Review (#9): "The Mysterious Goat Buck" by Dezső Kemény (1970)
The cover of "The Mysterious Goat Buck" by Dezső Kemény By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** Socialist Realist it ain't, but there's plenty of socialist reality in it. A key charm of the book. Like other readers before me, I couldn't resist this, either. "The Mysterious Goat Buck" is a collection of SF detective stories (a sub-genre in its own right). Unless exceptionally well-written, such stories can always feel a little mechanical, with a Big Revelation coming up at some point, towards the end, showing you that you were wrong all along. When combined with SF, the Big Revelation has also, by rule, to be connected to a Fantastic New Concept (FNCs, or "fancies" from hereon). The culprit behind the crime being investigated is one step ahead of everyone, with the exception of the smart detective, and is the master of a concept never before seen implemented. An innovat...