Today, February 26, is the birthday of two of the best practitioners of the short story, one in sicence fiction and fantasy and the other in mystery. I’m talking about Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985) and Jack Ritchie (1922-1983).

I’m certain Theodore Sturgeon needs no introduction to readers of this blog. He was one of the leading figures of science fiction and fantasy since 1939. He wrote at both novel and shorter lengths and was excellent at both. Personally, I prefer his short stories and novelettes, but that’s more because those are the lengths I prefer to read at than a difference in the quality of his work at different lengths.

As an aside, I think one of his better works was the novel Some of Your Blood. I love the title. I saw this one in a used bookstore when  I was in ninth or tenth grade and for reasons I long ago forgot, didn’t buy it.That edition right there.

Then we moved.

In college, i had a friend look for it when he went to a convention. He said the result he got when he asked about it in the dealer’s room was either laughter or offers to buy it if he had a copy.

It wasn’t until I was in graduate school that I caem across the first edition in a second hand bookstore.  This isn’t a fantasy, but rather psychological horror or dark suspense.

Sturgeon’s short fiction has been collected in a thirteen volume set. The last time I checked, electronic editions are avaialble.

Jack Ritchie, as far as I know, only wrote short fiction. He was a mainstay in the Alfred Hitchcock paperback anthologies that were ubiquitous during the 1970s. Bookstores, school libraries, drug stores and five and dimes.

Those antholgoies werent’ actually edited b y Hitchcock, any more that most of hte anthologies with Isaac Asimov’s name on them were edited by him. My understanding is the Hitchcok anthologies were edited by Robert Arthur. Arthur also wrote some science fcition and fantasy. If you peruse the tables of contents from some of those Hicthcock anthologies, you’ll recognize a great many names as authors whose primary genre wasn’t mystery.

For a long time, it was hard to find Jack Ritchie stories. Information about him was hard to come by. His stories were clever and sharp and frequently included in year’s best anthologies twenty-one times.

A few years ago, Stark House Press (whose books you should be reading) published four volumes of stories from the digest Manhunt. The fourth volume was devoted entirely to Jack Ritchie.

Check him out.