Skip to main content

Pulp Fiction On the I-Pad

Hey, everyone. Once upon a time I recommended an app for you I-Pad, I-Phone, I-Touch people. It's called Stanza and it's my favorite book download tool. I'd like to talk about it a little more, now that the months have rolled by.
    There's a tab on the app named Get Books. When you go there it gives you a list to choose from that includes several stores where all the books are free. As I browsed on these sites I found one called Munsey's which has a sub-genre called Pulp Fiction. These short novels were very popular in the era of WW2, I suppose. That's a bit before my time but I've come to appreciate their style.
    It seems that the publishers of that day flew in the face of convention by producing a bunch of books that were more for the common man and woman. Fingerbowl types of readers turned up their noses at the coarse fare to be sure, but the main requirement that these publishers wanted from a writer was the ability to start a tale quickly and to hold a readers attention. Literally, the book had to be readable and the writer had to be a storyteller. People like Robert E. Howard of Conan fame and Ed Lacy, the mystery writer, made a name for themselves. The hard-boiled private eyes were the standard fare of the "dime novels" of the working class. Most never were intended for hard-cover and never saw it. A mason or a pipe-fitter's back pocket was their home.
     Now, as bookstores are filled with novels that you cannot force yourself to finish, however elegant their prose, a new wave of pulp fiction is arising. It's on sites like Smashwords and I-Books, along with many others.
    Pardon my rambling. Tonight I watched an older movie called The Ghost and the Darkness with Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer. What a great show! It's about an engineer who is tasked with building a bridge in Africa. He has a terrible time with lions. If you get a chance, check it out.
    As I read the news day after day, I'm struck by the regularity of the violence in Mexico, especially around Juarez. My novel that deals with that area, Spam and Rice, really seems to capture the intensity of that violent region. If you can stand a dose of adult language, check it out.
    Finally, a bit of a story about this place where I live. As you know, it's remote and has it's share of wildlife. This story is a bit more mundane than some I've told.
    A few nights ago, I had difficulties with equipment and had to work very late. I drove home on these mountain roads around three or four in the morning. Sometimes I open my sunroof and turn the music up. If some of that good rock and roll like John Fogerty's Rockin' All Over the World is playing, I tend to drive very fast. Not wise, considering the deer up here. At any rate, on this night I came upon two dogs who had decided to lay in the middle of the road, soaking up the latent warmth of the pavement. When I swept around them at a high rate of speed they did not even move. This can't be natural, can it? Is this the last word in the kicked-back spirit of the woods?
    From the green place, CE Wills

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Shadowgun: Crushing The Driller On Level 4

      Hey, everyone. Let's talk about the game called Shadowgun, the I-Pad game with which I have a love-hate relationship. Most of you who made it past the evil Cyber Lobster are doubtless locked in a death struggle with the Driller at the end of level 4. At this point you have been in the cave for a long time. The Driller breaks through the rock wall and chases you through the tunnel as you try to shoot out the green lights which slows the Driller down. If you are slick enough to shoot out all the lights and emerge from the cave, a rolling door crashes on the Driller and crushes his aggravating carcass. I have tried and failed to beat the Driller at least 250 times. I hate the Driller to the heights and depths my soul can reach. I hate it like a plague. I hate it with intensity of feeling. I hate it like a rich man hates taxes. Excuse me, I got carried away.       We had a big dinner here at the green retreat and my friend Trevor was ...

Faerie In a Glass Jar

    Hey, everyone. Sometimes gaming can be high-pressure. Take tonight, for instance. I was playing the excellent puzzle game titled 4 Elements #2. I have already done a review of it so I won't attempt to do so again. You have to match symbols and use 'power-ups' to get molten lava to flow around a board and bring life back to a faerie world. Cool. That's what I do. I'm into it. There are also a variety of mini-puzzles such as hidden objects and even putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Hey, when I get in trouble I call Carley.     Anyway, tonight, Carley wasn't around when a crisis struck. I was confronted with a faerie in a glass jar. She was crying for help. She said that she was running out of air. Every minute or two she would rattle the jar. In order to free her, I had to find all these objects and use them. Like there were some missing books. Then there was the pieces of a torch. When I found them I could light all the candles. I found the pieces of ...

You're Aiming the Missile Where?

    Hey, everyone, out there in game-land. The number 1 game on the friendly neighborhood app store is Call of Duty: Strike Team . No wonder, because it is a terrific game. The farther I play, the cooler it gets. But before I get to that, what are all these numbers indicating on my gun? Has to be some sort of ammo indicator for the clips, I guess. either that or some of my compadres has trouble doing his math homework. Whatever.     Hey. Check out the picture of me hitching a ride on an enemy truck so that my team can infiltrate a missile silo. Do you like the face mask? I bought it at a store called Fashions by Bane. Ha, ha. (Batman Reference) On this mission, my team was assisted by a Russian Spetsnaz squad. How's that for detente, comrade? These Spetsnaz guys make everything fun. What I mean is this. We shoot bunches of enemies and get into the bowels of the silo. We get to the gantry where the missile is (Pictured above) and we see that the rad...