Brown quotes an old joke story at the beginning of "Knock,"
which had been folklorically retold from a very brief
vignette/anecdote titled "A Woman Alone With Her Soul" when
reprinted in Jorge Luis Borges (another, nonpulpster
excellent amphibian between fantastic and crime fiction), A.
Bioy-Casares (another), and Silvina Ocampo (don't know if she
wrote cf)'s anthology THE BOOK OF FANTASY (as it's published
in English), which in Thomas Aldrich's original read very
like: "The last woman on Earth sat alone in a room; there
wasn't another person left alive. There was a knock on the
door."
As for fantastic fiction and cf amphibians in the pulps, I'll
nominate Robert Bloch, Cornell Woolrich, Jack/John Holbrook
Vance (though he rolled in toward the end of the pulps),
Miriam Allen DeFord (ditto, I think, for her), Anthony
Boucher, and no doubt a slew I'm foolishly letting slip
by...though you did specify science fiction, which leaves out
Woolrich as far as I know, but not the other folk (even if
Bloch's sf may've been the least of his talents, he did some
excellent work in that field). Excelling and being best known
for something are not congruent enough.
-----Original Message----- From:
SRHarbin@aol.com [mailto:
SRHarbin@aol.com]
In a message dated 10/11/2002 10:16:41 AM Eastern Standard
Time,
Todd.Mason@tvguide.com writes:
> He also wrote, aside from sf (NOT sci-fi) and hb cf,
not a little horror
> fiction and some lighter fantasies. NIGHTMARES
AND
> GEEZENSTACKS collects a
> number of his vignettes, and some longer
stories...
A lot of his fantasy has also been recently reprinted in FROM
THESE ASHES: THE COMPLETE SHORT SF OF FREDRIC BROWN also.
Probably the most famous of these stories is ARENA, which a
popular STAR TREK episode was based on. Another favorite is
the story that begins, "The last man on earth heard a knock
on the door..." or something to that effect.
Among the pulp writers, Brown and Leigh Brackett seem to me
to be the only two who were really excellent in both the
mystery and the science fiction genres. Most of the others
who come to mind were primarily well known in either one or
the other area.
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