Browsed by
Category: Books

Richard Stark’s Parker, Part 6: The Man with the Getaway Face

Richard Stark’s Parker, Part 6: The Man with the Getaway Face

Comments 5 comments


The second Parker novel: The Man With the Getaway Face (Pocket Books, 1963)

What is it?

Parker has gone to a lot of trouble and expense to get a new face. Now he has to fight to keep his identity hidden, while also planning and executing an armored car heist.

A treacherous waitress and a punch-drunk former boxer complicate those matters tremendously.

This is Volume 2 of Richard Stark’s “Parker” series of crime novels. It is also the second part of the unofficial Outfit Trilogy, the first three books in the series, in which Parker goes up against an organized crime syndicate.

…

Read More Read More

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Bleak Noir – Jim Thompson

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Bleak Noir – Jim Thompson

Comments 6 comments

“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

I have a shelf full of Jim Thompson books. For A (Black) Gat in the Hand, I decided to read a couple I had not got to yet. So, Wild Town was followed by A Swell Looking Babe. Then, Nothing More than Murder. And I mixed in The Grifters (which I have read, as well as seen the movie) into my audiobook listening.

While I’ve got a post dedicated to maybe his most unusual book – The Transgressors – in the works, I wanted to bring up one common aspect in his writing.

It can be difficult to sympathize with the main character, as they’re often not very nice people. That’s a post in itself. And those characters are often saturated with bleakness. I rarely read two Thompsons in a row. I need a palette cleanse after one. He’s good. But he’s about as joyful as Full Metal Jacket.

…

Read More Read More

The Unfinished Monument: The Steranko History of Comics

The Unfinished Monument: The Steranko History of Comics

Comments 9 comments
The Steranko History of Comics, Volumes One and Two, front covers

Imagine Mount Rushmore with only one president on it. Picture a Washington Monument that’s only 185 feet tall instead of 555. How about a Statue of Liberty missing two arms and a head? No takers? I don’t blame you; there’s nothing more frustrating than a great beginning that remains incomplete.

Take The Steranko History of Comics, a work that was intended to fill six volumes. The first two came out in 1970 and 1972… and then, nothing. It’s been fifty-four years now and I don’t mind telling you, I’m starting to lose hope.

Certainly no one was (or is — he’s still with us at the age of eighty-eight) more qualified to write a history of comics than Jim Steranko. Active in the industry as an artist and writer since the late 50’s, he did his most famous work for Marvel on their Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. title. Charging through the door that Jack Kirby had kicked open, Steranko created some images (especially his Nick Fury covers) that have become icons of the psychedelic 60’s as essential as anything by Andy Warhol or Peter Max.

…

Read More Read More

Sour Bill: The Issue at Hand and More Issues at Hand by William Atheling, Jr.

Sour Bill: The Issue at Hand and More Issues at Hand by William Atheling, Jr.

Comments 9 comments
The Issue at Hand, by William Atheling, Jr., AKA James Blish (Advent: Publishers, 1964). Cover by Jon Stopa

In 1952, a science fiction fanzine, Sky Hook, began publishing a series of critical essays by William Atheling, Jr. When its publisher, Redd Boggs, suspended publication, the science fiction writer James Blish publicly revealed that this was a pseudonym he had adopted. But a few years later, he revived “Atheling” for more criticism, published in another fanzine, Axe.

In 1964, Advent: Publishers collected his critical writings, including both fanzine articles and addresses given at science fiction conventions under his own name, as The Issue at Hand, credited to Atheling, “edited and with an introduction by James Blish,” though the book made no secret of the author’s identity. In 1970, a second collection appeared, More Issues at Hand.

…

Read More Read More

David C. Smith, Part 5: Sometime Lofty Towers, A Magnificent Work of Sword & Sorcery

David C. Smith, Part 5: Sometime Lofty Towers, A Magnificent Work of Sword & Sorcery

Comments 5 comments


Sometime Lofty Towers (Brackenbury Books, December 2025). Cover by Saša Đurđević

I’ve just finished reading what may be David C. Smith’s best work — Sometime Lofty Towers.

My first contact with Smith was from the Robert E. Howard related pastiche work he did earlier in his career. He wrote an excellent Black Vulmea story, The Witch of the Indies (Zebra, 1977, cover by Stephen Fabian), and a Bran Mak Morn tale, Witch of the Mists with Richard Tierney (Zebra, 1978, cover by Doug Beekman), and he and Tierney (1936 –2022) collaborated on six novels about Red Sonja. The Sonja tales are not REH pastiches, of course, but are based on a comic book character created to interact with Conan in the Marvel series.

…

Read More Read More

David C. Smith, Part 4: The Fall of the First World and Four Horror Novels

David C. Smith, Part 4: The Fall of the First World and Four Horror Novels

Comments 5 comments
The Fall of the First World trilogy by David C Smith, from Pinnacle Books (1983). Covers by Carl Lundgren and Kevin Johnson

David C. Smith also wrote a trilogy of fantasy novels under the collective heading of The Fall of the First World. These were all released in 1983 from Pinnacle Books and are:

1. The Master of Evil, January 1983. Cover by Carl Lundgren
2. Sorrowing Vengeance, September 1983. Cover by Carl Lundgren
3. The Passing of the Gods, December 1983. Cover by Kevin Johnson

This trilogy is less Sword & Sorcery and more High Fantasy, although it’s not exactly that either. It’s hard to categorize. In some ways, the political maneuverings in the series are a harbinger for later series such as Game of Thrones.

…

Read More Read More

Richard Stark’s Parker, Part 5: Payback

Richard Stark’s Parker, Part 5: Payback

Comments 2 comments
Payback: Straight Up Director’s Cut (Paramount direct-to-home-video, 2006)

Payback: Theatrical Cut and Straight Up (The Director’s Cut)

1999 theatrical release; recut, direct-to-home-video DVD in 2006. Written by Brian Helgeland (with Terry Hayes) and directed by Brian Helgeland (with Paul Abascal).

What is it?

Brian Helgeland (A Knight’s Tale; Man on Fire; the script for LA Confidential) wrote and directed this adaptation of The Hunter, the first novel in the Parker series, starring Mel Gibson.

As the film was nearing completion, test audiences reportedly reacted poorly to the ending. And yeah, it’s pretty dark and violent and certainly not the triumphant conclusion many Gibson fans were probably expecting. Consequently, Gibson and the studio removed Helgeland from the film. They brought in Terry Hayes to rewrite the ending and added Kris Kristofferson as a new “final boss” villain.

…

Read More Read More

Vampires, Shoggoths, and the Monsters of the Suburbs: The Year’s Best Horror Stories XVI, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

Vampires, Shoggoths, and the Monsters of the Suburbs: The Year’s Best Horror Stories XVI, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

Comments 8 comments


The Year’s Best Horror Stories XVI (DAW Books, October 1988). Cover by J.K. Potter

The Year’s Best Horror Stories: XVI was the sixteenth in the lineup and the eighth volume edited by the great Karl Edward Wagner (d. 1994). This book was copyrighted and printed in 1988 and represents the best short horror in the field for 1987. After twelve straight covers with Michael Whelan’s art, we now have a new cover artist, American illustrator J. K. Potter (b. 1956).

If this were published today, I’d think we’d suspect the cover was AI-generated. It looks almost photographic; but rather than being scary, it seems a little silly to me. But it’s still a horrific scene and was also on the cover the convention booklet in 1986 for the 12th World Fantasy Convention (see below). I’m sure in the mid-1980s it was quite original.

…

Read More Read More

A Science Fiction Film Noir: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

A Science Fiction Film Noir: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

Comments 3 comments


Lord of Light (Avon Books, January 1969). Cover by Ronald Walotsky

His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god.

Roger Zelazny was considered to be one of the major New Wave writers of the 1960s. But where many of those writers found inspiration in naturalism, modernism, or even surrealism, much of Zelazny’s work was inspired by mythology, somewhat in the style of poets such as Yeats or Eliot.

Early novels in this mode included The Dream Master (expanded from the novella “He Who Shapes”), This Immortal (originally titled And Call Me Conrad, which I think is a much better choice), and Lord of Light, which I’ve long considered his single greatest literary achievement.

…

Read More Read More

David C. Smith, Part Three: Oron and the Tales of Attluma

David C. Smith, Part Three: Oron and the Tales of Attluma

Comments 13 comments
The Oron series by David C Smith

Although David Smith’s work in the Robert E. Howard Universe is memorable, his best creations to me are his original stories of Attluma.

Attluma is an island continent that evokes the spirit of Atlantis. Smith himself drew a map of the continent that appeared in the first published book in the series. Shown below. This book, simply called Oron, was also my first exposure to the world of Attluma. Five books in this series came out from Zebra between 1980 and 1983.

…

Read More Read More