What do you think?
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1953
CONTENTS:
Two-Way Stretch - G. Gordon Dewey, Max Dancey [Peter Grainger]
Food to All Flesh - Zenna Henderson
Night Life - Esther Carlson
A Lady's Privilege (poem) - Winona McClintic
Aurochs Came Walking - Robert Moore Williams
The Milk of Paradise - Jerome Barry
Door to Door - Guy DeAngelis
The Gastronomical Error - H. Nearing Jr.
The Dream Dust Factory - William Lindsay Gresham
The Liberator - Arthur Porges
Cover art "Marooned on an Asteroid" by Emsh [Ed Emshwiller].
Two-Way Stretch - G. Gordon Dewey, Max Dancey [Peter Grainger]
Food to All Flesh - Zenna Henderson
Night Life - Esther Carlson
A Lady's Privilege (poem) - Winona McClintic
Aurochs Came Walking - Robert Moore Williams
The Milk of Paradise - Jerome Barry
Door to Door - Guy DeAngelis
The Gastronomical Error - H. Nearing Jr.
The Dream Dust Factory - William Lindsay Gresham
The Liberator - Arthur Porges
Cover art "Marooned on an Asteroid" by Emsh [Ed Emshwiller].
132 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1953
About the author
Anthony Boucher
685 books43 followersWilliam Anthony Parker White, better known by his pen name Anthony Boucher, was an American author, critic, and editor who wrote several classic mystery novels, short stories, science fiction, and radio dramas. Between 1942 and 1947, he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle. In addition to "Anthony Boucher", White also employed the pseudonym "H. H. Holmes", which was the pseudonym of a late-19th-century American serial killer; Boucher would also write light verse and sign it " Herman W. Mudgett" (the murderer's real name).
In a 1981 poll of 17 detective story writers and reviewers, his novel Nine Times Nine was voted as the ninth best locked room mystery of all time.
In a 1981 poll of 17 detective story writers and reviewers, his novel Nine Times Nine was voted as the ninth best locked room mystery of all time.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 27, 2021
When F&SF first began publishing in 1949, much of the material included was reprinted from earlier appearances. The cover of this issue proclaims "A selection of the best stories of fantasy and science fiction, new and old." All the stories in this particular issue were new, however.
The story that I like least is by the author who was best known for his science fiction, Robert Moore Williams. The story is "Aurochs Came Walking," a tale set in a Mars that never was and never could have been. One man from Earth is working with the Martians, a primitive tribe descended from a once-great civilization. One Martian is portrayed as kindly and civilized; the rest are superstitious, murderous savages. The story involves the reassembly of an ancient Martian device that will channel some mysterious force.
Zenna Henderson was a relatively new author, who later became famous in science fiction for her stories of "the People," an alien race, some of whom have fled to this planet, looking exactly like Earth folks but with strange abilities. The members of the People are always portrayed as benevolent, and Henderson became known for the kindliness shown in her stories. Her story here, "Food to All Flesh," is not a story of the People, but it does concern an alien family that has come to Earth meeting a simple priest, Padre Manuel. The aliens are seeking food, but they can eat almost no earthly substance that the priest can find. The ending sadly affirms the priest's belief in the brotherhood of all thinking beings. This story was later chosen for inclusion in Best SF Three: Science Fiction Stories, edited by Edmund Crispin.
Arthur Porges also has a story about an alien race come to Earth, but the aliens in "The Liberator" are an immensely powerful invasion force that has easily conquered the forces of the Earth. But there is a surprising savior - or, rather, an anti-Savior - who has his own reasons for helping mankind.
There are two entries in comic series in this issue. One of them has yet another contact between mankind and an alien race. H. Nearing, Jr. wrote a series about two college professors, Cleanth Penn Ransom of the Mathematics Department and Archibald MacTate, from the Department of Philosophy. Ransom continually comes up with ideas that go awry, some times spectacularly so. In this story, "The Gastronomical Error," Ransom is able to contact an inhabitant of Venus (through a complicated process, almost none of which I understand) and, indeed, makes it possible for a being from Venus to appear on Earth. The professors are assisted by an elderly astronomer and a pompous representative of a local junior high school, each of whom adds further difficulties to this process. I find most of this series, including this story, reasonably funny, but I think that there is an irritating flaw in this one. Much of the story deals with the astronomer's obsessive expertise in doing amazing feats with yo-yos. Clearly this should have some connection to the contact with Venus or else there is no point in having this in the story. But it does not. The stories in this series were later published in a compilation, The Sinister Researches of C. P. Ransom.
The other series entry in the issue is "Night Life" by Esther Carlson, part of a three-story series featuring the advice columnist, Dr. Aesop Abercrombie. A farm wife from Gopher Corners, Montana writes to the doctor that her husband continually talks in his sleep, "all kinds of sounds, like two stations mixed up on the radio." Abercrombie replies that the husband may be trying to express his "true self, to which the world has denied admittance." The doctor asks, "Have you, too, shut him out?" The crude and unpleasant husband might well deserve to be shut out, but she is a dutiful wife (extraordinarily so), and wants to help...especially when she finds that the voice speaking at night is a totally different, and much nicer, person.
"Door to Door" by Guy DeAngelis is very much a story of its time. A man comes to a house and asks to speak to the husband. After the visitor leaves, the husband appears to have become a different person, not in appearance but in conversation and behavior. In fact, he no longer seems to be human. The wife, expecting a baby and worried about what might happen, takes action. This is very similar to the situation in Jack Finney's 1954 novel The Bodysnatchers and in Philip K. Dick's 1954 short story "The Father-Thing," as well as having some resemblance to Robert Heinlein's 1951 novel The Puppet Masters. Only some of these have happy endings.
The introduction to "The Milk of Paradise" by Jerome Barry states that much of Barry's work shares a common feature, "the American soda fountain." As I write this in 2021, drugstore soda fountains and the people who worked there, known as "soda jerks," may largely be a thing of the past. In this story, a mystical itinerant soda jerk briefly takes a job in a drugstore in Highland Springs. The young man says that his name is Harry Farr and his specialty is the Milk of Paradise. His first two customers are a young couple whose relationship has been shattered due to a family tragedy. But the Milk of Paradise, used properly, may help the situation.
The longest story in this issue is a complicated tale of time travel, "Two-Way Stretch," attributed to two authors, G. Gordon Dewey and Max Dancey. The science fiction and fantasy website ISFDb says that "Dancey" was a pseudonym used by Peter Grainger. A time traveler, seeking to consult with a brilliant man living in the present time, makes an error and instead of returning on the following days keeps appearing on the prior days. This is tricky and nicely handled, with a good resolution to a possible time paradox. The one annoying thing is a repeated but never solved riddle, "Why is a twist in the tracks like the sound of the dawn?" I would appreciate knowing a solution, if a reader can suggest one.
My favorite story in this issue is a fantasy by William Lindsay Gresham, "The Dream Dust Factory," about a man in prison who travels in his imagination and then meets, literally, the woman of his dreams. The introduction to the story accurately states that it is "the touching account of a young convict who discovered how to reach out beyond his bars and bring back into his cell the true reality of love and beauty."
Winona McClintic had several poems published in F&SF. The one in this issue is titled "A Lady's Privilege," which, in an old cliché, is to change her mind - even under very strange circumstances. Not a great poem, I think, but it does contain an excellent and unexpected rhyme:
By a fiend I met destruction
And as driven snow I died.
Laws of Nature we must follow;
I became transmogrified.
Surely one of the few times that "transmogrified" has been featured in rhyming verse.
The "Recommended Reading" column, attributed just to "The Editors," praises most of the books mentioned, including The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. Oddly, one of the books about which they are least enthusiastic is also by Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451. Other books lauded include Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber and Tales from Gavagan's Bar by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp.
There is one cartoon by Ed Emshwiller, signed, as usual, EMSH. Emshwiller also did the cover, "Marooned on an asteroid."
The story that I like least is by the author who was best known for his science fiction, Robert Moore Williams. The story is "Aurochs Came Walking," a tale set in a Mars that never was and never could have been. One man from Earth is working with the Martians, a primitive tribe descended from a once-great civilization. One Martian is portrayed as kindly and civilized; the rest are superstitious, murderous savages. The story involves the reassembly of an ancient Martian device that will channel some mysterious force.
Zenna Henderson was a relatively new author, who later became famous in science fiction for her stories of "the People," an alien race, some of whom have fled to this planet, looking exactly like Earth folks but with strange abilities. The members of the People are always portrayed as benevolent, and Henderson became known for the kindliness shown in her stories. Her story here, "Food to All Flesh," is not a story of the People, but it does concern an alien family that has come to Earth meeting a simple priest, Padre Manuel. The aliens are seeking food, but they can eat almost no earthly substance that the priest can find. The ending sadly affirms the priest's belief in the brotherhood of all thinking beings. This story was later chosen for inclusion in Best SF Three: Science Fiction Stories, edited by Edmund Crispin.
Arthur Porges also has a story about an alien race come to Earth, but the aliens in "The Liberator" are an immensely powerful invasion force that has easily conquered the forces of the Earth. But there is a surprising savior - or, rather, an anti-Savior - who has his own reasons for helping mankind.
There are two entries in comic series in this issue. One of them has yet another contact between mankind and an alien race. H. Nearing, Jr. wrote a series about two college professors, Cleanth Penn Ransom of the Mathematics Department and Archibald MacTate, from the Department of Philosophy. Ransom continually comes up with ideas that go awry, some times spectacularly so. In this story, "The Gastronomical Error," Ransom is able to contact an inhabitant of Venus (through a complicated process, almost none of which I understand) and, indeed, makes it possible for a being from Venus to appear on Earth. The professors are assisted by an elderly astronomer and a pompous representative of a local junior high school, each of whom adds further difficulties to this process. I find most of this series, including this story, reasonably funny, but I think that there is an irritating flaw in this one. Much of the story deals with the astronomer's obsessive expertise in doing amazing feats with yo-yos. Clearly this should have some connection to the contact with Venus or else there is no point in having this in the story. But it does not. The stories in this series were later published in a compilation, The Sinister Researches of C. P. Ransom.
The other series entry in the issue is "Night Life" by Esther Carlson, part of a three-story series featuring the advice columnist, Dr. Aesop Abercrombie. A farm wife from Gopher Corners, Montana writes to the doctor that her husband continually talks in his sleep, "all kinds of sounds, like two stations mixed up on the radio." Abercrombie replies that the husband may be trying to express his "true self, to which the world has denied admittance." The doctor asks, "Have you, too, shut him out?" The crude and unpleasant husband might well deserve to be shut out, but she is a dutiful wife (extraordinarily so), and wants to help...especially when she finds that the voice speaking at night is a totally different, and much nicer, person.
"Door to Door" by Guy DeAngelis is very much a story of its time. A man comes to a house and asks to speak to the husband. After the visitor leaves, the husband appears to have become a different person, not in appearance but in conversation and behavior. In fact, he no longer seems to be human. The wife, expecting a baby and worried about what might happen, takes action. This is very similar to the situation in Jack Finney's 1954 novel The Bodysnatchers and in Philip K. Dick's 1954 short story "The Father-Thing," as well as having some resemblance to Robert Heinlein's 1951 novel The Puppet Masters. Only some of these have happy endings.
The introduction to "The Milk of Paradise" by Jerome Barry states that much of Barry's work shares a common feature, "the American soda fountain." As I write this in 2021, drugstore soda fountains and the people who worked there, known as "soda jerks," may largely be a thing of the past. In this story, a mystical itinerant soda jerk briefly takes a job in a drugstore in Highland Springs. The young man says that his name is Harry Farr and his specialty is the Milk of Paradise. His first two customers are a young couple whose relationship has been shattered due to a family tragedy. But the Milk of Paradise, used properly, may help the situation.
The longest story in this issue is a complicated tale of time travel, "Two-Way Stretch," attributed to two authors, G. Gordon Dewey and Max Dancey. The science fiction and fantasy website ISFDb says that "Dancey" was a pseudonym used by Peter Grainger. A time traveler, seeking to consult with a brilliant man living in the present time, makes an error and instead of returning on the following days keeps appearing on the prior days. This is tricky and nicely handled, with a good resolution to a possible time paradox. The one annoying thing is a repeated but never solved riddle, "Why is a twist in the tracks like the sound of the dawn?" I would appreciate knowing a solution, if a reader can suggest one.
My favorite story in this issue is a fantasy by William Lindsay Gresham, "The Dream Dust Factory," about a man in prison who travels in his imagination and then meets, literally, the woman of his dreams. The introduction to the story accurately states that it is "the touching account of a young convict who discovered how to reach out beyond his bars and bring back into his cell the true reality of love and beauty."
Winona McClintic had several poems published in F&SF. The one in this issue is titled "A Lady's Privilege," which, in an old cliché, is to change her mind - even under very strange circumstances. Not a great poem, I think, but it does contain an excellent and unexpected rhyme:
By a fiend I met destruction
And as driven snow I died.
Laws of Nature we must follow;
I became transmogrified.
Surely one of the few times that "transmogrified" has been featured in rhyming verse.
The "Recommended Reading" column, attributed just to "The Editors," praises most of the books mentioned, including The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. Oddly, one of the books about which they are least enthusiastic is also by Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451. Other books lauded include Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber and Tales from Gavagan's Bar by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp.
There is one cartoon by Ed Emshwiller, signed, as usual, EMSH. Emshwiller also did the cover, "Marooned on an asteroid."
April 4, 2025
3 • Two-Way Stretch • 28 pages by Max Dancey, G. Gordon Dewey
Good. On Monday Steve and Roger get a visit from Morlan who is looking for Terry. Terry doesn’t have a set schedule, so Morlan says he’ll come back. They get more visits. Tuesday, Wednesday. Something is weird with that guy, and the clothes and the bracelet that he dropped. Nice twist.
31 • Food to All Flesh • 8 pages by Zenna Henderson
Fair. Padre Manuel witnesses a spaceship landing and has first contact with an alien. At one point he assumes it is hungry and starts giving it different foodstuffs to no avail.
39 • Night Life • 7 pages by Esther Carlson
OK. Big Bill talks in his sleep. His wife asks an advice columnist how she can get him to quiet down. His advice is to embrace it and engage her husband’s inner self in conversation.
46 • Aurochs Came Walking • 15 pages by Robert Moore Williams
OK. Carnovan, an earth man, and Tiernden are trying to fix a Martian machine. The local witch doctor and tribal chief want it restored so they can use its power. The scientists were excited about being able to work on the machine, but now their lives are being threatened unless they get it fixed.
61 • The Milk of Paradise • 12 pages by Jerome Barry
OK/Good. Harry wanders into town. Sees a help wanted sign at the drug store. He immediately gets the job and goes to work. All along there has been talking at the soda bar. The girl has broken up with the guy because he passed out instead of keeping an eye on her toddler. He has just the thing for her, the milk of paradise that’ll help her forget she ever knew the guy. Better story if I thought the guy deserved a second chance.
73 • Door to Door • 12 pages by Guy DeAngelis
Good/OK. Nora is worried. Stan hasn’t been himself since that salesman came to the door. Now the pets have fled. Stan is now a stranger.
85 • The Gastronomical Error • 19 pages by H. Nearing jr.
OK+. Ransom wants to use the school’s telescope to penetrate the clouds of Venus and see what’s beneath. There are technological problems that he has solved by ransomizing the waves. Lo and behold they get an answering wave that looks like a code. A first contact with life from the second planet.
106 • The Dream Dust Factory • 12 pages by William Lindsay Gresham
Good. A prisoner makes an escape attempt and while being beaten and thrown in solitary retreats into his own mind creating a happy place. New evidence on his case comes out and he’s released, but now all he wants is to go to his dream and he can’t make it happen.
118 • The Liberator • 7 pages by Arthur Porges
Good+. An overwhelmingly superior alien fleet has beaten the Earth’s defenses. Their general is now dictating terms, of how they’ll colonize Earth. Usually they go straight to extermination. Nice twist.
Good. On Monday Steve and Roger get a visit from Morlan who is looking for Terry. Terry doesn’t have a set schedule, so Morlan says he’ll come back. They get more visits. Tuesday, Wednesday. Something is weird with that guy, and the clothes and the bracelet that he dropped. Nice twist.
31 • Food to All Flesh • 8 pages by Zenna Henderson
Fair. Padre Manuel witnesses a spaceship landing and has first contact with an alien. At one point he assumes it is hungry and starts giving it different foodstuffs to no avail.
39 • Night Life • 7 pages by Esther Carlson
OK. Big Bill talks in his sleep. His wife asks an advice columnist how she can get him to quiet down. His advice is to embrace it and engage her husband’s inner self in conversation.
46 • Aurochs Came Walking • 15 pages by Robert Moore Williams
OK. Carnovan, an earth man, and Tiernden are trying to fix a Martian machine. The local witch doctor and tribal chief want it restored so they can use its power. The scientists were excited about being able to work on the machine, but now their lives are being threatened unless they get it fixed.
61 • The Milk of Paradise • 12 pages by Jerome Barry
OK/Good. Harry wanders into town. Sees a help wanted sign at the drug store. He immediately gets the job and goes to work. All along there has been talking at the soda bar. The girl has broken up with the guy because he passed out instead of keeping an eye on her toddler. He has just the thing for her, the milk of paradise that’ll help her forget she ever knew the guy. Better story if I thought the guy deserved a second chance.
73 • Door to Door • 12 pages by Guy DeAngelis
Good/OK. Nora is worried. Stan hasn’t been himself since that salesman came to the door. Now the pets have fled. Stan is now a stranger.
85 • The Gastronomical Error • 19 pages by H. Nearing jr.
OK+. Ransom wants to use the school’s telescope to penetrate the clouds of Venus and see what’s beneath. There are technological problems that he has solved by ransomizing the waves. Lo and behold they get an answering wave that looks like a code. A first contact with life from the second planet.
106 • The Dream Dust Factory • 12 pages by William Lindsay Gresham
Good. A prisoner makes an escape attempt and while being beaten and thrown in solitary retreats into his own mind creating a happy place. New evidence on his case comes out and he’s released, but now all he wants is to go to his dream and he can’t make it happen.
118 • The Liberator • 7 pages by Arthur Porges
Good+. An overwhelmingly superior alien fleet has beaten the Earth’s defenses. Their general is now dictating terms, of how they’ll colonize Earth. Usually they go straight to extermination. Nice twist.
June 19, 2017
The golden age of Science Fiction - When our astronauts where rocketeers that conquered space in V2 🚀 lookalikes wearing fishbowl helmets. The good old times when nuclear was atomic, robots were clunky metallurgic automatons regularly to be seen carrying off beautiful maidens, and computers, despite having already utilized a tantalizingly exotic particle called the positron - which clearly did nothing to streamline their design - remained massive objects on the scale of the then contemporary ENIACs and EDVACs. Many a grandmaster of Science Fiction left his/her mark in this magazine. Amongst the quaint and quirky, the cliched and trite banalities there are pearls to find.
The stories might be of varying quality, yet the importance these magazine held for, then, upcoming new writers can not be overestimated - the golden age of science fiction has passed but left a fantastic legacy.
The stories might be of varying quality, yet the importance these magazine held for, then, upcoming new writers can not be overestimated - the golden age of science fiction has passed but left a fantastic legacy.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews