On the one hand, we're sorry this article's title gives the game away. On the other hand, what could be more tempting than four four-star books? You know they will be good reads, and there will be something intriguingly, perhaps maddeningly wrong with them that hold them back from perfection. Read on, and see which of the following quartet best suit your tastes!

Four science fiction book covers, each described more thoroughly in the article proper

Continue reading [November 14, 1970] Four for four: The Noblest Experiment in the Galaxy (November Galactoscope #1) →

black and white photo of a dark-haired white woman with vampiric eyebrows.
by Victoria Silverwolf

Faster Than A Speeding Bullet

It won't be too long until civilian airline passengers will be able to travel at incredible speed from one continent to another, I think. The French/British supersonic transport (SST) known as the Concorde reached Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound) this month.

The French prototype Concorde 001 (F-WTSS) was the first to reach this goal, hitting the target on November 4th. Not to be outdone, the British Concorde 002 (G-BSST) reached Mach 2 today. Where do I go to buy my ticket for a three-hour flight from the United States to Europe?

[画像:Colour photograph of two Concorde supersonic jets flying in opposite directions. The planes wings are swept back producing a triangular silhouette when viewed from below.]
Both aircraft appeared at the Paris Air Show last year, but not flying anywhere near as fast.

Take one look at the cover of the latest issue of Fantastic and you'll know you're in for the literary equivalent of an SST flight. The name Keith Laumer pretty much guarantees a super-fast adventure yarn.

[画像:Colour cover for December 1970's issue of Fantastic. Cover illustration features a collection of four bodies (rendered in grays) hunched and curled low to the ground, surrounding a standing figure whose arm is raised to clasp that of a final winged and masked figure, rising in flight. Red-helmeted white men's faces are superimposed in the background.]
Cover art by Michael Kaluta.

Continue reading [November 12, 1970] High Velocity (December 1970 Fantastic) →

by Fiona Moore

The nights are drawing in, the fleapit cinema in Staines’ temporary closure has become a permanent one, and Yoko Ono, in exile in New York, has released an experimental movie in which a fly crawls over a nude human body for twenty-five minutes. If you’re in the mood for something less artistic, however, I’m rather pleased to say that Hammer are, unexpectedly, continuing to be a light in the current darkness of the horror movie scene. For they are turning out movies which not only shock and entertain, but which are surprisingly in tune with modern political and cinematic trends.

[画像:Movie poster for The Horror of Frankenstein. Four black and white photos are superimposed over a yellow and orange background. Across the top, a banner reads New thrills! New Faces! New Horror! Clockwise from the top, the photos show: Victor Frankenstein in a puffy white shirt holding a syringe as the monster stands expressionless next to him; The monster stands shirtless holding a Frankenstein by the throat, brandishing a stick in the other hand; the monster stands looking down at a fainting woman held in his arms; Victor Frankenstein kneels in a straw-covered dungeon, holding chains that are attached to the monster who lies collapsed on the floor.]Theatrical movie poster for The Horror of Frankenstein

Continue reading [November 10, 1970] Hammer it Home: The Horror of Frankenstein (movie) →

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

The Way it Was

The dust has settled this election week, and we finally have a view of the new political landscape. President Nixon and his attack dog, Spiro, let out all the stops in a coast to coast campaign for Republican candidates. Nixon's hope was to personally win a Congress more favorable to his plans. How did that work out?

Man using CBS Labs 'Vidifont' Electronic Character generator, typing on a small keyboard.
CBS Labs’ revolutionary new ‘Vidifont’ Electronic Character Generator, which premiered at this year's 1970 National Association of Broadcastors Show

Well, probability dictated that the Democrats would have a tough time in the Senate as more of their seats were up; ditto in reverse for Republicans in the state houses. And indeed, that's what happened: Democrats lost two seats, possibly three (we're waiting for a potential recount in Indiana) in the Senate, while the GOP lost a net four governorships. But Democrats picked up 12 seats in the house. Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, Humphrey's running mate in '68 and a strong contender in '72, says these results do not reflect any kind of "pattern"–just a nationwide series of local elections. Certainly, the President did not achieve his implicit goal.

More significant and surprising were some of the individual stories. I've been following the hot New York race, which pit Democrat Dick Ottinger against incumbent liberal Republican Charles Goodell, appointed by Governor Rockefeller to fill RFK's empty seat. But a new face came out of the Right to fight them both: James Buckley, brother to the well-known political writer. And Buckley smashed Goodell, outpacing Ottinger by a few points in the process. Technically the Republicans "lost" that seat, but Conservative Party-member Buckley is surely going to vote with the GOP senators.

The other two GOP wins in the East were by moderate Republicans, so they may not change the tenor of the upper house much. In the South, Bill Brock sent Al Gore packing after three terms, but the rest of the Southern strategy came up a cropper for the GOP. Closer to home, in California, John Tunney dethroned George Murphy (at last we no longer have a senator who can really sing and dance), and our state now has two Democratic senators for the first time in history. Governor Reagan beat state Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh, which I'm not exactly happy about, but Unruh also is no Pat Brown.

And so, yesterday's election, which saw the largest turnout (55%) for a midterm ever, can perhaps be likened to the Battle of Verdun–a lot of cannonballs, some significant casualties, but the front remains static. Things don't look all that different from how they did before, and trends are hard to identify. The only real results are these: the President made this election a more divisive affair, doubling down on polarisation of the American people and demonizing the "Radical Left" rather than touting their own policies beyond vague promises about "Law and Order". And Nixon also vetoed a Congressional bill that would have limited TV ad spending to seven cents a voter, wanting instead to preserve the opportunity to drown democracy in a flood of clever Madison Avenue spots, like the kind Roger Ailes (The Making of the President) used to get Tricky Dick into office.

Was it worth it? I guess we'll find out in '72…

The Way it Was, Part 2

Just as the election has come and gone, leaving little impression but a vague sense that things are worse than they once were, the latest issue of Galaxy induces much the same effect:

The cover of December 1970's Galaxy Science Fiction featuring a man in a space suit with a looming structure behind him.
Cover by Jack Gaughan

Continue reading [November 8, 1970] Darkside Crossing (December 1970 Galaxy and 1970 U.S. election results) →

Digital illustration of a rocky desert landscape with a ringed planet visible in the sky and the title Science Fiction Theater in computer font.

Yep, it's that episode. You know you don't want to miss it. Plus, Leonard Nimoy sings! And a very cynical (is there any other kind?) Bob Sheckley story:

Tune in tonight at 6pm Pacific!

And now onto our regularly scheduled article…

black and white photo of a dark-haired white woman with vampiric eyebrows.
by Victoria Silverwolf

See You In The Funny Papers

You may have noticed a new comic strip that appeared in your local newspaper late last month. Doonesbury is the creation of recent Yale graduate Garry Trudeau. I understand that it is a continuation of work he did for the Yale Daily News.

[画像:Cartoon strip. The first panel shows a man sitting on a couch, wearing a racecar helmet and holding a glass. The man is thinking, Well, here I sit at college awaiting my new roommate. I know he'll be cool, since he's computer selected! The second panel shows that someone is knocking at the door. The sitting man is thinking, You just fill in a form, send it in, and presto! Ideal roommates! The third panel shows a man with eyeglasses and a suitcase talking to the sitting man. The new man says, Hi there! My name's Mike Doonesbury. I hail from Tulsa, Oklahoma and women adore me! Glad to meet you, roomie! The sitting man looks shocked. The fourth panel shows the sitting man looking at the reader and thinking, Of course, there are still a few bugs in the system.]
The first appearance of the title character.

This relatively sophisticated, college-oriented humor seems likely to add a satiric edge to the funny pages. Despite playwright George S. Kaufman's famous remark that satire is what closes Saturday night, it remains an important part of all types of literature. Science fiction is no exception.

Case in point, as Rod Serling might say, is the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow. Many of the stories within its pages offer satiric looks at the modern world. Unlike Doonesbury, however, these dark tales are not trying to be funny.

[画像:Cover of the magazine Worlds of Tomorrow. It announces the stories The Jagged Pink Marshmallow Kid by W. MacFarlane, Greyspun's Gift by Neal Barrett Jr., The Dream Machine by Keith Laumer and Seedling from the Stars by John Jakes. The cover illustration shows a human head wearing electric cables around the skull, inside a dark starry shape full of bubbles.]
Cover art by Jack Gaughan. All the interior illustrations are either by Gaughan or are anonymous.

Continue reading [November 6, 1970] Satyricon (Worlds of Tomorrow Winter 1970) →

Photograph of a white woman with auburn hair, wearing glasses.
By Jessica Holmes

Welcome back, dear readers, to our coverage of Timeslip. Just to jog your memories, we’re following the story of Liz and Simon, a couple of kids on holiday who slip through a hole in time to find themselves lost in the year 1940, where there are more dangers afoot than bombs overhead. Can they foil a German plot to steal British military technology, learn why Liz’s father lost his memory, and make a safe getaway from "The Wrong End Of Time"? Let’s find out.

[画像:Liz and Sarah kneeling by the fence. It is dark. Sarah, right, looks frightened.]

Continue reading [November 4, 1970] Déjà Vu (Timeslip: The Wrong End Of Time [Parts 4-6]) →

[画像:A black-and-white photo portrait of Kaye Dee. She is a white woman with long, straight dark hair worn down, looking at the camera with a smile.]
by Kaye Dee

Whither or wither European space activities?

I’ve asked this question before, back in May 1968, following Britain’s announcement of its intention to withdraw from ELDO following the completion of the initial Europa launch vehicle programme in 1970, and growing strains in Europe’s space alliances.

The Traveller’s recent article mentioning the failed orbital launch attempt from Woomera of Britain’s Black Arrow launcher reminded me that, with my focus on the Apollo program, I haven’t provided an update on the European space scene since February 1969. At the time, European space policy was in disarray, with the UK cutting back its ELDO spending even further, turmoil over the ELDO budget, and uncertainties and disagreement over Europe’s path forward in space.

So now, let’s take a look at European space events over the past twenty months and have a peek at where Europe’s space activity might be going in the near future. Will Europe’s space programme wither away amid conflicting national priorities? Or will we see a revitalisation of European space ambitions?

Souvenir envelope for ELDO f-9 flight. It has an illustration of a rocket launch, a list of ELDO mmber countires and a special postmark for the F-9 launch.

Continue reading [November 2, 1970] Whither or Wither European Space Activities? (European Space Round-up) →

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Painting the Town Red

On October 18, Soyuz 9 cosmonauts Andrian G. Nikolayev and Vitaly I. Sevastyanov arrived in Washington, D.C., to begin 10-day goodwill tour in the U.S. as NASA guests. Here they are being greeted at Washington National Airport by Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong:

Black & White photograph of four white men wearing suits and ties arranged to face the camera, the left two of whom are holding bouquets

A few days later, they toured the Marshall Spaceflight Center and Alabama Space and Rocket Center during two-day visit to Huntsville, Alabama.

Colour photograph of the guests appearing to attend a presentation using scale models of NASA crafts with a movie cameraman capturing the session in the left foreground

Then it was off to the West Coast for a junket that included stops from Seattle to the San Gabriel Valley. It was all part of a goodwill tour that was actually a bilateral affair: an American team of NASA staff went to Moscow, apparently to discuss the possibility of a joint mission sometime in the 1970s.

But it was also a public relations coup for the Soviets, underscoring their latest space triumph: Zond 8.

Colour photograph of a postcard with Zond 8 commemorative stamps

Zond 8 was launched in the (local) evening of 20 October 1970. The announced objectives of Zond 8 were "to carry out physical research along the flight path and the near-moon space, take pictures of the lunar surface, of the earth and the moon at different distances, check on improved on-board systems, units and the con-, struction of the spacecraft." Interestingly, TASS let us know soon after the launch (well, the day after) about the mission and its profile without waiting to ensure that it was successful–a gamble that the Soviet news arm has been historically reluctant to take.

Armed with a camera and instruments for measuring the solar wind, Zond 8 got within 700 miles of the Moon on October 24th, returning this shot (among dozens) of Earth's companion:

Black & White photograph capturing the moon's surface in high detail with a squared aspect

Then it was back to home after two mid-course corrections. In a deviation from prior flights, Zond 8 achieved a return trajectory over Earth's northern hemisphere instead of the standard southern approach profile, presumably to allow Soviet ground control stations to maintain near-continuous contact with the craft. The reentry was also different from other reentries in the Zond program as it went over the north pole and landed in the Indian Ocean 453 miles southeast of the Chagos Islands (rather than the usual land landing in the Kazakhstan S.S.R.), and it was collected by the USSR recovery ship Taman. Thus ended Zond 8's eight-day drip.

Black & White photograph of the earth-rise over the moon's horizon

We've seen Zonds go to the Moon before, specifically Zond 5, Zond 6, and Zond 7, and given that the Soviets seem to have forgone human exploration of the Moon in favor of developing an orbital station, this unmanned redux of Apollo 8 seems like a superfluous effort. But perhaps there's something brewing I don't know about…

Painting the town green

Crack open the latest issue of Analog Science Fiction, and a common theme arises: ecology. It's the "in" word, these days, understanding the interactions of plants and animals that make up a complex biological system. So it comes as little surprise that science fiction is turning its eye to this subject. Let's see how editor Campbell's stable of authors take on the green theme:

Colour cover of Analog Science Fiction Science Fact November 1970. The cover illustration is of a white man fleeing through a forest in terror closely pursued by a creature resembling a blue warthog with the size and horns of a bull, and the story advertised on the front is Keith Laumer's 'The Plague'.
Cover by Kelly Freas

Continue reading [October 31, 1970] In the Wabe (November 1970 Analog) →

[画像:Black & White Photo of writer of piece Kris Vyas-Mall]
By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

As regular readers of my pieces know, I have bemoaned somewhat the nostalgic country and folk stylings, where it can feel like everyone wishes they were living centuries ago. As much as I enjoy the countryside, I also don’t want to be cutting crops with hand tools all day, only to give half of them away to landlords and clergy.

However, there is another trend which, even if it hasn’t been filling up the hit parade like Fleetwood Mac, Canned Heat or CCR are, nevertheless sings to me. This is a post-psychedelic progressive sound that, although manifesting in different ways, has a keen interest in and focus on the future.

So let me take you on a journey through space and time, and review some of these releases as pieces of sonic SF:

Continue reading [October 28, 1970] Pop Goes the Science Fiction: The Futuristic British Sound →

For our second Galactoscope of the month, we've got a much-awaited book from Larry Niven, and a lesser jewel from Damien Broderick. Let's take a gander, shall we?

[画像:the covers of Ringworld, by Larry Niven, and Sorcerer's World, by Damien Broderick. Ringworld shows a large spaceship in the shape of a ring, floating at a diagonal against a black sky filled with stars. A single larger sun shines through the middle of the ring, which is tilted just enough to see it. A smaller spacecraft flies below the ring. Sorcerer's World shows a painting of two humans facing off against a griffin. One human is riding a rearing horse and brandishing a sword. The other cowers behind. The griffin is in flight above them as if diving to attack.]

Continue reading [October 26, 1970] Ringworld…and beyond (October Galactoscope #2) →