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Never Gut-Shoot a Wampus and four more Stories
Five Classic Short Stories from The Golden Age of Science Fiction. Featured "Never Gut-Shoot a Wampus", "The Vegans Were Curious", "Slay-Ride", "The Incredible Life-Form", and "John's Other Practice", all by Winston K. Marks.
86 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 1, 2021
1 person want to read
About the author
Winston K. Marks
108 books2 followersBorn Winston Kinney Marks, this US writer of sf short stories also wrote as Win Marks and used the pseudonyms Win Kinney and Ken Winney, each for just one story. He began publishing with "Mad Hatter" for Unknown in May 1940, but then, after "Manic Perverse" (October 1941 Astounding), was not heard of again until 1953 when he published The Water Eater (June 1953 Galaxy; 2010 ebook). He was then quite prolific, publishing nearly 60 further stories to 1959, with two final SF Magazine appearances in the late 1960s.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 27, 2025
This review is only regarding the titular story--so far. I heard this story before I read it. It's the fourth story (of hundreds now) read on the Lost Sci Fi podcast (https://lostscifi.com/all-episodes-of...). A professional audio book reader with a love for 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s SF picks some highly obscure titles and authors (for the most part) and resurrects their stories by making them into an audio book. I greatly enjoy listening to them as a I walk my dog most mornings.
This one listened pretty well. I'd have given it four stars. But upon reading it I realize that while it's still a pretty decent story, it has severe pacing problems not as apparent when listening to the story.
Essentially, this is a story about an wealthy big game hunter completely lacking in morals. Normally this story would be in a 1920s Adventure magazine, but the plot has been pulled from there, given a few tweaks and SF trappings, and made to go into an SF magazine. That's okay. It sort of works and it's fun to read about this big game hunter and his plans to go to a planet to hunt wampusses. There's good suspense here and a weird love interest going on.
But after meandering in telling the story for the first 80%, the author tells the last half of the story in the last 20% of what he wrote. It's really strange, like he got to the allotted number of pages and had to bring the story to an end whether he had reached it or not. So the last part, the climax and denouement, is simply summarized for the reader.
It's a fun enough read to be worthwhile, barely, but it makes for a better listen. Give that lost Sci Fi podcast a chance!
This one listened pretty well. I'd have given it four stars. But upon reading it I realize that while it's still a pretty decent story, it has severe pacing problems not as apparent when listening to the story.
Essentially, this is a story about an wealthy big game hunter completely lacking in morals. Normally this story would be in a 1920s Adventure magazine, but the plot has been pulled from there, given a few tweaks and SF trappings, and made to go into an SF magazine. That's okay. It sort of works and it's fun to read about this big game hunter and his plans to go to a planet to hunt wampusses. There's good suspense here and a weird love interest going on.
But after meandering in telling the story for the first 80%, the author tells the last half of the story in the last 20% of what he wrote. It's really strange, like he got to the allotted number of pages and had to bring the story to an end whether he had reached it or not. So the last part, the climax and denouement, is simply summarized for the reader.
It's a fun enough read to be worthwhile, barely, but it makes for a better listen. Give that lost Sci Fi podcast a chance!
Displaying 1 of 1 review