Two sci-fi stories from Playboy, 1972

 Two sci-fi stories from Playboy, 1972

I'm not a big fan of comedic sci-fi stories, but the February, 1972 issue of Playboy magazine has two pretty good ones, including one by R. A. Lafferty, an author who usually does not impress me.

While Hugh Hefner liked sci-fi and routinely published the genre in Playboy, it was somewhat unusual to have two sci-fi tales in a given issue. As it happens, Hefner's judgment on these two entries was sound. They have the right length and tenor for the magazine as it was in the early 1970s: still genteel, but also cognizant that upstarts like Penthouse were changing the nature of the content in the men's magazine genre.

Perhaps because it was published in Playboy, Lafferty's story lacks the abstruse, self-consciously arty tenor of much of his fiction from the New Wave era. 'Rangle Dang Kaloof' is a short story about a man tormented by an imp. It works because it has the straightforward sensibility of a Roald Dahl tale.

The second entry, by Robert F. Young, takes as its title a phonetic play on the Mexican Mayan ruin Chichen Itza. 'Chicken Itza' is about the planet Sirius V, where a Federation initiative to 'civilize' the native Siw people has been implemented. A no-nonsense auditor named Firby is dispatched to Sirius V to review progress. Firby is astonished to find that the planet is a model of efficiency and modernization. Nothing seems to be amiss. How exactly did this happen...........?!

This is the first story I have read by Robert Young (1915 - 1986). It's a well-written story, and in my opinion superior to Lafferty's. 

According to his entry in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Young was quite successful in publishing short stories in both genre and mainstream magazines and digests during the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. He also published four novels, 'Starfinder' (1980), 'The Last Yggdrasill' (1982),  'Eridahn' (1983), and 'The Vizier's Second Daughter' (1985). I well may investigate some of these.