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

Review of “The Thirteenth Guest” (1932)

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Image courtesy of Pixabay

For last week’s Saturday night pizza and bad movie night, we chose a murder mystery with Fred Astaire’s future dance partner. I added jalapenos to my side of the pizza.


Plot:

Thirteen years before the action of the movie, the Morgan family held a dinner party for thirteen guests. Only twelve showed. The family patriarch announced that he was leaving the bulk of his estate to the thirteenth guest, whose identity nobody knows. He died almost immediately, and his widow shut up the house and moved away with her two children, Marie (Ginger Rogers) and Harold (James Eagles).

The movie opens with daughter Marie Morgan, now twenty-one, arriving by cab at the old house. Someone else she doesn’t see has arrived as well. All the furniture is covered in sheets. Rats are eating the remnants of the thirteen-year-old dinner (EEEEWWW). She was just given a piece of paper by the family lawyer with three numbers on it: 13—13—13. She has no idea what they mean. She finds the supposedly long-unoccupied building has phone service and electricity.

She hears footsteps. Thinking they belong to the family lawyer, she calls his name and walks into another room. The viewer hears a scream and a sound that appears to be a gunshot. Outside, the cabbie runs off to get the police.

When the police find her, she’s perched in a grotesque pose at the dining table. The cause of death is not gunshot but electrocution.

Thoughts:

There are screwball elements to this. Police Captain Ryan (J. Farrell MacDonald) is just this side of incompetent, calling on Private Investigator Phil Winston (Lyle Talbot) quicker than Commissioner Gordon can raise a bat signal. Captain Ryan has a detective on the force, a nephew of an important person. Detective Gump (Paul Hurst) was not hired for his brains, however, and Ryan can’t wait for Uncle Important Person to die. Winston is fond of saying he’s not interested, especially if he’s curled up on the couch with a young lady. He’s also quick to call Marie “child” and to inspect her neck for surgical scars.

The Ginger Rogers, who plays Marie Morgan, is the same Ginger Rogers, who danced with Fred Astaire. She was quite young in this movie, about the same age as the character she played. I did not recognize her.

Outside of her character and maybe her brother, Harold “Bud,” it’s hard to feel much sympathy for any character in the movie. Bud seems genuinely sorry to hear of Marie’s bizarre death. He’s also puzzled by it. The whole Morgan family is vicious and cynical. They might be entertaining—from afar. Winston is able to gather the entire clan together, except for one uncle, who has been living in Yokohama for some years.

Could he have come back when no one was paying attention…?

There are also some elements to the movie that stretch credulity. The bad guy who throws the outsized switch and electrocutes people does so while wearing a hood and mask in a hidden room. He needs to conceal his identity while alone in a hidden room? Only from the audience. He has a peephole/sliding panel from which he can watch the comings and goings in the house. A piece of wooden trim that flips up at an angle hides his peephole from the people in the house when not in use.

(My temptation, were I writing this, would be to have Marie walk by while she’s contemplating her 13–13–13 note, see the trim out of whack, mutter something like, “Damn rats!” and come back with a hammer and several long nails.)

Aside from that, no one, not even the great detective Phil Winston, thinks to call an electrician after people start dying? One who might be able to figure out the wiring in the house?

Having said that, I enjoyed this movie. There are a few twists I did not see coming and several red herrings. The obnoxious Morgans (outside of Marie, of course) do get a comeuppance of sorts. It was a lot of fun, despite its flaws.

Title: The Thirteenth Guest

Directed by Albert Ray

Writing Credits
Armitage Trail …(book)
Frances Hyland …(screenplay)
Arthur Hoerl …(screenplay) (uncredited)

Cast (in credits order)
Ginger Rogers … Lela / Marie Morgan
Lyle Talbot … Phil Winston
J. Farrell MacDonald … Police Capt. Ryan
Paul Hurst … Detective Grump
Erville Alderson … Uncle John Adams

Released: August 9, 1932

Review of “World Builder” by R. Michael

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Orion Nebula Image courtesy of Pixabay

Plot:

Rich, a corporal serving the Panstellar Conglomerate, has orders to destroy a craft. He’s not been told much else about it. When he locates it near the heart of the cosmic cloud, he pulls back to watch in fascination as it appears to convert star debris into a rocky planet.

The on-board companion first warns him he’s out of target range. It then reminds him that his objective is to destroy the target. “Failure to do so will result in obliteration on grounds of presumed desertion.”

Why should he destroy such a machine? It should be studied! But that’s not his call.

Thoughts:

At first, I was unsure about Rich. One could sympathize with his desire to hold back on destroying such a powerful and apparently creative device. One could also understand the frustration at being told to do things without given the rationale for them, especially where the stakes are so high. On the other hand, doesn’t he wonder where all that star debris came from? Was it just hanging around, waiting for the ship to happen upon it?

There is a nice twist at the end. What began as a study in combat ethics ends up as an exercise in reality vs. illusion. I like this little tale.

Bio:

According to his blurb, R. Michael lives in rural Minnesota with his spouse, one son, and a border collie foot warmer. He has four books published on Amazon and has works published in 365 Tomorrows, Altered Reality Magazine, and Ink & Fairydust Magazine.

The story can be read here.

Title: “World Builder”
Author: R. Michael
First published: Theme of Absence, April 25, 2020

Review of “The Sword of Saints and Sinners” by Kat Otis

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Image courtesy of Pixabay

Plot:

As people are led to the gallows in London, the narrator tells the reader, they have the right to face his sword. A wound from his sword will let all know whether the condemned is a saint or a sinner by whether it draws blood. The narrator prays they will decline the offer.

The story consists of the hangings of several people and the crowd’s reaction. Most of the condemned, as might be expected, decline to be stabbed. Perhaps they have enough on their minds. However, those exceptions prove to be heartbreaking.

Thoughts:

According to her notes, author Kat Otis drew on the digitized records of London’s criminal courts from the Old Bailey Online project (oldbaileyonline.org), for her characters. Perhaps this is one reason this story is peopled with human and real actors, both those who are terrified and those who don’t seem all that bothered.

I like this sad little tale. It says a lot in a small space, though it’s not necessarily one to enjoy.

Bio:

Author Kat Otis says she when she’s not writing, she’s a historian, mathematician, singer, and photographer. Her work has appeared in Kaleidotrope, Mysterion, Factor Four Magazine, and in the anthology Alternate Peace.

The story can be read here.

Title: “The Sword of Saints and Sinners”
Author: Kat Otis
First published: Daily Science Fiction, April 20, 2020

Review of “The Crooked Circle” (1932)

This week, we had enough leftover pizza in the freezer we didn’t have to venture into the world to buy any more for Saturday pizza and bad movie night.

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Image from IMDB

Plot:

The Crooked Circle is a gang of criminals, engaging in thievery, counterfeiting, and other wayward and unproductive acts against society. Hot on their trail is the Phoenix Club, a group of amateur criminologists. The opening scene is of the Crooked Circle meeting, complete with black hoods and club slogan (“To do for each other, to avenge any brother, a fight to the knife and a knife to the hilt.”) The order of business is to assign one of their number the task of dealing with Col. Walters (Berton Churchill), a Phoenix Club member who has sent a Crooked Circle to jail. They draw lots. The sole female member gets the job.

Col. Walters has just bought an old house (“Melody Manor”) in an isolated place because, well, of course, he has. Once he receives notice from the Crooked Circle he’s on their list, the other Phoenix Club members join him at his new, creepy, old place in the middle of nowhere to guard him against attack. One Phoenix is in the middle of leaving the club at the insistence of his fiancée. A new member, a Hindu mystic by the unlikely name of Yoganda (C. Henry Gordon), joins the party at Melody Manor.

Before the Phoenixes arrive at Melody Manor, there is a silly scene in which some creepy neighbor with apparently nothing better to do convinces the excitable maid, Nora Rafferty (Zasu Pitts), the house is haunted. It leads to one of the taglines of the movie, that is, “Something always happens to somebody.”

Melody Manor is chockful of mysterious violin music, clocks that strike thirteen, secret passages, hidden panels, a skeleton in the attic, and all the amenities. Suspicion is cast on nearly everyone. A bumbling cop (Tom Kennedy) later shows up. We know a female assassin is about. Just why was that fiancée so adamant that her dearly beloved leave the Phoenix Club? Who is the mysterious Yoganda, who goes around muttering, “Evil is on the way!” (When the maid Nora first sees him in his turban, she says, “I’m sorry you have a headache. Can I get you a Bromo-seltzer?”)

Thoughts:

According to IMDB, this was the first movie shown on commercial television, specifically, on March 10, 1933. Only a few people owned television sets. An experimental station, W6XAO-TV, broadcast it while it was still playing in theaters.

Zasu Pitts received top billing for a part that more or less unnecessary to the plot but apparently for adding… atmosphere? She wrings her hands and spends a lot of time worrying about ghosts, saying, “Oh,” while repeating the tagline. Apparently, she was an inspiration for Olive Oyl of the Popeye cartoons.

The opening scene of the meeting of the Crooked Circle in their black hoods contains some admirable camera work. At one point, the viewer looks down from above and sees the five clasp hands over a skull set on a circular table. The effect is not only creepy but over-the-top in seriousness. These are bad’uns who mean business.

There is a lot of just plain silliness in this movie, both in action and in dialogue. The slapstick is minimal, but it exists. This is not one to take seriously. Nora’s hand-wringing can become tiresome.

There are a couple of twists near the end, which are enjoyable. Overall, I liked this flick. Best with wine and pizza.

Title: The Crooked Circle
Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone
Writing Credits
Ralph Spence … (screenplay)
Tim Whelan … (additional dialogue)

Cast (in credits order)
Zasu Pitts … Nora Rafferty
James Gleason … Arthur Crimmer
Ben Lyon … Brand Osborne
Irene Purcell … Thelma Parker
C. Henry Gordon … Yoganda

Released: September 25, 1932
Length: approx.: 1 hour, 10 minutes

Review of “The Food Critic” by Carol Scheina

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Image courtesy of Pixabay

 

Plot:

The restaurant critic, Anabelle Mitchell, seated at table four, has ordered the specialty zombi de boeuf, which takes the beef of zombie cattle. It is coated with garlic and butter, then grilled to perfection. Working with zombie beef is tricky and comes with certain risks. The chef must wear goggles, mask, and gloves to handle the meat. She cuts away the really rancid parts but leaves just enough to give the customer that “slightly dead” feeling for a couple minutes without turning them.

Anabelle signed all the standard waivers. Her magazine has retained the right to write a review, regardless of her condition. On this one meal rests the fate of the restaurant’s three-star rating.

Thoughts:

Of course, nothing goes to plan.

The obvious analogy that comes to mind is blowfish (fugu), eaten in Japan and other places, which contains a toxin. It requires expertise to prepare the fish and remove the parts where the toxins are concentrated. It won’t make the consumer a zombie, however.

The ending is not a surprise, but there are cute elements to the story that make it fun to read. I enjoyed it.

Bio:

According to her blurb, author Carol Scheina is a deaf writer living in a traffic-jammed world [though I bet that’s let up in that past couple of weeks], dreaming of new places to explore. She has been published in Enchanted Conversation Magazine and On The Premises. Her works can be found at page.

The story can be read here.

Title: ”The Food Critic”
Author: Carol Scheina
First published: Theme of Absence, April 18, 2020

Review of “Gaia Hypothesis” by Eden Fenn

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Image courtesy of Pixabay

Plot:

The colonists on Mars keep dying regardless of what intervention the experts take: increased exercise to combat the difference in gravity, a stronger ion shield to protect against radiation and to ward off cancer, sunlamps, vitamins, antidepressants, and sleeping pills. After its founding ten years earlier, no one from the first two expeditions survives.

One of the colonists, “an irrelevant old biochemist who hadn’t published since [her] arrival on Mars, an old woman … whose time was running out,” starts looking for answers beyond chemistry and physics. She’s laughed out of the room. She explores religion and philosophy and eventually hits upon the Gaia hypothesis, that is, the earth is the source of life on the planet. Once removed from the environment, earth life dies.

Thoughts:

The story is more a statement on religion than it is on interplanetary colonization. Is the irrelevant old biochemist insane? Or has she come across the answer to the colony’s problem? It’s not really made clear, but the ending is logical and familiar to literature either way.

This is not a little pick-me-up or a tale of humankind’s triumph over adversity. It is a portrait of people in extremis and what measures they find necessary. While I admired the way the author packed a lot of story in a small space, I can’t say I enjoyed it.

Bio:

According to her blurb, author Eden Fenn is a software developer and vat meat enthusiast—whatever that is. Her work has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (COOL!) and the Baltimore City Paper. She’s currently finishing a young adult novel about gender and power on a strange planet. She lives in Baltimore with her wife and a very bad dog. Aww, no bad dogs.

The story can be read here.

Title: “Gaia Hypothesis”
Author: Eden Fenn
First published: Daily Science Fiction, April 13, 2020

Review of “This Island Earth” (1955)

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Our traditional Saturday pizza and bad movie night makes for a bright spot in this stay at home business.

Plot:

Dr. Cal Meacham (Rex Reason) is an Air Force jet pilot and an electronics engineer working on a way to make atomic power more user friendly to Mr. and Mrs. Jones. On his way out to the lab in Los Angeles, he does a little hot-dogging, buzzing the control tower. It’s all fun and games until he realizes he no longer has control of his plane. He’s too low to bail out. Just when it looks like it’s curtains for Cal, a green light envelops the plane, takes the stick, and lands the craft safely.

Back at the lab, where Cal and his assistant, Joe Wilson (Robert Nichols), have been trying to transmute lead into uranium (heh-heh), the equipment keeps blowing out. Cal receives a parts catalog whose pages are made of some sort of metal. He orders an interociter, whatever that is. The crates fill the lab. He and Joe assemble the interociter, which looks like a vanity with a raised triangular view screen in the center.

Once the machine is completed and plugged in, the view screen resolves into the picture of a man with a high forehead, who introduces himself as Exeter (Jeff Morrow). He congratulates Cal on passing the test of being able to complete the interociter. He invites him to join an assembly of imminent scientists working for peace doing research like Cal’s. He tells him he’ll be sending a plane around for him and names the time and place.

Cal demurs. He’s got a good gig right where he is. Why should he leave it? Apparently, Exeter thinks this requires a show of force. Rays, later identified as “neutrino rays,” issue from the three corners of the triangular screen and incinerate the order catalog with its metal pages. Cal unplugs the interociter, which for some reason, causes it to self-destruct.

Nevertheless, he meets the plane, which lands in impossible fog. It lacks windows—and pilots.

Thoughts:

We watched this with Svengooli as host. In general, his remarks are informative and interesting, but his jokes are… oh, boy. Nice to see him on the air again.

The plane takes Cal to Georgia, where he meets up with Dr. Ruth Adams (Faith Domergue). The two of them remember a past encounter at some science retreat in Vermont differently. He called her a sissy for not wanting to go swimming in a lake. Ah, what a romantic. She tells him he must be thinking of someone else. They also meet Dr. Steve Carlson (Russell Johnson, who would later go on a three-hour tour that would last a lifetime).

They meet in secret—a no-no—and come to realize the nuclear research for peace thingy is not all it’s cracked up to be. There are things they’re not being told.

The viewer knows that Exeter’s boss, the Monitor (Douglas Spencer), has decided to abandon the project on earth, a move that calls for more drastic action than pink slips. Before the good stuff hits the fan, our heroes have decided to part company (in a Woody! How cool!) with the nukes-for-peace crew. They should have taken poor Neutron, the cat who didn’t ask for any of this.

The mutant alien, the quintessential bug-eyes monster, with an overgrown skull and eyes to match, seemed to live longer on posters than in the movie. He menaced our heroes, but never got a chance to make his case. He was already severely wounded when he showed up. And his day goes from bad to worse. Granted, he was ugly. Granted, he had a bone to pick with Exeter. But, did his punishment deserve his crime?

While the special effects may not appear impressive on a small screen to an audience in 2020, in its day, with so many things going BOOM and the rays shooting all over the place, they were awe-inspiring. I also liked the idea of comets being weaponized against an enemy planet. Quite impossible and hardly worth the effort, but someone was thinking.

A lot of things happen in this movie. It was based on a 1952 novel of the same name by Raymond F. Jones, which was, in turn, a fix-up of three novelettes serialized between 1949 and 1950 in Thrilling Wonder Stories. The plot of the movie and the book diverge after the building of the interociter.

While there was a lot to enjoy in this movie, it simply took itself rather too seriously for my taste. And poor Neutron.

Title: This Island Earth
Directed by Joseph M. Newman
Writing Credits
Raymond F. Jones (1915-1994) (story “The Alien Machine”)
Franklin Coen (screenplay) and George Callahan (screenplay)
Released: June 15, 1955

Cast:

Jeff Morrow … Exeter
Faith Domergue … Dr. Ruth Adams
Rex Reason … Dr. Cal Meacham
Lance Fuller … Brack
Russell Johnson … Dr. Steve Carlson

Review of “Of Ships, Crews And Chance Encounters” by Martin Lochman

Plot:

The ship has just lost its crew to a devastating virus. Nothing in the sickbay helped. She contemplates her course of action. She no longer has anyone to care for. Without humans, she cannot engage the FTL engine, long-range communications, or the weapons system. These all require human input. Her choices seem down to floating in space, alone forever, or destroying herself.

But then she remembers there is still life aboard the ship. There are rats in the laboratory and pets—dogs and cats—left by the late crew members. She runs into communications problems until she finds a way around those.

Thoughts:

If anyone is thinking this is a cute story about animals running a spaceship, let me disabuse you of the notion before you read further. This is a dark tale about AI that is not quite human. Her first thought when her crew dies horrible, painful deaths is to wonder who she will take care of now. She has longings, like we all do, to be meaningful. She understands protocol and can ponder ethical problems. She knows, for example, aside from the time it will take to return to earth without FTL travel, that she cannot risk spreading the virus that killed her crew.

But she is not human.

Her fatal flaw is brutally portrayed. If you are feeling down and being socially distanced into oblivion, this is not the story for you. However, looking at it from the angle of understanding how precious human relationships are, and how unique and wonderful it is to connect with animals, it can inspire gratitude for those bonds.

Bio:

According to the bio on his page, author Martin Lochman is a Czech author of science fiction and speculative fiction stories. He currently resides in Malta, where he works as an academic librarian at the University of Malta. His work has appeared in Ikarie, a former Czech SF magazine, Asymmetry, Theme of Absence, Aphelion, Aurora Wolf, Antipodean SF, 101 Words, The Weird and Whatnot, Four Star Stories, 365 tomorrows, and in many Czech anthologies. When he isn’t writing, he likes to read, watch an occasional movie or a TV show, work out, and improve his chess game.

The current story marks Lochman’s fifth appearance in Theme of Absence.

The story can be read here.

Title: “Of Ships, Crews And Chance Encounters”
Author: Martin Lochman (b. 1989)
First published: Theme of Absence, April 10, 2020

Review of “Terror from the Year 5000” (1958)


This is the result of our latest Saturday night pizza and bad movie foray. The pizza was good. The movie—well—

Plot:

In isolation on an island off Florida, Professor Howard Erling (Frederic Downs), along with his financial backer Victor (John Stratton) work to break the time barrier. As the narrator has already informer the viewer, the sound barrier was broken in 1947, and the “space barrier” broken in 1958. Huh? (Sputnik was launched in 1957.)

In the chamber of their time machine, which resembles perhaps an overgrown and reinforced water heater with a viewing portal, a metal statuette appears. For a moment, a negative of a woman’s face flashes over it. Victor tries to call the Professor’s attention to what he sees, but by the time he does, the image is gone. All that’s left is—huh—another statue, a headless nude female, twisting as if in agony.

This is 1958. No bare lady parts are visible. The viewer knows the statue depicts a female from its abstract shapely tushie.

The statuette is delivered to museum curator Dr. Robert Hedges (Ward Costello), along with a letter requesting verification of age. He explains the purpose of carbon-dating to his assistant, Miss Blake (Beatrice Furdeaux), who is for some reason quite fuzzy on the concept.

The learned Dr. Hedge dates the object (cue the Theremin) to 5200 AD—not BC.—three thousand years in the future.

Yeah, ‘cause carbon-12 dating works like an expiration date or something on inorganic objects.

Upon further investigation, Hedges comes to understand that the statue is radioactive. He hurries down to Florida to find out more.

Thoughts:

We watched this via Mystery Science Theater. Their comments were hit and miss, as usual, but many of them provoked outright snickers. Some alluded to old TV shows and function as age tests.

When a Geiger counter goes nuts as a lab technician runs is over the statue, the MST3K crew compares it to Jolly Time popcorn.

“Always dive first into an unfamiliar lake.”

Prof. Erling and Victor become convinced the objects they put in their time machine are being exchanged with objects from the future. Dr. (“I know all there is to know about carbon-14 dating”) Hedges is understandably skeptical and sends his fraternity pin through the time machine. It is exchanged with a wafer inscribed with a message in Greek:

(MST3K: “Good for a bumper ride at Chuck E. Cheese’s.”)

Dr. Hedges: ““Help us.”

Prof. Erling’s daughter Clare (Joyce Holder) is seeing Victor, but she instantly falls for Dr. Hedges. Victor is making some unauthorized use of the time machine. Seems his dating life is about to get all the more interesting. So now not only is Dr. Hedges snooping around his time machine, he’s making moves on his girl.

The movie is such a jumbled mess, but underneath it is a reminder of the horror of nuclear war and atomic radiation. Throw in a little bit of (very tame…) sex you’re primed for a hot mess.

A streak of misogyny also runs through the film. The viewer is treated with needless scenes of Clare undressing before she joins Hedges swimming and before she goes to bed. The “terror” summoned by Victor is also female, a damaged female in this case, who is looking for some good breeding stock. She’s willing to dispatch some rivals to make this happen.

I found this more creepy—but for all the wrong reasons—than terrifying or even fun.

The film can be watched here.

Title: Terror from the Year 5000 (1958)
Director: Robert J. Gurney Jr.
Writer: Robert J. Gurney Jr. and Henry Slesar
Released: January 1958
Length:  approx. 1 hour, 32 minutes.