History Creator / AnthonyBoucher

Anthony Boucher (1911-1968) was the pen name of William Anthony Parker White, an American writer, editor, and reviewer of {{myster|yLiterature}}ies and {{science fiction| literature}}. His novel ''Nine Times Nine'' is considered a masterpiece of the {{Locked Room|Mystery}} genre. His short fiction was more varied, covering mystery, science fiction, and fantasy. One of his mystery novels, ''Rocket to the Morgue'', was actually set in science fiction ''fandom'', and included [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed references]] to many notable people in the science fiction community, including Creator/RobertHeinlein and Creator/LRonHubbard. His science fiction short story, "The Quest for Saint Aquin", was chosen as one of the best SF stories of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1970.

* ImaginaryFriend: The main character in "Mr. Lupescu" ''pretended'' to be an imaginary friend -- a fairy godfather, to be specific -- so that he could [[spoiler: shoot the father of the kid the pretense was centered on, get off scott free and marry the mother]].

* NotSoImaginaryFriend: In "Mr. Lupescu", this is done as part of a scheme to MurderTheHypotenuse. Alan wants Marjorie, but she is already married to the wealthy Robert. So Alan pretends to be her son Bobby's fairy godfather "Mr. Lupescu" using an elaborate costume and gains his trust with stories of travels in the Milky Way. He also instills a fear of an imaginary monster called Gorgo that will punish Bobby if he misbehaves. All so that the boy will allow him into the house to meet Robert, whom he promptly kills. "Mr. Lupescu" warns Bobby to tell people ''exactly what happened'' or else Gorgo will take him. Of course, no one believes stories of a fairy godfather killing Robert, leaving the police baffled. Alan goes home and destroys his costume, satisfied in the knowledge that Marjorie, now a rich widow, is available. [[spoiler:Unfortunately for Alan, Gorgo turns out to be a Not So Imaginary Monster.]]

* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: In ''The Compleat Werewolf'', certain people possessed the ability to turn into werebeasts of various species anytime they wanted by saying a magic word[[note]]simply called The Word by the author, presumably because he doesn't want to reveal it to the reader[[/note]]. You could only ever turn into one type of beast, which may or may not be practical (were-diplodocus, anybody?) and kept your human intelligence but, being incapable of speech, had to somehow get somebody else to say the magic change-back word (which was "absarka") in order to change back. And when you did, you were naked.

Anthony Boucher (1911-1968) was an American writer, editor, and reviewer of {{myster|yLiterature}}ies and {{science fiction| literature}}. He wrote a number of mystery novels. ''Nine Times Nine'' is considered a masterpiece of the {{Locked Room|Mystery}} genre. His short fiction was more varied, covering mystery, science fiction, and fantasy. One of his mystery novels, ''Rocket to the Morgue'', was actually set in science fiction ''fandom'', and included references to many notable people in the science fiction community, including Creator/RobertHeinlein and Creator/LRonHubbard. His science fiction short story, "The Quest for Saint Aquin", was chosen as one of the best SF stories of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1970.

He had a long-running mystery fiction review column in the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', and another in the ''New York Times''. Several collections of his reviews have been published.

* ByThePowerOfGreyskull: In "The Compleat Werewolf", the magic word "Absarka" transformed the main character out of his werewolf form. (There was another word to change him into wolf form, but it's just called "The Word" in the story, i.e. the author doesn't reveal it.) There were just two problems with this: (a) as a werewolf, he had to get somebody else to say "Absarka" for him and (b) when he changed back into a human, he was naked (since his clothes didn't transform with him).

* ConvictionByContradiction: "[=QL696.C9=]" is about a librarian who was killed, leaving a the titular mysterious sequence of letters and numbers nearby. At the end of the story, the detective gathers the suspects in the, um, library in the traditional fashion,[[spoiler: declares that the code was probably a library subject reference number, and starts to look it up.]] He's interrupted by the need to keep the murderer (a spy), from killing herself with the pistol she hid in her blouse. Turns out he knew it was her as soon as he figured out what the code was for, as the killer had the only name that was a noun, and the whole library scene was just to flush her out. FridgeBrilliance kicks in when you realize that the detective needed something from the suspect to avert this trope, since there's all sorts of perfectly good reasons a librarian would have to write down a Library of Congress reference code [[spoiler:for swifts]]. Ironically, the anthology in question comes up when you search the [=LoC=] for the code.

* ImaginaryFriend: The main character in "Mr. Lupescu" ''pretended'' to be an imaginary friend -- a fairy godfather, to be specific -- so that he could [[spoiler: shoot the father of the kid the pretense was centered on, get off scot free and marry the mother]].

* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: In "The Compleat Werewolf", certain people possessed the ability to turn into werebeasts of various species anytime they wanted by saying a magic word[[note]]simply called The Word by the author, presumably because he doesn't want to reveal it to the reader[[/note]]. You could only ever turn into one type of beast, which may or may not be practical (were-diplodocus, anybody?) and kept your human intelligence but, being incapable of speech, had to somehow get somebody else to say the magic change-back word (which was "absarka") in order to change back. And when you did, you were naked.

* NotSoImaginaryFriend: In "Mr. Lupescu", this is done as part of a scheme to MurderTheHypotenuse. Alan wants Marjorie, but she is already married to the wealthy Robert. So Alan pretends to be her son Bobby's fairy godfather "Mr. Lupescu" using an elaborate costume and gains his trust with stories of travels in the Milky Way. He also instills a fear of an imaginary monster called Gorgo that will punish Bobby if he misbehaves. All so that the boy will allow him into the house to meet Robert, whom he promptly kills. "Mr. Lupescu" warns Bobby not to tell people what happened or else Gorgo will take him. Of course, no one believes stories of a fairy godfather killing Robert, leaving the police baffled. Alan goes home and destroys his costume, satisfied in the knowledge that Marjorie, now a rich widow, is available. [[spoiler:Unfortunately for Alan, Gorgo turns out to be a Not So Imaginary Monster.]]

* EpiphanyTherapy: "Ailurophobe" had the main character go through this therapy to cure his morbid fear of cats (he couldn't even stand to hear words including the syllable "cat"). Under hypnosis, he realized it derived from an early childhood incident when he nearly died because of an abusive nanny named "Kitty." He was cured of fearing cats; now he had a phobia of ''women''. Ironic, since it was his fiancee who'd wanted him to get over the original phobia.

* ImaginaryFriend: The main character in "Mr. Lupescu" ''pretended'' to be an imaginary friend - a fairy godfather, to be specific - so that he could [[spoiler: shoot the father of the kid the pretense was centered on, get off scot free and marry the mother]].

* ByThePowerOfGreyskull: In "The Compleat Werewolf", the magic word "Absarka" transformed the main character out of his werewolf form. (There was another word to change him into wolf form, but it's just called "The Word" in the story, i.e. the author doesn't reveal it.) There were just two problems with this: (a) as a werewolf, he had to get somebody else to say the word for him and (b) when he changed back into a human, he was naked--either that, or a helpless wolf inextricably entangled in a gray three-piece suit.

He had a long-running mystery fiction review column in the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', and another in the ''New York Times''. Several collections of his reviews have been published. He was a founding member of the Mystery Writers of America. Bouchercon, aka the Anthony Boucher Memorial World Mystery Convention, was named in his honor.

He had a long-running mystery fiction review column in the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', and another in the ''New York Times''. He was a founding member of the Mystery Writers of America. Bouchercon, aka the Anthony Boucher Memorial World Mystery Convention, was named in his honor.

Anthony Boucher (1911-1968) was an American writer, editor, and reviewer of {{myster|yLiterature}}ies and {{science fiction| literature}}. He wrote a number of mystery novels. ''Nine times Nine'' is considered a masterpiece of the {{Locked Room|Mystery}} genre. His short fiction was more varied, covering mystery, science fiction, and fantasy. One of his mystery novels, ''Rocket to the Morgue'', was actually set in science fiction ''fandom'', and included references to many notable people in the science fiction community, including Creator/RobertHeinlein and Creator/LRonHubbard. His science fiction short story, "The Quest for Saint Aquin", was chosen as one of the best SF stories of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1970.

* MechanicalHorse: "The Quest for Saint Aquin" had the priest protagonist using an artificially intelligent "robass," which happened to be an atheist.

* RewritingReality: The story "We Print the Truth" features a newspaper editor who is granted a wish--and wishes for the eponymous motto of his paper to be literally true. He finds out just ''how'' literal when things like a misprinted age turn real. {{Hilarity Ensues}}... until he finally realizes that this must stop and invokes something on the order of the Epimenides Paradox to do so.