Review of “Thirst” by K.N. George

Image by Gundula Vogel from Pixabay

Plot:

The narrator tells the reader Danny Trank hanged himself in the garage three days earlier. People say you could hear his mother’s screams from across the neighborhood. It wasn’t a surprise, and after all, it wasn’t like the narrator and Danny were friends. Danny was just another sad sack.

He and his buddy Jay receive an invitation to Isabel’s party. Her parents are away vacationing in Fiji. As expected, they arrive at the party to find everyone drinking and dancing. What they don’t expect are the loud, intermittent bangs that seem to be coming from the basement.

Thoughts:

This was hard to get a read on at first. The feel is nihilistic/hedonistic, almost like a Bret Easton Ellis novel. When the narrator sees the hostess Isabel in a “short pink flowery dress,” he notes, “she beamed at us with those glistening pearly whites.” After some further description of her, he concludes, “I would’ve fucked her right then and there with everybody watching.”

Who says romance is dead?

But he isn’t so wrapped up in her that he fails to notice she deadbolts the door behind them.

Nevertheless, he isn’t completely listless and acts to help an innocent person.

However, some of the imagery is so over-the-top, I couldn’t buy it. It crossed my mind that perhaps the narrator’s experiences could be chalked up to (…dating myself…) bad acid. What makes this story even odder, is that the ending came as no surprise.

While the story is not bad, it was more of a puzzle that turns out to be just what you expected.

Bio:

According to his blurb, author K.N. George is a lifelong lover of the arts. He attended the Art Institute of Washington for animation but found his creative writing classes more rewarding. His passion for storytelling stems from his time as an award-winning actor during his youth.

The story can be read here.


Title: “Thirst”
Author: K.N. George
First published: Theme of Absence, May 22, 2020

Review of “This is How the Rain Falls” by M.K. Hutchins

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Image by Roman Grac from Pixabay

Plot:

The narrator used to love the rain, but then the boy attacked, beat, and robbed her in the rain. Ten years later, she’s at a bus stop, watching bus after bus pass by. She doesn’t want to risk getting caught in the rain, even for a little while. She sees a little girl waiting in the corner of the bus stop.

Thoughts:

Distilling the plot into everyday language makes it sound absurd. It is anything but. The poetry of the language is rich and deep. Yes, it’s rain, but perhaps it’s something more. Something that once brought joy to someone can drain the same person after trauma. It can be something as commonplace as rain.

The strength of the story is in its use of language and metaphor. While there isn’t a lot of action, there is transformation. The narrator comes to a realization about herself and the world.

I can’t say I enjoyed this sad little story, but I certainly admired it.

Bio:

Accord to the blurb, author M.K. Hutchins regularly draws on her background in archaeology when writing fiction. She’s the author of the YA fantasy novels The Redwood Palace and Drift, and she’s written over thirty short stories, appearing in Podcastle, Analog, and elsewhere. She lives in Utah with her husband and four children. Find her at mkhutchins.com.

The story can be read here.

Title: “This is How the Rain Falls”
Author: M.K. Hutchins
First published: Daily Science Fiction, May 18, 2020

Review of “The Deadly Mantis” (1957)

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Image from IMDB

Saturday pizza and bad movie night with a Svengoolie rerun we’d never seen

Plot:

Somewhere in the South Seas, a volcano erupts. Nothing happens in isolation, of course. As they told us in junior high science class, lo, many years ago, “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” So, after the volcano erupting in the south, it would naturally follow that ice melts in the North Polar Region. Right? From that melting ice is released a giant praying mantis, who’s been there for millions of years.

The viewer is also treated to an illustration of systems of radar lines in Canada developed during the Cold War to warn of any incoming Soviet attack. They don’t fare so well with a giant insect seeking warming climates south. The bug attacks the outlying military instillations, ripping through roofs, plane fuselages, and one unfortunate fishing vessel before it’s done.

When a five-foot-long… something is found in a wrecked plane, eminent scientists can’t decide what it is. Colonel Parkman (Craig Stevens, soon to be Peter Gunn) calls in (what else?) a paleontologist, Dr. Nedrick Jackson (William Hopper, soon to be Paul Drake), of the Museum of Natural History. Remember how dragonflies used to be bigger and are carnivorous? This bug is the ancestor—distant ancestor—of the praying mantis. And it’s much bigger.

While the help of the Ground Observer Corps,* the Air Force tracks the bug south. Kinda hard to miss, I would think.

Thoughts:

This movie is so serious and so silly, it’s hard not to like it. Granted, the first ten or fifteen minutes is all stock footage of a volcanic eruption, icebergs calving, pilots scrambling, etc., but there was some great footage. Even later, “borrowed” footage appears of a native village menaced by the really big bug, with men leaping into their kayaks and paddling off. (How is that a rational response? Oh, I ask too much.)

The movie speaks both to a natural disaster and the resources used to fight the Cold War.

The single female character of note in the movie, interestingly enough, is the museum magazine editor/photographer, Marge Blaine (Alix Talton). She knows a bit about bugs, correctly identifying the item sent to the museum by Col. Parkman, but mostly she screams. She’s just a girl, ya know.

In short, while the movie does not have a new story to tell, it was fun to watch. This would have been a great flick to watch in a drive-in, with shots of the big bug flying, and, in one shot, crawling up the side of the Washington Monument. It also gave a nod to the Ground Observer Corps, which was dissolved the next year.

It was a delightful Saturday pizza and bad movie night movie.

*The Ground Observer Corps was a civilian defense organization, originally founded during WWII to spot incoming German and Japanese planes. It was disbanded in 1944. A second group was reorganized in 1950 to serve during the Cold War and spot Soviet aerial incursions over the United States.

Title: The Deadly Mantis (1957)
Directed by … Nathan Juran

Writing Credits
Martin Berkeley … (screenplay)
William Alland …(story)

Cast (in credits order)

Craig Stevens … Col. Joe Parkman
William Hopper … Dr. Nedrick Jackson
Alix Talton … Marge Blaine
Donald Randolph … Maj. Gen. Mark Ford
Pat Conway … Sgt. Pete Allen

Released: May 26, 1957
Length: approx. 1 hour, 19 minutes

Review of “Hero” by Harris Coverley

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Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay

Plot:

Everyone appears to be dead and unburied except for the narrator, who, it becomes clear, did not kill anyone. He (?) finds ways to fill the time. He drains a stagnant lake (“they’re all stagnant anyway,” he tells the reader) just to see what’s on the bottom. He finds cars, bones, and garbage—about what you’d expect.

Whatever he is, he’s capable of incredible feats, like draining lakes and walking around the planet from Hokkaido to the Falklands. He threw a double-decker bus from Tower Hamlets in East London all the way to Calais, just skirting the edge of the stratosphere and not sending it into orbit. He doesn’t need to sleep or eat. He once tried to bury the dead humans but gave up. The task was just too much. Is he a ghost? A god from Olympus or Asgard?

Thoughts:

Although there are hints of an ecological collapse, the exact nature of the disaster that led to the destruction of nearly all life on earth isn’t given. The reader gets the feeling the narrator has been at this for a while. The moon, for example, is developing a new atmosphere.

Under all the comic book superhero antics, though, there is a sadness as well as a callousness. He is the last person around. He had been alone for a long time, and now he’s killing time. What is he waiting for? That’s never sorted out. Is he treading water, just spending his lonely life? Is he expecting something to change? He says he sometimes feels guilty. Maybe this existence is his Tartarus? Or perhaps I’m reading something where there’s nothing.

Bio:

According to the blurb, author Harris Coverley has short fiction published or forthcoming in Curiosities, Planet Scumm, Horror Magazine, and The J.J. Outré Review. He is also a Rhysling-nominated poet and member of the Weird Poets Society, with poetry most recently accepted for Star*Line, Awen, New Reader Magazine, Clover & White, and The Oddville Press, among many others. He lives in Manchester, England.

The story can be read here.

… apropos of nothing:

And here I am, writing this review for your consideration while I procrastinate my own research into late eighteenth-century forms of address among lower German nobility. Geez, you’d think a ten-minute simple google search would suffice, wouldn’t you?

Title: “Hero”
Author: Harris Coverley
First published: Theme of Absence, May 15, 2020

Review of “Munster, Go Home” (1966)

munster go hom
Image from IMDB

Plot:

Coming home from work at the funeral parlor one day, Herman Munster (Fred Gwynne) finds the family waiting for him. It seems there’s a letter from some lawyer in England. The late lord Munster has just shuffled off this mortal coil, and left his entire estate, including the title to—yep—Herman.

After bidding goodbye to Spot, the dragon that lives under the front staircase (they’re not going to hire a Spot-sitter?), the Munsters head out across the pond from 1313 Mockingbird Lane: Lily (Yvonne De Carlo), Grandpa (Al Lewis), Eddie (Butch Patrick), and the “ugly” Marilyn (Debbie Watson). They take a cruise ship, not an airliner, which gives Herman and Grandpa amply opportunity to get into trouble.

Meanwhile, in Great Britain, the English side of the family feels rather put out by the arrival of the colonials. Ten seconds with this side of the family and the viewer doesn’t wonder why the old Lord Munster disinherited his children. Another complication arises when, as it turns out, the young man Marilyn met on the crossing comes from a family whose feud with the Munster family goes back decades. It can be settled only by a car race. Plus, there’s something the English Munsters don’t want anyone to know about—perhaps the content of the coffin-shaped boxes that keep coming out of the back door/dungeon of their estate?

Thoughts:

There is not much in the movie one can take seriously. It’s just goofy. The humor is, well, sophomoric. Among the gags are a temper tantrum from a grown man, cousin Freddy Munster (Terry-Thomas), at not being named Lord Munster and applause from Lily and Herman when their Old Country relatives try to scare them away from Munster Manor. The scare tactics have more in common with the carnival than with any haunting, I might add. To top it off, Cousin Freddy walks up to Lily and Herman in a ghost costume that dishonors old sheets. At his first glimpse of the two, he heads for the hills by way of the wall.

In a couple of places, obvious stunt doubles are used, and some minor continuity issues crop up, but the viewer has to be looking for these. None make any difference to the story, such as it is.

Like the television show, it’s intended for kids. It was the first time audiences saw the Munster clan in color. This would have been fun at a drive-in back in the day (yes, I’m dating myself…), but it was also fun—if not exactly hysterical—for pizza and bad movie night with the dearly beloved during the days of staying home and social distancing.

We watched it via Svengoolie.

Title: Munster, Go Home

Directed by … Earl Bellamy

Writing Credits (in alphabetical order)
Joe Connelly …(written by)
Bob Mosher …(written by)
George Tibbles …(written by)

Cast (in credits order) complete, awaiting verification
Fred Gwynne … Herman Munster
Yvonne De Carlo … Lily Munster
Al Lewis … Grandpa
Butch Patrick … Eddie Munster
Debbie Watson … Marilyn Munster
Terry-Thomas … Freddie Munster
Hermione Gingold … Lady Effigie Munster
Robert Pine … Roger Moresby
John Carradine … Cruikshank
Bernard Fox … Squire Lester Moresby
Richard Dawson … Joey

Released: August 6, 1966
Length: approx.. 1 hour, 36 minutes

Review of “A Simple Misunderstanding” by Chris Dean

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Image by Thomas Budach from Pixabay

Plot:

After two hundred years, the Rangarians and the humans have come to a, um, “the successful cessation of hostilities.” This, at least, is how the Rangarians explain it to their people. To the human ambassador, however, the Rangarian ambassador merely says, “You won.”

This confuses the human ambassador, who only recalls that humans have never won a battle in space. The Rangarian technological edge is too great. They exchange surrender stories.

Victory and defeat can be… relative.

Thoughts:

The Rangarian ambassador knows he’s dealing with an inferior being and, at times, has difficulty hiding his contempt. He also readily admits his “side” is beaten. This makes for some amusement.

However, the resolution to this seeming paradox is obvious from a mile off. And frankly, the human ambassador is not the sharpest tool in the shed. His obtuse questions (in effect, “yeah-but…”) serve to irritate the Rangarian ambassador further.

This is a cute little story, but no more than that. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it for what it is.

Bio:

According to the blurb, author Chris Dean travels the American West as a marketing representative and adores Yellowstone, the Klamath, and anyplace the sequoias touch the sky. Chris’s work has appeared in Page & Spine and other publications.

The story can be read here.

Title: “A Simple Misunderstanding”
Author: Chris Dean
First published: Theme of Absence, May 8, 2020

Review of “The Curse” by Marissa Lingen

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Image by Ryszard Porzynski from Pixabay

Plot:

The narrator looks on as her mother and her aunts debate what to do after her twelve-year-old cousin, left alone for just a moment, has picked up a cursed sword. The family will never live down the disgrace if they can’t lift the curse off the sword. They even talk about raising their mother from the dead. She would know what to do.

Unfortunately, the youngest aunt has used up all her necromancy for a year in bringing back a certain king, so the chances she could bring anyone else back now are nil.

No one, however, is asking the cousin how he feels about the curse or the sword.

Thoughts:

The author gives the reader some un-subtle allusions to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and the Lord of the Rings, but there is something else going on here. Just the same, the ending is not a surprise.

It was fun listening in on the great aunt debate. They take themselves oh–so seriously. It’s nice to hear a well-known story told from another angle. The narrator offers little opinion, other than to acknowledge her mother’s suggestions are no more helpful than anyone else’s.

This is an enjoyable little read.

Bio:

According to her blurb, author Marissa Lingen is a science fiction and fantasy writer living in the Minneapolis suburbs. Her work has appeared in Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, Uncanny, and other places.

The story can be read here.

Title: “The Curse”
Author: Marissa Lingen
First published: Daily Science Fiction, May 4, 2020

Review of “The Smiling Ghost” (1941)

Another Saturday and another bad/fun movie.

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Image from IMDB

Plot:

Down on his luck and pinned inside his office by process servers, engineer Lucky Downing (Wayne Morris) places an ad in the paper that he’s willing to go anywhere and do anything legal. Most important to one reader, it notes he’s unmarried. Grandma Bentley (Helen Westley) has just the job for him— to become engaged to her granddaughter for one month. The pay is one thousand dollars plus expenses.

Grandma Bentley tells him the name of his soon-to-be affianced: Elinor Bentley Fairchild (Alexis Smith).

He repeats it.

“You’ve heard of her?” she asks.

“No,” Downing replies. “But I’ve heard of a thousand dollars.”

What Grandma isn’t telling him is that Elinor’s fiancés have not fared well. The first one drowned in a boating accident, perhaps by suicide. The second is paralyzed after his car rolled over on him and spends his days in an iron lung. The third died from a cobra bite…on the eighteenth floor of a hotel. The press has dubbed Elinor “The Kiss of Death Girl.” And Lucky is lined up to be fiancé number four.

Thoughts:

Primarily, this movie is goofy. Clarence (Willie Best) brings his boss lunch through the transom because he doesn’t dare open the door and let all the process servers in the office.

No surprise for the time, the single black character is a sidekick.

The viewer meets Elinor and her household—beyond Grandma—with a menagerie of eccentric and oddball characters like Great-Uncle Ames Bentley (Charles Halton), who collects shrunken heads. A nosy reporter (Brenda Marshall), who wants to scoop on the latest “Kiss-of-Death Girl” engagement is also about. Before long, she and Elinor are giving each the stink eye.

The reporter takes Downing to visit the only survivor among Elinor’s ex-fiancés, the sad Paul Myron (David Bruce). Confined in his iron lung, Myron tells Downing that while he lay pinned under his car, awaiting help, the ghost of fiancé number one, pale and bloated from drowning, came up to him and… smiled.

Part of what makes this movie work is the Downing character. Innocent and full of boyish charm, he’s funny just to watch. He’s no shrinking violet, though, and eventually sees the light. While hardly perfect—let alone realistic—this is a fun little piece of escapism that assumes all wealthy people live in old houses with secret panels and moving walls. (The only old house I’ve lived in had none of above but had a bomb shelter, in case, you know, the Reds ever decided to do away with upstate New York. Wealth didn’t enter into the equation, however.)

I liked this little pic, warts and all.

BTW: Morris would go on to serve in World War II and earn four Distinguished Flying Crosses and Two Air Medals. The butler, Norton, who likes to wave his gun around—and occasionally fire it—is Alan Hale, the father of a mighty sailing man of the same name who would one day keep the Minnow from being lost.

Title: The Smiling Ghost (1941)
Directed by Lewis Seiler
Writing Credits
Kenneth Gamet …(screenplay) and
Stuart Palmer …(screenplay)
Stuart Palmer …(from an original story by)
Ben Markson …(screenplay construction contributor) (uncredited)
Ralph Spence …(screenplay construction contributor) (uncredited)
Philip Wylie …(story) (uncredited)

Cast (in credits order) verified as complete
Wayne Morris … Lucky Downing
Brenda Marshall … Lil Barstow
Alexis Smith … Elinor Bentley Fairchild
Alan Hale … Norton – the Butler
Lee Patrick … Rose Fairchild
Willie Best … Clarence

Released: September 6, 1941
Length: approx.. 1 hour, 11 minutes.

Review of “The Grandfathers of Benson’s Corners” by Roy Dorman

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Image by tim striker from Pixabay

Plot:

As all grandfathers of Benson’s Corners do when their oldest grandson turns ten, Elmer Ebsen is going into the woods. The whole town turns out for a day of picnicking near the edge of Devil’s Woods. At the end of the day, Elmer, carrying an ax and a gunny sack full of leftover from the picnic, leaves. No one expects to see him again. The adults quickly put him out of their minds.

His grandson Eddie, though, will miss him. He sees Elmer as a hero. He is afraid there are monsters in the woods and doesn’t want his grandfather to die.

“There are monsters in the woods, Eddie, but it’s the job of the Grandfathers of Benson’s Corners to make sure they stay in the woods. Us Grandfathers aren’t crazy; we just want to keep the town safe.”

Besides, his friends Fred and Davey are already there. They’ll take care of each other.

“And you’ll be a Grandfather, too, someday, Eddie.”

Thoughts:

My first thought was, “Geez, virgins usually get the job of being sacrificed to the dragon/fill-in-the-blank monster to keep the people safe. Interesting switch that it’s up to the grandfathers now.”

This monster is playing a long game, though. If your kill off the young people, how do you ensure there will be more people?

I can’t help wonder if this story was inspired, at least in part, by the comments* made last March 23 by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick that he would be willing to risk dying for the sake of his grandchildren. This was said in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic. He further said that he—and probably many of his fellow grandparents—would be willing to make the same choice because they didn’t want to see the whole country sacrificed by being shut down economically. But I could be wrong. Dorman may have written the story a year ago.

The set-up in the story was more convincing than the delivery. The casual callousness of the adults toward the grandfather whose fate was apparently sealed for the sake of their survival was pitch-perfect. The idea of kids daring each other to come just a little closer to the Devil’s Woods is delightful in its credibility.

For me, the story lost steam after Elmer entered the woods. The “secret” of Benson’s Corners is layered, which is nice, but I couldn’t buy it.

Bio:

According to his blurb, author Roy Dorman retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Benefits Office and has been a voracious reader for over 65 years. His work has appeared in Black Petals, Yellow Mama, Dark Dossier, Near To the Knuckle, Bewildering Stories, Shotgun Honey, and other online and print journals.

The story can be read here.

 

Title: “The Grandfathers of Benson’s Corners”
Author: Roy Dorman
First published: Theme of Absence, May 1, 2020

Review of “Bring Me The Head” by Don Plattner

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Image by Yuri_B from Pixabay 

Plot:

Far from home, on the planet Caratax, the narrator’s unit of Sethorians, receive an offer from their commander:

“Bring me the severed head of a Corgolian, and I will provide nanobots that let you see the color purple.”

Well, yeah, that is pretty brutal. The soldiers understand that. They’re supposed to be winning this war, and how does taking heads speak to winning? But purple! None of the Sethorians can see that far into the spectrum. Wouldn’t it be great?

Thoughts:

The author says this story was written to reflect how, even in the future, the inhumanity inherent in war will find ways to show through. I don’t dispute this, but I saw something else besides. The soldiers have little choice but to fight. When challenged, they kill.

The thing they seek has no inherent market value. It’s not for greed they wish to see purple. The narrator admits the shame of cutting off heads. At first, their wish to do so—aside from an understandable childlike wonder—makes little sense. And why would the commander’s be interested in expanding their color vision? Why would they be interested in the heads of the enemy? They’re winning the war, right?

While it isn’t spoken of directly, it’s clear the soldiers are manipulated by the commanders. They are willing participants in this manipulation, acknowledged or not. What is the advantage?

The ending is not a surprise, but it speaks to the prerequisite of making the enemy into something non-human in a successful war.

The title is a nod to the 1974 Peckinpah film Bring me The Head of Alfredo Garcia.

Bio:

According to his blurb, author Don Plattner is a former chemist who wrote jokes for The Onion‘s ClickHole website. What little I know of ClickHole amounts to 1) it parodies the omnipresent clickbait, and 2) The Onion no longer owns it.

Plattner is on Twitter @dehydrogenation. (I’m not enough of a chemistry nerd to get the joke, but I imagine it has to do with removing hydrogen and making things more explosive.)

The story can be read here.

Title: “Bring Me The Head”
Author: Don Plattner
First published: Daily Science Fiction, April 27, 2020