Ring in the New Year! (January 1959 Fantasy and Science Fiction; 1-01-59)
Happy New Year! 1959 promises to be stellar in all senses of the word. My apologies for the hiatus. Those of you who are familiar with manual typewriters know the strain pressing down on those keys...
View ArticleInterstellar eavesdroppers (April 1959 Galaxy wrap up; 2-08-1959)
Since the second decade of this century, humanity has been indiscrimately pouring out a star’s worth of electromagnetic waves. First with radio and now television, there is a sphere of information...
View ArticleFire from the Sky (March 1959 Fantasy & Science Fiction; 3-10-1959)
Last time on this station, I informed all of you that Part 2 of this (last) month’s Fantasy & Science Fiction review would have to wait since I’d wanted to get through the Poul Anderson novelette...
View ArticleStar Dim.. (May 1959 Fantasy & Science Fiction, second part; 4-07-1959)
How scary is a truly dark night sky? In Asimov’s Nightfall, a certain planet’s orbital situation ensures that there is always a sun overhead. On the rare occasion that all of the nearby stars align on...
View ArticleDouble-size equals Double-good (June 1959 Galaxy, second part; 4-14-1959)
There’s been big news in the space world over the weekend, but I want to talk about it next time so I can see how things shake out. Thus, without further ado, I move onto the rest of the extra-thick...
View ArticleStarting strong (July 1959 Fantasy and Science Fiction;6-13-1959)
It’s those haunting, evocatively written F&SF stories that keep me a regular subscriber. July’s issue opens with Robert F. Young’s To Fell a Tree, about the murder (mercy killing?) of the tallest...
View ArticleIF Returns! (July 1959 IF; 7-07-1959)
There is a certain perverse joy to statistics. Think of the folks who spend hours every week compiling baseball scores, hit averages, etc. It’s a way to find a pattern to the universe, I suppose. To...
View Article[Sep. 12, 1959] Best of the Best (October 1959 Fantasy and Science Fiction,...
Statistics are (is?) fun. There is a simple joy to compiling data and finding patterns. Since the beginning of the publishing year, i.e. issues with a January cover date, I have been rating stories...
View Article[Feb. 23, 1960] Cepheid Oscillations (March 1960 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
From the depths of mediocrity to the peaks of quality, it looks like our long literary winter may finally be over. Perhaps the groundhog didn’t see a shadow this year. First, we had an...
View Article[May 23, 1960] Month’s End (June 1960 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
With Astounding so good this month, I suppose it was too much to ask that Fantasy and Science Fiction would also be of high caliber. While it’s not a bad issue, it’s not one of the better ones,...
View Article[July 27, 1960] Footloose and Fancy Free (Japan and the August 1960 Fantasy &...
Perhaps the primary perquisite of being a writer (certainly not the compensation, though Dr. Asimov is the happy exception) is the ability to take one’s work anywhere. Thanks to ‘faxes and patient...
View Article[Nov. 28, 1960] Odds and Ends (the December 1960 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
Here’s a math problem for you, kids! If more than half of your magazine is taken up by a 2-star short novel, how likely is it that you’ll still end up with a good issue? Answer: not very. I’m used to...
View Article[January 2, 1961] Closing out the month (the January 1961 Fantasy and Science...
If you are in the accounting profession, you are familiar with the concept of “closing the books,” wherein you complete all your reconciliations and regard a month as finished. Here at the Journey,...
View Article[April 26, 1961] Dessert for last (May 1961 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
Del Shannon’s on the radio, but I’ve got Benny Goodman on my hi-fi. Say…that’s a catchy lyric! Well, here we are at the end of April, and that means I finally get to eat dessert. That is, I finally...
View Article[May 21, 1961] Pineapple Upside-down Month (June 1961 Fantasy and Science...
Have you ever heard/seen Karl Orrf’s Carmina Burana? It’s an opera of sorts, the performance of a set of medieval poems to music. It is likely that you’re at least familiar with its opening number,...
View Article[July 27, 1961] Breaking a Winning Streak (August 1961 Fantasy and Science...
by Gideon Marcus Take a look at the back cover of this month’s Fantasy and Science Fiction. There’s the usual array of highbrows with smug faces letting you know that they wouldn’t settle for a lesser...
View Article[August 13, 1961] Predicting the Future (September 1961 Analog)
by Gideon Marcus Everyone who writes has got an agenda, but Science fiction writers may be the most opinionated of authors. That’s because their pigeon involves prediction, which in turn, is a...
View Article[September 29, 1961] Slim Pickings (October 1961 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
by Gideon Marcus Each month, I look forward to my dose of new science fiction stories delivered in the form of digest-sized magazines. Over the decade that I’ve been subscribing, I’ve fallen into a...
View Article[January 27, 1962] Bumps in Road (February 1962 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
by Gideon Marcus It’s been a topsy turvy month: Snow is falling in coastal Los Angeles. Castro’s Cuba has been kicked out of the Organization of American States. Elvis is playing a Hawaiian beach...
View Article[February 7, 1962] Funny Business (March 1962 Fantastic)
by Victoria Silverwolf Dying is easy; comedy is hard. These famous last words, ascribed to many a noted actor on his deathbed, are probably apocryphal. Even if nobody ever really uttered them before...
View Article[February 23, 1962] Material Reading (March 1962 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
by Gideon Marcus The coverage for John Glenn’s orbital flight was virtually non-stop on the 20th. My daughter and I (as many likely did) played hooky to watch it. During the long countdown, the Young...
View Article[March 1, 1962] Hearts and Flowers (April 1962 Fantastic)
by Victoria Silverwolf March has roared in like a lion here in Eastern Tennessee, with high temperatures below fifty and a bit of snow falling in Chattanooga. Can it be possible that spring is right...
View Article[March 10, 1962] Mail Call! (The April 1962 Galaxy)
by Gideon Marcus If there is any true measure of fame, it might well be the amount of fan mail you get. Many stars employ services to plow through their truckloads and give each missive personal...
View Article[Apr. 28, 1962] Changing of the Guard (May 1962 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
by Gideon Marcus I never thought the time would come that reading The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction would be the most dreaded portion of my duties…and yet, here we are. Two issues into new...
View Article[November 3, 1962] A Plague of Purple (December 1962 Galaxy)
[if you’re new to the Journey, read this to see what we’re all about!] by Gideon Marcus A plague has invaded the galaxy. Well, more specifically, a plague has invaded Galaxy, as evidenced in the...
View Article[September 17, 1963] Places of refuge (October 1963 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
by Gideon Marcus Every animal needs a safe place. A refuge from the violence and competition of the natural world in which to evade danger, to regather one’s strength in security. The groundhog and...
View Article[November 19, 1963] Fuel for the Fire (December 1963 Fantasy and Science...
by Gideon Marcus The once proud golden pages of F&SF have taken a definite turn for the worse under the Executive Editorship of onef Avram Davidson. At last, after two years, we arrive at a new...
View Article[February 21, 1964] For the fans (March 1964 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
[Due to an oversight (clearly!), Galactic Journey was not included on Locus’ Awards Ballot this year. If you’re a fan of the Journey, we be grateful if you’d fill us in under Fanzine!] by Gideon...
View Article[May 18, 1964] Aspirations (June 1964 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
by Gideon Marcus At the Ballot Box If you plunked down your $2 for a Worldcon membership (Pacificon II in San Francisco this year), then you probably sent in your nominations for the Hugo Awards,...
View Article[June 16, 1964] Strangers in Strange Lands (August 1964 Worlds of Tomorrow)
by Victoria Silverwolf In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split. Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye We’ve probably all felt out of place from...
View Article[October 20, 1964] The Struggle (November 1964 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
[Have you gotten your copy of Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963)? It’s got some of the best science fiction of the Silver Age, many of the stories first appearing in The Magazine of...
View Article[December 15, 1964] Failed Flight of Fancy (January 1965 Fantasy and Science...
by Gideon Marcus Missing Something Science fiction and fantasy are closely aligned genres. Indeed, there is no hard line between them (like the continuum from sharks to rays) and one person’s “soft”...
View Article[June 18, 1965] Galactic Doppleganger (July 1965 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
by Gideon Marcus Those of you who have been following the Journey over the past several years know that my appraisal of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction has changed a few times. Back in the...
View Article[September 20, 1965] Unfinished Business (October Fantasy and Science Fiction)
by Gideon Marcus Leaving things hanging There’s something compelling about things left incomplete – from Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony to President Kennedy’s first term. In the gaps of what could...
View Article[April 8, 1966] Search Parties (May 1966 Fantastic)
by Victoria Silverwolf Keep Watching the Skies! The good citizens of Michigan were recently reminded of the warning I’ve quoted above, from 1951’s The Thing from Another World (a loose cinematic...
View Article[April 18, 1966] Rocannon and the Kar-Chee
by Jason Sacks One of my favorite sci-fi publishers these days is Ace Books. We’ve talked about their double novels a lot on the Journey, so I’m sure you’re well aware of them, but I’d like to take a...
View Article[November 22, 1966] Ha ha. Very funny. (December 1966 Fantasy and Science...
by Gideon Marcus Joke’s on me I have a buddy in the Costume Designers Guild (you know her, too — she’s Gwyn Conaway). She keeps me up to date with the inside dope on Hollywood. One tidbit she offered...
View Article[July 20, 1967] An Analog of Analog (August 1967 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
by Gideon Marcus Imitation is… I think it’s safe to say that, for almost twenty years there have been three Big Science Fiction Magazines. Each aims at a specific branch of the scientification fandom....
View Article[September 18, 1967] Skål! (October 1967 Fantasy and Science Fiction)
by Gideon Marcus Vicious Varangians Reliving the Middle Ages “as they ought to have been” is all the rage now, from Renaissance Pleasure Faires to The Society for Creative Anachronism to The Byrd’s...
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