Dicks, dames, death
October 10, 2007 11:51 AM   Subscribe

Twenty hard-boiled pulp stories from a revived Black Mask Magazine. (Unfortunately, stories are mostly in PDF form.)
posted by klangklangston (10 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
Q: What do I and Armin Meiwes have in common?
A: We both love hardboiled dicks.

Cool post, ty!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:58 AM on October 10, 2007


Ah, great, there's plenty of stuff from back in the day. I clicked fearing weaker modern pastiche or something.
posted by Abiezer at 1:43 PM on October 10, 2007


This is way cool.

(forgive the slight derail but, uh, What's the beef with PDF? I don't have a problem with it, though it loads slow.)

I'll be reading this for a while...
posted by From Bklyn at 1:55 PM on October 10, 2007


Nice find! Now if only someone would put old issues of Astounding and Unknown online...

What's the beef with PDF?

PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption.
posted by languagehat at 2:39 PM on October 10, 2007


"Ah, great, there's plenty of stuff from back in the day. I clicked fearing weaker modern pastiche or something."

Yeah, I found this because I was looking for more WT Ballard Bill Lennox stories. One of my dad's colleagues had been clearing out his bookshelf (his specialty is pulp lit) and they trickled down to me. Ballard used to be published in Black Mask, and while they didn't have any more of his stuff, I found enough fun stories to keep me amused for a while. Thought I'd share.
posted by klangklangston at 2:43 PM on October 10, 2007


languagehat, some of the stories from old Astoundings have been making the way into Project Gutenberg's SF bookshelf -- the HTML versions with the illustrations intact. Try some of the Harry Harrison, Fritz Lieber, or Keith Laumer stories.
posted by fings at 7:24 PM on October 10, 2007


This makes up for a long-lost paperback "Hardboiled - stories from Black Mask Magazine". Still recall some titles: It's So Pleasant in the Country and Angelfish. Looks like fun.

p.s. - anyone else recall the central plot device in The Whole Nine Yardswith Mathew Perry and Bruce Willis was used in at least one pulp story (false teeth used to fake a death where the only means of identifying the [wrong] corpse is dental records)? I think that was an A.A.Fair story. Hah! - I haven't read any pulp fiction in forever!
posted by AppleSeed at 8:23 PM on October 10, 2007


thanks languagehat
posted by From Bklyn at 1:48 AM on October 11, 2007


Thanks, fings!
posted by languagehat at 2:54 PM on October 11, 2007


I just finished an awesome and insane story "The tattooed cobra" In which Ken McNally, tweed loving society swell by day becomes "Needle Mike" of the St.Louis demi-mond by night.

(In a couple instances, to help generate mood, he describes the Kansas dust making the air murky, and close... oh right, I realised after a moment, the dust bowl years... For an instant it read like science fiction, it seemed like such a context-less detail).

It's crazy to read plot devices that are almost eighty years old, and feel them be as simultaneously fresh and ... dumb, as they are when you run acros them now.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:29 PM on October 14, 2007


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