I know that the smart take on science fiction is that it's best read when you're thirteen and that after that ginning up the old sense of wonder is extremely difficult. But last night reading the graphic novel Ocean written by Warren Ellis and elegantly illustrated by Chris Sprouse I felt much as I did in my teens and twenties when I found a particularly inspiring sf novel.
Here's Booklist:
Sometime in the future, the UN sends weapons inspector Nathan Kane to a space station above Jupiter, where an exploratory team has made an alarming and ominous discovery: beneath the icy exterior of the planet's ocean moon, Europa, are coffins containing members of a sleeping alien race and guns capable of destroying an entire planet. As Kane and the station crew investigate, they are threatened by the sinister representative of a powerful software conglomerate seeking to exploit the discovery for its own purposes. Writer Ellis is at his best with character-based sf in which an iconoclastic protagonist is injected into an intriguing, futuristic premise, as in the cult favorite Transmetropolitan. Ocean lacks Transmet's verve and attitude, even though Kane is a resourceful badass like Transmet's Spider Jerusalem (classier, however; think Samuel L. Jackson for the movie), but is still a solid, provocative yarn that, emphasizing concept and character rather than action and heroics, and greatly aided by Chris Sprouse's lucid art, comes off rather like an ambitious, big-budget sf film. Gordon Flagg
Booklist would probably give it three stars. I'd give it four. On virtually every page Ellis introduces an sf concept that grabs and holds the imagination. Not the usual boilerpate stuff but ingenious scientific, cultural and politcal turns that reflect angrily on our own era. The illustrator Chris Sprouse won the Will Eisner award. Tough to beat that and his turn here shows you why.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Spree-Forgotten Books
I don't know if Spree by Max Allan Collins qualifies as a Forgotten Book but if it is it shouldn't be.
This is my favorite of Collins' Nolan series. Formerly a man associated with the mob, though reluctantly, now trying to go straight with a restaurant in the Quad Cities on the Mississippi River. Things are going along nicely until Cole Comfort and his dim son catch up with him. They hold him resposible for some of their serious bad luck.
To fully appreciate Cole you have reach back to William Falkner and Erskine Caldwell. Outwardly he's something of a haydseed, right down to his flannel shirts and bib overalls. But he's hard to peg, as one of his early victims learns. She wonders about a man who says "ain't" then a few sentences later uses the word "conduit." Go figure.
Cole Comfort is one of the great bad guys of hardboiled fiction. A man who has used his family to help him run every kind of scam, con and robbery you see on those WANTED posters in the post office. And not a sentimentalist. Oh, no. If he has to lose a loved one in the process of getting what he wants so be it.
Son Lyle is a twenty-three year old pretty boy who is in effect his father's robot. He doesn't want to kill anybody but just as the book opens he's about to off his sixth victim. He has flashes of remorse but they don't last longer than any of his other thoughts, around thirty seconds.
In broadstroke the story is a confrontation between Nolan and the Comforts. They are nasty sumbitches and make some of the mob men who tried to kill Nolan years earlier seem like nice guys.
What makes the book memorable is its successful balance of hard boiled suspense and wit. No easy task. Nolan is just detached enough to function as a mercenary when he goes after the Comforts for kidnapping his woman (Collins partially modeled him after Lee Van Cleef) but believable enough to really care about her. Collins' description of their relationship is winning and unique.
But the Comforts take the book. Loathsome as they are--Cole is a combination of Bubba and Richard Speck--you can't look away no matter how grotesque they become. Most of the Comfort scenes have me smiling all the way through. Several have me laughing out loud.
Spree is pure twisty pleasure and a major book in Collins' career.
This is my favorite of Collins' Nolan series. Formerly a man associated with the mob, though reluctantly, now trying to go straight with a restaurant in the Quad Cities on the Mississippi River. Things are going along nicely until Cole Comfort and his dim son catch up with him. They hold him resposible for some of their serious bad luck.
To fully appreciate Cole you have reach back to William Falkner and Erskine Caldwell. Outwardly he's something of a haydseed, right down to his flannel shirts and bib overalls. But he's hard to peg, as one of his early victims learns. She wonders about a man who says "ain't" then a few sentences later uses the word "conduit." Go figure.
Cole Comfort is one of the great bad guys of hardboiled fiction. A man who has used his family to help him run every kind of scam, con and robbery you see on those WANTED posters in the post office. And not a sentimentalist. Oh, no. If he has to lose a loved one in the process of getting what he wants so be it.
Son Lyle is a twenty-three year old pretty boy who is in effect his father's robot. He doesn't want to kill anybody but just as the book opens he's about to off his sixth victim. He has flashes of remorse but they don't last longer than any of his other thoughts, around thirty seconds.
In broadstroke the story is a confrontation between Nolan and the Comforts. They are nasty sumbitches and make some of the mob men who tried to kill Nolan years earlier seem like nice guys.
What makes the book memorable is its successful balance of hard boiled suspense and wit. No easy task. Nolan is just detached enough to function as a mercenary when he goes after the Comforts for kidnapping his woman (Collins partially modeled him after Lee Van Cleef) but believable enough to really care about her. Collins' description of their relationship is winning and unique.
But the Comforts take the book. Loathsome as they are--Cole is a combination of Bubba and Richard Speck--you can't look away no matter how grotesque they become. Most of the Comfort scenes have me smiling all the way through. Several have me laughing out loud.
Spree is pure twisty pleasure and a major book in Collins' career.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Kevin Smith
I'd never paid much attention to director Kevin Smith. I liked Clerks (though it made me uncomfortable in places--too much like my own young years) but then lost track of him.
The Reelz Channel did an hour with him tonight and Carol and I were both impressed. He came off as a talented guy who has decided to turn his films into memoirs of various points in his life. Commenting on excerpts from each of his movies you got to see some of his work process--what he was trying to do, what he was able to do and what he failed to do.
Most of the directors on the series get defensive when confronted with their flops. Smith acknowledges them. He assesses them ruthlessly. He even said that "being overpraised" for Clerks gave him a false sense of security. No more security after the total failure of his second film.
The real surprise was Ben Affleck who has been in most of Smith's movies. I'd been under the impression that he was something of a dope. Not so. Much to say and said well.
Now I have six or seven Smith movies to rent.
The Reelz Channel did an hour with him tonight and Carol and I were both impressed. He came off as a talented guy who has decided to turn his films into memoirs of various points in his life. Commenting on excerpts from each of his movies you got to see some of his work process--what he was trying to do, what he was able to do and what he failed to do.
Most of the directors on the series get defensive when confronted with their flops. Smith acknowledges them. He assesses them ruthlessly. He even said that "being overpraised" for Clerks gave him a false sense of security. No more security after the total failure of his second film.
The real surprise was Ben Affleck who has been in most of Smith's movies. I'd been under the impression that he was something of a dope. Not so. Much to say and said well.
Now I have six or seven Smith movies to rent.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Grousing
I worked most of the day on my soon-to-be overdue novel. During my breaks I tried to find updates on Ted Kennedy's situation. But between car racing, horse racing, drag racing, motocross racing, baseball, gardening shows, cooking shows, reality shows and various religious quacks picking the pockets of the gullible, it was impossible to find any news.
I got desperate enough to try Headline News. Upfront let me say that I've never thought much of Turner's operation. To me it's nothing more than the largest local news operation in the country. And not Class A local news such as you see in New York or LA. Given the writing, the news readers and amateurish lighting, it's like a local news operation in a town of a quarter million.
So be it, it could give me an update, right?
Well, not so's you'd notice.
On a day when you have Kennedy in the hospital, the generals in Myanmar ripping children out of the hands of the monks trying to feed them, a major poll showing that the majoiry of white people in Tennesse are quite open about never voting for a person of color and three videotapes showing up that prove thay Bush is lying about not playing golf after a certain date...what's the lead story?
I've never seen this guy before but he reminds me of the guy that the old National Lampoon had in every parody High Schoool Yearbook (took him many years to graduate)...Rocco Vaselino.
That's who this schmuck looks like. (I didn't catch his name.) A guy who'd kill your wheelchair-bound gradma for a couple of bucks. Even at the current exchange rate.
And what's he lead with...some minister getting busted for contacting a thirteen year old girl on line and wooing her to a rendezvous. The gilr turned out to be a cop of course.
So what are Rocco's first words at fade in--
It's sickening enough (or somesuch) when a (regular guy) molests young people but when a man of the cloth does it, it's doubly bad.
Who can dispute that? And yes it is sickening. Of course.
But A) Should it be the lead story? Maybve third or fouth but the LEAD? And B) Does he need to editorialize? Can't he just tell us that a minister in Plano, Texas was arrested today when etc etc We know it's sickening. EVERYBODY knows it's sickening.
What's going on here is that the whole CNN operation but especially Headline News has become Fox Lite. Since MSNBC has become centrist (or left of center if you if you happen to believe that General Petraeus DIDN'T betray us) the failing CNN had to do something fast. And since everything they came up with was laughable they went to the pit bull school of news yak.
Look CNN, the Fox news guys cannot be duplicated. Sean Hannity, for instance. You can shove a drinking straw into his ear and pull it out the other side. Now those kind of guys are hard to come by.
Or Shemp Smith. He comes off like a lap dog pining to be petted. I'll bet he was in high school even longer than Rocco Vaselino.
Or all the gun-totin' hard-ass news babes who have apparently been made up by a nineteenth century bordello madame. These gals would probably chop up granny for just a buck and some change.
Or Bill O'Reilly? Where short of a violent ward are you going to find your own Bill O'Reilly? Mussolini didn't have an ego as big as Billo's.
So please, CNN. Sure you were boring and third-rate but you were nice. Can't you go back to being nice again? Do we have an over-abduance of nice in the world? I don't think so.
But I know better. You'll just keep on getting nastier.
And one night I'll turn on Larry King and he'll be talking to Sally Fields and saying, "So, ho, how many threesomes have you pulled in your life?"
I got desperate enough to try Headline News. Upfront let me say that I've never thought much of Turner's operation. To me it's nothing more than the largest local news operation in the country. And not Class A local news such as you see in New York or LA. Given the writing, the news readers and amateurish lighting, it's like a local news operation in a town of a quarter million.
So be it, it could give me an update, right?
Well, not so's you'd notice.
On a day when you have Kennedy in the hospital, the generals in Myanmar ripping children out of the hands of the monks trying to feed them, a major poll showing that the majoiry of white people in Tennesse are quite open about never voting for a person of color and three videotapes showing up that prove thay Bush is lying about not playing golf after a certain date...what's the lead story?
I've never seen this guy before but he reminds me of the guy that the old National Lampoon had in every parody High Schoool Yearbook (took him many years to graduate)...Rocco Vaselino.
That's who this schmuck looks like. (I didn't catch his name.) A guy who'd kill your wheelchair-bound gradma for a couple of bucks. Even at the current exchange rate.
And what's he lead with...some minister getting busted for contacting a thirteen year old girl on line and wooing her to a rendezvous. The gilr turned out to be a cop of course.
So what are Rocco's first words at fade in--
It's sickening enough (or somesuch) when a (regular guy) molests young people but when a man of the cloth does it, it's doubly bad.
Who can dispute that? And yes it is sickening. Of course.
But A) Should it be the lead story? Maybve third or fouth but the LEAD? And B) Does he need to editorialize? Can't he just tell us that a minister in Plano, Texas was arrested today when etc etc We know it's sickening. EVERYBODY knows it's sickening.
What's going on here is that the whole CNN operation but especially Headline News has become Fox Lite. Since MSNBC has become centrist (or left of center if you if you happen to believe that General Petraeus DIDN'T betray us) the failing CNN had to do something fast. And since everything they came up with was laughable they went to the pit bull school of news yak.
Look CNN, the Fox news guys cannot be duplicated. Sean Hannity, for instance. You can shove a drinking straw into his ear and pull it out the other side. Now those kind of guys are hard to come by.
Or Shemp Smith. He comes off like a lap dog pining to be petted. I'll bet he was in high school even longer than Rocco Vaselino.
Or all the gun-totin' hard-ass news babes who have apparently been made up by a nineteenth century bordello madame. These gals would probably chop up granny for just a buck and some change.
Or Bill O'Reilly? Where short of a violent ward are you going to find your own Bill O'Reilly? Mussolini didn't have an ego as big as Billo's.
So please, CNN. Sure you were boring and third-rate but you were nice. Can't you go back to being nice again? Do we have an over-abduance of nice in the world? I don't think so.
But I know better. You'll just keep on getting nastier.
And one night I'll turn on Larry King and he'll be talking to Sally Fields and saying, "So, ho, how many threesomes have you pulled in your life?"
Friday, May 16, 2008
Matheson; Trotsky Forever; Future Publishing
Very cool to go to my local supermarket and see a three book-wide display of all those Richard Matheson $4.99. novels. I picked up Shrinking Man and Earthbound. For one fine moment I was a teenager again and buying pbs off a rotating wire rack.
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I got three off-line letters saying that I'd apparently handed in my Trotsky Forever membership card because in commenting on Robert Bloch's The Kidnapper I seemed to be saying that people have no right to use violence against their persecutors. I didn't mean to suggest that at all. Even though I'm skeptical of many revolutions--too often the replacements are just as bad in a different direction--sometimes overthrow is absolutely necessary. Same in the days of the Molly Maguires and the Pinkertons being hired killers for the railroads and the other robber barons. Definitely had a right to shoot back, kill if necessary. The problem is that myths get in the way of reality. The myth of Jesse James as the hero of the oppressed was bloody false. Emphasis on bloody. Many of his victims were shot in the back and that includes (allegedly) a few women who had the misfortune of being on one of the trains he was robbing. No group has exclusive bragging rights on morality. That's all I meant.
------------
Very interesting article on Galleycat today from Forbes website. What the writer is proposing is probably ten years off but it's sure intriguing to contemplate.
How Amazon Could Change Publishing
by Sramana Mitra
Technology has disrupted every industry. Now, it's book publishing's turn.
Archaic beyond belief, it's an industry that treats its most important asset--the author--badly. Can this go on?
The book market in the United States is worth about $32 billion a year; the rest of the world, an additional $36 billion. Who makes the money? Not the author.
Retailers take almost 50%. The agent takes 15% to 20%. The publisher gets squeezed--it's cause for huge celebration if they make 20%.
"On a book that costs $24.95, the author gets at most $1 to $1.50," says Eileen Gittins, chief executive of Blurb, an online print-on-demand publisher of photography books.
Join the discussion: Is book publishing outmoded? Do authors have better alternatives? Is there a white knight who can help? Tell us what you think in the Readers Comments section below.
The first major technology-enabled change in the industry came when digital print-on-demand presses started becoming affordable. Although printing on demand is 30% more expensive than off-set printing, it doesn't have the minimum run requirements of 500 to 700 copies.
Self-publisher iUniverse, which uses a print-on-demand back-end, gained legitimacy after Amy Fisher, the "Long Island Lolita," used it to publish her memoir, which hit the New York Times best-seller list. It's the best-selling book in iUniverse history, selling more than 34,000 copies.
However, for authors looking to gain serious readership, the big question still remains unanswered: How would they market and distribute their books?
for the rest go here
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/05/16/mitra-amazon-books-tech-enter-cx_sm_0516mitra.html
---------
I got three off-line letters saying that I'd apparently handed in my Trotsky Forever membership card because in commenting on Robert Bloch's The Kidnapper I seemed to be saying that people have no right to use violence against their persecutors. I didn't mean to suggest that at all. Even though I'm skeptical of many revolutions--too often the replacements are just as bad in a different direction--sometimes overthrow is absolutely necessary. Same in the days of the Molly Maguires and the Pinkertons being hired killers for the railroads and the other robber barons. Definitely had a right to shoot back, kill if necessary. The problem is that myths get in the way of reality. The myth of Jesse James as the hero of the oppressed was bloody false. Emphasis on bloody. Many of his victims were shot in the back and that includes (allegedly) a few women who had the misfortune of being on one of the trains he was robbing. No group has exclusive bragging rights on morality. That's all I meant.
------------
Very interesting article on Galleycat today from Forbes website. What the writer is proposing is probably ten years off but it's sure intriguing to contemplate.
How Amazon Could Change Publishing
by Sramana Mitra
Technology has disrupted every industry. Now, it's book publishing's turn.
Archaic beyond belief, it's an industry that treats its most important asset--the author--badly. Can this go on?
The book market in the United States is worth about $32 billion a year; the rest of the world, an additional $36 billion. Who makes the money? Not the author.
Retailers take almost 50%. The agent takes 15% to 20%. The publisher gets squeezed--it's cause for huge celebration if they make 20%.
"On a book that costs $24.95, the author gets at most $1 to $1.50," says Eileen Gittins, chief executive of Blurb, an online print-on-demand publisher of photography books.
Join the discussion: Is book publishing outmoded? Do authors have better alternatives? Is there a white knight who can help? Tell us what you think in the Readers Comments section below.
The first major technology-enabled change in the industry came when digital print-on-demand presses started becoming affordable. Although printing on demand is 30% more expensive than off-set printing, it doesn't have the minimum run requirements of 500 to 700 copies.
Self-publisher iUniverse, which uses a print-on-demand back-end, gained legitimacy after Amy Fisher, the "Long Island Lolita," used it to publish her memoir, which hit the New York Times best-seller list. It's the best-selling book in iUniverse history, selling more than 34,000 copies.
However, for authors looking to gain serious readership, the big question still remains unanswered: How would they market and distribute their books?
for the rest go here
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/05/16/mitra-amazon-books-tech-enter-cx_sm_0516mitra.html
Thursday, May 15, 2008
The Kidnapper
While The Kidnapper by Robert Bloch probably isn't a major piece of the great man's work it is among his most interesting, at least for me.
A few times a week Keith Olbermann runs stories about Dumb Criminals. Ignorant and/or Stupid people doing stupid things. The stories never involve anybody being killed.
In a certain way the narrator of The Postman Rings Twice has always struck me as deserving of a slot on the Olbermann show. Of course he went a little beyond being stupid. He killed somebody.
What Bloch has done is write a journal authored by one of these people, in this case an arrogant murderous drifter who constantly calls attention to his own supposed genius. He latches on to a nineteen-year-old maid who falls so blindly in love with him that she reulctantly agrees to help him kidnap her charge, the four-year-old daughter of a very decent wealthy couple.
The book worked on me in two serious ways. It made me examine my own class anger, number one. The slickie who tells this story believes that he has the right to hurt anyone who has more than he does. Two or three times he makes a passionate case for this. I remembered that in the sixties when an ROTC building was torched by demonstrators in Iowa City how sickened I was by the jubiliation the street. Rich or poor doesn't make any difference. Pigs is pigs. I grew up in a union family and generally agreed that American workers were exploited (if only we could have seen then just how exploited they would be a few decades later). But as always there were a few guys who had to push too far, never understanding that they were in the process of becoming very much like their enemy and the rent-a-cops who bullied them on the picket lines.
Number two is the realism of its setting, especially the first act which involves the narrator working in a factory and heading out for taverns after work. Bloch gets it down just right, a slice of Brit Kitchen Sink drama (Sunday Night and Sunday Morning told but told by a sociopathic murderer) before the Brits caught on to it.
The plot goes over the top a few times, yes, but somehow that only enhances the delusionary tone of the killer. He is a superior being therefore his entie life is over the top. No mere mortal can claim that.
I see so many crime stories on the tube that push me to wishing I ws in favor of capital punishment. Some asshole marches six employees into the back of a supermarket and kills them for less than a grand? Or a wife and her tattoo sleazy boyfriend murder her husband for twenty grand's worth of insurance? Or a suburban Chicago cops kills (allegedly of course) two maybe three wives and peddles his ass on every show that will have him, grinning ghoul every time out?
Somehow all these rotten bastards are in this memoir of a really terrifying guy. No serial killer antics. No booga-bogga. Just hard core pure one hundred per cent evil.
You know what, maybe this is major Bloch after all?
A few times a week Keith Olbermann runs stories about Dumb Criminals. Ignorant and/or Stupid people doing stupid things. The stories never involve anybody being killed.
In a certain way the narrator of The Postman Rings Twice has always struck me as deserving of a slot on the Olbermann show. Of course he went a little beyond being stupid. He killed somebody.
What Bloch has done is write a journal authored by one of these people, in this case an arrogant murderous drifter who constantly calls attention to his own supposed genius. He latches on to a nineteen-year-old maid who falls so blindly in love with him that she reulctantly agrees to help him kidnap her charge, the four-year-old daughter of a very decent wealthy couple.
The book worked on me in two serious ways. It made me examine my own class anger, number one. The slickie who tells this story believes that he has the right to hurt anyone who has more than he does. Two or three times he makes a passionate case for this. I remembered that in the sixties when an ROTC building was torched by demonstrators in Iowa City how sickened I was by the jubiliation the street. Rich or poor doesn't make any difference. Pigs is pigs. I grew up in a union family and generally agreed that American workers were exploited (if only we could have seen then just how exploited they would be a few decades later). But as always there were a few guys who had to push too far, never understanding that they were in the process of becoming very much like their enemy and the rent-a-cops who bullied them on the picket lines.
Number two is the realism of its setting, especially the first act which involves the narrator working in a factory and heading out for taverns after work. Bloch gets it down just right, a slice of Brit Kitchen Sink drama (Sunday Night and Sunday Morning told but told by a sociopathic murderer) before the Brits caught on to it.
The plot goes over the top a few times, yes, but somehow that only enhances the delusionary tone of the killer. He is a superior being therefore his entie life is over the top. No mere mortal can claim that.
I see so many crime stories on the tube that push me to wishing I ws in favor of capital punishment. Some asshole marches six employees into the back of a supermarket and kills them for less than a grand? Or a wife and her tattoo sleazy boyfriend murder her husband for twenty grand's worth of insurance? Or a suburban Chicago cops kills (allegedly of course) two maybe three wives and peddles his ass on every show that will have him, grinning ghoul every time out?
Somehow all these rotten bastards are in this memoir of a really terrifying guy. No serial killer antics. No booga-bogga. Just hard core pure one hundred per cent evil.
You know what, maybe this is major Bloch after all?
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Reading Westlake
Reading Westlake
While I was writing my new novel Sleeping Dogs I went through my usual hell of tossing pages because none of them felt right. Maybe a hundred pages. My assistant Linda takes a lot of Xanax during these times.
One of the books I had on my night table was 361 by Donald Westlake. This is a novel I've probablly read a dozen times in my life. But I read (or reread) a Westlake book at least once a month so picking it up was fairly routine.
I suppose I was thirty or forty pages in when I figured out how to approach Sleeping Dogs. While I didn't borrow a character, a mood, a plot point or a theme, the book sent me to my computer long after my usual bedtime.
F. Scott Fitzgerald always reminded his daughter that to be a good writer she had to read the best writers she could find. Not to imitate them, he said, but to be inspired by their greatness.
I think this is what happened to me when I read 361. The plot is so compelling, the voice of the narrator so true and unique and the world he presents so sharply defined that some of energy and melancholy gave me the direction I needed. If it was one thing alone it was the voice I suppose. The narrator isn't a crime fiction type. He's a real, idiosyncratic person.
Last night I finished the Richard Stark novel Firebreak. Same feelings. Here we have Parker battling two enemies, a hit man sent to kill him and a heist that may defeat even Parker's cunning.
This is the third or fourth time I've read it and it gets richer every time. There is in its fury and spiritual dislocation (a good number of the people in it deserve to die ugly deaths) proof that in the proper hands craft can become art. Chandler talked about this, albeit a bit pompously. Here there is an undertow of despair new (I think) to the Parker books. Real ennui. The heist becomes more than a heist. It begins to represent a frantic salvation of sorts. And what Parker has to go through to achieve salvation would make Sisyphus give up.
Larry Lloyd is the greatest creation of the book. A computer nerd with a murderous temper (hence some time in the slammer) and a fantasy that would make George W. Bush proud. He's
definitely in the Stark-Westlake Wacko Hall of Fame.
Fitzgerald was right. Studying the masters is madatory for writers hoping to improve their own writing. And in every way possible Donald Westlake is a master.
While I was writing my new novel Sleeping Dogs I went through my usual hell of tossing pages because none of them felt right. Maybe a hundred pages. My assistant Linda takes a lot of Xanax during these times.
One of the books I had on my night table was 361 by Donald Westlake. This is a novel I've probablly read a dozen times in my life. But I read (or reread) a Westlake book at least once a month so picking it up was fairly routine.
I suppose I was thirty or forty pages in when I figured out how to approach Sleeping Dogs. While I didn't borrow a character, a mood, a plot point or a theme, the book sent me to my computer long after my usual bedtime.
F. Scott Fitzgerald always reminded his daughter that to be a good writer she had to read the best writers she could find. Not to imitate them, he said, but to be inspired by their greatness.
I think this is what happened to me when I read 361. The plot is so compelling, the voice of the narrator so true and unique and the world he presents so sharply defined that some of energy and melancholy gave me the direction I needed. If it was one thing alone it was the voice I suppose. The narrator isn't a crime fiction type. He's a real, idiosyncratic person.
Last night I finished the Richard Stark novel Firebreak. Same feelings. Here we have Parker battling two enemies, a hit man sent to kill him and a heist that may defeat even Parker's cunning.
This is the third or fourth time I've read it and it gets richer every time. There is in its fury and spiritual dislocation (a good number of the people in it deserve to die ugly deaths) proof that in the proper hands craft can become art. Chandler talked about this, albeit a bit pompously. Here there is an undertow of despair new (I think) to the Parker books. Real ennui. The heist becomes more than a heist. It begins to represent a frantic salvation of sorts. And what Parker has to go through to achieve salvation would make Sisyphus give up.
Larry Lloyd is the greatest creation of the book. A computer nerd with a murderous temper (hence some time in the slammer) and a fantasy that would make George W. Bush proud. He's
definitely in the Stark-Westlake Wacko Hall of Fame.
Fitzgerald was right. Studying the masters is madatory for writers hoping to improve their own writing. And in every way possible Donald Westlake is a master.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Great article on Robert McGinnis
From CinemaRetro today:
NEW DVD DOCUMENTARY ON LEGENDARY MOVIE POSTER ARTIST ROBERT MCGINNIS
CINEMA RETRO RECENTLY VIEWED AN ADVANCED SCREENER OF A SUPERB NEW DOCUMENTARY TRIBUTE TO ROBERT MCGINNIS, ONE OF THE GREATEST CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS. WE ASKED THE FILM'S PRODUCER, PAUL JILBERT, TO PROVIDE OUR READERS WITH THE BACKGROUND STORY.
Robert McGinnis: Painting the Last Rose of Summer
A new documentary on the life and work of one of the greatest contemporary artists - and a legend in the field of classic movie poster design.
By Paul Jilbert
As the 1980’s came to a close, I noticed something was missing in the glass movie poster display cases of my favorite movie houses: the illustrated movie poster. Suddenly, the explosive action scenes, handsome leading men and beautiful women were being reduced to drab, colorless photographic headshots. I found myself longing for the images of artists such as Bob Peak, Frank McCarthy, Howard Terpning and my favorite movie poster artist, Robert McGinnis. In the back of my mind I thought that some kind of program or video should be made about these artists. Several years later, I had just completed my first illustrator documentary on the work of James Bama ( In the 1960s Jimmy created those cool Doc Savage : Man Of Bronze paperback cover images).
It was through the encouragement of my friend, illustrator Barry Klugerman and my mentor, Jim Steranko (the brilliant writer-artist of the 1960’s Marvel comics Nick Fury: Agent Of Shield) that I decided to produce a documentary on Robert McGinnis. It was the perfect project for me.
I began collecting James Bond posters in the 1970’s, beginning with Diamonds Are Forever. I spent many summers teaching myself to draw comics and copying the style of McGinnis' famed female figures of the 1960s, who were noted for their bold sexuality. I must have re-drawn Bob’s Diamonds Are Forever poster over a dozen times. Years later, I contacted him and explained I had just completed the James Bama project - and asked if he would participate in a documentary dedicated to the McGinnis legacy. Bob wanted to see the Bama program. He called back to say he was very impressed and gave me the green light for a documentary about him.
for the rest of the article go here http://www.cinemaretro.com/index.php?/archives/1896-NEW-DVD-DOCUMENTARY-ON-LEGENDARY-MOVIE-POSTER-ARTIST-ROBERT-MCGINNIS.html#extended
(Several great movie posters included)
NEW DVD DOCUMENTARY ON LEGENDARY MOVIE POSTER ARTIST ROBERT MCGINNIS
CINEMA RETRO RECENTLY VIEWED AN ADVANCED SCREENER OF A SUPERB NEW DOCUMENTARY TRIBUTE TO ROBERT MCGINNIS, ONE OF THE GREATEST CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS. WE ASKED THE FILM'S PRODUCER, PAUL JILBERT, TO PROVIDE OUR READERS WITH THE BACKGROUND STORY.
Robert McGinnis: Painting the Last Rose of Summer
A new documentary on the life and work of one of the greatest contemporary artists - and a legend in the field of classic movie poster design.
By Paul Jilbert
As the 1980’s came to a close, I noticed something was missing in the glass movie poster display cases of my favorite movie houses: the illustrated movie poster. Suddenly, the explosive action scenes, handsome leading men and beautiful women were being reduced to drab, colorless photographic headshots. I found myself longing for the images of artists such as Bob Peak, Frank McCarthy, Howard Terpning and my favorite movie poster artist, Robert McGinnis. In the back of my mind I thought that some kind of program or video should be made about these artists. Several years later, I had just completed my first illustrator documentary on the work of James Bama ( In the 1960s Jimmy created those cool Doc Savage : Man Of Bronze paperback cover images).
It was through the encouragement of my friend, illustrator Barry Klugerman and my mentor, Jim Steranko (the brilliant writer-artist of the 1960’s Marvel comics Nick Fury: Agent Of Shield) that I decided to produce a documentary on Robert McGinnis. It was the perfect project for me.
I began collecting James Bond posters in the 1970’s, beginning with Diamonds Are Forever. I spent many summers teaching myself to draw comics and copying the style of McGinnis' famed female figures of the 1960s, who were noted for their bold sexuality. I must have re-drawn Bob’s Diamonds Are Forever poster over a dozen times. Years later, I contacted him and explained I had just completed the James Bama project - and asked if he would participate in a documentary dedicated to the McGinnis legacy. Bob wanted to see the Bama program. He called back to say he was very impressed and gave me the green light for a documentary about him.
for the rest of the article go here http://www.cinemaretro.com/index.php?/archives/1896-NEW-DVD-DOCUMENTARY-ON-LEGENDARY-MOVIE-POSTER-ARTIST-ROBERT-MCGINNIS.html#extended
(Several great movie posters included)
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Fredrerick Nebel; Gravetapping
There are times when I'm down for one reason or another and just want to disappear into somebody else's world. Nothing serious, you understand. No Grand Statements. No prosey figure eights. I just want a distraction.
I'm working my way through all of Otto Penzler's amazing and indispensable The Big Book of Pulps and loving it. I read a very good Frederick Nebel story (actually a series of small ones) and decided to start looking for other Nebels. Found a damned good one last night in Ron Goulart's fine Hardboild Dicks which, if I'm not mistaken, was the first serious collecion of hardboiled pulps stories since Joseph Cap Shaw's anthology of stories he edited for Black mask. Ron's book came out in 1965.
"Winter Kills" has got just about everythig you could ask for in early hardboiled. Femmes good and bad, mobsters, rich bastards (emphasis on both), dumb cops, smart cops, a intriguing murder method and a tough guy reporter who isn't tough at all. This 15,000 word piece moves like a bullet, offers a surprise every six or seven pages and gives the reader of real sense of a winter storm in a big city back in the Thirties. Given the restrictions of the conventions it's realistic in its own way, especially in the scenes dealing with the police.
Nebel came along shortly after Hammett shook things up and you can certainly see the influence. The difference is that Nebel was a popular entertainer--fine by me--where Hammett was an artiist.
But what an entertainer. His stories are available in a number of anthologies. Give him a try.
----------
Mid-listers have a hard enough time getting novels reviewed let alone short stories. I write stories and send them out and rarely hear about them from anybody but the editors who may (hopefully) buy them.
That's why I was flattered when Ben Boulden of Gravetapping took an older story of mine and really took a close look at it. Thank you, Ben.
"Mom and Dad at Home" by Ed Gorman
Sam Culver is an eleven year old boy who adores his father. He loves his mom, but his dad is everything he wants to be--cool, handsome, gracious, well-liked, and funny. Sam's father is on the road a couple weeks each month, which bothers both Sam and his mom, but when he comes home he always has gifts; and his absence makes his presence all the more wondrous.
But Sam can see the strain on his mother. She's looking old in young Sam's eyes and it's not odd to find her alone in the dark crying. She's always kind and warm, but she has an underlying current of fear and sorrow. To tell more would spoil the story, but rest assured it only gets better from here.
"Mom and Dad at Home" is an atmospheric, subtle and moody story of dark suspense. There are no stomach dropping moments of terror, or gruesome, nauseating scenes of violence, but instead Ed Gorman develops the story through the viewpoint of an innocent and trusting young boy. It is a coming of age story that has elements of early-Stephen King, but is told in a style that is all Gorman. The prose is lean, the dialogue slight and to the point, the voice lower-middle class, and the plot develops slowly and ominously toward a crushing revelation.
"Mom and Dad at Home" fits nicely into the horror genre, but it's a little more--it says something dark about society, the unsteady relationship between the sexes, and the trust a boy has for his father. And, perhaps more importantly, it creates an image of a slow and devastating journey of love, deception and fear as the story spreads itself across the broad spaces of the working-class. It's also terrifically entertaining from the first paragraph to the last, and a story you'll want to read more than once.
"Mom and Dad at Home" was published in Richard Chizmar's Shivers IV in 2006.
I'm working my way through all of Otto Penzler's amazing and indispensable The Big Book of Pulps and loving it. I read a very good Frederick Nebel story (actually a series of small ones) and decided to start looking for other Nebels. Found a damned good one last night in Ron Goulart's fine Hardboild Dicks which, if I'm not mistaken, was the first serious collecion of hardboiled pulps stories since Joseph Cap Shaw's anthology of stories he edited for Black mask. Ron's book came out in 1965.
"Winter Kills" has got just about everythig you could ask for in early hardboiled. Femmes good and bad, mobsters, rich bastards (emphasis on both), dumb cops, smart cops, a intriguing murder method and a tough guy reporter who isn't tough at all. This 15,000 word piece moves like a bullet, offers a surprise every six or seven pages and gives the reader of real sense of a winter storm in a big city back in the Thirties. Given the restrictions of the conventions it's realistic in its own way, especially in the scenes dealing with the police.
Nebel came along shortly after Hammett shook things up and you can certainly see the influence. The difference is that Nebel was a popular entertainer--fine by me--where Hammett was an artiist.
But what an entertainer. His stories are available in a number of anthologies. Give him a try.
----------
Mid-listers have a hard enough time getting novels reviewed let alone short stories. I write stories and send them out and rarely hear about them from anybody but the editors who may (hopefully) buy them.
That's why I was flattered when Ben Boulden of Gravetapping took an older story of mine and really took a close look at it. Thank you, Ben.
"Mom and Dad at Home" by Ed Gorman
Sam Culver is an eleven year old boy who adores his father. He loves his mom, but his dad is everything he wants to be--cool, handsome, gracious, well-liked, and funny. Sam's father is on the road a couple weeks each month, which bothers both Sam and his mom, but when he comes home he always has gifts; and his absence makes his presence all the more wondrous.
But Sam can see the strain on his mother. She's looking old in young Sam's eyes and it's not odd to find her alone in the dark crying. She's always kind and warm, but she has an underlying current of fear and sorrow. To tell more would spoil the story, but rest assured it only gets better from here.
"Mom and Dad at Home" is an atmospheric, subtle and moody story of dark suspense. There are no stomach dropping moments of terror, or gruesome, nauseating scenes of violence, but instead Ed Gorman develops the story through the viewpoint of an innocent and trusting young boy. It is a coming of age story that has elements of early-Stephen King, but is told in a style that is all Gorman. The prose is lean, the dialogue slight and to the point, the voice lower-middle class, and the plot develops slowly and ominously toward a crushing revelation.
"Mom and Dad at Home" fits nicely into the horror genre, but it's a little more--it says something dark about society, the unsteady relationship between the sexes, and the trust a boy has for his father. And, perhaps more importantly, it creates an image of a slow and devastating journey of love, deception and fear as the story spreads itself across the broad spaces of the working-class. It's also terrifically entertaining from the first paragraph to the last, and a story you'll want to read more than once.
"Mom and Dad at Home" was published in Richard Chizmar's Shivers IV in 2006.
Trying to dress up a pig
That's one Hwood wag's comment on the dubious claim that Speed Racer made even $20 mil this weekend. Here's Nikki Finke:
"WHAT A DISASTER! 'Speed Racer' $20M Weekend Half What Warner Bros Hoped; Rival Studios Accuse WB Of Inflating #s
SUNDAY AM: Showing just how fiercely competitive the summer box office is right now, rival Hollywood movie studios are complaining to me they don't believe Warner Bros' domestic gross numbers released today claiming its disastrous Speed Racer came in 2nd behind Marvel's Iron Man in the weekend's Top 10 contest. All the other majors -- Fox, Sony, Paramount, Universal, Disney, and MGM -- have the anime actioner opening only 3rd. And they dispute WB's reporting that Speed Racer made $20.2 million for Fri-Sat-Sun because its projected Sunday number isn't seen as possible.
(more)
"But all the other studios have Fox's romantic comedy What Happens In Vegas in 2nd place with $20 million, and Speed Racer only 3rd with $19.7 million.
(more)
"Besides a too-long running time and a too-small audience of younger boys, the Wachowski siblings spent at least $160M making the pic, whereas Fox's What Happens in Vegas cost only $35 million. Hollywood is convinced Warner Bros has a major writedown on its hands."
Ed here: The talents of writer-directors Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski have always eluded me. Mostly eye and ear noise but little else. Boom and more boom. I realize I'm in the minority and I don't say this to dance on their weekend grave. A lot of people in and around the film will be hurt.
I say this after watching an Ovation documentary on Steven Speilberg. The first part focused on how Jaws ushered in the blockbuster, the weekend as Event. Things have never been the same since.
As I've said before, I think small. I've never had any great aspirations for fame or fortune and I've never been much interested in popular art that flaunts its pedigree or its cost.
So given my green eye-shade mentality, when I see a $160 mil price tag I'm stunned. I know you got to spend money to make money but with wordo f mouth pretty bad (so far) on the upcoming Indy Jones picture I wonder how much'll be lost this summer. Not to mention the film that resulted from putting Edward Norton (one of my all-time favorite actors) in charge of a blockbuster (though word is he's now "allowed" the studio to lend a hand in the final edit).
I'll still take The Departed, Juno and The Orphanage any day to a blockbuster.
"WHAT A DISASTER! 'Speed Racer' $20M Weekend Half What Warner Bros Hoped; Rival Studios Accuse WB Of Inflating #s
SUNDAY AM: Showing just how fiercely competitive the summer box office is right now, rival Hollywood movie studios are complaining to me they don't believe Warner Bros' domestic gross numbers released today claiming its disastrous Speed Racer came in 2nd behind Marvel's Iron Man in the weekend's Top 10 contest. All the other majors -- Fox, Sony, Paramount, Universal, Disney, and MGM -- have the anime actioner opening only 3rd. And they dispute WB's reporting that Speed Racer made $20.2 million for Fri-Sat-Sun because its projected Sunday number isn't seen as possible.
(more)
"But all the other studios have Fox's romantic comedy What Happens In Vegas in 2nd place with $20 million, and Speed Racer only 3rd with $19.7 million.
(more)
"Besides a too-long running time and a too-small audience of younger boys, the Wachowski siblings spent at least $160M making the pic, whereas Fox's What Happens in Vegas cost only $35 million. Hollywood is convinced Warner Bros has a major writedown on its hands."
Ed here: The talents of writer-directors Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski have always eluded me. Mostly eye and ear noise but little else. Boom and more boom. I realize I'm in the minority and I don't say this to dance on their weekend grave. A lot of people in and around the film will be hurt.
I say this after watching an Ovation documentary on Steven Speilberg. The first part focused on how Jaws ushered in the blockbuster, the weekend as Event. Things have never been the same since.
As I've said before, I think small. I've never had any great aspirations for fame or fortune and I've never been much interested in popular art that flaunts its pedigree or its cost.
So given my green eye-shade mentality, when I see a $160 mil price tag I'm stunned. I know you got to spend money to make money but with wordo f mouth pretty bad (so far) on the upcoming Indy Jones picture I wonder how much'll be lost this summer. Not to mention the film that resulted from putting Edward Norton (one of my all-time favorite actors) in charge of a blockbuster (though word is he's now "allowed" the studio to lend a hand in the final edit).
I'll still take The Departed, Juno and The Orphanage any day to a blockbuster.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Dominion
phantasmagoria \fan-taz-muh-GOR-ee-uh\, noun:
1. A shifting series or succession of things seen or imagined, as in a dream.
2. Any constantly changing scene.
Directors of Forties crime movies were big on drugging their lead actors and then sending them into some kind of swirling mental hell. We knew it was swirling because the special effects usually resembled vortexes.
Greg F. Gifune's Dominion creates a frightening and believable phantasmagoria because of the realistic portrait of Daniel Cicero, the protagonist. When Cicero's wife is killed by a hit-and-run driver he begins a long decline that ultimately finds him wandering the streets of Boston. Gifune charts all this in a voice and style thatforeshadows Cicero's greater fall into a netherworld he's led into by stranger caller tells him that his wife Lindsay is still alive. Dead but alive.
Part mystery, part thriller, Dominion takes us into a grim haunted world that combines science fiction with fantasy and horror. The entire book is a kind of noirish quest as Cicero struggles to learn what is real and what is false. He manages to do this with none of the expected cliches and in a voice distinctly his own. Gifune is well worth getting to know.
1. A shifting series or succession of things seen or imagined, as in a dream.
2. Any constantly changing scene.
Directors of Forties crime movies were big on drugging their lead actors and then sending them into some kind of swirling mental hell. We knew it was swirling because the special effects usually resembled vortexes.
Greg F. Gifune's Dominion creates a frightening and believable phantasmagoria because of the realistic portrait of Daniel Cicero, the protagonist. When Cicero's wife is killed by a hit-and-run driver he begins a long decline that ultimately finds him wandering the streets of Boston. Gifune charts all this in a voice and style thatforeshadows Cicero's greater fall into a netherworld he's led into by stranger caller tells him that his wife Lindsay is still alive. Dead but alive.
Part mystery, part thriller, Dominion takes us into a grim haunted world that combines science fiction with fantasy and horror. The entire book is a kind of noirish quest as Cicero struggles to learn what is real and what is false. He manages to do this with none of the expected cliches and in a voice distinctly his own. Gifune is well worth getting to know.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Warren Murphy
Got the new Crimespree today and went immediately to the interview with Warren Murphy. In the early days of Mystery Scene Warren was a frequent contributor. He was always a hoot to work with. Great guy.
In the interview his talk of the Destroyer series brought back a lot of early seventies memories. There was a small newstand-bookstore down by the tracks into which drunks, junkies and hippies reeled while staggering their way home. Some of them were pretty funny literary critics. Long talks about science fiction and action series and conspiracy books.
One of the hot topics was always Sapir-Murphy and how cool the Destroyer series was. The two reading favorites were The National Lampoon (headed downhill by then but still a lot of fun) and the Remo Williams books.
Warren talks about his health in the Crimespree piece. I hadn't been aware of how many problems he's facing.
Here's to you, wild man, your Remo books gave us a lot of pleasure. Not to mention the Trace novels that won all those Edgars.
Get better, man, and that's an order.
In the interview his talk of the Destroyer series brought back a lot of early seventies memories. There was a small newstand-bookstore down by the tracks into which drunks, junkies and hippies reeled while staggering their way home. Some of them were pretty funny literary critics. Long talks about science fiction and action series and conspiracy books.
One of the hot topics was always Sapir-Murphy and how cool the Destroyer series was. The two reading favorites were The National Lampoon (headed downhill by then but still a lot of fun) and the Remo Williams books.
Warren talks about his health in the Crimespree piece. I hadn't been aware of how many problems he's facing.
Here's to you, wild man, your Remo books gave us a lot of pleasure. Not to mention the Trace novels that won all those Edgars.
Get better, man, and that's an order.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Traveling writers
I bought a new Honda Civic seven years ago. Right now I have 25,704 miles on it. I don't travel a lot. My health restricts me but even if it didn't I probably wouldn't be going many places. I love my life at home and after my dark years I found that I wasn't very social after all. Sitting around talking with three or four people is my idea of a good evening. Beyond three or four I tend to lay back.
Mystery Cat Bookstore in Cedar Rapids is nice enough to have me do a signing whenever I have a new book appearing. I order extra galleys and send them out to blogs I hope will review them. I get about a fifty per cent response. And that's about it. Even in the days when I was editing Mystery Scene I never went to conventions or seminars. Amazing how well the mystery world has done without me, eh?
So last night I'm reading Sandra Parshall on Poe's Deadly Daughter's http://poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com/ and I come across the follwing paragraph about writers attending mystery conferences:
"In virtually every case, writers have to pay their own way. A lot of mystery writers out there, especially first-time authors, are spending their entire advances and much more on travel and conference fees. It seems to make sense – after all, if you don’t get a rave review in the New York Times and your publisher won’t buy big splashy ads for your book, you have to get the word out somehow, don’t you?" (Then she goes on to suggest that it doesn't make sense, that, per an agent's advice, you should pick one or two conferences a year to attend and forget the others.)
Ed here: Wow "Spending their entire advances and more." Maybe I'd be better known if I'd gotten around some in my Mystery Scene days--I'm not questioning the value of that kind of publicity--but spending your advances and more? Is this sort of thing widespread?
And doesn't this tax your writing time?
Once again, I'm responding as someone in his sixties who grew up in Iowa and didn't meet a real writer until he was eighteen. And that writer was a sad alcoholic who wrote for a few pathetic downscale men's magazines (that I would gladly write for a year later. Henry Gregor Felsen of Des Moines (a REAL writer) was supposed to come to Cedar Rapids on the day of my fifteenth birthday but something happened and he couldn't make it. I'm considering forgiving him.)
Most of you may be familiar with the syndrome Parshall describes. But to me it's surprising.
Mystery Cat Bookstore in Cedar Rapids is nice enough to have me do a signing whenever I have a new book appearing. I order extra galleys and send them out to blogs I hope will review them. I get about a fifty per cent response. And that's about it. Even in the days when I was editing Mystery Scene I never went to conventions or seminars. Amazing how well the mystery world has done without me, eh?
So last night I'm reading Sandra Parshall on Poe's Deadly Daughter's http://poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com/ and I come across the follwing paragraph about writers attending mystery conferences:
"In virtually every case, writers have to pay their own way. A lot of mystery writers out there, especially first-time authors, are spending their entire advances and much more on travel and conference fees. It seems to make sense – after all, if you don’t get a rave review in the New York Times and your publisher won’t buy big splashy ads for your book, you have to get the word out somehow, don’t you?" (Then she goes on to suggest that it doesn't make sense, that, per an agent's advice, you should pick one or two conferences a year to attend and forget the others.)
Ed here: Wow "Spending their entire advances and more." Maybe I'd be better known if I'd gotten around some in my Mystery Scene days--I'm not questioning the value of that kind of publicity--but spending your advances and more? Is this sort of thing widespread?
And doesn't this tax your writing time?
Once again, I'm responding as someone in his sixties who grew up in Iowa and didn't meet a real writer until he was eighteen. And that writer was a sad alcoholic who wrote for a few pathetic downscale men's magazines (that I would gladly write for a year later. Henry Gregor Felsen of Des Moines (a REAL writer) was supposed to come to Cedar Rapids on the day of my fifteenth birthday but something happened and he couldn't make it. I'm considering forgiving him.)
Most of you may be familiar with the syndrome Parshall describes. But to me it's surprising.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
John Farris #3
And these three magnificent books are buttressed with a bibliography that is extraordinary in breadth and accomplishment.
All I can do here is a cite a few of my own favorites. The Captors (a unique take on the kidnapping trope); and Shatter (the aftermath of a murder with so many twists you read the book in awe); Dragonfly (a bemused take on the redemption of a con artist and the genuine evil of a politician); Soon She Will be Gone (a dark perverse take on a brother going after the man who kidnapped her, a prominent architect whose pastime is killing women).
And that still leaves many other Farris novels eminently worth reading.
Farris is not merely clever, his ingenuity is put to use revealing the human condition. Farris is not merely stylish, his graceful pose always serves the story. And Farris is not merely a commercial writer, his career no doubt suffering from his adventurousness and his refusal to follow trends. His books are always personal and deeply felt.
If you’ve never read Sharp Practice before be prepared to be stunned. And I’m not exaggerating. And if you’re returning to it after a number of years, you’ll find that it’s even more artful, more compelling than you remembered.
Thank you, John, for all the wonderful writing you’ve given us for five decades now.
All I can do here is a cite a few of my own favorites. The Captors (a unique take on the kidnapping trope); and Shatter (the aftermath of a murder with so many twists you read the book in awe); Dragonfly (a bemused take on the redemption of a con artist and the genuine evil of a politician); Soon She Will be Gone (a dark perverse take on a brother going after the man who kidnapped her, a prominent architect whose pastime is killing women).
And that still leaves many other Farris novels eminently worth reading.
Farris is not merely clever, his ingenuity is put to use revealing the human condition. Farris is not merely stylish, his graceful pose always serves the story. And Farris is not merely a commercial writer, his career no doubt suffering from his adventurousness and his refusal to follow trends. His books are always personal and deeply felt.
If you’ve never read Sharp Practice before be prepared to be stunned. And I’m not exaggerating. And if you’re returning to it after a number of years, you’ll find that it’s even more artful, more compelling than you remembered.
Thank you, John, for all the wonderful writing you’ve given us for five decades now.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
John Farris #2
The Writer
According to Wikipedia: “John Lee Farris (1936-) was born 1936 in Jefferson City, Missouri, to parents John Linder Farris (1909-1982) and Eleanor Carter Farris (1905-1984). Raised in Tennessee, he graduated from Central High School in Memphis and attended Southwestern University there. His first wife, Kathleen, was the mother of Julie Marie, John, and Jeff Farris; his second wife, Mary Ann Pasante, was the mother of Peter John ("P.J.") Farris. Apart from his vast body of fiction, his work on motion picture screenplays includes adaptations of his own books (ie., The Fury), original scripts, and adaptations of the works of others (such as Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man). He wrote and directed the film Dear Dead Delilah in 1973. He has had several plays produced off-Broadway, and also paints and writes poetry. At various times he has made his home in New York, Southern California and Puerto Rico; he currently resides near Atlanta, Georgia.”
Following the success of Harrison High, Farris embarked on a literary career that has given us three indisputable masterpieces including The Fury, All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes and Son of The Endless Night.
The Fury dramatically demonstrated how modern society would pervert paranormal abilities and turn them into just another murderous political toy. It became a very good Brian DePalma film for which Farris wrote the screenplay. It also created a cottage industry for imitators. There was a ten year period following its publication when you saw a Fury-like book virtually every month. I know. I wrote one of them myself. None came close to matching the original.
For me All Heads Turn When The Hunt Goes is one of the finest horror novels ever written by anybody anytime anywhere. The beauty of the writing, the historical backdrop of the South after WW11 and most of all the unequaled use of voodoo and the lamia as its themes create a book that is not only terrifying but also very much a human tragedy.
Son of The Endless Night is in many ways better than The Exorcist as a novel about the demonic. As much as I admire Blatty’s novel, Son is not only far better written, it is also serviced by an ingenious plot, combining the devil and a murder
trial.
According to Wikipedia: “John Lee Farris (1936-) was born 1936 in Jefferson City, Missouri, to parents John Linder Farris (1909-1982) and Eleanor Carter Farris (1905-1984). Raised in Tennessee, he graduated from Central High School in Memphis and attended Southwestern University there. His first wife, Kathleen, was the mother of Julie Marie, John, and Jeff Farris; his second wife, Mary Ann Pasante, was the mother of Peter John ("P.J.") Farris. Apart from his vast body of fiction, his work on motion picture screenplays includes adaptations of his own books (ie., The Fury), original scripts, and adaptations of the works of others (such as Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man). He wrote and directed the film Dear Dead Delilah in 1973. He has had several plays produced off-Broadway, and also paints and writes poetry. At various times he has made his home in New York, Southern California and Puerto Rico; he currently resides near Atlanta, Georgia.”
Following the success of Harrison High, Farris embarked on a literary career that has given us three indisputable masterpieces including The Fury, All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes and Son of The Endless Night.
The Fury dramatically demonstrated how modern society would pervert paranormal abilities and turn them into just another murderous political toy. It became a very good Brian DePalma film for which Farris wrote the screenplay. It also created a cottage industry for imitators. There was a ten year period following its publication when you saw a Fury-like book virtually every month. I know. I wrote one of them myself. None came close to matching the original.
For me All Heads Turn When The Hunt Goes is one of the finest horror novels ever written by anybody anytime anywhere. The beauty of the writing, the historical backdrop of the South after WW11 and most of all the unequaled use of voodoo and the lamia as its themes create a book that is not only terrifying but also very much a human tragedy.
Son of The Endless Night is in many ways better than The Exorcist as a novel about the demonic. As much as I admire Blatty’s novel, Son is not only far better written, it is also serviced by an ingenious plot, combining the devil and a murder
trial.
Monday, May 05, 2008
John Farris #1
I've been asked to write the introduction to a new hardcover edition of John Farris' exemplary chiller Sharp Practice. Here's what I've got in my first draft so far:
Let’s see. Sharp Practice by John Farris is a slasher novel. And it’s also a police procedural of a very British kind (though written by an American). A love story (the long-suffering wife of a cheating husband; the brother and sister who just can’t keep their hands off each other; numerous people lonely and neurotic in very modern ways). A gentle spoof of the hierarchy of academia. A look at the frustrations of a writer trying come up with another novel as good as the first one. And of course a look at one of the most savage murderers in modern suspense fiction, though Farris is wise enough not to give us an autopsy. He’s Hithcockian in his belief that less is more. Praise the Lord.
And that’s just a partial list of the novel's elements.
It is also one of the most sophisticated, elegantly told and perverse novels of terror ever written. The surprises are so stunning that two or three times I had to put the book aside and take a little rest. There are three twists in this novel that are so cunningly wrought they will shock even the most jaded reader.
That’s all I’m going to say about Sharp Practice. Read it and you’ll see that I’ve understated my enthusiasm for its suave brilliance.
So instead of a book report I’d like to turn to Mr. Farris himself.
Here's a quote from Steve Lewis that introduces Farris very well:
"It has just occurred to me that John Farris has one of the longest careers of any mystery writer still active. His first novel, The Corpse Next Door, was published by Graphic Books, a small but solid line of mostly paperback originals, in 1956. Farris was born in 1936, so if the book wasn’t published until he was 20, the odds are the most of it was written when he was still nineteen.
"He switched to the pen name of Steve Brackeen for his next few books, typical Gold Medal thrillers, except that Gold Medal didn’t do them. One of them, Baby Moll (Crest, 1958), will be reprinted by Hard Case Crime later this year under his own name, a mere 50 years later.
" Farris eventually became the author of the “Harrison High” books, which sold in the millions, and he became an even bigger seller once he started writing horror fiction that was invariably tinged with the supernatural. Books like The Fury (1976) and All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes (1977) are as close to classics in the field as you’re going to get, and yet … even though Farris has averaged close to a book a year since those two books, unlike Stephen King, Dean R. Koontz and mystery-wise, Ed McBain, who came along about the same time he did, it is as if no one’s ever heard of him. Nobody knows his name."
If you were a reader in the early 1960s it was impossible not to know the name of John Farris. Harrison High, the novel Lewis refers to, was popular for two reasons. First because it was a fine true novel about high school life. The aspects that were judged scandalous by some critics were in fact the truest parts of the book.
What set it apart from all the other high school novels was that it was very much like the literary novels of the time, especially those of the unjustly forgotten Calder Willingham. Harrison High remains rich in dealing with its era (the late 1950s), its people (generally middle-class whites) and its social problems (back alley abortions were still common). But with all that it's the characters I've kept with me. And having gone back to the novel several times over the years I'm aware of how carefully and honestly Farris drew them.
The second reason for the book's popularity was that it was written by an ambitious young man who wasn't long out of high school himself. The Dell paperback edtion (much like Peyton Place just before it) seemed to be everywhere. Farris' photo on the back cover depicted a thoughtful man who might have played football at one time or another.
(more tomorow)
Let’s see. Sharp Practice by John Farris is a slasher novel. And it’s also a police procedural of a very British kind (though written by an American). A love story (the long-suffering wife of a cheating husband; the brother and sister who just can’t keep their hands off each other; numerous people lonely and neurotic in very modern ways). A gentle spoof of the hierarchy of academia. A look at the frustrations of a writer trying come up with another novel as good as the first one. And of course a look at one of the most savage murderers in modern suspense fiction, though Farris is wise enough not to give us an autopsy. He’s Hithcockian in his belief that less is more. Praise the Lord.
And that’s just a partial list of the novel's elements.
It is also one of the most sophisticated, elegantly told and perverse novels of terror ever written. The surprises are so stunning that two or three times I had to put the book aside and take a little rest. There are three twists in this novel that are so cunningly wrought they will shock even the most jaded reader.
That’s all I’m going to say about Sharp Practice. Read it and you’ll see that I’ve understated my enthusiasm for its suave brilliance.
So instead of a book report I’d like to turn to Mr. Farris himself.
Here's a quote from Steve Lewis that introduces Farris very well:
"It has just occurred to me that John Farris has one of the longest careers of any mystery writer still active. His first novel, The Corpse Next Door, was published by Graphic Books, a small but solid line of mostly paperback originals, in 1956. Farris was born in 1936, so if the book wasn’t published until he was 20, the odds are the most of it was written when he was still nineteen.
"He switched to the pen name of Steve Brackeen for his next few books, typical Gold Medal thrillers, except that Gold Medal didn’t do them. One of them, Baby Moll (Crest, 1958), will be reprinted by Hard Case Crime later this year under his own name, a mere 50 years later.
" Farris eventually became the author of the “Harrison High” books, which sold in the millions, and he became an even bigger seller once he started writing horror fiction that was invariably tinged with the supernatural. Books like The Fury (1976) and All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes (1977) are as close to classics in the field as you’re going to get, and yet … even though Farris has averaged close to a book a year since those two books, unlike Stephen King, Dean R. Koontz and mystery-wise, Ed McBain, who came along about the same time he did, it is as if no one’s ever heard of him. Nobody knows his name."
If you were a reader in the early 1960s it was impossible not to know the name of John Farris. Harrison High, the novel Lewis refers to, was popular for two reasons. First because it was a fine true novel about high school life. The aspects that were judged scandalous by some critics were in fact the truest parts of the book.
What set it apart from all the other high school novels was that it was very much like the literary novels of the time, especially those of the unjustly forgotten Calder Willingham. Harrison High remains rich in dealing with its era (the late 1950s), its people (generally middle-class whites) and its social problems (back alley abortions were still common). But with all that it's the characters I've kept with me. And having gone back to the novel several times over the years I'm aware of how carefully and honestly Farris drew them.
The second reason for the book's popularity was that it was written by an ambitious young man who wasn't long out of high school himself. The Dell paperback edtion (much like Peyton Place just before it) seemed to be everywhere. Farris' photo on the back cover depicted a thoughtful man who might have played football at one time or another.
(more tomorow)
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Rex Stout; The Poker Club
A few months ago I got on a Nero Wolfe kick. I'd heard a few of the old radio shows and I thought I'd read some of the books again. Good luck. I checked all three libraries and found very few of them. Same with Half Price and other used stores in the area. Very few tiitles.
Elizabeth Foxwell noted recently that many of the classic mysteries my generation grew up reading are not to be found anywhere but the net.
The dearth of Stout titles surprises me. The Wolfes have pleasured three or four generations. They are witty, clever, romantic and a sure cure for a modest case of the blues.
I'm assuming that publishers think (or know) Stout won't sell today. Are they too cute, too quaint for hardboiled readers and too cynical for the reader who prefers the old type of cozy ( the new type of cozy having little to do with the old type of cozy)?
As usual this may just be my age speaking. (You mean there are actually people in the world who don't like ALL the Top Ten radio hits of 1953? I want their names so I can turn them over to Homeland Security.)
I'm halfway through Some Buried Caesar by Stout. Any book containing a scene in which the quarter-ton Nero Wolfe has to be wrenched from a car that ran off he road and angled into a ditch is my kind of book.
------
Once a week a get an e mail from a reader who wants to know when the film version of my novel the Poker Club will be released. In this week's People magazine Poker star (and co-writer) Johnathan Scacheech is briefly interviewed. The copy says that the film will be released sometime this year.
Elizabeth Foxwell noted recently that many of the classic mysteries my generation grew up reading are not to be found anywhere but the net.
The dearth of Stout titles surprises me. The Wolfes have pleasured three or four generations. They are witty, clever, romantic and a sure cure for a modest case of the blues.
I'm assuming that publishers think (or know) Stout won't sell today. Are they too cute, too quaint for hardboiled readers and too cynical for the reader who prefers the old type of cozy ( the new type of cozy having little to do with the old type of cozy)?
As usual this may just be my age speaking. (You mean there are actually people in the world who don't like ALL the Top Ten radio hits of 1953? I want their names so I can turn them over to Homeland Security.)
I'm halfway through Some Buried Caesar by Stout. Any book containing a scene in which the quarter-ton Nero Wolfe has to be wrenched from a car that ran off he road and angled into a ditch is my kind of book.
------
Once a week a get an e mail from a reader who wants to know when the film version of my novel the Poker Club will be released. In this week's People magazine Poker star (and co-writer) Johnathan Scacheech is briefly interviewed. The copy says that the film will be released sometime this year.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Charlotte Armstrong
On her always informative blog The Bunburyist tonight Elizabeth Foxwell celebrates the birthday of Charlotte Armstrong, who died far too young and at the peak of her popularity.
While I can't say that I cared for all of Armstrong's work, novels such as Mischief (which became an solid movie ("Don't Bother To Knock") with Richard Widmark and a very young Marilyn Monroe) and numerous short stories makes me regard her an an extremely accomplished writer.
Jan Burke described Armstrong's fiction as "suburban noir." I think that's what her best work is exactly. Elizabeth says,
"And such novels as The Chocolate Cobweb (1948), The Balloon Man (1968), and The Unsuspected (1946; an entry on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list)."
For me--and I want to emphasize the short stories as much as the novels--there's a real sense of menace, even doom in her material. In her later work she dealt with troubled young people in much the same way that Ross Macdonald did. She exposed the secrets of necktie husbands and wounded wives.
She also had a great sense of strange houses and the people who lived in them. When she wasn't examining suburbia she was looking at lace curtain lives--people who seemed respectable but who were without means. In this she reminded me of some of Dolores Hitchens' stand-alones such as Stairway To An Empty Room. Desperate women without funds or connections.
I may be wrong about this but I think both Armstrong and Hitchens owe a good deal to Elizabeth Sanxay Holding. I don't think either ever achieved Holding's artistry. And certainly neither of them at their darkest came close to Holding's claustrophobic darkness.
But the best of Armstrong needs to be brought back. She was a wily storyteller and a compassionate voice for outsiders of all kinds.
While I can't say that I cared for all of Armstrong's work, novels such as Mischief (which became an solid movie ("Don't Bother To Knock") with Richard Widmark and a very young Marilyn Monroe) and numerous short stories makes me regard her an an extremely accomplished writer.
Jan Burke described Armstrong's fiction as "suburban noir." I think that's what her best work is exactly. Elizabeth says,
"And such novels as The Chocolate Cobweb (1948), The Balloon Man (1968), and The Unsuspected (1946; an entry on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list)."
For me--and I want to emphasize the short stories as much as the novels--there's a real sense of menace, even doom in her material. In her later work she dealt with troubled young people in much the same way that Ross Macdonald did. She exposed the secrets of necktie husbands and wounded wives.
She also had a great sense of strange houses and the people who lived in them. When she wasn't examining suburbia she was looking at lace curtain lives--people who seemed respectable but who were without means. In this she reminded me of some of Dolores Hitchens' stand-alones such as Stairway To An Empty Room. Desperate women without funds or connections.
I may be wrong about this but I think both Armstrong and Hitchens owe a good deal to Elizabeth Sanxay Holding. I don't think either ever achieved Holding's artistry. And certainly neither of them at their darkest came close to Holding's claustrophobic darkness.
But the best of Armstrong needs to be brought back. She was a wily storyteller and a compassionate voice for outsiders of all kinds.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Edgar Winners
WOULD DAVID JACK BELL PLEASE E MAIL ME.
THE EDGAR WINNERS
ImageMystery Writers of America is proud to announce its Winners for the 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television and film published or produced in 2007.
BEST NOVEL
Down River by John Hart (St. Martin's Minotaur)
BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
In the Woods by Tana French (Penguin Group – Viking)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
Queenpin by Megan Abbott (Simon & Schuster)
BEST FACT CRIME
Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
by Vincent Bugliosi (W.W. Norton and Company
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters
by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley (The Penguin Press)
BEST SHORT STORY
"The Golden Gopher ' – Los Angeles Noir by Susan Straight (Akashic Books
BEST JUVENILE
The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh (Hyperion Books for Young Readers)
BEST YOUNG ADULT
Rat Life by Tedd Arnold (Penguin – Dial Books for Young Readers)
BEST PLAY
Panic by Joseph Goodrich (International Mystery Writers' Festival)
BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY
"Pilot" – Burn Notice, Teleplay by Matt Nix (USA Network/Fox Television Studios)
BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY
Michael Clayton, Screenplay by Tony Gilroy (Warner Bros. Pictures)
# # # #
T
THE EDGAR WINNERS
ImageMystery Writers of America is proud to announce its Winners for the 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television and film published or produced in 2007.
BEST NOVEL
Down River by John Hart (St. Martin's Minotaur)
BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
In the Woods by Tana French (Penguin Group – Viking)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
Queenpin by Megan Abbott (Simon & Schuster)
BEST FACT CRIME
Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
by Vincent Bugliosi (W.W. Norton and Company
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters
by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley (The Penguin Press)
BEST SHORT STORY
"The Golden Gopher ' – Los Angeles Noir by Susan Straight (Akashic Books
BEST JUVENILE
The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh (Hyperion Books for Young Readers)
BEST YOUNG ADULT
Rat Life by Tedd Arnold (Penguin – Dial Books for Young Readers)
BEST PLAY
Panic by Joseph Goodrich (International Mystery Writers' Festival)
BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY
"Pilot" – Burn Notice, Teleplay by Matt Nix (USA Network/Fox Television Studios)
BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY
Michael Clayton, Screenplay by Tony Gilroy (Warner Bros. Pictures)
# # # #
T
Bob Levinson; Mystery Scene #104
From our friend Bob Levinson:
I'm delighted to advise (a bit belatedly) that IN THE KEY OF DEATH made the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List on Sunday, April 27...
In the Key of Death by Robert S. Levinson (Five Star: $25.95) A private eye whose superstar singer wife was gunned down has a score to settle.
----------
Mystery Scene #104 arrived yesterday and as always it's loaded with goodies.The lead interview goes to Nevada Barr followed by a wise and moving tribute to Ed Hoch. Reviews, columns covering everything from books to CDs to DVDs. I didn't know much about Irish writer John Banville but thanks to an especially good article on him by Martin Edwards I'll be picking up a few of his books. A long article on the small press, with me doing short profiles of Stark House and Ramble House. And Kevin Burton Smith cleverly asks Who Would Marlowe Vote For? Really nifty idea well executedThere's even an interview with somebody named Ed Gorman.
My favorite piece is Jon Breen's piece on detectives who've moved from books to the screen (large and small). Witty, loaded with lore and as good an overview on the subject as any I've ever read. This is a keeper.
Kate and Brian continue to provide superior entertainment and enlightment for mystery fans of all kinds.
I'm delighted to advise (a bit belatedly) that IN THE KEY OF DEATH made the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List on Sunday, April 27...
In the Key of Death by Robert S. Levinson (Five Star: $25.95) A private eye whose superstar singer wife was gunned down has a score to settle.
----------
Mystery Scene #104 arrived yesterday and as always it's loaded with goodies.The lead interview goes to Nevada Barr followed by a wise and moving tribute to Ed Hoch. Reviews, columns covering everything from books to CDs to DVDs. I didn't know much about Irish writer John Banville but thanks to an especially good article on him by Martin Edwards I'll be picking up a few of his books. A long article on the small press, with me doing short profiles of Stark House and Ramble House. And Kevin Burton Smith cleverly asks Who Would Marlowe Vote For? Really nifty idea well executedThere's even an interview with somebody named Ed Gorman.
My favorite piece is Jon Breen's piece on detectives who've moved from books to the screen (large and small). Witty, loaded with lore and as good an overview on the subject as any I've ever read. This is a keeper.
Kate and Brian continue to provide superior entertainment and enlightment for mystery fans of all kinds.
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