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Bug-Eyed
Monsters
Previous anthologies edited by
Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
SHARED TOMORROWS: Science Fiction
in Collaboration (1979)
THE END OF SUMMER: Science Fiction
of the Fifties (1979)
DARK SKINS, DARK DREAMS: Crime in Science
Fiction (1978)
CONTENTS
Introduction
Stranger Station
Damon Knight
Talent
Robert Bloch
The Other Kids
Robert F. Young
The Miracle of the Lily
Clare Winger Harris
The Bug-Eyed Musicians
Laurence M. Janifer
Puppet Show
Fredric Brown
Portfolio (Cartoons)
Gahan Wilson
Wherever You Are
Poul Anderson
Mimic
Donald A. Wollheim
The Faceless Thing
Edward D. Hoch
The Rull
A.E. Van Vogt
Friend to Man
C.M. Kornbluth
The Last One Left
Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
Hostess
Isaac Asimov
Copyright © 1980 by Barry Malzberg
and Bill Pronzini
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Set in Linotype Baskerville
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Bug-eyed monsters.
(A Harvest/HBJ original)
CONTENTS: Knight, D. Stranger station.—Bloch, R.
Talent.—Young, R. F. The other kids.—[etc.]
1. Science fiction, American. 2. Monsters—Fiction
I. Pronzini, Bill. II. Malzberg, Barry N.
PZ1.B86 1980 [PS648.S3] 813'.0876 79-2771
ISBN 0-15-614789-0
First Original Harvest/HBJ edition
STRANGER STATION, by Damon Knight. Copyright © 1956 by Fantasy House, Inc. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Reprinted by permission of the author.
TALENT,by Robert Bloch. Copyright © 1960 by Digest Productions Corp. First published in Worlds of If. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc., 845 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022.
THE OTHER KIDS,by Robert F. Young. Copyright © 1956 by King-Size Publications, Inc. First published in Fantastic Universe. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE MIRACLE OF THE LILY,by Clare Winger Harris. Copyright © 1927 by E.P. Co., Inc. First published in Amazing Stories. Reprinted by arrangement with the author’s agent, Forrest J. Ackerman, who is holding a check for the author or her heir; please contact at 2495 Glendower Ave., Hollywood, CA 90027.
THE BUG-EYED MUSICIANS,by Laurence M. Janifer. Copyright © 1959 by Galaxy Publishing Co. First published in Galaxy. Reprinted by permission of the author.
PUPPET SHOW,by Fredric Brown. Copyright © 1962 by H.M.H. Publishing Co. First published in Playboy. Reprinted by permission of Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc., 845 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022.
WHEREVER YOU ARE,by Poul Anderson. Copyright © 1959 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. First published in Astounding as by Winston P. Sanders. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency’, Inc., 845 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022.
MIMIC,by Donald A. Wollheim. Copyright © 1942 by Fictioneers, Inc.; copyright © 1969 by Donald A. Wollheim. First published in Astonishing Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE FACELSS THING,by Edward D. Hoch. Copyright © 1963 by Health Knowledge, Inc. First published in The Magazine of Horror. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE RULL,by A.E. Van Vogt. Copyright © 1948 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.; copyright renewed © 1976 by A.E. Van Vogt. First published in Astounding. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Forrest J. Ackerman, 2495 Glendower Ave., Hollywood, CA 90027.
FRIEND TO MAN,by C.M. Kornbluth. Copyright © 1951 by Avon Publications, Inc. First published in 10-Story Fantasy. Reprinted by permission of Robert P. Mills, Ltd., agents for the estate of C.M. Kornbluth.
THE LAST ONE LEFT,by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg. Copyright © 1980 by Mercury Press, Inc. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Reprinted by permission of the authors.
HOSTESS,by Isaac Asimov. Copyright © 1951 by World Editions, Inc. First published in Galaxy Science Fiction. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Those which we call monsters are not so with God.
—Montaigne, Essays II
Bug-Eyed
Monsters
Introduction
The Bug-Eyed Monster has been an important, if not always approbated, subtextual figure of science fiction virtually from the field’s inception as a distinct subgenre of American popular fiction.[1]
Established almost thirty years before then by H.G. Wells in his 1898 novel The War of the Worlds (a work made even more famous by Orson Welles’s 1938 radio adaptation), the BEM[2] had his heyday in the 1920s and 1930s. Such writers as Raymond Z. Gallun, Edmond Hamilton, and H.P. Lovecraft built their careers on the seemingly endless confrontation between man and hideous beings from alien worlds (or, on occasion, from right here on Earth). And the monsters of that era were hideous, as evidenced by hundreds of pulp magazine covers: grotesque life forms sometimes dripping slime or ichor, often with great bulging eyes and clutching tentacles, often bent on wanton destruction of human life. (Earth-type females, scantily clad, seemed to be their favorite targets—an interesting if not biologically sound phenomenon. But then again, all BEMs appeared to be males, which may or may not be the result of either alien or human sexism; so their preference may not be such an unsound phenomenon after all.)
The reasons for this proliferation of monsters in the twenties and thirties? One, of course, is that science fiction was then still in puberty, suffering growth pangs and almost but not quite ready to throw off its onus as a juvenile art form. But the primary reason, perhaps, is this: if science fiction, as critic Brian Aldiss claims in The Billion-Year Spree, is the image of the unspeakable human heart given shape as the Grotesque Other, and if Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is truly our first science-fiction novel, then the Bug-Eyed Monster is the unassimilable vision of ourselves, safely distanced, invariably rejected (for BEMs almost always came to a bad end).
Although A.E. Van Vogt, among others, continued to champion the cause of the extraterrestrial monster in the 1940s—and although the terrestrial or supernatural monster remained in favor in the pages of Weird Tales during that same period—most sf writers had by then shied away to more serious subject matter, such as the Atomic Bomb and other wonders of modern technology. This general shunning of the BEM became even more pronounced in the fifties, perhaps science fiction’s finest and most dazzlingly inventive decade; and by 1958, after the last of the old pulps and most of the low-quality digests born during the magazine boom of that decade had collapsed, the remaining art directors had cleaned up their act: covers on Astoundi
ng, Galaxy, Fantasy & Science Fiction et al. depicted sedate technological imaginings or astronomical wonders, and it was possible, sometimes even politic, to read a science-fiction magazine without covering it with plain brown wrapping paper or hiding it behind one’s elementary chemistry textbook. The monsters were all but extinct.
Now and then during the past twenty years, a nostalgic editor or unreconstructed art director would feature a BEM for old times’ sake, usually in a humorous vein. But in those two decades science fiction as a whole became a Sophisticated Literary Medium: interface between man and his technology in this terrifying post-technological era; chronicler of Doppler Shifts and Black Holes and maddened astronauts battling psychosis on the First Venus Sweep; keeper of the flame and guider of the way. Bug-Eyed Monsters, it has been said, are like the dreams of childhood: no one can take them seriously anymore; they can only be mocked or evoked in deprecation. Apocalypse is the ticket now—that, and the outposts of science.
It was more fun, however, in the old days.
And it is in the spirit of fun—a harkening back to those more innocent days when BEMs menaced the girls in the brass brassieres—that we present this anthology. Which is not to imply that the stories here are old-fashioned or undistinguished; indeed, they are some of the best and most entertaining to be found in the field, offering a wide variety of approaches to and variations on the BEM theme.
There are evocative studies of human/alien relationships (Damon Knight’s “Stranger Station,” Fredric Brown’s “Puppet Show,” Isaac Asimov’s “Hostess,” A.E. Van Vogt’s “The Rull”); satirical humor (Poul Anderson’s “Wherever You Are,” our own “The Last One Left”); horrific visions (C.M. Kornbluth’s “Friend to Man,” Donald Wollheim’s “Mimic”); a pair of poignant short-shorts (Robert F. Young’s “The Other Kids,” Edward D. Hoch’s “The Faceless Thing”); and just plain entertainment (Robert Bloch’s “Talent,” Laurence M. Janifer’s “The Bug-Eyed Musicians”). In short, a little something for every science-fictional taste. Plus, as a bonus, six of Gahan Wilson’s funny and mordant monster cartoons.
Part of understanding what we are and where we are going, someone wrote a long time ago, is understanding where we have been. The Bug-Eyed Monster is where science fiction has been—and in its own way it wasn’t such a bad place to be, either.
The BEM is dead; long live the BEM.
—Bill Pronzini and
Barry N. Malzberg
June 1979
[1] In March 1926 with the appearance of the first issue of Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories.
[2] Science fiction fans like acronyms as much as politicians or bureaucrats do. FIAWOL (Fandom Is A Way Of Life) did battle with FIJAGDH (Fandom Is Just A God-Damned Hobby) in the thirties; their older and wiser descendants settled in the fifties for the understanding of TINSTAAFL (There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch).
“Stranger Station” is a virtuoso performance—arguably, one of the two finest BEM stories ever written (the other being, of course, H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds). Once you’ve met Paul Wesson, the new Station watchman, and the alien that “reminded him of all the loathsome, crawling, creeping things the Earth was full of,” you’re not likely to forget them, or the fate that awaits them on Stranger Station.
Damon Knight (b. 1922) achieved a reputation as one of the most polished craftsmen to publish consistently in the 1950s: short fiction for H.L. Gold’s Galaxy, Anthony Boucher’s Magazine of Fantasy &: Science Fiction, and other publications; and such excellent novels as Hell’s Pavement and A for Anything. But because he does little fiction these days, he is best known to modern readers as a critic and anthologist (his brilliantly perceptive collection of science-fiction criticism, In Search of Wonder, is still in print today, twenty-five years after initial publication; the Orbit series of original s-f anthologies is widely regarded, as are numerous other collections.) Knight once stated that he felt “Stranger Station” was a basic and not very original 1950s metaphoric horror vision—which just shows that even the best of critics, particularly when examining their own work, have blind spots.
Stranger
Station
Damon Knight
The clang of metal echoed hollowly down through the Station’s many vaulted corridors and rooms. Paul Wesson stood listening for a moment as the rolling echoes died away. The maintenance rocket was gone, heading back to Home; they had left him alone in Stranger Station.
Stranger Station! The name itself quickened his imagination. Wesson knew that both orbital stations had been named a century ago by the then British administration of the satellite service: “Home” because the larger, inner station handled the traffic of Earth and its colonies; “Stranger” because the outer station was designed specifically for dealings with foreigners . . . beings from outside the solar system. But even that could not diminish the wonder of Stranger Station, whirling out here alone in the dark—waiting for its once-in-two-decades visitor . . .
One man, out of all Sol’s billions, had the task and privilege of enduring the alien’s presence when it came. The two races, according to Wesson’s understanding of the subject, were so fundamentally different that it was painful for them to meet. Well, he had volunteered for the job, and he thought he could handle it—the rewards were big enough.
He had gone through all the tests, and against his own expectations he had been chosen. The maintenance crew had brought him up as dead weight, drugged in a survival hamper; they had kept him the same way while they did their work, and then had brought him back to consciousness. Now they were gone. He was alone.
. . . But not quite.
“Welcome to Stranger Station, Sergeant Wesson,” said a pleasant voice. “This is your alpha network speaking. I’m here to protect and serve you in every way. If there’s anything you want, just ask me.”
Wesson had been warned, but he was still shocked at the human quality of it. The alpha networks were the last word in robot brains—computers, safety devices, personal servants, libraries, all wrapped up in one, with something so close to “personality” and “free will” that experts were still arguing the question. They were rare and fantastically expensive; Wesson had never met one before.
“Thanks,” he said now, to the empty air. “Uh—what do I call you, by the way? I can’t keep saying, ‘Hey, alpha network.’ ”
“One of your recent predecessors called me Aunt Nettie.”
Wesson grimaced. Alpha network—Aunt Nettie. He hated puns; that wouldn’t do. “The Aunt part is all right,” he said. “Suppose I call you Aunt Jane. That was my mother’s sister; you sound like her, a little bit.”
“I am honored,” said the invisible mechanism politely. “Can I serve you any refreshments now? Sandwiches? A drink?”
“Not just yet,” said Wesson.
He turned away. That seemed to end the conversation as far as the network was concerned. A good thing; it was all right to have it for company, speaking when spoken to, but if it got talkative . . .
The human part of the Station was in four segments: bedroom, living room, dining room, bath. The living room was comfortably large and pleasantly furnished in greens and tans: the only mechanical note in it was the big instrument console in one corner. The other rooms, arranged in a ring around the living room, were tiny: just space enough for Wesson, a narrow encircling corridor, and the mechanisms that would serve him. The whole place was spotlessly clean, gleaming and efficient in spite of its twenty-year layoff.
This is the gravy part of the run, Wesson told himself. The month before the alien came—good food, no work, and an alpha network for conversation. “Aunt Jane, I’ll have a small steak now,” he said to the network. “Medium rare, with hash-brown potatoes, onions and mushrooms, and a glass of lager. Call me when it’s ready.”
“Right,” said the voice pleasantly. Out in the dining room, the autochef began to hum and cluck self-importantly. Wesson wandered over and inspected the instrument console. Airlocks were sealed and
tight, said the dials; the air was cycling. The Station was in orbit, and rotating on its axis with a force at the perimeter, where Wesson was, of one g. The internal temperature of this part of the Station was an even 73°.
The other side of the board told a different story; all the dials were dark and dead. Sector Two, occupying a volume some eighty-eight thousand times as great as this one, was not yet functioning.
Wesson had a vivid mental image of the Station, from photographs and diagrams—a 500-foot duralumin sphere, onto which the shallow 30-foot disk of the human section had been stuck apparently as an afterthought. The whole cavity of the sphere, very nearly—except for a honeycomb of supply and maintenance rooms, and the all-important, recently enlarged vats—was one cramped chamber for the alien . . .
The steak was good, bubbling crisp outside the way he liked it, tender and pink inside. “Aunt Jane,” he said with his mouth full, “this is pretty soft, isn’t it?”
“The steak?” asked the voice, with a faintly anxious note.
Wesson grinned. “Never mind,” he said. “Listen, Aunt Jane, you’ve been through this routine . . . how many times? Were you installed with the Station, or what?”
“I was not installed with the Station,” said Aunt Jane primly. “I have assisted at three contacts.”
“Um. Cigarette,” said Wesson, slapping his pockets. The autochef hummed for a moment, and popped a pack of G.I.’s out of a vent. Wesson lit up. “All right,” he said, “you’ve been through this three times. There are a lot of things you can tell me, right?”
“Oh, yes, certainly. What would you like to know?” Wesson smoked, leaned back reflectively, green eyes narrowed. “First,” he said, “read me the Pigeon report—you know, from the Brief History. I want to see if I remember it right.”
“Chapter Two,” said the voice promptly. “First contact with a non-Solar intelligence was made by Commander Ralph C. Pigeon on July 1, 1987, during an emergency landing on Titan. The following is an excerpt from his official report:
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