RARA-AVIS: Clancy Blah blah...

Kevin Smith (kvnsmith@colba.net)
Tue, 8 Sep 1998 10:10:37 -0500 Clancy must be good because millions buy him? Since when did popularity
mean anything more than popularity? Popularity's certainly not a sign of
quality in anything...

For example, the best-selling hardboiled book of all-time (as far as I
know) is I, The Jury, followed by four or five other Mike Hammer
books...does this make Spillane the best hard-boiled writer of all time?

And I think the reference to Clancy as being none too complex referred to
the plots and characterizations, not the amount of technical data he fills
most of the pages with...I'm sure his fans eat it up, but imagine if
Chandler had Marlowe spend six pages cleaning his gun, or Hammett taking a
chapter to have Spade explain how a cable car's suspension works...

Techno-thrillers, by the way, have always been around (boys love their
toys). Clancy didn't invent (or even perfect) anything, he was just very
successful at writing them...

But enough about Clancy. He's not hardboiled by any definition we've ever
used...let's get back to crime...

**************************************************
Kevin Smith
Back to school and time to hit the books...the comic books, that is...
Private eyes and comics in this month's P.I. Poll on The Thrilling
Detective Web Site
http://www.colba.net/~kvnsmith/thrillingdetective/

Now with fresh fiction monthly....

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