Dream World was a short lived experiment in Science Fiction sleaze. The publisher was Ziff-Davis and the editor, Paul W. Fairman. Culling talent from their Amazing Stories and Fantastic, which Fairman also edited, the magazine offered stories that titillated as much as it offered fantasy of the other sort. The new magazine was conceived when two issues of Fantastic, featuring dream stories and psionic powers proved popular. (I believe the success of magazines like Playboy and William Hamling’s Rogue weren’t far from their minds either.)
The first issue, February 1957, offered some classic authors as well as the usual host of super-production hacks and their pseudonyms. (Probably the best thing about this magazine was some of the artwork done by Virgil Finlay and Leo Summers. The two pages of cartoons at the end of each issue are the usual dated sexist stuff you find in most 1950s magazines.)
“Legs on Olympus” by Adam Chase (Milton Lesser) explores the beauty of the nude in the form of the goddess Aphrodite. Women created from statues prove to be big trouble in this magazine.
“Ways to Get a Gal” by P. G. Wodehouse gives us a touch of English humor that stands out like a sore thumb in this collection of wish fulfillment stories.
“The Devil Never Waits” by Randall Garrett is the first of our Deal-with-the-Devil tales. A man wishes never to wait around for anything every again and goes on a strange adventure. The devil appears as a Man in Black. Later on, She will be much sexier.
“Sex, Love and Mr. Owen” by Thorne Smith was an excerpt from Rain in the Doorway (1933) is an understandably mild dialogue on 1930s sexual mores.
“Time Out” by Darius John Granger (Milton Lesser) is a sports fan’s greatest dream: he wins the big game, get the girl and a pro contract.
“The Man With the X-Ray Eyes” by Leonard G. Spencer was really by Randall Garrett and Robert Silverberg. This title (and idea) would be used for a Roger Corman/Claude Rains film in 1963. Written by Robert Dillon and Ray Russell, I don’t believe Leonard G. Spencer got any credit (or money). Seeing naked women, the cards of other players, and the weapons of killer gunmen… those x-ray glasses in the back pages of the comic books never promised all that!
“A Bucketful of Diamonds” by Harlan Ellison is a crime story with a difference. It isn’t surprising that this story has a more Mystery-based feel as one of Science Fiction great literateur got his start writing crime tales about juvenile delinquents for Trapped and Guilty.
“Oswald’s Willing Women” by Bill Majeski is a teenage boy’s fantasy taken to its logical conclusion. The same idea was used in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” (February 10, 1998) when Xander gets mobbed by the female cast.
The May 1957 begins with an editorial by Paul Fairman called “A New Kind of Fiction”. The editor takes umbrage with one of the letter writers (Frank Williams of Bridgeport, Connecticut) who claims there can never be a new form of fiction. Fairman agrees then disagrees, stating:
So, Mr. Williams is right. Rather than publishing a new kind of fiction, we are actually going back to the original concept of what fiction was meant to be. We are giving the glass slipper back to Cinderella; we are taking Peter Pan off Pier 26, and putting him back in Never Never land…And you’re off into what Conan Doyle called the fairy kingdom of romance; where there are no ordinary people and where we all live in the breathless world of our dreams.
The second issue has more stories about day dream possibilities and a little less sex appeal:
“The Man Who Made His Dreams Come True” by C. H. Thames (Milton Lesser) is the classic battle between the girl of his dreams and a real live woman. The hero wins out by getting a mix of the two. Television versions of this idea include Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s Jordi La Forge’s obsession with Dr. Leah Brahms in “Galaxy’s Child” (March 11, 1991). When he meets the real doctor she frustrates him because she isn’t a complaint recreation. The episode brings up (but never quite deals with) the idea of identity theft and stalking.
“You Too Can Win a Harem” by Randall Garrett has a man win a harem of seventy-five “girls” from a Saudi prince. As would be expected, if you really thought about it, the winner runs home to his single wife.
“So You Want to Be President” by Adam Chase (Milton Lesser) is another Deal-With-the-Devil but this time she is a gorgeous babe with a tail named Miss Mellican. The job turns out to be wall-to-wall work and harassment (what did you expect?)
“I’m Listening To Your Thoughts” by Walt Sheldon is a version of what will become a common trope, the psychic who can hear everybody’s thoughts but doesn’t want to. Relationships are hard when you can’t keep any secrets.
“He Fired His Boss” by Darius John Granger (Milton Lesser) is pretty standard stuff though his power doesn’t mess him up in the end as it does in most stories.
“To Walk Through Walls” by James Cooper is a Cold War story with little to recommend it. If you could walk through walls, why wouldn’t you work for your government?
“Success Story — Complete With Genie” by Ivar Jorgensen is by an unknown author. Even though Robert Silverberg, Howard Browne, Paul W. Fairman, Harlan Ellison, Henry Slesar, and Randall Garrett used this pseudonym occasionally, this isn’t one of theirs. Finally, the genie and the wish shows up. All goes well until the women start chasing him…
Fairman starts the last issue, August 1957, with another editorial, “Of Men and Dreams”, an apology for the power of day dreaming.
“His Touch Turned Stone to Flesh” by Adam Chase (Milton Lesser) gives us an updated version of Pygmallion the old Greek tale. Again, what do you expect from a woman made from stone?
“Mr. Milford’s Magic Camera” by Forrest Norton is that old teenage fantasy again. The story disregards the privacy issues and the characters are not nice people. Sadly, there is no comeuppance either.
“The Big Trance” by Harlan Ellison has a man learn hypnotism to make people do what he wants. He abandons it all for the girl of his dreams.
“The Man Who Couldn’t Lose” by G. L. Vandenberg has a man who can’t lose because he has a ghost looking out for him. That voice in the back of your head is both charm and curse.
“Anything His Heart Desires” by Robert Silverberg has a man gain the ultimate in psionic powers. He can literally have anything he wants. What does he do with it? Since Silverberg is a class act, Lockridge, the university professor, doesn’t use it to seduce co-eds or make himself rich. As he gains new powers, he struggles with the university president over what should happen next. When Lockridge gives a forbidden half-time address the president has him arrested. Only the man has developed levitation and rises above his captors. The whole thing is so impressive the university opens a psychic studies department. I think the story is more a Silverberg wish fulfillment (going to university) than much else. It is a drab tale that deserves to be forgotten. Fortunately, Silverberg has much better psionic stories to write like Dying Inside (1972), about a psychic who loses his powers.
Obviously, Fairman’s attempt to create a new genre failed after three tries. Fairman would edit Ziff-Davis magazines for another year before turning to paperback writing. He would ghost several very popular juveniles for Lester Del Rey like Runaway Robot (1965) and Tunnel Through Time (1966). His work on Dream World may have helped him write the sleaze spy series The Man From S. T. U. D. (1969-1972) as F. W. Paul. (The Orgy at Madame Dracula’s, the first volume, indicate the high quality to which these books rose.)
Stories about the power of imagination are not all inherently juvenile sex fantasies like seeing through women’s clothing or beating the crap out of your boss. Richard Matheson wrote one of the best Twilight Zone episodes using basically an idea that would have been quite comfortable in this magazine. “A World of His Own” (July 1, 1960) has a playwright played by Kennan Wynn able to create living thing by dictating into a machine. His wife, played by Phyllis Kirk, thinks him insane. The man proves what he says by conjuring an elephant then by destroying his wife’s tape. The playwright is about to re-dictate her description when he changes his mind and creates a new, more doting wife… The story is both a comment on writing and writers as well as human nature.
