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A (Black) Gat in Hand – Hammett & Zigzags of Treachery (My Intro)

A (Black) Gat in Hand – Hammett & Zigzags of Treachery (My Intro)

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“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 went to Pittsburgh’s Pulp Fest 2023, weekend before last. It was a fun time, with lots of cool chatting. I’ve got some pics and I’ll try to do a post next week. Steeger Books awlays rolls out their Summer releases at Pulp Fest. Volume Two of Rex Sackler (D. L. Champion) is out. I wrote about Sackler here – those stories are SO much fun! And the first Bill Lennox (W. T. Ballard) book is out. Lennox was one of my first essays for this series, and I’m a huge fan.

I’m biased, but I was most excited about the first volume of The Continental Op. I wrote the intro for Zigzags of Treachery, and I’m kicking off the new run with it. If you like it, maybe check out the book. The Continental Op is one of the best private eyes in the genre.

It’s got a terrific cover from Henry C. Murphy. Murphy – who died of cancer at only age 45 – drew the well-known image of Sam Spade used for the first installment of The Maltese Falcon. So, here’s my intro. I’m pretty pleased with it.

Black Mask. Dashiell Hammett. Joseph ‘Cap’ Shaw. Those three names are inextricably linked together as the bedrock of the hardboiled school of mystery fiction. The October 1, 1923, issue of Black Mask included “Arson Plus,” the first story featuring a nameless detective known as The Continental Op.

Earlier that May, Carroll John Daly’s Three Gun Terry Mack had become the first hardboiled dick, and he was followed a month later by Race Williams. The immensely popular Williams was the prototypical gun-slinging Western cowboy who solved every problem with hot lead, but now wearing a suit and transplanted to the urban setting of city streets. Written in heavy-handed, over-the-top prose, Williams relied on guns and massive amounts of testosterone, leaving the city littered with corpses.

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GW Thomas on Interplanetary Graveyards, Cemetery Worlds, and Junkyard Planets

GW Thomas on Interplanetary Graveyards, Cemetery Worlds, and Junkyard Planets

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Art by Chris Foss

GW Thomas’s Dark Worlds is one of the better blogs out there, at least for fans of classic SF, comics and pulps. In just the last few weeks he’s discussed Sword & Sorcery at Warren (Part 10: 1980), Bronze Age DC Werewolves (Parts 1, 2, and 3) and Golden Age Plant Monsters.

No one else is doing scholarship on plant monsters, and Thomas clearly deserves an award for that alone. But my favorite recent piece was his 2-part article on interplanetary graveyards, cemetery worlds, and junkyard planets in comics and pulps.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Will Murray and The Diamond Wager Caper – Not Dashiell Hammett?

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Will Murray and The Diamond Wager Caper – Not Dashiell Hammett?

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“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)

A (Black) Gat in the Hand makes its first-ever Friday appearance as Will Murray takes us down some Mean Streets never explored before. And he’s gonna need a blackjack and a roscoe in hand for this one. I’m not gonna spill the beans about Dashiell Hammett’s “The Diamond Wager”, but you’re definitely going to want to read on to find out the real truth behind that story. Take it away, Will!

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Recently, friend and fellow researcher Evan Lewis posted on Facebook the text of a story that first appeared in the October 19, 1929 issue of Detective Fiction Weekly entitled “The Diamond Wager.“ This was featured in a blogpost he originally posted in June, 2013.

The story ran under the byline of Samuel Dashiell. According to Evan, it is widely believed to be the work of Samuel Dashiell Hammett, and constitutes Hammett’s only contribution to Detective Fiction Weekly.

“The Diamond Wager” is a 7,600 word yarn of a gentleman thief set in Paris. For a tale purportedly written by the author of The Maltese Falcon, it’s underwhelming. Opinions on the story’s worth do not vary much. When compared to Hammett’s oeuvre, it’s an oddball outlier, a tongue-in-cheek relic of the Golden Age of mystery stories.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Back Down those Mean Streets in 2023

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Back Down those Mean Streets in 2023

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“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)

Talking Tolkien takes a one-week break, as we are into summer – though Ohio’s pleasantly cool weather might belie that. And since 2018, summer Mondays at Black Gate mean it’s pulp time with A (Black) Gat in the Hand.

Talking Tolkien has pushed the start back later than usual, but I’ve been doing pulp reading and writing to gear up for another great run. I have two introductions over at Steeger Press, ready to come out before the end of the year (I hope). I’ll post both here at book release time.

Talking Tolkien will be back next week, but I want A (Black) Gat in the Hand to make a June appearance again this year – we’re almost at 100 essays in the series! Not bad for an award-winning fantasy and sci-fi site. With me, expect the unexpected (to paraphrase from a Monk episode).

CASS BLUE

I’d not read any John Lawrence, but I picked up Steeger’s first ebook of Cass Blue. The second (and final) volume is in the works. These are different. The settings for the first three of four are more Agatha Christie than the mean streets of Chandler. A country estate with a seance, or  mansion on a secluded island.

The tone and plot are more weird menace than typical hardboiled, while Blue himself plays rough. The fourth story is a serial killer hunt in the city, that is a mix of weird menace and robbery heist.

I liked, but didn’t love, these. They are definitely a change of pace, which is nice. I will be checking out his Marquis of Broadway stories. They seem to be about a police squad who are brutal thugs, in NYC’s theater district.

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A Burroughs Bonanza Estate Sale Recovery

A Burroughs Bonanza Estate Sale Recovery

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Some of the September 22 estate sale finds made by Deb Fulton

Deb’s Part of the Story

I almost skipped this estate sale, which was held on September 22, 2022. The meat of the description posted online was model railroad items, with a side dish of old radios and parts. The few pictures that showed books were not particularly encouraging. Typical of estate sale companies, there was not enough detail in the pictures to read the title or author on the spines or covers of the few books shown.

Atypical of estate sale companies, the description had a little detail — it mentioned Tarzan books and “other books” from the ‘20s/’30s. But what I saw smacked of reprint editions, and that was not exciting enough for a fifty minute drive (each way). A brief consultation with Doug confirmed my view.

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Reading the Avon Fantasy Reader — Issue 1: What Defines a Classic?

Reading the Avon Fantasy Reader — Issue 1: What Defines a Classic?

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Avon Fantasy Reader #1 (Avon Books, February 1947). Cover artist unknown

On the occasion of this year’s Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention — my fifth — I resolved to learn from past mistakes and come armed with a specific list of items needed to plug holes in my considerable collection of science fiction and fantasy paperbacks and pulps. This year, I came looking to complete my set of all 18 volumes of Donald A. Wollheim’s Avon Fantasy Reader, a digest magazine I’d poked at before due to its propensity to publish works by Clark Ashton Smith, a writer who never disappoints. The convention coughed up all but two of my missing issues, but crucially provided the first volume in the series, which I had never before seen in person. I snagged it immediately, of course, and began reading it that day.

The Avon Fantasy Reader ran 18 issues, from February 1947 to March 1952. Originally intended as a quarterly, it usually managed three issues per year. Wollheim’s introduction to the first volume promises tales of fantasy and imagination about “those strange forces which exist just beyond the boundaries of knowledge.” He further touts a roster of authors that represented “a sure guarantee of the best stories of their kind available.”

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Total Pulp Victory: Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention 2023, Part II

Total Pulp Victory: Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention 2023, Part II

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David C. Smith and Steven H Silver find priceless treasures in the Dealers Room at Windy City Pulp & Paper

A month ago I wrote a short convention report on the 2023 Windy City Pulp & Paper Show, which took place Friday April 21st to Sunday, April 23rd in Lombard, Illinois. In that article I mostly rubber-necked at the gorgeous Weird Tales pulps and other rare magazines sold during the evening auctions, and took covetous pictures of the pre-auction displays.

Here in Part II, I’ll share a few more photos of the vendors and personalities I met, and showcase a few of the many treasures I dragged home in seven heavy boxes — including vintage comics, science fiction digests, graphic novels, new releases, and of course lots of great old paperbacks. Assuming you enjoy cautionary tales of disastrous self control, it should be an entertaining read.

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Total Pulp Victory: Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention 2023, Part I

Total Pulp Victory: Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention 2023, Part I

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Some of the eye-popping pulps from the Bob Weinberg collection auctioned at Windy City

This weekend was the Windy City Pulp & Paper show, an annual gathering of about 600-800 pulp and vintage paperback enthusiasts in Lombard, Illinois. Founded by Doug Ellis and run by a dedicated and talented team, Windy City has gradually become my favorite convention. Back when Black Gate was a print magazine I used to get a table and sell back issues, but these days I spend my time more productively. Namely buying stuff, but also hanging out with friends and attending the auction.

And gawking at amazing sights. If you’re interested in rare and unusual items — such as mint-condition pulps, rare first editions, signed volumes, original art, and letters and esoterica from pulp writers such as Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. Merritt, and countless others — Windy City is the place to be. It’s a chance to hang out with like-minded individuals, gossip, and (especially!) find incredible treasures.

Reader, I found some treasures.

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The New Weird Tales

The New Weird Tales

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Weird Tales #366, the Sword & Sorcery issue (January 2023), and #367, the
Cosmic Horror issue (May 2023). Covers by Bob Eggleton and Mike Mignola

I ordered a copy of the new Sword & Sorcery issue of Weird Tales last year, and it finally arrived a few weeks ago — so late that I almost forgot I ordered it.

But it did arrive — and turned out to be damn impressive. A huge oversize (8×10) issue in full color, with terrific front and back covers by Bob Eggleton and Archer H. Anglow (see below), and weighing in at 128 pages. The stellar TOC includes a new Elric tale by Michael Moorcock, plus Kevin J. Anderson, Marguerite Reed, and Black Gate‘s own Howard Andrew Jones (an exclusive excerpt from his upcoming book Lord of the Shattered Land), along with an appreciation of Moorcock by Neil Gaiman, and a delightful full-color article on Sword & Sorcery by Charles R. Rutledge.

Issue 367, shipping next month, looks even more impressive. The Cosmic Horror issue offers an eye-catching Hellboy cover by Mike Mignola, a Hellboy story by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden, plus new work from Ramsey Campbell, Paul Cornell, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Nancy Kilpatrick, Tim Lebbon, F. Paul Wilson, and lots more.

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Changes in Genre Evaluations: Stanley G. Weinbaum

Changes in Genre Evaluations: Stanley G. Weinbaum

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The Collected Science Fiction & Fantasy of Stanley G, Weinbaum, in four volumes:
Interplanetary Odysseys, Other Earths, The Black Heart, and Strange Genius (Leonaur, April 20006)

Isaac Asimov felt that Stanley G. Weinbaum (4 April 1902 — 19 Dec 1935) deserved to name an entire era in science fiction. The writer died at 33 of throat cancer — though how he got it no one can guess.

These four books which I got because, at least when I was young, titles like “The Black Flame” intrigued me and I’d certainly enjoyed stories like “A Martian Odyssey.” Today it makes one wonder what the rest of the genre was like, or whether his popularity was simply the personal preference of a very brilliant reader and writer in our genre.

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