{"id":529,"date":"2016-01-03T11:12:16","date_gmt":"2016-01-03T11:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=529"},"modified":"2016-01-18T12:00:59","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T12:00:59","slug":"the-magazine-of-fantasy-and-science-fiction-148-september-1963","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=529","title":{"rendered":"The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction #148, September 1963"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FSF196309x600b\"<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nThere Is Another Shore, You Know, Upon the Other Side<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Joanna Russ\u00a0\u2665\u2665
\nThrough Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: LXV<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Reginald Bretnor [as by Grendel Briarton]\u00a0\u2665
\nGlory Road<\/em><\/strong> (Part 3 of 3) \u2022 serial by Robert A. Heinlein \u2665
\nThe Man Who Feared Robots<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Herbert W. Franke \u2665
\nCollector\u2019s Item<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Jack Sharkey \u2665\u2665\u2665
\nUnholy Hybrid<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by William Bankier \u2665\u2665\u2665
\nTalking Statues, Etc.<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Fritz Leiber\u00a0\u2665\u2665\u2665<\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nBooks<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reviews by Avram Davidson and Ward Moore
\nAttrition<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 poem by Walter H. Kerr
\nWho\u2019s Out There?<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science essay by Isaac Asimov<\/p>\n

This issue\u2019s fiction starts with Joanna Russ\u2019s There Is Another Shore, You Know, Upon the Other Side<\/em><\/strong>. This is a fantasy about Jane, a ghost in Rome, and Giovanni, a man she meets. Quite good as far as it goes, well written and a nice sense of place, but the ending doesn\u2019t measure up to the rest of it. At the end of this story the Feghoot<\/em><\/strong> pun, about nudity and tea, is wedged into the remaining space.<\/p>\n

The last episode of Glory Road<\/em><\/strong> manages to wrap up the fantasy adventure part of things in the first two chapters. In these (spoiler), Oscar defeats the guardian of the Egg and Star is revealed to be \u2018Empress of the Twenty Universes.\u2019 Adventuring done, she now goes back to the day job with Oscar as her consort. Now Heinlein can do what he really wants to do, which is to spend the remaining six chapters (approximately sixty pages) talking about interplanetary and planetary politics, women and relationship problems (Oscar does not like his new role). So, on top of this novel\u2019s other problems we can now add its broken-back anti-climactic structure.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

The Books<\/em><\/strong> column is the usual mix: witchcraft, Atlantis, Korean folk tales, and fiction. The last review is by Ward Moore, a withering look at Philip Wylie\u2019s nuclear holocaust novel, Triumph<\/em>:<\/p>\n

One would expect at least a minimum of craftsmanship from the author of <\/em>Finnley Wren and 25 other books. None is perceptible in <\/em>Triumph (the title is sarcastical), certainly not in the interminable, windy sermon which is evidently Mr. Wylie\u2019s pride (and reason for the novel), but not the readers\u2019 joy. Everything in this book has been said before, better, less verbosely, and more convincingly. If <\/em>Triumph depicts the night of civilization it is an amateur night.<\/em><\/p>\n

Isaac Asimov\u2019s science column Who\u2019s Out There?<\/em><\/strong> is an interesting discussion of Carl Sagan\u2019s paper on the number of technological civilisations likely to be in existence in our Galaxy. It stretches credulity a little at the end when Asimov suggests that we may be being monitored by extra-terrestrials and that their base would probably be on the moon.
\nI have no idea what the poem Attrition<\/em><\/strong> is about.<\/p>\n

Most of the remaining short fiction is quite good, with the weakest being Charlotte Franke-Winheller and Paul Ritchie\u2019s translation of The Man Who Feared Robots<\/em><\/strong> by Herbert W. Franke (The Green Comet<\/em>, 1960). A man is put under hypnosis and reveals that certain acquaintances are robots. Weak, so-what ending.
\nCollector\u2019s Item<\/em><\/strong> by Jack Sharkey is quite a good fantasy about Nathan Crusk, who collects items that rebut popular sayings, e.g., an unhappy lark, white ink, a weak ox, etc. As his collection nears completion, he is stymied by \u201csolid as the Rock of Gibraltar\u201d until he meets a poor scientist who has created a machine that can liquefy granite. He is recruited to do this to the Rock of Gibraltar and exhibits few qualms at the prospect:<\/p>\n

\u201cI will do it,\u201d Albert said hastily. \u201cBut only for the money, and not because it agrees with my basic principles.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Although their adventure achieves its purpose there is one more saying the collector has forgotten. Nice last line.
\nUnholy Hybrid<\/em><\/strong> by William Bankier is an accomplished Halloween horror story about a successful farmer and what he reaps from a terrible act. I\u2019d love to say more but I don\u2019t want to spoil it.
\nLast up is Fritz Leiber\u2019s worthwhile Talking Statues, Etc.<\/em><\/strong>This experimental fantasy, after a short introductory set-up, is told in the form of a father-son dialogue:<\/p>\n

FATHER: (smiling compassionately from a painting of himself as Jesus of Nazareth): In short, you hate me. <\/em>
\nSON: Oh, I wouldn\u2019t go as far as that. It\u2019s more that you weary me. Seeing you around everywhere, all the time, I get bored. <\/em>
\nFATHER (in dark colors, as Strindberg\u2019s Captain): You get bored? You\u2019ve only been here six weeks. Think of me having nothing to look at for ten whole years but your mother.<\/em><\/p>\n

The situation is as odd as the structure in that the father is dead and is talking to his alcoholic failure of a son through numerous self-portraits or sculptures he made of himself before his death. We know Leiber was a painter and actor as well as a writer, and that he had a son. Beyond that we can only guess what the autobiographical elements are. Leiber, like Bradbury, travelled a considerable distance from his pulp origins, and this story illustrates that journey.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, this is the third issue in a row that has been\u00a0unbalanced by the Heinlein serial but there are a few short stories here worth catching.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I thought this was an unabridged version but at the end it states: \u201cAn expanded version of this novel will be published this fall by G. P. Putnam\u2019s Sons, in a case-bound book priced at $3.95.\u201d
    \nI am also aware that I have spent far too much time on this novel over these last few reviews. Look at the Consumer Guide<\/em> at the bottom of the SF Digest<\/em> #1, 1976<\/a> review: it tells you all you need to know. Out of the eight reviewers who rated it, one thought it a masterpiece, one thought it good, one average, two mediocre, one bad and two atrocious. Now I have finished you can make that three mediocres\u2026<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This magazine is still being published!<\/b> Subscribe: Kindle UK<\/a>, Kindle USA<\/a>\u00a0or physical copies<\/a>.<\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Fiction: There Is Another Shore, You Know, Upon the Other Side \u2022 short story by Joanna Russ\u00a0\u2665\u2665 Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: LXV \u2022 short story by Reginald Bretnor [as by Grendel Briarton]\u00a0\u2665 Glory Road (Part 3 of 3) \u2022 serial by Robert A. Heinlein \u2665 The Man Who Feared Robots \u2022 short […]<\/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-529","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\/p6Pcj7-8x","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529","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=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":730,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions\/730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}