Welcome to a hard-boiled and not without noir blog with news and reviews, occasional outbursts of maniacal Autograph Hound activity, plus archival records from the forty-five year run of The Dashiell Hammett Tour. 
The Dashiell Hammett Tour
1977-2022
Arkham House Ephemera
The Classic Years 1937–1973
Death Lit
Essays and Reviews Selected from Fifty Years of Writing 1974–2024
Willeford
The Book
Tag Archives: Fritz Leiber
Hammett: And Wandrei
John D. Haefele’s blurbage on Creeps by Night nudged me to get my copy of the Belmont paperback The Red Brain off the Donald Wandrei/E. Hoffmann Price/H. Warner Munn shelf where it lives, to look into once more. The Don/Ed/Harold … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit
Tagged "The Red Brain", Book Collecting, Carl Jacobi, Creeps by Night, Donald Wandrei, Dorothy McIlwraith, Farnsworth Wright, Fritz Leiber, John D. Haefele, Weird Tales
Frisco Beat: Stanley C. Sargent
Counting down to the showing of Lon Chaney’s The Penalty in the Old Mint next Thursday — which I chalk up as one of the successful ideas I pitched to the Tenderloin Museum when they were asking what other programs … Continue reading
Posted in Frisco, Lit
Tagged Fritz Leiber, Geary Street, Hyde Street, Pat Lupoff, Richard A. Lupoff, Stan McNail, Stan Sargent, Tenderloin Museum
NONPAREIL: The Robert E. Howard WORD OF THE YEAR
For some of us, Robert E. Howard is nonpareil — which my India paper copy of Webster’s Third says is “Something of unequaled excellence; a nonesuch; a paragon,” and, while you might not think of it, is a word “often … Continue reading
Rediscovered: The Bill Breiding Omnibus
Pretty much the last thing I might have expected to roll in would have been an omnibus — under the banner of Rose Motel — of Bill Breiding’s “Fanzine Pieces 1980-2014.” Years pass and I don’t hear from Bill, then Bingo. … Continue reading
Posted in Frisco, Lit, News, SFSC
Tagged Bill Breiding, Burning Man, Cacophony Society, Clan Breiding, Fritz Leiber, G. Sutton Breiding, Gary Warne
Frisco Beat: On the Mean Streets with Fritz and Sam
Don’t think that during my deep hibernation of Xmas/The Onset of Winter I did nothing at all, even if doing nothing was the prevailing theme. I remembered that I never polished off the Sherlock Holmes stories decades ago, stopping after the … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, Tour
Tagged Fritz Leiber, Fritz Leiber Tour, Halloween, Jim Nelson, M.R. James, Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Tenderloin, Xmas
Tour: Sunday June 12
For this month you’ll find a walk offered on Sunday June 12, where anyone can show up with $20 and join in. No appointment needed, but comfortable shoes come in handy. Noon start at the “L” sculpture. Followed by some … Continue reading
Smackdown: The Morgman vs. Noah Ward!
In case someone is interested, how about a look-see at the cover of the new eBook from Morgan Holmes before he got a Hugo nomination? Still a great graphic — the trick is to make the eBook covers pop when … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Fritz Cracks Jeopardy!
As I was just reporting, Jeopardy! didn’t have any Hammett clews in March — but they snuck in another Up and Down These Mean Streets favorite that was much more of a surprise. March 31, snowballing toward Final Jeopardy, with a … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Arthur C. Clarke, Fritz Leiber, Hugo Awards, Isaac Asimov, Jeopardy!, Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, The Wanderer
Rediscovered: Stretched in Space
Couldn’t help but think of Fritz Leiber when I noticed the article about astronaut Scott Kelly growing two inches taller after not quite a year in space. Instantly conjured up Fritz’s 1968 novel A Spectre is Haunting Texas, whose protagonist … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Some John Hancockery from Brackett and Hamilton
To give him a different sort of wrap for his multi-part series on the Centennial of Leigh Brackett, I sent Morgan “The Morgman” Holmes some images from a copy of the program book for the 1964 World Science Fiction Convention — … Continue reading
