SMFS list
member John Floyd’s short story, Pushing Joe Carter, appears in the just
released Strand Magazine: Spring 2024 issue. The issue is available at
the website
and from other vendors.
Description
Strand Magazine: Unpublished Rod Serling Short Story
(Strand Magazine: Featuring an unpublished Rod Serling
short story, fiction by Adam Hamdy, John Floyd, Vasa Clarke, and exclusive
interviews with Robert Littell and Laurie R. King)
Rod Serling’s unpublished short story “First Squad, First
Platoon” headlines The Strand Magazine’s
latest issue. Written after Serling returned from World War II, the story
preceded his television career and draws from his experiences fighting with the
511th Airborne in the Philippines, where he witnessed some of the most intense
combat of the entire conflict and the horrific deaths of many of his fellow
soldiers. Serling wrote this story in his early twenties, yet it carries a
maturity beyond his years. In terse prose, he delivers the immediacy, sense of
place, and cutting dialogue you’d expect from Hemingway, Crane, or Dos Passos.
It’s a powerful, unvarnished look at war in all its brutality—an unforgettable
study of ordinary people in extraordinarily hellish situations. This unique
issue also includes forewords to the story by Rod Serling’s daughters, Jodi and
Anne, who provide context to the story and deeper insight into the man behind
the words.
Also in this issue, as coincidence would have it, the
inimitable John Floyd offers us “Pushing Joe Carter,” a Twilight Zone-esque
tale of man’s inhumanity to man with—you guessed it—a twist at the end. Adam
Hamdy and Emily Fox show us the psychological toll a life in law enforcement
can take on the psyches of those sworn to serve and protect in “The Fear in
Their Eyes.” And Vasa Clarke has turned Holmes and Watson’s attention to an
unlikely case involving veterinary medicine and national security in “The Adventure
of the Ayrshire
We have an exclusive interview with espionage novelist
Robert Littell. In a career spanning over half a century, Littell has elevated
the genre into the realm of serious literature with scores of novels that have
earned comparisons to the works of John le Carré, Graham Greene, Len Deighton,
and Eric Ambler. He is indisputably the modern-day master of the literary spy
novel. Throughout his writing career, Littell has used the genre of espionage
fiction to explore and say something about the human condition. One of the
hallmarks of his novels are his character-driven plots. He has a keen
understanding of the men and women who live in the shadows where moral
ambiguity reigns, and his complex characters often find themselves struggling
to hold onto the last vestiges of their humanity amid the deception required by
their work, as they fight for or against the inexorable, heartless tide of the
realpolitik.
We also have an exclusive with Laurie R. King, known for
her Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series, among others. Throughout a
prolific three-decade career, King has leveraged her extensive knowledge of
history and literature to produce some of the most authentic historical novels
of our time, not to mention several bestsellers set in the modern day, winning
over legions of readers around the world.
As the weather warms, and benches and beaches beckon,
you’ll no doubt need the best new books. Storm Watch by C. J. Box, Independence Square by Martin Cruz Smith, and The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen are but a few of the many gems
you’ll find in our reviews section.
