I'm in love. With my dear wife of course. That one is a constant. I'm talking about a book here as a new found object of my affections. About once every few years I find a book or author that I just simply find amazing. As a kid it was Edgar Rice Burroughs "Tarzan of the Apes", then J. R. R. Tolkein's "The Hobbit", next Robert E. Heinlein's "Citizen of the Galaxy", and Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles" - later on it was Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Conqueror". Later still it was Jack Vance's "The Dying Earth" and Karl Edward Wagner's "Death Angel's Shadow". In college it was David Morrell's "First Blood" and Raymond Chandler's "Farewell, My Lovely". Adulthood (am I an adult? opinions vary) brought the discovery of different types of authors such as Ken Kesey's "Sometimes A Great Notion", Paul Auster's "City of Glass", Ursula K. LeGuin's "A Wizard of Earthsea", Jane Austen with "Pride and Prejudice" Fredric Brown's "The Fabulous Clipjoint" and P. G. Wodehouse with the Jeeves short stories. I could go on, but probably should have stopped a bit back. If you get the feeling that I love certain books to the point of obsession, then you'd be correct. I don't know of any other way to describe the feeling of discovering a new great author though...
The point is, I've started reading a book that ranks up there with these others in terms of the effect it has had on me. I just started it recently, but it is so good I literally have to force myself to put it down and go do other things, otherwise I'd get nothing done but read it. Of course, it is summer so I guess that's ok...
The book I'm raving about is "The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril" by Paul Malmont. It's set in 1937 about the time of H. P. Lovecraft's death, and besides Lovecraft includes Walter Gibson (author of The Shadow novels), Lester Dent (author of the Doc Savage novels), L. Ron Hubbard (a pulp author before he came up with Scientology), E. E. "Doc" Smith (noted pulp science fiction author) and others. If that doesn't sound interesting to you let me assure anyone who loves a good read that you don't have to be a fan of the old pulp authors to love this book, which so far is well written and interesting. The rivalries between authors, most of whom were writing like crazy just to eat during the Depression, (a great incentive in defeating 'writer's block' one would imagine) along with Malmont's gift at storytelling and portraying various characters realistically make this a compelling story once you get into it, which for me was by page 2.
Still it does help to be interested in the days when heroes like Doc Savage and The Shadow and Conan and Sam Spade and others were the only entertainment many folks had. I'm up to episode (chapter) 7 of the book and I hope to finish in the next day or two, at which time I'll post a review. I'd probably have finished it already but the Olympic Trials track meet took up much of my attention over the weekend (more on that later), so I'm behind on promised reviews of Charles R. Saunders' "Imaro" and "Imaro II", as well as Manly Wade Wellman's "Hok the Mighty", not to mention a bit of promised housework and some minor paperwork that I told my bosses (under duress) that I'd drive in and do at school soon. Hopefully my wife and Principal Ben will understand that Walter Gibson's quest to find out what happened to his good friend H. P. Lovecraft take precedence. Meanwhile my daughter is crying for the computer, so I guess I'll just go back to "The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril"... When I last left Ron Hubbard had just called a meeting of the American Fiction Guild to order, a group including Cornell Woolrich (of Rear Window fame) whose mother attends most meetings with him...not that there's anything wrong with that...
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