"We Were Gone Pretty Near Six Hours, and It's a Good Thing My Mom Made Me Take a Lunch."

HERE we have a completely forgotten incident from the early days of the feverish Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union, one that comes with a disclaimer:

"We Didn't Do Anything Wrong, Hardly."

By Roger Kuykendall (?-?).

First appearance: Astounding Science Fiction, May 1959.

Illustrated by Freas (1922-2005; ISFDb HERE).

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short short short story (4 pages as a PDF).

Online at Project Gutenberg (HERE).

   "One thing that bothers me though, we didn't put it back exactly the way we found it."

YOU might as well get used to it: As long as humanity exists there will always be a few who are smarter than the rest of us, and that includes wunderkinds named Skinny . . .

Principal characters:

~ Skinny Thompson, Stinker Brinker, Mr. Anderson, and the unnamed narrator.

References (all from Wikipedia):

- "the feverish Space Race" (HERE).

- "a rocket pilot" (HERE).

- antigravity (HERE).

- "meson flow" (HERE).

- uranium (HERE).

- "hydrogen fusion" (HERE).

- deuterium (HERE).

- vacuum pump (HERE).

- "the five-and-dime" (HERE).

- "twenty-seven inches of mercury" (HERE).

Resource:

- The only other Roger Kuykendall story that we could locate, this one more serious, is "All Day September" (1959), also on Project Gutenberg (HERE).

The bottom line:

Artwork by Roger Phillips

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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Two Disturbances from Fredric Brown

(1) "The Hobbyist."

By Fredric Brown (1906-72; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and the IMDb HERE).

First appearance: Playboy, May 1961.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short short short story (1 page).

Online at SFFaudio (HERE).

   ". . . you have a completely undetectable poison."

THE thought is, as Carlyle noted, the parent of the deed. Deeds, though, have consequences—offspring, if you will—that can turn against their parent in unexpected and very unpleasant ways . . .

Main characters:

~ Sangstrom and the druggist.

(2) "Crisis, 1999."

By Fredric Brown (1906-72).

First appearance: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, August 1949.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short story (14 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text page 12; text magnification may be necessary).

   "The very foundations of our society can crumble. We're up against something very evil and very powerful."

IN a moment of self-reflection, Falstaff observes: "Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!" But it isn't just old men who are subject to that particular vice . . .

Main characters:

~ Bela Joad, Chief Dyer Rand, Joe Zatelli, Mike Leary, and Dr. Ernst Chappel.

References:

- Erasistratus (HERE; Wikipedia).

- Cesare Lombroso (HERE; Wikipedia).

- Reverend Walter G. Summers and the psychogalvanometer (HERE, Vintage News Daily, and HERE, Global Polygraph Network).

- "who had lived on Lake Shore Drive" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "ninety percent of them are committed by a few hundred professional criminals" (HERE; Wikipedia).

Resources:

- Other stories that involve lie detectors include Erle Stanley Gardner's "A Fair Reward" (HERE) and Leroy Yerxa's "The Lying Lie-Detector" (HERE).

The bottom line:

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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"I Wonder How Improbable a Thing Can Get Before It Becomes Impossible."

"The Other Tiger."

By Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and the IMDb HERE).

First appearance: Fantastic Universe, June-July 1953.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at SFFaudio (HERE).

   "For as I said at the beginning, if the cosmos is infinite, then all possibilities must arise."

HAVE you ever considered how dangerous a pleasant stroll in the countryside can be? Just what are the odds that you might not survive it?

Principal characters:

~ Arnold and Webb.

References:

- "ponder parallel worlds" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the august British Interplanetary Society" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "infinity" (HERE, HERE, and HERE; Wikipedia).

- "where Hitler won the War" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "Columbus never discovered America" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the Roman Empire has lasted to this day" (WARNING! SPOILERS! HERE; Wikipedia).

Resources:

- A recent encounter with the multiverse concept, one of many that we've had, would be Ron Friedman's "A Matter of Antimatter" (HERE).

- Older multiverse stories include Ray Wood's "Schrödinger’s Gun" (HERE), Sam Merwin's "Third Alternative" (HERE), J. W. Armstrong's "Reversal of Misfortune" (HERE), Dwight V. Swain's "So Many Worlds Away . . ." (HERE), and Murray Leinster's "The Other Now" (HERE).

The bottom line:

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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Two from THE SAINT (Number 3)

(1) "Poison Trail."

By Herbert Harris (1911-95; ISFDb HERE).

First appearance: The Saint Detective Magazine, June 1955.

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

   "Who, we asked ourselves, would have a really sound reason for trying to murder Lucy Coleford? She was a woman who swept through life voice first, and she had the very iceberg of a tongue. But homicide doesn’t spring from ordinary dislike—except perhaps in the marital state . . ."

Main characters:

~ Ex-Police Commissioner William Ganley, Lucy Coleford, Elsie, the confectioner, Bertram Coleford, and Nicholas.

Resources:

- According to FictionMags, Herbert Harris's writing career started in 1933 and ran consistently until the 1980s. His detecfic series character was Rod Keever (ss = short story; vi = vignette):

  "Murder in Suite 101," (ss) The Evening Standard, June 15, 1956

  "Blonde and Gigolo," (ss) The Evening Standard, July 18, 1956

  "Top to Bottom," (ss) The Evening Standard, February 11, 1957

  "The Mixture as Before," (vi) Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, April 1960

  "Strictly Business," (vi) Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, June 1961.

(2) "The High Cost of Dying."

By Edwin Baird (1886-1957; Wikipedia HERE and the ISFDb HERE).

First appearance: The Saint Detective Magazine, January 1954.

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

   "Well, there's something screwy about all this."

Main characters:

~ Charles Elstin, the sales girl, Marlene Caldwell, the typist, and the police officer.

Resources:

- Edwin Baird had a lot to do with magazine editing (Weird Tales, Real Detective Tales) but he still had a prodigious short fiction output starting in 1906; here are his contributions to The Saint (ss = short story; vi = vignette):

  "The High Cost of Dying," (ss) The Saint Detective Magazine, January 1954 (above)

  "A Matter of Fifty Bucks," (ss) The Saint Detective Magazine, March 1954

  "A Shrewd Operator," (ss) The Saint Detective Magazine, September 1954

  "Mr. Tuttle Takes a Trip," (ss) The Saint Detective Magazine, January 1955

  "I’ve Nothing Smaller," (ss) The Saint Detective Magazine, March 1955

  "Never a Stool Pigeon," (vi) The Saint Detective Magazine, May 1955

  "Too Many Enemies," (ss) The Saint Detective Magazine, August 1955

  "The Inglorious Swindle," (ss) The Saint Detective Magazine, July 1956.

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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"You've Done It! You've Got the Answer!"

GETTING from Point A to Point B quickly and with the least effort and injury 

has always been a problem for humanity; regardless of how people manage to accomplish it, however, the process still takes time to cover the space 

in between—until now, that is, when an astounding discovery offers mankind . . .

"Passage to Anywhere."

(Click on image to enlarge.)

By Sam Merwin, Jr. (1910-96; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; and the SFE HERE).

First appearance: Fantastic Universe, February 1956.

Novelette (17 pages on Project Gutenberg; 22 pages on SFFaudio).

Online at Project Gutenberg (HERE) and SFFaudio (HERE).

   "Has it occurred to you what it could mean if word gets out . . ."

SATISFYING everybody when there's a dispute calls for consummate skill and some serious smarts; fortunately for the SPR and the entire world system, there just happens to be a man who has that skill and those smarts . . .

Principal characters:

~ Park Hamilton, Miss Alderman, Shirley, Sven Ryan, Ian Harris, Charles Forsythe, and Jack Witherspoon.

References:

- "would have caused Atlas to throw down his burden" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the Gilbertian paradoxes" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "a sort of ASCAP arrangement" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "in Antarctica" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the UN assembly" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "walked under a ladder" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the refrain of There'll Always Be an England" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the toreador capework and the moment of truth" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the industrial-era pirate of the late nineteenth century" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "But what good is a transporter that cannot send organic life?" (HERE and HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the absent-minded professor" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the first airplane" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "where every millisecond counts" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "kept a weather eye cocked" (HERE; Wiktionary).

- "the Great Depression of fifty years ago" (HERE; Wikipedia). (That would put our story in the 1979-1989 timeframe.)

- "under security wraps"; "clamp down"; "suppressing knowledge" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the Heavyside [sic] Layer" (HERE; Wikipedia).

Resources:

- "world-wide financial and economic catastrophe"; "primarily dedicated to the development of disruptive discoveries without regard to their probable effect upon the structure of our society as a whole": An early-fifties British movie takes those ideas and runs with them (WARNING! SPOILERS! HERE; Wikipedia).

- A story that involves teleportation and criminal behavior is Larry Niven's "The Alibi Machine" (HERE).

- Sam Merwin, Jr. happily cavorted through pulp fiction, both detective and SFF, for years. While today's story is science fiction, he also dealt handily with crime as well: "Disturb the Dead" (HERE); "The Triangular Blade" (HERE); "The Liquid Bullet" (HERE; first story); and "Death from a Family Tree" (HERE).

The bottom line:

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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"Quicker Than Thought the Glittering Barrel of a Revolver Stood in a Straight Line with My Head"

"Ideal Interview: Sherlock Holmes."

By Anyhow (who could have been S. L. Bensusan, Charles W. Forward, or H. S. Muller).

First appearance: The Bohemian, October 1893.

Short short story (6 pages).

Online at Hathi Trust (HERE and below).

(Note: Pages 212 and 213 duplicated in Hathi text.)

   "I am a real, regular, right-down, rampant, vice-exterminating, blasé, cynical, callous, keen-scented, ready-witted, never-thwarted, demoniacal detective, with melodramatic effects."

SOME commentators have decided that the character of Sherlock Holmes as evolved by Conan Doyle is, to employ that trite but still useful phrase, "too good to be true." These same critics seem to harbor suspicions that there must be something wrong with him. Maybe, they say, he is, to use another worn phrase, "not all there." Today's interviewer, hiding behind the pseudonym Anyhow, would say, if we are to believe his account, that "not all there" doesn't even come close . . .

References:

- "the Odyssey" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the Crystal Palace" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the Cimmerian gloom" (HERE; Wikipedia). "A description of 'Haynsen' in the Kingdom of Georgia, its inhabitants and history is contained in La Fleur des histoires de la terre d'Orient by Hayton of Corycus, written around 1307, translated into English in 1520, and later reproduced in the travellers' tales of Samuel Purchas published in 1614. Purchas uses the term 'Hamsem' to designate the region and concludes that this is the place of the original Cimmerian gloom of Homer's Odyssey."

- "Dr. Conan Doyle" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "a bottle of embrocation" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the Imperial Institute" (HERE; Wikipedia).

The bottom line:

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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Down to Business

FROM TIME TO TIME different stories end up with the same title. It could be the result of repeating a commonly used phrase that might echo the stories' themes in some way. Here are two such items published eight years apart, both of which are determined to give us . . .

(1) "The Business, As Usual."

By Mack Reynolds (1917-83; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; and the SFE HERE).

First appearance: Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1952.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short short short story (4 pages).

Online at SFFaudio (HERE).

   "I'm a time traveler. They picked me to send into the future. I'm important."

WE'RE not sure that Barnum was right when he said there's one born every minute, but our story does prove there's at least one born every ten centuries . . .

Main characters:

~ The time traveler, the pedestrian, and Marget.

References:

- The title is explained (HERE; The Free Dictionary).

- "an original Al Capp" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the natural flow of the dimension" (HERE; Wikipedia).

Resources:

- Our last Mack Reynolds story was "The Guy Who Remembered Ahead" (HERE).

- One of the many time travel tales that we encounter which caught our eye just recently is Danny F. Santos's "Seeking Time Traveller" (HERE).

- If you want to spend some time with a time-traveling detective, there's Warren M. Salomon's Ben Hardy trilogy (HERE).

(2) "The Business, As Usual."

By Jack Sharkey (1931-92; Wikipedia HERE; ISFDb HERE; and the SFE HERE).

Illustration by Trattner (ISFDb HERE).

First appearance: Galaxy, August 1960.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short story (9 pages).

Online at SFFaudio (HERE).

   "Okay, so what do we do?"

   "We drop an agent!"

LOCKED in a Cold War that could end with the total destruction of civilization, each side anxiously looks for some way to end the stalemate without precipitating Armageddon—and that's where Agent X-45 comes in . . .

Main characters:

~ The Secretary of Defense, the President, Jenkins, Agent X-45, and Professor Blake.

References:

- "a radar resistant airplane" (HERE and HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the Cyrillic lettering" (HERE and HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the Kremlin" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the Politburo" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the new Chief of Propaganda" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "What do you suppose would happen to an agent that was caught . . ." One was, at just about the same time that our story saw publication (HERE; Wikipedia). 

- "little cracks in the Iron Curtain" (HERE; Wikipedia).

The bottom line:

(Click on image to enlarge.)

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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