SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW March 1971------Number A3

Home , Alicia Austin, Bill Spicer, Final Blackout, Fred Patten

P.O. Box 3116 Santa Monica, Cal. 90403 RICHARD E. GEIS Editor and Publisher Cover by ALICIA AUSTIN PHONE: (213) A51-9206 DIALOG by The Editor—Where Geis-&-Geis, tormented by ♦ disease, assailed by sloth, stagger forward into an un ♦ SUNPofr realistic matter transmitter...... 5 BOOKS REVIEWED THIS ISSUE INSIDE LAUMER—an interview by Richard Hill. A time ly look at the background and backbone of one of the More Issues at Hand...... 25 most prolific sf writers...... 7 ♦ Scientology: The Now ♦ Religion...... 28 TWENTY YEARS ON by George Hay..a poem...... 11 ♦ by VAUGHl) BODE- ♦ Nebula Award Stories ♦ Five...... 30 NOISE LEVEL—a column by John Brunner...... 12 ♦ If sf writers are the world's "leading edge", are The Space Novels of the poets ahead of the writers? ♦ Jules Verne, Vols.l-2....32 ♦ Ouark/1...... 33 BEER MUTTERINGS—a column by Poul Anderson...... 1A Orbit 8...... 33 The trials and tribulations of a would-be lazy man, a ♦ A Thunder of Stars...... 38 cut or two at the core of sf, and a mild look at ♦ First Flights to the Moon38 Wimlib. The Dream Quest of Vaughn Bode, creator of SUNPOT I REMEMBER CLARION by Damon Knight...... 21 ♦ Unknown Kadath...... 39 for Galaxy magazine, has collected the Sweet and Sour anecdotes from the memory freezer. Phantastes...... 59 ♦ The Sorcerer's Skull...... 39 saga of SUNPOT in one volume called BOOK REVIEWS by guests Robert A. W. Lowndes and Barry ♦ * Tower of Glass...... AO appropriately enough, SUNPOT. A N. Malzberg, plus the regulars: Paul Walker ♦ Children of Tomorrow...... A2 folded schematic of SUNPOT planet Ted Pauls Wayne C. Connelly ♦ Waters of Death...... A3 George Zebrowski Richard Delap ♦ has been included. The Man Who Fell to EarthAA Fred Patten Earl Evers...... 25 ♦ The Mind Cage...... A A ♦ "MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE NEWSSTAND..." a column by ♦ Beneath the Planet of These collected works represent, David B. Williams which looks at circulation before ♦ the Apes...... AA ♦ Kelwin...... A A possibly, the sole example of an art drawing blood...... A? Indoctrinaire...... 50 THEN I READ.... book reviews by The Editor...... 50 ♦ ist's world presented from conception ♦ Gadget Man...... 51 through destruction. P.O. BOX 3116—the letter column. Watch your step Satan's World...... 51 here...you may snuff out a fuse...... 53 ♦ The Great Brain Robbery..51 Freezing Down...... 51 Revel in the joy of a mind un MONOLOG by The Editor who reveals the disgusting Nine Princes in Amber....52 facts of life! Raw Truth! Intimate knowledge!...... 66 leashed! Reserve your copy of this big The Star Treasure...... 52

volume (7%" x 9Vi") now—only $2.00 INTERIOR ART------(plus 50 c! for postage and handling). Tim Kirk—5, 12, A?, 50, 66. Mike Gilbert—13, 36. Steve Fabian—6, 22, 52. Jim Shull—1A, 15, A2. In addition, a copy of the sche- Jim McLeod—7- Bill Rotsler—18, 21, 25, A9, 53. Jeff Cochran—8. Doug Lovenstein—38, 39. maticof SUNPOT planet (1 QTi" x 24") Grant Canfield—28, 30, 32, 38, AO, A3. Atom—17. is available for $1.00. Jay Kinney—19. Alicia Austin—27. George Foster—31, 37. Jack Gaughan—33, Al.

Contents Copyrighted © 1971 by Richard E. Geis. All rights to their material are assigned to the writers and artists who contributed to this issue. STELLAR PRODUCTIONS 37 West 20th St., New York, N.Y. 10011 SFR Agents Overseas

turning our hairs gray Ethel Lindsay in spite of Courage House one by one 6 Langley Ave. all your wheat germ, vitamin A and E and C Surbiton, Surrey, and—" UNITED KINGDOM SUBSCRIPTIONS------"You are saying, U.K. RATES: 50$ each issue for as many as you wish Alter, why work hard V- or 5 for 1 pound to pay for in advance, in the U.S.A., if it all comes to Canada, and Australia. death anyway. The HANS J. ALPERS But please pay from Canada in lazy bum may last as 0—285 Bremerhaven 1 Canadian P.O. Money Orders in U.S. long or longer than Weissenburger Str. 6 dollars. the production type. WEST GERMANY Right?" 84.00 for one year (8 issues) "Right! Now let's WEST GERMAN RATES: 88.00 for two years (16 issues) 2DM per issue—16DM Yr. go to the refrigerat or, open the freezer, get out the half-gal Ulf Westblom First Class Rate: 758 per issue in Studentbacken 25C/1O5 U.S.A, and Canada. lon of pistaschio- S—115 40 Stockholm nut..." SWEDEN REMEMBER* SEND YOUR CHANGE OF ADDRESS "That's for later... IF YOU MOVE, PLEASE. Johnny Carson, and so (Postgiro 15 68 81-5) on. You didn't answer MY question—-why not SWEDISH RATES: *If you don't, you will be 5:-/2 issues sentenced to review (in work? If it's all the 20:-/one year depth) every story Leroy same in the end, why Yerxa ever wrote! not work and produce and accomplish?" John Foyster "Well, it's easier 12 Glengariff Dr. BACK ISSUES AVAILABLE------to be a bum! It re Mulgrave, #28, 29, 50, 39, 41, 42. ALL OTHER Victoria 3170 ISSUES ARE SOLD OUT. (#28-29-50 quires no effort." "Sure it does: over- AUSTRALIA were photo offset) coming cultural conditioning, living with AUSTRALIAN RATES: "Geis, do we have to write the Dialog guilt, shame, defense-reactions; you pay for now? We feel awful; a cough is tickling 50e each, $4. per year PRINT RUN THIS ISSUE: 1700 our throat *cough-cough* (see?) and The Bug all your deviations from what your society says is right. A bum lives quite badly UNITED KINGDOM, WEST GERMAN, is raping our body." while alive, too. Very few half-gallons of SWEDISH and AUSTRALIAN sub "Duty, Alter-Ego, duty!" ice cream. Besides, writing for me is fun scribers: Make cheques and •Wheeeze* "Screw duty. Let's go to work. So is SFR." money orders payable to the bed and read some sf. That's duty, too! "If you like work so much, how come this name of the agent, not to SER. Let's pile high a dish of ice cream and—* "No. Not yet. We must—" issue is professionally printed? Hah? Got "Tyrant! A hundred years from now, cha!" Geis, no one will care a fig that we lived, "I'm not a compulsive worker. All that SFR will possibly be a teeny, tiny footnote mimeoing and collating and stapling was work SFR ADVERTISING in a reel of microfilm, or a fading charge work. The object is to produce a good maga zine which fulfills its function, to enjoy FULL PAGE: 5-1/2" x 9-1/4"------815-00 BACK COVER------820.00 in a memory circuit in a tired computer. Do the process and to bask in the warm glow of Also, any ad of approximate page size or shape can be used. you realize that? Probably every copy of approval from others." For instance, an x 11 size ad is acceptable. SFR will be dust. Why go to all this trou "There goes the ego-bit again." ble? Why put in long hours on this magazine LESS THAN FULL PAGE: "Alter, the ego is one of the most pow while writing books, too? Why, in short, Any size or shape ad less than 5-1/2" x 9-1/4" is acceptable. erful engines in human affairs, in its var knock us out like this? Cost may be judged as percentage-of-page used at S15.00 per ious guises." "Why not?" full page rate. "Was that a pun?" "What? I'm trying to say, idiot, that "No. Now, I must admit that ego and Unclassified ads—2t per word. we are mortal! We are forty-three years old seeking-after-approval is a strong motivat- and the cold clutch of the waiting grave is 5 ion in me." "It was cheating! Inexcuseable! Does "I know. The thing goes CLUNK-CLANK- Bob Silverberg expect me to believe that BANG...CLUNK-CLANK-BANG every minute. I there wouldn't have been all kinds of safety try to get some extra rest or slip in an ex devices built into a dangerous thing like tra movie or pint of something mouth-water that? There would be "no-go" circuits, and SY RICHARD HULL ing, and all the time that engine is run back-up circuity and there would even be ning, getting louder and louder! Can't you gates that only an adult could open." turn it off?" "Well, I suppose..." "Not possible." "Do you realize how easy it would be to "But—" commit the perfect crime with a Transmat as "Alter, this is the way I am! You are described by Silverberg? The murder rate the way you are. Don't fight me. Be con would be fantastic. Transmat "accidents" tent. Enjoy your used synapse collection would be the prime divorce mechanism." and strike like lightning in the supermark "Yeah...I guess a society with that many et when we're near the ice cream section and Transmats wouldn't exist without fool-proof, my guard is down." tamper-proof safety mechanisms on its Trans "Yeah... Heh. I gotcha good last night. mats." You didn't realize that jar of marshmallow "Exactly. And there is one other thing— topping was in the basket until it was too if as Silverberg says, Transmats can be "op late." en", what happens to the air that blows into "Just for that—" one or a dozen or hundreds of them? Disin Laumer denies it, denies not only that "No, Geis, no! Not another diet'." tegrated! How long would it take for the he's a conservative force in science fict atmosphere to become too thin to support ion, but that there is anything in South life? There are always a sufficient number Florida that deserves to be called "New of psychotics around who wish to die and Wave." For that matter, he denies that take the world with them. They—a small there should be anything called science group, or one determined individual nut— fiction, especially when it's segregated could go from Transmat to Transmat, leaving into the ghetto of pulp magazines and pap each "open"." erbacks. He may be right on all counts. "Geis, I think you've made your point. (Keith has a way of making you feel he's "Geis,-what is that ugly, stinking thing Science fiction writers should take the time right.) And editor-writer Harlan Ellison you've got on your chest?" and trouble to make their futures as plaus was right on when he described him as "one "A grotch, Alter-Ego. A grotch of the ible as possible, and realistic, even at the of the very few major talents to emerge in second water, but still powerful enough to expense of a precious symbolic effect." the field of speculative fiction in the demand airing." "And what about the possibility of dial past five years." "Right! Open the window!" ing an enemy's home, spraying a clip of bul "Figuratively, that's precisely what I lets through, or tossing a bomb, or a gas intend." cylinder..." "Okay, okay, put it in the grotch play "Geis—" er and see if it unwinds." "The whole concept of matter transmitt "It's this: Matter Transmitters. In ers may be untenable. Why—" sf novels, and shorter works. Specifically, "Geis—" in Bob Silverberg's Tower of Glass." "And why isn't there an explosive dis "So?" placement of air when a person comes through You say you never heard of Keith Laum "If you'll remember, matter transmitt a Transmat?" er? Or that your last encounter with "sci ers in that book are the universal means of "Geis—" ence fiction" involves a papier mache Bug- long-distance transportation. He calls them "WHAT?" Eyed Monster in a Japanese flick. Or that Transmats. Set the portal for your destina "You've aired your grotch. Now go to you've heard of Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. tion and step through." bed and sleep the sweet sleep of the just Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, "So?" and righteous." but what's all this about a new wave? Let "The android, Thor Watchman, is killed "Damn right." us go, then, and make our visit. when he falls into an "open" Transmat that has not been set for a specific Transmat To get to Keith Laumer you have to go elsewhere. He is simply disintegrated." o to Brooksville. Besides the bass fishing "So? It was symbolic. It was Christ- and Weeki Wachi Springs, he may be the only like." 6 reason for going there. You drive up a dirt road off the highway and there's the house. You know it must be Laumer's house also covers a lot of inept and meaningless "I wasn't really attacking the new wave, Putting aside the labels, then, what because it looks as though it was designed writing because you can hammer out almost certainly not attacking experimental stor writers do you like? by Ayn Rand for her super-competent hero, any idiotic thing and somebody will take it ies. I was attacking bad writing under the "Hemingway and Raymond Chandler, for the John Galt, to hide out in. In fact, the seriously." guise of experimentation. I don't think you sheer pleasure of most of their work. I modern, rough brick design is Keith's. He could write anything so meaningless that I reminded Keith that the first time I like Vonnegut. He's fought the SF label too has one degree in architecture. somebody at Milford, for example, wouldn't saw him—at the Milford Science Fiction and beaten it, but we know where he belongs. take it as a major breakthrough." The competent hero is prominent in the Writers' Conference held last year in Mad- I can't read too many writers. I try but I work of the old guard in speculative fict eria Beach—he was holding forth angrily Granted that some of the experiments can't. John D. MacDonald's stuff is com ion. And we find the ridiculous extreme in against the new wave. Yet his stories have fail. But shouldn't speculative fiction pulsively readable. But there's that...de the flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials. appeared in most of the experimental anthol writers—that's the term which seems to pression when you're finished, as though you Laumer's heroes are able, courageous, but ogies. satisfy everybody—be given more credit for really didn't get anything." not infallible. They live, often, in an providing a real avante garde in fiction? Don't most of the so-called old wave absurd world. In a world bereft of reason, The mainstream "experimental" magazines like writers tend to be conservative? Is there a nan can't always win; but he can endure, NEW AMERICAN REVIEW publish material that a reason for that? should struggle. Laumer's heroes are neith wouldn't have seemed new ten years ago. And er Flash Gordon nor Alexander Portnoy. Like when they do publish somebody really exper "The labels liberal and conservative are Hemingway's heroes, they try to face a mad imental—like Robert Coover or Donald Bar- just as bad as the label science fiction. If world with dignity. thelme—couldn't their work have appeared being liberal means wanting to be free, in science fiction or fantasy magazines? that's me. I don't want people hassling me You get that feeling of competence from What I'm saying is shouldn't the definit about my hair or anything else. But some the house. It rises from a virtual island ions be re-examined? liberals seem out of touch with reality. in a lake, connected only by a narrow spit What does freedom have to do with throwing "Yes, the labels have to go. In the of land. rocks in the name of peace? Maybe a lot of first place, the term science fiction is an these old time science fiction writers are Inside, paintings line the walls, good atrocity. It never did have meaning. The aware of the law of gravity and a few things copies by Laumer of favorite originals, most only impingement that the word science has like that. ly impressionist. Beethoven string quartets on this kind of fiction is that when you're on the stereo. High ceiling, giant fire speculating or writing about things that "I think my attitude is realistic. Will places, a wood ladder leading to an unfin haven't happened yet, you must watch your it fly? Not should it fly or wouldn't it ished second story where he paints. step or you will commit serious errors of be ducky if it flew, but will it. fact. Fact equals science. You must stay Laumer, 45, looks much younger—a cli "Sure, the object of society should be within the limits of science. That's true che in such pieces as this, but it must be to turn the earth into a paradise in which of other fiction too. You can't have a nov said. He's wearing dungaree bell bottoms, every human suffers an absolute minumum of el in which the hero uses his sunglasses to and his usual, military-style shirt. His hardship. But I don't think we can do it focus the sun's rays to start a fire because hair is surprisingly long in back for a man quite yet, especially when there seems to that can't be done. If you write about go with a reputation for conservatism. Ellis be a large number of people who want to sit ing to the moon and forget the gravity is on described him as a "tall, rugged, rather on their cans while you work, then show up different, that's a mistake too. Of course, good-looking man, if you like that kind of at the dinner table. in fantasy those rules don't apply so strict cruel mouth and beady little eyes like a ly. "To promise paradise now is a delusion. marmoset." It's like the chain letter thing—somebody "As far as recognizing good writing is He gets me a dark ale. "I don't drink at the end gets stuck. If Ratso Rizzo, from concerned, I feel that what we used to call much, beyond an occasional beer or glass of MIDNIGHT COWBOY, got his dream of Miami science fiction and now call speculative wine," he says. I ask him about the new Beach now, it would be because some poor fiction is gradually engulfing the main wave in speculative fiction. Are the young slob with ulcers is working every day and stream. I don't think it will be absorbed, er writers like Ellison, Roger Zelazny, not getting his own dreams. but that it will absorb. In other words, Chip Delany, and Piers Anthony really into we're going to throw away those unnecessary "I think eventually the creative one something new? restrictions that you can't talk about it per cent will drag the other 99 per cent He expected the question. He's been unless somebody has already built it in along to something better, but that's in through this before. "Good writing is good bricks and mortar. the future." writing; whatever you call it. I think the The "realism" of Keith Laumer. And its whole new wave thing was thought up by a "If a writer wants to write about a guy an interesting background which produced couple of disappointed writers who became alone on a planet it shouldn't be called those attitudes. editors. It's a tempest in a teapot, an science fiction. It's just a story about a artificial feud for publicity. I think it guy on a planet." He was born in New York State, and came to St. Petersburg at age 12. "Thus," he a galactic diplomat. He has published 45 He's not an Ayn Rand ideologue, not really MONOLOG continued. says, "I can see the Civil War from both books in the five years since his full-time any kind of idealogue. He's not really new sides. Perhaps this is at the bottoe of my decision. Most have appeared in hard cover issuing more and more sf. Paul Walker has wave nor old wave. He and his writing are inability to become a true believer in any and paperback. There have been novels, non eased off from his tremendous reviewing pace products of his experience and his world. of the popular causes. I find that human fiction books and short story collections. of several months ago; he's only human. And It is no accident that there are Steppen beings can be divided into only two meaning- He has written speculative fiction and myst there aren't enough good, objective review wolf and Jimi Hendrix albums along with the ful categories: Decent Humans and SOBs. eries—one a Raymond Chandler mystery. His ers in sf fandom to read and review all the Beethoven. They belong to his daughters Both types appear to be evenly distributed stories have appeared in most of the science sf and fantasy being published. but he listens. You can't predict what among all shapes, colors, sizes and nation fiction magazines and anthologies, and in a My desire has been to publish a review he'll say, but you can believe he means it. alities." number of mystery and men's magazines. His of every book received. novel, The Monitors became a movie with Short of going monthly and devoting my In 1943, at age eighteen, he enlisted Ellison wrote, in an introduction to Keenan Wynn, Ed Begley and a cameo appear one of Laumer's stories, "If I could name self full-time to the magazine this cannot in the Army. He served in Europe and as ance by the late Sen. Everett Dirksen. a man I met who seemed to me incorruptible, be done. (Short of about a seven thousand sisted in the processing of returning troops it would have to be Laumer." dollar subsidy from a millionaire, a corp after the war. After the war, he studied "I also wrote a splendid book about the oration, a foundation...or a really tremen architecture at the University of Illinois. mess in southeast Asia, and the week it was But Laumer himself pinned it down bet dous increase in paid circulation.) He married there, and two of his children finished a book called The Ugly American was ter: "The ultimate test of man," he wrote, Not likely. were born during the college years. He al published. The burden of my book was that "is his ability to master himself. It is a So I have, as editor, more hard thinking so studied at the University of Stockholm. we don't know what the hell we're doing test which we have so far failed." Q □ and deciding to do. there." In 1953, Laumer got a first lieutenant's Richard Hill is a free-lance writer living commission in the Air Force. He was con Do you still think so? • FRED PATTEN sent along some interesting in St. Petersburg. vinced WW III was imminent and didn't want clips from PUBLISHERS' WEEKLY: The Conan "More than ever. If we're not going to to be drafted. "They fooled me," he says, This interview first appeared in the TAMPA Series consisting of ten titles sold close use everything we've got to finish the war, "by finking out on the war. I spent a year TRIBUNE'S Florida Accent Magazine, June 7, to a million copies in 1970 for Lancer — we should get out yesterday. The idea of in solitary on a rock in Labrador." He left "Ace reports that Frank Herbert's Dune... drafting GIs to fight with slingshots is an 1970. the Air Force in 1956 to join the foreign was still among its backlist bestsellers, atrocity. If the Chinese and Russians want service and spent two years in Burma as an as it was in 1969." Among the new Ace those pest-ridden countries, they deserve embassy official. He started writing while books sf is still on top: The Left Hand of each other. I think we really have more in in Burma, then spent a year at fulltime Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin, and the Hein common with the Chinese than the other part writing. "I hacked away for that year, then lein Series. — Ballantine's S7.5O boxed ies involved." TWENTY YEARS ON went back into the Air Force, whereupon all set of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was a the stuff I'd written sold. Too late. I Are you saying that racial considerat The aliens that I recall sellout. — Berkley's best sellers last was in. But being stationed in London had ions will transcend political considerations, Are aliens indeed today: year included Heinlein's Stranger in a its compensations. Yes, and we'd had a just as liberals argue the Vietnamese will Endearing in their evil Strange Land, and Herbert's Dune Messiah. third child, a daughter, in Burma. In 1965 never accept domination by the Chinese? mode, • Becauuse his parents objected to his I became a full time writer and I never in Vintage models, you might "No, but I do think that in 500 years having multiple copies of Essex House books tend to change jobs again. Life begins at say we won't have racial problems on earth be at home, JEFF SMITH offered them for sale forty." cause we'll all be assimilated. Race prob to SFR readers. Now he writes that he lost Did you know that Anthony Burgess start All one-pointed and intense lems are self-eliminating through intermar Bombs and blasts and beams some names and addresses of those who order ed writing about age forty, after a civil riage. Unless there are enclaves that make ed said books—and has to ask those who service tour in Burma? and thrall a fetish of racial identity. But the rac Sinister in clean-cut black have not heard from him to please write ial variety on STAR TREK, for example, seems again, as he kept no records. "Must be something about the place. I And coming, above all unlikely to me. People will have forgotten I understand Jeff is a Business major wrote my first story there. After I decid those differences. in college. ed I was ready to write we wandered around From OUT THERE--very haven for a while, then settled here." "That's why Black Panther racism dis Of menace unfailing, you'd • ARNIE KATZ reported in FOCAL POINT that turbs me. It's no more admirable than Nazi allow, Ultimate Publications (AMAZING, FANTASTIC Why Brooksville? racism. Israeli terrorism towards Arabs is For those who did, naive, and various reprint titles) are having dis "It's this piece of land. My dad hap no better than Arab terrorism towards Jews. believe tribution problems on the west coast. pened to own it, and when I saw it, nearly What I'd like to see done away with is ter OUT was THERE. We know • LOCUS reported that Keith Laumer suff surrounded by water, I said this is it. rorism and racism." better now. ered a stroke Feb.2, at his florida home. I've been here four years." The Keith Laumer "realism." Some of it -- George Hay Subsequent reports tell of improvement. The Burma assignment and the diplomatic would make a superpatridt beam. Some of it life have inspired a number of Laumer books, would elicit a chorus of "right ons" from MONOLOG continued on page 22 including his popular series about Retief, a campus crowd. You can't pin him down. 11 John Sladek and suchlike names moderately and have to give the rhyme-sound as well as well known among Sf fans... not to mention the grammatical elements. Last time I was yours truly. (I also read some bits and in New York I did some of these with Tom, pieces of my own.) and it's amazing how rapidly you begin to MOISE LEVEL exhibit a sort of telepathic response to Considering he had outright refused to the lines the other person has written but rehearse our duet beforehand, it went off you haven't seen, for instance, I called el oolnmn rather well and provoked a good reaction our second effort "The Death of a Barnstorm from the audience. We therefore laid on ing Aviator." Ignorant of this, Tom produc another poetry session at the 1970 London ed a line beginning: "Machines fall from Con, with Jeni Couzyn (an outstanding South the air like ripe plums..." African poetess) as well as Ted and myself. John bpuiiiiep That led to some very unfavourable audience Where was I? Oh, yes. It seems to me reaction... but those embers have been raked that among the people who are most acutely over often enough. The important point is aware that we are living yesterday's sci that Jeni read a charming black-comedy piece ence fiction are our contemporary poets. #5 RHYME AND, IF YOU’RE VERY LUCKY, entitled "Human Pie," an extract from an They don't for the most part draw directly REASON alien cookery book, which had the audience on Sf sources (although D.M. Thomas has con in fits of laughter, and if only VISION Of sciously based some of his poems on stories In Connection with the Brighton Arts festival of 1968, Ed reading, featuring inter TOMORROW hadn't folded it would have appear by Damon Knight and others), but they do em ward Lucie—Smith (best-known in this country as a member of alios Adrian Henri and the ed there as a double-page spread with a ploy the same sort of imagery which in Sf the panel on that now-defunct BBC radio programme, THE CRIT Liverpool Scene, George specially commissioned ornamental border by generates the so-called "sense of wonder" - ICS, among our most highly regarded art critics, and a res MacBeth, O.M. Hart, D.M. Eddie Jones. Pity! I think it would have the paradoxical quality of our world in pected poet), and Asa Briggs (historian, author and currently Thomas... and yours truly. been a hit with the readers as well as the which the past and future co-exist and some vice-chancellor of one of our newer universities), jointly listeners. times seem to affect us in roughly equal Tickets were horribly chaired a weekend conference on science fiction. over-priced, so the audi Now the question which might logically quantities. The conference itself was mainly memorable for two splen ence was small, but it was be posed at this stage is: why should people We have come - mercifully - a long way did comments on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY - to wit, Jimmy Bal a very stimulating and en like Jeni Couzyn and Ted Lucie-Smith turn up from the pedestrian doggerel of"The Green lard's remark, "Two thousand and one BC!", and Christopher joyable occasion. to give an unpaid reading at a science fic Hills of Earth," or those terrifyingly bad Evans's description of it as "an instructional film for Pan tion convention, when they can normally com lines from Lee Correy's "Starship Through Not all the material American space-hostesses" - but directly following the con mand quite a fat fee for a public appearance? Space" which you can find, if you really read was strictly Sf, of clusion of the actual conference an event took place which I The answer's simple. They like Sf and read want to, quoted in In Search of Wonder. If course - it shaded over must say I think marked a sort of significant-type break a lot of it. you're not yet with this exciting trend, I into fantasy and surreal through. Ted Lucie-Smith organised a science fiction poetry suggest you remedy the deficiency pronto. ism - but a surprising am I called on Jeni the other evening - Holding Your Eight Hands wouldn't be a bad ount of it was the pure she lives within walking distance of our place to start. metal, most notably per place - to see if we could turn out some haps George MacBeth's stochastic sonnets together (I'll explain PS: just in case anybody was wondering, "Bedtime Story," an ac that in a moment), and she has on the wall count (in that hideously a painting she did of a being designed after my father died, my mother-in-law died, my difficult form, Sapphics) the Regulans in my book The Long Result, and ankle is still troubling me, but they got the olass out of my eye and it didn't even of the death of the last there are lots of Sf novels and anthologies scar the cornea. Whew! man. on her shelves. □□□□□□

So when it came to ar Stochastic sonnets? Well, I believe the ranging the programme of form was invented by Tom Disch and Marilyn the Easter Convention at Hacker, though I can claim to have baptised Oxford in 1969, I thought it with its resounding name... of inviting Ted to come along and read some ex Works like this. Ome of you picks a cerpts from his then new title, without telling the other; the other ly-published anthology of writes a first line, then describes its Sf poetry, Holding Your grammatical structure (not its content) and Eight Hands, and explain indicates what sort of continuation would why he had chosen for in be required to make a complete sentence - clusion Brian Aldiss, Tom or, naturally, whether a new sentence should Disch, H. P. Lovecraft, be begun. And so on, through three quat rains, until you reach the final couplet To Orinda Hardware For Orinda Hardware. I "And you never take me anywhere — " Now my admiration used to relieve the monotony a bit by des for Mr. Nash as poet " — or I'll belt you one across the cribing payments that would never be rele and philosopher is mouth, and you can pay for dental repairs vant to anyone except me and the payee, such great. It would be out of your own allowance." as a liquor bill, by more imaginative phras otiose to say he is es, such as To Orinda Sporting House For It shut up. I hasten to add that no better at being the Servicing of gun; or I'd relieve emotional symbolism is intended. Karen was being first than Allen Gins pressure by affixing colorful adjectives on 'scruciating idle in the living room. My berg is, and better To______Internal Revenue For self, I suddenly realized that the warm glow at being the second tax installment. But I had to give this up I felt came not merely from being left in than Hugh Hefner is; after it became obvious that I was distress peace to not-do my own un-thing. There was this is true of prac ing my very proper accountant. — And it also the enjoyment of a victory. tically anybody.Let's never helped me in keeping track of the bal just say that through Sauntering down memory lane, with due ance. Like most persons who have studied out my reading life care to avoid the cow pies, I saw through higher mathematics, I can't do arithmatic Mr. Nash has been an eyes now opened (albeit a trifle bleery) for sour owl snot. A banker tells me that enlightening delight. that this had happened before. Whenever I hundred-dollar errors are not uncommon; but But perhaps his obser resolved to neglect some dismal task impos he regards me with some awe, since I have vations on the sloth ed by duty or prudence, I had experienced made a thousand-dollar error — twice — in type sins, though ac the thrill of Being Bad. But hitherto my favor of Wells Fargo — which, luckily, em curate as far as they dog-in-the-manger conscience hadn't let me ploys honest, straightshooting computers.) go, are misleading in recognize this sensation for what it was. a larger context. Neg Well, there I was, thinking guiltily "After all," my conscience must have preach lect of duty can be that, if I was not yet capable of doing any ed to my subconscience, "that is a childish made quite enjoyable. thing creative, this was at least a good pleasure, and we are big and grown up now, It's all in knowing time to get my drudge work out of the way; aren't we?" how. also, the lawn was covered with autumn's Recognizing that I could indulge in tree dandruff, which ought to be raked; and What started this childishness whenever I chose gave me a besides, healthful exercise, in God's sun reflection was a hang third-stage joy. shine would make me feel so much better that over, one of the mild I could thereafter proceed like a giant re I am still exploring the implications sort which simply leave freshed to other outstanding duties; and of my discovery. For many years I have de you filleted. I was the whole while I knew damn well I was go nied the truth of the old saw that every stretched comfortably ing to lie torpid for hours, and if I rose thing worth doing is worth doing well. on my studio couch, at all it would be to tinker with an abso That's nonsense. The world is an unsightly sipping a cold beer lutely useless, unprofitable, socially un and reading some bit conscious amusement like, say, a Beer Mutt of trivia. From time ering. So it was not logical to let my con to time I'd glance ov science spoil the afternoon for me. er at my desk, where the stack of letters "Shut up," I said to it. unreplied to and bills "Nag, whine, pester," it said, scraping unpaid was not only fingernails across the slate it carries high but beginning to get moldy. (Mind you, around for this purpose. the bank account was in excellent shape. It's just that busines By Poul Anderson of filling out check stubs. I know I should record who every check Ogden Nash once complained that the trouble with sins of omis is to and what it is sion is that, while they bring on the usual pangs of conscience and in payment of, because consequences, they're no fun. I remember particularly his lines: the information may be " — nobody ever said, 'Wheel / The next round of unanswered let needed later — but ters is on me!"' 1 ought to hunt up the book and make sure I am damn it, nothing is quoting accurately, but will omit that. duller than writing 15 junkyard of things worth doing, in the sense Notes toward a definition of science These are by no means the only tech that they must be done, which do not deserve fiction: often uses it, Sturgeon rarely, though the niques suitable to that kind of story. In better than barebones-minimum time and care; latter can vividly evoke a scene by mention There seem to be as many definitions as fact, the current revitalization of our and the more you can scamp them, the happier ing just two or three well-chosen things. there are definers, and — in spite of some field is due largely to the introduction of you. Washing the car, for instance. Though The difference is in the kind of effect undeservedly kind remarks by A. J. Budrys— methods and approaches which have long been a decent respect for the opinions of mankind these men are respectively after. I am not about to add to their number. A known elsewhere. Peter Beagle once remark requires that filthiness be held within some The techniques peculiarly appropriate field which can include Brave New World and ed that he'd read sf as a boy, then dropped bounds, the question remains whether I own to sf seem to me to fall in two broad class A Canticle for Leibowitz and Venus Equilat it for many years, then lately come back to that lump of dead iron or it owns me. So I es, the employment of certain symbols and eral and Captain Future obviously has no it, and by gosh, he said, meanwhile those wash it maybe thrice a year, taking maybe the expression of a certain attitude. simple definition. A bitter old Jewish say guys had discovered the stream of conscious ten minutes per occasion. On the other hand, ing goes: "A Jew is anybody whom somebody ness! I am fanatically meticulous about keeping it The symbols are an expansible group. else says is a Jew." Sf is in a comparable The healthy eras of sf have been character in good mechanical condition, especially the Obviously, however, no story can employ boat, inasmuch as the literati still fre ized by the introduction and exploration of safety features. the whole range of available devices. Some quently declare that nothing which is good new ones, the dull eras by the mechanical will always be inappropriate. For instance, Likewise, bills must be paid in reason can, by definition, be sf. But this atti reiteration of old ones. Familiar symbols the minute cataloguing of every everyday de able time, if only because merchants have tude is breaking down. In fact, we are in include spaceships, distant planets, non tail is fine in a typical NEW YORKER story, rights, too. Lawns must be mowed and raked, such danger of becoming respectable that I human intelligences, vast forces, the future if you like typical NEW YORKER stories, but if only because well-tended grounds are so tned to agree with what got scrawled on the and its civilizations, time travel. I call would hopelessly bog down a fast-action de much more pleasurable than a weed patch. A blackboard after a session at the last Sec them symbols because they don't stand for tective yarn — though the point-by-point living must be earned. Some service ought ondary Universe conference, where acedamic anything presently in existence, and often description of certain details is integral to be given to society at large and one's types had earnestly sought for critical they stand for things unlikely ever to be to the police procedural novel. The degree friends in particular. Et cetera, et cet standards appropriate to us: GET SCIENCE in existence. era. I have no patience with people who FICTION OUT OF THE CLASSROOM AND BACK IN of it in a sf piece depends on what the don't meet their obligations; and it is id THE GUTTER WHERE IT BELONGS. writer has set out to do. Thus, Heinlein iotic not to organize your efforts so they will be moderately effective. So, anything is sf which I say is sf. By The new point to be made is this: Con and large, my list is the same as that of science and prudence need to be kept in other long-term buffs. But what do the their place just as much as our baser im stories to which we point have in common? pulses do. Frequently the harm done by Though not a rider on the creamed chick postponing or refusing some chore is small, en circuit, I do give occasional lectures, while the reward of the idleness thus gain seminars, and the like. (Among other reas ed is large. Part of that reward lies in ons, it always heartens me to get out among the sense of having asserted your freewill. students and rediscover that the large ma And thus, to get back to Ogden Nash, we can jority are perfectly decent, reasonable, actively enjoy not answering letters. To clean, and likeable human beings. The fut morrow or next day, yes, of course we'll ure they will shape if they get the chance tackle the pile of them; but right now, let will be different from the past — hasn't us wallow in them, uttering little Bacchant- the future always been? — and no doubt I ic grunts, as if they were naked women; let will disapprove of some elements; but on us savor a full awareness of the fact that balance, I don't expect to be more appalled we are being foolish, inconsiderate, immat than I am at present, and quite possibly ure, everything other than duty machines.... less.)

What makes this voluptuousness possible When introducing the topic of sf to such is the knowledge that, eventually, with less an audience, if sf is the topic, I call it than maximum efficiency and dispatch, but "a set of literary techniques." It is not with sufficient, the absolutely necessary basically different from other categories work will somehow get done. Hence the fun of fiction, which are not basically differ of taming one's conscience and curbing one's ent from each other. Categorization ought forethought is denied to the nihilist who to be forbidden by law, under barbaric pen is proud of having neither. But then, he's alties. Still, when the story to be told a dreary character in every other respect, or the point to be made or the atmosphere too. to be created demands certain techniques ****** , for maximum effectiveness, we have sf. 17 ghosts is better than that of such sf stand interesting matter of the Wimlib leaders' ion? I didn't beget the little bastard. bys as faster—than—light or time travel. private proclivities. However, my acquaint Solve your own problems, lady, and next time Vet ghosts almost all belong to fantasy. ance is dead wrong about the value of radi be more careful. Why? I think sf takes the attitude, tacit cals. Throughout history, any good cause Equal pay and opportunity sound all where not explicit, that we may come upon which they embrace seems to be thrown back right at first — and, I hasten to add, us many remarkable phenomena, which will quite at least a hundred years. Consider, for ex ually at last. (When a woman separates from revolutionize our thinking, but they'll nev ample, how the Robespierre gang made a Nap a husband whom she's been supporting — an ertheless include what we know today; there oleon inevitable; how our own Abolitionists arrangement commoner than you may realize— will have been the same kind of intellect helped bring on a civil war, one of whose of course she should pay him alimony!) But ual continuity that there was between Newt legacies has been enduring interracial ha generalizations like this can raise hell onian and modem physics. The fantasy writ tred, in order to terminate an institution when applied indiscriminately to the con er doesn't care. He postulates as he pleas of slavery that would have died a natural crete day-by-day situations in which we es. Though he may be rigorously logical in death in another couple of decades; how An Apollo command module or an IBM com live. The common-sense criterion would be, tracing out the consequences of these post the Lenin gang destroyed the Russian Repub In a particular job, is a woman apt to be puter or a nuclear detonation is real. It ulates, he is under no necessity of assuming lic; how today's Weatherman types are forc might occur in a sf story which takes off worth as much as a man? that they can ever be fitted into the body ing the rest of us to create a real police from the here-and-now, just as an automobile of scientific knowledge. When he does make state — But the recital is long and depres Normally the answer would be positive. might, but it is functionally different in this assumption, he is automatically writing sing. The poiift here is that I was caused In not a few cases, the answer would be that the story from, say, an interstellar liner sf. For instance, I've seen ghost stories to make explicit to myself some of the not she — this individual human being — is or a robot with awareness or a supernova which "explained" the spirit in terms of ions about Wimlib that I'd been carrying worth more than any male candidate for the which destroys whole worlds. The spaceship, forcefields or something, and have even around. position. I am sure Randall Garrett will for example, is a symbol of travel, advent written one or two myself. In contrast, join me in admitting that his lady Alison The whooping, hollering, trespass, van ure, achievement; or the writer can make it while Bradbury's fine Mars stories used the is not only prettier than either of us, she dalism, and occasional violence are, as was stand for evil, like one of Bradbury's ves symbolism of sf, he refused (probably right writes a lot better computer program. sels full of looters and litterers; the ly in his case) to throw in even a line of already observed, no surprise. Monkey see, monkey do. And doubtless I was silly in my But women do get pregnancies, monthlies, point is that it can call forth emotions in gobbledygook that would "explain" away the and menopauses; they do have comparatively predictable ways, like a familiar few bars findings of astronomy; thus in attitude he astonishment at how solemnly this latest pustulation has been received. A world that small muscles; they do tend to marry and go of music woven into another, larger composi was being a fantasy writer. tion. Now of course a good writer could listenes straightfaced to William Kunstler off the payroll, a tendency which a pro- use an Apollo to that end, just as he could Needless to say, the sf attitude is not is incapable of laughing at anything. The use a dogsled crossing Arctic ice. But if unique to it. But sf does seem to employ question does remain, How legitimate are he wants to bring in more than this — the the outlook more commonly and more emphatic those complaints and demands? After all, emotion of marvel or terror, say, to be gen ally than is the case elsewhere. Likewise, there are plenty of respectable feminists, erated by the symbolic structure of an un while the spaceship as symbol may be funct by which I mean feminists worthy of respect, earthly world — then as a rule logic re ionally identical with a caravel in a his such as my grand old friend and yours, Mir quires him to use sf's standard ultra-de torical romance, the particular functions iam Allen de Ford. Peel away the Wimlip carried out by sf symbols (such as represen veloped spaceship for his Voyage symbol. rhetoric, and what is left? ting Travel or Strangeness) are, nowadays, As for the attitude expressed, I'd say most frequently carried out there. According to one spokeswoman, the basic that sf characteristically assumes that, demands are: free child care for working however strange it may be, creation makes Hence sf shades into everything else. mothers, free abortions for those who would sense; it is governed by laws, and these What peculiarities it has are differences rather not be mothers just yet, and equal laws are discoverable by man. This does of degree, not of kind. pay and opportunity for advancement. not mean bland optimism. In fact, some of Well, the first of these has existed for ****** sf's greatest successes have been tragedies, a good many years in several countries and wherein ruin results either from man's fail done no obvious social damage. As for the ure to grasp and/or use the realities — A while ago I remarked to a lady ac second, conceivably we ought to support any e.g., "The Cold Equations," not to mention quaintance that the existence of a Women's measure that will help slow down population many tales of atomic war and anti-Utopia Liberation movement is less surprising than growth. However, I fail to see why the fac and whatever — or else from doom being in the fact that so many people take those bull ilities should be free. That adjective the nature of things — e.g., "Twilight." dykes so seriously. She replied that mostly means, in fact, "tax-supported." Why should The essential is only that we echo Einstein: the participants are quite normal wives and I pay for the care of your kids, if you "Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber boshaft mothers, and that while some of them do go yourself can't be bothered with them? Can't ist Er nicht." to extremes, you have to have extremists or you get together with others in the same sit no reform will ever happen. Our story postulates can be quite outre. uation and organize a babysitting coopera Actually, the real-world plausibility of So perhaps I stand corrected on the un tive? Or why should I pay for your abort 18 spective employer must take into account. show up at the next Wimlib convention and Also, this may be hopelessly old-fashioned, demand our right to be enrolled. We could I Remember Clarion authoritarian, and you name it, but every also go around to the DAR. experience and sound instinct of the race says that a woman is less expendable than a Clarion is the sphincter of the uni iMMTS Agoft 17? man, because it is from her that the next verse. It is in the middle of a blank space generation proceeds, and so ought to be kept Results of the Disgusting Television in the map of Pennsylvania. It has no reas away from certain tasks. Commercial contest will be announced next on for being there except for Clarion State time. At present, it is still open. En College, which the inhabitants accordingly Naturally, men should at least be dis tries received thus far are mostly good, but hate. couraged from undertaking certain other you might beat them all yet. For instance, Clarion State College was until recent tasks. Like the work of an airplane stew why have they dealt exclusively with sex and ly Clarion State Teachers' College, and it ardess. Under our latest great new liber scatology? Surely such fields as religion, still devotes most of its efforts to get ating sex-equality law, airlines are requir politics, death and the undertaker, cigar ting teaching certificates for the sons and ed to consider men for this job on the same ettes, and automobiles have nauseating po daughters of the blond, thick-headed indig— basis as women. Now maybe you enjoy look tentialities of their own. Q □ Q Q ing at hairy shanks and bony jaws, but I ines. Its science department has a Foucault don't. If the steward! go, then for me the pendulum which does not work. The new plan GOT SOMETHING OLD AND etarium, built over a coal seam, is falling drab process of commercial flight will have RARE or NEW AND SUPER lost its last mitigation. down. FLUOUS you WANT TO The cafeteria is a beautiful modern To sun up: Various injustices can and SELL?? building housing all the latest kitchen e- should be corrected, but this can be done PUT IT IN AN SFR quipment and serving the worst food in the without any hoopla, let alone any Constitut DISPLAY BOX!!! western hemisphere. People who have not ional amendment. Various other injustices been there do not believe. People who are are built into the universe, but one sex $1.00 per column inch eating there do not believe. You would seems to get about as many as the other. As vertical it was a Volkswagen, they knelt. One of think, for example, that nobody could ruin for going braless, this is intriguing when Column width: inches them, a nameless Kiowa Indian named Russell a toasted cheese sandwich: but the Clarion she's young and wearing a tight sweater; Bates who shall remain nameless, detonated You make up the ad & cafeteria can. but, once again, how come all the fuss? a big gunpowder bomb on the Fourth of July. send it in. My contribution was superballs. I bought Becht Hall, in which the workshop stu Furthermore, we have few enough free ten a day and we lost them. Eventually we Use b/w illos, Zip-a- dents were housed during the first two ses doms left without having taken from us the saturated the shrubbery around Becht; when tone, etc. if you like. sions, has been condemned—it has cracks— freedom not to associate. If McSorley's in ever we went looking for one lost ball we but is still in use as a dorm, probably be New York, or Schroeder's in San Francisco would find another one instead. cause decrepit as it is, it is still room at lunchtime, must admit females — where's ier, pleasanter and more fit for human occu I remember the sun on the old stucco a chap to go when he wants a bit of undis LOS ANGELES FAN pancy than the new dorms of brick and alu walls, and the girls with their piano legs tracted relaxation? Why.can't the women GESTETNER OWNERS!! minum. In our third year, because the pres lumping past, and the seven-foot thistles simply establish their own places that ex I misjudged! Before ident of the college lived next door and that grew near the front door of Becht. clude men? Their resentment at not being deciding to switch to had got tired of the sound of typewriters Life was simple there. We got up from our let in suggests that they don't find each photo-offset, I bought all night, Katie and I were allowed to stay other's company especially fascinating. Spartan cots in the morning, cooked break 100 tubes of Gestetner in Becht but the students were moved to Giv Then should anyone? fast on a hot plate, took Jonathan to the 419 black quick-dry ink. en Hall, a new dorm. Horror! Cinderblock babysitter, went to class. Then lunch, and Don't get me wrong. I'm a gnophile I'll sell it by the tube interior walls! Sleeping cubicles ten by a fat stack of xeroxed manuscripts to read from way back. A woman who really is a wom at the 100 tube price: six! Rubber mattresses on wheels that dump in the afternoon. People dropped in, for an is the finest thing the human race has you off the beds, banging your face on the company or rum. Then cheese, pretzels and to offer; and her femininity need not inter $2.59 per tube electrical boxes that jut from the walls! beer, to fortify me for dinner in the cafe fere with her intellect, which can perfect Windows filled with aluminum louvers—doors teria. In the evening, a little grab-ass- ly well be equal or superior to mine. The RICHARD E. GEIS locked at night! Help, help! ing on the porch—Frisbies, balloons full trouble with the unisex world is its dull 1420-D 20th St. of water. And so to bed. ness. Santa Monica, CA Outside, in Greater Clarion, the stud 90404 ents made their own amusements. They stood In our third year, Gardner Dozois came Gentlemen, we had better fight back in a row on the curb and solemnly stared at to visit. Suddenly there was a procession while time remains, for the sake of the lad Please call 451-9206 the driver of every car that came past. If marching down the hill. Robes, beads, head- ies even more than ourselves. Perhaps we for appointment for can get some action if several hundred of mutual convenience. us, unshaven and clad in sweaty undershirts, ZB'Y" IDAlVEOlSr KNIGHT 20 21 dresses. A solemn chant, "Yo...ho!...Yo... MONOLOG continued. ho!" A slender virgin carried aloft, pale, arms crossed over her slacks. A whisper •The first Eurocon is developing moment from one of the bearers, a short fellow: um and structure. It will be held in "I'm carrying the whole ass!" They laid her Trieste in conjunction with the Internat down on the walk in front of Becht. She ional Science Fiction Film Festival, July struggled a little when Gardner put a candle 12-16, this year. Attending membership is upright in her crotch and lit it. Then he S7., Supporting membership is $4. American flourished a table knife and haggled at her agent is Anthony Lewis, 35 Unity Av., Bel tummy with it (a copout, it should have been mont, MASS 02178 her heart, but then she would have really •There is a new sf publisher—Leisure struggled). Robin Wilson got there just too Books, Inc., which is now reprinting some late, but we told him all. He was especial of the older near-classics, but one day hop ly interested to learn that the college es to publish originals, too. Their first president had been standing on his balcony releases are: Final Blackout by L. Ron Hub next door, smoking a pipe and watching the bard (8459-OOO3-2, 75*); Death's Deputy by procession. "Did she really have a candle L. Ron Hubbard (8459-0005-9, 75d); MenLike in her thingy?" he asked in a slightly hys Gods by H. G. Wells (8459-0001-6, 95d); Star terical tone. My wife said yes, but added Begotten by H.G. Wells (8459-0004-0, 75*5. kindly that it was not lit. "Whew," said Star Begotten has a George Barr cover; Robin, wiping his brow. very nice. In fact, all the Leisure Books In the workshop one day, Kate had as covers are striking. I see I forgot one signed everybody a page or two of dialog to of their releases: Act of God by Richard write, and we acted them out. Vonda McIn Ashby (8439-0008-5, 75*). tyre had written for herself an absolutely •I talked with Harlan Ellison on the unsayable line, "The motherfuckers'll swim phone, yes I did! He is busy, busy, and up your ass." When she tried to say it, it more busy, as usual. He is doing a screen came out "motherfuckles." A new diminutive! play of his "A Boy and His Dog." He said "Up against the curb, motherfuckles!" the producer had agreed that there should Another time, Glenn Cook had turned in be no compromise on the cannibalism in the one of his Tolkienesque adventures full of story. characters named Eilmaric Reigenshavn and That would be one helluva movie if film Woldeimar HSggletoath. One of the other ed honestly from Harlarfs script. students complained, "I don't dig all these He also mentioned he may be assigned to unpronounceable names. His name was Wies- do a screenplay of The Space Merchants. In law Zbigniew Czyzewski, and he looked up be the past, four scripts have been attempted, rhe •• esseNce wildered at the roar of laughter. but none proved satisfactory. This is the kind of thing I remember, • Greg Benford's humorous article in SFR ...is a fanzine of COMMUNICATION^ and it is hard to realize that the students 42 originally appeared in John D. Berry's in their spare time were not only reading EGOBOO #6. I forgot to give a credit last all those manuscripts, but writing them. issue. communication of iOeAs, coNcepTS, They worked half the night, and got up owl • Evidence of the scrinching SFR has to eyed to attend Robin's earlybird class, and endure in this photo-offset format is as then went back and did it again. If we follows: "Neo-Classical Eschatological Bi and VISUALIZATIONS concerning slackened the pace, they complained. Nine furcation in Ooc Savage: Some Aspects" was out of ten of them have turned into success scheduled for this issue, but will instead ful professional writers, and it is no wond appear in SFR #44. My apologies to all. the SF and Fantasy fields. er. Hats off.Q □ □□□□□□ Er....I forgot to mention that Greg Benford is the author of the piece. • And I am the author of my discontent.Q] Join as in our EXPERIMENTATION.

The SFR cocktail: drink one and you want another Hugo. 4 issues for $2. 22 21,000 Covello, Canoga Pk.,Cal9L3O3

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at issues I City Please S My point to be made, one which Knight and Ath— er in the mainstream or the non-science-fic ceptions down.) Which doesn't mean that it John Raymond. (John Raymond was the pub eling stress constantly, is that if you take tion fantasy approach; and, in fact, an aw is either wicked or imbecilic for anyone to lisher in the 50's who, whatever his sins science fiction seriously, if you consider ful lot of this material is not science fic enjoy The Moon Pool, etc.; however, if you and misdemeanors, gave Lester del Rey the it worth consideration as literature, above tion at all, but falsely labelled so. have grown, you will find that you can only opportunity to show what he could do as an the ephemeral level of mere entertainment, editor of science fiction and fantasy maga Back in the 50's, I was very sensitive enjoy Merritt on quite different grounds then there is a price to be paid. "If ... zines.) to criticism of my then favorite reading than before. I use Merritt as a general ex then”, a simple proposition which so many ample. There's nothing wrong with finding matter, and would have resented Damon Otherwise, I find no errors, although otherwise highly intelligent and discerning pleasure in lesser to low grade entertain Knight's proof that The Blind Spot, or Ath— there are places where I either disagree or people have difficulty in grasping. If you ment in the science fiction and fantasy eling's proof that The Moon Pool, is badly at least have doubts. Yet, even one of do not consider science fiction worth serious field. (Of course, as Thoreau says, if you written, badly plotted, and inhabited by these - the chapter on Algis Budrys - was attention, then this book, like its predeces read all the rubbish that is published, you ludicrous caricatures. Today I can re-read valuable to me. That Budrys is an excellent sor, Ihe Issue at Hand, and like both edit won't have time for the memorable authors. Damon's comments on Austin Hall, etc., chuck writer, technically, I entirely agree. But ions of In Search of Wonder, is not for you. Nor, I would add, will you have developed le heartily - and still enjoy The Blind Rogue Moon left me in a state of profound the esthetic muscles necessary to read them. I must confess that I, myself, am some Spot, and some (though Lord knows, not all) dissatisfaction, and I did not realize why Rubbish is easy to read, while many - if not what schizoid on the question. I do not of the others his operation has left strewn until I read Atheling's criticism of it (o- most - of the memorable works of fiction are like the price to be paid for taking science on the floor. Nor do I really care wheth riginally written as Blish, I believe). What difficult. They make demands upon the read fiction seriously, for although I have e- er the self-inflated windbags of the lit he praises as one of the story's strongest er.) nough regard for good writing to be inter erary establishment sneer at what I enjoy points strikes me as being its fundamental ested in competent criticism of any form of or proclaim that the latest novel by some Still, to repeat, it is possible to en flaw: When all the characters in a story fiction, it does seem to me as if the object crashing bore of a nihilist is a represent joy both A. E. van Vogt's Sian and James are clinically insane, then there is no con of the Atheling—Knight drive is to eliminate ative of the only science fiction worth an Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young trast; and, in fact, sanity-insanity becomes the sort of science fiction which I enjoy intelligent person's attention. Man, without finding any emotional neces so relative a matter that the terms are emp most. When I read science fiction, I want, sity for maintaining that van Vogt is on tied of meaning. If everyone's crazy, then no one is crazy. (Atheling's suggestion first of all, to be aware of the difference So I feel more than a little sympathy the level of Joyce. Whether you can return between science fiction and non science fic for the authors who emerge from the Atheling to Sian as frequently as the Joyce novel is that what may be wrong with you - any indiv tion; and while, in the past decades, there -Knight type of inquisition bleeding from another matter. And then there is Lindsay's idual reader - might be indicated by which has been some notable improvement in writ every pore, their most popular works litter A Voyage to Arcturus, almost a paradign for character in the story seemed most sympa ing (Budrys and Sturgeon for example, to whom ing the landscape. (As Knight once pointed the wonderful story, filled with marvels thetic to you is a brilliant one. Perhaps a chapter each is devoted, and to whom I'll out, a bad story falls to pieces very easily, which are not to be exhausted in one read I should conceal the fact that I found them come later), this seems to have been much once you start poking at it, while a good ing, that is very badly written. all uninteresting.) too much at the expense of the particular story resists the process.) I sympathize There are three minor errors in this Theodore Sturgeon, who is the subject of imaginative quality one formerly found only because I, myself, have written material book, and I'll mention them now because, another perceptive chapter, is another con in science fiction. which seemed to me at the time, and which while not of the utmost importance, they are temporary science fiction author for whom readers (I now realize) of somewhat low dis The author shows some awareness of this the sort of thing that injured authors and (along with Budrys and Bradbury) I have great crimination proclaimed good; it was painful in chapter three: "Things Still to Come: outraged readers will leap upon and stress respect and admiration as a craftsman. I to learn that we were mistaken. And I sym Gadgetry and Prediction", where he laments for the sake of diverting you from what is watched Ted (and Ray) rise from outstanding pathize with fans who resent this sort of the loss of such wonder-arousing elements really important. (1) The quotation ascrib pulpeteers to their present status, and I thing, because I remember how wonderful the of science fiction (plentiful in the days ed to The Snake Mother, on pages 8^/85, is know that it did not come easily to them. novels of A. Merritt seemed to me back in before writers began to get self-conscious) actually from The Conquest of the Moon Pool; They labored and kept working at learning 1932. It did not require Atheling to show as anti-gravity, energy screens, and those (2) The Cavern of the Shining Ones, by Hal the secrets of the language and of writing me that the emperor had no clothes; the fascinating multi-colored rays. With the K. Wells, appeared in 1932, not 1953: AS long after it was necessary for them to do simple process of reading a wide variety of exception of Heinlein, who has not entirely TOUNDING STORIES, November; (3) the pseudo so in order to sell almost any story they literature, and then going back to The Moon lost either his sense of wonder or invent nym under which John B. Michel wrote and wrote. They have earned every penny and Pool, etc., was sufficient. Each time, the iveness (even if there is somewhat less evi sold a number of science fiction and weird every compliment they've received - and more. rewards in re-reading diminished, until fin dence of them in his latest novel, I Will stories in the AO's was Hugh Raymond, not Perhaps, then, the fault lies in me that I ally they stopped altogether. I do not now Fear No Evil), science fiction writers have remember whether I spent much time in analys confined themselves increasingly to the al ing why, but I was aware of some, at least, ready-established gimmicks and gadgets as of the fundamental defects that Atheling stage dressings for grim research into psy mentions. chopathology and the illusions of the mind blowers. Not that good work cannot emerge Growing up is a painful process; and from this concentration on "inner space", growing up as a reader is going to involve but that science fiction is not the area in some losses. (You may retain your early en which to do it. It can be done better eith thusiasms indefinitely if you keep your per 27 26 can or will structure his reactions and the cannot become interested in what Bradbury cated subway. Who goes to a book to discov Malko, sad to say, does not have the guts central mystery of the man has been fused writes about or that I cannot accept many er what he already knows? All colloquies, of the primary source. Asked at the end of into his creation. What was he after? Did of Sturgeon's works (since the M's) as sci or nearly all, should be ideal; it is what the orientation lecture to take the Commun he take this seriously or was it all perpe ence fiction at all - with the possible ex people are supposed to say (that is, words ications Course, Malko said that he would trated for money? (Several sources remember ception of More Than Human, which is so out in their imaginative hearts), and not what "think about it" and went back to his int Hubbard saying shortly after World War II standing on its own terms that I really don't is actually said, that quickens the pulse erviews. In doing this he turned what might that before he was through he would come up care whether it is science fiction or not. of the reader. It is the letter, and not have been a book of true scholarship into a with the biggest moneymaking gambit of all the spirit, that killeth the entire man." text. Nevertheless...nevertheless, one can My strongest doubts and misgivings are time but then again Ron talked a lot about hardly blame him. raised by the Atheling approach to a defini Pages 117—123 contain the speech that too much, often without conviction.) Did tion' of science fiction, in chapter one: Blish made at the Speculation Conference in One had an analogous experience. In he indeed struggle for a workable system of "Science Fiction as a Movement: A Tattoo for Birmingham last year (1970). I believe it the November of 1970 I published a poorly- behavioral science or was it merely manipul Needles". Granted that an author concerned was during the discussion following this researched, often erroneous and quite sub ative, an extension of a personality which with writing the best of which he can become that Brian Aldiss drew attention to C. S. jective article about my experiences during now and then expressed itself as a pathalog- capable may do very good work, using this Lewis' remark that literature was becoming a two-hour visit to a Scientology Center in ical liar? Or who? Or what? Until Hubbard as his esthetic foundation, it seems to me a new religion; and that he, Aldiss, found New York City. The article has drawn any is understood, apparently, there will be no that the more general result will be preten this a good thing. It's at times like this number of wrathful letters-to-the-editor explanation for dianetics and this explana tiousness and more support to the "Let's when I find I can no longer take science pointing out my inaccuracies and a.couple tion is, perhaps, crucial: Scientology is take the science out of science fiction" fiction (and sometimes literature in gen of vagrant compliments, most implying that serious business. Eventually, elements of movement. I repeat: When you take the sci eral) seriously - at least for a few weeks although.I had some interesting things to it will be seen influencing public acts as ence out of science fiction, what remains until the mirth has subsided. Not that say, I didn't quite "go far enough". Why well as private lives. Like the Tate murd may be good fiction, but you no longer have there couldn't be worse religions - Lord didn't I take the Communications Course? ers. science fiction at all; and to call such have mercy, there are! - but that making Why didn't I give Scientology/Dianetics a So what, precisely, is going on? Malko material "science fiction" is to perpetrate literature into a religion not only gives fair try? doesn't know (although he knows that he's fraud. us a pathetic religion but is just about the I replied that this was all well and scared of it) and most of the people in the worst thing that could happen to literature. The final chapter, "Making Waves" is, true but that I had only one mind and that cult couldn't care less, using it as a ref for me, the best in that it surveys both the This is not in the book, and Atheling poor as it was I had to live the rest of my erent for private ends. I'll try a theory strengths and the weaknesses of the late nowhere states that he believes in a relig life somehow with it; I did not want to blow but unhappily; it will do until a better one "New Wave". To read some of the obituaries ion of literature. But there seem to be a its remains totally at the age of 51. I comes along and it may even be a metaphor now, one would imagine that the entire move fair number of indications that he would be suspect that the same considerations inhib for the Truth. Say that dianetics was creat ment in science fiction was a hallucination an early convert to such a faith, were it ited Malko who nevertheless managed to eke ed by John W. Campbell. on the part of Lester del key and John J. officially proclaimed. I do hope I'm ut out a respectable and well-documented hard Why not? Campbell fed his contributors Pierce, and that nothing of the sort ever terly wrong about this. cover book from the center of his cowardice through the forties with multifarous ideas happened. Nonsense; of course it did. It while your faithful correspondent had to (he still does but they are different contri was an island of striving after what a few settle for fifty dollars on acceptance and butors, the energy is gone, Campbell has been authors believed would result in genuinely a threatened suit of eighty thousand dollars a full-time editor now for over thirty years) better science fiction than we had seen in from a certain scientologist who felt that from which they were to build stories. If the past, entirely surrounded by phony pub my article held up his masculinity to quest he gave Asimov robotics, if he gave Cartmill licity. (Some of the makers of the loudest ion. Malko got the better of the deal. the statistics on a fusion bomb, why could noises against "Old Wave" writers have ack Nevertheless, despite the respectable nowledged that this seeming vendetta was n't he give Hubbard dianetics? Ron was one body of information the writer presents here, of the boys. After Final Blackout and his actually a put-up job for the sake of puf the book fails as dismally as my article in fing certain authors.) What I have found three years in the Navy, he was a story-a- SCIENTOLOGY: THE NOW RELIGION by George Mal trying to find some ultimate explanation for most - not objectionable so much as a crash month man. ko—Oelacorte Press, 1970, $5.95 , 205pp. the complex history of dianetics/scientology ing bore in much new wave material was its Say that the idea for a system of behav Reviewed by Barry N. Malzberq and the very central role it plays in shap bent for naturalism. Edward Dahlberg has ing the thinking of literally millions of ioral control came from John Campbell. Sure pinpointed what I find wrong with natural Malko has done his research: he's read people. I have spent a lot of time thinking ly Scientology even in the advanced stage ism so well that I'll save both you and my virtually every official publication of the about this - why in its twenty years of ven of today possesses referents clearly align self a thousand words of my explanationsand Scientology Foundation, he's read every ar al, disorganized and very public existence ed with Campbellian rhetoric and philosophy: quote one paragraph from his article in the ticle extant on Scientology since it began dianetics has failed to yield one solid au the question of technologizing human respons January 51, 1971 issue of the THE NEW YORK as Dianetics in 1950, he's spoken to a num thoritarian investigation which would get es, the question of programming "heroes" to TIMES BOOK REVIEW: "One of the reasons I ber of people who were in the movement for to its center? - and I suspect that a good accomplish grandiose tasks, the hatred of object to naturalistic fiction is that the a long time and who attained certain influ part of the answer has to do with the fact organized science, the suspicion of those reader can find the same dreary, banal con ence within it, he's even attended a meet of L. Ron Hubbard, the Founder. No one un who "control" organized science for their versations in the book he heard in the ing or two to say nothing of an Orientation derstands him, no one who ever knew him well "own benefit", the belief in acquired sup streets, the shops, or in our wormy, desic- , course at a Scientology Center in NYC but 29 per; in the end, Pyrite. (A symbol there eriority through programming, the supremacy the readehship thought should be called "The ure, but uses violence, profanity, and brut somewhere.) of the "hero" to a higher code... Best." ality in excess to portray a state of mind as alien to the common reader as anything in Say that Campbell turned it all over to Generally speaking, the six stories an The story is a "hologramatic flashback" Ursula k. LeGuin. to the anti-hero's first big job, which set Hubbard who then did something extraordinary: thologized here suggest the "New Wave" car instead of writing and delivering it as a ried the field in 1969. The emphasis is on "A Boy and His Dog" is the recreation of him on the road to success. He is a small time operator who has a briefcase of unspec piece of pulp fiction for 2t a word, Hubbard style, chararacterization, social realism the state of mind of a future "juvenile de took it the organizational route. Wrote it with heavy overtones of romanticism, and a linquent," a product of his street environ ified loot to sell, and in the first scene, up as nonfiction, fiddled around with a few dash of fantasy and morality. ment which has become the whole world in the he is informed by the police that they know people or many people to create "cases", wake of nuclear disaster. Reading it, I was it, and who, when, and where he is going to The introduction is provided by James sell it to (something he doesn't know). The came back to Campbell not with a story but reminded of Warren Miller's beautiful The Blish, who stoutly defends the Nebulas, and an article and then, since John had after Cool World, for its blend of humanity and hero perseveres and manages to elude the provides brief, but rarely illuminating, all originated the idea, offered him a piece criminality; of Eldrige Cleaver's Soul on trap, but in the meanwhile, Delany has a comments on each story. The afterword is of the action. The first dianetics founda Ice for its pathological brutality, captur chance to work his special imagery. by Darko Suvin, Professor of English at Mc tion, of course, worked out of a post office ed by Ellison's total narrative. But I Gill University, and a specialist in SF. Delany's prose is cinematic. Each scene, box in Elizabeth, New Jersey, then and now think "Albert" is related more to the late Blish says of him: "We have come a long each fragment of each scene, is proportion Campbell's home town... Fifties white JD than the contemporary black way to have gained such a friend; perhaps ately compressed and/or inflated to create "rebel." In both books, and in Ellison's - And then say that when things began the illusion of three-dimensions. His back someday we shall also be able to say we have story, the point is unmistakably made: in to get sticky around 1952, Campbell who was, earned him." ground is not a backdrop, but an entire the context of his environment, the hero's after all primarily an editor, decided that world, a time, an era — perhaps, a fantas I was going to quote a paragraph of Pro actions (rape, murder, cannibalism) are civ he didn't want to run the course. Leaving tic romanticization of our own; perhaps fessor Suvin's fudgy prose to give you an ilized, if not compassionate, in response to all of it to Hubbard who transmogrified it half-ours, half—Del any's; perhaps, two- idea of his worth to the field, but on sec the necessities of survival. to Scientology and now lives on a fleet of thirds prophesy, but incr.dibly real. His ond thought, I will leave it to you. Suf several yachts in the Mediterranean on an What is so remarkable about "A Boy and people are romanticized: pure-spirits, pure- fice it to say, any non-serious, purely af income which Malko estimates as being one His Dog" is that Ellison has had the courage hearts, but vivid. His prose is indescrib fectionate fan like myself caught in this hundred and forty thousand dollars a week. and ability to boil down his own middle able: the most practical stream-of-conscious- context is likely to conclude SF is a dying While Campbell, still energetic, wandered on class orientation out of both the story and ness I've seen since Joyce, and a lot more genre. That, of course, is an erroneous to psionics, the dean drive, the Finagle the character, creating a sordid, perhaps readable; the most unintrusive, and unpre assumption, and easily avoided if you stick Quotient and dowsing. slightly exaggerated, but nevertheless hon tentious stylizing for accurate effects. It to the stories themselves. est portrait of a world and its offspring, is difficult only because it is so new and Conjectural. Sheerly conjectural. But ♦♦ allowing us, compelling us, to accept both unexpected, but worth the attempt for Delany it makes a prettier piece of writing than The Best Novella, Harlan Ellison's "A without self-justifications. "A Boy and His has no tired profundities to offer, no dreary Malko's who seems to think that dianetics, Boy and his Dog," first published in NEW Dog" almost fulfills the Promise Ellison has morality plays, but a glimpse of beings in like Hubbard, were spontaneously generated WORLDS in England, and in The Beast That neglected so many years. the act of being, distilled to their respec (nothing is spontaneously generated) and Shouted Love at the Heart of the World in *♦ tive realities. A marvelous experience! there for the moment we shall stand or sit. America is undoubtedly Ellison's best fic Samuel R. Delany's Best Novelette, "Time Hesitant readers who want it all spelled out tion to date, and an extraordinary story, Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Ston for them are meanwhile advised that this book less as SF as literature. es," is either the second best story, or the first (I'm not sure.). It, too, is remark To begin with, it is truly an obscene able for entirely different reasons. It story on essential and superficial levels, was first printed in NEW WORLDS and appear and in the best definition of that term. A ed, very slightly revised, in the USA in "glorification" of violence, murder, and Carr 5 Wollheim's World's Best Science Fic immorality. A sneering, smirking slander tion 1969. of Christian middle-class customs and ethics. A terrifying paean to anarchy, in which con The first time I read it I quickly real cepts of good and evil, right and wrong, ized I Could not make head-or-tail of the civilized and savage are reversed, dictated damn thing, so I shot through it, then start solely by the circumstances of Ellison's ed over a couple of hours later, reading NEBULA AWARD STORIES FIVE edited by James very slowly. I imagine a third reading at futuristic environment. And if you fail to Blish—Doubleday, 59.95 normal speed would improve it still more. grasp this notion on both essential and sup Reviewed by Paul Walker The title refers to the fact that the hero erficial levels, I think you may miss the keeps time according to the changing pass- Perhaps an award is a mirror to its time, extraordinary significance of the piece: word/codeword of the underground/underworld for aside from indicating, often inaccurate first, because the story is not a glorifica (called "The Word") which is always the name ly, "The Best of the Year," it is the best tion of violence or allegory, or satirical of a gemstone. In the beginning, it's Jas evidence available as to what a minority of repudiation of middle-class vs. street cult 51 50 back and remember what they meant, and why, Ursula K. Le Guin's "Nine Lives," a run The most important feature the Dover OUARK/1 edited by Samuel R. Delany and Mari ner-up, first published in PLAYBOY in 1969, to 1969. publications have in their favour is a con lyn Hacker—Paperback Library 66-480, 1970, is on a par with Left Hand of Darkness. If temporary American translation by Edward 51.25, 239pp. you liked one, you must like the other. I Roth. To my admittedly amateur eye and ear, ORBIT 8 edited by Damon Knight, Putnam, 1970, did not like either of them. Roth's version comes across as the best and 55.95, 219pp. truest rendering of Verne, retaining as it In her early works, City of Illusion, Rocan- Reviewed by Richard Delap does much of the familiar French style and non's World, etc., Mrs. Le Guin did every idiom and at the same time conveying it in 1970 may well prove to be the crucial thing a woman writer does so well: a meticu a smooth and literate English. Above all, year in gauging the future of science fict lous attention to detail, want and sensitive prose, and most importantly, an unfettered though, Roth's is a nineteenth century trans ion in short story form. While magazine romanticism that set fire to her adventures. THE SPACE NOVELS OF JULES VERNE, Vol. One: lation, and so maintains the period atmos sales continue to droop, anthologies of new Well, the talent has matured, but in the FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON and ALL phere, a feeling which is inevitably destroy stories are sprouting up as uncontrollably worst possible direction. The meticulous AROUND THE MOON—Dover, 1633, 51.75 ed by modernization. as wild marijuana — and the analogy is not Vol. Two: TO THE SUN? and OFF ON A COMET! entirely exploiting, either, as the best of attention to detail has become an oppres Unlike the Ace series, the Dover texts —Dover, 1634, 51.75 the mind-blowing stories are turning up in sive obsession; the warm and sensitive prose, are also complete; they're nearly twice as Reviewed by Wayne C. Connelly books, not in magazines. The year's con a steel fist; and the unfettered romance is long, in fact, as most modern abridged edit clusion will hold special joys for readers strapped into a straightjacket. Frankly, Jules Verne was born on the 8tb of Feb ions. As a consequence, the humour which who pick up these two books, one a now-stan as much as I admire her enormous talent, and ruary in Nantes, a city in the north west abounds in the original French is left un- it is enormous, I feel suffocated in her dard volume which has produced some of the corner ef France—this may well seem a dimished, although some of it loses in trans stories. "Nine Lives" is a virtuoso bore, best stories of the last several years, the rather obvious piece of information; never lation despite Roth's attempts at reconstruc other a new entry that seeks to make "spec though I'm probably the only fan who thinks tion and even more has become less palatable theless, it's the cardinal point to be made ulative fiction" as far-ranging as it can so. in our (presumably) less jingoistic times. ♦♦ concerning Verne, particularly since it is possibly get. so often acknowledged and then ignored. Verne's frequent and lengthy scientific ex "Through the search for quality, QUARK/ Robert Silverberg's short-story winner, positions similarly remain intact; and in The nineteenth century French writer is "Passengers," from Orbit A, 1968, is a night addition to possessing a considerable cur hopes to add new resonances to those init possibly most familiar to current English- marish vision of a possessed world that does iosity value, they play a key part in the ials /sf7" — so say Delany and Hacker in speaking readers through the "Fitzroy" ed their opening editorial of this paperback more than it intends. It is atypical of background of the stories. The final virtue ition published by Ace Books and edited by quarterly of speculative fiction. TheJoyce- Silverberg's best while not necessarily be of a complete text, however, is its most im I. 0. Evans. There are, of course, many ing his best. Very chilling, very effective. portant. When preserved in its entirety, an-scientific title is an almost perfect things to recommend this series: it's inex the novel escapes either accidental or pur choice to reflect the cross-reference the pensive, it's attractively packaged, it in poseful bowdlerizing—all the markers per editors are striving to obtain, from the cludes a number of Verne's less known stor Larry Niven provides the one real enter sist, for example, of Verne as a Frenchman widest areas of scientific speculation to ies, many of which have never previously living in the same era as Dreyfus. the innermost root secrets of the human psy tainment of the book in "Not Long Before the been available in English translation. Un che. Included are such items as Delany's End," a parable reprinted from F&SF. It is The Dover edition has one further and fortunately, however, all the texts have al essay, "Critical Methods: Speculative Fic a competent blend of fantasy and reality, so been 'standardized', which is to say most striking advantage: its inclusion of verging on SF at the end, thoroughly read tion," in which he puts forward the assump they've been cut up and spliced in the name nearly a hundred of the original illustrat tion that many of the values of current sf able and most interesting. of uniformity of presentation, and then ev ions. In trying to view Jules Verne in his stem chiefly from the groundwork of poetry, ♦♦ proper context—and that, of course, is en further rendered...into more or less mod some verse, some art, and fiction of almost ern English. The Ace versions, as a result, what I've been suggesting the reader of Finally, we have Theodore Sturgeon's every sort. are often little more than caricatures of Verne ought to be doing—it would be hard "The Man Who Learned Loving" from F&SF, which the original Verne novels and stories, skel to over-estimate the influence of the draw My one quibble would be with the pub is sort of disappointing only because I ex etal reproductions, devoid of much of the ings and plates. After all, his was a per lisher's sales approach, which labels the pect miracles from The Master. It is one of sinewy tissue that made Verne a powerfully iod in which the illustrations were thought volume an "original review" (whatever that his "passion pieces," with a weighty, moral imaginative and pioneering writer. of as an indispensable, an integral part of may mean) and uses cover art seemingly more istic ending, but a fine and difficult nar the narrative....Sherlock Holmes, to cite a suited to the audience for which the publish Happily, an alternative—or perhaps more rative technique. classic example, never wore a deerstalker er's concurrent series of "radical" writings, accurately a corrective—exists to the Ace cap, nor did he smoke a curved pipe; at DEFIANCE, is aimed. series, and that's the two volume set pre least, not according to anything Conan Doyle And, oh yes, Alexei Panshin provides a sented by Dover Publications under the title, And for the stories? Well, you've simp ever wrote. brief "Short SF in 1968" to round out things, The Space Novels of Jules Verne. It's an ly got to stretch your mind...as far as it which is well-meaning but uninformative. The especially interesting set for science fic can reach... point is these stories transcend their con tion readers, of course; and even though much text. They are worth having in hardcover more limited in scope, it does provide a re With "The View from This Window" I now for they are worth reading at least twice. dressing of the perspective or outlook on have do doubts that Joanna Russ is a bloom And in another five, ten years you will look Verne presented by the Ace Books series. ing genius. How many writers have tackled 32 GRAPHIC STORY MAGAZINE !

m it\ n nr^ °ne °f the m°st extra- GEORGE METZGER 8 ME° ULfa WHEN WE PUBLISHED his first story, "Master Tyme and Mobius Tripp," in our seventh issue, we believed George Metzger was the most original and gifted science fiction writer to come along in twenty years — in any medium. The stories he has published since then, "Mind Blast," "Kaleidasmith," and "Moondog," and the works-in-progress that near completion, have confirmed our belief. With each new story, he has grown as a writer and as an illus trator and as a graphic storyteller. "Mal-ig" is his newest story, brilliant and unique. If it could be told in words alone, we believe it would receive a Hugo award. It is a story you will never forget.

ADAM LINK, THE WORLD'S FIRST THINKING ROBOT, WAS DYING, ENDING HIS OWN LONELY existence — and then he was recalled mysteriously to life... This graphic story adaptation of Eando Binder's famous novela, drawn by D. Bruce Berry, ARAM LINK’S achieves a depth and power unequaled by any other version. "You are pioneer ing into a new frontier," the author wrote. Published complete in this issue. VENGEANCEby EANDO BINDER & a new science fiction 111 AD U A Pill IIE D. BRUCE BERRY story by BOB FOSTER 111111 mHulllllE "AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN SEVERIN" John Ben GRAPHIC STORY MAGAZINE 14 will con 999 son talks with a leading graphic story and clude our two-issue Basil Wolverton comic book creator, whose career has spanned the years numbers, and feature at least four never-before-pub from EC Comics to Marvel and Cracked. John Severin has lished stories—two comedy yarns (one, the final "Pow illustrated many of the finest western, adventure, fan erhouse Pepper") and two serious graphic stories un tasy, and war stories published in comic books, and like anything Wolverton has done in comic books. worked with some of the most notable artists, writers, There’ll also be an exceptional interview with the and editors in the field. :: "NAME GAMES," by Hames artist by Dick Voll, the conclusion of Henry Steele's Ware, a fascinating study in comic book pseudonyms. :: definitive survey of Wolverton’s stories, and lots LETTERS TO THE EDITOR :: A full-color cover painting by more wild Wolverton art. STILL AVAILABLE: A few copies D. Bruce Berry. :: 64 pages of stories and features. of GSM 12, the first incredible Wolverton issue. Full magazine size, 8^ x 11 inches, photo offset, saddlestitch- Bill Spicer ed binding, four-color covers—and now sixty-four pages. Single copies: $1.25. Regular five-issue subscription: still $5*00. GRAPHIC STORY MAGAZINE 4878 Granada Street now sixty-four pages, full four-color cover Los Angeles, California 90042 (Knight seems as unable to resist him as I The theme of H. B. Hickey's "Gone Are the story of a love affair between a teach am). In "All Pieces of a River Shore" Laf er and a student? Dozens, hundreds, more? the Lupo" is one of the sf staples — Han ferty continues to confirm that man is but But where nest use enormous space to say settles a new planet, conditioning the will a speck in the eye of reality, bandied about very little, Russ wastes no words to carry ing and innocent natives to a life of on his own little world (which, anyway, is ■ore flesh than a bookcase full of popular friendly servitude. Snappy, brightly writ probably not his own at all) and stumbling novels. The story is provocatively embarr ten, entertaining, the story kisses the over clues of an esoteric science that he assing — but beautifully so! — as Russ’ reader's hand all the way without letting understands, or misunderstands, only as myth feminine viewpoint surprises you with frail him know that it is really testing for the or folklore or intuition. This time it is hands that horrendously, monstrously rip soft, tender, juicy parts. the discovery of "paintings" of the Mississ your guts out! I am astounded, I am thrill Gardner R. Dozois' "The Sound of Muzak" ippi shoreline, pictures which together form ed. I applaud the author. (For those who is a Security story set in an underground an incredibly detailed panorama of an unsul will question if the opening, unexplained shelter, with a nice and nasty denouement lied, virgon land. The author's deftness paragraph Bakes it tentatively sf, ay only that makes a whipping-post of the purists. with humorous characterizations once more rebuttal is that the story is too good to Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Trip to the Head" enhances the biting comments on man's af restrict and auch too good to question.) has a false lead in nearly every paragraph, finity for ignorance. In "Interurban Queen" myself a maid...Lives-in-gives-out, as the saying goes"). It's a dessert story, with The corruption which festers beneath an enough to free-associate the rationalist Lafferty (the James Joyce of sf?) again em a cherry on top that speaks its mind. 'innocent' surface has been a hardy base for reader into an asylam (and a cell to share ploys the expert subtlety in language which uncounted melodramas, but it takes a writer with Jean-Paul Sartre) — you make nothing delights the careful reader. No one is so The sf elements in "Starscape with with a keen eye for incongruity and a sharp of it, you make everything of it, you takes adept at showing you a sparkling diamond — Frieze of Dreams" are neatly and inexorably sense of the ridiculous to do it without be your choice. Ed Bryant's "Adrift on the here, an alternate world where the horrors interwoven with a horror story so that Rob coming incongruous and ridiculous. Hilary Freeway" is decidedly light yet manages to of overcrowding and pollution have been a- ert F. Young is not forcing his mediums to Bailey's eye is therefore extra sharp to tum giant invisible birds, hippies, disap borted with the total adoption of trolley gether but lets them melt into a single and take this basic and stand it on its head, pearing people and some good dialogue into transportation and tiny, multitudinous urb surprisingly adept union. The imaginative tum it around and tell us the ass is the an arresting combination. R. A. Lafferty's an areas — then jolting you by tracing the "spacewhales" are intriguing, but no less face in "Dogman of Islington." A family's "The Cliff Climbers," Thomas M. Disch's "Let shadows of its discovery to a bloody, man so than the emasculating society which forc reactions to the sudden power of speech in Us Quickly Hasten to the Gate of Ivory," and gled mess of human error. es one man into a forbidden alliance with their pet dog lets go an unexpectedly funny/ Joan Bemott's "My Father's Guest" are each one of these whales. Kate Wilhelm's "The Encounter" begs for sad spectrum of deceit and treachery, with short and generally good pieces. pages of discussion, as do most of her psy Pip Winn's "Right Off the Map" is an en an honest, hard look at innocence the sur George Stanley, Greg (ory) Benford, chological fact-fantasies, and a sentence joyable "lost world" story, the kind we reptitious revelation. In all departments, Christopher Priest, Sandy Boucher and A. E. condensation can only distort what must be don't hardly see no more; Ted Thomas' "The excellent. Van Vogt also have contributions, all of experienced to be appreciated. Suffice to Weather On the Sun" stars a technical prob Gordon Eklund, one of the most promising which impressed me as the weakest pieces in say, then, that the title is both perfectly lem rather than people but should please of the newer crop of sf writers, envisions a the lot. apt and perfectly misleading. Put on your those who like this sort; Gene Wolfe's "A chaotic future in "Ramona, Come Softly" and QUARK/ is a fine collection on the whole, overcoat when you read this one — it's cold Method Bit in 'B'" is a very tongue-in-cheek pounces readily on the weaknesses that have in more ways than one! however, off to a fine start and seemingly love affair with cinema cliches, and "Sonya, led humans to this insanity. Bearing some Crane Wessleman, and Kittee" is a clever free of restraints. It'll be one to keep Avram Davidson continues to indulge his interesting resemblances to Fellini's film, study of human relationships; Graham Cham- your eye on in the future. penchant for John Collier-like oddities, and LA DOLCE VITA, Eklund seems equally at ease ock's "The Chinese Boxes" breaks its mood "Rite of Spring" is another good one that in exposing guilt, public lust for a scape ****** with a climactic lapse in character but is casually, almost lazily, gives us a glimpse goat, religion — and best of all, Ramona otherwise interestingly written; Liz Huf at an old-fashioned family — a blood-curd- herself escapes becoming a symbol rather The third volume in a single year (Orb lingly old-fashioned family, brrr. ford's "Tablets of Stone" succumbs to rout than a character. She is fascinating, re it 6 being delayed from *69) heralds a real ine tragedy; Carol Carr's "Inside" is a sort flecting much of the evil humor of this By a vivid stretch of the imagination ly banner year for this leader in the orig of existential ghost story; Gardner R. Doz nightmare loaded with double edges. you might term Thom Lee Wharton's "the By inal-story anthologies. With an ability to ois' "Horse of Air" bobs its narrator in a stander" a fantasy, but the fact is that get the best from familiar authors (Kate sea of pretentiously arty descriptions be this story would be equally at home in Orb- fore revealing (ho-hum) it's all in the Wilhelm, Joanna Russ, R.A. Lafferty, Avram it, an intelligent slick, or a general an Davidson) and bring to light new talents mind; and, "The Book" by Robert E. Margroft (Gene Wolfe, James Sallis, Richard Hill), thology of American stories — in fact, any and Andrew J. Offutt is a weak and stilted where holding a prime requisite of story, Damon Knight has managed to head my list of "message" tale that makes use of extra-cons not type of story. It defies classification favorite editors for a number of years. cious motivation in a story much too light by cross-matching melodrama (businessman Orbit 8 again substantiates this choice. to lift the weighty profundity it proposes watched closely by the FBI), satire (the, to carry. Mafia is the ultimate, but not perfect, or R.A. Lafferty, a steady contributor to ganizer), and wholesome family fun ("I got "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty" Orbit, has two stories in one volume again 37 is likely one of Harlan Ellison's most read I even read the last chapter and still can't hardly likely to be a successful anthology. included (one a collaboration with £. Hoff able failures; nevertheless,, it is a fail be sure. There are in fact but two stories in this man Price, which is inferior to the story ure. Anyone who is at all familiar with the volume that, purely on the basis of merit, that inspired it), and they are very differ author's past — as any fan should be since deserved anthologizing. They are Thomas M. ent from the later, more nightmarish, Love Ellison has often enough told of it, even Disch's brilliant and sensitive "Moondust, craft. In my opinion all the stories have exploited it — should immediately recognize the Smell of Hay, and Dialectic Material less in common with Dunsany than they do the autobiographical (but not necessarily ism", and "Intruders", by Edmund Cooper. with Tolkien. They are tales of heroic factual) inspiration for this story of a The remainder of this book's 200-odd pages quest, but not so much for heroic objectiv man who returns to offer guidance to his 7 consists of a pair of introductions (one es, as for sensual ones. Lovecraft's heroes each by Clement and Asimov), an essay on year-old self. The emotion practically are uptight in provincial straightjackets, reaches up off the pages and grasps the the actual Moon flight program relating looking for a realization of their sensuous reader's neck in a stranglehold, all but some of the stories to it, and ten stories needs. And, while he lacked the genius of blocking his vision with no doubt honestly FIRST FLIGHTS TO THE MOON edited by Hal ranging downward from mildly competent by either Dunsany or Tolkien, Lovecraft made felt but litteredly introduced items of Con Clement—Doubleday, $4.95 Asimov (twice), David Grinnell, Vic Phillips, up for it in brilliance. There stories are sumer Nostalgia. And although Ellison seems Reviewed by Ted Pauls Paul W. Fairman, A Bertram Chandler (twice), not to be sped through, but savoured slow Larry Niven, John Brunner (the "green cheese" ly— aloud, if possible. not to be looking for pity or sympathy, he It was inevitable, I suppose, that the gives the reader little else with which to vignette) and Arthur C. Clarke. Apollo program would induce somebody to ed If you read nothing else in the book, respond in this half-hearted story that it and anthology of first-flight—to—the— It wasn't, as I said, a very good idea, read "The Silver Key," which is a frank, in spends too much time striving for reader Moon stories. The idea for this particular but they did it anyway. telligent polemic for the so-called "escap identification and too little with honestly volume was born at a 1968 NESFA meeting, and ist" mentality. dramatic self-realization. is apparently attributable to Clement and The Orbit series continues to reflect Isaac Asimov. It wasn't a very good idea, the many directions of modern science fict but they went ahead and did it anyway. PHANTASIES by George MacDonald—Ballantine ion and fantasy, and as such is indispens Man's first flight to the Moon happens, 01902-4, 95? Reviewed by Paul Walker able to the modern sf reader. for a variety of reasons,to be one of the Phantastes was George MacDonald's first most sterile and unserviceable themes in novel, published in 1858, when he was thirty- science fiction. (An excercise for the four, and it is a remarkable work on many reader: name any first-rate novel on the levels. The prose is crystal clear, unclut subject, other than the "classics" by Verne tered by verbosity or excessive detail. The and Wells.) It was banalized into uncon pace is swift, the incidents fully realized. sciousness during the 1920's and 1930's, The characterizations impressively contemp and with a very few exceptions the more mod orary. It is a work praised by such as W. ern SF writers who have employed the theme H. Auden and C. S. Lewis. Yet I found it A THUNDER OF STARS by Dan Morgan and John have been the technicians rather than the unreadable. Kippax—Ballantine 01922—9, 75C artists of the genre. The success of the THE DREAM-QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH by H. P. Reviewed by Paul Walker Apollo program has made at least one valu The eerie and often beautiful adventur Lovecraft—Ballantine 01923-7, 95t able contribution to science fiction: it es of MacDonald's Anodos in a categorically I believe Dan Morgan and John Kippax Reviewed by Paul Walker has removed that theme from the hands of un-precious Fairyland, which are intended to are British, which may explain my ambiguous the technicians and prevented more such From 1919 to 1929, Lovecraft fell under reproduce the dream state, are allegorical reaction to their A Thunder of Stars. It stories from being written in the future; the Dunsany spell and produced a number of — in the most unfashionable definition of is the old real-life treatment of far-future with the general and specific technical as similar pieces, few of which are known to that word. After four tries, I gave up for space travel, exposing the harshness and pects now unalterably established, future most fans. This period culminated in the the time being. Like his classic, Lilith, shady politics of yet-to-be-a-time. Every stories on this theme damn well have to be short novel (38,000 words) The Dream-Quest this is a special book for a special time of thing is done neatly. The prose is crisp about something really important, like the of Unknown Kadath. Though written in 1929, life. I may be beyond it, or far behind, so and alive, with a few startlingly awful mo people involved. it was not printed during Lovecraft's kite— I am keeping it visible on my shelves. I ments. The characters seem real enough. time but, later, serialized in the short urge you to do the same. The plot built on a firm foundation of pos Clement seems almost apologetic at one lived Arkham Sampler, reprinted in an an sibilities. point about the quality of the SF in this • • volume. "I am aware," he observes in the thology, and finally published in a small Only the plot never materializes. introduction, "that the tales vary in lit edition, which is now out of print. So the THE SORCERER'S SKULL by David Mason—Lancer paperback issue of it marks its first major 74628, 75? Reviewed by Paul Walker I wandered about a hundred pages into erary merit." Indeed. And the reviewer distribution, and, more than an act of poet A Thunder of Stars with no idea what the must remark at this point that an anthology A would-be warlock and a hero-type who ic justice, it is a small monument to an ex story was all about. It seemed to be some in which the selections have been chosen on dreams of dazzling princesses and dark king traordinary American talent. kind of soap-opera involving true-love vs. some basis other than literary merit may doms agree to deliver the skull of the sorc- inhuman bureaucrats, but I can't be sure. have an interesting curiosity, but it is There are five other "Dunsany" pieces jg erer Myrdin Velis to its resting place. 38 They encounter menace along the way and Ar beyond honest diversion as possible. If a in the ideas, vivid characters, descriptive ing. They are in fact human because they mageddon at the end. writer sets out to entertain, that aim will sensations, the language of visualization, inherit their humanity from humans who gave determine how he will write the work. But the sense for beauty, the simplicity, power it to them out of a sense of pride, in the Mason is literate, professional and en if a writer starts out with ideas and subject and grace of the writing. way a father wants his son to be best. Krug tertaining...if lightweight. There is some matter which is intellectually exciting, and treats his right hand android, Thor Watch initial confusion over which of two leads is Let's look at the ideas. The spectrum with characters who must behave as they will man, with pride, just as’if he were a man; the hero but everything works out well. of intelligent entities: womanborn, ectogen (and not as the aim of entertainment might some of his human flunkies receive less at es, androids. All are men, by any reason dictate), then he may come up with a demand tention. able view; all are legitimate, with the ing work which will seem dull and unenter needs and capacities of men. Ethically, the The interesting question suggests it taining to those readers whose responses, artificial children of men are just as nat self — where does humanity begin? An arti emotional and intellectual, have been gear ural as womborn and ectogenes (externally ficial being of say AO IQ is still a tool, ed, perhaps jaded, by the'assaults of suc gestated men), and their revolt is legiti a slave...where does mind begin? When do cessive entertainment oriented works. En mate, their claims to be treated as more we recognize ethical behavior, responsibili tertainment and novelty in sf can become than "things" is correct. They are as much ty, concepts of choice as applicable? Will deadening habits; they demand bigger and TOWER OF GLASS by Robert Silverberg—Char real men as Krug's son, Manuel, who comes to we someday come upon a situation, or beings, bigger doses in order to satisfy. Conse les Scribner's Sons, 1970, ?A7 pp, $5.95 defend them. What Silverberg shows is that and not be able to recognize these qualities? quently, thoughtful, multi-directed works Reviewed by George Zebrowski beings belong in the moral/ethical realm of We have done it in the past, and continue to may float by the eyes of a casual reader consideration by virtue of their conscious do so — in race relations, in large busines and simply fail to register. Moderately This novel is the first offering in ness and ability to choose and act like free ses, in the attitudes of parents to child difficult or complex works are described as Scribner's new line of science fiction, ed beings and not by their origin. If we make ren, and in our personal treatment of those boring, or "it didn't grab me." Even a ited by Norbert Slepyan. As I write, the beings essentially indistinguishable from people that we hold to be beyond the pale. normally perceptive and brilliant critic book seems to be doing well in hardcover, men and make them slaves, we have failed And because Silverberg has written his para like Damon Knight can be seen describing a and Bantam has bought the paperback rights. morally in the same way as we do when we en ble as science fiction, it will not be tied book like Gore Vidal's Messiah as dull on The volume is offered as "a novel," although slave other races, our own children, or al to a particular set of events, and will date an off day because the book was not written science fiction is mentioned in the jacket iens. There is a threshold of humanity very slowly, if at all. with the entertainment orientation in mind, notes. I venture the cautious hope that we which belongs to all living things, however but with conviction. And the book is one will at last have distinguished sf published they originate; once it is passed, it's a Throughout, Silverberg maintains a clar of the best of its decade. in hardcover for what Willis McNelly calls new ballgame. It makes no difference if we ity of expression, elegance of emphasis, the "maximum audience" — readers who under As a matter of fact, Tower of Glass is hold high ideals or not; it is a psycholog and a kind of pace that permits my kind of stand that genuine creative work demands not dull, although I can see how some may ical consequence, and inescapable, that free "up to it" reader to reflect and let impli creative reading; an audience of readers who find it so. As a reader I monitor myself beings will take what they need to be them cations come forward. He paints a marvelous understand that they must read upward, per as I read, in the hope of being more observ selves. Tower of Glass shows us human be "inside the experience" sensation of an mit little of what is explicit, indirect or ant. I seek to open up the content of a ings who inhumanly grasp after godlike pow droids genesis, psychology, education, and assumed in a work to pass them by. "Read work, the part of the iceberg which lies er and goals, and androids who aspire to hu how the world and men look to an android. ers unwilling or unable to provide what the hidden. I found the characters, alternating manity — a goal they are capable of achiev There is something noble and clean about the artists demand remain blissfully unaware of styles, structure, details, and the ideas some genuinely superior work...a quickened which the book is about, fascinating. For ear, a sensitive eye and an awakened imag what Tower of Glass tried to do, the pace ination..." are qualities missing in many was right. The superficial reader will not readers, McNelly laments. Readers operat ice that the ideas are familiar; the percep ing on a high level of intellect and human tive reader will see the depth to which Sil involvement are still rare in science fict verberg has penetrated. ion. Many assume, quite casually, that what they have is enough and leave it to the auth Briefly, the story is about the build or to make them react. Which puts the writ ing of a huge tower on a northern tundra. er in the position of a clown who has to do It will be used by Simeon Krug to contact his stuff in front of a lazy audience. interstellar civilizations. Krug is a pow erful tycoon and the creator of the various I have heard readers, writers even, re classes of androids who work for him. They mark with blase conviction that Tower of are building his tower, while he buys and Glass is dull. I suspect, however, that this sells them for service and ignores all signs has more to do with the "entertainment" or that in creating them he has created a sec ientation of many readers and writers (it ond humanity. Eventually the androids top should be there, I hasten to add) rather ple him and his tower. than with serious concerns of literature, which should contain as many plus values Now what are the depths here? They lie Al discipline and stance of these beings; they history. Lane's daughter, now 16, is a mem and words of muffled happiness can only go are better versions of us, reminding me of ber of such an outfit. on so long between the most joyous of cou ples. ... Lane seemed slightly bored, and Asimov's Susan Calvin saying in a philosoph Lane, who prides himself on his logic accepted the woman's kisses with distinctly ical moment, "They're a cleaner, better and clear-thinking, immediately assumes the less enthusiasm. ..." breed than we are." outfits to be gangs of juvenile delinquents The tower itself: a beautiful human ar (having made no attempt to find out anything On page 89, when Sennes (the space-wolf) tifact, built to express the immortality about them, and in contemptuous disregard of is taking Susan for a ride in his spacecraft, cravings of a man, and mankind; which makes the unsought advice of all his colleagues van Vogt has him think, "sennes could almost and friends) and vows to destroy this puer the tower a possible symbol of human achieve visualize the engineer glancing at another ment in all its past record. In fact, the ile threat to adult dominance. expert, and saying, 'Jupiter level.' He ev en fantasied the presence below of an ignor tower is made to communicate the human, In the meantime, to rescue his daughter ant VIP who in his innocence asked 'Jupiter earthbound experience to the stars, to be from what he's sure is a disgusting den of level? What does that mean?' And of course ings who might exchange their knowledge and sexual promiscuity, he attempts to get her the engineer would lazily reply, ...", as a experience with us. Krug deeply feels the romantically interested in a dashing young device to tell the reader in detail how the need to make something lasting out of his Space Control captain, whom he selects sole life, and he is believable in his ambition space-drive works. (And this technical lec ly for his clean-cut appearance. As a mat ture is supposedly the thought-train of a and in his incredulity when his will is ter of face, the captain (young, but too old young man who is, we are assured, intent up challenged. He even builds a ship to carry to have participated in the stabilizing emo on Ruining the innocent young girl with him.) him to the stars once contact is made with tional training of the newly-formed outfits) another race; the ship is his "morning bark" is a space-wolf who immediately tries to se The gem of the book is on pages 83—84 — the ship the Pharaohs hoped to use to duce his Commander's daughter. and is, unfortunately, too long to quote travel in across the heavens after their here, but it's some of the most hysterical death. Krug believes in the reality of his Susan's outfit regretfully decides that CHILDREN OF TOMORROW by A. E. van Vogt—Ace ly purple writing I've ever encountered in journey in suspended animation to the stars. her father is a psychic menace to the com 10410, 1970, 254p., 95e science-fiction. An interesting point about Krug which rein munity and orders all the other adults Reviewed by Fred Patten forces his view toward his androids is that (throughout, presumably, the world) to send Dianetics isn't ever mentioned by name, he believes that aliens will be manlike, and This isn't a novel as much as an adver him into Coventry, which is promptly done. and it's probably a good thing, because I he is appalled when he learns that they may tising booklet for Dianetics. don't think that plot logic and writing like Also meanwhile, the octopoidal alien be totally alien. When the tower is destroy this is going to win many converts to it. Commander John Lane of the Space Control spy — who is a teenage alien spy — decid ed, he makes for his ship and dies/departs, returns home with his fleet after ten years es that, hey, these outfits are groovy totally dominated by hope and illusion. He on a galactic exploratory mission, during things, and when his father (a leader of the is a god who gave birth to a new branch of which he made passing contact with a mili aliens, naturally) finally orders him to re humanity on earth, and departs, thus repud tarily superior hostile ET race. turn with the information that will allow iating his son/sons. them to destroy the Earthlings, he declines His report causes a tightly-suppressed The interwoven present tense narration, on the grounds that he kinda doesn't think military panic, and the Space Control begins which lends a splendid immediacy to the mot his patrol leader would dig it. arming for a possible attack. ion of events, finds its final justification Sadder but wiser, Commander Lane final in the ending, which is totally immediate Unknown to the Terrans, the ETs have ly agrees that the outfits are performing a followed Lane back to Earth and introduce a WATERS OF DEATH by Irving A. Greenfield— and moving, as Krug ascends into legend and valuable social service for humanity after spy disguised as a human teenager into the Lancer 74655, 75V all the central figures take on the stature all. of myth beings. community around Spaceport, to learn the Reviewed by Earl Evers Terrans' weaknesses before attacking. Are you still there? Wait, it gets The book is perhaps too short and might Technically, this is a mediocre book — worse. I haven't told you about the writ Meanwhile, Lane — a single-minded ca the writing and plotting are reasonably have benefited from a longer middle. I sus ing yet. On page 7, to introduce one of reer officer — dimly gathers that the so smooth and readable — but in over-all ef pect, however, that a careful reading will Lane's best friends, van Vogt has Lane ad cial structure of his city has changed dur fect, it's one of the worst SF novels I've show that it is at its proper length, and dress him as, "My dear Mr. Desmond Reid, my ing the time he was gone. Teenagers are no ever read. (The copyright date is 1967, and that too quick a reading destroys its nat old friend, my adviser, my supporter at key ural pace, and produces that feeling of longer raised by their parents (though they I think Lancer just released it — they must moments, ..." pressure which the entertainment, thrill still live with them), but belong to small have bought it in some incredible blunder seeking reading so often resents in a genu social outfits rather like co-ed Scout troops Lane's first meeting with his wife aft and tucked the ms away somewhere hoping it ine work of art. I may be wrong on this in which they raise each other, holding op er their ten-year separation is described, would quietly evaporate or something. Now, minor point, and the book should be slight en meetings after high school classes in "Inside the house there continued to occur I imagine, they're publishing it in the hop ly longer. But I don't think so. More like which they all gather to frankly discuss a number of the things that a husband and es it won't be a total loss, and I hope ly it is its deceptive simplicity, clean each other’s adolescent problems, in order wife do and say when they have not seen each they're wrong. I hope it loses them enough lines and clarity which make it seem too to mature cleanly and clearly into the first other for nearly ten years. But kissing money that they'll hesitate before publish- short. The book deserves a second reading. really well-balanced adult generation in 42 ace ing a piece of shit like this again.) Great Judge, fighting to restore Terra aft Science fiction er WWTII, finds himself in the body of a Waters is set in an over-populated world man condemned to die. Can he survive to run by a 1984—type government that electron track down who or what did this to him? ically conditions people how to think. The March New Releases hero is a marine biologist trying to find The plot becomes a futuristic gothic. out why crop failures are occurring in the The Mind Cage was published by Tower undersea farms which feed most of the popu Books in 1952, and has now been reprinted by lation, and he's also the conditioned pawn Belmont, with one of the homeliest covers of one of the ruling "Council of five" who ever. is planning a coup. The coup succeeds, but • • the undersea crop failures turn out to be the result of long-term water pollution, and BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES by Michael hance cannot be avoided. Society then col Avallone—Bantam 75« lapses, most of the population is doomed to Reviewed by Paul Walker starvation, and at the end, the hero is kill ed and eaten by a mob. This is Michael Avallone's novelization of a screenplay by Paul Dehn from the story Pretty depressing, sure, but it could be by Mr. Dehn and Abrahams, based on charact the plot outline of a novel as good as 198A. ers created by Pierre Boulle in his novel Only it isn't. The characterization is com Planet of the Apes, as depicted in 206 Cen pletely wooden throughout — you just don't tury Fox, who has produced this sequel from care what happens to the characters, because the script, based on the story by Paul Dehn all they do is think and talk cliches, and and Mort Abrahams, from which Michael Aval- ---MARCH RELEASES--- nowhere in the entire book does anyone real lone created... where was I? ___ 31800 HAVE SPACE ly try to solve the mess the world's in. The SUIT--WILL TRAVEL by government people at the top are not only Well, anyway, to Avallone's credit he Robert A. Heinlein 95c tyrannical, they're incredibly stupid, and realized the limitations of the plot and ____67 555 POSTMARKED everyone else is either ignorant of what's gave it the bland treatment it deserved, THE STARS by Andre Norton 75c going on or hopelessly brainwashed. So which, if it does not improve the silliness, there's no real conflict. at least saves him from the responsibility. ___ 22830 FAREWELL, EARTH'S BLISS by D. Thumbs down. • • G. Compton 75c ___ 89237 THE WIND • • KELWIN by Neal Barrett, Jr.—Lancer 75133, WHALES OF ISHMAEL by THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH by Walter Trevis 95< Reviewed by Earl Evers Philip Jose Farmer 75c ____25950 FURTHEST by Lancer 74650, 75? This is a sword-and-science swashbuckler Suzette Haden Elgin 7 5< Reviewed by Paul Walker set in a post-catastrophe North America di ____11182 CLOCKWORK'S This is a reprint of a 1963 SF novel by vided into warring feudal states. I found PIRATES / GHOST the author of The Hustler. His reputation it mildly interesting, but I'd never pay 95< BREAKER by Ron Goulart would have been better served if it had not for it. been published at all. It is the story of I suspect it's a first novel — the sty a slightly—alien alien and his misfortunes le is a bit amateurish and the transitions --FEBRUARY RELEASES-- among us savages. Buried in the turgid prose between scenes are so clumsy I kept getting ____05500 BETWEEN is a fine book with believable characters lost. The plot is a series of implausible and a suspenseful plot, but everything is PLANETS by Robert A. intrigues and last-minute rescues, and the Heinlein 95c overwritten to the point of exasperation. characters are so sketchily drawn it's hard 18630 THE ECLIPSE • • to tell who's betraying whom and why. And OF DAWN by Gordon there are a number of inconsistencies and Eklund 75c THE MIND CAGE by A. E. Van Vogt—Belmont scientific errors—for example, you just ____06615 THE BLACK 875/1093, 75» MOUNTAINS by Fred can't drive a hot-air balloon against the Reviewed by Paul Walker Saberhagen 60c wind by firing "tubes of gunpowder." This ____05595 BEYOND A.E. Van Vogt has one thing in his fav was actually tried in the 19th century and CAPELLA by John or — he is a born mystery writer. it didn't work then, so it isn't going to Rackham work in 2906 AD either. THE ELECTRIC SWORD- The Mind Cage is a whodunit in the guise SWALLOWERS by Kenneth of an SF novel. A young General of the t Bulmer 75c April New Releases “Meanwhile,

back at the newsstand...”

Those mysterious annual prozine circula reports, the actual year covered may have tion figures are once again all available, ended last summer. A glance at these figur and here they are: es will show why prozine editors and pub lishers are nervous people. 1970 You can also see why ANALOG looks so PRINTED PAID much better and pays so much better. While ANALOG 169,720 110,330 ANALOG distributes many more copies than the other magazines, it also sells two out of ---APRIL RELEASES--- F & SF 102,657 50,301 GALAXY 101,628 46,091 every three copies that go on the stands. ___81125 TIME FOR THE STARS by Robert A. Heinlein 95c IF 109,001 35,230 Yes, the other publishers would more than ___47800 THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS by Ursula K. LeGuin 95c AMAZING 83,766 29,189 double their profits if the distributors ___30261 THE GREEN BRAIN by Frank Herbert 60c FANTASTIC 83,895 28,768 would take (and actually display) twice as ___44485 KING KOBOLD by Christopher Stasheff 75c many copies, provided the sales percentage These are the average figures claimed did not drop. But if only one out of three ___71082 RECOIL by Claude Nunes / LALLIA by E.C. Tubbs 75c by the publishers for the reporting period copies sells, the enterprise is still marg ending October, 1970, and since distributors inal. I wouldn't want to put my money into WHEN ORDERING LESS THAN 25 COPIES ASSORTED, THE CUSTOMER such a grim situation. MUST ENCLOSE 15c PER COPY FOR HANDLING. take several months to deliver final sales Doc Lowndes' prediction in SFR #42, that the science fiction magazines will be dead ACE BOOKS, BOX SF, 1120 AVE. OF THE AMERICAS, N.Y., N.Y. 10036 by 1980, was terrifying, at least to me as a column an unreconstructed prozine freak. Unfortun NAME______ately, I can't offer anything but personal STREET______CIT Y S TATE ZIP David B. Williams $Enclosed optimism to counter his dreadful forecast. In the last month I have been assaulted why the Faceless Man will not act, rather crime. The story as presented is a "what We can only thrust out our lower lips and twice by that dubious habit that writers than his identity—and this is proved by would you do?" story. Instead of stating remember that the sf. magazines were supposed have of producing "template" stories—short the fact that he turns out to be nobody the solution to a moral dilemma, the reader to die fifteen years ago with the rest of works that are destined to fit together lat special—Vance's failure to give the read is forced to search himself for the answer. the pulps. But, somehow, they are still er on to produce a single long work. The er an explanation is unacceptable. I recom I don't believe that this type of conclus here. theory is that each of the segments stands mend that you not read this "novel" until ion is really justified, however. If we as a complete story in itself, with a com the second (and, if you're smart, the third) The newsstands are just too damned crowd are to supply the conclusion, we might as mon character or background or overall prob ed. The great days of the special-interest book is at hand. well supply the story too. What are writ lem tying them together. The practice does ers for? magazines are upon us, and shelves burgeon The second specimen this month is "Wolf not always confirm the theory. with movie, cycle and sex mags. Our partic Quest" by Ted White in the April FANTASTIC. A second criticism I have with "Wolf ular problem, however, is often the general For example, Jack Vance is at it again This is the first hunk of a novel that will Quest" is: this story is not science fic— circulation digest magazines that take-up in the February and March FiSF, creating be published by Lancer as the third book in tion/fantasy. While the background may rack space—READER'S DIGEST, PAGEANT, CORO panoramic worlds and filling them with the Qanar series. White has, happily, avoid place the series in an alternate world/di- NET. I have watched a good outlet for the strange and interesting characters and e- ed the technical problem that Vance stumpled mension, the content of this story does not prozines dry up before my eyes in the last vents. I haven't (blush) read much of Vance, over by using different protagonists and prob justify its appearance in a science fiction few months. I used to be able to buy every so I greeted this serialization with some lems, but a common background, for his ser magazine. The only unusual feature is the one of the six regular titles at the tobacco anticipation—F&SF doesn't usually bother ies. strange attachment that the wolf has for counter at the Chicago-Sheraton. Now the with serials unless they're something spec "Wolf Quest" is a journey story. Ac the hero, and since no explanation is offer little man that comes around every Monday ial. I should have been forewarned by the companied by a strangely friendly wolf, the ed, this doesn't justify the sf label. The and Wednesday leaves 50 copies of each of editor's note that accompanied the second wolf may have been raised by a boy of simi the above general interest digests and, if installment: Mr. Vance has finished a sec hero travels and meets adventure. The crux of the narrative (and it's just that—dia lar age and bearing, thus attracting the the nice lady who looks out for my interests ond and is currently working on a third nov animal's companionship. With this or some can corner him, three copies each of ANALOG el set on Durdane. Things were just build log is limited when only one man and a dumb animal are on stage) involves the crossing equally plausible explanation, nothing that and ESSE. Because the shelf is already full, ing to what should have been the most excit happens in the story would be out of place% these get wedged in with only the spines ing part of the story when I turned the page of a vast desert. The story comes to an among any primitive people right now, or in showing. No one is going to notice them un and discovered that I had reached the end. abrupt halt just as the two companions are pretechnological times if you prefer. This less he already knows that they are there— within sight of salvation but unable to con The problem that led Vance to abuse his is a story of character development, without something the overnight hotel guest doesnot. tinue. Should the hero kill the faithful reader's good nature is one of plotting. wolf to gain the nourishment and fluids he benefit of any scientific or fantastic ele The paperbacks are also killing us. Book The novel begins with the protagonist's must have to survive, or should he kill him ment from which all else follows. stores without any magazine displays are set youth, and the problems he faces in reach self, thus providing the wolf with salva The reader of this segment can only won ting up larger and larger displays of genre ing maturity and beinging aid to his ex tion? Only one can make it, and only at the der if such an element appears in the next paperbacks. I think that regular but uncom ploited mother form the spine of this story. expense of the other. The question is not two-thirds of the novel. As a noveltet in mitted sf readers are going directly to this The larger problem of the society of Shant answered. FANTASTIC, this story should have made way source and passing up newsstands altogether. and the Faceless Man ties this story to the for another □□□□□□□□ My greatest fear is that the current paper one that will follow. Unfortunately, Vance At first I felt cheated. After some back boom will overexpand itself and then has his hero resolve the first set of dif thought, I still feel cheated, but I can crash, as the prozine industry has done more ficulties at the midpoint of the book, and see a certain justification for the author's than once. Then, with both the prozinesand then takes up the Faceless Man in earnest. the pb's shriveled as markets, the writers Who is the Faceless Man and why doesn't he will be in for hard times and we readers are act to protect Shant from the murderous in going to share them. roads of the savage Roguskhoi? With the entire second half of the story devoted to One indication of the pb's domination of 7 this theme, the reader is justified in as the market now is the fact that with hardly di suming that it will be resolved. "F Z/J any exception, every novel serialized in the prozines in the past year has been destined Vance carefully prepares a mysterious •"Wf - for paperback release. And this same phen stranger to tempt the reader into guessing J Do^T nws. omenon is applying more and more to shorter that he is the Faceless Man. He is not, of works. The Ace Special collection of Brun course, but when the Faceless Man is reveal BEW ner's "Traveler in Black" novelets actually ed, he is no one who has appeared before in hit the stands a week ahead of the last nov the story, a complete blank, a zero as far ... elet's appearance in the April FANTASTIC. as story value is concerned. And here, with ♦♦♦ the real Faceless Man within the protagon ist's power, the story ends. Since the bas ic problem of the last half of the book is 49 The whole point of the book is that it tangle with a bull-like alien race over is pointless, without meaning, absurd, and rights to a rogue planet, prevent a disaster- senseless. ous interstellar war, and manage to come out of it far, far richer. Then 1 Read.... Young writers love to write nihilistic, cynical novels like this; they have discov But this is not one of Foul's better ef ered that the rules we must all live by are forts; it has run-of-the-mill flavor and a necessary lies, and they resentfully wish kind of juvenile narrative. Some of the by to rub everyone's face in this Truth. If play reminded me of Captain Future and his the author is very talented and skillful he companions: Gragg the robot, Otho the an can do this entertainingly. But too often droid, and Simon the encapsulated, floating he does it insultingly and badly, as is the brain (with eyes on stalks, remember?). case with Christopher Priest and Indoctrin Satan's World appeared in 1968 in ANA aire. LOG, was a Doubleday book at 59.95, and is ☆ now in a Lancer pb edition (Lancer 79698, 75*). Ron Goulart continues to spin formula cott on candy with satirical flavoring in his latest Doubleday book, Gadget Man ($9.95, The Great Brain Robbery by James B. Fish 1971, 161 p.). er is a slow-starting routine story of an un Utilizing the same incredible, fractur aware, psychically powerful student conned ed, dis—United States of the future that he into taking sides in a battle between other explored so well in After Things Fell Apart, dimensional alien worlds. The story picks he forgot to be funny and satirical until up the pace, though, and generates some un almost a third of the book was gone, then pretentious, olt-time pulp excitement. Hap came up with, for example, a party being py ending, of course. (Belmont 2072, 75*) By The Editor held in support of a liberal teaching mach ine being opposed by conservatives. A quote is in order: FREEZING DOWN by Anders Bodelson; translat In my review last issue of Stanislaw Indoctrinaire is either an Absurdist Hans raised a mechanical fist. "May ed from the Danish by Joan Tate—Doubleday, Lem's Solaris, I commented that the trans novel or it is the worst novel ever pub be I march on der Junta capital, right $5.95, 1971, 179 pages. lation from the French to English had per lished by a major publishing house. in Sam Yorty Square, mit a few hundred haps distorted the style somewhat. This narrow-focus novel dramatically The reader is asked to believe that one servomechanisms und androids. Dose and convincingly proves that old saying: I have a postcard from Mr. Lem in which man from 210 years in the future can con an Junta guys vould tink tvice if dey see THERE AIN’T NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH. he clears up a point—the novel was trans agent of a top-level U.S. intelligence org me strutting down Spring Street mit lated from Polish to French and from French anization into a questionable field operat- two hundred angry refrigerators march It starts in 1975 with Bruno, age 52, to English. He thinks the translation from tion all the while subject to fits of insane ing behind me. Yah?" discovering he has cancer. He accedes to Dr. Ackermann's wishes and allows the hos Polish to French was a bad one, and the one behavior...without a security clearance. Hans is the teaching machine. from French to English fairly good. That there will be no language differ pital to "freeze him down" until a cure for ences in English after 210 years and a cata The book is fun, amusing, but essential his cancer is found. He is one of the pi In any case what we read in the Walker clysmic Third World War which makes a radio ly empty. A potboiler that barely earns its oneer subjects/recipients of this service. edition is Lem twice removed. That the novel active hell of America and wipes out England. reading time. survived as well as it did is a tribute to Twenty-two years later in 1995 he is That the war is started by an invasion its basic substance and power. brought up/thawed and is cured...but there of Florida in 1975 by almost the entire ansy are physical-psychological side-effects, of...Cuba. (Never explained.) A Poul Anderson's Satan's World, for me, and the society he had "left" has changed That elementary time paradoxes are never began slowly and picked up in interest and dramatically—to one centered on medicine Do not waste your time and/or money on considered by scientists vitally concerned excitement as the book progressed, as David and on two classes of people: those who can Indoctrinaire by Christopher Priest (Harper with them...until too late, of course. Falkayne, Nicholas van Rjin and their alien afford it and are willing to work forever i Row, S5-95, 1970, 227 p.). That a mind-altering gas used during the type companions: Adzel, of centauroid build; are given multiple transplants and/or freez 1975 war could remain unchanged, undifused, It is a science fiction novel of the Ab and Chee Lan, an entrancing bushy-tailed, ing down to prolong their lives indefinite in the air for 210 years. surd in which the plot is idiotic, the char white angora furred biped....as I say, as ly...and the others in "now-life" who are acters irrational beyond the explanation in It would take pages to detail the incon these get into deeper and deeper trouble in given a short life of no-work and luxury, the plot, and the action almost totally sistencies and unrealities of "fact" and pursuit of enormous profit and as a result if that is their choice, in exchange for pointless. behavior in this book. I refuse. of trying to save each other's skins. They their body-parts. 51 Before he was frozen down, Bruno had en, callous—not very warmhearted; and the P.O. BOX 311® fallen in love with Jenny, a ballet dancer; writing is sloppy in that American slang, he learns she had crippled her back and was new and out-of-date, is used inappropriate frozen down, awaiting the tine when a com ly sometimes by Corwin, sometimes by his pletely new spine can be implanted. Bruno brother Princes who have a much wider exis demands and finally gets frozen down again tence and experience than the United States until Jenny is brought up and they can be —they are originally from Amber, the real together. world (our Earth is a "shadow world", an alternate Earth, one among hundreds or thou But when they are thawed... Well, it sands). doesn't work out, for a variety of valid reasons which are inevitable and sad...in Corwin has been banished, defeated, from the year 2022. The society around them is Amber by a brother in a power struggle after in chaos. The hospital center is under at the death of their father, the King. Corwin, tack. after amnesia and healing, resumes his strug Finally, Bruno is frozen down to a semi- gle to regain Amber and take the crown. At comotose state, his body unable to take a the end of this first novel-length segment he has been defeated again but has escaped third full freezing. And that's the end... with his mind running a terrifying boyhood a dungeon in Amber and will resume the fight ...later. memory in an ever-shortening "film-loop". Zelazny's skill is shown in the structure The novel is gripping, personal, and in~ of this first book—the way he slowly un volvino. Don't pass up an opportunity to folds the background and shows the reader read it. ☆ that our Earth is only a satellite to the true Earth, the center of reality, Amber. Sometimes, when I wish a different op The story starts in the mundane and gradual pinion on a writer to present to SFR's read ly expands into the reality of pure fantasy. ership, I read a book sent for review (be Perhaps Zelazny deliberately used phrases cause I like the writer's work and can't re like "You bet your sweet ass," "I dunno," ROBERT A. W. LOWNDES The term "hack", like writers who would offer to write on any side of sist) and then send the book to someone whom "Keep the faith," "Eric can cream you..." 717 Willow Av. the term "amateur" has any question. In some instances, an author I think will give a fresh slant and new in etc. to speak in the vulgate, to make it Hoboken, NJ 07030 such a broad variety of would be hired by a publisher to write on both sights. easy for the reader to accept the fantasy meanings that you should or several sides, under different pseudonyms. I did this with Roger Zelazny's Double by linking it with common slang. take care to look into them and make sure you Now this was positively hack work. But the hack day book, Nine Princes in Amber (SA.50, 188 Or perhaps he wrote the book in a hurry. pinpoint exactly which one or ones you mean, if writer was not necessarily a poor writer; most pages, 197071 It's still a good book; it could have your intent is criticism; you say that this or probably he was a very skillful one, who turned that is a hack work, or so and so is generally out well-constructed and convincing arguments The reviewer, for various reasons, been a bit better; and it is still an incom or always a hack writer, and show why. If your for each position he assumed. Needless to say, couldn't get to the actual writing of the plete saga novel. intent is abuse, and nothing more, you toss out such persons were not highly regarded, as the review, and returned the book. ☆ the word "hack" alone and trust that most of the author had to wear some masks he obviously did Ah, but tucked into the book were his The Star Treasure by Keith Laumer is readers won't think about the variety of possi n't like or approve of. notes. So I am hereby reviewing with a two- pulpish space-opera, full of cliche scenes, ble meanings but assume the worst. (Interest We also call the poor, inept, sloppy writer edged viewpoint. dialogue and formula. The book becomes lu ingly enough, while "amateur" can be compliment who manges to link up with a publisher who cares dicrous as Lt. Ban Tarleton faces imminent ary at times, "hack" never is, unless carefully There are three deficiencies or flaws or nothing for literary quality, but has a formula death time-after-time and is always saved, qualified. Mozart and Beethoven, for example, whatever in the book which make it another which will sell the products to an undiscriminat of course, to eventually become a psi-power- each did a fair amount of hack work, but niether good bad Zelazny novel. When I read it ing audience, a hack. Also a generally good ful superman, leader/master of all mankind were hack composers. The most famous example, first I gobbled it up uncritically, carried writer, who, out of hunger, dashes off first ...in the last two chapters. (Putnam, $(.95, Perhaps, is Beethoven's WELLINGTON'S VICTORY, along by the Zelazny magic which is a blend 1971, 188 pages.) which he did strictly for ready cash. However, drafts and sells them, is doing hack work at the of skillful, swift-paced narrative, an in he was fascinated by the whole thing and wrote moment. Then there is the writer of some, but triguing fantasy world and a cast of super it with such gusto, and obvious pleasure in what not much talent, who has at least a minimum am men. He was doing, that the so-called "Battle Sympho- ount of interest and perhaps belief in the worth of what he is writing—the sort who ground out The flaws: the book is a segment of a ny" is still fun to listen to, when you're in larger whole (Jack of Shadows is another the mood.) millions of words for the oldtime pulps, most of section); the central character, Corwin, them readable, but none much above competence. Back in the early day of the Republic, you Yes, this fellow was a hack—but he was doing one of the Princes of Amber, is tough, driv can find ads in the papers (I've been told) from the best he could. There really ought to be a 53 when the chill came.) And as for Ice Ages, there curiously snail-like trail wherever they go. slightly less pejorative word for him. have been A or 5 in the past million years with o The situation is similar in the drug sub JOHN BOARDMAN That cover on the last out an industrial revolution being responsible, All of which comes from reading Piers Anth culture: one would imagine them to be a pack of 23A E. igtb St. SFR was very much to the so there is no guarantee that we won't be having ony's column in #A2, for me the best thing in free-thinking bohemians. Not so: the great ma Brooklyn, NY 11226 point. Ecofreaks seem to more. Which cycle is going to dominate in the the issue, and the best thing I have read by jority of them make drugs A Way Of Life... their be divided into two clas next few years, to the extent of minor changes Piers thus far, for all that I enjoyed Hassan motive is escape from a reality they cannot cope ses, the Melters and the Freezers. The Melters in air and ocean temperatures, is anybody's and Orn. with, rather than to increase their ability to believe that industry is producing an increased guess. But, no matter how it comes out, half Second best, but very high, for me was Board enjoy this one. And thus they become very much CO? content in the atmosphere, which will by the the ecology movement is going to claim that its man's article on the Viagens series; however, involved with the paraphenalia, the ritual ob greenhouse effect raise the temperature until predictions have been triumphantly vindicated. what delighted me most about this issue was the jects, the slang, etc. of the drug world; they the ice caps are melted and the coastal cities magnificently appropriate drawing T. Kirk did talk about 101 ways to roll a joint the same way are flooded. The Freezers believe that increas o for the letters department. I suppose (sigh) SCREW talks about 101 Ways To Fuck... with ferv ed air pollution is blocking off heat from the CHARLOTTE BOYNTON Both Mme. LeGuin it is futile to urge you to make this permanent. or and at length. They are boring, and they sun, which will cause a drop in temperature and 19 Meadow Av. and Richard Speer seem are (within the limits of their subculture) in ((Utterly.)) a new Ice Age. Wakefield, R.I. 02879 to have misunderstood evitably ultr-conservative. Their orthodoxy There's much more worth comment on in this But the. really prize specimens are those who a rather important as stems from the precarious position they have put pect of the previous wrangle over "women writ issue, Marion Zimmer Bradley's letter, Silver- can believe that both disasters will take place themselves in: having built their very own al ers." The phrase "So-and-so writes like a wo berg's outline, the debate on I Will Fear No at the same time. Dr. Jack Newfield, the educa ternative to life they must always be careful man” when used in literary criticism has the Evil, etc., but I'll have to let it go for the tion columnist for the New York COLUMN, has ex not to let the already flimsy structure change same negative connotation as "woman driver", time being. It may pop up in some apparently pressed precisely that fear in that weekly. (3 in any way, for fear that they could not deal "just like a woman", etc. In rejecting the anti odd—or actually odd—places in future edit April 1970) This is an example of the "simultan with the new situation. I have seen charter female standard, I likewise reject the masculine orials or book comments in my magazines, though. eous contradictory catastrophe" in which the members of the drug Scene cry out in horror at ecology movement seems to delight. Another is corollary that "writing like a man" is Good. the sight of a joint not rolled according to Cus ((In a subsequent letter dated Feb. 17tb, the assertion - which you will also find in the The LeGuin letter dealt admirably with the con tom, much as a priest might recoil at the sight RAWL wrote:)) literature of these latter-day Luddites - that cept of manly style; whereas Speer managed to of communion bread administered unblessed. Es overlook the core issue expounded by Paul Walk All of my magazines have been shut down. we are at the same time breeding ourselves into capism breeds insecurity breeds a neurotic brand er and attacked by me, i.e. the idea that a wri I've been told that the April 1971 issue of overcrowding and polluting our environment so of extreme conservatism; in the drug subculture, ter who happens to be a woman thereby suffers MAGAZINE OF HORROR had already been completed that we will become extinct. in science fiction fandom, in any situation you from a congenital writing defect. care to name. before the shutdown, so it will appear, like Well, this is basically the old "Stop Sci wise the April issue of EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN, ence!" movement with some modern furbishings. o The situation has nothing to do with fandom which was paired with MOH. Fifty years ago it was "Stop science and preserve (that is, with the idea of fandom); it has every JUSTIN ST. JOHN Having fully recover- ((SFR readers will be happy to know that the Pure Faith" and now it is "Stop science and 2760 Crescent Dr. ed from paroxysms of de thing to do with the kind of people who get in preserve the Pure Water", but the basics of the volved and their reasons for involving them Mr. Lowndes' long comment on Don Wollheim's new Yorktown, NY 10598 monic laughter resulting movement are the same. People feel uncomfort selves. To paraphrase (and also take complete book, The Universe Makers, which had been in from reading Norman Spin able with the speed at which modern life chang ly out of context) Isaac Asimov's comment on tended for BIZARRE FANTASY TALES, will appear rad's "FIAWOL" in SFR #A1, I suppose all that es, and with the admittedly unwise uses to which science: Fandom is not a Good Thing or a Bad in SFR AA. His comments on Blish's More Issues remains is for me to Say Something. At Hand in this issue of SFR were also intended scientific discoveries are being put - not, let Thing... it is a Thing. for a subsequent issue of BFT.)) it be stressed, by scientists. So they decide What else can I say, but BRAVO!!! The vicious cycle that has preserved that that at some point, 2 or 3 or 60 centuries in Someone has finally told science fiction Old Time Fannish Religion (escape literature the past, life was free, clean, and pure, and ROBERT A. W. LOWNDES I agree about the fandom where it is at: someone has actually tak breeds escapist fans breeds escape literature) they start a Movement to return us to utopias Ultimate situation — it en the time to inform the Space Cadets that sf has been broken at its source; the writers, for that exist mainly in their own imaginations. does not look as if AMAZING and FANTASTIC will is a form of serious literature, that many (al the past few years, have refused to copy down Meanwhile, you may note, none of them will aban last much longer, but I'll continue to hope, as though, unfortunately, too few) of its writers the same old technocratic formula drivel, and don such conveniences of modern technology as I did with my own magazines last year, when it consider themselves serious artists, and that are now doing more for the field than all the penicillin, the Salk vaccine, electric lights, looked as if the end had come right then. Well it's about time we all stopped fucking around. papier mache spaceships and their cardboard op telephones, or printing presses. ... we did get out one more issue of all of them, I was one of those who heard about fandom before erators have dene since Hugo Gernsback decided and two of EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN and MAGAZINE OF And theclaim by one of the Melters, Roger experiencing it; to say that my expectations did to make a few bucks with AMAZING... that is, HORROR. (Interesting coincidence: both died at Lovin of the LA FREE PRESS, that a rise in the not measure up to the reality would definitely they are beginning to realize that sf is actual the end of volumes, Number Ten for EXTU and Num atmospheric temperature of 2 degrees "could tot be an understatement. The kind of people one ly a potentially worthwhile literature, and that ber Six for MOH. The 6's come in to EXTU, too, ally destroy most of the life on this planet would imagine to be involved in sf, a field deal they are actually capable of earning that desig as it first appeared in I960, and, despite the (11 Sept. 1970) is pure nonsense. Both the Melt ing with the strange, the outre, the unconven nation. And so fandom is beginning to change, actual number to be seen on the final issue — ers and the Freezers are going to find things tional, would (logically enough) be somewhat as Norman Spinrad has observed. Head fandom is 61 — had exactly 60 issues. #59 was never pub to support their positions. For the past 500 strange, outre, and unconventional themselves. an Omen. So is SFR, truely an exceptionally lished. And STARTLING MYSTERY STORIES had ex years the oceans have been getting warmer, and One would be Dead Wrong, and one would realize literate (would you believe 'strange, outre, and actly 18 issues, also ending at the close of a we may be at the peak of the cycle now. (The it, perhaps, after attending just one convention unconventional') publication by any standard. volume. A numerologist could have fun with Greenland settlements of the Vikings were found and meeting a number of individuals who, in the Fandom doesn't have to be Downtown Burbank; 3 those statistics, I doubt not.) ed at the last such peak, and got frozen out immortal words of Anne McCaffrey, leave a wet, good portion of it isn't now, and it's Only A 5A 55 Matter Of Time.... on the state of the publishing field. phrases or their use, but I did start the bit of the Dead, and so far I've read all but the last using initialese on them). To me, FIJAGH and title. I must say that by and large I am im Thank you, Norman Spinrad. I can agree with Spinrad that the fans have FIAWOL were always just the facets of fan- a very disproportionate control over the liter two pressed with the quality of the work. This is not to say that I enjoyed reading all of the ((Well... Justin, thanks for the kind words ature they seemingly adore, but I think that the jo,—the one being the relaxed, easy-going at titude and the other the fuggheaded, sercon-on- above or thought they were great books or any re SFR, but I doubt that this magazine is sig opinion within fandom is so diverse over what nificant of anything but my own neurosis (I have constitutes "good" science-fiction, (or even ly viewpoint. I also disagree that science fic thing like that—but I was left feeling the im tion can't be a group experience. It doesn't pact of most of them, maybe you can even say all this all-consuming lust for mail, mail, more what is science-fiction), that any supporting mail!). I note that your premise (and Spinrad's) view can be found. Spinrad makes fandom sound have to be, any more than rock music does, but of them. fans do go to conventions and fan parties a is still that fans somehow control science fic like a closed "Mafia" of the well read middle For sheer enjoyment I'd have to nominate the whole lot... tion. That is bullshit. The marketplace con class, forming into a secret society to control Panshin Rite of Passage. Heinlein seems to be trols sf; it's what sells that determines the the publishing houses, rather than the semi-an- sort of a dirty word about fandom recently, but archistic miasma that fandom truely is. One character of sf and its trends. There are more GREGG CALKINS I guess I don't know the this novel is the equal or better of many of factor Spinrad didn't even seem to consider is readers of sf pocketbooks, and that readership 509 Plato Court story behind the "FIAWOL" ar- Heinlein's "youth in a spaceship" novels of an that much of modem fandom doesn't even read is not single-minded—it has a liking for a Bakersfield, CA tide. Surely Spinrad was earlier age. I suppose the next enjoyable was much science-fiction anymore, they are fans be variety of types of sf and fantasy, including 93309 writing this for a mundane Silverberg's put-on, Up the Line—I got quite the 'literate' kind. Societal and cultural cause they like the other people involved. audience or perhaps the N3F a kick out of it, at any rate. The Left Hand of forces beyond anyone's control have created a welcommittee, but even so he gets a little more Darkness was probably the best novel of the bunch larger sf readership, some of whom like sf as I don't think the article portrayed fandom fuggheaded at times than his audience require in terms of story and characters, well deserv in its true colors, as a fun group to be in, ev Literature. Fine. But it wasn't the writers ments would seem to indicate. I confess to be ing of the Hugo if I may assume most of the books who brought this about. Ye Gods!)) en at its worst pedantic, and this I think is ing sort of out of it where recent fandom is I've listed to have been among the competition. truely unfortunate as the article went into an concerned, too, but FIOAGDH buttons? For FIJAGH? The worst book of the bunch was Macroscope, al o "overground" men's magazine, KNIGHT, in its first As I recall it—checking back to the cover of my though at the beginning I thought it the most incarnation. Maybe next time fandom will get JERRY JACKS I just, rather late, FAPAzine for the February 1963 mailing, which promising. I don't know what happened, but ev accurate coverage, but *sigh*, I doubt it. 195 Alhambra St. got ahold of a copy of SFR you possibly don't have right at your fingertips entually the book wore me down and finally knock San Francisco, CA Al, not my very own person- —the actual phrase is "Fandom is just a Goddamn ed me out. Finally, curiously, two books I did 9412? al copy, the one I keep se o hobby" with Goddamn being one word, which comes not really enjoy while reading are the two that questered beneath the con RICHARD ELLINGTON I've been thinking of out FIJAGH. Maybe it's been corrupted in re have had the greatest impact—I find myself fine of my pillow (along with the Serbo-Zambian 6448 Irwin Court doing a small edition of cent years through ignorance. Fandom is! just thinking about time on and off, many weeks after pillow book), but one brought to my apartment Oakland, CA 94609 an old Jack London story a Goddamned hobby, of course, and that's the reading them, and I see constant references to in the hands of a ministering neo, somewhat dis essay ("Goliah") just for whole point. You don't surrender your trufan what Brunner was talking about in the daily guised as a George Senda. This issue did con the fun of it. It's a sort of utopian specula beanie, as Spinrad suggests, (it's trufan, not press—The Jagged Orbit and Stand on Zanzibar. tain, amidst the varying states of treasureable tion thing, of only minor interest to s-f people truefan, by the way) by recognizing the truth. They are what the tv commercial would call'mind prose, an article by Norman Spinrad which he has stickers.' —though s-f, it's primarily just another facet You can spend as much time and effort and idol entitled FIAWOL. Said article hit me right of his utopian thought stuff. Know any artist atry on your hobby as you wish—on any hobby— about HERE, (HERE being where my incipient ulcer o who might like to do a cover for such a thing? but when you start thinking it is a way of life pangs its various juices into the small of my Can only offer a good litho job and return of is the point at which you start losing touch Editor's Note: LOCUS recently published a short large intenstine). the original. with reality. If uncomfortable things happen ened version of a Fred Patten review of A. E. The Spinrad article was about 80% accurate, to those who subscribe to FIAWOL in spite of van Vogt's Children of Tomorrow. The review orig ((Rather than suggest anyone, I'll let the that was perhaps the major galling factor that our constant reminders that FIJAGH, all we can inally appeared in Fred's Apa-L zine (circulat artist volunteer if he has the time and the in say is that they brought it upon themselves. ion approx. 80). I have an arrangement with engorged my soul with upsetedness. Spinrad clination.)) seems to feel that the First Fandom crew, the Fred—I often reprint his reviews and do not Incidentally, I wanted to tell you last time "Establishment", still are running the fan scene, As to books on environmental pollution and feel a conflict exists if LOCUS uses one or two that you and SFR have been responsible for me that the same phenomenons he described within solutions to the problem, I can only offer as a paragraph abridgements of them. reading a good deal more sf recently than I have his article are going on. This is not true and possible interlineation: A. E. van Vogt wrote a letter to LOCUS in in years past...reading more and enjoying it to see this one must simply look at who is doing reaction to that shortened review. LOCUS de Help stamp out paper waste—stop publishing e- "'ore, to be precise. I have to thank you for what in Fandom. clined to print the letter, instead summarizing cology books. your generally excellent reviewing staff (I have it. Who, for example, are the people running the one or two disfavorites but I can always use Actually, about one of them in ten is well worth I offered Mr. van Vogt the opportunity conventions, not neofans it is true, but not them for their consistency in seeing things just the effort and the rest are about 90% trash— to have the letter published, and sent him a First Fandom either. How long has it been since the opposite way I do, so I buy the books they but I guess that's to be expected from bandwagon copy of the full review which I had scheduled a First, or even a Second Fandom type person knock) for reviving my interest in sf. jumping. for this issue (see "Book Reviews"). He sent chaired a major convention. The people he seems Largely as a result of your reviews I have a copy of the letter and added a postscript. to be most inveighing against seem to be those It's kind of amusing to see how Spinrad sees Lot the Fire Fall, Up the Line, The Year fandom and I suppose it will annoy a lot of peo fans who have gone on to control the publishing Quiet Sun, Rite of Passage, The Left Hand industry, not the fans who "control" (as if any ple. Oh well. It's also mildly annoying to see A. E. VAN VOGT Dear LOCUS: A friend ■2—Darkness, The Jagged Orbit, The Palace of E- one could control) fandom. Spin rad, in doing the different nuances now being placed on FIAWOL 2850 Belden Dr. read to me over the phone ((Fandom Is A Way Of Life)) and FIJAGH ((Fandom The Heaven Makers, Stand on Zanzibar, Hollywood, CA 90028 Fred Patten's review of his article on fandom, really, at least to my -jflhtwalk, Macroscope, Nightwings, and Isle of reading of the article, was doing a soliloquy Is Just A Goddamn Hobby)) (I didn't coin the my novel, Children of To- Borrow. It seemed a very literate write-up, and As far as I know only one writer "sneaks" a j. 0. ARTHURS I'm hoping you'll VIC GHIOALIA Many thanks for the an excellent summary of the story—but there system into his stories: Philip Wylie is the gl5 N. 52nd St., #169 print this letter. (80 Riverdale Av. copy of SFR #90 with the are a couple points in it that I should like to author, and Jungian theory is the system. Phoenix, Arizona 85008 Not for my sake, but Yonkers, NY 10705 "review" of Little Monst clarify. It would appear to me that a tremendous num perhaps for the sake ers. May I quote our mu First, the location of the story is a space ber of people do not even know the superficial of the rights of authors. tual friend James Blish: "Simply saying that a port and not the whole country. I mention this differences between the various therapeutic sys given book is bad may serve the secondary func I'm going to tell you an idea for a science in re Patten's feeling that the idea of teen tems. I know most of them fairly well. tion of warning the public away from it. But fiction story. This is it: agers raising themselves lacked credibility for if you do not go on to say in what way it is And as a professional writer, I have always him. In an era where the kids already have the The story starts out with an old woman work bad, your verdict is not destructive or any oth named what I was using from their work. And I bit in their teeth, it doesn't seem incredible ing in her garden, and talking to a friend. The er kind of criticism; it is just abuse." always shall. to me that in a small area (like a spaceport aliens have landed, you see, in a spaceship one I hope Paul Walker is aware of this rule of where the fathers are away for years) the kids hundred miles tall, and a number of them are a good reviewer. Little Monsters goes into its would essentially raise themselves. In the old walking around in the background of this story, P.S. Thanks to Dick Geis, I have now read Pat second printing in April, having enjoyed an un days of sailing ships, they did it whether they several miles tall themselves. The aliens are ten's entire review. I see now that the rela precedented sales success, according to the pub liked it or not. In a scientific age, people somewhat immaterial, and when they step on build tive mildness of the original summary, is due lisher. tend to organize around the facts of a predica ings and such, the buildings go right through to the editor of LOCUS. The full review is an ment, and themselves create the training system. them. This also means that the Armed Forces Horror Hunters due in May will be sent you extremely hostile work. It is evident that Pat can't do anything to the aliens except annoy for review consideration. I'm not sour on Walk Second, Patten didn't like the style in ten was glad to be able to find flaws in the them with their planes and bombs and things. er's "review," only I'm curious about his reac which the novel was written. That saddened me, book. He chose as his point of attack some of tion to the book not made clear in his writing. because it was an experiment in visual writing. the most skilful writing in the story; so there's The old woman is telling her friend all Children is literally written like a total nothing more I can say for him, and to him, ex these things, and saying, "They haven't hurt us, screenplay—a screenplay 73,000 words long, in cept for heaven's sake, man, this kind of antag why should we try to hurt them?" In the back o which the reader gains his entire view of what onism should keep you away from my new books; it ground, the aliens are now carrying giant metal DARRELL SCHWEITZER I am puzzled by the is going on from the camera point of view and isn't good for a person to get that disturbed tanks from which clouds of vapor spew. The friend 115 Deepdale Rd. "James Colvin" letter in from the dialogue. It was a colossal effort on over a fairy tale. I would suspect that Patten asks, "By the way, what is that you are spray Strafford, PA 19087 your letter column in SFR my part, and I was thinking of doing it again has a head of steam up over dianetics that is ing on your plants? Weed killer?" "No," the 92. Two reasons. If if it went over. I think I'll wait for other out of all proportion to normal behavior. Per old lady replies, "It's insecticide." Fadeout. James Colvin is a real person he is dead. There reactions before deciding—since I notice that haps, when he discovers that he was mistaken I remember reading this story some years was an obituary for him in the Jan. '70 NEW Patten didn't realize what I was trying to do. about there being any dianetics in my stories back. You might have read it yourself. But now WORLDS. If he is not a real person I'm beginn —any of them—he will be able to calm down. ing to wonder how he wrote the letter. If he Third, I have recently realized that people we get to the nitty-gritty of this letter: this is a real person and is dead, I'm beginning to believe that I have woven dianetics into my re For his benefit, and for the benefit of oth same story was handed in for a final exam in an cent (since 1950) stories, and Patten accuses er potential apoplectically hostile (to dianet English class at Arizona State University last wonder how he did it. Ghost writer? me of this again. The statement (criticism) is ics) fans and writers in sf, I am glad to be semester. If you don't know the word, Geis, Actually, you know as well as I do he's a totally untrue. There is not a line of dianet able to report that I surfaced out of dianetics it's PLAGIARISM, the foulest deed a student, pseudo for Moorcock. But I would be interested ics in any story that I have ever written. If about a year ago. So far as I am concerned, it especially an English student, can commit. to know who posed for that picture in the NW I ever write a dianetic novel, it will be named is now a completed study, for me, it was a win But I want more than just my word against obit. —just as I named General Semantics in the dow into people—more than a thousand of them this guy. I want proof, conclusive proof, Geis. I find certain inaccuracies in various parts Null—A stories, eye-training in The Chronicler, in twenty years. Just as I examined General I want to know when and where the original story of SFR: Timestop was first published in STARTL and the Pavlovian fatigue idea in my non-sf nov Semantics, and hypnotism, and eye training, and appeared, who wrote it and what its title was. ING, June '55, not as a Galaxy Beacon job. The el, The Violent Man, etc. In The Universe Mak- at least a dozen other subjects for the neces (If it's any help, the title of the fake was G—B, A Woman A Day, was a sexed-up reprint with er I did a tiny parallel on Hubbard's "Whole sary time, so I have now done the same with peo "Similar Triangles.") And, if you wish, you about two pages of extraneous sex scenes added. Track" idea from Scientology—in one seguence, ple. I am still a member of the International can help. A notice in SFR, and Fandom Assembl The original title was Moth and Rust, and togeth I had a radioactive lake that could think, com Society for General Semantics, and will remain ed can become a hundreds strong research team. er with a brilliant but forgotten novelette by municate with a rock. Those particular concepts a member of the two dianetic organizations I be Hell, one of your readers might have written the long to—but you can't be a student forever, Fox Holden, it made for perhaps the best single are not Hubbard's but were suggested by what he original story! did say. Incidentally, it was over Scientology not even of human beings. issue of STARTLING STORIES' distinguished hist that Hubbard and I came to a parting of the ways Vindictive sounding? Hell, yes, and I'll ory. One more thought: I would deduce that the in the long ago of 1952, and have never quite tell you why. 2 also wrote a science fiction fans are way off the main line of sf, in attack Prelude to Space was first published by Gal made it back together again. My work with dia story for my final exam, of my own creation, and ing me. My books are selling better than ever. axy Novels, Feb. '51, not 1997 as somebody not netics was experimental from 1955 on. 1 simply do not want my work associated even so In France, a re-issue of The World of Null—A has ed somewhere. indirectly with something raped from a legiti Just to show you how different people react sold the largest number of copies of any science mate writer. The next move is up to you, SFR ((T'was me. I used info provided by the to the same story: a writer friend told me that fiction since WWII. The Weapon Shops of Isher and its readers. Lancer press release.)) a fan he knew (whom he did not name) was offend is a world-wide good seller. ed by CHILDREN because in it—he felt—I had I was interested in Silverberg's speech out tried to sneak Mao Tse-tung's Red Guard philos o line in #92...and a couple comments come to mind: ophy into America. Again, utterly untrue. In No one objects to literacy in SF. What the "Old Wave" people have been bitching about is fact—let me say it even stronger—fantastic. 59 the insistence by too many "Revolutionary" writ being corrupted by the influence of Mike Moor if anyone denies this let them dissect the works work he has ever done, bar none. That kindness ers that SF conform to the anti-heroic convent cock (no names of course, except Moorcock, the of Moorcock, Delany and the rest and show us why (see previous paragraph) was everywhere abund ions of the mainstream. (By the way, Dick, you devil incarnate.) Again we are expected to ral they're so bad. Conversely, no one but a fanatic ant and presented a side of him we have too rare asked me to produce an article expounding on the ly to the flag for the good old thing, away from or an egomaniac is going to deny the value of ly seen. Behind the book is a man, and that man "new wave formula" idea. It will appear in the the influence of (Spinrad again) the "drug fiends, Heinlein, Simak, et.al., or even such pure ad is always more important, by a thousandfold, Ate issue of Jay Zaremba's THE ESSENCE, as the sex perverts, etc." venture opuses as the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser than his book. Piers has shown this well. Those first installment of a column.) tales. So why all the fuss? The day White fans who opt for cuteness at a writer or other Well, hell, just who are these guys anyway? We've had a problem of propaganda in SF as writes an Ice Schooner, or the day Spinrad can fan's expense should read it twice. I mean if fans are falling under the influence long as we've had SF. As I doubt anyone but Sam match Childhood's End they may enter a league of a bunch of old hacks determined to subvert Moskowitz recalls, there was a story in WONDER where their opinions can be respected for an the field for their own gain, I think we ought STORIES in 1929 by Irvin Lester and Fletcher honest feeling or scholarly concern. But with JIM MARTIN Somewhere out in fan- to know just exactly who these people are. Po Pratt called "The Reign of the Ray" that was such poor examples of writing and dissertation 611 Sunset Road dom there may be a person liteness aside! This can't be had! Name names, shortly thereafter accused of being fascist as "FIAWOL" and this issue's "The Trenchant Ann Arbor, Mich. who knows the name of the Norman! Let the purge for a good clean (?) sf propaganda by irate readers. It seems it was Bludgeon", both look like inferiors and, yes, 48103 music used in the old FLASH begin! And certainly if we are surrounded by anti-labor or somesuch and got preachy about it. hacks, chewing the bit in jealousy of their bet GORDON serials. If so, and sex perverts, drug fiends and that sort, if Also, you'll notice that during VN2 the average ters. if he is a SFR reader (who isn't?), I would cer these are the proponents of the new wave, we prozine had about two or three propagantistic tainly appreciate hearing from him. I have been ought to know exactly who these demons are, too! ((Your own rheteric is a bit extreme, Dan, stories per issue. (And in AMAZING you were but you make a few valid points.)) trying to discover the answer to that question Just who to hell is this writer who dares list lucky if you could find 2 or 3 per issue that for the last ten to twelve years, and all I have en to Moorcock, anyway? Out with him! weren't pure propaganda.) The result of course o learned is that one of the several themes used is that every last one of these stories is com Who are these guys, anyway? is taken from Liszt's "Les Preludes." pletely and deservedly forgotten today. There W.G. BLISS Piers wonders where Ray Frankly, I don't know. Since del Rey's con I would also like to take this opportunity fore we shouldn't worry about propaganda in SF 422 Wilmot Palmer gafiated to. He is vention speech years ago I've been looking for to register a public protest with Pyramid Books. because in a couple years it'll be obsolete and Chillicothe, Ill. still at Box AD, Amherst, these people, and I've never quite found out who I think they owe me 75®. When in an airport re forgotten. Also I think anything which strains 61523 Wisconsin 54406. He pub they are. What hacks, Mr. Spinrad? Is Heinlein cently I bought a copy of Voices From the Sky by to be "timely", such as Bug Jack Barron will be lishes FORUM, SEARCH, FLY one of your hacks? Asimov? Bradbury? L. Spra Arthur C. Clarke. When I got on the plane and come obsolete very, very quickly and drop out ING SAUCERS, and SPACE WORLD. Shaver sells rocks gue de Camp, perhaps? Surely these are our opened the book I discovered that it was not sci of sight. at Summit, Arkansas, 72677. "Literary Lions." I do not ask this in scorn; ence fiction but a collection of essays. I o if Spinrad believes this and can make a sound o should have checked, you say? Perhaps so, but case for it, I for one am willing to listen. the blurb on the cover says: "A Saga of Vaulting CY CHAUVIN I thought you might be DEAN KOONTZ On #42: I see But I am not willing to listen to these clowns Imagination and Dazzling Prophesy." Essays are 17829 Peters interested in knowing that 4181—E King George Dr. Marion Zimmer Bradley who use inuendo and inference to back a case simply not sagas. This matter wouldn't be so Roseville, Mich. "J. ('James') B. Colvin" is Harrisburg, PA 17109 referring to Ted they couldn't make if they dealt with specifics. irritating if the misdirection didn't appear de- 48066 one of Michael Moorcock's White’s slur against This does not limit itself to the new wave, liberate. Is Pyramid really ignorant of the pseudonyms—Charles Platt me as if it were proven fact. Ted is not only either. Mr. White takes the same slander line, fact that essays aren't sagas...or were they published an "obituary" for Colvin in NEW WORLDS a creative writer, but a creative interpreter of again not naming specifics. If White thinks looking for a fast buck from those who buy in a 197. And from what Moorcock says, I suspect reality. Through the recent Koontz-White ex Delany, Zelazny, Moorcock and Redd can't write, hurry? that "J. Anthony Pierce" is really James Blish. change, I discovered that he either purposefully why won't he say so? If he won't say so, why misreports the activities of others or does so ((More likely it was a lack of communication won't he shut up? If White thinks Moorcock's o out of a natural incomprehension of human motiv between the editor and the copywriter.)) influence on the unnamed writer is bad, why es and intents. As a result, I wish neither to doesn't he name the writer and show us how this DANIEL DICKINSON I'm always amused, and carry a letter battle with him, in the manner of o proves true in that writer's most recent wprk? 53 Main Mill #26 usually mystified as well, Harrison and Farmer, nor to humor him in the L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP Thanks for SFR 42. Plattsburgh, NY by discussions of the new Why not? Because he can't. manner of so many others. Such activities are 278 Hothorpe Lane Boardman's flattering 12901 wave as opposed to the old. a drain on my professional time and on my time Witness "FIAWOL" and Ted The clowns who generally engage in this type For correspondence with fans I enjoy. This Villanova, PA 19085 article on my Krishna White's "The Trenchant Bludgeon" in #41. of thing don't name names because they haven't short paragraph, then, so that my silence to- stories will be filed really got anything to say, besides the ever with care, as it will be very useful if ever I Mr. Spinrad asks us to "consider the hack wards White will not be accepted as a lack of present need to boost their own egos. (And so write any more of them, which is not impossible. any reasonable reply. writers of science fiction, men banging out sf I won't fall into the trap I've named, I mean I had forgotten some of my own gimmicks. Re P. for a buck." He goes on to explain to us the del Rey, White, Ellison, Merril, Ackerman, and Richard Delap: You didn't read my original Anthony & "hack": I once heard John Dickson Carr pro conspiracy for egoboo, granted at the con Campbell.) Such people are so wrapped up in comments re your Zelazny review carefully enough. describe himself as a "competent hack"; so if sent of adoring, illiterate fans. These "no Even so, you still ignore the main point of my their own fears of inadequacy, or caught up in he can call himself one, why should I resent be bodies" "discovered they were Literary Lions at what they feel is a nameless threat to replace comments: "Why must reviewers be so vengeful and ing called one? (So long as the modifier "com Science Fiction Conventions...They discovered a them, that they cannot see the noses in front ktter towards an author when it is only a book petent" is included.) ^ey are regarding?" What we need, everywhere, whole microcosm...in which they were not lowly of their faces. It is obvious to anyone not so My inquiries about letters to & from HPL & hacks..." close to the field that there is room in science ls a bit more kindness toward each other. REH have turned up several such letters. I won Similarly, Mr. White, proponent of the old fiction for all and more besides! The new wave Anthony's column was the best piece of fan- der if any of your readers attended the sale of. wave, tells us the very sad story of a writer has made some valuable contributions to sf, and 61 60 watch the action. I proposed to show exact 40 novels sold. So he came in second. Another the Dunkelberger collection in Fargo, ND, in ers are correspondingly more liberal than I. ly how it worked in a fashion even Harry stated that he was a full time pro writer who 1968? This nay have included some such letters. Sigh. Warner could appreciate—and I have done had little respect for fandom and would not ac If anybody was there, I should appreciate his And the letter column. Marion Zimmer Brad that now, as his column demonstrates. I cept the award if proffered. So he made the bal getting in touch with me. ley has a fine reading letter, and as with many suggested he was a hypocrite, then said: "So lot and came in third. The one or two actual o fine-reading generalities much of it isn't true. if you react to that hypocrite bit, Harry, fans came in at the bottom. You can test this by searching out specifics. you understand what I mean. That hits you If this doesn't sicken you, you must be part PIERS ANTHONY SER #42—I always used to Name one single writer who has complained in SF directly, fairly or unfairly (and both fair of the sickness. Harry Warner is the only tech Florida admire Robert A. W. Lowndes' ed WA about not winning the Nebula, for example; and unfair attacks hurt) and you have to nical fan to win recently. How would he have itorial comments, and I still name five who have even praised their own work respond in some fashion..." done against one of those pros? do, on the diainishing occasions I get to see in fannish print. It will surprise me if MZB Aw, come on, admit it, Harry, now that them. He strikes me as that contradiction in can do either. Some writers, like me, comment ((Piers, you are confusing "fan" with "ama you have been through that mill yourself. teras, an editor with humanity. As I type this, frankly on such matters both in SFWA and in fan teur." Maybe the Best Fan Writer Award should Don't you understand why I react to such I have just learned that his own spate of maga dom; but as I remember I am the only one to com go to a writer who appears in fanzines who does things as Delap's unfair review of Macro zines have been folded; though I haven't seen plain about the SFWA in relation to his own work not make his living writing professionally. In scope? Don't you understand how even a any of the horror productions, I regret to see —and that was not about winning or losing, that event even Harry Warner would fail the test respected fan could embarrass himself by an Lowndes out of business again. Say—when/if but about having the Nebula rules changed with since he is a newspaper reporter/editor. ardent defense against accusations of Hugo- Campbell retires.... no, it'd never work out! out warning to adversely affect my eligibility mongering, when in fact no such attacks had ((The award went last year to Bob Tucker as Anyway, if he says the magazines nay be out of for the ballot. Of course I do stake my book been made? The water feels just a bit hot business by 1980, I*m sure as hell not going to so-and-so against anything written this year, a tribute to his decades of fan writings in the ter when you're in it, eh? gamble my writing future-on the assumption that and I can name a book to stake for each year— past, not because he is a professional writer of mysteries and occasional sf. I came in sec they'll last. but such readiness to compete on a quality bas And now let me say that I think the ond, not because I have had a great many sex nov is, win or lose (and I have lost each year so rest of Harry's column is perfectly credit Lowndes also comments on the type of SF he els published (and how many of the voters had far) is not quite the same as masturbation. In able. I believe people should stand up and fell in love with, back in the 20's and 50's, fact, I think if more writers felt as I do, the ever read any of them?) but because my dialog and how to the upcoming readers/writers this speak out when they see wrong being perpet editorials and reviews were appreciated. You field would improve. MZB, have you never writ uated. I only hope that Harry is not able seems obsolete, and that makes sense too. I re came in third because of your writings in BEA ten a book you really believed in? If so, you to fill three more articles with the wrongs member a discussion by Ray Palmer, maybe twenty BOHEMA and SFR and other places in fandom. You are pretty sad, and I think I would read, sight he has seen in fandom over the years that years ago,pointing out that to each reader the must give the voters credit for being intelli unseen, a Spinrad or an Ellison or a Koontz or he has not remarked upon. real golden age of SF was when he, personally, a Brunner book in preference to one of yours, gent enough to make those distinctions. first started reading it. I've never seen a Oh yes. The matter of the Hugo. I don't because I care about those who care, whatever ((The fact of it is that a large number of more accurate summation of that situation. Thus believe I have commented before on the best their respective talents. sf professionals and "outside" professional writ for me the golden age was the late 40's and ear fan-writer Hugo, Harry to the contrary not ers are also sf fans. And a large number of sf ly 50's, with the peak about at ASTOUNDING 1949- SFR #41—hmm. No comment. withstanding, because that isn't really my fans are pro writers to one degree or another, 51, GALAXY 52-55, and scattered others. So if baliwick. But since the issue has come up, SFR #40—Ah, here's something I can get my as the membership list of SFWA will show. you ask me what was the finest SF ever publish and I do see wrong being done, I'll do it teeth into. Harry Warner opens his article thus ed, my choices would center in those years, while now. I feel that this particular award has ((The distinction at the moment is where-the ly: "Piers Anthony has been writing fighting the material before then seems overplotted and been subject to the most flagrant abuse in -material appears—fanzine or prozine/book. And, words about me. He claims in several fanzines underwritten, and vice versa for the stuff since recent years (I don't know about earlier that I'm such aPollyannaish writer that I never of course, that type of material is vastly differ then. years; I wasn't there) and is way, way over make anyone angry and therefore I won a Hugo." ent. I wonder if any given pro sf writer's tal due for correction. Typically, pros, not ((And do you tend to imitate that "golden Very well. I'll discourage this nonsense by re ent suits him automatically to be a good fan fans, win it, and that is wrong because pros writer?)) age" in your fiction?)) questing documentation—I've found that tech have their own awards. I mean, what fan can nique surprisingly effective. Harry, please But the world (and fandom) is full of people Gernsback was fine for thinly disguised pseu beat a pro at writing, when it really comes identify by name and issue those "several fan do-science lectures, and the current new wave is down to it? Vhtn a pro competes, he is who scream outrage without making any positive zines" where I called you "Pollyannaish" and fine for mainstream fantasy without plot content really garnering votes as much for his pro suggestions. OK, here's mine: make any person where I claim you won a Hugo thereby. I think —and you know I'm feeling more and more at home work as for his fan work, while legitimate who is eligible for active SFWA membership in you will discover that you owe me an apology for with the misplaced dreamers like Lowndes, know fans are passed over. Did you ever see a eligible for the fan-writer ballot. Revoke the misrepresentation. ing that my present prejudices are unfair but "ore deserving true fan than, say Seth John award status of any winner caught cheating on still being turned off by much of the present And to clarify this matter for other inter son? that requirement. Notice that I said "active" offerings of the field. The essence of my dream ested parties (if any): what Harry is thinking SFWA membership; that means that if someone hon But let's consider a specific ballot: the is a bit newer fashioned than his, so that I lik of is my response to his remarks in BE A BOHEMA estly retires from prodom, as Harry did, so that last one. Correct me if my memory errs; I don't ed both Left Hand of Darkness and Bug Jack Bar some issues back, in which he viewed with con he hasn't had fiction published professionally have a list handy. But it seems to me that one ron... and nominated both for the Nebula (while cern the trend toward bigger arguments by pro for the required period, his eligibility for candidate had stated in print that he had earned naturally hoping to beat both out for honors fessionals in fanzines. My answer, in essence fannish recognition is reinstated. I'm sure »17,000 from a single novel and was still going with my own major novel that I guess Lowndes (you read the complete text in BEABOHEMA #8 if Harry didn't win on his pro achievements; who strong—so he won the fan award! Another was didn't see); but this must be the consequence you really go for these things) was that anyone remembers them? Maybe Panshin didn't, as he acknowledged to be the top pro writer in his of experiencing the golden age twenty years lat reacts to seeming attacks on his person or his was just getting started. As far as actual fan leld, with—how many is it—something like er. No doubt the late 60's and early 70's read psyche, while others crowd around avidly to writing goes, Ted White certainly earned his 62 65 NOW for the short quotes (fair and unfair), sum award—but again, are you going to let the pros would be made if they wanted to reach the news The reasons the strip failed: "shocking" nak compete on that easier fan level, squeezing out stands. That it was this distributor who did marized letters and editorial license. ed cartoon breasts (with prominent nipples!!), Vaughn's "crude" dialog, and most of all the deserving fans from the only award that is sup n't know what the word "coven" means and was PETER DARLING pointed up the fact that many sf extreme reduction in size to fit the GALAXY page; posed to be for them? Hell, do you think sure it was unsaleable. (This in the era of fans read very little sf; they're in it for so too much detail and impact was- lost. couldn't have taken that award any time in the ROSEMARY'S BABY and DARK SHADOWS.) cial reasons. He also noted that while fandom past five years that lacked sufficient pro com I've heard that Forry Ackerman was using the may provide the sf field with many editors and STEVEN MUHLBERGER grotched that nobody has ment petition—had I chosen to cater to fandom as work of a particular cover artist for FAMOUS MON writers, it is the great, invisible buying pub ioned Philip K. Dick's A. Lincoln, Simalacrum for Ted did, rather than disparaging it the way I STERS for a number of issues sone years ago be lic that decides which sf sells and which dies. a Hugo so far. do? cause the artist was a young relative of the JIM MARTIN sent a four page single-spaced let JEFF SMITH spoke: "Speaking of Zelazny, it seems ((Ted didn't ’cater’ to fandoa. He is a fan distributor. Forry's comment was to the effect ter which showed up Dick's Ubik as so full of worthwhile to pass on what Roger told me about and a pro. More fan than pro, I sometimes of, nit's fortunate that he's really a rather loose ends as to resemble a bowl of spaghetti. Jack of Shadows at Baiticon. The FXSF version good artist for the magazine, because we don't think.)) I still like spaghetti, especially by Phil Dick. will be missing several thousand words, as their have any choice if we don't want it to rot in policy is to run no more than 25,000 words per I made the ballot on the strength of my BUCK COULSON wrote: "The trouble with retiring the warehouse.11 issue of any single item. There will be slight pieces lambasting fandom, and of course I was after a third unprecedented Hugo is that the differences between the Walker and Signet edit n't kidding about not accepting the award. Talk It's much easier to find copies of Sol Co next editor along will want a fourth unprece ions—an extra paragraph in the Signet, and about sickness—yours, not mine! hen's Ultimate reprint zines in the L.A. area— dented Hugo before he retires, and so on." the two last pages will say the same thing in ((Purist! Chauvinist Professional Pig Writ stacks and stacks of them—than to find copies Well, if a fan has the skill, talent and slightly different ways. Minor. Both book ver er! Fascist! UP AGAINST THE WALL!)) of either the current AMAZING or the current energy to put out the best regularly appearing sions will be Official, the magazine definitely FANTASTIC. I'd like to think that this is be fanzine for four or five years running...he de- Not." cause of rapid sales of the latter rather than serves four Hugos. a greater quantity of the former, but it doesn't I (Geis) sent on a letter of complaint about FRED PATTEN, Apt. 1 Some comments REDD BOGGS wrote: "I'm pulling for SFR to win look good. slow service to Ace recently, regarding mail 11863 West Jefferson Blvd. on the power of another Hugo, by the way — I have the strange orders. John Waxman, Director of Marketing Culver City, CA 90230 distributors. I There was a period of two or three months notion that the award ought to be based on a- replied: "The delay incurred by one of the re have a beautiful, back in early '69 when fans living in L.A. had chievement, and I don't give a damn if you win spondents was unfortunate. It occurred when unpublished George Barr painting framed upon my to have other fans living in the suburbs 20 or it for the next 16 years, as long as you put we were moving our warehouse. Orders are now wall. It was originally commissioned as the 30 miles out (Glendale, Covina, etc.) buy their out the best fanzine going (at least best reg processed within 98 hours, and we are very sor cover for the first issue of FORGOTTEN FANTASY copies of WORLDS OF IF for them because it was ular one — I like WARHOON too, but after all, ry for the inconvenience." magazine. George submitted his sketches, the virtually impossible to find in L.A. One or two only one issue in '70)." editors approved this idea, George painted and of the larger newsstands that recognize their ARTHUR JEAN COX newsnoted: "I have a novella FRED PATTEN waggled a finger and said: "A slight sold it — and the distributor said, nIt may be s—f sales special-ordered the issues. Consider coming up soon in F&SF which more or less grew correction to Ted Pauls' review of Edmond Ham pretty, but it's got no sales appeal. We have ing the marginal sales of magazine s-f, failure out of the 'Fans We All Know—And Perhaps Wish ilton's Return to the Stars: the Lancer paper no intention of distributing a magazine that no to get newsstand coverage in a city the size of We Didn't' series." back is the first American edition in book form body's going to buy.11 L.A. sounds like it could be a serious blow to of the novel. It was originally published in a PATRICK McGUIRE, Dodd 140, 1005 E. 60th St., a title with the circulation of IF. (The All The editors were forced to take a loss on special French translation, from Hamilton's Chicago, ILL 60637 would like to get in touch Hugo March '69 issue was one of those affected, the cover and come up with a replacement fast manuscript which he finished ahead of schedule with other fans who read Russian and have an in I recall.) in order to get their magazine onto the news at the specific request of the French s-f book terest in Soviet science fiction. stands. The cover by Bill Hughes is certainly o club, so it could be published in a special vol ALAS, it is time to say thank you all and do good and does have brighter colors, but I pre ume along with its predecessor, The Star Kings." keep writing. Sorry I couldn't quote from: J. fer George's — and so do most fans who've had HANK DAVIS mused: "Norman Spinrad says 'Murray a chance to compare the two. (It was on display MANUSCRIPT TYPING F. PUMILIA, MIKE GLYER, PAUL ANDERSON,GARY RICK Leinster...had a story in the first issue of ... at last year's WesterCon Art Show.) ER, KEN NAHIGIAN, TERRY HUGHES, BILL LENDEN, AMAZING STORIES...' Isn't he thinking of the HOWARD PRINGLE, JERRY MEREDITH, DAVE STEVER, That same distributor is no longer distrib Mrs. Estelle Sanders first issue of ASTOUNDING (STORIES OF SUPER SCI DAVE HULVEY...and anyone I missed. uting Bill Crawford's SPACEWAY SCIENCE FICTION 15522 Moorpark ENCE, to use the full title)? And doesn't Spin magazine. The next issue has reputedly been Encino, CA 91316 rad fancy himself quite a sociologist, though?" set up in galley-form in Crawford's garage for Rates: 25^ per page, HANK also had a correction for Fred Patten: months. Whatever you may think of it, it has scripts 35^ p.p. "Fred Patten says that the work of Gaughan and an Andre Norton serial in progress. Whatever Gray Morrow has never appeared in ASTOUNDING/ its sales may be, Crawford is willing to pay to Electric typewriter, ANALOG — not true, though it might as well be. have at least one more issue published. But the Pica type. Gaughan illustrated a Poul Anderson story in distributor won't touch it. Includes: Minor cor the Jan. '50 issue, and Gray Morrow has illust Despite Gerald Page's editorial in the new rections. 1 carbon. rated two stories in ANALOG." WITCHCRAFT J SORCERY magazine (formerly COVEN HUZ? dixon sent a blackboard which said in part: 13) about how "we...wanted to do something about Extra carbons 5/ ea. Chalk it up to my perverted sense of humor, but our format", I've heard that it was this distrib I liked Vauqhn Bode's "Sunspot" comic in GALAXY." utor who decreed that the change in size & title 65 64 and still survive. SER will continue, but at the cost of obeying strict ec onomic necessities. Some of you will have noted that LOCUS announc ed in a recent is sue that as soon as its mimeo sup plies were used up it would switch to photo-offset. I received a short letter from Char lie Brown, its publisher, a few days ago in which he said in part, "I've been pricing photo-offset print ing and am appall ed at the cost. Guess I'll have to stick with mimeo." But don't be surprised if he is forced to make those hard decis PITY THE POOR PUBLISHER DEPT. As a fan maga ions that I have had to make. zine grows in circulation, new problems e- merge—the sheer physical drudgery of mimeo- Put bluntly, SFR's basic format is now ing, say 1000 to 1500 copies, collating them, 52 pages, and if sufficient advertising is stapling them... I have sung this song be forthcoming for any given issue (as was the fore. case this issue) there will be a 16 page But the switch to photo-offset is soul jump. shriveling in another way—the cost of pro This switch to photo-offset was also in fessional printing is so high that pages fluenced by the imminent increase in postal Do you know... must be cut or the amount of material pub rates. Weight is very important, now. lished must be severely limited. Finally, with the present number of sub fan publishers tend to be very generous scribers and bookstore outlets, SER will be BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION HARDCOVERS to their subscribers, often charging less self-supporting at the 52/68 page format and AND PAPERBACKS, NOT SOLD IN than the magazines costs. This is possible assured of a continued existence, which is with a hobby-zine and a circulation of 200 the primary concern of all, I hope. THE UNITED STATES DUE TO COPYRIGHT or so. RESTRICTIONS, ARE AVAILABLE THROUGHOUT But here in the near-2000 area profit But the necessary cut in the amount of less considerations raise very ugly heads. material per issue inevitably leads to: CANADA INCLUDING TORONTO. I had said a few issues ago that my con science wouldn't allow me to cut SFR to the PITY THE POOR EDITOR DEPT. For the last ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO VOTE FOR inevitable 52 pages in this half-size format year I have been running at least three is because it meant a loss of text—about one- sues behind in publishing in-hand book re third from the mimeo format of approx. 50 views. pages. At the moment there are 53 books on the To-Be-Reviewed shelf. The publishers are TORONTO in ’73 But the choice is no longer there, alas; it is impossible to mimeo a 1700 copy zine MONOLOG continued on page II LANCER SCIENCE FICTION consistently leads the way! Coming soon!

AT LAST! THE LONG AWAITED NEW I zf 11 I Lancer Science Fiction CONAN NOVEL l WLIL.______BY L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP & LIN CARTER /WCRSON’s CONAN Er TZ1U ZERO "This is the ultimate 'hard science fiction' novel. Everybody else who has been trying towrite this THE BUCCANEER kind of thing can now fold up his tent and creep silently away." —Jamei Blith, The Magazine of Fantasy

May 1971 June 1971 And watch for these great new and old favorites coming soon! THE TIME MASTERS, Wilson Tucker (completely rewritten for this new addition) THE RETURN OF KAVIN, David Mason THE SLEEPING SORCERESS, Michael Moorcock SPACE FOR HIRE, William F. Nolan THE DARK MAN, Robert E. Howard THE CLOAK OF AESIR, John W. Campbell and many more!