My book Pulpografia 2 out

I was finally able to finish and publish the sequel to my first book, Pulpografia, called simply Pulpografia 2. The earlier book came out in 2000, and I wrote the first articles for the book already two or three years later, so the book has been over twenty years in the making! 

The old book was more about private eye books, and hardboiled and noir writing, with some older spy novels thrown in. There were also Don Pendleton and some other writers of the men's adventure genre. 

This new book concentrates on the newer paperbacks, mainly from the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's, but there are also a scattering of older writers, like Seymour Shubin, whose delightful Anyone's My Name I read only some few years back. (It's not actually a paperback in a strict sense, but I couldn't but add the book, and I also found a true adventure story by Shubin in a Finnish men's magazine, which makes him more pulpish.) 

There are lots of keywords for the men's adventure writers, and I must say I'm really not fond of the genre. Many books are written poorly and there's simply not enough action. Many of the series focus on a group of men, and they all talk before the action commences. What's the thing with that? There are also many Nick Carter writers, and man, do they vary! Some are very good, and some are very bad. I also had a chance to talk with some authors (for example the poets Henry Rasof and Stephen Williamson, whose The Dubrovnik Massacre must be the worst in the Nick Carter saga - but they shared some funny anecdotes). I got to thinking that someone could make some money reprinting some of the better Nick Carters. For example, Martin Cruz Smith did some fantastic work with the books. But I guess the owner of the rights is an obstacle, and maybe contracts prohibit reprints. One author stood out in my opinion: Ralph Hayes, whose Taggart books seem very good in their genre. I found Con Sellers' career also very interesting, and he was an intriguing writer. 

The new book isn't the only or the first sequel to the earlier Pulpografia, since I've also published a book on Western paperbacks (called Kuudestilaukeavat, "Six-Guns") and books on British crime paperbacks and American sleaze paperbacks. They were called, respectively, Pulpografia Britannica and Pulpografia Erotica. (There's also a small volume on Western short stories published in Finnish in different fictionmags, called "Five-Guns".) I call the new book a direct sequel to Pulpografia, and the others are thematic sequels. 

Alas, the book is only in Finnish. My attempts to publish in English (look here) haven't been very successful, but of course I do know that the glory days of my blog have been long gone. If I had published the book, say, fifteen years ago, someone would've probably recognized me as the author of Pulpetti. Then again, for some reason or another, I didn't get the e-book in Amazon, and Dark Places and Little Tramps is only available in print, which makes the book pricey. 

Here are some links to the reviews of the books I write about in my book: Don Smith, Lee Raintree aka Con Sellers, Michael Brett, George Snyder.