{"id":1793,"date":"2016-08-18T19:45:21","date_gmt":"2016-08-18T19:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=1793"},"modified":"2016-08-19T07:54:32","modified_gmt":"2016-08-19T07:54:32","slug":"galaxy-science-fiction-v01n04-january-1951","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=1793","title":{"rendered":"Galaxy Science Fiction v01n04, January 1951"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Galaxy195101x600\"<\/p>\n

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

Other reviews:
\nL\u00e4hett\u00e4nyt Tpi\u00a0Klo: Tpi\u2019s Reading Diary<\/a>
\nMatthew Wuertz: Black Gate<\/a><\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nTyrann<\/em><\/strong> (Part 1 of 3) \u2022 serial by Isaac Asimov \u2665\u2665
\nDark Interlude<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Fredric Brown and Mack Reynolds \u2665
\nRule of Three<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Theodore Sturgeon \u2665\u2665\u2665+
\nMade to Measure<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by William Campbell Gault \u2665\u2665
\nSusceptibility<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by John D. MacDonald \u2665\u2665
\nThe Reluctant Heroes<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Frank M. Robinson \u2665\u2665<\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nTyrann<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 cover by John Bunch
\nInterior artwork<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 John Bunch, David Maus, Karl Rogers, L. Woromay, James Vincent, Don Sibley
\nOld Business and New<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial by H. L. Gold
\nGalaxy\u2019s 5 Star Shelf<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 book reviews by Groff Conklin
\nNext Month\u2019s Contents Page<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The issue leads off with the first part of a serial, Tyrann<\/em><\/strong> by Isaac Asimov, which was later issued in book form as The Stars Like Dust<\/em>. This must have been a major coup for Galaxy<\/em> at the time as Isaac Asimov was by now the author of Nightfall<\/em>, a string of \u2018Robot\u2019 stories, and had just finished his \u2018Foundation\u2019 series with \u2026And Now You Don\u2019t<\/em> a year earlier in Astounding<\/em>. Unfortunately, what he provides here is, at best, a very average 1940\u2019s potboiler.
\nThis story feels almost Van Vogtian to start: the main character Brion wakes up in his room on a far-future Earth to find the lights and ventilation inoperative and a door that won\u2019t open. He then finds a radiation bomb in the closet. A colleague called Jonti and the college superintendent manage to break open the door before the bomb explodes. Jonti then takes Biron aside to tell him that his father, The Rancher of Widemos, has been taken prisoner and executed by the rulers of the Nebular worlds, the Tyranni. He cautions him not to go home but to go to see Hinrik of Rhodia, the governor of his home planet, to intercede on his behalf.
\nBrion then travels incognito on a ship home but is arrested on arrival. Subsequently he is interrogated by the Tyranni Commissioner Aratap, who later releases him to make his way to Hinrik. While at the governor\u2019s house he also meets his daughter Artemisia and her uncle Gillbret. After some more plot development, these two enlist Brion to help them escape from Rhodia by piloting a spaceship for them.
\nAs well as this narrative there is also a sub-plot that involves Jonti, another character called Rizzett, and an ancient Earth document that will supposedly enable the Nebular worlds to free themselves from the yoke of Tyranni rule.
\nAs you can probably tell from the synopsis above, there is lots of SF furniture here but no redeeming central concept like the psychohistory of Foundation<\/em> or the three laws of robotics. What we are left with is a mundane plot and a lot of Asimov\u2019s weaknesses, like his clunky hard to remember names, leaden prose and one dimensional characters: Hinrik the governor is a bit of a wimp, Uncle Gillbret is slightly effete and finds everything \u2018amusing\u2019; Brion and Artemisia, meanwhile, carry on like two hormonally poisoned teenagers.
\nAll that said, this first part moves along well enough and there is enough going on to keep your attention but I\u2019m not sure this level of writing will keep me interested over the length of a novel.<\/p>\n

The first item of the short fiction is Dark Interlude<\/em><\/strong>, a collaboration by Fredric Brown and Mack Reynolds. This starts with a man speaking to the local sheriff about a time traveller that has arrived from the future and who has married his sister. The narrative then alternates between the brother\u2019s account of what has occurred and sections describing the time-traveller meeting the sister. This is unexceptional stuff until (spoiler) the most ghastly ending. The brother explains to the sheriff:<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to asking him some questions about things in his time and after a while I asked him how they got along on race problems and he acted puzzled and then said he remembered something about races from history he\u2019d studied, but that there weren\u2019t any races then.\u201c <\/em>
\n\u201cHe said that by his time\u2014starting after the war of something-or-other, I forget its name\u2014all the races had blended into one. That the whites and the yellows had mostly killed one another off and that Africa had dominated the world for a while, and then all the races had begun to blend into one by colonization and intermarriage and that by his time the process was complete. I just stared at him and asked him, \u2018You mean you got nigger blood in you?\u2019 and he said, just like it didn\u2019t mean anything, \u2018At least one-fourth.\u2019 \u201c<\/em> p.73<\/p>\n

The brother then gets his gun and kills the time-traveller for defiling his sister, and the sheriff\u2019s equally racist response is followed by the statement that he\u2019ll manage to hush it up.
\nI thought this a rather crude attempt to examine an unpleasant subject because all it does is shove your nose in it. Presumably this was published by Gold to signal that Galaxy<\/em> would be willing to use fiction that examined the most difficult of social issues.<\/p>\n

The first of the three novelettes is, fittingly, Rule of Three<\/em><\/strong>, Theodore Sturgeon\u2019s second appearance in four issues. This starts with three aliens investigating Earth and finding humanity infected with the Pa\u2019ak virus. This causes mental instability, and may spill out into the Galaxy as humanity starts travelling in space. Each of the aliens is a triad and they subsequently break into three threes to investigate humanity and work out a way of curing it of the virus.
\nFrom there it becomes a story of the fragments trying desperately to regroup after their investigation.1<\/sup> In the course of this the life stories of several humans are told: a psychologist meets his ex-wife; a bass-player refuses to work with an admiring piano-playing colleague due to the suicide of a childhood friend caused by gossip about homosexuality; one of the alien fragments saves the psychologist\u2019s female co-worker from being raped by a man she meets at a party.
\nThe story is a little messy to be honest, but the impressive aspects of this are the well realised characters\u2014compare these to the ones in Asimov\u2019s serial for instance\u2014and the inclusion of\u00a0previously taboo subjects. To that latter point, the attempted rape scene must have come as something of a shock for 1950\u2019s readers (and it was a bit of a shock for me as I hadn\u2019t been expecting it):<\/p>\n

She leaned away from him with her head averted, swung her handbag back and up at his face. He caught her wrist deftly and turned it behind her. <\/em>
\n\u201cDon\u2019t,\u201d she gasped. \u201cDon\u2019t . . .\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cYou\u2019ve made your little protest like a real lady, honey, so it\u2019s on the record. Now save us some time and trouble. Let\u2019s get to it.\u201d <\/em>
\nShe kicked him. He gasped but stood solidly. There was a sharp click behind her. \u201cHear that?\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s my switch-blade. Push a button and zip!\u2014 seven inches of nice sharp steel. Now don\u2019t you move or make a sound, sweetheart, and this\u2019ll be fun for both of us.\u201d<\/em>
\nLocking her against him with his left arm, he reached slowly up under the hem of her short jacket. She felt the knife against her back. It slipped coldly between her skin and the back of her low-cut dress. \u201cDon\u2019t you move,\u201d he said again. The knife turned, sawed a little, and the back strap of her brassiere parted. The knife was removed; she heard it click again. He dropped it into his jacket pocket. \u201cNow,\u201d he breathed, \u201cdoesn\u2019t that feel better, lamb-pie?\u201d<\/em>
\nShe filled her lungs to scream, and instantly his hard hand was clamped over her mouth. It was a big hand, and the palm was artfully placed so that she couldn\u2019t get her mouth open wide enough to use her teeth on it. \u201cLet\u2019s not wrestle,\u201d he said, his voice really gentle, pleading. \u201cIt just doesn\u2019t make sense. I\u2019d as soon kill you as not\u2014you know that.\u201d She stood trembling violently, her eyes rolled up almost out of sight. Her mouth sagged open when he kissed it.<\/em> p.88-89<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t rate this quite as highly as The Stars Are the Styx<\/em> but is the best story in the issue.<\/p>\n

After these two stories I approached the next with some trepidation, wondering if Gold had put together a proto-Dangerous Visions<\/em> taboo-busting issue. However, Made to Measure<\/em><\/strong> by William Campbell Gault is more conventional stuff. This novelette is a rather ridiculous story about a scientist who decides he can build himself a better wife than the one he has and so he takes the current one back to the \u2018Domestic Center\u2019:<\/p>\n

He took the superpike almost all the way to the Center. There were bright cards on posts every few hundred feet:
\nIT\u2019S NOT TOO LATE
\nTO GET A MATE
\nTHE GIRLS ARE GREAT
\nAT THE DOMESTIC CENTER
\nHe pulled into the sweeping circular drive at the huge group of buildings. A troupe of singing girls came out, dressed in majorette costumes, opened the door, helped him out, parked the car, escorted him into the lavish reception room. Music came from somewhere, soft and moody. There were murals all over the walls, every one romantic. A dispensing machine held engagement and wedding rings with a series of finger-holes on the left side for matching sizes.<\/em> p.125-126<\/p>\n

I should add that this quote is actually from the end of the story and\u00a0it is one of the few occasions I thought that this may be satirical. I don\u2019t think it is\u2014the actual story appears to be far more straightforward.
\nAfter having returned his wife our driven young man proceeds to build his cybernetic wife. Needless to say, after she starts accompanying him into social situations she needs to be tweaked away from perfection after a couple of encounters where she is too tactless, too intelligent, etc. Ultimately, he gives her self-volition, and then the obvious happens. Despite how all this sounds it is as\u00a0readable and well executed\u00a0as you would expect from a future Edgar winner.2<\/sup><\/p>\n

The next story is by John D. MacDonald, the writer who would later be best known for his \u2018Travis McGee\u2019 mystery novels which started appearing in the sixties. Before then he produced a fair amount of SF,\u00a0including\u00a0three novels. Susceptibility<\/em><\/strong> is about a Praecursor sent to a colony planet where they do not seem to be using the facilities that have been provided. He soon finds the colonists have gone back to a more simple lifestyle. The woman temporarily in charge of administration takes him to the one centre that is being used. There they see obese people who want for nothing: he later finds it is their penal centre\/prison. He ends up staying with her. A\u00a0minor but quite well done piece.<\/p>\n

The Reluctant Heroes<\/em><\/strong> by Frank M. Robinson is the third of the novelettes. This one is about a moon base crew coming up to their rotation day, when everyone apart from one crew member heads back to Earth. Chapman was the stopover from the first team who stayed on to show the second the ropes so, having spent twice as long on the Moon as the others in the base, he can\u2019t wait to get home. He has rebuffed advances\u00a0from those in charge to stay beyond his three years for yet another eighteen month tour.\u00a0However Dahl, the proposed stopover, tells him he doesn\u2019t want to stay….
\nThese events are bookended by the interview of a young man who has been selected to go to Venus.<\/p>\n

There is less non-fiction this month than previously. Horace Gold\u2019s editorial Old Business and New<\/em><\/strong> discusses the changes the readers have voted for: 50% more illustrations, shorter book reviews, articles skipped every other month, short editorials discussing matters germane to the magazine (presumably a backlash against Campbell\u2019s editorials in Astounding<\/em>), the next month\u2019s contents page. It also has some puffery:<\/p>\n

This issue, for example, is better, in my opinion, than any of the previous three . . . better in editorial balance, art, and layout, a direct result of close and sympathetic collaboration between editor and reader.<\/em>
\nThe maintenance of this level is not easy, of course. Any number of usable stories come in that don\u2019t have the strong characterization, the human conflict, the psychological suspense that are coming to be identified with <\/em>Galaxy Science Fiction, and must thus be rejected. Others have those qualities and not freshness of theme. The right blend was a rarity to begin with, but it is becoming less so as authors with integrity recognize the objective\u2014stories with believable characters, human motivations against a background of shrewd speculation. Appearing in <\/em>Galaxy, in other words, is a distinction that authors are willing to work hard to achieve. The result is progressively better issues.<\/em><\/p>\n

It finishes by mentioning a major 25,000 word novella by Ray Bradbury, The Fireman<\/em>, appearing in the next issue.<\/p>\n

The cover for this issue is better than previous efforts but a bit grey looking. The increase in interior illustrations is noticeable: there are a dozen and a half illustrations in this issue of which two-thirds are spread over two pages; they are competent if unexceptionable stuff.
\nThe final items of non-fiction are a short Galaxy\u2019s 5 Star Shelf<\/em><\/strong> by Groff Conklin, and Next Month\u2019s Contents Page<\/em><\/strong>, which turned out to be only partially correct (although Gold does say \u2018all bets are off\u2019 about the short fiction and articles due to the length of the Asimov serial and the Bradbury novella).<\/p>\n

Overall, an interesting issue if not a particularly good one.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The reunification of the three aliens is a precursor to Baby is Three<\/em>, which would appear in Galaxy<\/em>\u2019s October 1952 issue. By the way, I had vaguely thought that Sturgeon\u2019s work was, by this time, appearing more or less exclusively in Astounding<\/em> and Galaxy<\/em> but between The Rule of Three<\/em> and Baby is Three<\/em> there were eight stories that appeared in secondary markets: \u201cShadow, Shadow, on the Wall …\u201d<\/em> (Imagination<\/em>, February 1951), Special Aptitude<\/em> (Other Worlds<\/em>, March 1951), Make Room for Me!<\/em> (Fantastic Adventures<\/em>, May 1951), The Traveling Crag<\/em> (Fantastic Adventures<\/em>, July 1951), Excalibur and the Atom<\/em> (Fantastic Adventures<\/em>, August 1951), The Incubi of Parallel X<\/em> (Planet Stories<\/em>, September 1951), Never Underestimate…<\/em> (If<\/em>, March 1952), The Sex Opposite<\/em> (Fantastic<\/em>, Fall 1952).
    \nAccording to the story notes for Rule of Three<\/em> in the North Atlantic Books collection Baby is Three<\/em>, edited by Paul Williams, Sturgeon wrote this about Make Room for Me<\/em> in an unposted letter: \u201cHorace liked <\/em>[Rule of Three] but wants a rewrite. He\u2019s right, damn him. He\u2019s also very impressed with the other one <\/em>[Make Room for Me]\u00a0I told you about\u2014the one I wrote with someone else\u2014particularly since it has a New Year\u2019s Eve sequence and is ideal for his December issue. So I\u2019ve got to rewrite that one too. The way I hope to handle it is this: Tomorrow I\u2019ll stay home and work all day, finishing the 9000-worder. (Tonight, by the way, I\u2019m lecturing at CCNY.) Friday evening I\u2019ve got a dianetic emergency to handle\u2014his third session, which I think will straighten him out. Saturday I\u2019ll work on the 13,000-word one. After that I hope to be able to see you, if I can\u2019t snatch a couple of hours between times.\u201d <\/em>Presumably Gold later passed on Make Room for Me<\/em>.<\/li>\n
  2. Gault produced around two dozen SF stories, mostly for the pulps. His Wikipedia entry<\/a> indicates that he was a writer who was much better known for his sports and crime stories, particularly for the former where he was considered \u2018one of the best in the field.\u2019 There is a Wikipedia quote from Damon Knight that partially sums up how I feel about his story in this issue: \u2018I liked the characterization in those stories; I liked the description; I liked the fist fights; I liked the love interest. I like everything about them, except what they were all about.\u2019<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    ISFDB link Other reviews: L\u00e4hett\u00e4nyt Tpi\u00a0Klo: Tpi\u2019s Reading Diary Matthew Wuertz: Black Gate Fiction: Tyrann (Part 1 of 3) \u2022 serial by Isaac Asimov \u2665\u2665 Dark Interlude \u2022 short story by Fredric Brown and Mack Reynolds \u2665 Rule of Three \u2022 novelette by Theodore Sturgeon \u2665\u2665\u2665+ Made to Measure \u2022 novelette by William Campbell Gault […]<\/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":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-galaxy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-sV","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793","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=1793"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1805,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793\/revisions\/1805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}