THE BEST OF FREDRIC BROWN Edited and with an Introduction by ROBERT BLOCH NELSON DOUBLEDAY, INC. Garden City, New York COPYRIGHT © 1976 BY ELIZABETH C. BROWN Introduction: A Brown Study COPYRIGHT © 1976 BY ROBERT BLOCH Published by arrangement with Ballantine Books A Division of Random House, Inc. 201 East 50th Street New York, New York 10oz2 Printed in the United States of America ACKNOWLEDGMENTS "Arena," copyright © 1944 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc., for Astounding Science Fiction, June 1944. "Imagine," copyright © 1955 by Fantasy House, Inc., for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1955. "It Didn't Happen," copyright © 1963 by H.M.H. Publishing Company for Playboy, October 1963. "Recessional," copyright © 196o by Mystery Publishing Company, Inc., for Dude, March 196o. "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" (with Carl Onspaugh), copyright © 1965 by Mercury Press, Inc., for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1965. "Puppet Show," copyright © x962 by H.M.H. Publishing Company for Playboy, November 1962. "Nightmare in Yellow," copyright © 1961 by Mystery Publishing Company, Inc., for Dude, May 1961. "Earthmen Bearing Gifts," copyright © 196o by Galaxy Publishing Corporation for GALAXY Magazine, June x96o. "Jaycee," copyright © 1955 by Fantasy House, Inc., for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. "Pi in the Sky," copyright '© 1945 by Standard Magazine, Inc., for Thrilling Wonder Stories, winter 1 945. "Answer," copyright © 1954 by Fredric Brown for Angels and Spaceships. "The Geezenstacks," copyright © 1943 by Popular Fiction Publishing Company for Weird Tales, September 1943. "Hall of Mirrors," copyright © 1953 by Galaxy Publishing Corporation for GALAXY Science Fiction, December 1953. "Knock," copyright © 1948 by Standard Magazines, Inc., for Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1948. "Rebound," copyright © 1961 by Fredric Brown for Nightmares and Geezenstacks. "Star Mouse," copyright © 1942 by Love Romances Publishing Company, Inc., for Planet Stories, February 1942. "Abominable," copyright © 196o by Mystery Publishing Company, Inc., for Dude, March 1960. "Letter to a Phoenix," copyright © 1949 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc., for Astounding Science Fiction, August 1949. "Not Yet the End," copyright © 1941 by Standard Publishing Company for Captain Future, winter 1941. "Etaoin Shrdlu," copyright © 1942 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc., for Unknown Worlds, February 1942. "Armageddon," copyright © 1941 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc., for Unknown, August 1941. "Experiment" (in "Two Timer") copyright © 1954 by Galaxy Publishing Cor­poration for GALAXY Science Fiction, February 1954. "The Short Happy Lives of Eustace Weaver" (I, II, and III), © 196r by Davis Publications, Inc., first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine under the title "Of Time and Eustace Weaver." "Reconciliation," copyright © 1954 by Fredric Brown for Angels and Spaceships. "Nothing Sirius," copyright © 1944 by Standard Publishing Company for Captain Future, spring 1944. "Pattern," copyright © 1954 by Fredric Brown for Angels and Spaceships. "The Yehudi Principle," copyright © 1944 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc., for Astounding Science Fiction, May 1944. "Come and Go Mad," copyright © 1949 by Weird Tales for Weird Tales, July 1949 "The End," copyright © 1961 by Fredric Brown for Nightmares and Geezenstacks. CONTENTS Introduction Robert Bloch "Arena" Imagine It Didn't Happen Recessional Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (In collaboration with Carl Onspaugh) Puppet Show Nightmare in Yellow Earthmen Bearing Gifts Jaycee Pi in the Sky Answer The Geezenstacks Hall of Mirrors Knock Rebound Star Mouse Abominable Letter to a Phoenix Not Yet the End Etaoin Shrdlu Armageddon Experiment The Short Happy Lives of Eustace Weaver (I, II and III) Reconciliation Nothing Sirius Pattern The Yehudi Principle Come and Go Mad The End Introduction I hope they don't misspell his name. At the height of his acclaim, with more than two dozen books and over three hundred short stories to his credit, certain careless critics and reviewers were still referring to "Frederic" or even "Frederick" Brown. While their comments were generally (and deservedly) lauda­tory, he resented the spelling errors. He was a stickler for accu­racy, and he took justifiable pride in his correct byline—Fredric Brown. To his friends, of course, he was always "Fred." I first met him in Milwaukee, during the early forties. Born in Cincinnati in 1907, a graduate of Hanover College in Indiana, he'd knocked about—and been knocked about—in a variety of oc­cupations, ranging from office boy to carnival worker. At the time we became acquainted he was a proofreader for the Milwaukee Journal and had settled down in a modest home on Twenty-seventh Street with his first wife, Helen, and two bright young sons. The household also included a Siamese cat named Ming Tah, a wooden flutelike instrument called a recorder, a chess set, and a typewriter. Fred played with the cat, played on the recorder, and played at chess. But the typewriter was not there for fun and games. Fred wrote short stories. He wrote them in his spare time because he needed job security to support a family. And he sold them to the pulp magazines because they offered the best availa­ble market for a beginner's work. He turned out detective sto­ries, mysteries, fantasy, and science fiction. Nostalgia buffs pay high prices today for magazines featuring his name on the cover, but at the time he was merely one of hundreds of contributors competing for the cent a word or two cents a word offered by publishers of pulps. Diminutive in stature, fine-boned, with delicate features par­tially obscured by horn-rimmed glasses and a wispy mustache, Fred had a vaguely professorial appearance. His voice was soft, his grooming immaculate. But woe betide the casual ac­quaintance who ventured to compete with him in an all-night session of poker-playing or alcoholic libation! Nor was there any hope for an opponent who dared to engage him in a duel of ver­bal wit—words were his natural weapons, and his pun mightier than the sword. When not speculating upon the idiosyncrasies of idiom—why, for example, do people prefer a shampoo to the real poo?—he spent his time searching for excruciating story titles. I recall him once paying ten dollars for the right to use one suggested by a friend for a mystery yarn; the resultant story was called I Love You Cruelly. The shameless wretch responsible for this offering was, like Fred, a member of Allied Authors, a writers' group which met regularly at the Milwaukee Press Club. To many of his associates the poker games and bar facilities constituted the major attrac­tions, but despite Fred's prowess in these areas, he was deadly se­rious about plot discussions and story techniques. He acquired a New York agent, and on his own he kept abreast of writing markets, word-rates, and contracts. There was no mistaking his ambition, nor his qualifications. Impelled by lifelong intellectual curiosity, he was an omnivorous and discerning reader; his interests embraced music, the theater, and the developments of science. Wordplay was more than a pastime, for he was a grammatical purist. The mot juste and the double entendre were grist for his mill, but he was equally fas­cinated by the peculiarities of ordinary speech and could reproduce it in his work with reportorial accuracy. Like most of us who found an outlet for our wares in the pulps of that period, Fred wrote his share of undistinguished stories featuring the cardboard characterization and stilted dialogue which seemed to satisfy editorial demands. From time to time, however, he broke new ground. And finally he tackled a novel. The Fabulous Clipjoint was published in 1941. It drew raves from the critics and won the coveted Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America. His second mystery novel, The Dead Ringer, was equally successful and established him as a leading figure in the field. In 1948 his innovative What Mad Universe appeared in Startling Stories. Expanded for hardcover publication a year later, it brought Fred deserved fame as a science-fiction writer. Meanwhile his personal circumstances underwent a drastic change. There was an amicable divorce; he married for a second time a year or so later. And, encouraged by the reception of his books, he began to turn out mystery novels at an accelerated rate. But he didn't forsake his proofreading job—a true child of the Depression came to learn the value of security and seniority, and Fred was not about to abandon a steady income for the un­certainty of a free-lance writer's career. During this period we spent a great deal of time together, in professional discussion of his projected novels and private explo­rations of his more intimate decisions. One day he came to me all aglow; he'd just received a phone call from a prominent edi­torial figure in New York who headed up one of the leading pulp-magazine chains. Would Fred consider taking over a por­tion of the editing assignment for seventy-five hundred a year? Granted, the figure doesn't sound impressive today. But if you'll hop into the nearest available time machine and transport yourself back a quarter of a century, you'll discover that seventy-five hundred dollars was a respectable annual income; roughly the equivalent of twenty thousand dollars today. It was far more than Fred was earning, or hoped to earn, at his newspaper job—and if he could augment the sum by writing novels on the side, it would exceed his wildest expectations. Fred talked it over with me, and with other friends; he talked it over with his wife, Beth. Then he quit his job and went to New York, where he learned there'd been a slight misunderstanding during his telephone conversation. The stipend quoted by the editorial director had not been seventy-five hundred a year; it was seventy-five dollars a week.