The Metrognome and Other Stories

by Alan Dean Foster

Forget what you thought you knew about the universe and enter the fantastic world of master storyteller Alan Dean Foster . . .

OPERATOR ASSISTED CALLS ARE CHARGED AT A HIGHER RATE. Mr. Parkworthy had a score to settle with the telephone company, and he was a man used to getting his own way. But he should have remembered that it is not polite to be rude to a lady . . . especially when the lady is Ma Bell.

THE METROGNOME. Charlie Dimsdale was only a little man in the company that ran New York City's subways . . . until some odd little denizens of the city's subterranean tunnels showed him who was really in charge!

THE TESSELATED TETRAHEXAHEDRAL YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS. Country people in America are a fair but mighty independent bunch. So when some government scientists rudely demanded that the Shattucks turn over the UFO that crashed on their Texas ranch, the Shattucks became a bit obstinate. Besides, the shining little spacecraft looked real cute hanging on the barn with the Christmas decorations.

COLLECTIBLE. When young Pearl's life was collapsing around her, she could always find comfort in her extensive collection of dragon memorabilia -- but some youngsters are more fragile than others, and dragons can be deadly.

Plus eleven more stories!

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies, Collections, Short Story Collection

243 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 14, 1990

About the author

Bestselling science fiction writer Alan Dean Foster was born in New York City in 1946, but raised mainly in California. He received a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA in 1968, and a M.F.A. in 1969. Foster lives in Arizona with his wife, but he enjoys traveling because it gives him opportunities to meet new people and explore new places and cultures. This interest is carried over to his writing, but with a twist: the new places encountered in his books are likely to be on another planet, and the people may belong to an alien race.

Foster began his career as an author when a letter he sent to Arkham Collection was purchased by the editor and published in the magazine in 1968. His first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, introduced the Humanx Commonwealth, a galactic alliance between humans and an insectlike race called Thranx. Several other novels, including the Icerigger trilogy, are also set in the world of the Commonwealth. The Tar-Aiym Krang also marked the first appearance of Flinx, a young man with paranormal abilities, who reappears in other books, including Orphan Star, For Love of Mother-Not, and Flinx in Flux.

Foster has also written The Damned series and the Spellsinger series, which includes The Hour of the Gate, The Moment of the Magician, The Paths of the Perambulator, and Son of Spellsinger, among others. Other books include novelizations of science fiction movies and television shows such as Star Trek, The Black Hole, Starman, Star Wars, and the Alien movies. Splinter of the Mind's Eye, a bestselling novel based on the Star Wars movies, received the Galaxy Award in 1979. The book Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990. His novel Our Lady of the Machine won him the UPC Award (Spain) in 1993. He also won the Ignotus Award (Spain) in 1994 and the Stannik Award (Russia) in 2000.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Metrognome is a good collection of fifteen well-crafted short stories by Foster. It's a pleasant mix of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and showcases his range quite well, with a mix of humor, drama, and irony. He creates likable characters and gives them realistic dialog and interesting settings, and each story is prefaced by introductory comments. I believe my favorite was The Tessellated Tetrahexahedral Yellow Rose of Texas, which is something of an homage to Clifford D. Simak, though I found them all to be entertaining.

[Elmer Foster · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have grown up on "Uncle Alan", no relation. Solid Sci-Fi writing chops, quality writer overall, and this collection was interesting bite -sized bits of sheer randomness, or more aptly titled: "How Who Got Got", as every tale has a target of demise.

Enjoyed the Author Insight that prefaced every story, even if it was vanilla.

-"Operator Assisted Calls Are Charged at a Higher Rate" 3/5, dated but engaging and we all know this guy.
-"The Metrognome"3/5, it could happen, lol.
-"Thrust" 2/5, what drives your spaceship? More humor than anything Sex drive, get it?
-"Pipe Dream" 4/5, Another twist for those snooping around the exes
-"Mother Thunder" 3/5, could be a legend there.
-"The Chair" (with Jane Cozart) 3/5, I like horror but saw this one a mile away
-"The Inheritance" 2/5, same as the last one, but I do read a bunch of horror. Not a cat fan.
-"Running" 4/5, unexpected twist on evading capture
-"Unamusing" 3/5, Oh look a Golem.
- "The Thunderer" 2/5, fireside tale
-"Pleistosport" 3/5, tables being turned and a short one at that
-"Norg Gleeble Gop"3/5, translation was funny
-"Batrachian" 2/5, figured she would graduation out of state, ha ha. Was expecting a frog prince tale or witchy-ness, but it worked.
-"The Tessellated Tetrahexahedral Yellow Rose of Texas"3/5, we were told about how this writer writes and ADP gives us his take.
-"Collectible"3/5, short lived character missing the retribution factor to make it a better tale.

There are worse ways to spend one's time than this collection from 1990. But if you come across it, pick it up.
Thanks for reading.

[John Tetteroo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I needed two days to burn through this highly entertaining bundle of short stories by Alan Dean Foster. I think I might have read Pleistosport earlier in a translated version, but the rest of the stories were new to me. A combination of horror and SciFi with believable and easy to identify with characters, which are mostly slaughtered or otherwise disposed of directly after you have warmed up to them. I think there was only one protagonist I took an (writer engineered) disliking to.

Another nice thing are the dialogues. They seem like texts that actual human beings might have used to communicate, which is refreshing. Alan Dean's mild and at times mischievous humor peeks through at all times and mostly shines in the clever conversation of his protagonists.

All short stories are preceded by an author's comment, ususally on the creative process which led to the story idea and realization. I immensely enjoyed these little intro's and simply had to research the author a little deeper. Luckily he still maintains his web-site to this day, which is strangely a sort of reassuring thought. I have to read more and will try to find some novels in the HumanX universe. This bundle is another one from the mini-library that I will hold on to for some time.

[Will Staunton · Rating 2 out of 5]

The short story is flexible. You don't have to keep a plot aloft for long, so you can float some pretty thin ideas and see if they survive. Yet their brevity means that every word counts. That is, unless you're selling material to a sci-fi magazine, and you've got to stretch that idea over four thousand words... or maybe they pay by the word, and since you know some sneering editor is going to chop it down anyway, why not linger on your description of your gnome's beard and suspenders, and let him ramble awhile in his tough New Yorker dialect?

I suspect Alan Dean Foster may be a write-to-contract kind of guy. His Hollywood novelization credits are impressive to say the least - Star Wars (both A New Hope and Force Awakens), Star Trek (countless), Alien (one thru four), Terminator, etc. etc. - so I have no doubt he is a master of his craft, but these stories read flabby. I always imagined that any story published has survived the author's own vicious cull, and sits atop a pile of rejected ideas and aborted drafts. Now, I fear that in some cases, pretty much anything that's done may make the cut.

[John E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good stories usually with a nice (or not so nice) twist at the end. Many years ago I read the Flinx stories and loved them, but I guess I am older and more numb now so these left me a bit short of happy. His introductions to each story gave away too much and should have come after the stories.

[Gingaeru · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was my first sampling of Alan Dean Foster, and I have to say, I've never encountered such overwhelmingly uninteresting writing (Yarbro comes close, but she isn't quite this bad). I actually put the book down mid-sentence. I only forced myself to get back to it several weeks later because it was a dam in the flow of my reading (I don't DNF books, and I only read one at a time). There was nothing here for me. (Alan Dean Foster seems to think very highly of Poul Anderson's writing, which I can't stand, so perhaps I should have known roughly what to expect.) The cover art (which I don't care for) has nothing to do with any of the 15 stories contained in this volume.

One thing I consistently disliked about his stories was how he tries to paint an elaborate description of his characters, and in so doing, actually fails to get his vision across to the reader (at least this reader). Every time. On a similar note, he goes off on these unfortunate tangents that you can tell he thinks are clever, but they most certainly are not. An example of this would be in the title story: Mr. Foster incorrectly uses the term "hair of the dog [that bit you]." He then proceeds to expand on that, and it's just painful to sit through. In the same story, he refers to (what I can only guess are) a woman's breasts as "cumulus clouds" (she's a weatherwoman).

I don't know how to properly express my distaste for this author's work, but some words that come to mind are: uninteresting, mediocre, immature/juvenile, predictable, vague, and pointless. Oh, and I think some of these stories are possibly meant to be horror but aren't remotely horrific. They're just plain silly (and not pleasantly so).
...

"Operator Assisted Calls Are Charged at a Higher Rate"
5/10
...

"The Metrognome"
4/10
The concept wasn't the worst, but there are so many things wrong with the writing. The ending angered me.
-
Also, "Don't swear. Gee, that fantastic! Isn't that fantastic, Bill?" (What?!)
...

"Thrust"
1/10
I hate sex (especially sex of this nature). It's a dumb story, even if you don't.
...

"Pipe Dream"
4/10
This is just stupid.
...

"Mother Thunder"
5/10
A messy attempt at explaining the history of Machu Picchu.
...

"The Chair" (with Jane Cozart)
5/10
This one isn't terrible, but it's nothing special, either. Like a forgettable episode of "The Twilight Zone."
...

"The Inheritance"
4/10
Is this supposed to be "horror"? "Humor"? What's the point of writing about despicable characters like these? In fact, most of his characters are unlikable, at best. It would be one thing if the stories were interesting, but they aren't. His writing is already bad, and his stories are uninteresting. Making such characters the main focus of his stories only serves to compound things.
...

"Running"
5/10
A relatively unique setting, at least.
...

"Unamusing"
4/10
Tell me about it.
...

"The Thunderer"
4/10
...

"Pleistosport"
4/10
...

"Norg Gleeble Gop"
4/10
...

"Batrachian"
4/10
It was refreshing to find a character with a view of parties (and drinking) reflecting my own: "I don't like them... The people are noisy, they drink too much, and then they get silly and out of sorts. You can't learn anything from people in that state. They all act like preadolescents." But the story is still bad.
...

"The Tessellated Tetrahexahedral Yellow Rose of Texas"
4/10
Oddly enough, one scene here plays out somewhat exactly like the briefing scene between General Roberts and Colonel Edwards in "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (c. 1959). In this case, it's a General interviewing a Major. He asks the Major: "Joe, do you believe in flying saucers, UFOs, that sort of thing?" After getting the answer he wants, the General directs the Major's attention to the map on the wall of his office, etc. Anyway, it was surreal. The dialogue isn't much better than that of "Plan 9."
-
The author uses the word "inlaid" twice in one sentence!
"Many of those surfaces appeared to be inlaid with tiny squares and other geometric shapes that glowed like inlaid lights."
-
One character says: "Just because we got television out here doesn't mean we're ignorant, honey." (Huh?! I think they meant to say: "Just because we don't got television out here...")
...

"Collectible"
4/10
I honestly have no idea what this story is supposed to be about (beyond a young woman's obsession with dragons). The ending is incredibly vague. Am I to assume Pearl was merely delusional and that she unintentionally lit her bed on fire with a cigarette? If so, what's the point? Also, she doesn't seem "only seventeen." She's written like she's at least in her 30s. (Also, the author comes across as racist in the way he refers to one man on the bus.)
...

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am almost positive I've read this short story collection before, probably when it first came out, when I was in high school.

It's a pretty decent collection of mostly science fiction and horror, with a little sprinkling of paranormal/fantasy. Some of the stories are good, but some of them almost feel dated now. Still, it's a decent collection.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy and fun read. Unlike some sci-fi/fantasy authors, Foster has a great sense of humor and writes it in without being too obvious. Human foibles, vanities, peccadilloes are all on the table. There is slapstick, wryness, irony, sexuality.

This I would call more of an enjoyable read than one that really terrified me, though. Excellent work.

[Mike S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really great stories, it's easy to see that Foster is a natural, he writes so smoothly, and is very good at short stories, which requires some different skills not needed for novels. Any Foster fans will like this book.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series of short stories ranged from funny to thought provoking (mostly funny or at least a little offbeat) and was worth reading.

[bluetyson]

The Metrognome and Other Stories by Alan Dean Foster (1991)

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horror with whimsy. Some very sweet and scary stories. Healthy irony, too.