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The First William P. McGivern Science Fiction MEGAPACK ®: 25 Classic Stories
William P. McGivern, a popular and prolific science fiction writer in the 1940s and 1950s (under his own name as well as the pseudonyms Gerald Vance and P.F. Costello), later achieved fame as a noir and hardboiled mystery author of such classics as "The Big Heat." The First William P. McGivern Science Fiction Megapack collects 25 of his early science fiction stories, including:
JOHN BROWN'S BODY
THE VISIBLE INVISIBLE MAN
THE DYNAMOUSE
KILLER'S TURNABOUT
THE FATE OF ASTEROID 13
DICTOGRAPHS OF DEATH
THE MASTERFUL MIND OF MORTIMER MEEK
THE QUANDARY OF QUINTAS QUAGGLE
MR. MUDDLE DOES AS HE PLEASES
PETER FERENY'S DEATH CELL
YELLOW MUD FOR COWARDS
PLANET OF LOST MEN
MYSTERY ON BASE 10
REHEARSAL FOR DANGER
KIDNAPPED INTO THE FUTURE
THE GIANT FROM JUPITER
CAPTAIN STINKY
CAPTAIN STINKY'S LUCK
SAFARI TO THE LOST AGES
CONVOY IN SPACE
VENGEANCE ON VENUS
MONSOONS OF DEATH
LARSON'S LUCK
THE CHAMELEON MAN
VISITOR TO EARTH
If you enjoy this book, search your favorite ebook store for "Wildside Press Megapack" to see the 150+ entries in the Megapack series, covering science fiction, fantasy, horror, mysteries, westerns, classics, adventure stories, and much, much more!
587 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
5 people are currently reading
9 people want to read
About the author
William P. McGivern
124 books25 followersWilliam P. McGivern was a novelist and screenwriter. In his early years he worked as a police reporter for the Philadelphia Bulletin and a reviewer and reporter for the Evening Bulletin in Philadelphia. Prior to his career in the newspaper business he served in the United States Army from 1943-1946.He moved to Los Angeles in 1960. His works include over twenty thrillers and mysteries as well as
Soldiers of 44
, a novel based on his experiences in World War II. His novels turned into movies include The Big Heat, Rouge Cop, Shield For Murder, Odds Against Tomorrow and the bestselling
Night of the Juggler
.In 1952 McGivern received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America and served as president of that organization in 1980. He was the master of the hard-boiled detective novel.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 29, 2016
William P. McGivern gave us The Big Heat and Rogue Cop and other noir classics. He ground out a lot of comic fantasy and space opera as well, a selection of which has been assembled into this massive Wildside collection. There is quite a lot of undemanding fun to be had here.
The fantasy tales, mostly from Amazing Stories c. 1941, make up the first half of the book, and they are both very accomplished and incredibly formulaic. In nearly every story we have the same basic components: a nebbishy white-collar protagonist who gets into serious trouble at his job; a fellow-employee/girlfriend who falls into the clutches of a hateful rival as a result; and a peculiar acquaintance who, by one bizarre means or another, confers a special power on the hapless hero, enabling him to surmount all his difficulties. Reading several of these yarns in succession should be tedious, but McGivern is plainly enjoying himself, and his enthusiasm is infectious. In the end, one actually anticipates with pleasure the inventive, even absurd ways which McGivern devises to refresh obvious and hackneyed ideas, and he writes with such unfailing exuberance and good humour as to disarm criticism. It's all pure 1940s comic fantasy, and those familiar with contemporary Hollywood product will recognize the mood, somewhere between The Devil and Miss Jones, the Topper films, and a Republic serial. Of these, my favourite is "The Masterful Mind of Mortimer Meek", which deploys even more irony and ridiculous dry wit than the others.
Space opera clearly did not inspire McGivern to the same degree, although none of the sf stories are actually dull. Several are enlivened by unexpected misanthropy, such as "The Giant from Jupiter", which also possesses curiosity value in that it appears to be based on the mysterious and still controversial UFO 'raid' over Los Angeles which occurred a few months prior to publication; others reverse one's expectation of wartime pop fiction, such as "Monsoons of Death", where the orthodox military action hero is reduced a cringing wreck while the unheroic civilian 'coward' saves the day. Bradbury probably read "Safari to the Lost Ages" and tucked the plot germ away in his brain, where it eventually developed into "A Sound of Thunder". Two stories about "Captain Stinky" (that's Captain Ebeneezer Scragg, damn your eyes!), who pilots a space scow which retrieves garbage from interplanetary liners, seem a promising start to a series, but I have no idea if McGivern gave the whole pleasantly proletarian premise any further development.
McGivern is a heart-on-the-sleeve writer, and the intensity of feeling he engenders in these utterly commercial stories can be surprising. The most memorable instance of this is "Peter Fereny's Death Cell", in which a man on Death Row gets the chance to save himself at the expense of an innocent and kindly alien race. This is perhaps the one story in the collection which completely escapes the pulp ghetto, and its emotion seems honest and unsullied by commerce.
Recommended to all fans of pulp. I'm looking forward to the second volume.
The fantasy tales, mostly from Amazing Stories c. 1941, make up the first half of the book, and they are both very accomplished and incredibly formulaic. In nearly every story we have the same basic components: a nebbishy white-collar protagonist who gets into serious trouble at his job; a fellow-employee/girlfriend who falls into the clutches of a hateful rival as a result; and a peculiar acquaintance who, by one bizarre means or another, confers a special power on the hapless hero, enabling him to surmount all his difficulties. Reading several of these yarns in succession should be tedious, but McGivern is plainly enjoying himself, and his enthusiasm is infectious. In the end, one actually anticipates with pleasure the inventive, even absurd ways which McGivern devises to refresh obvious and hackneyed ideas, and he writes with such unfailing exuberance and good humour as to disarm criticism. It's all pure 1940s comic fantasy, and those familiar with contemporary Hollywood product will recognize the mood, somewhere between The Devil and Miss Jones, the Topper films, and a Republic serial. Of these, my favourite is "The Masterful Mind of Mortimer Meek", which deploys even more irony and ridiculous dry wit than the others.
Space opera clearly did not inspire McGivern to the same degree, although none of the sf stories are actually dull. Several are enlivened by unexpected misanthropy, such as "The Giant from Jupiter", which also possesses curiosity value in that it appears to be based on the mysterious and still controversial UFO 'raid' over Los Angeles which occurred a few months prior to publication; others reverse one's expectation of wartime pop fiction, such as "Monsoons of Death", where the orthodox military action hero is reduced a cringing wreck while the unheroic civilian 'coward' saves the day. Bradbury probably read "Safari to the Lost Ages" and tucked the plot germ away in his brain, where it eventually developed into "A Sound of Thunder". Two stories about "Captain Stinky" (that's Captain Ebeneezer Scragg, damn your eyes!), who pilots a space scow which retrieves garbage from interplanetary liners, seem a promising start to a series, but I have no idea if McGivern gave the whole pleasantly proletarian premise any further development.
McGivern is a heart-on-the-sleeve writer, and the intensity of feeling he engenders in these utterly commercial stories can be surprising. The most memorable instance of this is "Peter Fereny's Death Cell", in which a man on Death Row gets the chance to save himself at the expense of an innocent and kindly alien race. This is perhaps the one story in the collection which completely escapes the pulp ghetto, and its emotion seems honest and unsullied by commerce.
Recommended to all fans of pulp. I'm looking forward to the second volume.
October 27, 2016
I am familiar with McGivern's later crime fiction so I decided to read this because I'm also a SF fan. I was disappointed with these stories. They seemed to be run of the mill 40's SF short stories with a simple plot.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews