{"id":7023,"date":"2025-09-05T01:18:49","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T19:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/?p=7023"},"modified":"2025-09-24T21:33:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T15:33:06","slug":"the-sly-bungerhop-et-al","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/?p=7023","title":{"rendered":"THE SLY BUNGERHOP ET AL"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Scott<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0If you’ve read the title to this current blahg and are confused, you’re probably thinking I had another fall and hit my head and am still woozy.\u00a0 No.\u00a0 I also have not lost the use of my language.\u00a0 At least, I hope not.\u00a0 I have a Bachelor of Arts in English studies so it would be a shame if I could no longer use what I went to school for.\u00a0 No, the title is, what I think, a clever introduction to today’s topic.\u00a0 Allow me to elaborate (see, I can still use my English when I need to).\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Four months ago I finally penned a blahg about the great Science Fiction author, Clifford Simak,\u00a0THAT BLAHG ABOUT CLIFFORD D. SIMAK<\/a>.\u00a0 This current blahg is inspired by that blahg or related to it or is influenced by it.\u00a0 I’ll stop showing off now.\u00a0 In that blahg, however, I noted that I maintain a website dedicated to the Science Fiction Short Stories of Clifford Simak,\u00a0http:\/\/www.falseducks.com\/simak\/<\/a>.\u00a0 Simak published 123 short science fiction stories when he was alive and a 124th was published long after his death.\u00a0 On my website, I list each of the short stories and where you can find each story.\u00a0 Sometimes, the short story was only available in a science fiction magazine where it was first published or later in anthologies that are now out of date.\u00a0 Over the years, I purchased a number of these anthologies just so I could read each of those stories.\u00a0 I also own a number of old pulp magazines because some stories were never republished in anthologies.\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \"The<\/a>My entry for the Simak short story, “The Civilization Game” lists, among others, the appearance of that story in the 1961 paperback anthology of “Mind Partner.”\u00a0 I have owned my copy for a number of years and I think the only story from that anthology that I have read is a story called “The Sly Bungerhop” by William Morrison.\u00a0 See, I didn’t suffer an injury!\u00a0 Recently I re-read “The Sly Bungerhop” and it got me thinking that I had no idea who William Morrison was or if he had written any other science fiction short stories.\u00a0 So, that’s where this blahg really begins.\u00a0 I’m going to answer those questions.\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0First, it turns out that William Morrison is not really William Morrison.\u00a0 His real name is Joseph Samaschon.\u00a0 There is a Wikipedia entry but it’s pretty sparse so I went looking and found a more detailed biography for Joseph Samaschon.\u00a0 This comes from the website https:\/\/sf-encyclopedia.com\/entry\/samachson_joseph<\/a>:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Samachson, Joseph<\/strong><\/p>\n

(1906-1980) US research chemist who became a freelance author between 1938 and 1953 before returning to biochemistry, eventually retiring in 1973 after five years as Associate Clinical Professor of biochemistry at Loyola University, Chicago. His first story, “Bad Medicine” in Thrilling Wonder Stories for February 1941, was published as by William Morrison, under which name he wrote almost all his fiction of interest. Under the House Name Brett Sterling he wrote two Captain Future tales, “Worlds to Come” (Spring 1943 Captain Future) and The Tenth Planet (Spring 1944 Captain Future as “Days of Creation”; 1969). It is believed that Samachson may have written some of the “Sergeant Saturn” letter-column commentary in Captain Future and Startling Stories.<\/p>\n

His contributions to science fiction fall into two halves. He wrote sporadically for the Pulp magazines between 1941 and 1944, chiefly for the Standard Magazines Thrilling Wonder Stories and Startling Stories under editors Mort Weisinger and Oscar J Friend. These early stories show his sense of humour, many being written somewhat tongue-in-cheek taking an ironic look at attitudes within society. In “The Man in the Moon” (July 1942 Startling) mankind loses an opportunity to better itself by rejecting its potential benefactor purely because it is an Alien. Likewise in “The Great Invasion” (March 1943 Startling Stories) a misunderstanding between humans and aliens almost ends in disaster. Also since 1941 Samachson had been writing for DC Comics and this began to dominate his work from 1944 through to the mid-1950s. He contributed stories to both Batman and Superman and created several characters of his own \u2013 notably, in 1955, J’onn J’onzz the Martian Manhunter, a Shapeshifter from Mars who is stranded on Earth and seeks to use his advanced knowledge and Superpowers to fight crime.<\/p>\n

Samachson returned to the sf magazines with two stories in 1949, becoming more prolific in that arena in the early 1950s. His cynicism was still present in “The Joker” (December 1951 Fantastic Adventures) where an alien with awesome powers causes havoc to a Spaceship until it is sufficiently astonished by the absurdity of a politician’s speech to let the ship go. However, Samachson also responded to the demands for more mature sf, particularly from John W Campbell Jr and Horace L Gold. “The Sack” (September 1950 Astounding) explores what happens when humans discover an Alien being that is omniscient, but a more humane outlook appears in what came to be regarded as Morrison’s best story, “Country Doctor” (in Star Science Fiction Stories, anth 1953, ed Frederik Pohl), where a doctor has to attend to a sick alien creature. He reversed this idea in “Bedside Manner” (May 1954 Galaxy) where an alien helps to rebuild the victim of an accident in space. Other stories of note include”The Addicts” (January 1952 Galaxy), which shows the effects on a married couple of isolation on an asteroid and “The Model of a Judge” (October 1953 Galaxy SF), which again explores the interaction between humans and aliens but at a deeper psychological level. Samachson continued to produce deceptively simple stories about the human\/alien condition throughout the 1950s and yet most of his stories still betrayed a dark humour suggesting that throughout his writing career he was using sf to show human limitations. His last story, “A Feast of Demons” (March 1958 Galaxy) reworked the theme of the philosopher’s stone in terms of the hypothetical Maxwell’s Demon to show how humans might cope with an abundance of wealth and everlasting life (see also Thought Experiment; Time in Reverse).<\/p>\n

Although he wrote two further lead novels for the magazines, “Two Worlds to Save” (September 1942 Startling Stories), a Space Opera set on Mercury, and “The Gears of Time” (April 1953 Space Stories) an early example of a Time Travel romance, Samachson published only one standalone sf novel in book form during his lifetime: a juvenile, Mel Oliver and Space Rover on Mars (1954). He never assembled a volume selected from his eighty-or-so short stories and as a consequence his reputation faded. When Frederik Pohl, Martin H Greenberg and Joseph D Olander compiled Galaxy: 30 Years of Innovative Science Fiction (anth 1980), they remarked that Samachson was “one of the most shamefully neglected writers in the history of science fiction.”<\/p>\n

A collection of his best William Morrison tales was eventually published, long after his death, as The Sly Bungerhop (coll 2017 ebook) as by William Morrison.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>I will highlight that the last paragraph mentions a collection of his best work published in 2017 under the title The Sly Bungerhop through Amazon’s CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform<\/span>.\u00a0 Here’s the link:\u00a0\u00a0https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Sly-Bungerhop-William-Morrison\/dp\/1544156383\/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1FFVWOP8TA9PI&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.lS8OM8MqubwpgmockKAeQNschVjUuOh7mUSpbaFI9B8.7sI4gnclKnlC5o5QKRnyZKMmllq8lE_4rAnPT1URyQ0&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+sly+bungerhop&qid=1756922208&sprefix=the+sly+bungerhop%2Caps%2C117&sr=8-2<\/a>.\u00a0 Unfortunately, that collection is now out of print.\u00a0 That left me with virtually nowhere to read other William Morrison stories.\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0I was not deterred.\u00a0 I was determined to use my research abilities and to rely on a website I had used when creating my Clifford Simak website.\u00a0 Here’s a link to the William Morrison entry:\u00a0 https:\/\/www.isfdb.org\/cgi-bin\/ea.cgi?1246<\/a>.\u00a0 The website has a listing for all of Morrison’s science fiction short stories with links to where else those stories later appeared.\u00a0 Below is the list that I have created in chronological order with the name of the magazine where the story first appeared.\u00a0 “Et Al” in Latin means “and others” so the title “THE SLY BUNGERHOP ET AL” should start to make sense to you.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

1941:<\/strong><\/p>\n