The Roman-Goth society’s been saved from moribundity!
For two years, Padway’s been in Rome—and things have sure changed since!
The greatest fighting man in Rome since Emperor Aurelian,
The sneaky little tricks he pulls are quite Mephistophelian;
Though modest and retiring once, he’s changed like a chameleon
To something like a character from Machiavelli’s “Prince”!
A.E. VAN VOGT’S “SLAN”
By Randall Garrett
Like many of the other stories I mention in this book. I first read Slan in the magazine version. In those far-off and ancient days, science fiction was a genre rarely found between book covers, either hard or soft. If you wanted to read science fiction, you went to the magazines. or you did without. And in 1940. the best of them all was John Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction. And towards the end of that year, in the last three issues, Slan exploded like fifty kilos of lithium hydride. Nothing even remotely like it had ever been written before.
Much of my magazine collection was lost during the war, and the Arkham House edition. which came out in 1946, somehow got lost, too. For years, all I had was the paperback edition of Slan, which was slightly different from the original.
But I remembered the original. and it is from the magazine version that I wrote the verse.
Two days ago, as I write this, I received in the mail a present from A. E. Van Vogt. It was a personally autographed copy of the Nelson Doubleday edition of Slan. from the original magazine version.
Lord love you. Van. I know I do.
Our tale begins with Jommy Cross,
A Slan lad who’s pursued
By Petty, Secret Service boss,
A fellow mean and shrewd.
It seems, you see, that any Slan
Is somewhat of a superman,
So humans have pronounced a ban,
Which starts an awful feud.
Young Jommy, who’s a telepath,
Escapes and meets old Gran,
Who feeds him, makes him take a bath,
And then begins to plan.
She hates to live in filth and grime;
She don’t like starving all the time;
And so she plans a life of crime,
For which she needs a Slan.
The scene now shifts some miles away,
Where, in a palace grand,
A plot is laid to murder Gray,
The ruler of the land.
The plot is foiled by sweet Kathleen,
A female Slan, the heroine,
Whose telepathic mind has seen
How Gray’s demise was planned.
With Katy’s aid, the entire gang
Is mopped up neat and clean.
Says Gray: “You done that with a bang,
So bend an ear, Kathleen,
The law says all Slans must be shot
And that puts you upon the spot.
But since you helped me foil that plot,
I could not be so mean.”
Meanwhile, young Cross, against his will,
Has started stealing, which
Has helped Gran fill the coffers, till
The two of them are rich.
Unknown to Granny, Jommy’s found,
In someplace hidden underground,
A gun his father left around,
Concealed there in a niche.
One day, while thinking of his woes,
He bumps into a pair
Of older Slans, to whom he shows
The tendrils in his hair.
There are two types of Slans, we find
The tendrilless and tendrilled kind.
(The former cannot read your mind.)
Well, these two don’t play fair.
They chase him! Jommy runs like hell!
He hears them call him “snake.”
He says, “They don’t like tendrils.
Well, That’s more than I can take.
Although I’m in an awful mess,
Since them two Slans is tendrilless,
If I escape, they’ll see, I guess,
They made a bad mistake!”
Without delay, he gets away
And starts in making plans
To search until he finds, some day,
The true or tendrilled Slans.
For this he needs a space ship, so,
Since he knows just the place to go,
He quickly packs up all his dough,
And also most of Gran’s.
The Slans (sans tendrils) have a lair,
And Jommy knows they’ve got
A hot-rod space ship hidden there;
He sneaks off to the spot.
And giving all the guards the slip,
He climbs into the rocket ship,
Sits down and gives the switch a flip,
And takes off like a shot.
The Slans’ gigantic super ships
Are cruising all around.
Says Cross: “I’ll hide from all these drips
Where I cannot be found.
They think they got me on the run;
Well, brother, watch me have some fun!”
He turns on Pappy’s atom gun
And dives into the ground.
The space ship’s now well-hidden, so
He says, “I’ll never rest.
Until I find true Slans,
I’ll go And do my very best.”
He knows, no matter where they are,
They can’t have gone so very far,
And so he builds a super car
And starts out on his quest.
Now let’s get back to sweet Kathleen.
She’s double-crossed by Gray.
She’s told, in manner quite serene,
That on that very day
She must become the mistress of
A gentleman she doesn’t love.
“Oh, hell,” says Kate, “I guess I’ll shove.”
And quickly runs away.
She’s chased by Petty. (You know him,
The Secret Service Boss. )
She flees into a cavern dim,
All full of dust and moss.
Now to an author, nothing beats
All these coincidental feats,
So whom do you suppose she meets?
You guessed it! Tommy Cross!
So down the cavern halls they walk.
“Gee, this is great!” says he.
(Of course, instead of normal talk,
They use telepathy. )
She says, “I ran from Petty, but
He’ll never find me here, the mutt.”
And Tommy Cross, the stupid nut,
Says, “Yes, dear, I agree.”
He really pulls a boner then,
A stunt I can’t condone.
He leaves her. Petty and his men
Find Katy all alone.
So Petty shoots her through the head;
He fills her noggin full of lead;
And sweet Kathleen falls over dead;
She doesn’t even groan.
Poor Jommy slams his auto door
And drives away in tears.
Of course, he gets away once more.
We now skip seven years.
The Slans are up to their old tricks.
They raid his hideout in the sticks.
Poor Tommy’s in an awful fix,
In trouble to his ears.
With rays they blast his hideout, and
He runs out into space.
Although they have the upper hand;
They’re led a merry chase.
I hardly think I need to say
That once again he gets away.
He does it twenty times a day;
By now it’s commonplace.
He goes to Mars because he thinks
True Slans are hidden there.
He soon finds that idea stinks;
They aren’t there anywhere.
&nbs
p; “A most disgusting state,” says he,
“The only place that they can be
Is highly dangerous to me;
I wonder if I dare?”
So, back on Earth, he sneaks into
The offices of Gray.
He’s caught, and Gray says,
“This won’t do. I fear you’ll have to pay.”
For Gray, it seems, is not a man;
Instead we find that he’s a Slan.
Says Gray: “I do not think you can
Expect to get away.”
Then Jommy shrugs and says,
“Pooh-pooh,” And gives his head a toss.
Gray grins and shouts, “Hurray for you!
You must be Jommy Cross!
My daughter Kathleen Layton Gray
Is somehow still alive today!”
Poor Jommy nearly faints away,
He’s thrown for such a loss.
The story’s ended at this spot;
I trust you get the gist.
This is a Dickens of a plot;
The point cannot be missed.
The story of a little boy
Pursued by all the hoi polloi—
And so Van Vogt, we note with joy,
Gives us a brand new Twist.
POUL ANDERSON’S
“THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS”
A Calypso in Search of a Rhyme
By Randall Garrett
I said earlier that constructing light verse is like an engineering project, and that the rhyming must be precise. But rules are made to be broken; you just have to know what you’re doing.
This is the only one of these Reviews in Verse that was written to be sung. (The others have been sung to various tunes at science fiction conventions, but that’s not my doing.)
The first time Poul Anderson heard this one sung, he laughed. Now he just looks pained. Too much of a good thing.
The song is, as the subtitle says, a calypso. It sounds best when done with a broad Jamaican accent.
Here’s a tale of knighthood’s flower
And of one man’s finest hour:
The story of a most strange land,
Of Holger Carlsen’s little band,
Of fights with trolls and giants, and
The winning of a swan-may’s hand.
By one of Denmark’s noblest scions.
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Lions!
Holger Carlsen’s fighting Nazis;
While he’s dodging their pot-shots, he’s
Wounded badly in the head,
But he does not fall down dead,
Nor go to hospital bed,
But to Middle World instead.
Magic here holds sway, not science.
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Lience!
When he wake up, there beside him,
Stands, for Carlsen to ride him,
A horse with armor, shield and sword,
Clothing and misericord,
Fine enough for any lord;
Holger Carlsen climb aboard.
Hungry, he must search for viands.
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Liands!
Holger rides up to a cottage,
Where an old witch offers pottage.
“How can I get home?” says he.
“Well,” the witch says, “seems to me
That thou ought to go and see
Good Duke Alfric in Faerie.
He will aid in gaining thy ends.”
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Ly-ends!
Off he rides to land of Faerie
With Hugi, a dwarf who’s very
Dour and speaks much like a Scot
(Which he may be, like as not),
Though ofttimes he talks a lot.
Next the sex come in the plot.
(Please don’t take offense at my hints.)
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Ly-hints!
Here she is, named Alianora;
Holger really does go for her.
She can change into a swan
And go flying on and on.
She make friends with doe and fawn;
He feel love about to dawn.
But he’s pure, so pardon my yawns.
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Ly-yawns!
Off to Faerie they go quickly,
Where the light is dim and sickly.
Alfric and Morgan-le’Fe
Ask Holger to spend the day
‘Neath Elf Hill not far away;
He is saved by his swan-may;
Beneath that hill, one night is eons.
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Leons!
Off they flee across the border;
Spooks pursue on every quarter;
First a dragon overhead
Holger Carlsen kill him dead;
Next a giant huge and dread
Who is looking to be fed.
Holger holds him in abeyance.
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Leyance!
“Fight with riddles,” says the giant;
Holger Carlsen’s quite compliant.
So they fight with quip and pun
Till the U-V of the sun
Hit that giant like a gun.
“He’s stoned!” says Holger, “Now let’s run.”
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Lions!
Next they ride into a village
Where a werewolfs bent on pillage.
Who the warg is, folks can’t guess.
Holger Carlsen solves the mess,
And he makes that warg confess
She’s the local young princess.
“Now,” he says, “it’s out of my hands.”
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Ly-hands!
When the village folk release ‘em
On to Tarnberg go the threesome.
By a good mage they are told
They must find a very old
Sword, that’s worth its weight in gold
At St. Grimmin’s-in-the-Wold.
He found this out at a séance.
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Leance!
Meanwhile, they have met a knightly
Saracen, with manners sprightly.
Northward they all head apace,
Searching for that dreadful place.
But the swan-may’s pretty face
Is hurting Holger’s state of grace.
“Should I,” says he, “yield to my yens?”
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Ly-yens!
Holger’s kidnapped by a nixie
(That’s an underwater pixie).
Nixie, who is on the make,
Drags Holger beneath the lake.
“This is more than I can take!”
Holger says, “I’ll make a break.
Come on,” says he, “let us flee hence!”
(Chorus) Spoken: Flee hence?
Spoken: Uh—fly hence?
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Ly-hence!
Now to blast their hopes asunder,
They find that they must go under
Neath a mountain, where a troll
Lurks in his disgusting hole.
They kill him and head towards their goal;
Holger says, “Now, bless my soul,
That was worse than fighting giants.”
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Liants!
Now, though it’s no place for women,
They come to church of St. Grimmin.
Round the altar they all flock:
Holger pries up big stone block
There is sword beneath the rock;
Holger says, “Now, this I grok!
We found it, though surrounded by haunts.”
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Ly-haunts!
End of story! Jesu Christe!
Seems to me it’s kind of
misty.
He should be belted and earled,
But through space-time he is hurled,
And, un-knighted and un-girled,
He ends up in our own dull world.
His future’s vague as that of Zion’s.
(Chorus) Three Red Hearts and Three Gold Lions!
JOHN W. CAMBELL’S
“WHO GOES THERE?”
By Randall Garrett
John Campbell had his first story published in 1931, in the old Hugo Gernsback Amazing Stories. During the next seven years, he not only began to rival E. E. Smith as a writer of far-out space opera, but, under the pen name “Don A. Stuart,” wrote some very perceptive and sensitive stories in quite another style. He became editor of Astounding in 1938, and wrote very little thereafter except for his thought-provoking land often just plain provoking) editorials for the magazine.
Who Goes There? was published in 1938 under the Stuart byline, and when I first read it, I didn’t know Stuart was Campbell. What I did know is that it scared the daylights out of me. It still does.
A very bad movie called The Thing from Outer Space was presumably based on it about 1950, but the resemblance was slight. James Arness stalked through it, looking like a cross between Frankenstein’s monster and a triffid, and bearing no similarity whatever to Campbell’s horror.
When I showed this verse to John, his only comment was: “Well, it’s a hell of a lot better than The Thing.”
Here’s a tale of chilling horror
For the sort of guy who more or
Less thinks being an explorer
Is the kind of life for him.
If he finds his life a bore, he
Ought to read this gory story,
For he’ll find exploratory
Work is really rather grim.
For the story starts by stating
That some guys investigating
The Antarctic are debating
On exactly what to do
With a monster they’ve found frozen
Near the campsite they have chose,
And the quarrel grows and grows, un-
Til they’re in an awful stew.
There’s a guy named Blair who wants to r-