Rich Horton says a few kind words about “A Covenant with Death” as part of his appallingly successful effort to read and review everything, everywhere.
On rereading the story recently I was a little disturbed to find in it an undoubted woman in a refrigerator. I would have avoided this had I known what a cliché it has become, something along the lines of “You killed my brother!” The Women in Refrigerators Syndrome was first tagged in comics, but once the term enters your awareness you see them everywhere in pop culture. The Kim Bauer character in 24, for instance, exists only to be put in (or dangled near) a refrigerator (or cougar), and there are great weeping buckets of other examples.
Of course, death and dismemberment can come to anyone rather abruptly in Morlock’s world, but the casual opportunistic use of any character’s blood to paint the hero in more sympathetic colors is probably a mistake. The management regrets the error.
