Edited by Jim Beard

Metahuman Press, out now

Sam is a swell guy. He’s the best pal Augie Detwiler and reporter Doona could hope for in New York City at the start of the 1940s. The only thing is – he’s kinda grey. And metallic. And… Hell, he’s a robot. Okay, sorry, an automaton…

The “sauce” in the title of this short but fun anthology of tales featuring Sam’s adventures comes from a certain ribaldry that underlines a lot of the action – we’re more in seaside postcard, Monty Python’s “Nudge nudge wink wink” territory (and their cinematic offspring the Carry On films) than we are any serious smut. British readers of a certain age will easily imagine Doona being played by Kenny Everett’s character Cupid Stunt, whose clothes fell off when it was necessary for the script, but all done in the “best possible taste!”

There’s something refreshingly innocent about these stories, which feel as if they’ve come from a long lost pulp magazine – there are cops with nicknames like Officer Pum’kin, and gangsters called Ice Cream Cohen. One of the plots is based around attempts to steal tickets for a Shirley Temple premiere. Key figures from real history make cameo – and not so cameo – appearances. Each of the writers evokes the period in their own particular way, and you come away with a real feel for this slightly fictionalised metropolis.

And at the heart of it all is the mystery of Sam, created, apparently, by a Dr Henry Victor (hmmm….) who has a tendency to switch off at the most inconvenient moments. His discovery of what it means to be human underpins the whole collection, without it ever feeling like he’s a 1940s version of Questor or Data, and there are a few curveballs along the way.

Verdict: A thoroughly entertaining introduction to Sam and his world. 8/10

Paul Simpson