Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Galaxy Science Fiction, April 1951


Not bad. A good issue for this time period.

Nice Girl with Five Husbands • shortstory by Fritz Leiber
A man travels to the future, meets a beautiful woman who would be ready to include him in her group marriage and then he returns to present. And that’s about everything what happened in this story. The writing as such was pretty good, but I really didn’t get the point of the story - if there was one. ***
Inside Earth • novelette by Poul Anderson
Earth has been invaded. There is a mutiny brewing, but one alien is sent to find what the mutineers are going to do – and to take care there WILL be a mutiny, but not too soon. The aliens believe that an outside threat could unificate humans and created a more cohesive and far better whole for the good of all species of the universe. A pretty good story with pretty nice writing, the only drawback was the slight overlong length. ***½
Betelgeuse Bridge • shortstory by William Tenn
A group of advanced aliens, who look just like giant slugs, arrive at earth. They are very condescendingly polite and give elaborate answers to all questions apologizing that humans don’t have enough knowledge and background to understand even the concepts. They let it slip that they have a machine that can cure all disease and rejuvenate body. Not surprisingly, humans want to buy that – at any cost. And it is for sale, but at a steep price. But there is a catch, of course. But there is a catch in the catch, of course. An old style average story with a fairly worn premise. ***
I, the Unspeakable • novelette by Walt Sheldon
Everyone who lives in a future totalitarian country has a designation with four letters and six numbers. After the designations have been re-evaluated one man gets an extremely rude designation. He must give up his work and finds that no one wants to have anything to do with him. He tries to find out if it is possible to change the designation. That isn’t going to be easy in a very bureaucratic state. ***-
Field Study • shortstory by Peter Phillips
A strange man is offering wonder cures. He doesn’t ask any money, but accepts it if someone gives. A some sort of criminal examiner goes to evaluate him and expects to expose a fraud. He finds that his sinusitis has healed. An overlong, overtalky and confusing story without any interesting point. **
The Marching Morons • novelette by C. M. Kornbluth
A man who has spent last centuries in suspended animation wakes up in a future where almost everyone is an idiot. A small smart aristocracy is running things and working themselves to death. This is the end result of stupid people getting more children while smarter people have less. The man from the past isn't a nice guy, though. And he has a final solution for the problem. One of the all time classics. There are some ideas which can be later seen in the Merchants of Venus: unscrupulous add men pushing for Venus colony. ****-

1 comment:

Mark said...

"Final Solution" = Le mot juste.