| "The Maltese Elephant" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Author | Harry Turtledove |
| First Appearance | Analog |
| Collected | Counting Up, Counting Down |
| Illustrator | George H. Krauter |
| Genre(s) | Detective story, parody |
| Publication date | August, 1995 |
For the fictional film by the same title which was mentioned in passing in The Grapple, see The Maltese Elephant (Southern Victory Film).
"The Maltese Elephant" is Harry Turtledove's pastiche of The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. It follows the same basic plot of Hammett's novel, only is in short story form and the "macguffin" is a living, breathing elephant rather than a falcon statue. It was first published in Analog in August 1995 and was reprinted in the Harry Turtledove book of short stories, Counting Up, Counting Down.
While the story is not alternate history, it is built on a "what if" question: What if Sam Spade, rather than his partner, Miles Archer, was murdered? As is typical, Turtledove makes liberal use of puns, as Miles Archer becomes Miles Bowman, and Sam Spade is Tom Trencher.
See also
- A Different Flesh, where woolly mammoths are common pack animals in 18th-century America.
- "The Yorkshire Mammoth", where woolly mammoths are common work animals in 20th-century England.
| |||||
