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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 4, 2020 10:36:52 GMT -5
I don't care for Zane Grey at all. I prefer my westerns more pulpy.
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Post by berkley on Sept 4, 2020 12:02:10 GMT -5
I don't care for Zane Grey at all. I prefer my westerns more pulpy.
Who do you like? It's a genre I hardly know at all as far as books go. Off the top of my head, the only westerns I can recall reading were children's books - tv show tie-ins, things like that, all in the 60s. High Chapparal was one, though I can't recall if I ever saw the show itself. Wells Fargo - not sure if that was a tv series or not but it was in the same format, probably the same publisher. And a Lone Ranger Big/Little book. But I'll try at least one or two Zane Greys and Louis Lamours one of these days, just to get a taste of the genre. And a few others I've heard about - e.g. The Virginian, which I should be getting to soon since I'm approaching that era in my other reading.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 4, 2020 13:01:46 GMT -5
I don't care for Zane Grey at all. I prefer my westerns more pulpy.
Who do you like? It's a genre I hardly know at all as far as books go. Off the top of my head, the only westerns I can recall reading were children's books - tv show tie-ins, things like that, all in the 60s. High Chapparal was one, though I can't recall if I ever saw the show itself. Wells Fargo - not sure if that was a tv series or not but it was in the same format, probably the same publisher. And a Lone Ranger Big/Little book. But I'll try at least one or two Zane Greys and Louis Lamours one of these days, just to get a taste of the genre. And a few others I've heard about - e.g. The Virginian, which I should be getting to soon since I'm approaching that era in my other reading. I don't read a huge amount of westerns. While I love the genre in movies and TV and LOVE non-fiction about the West I've never been a huge fan of western fiction literature. I'm even very picky about my western comics. Of the classic writers I'll definitely take L'Amour or Max Brand over Grey. Grey's literary pretensions and embellished writing style doesn't work for me. If I'm going to read westerns it's far more likely to be from neo-pulp/neo-noir writers like Edward Grainger, Wayne Dundee, Heath Lawrence or Eric Beetner. Of those Wayne Dundee is probably the go-to for modern western writing. And upon further review, Elmore Leonard is probably my favorite western writer. "The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard" is usually my top recommendation for western prose.
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Post by brutalis on Sept 4, 2020 14:17:21 GMT -5
I don't care for Zane Grey at all. I prefer my westerns more pulpy.
Who do you like? It's a genre I hardly know at all as far as books go.
Depends on what you want in your reading. I can recommend Elmore Leonard. Elmer Kelton, Lous L'Amour, Terry C. Johnstone, Johnny D. Boggs, Matt Braun, Will Henry and Charles King (who actually fought during the days of the Indian Wars alongside General Crook).
Real pulpy 2 fisted punch you in the face are Robert E. Howard and Jonas Ward. Ward created Buchanan a lusty wanderer as fast with his fists as his guns and made famous in the movies by Randolph Scott in Buchanan Rides Alone. Should have been more since there are 25 Buchanan books.
2 you have to be particular about as they are dead so you need to seek earlier works are William W.Johnstone and Ralph Compton as publishers have kept ghost writers utilizing their names well after their deaths. Both play a bit fast with incorporating history into their stories, placing their folks into well known moments, but the western scenarios and characters carry on the movie and television traditions that have become iconic. The stoic, loner (for the most part), respects the western way of life and the native American's, love the outdoors while realizing that the old ways are fading and deadly fast shooting in the name of right against dastardly villains.
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Post by berkley on Sept 4, 2020 16:21:45 GMT -5
Thanks, lots of names there for me to look up. I just had a glance at Max Brand's wiki article, since he was one of the few I'd already heard of, and was surprised to find he wasn't only a western writer - he also created Dr. Kildare, the famous medical drama character, and wrote historical fiction under various pseudonyms.
When I get closer to that time period I'll probably ask for more recommendations. Right now, my pulp-style reading is mostly focussed on hard-boiled and science fiction.
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 4, 2020 17:42:16 GMT -5
Thanks, lots of names there for me to look up. I just had a glance at Max Brand's wiki article, since he was one of the few I'd already heard of, and was surprised to find he wasn't only a western writer - he also created Dr. Kildare, the famous medical drama character, and wrote historical fiction under various pseudonyms. When I get closer to that time period I'll probably ask for more recommendations. Right now, my pulp-style reading is mostly focussed on hard-boiled and science fiction. Please read Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call are two of the most interesting characters in American literature. There are few greater American novels, let alone Westerns. It's "a hell of a vision."
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Post by brutalis on Sept 4, 2020 19:35:46 GMT -5
Thanks, lots of names there for me to look up. I just had a glance at Max Brand's wiki article, since he was one of the few I'd already heard of, and was surprised to find he wasn't only a western writer - he also created Dr. Kildare, the famous medical drama character, and wrote historical fiction under various pseudonyms. When I get closer to that time period I'll probably ask for more recommendations. Right now, my pulp-style reading is mostly focussed on hard-boiled and science fiction. Please read Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call are two of the most interesting characters in American literature. There are few greater American novels, let alone Westerns. It's "a hell of a vision." Only liked Lonesome Dove and Streets of Laredo books from McMurtry. Probably because & LOVE Gus and Woodrow so much!
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Post by berkley on Sept 4, 2020 20:52:33 GMT -5
Thanks, lots of names there for me to look up. I just had a glance at Max Brand's wiki article, since he was one of the few I'd already heard of, and was surprised to find he wasn't only a western writer - he also created Dr. Kildare, the famous medical drama character, and wrote historical fiction under various pseudonyms. When I get closer to that time period I'll probably ask for more recommendations. Right now, my pulp-style reading is mostly focussed on hard-boiled and science fiction. Please read Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call are two of the most interesting characters in American literature. There are few greater American novels, let alone Westerns. It's "a hell of a vision." Yes, then there's what I suppose might be called the literary western, this being one of the most famous. I've thought about trying a few of these - EL Doctorow's Welcome to Hard Times, for example. And I have read Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian - which I see came out the same year as Lonesome Dove, coincidentally.
I'll probably be approaching westerns as a whole in roughly chronological order so any recommendations for earlier stuff - say from the 1890s to 1910s - would be welcome as well. One of the first will be The Virginian (1902) - not sure where that falls in the spectrum between dime-store or pulp and authors like McMurtry.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 4, 2020 21:41:26 GMT -5
I don't care for Zane Grey at all. I prefer my westerns more pulpy. Yeah, I think I do, too. The descriptions are great, but they get old after a while. He does write with a sense of sharing actual history more so that the more pulpy ones, which is interesting in it's own right, but definitely if you want white hats and black hats and indians and shootouts, Grey isn't the guy Does Raylan count as a western? I like Elmore Leonard, but I have read anything he's written that was a period piece... I should. Max Brand is decent, I've read a couple of his books... .pretty generic, but they can scratch the itch.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2020 10:43:48 GMT -5
Finished N.K. Jemisin's newest, The City We Became last night before going to sleep... This was my first excursion into Jemisin's prose work (I read the first issue of Far Sector from DC by her). She is one of many authors whose names came on my radar through my explorations in Afrofuturism. She won the Hugo for best novel in 2016, 2017 and 2018, and there was a cornucopia of choices of where to begin, but her new novel hit a niche of interest of mine that decided me on starting there. The City We Became was released in March of this year. The basic premise is that certain cities are "alive" i.e. have sentience and take the form of an avatar who acts as guardian and embodiment of the city. This cities undergo a birth process when they reach the point of awakening (which is a long time in coming after the cities have existed as geographical places), and that process can have complications. The cities of the New World are just now achieving that point of awakening and as the book opens New York is about to be born. However, there is opposition to this, an enemy who tries to kill the spirit of the cities in the birthing process while they are vulnerable, and it is up to the avatar to protect their city during the birthing process. When it goes wrong, the spirit of the city (and the avatar is killed) and there is physical destruction as well. New Orleans was among the first of the New World cities to awaken, but something went wrong and it was stillborn and the devastation of Katrina in the city was the physical manifestation of that failed birth. In the past, some cities were utterly destroyed in the birthing process, so much so that they are not even memories but myths, cities like Atlantis, Sodom, Gomorrah, etc. New York however, is unique in a way because it is not one city, but several comprises a bigger city, i.e. the five boroughs. And when the enemy strikes and is fought off by the primary avatar of New York in the birthing process, the destruction is averted, but the avatar is left incapacitated and five avatars, one for each borough are awakened out of necessity, as the enemy still lurks and works to finish the destruction of New York. The prologue is the birthing process and the battle between the primary avatar and the yet unidentified enemy, but the meat of the book focuses on the awakening of the spirits of the five boroughs and their attempts to understand what is happening, accept the transformation in their existence-they were ordinary people and now they are embodiments of their respective boroughs, find a way to work together and oppose the enemy. There is an underlying element of the multiverse in this as well, as when a city is born, its essence rips through the multiverse of possibilities to emerge into our world, leaving a wake of destruction behind it. So it is not a birth without cost or pain. And the abilities the avatars gain stem form their ability to perceive and channel some of this essence of the multiverse. As the novel progresses, we learn the enemy is just a chosen champion of multiversal opposition to this destructive process, but their chosen champion is the avatar of R'lyeh who wants to use the birthing process to create a path for her to bring her city into our world and destroy our universe to stop the destruction the birthing of cities causes. A city of non-Euclidian geometry that is filled with the hate and bigotry captured in Lovecraft's Red Hook tale. Jemisin creates a wonderfully diverse cast of very real feeling people. Not all are likable, but all feel like people you could meet in New York, and you can somewhat root for even the unlikable ones because what makes them unlikable is the human failings and foibles we all must overcome or deal with in life. There's a lot of twists and turns in the story, growth and development in the character arcs, powerful thematic underpinnings driving the story that are timeless yet speak to our times, and very readable prose. My biggest complaint was that it wrapped up too quickly once it hit the climax, making the payoff feel a little blunted. The idea of a "spirit" to cities is not new or unique, but it is the niche that drew me to this. From Morrison's Invisibles, and Ellis' Jack Hawksmoor, to the the Hidden Cities books of Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon, it's a trope that has intrigued me since I first discovered it, but Jemisin's take is a fresh and innovative use of the trope and there's a lot here that is new to me ( I hesitate to say original as there is probably a lot of stuff out there in this vein that I haven't discovered yet). I look forward to the next book in the series and to exploring more of Jemisin's oeuvre. -M ps and yes, this is the source of the chapter title I posted as being perhaps my favorite chapter titles of all time. All the chapter titles were either amusing, insightful and creative, but "Boogie-Down Bronca and the Bathroom Stall of Doom" takes the cake
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Post by EdoBosnar on Sept 6, 2020 14:50:58 GMT -5
Jemisin is one of those writers whose work I'm quite interested in exploring, but so far everything's part of a series (trilogies, duologies, etc.) and I've just got so much other stuff to get through. Case in point... The World and ThorinnDamon Knight, 1980 One of many books taking up shelf space, which ended up there pretty much accidentally. A few years ago, when I went to visit my sister in the US, I ordered a bunch of books on eBay ahead of time and had them sent to her address. This one was offered in a package with another book I really wanted (I think I paid about $8 for both, including postage). A teenage boy named Thorinn gets thrown into a recently dried-out well as a sacrifice to the gods by his stepfather and stepbrothers - who happen to be gigantic trolls. At the bottom of the well, Thorinn finds a fissure in the rock and passes through it to a dark cavern with a lake in it, and after exploring it, he finds some kind of hatch and falls from the 'sky' of some sort of happy, verdant land populated by delicate, plump denizens who hang around and eat lots of fruit (and Thorinn can't understand a word of their language). And so on for about 160 more pages... Basically, it's just long descriptions of Thorinn moving through this odd world, which seems to consist of a number of enclosed environments, and figuring out a number of survival techniques. An interesting twist, I suppose, is that at the start the story seems like it's a fantasy, but as you go along you realize that it's actually science fiction - except I pretty much figured it out before page 20 and kept waiting for the big reveal, which happened about a dozen pages before the end. And speaking of the end, it was really unsatisfying. All in all, I didn't like this book very much.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 8, 2020 12:32:30 GMT -5
Murder in the Madhouse by Jonathan LatimerSometimes the cure for reader's block is some good old-fashioned private detection. Latimer's Bill Crane novels followed up Hammett's "The Thin Man" in the hard-boiled screwball mystery sub-genre. Crane is a hard drinking, hard living private eye with a penchant for cracking jokes at inappropriate times. In this (which may or may not be his first outing) he finds himself assigned undercover in a private sanitarium. He's there to solve the theft of a box containing a whole passel of money and a key to a safe-deposit box containing a whole lot more. To this end he passes himself of as Poe's C. Auguste Dupin. And as is want to happen in situations like this, murders start happening at the "madhouse" that also are going to take some solving. What we end up with is a fun, breezy mystery that is one of the most fun reads I've had in quite some time. I mention that this may or may not be Crane's first adventure because I've visited at least four different websites and none of them can agree on the order of the first three books (all of which appear to have been published in 1935, though maybe one was in 1936). Whether it is or isn't it's a fine place to start. I was also familiar with Latimer from reading his later and more famous novel, Solomon's Vineyard. Solomon's Vineyard is one of the darkest of the early hard-boiled detective novels and I was definitely not prepared for the breeziness of Bill Crane's adventures based on that dark noir classic. Super fun book that has me looking forward to the rest of Crane's boozy adventures.
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Post by berkley on Sept 8, 2020 19:43:34 GMT -5
This is the listing I have on my to-read list:
The William Crane series: 1. Murder in the Madhouse (1935) 2. Headed for a Hearse (1935) 3. The Lady in the Morgue (1936) 4. The Dead Don't Care (1938) 5. Red Gardenias (1939)
I don't know where I copy-and-pasted it from - most likely wiki or possibly fantasticfiction.co.uk , those are the two sources I most commonly use for this kind of thing.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 10, 2020 21:36:53 GMT -5
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
I should have know from the cover this was an 'atmospheric' novel... but the back of the book was intriguing, and I was so happy to be able to browse at the library again, I went for it. The author writes really well, and did a great job with the sense of place, and describing the clockwork stuff, and Grace's ether contraptions, but, sadly... nothing happens.
Yes, there are bombs that go off, but those are really character development, even the characters in the book don't seem to care that much who did it and why.
Then, at the end, the characters are made pretty thoroughly unlikable...realistic, perhaps, but very unlikable. When character development is all you have, this is not a good thing.
Still, if you're the type of person that thinks that Jonathan Strange and Mr. Morrell was worth reading for 1000 pages, you'll probably think this one was too.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2020 1:12:36 GMT -5
So, another first book of a fantasy series, and another fantasy book drawing on a different set of cultural folklore... The Trail of Lightning, Book One of the Sixth World by Rebecca Roanhorse This one drawing on the myths, legends and folklore of Native American cultures. First about the series title-The Sixth World. According to many Meso-American and Native American cultures, out world has been created and destroyed many times, and according to most of those we are in the fifth incarnation of the world-The Aztecs specifically calling our time the era of the Fifth Sun. And in most cases, the destruction comes from a great flood, and what emerges is a new world/era/sun. So this series is set after another such destruction, and so is the Sixth World. The source of the destruction is an event that is referred to as The Big Water (another flood myth), this one the result of climate change and global warming of our own era. It is set a few decades from now, after a series of wars called the Energy Wars ravaged the world and in the aftermath the seas began to rise, and in the US, the east coast clear to the midwest was drowned in a tidal wave of water and is now undersea, and the Pacific Coast was also flooded. All told, two-thirds of the landmass of the United States as we know it is underwater. Parts of the southwest and the Rockies region survive, and this story is set inn what were the Navajo lands that made up their former reservations. The flooding of the world and the emergence of the "new sun" also opened the doors for immortals and monsters to return the the world, so beings like Ma'ii, the trickster known as Coyote now wander the world. They, along with some of the people who possessed clan powers, cooperated to seal off the reservation lands with a wall, to protect the people and to keep the unwanted troubles of the white world at bay as best they could. Bit there are dangers within, as monsters wanders the world and are loose among the Navajo lands. This new land and its people are known as Dinétah. Enter Maggie Hoskie, a Dinétah monster hunter. She has been in seclusion for several months, mourning after her mentor, an immortal monster hunter and kin to Coyote, has abandoned her because he fears a seed of evil within her. But the monsters are loose and in a small town they have taken a young girl and Maggie has answered their call for help. This sets her on a path that is more than she bargained for, as there is a larger plot and a larger truth she must discover. Along the way she gains allies, and must face both the demons that walk the world and those that dwell within her. It's a short book as far as fantasy epics go, less than 300 pages, and it reads fast. Roanhaorse's prose is brisk and dynamic. Her characters are nuanced and multi-layered as well. There's a lot of world-building in Dinétah, but the rest of the world is hardly mentioned let alone developed. We get a glimpse of what Buerqhe (what survives of Albuquerque) through the past experiences of Kai, a medicine man in training who becomes one of Maggie's allies, but that's all we get of the lands beyond the walls of Dinétah. The plot moves quickly and can be a little thin in places. Things happen a little too quickly and sometimes just because they need to happen, and parts could have benefited form a little more room to breathe and develop, but it still is an engrossing read. In many ways, the thematic point of the first book is for Maggie to shed the shackles of the past and come into her own, and the plot is just the paces she has to go through to achieve this, but Maggie is an interesting character and her going through the refiner's fire offers a buy in into her larger story (which is what I hope the rest of the series will provide). The second book is out, and I will get to it some point soon when I get it from our local library, but I have some other series I need to make progress on before returning for a second helping of this on. -M
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