Details supplied by Steve Scott. Bluebook would become a shadow of itself by the time its '60s revival as Blue Book for Men staggered into the '80s, but in 1952, it was still riding reasonably high as the sibling magazine of Redbook, though it had just lost its most legendary editor, the late Donald Kennicott, and new editor Maxwell Hamilton was making some changes, including more nonfiction in the mix and moving away from some of the devotion to historical fiction and, to a lesser extent, sf and fantasy. This issue includes such old hands at the magazine and in other pulps and digests of the era as Nelson Bond, Robert Bloch, John D. MacDonald, Tom Roan and a relative newcomer as the only female contributor to this issue, Elsie Lee. Another notable byline is that of Ib Melchior, who would gain his greatest infamy in his scripting and other contributions to some of the worst skiffy films at midcentury, certainly least the Danish productionReptilicus, which was notable in several ways, including having its giant monster portrayed by a poorly-designed and -controlled marionette, and causing havoc by spewing acidic mucus, which the monster belches up by having the yellow/green goop drawn on the negative of the film with what looks like ink. The Bloch novella, "Once a Sucker", is a slightly shorter form of Spiderweb, first published in an Ace Double two years later, in 1954, and reprinted in 2006 with another 1950s Bloch short novel, Shooting Star, in a double-volume by Hard Case Crime. An out of work radio announcer/actor in L. A. is sucked into assisting with an elaborate series of cons by a Very Careful megalomaniac and his collaborators, who begin by setting up fake spiritualism rackets and sexual blackmail stings, while the ringleader is beginning to take his potential leadership in a satanic cult very seriously indeed. The reverberations from, among others, the Jack Parsons, et al., involvement in the Aleister Crowley Thelema cult, and Scientology, and anticipation of the likes of "est", are rather deftly employed here, along with laying out some of the various tricks of the "psychic" trade and means of encouraging potential cult members to Get and Stay In Line. Bloch lays the jokey patter on a bit heavily at first, and then gets down to business. It's not quite noirish nor hardboiled, but it's in the neighborhood. The John D. Macdonald vignette "Delivery Boy War" involves the trade-offs military life requires of married couples, in this case the relatively dangerous duty faced by US pilots and crew even in transporting fighter planes from the U.S. to South Korea, during our Police Action of the '50s. Morale and how it can be (barely) maintained is the subject, and it's treated sensibly in the narrative, as was JDM's wont. Elsie Lee's vignette "Ever Since Eve" is a bit of folktale/joke satire of the vicious pomposity of foolish judges, albeit set perhaps unfortunately in historical Arabia. It makes its point. I shall be reading at least the Roan and Bond stories soon. FFB reviews of Spiderweb by Robert Bloch: James Reasoner (and again for the Bloch Centennial) Ed Gorman (and hosted by Patti Abbott) .jpeg)  For more of today's stories, please see Patti Abbott's blog. .jpg) |