Donald Wandrei

"The Atom Smasher" © Astounding, Apr 1934 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award "The Black Fog" © Thrilling Wonder Stories, Feb 1937 Eye and the Finger, 1944 --/ fourth place sf story --/ wonder award --/ style award "Blinding Shadows" © Astounding, May 1934 Eye and the Finger, 1944 --/ third place sf story --/ wonder award --/ adventure award --/ style award --/ awesome scale "The Challenge From Beyond" (round-robin story) © 1934, Fantasy Magazine --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award --/ rare find "The Chuckler" © Fantasy Magazine, Sep 1934 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award "Colossus" (Colossus series) © Astounding, Jan 1934 Colossus, 1989 --/ fourth place sf story --/ wonder award --/ adventure award --/ awesome scale "The Crystal Bullet" © Weird Tales, Mar 1941 Eye and the Finger, 1944 --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award --/ awesome scale "The Destroying Horde" © Weird Tales, Jun 1935 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ fourth place sf story --/ wonder award ---------------------------------------------- "Finality Unlimited" © Astounding, Sep 1936 Eye and the Finger, 1944 --/ fourth place sf story --/ wonder award --/ idea award --/ awesome scale This story may either blow your mind and send you staggering in the general direction of a "Starbucks" for some hope of espresso and free time to ponder upon its described (and implied) immensities, or it can mightily frustrate you with its "rubber" science (meaning "very flexible, and likely nonsense scientific stuff") and crude literary qualities. Your choice. A vintage "Wonder Pulp" tale, it displays the same unique qualities of cosmic imagination as other Wandrei tales, such as "The Red Brain", "Colossus", "Something From Above", etc. Is it refined gasoline to feed your sophisticated literary SUV, or is it crude, black, raw oil gushing from depths unmentionable and vast, covering you from head to toe, branding you as a "wonder junkie" and providing a gleam in your eyes for days to come? The latter, of course. Some inspired, vaulted halls of imagination span this narrative; go hide and frolic inside them, and do not let anybody tell you differently. review: 24-Sep-06 (read in 2002) ---------------------------------------------- "The Fire Vampires" © Weird Tales, Feb 1933 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award "Giant Plasm" © Weird Tales, Feb 1939 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ fourth place sf story --/ wonder award "The Green Flame" © Weird Tales, Jul 1930 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award "Infinity Zero" © Astounding, Oct 1936 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ cool sf story --/ awesome scale "Life Current" © Astounding, Apr 1935 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ cool sf story "The Man Who Never Lived" © Astounding, Mar 1934 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ cool sf story "The Monster From Nowhere" © Argosy, Nov 1935 Eye and the Finger, 1944 --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award ---------------------------------------------- Donald Wandrei "Murray's Light" © Astounding, Jun 1935 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award This is not the best story of Donald Wandrei, by any means. Yet, its readable, appropriately large-scale scientific disaster yarn, with convoluted, florid style: check it out: "Destiny donned impalpable fingers. Phantasmal ribbons fluttered from oceans of light that raged mysterious. The sky crept down to earth in countless questing festoons." and so it goes - rather a painting than a story. review: 10-Jul-06 (read in 2006) ---------------------------------------------- "Nightmare" © 1935 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ cool sf story "The Red Brain" © Weird Tales, Oct 1927 Eye and the Finger, 1944 (expanded version) --/ fourth place sf story --/ wonder award --/ style award --/ awesome scale "A Scientist Divides" © Astounding, Sep 1934 Eye and the Finger, 1944 --/ fourth place sf story --/ wonder award --/ style award --/ awesome scale "Something From Above" © Weird Tales, Dec 1930 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ third place sf story --/ wonder award --/ adventure award --/ style award "Spawn Of The Sea" © Weird Tales, May 1933 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ fourth place sf story --/ wonder award "Strange Harvest" © Weird Tales, May 1953 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ third place sf story --/ wonder award --/ adventure award --/ style award "Uneasy Lie The Drowned" © Weird Tales, Dec 1937 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award ---------------------------------------------- "The Whisperers" © Astounding Stories, May 1935 Avon SF Reader, Feb 1947 Strange Harvest, 1965 --/ cool apocalyptic sf story --/ wonder award --/ idea award Another strange tale. The world is experiencing the worst plague in history (described quite vividly, including some Soviet propaganda press-releases). Something infects people and makes a strange whispering sound in their bodies as it kills them off... It turns out that this sound is the full blast of microscopic civilizations of sentient aliens who also have a much faster time rate, so after entering the human body they evolve, have an epic history and an apocalyptic finish - all in a matter of hours! As though this idea was not wild enough, Wandrei tells us about the remedy - getting drunk and making these industrious "virus" civilizations finish themself sooner; in other words, stressing out these little buggers with a totally mad (drunk) rat race. Do you sense an irony here? review: 09-Aug-06 (read in 2005) ----------------------------------------------

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