Created by Marcus Lyons
Pseudonym of James Blish
Other pseudonyms include Donald Laverty, John MacDougal and Arthur Merlyn
(1921-1975)
Okay, compared to the challenges faced by some of the other “defective detectives,” impatient private snoop BICARBONATE JOHNNY doesn’t have it too bad.
Still, the discomfort of chronic dyspepsia isn’t much fun, nor is the need to chomp on soda mints and antacids to squelch his perpetual heartburn and indigestion, or his frequent gaseous outbursts.
EXCUSE ME?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Primarily known as a sci-fi novelist and short story writer, James Benjamin Blish was born in Orange, New Jersey in 1921, and passed away in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire in the UK in July 1975. He worked in a variety of genres in the post-WWII era, including detective fiction. Not that he was exactly prolific in the Shamus Game — besides the Bicarbonate Johnny stories, all of which appeared in Crack Detective in the forties, he only place a handful of other crime stories. By the start of the fifties, he focussed exclusively on sci-fi, with the first of his Okie stories appeared in Astounding Science-Fiction, and eventually hitching his wagon to the Star Trek universe, where he novelized many of the original episodes and wrote a few originals himself, including Spock Must Die! (1970), the first original Star Trek novel for adult Trekkies.
SHORT STORIES
- “Death Off the Record” (November 1945, Crack Detective Stories)
- “Murder Wears a Mourning Cloak” (January 1946, Crack Detective Stories)
- “Red Chip for Blackmail” (July 1946, Crack Detective Stories)
- “The Spirit Is Killing” (November 1946, Crack Detective Stories)
- “Killer of Fire” (April 1947, Crack Detective Stories)
- “Claw of the Kidnapped Idol” (December 1947, Crack Detective Stories)
- “Death’s Photo Finish” (February 1948, Crack Detective Stories)
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
- The Defective Detectives
Handicapped Heroes
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
