"For Such a Clever Boy, He Sure Makes a Dumb Corpse"

"Spongehead."

By William J. Shefski (?).

Illustration by Charles Lang (HERE).

First appearance: Aboriginal Science Fiction, Fall 1993.

Short short story (6 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

(Parental caution: Strong language.)

     "I wondered if Edison ever had any of his inventions come back to haunt him."

When does a dream turn into a nightmare? Lack is about to find out . . . .

Principal characters:

~ Little Bob:

  ". . . had a genius for these thinking machines that control our lives."

~ Lack:

  "The point is, I've never laid my own hands on a computer chip in anger."

~ Police officer:

  "As the coat swung out, I saw her hit a button on a controller at her hip."

~ Second police officer:

  "I caught a glimpse of her partner again, stirring up papers just outside the door."

A deduction that a 21st century Sherlock might make (except for those "cathode rays"):

  "The young man that stood before me showed the pallid skin and thin, under-developed musculature that comes from spending a life in front of computer screens, bathing in cathode rays."

References and resource:

- "Edison": Known in his day as the Wizard of Menlo Park:

  "Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) was an American inventor and businessman who has been described as America's greatest inventor. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the Stanley Steamer": Yes, there once was an automobile powered by steam, but it was rendered obsolete by technical innovations:

  "During the mid to late 1910s, the fuel efficiency and power delivery of internal combustion engines improved dramatically and using an electric starter instead of the crank, which had been notorious for injuring its operators, led to the rise of the gasoline-powered automobile, which also was much cheaper" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "a born hacker": A term that, since our story was published, has acquired ominous overtones:

  "A computer hacker is a computer expert who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term hacker has become associated in popular culture with a security hacker – someone who utilizes their technical know-how of bugs or exploits to break into computer systems and access data which would otherwise be unavailable to them – hacking can also be utilized by legitimate figures in legal situations. Originally, hacker simply meant advanced computer technology enthusiast (both hardware and software) and adherent of programming subculture" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the virtual reality gizmos": Even unreality can be useful in reality:

  "Virtual reality applications are applications that make use of virtual reality (VR), an immersive sensory experience that digitally simulates a virtual environment. Applications have been developed in a variety of domains, such as education, architectural and urban design, digital marketing and activism, engineering and robotics, entertainment, virtual communities, fine arts, healthcare and clinical therapies, heritage and archaeology, occupational safety, social science and psychology" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "brain chemistry": The human brain has been called "the three-pound universe":

  "While neurochemistry as a recognized science is relatively new, the idea behind neurochemistry has been around since the 18th century. Originally, the brain had been thought to be a separate entity apart from the peripheral nervous system. Beginning in 1856, there was a string of research that refuted that idea. The chemical makeup of the brain was nearly identical to the makeup of the peripheral nervous system" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "a poison pill virus": Don't talk to me about viruses:

  "The first known description of a self-reproducing program in fiction is in the 1970 short story 'The Scarred Man' by Gregory Benford which describes a computer program called VIRUS which, when installed on a computer with telephone modem dialing capability, randomly dials phone numbers until it hits a modem that is answered by another computer, and then attempts to program the answering computer with its own program, so that the second computer will also begin dialing random numbers, in search of yet another computer to program. The program rapidly spreads exponentially through susceptible computers and can only be countered by a second program called VACCINE" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "Messianic then": A desire to help taken too far:

  "A messiah complex (Christ complex or savior complex) is a state of mind in which an individual holds a belief that they are destined to become a savior today or in the near future. The term can also refer to a state of mind in which an individual believes that they are responsible for saving or assisting others" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "It's been 2050 years": That would put our story in the neighborhood of 2080 A.D.

- "worse than mad scientist": A universal fictional stereotype which isn't always fiction:

  "Mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is described as 'mad' or 'insane' owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly ambitious, taboo or hubristic nature of their experiments. As a motif in fiction, the mad scientist may be villainous (evil genius) or antagonistic, benign or neutral; may be insane, eccentric, or clumsy; and often works with fictional technology or fails to recognize or value common human objections to attempting to play God. Some may have benevolent intentions, even if their actions are dangerous or questionable, which can make them accidental antagonists" (Wikipedia HERE).

- According to the authoritative Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDb HERE) this is the only SFFnal story attributed to William J. Shefski.

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"A Perfect Crime? There's No Such Thing!"

WHEN IT COMES to short, punchy crime fiction nobody did it better than the late Edward D. Hoch. Submitted for your approval . . .

"Getaway!"

By Edward D. Hoch (1930-2008).

First appearance: Murder!, September 1956.

Short short short story (4 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

(Note: Text very faded but legible.)

"I figured everything," he says. "I figured every angle."

Principal characters:

~ Hal Martin:

  "A fast car, a beautiful woman, and all the money in the world. That's all I ever wanted. And I've got all three."

~ Dawn Withers:

  "They sure were suckers back in River City."

Reference:

- "the snub-nosed .38 revolver": Police detectives have a preference for them:

  "A snubnosed revolver (colloquially known as a snubbie, belly gun, or bulldog revolver) is any small, medium, or large frame revolver with a short barrel, which is generally 3 inches or less in length. Snubnosed revolvers were extremely popular in the United States until the 1950s and 1960s, when most states passed laws limiting or prohibiting the carry of concealed weapons" (Wikipedia HERE).

~ ~ ~

"Execution on Clover Street."

By Edward D. Hoch (1930-2008).

First appearance: Murder!, March 1957.

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; PDF; it will be necessary to download the entire issue; go down to text page 22).

(Note: Text faded but readable.)

     "The men were nice to Ugly. They gave him money—ten whole dollars—just to wait around and pull the two triggers."

Following orders to the letter might not work every time. Take, for instance, the situation with Hammond . . .

Main characters:

~ Ugly:

  "Why did they always call him Ugly?"

~ First man:

  ". . . we're going to kill Hammond in a way that's completely foolproof."

~ Second man:

  "What you want is a robot."

~ Hammond:

  ". . . turned and saw him there in the rain."

Reference:

- "the double-barreled shotgun": When it fires, be sure you're on the right end of it:

  "A double-barreled shotgun is a break-action shotgun with two parallel barrels, allowing two single shots to be fired in quick succession" (Wikipedia HERE).

- Last October we highlighted Ed Hoch's Captain Leopold story, "Bullets for Two" (HERE).

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"Not Surprisingly, the Subject of Murder Did Come Up"

ONCE SPACE PROBES started sending back unexpected findings about the other planets in the Solar System, science fiction/fantasy (SFF) writers had to adjust their storylines to the new reality. One of those writers gave us the following story about—well, let's be charitable and call them the unintended consequences brought about by . . .

"The Hole Man."

By Larry Niven (born 1938).

Illustration by Jack Gaughan (1930-85; HERE).

First appearance: Analog, January 1974.

Reprints page (HERE).

Short story (13 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; it will be necessary to download the entire issue as a PDF; go down to text page 93).

(Note: Text is faded but legible.)

     "It doesn't matter if a weapon is deliberately crafted for murder or a naturally-occurring phenomenon. What matters is its effect."

It's remarkable—you could even say shocking—how a thing that's otherwise normally harmless can be so deadly . . . .

Main characters:

~ Andrew Lear:

  ". . . the man with the black hole between his ears."

~ Captain Childrey:

  ". . . looked startled. He slapped his right thigh and brought the hand away bloody."

~ The unnamed narrator:

  "That was probably the most unique murder weapon in history."

References and resources:

- "Mariner probes": The first ones to explore worlds other than Earth's moon:

  "The Mariner program consisted of ten exploration probes launched between 1962 and 1973. The spacecraft were designed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to investigate the planets Mars, Venus, and Mercury" (Historic Spacecraft HERE; also see Wikipedia HERE).

- "Sirbonis Palus": A Martian feature that has been declared obsolete; the "palus" refers to a bog:

  "Serbonian Bog (Greek: Σιρβωνίδος λίμνη, romanized: Sirbōnidos limnē, Latin: Sirbonis Lacus, Arabic: مستنقع سربون‎, romanized: Mastaboqwah Serbon) was an area of wetland in a lagoon lying between the eastern Nile Delta, the Isthmus of Suez, Mount Casius, and the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt, with Lake Sirbonis at its center. The lagoon still exists, and is the second-largest in Egypt. The bog is used as a metaphor in English for an inextricable situation" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "Dyson spheres": A nifty idea, attainable in two or three hundred years:

  "A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output. The concept is a thought experiment that attempts to explain how a spacefaring civilization would meet its energy requirements once those requirements exceed what can be generated from the home planet's resources alone. Only a tiny fraction of a star's energy emissions reaches the surface of any orbiting planet. Building structures encircling a star would enable a civilization to harvest far more energy" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "Project Ozma": Nice try, but no joy:

  "Project Ozma was a SETI experiment started in 1960 by Cornell University astronomer Frank Drake, at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank at Green Bank, West Virginia. The object of the experiment was to search for signs of life in distant planetary systems through interstellar radio waves. The program was named after Princess Ozma, ruler of the fictional land of Oz, inspired by L. Frank Baum's supposed communication with Oz by radio to learn of the events in the books taking place after The Emerald City of Oz" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "landing in Mare Cimmerium": A Martian feature that's undergone a name change:

  "Terra Cimmeria is a large Martian region, centered at 34.7°S 145°E and covering 5,400 km (3,400 mi) at its broadest extent. It covers latitudes 15 N to 75 S and longitudes 170 to 260 W. It lies in the Eridania quadrangle. Terra Cimmeria is one part of the heavily cratered, southern highland region of the planet. The Spirit rover landed near the area" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "locked in by tides": It explains why we can see practically none of the Moon's backside:

  "Tidal locking (also called gravitational locking, captured rotation and spin–orbit locking), in the best-known case, occurs when an orbiting astronomical body always has the same face toward the object it is orbiting. This is known as synchronous rotation: the tidally locked body takes just as long to rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around its partner" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "other giant organic molecules suitable for genetic coding": Maybe, maybe not:

  "Hypothetical types of biochemistry are forms of biochemistry agreed to be scientifically viable but not proven to exist at this time. The kinds of living organisms currently known on Earth all use carbon compounds for basic structural and metabolic functions, water as a solvent, and DNA or RNA to define and control their form. If life exists on other planets or moons it may be chemically similar, though it is also possible that there are organisms with quite different chemistries – for instance, involving other classes of carbon compounds, compounds of another element, or another solvent in place of water" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "Angstrom": Very, very, very tiny:

  "The angstrom is a metric unit of length equal to 10−10 m; that is, one ten-billionth of a metre, 0.1 nanometre, or 100 picometres. Its symbol is Å, a letter of the Swedish alphabet" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the Big Bang": It's quite popular (but then so is twerking):

  "The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model explaining the existence of the observable universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "quantum black hole": Just like the angstrom, size-wise:

  "Micro black holes, also called quantum mechanical black holes or mini black holes, are hypothetical tiny black holes, for which quantum mechanical effects play an important role. The concept that black holes may exist that are smaller than stellar mass was introduced in 1971 by Stephen Hawking" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "neutronium": It makes steel look like gossamer:

  "Neutronium (sometimes shortened to neutrium, also referred to as neutrite) is a hypothetical substance composed purely of neutrons. Science fiction and popular literature have used the term 'neutronium' to refer to an imaginary highly dense phase of matter composed primarily of neutrons, with properties useful to the story" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the Martian desert scene": The mere concept of a desert has many evocative associations that authors have exploited from time immemorial:

  "Before, and certainly after, the results sent back by the Viking landers, some science fiction set on Mars portrayed it as a desert planet" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the Percival Lowell": Named for the American polymath who almost single-handedly started the Mars craze:

  "Percival Lawrence Lowell (1855–1916) was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and formed the beginning of the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "gravity radiation": A fairly new idea in the long history of physics:

  "Gravitational waves are disturbances in the curvature of spacetime, generated by accelerated masses, that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were proposed by Henri Poincaré in 1905 and subsequently predicted in 1916 by Albert Einstein on the basis of his general theory of relativity. Gravitational waves transport energy as gravitational radiation, a form of radiant energy similar to electromagnetic radiation" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "pulsars—rotating neutron stars": Don't go there:

  "A pulsar (from pulsating radio source) is a highly magnetized rotating compact star (usually neutron stars but also white dwarfs) that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles" (Wikipedia HERE).

  "A neutron star is the collapsed core of a massive supergiant star, which had a total mass of between 10 and 25 solar masses, possibly more if the star was especially metal-rich. Except for black holes, and some hypothetical objects (e.g. white holes, quark stars, and strange stars), neutron stars are the smallest and densest currently known class of stellar objects" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "mascons": They're lumpy:

  "In astronomy and astrophysics, a mass concentration (or mascon) is a region of a planet or moon's crust that contains a large positive gravitational anomaly" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "One day Mars will be gone": It all depends on what "day" you choose:

  "Ultimately, the Solar System is stable in that none of the planets are likely to collide with each other or be ejected from the system in the next few billion years. Beyond this, within five billion years or so Mars's [orbital] eccentricity may grow to around 0.2, such that it lies on an Earth-crossing orbit, leading to a potential collision" (Wikipedia HERE).

- Much like Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov contrived an ingenious high-tech method of murder (or was it murder?) in his story "The Billiard Ball," featured (HERE).

- Laurence van Cott Niven, with his degree in mathematics, is one of a select few of genuine giants in the sub-field of hard science fiction; see Wikipedia (HERE), the SFE (HERE), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (HERE), the ISFDb (HERE), and the IMDb (HERE; 7 credits). His webpage is (HERE).

- We last communed with Larry Niven a couple of years ago concerning his murder mystery "The Alibi Machine" (HERE).

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"A Good Detective Ought To Be Part Actor and Not Look Like a Shamus"

SHOW BUSINESS has proven to be a fertile ground for authors in every fictional genre to plant their storylines in; today's tale involves an actor on the precipice of insolvency hoping to obviate his problem quadrupedally . . .

"To Slay a Man About a Dog!"

By Fredric Brown (1906-72).

First appearance: Detective Tales, September 1944.

Reprinted in Dime Detective, June 1952.

Novelette (13 pages; 2 illos).

Online at Archive.org (HERE; original text, 13 pages) and The Luminist Archives (HERE; original text, 13 pages; it will be necessary to download the entire issue; go down to text page 48).

Peter Kidd's first day as a private detective is proving to be pretty hairy—no, make that shaggy . . . .

Segments:

Chapter 1: Doggerel of Death

  "The shaggy dog murders had hardly started . . . ."

Chapter 2: "The Dog of a Murdered Man"

  "The man pulled the trigger . . . ."

Chapter 3: "Escape His Fate, Sir, If You Can"

  "If the shaggy dog hadn't been the dog of a murdered man before, it was one now."

Chapter 4: "Two Damn Shaggy"

  "The killer's been trying to get that money back."

Principal characters:

~ Peter Kidd:

  ". . . should have suspected the shaggy dog of something, right away."

~ Rover:

  "Are you sure it has antecedents?"

~ Asbury:

  "I want you to find the owner of this dog."

~ Harrison:

  "Quite all right, Mr. Asbury. Your cards will be ready for you."

~ Miss Latham:

  "You mean you've solved it?"

~ Wheeler:

  ". . . forgot to come back to the phone. Maybe it's just as well."

~ Powell:

  "Musta burned him down, lammed quickly."

~ Mrs. Drake:

  "It was Hatchet-Face herself, but she wasn't frowning."

~ Miss Ames:

  "The police just left. They told me not to g-give out the story . . ."

~ Lieutenant West:

  "You mean you think it's counterfeit?"

The "moment" again, when the sleuth is illumined:

  "He broke off abruptly and his eyes got wider. 'Lord,' he said, 'it's obvious!'"

References and resources:

- "Alexander Pope wrote about two hundred years ago": Sarcasm and wit were right up his alley:

  "Alexander Pope (1688–1744) was a poet and satirist of the Augustan period and one of its greatest artistic exponents. Considered the foremost English poet of the early 18th century and a master of the heroic couplet, he is best known for satirical and discursive poetry . . ." (Wikipedia HERE).

- "The shaggy dog story": Perhaps you've been victimized by one:

  "In its original sense, a shaggy dog story or yarn is an extremely long-winded anecdote characterized by extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents and terminated by an anticlimax. Shaggy dog stories play upon the audience's preconceptions of joke-telling. The audience listens to the story with certain expectations, which are either simply not met or met in some entirely unexpected manner" (Wikipedia HERE).

- Another story with bogus money as a plot mover is Lawrence Treat's "Counterfeit Killer," which we highlighted (HERE).

- Our latest meeting with Fredric Brown was his SFFnal one-pager, "(The) First Time Machine" (HERE).

- Over the years we've featured a couple of short fictions with showbiz backgrounds: William E. Fark's SFFnal "Murvyn the Magnificent" (HERE) and John D. MacDonald's "Death Is the Answer" (HERE).

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"By the Time You Read This, I'll Either Have Breached and Bridged the Space-time Continuum to Another Plane, or I'll Be Dead"

"So Many Worlds Away . . ."

By Dwight V. Swain (1915-92).

First appearance: Imagination, July 1952.

Illustration by W. E. Terry (1921-92; HERE).

Short story (20 pages; 17 pages as a PDF).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; original text; 20 pages; go down to page 122), Archive.org (HERE; original text; 20 pages), and Project Gutenberg (HERE; 17 pages).

     "Horning's married life was unbearable so he sought peace in another dimension. But was his past somehow linked with other worlds? . . ."

They say if you go far enough you'll eventually meet yourself; Raymond has a chance to do that very thing, but he'll soon learn just how unpleasant such an encounter can be . . . .

Main characters:

~ Margaret:

  ". . . smiled up at him as always, so real the sight of her brought a tightness to his throat. When he closed his eyes, he could almost hear her voice, rippling with gay, gentle laughter. He felt her lips on his . . . her dark, silken hair against his cheek."

~ Raymond:

  ". . . sagged back against the workbench—shaken, unable to speak. It was as if, of a sudden, he were seeing his wife through new eyes."

~ Myrtle:

  "That woman—that creature—she could be dead a thousand years and I'd still hate her—!"

~ "Doctor Raymond X. Horning":

  "An ugly, snub-nosed pistol of strange design was in his hand."

References and resources:

- "Parmenides and his theory of the Eternal Now": A 5th century B.C. philosopher; see Wikipedia (HERE) for an article about him.

  "And so for Parmenides, there is no change. The reality/universe is continuous, unchanging and eternal. Now note that this is NOT the testimony of our senses. Our senses (strongly) suggest that things are changing all the time, precisely as Heraclitus claims. Parmenides‘s radical metaphysics (along with the epistemology it implied) lead other philosophers to try to refute Parmenides monism and timeless-ness, especially since change in everyday life seem[s] so much more evident than oneness. Parmenides’s student Zeno famously defended his teacher’s views with his ingenious paradoxes about the space, time and motion (a principal kind of change)" ("Pre-Socratic Epistemology and Metaphysics: Parmenides and Heraclitus" HERE).

From the Class of 475 B.C. yearbook.

- "snatched a Stillson wrench": A handy tool, indeed, but never intended to be used in a fight:

  "The Stillson wrench is an adjustable wrench (spanner) with hardened serrated teeth on its jaws. The hard teeth bite into the softer metal of the round pipe and provide the grip needed to turn a pipe, even against fair resistance. The design of the adjustable jaw, which permits a certain amount of intentional play out of square, allows it to bind on the pipe, with forward pressure on the handle pulling the jaws tighter. Two leaf springs, above and below the knurled adjusting knob, help unlock the jaw when pressure on the handle of the wrench is released" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "dirty white mules": Footwear:

  "Mule is a style of shoe that has no back or constraint around the foot's heel. Mules have a history going as far back as Ancient Rome, even though they were not popularly worn until sixteenth-century Europe. There, mules were bedroom slippers and not worn in public. Through the centuries, mules have changed in style and purpose and are no longer just boudoir shoes but are worn at any time, for any occasion" (Wikipedia HERE).

- We've encountered Dwight V. Swain only once before: "The Transposed Man" (HERE). You'll also find links to other information about him there.

- The multiverse trope has proven to be a handy hook to hang a plot on: Ray Wood's "Schrödinger’s Gun" (HERE), Sam Merwyn's "Third Alternative" (HERE), and J. W. Armstrong's "Reversal of Misfortune" (HERE).

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"You Didn't Have To Look Hard for Motives"

THE SEMIDOC STYLE of crime fiction really enjoyed a vogue in media, usually the movies, from the '30s to the '60s. It was basically reality-based fiction, more fiction than reality, but with just enough authentic background to make it all seem plausible. The important thing in a semidoc is the way it's told. Character examples of this style would be Sergeant Joe Friday in radio, TV, and films, and today's protagonist, a state police officer who's been given the unenviable assignment of being a . . .

"Bodyguard."

By Karl Detzer (1891-1987).

Illustrations by James Ernst (1916-89; HERE).

First appearance: Blue Book, March 1948.

Short short story (8 pages; 4 illos).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

(Note: Text faded but readable.)

     "There, at five minutes before midnight, he was killed."

It's a classic situation, as our protagonist is trapped in "a snowbound country house peopled with suspects" . . . .

Principal characters:

~ Sylvia Silver:

  "I'm scared to death. Does the poor Senator really need a bodyguard? I hope you've got a gun."

~ Senator Frank Maxton:

  "You know, a man in my position gets involved in things against his will."

~ Sergeant Jennison:

  "You're going to keep him alive and hearty for the trials."

~ Smith:

  "He had eyes like a dead rock bass, and looked as if he used bourbon when he shaved."

~ Joe Flasky:

  "He was crooked as a dog's hind leg."

~ Fred Tobias:

  "Anybody snooping around here?"

~ Terry Carsten:

  ". . . this punk who sold groceries . . ."

~ Ruth Hasty:

  "She didn't sound like a very big-time reporter to me—too scared and upset."

~ Corporal Clinton:

    "Look for all kinds of motives, hook the motive to the facts."

Reference and resources:

- "went into dog racing": As with horse racing, the sport has a seamier side thanks to gambling; see DogRacing.com (HERE), Wikipedia (HERE), National Geographic Online (HERE), and Grey2K USA Worldwide (HERE).

- Karl William Detzer lived an adventurous life; see his story listings in FictionMags (HERE), background in Pulp Flakes (HERE), and his own mini-bio in Blue Book (HERE).

- Merriam-Webster's definition of semidoc: "semidocumentary: a motion picture that uses many details taken from actual events or situations in presenting a fictional story" (HERE); also see Wikipedia (HERE). Michael Grost has a full page of his megasite devoted to semidoc films; go (HERE) for that.

- Other stories featuring bodyguards that we've highlighted: Carter Critz's "Not According to Doyle" (HERE), Wade Wells's "Murder in Silhouette" (HERE), and Hugh Pentecost's "Bottom Deal" (HERE).

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