tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75279672024-03-19T03:47:57.254-05:00Rough EdgesJames Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.comBlogger6175125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-71581012673807758212024-03-18T10:40:00.000-05:002024-03-18T10:40:20.735-05:00The D.C. Man #1: Top Secret Kill - James P. Cody (Peter T. Rohrbach)<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo-sttxKHmltoTlsTcEPt2yxuYFoWd68X3MJmskHqkGRqh9CcUP-RGvIh8za27YId2qEmIVgmEbyPvqirA4yWibccVcUpYbxxOWJs3AnRy6tnuwCivcXW9h-V9cgtL_lK2S8DxM7hH81wwqXD0G3dnklSpokS6Mt-GXHryapq_PnvztSZlmzns/s600/Top%20Secret%20Kill%20Brash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="385" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo-sttxKHmltoTlsTcEPt2yxuYFoWd68X3MJmskHqkGRqh9CcUP-RGvIh8za27YId2qEmIVgmEbyPvqirA4yWibccVcUpYbxxOWJs3AnRy6tnuwCivcXW9h-V9cgtL_lK2S8DxM7hH81wwqXD0G3dnklSpokS6Mt-GXHryapq_PnvztSZlmzns/w256-h400/Top%20Secret%20Kill%20Brash.jpg" width="256" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />I vaguely remember seeing copies of the original editions of
the D.C. Man series in used bookstores back in the Seventies, but I never
bought or read any of them. I guess they just didn’t stand out enough from the
many, many men’s adventure and mystery series being published then. But they
resurfaced a few years ago when my friend Tom Simon of the Paperback Warrior
website and podcast became interested in them and decided to find out the true
identity of the author of those four novels, who was by-lined as James P. Cody.
(To digress for a moment, I was asked once by a fan if <i>I</i> was James P.
Cody, given my first name and the fact that the protagonist of my first novel
is named Cody. I answered honestly that I had nothing to do with those books
and hadn’t even read them.)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Well, to sum up what you can read in Simon’s entertaining and informative
introduction to these new reprints of the series, “James P. Cody” turned out to
be Peter T. Rohrbach, a former Catholic priest from Washington, D.C., who left
the priesthood, married and had a daughter, and wrote the four novels in the
D.C. Man series as well as numerous works of non-fiction. Simon’s investigation
into the author led, in turn, to the series being reprinted by Brash Books, and
that led to me reading the first novel, TOP SECRET KILL, fifty years after it
was first published.<br />
<br />
</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNpYWJhoGThNzPvspwDZ_NEokuZav9SdD2StRsODbP8giHfm-WcTiKM2ZcMJT7ibJU3o3mIOli_5PiFlXwkbh9D4QxTSY2miUHpgcOaTQWFRidql7qd-OQBH6zkqoUlXR_agDZgdP5H6ImKINkonj44li3b2jINdm-3wIHCWcAWfCfHARys0Uq/s2048/Top%20Secret%20Kill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1189" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNpYWJhoGThNzPvspwDZ_NEokuZav9SdD2StRsODbP8giHfm-WcTiKM2ZcMJT7ibJU3o3mIOli_5PiFlXwkbh9D4QxTSY2miUHpgcOaTQWFRidql7qd-OQBH6zkqoUlXR_agDZgdP5H6ImKINkonj44li3b2jINdm-3wIHCWcAWfCfHARys0Uq/w233-h400/Top%20Secret%20Kill.jpg" width="233" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />The D.C. Man is Brian Peterson, former football player and member of Army
Intelligence. Having married the daughter of a politician, he becomes a lobbyist
in Washington, D.C., only to have his comfortable life shattered by tragedy
when his wife and infant daughter are killed in a car crash. After a period of
mourning and generally going to seed, Peterson resumes his career as a
lobbyist, only he has a sideline now: he's a fixer for anybody who has an embarrassing
and/or dangerous problem they need taken care of discreetly. And since he
operates in Washington, there’s never a shortage of dangerous jobs for Peterson
to take on. This set-up allows him to put his physical toughness and his investigative
background to work.<br />
<br />
All this is back-story, which Rohrbach takes a while to set up, but he does it
painlessly enough that it’s easy to keep reading. Peterson, who narrates the
story in first-person, has been a behind-the-scenes troubleshooter for a while
when TOP SECRET KILL opens. After a brief sequence to set the stage and show us
Peterson in action, he’s hired by a senator to investigate a leak in a
committee dealing with military expenditures. This serves as a fairly low-key
Macguffin, since the whole thing doesn’t really amount to any sort of
earth-shaking threat, but it works well enough to get Peterson involved in some
tough-guy stuff and a couple of murders. There’s also a beautiful blonde along
the way to liven things up for him.<br />
<br />
As you can tell from that description, TOP SECRET KILL is pretty much a private
eye yarn in everything but name. As such, it reminds me of a couple of other
tough guy series set in Washington, Stephen Marlowe’s Chester Drum novels (and
Drum actually is a private eye) and the Steve Bentley novels by E. Howard Hunt
writing as Robert Dietrich (Bentley is a two-fisted CPA). Rohrbach wasn’t as
polished a writer as Marlowe or Hunt, but he spins this yarn in entertaining fashion
and it moves along quite nicely once everything is in place. I enjoyed this one
enough that I’m sure I’ll read the other novels in the series, and if you’re a
fan of Seventies men’s adventure or hardboiled detective fiction, I certainly
recommend getting to know the D.C. Man. This one is available in <a href="https://amzn.to/3Vm2c8e" target="_blank">paperback</a> and <a href="https://amzn.to/3wYWvTT" target="_blank">e-book</a> editions from Amazon, as are the others in the series.</span><o:p></o:p><p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-4167994418586036882024-03-17T05:30:00.001-05:002024-03-17T05:30:00.346-05:00Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Planet Stories, March 1943<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6IOO3RDzUjq_sZTWNbZ762w42xcq5-YrJz5cEprS10vlWTQEvHlV5LTuKTXVCurr9xGCLNTbUmeAOyfdp0wrJEorr0uY8wrWkqTZEUgwCOpl748kzahDj6Kf8Qwob5CcQJEkpFNvTCOysK8gJ3exSGSPQgM9-Oq1q8HBpkfRPin6pV-wLA13l/s600/planet_stories_194303.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="424" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6IOO3RDzUjq_sZTWNbZ762w42xcq5-YrJz5cEprS10vlWTQEvHlV5LTuKTXVCurr9xGCLNTbUmeAOyfdp0wrJEorr0uY8wrWkqTZEUgwCOpl748kzahDj6Kf8Qwob5CcQJEkpFNvTCOysK8gJ3exSGSPQgM9-Oq1q8HBpkfRPin6pV-wLA13l/w283-h400/planet_stories_194303.jpg" width="283" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />I like this PLANET STORIES cover by Jerome Rozen, and inside this issue are stories by some excellent writers: Leigh Brackett, Nelson S. Bond, Carl Jacobi, Ross Rocklynne, Ray Cummings, and Milton Lesser (better known these days as Stephen Marlowe). This and a bunch of other PLANET STORIES issues can be read on-line <a href="https://www.luminist.org/archives/SF/PS.htm" target="_blank">here</a>. Would that I had time to do so!</span><p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-28074677090730833802024-03-16T05:30:00.001-05:002024-03-16T05:30:00.130-05:00Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Texas Rangers, October 1954<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-HBvmQAozdBDM8qnk40m_lqCj6ikWPc6h0OMxrdgWcaGetKKvzpma862PuWhnyjKQoSANZ-OBopxo_0oVZOLMqFv4dDrSHLH4woZUYkJi4gpCWogCqkIgQoMr6wQ-Ccex3Gj6NZVxe9pbcaw8bX8EYEW4tzLgGML-atekzHRx0k2SfwCMOnLv/s1389/TR1054.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1389" data-original-width="1046" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-HBvmQAozdBDM8qnk40m_lqCj6ikWPc6h0OMxrdgWcaGetKKvzpma862PuWhnyjKQoSANZ-OBopxo_0oVZOLMqFv4dDrSHLH4woZUYkJi4gpCWogCqkIgQoMr6wQ-Ccex3Gj6NZVxe9pbcaw8bX8EYEW4tzLgGML-atekzHRx0k2SfwCMOnLv/w301-h400/TR1054.jpg" width="301" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy
in the scan. The art is by Sam Cherry, as usual during this era of TEXAS
RANGERS. What’s a little unusual is that it depicts a scene in the issue’s lead
novel, which didn’t happen often on the covers of Western pulps. I don’t know
if Cherry actually read this issue’s Jim Hatfield novel or the editor or art
director told him about the scene, but either way, it’s quite effective.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">That lead novel, “The Deepest Grave”, is a good one, too. Texas Ranger Jim
Hatfield is sent to the Big Bend area of Texas to investigate the disappearance
of a young Ranger assigned to uncover the thieves behind a high-grading scheme
at a gold mine. The trail leads Hatfield to the mining boomtown of LaPlata, but
only after he’s ambushed and suffers an arm wound, an injury that bothers him
for the remainder of this novel, which is also an unusual touch. The story
barrels along with almost non-stop action and features some suspenseful scenes
in a mine shaft hundreds of feet under the ground. According to the Fictionmags
Index, the author of this yarn is Walker A. Tompkins, and while it’s sometimes difficult
to tell the difference between the Hatfield novels by Tompkins and the ones
penned by Peter Germano, I agree that this one certainly reads like Tompkins’
work. It’s a really solid, enjoyable Jim Hatfield novel.<br />
<br />
“Half a Solid Gold Mountain” isn’t exactly a comedy, but the first-person
narration has a bit of a lighthearted touch about it that works pretty well.
This tale of the dangerous encounter between a prospector and a gang of Mexican
bandits along the border is by Frank Scott York. I don’t know anything about
the author except that he wrote about three dozen Western and detective yarns
for the pulps during the mid-Fifties. This one isn’t a lost gem, but it’s
enjoyable.<br />
<br />
I don’t know anything about H.G. Ashburn, either, except that he published
about a dozen stories in various Western pulps during a short career in the
mid-Fifties. His story “The Last Attack” in this issue is the first of those
yarns. It’s a good story about a fast gun with a bad ticker and an unusual
resolution to a gunfight. I liked it.<br />
<br />
I’ve mentioned many times that I don’t care for the Jim Hatfield novels that
Roe Richmond wrote under the Jackson Cole house-name. But in recent years, I’ve
come to enjoy his stand-alone Western stories under his own name. His novelette
in this issue, “Pretty Devil”, is really good. Two former Confederate officers,
Sid Conister and Rip Razee, left homeless and broke by the war and
Reconstruction, head west to Arizona Territory so Conister can claim part-ownership
in a ranch, an interest he inherited from his late wife. When they get there,
they find themselves immersed in troubles right out of a Southern Gothic: lurid
secrets, hidden crimes, rampaging emotions. Richmond packs enough back-story
and plot into this one that it could have been a full-length novel. And actually,
it might have been better at that length with more room to develop the
complicated story. As is, it’s still great fun to read, and I’ll definitely be
on the lookout for more stories by Richmond.<br />
<br />
“Fight or Drift” by Giles A. Lutz is a short story about a fiddle-playing
drifter with a secret. Lutz was a consistently good writer and this excellent
yarn manages to be both gritty and heartwarming.<br />
<br />
I’ve also made a number of negative comments about the work of Ben Frank. I
generally find his humorous Westerns, including his long-running Doc Swap
series, rather unfunny. Even so, I always give his stories a try, and in “Not
the Marrying Kind”, his contribution to this issue, he proves that he can write
a lightweight but fairly straightforward Western yarn. It's the tale of a young
rancher who has to contend not only with a pretty blonde who has her sights set
on marrying him but also an escaped outlaw who blames our protagonist for him
being captured and sent to prison in the first place. It’s cleverly plotted
with Frank planting some stuff early in the story that pays off later and may
well be the best thing I’ve read by Ben Frank.<br />
<br />
Overall, this is an outstanding issue of TEXAS RANGERS with not a bad story in
the bunch and a good Sam Cherry cover, to boot. If you have a copy on your
shelves, it’s well worth reading. </span><o:p></o:p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-77944843671182948782024-03-15T06:30:00.000-05:002024-03-15T06:30:00.134-05:00A Rough Edges Rerun: Murder on the Side - Day Keene<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG0u5Dte0L1gLDkfi2KTXgCmqhwXzYVU9bGADBmcR8S4T9XER_I42dbLbaMq0S2WTRfODFCVdxA3eBJHpYZnVk94cZDWEhiAgjXZWGO45fVdl0dxB_aLm2ojKe41Wcm4GdRswN_wlS_xRD5ZxPzQTh5qlGsmBRnRc5o4O87GDygTSu3VYzT5mG/s600/Murder%20on%20the%20Side.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="360" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG0u5Dte0L1gLDkfi2KTXgCmqhwXzYVU9bGADBmcR8S4T9XER_I42dbLbaMq0S2WTRfODFCVdxA3eBJHpYZnVk94cZDWEhiAgjXZWGO45fVdl0dxB_aLm2ojKe41Wcm4GdRswN_wlS_xRD5ZxPzQTh5qlGsmBRnRc5o4O87GDygTSu3VYzT5mG/w240-h400/Murder%20on%20the%20Side.jpg" width="240" /></a></i></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i><br />(This post originally appeared in a somewhat different form on January 23, 2009. I failed to mention in it that the cover is by the great Barye Phillips.)</i></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">At the beginning of this novel, Larry Hanson is bored. He’s bored with his job because, while he’s trained to be an engineer and works at an engineering firm, he’s stuck in a desk job instead of being out building bridges and dams. He’s bored in his marriage to a cold, uncaring wife. He’s approaching middle age and fears that life has passed him by. So when his wife is out of town caring for her sick mother and his beautiful young secretary calls him in the middle of the night because she thinks she’s just accidentally killed her old boyfriend who just got out of prison, Larry thinks that maybe he’ll finally have a little excitement in his life.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">And since this is a Gold Medal novel, you know that Larry’s about to get a whole lot more excitement than he bargained for.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">It’ll come as no surprise to anybody who’s read more than a few of these books that Larry soon finds himself up to his neck in trouble, of the multiple murder, on the run from the cops, illicit sex, missing money, and deadly secrets variety. Like a lot of Gold Medal protagonists, Larry’s kind of a heel and not too bright, at least at first. The plot stretches credulity almost to the breaking point a few times, but Day Keene is such a skillful author and keeps things moving so fast that the reader doesn’t really care. I didn’t, anyway.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Chances are you’ll see most of the twists and turns coming in this one, but I’ve discovered that reading a Gold Medal novel is a lot like taking a Sunday afternoon drive: the pleasure isn’t so much in where you’re going, but rather in how you get there. I’m not sure that MURDER ON THE SIDE is a book you’d hand to somebody who’s never read a Gold Medal and say, “This is what they’re like.” You’d probably need a Charles Williams or Harry Whittington or Gil Brewer novel for that. To me Day Keene’s work never quite reaches the same level of sweaty intensity that you find in a book by those other authors. It’s still incredibly entertaining and just flat-out fun to read. Highly recommended.</span></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-74789379134933443872024-03-13T05:30:00.001-05:002024-03-13T05:30:00.132-05:00Neither Beg Nor Yield - Jason M. Waltz, ed. (Part 5)<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOPkc1QsgQ7t6uAsH1B0gqBxtDiHpgm2us80usPi85UmOn2AfJB9AfvkCN6LQfbozXWAPNngOLkkAXgosWj6fHdz7IRX45pDcTntZfcEKMn2yxZhkPDdHwfuRyWy2FqicumEnVb4jtH9USWwmE8iJaOUcHgZ-NIhyphenhyphenpy2jDJrE5NhDzzST-22ng/s600/Neither%20Beg%20Nor%20Yield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOPkc1QsgQ7t6uAsH1B0gqBxtDiHpgm2us80usPi85UmOn2AfJB9AfvkCN6LQfbozXWAPNngOLkkAXgosWj6fHdz7IRX45pDcTntZfcEKMn2yxZhkPDdHwfuRyWy2FqicumEnVb4jtH9USWwmE8iJaOUcHgZ-NIhyphenhyphenpy2jDJrE5NhDzzST-22ng/w266-h400/Neither%20Beg%20Nor%20Yield.jpg" width="266" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />This is the fifth and final batch of reviews of stories from
<a href="https://amzn.to/3Veddsj" target="_blank">NEITHER BEG NOR YIELD</a>, the new sword and sorcery anthology from Rogue Blades
Entertainment and editor Jason M. Waltz. The previous installments of this
series can be found <a href="https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2024/02/neither-beg-nor-yield-stories-with-s.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2024/02/neither-beg-nor-yield-jason-m-waltz-ed.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2024/02/neither-beg-nor-yield-jason-m-waltz-ed_01108384178.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2024/03/neither-beg-nor-yield-jason-m-waltz-ed.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">In most anthologies, collections, pulps, or any bunch of stories that I read,
there’s usually at least one that I bounce off of, which is not to say that
they’re bad stories, just ones that don’t appeal to me personally. This has
finally happened in this anthology with “The Last Vandals on Earth” by Steven
Erikson. This tale of a small group of Vandals being pursued by and battling
enemies in Africa is written in an elaborate, highly distinctive style that
just doesn’t resonate with me. I suspect some of you would really like it, so
don’t go by me. But I didn’t care for it.<br />
<br />
“The Barbarian’s Lawyer” by Lawrence A. Weinstein is just the opposite. It
introduces two excellent characters, the barbarian called Blazgorn and Cynric
Magsen, the lawyer who defends him before the High Arbiter when Blazgorn is
accused of stealing treasures from the mansion of one of the city’s most powerful
nobles. Doing humor in a sword and sorcery tale is a tricky proposition, but
Weinstein manages quite well, prompting a number of smiles and one out-loud
laugh from me while I was reading the story. But at the same time, he also
gives us some very effective action. This is a wonderful story, and I’d love to
see more of these two characters.<br />
<br />
Last year, the first novel in Howard Andrew Jones’ Hanuvar series, LORD OF A
SHATTERED LAND, was one of the best books I read. I have the second book, THE
CITY OF MARBLE AND BLOOD, but haven’t read it yet. I was very glad to see Jones
and Hanuvar in this volume, as well. For those who haven’t yet made his
acquaintance, Hanuvar is sort of an alternate world version of Hannibal
(although that’s really too simplistic a description). His goal is to locate
the survivors from his conquered country, Volanus, who have been scattered all
over a world ruled by the Dervan Empire (think Rome) and get them to a safe
sanctuary. In “Reflection From a Tarnished Mirror”, he runs up against an
unusual threat to his quest, and as usual, Jones spins a well-written,
compelling yarn. I’m not sure where in Hanuvar’s saga this story takes place,
exactly, but it’s a strong reminder that I need to get around to reading that second
book.<br />
<br />Finally, we have “Maiden Flight” by Adrian Cole. This is the first adventure of
Ulric Wulfsen, a Viking raider who has a strange and dangerous encounter on a
corpse-littered battlefield that leads to an epic confrontation and a poignant,
very effective ending. I’ve been aware of Adrian Cole’s fiction for decades but
have never read anything by him as far as I recall. This is a very good story
and a near-perfect way to wrap up the anthology.<br />
<br />
Looking back, I have some definite favorites among the stories in this volume.
The top rank, for me, consists of the tales by Steve Dilks, Chuck Dixon, Keith
J. Taylor, David C. Smith, Eadwine Brown, Jeff Stewart, Lawrence A. Weinstein,
and Howard Andrew Jones. Four out of those eight authors are ones I’d never
read before, and that’s one of the great appeals of a book like this,
introducing the reader to new authors, or at least, authors they’ve never read
before. I’ll definitely be looking for more work by several of these gentlemen.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, if you’re a fan of sword and sorcery, I give my highest
recommendation to <a href="https://amzn.to/3Veddsj" target="_blank">NEITHER BEG NOR YIELD</a>. Even though it’s relatively early, I
have no doubt that it’ll be on my Top Ten list at the end of the year.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /></span>
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<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-26031340697945339832024-03-11T05:00:00.007-05:002024-03-11T05:00:00.136-05:00The Savage Sword of Conan #1<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV9U78k8XcIoSEOnp8g-t64udp-AY_I5xazZhW1VcuMYaGrWb16XG_6USyiW8yrlXRAlbannoEImMTXnHE9Sjw3QQwipXKOCzbyLw1Q3n7PA6Lfr7nN9ejZUEM3DNBdZcySX1rwyi_biz3bJcC9vslyLOPAK1UzE7VkxpIX83xeDKTT-9BSBYX/s600/SSOC%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV9U78k8XcIoSEOnp8g-t64udp-AY_I5xazZhW1VcuMYaGrWb16XG_6USyiW8yrlXRAlbannoEImMTXnHE9Sjw3QQwipXKOCzbyLw1Q3n7PA6Lfr7nN9ejZUEM3DNBdZcySX1rwyi_biz3bJcC9vslyLOPAK1UzE7VkxpIX83xeDKTT-9BSBYX/w299-h400/SSOC%201.jpg" width="299" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />There’s a lot of nostalgia involved with me reading a new issue
of THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN. I remember quite well buying issues of the original magazine of that title back in the Seventies at Lester’s Pharmacy, walking across the
highway to my house, and reading great stories by Roy Thomas, John Buscema, and
Alfredo Alcala, as well as articles about Robert E. Howard and his work by Fred
Blosser, who I’m privileged to call a friend all these years later. I read SSOC
for many years after that.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">So when I heard that Titan Comics was bringing back THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN, I
knew I’d have to give it a try. This time, however, I read the <a href="https://amzn.to/48MHDF6" target="_blank">digital version</a>,
something I never would have dreamed possible fifty years ago when I read the
original magazine. It looks excellent as an e-book, too.<br />
<br />
There are several variant covers for this first issue of the revived magazine.
The one that came up when I opened it is the primary one, I think. It was painted
by Joe Jusko, and it’s superb. I really like it.<br />
<br />
After a foreword by Roy Thomas (and I’m always glad to read anything Roy has to
say), the Conan story, which takes up most of the book, is “The Dragon Horde”,
written by John Arcudi with art by Max Von Fafner. Arcudi’s name is familiar to
me, although I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by him. Von Fafner is
brand-new to me. But I enjoyed both of their contributions here. Arcudi’s
script, which finds Conan serving as a mercenary general in the army of a
Hyrkanian prince trying to overthrow his brother, is violent and fast-paced
with a few effective twists and turns. Von Fafner’s art, while it doesn’t
appeal to me as much as Rob de la Torre’s in Titan’s color Conan comic, is
suitably gritty and his storytelling is solid for the most part. I did have to
look at a few panels a second time to make sure what was happening. Overall, “The
Dragon Horde” is an entertaining yarn and definitely reminiscent of the
original SSOC.<br />
<br />
“Sacrifice in the Sand” is a short prose story about Conan by Jim Zub, the
scripter of the above-mentioned color comic. It’s good for what it is, but the
length keeps it from developing any more than the most basic plot. It’s
certainly well-written and entertaining enough that I’d be interested in
reading more Conan prose stories by Zub.<br />
<br />
The highlight of the issue is “Master of the Hunt”, part 1 of a serialized
Solomon Kane story written and drawn by Patrick Zircher. This tale of a monster
breaking through the barrier between worlds and terrorizing a remote area of
Wales is a terrific yarn. Zircher captures Solomon Kane very well both visually
and in his lean, fast-paced script. I’m really looking forward to the next part
of this story.<br />
<br />
So I’m very pleased to see that THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN is back, and I think
everyone involved in this issue did themselves proud.</span></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-74219298106700818782024-03-10T05:30:00.001-05:002024-03-10T05:30:00.157-05:00Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Adventures, May 1937<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf-H_Z-OBTvheF2IJa9zKGs4CzdRgp6zmbO-rTOBXaIzNpFLAxUMMlxL-aClJbbFZlHntE3oNAeOChLgPAtAeXsy9GKeRZmDJmhL7SySVqHWRDE85BNy5UBiOpJBhGP0Vj_kj2BOXKD_Y5746DnfZRDJzf4W23GuVbkqNkPqAlZfjKHvKCj3p0/s600/thrilling_adventures_193705.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="412" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf-H_Z-OBTvheF2IJa9zKGs4CzdRgp6zmbO-rTOBXaIzNpFLAxUMMlxL-aClJbbFZlHntE3oNAeOChLgPAtAeXsy9GKeRZmDJmhL7SySVqHWRDE85BNy5UBiOpJBhGP0Vj_kj2BOXKD_Y5746DnfZRDJzf4W23GuVbkqNkPqAlZfjKHvKCj3p0/w275-h400/thrilling_adventures_193705.jpg" width="275" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />Okay, did our stalwart hero have that six-gun with him in the diving suit, or was it waiting for him when he climbed back aboard the boat? We don't know, but either way, this is a fine cover by Rudolph Belarski. This issue of THRILLING ADVENTURES features stories by some good authors including Tom Curry, Oscar Schisgall, Carl Jacobi, and William Merriam Rouse. In a field where ADVENTURE, ARGOSY, SHORT STORIES, and BLUE BOOK were the top of the line, THRILLING ADVENTURES occupied a lower rank, but it always had vivid, action-packed covers and dependably entertaining writers.</span><p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-2758358622352599022024-03-09T07:30:00.000-06:002024-03-09T07:31:00.513-06:00Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Thrilling Western, July 1952<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz2W9ivXHg5DQDQ_Wp-anhle1UHKgyow6p_DNI_fffFYR8suHtBexgV_doUBq-JNRertyZrFy6CcxpwlnVps_f_7Auzg2wA6Q06u40WyClBnyvVRe_Xo1g4fP2YoQDQGRPTLir81fMaRJLEh3HPgqGwFDXmdXqhzo6GiLjNF5Xk9MY5l67RDeR/s1389/TW0752.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1389" data-original-width="1026" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz2W9ivXHg5DQDQ_Wp-anhle1UHKgyow6p_DNI_fffFYR8suHtBexgV_doUBq-JNRertyZrFy6CcxpwlnVps_f_7Auzg2wA6Q06u40WyClBnyvVRe_Xo1g4fP2YoQDQGRPTLir81fMaRJLEh3HPgqGwFDXmdXqhzo6GiLjNF5Xk9MY5l67RDeR/w295-h400/TW0752.jpg" width="295" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />This is a pulp I own and read recently. That’s my copy in
the scan. The cover is credited on the Fictionmag Index to Sam Cherry, and
after looking at the faces, I do believe it’s Cherry’s work, but it’s also kind
of an atypical cover for him.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">It's also a little unusual that the lead novella in this issue, featured on the
cover, is a story by an author who had never appeared in the pulps before. In
fact, “Blood on the Lode” is one of only two stories credited to James D.
Pinkham in the FMI. A novelette by him appeared in MAX BRAND’S WESTERN MAGAZINE
in 1953. I wondered briefly if the name was a pseudonym for a better-known
Western writer, but I decided that probably wasn’t the case. Pinkham’s style is
distinct enough that I don’t recall encountering it under any other name.<br />
<br />
And it’s a maddeningly frustrating style, too. The story is one that hasn’t
been done to death in Western pulp fiction and is reasonably accurate
historically, too. In 1853, a pair of California Rangers are sent to a mining
boomtown to clean up the lawlessness there. The heroes, Luke Corbin and the
Alamo Kid, are Texans who rode with the Rangers there while Texas was a republic,
and they’ve followed their old commander, Captain Harry Love, to California. So
far, so good. Corbin and the Kid are fine protagonists. In their new job, they’re
up against a crooked judge and a gambler/saloon owner who’s the mastermind of a
gang of claim jumpers. Or is he? His beautiful, redheaded partner in the saloon
is known as the Flame and has some secrets of her own. This is good stuff, and
it’s done well in stretches with some great action scenes.<br />
<br />
But then everything lurches to a halt as Pinkham spends several columns of
dense prose summing up his character’s activities. Corbin wanders around talking
endlessly to various characters, and Pinkham doesn’t even give us interesting
dialogue, just dry recaps of what’s being discussed. Then we’re off again on
another well-done ambush or shootout, but the previous scene has robbed the
story almost completely of any momentum. He keeps up this pattern all the way
through the story.<br />
<br />
Despite those flaws, there’s enough to like in “Blood on the Lode” that I wish
Pinkham had written more. He could have been a promising author.<br />
<br />
I’ve never cared for Ben Frank’s work, although the readers must have because
his Doc Swap series of humorous stories ran for a long time in TEXAS RANGERS.
His story in this issue of THRILLING WESTERN is a stand-alone, “The Lucky
Horseshoe Case”, in which a couple of cowpokes try to become private detectives.
I told myself to give it a fair chance, but it’s just awful and I only made it through
a couple of pages.<br />
<br />
The “Man’s Business” referred to in Gile A. Lutz’s story of the same name is a
gunfight between two ranchers over a waterhole. However, things don’t turn out
as you might expect. This is a pretty minor story, but Lutz was a solid pro and
makes it readable and entertaining.<br />
<br />
“There’s Trouble in Hardpan” is the third Swap and Whopper story by Syl
McDowell that I’ve read recently. This is another humorous series that I never
liked, but for some unfathomable reason, I’ve started enjoying them. Tastes
change, I guess. This novelette finds the two drifting protagonists running
across an orchard in the middle of the desert and clashing with a cantankerous
veterinarian. As always, it’s lightweight stuff, but it moves right along and
is mildly amusing.<br />
<br />
Steuart Emery wrote a lot of excellent cavalry stories for various Western
pulps, most of them appearing in TEXAS RANGERS. But there’s one in this issue
of THRILLING WESTERN called “Phantom Sabers”, and it’s the usual top-notch job
from Emery. It features a clash between a bookish young lieutenant and an
overbearing captain and winds up with a very clever twist when a patrol is
surrounded and on the verge of being wiped out by Apaches. As far as I know,
Emery never wrote any Western novels, which is a shame.<br />
<br />
This issue wraps up with “Chalk Butte Conflict”, a novelette by Ben T. Young in
which a Texas cowboy wins a Wyoming ranch in a poker game. He’s too fiddle-footed
to settle down, so when he arrives in Wyoming, he plans to sell the spread as
quickly as he can and move on. The foreman who works for the local cattle baron
rubs him the wrong way, though, and the cattle baron has a beautiful daughter
(what cattle baron doesn’t?), so our protagonist decides to stick around for a
spell and trouble inevitably erupts. I don’t recall if I’ve ever read anything
else by Young, who wrote around a hundred stories, mostly Westerns, during the
Forties and early Fifties, but this is a very good story, told in an appealing
breezy style, with a likable protagonist and plenty of action. It ends this
issue on a high note.<br />
<br />
So this issue of THRILLING WESTERN is a mixed bag with no truly outstanding
stories but a couple of very good ones, several that are entertaining, and only
one clear miss, as far as I’m concerned. It’s about as middle-of-the-road as
you can find for a Western pulp, but I enjoyed reading it. </span><o:p></o:p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-84452648153711010172024-03-08T06:30:00.000-06:002024-03-08T06:30:00.128-06:00Where Is Bianca? - Ellery Queen (Talmage Powell)<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjywP1Io6F_osAudFXRgSNeo5rA0YLjzMowrNLH9SD_0oH8lNkz-mLSX42eVttE2GqghG6R1hVfSMo0Tz7-0z5E1X6jg1sMZhtUhfTq7YJLCBfJj2tWsEN3-N0InG-TY3HyttD6iJEknrdbyEkXLn8FlXWyBL6qtF-2VPC71qtv_BnUCKYEJuCs/s600/Where%20is%20Bianca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="358" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjywP1Io6F_osAudFXRgSNeo5rA0YLjzMowrNLH9SD_0oH8lNkz-mLSX42eVttE2GqghG6R1hVfSMo0Tz7-0z5E1X6jg1sMZhtUhfTq7YJLCBfJj2tWsEN3-N0InG-TY3HyttD6iJEknrdbyEkXLn8FlXWyBL6qtF-2VPC71qtv_BnUCKYEJuCs/w239-h400/Where%20is%20Bianca.jpg" width="239" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />I wouldn’t be surprised if every one of you reading this
knows that cousins Frederic Danny and Manfred B. Lee created the pseudonym and
the character Ellery Queen. And most, if not all, of you are also aware that during
the Sixties, Dannay and Lee contracted with several ghostwriters to turn out a
number of novels published under the Ellery Queen name, mostly stand-alones but
including a couple of series, one of them six books published by Popular Library
featuring one-eyed New York City police detective Captain Tim Corrigan.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I owned all six of those paperbacks at one time or another, but I know you won’t
be surprised to hear that I never got around to reading any of them. However, on
a whim, I recently picked up the <a href="https://amzn.to/42WVyat" target="_blank">e-book edition</a> of the first novel in the
series, WHERE IS BIANCA?, and figured it was time I finally read a Tim Corrigan
novel.<br />
<br />
The eyepatch-wearing Corrigan lost his left eye while serving in the Korean
War, then worked with the OSS, and then became a cop despite the patch not
being regulation. His old army buddy Chuck Baer is a private detective in New
York, and rather than being at odds with each other, as many fictional cops and
private eyes are, they frequently work so closely together on cases that Baer almost
might as well be a cop himself.<br />
<br />
In WHERE IS BIANCA?, the body of a young woman is found in the sewers and is in
such bad shape that identifying her is a challenge. Baer has been hired to
locate wealthy Bianca Lessard, who owns a number of theaters around the
country, including several in New York. She had a fight with her husband and
walked out of their swanky apartment. When she never came back, her worried
husband hired Baer to locate her. The corpse in the sewer is wearing a distinctive
ring that belonged to Bianca Lessard, but then Corrigan and Baer turn up two
more missing women who might be the victim, and that starts them on a hunt
through a circle of Broadway actors, producers, and playwrights, all of whom
seem to have shady pasts and/or secrets they want to keep hidden. It’s a
classic setup for a murder mystery in which the identity of the victim is just
as much a puzzle as that of the killer.<br />
<br />
The ghostwriter behind the EQ byline on this novel is Talmage Powell, a
well-regarded hardboiled mystery author under his own name. Years ago I read
and enjoyed some of his novels featuring Florida private eye Ed Rivers. I’ve
always found him to be a dependable author, but I thought WHERE IS BIANCA? was
a bit of a disappointment. The plot is solid, but the characterization is pretty
flat. We don’t really get to know much about anybody except Tim Corrigan, and
to be honest, he’s just not that likable or interesting. The book is lacking in
humor, and Powell tells the story in bland, “Just the facts, ma’am” prose that
falls flat as well. It’s certainly not terrible—it read quickly and I was never
tempted to not finish it—but I was expecting more.<br />
<br />
The next two books in the series were ghosted by Richard Deming, who I
generally consider a better writer than Powell although they’re certainly
similar, so I’ll give them a try as well. If nothing else, the books are short
and punchy and often that’s just what I want.<br />
<br />
One more note: I don’t know who did the cover artwork on the Popular Library
edition from 1966, which you can see at the top of this post, but when I looked
at it I immediately thought of Nick Fury and Countess Valentina Allega de
Fontaine. I don’t have any way of knowing if Jim Steranko ever saw the Tim
Corrigan paperbacks, but that cover sure reminds me of Nick and Val hanging
around Fury’s apartment in NICK FURY, AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D. #1, the classic
story “Who Is Scorpio?” that appeared in 1968, two years after WHERE IS BIANCA?
I’d like to think that paperback influenced one of my all-time favorite comic
book stories, but who knows?</span><o:p></o:p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-39664194198772376642024-03-06T04:30:00.001-06:002024-03-06T04:30:00.138-06:00Neither Beg Nor Yield - Jason M. Waltz, ed. (Part 4)<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjefpV_93Ftwy2RXuTSXPIk63IYXxY4QttXuW6VEK6rZUC784iXbwfh0Vay0tTD8vIl4hvZOOTYArtx7lJDNbwKiyLMGWzlRg-bg8sxROblpHDrSFP2PKCILds90MCz9vp_brRYFNIVtD55EcLItXb_l_5hAgdm9lDMHTqNaQNZaR-LC8hw1IGD/s600/Neither%20Beg%20Nor%20Yield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjefpV_93Ftwy2RXuTSXPIk63IYXxY4QttXuW6VEK6rZUC784iXbwfh0Vay0tTD8vIl4hvZOOTYArtx7lJDNbwKiyLMGWzlRg-bg8sxROblpHDrSFP2PKCILds90MCz9vp_brRYFNIVtD55EcLItXb_l_5hAgdm9lDMHTqNaQNZaR-LC8hw1IGD/w266-h400/Neither%20Beg%20Nor%20Yield.jpg" width="266" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />We’ve reached the fourth post in this series of reviews of
the stories in <a href="https://amzn.to/438bBlJ" target="_blank">NEITHER BEG NOR YIELD</a>, the great new anthology of sword and
sorcery stories from Rogue Blades Entertainment. The previous posts can be
found <a href="https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2024/02/neither-beg-nor-yield-stories-with-s.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2024/02/neither-beg-nor-yield-jason-m-waltz-ed.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2024/02/neither-beg-nor-yield-jason-m-waltz-ed_01108384178.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Eadwine Brown is a new author to me, and his story “Vengeance, With Wind and
Tide” features a new character he’s introducing, a female pirate named Azirah. She
and her crew set out to find an island with a mysterious tower located on it,
that tower being the stronghold of the sorcerer who is responsible for the
deaths of another crew of pirates. Azirah wants vengeance on this sorcerer, as
well as whatever treasure she and her followers can find. This is just a superb
story, written in a style reminiscent of Robert E. Howard, with plenty of
action, a strong protagonist, and a vividly realized setting. As I was reading,
I thought, “You know, Brown could have sold this to WEIRD TALES in the
Thirties.” That’s pretty high praise.<br />
<br />
“Isekai Sengokumonogatari” is by one of the big names in the genre, Glen Cook.
Like C.L. Werner’s story earlier in the book, this one is set in an alternate
version of feudal Japan, complete with spider demons. Also like Werner’s story,
I was predisposed not to be too fond of it, but Cook won me over just like
Werner did and I enjoyed this tale of a young warrior who picked the losing
side in a war. Hired to accompany a mysterious and somewhat sinister old man
and three noble orphans on a journey to deliver the children to relatives, our
hero Shinzutoro encounters considerable trouble and learns some things about
himself and others, prevailing over all the dangers to his charges. It’s a fine
story, as you’d expect from an old pro like Cook.<br />
<br />
Jeff Stewart is another writer new to me, and his story “Bona Na Croin” is the
first to feature Fergus Mac Ronan, a mercenary and adventurer in medieval
Ireland. A violent encounter results in Fergus becoming a soldier for one of
the local kings, and that plunges him into a war that culminates with the
summoning of an ancient evil entity. This story has a bit of a GAME OF THRONES
feeling to it with its betrayals, unexpected murders, and fiery sorcery. And it’s
an absolutely terrific yarn. Fergus is a fine protagonist, the action scenes
are very well done, and Stewart does a top-notch job capturing the grittiness
of the setting. I really liked this one.<br />
<br />
According to editor Jason Waltz, Steve Goble has been writing stories about the
warrior Calthus for a long time, but both author and character are new to me.
In “Virgins For Khuul”, Goble quickly gives us Calthus’s back-story: a mighty
warrior once known as the Slaughter Lord, killed in battle many years ago,
resurrected by wizards to meet a new threat, now a wanderer. When he comes
across a plan by evil priests to sacrifice three hundred virgins to the vicious
god Khuul, he teams up with an old enemy to put a stop to it. This leads to
some apocalyptic action in Khuul’s stronghold inside a mountain. Colorful,
fast-moving, and packed with action, “Virgins For Khuul” ends on an offbeat
note that’s very intriguing, and I’m left feeling like I ought to hunt up Goble’s
earlier stories about the character.<br />
<br />
This is another strong group of stories and I’m looking forward to wrapping up
my reading of NEITHER BEG NOR YIELD in the near future. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-17560385854695374802024-03-04T02:00:00.002-06:002024-03-04T08:22:45.364-06:00Now Available: Kingfisher #3: Tourist Trap - James Reasoner and Livia J. Washburn<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIo3zaOM1mW_xIAcpqUBV8W-TD-g5nJS5o9fDvBLPUZhyFM-1CAE1R72a0iLeL7TjtjkMvG3WfymuZ8AYtvwASkd9HCXcQJE7fwT5yxfXxtwhSSv5wLGuzWGLtm0Q43apPwR1erADvMb2VKyOoSaPhEGo4xypJWGRrRhhI469EToc3yOHB_mJ8/s600/Kingfisher%20PI%20Book%203.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="402" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIo3zaOM1mW_xIAcpqUBV8W-TD-g5nJS5o9fDvBLPUZhyFM-1CAE1R72a0iLeL7TjtjkMvG3WfymuZ8AYtvwASkd9HCXcQJE7fwT5yxfXxtwhSSv5wLGuzWGLtm0Q43apPwR1erADvMb2VKyOoSaPhEGo4xypJWGRrRhhI469EToc3yOHB_mJ8/w268-h400/Kingfisher%20PI%20Book%203.jpg" width="268" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />The search for one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, a swindler who is rumored to have stashed away close to a billion dollars in ill-gotten gains, leads brother and sister private investigators Callista and Joseph Kingfisher to a fabulous, luxurious resort in Mexico. But deep in the jungles of the Yucatan, they discover another secret hidden away, a secret that may mean death for both Kingfishers!</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">TOURIST TRAP is another lightning-paced, colorful adventure from bestselling authors James Reasoner and Livia J. Washburn featuring plenty of thrills, humor, and excitement, with suspense and plot twists that will leave readers breathless.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>Working on these books with Livia has been great fun, and I think this is my favorite so far. It's available on <a href="https://amzn.to/3wKWF0G" target="_blank">Amazon</a> in e-book and print editions and as an e-book on <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tourist-trap-james-reasoner/1144941159?ean=2940167683426" target="_blank">Barnes & Noble</a>, <a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/tourist-trap-kingfisher-p-i-book-3" target="_blank">Kobo</a>, <a href="https://books.apple.com/us/book/tourist-trap-kingfisher-p-i-book-3/id6478249747" target="_blank">Apple Books</a>, and <a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1524717" target="_blank">Smashwords</a>.</i></span></p><div><br /></div>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-26413004981703500892024-03-03T06:30:00.001-06:002024-03-03T06:30:00.137-06:00Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: New Detective Magazine, February 1951<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV7KHPzJlagjymS_sC8nmWhrd6j8oBXnpdTp92KUgzn8pj9VxLXpScFCyYoIT0FpbKSqky2F7fm6TWsMrGWRhf7uiFXvCR-mO-sz7uVbVCy_teMNxYHQhobkrl9MJNOGdDghAzOaEd0SyrFHxCGXRbgnX8-1qPrAeSbtWt2HrgpacybubFXnnX/s600/new_detective_195102.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="437" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV7KHPzJlagjymS_sC8nmWhrd6j8oBXnpdTp92KUgzn8pj9VxLXpScFCyYoIT0FpbKSqky2F7fm6TWsMrGWRhf7uiFXvCR-mO-sz7uVbVCy_teMNxYHQhobkrl9MJNOGdDghAzOaEd0SyrFHxCGXRbgnX8-1qPrAeSbtWt2HrgpacybubFXnnX/w291-h400/new_detective_195102.jpg" width="291" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />Despite the name of this pulp, the February 1951 issue of NEW DETECTIVE MAGAZINE is almost all reprint. There are two new things about it: the logo (which must not have been popular, because three issues later they went back to the original logo) and a novella by "Daniel Winters", actually a house-name and the author of this one is unknown. The reprints are by Norbert Davis (a Doan and Carstairs story), Leigh Brackett, Joel Townsley Rogers, C. William Harrison, H.H. Matteson, and John D. Fitzgerald, all from various 1940s issues of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY and FLYNN'S DETECTIVE FICTION. Most issues of NEW DETECTIVE from this era included a reprint or two, but this one is top-heavy with them. On the other hand, if you haven't read a story, it's new to you and doesn't matter if it's a reprint, does it? And I'll bet these were all pretty good stories. I don't own a copy, but if you want to check it out, the whole issue is <a href="https://archive.org/details/NewDetectiveV15N04195102/mode/1up" target="_blank">available on the Internet Archive.</a> By the way, I don't know who did the cover on this issue, but the guy in the background looks a little like Humphrey Bogart, and the blonde definitely reminds me of Marlene Dietrich.</span><p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-80301469108904404232024-03-02T06:30:00.001-06:002024-03-02T06:30:00.129-06:00Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Supernovel Magazine, May 1933<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFccTLl1_tOXKbfR4mOBoh1d3hm64AuY3BpoRMjgsQDTk87HIY5TqstA-iAP9pJ2rtvoLu9ciTVEE3NjCvIJJ5dJoymWsVySpa-0I6o6nPzVRWSkbPx9l1XZ7Vxb2tV61JJ4CzcvYT1ICM0NOCUxRC7ldwArXrEuH9BWQFNRnG2vdYJJ0aJu1b/s600/western_supernovel_193305_v1_n1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="414" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFccTLl1_tOXKbfR4mOBoh1d3hm64AuY3BpoRMjgsQDTk87HIY5TqstA-iAP9pJ2rtvoLu9ciTVEE3NjCvIJJ5dJoymWsVySpa-0I6o6nPzVRWSkbPx9l1XZ7Vxb2tV61JJ4CzcvYT1ICM0NOCUxRC7ldwArXrEuH9BWQFNRnG2vdYJJ0aJu1b/w276-h400/western_supernovel_193305_v1_n1.jpg" width="276" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />I came across the listing for this pulp in the Fictionmags Index and was surprised to find a Western pulp I'd never even heard of. The explanation for that may be that this is the only issue of WESTERN SUPERNOVEL MAGAZINE. The next issue, the title was changed to COMPLETE WESTERN BOOK MAGAZINE, which I had heard of. This lone issue under the original title sports a cover by Joseph Cragin, an artist I'm not familiar with, and features a novella by Dane Coolidge, who is supposed to be a pretty good Western writer. I haven't read any of his work yet, and I need to get around to that. Also in this issue are a couple of reprints by Stephen Payne and Clee Woods, both of which appeared originally in the pulp WESTERN RANGERS a few years earlier, and another original novella by Edgar L. Cooper. COMPLETE WESTERN BOOK MAGAZINE probably is a better title, but I kind of like WESTERN SUPERNOVEL MAGAZINE.</span><p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-50810207990517045232024-03-01T06:30:00.001-06:002024-03-01T06:30:00.137-06:00Bêlit: Shipwrecked - V. Castro<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3wBcfMz" target="_blank"></a></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK5rTBEMc1ct4Hs8N8mfgMv9P2vkLrS0Cj93DZX3w94bwy6F7-3aP-t1dvU4aOKxO5OJKLAhiq85oD0tJbRCaWGaIsYZgeHmQ8HZLWKP1cvt_MJFuc4IT7mCojbjMwjN06xOiiQhoJrkZXe7LzjkVMNINHlZYs01z-cDchPUDIPZMEcslh5X1b/s600/Belit%20Shipwrecked.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="394" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK5rTBEMc1ct4Hs8N8mfgMv9P2vkLrS0Cj93DZX3w94bwy6F7-3aP-t1dvU4aOKxO5OJKLAhiq85oD0tJbRCaWGaIsYZgeHmQ8HZLWKP1cvt_MJFuc4IT7mCojbjMwjN06xOiiQhoJrkZXe7LzjkVMNINHlZYs01z-cDchPUDIPZMEcslh5X1b/w263-h400/Belit%20Shipwrecked.jpg" width="263" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />BÊLIT: SHIPWRECKED is the latest entry in the series of
Robert E. Howard pastiches published as e-books by Titan Books. Not
surprisingly, it’s a prequel to Howard’s story “Queen on the Black Coast” and
takes place before Conan meets the pirate <a name="_Hlk160027429">Bêlit</a> and
becomes part of her crew sailing on the ship <i>Tigress.</i> In SHIPWRECKED, Bêlit
is already a fierce, well-known pirate, but not even she can turn aside a
terrible storm that damages her ship and casts it, her, and her crew ashore on
what appears at first to be a rather idyllic island.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">But of course, dangers lurk in the jungles and behind the waterfalls of this
scenic location, and not everyone will get off the island alive.<br />
<br />
I’d never heard of the author of this story, who’s credited as V. Castro, but according
to the note at the end, she’s written several well-regarded horror novels.
SHIPWRECKED has some strong horror overtones as well. The writing is good all
the way through this story, and Bêlit is a strong protagonist, but for some
reason this tale never really connected with me. Bêlit is a little too unsympathetic
for my taste. I kept reminding myself that she’s a pirate; she’s not
necessarily supposed to be sympathetic. But it didn’t quite work, and neither
did the somewhat graphic sex, which seemed out of place in a Howard pastiche.
Howard’s stories sometimes had plenty of sex implied in them, but when you were
writing for the pulp market, most such things had to be implied and there was a
limit to what you could put on the page. I realize this isn’t the pulp era
anymore, but my approach to pastiches is that they should be written as if you writing
for the same markets as the original author. Does that make sense?<br />
<br />
But as always, that’s just me. Despite my complaints, I found SHIPWRECKED to be
entertaining for the most part and I’m glad Titan is doing this series even
though some of the stories don’t quite hit the mark for me.</span><o:p></o:p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-55540181047398538632024-02-28T06:30:00.003-06:002024-02-28T06:30:00.129-06:00Neither Beg Nor Yield - Jason M. Waltz, ed. (Part 3)<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm2V3tJEHOyeicnpQkmQPghyphenhyphenyBB4gvy_5Yi2aqFTE6NcGGqUv78Byccf98vg-0iUSGiut-OCpxH1ujkTizDTb_q0q3Vz8bTXsxlIL45gy5t1XI5fxMoV1Ewaz6idP4DwH_5DvyIMf13Da0ELfpN-prSpY_SdxRjuc6mDZQUjFOnr5javBoYT-j/s600/Neither%20Beg%20Nor%20Yield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm2V3tJEHOyeicnpQkmQPghyphenhyphenyBB4gvy_5Yi2aqFTE6NcGGqUv78Byccf98vg-0iUSGiut-OCpxH1ujkTizDTb_q0q3Vz8bTXsxlIL45gy5t1XI5fxMoV1Ewaz6idP4DwH_5DvyIMf13Da0ELfpN-prSpY_SdxRjuc6mDZQUjFOnr5javBoYT-j/w266-h400/Neither%20Beg%20Nor%20Yield.jpg" width="266" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />Today we’re moving on to my thoughts on the next four
stories in <a href="https://amzn.to/3IeZSbx" target="_blank">NEITHER BEG NOR YIELD</a>, the big new sword and sorcery anthology from
Rogue Blades Entertainment. The previous posts in this series can be found <a href="https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2024/02/neither-beg-nor-yield-stories-with-s.html" target="_blank">here</a>
and <a href="https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2024/02/neither-beg-nor-yield-jason-m-waltz-ed.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Author Phil Emery and his character Corlagh are both new to me, although in his
afterword to this story, editor Jason M. Waltz mentions that the character
first appeared in Emery’s stories all the way back in the Seventies. “Golden
Devils of the Crypt” is a post-apocalyptic yarn, set on Earth after a nuclear
war wiped out much of humanity and gave rise to many different types of
mutations and monsters. In the void left by science, sorcery has arisen to rule
much of the world. It’s an interesting setup and certainly works as a setting
for sword and sorcery stories. Barbarian Corlagh and thief Norad team up with
an “astromancer” to battle an even worse threat. It’s a story packed with color
and action. However, I have to say it’s also the first one in this volume that
wasn’t really to my taste. Emery’s style reminds me of Clark Ashton Smith and
C.L. Moore, two writers whose work I enjoy but only in small doses. Your
mileage, as they say, may vary, and I suspect it would for many of you. Don’t
get me wrong, I didn’t dislike “Golden Devils of the Crypt”, I’m just not as enthusiastic
about it as I have been the other stories so far.<br />
<br />
Now, I have to pause and wallow in nostalgia for a few lines, so if you just
want to read my comments on the next story, David C. Smith’s “The Undead of
Sul-Atet”, feel free to skip on down and do so. As for me, I’m going back in my
memory to the first time I attended the annual Robert E. Howard Days
get-together in Cross Plains, almost thirty years ago. One of the other Howard
fans there that day was David C. Smith. I immediately recognized his name as
the co-author, with Richard C. Tierney, of several REH pastiche novels I’d read
and enjoyed. We hit it off right away and had a long, enjoyable conversation
that afternoon.<br />
<br />
Jump ahead more than two decades to the year David C. Smith was the guest of
honor at Howard Days, and when we started talking we picked up the conversation
as if only a few weeks had passed rather than many years. He’s a great guy and
a superb writer, and I was very glad to see that his character Engor (the
protagonist of his novel ENGOR’S SWORD ARM) returns in “The Undead of Sul-Atet”.
In this story, Engor unwillingly helps an old friend and comrade-in-arms make a
deal with a demon, then leads his friend’s army into battle against a rival.
The tale is told with a fine mixture of brooding intensity and bloody action,
and Smith’s prose displays the sure-handed touch of a longtime master of the
genre. This is just an absolutely terrific story, one of my favorites so far in
this volume.<br />
<br />
I’m a little confused about Frederick Tor. I think that’s a joint pseudonym
under which several writers spin yarns about a thief and mercenary named
Kaimer, who operates in a vast and sinister city known as Skovolis. In “The
Shades of Nacross Hill”, Kaimer and two companions are in a huge cemetery bent
on robbing some tombs when they discover that there are more things lurking
there than the dead. As one of the characters puts it, the cemetery guards are
there not to keep people out but to keep things in. I wasn’t sure about this
one—it’s another tale that’s not exactly to my taste—but it won me over for the
most part and I wound up thinking it was well-written and enjoyable.<br />
<br />
Time for more nostalgia. Joe R. Lansdale is my oldest friend in the writing
business, other than my wife. I started corresponding with him in the Seventies
after seeing his address on a letter in a fanzine devoted to hardboiled
fiction, THE NOT SO PRIVATE EYE. That was the same way I met Bill Crider and
Tom Johnson, both sadly no longer with us. Joe and I have met in person many,
many times, and there’s no more entertaining conversationalist in the world. So
I’m biased about Joe’s work, and his story in this anthology, “The Organ
Grinder’s Monkey”, is a wonderful tall tale about mechanic Greasy Bob, his
weapon of choice, a wrench called Ajax, his sidekick Olo, and the car in which
they can travel between dimensions/alternate universes/other realms/whatever
you want to call them. It’s fast and funny, and if you squint your eyes and
hold your mouth just right, it’s almost sword and sorcery. But you’ll have a
good time reading it, that’s for sure.<br />
<br />
So out of this set of four stories, we have one that’s pure, classic sword and
sorcery and three that are varying degrees of offbeat. But they’re all good,
and NEITHER BEG NOR YIELD maintains its momentum as a top-notch anthology.</span><o:p></o:p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-54891669327778887802024-02-27T06:30:00.001-06:002024-02-27T06:30:00.134-06:00Movies I've Missed (Until Now): The Outriders (1950)<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX3XI5TZ85nEBMYnVdOa5Cwz6TpajdLLOMdwpCB9ah-JFzaR2zIayEqEMrENy56I09BC8Ie8E3pdOvvIo_7ygfLg-vibo8yCQW_8Y29emuIGnYp37XtlsqmYlFKeyGo0bH3G3ExdIbcjBrWMQ2xi_IcwIYM7iVY-O69bqaf_exWTetytN_TIhc/s600/Outriders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="391" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX3XI5TZ85nEBMYnVdOa5Cwz6TpajdLLOMdwpCB9ah-JFzaR2zIayEqEMrENy56I09BC8Ie8E3pdOvvIo_7ygfLg-vibo8yCQW_8Y29emuIGnYp37XtlsqmYlFKeyGo0bH3G3ExdIbcjBrWMQ2xi_IcwIYM7iVY-O69bqaf_exWTetytN_TIhc/w261-h400/Outriders.jpg" width="261" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />I usually check to see what old Western movie the digital TV
channel GRIT is running on Saturday nights. GRIT shows old Western movies all
the time, of course, but for some reason when they run one on Saturday night
that I haven’t seen before, I try to watch it. Most recently, it was THE
OUTRIDERS, a Joel McCrea film from 1950 that not only had I never seen, I don’t
remember ever even hearing of it before. So I had to check it out, of course.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">The movie opens late in the Civil War. McCrea, Barry Sullivan, and James
Whitmore are three Confederate soldiers who escape from a Union prison camp in
Missouri. They throw in with a gang of irregulars led by Jeff Corey and are
sent all the way to Santa Fe, where they’re supposed to infiltrate a wagon
train taking several loads of hides back to St. Louis. Hidden under those
hides, however, is a million dollars in gold headed for the Union treasury.
Corey plans to steal it and take it to Richmond to prop up the Confederacy, but
in order to do that, McCrea, Sullivan, and Whitmore have to lead the wagon
train into an ambush.<br />
<br />
Tensions develop among the three men, of course, and are made worse when a
beautiful young woman played by Arlene Dahl joins the wagon train. There are
Indian attacks, a flooded river, a tragic death, some fisticuffs, and finally
an epic showdown. Western movie fans will have a pretty good idea what’s
coming, all the way through.<br />
<br />
Along the way, however, there’s some spectacular scenery (besides Arlene Dahl),
excellent photography, and a lot of action. McCrea is his usual stalwart self
and Corey hams it up effectively as the epitome of wide-eyed evil. There are a
couple of lapses of logic in the plot that could have been explained away
easily with a line or two, but mostly things hang together all right. THE
OUTRIDERS is worth watching for Western fans, as long as your expectations aren’t
set too high.<br />
<br />
While watching this, I was struck by the fact that when it comes to Westerns,
Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott are practically interchangeable. I think McCrea
had considerably more range and could play effectively in different kinds of
films. For example, I can’t imagine Scott in DEAD END or SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS. But
the characters they played in Westerns were almost identical. THE OUTRIDERS would
have been the same movie with Scott in McCrea’s part. So it’s kind of fitting
that they’re both in RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, with Scott playing a little against
type for a change. And that’s a movie that I ought to watch again, one of these
days.</span><o:p></o:p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-27227523257195770462024-02-26T06:30:00.002-06:002024-02-26T06:30:00.129-06:00The Floods of Fear - John and Ward Hawkins<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8PZuWKIU4FP0ezkdc6Q-Lt8lRHPSikjI5dOfRTk4svdrGM9ZR8z60wT1toXVQolhMJONvk-wK-ZIFUBlbu-r1rLpAgv4taTyEMcDOdE__Z3d1LYwPZAdTlFKoPcl5cMLzgp-SIwc6Ye1ZR5ySlKGTuwJ1rAiGK3S6MrYQHafykygl7Qu-qKGB/s600/Floods%20of%20Fear%20Black%20Gat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="364" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8PZuWKIU4FP0ezkdc6Q-Lt8lRHPSikjI5dOfRTk4svdrGM9ZR8z60wT1toXVQolhMJONvk-wK-ZIFUBlbu-r1rLpAgv4taTyEMcDOdE__Z3d1LYwPZAdTlFKoPcl5cMLzgp-SIwc6Ye1ZR5ySlKGTuwJ1rAiGK3S6MrYQHafykygl7Qu-qKGB/w242-h400/Floods%20of%20Fear%20Black%20Gat.jpg" width="242" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />As this novel opens, disastrous flooding from spring rains
and snowmelt has spread over a large region, and a group of convict laborers
under the command of one guard are stacking sandbags along a dike, trying to
keep it from collapsing. But they’re doomed to fail, and when the dike gives
way it’s a catastrophe that leaves only three men alive: Donavan, a murderer;
Peebles, an armed robber; and Tom Sharkey, the guard who was in charge of the
work detail. It’s no surprise that the three of them wind up together, trying
to survive. Then, a short time later, they come across Elizabeth Matthews, a
pretty young college girl who’s also been stranded by the terrible flood.
Peebles wants the girl for himself, Sharkey wants to get the two convicts back behind
bars, and Donavan, well, Donavan has his own agenda, and it includes murder and
revenge.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Once that set-up is in place—and it really doesn’t take long—THE FLOODS OF FEAR
becomes a pure, white-knuckled, man vs. nature/man vs. man suspense novel, with
a little bit of a Gold Medal hardboiled crime angle as well. This wasn’t a Gold
Medal book, but it certainly could have been. Instead, THE FLOODS OF FEAR by
the writing team of brothers John and Ward Hawkins was serialized in THE
SATURDAY EVENING POST in 1956, published in hardback by Dodd, Mead that same
year, reprinted in 1957 by Popular Library under the title A GIRL, A MAN, AND A
RIVER, and finally reprinted recently by
Black Gat Books, the edition I read.<br />
<br />
This is an excellent novel, well written and very much character-driven but
also with plenty of action. Donavan, especially, is an intriguing and
compelling character. Not everything turns out the way you’d expect at first,
although along the way it becomes apparent what the authors are building
toward. And the big finale doesn’t disappoint, either. I really enjoyed THE
FLOODS OF FEAR and give it a high recommendation for readers who want an
intelligent, fast-moving novel of suspense. It’s available in <a href="https://amzn.to/42QhHXW" target="_blank">e-book</a> and
<a href="https://amzn.to/3Ie5K4Y" target="_blank">paperback</a> editions on Amazon and from <a href="https://starkhousepress.com/blackgat.php" target="_blank">the publisher.</a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3QOdoX2E_31oyb92k8fQdNp44hZqaj5gcNGtj30wUdOn3PwlNa-lUUqGRkysYDc4C2Cdng5QLxVQUvBnmVxKC7Lj56B3lPO87Hw86RbQXgCsDopYFAlmBr1BLbKWpZTJ9X_Pb7rh2jp6JTmyjOcXmxV0hJPYvN3YlCnH-1ZKgnkqzObK1mY0F/s500/A%20Girl%20a%20Man%20and%20a%20River.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="310" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3QOdoX2E_31oyb92k8fQdNp44hZqaj5gcNGtj30wUdOn3PwlNa-lUUqGRkysYDc4C2Cdng5QLxVQUvBnmVxKC7Lj56B3lPO87Hw86RbQXgCsDopYFAlmBr1BLbKWpZTJ9X_Pb7rh2jp6JTmyjOcXmxV0hJPYvN3YlCnH-1ZKgnkqzObK1mY0F/w248-h400/A%20Girl%20a%20Man%20and%20a%20River.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-5308959875458280362024-02-25T06:30:00.001-06:002024-02-25T06:30:00.130-06:00Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Novels Magazine, February 1939<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgULsAij5nTC305VJ7BYmcKrlMyhAnAZ9Xem7MxUm__zYYPlB0dwoh0CO5iBZYky8a_WryBFAp3bCbuZUQ77EmrH-Wlu6qV8uyT1Z0ozfeWpLfP0KcYHpXuUKASQdHrSpShhYJK8OLWl3akKTccPmoHg1mJWNKJygAG3IuuEXn0KRvfM_L3TGmN/s600/detective_novels_193902.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="424" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgULsAij5nTC305VJ7BYmcKrlMyhAnAZ9Xem7MxUm__zYYPlB0dwoh0CO5iBZYky8a_WryBFAp3bCbuZUQ77EmrH-Wlu6qV8uyT1Z0ozfeWpLfP0KcYHpXuUKASQdHrSpShhYJK8OLWl3akKTccPmoHg1mJWNKJygAG3IuuEXn0KRvfM_L3TGmN/w283-h400/detective_novels_193902.jpg" width="283" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />That looks like a Richard Lyons cover to me, but I could certainly be wrong about that. This issue of DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE has stories by some fine authors in it. The lead novella is by the always entertaining E. Hoffmann Price, and there's also a novella by Norman A. Daniels, who's almost as dependable as Price. Three short stories round out the issue. The three authors responsible for those are Donald Bayne Hobart (with an entry from his long-running series about private eye Mugs Kelly); a pulpster I haven't heard of, Avin H. Johnston, who wrote more than two dozen detective, Western, and adventure yarns for various pulps; and John L. Benton, a Thrilling Group house-name who was probably Daniels in this case but might have been Hobart. I don't own a copy of this pulp, but it looks like it would be enjoyable reading if I did.</span><p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-10780521437554697512024-02-24T09:16:00.001-06:002024-02-24T09:16:33.909-06:00Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Double Action Western, September 1953<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmEn0YqRCfRgBLTrducXGWd4zBWKR06TfQoNnZdpjsHWyPN-T1L-fOviyg6n0NCTNtQ1sDmHkVY98Vb5aVH2s_qfJ9FgAGwomLgZrcMc2E4sd3JuAWOBdoZNM4818KEXL4pFpZ1To2OmGgY3LSHDiW1wVo_nO0sij_XaRd6XCuMPXz303VdOKu/s1470/DAW0953.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1470" data-original-width="1057" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmEn0YqRCfRgBLTrducXGWd4zBWKR06TfQoNnZdpjsHWyPN-T1L-fOviyg6n0NCTNtQ1sDmHkVY98Vb5aVH2s_qfJ9FgAGwomLgZrcMc2E4sd3JuAWOBdoZNM4818KEXL4pFpZ1To2OmGgY3LSHDiW1wVo_nO0sij_XaRd6XCuMPXz303VdOKu/w288-h400/DAW0953.jpg" width="288" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy
in the scan. The cover is another by A. Leslie Ross, even though it’s not credited
as such. The distinctive hats make me confident that it’s Ross’s work, as does
the sketchiness of the background which was common on his pulp covers from this
era.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I don’t recall if I’ve read anything by Richard Brister before (and I’m too
lazy to look it up), but I’m impressed by his lead novelette in this issue. “Death
Rides for Doom Ranch” (I’m betting editor Robert W. Lowndes came up with that
title) has an unusual protagonist: a doctor sent to prison for the mercy killing
of his best friend who had cancer. After escaping, the doctor heads west, where
a disastrous train derailment gets him involved with a rancher and the rancher’s
beautiful daughter. At this point, I was expecting a save-the-ranch story, albeit
with an offbeat protagonist, but that’s not what Brister has in mind. Instead
he introduces the local sheriff, who’s in love with the rancher’s beautiful
daughter, and what we get is a story that mixes psychological suspense and soap
opera, with very little action. What’s surprising to me is how much I enjoyed
it anyway as Brister kept me flipping the pages to find out what was going to
happen. That takes some skillful writing. I’m going to have to delve deeper into
Brister’s work.<br />
<br />
As we all know from the Internet, Leo Tolstoy has taught us that there are only
three plots in fiction: A man goes on a journey. A stranger comes to town. Godzilla
versus Megashark. (I’m sorry. I just really like that meme.) Barney Stuart’s
short story “He Just Walked Away” takes place entirely in the small town of
Tall Timber, Montana, so it doesn’t really fit the first category, and there
are no monsters in it, so this must be a “stranger comes to town” story. The
stranger is a bad guy, too, and it looks like he’s going to cause considerable
trouble until one of the locals takes action against him in an unusual manner.
There’s a sort of twist ending that’s not very surprising, but it is effective.
This is Barney Stuart’s only credit in the Fictionmags Index. A pseudonym? Who
knows? But it’s a decent little yarn.<br />
<br />
“Command Performance” is by David James, a fairly prolific pulpster whose work
appeared only in pulps from Columbia Publications, which always makes me
suspect a house-name. Be that as it may, this story has an interesting
protagonist, too: a former New York City police detective who has to move west
for his health and winds up becoming the sheriff of a mining town. A famous female
opera singer comes to town for the opening of its new opera house. The sheriff
has a crush on the opera singer and gives everybody he arrests the choice of
sitting in jail or buying a ticket for the opening night performance. That
results in a packed house, but cowboys and miners being what they are, chaos
ensues. This is a decent setup and the story is mildly amusing, but in the end
it doesn’t amount to much and seems like it needed another plot angle or two to
make it interesting.<br />
<br />
C.C. Staples wrote about 50 Western and adventure stories for various pulps
between the late Thirties and the early Fifties. His story in this issue, “Golden
Boy”, is about an Arizona Ranger on the trail of a horse thief turned murderer
and kidnapper. It’s not bad, plenty of action and fairly well written. I’m not
going to rush out and look for more stories by Staples, but I enjoyed this one.<br />
<br />
Robert Sidney Bowen is probably best remembered for his air war stories, but he
wrote quite a few Western and detective yarns, too. “Gambler’s Pot” in this
issue is a rare Western pulp story in that it’s written in first person, by a
crooked gambler who has a plan to bilk a successful rancher. Naturally, things
don’t work as he expects. There’s really not much to this story, but Bowen was
a good enough storyteller to make it readable, if not memorable.<br />
<br />
Norman Ober wrote a lot for the Columbia pulps, mostly sports stories but some
Westerns, too. His story in this issue, “Election in Creek Bottom”, is a comedy
about a crooked saloon owner running his own candidate in the election for
sheriff, only to have the scheme backfire on him. It’s a fairly amusing yarn
and could have made a good movie starring, say, Don Knotts.<br />
<br />
“Drygulch Range” by E.E. Clement uses the save-the-ranch plot that I thought I
was going to get in Richard Brister’s story, only this novelette doesn’t have
an offbeat protagonist. Instead, our hero is the usual drifting cowpoke, in
this case stalwart Texan Steve Crane who is on his way to the Black Hills of
South Dakota to start a horse ranch there. A reference to the Spanish-American
War places the time period of this one around the turn of the century. Crane
encounters a pint-size rustler hunter and then the little boy’s beautiful older
sister shows up and mistakes Crane for a rustler, too, at least at first. A little
bit later, a bushwhacker tries to ventilate him. Yep, our boy Steve shore is
ridin’ into trouble.<br />
<br />
While the plot of this one may not be anything new, Lowndes does an excellent
job of spinning an entertaining yarn. He gives us a tough, likable protagonist,
plenty of action, and a few humorous touches. Some of the “yuh mangy polecat”
dialogue is so over the top, I’m convinced his tongue was firmly in his cheek
as he wrote this, but if he’s making a little fun of the genre’s conventions,
he’s doing it in a very affectionate way. I enjoyed this one a lot, and I’m going
to have to go through my stack of Columbia Western pulps looking for more E.E.
Clement stories.<br />
<br />
There are also several fact-based features by Lauran Paine, Lee Floren (writing
as Lee Thomas), and A. Hyatt Verrill, but as usual I just skimmed these. I don’t
actually read features in a Western pulp unless they’re about some historical
subject in which I’m particularly interested.<br />
<br />
This is a pretty solid issue of DOUBLE ACTION WESTERN, another good example of
how Lowndes, as an editor, could make something out of almost nothing (the magazine’s
tiny budget). There are no truly outstanding stories, although the Brister and
the Clement novelettes come close, but they’re all readable and entertaining.</span><o:p></o:p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-54242102599560762582024-02-23T06:30:00.003-06:002024-02-23T06:30:00.239-06:00A Rough Edges Rerun: Odds Against Linda - Steve Ward (Norman Rosenthal)<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvw9rj5TtRreZV1J7TmdQ-qnDebjjsrKB4AlHq0W6EqOskKloYXu35SRP8z85MDtx4dB-qelLAurI1NAPewaW8rSTXgK7HB4WW9-U5qxWYECZGcn4VJaad4B-uaJNzOGtYAes53z5XOVJ-Xx1Y8Xg828In73m1BEMECDPH9ue9XsFQVg8ntdww/s600/Odds%20Against%20Linda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="391" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvw9rj5TtRreZV1J7TmdQ-qnDebjjsrKB4AlHq0W6EqOskKloYXu35SRP8z85MDtx4dB-qelLAurI1NAPewaW8rSTXgK7HB4WW9-U5qxWYECZGcn4VJaad4B-uaJNzOGtYAes53z5XOVJ-Xx1Y8Xg828In73m1BEMECDPH9ue9XsFQVg8ntdww/w261-h400/Odds%20Against%20Linda.jpg" width="261" /></a></i></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i><br />(This post originally appeared in a somewhat different form on January 16, 2009.)</i></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Steve Ward’s ODDS AGAINST LINDA seems to be the only book Ward ever published, at least under that name. The writing is good enough, and the name so generic, that I have to wonder if Ward is a pseudonym.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">The narrator of this novel is Peter Conrad, a Korean War vet who lost a leg in that conflict. Following the war, he moved to Mexico to make a living as a commercial artist, but as the book opens, he’s returning to San Francisco with his new wife Linda. Before he even gets out of the airport, though, he gets knocked out, kidnapped, and Linda disappears. From there on, Things Get Worse. Soon enough, Pete’s on the run, charged with a murder he didn’t commit, and as he himself notes, a guy with one leg can’t do much running.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">This is a short novel (107 pages), but the author packs in a lot of stuff: a piano-playing dwarf, beautiful strippers, double identities, gunplay, brutal fistfights, torture, truth serum . . . You get the idea. Halfway through, there are two big twists, one of which you’ll see coming. But the other you might not. I didn’t. The whole plot is familiar enough that you’ll probably have a pretty good idea where the author is going, but he throws in enough oddball notes along the way and the writing is smooth enough so that I found reading the novel a fast, very entertaining experience. Highly recommended if you run across a copy of it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">But I’d still like to know if Steve Ward was really somebody else.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>(In the comments on the original post, Bill Crider clued me in that Steve Ward was really Norman Rosenthal, who wrote another Ace Double novel, SILENCED WITNESS, under his own name. Below is more information about him that I got from an email exchange with his son.)</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> “I found your blog, posted January, 2009, about the ACE paperback book title, "Odds Against Linda." I was very pleased to read what you had to say. Steve Ward was a pseudonym for Norman Rosenthal, who also </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">wrote "Silenced Witness." They are the same person and that I know because it is my dad. He loved to write and wrote on the side while holding down a regular job. Unfortunately he had no other books published. He was working on several, but died before any could be </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">completed.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">“If you would like, here's some biographical information on my father. During WWII my dad was a bombardier on a B-24. He flew out of Italy and while on a mission over Vienna was shot down and became a POW. He </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">spent his time in the famous Stalag Luft III until General Patton liberated the camp at the end of the war.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In 1947, he graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. He and my mother lived in California for almost 20 years where he worked as a general manager for an established newspaper publisher. While in California he belonged to the Northern California Chapter of the </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Mystery Writers of America and at one time held an officers position in the chapter. Such people as Lenore Glen Offord and Anthony Boucher </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">also belonged at that time.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">My parents then moved to Ohio where he became Advertising and Marketing Director for Jacobs, Visconsi & Jacobs, a shopping center developer. (Yes, the same Jacobs that owned the Cleveland Indians, but not until several years after my dad </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">retired).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">My dad not only loved to write, but to read and listen to </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">music. He had a very extensive library and record collection. Writing </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">was a passion of his, but it's hard to support a family on writing </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">alone. "Silenced Witness" was published in 1955. He then wrote "Odds </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Against Linda" under the name of Steve Ward which was published in 1960. Both were written while living in California. Over the years he had worked on several novels but because of work, was never ever able to finish any of them to his satisfaction. However, after his retirement, he did have two short stories published in the Sunday magazine section of the "Cleveland Plain Dealer." He retired in the </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">late 1980s and really started to delve into his writing. Unfortunately shortly afterwards he became ill with Alzheimer's and it progressed rather rapidly before he could finish any other books. He died in November, 1998.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>(Thanks to Norman Rosenthal's son for this information. I'm glad I was able to pull it all together into one post. I have a copy of Rosenthal's other novel SILENCED WITNESS somewhere, but I've never read it.)</i></span></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-606901118945005632024-02-21T06:30:00.002-06:002024-02-21T06:30:00.242-06:00The Belen Breakout - Orrin Russell<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgpM8JgF5lSKragYHU2mhIdrYm-fzctT0QNwWB9GPhkXFhpMZ9TSgDnf8jpBYUVyWLsic2cju07b6nas95FhTc2Dgf5lxvh6Nc3D0YC562y2cCxkBig7bayQrJTtvpJU4HLsn4oVtovX_Clm-yeG4FOcgj2bvPOENSW3hiykukfS43LxA38iZi/s600/Belen%20Breakout.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="378" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgpM8JgF5lSKragYHU2mhIdrYm-fzctT0QNwWB9GPhkXFhpMZ9TSgDnf8jpBYUVyWLsic2cju07b6nas95FhTc2Dgf5lxvh6Nc3D0YC562y2cCxkBig7bayQrJTtvpJU4HLsn4oVtovX_Clm-yeG4FOcgj2bvPOENSW3hiykukfS43LxA38iZi/w253-h400/Belen%20Breakout.jpg" width="253" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />The protagonist of this short Western novel is a young man
named Balum. I assume that’s his first name; we don’t ever get another. He’s an
orphan, and I get the feeling his parents died of some illness. But that’s
another assumption because the author doesn’t fill in that detail, either. What
we know is that he’s 16 years old, he’s alone in the world except for a horse,
the bank has taken the family ranch in West Texas, and he’s heading into Mexico
to start a new life.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Things do not go well for Balum.<br />
<br />
For a while, it looks like things may work out all right. He gets a
job as a vaquero on a ranch and does well at it. But he runs afoul of the
foreman and makes things worse by falling in love with the ranch owner’s
beautiful granddaughter. Not surprisingly, Balum winds up in trouble and is
taken to Mexico City where he’s thrown into a notorious prison known as Belen.
That begins a years-long ordeal of violence and survival, an ordeal that Balum
might not survive without the help of a fellow prisoner, an old Irish
prizefighter.<br />
<br />
Finally, Balum receives some news that makes him realize he has to get out of
Belen—and the only way to do that is to break out. Hence the title of this
novel.<br />
<br />
I don’t know much about the author. Orrin Russell sounds like a pseudonym to
me, but it may not be. That may be the author’s real name. He’s written and
self-published several Western series, including ten more books about Balum.
THE BELEN BREAKOUT is a prequel to that series, and as far as I can tell, it’s
only available (for free) by signing up for the author’s mailing list on his
<a href="https://www.orrinrussell.com/" target="_blank">website</a>.<br />
<br />
I’m glad that I did so because I have to say, THE BELEN BREAKOUT took me
completely by surprise. While the plot may be pretty traditional, this book is
very well-written and reads more like the work of a seasoned author, one who’s
turned out hundreds of Westerns. It reminded me very much of the sort of
paperback Western series published in the Seventies such as Lassiter, Fargo,
and Sundance, with a Piccadilly Cowboys influence as well. In fact, there were several
times when I suspected that Orrin Russell might actually be British. The action
is very well done, especially Balum’s spectacular escape from Belen Prison.<br />
<br />
If you’re a fan of gritty Westerns with a tough, hardboiled protagonist, I give
THE BELEN BREAKOUT a high recommendation. It’s not a book you’re likely to run
across by accident, but I think it’s well worth <a href="https://www.orrinrussell.com/" target="_blank">seeking out</a>.</span><o:p></o:p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-49151890953671152762024-02-19T06:30:00.002-06:002024-02-19T06:30:00.130-06:00Neither Beg Nor Yield - Jason M. Waltz, ed. (Part 2)<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT4L5_F-AcsG1OuRLWDrAquDWqisAMBbHHgSF5rHlV08Phi3boUUiVAZ3VFwJ3xQOmD-6ak21ha0AuMoM5Zz9UBtN4V4c43ejwyNtmN39YMGzinjl4VowWHHycf023z0-hn3dGXqcMmRdwAYUg1E6Ry7MHydX_BHZQm4BUCMdQoOTdqy3IK41e/s600/Neither%20Beg%20Nor%20Yield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT4L5_F-AcsG1OuRLWDrAquDWqisAMBbHHgSF5rHlV08Phi3boUUiVAZ3VFwJ3xQOmD-6ak21ha0AuMoM5Zz9UBtN4V4c43ejwyNtmN39YMGzinjl4VowWHHycf023z0-hn3dGXqcMmRdwAYUg1E6Ry7MHydX_BHZQm4BUCMdQoOTdqy3IK41e/w266-h400/Neither%20Beg%20Nor%20Yield.jpg" width="266" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />Last week, I <a href="https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2024/02/neither-beg-nor-yield-stories-with-s.html" target="_blank">reviewed</a> the first four stories in NEITHER BEG
NOR YIELD, the massive new sword and sorcery anthology from Rogue Blades
Entertainment. This week I’m moving on to the next four stories.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I’ve read and enjoyed Steve Dilks’ Gunthar stories. His novella in this volume
features one of his series characters I hadn’t encountered before, Bohun, a
giant black warrior from a world that seems to be very loosely based on our
own. “Harvest for the Blood-King” is set in an alternate version of Britain,
which is ruled by a Rome-like empire called Valentia. Bohun and a Valentian
soldier named Tibeirus are dispatched to rescue the son of a Valentian politician
who has been kidnapped by barbarians that bear a resemblance to the Scots.
Dilks doesn’t belabor the background or the world-building, though, a quality I’ve
noticed in his work that I really like. He’s more about character and action,
and he does a great job with both in this yarn. He’s written other stories about
Bohun and I have to seek them out, because this one is excellent.<br />
<br />
I’ve been a fan of Chuck Dixon’s work going all the way back to his great runs
on THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN, THE PUNISHER, BATMAN, NIGHTWING, and AIRBOY. In
recent years he’s become a bestselling novelist with his Levon Cade series
(Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture, as they say). His story in this volume, “The
Stone From the Stars”, features a new pair of heroes, Hagen and Pilsner, a
couple of mercenaries who find themselves on the wrong side of a war and have
to strike out on their own. They wind up trying to save a wizard and his
beautiful redheaded daughter from a monster summoned up by an evil necromancer.
This story has some great action scenes and really races along, and Hagen and
Pilsner wind up being very likable protagonists. I thought at first they might
be a bit of an homage to Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, but they’re
actually very different from those characters and stand just fine on their own.
This is a thoroughly enjoyable yarn.<br />
<br />
John R. Fultz’s “Evil World” features a series character I hadn’t encountered
before, an indomitable warrior named Gnori. This story begins when Gnori is a
child and follows him as he becomes that fierce battler, giving the reader just
the right amount of world-building as the story moves along but never
sacrificing the pace and scope that give it an epic feel. This is the darkest
story in the anthology so far, but it works very well considering the story
that Fultz is telling. Another excellent tale.<br />
<br />
Keith J. Taylor has been writing sword and sorcery tales even longer than Chuck
Dixon. His series character Nasach the Firbolg, a reiver and mercenary in and
around medieval Ireland, has been the protagonist of stories since the 1970s.
In “Reckoning”, Nasach and some companions of his find themselves throwing in
with a motley crew of pirates. The captain is married to a woman who may or may
not be a mermaid, and he's convinced she can find a sunken treasure for them.
Unfortunately for him, even though he doesn’t recognize Nasach, the Firbolg has
an old grudge against him, and when the time is right, Nasach intends to settle
that score. This is a wonderful story full of action and humor and color, and
it’s very well-written. I haven’t read any of Taylor’s Nasach stories until
now. I hope at some point there’ll be a complete collection of them.<br />
<br />
Four more stories into the book now, and NEITHER BEG NOR YIELD hasn’t taken its
foot off the gas. It’s picking up speed and getting even better. So far, this
is a terrific anthology and I give it a very high recommendation. You can find
the <a href="https://amzn.to/3SLxMt5" target="_blank">e-book edition</a> on Amazon while the print editions are still in the works.</span><o:p></o:p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-73986618444473985152024-02-18T06:30:00.002-06:002024-02-18T06:30:00.128-06:00Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Adventure, January 1946<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk7jvmJk1wTl9xXwNalYPkqR92UARYkvGsnX18KtV0YxoGyWTmCBJPkCykFtDwndkWir2CDJ2yKQqUAeF2r8E26Aoqublj0TjWzwfKWx4i2u1UmoOeThZF1T8W4D68uzE35drVpsfu0l7kW5zSZgiZY5MQgUAOLz3TyYnbn8wEtSVCeCvTeeOj/s1442/ADV0146.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1442" data-original-width="1124" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk7jvmJk1wTl9xXwNalYPkqR92UARYkvGsnX18KtV0YxoGyWTmCBJPkCykFtDwndkWir2CDJ2yKQqUAeF2r8E26Aoqublj0TjWzwfKWx4i2u1UmoOeThZF1T8W4D68uzE35drVpsfu0l7kW5zSZgiZY5MQgUAOLz3TyYnbn8wEtSVCeCvTeeOj/w311-h400/ADV0146.jpg" width="311" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy
in the scan. The cover art is by Robert Stanley. I’m so used to seeing his work
on mystery and Western pulps and paperbacks, I’m not sure I would have recognized it in a pure adventure setting like this. But it’s a good cover and I like it.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">If you’re like me, you saw “One For France and One For Me” by Georges Surdez
and thought, “Ah, a French Foreign Legion yarn!” Surdez was famous for them.
But no, this novella (and it’s almost long enough to be an actual novel) takes
place entirely in France. Captain Norman Kenton, an American pilot who was shot
down over France during the war, returns several months after V-E Day to look
up the members of the Resistance who helped him avoid capture by the Nazis. It’s
not just gratitude that motivates Kenton. One of those Resistance members was a
beautiful young woman.<br />
<br />
But he runs into more trouble than he expects and finds himself involved in
black marketeering, a vengeance quest against people who collaborated with the
Germans, murder, espionage, and tragedy. Sounds great, doesn’t it?<br />
<br />
Well, it’s actually just okay, because the plot pokes along at an exasperating
pace, and a lengthy flashback in the middle of the story derails things even
farther. I generally like Surdez’s work, and the final scene of this one, which
takes place in a courtroom, is pretty good, but things just take too long to
get there. Good plot, good characters, not so good execution.<br />
<br />
The next story, “Un-Reversible Error” by Wallis Reef, also involves a court
case, as you might guess from the title. It’s a contemporary (for the time the
pulp was published) Western mystery with the protagonist being an old sheriff.
The tone is a little light without the story being an actual comedy. The plot
involves a hoodlum who looks like he’s going to get away with murder until the
sheriff comes up with a surprise. Not an outstanding yarn, but fairly
entertaining.<br />
<br />
Stuart Cloete’s name is familiar to me. I think I may even own a few of his novels
set in Africa. His short story in this issue, “A Death in the Family”, is a
grim tale about two twin brothers discussing a family tragedy that took place
in the trenches of World War I. The whole thing is a little slow and bland
until Cloete springs a wry, triple-twist ending that took me by surprise and
redeems the story for the most part.<br />
<br />
“The Peacekeeper” by Hugh Fullerton is a short bit of folklore/tall tale about
Finn McCool. Or something. I can’t be more precise than that because I didn’t
read much of the story before saying, “Nope, not for me.” Something about
Fullerton’s style just grated on me.<br />
<br />
“Blood and Guts” by William Langer is much better. It’s a well-written,
character-driven story about an Army medic seeing his first action during an
assault on a Japanese-held island in the Pacific.<br />
<br />
“You Ain’t Gonna Believe This” is a Runyonesque tale about a prizefighter with
four arms. Lawton Ford’s story evokes a few smiles, but no outright chuckles.<br />
<br />
“The Shadow of a Mountain” by William Arthur Breyfogle is set in an unnamed Central
American country where the German general who’s in command of the army stirs up
a war with a neighboring country. There’s also a volcano that’s about to erupt.
This starts out like it’s going to be a comedy but turns pretty grim before it’s
over. Not a bad story, but decidedly odd.<br />
<br />
It's not surprising that my favorite story in the issue is by Day Keene, who
had a good career in the pulps before becoming one of the top paperback authors
of the Fifties and Sixties. “In the Halls of Montezuma” is a crime yarn that
also has a military angle, as a prizefighter-turned-gangster sets out getting
his revenge on the guy who caused his fall from grace. The big twist at the end
is completely predictable, but Keene was such a good storyteller that it doesn’t
matter.<br />
<br />
The final story in the issue, “The Mule That Loined Brooklyn” by Nick Boddie
Williams, is similar in one way to Surdez’s “One For France and One For Me”. It’s
about a downed pilot trying to escape from the enemy in World War II, only
Williams’ story is set in Burma, the enemies are the Japanese, and the story is
more of a farce than anything else. It’s okay, but lightweight enough to float
off.<br />
<br />
With that lineup of stories, this issue never rises above the merely okay level
and flirts with below average. Day Keene’s story is good but definitely a minor
entry in his body of work, and it’s the highlight. Langer’s story about the
Army medic is also worth reading. There are some good issues of ADVENTURE from
this era, but this one is pretty forgettable.</span><o:p></o:p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-21362716303635905852024-02-17T06:30:00.001-06:002024-02-17T06:30:00.122-06:00Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Famous Western, March 1939<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAH73qbtPBclKtNnD1mreTvOd3WyTejGBqUsCCc7aXDJm3jitzjuIlD4ts10_-S6dvTyESK8hudswjVGWO7BkjxChYbewdbJdELXvKyKTUzjISw0LjumDcVmaVgwWuINoSC7OzUSNgltGehQ8uC1TiVgPDYH-A4ouu2s2Cc5EFRbfNFLgvoKMW/s600/famous_western_193903.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="427" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAH73qbtPBclKtNnD1mreTvOd3WyTejGBqUsCCc7aXDJm3jitzjuIlD4ts10_-S6dvTyESK8hudswjVGWO7BkjxChYbewdbJdELXvKyKTUzjISw0LjumDcVmaVgwWuINoSC7OzUSNgltGehQ8uC1TiVgPDYH-A4ouu2s2Cc5EFRbfNFLgvoKMW/w285-h400/famous_western_193903.jpg" width="285" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />This issue of FAMOUS WESTERN has a good cover, but I'm afraid I don't know the artist. The only guess I can venture is A. Leslie Ross, and I'm not convinced of that at all. There are some good writers inside this issue, with the best-known being Harry Sinclair Drago with a novella called, "The Gun Notch That Didn't Count", a great title. There's also a story by Abner J. Sundell under his "Cliff Campbell" pseudonym that later became a house name when other authors besides Sundell began using it. Another house name, James Rourke, also has a story in this issue, plus yarns by some apparently real but completely forgotten writers: Wilcey Earle, Brian Loomis, Gratton Boone, and Thomas Tyler Jackson. I don't know anything about Gratton Boone, but it would be a great name for an evil gunman character. I don't own this issue of FAMOUS WESTERN. The scan and the author information come from the Fictionmags Index. </span><p></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7527967.post-22127656686658620272024-02-16T06:30:00.007-06:002024-02-16T06:30:00.170-06:00A Rough Edges Rerun: Dwellers in the Mirage - A. Merritt<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpH34cOe-SrZgLFz_8jaZdsjHiRN3w1ocO5lv0Z6Gx70rCV53VAutKGLK0DOIJLwBygdGR9PAj_RSAATy9DE4ueXaiZ8I2eYKWuMMSKqgRdLBKcnI_DysGAP1y4bLcopjfyYgpHIVjvfeLZthAZsazSs_YZIs_lk7e6NY7Aels4U2Tvz2LKdmT/s600/Dwellers%20Avon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="351" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpH34cOe-SrZgLFz_8jaZdsjHiRN3w1ocO5lv0Z6Gx70rCV53VAutKGLK0DOIJLwBygdGR9PAj_RSAATy9DE4ueXaiZ8I2eYKWuMMSKqgRdLBKcnI_DysGAP1y4bLcopjfyYgpHIVjvfeLZthAZsazSs_YZIs_lk7e6NY7Aels4U2Tvz2LKdmT/w234-h400/Dwellers%20Avon.jpg" width="234" /></a></i></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i><br />(This post originally appeared in a somewhat different form on January 9, 2009. I've been pretty swamped lately and haven't had much time to work on the blog, but I figure some of you won't have read a review from 15 years ago. There'll be new posts coming soon, but probably more reruns, too.)</i></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">A. Merritt was one of the big names in fantasy fiction from the Twenties and Thirties, when his novels and stories were first published in the pulps, through the Seventies, when his books were still readily available in paperback reprints, mostly from Avon. However, while I’ve been aware of his work for years, I’ve actually read very little of it. I recall reading his novel THE SHIP OF ISHTAR many years ago, and I think I liked it, although at this late date I’m not sure anymore. A few years ago I read the original pulp version of the novelette “The Moon Pool” (Merritt had a habit of revising his stuff as it went through later editions) and liked it as well.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Now I’ve read his novel DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE, and I can see why his books were popular for so long. There’s a lot to like here: a modern hero who’s the unknowing reincarnation of an ancient warrior-king; a lost civilization located in an isolated mountain valley in Alaska, which due to volcanic heating is actually tropical; a couple of beautiful women, one good, one evil, who have a habit of running around in few, if any, clothes (I told you the weather was tropical); a couple of evil high priests; a tentacled, otherworldly horror from a different dimension; castles, strongholds, and epic battles. Just my kind of book, in other words.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYxFppO1zssUNiPnk4H-wT-NExUYChvspIpLmCUgRzIg_6eoZLCADw10mxOjh3L0mRmWFrDY8fZeDVDr71eWrVpUyoCvmSTAmCvCdcT4EmlaOnhDa2fVSghO0QSdPDCOgotibxRf4UgUhEGSbNDqlJKHwp0HqPDSOYvCCfHl1UUbk5yPeprs8y/s600/Dwellers%20Argosy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="418" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYxFppO1zssUNiPnk4H-wT-NExUYChvspIpLmCUgRzIg_6eoZLCADw10mxOjh3L0mRmWFrDY8fZeDVDr71eWrVpUyoCvmSTAmCvCdcT4EmlaOnhDa2fVSghO0QSdPDCOgotibxRf4UgUhEGSbNDqlJKHwp0HqPDSOYvCCfHl1UUbk5yPeprs8y/w279-h400/Dwellers%20Argosy.jpg" width="279" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br />What sets Merritt apart from most other heroic fantasy authors, especially the ones from the pulp era, is his leisurely, highly descriptive style. It takes a little getting used to, but I found myself being drawn into the prose. Merritt comes up with some really striking images in this novel. The drawback to this is that despite all the conflict going on, there’s really not much action. The few battle scenes are very well-done, though, and the big showdown at the end between the hero and one of the villains is a great, bloody, hand-to-hand fight.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I enjoyed DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE quite a bit. Merritt’s no Robert E. Howard, mind you – Howard would have compressed the plot of this novel into a novella, probably to great effect – but I definitely plan to read more of Merritt’s work. I’ve already picked up a copy of his novel THE METAL MONSTER, and I also have a reprint of the pulp versions of “The Moon Pool” and “Conquest of the Moon Pool”, which were combined into the novel THE MOON POOL. With any luck, I’ll get to them soon.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>(As you probably guessed, I did not get to those other books by Merritt that I mentioned. I did read his novel <a href="https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2021/01/forgotten-books-seven-footprints-to.html" target="_blank">SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN</a> a few years ago. Maybe I'll read more by him one of these days . . . !)</i></span></p>James Reasonerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18049917964433932612noreply@blogger.com1