Book Review: Bad Day at Black Rock

 January is Gold Medal Books Month at the PorPor Books Blog

Book Review: 'Bad Day at Black Rock' by Michael Niall

2 / 5 Stars

'Bad Day at Black Rock' started life as a short story, titled 'Bad Time at Honda,' in The American Magazine in 1948. This Gold Medal Books paperback (No. 45, 143 pp.) was issued in December 1954, and was an expansion of the short story into a novel designed to tie-in with the 1955 film of the same name.  

'Michael Niall' was the pseudonym of writer Howard Breslin (1912 - 1964) who published a number of novels during the 1940s and 1950s.

The eponymous hamlet is located in the California desert, and rarely does the Streamliner passenger train make a stop. So, it's a source of considerable stir when one day in the summer of 1945 the train stops, and a passenger gets off: a man named John Macreedy. 

Macreedy's evaluation of Black Rock indicates he's here on a work trip, not for tourism:

A town like a thousand others, he thought, in this part of the country. Dust-plagued and shabby, with every flaw harshly revealed by the pitiless sun. Not attractive, but he'd seen worse, been pinned down in worse.

Save for a few exceptions, such as the veterinarian Doc Velie, and the young and attractive Liz Wirth, who operates the town garage, the townspeople of Black Rock are hostile towards Macreedy. Even before Macreedy reveals why he's come to town, Reno Smith, the local land baron who controls Black Rock, gives the command that the stranger is to be harassed and intimidated into leaving. But Macreedy, a veteran of World War Two, is not a man who scares easily. And when it comes to physical violence, he can handle his own......

The literary motif of the stranger who goes poking into the bad side of a bad town, has since become a mainstay of suspense and thriller fiction. Unfortunately, 'Bad Day' has all the strains of a novel constructed from the expansion of a short story: overly sedate pacing, padding in the form of regular conversations and interior monologues, and a denouement that goes on just a little too long. Well before the halfway point of the novel I was getting impatient with the way the narrative was dragging. The novel's ending didn't seem all that rewarding in terms of the effort I had to put in to get there.

The verdict ? 'Bad Day at Black Rock' is a Two-Star title. Those with a high level of patience may find it a rewarding read, but if the sharper, more fast-paced noir novels of the postwar era are your preference, then you'll want to examine other titles in the Gold Medal Book catalogue. 

K-Tel Collection

K-Tel Collection

I bought a few K-Tel albums back in the day. One of the best was Rock 80, a compilation of New Wave tracks from 1979 - 1980. Good stuff !

If you are under 50, it's going to be a little hard to explain what K-Tel was all about......you see, back in the vinyl / 8-track / cassette era, you couldn't hear a song on the radio and then promptly go to YouTube, or Spotify, or iTunes, and listen to it and download it if you were so inclined.

 

Back in those Old School days, you could buy the song as a single, if it was in fact out as a single; you could hunt for the album on which the song was featured; or, you could look to see if it had been included on the compilation records K-Tel issued on a regular basis during the 1970s and 1980s.

According to his obituary, K-Tel was the brainchild of Canadian salesman and huckster Philip Kives, who invented (among other things) the 'Veg-O-Matic.' In 1966, Kives released a country music compilation, the very first K-Tel record, which did well enough for Kives to pursue issuing further compilations.

 

K-Tel assembled 'greatest hits' compilations for all sorts of genres, such as pop, rock, country, disco, soul, and R & B. 

 

K-Tel even released compilations of TV show themes...... !

 

For some of these albums, along with the top 40 hits you'd occasionally get some more obscure songs, added to fill out the track listing. Some of these well are worth a listen. Take, for example, this Velour Soul, smoove groove song, 'Sad Sweet Dreamer,' by the U.K. band Sweet Sensation. It's off the1975 compilation K-Tel's Superhits of the Superstars, Volume One.

I've already highlighted a forgotten gem, 'Baby Come On,' from the soundtrack to a 1976 documentary, Sex O'Clock USA, made by French director François Reichenbach (?!). 

 

You can find 'Baby Come On' on 1977's Disco Rocket. What a funky groove ! DISCO-DYNA-MITE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Then there's Street Beat, from 1984, that has all the top 40 hits from the early 80s. 

If you are getting nostalgic thinking about those long-ago days of K-Tel records, or if you are a younger person curious about the music of 50 years ago, well, the 'K-Tel Collection' blog is a good place to see all the stuff issued by K-Tel from 1973 to 1984. Looking at the albums on display at the blog, there are quite a few songs that send me to YouTube for a listen. Or, you can check out Discogs and see what's available; many K-Tel LPs in Very Good or Like New condition are quite affordable. Go ahead, give it a try !

Book Review: The Death Cycle

 January is Gold Medal Books Month at the PorPor Books Blog

Book Review: 'The Death Cycle' by Charles Runyon

3 / 5 Stars

‘The Death Cycle’ (159 pp.) was published by Fawcett’s Gold Medal imprint in January 1963, as number s1268.

Charles W. Runyon (1928-2015) wrote a sizeable number of short stories and novels in the mystery, private eye, and sf genres during the 60s and 70s. Some of these saw publication under the house name 'Ellery Queen'. I consider his 1971 novel ‘Pig World’ to be an interesting, overlooked example of proto-Cyberpunk, while ‘Soulmate’ (1974) is a reasonably effective horror novel.

As ‘The Death Cycle’ opens our protagonists, Brett Phelan and his wife Jeanne, and Carl Newsome and his wife Doris, are on motorcycles, and on the run. It turns out that they have stolen $65,000 and are fleeing Chicago, where a jeweler was shot dead in the course of a robbery, for Southern Mexico.

Brett is not the nicest of men, and there is a rivalry between he and Carl that goes back to the days when they served in the same unit during the Korean War. For his part, Carl dislikes and distrusts Brett, but realizes that until they reach safety in Mexico, the two are obliged to work together.

Doris and Jeanne are complete opposites. Doris is, in the parlance of early 60 pulp fiction, a ‘nympho’ who constantly craves attention, while Jeanne’s life as Brett’s spouse has left her steeped in misery……and bruises.

As the couples travel ever closer to their final destination, where the money is to be split and separate ways taken, the likelihood of a double-cross looms ever larger. And the man to deliver it will be a sadistic Mexican pistolero nicknamed ‘Trinidad’…………

‘The Death Cycle’ is a serviceable, if not particularly imaginative, example of early 60s noir fiction. The novel is suffused with hard-boiled language, and here are some examples:

His blue eyes measured the world from a face that was locked up tight, like a house shuttered from a storm.

****

Sometimes she looked at them with the shocked fascination of a girl caught up in a lynch mob on her way to Sunday school.

****

When Frieda’s husband was away, her mind roiled with sexual fantasies which would make a Ciudad Juarez puta squirm uncomfortably on her pallet.

****

I’ve got a nose for death, thought Brett. I can smell people who are about to die.

***

And I encountered, for the first time in my life, the noun (?) ‘asininity’ within the pages of ‘The Death Cycle.’

I won’t disclose any spoilers, save to say that the conflict between Brett and Carl is resolved in a satisfactory way.

The verdict ? Those who like crime and suspense novels from the Gold Medal catalogue probably will find ‘The Death Cycle’ rewarding. Those accustomed to more sophisticated styles of writing may be disappointed.

National Lampoon January 1975

National Lampoon

January, 1975

Once again, let us travel back in time, fifty years in this case, to January, 1975, and the latest issue of the National Lampoon. The cover art, by Robert Grossman, depicts Father Time holding up a used condom.........that's Lampoon humor for you !

 

The Billboard Top 200 LP chart for early January 1975 indicates that Elton John's Greatest Hits album is atop the chart, followed by albums from Jethro Tull, Neil Diamond, the Ohio Players, and Joni Mitchell. So you have rock, pop, soul / R & B, Adult Contemporary, and folk, all represented.

At the Lampoon, P. J. O'Rourke now is executive editor, with Henry Beard and Doug Kenny still manning the editorial offices. The magazine is thriving, with lots and lots of  advertisements for high-end stereo equipment and record albums in its pages. At the beginning of '75, the singer-songwriter movement was getting a lot of attention from labels. You can find all the albums advertised below on YouTube. 

 

I've listened to some of them and I find them listenable, with the Ozark Mountain Daredevils' It'll Shine When It Shines a good LP. Poco's ad tells readers that the group is America's 'first and best country rock band,' a dig at the Eagles. Unfortunately, as 1975 unfolded Poco would struggle for commercial success, while the Eagles would only expand their dominance of the charts with the release of One of These Nights later in the year.

 

 

 

 

The Nostalgia Craze of the 1970s continues unabated; how else to explain Columbia, a major label at that time, flacking a packaging of old W. C. Fields radio programs ?! 

 

There are lots of comics in this January issue, one of the best being 'All New First High Comics,' from Doug Kenny and Joe Orlando. Not only does it satirize the romance comic books of the era, it delivers a great last panel. And, the character 'Dave Wheatjeans' seems to have been the inspiration for Stephen Bishop's character in Animal House: 'I gave my love a cherry / that has no stone.........'

 

 

 

 

 

Do you want nudies ? Well, as always, 'Foto Funnies' delivers !

This issue's magazine parody is Negligent Mother, which, in its own snide way, reminds us that fifty years ago things like Child Protective Services were rarer, and less effective, then they are nowadays.

 

 

 

 

  

We'll close with 'Salvation Army Comics,' by Henry Beard, with art by Frank Springer. This is one of Beard's better pieces in those early years of the magazine. It avoids his highbrow approach to humor and instead goes for something more blunt and acidic..... I mean, Christian soldiers using flamethrowers on Bowery Bums ?! That's humor for you, from fifty years ago......

 

 

 

 

 

Book Review: Before It's Too Late

 January is Gold Medal Books Month at the PorPor Books Blog

Book Review: 'Before It's Too Late' by Lou Cameron

image courtesy of Paul Eng, Bookscans

2 / 5 Stars

'Before It's Too Late' (176 pp.) is Gold Medal Book No. R2197, and was published in January 1970.

Lou Cameron (1924 - 2010) wrote a small library of pulp fiction in all genres, particularly westerns (under the house name 'Tabor Evans').
 

'Too Late' is set in 1969, when twenty-four year-old Steve Warren comes back from the Vietnam war to his Midwestern hometown of Jefferson City. Needing a job, Warren signs on with the Ace Collection Agency and is given a tough, even dangerous, initial assignment: repossess an automobile from one 'Mau Mau' Fenwick, leader of the Jefferson City hippy tribe..... and something of a psychopath.

Warren's repossession goes off without incident. But then things get complicated when Mau Mau turns up dead, his body bruised and battered. As the investigation unfolds it becomes clear that something very odd is going on in Jefferson City, something that its leading citizens would rather not talk about.

Steve Warren teams up with a beautiful Israeli medical student to do some investigating of his own, as the bodies and the alibis begin to pile up..........

'Before It's Too Late' was something of a disappointment. The first half of the book displays Cameron's skills at pulp fiction writing: clean, straightforward prose; dialogue that is a bit dated by contemporary standards, but still believable; some vintage male chauvinism; and a set of nubile, pliant, and utterly groovy chicks.

Unfortunately, the second half of the novel suffers from Cameron's inability to keep the plot simple. So many red herrings, coincidences, and contrivances are thrown into the narrative that the final segment explaining Whodunit is over ten pages long. Even after re-reading it several times I still couldn't figure exactly, what, had happened.

Summing up, I can't call 'Before It's Too Late' a neglected Pulp Fiction Gem. Perhaps it's unfair to reason that Cameron, who made a living from cranking out as many books as he could, was going to take the time to craft a stellar work of fiction. However, this is one Gold Medal Book that likely can stay on the shelf.

January is Gold Medal Books Month at the PorPor Books Blog

 January is Gold Medal Books Month at the PorPor Books Blog

Here at the PorPor Books Blog, we like to take a break from reading and reviewing books on science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and instead profile books, fiction and nonfiction, from other genres and publication lines.

For January 2025, we're going to focus on those paperbacks of yore: Gold Medal Books. According to the Wiki entry, in 1950, "Roscoe Kent Fawcett wanted to establish a line of Fawcett paperbacks....Fawcett announced Gold Medal Books, their line of paperback originals." The Gold Medal line quickly became sales leaders, as they were marketed at the same retail outlets as were Fawcett's magazines. 

According to Bookscans, in 1955 Fawcett began issuing its paperbacks under its Crest label. The line continued to publish titles in varied genres, such as romance, spy thrillers, melodramas, Vaguely Sleazy, science fiction, crime / detective, and historical dramas.

Growing up as a paperback collector, I never paid all that much attention to the Gold Medal Books lineup. I considered Gold Medal books to be rather old-fashioned and obsolete. My attitude towards the imprint changed a bit in 1987 when I read 'The Black Lizard Anthology of Crime Fiction,' edited by Ed Gorman.

In his Introduction, Gorman looks fondly back to his youth when he first bought a Gold Medal book:

I still remember buying it. I could hardly forget. It packed the same charge on anxiety as purchasing one's first teenage beer.

The woman behind the counter of the place....peered down at me and said, "Pretty racy stuff, isn't it ?"

Outside, shut of the woman, I got my first good glimpse of it then in the new spring sunshine.

The cover, designed by the masterful Michael Hooks, depicted one of his wild but forlorn red-heads submissive at the feet of a hood with a .45 in his hand....The title was in yellow, as was the medallion in the upper right hand that would virtually change my life. 

Gold Medal book number 663 was DEATH TAKES THE BUS by Lionel White.

That was my first Gold Medal book.

I can't say that after reading Gorman's introduction I went out and snapped up every Gold Medal or Fawcett Crest paperback I could find, but when I did see these on the shelves of the used bookstores, and the titles lodged them in the detective / noir / private eye and sci-fi genres, well, I was a little more likely to buy them. 

One thing I learned rather quickly was that Gorman, in his nostalgia, was avoiding a rather blunt truth: many of the Gold Medal titles, regardless of the genre, weren't very good........

Having accumulated a small library of Gold Medal books over the years, I thought that I'd start off 2025 by reviewing a bunch of them. Few Gold Medal titles are over 200 pp. in length, so it wasn't that hard of a journey in terms of sitting down and finishing six or seven of them. 

It's well worth noting that the ability to compose a novel of short length, however commonplace it may have been 60-70 years ago, is a dying attribute. The 'Cormoran Strike' detective novels by J. K. Rowling (using the pen name 'Robert Galbraith') are over 900 pages (some over 1,000 pages) in length. I can't imagine reading a detective novel that requires 900 pages.

Anyways, with the asking prices for Gold Medal and Fawcett Crest books increasing with each passing year, hopefully these reviews will inform any decisions by my blog audience to invest in these titles.