ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE October 1967. [Special international issue.] Overall rating: **½.

MICHAEL GILBERT “The Terrorists.” Behrens & Calder. Novelette. First published in Argosy (UK) April 1967, as “Double, Double.” A plot to assassinate an Arabian ruler in London fails, thanks to the work of Behrens and Calder. (3)

JOHN D. MacDONALD “No Business for an Amateur.” Novelette. First published in Dime Detective, February 1947 as “Dead to the World.” Roadhouse protection racket, told in pulp style so strong you can smell the yellow pages. One great line, on page 36. (3)

HEINRICH BOLL “Like a Bad Dream.” First published in Harper’s Magazine, October 1965. Translated by Leila Vennewitz. A wife has to show her husband how to have an excavation bid accepted. Distinctly German. (5)

NOEL BOSKER “Best Laid Schemes.” A murder plan is ruined when someone beats him to it. (3)

JUNICHIRO TANIZAKI “The Thief.” First appeared in Seven Japanese Tales by Junichiro Tanizaki, Knopf, hardcover, 1963. The story of a highly moral thief’s college days. (4)

ALBERTO MORAVIA “Only the Death of a Man.” First appeared in The Atlantic Monthly December 1958, as “The Secret.” Translated by Helene Cantarella. Hit-and-run bothers a truck driver’s conscience, but not his girl friend’s. (2)

LEO TOLSTOY “The Man of God.” Reprint. Comparatively clumsy treatment of a man wrongly sentenced to Siberia. (3)

JOSEF SKVORECKY “The Classic Sererak Case.” First appeared in Smutek Porucika Boruvky, Prague, 1966. Young sergeant’s efforts to show suicide was murder are unnecessary: Lieutenant Vorovka needs to ask only two questions. The humor depends on an obvious situation, except for clue withheld until the end. (3)

HERNANDO TELLEZ “Enemy in His Hands” First appeared in Great Spanish Tales, Dell, 1962, as “Just Lather, That’s All. ” Translated by Donald A. Yates. A barber has an enemy captain in his chair. (3)

GEORGES SIMENON “Inspector Maigret Pursues.” First appeared in English in Argosy (UK) January 1962, as “The Man on the Run.” Maigret spends five days following man who does not dare go home. Ending misfires. (3)

M. PATRICIA DOBLE “The Quest Gest.” The ghost of Shakespeare returns. Pointless? (1)

JAMES POWELL “The Beddoes Scheme.” Acting Sergeant Maynard Bullock. Novelette. An advertising campaign on the behalf of peace and brotherhood. Wild, gets wilder, then stupid, finally boring. (0)

LAWRENCE TREAT “C As in Crime.” Mitch Taylor & Bill Decker. Mitch Taylor thinks he has solved a murder case, but he doesn’t have it quite right. Last line doesn’t make sense. (3)

ANDREW GARVE “Line of Communication.” A kite is used by a boy to escape from kidnappers. Nothing more. (3)

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: **

JOHN D. MacDONALD – A Flash of Green. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1962. Crest, paperback, date? Reprinted many times. Film: International Spectrafilm, 1984, with Ed Harris, Blair Brown, Richard Jordan.

   What might easily only be a story about the expanding universe of Elmo Bliss very quickly becomes a study of reporter Jimmy Wing, who is offered an inside position in Elmo’s organization, geared to eventually be put him in the governor’s chair. Jimmy accepts, with his usual rationalized reservations. His job, to uncover the facts necessary for blackmail; the rationalizations being someone else would do it, somebody not quite so kind. And being on the inside has its own attractions. But once he rationalizes, the decision has been made.

   Blackmail is considered necessary to defeat the birdwatchers opposed to filling in Grassy Bay for commercial purposes. The beginning grabs, the warnings are there, you know it’s going to be a nasty fight. Elmo has his own simplified views of man’s place in nature, of the abstraction of art and beauty, of man-devised tourist attractions as opposed to nature’s own. But in today’s pragmatic world, his views are those which are applied to the Florida of the green dollar. Which is not to pick on Florida, of course.

   And the bay is filled in, with the aid of the pure in heart: the businessman with an eye to the community good, the anti-Communists who pave the way for the efficient action of free enterprise, and the zealous religionists who tie and beat those who do not confirm.

   It is nasty, but not until the beating of Jackie Halliday will Jimmy have enough. His exposure of Elmo’s plans stop future ambitions for the governorship, but this does not seem enough to pay for only the physical damage done, and it is difficult to believe that life in Palm City can go on as before. But on the surface it seems to …

   Lots of characters, fully realized, in depth, but almost too many to keep track of. Wives of businessmen tend to blur into identical sameness, as do the less important of their husbands. But MacDonald manages well, brings life to minor characters as few authors can, and has a point will worth making. Down with ugliness!

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: *****

ELLERY QUEEN – The Quick and the Dead. Ellery Queen #17. Pocket, paperback, later printing. Originally published as There Was an Old Woman (Little Brown, hardcover, 1943). First reprinted under this original title as Pocket Book #326, paperback, 1945. Reprinted several times since.

   It seems senseless to have changed the title,as the original one fits so much better. Remember “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe” from Mother Goose? That verse is the basic theme; Ellery Queen picks it up early, to his later confusion.

   Cornelia Potts, president of the Potts shoe business, lives with her six children and second husband, all in one house, which is the site of numerous hatreds, jealousies, and various eccentricities. Three murders, including a surrealistic duel at dawn, and one natural death later, Ellery’s deductions disrupt a weeding bring him a new secretary named “Nikki Porter.”

   We have many exaggerated character studies: Thurlow, the feeble-minded nitwit; Louella, the slave and science and invention; and Horatio, who lives in a continued childhood. It is easy to suspect that the name Potts is merely a lively excuse to call the whole family potty.

   What may or may not be a flaw is the failure of Inspector Queen to read the old lady’s will immediately after her death. While rationalized, it does lead to the clue which gives Ellery the answer, or rather, the proof of his accusation. Details fit together beautifully.

   But are duels really legal? Even those supposedly rigged to be harmless (with Inspector Queen spying on)?

Rating: *****

IF SCIENCE FICTION – September 1967. Editor: Frederik Pohl. Cover artist: Gray Morrow. Overall rating: ***

C. C. MacAPP “The Fortunes of Peace.” Novelette. Forced to make a deal with Kyshan pirates, “Taintless” Wend manages to doublecross them while trapped in orbit about a dead dwarf star. (3)

ROBERT SILVERBERG “Bride Ninety-One.” A tale of interworld marriage, between a Terran and a Suvornese, with insight into marriage customs or mores. (5)

PERRY A. CHAPDELAINE “To Serve the Masters.” First story; novelette. The Masters have a sensory organ which allows them to feel emotions and thus has enabled them to dominate all other life forms in their part of the galaxy. Humans are bred for generation to give them specialized intelligence. Such a specialist in genetics is given the task of improving the Masters’ race, but his solution forces them to begin the path of evolution from the beginning again. The genetics goes over my head and tends to make the story drier than it should have been. (3)

J. G. BALLARD “Venus Smiles.” Novelette. A sonic metal statue begins to grow and has to be dismembered as scrap, with disastrous results. I resent Ballard’s references to “twanging sitars” and “hack classics.”  (2)

PHILIP JOSE FARMER “A Bowl Bigger Than Earth.” Novelette. Farmer’s view of Hell: regimented life in brass houses in sexless bodies. Not to be confused with his Riverworld series, (2)

JAMES BLISH “Faust Aleph-Null.” Serial, part 2 of 3. To be reviewed when all three parts have been read.

HARL VINCENT “Invader.” Novelette. An engineer gets an impulse to help a strange girl in distress, and in actuality helps a princess’s mind trapped on Earth to return to Tau Ceti. Planet Stories brought up to date, almost. (2)

STARTLING MYSTERY STORIES, Summer 1968. Editor: Robert A. W. Lowndes. Cover art by Virgil Finlay. Overall rating: *½.

COL. S. P. MEEK “The Black Mass.” Originally published in Strange Tales, November 1931. The monastery of St. Sebastian is attacked by Asmodeus, the master of a c oven celebrating the Black Mass. Is not made believable. (1)

EARL PEIRCE, JR. “The Last Archer.” Novelet. First published in Weird Tales, March 1937. A hated Crusader Knight, put under a curse by a dying Saracen, is condemned to die only at the hands of the world’s greatest archer. An electronics expert is brought to his deserted island castle to help him killing himself as his mirror image. Effectively weird, in spite of diary format. (3)

JAY TYLER “The Sight of Roses.” Lester Morrow thinks he has contacted the Devil in his efforts to have his unfaithful wife done away with, but his perfect plan works too well. Uneven writing, some good, most terrible. (1)

FERDINAND BERTHOUD “Webbed Hands.” Originally published in Strange Tales, November 1931. A South African uses a monstrously deformed assistant to kill female relatives for insurance money. The author uses clumsy inverted sentence structure as he generally displays ignorance of the English language. (0)

PAUL ERNST “Hollywood Horror.” Dr. Satan #3. Novelet. Originally published in Weird Tales, October 1935. Dr Satan invents a ray that makes flesh invisible and uses it to threaten the motion picture industry, Not very scientific to be sure, but fun reading. (2)

TED WHITE – The Spawn of the Death Machine. Paperback Library 63-680; paperback original; 1st printing, July 1968.  Jeff Jones cover art. Warner Books, paperback, April 1974.

   Sometime after Chaos, the computer-complex know as the Death Machine sends Tanner out into the world to report on the state of humanity. Tanner is superficially human, but he has non-human superpowers that at times isolate him from the humans he finds. Some are savage barbarians, others are pioneer frontiersman, but the group he and the girl Rifka finally find have developed empathetic powers and seem to be the future of the race.

   Tanner’s memories of the pre-Chaos past haunt him and contribute to his worries about his quasi-human condition. That he is human is proven by the birth of his son, but he must learn to live with his discovery that it was he who helped decide that destruction must precede rebirth for the human race.

   The violent story of an outsider, realistic in treatment of both violence and sex, equated with humanity. Very easy to read, but also lacking in depth, and no deep conclusions result.

   Nero Wolfe is a popular character, The Mayor of New Mercer, later brutally killed by Tanner, has the same physical characteristics and habits (page 93). And what becomes of the town after his death? Tanner passes through, destroys, and goes on.

Rating: ***