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From These Ashes: The Complete Short SF of Fredric Brown
A collection of all 118 short science fiction and fantasy stories of one of the masters of the vignette, all his short works except two which were rewritten into parts of a novel. Introduction by Barry N. Malzberg. Dustjacket art by Bob Eggleton.
693 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2001
11 people are currently reading
918 people want to read
About the author
Fredric Brown
807 books354 followersFredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was one of the boldest early writers in genre fiction in his use of narrative experimentation. While never in the front rank of popularity in his lifetime, Brown has developed a considerable cult following in the almost half century since he last wrote. His works have been periodically reprinted and he has a worldwide fan base, most notably in the U.S. and Europe, and especially in France, where there have been several recent movie adaptations of his work. He also remains popular in Japan.
Never financially secure, Brown - like many other pulp writers - often wrote at a furious pace in order to pay bills. This accounts, at least in part, for the uneven quality of his work. A newspaperman by profession, Brown was only able to devote 14 years of his life as a full-time fiction writer. Brown was also a heavy drinker, and this at times doubtless affected his productivity. A cultured man and omnivorous reader whose interests ranged far beyond those of most pulp writers, Brown had a lifelong interest in the flute, chess, poker, and the works of Lewis Carroll. Brown married twice and was the father of two sons.
Never financially secure, Brown - like many other pulp writers - often wrote at a furious pace in order to pay bills. This accounts, at least in part, for the uneven quality of his work. A newspaperman by profession, Brown was only able to devote 14 years of his life as a full-time fiction writer. Brown was also a heavy drinker, and this at times doubtless affected his productivity. A cultured man and omnivorous reader whose interests ranged far beyond those of most pulp writers, Brown had a lifelong interest in the flute, chess, poker, and the works of Lewis Carroll. Brown married twice and was the father of two sons.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
June 28, 2011
I’ll be a while reading through this HEFTY collection of well over 100 science fiction short stories, but the thought of it makes me smile and gives me a full on happy. Fredric Brown was a true artist of the short fiction format. Often called the O. Henry of science fiction because of his penchant for the “trick ending,” Brown’s stories are simply delightful to consume. Always well-written, they alternate between “toe tapping” fun to “nail-biting” suspense and most of the stories also have something clever or insightful to say about the human condition.
With so many entries in the collection, I think it would be a novel in itself to try and do a detailed review of each story. Therefore, I am simply going to breakdown the stories I have read so far a place them in one of four groups (according to my level of appreciation for them) and then toss a blurb about the story (this will of course be revised as I get through more of the stories).
THE SUPERBEST
Armageddon: A smart, funny story about a little boy and the end of the world.
The New One: An original, imaginative story about the power of belief.
Paradox Lost: Simply brilliant short piece about sanity, insanity and dinosaurs.
The Weapon: Genius and very powerful piece about War.
Arena: Brown’s most famous story (thanks to the Star trek episode of the same name). Selected as one of the top 20 all time SF Short Stories of All Time).
THE EXCELLENTNESS
Runaround: A beautiful, poignant story about the last T-Rex as seen through the dying creatures on eyes.
Not Yet the End:A great ending highlights this comical tale about aliens, monkeys and man’s place in the universe.
The Angelic Angleworm: Smart, meaningful and humorous novelette with another classic ending.
The Geezenstacks: One of FB’s more famous pieces about a family of dolls that are much more than they appear.
THE VERY GOODIE TO THE BARELY GREAT
Etaoin Shrdlu: Another great ending highlights this tale of a sentient linotype machine.
The Hat Trick: Terrific, intelligent story about the inability of people to “see” the fantastic.
THE RESTEST**So far these have been at least decent.
Star Mouse Not a bad story about a smart little critter, but my least favorite so far.
Daymare Neat novelette about a Martian policeman investigating a very bizarre murder.
**TO BE CONTINUED
August 30, 2022
There's a very good chance that this review is going to be longer than the average Fredric Brown story.
While some writers like to stretch out for ten of pages for their mini-masterworks Brown was cut from slightly different cloth. Never purely confined to SF he ranged through a variety of genres over the decades, though he's best associated with mysteries with SF maybe a close second. He's one of those writers that other writers admire, the type of writer they point to when they want to demonstrate how elegantly a short story can be constructed, how to make a twist ending stick or how to use humor without being cloying or dumb. I don't know how much of a household name he was in SF in his time, though he certainly seemed to get steady work, so it seems that editors liked him at least.
But having done pretty much all his SF work between 1941 and 1965 and having been deceased with 1972, he's definitely one of those names that's fallen off the collective radar a bit in the world of SF, especially as so many peers that once admired him are long gone as well. And it’s a shame because his stories tend to date really well . . . unlike a lot of SF from that era where you wind up making some allowances for "It was a different time" for the most part they're just as enjoyable today as they were when they were first published, unless for some reason you hate concise, punchy tales that often display a savage sense of humor. I don't think you're going to trick anyone into thinking they were written within the last five years but at least you can show these to someone who isn't a SF reader without having to hurriedly give a quick talk about context. Sometimes its nice not to have to have that conversation.
Still, it should come as little surprise that if you're going to find a Fredric Brown novel on the shelf at the local bookstore, its going to be in the mystery section (of which "The Fabulous Clipjoint" is the most well known, having won an Edgar Award when it was first published in the late Forties). As far as his SF work goes unless you want to haunt used bookstores you're going to have to commit to the all-you-can-eat approach and snap up this and its companion volume. Published by NESFA Press over a decade ago you can get all his short SF fiction in this volume and all the non-short stuff in the other volume (I read the other one first, which I don't think is the recommended way to approach Brown but I'm wacky that way). Both volumes are well over five hundred pages (although this one has the Barry Malzberg introduction, who I forgot lives/lived in New Jersey), which of course leads to the question "Do I need all this Fredric Brown in my life?"
For me, and I think for anyone vaguely interested in his work, the answer is probably "yes". He's fiendishly consistent . . . sometimes when you read a "Complete" short story collection by an author you're getting the handful of bonafide masterpieces surrounded by a bunch of also-rans, which is the kind of thing that caters more to completists than anything else. But with Brown while it’s the true that the best known stories hit perhaps a little bit harder for most part the rest is not a parade of swings and near misses . . . in almost all of them there's some little gem-like facet that makes it a keeper, whether it’s the premise or the ending or the dialogue, there's just a little something that makes it stick in the head for just a minute or two after you've finished it. They're not only well constructed stories, but they've got some weight behind them, as opposed to someone just churning them out to fill a deadline (which is fine! we've all got bills to pay . . . but those people tend not to get massive collections published over forty years after they've died). In other words, its not pleasantly inoffensive hackwork. Whatever reputation you think he has, he's earned it.
With that in mind, let me also tell you that there are roughly a hundred stories in this volume.
But relax! Its not that bad! Besides, I'm not going through every single one. But it does give you an idea of how much variety Brown was able to cram into his SF writing career because with extremely rare exceptions he does not repeat himself.
What was interesting to me when going through these stories is that the short-and-sweet Brown story that everyone hails as his undying trademark wasn't apparent immediately. For most of the 1940s his stories tend to average around ten pages in length, which is a fairly typical length for short stories of that time, with some tales ballooning into an oddly epic thirty pages.
That relative behemoth is "The Angelic Angleworm", where a fairly ordinary guy winds up experiencing a series of increasingly bizarre events that seem to have no logical consistency until the story takes a sudden cosmic left turn that I can't imagine anyone is going to see coming (even on a second skim it took a while to piece it together). Even if its longer than the usual Brown story, its got all of his highlights . . . a likeable protagonist who pulls out the clever solution, a weird mystery with a twist resolution and all done with a sharp sense of humor that never falls completely into farce. And even when the humor is a bit broader ("Star Mouse" starring "Mitkey Mouse" named by a German scientist who is apparently the ancestor of the guy doing those recent Meineke commercials that are airing nonstop . . . it later gets a sequel "Mitkey Rides Again", both wind up being kind of fun) it never feels forced . . . Brown seems to intuitively know how far he can push it before things get too ridiculous, straddling the line between playing it totally straight and giving a little wink to the audience. The aforementioned mouse stories are a good example . . . while the thick German accents (even the mice have them!) could be sitcomish in their humor, the stories themselves are interesting examinations of whether being smarter than average is really the key to happiness if no one understands you.
The hits start coming around 1943 . . . you have the trio of "The Geezenstacks", "Daymare" and "Paradox Lost", probably one of my favorite runs in the collection. "The Geezenstacks" is short but bloodlessly horrific (and probably one of his more well known tales) while "Daymare" is one of the rare longer works, a future police procedural that starts as a weird mystery and gradually piles on mysteries before heading for a conclusion that depends on the main characters being clever instead of lucky, which I always appreciate. "Paradox Lost" has paleontology and a charming ending, so I can't complain.
The first of the really famous ones comes at the end of '44 with "Arena" . . . so memorable that it apparently inspired a "Star Trek" story (from the original series), although it seems that the script was written first before the studio realized the similarities and reached out to Brown, offering payment and screen credit. Even if you haven't seen the episode in question its filtered down into cultural memory enough that Shatner reprised it in a commercial some years back. But you know which episode . . . the Life and Death Struggle With the Slow Guy in the Lizard Costume On the Desert Planet. They miss an opportunity for Kirk to go shirtless but its still ranked as one of the better episodes.
Brown's story ups the intensity quite a bit as the protagonist still has to undergo the trial by combat, but against an alien he's unable to communicate with and only able to attack from a distance thanks to an invisible barrier between them (meaning he can't just walk up and punch it). Planetary conditions are awful and the alien is legitimately trying to kill him, which means he can't do things like eat or take a nap. Its probably one of the more brutal stories that Brown ever produced (though his novel "The Mind Thing" ups the ante considerably) as basically every facet of this story is hard as nails . . . the tactics are no holds barred, the struggle really is life and death and when its over everyone gets what they were promised. "Star Trek" converted this story into a tale of nobility in the face of savagery, this one is just savage.
And what does he follow it up with? "The Waveries", where he transforms the world in seventeen pages. Aliens invade but we never see them and they mess up the world, which only makes things . . . better? I don't know, this one feels potent, the confident pluck of a Heinlein story but with more of a hopeful melancholy underpinning it. I don't know, the ending's sadly happy, if that makes any sense. Philip K Dick liked it, which is probably a better endorsement than anything I can give.
Then he's quiet for most of the rest of the 40s, although he manages the neat trick of writing the world's shortest story (well, maybe second shortest, after Hemingway's baby shoes thing) and then constructing an entire story around it, creating a world-ending scenario, coming up with a vicious solution and then ending on a note of hope in about seven pages. Its uncanny how much he manages to pack in.
After that he tends to alternate between very short and longer tales for a bit ("Come and Go Mad", one of the lengthier ones, comes the closest to not justifying its length) with only some of the shorter tales relying on the twist ending ("Mouse", one of the most unsettling ones, and "The Last Train", with a title more literal than you might expect). This continues through until about the mid-fifties, with quite a few keepers in the mix (I'm partial to the twist ending of "The Last Martian" and "Obedience" for the non-twist ones, and we'll let "Honeymoon in Hell" stand in for the longer ones). I also feel like "Man of Distinction" has to in some way be an inspiration for Sixpack of Section 8 (from Garth Ennis and John McCrea's "Hitman" comic).
The stories do start to get shorter around this time with a number of them featuring atomic war concerns, something that was probably on a lot of minds given the decade ("The Dome" technically has a happy ending but boy is it bitter, and "The Weapon" feels even darker) but even the ones that aren't shot through with anxiety over getting vaporized are sometimes fairly pitch-black ("Something Green" and especially "Little Lamb" which feels like the start of a mystery). But up until now Brown has been clever and humorous and thought-provoking, all within the conventional space of a short story.
Then 1954 hits and its go-time.
The bottom essentially drops out and a flurry of extremely short stories start winging their way at you with near ruthless efficiency. Nearly all of them are less than a page, which are some point starts to feel like he's just showing off . . . it feels like the format changes slightly. With less room to work quite a few of the stories hinge on the twist ending, or at least most of the tales work toward having the rug pulled out from under them. Which isn't as repetitive as it sounds . . . Brown is clever enough at the slight of hand that the stories don't become predictable, or at least I'm not dense enough to guess correctly at the endings. Generally its not so simple as "the opposite of what you think would happen is what happens", typically sometimes the setup is so bizarre that its hard to guess how it would end normally even if Brown wasn't toying with you ("Naturally" makes me laugh every time I skim it for just that reason).
To some extent the novelty of someone cranking out so many extremely short SF stories O Henry style is a lot of what Brown's SF reputation rests on today and while I might prefer the stories where he gets to stretch out a bit more its clear that his ability to churn out one-pagers isn't just some gimmick to set him apart from other writers (Umberto Eco apparently liked "Sentry", which is impressive how dense its emotions feel but the twist was probably more bracing in the Fifties). Given the very real limitation of trying to craft under tight restrictions he manages to rarely repeat himself, at least not unintentionally.
Some of the most interesting ones are where he takes a concept and then seemingly attempts to see how many variations he can wring out of it ("Great Lost Discoveries", "The Short Happy Lives of Eustace Weaver" and the various "Nightmare" stories, which feel like Winsor McCay's "Dreams of the Rare-Bit Fiend" in prose form). They're the kinds of stories that you're probably better off reading a few at a time or slowly so as to let them seep in, instead of treating the backend of the collection like a flipbook and blazing through them. They're the types of stories where you can both admire the construction and still feel something from them (at least the more thoughtful ones, some are there just for chuckles) . . . ironically one of the longer ones during this period ("Happy Ending") was one of the few that didn't entirely work for me, wearing itself a little too obviously.
By the end of his time writing SF the longer stories gradually crept back in ("Puppet Show" is a fun example of unpeeling a story three steps further than you'd expect him to and "It Didn't Happen" is a fun revisit to a similar "the people behind the curtain of the world" theme that he liked to trot out every so often) before the whole thing wraps up with some borderline creepy SF/horror type tales.
That last SF story was in 1965. By 1972 he'd no longer be with us. But the for fifty years he's been gone SF and mystery authors been speaking highly of him . . . he winds up occupying a strange place in the genre, more than a footnote but not quite up there with the big names of his era. In a way he's probably too idiosyncratic to sit easily with his fellow contemporaries . . . he strikes me more as someone who had a kind of story he wanted to tell and if that story required him to write SF then so be it. If it was a mystery or horror or anything else, he'd do that as well. But that means he's never nestled comfortably in a genre as much as standing a little bit outside of it, doing it better than a lot of people who dedicated their writing careers to SF. If nothing else he stands in a zone that's a bit askew, understanding SF well enough to take pokes at it without ever losing his respect for the genre. He played by the rules and then made up his own when he needed to. And if he was a hard act to follow, then maybe that's why no one ever really has.
While some writers like to stretch out for ten of pages for their mini-masterworks Brown was cut from slightly different cloth. Never purely confined to SF he ranged through a variety of genres over the decades, though he's best associated with mysteries with SF maybe a close second. He's one of those writers that other writers admire, the type of writer they point to when they want to demonstrate how elegantly a short story can be constructed, how to make a twist ending stick or how to use humor without being cloying or dumb. I don't know how much of a household name he was in SF in his time, though he certainly seemed to get steady work, so it seems that editors liked him at least.
But having done pretty much all his SF work between 1941 and 1965 and having been deceased with 1972, he's definitely one of those names that's fallen off the collective radar a bit in the world of SF, especially as so many peers that once admired him are long gone as well. And it’s a shame because his stories tend to date really well . . . unlike a lot of SF from that era where you wind up making some allowances for "It was a different time" for the most part they're just as enjoyable today as they were when they were first published, unless for some reason you hate concise, punchy tales that often display a savage sense of humor. I don't think you're going to trick anyone into thinking they were written within the last five years but at least you can show these to someone who isn't a SF reader without having to hurriedly give a quick talk about context. Sometimes its nice not to have to have that conversation.
Still, it should come as little surprise that if you're going to find a Fredric Brown novel on the shelf at the local bookstore, its going to be in the mystery section (of which "The Fabulous Clipjoint" is the most well known, having won an Edgar Award when it was first published in the late Forties). As far as his SF work goes unless you want to haunt used bookstores you're going to have to commit to the all-you-can-eat approach and snap up this and its companion volume. Published by NESFA Press over a decade ago you can get all his short SF fiction in this volume and all the non-short stuff in the other volume (I read the other one first, which I don't think is the recommended way to approach Brown but I'm wacky that way). Both volumes are well over five hundred pages (although this one has the Barry Malzberg introduction, who I forgot lives/lived in New Jersey), which of course leads to the question "Do I need all this Fredric Brown in my life?"
For me, and I think for anyone vaguely interested in his work, the answer is probably "yes". He's fiendishly consistent . . . sometimes when you read a "Complete" short story collection by an author you're getting the handful of bonafide masterpieces surrounded by a bunch of also-rans, which is the kind of thing that caters more to completists than anything else. But with Brown while it’s the true that the best known stories hit perhaps a little bit harder for most part the rest is not a parade of swings and near misses . . . in almost all of them there's some little gem-like facet that makes it a keeper, whether it’s the premise or the ending or the dialogue, there's just a little something that makes it stick in the head for just a minute or two after you've finished it. They're not only well constructed stories, but they've got some weight behind them, as opposed to someone just churning them out to fill a deadline (which is fine! we've all got bills to pay . . . but those people tend not to get massive collections published over forty years after they've died). In other words, its not pleasantly inoffensive hackwork. Whatever reputation you think he has, he's earned it.
With that in mind, let me also tell you that there are roughly a hundred stories in this volume.
But relax! Its not that bad! Besides, I'm not going through every single one. But it does give you an idea of how much variety Brown was able to cram into his SF writing career because with extremely rare exceptions he does not repeat himself.
What was interesting to me when going through these stories is that the short-and-sweet Brown story that everyone hails as his undying trademark wasn't apparent immediately. For most of the 1940s his stories tend to average around ten pages in length, which is a fairly typical length for short stories of that time, with some tales ballooning into an oddly epic thirty pages.
That relative behemoth is "The Angelic Angleworm", where a fairly ordinary guy winds up experiencing a series of increasingly bizarre events that seem to have no logical consistency until the story takes a sudden cosmic left turn that I can't imagine anyone is going to see coming (even on a second skim it took a while to piece it together). Even if its longer than the usual Brown story, its got all of his highlights . . . a likeable protagonist who pulls out the clever solution, a weird mystery with a twist resolution and all done with a sharp sense of humor that never falls completely into farce. And even when the humor is a bit broader ("Star Mouse" starring "Mitkey Mouse" named by a German scientist who is apparently the ancestor of the guy doing those recent Meineke commercials that are airing nonstop . . . it later gets a sequel "Mitkey Rides Again", both wind up being kind of fun) it never feels forced . . . Brown seems to intuitively know how far he can push it before things get too ridiculous, straddling the line between playing it totally straight and giving a little wink to the audience. The aforementioned mouse stories are a good example . . . while the thick German accents (even the mice have them!) could be sitcomish in their humor, the stories themselves are interesting examinations of whether being smarter than average is really the key to happiness if no one understands you.
The hits start coming around 1943 . . . you have the trio of "The Geezenstacks", "Daymare" and "Paradox Lost", probably one of my favorite runs in the collection. "The Geezenstacks" is short but bloodlessly horrific (and probably one of his more well known tales) while "Daymare" is one of the rare longer works, a future police procedural that starts as a weird mystery and gradually piles on mysteries before heading for a conclusion that depends on the main characters being clever instead of lucky, which I always appreciate. "Paradox Lost" has paleontology and a charming ending, so I can't complain.
The first of the really famous ones comes at the end of '44 with "Arena" . . . so memorable that it apparently inspired a "Star Trek" story (from the original series), although it seems that the script was written first before the studio realized the similarities and reached out to Brown, offering payment and screen credit. Even if you haven't seen the episode in question its filtered down into cultural memory enough that Shatner reprised it in a commercial some years back. But you know which episode . . . the Life and Death Struggle With the Slow Guy in the Lizard Costume On the Desert Planet. They miss an opportunity for Kirk to go shirtless but its still ranked as one of the better episodes.
Brown's story ups the intensity quite a bit as the protagonist still has to undergo the trial by combat, but against an alien he's unable to communicate with and only able to attack from a distance thanks to an invisible barrier between them (meaning he can't just walk up and punch it). Planetary conditions are awful and the alien is legitimately trying to kill him, which means he can't do things like eat or take a nap. Its probably one of the more brutal stories that Brown ever produced (though his novel "The Mind Thing" ups the ante considerably) as basically every facet of this story is hard as nails . . . the tactics are no holds barred, the struggle really is life and death and when its over everyone gets what they were promised. "Star Trek" converted this story into a tale of nobility in the face of savagery, this one is just savage.
And what does he follow it up with? "The Waveries", where he transforms the world in seventeen pages. Aliens invade but we never see them and they mess up the world, which only makes things . . . better? I don't know, this one feels potent, the confident pluck of a Heinlein story but with more of a hopeful melancholy underpinning it. I don't know, the ending's sadly happy, if that makes any sense. Philip K Dick liked it, which is probably a better endorsement than anything I can give.
Then he's quiet for most of the rest of the 40s, although he manages the neat trick of writing the world's shortest story (well, maybe second shortest, after Hemingway's baby shoes thing) and then constructing an entire story around it, creating a world-ending scenario, coming up with a vicious solution and then ending on a note of hope in about seven pages. Its uncanny how much he manages to pack in.
After that he tends to alternate between very short and longer tales for a bit ("Come and Go Mad", one of the lengthier ones, comes the closest to not justifying its length) with only some of the shorter tales relying on the twist ending ("Mouse", one of the most unsettling ones, and "The Last Train", with a title more literal than you might expect). This continues through until about the mid-fifties, with quite a few keepers in the mix (I'm partial to the twist ending of "The Last Martian" and "Obedience" for the non-twist ones, and we'll let "Honeymoon in Hell" stand in for the longer ones). I also feel like "Man of Distinction" has to in some way be an inspiration for Sixpack of Section 8 (from Garth Ennis and John McCrea's "Hitman" comic).
The stories do start to get shorter around this time with a number of them featuring atomic war concerns, something that was probably on a lot of minds given the decade ("The Dome" technically has a happy ending but boy is it bitter, and "The Weapon" feels even darker) but even the ones that aren't shot through with anxiety over getting vaporized are sometimes fairly pitch-black ("Something Green" and especially "Little Lamb" which feels like the start of a mystery). But up until now Brown has been clever and humorous and thought-provoking, all within the conventional space of a short story.
Then 1954 hits and its go-time.
The bottom essentially drops out and a flurry of extremely short stories start winging their way at you with near ruthless efficiency. Nearly all of them are less than a page, which are some point starts to feel like he's just showing off . . . it feels like the format changes slightly. With less room to work quite a few of the stories hinge on the twist ending, or at least most of the tales work toward having the rug pulled out from under them. Which isn't as repetitive as it sounds . . . Brown is clever enough at the slight of hand that the stories don't become predictable, or at least I'm not dense enough to guess correctly at the endings. Generally its not so simple as "the opposite of what you think would happen is what happens", typically sometimes the setup is so bizarre that its hard to guess how it would end normally even if Brown wasn't toying with you ("Naturally" makes me laugh every time I skim it for just that reason).
To some extent the novelty of someone cranking out so many extremely short SF stories O Henry style is a lot of what Brown's SF reputation rests on today and while I might prefer the stories where he gets to stretch out a bit more its clear that his ability to churn out one-pagers isn't just some gimmick to set him apart from other writers (Umberto Eco apparently liked "Sentry", which is impressive how dense its emotions feel but the twist was probably more bracing in the Fifties). Given the very real limitation of trying to craft under tight restrictions he manages to rarely repeat himself, at least not unintentionally.
Some of the most interesting ones are where he takes a concept and then seemingly attempts to see how many variations he can wring out of it ("Great Lost Discoveries", "The Short Happy Lives of Eustace Weaver" and the various "Nightmare" stories, which feel like Winsor McCay's "Dreams of the Rare-Bit Fiend" in prose form). They're the kinds of stories that you're probably better off reading a few at a time or slowly so as to let them seep in, instead of treating the backend of the collection like a flipbook and blazing through them. They're the types of stories where you can both admire the construction and still feel something from them (at least the more thoughtful ones, some are there just for chuckles) . . . ironically one of the longer ones during this period ("Happy Ending") was one of the few that didn't entirely work for me, wearing itself a little too obviously.
By the end of his time writing SF the longer stories gradually crept back in ("Puppet Show" is a fun example of unpeeling a story three steps further than you'd expect him to and "It Didn't Happen" is a fun revisit to a similar "the people behind the curtain of the world" theme that he liked to trot out every so often) before the whole thing wraps up with some borderline creepy SF/horror type tales.
That last SF story was in 1965. By 1972 he'd no longer be with us. But the for fifty years he's been gone SF and mystery authors been speaking highly of him . . . he winds up occupying a strange place in the genre, more than a footnote but not quite up there with the big names of his era. In a way he's probably too idiosyncratic to sit easily with his fellow contemporaries . . . he strikes me more as someone who had a kind of story he wanted to tell and if that story required him to write SF then so be it. If it was a mystery or horror or anything else, he'd do that as well. But that means he's never nestled comfortably in a genre as much as standing a little bit outside of it, doing it better than a lot of people who dedicated their writing careers to SF. If nothing else he stands in a zone that's a bit askew, understanding SF well enough to take pokes at it without ever losing his respect for the genre. He played by the rules and then made up his own when he needed to. And if he was a hard act to follow, then maybe that's why no one ever really has.
December 14, 2020
I loved this. I read very little Sci Fi. I don't really like a lot of it, but there are exceptions and Frederic Brown is one of them. Years ago I had a paperback of short stories by him. The book was named for one of the stories in it, "Paradox Lost." It was terrific. All the stories from that book are in this one along with a bookload of stories just as good. The stories are for the most part short, entertaining, humorous and cinematic in the sense you can see any one of them being easily made into a TV episode and in actuality some of them were, the most notable being "Arena," which was used in a Star Trek episode and I believe an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode. I think some of them also made The Outer Limits, and Twilight Zone. That should give you an idea of the entertainment value found here. Read some Frederic Brown. You will not be disapointed,
May 29, 2017
I read everything I can by Brown. His flash fiction packs more of a punch than O. Henry; his longer work is more accessible and not quite as dark as P.K. Dick, and everything is juicy and meaty and surprising. Several of his stories have been Twilight Zone episodes. I even read his detective novels. I even re-read stories that I know the exact plot of, because the writing style itself is good, too.
Many of these stories have been collected elsewhere, but this is a particularly nice volume and I highly recommend it... especially to fans of SF, TZ, Dick, Asimov's shorts, and dark humor.
Many of these stories have been collected elsewhere, but this is a particularly nice volume and I highly recommend it... especially to fans of SF, TZ, Dick, Asimov's shorts, and dark humor.
March 26, 2012
http://aneyespy.blogspot.com/2012/03/...
because GoodReads cannot post over 20K characters or auto-post to my blog since 2011. Spoiler-less Preview:
Mystery, humor, all 111 tales (SF irrelevant) 1941-65, from life 1906-72. Longer consideration percolates ratings up, even to 5*. My 4* personal preference for happy twists to his superb surprise endings punishes the messenger author for his clear sight into the basic cruelty of human nature. Some slip past my understanding at first, such as Runaround #5 with hidden lesson: running away can conquer the biggest baddest monster; others stay incomprehensible. Faves: #1 Armageddon, 24 Crisis 1999, 32 Honeymoon in Hell, 42 The Gamblers.
1. Armageddon - Little Herbie Westerman, Safety Cadet, ready with five-and-dime water pistol when Bijou Theatre's Gerber the Great heats up.4*
2. Not Yet the End - Cruel Kandor aliens test intelligence of sample 5-fingered Earth bipeds for mine slaves.3*
3. Etaoin Shrdlu - Animated linotype, created by Little Guy With The Pimple LGWTP drives newspaper setter mad, until retired narrator Walter teaches it philosophy. 2*
4. Star Mouse - Small grey mouse Mitkey sent in moon rocket by small grey Viennese Herr Professor Oberburger in Connecticut. 2*
5. Runaround - Smaller life constantly flees last Tyrannosaurus Rex, starving over a century.1->5*
6. The New One - In WW2, Valhalla of saints, heroes and gods, need new idol for patriotic Wally to battle demon-encouraged pyromania.2*
7. The Angelic Angleworm - Charlie, typesetter with coin hobby, misses his wedding after strange events: an angel-worm, sunburn when angry, ether, duck replaces silver Chinese coin in exhibit, lei on golf course, and Rumanian copper coin in lye box is final clue.2*
8. The Hat Trick - After a horror movie double date, Bob teases Walter into pulling a rat demon from a hat.1*
9. The Geezenstacks - Sam Walters fears odd wax doll family predicts his own family actions, so wife Edith gives them to witchy woman.2*
10. Daymare - Lt Rod Caquer's first murder on Calisto has 5 different demises reported for Deem. That night, everyone arms, sleepwalks, returns to bed. Another Deem dies, then arrives as an off-planet investigator.2*
11.Paradox Lost - During boring 1963 lecture, student Shorty McCabe follows a vanished buzzing bluebottle fly into a time bubble with crazy quasi-philosophical conversation, while 1968 prof in same classroom asks out cute red-head.1*
12. And the Gods Laughed - On Ganymede, alien parasites animate dead humans via gold (ear)rings, says tall tale from last visitor, narrator Hank, on ship to Earth.3*
13. Nothing Sirius - New-found planet in erratic Sirius orbit named by narrator Captain, inhabited by old carny pal, luscious movie star ideal of rigid young pilot, and cockroaches.3*
14. The Yehudi Principle - Pal Charlie demonstrates headband invention, for narrator trying to write story; he blurs while (explained by imaginary Yehudi) obeying command super-fast.2*
15. Arena - Scoutship pilot Bob Carson, part of Earth armada ready against invading unseen Outsiders, wakes naked under hot dome of blue sand, separated from red box-shape alien by super-Entity created force-field.2* Unlike original Star Trek version.
16. The Waveries - Alien sort of radio waves consume electricity and revert 1950s technology and lifestyle.4*
Goodreads cannot auto-post to my blog or hold reviews over 20K, so for complete post see blog
http://aneyespy.blogspot.com/2012/03/...
because GoodReads cannot post over 20K characters or auto-post to my blog since 2011. Spoiler-less Preview:
Mystery, humor, all 111 tales (SF irrelevant) 1941-65, from life 1906-72. Longer consideration percolates ratings up, even to 5*. My 4* personal preference for happy twists to his superb surprise endings punishes the messenger author for his clear sight into the basic cruelty of human nature. Some slip past my understanding at first, such as Runaround #5 with hidden lesson: running away can conquer the biggest baddest monster; others stay incomprehensible. Faves: #1 Armageddon, 24 Crisis 1999, 32 Honeymoon in Hell, 42 The Gamblers.
1. Armageddon - Little Herbie Westerman, Safety Cadet, ready with five-and-dime water pistol when Bijou Theatre's Gerber the Great heats up.4*
2. Not Yet the End - Cruel Kandor aliens test intelligence of sample 5-fingered Earth bipeds for mine slaves.3*
3. Etaoin Shrdlu - Animated linotype, created by Little Guy With The Pimple LGWTP drives newspaper setter mad, until retired narrator Walter teaches it philosophy. 2*
4. Star Mouse - Small grey mouse Mitkey sent in moon rocket by small grey Viennese Herr Professor Oberburger in Connecticut. 2*
5. Runaround - Smaller life constantly flees last Tyrannosaurus Rex, starving over a century.1->5*
6. The New One - In WW2, Valhalla of saints, heroes and gods, need new idol for patriotic Wally to battle demon-encouraged pyromania.2*
7. The Angelic Angleworm - Charlie, typesetter with coin hobby, misses his wedding after strange events: an angel-worm, sunburn when angry, ether, duck replaces silver Chinese coin in exhibit, lei on golf course, and Rumanian copper coin in lye box is final clue.2*
8. The Hat Trick - After a horror movie double date, Bob teases Walter into pulling a rat demon from a hat.1*
9. The Geezenstacks - Sam Walters fears odd wax doll family predicts his own family actions, so wife Edith gives them to witchy woman.2*
10. Daymare - Lt Rod Caquer's first murder on Calisto has 5 different demises reported for Deem. That night, everyone arms, sleepwalks, returns to bed. Another Deem dies, then arrives as an off-planet investigator.2*
11.Paradox Lost - During boring 1963 lecture, student Shorty McCabe follows a vanished buzzing bluebottle fly into a time bubble with crazy quasi-philosophical conversation, while 1968 prof in same classroom asks out cute red-head.1*
12. And the Gods Laughed - On Ganymede, alien parasites animate dead humans via gold (ear)rings, says tall tale from last visitor, narrator Hank, on ship to Earth.3*
13. Nothing Sirius - New-found planet in erratic Sirius orbit named by narrator Captain, inhabited by old carny pal, luscious movie star ideal of rigid young pilot, and cockroaches.3*
14. The Yehudi Principle - Pal Charlie demonstrates headband invention, for narrator trying to write story; he blurs while (explained by imaginary Yehudi) obeying command super-fast.2*
15. Arena - Scoutship pilot Bob Carson, part of Earth armada ready against invading unseen Outsiders, wakes naked under hot dome of blue sand, separated from red box-shape alien by super-Entity created force-field.2* Unlike original Star Trek version.
16. The Waveries - Alien sort of radio waves consume electricity and revert 1950s technology and lifestyle.4*
Goodreads cannot auto-post to my blog or hold reviews over 20K, so for complete post see blog
http://aneyespy.blogspot.com/2012/03/...
August 22, 2021
This is a collection of short stories by Fredric Brown. Like most short story collections, some short stories are better than others.
I did like seeing how his stories changed over time.
I did like seeing how his stories changed over time.
September 14, 2008
There are a number of short stories in here that are far from perfect -- but you can't criticize a collection labeled "complete" for mixing up the one-star and five-star stories.
Back when I was a SF-addicted adolescent, Brown was one of my favorite writers. Unlike many of the authors I loved back then, though, Brown holds up from an adult perspective. In fact, many of his stories read better now than they did when I was mid-pubescent.
The famous classics are here, as are the non-famous classics, and plenty of stuff that was written for the paycheck and shows it. Even most of those show off his flair for turns of phrase. A few stories play like they were written to produce a rim-shot at the end.
A thorough pleasure.
Back when I was a SF-addicted adolescent, Brown was one of my favorite writers. Unlike many of the authors I loved back then, though, Brown holds up from an adult perspective. In fact, many of his stories read better now than they did when I was mid-pubescent.
The famous classics are here, as are the non-famous classics, and plenty of stuff that was written for the paycheck and shows it. Even most of those show off his flair for turns of phrase. A few stories play like they were written to produce a rim-shot at the end.
A thorough pleasure.
November 24, 2019
From these Ashes by Fredric Brown
Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...
The Dean of the Science Fiction Short Story
Fredric Brown had a gift for short stories. In a few short pages, he could turn out plot, character and resolution in a way that most authors can't manage with a novel. Most of his stories have humor at their core and most of them rely on a twist at the end, but he was able to turn out the occasional hard science fiction gem, such as "Arena," which became an episode of Star Trek.
There are about one hundred stories in this collection. Their dates range from 1941 to the mid-1960s. The stories often reflect their time - aliens are often caricatures with two heads and bug-eyes, but these features are often used for comic effect. However, in a way, the stories transcend their time.
If you are interested in classic science fiction by a great writer who is undoubtedly forgotten in our day, then you should get this book.
Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...
The Dean of the Science Fiction Short Story
Fredric Brown had a gift for short stories. In a few short pages, he could turn out plot, character and resolution in a way that most authors can't manage with a novel. Most of his stories have humor at their core and most of them rely on a twist at the end, but he was able to turn out the occasional hard science fiction gem, such as "Arena," which became an episode of Star Trek.
There are about one hundred stories in this collection. Their dates range from 1941 to the mid-1960s. The stories often reflect their time - aliens are often caricatures with two heads and bug-eyes, but these features are often used for comic effect. However, in a way, the stories transcend their time.
If you are interested in classic science fiction by a great writer who is undoubtedly forgotten in our day, then you should get this book.
June 18, 2021
This massive collection of short stories (mostly in the light horror and scifi genre) was a super fun read. Some of these stories have not aged well at all in their moral, political, or comedic vocabulary. Nevertheless, the consistently solid storytelling and variety of concepts and tone make this pretty compelling and entertaining front to back. The fact that this is organized by year gives you a chance to put them into context with history. Even though nothing is based on current events, a knowledge of contemporaneous history and evolving culture helps the stories stand up a bit better to 2020 readers. And many of the stories have remained relevant or at least highly entertaining and influential to later works of literature and pop culture. Recommended if you like short scifi arcs, tiny ironic fables, and twilight zone-esque twists.
May 5, 2021
I haven't read everything in this book, a copy of which I've just ordered. I have read his most famous story, Arena, and his book Nightmares and Geezenstacks, which was a previous collection of most of his very short stories, some of which are surprisingly cogent and a few of which aren't much more than shaggy dog stories. On the strength of that book and story I can confidently recommend this one. Brown was a superb writer, especially later in his career, thoroughly aware of every effect of the words he chose so obviously carefully. This book almost literally recommends itself.
July 7, 2008
One of the best short story writers I have ever read, and not just Sci-Fi. He has the ability to immerse you in a a story quickly. Some of the best in this anthology are only 3 and 4 pages long and by the end you feel with the characters.
April 13, 2011
As interesting for it's distinctive 1950's perspective on "the future" as for the Twilight Zone-ish twists in most of the stories.
June 3, 2022
Some of the best and most memorable sci-fi stories you will ever read.
December 27, 2021
It would be pretty damn exciting if I ever found a better collection of science fiction than this book right here.
December 26, 2017
Fredric Brown is probably the epitome of the mid-century pulp writer.
He wasn't as good as the best, at least not consistently, though he could be; he was never as bad as the worst. He played with a number of different genres--detective fiction (no out-n-out noir, however), science fiction, fantasy--though, again, not everything: no romance, or war, or straight adventure. But he was diverse, and could operate in any of them comfortably.
There are the usual problems with fiction from this era: sexism (plus a completely naive understanding of women as people), causal racism (though not so much here as in other examples), dialogue that works so hard toward exposition as to sound fake (everybody talks in high generalities, in an attempt to quickly explain the logic of some action), an inordinate amount of drinking.
But the stories are almost always clever--Brown had a good sense of humor, and was great at word play. His best stories are the short-shorts, which cut out everything extraneous so as to highlight the punchline. (Some of the worst stories are just long-winded wind-ups to the punch line.) There are, though, some of his later works that are mid-length (8-10 pages), which are dense and precise and suggest he could have done an excellent mainstream novel, had he put his mind and attention to it. (Brown suffered from depression, and drank way too much.)
The book is copy-edited well--there are a few mistakes, but hardly noticeable in a tome this length--and there are some inclusions I cannot fathom: this is supposed to be all of his science fiction and fantasy work, but a few of the stories are straight detective tales, or just straight yarns. It is arranged chronologically, which makes sense, but also means the book is weakest at the beginning, when Brown had not yet developed his chops.
If you have the slightest interest in 20th century pulp, this should be on the shelf for casual browsing, at the very least.
He wasn't as good as the best, at least not consistently, though he could be; he was never as bad as the worst. He played with a number of different genres--detective fiction (no out-n-out noir, however), science fiction, fantasy--though, again, not everything: no romance, or war, or straight adventure. But he was diverse, and could operate in any of them comfortably.
There are the usual problems with fiction from this era: sexism (plus a completely naive understanding of women as people), causal racism (though not so much here as in other examples), dialogue that works so hard toward exposition as to sound fake (everybody talks in high generalities, in an attempt to quickly explain the logic of some action), an inordinate amount of drinking.
But the stories are almost always clever--Brown had a good sense of humor, and was great at word play. His best stories are the short-shorts, which cut out everything extraneous so as to highlight the punchline. (Some of the worst stories are just long-winded wind-ups to the punch line.) There are, though, some of his later works that are mid-length (8-10 pages), which are dense and precise and suggest he could have done an excellent mainstream novel, had he put his mind and attention to it. (Brown suffered from depression, and drank way too much.)
The book is copy-edited well--there are a few mistakes, but hardly noticeable in a tome this length--and there are some inclusions I cannot fathom: this is supposed to be all of his science fiction and fantasy work, but a few of the stories are straight detective tales, or just straight yarns. It is arranged chronologically, which makes sense, but also means the book is weakest at the beginning, when Brown had not yet developed his chops.
If you have the slightest interest in 20th century pulp, this should be on the shelf for casual browsing, at the very least.
March 25, 2025
Probably a generous 3.5 stars. There's a lot of creativity here, and it reads a lot easier than some other authors of this era. A curated collection could easily be five stars.
The longer work is generally good, but because this is such a large collection (and maybe also because I've read some other science fiction collections from around the same era not that long ago) it really stands out after you've been reading a while how much women just did not exist, in the mind of the author, as real people. If I had stopped like 300 pages in this might have stood out to me less, but I truly find it exhausting at this length.
The microfiction is more hit-and-miss, in large part because of Brown's tendency to resort to some kind of sex farce as the punchline, and this hammers home the "women aren't people" mindset all the more.
Stories I particularly liked:
* Etaoin Shrdlu
* The Angelic Angleworm
* The Geezenstacks.
* Crisis 1999
* Entity Trap
* Obedience
* Honeymoon in Hell
* The Dome
* Keep Out
* Naturally
* Puppet Show
* It Didn't Happen
I mostly liked "The Waveries", but the ending was a quite stupid romanticisation of pre-industrial society.
The longer work is generally good, but because this is such a large collection (and maybe also because I've read some other science fiction collections from around the same era not that long ago) it really stands out after you've been reading a while how much women just did not exist, in the mind of the author, as real people. If I had stopped like 300 pages in this might have stood out to me less, but I truly find it exhausting at this length.
The microfiction is more hit-and-miss, in large part because of Brown's tendency to resort to some kind of sex farce as the punchline, and this hammers home the "women aren't people" mindset all the more.
Stories I particularly liked:
* Etaoin Shrdlu
* The Angelic Angleworm
* The Geezenstacks.
* Crisis 1999
* Entity Trap
* Obedience
* Honeymoon in Hell
* The Dome
* Keep Out
* Naturally
* Puppet Show
* It Didn't Happen
I mostly liked "The Waveries", but the ending was a quite stupid romanticisation of pre-industrial society.
January 19, 2025
Emphatic, emblematic, enigmatic, and idiosyncratic collection of 118 short stories, as written by the late, great Fredric Brown, assembled here for the first time.
February 23, 2025
100+ short SF stories, most were fun and entertaining. My favorites:
Armageddon
Not Yet the End
Runaround
Arena
Knock
Come and Go Mad
Crisis, 1999
Entity Trap
Hall of mirrors
Experiment
Sentry
Naturally
Answer
Imagine
Armageddon
Not Yet the End
Runaround
Arena
Knock
Come and Go Mad
Crisis, 1999
Entity Trap
Hall of mirrors
Experiment
Sentry
Naturally
Answer
Imagine
May 11, 2023
Read:
Arena - 2/5
Arena - 2/5
May 26, 2024
So good
Read
October 11, 2024“Unfortunately”: ⭐️⭐️: He should have asked for fries too.
March 21, 2014
An engaging collection of short stories. Brown covered a lot of sf's sub-genres, from "hard" science fiction (spaceship battles, undiscovered planets) to stories that verge on horror, or that just have one or two fantastic elements. He had an O. Henry-esque gift for the twist ending, and could incorporate those twists into some very short stories - some in this volume were less than a page long. Includes the justifiably famous "Answer," as well as "Etoain Shrdlu," which has been widely anthologized.
May 5, 2014
One of my favorite Golden Era science fiction writers, Brown penned "Arena," later adapted for the Star Trek original series episode. There is much more here. Brown is a writer of considerable stature and his stories bite and sting, some with the ferocity of the best of Robert Bloch.
March 29, 2008
I enjoyed nearly every one of the over 100 stories in this book. The stories are all short and most have some kind of twist to them. Highly recommended early sci-fi.
June 13, 2008
Ok so I haven't read all of the short stories in here, but I still highly recomend the book.
August 24, 2009
Edited by Ben Yalow
November 22, 2015
Am reading "Paradox Lost" now!!!
April 25, 2011
science fiction genius
October 2, 2016
Fantastic short story collection.
December 20, 2019
A bit of a mixed bag, as any collection of stories tends to be, but interesting reading in that distinctive 'classic SF' 1940s-60s style.
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