PHILIP K. DICK “The Gun.” Short story. First published in Planet Stories, September 1952. First collected in Beyond Lies the Wub (Underwood Miller, hardcover, 1987; volume one of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, sold only as a five-volume set.) Also collected in The King of the Elves (Subterranean Press, hardcover, 2011), among others.

   This appears to have been Philip K. Dick’s second published SF story, not including some he had published in a college newspaper. The first also appeared in Planet Stories, that being “Beyond Lies the Wub” in the July 1952 issue. “The Gun” is a minor story, admittedly, a fact reflected by noting that all of its later reprint appearances gave been in collections of his early work and never picked up for a major anthology of any import.

   In 1952 the quality of the stories in Planet Stories was beginning to pick up. Authors like Ray Bradbury and Leigh Brackett had been appearing all through the 40s, but authors such as Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson and Eric Frank Russell were beginning to be added to the mix. (Anderson, for example, had a story in this same issue; see below. Also among his early work, but still a sign of significant improvement.)

   It is not clear whether the devastated planet is Earth or the crew of the spaceship that comes to investigate is from Earth (my sense was it was the latter), but an atomic war had left the planet covered with bare earth or uninhabitable slag. And yet the investigating ship is shot down without warning, from a gun they could not see.

   A veteran SF reader will know right away that the gun is acting on it own, a remnant of two sides fighting each other to the bitter end. They manage to disable to gun so they can safely take off, but a twist in the end suggests that they have made a serious error.

   What adds a bit of poignancy to the story is the discovery of a hidden horde of material hidden away for safekeeping by one of the two warring sides about their culture. It is this single factor that makes this short take stand out, if only in a small way, hinting that the author may have had a future ahead of him. Which of course he did.

      Other stories in this issue (thanks to ISFDb) —

4 • Evil Out of Onzar • novella by Mark Ganes
30 • Zero Data • novelette by Charles Saphro
46 • The Gun • short story by Philip K. Dick
54 • The Star Plunderer • [Technic History] • novelette by Poul Anderson
70 • Thompson’s Cat • short story by Robert Moore Williams
78 • Big Pill • short story by Raymond Z. Gallun
90 • The Slaves of Venus • novelette by James E. Gunn [as by Edwin James]

GERALD TOMLINSON “Another Wandering Daughter Job.” Matt Coleridge #1. Published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, March 1978. Reprinted in Ellery Queen’s Anthology #52, 1985.

   The first job Gerald Tomlinson (1933-2006) had out out of college was as an English teacher, but he soon discovered that the world of publishing was a better fit for him, first at Harcourt Brace and then Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Between 1974 and 1999 he also wrote some three dozen short fiction crime stories, most of them for EQMM and AHMM.

   None of them seem to have used the same leading character more than once, though, including this one, and that’s a shame, since I for one think that Matt Coleridge deserved another outing. Colerdge is the sole proprietor of the World-Wide Detective Agency, based in Manhattan. His only employee is a 29-year-old secretary, who, in his own words, “thinks she loves me.”

   He’s hired in this case to find the wayward daughter (and ex-stripper) of a long-dead gangster and more recently his wife, who has just left her an estate worth eighty million dollars, if she can be found. Not surprisingly, the publicity brings several would-be Melva Dominic’s out from hiding, all of whom but one are quickly rubbed out or otherwise done away with — but why?

   The reason, once discovered, as sometimes happens, isn’t as interesting as the building up to it, but the story overall is nicely done and was certainly worth another. For whatever reason, Tomllnson never followed through. I wish he had.

ERIC TAYLOR “Kali.” Short story. First published in All Star Detective Stories, November 1929. No cover image available. Reprinted in The First Mystery Megapack (Wildside Press, ebook, April 2011).

   As a detective pulp, All Star Detective was not in top tier of those being published at the same time, but it did last for some 26 issues between October 1929 and June 1932. Most of the authors they published were unknowns even then, but the list does contain a few whose names are still recognizable today, such as Leslie Charteris, Erle Stanley Gardner, T. T. Flynn, and Johnston McCulley.

   You can let me know if you disagree, but Eric Taylor, is not likely to be one of them. He did write several dozen stories for the detective pulps between 1927 and 1937. Even before that, he began his career with a handful of stories in 1926 for Droll Stories and others in that particular category. Starting in 1937 or so, he switched gears and began writing for Hollywood, churning out scripts for many of the Ellery Queen movies, plus the Crime Doctor and The Whistler films, Universal’s monster movies and so on. He died in 1952.

   The story “Kali” is, however, does not add a lot of weight to his resumé. How the folks at Wildside Press happened to choose this one for one their many collections of old genre stories I do not know. It’s the story of a young guy named Roy who loves a girl named Margaret who is trapped into living in a well-fortified prison of a house with her guardian “aunt” and he new husband, a mysterious Bengali by the name of Ishan Dan Bahaji.

   Margaret will not receive her inheritance if she marries without her aunt’s permission before she is 23, and the Bengali’s influence over the aunt means that that will never happen. Worse, strange things are going on the house, and Roy’s attempts to break in and learn what they might be always end in fierce battles — and sudden deaths — with a small cadde of loyal servants.

   The writing is crude, true, but it also has a lot of momentum. Back in 1929, the secret that lives behind the barred door of the house would have been not only plausible but also something fearfully terrible. Not quite so much today — the title of the tale may give you a bit of a clue — but I have admit that the drive behind the tale is still there.

  RICHARD DEMING “The Art of Deduction.” Short story. Albert Shelton #1. First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, June 1973. Reprinted in Alfred Hitchcock’s Tales to Make You Weak in the Knees (Dial Press, 1981) and Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #10, paperback, 1982. Collected in The Richard Deming Mystery Megapack (Wildside Press, ebook, 2015).

   Albert Shelton wouldn’t call himself a private eye, exactly. He’d rather say “confidential investigator,” and to prove his skills in a meaningful way, he tries out his detective abilities on the attractive girl sitting on the seat next to him on a plane from LA to Buffalo, where his first job is waiting for him.

   And she seems impressed. Encouraged by this, he sees two men sitting next to each other toward the back of the plane, each handcuffed to the other. When one slumps over, the victim of a medical emergency, he offers his help, which is gladly accepted.

   At which point, things begin to not go as well as he planned. I’ll let your imagination take over, and if I know you as well as I think I do, I have a feeling that you know where this going, but Deming may still have some tricks up his sleeve that you might not be expecting.

   It all works out well in the end, though, and if Albert Shelton never had a followup case, which I don’t believe he did, that’s OK, too. He’ll never forget this one.

MURRAY LEINSTER “The Sentimentalists.” Novelette. First published in Galaxy SF, April 1953. Reprinted in Year’s Best Science Fiction Novels: 1954, edited by Everett F. Bleiler & T. E. Dikty (Frederick Fell, hardcover. 1954).

   Read at this late date, some 65 years later (!!), this definitely falls into the category of traditional (old fashioned) science fiction. I don’t think it could be published today, but to anyone my age or so (plus or minus 10 years), it’s a delightful look back at our not hardly misspent youth.

   Two space-faring aliens, evidently male and female — though who could tell with all those tentacles and eye stalks — are taking a honeymoon across the galaxy, when the male (Rhadanpsicus) decides to stop at one of the outer planets of the system Cetus Gamma, where a disaster involving the local sun is scheduled to take place. The female (Nodalictha) amuses herself by watching the inhabitants of one of the inner planets and unaccountably finds herself fascinated by them.

   It seems that one of the colonists is having problems with his farm, and if his crops don’t come in, he will be forced to call it quits and work for the crooked company who had loaned him the money to begin with. At the end of his rope, he suddenly finds himself flooded with ideas for new inventions that will solve all of his problems. Nodalictha has interceded on his behalf, persuading Rhadanpsicus to help him. (Thank goodness for copy and paste.)

   And so Lon is able at last to marry Cathy.

   There’s no deep message here, as you have probably already guessed. But I for one do not always need messages, and perhaps you sometimes feel that way, too.

PAUL DOIRON “Backtrack.” Short story. Charley Stevens. Minotaur Books, ebook, June 2019. [See also Comment #3.]

First Sentence: There were four doctors staying at the hunting camp.

   Game warden Charley Stevens is called to the winter hunting camp in Maine where four doctors from Massachusetts are staying. However, one of them is missing. It’s up to Charley to find the missing man.

   The first thing to know is that this story does not feature game warden Mike Bowditch, but focuses on Charley Stevens, who had been Mike’s mentor. The story is also told, very effectively, in retrospect.

   A well-done short story truly is a work of art. Such is the case here. With a nicely done twist, Doiron takes the reader from suspense to something unexpected and poses an excellent question while dealing with the subject of regret.

   The thing with a short story is that one can’t say too much for fear of including a spoiler. What one can say is how much this story may make one think and question what one would do in the same situation. It may also make one want to read much more of Doiron’s work. The good news is that there is an impressive backlist.

   “Backtrack” is a perfect title for this excellent e-short. It really does take great skill to write a story this short which is this impactful.

Rating: Excellent.

CLARK HOWARD “Blues in the Kabul Night.” Novelette. First published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine September/October 2007. Not known to have been reprinted or collected anywhere.

   Over the course of his writing career, Clark Howard may have written over 200 short stories, not all of them criminous in nature, plus a couple dozen crime novels and collections. This does not include an unspecified number of works of true crime the editor of EQMM mentions in her introduction to this tale.

   Howard hardly ever used a character more than once, and “Blues in the Kabul Night” is no exception. When mercenary for hire Morgan Tenny smuggles himself into war-ravaged Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, it is for a specific reason. His twin brother is in a high security prison there and scheduled for execution soon, unless Morgan can do something about it.

   Which he thinks he can. Not only does he have a plan, but he also has a local contact. And even more, he has a million dollars in cash to help pave the way. Complicating matters, though, since of course plans like this never run smoothly, is a news reporter, a local Afghani girl who has ambitions of her own: to be the next Christiane Amanpour, and when she gets wind of Morgan’s plans, she doesn’t let go.

   Not only does Clark Howard notch up the suspense extremely well — this is essentially a heist novel in miniature — but the sights of sounds (and smells) of Kabul today (or to be precise, twelve years ago, but have things changed all that much?) are vividly brought to life. A polished gem of a story, and very very well done.

EDWARD M. LERNER “Time Out.” Novella. First published in Analog SF, January-February 2013. Collected in revised and retitled form as the title story of A Time Foreclosed (FoxAcre Press, trade paperback, June 2013). Included in The Time Travel Megapack: 26 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Stories, edited by John Gregory Betancourt (Wildside Press, ebook, 2013).

   As it so happens, I might not have posted this review here if not for one fact, and I couldn’t help but tell you about it. This is the first story I’ve read on my new Kindle. Well, it’s not exactly new, being as it is a hand-me-up from my daughter who’s gotten herself a newer, more up to date model. We had some problems getting it registered to me, but once logged in, I’ve managed to get around well enough to chalk up a Number One.

   And the only thing better than a locked room mystery would have been a time-travel science fiction story, which obviously this is, and it’s a good one. When an out-of-work bank official, now an ex-convict due to one flaw — being too trusting — gets a job as a handyman to a not quite a mad scientist (he himself says he’s only peeved), he has no idea what it is that he’s getting into.

   As our hero gains more and more of his new boss’s confidence, he’s allowed to know more or more about what he’s helping to build. Two guesses, and the second one doesn’t count. In some detail, small incremental steps at a time, they’re building a means to change the world for the better.

   If, of course, they don’t wipe out their world’s entire timeline in the process. The time paradoxes they encounter had my head spinning, such as getting the money to finance their project by being sent financial tips from the future. Until, that is, some of tips turn out to be wrong.

   You can tell that Lerner really had to work hard to make sure this story as coherent as it is, and I still don’t think he did. On the other had, nobody could. The whole tale is impossible to have happened. Unless, of course, it already has. Who would know?

BILL PRONZINI & MICHAEL J. KURLAND “Vanishing Act.” Short story. Christopher Steele #2. First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, January 1976. Collected in Stacked Deck (Pulphouse Publishing: Author’s Choice Monthly #2, paperback, November 1991). Reprinted in Tantalizing Locked Room Mysteries, edited by Isaac Asimov, Charles G. Waugh, & Martin Harry Greenberg (Walker & Co. hardcover, 1982).

   Christopher Steele is a working magician who solved one earlier case “Quicker Than the Eye,” a novelette which appeared a few months earlier, also in AHMM, but back in the September 1975 issue. In his preface to Stacked Deck, Pronzini calls both stories “impossible crimes,” which is quite correct, a small genre of detective stories that easily include every true locked room mystery as an even smaller subset.

   In “Vanishing Act,” a magician performing on stage before Steele is scheduled to appear is killed in full view of a large audience including a cadre of freshly minted police cadets. The assailant then dashes off stage into a corridor leading nowhere, but in spite of all efforts, no trace of him can be found.

   The telling of an impossible crime mystery is very much like the creation of a magic trick. The fun in each case is in watching and reading them, but magicians have a huge advantage. They can keep their secrets. Detective story writers can’t. To their credit, Pronzini and Kurland make the solution as interesting as the rest of the story.

   Christopher Steele was intended to continue as a series character, but as Pronzini also tells us, for some reason it never happened. As far as I’m concerned, that’s really too bad. This one was a joy to read.

MICHAEL Z. LEWIN “Good Intentions.” Short story. Albert Samson & “Wolfgang Mozart” #2. First published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November 2012. Collected in Alien Quartet: Albert Samson Stories (iUniverse, paperback, November 2018).

   Albert Samson’s client in this one isn’t really a client, not a paying one, anyway. During Samson’s previous encounter with his, the Shamus award-winning novelette, “Who I Am,” the man called himself LeBron James. In this one, he’s “Wolfgang Mozart,” and who know who he’ll want to be known as in the next two. (See below for a complete list.)

   To tell you the truth, I did not know that author Michael Z. Lewin was still writing about Samson’s adventures. The last Samson novel I read was Called by a Panther, which came out in 1991. I now see that there was another one titled Eye Opener, which was published in 2004, some thirteen years later. I missed that one altogether.

   In any case, when “Wolfgang” comes staggering to Samson’s office door, he collapses on the floor. He has been stabbed four times. By four different knives. In the hospital, though, he does not want the police involved. And for good reason. He’s a kind gentle man who can’t say no, and he’s been operating a batter women’s shelter, unlicensed and totally illegally.

   He also believes — a minor quirk — that his father was an extraterrestrial.

   The Samson books have always been a joy to read, but this one, at least, is laugh out loud funny to read, with the zippiest banter/dialogue I’ve read in a long time. And somewhere along the way, Samson has gained a daughter, and she’s a cop on the Indianapolis police force. I don’t remember her from before, but maybe. Quoting from page 109, after he explains to Nurse Matty who she is:

   I think I enjoyed this story more than any other so far this year. It’s a good detective tale, too.

    —

      The Albert Samson & “Wolfgang Mozart” series —

“Who I Am.” EQMM, December 2011. Shamus Award for best PI Story of 2011
“Good Intentions” EQMM, November 2012.
“Extra Fries.” EQMM, May 2013. Shamus nominee.
“A Question of Fathers.” May 2014.