INCOMING

'Twas a great week, courtesy of two wonderful bookstores:  Second Look Books in Prince Frederick, Maryland, and McKay's Used Books in Manassas, Virginia.

• Evan J. Albright, Cape Cod Confidential.  Collections of  "true tales of murder, crime and scandal from the Pilgrims to the present", from a veteran Cape Cod reporter.  Cape resident and writer extraordinaire Paul Kemprecos did the intro.
• Isaac Asimov, The Neutrino:  Ghost Particle of the Atom.  Non-fiction.
• Greg Benford, editor, with Martin Harry Greenberg's Tekno Books (uncredited on cover), Microcosms.  SF anthology with thirteen stories.
• John W. Campbell, editor, Astounding Science Fiction, July 1939.  A facsimile edition of a classic issue of the best science fiction magazine of its time.  This issue had A. E. van Vogt's first science fiction appearance (the classic Black Destroyer), Isaac Asimov's first major story (trends), with stories by Nat Schachner, C. L. Moore, Nelson S. Bond, Ross Rocklynne, and Amelia R. Long.  (Coincidently, one of the two articles in this issue, Willy Ley's Geography for Time Travelers, I had read just the day before in (the other) Martin Greenberg's non-fiction anthology Coming Attractions.)  As a facsimile edition, this has everything -- ads, fillers, illustrations, and the letters column (which had letters from Isaac Asimov and P. Schuyler Miller, among others).  A hard-cover edition with dust jacket in perfect condition.  Confession:  Since I am a cheapskate and the opposite of wealthy, I seldom pay more than a buck for a book; this one cost me $1.65 -- whoot!
• Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others.  One of the most celebrated SF collections in recent years; eight stories.
• Hal Clement, Half Life.  Hard SF novel by a master of the form.
• John Creasey (as "Kyle Hunt"), This Man Did I Kill.  A Dr. Emmanuel Cellini mystery.
• Ellen Datlow, editor, Omni Best Science Fiction Two.  Ten stories, six original to this collection and just four orignally published in Omni.
• Ronald Burt De Waal, The World Bibliography of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.  Massive reference book (6,221 entries!), covering everything Sherlockian.  (This one cost me $2.64!  **does happy dance and throws out back**) 
• George Alec Effinger, The Zork Chronicles.  Gaming tie-in fantasy novel.
• Roger Elwood, editor.  Continuum 2.  SF anthology with eight stories.  This is the British papaerback with a much cooler cover than the US edition.
• Katherine V. Forrest, Murder at the Nightwood Bar.  Lesbian mystery novel.
• Vic Ghidalia, editor, Satan's Pets.  Horror anthology with ten stories.
• Mirra Ginsberg, editor and translator, The Ultimate Threshold:  A Collection of the Finest in Soviet Science Fiction.  Thirteen stories from 1963-68.
• Donald Goines, Crime Partners.  Crime novel.  This was the first book that Goines originally published under his "Al C. Clark" pseudonym.
• Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, editors, Desperadoes.  Western anthology with seventeen stories.
• Matin H. Greenberg, John L. Lellenberg, and Carol-Lynn Waugh, editors, Holmes for the Holidays.  Sherlockian mystery anthology with fourteen stories.
• Jim Harmon, The Great Radio Heroes.  Nostalgia.  Harmon was really good at this type of writing; I'm looking forward to this one.
• James Herbert, '48.  SF/thriller/horror novel.
• Rich Horton, editor, Science Fiction:  The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition.  SF anthology with twelve stories.
• Matt Johnson, editor, Triage.  Horror novellas by three of the field's best:  Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon, and Edward Lee.
• William W. Johnstone, with J. A. Johnstone, Blood Bond:  Texas Gundown.  Western.
• Marvin Kaye, editor, Lovers & Other Monsters.  Horror anthology with fifty-two stories and poems, plus a play.
• H. F. R. Keating, Crimes Waves 1:  The Annual Anthology of the Crime Writer's Association.  Seventeen stories from some of England's finest authors.  Keating recently passed away;  Inspector Ghote weeps.
• Louis L'Amour, Jubal Sackett (318 in the series) and The Rider of Ruby Hills (four pulp novellas which were later rewritten).  Westerns.
• Stanislaw Lem, Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, an SF novel, and Tales of Pirx the Pilot, a collection of five SF stories. 
• Jon E. Lewis, editor, The Mammoth Book of the Western.  Western anthology with twenty-seven stories and lists (great for starting arguments) of the Hundred Best Western Novels and the Hundred Best Western Short Stories.  The cover is a painting of a stern-looking Gary Cooper.
• Bentley Little, The Return.  Horror novel.
• George R. R. Martin, editor, with an assist from Melinda M. Snodgrass, Inside Straight.  An SF "mosaic novel", another phrase for a themed shared-world anthology.  This one has eight stories and appears to be the eighteenth book in the Wild Cards series.
• China Mieville, Perdido Street Station.  SF novel, winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British Fantasy Award, as well as a nominee for both the Hugo and the Nebula.
• Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir, creators, The Destroyer #107:  Feast or Famine.  Men's adventure; Will Murray wrote this one.
• Yvonne Navarro, Elektra.  Movie tie-tin, based on the Marvel Comics character.
• John Jacob Niles, The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles.  The cumulation of fifty years of study and collecting in Appalachia.  This has the music (which I can't read) and the words (which I have been forbidden to sing by those who do not appreciate toneless, off-key music) and a heavy dose of information about each of the songs (which is fascinating).  A great find for two bucks.
• [Mel Odom, for both], Don Pendleton's The Executioner #140:  Wild Card and Don Pendleton's The Executioner #296:  Nuclear Game (Book 1 of The Moon Shadows Trilogy).  Men's adventure.
• Frederik Pohl, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Joseph Olander, editors, Science Fiction of the 40's.  SF anthology with twenty-one classic stories.
• Byron Preiss & John Betancourt, editors.  The Ultimate Witch.  Horror anthology with twenty-five stories.
• Kenneth Robeson, Doc Savage Omnibus #5.  Omnibus with five pulp hero novels:  No Light to Die By,  The Monkey Suit, Let's Kill Ames, Once Over Lightly, and I Died Yesterday.  All ficve were ghost-written by Lester Dent and originally appeared in Doc Savage magazine in 1947.
• Robert J. Randisi, editor, Boot Hill.  An anthology of fifteen western stories.
• James Rollins, The Judas Strain.  Thriller.
• Fred Saberhagen, An Old Friend of the Family.  Horror; one of Saberhagen's Dracula novels.
• Jessica Amanda Salmonson, editor, Tales by Moonlight II.  Horror anthology with thirty-seven stories and poems celebrating the contribution of small presses to the genre.
• Hank Schwaeble, Damnable.  Horror novel.  I've been meaning to try Schwaeble for some time now.
• Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Coliins, editors, Murder Is My Business.  Crime anthology with seventeen stories.
• Jonathan Strahan, editor, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Four.  Twenty-nine stories from 2009.
• David Thompson, Wilderness:  The Lost Valley.  Western, #23 in the series.  I think Thompson is approaching Randisi/Reasoner productivity levels; how many books has this guy written?

I usually don't list my wife's Incoming, but Kitty was very happy to get these:

• Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue:  English and How It Got That Way.  Wonderful, wonderful book.
• Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  Whitbread Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book.  Both of us are looking forward to this one.
• William Martin, Back Bay.  We have had a number of copies of this in a the past, but they went walkabout.  When this book was first published, Kitty won "A Night in Back Bay" for us in a contest from Pocket Books, which included a reception with Bill Martin.  Kitty made me read the book beforehand and I wasn't sorry she insisted.  A great read.

SECRET INGREDIENT?

Most people don't know the name Handwerker, but they surely have heard about Nathan's Hot Dogs.  Murray Handwerker, 89, the man who turned his father's hot dog stand in a national chain, passed away Saturday.

     No announcement had been made about what will be done with his remains, but I'm very suspicious.

ALIAS EVAN HUNTER

I just finished reading Ken Bruen's A White Arrest.  One of the major characters, Detective Sergeant Tom Brant, has at least one admirable trait:  he is a major fan of Evan Hunter/Ed McBain's writing.  The only books Brant owns were written by Hunter, with separate shelves for the 87th Precinct mysteries and for the Matthew Hope mysteries, as well as a shelf for books published under the Evan Hunter name.  This got me thinking about how many books Hunter wrote and how many names he wrote them under.  He was born Salvatore A. Lombino and published some stories as "S. A. Lombino".  He legally adopted his first major pen name "Evan Hunter".  He was also "Richard Marston", "Ed McBain", "Hunt Collins", "Curt Cannon", "Ezra Hannon", and "John Abbott".  If my memory serves, he was also "D. A. Addams" and "Ted Taine", although I may have gotten those names wrong.  [Despite one reference, he was not "Hodge Evans" [or "Evens"]; that appears to have been Dudley Dean McGaughy ["Dean Owen"].)

     One pen name that had been hidden until recently was "Dean Hudson", the name he used for over eighty soft-core paperbacks in the 60s and 70s.  According to Earl Kemp, the editor of those paperbacks, it came about because Hunter's then-wife had a tight control on his finances and he needed cash she couldn't know about to finance some of his baser habits.  The agreement was that "Dean Hudson" would deliver a book a month for a flat fee of $1000.00 cash.  Kemp said that many of the books Hunter wrote himself and some appeared to be written by his writing students, but that Hunter was the author of record for the "Dean Hudson" books.  (One bookseller has stated that the pen name was also used by William Knowles, better known as "Clyde Allison", but I haven't seen anything to verify that claim.)

     It should be understood that these softcore lines of that time were pretty mild; most of today's women's romance books are more graphic.  The formula was simple:  any type of plot (logical or not) with sex scenes every so-many pages.  Metaphors for sex and body parts were preferred, and no really bad words.   These books proved to be great training grounds for new writers, among them Donald E. Westlake, Lawrence Block, John Jakes, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Harlan Ellison, and Hal Dresner -- all hidden under pseudonyms.

     One problem with identifying the "Dean Hudson" books is the publisher's habit of retitling when the books were reprinted.   Another problem throughout the field was plagerism; books were often lifted by other publishers and rewritten as new titles under new names.  Writers also often played games with each other, inserting in-jokes and references into the books.  It all gets pretty confusing.  Adding to the confusion are those booksellers prone to listing titles and authors wrongly.

     Anyway, yesterday I took a look through Abebooks and eBay to see what "Dean Hudson" books were for sale.  I came up with seventy-four, some of which may be the same book under a different title, or a book wrongly listed as by "Dean Hudson".  Here they are:

• Alumnus of Sin
• The Art Sinner
• Bedroom Champ
• The Come Out
• The Delltown Sinners
• Dream Lover
• Flesh Fiesta
• Flesh Sisters
• Fleshpot
• Glass Mistress
• Happy Town
• Hasbeen
• Her Shame in Lights
• Honeysuckle Rose
• House of 7 Shames
• Jet Set Stud
• Las Vegas Lust
• Lover's Exile
• Lust Legacy
• Lust Lei
• Lust Lost
• Lust Son
• The Man from O.R.G.Y. (No relation to the bestselling Ted Mark series published by Lancer Books)
• Million Dollar Mistress
• The Muckrakers
• Next Stop, Sinland
• Nightmare Clinic
• Office Party
• Orgy Man
• Orgy Scouts
• Other Brother
• Passion Adonis
• Passion Daisy
• Passion Floor
• Passion Legacy
• Passion Man (also published as Carnal Candidate)
• Passion Prodigal
• Passion Suburb
• Psychopast
• Quest for Ecstasy
• Randy
• Roadhouse Wanton
• The Robot Lovers
• The Seduction Game
• Sex Town
• Sextus
• Shame Camp
• Shame Lane
• Shame Stage
• The Shame Takers
• Showcase for Sin
• Silver Shames
• Sin Cats
• Sin Family
• Sin Gallery
• Sin Grifter
• Sin Hungry
• Sin on Salary
• Sin Queen
• Sin Search
• Sin Sheet
• The Sin Swappers
• Sinkeeper
• Sinner, Come Home
• Sinner's Shroud
• Sinsanity
• Sinville
• Skin Queen
• Tropic Lust
• Twisted Tulips
• The Virgin of Calabara
• Wall Street Wanton
• West End Wanton
• Yesterday's Man

     A very incomplete list, I'm afraid.  At a later date, I'll try to add the specific publisher's line and number and year of publication.  In the meantime, any information you have on titles, alternate titles and background information would be greatly appreciated.

HAPPY HOLIDAY!

As Bill Crider pointed out on his blog, today is World Naked Gardening Day.  Bill forgot to mention that's it's also Dance Like a Chicken Day.  Consider my imagination truly boggled.

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE MYSTERY COMPANION

The Mystery Companion, edited by A. L. Furman (1943)

My selection for Patti Abbott's Friday's Forgotten Book project this week is the first of four meaty anthologies that A. L. Furman produced between 1943 and 1946.  Not surprisingly, the remaining three volumes were titled Second Mystery Companion, Third Mystery Companion, and The Fourth Mystery Companion.  The titles may be prosaic, but the pulpish qualities of the stories certainly aren't.

     I haven't been able to trace the origins of all 19 stories in The Mystery Companion, but some of the sources were Blue Book Magazine, Black Mask, Detective Story Magazine, Short Stories, and Weird Tales.  The authors, too, have well-established pulp cred:  Richard Sale, Philip Ketchum, Robert Bloch, Allen Vaughan Elston, Dale Clark, Cornell Woolrich, Geoffrey Homes, Fritz Leiber, Frank Owen, and Vincent Starrett, among others.  And since this volume was published in 1943, there is a healthy dose of Nazis, spies, war profiteers, and air wardens -- there's even one nautical tale set in Old California.

     One of the most interesting items is the sole nonfiction piece:  America's Most Famous Murder by George L. Porter (1838-1919).  Porter was the commissioned officer in charge of the interment of John Wilkes Booth and was an official at the hangings of four of the conspirators:  Mrs. Mary Suratt (whose home was used as headquarters for the plot), Lewis Payne (real name Powell, who wounded Secretary of State Seward), David E. Herold (who joined Booth in his flight), and George Atzerodt (who was supposed to kill Vice President Johnson).  [The use of the word "conspirators" is ill-advised; there is some question about Mary Suratt's guilt, although there seems to be no doubt that her son was part of the conspiracy.]  His article covers some interesting points about the days after the assassination.

     All 19 stories in The Mystery Companion had never received book publication before.  Here's the table of contents:

• Active Duty, by Richard Sale
• The Body in The Ostrich Cage, by Vincent Starrett
• The Sword of God, by Hal Hode
• The Greek Poropulos, by Edgar Wallace
• Bond of Reunion, by Carl Carmer
• Believe It or Die, by Philip Ketchum
• Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, by Robert Bloch
• The Street of the Little Candles, by James Francis Cooke
• The Blackout Murders, by Allan Vaughan Elston
• "You're Killing Me!", by Dale Clark
• If the Dead Could Talk, by Cornell Woolrich
• America's Most Famous Murder, by George L. Porter
• The Judge Finds a Body, by Geoffrey Homes
• The Phantom Slayer, by Fritz Leiber, Jr.
• Tears of the Virgin, by Thomas Grant Springer
• Me and His Majesty and Trouble, by Joseph C. Stacey
• Death in a Gray Mist, by Frank Owen
• A Pair of Gloves, by Carl Carmer
• The Man in the Cask, by Vincent Starrett

     Only the Bloch story would be familiar to many readers, leaving 18 fresh tales to enjoy -- and the Bloch is enjoyable even after constant re-reading.  All in all, a great collection and a mirror back to the days of pulp when fiction magazines abounded.  Recommended.

**********

      Blogspot has had a few problems yesterday and today, going offline, eating some Friday's Forgotten Books posts, and delaying others -- all of which is probably giving organizer Patti Abbott the bejeebers.  To find out how she has been handling all this, go to her blog, Pattinase.

UNINTENDED RESULTS

Samuel O. Beeton, a well-known publisher and editor of the 19th century, passed away in 1861.  Yesterday I happened to be looking through early copies of Beeton's Christmas Annual and came across a long elegy of the man, praising him above all others and placing him on a pedestal at least twenty miles high.  Sadly for Mr. Beeton's memory though, this was the title:

                                                            IN MEMORIAM
                                                                      S.O.B.

     Oh. well...

INCOMING

During what may be referred to as The Week of the Haul, these lonely books found their way to my doorstep:

• William Bayer, The Dream of Broken Horses (crime novel), Stardust (crime novel), Wallflower (the third Frank Janek mystery).
• Gregory Benford & Martin H. Greenberg, editors, What Might Have Been, Volume 2:  Alternate Heroes.  SF collection of 14 stories.
• Rhys Bowen, Evans Above.  Mystery novel, the first Constable Evans novel.
• Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse:  Poems & Stories.  Posthumous collection of previously uncollected work.
• Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night, a traveler.  A novel by Italy's master fantasist.
• Ramsey Campbell, The Nameless.  Horror novel.
• Edmund Cooper, The Tenth Planet.  SF novel.
• Michael Crichton, Travels.  Nonfiction.
• Peter Dawson, Man on the Buckskin.  Western.
• Lester del Rey, The Mysterious Planet.  SF novel, originally published in the Winston Adventures in SF series under the name "Kenneth Wright".
• David Drake, The Jungle.  SF novel set in the "world" of Henry Kuttner's 1943 classic story "Clash by Night", which is also included in the book.
• Bruse Elliott, Asylum Earth.  SF novel.
• Michael Flynn, In the Country of the Blind.  SF novel.  Revised edition.
• Victor Gischler, Vampire a Go-Go.  Gonzo fantasy.  I've been looking forward to this one.
• John Gribbin, Father to the Man.  SF novel, a "Ben Bova Presents" selection.
• J. Roy Guyther, M.D., Mechanicsville:  The Story of Our Village.  Local history.  Mechanicsville, Maryland, is a hop, skip, and half-a-jump from where I live, so I was interested.
• Carolyn Haines, Revenant.  Thriller.
• Peter Haining, editor, Scottish Stories of Fantasy and Horror (original title, Clans of Darkness).  Horror/fantasy anthology of 21 stories, along with Haining's always interesting story notes.
• Joe Haldeman, Worlds Apart.  SF novel, the second in the Worlds trilogy.
• Parnell Hall, Last Puzzlement & Testament.  Mystery novel, the third in the Puzzle Lady series.  I love Hall's Stanley Hastings books and the Steve Winslow books written as J. P. Hailey, but I haven't read this series.  About time I started, don't you think?
• Dr. Hans Holzer, Beyond this Life.  Non-fiction (?) by the noted (take your pick) ghost-hunter/hokum artist.  This book cannibalizMayes part of an earlier book, Life After Death/The Challenge and the Evidence.
• Alex Irvine, Batman:  Inferno.  Comic tie-in.
• J.A. Johnson, The Loner:  The Bounty Killers.  Western.  The seventh in the Loner series.
• Louis L'Amour, The Lonesome Gods,and A Man Called Trent.  Westerns both, the last being an omnibus of two pulp novels originally published as by "Jim Mayo".
• Frank Lauria, Communion.  Horror novel, "based on an original story by Rose Mary Ritvo & Alfred Sole".  A movie tie-in for a movie never made, perhaps?
• Doris Lessing, Shikasta, The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five, and The Sirian Experiments.  The first three volumes in Lessing's SF series Canopus in Argos:  Archives.
• Richard Lupoff, Sun's End.  SF novel.
• Mary Ann Madden, Maybe He's Dead, and Other Hilarious Results of New York Magazine Competitions.  Humor.  I'm a fan of this sort of wordplay.
• Robin McKinley, Beauty.  Fantasy novel.  McKinley's take on Beauty and the beast.
• Vance Randolph, collector, The Talking Turtle and Other Ozark Folk Tales.  A collection from one of America's premiere folklorists.
• Martin Roth, The Writer's Complete Crime Reference Book.  Revised and updated through 1993.
• Al Sarrantonio, Skeletons.  Horror.
• Particia Wentworth, The Watersplash.  A Miss Silver Mystery.