Barry N Malzberg

"A million dollars' worth of heroin," Delgado said to the silent men. "Let's call it what it is, gentlemen ... the most addictive and dangerous of all the hallucinatives used by humanity, a drug whose mere private possession in your country is a crime with severe penalties ... and you have hijacked a plane in flight, imprisoned the crew, imprisoned a man named Wulff who was in original possession of these materials, and then have brought all of this within our borders. And what are we supposed to do, gentlemen?" He kicked the desk drawer closed. "What are we supposed to do?""This man left fifty people dead in Las Vegas.""Which man?""Wulff. The one we brought here."They had brought Wulff to Cuba. That was their first mistake.

SMALL FELONIES 250 short-short stories told in first-person, third-person, present as well as past tense, and in epistolary format; tales of detection (three feature long-running series character, the "Nameless Detective"), psychological suspense, historical noir, light and dark fantasy, satirical humor, horror, the biter-bitten, the O. Henry twist, a shaggy dog story or two, even a shameless futuristic Hemingway pastiche. The earliest entry, "I Know a Way," was published in 1971; the most recent, "Such Things As Nightmares Are Made Of," appears here for the first time. Fourteen were written in collaboration with Barry Malzberg. More than a score were first printed in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine; others in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Mystery Scene, Cemetery Dance, The Strand Magazine, Analog Science Fiction, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine; the balance in anthologies.50 crime stories... each a connoisseur's delight

A WAY WITH ALL MAIDENSDavid Perkins didn't intend to join S-'s acting troupe. He started out as a thief. But circumstances being what they are, he is forced to lay low for a while. And what better place to lay low than as an extra in the back of a theater production. Which is how Perkins finds himself a member of the cast of S-'s new play, The Tempest. All is well and good until S- decides that, against the better judgement of the director, he wants Perkins to be his Prospero. Now Perkins has all these nonsensical lines to learn for a part he doesn't really understand, rehearsed by a director who has absolutely no faith in him. Thank goodness he has Jane, who provides a most delightful distraction to all this theater business. Otherwise, he'd surely go mad. A SATYR'S ROMANCEIt all begins in Times Square on New Year's Eve. Harry Wheeler is ushering in 1970 with the crowds when someone lights a firecracker behind him. A young lady falls into his arms in a dead faint. What is he to do? Seizing the moment, he carries her off to his basement apartment. And there Harry's seeks to explain himself to this young actress, Rona Smith, whom he has so conveniently abducted. Sex is part of it, but Harry believes there is so much more here that needs to be said. He tells Rona the story of Idiom, his alter ego-his sexual history, his search for connection. But after the sex is over, Rona finds she has no patience for this man who barricades himself behind his words. Because Harry, she decides, is very likely crazy.

Barry N. Malzberg has been called "outrageous and outraged" Theodore Sturgeon], "wildly imaginative, and darkly hilarious" Brian Doherty], and "a comic genius" Michael Hurd]. He has written over 70 novels, and has published at least 15 story collections, including the two you hold here in your hand-The Man Who Loved the Midnight Lady (1980) and In the Stone House (2000). Malzberg is known for writing science fiction, crime, erotica, political thrillers and action adventure. He has written some marvelous what-if stories that play with 20th century history, and a series of satiric stories featuring thinly-veiled famous authors. His plots range from religious allegory and time conundrum, to assassination and ascension. He has written fictional stories about everyone from Christopher Columbus to Ring Lardner, from Adolph Hitler to Bobby Kennedy. You will even find a dinosaur or two. These two volumes of classic Malzberg extravaganzas contain fifty-four stories from his long and varied career-including a road trip tale with Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, an essay on 1950s science fiction, extrapolations on Emily Dickinson and ruminations on Cornell Woolrich. Enter the world of Barry N. Malzberg...

ORACLE OF THE THOUSAND HANDSThe biography of D'Arcy's life isn't meant to be definitive, but D'Arcy's biographer is being as diligent in his efforts as he can. Scant attention will be paid to his childhood. D'Arcy's story will start with his formative years, detailing his discovery of The Magazine and the curious pleasures D'Arcy experiences within, setting him on his path of sexual discovery. The biographer promises that he will present "a shattering picture of our protagonist, revealing wonders and implications hitherto never before revealed." Unfortunately, the biographer himself is operating under a certain degree of restraint, confined as he is to an institute that he is not free to leave. Fortunately, he has the biography of D'Arcy to distract him. IN MY PARENTS' BEDROOMMichael and his companion are taking the Westfield Tour, a fascinating look into the lives of the Westfield family. Michael has a rather special insight into the family, for Michael is the youngest son of the Westfields, forbidden by the terms of the grant to set foot in the family home-but compelled to do so. He and his companion-girlfriend? he thinks so, though he can't quite remember her name-join a small group and their tour guide through the various rooms in the house. Each room prods at Michael's memories. While the group and the tour guide argue over the fine points of the Westfield's predications and proclivities, Michael journeys into his own past. And as each revelation brings Michael new insight, it also leads to the final mystery.

Science fiction is NOT a safe space Two short novels and three stories by the author of Fat White Vampire Blues push the boundaries of taboo in science fiction. An English archeologist who yearns for the love of a young Jewish refuge sets out to convince a majority of the world's population that the Holocaust never happened - hoping to not only wipe it from the annals of history, but also from reality. The Martian colony Bradbury sends an investigator to pursue a gay Uyghur murderer in a future Australian city where members of each ethnic and grievance group are invisible to all those who don't belong to their tribe. A far-future academic treatise describes a rediscovered Fusionist liturgical text that combines the writings of radical feminist Joanna Russ and female slavery fantasist John Norman. An aggressively therapeutic State of Florida lovingly wraps its bureaucratic tentacles around those it deems unenlightened. A born-again Christian cafeteria worker in a small Texas college town becomes the only friend of an insectoid alien come to evacuate humanity from a doomed Earth. These stories leave no sacred cows unprodded."Remarkable work in an incendiary time. The Truest Quill." -Barry N. Malzberg, author of Beyond Apollo and Breakfast in the Ruins"Andrew Fox writes like a combination of Kurt Vonnegut, Dave Barry and Molly Ivins..." -Lucius Shepard, author of The Golden and Life During Wartime

Marvin Martin is angry. Night after night, he strips the guests that appear on his talk show of their pitiful pretensions, their commonplace hypocrisies, but how long has it been since he uncovered a genuine revelation? . . . Hurwitz is scared. He selects Martin's victims, and he made a bad mistake when he chose Doris Jensen; she turned out to be from a competitive network and ruined a taping. Hurwitz's job is in danger . . . Walter Monaghan is desperate. The twenty-ninth man to have walked on the moon wants to tell the Revelations audience the truth about America's "space program"--that it never got off the ground. If he's just another mad astronaut, why is it so important that he be silenced? This anti-oedipal edition of Revelations includes an introduction by D. Harlan Wilson as well as two afterwords by the author, one from the second printing of Revelations in 1976, the other written in 2019.

The Horseplayer Trilogy in one volume, including A BED OF MONEY, originally published as by "Gerrold Watkins."

SCREENMartin Miller works for the welfare department. But his attention to his job is wandering. He isn't sure he can work there anymore. What Martin really wants is to be in the movies. Not as an actor, not quite. He wants to be in the movies. He sits in the theater, and he becomes Marcello Mastriano to Sophia Loren. He becomes Roger Vadim to Brigitte Bardot. He has sex with these women, and knows that this world is better than real life. His boss, Mr. Poirier, warns him that he will very likely be fired. His girlfriend, Barbara, warns him that Hollywood isn't real. But Martin knows what he knows--that in a darkened theater, he can be whomever he wants when he enters the screen.CINEMA (THE MASOCHIST)"Susan has had a full day in New York. She has participated in the making of a pornographic film, she has had intercourse with the agent of the film's producers, she has been offered a leading role in a forthcoming production by the same company, she has come to terms with herself in perhaps ways that she was not accustomed. At the end of all of this she stands in a hotel room fully dressed somewhere between retention and flight... She senses that if she were to tell the men in the street who stare at her what she had been doing that day, they would be amazed but, then, they might be perfectly matter of fact. People in New York accept all sorts of things as matter of fact."

THE SPREADWalter is the New York publisher of a sex magazine called The Spread. He sells about 100,000 copies an issue. This glossy, pornographic weekly provides him a platform to work out his fantasies while fulfilling the dubious needs of his readers. The way he sees it, Walter provides a service--he is in demand. He has sex with his secretary Virginia in the office, and services his wife at home. But Walter has become both a spokesman for the sexual revolution, and a victim of it. He has become trapped by his own creation. He begins to harass the readers who send in classified ads. He ignores an advertiser who may be selling dangerous goods. The times are getting ahead of Walter. And he is the last one to know it. HORIZONTAL WOMANShe has good thighs, good breasts, a striking if somewhat affected face -- she knows all of this because she has been told so by clients many times -- but she knows what they can never tell her: that her best feature is her compassion and she wears it like armor through all the streets... Elizabeth Moore is a social worker. Her supervisor, Oved, is trying to train her to be a dedicated investigator. After all, her job is to protect the city and reduce public assistance. But Elizabeth has another mission, to help her clients with their self-esteem. She is a caseworker who takes her caseloads very seriously indeed. The trouble is that so many people need her. But how can she explain to her boss that the kind of therapy she provides her clients can only be offered in bed?

Barry N. Malzberg's fiction earned him the 1973 John W. Campbell Memorial Award, nominations for the Philip K. Dick and Theodore Sturgeon Awards, as well as two Hugo and six Nebula Award nominations. Born in 1939, he earned a degree from Syracuse University, worked for the New York City government, and made his first professional fiction sale in 1966. He wrote fiction in a variety of genres under several pseudonyms, and also worked as an agent, editor, and reviewer.But he is perhaps best known for his essays. His two earlier collections of essays, The Engines of the Night (1982) and Breakfast in the Ruins (2007) both won the Locus Award, and both were finalists for the Hugo Award.Collected here are nearly fifty of Malzberg's latest essays. They may upset you, may depress you, may shock you, but they will make you think, and lead you to a different view of the world. Also included are introductions by Mike Resnick and Paul Di Filippo."The impressions and insights that abound in these columns make this book indispensable for any fan of science fiction." --Publishers Weekly"Incisive, wise, mordant, informed by a deep understanding of science fiction in all its aspects--a book of indispensable essays." --Robert Silverberg, SFWA Grand Master"Elegies and rants, a prose that Mencken might envy, seemingly eidetic recall for everything that has ever happened in science fiction's garish, slightly down-at-the-heels cabaret, plus an outlook on life as clear-eyed and weary-hearted as Edward Hopper's--you'll find them all in The Bend at the End of the Road. Barry Malzberg is sf's institutional memory, and in these pages, he transports us back to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when the stars were our destination and every story seemed a door into summer. But he also casts a cold eye on the fiction and fandom de nos jours. Here, then, is a full house of wise, provocative, and plangent essays--read 'em and weep." --Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Prize-winning literary journalist"In this book, Barry Malzberg will tell you what science fiction once was, why it changed, what it changed into, and why it's no longer what it could have been. He won't talk down to you. He'll expect you to pay attention and use your intelligence. And, as he says, 'linear argument or exposition can be a bitch.' So he'll walk you around the subject, leading you gradually into his argument and his viewpoint. It's an important one. Along the way, you'll learn the names of authors you'd love and work that will consume you. And by the end, you'll have read the most important book about science fiction published in the last decade." --John-Henri Holmberg, Swedish author, critic, publisher, and translator

LADY OF A THOUSAND SORROWS I can remember the blood and roses and the sounds of sirens... And how Jason three years before had said to me: "I am going to be killed. They are going to shoot me down in public some day.""No," I said, "that's ridiculous.""Is it? There must be a million people who would like to kill me, at least a hundred million more who would enjoy seeing it no matter what they tell you.""Don't talk about it anymore."He stared narrowly at me then. "It excites you, too. The widow in black, his living memory. People would never forget you. You'd be more famous than I am...."Then three years later on that fatal afternoon, he'd fallen into my lap like a sad enormous doll, his head there like a big flower, blooming blood. And the roses, of course, blood and roses, and me wondering why I, too, had not died.... CONFESSIONS OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY She asked me to kill her husband. She placed in my left hand the most delicate of lady's revolvers... "It needs to be done, believe me Luther," she said, "and I think that Harold would agree with this himself because you can't imagine how many times he's come home from that terrible office and said to me that he knows he'd be better off dead. He really wants to die, Luther; there's a lot of guilt mixed in with his cruelty and that's why I can't hate the man. I want to do him a favor. I want to give him this gift of death. But I just don't quite have the strength. Thank God that you do, Luther."