I'm currently reading Richard Matheson vampire/zombie classic I Am Legend from 1954. It's just recently been translated in Finnish - for the first time! I'm enjoying the book immensely and am wondering what kind of a shock it must've been to readers of 1954. It came out as a paperback from Gold Medal and people must've picked it up more from a habit than from really knowing what it's about. No wonder it's been so influential - there's lots of stuff that George Romero picked up from this (and I… Continue

I'm not too eager to seek out new crime thrillers and blockbuster movies, but as I was tired last night I decided to watch Hostage from the Finnish tube. Based on Robert Crais's novel, the movie is fast-moving and gripping, but the finale was way too much for me. Too conscious of the fireworks, if you know what I mean. The bad guy was also too bad - he became one-dimensional in the end (especially when he moved like Alien in the tunnel system of the house!). Bruce Willis was also a bit…

Continue

There's some wild discussion about what's noir over on Rara-Avis e-mail list. My definitions for everything are always too loose, but this is noir: H.A. DeRosso's western paperback from 1953, .44. Check my blog post here:

http://pulpetti.blogspot.com/2007/10/1000th-post-ha-derosso.html

Two more books finished: Laura Lippman's Charm City (pretty much okay, but from the two Lippmans I've read, The Sugar House was the better one) and H.A. DeRosso's gritty noir western .44 from 1953. Highly recommended, even though there was some clumsiness in the rhythm and choice of words from time to time. Also very much like a crime novel and not a typical western with cattle drives and injuns.