--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Moore"
<moorich@...> wrote:
>
> Just read this as I have been offline for a few
days. I too am a
> little puzzled as to why Avram Davidson's CRIMES AND
CHAOS has
> remained out of print when other works by him have
been
published. I
> would guess that the mainstream publishers did not
see enough
sales
> of the St. Martin collections to justify going
deeper into his
> backlist. The small publishers are typically
oriented toward
> specific genres. CRIMES AND CHAOS being true crime
would not fit
the
> list of the SF, fantasy or mystery small press
publishers.
Happily, Davidson's fiction published in COMMENTARY and other
Jewish magazines, most of which predates his work for
F&SF and EQMM and other fantastic-fiction and
crime-fiction digests, found a publisher: EVERYBODY HAS
SOMEBODY IN HEAVEN (Devora, 2000).
> I was interested in your statement that THE
ENQUIRIES OF DOCTOR
> ESTERHAZY is Davidson's magnum opus and that MASTERS
OF THE MAZE
was
> his most successful novel. I agree with the opinion
on the
Esterhazy
> series, wonderfully textured stories, but I thought
mine was a
> minority viewpoint. As to the novel MASTERS OF THE
MAZE, I read
it
> when it was a new paperback from Pryamid more than
forty years ago
> and felt it captured an alien viewpoint or
strangeness as well as
> anything I had ever read. I seem to recall that
critics of the
time
> felt it began quite well but lost steam by the last
half. It is a
> novel I need to reread.
More true, I'd say, of THE PHOENIX AND THE MIRROR and most of
Davidson's other novels of the 1960s...though, I too, have
yet to read the reassembled SCARLET FIG or the central volume
of the trilogy. I've yet to read Davidson's two Ellery Queen
ghost-jobs yet, too. His novel in collaboration with Grania
Davis, MARCO POLO AND THE SLEEPING BEAUTY, and the his first
novel, the collaboration with Ward Moore, JOYLEG, don't
suffer nearly as much from Having Sold It on Chapters and
Outline I Now Must Finish The Damned Thing Syndrome.
Todd Mason
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