New This Week

Honest, I don't just go around buying books hand over fist all the time. The past few weeks have been unusual. I'm sure a lot of weeks this year, I didn't buy anything, not even any e-books. But . . . well . . . that's not the case this week.

This first batch came from the Ridgmar Half Price Books in Fort Worth:

MEN'S ADVENTURE MAGAZINES IN POSTWAR AMERICA: THE RICH OBERG COLLECTION – text by Max Allan Collins, George Hagenauer, and Steven Heller. Back in the Seventies I tried to sell stories to the few men's adventure magazines that were left by then, but the genre was really on its last legs. This massive book, consisting mostly of covers and interior illustrations from those magazines but with some informative and entertaining text chapters as well, traces the history of those magazines from their beginnings through their heyday. I came across a copy of the original edition (a later reprint omitted some of the material) and decided I needed to have it. It's an interesting genre, and I wish I could have managed to sell a few stories in it. (Yes, you're correct. I want to write everything. I haven't given up on writing a comic book story and a movie script one of these days.)

DICK TRACY: THE COLLINS CASEFILES, VOLUMES 2 AND 3 – Max Allan Collins. Two more collections of Dick Tracy storylines written by Collins. I got the first one a while back but haven't read it yet.

FIREARMS, TRAPS, AND TOOLS OF THE MOUNTAIN MEN – Carl P. Russell. What looks to be an excellent research book about the fur trapping era. I know some of this stuff already from research for previous books, but you can never know too much.

OVERKILL – Robert Buettner. Science fiction novel by an author compared by some to Heinlein. We'll see.

AREA 7 – Matthew Reilly. Thriller novel by the Australian author. This one features Shane Schofield, the hero of the only other book I've read by Reilly, HELL ISLAND. I sort of liked that one, but I thought it had almost too much over-the-top action in it. (I know, you didn't think that was possible where I was concerned. Neither did I.)

WINTER'S KNIGHT – Richard Argent. I'm not sure whether this is a fantasy novel about the Crusades or a historical novel about the Crusades. Either way it looks decent. I'm not familiar with the author at all.

And finally, LOST RACE OF MARS, an early (1960) juvenile science fiction novel by Robert Silverberg. The one I have is a sixth printing, from 1972. I'm glad to get it, though, because I've never run across a copy of this novel before.

Then I had to be pretty close to Denton on non-book-related business, and since I was already almost there I figured a visit to Recycled Books would be in order. This is what I came away with:

Ace Double Westerns: D-8 GUNSMOKE GOLD, Tom West/TERROR RIDES THE RANGE, Allan K. Echols; D-64 UNDER THE MESA RIM, Chandler Whipple/BULLETS DON'T BLUFF, Paul Evan Lehman; D-72 NIGHTRIDER DEPUTY, Ralph R. Perry/THE DEVIL'S SADDLE, Norman A. Fox; D-192 BEWARE OF THIS TENDERFOOT, Roy Manning/BAD BLOOD AT BLACK RANGE, John Callahan; D-276 THE GUNSMOKE TRAIL, Barry Cord/LEAD IN HIS FISTS, Tom West; D-316 MESQUITE JOHNNY, Barry Cord/A TIME FOR GUNS, Rod Patterson; F-124 SLATTERY/BULLET WELCOME FOR SLATTERY, Steven G. Lawrence. Some of these show some wear and age, but some are in really good condition with maybe the whitest paper I've ever seen in Ace Doubles. Another point in their favor: two bucks each. That's lots of good reading for not much money.

WHISPERING RANGE – Ernest Haycox. Another early novel by Haycox. Evidently this one wasn't originally a pulp story.

MONTANA ROAD – Harry Sinclair Drago. A novel mostly about the aftermath of the battle at the Little Big Horn. Drago, whether writing under his own name or as Bliss Lomax or Will Ermine, is usually worth reading. The cover art on this one was used originally on the December 1948 issue of POPULAR WESTERN.

RIO GRANDE KID – R.M. Hankins. Paperback reprint of a novel originally published as LONESOME RIVER JUSTICE. I guess they put "Grande" in there because there were already too many Rio Kids. I'm not familiar with the author.

RIO RENEGADE/BULLET FOR BANNERMAN – Kirk Hamilton. American reprint of a couple of Australian Westerns originally published by Cleveland, starring a pair of troubleshooters named Yancey Bannerman and Johnny Cato. "Kirk Hamilton" was really Keith Hetherington, one of the most prolific Western authors of all time. He may well be the most prolific and is still adding to his total by writing new novels under several different pseudonyms for the Black Horse Western line.

RICK O'SHAY, HIPSHOT, AND ME – Stan Lynde. A memoir by the cartoonist and Western novelist that also reprints a number of complete storylines from the Rick O'Shay comic strip. This strip was one of my favorites growing up. I remember my dad reading them to me from the newspaper before I could even read.

As if that wasn't enough, I had to go right by the Hulen Half Price Books in Fort Worth, and, well, if that's not fate, I don't know what is. So here's what I bought there:

THE YEAR AFTER TOMORROW – Lester del Rey, Cecile Matschat, and Carl Farmer, editors. Science fiction anthology published by Winston. It doesn't have those great endpapers like you'll find in the Winston SF juveniles. The contents are an odd mix from ASTOUNDING and THE AMERICAN BOY. Authors represented are del Rey, Robert Moore Williams, Carl H. Claudy, and Peter van Dresser. I've vaguely heard of Claudy and never heard of van Dresser. (My copy doesn't have that dust jacket and isn't in great shape, but it cost a dollar.)

HARD CITY – Clark Howard. An autobiographical novel by the well-known crime fiction writer about growing up in Chicago in the 1940s.

A MATTER OF CONVICTION – Evan Hunter. Novel about a district attorney and some juvenile delinquents. This is a movie tie-in edition with Burt Lancaster and Dina Merrill on the cover. I've never seen the movie. Hunter's always worth reading, though.

SAVAGE STREETS – William P. McGivern. Another JD novel, published the same year (1959) as the Evan Hunter novel.

THE MOBSTER – John Roeburt. Pirated edition of a gangster novel set in the Roaring Twenties, originally published by Pyramid Books.

OTHER TIMES, OTHER WORLDS – John D. MacDonald. Collection of science fiction stories written from the late Forties to the late Sixties and originally published in ASTOUNDING, STARTLING STORIES, THRILLING WONDER STORIES, WEIRD TALES, SUPER SCIENCE STORIES, WORLDS BEYOND, GALAXY, THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, COSMOPOLITAN, and PLAYBOY. There's also a bibliography of all of JDM's magazine SF. I've read his three science fiction novels and enjoyed them. This should be good stuff.

And finally another Ace Double Western, F-292 THE MAN AT ROPE'S END, Tom West/THE HIDDEN RIDER OF DARK MOUNTAIN, Gordon D. Shirreffs. Hard to beat that combo. I'd never heard of the Shirreffs novel, but I'll bet it's good. With a title like that, I also wouldn't be surprised if it's an expansion of a pulp story.

That's it. And that's more than enough. (More scans below.)