Tue 3 Jul 2012
Reviewed by Marv Lachman: Five FREDRIC BROWN Collections.
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Reviews[11] Comments
In a very imaginative job of publishing, Dennis McMillan Publications has collected many of the early pulp mysteries of Fredric Brown and published five paperback collections, at $5.95 each: Before She Kills, The Freak Show Murders, Homicide Sanitarium, Pardon My Ghoulish Laughter, and 30 Corpses Every Thursday, which contain introductions by William F. Nolan, Richard Lupoff, Bill Pronzini, Donald Westlake, and William Campbell Gault, respectively.
Each introduction limns a different aspect of Brown’s life and work. No, these stories aren’t quite as well written as Brown’s later novels. After all, he was a more experienced writer when he penned The Fabulous Clipjoint and The Lenient Beast.
Still, they’re just as readable, and what a joy to be able to read material from forgotten pulps of the early 1940’s like Thrilling Detective, G-Man Detective, Clues, Popular Detective, Ten Detective Aces, Strange Detective Mysteries, and Phantom Detective.
Homicide Sanitarium even contains Brown’s very first story, “The Moon for a Nickel,” from the March 1938 Detective Story Magazine.
Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter 1989.
Editorial Comments: In all Dennis McMillan did something like 18 collections of Fredric Brown’s shorter work, including poetry and some non-fiction, most of them appearing after this review was published.
This is the first of several reviews of anthologies and short story collections that Marv Lachman wrote for this same issue of The MYSTERY FANcier. Look for most of them to be posted here over the next few weeks.
July 3rd, 2012 at 12:18 pm
I very foolishly did not buy these when McMillan first published them. My thinking was that $5.95 was more than I could afford at the time, and besides I already had most of the stories in the original magazines.
These earlier ones sold well, so it isn’t too difficult to obtain nice copies for $20 or less, but as another example, #12 in the series, Who Was That Blonde I Saw You Kill Last Night?, which came out in hardcover only (I think), would now set a would-be buyer back some $85 and up.
Regretfully yours, Steve.
July 3rd, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Steve – Same here. I could kick myself for passing them up when I had the chance to get them (relatively) cheaply.
July 3rd, 2012 at 2:54 pm
Good news for all us foolish Brown collectors who did not buy the McMillan books when they first came out. Haffner Press will soon be publishing the collected Brown stories in all the genres except for the SF. The first two volumes are announced on the Haffner Press website.
July 3rd, 2012 at 4:33 pm
Good news, indeed, Walker. Books from Haffner Press are always well done, and I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.
Here’s a link to use: http://www.haffnerpress.com/
July 3rd, 2012 at 5:07 pm
My first response to this review was that very reasonable price too, but like you, Steve, I might have found it too steep at the time and chosen a different author to collect. Looking at the prices of the Haffner Press editions, nicely produced or not, I will pass. I might be tempted by the complete I. V. Frost stories on the same website. That’s a character who has intrigued me since I came across the stories in Street & Smith’s CLUES while looking for a reported Nick Carter appearance in the same magazine. However, I have the Fedogan & Bremer collection and I still haven’t read it! Too many books, too little time!
July 3rd, 2012 at 7:30 pm
I started on the hardback editions about halfway through the run and picked up the earlier ones with relative ease and affordability except for “Sex Life on the Planet Mars” which has an intro by Willeford. The lowest price I remember seeing was $150.00 which I wasn’t willing to pay. I believe today’s price is something in the $800.00 range! Would I be correct in saying that the Short Story is what Brown did best? There are some novels which I think are very well done, such as “The Far Cry”, “The Fabulous Clipjoint” (which most people I know don’t like), etc. But
I’d rather read his short stories over the novels most of all.
July 3rd, 2012 at 10:27 pm
Actually, when you think about it the Haffner Press collections of Brown’s short stories are a bargain. These are big collections reprinting stories that would be very hard and very expensive to find in the original pulp magazines. Even the McMillan reprints are often very expensive.
I’ll gladly pay $40 each for the Brown collections and if you get the special offer the price drops to $35 each, postage included. I bet Steve will not pass these up like he did the McMillan collections. I know I will not and I already have my order in.
I understand the argument about too many books but I say you can never have too many books. Maybe you can have too few books, but not too many!
July 4th, 2012 at 9:25 am
Paul
I’m with you. His novels are good, but I enjoy reading his short stories even more.
I’m not sure about this, but if he’d written only his novels, there’s a possibility that he’d be as forgotten and obscure today as lots of other excellent mystery writers of the 50s and 60s are, starting alphabetically, for example, with David Alexander.
That’s why I think Walker is on awfully safe grounds with that bet he proposes. The books are pricey, but well worth the money when the author is one of your favorites.
–Steve
July 4th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
I picked up a copy of THE FREAK SHOW MURDERS quite cheaply a few years ago, and loved it. I felt that the intro (by Dick Lupoff if I remember correctly) was terribly rude about Golden Age mysteries at the expense of ‘Hard Boiled’. That seemed odd,as I’ve never really found Brown to be a proponent of ‘Hard Boiled’. He wasn’t a traditional GA writer, but he was too quirky and individual to be a traditional tough writer, either.
July 4th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
I think of Brown as being much closer to the Hard-Boiled school than he was a Golden Age of Detection writer, right around Medium-Boiled perhaps, on his best days. “quirky and individual”? That pins him down!
July 4th, 2012 at 5:08 pm
I’m always being surprised by Brown when I read him. There was a story that he wrote about the rise and fall of a young gangster, which is about as hard-boiled as you can get. However, it’s told from the point of view of Satan and his devils, who are waiting for him to meet his inevitable, violent end and plummet down to Hell. I can’t really imagine anyone else writing that story.
The mood of his writing is often closer to Hard-Boiled (THE FABULOUS CLIP-JOINT for instance), but there is a genuine love for ingenious plotting and last minute twists that seems closer to GA. He was just a one-off!