I just finished Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely, first time re-reading it for many years. Until this the only Marlowe books I re-read recently (as in less than 10 years ago) were The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye, the first and last, you might say. I have been reading Chandler's short stories the last year or so, which makes for some confusion because he re-cycled scenes and characters from some of those stories in FML.
Dashiell Hammett is rightly acknowledged as the father of the hard-boiled genre, but I think there's no question that Chandler added something of his own to it very soon afterwards - without looking up the dates I'd say less than ten years - something that has now become intrinsic to the genre. What exactly that something is I find hard to describe, perhaps because it's really more than just one thing.
Been a while since I've read either a Hammett or a Chandler, but might it be that Marlowe's Chandler is more of the "knight errant," with a more pronounced moral code? This isn't to say that Sam Spade or the Continental Op don't have a code they follow, but is Marlowe's more conventionally moral? Does he see himself as someone who has chosen to fight against the corruption of the world as opposed to someone just caught up in a corrupt world and trying to survive in it?
Not sure if this makes sense, let alone sheds any light on what you're referring to, but it does make me want to reread both writers!
I may be reaching because my memory ain't what it used to be.
Last Edit: Aug 16, 2016 9:12:23 GMT -5 by Prince Hal
"The rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance." -- The Tempest, 5.1
I just finished Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely, first time re-reading it for many years. Until this the only Marlowe books I re-read recently (as in less than 10 years ago) were The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye, the first and last, you might say. I have been reading Chandler's short stories the last year or so, which makes for some confusion because he re-cycled scenes and characters from some of those stories in FML.
Dashiell Hammett is rightly acknowledged as the father of the hard-boiled genre, but I think there's no question that Chandler added something of his own to it very soon afterwards - without looking up the dates I'd say less than ten years - something that has now become intrinsic to the genre. What exactly that something is I find hard to describe, perhaps because it's really more than just one thing.
Prince Hal is right that Chandler, through Marlowe, added a sense of tarnished honor to the genre. Both the Op and Spade were largely morally ambiguous. Not completely, as Spade sent O'Shaughnessy over for killing his partner, even though he'd been schtupping Archer's wife. The Op is willing to do pretty much anything to get the job done. By the time you get to Ned Beaumont in The Glass Key, almost every pretense of morality is gone.
Marlowe is the Knight Errant. He is looking for wrongs to right. He's a soiled knight, but he's clearly trying to do the right thing. His moral compass is definitely pointed North...or at least North-Northeast.
Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 19, 2016 16:11:34 GMT -5
I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett.
I'm almost done with a full read-through of Pratchett's Discworld books. I'm not entirely sure when I started, but I know it was sometime before May of 2011, which is when I started reading Wyrd Sisters. Yes, it's taken a while, but I've read a lot of other books in the interim.
When I got to the Tiffany Aching books I wasn't planning to read them. It's not that I'm inherently against YA literature...I've just never really read it...including when I was a kid. But fans of the series prevailed on me and I wasn't disappointed that I read them.
I'm still not disappointed, but this was by far the weakest of the Tiffany books and possibly the weakest of all the Witch books. It just really didn't work well for me at all. Maybe it was that Pratchett was starting to suffer from his Alzheimers when he wrote it. Maybe it was the lack of Mac Nac Feegles. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood. But it was one of the weakest Discworld books that wasn't a Rincewind.
Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 19, 2016 16:20:06 GMT -5
Thuglit 22 ed. by Todd Robinson
I had queued this one up and then didn't have a chance to get to it. In the time between when I queued it and when I had time to read it, Todd Robinson had announced the end of Thuglit. I was really saddened by its demise because every issue I've read has been very high quality. But apparently the money just isn't there. Which is too bad.
This was a typical high quality entry in the neo-noir e-zine. Maybe a bit better than average. I'm sorry to see Thuglit go. Especially after the demise of Blood & Tacos and possibly All Due Respect.
Sometimes it happens with me. I’m reading a book, often two, even enjoying both, and I come across a book I’d read long ago and--zap!--I’m in reread mode. Hence my reintroduction to Mucho Mojo. Not that the rereading wasn’t in order. It’s next in line to be adapted for the TV series on the Sundance Channel, and it had always been my favorite Hap and Leonard anyway. Reason enough. So this reading just happened ahead of schedule. But, even though it was second entry in the series, Mucho Mojo was my first exposure to both the East Texas duo and their creator, and the first of anything, particularly a positive experience, often magnifies in your memory. I started this book wondering if it was as good as I remembered. Turns out it was better.
The first in the series, Savage Season, was intended to be a one-off, so there were other characters to service. Subsequent novels are a search for new facets within your now-familiar heroes. But a sequel, four years later yet, allowed Lansdale the leisure to dive deeper in every conceivable way. It’s all there: story, character, atmosphere, philosophy, romance, friendship, prejudice, action, and much more.
The setup is perfect. It allows us to step right into their lives. Leonard inherits a house from a recently deceased uncle, and with Hap at his side, they discover a child’s skeleton. Hap--white, straight, Liberal--wants to call the police immediately. Leonard--black, homosexual, Republican--knows what will follow: a sensational crime in the poor, black section of town; blame Uncle Chester and close the case. But Hap has concerns that Uncle Chester might just be guilty, and Leonard knows for a certainty that such a thought is impossible. The best friends confront conflicting impulses without cliché and still have each other’s back while working their way through what turns out to be a more far-reaching and appalling series of crimes.
This novel is dense--in a good way. Dense usually means having to wade through unending tangents or excessive wordage to, hopefully, discover the good stuff. Here density represents substance. From beginning to end, you are in East Texas with the boys, and will regret having to leave when the novel ends.
Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 27, 2016 18:30:52 GMT -5
Pirate of the Pacific (Doc Savage #5) by Kenneth Robeson (Lester Dent)
Picking up right where The Polar Treasure left off, Doc and his merry crew (many of whom spend most of the book kidnapped) have to save a Philippines stand-in nation from the inscrutable Oriental machinations of Tom Too. If casual racism is a problem this is a good Savage book to avoid, because it has just about every Yellow Peril stereotype possible. Okay...minus the opium fiend and the Dragon Lady.
I enjoyed the TV show, though I'm not sure you could call it a hit. (Hell, the theme music still pops into my head unbidden now and then, as background music for my day.) It was about a mysterious man who could breathe underwater. His true nature and origins were never revealed, but apparently the guy who played him, Patrick Duffy (later of Dallas), has his own ideas about that. So more than 40 years later, he's written a book which explains who and what Mark Harris is. I've got a few things on the TBR pile ahead of this one, but I'm looking forward to it. It just ticks so many of my fanboy boxes - TV sf show I liked, check. Marvel comic adaptation, check. Serious devotion to continuity, check.
I enjoyed the TV show, though I'm not sure you could call it a hit. (Hell, the theme music still pops into my head unbidden now and then, as background music for my day.) It was about a mysterious man who could breathe underwater. His true nature and origins were never revealed, but apparently the guy who played him, Patrick Duffy (later of Dallas), has his own ideas about that. So more than 40 years later, he's written a book which explains who and what Mark Harris is. I've got a few things on the TBR pile ahead of this one, but I'm looking forward to it. It just ticks so many of my fanboy boxes - TV sf show I liked, check. Marvel comic adaptation, check. Serious devotion to continuity, check.
Our friend Greg Hatcher wrote about this book recently:
"The book’s not bad but what endears the project to me so much is its sheer nerdiness. Man From Atlantis, no matter what your perspective on it, is a pretty damn deep dive into the Dork Side. (Yes, I saw the pun after I typed it and decided to let it stand.) If someone approached Duffy about writing a book almost certainly it would be an autobiography. If it was a novel they’d probably want one based on Dallas. But this was about his sci-fi flop from 1977, that even fans of the show cheerfully admit was a bit of a turkey.
So it has to be coming from him. I think that’s kind of awesome. The unresolved questions about this little TV show bothered Mr. Duffy as much as they bothered the other eighteen people that remember the thing, and he finally decided he would just take care of it for us. Bless his heart."
-- Rob Allen
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 30, 2016 16:10:52 GMT -5
The Old Gods Waken by Manly Wade Wellman.
Silver John returns (or Wellman returns to him) in this first Silver John novel. In it John teams up with an Indian medicine man to battle two latter-day Druids who are attempting to awaken pre-Indian spirits in the American South.
Not as good as the better Silver John tales, this book is helped by the regional authenticity that is a Wellman hallmark and the fact that the Indian medicine man, who has all the potential to be a caricature is a Phd. and is definitely not the sidekick type. A decent foray into Wellman's wheelhouse of regional fantasy.