SF Diary Review: IF SCIENCE FICTION – January 1968.

IF SCIENCE FICTION. January 1968. Editor: Frederik Pohl. Cover art: John Pederson, Jr. Overall rating: **½. JOHN RANKINE “The Peacemakers.” Novelette. [Rankine is a pen name of Douglas R. Mason.} The responsibilities of peace entail sabotage and violence to help an IGO agent escape from the planet Garamss. With all the subsequent rationalizations, and a beginning that doesn’t mean anything. Uninteresting and confusing. (1) BASIL WELLS “From Distant Earth.” True love, unreturned, on an invisible planet, (3) R. V. HUMPHREY The Taste of Money.” First story. Novelette. Comic story, funnier than Retief, of the flavorful Tastybushes of Gloomer. Real biological SF in addition. ($) PHYLLIS GOTTLIEB “Rogue;s Gambit.” Novelette. What happens when an ugly man marries disfigured woman and takes her to an isolated spacelight [?], to later learn she can be cured. Psychologically interesting, (3) FRED SABERHAGEN “Starsong,” Berserker story based on Orpheus’s trip to the underworld. (4) JAMES WHITE…