Category: cont 1950-1970

Hold Back the Night

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Hold Back the Night
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From the author of the classic Alas Babylon comes this riveting story of a Marine captain and his soldiers and their arduous, difficult retreat from Changjin Reservoir to Hungnam during the Korean War—a stirring portrait of courage and sacrifice.

“These are not stragglers, sir. This is Dog Company…”

In Pat Frank’s classic 1951 war novel, one-hundred-twenty-six soldiers commence their long, harrowing journey at Changjin Reservoir during the height of the Korean War, but few will survive the grueling fight and eventually reach Hungnam. Vividly bringing to life the bravery, daring, and turmoil a unit of soldiers endures, Hold Back the Night reveals their gripping stories.

Captain Mackenzie, commander of Dog Company, not only bears the responsibility for victory or defeat, but also feels the full weight of the emotional toll that the war inevitably takes on him and his troops. His one consolation to inspire his band of soldiers to keep on going is an unopened bottle of Scotch that holds bittersweet memories of his wife who gave it to him as a gift.

Sergeant Ekland, a cocky, determined communications sergeant, is due for a battlefield promotion and longs for the day his tour is over so he can be reunited with his fiancée—that is if he makes it out of Korea alive.

Private Couzens, finds himself in a precarious situation with the enemy due to circumstances out of his control—a situation that causes his loyalties to come into question with his superiors.

As readers follow the lives of these men and the other unforgettable soldiers, Pat Frank’s epic novel of war, loss, and survival recounts a crucial chapter in American history.

Forbidden Area

Forbidden Area
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From the author of the post-apocalyptic classic Alas Babylon, comes an eerie, cold war thriller

A young teenage couple having a rendezvous one night on a beach in Florida suddenly sees a submarine emerge from the ocean. Armed soldiers disembark the vessel and a Buick drives off its landing ramp. For Henry Hazen, who is scheduled to ship out to an army training camp the next day, the sight leaves him uneasy, but he tells no one what he has witnessed.

Katherine Hume is the only woman working for the Pentagon’s Atomic Energy Commission. From intelligence they have gathered, she and her team are convinced the Russians are poised to conduct a nuclear attack on the U.S. on or shortly before Christmas. But convincing their superiors an attack is imminent is proving far more difficult than she could have imagined—even after several stealth fighter planes and their pilots go missing over the Gulf.

Banker Robert Gumol sees all the signs that the big attack is finally coming. As a reluctant spy for the Russians, Gumol’s loyalties lie more with his adopted country than his motherland. Deciding to take the next flight to Havana, he risks being executed by the Russians if his betrayal is discovered—but he’s willing to put it all on the line for a chance at freedom.

With the clock ticking, the fate of America hangs by a very thin thread.

A classic of science fiction that is a cautionary tale of the dangers of nuclear power, Forbidden Area is as timely today as it was when it was first published in 1958.

Alas, Babylon

Alas, Babylon
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“An extraordinary real picture of human beings numbed by catastrophe but still driven by the unconquerable determination of living creatures to keep on being alive.” —The New Yorker

The classic apocalyptic novel by Pat Frank, first published in 1959 at the height of the Cold War, with an introduction by award-winning science fiction writer and scientist David Brin.

“Alas, Babylon.” Those fateful words heralded the end. When the unthinkable nightmare of nuclear holocaust ravaged the United States, it was instant death for tens of millions of people; for survivors, it was a nightmare of hunger, sickness, and brutality. Overnight, a thousand years of civilization were stripped away.

But for one small Florida town, miraculously spared against all the odds, the struggle was only just beginning, as the isolated survivors—men and women of all ages and races—found the courage to come together and confront the harrowing darkness.

Dark Universe

Dark Universe
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The classic tale of a post-apocalyptic world where humans have built a society in the dark underground. The descendents of the survivors only remember the pre-apocalyptic world in old stories, legends and myths. ***

Light, itself, is remembered as something holy, and Radiation is feared as the ultimate evil. ***

Jared is the son of the Prime Survivor, the leader of the Lower Level Clan. In a world of darkness and monsters both real and imagined, Jared embarks on a quest for Light. Little does he know just how dangerous his quest will turn out to be.

Nominated for the Hugo Award ***

Simulacron-3

Simulacron-3
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Published in 1964 Simulacron-3 is one of the earliest novel of a simulated reality.

A virtual-reality novel from a time before virtual reality, Simulacron-3 is a prophetic tale of a future where nothing is as it appears to be.

Douglas Hall is part of a team that builds an artificial environment to simulate reality. This enables them to get public opinion polls without waiting for the opinions of people around them. But then something goes terribly wrong and his partners on the program start disappearing.

But is it a simulated disappearance, or is someone out to get them all? And what is the true nature of reality?

Stories based on Simulacron-3 have been adapted for both television and movies, and the book is considered a favorite of many of the masters of science fiction.

The Naked and the Deadly: Lawrence Block in Men’s Adventure Magazines

The Naked and the Deadly: Lawrence Block in Men's Adventure Magazines
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Lawrence Block’s “lost” stories, complete and uncut for the first time since their original publication!

The focus and subject matter of mid-century men’s adventure magazines (MAMs) could be wide-ranging, and versatile storytellers able to confidently navigate genres, approaches, and authorial voices found regular, lucrative work in their pages. Among those talented writers was a notable newcomer: Lawrence Block-though his initial pieces would see print under various pseudonyms.

Not the Lawrence Block you know, who is among the most widely read, respected, and celebrated writers of crime and mystery fiction in the world. A writer internationally read and internationally honored, upon whom The Mystery Writers of America bestowed the title of Grand Master. A writer with over 65 years of professional experience in damn near every kind of writing, whose essays, magazine columns, and non-fiction books focused on the art, craft, and business of writing have endured to inform generations.

Not that Lawrence Block.

Not yet…

He-Men, Bag Men & Nymphos: Classic Men’s Adventure Stories

He-Men, Bag Men & Nymphos: Classic Men's Adventure Stories
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“Walter Kaylin, come back!” – Mario Puzo, author of THE GODFATHER

Scores of great authors wrote for men’s adventure pulps: Elmore Leonard, Jim Thompson, Richard Matheson, Lawrence Block and Harlan Ellison, to name a few. But the one writers for MAN’S WORLD and TRUE ACTION envied most was Walter Kaylin.

Leaving an indelible mark on three decades of sweat-soaked pulp fiction, Walter Kaylin tackled testosterone-fueled subjects from Westerns to war, secret agents to sex sirens, Nazis to noir. His frequently over-the-top plots and characters scaled new heights of ingenuity and invention, while setting the standard for the kind of unapologetic savagery and excess that made men’s adventure magazines notorious, then and now.

“He looked like a divinity student, always buttoned up. Then the stories would come in. They were special … seamless and outrageous and wonderful. I let him do whatever he wanted and he rarely, if ever, disappointed. He really deserves a tribute. I think of him as a treasure.”
–Bruce Jay Friedman (STERN, LUCKY BRUCE), Kaylin’s editor at MEN and MALE

Robert Deis of MensPulpMags.com and Wyatt Doyle (STOP REQUESTED), editors of the acclaimed WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH! anthology, rescue a whopping 15 high-intensity Kaylin classics from pulp fiction purgatory, along with the jaw-dropping illustrations that accompanied their original magazine publication … plus reminiscences by Kaylin, his family, and his former editor, writer Bruce Jay Friedman.

HE-MEN, BAG MEN & NYMPHOS rips the lid off the pulps’ best kept secret to introduce Kaylin’s unique brand of tension and tough-guy thrills to a new generation of readers. But be warned: These are not stories for the delicate, or faint of heart. HE-MEN, BAG MEN & NYMPHOS hits like a clenched fist; get yours or get out of the way!

A Handful of Hell: Classic War and Adventure Stories (Men’s Adventure Library)

A Handful of Hell: Classic War and Adventure Stories (Men's Adventure Library)
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“These stories were being read by men who’d been there, done that. I had to have the personalities and the details right. They wouldn’t tolerate having men like themselves overly glorified, or to have war made glamorous. . . .”  

Aviator, diplomat, and historian, Robert F. Dorr was uniquely qualified to write for men’s adventure magazines, bringing sweat-and-blood, nuts-and-bolts authenticity to his stories of risk, combat, and sacrifice. Best known today for his highly regarded historical works, Dorr’s stories for the men’s pulps also drew from jaw-dropping true accounts,  as action-packed as any imagined by his hard-boiled peers.

In this tense, gritty collection, the master storyteller drops readers squarely into the action’s fiery crucible, both in the cockpit and on the front lines. Each story includes full-color reproductions of the explosive vintage art from the stories’ original publication by some of the greatest names in illustration.

A singular collection in the author’s vast bibliography, A Handful of Hell highlights the best of Robert F. Dorr’s vivid, gripping tales of aerial conflict, battlefield heroism and action—some fact, some fiction, all adrenaline-fueled, white-knuckle adventure.

“Robert F. Dorr sets the standard for writing about aviation and adventure.”

Damnation Alley

Damnation Alley
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Hell Tanner isn’t the sort of guy you’d mistake for a hero: he’s a fast-driving car thief, a smuggler, and a stone-cold killer. Facing life in prison for his various crimes, he’s given a choice: Rot away his remaining years in a tiny jail cell, or drive cross-country and deliver a case of antiserum to the plague-ridden people of Boston, Massachusetts. The chance of a full pardon does wonders for getting his attention. And don’t mistake this mission of mercy for any kind of normal road trip-not when there are radioactive storms, hordes of carnivorous beasts, and giant, mutated scorpions to be found along every deadly mile between Los Angeles and the East Coast. But then, this is no normal part of America, you see. This is Damnation Alley….

The Syndic

The Syndic
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Syndic versus Mob! The Syndic operated as a sort of gigantic protective league in what had once been the states east of the Mississippi. Here was a totally hedonistic society—moral inhibitions had gone the way of the horse. (Polo was played in jeeps with 50-calibre machine guns.)

The hopelessly corrupt old North American government had been driven literaly into the sea, but make occassional forays onto the mainland from bases on the coastal fringes of a Europe that had returned to the Dark Ages….

West of the Mississippi was Mob territory, a society whose entire system of values was totally opposed to the Syndic. Here morality ruled with an iron hand. When a wave of assassinations broke out in New Your, it was clealy time to take action against the Mob!