{"id":1507,"date":"2016-06-22T14:31:39","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T14:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=1507"},"modified":"2018-05-08T22:53:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T22:53:20","slug":"science-fantasy-68-december-1964-january-1965","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=1507","title":{"rendered":"Science Fantasy #68, December 1964-January 1965"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

ISFDB link<\/a><\/p>\n

Other reviews:
\nJohn Boston and Damien Broderick, Strange Highways: Reading Science Fantasy<\/em>, 1950-67 (p. 227 of 365) (Amazon UK<\/a>)<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editor, Kyril Bonfiglioli<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nThe Blue Monkeys<\/em><\/strong> (Part 2 of 3) \u2022 serial by Thomas Burnett Swann \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nRoom with a Skew<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by John T. Phillifent [as by John Rackham] \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Charm<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Keith Roberts \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nNot Me, Not Amos Cabot!<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Harry Harrison \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Madman<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Keith Roberts [as by Alistair Bevan] \u2217<\/strong>
\nJoik<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Ernest Hill \u2217<\/strong>
\nOne of Those Days<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Charles Platt \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Roger Harris
\nEditorial<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Kyril Bonfiglioli
\n J. Carnell – A Quick Look<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Harry Harrison<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Readers who pick up this issue of Science Fantasy<\/em> after the last one will perhaps get a feeling of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu all over again:1<\/sup> as well as an instalment of Swann\u2019s serial there are another two Keith Roberts stories, one of them an episode of \u2018Anita\u2019, and the other an SF tale under his Alastair Bevan pseudonym. This time around, however, any easily shocked 1960s readers will not have to cope with homosexuality, violence, suicide or cannibalism. Just some soft drug use . . . .
\nThe Blue Monkeys<\/em><\/strong> by Thomas Burnett Swann goes off the boil slightly at the start of its second part. Not only does the pace slacken in Chapter 3 but the tone becomes, perhaps, a little too \u2018gentle\u2019\u2014the perpetually hungry bear Pandia cadging honey cakes at a picnic is an example of this:<\/p>\n

No sooner had I laid our basket on a tuft of grass than a small felt hat bobbed above the nearest ridge. No,\u00a0it was Pandia\u2019s hair.
\n\u201cI smelled the cakes,\u201d she said. \u201cThey smell like more than you can eat.\u201d
\n\u201cCome and join us,\u201d said Icarus, nobly if reluctantly, since the cakes in fact were less than we could eat. Thea had yet to learn the extent of a Minotaur\u2019s appetite.
\n\u201cToo many are bad for you,\u201d Pandia explained. \u201cOne of my acquaintances\u2014not a friend, fortunately\u2014gorged herself and got so sweet that a hungry bear came out of the trees and ate her. Ate his own cousin.\u00a0Didn\u2019t leave a crumb.\u201d As always before a meal, she looked immaculate. She had spruced her tail, cleaned\u00a0her kidskin sandals, and tied her belt of rabbit\u2019s fur in a neat bow with exactly equal ends. p. 19<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I rather like this part as it happens\u2014I\u2019m really talking about the frequency of this kind of thing.
\nThat said, it isn\u2019t long before the domestic affairs of Thea and Icarus, the two children, and Eunostos, the Minotaur, give way to darker matters. Eunostos takes the children to a huge burnt oak in the forest, and recounts the tale of their wounded father, Aeacus, arriving there and being cared for by Kora the dryad. She would eventually fall pregnant with both of them. Aeacus later returned to Knossos taking them with him and leaving Kora behind. The dryad took to her tree and set it on fire . . . .
\nThe last two chapters of this section detail a plot by the Acheans to kidnap the children and invade the forest. All the Beast tribes are summoned by Chiron the centaur to prepare a defence.
\nRoom with a Skew<\/em><\/strong> by John Rackham features two amateur scientist-inventors.2<\/sup> In this story they are expecting a visit from a relative, so they invent a device that will shift all the junk in the spare room into what they think is the fourth dimension (but is actually a parallel world). Meanwhile, they start receiving some very peculiar programs on their TV set. The visiting aunt comments on what should be The Black and White Minstrel Show<\/em> (ah, enlightened times) on the BBC:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t recognise any of the songs, this time\u201d she said, \u201cand they have done something different with the costumes, haven\u2019t they?\u201d They had indeed. For a change, the girls were blackface and the men were in revealing tights. Very revealing. I half-expected Auntie to complain, but she seemed to be enjoying it. I hope I\u2019m as broad-minded as most, but some of the poses and dances weren\u2019t just near the knuckle, they were half-way up your arm. Too, the cameras kept giving us a shot of the orchestra, and they were the queerest crowd I have ever seen outside of a science-fiction convention. p. 56<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Charm<\/em><\/strong> by Keith Roberts is another \u2018Anita\u2019 story. I thought this one rather good the first time I read it but was less impressed this time around, probably because I knew what happens at the end.
\nIn this one Anita is trapped by an expert on witches, Sir John Carpenter. After he extracts witches\u2019 honour from her not to harm him, he requests two favours. The morning after the first he tells her about the second, which is to tell him the purpose of a magic charm he owns. This leads to a scene with Anita and her Granny Thomson:<\/p>\n

\u201cGuz back\u201d said Granny Thompson, prodding the winking jewel with her finger. \u201cOr forrard, whichever\u00a0soots. Dunt mek no odds in the long run.\u201d
\n\u201cBack where, Gran? \u201d
\n\u201cIn Time, o\u2019 course . . . wheer d\u2019yer git it?\u201d Her Granny looked suspicious.
\n\u201cOff a man.\u201d
\n\u201cWot<\/em> man?\u201d
\nAnita could be very annoying. She picked up the dally and began to swing it. Reflections from it danced round the room like little blue searchlight beams. \u201cJust a man.\u201d
\n\u201c\u2019Oo were<\/em> it? Yer dunt git things like that orf any Tom Dick or \u2019arry . . .\u201d
\nAnita raised her nose a trifle. \u201cVery well then, he was called Sir John Carpenter.\u201d
\nHer Granny screwed up her face oddly. \u201cHo, was \u2019e? Hoity-toity hen\u2019t in it, is it? \u2018Horf Sir John Carpenter\u2019\u00a0she says. An\u2019 I needn\u2019t arsk \u2019ow<\/em> . . . Comin\u2019 yer airs and graces . . . earned that on yer back<\/em>, didn\u2019t yer . . .\u201d
\n\u201cGran, there\u2019s no need to be crude . . .\u201d
\nGranny Thompson snatched the amulet, quick as a snake. \u201cWell yer kent keep<\/em> it. I\u2019ll look after it till yer got more sense<\/em> . . .\u201d
\n\u201cBut Gran you can\u2019t; it\u2019s his, it was only lent. I promised to take it back . . .\u201d
\nHer Granny softened a little. \u201cOrlright then, dunt git yer \u2019air orf . . . but I\u2019ll tek it down a bit fust, it\u2019s too\u00a0sharp<\/em> as it is, it\u2019ll \u2019ackle<\/em> too much . . .\u201d She dropped the charm into a small lead-lined pot she kept on the sideboard. Anita had always thought of it as a tobacco jar.
\n\u201cYer kin \u2019ave it come Toosdey<\/em> \u201d said Granny Thompson. \u201c It\u2019ll \u2019ave ter soak<\/em>.\u201d p. 70-71<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After Anita gets the charm back, she and Sir John go on journey through time, hurtling back to the start of creation, and beyond . . . .
\nNot Me, Not Amos Cabot!<\/em><\/strong> by Harry Harrison heralds the welcome arrival of this writer as a regular contributor to the magazine. Although Harrison had contributed stories to the magazine in the past, in the next couple of years he would contribute a number of fiction and non-fiction items, including two novels. Towards the end of the magazine\u2019s run he would become its editor.
\nAs for the story, it is an amusing one about an old man who starts getting free copies of Hereafter<\/em>, a magazine to help people prepare for death. Outraged, he goes to the publisher and eventually manages to see someone who tells him he\u00a0has a free two-year subscription. The circulation editor explains how it works:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a matter of statistics, sir. Every day just so many people die, of certain ages and backgrounds and that kind of thing. The people in the insurance companies, actuaries I think they call them, keep track of all these facts and figures and draw up plenty of graphs and tables. Very accurate, they assure me. They have life expectancy down to a fine art. They take a man, say like yourself, of a certain age, background, physical fitness, environment and so on, and pinpoint down the date of death very exactly. Not the day and hour and that kind of thing. I suppose they could if they wanted too, but for our purposes a period of two years is satisfactory. This gives us a number of months and issues to acquaint the subscriber with our magazine and the services offered by our advertisers, so by the time the subscriber dies the ad-messages will have reached saturation.\u201d p. 84<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cabot determines to prove them wrong and goes to his doctor for a check-up and advice. He then makes a number of lifestyle changes. Two years later he waits to see if his Hereafter<\/em> subscription has expired . . . .
\nThe Madman<\/em><\/strong> by Keith Roberts is the first appearance of Keith Roberts under his Alastair Bevan pseudonym. At this stage in his career he had written so many stories that he needed not only a pseudonym for Science Fantasy<\/em> but used two others for some of his work in the anthology series\u00a0New Writings in SF<\/em> (John Kingston\u2014his two middle names\u2014and David Stringer). Generally, but not always, anything in Science Fantasy<\/em> that wasn\u2019t an \u2018Anita\u2019, or later on a \u2018Pavane\u2019 story, appeared under the Bevan byline.
\nThis story concerns an old man in a world where urban sprawl has covered the countryside. He destroys a plastic wishing well for children because it offends his sensibilities, and then goes on journey where he vandalises other such affronts. When he is caught at Stonehenge he is sent to a state asylum and interviewed about his actions. Later on (spoiler) the interviewer shows him some of the things they have in the asylum: a grassed area, books, old cars, coal fires, etc., and suggests he stays there. This is at best mawkish, and at worst unattractively Luddite. Either way, it does not convince.
\nI\u2019m not really sure what Joik<\/em><\/strong> by Ernest Hill3<\/sup> is about. Set in a future where everyone is naturally black or has their skin pigmented, Ngula, an investigator, is trying to establish why a spaceship using a joik (transportation) device has disappeared. This takes the form of an interrogation of Dadulina, the pilot\u2019s partner. She eventually reveals to Ngula that the universe is a spiral, and that the pilot has gone to the reality that lies outside it. All the people in the spiral are \u2018dream fragments\u2019.
\nThe general impression is of a story written after one spliff too many:<\/p>\n

\u201cNarcotics,\u201d she said slowly, \u201care the only real thing in a world of dreams. They bring us nearer to the Dreamer. Beauty, music are the gateways to reality but reality is hard for us dream-symbols to fathom.\u201d p. 117<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will all be happier when you know that the quest for knowledge is futile and that nothing ultimately matters in a world that is fundamentally unreal.\u201d p. 119<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Phil Dick it isn\u2019t, and I think there may be a final twist\/wrinkle that went over my head.
\nOne of Those Days<\/em><\/strong> by Charles Platt is this writer\u2019s first published story. Platt would shortly produce other work but it would appear in Science Fantasy\u2019<\/em>s sister magazine\u00a0New Worlds<\/em>, of which he would later become designer and occasional editor. As with the last issue this story provides a cheery end to the proceedings (not). A man doesn\u2019t feel well and then starts feeling worse. . . . Not really SF and on the slight side, but OK for all that.<\/p>\n

In Kyril Bonfiglioli\u2019s Editorial<\/em><\/strong> he raves about Brian Aldiss\u2019s new novel Greybeard<\/em>. I strongly suspect that if Bonfiglioli had been in the editorial role earlier, this novel would have been a Science Fantasy<\/em> serial:<\/p>\n

There really seems little point in writing an editorial this time about anything but the most important science fiction event for a long time\u2014the publication of Brian Aldiss\u2019 new novel GREYBEARD (Faber 18s.).
\nThere is no doubt about this being Aldiss\u2019 best work yet: the difficulty lies in trying to decide whether to invite attack by saying that I think it is the best science-fiction novel anyone has ever written. Perhaps the best plan is to compromise and say that I am sure it is in the best six. Those enthusiasts who may have, from time to time, been puzzled by his tentative steps in new directions; those who have felt, perhaps, that he may have been written out; those particularly who, like myself, have been frustrated by a kind of wilful perfunctoriness about his novels\u2014all these must now sit back and say that they were wrong, for this novel is rounded, complete, mature and beautifully coherent. This may indeed be the novel we have all been hoping someone would write: the novel which is to emancipate science-fiction and clear it of the reproach of infantility. p. 2<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He goes on to criticise the publisher for labelling the book as SF.
\nAt the end of the editorial there is a promise of more pages, monthly publication, a letter page, line illustrations, and a regular science fact feature. Of this wish list, only the monthly publication materialised quickly, and some of the others (such as the science column) never materialised at all.
\nThere is one other short non-fiction piece in this issue. E. J. Carnell – A Quick Look<\/em><\/strong> by Harry Harrison is a short (and deserved) appreciation of the previous editor Ted Carnell:<\/p>\n

The man who carries these many portfolios is a dedicated Londoner, born in Plumstead in 1912 he still makes his home there. He sports a natty moustache and a fine ruddy complexion that only years of exposure to the rigours of the English climate\u2014both indoors and out\u2014can produce. I have many times tucked my legs under the family table and consumed the immense and satisfying teas his wife Irene uncomplainingly produces for all the flotsam of science fiction that wash up on the Carnell doorstep. After tea, and with a little prodding, the O.M. [Old Monopolist] will show some of the films he has made of historical science-fictional gatherings and one can sip a drink and wallow in nostalgia. The fire crackles in the grate and forgotten faces are recalled with enthusiasm and amusement. p. 62-63<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder what happened to those home movies.
\nThe Cover<\/strong> <\/em>by Roger Harris,4<\/sup> presumably illustrating a scene from Swann\u2019s novel, is the last of his four attractive efforts.
\nA solid enough issue but nothing special.\u00a0\u25cf<\/em><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. Yes, I know. Pick up a copy of Private Eye\u2019s Colemanballs<\/em>.<\/p>\n

2. Another story featuring these characters,\u00a0A Light Feint,<\/em> is reviewed in Impulse<\/em> #2, April 1966<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0This was the third of Ernest Hill\u2019s published stories and he would produce another dozen or so (as well as three novels). A handful appeared in Science Fantasy<\/em> but he also sold to New Worlds<\/em> and New Writings in SF<\/em> of the same period; later on his work would also appear in Galaxy<\/em>, If<\/em> and Science Fiction Monthly<\/em>. Ernest Hill at ISFDB<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4. This may be the same Roger Harris as on this site<\/a>. The \u2018Blue Fairy\u2019 piece in the top-centre would make a good cover for Science Fantasy<\/em> #94, July 2020, the seventieth anniversary issue. . . . His biographical information<\/a> puts him in the London area in the mid-sixties. I’ve sent the gallery an email, and will update this footnote if I receive a reply. \u25cf<\/p>\n

Edited 8th May 2018 to change the formatting, make various minor text changes, and add the quote to the Harrison piece on Ted Carnell.<\/em><\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISFDB link Other reviews: John Boston and Damien Broderick, Strange Highways: Reading Science Fantasy, 1950-67 (p. 227 of 365) (Amazon UK) _____________________ Editor, Kyril Bonfiglioli Fiction: The Blue Monkeys (Part 2 of 3) \u2022 serial by Thomas Burnett Swann \u2217\u2217\u2217 Room with a Skew \u2022 short story by John T. Phillifent [as by John Rackham] […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-fantasy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-oj","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1507"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4853,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions\/4853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}