Forgotten Books: Nightmares and Geezenstacks --Fredric Brown

Fredric Brown wrote SF and crime fiction. He wrote long and he wrote short and he wrote very short.  This collection has 48 stories in it, so some of them are of the very short variety.  As you can see from the ToC below, some of them are from SF magazines, some are from crime-fiction magazines, and some are from "men's magazines."  The most famous story in the group is probably "The Geezenstacks," a horror story from Weird Tales with a strange and ambiguous ending.  This one was adapted for an episode of Tales from the Darkside in the 1980s.  

Some of the stories are very slight, not much more than jokes, some of which ("Cat Burglar") are vulgar jokes.  Many of them have the snappy surprise endings that Brown could do as well as anyone and better than most.  Some, like "The End," are just clever showing off.  But they're all fun.  It's an entertaining collection that shows off all sides of Fredric Brown, and it's too bad that he's a mostly forgotten writer.

Contents (lifted from Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections)
· Nasty · vi Playboy Apr ’59
· Abominable · vi Dude Mar ’60; Portfolio, gp
· Rebound [“The Power”] · vi Galaxy Apr ’60
· Nightmare in Gray · vi Dude May ’61; Five Nightmares, gp
· Nightmare in Green · vi *
· Nightmare in White · vi *
· Nightmare in Blue · vi Dude May ’61; Five Nightmares, gp
· Nightmare in Yellow · vi Dude May ’61; Five Nightmares, gp
· Nightmare in Red · vi Dude May ’61; Five Nightmares, gp
· Unfortunately · vi F&SF Oct ’58
· Granny’s Birthday · vi AHMM Jun ’60
· Cat Burglar · vi *
· The House · vi Fantastic Aug ’60
· Second Chance · vi *
· Great Lost Discoveries I - Invisibility · vi Gent Feb ’61
· Great Lost Discoveries II - Invulnerability · vi Gent Feb ’61
· Great Lost Discoveries III - Immortality · vi Gent Feb ’61
· Dead Letter [“The Letter”] · vi EQMM Jul ’55; Killers Three, gp
· Recessional · vi Dude Mar ’60; Portfolio, gp
· Hobbyist · vi Playboy May ’61
· The Ring of Hans Carvel · vi *; retold and somewhat modernized from the works of Rabelais.
· Vengeance Fleet [“Vengeance, Unlimited”] · vi Super Science Stories Jul ’50
· Rope Trick · vi Adam May ’59
· Fatal Error [“The Perfect Crime”] · vi EQMM Jun ’55; Killers Three, gp
· The Short Happy Lives of Eustace Weaver I, II, & III [“Of Time and Eustace Weaver”] · ss EQMM Jun ’61
· Expedition · vi F&SF Feb ’57
· Bright Beard · vi *
· Jaycee · vi *; this story is given as being from F&SF 1955 in The Best of Fredric Brown and from F&SF Oct ’58 in bibliographies, but has not been found in F&SF.
· Contact [“Earthmen Bearing Gifts”] · vi Galaxy Jun ’60
· Horse Race · vi *
· Death on the Mountain · vi *
· Bear Possibility · vi Dude Mar ’60; Portfolio, gp
· Not Yet the End · vi Captain Future Win ’41
· Fish Story · vi *
· Three Little Owls (A Fable) · vi *
· Runaround [“Starvation”] · ss Astounding Sep ’42
· Murder in Ten Easy Lessons [“Ten Tickets to Hades”] · ss Ten Detective Aces May ’45
· Dark Interlude · Fredric Brown & Mack Reynolds · ss Galaxy Jan ’51
· Entity Trap [“From These Ashes”] · ss Amazing Aug ’50
· The Little Lamb · ss Manhunt Aug ’53
· Me and Flapjack and the Martians · Fredric Brown & Mack Reynolds · ss Astounding Dec ’52
· The Joke [“If Looks Could Kill”] · ss Detective Tales Oct ’48
· Cartoonist [“Garrigan’s Bems”] · Fredric Brown & Mack Reynolds · ss       Planet Stories May ’51
· The Geezenstacks · ss Weird Tales Sep ’43
· The End [“Nightmare in Time”] · vi Dude May ’61; Five Nightmares, gp

FFB: Juvenile Jungle

Okay, it's '50s week for the FFB folks.  I have one for you.

We talk about books now and then that we say are "very much of their time."  Nothing could be truer of Juvenile Jungle.  There's a ton of hep '50s teen slang in John McPartland's "Party for the Kids," and no doubt it helped to fuel the fear of those nasty juvenile delinquents in many an old white male reader's heart (the story appeared in Esquire).  I guess Americans always have to have someone or something to fear, and in the late '40s and a lot of the '50s it was J. D.s as they were often called.  Check out the movie trailer below for a filmic example. (Besides the J.D.s, we had the Dirty Reds, too, not to mention The Bomb, but that's another story.)

 James T. Farrell was a big name at one time, or at least a medium name.  In the '50s, reprints of his books were all over the place, mainly the ones in the Studs Lonigan trilogy.  "Scarecrow" is the oldest story in the book, from 1930, and it's as rough and raw as the stories in the trilogy, which I read when I was in high school.  It's not about the threatening J. D.s like those in McPartland's story, but it's scary in its own way.

Jonathan Craig's "The Bobby Soxer" isn't about a threatening J. D., either.  It's about an attempted rape of an underage girl by an older man, who's arrested and charged.  The story's very short, and it has a nice little snapper of an ending.

Hal  Ellson made a career out of writing about J. D.s, the threatening kind, and "Pistol" is a good example.  No good can come of it when a pistol falls into the wrong hands.  

The next time you want to time travel back to the time of J.D.s and zip guns, give this book a try.

FFB: Omnibus of Science Fiction -- Groff Conklin, Editor

Here's a bit of nostalgia for you.  Imagine that you're a kid in the mid-1950s and that you've fallen in love with SF.  And that you see the ad to the left on the back cover of a magazine you've just bought.  That's what happened to me, and the ad is why I joined the Science Fiction Book Club.  I bought the three books at the top of the circle, and I still have them.

 My favorite of the three was Groff Conklin's Omnibus of Science Fiction.  A look at the table of contents below should give you a clue as to why.  First of all, it was a huge book, over 550 pages.  And secondly, the stories are all great.  Okay, maybe not now, maybe not to you, but they were to me way back then.  And the price was right, a mere 33-1/3 cents per book.  Plus postage, of course, but postage back in those days wasn't like postage is now.  It was cheap.  You could mail a letter for 3 cents of a postcard for a penny.

I've never forgotten some of the stories.  "Spectator Sport" was my first encounter (and certainly not my last) with John D. MacDonald.  I still think this is one of the best VR stories ever written.  Maybe the first one, too.  A definite classic in my book.  I thought then and think now that Arthur C. Clarke's "History Lesson" was a great commentary on our society.  Ray Bradbury's "Kaliedoscope" really touched me then, and still does.  (I'm a sentimental guy.)  Fredric Brown's "The Weapon" is also a great commentary.  I'm sure it had a lot to do with some of my current thinking on similar topics, and I know it did back then.  "The Rag Thing" by David Grinnell (Donald A. Wollheim) I found creepy and scary, and H. P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space" was even creepier.  Richard Matheson's "Shipshape Home," too, even with the punny title.  

Inexpensive copies of this book abound on the Internet.  If you like the good old stuff, here it is, in plenty.  A wonderful book, at least to me, and one that almost certainly contributed a lot to whatever my reading tastes are even now.

Table of Contents
vii · Introduction · Groff Conklin · in
· Part I: Wonders of Earth and of Man
3 · John Thomas’s Cube · John Leimert · ss Atlantic Monthly Aug ’45
10 · Hyperpilosity · L. Sprague de Camp · ss Astounding Apr ’38
18 · The Thing in the Woods · Fletcher Pratt & B. F. Ruby · ss Amazing Feb ’35
29 · And Be Merry... · Katherine MacLean · ss Astounding Feb ’50
45 · The Bees from Borneo · Will H. Gray · ss Amazing Feb ’31
55 · The Rag Thing · David Grinnell · ss F&SF Oct ’51
58 · The Conqueror · Mark Clifton · ss Astounding Aug ’52
· Part II: Inventions, Dangerous and Otherwise
65 · Never Underestimate... · Theodore Sturgeon · ss If Mar ’52
78 · The Doorbell · David H. Keller · ss Wonder Stories Jun ’34
88 · A Subway Named Mobius · A. J. Deutsch · ss Astounding Dec ’50
100 · Backfire · Ross Rocklynne · nv Astounding Jan ’43
117 · The Box · James Blish · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’49
132 · Zeritsky’s Law · Ann Griffith · ss Galaxy Nov ’51
137 · The Fourth Dynasty · R. R. Winterbotham · ss Astounding Dec ’36
· Part III: From Outer Space
146 · The Colour Out of Space · H. P. Lovecraft · nv Amazing Sep ’27
167 · The Head Hunters · Ralph Williams · ss Astounding Oct ’51
178 · The Star Dummy · Anthony Boucher · ss Fantastic Fll ’52
189 · Catch That Martian · Damon Knight · ss Galaxy Mar ’52
199 · Shipshape Home · Richard Matheson · ss Galaxy Jul ’52
214 · Homo Sol [Tan Porus] · Isaac Asimov · ss Astounding Sep ’40
· Part IV: Far Traveling
230 · Alexander the Bait · William Tenn · ss Astounding May ’46
241 · Kaleidoscope · Ray Bradbury · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct ’49
249 · “Nothing Happens on the Moon” · Paul Ernst · ss Astounding Feb ’39
263 · Trigger Tide · Wyman Guin · ss Astounding Oct ’50
273 · Plague · Murray Leinster · nv Astounding Feb ’44
302 · Winner Lose All · Jack Vance · ss Galaxy Dec ’51
313 · Test Piece · Eric Frank Russell · ss Other Worlds Mar ’51
327 · Environment · Chester S. Geier · ss Astounding May ’44
· Part V: Adventures in Dimension
341 · High Threshold [Dr. McEvoy] · Alan E. Nourse · ss Astounding Mar ’51
350 · Spectator Sport · John D. MacDonald · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb ’50
355 · Recruiting Station · A. E. van Vogt · na Astounding Mar ’42
420 · A Stone and a Spear · Raymond F. Jones · nv Galaxy Dec ’50
436 · What You Need · Lewis Padgett · ss Astounding Oct ’45
449 · The Choice · W. Hilton-Young · vi Punch Mar 19 ’52
· Part VI: Worlds of Tomorrow
450 · The War Against the Moon · André Maurois · ss The Forum Jul ’27; F&SF Sum ’50
464 · Pleasant Dreams · Ralph Robin · ss Galaxy Oct ’51
472 · Manners of the Age · H. B. Fyfe · ss Galaxy Mar ’52
484 · The Weapon · Fredric Brown · ss Astounding Apr ’51
486 · The Scarlet Plague · Jack London · nv The London Magazine Jun ’12
524 · Heritage · Robert Abernathy · nv Astounding Jun ’42
545 · History Lesson · Arthur C. Clarke · ss Startling Stories May ’49
551 · Instinct · Lester del Rey · ss Astounding Jan ’52
562 · Counter Charm · Peter Phillips · vi Slant Spr ’51

Toc Source: Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections, Combined Edition

Forgotten Books: Sci-Fi Private Eye Charles G. Waugh & Martin H. Greenberg, Editors

Let's get the title out of the way first. I'd be willing to bet a week's pay (not that I get paid these days, what with being a pensioner and all) that the editors had little or nothing to do with it. The "sci-fi" part doesn't bother me. I know it offends many, but not me. What bothers me is that I stupidly judged a book by its cover and assumed that this would be an anthology of SF stories that featured private-eyes. Wouldn't you? I mean, besides the title there's the guy in the futuristic trenchcoat and fedora. What's between the covers, however, is another kettle of goulash.

The first story if Isaac Asimov's "The Singing Bells" in which valuable moon artefacts are stolen. The baffled cops seek out the Great Detective who can solve the case without leaving his home. The next two stories, Poul Anderson's "The Martian Crown Jewels" and Philip Jose Farmer's "A Scarletin Study" are Sherlock Holmes pastiches. In Anderson's story, the Holmesian detective is a Martian creature who looks more like a bird than like Basil Rathbone. In Farmer's tale, the detective is a talking dog.

Then comes Donald Westlake's "The Winner," which is a prison break story. No detectives in sight.

Finally, with Tom Reamy's "The Detweiler Boy," we get what the picture and title promised, minus the fedora and trenchcoat. Reamy's tale is even set in Los Angeles, though his first-person narrator finds a killer who's nothing like anyone Philip Marlowe ever tracked down.

In "Time Exposures" by Wilson Tucker we have cops. No private-eyes to be seen. I got a kick out of this one because while the main character has a camera that can photograph the past, he has to use a slide rule to figure out the settings.

Robert Silverberg gives us a continent-spanning city in "Getting Across," and while a private citizen is asked to find a missing woman, it's a real stretch to call this one a private-eye story.

And there's just no way at all to call Philip K. Dick's "War Games" even a cop story. No cops, no private-eyes, just people who evaluate toys.

The last story is one of Larry Niven's Gil Hamilton stories. The same two editors chose to close out Supernatural Sleuths with a Gil Hamilton story, as well (my review of that book is here). As I mention in that review, Hamilton's not really a p. i. He works for a branch of the U. N. called A.R.M., and he hunts organleggers. But he's close enough to a p. i. to qualify, especially in this company.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the stories aren't good ones. In fact, I liked them all. Niven's is the best of the lot, for me, but they all have something to recommend them. If you're looking for cross-genre crime stories, this book is the place to find some entertaining ones.

New E-Book Available!

A collection of some of my short stories. You can get it in just about any e-format, right here.