Memorize practice axiomatic
The Pre-Third: the period was characterized in Travens mind above all by its moral and psychological inversions, by its sense of the whole of history, and in particular of the immediate future—the two decades, 1945-65—suspended from the quivering volcano’s lip of World War III. Even the death of his wife and six-year-old son in a motor accident seemed only part of this immense synthesis of the historical and psychic zero, the frantic highways where each morning of his life they met their deaths on the advance causeways to the global armageddon.* * * *Third Beach Maxill set the pail under Sherrys udder. Go ahead, he urged, “let’s see you milk her.” The fellow just stood there, looking interested, humming. “Wouldn’t you know it? Can’t milk.” He squatted down disgustedly, gave a perfunctory brush of his hand against the dangling teats, and began pulling the milk, squit, squit, shish, down into the pail. And LeGrande? Well, there you have it, folks, Bill Carr said. Its official now. You saw it for yourselves thanks to our fine camera technicians. Seven casualties confirmed. John, I don’t believe the American team has had its first casualty yet, is that right?” GORDON R. DICKSON And my thanks to Tom Disch, for suggesting the story.* * * * J. G. said he didnt understand what she meant but, in any. case, he hadn’t done anything to any girls. He was sure. Hereand now, the man said, stepping to one side as his companion moved forward. NORMAN KAGAN:Four Brands of Impossible, F&SF, Sept; and WBSF:65 Crackle, purr, snap... He runs on the nights the moon is big. Three or four nights out of the month. He doesnt run the main highways, just these back-country roads—the long straight paved stretches where he can really wind that thing up. Lord God, he goes through towns like a rocket. From reports we got, he runs the whole night through, and this is one way he comes, one way or the other, maybe two, three times before moonset. We got to get him. He’s got folks laughing at us. But Ive heard nothing of this until now. There was no such mention in the newspapers... THE GIRL WHO DREW THE GODS I didnt know. I felt compelled to steal closer, to see what was happening. Was this, too, a part of the human pattern? The horror-stricken witness, powerless to turn away, powerless to intervene, appalled at seeing the human being in the raw? To carry the scar of it in his mind all the rest of his days? He cleared his throat, and with exaggerated patience, asked,And, uh, what, pray tell, areyou doing back in here? "There was a time," I mused, "when the whole species was confined to the surface, give or take a few feet up or down, of a single planet. Youve got a whole galaxy to run around in. Youve seen a lot of it, yeah. But not all." 6 Wars, and rumors of wars . . . On stage, of course, symbolism is the thing. Albee and Pinter and the New York production ofMarat/Sade all veer continually into fantasy—butnot often over the (shifting and frequently invisible) line into s-f. Closer to home were Durrenmatts ThePhysicists (now in print here, from Grove Press) and Loring Mandel’sProject Immortality, which saw only a two-week experimental production at Washington’s Arena Theatre in 1965, but will, hopefully, be more widely known by the time this is published. I will show you, if you will be patient just a few minutes..
