Hard Boiled

[threemonkeys]

I read Classic Detective Stories - as you expect, a bunch of detective tales from the 30's onwards. Nothing to say specifically about the stories, they were a pretty good bunch of characteristic tales of the genre. They did get me thinking about the detective fiction genre and the parallels that it has with SF though. From the short story based start in the pulp magazines through to the novel and series based genre of today they have broadly the same path. It also struck me, that the detective and broader crime & mystery fiction genre has always been a step ahead of SF. It started earlier and got into novels in a big way earlier.

That got me a little concerned about one aspect. It is pretty hard to see any new crime genre short story collections about these days. At least when you look on the SF shelves there are still a handful of recent anthologies and author collections available. Plus, of course, there are still a few magazines around. I wondered, with some pessimism, whether the state of the crime & mystery shelves was a portent for the SF shelves when short fiction disappears altogether.

I am therefore somewhat relieved to record that a few short fiction crime titles can be found on Amazon. Even better, I am pleased to see that Ellery Queen's Mystery magazine is still being published - even if the covers still look like they come from 1941.

There is another point. Reading these classic tales, I came to the conclusion that I prefer detective fiction in the longer forms. Stripped down to its essentials of setup and solution it seems to lack depth - perhaps it was because I was able to immediately deduce the mysteries as soon as the scenario was developed. Shorter SF can have all kinds of depth and complexity. Perhaps that will let it keep its rather precarious grip on the shelves.

Comments

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

There's a lot more short story magazines than you see on the shelves -- because most of them are electronic.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

I certainly know of a good few in the SF field and I assumed that would probably be true in crime & mystery as well. But that is, in itself, a symptom of the withdrawl of support for the short form from the major publishers. The money, such as it is, is still in paper.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

There are a couple of online for the love of it crime zines. Alfred Hitchcock's is still going, too.

Who edited the book you are reading?

Given your title I am reading an anthology at the moment that is actually called Hardboiled. By Bill Pronzini. Rather good.

Certainly is true that reading mystery/crime stories after bunches of SF can mean the former seem really simple.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Actually, it was a Reader's Digest collection - nobody admits to editing those. What that also means is that the stories were probably chosen for their simplicity anyway.

The hardboiled title got picked just because I spotted the term on the EQMM site - I hadn't seen it for ages despite a liking for stories of that kind.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I have been looking at that a bit myself lately.

If you look here, there are some links to that sort of thing I have rounded up if you browse the 'study' section here :-
http://notfreesfreader.googlepages.com/freesfreaderblogLIST.htm

if you are interested.

there's a blog called Crime Zine report which would get you to the online crime mags, too :-

http://crimezine.blogspot.com/

There's a mailing list called RARA-AVIS which has some resources for the noir inclined, as well, and a very recent discussion a guy was after anthologies of the like.

There's a bunch of Dashiell Hammett stories online (above list will get that, too). Also one by Leigh Brackett. There's a Paul Cain collection 'Seven Slayers' online, as well.

The Black Lizard Big Book Of Pulps could break your arm - also split up into Pulp Fiction the Crimefighters, Pulp Fiction the Villains, Pulp Fiction the Dames.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Ooh thanks for that. Especially the Hammett - I'm off to hunt those down right now.