I have enjoyed the work of Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) on page and screen for as long as I can recall, his filmography encompassing such notable names as Bert I. Gordon, Ray Harryhausen, Byron Haskin, Nathan Juran, Nigel Kneale, George Pal, James Whale, and Philip Wylie. I graduated from the oversized trade paperbacks of The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898) bought at grade-school book fairs—which I am unable to identify—to the uniform, mass-market Berkley Highland editions (1964-1967), most with striking covers by Paul Lehr. I have not read them in decades, so in this series, I will revisit six major H.G. Wells novels, comparing each with my favorite film version.

   Along with editor Hugo Gernsback, Wells and Jules Verne (1828-1905) are often called “the father of science fiction,” their respective first and last writing decades overlapping. An immediate success that decisively ended an upbringing in poverty, The Time Machine (1895) was Wells’s first novel, one of four seminal works that, incredibly, he produced in as many years, followed by The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896). And, for you bibliophiles, it’s the only one of the seven volumes in the Berkley boxed set (of whose existence I only recently learned)—containing all of the novels I’ll be discussing, as well as the unfilmed In the Days of the Comet (1906)—with cover art credited to the legendary Richard Powers.

   “The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him)” explains his theory to his friends Filby, a Psychologist, Provincial Mayor, Medical Man, Very Young Man, and the unnamed narrator. As “experimental verification,” he produces “a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than a small clock,” a model time machine that took two years to create, and—using the Psychologist’s own finger to preclude trickery—presses a lever that makes it vanish into the future, or perhaps the past. In his laboratory, he shows them an unfinished larger edition of nickel, ivory, rock crystal, and “twisted crystalline bars” of apparent quartz; on this, “I intend to explore time….I was never more serious in my life.”

   He is late to their next Thursday dinner in Richmond, the returning Psychologist, Doctor, and narrator joined by a Journalist, a Silent Man, and Blank, “the Editor of a well-known daily paper.” The Time Traveller arrives—dirty, disheveled, shoeless, pale, and haggard, with a limp and a half-healed cut on his chin—and, after cleaning himself up and wolfing down some mutton, agrees to tell his story, if uninterrupted. He relates that the machine, finished that morning, “began its career” at 10:00, and as the lab goes dark, servant Mrs. Watchett enters without seeing him, but “seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket,” and after a dizzying trip through time, he stops, the impact throwing him from the saddle.

   Beside the overturned machine, the Time Traveller finds himself amidst a hailstorm in a garden, with a White Sphinx of marble on a bronze pedestal looming beyond, and as the sun breaks out, he is approached by a beautiful and graceful but frail four-foot-high man. Unafraid, humankind’s distant descendants speak in “a strange and very sweet and liquid tongue,” and as they examine the machine, whose dials record a date of 802,701 A.D., he prudently unscrews and pockets its control levers. Childlike, indolent, frugivorous, and oddly lacking in interest, they bring him into a huge, dilapidated hall, where he is fed and begins learning the language of “humanity upon the wane,” however Edenic their setting.

   “Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that restless energy, that with us is strength, would become weakness,” the success of “the social effort in which we are at present engaged” having removed our salutary challenges. After a walk, our hero finds his machine gone, apparently taken into the pedestal, but unable to effect ingress, he must be patient; befriending Weena, whom he saves from drowning, he learns that the Eloi fear the dark. Ventilating shafts and deep wells dot the land, and watching a small white, ape-like figure descending into one, he discovers metal foot and hand rests that form a ladder, deducing that humanity “had differentiated into two distinct animals”—one subterranean.

   The Eloi and Morlocks, whom the Time Traveller believes took his machine, seem to be the ultimate separation of the Capitalist and Labourer, the Haves and Have-nots, an idea familiar to viewers of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927)…which Wells, ironically, trashed in a New York Times review (April 17, 1927) as “the silliest film.” Overcoming the Eloi’s contagious disgust, he enters the well, whence emanates a hum of machinery, noting that the Morlocks, who flee his dwindling matches, are carnivorous. Barely escaping, he goes back to the surface, seeking nighttime safety for himself and Weena in the far-off Palace of Green Porcelain from the Morlocks, for whom he believes the Eloi are “fatted cattle.”

   In the Palace, an ancient museum, the Time Traveller finds a weapon (a lever snapped off a corroded machine), more matches, and camphor to serve as makeshift candles. Hoping to penetrate the Sphinx the next day, he plans to traverse and sleep beside a nearby forest, protected by fire, but a blaze he starts to cover their retreat turns into a forest fire, routing the photophobic Morlocks and leaving Weena—who faints amid the chaos—missing and presumed dead. Returning, he unexpectedly finds the pedestal open, yet as he enters and approaches the Time Machine, the panels clang shut, and surrounded by the Morlocks in the dark, he is barely able to fit the control levers over their studs by touch and activate it.

   Escaping further into the future, the Time Traveller finds a huge, red sun, “the salt Dead Sea…poisonous-looking…lichenous plants…thin air that hurts one’s lungs [and] monster crab[s]…” (This follows a deleted section Wells reluctantly added at the behest of editor William Ernest Henley, in which he encounters kangaroo-like creatures, possibly human descendants, and a giant centipede.) Finally, more than 30 million years hence, he spots “a round thing, the size of a football perhaps [with] tentacles…hopping fitfully about” in the snowy and silent desolation and decides to return home, with the machine reappearing in his lab “the exact distance from my little lawn to the pedestal of the White Sphinx…”

   Despite his audience’s skepticism, the Doctor admits, “I certainly don’t know the natural order of these flowers,” produced from the pocket into which Weena had placed them, à la Zuzu’s petals. The next day, carrying a camera and a knapsack, our hero vows that if given half an hour, he’ll “prove you this time travelling up to the hilt, specimen and all”; suddenly remembering an appointment, the waiting narrator enters the laboratory just as the machine vanishes with its inventor, like a phantasm. “I am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime. The Time Traveller vanished three years ago. And, as everybody knows now, he has never returned,” he writes, speculating about his fate in an epilogue…

   Displaying a rare commitment to SF and fantasy, George Pal (1908-1980) produced, and often directed, a dozen features that had a profound impact on the genre; many had their origins in literature, notably his Wells adaptations The War of the Worlds (1953)—more on that one later—and The Time Machine (1960). Born Marincsák György to Hungarian stage parents, the unemployed architect was employed by Budapest’s Hunnia studio as an apprentice animator. Marrying and moving to Berlin, Pal next rose to the top of the UFA studio’s cartoon department until the Nazis’ rise to power drove him out of Germany, and then resided and worked in various European countries before he immigrated to the U.S.

   Pal earned an honorary Academy Award in 1944 for developing the “novel methods and techniques” in his Puppetoons animated shorts. His debut feature, The Great Rupert (aka A Christmas Wish, 1950), was among the first that combined stop-motion and live-action footage, but following this transitional effort, directed by actor Irving Pichel, Pal focused solely on live-action efforts, although animation still featured in many of his productions. Also directed by Pichel, Destination Moon (1950) was adapted by genre giant Robert A. Heinlein from his own young adult novel Rocket Ship Galileo (1947), and set a cinematic standard rarely equaled, dramatizing the lunar flight with scrupulous scientific accuracy.

   Based on Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer’s 1933 novel, Rudolph Maté’s When Worlds Collide (1951) was the first of five films Pal made for Paramount, including the biopic Houdini (1953) and collaborations with director Byron Haskin on The War of the Worlds, The Naked Jungle (1954), and Conquest of Space (1955). With the fantasy tom thumb (1958), Pal moved to MGM, where he would remain for the next decade, and assumed the directorial duties he retained on his next four efforts. As with those of Destination Moon, When Worlds Collide, The War of the Worlds, and tom thumb, the special effects of The Time Machine, by Gene Warren and Tim Baar, also received an Academy Award.

   The largely undistinguished screenwriting career of David Duncan ranged from Monster on the Campus (1958), a low point for director Jack Arnold, to being one of four credited on Fantastic Voyage (1966), which earned Hugo and Academy Awards. In an interview with Tom Weaver, he said, “Like most of Wells’ science fiction novels, [it] was as much a social document as a tale of science adventure….[By then] this forecast of the future no longer carried any plausibility—if it ever did. Labor unions were strong [and high wages and] fringe benefits had moved most blue-collar workers into the middle class.” Instead, air-raid sirens drive the Pavlovian Eloi into the shelters built by the Morlocks’ ancestors.

   Duncan clearly had his work cut out for him, since the brief novel’s characterization and dialogue are minimal, and the film’s visuals are unsurprisingly its greatest strength. Cast as the Time Traveller, known as George (a plate on his machine reads, “Manufactured by H. George Wells”), was Rod Taylor, co-star of World Without End (1956), a time-travel film sufficiently similar to inspire legal action by the Wells estate. The film opens at the second dinner as Mrs. Watchett (Doris Lloyd) admits David Filby (Alan Young) with Dr. Philip Hillyer (Sebastian Cabot), Anthony Bridewell (Tom Helmore), and Walter Kemp (Whit Bissell); on George’s arrival, we then flash back five days, to December 31, 1899.

   Urged to offer his inventive skills to the government for the Boer War, George laments to David (named by Pal in Duncan’s honor), people “call upon science to invent new, more efficient weapons to depopulate the Earth.” Composer Russell Garcia’s dramatic flourish accompanies our first look at the iconic full-sized machine designed by MGM art director Bill Ferrari, a wondrous creation resembling a sled with a rotating clockwork disc behind the saddle. George’s voiceover clarifies the action, while numerous devices visualize the transitions (e.g., a time-lapse candle and flowers; a window mannequin wearing changing fashions), hindsight enabling Pal to depict two World Wars before an atomic one in 1966.

   Stopping in 1917, he encounters uniformed James Philby (Young), whose father, killed in the war, refused while serving as George’s executor to allow the sale of his house, certain he would return someday. This poignant encounter considerably humanizes the story, but the elderly James’s return as an air-raid warden, just before London is destroyed, evoking nature’s volcanic retaliation, is less successful. The film is almost half over when George arrives in 802,701; the limited skills of inexperienced Yvette Mimieux (which reportedly improved enough for some of her earlier scenes to be reshot) made eminently suitable her casting—at Pal’s insistence—as Weena, who with rampant implausibility speaks English.

   Weena shows George the Talking Rings (voiced by Paul Frees), which supply exposition about a 326-year “war between the East and West” that filled the atmosphere with germs, and the Eloi/Morlock division. Duncan conflates the encounters with the latter (executed by William Tuttle, MGM’s makeup wizard for more than twenty years and, like Frees, a frequent Pal collaborator) into a climactic descent as George seeks both his machine and the somnambulic Weena. Brawny, blue-skinned, long-haired, and more imposing than in the novel, they are a better match for Taylor’s two-fisted hero as he seeks to reawaken the spirit of self-sacrifice among the Eloi, whom he leads into a fiery, subterranean rebellion.

   Separated when the panels close, George is unable to bring Weena back to his own time, and while attempting to rejoin her on his next trip, from which he never returns, he takes three unidentified books, with which he hopes to help the Eloi rebuild their world. Pal’s biggest box-office success, the film was remade for television with John Beck (and, in a different role, Bissell) in 1978 and as a feature with Guy Pearce in 2002, as well as being ripped off on countless occasions. Pal long hoped to direct a sequel and, in 1981, shared a posthumous byline with Joe Morhaim on Time Machine II, novelizing an unproduced script featuring a second-generation Time Traveller, the offspring of George and Weena.

   After Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1961), a letdown on every count, Pal collaborated with Charles Beaumont on The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962), co-directed with Henry Levin, and 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964). Even a reunion with Haskin could not save The Power (1968) from friction with MGM’s régime du jour, which dumped it with minimal promotion; his final film, Doc Savage—The Man of Bronze (1975), showed how sadly out of step he had fallen with current tastes. Abortive projects included an effort to adapt William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson’s novel Logan’s Run (1967) and, in his last years, two with Robert Bloch, The Day of the Comet and The Voyage of the Berg.

      Up next: The Island of Dr. Moreau

      Sources/works consulted:

Batchelor, John Calvin, introduction to The Time Machine and The Invisible Man (New York: Signet Classic, 1984), pp. v-xxiii.
Baxter, John, Science Fiction in the Cinema: 1895-1970 (The International Film Guide Series; New York: A.S. Barnes, 1970).
Brosnan, John, Future Tense: The Cinema of Science Fiction (New York: St. Martin’s, 1978).
Gunn, James, editor, The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (New York: Viking, 1988).
Hardy, Phil, editor, The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction (Woodstock, NY: Overlook, 1995).
Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDb)
Warren, Bill, Keep Watching the Skies!: American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties (2 volumes; Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1982-6).
Wells, H.G., review of Metropolis (The New York Times, April 17, 1927), reproduced by Don Brockway on his (then) Time Machine Home Site (December 25, 2002),
https://erkelzaar.tsudao.com/reviews/H.G.Wells_on_Metropolis%201927.htm.
—-, The Time Machine, in The Time Machine and The Invisible Man, pp. 1-103.
Weaver, Tom, Interviews with B Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers: Writers, Producers, Directors, Actors, Moguls and Makeup (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1988).
Wikipedia

      Online source:

https://archive.org/details/the-time-machine-1960_202203.

   Portions of this article originally appeared on Bradley on Film.

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN “–All You Zombies–” First published in Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1959 (after having been rejected by Playboy). Reprinted a number of times, including The Worlds of Science Fiction, edited by Robert P. Mills (Paperback Library, 1965), and Time Troopers, edited by Hank Davis & Christopher Ruocchio (Baen Books, 2022), among others. Collected in The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (Gnome Press, 1969) and 6 x H (Pyramid, 1961), again among many others. Film: As Predestination (Australia, 2014, starring Ethan Hawke). [See Comment #6.]

   The story begins in a bar, for no better reason that is where any story of its kind should begin, with a fellow who calls himself an Unmarried Mother (actually a writer for true confession magazines) telling his life story to the other fellow, the one on the other side of the bar. It’s a lengthy tale, and it includes the fact that the fellow telling the story was born as a girl.

   And this is the point in my telling you the story is exactly where I knew I was going to get stuck, as while I know many of you have read the story, I’m sure there still are several of you who haven’t, and by telling you anything more in any kind of detail, I’m going to end up telling you the entire story.

   There is no way I’m going to do that. Robert Heinlein did it a whole lot better back in 1959, and it’s still the best time travel story that I’ve ever read. It takes the fellow from the bar through a well charted trip across time and space and (in fact) his entire life It’s clean and smooth, and I can’t find a single flaw in it. What more can I tell you?

   I don’t rate many stories 10 stars out of 10, but this one deserves it.

PIERS ANTHONY & ROBERT E. MARGROFF – The Ring. Ace A-19, paperback original; 1st printing, 1968. Published as part of the Ace SF Special series. Cover art by Diane Dillon and Leo Dillon. Tor, paperback, 1986.

   A flawed Utopia, with a machine acting as conscience and punishment for wrong-doers; crime is rampant on Earth, although need is theoretically abolished – indeed crime is licensed through Vicinc, and inflation takes its usual toll from the average man. High-minded theory vs. ugly reality.

   This is the world Jeff returns to from the stars, with dreams of revenge against his father’s former business partner who was the cause if his father’s exile from Earth. But Jeff is caught before he can carry out his plans, tried, convicted, and sentenced to be ringed.

   The ring is an instrument of the Ultra Conscience, painfully enforcing firm ethical standards, But there are degrees if honesty, and the ring can be bio substitute fir human judgment: the concept of self-defense is not recognized, making the ringer the target for universal criminal attack. How can a truly ethical system be formalized as law? Is the ring the only answer? The ring can be effective with the proper programming. But who does the programming?

   Meanwhile, Jeff struggles within the restrictions of the ring to avenge his father, but he discovers he does not know the whole truth. Exciting, suspenseful writing. With imagination providing for a future society which is easily extrapolated from our own. Since the characters are easily translated to those of Tennyson, it is no wonder they interest the reader so deeply.

Rating: *****

E. C. TUBB – The Space-Born. Ace Double D-193, paperback original; 1st printing, December 1956. Cover art by Ed Valigursky. Published back to back with The Man Who Japed, by Philip K. Dick (reviewed here). Equinox/Avon (SF Rediscovery, softcover, 1976.

   One page is enough to fill in the background of a ship heading for the stars, containing 5000 people living out their lives within its confines, making a 32 light-year journey in something over 300 years. But in spite of the obvious closeness to journey’s end, Tubb manages to breathe some life into the characters, unaware of the crisis coming upon them.

   The task of the ship’s Psycho-Police is to maintain the population at a constant level, with murder as the method at hand. Forty is the maximum age allowed. But positions of power lead to violations of that rule, as the instinct for survival bred into the ship’s inhabitants leads to restlessness, then corruption.

   But the journey is ending; warnings to that effect are readily apparent to the reader. Thank goodness the builders of the ship were so prophetically wise in preparing for all contingencies.

   A book easily forgotten, but one to get caught up on for a short while.

Rating: ***½

PHILIP K. DICK – The Man Who Japed. Ace Double D-193, paperback original; 1st printing, December 1956. Cover art by Ed Emshwiller. Published back to back with The Space-Born, by E, C. Tubb. Reprinted several times.

   The society of the future that Dick pictures in The Man Who Japed is often depressing, a world where life is simple, yet complicated, and out of touch with the common man, who doesn’t really seem to realize it.

   There is a lack of individuality, and incapability for making decisions, that permeates their lives. And it may very well happen that in the days following the next war, a program such as Moral Reclamation will come to power: sole power.

   With morality in the hands of the state, neighbors pry on neighbors, and attend weekly block meetings to hear the lurid details of friends having gone astray. Purcell’s agency is one of several that prepare packets for Telemedia, which has control of all communications industries.

   As guardian of the public’s morality and ethics, the position of Director of T-M is of considerable importance, but when Purcell is offered the position, he does not what is answer should be. For Purcell himself is guilty of immoral behavior which he cannot control, of pranks violating the statue of Morec’s founder, of japing Morec itself.

   A society without a sense of humor can be toppled by a man who does. And this one is, or at least the foundation of moral righteousness, is weakened by the program aired by Purcell before he can be ousted from the position he decides to accept.

   Dick’s plots require involvement on the part of the reader; as a master stroke of genius, Dick provides for that involvement himself with the inner excitement of the stories themselves. This is one well worth reprinting, with a promise of the future resting in the hands of youth, questioning the present.

Rating: *****

CLIFFORD D. SIMAK “Huddling Place.” First appeared in Astounding SF, July 1944. Collected in City (Gnome Press, hardcover, 1952) and in Skirmish: The Great Short Fiction of Clifford D.Simak (Putnam’s, hardcover, 1977; Berkley, paperback, 1978). Reprinted in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, edited by Robert Silverberg (Doubleday, hardcover, 1970), among others.

   Modern readers of SF and fantasy won’t remember Clifford Simak all that well, or even at all, but in his time, he was one of the lesser giants of the field. In my case, he was always one of my favorites, right up there with Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. Other authors came and went, but the stories of Mr. Simak have always stayed with me.

   A lot of fans and critics have described his work as “pastoral,” and so it was, and it still is. It is so true that Simak himself uses the word to talk about his work at least twice in the foreword to his collection Skirmish (1977), of which “Huddling Place” is the lead story. (Don’t make too much about this statement: the stories are arranged in chronological order.)

   But for example, the opening scene takes place in one of the most physically detailed settings for a funeral I can remember reader. It is of Jerome A. Webster’s father, who has recently died, leaving only Jerome, of a certain age himself, his son Thomas, now in his 20s, and his mother. These are the only remaining members of the Webster family, attended to only my robots, having moved a number of  years ago from the city to this country estate where they now live.

   And from which Jerome has come to realize he cannot leave. There is no need to. The story was written long before the Internet came along, but the equivalent exists when the tale takes place, and there is no need for him to leave. Not even to perform a life-saving operation on an old friend from Mars, which is where he lived for five years in his younger days.

   He tries, and he is ready to, but as chance would have it, in a sad ending well worth waiting for, he cannot. And he probably won’t. Ever. Leave.

   Interpretations I will leave for you. What I will say that this is a beautiful story, well deserving of its SF Hall of Fame status. Science fiction was growing up when this was published.

ROBERT SHECKLEY – The Status Civilization. Dell 8249; paperback; 1st printing thus, October 1968; cover art by Podwil. Published earlier as a two-part serial in Amazing SF. Aug-Sept 1960 as “Omega!.” First book publication: Signet S1840, paperback, September 1960.

   A standard plot: The static society of Earth is redeemed by the fresh enthusiasm of criminals escaping from the prison planet Omega. Will Barrent is a convicted murderer, sentenced to Omega, who survives the rigors of life there to be contacted by an inner group dedicated to return to Earth. But before the welcome return can take place, the subconscious hypnotic teaching of Earth’s classic school must be overcome.

   By itself, society on Omega is  self-destructive: laws are designed to keep population down, with murder the most prevalent method; the ideal citizen is the one who breaks laws successfully. This is what Earth, stifled by conformity, needs to continue man’s expansion to the stars.

   Memory is removed before sending a criminal to Omega, but evil still seems inherent in the criminal class as previously mentioned. It would seem that the question of evil by heredity or by environment could be investigated under such conditions, but Sheckley’s emphasis is on the law as it exists, independent of those who administer it or live under it, Yet laws of man would have to be less important than the basic laws of nature.

   The writing is mediocre, again especially in comparison to an author such as [John D.] MacDonald. The dialogue is occasionally  stiff and old-fashioned, while the action is rapid, taking place in flashing scenes, without really pausing to reflect on its consequences.

   Thus in many ways, Sheckley’s writing here is like that of an author from the thirties trying to pass for modern. The theme is up-to-date, however, which probably explains why this story hes been resurrected from oblivion.

Rating: **

WORLDS OF FANTASY #1, 1968. Editor: Lester del Rey, Cover art by Jack Gaughan. Overall rating: ***½.

JOHN JAKES “Mirror of Wizardry.” Brak the Barbarian. Novelette. Brak the Barbarian is of course based on Conan, but that doesn’t make his adventures any less enjoyable. This time Brak’s escape through the mountains is hindered by a wizard hunting the girl he has befriended. (4)

BILL WARREN “Death in a Lonely Place.” A vampire who preys on prostitutes shows that he has a heart. (4)

ROBERT SILVERBERG “As Is.” Novelette. A computer salesman buys a car with a mysteriously sealed trunk. Easy to read, but not believable, with a miserable ending. (3)

MACK REYNOLDS “What the Vintners Buy.” Trust Reynolds to put a lecture on hallucinations into a fantasy. (2)

LIN CARTER & L. SPRAGUE de CAMP “Conan and the Cenotaph.” Novelette. According to [Webster], a cenotaph is a monument for someone whose body is buried elsewhere. The one Conan is lured to is magnetic, and the home of a slime-monster. (4)

PARIS FLAMMONDE “After Armageddon.” Suppose the last man in the world had happened to have found the Fountain of Youth. (3)

ROBERT HOSKINS “The Man Who Liked.” Before the bombs fell, Death was a happy person. (1)

ROBERT E. HOWARD “Delenda Est…” Hannibal’s ghost comes to life to help a barbarian’s attack on Rome. Obsessed with historical background. (2)

ROBERT LORY “However.” Novelette. Hamper the However’s trip from Balik to Overnon by way of [grath (?)] is hampered by his lack of magical powers, However, if people believe that one has these powers, what difference can it make? (3)

ANALOG SF – October 1967. Edited by John W. Campbell. Covert art by John Schoenherr. Overall rating: **½

ANNE McCAFFREY “Weyr Search,” [Dragonriders of Pern] Short novel. Reviewed separately here.

TOM PURDOM “Toys.” A good idea, the effects of advanced toys on children, is completely wasted. Two policemen save hostages from kids holding them prisoner. Action, action, unreadable action. (0)

CARROLL M. CAPPS “The Judas Bug.” Novelette. A sense of paranoia pays off, as a member of Phase Two of the Expedition begins to suspect that the leaders of the original party are plotting against him. Is the author C. C. MacApp? (3)     [Answer: Yes.]

W. MACFARLANE “Free Vacation.” In a society run by consensus, dissenters are given the choice of rehabilitation or space exploration. The author has little sense of either description or dialogue. (1)

J. T. McINTOSH “Pontius Pirates.” Novelette. Pontius Pirates are cautious, looking both ways trying to be in the clear whatever happens. But IP agent Jack Sheridan’s suspicions of the girl who picks him up in a bar on the planet Molle tell him someone there has something to hide,. Amazing by-play that does not develop into anything serious. (3)

FRED SABERHAGEN – The Broken Lands. Ace G-740. Paperback original, 1st printing, 1968. Cover art: Richard Powers. Baen Books, paperback, 1987. Collected in The Empire of the East (Baen, paperback, 1990; Tor, trade paperback, 2003).

   The are very few good examples of effective combinations of science fiction with swords-and-sorcery. This may be the best so far, better to my mind than anything by Andre Norton, for example. Since a sequel is definitely required, Saberhagen may have more in preparation, very good news indeed.

   Some large indefinite time in the Earth’s future, magic and sorcery have replaced science and technology in the scheme of things. Magic works, while science is regarded with superstitious awe. But the old things do work, and a nuclear-powered tank found buried under a mountain comes to life to help fulfill a myth, as an evil satrap is overthrown by the outlaw Free Folk.

   Try to imagine a Barbarian learning the operation of that tank, succeeding by trial and error. The fascination is so great that it truly comes as a disappointment when he is captured and the secret of tank’s existence is lost.

   Humor is present, too, as when instructions for a magic stone allowing its holder to escape go unread because of the very active requirements of doing so, ’Tis a very deep stone, too, to be able to determine which side of a barrier leads to the “outside” or to the “inside” …

   Not to be put down easily.

Rating: *****