Pulp For Lunch

Today, during lunch, I did a little browsing at the Borders at Broad and Chestnut. (Don't look at me that way. I support all bookstores, chain and indie. Plus, this Borders had The Blonde face-out on a special shelf for quite a long time.) Anyway, I picked up three books. (At this point, the Bride is probably reading this with her eyebrows raised, muttering, Oh you did, did you. To which I respond, after taking a moment to think about how breathtakingly radiant she looked this morning: But I had a coupon. Like, a 30% off coupon. Aren't you always encouraging me to use coupons?) One was a Dean Koontz reprint of Darkfall (I love the mini-essays at the back of his new editions; I'm telling you, I'm all about the extras). But the other two were huge helpings of glorious, lurid pulp.

First: a horror anthology called Summer Chills: Tales of Vacation Horror (edited by Stephen Jones; Carroll & Graf) which features a dead hand sticking out of the sand, hoisting a cocktail complete with umbrella and disembodied eyeball. Nearby, a little crab raises a claw as if to say, What the fuck, dude? It's incredibly cheesy, and I absolutely love it. Inside are stories by Clive Barker, Michael Marshall Smith, Harlan Ellison and Dennis Etchison, along with a host of other horror tales set in hot and/or exotic locales. Which is great. But I was already sold when I saw the floating eyeball.

And then I picked up a Warren Murphy/Richard Sapir omnibus of three Destroyer novels, which I first read about over at Lee Goldberg's blog. I'm new to the Destroyer series, though I'm slowly becoming a real fan of paperback men's action series. (Blame Bill Crider.) And this omnibus, The Best of the Destroyer (Forge Books) features three novels from the early 1970s, presumably that the prime of that era: Chinese Puzzle, Slave Safari, and Assassin's Playoff. Word of mouth hooked me, as did a quick look at the intro essay from Murphy. But the cover sealed the deal: Dude with a sword. Babe in a half-shirt. And some guy (yes, I know it's Remo Williams' partner, Chiun, but I'm trying to recreate my first impression here... deal with it) doing some serious kung-fu-looking shit. The cover's so pulpy and crazy, there's practically no room for a book club logo. Sorry, Oprah!