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Science Fiction Short Story ... Read more

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Logical add-on to the old phrase about a busybody never resting. Fred Brown's Lenient Beast is a five-part narrative telling of the perfect crime. The killer is driven not out of lust, greed or any of the usual sobs, rather 'cause he cares so much for all of us. First published 1956. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An excellent mystery novel.
Fredric Brown's masterful mystery novel (which I read in one sitting) is a skillfully written tale featuring multiple first person perspectives. Fully developed characters and absoultely dead-on, realistic dialog kept meengaged throughout. Brown touches on a range of human issues such asinterracial marriage, anti-semitism and alchoholism in a truthful mannerand weaves this into a murder mystery laden with psychological torment, ala Jim Thompson. This is simply one of the best books I've read in a longtime.

You've never read a detective novel quite like this one...
This novel of serial killings garners its strength from the bluntness and crispness of Brown's narrative; this is a detective novel with no moody lighting, no one-liners and no super cool hero. Each chapter presents a different view point, yet each latches onto the previous chapter to create a stifling tale of a week in a small town in the US south with a killer on the lose. This is the literary equivalent of Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth or Mystery Train - this is Pynchon rather than Spillane. ... Read more

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Frederick Brown is the Master of the Short Story
The synopsis on the jacket reads, in part;

"Have you heard of the linotype machine which came alive and made a slave of the printer? Or about the time the earth was surrounded by radio-type waves which cut off electricity and forced people to go back to the horse and buggy days? Or the little boy who beat the Devil with a water pistol? Or of Yehundi, a new type of genie in the bottle, who did anything and everything for his master? Or of the Celestial Compositor who didn't pay attention to his business and who made the life of one earthling very miserable indeed.

Fredric Brown tells about these and many other equally intriguing events in this collection which includes both stories of fantasy and science fiction, and some stories that are a mixture of both. But into whatever category they fall, all bear the stamp of the master's far-ranging imagination and zany humor."

Originally published in hardback as Angels and Spaceships.
... Read more

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Uncle Am is kidnapped!
Ed Hunter's partner-in-crime was just out on a routine case, a man who'd skipped out on some car payments, when the old fellow vanishes. There's also a fortuneteller who claims to know how to pick the daily "number," a gangster who'd like more info about same, a love interest for young Ed, and a Fortean collector of Ambroses, who might just be responsible for Uncle Am's disappearance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Ambrose Collector
In one of his books on the paranormal, Charles Fort wrote of the disappearance in Mexico of the author Ambrose Bierce. He then mentioned the disappearance (several years later and almost a continent away) of another man named Ambrose, and asked whether there might not be an Ambrose Collector at work.

It is against this backdrop that a gentleman calling himself Ambrose Collector telephones the Starlock Detective Agency asking for an operative who had experience with carnivals.Starlock dispatches Am(brose) Hunter, and he falls off the face of the earth.

When Ed Hunter begins to miss his Uncle Am, a mutual friend opines that he must have been gotten by the Ambrose Collector.With only this clue to go on, Ed begins the search for his uncle.

The investigation lurches along with no apparent progress, but all the while Ed is unwittingly gathering clues.When Ed solves the problem of the missing 45 minutes, the clues fall into place.

Now Ed must not only find his uncle, but also survive the discovery.

In addition to writing pulp detective fiction, Fredric Brown also wrote science fiction.Seemingly every one of his detective novels has some elements of science fiction."Compliments of a Fiend" has the science fiction element at its very core. ... Read more

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Two Timer in the February 1954 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.

Here is a brace of vignettes by the Old Vignette Master ... short and sharp ... like a hypodermic! ... Read more

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An Excerpt from the book-


Daptine is the secret of it. Adaptine, they called it first; then it got
shortened to daptine. It let us adapt.

They explained it all to us when we were ten years old; I guess they
thought we were too young to understand before then, although we knew a
lot of it already. They told us just after we landed on Mars.

"You're _home_, children," the Head Teacher told us after we had gone
into the glassite dome they'd built for us there. And he told us there'd
be a special lecture for us that evening, an important one that we
must all attend.

And that evening he told us the whole story and the whys and wherefores.
He stood up before us. He had to wear a heated space suit and helmet, of
course, because the temperature in the dome was comfortable for us but
already freezing cold for him and the air was already too thin for him
to breathe. His voice came to us by radio from inside his helmet.

"Children," he said, "you are home. This is Mars, the planet on which
you will spend the rest of your lives. You are Martians, the first
Martians. You have lived five years on Earth and another five in space.
Now you will spend ten years, until you are adults, in this dome,
although toward the end of that time you will be allowed to spend
increasingly long periods outdoors.

"Then you will go forth and make your own homes, live your own lives, as
Martians. You will intermarry and your children will breed true. They
too will be Martians.

"It is time you were told the history of this great experiment of which
each of you is a part."

Then he told us.

Man, he said, had first reached Mars in 1985. It had been uninhabited by
intelligent life (there is plenty of plant life and a few varieties of
non-flying insects) and he had found it by terrestrial standards
uninhabitable. Man could survive on Mars only by living inside glassite
domes and wearing space suits when he went outside of them. Except by
day in the warmer seasons it was too cold for him. The air was too thin
for him to breathe and long exposure to sunlight--less filtered of rays
harmful to him than on Earth because of the lesser atmosphere--could
kill him. The plants were chemically alien to him and he could not eat
them; he had to bring all his food from Earth or grow it in hydroponic
tanks.

* * * * *

For fifty years he had tried to colonize Mars and all his efforts had
failed. Besides this dome which had been built for us there was only one
other outpost, another glassite dome much smaller and less than a mile
away.

It had looked as though mankind could never spread to the other planets
of the solar system besides Earth for of all of them Mars was the least
inhospitable; if he couldn't live here there was no use even trying to
colonize the others.

And then, in 2034, thirty years ago, a brilliant biochemist named
Waymoth had discovered daptine. A miracle drug that worked not on the
animal or person to whom it was given, but on the progeny he conceived
during a limited period of time after inoculation.

It gave his progeny almost limitless adaptability to changing
conditions, provided the changes were made gradually.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

One of Brown's weaker efforts
Fredric Brown wrote some great science fiction. Unfortunately, it does not include Rogue in Space. While I wouldn't be as harsh on this short novel as Mike Smith was (below), I can't honestly give it more than three stars. Except for the settings (Mars, asteroid belt, etc.) this is more of a crime novel than a sci-fi epic. The protagonist, Crag, is an antisocial misfit who hates women and sells his services to the highest bidder. The first half of the book is more interesting than the second, which revolves heavily around Crag's drinking sprees and attempts to get into trouble. And the book's credibility is not enhanced by Brown's often-poor grasp of science -- e.g. two-day trips from Mars to the asteroid belt. Rogue in Space is readable, but well below Brown's two classic SF novels, What Mad Universe and Martians, Go Home.

In the future, not much will happen.
Sigmund Freud would have a field day with this book--any psychology-minded individual would--because it is so loaded with latent homoeroticism and homophobia that it's kind of funny--and definitely awkward.The main character, "Crag," openly hates all women and homosexuals, gets into fights with men that are described almost as dances of violent love, and goes out of his way to tear up gay pornography, threaten gay men, and kick in TVs showing sexually suggestive content.
The author describes men with descriptions that stop just short of abject adoration and seems to have a lot of personal issues to work through, no doubt amplified by the somewhat stifling decade in which he wrote this, the 1950s.
Which is fine.
We've all got issues, so, whatever, but it just makes the finale in which the main character may or may not get the girl--and his alleged yearning for her that precedes that finale--seem a little less than convincing.
I bought this book because it has a great opening description of Albuquerque, New Mexico in the 23rd Century--as a machine-controlled city with a spacemen's district, the 2nd largest city in the solar system, a city where everyone walks around nearly naked (as if the always-nearly-nude local celebrity Don Schrader ultimately has some influence on the rest of the populace), but the story itself is only okay, and kind of lifeless.It has to do with a sympathetic killer being hired to steal a device from Mars, and much of the action takes place on Mars and on a conscious and God-like asteroid that becomes the main character's friend.
Honestly, not too much happens, and the author alternately overdescribes and describes too little, including days of a mostly eventless stay in a hotel, and leading up to what you'd think would be huge scenes that get quickly summarized in a paragraph.
Also, compared to even what life is like today, so much of this book is just not that imaginative--it's basically like the 1950s but with rockets and cities on other planets, different drugs and more open sexuality.I mean, seriously: 200 years in the future and doctors are still smoking as they examine patients?
The writing is only okay, but the book is readable, and will probably go by quickly for you.If you're a resident of New Mexico, consider getting this for its description of our state in the future--but if you're not, I think you could easily find something better. ... Read more

Product Description
A paperback original anthology of stories from the magazine "Unknown." This book had two printings by Pyramid (1963, 1970), and a later edition from HBJ/Jove (1978). Cover art by Schoenherr, interior artwork by Edd Cartier. Foreword by Isaac Asimov, Introduction by the editor. Stories: "The Misguided Halo" (1939) by Henry Kuttner; "Prescience" (1941) Nelson S. Bond; "Yesterday Was Monday" (1941) by Theodore Sturgeon; "The Gnarly Man" (1939) by L. Sprague de Camp; "The Bleak Shore" (1940) by Fritz Leiber; "Trouble With Water" (1939) by H. L. Gold; "Doubled and Redoubled" (1941) by Malcolm Jameson; "When It Was Moonlight" (1940) by Manly Wade Wellman; "Mr. Jinx" (1941) by Fredric Brown and Robert Arthur; "Snulbug" (1941) by Anthony Boucher; "Armageddon" (1941) by Fredric Brown. ... Read more

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Unknown Should Be Better Known
An early casualty to the paper shortage of World War II, Unknown survived for only a few issues.I first read these stories as a teenager, in what seems now to be Early Triassic, and still remember them and even much of the phrasing.If that isn't memorable then what is?Unknown, like Mozart, died young, more's the pity. ... Read more

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Keep Out appeared in the March 1954 issue of Amazing Stories.

With no more room left on Earth, and with Mars hanging up there empty of life, somebody hit on the plan of starting a colony on the Red Planet. It meant changing the habits and physical structure of the immigrants, but that worked out fine. In fact, every possible factor was covered—except one of the flaws of human nature.... ... Read more