Galaxy. November/December 1978.
GALAXY. NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 1978
RATED 75% POSITIVE. STORY SCORE 3.50 OF 5
6 STORIES : 0 GREAT / 4 GOOD / 1 AVERAGE / 1 POOR / 0 DNF
It’s another stab at reading Science Fiction magazines from my birthday year - November 1978. It’s one of my little project from this blog. My first attempt was my favorite science fiction magazine, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. That didn’t turn out so well.
This time it is an issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. The November/December issue was listed as Volume 39, No 8 on the cover and clocked in at 163 pages. Unfortunately, the first 60 of those pages were given to part of 1 of a 5 part Serial of the Frederik Pohl novel “JEM." I neither read nor reviewed the novel segment, but it is an important enough work to be current in-print as one of the SF Masterworks series.
The best story in the book was The Surrogate Mouth, which was fast paced, interesting, and horrific, but it didn’t qualify for inclusion on The Great List. J.E. Pournelle wrote an essay about how computers were the future and there were a series of letters to the editor from and about Harlan Ellison’s stance on the Equal Right Amendment, women’s rights, and his chance to be a WorldCon Guest of Honor.
I also enjoyed Paul Walker’s snark and grumpiness in his book reviews. I’ll reprint an interesting passage here.
If we read a writer like James Jones, it is not because we like war novels necessarily, but because we like Jones. We don’t even think of From Here to Eternity as “a war novel.” But if we read a writer like Budrys, it is because we like science fiction. And even if he is our favorite writer, we read him as much for the sake of the experience of science fiction as for his own sake. In fact, it is his ability to communicate that experience so well that is surely the reason he is our favorite writer.
If we read science fiction writers primarily because we love science fiction, it is the identify of science fiction, the, that is essential to us. We must be able to define it to ourselves, and the more distinct our definition, the more acute will be our pleasure in it.
…. Non-fiction is a much better source of ideas; the better mainstream literature is a considerably superior source of aesthetic pleasure. All the science fiction experience has to offer is itself. The experience of alien worlds and new technologies and far future adventures. For those who love it, it is enough.
GALAXY: NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1978 IS RATED 75%
6 STORIES : 0 GREAT / 4 GOOD / 1 AVERAGE / 1 POOR / 0 DNF
The Surrogate Mouth • novelette by Simon Hawke [as by Nicholas Yermakov]
Good. A freelance navigator is on a space station to relax and raise a little hell. He finds some hell while wildly hungover in a co-ed group of pleasure-seekers. They take him to ‘the surrogate mouth,’ a man who is addicted to a symbiotic wormlike alien that can take over his mouth to speak the unfettered truth to those around him. Suspenseful and brutal.
Unemployment Problem • novelette by Jor Jennings
Poor. A “Space Whore” or “Sex Therapist” is the last survivor of a crashed spaceship on a planet full of dangerous plants and animals. Very misogynist. Also there is a cute space gopher.
Click • short story by Paul Walker
Good. What if personal appliances where sentient and decided to leave humanity.
The Population Explosion at Lake Stover • novelette by Dewey McCulloch
Good. Red skinned people start to take over homes as squatters along Lake Stover — and it may have something to do with Intergalactic housing law.
Two of a Kind • short story by Winston A. Howlett [as by Winston Howlett]
Average. A man walks his dog and sees a UFO.
The Wind-Down Toy • short story by Andrew J. Speck
Good. Charming bit of fantasy. A father looking for a Christmas gift, discovers a store full of strange and wonderful toys, including one that only winds down.
