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annieb123's review
4.0
Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.
This is a BIG book, 944 pages, including 73 stories from both famous authors (O. Henry, Erle Stanley Gardner, Lawrence Block, Max Allan Collins and many others) as well as authors who are less well known today than they were in their contemporary periods, but may be familiar to fans of the old pulp magazines such as Phantom Detective (C. S. Montanye, Paul Ernst, Donald Keyhoe, etc).
The collection is broken down and arranged chronologically: The Victorians, Nineteenth-Century Americans, The Edwardians, Early Twentieth-Century Americans, Between The World Wars, The Pulp Era, Post-World War II, and The Moderns. Each of the stories has a short introduction including publication notes and author bios. The intros were a real treat to read and even though I love detective fiction trivia, there was quite a lot that was new to me.
I love anthologies and collections, and this one is no exception. The hook for the anthology is that the stories feature one or more rogues/villains. Sometimes they're portrayed in a more favorable light, like the stories featuring Lupin and Raffles and some are just dastardly, Dracula and Horace Dorrington, for example.
Since the book covers such a broad span of time, some of the stories reflect the language and dialogue of their period, but for anyone comfortable reading a Holmes story, these stories won't present any problems at all.
I enjoyed quite a lot of these and even enjoyed reading a few of them aloud together (fun road trip activity, passenger reads, driver drives :).
Heartily recommend this collection. I found a number of authors who were not previously familiar to me for further reading.
The collection's editor, Otto Penzler, has curated another superbly entertaining thematic collection.
Four stars
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.
This is a BIG book, 944 pages, including 73 stories from both famous authors (O. Henry, Erle Stanley Gardner, Lawrence Block, Max Allan Collins and many others) as well as authors who are less well known today than they were in their contemporary periods, but may be familiar to fans of the old pulp magazines such as Phantom Detective (C. S. Montanye, Paul Ernst, Donald Keyhoe, etc).
The collection is broken down and arranged chronologically: The Victorians, Nineteenth-Century Americans, The Edwardians, Early Twentieth-Century Americans, Between The World Wars, The Pulp Era, Post-World War II, and The Moderns. Each of the stories has a short introduction including publication notes and author bios. The intros were a real treat to read and even though I love detective fiction trivia, there was quite a lot that was new to me.
I love anthologies and collections, and this one is no exception. The hook for the anthology is that the stories feature one or more rogues/villains. Sometimes they're portrayed in a more favorable light, like the stories featuring Lupin and Raffles and some are just dastardly, Dracula and Horace Dorrington, for example.
Since the book covers such a broad span of time, some of the stories reflect the language and dialogue of their period, but for anyone comfortable reading a Holmes story, these stories won't present any problems at all.
I enjoyed quite a lot of these and even enjoyed reading a few of them aloud together (fun road trip activity, passenger reads, driver drives :).
Heartily recommend this collection. I found a number of authors who were not previously familiar to me for further reading.
The collection's editor, Otto Penzler, has curated another superbly entertaining thematic collection.
Four stars
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.
vsbedford's review
3.0
The first of these collections that didn't thoroughly grab me - this, for me, is a work to be appreciated as both an object and as a labor of love by the authors and editor alike, rather than read for enjoyment. First, it's very size makes both the digital and print editions hard to manage and second, you lose the forest for the trees a bit because of how many historical/geographical distinctions are made and included. I appreciate showing the scope of the genre but by the beginning of The Pulp Era I had lost a grasp on where we'd all started. Anyhoo, small quibbles on what should be included in most crime-lovers' libraries.
I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
chewdigestbooks's review
4.0
This was so much of a chunkster and I enjoyed every moment until I got to the more current stories, called The Moderns, in the book.
The rest was pure perfect classic devilry, whether Rogue or Villan. At times it was stomach turning, I'm referring to the "Yellow Peril" era of such damn bigotry that I wanted to slap them. Yet they were all products of their times and this book was interesting in how it showed the transgression over the decades on who were considered the bad guys and who were just the raconteurs. I was shocked at times by the small bios before the shorts. There were authors that I knew nothing about and then others that I knew well, but had no idea of either their major successes or their less famous other characters that I was about to meet. Like Earle Stanley Gardner, creator of Perry Mason? He had tons of other interesting shorts and series before Mason. And mea culpa, I'd never known the original creator/novelist of The Fugitive or Bullit. Thank you, Robert L. Fish, and thanks for setting up your estate to keep giving back via the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award.
It was not a page-turner, wasn't meant to be. I read one story, flipped to something else for a chapter for two, went back to the next Rogue or Villan, etc.
My issue with "The Moderns" is that well, I've heard of most of them before and wasn't transported to another time, even when the stories were set in past eras. We've lost something as a people and definitely as writers/readers. I'm not sure what to call it, maybe naivety? There is a period or style that mystery lovers know well called hardboiled and film lovers call noir. We've moved to a much darker place than that other was and personally, I prefer the older styles of both mysteries and films. Life may have seemed dark to them, but to us? It was like blooming Disneyland compared to now. That leaves me saddened, so you get four stars for making me mourn our innocence, sorry.
The rest was pure perfect classic devilry, whether Rogue or Villan. At times it was stomach turning, I'm referring to the "Yellow Peril" era of such damn bigotry that I wanted to slap them. Yet they were all products of their times and this book was interesting in how it showed the transgression over the decades on who were considered the bad guys and who were just the raconteurs. I was shocked at times by the small bios before the shorts. There were authors that I knew nothing about and then others that I knew well, but had no idea of either their major successes or their less famous other characters that I was about to meet. Like Earle Stanley Gardner, creator of Perry Mason? He had tons of other interesting shorts and series before Mason. And mea culpa, I'd never known the original creator/novelist of The Fugitive or Bullit. Thank you, Robert L. Fish, and thanks for setting up your estate to keep giving back via the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award.
It was not a page-turner, wasn't meant to be. I read one story, flipped to something else for a chapter for two, went back to the next Rogue or Villan, etc.
My issue with "The Moderns" is that well, I've heard of most of them before and wasn't transported to another time, even when the stories were set in past eras. We've lost something as a people and definitely as writers/readers. I'm not sure what to call it, maybe naivety? There is a period or style that mystery lovers know well called hardboiled and film lovers call noir. We've moved to a much darker place than that other was and personally, I prefer the older styles of both mysteries and films. Life may have seemed dark to them, but to us? It was like blooming Disneyland compared to now. That leaves me saddened, so you get four stars for making me mourn our innocence, sorry.
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