Black Gate

As promised, a return to Cele Goldsmith’s years at Amazing and Fantastic. This issue comes from quite early in her term.

Last time I looked at Fantastic, I noted the subtitle “Stories of Imagination,” and I commented that much of the magazine remained Science Fiction, despite the Fantasy-leaning title and the ambiguous subtitle. This issue, by contrast, is subtitled “Science Fiction Stories” – an apparently deliberate rejection of the fantastical element. Turns out this subtitle had begun only with the September 1959 issue, and it lasted only through September of 1960, being supplanted by “Stories of Imagination” in October.

Interesting is a letter in this December issue from R. D. Miller, stating that with the September issue: “I took one look at the logo and the worst had happened: Fantastic Science Fiction Stories.” The letter in its whole praises the previous Fantastic for being a home to fiction in the Weird Tales tradition, and laments the apparent plan to discard that in favor of “the Science Fiction monster.”

The response from the editors (don’t know if Goldsmith or Editorial Director Norman M. Lobsenz wrote these) goes: “You want a magazine with 90% bad fantasy? Or one with 50% first-class fantasy and 50% first-class s-f?” (Logically, they should have been able to have a magazine with 50% first-class fantasy and 50% bad fantasy instead, right?)

The cover is by Edward Valigursky, illustrating Poul Anderson’s Flandry story “A Message in Secret.” I must say the man on the cover looks nothing at all like my image of Flandry.

Interior illustrations are by Mel Varga and Leo Summers. Interestingly, the cover of the Ace Double edition of “A Message in Secret,” retitled Mayday Orbit, is also by Valigursky – not as good, Flandry in a cold suit so not recognizable, but noticeably the same depiction of the “Prophet’s Tower” on each cover.

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Now an issue of Fantastic from very late in Cele Goldsmith Lalli’s tenure. I’ll note first that the subtitle of the magazine is “Stories of Imagination.” What this means, it appears, is that Fantasy is allowed, but not required.

I had a notion that Fantastic at this time was a Fantasy magazine, but that’s not the case yet. (It was, pretty much, by the time I was subscribing, during Ted White’s era in the mid-70s.) It should be noted, however, that  from September 1959 to September 1960 the subtitle was “Science Fiction Stories” – so certainly “Stories of Imagination” implies a more wide range of stories.

I suppose that in 1965, Fantasy was not yet a self-supporting category – Tolkien’s books were just about then exploding in popularity, and I guess it was with those that a separate category was born. Indeed, the “standard history” places the origin of Fantasy as a truly separate category in the mid-60s, pushed not only by Tolkien, but the success of Lancer’s Conan reprints – in a sense, the deal was sealed with Ballantine’s Adult Fantasy series in the late 60s, and things were confirmed with Terry Brooks’s The Sword of Shannara and then Stephen R. Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant series in the mid-to-late ’70s.

The cover is by Ed Emshwiller, illustrating John Jakes’s short story “The Girl in the Gem” (who for once doesn’t look like his wife Carol). Interiors are by Emsh and Schelling. Besides house ads, there are full page ads for the Rosicruans, and for the Consumer Service Company (purveyors, it seems, of flashlights and such). Also, there are spot ads for C.A.R.E., Hollywood Music Productions (looking for songwriters), and for G. P. Putnams (advertising Farnham’s Freehold)).

The editorial, signed as usual by Norman Lobsenz, discusses the character of Brak the Barbarian (hero of the Jakes cover story), comparing him to Conan and Fafhrd, to Brak’s advantage. (I can hardly agree.)

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Here’s another of Cele Goldsmith’s issues of Amazing, though by this time she had married, and was Cele Lalli. Of particular interest this time around is an obscure Ursula K. LeGuin story.  I notice as well a different font for the title – I liked it. Not sure when it changed.

This time the cover is by Richard McKenna. At first I thought it might be the author of the Nebula winning story “The Secret Place” as well as “Casey Agonistes” and the bestselling non-SF novel The Sand Pebbles (for which last I have seen it suggested he did the original cover). This is credited to him in the ISFDB, actually, and it’s creditable if not brilliant, a scene at a restaurant on the Moon, with aliens – vaguely reminiscent, perhaps, of David Hardy.

However, further investigation (with the help of ace bibliographer Phil Stephenson-Payne) reveals several further covers from mid-60s SF magazines, mostly Galaxy and If, credited to R. McKenna. These covers bear some resemblance in style to this cover, and those that are signed are signed RMcK, much as with this painting. The latest of these other covers dates to 1968, while Richard McKenna of The Sand Pebbles died in 1964. So it seems most likely that another Richard McKenna worked as an illustrator for a while in the mid-60s.

The editorial, unsigned this time (other examples I’ve seen were signed by Norman Lobsenz, the Editorial Director) is about continental drift, which was just beginning to gain traction as a believable theory. There is no science article, but Sam Moskowitz contributes an SF Profile on Mort Weisinger, focusing on his early career as an SF fan, fanzine producer, and occasional writer, before giving him a bit more credit for Superman than seems fair to Siegel and Shuster.

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