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Other Reviews: Fiction: Non-fiction: The fiction in this issue leads off with Colin Kapp\u2019s Enigma<\/em><\/strong>. Just like his novelette from #89, Breaking Point<\/em>, this is dated, clunky stuff but it makes considerably more sense than that previous work and is quite a readable piece. \u201cMajor Gruman, it\u2019s your pigeon. Disarm that bomb and we\u2019ll name a day of the week after you.\u201d <\/em> And when the team are talking about their radio conversations being monitored:<\/p>\n \u201cI can imagine them sitting at a receiver and listening to every bloody curse and every prayer. They wouldn\u2019t learn half as much about our methods as they\u2019d learn about blasphemy and Christ.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n So OK, overall.<\/p>\n The Destiny Show<\/em><\/strong> by Derek Lane is the first of four short stories and belongs to that highly unlikely sub-genre that involves a profoundly paradigm-changing piece of technology being used to\u2014\u00adyes, you guessed it\u00ad\u2014make a TV show. The technology in this case is a future-time viewer that is used to show the \u2018guest\u2019 what kind of life they are going to have. After differences between the producer and presenter a normal show is cancelled and that of a hardened criminal scheduled. This is all told and worked out well enough but the central concept is so ludicrous that it undercuts the story. And you can see the end coming from a mile away.<\/p>\n Survival Demands<\/em><\/strong> by E. C. Tubb is a story set in a mental health facility that houses people with psi powers. A spaceman goes to visit a telepath and recounts what happened when Earthmen came into contact with the telepathic Frenzha.\u00a0 Agreeable enough, considering it isn’t much more than an extended anecdote. Tubb also has a pseudonymous second story in this issue, The Shrine<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Earthmen are transported by aliens to a shrine in a distant part of the Galaxy. Before they get there they have no pride, after the visit they are changed in a very positive way. There are one or two hints about what they have seen or who they have spoken to, but this went straight over my head leaving me with no idea of what happened to them.<\/p>\n Static Trouble<\/em><\/strong> by Francis G. Rayer is potentially the best story of the issue. It has the novel setting of a planet where the surface dust of silicates, quartz and mica become so electrically charged that they remain suspended in the air. The poor to awful visibility caused by this makes matters very difficult for an Earth expeditionary team. We start with Joe Merity, the captain of the ship, meeting a returning research team in a sandstorm to find that their science officer has been killed by a lightning strike. As predicted last issue, this instalment of Time Out of Joint<\/em><\/strong> by Philip K. Dick ends disappointingly. In no particular order (spoiler), Ragle finds that the town he is in is a fake construct built so that the authorities could use him to predict strikes on Earth from Luna colonists who are engaged in a civil war with Earth. Ragle\u2019s allegiances also flip-flop during this period. An awful pulp end to an intriguing novel.2<\/sup><\/p>\n There is very little non-fiction in this issue. Apart from a rather \u2018whither SF\u2019 profile of E. C. Tubb (supposedly back from two years away from writing SF), Carnell gives over his editorial column to a letter from a Dr Arthur Weir, who writes in to challenge the former\u2019s \u2018Plot-Nots\u2019 from the last editorial. Well argued too, although, like Carnell, I don\u2019t entirely agree with Weir\u2019s alternative plot-nots, either.<\/p>\n A disappointing issue, with a particularly poor end to the serial and little else of note bar, with some caveats, the Rayer.<\/p>\n Other Reviews: John Boston & Damien Broderick:\u00a0New Worlds: Before the New Wave, 1960-19641 Fiction: Enigma \u2022 novelette by Colin Kapp \u2665\u2665 The Destiny Show \u2022 short story by Derek Lane \u2665 Survival Demands \u2022 short story by E. C. Tubb \u2665\u2665 Static Trouble \u2022 short story by Francis G. Rayer \u2665\u2665 The Shrine \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":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-658","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-aC","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658","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=658"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1585,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions\/1585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nJohn Boston & Damien Broderick:\u00a0New Worlds: Before the New Wave, 1960-1964<\/a><\/em>1<\/sup><\/p>\n
\nEnigma<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Colin Kapp \u2665\u2665
\nThe Destiny Show<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Derek Lane \u2665
\nSurvival Demands<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by E. C. Tubb \u2665\u2665
\nStatic Trouble<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Francis G. Rayer \u2665\u2665
\nThe Shrine<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by E. C. Tubb [as by Alan Guthrie] \u2665
\nTime Out of Joint<\/em><\/strong> (Part 3 of 3) \u2022 serial by Philip K. Dick \u2665<\/p>\n
\nTime Out of Joint<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 cover by Brian Lewis
\nNew Worlds Profiles: E.C. Tubb<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by John Carnell
\nMy Own Petard?<\/strong> \u2022 essay by John Carnell<\/p>\n
\nIt is set in a near-future Britain, and concerns\u00a0a \u2018Ne\u2019, a booby trapped nuclear bomb that has been fired at the country. The dubious premise as to why the enemy are sending booby trapped nukes rather than ones that just explode is that it denies the UK territory that the enemy may later want, and also avoids generally increasing the level of radiation (some nukes have exploded\u2014indeed if the enemy detect any tampering with, or human activity in the proximity of these multi-sensor devices, they will detonate them).
\nThe story is centred on\u00a0a bomb disposal team who are sent to defuse the device. On the debit side this involves a lot of problem solving involving signals that are sent and received from the bomb, phase differences, time delays etc. , and generally this material sounds like an extract from Radio Ham Monthly<\/em>. On the other hand, there is a sense of humour present: the initial briefing given to the officer in charge of the bomb disposal unit ends like this:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNobody\u2019s ever succeeded in disarming a Ne before.\u201d Gruman slyly glanced at his watch. \u201cWe\u2019d better get moving, it\u2019s nearly Grunday morning.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThis story has a number of things going for it initially:\u00a0original setting, realistic characters and group dynamics. It is therefore a shame that it is spoilt somewhat (spoiler) when Merity sees an alien and then sets off with another team to find it. With weather and circumstances deteriorating, they are joined by yet another team (due to frictional internal politics). Matters worsen, and they lose yet another crew member. Eventually they stumble onto an alien city in clear air. So, to summarise, the expedition wanders about on the surface getting people killed and then they are saved by dumb luck. If Rayer could have worked out what to do with this premise it could have been a stand-out story. Still, it is of interest for the parts he does get right.<\/p>\n\n
\n\u201cWollheim got the novel in the spring of 1958 and, according to Dick, \u2018denounced it\u2019 in a letter to him, calling it unpublishable and requiring the deep-sixing of the opening 150 pages and expansion of the final Earth-Luna war section into a standard sf novel. Luckily, Dick had already received word of Lippincott\u2019s acceptance, and thought happily that he\u2019d spewed out his last bit of sci-fi hackwork. Silly boy.
\nAs disagreeable as Wollheim\u2019s suggestion of editorial ampu\u00adtation might have been, he was right about one thing – those two sections of the novel just don\u2019t fit together.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\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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