DONALD WOLLHEIM, Editor, with Arthur W. Saha – The 1989 Annual World’s Best SF. Daw #783, paperback original; 1st printing, June 1989. Cover art by Jim Burns.

#8. FREDERIK POHL “Waiting for the Olympians.” Novella. First published in Asimov’s SF, August 1988. Reprnted in What Might Have Been? Volume 1: Alternate Empires, edited by Gregory Benford & Martin H. Greenberg (Bantam, paperback, August 1988) and The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories, edited by Ian Watson & Ian Whates (Perseus, softcover, April 2010). First collected in Platinum Pohl: The Collected Best Stories (Tor, hardcover, December 2005).

   In terms of his influence on the field, Frederik Pohl had a career in science fiction as long as almost anyone, one that lasted well over 70 years, first as a fan, then as an award-winning editor many times over, an agent, and yes, as a writer. He often had a wicked, satirical view of the world in much of what he wrote, and if you were to call that a subgenre of SF in and of itself, “Waiting for the Olympians,” would fit right into it.

   It’s told from the point of view of a hack SF writer named Julius — his friends call him Julie — and his latest work, for which he cannot repay the advance, is rejected because it makes fun of the Olympians, a collection of alien races sending representatives to Earth to invite the planet’s inhabitants to join their ranks.

   That something feels off about the early part of the story is made a whole clearer when Julie sits down to write a replacement novel with stylus and blank tablets. Tablets that stay blank because his head has run completely day of new ideas.

   His friend Sam (Flavius Samuelus) suggests that he write an “what if” story based on the premise that the Olympians are not coming, but Julie, hack writer that he is, simply can’t get his head around the idea at all. Then the unthinkable happens. Transmissions from Olympians suddenly stop completely, indicating that they have changed their minds and are really not coming. Why on Earth why?

   This is a very cleverly constructed story, with a lot going on between the lines, including the ending itself, which answers the question above, if only the Julie and Sam could figure it out, which they can’t, a devastating indictment of their world on both counts. An excellent story.

       —

Previously from the Wollheim anthology: TANITH LEE “A Madonna of the Machine.”

  PAUL CAIN “One, Two, Three.” Short story. First published in Black Mask, May 1933. Collected in Seven Slayers (Saint Enterprises, paperback, 1946). Reprinted in The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, edited by Otto Penzler (Vintage Crime, softcover, November 2007).

   Paul Cain wrote only one novel (Fast One) and less than two dozen short stories, most of them for Black Mask, but that’s all it took to make him a legend in our time, if not his own. He was the ultimate in hard-boiled fiction, terse and unemotional as fiction could possible be written.

   “One, Two, Three” is a fine, fine example. Told by an anonymous narrator with an unknown profession (a private operative working on his own? a gambler doing his best to follow up on an easy mark?), the story zigs and zags more than most novels do, with divorce proceedings, blackmail, and two bloody deaths high on the dance card.

   I tried to follow the explanation of who did what when and to who before giving up on it — it’s that complicated — and decided that the 1930s California setting and the total tough guy atmosphere were all I needed to tell you that if you ever get a chance to read this one or anything else by Paul Cain, you really ought to.

  STEVE FISHER “You’ll Always Remember Me.” Short story. First published in Black Mask, March 1938. Reprinted in The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, edited by Otto Penzler (Vintage Crime, softcover, November 2007).

   You can add Steve Fisher to a list of several dozen pulp writers who went on to long productive careers in other story-telling media once the pulps themselves died. He wrote a few mystery novels over the years, but what’s a lot more notable are his film and TV credits — IMDb lists over a hundred of them, starting with The Nurse from Brooklyn (1938) and concluding with an episode of Fantasy Island in 1979.

   But while they lasted, he wrote a ton of stories for the pulp magazines as well, from aviation stories to love pulp romances, but mostly for the detective pulps, including the most remembered of them all, Black Mask. I don’t know if it’s the reason it was chosen to be included in Otto Penzler’s recent anthology of pulp fiction, but his story “You’ll Always Remember Me” in the March 1938 issue of that magazine, but it’s definitely a lot edgier than most of that magazine’s usual fare, which was the ultimate in hardboiled fiction to begin with.

   It would not be, in fact, totally out of place in a magazine such as Manhunt, which came along quite a bit later, nor under the byline of someone like Jim Thompson, who also came along later. It’s told, we discover, by young 14 year old boy named Martin who currently resides in a military academy paid for by his father.

   We also discover that he has a crush on, Marie, a 15 year old girl whose brother Tommy is soon to be executed for the murder of their father, and our young narrator is convinced that he didn’t do it. A detective named Duff Ryan, who is sweet on Marie’s sister Ruth and is equally sure that Tommy didn’t do it.

   Who did do it? You may very well guess, and I’ll wager that you are right. Ryan is thinking along the same lines, and to help prove it [WARNING: Cat Lover’s Alert] he takes a cat that has been hit by a car and is dying and smashes it against the wall, trying to see what rise he can get out of Martin.

   [PLOT ALERT #2] As a juvenile, Martin is deemed not responsible for his actions. He’ll be out when he’s 21, hence the title, stated as a Warning. I’m only guessing, of course, but I think that anyone would read this story back in 1938 remembered it for a long long time.

TODHUNTER BALLARD “The Dragon Was a Lady.” Novella. First published in Ranch Romances, July #2, 1949. Collected in Lost Gold: A Western Duo. (Five Star, hardcover, March 2006; Leisure, paperback, April 2007).

   As W. T. Ballard, the author of Lost Gold was a prolific writer of hard-boiled fiction for the detective pulps in the 30s and 40s before switching over to paperback originals in the 50s and 60s. Somewhere along the way he seems to have decided that the kind of mystery and detective fiction he wrote was on the way out, and he switched to writing westerns almost exclusively.

   Which is not to say that he wasn’t writing westerns all along, going back to the mid-30s, at the same time he was writing for Black Mask and other detective magazines. “The Dragon Was a Lady,” the first tale in this western duo was first published in Ranch Romances, and at just over 40 pages is by far the shorter of the two.

   The story is a bit of a trifle, perhaps because it was written for a “love pulp,” but it’s fun to read, nonetheless. In it a young woman comes out West after her father dies and finds a lawyer running the show. Unknown to her but far from a secret from the local townspeople, including a husky fellow who operates the town newspaper, the lawyer is one of those guys who gives lawyers a bad name.

   She goes as far as setting a wedding day, but while clad in her wedding dress, she decides to learn the truth at last, and to fall in love, but for real this time. Just as everyone reading this issue of Ranch Romances when it was fresh on the newsstands knew from the very first page. And exactly how they wanted it.

   The second half of the reprint paperback consists of the short novel “Lost Gold.” I’ve temporarily misplaced it, though, so that the moment this is all I call tel you about it.

 MARTIN H. GREENBERG, Editor – Deadly Doings. Ivy, paperback original; 1st printing, 1989.

#3. JACK FINNEY “It Wouldn’t Be Fair.” Short story. First published in Collier’s, 28 August 1948. Reprinted in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, November 1951. Added later (see comments): Also reprinted in The Comfortable Coffin, edited by Richard S. Prather (Gold Medal, 1960). Not known to be collected. Adapted for TV on the series Rebound (1952-53), date unknown.

   This one’s a gem, one I’ve never heard of before. And unless you have a supply of old magazines of your own handy, this paperback anthology put together by Martin Greenberg is probably going to be the least expensive place you’re going to find to be able to read it.

   In it a Homicide detective named Charley has a girl friend named Annie (played by Jeff Donnell in the TV version) who unfortunately thinks he’s a moron. Why? Because he solves his cases by good old-fashioned police work, not by finding clues and and making brilliant deductions from them, the way it’s done in books.

   To settle their differences, Annie asks to be taken on Charley’s next case of murder. She is in her element now, making brilliant deductions on her own, all of which are hilariously wrong — except for one thing. When Charley and his Lieutenant nab the killer, by good old-fashioned police work, guess what? I bet you know.

   A fine, fine forerunner of the Schlock Homes stories, one later set of tales this is prime example of, but without the puns. You can’t have everything!

         —

Previously in this Martin Greenberg anthology: P. D. JAMES “Murder, 1986.”

  LESTER del REY, Editor – Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year: Second Annual Edition. E. P. Dutton, hardcover. 1973. Ace, paperback, December 1975.

   #10. C. N. GLOECKNER “Miscount.” Vignette. First published in Analog SF, November 1972. Never reprinted.

   In his introduction to this story, Lester del Rey states his dislike for stories presented in the form of a diary or a series of communications (letters, emails, and so on) between two or more parties, but he decided to include this particular story as an exception to his rule.

   This one consists of a series of messages back and forth an operative for an alien salvage company and its headquarters, back wherever that may be. It seems that they picked up some discarded vacuum suits on the satellite of a planet of a developing culture in an area which was supposed to off limits.

   To correct their error and to stay out of trouble, they decide to replace them with facsimiles, but this serves only to make things worse. Read the title again, and you can easily figures out what goes wrong.

   This is short and cute, designed to give the reader a smile for just a moment before he or she moves on, but to include it in a Best of the Year anthology? Lester del Rey should have followed his basic instincts on this and said no.

          —

Previously from the del Rey anthology: VERNOR VINGE “Long Shot.”

 MARTIN H. GREENBERG, Editor – Deadly Doings. Ivy, paperback original; 1st printing, 1989.

   #2. P. D. JAMES “Murder, 1986.” Short story. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, October 1970. Reprinted in Ellery Queen’s Anthology #30, 1975. Apparently still uncollected.

   The title of this story may or may not tell you this right away, but it is one that’s SF, through and through. Once you realize that it was written in 1970, though, some 16 years before the time period in which it’s set, then that statement will make a lot more sense.. But being that it was written by P. D. James, one of best known of recently deceased mystery writers, it’s definitely a detective story, too.

   It takes place in an alternate future that never took place, one in which a plague has enveloped the world. Isolated from the rest of society are the Ipdics (Interplanetary Disease Infection Carriers). Investigating the murder (not suicide) of a young woman who was one of them is Sergeant Dolby, the kind of guy who’s totally honest and committed, but who’s looked down upon by his superiors and who’s never sent out on more than petty crimes.

   He takes a personal interest in this one, though, in spite of being given no resources to solve it.

   I wish I could say that I enjoyed this one more than I did. It’s not the SFnal aspects that bother me — often times science fiction stories written by people without a sizable background in science fiction fail for exactly that reason. No, my real problem with this one. if I read it correctly, is that the author is deliberately unfair to the reader.

   To me this is bigger hurdle to get over than “not playing fair” is.

         —

Previously in this Martin Greenberg anthology: IRA LEVIN “Sylvia.”

  DONALD WOLLHEIM, Editor, with Arthur W. Saha – The 1989 Annual World’s Best SF. Daw #783, paperback original; 1st printing, June 1989. Cover art by Jim Burns.

   #7. TANITH LEE “A Madonna of the Machine.” Short story. First published in Other Edens II, edited by Christopher Evans & Robert Holdstock (Unwin, UK, paperback; no US publication). Collected in Forests of the Night (Unwin, US, hardcover, 1989).

   During her lifetime — she died in 2015 at the age of 67 — Tanith Lee produced perhaps 90 novels and over 300 works of short fiction. She came to my attention in a big way, along with lots of other SF and fantasy fans, with the publication of her “Birthgrave” trilogy, all paperback originals from DAW: The Birthgrave (1975), Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1978), and Quest for the White Witch (1978).

   What struck me the most about these novels was how she was able to take what on the face of them were pulp-oriented sword-and-sorcery books and give them a solid science fictional background. This wasn’t revealed until the end of the first book, and it fair knocked my socks off.

   “A Madonna of the Machine” takes a standard SFnal idea — that of a dreary super-regulated future in which the inhabitants have no future — and creates a tale in which visions of a rose-angel-goddess begins to appear to several main characters. They have never experienced anything in their lives like this before.

   Told in a lyrical, poetic and eventually magical or even surreal style, style, the effect is almost that of a fantasy tale than science fiction. Tanith Lee was a master of this, and if she hadn’t written more stories than I could ever read, I’d love to have read more of them.

       —

Previously from the Wollheim anthology: KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH “Skin Deep.”

  LESTER del REY, Editor – Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year: Second Annual Edition. E. P. Dutton, hardcover. 1973. Ace, paperback, December 1975.

   #9. VERNOR VINGE “Long Shot.” Short story. First appeared in Analog SF, August 1972. Collected in True Names … and Other Dangers (Baen, paperback, November 1987) and The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge (Tor, hardcover, November 2001). Reprinted several times, including Explorers: SF Adventures to Far Horizons, edited by Gardner Dozois (St. Martins, trade paperback, April 2000).

   Vernor Vinge not only writes the kind of SF I like to read, but he has won Hugos for three novels he’s written: A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), A Deepness in the Sky (1999), Rainbows End (2006), as well as two novellas: Fast Times at Fairmont High (2002), and The Cookie Monster (2004). “Long Shot” didn’t win any awards, nor was it even nominated, but it’s a good one.

   For lack of a better word on my part, I’m going to call Ilse an A.I., although that may not be entirely true. She is female, that much is certain, so even though her brain is made of iron and germanium, laced with arsenic, the name Ilse fits her just fine.

   She is also the longest lived of all of Earth’s creatures “and perhaps the last.” Boosted into space and making a loop around the sun to gain acceleration, the ship she controls head off on a voyage lasting one hundred centuries and four light years.

   For what purpose? Although Ilse retains enough of her memory to make the minute changes in course to reach, Centauran system, by the time she nears the end of her voyage, she has forgotten the purpose of her mission, which of course is the entire point of the story. Which also when revealed to the reader, that very same reader will say “of course.”

   The math and the physics are only the clincher. This story is a prime example of hard SF at its finest.

          —

Previously from the del Rey anthology: DONALD NOAKES “The Long Silence.”

  DONALD WOLLHEIM, Editor, with Arthur W. Saha – The 1989 Annual World’s Best SF. Daw #783, paperback original; 1st printing, June 1989. Cover art by Jim Burns.

   #6. KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH “Skin Deep.” Short story. First published in Amazing Stories, January 1988. First collected in Stories for an Enchanted Afternoon (Golden Gryphon Press, hardcover, 2001).

   Although she seems to have slowed down somewhat over the last couple of years, Kristine Kathryn Rusch has been one of the most prolific science fiction and fantasy writers over the past 20 years, producing dozens if not over a hundred novels and short stories over that period of time. Not only that, but she was the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction between July 1991 and May 1997.

   She wrote “Skin Deep” long before any of this, however. It was only her third published story, way back in 1988, and it’s a good one. It’s both a subtle and yet very perceptive story about a young man whose lineage is native to a planet that colonists from Earth have landed and are slowly taking over, as colonists from Earth always have a tendency to do, even though they are the “aliens” on the planet.

   He can pass for human for a time, but when that time is up, which happens regularly after a period of so many years, he must leave where he’s been living and go into hiding, perhaps to find others such as himself. This time, however, the adopted daughter of the family he’s been staying with is about to undergo the same Change in her life as well: note the title of the story. Should he go, or should he stay and help her?

   This is a solidly built story, both structured and told well. A future for this young author was easy to see.

       —

Previously from the Wollheim anthology: IAN WATSON “The Flies of Memory.”