BINARY STAR #3: DR. SCOFFLAW [by] Ron Goulart / OUTERWORLD [by] Isidore Haiblum.

The Barnum System #6

by Ron Goulart

Contains two novellas.Dr. Scofflaw by Ron The master criminal was spread all over the place--an arm here, a leg there--and Silvera was obsessed with reassembling Scofflaw. After all, a scattered collection of spare parts can't pay off a ten-grand debt!Outerworld by Isidore They framed Dunjer as professionally as if he'd been a Picasso original--the dead gang boss, the looted safe--and the evidence that could clear him was long gone, into the enemy-states of the Outerworld.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Pseudonyms: Howard Lee; Frank S Shawn; Kenneth Robeson; Con Steffanson; Josephine Kains; Joseph Silva; William Shatner.
Ron Goulart is a cultural historian and novelist. Besides writing extensively about pulp fiction—including the seminal Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of Pulp Magazines (1972)—Goulart has written for the pulps since 1952, when the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction published his first story, a sci-fi parody of letters to the editor. Since then he has written dozens of novels and countless short stories, spanning genres and using a variety of pennames, including Kenneth Robeson, Joseph Silva, and Con Steffanson. In the 1990s, he became the ghostwriter for William Shatner’s popular TekWar novels. Goulart’s After Things Fell Apart (1970) is the only science-fiction novel to ever win an Edgar Award.

In the 1970s Goulart wrote novels starring series characters like Flash Gordon and the Phantom, and in 1980 he published Hail Hibbler, a comic sci-fi novel that began the Odd Jobs, Inc. series. Goulart has also written several comic mystery series, including six books starring Groucho Marx. Having written for comic books, Goulart produced several histories of the art form, including the Comic Book Encyclopedia (2004).

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dr. Scofflaw features Jose Silvera, one of Goulart's best-remembered characters, a freelance writer on Murdstone of the Barnum System. Silvera always had an amazing amount of trouble in getting paid for his work. I don't remember Outerworld too well, other than it's a kind of a screwball mash-up of science fiction and hard-boiled detective action with some strong satirical bite... in other words, quite a bit like Goulart. Quite a bit of the humor is of the dated kind that will offend gender-minded equalatists, but remember it was a couple of generations back. The Binary Star books from Dell paired novellas from different authors in the tradition of the classic Ace Double line. Each story had an afterword by the other author, which was always fun and entertaining. The covers were always blandly generic, but the books did have interior illustrations. This one was of the few humorous-sf entries in the series, though not as well known to many Goulart fans.