"The wrath of the King of Orion flamed across the void.  Out from the Hyades sped his hunters, and from Mintaka and Saiph and Aldebaran, grim ships of war sped headlong between the stars in vengeful search for the small and secret ship that had dared violate their domain."

That's the opening paragraph of Edmond Hamilton's "The Star Hunter" from SPACE TRAVEL for September 1958.  Either you like that kind of thing or you don't, and there was a time when I liked it very much indeed.  I was a teenager in a small Texas town, and in reality I'd  never been much farther away from home than the 90 miles to Dallas.  But in the pages of the SF digests that I read by the metric ton, I travelled all over the known universe and to galaxies far, far away, thanks to writers like Edmond Hamilton and magazines like SPACE TRAVEL, the descendant of IMAGINATION and IMAGINATIVE TALES.   Editor William Hamling tried to save his SF line by putting factual articles into SPACE TRAVEL, but it didn't work.  The magazine lasted only a few issues, more's the pity.

Re-reading stories like "The Star Hunter" now, 46 years (!) later, I don't get quite the same charge that I did when I was 17.  The old sense of wonder that I was fairly bristling with in those days has dwindled.  But it's still there, somewhere,  and now and then there's nothing for it but to get out one of those old digests and read a story by Hamilton or Dwight V. Swain or Calvin M. Knox or "Alexander Blade," "S. M. Tenneshaw," "Ivar Jorgenson."  I always wanted to write stories like those, but I never did.  Never could.  But boy did I love to read 'em.

And now for something completely different.  The other day a friend gave me a copy of Christopher Buckley's LITTLE GREEN MEN.  He said it was hilarious, and he was right.  This is the funniest book I've read in a good while.  It's not exactly political satire, but it's not exactly NOT political satire, either.  When a powerful TV talk-show host is abducted by aliens on the golf course of an exclusive D. C. country club, his life is turned around.  He starts a crusade to get the government to investigate the existence of extraterrestrials, and of course everyone who supported him before drops  him like a hot horseshoe.  Ironically, he becomes more powerful than ever, although with an entirely different audience.  Sometimes it's hard to tell who's more bizarre, the abductees or the denizens of congress and the White House.  I highly recommend this book if you ever feel the need of a good laugh.

Army rations rehydrated by urine New Scientist: "Would you eat food cooked in your own urine? Food scientists working for the US military have developed a dried food ration that troops can hydrate by adding the filthiest of muddy swamp water or even peeing on it."

I'm sure enlistment will be up by the thousands as soon as word about this wonderful breakthrough gets around. As David Letterman would say, "That's good eatin'!"

Blogger has been "interesting" again today.  I've tried posting once, and the post disappeared.  Then I couldn't get back on blogger.  So we'll see what happens this time.

One of my eBay purchases is a copy of DOUBLE-ACTION DETECTIVE, issue #6, from July 1957.  It's a  Columbia Publication, edited by Robert A. W. Lowndes, so it looks a lot like the SF digests I have from the same publisher.  And Lowndes has some of his usual writers here: Robert Silverberg, Margaret St. Clair, and Sam Merwin, Jr.

St. Clair's story is another one of those "this is the solution to the Jack the Ripper case" tales.  It's OK, but it doesn't offer a real historical personage as the Ripper.  He's "The Courier" of the title.  The hook is that he's working for Eleanor Marx, daughter of Karl, and a member of the party.  Except that he's working both sides.  An OK story, nothing more.

And then there's Silverberg.  His story is a competent police procedural in the DRAGNET vein.  I know he was writing  whole issues of some of the SF digests around the time of this issue's publication (sometimes in collaboration with Randall Garrett), but he was apparently also writing mysteries, sports stories, book reviews, and the occasional nonfiction article.  He must have been writing 18 hours a day.  I'm in awe of him.

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage: "Singing Japanese plants
Tue 20 July, 2004 11:44

TOKYO (Reuters) - People who like talking to their plants can now enjoy a musical accompaniment, thanks to a Japanese invention that turns petals and leaves into amplifiers.

Called the 'Flower Speaker Amplifiers', the gadget made by Let's Corp is hidden in a vase or a potted plant and sends music at just the right frequency to vibrate up the stems and then be converted into audible sound by the plant as a whole.

A device such as a CD player or radio can be connected to it."

I'm not sure what I think of this, but at the moment I'm thinking "scary." Do I really want a pot of begonias playind and singing "Stairway to Heaven"? Or even "Mystery Train"? Would plants grow better if they played the Beatles or Barry Manilow?

Rough Edges: PROGRESS

"Today was another pretty good work day, 23 pages, giving me a little over a hundred for the week. This is a pace I need to maintain."

My admiration for James Reasoner knows no bounds. I don't see how he maintains a blog, reads all kinds of books, visits Sam's Club, watches DVDs, and still manages to write 23 pages a day. What's even more amazing, as you know if you've ever read James's work, is that they're quality pages. Which reminds me that James's first novel, the legendary TEXAS WIND is back in print. If you haven't read this p.i. classic, you should order it right now from PointBlank:  http://www.oivas.com/pointblank/tw.html.  You can thank me later.
 

I mentioned down below that I did an article on Clifton Adams for Steve Lewis's Mystery*File.  After the article was published, Bill Pronzini told Steve that Adams had done a novel for Berkley Books under the name "Nick Hudson."  The title is THE VERY WICKED (1960), and since Bill said it was worth looking for, I naturally had to have a copy.  Back in the Olden Days, I'd have looked in vain in little out-of-the-way used-book stores for years before finding one.  In the Age of the Internet, all I had to do was go 0n-line, where I had several copies to choose from.
 
The book is very different from Adams's other crime novels.  It's a noirish Jack-the-Ripper riff, in which a vice cop named Bill Creel goes over the edge and starts killing prostitutes.  There's no gore, and no sensationalism, even though most of the book is told from the cop's point of view.  We find out a lot about the cop and his attitudes toward women, and a lot about his unhealthy state of mind.  We know, or suspect, that he's going to end badly, so the interest is in how long he can keep fooling people, and how many women he'll kill, before he slips up.
 
I didn't like this book quite as much as Adams's work for Gold Medal, but as an early entry in the serial killer category, it's worth a read.  And it has a great redhead on the cover.

My eBay habit recently brought me a gaggle of mystery-story digests, including THE EXECUTIONER MYSTERY MAGAZINE from August 1975.  The bookend stories in this issue are by Stephen Mertz and Margaret Maron, and I figure they must be among the first stories these two writers published.  I'm just guessing, though.
 
Steve's story is "The Busy Corpse," and if the title is a bow to Westlake's "The Busy Body," the story is more WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S.  And I'll bet the makers of that movie didn't pay Steve a penny in royalties, the swine.  The story is a clever "tables turned" or "biter bit" riff, with the Mafia, a private-eye, and a cop, all done in under 7 pages.
 
Maron's story is "When Daddy's Gone," a noirish story from the naive point of view, if you can imagine such a thing.  Or maybe the pov isn't so naive, after all.  Nice southern setting, the kind Maron has done so well in her novels. 
 
Turning up magazines like this, the kind you should have bought and kept the first time around, is what makes eBay so much fun.
 
UPDATE: I see by Steve's comment below that this was indeed his first national sale.  He must've been just a kid at the time.  I've also learned from a "reliable source" that this was the final issue for the magazine.  No fault of Steve's, of course!

IOL: Dunst vetos 'gigantic' boobs: "Dunst vetos 'gigantic' boobs"

Talk about integrity! What more can I say?

: RevolutionSF - Spider-Man 2 : Review: "Even with the movie's flaws (such as Kirsten Dunst's clunky acting and some of the inane dialog), Spider-Man ranks as one of the top two or three comic book films of all time. "

Rick Klaw's review of SPIDERMAN 2 is mostly on target. As to his remark about Kirsten Dunst, I have this response: "And your point is?"

Judy and I saw the movie yesterday, and I thought it was terrific. My only complaint is that it wasn't rated "R." So the theater was full of little kids who had no clue as to what was going on and spent the entire time running up and down the aisle, except for the one who was rolling down the aisle. He ran up it, though. Little wuss wasn't tough enough to roll up it, I guess. It's a good thing I'm not issued a sidearm.

And I know I'm not supposed to think about stuff like this, but when Doc Ock is building his tritium fusion generator in his secret undisclosed location, wouldn't someboy notice he was stealing a million mega-gigawatts of power? I know he robbed a bank to get money to fund his fiendish endeavors. And of course Peter Parker and Aunt May just happened to be in there when he did. Out of all the banks in New York City, he had to walk into that one. But I digress. My question is, where did he buy the equipment to build it with? I mean, even the clerks at Radio Shack might be a little suspicious of him. Sure, he had on those sunglasses. Maybe that threw them off. And he probably wore a raincoat, but in that disguise he'd make the Hunchback of Notre Dame look like a male model.

Yesterday I read MY FLESH IS SWEET (Lion, 1951) by Day Keene.   Maybe not one of Keene's best, but certainly not without interest.  For one thing, the main character is a pulp writer named Ad Connors.   Connors has been in Mexico writing his "breakthrough" book, and he's just found out that the SATURDAY EVENING POST has rejected it.  He's on his way to hock his typewriter for money to get home when he witnesses an auto accident.  One of the drivers is a beautiful American woman who can't speak Spanish.  Connors, however, is fluent, and so he steps in.  And once he does, we're off to the races: a lecherous Mexican general, a mysterious veiled women, a murdered Mexican lawyer, another murder buried 20 years in the past, and more.
 
Connors manages to get in a number of comments about the life of a pulp writer along the way, and in fact he has to write two 15,000 word stories in order to get enough money to get out of Mexico.  But when he escapes the country, he finds  his troubles are just beginning.   His agent sells the novel that the POST rejected to a hardcover publisher for big bucks, but Connors is now wanted for murder in Mexico.  To clear himself, he has to find the beautiful woman again.  Which is plenty complicated, since she's about to marry a millionaire and doesn't want to see Connors.  And then there's another murder.
 
Keene, like another of my favorites, Harry Whittington, wrote a lot of books.   Like Whittington, he wrote fast, and he worked cheap, for just about any publisher that would have him.  And like Whittington, his books rarely disappoint me.  They might not be great literature, but they're entertaining, fast moving, and fun.

Now that a request has poured in, I'm posting the subscription information for Steve Lewis's great print fanzine, MYSTERY*FILE.  It's published approximately every six weeks, and single issues can be had for $3.50.  A four-issue subscription is $13.00.  and well worth it, too, if you ask me.  Send your dough to Steve at 62 Chestnut Rd., Newington, CT  06111.
 
The current issue has a letter column, lots of reviews of mystery novels both old and new by people like Vince Keenan, Dan Stumpf, Walter Albert, Bob Briney, Gary Warren Neibuhr, Richard Moore, and many more.  Articles by Bill Pronzini (on Gardner), Marv Lachman, Bob Adey, Ed Lynskey, and others.   Try it.  You'll like it.

For a while now, I've been writing columns on Gold Medal Books for Steve Lewis's MYSTERY*FILE. I've done articles on Day Keene, Clifton Adams, Malcolm Douglas, and John McPartland. The one I've just turned in is on John Farris, who wrote for Gold Medal as "Steve Brackeen."

I've been interested in Farris almost as long as I've been interested in being a writer, having read HARRISON HIGH way back in 1950. I was really impressed that a guy not much older than I was had written a bestselling novel, and one that I really liked. (I read it again a couple of years ago, the same old Dell paperback first printing, and I still liked it.) If I'd known that Farris was writing cime novels under a pen name at the same time, I'd have been even more impressed, if that's possible.

I wasn't doing any writing in those days except for a little adolescent poetry. I never really dreamed I could actually write a book, which seems kind of silly now that I've published so many of them (though there are no doubt those who would argue that that still hasn't proved I can write one). It took me almost twenty more years to get really serious about writing, though there were a few attempts in the interim (see earlier posts for a few words on a couple of them). And then I did it only because Jack Davis talked me into collaborating on a Nick Carter book with him. Jack's been dead a good while now, but I still owe him. I'm pretty sure I'd never have published a book without his goading me into it.

Last night Judy and I went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science to hear a lecture by Dr. John W. Verano from Tulane. His topic was Machu Picchu, and we'd been led to expect that he'd be talking about the site, who built it, and what its purpose was. Which he did. But his perspective was different from what we'd expected. Dr. Verano, it turns out, is a forensic anthropologist, or, as he put it, "a bone man." He was called in by Yale University to examine the skeletons found by Hiram Bingham on his 1911 expedition. The skeletons were examined at that time, but no one had looked at them since. Dr. Verano's conclusions about them differed a little from the original ideas.

For one thing, the original examiner (I've forgotten his name, I'm sorry to say) concluded that the skeletons were mostly female (more than 75%). Dr. Verano says that it's more like 50/50. Why is that important? Because one of Bingham's main ideas about Machu Picchu is that the site was a holy place for the "virgins of the sun." The large number of female skeletons would support that idea. Verano doesn't agree. Also Verano pointed out that there are a number of skeletons of small children. These were explained away by earlier theorists as "accidents." Verano doesn't agree there, either. The skeletons also indicate a wide variety of ethnicity in Machu Picchu.

So what's Verano's conclusion? That Machu Picchu was another in a series of royal palaces or resorts built by the emperor Pachacuti. The skeletons are the remains of the servants and workers who kept up the resort. Sounds pretty reasonable when Verano goes over it. Sure, there were altars and other sacred places at Machu Picchu. The emperor was believed to be the "son of the sun." So naturally he would have kept up appearances. But worship wasn't the main purpose of the site.

Verano also pointed out a number of other interesting things he'd learned. For one, there was tuberculosis in Machu Picchu. But no syphillis. Tooth decay was rampant and somtimes even fatal.

All in all, a very interesting evening.

Yesterday's mail brought me a copy of a new Stark House double volume. This one reprints two of Vin Packer's Gold Medal novels, SOMETHING IN THE SHADOWS and INTIMATE VICTIMS. It's a nice package, and one I highly recommend. Packer (whose real name is Marijane Meaker) was one of the few women writing paperback originals in the 1950s, and she was right up there with the best. Anthony Boucher consistently praised her books in his NYTBR column, and with good reason.

Besides the two novels, this new volume has a short introduction by Packer that touches on her relationship with Patricia Highsmith and tells a little about the envy Highsmith had of Packer's income and reviews. Packer, the lowly paperback writer, was making a lot more money for her novels than Highsmith was with her prestigious hardcovers. And Packer was getting reviews in the New York papers just as Highsmith was. Highsmith didn't think it was fair for a paperback writer to get the same kind of attention that a hardcover author received.

There's also a reprint of Jon Breen's essay titled "The Novels of Vin Packer," also highly recommended reading.

Lately I've been browsing the capsule movie summaries in Arthur Lyons' book called DEATH ON THE CHEAP: THE LOST B-MOVIES OF FILM NOIR, and I find them highly entertaining.

But here's something that's really bothering me. It has nothing to do with the movies or the book itself. It's a sentence in the blurb from Robert Crais in the front of the book. Here it is: "Written with the sure hand of a gifted novelist, Arthur Lyons has opened an entertaining treasure chest that will have you racing to your local video rental joint." As a former English teacher, all I can say is, "Arrrgggghhhh!" And to think that Crais out-sells me about a million to one.

Since I'm far from a film noir geek, or even a film geek of any kind, I don't have too many nits to pick with Lyons himself. However (you knew there was going to be a "however," right?) there's this on page 122 in Lyons' comment on THE MYSTERIOUS MR. VALENTINE (1946): "This film was a new kind of role for Linda Stirling, who up to this time had spend most of her time at Republic dressed in a leopard cat suit and beating up bad guys in THE TIGER WOMAN serials (sic). Tristram Coffin, in contrast, was right at home, having been a staple minor villain in many a Republic feature. In 1951, he finally got a taste of what it was to play a good guy when he starred as Commando Cody in LOST PLANET AIRMEN, Republic's feature release of its serial KING OF THE ROCKETMEN."

As I said, I'm no expert, but this wrong on so many levels.

As far as I know, for example, there was only one TIGER WOMAN serial (Lyons is right about the leopard costume, though. Why they didn't call her the Leopard Woman is a still-unanswered question.) She certainly hadn't spent all her time at Republic in that one serial, either. How can one forget her sparkling performance in another serial, ZORRO'S BLACK WHIP? (Alas, I'm pretty sure it wasn't Linda wielding the whip in several scenes, which sort of takes away the fun of it if you know what I mean, and I think you do.) Or THE PURPLE MONSTER STRIKES, for that matter?

And if Tristam Coffin played Commando Cody in the feature release of KING OF THE ROCKETMEN, wouldn't he have played good-guy Cody in the serial itself? (You'd think so.) But wait. Since the title of the serial is KING OF THE ROCKETMEN, wouldn't Coffin have played a guy named "King"? (Darned right. Jeff King.) And wasn't Commando Cody in a completely different serial? (Darned right: RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON. He was played by George Wallace [not the Governor of Alabama]. And by some other guy in COMMANDO CODY: SKY MARSHAL OF THE UNIVERSE.)

Sort of makes a fella wonder about the rest of Lyons' commentary.

OK, so I have this eBay habit. Or addiction. Whatever. Anyway, not long ago I bought six or eight men's sweat magazines from the late 1950s. Issues of CAVALCADE and SIR! There were lots of others on the market in those days, too: REAL MAN, TRUE MEN, MAN'S ADVENTURES, and on and on. They must have sold hundreds of thousands of copies a month. Sure, they had photos of scantily clad women, but the pictures aren't all that revealing, and they're of pretty low quality. (I mean the pictures, not the subjects, though come to think of it, the subjects aren't exactly Grade A, either.)

So my conclusion is that guys actually read these things. The articles in the ones I bought are typical: "I Was a White Slaver!,"The Brute Who Turned Bordello Boss," "The Lonely Women of Lesbos Isle." You get the idea. There was fiction, too, by guys like Mickey Spillane and Bob McKnight, along with some reprints from, of all things, WEIRD TALES, by Henry Kuttner and Manley Wade Wellman. The stories and articles aren't short, and the print is small. The paragraphs are long. But, as I said, guys read these things, or at least bought a ton of them.

When I started writing in 1981, there were still lots of books for guys. I broke in with a Nick Carter novel myself, and later I had a hand in series like THE M.I.A. HUNTER, THE TUNNEL RATS, and CODY'S ARMY. These were the tail-end of a huge boom in men's series books that started with Don Pendleton's THE EXECUTIONER. Like I said, books for guys. The Executioner and the Destroyer are still around, along with a couple of others, but the rest are long gone.

"So what?" you're probably saying. Well, I read the other day that in 2002, only 38% of American men read a book. Even one book. (And I'm guessing that one was by either Tom Clancy or John Grisham.) What that says to me is that guys don't read any more, which explains why there aren't any magazines like SIR! around these days. And why The Assassan and The Coxeman and The Sharpshooter and dozens of others have disappeared.

My theory is that guys watch videos now, but what do I know? I wish they'd all start reading books again.

Yesterday I read Robert B. Parker's latest Spenser novel, BAD BUSINESS. It's got all the usual elements. Spenser is hired, and someone gets killed. Bad guys come to Spenser's office to threaten him, and Spenser says, "Eeek!" Women melt when Spenser unleashes his killer smile. Spencer and Hawk shuck and jive. Spenser cooks. Spenser drinks beer. Spenser and Susan talk about sex. Spenser and Susan have sex (but not in front of Pearl the Wonderdog). Spenser is insolent to people in positions of power. Spenser cracks wise. Women come on to Spenser, but he rebuffs them because of his love for Susan. Spenser proves he's tougher than anybody (except Hawk, of course).

I've seen it all before, but, God help me, I enjoyed the heck out of it. I know that most people seem to think that Parker long ago achieved the alchemical miracle of turning his gold into lead, after which he sank below their notice. I, on the other hand, still look for every book of his as it appears. Which no doubt proves that I have poor, or to put the best face possible on it, indiscriminate taste.

I read an interview once in which Parker was asked what made his books so popular. He said, "I think people like the sound of the words on the page." Works for me.

Yesterday I mentioned THE DOMINIO PRINCIPLE, and last night I finished reading it. I thought it was good when I first read it nearly 30 years ago, and I still think so. A dandy paranoid thriller. It's written in very short chapters (a techinque now used by big-time bestsellering writers like Dan Brown and James Patterson). The pacing is fast, and the writing is smooth (much better than either Brown's or Patterson's). It's also got strong tinges of noir, what with the narrator's pretty much hopeless situation and the idea that he's at the mercy of forces he can't really control. (Noir and literary naturalism, a dissertation topic if there ever was one.)

I seem to remember reading a sequel to this book and thinking that it bit the moose.

(And if I thought Blogger was nutty yesterday and the day before, it was just getting warmed up. I have no idea if this post will appear on the blog or not.)

Yesterday I mentioned THE DOMINIO PRINCIPLE, and last night I finished reading it. I thought it was good when I first read it nearly 30 years ago, and I still think so. A dandy paranoid thriller. It's written in very short chapters (a techinque now used by big-time bestsellering writers like Dan Brown and James Patterson). The pacing is fast, and the writing is smooth (much better than either Brown's or Patterson's). It's also got strong tinges of noir, what with the narrator's pretty much hopeless situation and the idea that he's at the mercy of forces he can't really control. (Noir and literary naturalism, a dissertation topic if there ever was one.)

I seem to remember reading a sequel to this book and thinking that it bit the moose.