Magazine Review: Astounding Science Fiction February 1956 edited by John W. Campbell, Jr.
We begin this issue of the classic science fiction magazine with an editorial on “The Science of Psionics.” While the study of psychic phenomena is large discredited in the 21st Century, back in the 1950s it was still considered a serious if somewhat dubious area of research, and a mainstay of science fiction. Here, Mr. Campbell gets into the difficulty of creating machines to detect psionic energy given that no standard instruments could pick it up and no one was even sure what frequencies it might run on. There were some interesting experiments with anomalous results, but never anything replicable, let alone able to be mass-produced.
“Double Star” part 1 of 3, by Robert A. Heinlein, is the cover and lead story for the issue, and the one most people remember. Larry Smith, Lorenzo Smythe professionally, and “The Great Lorenzo” on his publicity materials, is an actor who’s not as famous as he’d like to be. In fact, he doesn’t have enough money for cab fare or a place to sleep tonight, and is hanging out in a dive bar in hopes that some sucker will offer him a job.
Enter Dak Broadbent, a voyageur, that is to say a spaceman. He’s pretending not to be from space, but Larry makes him instantly by the way he moves and the bad choices in “groundling” clothes. Dak isn’t here by accident. He needs a competent actor for a special role, and now! Larry displays enough smarts that Dak decides he’s the right man for the job, and enough desperation that he doesn’t ask too many questions.
Soon, Larry finds himself enroute to the planet Mars, essentially trapped in a scheme to impersonate one of their politicians at a vital ceremony. John Joseph Bonforte is the leader of the Expansionist Party, and needs to be at a certain function to seal a peace treaty with the native Martians. Problem is, he’s been kidnapped to prevent him from attending. Dak and the other inner circle members of Bonforte’s staff came up with the insane impersonation plan because if “Bonforte” shows up at the ceremony, the same honor code the kidnappers are counting on to scotch the treaty will prevent them from revealing that’s not actually him.
Mr. Heinlein had been hanging out with a group of actors while writing this novel, and Larry’s narration shows off acting tips and tricks. We don’t get a clear explanation of why he’s not in work in this part of the story, but his massive ego might have something to do with that, and we learn that he has enough blackmail material in his background to make life very difficult if it were all released at once. But he’s also very talented, and the sort of person who can seem to shapeshift right before your eyes, burying himself in the role. (Alec Guinness is name-checked.)
We also get a bit of backstory on why Larry is Like That. His father, also an actor of some renown, was abusive and trained Larry personally to be able to perform various feats, and these two things are inextricably entwined in Larry’s mind. (No word of a mother.)
As often with older science fiction, it’s interesting to see where predictions of future technology are uneven. There’s better theatrical makeup in the future (though Larry uses it minimally, it’s still too easy to spot) and faster than light spaceships, but computers still use tape, and doctors have pocket watches.
Since this is only the first part of the story, the main characters have just barely gotten to Mars when it ends, but there’s already been some exciting action. This one won a Hugo for a reason.
Content note: Murder, Larry is a sex offender (he claims in his thoughts that he was unaware his partner was underage), and Larry is bigoted against Martians. Child abuse in the backstory.
“The Last Thousand Miles” by Dean McLaughlin starts with the first manned mission to Jupiter returning to Earth orbit after seven years away. They are not greeted as heroes. Indeed, they’re not greeted at all. The space station they were supposed to rendezvous with has been abandoned, stripped of anything the Earthlings chose to bring back to their homeworld.
For reasons unexplained in this story, the governments of Earth have turned their back on space. No more satellites, no more exploration, they’ve junked their orbital rockets. This is a problem because the Jove crew wants to make it the last thousand miles to home. There’s not enough supplies left to wait the estimated six months before Earth can cobble together a rescue mission. And the Jove was not designed for atmospheric re-entry.
There’s just one desperate chance. Strip away every ounce of mass from the ship that can be spared, scavenge water and protective materials from what’s left of the space station, and pray that the hull remains intact long enough that the ship doesn’t burn up and most of the crew survives.
But all this relies on the exact calculations and piloting skill of Roger Sherman, who is still dealing with the trauma of being unable to save stranded crewmembers back on Jupiter.
There’s a strong resemblance here to the classic SF story “The Cold Equations” which had appeared in Astounding in 1954, with the contrived circumstances requiring hard decisions and the sacrifice of human life for others. But this time the sacrifice is chosen by the person involved, and the ultimate outcome is left up to the imagination.
“Clerical Error” by Mark Clifton takes place in the near future of the 1960s (1958 is “several years ago”) as the new director of a government psychiatric hospital faces a seemingly unresolvable dilemma. He’s figured out what’s wrong with one of the patients and believes the man can be treated.
Problem is that this man, a top government scientist, knows too many secrets, so only people with QS clearance can talk to him. And the one doctor on staff with QS clearance insists the patient is incurable and needs a lobotomy. The story shows its age here, as lobotomy is considered a perfectly normal and beneficial psychiatric treatment, and the protagonist is considered controversial because he doesn’t like it. He’s put in an order that no lobotomies are to be performed at the hospital, but the QS-cleared doctor insists this is the only available effective treatment, and forcing a showdown on this won’t help anyone.
Dr. Kingston decides that his one hope is to use blind obedience to bureaucracy against the bureaucrats by creating a “clerical error” that gets him committed to the hospital in the same room as his target. The SFnal element in the story is Dr. Kingston’s use of “gestalt empathy” to understand the minds of his patients. It’s depicted as a thinking technique rather than anything like a special ability, but apparently he hasn’t been able to teach it to anyone else.
The Kelly Freas art for this story is a series of portraits of the patient, ending with a jumpscare one.
“The Analytical Laboratory” looks at the reader poll for the September 1955 issue, with “Call Him Dead” by Eric Frank Russell getting the top spot.
“Silent Brother” by Paul Janvier starts with the return of the first expedition to Alpha Centauri to Earth. But we’re seeing it from the perspective of Cable, the man who didn’t get to go. He’d been the test pilot for an earlier version of the starship, which had malfunctioned catastrophically. He’s lucky to be alive.
Mind, his legs no longer work properly, so he uses a wheelchair most of the time, or crutches to reach the parts of his house that aren’t accessible that way. He’s also lost an eye and his front teeth. Cable isn’t normally bitter, but seeing his friends return hale and healthy from their voyage to the plaudits of the crowd brings up some ugly emotions he’s ashamed of.
The next morning, Cable wakes up to find his television set gutted for a science project of some sort in the basement. He lives alone, and there’s no sign of forced entry, which leaves sleepwalking perhaps, but the way his legs are, there’s no way he could have lugged the heavy cathode ray tube down the stairs. He can barely make it using both crutches and it takes ages!
There’s also a news blackout regarding the returned astronauts. Could these be somehow connected?
While it’s nice to see some decent disability representation, this is one of those stories where there’s a miracle cure, at the cost of being a horror story from some perspectives. Also interesting in that the Earthlings have skipped past even Moon landings, just going straight to interstellar flight.
“Chains of Command” by Reg Rhein is the first of two epistolary (told through letters and other communications) stories in this issue. A research scientist is told that funding for his plastics experiments is being cut off due to office politics. In the rush to finish one last test, an accident happens that produces something he can use to turn the tables.
It’s mildly funny but a bit smug.
“The Prisoner” by Christopher Anvil is a darker tale. The future human star civilization is being demolished by beings known as the Outers who seem able to raid with impunity. One general is trying to get permission to fortify a planet with important resources, but getting nowhere in his communications with headquarters.
In a nice touch, the first few communications are nearly unreadable due to future military jargon, and then we get a memo from the newly appointed Secretary of Defense asking for the jargon to be translated. It’s soon apparent that the human defense strategy is incredibly stupid.
Also, there’s mention of a Colonel Gorley who doesn’t seem to have any military records, yet everyone who’s met him swears he’s absolutely trustworthy and an expert at explaining how the strategy is supposed to work.
The story cuts off rather abruptly, and this may be one of the rare Astounding stories where the aliens win.
“The Reference Library” by P. Schuyler Miller is the book review section. It starts by looking at a “non-fiction” book, The Foreseeable Future by Sir George Thomson, a Noble Prize-winning physicist. It looks at various fields of science and tries to figure out what might be coming up next. It’s obscure now.
Slightly less obscure books reviewed include Galaxy of Ghouls, which I also have reviewed; The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov, and The Caves of Steel, also by Asimov.
“Brass Tacks” is the letters to the editor section. The big topic this time is readers floating ideas on how to combat highway hypnosis, a topic that is still being worked on in the present day. There’s also a question about whether being a great thinker in one particular field makes you qualified to opine on completely different subjects. Should we listen to Albert Einstein on world peace, just because he’s a genius at physics?
Of this issue, I like “Double Star” and “Silent Brother” the best, though “Chains of Command” is a nice change of pace. Recommended especially to Heinlein fans.
