galacticjourney

Human beings look for patterns. We espy the moon, and we see a face. We study history and see it repeat (or at least rhyme, said Mark Twain). We look at the glory of the universe and infer a Creator.

We look at the science fiction genre and we (some of us) conclude that it is dying.

Just look at the number of science fiction magazines in print in the early 1950s. At one point, there were some forty such publications, just in the United States. These days, there are six. Surely this is an unmistakable trend.

Or is it? There is something to be said for quality over quantity, and patterns can be found there, too. The last decade has seen the genre flower into maturity. Science fiction has mostly broken from its pulpy tradition, and many of the genre's luminaries (for instance, Ted Sturgeon and Zenna Henderson) have blazed stunning new terrain.

I've been keeping statistics on the Big Three science fiction digests, Galaxy, Analog, and Fantasy and Science Fiction since 1959. Although my scores are purely subjective, if my readers' comments be any indication, I am not too far out of step in my assessments. Applying some math, I find that F&SF has stayed roughly the same, and both Analog and Galaxy have improved somewhat.

Supporting this trend is the latest issue of Galaxy (August 1961), which was quite good for its first half and does not decline in its second.

(see the rest at Galactic Journey!)

Every novel is a kind of contract with the reader, a promise that ideas, events, and characters will be presented in the beginning such that, by the end, they will have facilitated a satisfying story. A corollary to this is that a writer must ensure that all of a story's scenes are interesting to the reader. Lesser authors pound their keys trying to get "to the good parts," stringing together pearls of interest with thread of mediocre space-filler.

(see the rest at Galactic Journey!)

Boy, am I glad I read from front to back this time!

As my faithful readers (should that be plural?) know, the first half of this month's Fantasy & Science Fiction was pretty lackluster stuff. It turns out I was mistaken about Tony Boucher's story--it was not a new one, but some old thing from 1945 under the name “William A. P. White.” At least I know one of Boucher's pseudonyms now.



The second half, thankfully, was far superior. Story #1 was “Honeysuckle Cottage” by P. G. Wodehouse. I have not read much by this famous ex-patriate English humorist. I think all of the stories I have encountered by him were published in F&SF. This particular tale came out in 1928. One wonders if Wodehouse is desperate for cash since being, perhaps unfairly, chased out of his home country for alleged collaboration with the Nazis. Or perhaps Boucher could only afford an old reprint. Either way, it's a fun little story about a mystery writer being cursed with the haunting of his romance-writing aunt. I liked it.

“Wish upon a star,” by famed anthologist Judy Merril, is an excellent story about coming of age on a generation ship. For those not in the know, a generation ship is a starship, generally traveling slower than the speed of light, designed to colonize a planet many tens or even hundreds of years in the future. Because the mission takes so long, it is anticipated that several generations will be born before the ship reaches its destination. Even more unusually, though quite plausibly, most of the crew and all of the officers of the ship are women. The only thing wrong with the story is its length--I would love to see a novella or full-length novel on the topic--by Ms. Merril, preferably.



Though Boucher no longer edits F&SF, he still does the book-review column. He spends most of it praising Theodore Sturgeon but expressing his dissatisfaction with “The Cosmic Rape.” This, Sturgeon's third novel, is an expansion on the novelet, “To Marry Medusa,” which appeared in Galaxy a few months ago. Alternatively, the Galaxy story may be a pared-down version of the novel. I recall the story, which was about an interstellar hive-mind's attempts to incorporate humanity, had said all that was needed to be said. I have to wonder what purpose the extra verbiage served.

Next up is “Dream Girl,” a slight head-trip penned by Ron Goulart, who had an interesting story back in July called “The Katy Dialogues.” The following story, “Somebody's Clothes, Somebody's Life,” by mystery-writer Cornell Woolrich, is written like a play and could easily be an episode of F&SF's counterpart to X Minus One. It's sheer fantasy involving a Countess with a gambling problem, a young woman with bigger problems, and the Russian clairvoyant who crosses their paths. Good affecting stuff. Finally, there is a cute three-page story by Walter S. Tevis, which I shan't spoil for you, but it's worth reading.

So that's that. 2.5 stars out of 5 for this week's F&SF, but that's only because the first half is a 1.5 and the latter is a 4.5.

You should all know that I am flying out to Japan this Friday with my family. This should not stem the tide of articles, however. I am bringing along this month's Astounding, two unread Heinlein novels, and I expect to catch up on my giant monster movies. It's my understanding that Godzilla has a sequel, and other movies by that studio have also recently come out. Here's hoping these films uphold the fine standard set by the first of them.

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