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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 19, 2019 8:09:17 GMT -5
Just finished Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon... The movie is one of my absolute favorites, but this is the first time I've read the novel. I couldn't help buy "hear" Spade's dialogue in Bogart's voice, but I immensely enjoyed the novel. I will have to track down more Hammett, though I believe there is at least one in the Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps I picked up last week. I DVRed the movie off of TCM a week or so ago, so now I want to watch it again while the book is fresh in my mind. -M It's a fine, fine novel. A highlight that doesn't make it to the Bogart film: the Flitcraft story. I wonder if it was something will Eisner knew, as it sounds like it could have been a Spirit story.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 19, 2019 10:48:22 GMT -5
All of Hammett's novels are outstanding. The best one by far, though, is The Glass Key. I'm not sure that I'd say it's his best. It's his most interesting. And it's certainly as influential, in its own way, as Red Harvest or The Maltese Falcon. It's also the only work of Hammett's that he didn't end up hating...though he was a really complex and messed up man. I highly recommend it.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 20, 2019 9:40:15 GMT -5
Just finished Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon... The movie is one of my absolute favorites, but this is the first time I've read the novel. I couldn't help buy "hear" Spade's dialogue in Bogart's voice, but I immensely enjoyed the novel. I will have to track down more Hammett, though I believe there is at least one in the Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps I picked up last week. I DVRed the movie off of TCM a week or so ago, so now I want to watch it again while the book is fresh in my mind. -M It's a fine, fine novel. A highlight that doesn't make it to the Bogart film: the Flitcraft story. I wonder if it was something will Eisner knew, as it sounds like it could have been a Spirit story. The Flitcraft Parable is a super interesting piece of the novel. If anything it shows that Hammett, a former Pinkerton, knows how being a P.I. works in real life. It's a very quiet investigation started in a quiet manner and with a quiet conclusion. Actual P.I. work wasn't all guns and femmes fatale and Maltese falcons. It's also one of the few insights we see into Spade's thoughts as we mostly see his actions and his words and the words are always calculated.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 20, 2019 22:21:50 GMT -5
Was just looking over the March 1949 issue of Startling Stories. The novel is “Black Galaxy” by Murray Leinster. Then it’s got short stories by Bradbury (Marionettes Inc.), Simak, Jack Vance and L. Ron Hubbard. And a letter by James Blish.
That’s some good stuff.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 21, 2019 10:09:26 GMT -5
The Illustrated Man by Ray BradburyReading anything by Bradbury is like sitting down with an old friend and drinking a beer while you chat on the patio on a crisp fall day. This was one of Bradbury's first collections and contains a number of his best works. Its framing device is really beside the point. The point is the story and Bradbury's intricate weaving of his words and metaphors. If I had a complaint it might be that when you start a collection with a story as strong as The Veldt it's a bit hard to keep up with the promise. Fortunately the next story, Kaleidoscope, is up to the task of following. Not every story is equally strong. The Concrete Mixer doesn't fully work for me. Nor does The City. But there isn't a complete dud in the bunch. And any chance to reconnect with Bradbury is well worth the time.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 21, 2019 18:43:12 GMT -5
The Veldt is indeed amazing.. and how can one be so prophetic? It blew my mind.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 22, 2019 0:05:16 GMT -5
The copy of The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu I bought from an Amazon seller arrived in my mailbox today, and has been slotted in to my to read pile.
-M
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 23, 2019 19:51:39 GMT -5
Trip Wire by Lee Child
I grabbed this as a box set at Ollie's... I've read a few random Jack Reacher books but never the first couple. But of course because it was late at night when I was grabbing the books, I took it from the wrong end.
Funny thing though, until I got to the end of the book and saw the preview for the next one, I had no idea this wasn't the first one... it sure FEELS like it. Child's writing is alot less polished, and Reacher feels much more like an imitation of James Bond than his own unique character (which I've found him to be in other books in the series). I mean, really, a villain with a hook for a hand? Really?
He's even got an attempt at giving him a trademark move (beating up bad guys for stuff he needs and 'buying' it from them for a dollar) which I don't recall from the others (thankfully, it's really goofy). The book doesn't mention any other adventures, just that he's been drifting.
Then there's Jodie, who is set up to be a solid recurring character, but I'm pretty sure she's not... very odd indeed.
Overall, I definitely enjoyed the book, even if it seems less polished. Child spends far too much time developing the characters of the Stones, who are simply hostages, and have no other real purpose to the story... a good 50 pages could have been taken on without losing any of the story.
Then there's the end... awesome to read, but a with a couple issues. One is certainly not Child's fault, ever action hero take more punishment that is reasonable, at least Reacher is a monster of a man as part of his character and it sorta makes sense. The misdirection, with the character stating one thing in his dialogue then doing the opposite, was what really annoyed me.. it felt like the sort of thing they did in Silver Age Superman comics when they write themselves into a corner, and there was no need for it, except to try to get the reader to panic.
There's no panic, people, we all know the good guy saves the day in the end! Give it up. OK, maybe we don't know that if it's a new, shiny book, but when it's book 3 out of a 20 year series, such decisions don't age well.
Speaking of age, it was crazy how dated this seems, even though it's only 20 years old.. it was before 9/11. It's sobering how much that one event changed the world and can date a story.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 25, 2019 14:38:27 GMT -5
Black Hat Jack by Joe R. LansdaleLansdale gives us the exploits of Black Hat Jack and Deadwood Dick at the Second Battle of Adobe Walls. I've said before and I'll say again that Lansdale is a master of many genres and the western is one of them. This is a great little novella that gives us a pulpy look at one of the fights that closed out the Old West period. Placing Jack and Dick at the Second Battle of Adobe Walls is a natural and bless Lansdale for doing so. It's also a fight that was just weird enough that it falls right into Lansdale's bailiwick. Being familiar with the life of Quanah Parker I was already familiar with the fight. It's a "battle" that should have ended with the Comanche and their allies over-running a small group of buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls and ended with a very large native American force that had been influenced by the Sun Dance withdrawing after a one-in-a-thousand shot by Billy Dixon. The battle led to the Red River War and the breaking of any power held by the Southern Plains Indians. Of course with Lansdale writing this isn't dry history. It is pulpy western adventure with a modern sensibility and well worth the limited time commitment.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 26, 2019 11:54:15 GMT -5
Just finished "The Power of the Dog" by Don Winslow (not of the Navy). First part of a trilogy focusing on the decades of corruption on all sides of the drug trade, involving the CIA, the cartels, scores of corrupt officials on both sides of the border, and a good guy and bad guy locked in a struggle only one can win, but from which neither can truly emerge alive, at least metaphorically.
Sound cliched? It is. The storytelling tropes get old fairly quickly and the result is a thriller full of twists and turns you see coming a mile away. Part of the problem is that Winslow crams way too much into the one story, and because we've seen all of these characters somewhere before (a sophisticated call-girl with a heart of gold; a likable professional killer with a heart of gold; a ruthless drug-dealer with a soft spot for his brain-damaged daughter; a cynical but wise cleric bucking both church and state because he cares about his poverty-stricken flock; a hard-as-nails, super-heroic DEA guy whose family life pays the price for his loyalty to the cause; double-crossing bureaucrats; etcetera, etcetera), the novel gets top-heavy and the various plotlines repeat themselves. Clever drug dealers con clever agents; clever agents re-con clever dealers; rinse; repeat.
It was recommended by a friend who has flown through all three books in far less time than I took to finish this first one.
It is a quick read, no doubt about it, but I'm not all that interested in reading the next two, especially given the ever increasing unreality of the predicaments, plot twists and characters themselves. And the violence is frequent and lovingly detailed, and therefore simply repetitious. I was disappointed after the first 200 pages.
But, YMMV.
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Post by berkley on Jun 27, 2019 1:21:42 GMT -5
Just finished "The Power of the Dog" by Don Winslow (not of the Navy). First part of a trilogy focusing on the decades of corruption on all sides of the drug trade, involving the CIA, the cartels, scores of corrupt officials on both sides of the border, and a good guy and bad guy locked in a struggle only one can win, but from which neither can truly emerge alive, at least metaphorically. Sound cliched? It is. The storytelling tropes get old fairly quickly and the result is a thriller full of twists and turns you see coming a mile away. Part of the problem is that Winslow crams way too much into the one story, and because we've seen all of these characters somewhere before (a sophisticated call-girl with a heart of gold; a likable professional killer with a heart of gold; a ruthless drug-dealer with a soft spot for his brain-damaged daughter; a cynical but wise cleric bucking both church and state because he cares about his poverty-stricken flock; a hard-as-nails, super-heroic DEA guy whose family life pays the price for his loyalty to the cause; double-crossing bureaucrats; etcetera, etcetera), the novel gets top-heavy and the various plotlines repeat themselves. Clever drug dealers con clever agents; clever agents re-con clever dealers; rinse; repeat. It was recommended by a friend who has flown through all three books in far less time than I took to finish this first one. It is a quick read, no doubt about it, but I'm not all that interested in reading the next two, especially given the ever increasing unreality of the predicaments, plot twists and characters themselves. And the violence is frequent and lovingly detailed, and therefore simply repetitious. I was disappointed after the first 200 pages. But, YMMV.
That's disappointing to hear - I've had Winslow on my to-read-list for a while, since I've seen a lot of very strong word-of-mouth recommendations of his stuff online, and also a few "official" reviews, one of them at least from a journal that doesn't usually rate thrillers of any kind. I might still give it a try, but my expectations will be lowered now - which is probably not a bad thing anyway.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 27, 2019 10:07:36 GMT -5
Wide Spot in the Road by Wayne D. DundeeJack Laramie, the Drifter Detective, is back. And this time creator Garnett Elliott is letting western/neo-pulp writer Wayne Dundee play with him. Jack just happens to notice a sign for chili as he is driving past a little diner near what isn't really a town but a wide spot in the road. That detour lands him in a scene from The Wild Ones as he faces off with an outlaw biker gang looking for revenge on a local kid. Backing him up are the kid's girl-friend and the lovely waitress/proprietress of the diner. There's nothing really ground-breaking here. The plot is simple. And in lesser hands the characters could easily become tropes. But Dundee is always a solid writer and this may be the best thing I've read from him. Dundee puts some characterization on Laramie that is beyond what you might expect from a novella with a character that isn't his. And the ending is not the cliche that you would expect about 1/3 of the way through the story. This is an excellent entry in a fun series of novellas. They're nice palate cleansers that can be read in one or two sittings.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2019 14:11:22 GMT -5
Taking a quick dip in the Bond pool as I tour through pulp and adventure fiction... the second Bond novel...Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming. Quite different from the movie in many ways (the movie made many changes to try to exploit the Blacksploitation trend at the time) and overall a better story than the movie in terms of logic and motivation of the plot. I was a bit disappointed in some of the voodoo elements; I am a fan of those themes in fiction and have done some academic work in the area and I felt they were under-served and over-stereotyped in the book, and also cringed a bit at the portrayal of several of the black characters in the book, which although products of their time, were still stereotyped and cliched. Despite all that, I still enjoyed the book for the most part. It's a solid adventure story with some great scenes and some interesting characters. And overall, of those I have read, I still have enjoyed the Fleming novels more than I have enjoyed the films based on them, even though I like the movies just fine. -M
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 27, 2019 14:33:43 GMT -5
Just finished "The Power of the Dog" by Don Winslow (not of the Navy). First part of a trilogy focusing on the decades of corruption on all sides of the drug trade, involving the CIA, the cartels, scores of corrupt officials on both sides of the border, and a good guy and bad guy locked in a struggle only one can win, but from which neither can truly emerge alive, at least metaphorically. Sound cliched? It is. The storytelling tropes get old fairly quickly and the result is a thriller full of twists and turns you see coming a mile away. Part of the problem is that Winslow crams way too much into the one story, and because we've seen all of these characters somewhere before (a sophisticated call-girl with a heart of gold; a likable professional killer with a heart of gold; a ruthless drug-dealer with a soft spot for his brain-damaged daughter; a cynical but wise cleric bucking both church and state because he cares about his poverty-stricken flock; a hard-as-nails, super-heroic DEA guy whose family life pays the price for his loyalty to the cause; double-crossing bureaucrats; etcetera, etcetera), the novel gets top-heavy and the various plotlines repeat themselves. Clever drug dealers con clever agents; clever agents re-con clever dealers; rinse; repeat. It was recommended by a friend who has flown through all three books in far less time than I took to finish this first one. It is a quick read, no doubt about it, but I'm not all that interested in reading the next two, especially given the ever increasing unreality of the predicaments, plot twists and characters themselves. And the violence is frequent and lovingly detailed, and therefore simply repetitious. I was disappointed after the first 200 pages. But, YMMV.
That's disappointing to hear - I've had Winslow on my to-read-list for a while, since I've seen a lot of very strong word-of-mouth recommendations of his stuff online, and also a few "official" reviews, one of them at least from a journal that doesn't usually rate thrillers of any kind. I might still give it a try, but my expectations will be lowered now - which is probably not a bad thing anyway. Sorry. You might still want to give it a shot. It certainly reads quickly, and if it's a page-turner you want, it will be fine. To me it read more like a Netflix series, if you know what I mean. World-weariness, cynicism, action sequences, all those double-crosses, etc.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 27, 2019 20:06:27 GMT -5
Taking a quick dip in the Bond pool as I tour through pulp and adventure fiction... the second Bond novel...Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming. Quite different from the movie in many ways (the movie made many changes to try to exploit the Blacksploitation trend at the time) and overall a better story than the movie in terms of logic and motivation of the plot. I was a bit disappointed in some of the voodoo elements; I am a fan of those themes in fiction and have done some academic work in the area and I felt they were under-served and over-stereotyped in the book, and also cringed a bit at the portrayal of several of the black characters in the book, which although products of their time, were still stereotyped and cliched. Despite all that, I still enjoyed the book for the most part. It's a solid adventure story with some great scenes and some interesting characters. And overall, of those I have read, I still have enjoyed the Fleming novels more than I have enjoyed the films based on them, even though I like the movies just fine. -M Anyone read the new Bond prequel by Anthony Horowitz? He's not my favorite, but the concept is pretty cool. My book for today: The Poisoned Crown Maurice Druon Absolutely the best of the series so far... the characters have really come into their own as time as passed... I still love my boy Guiccio! Mahaut of Artois is truly a brilliant evil queen... one can see very clearly the model George RR Martin used for Cersei in her every action. Louis really had a nice redemption.. the guy tried his best, he just wasn't really king material. The way he changed with the influence of his new wife seemed quite realistic and very well done.
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