FANTASTIC UNIVERSE SF – February 1956. Editor: Leo Margulies. Cover art: Kelly Freas. Overall rating: **½.

EDMUND COOPER “The End of the Journey.” The captain is the only survivor of a voyage testing a new experimental space drive. (3)

ROBERT ABERNATHY “Grandpa’s Lie Soap.” One man is capable of telling lies is a world he made incapable of interpreting falsehoods. (3)

THEODORE PRATT “Shades of Davy Crockett.” Davy comes back to dicover the commercial success of his name and fame. (2)

ROGER DEE “The Man Who Had Spiders.” Extraterrestrial spiders have advantages, but wants spiders around all the time? (4)

SAM MERWIN, JR. “Passage to Anywhere.” Novelette. Matter transmitter fails on Earth, but does make space travel feasible. An argument for world government. (2)

ETHEL G. LEWIS “The Vapor Horn.” An international healing device contains other worlds. (0)

ROBERT SILVERBERG “A Woman’s Right.” A psychometrist, hired by a man to help his wife and save their marriage cures the man;s psychosis instead, (3)

F. B. BRYNING “For Man Must Work.” The marital problems of an engineer of a space station: his wife wants to return to Earth. (3)

FRANK BELKNAP LONG “Young Man with a Trumpet.”How animals carried on after the departure of man. (3)

JOHN JAKES “The Cybernetic Kid.” A boy genius competes against the latest electronic marvels (3)

THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION. December 1967. Cover artist: Jack Gaughan. Editor: Edward L. Ferman. Overall rating: ***½.

DAVID REDD “Sundown.” Novelette. The confrontation between man and creatures of fantasy; creatures not of love, but of hate, yet capable of understanding, and of pity. (5)

LARRY EISENBERG “The Saga of DMM.” Emmett Duckworth. The discovery of a new chemical stimulant. (4)

STUART & JENNIFER PALMER “Brain Wave,” Novelette. Telepathic contact with another galaxy – anticlimactic, like a long bad joke. (3)

ALGIS BUDRYS “Carberus.” Not Sf, or even fantasy, but four long puns. (3)

DEAN R. KOONTZ “To Behold the Sun.” Adventure and trauma upon an expedition to the sun. (3)

GAHAN WILSON “The Power of the Mandarin.” A series character not unlike Fun Manchu comes to life and to have power over the author (and editor). (4)

LEONARD TUSHNET “The Chalmlins.” The guardian angels of some Jewish Polish-Americans, who need them. (3)

J. G. BALLARD “The Cloud Sculptors of Coral D.” Vermilion Sands. Three, no, four men who sculpt clouds, and the insane woman whose portrait they create. Haunting. (4)

THE SAINT DETECTIVE MAGAZINE – September 1957. Editor: Hans Stefan Santesson. Overall rating: ***

LESLIE CHARTERIS “The Good Medicine.” Simon Templar (The Saint). Novelette. The Saint brings pills to the rescue of a man whose wife has used him to build up a large pharmaceutical business. Pills guaranteed to keep away insects, but not the Saint’s brand of justice. (4)

AARON MARC STEIN “Battle of Wits.” A man patiently builds up a lot to get rid of his wife, but it fails by being smarter than the sheriff it’s supposed to fool. (3)

AUGUST DERLETH “Adventure of the Little Hangman.” Solar Pons. Novelette. Solar Pons discovers the murderer, but provincial solidarity keeps the man from prison, in its own form of absolute justice. (4)

LOUIS GOLDING “The Vandyke Beard.” A man’s return from prison, and his effect on his family and relatives. (3)

RICHARD HARDWICK “He Came Back.” Murder on a shrimp boat, and retribution, pulp-style. (3)

RICHARD SALE “Ghosts Don’t Make Noise.” Daffy Dill. Novelette. Published previously as “Ghosts Don’t Make No Noise” in Detective Fiction Weekly, 07 June 1941. Daffy Dill is almost convinced that a ghost does exist, and this fact helps trap the murdered man’s killer. (3)

FREDRIC BROWN “Mr. Smith Kicks the Bucket.” Henry Smith. Published previously in Detective Story Magazine, August 1944, as “Bucket of Gems Case.” Mr. Smith, insurance investigator, is on the scene when a candy jewel is stolen, and then has the real one, to the surprise of all. (4)

SAX ROHMER “The Headless Mummies.” Morris Klaw. Published previously in The New Magazine (UK) October 1913, as “Case of the Headless Mummies.” Morris Klaw knows the secret of why museum mummies are being decapitated. Oriental poppycock. (1)

CHARLES FRITCH “First Job.” Illuminating story of how a juvenile delinquent is born. (2)

(Give Me That) OLD-TIME DETECTION. Autumn 2025. Issue #70. Editor: Arthur Vidro. Old-Time Detection Special Interest Group of American Mensa, Ltd. 34 pages (including covers).

   AS usual, Old-Time Detection (OTD) succeeds in keeping classic detective fiction alive and interesting. In this issue diversity is the theme, with coverage of detecfic authors from Conan Doyle to some of the latest practitioners of the genre being highlighted.

   First up is an EQMM interview with Robert Twohy, whose approach to writing is basically character-centric: “I’ve tried to write something to approach it [‘Red-Headed League’], and haven’t yet — but the fun is in the quest.” (See the Fiction selection below for more by this author.)

   J. Randolph Cox talks about Arthur Train, now almost forgotten but once very popular in the first decades of the 20th century.

   Next we have a reprint of Martin Edwards’s introduction to Peter Shaffer’s THE WOMAN IN THE WARDROBE, which Robert Adey later characterized as “the best post-war locked-room mystery . . . [with] a brilliant new solution.”

   Everybody has to start somewhere. Francis M. Nevins exhibits his usual high-quality scholarship in “The Pulp Origins of John D. MacDonald,” highlighting that soon-to-be-popular author’s early days: “MacDonald was the last great American mystery writer to hone his storytelling skills in the action-detective pulps as Hammett and Chandler and Gardner and Woolrich had done before him.”

   Jon L. Breen’s reviews of books (ten of them from the Walker Reprints Series) in “40-Plus Years Ago” take us from familiar mystery fiction old reliables like Pierre Chambrun, to obscure eccentrics like Inspector James and Sergeant Honeybody.

   In Part II of Michael Dirda’s “Mystery Novels So Clever You’ll Read Them Twice,” he points us to modern-day examples of stories that manage to surprise the reader. After all, he says, “A mystery that doesn’t surprise is hardly a mystery at all.”

   Arthur’s Fiction selection is Robert Twohy’s ingenious “A Masterpiece of Crime,” in which a police detective and a detecfic enthusiast solve a murder, with a certain very well-known detective making a cameo appearance.

   In world-class Agatha Christie expert Dr. John Curran’s latest “Christie Corner,” he informs us of the activities pertaining to the latest International Agatha Christie Festival, including a nostalgic look back at the Joan Hickson-Miss Marple TV series from forty years ago and a look forward to an upcoming print adaptation of Miss Marple; another upcoming TV “re-imagining” of Mrs. Christie’s popular married sleuthing duo, Tommy and Tuppence (“Sadly, Christie fans are all too aware of what ‘re-imagining’ means”); and yet another upcoming event next year, characterized as “the biggest exhibition held in the last twenty years to celebrate Christie’s writing,” timed to coincide with the centenary of THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD.

   In “Collecting,” Arthur Vidro recounts the varied experiences of mystery and detecfic book collectors, one of whom undoubtedly speaks for a multitude: “It’s hard to say goodbye to favorites.”

   Next, in “Sherlock Holmes in Comics” Arthur deals on a personal level with the sporadic career of the Sage of Baker Street in that worthy’s four-color mass market exposures.

   Fifty years ago there was a mini-boom in Sherlock Holmes-related fiction and non-fiction paperbacks, and Charles Shibuk summarizes it in “The Sherlockian Revolution.”

   Next Arthur Vidro offers a mini-review of his first John Rhode novel and finds it most satisfactory.

   The readers have their say, especially about how the latest issue of OTD did not neglect the contributors to detective fiction from Fair Albion.

   And finally, Arthur confronts us with a mystery puzzle that anyone who’s been watching prime time crime TV programs for the last fifty years should find a cinch. (Yeah, right.)

   Be honest now. Considering everything you’ve just read, don’t you think that the Autumn ’25 OTD might be worth a look?

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, subscription rate increase starting with the next issue: $20.00. – One-year overseas: $45.00. – 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

THRILLING DETECTIVE. Fall 1952. Overall rating: *½

MARTY HOLLAND “The Sleeping City.” Novel. Plainsclothesman Wade Reed is assigned as undercover job posing as a Chicago gunman in town to help out with a bank robbery, In spite of a fiancee waiting for him, he falls for a monster’s moll and nearly turns criminal. Capture means the girl’s death and Reed’s resignation from the force. The literary symbolism which is included is forced, generally trying too hard (2)

JOE BRENNAN “Dive and Die,” A stunt diver, recently returned from Korea, investigates the death of his former partner. (1)

JEAN LESLIE “Dead Man’s Shoes.” The sad history of a pair of shoes is traced. Almost Woolrichian in tone. (2)

WILLIAM G. BOGART “Death Lies Deep.” Novelet. Almost standard private eye story. Steve Morgan is hired by an old flame to find her husband, whom she has already killed. Guess who would be the fall guy? (1)

AL STORM “Alive by Mistake.” A writer becomes the center of a hurricane of death about him, as he hunts down a narcotics peddler. Bad writing, but has excitement. (1)

PHILIP KETCHUM “Backfire.” A kid is framed fo robbery and murder by his best friend. Mostly miserable. (1)

HARVEY WEINSTEIN “Two-for-One Dame.” Confused and confusing story of a treacherous blonde. (0)

WILLIAM L. JACKSON “Run of Luck.” Escaped killer fouls his own getaway, (2)

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

JON L. BREEN “The Austin Murder Case.” A parody-pastiche of Philo Vance, who uncovers a murderer at a masquerade party, Hilarious footnotes. (5)

JACOB HAY “The Name of the Game,” A Russian school for spies sends a couple to pose as Americans. Expected ending, but with a haunting sense of unreality, (4)

JOHN DICKSON CARR “The Man Who Saw the Invisible.” Colonel March. First published in The Strand Magazine, April 1938, as “The New Invisible Man” by Carter Dickson. An impossible situation revealed as a magician’s trick. (3)

ANTHONY GILBERT “The Intruders.” After terror, a twist makes everything OK for the old lady, but happily? The terror is real. (4)

CHARLOTTE ARMSTRONG “More Than One Kind of Luck.” A would-be killer finds that he makes his own bad luck. (2)

G. C. EDMUNDSON “A Question of Translation.” It would help the reader to have knowledge of both Spanish and Italian. (3)

EDWARD D. HOCH “The Spy Who Didn’t Exist.” An obscure piece of knowledge helps Rand decipher a calendar code. (3)

AGATHA CHRISTIE “The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb.” Hercule Poirot. First published in The Sketch, September 26, 1923. Belief in the supernatural is a powerful force, one Poirot must face, But why does he fake being poisoned? (2)

JOHN HOLT “Number One.” First story. A “practical” joke on a paroled con backfires into murder. (5)

PHYLLIS BENTLEY  “Miss Phipps Goes to the Hairdresser.” If the wig wasn’t obvious, I don’t know what was. A waste. (1)

URSULA CURTISS “Change of Climate.” An elaborate buildup is ruined by an editor’s note which explains the whole story. Climate as a murder weapon. (3)

JOE GORES “File #1: The Mayfield Case.” Daniel Kearny Associates. Telling it as it is in the private eye game: repossessing cars. (2)

NEW DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, May 1944. Cover art by Gloria Stoll. Overall rating: *½.

BRUNO FISCHER “Fatally Yours.” Novelette. A draft board official, accused of selling deferments, is also framed for the murders of those who might have found out, Could only have been written in those days of all-out mobilization, except for those fighting to stay out. (3)

F. ORLIN TREMAINE “The Dagger from Singapore,” Novelette. The love of a sailor with a memory for crime is interrupted by murder. Action, but little else. (1)

FREDERICK C. DAVIS “Death Marks the Spot.” Novel. After six years, an arsonist turned murderer is caught, allowing a falsely convicted gunsmith to work for the war effort, Hard to swallow at times, and overly dramatic. (1)

J. F. HUTTON “Three Days to Howl.” In the time remaining before his induction, Steve Warren helps keep an important new weapon out of enemy hands. (2)

JAMES McCREIGH “No End to Murder.” A train station robbery is thwarted while a cop stops in the restroom. (2)

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.