The Year's Best Science Fiction 11

ESP stories, which had (comparatively) disappeared from the magazines for two or three years—perhaps in reaction against the played-out “psionics,” or mechanized-ESP, fad of the preceding years—seem to be edging back in again. One of the most promising of 1965’s first novels was Phyllis Gotlieb’s Sunburst (Gold Medal), a thoughtful and effective book about a group of mutation-affected children in a midwestern town. And a bright new first story in If, “Simon Says,” by Lawrence S. Todd, is pure—if funny— psionics.

But most of the new stories are a bit different: more exploratory than assertive, more concerned with the familiar individual borderline possibilities than with the superman problems implicit in the sudden emergence of clearly delineated “powers,” they tend to avoid the tags (ESP, psi, telepathy, telekinesis, etc.) as well as the specific patterns of perception defined by the old labels. John Phillifent’s “Finnegan’s Knack” (Analog) is about a “hunchy” man. Hal Moore’s extraordinary first story, “Sea Bright” (to be included in the F&SF “Best”), contains a child who might be a sister to Alistair Bevan’s “Susan” (coming up next), from the British magazine Science fantasy.

Last year I reported here that Ted Cornell, longtime editor of New Worlds and Science Fantasy, had retired from the job. The magazines were taken over by the publishers of Compact Books (Roberts & Vinter, London); Michael Moorcock became editor of New Worlds, and Science Fantasy came under the editorship of a man every bit as romantic and rococo as his name: Kyril Bonfiglioli.

Bon (or Bonfig, to his more energetic friends) lives in a Victorian mansion in Oxford, furnished largely with objets d’art en route from their former homes to his art gallery and curio shop. (When I was there, much of the furnishing consisted of—or was hidden by— endless glass cases of stuffed birds—large ones.) Proprietor of a flourishing Oxford bookshop, as well as the Bonfiglioli Art Gallery, Bon is a lecturer on medieval art for the University, an occasional writer, dilettante of all the arts, and way-back science-fiction fan. A Balliol College man with an incredible—but oddly pleasant— toff accent, he drives a Rolls, complete with automatic record player.

In a year and a half of Bon’s erratic but intense guidance the magazine has changed its character to the point where it has now also changed its name: As of March, 1966, it became Impulse. In the less than two years between the changes, at least a dozen writers worthy of notice made their debut in its pages. Four of them are represented in this Annual; also notable in 1965 were Ernest Hill (particularly “Joik”), Roger Jones (“The Island,” a first story), Pamela Adams, Patricia Hocknell, Pippin Graham, and B. N. Ball.

Keith Roberts, Bonfiglioli’s big discovery the previous year (and probably the most notable of all the very new British writers, so far), is now assistant editor of Impulse.

All I know about Alistair Bevan is that he is a young man in his early thirties, and a “professional and commercial artist by trade”— which makes it seem somehow unfair that he should also have written four stories I considered at least briefly for inclusion here—one of which, “The Madman,” almost edged “Susan” out.