Randall Garrett (1927–1987)

Read: Brain Twister, Randall Garrett & Laurence M Janifer

Originally published under the name Mark Phillips (the two authors’ middle names), and under the title ‘That Sweet Little Old Lady’ in Analog in 1959, and despite being a novella managed to be nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1960. It lost to Heinlein’s Starship Trooper and much as I hate that book it was a better winner than Brain Twister would have been. (It was published in book format under the new title in 1962.) Kenneth Malone is a FBI agent, and has been tasked with discovering the identity of the telepathic spy at the secret Yucca Flats research facility, where the US is developing a new spaceship drive. The story is set in the 1970s, although everyone still wears hats, and the only piece of invented everyday tech mentioned is a videophone. JFK is also referred to as the “youngest living ex-president”, which was weird. Malone surmises that any telepath is likely to be insane, and so scours asylums and sanatoriums across the US, eventually finding Miss Thompson, who seems perfectly lucid, other than insisting she is immortal and Queen Elizabeth I. She agrees to help the FBI identify the spy, which results in a car journey across the country, with a stopover in Las Vegas. Malone, fellow FBI agent Boyd, nurse Barbara and Miss Thompson all wear Elizabethan dress during the trip. For reasons. Malone eventually figures out who the spy is - Miss Thompson knew who it was all along, of course. It’s hard to describe quite how bad this novel is. It’s meant to be comic but is not in the least bit funny. The world-building is non-existent - it might as well have been set in 1959. And the final reveal depends on two clues dropped earlier in the narrative that weren’t, well, clues at all. Avoid at all costs.… (lisätietoja)

Enjoyable collection of murder mystery stories rehashed as fantasy tinged with an SF flavor -- which is how some of these stories managed to appeared in Bova's Analog. An alternate universe where King Richard ruled and eventually an Ango-French empire founded in magic settled in for the long haul. The first mystery, A Matter of Gravity (Analog 1974), while contrived, is the most clever. A locked room mystery where Lord Darcy early on announces he knows who did it but not why or how -- and that makes perfect sense at the end. The Ipswich Phial (Analog 1976) is more of a spy story with a rising Poland as the nemesis. An OK adventure but nothing that clever. I'm convinced that the The Sixteen Keys (Fantastic 1976) was meant to be printed with a floor plan. It's the weakest story with a resolution that is the kind of puzzle normally seen in one of those one-page Minute Mysteries. The Napoli Express (Asimov's 1979) announces its intentions up front. In terms of background it's a pretty direct sequel to the Sixteen Keys.

Recommended as lightweight entertainment.… (lisätietoja)