H. L. GoldReseñas

paperback

Five Novellas previously published in Galaxy Magazine...Bodyguard by H.L. Gold
"Delay in Transit" by F.L. Wallace "The City of Force" by Daniel F. Galouye; "Whatever Counts" by Frederik Pohl;
:How 2" by Clifford Simak

“Blacksword,” this collection’s sixth story, is by A. J. Offutt. Who would become a prolific author of Sword & Sorcery and erotica, as well. This story, however, is a science fiction romp of a political nature. It is a lot of fun. Well worth reading for a fun, breezy diplomatic caper.

The best thing about this old science fiction digest is the awesome cover done by the legendary Ed Emshwiller. But it is what it is.
The book reviews are from Groff Conklin who was becoming one of the premier anthology editors of the era. (I note that LT tells me that Conklin died on this day, July 19, in 1968.)The funniest of the reviews is the one for "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" which was just out and not yet made into several movies. Get this: "There is absolutely nothing wrong with this novel, which was fist serialized in Collier's, except that it has been done again and again and again. Too many s-f novels lack outstanding originality, but this one lacks it to an outstanding degree." Two years ago I read the edition that Jack Finney revised for the 1978 film. I gave it 4+ stars. For a 50's novel it is great, and excellent no matter what decade. Pooh pooh Mr Conklin book reviewer, sir. I think you swung and missed. Bring on the pod people.

Here's an abbreviated breakout of the contents courtesy of isfdb:

2 • And He Sez • Editor's Page • essay by H. L. Gold
4 • The Mapmakers • novelette by Frederik Pohl • interior artwork by Ashman
40 • Spoken For • short story by William Morrison • interior artwork by Ed Emshwiller
48 • Property of Venus • novelette by L. Sprague de Camp • interior artwork by Mel Hunter
69 • Forecast
70 • For Your Information: The Orbital (Unmanned) Satellite Vehicle • essay by Willy Ley
81 • Deadhead • short story by Robert Sheckley • interior artwork by Dick Francis
90 • Galaxy's 5 Star Shelf • book reviews by Groff Conklin
90 • Review: Year of Consent by Kendell Foster Crossen • review by Groff Conklin
90 • Review: The Other Side of Here by Murray Leinster • review by Groff Conklin
90 • Review: One Against Eternity by A. E. van Vogt • review by Groff Conklin
91 • Review: The Visionary Novels of George MacDonald: Lilith, Phantastes by George MacDonald • review by Groff Conklin
92 • Review: The Maker of Moons by Robert W. Chambers • review by Groff Conklin
92 • Review: The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney • review by Groff Conklin
92 • Review: A Man Obsessed by Alan E. Nourse • review by Groff Conklin
92 • Review: The Last Planet by Andre Norton • review by Groff Conklin
92 • Review: Few Were Left by Harold Rein • review by Groff Conklin
93 • Review: Tyrant of Time by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach • review by Groff Conklin
93 • Review: Undersea Quest by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson • review by Groff Conklin
94 • The Amateurs • short story by Alan Cogan interior artwork by Diehl
104 • Preferred Risk (Part 2 of 4) • serial by Lester del Rey and Frederik Pohl as by Edson McCann • interior artwork by Sanford Kossin

Robert Day has written a very good review of the digest here on LT. I found the stories agreeable. The slightly zany 'Property of Venus' was old fashioned but fun. Some of the other stories made you think. I did lightly skim a bit. I also enjoyed the advertisements. The Science Fiction Book Club would make free reservations for your round trip to the moon!½

4/5/22

Someone to Watche Over Me by christopher Grimm
A Death in the House by Clifford D. Simak
Silence by John Brunner
Way Up Yonder by Charles Satterfield
Last of the Mortidians by E.C. Tubb
King of the Planet by Wilson Tucker
True Self by Elisabeth Mann Borgese
For Your Information by Willy Ley

As with all anthologies, levels of craft are mixed, but all are at or above average in substance and style, as is to be expected from a selection of the best stories published in the Galaxy magazine over the years 1956-1958.
Some are serious, some are humorous; some are prescient, some misfired a bit.
Contents: I Am a Nucleus (Stephen Barr) - bad luck magnet, satire, liked this one a lot; Name Your Symptom (Jim Harmon) - psychotherapy; Horrer Howce (Margaret St. Clair): Man of Distinction (Michael Shaara) - genealogy; The Bomb in the Bathtub (Thomas N. Scortia) - satire; You Were Right, Joe (J. T. McIntosh) - humorous time travel, liked this one; What's He Doing in There? (Fritz Leiber); The Gentlest Unpeople (Frederik Pohl); The Hated (Paul Flehr); Kill Me with Kindness (Richard Wilson); Or All the Seas with Oysters (Avram Davidson); The Gun Without a Bang (Finn O'Donnevan) - satire, liked this one (also read it elsewhere); Man in a Quandary (L. J. Stecher, Jr.); Blank Form (Arthur Sellings); The Minimum Man (Robert Sheckley).½

The quality of this collection was high, and the names are familiar to those deep in the field. Inside John Barth by William W. Stuart
The Last Letter by Fritz Leiber
Perfect Answer L. J. Stecher, Jr.
Double Dare by Robert Silverberg
Pastoral Affair by Charles A. Stearns
Black Charlie by Gordon R. Dickson
$1,000 a Plate by Jack McKenty
Take Wooden Indians by Avram Davidson
The Bitterest Pill by Frederik Pohl
This Side Up by Raymond E. Banks
The Eel by Miriam Allen deFord
A Feast of Demons by William Morrison
Nightmare with Zeppelins by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth
We Never Mention Aunt Nora by Frederik Pohl [as by Paul Flehr ]
When the People Fell [The Instrumentality of Mankind] by Cordwainer Smith. so, if you can find a copy, you will have a good time.

It's taken me nearly a year to actually get around to finishing this, so unfortunately I can't really remember the details of every short story. I do know I've enjoyed reading this, and I'm looking forward to reading the next one. Bellow are the notes of each story I took after reading.

Time Quarry by Clifford D. Simak
gripping mystery, details revealed in a good way, characters are a bit blank but liable enough. Can tell there's more to explore in the world/story, makes you very excited to read next part

Third from the Sun by Richard Matheson
Very suspenseful, interesting premise, with a fab twist at the end.

The Stars Are the Styx by Theodore Sturgeon
amazing main character - secondary characters a bit meh, but great world building and story

Later Than you Think by Fritz Leiber
Twist is given away by the tag line -
BUT THEN NOT! RATS!

Contagion by Katherine MacLean
Interesting twist - not really enough time spent on the implications imo

The Last Martian by Fredric Brown
a bit lack luster - another interesting twist at the end

Darwinian Pool Room by Isaac Asimov
Sci-fi version of Plato's Republic. Ended just before it got boring to keep reading.

I acquired this back issue of Galaxy at a convention mainly because of the rather wonderful Ed Emshwiller cover artwork showing a Northrop flying wing being towed out to sea for an air-launch of a piggy-backed unmanned orbital rocket. It doesn't ring true on a moment's thought, but it looks rather fantastic, as it was supposed to. The article it illustrates has nothing to do with flying wings, piggy-back launches or even launches at sea, but is actually a fairly sober description of the state of orbital rocketry in the USA in 1955. It turned out to be fairly accurate and prophetic, especially given the actual size of early satellites launched by both the USA and Russia and the early inflatable 'Echo' passive communications satellites launched by the USA between 1960 and 1964.

But then it turned out that there were items of interest in the stories, as well. There was a Frederik Pohl story, Mapmakers, about a survey ship lost in hyperspace, which got a lot wrong but still read well, so much so that it would be anthologised in a commemorative collection of Fred Pohl's career, Platinum Pohl in 2007, more than fifty years later. Other stories in this issue are very much of their time and can be disregarded, though there's an amusing Robert Sheckley story that holds up well despite some now rather archaic colloquialisms ("Gee!").

Perhaps the most interesting thing in this issue was part of the serialisation of a novel, Preferred Risk, by one "Edson McCann". For an unknown writer, the story seems quite well-constructed and indeed doesn't seem too archaic more than fifty years on (I had no difficulty visualising the action in contemporary terms). "Edson McCann", though, wasn't all they seemed. The pseudonym concealed the identity of two well-known writers; the first, Frederik Pohl, we have already seen in this issue, whilst the second was Lester del Ray. The story behind this collaboration is telling. Galaxy had run a story competition some time before; but none of the entries had come up to scratch and no winner could be declared. The answer was to commission a novel, quickly, from an experienced hand (or hands) who understood the problem and were not too fussed about writing under a pen-name for commercial reasons, and who could come up with something to fill the bill, and quickly. Enter Messrs. Pohl and del Ray.... Preferred Risk is about the dominance in a future economy of insurance companies, just as Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth showed a world in the grip of advertising agencies in The Space Merchants some three years before. Indeed, on the strength of this instalment, the plot appeared to be developing along similar lines to the earlier novel, with an insider in the relevant trade having its shortcomings exposed and eventually turning against it. Still, don't forget the saying "Write what you know", and that can apply as much to plots and formats as it does to subjects...

The reviews column contains a little gem, amongst a slew of novels that have (mostly) disappeared. The review is of Jack Finney's The Body Snatchers, and the reviewer says that this is a good treatment of the theme, but it has been done so often before that this book has little new to say on the subject. Which didn't stop it getting picked up and adapted twice for the big screen, first in 1956 (so it must've been in production when this issue of Galaxy was on the newsstands) and again in 1978!

This is a collectiob of stories from Galaxy magazine which tend to be on the lighter side of sf in its day. My favorite is "License to Steal" in which an alien from a planet where stealing is legal overhears the Terran expression "license to steal' and requests such a license from a local policeman, who writes him one as a joke, but the alien promptly steals the entire New Chicago Merchandise Mart with 20,000 people. The situation spirals out of control from there. Another story involves a time traveling salesman who sells a brick-making matter duplicator to a Sumerian king, and another an alien statistician drafted into the conquest of Earth.Another story involves two rivals trading off an unwanted bossy wife by time machine. Another involves a revenue agent investigating a corrupt ruthless corporation who finds himself aided by an alien inside himself.

Rating: 4* of five, rounded down a half-star for a few head-scratchers in the story

Available as a free download on The Internet Archive.

A wonderful indictment of mindless end-stage capitalism, this. The autofacs are destroying the Earth because they're programmed to produce goods for humans while the humans are busy destroying each other, and the autofacs aren't programmed to stop producing until ordinary human-led production is up to capacity to replace their output.

But there aren't enough people left after the war to produce goods. So the autofacs keep producing. And they've ravaged the planet, extracted *all* the resources, and are on the brink of a crisis.

Enter some human chauvinist survivors, people living on the autofacs' deliveries but longing to remake their own means of production. How? First, stop the autofacs from tunneling the Earth into a honeycomb as the automated resource locators locate more resources to make into things. They figure out how to do this by making the machines that control everything stop to figure out what the word "pizzled" means. Machine language skills are dependent upon examples and usages to interpret human wishes, so "pizzled"—a word invented on the spot—is guaranteed to stop the low-level machines in their tracks and get the problem of figuring out what's wrong to the higher-ups.

Bureaucracy/hierarchy is eternal and not species dependent.

This plot succeeds and, using the information they extrapolate from this success, the human chauvinists figure out a way to Stop The Autofacs!! And it WORKS!! But the basic question they've failed to devise an answer for is, "Now what?"

I liked the story, and have spent this much time and effort creating a book report on it, because like most of PKD's work it leaves the reader with more questions than answers. That's why I started reading his stuff long ago, and why I was willing to take up with his ouevre after a decades-long hiatus. Amazon is using some of its ungodly billions to autofac...I mean create...screen-based entertainments rooted in PKD's storytelling. Two of PKD's daughters are exec-producing a show called Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, and this story is an episode of that series.

The episode refocuses the stakes of the story in a major, major way that I can't discuss without spoilers. The episode also modernizes the manner in which Autofac, transmogrified from a descrptive term for a technological artifact into a corporate name, is hacked and what the consequences of the Big Reveal are constitute the major reorientation of the concerns of society. Consumption is still the problem, though the reasons it's a problem have shifted. For that reason, I'd give the episode an extra half-star over the source material.

I'd buttress that half-star addition with a major change that I like a lot: A woman is the center of the episode's story, and for a very significant reason. Contrast this with the role of the only woman in PKD's story, wife of one of the human chauvinists, who serves coffee and asks Mary Sue questions, which are answered condescendingly by any male around. In one of the story's illustrations in Galaxy Magazine's November 1955 edition, in fact, the woman is depicted lying in the dirt between two men, watching something unfold beneath them, IN. A. SKIRT. that's modestly covering her knees.

Ha. Ha ha. Clearly the artist has never worn a skirt. How the hell would she have gotten down on her belly in the dirt bound up by one of those things? And more to the point, how the hell would she get back up? And WHY would she wear one of those impractical items in a post-apocalyptic world when trousers are vastly more practical?

Also agreeably different in the filmed version is the inclusion of sex. As in, the female lead gets some sex and the focus is on the attractive man sexing her up to her liking. In a radical departure from previous norms, the attractive young man stays naked after the sex scene, is lingered over by the camera, and is emotionally needy of the woman's love and approval in the afterglow. He even says The Big Three to her! First!

I love this. It's about goddamned time. If for no other reason that it points up in a quiet, even positive, way the conventional tropes and their ubiquity without nastiness or negativity. Well done, producers and writers, well played, actors, and say Hallelujah, consumers! We're finally, in small first-steps ways, seeing the positive effects of the unleashed anger of a generation of mad-as-hell women. Don't take it anymore, keep reframing the conversation, and leave more questions than answers. Growth will happen.

Reading science fiction was one of my favorite past-times when I was a teenager in high school. It remains one of my favorite genres for reading to this day. Back in the mid sixties I devoured a variety of science fiction, but this collection of short novels remains etched in my memory better than most of those I read -- especially the robot story "How-2". This was a startlingly funny tale of how one regular Joe, named Gordon Knight, ordered a do-it-yourself mechanical dog kit from How-2 Kits, Inc. and received instead a Robot kit.
The sixties was the era of do-it-yourself kits and build-your-own train sets so this story was one that really hit close to home for a thirteen-year-old boy. The complications from the mistake of sending a robot instead of a mechanical dog are compounded in the story to the point of near chaos that is more humorous and fascinating than most other stories I have ever read. It is not surprising that the story was written by Clifford Simak, one of the elder statesmen of modern science fiction who was named a "Grand Master" by the Science Fiction Writers of America. The remaining stories in this collection do not disappoint as the volume also contains a classic tale of psychological intrigue by Frederick Pohl. While it may be difficult to find this volume it is worth the search to read these tales of the future.

I often look for books that I read as library books long ago. I was happy to find this one, which contains some old favorites (and some that haven't really stood the test of time).

Contents (from the ISFDB):

In This Corner (1959) essay by H. L. Gold
I Am a Nucleus (1957) novelette by Stephen Barr
Name Your Symptom (1956) short story by Jim Harmon
Horrer Howce (1956) short story by Margaret St. Clair
Man of Distinction (1956) short story by Michael Shaara
The Bomb in the Bathtub (1957) short story by Thomas N. Scortia
You Were Right, Joe (1957) short story by J. T. McIntosh
What's He Doing in There? (1957) short story by Fritz Leiber
The Gentlest Unpeople (1958) novelette by Frederik Pohl (variant of The Gentle Venusian)
The Hated (1958) short story by Frederik Pohl [as by Paul Flehr ]
Kill Me with Kindness (1958) short story by Richard Wilson
Or All the Seas with Oysters (1958) short story by Avram Davidson
The Gun Without a Bang (1958) short story by Robert Sheckley [as by Finn O'Donnevan ]
Man in a Quandary (1958) short story by Joseph Wesley [as by L. J. Stecher, Jr. ]
Blank Form (1958) shortstory by Arthur Sellings
The Minimum Man (1958) novelette by Robert Sheckley

This worth reading again (or for the first time) for the Avram Davison story alone, and there's plenty of other things in here as well. It's like running into an old friend you haven't seen in years. Time to catch up.

Not one of Horace's best collections, although it does contain some gems. Not everything ages well, sadly.½

Nice collection of some of the best of Galaxy, including The Lady Who Sailed the Soul (Cordwainer Smith) and The Civilization Game (Clifford D. Simak).

A very uneven collection, the household names notwithstanding.
The Clifford D. Simak piece The World That Couldn't Be is an old-fashioned 'hunting the alien' story, not very exceptional, except for its truly mind-twisting conclusion, and therefore not bad.
Alan E. Nourse's hard SF Brightside Crossing about an impossible trek on Mercury's surface is robustly written, but fails to excite with even a remotely original idea.
F.L. Wallace's poking fun at Terran burocracy, Mezzerow Loves Company is only mildly funny. Almost.
Damon Knight's An Eye For A What demonstrates the inability of humans to truly fathom alien mores and uses a tone a touch too light for such a grave subject.
People reconsidering the role of the female in society will not be amused by Mark Clifton's A Woman's Place, neither was I.
L. Sprague de Camp's A Gun For Dinosaur is yet another hunting story that drags on too long.
Richard Matheson tries in One For The Books to makes us believe that an alien has been occupying the mind of an average citizen to collect all possible information on earth by making him omni-absorbent, not very convincingly.
Luckily Edgar Pangborn succeeds in The Music Master Of Babylon at least in creating an eerie atmosphere to go with a credible story of a new version of Homo Sapiens that takes over after the catastrophe. A point in favour for this anthology.
Finally there's the somewhat funny Once A Greech by Evelyn E. Smith, with over-the-top religious fads conquering a whole space-crew after inadvertently 'stealing' an alien from a newly discovered planet. Mildly amusing.
All in all not the anthology you would serve to people wishing to get acquainted with the genre.½

Contains Alan Arkin's "Whiskaboom"

Contains Alan Arkin's "People Soup"

Indeholder "Limiting Factor", "Protection", "The Vilbar party", "End As a World", "Time in the Round", "Help! I am Dr. Morris Goldpepper", "Robert Sheckley: A Wind is Rising", "Ideas Die Hard", "Dead Ringer", "The Haunted Corpse", "The Model of a Judge", "Man in the Jar", "Volpla", "Honorable Opponent", "The Game of Rat and Dragon.".

"Theodore R. Cogswell: Limiting Factor" handler om hvorfor maskiner er bedre end medfødte evner.
"Robert Sheckley: Protection" handler om at blive beskyttet af en usynlig hjælper.
"Evelyn Smith: The Vilbar party" handler om Narli Gzann bliver sendt til Jorden som udvekslingsprofessor - han ligner en Teddybjørn og bliver vældig populær så da han kommer tilbage er han blevet vild med at feste i modsætning til inden turen.
"F. L. Wallace: End As a World" handler om den første raket til Mars vender tilbage og alle er ellevilde.
"Fritz Leiber: Time in the Round" handler om en lille dreng og hans hund jager en tidsrejsende barbar væk igen.
"Avram Davidson: Help! I am Dr. Morris Goldpepper" handler om en tandlæge der bliver helt ved at advare om tandløse aliens.
"Robert Sheckley: A Wind is Rising" handler om hårdt blæsevejr.
"Isaac Asimov: Ideas Die Hard" handler om at blive skør pgra et chok over at Månen er hul bag.
"Lester del Rey: Dead Ringer" handler om Dane Phillips der prøver at afsløre nogle mutanter kun for at opdage at han selv er mutant.
"Frederik Pohl: The Haunted Corpse" handler om Dr Horn, der laver en maskine der kan bytte to menneskers sind og bruger den til at skaffe sig en nyere model krop.
"William Morrison: The Model of a Judge" handler om et intelligent rovdyr fra en nærliggende planetmåne der er dommer i en kagekonkurrence.
"Damon Knight: Man in the Jar" handler om R. C. Vane der prøver at afsløre en Marack hvilket lykkes men ikke lykkeligt for ham selv.
"Wyman Guin: Volpla" handler om at konstruere en ny race og bliver overrasket.
"Clifford D. Simak: Honorable Opponent" handler om at spille krig.
"Cordwainer Smith: The Game of Rat and Dragon." handler om at spille krig med katte som allierede.

"A Wind is Rising" er en perle. Asimov har vist en prik med at folk bliver skøre over ingenting, jf Nightfall og Ideas Die Hard. Resten af historierne er ikke ret gode.