Merril-approved 1956 stories by J McConnell, J T McIntosh & I Melchior

One of our long term projects here at MPorcius Fiction Log is the tour we are taking of 1956 speculative fiction under the guidance of famous and influential critic Judith Merril, who had an expansive view of what constituted SF.  In the back of her anthology SF: The Year's Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy: Second Annual Volume is a long alphabetical list of stories she considered for inclusion in the volume but which didn't quite make the cut, and we have been going through the list, reading selected stories.  Currently we are on the "M"s, and today will look at three stories by authors I am considering minor, including one guy I think is a pretty bad writer, but about whom I retain some curiosity.

But first--links to earlier stops on our Merril-guided tour of 1956.

Abernathy and Aldiss
Anderson, Allen and Banks
Barrow, Beaumont and Blish
Bradbury, Bretnor, Budrys and Butler  
Carter, Clarke and Clifton 
Clingerman, Cogswell and Cohen
de Camp, deFord, Dickson and Doyle 

Ellison and Fontenay

Galouye, Garrett, Grimm & Gunn

Hart, Herbert and Jones 

Kuttner & Moore, Lang, Leinster, L'Engle and McClintic

"Avoidance Situation" by James McConnell

McConnell has nine short fiction citations at isfdb, and is probably more important as a scientist than a SF writer--a biologist and animal psychologist, he was largely responsible for the later-exploded theory that planarian worms can learn information by gaining the memories of other planarians they eat.  McConnell was also injured by terrorist Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber.  McConnell was a guy who could think outside the box and was something of a comedian, attributes that suit him for a little side career as a SF writer.

"Avoidance Situation" was a cover story for If, promoted as "A New Space Thriller."  This issue of If includes a column by Forrest J. Ackerman, the lion's share of which is a report from a convention in Cleveland; students of the role of women in SF fandom should check out this column, as Ackerman talks at some length about how exciting it was to have some good-looking girls at the convention, seeing as how in his youth SF fans were few to none, and he names names of the 1956 SF hotties.  Ackerman also offers a solipsistic look at the origins of the abbreviation "stf" for "scientifiction," and a little piece of trivia: that Frankenstein by Mary Shelly is banned in South Africa.

Now, to "Avoidance Station."  A century ago mankind first travelled into space, and today huge starships that can "jump" in and out of "subspace" are exploring the universe.  The human race has searched many star systems, but not yet encountered intelligent aliens.  The first scenes of McConnell's tale see the captain of the Sunward, Hawkins, and the ship's psychologist, Broussard, in the ship's observatory, looking out at the stark empty blackness that is subspace as the vessel nears the end of a jump, discussing the psychological effect a universe empty of matter has on spacemen.

After the jump, Sunward travels for a few weeks to orbit and then land upon an Earth-like planet.  During a rest and relaxation period, Broussard explains to Hawkins some aspects of Kurt Lewin's theory of vector or field psychology ("Avoidance Situation" is a classic-style science fiction story, complete with science lectures) which I guess describes human decision-making and personality as a sum of the influence of varying environmental forces, using physics as a sort of metaphor.  (I never heard of Lwin before, so, for me, this story truly was educational.)  The topic Broussard focuses on is how when faced with two equally unappetizing courses, people will seek a third (try to "leave the field.")  Broussard also talks about his wish to meet aliens and put his psychology expertise to use dealing with them.  

The scene shifts to a one-man scout ship, piloted by an alien, Lan Sur, agent of the Dakn Empire.  After a session in the simulator in which he fights a practice battle and then has his performance judged by a computer, the computer alerts him to the presence of aliens on a nearby planet--Lan Sur has stumbled upon the Sunward.  The Dakn Empire is thousands of years old and comprises thousands of planets and many races, and Lan Sur opens negotiations with Hawkins and Broussard by telling them that his analysis indicates that Earth people are far less intelligent and less technologically advanced than any of the components of the Dakn Empire and so the people of Earth will be relegated to the slave caste.  Slaves, of course, have their memories and personalities erased before being dispersed throughout the vast Dakn Empire.  The weapons of the Sunward prove useless against even Lan Sur's personal force field, and Hawkins is given 24 hours to surrender; if he doesn't surrender Lan Sur will destroy the Sunward and direct the Dakn space navy to exterminate the human race.

Hawkins, as we expect in these old SF stories, uses his knowledge of science and a bit of trickery to escape the equally dreadful alternatives of genocide and mindless slavery--to, as was foreshadowed, "leave the field."  The sense of wonder ending of "Avoidance Situation" is that the human race will hide in subspace and bring with them the star systems which they currently occupy--it seems the Dakns don't know about subspace, instead relying on a drive that propels their ships within this universe at the speed of light squared.

This is a decent story that I enjoyed; mildly better than acceptable.

Like Merril, Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh approved of "Avoidance Situation" and they included it in their 1983 anthology Starships. 

"Empath" by J. T. McIntosh 

McIntosh is a prolific writer with a long record at isfdb, but usually when I read his work I am not happy with it: at these links witness my attacks on the novels The Million Cities and Norman Conquest 2066 and on the short stories "One into Two" and "At the Top of the World."  So as I prepare to read it, I am questioning Merril's wisdom in promoting "Empath."  It kind of looks like Merril may not be on the same page as the larger SF community on the topic of McIntosh, as, according to isfdb, after its appearance in New Worlds over on Terf Island, "Empath" was never reprinted.  Seeing that "Empath" is almost forty pages long, I am sort of wondering what the hell I am doing as I start it. 

We get a little eroticized violence to start our story.  Betty Lincoln is on the roof of the skyscraper from which Robert Green has just been pushed to his death by two brutish murderers.  The murderers are gone, and Betty, sure to be considered the prime suspect by the police, rips her clothes and cuts herself to add credibility to the claim she will make to the cops that she was defending herself from a rape attempt by Green and he fell to his death during the struggle.  But when the cops catch her up on the roof they don't believe her lies because Robert Green was a psychic ("empath") and was transmitting a mental distress call to another psychic working with the police, his brother Tim, in their battle against the criminal gang the Circle, which has its own psychic members.

Tim, knowing she is innocent, has Betty released, and we get some exposition about the character of her world.  It is a future of poverty, in which the small number of rich people (the "moles") live underground for fear of nuclear bombs. while the poor masses (the "angels") live aboveground in dirty cities.  Worldwide poverty is apparently the result of misguided Western efforts to alleviate Third World poverty--people in London and New York are now as poor as those in Bombay and Peking--doh!  

Betty is attacked by one of the thugs who murdered Green and tried to frame her for the murder, but she outwits him and captures him.  To protect her, the police then put Betty up in a mole hotel, a much nicer place than any Betty, an angel, has ever seen.  Betty realizes that she is in love with Tim, and can sense where Tim is--her own psychic powers have awakened!  She joins Tim, who explains that the Circle is led by selfish empaths who are trying to take over the world; he and his brother were the leaders of the  empaths who are siding with the established order against the Circle revolutionaries.

The last dozen or so pages of the story see Betty become the world's most powerful empath and she and Tim use their powers to guide the police to the empaths of the Circle, who are destroyed.

"Empath"'s van Vogt-style plot isn't terrible, but the story is poorly written and some elements seem extraneous while others are underdeveloped--it feels like a rush job rather than something carefully crafted.  The sexualized elements make "Empath" feel like a half-assed exploitation story, while one of the central conceits of McIntosh's tale--that to use your psychic powers you have to let go and just allow feelings to wash over you, rather than consciously focus and direct your powers--sort of drains the characters of agency.  On the other hand, I sort of like McIntosh's cynicism--even the "good" empaths, Tim and Betty, are arrogant jerks who look down on the mundanes (I guess we'd call them "muggles" nowadays) and the cop who saves Betty in the final fight is able to do so because he is cold and ruthless, the sort of person who never has any friends and is not swayed by emotion but concentrates on getting the job done.

I'm not sure whether to condemn this story as poor or judge it as just barely acceptable filler--in a spirit of generosity let's give it a passing grade.  This time McIntosh makes it past the post by a nose; this may be McIntosh's best work.

"The Racer" by Ib Melchior 

Melchior has two novels and three stories listed at isfdb.  According to wikipedia, the Danish-born Melchior had an exciting life of struggle against the Nazis and the Communists, working in Hollywood and as a writer of mainstream fiction and nonfiction.  "The Racer" first appeared in the men's magazine Escapade and would be adapted for the screen as Death Race 2000; it has been reprinted repeatedly in anthologies like Charles Nuetzel's If This Goes On  and Peter Haining's Death on Wheels.  I can't find a copy of the appropriate issue of Escapade online, so I'm reading "The Racer" in Jim Wynorski's They Came from Outer Space, an anthology of short stories that served as the basis for films.

As you probably already know, "The Racer" is a satire of the blood lust of the entertainment-loving public.  (This is where I link to The Kinks' "Give the People What They Want" and 10,000 Maniacs' "Candy Everybody Wants.")   Willie is a top driver in the world of cross country races in which drivers are not only judged on their times to the finish line, but on how many pedestrians they kill or injure.  We follow him and his mechanic Hank as they start the New York to Los Angeles race, and Willie begins having second thoughts about the propriety of murdering innocent women and children, much to the chagrin of Hank, who has a hankering for the big bonus they will get for running over a record number of pedestrians.

A simple story, but told with economy in a brisk straightforward manner--not bad.

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It is easy to see why Merril gave the nod to McConnell's competently told psychology-centric classic-SF-style story and to Melchior's effective and economical satire of the debased public.  As for McIntosh's borderline mediocrity...well, maybe she liked its cynicism and ambiguity, its portrayal of a world in which people's fates are determined by factors beyond their control, success is corelated with not caring and people with resources have contempt for their inferiors.

Another fun and thought-provoking leg of our long march through 1956.  Keep your eyes open for the next installment of this journey through the year of Khrushchev's secret speech denouncing Stalin, the Montgomery bus boycott and the rise of Elvis Presley.