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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
ISFDB link<\/a>:<\/p>\n Other reviews: Fiction: Non-fiction: After last month\u2019s issue I was hopeful that this might have signalled a sea-change in the general quality of the fiction in Galaxy<\/em> but it was not to be. This is probably one of the poorest issues yet, so let me be as brief as I can.<\/p>\n The Wind Between the Worlds<\/em><\/strong> by Lester del Rey starts off with Vic and Pat, male and female matter transmission engineers on a repair job. After a page of them we the get a two and a half page data dump about the discovery of matter transmission and a subsequent contact with, and admission to, a Galactic Council of many alien worlds. Shortly after we rejoin Vic and Pat, one of the transmitters gets stuck open and the Earth\u2019s air starts vanishing. This is a difficult problem to sort:<\/p>\n Continuous transmittal had never been used, to her knowledge; there was no certainty about what would happen. Once started, no outside force could stop a transmitter; the send and stop controls were synchronous, both tapped from a single crystal, and only that proper complex waveform could cut it off. It now existed as a space-strain, and the Plathgolians believed that this would spread, since the outer edges transmitted before matter could reach the center, setting up an unbalanced resonance that would make the force field grow larger and larger. Eventually, it might spread far beyond the whole building.<\/em> p.14<\/p>\n Del Rey subsequently runs through a number of contrived situations until, I guess, he got tired of typing or had produced enough to fill the hole that Horace Gold had in this issue or whatever: they drive tanks into the storm force winds at the transmitter but cannot reach the jammed portal, bombs are dropped, trips to alien worlds are undertaken, Vic and Pat get together romantically, etc. Eventually (spoiler) they link a whole lot of transmitters round in a loop. The Other Now<\/em><\/strong> by Murray Leinster is about Jimmy, who has lost his wife in a car accident. One night as he enters his house there is a slight dislocation and it seems to him that he has to open the door twice. Later there are other phenomena: he finds cigarette stubs in an ashtray\u2014of the kind his wife used to smoke, and there is a recent diary entry by her that he reads but which later disappears. As you have probably guessed this is a story of two parallel worlds temporarily merging and ends up having the twists you would expect. It is competently done.<\/p>\n The other novelette in this issue is Good Night, Mr. James<\/em><\/strong> by Clifford D. Simak. This starts with a man waking up not knowing who he is or how he got there. After a slow couple of pages he eventually remembers who he is and what he is supposed to be doing:<\/p>\n The <\/em>puudly had escaped and that was why he was here, hiding on the front lawn of some unsuspecting and sleeping citizen, equipped with a gun and a determination to use it, ready to match his wits and the quickness of brain and muscle against the most bloodthirsty, hate-filled thing yet found in the Galaxy. <\/em>p.68<\/p>\n Despite hunting something that sounds like a child\u2019s toy he eventually finds the \u2018puddly\u2019\u00a0in a zoo and kills it. Before it dies the creature reveals to him that he is a \u2018duplicate\u2019 person who will be disposed of when he returns to \u2018his\u2019 house. He returns there to\u00a0assesses the situation nevertheless,\u00a0and\u00a0there is a twist ending and a subsequent twist beyond that. I have a bit of a soft spot for John Christopher so I probably scored Socrates<\/em><\/strong> higher than I should have given it has a contrived end and a horrific, off-putting beginning:<\/p>\n I heard the squeals from the direction of the caretaker\u2019s cottage. I\u2019m fond of animals and hate to hear them in pain, so I walked through the gate into the cottage yard. What I saw horrified me. The narrator senses potential in\u00a0this unusual dog, one of a litter that has been inadvertently exposed to X-rays, and offers to buy him. Jennings agrees but later reneges on the deal when he learns of Socrates\u2019 intelligence. Later, the dog is used by Jennings in a music hall act. Once the narrator tracks down Socrates it regularly leaves Jennings and comes to the narrator who learns it can speak. The narrator reads to it between efforts at convincing him to leave the abusive Jennings. Tyrann<\/em><\/strong> by Isaac Asimov comes to a conclusion in this issue, thank Ghod. The first couple of chapters drag as they organise themselves to go to the rebel planet and subsequently depart. The pace is not helped by snippets of cosmology and sexual tension like this:<\/p>\n Approximately 95% of habitable planets in the Galaxy circled stars of spectral types F or G; diameter from 750 to 1500 thousand miles, surface temperature from five to ten thousand centigrade. Earth\u2019s sun was G-0, Rhodia\u2019s F-8, Lingane\u2019s G-2, as was that of Nephelos. F-2 was a little warm, but not too warm.<\/em> p.117<\/p>\n Her dress was a smooth, unfigured white which folded in a smooth drape that fled before the wind. The semi-transparent sleeves whipped back against her arms, turning them to silver. They eventually arrive at an oxygen bearing planet where they go down to the surface. Here there is some physical and info-dump\/talking head action. Eventually (spoiler) the Tyranni Commissioner Aratap turns up and there is an interestingly gruesome scene where The Autarch\/Jonti is killed:<\/p>\n But the Autarch\u2019s right shoulder and half his chest had been blasted away. Grotesquely, the forearm dangled freely from its magnetized sheath. Fingers, wrist and elbow ended in black ruin. For a long moment, it seemed that the Autarch\u2019s eyes flickered as his body remained in crazy balance, and then they were glazed and he dropped and was a charred remnant upon the floor. There is more shuffling of characters after this but the only thing of interest in the last part is that Hinrik explains he has the missing document mentioned earlier:<\/p>\n And with Rhodia\u2019s sun bright on the visiplate, Hinrik began with those words that were older, far older, than the civilization of any of the planets in the Galaxy save one: \u201c \u2018We, the people of the United States\u2019\u2014but substitute the United Galaxy\u2014\u2018in order to form a more\u00a0perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America . . .\u2019 \u201d<\/em> p.160<\/p>\n The idea that a set of principles on a piece of paper could bring down a galactic empire\u00a0probably wasn\u2019t as parochial or ridiculous\u00a0in 1950\u2019s American as it is now.2<\/sup><\/p>\n As for the non-fiction this issue, the cover by Don Sibley is quite bland, and of the interior artwork my favourites are by Phil Bard.3<\/sup> An issue to miss, even if you have started the serial.<\/p>\n ISFDB link: Other reviews: L\u00e4hett\u00e4nyt\u00a0Tpi\u00a0Klo: Tpi\u2019s Reading Diary Matthew Wuertz: Black Gate Fiction: The Wind Between the Worlds \u2022 novelette by Lester del Rey The Other Now \u2022 short story by Murray Leinster \u2665\u2665 Good Night, Mr. James \u2022 novelette by Clifford D. Simak \u2665 Socrates \u2022 short story by John Christopher \u2665\u2665 Tyrann (Part […]<\/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-1822","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-to","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1822","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=1822"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14887,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1822\/revisions\/14887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nL\u00e4hett\u00e4nyt\u00a0Tpi\u00a0Klo: Tpi\u2019s Reading Diary<\/a>
\nMatthew Wuertz: Black Gate<\/a><\/p>\n
\nThe Wind Between the Worlds<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Lester del Rey
\nThe Other Now<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Murray Leinster \u2665\u2665
\nGood Night, Mr. James<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Clifford D. Simak \u2665
\nSocrates<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by John Christopher \u2665\u2665
\nTyrann<\/em><\/strong> (Part 3 of 3) \u2022 serial by Isaac Asimov<\/p>\n
\nThe Wind Between the Worlds<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 cover by Don Sibley
\nInterior artwork<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 Don Sibley, Phil Bard, Peter Burchard, John Bunch
\nConsensus<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial by H. L. Gold
\nMissiles Over the Sea<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Willy Ley
\nNext Month\u2019s Contents Page<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nAlthough this is all cheerily enough done, not for one moment does this feel like anything other than a potboiler written to pay the bills, which is fine, but at almost forty pages he more than outstays his welcome.1<\/sup> I note in passing a couple of cultural changes: when the bureaucrat in charge of the matter transmitter answers the videophone he has a bottle of liquor on his desk; when Vic suffers from tiredness during the emergency he resorts to Benzedrine to keep himself awake.<\/p>\n
\nAll the \u2018duplicate\u2019 stuff is completely unconvincing\u2014as if you could just bring another human being into the world and snuff them out when you were finished with them.<\/p>\n
\nJennings, the caretaker, was holding a young puppy in his hand and beating its head against the stone wall. At his feet were three dead puppies, and as I came through the gate he tossed a fourth among them, and picked up the last squirming remnant of the litter.<\/em> p.84<\/p>\n
\nIt all comes to a rather pat ending (spoiler) with a drunk Jennings at a raging waterfall. I liked the middle section, which references Olaf Stapledon\u2019s Sirius<\/em>, but it is really one of those creaky stories you can find in earlier issues of New Worlds<\/em> magazine. I think Christopher was probably Galaxy<\/em>\u2019s first UK contributor and the British voice is quite distinctive.<\/p>\n
\nFor a moment, Biron melted dangerously. He wanted to return quickly; to run, leap into the ship, grasp her so that his fingers would leave bruises on her shoulders; feel his lips meet hers\u2014<\/em> p.120<\/p>\n
\nArtemisia buried her face against Biron\u2019s chest. Biron forced himself to look once, firmly and without flinching, at the body of his father\u2019s murderer, then turned his eyes away. Hinrik, from a distant corner of the room, mumbled and giggled to himself.
\nOnly Aratap was calm. He said, \u201cRemove the body.\u201d
\nThey did so, flaring the floor with a soft heat-ray for a few moments to remove the blood. Only a few scattered char-marks were left.<\/em> p.140<\/p>\n
\nThe editorial by Horace Gold, Consensus<\/em><\/strong>, is quite an interesting one as he gives a breakdown on what active fans versus the more general readership want from the magazine, noting that policies have historically been influenced by the former group. The characteristics of the magazine they agree on include the size (90%+, \u2018the pulp format is a relic of the 1920s and should properly be displayed alongside illuminated manuscripts\u2019), articles (87%, every other issue 79%), editorials (\u2018all but 0.03% and myself for\u2019), serials (no percentage but Gold will run a \u2018complete stories issue\u2019 between them); the divergences are on letters (83% want no letter department, \u2018this is not minimizing the value of fandom,\u2019 \u2018letters of special interest will be discussed editorially\u2019), story ratings (wanted by fans and writers, and to keep the latter group happy he will rate them in editorials twice a year with his comments), fan coverage (\u2018almost a 100% of the vote was against\u2019). He finishes with a note about the introduction of halftone reproduction of photographs and wash drawings.
\nThe other piece of non-fiction in this issue (Groff Conklin is ill) is Missiles Over the Sea<\/em><\/strong> by Willy Ley, which is an article that uses a film called The Flying Missile<\/em> to discuss missile technology, in particular a US development of the German V1 rocket called the \u2018Loon,\u2019 which is capable of submarine launch.\u00a0These military technology articles, while interesting, seem a bit at odds with the rest of the magazine.<\/p>\n\n
\nGalaxy asked me for a story and I wrote one Called \u201cDarwinian Poolroom\u201d.\u201d It appeared in the October 1950 issue, its very first. It was a very weak effort, but the magazine wanted more stories. In the second issue, a stronger story appeared, which I called \u201cGreen Patches,\u201d but the title was changed by the editor to \u201cMisbegotten Missionary,\u201d which I disliked.<\/em>
\nThen Galaxy serialzed my novel <\/em>The Stars, Like Dust\u2014, which the editor retitled <\/em>Tyrann, something I disliked even more. What\u2019s more the editor made me insert a subplot that I disapproved of, and when I wanted to take it out prior to book publication, Brad <\/em>[Doubleday editor, Walter I. Bradbury] decided he liked it and insisted that it stay. Because of this I have never liked the novel as much as I might have.<\/em> Isaac Asimov, I, Asimov: A Memoir<\/em>, Chapter 62: Horace Leonard Gold.<\/li>\n![\"Galaxy195103i1x600\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Galaxy195103i1x600.jpg?resize=625%2C476&ssl=1\")
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