This evening on Vince Keenan's fine blog is a review of one of the books from the Seventies men's adventure series The Liquidator, written by "R.L. Brent". I knew that Brent was really a pseudonym for an author named Larry Powell, but in looking around the Internet for more information on Powell, I discovered he'd written a series I'd never heard of: DONOVAN'S DEVILS. This series published by Award Books under the name Lee Parker ran for three books in 1974 and '75. I found a scan of the cover of the second book, which you can see here. Considering my book-buying and reading habits in the mid-Seventies, how in the world did I miss this one? Now I have to fight the urge to go out and look for these books, even though if I found them and bought them I'd probably never read them.
It's a sickness, that's what it is.
5 comments:
Thanks for the kind words, James, and for filling in the blanks about "R.L. Brent." As for Donovan's Devils, far be it for me to encourage you in your sickness, but the idea of reading a mid-seventies men's adventure novel about fighting Arab terrorists sounds mighty intriguing.
Sadly, I understand exactly what you're talking about.
Surely there's a price limit for you? It there weren't, then it would be a sickness. (Hard to imagine, though, that someone would ask, say, $100 for a Larry Powell paperback.)
Oh, yeah, there are definitely limits to what I'll spend on a book. Of course, that limit varies depending on what the book is. But if I ran across a Donovan's Devils book in Half Price's nostalgia section for a buck or two, I'd probably buy it even though I might never read it. For too many years, I bought books because "that looks interesting, I might read that someday", rather than "I want to read that right now". As a result I own more books than I'll ever get around to reading. But as a very wise man once said, you never regret the books you buy, only the books you didn't buy.
See, I have that same sickness and the same problem with more books than I will ever read. And reading this and Bill's blog doesn't help my sickness either.
Danny
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