"He Stopped for a Moment To Permit His Stereoscopic Ocular Apparatus To Adjust to the Decreased Intensity of the Ambient Lighting"

TODAY we look at two stories huddled together in the same magazine issue, a serious one about obsession and the other about . . . we'll let you figure that one out . . .

(1) "Touches."

By Gregory Benford (born 1941; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and the IMDb HERE).

Illustration by Peter Botsis (ISFDb HERE).

First appearance: Amazing Stories, December 1991.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short short short story (4 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text page 19.)

   "The pitiful electronic games that the public played were monotonous to him."

"Whoso diggeth a pit," says the preacher, "shall fall therein." In today's story, a man diggeth a pit right enough, not with a shovel but a touchscreen . . .

Main characters:

~ The Gamer ("played the role of a young man, restive and ambitious"), Lisa ("was the only one he could trust"), and the Commissioner ("was known to be jealous and vindictive"). 

Go down about forty more pages and you'll come to . . .

(2) "Gunfight at Bertha's Saloon."

By Thomas R. McDonough (born 1945; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; and the SFE HERE).

Illustration by Jeff Busch (ISFDb HERE).

First appearance: Amazing Stories, December 1991.

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text page 58).

   "Because this was not the customary way of ingesting lead, he emitted a noise communicating disapproval of the event."

SERIOUS IDEAS often get lost in translation. So does everything else . . .

Main characters:

~ Big Jack McGinty ("I altered my decision matrix"), Dirty Dan Larue ("suddenly suffered a total malfunction"), and Bertha ("emitted a loud oscillation of approximately 15 kilohertz").

Reference:

- "Beta Ceti VII" (HERE). Otherwise known as Diphda, Beta Ceti is a giant star just over 96 light-years away, making a round-trip time for a radio or TV signal of at least 192 years.

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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"Instantly, the Violet Glow Within the Globe Vanished"

"Time To Stop."

By Randall Garrett (1927-87; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; and the SFE HERE).

First appearance: Science Fiction Quarterly, February 1957.

Short short short story (1 page).

Online at SFFAudio (HERE).

   "Here's a vignette that would have been a novelet in the old days."

Commenting on the tyranny of time, the much put-upon Pericles observed: "I see that Time's the king of men / He's both their parent, and he is their grave / And gives them what he will, not what they crave." It's that ominous reference to the grave that one scientist will unwisely overlook—to his everlasting regret . . .

Principal characters:

~ Robert Aghill ("There it is, sirs; a machine that will travel into the future"), Dr. Oswald Latimer ("I have no doubt that you'll not only get your Doctorate, but the Nobel Prize"), and Dr. Harry Rumfort ("Ridiculous! Impossible! Time travel can not be justified mathematically!").

Typo: "whild".

References:

- "the subject of time travel" (HERE) and (HERE).

- "an identity" (HERE).

Resource:

- The last story by Randall Garrett that we're pretty certain he actually wrote was "Stroke of Genius" (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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"This Evil Is Much More Ancient Than Atomic Bombs"

ONE of the late, great Edward D. Hoch's most enigmatic series characters investigates . . .

"The Hoofs of Satan."

By Edward D. Hoch (1930-2008; Wikipedia HERE; Michael Grost's megasite HERE and HERE; the ISFDb HERE and HERE; the SFE HERE; and the IMDb HERE).

Simon Ark No. 2.

First appearance: Famous Detective Stories, February 1956.

Reprinted in City of Brass, 1971.

Short story (9 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

   "I know what made those tracks. And the thing you want is here in the woods, now!"

THE devil's in the details, they say, but can he also be running around in frozen Devonshire?

Main characters:

~ Chief Inspector Ashly of New Scotland Yard ("a short, almost tiny man who nevertheless had the deep thundering voice of a much bigger man"), Simon Ark ("Since when do prints in the snow bring Chief Inspectors from Scotland Yard to investigate?"), Mayor Beverson ("Those are not the tracks of any animal I have ever seen"), Roland Summers ("I was busy chopping up some firewood"), Diana Hunt ("The smile vanished for an instant, then reappeared"), and Mark Eagen ("a small, pleasant-looking man who appeared to be about forty years old").

Typo: "a supernational occurance".

References:

- For what might have been Hoch's inspiration for the story see "Devil's Footprints" in Wikipedia (HERE) and David's Basement of the Bizarre (HERE).

- "an ansated cross, an early symbol of Egyptian Christians." See "Copts" (HERE) and "Coptic Cross" (HERE) in Wikipedia.

Resources:

- Concerning Edward D. Hoch's Simon Ark, the SFE tells us that "his first story, 'Village of the Dead' for Famous Detective Stories in December 1955, introduc[ed] Simon Ark, an Occult Detective who claims to be a 2000-year-old Coptic priest. Some of these stories are collected in The Judges of Hades and Other Simon Ark Stories (coll 1971), City of Brass and Other Simon Ark Stories (coll 1971) and The Quests of Simon Ark (1984); they are only marginally fantasy."

- We were in contact with Hoch about a year ago, when a fondness for numbers in story titles showed up in "The Seventh Assassin" and "The Seventieth Number" (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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Zed Reckoning

"Spelled Guilty."

By Dave Grinnell (?-?).

First appearance: 10-Story Detective, July 1947.

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text page 20).

(Note: Some text smudging but interpretable.)

   "'Well,' said Corazel, leaning back and lighting his pipe, 'when I was in England, I noticed a little thing that had not occurred to me before'."

TODAY'S sleuth joins the likes of C. Auguste Dupin, The Old Man in the Corner, Mycroft Holmes, and Nero Wolfe in solving a crime without moving more than a few feet. All it 

takes is a phone call and a head for trivia . . .

Principal characters:

~ Detective Lieutenant William Corazel ("The old-timer with the keen-honed brain"), 

Diamond Bert ("no one knew who he was or what he looked like"), and the Chief 

("How do you know?").

Typo: "barked the Chief Chief right back".

Resources:

- Wikipedia has a short article about armchair detectives (HERE).

- The nom de plume "Dave Grinnell" is too close to "David Grinnell," one of many pen names often used by SFF uberpulpster Donald A. Wollheim (1914-90), for us not to conclude that he was "Dave Grinnell," but it's not certain. Regardless, "Dave Grinnell" produced nine crime fiction tales for Ten Detective Aces and 10-Story Detective Magazine in 1945-47 (FictionMags data; vi = vignette; ss = short story):

  "Gunfire Promotion," (vi) Ten Detective Aces, March 1945

  "The Devil Is a Magician," (ss) 10-Story Detective Magazine, September 1946

  "Put a Lid on Lora," (ss) 10-Story Detective Magazine, November 1946

  "Fright Night," (ss) Ten Detective Aces, February 1947

  "Crawling Clues," (ss) 10-Story Detective Magazine, March 1947

  "Nemesis Unseen," (ss) Ten Detective Aces, April 1947

  "Spelled Guilty," (ss) 10-Story Detective Magazine, July 1947 (above)

  "B.H.’s Slaughter," (ss) Ten Detective Aces, September 1947

  "Remember Me to Roscoe," (ss) 10-Story Detective Magazine, October 1947.

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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"The Man Had Been Stabbed from Within!"

HERE we have, right in the middle of the Golden Age of Detection (and Prohibition), nothing less than a brazen full-on assault on the genre (and the Volstead Act) by the staff of a popular magazine. An unjustifiable act of malice? No, we're more inclined to think they were all going bonkers waiting for the Eighteenth Amendment to be repealed . . .

"Mystery Number."

Judge Magazine, January 9, 1926 issue.

36 pages.

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

   "Within the deserted mansion itself, deserted save for a finger-print expert, a rifle-bore expert, a blood-stain expert, a toxicologist of note, a micrograph photographer, a score of plain clothes men and Inspector McGrouch—summoned hurriedly from his evening game of lotto, stood the Great Glumph, monosyllabic, hawklike, impenetrable."

WARNING! You'll need to have a high STQ (Silliness Tolerance Quotient) to get through this, so before you read it you might check with your psychiatrist—or, better yet, your wife . . .

Mystery references:

- Seven Baldpates (on the cover).

- The Black Hand (page 2).

- "The Amazing Adventures of Sherlock Lupin - A Tragedy of the Comic Weeklies" (pages 5 and 19).

- "Watson, the Needle!" (page 6).

- Mysterious trapdoor full-page cartoon (page 7).

- "The Midnight Crime" (page 8).

- "Stabbed from Within - A Glumph of the Bumps Yarn!" (pages 10 and 22-23).

- Mary Roberts Rinehart full-page cartoon (page 15).

- "The mystery story" cartoon (page 19).

- "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (page 26).

- "Home Life of a Playwright" (page 27).

- "The Matrimonial Mystery" (page 29).

 

Resources:

- George Jean Nathan was a co-perpetrator of this issue of Judge; there's more about him (HERE).

- S. J. Perelman was also connected with Judge but not, evidently, with this particular issue; to make up for that, see his "Mastersleuth Unmasked at Last!" (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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