Edited by Edward L Ferman. Mercury Press, 130 p.

Stranger in the House by Kate Wilhelm is perhaps typical of its time. The house in question has a history of spooked occupants, not haunted as such but off-putting in the extreme. It turns out that underneath it is a vlen, a refuge for an alien called a Groth sent to Earth to report back on its suitability to join wider galactic society. The mission has been a failure as the Groth’s companion died years before and contact is all but impossible. The Groth’s mental emanations are a cause of extreme distress to humans. Engaging with their minds induces uncontrollable fear and hatred. Still, Wilhelm manages to convey sympathy for the creature.

The Lucky People by Chet Arthur. The people concerned live in a curfewed neighbourhood where strange creatures come out at night in a show that’s better than television.

The Stars Know by Mose Mallette. A graduate of a handwriting analysis course interprets the letters he receives – without paying any attention to what they actually say.

He Kilt it With a Stick by William F Nolan. A man with a morbid hatred of cats since childhood takes every opportunity to do them harm. Until one night they gang up on him. The spelling mistake in the title is deliberate.

In Wednesday Noon by Ted White the song Dancing in the Street is being played non-stop on the radio and by a truck outside. Except for our viewpoint character people are swept up in the enthusiasm and led away, as in the Pied Piper. But his ordeal still has a way to go.

The protagonist of The Locator by Robert Lory plots all UFO sightings in an effort to predict where the next landing will be so that he can witness it. He gets it all too right.

I Have My Vigil by Harry Harrison is narrated by a robot, the sole survivor of a trip to Alpha Centauri since viewing no-space turned the three human occupants of the ship mad.

To Hell with the Odds by Robert L Fish is a ‘Deal with the Devil’ tale, this time with an almost washed-up golf pro.

The Veiled Feminists of Atlantis by Booth Tarkington. (This is the same Booth Tarkington who wrote The Magnificent Ambersons and is a reprint from 1926.) The story relates to the Kabyle people of Algeria, known as “White Arabs,” whose women go unveiled. The narrator of the legend has it that their origins were in the lost land of Atlantis, where women and men had an equal footing.

Judith Merril’s Books column introduced me to an author of whom I’d never heard, Hortense Calisher. Unfortunately her books are now vanishingly rare.  Isaac Asimov’s Science column relates the discovery of The Predicted Metal (gallium; Mendeleev’s vindication and triumph.)

Pedant’s corner:- “of the acid and alkaline” (alkaline is an adjective – compare ‘acidic’ vs ‘acid’ – the noun is ‘alkali’,) gayety (gaiety,) “at loose ends” (at a loose end,) Bufus’ (Bufus’s,) olefactory (olfactory,) “laying about ten feet from the pin” (lying about ten feet from,) irresistably (irresistibly,) Newlands’ (x 2, Newlands’s,) 1860’s (1860s,) “strange phenomenon” (strange phenomena,) “the whole continent was riven and sunk beneath the waters” (was riven and sank.)

Edited by Edward Ferman Mercury Press

In this issue the normal Book Review column is missing but Baird Searles reviews various films with an SF/fantasy connection. In his SCIENCE: But How? Piece, Isaac Asimov discusses the need, as he saw it, for birth control since the imperative to have children which obtained in history’s tribal societies no longer pertains in the modern age. As a result he mentions various non-harmful but also noon-child -producing sexual practices not normally to be found in the pages of a mid-twentieth century SF magazine.
There is also a cartoon by Gahan Wilson

In the fiction:-
The Mayday by Keith Roberts is one of his “Anita” stories. Here his perky witch is called through her crystal ball to rescue a young mermaid (she calls them Jennifers) captured by humans and kept in a cage. Roberts’s writing is always well executed with precise descriptions and well observed human behaviours.
Starting From Scratch by Robert Sheckley reminded me a little bit of Brian Aldiss’s Heresies of the Huge God except the premise is more or less reversed. A man is disturbed from his dream by a call for help from a creature whose world has been disturbed by a huge incursion from the sky.
Reading The Throne and the Usurper by Christopher Anvil it’s as if the New Wave of the 1960s never happened. The writing is perfunctory and heavy with exposition, the viewpoint character has it all too easy. The plot is about the megalomania of a telepath.
Where The Misfortune Cookie by Charles E Fritch is going to end up becomes obvious, if not from the title then from when the narrator’s first fortune cookie message comes true. The premise is followed logically but to modern readers the story usage (twice) of the word “coolie” jars more than a little.
With Time Dog by Richard A Lupoff, again the title gives the game away somewhat and again the narration is of its time. A sick child, Janet, blames a mysteriously appearing and disappearing dog she calls Soapy for taking her inhaler away. As her condition slowly worsens, Soapy brings her an advanced toy, another dog performs similar tricks and a obviously wrongly (to Janet’s father) dated comic book is left, plus an apparently identical inhaler.
In a reprint of The Venus of Ille by Prosper Mérimée, translated from the French by Francis B Shaffer, a traveller in southern France encounters a recently unearthed statue which may be of Roman origin. The statue it seems is capable of independent action. Unfortunately, the translation uses a number of US colloquialisms at odds with both the tone of the piece and its setting.
Alpha Bets by Sonya Dorman is one of the author’s stories featuring Roxy Rimidon of the Planet Patrol. The main focus is on a kind of future competitive Games with dangerous elements. Roxy organises the replacement of her brother’s injured team mate by a man from off-planet.

Pedant’s corner:- Lucas’ (Lucas’s,) Roberts’ (x 4 Roberts’s,) an unnecessarily italicised “Gafonel,” an opened parenthesis that is never closed, “social pressure were in favour” (either, ‘pressures’, or, ‘was in favour’,) sandas (sandals.)