Summary: Apart from Langdon Jones’ story Transient, this is another lacklustre issue for fiction. Moorcock’s editorial gives an informative account of the 1965 Worldcon in London.
[ISFDB page][Archive.org copy]
Other reviews:1
Christopher Priest, Vector #37 (December 1965), p. 20
_____________________
Editor, Michael Moorcock; Assistant Editor, Langdon Jones
Fiction:
The Wrecks of Time (Part 2 of 3) • serial by Michael Moorcock [as by James Colvin] ∗
Transient • short story by Langdon Jones ∗∗∗
J Is for Jeanne • short story by E. C. Tubb ∗
Further Information • short story by Michael Moorcock ∗
Dance of the Cats • novelette by Joseph Green ∗∗
To Possess in Reality • short story by David Newton ∗
A Mind of My Own • short story by Robert Cheetham –
Ernie • short story by Colin R. Fry –
Non-fiction:
Cover
Interior artwork • by Harry Douthwaite, James Cawthorn
Conventions and Conventions • editorial by Michael Moorcock
Looking Back • book review by Langdon Jones
No Characters • book review by R. M. Bennett
Dr. Peristyle’s Column • Q&A by Brian W. Aldiss [as by uncredited]
_____________________
This issue leads off with the second part of Michael Moorcock’s The Wrecks of Time, which I found even less interesting than the first—probably because much of this section sees Faustaff talking to people about events happening off-stage.
This instalment begins with Steifflomeis pointing a gun at Faustaff’s head when they are interrupted by the arrival of a helicopter carrying Cardinal Orelli (there is no explanation as to how he found the pair in the middle of nowhere). After some chit-chat Orelli takes the two men back to his camp, and Faustaff sees that the Cardinal now possesses a disruptor—acquired from one of the D-squads. Orelli also has two of the D-squad men, who appear to be in suspended animation:
As they talked, Steifflomeis had bent down and was examining one of the prone D-squaders. The man was of medium height and seemed, through his black overalls, to be a good physical specimen. The thing that was remarkable was that the two prone figures strongly resembled one another, both in features and in size. They had close-cropped, light brown hair, square faces and pale skins that were unblemished but had an unhealthy texture, particularly about the upper face.
Steifflomeis pushed back the man’s eyelid and Faustaff had an unpleasant shock as a glazed blue eye appeared to stare straight at him. It seemed for a second that the man was actually awake, but unable to move. Steifflomeis let the eyelid close again. p. 7
After a bit more of this they depart through a portal for Orelli’s base on E4, a huge cathedral in the centre of a vast ice plain, the latter the product of a previous disruption. There they conduct tests on the D-squad men in Orelli’s lab, and discover they are androids.
Just as things are getting interesting Faustaff is “invoked,” i.e. bodily transferred, back to his headquarters in the E1 version of Haifa. Here he catches up on the current situation, which is that a new Earth, E-Zero, is forming, and tensions are rising between East and West on E1, with war imminent. When Faustaff goes home for a change of clothes he finds Maggy Smith waiting for him, and she tells him that all the E worlds (of which there have been thousands so far) are “simulations.”
When the war starts on E1, Faustaff evacuates his team to E3. There he finds out from Mahon and Ogg that the situation is worse than he thought—E13 and E14 have been destroyed as well as E1—and Orelli and Steifflomeis have joined forces. Orelli’s cathedral on E4 has also disappeared. Meanwhile, Mahon’s teams have found a cottage used by Steifflomeis which contains strange equipment.
Faustaff, Nancy and Mahon decide to drive to the cottage, and when they arrive they surprise Orelli before Stefflomeis and Maggy also appear—at which point they are all whisked off to E-Zero.
This is a lacklustre instalment of a story that mostly has Faustaff running around finding out stuff. It’s just not dramatically engaging.
Transient by Langdon Jones has what seems to be a man waking up in a hospital. Eventually (spoiler) we find out that he is a male chimpanzee whose intelligence has been artificially uplifted, but only temporarily. The realisation that he will shortly lose his new found intelligence makes the chimp cry, and he explains his emotional reaction to the doctor:
“I speak your language, I understand what I am and what has been done to me. And for the first time I come alive. You don’t understand that; you have had intelligence all your life; you don’t know what it’s like to be as I was. I see how shallow was the life before this moment. You do see, don’t you? Intelligence is intelligence, no matter what form it takes, or how it was created. Do you think I want to go back and live in the shadowed world I used to inhabit? And yet I am not happy as I am. How could I be when I can look at my wife, whom I love—yes, love—and yet whom I find as being something so far beneath me as to be laughable? And yet at the same time, the thought of returning to that state of mindless half-life fills me with dread.
“And I—and I—don’t—I . . .” p. 39
This is pretty good as far as it goes, but its five pages overly compresses its Flowers for Algernon story arc.
•
J Is for Jeanne by E. C. Tubb is another short piece, which starts with a woman telling a man called Paul about a recurring nightmare:
The dream was always the same. There were lights and a hard, white brightness and a soft, constant humming which seemed more vibration than actual sound. There was a sense of physical helplessness and the presence of inimical shapes. But, above all, was the ghastly immobility. p. 41
When she sees a specialist called Carl, he speculates that her dream may be about the future (Dunne is name-dropped in this section, Freud in the psycho-babble in the first). Eventually there is a confrontation between Jeanne and Paul that reveals (spoiler) she is actually a malfunctioning computer, and that Paul is a troubleshooter:
“I thought for a minute she was going to be a stubborn bitch but she came through like a thoroughbred. I tell you, Carl, I should have been a ladies’ man. I can talk them into anything—well, almost.”
Carl made a sound like a disgusted snort.
“All right,” said Paul. “So you’ve got no romantic imagination. To you this is just a hunk of machinery.”
“And to you it’s a woman.” Carl repeated his snort. p. 48
This is one of those dreary stories where the writer keeps the mystery going by keeping back any information that the reader can use to figure out what is going on—until they are ready to produce the reveal.
Further Information by Michael Moorcock is his second ‘Jerry Cornelius’ story and a sequel to Preliminary Information in New Worlds #153 (August 1965). Its random or inconsequential plot is a big step towards the type of fully blown New Wave story the magazine would later run (mostly in its large-size issue incarnation).
This one starts conventionally enough though, with a long action sequence that has Jerry, Miss Brunner and several others arrive on the Normandy coast to storm Cornelius’s father’s house (now owned by Jerry’s brother Frank). There are lots of SF gadgets on display as Jerry and his team fight through the fortified house’s defences (stroboscopic towers, needle guns, LSD gas, nerve bombs, etc.) and there is the odd deadpan remark as well so, initially at least, the story is in territory adjacent to the James Bond movies.
Later on however, after they manage to pin down Frank, events become rather more random: Jerry leaves the fight and the house to find his sister, Catherine. When he gets to her cottage bedroom Jerry finds Frank there and, in the ensuing needle gun duel, their sister is killed. During a later interrogation of Frank (who is captured during the skirmish) by Miss Brunner, she finds out that the microfilm they seek is supposedly in the vaults.
When Jerry and Miss Brunner go looking for the film they can’t find it, and then find out they are trapped by the guards outside. Cornelius turns on the stroboscopic towers to aid their escape, and they make it to the cliffs where they jump into the sea. Cornelius briefly comes to in a boat, and then awakens fully in Sunnydale Nursing home.
This story appears to consist of a number of random situations through which pass a number of arch and/or disinterested characters: this is pretty standard for the ‘Jerry Cornelius’ stories, and explains why I never had much time for them. I note in passing that the story has a permissive sixties feel (e.g. drug and genital references, etc.).
•
Dance of the Cats by Joseph Green sees the return of Silva de Fonseca from Tunnel of Love (New Worlds #146, January 1965), and opens with him and his movie making partner, Aaron Gunderson, trying to obtain a permit to film the cat people on Episilon Eridani. The government bureaucrat is ready to grant their request—as long as they keep their eyes on another man, Danyel Burkalter, the son of a circus owner who has used his father’s connection to bypass the official to get a permit.
Burkhalter next appears in the story when the de Fonesca and Gunderson land next to his spaceship on Epsilon Eridani—where the pair clock him for a lothario and braggart—and again at the end when they (spoiler) stop him from abducting the cat people’s priestess and her dancing troupe.
In between these two events this old school SF story examines an alien society of ruling cat people and subservient dog people. Key to this relationship are the cat-people’s famous dancers (who the pair are there to film) whose performance, Aaron later discovers, is the prelude to a telepathic flight to the dog people’s settlement where the cat people feed on the latters’ life energy:
“Eat, Oh travellers! Drink, Oh travellers! Feast, Oh travellers! Feast!”
The ground was rushing upward. He sensed the entire tribe of Cat-people diving with him. Somewhere ahead he felt the woman who led them reach the ground, and abruptly the sense of communion with her was gone. He was alone, but it did not matter now. Close beneath him in the darkness, like flickering rosined torches in ancestral castle halls, bright concentrations of life-force—energy—pleasure awaited his coming. As he drew close he realized the lights were Dogpeople. His headlong rush slowed as he neared them and he exerted some not-understood means of control and veered away from the first one, a male, moved on past the next, an old woman, passed the next, already taken by a companion, and reached a young girl, nubile, strong, and sullenly acquiescent. He entered her quickly, and possession had something of the sensual pleasure of sex, the taste of ambrosia, the pounding excitement of triumph in battle. The total emotional experience was the most pleasing he had ever known, and he ignored the dimly sensed resentment in his captive. He revelled in this new and unexplored wonderland without conscious feeling, without thought, without consideration. p. 84
The two men put a stop to these rapey shenanigans after they save priestess and before they leave the planet.
This is competently done, but the psi gimmick is unlikely and contrived.
To Possess in Reality by David Newton starts in a typical fairy tale setting, with unicorns and castles, and princes with lutes . . . and then:
Far, far away beyond, the icewhite mountains a dragon roared . . . And yet not a dragon’s roar! A spaceship slid down to the meadow upon a pillar of noisy sunlight. In the dead silence which followed the cutting of the engines the cracking of the rocket-tubes as they cooled was clearly audible on the highest coign of the Castle. The Prince, without a second’s hesitation, gallantly leapt into the unicorn’s saddle and cantered across to the ship. The Lord watched his future son-in-law’s courage with pride, his handwringing daughter with love, awe, fear, hope and despair.
As the unicorn crossed the shrivelled grass-circle to the tail vanes of the vessel its milky paws inked with ash. p. 95
After Xavier, the spaceship pilot, is welcomed by the Prince he goes to the castle for a meal (and some light flirting with the princess). After a night there he returns to his ship and tries to fix his spacial position before realising that, when he jumped to escape the alien fleet, he actually jumped into an atom of his own memory. A later romantic complication with the princess forces Xavier to jump back to the normal world (taking the princess with him).
There then follows an anti-climactic section where, after his initial success with the princess, Xavier hits a rough patch. His analyst tells him he has lost his dream.
The story finishes with a massive spacefleet arriving over the Earth—but it isn’t the aliens that Xavier fled from previously: the Prince has come to rescue his Princess (although how a fairy tale prince in one of Xavier’s brain cells manages to develop a space drive to jump out of his mind is not explained).
This is readable enough but the world-in-an-atom trope is not convincing.
•
A Mind of My Own by Robert Cheetham is narrated by the “Sensitive” of a Sensitive/Traveller empath pair (the former stays in Earth while the latter explores other planets). After this setup we hear about the about Mike the Traveller’s explorations, and then about a woman, Juline, who becomes his lover (the Sensitive narrator vicariously experiences their relationship):
When Juline came to work at the Centre, every man in the place attempted to court her. She was a tall, graceful girl with glistening red-gold hair. Her eyes, as I remembered so often through Mike’s eyes, were a brilliant green, and her heart laughed easily along with her lovely mouth. She had every free man at her feet.
And she chose Mike, surrendering to him quickly and wholely.
We—that is—Mike was stunned by his good fortune, and at first treated her with the deference one has for a fragile ornament. This did not last long, however, as his natural virility gained the upper hand and his attitude became more one of the dominating male. This was a good thing, for Juline had been too wild and free all her life, used to worship and supplication. She needed a strong arm, not only to support her, but also to direct her. Under this new treatment Juline flowered, and it became apparent to the rest of the field that she was very much Mike’s woman. p. 108
Needless to say (spoiler) an alien kills Mike on his next exploration trip. The narrator is subsequently plagued with doubts that his jealousy delayed his warning to Mike about the beast—but then he realises that Juline would never be interested in “a wizened, egg-bald, four foot tall Sensitive like me!”
There is probably the seed of a better story here, but (even excepting its dated attitudes3) this is pretty poor beginner’s piece that has a number of typical flaws (tell instead of show, weak twist ending, etc.).
Ernie by Colin R. Fry is this writers third and last appearance in New Worlds4 and it opens with the narrator, a “rocketman,” losing all his money at a casino, fighting with the bouncers, and getting thrown into the street. There he is offered a job as a supervisor in an etherium mine on Luna. En route he meets two (mutant) dwarves also destined for the mines: one of them, a hunchback, tells the narrator he is going there to get revenge.
In the remainder of the story we see that the dwarves/miners are treated worse than animals:
They could get into cracks and crevices where you or I would hesitate to send a dachshund after a rabbit And they had tough hides They could stand up to scrapings against those rough, sharp rocks that would give you or me septic cuts. They just got scratched. Eventually, of course, they got a lot of scratches and some of them did go septic. Then the doctor certified them as incurable, and the welfare officer killed them humanely in the gas chamber just outside the camp. There was even a priest who used to come in from Moon City and hear their last confessions, if he was wanted. Allen had that place really well equipped. p. 113
The story ends with a fight between the vengeful dwarf and another of the miners, but we never find out what the dispute was about.
This is not only a unlikely story (does anyone think that a human race capable of flight to the moon will use manual labour rather than machines for mining?), but a pointless and needlessly unpleasant one (and it seems typical of new writers who, when they little to say, or no real story to tell, substitute edginess, violence, or nihilism instead).
I note the use of the word “shit” on p. 114, the first usage I think I’ve seen of this word in the magazine.
•••
The anonymous Cover looks like another random psychedelic swirl from the photographic agency—but I like it anyway, and it’s better than the last two covers.
There are two pieces of Interior artwork this issue: one is by Harry Douthwaite, and the other is from James Cawthorn.
Conventions and Conventions, Michael Moorcock’s editorial, begins with a report on the recent Word Science Fiction Convention in London:
The mood of this year’s World Science Fiction Convention, held over the August Bank Holiday in London this year, was perhaps a trifle less convivial on the whole and a trifle more business-like than previous conventions held in this country, but what marked it was the interest shown by writers, readers, publishers and editors in the improving of the overall level of the field. Complacency and cynicism were both markedly absent; literate, realistic opinions and suggestions were very much there. There were very few who disagreed that the field could not do with extra sophistication, though, sadly, weary cries of ‘Shame!’ were heard, notably from John W. Campbell, editor of Analog (which won this year’s Hugo again) who spoke for some length at the opening discussion (‘Science Fiction, the Salvation of the Modern Novel’), telling us that Homer was a simple Bronze Age barbarian who told a good story and that no-one read him for the poetry—or, indeed, because of the poetry. Luckily, the voices of hope predominated, principally in the shape of Miss Judith Merril, Mr. Brian W. Aldiss and Mr. Harry Harrison. Hope was, in fact, fully restored by John Brunner’s erudite talk on certain marked aspects of science fiction, a talk which we hope to reprint in a slightly abridged form in a later issue. p. 4
Moorcock then adds that the field is jettisoning “some of its less attractive cargo” but doesn’t give any details. Later he gives an account of a lively panel:
On the last day, Monday, a panel of politics in science fiction found John W. Campbell advocating slavery as a reasonable system (‘There are always bad masters—like the fool of a farmer who beats a good horse to death—but . . .’) and what he called ‘benevolent dictatorship’. The panel soon developed into a discussion between Mr. Campbell and John Brunner, who make excellent opponents, and, with some interesting opinions coming from the floor, showed that whilst the majority of people there disagreed with Mr. Campbell, he had certainly succeeded in provoking an interesting discussion. pp. 4-5
Moorcock concludes his con report by stating that it was “an extremely satisfying and stimulating convention,” lists a number of the writers who attended, and says that the exceptionally large attendance shows how popular SF has become.
The rest of the editorial discusses the second issue of Brian W. Aldiss’s and Harry Harrison’s critical magazine SF Horizons #2, in particular Brian W. Aldiss’s article:
[Aldiss] takes three writers, Lan Wright, Donald Malcolm and J. G. Ballard and uses their work to show what is right and what is wrong with the British scene. His criticism is positive and thoughtful and his tendency to make fun of the afflicted quite often has you laughing in spite of yourself. We might point out that we only approve of making fun of the afflicted when the afflicted appear to wish their own afflictions on everyone else. p. 123
He concludes by saying that SF Horizons is “still the most stimulating magazine of its kind ever to appear in the sf world.”
Looking Back is a long book review by Langdon Jones examining Dandelion Wine, which begins with a look at the nostalgia sub-genre:
Bradbury has received a lot of unfavourable criticism, even from such balanced sources as my colleague, James Colvin, a great deal of which I think is completely unfounded. In general, Bradbury’s critics attack the escapist element in his writing. A glance at a few American sf and fantasy books should be enough to demonstrate that the easiest way of cashing in is to write about the Good Old Days.
[. . .]
This tendency is, granted, unhealthy, but at the same time, quite understandable. The trouble is, from the writing point of view, that this tendency is likely to produce badly written stuff, which gets by purely on the overwhelmingly sickly sentimentality and nostalgia it contains. However, the critics of this backward-looking genre are likely—like Mr. Colvin—to be misled into criticising every single work that contains these elements. p. 119
In his subsequent examination of the book (which he describes as a “curiously heady brew”) he also has a go at another group of readers:
There are, as I have discovered, some very, very literal people in this world. Those who would rather spend their time crabbily counting up the halfpennies of logic whilst ignoring the fluttering riches of meaning, I advise to keep well away from this book and this author. Those who would prefer the transparent but sweaty engineer working frantically on his logical machinery while blue-scaled Venusian lizards batter down the papier-mache door will not feel at home in Green Town with its solid, but distorted perspectives. In parenthesis I would point out how strange it is that this kind of reader will often condemn an author’s work on the grounds of non-realism over some trifling technical ‘error’ that isn’t really an error at all, while the stuff that they are fond of reading is as unreal (in an imaginative sense) as it possibly could be. p. 120
The whole review is worth reading, both for its description of the book (which I haven’t mentioned here), and the related contextual comments (two of which I’ve shown above).
No Characters by R. M. Bennett is a short review of the collection Somewhere a Voice by Eric Frank Russell. According to Bennett it is a mixed bag with a couple of good stories (the title story and I Am Nothing), and he expected better from this author.
Dr. Peristyle’s Column has more reader questions and Aldiss’s waspish answers. This is his reply to Betty Pierce of Diss, Norfolk, when she asks why writers try to give her more than a story:
A prize question, and your scribe is floored by it. I suppose the answer is that there are writers who write for the likes of you, madam, but the good ones hope to avoid you. In your ideal world, publishers would presumably publish only synopses of the stories they received. A true writer’s answer to you would be, possibly, that the interest never lies entirely in a story but in the details of how it happened and who it happened to, and also whether what happened had different effects on all concerned. Many writers, too, are as interested in how to tell what happened as in what happened; and they may be the individuals who are more interested in their subject matter than their readers. p. 125
So—insult your questioner, mischaracterise what they want, and end with waffle. I think this is the last Peristyle column, which is probably for the best as a little of this kind of thing goes a long way.
•••
Another poor issue for fiction, with Editor Moorcock contributing most of the chaff. At least the non-fiction is interesting. ●
_____________________
1. Christopher Priest takes over the magazine review duties in Vector #37, January 1966 (Graham Hall reappears in later issues to co-host the department).
Priest begins by saying that Colvin/Moorcock’s serial “has latent plot gimmicks and pseudoscientific paraphernalia” but “it reads quickly and well”; Jones’ Transient “is similar to Keyes’ “Flowers for Algernon”, but it doesn’t create the same poignancy or character-identification that that classic short story did.” Tubb’s J for Jeanne is slight, and Green’s Dance of the Cats “straight SF” and “very good of its kind”. Newton’s To Possess in Reality is “difficult to describe without giving away too much” but “a few fantasy cliches come off the worse in the process.” Cheetham’s A Mind of My Own is “a trifle,” and Fry’s Ernie is a “somewhat sadistic story” that is “a bit too callous, but makes its point.”
The story Priest liked least appears to be Michael Moorcock’s Further Information:
This is a pointless story with esoteric footnotes, awkward and unnecessary sex and a quite obscure plot.
Not recommended. p. 21
Priest concludes:
A fair issue, not properly representative of the average quality. p. 21
2. I’d always thought of Joseph Green as an Analog writer who occasionally slummed in New Worlds, but checking his early publication record shows him to be very much a protégé of John Carnell (this list of stories is partially from Galactic Central):
The Engineer (ss) New Worlds Science Fiction Feb 1962
Initiation Rites (ss) New Worlds Science Fiction Apr 1962 [Loafers]
The Colonist (nv) New Worlds Science Fiction Aug 1962 [Loafers]
Once Around Arcturus (nv) If Sep 1962
Life-Force (ss) New Worlds Science Fiction Nov 1962 [Loafers]
Transmitter Problem (ss) New Worlds Science Fiction Dec 1962 [Loafers]
The Fourth Generation (nv) Science Fiction Adventures (UK) #30 1963
Fight on Hurricane Island (ss) Argosy (UK) Jun 1963
The-Old-Man-in-the-Mountain (nv) New Worlds Science Fiction Jun 1963 [Loafers]
Refuge (nv) New Worlds Science Fiction Jul 1963 [Loafers]
Haggard Honeymoon (nv) (with James Webbert) New Writings in SF #1 1964
The Creators (ss) New Writings in SF #2 1964
Single Combat (ss) New Worlds Science Fiction Jul/Aug 1964
Treasure Hunt (nv) New Writings in SF #5 1965
Tunnel of Love (ss) New Worlds Science Fiction Jan 1965 [Silva de Fonseca]
The Decision Makers (nv) Galaxy Science Fiction Apr 1965 [Allan Odegaard (Conscience)]
Dance of the Cats (nv) New Worlds Science Fiction Dec 1965 [Silva de Fonseca]
Birth of a Butterfly (nv) New Writings in SF #10 1967
Most of Green’s later stories were in F&SF and Analog (although there were also another three in New Writings in SF).
3. I notice that the character’s attitudes towards women in this 1960’s magazine issue are probably worse than in the majority of the 1940’s and 50’s magazines I’ve read. Apart from the passage about Juline from the Cheetham story (“Juline had been too wild and free all her life, used to worship and supplication. She needed a strong arm . . . to direct her,” etc.), Nancy in the Moorcock serial only ever appears when Faustaff wants fed or to get his leg over, and there is also the “bitch” comment in the Tubb story.
4. Colin R. Fry’s ISFDB page is here: three stories published in New Worlds during 1964-65, and one in Fantastic in 1965. ●
