ORBIT – Otherworldly Reads, Bold Ideas, and Tales. SF & F Short Stories and Novelettes discussion

The podcast by Scott Miller https://lostscifi.com/
over 450 episodes/stories

The Hanging Stranger (Science Fiction Adventures Magazine December 1953) by Philip K. Dick a man walks the streets of his hometown and sees a hanging man. He points him to others (it is a small town, everyone knows everyone), but the others are "so what?" Then he sees that insect-like aliens drop on the roof of the City Council and understands - this is an invasion and only he sees the truth. A great paranoid story. 5*
Text version https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41562...

The Water Eater (Galaxy Science Fiction June 1953) by Winston Marks a narrator helps a widow of (his?) uncle to clean up an oil stove. After mixing a few cleaning solutions, he ends up with a jelly-like substance that actively (!) seeks water to consume. The semi-punchline in the end. 4*
Text version https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

A side note: at one point, the protagonist gets a burn and covers it with lard. I just rechecked and it isn't recommended. I'm surprised that this ineffective folk remedy ended up in a serious SF magazine in the 50s

Death Star (Planet Stories September 1953) by James McKimmy Jr. Two pilots on a rocket ship on a standard route. The older, Hurtz, has 20 years of experience and is planning to retire at his farm on Mars after this mission. For the younger, Jones, this is the first landing. They land badly, Jones is more injured than Hurtz and while Hurtz tries to save them, Jones accuses him of the fall, his internal bleeding and tries to shoot him in revenge. Total reverse of Space Cadet, which I read recently. The finale is quite interesting and unexpected (view spoiler)[Hurtz decides to settle on that planet, who needs Mars if there is a great place and how he hasn't seen it during all his years of service (hide spoiler)] 3.25*
text version https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

The Mind Digger (Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy April 1958) by Winston Marks narrator is a literary agent who buys a good play. It turns out that the author is a 19-years-old hilbilly boy. The boy, Hillary Hardy, tries to get a perfect memory - among other things, his solid writing is due to memorizing 38 books on how to write plays as well as "memorizing plays, novels, poetry and history since I was 13". The play is a success, the agent begs for a new one and because for experiments with total recall Hardy needs money, he writes even better ones... a solid SF from the 50s. 4*
text version https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

The Martians and The Coys (Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy June 1951) by Mack Reynolds a humorous piece: Martians just before the invasion test their weapons and plans on an Earthling. The test subject in question is Lem, a 'simple' young man. None of their sophisticated weapons it seems does not work on Lem. This is a story of its time, to show a person with developmental issues to laugh at I hope is a thing of the past. However, there are funny moments. 3.5*
text version: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

Breeder Reaction (If Worlds of Science Fiction April 1954) by Winston Marks, the narrator heads the advertisement department of a beauty products company. A young woman, who is a protege of the directors, suggests a new product: a new dusting powder with "Atummion" added, to be called, "Atummyc Afterbath Dusting Powder"—"Atummyc", of course, being a far-fetched play on the word "atomic". What delighted her especially was that the intimate, meaningful word "tummy" occurred in her coined trade name, and this was supposed to do wonders in stimulating the imaginations of the young females of man-catching-age. It contains some kind of unharmful (?) radioactive material that makes people glow with health and beauty. The product is a hit, but then a problem with it is found (view spoiler)[users get pregnant. And the punchline - including men (hide spoiler)] A silly but nice story. 3.5*
text version: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

Planet of Dreams (If Worlds of Science Fiction September 1953) by James McKimmy Jr. a character named Loveral is a supervisor of a perfect extraterrastial colony. However, as he walks across immaculate streets and observes hard-working robots, he rarely sees a smiling face. He goes to the house of Atkinson, who probably once again commits a crime - he works! A good 'best wishes lead to hell' kind of story. 3.5*
text https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

And All The Girls Were Nude (Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy December 1954) by Richard Magruder the only story of this author recorded by ISFDB. The story follows one Nathanial Evergood, a dirty old man. He was a connoisseur of femininity, which means that he had a lot of semi-nude and nude photos of women, filling all the walls in his bachelor's flat. Unsatisfied with what he had, he invented the contraption, an addition to his camera, which renders all photographed nude. After using it and enjoying the results, he ups the ante and creates eyeglasses with the same quality and this will lead to his downfall. This unusual, risque story was podcasted slightly censored. As a novelty it gets 3.5*
text: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

Never Gut-Shoot A Wampus (Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy February 1955) by Winston Marks the narrator is a wealthly man, but his friend Major Daphne owns "more planets than I do golf balls". He is a sebarite and a big-game hunter. He likes to hunt 'wampus' - any fast moving game (usually predators) that wears its skeleton on the inside. They decide to go hunting on author's planet. Daphne gets with him his wife and six nieces, modern-day geishas. It turns out that Daphne's wife Annellica doesn't allow him to consumate their marriage... (view spoiler)[They hunt, Daphne uses one of his nices as a bait, Annellica gives him a rifle with blanks and then does what the title says not to do, so the wounded beast kills Daphne. The narrator marries her. The story made me feel unclean on many levels: Daphne is a serial killer, but the narrator doesn't care; his wife fells in love with the narrator, because is is just a good man (according to him), does all the dirty work... (hide spoiler)] 2.5*
text https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

I’m not familiar with Marks, but there is a cheap Megapack collection of his stories.

Stephen wrote: "I’m not familiar with Marks, but there is a cheap Megapack collection of his stories."

I liked the first two stories I reviewed here but the third was bad. I guess the narrator has more works by him, so I'll check them first

Three Spacemen Left To Die! (Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy September 1954) by Russ Winterbotham Three last Earthmen on a space ship. One is ill with a disease that destroyed Earth - the Quinnies, with its main symptom "shooting sparks like fireworks". The commander goes to kill the diseased one before they reach another habitable world, while his deputy asks him not to do it - they are the last Earthmen and maybe people (extremely human-like aliens, but who aren't colonists) are immune to this illness. (view spoiler)[The captain kills the third, but upon return, finds out that he is infected. Ask the remaining one to shoot him. The deputy disagrees, the captain shoots him and destroys the ship (hide spoiler)] 3*
text https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

Leave Earthmen or Die! (Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy January 1954) by John Massie Davis a team of three Earthmen, despite warnings, lands on a planet and prepares to keep their position, but each sees his individual important one and runs to them... The idea was in Ray Bradbury's Mars Is Heaven! (1948) that became part of The Martian Chronicles as The Third Expedition and was executed way better. 2.75*
text https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

The Fugitives (Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy September 1953) by Malcolm B. Morehart Jr. a private eye Jeff Engel follows a man who dropped a fountain pen. Suddenly, he is hit by something invisible and ends up in another world - and a policeman in a strange uniform arrests him. He is delivered to the police station, and later to Alien Detection, where he is informed that he saw an alien infiltrator and in gratitude that he helped to detect him, Jeff is taken for a hunt. (view spoiler)[The 'hunting' policeman is a bit deranged and Jeff helps the suspect to hide (hide spoiler)] 3*
text https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

The Voyage of Vanishing Men (Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy April 1955) by Stanley Mullen this a story of Braun, who goes from bar to bar, facing people who dislike him to start a fight. After one of the brawls, he tells his story: he was in a crew of the Fourth Intergalactic Survey on the spaceship Venture IV. They wandered further than any ship before them and he was the only one who returned. At the edge of space, they met (view spoiler)[the exact copy of their ship. Braun visited it and there was the same crew, so he assumed that accidentally he returned. However, next time, when he flies carefully, so no round trips, he finds an empty ship (hide spoiler)] 3*

text: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

it is funny that the was a story by Soviet author Kir Bulychev with the same idea in terms of a meeting

A Zloor For Your Trouble (Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy January 1954) by Mack Reynolds a narrator is a hunter named Napoleon or Nap. He is hired plus makes a wager that he will deliver zloor from Mars. When he reaches Mars, there are his fellow hunters, also hired to deliver zloor. Nap tries to shoot a zloor, a herbivore looking like a placid rabbit - no reaction. He approaches it and tries to move it - no luck because it weighs like five tonnes. Indirect approach helps. 3.5*

text https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

Danger in the Void (Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy August 1954) by Charles E. Fritch Silvia and George is a couple on a spaceship on a route to Arcturus. She is to put it mildly, bitchy, while he avoids any conflict. Silvia wants to divorce him on Arcturus and a man sits next to her and informs her that he works for a collective, which can kill her husband, so that she gets his insurance and wealth. She preliminary agrees and then recalls their happier past. It turns out that George is an android (artificially born), the fact he hides, for even now a lot of people think that androids aren't human. The killers start executing their plan and she reconsiders... this is largely a non-SF story with SF elements 2.75*

text https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

A Matter of Ethics (Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy April 1955) by R.R. Winterbotham Homer is a chemistry teacher and a lifelong bachelor. He was minding his business when a guest appeared, a striking woman in tights. She informs him matter-of-factly: "I like this place," she said. "Do you want to move, or will you share it with me?" As you can guess, she is an alien with limited awareness of Earth customs. I enjoyed his light, humorous piece with a surprising end. 4*

Text https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...