Espionage Aficionados discussion

Groups we can not endorse (due to: one-sidedness, factions, favoritism, rule-mongering, shoddy moderation; flagrant discourtesy to their members)

'Pulp Fiction Readers'
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

'A Good Thriller'
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

'Goodreads Authors / Readers'
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

'Crime, Detective, Mystery, Thriller'
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

'The Book Was Better'
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

'English Mysteries Club'
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

'Classics and the Western Canon'
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

'Fringe Fiction'
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

Anarchists & Radicals
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

Those were the early days of 'book groups' in this virtual book environment (Goodreads). Unlike today, group activities across this sector of the website, were vociferous and energetic.

There were 'rum' characters and bad 'uns causing trouble. Loud and truculent self-published authors, and group members browbeating other members.

It's all just soap-opera stuff now but any outfit I list as 'not endorsed', are ones where I found the member-base to be scummy. Their leaders uphold discourteous rules; they are authoritarian, or they form cliques.

To this day, if anyone in my groups misbehaves (and I discover their dual-membership in any of these neighboring book-groups); its a black-mark which counts strongly against that individual when I consider dismissing them. They're still poison around here.

The Pulitzer Prize winner for 2015, however, was “all the light I cannot see”, or you cannot see? A very good read. I hope I don’t have the goldfinch down in my list to read, as many people were disappointed in it it. Lots has been found to stream in the last six years.

Hard to believe they even still bestow such awards. We've seen literature exterminated in our time. Journalism? Poetry? Just corpses.

But in this case I assume he's referring to The Sympathizer ? Though it was probably a Nobel winner rather than Pulitzer. It's as I said above...what do awards matter anymore...the world's done away with the idea of 'competition'. It wounds people's feelings!

Paul, scour our group bookshelf for fresh material. We have shelves for classic pulp series; or even stuff from the 1930s or the 1890s.

I'd recommend Paul Cain's "Fast One" to anyone who wants a high-voltage read.

Is #8 referring to me? If so, thank you.

But many books on our group shelf come from a knowledge-base from far outside Goodreads. I've assembled authors and titles based on my interaction with the pulp community 'at large'. There's a lot of weight behind the recommendation of someone such as...well, say "Cornell Woolrich" for instance. That name is legendary among pulp aficionados.

re: #7, 'are book groups fading?'. Could be many reasons for this. I can't deliver a verdict on it.

When Goodreads began it offered Users a lot of options, since it was a relatively new concept ...and, they went about 'cornering' this market in a comprehensive manner. They wanted to give visitors every feature available; not knowing exactly what might catch on.

Initially reading groups on this enormous scale, was a novelty; but they've definitely waned. People just aren't engaging anymore. As lively as the chatter once was, it eventually dried up.

My private opinion is that books and talking-about-books just cannot compete with the fast-twitch pace of the rest of the internet. I think people have withdrawn even from the semblance of live human interaction which chatrooms mimic.

The tools-we-have-at-hand now, induce us to simply click, and click, and click at ever-increasing speed. No one wants to 'wait' for input anymore; no one wants to 'hover' on a web-page which isn't updating or blinking or rolling or shimmying.

It serves the need better just to 'follow the bouncing ball' around to sites like Ranker or Brinker. You can get hundreds of 'quick-picks' in much less time than it takes to listen to some stranger writing out his single, unfounded opinion in a reader's forum.

Paul wrote: "Oh my gosh, I just found Fast One ...what are you getting me into, Feliks? Are you sure? I'll bet I'll have trouble finding it at the local library."

I wouldn't recommend it without strong reason. It's crime-pulp (not espionage) but it's just the thing for any jaded reader. It's like putting your finger in a wall socket.

Local library: they may have even banned it.

I envy anyone viewing The Apu Trilogy for the first time. I saw it on the big screen myself, sometime in the last ten years, not sure precisely when. It was part of a Ray series at one of the last revival / repertoire theaters still thriving in Manhattan (it's in Greenwich Village, it's one of the last pure true classics-only theaters left, how astounding to report that there's only 1-3 such venues left in NYC, once a world mecca for cinema).

Anyway, Scorcese himself sometimes hosts series there and there are often famed guest-speakers, mini-lectures, or Q&A sessions with iconic names who show up to introduce their films. I saw Christopher Plummer there, and Farley Granger, and Paul Schrader, and that goofy fashion model from Antonioni's "Blow-Up".

"Fast One" may indeed appear in a collection of Cain's short stories. I haven't bothered to check. He only wrote a very few works but yes I am sure there's enough for such a collection. No matter --don't be confused --just find the novel and forget about everything else. It's his juggernaut.

The cover-artwork may be of very recent vintage, but if so, it's only because the publisher probably chose to have new imagery done and new graphic tools just don't produce anything as authentic-looking as would some image from the actual pulp era.

As you can learn from the Goodreads' page, 'Paul Cain' was the assumed-name for a mysterious scribbler who briefly appeared in the hard-boiled pulp 'zines of the early Depression years, published a few titles, and then just as mysteriously as he materialized --he vanished.

Cain's writings have only recently resurfaced for re-issue; and they caused a sensation. Experts now believe that they know his true name; word has it that he was probably a frustrated Hollywood screenwriter, (maybe from Warner Bros, the great studio for crime drama) wanting to 'let rip' somewhere unofficially.

Well boy, he cer-r-r-rrrtainly uh-DID. "Fast One" is ferocious. Singes one's eyebrows. Authentic, 1932 pulp writing. Cain stands up to Dash Hammett; when even today very few ever do. Any astute fan of crime fiction would probably attest to this. He's brutal.

--FD

p.s. Congrats on your own forthcoming publication; and fear not about keeping-in-step with the tecchies. I don't do e-books or cellphones either myself; increasing numbers of studies show that all of that stuff rots the brain. Any technophile I meet these days are so vapid and listless. Mumbling, myopic, lethargic drones. Barely able to read, write, speak, emote, or think. Don't join them if you wish to continue to be moved by experiences like the Apu films.

Charles Williams

...is another author to delve into. A fellow hard-boiled Texan to his better-known peer Jim Thompson. But Williams did a stint in the Merchant Marine, so besides small-town noir he also does crazy-good seaborne crime.

Or, I'd suggest the fin-de-seicle authors, the dada, the symbolists, and the surrealists. Alfred Jarry, for example. Or, The Erasers

Adam Hall's 'Quiller' my #1 favorite espionage-action series

I've two Tarkovsky films, and I've watched both numerous times. 'Ivan's Childhood' (1962) which is a tense WWII Eastern Front drama of an orphan conducting recon missions. A stark B&W film, and one of the highlights of the cinematography is a scene set in a Birch forest. The other Tarkovshy film is the one you've mentioned 'Solaris'.

Haven't see Stalker as of yet, but check out Ivan's Childhood, it's a good one. And that ending is something else.

I reckon the above list of banned groups stemmed from the days when I myself would more actively participate in other Goodreads readers' groups, during the heyday of Goodreads groups' popularity.

I don't partake in such, hardly at all anymore. Yes, there are still some well-mannered chat-groups on Goodreads; but most forums are simply shoddy. The dreck of the dreck. At some point I decided simply to run my own.

No need for any post-mortems; if you want the dirt on any specific reader's clique I've indemnified, say so and I will tell you what travail went down as best as my memory serves.

By way of contrast, how many squabbles have you ever seen in any group The Dzerzh Man moderates? Practically none. No flame wars here. No wingnuts. No malcontents, or ax-grinders last long here.

Percentages by way of example: the largest of my groups has +2,000 members; but there are others on Goodreads with 5K, 8K or even 25K members.

Sometimes I'm contacted by publishing agents and literary managers wanting to take advantage of this; I think the representative for JD Robb(?) reached out to me once? Some big name like that?

Certainly, all of the espionage/mystery groups I helm were --at the time I intervened--brimming over with relentless, ceaseless, author spam. To such an inordinate degree that someone really had to step in.

How many authors were running amok with spam? It took me at least a month to clean up each group I took over; I would guess there was generally 100-200 authors in each group who had used that group as an ad venue.

You can get an idea by examining our group bookshelves and studying the shelf called 'authors in-house'. Or, the 'author-lists' on our doorstop page.

For each of my groups, this is where I deflected all the promo. I deleted each advertisement and replaced it with their author's book, set into a slot on our 'shelves'. This is why it took a month, in each case.

The principle I applied was to offer in-house-authors genuine marketing instead of permitting 'billboarding' or 'wallpapering' of their posts. Much better for them, much better for other group members.

I don't hardly know what these other 'enemy book-groups' look like anymore; because these days I have no reason to visit them. They're likely as slovenly as ever.

Although my forums may seem too stringent to some folks, they are at least kept clean, via my methods. (I have occasionally heard, that some other moderators followed my example in cleaning up all the clutter).

Thanks for the kind compley-ment.

Paul wrote: "Doubledf99.99 wrote: "Haven't see Stalker as of yet, but check out Ivan's Childhood, it's a good one. And that ending is something else."

I'm putting Ivan's Childhood on my list to watch. It looks..."

If you like it or hate it, I'd be interested in your thoughts about it.

That's where I learned the benefits of a reverse-grip, double-edged, SAS boot knife. Still my trademark!

Ehh, I really don't know where things are going these days anyway. Almost feel like ...what the hell is the point of doing anything correctly or accurately?

Three out of Four Americans today don't know the name of the European power we fought with in the 1700s to gain our independence. They don't know what '1700s' refers to.

Three out of four Americans today don't know who invented the light bulb.

Three out of four Americans today don't know the name of the war in which Dwight D. Eisenhower led us to victory. They don't know who 'Ike' is.

What is one supposed to do in an era like this? It's not just a curmudgeonly opinion anymore, there's a genuine screw-up going on when people don't know who discovered electricity; or when they think we fought 'Orcs' in WWI.

https://woodrow.org/news/national-sur...

https://collegestats.org/2012/07/25-a...

https://www.abajournal.com/magazine/a...

...I'm here for the joy of reading others' thoughts and sharing my own. I've written a perhaps typical fiction length sort of urban gothic and not had any uptake for it. So I read it once a year in its seasonal setting and enjoy it for myself thoroughly. I didn't realise it at the time but writing it was an escape from a bad situation then. Rereading is still very helpful.

...there's developed this popularly held dichotomy between "relevant" knowledge, such as who people now called influencers are, and what has been known to be important knowledge, such as who "Ike" was or what the 1700's means.

It seems counter-intuitive but it's a harder market for aspiring writers these days even though there's a zillion more pathways. The problem is that these pathways are now like a logjam on a river. Everyone wants to get their stuff seen; noticed; or hopefully sold.

It's true though that writing can be therapeutic. Keep at it!

I was fortunate that when I was in 7th and 8th grade our social studies and history teacher was a WAC (Women's Auxiliary Corps) durning WWII and stationed in London. She was terrific and bought history to life and who was instrumental in putting me on the right foot to getting into history. Thank you Ms. Stanley.

Never been interested in Russkie filmmakers, myself

Paul wrote: "Doubledf99.99 wrote: "Paul wrote: "Doubledf99.99 wrote: "Haven't see Stalker as of yet, but check out Ivan's Childhood, it's a good one. And that ending is something else."

I'm putting Ivan's Chil..."

Very interesting.... I thought the director did a pretty good job of showing the PDST of Ivan, I know Ivan was out for vengeance but that was a good portrayal of a adrenalin junkie. Also like how when he was looking at the graffiti on the wall he could hear the pleas and screams of the victims. Chilling stuff. About the only Soviet movies I watch are WWII films, and a few science fiction. Probably the most horrific Soviet film I've seen about WWII is Elem Klimov's, 'Come and See', (1985) film about a young man coming of age in a scorched earth war.

https://www.criterionchannel.com/come...