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Post by Calamas on Dec 9, 2020 17:09:49 GMT -5
Since it's classics and we're not including news-strips, I suspect mine will be pretty Marvel-heavy, though I haven't yet started trying to formulate a list. I'll have to check some of the more contemporary writers that I like to see if my favourite works by them came out before 2011. One thing I'm not sure about is if I'll want to include someone who produced just one book or run on a book that I rate highly while not being too fond of anythng else that writer's done. Decisions! I may be you from a mirror universe. Most of my picks are DC centric. Some did work for both of the Big 2 but it’s their (mostly) DC work that grabbed me. OTOH, it’s the point in your second paragraph that I used to help eliminate. In short, my picks are writers who automatically went to the top of the READ pile that week with little or no exception.
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Post by Calamas on Nov 23, 2020 11:16:41 GMT -5
Well, he didn't do a Dr. Strange novel, but he did write The Point Man, which has a lot of Dr. Stange-like elements to it. I reviewed a while back at another site.Yes, I read that way back when it came out in the early 80s. I've bought the sequels too but haven't tried them yet. I also read The Point Man when it first came out and while I liked it, it also showed many signs of being a first novel. With the sequels that followed Englehart wrote with a much surer hand. Bonus for comic fans: He eventually makes use of a couple of characters he co-created.
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Post by Calamas on Oct 18, 2020 12:06:48 GMT -5
. . . There are also some odd choices on books include on the list, choosing singular books in series that may or may not be the best representation of the series or author. . . . -M I’m not particularly familiar with Fantasy so the link doesn’t help me with this--and it’s a curiosity question anyway. I find on lists like this that they automatically offer the first book of an author--or the first entry in a series--presumably because it broke new ground or introduced a character or concept of importance to the genre. Most readers know that much more often than not it is not the best, and is often a poor choice to hook new readers, especially the further back you go in time. Is that the case here or is there no perceptible pattern to their selections?
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Post by Calamas on Apr 29, 2020 11:00:47 GMT -5
I reread The Maltese Falcon last year, and have been reading a lot of detective and crime stuff over the last year or so, and Hammett and Chandler are the pinnacle (though I like Robert Parker and Spillane a lot too, nut for different reasons). They are both incredible at what they do, but what they do are different animals. I like to liken it to the Beatles and the Stones-both are rock bands (or pop bands if you want to use that label), but the way they work within that genre is vastly different, but the results of both are less spectacular for it. Chandler and Hammett both work within the detective genre, and each has his own strengths and weaknesses, their own quirks and stylings and both excel producing some of the best stuff in the genre and stuff that transcends the genre, but each is very different form each other. Which I prefer can vary depending on my mindset and worldview at the time, but both bring joy and enjoyment any time I read them. -M I'm not a big fan of Parker but I've also read very little of his work. I love Spillane but I think that even he would admit that he was a stylist and not an artist. I think the closest there was to Hammett and Chandler (and I'm not remotely the first to say this) was Ross MacDonald. If anyone was able to distill the strengths that Hammett and Chandler had in their work into a cohesive synthesis it was probably MacDonald. I'm just not sure that his high notes were ever quite as high as either of them. Hammett ended up hating most of his work. But he was also a noted contrarian. With Parker you have to stick (start?) with the earlier work. Poodle Springs is his watershed. When asked to complete this unfinished Chandler manuscript, he decided he wouldn’t plot because Chandler didn’t plot. It forever changed the course (and many feel the quality) of his career. He found he liked the process better and became a pantser. What followed was two decades of minimal story, tons of filler, cases that solve themselves, and villains that walk away unscathed.
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Post by Calamas on Apr 29, 2020 10:57:16 GMT -5
I reread The Maltese Falcon last year, and have been reading a lot of detective and crime stuff over the last year or so, and Hammett and Chandler are the pinnacle (though I like Robert Parker and Spillane a lot too, but for different reasons). They are both incredible at what they do, but what they do are different animals. I like to liken it to the Beatles and the Stones-both are rock bands (or pop bands if you want to use that label), but the way they work within that genre is vastly different, but the results of both are less spectacular for it. Chandler and Hammett both work within the detective genre, and each has his own strengths and weaknesses, their own quirks and stylings and both excel producing some of the best stuff in the genre and stuff that transcends the genre, but each is very different form each other. Which I prefer can vary depending on my mindset and worldview at the time, but both bring joy and enjoyment any time I read them. -M Where I land, too. Different but equally great. Prefer Hammett for story; marvel at Chandler’s prose. (BTW, I think you meant " no less spectacular." As someone whose main reason for editing is "dropped word," I'm somewhat familiar.)
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Post by Calamas on Apr 22, 2020 10:23:55 GMT -5
At this point you know what you're going to get with Collins' Heller books. Heller is going to be thrust into history and there's most likely going to be something happening that isn't quite the way history portrays it. The research seems to be solid, the execution is fun and compelling and they're a great easy read. Reminds me that I need to start picking up Collins stuff again. I have quite a few of his earlier works I grabbed up used and I really like his Heller and Quarry series. I have several of his historic/disaster books and they were okay, just not as interesting in characterization or depth as i felt they were quick cash makers for the publishers and something which took Collins away from his own personal best. What really sucks is that he has either become a writer people follow and hold onto his books or his books aren't high profile and big sellers since I seldom if ever find his series or any of his books in the used book stores around Phoenix like I used to. Granted there is a lot less stores to choose from and none are mom and pops family run storefronts anymore which might be the problem. Looks like I shall have to begin searching and creating a hunt list of what I need and then start digging for those deep deals via Amazon and online! I suspect more the latter as bookstores have clamped down on their expenses. I used to regularly see at least a half dozen of his paperbacks in stock, and his Disaster series, which I agree was subpar--at least the few that I’ve read--used to get prominently displayed. Lately, the last hardbacks I saw was the final few Heller entries--perhaps because they involved Marilyn Monroe, the Kennedys and McCarthy. As for paperbacks I usually see maybe two Hardcase books, one of which is removed as each new one comes in.
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Post by Calamas on Feb 20, 2020 17:52:19 GMT -5
Finished Mickey Spillane's The Death Dealers... it's the third Tiger Mann novel, but the first I have read. Not one of Spillane's better efforts (and I generally like Spillane). Tiger Mann is a second rate Bond riff without any of the style or charm, and is essentially a hard boiled PI type that a thin coat of spy has been painted on and the results are pretty much what you'd expect. There's a lot of lazy writing, coincidences and cliches throughout the pages, though there are sequences that are well done, but the are few and too far between. Spillane hammered out 4 of these Tiger Mann novels in a 2 year span at the height of the spy craze of the 60s and it just feels like a slap dash effort meant to cash in rather than something he was wanting to write. It was a quick read though... -M If I remember right I really liked The By-Pass Control, the fourth Tiger Mann, but I was fairly young when I read these books and don’t know if I’d still feel the same way.
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Post by Calamas on Jul 3, 2019 9:23:48 GMT -5
The Lonely Silver Rainby John D. MacDonald This is the last Travis McGee novel, which does seem to functions as a sort of send-off to the character, as he (McGee) spends a lot of time contemplating the fact that he's aging (and basically 'getting too old for this s**t') during the course of the story. Also, near the end there's a big revelation, which I won't spoil, that changes his life and priorities quite a bit. Even so, the ending creates that impression that MacDonald probably would have written more McGee stories, or at least one more, if he had not died a year after this one was published. In this one, the Ft. Lauderdale-based boat bum and 'salvage expert' sets about recovering a stolen boat for a wealthy friend of his, only to find it with three dead bodies on board. That gets him caught in the middle of a war between different organized crime cartels involved in the cocaine trade between Mexico, South American and Florida, because certain parties want to pin the murders on him. This isn't among the best of the McGee adventures/mysteries, but it's a solid and mostly enjoyable read. Otherwise, I have to note that I spent the last month reading the last nine of the McGee in one fell swoop - I only got turned onto them a few years ago, and I'd been slowly going through the catalogue in chronological order, but then at the end of May I reached "A Tan and Sandy Silence," which I have in this omnibus volume: Even though it's five separate novels, I always feel kind of weird about setting aside a book I'd started, so that forced me to read the two intervening novels between it and The Dreadful Lemon Sky, i.e., The Scarlet Ruse and the Turquoise Lament: (Didn't like Scarlet Ruse very much, by the way, and that's one I'd recommend skipping if you're not a completist like I am.) Then I could resume reading the rest of the books in that omnibus, and when I finished that, I figured I'd just keep going, since there were only two left: the one above and Cinnamon Skin. (Hate that cover to the UK edition, by the way - I generally don't cover designs that use cheesy photographs, and the woman on the cover clearly doesn't have 'cinnamon' skin, as does one of the key characters in the book...) This is a series where everyone seems to have a different favorite and least favorite. My favorite is LEMON, though I may be prejudiced by it being my first. I agree that SCARLET is not a high mark, but I hold TAN AND SANDY and TURQUOISE in lesser regard, and actively dislike PINK. But I love the series as a whole. And I definitely think more of SILVER than you. Coming into this book cold and with no foreknowledge of McGee, I think most would consider it a failure. The mystery is practically irrelevant to the story. But that’s the point to longtime fans. McGee’s real opponent is mortality. As the penultimate book in the series--as it was intended to be--it accomplishes everything it sets out to do. But in doing so, it short shrifts some basic element needed to satisfy a first time reader. A more than fair trade, I suspect, as MacDonald was nearing the end of his, even if he had survived the heart operation that actually took him. But like I said, everybody feels differently when it comes to MacDonald and McGee. It produces more varied reactions than any other series that I know of.
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Post by Calamas on Nov 4, 2018 12:57:01 GMT -5
The Problem of the Green Capsule aka The Black Spectacles by John Dickson Carr I love Carr. His intelligent plots, his wit, his playing with the tropes of the mystery field. Fear is the Same (published under his Carter Dickson pseudonym) is one of my favorite books. The Burning Court has a twist ending that's right up there with Christie, in terms of playing with the reader's expectations. The Lost Gallows has a funny and insightful discourse on literary fiction vs genre works. And The Three Coffins has his infamous 'locked room lecture' where Dr. Fell interrupts the plot to talk about the different ways to pull off a locked room mystery in fiction. When the other characters object, he bluntly tells them that they are characters in such a novel; nothing they do will convince the reader that they or the murders are real, so they may as well examine their situation from that perspective. This one examines the unreliability of witnesses. It's not exactly a locked room murder, but the killing is done right in front of witnesses, who were told to pay careful attention to events, and the killer still nearly got away with it. Dr. Fell feels a little generic here; we don't get a lot of his over-the-top personality. But characterization is not the focus of these books. I read these for the puzzles, and the playful prose that respects the reader. This one delivered. I love Carr too, though I wouldn’t go so far as to call the Locked Room Lecture “infamous.” Some objected to him interrupting the narrative but considering that The Three Coffins is regarded as his best, it couldn’t have hurt the book too much. I have The Green Capsule marked as read but I don’t really remember it. While I don’t always remember the story I can almost always recall the solution, and this time I can’t. I have to look into it.
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Post by Calamas on Oct 25, 2018 17:00:50 GMT -5
35 years? I really didn't need to hear that.
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Post by Calamas on Oct 21, 2018 9:32:41 GMT -5
Dress Her in Indigo by John D. MacDonald I've been reading MacDonald's Travis McGee since about mid-summer, as they're really well-written, and I needed some lighter, brain-soothing reading material after finishing all available Quarry novels by Max Allan Collins earlier in the year. Just finished this one, which I have in an omnibus volume: Wouldn't really bring it up, but about 10 pages into it, in a section about a character who was given a light sentence on a possession charge for pot, there's this passage I found really interesting that got stuck in my head (this was originally published in 1969, by the way): 'And that, of course, is the tragic [f]law in the narcotics laws—that possession of marijuana is a felony. Regardless of whether it is as harmless as some believe, or as evil and vicious as others believe, savage and uncompromising law is bad law, and the good and humane judge will jump at any technicality that will keep him from imposing a penalty so barbaric and so cruel. The self-righteous pillars of church and society demand that “the drug traffic be stamped out” and think that making posession a felony will do the trick. Their ignorance of the roots of the drug traffic is as extensive as their ignorance of the law.' Still topical to this day, and also a bit sobering when you think about it, since in the intervening years quite a few judges decided not to (or legally could not) exercise the leniency he talks about here, so US prisons are packed with people serving time for possession of a joint or something similar. That is an odd selection of books to choose to package together. They’re not in order and they don’t have much in common. Pale Gray is one of my favorites. Quick Red contains one of the most embarrassing scenes ever written. Indigo forces McGee to wade through an amazing amount of depravity; it is overwhelmingly depressing. I hope this was preceded by a collection that served as a more appropriate introduction to Travis McGee.
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Post by Calamas on Oct 10, 2018 13:32:48 GMT -5
I loved the Ms. Tree comic and loyally followed it from publisher to publisher. I’ll have to pick up this book.
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Post by Calamas on Sept 30, 2018 9:21:35 GMT -5
Now that is a quality haul @mrp ! Some good times ahead for you indeed. Really sad that most of these kinds of finds just aren't around much these days out here in Phoenix. Most of my good vintage paperback finds anymore are in Goodwill. The mom and pop used bookstore's out here have all but disappeared. None of the LCS's carry paperbacks anymore and occasionally you might find some through a collectibles store but usually way overpriced. My best luck anymore is digging through Amazon used sellers anymore. The way of today’s world, I guess. Here in Charlotte we just lost a good used book store, run by good people. They left their shopping center to escape skyrocketing rent, figuring three-and-a-half miles wouldn’t make that much of a difference. It wasn’t the distance, it was unending construction that did them in. A loss for everybody.
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Post by Calamas on Aug 4, 2018 13:17:03 GMT -5
. . . I'm trying to be good and read more of the stuff I have before buying more, but I'll probably be on ebay looking before too long A lot of us have that dream. I’ve come to accept that I’ll die piles of unread books surrounding me.
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Post by Calamas on Jul 28, 2018 13:16:39 GMT -5
I liked it well enough, but it didn't really grab me in any way. If that had been the first book by Westlake I'd ever read, I probably wouldn't have bothered reading anything else by him. . . . I had the exact same reaction to my first Westlake, though all these decades later I don’t remember which book I had read. What I do remember is having to talk myself into trying the Parker series because of it. This was pre-internet. What convinced me was seeing more Stark titles on the bookshelves than those by Westlake. They were slowly reprinting the series but I didn’t know that then. Like most series there have been some that are better than others but I’ve never regretted meeting Parker. Which is more than most characters in the series can say.
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