H. L. Gold (1914–1996)

Rating: 4* of five, rounded down a half-star for a few head-scratchers in the story

Available as a free download on The Internet Archive.

A wonderful indictment of mindless end-stage capitalism, this. The autofacs are destroying the Earth because they're programmed to produce goods for humans while the humans are busy destroying each other, and the autofacs aren't programmed to stop producing until ordinary human-led production is up to capacity to replace their output.

But there aren't enough show more people left after the war to produce goods. So the autofacs keep producing. And they've ravaged the planet, extracted *all* the resources, and are on the brink of a crisis.

Enter some human chauvinist survivors, people living on the autofacs' deliveries but longing to remake their own means of production. How? First, stop the autofacs from tunneling the Earth into a honeycomb as the automated resource locators locate more resources to make into things. They figure out how to do this by making the machines that control everything stop to figure out what the word "pizzled" means. Machine language skills are dependent upon examples and usages to interpret human wishes, so "pizzled"—a word invented on the spot—is guaranteed to stop the low-level machines in their tracks and get the problem of figuring out what's wrong to the higher-ups.

Bureaucracy/hierarchy is eternal and not species dependent.

This plot succeeds and, using the information they extrapolate from this success, the human chauvinists figure out a way to Stop The Autofacs!! And it WORKS!! But the basic question they've failed to devise an answer for is, "Now what?"

I liked the story, and have spent this much time and effort creating a book report on it, because like most of PKD's work it leaves the reader with more questions than answers. That's why I started reading his stuff long ago, and why I was willing to take up with his ouevre after a decades-long hiatus. Amazon is using some of its ungodly billions to autofac...I mean create...screen-based entertainments rooted in PKD's storytelling. Two of PKD's daughters are exec-producing a show called Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, and this story is an episode of that series.

The episode refocuses the stakes of the story in a major, major way that I can't discuss without spoilers. The episode also modernizes the manner in which Autofac, transmogrified from a descrptive term for a technological artifact into a corporate name, is hacked and what the consequences of the Big Reveal are constitute the major reorientation of the concerns of society. Consumption is still the problem, though the reasons it's a problem have shifted. For that reason, I'd give the episode an extra half-star over the source material.

I'd buttress that half-star addition with a major change that I like a lot: A woman is the center of the episode's story, and for a very significant reason. Contrast this with the role of the only woman in PKD's story, wife of one of the human chauvinists, who serves coffee and asks Mary Sue questions, which are answered condescendingly by any male around. In one of the story's illustrations in Galaxy Magazine's November 1955 edition, in fact, the woman is depicted lying in the dirt between two men, watching something unfold beneath them, IN. A. SKIRT. that's modestly covering her knees.

Ha. Ha ha. Clearly the artist has never worn a skirt. How the hell would she have gotten down on her belly in the dirt bound up by one of those things? And more to the point, how the hell would she get back up? And WHY would she wear one of those impractical items in a post-apocalyptic world when trousers are vastly more practical?

Also agreeably different in the filmed version is the inclusion of sex. As in, the female lead gets some sex and the focus is on the attractive man sexing her up to her liking. In a radical departure from previous norms, the attractive young man stays naked after the sex scene, is lingered over by the camera, and is emotionally needy of the woman's love and approval in the afterglow. He even says The Big Three to her! First!

I love this. It's about goddamned time. If for no other reason that it points up in a quiet, even positive, way the conventional tropes and their ubiquity without nastiness or negativity. Well done, producers and writers, well played, actors, and say Hallelujah, consumers! We're finally, in small first-steps ways, seeing the positive effects of the unleashed anger of a generation of mad-as-hell women. Don't take it anymore, keep reframing the conversation, and leave more questions than answers. Growth will happen. show less

I acquired this back issue of Galaxy at a convention mainly because of the rather wonderful Ed Emshwiller cover artwork showing a Northrop flying wing being towed out to sea for an air-launch of a piggy-backed unmanned orbital rocket. It doesn't ring true on a moment's thought, but it looks rather fantastic, as it was supposed to. The article it illustrates has nothing to do with flying wings, piggy-back launches or even launches at sea, but is actually a fairly sober description of the show more state of orbital rocketry in the USA in 1955. It turned out to be fairly accurate and prophetic, especially given the actual size of early satellites launched by both the USA and Russia and the early inflatable 'Echo' passive communications satellites launched by the USA between 1960 and 1964.

But then it turned out that there were items of interest in the stories, as well. There was a Frederik Pohl story, Mapmakers, about a survey ship lost in hyperspace, which got a lot wrong but still read well, so much so that it would be anthologised in a commemorative collection of Fred Pohl's career, Platinum Pohl in 2007, more than fifty years later. Other stories in this issue are very much of their time and can be disregarded, though there's an amusing Robert Sheckley story that holds up well despite some now rather archaic colloquialisms ("Gee!").

Perhaps the most interesting thing in this issue was part of the serialisation of a novel, Preferred Risk, by one "Edson McCann". For an unknown writer, the story seems quite well-constructed and indeed doesn't seem too archaic more than fifty years on (I had no difficulty visualising the action in contemporary terms). "Edson McCann", though, wasn't all they seemed. The pseudonym concealed the identity of two well-known writers; the first, Frederik Pohl, we have already seen in this issue, whilst the second was Lester del Ray. The story behind this collaboration is telling. Galaxy had run a story competition some time before; but none of the entries had come up to scratch and no winner could be declared. The answer was to commission a novel, quickly, from an experienced hand (or hands) who understood the problem and were not too fussed about writing under a pen-name for commercial reasons, and who could come up with something to fill the bill, and quickly. Enter Messrs. Pohl and del Ray.... Preferred Risk is about the dominance in a future economy of insurance companies, just as Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth showed a world in the grip of advertising agencies in The Space Merchants some three years before. Indeed, on the strength of this instalment, the plot appeared to be developing along similar lines to the earlier novel, with an insider in the relevant trade having its shortcomings exposed and eventually turning against it. Still, don't forget the saying "Write what you know", and that can apply as much to plots and formats as it does to subjects...

The reviews column contains a little gem, amongst a slew of novels that have (mostly) disappeared. The review is of Jack Finney's The Body Snatchers, and the reviewer says that this is a good treatment of the theme, but it has been done so often before that this book has little new to say on the subject. Which didn't stop it getting picked up and adapted twice for the big screen, first in 1956 (so it must've been in production when this issue of Galaxy was on the newsstands) and again in 1978! show less

The best thing about this old science fiction digest is the awesome cover done by the legendary Ed Emshwiller. But it is what it is.
The book reviews are from Groff Conklin who was becoming one of the premier anthology editors of the era. (I note that LT tells me that Conklin died on this day, July 19, in 1968.)The funniest of the reviews is the one for "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" which was just out and not yet made into several movies. Get this: "There is absolutely nothing wrong with show more this novel, which was fist serialized in Collier's, except that it has been done again and again and again. Too many s-f novels lack outstanding originality, but this one lacks it to an outstanding degree." Two years ago I read the edition that Jack Finney revised for the 1978 film. I gave it 4+ stars. For a 50's novel it is great, and excellent no matter what decade. Pooh pooh Mr Conklin book reviewer, sir. I think you swung and missed. Bring on the pod people.

Here's an abbreviated breakout of the contents courtesy of isfdb:

2 • And He Sez • Editor's Page • essay by H. L. Gold
4 • The Mapmakers • novelette by Frederik Pohl • interior artwork by Ashman
40 • Spoken For • short story by William Morrison • interior artwork by Ed Emshwiller
48 • Property of Venus • novelette by L. Sprague de Camp • interior artwork by Mel Hunter
69 • Forecast
70 • For Your Information: The Orbital (Unmanned) Satellite Vehicle • essay by Willy Ley
81 • Deadhead • short story by Robert Sheckley • interior artwork by Dick Francis
90 • Galaxy's 5 Star Shelf • book reviews by Groff Conklin
90 • Review: Year of Consent by Kendell Foster Crossen • review by Groff Conklin
90 • Review: The Other Side of Here by Murray Leinster • review by Groff Conklin
90 • Review: One Against Eternity by A. E. van Vogt • review by Groff Conklin
91 • Review: The Visionary Novels of George MacDonald: Lilith, Phantastes by George MacDonald • review by Groff Conklin
92 • Review: The Maker of Moons by Robert W. Chambers • review by Groff Conklin
92 • Review: The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney • review by Groff Conklin
92 • Review: A Man Obsessed by Alan E. Nourse • review by Groff Conklin
92 • Review: The Last Planet by Andre Norton • review by Groff Conklin
92 • Review: Few Were Left by Harold Rein • review by Groff Conklin
93 • Review: Tyrant of Time by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach • review by Groff Conklin
93 • Review: Undersea Quest by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson • review by Groff Conklin
94 • The Amateurs • short story by Alan Cogan interior artwork by Diehl
104 • Preferred Risk (Part 2 of 4) • serial by Lester del Rey and Frederik Pohl as by Edson McCann • interior artwork by Sanford Kossin

Robert Day has written a very good review of the digest here on LT. I found the stories agreeable. The slightly zany 'Property of Venus' was old fashioned but fun. Some of the other stories made you think. I did lightly skim a bit. I also enjoyed the advertisements. The Science Fiction Book Club would make free reservations for your round trip to the moon! show less

Reading science fiction was one of my favorite past-times when I was a teenager in high school. It remains one of my favorite genres for reading to this day. Back in the mid sixties I devoured a variety of science fiction, but this collection of short novels remains etched in my memory better than most of those I read -- especially the robot story "How-2". This was a startlingly funny tale of how one regular Joe, named Gordon Knight, ordered a do-it-yourself mechanical dog kit from How-2 show more Kits, Inc. and received instead a Robot kit.
The sixties was the era of do-it-yourself kits and build-your-own train sets so this story was one that really hit close to home for a thirteen-year-old boy. The complications from the mistake of sending a robot instead of a mechanical dog are compounded in the story to the point of near chaos that is more humorous and fascinating than most other stories I have ever read. It is not surprising that the story was written by Clifford Simak, one of the elder statesmen of modern science fiction who was named a "Grand Master" by the Science Fiction Writers of America. The remaining stories in this collection do not disappoint as the volume also contains a classic tale of psychological intrigue by Frederick Pohl. While it may be difficult to find this volume it is worth the search to read these tales of the future. show less