<<The basic short HB novel is really a good commerical
form because
someone with a spare writing style and a gift for colorful
characters
and situations (and a plot-o-matic) can turn out 4-5 pretty
good books a
year.>>
I fully agree with this. For example, a short bio of Frank
Gruber says:
"....From 1939 to 1941 Mr. Gruber tried his hand at novels
and published
sixteen in quick succession."
That would be simply impossible with today's more or less
official
minimum size. Gruber's _Johnny Vengeance_ is 118 pages long;
_The
Whispering Master_, 128 pages; _Run Thief Run_, 144
pages.
Another good example is John D. MacDonald. People are still
talking and
marvelling at those paperbacks he churned out in the fifties
at an
incredible pace (while continuing to publish lots of short
stories). But
if you look at them, they are all short. The same goes for
William
Campbell Gault, Jim Thompson, David Goodis, Charles
Willeford, etc. We
are talking about the best guys in the business, and they all
wrote
short.
At least we have Harold Adams keeping up the tradition of
the
old-fashioned harboiled novella. I wish there were
more.
Regards,
Mario Taboada
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