Filet of Sohl: The Classic Scripts and Stories of Jerry Sohl

by Jerry Sohl

THE GREATEST SHORT WORKS OF A MASTER OF FANTASY JERRY SOHL (1913-2002) was one of the most successful science fiction, fantasy, and mystery writers of his time. A prolific author of novels (Costigans Needle, Point Ultimate) and films (Die, Monster, Die! with Boris Karloff ), he is perhaps best-known today for his teleplays for The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, The Outer Limits, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. You hold in your hands the first-ever collection of this masters scripts and stories! Included in this volume: - Ten classic short tales, including two adapted for the legendary Outer Limits - Two never-seen scripts for The Twilight Zone - An intriguing story treatment for Alfred Hitchcock Presents - A powerful foreword by William F. Nolan - Essay-appreciations from George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, and Marc Scott Zicree - Touching personal tributes from the authors son and daughter, Allan and Jennifer Sohl For fans of classic science fiction, fantasy, and suspense this is a book to savor!

272 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 2003

About the author

Gerald Allan Sohl Sr. (December 2, 1913 - November 4, 2002) was a scriptwriter for The Twilight Zone (as a ghostwriter for Charles Beaumont), Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Outer Limits, Star Trek and other shows . He also wrote novels, feature film scripts, and the nonfiction works Underhanded Chess and Underhanded Bridge in 1973.

His 1955 Point Ultimate is a piece of Cold War invasion literature: in 1999, a faraway future history at the time of writing, the US lies under a cruel Soviet occupation, reinforced by a deadly artificial disease which makes conquered Americans dependent on the conquerors for the injections which keep them alive. But a dashing Illinois farm boy breaks out in revolt, killing a degenerate soviet governor and his "Commie" American collaborators. Eventually, he becomes a leading member of a very formidable resistance organization which is capable of breaking at will into the occupiers' security headquarters and springing prisoners out, and which had already established a clandestine space program under the Soviets' noses and established a sizeable colony on Mars.

In the far more low-key The Time Dissolver (1957) Sohl tells the story of a man and a woman who wake up one morning to find that, inexplicably, they had lost all memory of the past eleven years including any memory of how they ever came to meet and become married to each other, and who embark on a quest to find what happened and to trace back these eleven lost years. Aside from the science fiction aspects, the book captures the atmosphere of late 1950s America.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jerry Sohl wrote about a half-dozen science fiction novels back in the '50s and '60s, but is almost forgotten today. This posthumous volume collects several of his short works for the first time. It's split into three sections; early short stories, television work, and three later short stories. The central section contains two teleplays that were commissioned for THE TWILIGHT ZONE but were unfortunately never produced. The early stories appeared for the most part in some of the digest-sized magazines that proliferated in the era, and it's good to see samples of them. Analog and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction are still pretty well remembered, but most of the other old venues have sunk into obscurity. All of the sections are bracketed with essays about Sohl from his family, friends, and co-workers; it's a nice memorial volume.