JAMES PATRICK KELLY “Think Like a Dinosaur.” First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, June 1995. Reprinted in Year’s Best SF, edited by David G. Hartwell (Harper, paperback,1996) as well as other Best of Year anthologies. Collected in Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories (Golden Gryphon, hardcover, 2003). Nomintaed for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for 1996.

   First things first. “The Cold Equations,” by writer Tom Godwin (Astounding SF, August 1954), is one of the most famous SF stories of all time. In it a young girl stows away on a space ship taking medicine to a planet that is in severe emergency mode without it. There is no margin for error on the ship, however, and the girl’s extra, unplanned for weight requires a horrible decision to be made: either the girl must be jettisoned from the ship, or the mission must be aborted.

   The choice made by the ship’s crew was immensely controversial, and while no longer no longer as discussed as it once was, the story and its aftermath is still considered one of  the great SFnal masterpieces of all time. (John W. Campbell, editor of the magazine, is said to have a great deal to do with the development of the story, and was frustrated with Godwin when he kept turning the story in with suggestions as to how to solve the problem.)

   In any case, I like to think of “Think Like a Dinosaur” as a companion tale. It is not exactly a sequel. There is no continuation of characters or location, only a common theme. It takes place in a research/relay station operated jointly by a human crew and a race evolved from dinosaur-like creatures. Live beings, presumably from both races, are sent to the far reached of space by disintegrating them and reconstructing them on far planets.

   But on one such attempt something goes wrong, and the girl on this side is still here, when she shouldn’t be, and a decision must be made. The dinos in charge say their way is the only way. The human staffer, more empathetic, thinks differently.

   It’s a good story, very well told, but whether it enjoys the awards it received, well, call me unconvinced. It’s a “been there, done that” sort of tale, and I can’t do better than leave it as that.

EDWARD RONNS – Murder Money. Phoenix Press, hardcover, 1938. Stark House Press, softcover, 2-in-1 edition with Death in a Lighthouse, 2025, under author’s real name Edward S. Aarons.

After a long and continuing career writing for the pulps, this is the author’s first published novel. It is also the first appearance of bespectacled Leo Storm, amateur dabbler in mysteries. (And also his last, in all likelihood.) The scene is Maine, and at stake are two sets of $250,00 in currency, plus an equal value in diamonds.

   This is the best Phoenix Press mystery I’ve ever read. which (given the relative ineptitude of the line) I hope is not an unfair statement. After the first couple of chapters (dreadful), it’s actually pretty good. Ronns (Edward S. Aarons) must have been reading his Hammett, because the ending is a smash-up corker.

TRACKER. CBS, “Klamath Falls.” CBS, 10 February 2024 (Season 1, Episode 1). Justin Hartley, Robin Weigert, Abby McEnany, Eric Graise, Fiona Rene. Based on the novel The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver. Director: Ken Olin.

Starring in this rather formulaic adventure series, now close to having finished three seasons, is Justin Hartley as Colter Shaw, a fellow who makes a living tracking down people and things for all kinds of reasons, with his own personal one being that he gets paid quite a bit of money for doing so.

I say “formulaic” because that’s all that’s to be seen in this, the first episode.

WILSON TUCKER – The Time Masters. Signet 1127, paperback; 1st printing thus, July 1954. Cover art by Jack Faragasso. Previously published in hardcover by Rinehart, 1953, and by Startling Stories, January 1954, probably in shorter form. Reprinted by Lancer Books, paperback, March 1972.

   For ten thousand years survivors of a wrecked alien spaceship wait for men to become capable of reaching the stars. At last a man and a woman confront each other at Oak Ridge, where scientists are readying the latest experimental rocket.

   That Gilbert Nash is/was the legendary Gilgamesh is fairly obvious, but the open hints he gives should make it clear to those investigating him as well, This is rather typical of the book’s standards, Scientific facts are outdated (as expected), but the rather poor ending is far-fetched,

   That the rocket is orbital rather than exploratory may be because of the scientific “secrecy” that Tucker emphasizes, yet it is entirely unbelievable that Carolyn did not know.

Rating: **

CHARLES GOODRUM – Dewey Decimated. Crown, hardcover, 1977. Perennial, paperback, 1988. Nominated for 1978 Edgar Award, Best First Novel.

   For those who love both books and whodunits, this novel by Charles Goodrum should be required reading. It is the story of two murders, both committed and solved within the confines of Werner-Bok. one of the nation’s most famous libraries.

   Things were chaotic enough at Werner-Bok even before the murders — anonymous letters sent to the press had questioned the authenticity of two of the library’s rare manuscripts. But the murder of two staff members on top of this threatens to destroy the library’s reputation.

   Not that we know right away the two deaths are· murders (one is made to seem an accident, the other a suicide). But three people begin to suspect murder: Betty Creighton Jones, the public-relations officer; Ed George, a retired librarian and friend of Werner-Bok’ s director; and Steve Carson, a young researcher.

   These three amateur detectives join forces and go about hunting clues and questioning suspects. So we have a situation in which not only the sleuths and the murder victims, but all the suspects as well, are associated with the library.

   Goodrum, himself an eminent librarian, obviously knows the field as few others do. The library and rare-books information he gives us is interesting, although presented in great quantity for the sake of the information itself rather than advancing the story. But we do get caught up, along with the three amateur sleuths, in trying to puzzle out the murderer’s identity.

   Goodrum’s other novel is Carnage of the Realm (1979), which has a numismatic background.

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   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
      

         The Edward George mystery series —

1. Dewey Decimated (1977)
2. Carnage of the Realm (1979)
3. The Best Cellar (1987)
4. A Slip of the Tong (1992)

BAYNARD KENDRICK – The Last Express. Captain Duncan Maclain #1. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1937. Dell #95, mapback edition, 1945. Lancer, paperback, 1970.

   Although not Kendrick’s first book, this is the first adventure of Duncan Maclain. who is probably his most famous detective. and that largely because he is blind. What I’d never realized before is that Maclain is a private detective, not a policeman.

   There is also a germ of a decent story here, what with a dying message and a subterranean tour of New York City’s subway system, but it is so clumsily told it defies belief. What is obvious takes 50 pages to tell; inconsistencies are mostly ignored. Ptooie.

ERLE STANLEY GARDNER “Second Story Law.” Bob Crowder #1. First published in All Detective Magazine, September 1933. Collected in Behind the Mask (Pulpville Press, softcover, 2013).

   The story begins with a masked intruder making his way up a ladder and into the window of a room on the second floor of a large fancy manor house. Asleep in the room is a girl who does not immediately awaken, but soon enough she does – but her reaction is not what the masked intruder had obviously expected. She is cool and collected, asking him quietly what he is doing in her bedroom.

   Frustrated, he puts all but one object back – that being a silver-backed mirror, – and calls the police himself. He is a fellow by the name of Bob Crowder, and he has a plan. In the same house, a couple of nights before, the theft of much more valuable jewelry had taken place. The question is then, what is the connection and what is Crowder’s plan?

   In the early days of his writing career author Erle Stanley Gardner honed his writing craft by creating all kinds of heroes in hundreds of stories. A common theme is the kind of chap who solves a case by reading about it in the newspaper and figures out a way to cut himself in, and always in the most mysterious way possible.

   This is, of course, a prime example. We don’t learn a lot about out hero’s background – nothing, in fact – but then again what have we ever learned about the private life of Perry Mason? Not a lot, that’s for sure.

   No, throughout his writing career, Gardner never took his readers into details of his characters’ lives, even at the start. The story was the thing, and I can only imagine how much better this one probably was, compared to the other tales of the same issue it first appeared in.

   On the other hand, the skill set owned by Bob Crowder was admittedly rather limited, and Mr. Gardner had plenty of other characters to write about. The young adventurous Mr. Crowder appeared in only three other tales. You can find all four in the Behind the Mask collection.

JAMES ANDERSON – The Affair of the Mutilated Mink Coat.Inspector Wilkins #2. Avon, paperback original; 1st printing, October 1981. Poisoned Pen Press, softcover, 1999

   A house party at Alderly, and all of the guests are either uninvited or there under false pretenses, or so it seems, and murder is inevitable. A classical 1930s British mystery with more dovetailed plot than anyone could hope for, all tied up with a witty twist.

   The humor is not forced, but understated, and is all the more obvious for it, Maybe the English do this best, The job done by a top detective called in from Scotland Yard, a great mind and s smug condescending man, is one not easily forgotten. A pure delight.

   If you’re a fan of Richard Matheson’s vast volume of work, you may be interested in a special event being held later this year celebrating his 100th birthday. It’s called the Mathesontennial and will occur at this year’s Monsterama convention, marking its 13th year this August 7-9 at the Atlanta Marriott Northeast/Emory Area.

   Here below a link to regular contributor Matthew Bradley’s blog, where he’ll tell you all aboit it, as well as lots more information about all kinds of related things:

Mathesontennial

DAVID GOODIS – Street of No Return. Gold Medal #428, paperback original; 1st printing, 1954. Cover art: Barye Phillips.

   Street of No Return has strong similarities of plot to Down There (reviewed here), but is a much stronger book.

   Whitey, an alky once known as Edward Linden, the best singer of his generation, got involved with the wrong woman. The woman’s hoodlum friends try to persuade Whitey to forget her by smashing his vocal cords, and Whitey winds up with the rest of the winos on the street of no return.

   One day, with a race riot in progress in the Hellhole a few blocks away from skid row, Whitey sees some familiar faces and follows them into the Hellhole, where he tries to help a dying cop. As a result, he is accused of murder, and much of the first part of the book deals with his attempts to evade the police. just as much of the first part of Down There deals with Eddie’s attempts to evade the gangsters.

   Eventually the book comes to a predictable end: Whitey finds the killer and brings the riots to a stop. But as one would expect in a Goodis book, Whitey does not find the girl and live with her happily ever after. Instead, he goes back to his bottle and his friends on the street.

   What sets this book apart from Down There, as well as a number of other Goodis novels, is the writing. The writing is not slowed down. as it often is in Goodis’s works, by lengthy passages of introspection; thus the story moves along with the reader being shown. not told. and the narration is more effective than usual. One wonders why this book has never been filmed in place of other, lesser Goodis novels.

   Those with a taste for Goodis’s philosophy should try Street of the Lost (1953) and The Moon in the Gutter (1954). The titles tell the story. A recent movie version of the latter was a conspicuous flop.

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   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.