Pulp (detective) fiction

[rich]

if this has been mentioned before apologies

1970s trilogy from Moorcock has many AtD parallels:

Michael Moorcock's Nomad of the Timestreams is a political statement
of deep profundity wrapped in an imperialist candy-coating of red
uniforms, zeppelins, and ripping yarns.
Moorcock's multiverse is never better here. Oswald Bastable, ripped
from his home in the Railway Children Series by E. Nesbitt, is part of
the British Empire in 1902. Like a Kipling story, he finds himself
doing the dirty work of imperialism unthinkingly. He is punished by
being sent into an alternate history seventy-odd years in the future.
There he tries to reassemble his life, but finds his sense of social
justice is too much, and ends up working for anti-imperialist
terrorists. The books are rife with real historical figures turned
into their ugliest form, and in each racism is the central conflict,
and no matter what he does, or what his good intentions are, Bastable
always ends up at the forefront of mass destruction namely twice
dropping nuclear weapons.

This is a work on the 1970's with its politicals worn bravely on its
sleeve, still, Moorcocks vision is soaked with justice and through the
adventures in various apocalyptic landscapes, one is as much
entertained as educated.

Brilliantly written, well-researched, a dazzling performance equaled
only by his Dancers at the End of Time series.



On 11/19/07, Monte Davis <monte.davis at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
> Good background for all Lew Basnight discussion, especially the detective's
> proto-noir California of Chandler and Hammett coming up towards the end of
> AtD.
>
> http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/014_04/1376