The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1978

by Edward L. Ferman (Editor), Stephen King, Edward Bryant

162 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1978

About the author

Edward Ferman (born 1937) was an American science fiction and fantasy fiction editor and magazine publisher.

Ferman is the son of Joseph W. Ferman, and took over as editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1964 when Avram Davidson, due to his residence in various Latin American locales with unreliable postal delivery, could no longer practically continue editing; on the masthead, Joseph Ferman was listed as editor and publisher for Edward Ferman's first two years. Edward Ferman would take on the role of publisher, as well, by 1970, as his father gradually retired. He remained as editor until 1991 when he hired his replacement, Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He remained as publisher of the magazine until he sold it to Gordon Van Gelder in 2000. While Ferman was the editor, many other magazines in the field began to fold or were shortlived, and his magazine, along with Analog, was one of the few which maintained a regular schedule and sustained critical appreciation for its contents.

From 1969-1970, he was the editor of Fantasy & Science Fiction's sister publication Venture Science Fiction Magazine. Together, the Fermans had also edited and published the short-lived nostalgia and humor magazine P.S. and a similarly brief run of a magazine about mysticism and other proto-New Age matters, Inner Space.

Ferman received the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor three years in a row, from 1981 through 1983. F&SF had previously won several other Hugos under his editorship, which had been famously conducted, at least in the last decade of his tenure, from a table in the Ferman family's Connecticut house. He edited or co-edited several volumes of stories from F&SF and co-edited Final Stage with Barry N. Malzberg. It is probable that he also ghost-edited No Limits for or with Joseph Ferman, an anthology drawn from the pages of the first run of Venture.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_L..."

Reviews

[John Loyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

5 • Stone • 15 pages by Edward Bryant
OK/Fair. Rob is a failed electrical engineer but can really work the stim board. He’s working with the top performer. I’m not sure what this story is about. Assisted suicide?

27 • The Lady in White • 27 pages by Stephen R. Donaldson
OK. The lady in white entices boys to follow her into the deep forest. Most never return. Now it’s men, too. Mardik the blacksmith narrates this tale. He’s a macho stud. His brother came back, but blind. Mardik was furious, the he saw her, too, and is overcome with desire. Three pages of plot delivered in twenty-seven. Whatever happens to Mardik is fine, no sympathy for this arrogant hulk.

54 • Cuckoo • 11 pages by Dulan Barber
OK/Fair. Francesca has a baby, then we flashback to the events leading to her pregnancy. Including the fact that there may be some ghost coming to her bed when her husband is away. Horror?

68 • Lectric Jack • 14 pages by Ron Goulart
OK+. The narrator pieces together why Pete Warriner smashed a robot after doing some misdeed.

82 • The Night of the Tiger • 12 pages by Stephen King
OK/Good. Eddie joins the circus as a roustabout. The lion tamer, Mr. Indrasil, gives him hell. Mr. Legere has been showing up around the circus, he's got some sort of feud with Indrasil.

94 • The Beckfords • 16 pages by Barry Knister
Fair. Kelly meets a Russian agronomist who’s trying out prayer that he learned from seeing the Beckfords. When the Russians have bumper crops once crazy Leo gets in charge again he seeks the original source. His talk with the Beckfords was anti-climatic.

121 • Bearings • 36 pages by Edward Wellen
OK+. Neil finished his business in Alaska and now wants to get a trophy polar bear. He has heard of one in Siberia. He gets a flight north, snowmobiles across the line into Russia. Finds the bear, but is captured by a KGB man who was head of a team experimenting with mind controlling that bear. Poaching turns to intrigue and a mad dash to escape.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

CONTENTS


◾Fiction:

▪️"Stone" - Edward Bryant
▪️"The Lady in White" - Stephen R. Donaldson
▪️"Cuckoo" - Dulan Barber
▪️"Lectric Jack" - Ron Goulart
▪️"The Night of the Tiger" - Stephen King
▪️"The Beckfords" - Barry Knister
▪️"Bearings" - Edward Wellen


◾Non-fiction:

▪️Cartoon - Gahan Wilson
▪️Letters
▪️"Books" - Algis Budrys
▪️"Films: 'See Logan Run & Run & Run & Run & Run & Run...'" - Baird Searles
▪️"Science: 'The Lost Art'" - Isaac Asimov


The fiction in this issue consists mostly of horror stories of different kinds, some supernatural, some science fiction, and one apparently set in the present world. The only story that is not at least tinged with horror elements is Edward Wellen's "Bearings."

"Bearings" tells of a wealthy American, Neil Benthorn, hunting a huge polar bear, at least twelve feet in length, in Siberia. Polar bears are an endangered species and it is illegal to hunt them anywhere; Benthorn has also entered Russia illegally. He is captured by Russians who have an interest in that particular bear.

The science fiction in this tale is minimal (bearly there, one might say). It is largely an adventure story. Benthorn is the hero of the story, although some of his opinions are rather extreme:

"If we had listened to the antihunting freaks way back, we'd still be cowering in the caves - that's if we could've nerved ourselves to dispossess the cave bears in the first place. We've always had the do-gooders with us, slowing us down, holding us back."

This is quite good as a consciously brutal adventure. Wellen was an unpredictable author, both in subject matter and in quality; here he is certainly effective.

Edward Bryant's story "Stone" is by far the best known story in this issue. It won the Nebula Award for best science fiction short story of 1978, was a finalist for the Hugo Award, and finished in third place for a Locus Award. It is about singing blues music, being in the audience for the music, controlling a new kind of feedback for the music, and love.

This story involves a moral issue. I would like to discuss this briefly but I want to emphasize that I am going to give away the ending of the story, so I will do this as a "spoiler." The narrator is asked by the physically healthy woman that he loves to kill her. He does so, almost immediately. I think that this is a remarkably poor decision. I think that it would make much more sense to tell the woman that he would consider doing this if she still felt the same way in, say, six months. Assisting a suicide because the would-be victim might only be having a bad day is, in my opinion, just loony.

I would add that I don't think that Bryant realized how big an arena that holds over 900,000 people would need to be.

I think this is a good story but I don't see it as a superb one. Clearly readers at the time liked this more than I do.

The most surprising thing about Stephen King's story "The Night of the Tiger" may be the introduction, in which King is described as a 30 year old author who "to our knowledge...has published very little short fiction." I tend to think of King as having been a super-star forever.

This tale is set in a circus, in which there is an extremely fierce tiger and an equally fierce lion tamer. They are not friends.

As an aside, the narrator of the story is from Sauk City, which I assume is intended to be Sauk City, Wisconsin, the town which was actually the home of noted author and editor August Derleth, who, like King, was very active in the field of horror literature.

Most of Ron Goulart's science fiction and fantasy fiction is humorous. His tale here "Lectric Jack" is a nice combination of humor, horror, and science fiction. This is one of the many stories about an evil ventriloquist's dummy.

Barry Knister's story "The Beckfords" tells of better methods of farming. This verges on fantasy, but takes place mostly in a very real world. The science fiction and fantasy website ISFDb lists this as the only story published by Knister in this field.

Dulan Barber, who ISFDb says usually wrote under the pseudonym Owen Brookes, has a story of post-partum horror titled "Cuckoo." I find this the most unsettling story in this issue.

The introduction to "The Lady in White" says that this is the first published piece of short fiction by Stephen R. Donaldson. This is a medieval-times fantasy about a village which is occasionally visited by a woman in white who is irresistibly attractive to the young men of the village. Some of them follow her into the Deep Forest and never return. The narrator is the village blacksmith, whose brother followed the woman and did come back, but he was blind when he returned. Then the blacksmith himself meets the lady and he too is enthralled.

Isaac Asimov's science column is titled "The Lost Art." It deals with logarithms.

The film column by Baird Searles is titled "See Logan Run & Run & Run & Run & Run & Run..." This is principally a harshly negative review of the Logan's Run television series. There is also a brief commentary about the Wonder Woman television series, which finishes with the following sentence:

I will still, however, defend to the death Lynda Carter, for the charm of her acting and her ability to fill that overwrought metal brassiere.

I love the phrase "overwrought metal."

Algis Budrys's book review column includes very positive reviews of Songs of Stars and Shadows by George R. R. Martin and the art book Edd Cartier: The Known and the Unknown edited by Dean Cartier, somewhat less enthusiastic comments about books by Peter Dickinson and Keith Roberts, and negative reviews of works by Philip José Farmer and Joanna Russ as well as some books published by Borgo Press. Budrys refers to Russ's book We Who Are About To... as "a really bad book."

There is a cartoon by Gahan Wilson. The cover is by Dario Campanile.

F&SF has not often run a letter column, but there is one in this issue. Three of the letters are in response to a review by Baird Searles of Star Wars; two of these are by science fiction author/editors Darrell Schweitzer and Terry Carr.

There is a bound-in cigarette ad. I do not miss having these in magazines.

I am not generally fond of horror literature, so I like this issue less than others might. However, I do think that all of the stories are good.

[Aaron White · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great bunch of short stories and novellas. Stephen King's is, of course, the best. One of his earlier works, he is able to weave the story with the right language and detail, but not too much. It is amazing what he can do to draw me into his short story, that the other stories don't accomplish. Second best is probably Stephen Donaldson's novella. Most of the stories were great and interesting reads, a few not as much. Funny that, as this came out in 1978, 2 of the stories feature those evil Russians.