A blackmailer is murdered just after she makes a frantic phone call to Mike Shayne, private eye. The word "shamus" is tossed around a lot. There's proA blackmailer is murdered just after she makes a frantic phone call to Mike Shayne, private eye. The word "shamus" is tossed around a lot. There's probably a quart and a half of cognac consumed in the space of twenty-four hours. Mike gets to muss up a dame's lipstick and throw a few punches. A police chief gets to bark at people about concealing evidence. There's some gunplay at night and a nightclub owner shoves his weight around. An old stag film resurfaces and a debutant may get to marry a stuffed shirt. That's what really happened. It was short. It was fast. It was okay....more
First published in September 1933 issue of Doc Savage Magazine, this goofy adventure has Doc and his team stowing away in a hijacked zeppelin and goinFirst published in September 1933 issue of Doc Savage Magazine, this goofy adventure has Doc and his team stowing away in a hijacked zeppelin and going to Africa where they encounter a diamond mine in a "lost oasis" deep within uncharted mountains. This one has "monstrous, bloodsucking bats" and carnivorous plants and a beautiful woman to rescue. This one is a brisk adventure that overcomes the clunky writing. It's another short pulp adventure that's appropriate for Halloween reading. I used to read these books when I was a nerdy kid. Nerdy kids don't read these stories anymore. Just nerdy old men like them now. ...more
Halfway through. I'll just say that if you were around in England back in the 1400s, you would want Margaret of Anjou to like you. However, that doesnHalfway through. I'll just say that if you were around in England back in the 1400s, you would want Margaret of Anjou to like you. However, that doesn't mean you'll make it through this thing.
Now two-thirds of the way through and the author tells me that this is where things are going to get bloody!
English historian Edward Hall wrote, "What misery, what murder, and what execrable plagues this famous region hath suffered by the division and dissension of the renowned Houses of Lancaster and York, my wit cannot comprehend nor my tongue declare. For what noble man, what gentleman of any ancient stock by progeny, whose lineage hath not been infected and plagued by this unnatural division?"
This is an excellent book about the Wars of the Roses, something I basically knew nothing about before having read it. I've read a few of Alison Weir's books before, but they were focused on the life and reign of Henry VIII, with vague references to the monarchies in the centuries before his time. The Wars of the Roses is a complicated history and Weir has done a remarkable job of keeping all the characters, a vast number of characters and alliances, together throughout the book. That said, I don't think I can recommend this book to anyone unless they have a fairly good exposure to the history of the Plantagenets and their reign that lead up to the 1400s and corruption and failure that was King Henry VI. Here, I would suggest reading Dan Jones's THE PLANTAGENETS for a good background. In Weir's book you'll read how successful monarchs begat disastrous monarchs, ultimately leading to the murder of kings and usurping the throne. Magnates and dynasties chose sides that offered them the best advantage and often betrayed their loyalties if it meant saving their own skin and their wealth. The opening chapters present a bewildering number of characters and lineages that may put the casual reader off. There are genealogy tables in the back of the book that help somewhat, but it's still a lot to keep track of. If you stick with it, the history becomes an absorbing read, leading eventually to more familiar stories of Richard III and Henry VIII.
And finally, I'll just say that Margaret of Anjou was a bad ass that you did not want to eff with! ...more
A fire built on the stones cast obscene lurid glow over the ring of old men. With its base wedged into a crevice stood a holy outline - a wooden crossA fire built on the stones cast obscene lurid glow over the ring of old men. With its base wedged into a crevice stood a holy outline - a wooden cross. And trailing down from it as she half hung, half knelt with her arms tied to the cross pieces was Elaine. They had undressed her; before the sadist pack she stood utterly nude. Her hair streaming down over her bosom outlined her little breasts. Her face, uplifted in the moonlight, was a pallid agony-mask. One of the torturers stood behind her. His whip whistled and fell to bring zigzags like red fingers clutching her shoulders.
That's how they did Weird Menace in the good old days! From 1940 this "weird menace" pulp magazine was a few years later than the heyday of weird menace as penned by writers like Arthur Leo Zagat and Hugh B. Cave. SINISTER STORIES lasted only 3 issues before disappearing from newsstands. I'm guessing they turned to publishing children's bedtime stories, but who knows.
I picked up a reprint of this pulp magazine from a store in the Mission District in San Francisco a number of years ago. I can't remember the name of the store now, but I think they closed it a few years later and went online only. It doesn't matter now. The quote above is from the cover story "Brides for the Half-Men" by Francis James. I've never heard of Francis James. Nor have I heard of any of the other writers collected in this issue. The titles are fantastic. Stories like "Satan's Studio of Sin" and "White Flesh Must Rot" and "They Trade in Mangled Bodies" just to name a few. The writing is over the top and generally awful. There are plenty of "slavering, blood-lusting beasts" to invite to your next party here. The plots are strewn with torture and titillation but invariably have happy endings, in spite of innocents getting gruesomely dispatched along the way. All of the stories have a flying blind, seat-of-the-pants feel to them. It's possible that many of the authors credited here were house names for one or two hard-drinking pulpsters spitting out first drafts for a quick buck.
Whatever. 80 some odd years later they make for decent Halloween season reading. ...more
Goofy pulp adventure for Halloween. This story originally appeared in Doc Savage Magazine September 1934. It's a hellzapoppin plot featuring undergrouGoofy pulp adventure for Halloween. This story originally appeared in Doc Savage Magazine September 1934. It's a hellzapoppin plot featuring underground caverns, flesh-eating ants, gangsters and a plant that promises immortality. The story is fun, but the writing is clunky. This one, like a few others I've read, also features Doc's beautiful cousin Pat Savage. Pat Savage is your classic pulp gal that you want to have on your side when the shit hits the fan, which happens a lot in these old yarns....more
A terrific and poignant book about folly, bravery and human endurance. I spent a full year in Galena Alaska in 1985 and remember how cold it got in thA terrific and poignant book about folly, bravery and human endurance. I spent a full year in Galena Alaska in 1985 and remember how cold it got in the winter months, and how we looked forward to warm temperatures in the 30s, the harsh beauty of winter, the northern lights, the frozen Yukon River and the cracking explosion of melting ice as spring returned. Reading this book on vacation makes me realize what a wussy I am compared to what Captain De Long and his men went through on their attempt to explore the Arctic ocean. Highly recommended. ...more
It started out pretty good then kind of lost momentum and stalled in the middle, as though Agatha Christie was trying to decide the role Poirot was suIt started out pretty good then kind of lost momentum and stalled in the middle, as though Agatha Christie was trying to decide the role Poirot was supposed to take in the book. He's not introduced until around a 3rd of the way into the novel. For the first part most of the sleuthing is done by attorney Mr. Entwhistle. Entwhistle then hires Poirot out of retirement to look into the murders of Richard Abernethie and Abernethie's batty sister Cora Lansquenet. A vast fortune held by Abernethie sets his heirs against each other. Each of them have urgent need for getting their hands on his estate. Cora makes the mistake of assuming out loud that one of them killed Abernethie and gets chopped up by a hatchet in her sleep as a result. Was Abernethie really murdered? Was Cora just a kook stirring up drama? Was her murder a coincidence? All that was compelling enough. But then it seemed like Christie felt reluctant to bring Poirot into the scene instead of Entwhistle. Perhaps she was responding to readers' expectations. Anyway, that's where the book stalled and then slowly chugged its way along toward what seemed like a particularly farfetched conclusion....more
I'm rating this one on Mack Bolan standards, just to get that settled. I'll still pick a Mack Bolan novel up as a palate cleanser between longer booksI'm rating this one on Mack Bolan standards, just to get that settled. I'll still pick a Mack Bolan novel up as a palate cleanser between longer books. The action in this one picks up immediately as Mack Bolan escapes from a couple of hardasses who've got him handcuffed in their car as they roll through the prairies in some midwestern state. He manages to kill his kidnappers, crash their car and get away, still handcuffed, and hides out in a nearby barn to lick his wounds. Unfortunately, a team of killers is still after him. The plot is like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD or ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, in that you have a handful of people, not all of them innocent, outnumbered and outgunned, fending off an onslaught of killers. Their enemies could be zombies, they could be gangsters, they could be wild animals. What matters is who's left counting the bodies in the end. ...more
A fast read, at half the length of DUNE. At times I was connecting with the story and at times I felt I was cast aside as a reader by an author chasinA fast read, at half the length of DUNE. At times I was connecting with the story and at times I felt I was cast aside as a reader by an author chasing his own tail. I don't know if that makes much sense. I genuinely had no idea where the story would go, which is a good thing. But I also felt that I was left out of much of the story in the process. I didn't have a real sense of Arrakis that was so vivid in the first novel. Also, the jihad mentioned here seemed strangely bloodless in spite of the vast numbers those killed during it. I felt disconnected from it. I will say the ending picked up but the climax lacked the action that a pulp novel requires. Still, there was enough here in Book 2 to lure me into pursuing the 3rd book. So...not as good as the first one, but not bad either. ...more
A fast read that honors a classic plot device. Take 10 strangers and isolate them in a remote setting and pick them off one by one. I haven't read oneA fast read that honors a classic plot device. Take 10 strangers and isolate them in a remote setting and pick them off one by one. I haven't read one yet that's as good as AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, but it doesn't take any fun away from reading books like this. This book moved quickly and was appropriately gory when it should have been. I'm not going to say if I figured out who the murderer was, but if you read enough mysteries you might catch the signals here. ...more
This is a reread for me, having first read it when it was reissued in this 1990 Vintage Crime/Black Lizard edition. I remember getting it and a coupleThis is a reread for me, having first read it when it was reissued in this 1990 Vintage Crime/Black Lizard edition. I remember getting it and a couple other Thompson novels after moving to Phoenix that same year, 1990, and reading them in long afternoons by the pool at my apartment in north Phoenix. I worked nights then and had the days to myself. There was a used bookstore walking distance from my place. I had no money, no TV and no social life. Just a handful of books and a radio by the pool at the Ridge apartments on Greenway near 40th street. None of that has anything to do with anything. That's just how my mind works. It's unlike Thompson's other novels, the ones I've read, in that it's not embroiled in various forms of psychoses. It's mainly a character study, looking at the lives of three people; Roy Dillon, his mother Lilly, and his girlfriend Moira. Lilly had Roy at the age of fourteen and would not be considered by any measure as Mother of the Year. Roy chooses the life of the short con. Lilly works in the lower rungs of a crime syndicate. Moira Langtry, not much younger than Lilly, is looking for a long con to stall the inexorable slide into middle age. All of them are working a con and trying to get by. You don't have much hope for them. That's how these kinds of stories go. Oddly enough, I miss those days in that one-bedroom apartment. Things were easy then. The used bookstore near that apartment closed many years ago. That's how it goes in life too. ...more
The cover of this old paperback would lead one to believe it's just another lurid men's adventure caper like the rest of them published at the time. IThe cover of this old paperback would lead one to believe it's just another lurid men's adventure caper like the rest of them published at the time. Instead it's a series of excellent detective novels, set in Atlanta in the early 70s, back when ordering a Beck's beer in a bar was considered hoity toity. I found a handful of these old paperbacks in a charity thrift sale and happily took them home with me. From the setting and the era I couldn't help but picture Joe Don Baker as Jim Hardman. It would be that kind of movie. In this one, published in 1974, Hardman is hired by "The Man" to find a blackmailer who has a set of incriminating ledgers on The Man's various underworld enterprises. Hardman's partner is Hump Evans, an ex-football player who is handy to have around when things turn violent. The Man is a black gangster and one of the most powerful "godfathers" in Atlanta. I'm looking forward to reading the others. Good stuff!...more
I took this paperback with me on a trip to Wisconsin last week. A few years ago I found a bunch of the old Lancer paperback Conan collections that werI took this paperback with me on a trip to Wisconsin last week. A few years ago I found a bunch of the old Lancer paperback Conan collections that were published in the 70s. I remember having this one a long time ago and liking it, but somehow lost my copy. I was happy at finding another copy for cheap. I wouldn't recommend these old Lancer/Ace paperbacks to anyone who hasn't read Conan before. Go to the original stories as Robert E. Howard wrote them instead. Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp did a good thing re-introducing readers to Conan back in the 60s and 70s, but they injected their own stories and edits into the Conan stories to present them in a chronological order that Howard did not do when originally published back in the 30s. That aside, these are cool pulp stories. The best one in this collection is Howard's "The Tower of the Elephant" which was originally published in 1933. I did like "The Thing in the Crypt" by Carter and de Camp a lot too. ...more
She's looking out at you from the cover with an expression of "what the hell did I do to deserve this?" on her face. That's Richard Blade with his bacShe's looking out at you from the cover with an expression of "what the hell did I do to deserve this?" on her face. That's Richard Blade with his back to us, swinging his mighty, um, sword. The savages charging him don't have names. They don't stick around long. Swords swing and heads roll. Richard Blade is a British spy who somehow managed to get sent into another dimension. I've got 4 books in this series. They're probably a bit like the GOR novels, of which I remember reading a few as a kid. This is the first in the series. Richard Blade goes to Dimension X through some kind of teleportation from a laboratory in London. It's not really clear how and it probably doesn't really matter why. He's just sent there, that's all. And he arrives with no clothes. Let the swordplay begin! ...more
I have a high tolerance for trashy books. I like trashy books. I grew up hiding trashy books from my parents and teachers and reading them on school bI have a high tolerance for trashy books. I like trashy books. I grew up hiding trashy books from my parents and teachers and reading them on school buses and my bedroom late at night. I'm a sucker for "man-bait" covers. I've never outgrown trashy books. The more over-the-top the better. I'm fine with books like this from writers banging away ridiculous and impolite plots fueled by cigarettes, cheap whisky and sex on their typewriters. I get that stuff. I'm their audience. I'm their sucker who'll slap a couple bucks down on the counter and take their book home with me. But there has to be a level of competence in the delivery. Even if it's given to you tongue in cheek with a wink, there has to be a something I can grab to hold on to the ride by. This 1977 book is about guerilla satanists battling nazis. About un-PC as you can get, but with the kind of pitch that would lure in a chump like me. You'd think it would be fun. But damn skippy this one sucked. This book was just execrable. And I've read some crap in my life. I took one for the team on this one.
More July Sci-Fi in the scorching southwest desert heat. This book is like a cool can of beer in that it goes down easy on a hot July afternoon. I've More July Sci-Fi in the scorching southwest desert heat. This book is like a cool can of beer in that it goes down easy on a hot July afternoon. I've had this old ACE paperback for a number of years just sitting on a shelf. I know I've read the first one "The Beast-Jewel of Mars" before. Published in 1948 in PLANET STORIES Magazine it and "Mars Minus Bisha" are the earliest two stories in this slim collection. The latest story being from 1964. So you're talking the good-old-stuff here. All of the stories are set in Mars, each with years given for a loose timeline to connect them.
"I do not know of Earth," he answered courteously. "But on Mars man has always said 'I reason, I am above the beasts because I reason.' And he has always been very proud of himself because he could reason. It is the mark of his humanity. Being convinced that reason operates automatically within him he orders his life and his government upon emotion and superstition."
Earthmen, in these stories, seems to perpetually come to a sad reckoning between his Earth-born ego and ambitions against the ancient lost and dwindling civilizations of the Martians. You can draw your own meanings from what Leigh Brackett may have been trying to say in these stories, or you can enjoy them as they were written, stellar examples of planetary adventures. If stories like these are written anymore, I haven't been able to find them in current science fiction digests. Maybe it's just me (and it probably is) but I find current science fiction short stories mostly unreadable. The simple adventure and wonder that writers like Leigh Brackett were so good at is mostly extinct. ...more
Listen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise aListen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall? Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, Rome, the Empires of Charlemagne and the Turk. Ground to dust and plowed with salt. Spain, France, Britain, America - burned into the oblivion of the centuries. And again and again and again.
More July sci-fi reading in the scorching desert. Here is a book I've had on my shelf for a long number of years. I can see the date and place I bought my copy inside the cover. Something I certainly meant to read at the time I purchased it, but never did until now. But this is why you keep old books. Eventually you'll get around to them. This is one of the "classics" of science fiction that got serious attention by people who probably didn't normally read science fiction back in the olden days. I think it's fair to say it's made it out of the slums of genre fiction into the league of "serious" literature that academics likely assigned to students in hot classrooms. I'm glad I read it for fun and not under a deadline of essays and tests. Although "fun" isn't exactly a word to describe it. It's a thoughtful novel, told in three sections, hundreds of years apart and over a thousand years into the future. It combines religion and sociology and blends atomic warfare into three stories concerning an abbey somewhere in the desert of New Mexico. It's many years after the Atomic Flame Deluge that wiped out the world. America, and the world, has returned to Dark Ages. An Order has been formed, dedicated to the preservation of knowledge and writings and memorabilia from before the Deluge in the hope that society may learn from its past and not repeat its own destruction. There are contrasts explored throughout the book: politics vs. religion, science vs. superstition, history vs. destiny. Many themes to chew on as one reads it. Published in the late 50s, I would say its themes are as relevant today as they were then. Are we experiencing our own form of warfare between "Simplification" and education now? Is belief in science being drowned by willful ignorance and superstition? Are we as doomed as the novel indicates we are? Is there a way out of a repetitive cycle of history in which we do the same destructive things over and over? Not a particularly cheerful reading experience, but one I'd recommend to any fan of vintage science fiction. Find yourself an old paperback copy of it and a shady spot out of the sun and see what you think. ...more
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