Black Gate

The June, 1953 issue of Galaxy didn’t include any serial fiction. If you’re looking for a good issue to read just to get a flavor of Galaxy without any commitment, I’d suggest this one.

“Tangle Hold” by F. L. Wallace — Jadiver’s autobath malfunctions, burning him with steam to the point that he nearly dies. A doctor replaces his skin with a synthetic version, and he’s eventually released from care to continue with his life.

Jadiver used to be a robot designer on Earth, but Earth was too crowded. He moved to Venus two years ago, but his skills aren’t as useful to society — except criminal society. He can design body costumes to change people’s appearances to help them go wherever they want without restriction.

When Jadiver becomes aware that his entire body has been redesigned as a type of surveillance unit for the police, he tries to understand its limitations and how he might be able to escape from the planet.

Wallace’s story has great pacing. There are enough questions to keep readers interested and engaged, and the answers come at the right moments, without being obvious.

“The Water Eater” by Win Marks — The narrator fixes his oil stove and dumps the excess oil into a roaster. To clean the roaster, he combines multiple cleaners together with hot water.

After dinner, he finds that the combination of oil and cleaners has become gelatinous. And it expands when water is added. Not only does it expand, but it tries to reach out toward the source of water to consume more.

The narration of the story works really well. He had a strong voice.

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In the May, 1953 issue of Galaxy, Editor H. L. Gold opens with some thoughts on science fiction and the future. He writes:

Does good science fiction, then, pretend to describe the actual future? No, certainly not. Anyone who thinks so is missing the point… We’re having fun with ideas, making first this one and then that predominant just to see what might happen if.

“Wherever You May Be” by James A. Gunn — Matt Wright is heading to a hunting cabin in the Ozarks to write his thesis but has car problems. While he’s trying to get it running again, he finds a young woman named Abbie laughing at him. She ran away from home and hopes to go with Matt, but he’s not about to take in someone claiming to be 16 (she’s actually 18), so he takes her home to her father. Matt expects to find signs of abuse but finds the older man wants to be rid of his daughter — as though he’s afraid of her.

When Matt finally reaches the cabin (after getting lost a few times), he finds Abbie waiting for him. Given the late hour, he decides to let her stay. She tells him that sometimes things happen around her — objects moving as she thinks about them. Yet as he tests her abilities, she seems unable to do anything, unless she becomes upset.

Matt decides that she will be his new research paper, though she doesn’t know it. He could run all kinds of tests on her abilities. Except that it’s clear that she’s happy being with him — that she likes him. So he considers a way to enhance her powers — by breaking her heart.

I still can’t decide how I feel about this story, so I credit it with sticking with me. Abbie’s character anchors the entire story. But I just can’t stand Matt. And I don’t like the ending because I feel it cheapens Abbie’s character and pardons Matt. I think there are other ways that could have led to a similar conclusion without leaving me a bit jaded. Regardless, as I said, the story stuck with me, even with the ending (or maybe because of the ending).

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Galaxy’s April, 1953 issue includes a story by fellow Hoosier, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I hadn’t read any of his work previously. Gasp! So I was excited to find something of his within Galaxy.

“Made in U.S.A.” by J. T. M’Intosh — Roderick began a divorce trial with his newlywed wife, Alison. The couple had been in love, but when Roderick found out she was an android, he wanted to end the marriage. Though androids are identical to humans in many ways, they lack the ability to produce children. As to why Alison withheld the truth of who she was, it was within the statutes of the law — androids have equal status in society.

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I’ve already covered the $6,500 novel-writing sham announced in this issue in a previous post. So let’s jump straight into the contents.

“The Old Die Rich” by H. L. Gold — Periodically, senior citizens are dying of starvation, yet they have large sums of money in banks or in cash. Mark Weldon tags along with his friend, Officer Lou Pape, whenever the police find out about the incidents. Mark’s intrigued by the circumstances and feels compelled to understand the pattern, even if it’s a matter of being too fearful to deplete their savings.

Mark’s investigation leads him to May Roberts, a young woman who hires seniors for unspecified purposes. He tries to break into her apartment at night, only to be captured. She decides to use him as her latest employee.

The job is to travel into the past and place bets on known outcomes or invest in the stock market at key moments. Mark slips from one time period to the next, spending a varying amount of time in each destination. But anything he interacts with in the past, such as food, can’t come forward to the present with him; it ages as though it’s still part of the past, becoming dust.

Gold’s story has good pacing, but I couldn’t get past his rules of time travel. If someone moves into the past and can’t eat because anything ingested becomes dust, then how could someone breathe? It didn’t seem reasonable to me.

“Games” by Katherine MacLean — Ronny plays outside, imagining a Native American battle scene. Except that as he’s acting it out, he becomes one of them. And then he becomes an old man, dying of starvation — someone who refuses to give information to those who’ve held him imprisoned. It’s frightfully real for Ronny, and he doesn’t understand how it’s happening.

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In the March, 1953 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction, H. L. Gold announed a novel contest. Simon and Schuster and Galaxy partnered together to offer a $6,500 prize, “guaranteed to the author of the best original science fiction novel submitted.”

The $6,500 was only a minimum for the first world serial and TV rights. It was the largest cash prize offered to date for a science fiction novel. Other details were that the contest closed October 15, 1953, and the novel had to be between 60,000 and 75,000 words. Anyone could enter, with the following caveats:

…except employees of the Galaxy Publishing Corp. and of Simon and Shuster, Inc., and their families; AND authors who are ineligible because of contractual obligations to their present publishers… which means, in effect, that contestants will NOT be competing with most of the established ‘big names’ of science fiction.

When you consider that cars could be purchased for about $2,000 in 1953, this was an enormous prize. And let’s face it: how many of us would still be happy to sell a novel in today’s market for $6,500?

Given that the contest ended long ago, I had to find out who won. The winner was Edson McCann, whose novel Preferred Risk was serialized in Galaxy in 1955 and later published by Simon and Schuster that same year. Congratulations, Edson!

Oh… except there never was an Edson McCann.

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