There are a lot of books piled up here, some good, some bad, some indifferent. One of the good ones is Margot Bennett's THE LONG WAY BACK (The Bodley Head, 10/6, 206 pp). Miss Bennett has pictured a rather strange negro civilisation arisen in Africa some long years after the "Big Bang" has wrecked the world; a civilisation which it is not too easy to understand and which believes itself to be the first to discover atomic energy. Faced with a threat of war (against the empire of yellow men) an expedition is sent to the old land of Britain to discover what natural resources may exist in this unexplored jungle-clad country. It is with the adventures of this expedition that the story is mainly concerned, and while I found them interesting I was continually losing the thread by attempting to relate the practices and rites of the natives of Britain with present day things; to see from what these peculiar customs had been derived. Some were easy—the "I-Spy" men obviously came from some war-time secret police; but why call the god "Thay"?-unless from "they." Either Miss Bennett was too subtle for me or else I was searching for something with no existence. But - which ever it was - it did detract from an otherwise excellent story. 

Captain W. E. Johns is well-known for his "Biggles" stories, and no-one would deny that they are excellent juvenile adventure yarns, but like so many others, Captain Johns has had a smack at a science fiction novel and whilst he's not failed as miserably as some, the result is not good. KINGS OF SPACE  (Hodder & Stoughton, 7/6 192pp.) is a juvenile, of course, and the first third of the book is devoted to the meeting of Group Captain Timothy Clinton, R.A.F., and his son Rex, with Professor Lucius "Brainy" Brane, M.A.; then to some discussion - tedious, and somewhat erroneous if you happen to be a Clarke & Ley man - and comparisons of aeronautics and astronautics. Finally, the gyroscopic, helicoptered, cosmic-jetted cosmobile takes off at "gravity one." We then meet dragons on the moon, brontossaurii on Venus and mosquitos on Mars, and return to earth to meet plain ordinary spies who try to steal the Spacemaster. Well, perhaps a youngster who has never read any s.f. before might be enthralled by this story, but any one who has read Robert A. Heinlein's juvenile s.f. would most definitely not find anything of interest in it. Which, of course, brings me to STARMAN JONES (Sidgwick & Jackson, 7/6). The top line of the dust wrapper (the same as the American one by the by, and not very good) says "Science Fiction for Boys," so I put on my short trousers to get the best possible enjoyment out of Mr Heinlein's excellent yarn of the starways of tomorrow. Max Jones, the hero, is of course a youngster. Flung onto the mercies of a world of "Guilds" and re­stricted employment, Max wangles his way onto a starship as a steward, gets a chance to transfer to a technical guild, and finally finishes up as an astrogator—the top man in the trades of the spaceways. All told in Heinlein's usual very plausible style, with those incidents which go to make his background so convincing.

Also for Juveniles is Arthur C. Clarke's THE YOUNG TRAVELLER IN SPACE (Phoenix, 7 /6, 72pp., with 1 colour plate, 31 monochrome plates and six diagrams) There is nothing in here that will be new to readers of NEBULA, I imagine, but if you have any young friend who is in line for a gift from you, this would be a very good idea. Clearly and interestingly written, in Mr Clarke's usual attention holding style, it condenses what he said in "The Exploration of Space" into a length suitable for the young enquiring mind. For the adult, WORLDS IN SPACE by Martin Caidin (Sidgwick & Jackson, 17/6, 212pp.. ^plus 64 pages of illustration) is one of the latest of the growing number of books that deal seriously with the problems of astrogation and the conquest of space. Mr Caidin stays rather closer to home than Mr Clarke; Worlds in Space deals primarily with setting up the satellite station, then the first expedition to the moon, and the erection of a permanent base there. Only in his final chapter does he take us "Beyond the Moon." But he does a thorough job of these elements in space travel - "robots into space," "The weakest link­man" and "the first space ships" are the chapter headings of the first three of the ten chapters. Consideration is, given to the problems of communication, of supply, and of a multitude of other factors. A really fine work, although doubtless the technically minded will be inclined to argue over this or that. Due praise must be given to Fred L. Wolff for his illustrations, which add considerably to the worth of this book.

Another technical contribution is made by Leonard G. Cramp, with SPACE, GRAVITY & THE FLYING SAUCER (Werner Laurie, 10/6 182pp.). Having myself, in the past, been knocked down and brutally assaulted (in a letter) by Arthur C. Clarke for daring to suggest that space travel might be possible by some means other than a rocket, I am a little astonished when a member of that august body, The British Interplanetary Society, produces a book discussing seriously such possibilities. I do not have the technical knowledge to argue with Mr Cramp, even if I wished to do so, and therefore I will content myself by saying that he has presented in a far more scientific way much of the available "information" and theory on the Saucers; he has stripped it of a great deal of the more obvious "sensation-mongering," and tried to draw conclusions on how the Saucer works. To give you some idea of the range he has covered, on one page appear two plates—the first is titled "Electromagnetic Repulsion of a Conductor;" the second-- "Levitation of a heavy table"!

For those who prefer anthologies, there is WORLDS OF TOMORROW, edited by August Derleth (Weindenfeld & Nicholson, 9/6,224pp.) has fifteen stories, two of them by Arthur C. Clarke and the others ranging from Bradbury (The Smile) all the way down the alphabet to Donald Wandrei (Strange Harvest). Quite a respectable selection of some of the better but less often reprinted stories.

Working the permutations of the possible anthologies, Sam Moskowitz came up with the EDITOR'S CHOICE IN SCIENCE FICTION       (McBride, N.Y., $3.50. 285pp.) containing stories selected by Sam Moskowitz (with the assistance of the editorial director of the McBride Company, and of magazines represented), these are old favourites, the only "stranger" being Bluebook. John Campbell of Astounding offered What Thin Partitions, a recent item jointly penned by Mark Clifton and Alex Apostolides, while Donald Kennicot went back to 1932 for The Wall of Fire by Jack Kirkland, and Mary Gnaedinger of the late Famous Fantastic Mysteries went away back to 1895 for Robert W. Chambers' The Demoiselle d'Ys actually published in FFM in 1939.

The unwieldy title originally given in the U.S.A.to Fredric Brown's novel of a man's total subjection of himself to an ideal, The Lights in the Sky Are Stars, has been curtailed to PROJECT JUPITER on its re-publication over here (Boardman, 9/6, 222pp.). If anything, that is the one thing the story needed to improve it, although some readers may find it goes at somewhat pedestrian pace. Patrick Moore has (apart from his serious work, which is excellent) had published his fourth juvenile s.f. adventure, THE FROZEN PLANET (Museum, 7/6, 184pp.), which deals with a strange madness attacking the people of the earth, the remnants of a war-destroyed Martian civilisation and the usual man of "science" plus his intrepid and younger partners who save the world. I far prefer his earlier work, the effort of writing which was shared by A. L. Helm, OUT INTO SPACE (Museum, 9/6, 144pp.)  in which Bob and Ann, visiting their astronomer uncles are taken on a number of imaginary trips to the moon, and to the planets. This is wholly delightful, and should be intensely interesting-as well as instructive-to the youngster. It has eight excellent full-page plates, and a number of illustrations in the text.

 

That, of course, far from covers the current crop. Let us call it a fair cross-section, and if you think I've been a little heavy on the non-fiction side, I can assure you that you are wrong. There is more non-fiction published along these lines every day. I wonder if that means anything...?  

 

from Nebula No. 11. December 1954