Paperback Fanatic 44: Lockdown Special

[rob4]

Looks like a new PF has snuck out - #44. I'll let Dem post the details.

[dem bones]

Aug 29, 2020 18:32:28 GMT rob4 said:

Looks like a new PF has snuck out - #44. I'll let Dem post the details.

The eagerly awaited 'Lockdown Special'! Thanks Rob - had no idea it was available. Will give it own thread/ post cover & Co. at later date. In meantime, TOC (via A**zon)

Justin Marriott [ed.] - Paperback Fanatic #44 (August 2020)

Gil Cohen: One Man Army
Return of the Mack!
A review of the new volume devoted to the iconic cover artist for Mack Bolan, The Executioner.
Disaster 70!
Planes, trains and automobiles!
A look at disaster novels. Rather than disastrous novels. Don't worry, the Star Trek fan fiction special is imminent.
The Plague Chronicles
Always look on the bright side of life!
If a train-wreck or capsizing ship doesn't get you, then a flesheating bug will, according to this round up of virus paperbacks.
Prose and Cons
Authors In lockdown!
Authors behind bars who earned money for cigarettes and protection by writing paperbacks.
The Lockdown Reviews
Reviews from the other side!
Reviews from a group of paperback obsessives for whom quarantine with no social contact and only books for company is a way of life.

Available from:
Am*z*n uk

Couldn't find the Am*z*n.com link yet - maybe tomorrow?

[dem bones]

Here's that missing link:

Amazon.com


Straight in at #1 - as usual.

[dem bones]

Deadly plagues and killer viruses; 'seventies disaster novels; authors behind bars. Welcome to the House of Fanatic get away from it all Lockdown special.

After a strikingly illustrated review of Robert Deine and Wyatt Doyle's One Man Army: The Action Paperback Art of Gil Cohen, we get down to the misery porn proper, beginning with a sixteen page survey of disaster bestsellers (or otherwise) of the glam punk era. Criteria for inclusion; "If I were to try and label the books I have covered, it would be 'man's folly resulting in mega-disaster threatening the lives of large groups." In other words, towering Inferno's; doomed luxury liners and exploding Concorde; avalanches, earthquakes and landslides; train wrecks and motorway catastrophes; amusement park massacres; floods and forest fires - all are fair game. Omissions include zombie apocalypse and nuclear holocaust novels - genres in themselves - and the 'when animal attack's, these having already given of their services in 2007's super Dawn of the nasties special (surely due a revival in Pulp Horror?). First thing that struck was, not just how many of these damn things there were, but how multi-genre encompassing; individual titles could be and were marketed as Horror, SF, Men's adventure, sexy spy and cold war espionage cash-ins ... Justin makes no claim that his coverage of the subject is comprehensive, and kindly encourages us to run with the idea in the hope of providing additional titles for a sequel. Will be introducing a dedicated DISASTER thread during coming week.

Another superb selection of cover artwork - Luis Dely Rey's depiction of a toad blithely slime-humping a human skull being a particular favourite - compliments The Plague Chronicles, a 22 page celebration of the Black Death, Bubonic plague, and all things lethal epidemic. A number of horror novels for sure - including such undisputed classics as The Festering, Plague Pit and The Devil's Kiss - but several featured titles may be less familiar to those of us who spend much of our reading time knee deep in gore. Again, Mr. Marriott casts his net wide to include works as diverse as Alistair MacLean's The Satan Bug, Phil Smith's The Incredible Melting Man, Jay Martin's Ban the Bra (hippie boffins unleash a sex gas), and Marshall Macao's K'ing Kung Fu #5: Red Plague in Bolivia. And again, several of these lethal outbreaks are the direct result of human greed. It's almost as if we've only been put on the planet to be stupid.

TBC