"I Made Up My Mind the Only Way Was To Murder Him"

MANY OF YOU have probably seen, or at least heard of, one of the movie versions of Spartacus (1960; remade in 2004); but you might not  know that the original novel (1951) was written by a busy pulpster who, for instance, turned out seven crime novels featuring the series detective character Masao Masuto, speculative fiction (SFF) for the likes of Fantastic Universe and F&SF, and the occasional mood piece, one of which is . . .

"For Always."

By Howard Fast (1914-2003; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; the IMDb HERE; Goodreads HERE; and the Fan Page HERE and HERE).

Illustrator unnamed.

First appearance: Liberty, July 15, 1939.

Reprinted in The Grand Magazine, April 1940.

Short short short story (1 page).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

   "What does a man think of when he waits with premeditated murder in his mind?"

INDEED. It seems that with the best of intentions people can be moved to do heinous things, and even love won't stop at murder. In fact, it's been known to encourage it . . .

Principal characters:

~ Tom Norris ("Loyalty is only a word"), Gerry ("Don't make it worse, Tom"), Miss Green ("Is something wrong, Mr. Norris?"), and Phil ("He stood there swaying, groping for the light switch, and I felt contempt, disgust . . .").

Resources:

- The Luminist Archives presently has eight Howard Fast titles (HERE), three of them SFFnal.

- For samples of Fast's SFF see SFFAudio (HERE) and (HERE).

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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