{"id":3354,"date":"2017-09-08T09:03:52","date_gmt":"2017-09-08T09:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=3354"},"modified":"2017-09-08T09:03:52","modified_gmt":"2017-09-08T09:03:52","slug":"the-magazine-of-fantasy-and-science-fiction-132-may-1962","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=3354","title":{"rendered":"The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction #132, May 1962"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

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

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

Executive Editor, Avram Davidson; Managing Editor, Edward L. Ferman<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nWho Sups With the Devil<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Terry Carr \u2217<\/strong>
\nWho\u2019s in Charge Here?<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by James Blish \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nHawk in the Dusk<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by William Bankier \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nOne of Those Days<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by William F. Nolan
\nNapoleon\u2019s Skullcap<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Gordon R. Dickson \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nNoselrubb, the Tree<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Eric Frazee
\nThe Einstein Brain<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Josef Nesvadba \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThrough Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: L<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Reginald Bretnor [as by Grendel Briarton]
\nMiss Buttermouth<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Avram Davidson \u2217<\/strong>
\nLove Child<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Otis Kidwell Burger \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nPrincess #22<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Ron Goulart \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nWhen Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Vance Aandahl \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Emsh
\nEditorial<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial by Avram Davidson
\nBy Jove!<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science essay by Isaac Asimov
\nBooks: Mutterings from the Underground<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Fritz Leiber
\nThe Mermaid in the Swimming Pool<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 poem by Walter H. Kerr<\/p>\n

A short while ago I suggested that the March 1962 issue of F&SF<\/em> may be the best issue of the magazine\u2014this one may be the worst. Not only are the stories a generally weak bunch\u2014Davidson is still ploughing his way through the inventory left by Mills\u2014but he also manages to make matters worse by the way he presents them. Not only are there a number of irritating introductions but it also appears that he doesn\u2019t yet know how to put a magazine together.
\nThe issue starts with Davidson\u2019s Editorial<\/em><\/strong>, which opens with half a page of wittering before he gets to anything of substance. After briefly mentioning his lack of a secretary, we get this:<\/p>\n

For the time being we will continue to do our very best with what staff we have, <\/em>videlicet: our ace agent, Mr. Pettifogle, whose pursuit of biographical intelligence regarding our shyer authors has carried him into the remotest bat-caves and perilous seas; our Miss Mossmolar, whose vast experience with periodical fiction began with her employment on <\/em>Godey\u2019s Ladies\u2019 Book, and whose inability to master the typewriter is more than compensated by her keen eye for such double-entendres and rude words which certain of our contributors continue to attempt to smuggle into their stories; and Horatio, our somewhat elderly but industrious office-boy whose last name we can never quite remember\u2014he is said at one time to have written quantities of popular juvenile fiction of a wholesome and improving nature-and whose conviction that he will yet (as he puts it) \u201cRise in the world\u201d never flags: <\/em>bonne chance, Horatio!<\/em> p. 5<\/p>\n

The rest of it is a list of things he won\u2019t be doing: letter column, fanzine reviews, raise word rates, reduce subscription prices, accept mss that use red ink on yellow paper, etc., etc., very little or any of which needed saying.<\/p>\n

Who Sups With the Devil<\/em><\/strong> by Terry Carr would seem from the introduction to be one of the first stories bought by Davidson. It is a moderately diverting deal-with-the-devil story where Old Nick\u2019s lack of success with his contracts is pointed out to him. The ending is weak (spoiler: after the contract is signed the Devil states he reserves the right to cheat, completely undermining the contract premise).
\nWho\u2019s in Charge Here?<\/em><\/strong> by James Blish is an odd piece about a building that disgorges a number of panhandlers and their dogs, all of who subsequently get on a train and go uptown. Once there they take up their pitches and listen to the conversation of the district\u2019s literary agents, ad men, and others. There doesn\u2019t appear to be any point to this but it\u2019s a well observed slice of life.
\nHawk in the Dusk<\/em><\/strong> by William Bankier is another strange fantasy. This one has an unpleasant old man wake up in the middle of the night to find that the grandfather clock is producing strange objects, one every second:<\/p>\n

From the face of the great clock, right at the centre spot where the hands joined, a small, cylindrical object appeared and dropped onto the floor. Another followed, and another. They came in a steady flow, a little greater in frequency than the swinging of the pendulum. Sometimes they fell directly to the floor. Other times, their progress impeded by the movement of the second hand, two or three would pile up and drop simultaneously. Peering over the edge of the cot, Hagbart saw a large mound of the things covering the floor and obscuring the base of the clock to a depth of more than a foot. Whatever was happening, it had been going on for some time.<\/em> p. 19<\/p>\n

The old man falls back to sleep and, by the time he wakes up again, they are up to the level of his cot. Reluctant to have any contact with the objects, he sits on a nearby chair and observes them, noticing that they have numbers on them and are counting down to zero; he has several hours left until that point. By the time he eventually decides he should leave the room it is too late: the objects act like quicksand and he returns the chair. At this point he starts reflecting on his earlier choices in life . . . .
\nOne of Those Days<\/em><\/strong> by William F. Nolan is an irritating three page story that has an irritating three-quarter page introduction.\u00a0A man hears a singing butterfly and decides he needs to go and see his shrink. Several more wacky things happen on the way there (talking cat, friend looks like a camel, etc.). The title is the punchline.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Napoleon\u2019s Skullcap<\/em><\/strong> by Gordon R. Dickson is, for the most part, an interesting story about a clinical psychologist called Carl and his friend Sean Tyrone. Tyrone is a lawyer who has invented a copper banded cap that he says is a \u2018psychic lever,\u2019 and he wants to use it on a patient of Carl\u2019s who thinks he is Napoleon. His theory is that mad people who think they are someone else were once psychically connected to the person in question, and that his lever can re-establish the contact.
\nTyrone manages to arrange a visit to Carl\u2019s patient. While visiting, Tyrone surreptitiously gets the patient to wear the cap before Carl interrupts him. Matters develop pretty much as you would expect thereafter, but the ending is baffling and I\u2019m not exactly sure what happens in the last scene.
\nI note in passing that these events unfold at a fairly leisurely pace, and include several descriptions of the winter weather:<\/p>\n

Carl looked down at the broad, snow-clad lawn below, spread out under the towering pines of the grounds. It would be spring in a few weeks, he thought, and then suddenly everything would be breaking out at once; earth-patches showing raw through the melting snow, water running loudly in the gutters, under a fresh, clean sky flecked with puffy clouds\u2014and at night a damp, wet wind from the south, stirring the soul of a man even as it stirred the buried seeds in the ground with the call of new life.<\/em> p. 36<\/p>\n

Noselrubb, the Tree<\/em><\/strong> by Eric Frazee has this second and third paragraph:<\/p>\n

With a moan he looked down at his exposed feet. They were cold. He was cold. His name was Noselrubb and he was the tree. <\/em>
\nHe shook vigorously, throwing snow from his branches. He thought of his home, Slupbh, on the planet Phid. There it was warm. There he had been happy. There he had met Lechtmi at Phid U. She took one look at him, whipped out her portable computer, ran twenty-three factors through it in a twinkling, and announced that Noselrubb loved her.<\/em> p. 48<\/p>\n

Do I need to say any more about what is possibly the worst story I\u2019ve ever read in F&SF?<\/em>
\nThe Einstein Brain<\/em><\/strong> by Josef Nesvadba (trans. of Einstein\u016fv mozek<\/em>, 1960) starts with a lot of professor-type talking-heads lamenting the lack of youngsters entering the sciences. They then turn to the limitations of cybernetic machines:<\/p>\n

But technical progress has not solved the fundamental problems of the human mind. People are still asking how and why we should live, we still know nothing of how the universe came into being, and we still cannot understand the fourth dimension Einstein worked out. Whenever we set this question to our cybernetic machines they refuse it as unscientific, wrongly set out, too personal, private, human. But this does not make the question any the less important for every one of us.<\/em> p. 74<\/p>\n

So, after this, they agree\u00a0that one of their female scientists should take the brains from three recently dead people and uses them to form the Einstein Brain. Initially, the experiment goes as predicted, but then the Brain starts behaving erratically and, eventually, demands a body.
\nI\u2019m not sure this is an entirely successful piece, but its philosophical ending improves it.
\nThrough Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: L<\/em><\/strong> by Reginald Bretnor is another pun that escaped me.
\nMiss Buttermouth<\/em><\/strong> by Avram Davidson starts with a man receiving a pamphlet that predicts the winner of a horse race. He contacts the sender hoping for a repeat performance. A notion stretched out to three pages.
\nLove Child<\/em><\/strong> by Otis Kidwell Burger would seem, again from information in the introduction, to be another Davidson purchase. The story is about an American woman in Paris looking after not only her own two children but also three of her male cousin\u2019s. The woman and the cousin were raised\u00a0together and were very close, but argued in their early twenties and became estranged. They later married other people. One day, when the five children return from the park, a strange child accompanies them. He turns out to be (spoiler) the child that the cousins would have had if they had married.
\nAlthough this has a guessable d\u00e9nouement, its dense prose and reflective style make it better than it would be otherwise.
\nPrincess #22<\/em><\/strong> by Ron Goulart is the best piece in the issue. This droll and slightly loopy tale concerns Bert, who is touring the planet of Osbert with Donna Dayton android #22\u2014Dayton was a famous Martian torch singer a few years before and, although pass\u00e9 back in the Solar System, still does well in the sticks. When Bert gets to the town of Monarchy Hill he hopes to meet the Princess but ends up meeting several underlings instead, including two Junior Prime Ministers and the former Minister of Cafeterias (recently demoted to Secretary of Chalk and Erasers). Bert asks about the political system:<\/p>\n

\u201cLook,\u201d said Bert. \u201cWhat kind of monarchy is this? I\u2019m impressed by meeting prime ministers and all, but I had hoped to shake hands with the princess herself. Not only don\u2019t I meet her, I have to sit here a week and do nothing. Maybe I should just take my android and go on about my business.\u201d Bert stopped. He hadn\u2019t intended to speak so strongly to someone of the Prime Minister\u2019s station.<\/em>
\n\u201cYou like princesses, do you?\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cAs a class, yes. They have a certain status that one can respect.\u201d<\/em>
\nBarnaby smiled, his head bobbing. \u201cI feel I can trust a man with your beliefs.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cYou can.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cPrincess Louise has been abducted. Three days ago while she was cutting the ribbon that opened a new downtown cafeteria\u201d.<\/em> p. 102<\/p>\n

As the Princess looks like Donna Dayton, they borrow Bert\u2019s android for an important event:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if you know how our age-old system of government works,\u201d said Barnaby. \u201cI\u2019ll explain. Each year we hold a contest to select the prettiest girl in each town. This girl must be more than just a likeable beauty. She must have either great political wisdom or be able to play some musical instrument. From these girls the princess who rules all the territory is picked. The finals are held right here on Monarchy Hill.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cSounds like as good a system as any,\u201d said Bert, sitting down on the crate.<\/em>
\n\u201cCareful of that,\u2019\u2019 said Barnaby. \u201cI think you will get some idea of Princess Louise\u2019s intense personal charm and accordian playing ability when I tell you that she has won the contest five years in a row.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cI\u2019d like to meet her.\u201d<\/em> p. 103<\/p>\n

Bert then goes off with a man called Vickens to search for the princess. At one of their stops they pick up a woman Bert has previously met on the train to Monarchy Hill, Jan Nordlin. Jan does a ventriloquist act, and is interested in Bert. He is more interested in meeting \u2018important people.\u2019
\nThis is an entertaining and amusing story. I note that it meanders and rambles more than his later and more polished work, and is probably the better for it.
\nWhen Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed<\/em><\/strong> by Vance Aandahl1<\/sup> is, for the most part, a pretty good story about a man in a post-apocalyptic world. He starts to hear a voice in his head telling him to join \u2018It.\u2019 Having seen several of his companions taken over by \u2018It\u2019 he leaves the city.
\nLater, when he is out in the country, he sees a young woman and chases her, only to be trapped by others of her tribe. The next part of the story concerns his time as a captive in the village, where the woman takes it upon herself to instruct him in their form of Christianity.<\/p>\n

For one entire day, they talked about God.<\/em>
\n\u201cHe is your Father,\u201d she said. \u201cHe is my Father, and your Father, and all [men\u2019s] Father. He is the Father of the world, for He made everything when there was nothing. And He has given us the flowers. They are our comfort and protection.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cHow could anyone do all that?\u201d <\/em>
\n\u201cGod is perfect. He knows everything. He is everywhere. He can do anything.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cBut why can\u2019t we see him?\u201d <\/em>
\n\u201cYou can,\u201d she cried. \u201cYou must! If you only open your heart, you will see all His divine goodness and mercy!\u201d<\/em>
\nBut Robert Smith could not see God. Sitting on the hill, gazing across the land or into the sky, he would try with all his strength to see the divine Father. He could see the green summer grass, undulating in countless waves toward the horizon; he could see a river, wandering in aimless beauty, eddying into little ponds and lakes, where trees grew and birds sang; he could see the colors of the great mountains, whose purple peaks, even under the summer sun, were [. . .] dotted with a fleet of far distant clouds. But he could not see God, no matter how hard he tried.<\/em> p. 123<\/p>\n

In the end (spoiler) all the villagers are all possessed by \u2018It,\u2019 and are commanded to go to a cave some distance away. He is taken with them and, when they go inside the cave, he sees a vast chamber containing what would seem to be a global consciousness. He is plugged into it. This rather unconvincing ending somewhat spoils a quite good story.<\/p>\n

There is the usual limited non-fiction. The Cover<\/em><\/strong> by Emsh uses, I believe, his wife as a model for the woman in the foreground. In this issue . . . Coming next . . .<\/em><\/strong> is on page 30, and part of the text describes\u00a0at least two of the stories I had already read by that point. To be brutally honest, even if this blurb had been at the beginning of the issue it would have been a complete waste of space.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

By Jove!<\/em><\/strong> by Isaac Asimov is a science article about the physical characteristics of the outer gas giants and the possibility of finding life on Jupiter.
\nBooks: Mutterings from the Underground<\/em><\/strong> by Fritz Leiber is a guest essay in lieu of the normal book review column by Alfred Bester. It is about how the mainstream views SF and, to begin with, is quite hard to follow. Once he gets into his stride it is mostly a moan about the situation:<\/p>\n

It seems to me that the situation of the other literary forms with science fiction in their midst is like that of a respectable family with a crackpot uncle who is forever going off prospecting for gold with a donkey, a stubbly red beard, a pack of unregimented fleas, and a general unwashed smell. One day he strikes it rich. He finds himself the family hero, his gold is immensely popular, but he soon discovers that just as before the family wants neither him nor his donkey in the house when visitors call. For one thing they might have to explain to people what fools they were not to believe in his dreams, and no one ever likes to do that.<\/em> p. 70<\/p>\n

Near the end there is this:<\/p>\n

What the purist can legitimately demand is that wherever the author take off from, he be completely honest, remember science, keep his eyes open, and see all he can\u2014not flinch from any dark wall in popular or scientific worldview or in his own mind. The science-fiction writer\u2019s noblest task is this: to awaken, in a story, a world on the very edge of impossibility, and then, in the midst of the story, on the verge between the written and the unwritten, to study and search with all the passion of a scientist scrutinizing his experiment, or an analyst his patient\u2019s thought-stream, or a Holmes a Moriarty, or a lover his beloved.<\/em>
\nAnd if, in such a wild pursuit, the science-fiction writer [fails] to achieve ungrudging recognition, or if the science-fiction reader lack the wholehearted approval of his peers, neither should grieve.<\/em> p. 72<\/p>\n

\u2014the last part of which is what I would have said at the outset.
\nThe Mermaid in the Swimming Pool<\/em><\/strong> by Walter H. Kerr is an OK poem about a man in a swimming pool thinking\/dreaming about a mermaid.
\nFinally, there are a couple of items that don\u2019t normally feature; there is a Hugo Awards Nomination Blank<\/em><\/strong> for those wanting to vote for the Hugo Awards, and an\u00a0F&SF\u2014For A Lifetime <\/em><\/strong>subscription offer.<\/p>\n

A poor issue, and this is not helped by Davidson’s editorial material or the running order of the stories. Concerning the latter, if a new reader had picked this one up I wonder whether they would have\u00a0made it past the first few stories (even the Bankier, while good, is a little odd). I thought the ideal in compiling a magazine issue was start and finish with something strong, and if you can\u2019t start with something strong, use something relatively conventional.
\nThere are also quite a few typos in this issue.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Vance Aandahl\u2019s story introduction states he is a nineteen year old sophomore English literature major at the University of Colorado. A look at his ISFDB<\/a> page shows him to be the quintessential F&SF<\/em> writer: out of twenty-nine stories all but three have appeared in F&SF<\/em>. His first story appeared in 1960 and the last in 1995 (at the age of fifty-three). There is a photo on this site<\/a> where he publishes film reviews.<\/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 Executive Editor, Avram Davidson; Managing Editor, Edward L. Ferman Fiction: Who Sups With the Devil \u2022 short story by Terry Carr \u2217 Who\u2019s in Charge Here? \u2022 short story by James Blish \u2217\u2217 Hawk in the Dusk \u2022 short story by William Bankier \u2217\u2217\u2217 One of Those […]<\/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-3354","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-S6","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354","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=3354"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3372,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354\/revisions\/3372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}