Saturday 20 September 2008

pulp fiction The villains edited by Otto Penzler


PULP THE VILLAINS
OTTO PENZLER
QUERCUS £8.99

This is a collection of pulp stories mostly culled from the pages of The Black Mask Mystery Magazine with stories from Chandler, Leslie Charteris, Cornell Woolrich and other past masters of the genre.

I don't tend to read that much short fiction, preferring the meat of a novel, but I intend to dip into this volume from time to time to familiarise myself with the foundations of the crime/hardboiled genres.

I couldn't find any credit of the cover artist in the book - only that it was designed by Two Associates so I'm not sure if it's an original illustration or a reprint from one of the old pulp classics. Still it's an handsomely produced book and should find a place on the shelf of any self respecting hardboiled/pulp fan.

Stories are:
The Cat Woman Earle Stanley Gardner
The Dilemma of the dead lady by Cornell Wollrich
The house of ka by Richard B. Sale
The invisible millionaire by Leslie Charteris
Faith by Dashell Hammet
Pastorale by James M. Cain
The sad serbian by Frank Gruber
You'll always remember me by Steve Fisher
Finger Man by Raymond Chandler
You'll die laughing by Norbert Davies
About Kid Deth by Raoul Whitfield
The Sinister Sphere by Fredrick Davies
Pigeon Blood by Paul Cain
The perfect Crime by C s Montanye
The Monkey murder by Earle Stanley Gardner
Crimes of Richmond by Frenderick Nebel

3 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Personally, I love a good collection of short stories. Some of my favorite reading of all time would fit that characteristic. Some genres, like horror and SF seem to work especially well at such lenghts.

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

Yeah I tend to prefer novel length but on times when I do enjoy a good short story I really enjoy it. You're correct with horror - I thought all of clive barker's books of blood collection were superb.

Ray said...

I'm with Charles on this one.
I have quite a pile of short story books that are good to dip into before going to sleep. Novels tend to keep me awake at that time of day for the obvious reasons.
Some short stories were developed, by their authors, into novels. Best example of that is Louis L'Amour.

Charles - sometime you must let me know what those chrome bars belong to - in your photo.

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