(1906-1972) US author of detective novels and much sf, and for many years active in journalism. He is perhaps best known for such detective novels as The Fabulous Clipjoint (1947), which won an Edgar Award, but is also highly regarded for his sf, which is noted for its elegance and Humour, and for a polished slickness not generally found in the field in 1941, the year he published his first sf story, "Not Yet the End" (Winter 1941 Captain Future). Many of his shorter works are vignettes and extended jokes: of the 47 pieces collected in Nightmares and Geezenstacks (coll 1961), 38 are vignettes of the sort he specialized in (they feature sudden joke climaxes whose ironies are often cruel); this collection (plus additional stories) was assembled with Honeymoon in Hell (coll 1958) as And the Gods Laughed (omni 1987). Typical of somewhat longer works utilizing the same professional economies of effect are "Placet is a Crazy Place" (May 1946 Astounding), "Etaoin Shrdlu" (February 1942 Unknown) and "Arena" (June 1944 Astounding). The latter was adapted for the original Star Trek television series as "Arena" (1967) and was among the sf stories selected by the Science Fiction Writers of America for inclusion in Science Fiction Hall of Fame (anth 1970) edited Robert Silverberg. It tells of the settling of an interstellar Future War through single combat between a human and an Alien. Brown is possibly at his best in these shorter forms, where his elegant and seemingly comfortable wit, its iconoclasm carefully directed at targets whose defacing sf readers would appreciate, had greatest scope; a posthumous collection, From these Ashes: The Complete Short SF of Fredric Brown (coll 2001), assembles all his short work in one volume.

Brown's sf novels are by no means without merit. The first and most famous of them, What Mad Universe (September 1948 Startling; exp 1949), is a cleverly complex Alternate-History story in which various Pulp sf conventions turn out – it is a nice Satirical touch – to be true history (> Recursive SF). The Lights in the Sky are Stars (1953; vt Project Jupiter 1954) depicts mankind at the turn of the twenty-first century and on the verge of star travel; the true subject of the tale might, movingly, be thought to be the Sense of Wonder itself. Martians, Go Home (1955) describes the infestation of Earth by Little Green Men who drive everyone nearly crazy, until the sf writer who has perhaps imagined them into existence imagines them gone again; however, he is himself a figment of a larger imagination, so that in the end it is reality itself that dissolves into a higher, claustrophobic solipsism. In The Mind Thing (1961) a stranded alien attempts to get back home using its ability to ride human minds piggyback; the experience is fatal for those possessed.

None of these novels is negligible, and their unfailing cynicism about the nature of sf and of the creative act itself are bracingly corrosive; but it is perhaps the case, at least in Brown's sf writing, that his short stories, with their natty momentum and the sudden flushes of humane emotion that transfigure so many of them, have proved more successful in the long run. Brown was a kind of internal exile in the field of sf, but in the end his gaze is marginally warmer than might have been expected. [JC]

see also: Advertising; AI; Amnesia; Chess; Computers; EC Comics; Games and Sports; Hive Minds; Internet; Invasion; Media Landscape; Nuclear Energy; Paranoia; Pastoral; Physics; Rays; Religion; Secret Masters; Space Flight; Stars; Time Distortion.

Fredric William Brown

born Cincinnati, Ohio: 29 October 1906

died Tucson, Arizona: 11 March 1972

works

series

Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps mixture of sf and fantasy, but mostly associational; listed for convenience

• Homicide Sanitarium (San Antonio, Texas: Dennis McMillan, 1984) [coll: #1: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/]
• Before She Kills (San Diego, California: Dennis McMillan, 1984) [coll: #2: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/]
• Madman's Holiday (Volcano, Hawaii: Dennis McMillan, 1984) [coll: #3: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/William L McMillan]
• The Case of the Dancing Sandwiches (Volcano, Hawaii: Dennis McMillan, 1985) [coll: #4: contains The Case of the Dancing Sandwiches (New York: Dell Books, 1951): Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/William L McMillan]
• The Freak Show Murders (Belen, New Mexico: Dennis McMillan, 1985) [coll: #5: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/William L McMillan]
• Thirty Corpses Every Thursday (Belen, New Mexico: Dennis McMillan, 1986) [coll: #6: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/]
• Pardon my Ghoulish Laughter (Miami Beach, Florida: Dennis McMillan, 1986) [coll: #7: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/]
• Red is the Hue of Hell (Miami Beach, Florida: Dennis McMillan, 1986) [coll: #8: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/]
• Brother Monster (Miami Beach, Florida: Dennis McMillan, 1987) [coll: #9: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/Joe {SERVELLO}]
• Sex Life on the Planet Mars (Miami Beach, Florida: Dennis McMillan, 1986) [coll: #10: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/Phil {FOGLIO}]
• Nightmare in Darkness (Miami Beach, Florida: Dennis McMillan, 1987) [coll: #11: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/Joe {SERVELLO}]
• Who Was that Blonde I Saw You Kill Last Night? (Miami Beach, Florida: Dennis McMillan, 1988) [coll: #12: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/]
• Three-Corpse Parlay (Missoula, Montana: Dennis McMillan, 1988) [coll: #13: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/Joe {SERVELLO}]
• Selling Death Short (Missoula, Montana: Dennis McMillan, 1988) [coll: #14: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/Joe {SERVELLO}]
• Whispering Death (Missoula, Montana: Dennis McMillan, 1989), [coll: #15: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/]
• Happy Ending (Missoula, Montana: Dennis McMillan, 1990) [coll: #16: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/Joe {SERVELLO}]
• The Water-Walker (Missoula, Montana: Dennis McMillan, 1990) [coll: #17: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/Joe {SERVELLO}]
• The Gibbering Night (Hilo, Hawaii: Dennis McMillan, 1991) [coll: #18: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/Joe {SERVELLO}]
• The Pickled Punks (Hilo, Hawaii: Dennis McMillan, 1991) [coll: #19: Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps: hb/Joe {SERVELLO}]

individual titles

novels

• The Fabulous Clipjoint (New York: E P Dutton, 1947) [hb/]
• What Mad Universe (New York: E P Dutton, 1949) [hb/]
• The Lights in the Sky are Stars (New York: E P Dutton, 1953) [hb/Koha]
  • Project Jupiter (London: T V Boardman, 1954) [vt of the above: hb/]Martians, Go Home (New York: E P Dutton, 1955) [hb/]
• Rogue in Space (New York: E P Dutton, 1957) [fixup first published in 1949 in Super Science Stories and in 1950 in Amazing: hb/H Lawrence Hoffman]
• The Mind Thing (New York: Bantam Books, 1961) [pb/]
• Mitkey Astromouse (New York: Harlin Quist, 1971) [chap: juvenile: illus/hb/Heinz Edelman]

collections and stories

• Space on my Hands (Chicago, Illinois: Shasta Publishers, 1951) [coll: hb/Malcolm Smith]
• Angels and Spaceships (New York: E P Dutton, 1954) [coll: hb/Koha]
  • Star Shine (New York: Bantam Books, 1956) [coll: vt of the above: pb/Richard Powers]
• Honeymoon in Hell (New York: Bantam Books, 1958) [coll: pb/from Hieronymus Bosch]
• Nightmares and Geezenstacks (New York: Bantam Books, 1961) [coll: pb/]
  • The Best Short Stories of Fredric Brown (Sevenoaks, Kent: New English Library, 1967) [omni of the above plus Space on My Hands: pb/]
  • And the Gods Laughed (West Bloomfield, Michigan: Phantasia Press, 1987) [omni of Honeymoon in Hell and Nightmares and Geezenstacks, with additional stories: hb/Kelly Freas]
• Daymares (New York: Lancer Books, 1968) [coll: pb/Howard Winters]
• Paradox Lost and Twelve Other Great Science Fiction Stories (New York: Random House, 1973) [coll: hb/Wendell Minor]
• The Best of Fredric Brown (Garden City, New York: Nelson Doubleday, 1976) [coll: hb/Richard Corben]
• The Best Short Stories of Fredric Brown (Sevenoaks, Kent: New English Library, 1982) [coll: pb/Tim White]
• From These Ashes: The Complete Short SF of Fredric Brown (Framingham, Massachusetts: The NESFA Press, 2001) [coll: hb/Bob Eggleton]
• Martians and Madness: The Complete SF Novels of Fredric Brown (Framingham, Massachusetts: The NESFA Press, 2002) [omni: hb/Bob Eggleton]
• Here Comes a Candle (Lakewood, Colorado: Millipede Press, 2006) [coll: assembling the title novel from 1950 plus other material: hb/image from Nosferatu, 1922]
• Earthmen Bearing Gifts (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2008) [story: ebook: first appeared June 1960 Galaxy: na/]
• Keep Out (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2009) [story: ebook: first appeared March 1954 Amazing: na/]
• Happy Ending (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2009) with Mack Reynolds [story: ebook: first appeared September 1957 Fantastic Universe: na/]
• Hall of Mirrors (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2009) [story: ebook: first appeared December 1953 Galaxy: na/]
• Two Timer (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2009) [story: ebook: two vignettes making one story: first appeared February 1954 Galaxy: na/]

works as editor

• Science Fiction Carnival: Fun in Science-Fiction (Chicago, Illinois: Shasta Publishers, 1953) with Mack Reynolds [anth: hb/Adri Ames]
  • Science Fiction Carnival: Fun in Science-Fiction (New York: Bantam Books, 1957) with Mack Reynolds [anth: cut version of the above: pb/]

about the author

• Newton Baird. A Key to Fredric Brown's Wonderland: A Study and an Annotated Bibliographical Checklist (Georgetown, California: Talisman Literary Research, 1981) [nonfiction: chap: pb/nonpictorial]
• Jack Seabrook. Martians and Misplaced Clues: The Life and Work of Fredric Brown (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1993) [nonfiction: pb/]

links

Previous versions of this entry

• 17/09/2011
• 17/12/2011
• 21/12/2011
• 08/02/2012