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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