Short Story Wednesday: "Stranger Station" by Damon Knight

Last year I featured a book of mostly science fiction short stories, Bug-Eyed Monsters, edited by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg. After all these months, I have finally read some stories from that book. That post shows the front and back covers of the book and lists all the stories in the book.

"Stranger Station" is the first story in the Bug-Eyed Monsters anthology. It was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1956, but has been included in a good number of anthologies since then. I had never read it or any other story by Damon Knight, so I was happy to have this opportunity.

It is a first contact story, except that the story is set long after the first contact and this is more about the impact years after the initial meeting. The aliens were so massive and repulsive to humans that the contact has been sparse and only occasionally do the aliens visit a space station that is set aside especially to enable that visit. When one of the aliens comes, it is only for one purpose, to provide a substance for the humans which the humans have come to rely on. A lot of the background is left to the imagination, which was OK because I can make up my own story around the events. 

One human is selected to facilitate the exchange with the alien being. He is alone on Stranger Station until the alien arrives. He is supplied with a talking computer, an "alpha network" that can provide all his needs and that may be close to a sentient being. The human calls it "Aunt Jane" and they develop a bit of a relationship with each other. 

"Stranger Station" is a longish story (about 30 pages) and most of it consists of the  human, Sergeant Wesson, getting ready for his encounter with the alien and trying to find out more about the station. I enjoyed the story and will be looking for more to read by Damon Knight. I would also enjoy the same story with more length and explanation.

A side note: I was recently motivated to read this story and others in this book because Todd Mason had written a post at Sweet Freedom on short stories by Damon Knight in 1956 and "Stranger Station" was listed there. 

After reading "Stranger Station," I read four more stories in the anthology.

• "Talent" (1960) by Robert Bloch
• "The Other Kids" (1956) by Robert F. Young
• "Puppet Show" (1962) by Fredric Brown
• "The Faceless Thing" (1963) by Edward D. Hoch

Only one of those stories has an actual bug-eyed monster. The stories by Robert Bloch and Fredric Brown were my favorites. The other two had ambiguous endings, which usually don't bother me, but in these cases I wanted more than that.

Bookshelf Traveling for Insane Times No. 3

Judith at Reader in the Wilderness has started a new meme: Bookshelf Traveling For Insane Times. The idea is to look through a bookshelf or a bookcase or stacks of books and share some thoughts on the books. You can find more details here and here at Judith's blog.

For my Bookshelf Traveling post this week, I have picked three books I bought or received in 2017 (and have not read).

Rough Cider by Peter Lovesey

This is one of Peter Lovesey's earlier novels. Published in 1986, it is set in 1964, and involves events that took place during World War II.

A university lecturer, Dr. Theo Sinclair, is approached by a young woman, Alice, who has questions about a murder that occurred 21 years earlier in 1943. When Sinclair was nine years old he was sent to Somerset during the Blitz; while he was there he provided evidence for a murder trial. Alice's father was convicted of murder at that trial. 

See reviews at the Historical Novel Society site and At the Scene of the Crime.




Miss Darkness: The Great Short Crime Fiction of Fredric Brown

This collection of short stories by Fredric Brown was selected and edited by Jonathan Eeds, and published in 2012. Except for a few short stories from this collection, I have not read anything by this author. He was an American science fiction and mystery writer, publishing short stories and novels from the 1940s through the 1980s. I know I have read blog posts on books by this author but not sure where. I would love to hear from anyone who is familiar with his writing.

Doan and Carstairs: Their Complete Cases by Norbert Davis
(with an introduction by Evan Lewis)

I first heard about Norbert Davis and the Doan and Carstairs series at Neeru's blog, A Hot Cup of Pleasure, in 2013, when she reviewed Holocaust House. At the time I planned to read something by this author, but never did that. In 2017, this omnibus version was published by Argosy House, with the introduction by Evan Lewis. Evan has many posts about Norbert Davis at his blog, Davy Crockett's Almanac; here is a link to a post on The Mouse in the Mountain, one of the three novels in the series.

The series was published in the 1940's. Doan is a detective and Carstairs is a Great Dane. The stories are hard-boiled mysteries with a lot of humor. See an overview at The Thrilling Detective Web Site.

I still haven't read any of the books and none of them are very long. I have really got to do something about that. I have read one of Norbert Davis's short stories, "Watch Me Kill You!", in The Complete Cases of Max Latin. My post is here.