HAPPY BIRTHDAY, J. D. SOUTHER!

 John David Souther (1945-2024) was "a principal architect of the Southern California sound and a major influence on a generation of songwriters."  He wrote and co-wrote songs recorded by such artists as Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Christopher Cross, Dan Fogleberg, Roy Orbison, and The Eagles.  He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2013.

"Closing Time"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGsNCBJ8RrU&list=PLAihpSSSuB2k2K1-uUl4FEJRVn7bDCSZs&index=5

"You're Only Lonely"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSvfuchi5C0&list=PLAihpSSSuB2k2K1-uUl4FEJRVn7bDCSZs&index=3

"Southern Cross" (with the /Coral Reefer Band)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCfjRMC7HfE

"Fountain of Sorrow"  (with Jackson Brown)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHljmLUEk9o

"Hearts Against the Wind"  (with Linda Ronstadt)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEdxpDViqg

"Her Town Too"  (with James Taylor)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEdxpDViqg

"White Rythm and Blues"  (with Phil Everly)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMyrS32octk

"Prisoner in Disguise"  (with Linda Ronstadt)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV3c1CJNUXY

"The Last in Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGA6Nr7hCpQ

And here are some of the songs he wrote for The Eagles:

"Best of Your Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VDuTGJ_ZQI

"James Dean"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5XYho0Qer4

"New Kid in Town"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fW2rw8SwoA

"Doolin-Dalton"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L4qBm8LrIc

"Heartache Tonight"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBte_o5JpJA

HYMN TIME

 Sons of the Pioneers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kqOP5sSBsI&list=OLAK5uy_mCgU4RbjP--UN8VUoOubRGcoJl3IVxhM8

SKELETON HAND in SECRETS OF THE SUPERNATURAL #1 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1952)

It's Halloween, so let's take a look at a rare horror comic book.  How rare?  A near-mint copy of issue #1 reportedly sold for $1,399.  Skeleton Hand in Secrets of the Supernatural was a six-issue title published by American Comics Group from late 1952 to mid-1953; other titles from this publisher included the  much longer lasting Adventures in the Unknown [the first continuous horror-genre comic book; 174 issues],and Forbidden Worlds [145 issues].

This issue contains four main stories:

• "Deathless Immortal" -- "To live forever -- that is the dream of many men, both good and evil!"  Using the power of Black Magic, Largo the stage magician nearly succeeded.  In order to stave off the demons from hell eager for his soul, Largo hypnotizes beautiful dancer Martha Starr to steal her youth -- don't ask.  You know that Largo will get his comeuppance and the winged demons will take him to a place of eternal torture, because even in the realm of the supernatural -- CRIME DOES NOT PAY!
• "Sea of Retribution" -- "James Simon was a smart operator!"  Yes, Simon was going to prison for a few years for selling defective steel plates to shipyards, but when he gets out, he'll have all that lovely cash he had hoarded to keep him cozy for the rest of his life.  what he did not count on was the stranger in ancient garb who came to his cell and released him, taking him through the prison gate to freedom.  The stranger is the ghost of John Paul Jones, and he has brought Simon to one of the Navy ghost ships that sank because of the defective steel Simon had sold.  The crew of that doomed ship is there also...and they are pissed.
• "Death for Hire" -- ""Craig Shultz was dead -- the electric chair had seen to that!"  But there's dead...and there's dead.  Shultz's mobster boss hires a little "professor" to bring Shultz back from the dead, as a zombie!  Zombie Schultz is sent to kill a pesky senator,  but can you really trust a brainless zombie to do a job properly?
• "Monster of the Deep" -- "Ancient epics and sagas are fill with descriptions of horrible monsters that preyed om humans -- but the most awful of all was SCYLLA, the dread monster of the Straits of Messina!"  In this brief tale. a small Italian fishing boat is taken over by a Soviet submarine; the Soviets want to use the boat to take them to shore so they can distribute funds to Communist saboteurs.  But the boat takes them close to Scylla, who, as much as the monster likes to prey on humans, it likes to prey on Communists even more.

Also included are a brief text story, "The Ghost of Company C", and a brief one-page nothing-burger of a horror story, "The Corpse Under the Carpet."

Not the scariest comic book on earth, but perfectly suited for Halloween, which, -- after all -- tends to cater to predictable thrills.  The artwork of okay, but nothing really great, although I found the portrayal of Scylla to be abysmal.  (**sigh**)

Check it out.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=18915

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy Through 1968, compiled by Donald H. Tuck, in three volumes -- Volume 1: Who's Who, A-L (1974); Volume 2: Who's Who, M-Z (1978); Volume 3:  Miscellaneous (1983)

Science fiction fans are notoriously obsessive, and in the period from the mid-1950s to 1980, perhaps none were more so than Tasmanian industrial manager and bibliographer than Donald H. Tuck (1922-2010).

Shortly after the founding of the first "scientifiction" magazine, Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories, in 1926, young readers began communicating with one another, discussing stories and favorite authors, and joining together to form clubs.  The first science fiction bibliography was a flawed and incomplete pamphlet, appropriately titled Science Fiction Bibliography (1935), published by the US fan group The Science Fiction Syndicate; a similar UK project, British Science-Fiction Bibliography, edited by Douglas W F Mayer for the Science Fiction Association appeared in 1937.  a yet-unpublished bibliography by Ben Abramslon formed the basis of J. O. Bailey's ground-breaking Pilgrims Through Space and Time:  Trends and Patterns in Scientific Utopian Fiction (1949); Abrahamson later self-published his checklist, albeit in a truncated form.  (Abramson, BTW, also published the first edition of Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature.)

The first truly important bibliography of the field was E. F. Bleiler's The Checklist of Fantastic Literature:  A Bibliography of Fantasy, Weird, and Science Fiction Books Published in the English Language (1948).  Bleiler did not differentiate between science fiction and fantasy, and included mainstream authors often overlooked by most science fiction fans, and gave no indication of the content of the books listed.  Despite this, and despite a number of errors, the book remained a pivotal resource for the science fiction fan.  Bradford M. Day added another 3000 titles to Bleiler's tome with his The Supplemental Checklist of Fantastic Literature in 1963.  Another important resource was Joseph H. Crawford's "333":  A Bibliography of the Science-Fantasy Novel (1953), which despite being limited to the titular number has proved to be quite valuable.

The stage was then set for Tuck's first bibliography, the self-published A Handbook of Science Fiction and Fantasy (1954; revised and enlarged to two volumes, 1959 -- the revised edition garnering a Special Award from the 1962 Worldcon).  The 400-page 1959 edition contained mush information that had never been previously compiled, and it cleared the path for Tuck's far more ambitious Encyclopedia, whose first volume appeared fifteen years later. 

For much of his bibiliographies, Tuck relied on a world-wide web of science fiction fans, researchers, and correspondent, including Ron Graham (Sidney, Australia), Douglas Harding (Winnepeg, Canada), Dr. Remson T. Schenk (Bangor, Pennsylvania), Piere Versins (Lausanne, Switzerland), Antonio Dupla (Zaragoza, Spain), Jakob Bleymehl (the Saar), Heinz Bingenheimer and family (Berlin), Manfred Alex (Berlin), Franz Rottenstteiner (Austria), Sqam Lundwell, Roland Adlerberth, and Sture Sedolin (all of Sweden), Norio Itoh, Takumi Shibano, and Koichiro A  Noda (all of Tokyo), T. G. L. Cockcroft (Lower Hutt, New Zealand) John C. Nitka (Richmond Hill, New Jersey), Mark Owings (Bronx, New York), Robert Reginald (San Bernardino, California), Roy Hunt (Denver, Colorado), and many others, including editors and writers such as Ted Carnell (London), Forest J. Ackerman, Anthony Boucher, Robert Briney, Basil Davenport, August Derleth, Henry Eichner, Philip Harbottle, and Earl Kemp, as well as many of the reference books mentioned above, plus Donald B. Day's Index to the Science Fiction Magazines (1952).  

As can be seen, Tuck managed to garner a wide range of international support for this project.  And, as with any project of this scope, a few errors of omission and in fact and opinion managed to sneak in.  Still, the scope of the work remains incredible.

Over the years, much of the information has been supplanted and added to by such online resources as ISFDb, the FictionMags Index, and The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and The Encyclopedia of Fantasy.  Yet, Tuck's Encyclopedia remains a valuable source of information, and has set a template for others to follow.

Volume 1 contains of 286 pages of double column text covering authors from "Anthony Abbott" to Lord Lytton.  Most entries detail first editions (hardcover, paperback, and English language foreign), with brief description of the works and contents of collections and anthologies; where possible, a description of the author's biography is included.

Volume 2 does the same in 188 pages for authors from J. Cecil Maby (whose 1933 collection By Stygian Waters I'm still trying to locate) to Czech author Stanley Zuber, with an additional 52 pages listing all the books covering in the first two volumes alphabetically.

Volume 3 covers various miscellaneous topics over 389 pages -- Magazines (listings of all known issues, including notable fiction), from A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, to the German publication Zauberkreis SF; Paperbacks, 96 pages, listed by author, from Edwin Abbott's Flatland to Albert Zugsmith & Robert Hill's The Private Lives of Adam and Eve; Paperback Publishers, 74 pages listing all covered books from publishers from Ace Books to A. Zwemmer, Ltd., plus an additional three pagers of "Ephemerals"; Paperback Titles, 37 pages, listing titles from A for Andromeda (Fred Hoyle & John Elliot) to The Zolotov Affair (Robert H. Rimmer); Pseudonyms:  31 pages, listing first, "Pseudonyms/Real Names' ("A., D. E." - M. Dominick to "Zweig, Allen" - Frederik Pohl [fan pseud.]), then "Real Names/Pseudonyms" (Aarons, Edward S. - "Edward Ronns)" to Zinberg, Leonard S. - "Ed Lacy"); Series, Connected Stories, and Sequels: 11 pages (for sories within a given series, the reader is directed to the authors' listings in the first two volumes; i.e., for the "AAA Ace Interplanetary Decontamination" series, see Robert Sheckley's listing); General Selected Material, not necessarily covered elsewhere, including definitions, organizations, publishers, various international publications, an incomplete list of SF and fantasy films, and a listing of selections from the Science Fiction Book Club).

Phew!

I purchased the first two volumes of Tuck's Encyclopedia nearly fifty years ago, and have been using on a regular basis ever since (the third volume had not been ;published then, and I never went back to pick it up.  The binding on my copies is long gone, as is the duct I used to hold the volumes together.  The pages are loose and covered with copious notes and updates, much of which is faded.  But today is my birthday (Yay, me!) and I now entire my 90th decade on this planet (Double yay, me!), so as a birthday treat to myself, I managed to locate pristine copies of all three volumes.

I optimistically look forward to another fifty years of treating myself to these books.

NIGEL KNEALE'S "THE ROAD" (APRIL 27, 2018)

Nigel Kneale (1922-2006), the legendary Manx screenwriter and author, may be best known for creating Professor Bernard Quatermass in 1953 for the BBC, a character who "helped invent popular TV."  A year earlier, Michael Barry was appointed the Head of Drama for BBC Television and Barry spent his entire first year budget hiring Kneale to become his main writer.  In addition to the Quatermass trilogy, Kneale penned such critically acclaimed shows as The Road, The Stone Tape, and The Year of the Sex Olympics (all three scripts were included in the rare and highly collectible The Year of the Sex Olympics and Other Television Plays, 1976), as well as the films Look Back in Anger, The Entertainer, and H.M.S. Defiant.  His short story collection, Tomato Cain and Other Stories (1949), won the Somerset Maugham Award.  [SIDE NOTE:  A fantastic collection; if you have a chance to read it, do so; you can thank me later)

The original 1973 television recording of "The Road" is lost, but a 2018 adaptation by Toby Hadoke, and starring Mark Gatiss and Adrian Scarborough, was directed by Charlotte Riches.

Gatiss and Scarborough "star as a philosopher and a scientist investigating ghostly outbreaks in a country wood in 1768.  Neither is quite prepared for the shocking truth that they uncover."

Here's a tale that will add to your Halloween week thrills, and perhaps send a quiver up your bones.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRr32PYrFIg

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY REDUX: RISEN FROM THE GRAVE

 This first appeared on the blog on October 26, 2013.

Erin Roof is eleven years old and in the sixth grade.  Erin likes reading, every type of animal, playing the flute, and soccer.  This summer she built her own boat and got her Captain's license.  She has a great giggle.

RISEN FROM THE GRAVE

by Erin Roof

It was a dark and stormy night.  (I know, how original, right?)

I'm Rosie.  I'm 11 years old.  Last Halloween I was going trick-or-treating with my dad and little brother.  That was the night my life turned upside-down.

Duh duh duuuuuuhhhh...

"Come on, Dad, come on, let's go!" I said impatiently.  I was pacing in front of the door.  "Are you ready yet?"

"Calm down," my dad said.  He told me that a lot.  He was very serious, with short brown hair and green eyes.  He was dressed as Superman for Halloween this year.  He has this theme where he's a new superhero every year.  Last year, he was Batman.  The year before that, he was the Incredible Hulk.  You get the idea.

Anyway, Dad was helping my little brother, George, get into his dinosaur costume.  George loves dinos, so it's no surprise when he shouts, "I want to be a dinosaur!  Roar!" every single year.  He's been a dinosaur for all six years of his life.  We just paint the costume different colors.  This year it was red.  George was trying not to let his bangs stick out of his dino hat, but he was having no luck.

I was a tree this year.  I love nature, so every year I'm something from the great outdoors.  Last year, I was a rock.  I like this costume better.

Finally, FINALL, dad finished with George's costume.  "Ok, ok, come on," he said.  "Are you sure you still want to go out?  It's raining pretty hard."

"Yes, Dad, we have to. It's Halloween, COME ON!"  I exclaimed. I pushed him out the door and took George's hand.  Then we walked into the night.

A lot of houses didn't have lights on.  I didn't care.  I just went farther than usual to get candy.  We didn't see any other trick-or-treaters, which was understandable, since it was storming badly.

"Rosie, are we done yet?  George is getting tired," Dad said.  He was carrying George now, and they were both panting heavily.

"Just one more street, Dad.  Please?"  I asked.  "Then we'll go right back."

"Do you even know where we are?" Dad asked.  

"Of course," I replied.

We turned up the next street.  There was only one light on, at the very end of the road.  We hurried to the house.

It was a huge, old, Victorian-style house.  It was ancient too, with peeling paint and shattered windows.  But the light was on.  I knocked on the door.

We heard footsteps coming towards the door.  I held my breath, wondering about the people who lived here.  Were they as ancient as the house?

The door opened, and an old woman emerged.  She had knotted gray hair, as if it hadn't been brushed in a year.  Her hands were wrinkled, her fingers long and thin.  When she opened her mouth, there were exactly two moldy yellow teeth.

"Why, hello there!" the woman said.  "How nice to see you!  You're the first trick-or-treaters all night!  Why don't you come in for a while?"

I didn't have the courage to say yes.  Or no.  Instead, I screamed and ran, my dad and brother fleeing after me.

We stopped running when we were hopelessly lost.

"Dad, who was that?  Do you know her?" I questioned.

"No idea...don't have a clue," he panted.

"Do you know how to get home?"

"Still...no idea."

Our candy was getting soaked, so George and I left it on the side of the road.  It was really storming now, with thunder and lightning.  I knew we had to get home fast.

But then, something caught my eye.

"Dad, look, the graveyard!  Remember. where Grandpa Bartholomew was buried?  Don't they always have people guarding it?  They can help us get home!"

"Are you sure?" Dad asked. He was breathing normally now.

"Yes, come on!  We have to get home!" I exclaimed.  I dragged my family into yet another bad plan.

The cemetery was just another normal graveyard, with the occasional tree or bush, and lots of graves.  Grandpa Bartholomew's grave was a big stone that said, "Bartholomew Smith, June 1908-June 2009."  He lived exactly 101 years, which I thought was impressive.

"Here we are," I said.  "Now where are the guards?"

"Maybe it's too wet, George said.  Helpful, right?

Suddenly a big clap of thunder shook the ground.  Lightning shot out of the sky and struck Grandpa's grave.  The stone began to tremble, harder and harder, until something stepped out of the grave.

The figure was see-through, pale, and the air around it was freezing cold.  When I turned around, I gasped in shock.  I knew that face.  It was...

"Grandpa Bartholomew?!?!" I exclaimed.  I was cared out of my mind.  But I was frozen in shock.

"Hello Rosie.  You've grown," my grandpa said.  His voice was like nails on a chalkboard.  "And George.  How cute."

"Ummm..."  I was trying to get my thoughts straight.  "Aren't you like, dead or something?"

"Yes.  Thank you for noticing.  But since lightning struck my grave, I was awakened.  Now I am a ghost.  And I will be, until someone figures out how to put me back!  Mwaa-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

That laugh got me.  I unfroze myself and screamed, "Run!"

But poor George wasn't fast enough.  When his little legs started working, Grandpa lunged forward and caught my brother by the leg.  As soon as Grandpa's ghostly fingers touched him, George disappeared!

"Grandpa!  What did you do?  Where did he go?"  I shrieked.

"Little dino man is a ghost now!  He knows how it feels!"

I heard George scream.  Then I heard his footsteps running away in fright.

"Rosie.  Run.  NOW," my dad commanded.  We both [printed down the street, followed by my invisible brother.

That night, I lay on my bed in defeat.

We searched for George for hours.  But no luck.  He was invisible.  Finding him would be nearly impossible.

I never thought I'd get to sleep.  But I closed my eyes and drifted off.

The next thing I knew, I was being shaken awake by my dad.  "Come on.  Got to go to school."

I was immediately awake.  "Umm...in case you haven't noticed, George is now an invisible ghost, and is currently running around town screaming his head off.  And you want me to go to school?"

Dad nodded cheerfully.  "Yup.  Pretty much."  I realized he was trying to stay positive.

"Fine," I grumbled.  I dragged myself out of bed.

I got ready for school.  I walked to my bus stop.  My friends came too, but I ignored them.  I was looking for my brother.

The  bus came, I got on, we went to school, yadda, yadda, yadda.  It all came in a blur.  But when I was in math, staring at my test, I heard a whisper, "Rosie!"

I looked around.  Who was whispering my name?  "Rosie!"

Suddenly I recognized the voice.  George!

"Um, Mr. Eraser?"  I'm not kidding, that was his name.  "I have to puke, so..."

"Go, go!" Mr. Eraser commanded.

I got up and ran lout of the room.  I heard footsteps behind me.  "George! Where have you been?"

'Well, I found my way to the school and slept over here.  The cafeteria has really good food."

"George!" I scolded.   "Wait, where are you?"

"Who cares where I am?" George cried.  "Am I ever going to be normal again?  I'm still in my dinosaur costume because I can't get it off!"

"Come here," I said, and felt around until I located him.  I started taking off his costume.  I told him about how long we had searched for him the night before.

"You really did that for me?" he sniffled.

"Yup. Come on, let's go home."

I played with invisible George for the rest of the day.  We played board games, card games, word games, everything.

When dad got home, I told him about what had happened today.  He didn't seem mad that I skipped school.  He just cared about George.

Suddenly, there was a flash of blinding light.  When it dimmed, I could see something...someone standing there.  It was Grandpa Bartholomew.

"Here I am again," he cackled.  "Are you ready to become a ghost like Georgie?"

He lunged for me.  Before I could cry out, my brother leaped in front of me.  Grandpa grabbed George again, and George was visible, back to normal.  I could see him!

George ran.  I fled after him.  I heard Dad coming too.  We ran out the door and into the yard.  We looked for Grandpa, but couldn't find him.

"We need a plan," I gasped, out of breath.

"We can't live like this." Dad agreed.  "But, George, you're back."

We all hugged George in a giant group hug.

"Wait!  I have an idea!" I exclaimed.  "Grandpa's grave was struck by lighting and he came back as a ghost.  So...if he gets struck again, he might go away!"

"Please, anything," Dad said.  "He's been haunting me all day."

"All we need are thunderstorms," I said.  We looked up in the sky.  Dark gray  louds were rolling in.

"Tonight.  At the graveyard.  He'll be there.  I know it."

Waiting was torture.  A minute felt like an hour.  An hour felt like a day.  When it was time to go, it seemed like a year.

We ran to the grave around 6:00 pm.  It was AGES before there was another flash of lightning.  Grandpa Bartholomew appeared in front of us.

"Ha ha!" he laughed.  "Here I am again!  You're so stupid, coming outside in a thunderstorm."

Thunder crackled.  Lightning flashed and shot out of the sky onto Grandpa.  His mouth opened n confusion. Then he dissolved into sparks.

I let out my breath.  I didn't even realize I had been holding it.

"Rosie," dad said, "you saved us!  His ghost will never bother us again!"

Just as he was saying that, lightning struck the grave again, and it started trembling, harder and harder.

Duh duh duuuuuuhhhh

___________________________

UPDATE:  Erin is no longer the cute little eleven-year-old with a great giggle.  She is now a beautiful woman, talented and smart, with a mind of her own.  She can still giggle, but alternates that with knowing smiles and a fierce sense of humor.  I'm not sure if she will forgive for reporting her juvenilia on Halloween week, but I love her anyway.

UNDERAPPRECIATED STINKER: CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH (1986)

Troma Entertainment has been scraping the bottom of the B-movie barrel for 52 years and is now known mainly for its horror comedies, full of violence, sex, gore, laughable monsters, and poor production values.  They are the ones who created The Toxic Avenger, Poultrygeist:  Night of the Chicken Dead, Chopper Chicks in Zombietown, and Surf Nazis Must Die.  The company has had many financial problems, yet they have retained a certain cult status along the way.  You may kick yourself after watching a Troma film, and perhaps hide your head in shame because you enjoyed it in all its cheesy gloriousness,

The Class of Nuke 'Em High may well be the studio's second most successful film, following The Toxic Avenger.  It had our unsuccessful sequels, proving that you can't capture lightning in a bottle more than once.  At one time, it was the highest-selling VHS release for Troma.

Tromaville High School, New Jersey, sits next to a  nuclear power plant.  When a radioactive leak occurs, the plant owner, Mr. Paley, covers it up.  The waste reaches a drinking fountain in the school, killing a student.  Some of the school's honor society, have turned into [psychopaths from the radioactive waste, and form a vicious gang called "The Cretins," and harvest some marijuana affected by the waste.  This has an aphrodisiac effect and one girl, Chrissie, becomes pregnant...but not for long; she spits out a tiny creature into a restroom toilet.  The creature travels through the pipes until it comes to rest on a pile of radioactive sludge.  It grows.  And grows.  There's a killing spree.  And a takeover of the school by The Cretins, who also kidnap Chrissie, planning to kill her in front of her boyfriend.  and there's lasers.  and explosions.  And a lot of characters die.  Although the school is totally destroyed, we learn that it will be closed temporarily for "repairs."

Here's the link.  Try not to watch it with your sainted grandmother.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pakzwaHkEHw

INCOMING...AND A POEM

Incoming:

Yesterday, Open Books, the best used book store in Pensacola, held its annual Fall Book Sale, with thousands of books priced at one dollar.  Because one can never have too many books, I indulged.

• Robert Asprin, Dragons Wild.  Fantasy novel, the first in the Griffen McCandles series.  "a low stakes con man and killer poker player, Griffen McCandles drifted through college, earning himself the nickname 'Grifter.'  Wealthy and attractive, he always took it for granted that they'd be family job waiting for him after graduation.  He just never suspected what his family was...  His mysterious uncle drops the bomb:  Griffen and his sister, Valerie, are dragons -- and almost purebred ones to boot.  Needles to say, once Griffen's 'secondary characteristics' kick in, he'll no longer need a cigarette lighter.  Unwilling to let Uncle Mal take him under his wing, so to speak, Griffen heads to new Orleans with Valerie to make a living the only way he knows how.  And even the criminal underworld of the French Quarter will heat up when Griffen lands in town..."  Asprin wrote one other novel in the series and frequent co-author Jody Lynn Nye completed a third book following Asprin's death; Nye then went on to published her own book in the series in 2013.
• Robert Asprin & Jody Lynn Nye, Class Dis-Mythed.  Humorous fantasy, the sixteenth novel in the MythAdventures, series, and the fourth to be co-authored by Nye.  "After years as a court magician and inter-dimensional hero, Skeeve needed a rest.  So he took some time off to study magik and relax...  A few months later three young female Prevect students show up with a note from Aahz requesting that Skeeve take them on as students and give them a 'practical education'.  Then Massha sent him a friend of hers and Guidos [sic] to tutor, then Chumley sent someone, and before he knew it Skeeve's sabbatical had turned into a teaching job.  After the assassins attack, an unarmed bomb goes off, and a Manticore tries to eat them, the Khlad mage begins to believe there is a lot more going on than just a group of students wanting to learn magic.  There is!  Unknown to him, his students are preparing for a very deadly magical competition and you won't believe where.  Worse yet, it looks like the fix is in and not to the benefit of his students.  Soon Skeeve learns the only way to save his students [sic] lives is for him to risk his own."  Nye went on to co-author three more novels in the series and to write one of her own.
• Kerry Greenwood, Flying Too High.  A Phryne Fisher mystery.  "Walking on the wings of a Tiger Martin plane in full flight would be more than enough excitement for most people, but not for Phryne -- amateur detective and woman of mystery, as delectable as the finest chocolate and as sharp as razor blades.  In fact, the 1920s' most talented and glamorous detective flies even higher here, handling a murder, a kidnapping, and the usual array of beautiful young men with style and consummate ease.  And she does it all before it's time to adjourn to the Queenscliff Hotel for breakfast.  Whether she's flying planes, clearing a friend of homicide charges, or saving a child, Phryne does everything with the same dash and elan with woich she drives her red Hispano-Suiza."
• Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel.  Suspense novel.  "Meet Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, eighty-one years old, gloriously grumpy, fiercely independent, and never without a hot cup of tea -- or a cutting remark.  She minds her own business in her quiet Melbourne suburb, until a neighbor turns up dead and whispers start flying.  Because Elsie hasn't always been Elsie.  Once upon a headline, she was Mad Mabel Waller -- Australia's youngest convicted murderer.  But was she really mad, or just misunderstood?  Either way, she's kept her secret buried for decades.  Enter seven-year-old Persephone, a relentless little chatterbox who has just moved in across the road (armed with stickers, questions, and no sense of personal boundaries); Joan, who appears to have it in for Elsie; and a healthy dose of public interest -- the sops are sniffing around, and the media is circling like seagulls at a picnic.  So Mabel does what she's always done best -- take matters into her own hands.  Is she a cantankerous old lady with a shady past?  A cold-blooded killer with arthritis?  Or just someone who's finally ready to tell her side of the story?  Sharp, surprising, and wickedly funny, this is an unforgettable story of a woman who's spent a lifetime being underestimated -- and is about to prove everyone wrong.  Again."  Winner of the General Fiction Book of the Year. Audio Book of the Year, and the Ned Kelly Award for Best Novel at the 2026 Australian Book industry Awards -- expect many more awards and nominations over the coming months.  The upcoming selection for our family book club.
• Joan Hess, Damsels in Distress.  A Claire Malloy mystery.  "A Renaissance fair is coming to the relatively quiet college town of Farberville, Arkansas, whish is not the sort of news that usually sets local bookseller Claire Malloy's heart racing.  But with Caron, Claire's perpetually petulant teenage daughter, being pulled into volunteering (either that or face the horror with doing homework over the summer) and her fiance, Police Lieutenant Peter Rosen, away, Claire finds herself drawn into the strange inner workings of the group putting on the fair.  But just as Claire decides that her time might be better spent fretting over the details of her upcoming nuptials, one of the volunteers helping with the Ren fair falls victim to arson, her  body found burned in the wreckage of her rented home.  Even stranger, none of the members of the local chapter of the Association for Renaissance Scholarship and Enlightenment (ARSE) -- the group putting on Faberville's first Ren fair -- has ever met the woman in the flesh, and none can provide any information about who she is or where she came from.  However, someone is definitely dead, and the fire looks very suspicious -- but is it murder?"
• Eric Idle, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life:  A Sortabiography.  "The year 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Pythons, and Eric is marking the occasion with his hilarious memoir chock-full of behind-the-scenes stories from a high flying life featuring everyone from Princess Leia to Queen Elizabeth."  The song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," which Idle wrote for Life of Brian, has since become the  number one song played at funerals in the UK.
• Stan Jones, Tundra Kill.  A Nathan Active mystery.  "Nathan Active, a top cop in a swarth of Alaskan tundra larger than fifteen other US states, has been assigned to bodyguard duty for Alaska's celebrity female governor, Helen Mercer, while her husband runs the Isignaq, a 400-mile lsled-dog race through the artic wilderness.  Against his will, Active is suddenly swept into her bizarre family affairs and outsized political ambitions.  And when he connects the death of a local dog sled musher to Mercer, her countermoves threaten to ruin the lives of Active's beloved Grace Palmer and her daughter, Nita.  With his career on the line, Active must outwit the governor and save the people he cares for most before time runs out."
• H. R. F. Keating, Inspector Ghote's First Case.  A prequel to the acclaimed series.  "Newly promoted Inspector Ghote of the Bombay police is thrilled to be granted casual leave until he takes up his post, as it allows him to spend time with his heavily pregnant wife, who is desperate to watch a showing of Hamlet at the cinema.  Their plans are ruined, however, when Sir Rustom Engineer asks Ghote to investigate the suicide of his friend's wife. Worried about his wife's imminent delivery, Ghote nevertheless travels to the home of Mr. Dawkins, where he is unconvinced by the story of Iris Dawkin's death.  Especially when he recognizes the officer in charge, Darrani, who is well known for his closedmindedness.  Ghote investigates further, with a hamlet-esque awareness of how deceiving appearances an be."
• "Lauren Kelly" (Joyce Carol Oates), Blood Mask.  Suspense novel.  "Wealthy, charismatic, and controversial 'benefactress of art' Drewe Hildebrand disappears from her estate on the Hudson River, seemingly abducted in the  night.  Her young niece, Marta, is found in a desolate wooded area close by, too traumatized to describe the kidnappers.  Soon after, a provocative exhibit of avante-garde 'bio-art' is disrupted by protesters -- an exhibit that includes a blood mask of Drewe Hildebrand.  In this, her third suspense novel, Lauren Kelly explores the startling world of private inscrutable motives with public masks of dominance and power, and the ways in which spiritual yearning may be transformed into worldly, erotic appetites that consume the innocent."
• Donna Leon, Through a Glass, Darkly.  A Commissario Brunetti mystery.  "It is a luminous spring day in Venice, as Commissario Brunetti and Inspecttore Vianello take a break from the Questura to come to the rescue of Vianello's friend Marco Ribetti, who has been arrested while protesting against chemical pollution of the Venetian lagoon.  But it is not Marco who has uncovered the guilty secret of the polluting glass factories of the island of Murano, nor he whose body is found dead in front of the furnaces which burn at 1400 degrees, night and day.  The victim has left clues in a copy of Dante and Brunetti must descend into an inferno to discover who is fouling the waters of the lagoon..."
• Archer Mayor, Chat and Open Season.  Joe Gunther novels.  Chat:  "News travels fast in the small state of Vermont.  In this tight-knit society, police officers and investigators proudly maintain a kinship that transcends the boundaries of their jurisdictions.  When an unidentified body is found in the peaceful town of Brattleboro, local police and the Vermont Bureau of investigation both appear at the scene.  But before Investigator Joe Gunther can begin to gather evidence of murder, a family emergency sends him to his hometown, where the lives of his mother and brother have suddenly been threatened.  Gunther reaches out to a network of police officers who know him only by name and reputation as he attempts to discover the source of this imminent danger.  Meanwhile, his investigative team chases an elusive murderer who has no apparent ties to the victim.  In a state that is more like a neighborhood community, secrets are difficult to keep, and it's sometimes impossible to know who can be trusted.  Gunther soon finds himself opposing criminals more menacing than any he has ever encountered in order to save those he holds closest to his heart."  SIGNED COPY.  Open Season:  " In an explosive moment that shakes the town of Brattleboro, Vermont to its roots, Jamie Phillips creeps up top Thelma Reitz's door in the middle of the night, only to have that frightened old lady blow off his bead with a shotgun.  Obviously a setup, thinks Joe Gunther, but the crime soon takes on even more shocking dimensions.  First, Gunther discovers that the shooter and victim were co-jurors on the sensational Harris murder trial three years earlier.  The, several more vicious assaults lead Gunther to suspect that whoever planned Jamie's grisly death won't quit until the Harris affair is reopened, even if it meanskkilling every juror...and the cop on the case."
• Barbara Neely, Blanche Passes Go.  A Blanche White novel.  "Praise the Ancestors!  After three years in Boston Brahmin territory, Blanche White is finally coming home to Farleigh, North Carolina, for an entire summer.  And, like a sign from above that she's indeed headed in the right direction, she's already lined up a date with the handsome train conductor she met somewhere between Boston and Baltimore.  The summer holds lots of promise -- including a long-awaited reunion with her best friend, Ardell, as she helps out with Ardell's bustling new catering business.  Then, like a slap in the face on her first night back, Blanche is reminded of a part of home she's rather forget:  David Palmer, the man who raped her eight years ago and who has tormented her mind and spirit ever since, shows up as a guest at her very first catering event.  The time has come,,,she must exact her revenge so that she can finally move on.  Then a young woman is murdered and there are signs that David Palmer may be involved.  so Blanche sets off on a hunting expedition -- for clues she hopes will finally convict David Palmer and put an end to his legacy once and for all.  While Blanche is busy pursuing all possible leads, there's Thelvin, the train conductor, patiently waiting for her.  Will Blanche's wariness of men prevent her from knowing a good thing when it's staring her smack dab in the face?" 
• Chris Offutt, Shifty Boys.  Southern noir, a Mick Hardin novel.  "Army CID investigator Mick Hardin is on leave in his hometown in the hills of eastern Kentucky, recovering from an IED attack, when a body is found in the center of town.  It's Barney Kissock, the local heroin dealer, and the city police see it as an occupational hazard.   But then Barney's mother, Shifty, asks Mick to take a look, it becomes clear that there's more to the killing than it seems.  Mick should be rehabbing his leg, signing his divorce paper, and getting out of town -- but he keeps on looking, and suddenly he's getting shot at himself.  Meanwhile, Sandra, Linda's dispatcher, has taken a special interest in Mick."
• Thomas E. Sniegoski, Dancing on the Head of a Pin.  A Remy Chandler fantasy.  :Once he was known as the angel Remiel, but generations ago Boston PI Remy Chandler chose to renounce Heaven and live on Earth, where he found a secure place among us ordinary humans...  But now, having lost the love of his life, Remy finds himself turning more and more away from his human friends and his everyday existence.  He's begun to seek out dangerous jobs -- those that involve the supernatural, those that bring him into contact with his past.  Like his latest case:  the theft of a cache of ancient weaponry stolen from a collector who deals in antiquities of a dark and dubious nature.  The weapons, Remy knows, were forged aeons ago and imbued with unimaginable power.  If they fall into the wrong hands, thy could be used to destroy not only eaven but also Earth."
• Paul Tremblay, Survivor Song.  Horror novel.  "In a matter of weeks, Massachusetts has been overrun by an insidious virus that is spread by saliva.  Like rabies, the infection causes confusion, loss of inhibition, terrible hallucinations, and gives rise to hydrophobia -- an aversion to water.  But unlike rabies, the disease has a terrifying incubation period of an hour or less.  Those infected -- both animals and humans -- quickly lose their minds and are driven to bite and infect as many others as they can before they die...or are killed.  As emergency protocols are faltering, rations are being distributed, and the commonwealth is under quarantine and curfew to try to limit the spread of the new virus.  Hospitals are inundated with the sick, and hysteria has taken hold.  Dr. Ramola 'Rams' Sherman, a soft-spoken pediatrician in her mid-thirties, receives a frantic phone call from Natalie, her best friend from college who is due to give birth in a matter of days.  Natalie's husband has been killed -- viciously attacked by an infected neighbor -- and in a failed attempt to save him, Nats, too, was bitten.  Her only chance of survival is to get to a hospital as quickly as possible to receive a rabies vaccine -- and to deliver her child.  No one knowns better than Rams that the clock is ticking for Nats and the baby.  The fight to save their lives becomes a desperate odyssey as these friends make their way through an hostile landscape filled with unexpected dangers beyond their worst nightmares -- terrifying, strange, and sometimes deadly challenges that push them to the brink.  But even if Nats gets the vaccine, will it be too late?"
• Andrew Vachss, Everybody Pays.  Collection of 38 crime stories from a master of the white-knuckle read.
• Martin Walker, Bruno, Chief of Police.  The first of (thus far) nineteen novels about Bruno Courreges, Chief of Police in the French town if St. Denis.  "It's market day in St. Denis, a small town in the Perigord region of south-west France.  The locals are on the alert because inspectors are about to make a 'surprise visit',  hoping to enforce the unpopular and bureaucratic EU hygiene rules.  But for Captain Bruno Courreges, St. Denis' Chief of Police, this particular market day turns into something far more serious.  An old man, head of a local immigrant North African family, is found viciously murdered.  Suspicion falls on the son of the local doctor, but Bruno isn't so certain.  He believes it to be an act of vengeance, with its motive hidden deep in France's divisive Vichy past.  As rumour and mistrust grow, Bruno must look beneath the surface of this normally calm community to find a brutal killer."
• "Patricia Wentworth" (Patricia Wentworth Turnbull), The Chinese Shawl.  A Miss Silver mystery  "At twenty-one, Laura Fane comes into her inheritance and travels to war-torn London to meet with her solicitors.  There she is introduced to her lovely, charming, yet poisonous cousin Tanis Lyle who invites her to the Fane family estate, The Priory, for a house party.  Miss Silver is among the many weekend guests.  Laura also meets Carey Desborough, a wounded R.A.F. pilot, and the two fall deeply in love.  Their happiness is complicated by Miss Agnes Fane, who mistakenly believes that Tanis and Carey are engaged.  Miss Agnes, who brought up Tanis, blindly and bitterly perceives Carey's love for Laura as reminiscent of her own broken engagement to Laura's father twenty-two year earlier,  But there are many hearts that have been broken.  And when Tanis is killed, it becomes apparent that there are several individuals with strong motives for her murder, including Carey Desborough.  Miss Silver offers to assist the police with her astute powers of observation and her keen sense of human nature since she is on the spot.  She strives to find justice and to save the young lovers from the dark shadows of the past, which are haunting them so persistently."
• Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger, Volume III:  My Life After Death.  I'm not even going to try to categorize this one.  "This, the long-awaited third volume of the Cosmic Trigger trilogy includes Wilson's witty and humorous observations about the widely spread (and, happily, premature) announcement of his demise.  And, of course, what Wilson masterpiece would be complete without synchronicities, religious fanatics, UFOs, crop circles, paranoia, pompous scientists, secret societies, high tech, black magic, quantum physics, hoaxes (real and fake), Orson Welles, James Joyce, Carl Sagan, Madonna and the Vagina of Nuit."

Today's Poem:

INVENTORY OF HADES

1.

Statesmen and apothecaries,

Poets, plumbers, antiquaries,

Premiers with their secretaries,

Home and foreign missionaries,

And writers of obituaries.

2.

Mediaeval disputants,

Mystics in perpetual trance,

Philosophers in baggy pants,

Puritans to who the chance

Had never some in life to dance

Save when the dreadful circumstance

Of death removed their maiden aunts.

3.

Scribes with wide phylacteries,

Publicists and Sadducees,

Scholars, saints, and Ph.D.'s.

4.

Doctors, auctioneers and bakers,

Dentists, diplomats and fakirs,

Clergymen and undertakers.

5.

Rich men, poor men, fools and sots,

Logicians, tying shades in knots,

Pagans, Christians, Hottentots,

Deacons good and bad in spots,

Farmers with their Wyandots.

-- from The Witches' Brew by E. J. Pratt, 1925

Edward John Dove Pratt (1882-1964) was a three-time recipient of Canada's Governor General Award for Poetry.  He has been called "the foremost Canadian poet of the first half of the century."   The Witches' Brew was the third of 23 volumes of poetry published during his lifetime.

HYMN TIME

Sam Cooke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaSmjdWEK9E

FANTASTIC FOUR #1 (NOVEMBER 1961)

Let's hop back in time 65 years (has it really been that long?) and meet a new comic book superhero group -- The Fantastic Four -- Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben.

Here's their origin story and their clash with their very first villain...The Moleman!

Enjoy.

https://archive.org/details/ff01_1961/mode/1up

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE ICE-COLD NUDE

The Ice-Cold Nude by Carter Brown, 1962

Now let us sing the praises of Alan Geoffrey Yates (1923-1985), the English-born Australian author who developed a world-wide fan base writing as "Carter Brown."  He was more of a publishing phenomenon than a good writer, and the total number of books he sold may well number in the tens (perhaps hundreds) of millions.  Art Scott has described the Brown books as exhibiting "no pretentions to being other than lightweight, breezy entertainment, to be read in one sitting and forgotten."  Scott goes on:  "The Brown books are indeed formula potboilers, and can be cruelly picked apart on grounds of sloppy plotting, minimal characterization, uninspired prose and, of course, unbelievability (the plots and characters have tended to  become sillier over the years).  Yet the formula has proven consistently popular; this uncanny mix of action, sex, and humor, with its attendant refusal to be taken at all seriously, is escapism pure and simple."

I can personally attest to that.  The Carter Brown novels, which came in a steady stream from Signet Books, helped put me through college; they were far more interesting than many of my classes, and I once tore through five Carter Browns in a single day.  (The other thing that helped me through college was that there three barrooms within walking distance from my dormitory; well, four actually, but the fourth was a rough Mexican bar often cited in the local police report, a place where any student with a lick of sense and a hope for survival avoided.)  Think of the Carter Brown novels as potato chips, or peanuts, or popcorn.

I don't know if there is an actual count of how many books Alan Yates published.  There were at least over 220 Carter Brown books, as well as over 75 novellas, many of which were published separately; Wikipedia gives the count as 322 published Carter Brown novels.  Add to that uncounted western, horror, and science fiction novels under various pseudonyms.  Many l\of the early Carter Browns were published in Australia and England as  by Peter Carter-Brown (or Peter Carter Brown).

And then there were the characters.  Carter created at least fifteen series characters.  The most popular were:

• Al Wheeler, a California homicide detective (52 books, many being reprinted by Stark House, bless them)
• Rick Holman, a Hollywood troubleshooter for the stars (34 books)
• Danny Boyd, a New York private detective (33 books)
• Mavis Seidlitz, a tough and sexy female private eye (12 books)
• Larry Baker, a Hollywood scriptwriter with a perpetually drunk partner (6 books)
• other series detectives were Randy Roberts, Paul Donavan, Andy Kane, Mike Farrell, Mark Jordan, Joe Kahn, Ivor MacCullum, Max Dumas, Greg Ballard, and Carter Stanton.

The Ice-Cold Nude was the twelfth book in the Danny Boyd series.  Boyd is an egotistical (every woman should be falling for his profile; if  not, there's something wrong the the woman) and brutal private eye, the type that often appears the the '30s and '40s pulp detective magazines.

Boyd's normal beat is New York City, but this case brings him to Santo Bahio, California, tasked with finding and returning a one hundred thousand dollar (that's 1962 dollars) diamond tiara.  The tiara has been on display at a posh jeweler's and was intended to be a publicity ploy for a beauty contest sponsored by a plastics manufacturing company -- the winner to be crowned and photographed wearing the tiara.  There were three finalists in the contests and, under heavy security, each was photographed wearing the crown for advance publicity photos.  After the photo session, the tiara was placed back on display, only to be discovered later that it was a fake.  The switch had to have been made during the photo session.

The suspects were the jewelry store owner (Boyd's client), his assistant (who designed the original tiara and is fond of painting naked ladies), the president of the plastics company (a bully philanderer who likes to hit women), his wife (who hates him and constantly strays), the publicity manager for the plastics company (who first suggested using the tiara), the photographer, and the three finalists in the contest, lone of whom is a blackmailing "tramp" with what appears to be mob connections.  Ad o that list, that model's older sister (the only "plain jane" in the book, one of those who, at the end of the movie, releases her hair from a bun and takes off her glasses, and VAVOOM!), and the red-haired  buxom Jeweler's receptionist (who appears to be impervious to Boyd's charms -- what is wrong with her?).

And pretty soon we have a murder.  A naked lady in a shower, no less.  And Danny Boyd's local police nemesis is planning for Danny to take a fall.

And, just for fun, here's two examples of the author's deathless prose:

• Her eyes were moist, like wet olives, a she smile into my face and I felt my crew cut stand up in stiff revulsion.
• I left her still thinking about it, and I could tell she was thinking hard because of the disturbing thought waves that rippled down the front of her orlon sweater.

Reading a Carter Brown book is akin to wallowing in the shallow end of the detective novel pool.  I love it!

Somewhat off subject, but a few things should be mentioned.  A  number of sources, including the St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers states that Yates was also gothic suspense writer "Caroline Farr," who published at least 48 books from 1966 to 1980, 45 of which were published by Signet in the U.S.  Not so.  "Caroline Farr" was a by-line of another prolific Australian author Richard Wilkes-Hunter (1906-1991).

The Yates estate says that he wrote all of his books himself, with the exception of ten books from 1958 when Yates was overseas.  Those were written by C. J. McKenzie, an editor for Yates's Australian publisher, Horwitz.

Stories have circulated that prolific writer Robert Silverberg once wrote four Carter Brown novels while he was client of the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, but the novels were never published.  I've seen no proof of this. but I believe it.

DUFFY'S TAVERN: ARCHIE PROPOSES TO MARIE "THE BODY" McDONALD (APRIL 6, 1945)

Duffy's Tavern, where the elite meet to eat, ran from March 1, 1941 to December 28, 1951 on several radio networks (CBS, 1941-41; NBC Blue, 1942-42; and NBC, 1945-1951), and featured Ed Gardner as Duffy's bartender Archie.  (Gardner had originally created the character as early as November1939 on NBC's Good News for 1940.)  The show was co-created  by Gardner and Abe Burrows, who also served as head writer for the first five years.  In 1949, Gardner moved the show to Puerto Rico, hoping to take advantage of tax  breaks, but many of the high-powered guests stars, who were a main feature of the program, opted not to travel that far, and the program died in 1951.

The show moved to the big screen, once, in 1945, with Paramount Pictures' release of Ed Gardner's Duffy's Tavern, with a line-up of 32 of Paramount's biggest stars playing themselves, including Bing Crosby, Paulette Goddard, Betty Hutton, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Dorothy Lamour, and Robert Benchley.  In 1954, Duffy's Tavern re-emerge as a syndicated television series for 39 episodes.  Because of other commitments, Gardner restricted himself to merely acting in the series.  The show was not a success:  "woefully cookie-cutter in design,"  "TV-sitcom cliches," and "this isn't the same Duffy's Tavern we had known for so many years on the radio."  (an earlier, hour-long version of Duffy's Tavern had been filmed for the All Star Revue series; it was never aired because the sponsor [Pet Evaporated Milk] was a milk company and the barroom conflicted with the company's image.)

For those too young to remember, Marie "The Body" McDonald (1923-1965) was an actress, singer, and popular World War II pin-up girl.  Despite her popularity, her career was hampered by press attention to her romantic life.  She had numerous high-profile romances and seven marriages (including one re-marriage) and once made a questionable claim of being kidnapped by two men and held for ransom.  She died at age 42 from what was deemed to be an accidental "active drug intoxication due to multiple drugs."

In this episode, also known as "Archie Tries to Impress Marie,"  Archie pretends to be an wealthy eccentric to win her heart.  Predictably, things backfire.

Enjoy.

https://archive.org/details/duffys-tavern-205-archie-proposes-to-marie-the-body-mc-donald-04-12-46

A SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY TWOFER, PART 2: THE HOAXTERS

"The Hoaxters" by Richard Wilson (from Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1952; reprinted in the collection Those Idiots from Earth, 1957)

Sam and Alex, lone researchers on a lone asteroid, are bored.  They have already spent three months of their hitch with absolutely no results for their work, which consisted of hand rolling pieces of the asteroid in search of something -- they have note been told what they are looking, or why they are looking for it, or even why they must do the searching by hand rather than by using the technology that is available.  They are bored and feel useless and are homesick.  The asteroid, for all intents and purposes, is devoid of life; the only living thing is a tiny one-celled organism that buries itself deep within the asteroid, presumably feeding on some element in the soil -- Sam and Alex called the organisms "vizzies," for "invisibles."

Every day for the past three months, they have been broadcasting their results to Earth, always with the dame four words:  "All well. Progress nil."  Then, because he was bored, Alex want to change the daily message to:  "All well.  Progress...Break for urgent.  S.O.S.  Research Station Nineteen.  Attack on station  by alien life form from coordinates zero four eight x two seven.  Request patrol craft blast spot as own armament ineffective."  Sometime boredom needs  some excitement to break things up.  Sam was reluctant, feeling that Alex's scenario (which postulated an attack by one of Jupiter's patrol ship) would blow up in their faces.  He suggested an attack by the vizzies, rising from the ground in some sort of migratory pattern and forming an unspecified multi-cellular threat.  That sounded even better to Alex.

Not only did the patrol come and leave an o-bomb crater a quarter of  mile wide, but they were followed by reporters covering the event.  

The two managed to pull off their hoax,  but soon they got bored again, and like the boy who cried wolf...

And now officials began to consider the "attacks" to be "problematical."  Although official reports backed up Sam and Alex's story, in private the patrol and the corporation just did not believe them.

And then Sam and Alex learned that they really did not known anything about the vizzies...

A cute story about man-made hysteria and its consequences, although this time with a redeeming ending.

Richard Wilson (1920-1987) was a journalist and long-time news director.  A founder of the legendary science fiction group The Futurians in the 1930s, He was the author of some 120 short stories and three well-regarded satirical science fiction novels.  Wilson was instrumental in having prominent science fiction authors donate their papers to the George Arents Research Library of Syracuse University, now acknowledged as "the most important collection of science fiction manuscripts and papers in the world."  Wilson received  Nebula Award in 1968 for his novellette "Mother to the World," and tow other of his stories have been nominated for Nebula Awards.  "In his later years, Wilson reportedly made it clear to colleagues that he remained too content in his professional life to continue seriously in a writing career."  [John Clute]  His writing was marked by a polished professionalism, often with a gentle satiric and humorous edge.   One can do far worse than seek out his writing.

A SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY TWOFER, PART 1 : THE SERPENT

 THE SERPENT

 THE SERPENT

Three boys were playing together in a field; and as they played, one passing by called to them:  "Beware!  in the corner of that field is a poisonous serpent, whose bite is death."

"Alas!" said one child.  "How terrible, to think that anything evil should be in a place so lovely.  Let me flee from it!" and he wept, and ran from the place.

"Why," said the second child, "should such a thing be here?  what is the reason of it?"  and he found himself a safe place, and sat down to ponder on the matter.

The third child picked up a stone.  "Show it to me!" he said.

-- Laura E. Richards, The Silver Crown:  Another Book of Fables, 1906

Laura Elizabeth (Howe) Richards (1850-1943) was the daughter of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, an abolitionist and the founder of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind, and of Julia Ward Hlowe, who wrote the lyrics for "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."  She was a pre-kindergarten- to-second-grade elementary schoolteacher in Gardiner, Maine.  She published some ninety books during her lifetime, including biographies, poetry, and children's books.  Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910, a biography she co-wrote with her sisters, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1917.  Her children's book, Tirra Lirra:  Rhymes New and Old, won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1959.  Among her best-known books was Captain January, 1891, which was made into a Shirley Temple movie in 1936.  One lof her most popular poems for children was "Elephony," 1932 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJVSDAdxpNc).

OVERLOOKED FILM: THE STRANGE CASE Of DR. Rx (1942)

From IMDb:  "A mysterious vigilante known as 'Dr. X' strikes again.  Assigned to the case is private detective Jerry Church but the crimes are baffling and involve strangulation and a possible attempt to implant a gorilla's brain into a human body."  Don't you just hate when they try that?

Featuring Patric Knowles (The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Wolf Man, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man) as the detective and Lionel Atwood (who ended his career by frequently playing criminal doctors or mad scientists in low budget B-movies).  The two are abetted by Anne Gwynne (House of Frankenstein, Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome, Arson, Inc.), Samuel S. Hinds (It's a Wonderful Life, You Can't Take It with You, Scarlet Street), and Mona Barrie (Something to Sing About, Skylark, Cairo).  Throw in appearance from Shemp Howard, Mantan Morland, and an uncredited Ray "Crash" Corrigan (in one of his early gorilla suits as Nbongo the gorilla) and you have a campy low-budget wonder.

Directed by William Nigh (Rose of the Rio Grande, Mr. Wong in Chinatown, Lady from Chungking) and scripted by Clarence Upson Young (Madame Spy, Night Monster, The Ghost That Walks Alone), from a story by Alex Gottlieb (Mystery of the White Room, Susan Slept Here, and the creator of the television shows Dear Phoebe and Love That Jill).  It should be noted that, although the film was scripted, most of the characters ad-libbed their lines.

The film got poor reviews on release ("[an] incredulous and wearisome tale"), although the Leonard Maltin Classic Movie Guide later called it a "fast-paced whodunit...but not particularly puzzling."

What do you think?

https://archive.org/details/the-strange-case-of-doctor-rx-1942

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TOR JOHNSON!

Karl Erik Tore Johansson (1903-1971) was a Swedish wrestler and B-movie star, perhaps best known for his appearances in films of Ed Wood, Jr.  He stood 6' 3", weighed up to 440 pounds, and shaved off his full blond hair to give him a more threatening appearance.  In person, he was quite different from his stage persona -- one co-worker described him a "a big sugar bun" -- a friendly, likable guy with a big heart.

Johnson had already been working in films for twenty years (mostly in uncredited roles) when Ed wood gave him second billing to Bela Lugosi in 1953's Bride of the Monster.  Johnson never had many lines in his films -- just being Tor Johnson was enough for his fans, but his screen presence always added something special to whatever film he was in.

Here's the MST3K presentation of  Bride of the Monster.

Enjoy.  And Happy Birthday, Tor!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1G8FvQyfnI

HYMN TIME

From 1977, The Million Dollar Quartet -- Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYYmNgHVuFg

THOROUGHLY RACIST CARTOON: STEVE OF THE RIVER (1937)

I recently came across this cartoon on YouTube.  Steve the Horse was a hugely popular carthorse featured in Roland Davies' British newspaper comic strip in the Sunday Express, Come On Steve! from 1932 to 1947, and spawning several children's annuals and six animated features.  The name of the strip came from a popular cheer given to the legendary jockey Steve Donaghue.  Steve was a wordless but genial horse whose stemmed from his light-hearted adventures and sight gags.

Steve of the River was the fourth of the six cartoons and a parody of Edgar Wallace's popular character Sanders of the River, a British commissioner in darkest Africa.  The Wallace stories (twelve collections from 1911 to 1928, with at least two additional collections written by Francis Gerard following Wallace's death) were also stereotypically racist.  (But, hey, this was England still in its the colonial era, so I guess the blatant racism was okay, maybe.)  Wallace's Sanders of the River reigned over his fictional portion of Africa (modeled, in part, on Nigeria) with a firm, but fair, hand, dealing with tribal hatreds, ju-ju, and various uprisings.  I enjoy the Sanders stories for what they are -- a snapshot of a time, place, and attitude that I hope I never have to see.

In Steve of the River, Steve and his human companion Sam are in Africa, "where they must escape local cannibals.  Lord Sandy, the Commissioner, leaves his African district for the weekend, and is waved off on his plane by Steve, a white horse, and his rider, Sam.  The Africans beat their drums to announce Lord Sandy is gone, while the local King laughs.  Now ignoring a sign saying 'Cannibal stew pot not to be used again by order - Lord Sandy', the locals throw spears, capture Sam and fling him in their pot.  The locals perform magic, as the King rides off on Steve.  Steve throws the King over a cliff and outwits the locals by pretending to be dead.  He beats his own message announcing that Lord Sandy has returned and the locals flee.  Steve is now able to rescue Sam and they escape in a chase sequence after they pretend to be a zebra and a tortoise."  [YouTube description]

The description is bad enough, but the execution is execrable.  The artwork is crude and does not have even the distinction of rising to a Windsor McKay level of racism.  Stereotype done with a wink and a nod can be fun, but stereotypes which exist merely to promote the idea of white superiority are off-putting.

It is important to preserve items such as this so that we know we know where we came from and can judge how far -- if at all -- we have come from that point.  To do otherwise lies the path to MAGA-dom.

So, warts and all, here's Steve:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIcXgzJTMH4&t=3s

BING BANG COMICS #30 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1946)

Bing Bang Comics was a Canadian title from Maple Leaf Publishing Company in Vancouver and ran from late 1941 to at least mid-1946.  As you can tell from this cover, editions were also published in the British Isles.

Pinky Poe. a young boy, is one of the main characters in many issues of Bing Bang.  in this issue he is upset because all of his friends are going elsewhere for summer vacation and he has to stay home in his boring town with nothing to do.  It turns out he's not the only one staying home.  Roger, a poor kid in ragged clothes, is also staying home; his family cannot afford a vacation.  The pair bond and vow to spend their days playing together.  but when Pinky got home, his mother had news -- his father has to go to San Francisco for business and he's taking the family with him.  Pinky got so excited he forgot his promise to Roger.  Feeling guilty, Pinky concocted a scheme to have Roger go with him on the trip.  It was a pretty feeble scheme and Pinky's father caught on right away,  but everything turns out fine in the end.  Evidently in these stories, Pinky tries his hardest to be good.

Peter and Peggy, brother and sister, continue their adventures in London in "The Mystery of Grimstead Grange."  Previously, Peter has been robbed of the Kawlpore Ruby by Anuk, a Majoram.  We join him as he vows to recover the gem, but is being warned by another Majoram armed with a sword that the "Jewel of Gizah" must remain in the sect's temple; to try to recover it is to court death.  Just as the sword-bearing villain is about to slay peter, he is stopped by the Blessed Akabar. Peter is taken to the temple where his fate will be determined by the god Gizah.  The idol decrees that Peter must die.  Meanwhile, Peggy wakes in a viaduct beneath Waterloos Street feeling that something has happened to Peter.  Peggy and her Londoner friend go looking for Peter.  Their search takes them to the Athenaeum Club.  They enter the club just as Akabar swings the sword to execute Peter.  the girls hear a scream and a "thud," as Peggy faints in shock and horror.  "Is this the end of Peter? Can Peggy do anything to save him?  Or will her own life be endangered?  You can't afford to miss the next episode of 'GRIMSTEAD GRANGE' "

The nest story features Sergeant Canuck and his chubby assistant, Constable Clancy.  "Who ;placed the body of the former Humber butler in a culvert -- not far from the home of old Neil Humber, recently deceased?  ..We now know it was Percy, son of the wealthy recluse, who had disposed of the servant in order to claim his father's estate by means of a forged will!"   Now all Sergeant Canuck has to do is prove it, which he does, following an escape attempt in which Clancy is wounded.

Tur Hozak and Zar swing their timeship from  the age of Lomar to the Pleistocene Era, about 1,000,000 BC.  There they first face a sabretooth tiger, which is disintegrated by a blast from Zor's atom gun just as the beast was leaping at Tur.  Then they rescue a cave man from an attacking mastodon.  They follow the cave man to his tribe, which they found huddling from the cold.  A wild boar attacks and they shoot it with the atom gun, but the gun also sets off an explosion of natural gas, which starts a fire.  the cave men huddle around the fire for warmth, never before realizing that fire could  bring warmth.  So Tur and Zor head off in their time ship for the far future and another adventure.

Eve is showing her friend Hilda some of Adam's old baby pictures.  Adam meanwhile has come out of the shower and realized that the dry towels and his clothes are in the bedroom.  Eve is laughing so hard at the old pictures that she cannot hear Adam trying to get her attention.  finally dressed, Adam joins the girls bit they are too busy laughing at his baby pictures.  Upset, Adam tries to get the album from them but fails.  He inwardly promises his revenge.  Later, when Eve is giving herself a pedicure, Adam sneaks a photograph, and still later, while she is in the bath.  He soon finds he can make a bundle selling the photos as pin-up pictures.  What I assume passes for hilarity ensues.  A tawdry example of sexism and exploitation from a time long before the Me-Too Era.  Sad, and frankly disgusting.  A complete 180 from the feel-good nature of the first story.

An all black and white issue with stylized minimal art ranging from very crude to quite effective.  The scattershot approach to stories diminishes the effect of the comic book.

What do you think?

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=102630

BTW:  TODAY IS NO KINGS DAY!  HOPE YOU ARE ABLE TO PARTICIPATE!

FORGOTTEN BOOK: RIPTIDE

Riptide by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child  (1998)

Every time you think you've hit rock bottom, you find there's a bottom below.

That could be the basic theme of Riptide, a treasure hunting adventure thriller based on the legend of Oak Island.

Legend had it that notorious English pirate "Red Ned" Ockham had buried his vast hoard of treasure on Ragged Island, off the coast of Maine.  Red Ned was the deadliest, most feared, and most successful pirate of his day; his fleet consisted of nine ship laden down with booty -- gold, silver, jewels, artwork, fine clothes, and much more -- including the legendary St. Michael's Sword, which gave its bearer the power of life and death over his foes.  Red Ned had his treasured buried at the bottom of a huge pit -- the Water Pit (for some reason, I want to call it the Money Pit) -- designed to frustrate anyone other than Red Ned who tried to retrieve the treasure.  But before Red Ned could retrieve his fabulous wealth, his ship was found with all aboard mysteriously dead.

The first attempt to retrieve the treasure was in 1792; it ended in tragedy when a seal was  broken and sea water rushed in to claim the Water Pit's first victim.  Over the years, other unsuccessful attempt to get the treasure failed -- in 1800, in 1831, in 1840, in 1869, in 1883, then three more time between 1900 and 1907, and finally in 1940.  All attempts ended in failure, bankruptcy, and death...

The 1940 attempt was made by Alfred Westgate Hatch, Sr., who had gone so far as to purchase the island from a land speculator, and to move his family to the nearby, isolated village of Stormhaven.  As had happened every time ion the past, the island defeated the treasure hunter and Hatch soon found himself bankrupt.  Hatch turned to drink and soon died, leaving the island to his nineteen-year-old son.  the son, A. W. Hatch, Jr., destroyed all of his father's papers and refused to have anything to do with the island, which remained barren and unoccupied for more than two decades.

In 1971, young Malin Hatch was bored and, because his parents were not at home, convinced his older brother Johnny to go with him to explore the forbidden island as a great adventure.  The two boys rowed out to the island and were not impressed...a few scrawny trees, a lot of rocks, and not much else.  Then they discovered a fissure in the ground, which led to a cave or a tunnel.  Now, this was more like it; this was adventure!  They entered and slowly made their way through the tunnel until they came to a door.  By this time Maline was getting scared and wanted to leave, but Johnny called him a coward.  Johnny opened the door.  A blast pushed him into the darkness, water began to converge, and Johnny was swept away.  Malin had no real memory of what had happened.  The townspeople and the Coast Guard searched for Johnny's body,  but could find nothing.  The curse of the Water Pit had struck again, and Malin grew up with the guilt of his brother's death.

Fast forward some twenty years.  Malin's father drowned soon after, bereft, and possibly a suicide.  Malin and his mother stayed in Stormhaven for a few years, enduring the looks of the townspeople, and finally moved to Boston.  As if to make up for Johnny's death, Malin pushed himself through college and medical school, spent years working the world's most dangerous spots for Doctors Without Borders, and then began a practice and research at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge.

Over the years, Malin had been approached by many people -- clairvoyants, dowsers, psychics, oil barons, engineers, and other, all with their own "foolproof" scheme -- seeking to recover the treasure, and had rejected them all; the treasure could be real, or could be a myth, but the search for it had cost many lives over the past three centuries, and Malin, still stricken by the death of his brother, refused to have any part of it.  Then Malin was approached by Captain Gerard Neidelman, an experienced "recovery specialist" and the head of a company called Thalassa Holdings, who also wanted to recover the treasure.  Neidelman -- and Thalassa -- had found and recovered many hidden  treasures in the past, many of them thought impossible to retrieve, using the very latest in scientific methods and equipment.  a group with deep pockets, Thalassa had raised 22 million dollars to fund such an expedition to Ragged Island.  Their researchers had estimated the Water Pit treasure to be worth, conservatively, two billion dollars.  He offered Malin half of the amount -- one billion -- for permission to search the island.   Malin rebuffed Neidelman at first, but then began thinking about the offer.  Here was a chance to put his demons at rest, perhaps find Johnny's body, and use the money to set up a foundation in his brother's name.  He decide to agree, but with several conditions:  first, that he join the team as their medical doctor, and also that he reserved the right to cancel the project at any time if he felt such a decision was neccessary.

Time was of the essence.  Neidelman had about a month before the start of hurricane season, which would halt all work on the project.  But Neidelman had done his preliminary work: he had already assembled a team of experts in everything from engineering and computing to archaeology and history, and had discover a lost dairy of the seventeenth century architect who had designed the Water Pit.  Sir William Macallan was acknowledge to be England's greatest architect next to Christopher Wren.  Macallan had been a passenger on a vessel sailing to America when it was taken by Red Ned, who slew everyone on board except for Macallan, forcing him to design a foolproof place to protect his treasure.  But Macallan had also been a government secret agent, and kept a detailed description of his plan and how to get around all the traps designed in it in his journal, using invisible ink and several highly sophisticated codes.  Neidelman's experts had already broken the code for the first part of the journal using the latest computer technology, and were working on breaking the second part, recorded in another highly complicated code.

So, Malin returned to Stormhaven for the first time since he had left as a teen.  His mother, for some reason, had kept the family home their, unoccupied, all this time, and since her death from cancer, Malin had done the same.  The small village of fishermen and lobstermen had not changed much in the intervening years, except perhaps with the addition of the Reverend Woody Clay, a dour and uncompromising fundamentalist minister who had married Malin's high school sweetheart.  Stormhaven was a poor town and its residents welcome the sudden influx of cash that Thalassa's crew brought, but they also feared the so-called curse of the fog-bound and normally unapproachable island.

Among the experts that Neidelman had brought on board were Isabel Bonterre, archaeologist and dive leader, Christopher St. John, the expedition's historian who was researching Macallan, Kerry Wopner, a rather unusual computer expert, Lyle Streeter, the stoic team foreman, Sandra Magnusen, the team's chief engineer and remote sensing specialist, and Roger Rankin, geologist.  Most appeared friendly, but Malin got bad vibes from Streeter, who had been working with Neidelman throughout the latter's career.  As for Neidelman, Malin soon learned that the competent, highly organized man was also a driven monomaniac determined to achieve his goal at any cost. 

The Water Pit itself was a maze of tunnels, some natural and some engineered, and traps; it descended hundreds of feet below the surface, shored up by buttresses and blocked off at several points.  The first tragedy soon took place: a worker had somehow triggered the collapse of a buttress which had him pinned to the ground, water began seeping into the area and would soon drown him.  Efforts to remove lift the heavy buttress from the victim failed and Malin was forced to amputate the man's legs on the spot in order to possibly save his life.  This helped to increase the talk of a curse among the townspeople.

Other problems kept cropping up.  Macallan's traps kept being sprung.  The computers kept giving conflicting data for no discernable reason.  Workmen began to appear at Malin's onsite clinic with varying complaints.  And Bonterre had discovered a large gravesite which held the skeletons of at least eighty men from Red Ned's crew -- the skeletons showed no sign of violence but had still been hastily placed in the grave; tests on the various bones showed that the men had died of disease, but each of a different disease, eliminating the theory that plague had struck the island.  Talk became frequent of the island's curse and of a possible supernatural explanation.

Injecting dye into the Water Pit revealed that five of the tunnels went directly to the sea, so Neidelman used explosives to block each of the tunnels at its entry point to the Atlantic.  Still the money pit flooded.  Eventually, Neidelman elected to build a wall around the island to keep the sea out, much as Macallan had Red Ned's men do while the Water Pit was being constructed.

Meanwhile, the townspeople were getting restless.  Clay, the minister, had been fomenting opposition to the project and was organizing a large group of fishermen and lobstermen to go to the island to protest.  And then a fierce Northeaster struck...  And Lyle Streeter began hunting Malin and Isabel Bonterre with a high velocity weapon...  All this as Neidelman finally reached the treasure:  wealth and riches beyond imagining, as well as the legendary jewel-encrusted St. Michaels Sword...But the curse of the Water Pit was not finished, because there is always a bottom below...

A highly detailed and richly imagined novel that pulls the reader page by page to its exciting and inexorable ending, Riptide was an early standalone novel from the writing pair best known for their long-running thrillers about Special Agent A. X. L. Pendergast.  It was the fourth book from the pair and their second standalone.  Interestingly, it is the only one of the pair's four standalones in which they did not mine some of their characters and later insert them into their Prendergast, Nora Kelly, or Gideon Crew series; this, in itself, gives the novel a unique sense of completeness.

Riptide is a thrill ride that stands well with the best of modern adventure novels, a battle between modern science against an ancient -- and possibly supernatural -- foe.

NOTHING FAZES MARK

 https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1804711890778092&set=a.700461257869833

MR. MOTO: A FORCE CALLED X07 (MAY 20, 1951)

Following the death of Charlie Chan creator Earl Der Biggers in 1933, the Saturday Evening Post was eager another Asiatic detective to replace Chan.  Novelist and short story writer J. P. Marquand, who was a familiar author to readers of SEP, was tasked to coming up with Chan's replacement.  The result was I. A. Moto,  a senior intelligence officer for a pro-Western Japanese government.  Marquand wrote six novels about the character, beginning with Your Turn, Mr. Moto in 1935.  Peter Lorre played the character in eight films from 1937 to 1939.  In 1965 the character returned to the screen in The Return of Mr. Moto, featuring Henry Silva.  Mr. Moto joined the radio airwaves in a 23-episode series beginning in 1951, starring James Monks, who had a 20-year radio career and played supporting roles on stage, before retiring to become a male fashion model.

Here, in the first episode of the radio series, Moto is faced with a dangerous new biological weapon and a murdered scientist.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4FH7Bd2GWM

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE PHANTOM DEATH

 "The Phantom Death" by W. Clark Russell (first published in The Idler, October 1893; republished as the title story in Russell's The Phantom Death and Other Stories, 1895; and in Waves of Terror, edited by Michael Parry, 1976)

In April 1840, having finished his business in South America, West booked passage out of Rio de Janiero to Bristol on the Lord of the Isles, a small barque with a company consisting of twelve men; West was happy to be the sole passenger for the Atlantic crossing for he had had a disagreeable crowded crossing earlier while traveling from England to Brazil.  On this voyage, both the crew and the captain were pleasant companions.

On the eighth day out, West shared drinks with the captain in the captain's cabin before retiring for the night.  The next morning he was awakened by the first mate, who was horrified at the state in which he had found the captain:  "Captain Joyce lay in his bunk dressed in a flannel snirt and a pair of white drill rousers.  All his throat and a considerable portion of his chest were exposed, and his feet were naked.  I looked at him scarcely crediting my sight:  I did not know him as the man I had parted with  but a few hours ago.  He was swelled from head to foot as though drowned:  the swelling contorted his countenance out of all resemblance to his familiar face; the flesh of him that was visible was of a pale blue, as if rubbed with a powder of he stuff called 'blue' which the laundresses use in getting up their linen.  His eyes were open, but were rolled out of sight, and the 'whites', as they are called, were covered with red blotches."  His hand was cold, his breathing thin, and he soon began convulsions.  Within a few hours he was dead.

What had killed him?  What could cause such a rapid transformation to death?  The first mate was convinced that only a poison could be the cause.  West, himself, wondered if it could have been some illness that had lingered, latent, within his body from before he had set sail -- but that did not seem likely.  And if it was poison, how had it been administered?  If accidently, certainly not in food, for the captain ate only the same food as the rest of the crew, who remained unaffected.  If it had been self-administered, where was the poison now?  No trace of it could be found in the cabin.  Or could he have been deliberately poisoned by someone on the ship?  But the captain was well-liked by all on board, no one had a reason to harm him.  This might have to remain one of the mysteries of the sea as the crew went about their duties and the first mate took over the captain's quarters.

Then, a few days later, the first mate knocked on West's cabin, saying, "I am in terrible pain -- I am horribly ill -- I am dying."  Indeed he was.  Soon he was evincing the same symptoms the captain had.  As the convulsions grew upon him, he screamed, "Oh, my God!  I have been poisoned -- I am dying!" Within five hours he was dead, his skin an even darker blue than West had noted in the captain.  Was it really poison, and if so, how?  Or could it be some form of the plague?  Was there some human explanation?  Or was the ship in the grip of some supernatural hand?

The second mate took over the running of the ship, moving into the late captain's quarters, where the navigating instruments were.  Sailors can be a superstitious lot, and within another two days, the second mate apologetically locked West into his cabin, saying the the crew suspected west had a hand in the two deaths and were afraid, if West were to remain free, he might then somehow kill him (the second mate) next.  For West's safety, and the ease of the crew's mind, he was to remain locked in his cabin for the rest of the cruise; a young steward would bring him his meals but he would otherwise have no contact with the rest of the ship.

A few days later, West was released by the boatswain with the deepest apologies of himself and the crew.  They knew now that West could have had nothing to do with the mysterious deaths because the second mate had just succumbed to the same horrid fate.

The Lord of the Isles had two problems.  How had three men died such a grisly death and will others meet the same fate?  And, without the captain and his officers, there was no one on board who knew how to navigate the ship, now in the middle of the Atlantic.  Things were starting to look bleak...

W. Clark Russell (1844-1911) although born in New York, was the son of a well-known English composer and his first wife.  Russell went to sea at age thirteen, joining the United Kingdom's Merchant Navy, spending eight years at sea, leaving after his health was permanently damaged.  His experience at sea gave him plenty of fodder for his career as a writer.  No one since Captain Marryat some forty years before had written so convincingly about the sea from actual knowledge.  In Masters of Victorian Literature, 1837-1897, Richard D. Graham wrote that Russell "is the true successor of Marryat, and may even be aid to excel the older writer in the power with which he has described the cruel mystery of the sea, its dangers, and the crimes and superstitions of the men who do business upon it."  The majority of the 57 novels he published were sea stories.  His novels included The Wreck of the Grosvenor, the Frozen Pirate, and The Death Ship.  Among his admirers were Herman Melville, Algernon Swinburne, and Arthur Conan Doyle (in "The Five Orange Pips," Doyle had Dr. Watson "deep within one of Clark Russell's fine sea stories").

Russell's wide popularity allowed him to advocate for merchant seaman, whose hardships had been unchanged since the repeal of the Navigation Acts in 1854.  Ships were being sent out to sea overladen and undermanned, and unscrupulous shipowners were proving deplorable rations for the seamen on their ships.  The naval reforms of 1880, 1883, 1889, and 1892 owed much to Russell's influence, as did the eventual inclusion of seamen and firemen being represented on the shipping commission.  The future King George V said that the great improvements in the conditions of the merchant service owed much to Clark Russell's writings.  His sympathy toward the brutal treatment captive natives of Tasmania faced at the time helped record and reveal the atrocities done by the British.

Many of W. Clark Russell's books are available to be read online.  The Phantom Death and Other Stories can be found on Project Gutenberg.