Broke Down Engine: Thirteen wry and terrifying tales of homo mechanicus (what we are becoming) versus the machines we have created. In a technocracy gone mad, in a universe populated by note-passing refrigerators, killer stoves, houses that cuckold their owners, medical androids, and a host of other malfunctioning mechanisms—the moment of truth is the moment of breakdown. Contents: Foreword: The Way Things Don't Work The Trouble With Machines Broke Down Engine Lofthouse Calling Dr. Clockwork Princess #22 All for Love The Katy Dialogues Nobody Starves Muscadine Disposal To the Rescue Joker for Hire Terminal
Author
Pseudonyms: Howard Lee; Frank S Shawn; Kenneth Robeson; Con Steffanson; Josephine Kains; Joseph Silva; William Shatner. Ron Goulart is a cultural historian and novelist. Besides writing extensively about pulp fiction—including the seminal Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of Pulp Magazines (1972)—Goulart has written for the pulps since 1952, when the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction published his first story, a sci-fi parody of letters to the editor. Since then he has written dozens of novels and countless short stories, spanning genres and using a variety of pennames, including Kenneth Robeson, Joseph Silva, and Con Steffanson. In the 1990s, he became the ghostwriter for William Shatner’s popular TekWar novels. Goulart’s After Things Fell Apart (1970) is the only science-fiction novel to ever win an Edgar Award. In the 1970s Goulart wrote novels starring series characters like Flash Gordon and the Phantom, and in 1980 he published Hail Hibbler, a comic sci-fi novel that began the Odd Jobs, Inc. series. Goulart has also written several comic mystery series, including six books starring Groucho Marx. Having written for comic books, Goulart produced several histories of the art form, including the Comic Book Encyclopedia (2004).
