“. . . the greater and more unexpected [. . .] this incongruity is, the more violent will be his laughter.” —Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation  (1818), vol. I, §13 There was something futile in all this gushing blood and smashed transistors. The calculating Programmed remained comfortably ahead of the Jokers, but not too far ahead. They disassembled and put themselves to death when the odds showed themselves too long. How can you have a proper battle w

Little Will with a rubber band Shot his sister out of hand Shot her with a joyful shout In the eye and put it out. Two stories that seem to belong together. One mostly unknown. The other mostly forgotten. Each is about a practical joker who gets his just deserts. “Live It Again” and “Of Laughter and the Love of Friends” are weak Lafferty stories, though that is unfair to say of the unpublished “Live It Again,” which should be held to a different standard. “Of Laughter and the

“It is not my game. I am too guileless.” “The serpent in the garden said the same, but for all that he had a motive.” “Hands of the Man” was written in 1957 as a con-game story with no science fiction elements, and interesting for at least three reasons. The first two have been documented by Andrew Ferguson . First, it is a Wreckville story, so anyone interested in Lafferty’s heterotopia of brilliant confidence agents will want to know it. Aside from the early novel Antonino