I ranked Alice Eleanor Jones’ apocalyptic slice-of-life nightmare “Created He Them” (1955) as my favorite SF short story of 2022. I also found Jones’ “The Happy Clown” (1955) a bleakly effective satire of television and consumerism. Unfortunately, Jones only published five short stories in 1955 before leaving science fiction altogether. It’s a shame she did not continue writing SF. With this post, I’ve covered her entire SF output.
Alice Eleanor Jones (1916-1981) received a PhD in English from University of Pennsylvania in 1944 on the seventeenth-century dramatist Shakerly Marmion. In the first year of her writing career, Jones “published five SF stories and two slick romance narratives.” Despite Anthony Boucher’s prediction that she’d be successful in both fields, Jones never returned to science fiction but continued to publish in the leading women’s magazines of the day and wrote a column for the trade magazine The Writer “well into the 1960s.”1 Lisa Yaszek argues that Jones’ “stories about housewife heroines and other domestic figures” do not reiterate conservative ideologues of the day but rather, through the construction of “offbeat” situations, examine how new scientific and social relations would impact women.2 Her two stories from the male perspective, “The Happy Clown” (1955) and “Life, Incorporated” (1955) are anti-consumerist satires.
This post fits–in conjunction with my earlier “Created He Them” (1955) review—in my series on the first three published short stories by female authors. So far I’ve featured Phyllis Gotlieb (1926-2009), Sydney J. Van Scyoc (1939-2023), Josephine Saxton (1935-), Carol Emshwiller (1921-2019), Wilmar H. Shiras (1908-1990), Nancy Kress (1948-), Melisa Michaels (1946-2019), Lee Killough (1942-), Betsy Curtis (1917-2002), and Eleanor Arnason (1942-).
Now let’s get to the stories!
Frank Kelly Freas’ cover for Fantastic Universe, ed. Leo Margulies (April 1955)
2.5/5 (Bad)
“Life, Incorporated” first appeared in Fantastic Universe, ed. Leo Margulies (April 1955). You can read it online here.
Alice Eleanor Jones’ first-published short story does not foreshadow the heights she would achieve later in the year. A functional satire of the inherent human desire to swindle and accumulate wealth, “Life, Incorporated” places a human con artist named Baxter on the alien world of Kryllan. This planet differs from Earth in that their telepathic denizens know exactly how long they will live. The government runs the Life Bank, in which tags are engraved with a standard length of time given to every citizen. However, individuals can modify their current tally as Life can “bought and sold here, exactly like any other commodity” (61). The exchange, in the words of Ané, Baxter’s friend and guide, takes the form of a religious ceremony that “amounts to a declaration of brotherhood” between the giver and taker (61). But Baxter has other plans…
Over his time on Kryllan, Baxter rises in ranks at the Office of Engraving, which creates the tags for the Life bank. He steals supplies, engravers, and runs a serious of gambling endeavors that help him sus out the desires of the Kryllans and a stash of forged money. Soon the desperate come to him with their schemes–a woman who lies to her partner about her age wants her tag modified, a gambler cannot afford to add years to his rapidly approaching demise. And Baxter’s stash and ambitions grow!
Beyond the plot, there is little to write about. It’s simple and bland exposé of humanity’s drive to illegally accumulate and economically dominate people and new worlds. Despite the somewhat intriguing world of Kryllan, it’s not rendered in a way that encouraged reflection or wonder. Baxter’s delusion of grandeur comes crashing down but he cannot help but plan another scheme.
Not recommended.
Frank Kelly Freas’ cover for Fantastic Universe, ed. Leo Margulies (June 1955)
3/5 (Average)
“Miss Quatro” first appeared in Fantastic Universe, ed. Leo Margulies (June 1955). You can read it online here.
Miss Quatro, “a small woman, slender and pale, very genteel, with no-color hair and no-color eyes” (55), cares for Edith and George’s child, Judy. The family notices how efficient and good she is with Judy, and appreciates her willingness to take on the children of their friends at short notice. They also notice strange quirks. The children are unnaturally obsessed with the story she tells, the nature of which remains unclear to the adults. It’s a story of slaves building a fantastic city. And how the slaves starve and burn and struggle under the dominations of their rulers. It’s a story the children can actually see.
The strange nursemaid and housekeeper also doesn’t remember her social security number. A friend of Edith and George, suggests that they “ought to know something about her” (58). And one day when George heads to the city to track down her past employers, Miss Quatro leads the children of the neighborhood into a pasture of an abandoned farm and shows the children her “city of jewels, a city of light” (61).
This is an odd little story. Overtly a recast version of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, “Miss Quatro” ends on a far less sinister note. A first glance I felt that the interactions of Judy’s parents and friends suggested a satirical take on the suburban existence but it’s not sustained and undermined by the final, affirming, reveal. This is a well-told–if a bit slight–vision. It’s not the Alice Eleanor Jones story I’d have included in Science Fiction by Women (1953-1957) (2022).
Somewhat recommended.
Ed Valigursky’s cover for Fantastic, ed. Howard Browne (October 1955)
4/5 (Good)
“Recruiting Officer” first appeared in Fantastic, ed. Howard Browne (October 1955). You can read it online here.
Alice Eleanor Jones’ second-best science fiction story after “Created He Them” (1955) follows a shape-shifting entity on her recruit-collecting rounds. She takes the appearance, her “appearances are always excellent” (87), of a grandmotherly woman named Mrs. Quimby “dressed forty years behind the times” (87). In her convertible, she preys on young men between sixteen and twenty — “Oh, the beautiful young men, out on the highways of this world!” (87). On one of her productive tours of duty, she encounters her eighteenth victim — the beautiful Johnny, stranded with his mother at a car mechanic. She offers to drive him back to his school.
“Recruiting Officer” effectively subverts the male gaze present in so many fictions of era. Mrs. Quimby’s gaze is far from that of a passive collector, she lusts after what she sees. Her species finds allure in any and all male forms: “we desire it, in whatever form it takes” (97). She imagines running her hands through Johnny’s hair (91), she gauges the tenor of male voices (90), she speculates on their physical maturity (91), and she revels in the “exciting” moment she can reveal her true self before his restrained body (96). She sadly reflects on the lack of reciprocal lusts: “there is a curious lack of perception in the people of this world. I can see beauty in them, although they are so different from anything I have known. Why, then, can they not see beauty in me?” (97). And like a psychopath, she cannot entirely feel sorry for the victims of her horrifying actions.
This is a well-told story that tells the reader just enough to hook and entrance. I wonder if the story can be read as an allegory on the 50s societal forces that compelled young women to enter marriage–and resulting feelings of disgust, entrapment, and isolation that result.
Sinister. Effective. Recommended!
Notes
- Source ↩︎
- Lisa Yaszek’s Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women’s Science Fiction (2008), 52. Yaszek discusses Alice Eleanor Jones, including her non-SF work, primarily on pages 43-52 and 63-65. ↩︎
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Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations 
Your description of ‘Life, Incorporated’ makes it sound intriguing.
I haven’t read her stories. I will now go off and remedy that.
The ‘Happy Clown’ sounds particularly wonderful. And ‘Recruiting Officer’–incredible. Looking forward to these.
It does have an intriguing premise — but is far from the heights of her best work “Created He Them” (1955) and “Recruiting Officer” (1955).
Let me know your thoughts on them!
It’s a shame she did write more SF. These five stories, while I’d suggest two are outright clunkers, contain a lot of promise.
I’ve now read ‘Created He Them’, ‘Recruiting Officer’, ‘Life, Incorporated’ and ‘The Happy Clown’.
‘Recruiting Officer’ is the standout for me. You could imagine it far more obviously sexual and dark if it was written today, and yet it is literally saturated in sex nonetheless. And even the end remains fairly dark, with the possibility left open for the creature to finally fulfill her unquenchable desire. That it appears in the guise of an old women is simply brilliant, burrowing into both the fears and dreams of sex and domination across age and gender. Like you, I can’t work out why this hasn’t appeared beyond its first 1955 magazine appearance.
I realized a few paragraphs in ‘Created He Them’ that I had already read this. A good story, well written, with a critical barb in its tale of 1950s US domesticity and gender roles thrown of course–or, rather, amplified.
I was less taken by ‘The Happy Clown’ than you. The conceit of a five year old realizing that they are a non-conformist just didn’t sit well with the otherwise realist conceits of the story. Having said that, there is a great moment toward the end of the story. When Steven uses the role of the Happy Clown to criticize the viewers–“everybody’s happy, because you’re all sheep!”–the station follows up by *incorporating* these comments in the aftermath, rather than attempting to refute them:
“They made certain that every viewer should regard the whole thing as a tremendously funny if rather mystifying joke. The viewers fell in with this opinion easily and laughed about the sheep joke a good deal, admiring the Happy Clown’s sense of humour–a little sharp, to be sure, not so folksy and down-to-earth as usual, but the Happy Clown could do no wrong.” (115)
And then this wonderful touch: “For a while teenagers addressed each other as, ‘Hi, sheep!’ […] and a novelty company in Des Moines made a quick killing with scatter pins fashioned like sheep…” (115). Perhaps one can even see in this an anticipation of what the Situationists would later call “recuperation” and Herbert Marcuse “Repressive desublimation”!
I think you are too harsh, by far, on ‘Life, Incorporated’. I agree that it could have done with something, but its not without its charms–effectively told at the very least. But sure, not as good as ‘Recruiting Officer’ or ‘Created He Them’.
Great comment mini-reviewing all those Alice Eleanor Jones stories. I was a little surprised when reading “Recruiting Officer” that it had been published even once, since it *could* be read as pedophilia, so I’m not surprised it wasn’t anthologized at the time. It was disturbingly good at conveying the alien (see my other comments).
To be fair to Jones, I would say that a relationship between two different species, regardless of their age, can’t really be considered as paedophilic. But of course, in this case, the “alienness” of the recruiting officer is only a fictional mask. More interesting, by far, is the idea that seemingly harmless little old ladies are still, nonetheless, libidinal creatures, rather than the neutered, asexual things they are often reduced to in cultural representations (particularly in the US in the 1950s). But sure, the paedophilic overtones probably had something to do with readers and editors staying away from this one. Do you think that readers of that time, or later, would have been as troubled by a gender reversal: an elderly man salivating over a 17 year old girl?
I’m not anti-Jones, I was speculating on why it wasn’t anthologized, because I agree, it’s a really good story. You’re right, the alien inhabiting a “little old lady” form makes it even more disturbing than a simply middle-aged woman a la Mrs. Robinson. I think the female gaze in the story worked well with the protagonist seeming like a little old lady AND with her being an alien, to amp up the horror in this story. I think the other way around (an elderly man salivating over a 17 year old girl) would have seemed more run of the mill distasteful — and not even distasteful to a number of readers.
Glad you enjoyed “Recruiting Officer.” Yeah, I struggled to finish “Life, Incorporated” which is why it took me so long to put together this post — I was reading them chronologically. I don’t exactly know her purpose in the story. But yes, the best elements of “Happy Clown” involve how moments of rebellion on screen are reclaimed for capitalistic aims and also reworked to perpetuate the same narrative.
Tangent: I can’t imagine that the Kobo Abe story that I just reviewed with Rachel at SF in Translation wouldn’t also be something that you’d find intriguing — Japanese Marxism in surreal action!
I just read the story. Thanks for the recommend. An excellent one. I’ve often thought of class struggle as a “solvent force”, and here Kobo Abe pulls it off as parable!
Do you have access to that fantastic article on Abe and Communism that I referenced in my review? If you don’t have access, I can send it your way.
Wow, I read “Recruiting officer”, thanks for the review and link! I wasn’t expecting such a sensual horror story, even though you had said ““Recruiting Officer” effectively subverts the male gaze present in so many fictions of era.” I’ll say! I was wondering just how far the author would take it, and her reverie at the end shows how far she and her kind DID take it with other “recruits”, but distanced from what a more direct telling would have been like.
Glad you enjoyed it. A super creepy story! And while not explicit in its contents, the implications are clear that the men they collect are little more than sex slaves. Have you read “Created He Them” (1955)? That’s still my favorite although “Recruiting Officer” is a clear second best out of the five.
Yes, the implications are right there. Calling them recruits is not a clear-eyed view of the narrator. I read your review of “Created He Them” and it looks good, but a bit too grim for my capacity these days. I believe you have more of an allowance for the well-done seriously gloomy stories than I do. Stories with aliens in them let me have a little more distance from the horrible things people dream up and do all on their own.
True true — I’m all for the gloom.
Tangent: In a true moment of bizarre coincidence, this was the Jonathan Bree song I was listening to when I was writing the review….
“Kiss My Lips” (sung by his one-time bandmate in The Brunettes Chelsea Nikkel)
“Kiss my lips all through the night
‘Cause I want you boy
And I’ll hold you oh so tight,
‘Cause I want you boy
More than a child wants a toy
More than Paris wanted Helen of Troy”
I don’t think I’ve listened to Johanthan Bree’s music before, but I listened to one version of the song, I like it, and yes it’s very apt, haha! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J_b-M1ul0w
Yeah, that entire album is a bizarre blend of twee pop, creepy sensuality, lush orchestration, sinister lyrics… “No Reminders” is probably my favorite on the album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNmKUeJT8IM&list=PLs9zwqXsceUgMXjnP2lCaNcXPOReB_c6M&index=11&ab_channel=JonathanBree-Topic
Listened, also listened to a “Best Tracks” playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S55wKqtsKAs&list=PLsfHtbA_OrqVhjscIGzGuzR5r_2vsNQmV … and subscribed to his channel! Thanks.
“Created He Them” is magnificent. I’ll have to find “Recruiting Officer” at least.
It’s a shame she didn’t keep writing SF. Her husband, Homer Nearing, was a writer of mildly amusing stories that also appeared in F&SF, but nothing as good as Jones at her best. Both were Ph. D.’s and I believe were teaching at the same university but it was Jones (of course, in that era) who left her career when they got married and had children. She did write a lot of contemporary fiction.
Ah, I did not know about her husband. “Mildly amusing” is often code for, “Joachim Boaz cannot tolerate silly, filler, joke stories” = so, unless I read a magazine cover to cover I will probably strategically avoid his work.
I am surprised that “Recruiting Officer” wasn’t anthologized anywhere.
Oh, I definitely knew that when I called H. Nearing’s stories “mildly amusing” it would signal you that you really needn’t bother with him!
You can read it online, if you’re willing to go through the archive.org interface for magazines https://archive.org/details/Fantastic_v04n05_1955-10_LennyS-cape1736/page/n1/mode/2up (same link as above in the review). “Recruiting Officer” starts on page 87 and you can click to “flip the pages”. I think it’s wonderful to be able to read these old issues.
Yeah, Internet Archive is indispensable — especially for mysteriously un-anthologized stories like “Recruiting Officer.”
Hm. I wonder if that “Lee Grant” on the cover of the October 55 issue was the actress/director. Whoever it was that’s their only entry in isfdb, which has no biographical details about the author.
Probably not the same person, but then again she was somewhat under-employed (for a 1951 Oscar nominee) at the time due to being blacklisted.
Your guess is as good as mine! Although, I’m more likely to assume — based on no additional evidence — that it’s a pseudonym or, as Fantastic was a 2nd or 3rd rate magazine in the mid-50s SF-publishing world boom, one of many authors who simply did not make it.
Intrigued by any of Jones stories?