Nightmares and Geezenstacks

by Fredric Brown, Matt Godfrey (Narrator)

One of the great pulp writers, Fredric Brown (1906-1972) combined a flair for the horrific, a quirky sense of humor, and a wild imagination, and published many classic novels in the mystery and science fiction genres. But he was also a master of the "short-short story", tales only a page or two in length, but hard-hitting and with a wicked twist at the end. Nightmares and Geezenstacks (1961) collects 47 short gems by Brown, ranging from science fiction to noir crime to horror, including the chilling and unforgettable "The Geezenstacks". Long unobtainable, Brown's classic collection is available for the first time in almost 40 years and is sure to please both longtime fans and those who are discovering this brilliant writer for the first time.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Humor, Audiobook

Audiobook

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Fredric 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.

Reviews

[Char · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a thoroughly enjoyable collection of short stories, superbly narrated by Matt Godfrey. I can see now why Stephen King gave Fredric Brown and specifically this collection a special mention in his non fiction book about influential horror written during the 1950's through the 1970's: Danse Macabre.

Within this volume, there are nearly 50 stories, most of them very short. There were some sci-fi tales mixed in, but most of these were horror. For whatever reason, these tiny gems brought me back to the stories I read when I first got into horror. I would say the period after Poe, but before King. I did a lot of short story reading back then; I used them as a way to find new authors, and then longer works written by them. Somehow, I never discovered Mr. Brown back then, but I'm so glad that I've discovered him now.

There are too many tales to get into here, but a few of the standouts to me were:

The Geezenstacks This was Just. Plain. Fun! How can you go wrong with a horror story about dolls?!

Cat Burglar That ending cracked me the hell up!

There were several stories that began with "Nightmare in..." and I pretty much loved all of those.

Matt Godfrey does a tremendous job narrating these stories. I've listened to a few of his audios now, and he's quickly becoming one of my favorite narrators. Will Patton had better watch out!

This collection really stands above most others of its kind, not only from that time period, (the 60's), but this time period as well. That's not to say that some of these stories don't feel dated, because some do, but I don't feel as if that affected their impact. Also, Nightmares and Geezenstacks will not work for everyone, especially those who love their tales to be extra bloody or leaning towards bizarro. Horror was tamer in the 60's, and these stories are a product of their time.

That being said, I loved this collection. It had short stories that were actually short, it had a great deal of variety, most tales packed a real punch and the narration was wonderful. I give this my highest recommendation!

*I received this audio free from the narrator, in exchange for my honest review. This is it.*

[Oliver Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deliriously inventive and enjoyable collection of short stories first published in the 1960s. When I say short, I mean short, some of them are less than a page. And yet Fredric Brown manages to pack something satisfying into every single one. An idea, a twist and often a chuckle or two. There’s a range of genres here - SF, crime, horror and a kind of bawdy shaggy dog story, and they’re all fun, even if sometimes the fun comes from being creeped out, or having your imagination stretched rather than from a belly laugh.

[P.E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Presumably my first striking read and my favourite collection of short-short stories :)
Vivid and dreamlike, Nightmares and Geezenstacks encases a formidable collection of 45 short to very short stories, all of which are dangerously fun.

The tone is made sarcastical, curious points of view are chosen, and the end is clever and stunning, more often than not! The style borrows from detective stories, science fiction, crime fiction, the Fantastical. Some short stories are even scathing as to American Society as it was, back when the stories were published in cheap pulps (Dark Interlude).


Contents :
1 · Nasty
2 · Abominable
3 · Rebound [“The Power”]
4 · Nightmare in Gray
5 · Nightmare in Green
6 · Nightmare in White
7 · Nightmare in Blue
8 · Nightmare in Yellow
9 · Nightmare in Red
10 · Unfortunately
11 Granny’s Birthday
12 · Cat Burglar
13 · The House
14 · Second Chance
15 · Great Lost Discoveries I - Invisibility
16 · Great Lost Discoveries II - Invulnerability
17 · Great Lost Discoveries III - Immortality
18 · Dead Letter [“The Letter”]
19 · Recessional
20 · Hobbyist
21 · The Ring of Hans Carvel
22 · Vengeance Fleet [“Vengeance, Unlimited”]
23 · Rope Trick
24 · Fatal Error [“The Perfect Crime”]
25 · The Short Happy Lives of Eustace Weaver I, II, & III [“Of Time and Eustace Weaver”]
26 · Expedition
27 · Bright Beard
28 · Jaycee
29 · Contact [“Earthmen Bearing Gifts”]
30 · Horse Race
31 · Death on the Mountain
32 · Bear Possibility
33 · Not Yet the End
34 · Fish Story
35 · Three Little Owls (A Fable)
36 · Runaround [“Starvation”]
37 · Murder in Ten Easy Lessons [“Ten Tickets to Hades”]
38 · Dark Interlude · Fredric Brown & Mack Reynolds
39 · Entity Trap [“From These Ashes”]
40 · The Little Lamb
41 · Me and Flapjack and the Martians
42 · The Joke [“If Looks Could Kill”]
43 · Cartoonist [“Garrigan’s Bems”]
44. The Geezenstacks
45. The End [“Nightmare in Time”]

-------------------

C'est sûrement ma première lecture marquante. Fredric Brown offre un délicieux recueil de nouvelles courtes à très courtes, toutes communes par leur mauvais esprit, leur regard sarcastique et leur chute amenée à merveille ! Question finesse, son humour vaut bien un Jonathan Swift !


Liste des nouvelles :

Vilain
Abominable
Ricochet
Cauchemar en gris
Cauchemar en vert
Cauchemar en blanc
Cauchemar en bleu
Cauchemar en jaune
Cauchemar en rouge
Malheureusement
L'Anniversaire de Grand-mère
Voleur de chats
La Maison
Deuxième chance
Les Grandes Découvertes perdues (Invisibilité, Invulnérabilité, Immortalité)
Lettre morte
L'hérésie du fou
Marotte
L'Anneau de Hans Carvel
Flotte de vengeance
La Corde enchantée
Erreur fatale
Les Vies courtes et heureuses d'Eustache Weaver
Expédition
Barbe luisante
Jicets
Contact
Mort sur la montagne
Comme ours en cage
Pas encore la fin
Histoire de pêcheur
Trois petits hiboux
Faux-fuyants
L'assassinat en dix leçons faciles
Sombre interlude
Entité Piège
Petit Agnelet
Moi, Flapjack et les Martiens
La Bonne Blague
Dessinateur-humoristique
Les Farfafouille
F.I.N.


P.S. the eerie, uncharted vibes from short horror story 'The House On the Side of the Highway' strongly remind me of Fredric Brown's "The House"

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fredric Brown mastered flash fiction before the phrase was coined. The forty-seven stories in this slim volume include fantasies, mysteries, horror tales, and science fiction stories, some with O'Henry surprise endings, some with jokes or puns, and all with a wry twist to what one expects. It's a very clever, amusing book, great for reading during those stop-and-start waiting situations when there's only a minute or three before something you're waiting for is due.

[Brandon Petry · Rating 4 out of 5]

What fun. These short stories (most are flash fiction before that had a name) from pulp icon Fredric Brown were a delight. Like dark genre O'Henry stories most of these end with a twist that I almost never saw coming. And one in particular (Cat Burglar) made me laugh out loud so hard I woke up my significant other. There's a lot of stories here and some were misses for me but it was an enjoyable read.

Valancourt books did a great job resurrecting this little collection and the narration by Matt Godfrey is perfect for these stories.

[Ana Cristina Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ciencia-ficción, horror, humor, fantasía? Pues un poco de todo es lo que nos ofrece Fredric Brown en esta antología de cuentos breves e imaginativos, algunos de ellos microrrelatos y en muchos casos puro surrealismo.

Publicada en 1961, muchos de los relatos no han perdido su capacidad de sorprender. Abstenerse los que esperan una narrativa mínimamente convencional, es todo muy loco!

[Michael Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful collection of short stories. Several possibly qualified as micro-fiction, being very short, but all were perfectly paced and tersely plotted, with nary a word out of place. Some were ribald, some were scary, most were humorous, and all had a perfect element of a twist ending or surprise reveal in them. Very much recommended to fans of classic SF & Fantasy and all-around well-written stories

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fredric Brown is a master storyteller whose works, after thrilling and enthralling entire generations, seemingly vanished from the market.
Yes, NESFA Press had released his shorter & longer seminal Science Fiction in two beautiful hardcover volumes. Yes, Haffner Press has undertaken the massive task of bringing back his entire corpus belonging to the mystery genre, which would undoubtedly be released in hardcovers befitting the reputation of that agency.
But what about the pulp-loving people, who mightn’t be able to afford a hardcover, but would still like their stories to be short, taut, readable, and enjoyable?
Valancourt Books have continued their praiseworthy and immensely laudable efforts towards making hard-to-obtain volumes available to bibliophiles at affordable price, as they have unleashed this volume that had enamoured readers as soon as it had come out more than 50 years back.
The book has forty seven stories, some a paragraph long, and some stretch across several pages. Several of these 47 stories have lost their razor-sharp edge in past five decades, as time has played a bigger joke with us than our predecessors could have imagined. But, most of them still manage to shock, stun, and awe us with their wit, twist, dark depths, and readability. They have managed to pass the test of time not only because of Brown’s storytelling abilities, but mostly because, irrespective of the outer trappings (science fiction, mystery, fantasy, joke) these stories are about humanity, in all its glory and sordid weaknesses.
I wouldn’t like to list my favourites, since that might tempt me to type the entire ‘contents’ page here. Rather, I welcome you to pick up this slender volume, and choose your own favourites among this box of dark jewels.
Recommended, obviously.

[Danielle Tremblay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Humour, fantastique et science-fiction à la Fredrik Brown

[Ben Loory · Rating 4 out of 5]

i'm tempted to give this book 5 stars, even though there's not a story in it i would give more than 3 on its own (and most are more like 2 or, let's face it, even 1)... but the thing is, there are just so many of them! and all so punchy and unexpected and free-wheeling and fun! it's just a candy store of ideas and characters and situations and all of them just whizz past and you're like oh my god, this is amazing! even though they all tend to fizzle a bit, or (usually) end in some kind of lame joke or pun or silly twist... it's not a book to make you feel a whole lot, other than head-spinning dizziness and delight... which is great! he ain't gonna win any nobel prizes... but he's not gonna bore anyone, either.

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is a collection of shorts - most of the stories are only a page or so long, so it's a quick and terrifying read.

Somewhere between suspense and horror, each of these little gems leaves you torn between putting the book down for good, and turning on to the next...

There's not much else to say - other than I suppose it isn't something for the easily frightened. Fred Brown is a genius with arranging words and ideas into nightmarish scenarios that would shock and amaze even the most avid horror fan.

if you can actually find a copy of this book -buy it. now.

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories by Fredric Brown. There is a mix of genres: horror, SF, mystery, humor. Several stories use puns, so they ought to be explained. Almost all stories heavily depend on a punch line, but because they are often quite short, it is still fun to re-read them from time to time.

The strongest of the bunch for me were:

Three connected stories Great Lost Discoveries, about lost secret of invisibility, invulnerability and immortality
Jaycee about a generation of men born by parthenogenetic births (ok, they had to be XX i.e. female, but this defies the sense of the story)
Not Yet the End about aliens stealing locals from an Earth’s city to find them unworthy to be their slaves
Entity Trap about a being from another universe, surprised by strange mix of sentience and matter, and the one for which the very idea of death is a logical impossibility, who accidently possessed a soldier

[Lizz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t write reviews.

This is a book from a master of the super short story. Clever and often surprising, it’s a fun read. He manages to hook you in three pages. This was a real treat and I’m sure I’ll pick it up again in the future to enjoy a nice slice of the short stuff.

Peace and love to you.
Lizz

[AudioBookReviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

My original Nightmares and Geezenstacks audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

This book was originally published in 1961.  Many of the stories feel charmingly dated by its mid-20th Century writing and observations.  Venusians posing as humans, closets full of radio equipment and silly electronic weapons.  The stories hold up well with time and this not a deterrent, just a message to the listener to understand what you are getting.  The 47 stories are mostly quite short, a few minutes for many of them.  They are quick and witty, rarely giving much depth into the characters, just a flash into bungled murders, foolish decisions, jaunty horror and unwise decisions.  Often the stories are literary puns.

Brown is a noted author with an impressive resume and Nightmares and Geezenstacks may be a good introduction to his work for those discovering his work for the first time.   Though it is fun to listen to very short stories, it may not be perfect for those looking to get lost in an audiobook.  They are too quick to get into.  By the time one starts, it’s over.  It’s a personal choice, but for many, these stories would be much more appropriate in their written form, a couple of quick stories before bed or while relaxing on the sofa.

Matt Godfrey performs the stories well.  He has an enjoyable voice appropriate for the humorous short horror stories.  His character voices are easy to follow and he adds the right tone to them.  He pauses when he needs to, like the timing of a comedian, which for many of the stories is exactly what you want.

For those looking to enjoy 1960s very short sci-fi/horror/humor stories, this will be a good listen or introduction.  For those looking to get lost in a novel or more developed short stories, you might be disappointed.  The stories are fun, quick and sometimes a little obvious.  You might find yourself guessing what the twist will be in story, as there always is one.  It is a throwback to simpler times and that’s sometimes what you are looking for.

Audiobook was provided for review by the narrator.

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe I found this for sale, used, in Chicago's Old Town when the neighborhood was still the only hippie enclave in the city. Mr. Bloomdahl, the father of two friends, occasionally took us boys there to see the sights: hippies for us, girls for him.

This was the bedtime read for several nights while still in Lincoln Junior High. The fifty or so stories are short, punchy and, at the time, quite unsettling. In fact, other than Lovecraft's 'The Colour Out of Space', this is the only book recalled from childhood which was actually scary on occasion. (Hopefully, some more might come to mind while dredging up old memories of reading.)

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ray Bradbury once said: “Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.” This collection is evidence that this is pretty solid advice.

Forty-seven stories is so many to include in a single book, and there's no way to fairly rate them all given the incredibly wide range in genre, style, and quality.

Some are stupid, sure, but there are also some gems. It's amazing that, regardless of how much I personally enjoyed any given story, Brown manages to set a stage, establish a plot, and deliver a conclusion over and over again in just a couple of pages. For me, the best of the bunch were the three 'Great Lost Discovery' stories, 'Contact', 'Bright Beard', 'Death on the Mountain', and 'The End'. I'm not really sure if I'd give any of these more than three stars on their own, but genuinely they're all just so fun and punchy, and reading them really feels like being kid in a candy store, just staring wide-eyed as all these cool ideas fly by so fast that you feel dizzy. This isn't like a great intellectual work of genius insight or anything, but it is very fun.

[Jon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection really does take the term 'short story' to the extreme. Many are less than a single page long, in fact, and are really more of a series of tableaux than actual stories.

Still, there's some interesting ideas here; very much in the 'shocking twist' style of its Twilight Zone-era contemporaries (writers such as Rod Serling, Richard Matheson and Ray Bradbury).

Unfortunately, I couldn't help but feel that some of what's on offer here has aged fairly poorly - particularly when that rather awkward mid-twentieth century attitude towards overtly objectifying women shines through as often as it does - making this more of a curious representative of its time rather than a classic anthology in its own right.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Last year I dusted off my copy of Stephen King’s Danse Macabre and headed for the index of books he counts as influential (way back in grade school I used these indices to chart my young course into the horror world). I bought all the books marked as particularly good or influential and bought the ones I don’t have. Now all these wonderful old treasures line a shelf in my office. I can only assume that Nightmares and Geezenstacks was read by a very young Stevie King. These silly little stories with lame O. Henry-esque twists induced many groans. Some good ideas. The writing itself isn’t *bad* but these are stories back in the days when “showing” wasn’t as stressed, and these trite tales simply *tell*. And if you can make it past “Cat Burglar,” you’re a better man than I.

[Tressa · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK. Am I missing something here? I see the other 5 star reviews, but I'm just not getting this. I learned of this book when Stephen King's Danse Macabre first came out, and have been wanting to read it every since. Someone mentioned it here, and I borrowed it through my ILL dept. These are occasionally amusing, but I can guess the outcome 99% of the time, and they read like a dated Twilight Zone episode. Frankly, I'm pretty disappointed. Not sure if I even want to finish them or return the book early.

Returned this to ILL. Wasn't interested in finishing it.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first collection of stories by Brown that I read. These stories are delightful, creepy, hilarious, silly, unnerving and/or horrifying. With 137 stories included over 182 pages some are short, very short, only a page (or less) long. But regardless of the length they are little gems, worthy of re-reading over and over again.

[Julie]

I cannot believe I chose to DNF a Fredric Brown but I did and here we are. This is a collection of his short stories for various pulp magazines. They are very short, most just a few pages. I found it difficult to read more than one or two at a time which was leading to a verrrrrry slow read time. There are like 50 stories so reading 2 a day meant a month of reading a 201 page book. That speed was bothering me.

I also didn’t like how short they were because they felt like outlines or sketches of stories, not even a full short story. More like brief vignettes. At first I liked it, thought they would be perfect to read while commuting, but no, they are too short for a regular 30 minute commute. I’d read 2 and have had enough and there was still 20 minutes left of the train ride. I couldn’t mentally start and finish so many wildly disparate stories all in one sitting.

Finally, the vignettes themselves were so dated. At first it is interesting to note how times have changed but the more I read the more skeeved out I became at their tone. I finally put the book down after the story about a guy learning how to become invisible. He isn’t “into crime, his mind doesn’t go there” and he decides to sell the secret invisibility formula to Britain to use for the Cold War but first decides to try it out by sneaking into a harem(the guy is in an unnamed country in the middle east with harems, uh ok.) and raping one of the women. Because that’s not a crime??? Raping a woman??? He’s just testing out his invisibility formula?? Ewwwwwww. That was it. I know Brown was writing these stories to make money and he tailored the stories to the magazine’s audience but still….not a ‘wacky’ ‘fun’ story in my mind. Hard pass. Time to pivot to a better book.

[Drtaxsacto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frederic Brown was someone I read in High School. He was a science fiction writer almost like no other - gone are the scary space invaders and fantastic advances of science - in their place are humor and irony.

In one set of short stories he describes a series of inventions which have been lost. One, Immortality, describes an inventor who discovers as potion which can assure immortality. The inventor can't decide whether to take his own creation. But at one point he gets very bad flu and decides that he will take his capsule. Unfortunately, he takes the pill right at the time that the flu virus has moved him into a coma and thus the virus is also made immortal. After a while the hospital authorities, who cannot revive him, decide simply to take him off life support and bury him.

This is a fun, quick, read.

[B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you were a fan of Mars Attacks! Or The Twilight Zone then this is for you! It was a bunch of small stories that individually packed creepy and often darkly humorous punches.

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fredric Brown is a master storyteller whose works, after thrilling and enthralling entire generations, seemingly vanished from the market.
Yes, NESFA Press had released his shorter & longer seminal Science Fiction in two beautiful hardcover volumes. Yes, Haffner Press has undertaken the massive task of bringing back his entire corpus belonging to the mystery genre, which would undoubtedly be released in hardcovers befitting the reputation of that agency.
But what about the pulp-loving people, who mightn’t be able to afford a hardcover, but would still like their stories to be short, taut, readable, and enjoyable?
Valancourt Books have continued their praiseworthy and immensely laudable efforts towards making hard-to-obtain volumes available to bibliophiles at affordable price, as they have unleashed this volume that had enamoured readers as soon as it had come out more than 50 years back.
The book has forty seven stories, some a paragraph long, and some stretch across several pages. Several of these 47 stories have lost their razor-sharp edge in past five decades, as time has played a bigger joke with us than our predecessors could have imagined. But, most of them still manage to shock, stun, and awe us with their wit, twist, dark depths, and readability. They have managed to pass the test of time not only because of Brown’s storytelling abilities, but mostly because, irrespective of the outer trappings (science fiction, mystery, fantasy, joke) these stories are about humanity, in all its glory and sordid weaknesses.
I wouldn’t like to list my favourites, since that might tempt me to type the entire ‘contents’ page here. Rather, I welcome you to pick up this slender volume, and choose your own favourites among this box of dark jewels.
Recommended, obviously.

[John Defrog: global citizen, local gadfly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fredric Brown was an influential and prolific SF/pulp mystery writer who wrote flash fiction before flash fiction was cool. His specialty was short short stories that ran under two pages and featured a twist ending. He was very good at it, and this collection of short stories from 1961 is solid evidence of that, even though the last ten stories are actually more of a standard length.

Anyway, the stories here are Brown’s usual mix of pulp SF, mystery and horror – sometimes humorous, sometimes horrifying, sometimes groan inducing. Some may grouse that the stories are too short for decent character development, but I didn't find that to be a problem – Brown was pretty good at writing just the right amount of info to let the audience fill in the blanks without detracting from the story, and letting the dialogue and action define the characters – it’s a masterclass in writing economy.

As you would expect, some stories work better than others, but there are very few duds here. The average stories are still worthwhile, and the great ones really pack a punch. It’s weird how so much of Brown’s stuff is out of print, given his reputation, but I’ll be on the lookout for more of his books – and I’ll probably be rereading two of his novels that I still have copies of. I’d tell you which ones, but that would ruin the suspense, wouldn't it?

[Pablo Bueno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me ha gustado mucho. Tiene un humor negro extraordinario y algunos de los relatos son muy, muy originales.

[J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book mostly of short-short stories, and they seem pretty classical now. They're a lot of fun, even though they tend to be predictable. Some of the very short ones read more like jokes than stories, but there's a lot of imagination and charm, and a few moments of actual terror, although this usually comes through in the mundane, rather than monstrous. This book contains the story of Mighty Maxon, which is in my list of 10 Best Short Stories Ever, even though it's only about 2 pages long.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nightmares and Geezenstacks by Fredrick Brown is one of the few books of short stories I have found worth reading. This collection is composed almost entirely of stories one to five pages long, with a total of forty or so stories. The twists, the surprise endings, the re-readability of these stories are what makes this such a unique find. This book reads like a collection of ideas for the Twilight Zone. Brown is a master of horror, suspence, and brevity.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little miracle of a book! Every home should have a copy. First half of the book contains 1-page stories! Often humorous. Nearly every one a bit corny yet still a gem. A must read for devotees of the short story form. One of the most indispensable American humor/genre collections of the 20th Century.

[Jim King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alfred Hitchcock could use have used almost every story in this book. The twist on almost every ending will really catch you off-guard.