Tag: short story

No Fire Burns by Avram Davidson

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No Fire Burns by Avram Davidson (Playboy, July 1959) opens with a Mr Melchior and his personnel manager, Mr Taylor, driving to lunch with a psychologist, Dr Colles. Melchior tells Colles about an otherwise normal man who murdered a rival just to secure a promotion, and goes on to ask Colles to produce a test that will weed out such individuals from his company.
Inserted into this strand of the narrative is a section about an employee of Melichor’s called Joe Clock, who has borrowed money from a workmate but, as we see, has no intention of paying it back. Joe later completes the psychological screening test that Colles develops:

There are lots worse crimes than murder. Probably . . . Sure. Lots worse. The average person will do anything for money. Absolutely right they would. Why not, if you can get away with it? Sure. And the same way, that’s why you got to watch out for yourself.
There are worse things than losing your home. What? Catching leprosy?
And then the way to answer the question changed. Now you had to pick out an answer. Like, Most people who hit someone with their car at night would (a) report to the police first (b) give first aid (c) make a getaway if possible. Well, any damn fool would know it was the last. In fact, anyone but a damn fool would do just that. That’s what he did that time. (c)
Now, a dope like Aberdeen: he’d probably stop his car. Stick his nose in someone else’s tough luck. Anybody stupid enough to lend his rent money—  p. 38-39 (The Year’s Best SF #5, edited by Judith Merril, 1961)

The story develops further (spoiler) when Colles notices, having completed the work some weeks before, problematic mentions of Melchior and his ex-employees in the newspapers. He then discovers that nearly all the company men shown by the test to have psychopathic tendencies are still employed.
Colles confronts Melchior with this information—and then asks to work for him (there are a couple of earlier hints in the story that Colles is fairly amoral). The story finishes with a biter-bit ending where the personnel manager Taylor (another one of the story’s many psychopaths) has Melchior and Colles shot by Joe Clock and another man.
This is well enough told, and interesting enough, but the idea is barely credible. And some will see where the plot is going, or be unsurprised when they get there.
** (Average). 6,350 words.

No, No, Not Rogov! by Cordwainer Smith

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No, No, Not Rogov! by Cordwainer Smith (If, February 1959) is supposedly one of his ‘Instrumentality of Mankind’ stories, although the connection seems to be limited to a brief prologue where a golden dancer performs some sort of rapturous dance in the year AD 13,582. The bulk of the story, however, concerns itself with two Soviet scientists who are undertaking a highly secret project to develop a telepathic helmet. The pair are a married couple, Rogov (the husband) and Cherpas (the wife), who have two minders, Gausgofer (a woman who is in love with Rogov) and Gauck (a constantly expressionless man).
Their work takes place during the reigns of Stalin and Khrushchev, and they have early success in using the device to see through other people’s eyes, although the pair are never entirely sure who they are looking through or where they are. The experiment comes close to a conclusion when Rogov has a needle inserted into the top of his own head to get direct access to his optic nerve (Gauck ordering the execution of the prisoners they experiment on after a week of use has hitherto limited what they can achieve). Of course (spoiler), when the machine is connected and switched on, we see that the device operates through time as well as space, and Rogov sees the dancer in the future and goes mad:

He became blind to the sight of Cherpas, Gausgofer, and Gauck. He forgot the village of Ya. Ch. He forgot himself. He was like a fish, bred in stale fresh water, which is thrown for the first time into a living stream. He was like an insect emerging from the chrysalis. His twentieth-century mind could not hold the imagery and the impact of the music and the dance.
But the needle was there and the needle transmitted into his mind more than his mind could stand.
The synapses of his brain flicked like switches. The future flooded into him.
He fainted.
Cherpas leaped forward and lifted the needle. Rogov fell out of the chair.  p. 61 (The Year’s Best SF #5, edited by Judith Merril, 1961)

Rogov is subsequently examined by doctors but cannot be roused, nor is he later when a deputy minister from Moscow arrives with more experts. Gausgofer suggests repeating the experiment to see if she can learn something that will help recover Rogov, but is similarly affected—and she also stands up at the moment of contact, altering the needle’s position in her brain which kills her. Cherpas subsequently tells the minister that she eavesdropped on Rogov’s connection using the old equipment, and that her husband saw something unbelievably hypnotic in the far future.
The story concludes with Gauck telling the minister that the experiment is over (which I didn’t find entirely convincing, i.e. a functionary telling a Soviet deputy minister what to do).
There is probably a reasonable mainstream story about Soviet era scientists and secret police buried in this piece, but the SF parts seem like an afterthought, and the idea of someone going mad because they watch the AD 13,582 version of Strictly Come Dancing seems rather fanciful.
** (Average). 6,500 words.

The Shoreline at Sunset by Ray Bradbury

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The Shoreline at Sunset by Ray Bradbury (F&SF, March 1959) begins with two men on the beach prospecting for lost change. We discover that they share a house, and watch as their discussion turns to the stream of women (and unsuccessful relationships) that have passed through their lives. Tom suggests to Chico that they may have more romantic success if they live apart, just before they are interrupted by a boy saying that he has found a mermaid. The men soon find themselves looking at a seemingly alive but unconscious creature that is half woman, half fish:

The lower half of her body changed itself from white to very pale blue, from very pale blue to pale green, from pale green to emerald green, to moss and lime green, to scintillas and sequins all dark green, all flowing away in a fount, a curve, a rush of light and dark, to end in a lacy fan, a spread of foam and jewel on the sand. The two halves of this creature were so joined as to reveal no point of fusion where pearl woman, woman of a whiteness made of creamwater and clear sky, merged with that half which belonged to the amphibious slide and rush of current that came up on the shore and shelved down the shore, tugging its half toward its proper home. The woman was the sea, the sea was woman. There was no flaw or seam, no wrinkle or stitch; the illusion, if illusion it was, held perfectly together and the blood from one moved into and through and mingled with what must have been the ice-waters of the other.  p. 72 (The Year’s Best SF #5, edited by Judith Merril, 1961)

Chico decides that they can sell the creature to an exhibition or a carnival, and rushes off to get a truck full of ice; Tom is more ambivalent, and (spoiler) stays behind to watch over the creature—but does nothing when the waves gradually wash the mermaid back into the sea.
I thought perhaps the mermaid was a metaphor for the women or the relationships that the men can’t keep but, whatever the story is about, it is typical of later Bradbury, i.e. more a prose poem than a story.
** (Average). 3,350 words.

Multum in Parvo by Jack Sharkey

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Multum in Parvo by Jack Sharkey (The Gent, December 1959)1 isn’t actually a short story but a quartet of vignettes that each end in a pun (or two, or have them all the way through)—Feghoots, as I believe they are called in the SF field.2
The first, Robots, is a fairly straightforward piece involving the construction of a card-playing robot in 1653, which builds to a decent single pun ending; the second, Aircraft, has Icarus flying towards the sun with a double pun ending, both of which are both okay; the third, Vampirism, really goes for it, and has eight puns (maybe more) on the way through—this is the best of the four by country mile; the last one, Atomic Fission, has a decent single pun ending and a coda about fallout that I didn’t get (the Vampirism one would have made for a stronger finish).
I’m not big on puns but this was okay, with the third section having considerably more bite than the others. Boom, tish.

1. In The Great SF Stories 21 (1959), edited by Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (which includes this story), the editors report on two further ‘Pavro’ stories in Gent magazine (which are not listed on ISFDB): Son of Multum in Parvo and Son of Multum in Parvo Rides Again.

2. The Wikipedia article on Feghoots.

The Other Wife by Jack Finney

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The Other Wife by Jack Finney (Saturday Evening Post, January 30th, 1960) starts with a fairly stereotypical husband-wife encounter—she’s prattling on about her knitting and he’s day-dreaming about a sports car—which eventually devolves into a mild spat. During the early stages of this encounter the husband discovers a 1958 Woodrow Wilson coin in his change: this becomes significant later.
The next part of the story sees the husband transported to an alternate world where, after seeing a “Coco-Coola” sign, he notices other changes (the cars are all black, and they are of different makes) before discovering the most significant difference on his arrival back at his apartment—which is that he is married to another woman.
He later realises that she is an ex-girlfriend of his, although this takes some time, and after some slight hesitation he picks up where he left off. He subsequently enjoys a honeymoon period with his other wife and during this also has the pleasure of finding new books that exist in this world but not in his own:

There on the revolving metal racks were the familiar rows of glossy little books, every one of which, judging from the covers, seemed to be about an abnormally well-developed girl. Turning the rack slowly I saw books by William Faulkner, Bernard Glemser, Agatha Christie, and Charles Einstein, which I’d read and liked. Then, down near the bottom of the rack my eye was caught by the words, “By Mark Twain.” The cover showed an old side-wheeler steamboat, and the title was South From Cairo. A reprint fitted out with a new title, I thought, feeling annoyed; and I picked up the book to see just which of Mark Twain’s it really was. I’ve read every book he wrote—Huckleberry Finn at least a dozen times since I discovered it when I was eleven years old.
But the text of this book was new to me. It seemed to be an account, told in the first person by a young man of twenty, of his application for a job on a Mississippi steamboat. And then, from the bottom of a page, a name leaped out at me. “‘Finn, sir,’ I answered the captain,” the text read, “‘but mostly they call me Huckleberry.’”
For a moment I just stood there in the drugstore with my mouth hanging open; then I turned the little book in my hands. On the back cover was a photograph of Mark Twain; the familiar shock of white hair, the mustache, that wise old face. But underneath this the brief familiar account of his life ended with saying that he had died in 1918 in Mill Valley, California. Mark Twain had lived eight years longer in this alternate world, and had written—well, I didn’t yet know how many more books he had written in this wonderful world, but I knew I was going to find out. And my hand was trembling as I walked up to the cashier and gave her two bits for my priceless copy of South From Cairo.  pp. 25-26 (The Year’s Best SF #5, edited by Judith Merril, 1961)

This part of the story, and his realisation about what the odd coins in his change do—see below—is probably the best of it.
In a few months, of course, the shine eventually comes off his new relationship and, while checking his change one night, he finds a Roosevelt coin. He realises that it was the Woodrow Wilson one which transported him to this world—and that the Roosevelt will let him return.
The story ends with him back in his own world where no time has passed. He has a second honeymoon period with his first wife and then, later, finds another Woodrow Wilson coin in his change . . . .
I guess, overall, this story is okay, but it’s essentially shallow New Yorker froth where a bigamous husband has his cake and eats it. A pity, because there is a better story here about how the shine comes off of new relationships and marriages, and of the possibilities of the road not taken. (And hopefully a story which explains the reason there isn’t already a husband in the alternate world.)
** (Average). 5,850 words.

The Handler by Damon Knight

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The Handler by Damon Knight (Rogue, August 1960) sees a TV actor called Pete go into a bar and glad-hand all the people who have just finished work on a successful TV show, ending with these individuals:

“Sol and Ernie and Mack, my writers, Shakespeare should have been so lucky—” One by one, they came up to shake the big man’s hand as he called their names; the women kissed him and cried. “My stand-in,” the big man was calling out, and “my caddy,” and “now,” he said, as the room quieted a little, people flushed and sore-throated with enthusiasm, “I want you to meet my handler.”  p. 11 (The Year’s Best SF #5, edited by Judith Merril, 1961)

At this point Pete becomes motionless, and a dwarf—his “handler”—climbs out of Pete’s body. The party cools, and everyone drifts away. The dwarf is called Fred and he tries to chat to people but is either ignored or rebuffed (as well as his physical appearance he is nowhere as extrovert a personality as Pete). Then, while Fred is having a beer and trying to be friendly, one of the writers bluntly suggests that he gets back inside Pete. When Fred does this Pete comes to life, and the party restarts.
After his initial appearance Fred is variously described as “little man”; “was a very small man, almost a dwarf, stoop-shouldered and roundbacked in a sweaty brown singlet and shorts”; “had a perspiring brown face under a shock of black hair”; “was about forty, with a big nose and big soft brown eyes”; “his voice was cracked and uncertain”. Fred also has “knobby hands”; “sad hound-dog eyes”, etc. If Knight was trying to make the wider point that people react to our outer selves rather than our inner ones, he rather buries this idea under a mass of description that appears to make the piece about little more than people’s reaction to other’s physical attractiveness (and possibly manner).
The whole idea struck me a bit silly.
* (Mediocre). 1,600 words.

Shy Sarah and the Draft Pick Lottery by Ted Kosmatka

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Shy Sarah and the Draft Pick Lottery by Ted Kosmatka (Asimov’s SF, January-February 2021) starts off with a woman called Sarah arranging an encounter with a fan called Ames at a baseball match. She sits in the seat next to him after a supposed ticket mix-up (his girlfriend has been delayed by the rest of her team) and, after a certain amount of pretence and social chit-chat, she eventually introduces the idea of sabermetrics (statistical analysis of baseball results), and also that teams want particular fans—superfans—because they positively influence the outcome of their matches.
After this we see Sarah with her bosses, who quiz her about the suitability of Ames as a “candidate” and, later on, she arranges to bump into him. They go for a walk, and she tells him about her job:

“It works like this,” I say. “Most people are normal, but one out of a hundred is different. They have some kind of talent that’s hard to explain. For me it started in childhood—crippling shyness, the obligate side effect. I was sent to see specialists.
My parents thought it was therapy, but the specialists had their own ideas. In reality, they were conducting a search.”
“Search for what?”
“For children like me. Who could help them with people like you.” I glance at him.
“The real prospects.”
“So you’re saying I’m one of these prospects?”
“That you are. A certified, top-tier, can’t-miss prospect, and no going back now. But don’t blame me; it was the spreadsheet cowboys who found you. I just gave the final nod.”
The Walk sign flashes and we cross the intersection.
“Found me how?”  p. 130

She goes on to tell him more about the world of “shies,” “ply-mouths,” “daykeeps” and “latents.” And of “prospects,” fans like him whose luck rubs off on the teams.
The rest of the story shows us a draft meeting where Ames is discussed by various corporate types and sold to a team in Texas (all of this without his attendance or knowledge). We also see Sarah telling Ames of a much wider conspiracy that involves the drafting of people into various other jobs (valets, blackjack dealers, cashiers, Uber drivers, etc.), which may be in locations they do not want to live (there is also a crack about only untalented people being allowed to become bankers and lawyers). She finally advises him that when he gets an upcoming job offer he should accept it—or he will experience unpleasant consequences.
The story ends (spoiler) with Ames missing the flight to his new job, and Sarah tracking him down and telling him she wants him to help her fight the system.
This is a readable enough story but I wasn’t convinced by the Sabermetric conspiracy gimmick, and I’m not that interested in baseball stories (or the author’s infatuation with “knuckle ball throwers”). Finally, I’m getting a bit bored of stories with simplistic anti-capitalist subtexts, most of which never amount to much beyond conspiracies and/or smash the system endings.
* (Mediocre). 8,250 words.

The Deeps by Keith Roberts

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The Deeps by Keith Roberts (Orbit #1, 1966) begins with a short data dump that describes an over-populated future Earth where the cities have spread towards the coasts and moved under the seas.1 The rest of the story concerns two undersea residents, Mary Franklin and her daughter Jennifer,2 and begins with the teenager going to a party (“And for land’s sake child, put something on . . .”)
There is really not much plot after this (spoiler): we follow Jennifer to the party and get some description of the undersea colony before the narrative cuts back to her mother, who later becomes increasingly concerned when Jennifer doesn’t return on time, eventually going out to search for her. The story ends with both mother and daughter floating underwater above a deep, dark void, and her daughter telling her to listen to the sounds of the Deeps. Mary does so, and almost becomes hypnotised to the point she runs out of oxygen:

She could hear Jen calling but the voice was unimportant, remote. It was only when the girl swam to her, grabbed her shoulders and pointed at the gauges between her breasts that she withdrew from the half-trance. The thing below still called and thudded; Mary firmed reluctantly, found Jen’s hand in her own. She let herself float, Jen kicking slowly and laughing again delightedly, chuckling into her earphones. Their hair, swirling, touched and mingled; Mary looked back and down and knew suddenly her inner battle was over.
The sound, the thing she had heard or felt, there was no fear in it. Just a promise, weird and huge. The Sea People would go on now, pushing their domes lower and lower into night, fighting pressure and cold until all the seas of all the world were truly full; and the future, whatever it might be, would care for itself. Maybe one day the technicians would make a miracle and then they would flood the domes and the sea would be theirs to breathe. She tried to imagine Jen with the bright feathers of gills floating from her neck. She tightened her grip on her daughter’s hand and allowed herself to be towed, softly, through the darkness.  p. 191-192

Although there is not much in the way of a story here, the description of the settlement is pretty good, probably Arthur C. Clarke level stuff, and Roberts skilfully generates enough atmosphere and mood to make up for the not entirely convincing idea of sounds luring people to the Deeps (scattered through the text there are rumours about the phenomenon, and recalled conversations with Mary’s husband about how there may be a racial memory drawing humanity down there).
It’s an effectively  hypnotic story.
*** (Good). 7,000 words.

1. In his early period Roberts worked through a number of conventional SF themes before doing his own thing: alien invasion in his first novel, The Furies; psi powers in his third, The Inner Wheel, and in some short stories, Manipulation, The Worlds That Were; time travel in Escapism; androids in Synth; and post-nuclear holocausts in many others.

2. Roberts used the name Jennifer in another undersea story called The Jennifer, (Science Fantasy #70, March 1965) although that one is about Anita, a teenage witch, being taken by a mermaid to see a gigantic sea serpent. Still, it’s worth a look, if you can cope with Granny Thomson’s Northamptonshire accent (it gives them the vapours on one review site). His cover painting for that story appeared on another issue.

5 Eggs by Thomas M. Disch

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5 Eggs by Thomas M. Disch (Orbit #1, 1966) begins with a man finding his bride to be has gone, after which he decides to go ahead with the post-wedding party anyway. As the story unfolds we find that she was a bird-like creature of alien origin, and that she has left him 5 eggs to incubate.
At the party we see the narrator greet and talk to a couple of guests and then, towards the end of the event, he can’t find the eggs. Eventually (spoiler) he finds cracked, empty eggshells in the kitchen, and finds a recipe card for Caesar salad (needing a similar amount of eggs). He then realises that the note was left for the cook by his avian fiancée and, at this point, he remembers her hilarity at cannibalism scene in Titus Andronicus.
For the most part this is a quirky but enjoyable enough story, but it morphs into a weak and contrived black joke at the end (and not one that is saved by referencing Shakespeare).
* (Mediocre). 2,650 words.

Splice of Life by Sonya Dorman

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Splice of Life by Sonya Dorman (Orbit #1, 1966) begins with a woman in hospital getting a hypodermic syringe inserted between her bottom eyelid and eye. The rest of the narrative is a surreal nightmare-ish piece where she sees things (even though her eyes are bandaged), thinks there is a dog under her bed, learns she was probably in a car accident, and talks to a ten-year-old boy, and a nurse with an odd verbal tic.
The story finishes with her overhearing a doctor’s conversation (spoiler), which gives her the impression she is continually being wounded so the hospital can re-use her for ophthalmologist training courses (I think).
I didn’t get this at all the first time around, and even on reread I’m not sure it is particularly clear, or convincing.
* (Mediocre). 2,400 words.