[Feb. 6, 1960] Finding my way (February 1960 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

[galacticjourney]

Science fiction is my escape. When the drudgery of the real world becomes oppressive, or when I just need a glimpse of a brighter future to make the present more interesting, I turn to my growing collection of magazines and novels to buouy my spirits.

I like stories of interstellar adventure filled with interesting settings and characters. I do not like the psychological horrors that have become popular of late. Sadly, the February 1960 F&SF contains several such pieces. But it does end well.



I wrote last time about the flaws in Howard Fast's lead novella that kept me from fully enjoying it.

Richard McKenna's Mine Own Ways is particularly chilling. It involves a rite of passage designed by interstellar anthropologists to winnow the intellectually mature of a race from the primitive by essentially torturing them; one passes the test by realizing that the torture is transitory and enduring it.

Apprentice, by Robert Tilley, isn't so bad. It involves an alien who can take over a person's mind (without ill effect). The would-be invader possesses a junior flunky on a military base and is revealed when he is able to fulfil tasks that should have been impossible (along the lines of catching snipe, procuring a bottle of headlight fluid or a jar of elbow grease).

I suppose Jane Rice's The White Pony, about unrequited love in a future of post-apocalyptic scarcity is decent, too, and well-drawn. It even has a happy ending, after a fashion even if the world has that feeling of best-days-past shabbiness.

Battle-torn France is the setting for The Replacement, in which a Platoon Sergeant is convinced by a certain Private "Smith" that the war is all in his head, and that the world is nothing but solipsistic figments of his imagination. It is only after Smith unsuccessfully tries the same trick on the company's First Sergeant that we see the trick for what it is. A creepy piece.

Evelyn Smith's Send Her Victorious is a pun piece whose ending I should have seen coming. All about a communal colony of aliens who take on the general form of a middle-aged female before time traveling to 19th Century England.

Algis Budrys has a vignette called The Price about a centuries-old Rasputin(?) surviving an atomic holocaust only to find himself a captive of the few humans who are left. Are they willing to become gnarled, deranged hunchbacks like him in exchange for eternal life?

Dr. Asimov's piece, The Sight of Home, is a nice astronomical article about the greatest distance at which the sun might still be visible to the naked eye (answer: 20 parsecs. Not very far, indeed).

Then we're back to the horror. We are the Ceiling, by Will Worthington, depicts a fellow who books himself into a sanitarium when it appears his wife has begun consorting with troglodytes. Of course, she turns out to be one, as does his doctor.

That leaves us the subject of the cover art, The Fellow Who Married the Maxill Girl, by Ward Moore. This is the kind of story I read F&SF for—gentle, poignant, starring a woman. It's a girl meets boy story set in the depths of the Depression; the boy happens to be an alien. I shan't spoil more, and I hope you like it as much as I did.

I'll have a quick non-fiction stop press tomorrow, and then on to March's batch of magazines!

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Comments

[glymr]

I liked "The Fellow Who Married the Maxill Girl" very much, though I felt it suffered a bit from the constraints of the form. It could easily be turned into a novel where the author spends less time telling and more showing. The writing and concept was interesting enough that, in spite of its deficiencies, I enjoyed it throughout. The ending was bittersweet but fitting.

[galacticjourney]

I agree--I wish it'd had another 10-20 pages!

[laurose8]

Ward's Moore story is excellent, and definitely might become a classic. The dry opening humour! I wish we could have had more. And that moment where she first feels the material he's wearing is outstanding. A couple of must-quotes are A man who spoke notes instead of words was a problem for a girl and Nan felt the double-edged anger of women toward both exploiter and exploited.. Also, bravo Nan foreseeing the enmity of her conspecifics.

To me, the end is a bit of a let down (that is, from a very high standard). The argument of Ash's people struck me as irrelevant, but I suppose it's more Genesis than Job. But at least Ash wasn't clichéd to death by peasants with torches, suited or otherwise.

Of the others, I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority: but horror strikes me as anti-science fiction. It seems to be based on the idea that the world is irrational, and human beings can't cope with it.

[galacticjourney]

I think that's an astute observation. Being afraid of the unknown is easy.

A Touch of Clifford

[victoria_silverwolf]

I thought this was a good issue, with only the one joke story as its weak point. There wasn't a single brilliant classic like "Flowers for Algernon," but there were plenty of fine stories.

I had a tough time picking my favorite piece, and certainly Ward Moore's Simakish story is a strong contender, but I had to go with "The Replacement" by an author otherwise unknown to me. I guess I have a weakness for the "what is reality" story.

Kudos also for yet another excellent Emsh cover.

Re: A Touch of Clifford

[galacticjourney]

So, when the First Sergeant says he knows who Smith is... who is Smith?

Re: A Touch of Clifford

[victoria_silverwolf]

Well, that's open to interpretation, I suppose. One could see Smith as a Satanic figure, tempting those he encounters into rejecting reality. On the other hand, one could see Smith (and everyone else) as part of the imaginary outside universe.

It would be interesting to compare this story with Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" and Heinlein's "They."