The Deadly Mantis

Shamus Awards

The Rap Sheet: Making News at the Shamuses: "Tonight’s presentation of the 2009 Shamus Awards brought a few surprises, one of which was certainly the second-in-a-row win by Reed Farrel Coleman in the Best Novel category. These prizes, sponsored by the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA), were given out during a banquet at Indianapolis’ Slippery Noodle bar."

Complete list at the link.

Macavity Awards

Mystery Fanfare: Macavity Awards: "I just presented the Macavity Awards for mystery works published in 2008. I'm in Indianapolis for Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention. Great turn out for the Awards--and a wonderful line-up of nominees."

Go to the link for a complete list.

Awards at Bouchercon

Mystery Fanfare: More Mystery Awards: "There were lots of mystery awards given out at Bouchercon last night, besides Mystery Readers International's Macavity Awards. For the first time, the Derringer Awards were part of the ceremonies. Jim Doherty, one of the original members of Mystery Readers International presented."

For a complete list of the awards, go to the link.

Ed Valigursky, R. I. P.

I've seen the news of Valigursky's death on a couple of lists. It seems he passed away last month, but little notice was taken in the news media. Too bad. He did some memorable covers and no doubt attracted a lot of readers to paperbacks and digests. Certainly he was a favorite of mine.

More Fantastic 1954

Here's the back cover. Again, I like the ad, and two of the books pictured are two of the ones I bought when I joined the SF Book Club about this time: Omibus of Science Fiction and The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology. I still have them, and they're full of touchstone stories for me. No wonder. I was at the golden age for science fiction. None of the stories in this issue of Fantastic measure up to the ones in those two anthologies.

"The Murder-Con" by Jerome Bixby is the longest story in the issue. It's set at the 13th WorldCon. It name-checks a few SF writers and has a nice comment or two on cons, like this one: "'This science-fiction crowd can raise more hell, kill more bottles and drop more panties than bank night in le shack Sade.'" (I knew I should have started going to cons when I was a kid!) Not a great story, but smoothly told with alternating first-person viewpoints. It's about an awakening telepath and what must be done about him because he's Not A Nice Person. The illustration on the second page of the story depicts the ending, which I thought was too bad.

"The Outlaws" is an over-population story by Lee Priestley, whoever that is. Slick, condescending toward women (I wouldn't have noticed in 1954), and most notable for its casual mentions of wind farms, few of which must have been around in those days.

Got Your Costume Yet?

Link.

Forgotten Books: MURDER -- Harold Adams

Murder is the first book in Harold Adam's series about Carl Wilcox, an ex-con living, for the moment, in Corden, a small town in South Dakota during the Great Depression. I don't know how many books there were in the series, but one of them, The Man Who Was Taller than God, won a Shamus Award from the Private-Eye Writers of America.

Wilcox isn't a private-eye, however. He's a hobo and a sign-painter, but he always seems to be around some small town when a murder takes place. It's a good thing he's so good at solving crimes.

In Murder, Wilcox is fresh out of prison (armed robbery), and settling in back in his hometown. Before long, however there are three murders, and Wilcox decides that he'd better help solve them before the sheriff decides that an ex-con is just the man to take the blame.

The Wilcox novels are sold, old-fashioned entertainment. By that I mean they aren't flashy. They don't involve plots that affect the fate of the world. They're set in small towns and peopled with small-town characters. Wilcox likes women and booze, but he's trying to avoid the latter and go straight. He makes an engaging narrator as Adams talks about the way things used to be, when murder was personal and people weren't so very different from the way they are now, though the times certainly were. The next time you want to take a trip back to a simpler era, you could do a lot worse than to sample one of Adams' books.

The Brain from Planet Arous

Art Scott Accepts the Don Sandstrom Award at Bouchercon

Reed Farrel Coleman and Ken Bruen Interviewed

Reed Farrel Coleman and Ken Bruen Interviewed � BSCreview

Fantastic, October 1954

Since I've talked about a 1954 issue of Amazing, I thought it was only fair to say a few words about an issue of Fantastic from the same year. One thing is obvious: the Amazing had a much better cover. On the other hand, I have to admit that the guy in the middle of this one is making a truly bold fashion statement.

The cover illustrates "The Yellow Needle" by Gerald Vance. It's a time-travel fantasy, sort of an anti-Bradbuy -Finney story about a guy who travels back to 1900 and finds out he's not nearly as happy there as he'd thought he'd be. The yellow needle is the gimmick in the story, and what it has to do with a fakir in Cairo is something it's probably best not to think about. In fact, the whole story is something it's probably best not to think about. It's not very good at all.

The first story in the magazine is a science fiction tale by Milton Lesser. (The first story in the issue of Amazing was a fantasy by Lesser; go figure.) "Cosmic Appetite" can be summed up thusly: The Blob in outer space. Since it was written a good many years before The Blob hit the theaters, you might perhaps want to write a monograph on its influence. I don't.

Halloween's Coming!

Link.

Kiss Me, Deadly

Here's the Plot of Your Next Blockbuster SF Novel

Essay - The Collider, the Particle and a Theory About Fate - NYTimes.com: "Then it will be time to test one of the most bizarre and revolutionary theories in science. I’m not talking about extra dimensions of space-time, dark matter or even black holes that eat the Earth. No, I’m talking about the notion that the troubled collider is being sabotaged by its own future. A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather."

So Here We Are at Bouchercon

We got to Indianapolis around 11:30 this morning after getting up way too early. The hotel had a room ready, though, so we checked in and had lunch at Panera Bread. Met some friends later in the afternoon, had dinner, and sat around and talked for a few hours. That's what Bouchercon's all about for me.

Al Martino, R. I. P.

Al Martino - Telegraph: "Al Martino, who died on October 13 aged 82, was a great postwar Italian-American crooner who rose to even further fame with his role as the singer Johnny Fontane in The Godfather, the 1972 blockbuster movie starring Marlon Brando; he also sang the UK's first number one record."

Charlie Bartlett

I wouldn't have heard of this one if James Reasoner hadn't mentioned it on his blog. Since he and I have similar tastes now and then, and since I've mentioned before that I'm a sucker for coming-of-age stories, I thought I'd take a look. I'm glad I did because I really liked the movie, which no one gave to me and which I rented with my own money.

I don't have much to add to what James said other than that Robert Downey, Jr., does a pretty brave scene that has to do with addiction, and I won't say any more about that. You'll know what I mean if you watch the film. The cast is uniformly good, and while I hadn't heard of any of them other than Downey, I expect I'll be seeing them in a lot of movies down the line. They've all young, and I think they'll be around for a while.

If you're in the mood for something a lot different from the usual teen movie (sort of in the same way that Adventureland was), don't pass this one by.

The Helter Skelter Murders

Bouchercon 1980

This was the first Bouchercon I attended. It was held in Washington, D. C. The guest of honor was Gregory Mcdonald, but I remember that Brian Garfield and James Grady were there as well. That was about it for the Big Names. I wish I had the program, but I believe I've given it to Texas A&M. As I recall, the programming was sparse. A panel or two in the morning and the same in the afternoon. Things have certainly changed, but some of the same people I hung out with in 1980 will be in Indianapolis this week. We've been meeting at Bouchercons for 30 years now, and it's become almost like a family reunion. While I'm looking forward to cruising the dealers' room and seeing a few panels, it's the friends that make the trip worthwhile. Maybe I'll even make some new friends this weekend. That's what Bouchercon is really about for me.