{"id":5106,"date":"2018-06-09T22:44:48","date_gmt":"2018-06-09T22:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=5106"},"modified":"2018-06-16T12:27:39","modified_gmt":"2018-06-16T12:27:39","slug":"new-worlds-146-january-1965","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=5106","title":{"rendered":"New Worlds SF #146, January 1965"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Other reviews:1<\/sup>
\nGraham Hall, Vector<\/em> #30 (January 1965)<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editor, Michael Moorcock; Assistant Editor, Langdon Jones<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nThe Power of Y<\/em><\/strong> (Part 1 of 2) \u2022 novella serial by Arthur Sellings \u2217\u2217<\/strong>+
\nThe Sailor in the Western Stars<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Bob Parkinson \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nTunnel of Love<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Joseph Green \u2217<\/strong>
\nThere\u2019s a Starman in Ward 7<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by David Rome \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nElection Campaign<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Thom Keyes \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Robert J. Tilley
\nInterior artwork<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by uncredited (2), Cawthorn (3)
\nEncouraging Signs<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial by Michael Moorcock
\nBackground: Space Drive<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by George Locke [as by Gordon Walters]
\nFancy and Imagination<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 book reviews by Michael Moorcock
\nBooks for the Kids? <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 book reviews by Michael Moorcock [as by James Colvin]
\nTwo Good Ones <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 book reviews by Langdon Jones
\nLetters to the Editor
\nStory Ratings 145<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The serial by Arthur Sellings,2<\/sup> The Power of Y<\/em><\/strong>, starts with the narrator,\u00a0Max Afford, stating he will not stand for President of the UES (United European States), that the following account was written for therapeutic reasons, and that he is just an art dealer. The story as such then starts with Afford in his gallery looking at a \u2018plied\u2019 copy of a Matisse that has just come in. It is number number 20, and this leads to a data-dump about the novel\u2019s gimmick, plying (presumably short for \u2018multiplying\u2019):<\/p>\n

\n

Plying hit the headlines four years before\u2014remember?
\n. . . the days when it was hailed as The Answer to Everything . . . The Dawn Of The Golden Age . . . when one car would go in one end and a million roll out the other. . . a genuine Mona Lisa in every home? \u2014 well, after the dust had settled, the Hyman Bascos and Oswald Bilbekkers of this world found they were still in business, only more so.
\nI\u2019m no scientist, nor are a few thousand million other people, but it had all seemed so simple. All objects, so the theory ran, have an extension into the fourth dimension. We just happen to see, and use, one slice in this three-dimensional space. Plying meant simply taking other slices. The world was a side of bacon and there was nothing to stop you taking a dozen slices, a million\u2014object x to the power of y, in fact\u2014provided the hog was long enough. The sad truth was that it wasn\u2019t. Or the cutters couldn\u2019t reach more than twenty slices back. Or both. The \u201ccutters\u201d weren\u2019t blades of steel, of course, but some kind of laser beam operating in a field of\u2014well, there was enough about it in the Sunday magazines of the day.\u00a0 p. 9<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And that is about as interested as Sellings ever gets about the process (most of the novel revolves around the plot, and the upper middle class art gallery environment and society that Afford inhabits). However, there is one other twist that Sellings adds at this point: when Afford touches the painting he notices a strange sensation and, after more research at a friend\u2019s gallery, he realises that he can\u00a0tell the difference between the original and the copies, something that shouldn\u2019t be possible as they are supposedly\u00a0identical.
\nNext stop is Joanna Miles: as well as Afford\u2019s possible romantic interest in her, she is also an executive at the Plying Plant. He tells her about his discovery but doesn\u2019t really get anywhere, although she agrees to organise a tour of the Plying plant for him. When he goes on his tour he slips the guard a bribe and gets access a set of twenty identical paintings. He finds the real one by touch.
\nAfter this there is a break of a couple of months in the story. Afford goes to a country auction and notices a potentially valuable picture which he buys. It is a picture of President Masson\u2019s grandfather. Afford (who is forced to take his pushy Aunt Clarissa along) presents his find to the President at an official reception. When Afford shakes the President\u2019s hand he realises that the man is a copy!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The story now kicks up a gear. After the presentation ceremony, Afford contacts Joanna about plying living creatures and is bluntly told it is not possible. He goes to see his aunt, and she doesn\u2019t believe him either. After a night in a bar drowning his sorrows he is abducted outside his house. Afford wakes up later in a sanatorium. His aunt arrives and tells him that Joanna contacted her after his visit saying her phone was tapped. Aunt Clarissa then arranged for Afford\u2019s abduction for his own protection. Senator Burroughs, a friend of his aunt, then turns up and they discuss the situation. There is a lot packed into this chapter.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As you can probably tell, this is a fairly fast-paced story, and it is told with, perhaps, the style and lightness of touch more typical in a mainstream social novel of the time. It is certainly not your normal boilerplate mid-sixties SF novel. Perhaps this different tone or voice was what Moorcock found attractive.
\nIt is pleasant enough but minor.3<\/sup><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sailor in the Western Stars<\/em><\/strong> by Bob Parkinson4<\/sup> is a lyrical, future-myth story that tells of a space captain called Anistar:<\/p>\n

\n

Anistar then, as we have already noted, was a sailor; a proud, noble sailor of the ancient lineage of the Lindesfaarne \u2014 who sail their tall, gossamer-light ships across the high stars, silent as falling snowflakes. And as he dipped into the ports of one distant world or another, Anistar continued the business of the Lindesfaarne and traded in the intangible wares they carry; for the Lindesfaarne have long since found such cargoes most profitable, and quite portable.\u00a0 p. 49<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On one of the planets he visits he meets a lady called Calmoora, and they fall in love. Later Anistar becomes restless and wants to go sailing again:<\/p>\n

\n

The story meanwhile tells of how Anistar tarried a little while on Jildereen; and when the time came for him to leave that world, along with him went Calmoora, and Santihl, and others whose names are now lost to our histories and so are quite forgotten. So that all these quitted Jildereen at last, and came into that vast darkness of heaven, wherein the stars are as distant lanterns in the sky. And in the glory and the freedom of these heavens Anistar rejoiced, for he was a sailor of the race of the Lindesfaarne and hated the feel of a planet hard beneath his feet. Once again his soul flew free and happy with the ship as it spread its unseen, delicate sails of force and sailed onwards among the stars. And in the hold of that gossamer-light ship there now reposed a new cargo, perhaps the most curious that Anistar had ever carried.\u00a0 p. 56<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

At the end of the story (spoiler) Calmoora is left on Caer-ome, while Anistar departs. The \u201cintangible\u201d he has brought to the planet is love.
\nThis is a discursive and stylish piece that vaguely reminded me of Cordwainer Smith, and it\u2019s the best story in the issue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tunnel of Love<\/em><\/strong> by Joseph Green starts with two young men getting a permit to go to a primitive planet and get film footage of the natives. These latter are the most attractive humanoids in known space and they go around naked. The two men intend to use their \u201cethnographic\u201d film to make some money producing art house movies.
\nThey arrive on the planet and, after the pair have most of their film footage, we learn more about the natives\u2019 marriage customs: there are no extra-marital relationships, and to marry one of the women the men have to crawl through a tunnel in a metal pyramid to a conjugal chamber in the centre: not all the men make it\u2014some are taken by \u201cthe monster\u201d.
\nNeedless to say one of the two men gets the hots for the chief\u2019s red-headed daughter and decides to have a go. The other follows him with a drone\u2014they want the footage for their movie\u2014and sees him disappear along the way.
\nThis all resolves with (spoiler) his rescue and the discovery that the pyramid is a huge genetic scanner, installed after the sun\u2019s radiation levels increased thousands of years ago: those men who are not up to standard slowly die of starvation in the pyramid.
\nThis is all unconvincingly contrived but it moves along slickly enough.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a Starman in Ward 7<\/em><\/strong> by David Rome5<\/sup> is a piece narrated by a schizophrenic in an asylum. A new inmate joins them and claims he is a Starman from Alpha Centauri. He later organises a breakout (spoiler) but we never discover whether the Starman is an alien or just delusional. For that reason it is not entirely satisfactory as a story but is of interest on account of its unusual manic style\u00a0and occasionally transgressive tone:<\/p>\n

\n

Alice and I walked home through Souter Woods! ! !
\nThe Starman wanted to know why I killed Alice. I tell him because she said dirty words to me after I LOVED her. I also told him about the mother in the moon.
\nMother in the moon
\nRolled me in porridge
\nTurned me into a boy
\nWhen I was three
\nYears old
\nThe Starman came from Alpha Centauri in a spaceship. He says nobody believes him, that\u2019s why he\u2019s here.
\nI said what happened to the spaceship. He said it\u2019s still hidden in the swamp and when he gets the chance he\u2019s getting out of here and going home.
\nAfter we got our pills THEY served us coffee on the verandah. We get one cup of coffee each and ONE biscuit, except Daddy who gets two when JOHN is on. The Starman ASKED JOHN FOR ANOTHER BISCUIT.
\nIt was funny. JOHN gave the Starman a look, then pushed him and made him stumble against the wall. But the Starman went straight back and asked for another biscuit. JOHN got mad and took him to the dormitory and shut the door.
\n(all this is a lie!)
\n(ward 7 is fine)
\n(EVERYBODY here treats us right)
\n(I\u2019m a dirty liar about JOHN)\u00a0 p. 84<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Election Campaign<\/em><\/strong> by Thom Keyes has an authoritarian, war-mongering General touring the planets during an election campaign. His government minder is, unusually, a doctor. During the trip they argue, and just as it is becoming physical the gravity goes off temporarily. Their spaceship pilot (who is a brain in a metal box) has malfunctioned, and the ship is spinning tail over tail, out of control.
\nWhen they investigate the pilot\u2019s box they find the brain has suffered from a haemorrhage, and is irreparable. The only way for them to survive (spoiler) is for the doctor to remove the general\u2019s brain and use it as a replacement. The operation is successful. (By the way, the described medical procedures aren\u2019t as grisly as in Keyes\u2019 previous story Period of Gestation<\/em> (Science Fantasy<\/em> #67, September-October 1964)\u2014at least this time there is a doctor cutting people open rather than amateurs\u2014but I won\u2019t be having anything to eat before I read his next one.)
\nThe story finishes with the general, now a spaceship, arriving at the colony planet and starting his stump speech. It has a good last line:<\/p>\n

\n

Meanwhile, the political machine swung into action.\u00a0 p. 102<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This issue\u2019s Cover<\/em><\/strong>, according to ISFDB, is by Robert J. Tilley (but the source for this attribution is unknown).
\nThe title page informs us that Langdon Jones is now the editor.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Interior artwork<\/em><\/strong> is split between the uncredited but distinctive artist who illustrates Selling\u2019s serial, while Cawthorn illustrates the others (he is rapidly becoming the magazine\u2019s\u00a0staff artist).
\nEncouraging Signs<\/em><\/strong> is, I presume, Michael Moorcock\u2019s editorial (although uncredited\u00a0it has a sketch of him at the top of the page) and covers a number of topics:<\/p>\n

\n

From this issue we are back on a regular monthly schedule and, for the first time, our companion Science Fantasy<\/em> also goes monthly. This is largely thanks to you and we are grateful.\u00a0 p.2<\/p>\n

At least four brilliant books have appeared [in 1964], all vastly different\u2014Aldiss\u2019s Greybeard<\/em>, Ballard\u2019s The Terminal Beach<\/em>, Harness\u2019s The Paradox Men<\/em> and, a book which can\u2019t strictly be called SF, yet which deals with all the ideas found in SF, Burroughs\u2019s Dead Fingers Talk<\/em>. These four alone made it an exciting year for us\u2014and an encouraging one.
\nAlso encouraging was the number of new writers we have been able to attract to both magazines. Langdon Jones, George Collyn, John Hamilton, Colin Fry and Thom Keyes have all, in their different ways, brought freshness and diversity to the field and will continue to do so.\u00a0 p. 2<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He briefly mentions the contributions by Bob Parkinson and Arthur Sellings\u00a0before moving on to this:<\/p>\n

\n

A further encouraging sign that SF is on the up in more ways than one\u2014 the publication of SF Horizons<\/em> , the professional magazine of SF criticism, edited by Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison. The best item in this was Aldiss\u2019s long article on Jack Williamson\u2019s Legion of Time<\/em>, in which he analyses not only the book itself, but also the whole SF field, its strengths and its weaknesses. This is the first piece of serious SF criticism we have read which really lays down solid principles for the criticism of SF. It is witty, intelligent and clear.\u00a0 p. 3<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He then quotes a long passage from the Aldiss article which ends with:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIn other words, discover the purpose; judge its worth; criticise the technique . . .\u201d\u00a0 p. 3<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

All of the above comments suggest that it was an interesting time to be in and\/or observing the British SF scene.
\nI didn\u2019t expect to like Background: Space Drive<\/em><\/strong> by George Locke, which I thought would be another of those dreary science articles that occasionally turn up in SF magazines, but he writes\u00a0in a breezy, entertaining style:<\/p>\n

\n

Twenty or thirty years ago, science fiction writers took great pains to work out a plausible scientific framework for their stories. But they quickly came into conflict with the accepted scientific theories of the day. Before the First World War, heroic adventures on Mars a la<\/em> E. R. Burroughs were quite plausible in light of what was known about Mars. Today, the science fiction writer moans softly: \u201cI mustn\u2019t dream of cream princesses enthroned on Mars because the astronomers insist that mammalian life is impossible. So I have to find an outlet for my sexual fantasies among a bunch of nasty green lichens!\u201d\u00a0 p. 103<\/p>\n

De Bergerac was a couple of hundred years ahead of his time as a science fiction writer, and the rocket was neglected in favour of the aforementioned antigravity. Jules Verne certainly didn\u2019t use it. His unfortunate heroes were shot out of a gigantic cannon like a packet of puffed wheat. Ever since the publication of that story (English edition 1873), science fiction readers have condemned Verne on the grounds that after such a violent initial blastoff, the heroes would have resembled a rather soggy mass of red puffed wheat.\u00a0 p. 106<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He starts with Lucian and his sailing ships and works his way round to the modern equivalent by the end.
\nThis issue\u2019s reviews start with Fancy and Imagination<\/em><\/strong> by Michael Moorcock. I think I have finally figured out why Moorcock writes about some books under his own name and the rest under his \u2018James Colvin\u2019 pseudonym: those reviewed under his own name are those he wants to proselytise about, those he reviews under his pseudonym take their chances . . . .
\nThis month Moorcock (as opposed to Colvin) reviews Greybeard<\/em> by Brian W. Aldiss, and The Paradox Men<\/em> by Charles Harness. In his illuminating reviews of both books (this is a very well written essay) he has this to say about them (amidst much else):<\/p>\n

\n

Wordsworth once distinguished between Fancy and Imagination in art\u2014Fancy was the ability to create what hadn\u2019t been conceived of before, Imagination was the ability to explore the deeper aspects of what we see around us. In Greybeard<\/em> Imagination predominates with a sufficient dash of Fancy to make the whole very good modem SF indeed.\u00a0 p. 112<\/p>\n

Long-time readers of the genre may remember such beautiful stories as Time Trap<\/em> (Astounding<\/em>, 1948),\u00a0Fruits of the Agathon<\/em> (Thrilling Wonder Stories<\/em>, 1948), Stalemate in Space<\/em> (Planet<\/em> [Stories<\/em>], 1949) and that tour de force in Authentic<\/em>, 1953\u2014The Rose<\/em>. All of them have, with The Paradox Men<\/em>, a certain similarity of theme and mood, yet all of them show a writer of intellect and power whose faults\u2014descent into pulp shorthand on occasions, plots tending to move a little too fast, tendency to use characters as mechanical chess-pieces in a too carefully plotted framework\u2014are easy to ignore. It is high time we saw the republication of all of these.\u00a0 p. 113<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In his Calvin persona, Moorcock uses Books for the Kids?<\/em><\/strong> to dish out some praise but mostly punishment beatings. In his review of Andre Norton\u2019s Judgement on Janus<\/em> he says that the writer \u201cfeasts off the hard work of earlier writers, looting their backgrounds and ideas and producing barren pastiche after barren pastiche. If you\u2019ve read one, you\u2019ve read \u2019em all.\u201d He says of A Life for the Stars<\/em> by James Blish that \u201cThere\u2019s nothing new here, either, but at least Blish is plagiarising himself to produce a juvenile version of his famous Oakie series.\u201d Moorcock then covers another juvenile by Nourse, and airs his grievances about this type of material appearing in the SF magazines. I don\u2019t really understand his objection: who cares as long as it\u2019s good?
\nNext for the brickbat is Poul Anderson\u2019s A Truce for Kings<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\n

This pulp Western is dressed up as an SF story. It is badly written, highly reactionary and embarrassingly sentimental\u2014and it won this year\u2019s Hugo Award for the best short fiction. I began writing my review before I heard that piece of news. I’m still bewildered\u2014can it mean that the Hugo has become valueless as an indication of what is good? I’m equally bewildered at Gollancz for selecting it. I always had the impression that he was a left-wing publisher. Not any more, it seems.\u00a0 p. 116<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

His bafflement about the Hugo Award not being an indicator of quality is odd: was it ever a guarantee?
\nLater there is this about Damon Knight\u2019s new novel Beyond the Barrier<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\n

Damon Knight\u2019s reputation is good, yet surely he can\u2019t have gained it from his fiction? I hoped his latest novel would be an improvement on his short stories, but no such luck.\u00a0 p. 117<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This about the author of The Country of the Kind<\/em>, among others.
\nThere are a couple of positive reviews at the end (Ballard\u2014naturally\u2014and Burgess).
\nAt his best Moorcock is a very good reviewer of material he likes\u2014but with everything else his politics and bugbears (juveniles, sentimentality, etc., etc.) make him an unreliable arbiter of what is worth your time.
\nIn Two Good Ones<\/em><\/strong>, Langdon Jones positively reviews The Uncensored Man<\/em> by Arthur Sellings, and The Syndic<\/em> by C. M. Kornbluth, although he starts with this about Selling:<\/p>\n

\n

I have always considered Arthur Sellings to be a greatly under-estimated and neglected writer. True, his output hasn\u2019t been great, and in a world where a writer like Murray Leinster can get to the top, it is obvious that quantity comes before quality.\u00a0 p. 119<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This praising who you like and trashing who you don\u2019t was a common New Worlds<\/em> reviewing technique. This would continue, and get worse: I\u2019ve heard people say that reading the later New Worlds\u2019<\/em> book review columns (in the large format edition especially) was like reading Pravda\u2014<\/em>you would skim the reviews to see whose turn it was to be denounced.
\nLetters to the Editor<\/em><\/strong> opens with a long letter from Ivor Latto of Glasgow (who wins the new Harry Harrison novel, The Ethical Engineer<\/em>), which is mostly about Langdon Jones\u2019s I Remember Anita<\/em> in #144:<\/p>\n

\n

Mr. Jones has as much right to employ blunt sexual realism as any non-sf writer . . . if he thinks it justified for his purpose . . . and in this case there is obviously a case for it, to present his characters as live, animal human beings. The sweaty realism of love and death has been employed to advantage by many writers, notably by the Existentialists. But when Sartre or Camus do this they use the language of realism.
\nThe strangest thing about this story was the combination of a narrative which shows all the warts, with a style, rather, a Style, which was extremely literary, at times even affected. The oft-repeated devise of \u2018I remember . . .\u2019 is one example of this, while the language itself too often drifted into neo-Hemingway; phrases like \u2018I stayed there, buried in the soft gentleness of you, I know not how long,\u2019 or \u2018the loin-heat that used to suffuse my abdomen,\u2019 again, \u2018we used to march, hand-in-hand, in arm-swinging boisterousness down avenues of stars.\u2019
\nNobody speaks like that. Nobody even thinks like that.
\nAnd there was enough of this sort of thing to be disconcerting in conjunction with the realism of the love and death scenes. This pretentiousness also was expressed in some surprisingly banal passages. How about: \u2018My God, you had never really been loved.\u2019 All this does not mean that I think Langdon Jones is a bad writer, only that I think that he was trying to be a Fine Writer. His theme was simple and powerful, it would surely have benefited from the use of simple and powerful language, rather than resorting to embarrassing and intrusive literary tricks. My second reservation about this story was the aura of incredible bitterness which pervaded it, no doubt part of the author\u2019s intention. All right, this was a tragedy, but one does not leave Oedipus Rex feeling angry with the Gods, but rather one feels cleansed of emotion. In expressing such bitterness Mr. Jones does not guard his characters against self-pity, the stink of which suffuses much of the story. If I seem over-critical of this piece it is perhaps because the big build-up made me more sensitive than I might otherwise have been to its shortcomings. It was certainly the most adult item in this issue, and the strongest in emotion, but it was in my opinion over-written and suffered from an unfortunate placing of emphasis.\u00a0 p. 123-124<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Moorcock accepts the criticism before expressing his disappointment that some readers wrote in to complain about the story\u2019s sexual explicitness (\u201cWhy must Mr. Jones express the feelings of a young, sensitive artist so crudely! It isn\u2019t sex any more, it\u2019s downright pornography!\u201d).
\nStory Ratings 145<\/em><\/strong> was discussed in the review of that issue.6<\/sup><\/p>\n

In conclusion I’d say that there is nothing particularly outstanding in this issue, but it is interesting to note\u00a0that the tone or style of all the stories is different (to a greater or lesser extent) from what the magazine was typically publishing under Carnell\u2019s editorship.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. Graham Hall\u2019s review in Vector<\/em> #30 notes that the magazine has gone monthly and that Jones has joined as assistant editor. He starts by saying that, \u201cthis issue is definitely the best to come from Moorcock\u201d. I\u2019d disagree: #143 is the best so far in my judgement (Bailey\u2019s The Fall of Frenchy Steiner<\/em>, and the second part of Ballard\u2019s Equinox<\/em>).
\nAfter talking about Selling\u2019s increased stature in the field and synopsising the serial, Hall moves on to Bob Parkinson, mentioning that he is \u201cone of the well-known Cheltenham SF Circle fen who went north to Nottingham to fool around in ballistics or some such.\u201d He adds that Parkinson\u2019s story is \u201cquite well-written but occasionally over-poetic\u201d and that the story\u2019s idea and style reminded him of Cordwainer Smith\u2019s The Lady Who Sailed the Soul<\/em>.
\nHall liked Green\u2019s story a lot, describing it as \u201cold guard\u201d and that it \u201cit is a pleasant change to find a really readable SF tale in these days of so much experimental writing\u201d. I was rather baffled by that comment: they have only just got going with the New Wave stuff!
\nHall says Rome\u2019s story is \u201crather unsatisfactory but unusual\u201d, and that Keyes \u201cperpetrates a parsley gun\u201d (no, me neither) and that it \u201cstands on its own merits [. . .] despite similarities to others.\u201d
\nHall liked the cover, \u201cthe best I\u2019ve seen for several years\u2014eye-catching and pleasing\u201d, and the Cawthorn illustrations.<\/p>\n

2. Arthur Sellings was one of the few British writers (J. T. McIntosh was another) who sold regularly to Galaxy<\/em> magazine in the fifties. However he didn’t make much of an impact on the British paperback lists: although all but one of his hardbacks was published in hardback by Dobson he never had a regular UK paperback publisher. He did better in the USA: three of his books appeared from Berkley Medallion, one from Ballantine, and one under a pseudonym from Banner. Consequently, when I was browsing the shelves in the mid-seventies he was nowhere to be seen, and I only came to know of him through New Worlds Quarterly<\/em>, which published news of his premature death from a heart attack (he was 47).
\nHis SFE page is here<\/a>; his Wikipedia page is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. In Selling\u2019s serial, the fifth and sixth lines from the bottom of p. 42 are in the wrong order:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my boy! That\u2019s disposed of that question
\nyour dear departed parents, I never thought that I would
\nthen. But\u2014as somebody who made certain promises to<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

should read:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my boy! That\u2019s disposed of that question
\nthen. But\u2014as somebody who made certain promises to
\nyour dear departed parents, I never thought that I would<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

4. Bob Parkinson was a name I didn\u2019t recognise, but he wrote a handful of stories and poems, as well as a number of articles and reviews (he turns up with an essay on Cordwainer Smith in 1971), and was President of the British Interplanetary Society. Given this latter information you would have expected a hard SF story. His ISFDB page is here<\/a>, and there is some BIS information here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5. David Rome was the pseudonym of David William Boutland. He had published over a dozen stories in Carnell\u2019s New Worlds<\/em>, Science Fantasy<\/em> and Science Fiction Adventures<\/em>. This was his only appearance in the Moorcock New Worlds<\/em>, although other stories appeared elsewhere from the mid-sixties to early seventies: I suspect he may have stopped writing SF due to the lack of a market. His ISFDB page is here<\/a>, and there is more information about him on Steve Holland\u2019s blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

6. The story ratings for this issue appeared in #148:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The longest story tops the ratings again, just like it usually does in Analog<\/em>. My pecking order would have been Parkinson followed by Sellings, Keyes, & Rome.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISFDB link Other reviews:1 Graham Hall, Vector #30 (January 1965) _____________________ Editor, Michael Moorcock; Assistant Editor, Langdon Jones Fiction: The Power of Y (Part 1 of 2) \u2022 novella serial by Arthur Sellings \u2217\u2217+ The Sailor in the Western Stars \u2022 short story by Bob Parkinson \u2217\u2217\u2217 Tunnel of Love \u2022 short story by Joseph […]<\/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":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-worlds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-1km","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5106","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=5106"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5256,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5106\/revisions\/5256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}