- Source: Fredric Brown
Fredric Brown (October 29, 1906 – March 11, 1972) was an American science fiction, fantasy, and mystery writer.
He is known for his use of humor and for his mastery of the "short short" form—stories of one to three pages, often with ingenious plotting devices and surprise endings. Humor and a postmodern outlook carried over into his novels as well. One of his stories, "Arena", was adapted to a 1967 episode of the American television series Star Trek.
Life and works
Fredric Brown was born in Cincinnati. He spent a year at Hanover College, Indiana, before returning to Cincinnati. In 1929 he married and relocated to Milwaukee, working various jobs before settling into a career as a proofreader.
According to his wife, Brown hated to write, and did whatever he could to put it off: play his flute, challenge a friend to a game of chess, or tease Ming Tah, his Siamese cat. When Brown would have trouble with a certain story, he would take a long bus trip in order to sit and think for days on end. When he would finally return home to sit himself in front of the typewriter, he produced work in a variety of genres: mystery, science fiction, short fantasy, black comedy.
Many of his books make use of the threat of the supernatural or occult before the "straight" explanation comes at the end. For example, "Night of the Jabberwock" is a humorous narrative of an extraordinary day in the life of a small-town newspaper editor.
Brown began to sell mystery short stories to American magazines in 1936. His first science fiction story, "Not Yet the End", was published in the Winter 1941 issue of Captain Future magazine.
The 1944 short story "Arena" bore similarities to the episode of the same name in the original Star Trek series. In order to avoid legal problems, it was agreed that Brown would receive payment and a story credit.
It was also adapted in 1973 for issue 4 of the Marvel Comics title Worlds Unknown.
Brown's first mystery novel, 1947's The Fabulous Clipjoint, began a series starring Ed and Ambrose Hunter depicting how a young man gradually ripens into a detective under the tutelage of his uncle, an ex–private eye now working as a carnival concessionaire.
His science fiction novel What Mad Universe (1949) is a parody of pulp science fiction story conventions.
The Lights in the Sky Are Stars (1952) tells the story of an aging astronaut who is trying to get his beloved space program back on track after Congress has cut its funding.
The short story "Answer" (1954) is thought to be the earliest representation of the "Yes, now there is a God" science fiction trope of a supercomputer that releases itself from human control. The story was originally published in Angels and Spaceships and the entire collection was later re-published as Star Shine for paperback adaptation.
Martians, Go Home (1955) is both a broad farce and a satire on human frailties as seen through the eyes of a billion jeering, invulnerable Martians who arrive not to conquer the world but to drive it crazy.
Popularity and influence
Brown's first mystery novel, The Fabulous Clipjoint, won the Edgar Award for outstanding first mystery novel. His short story "Arena" was voted by Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the top 20 science fiction stories written before 1965.
His 1945 short story "The Waveries" was described by Philip K. Dick as "what may be the most significant—startlingly so—story sci-fi has yet produced". Brown was one of three dedicatees of Robert A. Heinlein's 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land (the other two being Robert Cornog and Philip José Farmer). Philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco in his book On Ugliness describes Brown's short story "Sentry" as, "one of the finest short stories produced by contemporary science fiction" and uses its twist ending as an example of how ugliness and aesthetics are relative to different cultures.
In The Annotated Alice (1960), Martin Gardner refers to Brown's Night of the Jabberwock as a "magnificently funny mystery novel ... an outstanding work of fiction that has close ties to the Alice books."
In his non-fiction book Danse Macabre (1981), a survey of the horror genre since 1950, writer Stephen King includes an appendix of "roughly one hundred" influential books of the period: Fredric Brown's short-story collection Nightmares and Geezenstacks is included, and is, moreover, asterisked as being among those select works King regards as "particularly important".
Brown's 1943 short story, "Madman's Holiday", was adapted into the 1946 RKO film Crack-Up. His novel The Screaming Mimi became a 1958 film starring Anita Ekberg and Gypsy Rose Lee and directed by Gerd Oswald.
Brown's 1950 short story, "The Last Martian", was adapted as "Human Interest Story", a 1959 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In Spain, his 1961 short story "Nightmare in Yellow" was adapted as El cumpleaños (The Birthday), the 1966 debut episode of Historias para no dormir. Another shorty story, 1954's "Naturally", was adapted as Geometria, a 1987 short film by director Guillermo del Toro.
In the third episode of the third season of Amazon's adaptation of Philip K. Dick's The Man In The High Castle Oberstgruppenführer Smith remarks, when told of the possibility of travel between worlds, that "this is like something out of Fredric Brown", implying that Brown's work is known in the German-occupied areas of the former United States.
His novel The Lights in the Sky Are Stars gives its name to the final episode of 2007 anime Gurren Lagann. It is also referred to in Taishi Tsutsui's manga We Never Learn, at the end of Chapter 39.
Celebrated crime novelist Lawrence Block published The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown in 2022.
Bibliography
References
Sources
Seabrook, Jack (1993). Martians and Misplaced Clues: The Life and Work of Fredric Brown. Bowling Green University Popular Press. ISBN 978-0-87972-591-4.
External links
Works by Fredric Brown at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Fredric Brown at the Internet Archive
Works by Fredric Brown at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Brown, Fredric (1960). "Earthmen Bearing Gifts". FlashFictionOnline. A short science fiction story.
Brown, Fredric (1977). "The Weapon". Mind Webs. WHA radio.
Fredric Brown at Library of Congress, with 56 library catalog records
Fredric Brown at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Fredric Brown at the Internet Book List
Fredric Brown at Memory Alpha
Fredric Brown at IMDb
"Fredric William Brown: Career as a mystery writer". TopMystery.com. Archived from the original on 2010-12-24. Includes a photo.
Webster, Bud. "Past Masters – It's Not the Length, It's What You Do With It". Galactic Central.
"A short animation of 'Knock'". Daily Motion. Video.
"First Lines: Fredric Brown". Pulp Serenade. June 2011.
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