Monday, September 22, 2008

Bestselling Gold Medal writers

I ran across this list of top-selling Gold Medal writers again (compiled by Jeff Vorzimmer) and was surprised to see Aarons so near the top and Brewer at the bottom.

> > 1. John D. MacDonald
> > 2. Richard S. Prather
> > 3. Edward S. Aarons
> > 4. Donald Hamilton
> > 5. Stephen Marlowe
> > 6. Peter Rabe
> > 7. Vin Packer
> > 8. Wade Miller
> > 9. Charles Williams
> > 10. Jonas Ward
> > 11. Harry Whttington
> > 12. Philip Atlee
> > 13. William Heuman
> > 14. Bruno Fischer
> > 15. Louis L'amour
> > 16. Gil Brewer
> >
> > I crunch numbers when I'm bored.
> > Jeff

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jeff: thanks for being bored.
Ed: thanks for the list. I shall pocket it and carry it around.

I opened a box of my grandfather's non-L'amour westerns the other night and I had two rules as I withdrew some. One, I took all books that had to do with Texas. Two, I took all Gold Medal westerns. They will show up on the Forgotten Books Fridays.

Unknown said...

When you consider the number of books Aarons wrote for GM, his position's not so surprising.

Anonymous said...

Scott: Great story re: your grandfather's books. I'll look for the GM westerns.

Jeff: I'm surprised to see Charles Williams runs in the middle of the pack. I just assumed he was GM's big draw. Maybe CW got more exposure via his screen work.

Ed Lynskey

Anonymous said...

Jonas Ward?
William Heuman?

I have Gold Medals from everybody on the list except these guys.
It's a little disconcerting to see authors I don't know at all right next to authors I've exhaustively collected.
Can anyone enlighten me about these two fellows? Perhaps I know something about them and my aging brain has simply misplaced the info.

John Hocking

Ed Gorman said...

Jonas Ward was hardboiled writer William Ard. He created and wrote the series until his too-early death after which various writers including Robert Silverberg and Brian Garfield continued the series. The last several were written by Wm R. Cox. One of the books became the basis for the Randolph Scott picture Buchanan Rides Alone.The tone of these novels was wry and played against western type.

Wm. Heuman was a pulp magazine staple who obviously did well in paperback. His name on the list surprised me too.

Anonymous said...

Okay! The Buchanan books. I know them but haven't read any. I've read some Ard though, and he had a pretty distintive style. Are the Buchanan books any good? The Randy Scott film is fine, but one of the least of those teaming Scott with director Budd Boetticher. The best of those are as good as any western I've ever seen.
I still don't know William Heuman. And I just can't abide that. Have to find some of his work and get familiar with it.
Thanks, Ed.

John