ANALOG SF. December 1967. Editor: John W. Campbell. Cover artist: John Schoenherr. Overall rating: ***½.

ANNE McCAFFREY “Dragonrider.” Serial; part 1 of 2. See report following that for the January 1968 issue.

ALEXEI PANSHIN “The Destiny of Milton Gomrath.” Men find their own level in life. (3)

JACK WODHAMS “Whosawhatsa?” Novelette. Judge Forsett’s latest case and nightmare is a comedy of sex changes, complicated by various pregnancies. Still, imagination can provide even more legal complication. The point is valid. (4)

PIERS ANTHONY “Beak by Beak.” Contact, but with the wrong inhabitants of Earth, For bird lovers. (3)

CHRISTOPHER ANVIL “A Question of Attitude.” The testing routine for joining the Interstellar Patrol requires that one look at both sides of the problem. (1)

MACK REYNOLDS “Psi Assassin.” A killer sent out by Section G on behalf of United Planets must be stopped before he eliminates the wrong man. Even the lectures are not new. (1)

DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE – December 1940. Overall rating: *

FRANK JOHNSON {Norman Daniels] “The Crimson Mask’s Death Gamble.” Novel. The Crimson Mask, in reality pharmacist Bob Clarke, fighting evil the way no police can do, takes on a case that could only happen only during a depression, when jobs are precious and hard to come by. An employment agency collects $50 for sending applicants to tough manual-labor jobs where foremen drive them to quitting, thus forfeiting the $50. In the days when the pay was $21 a week, this would be quite a racket. The Mask’s girl friend has the most intelligence of anybody running around. (1)

CYRIL PLUNKETT “To Hell with Death,” A murderer drives his victim around in a car with carbon monoxide coming from the engine and a lawman in the back seat. Suspense. (1)

ALLAN K. ECHOLS “Dollars to Doughnuts.” An honest man in the hard-hit wartime docks resists temptation. (3)

JOHN L. BENTON [Norman Daniels] “The Fifth Column Murders.” Novel. Patriotism, a strong motivation in the days just before World War II, against the scummy war of infiltration and sabotage. The Candid Camera Kid, news photographer Jerry Wade, stops a gang bent on destroying America’s defenses. Why must the clues by hidden from the reader? (1)

ROBERT LESLIE BELLEM “Agents of Doom.” Mixed up story of blackmail used to destroy bombers headed for Canada. (0)

IF SCIENCE FICTION. November 1967. Editor: Frederik Pohl. Cover artist: Vaughn Bodé (his first published SF cover art). Overall rating: ***½.

FRED SABERHAGEN “Brother Berserker.” Novelette. A continuation of the adventures of Darron Odegard, last heard from in the August issue (reviewed here). This time the berserker’s attack is a double one; first, a man who disputes the current religious beliefs in astronomy, and perhaps the major target, a religious leader. Can a saint produce life in an android? (4)

C. C. MacAPP “Mail Drop.” Novelette. The problems of a galactic post office when a “package” is claimed by both of two races, Features a double-page illo by Bodé. (4)

PHILIP JOSE FARMER “The Shadow of Space.” Novelette. The concept of “universes within universes” carried to its extreme. No comment on the symbolism involved with the rocket entering the dead man’s mouth. (5)

JAMES STEVENS “Thus Spake Marco Polo.” Playing a game with a crooked computer, a game of life or death. (3)

GARY WRIGHT “Dreamhouse.” Novelette. How a dream machine can catch potential violence before it rises to the surface, Goes on too long. (2)

PIERS ANTHONY “in the Jaws of Danger,” Novelette. More adventures of the captured dentist, Dr. Dillingham, previously in Analog, Novembe 1967 (reviewed here). This time about cavities in the teeth of an intelligent fish-like monster. Bodé’s illustrations make the story. (3)

HAL CLEMENT “Ocean on Top.” Serial, part 2 of 3. See report after the upcoming December issue.

ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. November 1967. Overall rating: ***

HARRY KEMELMAN “Man on a Ladder.” Novelette. Professor Nicky Welt solves the murder of a scholar [committed to academic work.] I may be in the minority, but I found this story wordy and flat, and if I may, stagey, The chess analogy is good, but isn’t it clear? (2)

JACOB HAY “The Belkamp Apparatus.” A sales representative for a Grand Rapids firm is mistaken for a master spy. It is humorous. (4)

COLIN WATSON “The Infallible Clock.” If a wife disappears and a large clock stops working, what would you suspect? (2)

WILLIAM BRITTAIN “Mr. Strang Finds the Answers,” The key to Mr. Strang’s chemistry exam is stolen, but the mystery is outweighed by the human factors involved. (4)

RICHARD CURTIS “Odds Bodkins and the £1000 Wager.” The odds on breaking out of prison? Only in England. (3)

G. R. SPENCER “The Polite Mrs. Payne.” First story. A holdup man’s politeness is his downfall. (3)

JOYCE CARY “The Sheep.” Published earlier in Texas Quarterly Winter 1958. Tomlin is a sheep, helpless to speak out for himself; excellent characterization that collapses into nothingness. (3)

RON GOULART “Rink.” Parody. 1001st Precinct mystery. Funny. (3)

ELLERY QUEEN “Uncle from Australia.” First appeared in The Diners Club Magazine, June 1965. The Cockney aitch strikes again. Easy puzzle. (2)

THOMAS WALSH “Poor Little Rich Kid.” First appeared in Collier’s, 18 April 1936, as “The Boy on the Train.” A boy with an inheritance, and a weak father, befriends a couple of rodeo cowboys. Good story, but over-plotted. (3)

JAMES CROSS “The Man Who Called Himself James Cross.” Sebastian Nonesuch. A sequel to “The hkzmp gsv bzmp Case,” published in the November 1966 issue of EQMM (reviewed here). The revealed details of the exploits of  US agent Sebastian Nonesuch must be stopped. Often hilarious. (4)

MICHAEL HARRISON “The Fires in the Rue St. Honore.” Another “unpublished” story of C. Auguste Dupin. It seems to be better than the rest, but it turns out to be hopeless for the attentive reader. (2)

ARTHUR PORGES “The Nose of a Beagle.”That the detective is Charles Darwin is obvious from the title. (2)

CHRISTIANNA BRAND “Here Lies…” How to drown a wife who is a swimming champion, and how to build an atmosphere of suspense most effectively. (5)

(Give Me That) OLD-TIME DETECTION. Summer 2025. Issue #69. Editor: Arthur Vidro. Old-Time Detection Special Interest Group of American Mensa, Ltd. 34 pages (including covers).

   THE LATEST ISSUE of OLD-TIME DETECTION focuses on one of detective fiction’s all-time greats, PETER LOVESEY (1936-2025), who passed away in April. OTD editor ARTHUR VIDRO has gathered comments, a 1980 EQMM interview with Lovesey, even a letter that the author wrote to Arthur about OTD, and personal recollections, among them DOUGLAS G. GREENE (“THE LOSS OF PETER LOVESEY, A GREAT WRITER”), JEFFREY MARKS, and MARTIN EDWARDS (“PETER LOVESEY, R.I.P.”).

   JON L. BREEN offers a JURY BOX appraisal of print publications that were spawned by Warren Beatty’s 1990 movie interpretation of DICK TRACY, some of which might surprise you, boasting really big names in detective and science fiction.

   NEXT UP, TOM MEAD manfully tackles what has been a vexatious topic for years, the “10 MOST PUZZLING IMPOSSIBLE CRIME MYSTERIES.” Long-time detective fiction readers might be familiar with most, if not all, of them, but Mead’s appraisals offer new insights: Carr’s THE THREE COFFINS (a.k.a. THE HOLLOW MAN), Dickson’s THE RED WIDOW MURDERS, Hoch’s “The Long Way Down,” McCloy’s THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY, Dunsany’s “The Two Bottles of Relish,” EQ’s THE CHINESE ORANGE MYSTERY, Rogers’s THE RED RIGHT HAND, Shimada’s THE TOKYO ZODIAC MURDERS, Halter’s THE SEVEN WONDERS OF CRIME, and Crispin’s THE MOVING TOY SHOP. “When done right,” says Mead, “the puzzle and the atmosphere are perfectly intertwined; all the clues are there but they are so ingeniously disguised as to make it nigh-on impossible for the reader to suss out what is going on.”

   PERCEPTIVE REVIEWS of a diverse collection of books come next: ARTHUR VIDRO discusses King’s CARELESS CORPSE; LES BLATT talks about Crispin’s THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY; HARV TUDORRI takes on Berkeley’s THE WYCHFORD POISONING CASE; RUTH ORDIVAR reviews Gardner’s THE CASE OF THE BAITED HOOK; TRUDI HARROV appraises Christie’s POSTERN OF FATE; and RUTH ORDIVAR returns with her take on Guigli’s UNDER THE BLACK FLAG – PIRACY IS NOT A VICTIMLESS CRIME, a 2024 novel which “shares many of the old-time qualities we love.”

   THE FICTION SELECTION is excellent, as usual. This time it’s William Brittain’s ingenious “FALLING OBJECT,” which first appeared in EQMM in 1971.

   CHARLES SHIBUK continues to chronicle THE PAPERBACK REVOLUTION, that wonderful time when publishers discovered there was gold in them there classic reprints, this time from the mid-seventies: Allingham, Carr, Christie, Ellen, Francis, Hammett, James, Levin, Liebman, Post, Queen, Roueche, Stribling, and Symons.

   BACK IN 2016, MARTIN EDWARDS wrote an introduction to MURDER AT THE MANOR: COUNTRY HOUSE MYSTERIES, and it’s reproduced in full here. “Today,” writes Edwards, “enthusiasm for the country house crime story remains as strong as ever.” The same could be said for 2025.

   ARTHUR VIDRO continues his series about collecting, “THE VAGARIES OF THE MARKET,” with his and others’ experiences thrown in.

   NEXT IS “CHRISTIE CORNER” by DR. JOHN CURRAN, probably the world’s foremost expert on all things Agatha Christie, and, as usual, the ways the good lady’s properties are being handled (and mishandled) come under his close scrutiny. His wise advice for the ages: “LEAVE HER PLOTS ALONE!”

   THIS ISSUE of OTD ends with readers’ letters and a baffling puzzle. Overall, the Summer 2025 issue of OLD-TIME DETECTION is worth a look, and maybe even a subscription.

Subscription information:

– Published three times a year: Spring, summer, and autumn. – Sample copy: $6.00 in U.S.; $10.00 anywhere else. – One-year U.S.: $18.00. – One-year overseas: $40.00 (or 30 pounds sterling or 40 euros). – Payment: Checks payable to Arthur Vidro, or cash from any nation, or U.S. postage stamps or PayPal. Mailing address:

Arthur Vidro, editor
Old-Time Detection
2 Ellery Street
Claremont, New Hampshire 03743

Web address: vidro@myfairpoint.net

ANALOG SF – November 1967. Editor: John W. Campbell Cover art: Kelly Freas. Overall rating: **

GUY McCORD “Coup.” Novelette. [Guy McCord is a pen name of Mack Reynolds.] A planet originally settled by colonists from Scotland is rediscovered by the crew of an explorer ship. Their ignorance of local customs, developed by necessity, enables the natives to count coup on them A coup is a telling blow inflicted by an unarmed warrior upon one who is armed. Standard but interesting, yet unsatisfying. (3)

PIERS ANTHONY “Prostho Plus.” Dr. Dillingham #2. Dr. Dillingham’s dentist’s office is taken over by two aliens, one of whom has a problem with his teeth. The story ends just as it’s beginning. (1)

MARTIN LORAN “The Case of the Perjured Planet.” The Librarian #2. Novelette. [Martin Loran is a joint pen name of John Baxter and Ron Smith.] Librarian Stephen Quist uses hard-boiled private eye techniques to discover the secret of planet Napoleon 6. An unlikely premise that fails miserably, though the story is barely tolerable. (1)

JACK WODHAMS“The Cure-All Merchant.” To the consternation of an inspector representing the drug industry, Dr. Malmy practices medicine without the use of drugs, relying on human resources for his cures. Too long. (2)

JOE POYER “Mission: Red Plague.” A super-high-altitude reconnaissance pilot observing warfare in Asia is exposed to a Chinese bacteriological attack and comes down with … the flu. A story hidden in technical junk. (2)

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION. October 1967. Seventeenth anniversary issue. Editor: Frederik Pohl. Cover artist: Gray Morrow. Overall rating: ****

ROGER ZELAZNY “Damnation Alley.” Novelette. Previously reviewed here. (*****)

POUL ANDERSON “Poulfinch’s Mythology.” Non-fact article. A look from the future at twelve gods of contemporary America. This did not interest me enough to make me want to see if I agree with Anderson or not. (1)

H. L. GOLD “The Transmogrification of Wamba’s Revenge.” Novelette. A secret formula of the Pygmies, capable of shrinking all living beings to a tenth of their former size, is used on mankind. This means the end of all warfare under the benevolent rulership of the Pygmies, on whom the formula does not work. Pretty obvious when you think about it. (3)

GEORGE O. SMITH “Understanding.” A fifteen year old boy, Terry Lincoln, without Understanding, is given a secret message to Earth that he cannot understand. To obtain the message from him, the Xanabarians must see to it that he obtains Understanding. Which is impossible to explain to he who has it and unnecessary to mention to he who has it, but it is a sort of refined premonition or intuition, necessary for all interstellar traveling cultures, ready to take on responsibility. So why not a better story to go with it? (3)

IF SCIENCE FICTION. October 1967. Editor: Frederik Pohl. Cover artist: Hector Castellon. Overall rating: **½.

HAL CLEMENT “Ocean on Top.” Serial, part 1 of 3. Review to appear after my reading of the full story.

LARRY EISENBERG “Conqueror.” A short but terribly important story of how sex can humiliate the proudest conqueror. (5)

A. E. van VOGT “Enemy of the Silies.” Novelette. More incomprehensible adventures of the Silkies, attacked this time by the Nijjians. Cemp’s only weapon if his Logic of Levels, whatever that might be. You gotta admire van Vogt, if he understands this stuff. (0)

C. C. MacAPP “Winter of the Llangs.” Novelette. An intelligent cattle-like people trapped by the weather are harassed by creatures which might be wolves. Solid alien characterization. (3)

DONALD J. WALSH “Mu Panther,” First story. A hunting party goes after a mutant panther which has more than size going for it, (2)

JAMES BLISH “Faust Aleph-Null.” Serial, part 3 of 3. To be reviewed separately soon.

(Give Me That) OLD-TIME DETECTION. Spring 2025. Issue #68. Editor: Arthur Vidro. Old-Time Detection Special Interest Group of American Mensa, Ltd. 34 pages (including covers).

THE LATEST issue of OTD could be a nostalgia trip for a lot of readers, especially those who were turned on to detective fiction when they were adolescents. As you’ll see, editor Arthur Vidro will show us the part he has been playing in the nostalgic revival.

THE ISSUE begins with Edward D. Hoch, which is always a great start. There’s an interview Hoch had with EQMM in 1976, followed by an essay Hoch wrote for THE ARMCHAIR DETECTIVE in 1979. In the interview he cites the first influential adult book he ever read to be an EQ novel and explains his affinity for the short story form. (Which book? you ask. Read OTD and see.) In the essay Hoch does a good job of connecting real-life criminality with fiction. Even Theodore Dreiser got into the act!

LIKE MOST fictioneers, Stuart Palmer had his own way of going about writing detective fiction, and we have a short summary of it here.

ONE LONG-RUNNING detective fiction character was Hugh Pentecost’s John Jericho, whose adventures were collected by Crippen & Landru in 2008 and for which S.T. Karnick wrote an introduction. In it Karnick notes Pentecost’s primary interest in social corruption and personal responsibility. And were there prefigurings in Jericho of Jack Reacher?

EQ’s 1949 classic serial killer novel CAT OF MANY TAILS has recently been reissued by Otto Penzler with an introduction by Richard Dannay, Frederic Danny’s son, that provides background information on that book and the two cousins’ involvement in detective fiction in general, but focuses primarily on Frederic Dannay’s individual scholarly contribution, which in itself was prodigious.

THE FICTION PIECE is Agatha Christie’s “A CHESS PROBLEM,” a story guaranteed to make you think twice before you sit down at the board.

NEXT, the reigning expert on theatrical versions of mysteries, Amnon Kabatchnik, gives us the background for J. B. Priestley’s AN INSPECTOR CALLS, which he characterizes as a “mystery parable” with “an unexpected twist ending.”

IF YOU enjoyed THE THREE INVESIGATORS series of juvenile mysteries when you were younger, then you’ll be happy to hear that “THE THREE INVESTIGATORS ARE BACK” in deluxe paperback and electronic editions. Arthur details how he came to be involved with the project, modestly claiming to be “A SMALL PART OF THE ACT.”

WHAT WAS POPULAR in paperbacks for the detective fiction fan fifty years ago? Some of the best stuff to come along, reports Charles Shibuk, classics all: Raymond Chandler, G. K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, John Collier, Stanley Ellin, Dick Francis, Ellery Queen, and Josephine Tey.

MICHAEL DIRDA offers his personal selection of “MYSTERY NOVELS SO CLEVER YOU’LL READ THEM TWICE,” which includes a couple of books by relatively unknown writers.

THEN WE HAVE perceptive reviews by Jon L. Breen of CLOUD NINE by James M. Cain, a wildly erratic writer, and Arthur Vidro of THE REGATTA MYSTERY AND OTHER STORIES by Agatha Christie, who never suffered from Cain’s affliction.

COLLECTING THINGS, especially detective fiction, is an honorable pursuit and two collectors, Nina Mazzo and Donald Pollock, talk about it.

THE PUZZLE PAGE might present a problem for readers who haven’t been exposed to Hollywood’s B-films from the 1930s.

THE SPRING ISSUE of OTD is well worth your time – and a subscription.

Subscription information:

– Published three times a year: Spring, summer, and autumn. – Sample copy: $6.00 in U.S.; $10.00 anywhere else. – One-year U.S.: $18.00. – One-year overseas: $40.00 (or 30 pounds sterling or 40 euros). – Payment: Checks payable to Arthur Vidro, or cash from any nation, or U.S. postage stamps or PayPal. Mailing address:

Arthur Vidro, editor
Old-Time Detection
2 Ellery Street
Claremont, New Hampshire 03743

Web address: vidro@myfairpoint.net

WHODUNIT MYSTERY MAGAZINE – September-October 1967. Editor: Douglas Stapleton. [This was the only issue to be published.] Overall rating: **

BURT MacDOUGALL “The Hostage.” A bank robber uses a fake little old lady as a hostage. Good ending; indifferent writing. (3)

MARY LYNN ROBY “The Practical Way.” A woman is pressured by he daughter-in-law to go modern. Done better by others. (2)

PHELPS GOODHUE “Assassin!” Plot to assassinate Lincoln fails, as does this story. (1)

DOUGLAS & DOROTHY STAPLETON “Ransom for a Rogue.” Novella. Three crises occur for protagonist Douglas Stapleton, each one of which is crucial to the life of a kidnapped boy. The reader shares these crises and has the chance to make his own decisions. Alternate story passages follow, scattered throughout the magazine. I got all three correctly, but they were not difficult, and the story is rather contrived to fit them in, Clever, but otherwise not much. **½

CAROL ARCHER STURMOND “Cheat the Devil.” Willie thinks he has the devil trapped within his pentagram but makes a bad bargain anyway. Usual bit. (2)

EMMANUEL BROZ “It’s the Details That Count,” Bank robber poses as policeman sent to stop robbery. Ending from thin air. (1)

K. S. L. STEELE “The Final War!” Sneaky story about the beginning of World War I. (3)

MICHAEL BRETT “The Seeds of Destruction.” After getting beaten up three times by bully, kid gets revenge. (2)

MARY LYNN ROBY “Pest Control.” Scientist must decide between wife or pet cat. Poor guy. (1)

THOMAS BRADLEY “Love Me, Mama!” Kid falls from tree but doesn’t know he’s dead. (2)