The Girl from Bodies, Inc.

By Randalll Garrett, Robert Silverberg and Karl Wurf

In this gripping tale of switched identities, Hugh Horner's simple wish for renewed youth thrusts him into a nightmare. A mysterious massage parlor promises the impossible: a chance to trade bodies with a younger man. But Horner soon finds himself trapped in the body of a convicted murderer, desperate to reclaim his old life. With the police closing in and time running out, Horner must outwit the devious figures behind the body-swapping scheme.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Cat Weekly
• Release date: May 8, 2024
• ISBN: 9781667619873

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Table of Contents

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION

THE GIRL FROM BODIES, INC., by Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Originally published in Fantastic, October 1956,

under the pseudonym Leonard G. Spencer.

Published by Black Cat Weekly.

blackcatweekly.com

INTRODUCTION

Robert Silverberg has written extensively about his early days as a science fiction writer. When he came to New York in pursuit of his dreams of writing full-time, older, more experienced writer Randall Garrett took him under his wing, and they became a prolific fiction factory, turning out stories to order for the science fiction magazines under their own names, as well as a variety of pseudonyms. Everyone won from the deal. Silverberg’s apprenticeship allowed him to develop writing habits that would serve him throughout his career. Garrett found a workhorse that allowed him to increase his output dramatically. Magazines had an ample source of quality fiction. And readers were entertained enormously—for both authors together were greater than the sum of their parts. At least in those days. Silverberg would continue to grow as a writer and become one of the great masters of the field, winning every award and becoming a best-selling novelist in his own right.

Randall Garrett (1927–1987) remains best known not for his collaboration (which were frequent, and not just with Silverberg), but for his Lord Darcy fantasy series—the novel Too Many Magicians and two short story collections—set in an alternate world where a joint Anglo-French empire still led by a Plantagenet dynasty has survived into the twentieth century and where magic works and has been scientifically codified. The Darcy books are rich in jokes, puns, and references (particularly to works of detective and spy fiction: Lord Darcy is modeled on Sherlock Holmes).

Unfortunately, Garrett contracted a virus in the summer of 1979 which led to meningitis and/or encephalitis, which in turn led to a severe memory loss. Unfortunately, the condition proved permanent, and he was unable to continue writing. He was eventually hospitalized and died at age 60, having lost much of what should have been his most accomplished writing years.

Robert Silverberg, still with us, has retired from fiction writing, although he still works as an anthology editor and writes non-fiction, including a long-running editorial column for Asimov’s Science Fiction.

—Karl Wurf

THE GIRL FROM BODIES, INC.,

by Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett

The trouble with bodies, said the new rub-down specialist at the Gotham Baths, is that after a while they just wear out.

Glmph, said Hugh Horner as the skin-sleeking oil was applied liberally to his face, making a drawn-out reply impossible.

Ain’t it funny, though, the rub-downer said, how you can buy a new set of piston rings for your car or a mainspring for your wristwatch or a new gizmo for the old lady’s mix-master, but you can’t even buy a new appendix, if you should need one, for yourself.

The quick hands left Horner’s face and began to knead the sagging muscles in his pectoral region. If you look at it that way, Horner said, you have a point. He was alone in the massage room with the attendant. He felt worn and drained out, as he always did at the end of a heavy week’s work at the office. A steam