Where in the World is Bill Crider?

I'm here. It's a big weekend in the old hometown. Homecoming. It's been 50 years since I graduated from high school. Yes, that's right. And get off my damn lawn!

When I was attending high school, I was at the 1958 homecoming. The 50-year class that was honored had graduated in 1908. I was amazed that any of them were still alive, much less ambulatory.

My perspective has since changed.

I could tell all the high school kids I see that they're going to be amazed at how quickly the next 50 years of their lives will pass, but they wouldn't listen. I know I didn't when I was told the same thing, but it's the truth. Why, I wouldn't be surprised to look over my shoulder and see A. Gilbert Smith, the high school principal, or maybe Miss Minnie Ruth Smith, my typing teacher. They'd be ghosts, though, since both are long dead, and they wouldn't recognize the old geezer standing in the hallway about where his locker used to be so long ago.

I scheduled some posts for the blog, and I hope they've shown up. Something like that would have been considered science fiction fifty years ago. Fifty years. I still can't believe it. I have a funny feeling that I don't have fifty more.

More Amazing Stories

This is the back cover of the November 1954 Amazing Stories, a great ad for the SF Book Club. Every story in The Omnibus of Science Fiction is better than the ones in the issue, and so are those in the F&SF anthology. I love the marketing approach. They don't market SF that way these days. It's far too adult for that. I think we've lost something in the transition, but I'm probably alone in that opinion.

The worst story in the issue, hands down, has to be "Lorelei of Chaos" by Ross Winterbotham. It's bad at every level. I suspect the fiction in fanzines of the time was better. I like the title, though.

"Never Let the Left Hand" by W. Nicholas Earl (whoever that might have been) is interesting. It's a bit of an experimental piece, New Wave long before anybody knew what that was. Not good, mind you, but interesting.

Robert Bloch's "Grandma Goes to Mars" is also interesting, but mainly for how times have changed. The way the 63-year-old grandma is portrayed would never fly today. For one thing, her age would have to be changed to 83, or maybe even 93. Today's Cougars would be so insulted that they'd burn copies of the magazine. Aside from that the story's one joke is telegraphed so early that even a 12-year-old would see the punchline coming.

Amazing Stories, November 1954

I've mentioned before, I'm sure, my youthful tendency to read the low-rent SF magazines. While I very much enjoyed the stories in F&SF, Galaxy, and Astounding, my real affection was for the stuff in Amazing, Fantastic, Original Science Fiction Stories, Imagination, and Imaginative Tales. So the other day I pulled this mag off the shelf to see how the stories held up.

Big mistake. While I still love the cover, I have to admit that the stories are pretty dreadful. Most of them would never see print today. Maybe all of them. The lack of sophistication, the wretched science, the poor writing would all doom them. I can see why a naive kid in East Texas 55 years ago would love them, but not now.

"Blessed Are the Murderous" is still fairly entertaining. It's narrated by a post-apocalyptic teenage boy (great hook for me back in '54), and while it's a brutal story, it has a good bit of humor, not that the narrator realizes it. It's the old Huck Finn approach, with the reader seeing things a lot differently from the way he does. Okay, it's not The Road, but you know what? It has a lot of the same themes. I'm glad I re-read this one. Note: I have no idea who was behind the Ivar Jorgensen pseudonym this tie.

The "challenging new fiction" is a laughter. The earth is being invaded, this time by aliens who look just like us but who are different on the inside. They have, for example, two brains, one of which is located where we have an appendix. The rest of the story is equally goofy, with an invasion of privacy that reminds me of nothing so much as current airport security.

Blackbeard the Pirate

Gator Update (Drugs Edition -- Again!)

Sentencing today for crew that grew marijuana in a warehouse guarded by an alligator - cleveland.com: "The two couples arrested when deputies raided a warehouse on Grand Avenue October 21 — and found an alligator guarding a massive marijuana-growing operation — will be sentenced at 11:30 a.m. today."

As I've said more than once here, what is it about drug dealers and gators? Photos at the link.

Thinking about Your Holiday Giving Yet?

Wolfmont: "The Gift of Murder: An Anthology of Winter Holiday Crime Stories to Benefit Toys for Tots

In case you didn't know, Wolfmont has, for the last three years, published anthologies of short crime fiction, with the theme of crimes around the winter holiday season. By the sale of those books, we have been able to donate a total of over $6,600 to the Toys for Tots Foundation."

My story alone is worth the price of the book. Okay, probably not, but it's for a good cause. Check it out.

Stark House Does It Again

Stark House has come up with another great twofer, this time a couple of novels by W. R. Burnett: Iron Man and It's Always Four O'Clock. And I know I keep saying this again and again, but only because it's true: the introduction alone is worth the price of the book. David Laurence Wilson knew Burnett, and he has some great material. He also provides insightful commentary on Burnett's career and writing. It's an invaluable essay.

The book will be published in November, but you might want to go ahead and order it now. Just click the link that begins this post.

The Last Lullaby

I hope I have this genesis right: Max Allan Collins' short story "A Matter of Principal," about his hit man character, Quarry, was the basis for a short film directed by Jeffrey Goodman with a screenplay by Collins. Collins' novel The Last Quarry is also based on the short story. And Goodman based his longer film The Last Lullaby on the novel and the story with Collins contributing to the screenplay. Okay, that's about as close as I can come. If you want to read more, check out Collins' afterword to The Last Quarry.

Now about the movie. I loved it. Tom Sizemore may have his off-screen problems, and it's a little ironic, I suppose to see him rescuing a young woman from an abuser, but he's perfect as the retired hit man (named Price in this movie version). In fact, if somebody wants to make a Mike Hammer movie, Sizemore would be the man to cast. I think he'd be the best Hammer ever.

Price rescues a young woman from her kidnappers, then demands a ransom from her father for himself. The father decides to hire Price for a little job, and Price finds himself becoming interested in the intended victim. After that, even more complications ensue. I won't spell them out. If you've read the novel, you won't be too surprised. If you haven't, you might be. This movie's hardboiled to the core, and the violence, when it comes, is sharp and effective. The opening shoot-out is one of the best I've seen in a while.

Great photography, excellent score. If this is a low-budget film, you'd never know it from the look. Or from the acting. The whole cast is fine, and Sasha Alexander is super. She and Sizemore should get a lot of acclaim, though maybe not because apparently the movie went direct to DVD. Believe me, it's a lot better than nine-tenths or what's showing in your local mall shoeboxes. Rent it and see if you agree.

Forgotten Books: MURDER IN THE NAVY -- Richard Marsten

There's no getting around it: We have to start with the blurb, which is a great joke, at least to us, because we know that Evan Hunter, in addition to being a few other people, is also Richard Marsten. I don't know if it was his idea to blurb his own book or if someone at Gold Medal came up with it, but I like it.

In the opening chapter of the novel, a naval enlisted man kills a nurse. We see the events from the point of view of the killer, as we do in several chapters later on, but we don't know his name. The captain of the destroyer on which the murder occurs appoints a board of inquiry, and the FBI is called in. The leader of FBI duo just wants to get things over with, and so does the captain. When the killer strikes again, the blame for the first crime is pinned on the victim, who's judged a suicide. Everybody's happy except Chuck Masters, who's on the board. Nobody wants Masters to investigate further, but he does, of course.

There are plenty of familiar elements here, but Marsten handles them all expertly. The conclusion is typically '50s ("you poor girl"), but, hey, the book was written in the '50s. What would you expect? And if you want "superb suspense," Marsten's your man. Would Evan Hunter lie to you?

Growing Up with Your Favourite Fictional Characters

Growing up with your favourite fictional characters | Books | guardian.co.uk: "It was time to introduce some much needed objectivity into the project. What if I were to compile an anthology of literary characters – a male and a female example for each year from birth to death – with a quote for each from the novels pertinent to that age? It may even be possible, when the quotes are read in sequence, to view the different characters as a single life. And so, in a desperate attempt at legitimacy, I've set up a blog called Three Score & Ten which I'll be updating weekly with a pair of different examples for each year."

Hat tip to Scott Cupp.

Raising Arizona

The Yike Bike

An electric bike with a ten-mile range. At the end of the ride, you can fold it up and put it in the carrying bag. There's video at the link, which comes via Mike McGruff.

Bigfoot Update

Some wonder if mysterious image in picture is Big Foot - WAVE 3 TV Louisville, KY |: "Conspiracy theorist have tried to prove the possibility of aliens, sea monsters, and even shape shifters, now there is a mystery Jefferson County. Kenny Mahoney, born and raised in Fairdale, snapped a picture of what some people are calling Big Foot.

His hunting camera, which is operated by a motion detector, normally picks up rabbits, deer and turkeys, but on September 1 around 2:15 p.m. it picked up a strange image that looks like some sort of large black creature, one Mahoney estimates taller than he.

'It looked like it had the outline of a head, and like gorilla type shoulders, and then the arms crossed is what it looks like to me,' said Mahoney."

Photo at the link, which was provided by Jeff Meyerson.

Invention of the Week

Underwear-stealing monkeys defeated with Cactus | Metro.co.uk: "An entrepreneur has come up with a way to foil monkeys who steal underwear from washing lines."

Would "Underwear-Stealing Monkeys" be a good name for a rock band?

Creature-Tossing Update

My Way News - Man allegedly flings jellyfish on people at beach: "A 41-year-old man faces charges after witness said he pretended to drown and then allegedly began to throw jellyfish at beachgoers. According to a sheriff's office report, Keith Edward Marriott caused 'concern for his safety' when he repeatedly submerged himself and floated back to the top of the water and he was also 'loud and disruptive.'

He then started throwing the sea creatures."

Hat tip to Jeff Segal.

It's About Time

Ananova - Paris Hilton - the new Oscar Wilde?: "Paris Hilton is to make a surprise appearance in the latest edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

The hotel heiress's line: 'Dress cute wherever you go, life is too short to blend in', will stand alongside words from the likes of Wilde and Shakespeare."

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Wild in the Streets

She Must Have Been Really Attractive

wfaa.com: "Ohio police said a suspect in a robbery was arrested when he returned to the home about two hours later to ask the victim out on a date. Police say 20-year-old Stephfon Bennett of Columbus was among three men who robbed a couple late Sunday."

Link via Mike McGruff.

So Just Relax

Risk of death from shark attack small - UPI.com: "People have a greater chance of dying from a bee sting or eating peanuts than they do from being attacked by a shark, a Texas scientist said.

'When you consider all of the millions of people in the water all over the world at any given moment, the number of shark attacks is really extremely minute,' said Andre Landry, a marine biologist at Texas A&M University."

Gator Update (TV Proves Its Worth Edition)

Allentown Alligator: Alligator, captured in Allentown -- themorningcall.com: "Allentown police and animal control officers captured a 5 1/2 - to 6- foot-long alligator that had been sunning itself on a bank of the Jordan Creek in Allentown.
[. . . .]
Mould said one officer stood ready with a shotgun, but essentially officers used tactics they've seen on Discovery Channel."