FFB redux: Ed Gorman guest post: LEARNING TO KILL by Evan Hunter as Ed McBain; Mason on HRF Keating: CRIME & MYSTERY: THE 100 BEST BOOKS; Richard Lupoff & Don Thompson, eds.: ALL IN COLOR FOR A DIME; Peter Nicholls, ed. SCIENCE FICTION AT LARGE

Two posts from 2011 that didn't get quite the number of eyetracks they could...particularly Ed's, posted after mine below....

Friday, April 15, 2011

FFBs: HRF Keating: CRIME & MYSTERY: THE 100 BEST BOOKS; Lupoff & Thompson, eds.: ALL IN COLOR FOR A DIME; Peter Nicholls, ed. SCIENCE FICTION AT LARGE

H.R.F. Keating passed on 27 March [2011], and we lost another gentleman, by all accounts, in the CF field, one who had been a fine fiction-writer (most famously for the Inspector Ghote stories) and critic both, and this book, widely available but barely in print (the current edition is handsome, but still a product of the collapsed Carroll & Graf; one hopes Running Press or someone might reissue it), is a gimmicky (in format, and I think the first of its series for C&G, which series has also included notable volumes on sf and horror fiction) but no less valuable selection of a hundred important and valuable books in the CF field, most of them of the "true" mystery rather than suspense or other related fields, some collections (leading off, unsurprisingly, with a Poe collection) though most novels, all given two-page essays to limn their virtues and what flaws they overcome. The Keating assessments are bookended by Patricia Highsmith's two-page introduction (even Highsmith had nothing but good to say of Keating) and an unsigned "Publisher's Note" adding a 101st entry, for one of Keating's Ghotes. Aside from the insightful and deftly-written vignette entries, Keating also doesn't respect received wisdom: he nominated for Ross Macdonald The Blue Hammer and for John D. MacDonald The Green Ripper, the often-dismissed last novels in the two Macs' famous series (Lew Archer and Travis McGee), and makes the case for these specific novels well (hey, I started reading RM with The Blue Hammer, and I wasn't sorry), while the all but inarguable classics (Stanley Ellin's short fiction, The Maltese Falcon, Murder on the Orient Express, The Friends of Eddie Coyle) are treated similarly. Despite at least one dunderheaded comment I've seen, going on about how "outdated" this book is since it was published in 1988 (remarkable how books spoil, isn't it), the book is joy to go through, argue with, and be informed as well as amused by.

Also "outdated" (I mean, it hardly deals with comics after the '40s! I mean, come on!), All in Color for a Dime, which I've reread in the Krause Publications 1997 reissue, retains the enthusiasm of the new ground being tilled (since most of the essays at least have roots in articles in the Lupoffs' Xero and the Thompsons' Alter-Ego, with Comic Art the pioneering comics fanzines [while Xero, at least, also dealt with other matters] from the earliest '60s, and this book was pioneering when first published in 1970). The contributors run most of the changes one could want on their subject matter (and they range from such passionate professional writers of fiction and pop-culture history as Ron Goulart, Harlan Ellison, and Lupoff himself through folks with feet in multiple camps such as Ted White and Jim Harmon, to folks whose primary work was extraliterary, but nonetheless, such as Chris Steinbrunner, had a long engagement in criticism or other sorts of similar work in literary circles--Steinbrunner was, among other things, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine's a/v columnist for a decade or so: "Bloody Visions"). While, as I mentioned last week, the Blue Beetle is nowhere mentioned (the book is not attempting to be comprehensive), the coverage of the evolution of the Love Romances Publications line of comics, Planet Comics and its stablemates, would be worth the price of the book alone, as would the pioneering Lupoff article on Captain Marvel and his eventual clan, or Ellison on the George Harriman-esque George Carlson (only Carlson was busy where Harriman was lean).



New material was added to the reissue, but here's the ISFDB index to the Ace edition pictured above:

• 7 • Introduction (All in Color for a Dime) • (1970) • essay by Richard A. Lupoff and Don Thompson
• 17 • The Spawn of M. C. Gaines • (1970) • essay by Ted White
• 41 • Me to Your Leader Take • (1970) • essay by Richard Ellington
• 63 • The Big Red Cheese • (1970) • essay by Richard A. Lupoff [as by Dick Lupoff ]
• 93 • The First (Arf, Arf!) Super Hero of Them All • (1970) • essay by Bill Blackbeard
• 121 • OK, Axis, Here We Come! • (1970) • essay by Don Thompson
• 144 • One on All and All on One • (1970) • essay by Tom Fagan
• 165 • A Swell Bunch of Guys • (1970) • essay by Jim Harmon
• 193 • The Four-Panelled, Sock-Bang-Powie Saturday-Afternoon Screen • (1970) • essay by Chris Steinbrunner
• 212 • Captain Billy's Whiz-Gang! • (1970) • essay by Roy Thomas
• 233 • The Second Banana Super Heroes • (1970) • essay by Ron Goulart
• 247 • Comic of the Absurd • (1970) • essay by Harlan Ellison

Science Fiction at Large, the first anthology of critical essays (speech transcriptions rendered into essay form) I read, which had somehow found its way into my first high-school's brand-new library in 1978, and featured impressive essays by Ursula K. Le Guin and Thomas Disch which were to grow into or form important parts of later books (UKL's "Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown" was collected in her The Language of the Night; "The Embarrassments of Science Fiction" is integral to Disch's The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of and has been collected in his On SF), as well as by Harry Harrison, Alan Garner, John Brunner, Robert Sheckley, Philip K. Dick, and the editor; Edward De Bono's introduction to his take on "lateral thinking" was very useful to me then, and remains so. I haven't yet reread John Taylor's essay, and Alvin Toffler's remains slight. A book worth seeking out.

ISFDB indes:

• 7 • Introduction (Science Fiction at Large) • essay by Peter Nicholls
• 13 • Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown • essay by Ursula K. Le Guin
• 35 • Lateral Thinking and Science Fiction • essay by Edward de Bono
• 57 • Scientific Thought in Fiction and in Fact • essay by John Taylor
• 73 • Science Fiction and the Larger Lunacy • essay by John Brunner
• 105 • Worlds Beside Worlds • essay by Harry Harrison
• 115 • Science Fiction and Change • essay by Alvin Toffler
• 119 • Inner Time • essay by Alan Garner
• 139 • The Embarrassments of Science Fiction • essay by Thomas M. Disch
• 157 • Science Fiction: The Monsters and the Critics • essay by Peter Nicholls
• 185 • The Search for the Marvellous • essay by Robert Sheckley
• 199 • Man, Android and Machine • essay by Philip K. Dick

For more of this week's "forgotten" books, please see Patti Abbott's blog.

FFS: "Malice in Wonderland" by Evan Hunter (IF: WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION January 1954; illustrated by Frank Kelly Freas)

The January 1954 issue of If (on newsstands in early December '53) features an impressive lineup of writers...each, save one, would go on to or had already established a sustained career in sf and fantasy; the one was Evan Hunter, who hadn't yet legally changed his name, and had in fact published a number of sf stories under a version of his birth name, S. A. Lombino, which he'd shed over resentment of anti-Italian sentiment in the US (one each in the sf magazines had gone out as by Hunt Collins, Ted Taine and D. A. Addams, according to ISFDB). This story was the seventh in the sf magazines to use his preferred pseudonym/identity for his best work. It's still his most famous sf story, albeit kept out of print for long stretches by the existence of the novel expansion Tomorrow and Tomorrow (first published in 1956 under that title in a Pyramid paperback, and also as Tomorrow's World in a typically cheap Avalon hardcover, both as by Hunt Collins; Sphere did a UK paperback under the T&T title, as by Ed McBain, 1969).

Below, the contents of that issue of If; the best and most important story in the issue is the Damon Knight story, "Anachron." Larry Shaw, like Knight a former Futurian, was the editor of the magazine, but could be overruled by the publisher James Quinn, who retained the editorial title for himself (with Shaw officially as associate ed.).

The Internet Archive posting of the January 1954 issue of If is here.

• Publication: If, January 1954
  (View All Issues) (View Issue Grid)
• Editors: James L. Quinn; Larry T. Shaw
• Year: 1954-01-00
• Publisher: Quinn Publishing Company, Inc.; Buffalo, NY
• Price: $0.35
• Pages: 124
• Binding: digest

• fep •  Monorail Trains • interior artwork by Ed Valigursky
• 2 • A Chat With the Editor (If, January 1954) • [A Chat With the Editor (If)] • essay by Larry T. Shaw
• 4 • Malice in Wonderland • novella by Evan Hunter
• 4 •  Malice in Wonderland • interior artwork by Frank Kelly Freas [as by Kelly Freas ]
• 50 • Letter of the Law • shortstory by Alan E. Nourse
• 50 •  Letter of the Law • interior artwork by Rudolph Palais
• 63 • Navy Day • shortstory by Harry Harrison
• 63 •  Navy Day • interior artwork by Frank Kelly Freas [as by Kelly Freas ]
• 68 • A Word for Freedom • shortstory by James E. Gunn
• 68 •  A Word for Freedom • interior artwork by Rudolph Palais
• 82 • Double Take • shortstory by Richard Wilson
• 82 •  Double Take • interior artwork by Paul Orban
• 91 • Personalities in Science: Norbert Weiner • [Personalities in Science] • essay by uncredited
• 94 • Anachron • shortstory by Damon Knight
• 94 •  Anachron • interior artwork by Philip B. Parsons
• 109 • If You Know ... • essay by uncredited
• 110 • Science Briefs (If, January 1954) • essay by uncredited
• 113 • Worth Citing (If, January 1954) • essay by uncredited
• 113 •   Review: Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke • review by uncredited
• 114 • Off Course • shortstory by Mack Reynolds
• 114 •  Off Course • interior artwork by Frank Kelly Freas [as by Kelly Freas ]
• bep •  Robot Mining • interior artwork by Ed Valigursky

typically amateurish Avalon package;
atypically weak Emsh illo.

I am happy to be able to report that, unlike every other Hunter/McBain/Curt Cannon/etc. story I can recall reading, there is no fatal stupidity or overstated striving for effect (the major flaw I recall in Last Summer the novel) that tosses verisimilitude out the window in "Malice," so much as a playful and slightly half-assed application of the slang/argot and the effects of their narcotized lives on the wealthy bohemians of the story's future. In a sense, Hunter's disdain for working out the details in his fiction is reflected in the attitudes of the Vikes, who go in for vicarious thrills in extremely lurid novels, videos and 3D presentations, as well as keeping themselves hopped up on (usually) mixtures of cocaine and heroin, and some newer synthetic drugs of unspecified effects. The opponents of the Vikes are the Rather Square "Rees," whose lives are less virtual and less recreationally medicated, and who often prefer at least somewhat realistic middlebrow fiction and the like. It's a bit of a culture war, of a kind all too familiar in the early 1950s in the US even as it is today, with Hunter enjoying, in a manner rather derivative of Alfred Bester particularly and the Galaxy sort of "comic inferno" satirical writing generally, playing off the various fresh and recently-enough historical dichotomies...entertainment Industry staffers (including those in publishing) vs. the sensation-seeking public, whether Vike or Ree and the would-be watchdogs of public morality (analogous to Wertham through McCarthy) among the Rees; bohemians (including the emerging Beats) vs. the boojies; perhaps even a hint of Weimar Republic tension.  Vike characters particularly will drop in and out of standard 1953 American English, occasionally larding their sentences with such words as  "illidge" rather than "bastard", "grooved" for "understood"; a tendency to refer to each other as "mother" and "father" the way the more avant garde in the African American community then might call each other Brother and Sister. (Hunter might also be engaging in the slightest bit of self-parody, as the protagonist long ago traded his original Slavic name for a relatively Aryan one, and is sensitive about it.) Vikes are also notable for wearing as little above the waist as possible, aside from various means of casting different colors and micro decorations on women's breasts and men's (sometimes artificially) hairy chests and everyone's bellies. As with heroin junkies Hunter was aware of in his time, the Vikes have lost interest in sex per se, often have gone as far as finding it revolting, but appreciation of nudity, and even a certain level of bluenose reaction to complete nudity in formal settings, remains with them. 

This story, when come upon by readers unfamiliar with the context in which it was published, might dazzle them with the somewhat lazy if smooth way Hunter drops in his Vike argot and descriptions of new technology, already common coin in sf of the time that will go unread by those who will instead decide Hunter or, say, Vonnegut made all this stuff up by themselves, in the manner of those not terribly well-versed fans who are certain that Miles Davis was a unique genius who singlehandedly remade jazz in various ways throughout his career, as opposed to a collaborator with a wide variety of other serious artists and often more of a popularizer than innovator. The subcultures have their own languages and developments that are traded off and built upon, no matter what school or schools of art we speak of; and there will be those ready to lead with their chins, like a young (mid-20s) film-review blogger who noted recently that, for a Remade Films blogathon she's setting up, she doesn't want any comparison of films based on Famous Books such as Little Women or The Maltese Falcon, but those based on obscure books and stories such as The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, "The Most Dangerous Game." "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and the like are just fine for her purposes. As I noted that the films of The Fly are based on a hugely famous short story, she rather sniffily hoped to shut me down with the assertion that only true fans of that kind of story would ever have heard of George Langelaan's unknown prose; she certainly had never heard of any such story. Or, apparently, of Chandler's The Big Sleep. I have refrained until now from suggesting that her ignorance isn't my responsibility (nor, certainly, her arrogance about her ignorance), and I'm quite sure that she'll never read this (or those source stories)  unless it and they are thrust upon her, though whoever does so might be doing her at least some small favor. As mentioned above, Hunter is mostly having fun here, and perhaps tweaking particularly the culture around the Scott Meredith Literary Agency and Hollywood sorts he was beginning his career with at about this time...there are entirely too many worse Hunter stories one can turn to instead, and I wonder if the novel is nearly as pleasant as the short form.

The 1970 Pyramid cover at left is probably the least misleading representation in illustration of the tenor of the story, aside from Kelly Freas's original magazine illustration (where Freas himself is the model for the protagonist). The notion that the Vikes and Rees are "strange cults" might be introduced in the novel, but are hardly the case in the short form.

For a lot more praise for Hunter than I'll ever put forth, I suspect, please see the other reviews at Patti Abbott's blog. (Well, I do agree with Hunter's preference for Hammett over Chandler, that obscurity, though perhaps not  to the degree to which Chandler drove Hunter up a wall; the editorial project, an original novellas bugcrusher, that Hunter at least put his name to and probably did some work on, was pretty decent even if it did have a Jeffery Deaver story.)