In a previous article I talked about how Robert Leslie Bellem had attempted to blend Science Fiction with a murder mystery before Isaac Asimov. In a different article I talked about how Mickey Spillane had written stories for the comics, some of them even Science Fiction. I guess it should be no surprise then that Spillane and Asimov should come up again. There were a number of writers who had tried to blend the two genres including Robert Bloch and Frank Belknap Long. That Mickey Spillane was another shouldn’t be such a surprise, I suppose.
“The Veiled Woman” by Mickey Spillane appeared in Fantastic #3 (November-December 1952). Like Bellem’s attempt for Fantastic Adventures, the editor seems to have been involved in Sci-Fying things up an otherwise ordinary Mystery tale. This time it is Howard Browne, not Ray Palmer. Browne would edit the magazine until October 1956. Browne himself was no stranger to Mystery fiction, having written four novels about the Philip Marlowe-esque Paul Pine under the pseudonym, John Evans, including Halo in Blood (1946), Halo For Satan (1948), Halo in Brass (1949) and The Taste of Ashes (1957) as well as the non-Pine novel Murder Wears a Halo (1944). Browne would eventually go on to write 125 scripts for television.
Spillane’s reputation as a maverick could be a problem for any magazine with something to lose. This intro tells it like it is: “No modern-day writer is more widely cussed and discussed than Mickey Spillane. Critics regard him as most of us regard the atom bomb, leading magazines dissect him with unloving care. Why? Because the Spillane emphasis is on sex and sadism, his milieu the boudoir and the underworld, his men ruthless, his women svelte, passionate and immoral. That’s why everyone hates Spillane — except his millions of readers and his banker! The editors of Fantastic take pride in presenting the first science-fiction story by Mr. Spillane.”
If you’d like to read the rest, please check out Monster 3:From the Pages of Dark Worlds Quarterly