{"id":3375,"date":"2017-09-11T10:36:26","date_gmt":"2017-09-11T10:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=3375"},"modified":"2017-09-11T10:36:27","modified_gmt":"2017-09-11T10:36:27","slug":"the-magazine-of-fantasy-and-science-fiction-133-june-1962","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=3375","title":{"rendered":"The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction #133, June 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:
\nSuch Stuff<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by John Brunner \u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nDaughter of Eve<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Djinn Faine \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Scarecrow of Tomorrow<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Will Stanton \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Xeenemuende Half-Wit<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 translated short story by Josef Nesvadba \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Transit of Venus<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Miriam Allen deFord \u2217<\/strong>
\nPower in the Blood<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Kris Neville \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nThe Troubled Makers<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint short story by Charles Foster \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThrough Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: LI<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Reginald Bretnor [as by Grendel Briarton]
\nThe Fifteenth Wind of March<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Frederick Bland \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Diadem<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Ethan Ayer \u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover<\/em><\/strong> & Interior Art<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Emsh
\nIn this issue . . . Coming soon . . .<\/em><\/strong>
\nThe Egg and Wee<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science essay by Isaac Asimov
\nBooks<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Alfred Bester
\nIndex to Volume Twenty Two – January-June 1962<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Such Stuff<\/em><\/strong> by John Brunner is about a man called Wills who is running a dream deprivation experiment on a volunteer called Starling. Although the other volunteers have previously dropped out of the experiment\u2014 they only lasted a couple of weeks due to the adverse side effects\u2014Starling has been going for six months. Wills, however, is increasingly having strange thoughts about garlic, stakes and crossroads . . . .
\nA decision is later made by Dr Daventry, the project supervisor, to end the experiment at the six month point. Wills is on duty for the last night, and the climax of the story (spoiler) has him hammering a stake into Starling\u2019s chest . . . only to have Dr Daventry come into the room and suck up all the blood with a syringe. Wills wakes to discover that he has been having a dream of his own, and realises that Starling has resolved the problem of not having dreams by getting other people to do it for him.
\nThis idea didn\u2019t really work for me but I found the increasing sense of foreboding effective, as well as the dream reality shift at the end. An interesting story, if not a \u2018good\u2019 one.
\nBrunner would go on to write a celebratory essay on Philip K. Dick for New Worlds<\/em> a couple of years later, and perhaps that writer\u2019s influence is visible here.
\nDaughter of Eve<\/em><\/strong> by Djinn Faine is narrated by a girl:<\/p>\n

She was very unsun. I never knew my mother but Daddy said she looked like she ate violets and cream for breakfast. I always thought that was pretty silly because I never heard of such fare on starships and Daddy doesn\u2019t raise such crops here, but anyway, she had pale golden hair and was very unsun.<\/em>
\nDaddy is a big man. He is two or three times bigger than me and very sun\u2014it has burnt him all rich golden brown. The sun doesn\u2019t pain him, it just makes him look more like the earth he hoes. Daddy is very strong too. He can work even more land than the tin farmer they sent him from Oldfolks Ground. Daddy sent the tin farmer back\u2014he says we have to work the land ourselves and smell and feel and taste it and dig our toes in it if we are going to stay here and grow.<\/em> p. 20<\/p>\n

Her mother is dead, and the girl spends her days playing with one of the local aliens.
\nLater on in the story she goes with her father to visit the Oldfolks Ground. The people there are not refugees from a post-holocaust Earth like they are, but part of an exploration starship from a forgotten part of the Empire. This group want the father to leave the child with them so they can raise her.
\nThe final scene has the father and daughter again visiting the settlement and, once more, the group implore the father to leave the child. The payoff (spoiler) is that he is planning an incestuous Adam-and-Eve relationship with the girl. Davidson would publish a number of stories that would push back the boundaries of the genre during his tenure as editor: this was the first.1<\/sup>
\nThe Scarecrow of Tomorrow<\/em><\/strong> by Will Stanton starts with a man sitting in his garden having a beer and shooting arrows at crows. His neighbour joins him and, as they drink several\u00a0cans of beer, they discuss the crow problem. This eventually spirals into a project where they build a robot-like scarecrow to replace the one that is there.
\nThe next day, both of them are hung over, and they see that the number of crows has markedly increased. When they try to approach the scarecrow one of the crows dives down and tries to attack the men. There is (spoiler) a hint here that the crows recognise a new species and are trying to protect it, but this isn\u2019t entirely clear. Pity, as the story is an entertainingly told one otherwise.
\nThe Xeenemuende Half-Wit<\/em><\/strong> by Josef Nesvadba (trans. of Blbec z Xeenem\u00fcnde,<\/em> 1960) is about the idiot son of a German rocket engineer working at Xeenemunde during WWII. The story is mostly told from the perspective of a retired teacher who is employed\u00a0to replace a governess apparently killed by a stray allied bomb. He struggles to control the boy, and later sees him beating up younger children in the street, until he is forcibly stopped by the butcher\u2019s wife. That night the butcher\u2019s shop is\u00a0also destroyed by a solitary bomb . . . .
\nThis has a convincing setting even if (spoiler) the boy\u2019s ability to design and launch highly accurate miniature rockets, modified from a copy of his father\u2019s plans, is kept off-stage.
\nThe Transit of Venus<\/em><\/strong> by Miriam Allen deFord is a weak attempt at humour, a supposed account by a future archaeologist of the scandal surrounding the \u2018Buticontest\u2019\u00a0of 2945. The winner, a Venerian, turns out to have come from America, and has lied about her qualifications. The backstory of this atavism and her fate are revealed.
\nPower in the Blood<\/em><\/strong> by Kris Neville is an odd piece about a family having breakfast when the mother announces she is about to have one of her visions:<\/p>\n

When the dew had scarcely formed and the sun was no more than rosy promise in the East, Mink Smight, seated at the breakfast table, reasoned that it was going to be a beautiful day.<\/em>
\nMink said, \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a beauty.\u201d<\/em>
\nMa Smight pursed her lips, thinking. \u201cIt might, and then again it might not.\u201d<\/em>
\nJoey recognized certain sure indications in Ma\u2019s tone. With his gun-metal eyes flashing, he pleaded over a plate or corn bread: \u201cNo more visions\u2014\u201d<\/em>
\nMa set her jaw and rolled her eyes to show how yellow her eye-balls were. \u201cWhen I feel a vision coming on, I jest naturally have to go ahead and have it.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cNot now, when things have been going along so nice for a while,\u201d the youngest girl said, hoping to cry back the inevitable. \u201cPlease. Remember the time I had that cute little soldier over? And then\u2014\u201d this to Mink\u2014\u201cMa had to go and have a totally unnecessary vision right in front of him. He never did come back. I was so embarrassed I like to died.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cYou were only eleven,\u201d Ma said placidly.<\/em>
\n\u201cSuppose I was. Suppose I was. How was he to know?\u201d<\/em> p. 49<\/p>\n

As the story develops (as you can see from the above most of the fun is in the telling) it materialises that the mother\u2019s visions are causative as much as predictive, and there are hints of strange things happening to the outside world (the machines stop running, a neighbour screams for help, a cat is tearing down houses…). It is an offbeat and effective fantasy.
\nThe Troubled Makers<\/em><\/strong> by Charles Foster (Evergreen Review<\/em> #4, 1957) gets off to a disorienting start before resolving into a character sitting at a restaurant bar talking to a waitress. His behaviour becomes erratic, and then disorderly, at which point Watusi Chief appears and puts him over his shoulder, saying that they have to get to the employment office. At this point the waitress looks up at the ceiling and sees an apple tree, with both fruit and blossom, sticking out of the roof. She sees an idealised version of herself sitting in the tree:<\/p>\n

Bare feet and bare legs dangled down from the low limb, almost touching the ground. But the girl\u2019s body was wrapped in a short cape. Desert Princess had never in her life seen a cape anything like that cape but she was immediately sure that she had to have one just like it. For when she stared at it, all she could think of was a fan coral with delicate tracery veins of blood, taken from the turquoise deeps of a warm and liquid tropic sea, carried up and up to the surface of the world of air, and there transformed to texture sheer and\u00a0<\/em>smooth as incredible silk, silk passed by gentle hands through an adhering cloud of butterfly wings.<\/em>
\n\u201cAt it again,\u201d\u00a0Watusi Chief groaned. \u201cJesus Christ, Boss, don\u2019t you <\/em>ever relax?\u201d<\/em>
\nBut Desert Princess hardly beard Watusi Chief. Because now she saw the face of the girl. And it was her face. Duplicated exactly in every detail, right down to the almost imperceptible forceps mark on her left cheek bone. But somehow, through the perfection of the likeness, there glowed a beauty, both ethereal and sexy, that Desert Princess had never herself discerned when she looked into her mirror.<\/em>
\n\u201cGee,” Desert Princess said, “am I <\/em>really like that?\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cBoss says so, why then it\u2019s <\/em>so,\u201d\u00a0Watusi Chief said. \u201cBut he\u2019s sure takin\u2019 a long time saying it.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cWas I really like that-before? Or\u2014did he, just now\u2014did he just now <\/em>make me that way?”<\/em>
\nWatusi Chief sighed, resigned. \u2019\u2019The Boss only brings out what\u2019s really there all the time, miss. He knows it\u2019s there because he can see it. And then he makes you see it too\u2014with words, or colors, sounds\u2014or little scenes like this.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0p. 64<\/p>\n

The Boss\u00a0is a \u2019maker.\u2019
\nThis vision is interrupted by the town Marshall, who is the woman\u2019s uncle. He has previously threatened to run the Boss and The Watusi Chief into jail, and is only stopped by the protestations of his niece. The story continues on in this vein until its appropriately cosmic ending.
\nIt is an original piece, like the Neville, and the nearest comparison I can think of would perhaps be R. A. Lafferty. It is certainly a different type of story for the time.
\nThrough Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: LI<\/em><\/strong> by Reginald Bretnor is another dreadful pun that just misses unintelligibility by a whisker.
\nThe Fifteenth Wind of March<\/em><\/strong> by Frederick Bland is very British disaster story where the cause of the catastrophe is a series of short-lived winds that occur with increasing strength and frequency. This phenomenon is entirely unexplained and is therefore rather unconvincing\u2014as is some of the other story detail\u2014yet it is still an interesting, if terribly dated, read; part of this is due to the relentless inevitability of the repeated winds, the rest is from some of the social detail portrayed in the narrative.
\nEvents begin with John Drake, who is doing errands outside his houseboat when he is almost killed in one of the earlier storms. Shortly afterwards a neighbouring trainee meteorologist tells him he has noted a pattern to recent wind events, and that the prognosis is not good. John organises himself to go to his girlfriend\u2019s house to rescue her and her father. After they experience the next wind early the following morning\u2014which convinces the pair\u2014they fill up the father\u2019s van and head for a cave near the village where John lived as a child. I mentioned earlier that there was some fascinating social detail: this scene occurs during their van journey:<\/p>\n

[John] pulled into the courtyard of a prosperous looking hotel. Expensive cars filled the car-park. <\/em>
\n\u201cWe won\u2019t get lunch here,\u201d Beth said.<\/em>
\n\u201cWhy ever not? They serve lunches, don\u2019t they?\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cLook at the cars parked outside. Look at the way you\u2019re dressed and me in slacks. Dad\u2019s the only one of us dressed to go in a place like that.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cWe\u2019ll make them serve us. I\u2019ll . . .\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cI wouldn\u2019t enjoy it, John. If I go somewhere like that, I want to be properly dressed.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cShe\u2019s right, son. We\u2019ll enjoy what we eat a lot more in a smaller place.\u201d<\/em>
\nJohn was inclined to be stubborn, but gave in. \u201cWell, as long as you understand that I\u2019m not going to be satisfied with sandwiches.\u201d<\/em>
\nHe drove out of the courtyard and within the next mile found a place that satisfied Beth. They had a roast beef and apple tart luncheon and John complained that nobody could make Yorkshire pudding like his mother.<\/em> p. 106<\/p>\n

The world is coming to an end but the British are still worried about whether they are appropriately dressed. Keep calm and carry on . . . .
\nOnce they get to the cave they take shelter with other people from the village. The winds continue with increasingly calamitous results\u2014people go deaf due to the pressure drop, get nosebleeds, become\u00a0unconscious, etc.\u2014giving events an almost surreal feel. By the time of the fifteenth wind (spoiler) there are eight people left alive on Earth . . . .
\nI\u2019m not sure I\u2019d describe this as a \u2019good\u2019 story\u2014there is too much unexplained and it is very dated\u2014but it is certainly an absorbing read.
\nThe Diadem<\/em><\/strong> by Ethan Ayer is a fantasy about a nurse who has an anonymous caller leave a box of jewels and rings on her doorstep. She gets her boyfriend to bring a jeweller, who (spoiler) gets her to put the rings on and then worships her as the four-armed daughter of Kali.
\nThere is another narrative thread in the middle of this which has a man called Mesir (who had left the jewels at her door) doing a number of odd jobs before ending up in a club with a naked girl who looks like the nurse. I have no idea what the connection between the women is supposed to be.<\/p>\n

The Cover<\/em><\/strong> is a lovely untitled piece by Emsh (I don\u2019t think it is for any of this issue\u2019s stories)\u2014that\u2019s what I call a customised spacesuit. Emsh also contributes a few spot illustration fillers, the first of these I can remember seeing\u2014in this year\u2019s issues, at least. There is one rather awkwardly placed on p. 26, and others on pp. 49 & 84.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In this issue . . . <\/em><\/strong>starts with Davidson noting that Faine, Foster and Ayer are newcomers who he hopes will become regulars (Faine and Ayer turned out to be one-shot wonders; Foster had published a handful of stories in the early to mid-fifties and had already stopped producing\u2014this one is a reprint). The rest of the comments are redundant, apart from the mention of an upcoming Leiber story, The Secret Songs<\/em>\u2014this should probably have been mentioned in Coming soon . . .<\/em><\/strong> That section mentions upcoming work from Randall Garrett and Harlan Ellison, plus a novel serialisation from Robert Sheckley. The rest of the space on this page is given over to an announcement for Westercon XV.
\nThe Egg and Wee<\/em><\/strong> by Isaac Asimov is an article about the size of cells and sub-cells. It has one or two interesting parts.
\nBooks<\/em><\/strong> by Alfred Bester has this to say about Fritz Leiber\u2019s writing in his review of the collection\u00a0Shadows with Eyes<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Mr. Leiber seems to function most powerfully in the first-person story form. When events are related by a protagonist, when characters are seen through his eyes, and when the conflicts are revealed by his reactions, then Mr. Leiber is at his best. But when he works from the omniscient or third-person point of view, he is handicapped. There isn\u2019t any opportunity in this form for the marvelous nuances, references, allusions . . . the network of stream-of-consciousness that is the quintessence of his unique style.<\/em>
\nProof of this is the fact that the two best Leiber stories of the past, classics today, are first-person stories: \u201cThe Night He Cried\u201d and \u201cComing Attraction.\u201d And five of the six stories in <\/em>Shadows with Eyes are also in the first-person form. Mr. Leiber and his many fans will probably disagree with this analysis; but isn\u2019t that a function of the critic, to provoke controversy?<\/em> p. 89<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never noticed this before: I shall bear it in mind in future.
\nThere is a useful Index to Volume Twenty Two – January-June 1962<\/em><\/strong> and, at the end of the Market Place<\/em><\/strong> classified adverts, we have Communicate<\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This issue has a much better selection of stories than last issue and there is little if any of Davidson\u2019s verbose feyness. He still can\u2019t put an issue together though. There are five SF stories in a row at the beginning of the issue followed by two distinctly offbeat fantasies, which is very odd sequencing. Also, why wouldn\u2019t you have the last two stories in reverse order, so you finish with the more substantial, readable, and better structured Bland story rather than the minor Ayer?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Faine story is almost certainly a Davidson purchase as it was accepted\/bought at the end of February 1962. It would seem from the acceptance\/bought dates (kindly provided by the F&SF<\/em> office) that Mills finished buying stories at the end of 1961 (with one exception), and Davidson was purchasing from the 31st<\/sup> of December. The raw data follows, and I have asterisked the stories I believe Davidson bought.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    March 1962:
    \nManly Wade Wellman – 15 September 1961
    \nRobert F. Young – 2 November 1961
    \nDoris Pitkin Buck – 2 November 1961
    \nEdgar Pangborn – 2 November 1961
    \nIsaac Asimov – 1 December 1961
    \nZenna Henderson – 15 December 1961<\/p>\n

    April 1962: (according to Davidson\u2019s editorial these were all bought by Mills):
    \nDoris Pitkin Buck – 15 October 1960 (accidental reprint?)
    \nJay WIlliams – 1 January 1961
    \nKit Reed – 31 May 1961
    \nHenneberg – 31 May 1961
    \nSylvia Edwards – 15 August 1961
    \nBrian Aldiss – 1 August 1961
    \nTed Thomas – 15 September 1961
    \nIsaac Asimov – 15 December 1961
    \nRobert Arthur – 31 January 1962 (Mills\u2019 last purchase?)<\/p>\n

    May 1962:
    \nTerry Carr – 31 December 1961*<\/strong> (claimed by Davidson as his purchase in the introduction)
    \nJames Blish – 1 September 1961
    \nWilliam Bankier\u2019s story – 2 October 1961
    \nGordon Dickson – 18 October 1961.
    \nJosef Nesvadba\u2019s three F&SF pieces were all bought on 1 September 1961
    \nIsaac Asimov – 31 January 1962 (Mills? See Robert Arthur above.)
    \nWalter Kerr\u2019s – 2 November 1961
    \nRon Goulart – 1 September 1961
    \nOtis K. Burger – 31 December 1961 *<\/strong>
    \nAvram Davidson – 12 January 1961
    \nEric Frazee – 15 September 1961
    \nW. F. Nolan – 31 December 1961 *<\/strong><\/p>\n

    June 1962:
    \nEthan Ayer – 31 March 1961
    \nDjinn Faine – 28 February 1962 *<\/strong>
    \nCharles Foster – 6 December 1961<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Djinn Faine<\/a> and Ethan Ayer<\/a> at ISFDB. Faine\u2019s husband at the time was Robert Russell, she had previously been married to Gordon R. Dickson; there is more biographical information at her ISFDB<\/a> page. Charles Foster at ISFDB<\/a>\u2014this listing doesn\u2019t mention a story listed at Galactic Central under the pseudonym Mark Ganes: Evil Out of Onzar<\/em>, Planet Stories<\/em>, September 1952.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\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: Such Stuff \u2022 short story by John Brunner \u2217\u2217 Daughter of Eve \u2022 short story by Djinn Faine \u2217\u2217 The Scarecrow of Tomorrow \u2022 short story by Will Stanton \u2217\u2217 The Xeenemuende Half-Wit \u2022 translated 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-3375","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-Sr","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3375","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=3375"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3426,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3375\/revisions\/3426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}