Bewildering Stories welcomes...

Andrew Sacks

Andrew is an English instructor at community colleges near Los Angeles. He has written fiction extensively in various genres but has also published articles on the history of chess, a game in which he has achieved a Master rating.

“Martin’s Reward” is a story of the “Tar Baby” subgenre: the hero finds something valuable and realizes he can’t keep it, but he can’t get rid of it either:

If Martin leaves the mysterious wallet where he finds it, he will have a loose end in his life that will mentally nag him forever.
If he takes whatever contents are valuable, he’ll be a thief.
If he tries to find the owner, he’ll go to a lot of trouble, and the owner may not trust him.
If he turns it into the police... Well, we see what can happen!

There is another alternative, but Martin doesn’t think of it because he has a tragic flaw. Challenge 535 invites readers to tell us what it is.

Andrew Sacks’s bio sketch can be found here.

Welcome to Bewildering Stories, Andrew. We hope to hear from you again soon and often!