BITS & PIECES

 

Openers:  Mother's voice was savage.  "Now I don't want to hear pone more peep from you tonight!"  And she snapped off the light and slammed the door behind her.

For a minute Peter dared not to stir in the bed.  She had waited outside the door to listen.  Then "Remember now!" she called and he heard her go down the hall.

He looked over in the corner.  You could see the Bogey man now, he shone green in the darkness.  The luminous green body uncoiled and faced outward from the wall, hands away from eyes, and stared down at the scattered pieces of Meccano.

Peter was suddenly frightened.  "It wasn't me!  I didn't do it!" he called.  The big green-and-yellow eyes turned toward him.  "No!" he whispered, "It wasn't me..."

-- "The Shipwrecked Bogey Man" by Lloyd Williams (from Out of This World Adventures No. 1, July 1950)

This story is a bit of a riff on John Collier's "Thus I Refute Beezly," which coincidently had been reprinted in Julius Fast's 1944 anthology Out of This World.

Peter's Bogey man is invisible to everyone else.  The following morning all the Meccano building blocks were back in their box in Peter's closet.  Peter's father is just as unhappy with the boy's "imaginary" friend as Peter's mother is; bot feel it is time for Peter to grow up a little bit and accept responsibility.  Another day passes and, in the morning Peter discovers his older brother Jimmy's chemistry set in the closet along with the Meccano box.  Also in his closet are some random parts to a radio and some of Daddy's tools...and Daddy begins complaining very loudly that the radio downstairs is not working...

The original magazine blurb for the story reads :  "There really was a big green bogey man in Peter's bedroom...and nobody would take any notice.  So how could expect a little boy like Peter to keep the monster from making unearthly atomic machines from the toys in the closet?"

I can't say much about the author.  ISFDb has him as the author (1869-1951) of the 1909 fictional German Invasion of England novel The Great Raid:  The Story of Britain's Peril, one of a number of books to follow the template of George Chesney's 1871 book The Battle of Dorking.  But, 't'ain't so, according to writer/critic John Clute, who wrote that "Williams should not be Lloyd Williams (? - ),who published some short stories in the 50s."  I don't think Williams is a house name because he had one story in a different publisher's magazine in 1951.

Out of This World Adventures was a short-lived (two issues) edited by Donald A. Wollheim for Avon books.  Wollheim (1914-1990) was an early science fiction fan. writer, and editor.  He founded the Fantasy Amateur Press Association (FAPA) in 1936 and was a co-founder of The Futurians, a New York-based group of fans who included Frederik Pohl, C. M. Kornbluth, Dirk Wylie, Jon Michel, Richard Wilson, Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight, Robert A. W. Lowndes, Judith Merril and others in 1938.  He became editor of Cosmic Stories and Stirring Science Stories in 1941, using a number of pseudonymous stories from fellow Futurians.  He edited the first anthology to us the words "science fiction" in the title, The Pocket Book of Science Fiction (1943) and the =first true science fiction omnibus, Portable Novels of Science (1945), and the first original science fiction anthology, The Girl with the Hungry Eyes and Other Stories (1949).  From 1947-1952 he worked for Avon Books and edited magazines The Avon Fantasy Reader. The Avon Science Fiction Reader, 10 Story Fantasy, and Out of This World Adventures.  He moved to Ace Books in 1952, publishing the first novels of many now legendary science fiction writers.  In 1972, he founded DAW Books, still one of the most important publishers of science fiction.  Throughout his publishing career, he mixed literate an innovative books with low-brow pulpish titles.  This dichotomy was also very evident in the magazines he edited.

 All of the magazines Wollheim edited for Avon are available online.

Incoming:

• Clifton Adams, The Badge and Harry Cole.  Western.  "As a deputy marshal in lawless Western Arkansas, Harry Cole was well qualified for the job.  He took a passionate pride in the knowledge that he was better at it than almost anybody else.  Cole let nothing interfere with his work:  not friendship or personal loyalties -- nor even the love of his beautiful wife, Cordelia.  As a grand climax to his bloody career as a lawman, he took on the infamous Sutter gang.  Along the way he left a trail of dead men and broken lives.  finally, having lost everything but his badge, he had to make the most bitter choice of his life."  Once and Outlaw.  Western, originally published as by "Matt Kincaid."  "Frank Gavin, railroad trouble-shooter, was headed for the lawless section of the Indian Territory.  Gavin knew he was in for a tough time because his quarry was one of the hill men -- a breed that traveled inn packs. But when the bullet that he expected between his shoulder blades came blazing towards him, Gavin was ready -- with an unexpected trick up his sleeve."  Reckless Men.  western.  The cattlemen were at their wits' ends.  Their grassland was being destroyed by squatters.  As they saw it, there was only one way out -- hire a killer.  The gunman did his work well, usually from a long range with a special rifle -- until one man, driven by desperation, darted to stare down the gun barrel of the man about to pull the trigger."  Shorty. Western.  "With professional thoroughness the marshal searched the ground that the raiders had littered with so much killing.  He was not a squeamish man, and this was not the first time he had seen wanton slaughter and burning, nor was it the first time he had seen a dead mutton puncher in cow country -- nevertheless he was shocked.  For four years he had rested comfortably in the belief that cowmen and sheepmen had learned something from the last bloodletting.  He had been wrong."  Adams wrote over fifty novels, mainly westerns and crime fiction, winning two Spur Awards.  He named Oklahoma Writer of the Year in 1965.  Three of his westerns have been filmed.
• "Jack Adrian," editor, Ashtree Press Macabre, Volumes 1-3.  Weird and supernatural stories.  From 1997 to 2005, Adrian (real name Christopher Lowder) produced a series of annual anthologies of rare short stories for Canadian small-press publisher Ash-Tree Press.  Seven of these anthologies have been released in e-Book omnibuses.  Volume One contains the 16 stories from the 1997, 1998, and 1999 Annuals; Author include Patricia Wentworth, Jessie Douglas Kerruish, Somerset Maugham, Arthur Ransome, Ford Madox Ford, E. C. Bentley, Hillaire Belloc, and John Buchan, among others; Volume Two collects the 2000 and 2001 Annuals, with tales by E. Nesbit, B. M. Coker, Ethel Lina White, E. R. Punshon, S. Baring-Gould, Sax Rohmer, Julian Hawthorne, Marjorie Bowen, F. Tennyson Jesse, Pamela Frankau, Milward Kennedy, Helen Simpson, Leigh Brackett, and others; Volume Three covers  the 2003 and 2004 Annuals, which collected 30 stories from The Cornhill Magazine from 1920-1939.  There are 68 stories in these three volumes, a fantastic bargain.  (The remaining two Ash-Tree Press Annuals, with another 50 stories, are long out of print and not available in electric format.  Pity.)
• Iain Banks (as opposed to his fantastical alter ego, Iain M. Banks), The Steep Approach to Garbadale.  Novel.  "The Wopulds have built their fortune on a board game called Empire! -- now a hugely successful computer game.  so successful, in fact, that a powerful American corporation wants to buy them out.  Young renegade Alban, who has been evading the family clutches for years, has sold most of his shares and resigned from the company.  But his cousin Fielding manages to persuade him to attend the upcoming family gathering -- part birthday celebration, part shareholders' meeting -- convened by Grandma Win, Wopuld matriarch and the most powerful member of the board.  At Garbadale, the family's Scottish Highlands retreat, Alban must confront two painful events from his past:  his ill-fated love affair with his beautiful cousin Sophie and his mother's suicide."
• "George G. Gilman" (Terry Harkness), Adam Steele #19:  The Tarnished Star. Adult western where violence is a way of life.  "Franklin Carter, the local rich man, is as corrupt as they come.  He has plans for Sun City, and he's not about to let an honest, upright newspaperman like Harry Andrews get in his way.  But then Steele rides into town, and Carter has to revise his game plan.  And when the Virginian is joined by Dexler Grace, an ex-lawman with his own bone to pick, Carter knows he's got trouble on his hands.  But he's not too worried; he can hire plenty of help to make sure he comes out on top.  Steele is betting his life that he and a couple of sharpshooters can cut down Carter's mob, but he's not betting it'll be easy..."
• Declan Hughes, All the Dead Voices.  An Ed Loy thriller.  "PI Ed Loy wants to escape his past -- but it won't be easy.  Soon after moving to a Dublin apartment from his childhood home on the city's outskirts, he's approached by Anne Fogarty, whose father was murdered fifteen years ago.  Anne thinks the police nabbed the wrong person, and the three most likely culprits are two ex-IRA men and George Halligan -- Loy's underworld nemesis.  Jack Cullen, one of the other suspects, may somehow be connected with the death o a rising soccer star -- another case Loy is asked to take in.  And as his two investigations collide, Loy finds himself in grave danger in a city divided -- where the wounded Celtic Tiger walks hand in hand with the ghosts of a vi0lent past."
• Richard Laymon, Dark Mountain.  Horror, originally published as Tread Softly by "Riichard Kelly."  "For two families, is was supposed to be relaxing camping trip in the California mountains.  They thought it would be fun to get away from everything for a while.  but they're not alone.  the woods are also home to two terrifying residents who don't take kindly to strangers -- an old hag with unholy powers, ad her hulking son, a half-wild brute with uncontrollable, violent urges.  the campers still need to get away -- but now their lives depend on it!"  Laymon was a massive talent gone far too soon; for reasons I can't understand, he was far more popular in England than in his native America.
• Denise Little, editor, Vengeance Fantastic.  Fantasy/horror anthology with 17 stories.  Martin H. Greenberg's Tekno Books shares the copyright.  "Vengeance is a theme that runs through some of the world's most memorable literature -- and thoughts of revenge have most likely crossed everyone's mind at one time or another.  But what if it was actually within your power to get even with the people who had snubbed you, with someone who'd used dirty tricks to get a job that should have been yours, or someone who had sullied your reputation, or been unfaithful to you?  What if you thought you could right much larger wrongs done by an enemy of humanity itself?  Would you do it?  Just what would you be ready to do?  And would you be willing to pay whatever price gaining that vengeance required?...From a young woman who would betray her own faith to save her people from marauding Vikings...to a goddess willing to pull down the very heavens to bring justice to a god...to a deal struck between Adam and eve and Lucifer himself...to as "woman" who must decided how to rework the threads of life...her are spellbinding tales that will strike a chord with every reader.  But remember, vengeance is only sweet if you don't get caught!"  Authors include Mickey Zucker Reichert, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, P. N. Elrod, Alan Rogers, Jody Lynn Nye, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Mel Odom, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Gary A. Baunbeck, and Tim Waggoner.
• "Andre Norton" (Mary Alice Norton), Dark Piper.  Science fiction,  "The ten-planet war had ended, and Griss Lugard had come home to Beltane, the biological-experimental station in deep, deep space.  He had warned the council of the dangers of peace.  The war had destroyed worlds beyond imagining, and the refugees were sure to come, unerring in their determination to have anew home at any price.  But Griss's warnings had gone unheeded.  Now, deep in an uncharted region of this planet's untamed surface, a small band of survivors must face the dangers of mutant monsters running wild on an empty world gone mad..."  If you are of a certain age, you came to science fiction via Norton or through Robert A. Heinlein...and were the better for it.
• Barbara Roden, editor, Lady Stanhope's Manuscript and Other Supernatural Tales.  Anthology of rare supernatural stories, the first publication from Ash-Tree Press, a small 55-page pamphlet.  The five stories are by Katherine Haynes, Christopher Roden, G. W. Howarth, Dale J. Nelson, and Tina Rath.  Originally conceived as a Christmas collection for members of the Ghost Story Society.
• Paul Tremblay, Disappearance at Devil's Rock.  Horror, winner of the 2017 August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel.  "thirteen-year-old Tommy Sanderson is missing.  Elizabeth and her young daughter, Kate, struggle to comprehend her son's disappearance.  The police have no leads.  Tommy's two friends may not be telling the whole truth about the night they were hanging out in Borderland State Park, near the landmark local teens call Devil's Rock, before he vanished.  Strange events follow.  Elizabeth believes she sees Tommy's ghost in her bedroom.  Kate and other residents claim a figure peers trough their windows at bight.  Random pages torn from Tommy's journal mysteriously appear, revealing an introverted teenager obsessed with the phantasmagoric; the loss of his father, killed in a drunk-driving accident a decade earlier; a folktale involving the devil and the Borderland woods; and a horrific incident that Tommy believed connected them all,  As the search grows more desperate, and the implications of what happened become more sinister, no one is prepared for the shocking truth about Tommy's disappearance at Devil's Rock."
• Yrsa Sigurdardotter, Last Rituals.  Icelandic suspense novel, the first featuring Thora Gudmundsdottir.  "Ay a university in Reykjavik, the body of a young German student is discovered, his eyes cut out and strange symbols carved into his chest.  Police waste no time in making an arrest, but the victim's family isn't convinced that the right man is in custody.  They ask Thora Gudmundsdottir, an attorney and single mother of two, to investigate.  It isn't long before Thora and her associate, Matthew Reich, uncover the deceased student's obsession with Iceland's grisly history of torture, execution, and witch hunts.  But there are very contemporary horrors hidden in the long, cold shadow of dark traditions.  and for two suddenly endangered investigators, nothing is quite what it seems...and no one can be trusted."  Sigurdardottir has published six novels in the series thus far, and the the author of award-winning crime and children's novels.
• George E. Simpson & Neal R. Burger, Thin Air.  Thriller.  "at the war's end, the men of the USS Sturman were ordered to join hands on the ship's deck, ignorant pawns in a top-secret Navy experiment.  An alarm sounded.  A humming began.  Moments later a common surge of desperate, disoriented terror was felt by every crewman as they watched the ship beneath them, and finally their own bodies, disappear into thin air.  Now, after more than twenty-five years, a man wakes up screaming from a nightmare having 'something to do with the Navy...'  another, hopelessly insane, draws, in a childish scrawl, pictures of figure holding hands...And Naval Investigator Nicholas ?Hammond scratches at the iceberg tip of a complex network of cover-up and deceit, hiding a scientific breakthrough that could save the world...or destroy it."
• Ross Thomas, Ah, Treachery!  Political thriller.  "Millicent Altford is a rainmaker, showering politicos with cash.  Edd "Twodees" Partain is a clerk at Wand Lou's gun shop in Sheridan, Wyoming, until a certain man in a lambswool topcoat pretends not to know him.  Now Edd is heading to L.A.  He's going to help Millicent get back $1.2 million someone stole from her was chest, and that means returning to his former life in a world of spies, counterspies, revolutionaries, thieves, soldiers, and murderers.  From Central America to Beverly Hills, from the CIA to a network of ex-intelligence operatives called VOMIT, the lady's vanished $1.2 million is making some beautiful women and brutal men live up to their reputations and beyond -- and taking treachery to a new level of increased insanity..."  Thomas did this stuff better than almost anyone else.
• Ian Watson, Harlequin.  Gaming tie-on book; A Warhammer 40,000 novel, Book 2 of the Inquisition War.  "By his order Jaq had condemned Mch'lindi to death.  If her death were to be the diversion he required, she was accepting this.  He knew that she wasn't sprayed with an assassin's resistant synskin.  As the captain squeezed his trigger, Jaq threw himself in front of Meh'lindi, howling 'No!'  The the grim darkness of the 4qst millennium, the Inquisition protects mankind from its many enemies, whether foul demons or the inscrutable alien elkdar.  But who will protect humanity if even the Inquisition becomes corrupted?  Inquisitor Jaq Draco and his motley companions find themselves caught in a war that no one can win...unless he can somehow access the ancient secrets hidden in the legendary Black Library."  There have been a gazillion Warhammer books issued, and as with the games, I am unfamiliar with all of them because I have a life (sort of).  I picked this one up solely because of the author.
• Roger Zelazny & Gerald Hausman, Wilderness.  Western.  "In 1808, trapper John Colter ran and climbed 150 miles through what is now Yellowstone National Park to escape pursuing Blackfoot warriors.  in 1823, hunter Hugh Glass, left for dead after a bear attack, crawled 100 miles from the Grand Valley to the Missouri River.  Tortured in mind and body, these two men came to embody the spirit of survival.  Finally we have their story -- an epic saga, stirring as the wilderness itself, bold as these people who came west to tame it." 

From My FaceBook Page from 13 Years Ago:

Alas, alas, my bride is lost to me for the next day or so.

😞

Dhamn yhou, J. R. Ward!

Today's Headline, April 1, 2024:

Florida Sinks Under Weight of Waffles

The State of Florida has unexpectedly sunk into the Atlantic Ocean from the weight of too many Waffle Houses, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAH) said today.  "We knew it was going to happen sometime in the future," said spokesperson Mulvaney Quod, "but we just did not expect it to happen this soon.  The state had just to many Waffle Houses and the severe weight of the food franchise was just too much to carry, especially after two additional Waffle Houses opened yesterday, both in Stagnant Springs, a small town on the state's Panhandle."

Florida's total Waffle House population rose to 93,780 with the opening of the two additional restaurants.  "It was just too much.  Too much!" Quod said.  "It was a race against the rising seas due to climate change, or the heavy weight of all those Waffle Houses, and the waffles won."  Some scientists have speculated that the state's additional burden of Buckee's travel stops, Dollar Tree stores, and Tom Thumb convenient stores may have added to the final catastrophe.

The U.S. Coast estimates that only 37 Floridians survived the sinking.  "It all happened so fast!"  Speaking from a safe location in Alabama, Florida surgeon General Joseph Ladapo credited Florida's strict anti-vaccination laws for saving at least 6 of the 37 survivors.  "We know thos esix had not been vaccination.  Vaccines are known to add a disturbing amount of weight to fat cells in the human body, causing them to sink faster.  That's science," Ladapo said.  when asked about the 31 survivors who had been vaccinated, Lapado said, "Yeah, well, our studies have shown that persons who have been vaccinated grow monkey tails.  Who wants to go swimming with a monkey tail?  That's science."  He refused to comment further.

It is not known whether there will be any efforts to try to raise the state out of the water at this time.  In the meantime, in order to help the survivors, a Denny's restaurant had been loaded onto a barge which will cruise over the area where the state had been,

9 Outrageous Pranks in History:  Not mentioned here was when a local Boston television station reported that a volcano had erupted in the Blue Hills section of Eastern Massachusetts, a prank I remember well.

https://www.history.com/news/april-fools-day-greatest-prankshttps://www.history.com/news/april-fools-day-greatest-pranks

Florida Man:

• The ancient scourge of leprosy is thankfully rare in this day nd age  and, while the numbers are small, there has been a sharp uptick in the disease in America, with one out of five cases now being found in Florida and 81% of those cases located in Central Florida.  So what's going on?  First one must understand the leprosy, or Hanson's Disease, is slow moving; it can incubate in a person for decades.  95% of the population has a natural immunity to the disease, which is far more common in other parts of the world and physicians here are apt to overlook the disease's symptoms.  In Florida, it appears that the probable source for the disease in nearly equally divided -- about one-third of the victims appear to have contacted the disease overseas, one-third appear to have contacted it locally in Florida, and it cannot be determined where the other one-third contacted the disease.  One point of possible local transmission is the three-banded armadillo, which is able to transfer the disease to humans, but it is doubtful that this would significantly cause the sudden uptick in the disease.  Leprosy is curable through a treatment of antibiotics taken over the course of a few years, but the cure may not resolve nerve and skin damage due to delayed diagnosis.  There is no vaccine for leprosy.  So why Florida?  Is it just a coincidence that this leprosy endemic follows a sharp rise in polio cases in the state due to the anti-vaccination policies of Florida Man and state Surgeon General Joseph Lapado, who insists that unvaccinated children be allowed in public schools?  Can the carefully formulated distrust of the medical system as promulgated by the current state administration have a bearing?  And could Florida's harsh anti-immigration stance result in an avoidance of timely medical assistance by those who fear the government's outreach?  Florida's anti-woke, anti DEI, anti-CRE policies may have much to answer for their insistence that "uncomfortable" scientific and historical facts should (and must) be avoided may also come into play here.  None of this accounts for the fact that many of the cases that have now arisen appear to have originated as much as 20 years ago.  But it does raise a lot of questions.
• Florida Man Terry "Wheezy" Flowers, 39, was arrested after he allegedly fired upon an unidentified man on March 6 outside a Pompano Beach convenience store.  the victim was fatally shot five times.  Store security cameras recorded the incident, including an unnamed person with the accused picking up the spent shell casing that Flowers had fired.  The shooting was apparently over a $3 debt.  Pompano Beach has been ranked one of the most dangerous cities in the state.
• When you don't have the tools you need, you use the tools you have.  An unknown Florida man, using a red bandanna to cover his face, was recorded by security cameras using a shopping cart to break into a cell phone repair shop in Hollywood.  It took three hits with the shopping cart to smash the glass window -- causing some $4000 in damages -- so the man could enter the premises, where he foolishly stole some $400 worth international phones.  "He's not even gonna make any money of of it," the shop owner said.  "They don't even work here."
• Florida Man Doujoin Griffiths, 23, who had been wanted since Septemer 2021 murder of his 20-year-old Massania Malcolm and her one-year-old daughter, Jordania Reid Griffiths, was arrested this past week in New Jersey.  Griffiths was also wanted for the attempted murder of Jordfane Reid, who was identified as Malcolm's boyfriend and the father of Jordania.  Griffiths was accused of shooting Malcolm and leaving the baby in a hot car with the body of her mother.  Nice guy.
• An unnamed 36-year-old Florida man from Ozona has been arrested and charged with animal cruelty.  According to officials, the man had agreed to watch seven cats for a friend, but got tired of cat-sitting after as week and a half.  So he put five of the cats in a small plastic bin and the remaining two in a small suitcase and dropped them off at an ASPCA shelter in Largo.  All seven animals were alive when placed in the container and the suitcase; when ASPCA opened the container and the suitcase, they found five of the cats dead; a sixth had to be euthanized; and the seventh had an internal body temperature of 106 degrees Fahrenheit.

Good News:

• "Exhausted" immune cells could be the next target in searching for a way to prevent breast cancer       https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/exhausted-immune-cells-could-be-new-target-for-preventing-breast-cancer/
• 8-year-old boy becomes the youngest ever to beat a chess Grand Master      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/8-year-old-boy-becomes-youngest-player-to-beat-a-chess-grandmaster-i-felt-amazing/
• Thousands donated to the animal shelter where Jon Stuart adopted his beloved dog Dipper, who recently died at age 12        https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/60000-donated-to-animal-shelter-where-jon-stewart-adopted-his-beloved-dog-recently-passed/
• Woman given new 3D-printed windpipe       https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/woman-given-new-3d-printed-windpipe-in-world-frist/
• Moscow teens save over 100 in terrorist attack on music venue      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/moscow-teens-saved-over-100-from-attack-on-crocus-city-hall/
• Greek Archaeologists use The Iliad to locate 10 ancient shipwrecks       https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/greek-archaeologists-use-the-iliad-as-a-map-to-find-10-ancient-shipwrecks/
• The 2024 European Tree of the Year has been growing in Poland for over 200 years        https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/witness-the-glory-of-the-2024-european-tree-of-the-year-from-poland/

Today's Poem:

A Sibling's Favorite Day

I have a brother

He is sweet and amazing...most of the time.

There is a day in April when he transforms into a holy terror.

This day is known as April Fools Day.

My brother wakes up at the crack of dawn, devious plots already formed.

He frolics about the house, putting tape in doorways, dirt in shoes, and

much worse.

Every time I think I've found all his traps, another one miraculously

appears.

Oh, how I fear this day.

Oh, how he anticipates this day.

Oh, how do I stop this oncoming slaughter?

-- Clover Miller