{"id":3262,"date":"2017-08-14T10:40:02","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T10:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=3262"},"modified":"2017-08-14T10:40:02","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T10:40:02","slug":"the-magazine-of-fantasy-and-science-fiction-130-march-1962","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=3262","title":{"rendered":"The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction #130, March 1962"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

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

Other reviews:
\nGideon Marcus, Galactic Journey<\/a><\/p>\n

Editor, Robert P. Mills<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nJonathan and the Space Whale<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Robert F. Young ****<\/strong>
\nWonder as I Wander: Some Footprints on John\u2019s Trail Through Magic Mountains<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Manly Wade Wellman **<\/strong>
\nThe Man Who Made Friends with Electricity<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Fritz Leiber ***<\/strong>+
\nThrough Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: XLIX<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Reginald Bretnor [as by Grendel Briarton] *<\/strong>
\nA War of No Consequence<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Edgar Pangborn ****<\/strong>
\nThe 63rd St. Station<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Avram Davidson ***<\/strong>
\nShadow on the Moon<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Zenna Henderson *****<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Mel Hunter
\nIn this issue . . . Coming next . . .<\/em><\/strong>
\nCommunication<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 poem by Walter H. Kerr
\nThat\u2019s Life!<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science essay by Isaac Asimov
\nThe Stone Woman<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 poem by Doris Pitkin Buck
\nBooks<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Alfred Bester<\/p>\n

The big news in this \u2018All Star\u2019 issue is that the magazine\u2019s editor, Robert P. Mills, is stepping down and Avram Davidson will take over from the next (April) issue. Mills says:<\/p>\n

Coming next <\/em><\/strong>. . . a new editor, and regretful as we are to step down from the chair, the change is made enormously easier than it might well have been because matters are being turned over to a man as varied and able as Avram Davidson. Mr. Davidson\u2019s name has shown up regularly on F&SF\u2019s contents page\u2014as it does again this month\u2014and even semi-regular readers are surely familiar with his wide range of interests, deft, sure command of the language, and extraordinary erudition. We leave this magazine, after being associated with it from its first issue in the fall of 1949, solely because the demands of other professional responsibilities no longer leave enough time to do the kind of job on F&SF we feel should be done.<\/em> p. 4<\/p>\n

Mills\u2019 last issue is outstanding, and has four very good or excellent stories.
\nIt opens with Jonathan and the Space Whale<\/em><\/strong> by Robert F. Young,1<\/sup> which is by far the best story of his I have read. It is, in part, a Jonah and the Whale story, with the SFnal element\u00a0provided by a spacewhale that is a vast space-travelling creature, first detected by humankind when it takes a bite out of the asteroid belt.
\nThe spacewhale is intercepted by a spaceship which has orders to destroy it but Jonathan, a gunner on the ship, disobeys. His gunnery pod disintegrates and he ends up in orbit around the whale before he is consumed by it. Although there are touches of real science here (there is mention of the Roche limit for his orbit around the whale) it doesn\u2019t entirely convince on a realistic level (the massive size of the whale, the mention of magnetic fields providing gravity). This didn\u2019t affect my enjoyment of the story.
\nOnce Jonathan is inside the whale he finds a world that has a miniature sun that heats and lights it, and a \u2018backward\u2019 community of people (i.e. 20th<\/sup> century America). They are descendants from a\u00a0spaceship crew that was lost centuries ago. He gets a job on a farm and, around the same time, the whale starts speaking to him telepathically.
\nThe rest of the story follows Jonathan\u2019s rise in this society and his many conversations with the whale. He finds out that the whale is female and he calls her Andromeda. All of her people have departed for Messier 31. He discovers that her equivalent human age is seventeen and that she will die soon (soon for her: in our time a thousand years will pass). The cause of her impending death, the disease that will kill her, is given to Jonathan in a passage that is a remarkable Bradburyian howl of anti-consumerist rage:<\/p>\n

The aerobic pathogenic multicellular bacteria. A few at first, then doubling, tripling, quadrupling, consuming, destroying. Not out of malevolence but in response to the life force within them. Melting and marketing the ores I need for my sustenance, draining me of oil deposits accumulated over millennia, laying\u00a0low my forests, enervating my topsoil, taking and not returning, polluting my lakes and my atmosphere; trying to attain the technological El Dorado promised them by their Sunday-supplement Christ . . . The Founding fathers were well-intentioned, but their memories were short. In their eagerness to exploit my vast and virgin lands, they forgot the lesson of Old Earth . . . Yes, Jonathan, I am dying. In a thousand of your years the disease will have run its course and I shall be dead.
\nAghast, he said<\/em>, I did not know, I did not realize. And then, But a thousand years is a long time. At least you could cross the Deep and be with your people when you died.
\nNo, Jonathan, l cannot. The sadness of the thought was almost tangible.<\/em> Even travelling at my maximum velocity I could not hope to reach the shores of Messier 31 in less than three millennia. I\u2014I am afraid to die in darkness, Jonathan, in the cold and callous emptiness of the sea. I am not really like the cetaceous creatures you named me after. They were bold and brave and savage. They feared nothing and no one\u2014not even man.
\nBut man destroyed them, every one. And the sea they lived in and the land that rose out of the sea. Not out of malevolence, no\u2014but was our motivation any better? Is greed noble? Is selfishness? Is anthropocentricism? Tell me, Andromeda, is there nothing we can\u2019t destroy?
\nThe horizon of his mind remained empty.<\/em> Nothing? he repeated. Is there nothing, Andromeda?
\nHe stood up on the hill, beneath the pulsing stars. \u201cAndromeda, answer me,\u201d he said. \u201cIs there nothing we can\u2019t destroy?\u201d<\/em>
\nThe stars looked silently down on him. The night wind sighed, but made no comment. Seemingly at his feet glowed the light-inflamed ulcer of the city, and in the distance the new infection showed, insignificant now, but tomorrow vast and sprawling and malignant. \u201cAnswer me, Andromeda!\u201d he cried. \u201cAnswer me!\u201d<\/em>
\nSilence. Stars. Darkness. The lonely wind against his face.<\/em>
\n\u201cAll right,\u201d he said, \u201cso be it,\u201d and started down the hill. \u201cIf destruction is our destiny, then destruction will be our way of life.\u201d<\/em>
\nHe climbed into his car. Starlight gleamed gently on the rakish hood, glittered harshly on the chrome filigree. The framework of the half-completed house showed against the hillside like the gaunt ribs of a flesh-stripped whale. He backed into the arrow-straight highway and headed for Prosperity. <\/em>PROGRESS, a sign by the roadside said. <\/em>ONLY THROUGH PROGRESS CAN MAN\u2019S DREAMS COME TRUE. <\/em>Sponsored by the Prosperity Chamber of Horrors. No, not \u201cHorrors.\u201d He looked at the sign again. This time he read it right. <\/em>The Prosperity Chamber of Commerce.<\/em> p. 31-32<\/p>\n

Jonathan eventually manages to convince Andromeda to expel the humans living inside her onto a suitable planet, and she leaves to find the rest of her race in an emotional last scene.
\nWith the message above, its myths, symbols, and religious references, I look forward to rereading it again.
\nThe Man Who Made Friends with Electricity<\/em><\/strong> by Fritz Leiber is a good modern horror story that starts with an estate agent called Scott who is struggling to rent a house. The problem is the nearby high-tension electric pole beside the house. A prospective tenant notices the line:<\/p>\n

\u201cListen to that!\u201d Mr. Leverett said, his dry voice betraying excitement for the first time in the tour. \u201cFifty thousand volts if there\u2019s five! A power of power!\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cMust be unusual atmospheric conditions today\u2014normally you can\u2019t hear a thing,\u201d Mr. Scott responded lightly, twisting the truth a little.<\/em>
\n\u201cYou don\u2019t say?\u201d Mr. Leverett commented, his voice dry again, but Mr. Scott knew better than to encourage conversation about a negative feature. \u201cI want you to notice this lawn,\u201d he launched out heartily.<\/em> p. 43<\/p>\n

Later on in the tour they come back to the powerline:<\/p>\n

On the quick retrace, however, Mr. Leverett insisted on their lingering on the patio. \u201cStill holding out,\u201d he remarked about the buzz with an odd satisfaction. \u201cYou know, Mr. Scott, that\u2019s a restful sound to me. Like wind or a brook or the sea. I hate the clatter of machinery\u2014that\u2019s the other reason I left New England\u2014but this is like a sound of nature. Downright soothing. But you say it comes seldom?\u201d<\/em>
\nMr. Scott was flexible\u2014it was one of his great virtues as a salesman. \u201cMr. Leverett,\u201d he confessed simply, \u201cI\u2019ve never stood on this patio when I didn\u2019t hear that sound. Sometimes it\u2019s softer, sometimes louder, but it\u2019s always there. I play it down, though, because most people don\u2019t care for it.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cDon\u2019t blame you,\u201d Mr. Leverett said. \u201cMost people are a pack of fools or worse. Mr. Scott, are any of the people in the neighboring houses Communists to your knowledge?\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cNo, sir!\u201d Mr. Scott responded without an instant\u2019s hesitation.<\/em>
\n\u201cThere\u2019s not a Communist in Pacific Knolls. And that\u2019s something, believe me, I\u2019d never shade the truth on.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cBelieve you,\u201d Mr. Leverett said. \u201cThe east\u2019s packed with Communists. Seem scarcer out here. Mr. Scott, you\u2019ve made yourself a deal. I\u2019m taking a year\u2019s lease on Peak House as furnished and at the figure we last mentioned.\u201d<\/em> p. 43<\/p>\n

Mr Scott becomes a regular visitor to Mr Leverett after his son tells him about the tricks the new tenant can do with electricity. Mr Leverett tells Scott the stories that he has heard from the electricity. Leverett later falls out with the electricity when he learns there is American electricity in Russia and vice versa. Moreover, electricity isn\u2019t going to let humankind start any big war that will destroy its infrastructure, and it tells Leverett not to go to the FBI, or else.
\nYou can probably see the ending coming (spoiler): a high-tension line electrocutes Leverett during a storm. Leiber still owns the ending, though, due to a particularly effective last few lines:<\/p>\n

The police and the power-and-light men reconstructed the accident this way: At the height of the storm one of the high-tension lines had snapped a hundred feet away from the house and the near end, whipped by the wind and its own tension, had struck back freakishly through the open bedroom window of Peak House and curled once around the legs of Mr. Leverett, who had likely been on his feet at the time. He had been killed instantly. One had to strain that reconstruction, though, to explain the additional freakish elements in the accident\u2014the fact that the high-tension wire had struck not only through the bedroom window, but then through the bedroom door to catch the old man in the hall, and that the black shiny cord of the phone was wrapped like a vine twice around the old man\u2019s right arm, as if to hold him back from escaping until the big wire had struck.<\/em> p. 50<\/p>\n

This is a convincing and atmospheric story, with Leverett\u2019s political views and the background nuclear threat giving the story a district edge.
\nA War of No Consequence<\/em><\/strong> by Edgar Pangborn is a sequel to last issue\u2019s The Golden Horn<\/em>, and another in his \u2018Davy\u2019 or \u2018Tales from a Darkening World\u2019 series.2 <\/sup>This one begins with Davy sneaking through town of Skoar in the dead of night. He is on his way to recover a charm he lost in a fight with one of the town\u2019s sentries, during\u00a0which the latter was killed. On arriving at the scene he finds the policers have found the body and flees into the woods. The rest of the first part of the story is a tense and intensely atmospheric account of his journey to the cave where he has the Golden Horn and his other valuables stashed:<\/p>\n

I had to move with dismal slowness. I don\u2019t remember too much fog of fear in my mind, but the short journey was an experience outside of time. During what may have been ten or fifteen minutes, I walked a thousand years. Then bearing at last the mumbling wet monotone of the brook, I returned abruptly to a place and time scheme I knew, in a kind of waking. A big frog jumped and ploshed from blackness to blackness unseen, less startled than I was and maybe less afraid.<\/em>
\nStruggling upstream with no guide except the feel of rushing water was a different nightmare. Instead of too much time, I imagined there was not enough, yet I knew it was dangerous to hurry. The brook itself was shallow and moderate; at the small rapids and waterfalls I only needed to step out on the bank and keep the noise of the stream at my left until it changed back to the sound of easier flow. But I could lose my footing and brain myself on a rock. I could step on a black water-snake\u2014moksins they call that kind in my home country, fat and timid and sluggish, not as bad as rattlers or the coppersnakes because they can\u2019t bite so well, but bad enough. My smell could reach black wolf anywhere in the night, and he could come take me before I had time to free the knife I carried under my shirt. Spring is the season too when the bear are thin and hungry, their males edgy with the beginning of the sex fret and sometimes in a mood to kill for the pleasure of it, as they say the great brown bear of the northern countries may do at any time. <\/em>
\nOr I could walk innocently by one of brown tiger\u2019s favorite drinking holes and save him a lot of trouble, never being aware of it until it was too late to be aware of anything. A man\u2019s a small thing in the dark.<\/em> p. 54-55<\/p>\n

After Davy recovers his belongings he begins a journey to the faraway town of Lebannon. Further on he hears noise, and takes cover up a tree. From his vantage point he watches Moha troops pass by on the road below, en route to Skoar, and then watches while Katskil troops ambush them mid-column. He watches a bloody battle ensue. At a pivotal point of the battle the Moha troops scatter in disarray and Davy sounds his horn\u00a0to rally them. The Moha troops eventually prevail and chase the Katskil survivors into the woods.
\nMuch later Davy watches the troops leave, and continues to watch the battlefield. He cautiously makes his way there and sees a dying man. He brings him water and gives what comfort he can. The dying man talks to Davy and asks where he comes from. Then he asks:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do they say about us there?\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cYou mean the war talk?\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cTell you something, boy. It\u2019s all crap. No consequence.\u201d He wanted to talk, but it was hard for him. \u201cPretty country around here,\u201d he said. \u201cLaid up all night in the woods, our mudhead hard-luck outfit. Three companies, you had two battalions. Another comp\u2019ny, likely we\u2019d\u2019ve had you. That\u2019s all crap too, boy. All night in the woods waiting for you, and a foggy son of a bitch too, had trouble keeping my gear dry.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cWaiting for <\/em>them,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019ve got nothing to do with the army.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cAyah. No country. Running away. Be glad you haven\u2019t, boy it\u2019s all crap. I\u2019ll tell you what you got for a major in one of them battalions. \u2018No prisoners,\u2019 he says, \u2018just bring us the evidence.\u2019 I was off in that \u2018ere thicket, heard him give the order. \u2018Any old thing,\u2019 he says, sitting his hoss real handsome, you know, and you could\u2019ve heard him laugh \u2019way back in Nuber. \u2018Any old thing, but a head\u2019s troublesome to carry, a hand\u2019ll do, just bring us the evidence.\u2019 \u201c<\/em>
\n\u201cYou wanted to run away?\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cAyah. A kid\u2019s thought. Maybe you\u2019ll make it.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cMaybe you can run away with me. We could travel together, to Levannon, that\u2019s where I\u2019m going.<\/em>
\nFurther too. Maybe\u2014\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cSure enough?\u201d Why, he was thinking of it, with the arrow in his side, and taking pleasure from it I believe, seeing the idea for that moment as I saw it myself, the horizons, the friendship, the new places.<\/em>
\n\u201cYou don\u2019t need to be afraid of me,\u201d I said.<\/em>
\n\u201cNay, of course not.\u2019\u2019 He said that easily. And that remains with me most clearly out of that morning\u2014the flash of what I call recognition because I have no other word. I don\u2019t know his name, but he was in some way my kind, and we both knew it well for that little time before his face smoothed out completely and I had to let him lie back on the earth.<\/em> p. 72-73<\/p>\n

On the face of it this is a profoundly anti-war story, but I think what it actually shows, along with The Golden Horn<\/em>, is Pangborn\u2019s deep compassion for humanity.<\/p>\n

Shadow on the Moon<\/em><\/strong> by Zenna Henderson is the second published story in a new sequence of \u2018People\u2019 stories3<\/sup> (these are about a group of humans with paranormal powers, who come from another planet and are\u00a0shipwrecked on Earth). This story revolves, initially at least, around Remy, a teenager (although his sister Shadow narrates). He is desperate to go into space and cannot see why the People don\u2019t share their knowledge and paranormal powers with the human race to achieve this. It leads to arguments with his father:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the use then!\u201d Remy flung at Father. \u201cWhat\u2019s the use of being able to, if we don\u2019t?\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cBeing able to is not always the standard to go by,\u201d said Father.<\/em>
\nHe flicked his fingers at the ceiling and we three watched the snowflakes drift down starrily to cover the work bench. \u201cYour mother loves to watch the snow,\u201d he said, \u201cbut she doesn\u2019t go around snowing all the time.\u201d He stopped the snow with a snap of his fingers and it dampened the wood shavings with its melting.\u201dNo, just being able to is not a valid reason. And reason there must be before action.\u201d<\/em> p. 95<\/p>\n

Remy and Shadow later discover an old man called Tom at a nearby mine. He initially warns them off with a shotgun but, while Shadow is away for a fortnight, Remy wins his trust. He discovers (rather too conveniently) that Tom is\u00a0 working on the\u00a0\u00a0construction of a spaceship in the mine but, even though Remy has befriended him, Tom remains in an emotional and volatile state. The reason for this (spoiler) is that his son has died. Tom had come to help him\u00a0finish the ship, but he died in a rock fall; he is determined to take his son\u2019s remains to the moon.
\nShadow knows none of this as she has been away for a fortnight and, when she comes back, Remy does not explain what he has learnt, telling her it would be better for her to find out for herself. This happens when she goes down the mine to see the spaceship for the first time:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d better channel,\u201d whispered Remy.<\/em>
\n\u201cYou mean when we have to scrape past\u2014\u201d I began.<\/em>
\n\u201cNot that kind of channeling,\u2019\u2019 said Remy.<\/em>
\nThe rest of his words were blotted out in the sudden wave of agony and sorrow that swept from Tom and engulfed me\u2014not physical agony, but mental agony. I gasped and channeled as fast as I could, but the wet beads from that agony formed across my forehead before I could get myself guarded against it.<\/em>
\nTom was kneeling by the heaped up stones, his eyes intent upon the floor beside them. I moved closer.<\/em>
\nThere was a small heap of soil beside a huge jagged boulder. There was a tiny American flag standing in the soil, and, above it on the boulder, was painted a white cross, inexpertly, so that the excess paint wept down like tears.<\/em>
\n\u201cThis,\u201d mourned Tom almost inaudibly, \u201cis my son\u2014\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cYour Son\u201d I gasped. \u201cYour sonI\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cI can\u2019t take it again,\u2019\u2019 whispered Remy. \u201cI\u2019m going on to the ship and get busy. He\u2019ll tell it whether anyone\u2019s listening or not. But each time it gets a little shorter. It took all morning the first time.\u201d And Remy went on down the drift, a refugee from a sorrow he couldn\u2019t ease.<\/em> p. 112<\/p>\n

Shadow later becomes alarmed that Remy intends to go into space with Tom and won\u2019t let her go with them. Remy tells her:<\/p>\n

He\u2019s so wrapped up in this whole project that there\u2019s literally nothing for him in this life but the ship and the trip. He\u2019d have died long ago if this hope hadn\u2019t kept him alive. You haven\u2019t touched him unshielded or you\u2019d know in a second that he was Called months ago and is stubbornly refusing to go. I doubt if he\u2019ll live through blast-off, even with all the shielding I can give him. But I\u2019ve got to take him, Shadow. I\u2019ve just got to. It\u2014it\u2014I can\u2019t explain it so it makes sense, but it\u2019s as necessary for me to do this for Tom as it is for Tom to do it. Why he\u2019s even forgotten God except as a spy who might catch us in the act and stop us. I think even the actual blast-off or one look at the earth from Space will Purge him and he will submit to being Called and go to where his son is waiting, just the Otherside. <\/em>
\n\u201cI\u2019ve got to give him his dream.\u201d Remy\u2019s voice faltered. \u201cYoung people have time to dream and change\u00a0<\/em>their dreams, but old people like Tom have time for only one dream, and if that fails them\u2014\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cBut Remy,\u201d I whispered forlornly. \u201cYou might never make it back.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cIt is in the hands of The Power,\u201d he said soberly. \u201cIf I\u2019m to be Called, I\u2019m to be Called.<\/em> p. 117<\/p>\n

Shadow later touches Tom and finds out how near he is to dying:<\/p>\n

I took one of his hands in mine to examine the cut flesh\u2014and was immediately caught up in Death! Death rolled over me like a smothery cloud. Death shrieked at me from every comer of my mind. Death! Death!\u00a0<\/em>Rebellious, struggling Death! Nothing of the solemn Calling. Nothing of preparation for returning to the Presence. I forced my stiff fingers to open and dropped his hand.<\/em> p. 118<\/p>\n

There is a particularly religious or spiritual element here that I hadn\u2019t noticed (or can\u2019t remember) in the original series of stories.
\nOne aspect of this story that is initially a little unconvincing is the home-made spaceship idea, but this is convincingly dealt with: not only does Tom state that his son may have stolen the parts from the military, but the unusual power source, a small box with no obvious function, eventually leads to further revelations.
\nAs the spaceship nears completion the old man increasingly starts to unravel. He takes Remy hostage and threatens to kill him if he doesn\u2019t launch the spacecraft. Remy does not know what to do as there is no obvious power source, so he tries to move it using his telekinetic powers and fails. Shadow and summons her family, who put Tom to sleep and rescue Remy.
\nThe final section has the family and other members of the People examine the ship, at which point they realise it is of People design, and they conclude that Tom\u2019s mother must have been one of the People who had been lost when they were dispersed across the Earth. Shadow then accidentally lifts the spaceship out of its launch tube using her weak telekinesis\u2014and they discover that the small box is an amplifier for their paranormal powers.
\nThe last few pages describe the People taking Tom (still unconscious and very close to death) and his son\u2019s remains to the moon. After they arrive they take the coffin out onto\u00a0the surface of the moon and wake Tom:<\/p>\n

Then inside the ship they lifted Tom to a window. Mother went in to him before she woke him completely and told him where we were and where his son was. Then she awakened him gently. For a moment his eyes were clouded. His lips trembled and he blinked slowly\u2014or closed his eyes, waiting for strength. He opened them again and looked for a long moment at the bright curve of the plain and the spangled darkness of the sky.<\/em>
\n\u201cThe moon,\u201d he murmured, his thin hand clenching on the rim of the window. \u201cWe made it, Son, we made it! Let me out. Let me touch it.\u201d<\/em>
\nFather\u2019s eyebrows questioned Mother and her eyes answered him. We lifted him from the cot and, enveloping him in our own shields, moved him out the door. We sustained him for the few staggering steps he took. He half fell across the box, one hand trailing on the ground. He took up a handful of the rough gravel and let it funnel from his hand to the top of the box.<\/em>
\n\u201cSon,\u201d he said, his voice surprisingly strong. \u201cSon, dust thou art, go back to dust. Look out of wherever you are up there and see where your body is. We\u2019re close enough that you ought to be able to see real good.\u201d He slid to his knees, his face resting against the undressed pine. \u201cI told you I\u2019d do it for you, Son.\u201d<\/em>
\nWe straightened him and covered him with Mother\u2019s double wedding ring patchwork quilt, tucking him gently in against the long, long night. And I know at least four spots on the moon where water has fallen in historical time\u2014four salty, wet drops, my own tears. Then we said the Parting Prayers and returned to the Ship.<\/em> p. 128-129<\/p>\n

The story ends on a final spiritual note:<\/p>\n

But what will never, never change is the wonder, the indescribable wonder to me of seeing Earth lying in space as in the hollow of God\u2019s hand. Everytime I return to it, I return to the words of the Psalmist\u2014the words that welled up in me unspoken out there half way to the moon.<\/em>
\nWhen I consider thy heavens,
\nthe work of thy fingers, the
\nmoon and the stars which thou
\nhast ordained; What is man that
\nthou art mindful of him . . . p. 129<\/p>\n

An intensely emotional story.<\/p>\n

The rest of the fiction contains a good story from Davidson and a couple of minor pieces.
\nThe 63rd St. Station<\/em><\/strong> by Avram Davidson starts normally enough with a man in a train. He lives a quiet life with his sister but is going to move out and marry a woman at his work called Anna. He hasn\u2019t yet told his sister as he worries about the effect it may have on her:<\/p>\n

And what would Fanny do? Fanny would die. She had put so much of life away from her, it would be no effort to let go of what remained.<\/em> p. 75<\/p>\n

We also learn of an unmarked station that he passes every day on his journey. The train never stops but today\u2014as he suddenly realises he cannot leave his sister\u2014 it does. He gets up to leave the train to immediately tell Anna his decision.
\nAt this point there is a surreal break in the story: an old woman\u2014who has told him to leave the train quickly\u2014screams, and he is taken by two men called Legs and Shoulders (names that are part of a private joke with Anna) to\u00a0a series of mortuary-like drawers, where he is put in one. I assume that this is a metaphor for his renunciation of his new life with Anna but, whatever it signifies, the story is an unsettling piece.
\nWonder as I Wander: Some Footprints on John\u2019s Trail Through Magic Mountains<\/em><\/strong> by Manly Wade Wellman is a group of seven \u2018Silver John\u2019 vignettes, connecting material from a forthcoming collection, and all about half a page long. OK I suppose, but very minor stuff.
\nThrough Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: XLIX<\/em><\/strong> by Reginald Bretnor is a masterclass in straining for effect, with a last line so bad it is almost good.<\/p>\n

The Cover<\/em><\/strong> by Mel Hunter is a wraparound effort: I tried to get a decent image online but failed.
\nIn this issue . . . <\/em><\/strong>uses its half page to discuss Pangborn\u2019s story, which includes this from the writer:<\/p>\n

\u201cThese stories\u2014I don\u2019t quite think of them myself as science-fiction\u2014deal with a world that doesn\u2019t require a true suspension of belief. Conditions like these could come into existence, simply as a result of factors\u00a0<\/em>operating in today\u2019s world: the mutations, change of climate, destruction and disappearance of modern culture after a time of upheaval in which atomic war was only one element, human beings thrown back into a primitive (call it medieval) way of living with a latent possibility of staggering up and trying again some time. Civilizations have perished before; personally I don\u2019t think ours will perish in this way, but it could.<\/em>
\nThese stories are fantasy; I\u2019d like to call them fantasy used as a special lens for looking at present reality.\u201d<\/em> p. 4<\/p>\n

Communication<\/em><\/strong> is a poem by Walter H. Kerr whose first stanza I followed, but the second one lost me. The other poem, The Stone Woman<\/em><\/strong> by Doris Pitkin Buck, is about just that: a woman leaves a man and turns to stone. There may be a bit of a break-up thing going on here (he said glibly) but I liked it anyway.
\nThat\u2019s Life!<\/em><\/strong> by Isaac Asimov is, on the whole, an interesting essay about a definition of life but it does rather teeter, as with a number of his essays, on the edge of reductive boredom.
\nBooks<\/em><\/strong> by Alfred Bester is an odd column, an interview with an SF fan. I think the take away is:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to become non-conformists again. I\u2019m telling you, if science fiction doesn\u2019t come up with something new and daring and unacceptable, we\u2019re going to look around for something else.\u201d<\/em> p. 93<\/p>\n

It will be two or three years until the New Wave gets going.<\/p>\n

This is possibly the best single issue of F&SF<\/em> I\u2019ve read (or of any title). I’d have all three of the novelettes for a \u2018Best of the Year\u2019 collection for 1962 (but would probably swap the Pangborn for his story in the last issue).<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Although it is listed by ISFDB as one of the \u2018Spacewhale\u2019 series, it does not appear to be part of the fix-up novel Starfinder<\/em>, which incorporates the rest of the series. I suspect the idea of massive space whales is the only thing that the original story and the others have in common.<\/li>\n
  2. This story is chapters 9 and 10 in the book Davy<\/em>.<\/li>\n
  3. Shadow on the Moon<\/em> is the second published story in this cycle of stories but the last entry in the second People collection, The People: No Different Flesh;<\/em>\u00a0contents at ISFDB<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This magazine is still being published!<\/strong>\u00a0Subscribe:\u00a0Kindle UK<\/a>,\u00a0Kindle USA<\/a>,\u00a0Weightless Books<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0physical copies<\/a>.<\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    ISFDB link Other reviews: Gideon Marcus, Galactic Journey Editor, Robert P. Mills Fiction: Jonathan and the Space Whale \u2022 novelette by Robert F. Young **** Wonder as I Wander: Some Footprints on John\u2019s Trail Through Magic Mountains \u2022 short story by Manly Wade Wellman ** The Man Who Made Friends with Electricity \u2022 short story […]<\/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-3262","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-QC","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3262","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=3262"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3277,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3262\/revisions\/3277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}