Black Gate

This is an earlyish Cele Goldsmith issue. Unusually, it has only three stories.

The editorial is given over to a reprint of part of an interview with an Emeritus Professor of Mathematics from New York University, Richard Courant, that had been published in Challenge. Courant is presented as something of a skeptic about computers, though as presented his skepticism seems sensible enough. The only other feature is a pretty short book review column (it was cut, and the lettercol eliminated, to make room for the complete novel in one issue). The books reviewed were Level 7, by Mordecai Roshwald, a once famous post-apocalyptic novel, now little-known, which S. E. Cotts praises highly in terms that make it sound absolutely dreadful; and The Synthetic Man, by Theodore Sturgeon, a novel better known as The Dreaming Jewels, which Cotts also likes. The cover is by Alex Schomburg, and the interiors are by Virgil Finlay and Dan Adkins.

A word about S. E. Cotts, the book reviewer for Amazing throughout most of Cele Goldsmith’s tenure. I have long wondered who Cotts was, and also whether Cotts might have been a woman. In recent correspondence, Robert Silverberg, who succeeded Cotts as Amazing’s book reviewer (after a one column appearance by Lester Del Rey), said that he thought (but was not sure) that S. E. Cotts was actually Cele Goldsmith’s sister. I have never heard that before, and it’s pretty intriguing. (We might note that Floyd C. Gale, book reviewer for Galaxy in the 1950s, was editor H. L. Gold’s brother.)

The cover story is a novelet, “Meteor Strike!”, by Donald E. Westlake (12,500 words). Westlake, who was born in 1933 and died in 2008, was one of the great crime fiction writers of our time. I am particularly fond of his comic capers featuring the thief John Dortmunder. Others plump for his darker novels about a criminal named Parker, written as by Richard Stark. Early in his career, Westlake published a fair amount of Science Fiction, before bidding a bitter farewell to the field in a rant published in the great fanzine Xero. Westlake complained about SF’s conservatism, and particularly about John Campbell. Alas, I feel his argument — which had some merit — loses some force simply because, truth be told, Westlake was a pretty mediocre SF writer.

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Here we come to the very last two issues of Amazing edited by Cele Lalli.

The editorials, as ever by Norman Lobsenz, consider the difficulty of accurate and precise time measurements, and a very brief discussion of David Bunch, the writer readers of Amazing and Fantastic loved to hate. Lobsenz quotes Bunch (“I’m not in this business… to entertain. I’m here to make the reader think… chastise him for the terrible… world we allow… The reader I want is the one who wants the anguish… All space must look askance at us.”)

This last Lalli issue was the last issue Bunch would appear in (not surprisingly) for over three years — he didn’t return to Amazing until late 1968, under editor Barry N. Malzberg — and the only one for which he had the cover story. (One suspects the June cover was partly Lalli and Lobsenz saying, “Heck, we don’t care anymore, we’re going to promote what WE like!”) The covers are each by Gray Morrow. There are only two interior illustrations, both in May, by Morrow and by Virgil Finlay.

The letter column is gone, again perhaps in view of the upcoming sale of the magazines. Robert Silverberg conducts the book review column, The Spectroscope, sharply and indeed acerbically, to good effect. In May he reviews an Avalon Books reprint of George Allen England’s Darkness and Dawn, a somewhat famous piece of proto-SF. Silverberg calls it “a cruel resurrection,” and indeed it does seem awful (and shockingly racist) as described. He also covers Walter Cole’s Checklist of Science Fiction Anthologies (with much praise) and The Worlds of Robert F. Young (“I am not fond of the writing of Robert F. Young” – given that Young was a Goldsmith/Lalli regular, this is a perhaps brave statement – and a sensible one!)

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I recently looked at a couple of issues of Fantastic with a Brak the Barbarian serial by John Jakes, and here’s another pair with a Brak serial. Indeed, this was Jakes’ first SF/Fantasy novel, and his second Brak story.

The editorials cover first, Freeman Dyson’s ideas about using gravity as an energy source (for transportation), and second, the notion of having astronauts use crayons in orbit. The covers are by Alex Schomburg (November) and Paul E. Wenzel (December), in neither case, perhaps oddly, illustrating Jakes’ novel. Interiors are by Lee Brown Coye, Virgil Finlay, and Peter Lutjens (each of them appeared in both issues). (I will note that I find Coye okay as a pure horror illustrator, which seems to have been his forte, but I thought his illustration for Jack Sharkey’s “The Aftertime” just terrible.)

There is a letter column in November (Fantastic’s lettercol, which only appeared occasionally at this time, was called According to You ...). The letters this time are by David T. Keil, Paula Crunk, and Dennis Lien. I’ve known Denny online for quite some time, first on Usenet and later via email, so that was interesting. Keil has praise for Keith Laumer and Brian Aldiss and Thomas Disch, some (generally positive) discussion of Fritz Leiber, and scorn for David R. Bunch. Paula Crunk is happy with Leiber and Laumer, but complains about some of the other dreadful stuff the magazine published. And Lien disputes a claim in an earlier letter that fantasy has gotten short shrift in Hugo nominations relative to SF. (He notes the several examples of fantasy that were nominated — 3 at least of the five short fiction nominees the previous year — and also notes that, after all, the Hugos are given at a “Science Fiction” convention.)

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This is one of the best issues of Cele Goldsmith’s Amazing I’ve encountered. Only four stories, but all decent, one really good.

The cover is by Ray Kalfus, illustrating Henry Slesar’s “Jobo” in a fashion that gives away one of the story’s secrets (not that it’s that big of a secret). Interiors are by Leo Summers, George Schelling, and Virgil Finlay.

Norman Lobsenz’ Editorial opens thusly:

The New Yorker magazine, which normally does not care to admit of the existence of such a literary form as science fiction (probably because sf stories have plots with beginnings, middles, and ends, which the New Yorker fiction editors abhor)…

Plus ça change! The occasion is an approving New Yorker review of Arthur C. Clarke’s Tales of Ten Worlds, and in particular their praise for the story “Before Eden,” which was first published in Amazing in 1961.

“… Or So You Say”, the letter column, is mostly occupied with complaints about a letter in the January issue from Lorne Yacuk, which apparently complained about the “new” type of stories published in those days, particularly that they featured dull “common men” instead of “supermen.” The writers are James C. Pierce, W. D. Shephard, and Gil Lamont. In addition, Paul Gilster (from St. Louis!) praises Albert Teichner’s “Cerebrum” (mentioned in these reviews some time ago).

The Spectroscope, S. E. Cotts’ book review column, covers The Space Child’s Mother Goose, by Frederick Winsor; Moon Missing, by Edward Gorey; They Walked Like Men, by Clifford Simak; and Anything You Can Do…, by Darrel T. Langart (Randall Garrett). The only one he really approves of is the Simak.

There are two “fact” articles. One is called “A Soviet View of American SF,” by Alexander Kazantsev. It’s a reprint (translated by John Isaac) of the introduction to an anthology of American SF published in the Soviet Union. The author (Kazantsev) is said to be famous for suggesting that the Tunguska event was caused by the explosion of a Martian spaceship. His views of the stories mentioned are politically tinged to the point of parody. The other article is by Ben Bova, “Where is Everybody?”, and it’s a look at the Fermi Paradox.

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Here’s a bit of a curiosity — a magazine I had not heard of until quite recently.

Gamma was a short lived digest magazine published out of North Hollywood, CA, between 1963 and 1965. Five issues total were published, the first three edited by William Nolan (best known, probably, for writing Logan’s Run with the recently late George Clayton Johnson, but an active writer since 1956 and still publishing new stuff now, age 88). Because of its location*, perhaps, they attracted some writers associated with the movie business, and in general published a mix of SF and Fantasy, and of writers both from within and without the genre, that reminded me of F&SF, especially in its first few years.

*(Indeed, of the 9 writers in this issue, 7 (as far as I can tell) were based in California, and those who weren’t (Malamud and Highsmith) are the most prominent and the only “non-genre” writers.) The interior art is by Luan Meatheringham, an LA artist active in the ad industry and as a freelancer, who seems to have disappeared from notice.

The cover is called “Expedition to Jupiter,” by Morris Scott Dollens, and it depicts a spaceship and a couple of astronauts on what I take to be Ganymede or Callisto, with Jupiter in the sky.

There is one feature, an interview with the editor (using a false name) of a Soviet publishing house, discussing the state of Soviet SF. (By coincidence, I just read a similar piece in Amazing.)

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