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Old July 27th, 2012 #1
Alex Linder
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In this thread I will post succinct notes on pop books as distinct from serious lit, which i will post on elsewhere. Mostly crime stuff, like businessmen read. There's no reason to read these other than escapism, just to hear about someone else's problems when you have low energy.

Let's say I'm on a quest: to find the one cop novel that doesn't have the usual stereotyping.

Read a bunch of these when my computer was broken in February, but don't have those notes in front of me.

Kellerman, Jonathan: The Murder Book (2002).

bio: Kellerman is a jew from NYC who moved to LA; he is a psychologist as well as very successful novelist

hero: psychiatrist, queer detective, reformed nig junkie and straightlaced nig police chief

bad guys: rich spoiled white guys

notes: story takes place around LAl; one of the main degenerate rich families is Cossack (jews hate Cossacks), and the one good rich guy is named Obey. apart from 50 pages describing the interaction of "Pierce Schwinn," a wizened beat cop, and newcomer queer det. Milo Sturgis, this book is quite boring.

PC stereotypes grade: 100%


Gardner, Lisa: Catch Me (2012)

bio: appears ordinary WASP living in NE, has written 14 novels

- have only read a few pages but already the victim is a white pedophile living in a black housing project, where he sex-snuffs larval aspiring rap producers. Two of the cops have just begun dating. Those would be Neil and Ben.

Last edited by Alex Linder; July 28th, 2012 at 12:50 AM.
 
Old July 27th, 2012 #2
N.B. Forrest
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I enjoy a good escapist crime/thriller novel myself. Simon Wood's We All Fall Down is quite good. So are T. Jefferson Parker's Where Serpents Lie & Summer of Fear. An outfit called Hard Case Crime puts out old & old-style new detective thrillers that are often diverting as well.

http://www.hardcasecrime.com/index.shtml
 
Old July 28th, 2012 #3
Alex Linder
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Originally Posted by N.B. Forrest View Post
I enjoy a good escapist crime/thriller novel myself. Simon Wood's We All Fall Down is quite good. So are T. Jefferson Parker's Where Serpents Lie & Summer of Fear. An outfit called Hard Case Crime puts out old & old-style new detective thrillers that are often diverting as well.

http://www.hardcasecrime.com/index.shtml
Appreciate the mention. Do they contain non-PC characters? That's the main focus of this thread, but any good books can be mentioned too.

I'm just staying in touch with what ordinary people are reading. It always amazes me that the reading public tolerates this utterly jejune stereotyping, yet it keeps buying these books.
 
Old July 28th, 2012 #4
N.B. Forrest
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Appreciate the mention. Do they contain non-PC characters? That's the main focus of this thread, but any good books can be mentioned too.
The old Hard Case reprints from the '50s-'70s do. Parker's Summer of Fear features a White racist villain who goes around clubbing muds to death, and his Where Serpents Lie has a White child kidnapper/killer who feeds them to his pet anaconda....but when it comes to page-turner readability, they're good.
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I'm just staying in touch with what ordinary people are reading. It always amazes me that the reading public tolerates this utterly jejune stereotyping, yet it keeps buying these books.
Some of the worst shit is the romance novels women devour: look at how many of the covers feature white-male-model-with-deep-tan "Indian braves" embracing swooning, scantily-clad White women to their muscled bronze chests..... Of course, I don't actually READ those.....
 
Old July 30th, 2012 #5
Alex Linder
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Originally Posted by N.B. Forrest View Post
The old Hard Case reprints from the '50s-'70s do. Parker's Summer of Fear features a White racist villain who goes around clubbing muds to death, and his Where Serpents Lie has a White child kidnapper/killer who feeds them to his pet anaconda....but when it comes to page-turner readability, they're good.
I'll look for those. I found some great free old pulps online last year, but I can't remember the guy's name, and it's on my old busted computer. Thing I like is the old writers would give you something. So many of these writers, it's like an exercise. It's not really interesting, it's not really entertaining. The women mystery writers are the worst at this. You just don't get anything from them - no thrills, no entertainment, no education. Whereas a good pulp writer will put you in the pocket of some guy who's traveling the Southern cock-fighting circuit, dealing with crooks and women and rivals - a piece of a world that's interesting and completely foreign to my own. So I actually come away entertained and knowing a little about cock-fighting, something I didn't know anything about. Now that is popular entertainment. Michael Crichton, now dead, was a truly good pop writer, a more recent one. He was an M.D., and he did actual research. He wrote just a brilliant opening set piece in a pirate book that appeared after his death. He talks about the governor of the island performing his morning toilet and damn, it totally puts you in position to really see and feel what it's like to be the man in that position on this sweaty isle. So many writers write as if it's a crime to be entertaining, or someone might catch them being funny.
 
Old July 30th, 2012 #6
N.B. Forrest
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I'll look for those. I found some great free old pulps online last year, but I can't remember the guy's name, and it's on my old busted computer. Thing I like is the old writers would give you something. So many of these writers, it's like an exercise. It's not really interesting, it's not really entertaining. The women mystery writers are the worst at this. You just don't get anything from them - no thrills, no entertainment, no education. Whereas a good pulp writer will put you in the pocket of some guy who's traveling the Southern cock-fighting circuit, dealing with crooks and women and rivals - a piece of a world that's interesting and completely foreign to my own. So I actually come away entertained and knowing a little about cock-fighting, something I didn't know anything about. Now that is popular entertainment. Michael Crichton, now dead, was a truly good pop writer, a more recent one. He was an M.D., and he did actual research. He wrote just a brilliant opening set piece in a pirate book that appeared after his death. He talks about the governor of the island performing his morning toilet and damn, it totally puts you in position to really see and feel what it's like to be the man in that position on this sweaty isle. So many writers write as if it's a crime to be entertaining, or someone might catch them being funny.
In this age of self-publishing, taking a crack at writing a pulp novel could be a potential money-spinner. I sometimes imagine giving it a go myself, but my lack of detailed knowledge of the technical workings of many aspects of society holds me back.

I bet that you, on the other hand, could do it with ease, and make a tidy bundle, too.
 
Old July 30th, 2012 #7
N.B. Forrest
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The women mystery writers are the worst at this. You just don't get anything from them - no thrills, no entertainment, no education.
I've read one crime novel written by a woman, and that will be all.
 
Old July 31st, 2012 #8
Alex Linder
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Originally Posted by N.B. Forrest View Post
In this age of self-publishing, taking a crack at writing a pulp novel could be a potential money-spinner. I sometimes imagine giving it a go myself, but my lack of detailed knowledge of the technical workings of many aspects of society holds me back.
What do you mean? Inner politics or corporate stuff?

Quote:
I bet that you, on the other hand, could do it with ease, and make a tidy bundle, too.
Flattering, but I'd bet on you before me. Any novel I tried to write would end up being a bunch of jokes punctuated with over-the-top violence and extensive political lectures. I have no sympathy for people and I'm didactic as fuck and I suck at plot construction and narrative pacing, and all those are what make good novelists. Storytelling is a very different thing from writing talent. Remember Twain hated wordplay. He was expert in using words, but he never played with them.

Summer of Fear online (most of it, anyway)
http://books.google.com/books/about/...d=4ujV6DNOQRoC

Last edited by Alex Linder; July 31st, 2012 at 12:07 AM.
 
Old July 31st, 2012 #9
N.B. Forrest
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What do you mean? Inner politics or corporate stuff?
"Corporate" stuff. Say I wanted to write a contemporary crime novel: I'd have some trouble writing convincingly about all the details of a police investigation, or the detailed workings of banks for a bank heist yarn. I'd need to do the research we hear about writers doing, but I'm not really sure how to go about it.

Quote:
Flattering, but I'd bet on you before me. Any novel I tried to write would end up being a bunch of jokes punctuated with over-the-top violence and extensive political lectures. I have no sympathy for people and I'm didactic as fuck and I suck at plot construction and narrative pacing, and all those are what make good novelists. Storytelling is a very different thing from writing talent. Remember Twain hated wordplay. He was expert in using words, but he never played with them.
Coming up with good story ideas is the biggest stumbling block of all. I can slap words together in a relatively entertaining manner, but mind-farting up a highly-detailed book-length plot with lots of dramatic twists and proper pacing is heavy sledding. It would be good to come up with something that portrays a tough, worldly-wise White man battling kikes in a positive light, but it would have to be in a way that doesn't club the reader over the head.
 
Old September 29th, 2012 #10
Alex Linder
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"Corporate" stuff. Say I wanted to write a contemporary crime novel: I'd have some trouble writing convincingly about all the details of a police investigation, or the detailed workings of banks for a bank heist yarn. I'd need to do the research we hear about writers doing, but I'm not really sure how to go about it.
I'd say just make it up. The very most boring cop-fic out there is by these apple-polisher A-student girlie detective writers. In their credits they invariably thank the Santa Luna psycho brigade and nipple-printing experts at the FBI academy of mammalian mammary identification. Once they know the boring minutiae, it kills their inventiveness, which was never too strong to begin with.

Then again, the opposite view is that it's just that technical detail that the gun fags and weapons homos get off in, for best example, nebbish insurance agent Tom Clancy.

I think in the end you have to write what you like, and trust there's a class of people who goes for the same thing.

The mass market is not bothered by the absence of any kind of genuine thoughtfulness because it doesn't think. Conventional character types and conventional motivations are all it wants. It's not that it doesn't miss something deeper, it doesn't WANT it.

Look at probably the best-selling international spy/mystery writer of all time, Robert Ludlum. He's as smooth a writer as there is, but it's all on one level: giving you the details of a neighborhood in Paris, Zurich or Buenos Aires. When it comes to actual philosophy or interesting ideas, he'll average out at about one page in a hundred with any kind of philosophy or idea-speculation.

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Coming up with good story ideas is the biggest stumbling block of all.
They seem pretty repetitive to me. Same stereotypes. Same good/bad guys. Same plots. Just make a couple tweaks. The audience doesn't want something new, they want something established. These are people who are uncomfortable with change and who want their world view confirmed, not questioned.

Quote:
I can slap words together in a relatively entertaining manner, but mind-farting up a highly-detailed book-length plot with lots of dramatic twists and proper pacing is heavy sledding. It would be good to come up with something that portrays a tough, worldly-wise White man battling kikes in a positive light, but it would have to be in a way that doesn't club the reader over the head.
Oh, you can do it. Read the people who are "NYT bestsellers." Some of them are good. A lot of them are boring as hell, even for a not-very-interesting genre. The mere fact that you would flip stereotypes would make it interesting.
 
Old September 29th, 2012 #11
N.B. Forrest
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They seem pretty repetitive to me. Same stereotypes. Same good/bad guys. Same plots. Just make a couple tweaks. The audience doesn't want something new, they want something established. These are people who are uncomfortable with change and who want their world view confirmed, not questioned.
I've now begun to read pulp novels with the idea of taking the basic plot outlines, switching around some details, stripping out the characters and inserting my own. Purely a mental exercise at this point, but who knows what the future holds.

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Oh, you can do it. Read the people who are "NYT bestsellers." Some of them are good. A lot of them are boring as hell, even for a not-very-interesting genre. The mere fact that you would flip stereotypes would make it interesting.
Thanks. Yeah, like I said in the earlier post, the White-ward skew would probably have to be done in a way that doesn't poke the reader in the eye. I doubt that a wide-openly racist novel would be allowed on, say, Amazon.
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Old September 30th, 2012 #12
Alex Linder
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I've now begun to read pulp novels with the idea of taking the basic plot outlines, switching around some details, stripping out the characters and inserting my own. Purely a mental exercise at this point, but who knows what the future holds.
I don't think it was worth it until recently. Wolzek investigated this stuff pretty carefully about 10 years ago, and there were options but they were either traditional publishing (impossible for WN), vanity publishing (too expensive) and some freaky technical stuff (book toasters and book-publishing machines) that were either not good enough or too expensive. Now you can publish stuff pretty easily online, and sell it as ebook or softcover, and for whatever price you like, with a very fair return. Amazon seems to offer 35% or 70% depending on your pricing. Once the book is published it's pretty much a passive income stream.

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Thanks. Yeah, like I said in the earlier post, the White-ward skew would probably have to be done in a way that doesn't poke the reader in the eye. I doubt that a wide-openly racist novel would be allowed on, say, Amazon.
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I'm not sure about that. I think you would have wider latitude than you think. Amazon's not the only option, either.
 
Old September 30th, 2012 #13
N.B. Forrest
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I don't think it was worth it until recently. Wolzek investigated this stuff pretty carefully about 10 years ago, and there were options but they were either traditional publishing (impossible for WN), vanity publishing (too expensive) and some freaky technical stuff (book toasters and book-publishing machines) that were either not good enough or too expensive. Now you can publish stuff pretty easily online, and sell it as ebook or softcover, and for whatever price you like, with a very fair return. Amazon seems to offer 35% or 70% depending on your pricing. Once the book is published it's pretty much a passive income stream.
Yeah, a big seller could really rake in the scratch.

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I'm not sure about that. I think you would have wider latitude than you think. Amazon's not the only option, either.
I don't know either, not having looked into it first-hand, but I imagine a jew-owned company like Amazon at least would screen what they publish for anti-tapirism.
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Old October 1st, 2012 #14
Karl Radl
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I don't know either, not having looked into it first-hand, but I imagine a jew-owned company like Amazon at least would screen what they publish for anti-tapirism.
They don't as far as I know: they were quite happy to sell Hoffman's work ('Judaism Discovered'); for example, and the reason he got into hot water is because he put an alleged quote from a conservative rabbi endorsing his rabbinical knowledge as being that of a Talmid Chacham on the back cover.

Amazon stopped it because the rabbi contacted them about it and they asked Hoffman to produce the email: if Hoffman could do so then they'd sell it. If not then he would have to alter the covers before he could sell them off Amazon. Hoffman didn't do so as far as I am aware.

I've got all the old emails somewhere in my Inbox as I contacted the rabbi and Amazon about it to hear their side of the story as Hoffman was alleging censorship and me being me I was skeptical as I am about most things he writes.

Another example is that you can buy Hitchcock's 'The Synagogue of Satan' on Amazon quite happily. I do believe he's even got a 'Look Inside' function on the work there.

They don't seem to really care about what you are selling as along as it isn't actually illegal.
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Old October 1st, 2012 #15
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They don't as far as I know: they were quite happy to sell Hoffman's work ('Judaism Discovered'); for example, and the reason he got into hot water is because he put an alleged quote from a conservative rabbi endorsing his rabbinical knowledge as being that of a Talmid Chacham on the back cover.

Amazon stopped it because the rabbi contacted them about it and they asked Hoffman to produce the email: if Hoffman could do so then they'd sell it. If not then he would have to alter the covers before he could sell them off Amazon. Hoffman didn't do so as far as I am aware.

I've got all the old emails somewhere in my Inbox as I contacted the rabbi and Amazon about it to hear their side of the story as Hoffman was alleging censorship and me being me I was skeptical as I am about most things he writes.

Another example is that you can buy Hitchcock's 'The Synagogue of Satan' on Amazon quite happily. I do believe he's even got a 'Look Inside' function on the work there.

They don't seem to really care about what you are selling as along as it isn't actually illegal.
Good information. Thanks.
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Old October 2nd, 2012 #16
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Good information. Thanks.
I was going to say: if you are interested in writing fiction. Why not practice writing short stories in the vein of say Aesop or Grimm to work out any kinks in your style and test out ideas, which you can then put out there to see what people like about them, what they don't and/or what they think you could change. It also helps iron out the tendency to over describe when writing after all do I as a reader really need to know about the floral patterns on a girl's dress in the middle of a novel?

I'd agree generally with Alex about the whole novel writers thing in so far as most professional writers today are fairly bog standard in what they produce and what tends to differentiate between the average and the interesting is the innovative, creative and unpredictable nature of their plots.

George R. R. Martin is a good example as he's not actually; well I don't think so anyway, a very good writer, but because he is very unpredictable (although his sheer unpredictability is somewhat predictable now) and his characters rather complex (often both good and bad not one dimensional types) he holds people's interest as a writer.

J. K. Rowling is another example of someone who is not a good writer, but at the same time she made up for it by being innovative with her actual work and essentially partially revived a genre. Interestingly her new book; which is overtly political and utterly turgid, after the Harry Potter series hasn't been doing too well precisely because without an innovative plot she can't make up for it in her written style.

Everyone raves about Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, but I've never been able to really understand why. Oh well.
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Old October 2nd, 2012 #17
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Or you could just write the 709th "Fourth Reich" book.They seem to sell well and you can always count on favorable reviews from the Judenpress.
 
Old October 2nd, 2012 #18
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Quote:
by being innovative with her actual work and essentially partially revived a genre.
You mean, by shamelessly plagiarising Diana Wynne Jones?
 
Old August 17th, 2013 #19
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I've written several novels, and my first one got published last year, and my second is on its way. I don't know if I'm 'pop' or not. I write what I write, and although I read a lot of pop fiction, I also read a lot of classics. I think telling a good story and making strong characters is the key.

I admit my early writing had a lot of literary references and had some real technical problems. That was solved by rewriting, taking a writing course, and I go to a writer's group, and they've helped immensely.

If I have a problem as a writer, it is not conforming my tastes to the market, and I'm not trying to complain or sound a critic. I just don't like murder mysteries, young adult books, or science fiction.

One of the problems of getting published is getting your book reviewed. My book wasn't self-published, it went through a legit publisher but he didn't
get anyone to review it, and if you don't review a book, it's DOA, but it's a good novel and I'm proud of it.

I do like R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones, but thought it rather dense prose. I did think when he wrote about Tyrrel and Danerys (the dragon lady), the prose was much sharper and to the point, and they were vivid.
 
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