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
Review of “The Awards” by Charles Michael Stucker
Plot:
The narrator’s silent alarm goes off while he (? Maybe. The narrator’s gender is never specified) is still at work. He gets ready to depart for the big event.
Mabel tries to stop him, but he’s having none of it. She might not be done, but records show he finished his assignment. He’s not staying over to help her finish hers.
Thoughts:
A lot of this sounds familiar to the working stiff—big plans for quitting time, the coworker who wants one last thing. It might even be a New Year’s celebration, with people waiting for a countdown in a bar, a bit of drinking, and a traditional toast.
There are also a couple of wrinkles in this one, however, to let the reader know all is not well in the narrator’s world. The final line is a punchline, but not one that turns the whole micro-tale on a dime. And yeah, there’s a bit of preachiness to it.
Having said that, I enjoyed how the author built everything up to a final ironic ending quickly and efficiently.
Bio:
According to his blurb, author Charles Michael Stucker is a literal rocket scientist, who has been trying to make ends meet with writing since the 2010 cancellation of the Ares program. He currently lives in Houston with his wife.
Best of luck, brother.
“The Awards” can be read here.
Title: “The Awards”
Author: Charles Michael Stucker
First published: Daily Science Fiction, July 26, 2020
Review of “The Land Unknown” (1957)
Saturday pizza and bad movie night with Svengoolie. Oh, brother. The pizza was good.
Plot:
The Navy is sending an expedition to Antarctica amid stories of an area of warm water in the interior. A helicopter is sent to survey the area, with Commander Alan Roberts (Jock Mahoney), a geophysicist, in command. The pilot is Lieutenant Jack Carmen (William Reynolds). Also aboard are mechanic Steve Miller (Phil Harvey) and the pretty lady reporter from Oceanic Press, Miss Margaret Hathaway (Shirley Patterson, credited as Shawn Smith).
A storm brings orders to return. They don’t have enough fuel to go around the storm. There’s no place to land to wait out the storm. Lt. Carmen looks for a break in the weather and takes it.
They don’t see much of anything but fog, snow, and ice until a pterodactyl swops by and damages the machine. Lt. Carmen realizes he can only descend—through the fog. Everyone braces for impact as the altimeter shows sea level, but they keep going down. And keep going down. It gets warmer. They have to shed their arctic gear. At 2500 feet below sea level, they land gently in a jungle.
The radio works, but they’re out of range. They hear rescue planes overhead, but they’re too far away for the flare guns to be noticed. (Those flares will come in handy later.)
Commander Roberts (Alan? Or Hal?) notices some of the trees they see have been extinct for millions of years. He guesses the jungle is still in the Mesozoic Era—you know, when dinosaurs roamed.
Jack and Steve find a bent push-pull tube to be the source of the mechanical trouble. All they have to do is straighten it out, but it’s made of a magnesium alloy and snaps after a few blows from a hammer. Bummer that!
If they don’t find a solution within a month, they’ll have to have their mail forwarded to Antarctica, because the fleet sails so as not to get locked into the winter ice, whether they’re with it or not.
Not only do they realize they’re not alone in the reptile department, they find someone has gotten into their food supplies, and that someone knows how to use a can opener! Later, the can-opener-savvy guy, a sole survivor of an earlier expedition named Hunter (Henry Brandon), kidnaps Maggie. He offers to tell the others the location of his wreck, where they might find spare parts to fix their own helicopter, in exchange for Maggie, an offer the Commander turns down. No one (including Hunter) bothers to ask Maggie how she might feel about the arrangement. After all, the decision would affect her. Think she’d want to have a say.
Such a gentleman.
Thoughts:
A warm water jungle in Antarctica or some other exotic area of the world is an idea that’s been explored in such stories as James De Mille’s A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Land that Time Forgot. Arthur Conan Doyle set his (yes) Lost World on a plateau in South America. Most of these stories have dinosaurs fighting each other and chasing the puny humans.
The prehistoric critters in this movie include the aforementioned pterodactyl; a man in a t-rex suit; a real monitor lizard or two, shot to make them look threateningly large; a plesiosaurus (probably?) that reminded me of a river carnival float; and a tiny tarsier.
Shooting this in color would not have made a better movie. The monsters were silly. Even the carnivorous plant was—oh, let’s just say you could see the strings. The flick was a real stinker, though, in that the story stunk.
The four people were all in danger. Or maybe they’re camping. In any event, they adjusted to the bizarre world of the steaming hot jungle surrounded by the frozen wasteland eagerly enough. They ran from those dangers—except Maggie, who screamed.
The actors do the best they can with the material they’re given, but there’s little room for curiosity for their surroundings. No one displays despair. Nor is there any of the expected military discipline or command to understand what they’re up against. Initially, while Jack and Steve try to find what’s wrong with the helicopter, Alan and Maggie walk away into the fog, primarily so he can hit on her. She narrowly (and unwittingly) escapes the clutches of the carnivorous plant in much the same way Daphne of Scooby-Doo fame steps away from being grabbed by some ghoulish hand when she finally decides which way to go.
Cheap effects (even a guy ambling around in a t-rex suit) I can forgive. Not every production company has the money or the knowhow to make fantastic effects. Hokey effects can be fun. But I cannot forgive a boring story.
Title: The Land Unknown (1957)
Directed by
Virgil W. Vogel…(as Virgil Vogel)
Writing Credits
László Görög…(screenplay) (as Laszlo Gorog)
William N. Robson…(adaptation)
Charles Palmer…(story)
Cast (in credits order)
Jock Mahoney…Commander Alan Roberts
Shirley Patterson…Margaret Hathaway (as Shawn Smith)
William Reynolds…Lt. Jack Carmen
Henry Brandon…Dr. Carl Hunter
Douglas Kennedy…Capt. Burnham (as Douglas R. Kennedy)
Released: October 30, 1957
Length: 1 hour, 18 minutes
Review of “Dig Faster” by J.B. Toner
Plot:
Ghost-hunter Tom Monaghan stops for coffee in a small roadside diner in Maine on his way to Boston. His ears prick up overhearing snatches of conversation among the local: “mutilated bodies,” “some kinda spooks,” and “I heard it was the Devil hisself!”
Sometimes you just get lucky, Monaghan says.
After getting directions, he heads up McGinney Road to find the (yep) Innsmouth House. By this time, he’s switched to “clericals” so he can present himself to the cops on scene as “Fr. Beauregard of Our Lady of the Snows” and ask about “an evil force at work in the house.”
He does indeed find three murder victims, each with a pentagram carved into their torso, with the apex star pointed to the “One below the floorboards.” His instruments detect electromagnetic radiation—which all spectral entities give off. This calls for the deployment of the Delving Industries model P-157 Plasmatic Cell.
Of course, not all is as it seems.
Thoughts:
Ghost-hunting, it seems, is a business with a bottom line. Whodathunk. Any trades-offs one might make to improve the bottom line is simply the cost of doing business.
The author explains the title comes from an old Army joke: “We have to get out of this hole, boys! Dig faster!”
“Innsmouth” is a fictitious town from the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, where all sorts of untoward things happened. The relevant allusion probably has to do with the religion that involved human sacrifice.
I enjoyed reading this story. The mixture of Satanism, cold-blooded murder, and corporate cynicism was perfect. However, the ending struck me as a little fuzzy. Even after several readings, I wasn’t sure precisely what happened, other than things did not return to normal, as odd as normal was to begin with.
Bio:
According to his blurb, author J.B. Toner studied Literature at Thomas More College and holds a black belt in Ohana Kilohana Kenpo-Jujitsu. He has published two novels, Whisper Music and The Shoreless Sea, and numerous shorter works. Toner lives in Massachusetts (not far from Lovecraft’s old stomping grounds of Rhode Island) with his lovely wife and two daughters.
“Dig Faster” can be read here.
Title: “Dig Faster”
Author: J.B. Toner
First published: Theme of Absence, July 24, 2020
Review of “Lump Sum Love” by Aliya Whiteley
Plot:
There isn’t too much of a plot here. This is written a final letter from a betrayed lover to her younger erstwhile beloved. She tells him (presumably “him,” though this is never stated), “I forgive you, and I love you, and I hope you are happy.” Isn’t that sweet?
Not exactly. The betrayal wasn’t for another lover, but to the “administrator.” The letter writer has been sold for a lump sum and will be “processed.”
Thoughts:
This is not a horror story in the same way that Soylent Green is. The horror is something more subtle and deals with human interactions and the uncomplicated acknowledgment of human selfishness, decline, and mortality. A lot is going on under the surface of the letter. Does the former lover buy the boat he wanted? What is the life of a human being worth?
Exquisitely crafted, this is a thoughtful, sad little tale.
Bio:
According to her blurb, author Aliya Whiteley has written more than one hundred published short stories that have appeared in Interzone, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Black Static, Strange Horizons, The Dark, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and The Guardian. Her work has also appeared in anthologies such as Unsung Stories’ 2084 and Lonely Planet’s Better than Fiction. She writes a regular non-fiction column for Interzone magazine.
“Lump Sum Love” can be read here.
Title: “Lump Sum Love”
Author: Aliya Whiteley
First published: Daily Science Fiction, July 20, 2020
Review of “The Wolf Man” (1941)
Saturday pizza and bad movie night. And Svengoolie! A classic. A howler. And the pizza wasn’t too bad, either.
Plot:
After the death of his older brother, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney) returns from America to Wales to see his estranged father, Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains). While helping his father install parts of a telescope—Larry has done some work on Mt. Wilson in California—he starts playing with the scope. He looks into the bedroom window of a comely local girl, Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers). So he’s a Peeping Tom before he’s a werewolf.
He notes the shop she lives above and goes in to meet her. He ends up buying a cane topped by a silver wolf’s head marked with a pentagram, even if he balks at the price. He offers to take her for a walk when she closes up shop at eight, even though she keeps up a steady chorus of, “No.” (Geez, she’s able to close up shop at eight?)
Larry shows up. So he’s a Peeping Tom and now a stalker? Maybe becoming a werewolf wasn’t be all that much of a change. But he’s in for a surprise. Gwen has a friend, Jenny Williams (Fay Helm). The three of them go to the gypsy carnival to have their fortunes told.
Jenny goes first, while Larry and Gwen for a walk. In the fog. Facing Jenny, Bela (Bela Lugosi), sees a pentagram in her palm. He begins to panic and says he can tell her nothing. She must leave and come back the next day. She flees.
Larry and Gwen hear a howl and then a woman’s scream. Larry goes to help Jenny. That silver wolf’s head makes a handy werewolf whacker. Just the same, he’s bitten in the struggle.
The next morning, he wakes up in his bed at Talbot Hall, with the authorities coming in. They ask if the cane they hold up is his.
“Sure,” Larry says. “I used it to kill a wolf last night.”
It was found next to the body of Bela the gypsy…
Uh-oh.
Thoughts:
While there were several werewolf movies before this one—even a couple before the talkies—this is the first biggie, the one that defined movie werewolves for a long time. Tall guy Lon Chaney, Jr. prowled around in the fog on the balls of his now hairy feet, growling looking for some innocent prey, ‘cuz, as we’re told several times in this movie:
Even a man who is pure in heart,
and says his prayers by night,
may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms,
and the autumn moon is bright.
Even the most cynical viewer can’t help feel sorry for Larry. He’s lost his brother. He’s been on the outs with his dad for eighteen years, making his own way in the world, working with his hands. Now he’s making up with the old man. He’s acting pushy (to say the least) with Gwen, only to find out she’s engaged. When he does, he steps back and remains friendly with everyone. The lucky man’s dog doesn’t care for him, but that’s out of his control at that point. He gets his foot caught in a bear trap.
He is at first reluctant to believe the werewolf lore, even when a pretty girl tells him about it but comes to grips with the terrible things he’s committed and is willing to bear the consequences.
The gore is minimal to non-existent. Most of the handful of attacks that occur in the film take place behind trees in the dark, more suggestive of violence than actually portraying it.
Much of the movie is so serious that it is ripe for parody—particularly the pronouncements of the medical/scientific experts, who see lycanthropy as a manifestation of the dual nature of human beings, not mention all the things the wise old gypsy woman has to say. Nevertheless, this is fun.
Title: The Wolf Man (1941)
Directed by
George Waggner
Writing Credits
Curt Siodmak … (original screenplay)
Cast (in credits order)
Lon Chaney Jr … Larry Talbot – The Wolf Man (as Lon Chaney)
Claude Rains … Sir John Talbot
Warren William … Dr. Lloyd
Ralph Bellamy … Colonel Paul Montford
Patric Knowles … Frank Andrews
Bela Lugosi … Bela
Maria Ouspenskaya … Maleva
Released: December 12, 1941
Length: 1 hour, 10 minutes
Review of “Non-Existence Never Hurt Anyone” by John McLaughlin
Plot:
Brooks is up to the “Party Staff and Responsibilities” module of the new employee tutorial when his new supervisor comes in to check up on him. He has just started his job as a sensory technician. They don’t discuss the manual, but the merits of the new ruling Negative Utilitarian Party. The NUP (delightful acronym) swept global elections with their emphasis on pain reduction by providing an AI program that allows people to turn on retinal feeds in uncomfortable situations. In other words, to mentally check out at will.
Their predecessor, the Positive Utilitarians, are now seen as hedonists because of their emphasis on pleasure-seeking, an outlook now viewed as destructive. No amount of pleasure is ever enough.
Of course, there have been growing pains with the NUP plan. At first, deaths among the elderly and infants increased. Then the birth rate fell. The dolorimeters measured spikes and drops in pain and discomfort.
Thoughts:
This one was a little hard for me to get a handle on. The author seems to be poking fun at following extreme fads and the oscillating favor of the public. As stodgy as it is, the old Golden Mean remains a fair guide. (Now, Aristotle, you may have blown a lot of physics, but you didn’t blow everything.)
At one point, the supervisor asks Brooks, “Do you want to know the true source of all suffering?”(It is suffering, after all, that the NUP seeks to reduce by tracking through the dolorimeters)
It’s hard to read the question and not think the Second Noble Truth of Buddhism, that is, that suffering and frustration arise from desire and attachment. I won’t say what the story says—or doesn’t say.
As often with stories this short, the final sentence is a punchline. It doesn’t come out of nowhere. I enjoyed some of the play with language, as well—Negative and Positive Utilitarians, and the dolorimeters.
Bio:
According to his blurb and his site, author John McLaughlin’s flash pieces have appeared or are forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Drabble, 600 Second Saga, and Literally Stories, among others. He holds a Ph.D. in Biology from the City University of New York. He’s interested in science and science fiction and writes both fiction and non-fiction within those genres.
“Non-Existence Never Hurt Anyone” can be read here.
Title: “Non-Existence Never Hurt Anyone”
Author: John McLaughlin
First published: Theme of Absence, July 17, 2020
Review of “Hiring the New Staff” by Lynne Lumsden Green
Plot:
Twenty generations ago, human civilization collapsed. Those aren’t human generations—because who cares about that?—but cat generations. The oldest cats remember what it was like to have effortless food, to live without fleas, and to sleep on soft beds. The current situation, where they have to live on vermin, is not acceptable.
The greatest feline minds meet in the old stone church where they can bask in the sunlight of the remaining glass windows. They can also keep their distance from one another. They domesticated humans in a relatively short period of time, and now they need to domesticate someone else.
Thoughts:
As one who has been owned by a succession of cats for decades, I confess there is more truth to many of the things the author says than not.
The tale is told tongue-in-cheek, with cats going by such humble monikers as Aslan the Brave and Gloriana. We humans really let the cats down by destroying civilization. They won’t even hire apes anymore. That didn’t work out well, did it?
The solution to their problem does not come as a surprise, but this is a cute little read.
Bio:
According to her blurb, Lynne Lumsden Green is enjoying the aging process, contrary to all expectations. She writes both fiction and nonfiction. She has had stories and articles accepted by Queensland Writing magazine, Aurealis magazine, AntipodeanSF, and by over a dozen anthologies of fiction.
“Hiring the New Staff” can be read here.
Title: “Hiring the New Staff”
Author: Lynne Lumsden Green
First published: Daily Science Fiction, July 12, 2020
Reviews of Old and New Stories. Mostly Old 