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Post by Steve on Jun 26, 2009 0:55:12 GMT
If I get chance tomorrow I'll post a few covers and blurbs from some other Manor books. It's one o'clock and I've not long since got in, somewhat the better for drink, but I wanted to at least make a start on these; Keller: The Cannibal by Nelson De Mille, Manor Books, 1975 Det. Sgt. Joe Keller doesn't take crap from anyone. He tells them all - the criminals, the courts, the cops - to shove it if they don't like his brutal methods. He gets the job done and that's all that counts.I don't think I'm being unfairly dismissive if I suggest that this series was probably produced to cash in on the popular success of Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry films in the '70s. This time out he's pitted against a less than savoury menace to the Big Apple. While in Vietnam, Kondor was trapped in an underground bunker and forced to feed off the decaying remains of North Vietnamese soldiers. At first, he choked down the putrid meat only to survive. But back in New York, he found that human flesh was the only thing that could satisfy his obscene compulsion. It was Det. Sgt. Keller's case, and he was hungry for the kill.Nelson DeMille went on to have a successful career as a writer of heavyweight thrillers but he cut his teeth on stuff like this and Hitler's Children: The True Story of Nazi Human Stud Farms, also for Manor (1976, writing as Kurt Ladner). Who says Manor Books were sleazy? Also in this series: The Smack Man - "Someone was killing off hookers with bad dope. Keller didn't give a damn, but their bodies were cluttering up his precinct". N.B. DeMille wrote another "brutally authentic" series for a different American publisher about a no-nonsense right-wing policeman called Joe Ryker. Any similarity, as they say...
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Post by andydecker on Jun 26, 2009 9:24:00 GMT
In this case, Ryker and Keller are not only similiar, they are the same books. DeMille wrote six novels about his brutal lone wolf supercop. In the 90s Pocket in America did a new edition, did some editorial brush up and used the Ryker tag-line. The series is also credtied as by Jack Cannon. The series order - according to Pocket Books - is: The Sniper The Hammer of God The Smack Man The Cannibal The Night of the Phoenix The Death Squad. The story of these books is very complicated. If you desperatly want to know the how and whys I reccomend Marty McKees great blog Johnny LaRue´s Crane Shot craneshot.blogspot.com/ and the following comment section www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8707040&postID=3230026428508667986These novels are very violent, un-PC and often just gross. It is basically Ryker/Keller blowing lunatics away, but this is more Cobra than Dirty Harry in terms of craft and tone. DeMille does here a good Laurence James, if you think about it.
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Post by bushwick on Jun 26, 2009 11:12:43 GMT
These novels are very violent, un-PC and often just gross. It is basically Ryker/Keller blowing lunatics away, but this is more Cobra than Dirty Harry in terms of craft and tone. DeMille does here a good Laurence James, if you think about it. BLAM! That's what I'm talking about! I'm there! Andy, do you think these are the 'roughest' men's adventure books? I like what little Executioner I've read, a Revenger by Terry Harknett was okay, passable, and Justin says the Dean Ballenger 'Cannon' novels are quite OTT. I like your description of these though.
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Post by bushwick on Jun 26, 2009 13:04:55 GMT
Thanks for the link Andy, that's a good blog.
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Post by Steve on Jun 26, 2009 13:26:46 GMT
Noah, judging from other online comments I've read, most people seems to baulk at Ryker/Keller and find them deeply distasteful (cannibals, child killers, sadists and so forth). Based on what I know of your tastes I'd reckon these are right up your particular dark alley. Right, on with the motley selection... Billy Lives by Gary Brandner, Manor Books, 1975 Music, sex, dope, booze - what a way to go! "A hard-driving novel about rock music's dim subculture, where drugs, kinky sex, and easy money can turn a teenager into a millionaire overnight - or make him an old man in a week" Gary Brandner, best known as the author of The Howling books and other horrors published over here by Hamlyn/Arrow ( Death Walkers, Hellborn, Tribe of the Dead, The Brain Eaters, Carrion). Brandner also gave us The Big Brain super-spy series ( The Aardvark Affair, The Beelzebub Business) published in the UK by Peter Haining's short-lived MEWS imprint. Hamlyn later reprinted Brandner's The Players ("The stunning blockbuster novel about the glittering jet-set world of international tennis") mentioned on the cover above but sadly seem to have passed on Billy Lives. Wonder if the New York Dolls ever knew about this?
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Post by Steve on Jun 26, 2009 14:44:48 GMT
Meet Nookie & Get Nookie, Ross Webb, Manor Books, 1975 "Her name was Nakomis, but everybody called her Nookie - for obvious reasons" Why's that then? Meet Nookie, Get Nookie - if only real life were that simple... And here's a bonus woman in tight denim shorts; Manor also published works by Ted "The Man from Orgy" Mark. As they would.
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Post by justin on Jun 26, 2009 16:34:37 GMT
Amazing scans Steve, and once again, the pulp planets align at the Vault!
I apologise if I'm hijacking a potentially very interesting thread to promote my own projects but a few snippets on Manor and the "men's adventure" genre.
Manor were rumoured to be Mafia owned! I recently shared with Bruce Pennington some Manor books carrying his illustrations, specifically because the reproduction was such bad quality I guessed not all was kosher. It turns out they are pirated reproductions which he knew nothing about! They were a NEL without morals and quite happy to knee-cap you.
I'm pulling together a Manor biblio for a fanzine I'm writing aimed at readers of this forum- basically the guys who wished The Paperback Fanatic was 100% horror. They printed SO many Hans Holzer books it's mind-boggling. Unfortunately the books were printed on such crap paper and the covers do not wear too well, but there are some interesting titles on cattle mutilation, satanic sex and rampaging critters. And any company which published Eat Them Alive has to be worth a look! If you want to read more about De Mille's psycho-cop pulps and the men's adventure novels then maybe I can point you in the direction of MEN OF VIOLENCE, a new fanzine on that very subject from the Fanatic stable. Contents include The Butcher, The Executioner, the Gannon books (and there possible connection with Eat Them Alive?!??) and Nelson De Mille. £2.50 post paid from Fanatic HQ. Bear in mind it is a fanzine- first draft text, photo-copied, wonky illustrations, slightly rough around the edges. But you might like it.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jun 26, 2009 19:39:43 GMT
Quite brilliant. I'm amazed I never found nookie as a youth 'The female fuzz...' is the best blurb I've seen on a book only seriously challenged by the confessions leer
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Post by andydecker on Jun 26, 2009 21:03:06 GMT
Well, this is difficult. There are so many series. I guess in terms of carnage and sheer weirdness it is anything by Joseph Rosenberger. The Death Merchant or the Kung Fu novels written as Lee Chang are basically pages of minutely described violent action. After a while it gets quite boring reading which bone gets broken how often. On the other hand, Rosenberger´s writing is out of this world. Where do you get men´s adventures where the footnotes are sometimes longer than the text? Not to mention the crazy plots concerning aliens and ufos, the relentless nihilism and the unbelievable rants. Plotwise DM is always the same story, a mixture of "Where Eagles dare" and "Shoot em up", a team of CIA mercenarys commanded by the hero versus another team of terrorists, "Heil Hitler halfwits" (O-tone ) or KGB. But skip the No.1. The Butcher is also very violent. The plots are pretty unbelievable, hell, they are stupid, but especially in the early entrys they can be quite sadistic. And if you like cheap rip-offs and serial killers, there is always Mike Newtons VICAP series. "Silence of the Lambs" as a gory series about two FBI agents catching serial killers.
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Post by Steve on Jun 27, 2009 17:43:50 GMT
On Vault at least, Manor Books are most fondly remembered as the visionary publisher who saw fit to launch (and simultaneously end) the literary career of Pierce Nace when they unleashed Eat Them Alive "for the first time in paperback" on an unsuspecting and utterly bemused public in 1977. Don't have a scan of the Manor edition for you (I'm sure there's one around here somewhere) but here's a couple of others continuing the theme of people being eaten alive and nature generally being red in tooth and mandible. Killer Pack by Albert Herbert & Roger Myers, Manor Books, 1976; Bugged! by Donald "Frankenstein" Glut, Manor, 1974. Note that Bugged! is the proud bearer of the 'Manor Books Seal of Guaranteed Reader Satisfaction'.
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Post by vaughan on Jun 28, 2009 1:34:58 GMT
Those look seriously good. Love the rabid Scooby Doo on that cover - intentional?
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Post by Steve on Jun 28, 2009 2:35:54 GMT
To finish up with for now, a couple of anthologies. Horror Hunters, ed. Roger Elwood & Vic Ghidalia, Manor Books, 1975 The Thing on the Roof by Robert E. Howard The Gateway of the Monster by William Hope Hodgson Ancient Sorceries by Algernon Blackwood The Unnamable by H. P. Lovecraft Mr. Ames' Devil by August Derleth In the X-Ray by Fritz Leiber One Foot and the Grave by Theodore Sturgeon I Kiss Your Shadow by Robert Bloch Nightmare Garden, ed. Vic Ghidalia, Manor, 1976 Come Into My Cellar by Ray Bradbury The Fangs of the Trees by Robert Silverberg Seed Stock by Frank Herbert The Vine by Kit Reed The Blood-Flower by Seabury Quinn Strange Harvest by Donald Wandrei Step Into My Garden by Frank Belknap Long The Flowering of the Strange Orchid by H. G. Wells The Plant-Thing by R. G. Macready Rappaccini’s Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Manor put out a few anthos, some horror, some SF, some a bit of both, often edited by Vic Ghidalia or Roger Elwood - or both. Elwood has been blamed for single-handedly destroying the American market for SF & Fantasy anthologies in the 1970s by flooding it with numerous collections of questionable quality. These may be of interest though. There are more (I believe most, if not all, were originally issued by MacFadden Books). Satan's Pets, ed. Vic Ghidalia, 1972 Wizards and Warlocks, ed. Vic Ghidalia, 1972 Beware More Beasts, ed. Vic Ghidalia & Roger Elwood, 1975 Feast of Fear, ed. Vic Ghidalia, 1977 As for Manor's other horror output, well, you've got the 'Gothic' stuff like Witch's Suckling by Gimone Hall, 1976 - "Beth was under a spell... was she being murdered by a voodoo curse or was she losing her mind?" (complete with 'distraught-looking woman in long dress standing in front of an old house' cover art). There's SF/horror like Joan Hunter Holly's Death Dolls of Lyra, 1977 - "Nothing could stop the spreading fungus from burying the town, the state - the world!". In 1979 they put out something called Legacy of the Bloody Bride, about which I know nothing other than it was written by one Robert P. Richmond but it's a catchy title I think you'll agree. They also did an Illustrated Dracula, 1975, in "blood-curdling comic form" with an introduction by Christopher Lee (who may or may not have been aware of it). I think my favourite title though has to be Manor's 1973 foray into the Twilight World of black magic and witchcraft; Everything you always wanted to know about Sorcery*
*but were afraid...
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Post by dem bones on Jun 29, 2009 18:09:54 GMT
In light of what Justin says, i'm kind of worried that maybe McFadden (who were also based in New York and used an MB logo) were subjected to a very hostile takeover bid .. Another Vic Ghidalia solo offering (Manor, 1972), this one apparently "never before been published in book form". It's easily the least interesting book mentioned on this thread so far, but certainly bears out Justin's "the covers do not wear too well". Robert Bloch - The Secrets Of Sebek Marc Schorer & August Derleth - In The Left Wing Clark Ashton Smith - The Necromantis Tale L. Ron Hubbard - Battle Of Wizards Nathaniel Hawthorne - Young Goodman Brown M. R. James - Casting The Runes Richard Marsh - The Disappearance Of Mrs. Macrecham Bruce Elliot - So Sweet As Magic E. Hoffman Price - Apprentice Magician
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Post by pulphack on Feb 19, 2010 19:20:44 GMT
More Manor Madness...
1975 was a good year for Manor and also for pulp maven Jeff Rovin, who spent most of the eighties writing about games and comics, and truend the nineties and the noughties into ones of military mayhem via his work for Tom Clancy and then entirely under his own steam.
But back in the seventies, he was just a hack journo with a desire to be a novelist who penned the first two novels under his own name for that company, and in that year. on the 'men of violence' thread i mentioned that in had read the first 'hollywood detective:garrison' book as a kid and also again about fifteen years ago. i was also reminded of a book about the hindenberg disaster that i read as a 12 year old that could have been a manor - a quick google turned up that both were by rovin, and both were manor titles.
a quick flick through abe&amazon and seven fifty for the pair later, here we are...
'hollywood detective: garrison' concerns roger garrison, rich sleuth on a retainer to a major studio. the plot is about murder and blackmail in 1929, on the verge of talking pictures. reading it about fifteen years back, it seemed uneven. less so now, but because it suddenly clicked: what had seemed an incongruous mix of sex&violence with golden age trappings now becomes clear: garrison's wealth is mysterious, he's incredibly strong, virile and a genius, and he has a secret lab, an eccentric supporting cast, and... well, i suspect rovin was trying to find a successful mix of golden age pulp and the newer, harder edged thriller. the back story is skillfully hinted at, and hints dropped for series development, with the supporting cast carefully and sparingly introduced.
the violence is unsparing and bloody, the sex written in a manner that suggest rovin may have penned a few adult paperbacks anonymously before this, and garrison himself is a little too callous at times to be a doc savage. it can jar against the well-woven period backdrop (lots of detail in a short space, and also some use of slightly altered names between characters and real people to give you an immediate sense of identity.
yet despite this - and given that two really are incompatible, the whole thing has immense pace and works really well. it's a page turner, without a doubt, and i'll be looking out for the much harder to find second book (the fact that 'wolf' has a supernatural slant should have been a giveaway about the new/old pulp theory!)
if it had been a more upmarket or better handled publisher such as pinnacle, or even warners (who were making a killing with pulp reprints at this time)n then it might actually have made it and been a more adult indiana jones pulp remaster in times that were ripe for it.
a cracking read. i must break off now, but will be back soon to post on the hindenberg book...
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Post by pulphack on Feb 19, 2010 20:29:08 GMT
anyway, the Hindenburg Disaster (spelt correctly this time!)...
this one purports to be a reason for the great airship disaster, and involves an escaping Nazi defector with the plans for airship warfare and concentration camps, and an SS officer on his tail; an acrobat and his opera singer girlfriend; a six year old prodigy and his nympho mother; a two-fisted pulitzer prize winner journo; a cute old jewish couple; a scuzzy gambler; and an airship captain torn between love of the fatherland and his humanity. as with 'hollywood detective', the names are clever amalgams of real people, so they carry a certain verite that puts you right in there as the reader.
on the one hand it's an epic historical sweep (but only 224 pp), and on the other it ladles out graphic violence and porn novel sex (which boggled my 12 year old mind with its bluntness). as with garrison, it's an uneasy mix (incidentally, ealy on there's talk of a sinking ship called the garrison!) but the sheer pace and rovin's chutzpah drive it along. there's a great running gag about the acrobat and the opera singer being forever on the verge of getting it on when something happens, but this is skewed by the acrobat dying at the end (albeit saving the young boy). and the nazi officer has more than one dimension, as he is a man of honour in his own way, although still fascist scum - but scum with depth!
pace, some depth, and hellfire i learned a lot about how airships work, as well! rovin is a better writer than manor deserved, and certainly better than a lot would dismiss him before reading either of these. it has the sleaze and the action, but also no little skill and technique.
well worth the read.
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