1965 stories by John Baxter, E. C. Tubb, Ernest Hill, and John T. Phillifent

The rumors are true!  The staff of MPorcius Fiction Log have dragged themselves away from Space Hulk: Ascension and tiny jars of chocolate pudding long enough to read four more SF stories from 1965, the year Canada (you, like painter and novelist Wyndham Lewis, may know that country as "the hideous icebox") adopted its current flag.  These four tales constitute the remainder of New Writings in SF 6, which we started dissecting in our last offering to the interwebs.  As noted in that post, Joachim Boaz has already analyzed this artifact of the British Commonwealth's contribution to speculative fiction, and you can make your own judgments of its contents free of charge and without delay by reading one of its four editions at the internet archive.

"The Hands" by John Baxter

Baxter was born in Australia but has lived much of his life in Europe and America, producing a body of film criticism and several biographies of Hollywood figures like George Lucas, Woody Allen and Robert De Niro as well as a number of SF stories.  "The Hands" was reprinted in 2016 in Ann and Jeff Vandermeer's The Big Book of Science Fiction, a 1200-page book that seems to be designed for use by college professors as it appears to try to include a writer from every possible identity group while leaving out authors who might offend the sensibilities of an academic.  Maybe they needed an Australian and thought A. Bertram Chandler was too politically incorrect?

"The Hands" is a pretty good horror story about an alien invasion.  In a future in which the cities, after expanding, were then abandoned for the countryside, seven astronauts return to Earth from an exploratory mission to planet Huxley (perhaps named after Thomas Henry Huxley, "Darwin's Bulldog" and an expert anatomist.)  The natives of Huxley used their hypnotic powers to dominate the Earthmen and alter them in a shocking way--each astronaut has grown extra body parts.  One guy has a second head, one has a pair of hands sticking out of his chest, another has a bulging stomach where an additional set of intestines is growing, etc.  The punch line of this brief story is that the extra parts are going to achieve independence and wrest themselves from their Earthman hosts and then combine together to form a whole alien being, one which will, we are led to believe, commit dastardly deeds.

I liked it, but "The Hands" is really just an entertaining trifle.

"The Seekers" by E. C. Tubb

I quite like that prolific writer of adventure stories, E. C. Tubb, even if I haven't read much by him lately.  (Sadly, I have far too little time to read all the things I want to read.)  So I have been looking forward to this one.  Somehow or other Ann and Jeff Vandermeer overlooked the wordsmith behind the epic saga of Earl Dumarest, interstellar gladiator, when making selections for The Big Book of Science Fiction, but another Englishman left out of the Vandermeers' "Ultimate Collection," Brian Aldiss, saw fit to include "The Seekers" in a 1978 hardcover anthology called Perilous Planets, which appeared in paperback in 1980 with a garish and baroque wraparound cover by Alex Ebel.  Knowing it was endorsed by so august a critic and historian of SF as Aldiss has me looking forward to "The Seekers" even more fervently!

"The Seekers" is a competent, perhaps pedestrian, little story about the perils faced by those who cross the void between the stars, exploring the galaxy.  Tubb introduces us in turn to the five men crewing a spaceship, showing them engaged in their pastimes so we know each man's passion--one is an artist, one an engineer fascinated by machinery, another immerses himself in sex and violence escapist virtual reality dream games, a fourth an intellectual who wants to understand the workings of the universe.  Then there's the captain, who commits suicide and leaves the other four men without leadership so they devolve from a team into an undisciplined party of individuals who neglect the proscribed precautions and procedures.

The four astronauts land on a planet to investigate an intriguing alien building, but fall into its booby-trap, a defense mechanism which presents each man the beguiling illusion of the thing he most desires, a perfect work of art, for example, or a detailed model of the universe.  The explorers are mesmerized and forget all about the alien building and their own spaceship; presumably they will starve to death as they can't tear themselves away from contemplation of what, for each of them, is Heaven.

An acceptable entertainment with a conservative bent, stressing the importance of discipline and authority and the weaknesses of democracy and individualism.

"Atrophy" by Ernest Hill

Hill has three novels and 16 stories listed at isfdb.  His primary occupation was as advertising manager of Consulting Engineer, a technical journal.

This is one of those stories about how super-efficient production and high tech entertainment has resulted in people falling into decadence.  We follow a few weeks in the life of Elvin, who spends much of his time lying in bed watching TV or at the "Sensories," a cinema where you watch films and vis electronic devices can feel the oars in your hands and the water on your body as the hero is rowing a boat and feel the lips of the love interest on your own as she kisses the hero.  There is so little productive work needed, and so much seductive electronic entertainment, that the government has to take steps to keep people from "atrophying"--lapsing into a boredom-induced coma.  These steps include make-work jobs that exercise the mind (talking to a computer that awards you money if your conversation is logical) and compulsory sex sessions with your spouse at regular intervals (announced by a bell) that, it is hoped, will maintain some vestige of physical and emotional connection between live human beings.

The plot of "Atrophy" concerns Elvin's career and marriage; Elvin is a mere Worker, and his wife leaves him for a Thinker, which causes Elvin to feel real genuine emotions for the first time in a long time.  The shock of this personal tragedy actually pulls him away from the brink of atrophy and sets his mind in motion to actual creative thought!

Then, at the nuclear reactor where Elvin monitors sensors six hours a day, three days a week, there is a malfunction.  The Thinker in charge of his department is currently incapacitated by atrophy, so  Elvin shows initiative and steps into the breach, becoming a hero and getting a promotion from Worker to Thinker!  When his wife hears the news she returns to him, so entranced by the new Elvin that she is even willing to have sex before the bell has rung!

The point of the story, of course, is that facing real life challenges and dealing with real life people provides personal satisfaction and yields social rewards that cannot be matched by the mere passive consumption of entertainment.

Not bad.  It looks like "Atrophy" has never appeared elsewhere, however.

"Advantage" by John T. Phillifent (as by Arthur Rackham)

Way back in 2015 I read John T. Phillifent's Genius Unlimited and then shared my pain upon doing so with the SF community via this blog.  So I have not in any way been looking forward to reading "Advantage."  Genius Unlimited was so bad that I find Phillifent's career, which saw the publication of over 25 novels and over 50 stories, inexplicable.  They can't all be as bad as Genius Unlimited if  they kept selling, can they?  Maybe Phil was sick when he wrote Genius Unlimited?  Maybe Genius Unlimited was a manuscript written by his brother-in-law and Phillifent sent it in under his own name as a favor?  Well, here's our chance to give Phil another chance.  I actually own at least two more books by Phil, the Ace Double editions of Life With Lancelot (stabled with William Barton's philo-Semitic Hunting on Kunderer) and Treasure of Tau Ceti (printed dos-a-dos with Barry Malzberg's Final War and Other Fantasies.)  Is there any chance that "Advantage" is going to be so good that I am going to eagerly pull those volumes from the back of my shelves to devour the Phillifent contributions?

From the first page of the 1971
printing of
New Writings in SF 6

It is the future, and the human race is colonizing the galaxy.  Once a planet has been cleared for colonization, the settlers are preceded by specialist quasi-military units which prepare the settlement, building housing and roads and hospitals and so forth.  The commander of the finest of these units, the winner of awards for seven previous missions, is Colonel Jack Barclay.

What is the secret to the Colonel's success, you ask?  It's his assistant, Rikki Caddas!  Caddas, you see, is a psyker who can predict efficiency-sapping accidents at the work site, predict them early enough that they can be prevented and valuable lives, material and time saved.  And Caddas predicts these accidents the hard way, by experiencing the agony of those who will be injured if the accident is not prevented!  Because his crew has fewer injuries and accidents, Barclay's unit is the most efficient outfit in the service and Barclay is looking forward to a big promotion!  Barclay keeps Caddas's powers a secret, lest doctors or scientists cart the savant away for treatment or research.

I didn't expect it, but Phillifent here has produced a good story that actually feels fresh, and it is a story about human beings and human relationships as much as it is about colonies on alien worlds and psychic powers.  The ambitious Barclay; the slovenly and hypochondriacal Caddas; Barclay's second-in-command Major Dannard, who is jealous of the apparently useless Caddas's close relationship with the leader he admires; and Dahlia Honey, a former investigative journalist now working for the government who comes to the planet to inspect Barclay's unit, all have satisfying personalities and relationships with each other.  Oy, this may be my favorite story in this book!

The plot of "Advantage" concerns how the actions of Dannard and Honey threaten to separate Caddas from Barclay, and what this will mean for Barclay's career and the colonization effort.

Surprisingly good, I quite enjoyed it.  I really am going to have to reevaluate what I think of Phillifent now!  (Despite my satisfaction with it, "Advantage" has never been reprinted outside of New Writings in SF 6.)

But wait!  There's more!

As previously noted, Joachim Boaz gifted this book to me, and wrote about it himself in November of 2017.  Joachim and I have a severe disagreement about Phillifent's "Advantage," which he dismisses as "Bad" and awards 2.5 out of 5 possible stars.  Joachim's primary complaint seems to be that the story is about an unhealthy person (Caddas) being exploited (by Barclay) and that it has a female villain (Honey.)  Beyond saying that I think a story can be good even if it ain't "woke," I have a few points to make in defense of "Advantage" from Joachim's criticisms:

1) Phillifent is not celebrating without reservation Barclay's benefiting from Caddas's powers; in fact, Barclay is presented as a selfish careerist and he is defeated by Honey and Dannard in the end when Caddas leaves the planet with Honey.  You could argue that the story subtly portrays the protagonist as the villain and Honey, the antagonist, as the good guy.  One of the strengths of the story is that Phillifent draws nuanced characters who feel real and have both strengths and weaknesses.

2) Joachim seems to think Caddas is a minor, but in fact Caddas is an adult who just acts like a child (he is ineffectual, self-absorbed, prone to whining and eating sugary foods) and is thus treated like a child by people like Honey.  

3) While Barclay is certainly benefiting from his relationship with Caddas, he is employing Caddas's powers to save people's lives and protect the taxpayers' investment in the space colonization project-- to contribute to society.  The physically weak and emotionally immature Caddas seems unlikely to contribute to society without Barclay's guidance--you could argue that Barclay is enabling Caddas to lead a productive life while Honey is just infantilizing him.

**********

Not a bad anthology.  Another volume from the Joachim Boaz wing of the MPorcius Library in our next episode!