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Other reviews: Fiction: Non-fiction: This issue begins with\u00a0an short editorial by Bonfiglioli. It is essentially about how literature has humanity at its core, and\u00a0how SF\u00a0moved\u00a0away from that model but needs to go back.<\/p>\n The fiction starts off with Seventh Moon<\/em><\/strong>, a long novelette by Douglas R. Mason using his John Rankine pseudonym which, according to SFE, he kept for \u2018routine space operas and other adventures\u2019. This is one of his \u2018Dag Fletcher\u2019 series1<\/sup> and concerns a missing spaceship. She said, \u201cDirector Xenia Cordoban. What can I do for you Controller?\u201d<\/em> She was a striking redhead, with a tawny mane, which surged round her head in deep waves whenever she moved. On the sturdy side of perfect form, she had a pale, freckled skin, straight nose, short upper lip, wide mouth and more vitality than a confined space was meant to contain.<\/em> p.17<\/p>\n Fletcher eventually crews up a spaceship and retraces the missing ship\u2019s journey. They end up on a known planet called Bromius (Fletcher\u2019s intuition of course) where there is a humanoid race that is excessively polite and helpful. After some running around on the planet (spoiler) they find a strange structure that suggests the planet has an uncharted seventh moon. Fletcher and his female sidekick use themselves as bait and eventually it turns out that there is a madness\/death ritual connected with it. The rest of the crew nuke the moon, Fletcher and his sidekick are saved, job done. The second and third stories, both novelettes, are by Keith Roberts. Brother John<\/em><\/strong> is the third in the \u2018Pavane\u2019 sequence and The Pace That Kills<\/em><\/strong> appears under his Alistair Bevan pseudonym. But… nothing decent, nothing good, would ever come out of the doings of the Court of Spiritual Welfare, Father Meredith knew that as well as anybody else. Because there had once been another name for the Court, a name that even in the Church-owned West had fallen into evil repute.<\/em> Once he arrives in Dubris\u00a0he is taken down into the castle and, as a brother priest fervently explains the necessity of what they are doing, he sees terrible instruments of torture:<\/p>\n There were spiked rollers, oddly shaped irons, tourniquets of metal beads; other devices, ranged in rows, he identified with a cold shock. The little frames with their small cranked handles, toothed jaws; these were <\/em>gresillons. Thumbscrews. Such things then really existed. Nearer at hand a species of rough table, fitted at each end with lever-operated wooden rollers, declared its use more plainly. The roof of the place was studded with pulleys, some with their ropes already reeved and dangling; a brazier burned redly, and near it were piled what looked to be huge lead weights.<\/em> p.56-57<\/p>\n And later:<\/p>\n The muttering of the priest at the far end of the chamber ceased abruptly. John\u2019s guide smiled thinly, without humour. \u201cGood,\u201d he said. \u2018\u2018Your waiting is ended, Brother. They will start soon now.\u201d He draws constantly during the horrific Questioning but is left a broken man by the experience. He subsequently returns to his order after drifting around the country for weeks on end. He has a fit, sees visions and leaves the monastery again. Brother John turned slowly, the rushing and the drumming once more in his brain, raised a white face as above him a weird sun glowed. Brighter it grew and brighter again, a cosmic ghost, a swollen impossibility poised in the blustering sky. John cried out hoarsely, raised his arms; and round the orb a circle formed, pearly and blazing. Whatever happens at this point, it precipitates a huge uprising as people flock to him. At the final scene on the cliff top, with a heavily armed military closing in, he recounts to people a vision he has of the future:<\/p>\n In his brain visions still burned and hummed; he told them of the mighty Change that would come, sweeping away blackness and misery and pain, leading them at last to the Golden Age. He saw clearly, rising about him on the hills, the buildings of that new time, the factories and hospitals, power stations and laboratories. He saw the machines flying above the land, skimming like bubbles the surface of the sea. This has some very good parts, but some scenes are not that clear and structurally it doesn’t seem quite right\u2014there is an awkward break between the Questioning \u00a0and his journey home. So overall a good story but also an uneven one. The Victim, Moira Alice Kelly, address unknown, was flown by police helicopter to the St. Martins Centre of Social Sciences, where she is still seriously ill. The governorbox of the SafeTiPed had been tampered with and the vehicle was described by witnesses, some of whom are still being treated for shock, as easily exceeding forty miles an hour. She is drugged and interrogated and is destined for a laser leucotomy. <\/strong>The Driver underground decide to try and rescue her. While they are waiting in their cars for the convoy transporting her, one of their cell is approached by a traffic warden:<\/p>\n Sue opened the car door, lifted her handbag from the seat. Papers were exchanged; driving licence, insurance, certificates of physical and mental health, optician\u2019s report, psycho-chart, testimonials and referee-list, three-month test chit; all the paraphernalia of the twenty-first century Road user. A torch flashed as the man began to scan the forms, reading with deliberate slowness.<\/em> p.98<\/p>\n Before the warden manages to set up the mobile urine testing booth, the resistance strike. The Run<\/em><\/strong> by Christopher Priest is his debut story and it is a well described and engaging story but completely directionless. A politician leaves an airbase to return to a government location and as he does so there are rockets being launched behind him. On the run home, hundreds of \u2018juvies\u2019 approach his car on the aluminium strip along which it travels: some spit, some throw objects. He is forced to a stop (spoiler) by a number of them who are lying\u00a0down on the road\u2014just before a huge explosion that wipes out the government building he was heading for and kills the juvies around him. The last item of fiction is the last third of the novella serial by Judith Merril, Homecalling<\/em><\/strong>. This continues in a similar vein to last issue with the gradual assimilation of Deborah and Petey into the alien colony. The main issue to be resolved by Daydanda, the alien matriarch, is why Deborah is blocking memories of what is behind the locked door in the shuttle. Eventually, as the reader knows from the beginning, \u00a0the children\u2019s dead parents are discovered. A more mixed issue than the last\u00a0two. If I remember correctly future issues are equally variable.<\/p>\n Other reviews: John Boston & Damien Broderick: Strange Highways: Reading Science Fantasy 1950-1967 (71%, Location 4981 of 7028 in the Kindle edition) Fiction: Seventh Moon \u2022 novelette by Douglas R. Mason [as by John Rankine]\u00a0\u2665 Brother John \u2022 novelette by Keith Roberts\u00a0\u2665\u2665\u2665+ The Pace That Kills \u2022 novelette by Keith Roberts [as by Alistair Bevan]\u00a0\u2665\u2665 […]<\/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":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-impulsesf-impulse"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-fV","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987","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=987"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3497,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions\/3497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nJohn Boston & Damien Broderick: Strange Highways: Reading Science Fantasy 1950-1967<\/a><\/em> (71%, Location 4981 of 7028 in the Kindle edition)<\/p>\n
\nSeventh Moon<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Douglas R. Mason [as by John Rankine]\u00a0\u2665
\nBrother John<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Keith Roberts\u00a0\u2665\u2665\u2665+
\nThe Pace That Kills<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Keith Roberts [as by Alistair Bevan]\u00a0\u2665\u2665
\nThe Run<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Christopher Priest\u00a0\u2665
\nCry Martian<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Peter L. Cave
\nHomecalling<\/em><\/strong> (Part 2 of 2) \u2022 reprint novella serial by Judith Merril\u00a0\u2665\u2665\u2665<\/p>\n
\nCover<\/strong><\/em> \u2022 Keith Roberts
\nEditorial<\/strong><\/em> \u2022 Kyril Bonfiglioli<\/p>\n
\nDag is given the job of leading the investigation into the disappearance and is given a 24-hour deadline (which is subsequently forgotten about). There are several pages of desk bound investigation which is pepped up by male-female interactions like this:<\/p>\n
\nThe voice was low pitched, and used English as if it was thick cream to be spooned out. He could have replied, in truth, that she had already done quite a lot for him; but, with a commendable sense of duty, he put business first.<\/em> p.8<\/p>\n
\nAs you have probably guessed, although this moves along well enough it doesn’t really engage at all and is just one of those fifties New Worlds<\/em> stories populated by cardboard characters being manoeuvred through a unlikely plot. You do get the sense of a writer capable of more than this though.
\nBonfiglioli described this as \u2018solid fuel job\u2019 in the previous issue. I think the solid fuel he was thinking of was wood.<\/p>\n
\nBrother John<\/em><\/strong> starts well in its depiction of a monk who works in the abbey\u2019s lithography room and who is also a talented artist. He is summoned by the abbot and told he is being given a commission to travel to Dubris to produce artwork for the Court of Spiritual Welfare:<\/p>\n
\nThe Inquisition…. p.54-55<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat,\u201d said Brother John, \u201cwere they doing?\u201d<\/em>
\nThe other turned to him, vaguely surprised. \u201cDoing?\u201d he said. \u201cThey were blessing the instruments of the Questioning, of course…<\/em> p.58<\/p>\n
\nThe second part of this story is about his teachings and the rebellion that he foments in the land. Towards the end of this part there is a scene that involves a blind quarryman that I didn’t really understand. John cannot cure his sight so the quarryman goes into the mine and quarries stones till he dies. At this point either John has another vision or there is a solar event that people treat as a miracle, or both.<\/p>\n
\nThen another and another, filling the sky, engulfing, burning cold as ice till with a silent thunder their diameters joined, became a cross of silver flame, lambent and vast. At the node points other suns shone and others and more and more, heaven-consuming; and John saw quite clearly now the fiery swarms of angels descend and rise. A noise came from them, a great sweet sound of rejoicing that seemed to enter his tired brain like a sword. He screamed again, inarticulate, staggering forward, shambling and running while behind him his great shadow flapped and capered.<\/em> p.76-77<\/p>\n
\nHe saw wonders; lightning chained, the wild waves of the very air made to talk and sing. All this would come to pass, all this and more. The age of tolerance, of reason, of humanity, of the dignity of the human soul.<\/em> p.79<\/p>\n
\nRoberts\u2019 second story in this issue, The Pace That Kills<\/em><\/strong>, is so different to the last that if you didn\u2019t know Bevan was Roberts you wouldn\u2019t guess. This story is set in the near future where society has increased traffic regulation to the point there is a Driver underground movement. Road transport is highly regulated by armed traffic wardens, and the maximum speed in cars, SafeTiPeds, is 25 mph. The narrative begins with two of the Driver resistance stopping to help a woman who has been speeding and has crashed. She is subsequently arrested and the incident headlines the news:<\/p>\n
\nMr. Bigge, interviewed at our London news studios, said afterward, \u2018I can but repeat a phrase that by now should be known to all; Speed Kills. I hope, with my colleagues, that this dreadful proof will be taken afresh to the hearts of every man, woman and child in this grand old country of ours.\u2019 Presented with a personal message of congratulation from the King, Mr. Bigge said, \u2018I only done my duty.\u2019<\/em> p.87<\/p>\n
\nFor the first half of this Roberts exercises his frustration at the 1966 introduction of a 70 mph speed limit, amongst other things, in an enjoyably bonkers way, and he manages to make an entertaining story out of a quite ridiculous premise. Unfortunately, to its detriment, the second half of the story is more straightforward in execution. Worth reading for the first half though.<\/p>\n
\nCry Martian<\/em><\/strong> by Peter L. Cave is about a boy who says he has seen Martians. It has an unlikely twist\u2014he is on Mars and all of the Martians were killed 12 years ago. Oh dear… This is the kind of thing that Christopher Priest was describing as \u2018typical Bonfiglioli space-filler\u2019 in the last issue.
\nWhile I am dealing with this story I should note that its layout exemplifies some abysmal design. Two pages of this story are printed on p.127-128 with half a page on p.48; the editorial is printed on p.2-3 with half a page on p.81. This gives the issue quite a cluttered and untidy look, and I can\u2019t help wondering why they didn\u2019t print the editorial straight through on p.2-4, lose the Cave story and put in a one page filler advert for New Worlds<\/em> #162 instead.<\/p>\n
\nAgain, there are some good parts in this installment, e.g. Petey having a good time in the alien nursery, and some parts that drag, such as when Deborah is back to the ship and is trying to explain electricity to their host. The whole story also comes to something of an anti-climactic end, given we know what is beind the door. But for all that it is a pleasant, if minor, read.<\/p>\n\n
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