Fazhoul Posted January 15, 2008 Report Share Posted January 15, 2008 I didn't see this book mentioned anywhere so I thought that I'd bring it up. I got it in the Secret Santa exchange in my gaming group and it looks like an amazing deal. 1,100+ pages of pulp stories in a mammoth paperback for $25.00 ($16.50 at Amazon). The book focuses on the pulp crime genre so there aren't any masked mystery men, Indiana Jones or Buck Rogers type of stories but what little I've read has been very good. The biggest, the boldest, the most comprehensive collection of Pulp writing ever assembled. Weighing in at over a thousand pages, containing over forty-seven stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train—a bullet couldn’t pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes; sultry dames whose looks are as lethal as a dagger to the chest; and gin-soaked hideouts where conversations are just preludes to murder. This is crime fiction at its gritty best. Including: • Three stories by Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Dashiell Hammett. • Complete novels from Carroll John Daly, the man who invented the hard-boiled detective, and Fredrick Nebel, one of the masters of the form. • A never before published Dashiell Hammett story. • Every other major pulp writer of the time, including Paul Cain, Steve Fisher, James M. Cain, Horace McCoy, and many many more of whom you’ve probably never heard. • Three deadly sections–The Crimefighters, The Villains, and Dames–with three unstoppable introductions by Harlan Coben, Harlan Ellison, and Laura Lippman Featuring: • Plenty of reasons for murder, all of them good. • A kid so smart–he’ll die of it. • A soft-hearted loan shark’s legman learning–the hard way–never to buy a strange blonde a hamburger. • The uncanny “Moon Man” and his mad-money victims. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Long Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 Re: The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps I just got this myself, and I agree it looks interesting despite the misleading title (it ought to be called "The Big Book of Pulp Detective Stories," since that's the only type of story in it). Caveat: this is a compilation of three other books by the same editor. So if you order this one, no need to order the other three "theme" collections (heroes, villains, dames). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fazhoul Posted January 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2008 Re: The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps I just got this myself, and I agree it looks interesting despite the misleading title (it ought to be called "The Big Book of Pulp Detective Stories," since that's the only type of story in it). Caveat: this is a compilation of three other books by the same editor. So if you order this one, no need to order the other three "theme" collections (heroes, villains, dames). I'm glad that you mentioned that this is a compilation. If I had ever seen the other three books I would have bought them without a second thought. I've been known to buy a book (or DVD, etc.) and then get home only to find that I already have it on my bookshelf. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talon65 Posted January 17, 2008 Report Share Posted January 17, 2008 Re: The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps Hmm, I wonder if they retitled it. I read that book a couple months ago. At least it had the same picture on the cover and sounds like the same stories but I would swear it had a different title... Is the last story by Quentin Tarantino? Maybe they just used the same painting on the cover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Long Posted January 17, 2008 Report Share Posted January 17, 2008 Re: The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps I don't have my copy to check on that Talon65, but I do know that that particular Pulp cover is well-known and has been used on more than one anthology. Maybe the book's listing on Amazon had a Table of Contents you can check. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
st barbara Posted January 20, 2008 Report Share Posted January 20, 2008 Re: The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps I just got this myself, and I agree it looks interesting despite the misleading title (it ought to be called "The Big Book of Pulp Detective Stories," since that's the only type of story in it). Caveat: this is a compilation of three other books by the same editor. So if you order this one, no need to order the other three "theme" collections (heroes, villains, dames). That was what made me shy off it as well. I was hoping that it would be a collection of adventure stories, but it seems to be mainly crime. It still looks good but there are other books that i'd rather look for first ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fazhoul Posted January 25, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 25, 2008 Re: The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps In going through my collection of pulp related books for some titles to recommend I discovered this interesting little fact: Pulp Fictions - Edited by Peter Haining from Barnes & Noble Books, 1996 Pulp Fiction - Edited by Maxim Jakubowski from Castle Books (Carroll & Graf Publishers), 2002 The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps - 2007 You would think that with all of the pulp covers available for use that they would have tried to find something that hadn't been used so much. And FYI, all three books are strictly detective stories. Oh, and you can click on the titles of the first two books for a description of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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