Reviews of Old and New Stories. Mostly Old

Review of “Night Visions” by Holley Cornetto

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

Plot:

After eleven and a half years, he realizes he hates his wife. He isn’t sleeping well, and his hairline is receding. He wants a convertible. His wife snores and farts in her sleep. To make matters worse, she wants a baby. Maybe he should have an affair with some Brittany Spears look-alike—not as she is now, but some girl, er, young woman in pigtails and dressed up in a school uniform licking a lollipop, about twenty years old.

He wakes in the middle the night to find a stranger standing by his wife. He can neither speak nor move.

Stop! His mind screamed. Get away from her. No, do what you want to her, but let me go. Her biological clock is ticking, but I can still reproduce. You owe it to the human race to spare me.

A true knight in shining armor.

This is not the stranger’s last visit, and his attention to our (*cough*) hero’s wife grows all the more intimate.

Thoughts:

Having once been twenty years old, I can say with some degree of confidence that not many twenty-year-olds go around in school uniforms, pigtails, and licking lollipops just waiting for married older guys to stop by and have affairs with them. Forming relationships with twenty-year-olds is not like going to the store to pick up a quart of milk and a loaf of bread. Twenty-year-old women are what you might call human beings.

I suspect the author knows this and is showing how ludicrous the idea is without saying the words. Good for her.

Another interesting device is the nocturnal visits from the stranger. Is he real? He comes and goes. The author doesn’t offer an explicit answer. Again, good for her. Other elements of the story become more important.

I would like to have seen more of what the wife felt about her husband’s actions. She couldn’t have known about his fantasies, but she must have felt his coldness. At one point, she shows him the results of a pregnancy test. His response is, “Don’t put that in my face. You peed on it.” She simply puts the test in her bathrobe pocket. Wouldn’t such a reaction to news of his impending fatherhood hurt or upset most women? (I think at this point, I might have said something like, “Don’t like pee in your face, dear? Better hope it’s not a boy.”)

Just the same, the ending is logical. I enjoyed this little tale.

Bio:

According to her blurb, author Holley Cornetto is a librarian originally from Alabama but now living in New Jersey.

The story can be read here.

Title: “Night Visions”
Author: Holley Cornetto
First published: Theme of Absence, August 21, 2020

Review of “Incarnate” by Dani Atkinson

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Plot:

There isn’t too much of a plot to this, only an explanation. A mother talks to her small child—probably an infant—and explains why he is god. He’s not god in the sense that all people are divine, but in the sense that he really once was god: smiting people, blessing people, and all that follows. He had an adoring priesthood.

The problem with all that, as the mother explains her restless child, is that humanity was commanded to love a god who was impossible to love. Yet, it was impossible NOT to love him. How were they going to work their way out of this dilemma?

Thoughts:

What I found striking about this little piece was not only the cleverness with which people solved the problem of loving a violent, abusive god but the author’s use of language. Most of this is done in baby talk, but it is not mocking or condescending. Her opening paragraph reads:

Once there was a god. And that god was you. Yes, you, sweetie!

Those words are hard to read without hearing the opening of the Gospel of John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

While the ending was logical, I wasn’t crazy about it. If the premise is not unique, the presentation is novel and entertaining. I enjoyed it.

Bio:

About the only bio information I could find on this author was that she’s been published three or four times in Daily Science Fiction, and she hates writing author bios.

The story can be read here.

Title: “Incarnate”
Author: Dani Atkinson
First published: Daily Science Fiction, August 17, 2020

Review of “Night Monster” (1942)

(…Delayed…) Saturday pizza and bad movie night. Started adding salad. Not a bad idea. Saw the movie with Svengoolie.

Plot:

In one troubling early scene, emotionally troubled Margaret Ingston (Fay Helm) comes across the imperious housekeeper, Sarah Judd (Doris Lloyd), trying to clean blood stains out of the carpeting on the stairs. She tells her that’s the maid’s job. She also tells her to let her know when an expected visitor, a psychiatrist, arrives. Mrs. Judd tells her to go to her room as if she were ill or an unruly child.

Secretly watching this exchange is Agor Singh (Nils Asther), whose motives and place in the household are yet unclear. It’s creepy, but not as creepy as the next scene, when the poor maid, Milly Carson (Janet Shaw), tries to call the Constable about all the “funny business” going on in the house. Butler Rolf (Bela Lugosi) hangs up to the phone on her. She pulls off her maid’s hat and quits. Chauffeur Laurie (Leif Erickson), chewing on a toothpick and ogling her, tells her to never mind Rolf. He’ll drive her to the train station. He has to go there anyway.

Laurie’s first attempt at finding the train station is to drive the car off the road and into some trees. He then accosts Milly. She objects, gets out, and walks. Into the fog. She screams.

At the train station, Laurie meets three doctors, (Lionel Atwill, Frank Reicher, and Francis Pierlot), whose treatment paralyzed (… or did it?) his boss, wealthy Kurt Ingston (Ralph Morgan). The three have been invited to Ingston’s isolated country home, Ingston Towers. They arrive, with varying degrees of discomfort over the part they played in their former patient’s becoming disabled. The year before, another doctor was murdered in a nearby marsh, but let’s not talk about that. The same night the three arrive, Ingston’s emotionally troubled sister Margaret is expecting a psychiatrist (Irene Harvey) to visit her at the house as a patient.

Also in the company are neighbor Dick Baldwin (Don Porter), a writer of whodunits.

Back at the creepy Ingston Towers, Agor Singh gives a demonstration of how he can materialize matter through concentration.

That night, the first of the doctors dies a horrible death.

Thoughts:

There is a lot of creepiness to this flick but also a lot of confusion. I spent more time than I wanted to thinking, “How does this guy fit in?” and “What is this person doing here?”

As each grisly body turns up, the viewer ponders who was where. Sure, the housekeeper is a mean old witch, but why would she kill all those people? And Laurie is a grabby sleazeball, but why would he commit those atrocities? What about the neighbor, Dick Baldwin? He has a lot of time on his hands. Bela Lugosi as Rolf is officious and menacing, but would he kill? As an aside, it’s nice to see him in a tux and not have him turn into a bat. And why would he do such a thing? Is Margaret nuts or just chaffing under the thumbs of her brother and the charming Mrs. Judd?

Confusing, creepy, funny business. It was a little hard to sort out at first, primarily because there are so many people, but once the viewer gets their bearings, this is a fair-to-middling horror flick.

Title: Night Monster (1942)

Directed by
Ford Beebe

Writing Credits
Clarence Upson Young…(original screenplay)

Cast (in credits order)
Bela Lugosi…Rolf
Lionel Atwill…Dr. King
Leif Erickson…Laurie (as Leif Erikson)
Irene Hervey…Dr. Lynne Harper
Ralph Morgan…Kurt Ingston

Released: October 20, 1942
Length: 1 hour, 13 minutes

Review of “Specimen 913” by R.D. Harris

Plot:

Doctor Corinne Broadway, a highly esteemed in zoological research, is conducting experiments with Specimen 913, a sentient rat she has named Jeffrey. Jeffrey is not only able to calculate grade-school verb math problems, but he also shows manners. He asks for more challenging problems, but, as Corinne tells him, the protocol has already been determined by the people who are paying for the experiments.

Jeffrey is aware of something Dr. Broadway doesn’t want him to know. Others have informed him.

“Conversations between the peons here are not what you would call subtle,” he tells her.

Thoughts:

This is an odd little read, with both characters caught traps they cannot escape. The lab rat is a lab rat whose existence is in the hands of his human handler. The human handler also must dance to tunes others call. Dr. Broadway knows the questions she asks Jeffrey pose no intellectual challenge to him, but she must ask them and no others because they are the ones those who pay for her research gave her. Having to act against her better judgment does not stop there.

I don’t think this story is intended as a slight to scientific research. If I were to pretend to peer inside the author’s mind and hazard a guess, I would say it’s more of a statement about the corrupting influence of money.

This is a sad but enjoyable little tale.

Bio:

According to his blurb, when he’s not writing, author R.D. Harris enjoys time with his kids, watching cartoons, and retro gaming. His work has appeared in Terraform[Motherboard], Galaxy’s Edge, and Liquid Imagination. Even though he is a member of the Horror Writers Association, the only thing scary about him is his verb-subject agreements.

“Specimen 913” can be read here.

Title: “Specimen 913”
Author: R.D. Harris
First published: Theme of Absence, August 14, 2020

Review of “Other Life Forms Are The Most Of Our Problems” by Anya Ow

Image by Anja🤗#helpinghands #solidarity#stays healthy🙏” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Anja🤗#helpinghands #solidarity#stays healthy🙏 from Pixabay

Plot:

This is more of a setting than a plot. The (unnamed) prime minister of Australia joins a meeting of government and military officials. Outside, bushfires rage, and an alien spaceship hovers, inert, over the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania. It is so inert that seagulls have begun to use it as a roosting site.

“So it’s already interfering with local wildlife,” The prime minister makes a note of this and adds, “Inform me immediately if the seagulls visibly sicken.”

This concern surprises the deputy prime minister. “Why? They’re just seagulls. Nobody will care. We let a billion animals die during the last fire season, and we still got reelected.”

This same heartlessness is shown to the protesters outside. Who cares if the treehuggers die? Granted the mess would be embarrassing—

Thoughts:

In the meeting room, a few raise concerns over what the prime minister is doing and saying, but there is also a chorus of faceless brown-nosers, whose encouraging words appear out of thin air, and who laugh on demand.

While I appreciate many of the author’s witticisms (seagulls roosting on an alien spaceship? Cute.), I also feel like this tale is much a reflection of whatever chunk of the twenty-four-hour news cycle one happens to be watching at any given moment. I could not enjoy this piece. It’s all too familiar because it depicts the same callousness reflected in every accursed news broadcast for at least the last four years or so.

Having said that, I know that the story is not the author. In her story notes, author Anya Ow, who lives in Melbourne, speaks of the devastating fires Australia experienced last year:

“…for everyone who volunteered, who raised money or awareness or helped during the bushfire crisis, thank you.”

Bio:

According to her blurb, author Anya Ow was born in Singapore. She is a graphic designer, illustrator, cat minder, and ex-lawyer living in Melbourne. Her work has appeared in venues such as Strange Horizons, Uncanny, and Aurealis. Her first novella, Cradle and Grave, was published this year. She can be found on twitter: @anyasy or at uneasy.com.

“Other Life Forms Are The Most Of Our Problems” can be read here.

Title: “Other Life Forms Are The Most Of Our Problems”
Author: Anya Ow
First published: Daily Science Fiction, August 10, 2020

Review of “Creature with the Atom Brain” (1955)

Saturday night pizza and bad movie night with Svengoolie, a bit delayed. Guess I need some of those atom rays to help me on my way. Not interesed in dying first to get them though.

Plot:

The opening credits roll over shots of an expressionless man (an uncredited Karl “Killer” Davis) walking down a wooded lane. He has prominent surgical stitches across his forehead and walks with a lumbering gait. He drives up to a large building and watches silently.

The expressionless man breaks through a window and attacks a casino owner who is putting the night’s take into a wall safe. The expressionless man asks, ambiguously, “Do you remember Buchanan?

“But you’re not Buchanan,” the gangster says, gun trained on the intruder.

“I don’t look like him, but I am him.”

The words don’t belong to the expressionless man, but to a third man, Frank Buchanan (Michael Granger), speaking through a microphone. He, along with (mad?) scientist Dr. Wilhelm Steigg (Gregory Gaye), has devised a way to reanimate corpses and control them through electrodes implanted in the brains. Steigg decries that his work, intended for the good of mankind (really?), has been been hijacked to serve evil. Buchanan wants revenge on those who sent him to prison and had him deported.

Later, the police find quite the puzzle of a crime scene inside the large building. There is an open safe with six thousand dollars inside and a dead casino boss, whose spine and neck bones look like they were broken by twisting. The window has been smashed in. The rods on the iron fence outside have been bent as well. Crime scene investigator Dr. Chet Walker (Richard Denning) finds bloody fingerprints and shoeprints. Oddly, they glow in the dark. He takes a carpet sample and sends the fingerprints for identification.

The next day, District Attorney MacGraw (Tristram Coffin) is found dead in his garage. The attacks look similar. What could the two—a crime boss and a district attorney—have in common?

Thoughts:

The opening scenes with the zombie are genuinely creepy and imbued with unspoken menace. Later, the viewer learns this monster, and others like him, are charged with atomic energy, giving them superhuman strength. They can both kill a full-grown man and bend metal with their bare hands. Bullets can’t stop them. Their blood is radioactive, as Dr. Walker’s busy Geiger counter reveals. They have no volition or even awareness—they are dead, after all—but are controlled by a vengeful Buchanan, making the atmosphere all the creepier.

The district attorney and the cops ponder whether robbery could be a motive in the death of the gangster in light of the six thousand dollars left in an open safe.

“Maybe [the thief] didn’t want to get into a higher [tax] bracket,” says Capt. Dave Harris (S. John Launer).

Later, when the reporters ask about the iron fence, bent into odd and pleasant concentric rosettes, Dr. Walker tells them the intruder must have been taking his vitamins.

The same Dr. Walker arrives home to find his wife (Angela Stevens), the mother of his child, bent over cleaning something. He makes sure to stop a moment to ogle her rear end. Yeah, this is how one shows appreciation of a life partner.

On the one hand, this movie has it all: creepy atmosphere, goofy science (when it wasn’t just wrong, e.g., confusing Galvani with Faraday for starters), a police procedural, zombies, a mad scientist (albeit a whiny one), mobsters, smartass lines, sexist attitudes that would make the Stepford wives pack up and go home to mother, and a big zombie-cop shootout toward the end. On the other hand, it gets… dull, the one unforgivable sin. This should be non-stop fun. The snoozer sections weren’t so long that they spoiled the movie for me, but it did decrease my enjoyment of it.

Title: Creature with the Atom Brain (1955)

Directed by
Edward L. Cahn

Writing Credits
Curt Siodmak…(story)
Curt Siodmak…(screenplay)

Cast (in credits order)
Richard Denning…Dr. Chet Walker
Angela Stevens…Joyce Walker
S. John Launer…Capt. Dave Harris
Michael Granger…Frank Buchanan
Gregory Gaye…Dr. Wilhelm Steigg (as Gregory Gay)

Released: July 1955
Length: 1 hour, 9 mins

Review of “A Ghost’s Story” by James Rumpel

Plot:

One day in 2009, Neil Burton perished in a hail of snow peas. He’d been trying to re-arrange thousand-pound crates of vegetables with his forklift while eating a sandwich, and things didn’t go well.

The angel who met him at his demise explained his time was up, so regardless of what he’d done that day, he would have died. He now had two options. He could spend an undisclosed amount of time in Purgatory, or he could stay on earth as a ghost until he saved the soul of a living person. He figured the latter would be easier, rather than waiting around in Purgatory for some predetermined (and unknown) time. Why not be proactive, right?

Neil quickly discovers the living can neither see nor hear him, making his mission nearly impossible. His hands pass through solid matter. He cannot even sit down. He merely spends his days floating along, hovering above the ground.

Ten years pass. Neil is in a playground, amusing himself by pretending to be struck by the kids on the swings. He hears laughter.

Thoughts:

There’s nothing profound here (unless you need instruction in not chowing down on a sandwich with operating a forklift), but it is entertaining. The reader feels for Neil, who while he might have been a slacker in life, made the best choice he could with the limited information he had.

The author manages to keep the piece light-hearted without letting is slide into the facile or (egad!) maudlin. I enjoyed this.

Bio:

According to his blurb, author James Rumpel is a retired high school math teacher who has greatly enjoyed using his newfound additional free time to rekindle his love for science fiction and the written word.

“A Ghost’s Story” can be read here.

Reviews of other stories by the same author can be read here:

U-Phone XV Presents Insta-Post
Living Image

Title: “A Ghost’s Story”
Author: James Rumpel
First published: Theme of Absence, August 7, 2020

Review of “Daisy’s Star Map” by Sean Patrick Whiteley

Plot:

Daisy, a mildly clever Pomeranian, wakes up at the sound of a street light winking out and begins to bark—until she isn’t making noise despite her efforts. She’s floating, carried away by the light. The kitchen window opens for her and closes behind her.

The next morning, her human scolds her while sweeping up the dog food she finds on the kitchen floor, unaware of what she’s destroying.

Thoughts:

This is a light-hearted short-short. Poor Daisy, who is only trying to be heard in ways she things her humans will understand, is dismissed and scolded for her efforts. No doubt she’s a good girl. She’s just too easily ignored.

Never fear. Her day will come. Maybe.

I liked this little tale.

Bio:

According to his blurb, Sean Patrick Whiteley is lives in Massachusetts. When he isn’t doodling or staying up far too late, he is exploring the curious places of New England and experiencing sunlight with his wife. His fiction has been featured in The Furious Gazelle Halloween Anthology, FIVE:2:ONE, various podcasts, and elsewhere. Find him on Twitter @SeanPWhiteley.

“Daisy’s Star Map” can be read here.

Title: “Daisy’s Star Map”
Author: Sean Patrick Whiteley
First published: Daily Science Fiction, August 3, 2020

Review of “Werewolf of London” (1935)

Saturday pizza and bad movie night with Svengoolie. Is it too much to say it was a howl?

Plot:

Respected London botanist Dr. Wilfred Glendon (Henry Hull) has found a rare plant in Tibet, Mariphasa lupino lumino (or maybe Mariphasa lumina lupine, as it’s referred to later), which only blooms in the moonlight. A camel-riding priest (Egon Brecher) the expedition came across warned them away from the valley where they discovered the flower, but, in true horror film tradition, they went ahead. While Glendon is taking a few clips, the audience sees what looks like a teddy bear face rise over a bank above the botanist. An animal attacks Glendon.

…who is suddenly back in his lab in London, trying to get his specimen of Mariphasa to bloom. His wife, Lisa (Valerie Hobson), tries to enter the lab, wearing a lovely round hat that would social distance all by itself. Wilfred doesn’t have time and, after some words with her, sends her away.

The next person to arrive is one Dr. Yogami (Warner Oland), who says they met briefly in Tibet. Glendon doesn’t recall meeting the gentleman. Dr. Yogami says the Mariphasa he has in his lab is a treatment—not a cure—for werewolfery. He himself knows of two cases of the condition in London and asks Glendon for two blossoms from his plant.

Glendon doesn’t buy this and throws him out. He’s seen his own hand turn hairy in the artificial moonlight he’s using for the plant. Later, the viewer sees a pair of hands clip the blossoms.

Glendon is too busy to go to a party Lisa’s Aunt Ettie (Spring Byington) is throwing. Whaddya know. Lisa’s childhood friend, Paul Ames (Lester Matthews), shows up, only too happy to escort her. What could go wrong?

Thoughts:

Glendon is a jerk to his wife, losing himself first in Tibet and then in his lab. While he gives Paul the stink eyes and at one point even snarls that he’s had enough of childhood reminisces, he sees no reason Paul shouldn’t take his wife to Aunt Ettie’s party. By then, he’s got a lot on his mind. Dr. Yogami has told him how to keep from becoming a werewolf, but the blossoms he needs have mysteriously disappeared. The good doctor also warned him that the werewolf instinctively hunts the one he loves…

Part of the reason for making Glendon such a jerk is that the audience doesn’t mourn when he meets his untimely end. There is also some comic relief. Aunt Ettie is a party animal and likes her bottle. She refers to Dr. Yogami repeatedly as “Dr. Yokohama,” an indignity he bears with silent eye-rolling grace.

When newly-minted werewolf Glendon makes his first foray into the night, he dons a top hat and scarf. The werewolf make-up leaves enough of this face uncovered that other characters recognize him.

Variety (May, 1935) compared this movie to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which had come out in 1932. I can understand this not only because of the top hat and scarf, and the split personality theme, but werewolf Glendon has a penchant for chasing after young women who are alone. Longshoremen (or dockers since this is London) and boxers who might give the wolf a run for his money seem perfectly safe.

The print we saw of this was consistently nice and sharp. The audio was muddled at points, but still comprehendible. This was a pleasant surprise for an eighty-five-year-old movie.

Dr. Yogami’s (Warner Oland) was a familiar face. He played Charlie Chan in the innumerable Charlie Chan movies. He seems to have made a habit out of playing Asian characters, though he was of Swedish origin and immigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was a child.

The special effects went smoothly enough, but really. This is 1935.

I enjoyed this, though I felt there were some lost opportunities.

Title: Werewolf of London (1935)
Directed by
Stuart Walker

Writing Credits
John Colton…(screenplay)
Robert Harris…(story)
Harvey Gates…(adaptation) (uncredited)
Robert Harris…(adaptation) (uncredited)
Edmund Pearson…(contributing writer) (uncredited)

Cast (in credits order)

Henry Hull…Dr. Wilfred Glendon
Warner Oland…Dr. Yogami
Valerie Hobson…Lisa Glendon
Lester Matthews…Paul Ames
Lawrence Grant…Sir Thomas Forsythe

Released: May 13, 1935
Length: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Review of “The Nature of Time” by Preston Dennett

Plot:

Dr. Harry Topper Ph.D., professor of Philosophy (retired), is annoyed with his lifelong friend, Dr. Jack Trask. It’s so unlike Jack, perhaps the most fastidious man on the planet, to be late—and so late! Twenty minutes he’s been waiting at their regular table in the diner! Something must be wrong.

The sight of Trask, when he shows up, reinforces the feeling that something is wrong. He’s grinning, but it’s a nervous grin. Jack apologizes for being late.

Topper rather ungraciously tells him to stop smiling. It’s making him uncomfortable.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, Harry, but I can tell you this is a big one. This one’s for real,” Trask tells his friend.

After some back and forth, Trask declares he’s come to understand the nature of time and demonstrates it by predicting some events in the diner. Topper discounts each incident, but he can’t help feeling ever more nervous.

Thoughts:

Frankly, I didn’t see this ending coming, yet there were hints along the way. The conclusion is logical rather than a bait and switch. As a reader, I enjoy this sort of storytelling and respect writing that can pull it while making me laugh. This is it.

At the same time, the arguments between Topper and Trask ring hollow. Topper starts annoyed and only grows more irritated. He is stubborn. Their sniping and smirking gets tedious, but the payoff does arrive.

I couldn’t buy Trask’s description of the nature of time any more than did Topper, but the sense that all was not as it appeared rang true. It continued until the end.

Aside from some repetition in the argument between the two characters, I found this a fun little tale. I liked it.

Bio:

According to his blurb, author Preston Dennett has worked more types of jobs than you’d care to shake a stick at, but his favorite is “writing speculative fiction stories and books about UFOs and the paranormal.” His work has appeared in Andromeda Spaceways, Black Treacle, Cast of Wonders, Daily Science Fiction, T. Gene Davis’s Speculative Blog, and many others. Additionally, he’s written twenty-six non-fiction books and more than one hundred articles.

He says he spends his days looking for new ways to pay his bills (I hear you, brother), and his nights exploring the farthest reaches of the Universe. He currently resides in a crowded suburb outside of Los Angeles, CA.

“The Nature of Time” can be read here.

Title: “The Nature of Time”
Author: Preston Dennett
First published: Theme of Absence, July 31, 2020