The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast &#8211; Vintage Sci-Fi Short Stories

He published stories as Russ Winterbotham and R. R. Winterbotham. His next to last novel Planet Big Zeror eleased in 1964 is the only known work using the name Franklin Hadley.

If you are old enough you may remember the Big Little Books which began in 1935. By the time Russ Winterbotham started writing for Racine, Wisconsin based Whitman publishing they had changed the name to Better Little Books.

Winterbotham’s first Better Little Book was 1940s Maximo the Amazing Superman which can be purchased for $50 on Abebooks.com. He also wroteMaximo the Amazing Superman and the Crystals of Doom, Maximo the Amazing Superman and the Supermachine, Captain Midnight and the Secret Squadron and Captain Midnight and the Secret Squadron vs the Terror of the Orient.

Like last weeks author Joseph Samachson, also known as William Morrison, Winterbotham was a comic strip writer. Chris Welkin, Planeteer was distributed by the Newspaper Enterprise Association from 1952 to 1964. It was created by Winterbotham along with cartoonist Art Sansom. Two TV pilot episodes were created for Chris Welkin, Planeteer but it was never picked up, however, you’ll find both episodes on YouTube. Quite the career!

From Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy in September 1954 Three Spacemen Left To Die! by Russ Winterbotham...

Winterbotham’s writing career came to an end with the 1966 release of his last novel “The Lord of Nardos”. He passed away 5 years later on June 9th, 1971 in Bay Village, Ohio. He was 66 years old.

We’ve already heard from our second author, Alan E. Nourse. You can hear his short sci-fi story The Fifty-Fourth Of July on Episode 5 of The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast. From the pages of Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy in October 1952 Wanderlust by Alan. E. Nourse...

Next week on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, Personnel Incorporated bragged that they could supply a man for any job. Maxwell doubted this, needing a space pilot for the first Lunar trip. Now, if he had just asked for a lunatic...

That’s next week on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.

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Unwelcomed Visitor and Spoken For by William Morrison Apr 19, 2022

Show notes

We’ve got two short science fiction stories for you today on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast with at least one lost sci-fi short story in every episode.

This guy has an incredible bio. He graduated from Rutgers University, then earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Yale at the age of 23. He was an assistant professor at the College of Medicine, at the University of Illinois. He also headed a laboratory in metabolic research at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Chicago. Samachson worked as a research chemist for the American Molasses Company until 1938, leaving to become a "freelance technical writer".

Then in 1941 his first short sci-fi story was released. Writing as William Morrison, for reasons unknown, "Bad Medicine"appeared in Thrilling Wonder Stories magazine in February 1941. He would go on to write about 80 short sci-fi stories over the next 17 years. If that’s not enough, he started writing for DC Comics sometime around 1942. Contributing to stories for both Batman and Superman, he even created a character of his own. That character would appear in the 4-hour epic, Zach Snyder’s Justice League released in 2021. Played by veteran Hollywood actor Harry Lennix, the character Samachson created 66 years earlier appeared on the big screen. John Johns, aka Martian Manhunter is a shapeshifter stranded on Earth originally from Mars.

Joseph Samachson also found time to write scripts for a science fiction television series that aired on the DuMont Television Network. Captain Video and His Video Rangers aired from 1949 to 1955. If you’re curious you can watch several full-length episodes on YouTube.

Samachson received special thanks credits in Zach Snyder’s Justice League and The Lego Batman movie.

A legendary sci-fi writer himself, Frederik Pohl once remarked that Samachson was "one of the most shamefully neglected writers in the history of science fiction." That’s high praise. Samachson died of complications from Parkinson's disease on June 2, 1980 in Chicago.

Xhanph was the fully accredited ambassador from Gfun, and Earth's first visitor from outer space.History and the amenities called for a tremendous reception. But earth people are funny people....Taken from the pages of “If Worlds of Science Fiction” in October 1954, Unwelcomed Visitor by William Morrison...

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Export Commodity By Irving Cox Jr. Apr 12, 2022

Show notes

Very often we find it hard to learn much about the authors on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast. In many cases they had a short career and disappeared as quickly as they appeared as if they were abducted by aliens never to be seen again.

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The author of today’s story wrote 54 short sci-fi stories from 1951 to 1965, starting with Hell’s Pavement in Astounding Science Fiction and ending with Way Station in If Worlds of Science Fiction.

We know he was born in Pennsylvania on the 24th of May 1917 and died on the 13th of February 2001 at the age of 83. He was born Irving England Cox, Jr. and used several slight variations of his given name, Irving B. Cox Jr., Irving Cox and the one he used for today’s short sci-fi story Irving Cox Jr. That’s pretty much all we know about him except for a reference to an Irving E. Cox Jr in the 1940 Census. He lived in Sacramento California at the time with his father Irving, mother Adelle and a younger sister and brother.

The story you are about to hear was in the middle of his career and is his first offering of 1955. From Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy in July 1955, Export Commodity by Irving Cox Jr...

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The Eyes Have It by Philip K. Dick and Pariah by Milton Lesser Apr 05, 2022

Show notes

He was sure he had discovered an incredible invasion of Earth by lifeforms from another planet. He didn’t know what to do! He tried to warn the government before things got out of hand. And, Harry spent three years in space waitingto get home to Earth—and his family. They were waiting for him too—that is, for his corpse...

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Two science fiction short stories next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.

Hi, I’m your host, Scott Miller, sci-fi fanatic and audiobook narrator and I want to thank you for listening to The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast with at least one lost sci-fi short story in every episode.

We welcome your comments, thoughts, and suggestions. Send an email to scott@lostscifi.com.

Chris Williams sent us this email recently, “Hey Scott, I love the Lost Sci-Fi Podcast but you said Planet of the Apes was your favorite sci-fi franchise by far. What about Star Wars? That’s my favorite. Keep up the good work, I listen to your podcast every week!” Thanks, Chris.

I do love the Star Wars movie franchise and you got me thinking. I think the reason I put Planet of the Apes as my all-time favorite sci-fi franchise is because it began when I was a little kid and I’d seen all 5 of the apes movies before Star Wars was released in 1977. I saw Star Wars just days after I graduated high school in Denison, Iowa in what is now known as the Donna Reed Theater, named after the iconic actress who was born and raised in Denison. Reed, born Donna Mullenger, starred in the 1946 Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” alongside Jimmy Stewart.

Which begs the question is “It’s a Wonderful Life” a science fiction movie? Before you say no, think about it. George Bailey played by Stewart is suicidal when he’s visited by an angel when George says, “I wish I’d never been born.” The angel grants his wish and now the movie switches to an alternate timeline where George Bailey was never born! Sound like sci-fi to me. What do you think? Is “It’s a Wonderful Life” a science fiction movie? We’d love to hear your thoughts, scott@lostscifi.com.

Seven years after “It’s a Wonderful Life” was released a new science fiction magazine debuted in June 1953. Science Fiction Stories Magazine would publish once in 53 and once in 54 before releasing multiple issues over the next 6 years.

The inaugural issue was 132 pages and sold for 35 cents. I found a good to very good copy on sale for only $25, which sounds like a bargain to me considering it contains a remarkable short story from the amazing Philip K. Dick.

Turn with me to page 127,

A little whimsy, now and then, makes for good balance. Theoretically, you could find this type of humor anywhere. But only a topflight science-fictionist, we thought, could have written this story, in just this way….

From Science Fiction Stories Magazine in June 1953 The Eyes Have It by Philip K. Dick

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Zurk by Richard O. Lewis Mar 29, 2022

Show notes

A thousand colonists were headed for Mars but they didn't make it. They crash landed on this moon of Jupiter’s. They were trying to contact the earth, trying to survive. Evil creatures from the land of darkness on the other side of the moon are coming for his daughter. Will he save her from a fate worse than death with his huge part-human war-machine? That’s next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.

The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast has been around for a little more than a month and we are blown away by the response from you and others around the world. We’re already in the top 50 science fiction podcasts in Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and France and we’re in the top 150 in The UK and The US. Thank you for making that happen.

Today on the podcast our first story from the 1940s. More than eight decades ago Richard O. Lewis wrote Zurk. As is often the case we know very little about Lewis other than the fact that he wrote the story you’ll hear today and 20 others from 1939 to 1967.

If you bought the 132 page Winter 1941 edition of Planet Stories Magazine, released about a month before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when it first came out you would have paid only 20 cents. You can buy it now on eBay for $150.

Gentle Marene was next when the black space cruiser called for its youth-levy. If only Zurk would spark to life—Zurk, this huge, part-human war-machine of tubular steel muscles and blank, mechanical mind.

From Planet Stories Magazine in November, 1941, Zurk by Richard O. Lewis

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The Martians and the Coys by Mack Reynolds Mar 22, 2022

Show notes

Lem was told to guard the still, what he wanted was to go after the Martins. The Martins and The Coys had been feuding for some time and there was nothing better than shootin a Martin. Or was there? That’s next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.

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Todays author on Lost Sci-Fi led an interesting life. He was a popular and prolific author starting his sci-fi career with the short story Isolationist which ran in the April 1950 edition of Fantastic Adventures magazine. Fantastic Adventures got its start in 1939 and was almost cancelled in 1940 but the October issue that year had unexpectedly good sales so the magazine continued until March 1953. Our author sold another 6 stories to Fantastic Adventures in 1950 and 12 more in 1950 which were published in Out of This World Adventures, Startling Stories, Fantastic Adventures and others.

A year later his first novel hit store shelves in 1951 titled The Case of the Little Green Men. It’s believed that the first use of the term Little Green Men in reference to extraterrestrials in a newspaper dates back to 1908. It can be found in the oldest newspaper in Maine the Daily Kennebec Journal. The 1951 novel The Case of the Little Green Men is available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle formats.

A decade would pass before this author would release another novel in 1961. There were 22 novels in the 60s, 35 in the 70s and 10 more in the 1980s. In addition to his almost 70 novels, he wrote almost 200 short stories.

Born Dallas McCord Reynolds on November 11th, 1917, in Corcoran, California, he is best known as Mack Reynolds but like most of his successful contemporaries he had a variety of pen names, including Dallas Ross, Mark Mallory, Clark Collins, Guy McCord, Maxine Reynolds, Bob Belmont, and Todd Harding.

His family moved to Baltimore in 1918 and his father became a member of the Socialist Labor Party or SLP. He joined the Socialist Labor Party while he was still in high school and shortly thereafter began touring the country with his father giving lectures and speeches about SLP. His father Verne La Rue Reynolds was the Socialist Labor Party Presidential Candidate in both 1928 and 1932. After graduation Reynolds began his writing career as a reporter for the Catskill Morning Star and then as editor of the weekly Oneonta News.

He moved back to California and continued his work for the Socialist Labor Party even campaigning with SLP presidential candidate John Aiken in 1940. He attended the U.S. Army Marine Officer's Cadet School and the U.S. Marine Officer's School, joined the U.S. Army Transportation Corps in 1944 and was stationed in the Philippines as a ship's navigator until 1945.

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The Fugitives by Malcolm B. Morehart Jr. and Leave Earthmen or Die! by John Massie Davis Mar 15, 2022

Show notes

We've got two short science fiction stories in Lost Sci-Fi Podcast Episode 8. Just like last time when we had twp sci-fi stories on the podcast we know almost nothing about the authors. Both wrote two short science fiction stories published in the 1950s, that we know of, and that’s all we can find for either author.

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Somehow Jeff Engel followed the stranger into another world—among people who hated all aliens. And of course, he was now one himself! From Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy in September 1953, The Fugitives written by Malcolm B. Morehart Jr...

Our second science fiction short story today on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast is a strange tale of spacemen landing on a seemingly uninhabited planet. Murph, Forsyth, and Jamison heard the alien voice warn them. And to each it sounded familiar—a sweetheart, a son, a hated enemy! From Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy in January 1954 Leave Earthmen or Die! written by John Massie Davis...

The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast has been around for only 3 weeks and 8 episodes but we’ve already received several 5 star ratings so thank you! Our first 5 star rating and reviewer was NormanH52 who said, “If you love the classic sci-fi stories from the 40s to 60s, you’ll find them here. Also, each episode has an introduction detailing author and publication information. The narrator has an excellent character range and an obvious love for classic sci-fi.”

Thanks NormanH 52. If you haven’t done it already we would be honored if you’d go to Apple Podcasts and leave an honest 5 star rating and positive review!

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Danger In The Void by Charles E. Fritch - Charles E. Fritch Sci Fi Mar 10, 2022

Show notes

Today on the lost sci-fi podcast an author who knew what he wanted to be when he was only 10 years old, how many of us can say that? This native New Yorker kept story ideas in a notebook before he was a teenager.

Born in Utica New York on the 20th of January 1927. Like many authors of his time he served in the United States Army during World War II, he was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne. After the war he graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in English and a minor in Psychology. Why Psychology? He said he did it so he could "get inside the heads of the characters in his stories“. Obviously this man had a plan!

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Although we know of him because of his work as a Science Fiction author he didn’t stop there, he also wrote fantasy, horror and mysteries. He wrote more than 50 short fiction stories starting in 1951 and kept writing short sci-fi for almost 50 years. In addition to writing he was the editor of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine from 1979 until 1985 and he was the editor and publisher of the sci-fi magazine Gamma. Gamma wasn’t exactly a success, publishing only 5 issues between 1963 and 1965. Gamma didn’t fail because of a lack of talented writers. The debut of Gamma in 1963 featured a story by Thomas Lanier Williams the 3rd, better known as American playwright and screenwriter Tennessee Williams. Oh and Ray Bradbury and Rod Serling also contributed stories to the magazines very first offering. A near mint condition copy of that first issue of Gamma sold not that long ago for $125, but don’t worry a slightly less pristine copy is still available if you’re an aspiring collector for only $16.

I thought about buying it but shipping to Costa Rica where I have lived for the last 5 years would add another $50 and take up to month to get here.

Our accomplished and successful author wrote a few provocative mystery novels, including Strip for Murder and Psycho Sinner as Eric Thomas, 7 Deadly Sinners as Christopher Sly and Negative of a Nude. He was also known to have used the pen name Chester H. Carlfi and may have written at least one novel under the House Name Troy Conway, but we don’t know for sure.

His writing career began in 1951 with "The Wallpaper" which was published in Other Worlds magazine. His legal name is Charles Edward Fritch, but most know of him as Charles E. Fritch.

You’ll find Fritch in the Internet Movie Database, also known as IMDB, thanks to a short story he wrote titled The Misfortune Cookie, which was adapted for an episode of the television series The Twilight Zone which aired in 1986.

Silvia secretly planned to divorce George when they reached Arcturus. But a space journey can alter a careful plan—or hatch a worse one!

From Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy in August 1954, Danger In The Void by Charles E. Fritch...

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The Plagiarist From Rigel IV By Evan Hunter Mar 01, 2022

Show notes

We have an amazing story for you today on the podcast, certainly one of the most fascinating stories we’ve ever heard. This author lived a pretty extraordinary life. He was hired by legendary Hollywood director Alfred Hitchcock to write a screenplay for what would become one of Hitchcock’s greatest movies. It was one of several screenplays written by our featured author. Actors who starred in projects he wrote and developed for the big screen and Television include Richard Chamberlain, F. Murray Abraham, Ben Johnson, Jerry Orbach, Robby Benson, Raquel Welch, Burt Reynolds, Yul Brynner, Tom Skerritt , Kirk Douglas, Kim Novak, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau, Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy, and Suzanne Pleshette. Wow! If You’re a movie buff you may have already guessed that the Hitchcock classic he wrote the screenplay for was, The Birds.

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Before Hitchcock and Hollywood our author served on a destroyer in the Pacific in the Navy during World War II. We’re just getting started. He wrote more than 139 novels over 53 years! That’s an average of a little more than 2 and a half novels a year for more than half a century.

He was born in East Harlem New York in 1926. Born Salvatore Albert Lombino, he legally changed his name to Evan Hunter in 1952, but before he did, he sold a short science fiction story to If, Worlds of Science Fiction Magazine. In the magazine, which had made its debut two months earlier in March 1952, he is credited with writing “Welcome, Martians!” As S.A. Lombino which as fas I can tell was one of only a handful of times he used his real name. So why the name change? Well, as the story goes an editor once told him his Italian heritage might stop him from achieving great success, so SA Lombino became Evan Hunter.

Oh, and if you think you recognize the name Evan Hunter, you’re probably right. Lombino took a number of jobs in the early 1950’s to pay the bills while attempting to get his writing career off the ground. One of them led to a novel, which became a movie, starring Glenn Ford, Sidney Pointier, Vic Morrow and Anne Francis. He spent 17 days as a teacher at the Bronx Vocational High School in September 1950. That experience led to his 6th novel titled The Blackboard Jungle which became the movie of the same name starring the previously mentioned star studded cast. Lombino, or Hunter had several pen names John Abbott, Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon, Richard Marsten and then there’s the name he used most often, Ed McBain! As McBain he wrote the “87th Precinct” crime series. Once again his novels made their way to Television. In 1961 and 62 NBC aired a police drama called “87th Precinct”. He started writing for television in 1956 with a teleplay for "The Kaiser Aluminum Hour" which aired on NBC in 1956 and 57 and he wrote the story for two episodes of "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer" a syndicated TV show, two years later in 1958 and 59.

I chose this story because it’s unusual. A story written by a writer, about a writer getting a little help from a bizarre source.

Writing stories was hard work—unless Fred had a typewriter like "Reggie" that could write by itself! Nonsense? Fred agreed until he met—The Plagiarist From Rigel IV By Evan Hunter...

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The Fifty-Fourth of July by Alan E Nourse Feb 24, 2022

Show notes

The author of today’s short sci-fi story had an interesting life. Born on August 11th 1928 in Des Moines Iowa, after graduating high school he went to Rutgers University, two years in the Navy, then on to the University of Pennsylvania to become a Doctor. He helped pay for his medical degree by writing science fiction for magazines. In a 1952 issue of Other Worlds he said he started reading science fiction while at Rutgers and was reading sci-fi like a man possessed. Saying he ended up being the most incurable type of science fiction addict, the kind that has to write it as well as read it!

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