Infinity, Feb '56: H Ellison and R Wilson

The February 1956 issue of Infinity Science Fiction came to mind recently when I was looking at some of my old blog posts about Charles Beaumont.  One of those posts was about "Traumeri," which debuted in the Feb '56 ish of Infinity, the second of the magazine's 20 issues.  Looking through the archives, I see that I have also read the issue's contribution by L. Sprague de Camp, "Internal Combustion."  There are still more big names in this issue, so let's read their stories--and those by some little names, too!  The fact that these stories are by writers I either think are overrated or know little about may add some excitement to the proceedings.  

Today we'll handle the Harlan Ellison story and the two itty bitty stories by Richard Wilson.

"Glow Worm" by Harlan Ellison

I am not an Ellison hater but I am certainly an Ellison skeptic who thinks Ellison's fame is largely a function not of the quality of his work but of his wacky public persona, which is aggressive, self-aggrandizing, self-important, and at times ridiculous, and who finds many of the recurring characteristics of Ellison's work less than entertaining.  I discuss this matter at some length in a blog post about Ellison's 1980 story "All the Lies that Are My Life" (a post in which I also talk a lot about Barry Malzberg and present my theory that Ellison and Malzberg are very similar writers and even people, with Malzberg being the fine and admirable version of the type and Ellison the garish and shoddy iteration) and in another post, one about Ellison's 1976 tale "Killing Bernstein." 

"Glow Worm" is what I guess you would call a mood piece; there isn't a lot of plot or character or anything like that.  I suppose Ellison puts some effort into the images.

It is the future.  Much of mankind has left the Earth to live on other worlds in other solar systems.  For reasons Ellison does not explain, these colonists don't have any interaction with Earth; they don't communicate with the Earth and they apparently have no way to return.  The people who remained on Earth ended up getting involved in a war that exterminated all life on this planet you and I call home.  Except for one guy!  This guy, just before the cataclysm, was the most successful product of experiments meant to create super soldiers who could survive anything.  And he did survive the war!  But he is all alone.  

This guy, who glows and is proof from most physical injury and needs almost no food to survive, decides to leave Earth to find the colonists.  It is vaguely suggested he will serve as "a messenger," "an epitaph," "a symbol;" Ellison throws out this flashy over-the-top melodramatic stuff, but it is all surface, there is no depth to what Ellison is trying to say, it's all emperor-with-no-clothes goop.  What is the Glow Worm's message?  What does he symbolize?  I guess the Glow Worm is supposed to represent how evil and self-destructive the human race is, but since many members of the human race left Earth and (it is suggested) built new societies on other planets, and since the human race also produced this immortal man, the story itself demonstrates that it makes no sense to paint the human race with a broad brush as a bunch of evil failures.   

Anyway, the glowing survivor takes a few years to put together a space ship from wrecks and spare parts that survived the cataclysm, then takes off.  He didn't do a good job with the outer hull of the ship, he being an amateur welder, and the ship is not airtight, but that is OK, because this superman doesn't need air to survive and he is immune to radiation poisoning.

That ends the story; there is no climax or resolution or anything.  Maybe "Glow Worm" is supposed to remind us of the Wandering Jew, because the title character is immortal and is going to be (slowly, because his ship is jerry-rigged) wandering the universe.  But the Wandering Jew was an immortal wanderer as a punishment, and if Ellison's Glow Worm committed any sins for which he needs to be punished, I missed it.  Maybe the story just represents Ellison's alienation and it is expected that other SF fans will identify with the loneliness and alienation of the Glow Worm, who of course is not responsible for his own alienation and loneliness. 

The actual writing of "Glow Worm" and the images are not bad, so we'll call it "merely acceptable."  But it doesn't add up to anything.

"Glow Worm" AKA "Glowworm" was Ellison's first sale to a SF magazine, though I guess not technically his first genre story actually published.  It has been reprinted in the magazine Unearth and the oft-reprinted and updated The Essential Ellison.  Ellison, in the intro to "Glowworm" in The Essential Ellison, tells the story of his writing the piece and of his early days in New York, touching on his relationships with people like Infinity editor Larry Shaw as well as writers Robert Silverberg, Lester del Rey, Algis Budrys and James Blish.  (Why should Ellison feel alienated?  This essay makes clear that many people went out of their way to help Ellison.)  This intro, which I read in a scan of the 35th-Year Retrospective edition of The Essential Ellison, is more interesting and entertaining than most of Ellison's fiction, which, like the fact that Ellison's face appears on and within so many of his books, buttresses my theory that his fame is as much as a celebrity as a writer--his own life and behavior are more compelling than the stuff he put on paper. 

"The Futile Flight of John Arthur Benn" by Richard Wilson

Richard Wilson has two stories in this issue of Infinity; this one appears under the pen name of Edward Halibut.  I think this will be the fourth story by Wilson we have read, preceded by "Lonely Road," "The Big Fix!," and "The Story Writer." Both of today's Wilson stories are very short and each would see reprint in one of the anthologies of short-shorts edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg and Joseph Olander; this one, "The Futile Flight of John Arthur Benn," little more than one page here in Infinity, was included in Microcosmic Tales and in the German derivatives of that anthology.

"The Futile Flight of John Arthur Benn" is a total waste of time.  A suicidal guy goes back in time, in hopes of being killed by a dinosaur, and Wilson lists famous historical figures he sees briefly as he travels back.  But his journey back stalls before the Mesozoic.  He falls asleep, and then he wakes up back in the 20th century--it was all a dream!  But his desire to kill himself was no dream, so he kills himself in a mundane fashion.

Thumbs down.

I've dismissed as weak or just plain bad at least
 four other stories from Microcosmic Tales:
Harry Harrison's "The Final Battle"
Barry Malzberg's "Varieties of Technological Experience"
Malzberg and Bill Pronzini's "A Clone at Last"
Harlan Ellison's "The Voice in the Garden"

"Course of Empire" by Richard Wilson

This short short, "Course of Empire," like three full pages in Infinity, reappeared in the language of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and whoever actually writes those James Patterson things in 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories and in the version of the book published in Dutch, Italian and Serbian. 

"Course of Empire" is a terrible shaggy dog story that consists of the absolutely lamest and most toothless of ethnic jokes and other childish excuses for humor.  Thumbs down!

It is the future and two men are gabbing.  One was a high official of the Earth world government; his department had the job of choosing the men who would govern the various Terran colonies across the solar system.  An Englishman was chosen to govern Venus because it rains a lot there.  A Bedouin was nominated to run Mars because it is sandy there.  Anyway, the punchline of the story is that the natives of Ganymede conquered the Earth and the two men gabbing are slaves of the Ganymedeans.  

Why would anybody publish this kind of material outside of a joke book for eight-year-olds?  Because they are the kind of people who will think it is hilarious when Muslims conquer Europe and the Chinese Communist Party conquers Japan, the Philippines and Australia?  

Back in November of 2014 I read 20 stories from 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories
and I actually liked some of them

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These stories are not good.  Maybe editor of Infinity Shaw was desperate for material, he having to compete with established magazines like Astounding, F&SF, Galaxy, etc. for the good stuff.  

Reading this blogpost to copy edit it made me a little uneasy, because one of my criticisms of Harlan Ellison is that he is kind of a self-important jerk, and my attacks on today's three stories make me sound like a similarly unpleasant character.  Well, we'll read more from this ish of Infinity next time--hopefully we'll see some better material and I'll be able to radiate some happiness and light instead of snark and complaint.