 issue of Amazing Stories.


The best copy I can find of the original. Please excuse the tiny print. I doubt this is a very accurate representation of the planet Uranus anyway.

Six and Ten Are Johnny, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.


Cover art by Barye Phillips and Leo Summers.

From the very first issue of Fantastic comes this tale of an unexpected encounter on a distant world.


Illustrations by Virgil Finlay.

A shuttle carries a survey team from a starship down to the surface of the planet. The crew has an uneasy feeling about the place, for no obvious reason. They land on a plateau above a dense jungle. They are shocked to meet Johnny, who claims to be the sole survivor of a lost starship. Things get even weirder when some of the crew members vanish, and the others claim that they never even existed.


Officers from the starship join the survey team in an attempt to figure out what's going on.

Everybody seems to be in a dazed condition, except the protagonist. That's because he's got a metal plate in his head, which protects him from having his mind controlled by the alien organism that makes up the jungle.


The wild-eyed madman in this picture is actually our completely sane hero, who is trying to protect a colleague from the creature's telepathic powers.

This is a grim little science fiction horror story with a feverish, eerie mood. I'm not sure I believe the way the alien organism works, or if the behavior of the crew is plausible. (Would you really bring a bunch of dogs on a starship to test if a planet's atmosphere is breathable? Of course, the real reason they're present is so they can go crazy and bark wildly, like in any scary movie.) Not the most profound story in the world, but a competent spine chiller.

Three stars.

Wonder Child, by Joseph Shallit


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

The January/February 1953 issue of the magazine supplies this account of an invention with unexpected effects.


Illustrations by Ed Emshwiller (better known as Emsh.)

A married couple would like to have a child, but they don't want to deal with all the work of raising it from infancy. They happen to know a scientist who has created a gizmo that will speed up the nerve growth of a fetus in the womb. Their son develops rapidly, sparing them a lot of trouble with things like toilet training.


He also develops a precocious interest in sex.

Despite some problems with teachers, neighbors, and other kids, things seem to be going pretty well. What they don't know is that their acquaintance is a classic Mad Scientist, who has also given the child increased aggression. It's not hard to see that things won't work out for the best.

I found both the technology and the behavior of the characters implausible. The ending of the story left a bad taste in my mouth. I suppose the author does a decent job portraying a pair of self-centered bohemian parents, but they're not much fun to read about.

Two stars.

Axe and Dragon (Part Two of Three), by Keith Laumer

Let's take a break from reprints and turn to the latest installment in this new novel.


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

As you may recall, the improbably named Lafayette O'Leary wound up in a strange, supposedly imaginary world through self-hypnosis. He has some control over things, creating food, drink, clothing, shelter, and the like. However, the place has a stubborn reality of its own.

After surviving a duel in a slapstick fashion, he winds up being framed for the kidnapping of the land's beautiful princess. Much running around follows, with O'Leary even creating a secret door for himself, so he can escape into it.


He also briefly returns to the so-called real world, where he runs afoul of the law.

Determined to clear his name, he sets out to rescue the princess from a fabled giant and his supposed dragon. Complicating matters is the king's magician, who has more advanced technology than you'd expect in this steam-powered world, and who seems to know more about what's going on than he admits.


There's also a big guy.

The mood remains very light, with even more comedy than the first part.  The breakneck pace of events holds the reader's attention.  Even if the whole thing could be dismissed as much ado about nothing, it provides adequate, forgettable entertainment.

Three stars.

What a Man Believes, by Robert Sheckley


Cover art by Vernon Kramer.

Back to reprints with this tale of the afterlife, from the November/December 1953 issue.


Illustrations by Henry C. Pitz.

A guy who didn't expect anything after death winds up in an oddly accommodating Hell.  It seems he has a choice of eternal punishment: he can undergo physical torture, fight wolves, or drift in a boat.


He can also climb a mountain.

Predictably, he selects the boat, preferring endless boredom to unending agony.  This leads to an ending that, well, didn't make a lot of sense to me.  I suppose some irony is intended, but it falls flat.

Two stars.

Three Wishes, by Poul Anderson


Wraparound cover art by Richard Powers.

A nice old man makes an unexpected discovery in this yarn from the March/April 1953 issue.


Illustration by Dick Francis.

The elderly fellow is Papa Himmelschoen.  If that sounds familiar, you're probably thinking of Papa Schimmelhorn, a character created by Reginald Bretnor in the story The Gnurrs Come from the Voodvork Out back in 1950.  Anderson's old man has a similar thick accent, so I assume this is a deliberate allusion.

Anyway, the kindly Papa mends a pair of pants for a neighbor, and gets a little statue of a fairy as payment.  It comes to life when, in a burst of gaiety, he kisses it.  His reward is three wishes.  Since he's completely happy with his life, he doesn't know how to use his wishes.  The solution to his problem isn't completely satisfying, and involves a bit of circular reasoning.

This is a trivial work from a talented writer.  The mood is pleasant enough, and Himmelschoen is a lot less obnoxious than Schimmelhorn, but it doesn't add up to much.

Two stars.

Phoney Meteor, by John Beynon


Cover art by J. Allen St. John.

From the yellowing pages of the March 1941 issue of Amazing Stories comes this piece, by an author better known as John Wyndham.


Illustration by Jay Jackson.

Neatly wrapping up the magazine with an incident similar to the one I mentioned at the start of this article, this story involves a mysterious object falling to Earth.  Since the setting is England during the Second World War, the local folks treat it as a possible Nazi weapon. 

Alternating sections of narration reveal that it's really a spaceship, carrying a large number of aliens from their dying world.  It's obvious from the start, and the illustration, that they're tiny beings, so Earth seems like a planet full of giant monsters.

That's about all there is to the story.  Beynon/Wyndham writes well enough, but I found the accounts of life in England during the Blitz more interesting than the science fiction stuff.

(Everybody seems very coolheaded when faced with this potentially deadly object.  I suppose that's a bit of wartime propaganda, to maintain morale.  Keep Calm and Carry On, and all that.)

Two stars.

Did It Meet Your Expectations?

I wasn't expecting this issue to be so weak, ranging from so-so to below average.  I can understand the financial reason for using so many reprints — I believe the publishers have full rights to the stories and art, so they don't have to pay anything for them — but it results in a lot of disappointing early work from well-known writers.  If I were in a worse mood, I'd be tempted to tell the editor exactly where he can go with all these old relics.


Cartoon by Ray Dillon.  It's a reprint, too, from the same issue as Poul Anderson's story.




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 22, 1965] Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (November 1965 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Days of Our Lives

I'm stealing the name of a new soap opera, due to premiere on NBC next month, because it sums up the way that past, present, and future came together in the news this month.

Yale University put an item known as the Vinland Map on public display on October 12. This is a map of the world, said to date back to the Fifteenth Century, which seems to indicate that Norsemen visited the Americas long before Christopher Columbus. In case you're wondering about the date, it was Columbus Day, in a nice bit of irony.


A detail of the Vinland Map. That's Greenland to the right, and a chunk of North America to the left.

As you might expect, there's controversy over whether this is the real thing or a forgery. Today, nobody knows for sure if this visitor from yesterday is genuine, but maybe we'll find out tomorrow.

If authentic, the Vinland Map is a voice from the past. In a similar way, folks in the present are trying to send a message to the future.

On October 16, the penultimate day of the New York World's Fair, a time capsule was lowered into the ground. (A similar object was buried nearby, during the 1939 World's Fair.) It is scheduled to be opened in the year 6939. (I'm a little skeptical as to whether such a thing can really survive and be found nearly five thousand years from now, but I like the idea.) The contents include . . . well, see for yourself.


People in that distant era will also know that we weren't very careful about spelling.

The Beatles seem destined to represent the artistic achievements of our time, if somebody actually finds the time capsule, opens it, and figures out how to play a record. They are once again at the top of the American popular music charts this month, and show no signs of leaving that position any time soon.

The latest smash from the Liverpool lads is, appropriately, called Yesterday. Unlike their other hits, it's a slow, melancholy song about lost love. Paul McCartney plays acoustic guitar and sings, backed by a string quartet. The other Beatles do not perform on the record, so it's really a McCartney solo performance.


By the way, Act Naturally is a remake of a Number One song by Buck Owens. The Beatles go Country-Western!

Flipping Through the Calendar

Given the peculiarities of the publishing business, it's no surprise that I'm reading the November issue of Fantastic in October. With their policy of filling about half the magazine with reprints, it's also not a shock to discover that we go back in time to fill up the pages. First up, however, is a new story set in a strange world that mixes up the past and the present.


Cover art by Julian S. Krupa. It's actually taken from the back cover of the July 1939 issue of Amazing Stories.


Look familiar? We'll hear more about the Space Devastator later.

Axe and Dragon (Part One of Three), by Keith Laumer


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Our hero is one Lafayette O'Leary, an ordinary working stiff, living in a crummy boarding house. He has a lot of intellectual curiosity, performing experiments in his tiny room and reading obscure books. He happens to find a Nineteenth Century volume on hypnotism, and learns about a technique whereby he can experience a dreaming state, while remaining aware that he is dreaming, and exercising some control over it.

(This isn't so crazy a premise as it might seem. More than fifty years ago, the Dutch psychiatrist Frederik Willem van Eeden coined the term lucid dream for such states of mind.)

Of course, he gives it a try. He winds up in a world that seems to be a bit medieval, a touch Eighteenth Century, a tad modern, and partly straight out of a fairy tale. The limitations on his ability to alter this dream world — if that's what it is — show up when he tries to give himself a set of fancy modern clothes, and winds up dressed like somebody in a swashbuckling movie.


Lafayette, ready for action.

At first, he enjoys the situation, happily replacing the lousy wine in a tavern with fine Champagne. Thought to be a wizard, he gets mixed up with the local equivalent of the cops. Still thinking this is just a dream, he tries to disappear, with only partial success.


Our hero tries to vanish, but can't quite do it.

Lafayette winds up in the palace of the King, where he is thought to be a prophesized hero, destined to save the realm from an ogre and a dragon. He also meets the King's magician, who seems to know more about what's going on than he admits. For one thing, he's responsible for the steam-powered coaches and electric lights in this otherwise nontechnological world.


The magician looks on as Lafayette admires himself.

Eventually, our hero meets the King's beautiful daughter, as well as the master swordsman who is her current boyfriend. Jealousy rears its head, and a challenge to a duel arises.

Lafayette assumes that his opponent, like everybody else in this world, is just a product of his imagination. Therefore, he reasons, the foe can't really be any better with a sword than he is. It looks like he might be in for an unpleasant surprise.


Tune in again for the next exciting chapter!

So far, at least, the tone of this novel is very light. Laumer almost seems to be parodying his own tales of the Imperium, with the protagonist finding himself in alternate realities. Unlike those serious stories, this one is a comedy. The people inhabiting the dream world speak in a mixture of archaic language and modern slang. The police are about as effective as the Keystone Kops. It's entertaining enough to keep me reading, but hardly profound.

Three stars.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Ray Bradbury

The rest of the magazine consists of stuff from the old days, both the prose and the art. First we have a piece with a title that is fitting for my chosen theme. It comes from the May 1947 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones, for what looks like a very odd story.

The protagonist is a would-be writer, reduced to pawning his typewriter due to his failure to find his way into print. (Surely based on the author's own early years, I assume.) He comes home to find a strange device. It sends him messages from the far future.


Illustration by Virgil Finlay.

Tomorrow's world is a dreary place, under the rule of a brutal dictator. A woman sent the machine back in time, insisting that the writer kill the remote ancestors of the tyrant. If he doesn't, the woman will be executed. If he does, the future will change, and she won't remember him at all. Since he's fallen in love with her, he will lose her either way. Besides this dilemma, he faces the moral crisis of murdering two innocent people.

This early work shows Bradbury developing his style, although it is not yet fully formed. You may think that's a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, it's got some emotional appeal, some passages of poetic writing, some implausibilities, and some lapses in logic. The ethical problem at the heart of the story — would you kill Hitler's ancestors? — is an important one, but here it's mostly used as a plot point.

Three stars.

I'm Looking for "Jeff", by Fritz Leiber

From the Fall 1952 issue of Fantastic comes this horror story, created by a master of the macabre (and other things.)


Cover art by Leo Summers. The Capote story is his very early work Miriam, which is a fine, eerie tale.

A bartender claims that a mysterious woman shows up regularly, although the owner of the joint can't see her. The reader is aware right from the start that she's a ghost.


Illustration by Emsh.

She uses her feminine wiles to pick up a customer, offering her affection in return for a promise to do something particularly violent to somebody named Jeff. The fellow, entrapped by her seductive charms — even the scar that runs across her face doesn't mar her beauty — agrees. He encounters Jeff, and makes a terrifying discovery.

There are no surprises in this variation on the classic theme of vengeance from beyond the grave. What elevates it above the usual ghost story is truly fine writing. The woman's first appearance, when she is a barely detectable wisp, is particularly fascinating.

Four stars.

Wild Talents, Inc., by Robert Sheckley

The September/October 1953 issue of Fantastic supplies this comic yarn.


Cover art also by Leo Summers, what little you can see of it.

As you'd expect, the company named in the title deals with people who have psychic powers. It's pretty much an employment agency for such folks. Their latest client presents a problem.


Illustration by Emsh

It seems the fellow can observe anyone, at any location. Unfortunately, he's very much an oddball. His only interest is in recording their sexual activities in excruciating detail. The guy in charge of the company has to figure out a way to protect the public from this Peeping Tom, while making use of his peculiar ability in an acceptable way.

The whole thing is pretty much a mildly dirty, mildly clever, mildly amusing joke. You might see it as a spoof of the kind of psi-power stories that appear in Analog far too often. A minor effort from an author who is capable of much sharper satire.

Two stars.

Tooth or Consequences, by Robert Bloch

Another comedy, this time from the May 1950 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Arnold Kohn

It starts off like a joke. A vampire walks into a dentist's office . . .. It seems even the undead need to have their cavities filled. The vampire also swipes blood from the supply kept refrigerated in the same medical building. When the red stuff is then secured under lock and key, to prevent further thefts, the vampire tells the dentist he better get some of it for him, or else. There's a twist at the end you may see coming.

I suppose there's a certain Charles Addams appeal to the image of a fanged monster sitting in a dentist's chair. Otherwise, there's not much to this bagatelle.

Two stars.

The Eye of Tandyla, by L. Sprague de Camp

We go back to the May 1951 issue of Fantastic Adventures for this sword-and-sorcery yarn, one of a handful of stories in the author's Pusadian series. (The best-known one is probably the novel The Tritonian Ring, also from 1951.)


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones

The setting is far back in time, long before recorded history. (The story goes that de Camp wanted to create a background similar to the one appearing in Robert E. Howard's tales of Conan, but in a more realistic fashion.) A wizard and a warrior must steal a magical gem from the statue of a goddess for their King, or be executed. Their plan involves disguising themselves with sorcery and sneaking into the place.


Illustration by Virgil Finlay.

To their amazement, it proves to be really easy to grab the jewel. So simple, in fact, that they smell a rat. They cook up a scheme to put the gem back in its place, steal a similar one from another place, and present that one to the King instead. Complications ensue.

You can tell that this isn't the most serious story in the world. The plot resembles a farce, with its multiple confusions and running back and forth. It's got the wit often found in Fritz Leiber's work of this kind, but not quite the same elegance. I'd say it's above the level of John Jakes, or even — dare I say it? — Howard himself, if not quite up to the very high standard of Leiber.

Three stars.

Close Behind Him, by John Wyndham

The January/February issue of Fantastic is the source of this chiller.


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg. The so-called new story by Poe is actually Robert Bloch's completion of a fragment.

Two crooks rob the house of a very strange fellow. The guy catches one of them in the act, so the hoodlum kills him.


Illustration by Paul Lundy.

The pair make their getaway, but are followed by blood-red footprints wherever they go. You can bet things won't go well for them.

This is a pretty decent horror story, nicely written, although — once again! — not up to the level of Fritz Leiber, particularly since we've got an example of his excellent work in the field of tales of terror in this very issue.

Three stars.

Space Devastator, by Anonymous

I'm not sure if I should even mention this tiny article, excerpted from the pages of the July 1939 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Robert Fuqua.

Anyway, it's less than a page long, and speculates about a huge station in orbit, equipped with a bunch of big mirrors.


Illustration by Julian S. Krupa

The notion is that such a thing could destroy entire populations from space by focusing the sun's rays and burning up cities. Casual mention is made of the fact that it could supply solar energy as well. I suppose it's imaginative for 1939, but it's so short — the original version was probably somewhat longer — that you can't get much out of it.

Two stars.

What Day is Good for You?

Today comes out a big winner over Yesterday and Tomorrow in this month's Fantastic. Leiber's contemporary ghost story is clearly superior to tales set in the future or in the legendary past. Otherwise, this isn't that great an issue, ranging from OK to below average.

You might well get more entertainment out of an award-winning film, such as this Italian comedy, which got the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film last year. Sophia Loren plays three different women, and Marcello Mastroianni three men, in a trio of lighthearted tales of love.


For some reason, every poster I've seen for this movie features Loren in her underwear. I wonder why that might be.

And you'll definitely enjoy the next exciting musical guest episode of The Journey Show, October 24 at 1PM Pacific!




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