JUST A COUPLE OF OUTRAGEOUS LIES ABOUT THE ILLEGITIMATE SON OF SID CAESAR AND IMOGENE COCA
AN INTRODUCTION BY SCOTT EDELMAN
Having to take the stage (even one that’s only made of paper and ink) before Adam-Troy Castro is a very daunting thing. I imagine that it’s a bit like opening for Robin Williams. Readers who’ve plunked down their hard-earned simoleans for a collection of humorous stories written by the guru of the gut-busting guffaw and starring those inept space criminals Vossoff and Nimmitz will have little patience for the introduction that comes between them and the tales, since those who have even the least familiarity with the author or subject matter will know in their bones that nothing I have to say could possibly seem funny compared to what will follow.
You see, in the Hollywood Squares of comedic SF, Adam-Troy Castro occupies the center square. The rest of us are just lucky to be allowed to share the board from time to time.
So I’m just going to play this straight, since every comedian needs a straight man (though Adam, if he wished, could do without one, and play the roles of comic, straight man, heckler and laugh track all rolled into one). He is the king of the kibitzers.
So let me segue to the meat of the matter with an old comedic standby.
But seriously, folks.
I consider myself to have been raised by the Muse of Comedy.
Suckled at the boob tube, I learned all I know about office dynamics from The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, all I know about friendship from The Honeymooners and The Abbott and Costello Show, and all I know about love and marriage from 7 Love Lucy and The Addams Family.
When my parents made us turn from the sitcoms to watch variety programs such as The Ed Sullivan Show or The Jackie Gleason Show, I’d zone out for most of the hour, ignoring the plate-spinners, the dancing bears, and even the dancing girls. (Hey, I was young!) Those types of entertainers seemed artificial. I knew they had little to teach me. Only the comedians could get to the heart of the matter. They seemed to know the secrets of life. They were the philosophers who taught me how best to wend my way through the universe. Alan King. Henny Youngman. Jackie Vernon. Totie Fields. Jackie Mason. Rodney Dangerfield. George Carlin. They spoke the truth and made me laugh. I took their jokes as my gospel, memorizing them for later, usually waiting to share what I had learned until I was in the middle of a class, whispering shaggy dog stories into the ears of my fellow third graders at the worst possible moments, inevitably earning a visit to the principal’s office. But it was always worth it. For comedy was magic, and making people laugh was a form of alchemy.
As I grew, new sitcoms and a younger generation of comedians came into my life, but the old fascination with humor always remained.
So I’ve heard all them all, every variation, and even when I’m listening to the rare ones that I haven’t heard before, I can see through to the skeleton of the joke clearly as it’s being laid out before me. I’m not an easy mark. I can see the punch lines coming. In fact, I can even see the set-ups coming, and so sometimes, when faced with a particularly uncreative comic, I will say the punchline aloud before it arrives, usually to the surprise and dismay of my wife, who still wonders, “How did you know he was going to say that?”
When you’ve been so totally immersed as I have in standup and sitcom for an entire lifetime, the invisible becomes visible, and the blueprints of most jokes become obvious.
I can’t help it.
That’s why it isn’t an easy thing to get me to laugh.
But Adam-Troy Castro can make me laugh.
Out loud. Repeatedly. Painfully. In a manner known to cause tears. His jokes, approaching like ninjas, are able to sneak up on me before my defenses have time to pop up.
Miraculously, he doesn’t even have to be there. He can do it with the magic of his words on the page.
Adam-Troy Castro’s history with the late, lamented (and if I may be allowed an angry aside, damn the fact that I have to call it that) Science Fiction Age was a long one. He was present at the creation. As editor, I can think of no other piece of fiction more suited to have been the first story in my first issue than “The Last Robot.” (Which you’ll not find here, as rather than being funny, it was a tender farewell to the late Isaac Asimov, who had just been lost to us. You’ll have to seek out that tale in his short-story collection An Alien Darkness.) I’ve reread “The Last Robot” many times since I first chose to publish it, and it has continued to move me each time. But as skilled a creation as “The Last Robot” was, it gave me no hint of the madness that was to follow, a bit of orchestrated insanity that arrived camouflaged in a manila envelope under the title “Just a Couple of Sentients Sitting Around Talking.”
Now, before we go on, there’s one thing you must understand. Over the years, I had read many stories submitted to Science Fiction Age by writers who thought they were funny, but very few by writers who actually were funny. Comedy is not an easy endeavor, and SF comedy is even harder than that. But Castro’s tale of bumbling crooks tripping over each other across the galaxy had me in stitches, and seemed the perfect complement to the oftentimes dark stories I was publishing. So I bought that first Vossoff and Nimmitz story (not yet realizing that it was the first), and it eventually appeared in the September 1994 issue, with a marvelous illustration by Joel F. Naprstek, who went on to do the illustrations for all future Vossoff and Nimmitz tales. And that, I thought, was the end of that.
It had seemed a harmless enough editorial decision. But then Adam showed me that I had underestimated him. Another manila envelope arrived, one that seemed equally as innocuous as had the first, this one containing “Just a Couple of Extinct Aliens Riding Around in a Limo,” and I suddenly realized to my horror that I was responsible for unleashing a comedic cancer on the world.
When I chose to publish that first Vossoff and Nimmitz story, I did not dream it would start a series. In fact, if I had realized what was about to occur, what that nefarious literary mastermind Adam-Troy Castro was attempting to do, I might have resisted publishing that first tale, no matter how much it had made me laugh. See, I don’t particularly like series. I believe a story should have a beginning and a middle and an end, and not a beginning and a middle and then another middle and then still yet a further middle, which is what series really are. Most sequels diminish the luster of the original, and are to be ignored.
So when I received the second story featuring the same two lunkheads, I was leery. I felt prejudiced against it before I even started reading. As soon as I saw the crime being perpetrated, I wanted an excuse to reject the manuscript. But see, to do that, I had to actually read it. Which meant that I couldn’t find any such excuses.
Why?
Because he was able to make me laugh, and for that I’ll forgive just about anything. The second story was even funnier than the first, and I was won over. I was seduced by the funnybone of Adam-Troy Castro. (And there’s a True Confessions story title for you!) I won’t try to explicate his humor here. I won’t tell you why or where I laughed, because nothing is as unfunny as a joke telegraphed. I want you to laugh as I did, discovering the comedic landmines for yourself.
What can I say? I was weak. “Just a Couple of Extinct Aliens Riding Around in a Limo” was published in the January 1995 issue, which was a mistake, because it only encouraged him.
From that moment on, as soon as I published one Vossoff and Nimmitz story, another arrived. I had consecutive Vossoff and Nimmitz stories in my inventory from that day on until Science Fiction Age died. In fact, the final story you’ll read in this volume was sitting on my desk the day Sovereign Media decided to axe the title. So not only was Adam-Troy Castro there before the beginning, he was also there after the end. Mailing that story back to Adam, instead of the contract he deserved, was one of my saddest duties as editor.
But you’re in luck. You get to read it now, capping off all the others.
And beware. Because though this volume contains all the Vossoff and Nimmitz stories currently written, Adam-Troy Castro is still out there. He is on the loose. He has a sense of humor, and he isn’t afraid to use it.
Wherever a joke is in need of a punchline, he’ll be there. Wherever a face is yearning for a collision with a Boston cream pie, he’ll be there. And wherever an editor needs to laugh hard enough that he passes an entire roast beef sandwich through his nose, he’ll be there.
So before you turn the page to begin experiencing what you really plunked down your dollars for, put down that soda, unless you want to find your shirtfront soon soaked. Send away all small children, lest the sound of a grown person alternately laughing and weeping warp their tender minds. And whatever else you do, remember—
Should an innocent-seeming manila envelope arrive in your mailbox, don’t open it.
You’ve been warned.
Scott Edelman has been nominated four times for the Hugo Award in the category of Best Editor, primarily due to his acumen in publishing the works of Adam-Troy Castro. His short-story collection, These Words Are Haunted, is currently available from Wildside Press.