SMFS Member Publishing News: Pushing Joe Carter by John Floyd

 

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Strand Magazine: Unpublished Rod Serling Short Story

(Strand Magazine: Featuring an unpublished Rod Serling short story, fiction by Adam Hamdy, John Floyd, Vasa Clarke, and exclusive interviews with Robert Littell and Laurie R. King)

Rod Serling’s unpublished short story “First Squad, First Platoon” headlines The Strand Magazine’s latest issue.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.