Ed Gorman's Blog, page 256

A sequel to the Shining?

Ed here: This is from The Torontoist from Nov 20, link provided by The Wrap) Be great to see what King and David Cronenberg could come up with. My two favorite King films are still The Dead Zone and Cujo (I know, I know: but before you ask Cujo? Huh? See it again.)

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"Last night at Toronto's packed Canon Theatre, fans of Stephen King were treated to a 15-minute reading from the author's new novel, Under the Dome, and nearly an hour's worth of typically funny anecdotes and keen o...

Forgotten Books: A Hidden Place by Robert Charles Wilson

Forgotten Books: A Hidden Place by Robert Charles Wilson

In the course of a year I usually read twenty or twenty five novels that impress me. Some for characterization, some for story, some for milieu. But I rarely read a novel that astonishes me.

When Robert Charles Wilson's first novel A Hidden Place appeared as a Bantam paperback original in 1986, I wasn't sure what to make of it. I received it along with three or four other science fiction Bantams. I think I put it on the bottom of the stac...

Being prolific;Raymond Carver-Stephen King

Tonight Duane Swierczynski on Secret Dead Blog quotes from a New Yorker series from the 1930s called Legends of The Underwood. The man profiled is Arthur J. Burk, a pulp magazine stalwart who said he wrote four thousand words a day but could do triple that if need be.

I've written a fair amount of fiction in thirty-some years but I was never fast. I've always done a thousand or fifteen hundred words a day. There were times I was doing two thousand but they never lasted. Writing tires me. And s...

Levinson vs. Stanley

I'll state my prejudices up front: Alessandra Stanley, columnist for the New York Times is one of the dimmest and most pretentious culture vultures of our time. That she is usually wrong is not the issue--it's that she often ASTONISHINGLY wrong.

Recently she drubbed director Barry Levinson for his film Poliwood, an indictment of the intersection of politics and entertainment. Just about everybody with eyes, ears and common sense applauded the film. Not Stanley, of course.

Levinson responded...

Joseph Losey; Lester Dent

I've mentioned The Film Noir Foundation before. The estimable Eddie Muller founded it and continues to present noir in all its aspects around the world--and present it in the most intelligent and compelling ways possible. By sending a contribution to the Foundation you'll receive The Noir City Sentinel when it appears. This magazine is the finest ongoing history of noir I've ever seen. Here's how to contact the Foundation. http://www.filmnoirfoundation.org/ (By the way I want to thank Vince ...

Lester, we hardly knew ye

Over on Davey Crockett's Almanac http://davycrockettsalmanack.blogspot... writer Evan Lewis reviews the Lester Dent novel Dead At The Take-Off, which I immediately ordered on Abe.

Dent's always fascinated me. He wrote something like eighty Doc Savage novels and maybe forty Avenger novels plus numerous other pulp stories all the while wanting to be taken more seriously by his peers. He seemed to be on his way with his story Anglefish, which is still frequently reprinted. That was his Black M...

Harlequin - bad idea or good idea?

Ed here: The Harlequin folks have announced that they're going into big time into self-publishing. While a glance at various websites seem to be dominated by people against the move some writers apparently think it's a good--or at least inevitable--idea.

Here are three letters from Smart Bitches:

PK said on...
11.17.09 at 05:40 AM
Wow! This is big news. I mean with the proliferation of self-publishing and in some cases, leading to a regular publishing contract, Harlequin is making a bold and pr...

Shout-Out To Lee Goldberg: Best!

Lee Goldberg has been admirably exposing the self-publishing racket for several years now. When somebody asks me about publishing a book him-or herself I e-mail them Lee's website url. He makes his case with facts and figures. They always dismiss my lack of enthusiasm for self-publishing as "snobbishness." One of them even had a friend call me to tell me how "happy she is" with her self-published book. So there.

Lee has probably covered this but since I ran across it in Laura Miller's column...

Barb and Max Allan Collins; Zane Grey Theater

From Barb and Al Collins:

Book Signing: Mystery Cat Books, Cedar Rapids, IA, 2 - 4 pm

Barb and I are signing at Mystery Cat Books this Saturday. We'll have both QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE and ANTIQUES FLEE MARKET available, and many rare out-of-print M.A.C. items will be on hand, as well. It's possible Ed Gorman may drop by, which provides a sighting opportunity second only to Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.

----------------------------------Dick Powell

Happy hoofer, hardboiled star, TV production ...

City That Never Sleeps

Last night we watched a fierce little B+ movie called City That Never Sleeps (1953). This was one of the films Herbert Yates hoped would convince Hollywood and distributors alike that Republic Pictures could produce more than programmers. The days when Gene Autry and Roy Rogers brought in millions were over. TV now gave away cowboys and old serials free.

After it was over I went to IMDB to see what some others thought of it. Thirty-one people posted opinions and nearly all of them mentioned tw...