William F. Nolan (1) (1928–2021)

I have a long-running, tongue-in-cheek battle with my wife about the quality of the film version for this story - of course, it's the best sci-fi movie ever produced. Seriously, while the campy effects and stilted writing abound in the film, this is a wonderful and over-looked science fiction classic. Nihilism gone to seed in an apocalypse driven by over-population and under-resourced world. This one deserves a place in the cannon.

5 bones!!!!!

One of the better collections of hard-boiled detective stories in general, and one of the very best examinations of the Black Mask phenomenon in particular. In this case, less is more: rather than trying to cram dozens of stories into one volume, William F. Nolan wisely focused on eight major authors, prefacing each story with a biographical essay. There's also a lengthy but fascinating introduction that details the magazine's publication history (1920-1951) and explains the cultural and show more social conditions that gave birth to the popularity of the hard-boiled crime subgenre.

It all began with Carroll John Daly--and, while the vast majority of Daly's work is unreadable (you can take it from someone who's tackled three of his novels), "Three Gun Terry" is one of his more tolerable stories. Private eye Terry Mack resides in New York City but sounds suspiciously like a cowboy from the Western pulps ("Of course, there wasn't nothing so terrible strange about that") and likes to brag about his shooting ability. Ludicrous in both premise and execution, the story is nonetheless a good example of the violent, action-oriented material that made Black Mask a hit with readers in the first place. Daly was enormously popular in his day, and influenced later authors as diverse as Raymond Chandler (Terry Mack's tendency toward white knight syndrome, and the mutual antipathy between him and the police, were reflected in the exploits of Chandler's own PI character Philip Marlowe) and Mickey Spillane (who acknowledged his debt to Daly in the form of a fan letter).

Close on Carroll John Daly's heels was Dashiell Hammett, who had actually worked as a private investigator, and whose writing was everything Daly's wasn't. "Three Gun Terry" rambles on for nearly thirty pages; in "Bodies Piled Up," Hammett's Continental Op closes an equally action-packed case in just under eleven pages, and the story is of infinitely higher literary quality. Other stories include "Sal the Dude" by Hammett's buddy Raoul Whitfield, Paul Cain's "Gundown" (also known as "Murder Done in Blue" or simply "Murder in Blue"; whatever the title, it's one of Cain's best), and Raymond Chandler's very Hammett-esque debut "Blackmailers Don't Shoot."

Nolan was a fan, but he was also perceptive--making him the ideal figure to select and present this material. He was honest enough to admit that many of Black Mask's star writers were men of limited literary ability, yet sympathetic enough to choose a Whitfield story like "Sal the Dude." Whitfield wasn't very good in general, but he did excel at tales of aviation--and, in the high-flying conclusion of "Sal," it's a pleasant surprise when Whitfield's clunky prose becomes suddenly assured and almost graceful. Nolan allows the reader to see Whitfield shine, however briefly, and that's a nice touch. For the newcomer, The Black Mask Boys is a great introduction to the subject matter. show less

Real Rating: 2.5* of five

I remembered this book fondly. The summer the film came out, I drove my licenseless buds to the Village Multiplex in Pygge, my 1968 Bonneville. (We'd passed the book around our Scooby-group, drinking it in.) There Michael York cheekboned his way into my, um, heart shall we say, and the rest of the film...and the entirety of the book...faded into insignificance.

Netflix loses the film on January 1st. I figured I'd rewatch it, while I give the book another go; after show more all, they're part of my formative years, so as I enter the last laps let's look back to the track, eh what?

You would think that, by now, I'd know better.

The book is just plain bad. The prose rises to the dizzying heights of serviceability a couple times, all the way up the slope of passable; the bulk of the 150pp are spent on the Plains of Puerility. A pair of fortyish numpties wrote about a world in which they'd be dead twenty years. It went about as well as that makes it sound. It's sexist, of course; it was ground-breaking for its day because the hedonism of its society isn't particularly concerned about who you do since there are no children born of sexual congress. Makes the property base of marriage pretty useless, so marriage simply isn't.

But the big draw, the martial arts bits, are tame and tedious 50 years on. (It came out in 1967, the film in 1976.) The action scenes are mildly fun. The story's versions of Logan and Francis are in a whole father/son dynamic that never gets much of anywhere because, well, you did see the page count, right? The ending takes place in Space. I won't say why, but it is the trippiest piece of dumbfuckery I can imagine. These guys were tripping when they wrote the ending, there's no other excuse. End it does, however, so I shook my head and started streaming the film.

Rob was here that day. He hadn't heard of the book or the film. He flipped through the book a bit and quietly reshelved it after about ten minutes. "Ready to see the film?" I asked; "not really" was the honest reply. Luckily Michael York is there from the get-go, cheekbones a-jut and body firmly and revealingly encased in a spiffy dark costume. I heard no further nose-sighs from little spoon...until a scene where Logan/Michael dials up a sex worker and gets, on his first try, a man.

"...?!!?..."

"Hey, even *I* had older mentors," I said. "Wait for the robot butcher scene. That's when we get to see Logan and Jessica naked!"

And that is pretty much it. The naked scene isn't him naked, it's just her, and some artfully obscured extras who earned that paycheck; a bit disappointing, but obscured by the fact that the film takes a turn for the idiotic from there on out. We ended up wondering what the hell was the point of this exercise, how far breaking ground can go in keeping a creative endeavor in active circulation. I think it's time to let this one slide into the background and we should pack it away in shredded copies of the awful book it was inspired by but doesn't much resemble. show less

I read this at roughly one story a day and I am exceptionally pleased with this collection from 1991. 22 original stories paying tribute to the 50th anniversary of Ray Bradbury's first published story. I was unfamiliar with about half the authors. I'm surprised this is not rated higher and heaped with praise. Most of the original stories here are directly related to one of Bradbury's own stories, whether it is the setting or character. Some might say that some are a pastiche but that wasn't show more the vibe I got. The vibe that I got was that each author loved Ray Bradbury's work and felt honored to be able to write in or around his milieu.

I think my favorite story (of many favorites) in here was by Bruce Francis, 'The Inheritance'. It takes one of Ray's earliest short stories that was called "The Lake" (1944). "The Lake" appeared in Bradbury's first collection, Dark Carnival, and much later was included in the collection October Country. The original story was not much more than a sketch but was very powerful in just a few pages. I'll quote a bit of editor William Nolan's introduction to this story: "In his contribution to the anthology, Bruce uses Bradbury's story "The Lake" as his takeoff point. Yet this work is not a pastiche. it is sharply original in answering the question of what really happened to Tully when she failed to return from the dark waters of the lake."

Orson Scott Card is an author I no longer read for a variety of reasons, but back in the late 80's and early 90's I enjoyed his writing. His novella here, 'Feed the Baby of Love' is probably my second favorite story. It is quite different from the other stories here but still keeps a Bradbury link. We meet Douglas Spaulding and his descendants not in the 1928 setting of Dandelion Wine but in 1990. They are not the initial focus of the story but they are there for the finish.

The editor really writes excellent introductions to the authors and stories. I think this is the best "tribute' collection I have ever come across. For some of the stories after I finished I went and found the story it jumped off from and read it afterwards (never before it). Just a very good experience and a book I highly recommend to Bradbury fans.

As an FYI, the editor was the co-author of Logan's Run. Surely you remember that mid 70's film ...

The included material:
1 • Introduction: A Half-Century of Creativity • essay by William F. Nolan
4 • Ray: An Appreciation • essay by Isaac Asimov
6 • The Troll • short story by Ray Bradbury
14 • The Awakening • short story by Cameron Nolan
23 • The Wind from Midnight • novelette by Ed Gorman
44 • May 2000: The Tombstones • short story by James Kisner
60 • One Life, in an Hourglass • short story by Charles L. Grant
73 • Two O'Clock Session • short story by Richard Matheson
78 • A Lake of Summer • short story by Chad Oliver
93 • The Obsession • short story by William Relling, Jr.
105 • Something in the Earth • (1963) • short story by Charles Beaumont
116 • The Muse • short story by Norman Corwin
121 • The Late Arrivals • short story by Roberta Lannes
134 • Hiding • short story by Richard Christian Matheson
139 • Salome • short story by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
155 • The Inheritance • novelette by Bruce Francis
177 • The Man with the Power Tie • short story by Christopher Beaumont
190 • Centigrade 233 • (1990) • short story by Gregory Benford
203 • Filling Out Fannie • short story by John Maclay
208 • Land of the Second Chance • short story by J. N. Williamson
222 • The November Game • short story by F. Paul Wilson
232 • The Other Mars • short story by Robert Sheckley
248 • Feed the Baby of Love • novella by Orson Scott Card
306 • The Dandelion Chronicles • (1984) • short story by William F. Nolan
317 • Afterword: Fifty Years, Fifty Friends • essay by Ray Bradbury

Looking back over these stories I think there were maybe three that didn't work for me. But I can see that they tried. However, the final "story" by the editor titled "The Dandelion Chronicles" is a parody in extreme excess that was amusing for about 30 seconds. Sort of a crummy way to close out the collection of stories. Overall this anthology had a big success rate for me. Just about every one of Bradbury's own story collections had a few "duds" in it. Bradbury writes a very entertaining afterword talking briefly about many people from throughout his life. It was rather touching.

I should add that I think this collection is most relevant to readers who are already fans of Bradbury and who have read a number of his stories. show less