Re: (Tears) Mutant by Henry Kuttner & C L Moore

In article <robertaw-7E8ABC.10115911112024@news.individual.net>,
Robert Woodward  <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:

In article <lperdhF1tglU2@mid.individual.net>,
ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) wrote:
>

In article <vgta58$11om5$3@dont-email.me>,
Tony Nance  <tnusenet17@gmail.com> wrote:

On 11/10/24 8:59 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Mutant by Henry Kuttner & C L Moore
 
Given time, the Baldies will peacefully supplant Homo Sapiens. Time
is something the Baldies may not have.
 
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/drink-to-the-course-of-evolution

>
Oh my - mentally preparing for Hogbens would make for some interesting
whiplash when reading just about anything else.
>
After reading your fine review, I have been puzzled over why Mutant
doesn't seem familiar. After a search through the letter K[1] in my
collection, it's clearly because I've never read any of the Baldy
stories. Ha!
>
Which I will remedy when I get the opportunity.
Tony
[1] and M, and O, and P, of course
>

 
If you liked the Hogbens, I believe Leinster wrote a somewhat similar
series of stories about a rural gas-station owner, technical savant..

>
?! I have read a good deal of Leinster, but I don't remember seeing any
stories like that. Now there was a long running series of stories in
Popular Science about a "Model Garage" whose owner (Gus Wilson) was
really good at fixing automobiles, but the best I can tell, the "author"
of the stories was a house name.
>

No I recall the "Model Garage" stories, and this was definitely not them.

However looking at isfdb, I don't see any likely titles, so perhaps I'm
wrong and this is a YASID.

As I recall the premise, our narrator was a guy who solved technical
problems for a living, and he discovered there was this other guy with an
auto-shop/gas station/garage somewhere out in the country who was too
lazy to fix things the normal way and could solve any technical problem
without realizing it as impossible.  I think one example was an engine
that had seized up, and he did something with a battery that neutralized
all friction inside the mechanism to get it going again.  I believe
there were several stories, and the narrator would bring him problems
without indicating that they were important and that nobody else had
any idea what to do.

If that wasn't Leinster, I'd like to know who it was...
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