Merril-approved 1956 stories: Robert Abernathy and Brian W. Aldiss

At the end of her 1957 anthology of 1956 stories, SF: The Year's Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume, Judith Merril offers a three-page list headed "Honorable Mention" and explains it thusly:

Inevitably, in compiling a book of this sort, one is left with a stack of stories that would have made it if--if they were shorter, if they were less like something already included, if rights had been available, etc.....A listing of these is included in the pages following....

Merril's Honorable Mention list is in alphabetical order by author, and here at MPorcius Fiction Log we are going to go through it, picking out stories by authors who interest us and reading them three or four at a time.  Today we'll read stories by Robert Abernathy and Brian W. Aldiss.

(We've already read a bunch of stories that Merril actually printed in SF: The Year's Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume--check out the discussions and links at these three blog posts: ONE TWO THREE.)  

"Hour Without Glory" by Robert Abernathy

Among other things, the July 1956 issue of F&SF features Anthony Boucher's gushing review of The Return of the King and his prediction that The Lord of the Rings will never appear on any bestseller lists, Mack Reynolds' deal-with-the-devil story "Martinis 12 to 1" (we read it back in 2018), a short story by R. V. Cassill, whose mainstream sex novel Pretty Leslie we read in 2016, and Robert Abernathy's "Hour Without Glory."  

"Hour Without Glory" is a mediocre anti-war/anti-nuclear weapons story.  As it begins a column in retreat has been hit hard by enemy aircraft, and the only apparent survivor is the General in command of the whole army, who is pinned under his jeep overturned jeep.  We learn the war underway is a Second American Civil War.  The General is desperate to get back to the rest of the army and his command, because he fears his direct subordinate, who must currently be in command, will use tactical nuclear weapons in an effort to save the army, an escalation the General does not want to commit to.  He can hear and see friendly helicopters searching for the him, but can't reach his radio or flare gun to direct them to his location.  Luckily some civilians come by and help him get to the flare gun, so he gets back in command and makes sure nuclear weapons are not used.

Abernathy doesn't get into what started the civil war or what the ideological or geographical dividing lines between the two sides are; the whole point of the story, it seems, is that under no circumstances should you use nuclear weapons.  To this end, Abernathy employs a little literary device, suggesting that "holding the line" against nuclear weapon use is a higher duty than "holding the line" on the battlefield against the enemy.  I thought the fact that the story is about an American civil war in which we don't know about the aims or ideology of the combatants muddied the issue: would Abernathy think it was acceptable to use nuclear weapons against foreign invaders or on foreign soil or against certain ideological opponents, people who were against democracy or were racists or sexists or whatever your particular bugaboo is?   (It is easy to imagine refraining from escalation if you are in a conflict with people who share some of your heritage and values so you have reason to expect you can come to terms with them, but being willing to escalate if you are fighting Nazis or Communists or cannibal Martians who are going to wipe out your whole culture or commit genocide against your people.) 

The story is well-written and constructed, but no big deal--merely acceptable.  It looks like "Hour Without Glory" has only ever been reprinted in the French version of F&SF.

"The Year 2000" by Robert Abernathy

Like "Hour Without Glory," "The Year 2000" has not been reprinted much; besides in a Mexican anthology of stories from F&SF, it appeared in the French edition of F&SF, in an issue with a collage cover--I think Joachim Boaz is into this kind of illustration.

"The Year 2000" is a lame joke story of like two and a half pages with a grim resolution that I guess is in sync with "Hour Without Glory."  The first part of the story depicts a guy waking up on January 1, 2000, and lists off all the awesome technological and political developments his world enjoys.  These are mostly broad and obvious jokes, like cars that have "thermonuclear tail-lights guaranteed to work underwater," the US government announcement that all taxes have been abolished and news from Moscow that the Soviet government has "withered away" as per Marxist theory; the climax of this part of the story is the simultaneous Second Coming of Christ and the acceptance by aliens of Earth into the Galactic Empire.  Also noted is that the guy has a "svelte, curvesome" wife.

The second part of the story indicates that the first part was just the dream of a guy waking up in the real Year 2000, in the aftermath of an atomic war; the guy's wife is "sagging, slattern," his kids are mutants, they live in a cave, and their diet consists of rabbits he traps.

I am giving this waste of time a thumbs down--this is banal filler.

"Psyclops" by Brian W. Aldiss

Unlike the Abernathy stories, of which Judith Merrill may be the sole superfan, "Psyclops" has been reprinted innumerable times across the decades in Edmund Crispin and Robert Silverberg anthologies, Aldiss collections and continental European books and magazines.  The story first appeared in an issue of New Worlds which includes an editorial by editor John Carnell in which Carnell talks about how awesome Judith Merrill is.  Small world!  Carnell quotes Merril's assessment that British SF magazines are better than American ones, no doubt music to his London-born ears.  

"Psyclops" is pretty good.  The text of Aldiss's tale consists of dialogue between two telepaths, one a stranded space traveler, the other his unborn son, a six-month-old fetus in his mother's womb!  You see, Dad and Mum landed their space ship on a planet, only to be attacked by the natives.  The pregnant wife escaped, while the injured husband was captured.  As the ship bearing his family gets further and further away from him, the doomed father instructs his unborn son in how to telepathically communicate to Earth and request help, which is required because his mother lacks the ability to steer the ship into radio range of Earth and she isn't a telepath herself.

"Psyclops" feels fresh; I like it.   

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The Aldiss is worthy of attention, but I have my doubts about the Abernathy stories; I suppose they appealed to Merril because of their subject matter--depictions of America laid low, dire admonitions  about atomic weapons, and dumb jokes.

More 1956 SF stories by people with last initials that come early in the alphabet in the next episode of MPorcius Fiction Log.