{"id":1687,"date":"2016-08-03T11:41:13","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T11:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=1687"},"modified":"2016-08-03T11:41:13","modified_gmt":"2016-08-03T11:41:13","slug":"the-magazine-of-fantasy-and-science-fiction-6-february-1951","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=1687","title":{"rendered":"The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction #6, February 1951"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FSF195102x600b\"<\/p>\n

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

Fiction:
\nJohn the Revelator<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Oliver La Farge \u2665
\nOne of the Family<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Reginald Bretnor \u2665\u2665
\nTemporarily at Liberty<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Lawrence Goldman \u2665
\nJourney<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Gene Hunter \u2665\u2665
\nThe One Who Waits<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint short story by Ray Bradbury \u2665\u2665\u2665
\nMy Brother\u2019s Wife<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Wilson Tucker \u2665\u2665
\nThe Friendly Demon<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint short story by Daniel Defoe
\nThe Roommate<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Graves Taylor \u2665
\nNo-Sided Professor<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint short story by Martin Gardner \u2665\u2665\u2665+
\nBarney<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Will Stanton \u2665\u2665\u2665+
\nFearsome Fable<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Bruce Elliott
\nThe Railway Carriage<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint short story by F. Tennyson Jesse \u2665\u2665\u2665+
\nTime Tourist<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Thomas A. Meehan [as by Maurice Murphy] \u2665
\nEpisode of the Perilous Talisman<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by C. Daly King [as by Jeremiah Phelan] \u2665\u2665\u2665<\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by George Salter
\nRecommended Reading<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by the Editors
\nThe Kraken<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson
\nMore—And Still More!<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by the Editors<\/p>\n

After the brief respite of a Bonestell cover last month we are back to the peculiar offerings of George Salter. Moving swiftly on, this first bimonthly issue starts with a story from the 1930 Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Laughing Boy<\/em>, a novel of Navajo life which the editors refer to as \u2018an American Classic\u2019 in their introduction. Contributors such as this from outside of the SF field would be a continuing characteristic of the magazine.
\nJohn the Revelator<\/em><\/strong> is a Cold War inspired story about rival supercomputers. One of the newest American computers is \u2018sleeping\u2019 while a chaplain prays nearby. Subsequently, it and the other supercomputers start inserting religious text in amongst the equation solutions they provide:<\/p>\n

Luke added a contribution of his own to a problem looking to a vastly improved guided missile. At the end of his solutions he printed numbers which when decoded made another Greek sentence followed by four figures. Translated, the passage read, \u201cFather, forgive them; for they know not what they do. 23:34.\u201d The numbers referred to the chapter and verse in St. Luke.<\/em> p.9<\/p>\n

Relations between the nations of the world improve for a period as the computers shame mankind into better behaviour. However (spoiler) it isn\u2019t long before man is back to his old ways. The story\u2019s initially somewhat naive view about the effect that computer preaching would have on world affairs makes it a little unconvincing, but this aspect probably appealed to Boucher\u2019s devout Catholicism.1<\/sup>
\nThere are another half-dozen or so SF stories in this issue, the overall standard of which is probably higher than the fantasy. Journey<\/em><\/strong> by Gene Hunter has an introduction which states:<\/p>\n

It took the fresh approach of Gene Hunter to reveal that the trip through time might, in a perfectly normal and convincing manner, occur on a streetcar. And with the same fresh realism, Mr. Hunter describes time travel in terms, not of tomorrow\u2019s galaxies, but of today\u2019s Suburbia, not of the lntertemporal Patrol, but of thirteen-year-old Bobby Holcomb. This is a story which brings you no time-travel marvels of another age, past or future \u2014only the quietly perturbing realization of what an encounter with your self-at-another-time-point might mean.<\/em> p.25<\/p>\n

That pretty much summarises the story. A thirteen-year-old boy meets his future self who is doing a job he doesn\u2019t like and has a wife he doesn\u2019t want to be with. He tells the boy to remember the poor choices he made when he goes back to the past. It\u2019s competently done but perhaps most noteworthy for being an attempt at using fantastical SF ideas on a personal level.
\nThe One Who Waits<\/em><\/strong> by Ray Bradbury (The Arkham Sampler<\/em>, Summer 1949) is an eerie tale set on Mars. An alien entity in a deep well senses a spaceship from Earth land nearby. When they come to the well it rises and possesses one of the men:<\/p>\n

I nod my head and it is good to nod. It is good to do several things after ten thousand years. It is good to breathe the air and it is good to feel the sun in the flesh deep and going deeper and it is good to feel the structure of ivory, the fine skeleton hidden in the warming flesh, and it is good to hear sounds much clearer and more immediate than they were in the stone deepness of a well. I sit enchanted.<\/em> p.36<\/p>\n

I liked this but the final scene made me wonder about the rationale behind this creature\u2019s behaviour.
\nIn the next story I recognised the name of Martin Gardner from the puzzles he produced for Isaac Asimov\u2019s Science Fiction Magazine<\/em> in the 70s and 80s. I hadn\u2019t realised that he also wrote fiction. No-Sided Professor<\/em><\/strong> (Esquire<\/em>, January 1947) would seem to be an accomplished writing debut as well as the first of two \u2018Dr Stanislav Slapernarski\u2019 stories. It has an excellent opening hook:<\/p>\n

Dolores\u2014a tall, black-haired stripteaser at Chicago\u2019s Purple Hat Club stood in the center of the dance floor and began the slow gyrations of her Cleopatra number, accompanied by soft Egyptian music from the Purple Hatters. The room was dark except for a shaft of emerald light that played over her filmy Egyptian costume and smooth, voluptuous limbs.
\nA veil draped about her head and shoulders was the first to be removed. Dolores was in the act of letting it drift gracefully to the floor when suddenly a sound like the firing of a shotgun came from somewhere above and the nude body of a large man dropped head first from the ceiling. He caught the veil in mid-air with his chin and pinned it to the floor with a dull thump.
\nPandemonium reigned.<\/em> p.74<\/p>\n

It goes on to tell a superior story about a group of topologists who assemble at a meeting of the Moebius club to hear a talk on \u2018non-lateral surfaces\u2019 from a visiting Polish professor. This story is probably the highlight of the issue.
\nOnce again, the editors\u2019 introduction to Barney<\/em><\/strong> by Will Stanton provides a better description than I can:<\/p>\n

The experimental biologist who overreaches himself belongs to the oldest traditions of science fiction, the documentary diary form to the oldest traditions of English fiction itself.<\/em> P.84<\/p>\n

The biologist and an animal subject called Barney\u2014who has had his intelligence increased\u2014are on an island and are engaged in a battle of wits that ends with\u00a0a clever twist ending.
\nThe final two SF pieces are slight, forgettable stuff. Fearsome Fable<\/em><\/strong> by Bruce Elliott is a forgettable three-paragraph squib that concerns fifteen apes in front of typewriters, each of who type out a single word.
\nTime Tourist<\/em><\/strong> by Thomas A. Meehan is more a notion than a story with its tale of a time traveller from 5050 who has a verbal sparring match with a young girl. The last short section seems to end quite abruptly.<\/p>\n

The half-dozen fantasy pieces are all quite traditional stuff this time around with nothing like Howard Schoenfeld\u2019s Build Up Logically<\/em> from a couple of issues ago; two or three are ghost stories. One of the Family<\/em><\/strong> by Reginald Bretnor could be described as one of the latter although it is arguable that the ending makes it SF. A woman lives in fear of a mirror:<\/p>\n

The mirror hung beyond the stairs, high on the wall above the spinet-desk, where it could not see Miss Graes, where she did not need to pass it to reach the echoing, empty rooms in which she lived. For a while, long after her father\u2019s death, she had locked it away, face downward and closely hooded in many layers of brown paper, as though the woman who had cheated her might use it as an entrance-way. And might she not?\u2014Miss Graes had asked herself\u2014might guilt not rouse her in her stolen grave, send her across the gap of time and death, vengefully?<\/em> p.15<\/p>\n

As Miss Graes talks to a companion it appears that her father had adopted a girl who, after she died, was buried with the her father, using up the remaining space in the grave. The woman fears the adopted girl coming through the mirror for her.
\nThe ending perplexed me until I reread a previous part and realised (spoiler) the final scene loops back to a couple of lines (in a page of rambling dialogue) referring to the time when the orphaned girl was found. I don\u2019t think Bretnor helps the reader much here, so my advice is to\u00a0pay attention when reading this one.
\nTemporarily at Liberty<\/em><\/strong> by Lawrence Goldman probably isn\u2019t even fantasy. It is a slight story about a stage magician in hard times who turns to shoplifting from a large department store, and could probably be passed off as a mainstream piece.
\nMy Brother\u2019s Wife<\/em><\/strong> by Wilson Tucker is another entry for my \u2018Sweary SF\u2019 series due to the use of the word \u2018bugger\u2019 on p.45. It is a hard-boiled crime-type story about a gangster who has two brothers, the elder in a mental institution and the younger married to a far Eastern woman the gangster has never seen. As there seems to be a link between the brother\u2019s insanity and the wife, the gangster investigates and discovers the woman had a different physical appearance in the three previous locations the couple lived.
\nThe resolution (spoiler) reveals the obvious answer that she is a shape shifter, but it leaves various other questions unanswered: why was the brother driven to insanity; why did the woman refuse to ever meet the gangster; why would the gangster kill her when he finds out what she is; how did the younger brother become a similar kind of creature? It is OK up to the final scene but it ends up as one of those pieces that collapses under the weight of its set-up.
\nI have no idea why the editors thought it a good idea to reprint The Friendly Demon<\/em><\/strong> by Daniel Defoe (a chapter titled The Devil Frolics with a Butler<\/em> from The Friendly Demon<\/em>, 1726). The\u00a0events in this story about a butler plagued by spirits seem to be completely arbitrary, and\u00a0the story\u2019s age and consequent style doesn\u2019t make for an easy read:<\/p>\n

The Lord Orrery, hearing of the strange passages, for his further satisfaction of the truth thereof, sent for the butler, with leave of his master, to come and continue some days and nights at his house, which, in obedience to his lordship, the servant did accordingly. Who after his first night\u2019s bedding there, reported to the earl in the morning that his specter had again been with him and assured him that on that very day he should be spirited away, in spite of all the measures that could possibly be taken to prevent it. Upon which he was conducted into a large room, with a considerable number of holy persons to defend him from the assaults of Satan, among whom was the famous stroker of bewitched persons, Mr. Greatrix, who lived in the neighborhood, and knew, as may be presumed, how to deal with the devil as well as anybody. Besides, several eminent quality were present in the house; among the rest, two bishops, all waiting the wonderful event of this unaccountable prodigy.<\/em> p.55<\/p>\n

In the introduction to The Roommate<\/em><\/strong> by Graves Taylor the editors comment that the story:<\/p>\n

\u2026represents a tradition in American supernatural writing apart from either the Gothic overstatement of Poe and Lovecraft or the naturalistic understatement of O\u2019Brien and Bierce. The true Jamesian fantasy is one of psychological indirection, a story in which hinted-at supernatural forces serve to illuminate the crannies of the protagonist\u2019s mind.<\/em> p.61<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never really thought about this as I\u2019m not a big reader of horror (bar Stephen King), but I recognise that latter category (which I presume would include the likes of Robert Aickman and Ramsey Campbell) as one that I\u2019ve never really got on with, Ballardian inner space horror stories if you will. Unfortunately, that continues with this story.
\nIn this piece a spinster starts to sense that the ambience of her bedroom has changed, and she subsequently finds an impression of a head in the pillow next to hers when she wakes in the morning. The story describes\u00a0three areas of the woman\u2019s life: her servant Dora and Dora\u2019s husband Lamb; her dead sister and previous suitors; a physical change in her appearance and weight. While readable and atmospheric enough, the ending made no particular sense. There is a vague impression of repressed sexuality, but otherwise I have no idea what this one is about.
\nThe Railway Carriage<\/em><\/strong> by F. Tennyson Jesse (The Strand<\/em>, November 1931) is one of the writer\u2019s \u2018Solange\u2019 stories. Solange is a lady detective who has \u2018an extra spiritual sense that warns her of evil\u2019, which sometimes aides and other times frustrates her in the elucidation of crimes. The first half of this story is set in a third class carriage of a train that she shares with two other people, a quiet old lady and a somewhat odd man. Solange notes a strange atmosphere in the carriage, one that became apparent when the man joined them at the second stop. Subsequently the three of them are joined by a few local farmers and a lawyer\u2019s clerk, and an interesting conversation begins about a young man who has been hanged that morning for cutting the throat of a love-rival.
\nThe original three passengers are left in the train after this group disembark, and the train continues on only to be involved in an accident. When Solange comes to consciousness, there is a young man above her saying she needs to get out of the carriage as the train is on fire.
\nThe rest of the action neatly ties together all the elements that have been established. The young man (spoiler) tells her to wake the odd man and tell him they need a rope to get the old woman out of the carriage. The man, once roused and having climbed out of the carriage, tells Solange to look in his bag where she discovers a hangman\u2019s noose. There are a couple of further wrinkles to this clever and engrossing story, and the editors also include an afterword:<\/p>\n

In granting us permission to reprint this story, Miss Jesse wrote: \u201cThe only crab to it is this: I thought it was such a good idea that, although knowing it was incorrect and that in England hangmen don\u2019t carry their ropes around with them in little over-night hags, I couldn\u2019t resist writing it. It is the only time I have ever committed the crime of being incorrect and I got a long letter from a barrister and one from a prison governor informing me that the rope is always kept in the prison where executions take place and is laid up in vaseline to keep it supple. So I wrote back very humbly and said I knew I had been wrong, but it was such a good idea that I was afraid I had been unable to resist it. I do hope you don\u2019t mind this lack of correctness.\u201d If \u201cthe crime of being incorrect\u201d could he regularly guaranteed to produce such results as this, we\u2019d establish an editorial tabu against accuracy!<\/em> p.101<\/p>\n

I have to agree: it is an enjoyable story, to the point that I am curious as to whether The Solange Stories<\/em> (Macmillan, 1931) are worth acquiring.
\nEpisode of the Perilous Talisman<\/em><\/strong> by C. Daly King is, after an unnecessary page or so of previous series-story waffle, an interesting Egyptian artefact fantasy about a box that kills people when opened. A politician with nefarious motives brings the box to an expert called Tarrant. The latter is a Sherlock Holmes style character who understands\u00a0most things and knows all the questions to ask if he doesn\u2019t.
\nIt eventually materialises (spoiler) that the politician wants to use the box as a cover for murdering his wife. When Tarrant opens it and survives, he lies to the politician to lure him into doing the same, which eventually leads to his death. What is actually inside the box is a special kind of mirror that gives the observer an elemental and traumatic reflection\u00a0of themselves.<\/p>\n

The non-fiction is minimal as per usual. The Recommended Reading<\/em><\/strong> column by The Editors starts with a quick stab at definitions:<\/p>\n

Many anthologists and magazine editors, and even some readers, make quite a serious to-do about drawing a precise line between science fiction and the rest of imaginative literature. As you know, we\u2019ve never felt the tremendous importance of the distinction; and only in this review department have we tried to draw any line of demarcation between science fiction and fantasy.
\nBut if the line is to be drawn, we feel strongly that it should come at a different point than the usual one. Extrapolation of probable science, as practised notably by Heinlein and by a few other authors such as de Camp and Simak, can be legitimately called science fiction; space-warps, galactic drives, BEMs and time machines are as purely fantasy as werewolves or vampires.<\/em>\u00a0p.58<\/p>\n

After praising Theodore Sturgeon’s The Dreaming Jewels<\/em>, they go onto cover a number of books including these two, which I have never heard of:<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Cadell\u2019s delightful <\/em>Brimstone in the Garden (Morrow) is a charming (if faintly snobbish) picture of a tiny English village subjected to a summer\u2019s haunting by two soul-catching demons and a wistful ghost.
\nThese are really demons of good-will who manage, with just a touch of mild malice, to solve everyone\u2019s problems and bring about a generally happy ending. Robert Coates\u2019s <\/em>Here Today (Macmillan) is an exasperating novel of current English life and time travel. The fantasy is weak and confused; the non-fantasy is, while undisciplined, profoundly moving.<\/em> p.59<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t as impressed as Groff Conklin (Galaxy<\/em>, December 1950) with\u00a0Hugo Gernsback\u2019s Ralph 124C41+<\/em>, calling it \u2018unreadable as a novel\u2019.
\nThere is also a poem, The Kraken<\/em><\/strong> by Lord Alfred Tennyson, and a short note about next issue\u2019s contents, More\u2014And Still More!<\/em><\/strong>:<\/em><\/p>\n

Beginning with our next issue, we\u2019re adding close to 10,000 words to our contents!
\nOur problem all along has been that of a small keg of dynamite looking for a place to explode. Right now we\u2019re loaded with stories both rich and strange, and we\u2019ve been wondering unhappily how we could possibly bring them all to you. This new extra space is the big solution! For one thing, it makes possible\u00a0the use of longer novelets, possibly up to 20,000 words, such as we never thought we could run; or we could instead keep the contents much as they are and add a short novelet of around 10,000 words, or perhaps two extra short stories.
\nWhat do you think? We have an especially warm feeling for readers who speak up about their likes and dislikes, and we\u2019d be enormously pleased to receive a flood of letters telling us how you would like to see us use our new space. We can be reached anytime at 2643 Dana St., Berkeley 4, California.<\/em><\/p>\n

In conclusion I\u2019d say that this issue seems to be a good example of what the magazine is at the moment: a dozen or so stories that are a good mix of reprint and new material, and of SF and fantasy and horror, with perhaps three of four of them particularly noteworthy.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Boucher\u2019s religion is referred to here: Teller of Weird Tales<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    ISFDB link Fiction: John the Revelator \u2022 short story by Oliver La Farge \u2665 One of the Family \u2022 short story by Reginald Bretnor \u2665\u2665 Temporarily at Liberty \u2022 short story by Lawrence Goldman \u2665 Journey \u2022 short story by Gene Hunter \u2665\u2665 The One Who Waits \u2022 reprint short story by Ray Bradbury \u2665\u2665\u2665 […]<\/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":false,"_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":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy-and-science-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-rd","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687","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=1687"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1701,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions\/1701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}