Sun 21 Aug 2022
Diary Review: IF SCIENCE FICTION, March 1967.
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Magazines , Science Fiction & Fantasy[4] Comments
IF SCIENCE FICTION, March 1967. Editor: Frederik Pohl. “Special Hugo Winners Issue.” Cover: McKenna. Overall rating: ***
ISAAC ASIMOV “The Billiard Ball.” Novelette. A conflict between a theoretical physicist and a technician over the possibility of ant-gravity leads to the death of one. The Master has not lost his touch. (5)
HARLAN ELLISON “I Have No Mouth and I must Scream.” Four men and a woman, the last human survivors, are trapped within the underground vaults of a computer. (4)
ROGER ZELAZNY “The Mortal Mountain.” Novelette. A mountain forty miles high challenges the best climbing team in the business. Complications arise when “energy beings” threaten their ascent. Too much of an adventure story only, but is SF. Symbolism, climbing to stars? (3)
JOSEPH WESLEY “Moonshine.” A marine orderly on the moon brews his own. Story has been told many times before. (1)
LARRY NIVEN “Flatlander.” Novelette. Beowulf Schaeffer and perhaps the richest man on Earth look for adventure on the mysterious planet of a protosun. All the clues to its true nature are provided. Well done, except that the details of the previous series parts are beginning to bore. (4)
ROSCOE WRIGHT “The Sepia Springs Affair.” A strange bunch of aliens write letters to Pohl. I’d rather read the [real] letter column. (0)
ALGIS BUDRYS “The Iron Thorn.” Serial; part 3 of 4. See report following final installment.
BETSY CURTIS “Latter-Day Daniel.” A man with one arm feeds synthetic ones to lion. (1)
August 22nd, 2022 at 2:39 pm
They don’t make lineups like they used to!
Really enjoyed The Billiard Ball.
August 22nd, 2022 at 7:52 pm
The Ellison, Zelazny, and Budrys are all classics and often reprinted so a pretty good issue.
August 22nd, 2022 at 8:53 pm
Mike and David
Yes, looking backward from now to then, this was really an all-star issue. Fred Pohl really did a great job with both this magazine and GALAXY from the same publisher. I remember liking IF better than GALAXY. Just a little more “fun” to read, but I can’t seem to quantify it any better than that.
I wonder what readers will think of the current crop of SF magazines 50 years from now? Even with a few clunkers among them, the stories in this one will be hard to beat. They were written to last.
September 3rd, 2022 at 10:51 am
That was pretty much the consensus on IF in the latter ’60s…the most-fun magazine in the field, hence the three Hugos in a row, and more than a little challenging thus to the ossified notions of a Big Three magazines in the fantastic field (which was always more than a little stupid, but go fight the world). (Three is a magic number, after all.)
WORLDS OF TOMORROW wasn’t too shabby, either, and INTERNATIONAL SF had some interesting work in it. Pohl was an impressive editor even as a kid, but really hit his stride in the ’50s and did as well with the GALAXY group as circumstances would allow, for the most part. (Lester Del Rey got to edit the few issues of the original WORLDS OF FANTASY, and Ejler Jakobssen did his not-bad best with the four magazines he was suddenly editing, but suffered in comparison.)