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ISFDB link<\/a><\/p>\n Other reviews: _____________________<\/p>\n Executive Editor, Avram Davidson; Managing Editor, Edward L. Ferman<\/p>\n Fiction: Non-fiction: _____________________<\/p>\n This is the first issue under the editorship of Avram Davidson. He is listed as the \u201cExecutive Editor\u201d and, if I recall correctly, was either living abroad or would shortly do so.1<\/sup> I presume his duties consisted of\u00a0reading and selecting manuscripts, and writing introductions, while the donkey work fell on the shoulders of Edward Ferman (son of the publisher, Joe Ferman), who also appears on the masthead for the first time.2<\/sup> Robert P. Mills is now listed as \u201cConsulting Editor\u201d, replacing J. Francis McComas as \u201cAdvisory Editor\u201d.3<\/sup> In 1950, when this magazine was still a quarterly, we picked up a copy of it at a newsstand in the Times Square subway station, over towards the BMT. Possibly we were going to see a girl who lived in Brooklyn; in those days all the girls seemed to live in Brooklyn. We had just come back from abroad and were shortly\u00a0to go abroad again, and consequently missed many of the earlier issues: but no matter: we were hooked. In that same year we made our first submission to this magazine; it was returned with what Ward Moore (at whose suggestion we sent it) called \u201cthe gentlest letter of rejection he had ever seen.\u201d Anthony Boucher, then (with J. Francis McComas) co-editor, had a way of turning down a story which was more encouraging to authors than some editors ways of accepting.\u00a0 p. 5<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The stories in this issue are selected by Davidson from an inventory purchased by Mills.4<\/sup> As we shall see, it is a lacklustre collection\u2014I rather suspected this would be the case as Mills had raided the larder for his last few issues (which contain at least half a dozen particularly strong stories). Spokesman held up a small, glittering object between the fingers of his right hand. From it, a\u00a0metallic voice spoke: The Spokesman subsequently identifies a small tribe of Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert as the only society that meets these conditions. Of course, the UN members rebel and refuse to send for the Bushmen, so the aliens freeze all of the nearby humans in place until they get their way. \u201cMaster\u201d he said, \u201cwe are content to have flown in the sky, to have seen this great werf with its high tower and shining windows and strange people, and to have beheld you and the other gods with our own eyes. Now, all that we want is to go home again.\u201d The story\u2019s philosophy and politics are, perhaps, na\u00efve and simplistic, but it is smart and amusing entertainment. \u201cWhat comes after us?\u201d There are several pages of this moderately entertaining wordplay, leavened with more straightforward but still baffling material. It ends up having a standard SFnal explanation (spoiler): two men\u2019s brains have been inserted into fish bodies so they can be sent into the sea to gather information about a hostile alien race that has invaded Earth. As one of the scientists says:<\/p>\n \u201cI would so much like to know, though, the insane sensations passing through those shards of human brain embedded in fish bodies.\u201d\u00a0 p. 56<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I\u2019m not sure this piece is entirely successful but it is quite original and, despite myself, I rather enjoyed it.<\/p>\n The rest is a mixed bag. The Last Element<\/em><\/strong> by Hugo Correa has a spaceship land on an alien planet that has variable radiation, varicoloured terrain that glows, etc. The crew start exploring and have visions, people disappear, die etc. Nevertheless, the captain persists with his mission to get the deadly Element X\u2014there is a war to be won after all\u2014and it becomes apparent that this substance is part of the reason for the demise of the race that previously inhabited the planet. It has a perplexing last line, and is not really up to F&SF\u2019<\/em>s standards. I doubt if it would have been published without Ray Bradbury\u2019s recommendation (mentioned in the introduction). I note in passing that Correa is a Chilean writer, and wrote this\u00a0in English\u2014something that shows in some of the prose. The novels and stories signed \u201cCharles Henneberg\u201d were actually written by Charles Henneberg zu Irmelshausen Wasungen and his wife, Nathalie, in collaboration. Henneberg, bom in Germany in 1899, had an active and varied career. He and his wife met when he was a member of the French Foreign Legion stationed at Homs, Syria; she was a Russian journalist. After their marriage they spent four years in the Arabian desert, and during the war fought together under de Gaulle. He was subsequently appointed Directeur des Medaille\u2019s Militaires. Henneberg died of a heart attack in March, 1959. His widow is carrying on the series of science-fantasy novels they had planned together, signing herself in his honor, \u201cNathalie Charles-Henneberg.\u201d p. 84<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This story starts in the year 2500 with two or three pages of distinctly hand-wavey material about paratime travel and Atlantis. The next section takes us to the Egypt of the Pharaohs, and a blue-skinned Atlantean woman called Neter who is visiting a friend. During their conversation, she discovers a plot by the Ptah to replace the soul of the soon to be crowned pharaoh, Amenophis:<\/p>\n Now in those days, Egypt was throwing off an ancient oppression: the Hyksos invaders were being expelled, the Eighteenth Dynasty was mounting the throne, and the age of gold was about to open. Not that the land was entirely free; dark terror reigned in the desert. The Interplanetarians were landing in these sands. They, were of many kinds. Much later, the Pharaoh Psammetichus III noted: \u201cThey fell front the sky like the fruits of a fig-tree that is shaken; they were the color of copper and sulphur, and some had three eyes. Hugh, a paratime-traveller from 2500, arrives\u00a0to this developing situation. This unlikely mix isn\u2019t entirely successful but works better than you might expect. I suspect it will be one of those Marmite stories. But don\u2019t you worry now, Son. They\u2019ll take good care of you, and they\u2019ll fix you up.\u201d He nodded to the two men, and they began to march Robert Proctor out. At the door he spoke, and his voice was so urgent the two men paused. Robert Proctor said, \u201cYou can\u2019t really mean this. I\u2019m still dreaming, aren\u2019t I? This is still part of the test, isn\u2019t it?\u201d With the imminent appearance of driverless cars this one feels dated. The Cover<\/em><\/strong> for this issue is by Emsh.5<\/sup> Vintage Wine<\/em><\/strong> by Doris Pitkin Buck is a vampire poem and is, I think, an accidental reprint (it first appeared in the July 1961 issue). The Weighting Game<\/em><\/strong> by Isaac Asimov is an interesting science article about\u00a0atomic weights. We are appalled this month to be forced to slate two of our favorite authors; men whose work we admire, whose talent we envy, and whose books we always open eagerly, anticipating an exciting adventure in literature. They are Brian Aldiss and Fritz Leiber.\u00a0 p. 113<\/p><\/blockquote>\n . . . and ends with this:<\/p>\n [Humor] is meaningless and can never come off unless it stems from the absurdities of human nature. Mr. Aldiss and Mr. Leiber have succeeded in being absurd, but somewhere along the line they lost their grasp on humanity.\u00a0 p. 114<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It is a short but acerbic book review column. An average issue at best.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n _____________________<\/p>\n 1. Davidson was initially in the USA. This is from Edward L. Ferman\u2019s preface in the facsimile edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1965<\/em>, ed. by Edward L. Ferman & Martin H. Greenberg, Southern Illinois University Press, 1981:<\/p>\n Avram edited F&SF<\/em> from his home in Milford, Pennsylvania and came into New York once weekly, ostensibly for an \u201ceditorial conference,\u201d but primarily, I think, to buy kosher meat at a market on Houston Street. Our conferences were mostly agreeable meetings, although my father and I would occasionally object to Avram\u2019s affection for stories that we found obscure or unclear. \u201cIt\u2019s not that this story is not clear,\u201d Avram would explain. \u201cIt\u2019s just not explicit.” To which we had no good answer. During the summer of 1963, Avram moved to Mexico, and F&SF<\/em> became quite possibly the only U.S. magazine to be edited from another country. We had agreed to the move with some reservations, but in fact it proved workable enough, despite some awkward complications. For instance, letter of 5\/26\/64 from Avram: \u201cTwo days ago I got 3 big batches of mss. which the silly Mexico post office had held up for a month\u2014testing each page under ultra-violet rays for tamale weevils, maybe.\u201d Or, letter of 5\/22\/64: \u201cHope to mail the batch of mss. including the Ballard this afternoon, but things are at sixes and sevens here; the maid has a) quit, b) been fired, c) is taking care of her sick mother\u2014choose one.\u201d 2. From the volume above:<\/p>\n Avram and I both joined F&SF<\/em> in early 1962. He had been (and still is) one of science fiction\u2019s brilliant short-story writers, and he took over the editorship from Robert Mills. I was four years out of college. I had put in a sleepy year as an assistant editor with a large publisher of textbooks and was fresh from two more eventful years as a financial writer at Dun & Bradstreet. My job at the magazine was to assist Avram and Joe Ferman, my father, who was publisher. I opened the subscription mail, wrote circulation promotion letters, kept the accounting books and prepared the monthly trial balance, read the slush, proofed the galleys and page proofs and dealt with printers and advertisers. In fact, I was assistant publisher, editor, business manager, circulation manager and advertising manager, but the title Managing Editor had an engaging \u201cFront Page\u201d ring to it, and nobody objected when I inserted it after my name on the masthead.\u00a0 p. vii-viii<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 3. I thought that these positions were probably honorary ones, but Ferman notes on p. ix of his preface that, when he took over from Davison in the Fall of 1964, he had help from Ted White and Robert P. Mills.<\/p>\n 4. From In this issue . . .<\/em> on p. 6: \u201cAll the stories in this issue were selected from the treasury handed on to us by Bob Mills.\u201d<\/p>\n 5. There is a rough for this cover on Pinterest<\/a>.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n Edited 7th July 2019: Updated formatting, and added first review link.<\/em><\/p>\n ISFDB link Other reviews: John Loyd, There Ain\u2019t No such Thing As a Free Lunch Gideon Marcus, Galactic Journey _____________________ Executive Editor, Avram Davidson; Managing Editor, Edward L. Ferman Fiction: Gifts of the Gods \u2022 short story by Jay Williams \u2217\u2217\u2217+ The Last Element \u2022 short story by Hugo Correa \u2217 The End of Evan […]<\/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-3283","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-QX","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3283","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=3283"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10728,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3283\/revisions\/10728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nJohn Loyd, There Ain\u2019t No such Thing As a Free Lunch<\/a>
\nGideon Marcus, Galactic Journey<\/a><\/p>\n
\nGifts of the Gods<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Jay Williams \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>+
\nThe Last Element<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Hugo Correa \u2217<\/strong>
\nThe End of Evan Essant\u00a0. . . ?<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Sylvia Edwards \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nShards <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Brian W. Aldiss \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Kit-Katt Club<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by John Shepley \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nTo Lift a Ship<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Kit Reed \u2217<\/strong>
\nGarvey\u2019s Ghost<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Robert Arthur –
\nMoon Fishers<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Charles Henneberg \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Test<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Theodore L. Thomas \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThree for the Stars<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Joseph Dickinson \u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nCover<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Emsh
\nEditorial <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 by Avram Davidson
\nVintage Wine<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint poem by Doris Pitkin Buck
\nThe Weighting Game<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Isaac Asimov
\nBooks <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 by Alfred Bester<\/p>\n
\nDavidson starts off the issue with an introductory Editorial<\/em><\/strong>, which begins with this:<\/p>\n
\nThat said, the issue gets off to a good start with Gifts of the Gods<\/em><\/strong> by Jay Williams, a Galactic Federation story that takes an entertainingly cynical view of humanity. When an alien ship lands on Earth their representatives go\u00a0to the UN. The spokesman explains the rules for joining their organisation, and how they aid and make gifts to those groups that they\u00a0consider\u00a0\u2018pre-Federable\u2019:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cA group, or unit, of human beings, shall be said to be in a pre-Federable condition when they have successfully reached the following level of sophistication:
\n\u201cThey must have adapted successfully to their environment without drastically changing the ecology of the region so that it becomes unfit for other living beings.
\n\u201cThey must have developed creative arts which reflect their culture and are an integral part of their social organism, the performance of which arts does not rest on economic or political motivation.
\n\u201cThey must not take other life except for direct protection of their species, or the natural requirements of their own survival.
\n\u201cThey must have developed a social order in which no individual goes hungry or shelterless, and in which the physical well-being of one is the responsibility of all.\u201d
\nThe voice ceased, and Spokesman put away his device.
\nThe delegate from the United States broke the stillness. \u201cWell, sir, everything you have said is embodied in the principles by which our great democracy, throughout its history, has attempted to . . .\u201d
\nHe fell silent before the grave, penetrating gaze of the Visitor.
\nSpokesman said, \u201cWe are not speaking of principles, but of practise. Our words are precise and admit of no loose interpretation.\u201d
\n\u201cI protest!\u201d said the delegate from the Soviet Union. \u201cCivilized beings must admit of principle.\u201d
\n\u201cWe are not civilized,\u201d said Spokesman, placidly.
\n\u201cBut it is not a simple matter to put principles into practise when one is surrounded by hostility,\u201d cried the delegate from Pakistan.
\n\u201cI did not say it was simple,\u201d Spokesman returned. \u201cPrinciples are no more than good intentions. The hungry, the wounded, the dead, are not concerned with good intentions.\u201d
\nThe French delegate, who had once visited the prisons in Algeria, cleared his throat several times. The British delegate, too proud to ask whether fox-hunting fell into the third category, shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The delegate from the United States, thinking of the increase in Unemployment figures, tapped his teeth with a pencil. The Soviet delegate, considering state edicts on the nature of Art, buttoned and unbuttoned his jacket uneasily. No one spoke.\u00a0 p. 12-13<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThe story\u2019s focus then switches to the Bushmen. After the tribe discusses the matter among themselves they insist that all fourteen hundred of them come to the UN to meet the aliens. The story develops as expected (spoiler) when the aliens ask what gifts the Bushmen want from them:<\/p>\n
\nSpokesman said, \u201cWe can make you richer than all other men. We will teach you how to build scherms like this one you stand in, how to wear splendid clothing, how to cure all your ills, how to fly through the air yourselves and speak to other men at a great distance.\u201d
\nTk\u2019we looked over his shoulder at the others for a long time. He shrugged. \u201cAs for me,\u201d he said, \u201cI do not want those things. If the Gods will give me some meat, I will not refuse it. Also, some medicines to cure the aches in my bones; that would be very good. But why should I want to fly, or to live in one of these great scherms? What I want is to be left alone.\u201d
\nBehind him, hundreds of soft voices murmured discreetly: \u201cYes, yes, that is so. Meat and some medicines. Do not forget tobacco. Perhaps a little tea, that would be nice.\u201d
\n\u201cI think those are the gifts we expect, Master,\u201d said Tk\u2019we, grinning. \u201cIf you gave us all the other things, then for a little while perhaps we would seem like great men. But then the Bantus and the white men would come and quarrel with us, and there would be war, as there was in the old days, when many Bushmen were killed and we were driven into the desert.
\n\u201cIt is this way with me,\u201d he went on. \u201cI was a good hunter, and I loved hunting. Also, I liked to lie with women. You cannot give me those things again. Nor can you give them to the young men, for they already have them. Now, I like to have a full belly. I enjoy seeing the children play about, and I love to see the young people dance. Sometimes, when my heart is heavy or full of longing, I like to sit apart and play on the guashi and sing the songs I have invented. You cannot give me these things, for I already have them.
\n\u201cWhat other things are there for men? No one needs more. If he says that he does, he is not yet a man but a child, who, no matter what he has always desires more, and looks from the bag of tsi nuts that he has to the bag someone else has. But we are not all children. Therefore, give us the promised gifts and let us go.\u201d\u00a0 p. 19<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThere are a couple of other stories of note in the issue. The End of Evan Essant\u00a0. . . ?<\/em><\/strong> by Sylvia Edwards is fantasy about a man who goes to see a psychologist as he fears that his name is also what is happening to him, i.e. he is becoming evanescent. He tells the doctor the story of his life, his job, of an unexpected marriage to a woman who improves his life, and his authorship of a novel called Sol<\/em>, which he writes under the name Mark Clifton (an SF writer of the time and Hugo Award winner). He initially sells the manuscript to a publisher but when they find out he isn\u2019t the \u2018real\u2019 Mark Clifton, they change their minds.
\nThe rest of the story (spoiler) details his journey to non-existence.
\nShards <\/em><\/strong>by Brian W. Aldiss is, for most of its length, an early New Wave entry that reads like an SF version of James Joyce\u2019s Finnegan\u2019s Wake<\/em> (comparison disclaimer: I only got a few pages into the latter before giving up):<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAfter us the deluge.\u201d
\n\u201cHow big is the deluge?\u201d
\n\u201cDeluge.\u201d
\n\u201cHow deep is the deluge?\u201d
\n\u201cAi, deluge.\u201d
\n\u201cHow deluge is the deluge.\u201d
\n\u201cDeluge, deluger, delugest.\u201d
\n\u201cConjugate and decline.\u201d
\n\u201cI decline to conjugate,\u201d
\n\u201cWho was that dinosaur I dinna saw you with last night?\u201d
\n\u201cThat was no knight. That was my dinner.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd what comes after the vertebrates?\u201d
\n\u201cNothing comes after the vertebrates because we are the highest form of civilization.\u201d
\n\u201cName the signs whereby the height of our civilization may be determined.\u201d
\n\u201cThe heights whereby the determination of our sign may be civilized are seven in number. The subjugation of the body. The resurrection of the skyscraper. The perpetuation of the species. The annihilation of the species. The glorification of the nates. The somnivolence of the conscience. The omniverousness of sex. The conclusion of the Hundred Year War. The condensation of milk. The conversation of muts. The confiscation of monks\u2014\u201d\u00a0 p. 52-53<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThe Kit-Katt Club<\/em><\/strong> by John Shepley consists of two parts. In the first half a boy called Tony looks for his alcoholic mother in a cheap hotel; the second half has him leave the hotel and go to a bar run by talking animals, where he mostly ends up listening to a heavy drinking terrier. Both of these parts are well observed and occasionally entertaining but they don\u2019t amount to anything.
\nTo Lift a Ship<\/em><\/strong> by Kit Reed has a woman and a man who are telepathically linked and who use their psi powers to pilot a ship. The woman, Mary Lee, has a thing for the man, Ike, who is an arrogant and obnoxious womaniser. He later steals the ship with Mary Lee, and puts on a display for a rich industrialist.
\nAt the end of the flight the scales have fallen from Mary Lee\u2019s eyes and she realises that Ike is not interested in her. When the industrialist comes on board for a test flight they cannot make it fly. After Ike and the industrialist leave she flies it back herself.
\nThis reads like it was written for the woman\u2019s magazines: the two-dimensional relationship stuff is prominent, and the SFnal aspects are largely ignored. It is not a very good story, but is perhaps notable for its early feminist \u2018woman doing it on her own\u2019 ending.
\nGarvey\u2019s Ghost<\/em><\/strong> by Robert Arthur Daft is a silly tall tale. One night a boy goes to visit a man who is haunted by a ghost. He listens to the man tell him that the reason he lives his life at night is because (spoiler) the ghost is an inky black shape that haunts him\u00a0 during the daytime\u2014this is, of course, his shadow.
\nMoon Fishers<\/em><\/strong> by Charles Henneberg (trans. by Damon Knight of P\u00eacheurs de lune<\/em>, from\u00a0La premi\u00e8re anthologie de la science-fiction fran\u00e7aise<\/em>, ed. by Alain Dor\u00e9mieux, 1959) has an interesting introduction:<\/p>\n
\nThese were paratroops from a neighboring planet. But at the dawn of the Eighteenth Dynasty, others were landing in those manyeyed wheels of which the prophet Ezekiel speaks: they had a lion\u2019s body, wings, and a human face. Their leader was called Ptah. His statue\u2014that of the Sphinx\u2014burdened the plain.\u00a0 p. 87<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThe Test<\/em><\/strong> by Theodore L. Thomas is about a young man driving a car with his mother as a passenger. They have a blow-out that makes them cross\u00a0to the other side of the road where they crash\u00a0head-on with another car. A young woman dies.
\nThe young man (spoiler) then wakes up and realises that the accident was a simulated\u00a0part of his driving test. However, as he shows no concern about the experience he has just undergone the examiners tell him he is ill and needs\u00a0treatment. So far, so routine. Its Dickian ending improves it a little:<\/p>\n
\nThe uniformed man said, \u201cHow do any of us know?\u201d And they dragged Robert Proctor out the door, knees stiff, feet dragging, his rubber heels sliding along the two grooves worn into the floor.\u00a0 p. 119<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThree for the Stars<\/em><\/strong> by Joseph Dickinson starts with a scientist involved in a forthcoming space shot sitting in a bar and getting hammered. The next day he has a breakdown at the launch site and rips a handful of clothing off a female colleague. The launch continues and an ape goes to Mars, returning later with (spoiler) a bottle containing a stupid message (\u2018No cream today. Leave three quarts milk, and a kiss for me\u2019.)
\nThis is only peripherally SF and seems more like something written for a mainstream magazine, what with its drunken, angst-filled scientist, his Ice Maiden colleague, and the Colonel Blimp-like military. It is a particularly weak finish to the issue.<\/p>\n
\nBooks <\/em><\/strong>by Alfred Bester starts with this about The Primal Urge<\/em> by Brian Aldiss and The Silver Eggheads<\/em> by Fritz Leiber:<\/p>\n
\nThere is a one page advert for a magazine called Space<\/em> World<\/em> at the beginning of the issue, and the back page is an advertisement for a Mercury Press collection of Dashiell Hammett stories, A Man Named Thin<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nEach month I would mail a list of stories we had set in type and ask Avram for a phone call giving me the issue contents. He wrote: \u201cThese letters asking for telegrams or phone calls present certain difficulties. There is one (count it) one public phone in this whole town\u2014in a candy store. It opens late, closes early, and has a two or three hour siesta.\u201d And so I gradually took over the job of deciding the contents of each issue, with some general guidance from our editorial headquarters in the small Mexican town of Amecameca.
\nIn May 1964 I got married, and Avram and his wife Grania promised to send us a Mexican wedding gift:
\n4\/20\/64: \u201cHappy May 24! Grania is out buying you both an iguana. \u2018But maybe they don\u2019t like an iguana,\u2019 I said. \u2018Nonsense,\u2019 she said briskly. \u2018Everyone likes an iguana.\u2019\u201d
\n5\/7\/64 (after my query about the necessity for walking the beast): \u201cWe are getting an iguana that not only is house-broken but does card tricks.\u201d
\n5\/19\/64 (after I wrote asking if it was safe): \u201cThe iguana eats raw meat and is perfectly harmless if kept well fed.\u201d
\n5\/26\/64: \u201cWe are measuring the iguana for a cage. You won\u2019t mind paying the freight, will you.\u201d
\n6\/3\/64: \u201cToday when I went to feed the iguana she snapped at me. It must be she thought I had designs on the eggs. The carpintiero is making a strong box with air holes. Please don\u2019t be impatient.\u201d
\nWhile the sojourn in Mexico was, as I\u2019ve said, workable, and while it provided me with reams of amusing correspondence (from one of the wittiest and most interesting letter writers in the field; I would love to see a collection of Davidson letters some day), it was not wholly successful for Avram. Late in 1964 he returned to the U.S. and settled in California, where he concluded that he would be better off resigning as editor and returning to full-time writing.\u00a0 p. viii-ix<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"rss\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/16x16\/rss.png?resize=16%2C16&ssl=1\" "\\"Subscribe")
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