The Amazing Misadventures of Oona and Jick by Margaret St. Clair

Book Details

The Amazing Misadventures of Oona and Jick – Oona, Domestic Goddess of the Future and her loving Husband, Jick just want to live comfortable lives and be well thought of in their social set. And not be looked down upon by the Joyzelle Cabot-Cabot’s of this world. Sometimes it all works out, but sometimes it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t . . . .

The Soma Racks (1947) – Weary of her husband’s lethargy, Oona, wife of the future, administers a vitalizer — with some very dizzying results!

Super Whost (1947) – If you ever want a free trip to Mars, all you have to do is mix six slices of diced Super Whost with granulated chopped apples, golden syrup and—a large grain of salt

Aleph Sub One (1948) – Seeking to improve her math via a robot calculator, future housewife Oona all but wipes out the world with a question!

The Dobridust (1948) – This little gadget gave Oona and plenty of other folks more than a headache when it went around doing things!

The Metal Lark (1948) – Oona, woman of the future, decides to have the voice of a concert singer!

The Rotohouse (1948) – It’s a mad whirl for Oona in a rotating domicile!

The Himalaychalet (1949) – Venusians muscle in on the vacation of Oona and Jick!

The Neo-Geoduck (1949) – When the chronostellt made a fabulous mollusk vanish, Oona was in an embarrassing spot!

Margaret St. Clair (1911-1995) was an only child and described her childhood as “rather a lonely and bookish one.” St. Clair and her husband were well-traveled (including some visits to nudist colonies), were childless by choice, and in 1966 were initiated into Wicca, taking the Craft names Froniga and Weyland.

The Amazing Misadventures of Oona and Jick contains 8 illustrations.

Available for and

1. OonaJick.epub
2. OonaJick.mobi

Excerpt: The Soma Racks

Weary of her husband’s lethargy, Oona, wife of the future, administers a vitalizer — with some very dizzying results!

SIT, Oona thought resentfully, that was all he ever did, just sit. You’d think he’d be covered with calluses by now. Ever since he’d been laid off at the space port, he had been sitting in the sunny patch by the window, chewing geela nuts and scanning the stereo. She was sick of it.

Not that Jick was a lazy man. He was a good hard worker whenever he had a job, and he was sure to get something soon. In a lot of ways, he was an ideal husband. He was affectionate, he was thoughtful, and he always remembered anniversaries. Really, she was crazy about him. Only he sat so darned much.

She steered the electro-static cleaner close to her husband’s feet.

“Pick ’em up, honey,” she said.

“Hunh?”

After a moment, Jick slowly raised one foot and then, perceptibly later, the other. Eighty seconds or so after she had finished cleaning under him, he put his feet down again. His face was wearing that dopey look that bothered Oona so much.

And if she asked him to do something around the house, he acted as if she were trying to murder him. Last week he’d got a burst of energy. He wanted to make something, he said. He’d worked on it all day. Well, what had he made? A rack for used soma bottles. Soma bottles, for heavens sake! They weren’t attractive in any way, and they haven’t even any economic value. Most people ran them through the garbage reducer and were done with them.

Meanwhile the element on the electronic range needed something done to it—it took nearly twenty minutes to cook pot roast—there was a fly in the house because the lethax at the windows hadn’t been renewed, and the steam beer tap In the kitchen leaked all the time.

Oona finished cleaning the eutex. She put the cleaner away in a foot locker and went into the bedroom to glaze her face and rest a minute before starting lunch. While the cosmetic-soaked pads were drying, she picked up a magazine and began flipping over the pages.

Zibeline was the color this season, it seemed, and Venusian quohogs were winning wide popularity in the stereo colony as pets. Maddi Trax was having twin baby girls in April and . . . An ad caught Oona’s eyes. It ran:

Do they call you LAZY? Do you lack energy, ouff, push? Henderson’s Vitalizer was made for you. It floods the cells with radiant energy from the sub-molecular cosmic fountains. Not a chemical, not a drug. Harmless. Permanent Cumulative. Recommended by Consumers’ Institute. Ask to see it at your stereo dealer’s.

H’m. Consumers’ Institute was, on the whole, reliable. The metallic dust Oona used on her hair was recommended by them, and so was her eye do. And it didn’t seem to her that she could stand another day of seeing Jick sitting in the corner, the only mobile thing about him his slowly moving jaws.

SHE stopped in at the stereo dealer’s on her way back from mart. “Henderson’s Vitallzer?” he said. “Sure. We sell a lot of them.”

He reached under the counter and brought up a small, square, silvery box. Its edges had a peculiar wavy, elusive quality. Oona’s eyes had trouble in making them stay still.

“The Henderson people have done a sweet engineering job on this model,” he said. “All the power and special features of the cabinet size, and it weighs less than a kilo.”

“How does it work?”

“It taps the sub-molecular quanta of energy on the cosmic level and relays them directly to the nerve cells.”

“Hunh?”

“I said, it taps the sub-molecular quanta—”

“Oh, never mind. . . . Is it harmless?”

“Harmless? I should say so. I use it myself. It’s fully guaranteed. Only thing is, you want not to overdo it. It’s darned near permanent, the way they say, and it’s cumulative, too. There are times when you don’t want to have too much energy.”

Oona looked at the Vitalizer again.

“How much is it?” she asked.

He told her. She sighed.

“Full instructions come with it,” the dealer added persuasively.

Excerpt From: Margaret St. Clair. “The Amazing Misadventures of Oona and Jick.”