Friday, June 29, 2018

"The Charges Are Planetary Slavery and Mass Murder"

"Kill Me If You Can!"
By S. M. Tenneshaw (Randall Garrett, 1927-87).
First appearance: Imagination, June 1957.
Short story (13 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).


   "Every five years the Autarch in power was murdered. Bartol knew this was why he had been picked as a stand-in for the reigning tyrant!"

You'd better pay attention to that man behind the curtain—because he plans to send his androids to burn you down . . .

Comment: This one moves so fast, especially through the resolution, that you might experience reader's whiplash.

Resources:
- Other stories that feature societies which approve of murder include Robert Sheckley's classic "Seventh Victim" (HERE) and Jeffrey Goddin's "Who Murders, Who Dreams" (HERE).
- Being as prolific as he was it's not surprising that we would bump into Gordon Randall Phillip David Garrett fairly often in our never-ending quest to find stories that combine crime fiction with other genres. Garrett seemed to delight in mashing science fiction together with tecfic, tales of espionage, and political intrigue; see (HERE) for ONTOS's latest encounter with him.
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