Manning Draco
Created by Kendall Foster Crossen; pseudonyms include Bennett Barlay, M. E. Chaber, Richard Foster, Christopher Monig & Clay Richards, 1910-1981)

An early SF gumshoe, MANNING DRACO is a 35th century insurance investigator hot on the trail of an alien grifter called Dzanku Dzanku in the 1953 sci-fi/P.I. hybrid Once Upon a Star.Played for laughs, supposedly.

And reader Tom Gray, who has fond memories of the Manning's one recorded appearance, 1953's Once Upon a Star, wrote in to pass along the following tidbits:
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• Manning was the only Terran ever to develop a secondary mind shield.
  
• He won a game of Tzitsa (sp?), a telepathy game in which one player thinks of a word and its definition. Player 2 attempts to grope in player 1's mind for the word and definition, momentarily opening player 2's mind shield, while player 1 attempts to break through the shield and seize control of player 2's mind.
  
• The other player in the game was Dzanku Dzanku, a Rigellian. Rigellians invented Tzitsa, I think, and were the best at it (I suppose with hindsight that this was supposed to be comparable to Russians and chess).
  
• Hmmm, another character in the book was named Nar Oysnarn. Draco picked him up when Oysnarn was standing out in space holding his thumbs out, hitchhiking. Hmmm, more is coming back. Oysnarn had the power to paralyze someone while he attempted to read their mind.

Tom adds that "I read the book when I was about 10 (maybe 40 years ago) and liked it well enough that I still remember a little about it."

Author Kendall Foster Crossen, working under his own name and a series of pseudonyms, wrote over 400 raio and television dramas, some 300 short stories, 250 non-fiction articles and around forty-five novels. He also wrote reviews, and edited several science fiction collections, and served as editor for a while for Detective Fiction Weekly. He's probably berst known for created Milo March, but also created insurance man Brian Brett and 1950s tough guy dick Pete Draco, who may or may not be related to that ol' Tzitsa-playing Manning.

NOVELS

• Once Upon a Star (1953)

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith, with much appreciated help from reader Tom Gray.