Spot Review: Shocking, Just Shocking

"Shocking Fiction - The Season's Best Detective and Mystery Stories" by Gerald R. Denny

- T. P.'s Weekly, June 29, 1929.

AS you can see, our reviewer is careful to distinguish between "the detective story proper" ("Such a story appeals to the intellect") and "thrillers" ("in which the probabilities are ignored from the first page to the last").

References:

- "Mr. Baldwin" (HERE).

- "Mr. Snowden" (HERE).

- "George A. Birmingham" (HERE).

- The Best Detective Stories of the Year (full TOC HERE).

Resources:

- Mr. Fortune Speaking (online HERE; borrow only).

- The Inconsistent Villains (online HERE; fair copy).

- The Mystery of Jack the Ripper reviewed (HERE).

- The Silent Murders reviewed (HERE).

- The Bishop Murder Case (online HERE). Other Philo Vance novels online at RGL (HERE).

“I Know It’s Hard for You To Accept, but the Most Noble Emotion in Man Is the Greatest Sin in a Robot"

THERE are many ways for humans to harm one another—the law books are bulging with them—but what happens when it comes to robots? What if they exceed their programming? What if they commit . . .

"The Sin."

By Winston Marks (1915-78; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and Project Gutenberg HERE).

Illustration by Emsh (Ed Emshwiller, 1925-90; ISFDb HERE).

First appearance: Startling Stories, Fall 1955.

Short short story (8 pages).

Online at SFFAudio (HERE) and Archive.org (HERE; text faded).

   "A robot could get away with murder, but one crime was unpardonable."

  "In that first thousandth of a second every nerve fiber in his body should have shrivelled, fusing all synapses and reducing the mesonic brain to a molten froth."

   Now, is that any way to treat a robot?

Principal characters:

~ Dr. Irwine ("As the only fully accredited Doctor of Robotics in the Pacific Northwest, Irwine, age 142, was already beginning to show traces of gray at the temples, testimony of his rigorous schedule of six hours a day, four days a week"), Eva ("had been with him for almost 30 years and he was deeply attached to her. She knew his needs, his moods, his irritations, and his appetites. She administered to him with an efficiency and faultless loyalty that all his millions of dollars could never replace, were he to lose her"), the first patient ("Muscular coordination is seriously impaired"), a male robot ("There was only the one homicidal impulse, but it was so overpowering that it would be foolish to risk its reoccurence"), the third patient ("an almost totally useless male robot rendered psychotically apathetic by deep manic depression"), and Max ("sooner or later he'll kill someone").

References:

- "mesonic brain": This is our author's sly alternate name for Asimov's "positronic brain" (HERE).

- "he remained at the console studying the brain wave-patterns" (HERE); also see (HERE).

- "vaguely analogous to the human hypothalamus" (HERE).

- "the two little silver-alloy bus-bars" (HERE).

Resources:

- The go-to guy about the behavior of robots is, of course, Isaac Asimov (HERE).

- The IEEE has a substantial guide to real-world robots (HERE).

- The third patient and Max aren't the only fictional robots to suffer from emotional problems (WARNING! SPOILERS! Go HERE).

- Several years before this story, Ray Bradbury explored how artificial people might detour around their programming in "Marionettes, Inc.," "Changeling," and "Punishment Without Crime" (all HERE).

- We've contemplated only two samples of Winston Marks's work so far, "Slay-Ride" (HERE) and the unforgettable "Bleedback" (HERE).

The bottom line:

  Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

    - Measure for Measure

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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"Well, Gentlemen, Are We Still Under Arrest—or Are You Going To Commend Me for the Chief's Job in Your Bureau?"

LET'S take a break from matters of life and death and, like today's sleuth, focus our

attention on . . .

"The Letters Marked XX."

By Edgar Franklin (Edgar Franklin Stearns, 1879-1958; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and the IMDb HERE).

First appearance: Argosy, January 1907.

Short story (9 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

(Note: Text very faded but still legible.)

   "But just after Fennell had started to work the unexpected hitch came—all unknown to him."

A casual request to clear up what seems to be a minor, if baffling, mystery escalates into the exposure of a criminal conspiracy: "Tom, you've been mistaken for a United States post-office . . ."

Main characters:

~ Dr. Jordan ("But you told me once upon a time that all mysteries were capable of being figured out, my boy"), Bridger ("For six or seven minutes the clock ticked loudly. Then Bridger suddenly sat up"), Candee ("His package was about the same in every particular, and he carried it tightly under one arm, but his eyes were very furtive"), the maid ("He was at this house every day for four years, at every delivery"), and the secret service man ("I have a warrant for your arrest"). 

Curious prose:

  "Jordan smiled at his cigar."

Reference:

- "more than three weeks, with typhoid fever" (HERE).

Resources:

- Edgar Franklin's career as a short fiction writer started as a humorist in the May 1903 The Argosy, with the madcap misadventures of Mr. Hawkins, a classic scatter-brained inventor, running through at least 38 stories (1903-04, 1908, 1909-12, and two more in 1915, a list being HERE). The first 12 seem to have been collected into a fix-up novel in 1904 as Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures, available on Project Gutenberg (HERE) and Archive.org (HERE). (FictionMags data.)

- Besides Mr. Hawkins, Franklin had several other series characters: Captain Velvet (4 adventures in Cavalier, 1914-15), George Batey (9 stories in Detective Fiction Weekly, 1931, 1936-38), and Johnny Dolan (19 adventures in DFW, 1936-38). (FictionMags data.)

  Here are the two George Batey adventures that we could find online (from The Luminist Archives):

  - "Two-Thirty for Batey" (HERE; go to text page 86)

  - "Speed! Speed!" (HERE; go to text page 90).

  And here are the four Johnny Dolan stories that we could locate (from The Luminist Archives):

  - "Done by Dolan" (HERE; go to text page 78) (the first Dolan)

  - "From Ten to Three" (HERE; go to text page 41)

  - "The Smartest Doll on Earth" (HERE; go to text page 80)

  - "Like a Soldier" (HERE; go to text page 109).

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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Spot Review: THE GREENE MURDER CASE - "It Is Essentially First-Rate"

From The Atlantic Monthly, July 1928.

The text of The Greene Murder Case is available at Standard Ebooks (HERE).

Resources:

- We've dealt with The Greene Murder Case several times: (HERE), (HERE), and (HERE).

- Vintage Pop Fictions also has a favorable review (HERE):

"I like Vance as a character and I don’t mind plots of byzantine complexity and I thoroughly enjoyed The Greene Murder Case."

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"On the Record Were the Thoughts of a Killer"

"Time To Kill."

By Henry Kuttner (1915-58; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and the IMDb HERE).

First appearance: Strange Stories, June 1940.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short short story (7 pages).

Online at SFFAudio (HERE).

   "The brain is a mysterious organ, Harmon."

WAR is organized murder, and that's bad enough, but what happens when "ordinary" murder is added to the horror? History tells us that it happened in real life, and so it does in today's story—but these murders are far from ordinary . . .

Principal characters:

~ Rudolph Harmon ("There's a mad killer somewhere in the city") and Stanley ("I was a general practitioner, not a psychiatrist, but I know something about such matters").

Comment: Kuttner's vivid description of a war-torn city and its suffering inhabitants seems eerily to anticipate what happened to Stalingrad just a couple of years later.

Further comment: Kuttner shouldn't have included the sentence "No murder this time, though." It undermines the suspense.

References:

- "Those of us who remembered 1918" (HERE)

- "You've heard of automatic writing" (HERE)

- "It isn't in materia medica" (HERE)

- "The pineal gland" (HERE).

  "In the short story 'From Beyond' by H. P. Lovecraft, a scientist creates an electronic device that emits a resonance wave, which stimulates an affected person's pineal gland, thereby allowing them to perceive planes of existence outside the scope of accepted reality, a translucent, alien environment that overlaps our own recognized reality."

Resources:

- If you can't get enough to read about telepaths and telepathy, consult the Goodreads listing of 203 titles (HERE), Shepherd.com's bookshelf (HERE), and/or Ranker.com's list (HERE).

- ONTOS has encountered telepathy on a few previous occasions: (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), and (HERE).

- Also on previous occasions we've noted other works by Henry Kuttner: (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (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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"I Killed Him As a Matter of Principle"

LONG BEFORE beatniks, hippies, goths, and their echoes, there were the aesthetes, for whom ordinary life was crass, crude, and stifling; they were the ones who lived on . . .

"The Outposts of Reason."

By John Ramsden (?-?).

First appearance: Pearson's Magazine, August 1919.

Illustration by E. Verpilleux (1888-1964; Wikipedia HERE).

Novelette (8 pages).

Online at Hathi Trust (HERE; go to text page 143.)

(Note: Text smudged, making reading difficult.)

   "Our friend in the pond became the perfect diner."

IN A MOVIE Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan reached for perfection in crime; Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb actually did strive for it in real life. Likewise, in today's story two men share the same lofty ambition, to create something meaningful through destruction—even if that means murder . . .

Main characters:

~ Thomas Earle ("He fell and lay, a loose bag of bones, the limbs sprawling"), Roger Hendriks ("In reality, I was simply a reflection of the expectations of other people"), Richard Merle ("Suffice it that I came from the gloomy ranks of the aristocracy"), and the policeman ("I've got yer. Yer can't get away").

Personification can be helpful:

  "The moon gazed down with an imbecile grin."

  "A fleecy cloud had tangled the moon; here and there a star winked."

References:

- "At Cambridge" (HERE)

- "I could quote Homer" (HERE) "or Horace" (HERE)

- "what the Socialists are tilting at" (HERE)

- "the blazing insolence of St. Paul's" (HERE)

- "talking in Regent's Park" (HERE)

- "a demonstration in the House of Commons" (HERE)

- "walk naked down Piccadilly" (HERE)

- "some of Wilde's books" (HERE)

- "the perfect type of an Incroyable" (HERE)

- "a wife and dirty family in a garret in Soho" (HERE)

- "in the courts of the kings of Persia" (HERE)

- "the thoughts of an anarchist" (HERE).

Resource:

- "The Outposts of Reason" seems to be the only short fiction produced by John Ramsden.

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 Understand How It Travels Through the Generations"

IN A PREVIOUS POST John Brunner had some fun with the concept of time travel. In today's story, our author takes a different tone—a very different tone. Perhaps you've heard of the grandfather paradox; if you combine that with daddy issues, you might get something exactly like . . .

"Regeneration."

By Rory Harper (born 1950; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; and the SFE HERE).

Illustrated by Ron Lindahn (ISFDb HERE).

First appearance: Aboriginal SF, December 1986.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Reprinted in Aboriginal Science Fiction Annual Anthology, May 1988 (today's text).

Short short short story (4 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

(Parental caution: Graphic violence.)

   "Coming back and killing you is expensive. But it’s worth every dollar . . ."

"What goes around comes around." Sure, it's a cliché, but it has this disturbing habit of often being true . . .

Principal characters:

~ Levi ("I wish you’d quit hurting me, Pop"), Pop ("Real sorry for yourself, ain’t you?"), and Jacob ("You shouldn’t take this personally. You’re not real, you know").

Resource:

- George H. Smith's "Paradox Lost" also deals with time travel snarls (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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