Thu 25 Aug 2016
A Pulp Fiction Mystery Review by Walter Albert: PAUL MALMONT – The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril.
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Reviews[6] Comments
PAUL MALMONT – The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 2006; softcover, June 2007.
I picked up my copy of this novel, set in the pulp era and featuring as rival protagonists, Walter Gibson and Lester Dent, at the 2006 Pulpcon, where most of the feedback from readers was not encouraging.
At 370 pages and managing the (I would have thought) almost unimaginable feat of making Gibson relatively unlikable, the novel crams in so many pulp writers and references that it finally collapses under their cumulative weight during an unwieldy and protracted climax.
Dent’s wife Norma plays a major role in the developing plot and Gibson’s exotic lady friend adds a modicum of spicy but tame sexual nonsense. Otherwise this is for the boys, especially those who want to recapture the thrills and color of the pulps second-hand.
My advice? If you really want to savor the elusive perfumes of the pulps, try the real thing. There are numerous anthologies and facsimile reprints of the magazines that will let you sample their multi-hued wares and, as cheesy and far-fetched as some of them may be, they have more flavor and drive than anything you will find in the pages of this clearly affectionate but tedious tribute.
Bibliographic Note: The sequel to this, Paul Malmont’s first novel, was The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown (2011) which features science-fiction authors Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov as its two primary protagonists.
August 25th, 2016 at 7:29 pm
I agree with Walter. I wanted to like this book, but it just didn’t work for me.
August 25th, 2016 at 8:18 pm
It is a shame this isn’t very good. The sequel is better — much better for a good part of the novel — but the finale of it is a quite a letdown.
Heinlein in particular makes a nice protagonist, the very embodiment of the “Heinlein Individual”…
August 25th, 2016 at 9:27 pm
There was a lot of hoopla about the book when it first came out, at least among pulp collectors — and I think Paul Malmont sold lot of copies at that year’s Pulpcon. But as Walter pointed out, a lot of people who bought it were disappointed, including me.
August 25th, 2016 at 9:37 pm
I dipped into a sample of this on Kindle and passed. Glad I did now.
August 26th, 2016 at 9:52 pm
Has anyone read Max Allan Collins THE WAR OF THE WORLDS MURDER in which Walter Gibson and Orson Welles are characters?
August 26th, 2016 at 11:23 pm
Not only have I not read it, Randy, I don’t believe I ever heard of it, and I have no idea why not. It sounds exactly like something I’d love to read.
Of course I thought that about Malmont’s book, too, but Collins is an author I’d put some trust in, sight unseen.