Birthday Review: Stories of Alan E. Nourse

Alan E. Nourse was a really important writer to me early in my SF reading. I read a number of his YA novels when I first encountered SF, such as The Bladerunner and, most memorably to me, The Universe Between. It was a pleasant surprise to me, decades later, to encounter "High Threshold" in a 1951 issue of Astounding, and realize that this was the novelette from which The Universe Between grew. (It's a cool story of entering another dimension with a different geometry -- it truly wowed me at age 12.) He would have been 91 today, and in his memory here's a (fairly random) selection of my thoughts about his short fiction from some 1950s SF magazines.

Astounding, February 1953

Alan E. Nourse's "Nightmare Brother" (9300 words) is about a man subjected to tortures -- simulated via electrodes in his brain. It seems he must be able to resist any level of torture to survive in deep space. I wasn't convinced.

Space Science Fiction, July 1953

The novelette this time around is "Infinite Intruder" by Alan E. Nourse (9500 words). Roger Strang is working on a project to build a barrier protecting the US from further nuclear attacks (New York has already been destroyed) by the Eurasian Combine. He finds his young son being attacked -- at first as if by accident, but then more directly -- but his son miraculously survives even point blank shots. Strang's investigations lead him to strange discoveries -- he himself has no past, and his best friends and wife seem implicated in the attacks on his son. Then he learns that he is from the future, and all this is a desperate attempt to change the past -- for the evil Dictator in the future is named Farrol Strang. But the past cannot be changed. Maybe, though, if they return forward in time the future (present) can be altered! I thought the story no better than OK.

If, June 1954

Alan E. Nourse's "The Link" (5800 words) is another far future story. Humanity has divided into two groups, a pacifistic group that has learned to live together and create great communal music, and a warlike group that has chased the pacifists from planet to planet over millennia. The Hunters are back again, and one couple from the good guys volunteers to stop running away, but to greet the Hunters and try to reform them. An OK theme, but the story doesn't quite sell it.

Orbit, July-August 1954

"My Friend Bobby", by Alan E. Nourse (3800 words) -- maybe the best story here, about a young boy with telepathic powers, who loves his dog (with whom he can communicate), but who is feared by his mother -- leading to a tragic ending. Nothing special, but solid work.

Galaxy, January 1956

"Brightside Crossing" might be Alan E. Nourse's best story. It's a solid if scientifically obsolete story about trying to cross the Brightside of Mercury (of course, as Larry Niven and the rest of us found out some 45  years ago, there is no "Brightside" of Mercury) -- told by the lone survivor of an earlier attempt to cross the Brightside to a man who wants to try again. The survivor's tale, fairly convincingly from a 1955 point of view, tells of the dangers of the attempt, and the heroic efforts to make it, ending as we know from the start, in failure and an ignominious return. The last line is really neat.

If, October 1957

"RX" by Alan E. Nourse posits a galactic community in which Earth's contribution is medical services. A team of a doctor and a surgeon respond to an emergency summons to a planet which has so far refused to sign a contract with Earth. The planet's ruler is dying, and the witch-doctorish methods of the locals aren't working. Their ethics require them to try to treat him, even though they risk death if they fail. The eventual solution is a bit trivial -- somewhat on purpose -- rather a minor bit of work, I thought.

Birthday Review: Stories of David R. Bunch

Today would have been David R. Bunch's 94th birthday. He was probably the most original writer of Cele Goldsmith’s tenure at Amazing/Fantastic. He has recently been brought back to print by of all organizations The New York Review of Books, via their NYRB Press imprint, with Moderan, a collection of his stories about the half-robots/half-men of Moderan. Bunch (1925-2000) was a Missourian, a graduate of Central Missouri State (where my son got his degree) and of Washington University in St. Louis. He also attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He lived in St. Louis most of his life (though I never met him). He was a controversial figure to Amazing’s readers – the letter columns I’ve read featured plenty of screeds against him. But I find his short, very satirical, pieces continually intriguing, if at times a bit difficult.

Amazing, November 1959

David R. Bunch's “The Flesh-Man from Far Wide” is one of the earlier Moderan stories, and it probably serves as a decent introduction. The narrator, a typical psychotic man of Moderan, gets a visitor, who seems possibly to have no robotic “replacements” – no metal parts. And he has other strange ideas, about happiness – he wants to find Moderan’s Happiness Machine. But what do those of Moderan need with happiness?

Fantastic, December 1959

And Bunch’s “Was She Horrid?” is one of his first stories. He’s an author much associated with Goldsmith, though his first two pieces were in If, in 1957 and 1959. His first story for Goldsmith was in the November 1959 Amazing, followed by this one, a Moderan story, about a half-metal man visited by his daughter, ever suspicious that it’s all a plot by his wife in what seems an unending war.

Strange stuff, the essence of Bunch already from the beginning.

Amazing, July 1960

“Penance Day in Moderan”, one of Bunch's earlier Moderan stories, is one of the best, I think. It is told by a vain cyborg, on Penance day, when all the citizens of Moderan march out to shed fake tears. The narrator boasts of his accomplishments, and of what he will do when next they war against each other. It’s quite funny, and quite pointed.

Fantastic, June 1962

David Bunch's "Ended" is longer than most of Bunch's stories, but otherwise wholly characteristic. If you like Bunch -- and for my money he's such an original he demands reading, even though he's neither a comfortable read nor a consistently satisfying read -- you'll find this worthwhile. If not, not.

Fantastic, February 1964

The other is David R. Bunch, the wildly strange writer the great bulk of whose work was very short stories for Goldsmith. “They Never Came Back from Whoosh!” is a satire on commercialism and conformity, about a place said to be wonderful that everyone must visit but no one returns from. It’s one of Bunch’s better pieces I think.

Amazing, August 1964

David Bunch's "The Failure" is a Bunch story, more inscrutable than many, about a forlorn quest for the Final Truth.

Amazing, September 1964

About the Bunch ("A Vision of the King") once again I have nothing much to say -- it's fairly inscrutable as usual.

And, finally, I figured Darryl R. Groupe had to be a pseudonym, and it is, a fairly obvious one for David R. Bunch. Nobody would have been fooled for a second no matter what name was used: "2064, or Thereabouts", is a clearly a Bunch story, about people who are mostly metal, and paranoid, and one who lets an artist into his stronghold. Weird as one expects.

Fantastic, October 1964

Bunch’s “Home to Zero” is not a Moderan story, but it’s certainly a Bunch story, taking on a rather cosmic subject in inimitable Bunch fashion. No point explaining it – it simply needs to be read.

Fantastic, January 1965

David R. Bunch offers “Make Mine Trees” (1,200 words), very strange horror about a man whose wife left him for another man (a Spanish dancer) and who is raising his son alone while working on a formula to save the world. What the formula really does is slowly revealed… pretty effective.

(Cover by Gray Morrow)

Amazing, June 1965

From June, the cover story, David Bunch’s "The Walking, Talking, I-Don’t-Care Man", is a pure Bunch Moderan story, with the narrator, ruling his personal castle, encountering a man/robot who just keeps walking, and refuses to stop, even as his path leads him right through the narrator’s property. It works pretty well, really, in a somewhat talky way.

Fantastic, June 1965

Finally, the inimitable David R. Bunch’s very brief “The Little Doors” is, well, pure Bunch, hard to describe, but pretty effective. It’s about a sort of performance, with weirdly named “creatures” showing up and… well, no point in description. Needs to be read. It’s worth the 600 words.

[It's interesting that Bunch appeared in the last issue of both Amazing and Fantastic to be published by Ziff-Davis and edited by Cele Goldsmith Lalli. One suspects she was rushing to get him published before Sol Cohen took over -- and that the cover honor on the last issue of Amazing was a special nod to him, and perhaps an implied rebuke to the new publisher.]

Eternity, 1979

David R. Bunch's "Through a Wall and Back" is impenetrable -- he's always on the thin edge of simply being irritating, and he goes over the edge here.

Birthday Review: Song of Time, by Ian R. MacLeod

Song of Time by Ian R. MacLeod (PS Publishing, 978-1-59780-094-5, $14.95, tpb, 253 pages) October 2008.

A review by Rich Horton

Ian R. MacLeod is one of the supreme SF writers of recent years, especially at novelette and novella length, and so it is something of a disappointment that his novels seem to have struggled to find an audience. His newest work is so far only out in the U. K. from the excellent but definitely small outfit PS Publishing. Yet in considering this book I am inclined to understand its failure (so far!) to attract a trade publisher. Song of Time is not a high concept book. Indeed it is difficult to capture it with a single thematic statement. (His two Ace novels, on the other hand, were distinctly about the magical substance aether and the ways in which its use paralleled the Industrial Revolution.) Thus it is, I imagine, a bit harder to “sell” the book. And I must also add that while that is not always a shortcoming, in the present case I think it is rather. About which more later. I must also add that it did win the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best SF Novel of 2008, and also the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.

Song of Time opens with an aging woman rescuing a drowning man from the ocean off her Cornish house. The man, whom she calls Adam, is a mysterious figure – he has no memory of himself, but he knows – or learns quickly – a great many things, some of which are quite unexpected. He is also a remarkably quick healer, and otherwise unusually constructed. Thus a puzzle is established – but really the book is not about this puzzle (though in the end it is solved, quite satisfactorily).

Instead, ostensibly as both a potential prod to Adam’s memories, and as part of a project she is undertaking before dying – or rather before “passing” to a virtual existence – the protagonist, Roushana Maitland, tells her life story to Adam. (And, in a sense, to herself.) And this is the subject of Song of Time – the life story of a woman of the 21st Century, and thus the story of that Century. And both her story and the century’s story are quite tumultuous. Her mother was born in England to Indian parents, her father is more conventionally “Anglo-Saxon”. Her beloved older brother inherits the English looks, and he is also a brilliant musical talent. But somehow his tragic early death unleashes hitherto unrevealed talent in the more Indian-looking Roushana, and she goes on to become a brilliant concert violinist. She marries one of the greatest conductors of the day, and they have a stormy but mostly loving marriage, two kids, and, too, plenty of tragedy.

The historical background is likewise eventful. We are treated to a variety of disasters – nuclear war, a supervolcano, political upheaval. Roushana’s husband is a black American who is heavily involved in French politics when they meet. Roushana’s mother becomes a central activist for the Indian poor. Roushana herself is more of a homebody in spirit – but her life gives us glimpses of ravaged India and American, and radically altered England. And her approaching death gives us glimpses of a strange future in which the dead live on in virtual space.

All of this is nicely done, but none of it is spectacular. In a way this is an unfair complaint – the imagined 21st Century is a mix of a number of not entirely new speculations – but isn’t this really in its way plausible? Yes it is, but somehow while the future we see is interesting it isn’t quite involving, or really terribly thought-provoking. For different reasons Roushana’s life, which is really the center of the novel, while it too holds the interest, doesn’t end up absorbing. I think in part the problem is one of cliché – her brilliant career just doesn’t convince, seems too easy, too old hat. The same with her stormy marriage – the sexy husband (and the great sex) plus the infidelities and the final tragedy are interesting but, alas, just that bit too melodramatic. And finally Adam’s story, only hinted at, is also interesting but too much of a side issue, and too lightly sketched in, to fully work.

Despite the caveats, I enjoyed Song of Time. It’s never boring, and it’s very nicely written. But it is, I think, in the final analysis a minor work.

Birthday Review: Stories of Paolo Bacigalupi

Today is the birthday of Paolo Bacigalupi, a very interesting writer of pretty hard SF, one of the most environmentally committed of our writers. Here's a look at my Locus reviews of his short fiction.

Locus, February 2004

I was very excited by two stories from newer writers in the February F&SF. Paolo Bacigalupi has already drawn attention with stories like last year's "The Fluted Girl". He is also showing considerable range -- each story I've seen has been different from the others. I think "The People of Sand and Slag" is his best so far. It's about a threesome of miners in the near future, and their encounter with a dog (thought to be extinct) in the environmentally devastated area about their mine. Stated so the story seems quite conventional, but Bacigalupi slowly springs some surprises, which I won't spoil -- but the effect is impressive.

Locus, October 2005

Paolo Bacigalupi remains one of the most consistently interesting young writers in the field. “The Calorie Man” (F&SF, October-November) is set in a future following a disastrous famine, which resulted in food production dominated by genetically modified new crops controlled by large corporations. This biotech dominated future is strange in other ways – “calories” are central to all energy, as fossil fuels have been replaced by kinetic energy generated by genetically engineered “mulies”. The hero travels up the Mississippi to Iowa to track down a man the agribusiness companies are very interested in, for all the obvious reasons. It’s a fun and thought-provoking story, though I confess one of the thoughts it provoked in me was that while corporate (and governmental) behavior is often scandalous, I wasn’t convinced that it would reach quite the murderous heights implied herein.

Locus, October 2006

Paolo Bacigalupi returns to the future of his celebrated story “The Calorie Man” with “Yellow Card Man” (Asimov's, December), about a once successful businessman, a Chinese man in Malaya, who has been expelled to Thailand, where he must grub daily for scraps of work. His feelings of degradation are sharpened by his interaction with a now more successful younger man, a man he had fired for fraud in his earlier life. This is a convincingly dark story, with redemption of a sort on offer but not easy for a fallen man to grasp.

Bacigalupi is also on hand in the October/November F&SF, with “Pop Squad”, a strong story about a man whose job is to eliminate illegal babies born to women who have foregone immortality treatments (which also cause sterility). The story is effective in depicting a future of unchanging immortals, but the emotional impact is blunted by a certain forced feeling to the protagonist’s brutality. I couldn’t believe society would accept this – I thought the author created this brutality to shock the reader. And, it must be said, the whole situation felt dated. In the end, a good story that I enjoyed reading, but not great.

Locus, May 2007

Paolo Bacigalupi’s “The Tamarisk Hunter” (F&SF, May) is an effective and bitter look at water conflicts in the future, when California is more or less bleeding the mountain states dry, and the few who remain there eke out a living by such stratagems as accepting bounties for eradicating the stubborn, water-wasting, tamarisks.

Review of Fast Forward 2 (Locus, November 2008)

Paolo Bacigalupi is a must-read writer, and his new novelette “The Gambler” closes this book quite well. A young man from Laos escaped his country’s political upheavals and came as a boy to the US. Now he is a journalist, quixotically going after knotty political stories in a culture obsessed with celebrity. Under pressure to up his ratings, he agrees to interview another Laotian refugee, a young woman who has become an international pop star. She’s not quite the shallow person he expects, but she’s still much more of the culture than he is, and he finds himself forced to choose between his principles and the honeypot of great ratings and a potential relationship with a beautiful countrywoman. Good stuff, but a bit too moralistically obvious, and not quite as SFnally intriguing as Bacigalupi at his best.

Birthday Review: Time and Again, plus some short fiction, by Clifford D. Simak

Birthday Review: Time and Again, plus some short fiction, by Clifford D. Simak

(Cover by Paul Kresse)

Last year for for Clifford Simak's birthday I posted reviews of a couple of his Ace Doubles, plus the first short story collection in the eventually cancelled Complete Stories edition. So this year, I've scoured my reviews of old magazines for a few more short story reviews, plus his novel Time and Again, which was serialized in the first three issues of Galaxy as "Time Quarry".

Thrilling Wonder Stories, April 1939

The other stories this issue are by Clifford Simak and Ray Cummings. Simak's "Madness from Mars" (6000 words) tells of a Mars expedition that returns with all its members either mad or dead. They also carry a live Martian animal. Is it the cause? Of course -- but Simak being Simak, not out of evil motives. Minor Simak, but not awful.





"Time Quarry", serialized in Galaxy, October, November, and December 1950

(Cover by David Stone)

"Time Quarry" by Clifford Simak was the first novel serialized in Galaxy, appearing in the first three issues (Oct, Nov, Dec 1950). I read it in the serialized version, but it is better known by its 1951 book title, Time and Again. It also had a paperback edition as First He Died.

As the novel opens, Earth tenuously rules a widespread interstellar empire.  Chris Adams of the Justice Bureau meets a strange man who claims to be his successor, from more than a century in the future, and who tells him that Asher Sutton, lost for 20 years, will return in a few days.  And that he must be killed.

The focus shifts to Sutton, on his return from the strange planet 61 Cygni VII. This planet, though very near to Earth, has never been visited before. Sutton has returned after 20 years -- in a ruined ship. Somehow he made it across 11 light years without air, food, or engines.

Sutton immediately finds himself threatened from multiple directions. He is carrying encoded notes for a book he needs to write -- based on what he learned from the entities on 61 Cygni VII.  But some people want to kill him, others want to control what he writes, and the beautiful woman Eva Barbour, and the android Herkimer, seem to just want to help him write his book. He trusts nobody, especially after Herkimer's owner thrusts him into a duel, which Sutton wins basically because of his enhanced body. Soon Sutton is on a chase through both space and time -- eventually going back to 20th Century Wisconsin, and the home of one of his ancestors, a farmer. (See -- it's a Cliff Simak book -- you just know there will be a pastoral interlude, referably in Southwest Wisconsin.) Sutton learns that the future is war torn, riven by fights between those who believe in Sutton's original teachings, and those who follow a distorted revision. He must find a way to write his book so that it cannot be misread.

(Cover by Walter Brooks)

The central message of the book is very well done -- that all life, humans, aliens, and androids, has an individual "destiny" -- thus that all such life has rights. The bad guys want to restrict all rights to humans. This is well put, and the story is exciting, but it's a bit marred by the silly science, and the feeling that Sutton's powers will let him do whatever the plot requires.

Space Science Fiction, September 1952

Clifford Simak's "The Fence" is a nice short story that touches briefly on one of my personal pet tropes, the time viewer, but which is really once again a paranoid sort of piece -- it seems that people in the future live lives of complete leisure -- so who is providing for us? And if so, why? Could we be ... pets?

Galaxy, October 1954

Clifford D. Simak's "Idiot's Crusade" (5200 words) is about a village idiot who is giving superpowers by an alien for some reason. The now intelligent guy begins by taking revenge on those who have treated him worst -- but then he realizes that revenge is empty. He decides to use his powers to force people to be good -- and, creepily, that seems perhaps worse. Pretty good stuff.

Galaxy, November 1954

All three novelettes are fine work. Clifford Simak's "How-2" (14,000 words) is a satirical piece about a future overtaken by the "do-it-yourself" spirit, which is then undermined when a "do-it-yourselfer" builds an experimental robot. Clever stuff -- and rather different from what people now think of as the standard Simak story.

Amazing, May 1965

"Over the River and Through the Woods", by Clifford D. Simak, is a simple and nicely told, if never surprising, story about a couple of children who come to stay with an old couple sometime late in the 19th Century. But there is something a bit odd about the children -- nothing that will surprise the reader. Not much to the story, but it’s worth the brief read.

Birthday Review: Stories of Kim Newman

Kim Newman turns 60 today, beating me to that milestone by just a couple of months. He's written a lot of really fun SF/Horror, often with a bit of a Steampunk/Alternate History angle. Here's a set of my reviews of his work, mostly from Locus, but one from Tangent!

Review of New Worlds (from Tangent #20/21)

Another strong alternate historical piece is "Great Western" by Kim Newman. Newman's alternate history features an England where feudal organizations have continued into the present day. A young girl lives with the widow of a man murdered by the local squire, and the two try to resist the land grabbing of said villain, who is aided by the corrupt local law enforcement. A mysterious stranger on a motorcycle rides into town, and helps them in their struggle. The fun is in the explicit parallels with Westerns (especially Shane) and how the material of the traditional Western is transposed to fit this alternate England (called, naturally enough, "Wessex" (after Hardy).)

Locus, November 2004

An oddly middling month at Sci Fiction – all the stories are fine work, none thrilled me. Perhaps the top story is Kim Newman's "Soho Golem" is one of his Richard Jeperson stories. Jeperson is a dandyish man charged with investigating psychic anomalies. In this case, with his long-suffering policeman partner Fred Regent, he looks into the mysterious death of a corrupt cop involved in the porn industry. A psychic manifestation of sorts seems to be after a number of local porn bigwigs, as well as an anti-porn crusader – all who have a long dead beauty named Pony-Tail in their past. The story is fun and intriguing and has a nice twist – good solid work.

Locus, March 2005

Finally I ought to mention a delightful set of stories found in an unexpected place: the BBC Cult website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/sherlock/index.shtml). These are five Sherlock Holmes pastiches, mostly taking a rather slant view of the Holmes canon. ... Kim Newman's "A Shambles in Belgravia" is told by Sebastian Moran, as his partner-in-crime Professor Moriarty is recruited by Irene Adler to help her with a sensitive problem concerning the Ruritanian succession.

Review of The Fair Folk (Locus, April 2005)

The book's longest story is also its best: "The Gypsies in the Wood", by Kim Newman. Charles Beauregard of the Diogenes Club investigates the disappearance of two children, and the reappearance of one – Davey Harvill, seemingly aged decades. He manages to find the Davey's sister, but she seems changed herself. Eight years later, journalist Kate Reed is covering the planned opening of an exhibition run by Satterthwaite Bulge, the publisher of a popular magazine of treacly fairy stories, distinguished only by remarkable illustrations. Kate runs into Charles, and quickly gathers that something odd is going on – the exhibition seems somehow haunted. Charles reveals that he is still obsessed with the Harvill case – and that Davey is the sort of idiot savant illustrator for Bulge's publications. After another disaster – an accidental death – Kate and Charles track down the Harvills, including Davey's strange sister, seemingly unaged after several years. The exhibition will be the focus for the unraveling of the mystery of what really happened to Davey and his sister eight years previously – but not before Davey's cousin Dicky is led into danger himself. The story combines the mystery, menace, and wonder of the darker sort of fairy with a pair of engaging human adults who stand outside "faery", as it were: a fast moving story, funny, romantic, moving.

Review of Adventure Vol. 1 (Locus, October 2005)

Kim Newman’s “Richard Riddle, Boy Detective” is related to his Diogenes Club stories (most notably “The Gypsies in the Wood” from earlier this year), though it’s perhaps less substantial. It tells of three children who get on the trail of a supposed French Spy, and of a local anti-evolutionist fanatic who seems to have a secret.

Locus, November 2005

Much of October at SCI FICTION is devoted to a Diogenes Club story by Kim Newman, “The Serial Murders”. This is about the 70s version of the Club, featuring in particular Richard Jeperson. This time he is investigating a series of murders that seem somehow to have been “predicted” by a popular British soap opera. Throw in a comely professor studying soap operas, the wicked and wickedly portrayed cast and crew of the series, and a solution that is nicely non-supernatural though the supernatural still plays a role … Newman is a very entertaining writer who has been at top form for several long stories this year.

Review of The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy (Locus, April 2008)

Paul McAuley and Kim Newman offer “Prisoners of the Action”, a downright goofy story about the aftermath of an odd alien invasion, with a man investigating strange happenings on the Indian Ocean island where the alien prisoners of war have been confined.

Locus, October 2008

And “The Red Planet League”, by Kim Newman, is the only story in Gaslight Grimoire not to feature Holmes at all. Rather, it is told by Sebastian Moran, about Professor Moriarty taking revenge on a prat of a rival astronomer. The plot is trivial and rather silly, but the narration is delightfully comic.

Locus, December 2010

Mysteries of the Diogenes Club is a collection of some of Kim Newman’s delightful stories of a British private club that investigates unusual events. The book includes one new novella, and a very good one it is: “Kentish Glory”, subtitled “The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School”. It’s about a girls’ school, sometime shortly after World War I, where Amy Thomsett is sent after her mother finds her sleeping on the ceiling. It seems many of the girls at Drearcliff have “Talents”, Amy’s being levitation. The story touches on the usual school story elements: the bullies, the forbidding headmistress, the daft teachers, the obscure rules – all laid out in Newman’s witty prose. Amy soon makes some fast friends, and some vicious enemies. The plot turns on the kidnapping of one of Amy’s friends: it’s mostly a frolic, though with darker elements, and it hardly matters anyway, the story is simply great fun.

Birthday Review: Stories of M. C. Pease

M. C. Pease published about 20 stories between 1949 and 1957, then fell silent. Apparently he kept writing, without success: at any rate I have seen a report (second-hand, or third hand actually) from a former F&SF slushreader of seeing in the slush a story from Pease as late as the early '70s. Pease’s main market was Astounding, and secondarily Robert A. W. Lowndes’ magazines, though he also had pieces in If, Beyond, Fantastic Universe, and Science Fiction Adventures. I have read several Pease stories, and have found them sometimes interesting failures -- the ideas are sometimes intriguing and original, but the execution tends to fall short.

So, who was Pease, really? Biographical details were hard to come by. So I solicited the help of an email list I subscribe to, full of experts on short fiction in magazines, especially SF. And we did some digging, and came up with Marshall Carleton Pease III (1920-2001). He had a B. A. from Yale in Chemistry, and an M. A. from Princeton, and eventually a Ph. D., I'm not sure from where. Though his degrees were in Chemistry, his work was in electronics, beginning with radar countermeasures and ending up working at SRI in Computer Science, particularly early research into parallel processing: interesting stuff (to me, anyway, as that's my field). He published lots of scientific papers and at least one textbook. His father was a prominent pediatrician. The really cool detail is what links this M. C. Pease to the SF writer -- a letter from John W. Campbell to Isaac Asimov, suggesting he write a story about an idea that Pease had had but felt he couldn't do justice to. Asimov never wrote the story, but Campbell's letter mentions that Pease was at Sylvania at that time (late '50s), as was Marshall C. Pease the Yale/Princeton grad.

I find writers of this sort interesting, and worth remembering even if I wouldn't, say, include any of their stories in a prospective Best Forgotten Storis of the 1950s anthology. So, on the occasion of what would have been Marshall Pease's 99th birthday, here's what I've written about a few of the Pease stories I have read.

Astounding, August 1951

(Cover by H. R. van Dongen)

"City of the Phoenix" by M. C. Pease is a strange mess of a story, with the occasional hint of something interesting that makes it readable enough. Ter Ankhdart (yes, Pease attended the Isaac Asimov school of character naming) is a young Socio-Logician who comes to a planet on which all the humans have moved into an enclosed city, because they created an atomic power plant that ran wild. An expedition from the Second Galactic Civilization has investigated this planet as part of the desperate search to find a weapon that will stop the alien Slugs who are overrunning human civilization. But the planet seems hopeless, with just this remnant of the First Civilization, at an apparent tech level of 7 -- current Galactic Civilization is at level 12. (The story is full of fairly meaningless socio-babble like that.) However, the exploring spaceship, trying to lift off after giving up, finds that their power plant is being drained. Perhaps this is evidence of a weapon that can stop the slugs?

Ter enters the city, and encounters skepticism and resistance from the already present workers, especially the thuggish leader, Lar. But he also attracts interest from a pretty redhead named Triccy. (Pronounced Tricky or Trixie? Who knows?) Before long Triccy and Ter are exploring the city, meeting the listless, apparently hypnotized, residents. And Ter explains the the City, to have lasted for 2500 years, must be maintained by humans. But what humans? Not these listless residents. And what of the terror they feel when asked where they lived when they were young? ... Anyway, Ter has an answer (not a terrible one), and with that a solution to the problem of the Weapon (a much less plausible one.) And, by the way, the shy and apparently virginal awkward nerd Ter and the lovely Triccy are inevitably a couple by the end ... despite some really icky sexual dynamics ... Actually, in the final analysis, a pretty silly and mostly annoying story.

Dynamic, October 1953

M. C. Pease is a not terribly good, and not terribly well known, writer from (mostly) the early '50s whose work I still find fairly interesting at times. "Temple of Despair" is not great stuff but mildly interesting. A planet devoted to producing a dangerous drug which is valuable as a cancer cure is about to be abandoned, as another drug has been found. An agent arranges to be dropped there to investigate social conditions -- no one has ever understood how the ruling priest keep the population in line, given that harvesting the plant in question is terribly dangerous. The agent, a very ugly man, poses as a priest (rather too easily), and learns that a mysterious "Release" happens every so often. He sneaks into the Temple and encounters a beautiful but apparently evil woman, who seems to be the chief priest. He notices that all the top priests seem to be young and good-looking. He manages to learn the true nature of the "Release", which explains everything, reasonably enough. No classic, not even very good, but better than it might have been. I'll explain the not too surprising secret at the end, after spoiler space.

Oh, and the SPOILER for the Pease story --





the priests have an alien mind transfer machine. During the Release they force everybody to more or less randomly switch minds, which messes up any plans for revolution etc. Plus the priests use their control and understanding of the process to pick handsome young bodies for their own. Of course at the end the ugly man destroys the machine -- but also manages to (by accident) switch his mind into the body of the beautiful young priestess.

Science Fiction Stories #1, 1953

The next story is by M. C. Pease: "The Way of Decision" (10700 words). I've read a couple of his Astounding stories, and while they weren't precisely good I do recall that they were at least mildly ambitious, in terms of ideas considered.

And that's a fair description of "The Way of Decision". This is a story about group marriage. I'm not sure how early group marriage was treated seriously in SF -- but I imagine this story is a fairly early treatment. The other interesting feature of this story is that the new social organization is looked at in economic terms. In essence, group marriages, called here "clans", are economic units. They specialize in certain types of work, and hire out as a group to do these jobs. The marriages are certainly at least as important economically as they are for any sexual or familial reason. The story is set perhaps a decade or two after this became at least mildly common thing, but prejudice against clans is still widespread. The clan in question is considering whether to accept a new wife. She is pretty but perhaps has little else to recommend her. Except -- she is the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. A man who has been opposed to hiring clans to do work for his companies. It seems clear that the clan will get a major new contract from this man if his daughter joins them -- but is this a good reason to accept her? The story itself is very static -- lots of talking and philosophizing, not very convincing characterization, and an ambiguously presented conclusion. It doesn't work all that well as a story, and I'm not terribly convinced by the economic issues or the general sociology, but I thought it a brave try and at least interesting for the questions it tries to ask.

Astounding, December 1954

M. C. Pease's "Eight Seconds" asks what humans can do to win a space war with aliens who have just slightly better reaction time -- so that they react 8 seconds more quickly than humans in a space battle. I wasn't convinced either by the general setup, or by the solution, though it is a cutish twist. In a way, I was reminded of Robert Sheckley's "The Battle", also from Astounding.

Science Fiction Stories, January 1955

"Ripeness" is not one of M. C. Pease's best stories, though it still shows ambition. Philip Reynolds is in charge of a computer that has allowed a dictator to control the world -- and Reynolds has allowed this, seeing it, at the beginning, as the only way to help the world out of chaos. But the dictator’s rule is getting harsher and harsher, and Reynolds is pushed to consider rebelling when his brother, an opponent of the dictator, is arrested and likely to be executed. It’s a bit talky, and the computer bits are totally implausible, but it does try for moral seriousness, if in the end not quite selling its resolution.