Black Gate

My most recent forays into Cele Goldsmith Lalli’s editing career have concentrated on Amazing, so here’s a look at a couple of issues of Fantastic. These two issues include a complete John Jakes serial, so I’ll consider them together.

During this period Fantastic was subtitled “Stories of Imagination,” and though it concentrated on fantasy it also published some SF. (The letter column, when one existed, occasionally included complaints about this, to which the response was “sometimes there just isn’t enough good fantasy.”) Fantastic was also thin on features, usually the only one being an editorial from Norman Lobsenz and a brief Coming Next Month blurb. The August editorial is about psychic research, particularly that of the Greek scientist Angelos Tanagras. I thought Lobsenz was a bit too credulous. The September issue’s editorial complains about the quality of SF on TV: instead of adaptations of Isaac Asimov’s robot stories we got Living Doll, and instead of The Martian Chronicles we got My Favorite Martian.

August’s cover is by Ed Emshwiller, with interiors by Emsh, Virgil Finlay, and George Schelling. Robert Adragna does the September cover, and the interiors are by Adragna, Finlay, Emsh, and Schelling.

The stories, then.

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Back to Cele Goldsmith’s Amazing. This is a minor issue in context.

The cover is by an artist I’m not familiar with, Bill Conlon. The interiors are by Virgil Finlay, Austin Briggs, George Schelling, Lloyd Birmingham, and Dan Adkins. Norman Lobsenz’ editorial is about science vs. the humanities. The science fact article is called “The Nuclear Putt-Putt,” by Frank Tinsley, and it’s about Project Orion (the notion of propelling a spacecraft by nuclear bombs). Sam Moskowitz contributes a profile of the late Henry Kuttner, reflecting the view that much of what he wrote under his own name was garbage, so no one could believe he was behind the Lewis Padgett stories.

S. E. Cotts’ book review column covers Great Science Fiction by Scientists, edited by Groff Conklin; The Long Tomorrow, by Leigh Brackett; Return to Otherness, by Henry Kuttner; Telepath, by Arthur Sellings; and The Super Barbarians, by John Brunner. He praises the Conklin anthology for its off-center focus — the fiction of actual working scientists — less than for the quality of the actual stories. The review of The Long Tomorrow is an out and out rave (with an apology for having taken so long to get around to it).

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Here’s a latish Cele Goldsmith issue… indeed, she became Cele Lalli with the August issue (and her tenure ended with the June 1965 issue). This one has a cover by Emsh for Robert F. Young’s “Arena of Decisions.” Interiors are by George Schelling and Virgil Finlay.

Norman Lobsenz’ Editorial is about SFnal games, referring to Lewis Carroll’s notion of Circular Billiards. In the book review column, The Spectroscope, a new reviewer is introduced: Lester del Rey. The column had missed one issue, with the January issue having been longtime reviewer S. E. Cotts’ last. Curiously, del Rey lasted only one issue, though the Editorial implies a long run was coming. Robert Silverberg took over with the next issue – I don’t know the story behind this. Del Rey did later have long runs at If and Analog doing review columns. In this issue he praises Simak’s Way Station and (with reservations) Dean McLaughlin’s The Fury from Earth, and he is quite negative about Heinlein’s Glory Road.

The letter column features Jeff Rensch (wants to ditch the magazine’s name), Jim Hawkins, Ricky Hautala, Georgia Covington, Michael L. Abraham, and Robert Lewis. Of those I know Hautala’s name – he was a fairly prolific horror novelist in the ‘80s.

Ben Bova contributes the Science article, “The Time of Great Dying,” which discusses the Cretaceous Extinction, summarizing the current theories and adding one of his own (the proliferation of grasses led to the extinction of the dinosaurs). Bova’s summary is sensible and clear, but as with almost all such on this particular event, it can largely be thrown in the dustbin of history. (He does suggest a nearby supernova as a possibility, though.)

The fiction, then:

Sunburst (part one of three), by Phyllis Gotlieb (18500 words)
“Arena of Decisions,” by Robert F. Young (6,800 words)
“Now is Forever,” by Dobbin Thorpe (5,200 words)
“Jam for Christmas,” by Vance Simonds (7,300 words)

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John W. Campbell died in July 1971. He had been editor of Astounding/Analog for 34 years. His name appeared on the masthead through December of that year, along with remaining editorials. Presumably Kay Tarrant did the work necessary to keep the magazine going, possibly, some suggest, even buying new stories, until the new editor was chosen. Ben Bova took over officially with the January 1972 issues. (Rumor has it that Charles Platt, of all people, was one of those considered for the job; a more obvious possibility was Frederik Pohl, who said he was asked to apply. [He had left Galaxy at about this time, and was as I recall editing books for Bantam.])

So I thought I’d consider an issue from the end of Campbell’s tenure, and one from the beginning of Bova’s: November 1971 and October 1972.

The November 1971 issue has a cover by John Schoenherr. Interiors are by Schoenherr, Kelly Freas, and Leo Summers. Campbell’s editorial, his second-last, was called “The Gored Ox,” in which he inveighs against the press’s desire to print anything they want (inspired by the Pentagon papers). The Science article is by Margaret Silbar, who contributed 16 pieces of non-fiction to Analog between 1967 and 1990. It’s called “In Quest of a Humanlike Robot.”

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