Category Archives: authors

A Show I Wish I’d Seen

17 Sunday Apr 2011

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I found this clip on Youtube recently. It’s from the Dick Cavett Show and had a panel of mystery writers as guests. Somewhere around 1987, the clip concentrates on Mickey Spillane’s segment, but the other members there were Evan Hunter(aka Ed McBain), Robert B. Parker, and a nun named Sister Carol Anne O’Marie who wrote mysteries that an elderly nun solved. Eleven of them. I’ve looked, but there doesn’t seem to be any segments of the rest of the show.

Sure would like to see the whole thing.

I ‘m doing a Mike Hammer movie Tuesday, so I thought I’d put this one up now.

Quarter Share – Nathan Lowell

09 Monday Aug 2010

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When Richard Robinson posted on this, I had a feeling it was going to be one I liked.

No explosions, no space battles, no heroic figures battling against imposing odds. Just ordinary folks, I think I might fit in nicely aboard the LOIS MCKENDRICK, trying to make a living on a space freighter moving between systems.

Sound dull? Not in the least. Nathan Lowell’s style has been compared to Heinlein and Anderson, but like all good writers, thost two esteemed gentlemen could not have written this book.

QUARTER SHARE is the first book in the Solar clipper series and began life, like the other four completed volumes as podcasts. This is the first to hit paperback and the other four are being prepared for book publication. He’s also hard at work on the sixth book. Ridan Publishing is the book publisher.

Now I’m old school and prefer book in hand, though I do have Amazon’s free kindle application and have picked up some things not available in paper format, enjoying them more than I thought I might.

A lot of modern science fiction I’ve tried leaves me a bit cold. After Mr. Lowell, my other favorite among newer writers is John Scalzi. I’m certain there are others out there I will like and maybe I’ll stumble across a review somewhere, like Richard’s, that will put me on the trail.

That TBR pile looks pretty shaky though. I maybe should move before it….ACK!

Robert B. Parker R.I.P.

19 Tuesday Jan 2010

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The death of Robert Parker has been a shock to us all. I was a late comer to his work, only beginning to read him a half dozen or so years back. I’ve never even seen the Spenser: For Hire series with Robert Urich.

I’d been aware of his books for a number of years, but had never tried them. There was a time when I’d become unable to work and had applied for disability. It took me two and a half years for it to go through and no new funds were entering the household at the time. Living alone, spending what money I’d saved had to go for essentials.

Book money didn’t qualify so I started visiting the library after an absence of a number of years. Robert Parker was one I finally decided to try and being as anal as I was, I started with The Godwulf Manuscript, working my way through the Spenser series in order. Over the space of a summer, maybe into September, I went through all of them, the Jesse Stones, the Sunny Randalls, two Marlowes, Appaloosa, and several standalones. Everything available at that point.

I became a fan, following him ever since. I know he’d fallen out of favor with some, but I knew I’d get a fun book every time out. Some I liked better than others, but was never completely disappointed in any of them.

Parker came along, for me, at a tough time in my life. Reading all his books helped me get through those times. Spenser and Jesse and Sunny became like friends. I loved visiting with them every now and then.

There will only be a few more already completed. Then it will be over.

He will be missed.

FFB: The Gun Fight – Richard Matheson

10 Thursday Sep 2009

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Richard Matheson is a remarkably talented writer who’s written novels , short stories, did television(Twilight Zone and a nifty little movie directed by a young Spielberg, Duel), there is no limit to his talents and he’s certainly not forgotten. He’s perhaps best known for his novels I Am Legend(made into three decidedly inferior movies) and The Incredible Shrinking Man(made into a decent fifties movie and I’ve heard scary rumors about an Eddie Murphy remake, though not recently). THE GUN FIGHT is a western and was recommended to me on the Goodreads website. I’d never read any of his westerns before, a fact I’m rectifying as quickly as possible.
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John Denton is a retired Texas Ranger who hung up his guns after tracking down a gang of bank robbers who’d killed a teller and seriously wounded another, killing them all three in a shootout. Two of the three were the sons of the third, one hardly more than a boy. It got to Denton and he promised his wife he’d quit, buying a small ranch near Kellville, Texas.

Even after eight years, he’s still a legend to all the young in town.

It started oddly enough when Denton and a hand were working on the ranch and young Robby Coles arrives to confront the ex-ranger about bothering his fiance. Denton doesn’t have any idea what he’s going on about and ends up punching the young man to calm him down.

What had happened is the girl mentioned, sixteen year old Louisa Harper, was trying to make the boy jealous and said Denton had tried to arrange a meeting. That’s all. She DID have harmless fantasies about the handsome Ranger saving her from death on a runaway horse though.

Robby Coles took it all seriously and had the confrontation.

That’s when the gossiping started and, as gossip usually does, grows in the telling. Coles’ father, a proud old man, starts pushing his son to defend his fiance’s honor and Louisa’s old maid aunt wants something done. It seemed both of them were more worried about how it would reflect on them than how it might affect the lives of the two young people.

The more Denton tries to defuse things, the worse they become. Townspeople start to speculate he is a coward. Louisa is too scared of her domineering aunt to tell the truth until too late. Then it’s dismissed as “too late.”

Three days after it started the two men found themselves facing each other in the middle of town, Denton wondering how all this could be happening, Robby scared he was going to die, two really bitter old people watching the outcome.

Here is a tale of allowing vanity, on both sides, to prevail over reason. A really fine western and set to have a new paperback edition in early November(the cover pictured here is for the new book).

It’s quite clear looking at the slip cover how well Matheson is thought of by fellow writers. There are blurbs from the likes of Stephen King, Ed Gorman, Harlan Ellison, Joe R. Lansdale, and Loren D. Estleman. I’m sure he’s thought of as well by us readers.