{"id":2355,"date":"2016-12-08T16:02:18","date_gmt":"2016-12-08T16:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=2355"},"modified":"2018-12-21T14:16:51","modified_gmt":"2018-12-21T14:16:51","slug":"the-magazine-of-fantasy-and-science-fiction-128-january-1962","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=2355","title":{"rendered":"The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction #128, January 1962"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Galactic Central link<\/a>
\nISFDB link<\/a><\/p>\n

Other reviews:
\nC. C. Finlay, F&SF Blog<\/a>
\nGideon Marcus, Galactic Journey<\/a><\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nChristmas Treason<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by James White ♥♥♥♥
\nThrough Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: XLVII<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Reginald Bretnor [as by Grendel Briarton] ♥
\nA Time to Keep<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Kate Wilhelm ♥
\nInterplanetary Sex<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Jay Williams
\nThe Deer Park<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Maria Russell ♥♥
\nPlease Stand By<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Ron Goulart ♥♥
\nPrelude to a Long Walk<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Nils T. Peterson ♥♥
\nProgress<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Poul Anderson ♥♥♥<\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 Mel Hunter
\nThe Modern Demonology<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science essay by Isaac Asimov
\nBooks<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Alfred Bester
\nTo the Stars<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 poem by James Spencer<\/p>\n

This issue was one of the last few to be edited by Robert P. Mills before Avram Davidson took over in April. It not only has a Xmas cover but a Xmas story too, and a very good one at that.<\/p>\n

Christmas Treason<\/em><\/strong> by James White is about a secret group of exceptional young children with telepathic and telekinetic powers who attempt to solve the puzzle of how Santa manages to deliver so many presents at the same time:<\/p>\n

Richard shook his head. \u201cNone of the grown-ups can say how exactly it happens, they just tell us that Santa will come all right, that we\u2019ll get our toys in time and not to worry about it. But we can\u2019t help worrying about it. That\u2019s why we\u2019re having an Investigation to find out what really happens.
\n\u201cWe can\u2019t see how one man, even when he has a sleigh and magic reindeer that fly through the air, can bring everybody their toys all in one night . . .\u201d Richard took a deep breath and got ready to use his new, grown-up words. \u201cDelivering all that stuff during the course of a single night is a logistical impossibility.\u201d<\/em>
\nBuster, Mub and Greg looked impressed. Loo thought primly, \u201cRichard is showing off,\u201d and Liam said, \u201cI think he\u2019s got a jet.\u201d<\/em> p.7<\/p>\n

After some more discussion, their leader Richard sends the three boys off looking for large caverns as he thinks there is a chance that this is where they may find Santa\u2019s secret toy factories. The boys have the ability to travel to places that closely match what they can visualise in their minds, and it isn\u2019t long before one of them finds something:<\/p>\n

In Liam\u2019s mind was the memory of a vast, echoing corridor so big it looked like a street. It was clean and brightly lit and empty. There was a sort of crane running along the roof with grabs hanging down, a bit like the ones he had seen lifting coal at the docks only these were painted red and yellow, and on both sides of the corridor stood a line of tall, splendid, unmistakable shapes. Rockets.
\nRockets, thought Richard excitedly: <\/em>that was the answer, all right! Rockets were faster than anything, although he didn\u2019t quite see how the toys would be delivered. Still, they would find that out easily now that they knew where the secret cavern was.
\n\u201cDid you look inside them for toys?\u201d Greg broke in, just ahead of the others asking the same question.
\nLiam had. Most of the rockets were filled with machinery and the nose had sort of sparkly stuff in it.
\nAll the ones he had looked at were the same and he had grown tired of floating about among the noses of the rockets and gone exploring instead. At the other end of the corridor there was a big notice with funny writing on it. He was standing in front of it when two grown-ups with guns started running at him and yelling nonsense words. He got scared, and left. <\/em>p.10-11<\/p>\n

Matters are interrupted by the children having to return to their various houses in different parts of the world to be present for mealtimes and naps, etc. Meanwhile Richard thinks about a recent visit to a store that had lots of toys in it, and recalls his parents\u2019 conversation as his dad offered to buy his mother a piece of jewellery:<\/p>\n

Then Mummy had said, But John, are you sure you can afford it? It\u2019s robbery, sheer robbery! These storekeepers are robbers at Christmas time!
\nGuards all over the place, Greg\u2019s theory, and storekeepers who were robbers at Christmas time. It was beginning to make sense, but Richard was very worried by the picture that was forming. <\/em>p.13<\/p>\n

Alarmed by the conclusions Richard has reached, the group formulate a plan\u00a0that will ensure children throughout the world get their Xmas presents!
\nThis is both seasonal and charming, and has all the elements you would want in such a story: it is cleverly plotted, amusing, features cute, precocious children, has an appropriate amount of sentimentality, and (spoiler) an ending that involves world peace. A very good novelette.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t particularly like Feghoots, and Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: XLVII<\/em><\/strong> by Reginald Bretnor is no different from all the others. All I will add is that readers should contrast and compare this\u00a0with the previous story for genuine wit.<\/p>\n

A Time to Keep<\/em><\/strong> by Kate Wilhelm is about a man who has visions when he opens doors: he crosses a bridge in the pouring rain and sees an old man accosted by two youths; he skates with children and gets stuck on the opposite side of the river from them; he is part of a huge mob and discovers he is the one they are pursuing; he is a member of a jury pressured into finding a man guilty.
\nThe man has an epiphany at the end, but how these visions inform the final scene rather escaped me. It is well-written if not ultimately coherent.<\/p>\n

Interplanetary Sex<\/em><\/strong> by Jay Williams is less a short story than a \u2018humorous\u2019 article about female company for pilots on the way to Mars.2<\/sup> It is full of this kind of thing:<\/p>\n

The whole thing could be simplified by having the pilot and his assistant get married before the voyage commences. There are several strong objections to this course of action. If you take a young newlywed <\/em>couple and lock them in a cramped, metal room full of machinery, probably they will not be likely to notice, for the first couple of months, that it isn\u2019t the Plutocrat-Hilton. Things will be different by the time they reach the asteroids, however. By the six hundredth serving of vitamin capsules and K-rations, the husband will begin talking about Mom\u2019s can-opener, and the wife will begin noticing that he doesn\u2019t bother to press his space-suit any more. By July, they won\u2019t be speaking to each other, and they would still be a considerable distance from their goal.<\/em> p.41-42<\/p>\n

This one is really very poor.<\/p>\n

The Deer Park<\/em><\/strong> by Maria Russell is, according to ISFDB, the only SF story published story by this writer. It starts with a Minister of Defence for the Terrana Hegemony in a deer park with his companion Ronde. The Minister appears to have the ability to will things into existence via the \u2018qopot,\u2019 so when Ronde wants to see a fight between a buck deer and a lion, he obliges. Later when he wakes from a doze and finds his arm numb from Ronde lying on it he flicks her out of existence.
\nA visiting delegation from a far off planet then appears and matters become a little confusing (and I read it twice). The visitors want a fleet of ships to fight off aliens, and after some discussion the Minister obliges. He then goes on board the ship himself. At this point he becomes aware that his world is virtual and it\u2014the \u2018mamiraj\u2019\u2014starts to disintegrate around him.
\nPuzzling, yes, but its vivid images\u00a0make it an interesting if not totally successful piece.<\/p>\n

Ron Goulart\u2019s Please Stand By<\/em><\/strong> is one of his \u2018Max Kearny\u2019 stories. Kearny, who side-lines as an occult detective, has a friend called Dan who confides in him that he has been turning into an elephant, but only on national holidays. Max investigates and finds that a girlfriend of Dan\u2019s and an animator called Westerland are involved. This is an entertaining story but a kitchen sink one, with various things lobbed in to keep it on the boil. Some of the individual plot elements (spoiler), such as Dan changing into an elephant, are never satisfactorily resolved (at the end of the story this problem just stops).<\/p>\n

In Prelude to a Long Walk<\/em><\/strong>, Nils T. Peterson channels his inner Bradbury in this short, efficient and well written tale. Two cities grow and sprawl around the land an old man owns. Peterson makes clear his feelings about this, consumerism and TV. Not SF, not that I was bothered.<\/p>\n

Progress<\/em><\/strong> by Poul Anderson is the second story in his \u2018Maurai\u2019 series, a post-holocaust sequence centred on the political machinations of the nation that has now replaced New Zealand.3<\/sup>
\nIt starts off on a Maurai catamaran, which has supposedly had engine trouble and is now adrift. A Beneghali airship comes to their aid and lowers men who help them to raise their sales and get to port. The three strong Mauri crew, two men and one woman, are there to spy on the Beneghali island as they suspect there is a secret science project running in the mountains.
\nIn port they meet a Coradon (American) called Lorn\u2014who they know is an astrophysicist. Pleased at the prospect of company Lorn insists they stay at his house. During this initial meeting one of the three Maurais, Alisabeta, asks a question that is too direct and gets what seems like a telepathic warning from one of the other crew members: the moment passes.
\nAt dinner that night the talk again turns to politics, in particular the Beneghali population pressures and the Mauri\u2019s policy of non-imperialism with more backward peoples\u2014unless it is necessary, of course, when they send in their psychodynamicists.
\nRanu, the leader of the three Maurais, sneaks out that night and soon finds himself hanging underneath an airship headed for the interior.
\nGenerally, this is a well-written adventure:<\/p>\n

Darkness closed in, deep and blue. The sea glimmered below; the land lay black, humping up toward stars that one by one trod brilliantly forth. Yellow candlelight spilled from windows where the dinner table was being laid. Bats darted on the fringe of sight. A lizard scuttled in the thatch overhead. From the jungle came sounds of wild pigs grunting, the scream of a startled peacock, numberless insect chirps. Coolness descended layer by layer, scented with jasmine.<\/em> p.101<\/p>\n

Ranu goes on to discover (offstage, which I am not sure was a good idea) what the Beneghali\u2019s have hidden in the mountain and, by use of \u2018telepathic\u2019 contact, warns the other two and tells them to leave immediately and raise the alarm. The rest of the story kicks up a gear and is a fast paced affair.
\nIf it had continued in this vein until the very end this would have been, like the first story in the series, a superior and entertaining piece. Unfortunately it rather sabotages itself in the last chapter, which takes place many years later, when Lorn is in N\u2019Zealann and decides to look up the Maurai crew who came to the island.
\nThe first thing that damages the story is the explanation that Alisabeta provides to Lorn (after the latter has managed to track her down) about how they were able to communicate:<\/p>\n

Are you telepaths, or what?\u201d
\n\u201cGoodness, no!\u201d She laughed, more relaxed each minute. \u201cWe did have portable radios. Ultraminiaturized sets, surgically implanted, using body heat for power. Hooked directly into the nervous system.
\nIt was rather like telepathy, I\u2019ll admit. I missed the sensation when the sets were removed afterward.\u201d<\/em> p.125<\/p>\n

Radio sets hooked directly into the nervous system? Apart from sounding rather far-fetched, it doesn\u2019t fit in with the technological level of the society portrayed.
\nWorse is the latter part of this final chapter where Anderson unleashes his inner Heinlein and has Alisabeta perform as a mouthpiece for the Maurai nation\u2019s interference in the affairs of other countries:<\/p>\n

\u201cNevertheless,\u2019\u2019 [Lorn] said sharply, \u201cyou do interfere.\u201d
\n\u201cYes,\u201d she agreed. \u201cThat\u2019s another lesson we\u2019ve gotten from history. The ancients could have saved themselves if they had had the courage\u2014been hard-hearted enough\u2014to act before things snowballed. If the democracies had suppressed every aggressive dictatorship in its infancy; or if they had simply enforced their idea of an armed world government at the time when they had the strength to do so\u2014Well.\u201d She looked down. Her hand left his and went slowly across her abdomen; a redness crept into her cheeks. \u201cNo,\u201d she said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry people got hurt, that day at Annaman, hut I\u2019m not sorry about the end result. I always planned to have children, you see.\u201d<\/em> p.128<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what is worst about this: the irritatingly simplistic \u2018ends justify the means\u2019 rationalisation of the Maurai nation\u2019s \u2018benign\u2019 imperialism, or the smugness with which it is stated. That said, it probably didn\u2019t sound as naive in the 1960\u2019s as it does now.<\/p>\n

The non-fiction this issue includes Mel Hunter\u2019s previously mentioned Xmas Cover<\/em><\/strong>. It is part of a series of covers he did for the magazine featuring this robot.
\nIn The Modern Demonology<\/em><\/strong> Isaac Asimov starts his science essay talking about entropy and heat transfer before extending the idea of entropy (meaning in this case an increase in the disorder of a system) to other areas such as writing and evolution. There is more than the whiff of angels dancing on the heads of pins here, and it ends up more like theology essay than a science one.
\nBooks<\/em><\/strong> by Alfred Bester covers four items this time around and starts with a rave review for The Glass Bees<\/em> by Ernst J\u00fcnger:<\/p>\n

\u2026is a remarkable book, half Grand Guignol, part parable, vaguely science fiction, not at all a novel. It is a stream of metaphilosophical consciousness. It is a reflection on the contrast between XIXth century idealism and XXth century materialism. It is a penetrating revelation of the thinking of a self-destructive man. It is, like all unusual books, wonderfully impossible to categorize.<\/em> p.84<\/p>\n

Bester later has this to say about Arthur C. Clarke after reviewing A Fall of Moondust<\/em> by Arthur C. Clarke:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all theoretically interesting, but not quite dramatic enough for the taste of this department, which is why we opened our review with the reference to Mr. Clarke\u2019s English background. He demonstrates the point we\u2019ve often made before; that English authors seem to lack the emotional impact and dramatic drive of their American colleagues. A Heinlein, a Budrys, or a Sturgeon in the same story would not only have interested you; they\u2019d have made you sweat big drops.<\/em> p.86<\/p>\n

There is also a poem, To the Stars<\/em><\/strong>, by James Spencer, and a Statement of Circulation<\/em><\/strong> showing an average of 56,276 copies sold over the last twelve months. Magazines today only dream of circulations like that. Finally, the classified adverts in the\u00a0Marketplace<\/strong><\/em> are always worth looking at. Two of the bookshops listed are named after animals (Werewolf Bookshop and Aardvarks Fantasy). Come to think about it,\u00a0are werewolves animals or people? Amongst other items there are handmade Mexican wallets available (this before NAFTA), Nudes of Jean Straker<\/em> from Soho in London, and \u201cApache Tears,\u201d Native American good luck stones, supposedly.<\/p>\n

Worth getting for the James White story if you don\u2019t have any of the anthologies it appeared in and, maybe, the Poul Anderson novelette.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. This was quite widely reprinted for a Xmas story, making it into two \u2018Best of the Year\u2019 anthologies and three Xmas ones as well as others. Its publication history on ISFDB is here<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. Mills also published Heinlein\u2019s \u201cAll You Zombies\u2014\u201d <\/em>the previous year (F&SF<\/em>, March 1959), which also touches on the theme of unrelieved male sexual tension in space. Reviewed here<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  3. The first story in the \u2018Maurai\u2019 series,\u00a0The Sky People<\/em>\u00a0(F&SF<\/em>, March 1959), is reviewed here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Galactic Central link ISFDB link Other reviews: C. C. Finlay, F&SF Blog Gideon Marcus, Galactic Journey Fiction: Christmas Treason \u2022 novelette by James White ♥♥♥♥ Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: XLVII \u2022 short story by Reginald Bretnor [as by Grendel Briarton] ♥ A Time to Keep \u2022 short story by Kate Wilhelm ♥ […]<\/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":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2355","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-BZ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355","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=2355"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9372,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355\/revisions\/9372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}