From Blogger

I've made several posts today, but not a one of them has shown up on the blog. Here's what blogger has to say:

Hi there,

We apologize for the problems you have been experiencing with Blogger. We
had a simultaneous failure across multiple machines responsible for the
publishing of Blog*Spot blogs, but this issue has now been fixed. To
prevent this type of outage in the future, we are performing a full system
audit to ensure that proper redundancies are in place.

Sincerely,
Blogger Support

Now I'll try posting this to see if the issue really has been fixed.

Me Gotta Go Now

Me Gotta Go Now

Dave Lewis has started a blog, and today he has some comments on Zatoichi. Check him out.

Mystery*File

The latest issue of Steve Lewis's Mystery*File is available now, and it's probably the best one yet. Reviews and articles by Vince Keenan, Ed Gorman, me, Ed Lynskey, and many others. Great stuff, and if you're not a subscriber, you should be. You can get in touch with Steve via e-mail at stevelewis62@cox.net.

The Quick

Blogger is uncommonly wonky these days. I've made several posts that have never shown up, but I'm a persistent cuss. I keep right on trying.

Last night I read The Quick by Dan Vining. This is one of those books that seemed to be about one thing and then turned into something else entirely. At first it appeared to be a Ross Macdonald-ish SoCal p.i. novel. Then it got murky. (Warning: From this point on I reveal things you don't want to know if you plan to read the book.) It seems that Los Angeles is full of "Sailors." These are people who are dead. They're not zombies. They eat and drink and do everything living people do. But their dead bodies have been buried. Somehow they have new bodies that don't age. Jimmy Miles, the p.i., is a Sailor. So the mystery element of the book becomes less important as the story unfolds, and in fact by the end, the book has devolved into what I thought of as a bunch of New Age nonsense. I felt cheated, and I felt as if I'd wasted my time reading the book. There are some other problems, too. The POV isn't handled well, for one thing. For another there are some inconsistencies in the stuff about the Sailors. One new Sailor notices that his hair has stopped growing. But Jimmy Miles has to shave. Why should that worry me, though, when the book is so disappointing? I don't think I'll be reading any more books in this series (assuming it becomes a series).

How to write a best selling fantasy novel.

How to write a best selling fantasy novel.

Some of you reading this blog (I know you're out there; I can hear you breathing) might be wondering how to get rich in the writing game. Well, the link above provides the answer.

The Lovely Bones

I'm probably the last person in America to read Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones. But that may be because nobody told me it was a serial killer novel. It's an odd serial killer novel, sure, but to me that's exactly what it is. The POV's different, I'll admit, since the book is narrated by one of the victims after her death, but aside from that it's just another riff on Red Dragon. OK, so I'm exaggerating, but not as much as you might think if you haven't read the book. You've read it, thugh, since everyone in the country has, now that I have.

My Way News

My Way News: "LONDON (AP) - Archaeologists in northwestern England have found a burial site of six Viking men and women, complete with swords, spears, jewelry, fire-making materials and riding equipment, officials said Monday."

More cool news. I'd love to see this stuff.

Hard Case Crime

Hard Case Crime: "Hard Case Crime brings you the best in hardboiled crime fiction, ranging from lost noir masterpieces to new novels by today's most powerful writers, featuring stunning original cover art in the grand pulp style."

The first two books from Hard Case Crime are available today. What a great line of books and covers, and what a great idea! I hope everyone's going to support them.

1st Space Elevator Competition Set for Mid-2005

1st Space Elevator Competition Set for Mid-2005: "The new race to space is emerging that may be an even more exciting and challenging than that of the Ansari X Prize and may hold the promise of low cost Earth-to-orbit and beyond launches that would make SpaceShip One technology appear to be from yesteryear."

I love this stuff. I hope I live long enough to see it work.

Weekend

I realized this morning that I've failed to report on my weekend in Thornton, Texas. That's mainly because when you spend a weekend in a town with a population of around 600 people, there's not a whole lot to report. I did get some reading done (see previous post), and I saw most of two movies: The Princess Bride and The Breakfast Club. I'd seen both of those before, but it had been a while.

I like The Princess Bride well enough, but I read the book when it first came out, and I like that a lot better. A wonderful book.

The Breakfast Club surprised me. I liked it better than I did when I saw it nearly 20 years ago. A really good ensemble cast and some terrific moments. Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estivez, Ally Sheedy, and Anthony Michael Hall never did better than this, which is kind of sad when you think about it. To do something this good as a teenager and then never to live up to it must be a huge disappointment, not that they don't still have time to do something great.

And then there's the song. "Don't You Forget about Me" by Simple Minds is a classic. Perfect for the movie, too. I need to find an MP3 of that one Real Soon Now.

News

News: "A Leonardo da Vinci for the twenty-first century
It may look like a combine-harvester but a plane designed in a Tuscan farmhouse is being hailed as one of the great breakthroughs in aeronautical history. Peter Popham meets its inventor"

This is pretty cool. If you want to see a picture of the plane, it has its own homepage here.

The Lecturer's Tale

Now and then I can't resist reading an academic novel, so this weekend I read James Hynes' The Lecturer's Tale. I'd read one of Hynes' books earlier, one called Publish and Perish, which I enjoyed quite a bit, so I was pretty sure I'd like this one, too.

I did, especially for the first 200 or so pages, but after that its delights began to pall a little. And why is it that so many novels by "literary" guys like this have to end in some version of the apocalypse? I can think of a lot of other instances, but I'm not going into them here.

But, as usual, I digress. The novel is about Nelson Humbolt, an adjunct lecturer in the English Department at the University of the Midwest. It's a perilous life, and Nelson is fired. His publications aren't up to par, and his mentor in the department has deserted him.

Minutes later, while the tower clock is striking thirteen, Nelson loses his middle finger in a freak accident. When it's reattached, he discovers that he can make people do whatever he wants by touching them with it. He sets out to do good. Well, we all know where that leads.

Part of my problem with the latter part of this book is that I found myself in sympathy with some of Nelson's goals, and with the goals of his mentor, whose name is Weissmann, in the batte of the theorists vs. the people who just love literature and support "the canon." But neither Nelson nor Weissmann is a particularly admirable character, especially not by this point in the book. Nelson has let his rage nearly overcome his original good intentions. Or maybe entirely overcome them.

Lots of good names in the book, including my favorite, Lester Antilles. And lots of wonderful satire of academic types. Antilles is a good example. He "refused on principle to participate in the marginalization of indigenous voices or to be come complicit with the hegemonic discourse of Western postcolonial cultural imperialism. In practice, this meant that for six years he refused to take classes, attend seminars, or write a dissertation. As a result of this ideologically engaged nonparticipation, he was offered tenured positions even before he had his Ph.D. . . ."

The book is full of great stuff like that, and I found myself laughing out loud more than once because it's all too familiar.

So I'm willing to forgive the apocalypse. This is a funny, well-written book. Any English major will love it.

I have Hynes' first novel, The Wild Colonial Boy on hand to read, along with his most recent, Kings of Infinite Space. I'm sure I need to space them out a good bit, but I'll get to them eventually.

The Weekend

This afternoon, Judy and I are going to drive up to the metropolis of Thornton, Texas, and visit with her mother for a couple of days. There's no Internet in Thornton, or at least there's not at my mother-in-law's house. I'm not even sure she really knows that the Internet exists. She's about to turn 92 years old, and while she can operate her VCR and tape her soap operas every day, she's not into computers. What she's into is yard work. She still mows her own lawn every week of the summer, and it's a huge lawn. She uses a power mower, but it's not self-propelled. She has to push it every step of the way. And she cleans her house, including mopping her floors, every single day. She's pretty amazing when you get right down to it, and an inspiration to us all.

Who's Had Who

Another book I bought is Who's Had Who, which purports to be a carefully researched tome on the subject of, well, you read the title. If half the stuff I've read is true, then people have been a lot busier than I thought. How did Elvis ever have time to record any songs?

The book's copyright date is 1990, and I can't begin to imagine what's been going on between then and now. It's probably best not to think about it.

Elvis

As I anticipated, I didn't find many books worth mentioning on my little expedition yesterday. Fewer even than I'd hoped.

One thing I picked up was The Ultimate Elvis by Patricial Jobe Pierce. Hey, it was only two bucks. I couldn't resist.

And what, you might well be asking, is the ultimate when it comes to Elvis? Well, in this case it's a "Day-by-day clandear of Elvis Presley's life, from birth to death and beyond." And that's just for starters. It also has "Lists galore, from the men and women in his life to his phone numbers, home addresses, pets, nicknames, codenames, personal statistics, and awards."

And there's even more!

You're not gonna tell me you could have passed this up.

Judy is having a gaggle of friends over this afternoon, which means it's time for me to vacate the premises. I'll spend the rest of the day cruising some bookstores, seeing what treasures I can find. Probably not many. The pickings are slim these days. Most stores don't even bother with the kinds of books I'm interested in. If the book doesn't have a cover price of more than five dollars, they don't want it. The ones that do have a few old books always seem to stick some random price on them, hoping for a sucker to come along. That's why you can see a copy of, say, a tenth printing of a Perry Mason book with a $10 price tag.

So why do I keep going out and looking? Well, you know that old saying about hope springing eternal. But then Emily Dickinson said that hope is the thing with feathers. Whatever that means. You'd think that if it had feathers, it could stop springing around and take off in full flight.

But I digress. If I find anything worth mentioning, I'll do it here tomorrow. My inner pessimist tells me there won't be anything. But the feathery springer keeps whispering, "Just maybe . . . just maybe. . . ."

G-Strings

I forgot to mention (and you're probably sorry that I've remembered) that last week The Fabulous G-Strings performed at the Alvin Community College pre-school workshop. (For more about the Fab Five go here.) We did our versions of "Memories are Made of This," "Da Doo Run Run," and "Cool Water." These versions would most likely not be recognized by the original singers. They are, in fact, often not recognized by anyone except us, but at least we amuse ourselves.

Old Paperbacks

This afternoon I got a call from a reporter for the Houston Chronicle. He's working on a story on Hard Case Crime, the new paperback imprint that's doing some classic reprints (Lawrence Block, etc.) and some new books (Al Guthrie has one of them). The reporter wanted to talk to someone about the old paperbacks because he collects them himself, and he was given my name. We talked for a while, and I told him a little about my accumulation. An hour or so later, he called back to say he wanted to pay me a visit and bring a photographer from the paper with him. Fine by me. Maybe I'll get a little free publicity out of the deal.

Andrew Klavan

I've been reading Andrew Klavan's books since the days when he was Keith Peterson. I don't think I've missed more than a couple of them. My favorite is one called The Uncanny. In fact, I should read that one again, one of these days.

But today's topic is Dynamite Road, just out in paperback. It's the first book in a new series about a private-detective agency run by a man named Weiss. His top investigator is named Bishop. And this time, among other things, they're after a serial killer called "The Shadowman." As you'd expect if you've read much Klavan, this is a wild and wolly ride, totally unbelieveable, but fun (at least for me). The Shadowman makes Hannibal Lecter seem like one of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Bishop is tough as whet leather and almost soulless. Weiss can instinctively put together nearly any crime puzzle, albeit a bit slowly. And there's plenty of action for the movie version.

You might recall (or you might not) that in a recent post I complained about books that mix first- and third-person narration. Well, this one does it, too, but for some reason I don't mind. It's an entirely different kind of narration, for one thing, with the first-person tale-teller sort of drifting in and out of the narrative and not being a really major character. He's a young guy who's just out of college, and his first job is with the Agency. He wants to be a writer, so he's observing things and then (apparently after some years have passed) writing this novelistic account of what he experienced. Since most of it wasn't first-hand experience, he uses his writerly skills and imagination to tell the story. It shouldn't work, but it does.

Something Old, Nothing New

Something Old, Nothing New: "Bob McKimson
Of the directors of Warner Brothers cartoons, Robert McKimson is the forgotten man."

Check out this whole post if you're interested in WB cartoons. And who's not?

Boston.com / A&E / Celebrity news / Actors turned singers

Boston.com / A&E / Celebrity news / Actors turned singers: "Steven Seagal
In the late 80s and early 90s, Steven Seagal was above the law, marked for death, hard to kill, and out for justice. The perennial badass, Seagal not only plays a master of martial arts on film...he actually is one. So giving advice to stay clear of a music career could be tough ('Sure, Steve...this sounds great!'), but I dare you to keep a straight face while looking at this album cover. "

And there's even an audio clip! Nuff said.

School

School started without me at Alvin Community College last week. It's been two years since I left teaching, and people still ask me if I miss it. The truth is that I do, especially in the fall when the school year's beginning and classes are about to start. Every fall I'd walk into the classroom and think, "This is the year they're really going to learn something. This is the year I'll make a difference." Maybe it never happened, but it was a good feeling nevertheless. And I do miss it.

What I don't miss is the endless meetings, the hassle of dealing with complaints, the stress of registration.

All in all, I have no regrets. I was lucky to find a career that I enjoyed so much. Most of the time, it wasn't even like working. It was like having fun.

Ed's Place

Ed's Place: "I ordered The Martian Chronicles, Groff Conklin's Thinking Machines and an Ace Double that I believe had an Eric Frank Russell short novel on one side."

A great post over at Ed's Place today, and one that a lot of writers will identify with. I certainly do. I'm just going to comment on one part of it here because it ties in with an earlier post of mine, and a comment of James Reasoner's attached to that same post. It's funny how science fiction grabbed all three of us when we were young.

After I discovered Heinlein, I went on to read several novels in the Winston SF series, and in keeping with my visual orientation, I can still look at the endpapers of those books and feel some of the old thrill. Wonderful stuff. I've mentioned the ones I owned in an earlier post, I'm sure.

And then there was Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter series. You'd be surprised how hard it was to get a copy of one of those books back in the middle 1950s. Not a one was in print in paperback. I found out about them by reading the comic books that were based on them, and then a friend of mine whose parents had more money than I did, and whose parents were more indulgent, started ordering the hardbacks from book dealers. He was kind enough to let me read them, but he owed me for having introduced him to SF in the first place.

The book that sealed my fate, however, was one of those fat anthologies by Groff Conklin. I'm not sure which one it was, but it was either The Science Fiction Omnibus or The Big Book of Science Fiction. The one with T. L. Sherred's "E for Effort" in it. What a great story! I read it two or three times in a row.

But I digress. It was by looking at the copyright page of the Conklin anthology that I learned that there were magazines publishing stories like the ones in the book. I went to the bookstore (and how great was it that in Mexia, Texas, in the 1950s, there was a real bookstore?) and found a copy of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Another life-changing experience, because on the two spinning racks of paperbacks near the magazines I found the wonderful Ace Doubles, the Gold Medal novels, and many more. Great days, indeed.

Bestseller Lists 1950-1995

Bestseller Lists 1950-1995: "BESTSELLER LISTS"

OK, what with the errors in the list below, I thought I'd check out the 'Net. This link goes to the PW bestsellers by decade. I suspect these lists are much more reliable than the one abebooks put together.

Abebooks: Bestselling Books for the Twentieth Century

Abebooks: Bestselling Books for the Twentieth Century: "Bestselling Books for the Twentieth Century"

Another list. I'm surprised at only one: how did The Virginian get to be the bestselling book of 1952? I'm sure there's a logical reason. OK, I lied. Here's another surprise. I don't remember having even heard of The Broad Highway, the bestselling novel of 1961. I must have been asleep that year.

Hero

Judy and I went to see Hero yesterday. It's a beautiful movie, with some terrific martial arts battles, and it moves from one amazing scene to the next. I'm pretty sure I don't agree with its message, however.

Aside from the message, though, I liked it a lot. Judy, on the other hand, was not impressed. She generally has two reviews of movies I drag her to: "Better than I expected" and "About what I expected." This one got the latter comment.

And other people in the theater were even less impressed than Judy.

Someone sitting behind us had brought along a little kid. It didn't take him long to catch on to the fact that things weren't as they should be. A couple of minutes into the film, he shouted, "Those people don't talk right!"

And two people just walked out through the exit near the screen when the movie was about halfway over. I don't know what they'd been expecting, but Hero clearly didn't measure up.

Lost Pages | Found Pages: Crossgenre noir: 50 favourites

Lost Pages | Found Pages: Crossgenre noir: 50 favourites: "Crossgenre noir: 50 favourites"

Picked this link 1up from Ed Gorman's site. It was mentioned to Ed by Jack O'Connell. I've read a surprising number of the books on the list, including one of the French ones (but when I read it, it was called The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun. Boy, that was a long time ago. Anyway, it's an interesting list. Check it out.

Ed's Place

Ed's Place: "John K. Butler

One of the many great pulp collections published by Adventure House is the John K Butler stories from Dime Detective featuring cabbie Steve Midnight. This is my third time through the book that comes complete with ads from the time and promises of great lurid stories in the very next issue."

As I've said before, one of the advantages of having a lot of books is that when you read about something interesting, you can often just go to your shelves and pull down the book. Which is what I did when I read Ed Gorman's post about John K. Butler a few days ago. I've read the first two stories in the book, and while I'm not quite as enthusiastic about them as Ed is, I certainly plan to read more of them over the weekend.

DallasCowboys.com - The Official Site of the Dallas Cowboys

DallasCowboys.com - The Official Site of the Dallas Cowboys: "Cowboys, Comcast to Launch Dallas Cowboys Channel
No longer will Cowboys fans have to wait for highlights of their favorite team on the evening news. The Dallas Cowboys and Comcast Cable announced Thursday an all-new digital channel - Dallas Cowboys Channel - featuring an all-access look at America's Team. The 24/7 channel, which launches Sept. 8, will have a daily news update, Bill Parcells' daily press conference live, rebroadcast of preseason games, cheerleader specials, highlights of memorable Cowboys moments and fan interactive shows. "

All Cowboys, all the time. Another idea whose time has come! Anybody want to bet that the cheerleader specials will be the highest-rated shows?

TXRD.com ::: Texas Roller Derby ::: Lonestar Rollergirls

TXRD.com ::: Texas Roller Derby ::: Lonestar Rollergirls

Roller Derby's back, and Texas has it. An idea whose time has come?

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage: "Scientists vote 'Blade Runner' best ever sci-fi film"

An interesting list, not that I agree with all their choices. But they're scientists. What do they know?

Hawk & Fisher

I heard about Simon Green's Hawk & Fisher from someone years ago, but I never got around reading the book until last night. It's a fantasy novel about two cops, Hawk and Fisher, who are husband and wife and who carry an axe (Hawk) and a sword (Fisher). They inhabit a fantasy world where magic works and where crime is rampant. This book is about a locked-room murder in the home of a powerful sorcerer. It's also a riff on Christie's Ten Little Indians, as that after the murder occurs, no one can enter or leave the house. And of course people keep dying. I'd like to say this is an undiscovered classic, but I can't. That would be wrong. The writing is undistinguished and in some cases downright irritating. (So many people were saying things "dryly" that I thought I was sitting in the Sahara.) The plot resolutions are, in my opinion, sort of a cheat, but you might think differently. If you've read it, let me know. I have another book in this series, but I'm not eager to read it.

Rough Edges

Rough Edges: "Today while searching the Internet in an attempt to find out when and where the two stories in the book were originally published, I found a great site devoted to science fiction pulps and digests:

http://www.noosfere.com/showcase/pulps__magazines_americains.htm

It's in French, but it features cover scans and indexes for just about every SF magazine you can think of."

I can't resist reprinting this link from James Reasoner's site. I love those old covers, and even if the stories in the magazines don't hold up too well, the covers can still evoke that old sense of wonder for me every time I see them.

Ed's Place

Ed's Place: "Richard Wormser - Ed Gorman"

Ed says he found a couple of Wormser novels in a dime bin. That's what I'd call good luck. I like all Wormser's Gold Medal novels, but the ones I seem to recall best are Drive East on 66, A Nice Girl Like You, and Perfect Pigeon. Wormser won the "best paperback" Edgar for a later GM, possibly The Invader. All well worth seeking out.

DenverPost.com - LOCAL NEWS

DenverPost.com - LOCAL NEWS: "Resort goes to extreme heights
Tall Timber looks to live up to name with tree 'soaring'"

Ah, to be a rich guy and play Tarzan!

Jack London

When I was a kid, I read Call of the Wild at least twice, and when I got to high school, I (like every other kid in America, probably) read "To Build a Fire." Naturally, having read those two things, I associated Jack London with the Frozen North.

But London also wrote South Sea adventure stories about a man named David Grief. These were the basis for a pretty bad syndicated TV series in the 1950s, Captain David Grief. I vaguely remembered the series, but I'd never read any of the stories until the other day, when I picked up an old Popular Library reprint of a book called Son of the Sun. The reprint, because of the TV series, is titled Adventures of Captain David Grief.

The copyright info in front of the book mentions the Curtis Publishing Company, which I assume means The Saturday Evening Post published the stories originally. In a way, I wish London had been aiming at the pulp market. The stories might have been a little more exciting if he had.

Still, they have their moments. When you're dealing with headhunters, sharks, and hidden treasure, it's hard not to generate some thrills. But I get the impression that the thrills were toned down a bit, especially in a story like "The Jokers of New Gibbon," which would have been a lot better if the action had taken place on stage instead of between the lines of a page break.

Oddly enough, the first story in the book, "The Proud Goat of Aloysius Pankborn," reminded me of some of the SF stories I read in the 1950s about alien contact. It's also a little like Captain's Courageous, in which a wuss is transformed into a real man by hard work and sailing.

The collection is entertaining enough to hold my interest, but then I can't resist stories about the South Seas. And another thing I like about them is that I figure I'm the only person in the United States who's reading them.

Money Matters

Here's something that really burns me: Last Wednesday, we sent in a pretty big credit card payment. We figured the check couldn't possibly arrive before Friday, or maybe Saturday. When I checked my bank account yesterday, the money was already gone. So five days after I mailed the check, the money was transferred from my bank account to good old Mastercard.

Today I took a royalty check to the bank and deposited it. The nice teller said, "I have to remind you, Mr. Crider, that there's a hold on the check for five business days."

Why is it that when I deposit a check, there's a hold on it, but when Mastercard gets my check, the money disappears from my account instantly? Doesn't seem fair, somehow.

My Life as a Reader, Part 1

My Life as a Reader, Part 1:

I've always had low taste in literature. Naturally, I blame my parents.

One of my early memories of my mother is of her holding me up to the shelves in the public library in Mexia, Texas, and letting me pick a book to take home. The one I remember choosing was about Clementine, a flying pig. I liked it so much that I checked it out over and over. (I've looked for the book since, but I've never been able to find it. Maybe I made it up.) What kind of start is that for a young reader?

That library was phased out, and it's now an Episcopal Church. Which seems kind of appropriate to me.

When I started going alone to the new (air-conditioned!) Gibbs Memorial Library, riding my crummy secondhand bike, I checked out series books: the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Tarzan, Bomba the Jungle Boy, the Bobbsey Twins. My parents didn't care. They didn't say, "Why are you reading that crap? Doesn't the library have a copy of Crime and Punishment?" They just let me read whatever I wanted to.

My teachers didn't care, either, so maybe it's partially their fault. They let us go to the school library on certain days, and we could read whatever we wanted to and check out anything we liked. It was in the library at Ross Avenue Elementary School that I ran across Rocketship Galileo, a book that pretty much initiated my years'-long immersion in SF.

Come to think of it, I guess the librarians didn't care, either, or they wouldn't have ordered books by Robert A. Heinlein in the first place.

So I'd like to take this opportunity, though it's far too late, to thank my parents, my teachers, and those librarians. If I didn't have low taste in literature, I'd probably have no taste at all.

The 80's Movies Rewind @www.fast-rewind.com -- Home of 80s Movies

The 80's Movies Rewind @www.fast-rewind.com -- Home of 80s Movies

Here's a site I located though Pop Culture Junk Mail. Great stuff about '80s movies (plot summaries, trivia, etc.). I could probably spend the whole day browsing here, but I won't. I hope I won't.

Dirty Sally

This weekend I read Michael Simon's Dirty Sally. The best brief description of the book I can some up with is that it's like the 87th Precinct as written by James Crumley. Or maybe Boston Teran.

It's one of those books that begins over the top and builds from there. Everything is ramped up to the nth degree, and reading the book is sort of like watching a DVD at 2X. It's the kind of book where cars "roar" and "speed" and "zoom." By the end, the main character hasn't slept in weeks, he's been beaten to a pulp, drugged, beaten again, mauled by a bear (OK, I made that last one up), but he's still functioning and puts everything together for the big confrontation scene.

The plot, to put it politely, is preposterous. The uber-villain does any number of incredibly stupid things, but then there's not really a believeable character in the novel. The Chinatown-like resolution is just silly.

The narration is a Duke's mixture. Some of the scenes are first-person, some are third-person. I don't like the mix even when James Lee Burke does it, and I don't like it here. I don't even see the reason for it.

I gave up trying to count the bodies and the buckets of blood, but there's a sufficiency of both. Trust me.

Drugs? You bet. Grotesque scenes of corpses and autopsies? Absolutely.

There might have been a time when I was the target audience for a book like this. Not anymore. But it will probably sell well. As someone once said, if you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you'll like.

Angry Alien Productions, Sase and Topsie

Angry Alien Productions, Sase and Topsie: "Jaws in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies."

OK, I admit it. I think this is pretty funny.

LPs

In a comment down below, James Reasoner asks how I play those old LPs I buy at the DAV store. My turntable, like his, went south a couple of years ago. I could probably have found one at the DAV store, come to think of it, but what I did instead was buy one of those "retro" combo players that you see all over the place these days. It has a turntable, AM/FM radio, and CD player. The turntable plays only 33-1/3 and 45 rpm records, which is too bad, since I have some 78s. And of course the sound is nothing like many of you stereo buffs require. But it's good enough for me.

Something Old, Nothing New

Something Old, Nothing New: "Something Old, Nothing New"

If you need cheering up today, click on the link and check out the post on P. G. Wodehouse's Mr. Mulliner stories. It's going to make you want to re-read Wodehouse immediately. And if you haven't read him, you shouldn't be wasting your time here. You should be placing your book order.

Collateral

Judy and I went to see Collateral yesterday. If you haven't seen it, you might want to quit reading now, because I'll probably give away some supposed surprises.

Here's the deal. Jamie Foxx plays a taxi driver named Max. My theory about books and movies is that everybody is willing to forgive one big coincidence, but the fact that Max's first fare is an attorney (Jada Pinkett Smith) who's on the hit list of his second fare, Vincent (Tom Cruise) is a little hard to swallow. This isn't really giving anything away, however, since anybody who sees the movie is going to twig to it a lot quicker than Max does.

Since the attorney is #5 on a list of five, Vincent has to kill a lot of people before he gets to her, and he hires Max to drive him from victim to victim (there's a hint in the movie that this has happened at least once before, though not to Max). When Max finds out what's going on, Vincent forces him to participate.

You pretty much know how this is going to turn out. Max, the ordinary guy, will prove to be a little more heroic than Vincent expects, there will be a "suspenseful" chase, and yadda yadda yadda.

I thought the movie was pretty good, though. Cruise does a good villain, and has a nice last line. Foxx is a lot better than I thought he'd be. Really good, in fact. I'm looking forward to seeing how he does as Ray Charles in Ray later on this year.

One jarring note that took me out of the movie: Mark Ruffalo appears as a cop and seems to be playing the same guy he played in In the Cut. I kept expecting Meg Ryan to show up for some hot R-rated sex.

DAV

This morning I made a trip to the Disabled Veterans Thrift Store. I try to get by there every couple of weeks because you never know what books might turn up. (I got a run of The Lady from L.U.S.T., for example.) Today there wasn't much, but I picked up a hardback copy of the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction. It's the 1999 edition, so I'll have a chance to catch up with some writers I'm no doubt unfamiliar with.

The DAV store also sells vinyl LPs for seventy cents or three for a buck-fifty. I bought Jethro Tull's Aqualung, something by Styx, and a double album by REO Speedwagon. What can I say? I can't resist a bargain.

FOX23 -- NEWS

FOX23 -- NEWS: "Kennedy Killing to Undergo Digital Review"

Too bad it's going to take at least a year. But then I figure they won't learn anything new anyway.

Working for the Man

When I was in high school, I worked at Red Arrow Freight Lines in the summers and on Saturdays. That probably explains why Algis Budrys' "The Distant Sound of Engines" hit me so hard when I read it in the March 1959 issue of F&SF. And why I've remembered it so well for 45 years. It's not a great story, but when I read it, I thought, "I know people just like the guy telling this story. I go to work with them every day of the summer." And it had some stuff about trucks in it, too.

Not too many years ago, Joe Lansdale and I were talking at AggieCon, and he said he'd like to do an anthology of trucking stories (but he never did). I said, "There's one by Algis Budrys you really should use." I couldn't remember the name of it, of course. So when I opened the Budrys anthology I picked up at Armadillocon, the first thing I looked at was the table of contents. When I saw "The Sound of Distant Engines," I said, "That's it." And it was. I read it immediately. It hasn't dated at all. And I still love it.

There's another story in the book that I also remembered, more for the great Kelly Freas cover illustration on a 1956 Astounding than for the story. It's "The Executioner," and it's a really good story. It's about faith and politics that's just as relevant (and just as true) today as it was nearly 50 years ago, which is pretty scary. Read it if you ever run across it.

Algis Budrys

When I attended the World Science Fiction Convention in San Antonio in 1997, Algis Budrys was one of the major guests. He's a writer I've always sort of kept up with, probably because he has an unusual name, but also because he wrote a story I'm really fond of. (More about that in another post.) And because I really liked the cover of the first paperback edition of Who?

At the WorldCon, one of the freebies was a copy of a Budrys short-story collection called Entertainment, published by the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA). I didn't get a copy at the time because I didn't know about it. However, there were some copies left over, and they were given away at the recent Armadillocon. This time, I got one.

The stories in the book are from my Golden Age of Science Fiction, 1954-1958, and they originally appeared in the magazines I was devouring at the time: Astounding, Venture, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Infinity. So naturally I've been reading a few of them again. Ah, the nostalgic thrills.

DRUDGE REPORT 2004?

DRUDGE REPORT 2004?: "FLASH: The current version of the PARAMOUNT film TEAM AMERICA is a guaranteed NC-17, with surprisingly graphic scenes of puppet sex.."


Well, that does it. Now I know I'm going to see it.

Something Old, Nothing New

Something Old, Nothing New: "Grudge Matches I'd Like To See
To follow up on the previous post... a few years ago, I actually considered doing a sort of 'Indie Grudge Match' site that would do matches that were too obscure for the WWWF Grudge Match. Foolishly, I dropped the idea and wound up blogging instead. But I thought I'd post about some of the pop-culture grudge matches I'd like to see."

This is a pretty funny post. Or at least I thought so. Click on the link and see for yourself.

Mexican Movie Gallery

Mexican Movie Gallery: "Cinema Diabolico


Overlooked and under appreciated by most US movie poster collectors, marquee art from south of the border offers a no-holds-barred plethora of often shocking and bizarre images. From the super heroic exploits of El Santo, the masked wrestler, to the re-released, re-packaged, and regurgitated US drive-in fare of the 50's and 60's, Mexican cinema art is generally far superior to American theatre graphics of the same time period."

OK, I'll admit it. I find stuff like this irresistible. There are some great posters here. Every link has something cool. I was reminded of the time about 20 years ago when I was lucky enough to be able to see quite a few movies starring masked Mexican wrestlers.

Stark House Press

I've mentioned Stark House Press before, but it never hurts to remind people of a place that's doing a good job. The latest Stark House project is a reprint of two Douglas Sanderson novels in one volume. Sanderson was probably better-known in the U.S. as Malcolm Douglas because of the Gold Medal novels he did under that name. In fact, the Stark House volume reprints one of those books, Pure Sweet Hell. And it's a good one. It also reprints Catch a Fallen Starlet from Avon, and I know a guy who thinks this is one of Sanderson's best. There are introductions by Kevin Burton Smith and Sanderson's son. The book's not due until November, but I wanted to post this before I forgot. I highly recommend it. You can check out the whole line of Stark House books at http://starkhousepress.com/.

Short Stories

Like James Reasoner, I seem to be in the mood for reading short stories. The three I read yesterday are all in Asimov's Science Fiction for June 2003.

The lead story in the issue is John Varley's "The Bellman." I used to like Varley's stories a lot, and I really enjoyed his 2003 "comeback" novel, Red Thunder, which for me captured some of the feeling of Robert Heinlein's YA novels from another era. But I didn't much like "The Bellman." It went along fine until the end, when I suddenly felt as if I'd somehow skipped six pages or so. Maybe I'm supposed to be smart enough to fill in the blanks, and I guess I am, but I prefer to have things made a little more clear. Maybe I'll have another look to see what I missed. Or not.

Cory Doctorow has made a lot of noise in the SF field lately, but I'd never read anything by him. So I was glad to see that he had a story in the issue. It's "Nimby and the Dimension Hoppers," and while it has plenty of weird things in it (living houses, bicycle fields), at heart it's an old-fashioned story of the kind I like. I enjoyed it.

I also enjoyed Lawrence Person's "Morlock Chili." I've been acquainted with Lawrence for years, thanks to attending Armadillocon and Aggiecon, but I don't think I'd ever read his fiction before. This story could definitely have appeared in an issue of, say, Amazing Stories around 1958, and nobody would have been overly surprised. I mean that as a compliment. It's funny and well-written and very Texas, and I'll be looking for Person's name from now on.

Alvin, Texas

As some of you know (and some of you don't), I live in swampy Alvin, Texas, about halfway between Sugar Land and Galveston on Highway 6. NASA is about 12 miles away in a different direction. The weather here in the summer is usually just about what you'd expect in a place the early Spanish explorers deemed unfit for human habitation (and there are many who agree with them, even today). But the last few days have been great. We got a rare August cool front, and we've had record low temperatures for a couple of nights. Better yet, the humidity disappeared. Getting up and out for a little jog in the morning was a pleasure. Unfortunately, the humidity has started creeping back in. By tomorrow we'll be back to the usual August pattern: middle to upper 70s at night middle 90s during the day. With plenty of humidity. But the cool front was really great while it lasted.

Guardian Unlimited Books | Top 10s | Paul Murray: top 10 gothic novels

Guardian Unlimited Books | Top 10s | Paul Murray: top 10 gothic novels: " Paul Murray's top 10 gothic novels"

Well, as I said below, I can't resist a good list. Here's another one. What's really surprising (to me) is that I've read 9 of the 10 books on it. (The one I haven't read is #7.)

Something Old, Nothing New

Something Old, Nothing New: "A non-technical BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL post
One more post about The Bad and the Beautiful, but this time not blathering on about the length of shots. Having seen the movie again -- and if you haven't seen it, please buy or rent the DVD -- I thought I'd make a note of which character is based on which real-life Hollywood figure. Writer Charles Schnee, director Vincente Minnelli and producer John Houseman (aka Professor Kingsfield) drew on various Hollywood stories and legends to create the film, and part of the fun of the movie is guessing who these people are intended to represent. Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes less so:"

This is the intro to an interesting post. I hadn't really read much about THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, so I'd never thought about these correspondences. (You might have to scroll down to find the post.)

VinceKeenan.com

VinceKeenan.com
Book: The Killing of the Tinkers, by Ken Bruen (2004)
Reading this novel is like grabbing hold of a live wire while ripped to the gills on Guinness. You’re instantly swept up by the Gael force of Jack Taylor’s personality. I wouldn’t mind if Jack took a drop of Powers every now and then instead of Jameson’s, but otherwise I have no complaints. (Well, one. George Pelecanos’ name is misspelled. In two different ways.)

OK, here's my Ken Bruen comment, inspired by Vince's. When I read the three novels in The White Trilogy, I felt about them pretty much the way Vince feels about The Killing of the Tinkers. So when The Guardians came out and was nominated for the Edgar, among others, I sprang for the hardback edition. And I was disappointed. Sure, Jack Taylor's a great character, and I loved the references to the old paperbackers, but I thought the mystery element of the novel was negligible and the solution was perfunctory. To me, the book seemed more like a mainstream novel with a killing in it. I couldn't believe it had been nominated for an Edgar, because to my mind it wasn't a mystery novel at all. Not that it's not a good book. It's just not a mystery. So I haven't been eager to read The Killing of the Tinkers. I probably will, sooner or later, but I'm not springing for the hardback.

F&SF

I subscribed to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for quite a few years. Then, sometime in the late '90s, I realized that not a single story in the magazine entertained me. And, even worse, I realized that I didn't understand about half of them. So I let my subscription lapse.

A while back, James Reasoner (http://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/) mentioned that he'd been reading the latest issue and that he liked Brad Denton's story called "Sergeant Chip." OK, I thought, if James likes it, it must be OK. (And I like Denton's work a lot. His serial killer novel, Blackburn, is a classic. It's unlike any other serial killer novel you're ever likely to read.)

So while I was at Armadillocon, I bought a copy of the magazine, and last night I read "Sergeant Chip." I'm glad I did. It's a rip-snorting war adventure story that wouldn't have been out of place in the SF digests of the 1950s, though of course it has a modern sensibility. If the other stores in the magazine come up to this standard, I might even consider subscribing again.

I also picked up some copies of recent issues of Asimov's SF or whatever they're calling it these days. I'll be reading some stories in those mags, too, in the hopes . . . .

Introducing the Kalashnikov MP3 player | The Register

Introducing the Kalashnikov MP3 player | The Register : "Introducing the Kalashnikov MP3 player"

What a great idea. This is a must for my next plane trip.

The Enemy

I think I mentioned that I've been reading Lee Child's new one, The Enemy. I'd read all but about 90 pages before we left for Armadillocon, and I didn't bother taking the book with me to finish it while we were there. I'm not sure what that tells us. Probably this: That I didn't find the book so gripping that I was in a sweat to get to the end. Now that I've read it, here are a few random thoughts.

1. The book seems longer than the earlier Jack Reacher books. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I prefer shorter books. Not that the earlier books were short.

2. Child sure does know a lot about the U.S. military. The stuff about the Army, Army life, Army politics, Army this and Army that is almost overwhelming.

3. The book, like the first one Child published about Reacher, is in first person. Don't know why. Maybe because it's a "prequel," set before the third-person books. Some writers switch between first and third person in the same book. Child does it a bit differently.

4. The plot seems pretty complicated, but I'd figured out a lot of it by the time I stopped reading to go to the convention. Maybe that's why I wasn't in a hurry to finish.

5. This wasn't my favorite Jack Reacher book, but I'll probably read the next one.

Telegraph | News | 'Minority Report' police unit consults killers to spot potential murderers

Telegraph | News | 'Minority Report' police unit consults killers to spot potential murderers : "'Minority Report' police unit consults killers to spot potential murderers
By Charlotte Edwardes and Andrew Alderson
(Filed: 15/08/2004)

Detectives are to record and analyse interviews with Britain's most notorious killers in search of clues that will help them identify potential murderers - before they have committed their terrible crimes."

Well, I'd say that there's a mystery novel waiting to be written here. If you write it, I'll take 10%.

"100 Science Fiction Books You Just Have to Read"

Lists of Bests : Phobos Entertainment's "100 Science Fiction Books You Just Have to Read"

I can't resist lists like this. Check it out and see what you think. (There are some other interesting lists on the site, too.)

defective yeti

defective yeti: "There Can Be Only One

Apparently they are making an Alien vs. Predator movie, perhaps because of the success of last year's Jason vs. Freddy. That's cool, I guess, but there are so many other matchups I'd rather see."

If you were lucky enough to miss ALIEN VS. PREDATOR, click the link for the supervillain death-fight tournament bracket. You have to fill in the winners yourself.

Warp Factor

http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/21443.html

The link above comes courtesy of Jayme Blaschke's Gibberish and leads to a great article by Alison Rowat. It's about the World SF Con. Key sentence: "Having an interest in sci-fi is akin to dabbling in drugs." The rest is equally hilarious.

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear : Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear : Thrilling Days of Yesteryear “I did something wrong…once…”

Scroll down to Friday the 13th's entry for the commentary on THE KILLERS if you haven't read it yet. Some great stuff here. Even a photo.

Back Home Again

You constant readers must think I really liked that post about Armadillocon, but I swear it wasn't my fault that it was posted so many times. I blame (A) Blogger, (B) my computer, or (C) both. But now I've deleted all the extras and things are back to what passes for normal around here.

The 11-12 panel last night went better than I expected, so I didn't fall asleep. I can't remember much about it, but that doesn't prove anything.

Today's panel was on baseball novels, especially ones with a fantastic element. We mentioned a lot, including I Don't Care if I ever Come Back, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, Rhubarb, The Natural, The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh, Prop., The Great American Novel, and Screwball. I'm sure there were a lot of others that I don't remember.

It's good to be home, especially after fighting the traffic on I-10 for a while. Now I can finish reading Lee Child's new one, The Enemy. And then I can start thinking about what to do with all the books I bought at the convention.

Armadillocon Again

So here I am at Armadillocon, sitting in my room, waiting for my 11:00 p.m panel. Why would anybody put an Old Guy on a panel at 11:00 p.m.? Who's going to keep me awake?

I was on a 7:00 p.m. panel on "SF Movies that Should be Remade." It was very lively, with lots of audience participation.

The panel at 11:00 is on "Writing in Multiple Genres." Now how likely is that likely to be? Which panel would you have scheduled at 11:00?

In case you're interested, by the way, I agreed with the others that LOGAN'S RUN and I AM LEGEND (THE OMEGA MAN, THE LAST MAN ON EARTH) certainly qualify for remakes, not that Hollywood would do them right even if they were remade.

OK, so Blogger isn't going to let me publish this. I'm going to save it and get it up sooner or later. Maybe later.

Armadillocon

So here we are in the Hilton, waiting for the Armadillocon to begin. Unfortunately, it starts late this afternoon, at which time I'll be heading across town to meet with my sister's reading group. I'm supposed to tell them how I became rich and famous in the writing game. That shouldn't take long.

Last night we went to Jovita's restaurant to hear the Cornell Hurd Band. Our son, Allen, does the sound for the band, and they sounded great. They play for two hours without a break, and the crowd seems to love them. Most of the crowd appeared to be regulars. The band plays for tips, so Allen's always hoping for a big crowd. He said last night was only about average.

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear : Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear : Thrilling Days of Yesteryear “Don’t panic!”

"When I sent back the last three DVD’s I rented to Netflix last week, I got notification on Monday that they had received one…Tuesday that they had received a second…and Wednesday the final one. I don’t understand this at all, because I sent all three of them back at the same time. In short, this kind of put a crimp in my plans this week for a post that I had sketched out whereupon I would watch The Killers (1946) and then the 1964 remake. Only they sent me the remake first. Most untidy. I will, therefore, wait until the original arrives tomorrow before any further posting on that subject."

So Tune In Tomorrow! at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, as they used to say on radio. Should be an interesting commentary.

As for me, it's time to put the suitcases in the car and hit the road.

Road Trip

Today Judy and I are hitting the road for Austin, where we'll be attending the annual Armadillocon, a regional science-fiction convention. We've been going to this one for eight or ten years now, and we always enjoy it. The fact that it's in Austin doesn't hurt.

Tonight, we'll go to Jovita's Mexican Restaurant to see the Cornell Hurd Band. Our son, Allen, works the soundboard for the band. He also produces their CDs, but you probably can't find those outside of Texas.

Tomorrow evening we'll visit my sister, and I'll talk to her book club about writing. Supposedly everyone will have actually read one of my books. It ain't Oprah, but I'll take what I can get.

I'll drag the ancient laptop to the convention, and if I get a chance, I might even do a little light blogging.

NEWS.com.au | Entertainment | Fonda voted best of the vest (August 11, 2004)

NEWS.com.au | Entertainment | Fonda voted best of the vest (August 11, 2004): "Fonda voted best of the vest
August 11, 2004


BARBARELLA has been named as the sexiest sci-fi character in the movies.

The 1968 film featured Jane Fonda as the scantily clad intergalactic hero.

'Getting dressed in zero gravity has never looked as good as in the opening sequence of this sci-fi classic,' Film Review magazine said.

Milla Jovovich was second for her role of Leeloo in The Fifth Element, while Kristinna Loken was third for playing killer robot T-X in Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines."

So my question is, what about Princess Leia? That bondage scene with Jabba the Hut was pretty hot.

USATODAY.com - DVDs change the shape of entertainment

USATODAY.com - DVDs change the shape of entertainment: "DVDs change the shape of entertainment
By Mike Snider, USA TODAY
Couch potatoes still prefer watching TV to other media pastimes, but more often, the TV is playing DVDs."

This whole article is kind of depressing, if you're a writer. Somewhere below I think I expressed my theory that people were watching DVDs instead of reading. Apparently they're doing it in preference to just about any other kind of entertainment. According to the article, people are spending less time going to theaters, listening to music CDs, and reading newspapers, magazines, and books. Sigh.

"The report last week from the small Tombstone Tumbleweed newspaper is jarring. A 'flood of middle-eastern males' has been caught entering the country illegally east of Douglas, Arizona, according to the paper, and this recent 'flood' is actually part of an increasing trend of 'OTMs' ('other than Mexicans') entering the country illegally somewhere east of the Chiricahua Mountains."

Reading the above report, some of us (well, OK, one of us) will no doubt recall the Nick Carter novel entitled THE COYOTE CONNECTION. Nostradamus doesn't have a thing on Nick Carter.

Coxeman

This is a response to a comment below, asking if Frank Frazetta's photo was used on any of the covers in the Coxeman series, and, if so, which ones.

I have to confess I'd never heard this story before. I'll bet Lynn Monroe would know. Anybody else?

Jack Kirkwood

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear (http://blogs.salon.com/0003139/) has some comments today about Jack Kirkwood, and the catch phrase associated with a character he played on the Bob Hope radio show. I hadn't thought of it, much less heard it, in years, but when I was a kid, you could hardly have a conversation without hearing it repeated: "Put something in the pot, boy." I can still hear exactly the way it sounded. The phrase was also part of a popular song, so maybe that's what I'm recalling. Anyway, it's a great memory, and it was glad to be reminded of it.

Ovid Demaris

In a comment on down the page, Steve Mertz mentions Gold Medal writer Ovid Demaris. I want to add a little here to my own comment to Steve.

First, for the curious, the title of one of Demaris' Avon books is The Gold-Plated Sewer, and it's a pretty good one. I've never read his Beacon book, Chip's Girls, but it went through a couple of printings, so someone must have liked it. Demaris wrote another for Avon, The Long Night, and I have one Tower book, The Organization Man, and one Signet Book, The Overlord.

Demaris' Gold Medal novels were generally about gangsters, the Mob, the Mafia. A couple of them became movies. Candyleg was filmed as Machine Gun McCain (which might be a better title) with John Cassavetes in 1968. The Hoods Take Over became Gang War in 1958 and starred Charles Bronson. Both are pretty entertaining, at least to me.

Demaris later hit it big with nonfiction books, including The Green Felt Jungle, the story of Las Vegas. I've never read any of the nonfiction, but I certainly recommend the novels, especially the ones from Gold Medal.

canadaeast.com - CP Entertainment News

canadaeast.com - CP Entertainment News: "LOS ANGELES (AP) - The DVD era is resurrecting the great colourization debate of the 1980s, and at the heart of the matter are Curly, Larry and Moe.

Sony's Columbia TriStar home-video unit is releasing two Three Stooges DVDs that allow viewers to watch the original black-and-white or digitally colourized versions. Purists consider it desecration, while Sony executives say the process can help introduce Hollywood classics to young audiences reluctant to watch anything in black and white. The Stooges discs coming out Tuesday also give die-hard fans better black-and-white versions, the studio insists."

Is NOTHING sacred?

Charles Williams: More Than A Slight Return by Ed Lynskey

Charles Williams: More Than A Slight Return by Ed Lynskey

Ed's other article on Williams, reprinted today on Ed Gorman's blog, is at the above link, where it's a little easier to read. Why Williams' novels don't command the attention of some of the other Gold Medal writers is a complete mystery to me. He was one of the best.

The High Seas of Charles Williams by Ed Lynskey

The High Seas of Charles Williams by Ed Lynskey

Speaking of Gold Medal books, as we have been, Ed Lynskey has a good essay on Charles Williams, one of the sadly negelected Gold Medal guys at the link above. The site itself, Al Guthrie's NOIR ORIGINALS, is well worth your attention.

Like Television

I saw a plug today for http://tesla.liketelevision.com/, which, for a price ($10 a month), gives you unlimited streaming video of all sorts of things: movies, cartoons, serials (Radar Men from the Moon!), and so on. I checked out one of the free samples, some Johnny Carson clips, and the quality's great. Too bad I don't have more time to waste. This would be a great place to waste it.

Gold Medal Books (again)

When I started reading Gold Medal Books, long, long ago, I had no more critical sense than a cricket. For that matter, I'm not sure that I've shown much development. My point, if I have one, is that about all I knew is whether I liked the books or not. And of course I knew that I liked some more than others.

One of the first Gold Medals I remember reading is I Am Legend. Now there was a book that knocked me out. I let a friend borrow my copy, and he told me, years later, that he couldn't believe anyone would let him borrow such a wonderful book. He was surprised that I would let it out of my possession. I think that over the years the book's taken plenty of critical hits, but I don't care. For me, it's still the book I read nearly 50 years ago.

I went on to amass quite a stack of Gold Medals, so I have most of the ones I'm interested in reading, and a lot that I'll probably never read. Sure is nice to have them around, though.

The Old Corral

Time to plug one of my favorite sites for western movies information, The Old Corral: http://www.surfnetinc.com/chuck/trio.htm. Today I was looking for something on Hal Taliaferro, who plays a baddie in the serial I'm watching, Zorro's Black Whip. Turns out that he started his career using the name "Wally Wales" and was a western star during the silent era. He was in over 190 movies during the sound era, but his starring days were over. If you're looking for information (not to mention photos, posters, lobby cards, etc.), The Old Corral has you covered. A great site.

Dan J. Marlowe

I've decided to do a little writing about Dan J. Marlowe for Steve Lewis's Mystery*File, so I've been re-reading some of Marlowe's books. Wow. I think he's a seriously under-rated Gold Medal writer. Everything I've been reading seems as fresh now as it did 35 or 40 years ago: Strongarm, The Name of the Game is Death, and One Endless Hour. The only thing wrong with Strongarm is the prologue, which seems unnecessary to me, especially since the novel has a terrific opening scene. Makes me wonder if the editors asked Marlowe to add the prologue. And when it comes to the other two books, you have to wonder if anybody ever wrote a better pair for Gold Medal. These were done before "Earl Drake" became a series character (probably another editorial suggestion), and he was as hard and as mean as they come. One Endless Hour also has a prologue, which sort of catches you up on who Drake is if you happened to miss The Name of the Game is Death. Which you shouldn't. One of the best Gold Medal books ever.

Rough Edges

Rough Edges: "By the way, while it was a great TV show, THE AVENGERS may hold the distinction of having the worst series of tie-in paperback novels. The ones published by Berkley and written by Norman Daniels (usually a fairly good writer), Keith Laumer (likewise), and John Garforth (whoever he was) are just terrible, even worse than the I SPY novels by John Tiger (who I think may have been Walter Wager)."

I've never read any of the novels based on THE AVENGERS, but I'm in agreement with James that the writers involved are usually pretty good. Keith Laumer wrote some hilarious SF novels about Retief of the CDT, as well as a pretty darned good Raymond Chandler pastiche, FAT CHANCE, which was made into a movie with Michael Caine. I like the book and the movie, but not everyone agrees with me. And then there's Norman Daniels. I remember with great affection a book called SPY HUNT, which I liked a lot. Later, the main character, John Keith starred in a series of novels for Pyramid Books, but I never liked any of them as much as the first. I believe Daniels got his start in the pulps and maybe was a writer for G-8 AND HIS BATTLE ACES. James would probably know for sure.

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear : Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear : Thrilling Days of Yesteryear “Aw relax, Archie…relax…”

The comment above doesn't refer to yesterday's comment on the shocking nudity of Veronica Lodge. The link goes to a commentary on the Archie Andrews radio show, which we're told "has not worn well at all." Interesting stuff, and you may have to scroll down to find it.

Gold Medal Guys

The talk about Black Wings Has My Angel made me think about Gold Medal Books, a topic dear to my heart. What a great list of writers they had in the 1950s: John D. MacDonald, Harry Whittington, Gil Brewer, David Goodis, Richard S. Prather, Charles Williams, Day Keene, Stephen Marlowe, Edward S. Aarons, Peter Rabe. Those guys were all regulars, and I'm probably leaving out a lot. In the 1960s, Donald Hamilton came along, as did Dan J. Marlowe. Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) switched over to GM from Pocket Books. And there were the lesser-known names like Richard Wormser and Walt Sheldon. Again, I'm sure I'm missing some, this being just off the top of my head. For a quarter (thirty-five cents, a little later on), you could get some great reading. Now a paperback costs seven or eight bucks, and while you get a lot more pages, but I'm pretty sure you don't get better writing, better plotting, or better characters.

Black Wings Has My Angel

I was thinking today about Elliot Chaze's Black Wings Has My Angel. I'm probably to blame, at least in part, for the high price that the book commands these days because I praised it in a fanzine article 35 or so years ago. Since then, others (Max Allan Collins, for one) have also expressed their admiration.

But what I was wondering about is why so few copies of it turn up for sale. There are two copies of the Gold Medal edition available right now at abebooks, one for a hundred bucks and one for $350. The book was later reprinted by Berkley, but those seem to be even harder to find than the Gold Medal.

Other Gold Medal Books from the same time period are a dime a dozen. They turn up on eBay, and nobody even bids on them. Everybody knows that GM had huge print runs, something like 250,000 to start. So what happened to all those copies of Black Wings? Did they all wind up in a warehouse by mistake and get pulped later on? I mean, there are seven copies of the Lion edition of Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me for sale at abebooks. Lion couldn't have had better distribution than GM, and I doubt that Lion's print run was as big as GM's.

All I can say is that I'm glad I got my copy long ago and don't have to try finding one now.

retroCRUSH: The World's Greatest Pop Culture Place

retroCRUSH: The World's Greatest Pop Culture Place: "VERONICA GOES TOPLESS!
ARCHIE'S GAL SHOCKS FANS IN LATEST COMIC BOOK!"

OK, I'll admit it. I had to check this out. It's been a long time (a loooooooooong time) since I looked at an Archie Comic. Things have changed

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear : Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear : Thrilling Days of Yesteryear : "Mandrake the Magician (1939) concludes with this twelfth and final chapter, as our heroes manage to stumble out of the rubble that was once stately Mandrake Manor."

I'm sorry that we've come to the end of MANDRAKE on the THRILLING DAYS OF YESTERYEAR site. Reading the daily chapter summary was almost as good as seeing the serial. In some ways, it was better, since the commentary is often quite funny.

When I jogged by Alvin High School this morning, the streets were jammed with cars parked along both sides, block after block. It's the annual Pre-School Workshop for the teachers. It reminded me that 41 years ago, I attended my first workshop in Corsicana, Texas, where I was going to begin teaching high school for the princely sum of $4050 a year. I have many vivid memories of that first year of teaching, and it's hard for me to believe that the kids who were in my classes are now nearly 60 years old. I wonder what they look like and what they did with their lives, but I doubt that I'll ever find out.

Dennis Lynds

Dennis Lynds, Michael Collins, Mark Sadler. All the same guy, a terribly underrated writer. I just re-read Circle of Fire (1973), which was published under the Mark Sadler name in 1973. Solid plotting, interesting characters drawn in varying shades of gray (including Paul Shaw the first-person narrator), and good writing. So why isn't Lynds better known? My guess would be that it's because his books aren't action-oriented. There's action, quite a bit, but it isn't ramped up the way it is in many current books. And there's a lot of introspection. It seems pretty clear to me that this is a Ross Macdonald-influenced book. While it's not as good as the best Macdonald (but that's a pretty high standard), it's a solid novel. The other day I found two Sadler books that Berkley reprinted the 1980s. I plan to read the other one Real Soon Now.

Author! Author!

I'm sure many of you know that Pamela Anderson has written a novel. It's called Star, and there's a a brief excerpt from it being reprinted in articles around the 'Net. Here it is:

"'You're not dying, you're just growing up,' her mother tells Star according to an excerpt. "'Looks like you're finally going to get some boobs. You're becoming a woman, honey. You're blooming!'"

"And bloom she did. Her breasts came on suddenly and tenaciously, as if trying to make up for lost time."

Now that's what I call writing! Pure poetry.

Something Old, Nothing New

Something Old, Nothing New : "Things That Suck: '50s Novelty Songs"

Maybe because I was a kid in the 1950s, I didn't think those songs sucked. In fact, "If I'd Known You Were Coming, I'd've Baked a Cake" was one of my favorites. I even liked "Mambo Italiano." I probably never even thought of it as a "novelty song." That designation was reserved (by me) for things that came along later, like Buchanan and Goodman's "Flying Saucer Parts 1 and 2," "The Witch Doctor," and "Purple People Eater," all of which I also liked, though I was older and probably should have known better. Anyway, it turns out that I liked a lot of songs that Bob Merrill wrote, and I still do. I didn't know about his suicide, and learning about it four or five months after the fact still makes me sad.

A few Websites

Through a site called Pop Culture Junk Mail (http://popculturejunkmail.com/), I learned about another one called Avacado Memories (http://wesclark.com/am/). You might want to have a look at both of them, but Avacado Memories is the one that anybody who grew up in the 1960s will enjoy. It's got tons of essays (and photos) that detail Wes Clark's life (I'm assuming that he's no relation to the general who ran for president). There are also a number of pages about the house he grew up in, and for some reason I found all of this stuff interesting. And I didn't even grow up in the 1960s.

For you spy fans, Clark's take on some of my favorite spies is here: http://wesclark.com/am/spy_game.html

BSP

Some of you might not be on DorothyL, the mystery listserv, so for your benefit (don't you feel special?), I'm reprinting a message I sent to the list today:

You remember Walter Satterthwait, don't you? What about Miss Lizzie? Which brings me to the point of this message. Walter has recently completed the sequel to Miss Lizzie, and he let me read the manuscript. So I've read it, and you haven't. Neener, neener, neener.

I'm sorry. That was rude, and I apologize. The tentative title is New York Nocturne, and all I can say is that it's great. New York in the roaring '20s, Amanda and Miss Lizzie on the trail of a killer, cameos by the famous and infamous, and prose that sings. What more could you ask? It's making the publishing rounds now, so if you have the ear of any influential editors, you might want to clue them in.

And Cavalcade, the third book in Walter's series that began with Escapade and Masquerade, is coming from St. Martin's in February.

Notice how I'm modestly not mentioning my own books.

Rough Edges

Rough Edges: "26 pages today finished the current book, which is #166 overall."

James Reasoner continues to amaze me. I knew him before he'd published a single novel, and now he's completed 166. Soon enough, he'll pass the 200 mark. How does he do it? If he were writing crap, I could understand. Maybe. But I don't think he's ever written a bad book. I particularly enjoyed his WWII trilogy and the Civil War series, but everything he's done is classy work.

Welcome to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine!

Welcome to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine!

Here's a little of what Jon Breen has to say about Robert B. Parker's latest Spenser novel in his review for EQMM: "*** Robert B. Parker: Bad Business, Putnam, $24.95. Boston private eye Spenser, hired to get the goods on a wandering husband, encounters sexual and corporate malfeasance and, of course, murder. Parker’s minor classics God Save the Child (1974) and Mortal Stakes (1975) were followed by a series of socially significant, always well- written, but seriously underplotted sequels. More recent wisecrack-driven Spenser novels are pure entertainment, less reminiscent of Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald than of old radio shows like Blake Edwards’s Richard Diamond."

I hadn't thought about before, but Jon has a point. I've probably mentioned that I still read Parker, though a lot of people have simply given up on him because he no longer writes the kind of books he did earlier in his career. One reason may be that I grew up listening to radio shows like RICHARD DIAMOND, SAM SPADE (I knew him as Howard Duff on radio long before I saw THE MALTESE FALCON on film or read the novel), and BARRY CRAIG, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR. My father was a particular fan of the latter show because Barry Craig got hit on the head and knocked out so often. He thought that was the sign of a good program. At any rate, the wisecracking on those shows, and on others, particularly Jack Webb's PAT NOVAK (I think that's right), was part of my growing up, and I still enjoy it when I read Parker's books or when I listen to one of the old radio programs on tape.

I also happen to think that even Parker's recent novels have a certain amount of social significance in them, but I could easily be wrong about that.

Steve Mertz

Gotta agree with much of what Steve Mertz says in his comment below about the James Bond movies and the actors who played Bond. And I even agree about George Lazenby. He coulda been a contender. Steve and I may be the only ones who believe that, however.

Which reminds me: Could there have been a worse choice to play Matt Helm than Dean Martin? Now I like Dean Martin. I liked him especially in Rio Bravo and in Some Came Running. And The Young Lions. But I didn't like the idea that he was playing Matt Helm. Those movies were awful, just awful. The TV series with Tony Franciosa ("Matt Helm? Gotta find us some Italian guy to play him") was pretty bad, too.

Cutthroat Island

Speaking of action movies, I've often wondered why I'm the only one who likes Cutthroat Island. It's true that I'm a big Geena Davis fan, but I might have liked the movie even if she hadn't been in it. I first saw the movie at a sneak preview in Houston, and as soon as the DVD came out, I got a copy. I've watched it a couple of times, and I like it even better now than I did the first time.

I mean, what's not to like? You have your pirates, your treasure map, your sword fights, your chase scenes on land and sea, your Geena Davis . . . oh, yeah, I've already mentioned Geena Davis. You also have Matthew Modine, and I'll admit that he's no Errol Flynn. But then who is? Orlando Bloom? Gimme a break.

Another thing I like is the color. It might not be Technicolor, but it's close. There are some beautiful shots.

And the action scenes are great. You can tell what's happening all the time, as you can't in so many movies these days. Gladiator is the one that comes to mind. My theory used to be that nobody knew how to film action these days. But my new theory is that the actors and stuntpersons just can't cut it, so they do all that quick cutting to make you think something's happening when it isn't. Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn would be appalled.

Anyway, no matter what anybody else says, I like Cutthroat Island a lot. (I also like The Long Kiss Goodnight, and not just because it has Geena Davis in it. But she's really good.)

Something Old, Nothing New

Something Old, Nothing New : "
Bond, James... Ah, To Hell With It
I'm sure you've all heard, and become kind of sick of hearing about, the rumor that Pierce Brosnan might not be playing James Bond any more. Whenever a change in Bonds is made, the real question is, will this be a chance for the series to go in a new direction?"

Vince Keenan pointed me in the direction of this blog, so he has a lot to answer for. One thing I didn't need was another blog to read. Anyway, I was reading along and came to this comment about the James Bond series. I like the idea of doing a movie as a '60s nostalgia piece, but I also liked the direction the series took a long time back when Timothy Dalton took over as Bond for two movies. The old jokey Roger Moore style was dumped for a darker, more serious Bond. LICENSE TO KILL was probably the darkest in the whole series. I think it was also the one of the least popular. Maybe I'm the only one who liked these, which is why they replaced Dalton and lightened up again.