The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction [Import] [Paperback]

Maxim Jakubowski (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Robinson; 2nd THUS edition (1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1854875078
• ISBN-13: 978-1854875075
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,142,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mixed bag, though recommended nonetheless, January 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction (The mammoth book series) (Paperback)

I wish I could give this anthology a higher rating. More than half of the stories were fantastic. Great examples of good pulp fiction. Very exciting stuff, with your tough, morally-ambigious detectives, and your dangerous femme fatales. Good, trashy reading. However, the anthology was seriously hampered by some of the editor's selections. A lot of the stories did not fit into the definition of what one would consider "pulp fiction." Plus, quite a few of the stories (usually the ones from the seventies and eighties) were simply bad--cliched and pointless. It would have been better to stick to the stories from the 30's, 40's, and 50's. The stories written in the last couple of decades were pale imitations of the older stories (the real "pulp ficiton"). However, I still recommend this book, even though a third of it was filler.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Worst of Pulp Fiction, March 2, 2005

By 

Hans Hansen (Copenhagen, Denmark) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction (The mammoth book series) (Paperback)

I'm a bit of a connoisseur of pulp fiction, and often order paperback originals of Spillane, Craig Rice, Bill Ballinger, etc. from Amazon Z-shops.

This book was a huge disappointment to me.

Pulp writers did it for the money - and in some cases also produced great works of art, like James M. Cain's "Mildred Pierce." Unfortunately, most of the stories in this collection read like something knocked out on deadline to a precise word count - and once the writer hit that word count, he dropped it in the mail and headed for the corner bar.

Lawrence Block's "A Candle for the Bag Lady" is the worst offender - the writer sets up a fascinating premise in which a seemingly homeless woman, newly murdered, turns out to have distributed her substantial wealth in a complex will naming random strangers. Where did the money come from? Why was she living in such reduced circumstances? And why in the world did she choose these beneficiaries - the owner of a local newspaper stand, a neighbor she rarely spoke to, the detective himself - when her real friends and acquaintances got nothing at all? And how is all this linked to her murder?

We'll never know, because when Block hits his word count, he has a new character show up in the detective's corner bar and say, "I hear you are looking for the murderer. Well, I did it. I just felt like killing someone. Would you mind coming with me to the police station?" End of story. (Sorry to spoil it for those who haven't read it, but it's hard to imagine that anyone could spoil it more than Block himself.)

The Cain and Spillane contributions here are bores - truly not their best work. The one top-class story, Donald E. Westlake's "Ordo" , is also available in another collection, "Pulp Masters." I would recommend that book instead of this one.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Variety is the spice of life, May 13, 2000

By 

Orson Welles (San Juan, Puerto Rico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction (The mammoth book series) (Paperback)

This book is filled with great little stories, each of which are pure art in their own way. Forget deep analysis, forget reading into heavy plot lines and meaning-drenched narrative, this book is good-old fashioned, great story-telling. And what makes it even greater is juxaposing current "political correctness" with the raw narrative of the old days. Sure, some of the stories don't cut it, but those that do will make you wish it was 1944 all over again.