ROBERT SILVERBERG – When the Myths Went Home. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1969. Reprinted in World’s Best Science Fiction: 1970, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr (Ace, paperback, 1970). Collected in Moonferns and Starsongs (Ballantine, paperback, 1971).

   This particular tale, and a nifty one it is, takes place in a future far distant in time than ours. It is in fact, in terms of years, somewhere between 12400 and 12450, but still an age of new inventions and discoveries. The one of the latter that is of interest to the people of that time is one that can bring back to life people of fame and notoriety such as Cleopatra, Winston Churchill, Napoleon and more.

   The kind of people who are fun to have around, to talk to and interact with, but gradually the attraction wears off. More is wanted. Working on the problem is man named Leor, who  discovers that there is a way to bring back people who were perhaps not as real, starting (of course) with Adam. Then, and I’m quoting:

I   It was indeed an awesome accumulation of people. And yet, and yet, there comes a time when it was decided that they all must be sent back. Not an easy task, but at last it was done.

And then, and then … well, I won’t tell you, good or bad, but perhaps you can guess.

   This was written at a time in Silverberg’s career. 1969, while he was making the change from writing pulpy science fictional adventure tales to a more mature, “adult” kind of story for which he must most remembered  today. Myself, I still enjoy the former, tales which no one but the fiercest champion of such stories would recall at all. This is not one of them. It’s one of his “good” ones, or at least one of the early ones that foresaw what was to come.

JOE GORES – Dead Skip. DKA Files #1. Random House, hardcover, 1972. Ballantine. paperback, August 1974. Mysterious Press, paperback, 1992.

   While holding down a variety of jobs, one of them a stint as a San Francisco private investigator, Joe Gores published numerous (and generally hard-boiled) short stories in the 1950s and 1960s. One of these, “Sweet Vengeance” (Manhunt, July 1964) became the basis for his first novel, the violent suspense thriller, A Time of Predators (1969). Dead Skip is the first of three novels in the DKA File series (which also includes a dozen or so short stories) — a series Ellery Queen called “authentic as a fist in your face.”

   DKA stands for Daniel Kearny Associates, a San Francisco investigative firm modeled on the real agency for which Gores once worked. (It was Anthony Boucher who first suggested Gores utilize his Pl background as the basis for a fictional series.)

   DKA operates out of on old Victorian that used to be a specialty whorehouse, and specializes in the repossessing of cars whose owners have defaulted on loans from banks and automobile dealers. Kearny, the boss, is tough, uncompromising, but fair: his operatives, each of whom plays an important role in some if not all of the novels and stories. These include Larry Ballard (the nominal lead protagonist), Bart Heslip, Patrick Michael O’Bannon, Giselle Marc, and office manager Kathy Onoda.

   Dead Skip begins quietly enough, with Bart Heslip (who happens to be black) repossessing a car in San Francisco’s Richmond district and returning it to the DKA offices, where he files his report. But when he leaves he is struck down by an unknown assailant — and the following morning the other members of DKA arc confronted with the news that Bart is in a coma in a hospital intensive-care unit, the apparent victim of an accident in a repo’d Jaguar.

   Ban’s girlfriend, Corinne Jones, refuses to believe in the “accident” and convinces Ballard that Bart was the victim of violence. In spite of Kearny, who seems more concerned about the cost of the wrecked Jag than about Bart’s welfare (thus causing tension in the ranks), Ballard embarks on a search for Bart’s assailant and an explanation for the attack.

   Starting with the files on Bart’s recent repo jobs, he follows a twisting trail that takes him all over San Francisco and to the East Bay: involves him with a number of unusual characters, one of them a rock musician with a group calling itself Assault and Battery; and ends in a macabre confrontation that endangers not only Ballard’s life but that of Giselle Marc, in a house high above the former haven of the flower children, the Haight-Ashbury.

   The motivation for the attack on Bart is hardly new to crime fiction, and some of the villain’s other actions are likewise questionably motivated, but these minor flaws shouldn’t spoil anyone’s enjoyment of what is otherwise an excellent private-eye procedural. It is, in fact, strong stuff — realistic, powerful, “a traditional American crime novel, out of Black Mask, Hammett and Chandler” (New York Times).

   Even better are the other two novels in the series- — Final Notice (1973) and Gone, No Forwarding (1978).

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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.

TERROR BY NIGHT. Universal Pictures, 1946. Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Alan Mowbray, Dennis Hoey, Renee Godfrey. Screenplay: Frank Gruber, based on characters created by Arthur Conan Doyle. Director: Roy William Neill.

   Sherlock Holmes is hired to guard the fabulous “Star of Rhodesia” diamond, being taken back to Scotland by train, but murder is committed under his nose instead. Dr. Watson tries his hand at investigating, in competition with Inspector Lestrade, to little avail.

   The first half of this movie is splendid – there is something about murder on a train to bring out the detective in anyone -– but the story falls apart when the perpetrator is identified with absolutely no detective work being done at all. Sheer frustration.

JOHN BRUNNER – Double, Double. Ballantine, paperback original; 1st printing; January 1969.

   Although possibly based on a monster movie script that Brunner couldn’t peddle elsewhere (or hasn’t yet), this does have the benefit of that author’s deft characterization of stock situations and players.

   A rock group for the modern class spots the monster (see above) climbing from the sea. But of course their story is not believed. “High on LSD, no doubt!” Events soon prove them correct. Luckily there is also a marine research station in the immediate vicinity, and the nature of the beast is quickly discovered. Otherwise the monster(s) could have taken over the entire population, doubling as it goes.

   Brunner himself has to admit (page 203) that luck plays a large part in his plot, still enjoyable nonetheless. In a serious moment, consider: panic, or “the truth”?

Rating: ***½

DOROTHY L. SAYERS – Strong Poison. Lord Peter Wimsey #5. Gollancz, UK, hardcover, 1930. Reprinted many times, including Perennial, paperback, 1987 (the edition read).

   In which Lord Peter Wimsey meets mystery writer Harriet Vane, under the most unusual circumstances for the beginning of a romance, for she is on trial, for murder, for killing her former lover, whom she lived with for nearly a year, without benefit of clergy.

   It’s a great start for a mystery story, and if it disappoints slightly in its outcome, it may be only natural. The puzzle, not as devious as it could be, eventually centers not on the actual murderer, but rather on how he managed to introduce arsenic into the victim’s system.

MICHAEL COLLINS – Act of Fear. Dan Fortune #1. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1967. Bantam, paperback; 1st printing, April 1969. Playboy Press, paperback, 1980.

   Introducing PI Dan Fortune, the book being the winner of an Edgar by the MWA for Best First Novel. Partly autobiographical in nature, with Fortune’s own insights into people and the world. He has only one arm and wavers between the worst of society and those who at least live honestly and lawfully. Chelsea, the area of New York City to which he has returned, is not quite sure of him, for he has left them before. Fortune asks many questions of life, He also has some answers, so he keeps asking.

   Helping the friend of a boy who has disappeared puts the kid in more danger than before, and Fortune must intercede in a local mobster’s affairs to solve a couple of murders, Pressures from the boy’s miserable family matter less.

   Included are sad pictures of what people like and what they have to settle for,  The case is broken by the realization it is not what is true that matters, but what people think is true.

Rating: ****½

THE OUTLAW. RKO Radio Pictures, 1943. Jack Buetel, Jane Russell, Thomas Mitchell, Walter Huston. Directors: Howard Hughes, Howard Hawks (uncredited).

   A fanciful retelling of the legend of Billy the Kid, along with Pat Garrett, Doc Holliday, and a girl named Rio, I don’t know the entire story behind the making of the movie, nor the hype, but for 1943 (original release), it must have been a sizzler.

   Huston’s grizzled performance as Doc is superb, and while seemingly miscast, the shabby Tom Mitchell (as Garrett) has his moments as well. Beutel’s career went nowhere, but as Billy he is convincingly cunning, As for Jane Russell, I watched her every move.

THE GORDONS – Operation Terror. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1961. Bantam #W2324, paperback, 1962, as Experiment in Terror.

   The successful husband-and-wife team of Mildred and Gordon Gordon produced suspense fiction for almost forty years. Their books arc definitely formulaic, but they have the capacity to engage the reader’s full attention. An important clement in this formula is that of time running out: Something terrible is about to happen, and the hero must overcome seemingly insurmountable odds in order to save the situation.

   Of course the hero always succeeds, the situation is always saved, and the reader goes away thoroughly satisfied. All in all, reading such satisfying stories is not a bad way to spend one’s time — especially on a cold winter’s night when one would like a little manufactured terror.

   In the opening scene of this novel, Kelly Sherwood is accosted in her garage by a hoodlum intent on using her as an accomplice in robbing the bank where she works. Because she is young and has no next of kin but her sister, she is a likely victim. This man threatens death to her and her sister if she does not comply with his wishes, and he hurts her just enough to show that he means it. She is angry and frightened, but not too frightened to call the FBI.

   Next we meet Ripley of the FBI, and probably learn more than we’ll ever need (or hope) to know about him. And we also meet Toby Sherwood, the younger sister. She is a teenager, unpredictable and fresh, and full of life and fun and a sense of fairness. She also has an undying love for and loyalty to her older sister, who has raised her since their parents died some years ago. In the ensuing action, Kelly remains the bulwark of strength that past circumstances have forced her to be, Toby grows up, and Ripley — being Ripley — perseveres.

   This book is suspenseful, and has a rather well-thought-out plot and good (although in some cases overdone) character development. It is fast-paced, and even the villain has redeeming qualities.

   Operation Terror is a cut above other works by this collaborative team — finely crafted, with a realistic and contemporary setting. It was filmed in 1962 as Experiment in Terror, with a San Francisco setting and an ending that takes place during a Giants-Dodgers baseball game at Candlestick Park. Lee Remick and Glenn Ford had the starring roles, and Stefanie Powers portrayed the sister, but Ross Martin as an asthmatic villain steals the show.

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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.

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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.