[narfstar]

Speaking of A. Merrit I just picked up a vintage 35 cent Avon paperback of The Metal Monster for only 60 cents. Just got back from the used book store McCays in Chattanooga also Daw SF The Survivors by Marion Zimmer Bradley for 75 cents cover by Enrich, S.T.A.R. Flight by EC Tubb a 50 cent Paperback Library book for 75 cents and  Goddess of Ganymed a 50 center for 75 cents with a JEFF JONES cover. Since I primarily read digital now I will probably never read them. But they are some great classic scifi that just having is worth the price.

[RickDeckard525]

I have seen multiple avon covers for that one (very, very popular book) and would be curious to know which 
one you found.

[RickDeckard525]

I have seen a copy of daughter of Fu Manchu laying around a used bookstore for a buck and I am pretty sure it is not in any immediate danger of being taken, but I am curious if it is a good place to start. I haven't read any of the others, but I assume they are all pretty similar and I don't need to worry about continuity. I don't like to buy books when I haven't read all the ones I just bought and that is a bad habit for a collector! Looking for some encouragement to go buy it! And maybe some of the old copies of Galaxy I have nightmares about other people buying!

[darkmark]

Actually, the style Rohmer uses in his Fu Manchu books changes with the era.  The first one is pretty Victorian, but by the last one, in the Fifties, he's got the contemporary thriller style down.

[RickDeckard525]

Too late it is gone. I got a few shadow and doc savage paperbacks I hadn't seen before. Trek novels too. Ooh and a Norman spindrad I haven't seen before. Now I am in a fu Manchu mood, though. If I was gonna buy one on amazon which one would you recommend?

[Captain Audio]

Found a copy of Anne Rice's "Blood and Gold" I received as a Christmas gift many years ago and mislaid before reading it.
Now I can hardly put it down. Great imagery in these books.
I like the way each vampire tells his personal account which makes him look like the good guy and every other vampire look like a self serving liar.

[bowers]

There's an awful lot of free Sax Rohmer titles free on the net, both in pdf and ebook format. Not only Fu Manchu, but much of his Egyptian work as well. I enjoy both, but prefer his Egyptian stuff. Just finished "Quest of the Sacred Slipper" 1913 and "Green Eyes of Bast"1920, both detective tales taking place in England, but with Eastern connections. See Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive to begin. Cheers, Bowers

[mr_goldenage]

Turkish Comics....well maybe not much reading as much as looking..... then click on albums......enjoy!

https://www.facebook.com/mustafa.a.gurler/media_set?et=a.10151019017364074.449149.724789073&type=3

Richard

[RickDeckard525]

Captain Future!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Captain Audio]

Just starting this
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14833/14833-h/14833-h.htm
The Gurenburg E Book of Varney the Vampire , the 1847 compilation of the Varney penny dreadful stories.
From the first chapter I can see this would look great on film. Long story though, more suited to an HBO or Showtime series.

[RickDeckard525]

Who names a vampire Varney?

[Captain Audio]

Who names a vampire Varney?

An author who's girl friend was stolen away by a rich classmate named Lord Varney?

Certainly no worse than "Yorga".

[josemas]

The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin  The second Malcolm Fox novel has Fox investigating a case involving another police detective.  I've heard that Fox and inspector Rebus both appear in Rankin's next book.

Death Warmed Over by Kevin J. Anderson  Anderson takes a break from writing such large epics as the Saga of the Seven Suns to pen this story about a zombie P. I.  Much is played for laughs.  I understand he has sequels already out.

God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World by Cullen Murphy  The most interesting aspect of this book shows how the growth of the Inquisition over the centuries influenced the development of governmental bureaucracies and aspects of thinking in society.

Ike and Dick: Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage by Jeffrey Frank   Interesting examination of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon and how their relationship developed and changed over the years.

You Know Me Al by Ring Lardner   It's been almost a 100 years since Lardner wrote this humorous classic about baseball and since I hadn't read any Lardner in ages I decided to give it a reread.

The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly  Mickey Haller returns to practicing law in his second starring novel and finds himself involved in a "crime of the century", defending a famous movie producer accused of murder.  Two of Connelly's other characters, detective Harry Bosch and reporter Jack McEvoy have supporting roles in the book.

Target Lancer by Max Allan Collins  P. I. Nate Heller gets involved in the events leading up to the assassination of JFK.  Not up to the standards of the best Heller novels but still worth a quick read.

Best

Joe

[narfstar]

Mix of light and pretty heavy reading. Some interesting stuff. I need to read more.

[RickDeckard525]

Some Spinrad and lots of space opera: Captain Future, A. Bertram Chandler, Family D'alembert (The first book is a Doc Smith fix-up and the rest are by Stephen Goldin, even though they say Smith's name all big and his all tiny) and E.C. Tubb's Dumarest of terra

[narfstar]

I loved the Family D'alembert series. I bought each as they came out. They caused me to pick up the Skylark series which I hated by the end of the second issue. He would just add whatever he wanted to the story going beyond reasonable. I had the Lensman series also but since I disliked Skylark I got rid of all of them. Family D'alembert was so not like Skylark. It was much more down to Earth and sensible. I love how Poul Anderson handles time travel. I hate time travel where the past can be changed. If the past can be changed then nothing that happens really matters. Anderson does time travel while maintaining the continuity.

[RickDeckard525]

D'alembert is different because Stephen Goldin wrote most of them. Lensman is a little different than Skylark, but Smith is a bit of a mad scientist. Anderson is the king of continuity. Whether he is writing in his own worlds or for others. I don't know if you have read his Conan stuff or his Theives World, but they are worth tracking down, even if just to marvel at his virtuosity. I'm assuming from your post that you haven't read his fantasy, so I strongly recommend it. Captain Future, if you don't know, was written by LSH's inventor

[narfstar]

I have read a Captain Future many many years ago and liked it but do not remember much. I have not read Thieves World but probably would enjoy it. I have so much available to read and spend so much time on the computer I do not actually get many books read    With so much to read I seldom read anything more than once or watch movies more than once. I have read the Tripods series several times, especially The White Mountains which is the first book and for several years the only one I knew of before discovering the rest. I used to read it over summer break every year. It was made into a really good British series that ran out of money before adapting the last book. I do not know why it has never been made into a new movie or series. It has been made into graphic novels.

[RickDeckard525]

Theives world was a shared world fantasy novel series, role-playing game, and board game. I don't know if you are into that kind of stuff. I mostly just mentioned it because it is a good example of Anderson sharing a continuity with other writers. I haven't ever seen any tripods graphic novels, but I just looked on wikipedia and there was an american serial adaptation In Boy's Life, and an english one in BBC's boy's magazine. I haven't read the tripod books, but I have read some John Christopher in magazines. My kindle is broken, but if I ever see any of those in the wild I'll be sure to check them out.

[narfstar]

ProfH is collection Boy's Life series and putting the on his site. Maybe he could do Tripods next. I wish BBC America would run the series again. I believe it came on after Doctor Who in the 80's. It was great. I do wish they had finished it.

[josemas]

Branch Rickey by Jimmy Breslin   Bio, written in Breslin's unique style, on the Baseball executive who helped break the color barrier by hiring Jackie Robinson to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

A Drop of the Hard Stuff by Lawrence Block   PI Matthew Scudder has left his hard drinking behind, is on the wagon and attending AA.  In this story he spends as much time battling his own inner demons as he does solving the murder mystery he becomes involved in.  Even after 50 years Block is still turning out good ones.

Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore  Moore brings his usual humor to what I understand is the first of a trilogy featuring a newly turned vampire and her boyfriend.   Looking forward to the next one.

Seduction of the Innocent by Max Allan Collins  Set in the mid 1950s with it's background in comic books,  Fans of comic history will enjoy this murder mystery featuring PI Jack Starr and a number of characters obviously modeled on real-life individuals in the comic book industry.

What Kinda' Cactus Izzat? by Reg Manning   I grew up with Reg Manning.  He had been an artist for The Arizona Republic for decades before I was born even winning a Pulitzer Prize for his editorial cartoons somewhere along the way.  I remember us kids thought he had become on the old fashioned side and was definitely out of touch with the way young people felt about things by the end of the 1960s. Still he remained active doing work for the newspaper into the 1980s.  Besides his work for the newspaper he d
wrote and illustrated several books related to the Southwest United States.  They tended to have a lot of humor in them.  They were quite popular.  I ran across this copy at a used book shop recently (set me back a $1.00) and saw that it had remained in print from 1941 through this printing in 1973 (it's 24th).  It probably went through a few more before Reg passed away in the mid 1980s too.  It's a fun light read and the cartooning is Reg from his prime. 

Scottsdale by Joan Fudala   I recently discovered Arcadia Publishing which specializes in books catering to regional history.  All books are 128 pages and are profusely illustrated.  Our library has a ton (150+) of their volumes related to Arizona.  I expect to work my way through them in the months ahead.  Scottsdale is a city just to the east of Phoenix and like many of the towns in the area sprang up in the years and decades after the American Civil War.  It is generally thought of as one of the more affluent communities in the valley these days.

Best

Joe

[paw broon]

Apart from Crime Does Not Pay, for the reading group, I am thoroughly enjoying "Forever Rumpole" a compilation of the best Rumpole stories by John Mortimer.  The previous book I read was Peril on the Royal Train by Edward Marston.  This is the latest in the Railway Detective series and an entertaining read.

[Captain Audio]

Don't know if I've mentioned this story before, but I'd like for you all to read this very strange short shory by Jack London and tell me what you think of it.
"The Red One" 1918
http://www.jacklondons.net/writings/RedOne/redone.html

Excellent Jack London site BTW.

[RickDeckard525]

Nice. I just found an issue of fantastic mysteries with The Star Rover in it. Very scarce on illustrations though--about four and 150 pages. I don't know if any of you have read that one, but I can tell you it is very weird. It is about this prisoner who achieves nirvana or something when he is in solitary. It's pretty much just a way to make a novel out of a bunch of unused stories. It's free on project Gutenburg.

[RickDeckard525]

Alright I admit that I made that last post before reading it, but I have now and I am glad I did. I can gladly say it was much better than the star rover and I don't think I have read it before. I also must admit that I was sort of expecting a superbaby to jump out of the space-thing. I don't think I can hold out much longer not reading any DC books--sorry guys. Great website!