Black Gate

This was the last issue edited by Cele Goldsmith — with the next issue she became Cele Lalli, after her marriage.

Ed Emshwiller contributes the cover this time, to my taste not one of his best. Interiors are by Virgil Finlay, George Schelling, and a couple I don’t recognized, identified in the magazine only by their last names: McLane and Blair. Norman Lobsenz’ editorial discusses the effects of space and alien environments on humans, and goes on to wonder how we can justify terraforming planets on which other species live. Ben Bova’s science article, “Operation Shirtsleeve,” then discusses exactly that — how to terraform other planets so that humans can live comfortably there (in “shirtsleeves”).

Robert Silverberg’s book review column, The Spectroscope, first takes on Edgar Rice Burroughs, both on his own (The Cave Girl) and via a slavish imitator (Otis Adelbert Kline, with Prince of Peril). Silverberg’s verdict: “unmitigated trash, subliterate claptrap barely worth the time of children.”

(My verdict, based on a very limited sample (ERB’s first novel, A Princess of Mars aka “Under the Moons of Mars“) is a bit more forgiving — claptrap and trash it may be, but it’s definitely mitigated — at least early in his career Burroughs offered an energetic glee that made him worth reading despite the silliness.)

Next he reviews a couple of collections by major writers — one is an SFWA Grand Master, the other died too young to be named a Grand Master but would certainly have been one eventually, and one of the very best. So: Silverberg finds James Gunn’s Future Imperfect somewhat disappointing next to the best of Gunn’s work; but he finds Sturgeon in Orbit surprisingly better: even though it features uncollected early ’50s stories it manages to surprise with some good stuff, particularly “The Incubi of Parallel X,” a wild piece full of cliches from Planet Stories in 1951 that Sturgeon redeemed with his panache. (I read that story in the Planet Stories issue it appeared in (not in 1951 though!) and I completely agree!)

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Back to Cele Goldsmith’s era at Amazing. This issue has a couple of middling stories by two of the strangest and most original of SF writers. The cover is by Lloyd Birmingham, illustrating Cordwainer Smith’s “Drunkboat.” Interiors are by Birmingham, George Schelling, and Frank R. Paul (who had just died). Indeed, Norman Lobsenz’ editorial opens by mentioning Paul’s death (Paul, of course, famously painted the cover for the very first issue of Amazing); and goes on somewhat randomly to mention a National Spelling Bee winner who credited reading SF for his vocabulary (though reading Amazing could hardly have helped his spelling, given the standard of proofreading displayed this issue!); and then mentions Groff Conklin’s latest anthology, Great Science Fiction About Doctors (which in fact made a point of including a number of stories BY doctors, though none by the Good Doctor*).

(*Of course, Isaac Asimov was not a medical doctor, though he was a professor at a medical school.)

“Or So You Say …,” the letter column, features letters by Kathryn Avila (complaining about the low quality of the July issue), Norman M. Davis (praising Robert Young’s “Redemption,” one of the stories Avila had complained about), and Paul Scaramazza, theorizing that the then low (he says) status of fantasy literature is the fault of readers without imagination.

In The Spectroscope, S. E. Cotts reviews a now quite obscure book, The Fools of Time, by William E. Barrett, and an anthology from Sam Moskowitz, The Coming of the Robots. (She [as I now assume Cotts was] didn’t like the first, did like the second.) Moskowitz himself contributes a Profile of Edmond Hamilton.

The stories are:

Novelets

“Drunkboat,” by Cordwainer Smith (11,200 words)
“The Prince of Liars,” by L. Taylor Hansen (17,300 words)

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The cover for this issue is by Leo Summers. Interior illustrations are by Dan Adkins (who also contributes the back cover) and Walker. The editorial recounts two recent cases of apparently fantastical occurrences in real life — with, in both cases, pretty straightforward mundane explanations. The letter column features letters from Leo A. Brodeur (a professor of French Literature at Laurentian University), discussing SF writers as “the poets of science”; and R. Martinkivi, praising the magazine.

The stories are:

Novelets

“A Bit of the Dark World,” by Fritz Leiber (12,500 words)
“A Silence of Wings,” by Daniel F. Galouye (10,500 words)

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An issue of Galaxy from fairly late in Fred Pohl’s tenure. There’s one fairly notable story here, and a couple more good ones, but to me the most interesting feature was Algis Budrys’ book review column.

But let’s begin at the beginning. The cover is by Douglas Chaffee. Interiors are by Jack Gaughan, Joe Wehrle, Jr., Dan Adkins, Virgil Finlay, Larry S. Todd illustrating his own piece (not surprising, as Todd, then just 20, became fairly well-known later for his comics work), and two artists whose full names I didn’t know: Brand and Safrani. Buddy Lortie identified them for me: Brand was Roger Brand, a fan artist who became a pro, and did comics work as well; and Safrani was Shehbaz Safrani, who seems to still do fine art. I should note that the magazine was very thick in this era — 196 pages (including covers). My copy has staples: I don’t know offhand if that was normal.

The features include Willy Ley’s long-running science column, “For Your Information,” discussing Explorer-1. Fred Pohl contributes an editorial, discussing the upcoming Presidential election (the one in which Nixon beat Humphrey and Wallace), and speculating about computerized voting from one’s home (even on laws, declaration of war, etc. — i.e. direct democracy). There is a Bio feature, Galaxy’s Stars, giving tidbits about a few of the authors. One piece, “The Warbots,” by Larry S. Todd, is designated a “Non-Fact Article,” and it discusses the history of tanks, basically, far into the future.

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