Pun Salad

Note to blog-readers: the Amazon paid link at your right reflects the used edition I bought back in 2018 for $5.98. (Cover price: $1.50.) As I type, the vendor is asking $16.99. The Kindle version is cheaper these days, but (according to one reviewer) it only includes the titular item.

Futher consumer note: the cover is, I guess, a lunar landscape, and all the stories are entirely earthbound.

My version has these stories:

· "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag" — I fantasize that someone dared Heinlein to write a mash-up of H. P. Lovecraft and Dashiell Hammet's Thin Man. Mr. Hoag has no memory of what he does during the day, so he hires a husband-and-wife detective team to find out. They get more, much more, than they bargained for.

· "The Man Who Traveled in Elephants" — A traveling salesman, now widowed, soldiers on. Until…

· "—All You Zombies—" — One of the too-few Heinlein works that they (loosely) based a movie on. Given its time-travel premise, it's all too plausible. The story has a Wikipedia page that will explain things for you if necessary, but I strongly suggest you read the story first.

· "They" — A guy in a mental hospital discusses his paranoid delusions with his shrink. Spoiler: they ain't paranoid delusions. Didn't I see a Twilight Zone episode based on this?

· "Our Fair City" — Two words: sentient whirlwind.

· "'—And He Built a Crooked House—'" — An arrogant architect builds a tesseract-based house for his client and his high-strung wife. Unfortunately, an earthquake traps them in a multi-dimensional nightmare on the walk-through.

A very enjoyable short read. Next up on my reread-Heinlein project is Time for the Stars.