The Ambulance Made Two Trips

By: Murray Leinster

Narrated by: Phil Chenevert

Big Jake Connors is taking over his town through violence, intimidation and bribery but Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald can only grind his teeth in frustration. The gangsters seem to have everything going their way until the day that a little dry cleaning establishment declines their offer of 'protection' and strange things start to happen. Murray Leinster gives us another wonderful product of 'what if' from his limitless imagination to enjoy in this gem of a story. Listen and smile.

Public Domain (P)2014 Phil Chenevert

Decent, But Not Great

Murray Leinster wrote one of my favorite novellas of all time, "First Contact".

I went into this short story KNOWING that it wouldn't be as good, but I was hoping for at least somewhat better than what it was.
Leinster has an odd manner of writing that seems to work perfectly in stories set in space, which most of his stories are, but it somehow doesn't translate to a story from the viewpoint of the average Joe. I WISH I could put it into words, but I honestly can't quite put my finger onto the exact reason for this oddity. This story wasn't bad by any means, but there wasn't much about it to make it special or memorable.

I liked the narrator's voice but there were a few times where I found myself confused as to which of the characters was speaking. I think fault for this lies somewhere in between the actual way the text is written and the lack of dynamic from the narrator in performance.

6.88 / 10.00