"Reality is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there." -John Barth
by Dashiell Hammett “At one time or another I’ve had to tell everybody from the Supreme Court down to go to hell, and I’ve got away with it. I got away with it because I never let myself forget that a day of reckoning was coming.” In his debut, hard-boiled detective Sam Spade’s partner is... Continue Reading →
by Frederik Pohl Rob Broadhead, a food miner working in terrible conditions, wins the lottery and decides to use all proceeds to purchase a one-way ticket to Gateway, an abandoned alien space station featuring built-in ships taking explorers to unknown destinations in space. Less than one-third of the ships ever come back, and may that... Continue Reading →
by Various Authors, Harlan Ellison (Ed.) Riots are the opium of the people. Some say it’s past its time, that when it was first published it may have been ‘dangerous,’ but today much of the book is downright tame with many of the ideas presented in the 1960’s blunted with time. Dangerous Visions has most... Continue Reading →
by John Varley Onto this stage of dashed hopes, as he had so many times before, strode the Devil. Science fiction grandmaster John Varley serves up his greatest stories in this retrospective collection. And his agenda becomes clear quite quickly. He’s not wrong. He holds no apparent ill will to the human race and laments... Continue Reading →
by Cornell Woolrich “I haven’t an enemy in the world.” “No man can safely say that until after his death.” A young man meets the love of his life every day at 8 p.m. in front of the local drugstore. One days he’s running a couple of minutes late, and when he arrives she’s been... Continue Reading →
by Paul Cain This is going to be a lot of fun, even if it doesn’t work. Fast One (novel) Kells, a tough guy, gun-for-hire and one man army, is asked to enter into a partnership with a city crime boss in order to stave off rivals due to Kells’ heavy reputation. A bloodbath is... Continue Reading →
by Patricia Highsmith There was a specious ease about everything, like the moment just before something was going to explode. Tom Ripley, right off the bat known as a spurious character as he ducks into a bar to hide from an unknown pursuer who could be after him for numerous reasons, finds himself conning a... Continue Reading →
by William Lindsay Gresham “I've given ‘em mentalism and they treat it like a dog walking on his hind legs. Okay. They're asking for it. Here it comes." As a young man, Stan finds himself joining a carnival. He begins learning the ropes of selecting marks, prying money from their hands, and finds himself a... Continue Reading →
by James M. Cain “Stealing a man’s wife, that’s nothing, but stealing his car, that’s larceny.” A rambler gets thrown off the truck on which he’s been sneaking a ride and finds himself at a small restaurant/gas station. He sees the owner’s stunner of a wife and decides to accept a job offer at the... Continue Reading →
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