Tue 1 Dec 2020
Diary Review: IF SCIENCE FICTION November 1966.
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Magazines , Science Fiction & Fantasy[7] Comments
IF SCIENCE FICTION. November 1966. Overall rating: 2½ stars.
KEITH LAUMER “Truce or Consequences.†Novelette. Retief stops a war; any resemblance to the current Arab-Israeli conflict could not have been intended but neither is it coincidental. (3)
Comment: Laumer’s stories about no-nonsense galactic diplomat Jame Retief were great favorites of SF fans for many years. The first one, “Diplomat-at-Arms,†appeared in 1960. This one was first collected in Retief: Ambassador to Space (Doubleday, hc, 1969; Berley, pb, 1970) then in Retief: Diplomat at Arms (Pocket, pb, 1982; Baen, pb, 1987).
LARRY NIVEN “At the Core.†Novelette. Beowulf Shaeffer takes on another job for the puppeteers, this time taking a spaceship to the core of the galaxy. (3)
Comment: Many of Niven’s novels and stories fell into his future history known as “Tales of Known Space,†and this is an early one. Collected in Neutron Star (Ballantine, pb, 1968). Reprinted in The Second If Reader of Science Fiction (Doubleday, hc, 1968; Ace, pb, 1970).
C. C. MacAPP “The Sign of Gree.†Novelette. Another episode in the unending war against Gree. Steve Duke enlists the aid of the Remm. (1)
Comment: There were nine stories in MacApp’s “Gree†series; this was number eight. Probably pure space opera. My brief comment suggests I wasn’t very impressed. The story itself has never been collected or reprinted.
LESTER del REY “A Code for Sam.†Novelette. Del Rey suggests that Asimov’s Laws of Robotics may not be practical in the field. The point is well made. (3)
Comment: Collected in Robots and Magic (NESFA Press, hardcover, 2010). I’ve always found del Rey’s fiction to be unexpectedly uneven, but I wish I’d known about this collection before now.
JOHN T. SLADEK “The Babe in the Oven.†A wacky short story with no plot but plenty of wit. (4)
Comment: Collected in The Best of John Sladek (Pocket, pb, 1981). Reprinted earlier in Alpha 6, edited by Robert Silverberg (Berkley, pb, 1976).
ROBERT SILVERBERG “Halfway House.†In return for his life, an executive takes on the job of guarding the crossroads of all parallel world and deciding who may cross. (4)
Comment: First collected in Dimension Thirteen (Ballantine, paperback, 1969), then in several other books. I think most of Silverberg’s stories have been collected several times over!
J. T. McINTOSH “Snow White and the Giants.†Serial, part 2 of 4. The novel will be reported on in its entirety when all four installments have been read.
MIKE HILL “Hairry.†An unsquare story of a Martian spider who becomes a jazz buff. (2)
Comment: Mike Hill was the pen name of Paul G. Herkart, but under either name, this was his only published SF story.
THURLOW WEED “The Boat in the Bottle.†As the title suggests. (0)
Comment: Another author with a one and done.
December 1st, 2020 at 11:02 pm
I sort of hate to admit it, but these days I would rather spend time with Retief, Lord Darcy, or Dominic Flandry than most of the more serious SF of the era.
December 1st, 2020 at 11:55 pm
Even though I deemed this one as only an average issue at the time, I enjoyed going back in time and remembering (in retrospect) how much fun I had in reading it.
December 1st, 2020 at 11:59 pm
I’m not a big Larry Niven fan. But thought “At the Core” was one of his best short stories, when read years ago.
December 2nd, 2020 at 12:14 am
I’ve always found Niven’s earlier work to be more enjoyable than what he produced later on, especially the novels he wrote in collaboration with others. But when he was at his best, he was the best.
December 2nd, 2020 at 12:15 am
Wondering if Thurlow Weed was a pen name for someone else, I looked him up on Google. Here’s what I found:
“Although he held only a few minor offices, American politician Thurlow Weed (1797-1882) was a leading figure in the Whig party and later in the Republican party. He was a master behind-the-scenes manipulator and a skilled lobbyist.”
December 2nd, 2020 at 9:24 am
I’ve never been a fan of the Retief stories, but I do like Laumer’s pulpish action-adventure tales. Except for some Baen collections a few years ago, Laumer seems to have receded into the past. His cigarettes-whisky-circuit board sensibility seems not to have survived today’s (to me, mostly uninteresting) SF trends.
December 2nd, 2020 at 12:10 pm
As much as I liked the Retief stories, I enjoyed his parallel worlds/alternate worlds/time travel books even more. He had a stroke in 1971, and while he largely recovered from it, after a long convalescence (and I wish I didn’t have to say this), his work was never the same.