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2 Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superior entry in the series
Personally, I found this anthology great reading all the way through. I have a long history with SF, so that might help. True, the old classics are wonderful, but the excerpt from "Homeboy" alone ("Street Court") is worth the price of the book. Vollman's nightmarish "The Woman Who Laughed" is another standout from an author who is arguably the greatest living writer in...
Published on July 20, 2009 by Connie M. Alvarez
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0 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Half Excellent/Half Worthless
As the first reviewer indicated, this book is divided into sections. The 4 stories in the first section are fabulous. The Hammett stories in the second section (I don't have the book handy, so cannot remember if there was one or two Hammett stories) are also well done. The next several stories are awful; terribly hard reads. These did not seem to be in any way related...
Published on March 1, 2009 by Been There
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superior entry in the series,
This review is from: San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics (Akashic Noir) (v. 2) (Paperback)
Personally, I found this anthology great reading all the way through. I have a long history with SF, so that might help. True, the old classics are wonderful, but the excerpt from "Homeboy" alone ("Street Court") is worth the price of the book. Vollman's nightmarish "The Woman Who Laughed" is another standout from an author who is arguably the greatest living writer in the US. This surreal gem ironically captures the reality of the Tenderloin street. Joe Gores's take on the death penalty is tone-perfect, and persuasively argues that this barbaric holdover diminishes everyone. And it doesn't get any more "noir" than Fletcher Flora's 1953 story, "The Collector Comes After Payday," or Bill Pronzini's "Souls Burning." In general, this is an exceptionally strong collection in the "Noir" series, and that has a lot to do with the fact that, even today, SF is Noir City. Just look down any alleyway, in Chinatown, in the Mission, South of the Slot, the Tenderloin...its all there, and always has been.
0 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Half Excellent/Half Worthless,
By Been There "World Traveler" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics (Akashic Noir) (v. 2) (Paperback)
As the first reviewer indicated, this book is divided into sections. The 4 stories in the first section are fabulous. The Hammett stories in the second section (I don't have the book handy, so cannot remember if there was one or two Hammett stories) are also well done. The next several stories are awful; terribly hard reads. These did not seem to be in any way related to the "noir" concept and are the more recently written stories beginning in the 1980s. These people are "writers"? Sorry, I don't think so, much less "noir" writers. I was so disgusted that I didn't read any further. Why waste my time? I am not sure when (or if) I will pick the book back up and finish reading it. My suggestion is to borrow it from your local library and read the first (and older) stories. Now those were writers who understood (in the pre-video/computer/TV/Cable age) how to tell a story! Because only a handful of the 17 stories were of the true noir caliber, I could only give this book One Star.
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San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics (Akashic Noir) (v. 2) by Peter Maravelis (Paperback - February 1, 2009)
$15.95 $12.44
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