Back in the 1950's and 60's, Frederic Brown was considered a master of suspense and dark fantasy, mainly because many of his stories were made into episodes of Hitchcock Presents, and other popular anthology shows. I've always found him to be a master of the short story, with most of his tales having a nasty bent to them, a brooding atmosphere, as he had a knack for nihilistic, dark endings that made his stories linger in the memory. That's not to say Brown is another H. P. Lovecraft. Not at all. Many of his stories, especially his most well-known ones, are light, snappily-plotted ones, but as many are dark and complex.
The collection Space On My Hands a collection of mainly Sci-Fi tales, is a mixture of both. You have the lighter ones (Pi In The Sky, a brilliantly sarcastic tale about advertising; All Good Bems; Nothing Sirius; Crisis, 1999, a clever sci-fi/detective tale involving hypnosis; and Star Mouse), and the darker-toned ones (Knock; Something Green; and the closing tale, Come And Go Mad, a masterpiece of psychological horror).
So if you are looking for some vintage mystery/Sci-Fi from the Golden Age (this collection was first published in 1951), Space On My Hands is a good choice.
Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2013.
Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of several short films and a feature, which was released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @Dark.Fantastic.AK·Writer
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