Casual Shorts: Robert Bloch, "Talent" (1960)

Robert Bloch, "Talent"

• If, July 1960
• Atoms & Evil, Fawcett Gold Medal, August 1962
• The Best Science Fiction from If, ed. Frederik Pohl, Galaxy Publishing, 1964
• The Oddballs, ed. Vic Ghidalia, Manor Books, 1973
• Christopher Lee's "X" Certificate, eds. Christopher Lee & Michel Parry, W.H. Allen, 1975
• From the Archives of Evil, eds. Christopher Lee & Michel Parry, Warner Books, January 1976 (reprint of above)
• Such Stuff as Screams Are Made of, Del Rey, February 1979
• Bug-Eyed Monsters, eds. Bill Pronzini & Barry N. Maltzberg, Harvest, March 1980
• Last Rites, Underwood-Miller, 1987
• The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch, Volume 3: Last Rites, Citadel Twilight, May 1991
• The Baen Big Book of Monsters, ed. Hank Davis, Baen, October 2014

Rating: 7/10

For more Friday's Forgotten Books, please visit Evan Lewis's blog.


"It is perhaps a pity that nothing is known of Andrew Benson's parents."

The publication of The Baen Big Book of Monsters a few months back, a new anthology featuring reprints along with a couple of new stories (including one from editor Hank Davis), brought Robert Bloch's highly entertaining short story "Talent" back into print after a quarter century absence from the anthology scene. (The Mammoth anthologies had covered the monster genre with its 2007 anthology The Mammoth Book of Monsters, though it contained more original pieces and ignored Bloch entirely, while only digging as far back as 1973 for its reprints.) This is the second time the short story has appeared in a monster-themed anthology, having been included in the Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg edited work Bug-Eyed Monsters from 1979.

Yet the story can easily be included in a number of different theme-related groups, such as genre comedy, sci-fi/horror, movies, orphans, psychopaths and oddball characters (which it has been). among its many strengths, "Talent" encompasses a variety of aspects of genre fiction, including its approach.

The story deals with orphan Andrew Benson, a reclusive boy who awakens from a perpetual daze only when he performs mimicry. He is in fact so good at mimicry that people watching him perform are convinced he even looks exactly like the individual he is aping. When Benson discovers Hollywood movies, his penchant for imitation proves boundless. aside from his mimicry and dramatics, Benson has absolutely no interest in any other aspect of life, and his motivation becomes the story's final, surprising reveal.

"Talent" is structured like an informal investigative report. A hack journalism tries to piece together the life of Andrew Benson through little information and lot of hearsay, clipping together portions of interviews and the few facts surrounding Benson's life. Such a structure creates a specific character in the narrator: an unimaginative and strikingly unaware investigative reporter; an oxymoron in itself. This character is necessary to help build up to the ending otherwise the piece would would begin with the final line. The technique also allows Bloch to employ his gift of ironic storytelling.

Bloch's irony is present throughout the text, and his playfulness shines through the irony as he touches upon the various deaths surrounding Benson, all linked to some recent movie or movie trend ("you've probably seen something just like it in the movies a dozen times"). Centering his humour around the irony is what makes "Talent" such an enjoyable read. Bloch is charming, playful and very aware of the genre in which he is working.

Of course this brings us to the overwhelming fault in the story, which is unavoidable in Bloch's approach. (I will not spoil the story and hence risk being vague with this point.) The narrator is blindly unaware of Benson's nature to the point that it doesn't even cross his mind to speculate on connections between Benson and the deaths surrounding him which are more than obvious to the reader. In fact, the narrator rejects the theories brought up by one of the victims even though he is fully aware of Benson's eventual transformation. In fact, it is that transformation that leads the narrator to attempt to piece the details, fact and hearsay, of Benson's life into some king of chronological biography. THat opening line (quoted above) taken into consideration along with the various theories of Benson's identity that are discussed is alone indicative, related to the ending, that those theories should not be so carelessly rejected.

Of course the story is meant for pure entertainment, so the flaw is forgivable and in no way detracts from the story itself. Like much of Bloch's short work, it's worth a read.

On a side note, there is a reference to Jack the Ripper as related to a murder in conjunction with the Ripper-related film Man in the Attic. Bloch was interested in various serial killers and wrote several pieces dealing with the nineteenth century murderer, including "Your Truly, Jack the Ripper" (1943), "A Most Unusual Murder" (1976), and the Star Trek script "Wolf in the Fold" (1967). Bloch's association with the killer is so evident that any mention of the Ripper is welcome.

Casual Shorts 5: Robert Bloch, "Block That Metaphor" (1958)

Bloch, Robert, "Block That Metaphor"

Bibliography

• Gold, H.L., Editor, Galaxy Magazine, October 1958, Galaxy Publishing Corporation. pp 134-144
• Bloch, Robert, Atoms and Evil, NY: Fawcett Gold Medal, August 1962. pp. 60-69

Rating: 7/10

The extraordinarily prolific and often entertaining Robert Bloch has been continuously anthologized in various genre collections. Yet while some stories such as "Beetles" (Weird Tales, December 1938), "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" (Weird Tales, July 1943) and "The Man Who Collected Poe" (Famous Fantastic Mysteries, October 1951) appear and re-appear to seemingly no end, others such as "Block that Metaphor" are a surprisingly rare find. I managed to locate a copy of the original publication at the university library, who were kind enough to grant me permission to photocopy the pages of the archive-bound Galaxy journals. I've since given myself permission to post images of these copies to share with you all.

What is "surprising" about the story's rarity is that it is a great example of Bloch's fusion between humour and horror, and features a surprise ending which makes readers emit an odd sound as they struggle between the expulsion of air while laughing, to the ingestion of air in their expression of shock.

Moreover, "Block That Metaphor" is a science fiction story, a genre that Bloch, as prolific as he was, practiced only occasionally, though often successfully, having been awarded a prestigious Hugo for another oft-anthologized piece, "That Hell-Bound Train" (Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September 1958). In fact, "Block That Metaphor" may have been eternally overshadowed by the well-received Hugo-winner, which was published in MF&SF one month earlier.

In this story of the future, humans have recently struck relations with an otherworldly race. Members of this race have the ability to pick up subvocalizations, described as those little conscious thoughts we might have yet don't fully vocalize. Furthermore, they have a tendency to take statement and expression literally. The race is deficient in (though not absent of) emotion, and are overly practical, so that the colourful English language is often lost on them. And it doesn't end there. Since members of this race have no use of noses, they instead wear different attachments in the middle of their faces depending on the situation. Attachments are often ornamental, though some have more practical uses, such as a drill or sharp blade, should the need arise.

Otherworldly ambassador Vorm, is visiting diplomat Lane Borden at the Embassy, as they are attempting to reach an agreement concerning extraterrestrial mining. A final important detail concerning these aliens is that are coated by a kind of natural armour which prevents them from being harmed in gaseous or extreme temperature galactic mining sites. It's this coating that has led to the nickname "mechs," as in mechanical beings. This meeting is being held in secret, since the general population of Earth has not quite accepted the creatures, especially since, with their knack of taking things literally, including subvocalizations, they have accidentally harmed a few members of Earth's first contact crew. Lane has quite the task ahead of him, dealing carefully with this unusual visitor with all the pressure of a mob outside the Embassy, a large group protesting the current negotiations. During all of this he must also attend to his beautiful bride-to-be, Margaret Zurich, a talented classical pianist. Though Vorm has little emotion, he does love music, so that there is potential for equal footing and mutual understanding.

But since this is a Robert Bloch story, we receive a nice little package that includes a twist that is both horrific and humourous. Though the story exists primarily for its twist ending, Bloch manages nonetheless to create a fairly well-rounded story, detailing a truly unique alien and creating an appropriate situation and its corresponding circumstances. Had the story been half its length, solely fixated on the great ending, it would likely have been forgettable, but Bloch did well in expanding it, and though the plot is nothing revolutionary, for a ten-pager it is quite fun and effective.

The page-sized drawing on page 140 is by Martinez, and details the first meeting between Vorm and Margaret, who is keeping her composure while in the presence of such an alarmingly different humanoid. Martinez captures Vorm quite well as per Bloch's description. What's specifically effective is that we don't see Vorm's face, and this idea of nose attachments is left to our own vivid imaginations. Though this scene lies in the future, the human characters are throwbacks from the 1950s. Those headphone-like objects Lane and Margaret are wearing are devices that help to block out subvocalizations, a preventative measure. Nice shadows and detail nonetheless, and the meeting selected for the story's art is appropriate, since it eventually leads to disaster.