Just received copies of 2 recent hb anthologies, courtesy of
Amazon, a couple of days ago: THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF PULP ACTION
ed. by Maxim Jakubowski & A CENTURY OF NOIR ed. by Max
Allan Collins & Mickey Spillane. (I'm becoming a convert
to Amazon - I'd ordered MAMMOTH from my main local bookshop
when the UK ed. first came out - I heard nothing for months,
then was told it had just gone out of print; later I ordered
the US ed when it came out - a couple of days later I get a
notice saying they couldn't get the US ed. Eventually, I
ordered it through Amazon - they had a deal going on this
& CENTURY OF NOIR together - 12 days later it arrived at
my door. Doing my sums, I found that even with exorbitant
postage fees the 2 books probably cost me at most $5-10Aus
more (in US money, a little over half that figure)than
purchasing them locally, assuming that I could get them
locally.Considering the reliability & convenience
factors, well worth it). My joy was somewhat mitigated by
discovering that the out of 32 stories in the NOIR anthology,
I already possessed copies of 16 of them in other
anthologies. Particularly annoying is the fact that almost
all of these stories have been anthologised at least once in
books co-edited by the ubiquitous Martin Greenberg &
according to what Collins says in the intro, Greenberg &
his staff were vital in selecting stories. (Spillane, who is
credited as co-editor here doesn't appear to have done much
more than chosen which Collins story was selected). Don't get
me wrong, folks, the stories selected are top-flight stuff
but for someone like me who buys these anthologies
compulsively the amount of redundancy is just ludicrous. A
plea to any future anthologists out there: Ross Macdonald's
GUILT-EDGED BLONDE doesn't need to be done again. Really.
What gets me is knowing that there is so much untouched
material out there (how many scores of issues of mags like
BLACK MASK, DIME DETECTIVE, MANHUNT & ghod knows how many
gems there are scattered in scores of other old mags, etc)
& yet an anthology like this comes across as being mostly
chosen from other anthologies. I understand that there are
exigencies of publishing, etc, that I do not understand but
to me this seems to be just sheer laziness at best. I mean,
the research didn't have to go much further than:"Hey Marty,
how many of these stories you're recommending - or I want to
use - have you already used & how many times have you
used them?" On the brighter side, Jakubowski looks like he
went out of his way to put together a volume of stories that
would be new to most people. Out of 23 stories, there are
only 3 that overlap with other antho's I own, & 2 of
those are hard to get & the third one is the same Fred
Brown story featured in NOIR.I should stress here that if you
don't own any (or many) other hb anthologies then the Collins
book is an excellent buy, as is the Jakubowski (probably - I
haven't read most of the stories yet). However, if like me
you've grabbed every one of these hb antho's that's come past
then you may want to check the contents carefully to decide
if it's worth your money. Either way, the Jako book would be
a good buy & it's worth checking out the Amazon deal on
the 2 books if you find you have to have NOIR as well.
Rene
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