I’ve had Ron Goulart’s Author’s Choice Monthly #11 on my shelves since it was first published in 1990 by Pulphouse Publishing. I bought several of the Author’s Choice Monthly volumes in the series…but I digress.
The Idea behind this series was to allow the writer to choose a handful of his favorite stories. Goulart had a fondness for supernatural elements in his stories and the stories in this collection reflect that. I enjoyed the Max Kearney story, “Hello From Hollywood.” Kearney works in advertising, but his hobby is banishing ghosts. This particular ghost has taken possession of a TV executive and is picking winning TV shows for the Fall Schedule.
I also enjoyed “Groucho,” a story of a reincarnated TV script writer who returns as a cat. “Crusoe In New York” doesn’t have any supernatural elements, but it does have Time Travel as a woman from the Future visits our time to meet her favorite writer.
These Author’s Choice Monthly volumes are fun to read. I’ll review a few more for future Wednesday’s Short Stories. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- 1 · Introduction · Ron Goulart · in
- 3 · Street Magic · Ron Goulart · ss Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine Mar 1984
- 23 · Hello from Hollywood [Max Kearny] · Ron Goulart · ss The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Dec 1983
- 47 · Crusoe in New York · Ron Goulart · ss Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine Mar 1982
- 61 · Skyrocket Steele Conquers the Universe [Skyrocket Steele] · Ron Goulart · ss Espionage Magazine Aug 1985
- 81 · Groucho · Ron Goulart · ss Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine Apr 1981
I’ve read a number of Goulart’s short story collections, including some of the stories in this collection. His stories are usually clever and fun and fast moving.
Jeff, “clever and fun and fast moving” captures the essence of Ron Goulart’s short stories. I’ve had this Goulart collection on my shelves for 30 years and Patti Abbott prompted me to finally read it! Fun stuff!
Definitely sounds like a lot of fun, George; perhaps, absurdly so.
Prashant, Ron Goulart specializes in funny, wacky SF stories. They’re great fun!
I wonder why I thought the Wed. SS idea was for a single story…of course it must be for a whole book of them. Boy, am I behind now!
Rick, I think WEDNESDAY’S SHORT STORIES can be a collection of short stories or just one. I just happened to have this short Ron Goulart book (100 pages) sitting around for decades. Patti provided the motivation to finally read it.
We do need a COMPLETE KEARNEY…Goulart being yet another crime fiction/fantastic fiction amphibian, I wonder if he’s gone into other fiction without my being aware of it…I know about his nostalgia and literary history writing, and comics scripting…
Todd, I have all of the Max Kearney stories. You can find the complete list here: http://georgekelley.org/forgotten-books-322/
Todd, Goulart also has a number of TV and movie tie-ins, as well as two Regency romances and a number of westerns, in his prodigious output, and, of course, he contributed a dozen novels continuing “Kenneth Robeson’s” the pulp saga about The Avenger.
Jerry, I also like Ron Goulart’s Vampirella novels:
Bloodstalk (1975)
On Alien Wings (1975)
Deadwalk (1976)
Blood Wedding (1976)
Deathgame (1976)
Snakegod (1976)
Vampirella (1976)
I should’ve remembered the westerns and the romances, as I had seen them cited over the years, and of course I knew about the tie-in books. And he ghosted some novels for William Shatner, as well.
Indeed, George…but the world deserves a Complete Kearney collection, as good as having all but three in GHOST BREAKER is (and not every psychic phenomenon and fantasy/horror predicament Kearney breaks is a ghost). Kearney being perhaps the closest that Goulart has come to an autobiographical character. I think I have hem all, as well, except perhaps the COVEN 13 story, and that possibly in reprint.
Todd, imagine if Goulart had gone with “Max Kearney, Ghostbuster” instead of “Ghostbreaker.”
I’m half asleep–Of Course the COVEN 13 story was in GHOST BREAKER.
Well, George, it would take another decade and a half for “Ghostbusters” as a title to gather much more currency…
Ron’s SF short stories were really fun to read. His movie novelisations like Capricorn, I’m not so sure about.
Wolf, with such a prodigious output you have to expect a few “clunkers” among the gems.
CAPRICORN ONE is a famously stupid film, and thus difficult to novelize very well. As William Goldman famously noted, “You can’t wash garbage.” (Well, you can, but you end up with cleaner garbage.)
Todd, GIGO…Garbage in, Garbage out.
Interesting that in both stories you mention, TV plays a big part. I wonder if he worked there too.
Patti, Ron Goulart started out in advertising (and I assume some TV work, too) until he became a full time writer.
George, I have not tried anything by Ron Goulart. And he has written both science fiction and mysteries. The Author’s Choice Monthly volumes sound like a great opportunity for both the author and the reader. Too bad it doesn’t exist now.
Tracy, you can find issues of AUTHOR’S CHOICE MONTHLY online at reasonable prices.
I didn’t know about the Wednesday Short Stories or perhaps I would have posted my thoughts on a book titled A Treasury of American Mystery Stories that I finished earlier in the week. The idea was to have a story about all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The editors were Frank D. McSherry Jr., Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg. It was published in 1989 and many of the stories seem very outdated today. Barry M. Malzberg admitted that he had difficultly coming up with a story idea for North Dakota and went with one about Custer and Sitting Bull. These days several writers including C.J. Box, Gwen Florio and Brian Freeman, have wriiten crime novels with a connection to the oil business in Western North Dakota and the crime that came with it. The story by John D. MacDonald was set in Nebraksa, not Florida ,and Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer story had a main character from Chilliwack, B.C. If you come across a cheap copy as I did, it’s worth picking up.
Kent, thanks for the tip! I’ll hunt for a copy of A TREASURY OF AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES.
And even before he was in advertising, while still at the University of California, he was a member of the informal writers’ group that would cluster around “Anthony Boucher”‘s house, and Goulart’s first piece of fiction to be professionally published was a parody of sf pulp magazines’ letters columns, “Letters to the Editor”, reprinted in F&SF in 1952 from the UC Berkeley campus humor magazine THE PELICAN in 1950.
There’s a bit of discussion about that, and “Letters” reprinted, in THE EUREKA YEARS, the Annette Peltz McComas anthology.