“The Causes”
Margaret St. Clair
First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1952
Currently available in The Hole in the Moon and Other Tales
Margaret St. Clair (1911-1995) was born on this date, February 17. Although she wrote eight novels, she is best remembered for her short stories, both under her own name and the pseudonym Idris Seabright. “The Causes” was one of the Seabright stories, most of which were published in F&SF.
Bar stories and the closely related club stories, which are often some type of tall tale, have a long history in the science fiction and fantasy fields. “The Causes” falls into this subgenre. It’s a fun and clever little story.
A couple of men in a bar begin a discussion of what the causes of all modern problems. One man says that it’s because the Greek gods have all moved to New Zealand. Another says it’s because the trumpet that will sound the last trump has been stolen from Heaven. Or perhaps it’s a Tantrist curse from a sexually frustrated lama.
I’ll never tell. You’ll have to read the story for yourself.
I totally enjoyed the cheeky humor of this story. I’ll be reading more Margaret St. Clair stories in the future. She was an important writer in the middle of the last century, if not one of the most prominent.
My introduction to St.Clair was Vulcan’s Dolls the cover story(!) of the February 1952 issue of Startling Stories. (I am not quite old enough to have bought that issue new, but I am old enough to have bought decade-old pulp magazines two-for-a-quarter.) The story was one side of an Ace Double in the late 50s or early 60s. I can’t recall if it has been reprinted since. I liked it back in the day, but that was years ago.
The ISFDB says it hasn’t been reprinted. I got my hands on a copy of that issue a number of years ago and read Vulcan’s Dolls. I rather enjoyed it. I don’t know if they are still available, but a couple of years ago for Father’s Day I gave myself some CD’s that had complete runs of Startling Stories, Unknown, Weird Tales, Planet Stories, Astounding, and other pulps. Each set was about $15-$20, IIRCC. Now if someone would just do that for Adventure, Black Mask, and Dime Detective…
It appears as “Agent of the Unknown”, one-half of Ace double D-150.