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Monthly Archives: August 2011

New In The House

21 Sunday Aug 2011

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1: The Shell Scott Sampler – Richard S. Prather: a collection of four short stories and one novella. One story I’d read in a collection called Come Seven, Come Death, seven tales by writers of the period featuring their characters.

2: Rancho Diablo: Hell On Wheels(ebook)(review copy) – Colby Jackson: latest novel in the series, this one by Mel Odom.

FFB: Dagger of Flesh – Richard S. Prather

18 Thursday Aug 2011

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DAGGER OF FLESH has an interesting history. It started life as a Shell Scott manuscript and was originally pased on by Gold Medal. Never one to waste anything, Prather rewrote it to feature a PI named Mark Hogan and it was sold to a publisher named Falcon. They rewrote it without consulting or asking Prather and published it, much to his dissatisfaction. That was in 1952. Over the next few years, Prather began to sell well(the only PI of the era that sold better was Mike Hammer) and Gold Medal wanted all Prathers under their banner.

There had been two Shell manuscripts passed on by Gold Medal and both had been converted to different characters and resold. In The Ultimate Richard S. Prather Interview, the author states that both DAGGER OF FLESH and PATTERN FOR PANIC were republished by Gold Medal as Shell Scott novels. That’s what I’d believed. I had both versions of Pattern, but had never read DAGGER until I found this copy. It is a Gold Medal and it has the PI as Mark Hogan as in the original publication. Whether this is the same version or his original rewrite I have no idea. One thing I hadn’t remembered from that long ago read of the interview, Prather admitted to a bit of confusion on the subject as his personal library had only the Mark Hogan version of the novel.

I guess that’s why.

With all that, I think I owe Frank Loose an apology. He’d noticed something and on a recent post on Ed Gorman\'s Blog, the subject was broached. I posted a link to a post I’d did on the subject, one I now believe was done in ignorance of the truth. frank had noticed in a sample chapter of the ebook for DAGGER OF FLESH, a Shell Scott novel now, that Shell was described as having curly black hair instead of his white brush cut. It had finally been released as Prather had originally intended, but the copyright holders, instead of using the original manuscript(which I’m sure is still in Prather’s papers), had sloppily changed the Mark Hogan novel, changing the name only throughout the book.

A word on these ebooks and POD novels(I believe). They have the most hideous covers. I’m including the one for the converted DAGGER.

It’s an interesting tale nonetheless.

Mark Hogan is called upon by an old friend from years past, Jay Weather, for help. Someone is trying to buy his business for a tenth of what it’s worth and he’s fighting a compulsion to sell to them. At the same time, he’s started seeing a green parrot that sits on his shoulder every day from noon to one. It sounded crazy and Mark talked to a psychiatrist friend who reflected that it sounded like a post-hypnotic suggestion.

The two guys trying to buy Weather’s came by every day with their pitch. Mark and Jay work out a plan where Mark buys the business for one dollar, even going so far as to sign a bill of sale.

In due course, Jay Weather ends up murdered, Mark’s .357 magnum lying on the floor by the body, and Mark gets his head knocked on a couple of times. Oh, I forgot to mention, in the beginning of the book, Mark is sleeping with a married woman who won’t tell him her last name or where she lives, coming instead to his apartment. Guess who her husband is.

A hypnotist turns up, artist, a hot model, and Jays’ daughter now twenty-one and all grown up, not the child who used to kick him in the shins, and even Mark believing he’s been hypnotized. All in pursuit of the real killer.

I liked it. At the same time, I don’t think it would make a good Shell Scott novel. Much to serious. Could be why Gold Medal passed originally and didn’t make it a Shell novel on their eventual edition.

For more Forgotten Books, check out PATTINASE.

The Siege of Trencher’s Farm – Gordon Williams

16 Tuesday Aug 2011

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THE SIEGE OF TRENCHER’S FARM is a reissue by Titan Books just out Tuesday of the novel that inspired the 1971 Sam Peckinpah film Straw Dogs, starring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George, as well as the remake debuting next month.

Never seen the movie myself, but a Wikipedia entry details the differences and they are considerable. The new film shifts the location from England to Los Angeles.

American professor George Magruder and his English wife Louise, along with their young daughter Karen, have taken a six month lease on an isolated home in an English parish known locally as Trencher’s Farm. He wants the time to finish the book he’s been writing and maybe rekindle something in his marriage. Louise and he argue quite frequently, usually about things not really important. In his eyes anyway.

The parish is an insular society. Most are born there, live there, marry from there, and rarely travel far from the area. George stops occasionally at the small pub for a pint, but is shy and comes off s the “arrogant rich American.”

It’s near Christmas and the village is throwing a party for the children. George and his family attend. When Santa pops in, a small girl from one of the poorer farm families is frightened and slips out the door into the snow storm. By the time anyone notices, she’s good and lost. A search party is organized and George decides to take his family home before returning to help with the search.

At the same time, a van from a nearby mental asylum has brought one of it’s patients in for a medicinal shot. Henry Niles had lived there for nine years. A convicted child killer, three of them, he had the mind of a child himself. On the way back in the storm, the van sides in the ice, rolls several times, and Niles finds himself free, wandering in the storm.

George and Louise and arguing when Niles suddenly rears up in front of them and they hit him with their car. Quickly bundling him into the vehicle, they get him home and call for the doctor. It is only then they realize who he is. The police can’t get their vehicles through when they call and decide to walk in, nine miles.

These three incidents set the stage for what follows.

Word spreads quickly in the village and folks assume Niles has done something with the girl. One party shows up at the house demanding the Magruders turn Niles over to them. George knows Niles couldn’t have done anything to the child. The distances and the storm won’t allow for it. The trio are easily fended off.

Then the father of the missing girl shows up, with a shotgun, and hooks up with the first group. A bottle of liquor is being passed around. they want niles, who will certainly tell them where he left the girl.

George is an academic, a mild man who abhors violence. He has no weapons. He’s all that stands between a drunk mob with weapons and his family. he has to dig something out that he didn’t know he had.

This one was a page turner. In looking at the trailers for the two versions of Straw Dogs, the focus seems entirely different. Basic plot is the same, but there seems to be a rape scene that never happens in the book. It’s the story of a man that has to defend his family, a man who thought he wasn’t capable of some of the things he’s called to do. But easily slips into them.

Overlooked Movies: Universal’s Mummy Franchise

15 Monday Aug 2011

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Last weekend, one of the local twenty-four hour stations ran a mummy marathon with the first five of Universal’s MUMMY series from the thirties and forties, the only one not showing was ABBOT AND COSTELLO MEET THE MUMMY, the spoof from 1955. it gave me a chase to watch them in order at my convenience(love my DVR) and I noticed a few things I never had before.

THE MUMMY(1932)

THE MUMMY\'S HAND(1940)

THE MUMMY\'S TOMB

THE MUMMY\'S GHOST(1944)

THE MUMMY\'S CURSE

There were two separate Mummies even though they shared the same back story. Three actors played the mummy over the series(four if you count the A & C comedy, which means a third mummy as well).

Boris Karloff was our wrapped monster in the first. Imhotep was his name. The mummy became Kharis for the rest of the five films with Tom Tyler taking the role in the second and Lon Chaney, jr. the rest. Karloff’s love in the first was Ankh-es-en-anon. She became Ananka for the four films next.

There’s always an Egyptian on hand in each to direct the mummy. Karloff did the duties in the first as the reincarnated mummy(Kharis in the other films was silent as his tongue had been cut out before being wrapped and buried alive). George Zucco was in the second, Turhan Bey the third, a young John Carradine served in the fourth, and Peter Coe in the fourth.

The female leads in all five were beautiful women, usually the focus of the mummy or a horny Egyptian wanting to make her his immortal bride with the sacred Tanna leaves(seemingly an extinct plant, there always seemed to be a generous supply on hand. A hardy leaf indeed to have survived three thousand years in a trunk). Two of the women were reincarnations of the princess he’d loved.

Now the oddities.

The time lines in the films was strange. Between the first and second, seventy years passed. Twenty-five between two and three. Twenty between four and five. A lot of time here, but the technology was always current with our times(only twelve years from one to five).

At the end of THE MUMMY’S GHOST, Kharis and his reincarnated princess wade out into a New England bog, disappearing. When THE MUMMY’S CURSE opens, a Louisiana bog is being drained and two scientist from a museum arrive who want to find the mummy and his princess. Some of the locals remember the incident from the last film, some twenty years before in movie time(hell of a swamp stretching from New England all the way to Louisiana).

The Mummy was set on fire twice(well left in a burning mansion in one), yet he always had crisp bandages with no scorch marks. Strips that fell off were examined and confirmed as to age(the weave) and always laden with mold. In the fifth film, when he gets up from the bog and wanders around, again the clean looking bandages(no mud at all). Whereas, the mummified princess gets up covered in mud until she wanders into a stream and emerges clean and miraculously restored to young health(in the fourth, she visibly aged, hair going white, as Kharis carried her into the swamp.

Archival footage from the early films was used over and over to show the back story. Karloff technically was in the second film, Tom Tyler in the third.

Watching these five films in order was a lot of fun. I’d never seem them like that and usually spread out over years. None of the old monster movies ever frightened me when I was young, especially the Mummy. To slow, dragging a leg behind him. I always wondered why they just didn’t run(the restored young princess in the fifth did frequently and never had any trouble getting away until the end).

For more overlooked films, and other goodies, check out Todd Mason\'s SWEET FREEDOM.

New In The House

14 Sunday Aug 2011

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1: Dagger of Flesh – Richard S. Prather: this novel started life as a Shell Scott manuscript that was turned down by Gold Medal. Never one to waste a novel, Prather rewrote it to be a PI story featuring Mark Logan. The original publisher mishandled it, rewriting much of it without Prather’s knowledge when they released it in 1952. After he began to sell, Gold Medal wanted all his books with them and it was published in 1956. There seems to be some confusion. In an interview I read on the Prather site, he said he went back to the original Shell manuscript for the Gold Medal book. Yet here is that book still with Mark Logan as the hero. Prather may have misremembered because he even admitted to confusion, saying he only had copies of the Mark Logan version in his personal library.

2: Wyatt – Garry Disher: first new Wyatt novel since 1997. Wyatt is to Australia what Parker is to the United States. He gets involved in stealing an International courier’s jewelry delivery that turns out to be more: millions in stolen bearer bonds.

3: The Siege of Trencher’s Farm(ARC) – Gordon Williams: technically this isn’t an ARC. The book has already been released, but the publisher sent it, along with a publicity flyer, so I’m considering it as such. It’s a reissue of the novel that inspired the 1971 movie Straw Dogs to coincide with the September remake, also titled Straw Dogs.

Wyatt – Garry Disher

14 Sunday Aug 2011

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WYATT is the first novel featuring Garry Disher’s thief since 1997. It appeared in 2010 and has just now been released in this country. He works in Australia mostly, though will go other places. I reported on the other six novels last year, THE WYATT NOVELS, and compared the character to Parker. Probably not fair, though apt. Wyatt is his own man and one could see Parker and he working a job together. Wouldn’t ever happen though. Two sides of the world, the chances of ever meeting almost impossible. Coming, either one of them, to the other’s territory, would put them outside their comfort zone.

Wyatt is back after an absence of years. He’s old school and things have changed a lot over the years, making his line of work harder than ever. Tough new security measures, the fact that most businesses didn’t deal in cash anymore(he didn’t have the skills for stealing wire transfers. He has to take what he can find, a comedown for a man of his specialized skills.

He’s on the run from a botched job, not his fault, where he was to hijack a crooked harbormaster that would occasionally “quarantine” a ship, but might find them clean suddenly for a $75,000 fee. Eddie Oberin had lined the job up and as he took the pay-off after the harbormaster got it, the police suddenly popped up. He’d interrupted a sting to take down the man and barely escapes with the take.

Only to be disappointed.

The bundles had a hundred note top and bottom, but paper in between. His net haul for the job, $1800.

Eddie has another job he’s been cultivating, that’s what he does, and Wyatt isn’t sure he wants to get involved. He dislikes working with amateurs, mostly working alone these days. But Eddie insists. The one who’d brought the job is his ex-wife and they want in on the deal, an even split. Wyatt recognizes in the ex-wife the same sort of professional as himself and that sets off alarm bells.

A couple of low grade hoodlums, jewelers as their cover, deal in stolen merchandise brought in from other countries mixed with legitimate jewelry. the plan is to take it from the courier, Alan Le Page, and fence it. Probably be a good haul. Wyatt reluctantly signs on and starts the planning.

But there’s more going on than even they know. Le Page is sitting on millions in bearer bonds and the theft sets off all sorts of things.

Disher’s novel is filled with the sort of action I like and he keeps things moving along briskly(he has a fine style). I finished this one in a bit over a day.

Worth a look.

One curious thing. One I think must be a publisher’s doing. Wyatt has only one name as do most in this type of novel. But suddenly on the cover and the plot synopsis on the inside of the dust jacket he’s referred to as Wyatt Wareen, Nowhere in the text is he anything but Wyatt and it seems to be generally assumed Wyatt is a surname. The same thing was done to Max Allan Collins’ Nolan with Frank being added to the cover by one publisher.

Who knows?

One final note: Disher has always given a nod to the Parker novels. In one there was a character named Charles Willis(Parker’s “civilian” name) and the Outfit was an opponent in a couple of others. He follows suit here with a character named Parker, his full name never mentioned.

I Now Have A Little Hope For The New Conan Film…

13 Saturday Aug 2011

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…or possibly the second one.

Recently, people in our little area of the internet have wondered about Jason Momoa’s statement about writing the next Conan film, even before the release of the forthcoming version. I was among those who wondered about the “quality” of the new film(still am for that matter).

I saw him last night on a rerun of Leno and stopped to watch, interested in this man. I did know that he was on the SyFy Channel series Stargate Atlantis, a series I never got into at all. But I learned from the Leno interview that he is also in HBO’s A Game of Thrones, the miniseries based on the first book in George R. R. Martin’s fantasy. I’ve read that book, but never watched the TV adaptation(I don’t have HBO). I’ve heard it’s good.

In the interview, Momoa admitted he doesn’t like devices, doesn’t own a cell phone(a definite plus in my book), doesn’t even have a television in his home. He’s married to Lisa Bonet and they have two children.

He was also embarrassed when Leno pulled out a clip of another TV series he was on when in his late teens/early twenties: Baywatch.

The thing that really impressed me was when Leno asked him what he did for entertainment. He read. And talk about the Conan film brought Leno asking if he’d ever seen the Swarzenegger films. No, for inspiration, he went to the “source material.” If that is not all hype, that would bode well for the next film anyway(provided it doesn’t get the dreaded “rewrite.”

After seeing the interview, I’m inclined to give the new film a break(a small one) and see how good it might be. Hollywood’s track record is abysmal in getting such things right.

We’ll see.

TRAILER

FFB: Mordred – John Eric Holmes based on an outline by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

11 Thursday Aug 2011

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My selection this week is the first of four connected novels that I didn’t know existed until fairly recently(I’ve had them on the back burner for a couple of years now). How I missed them way back when I have no idea. These four novels are notable for having been plotted by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and are authorized sequels to the original novel, of which I posted here, and not the comic strip that came from it. There is no Buck here, but Anthony Rogers. They were published over a three year period from 1980 to 1983. And MORDRED was the first of them.

It was discovered near the end of the second American Revolution that the Han were hybrid beings, a mix of Chinese and alien biology. As a result, they were wiped out as countries around the world followed America’s lead in rising up to end several hundred years of Han rule.

It’s fifty years later and Marshall Anthony Rogers, leader of the American gangs, is an old man now. The grunt work is left to younger people. He’s also a widower as his beloved Wilma passed away years ago.

There are other problems for this new world. The icecaps are melting and threatening to flood the coasts. Something is emerging from under miles of ice in Antarctica.

Then suddenly, in South America, the country of Peru, a Han ship emerges, attacking with new powerful weapons. An underground city was missed and the Han have been biding their time developing new weapons and tactics. Prince Mordred is their leader and he hates Anthony Rogers, harboring a secret that drives him at the American leader.

At the same time, Rogers has found the mine he survived in for five hundred years in suspended animation and is exploring it with a few scientists. They find a hidden chamber and before they know, a force field springs up between Rogers and the others. Nothing they can do will penetrate it.

After a time, the field dissolves and Rogers emerges. He’s not the same man he was, though, but a man of twenty-five again! Rejuvenation! Was this what had kept him alive for five hundred years? And who had placed it here? For what reason?

A new enemy has come!. The Prl’lu have been in suspended animation for thousands of years under Antarctica ice. They don’t like the Han or Humans and their intent is to wipe out them all out.

I haven’t read the other three yet, will get to them in due time.

John Eric Holmes also penned two novels(and a third either half finished or in the planning stages depending on which source you read) in Burroughs’ Pellucidar series. The first I have and enjoyed, the second costs an arm and a leg for the paperback on the used sites(Amazon has only three copies). Apparently the Burroughs estate was not satisfied with the books because when the second was ready for publication in 1980, they blocked it. it finally saw extremely limited release in 1993 or so. I would like to read it, but not a hundred bucks worth, or two hundred I saw in one spot.

Todd Mason is doing the host duties again this week, so for more Forgotten Books, check out SWEET FREEDOM.

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