by Gary Lovisi
“Not the Lion edition?” another asked hopefully.
“No way, man, you gotta be kidding about that! No, it’s the Quill reprint.” someone else replied. It turned out to be Ernie Cigarettes. He was smoking up a storm as he strained his eyes to see what Ryan was pulling out of the package.
Most of these guys knew about the rare paperback original of Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me from Lion Books in the 1950s. It was never seen these days. It was only rumored to exist so that’s why this later copy was still a good find.
“It’s the later Quill edition. It’s a scarce and very collectible LastCen reprint,” Ernie added, in his best Mr. Know-it-all tone.
“Well, it’s a good start.”
“What else you got?”
The excitement of opening the package was evident to Ryan and surged through the crowd as well. It was like opening the biggest and the best present during the biggest and best Christmas. Or that’s what it must have been like. It was always the same feeling every time Ryan got a shipment of books and opened it but this time the size of the block of books had everyone transfixed. It was wonder, awe, wild mystery all rolled up in one huge box filled with the treasures of the unknown. It was glorious.
Finally Ryan got more of the packing off and pulled out more books. He was pulling them out three and four at a time now. Then carefully piling them high all around him on the table forming a wall. There were gasps and mutterings from the crowd, faces pressed to the glass in front of him, jostling, grunts, groans, then applause as men tried to read author names and titles from the colorful spines.
There turned out to be over three hundred wonderful old paperback books, and they seemed to span all eras of LastCen. They began from the incredibly ancient Eisenhower and Ozzie & Harriet era of the 1950s—all rare stuff today more than 100 years later. There were 1960s spy books, even a rare 0008 Clyde Allison spoof porno spy novel. That would be a keeper, Ryan noted, putting it in his pocket before anyone saw it. He had heard these were great fun and excellent reads. They were sexy James Bond spoofs. Then there were some actual James Bond books themselves by Ian Fleming. And better yet, some incredibly hard-boiled early Gold Medal paperbacks by Donald Hamilton. The first one in his Matt Helm series was there, Death of A Citizen, and it was a masterpiece of intense tough-guy writing. He also saw a Man from U.N.C.L.E. old-time TV tie-in paperback, again by the prolific Mike Avallone. It was the first book in that series. There were even some Ted Marks! These last were also wonderful spy spoofs featuring the Man From Orgy. Sex mixed with spying and satire by a master Cold War author and raconteur. Ted Marks, who was actually Ted Gottfried, who also wrote lesbian novels as Leslie Behan! Get it?
There was a good smattering of what was known as urban horror, righteous revenge, vigilante books, all authentic 1970s LastCen male-oriented action and adventure stuff. These included heroes like The Executioner, The Destroyer, The Butcher, and a couple of rare Lone Wolf books by a guy named Mike Barry. He was actually some long-ago and forgotten science fiction writer, but this stuff was hard-boiled murder and mayhem; and as such right up their alley. Wonderful fun. The Marsmen cut the author some slack because of his science fictional meandering’s under his true name and forgave him those sins. They were not so forgiving of most other work in the science fiction genre.
There were even some militaristic novels from the 1980s, popular during what had been called the Reagan Era. The history texts were blank on this leader. So much had been erased, but it appears there had been a great American president named Ronald Reagan once. He had been an icon of honor and integrity, a leader of virtue and honesty. He was responsible for the collapse of the hated old Soviet Union “Evil Empire” and the fall of the international communist totalitarian empire that it supported. The DOC naturally hated him, its hierarchy despised everything Reagan stood for and did all it could to discredit him and his many achievements. Finally they had all but erased him from collective memory, he had been totally erased from the digital memory, but his legend still lived among the people in whispers. Reagan was even mentioned in some of the old anti-commie Cold War paperbacks from the 1980s. America had changed and was long gone, but Ronald Reagan was not forgotten. He would never be forgotten. He was remembered with reverence and love, like the legends of King Arthur, Robin Hood, or even George Washington himself.
The contents of the box also contained some of the great last-gasp of hard-boiled stuff from the 1990s and the turn of the century up to 2020. Works by the best of those sometimes known as the Last Wave noir writers. It was all hard crime, violence and sex but with good stories and excellent characters. There was even some small press stuff, from a time when small press outfits had actually been allowed to publish independently. These small outfits sprung up like mushrooms, glowed brightly, then too-often quickly expired. In the meantime these crazy individuals, partnerships, dedicated groups and collectives published the books they loved. They published them just because they loved good books. What a concept! What a time to have been a writer, a reader, a collector or book lover!
In the end, hard-boiled fiction had made a whopping comeback at the end of the Millennium. Later some writers for the small crime magazines even made it big with books that eventually became bestsellers. Some had been made into “films.” Of course, even that was all old stuff these days. Obsolete, but sometimes actually antique-cool. They didn’t actually make “films” anymore. Hollywood was long gone. The area in Los Angeles where all the movie studios had once been, had received a small tactical nuke in 2015 from Muslim fascists even as the stars who once lived there were holding a fund-raiser to promote peaceful understanding and dialog with jihadists. Go figure!
Today the new technology of the present century was all computer-generated and designed, few actual humans had any input in it any longer. And government during this PC, or Present Century, had become the ruler of everyone and everything.
Or, so the people were told, and so the people believed.
Mars was different. Here men read paperbacks for entertainment. They even collected them. That older stuff seemed to have been written just for them. It was gut-wrenching, tough-guy or gal crime and private eye stuff, rugged individualistic hard-boiled fiction. Stories about guys like the guys who had conquered, colonized, and now lived on Mars. Stories about guys like each and every one of them!
Meanwhile, reading kept them all sane and free and away from the corrupted digital record. All the subliminal Earth programs that could influence or control your mind and life had no effect on them. Paperbacks helped keep these men free from infection and control. Or so they had been programmed to believe so many years ago, before they had ever come out to Mars, and so they believed now.
No one would have ever thought that Mars could turn out the way it had. Ryan sure wouldn’t have believed any of it, even though he was one of the chief reasons for it. It all seemed so strange to him as he lay the books gently out on the large table before the pushing, excited throng of men. He put down one book at a time, letting everyone get a gander at the cover so they could all see just what had come in. Each would soon be available for sale or trade. The men drooled as they looked at the covers, anticipating, making deals, dreaming dreams.
They looked like a crew of hungry scavengers, semi-starving, lusting frontier rascals. Which is what they actually were. Eyes glazed with book-lust. A special kind of lust all its own and known only to serious readers and collectors. All kinds of talk was brewing about important points like value, condition, cover art, and of course, the wonderful stories between those covers. Especially the stories. For they all actually read all these damn old books. They lived them too. They were serious men. A little crazy. Well, maybe more than just a little crazy. Nevertheless, they were serious about the books. And they knew what they liked and they knew what they wanted.
Ryan knew that was all true. It was good too. Out here there was absolutely no trust of the Earth government. Or Earth culture. But there was no way to get t
he government out of your life, your thoughts, your very mind! Unless you left the planet and went out to one of the hellhole mining colonies. It was dangerous. It was full of terrible hardships. It was also the only way for Earthers who still had their own mind, their own thoughts, and their own dreams, to live their life on their own terms and be left alone.
The Earth government slogans were all so friendly, so patronizing, so elitist so “for-your-own-good” and so big-brotherish. So politically correct. They said the reason why they did things was, “For everyone—for their own good.” The very words sickened the tough, staunchly individualistic Mars miners and pioneers. They had left a world they’d grown to despise—to come to an inhospitable world that seemed to despise them. And yet, Mars had not taken away their humanity, nor their freedom of thought, like Earth had. The government here wasn’t against them like it was on Earth. In fact, there was very little, if any, real government on Mars at all. Which was just fine and dandy with everyone.
Furthermore, the miners of Mars hated and feared the way holograms and neural implants used by Earth pop-culture melded and imbedded themselves deep into the mind of the user. It caused total subconscious submission of the mind, control of a person’s thoughts. The blatantly biased news, the government- propaganda media, the PC philosophy of outright lies all done “for your own good,” the subtle subtexts for obedience and complacency infiltrated into every part of life on Earth. Secret messages and subliminal suggestions for kids in their toys and games told them to inform on their parents, teachers, siblings and friends. After all, it was once again “for their own good.” In truth, the media and pop culture on Earth had been secretly manipulated and subconsciously designed for decades to attain and maintain control of each person’s mind, thoughts and desires. The Authority controlled everything. And the people didn’t even understand the difference anymore. Those that did, didn’t say one word about it. Mind erasure could “cure” all those ills and if not....
If not—death could “cure” them permanently.
Earth had turned into a planet of sheep controlled by a police state.
“Never question authority” was one message publicly stressed with pride and expensive ad campaigns. It was advocated with a heavy-handed, almost religious zeal. In the old era of PC—which LastCen had stood for ‘politically correct’ but now stood for “present century” the terms seemed to have become indistinguishable to all Citizens. Everything was digital. There were no books. No tamper-free, revisionist-free information-secure storage devices existed. Everything was open to revision, change, and to tampering by the Authority and the DOC. And everything was changed. On a daily basis. Old truth was written out, while newer truth written in. Always different, sometimes totally opposite. Heroes were written out, or became instant villains. Most of these “persons” never actually existed in the first place, except in some holo image or implant. Nothing is ever what it once had been, or what it was remembered as being.
And the books, all those wonderful, glorious old paperbacks; those colorful, sexy, hard copy packages were all outlawed, but they were still sought after by some. Carefully. The books themselves, as physical objects, were special things. So cool, each with their own individual design, publisher, logo, cover art, author, politics, style. Each had their own special look! They really stood out. They even had their own unique feel and smell. The glue, the paper, were even individualistic. They were not just some cold plastic disk or chip; paperbacks were like a personal letter to you from another human being. Something personal from another person just like you. For you. The miners understand that, but they didn’t think about it much. They just loved reading, and they loved reading the old paperbacks.
Ryan’s memories gave him inklings that he had been responsible for some of this over twenty years ago. Since he’d come out to Mars he’d been a reader, collector, book trader. At least that’s what his most intimate memories told him and he had no reason to doubt them. Not yet. Though he was suspicious, for sure. He could remember how little by little over so many years, he’d got that whole damn planet-full of ornery miners and hard-headed rascals reading the stuff too. As it turned out, surprisingly to him, it wasn’t that hard to do at all, once he showed the books to them they all loved the old paperbacks as much as he did.
He could never really figure it out. Maybe it was because of all that hard-boiled reality and tough-guy attitude. It really spoke to the men. Ryan even briefly entertained a passing thought that perhaps the entire planet of men had been implanted to read and collect these old paperbacks? Surely one of the strangest notions he’d ever had. Silly really and so totally unrealistic an idea that he had dropped the thought immediately. Still and all, he wondered. There was a certain book he remembered having read a long time ago. It was not hard-boiled at all, in fact it was science fiction. It was something about paperbacks and Mars, but he couldn’t remember it clearly now, it seemed so far in the past, in another life really. Maybe another persona? He just didn’t know for sure.
Anyway, paperbacks and Mars just seemed to go together to Ryan’s way of thinking. Ryan couldn’t even ponder the “why” of it. He did not know why it all worked so well either. It just worked here on Mars. For whatever reason. Meanwhile, everyone on Earth thought the men on Mars were crazy and a bunch of freaks and troublemakers. And maybe they were. They kind of had to be, didn’t they? To leave Earth and accept all the danger out here? Most Earthers thought anyone leaving the home world to come way out to Mars of all places, just had to be crazy. That was putting it diplomatically, of course. Then again, the “crazy” men on Mars weren’t murdering each other wholesale like the so very “sane” and “free” men were doing down on Earth every single day. Every single minute.
Ryan sighed. Too many thoughts lay heavy upon him and he tried to brush them all aside as he laid out the books on the table. He counted them. There were 348 of them. Five of them were price guides from 2020. All the books were in good shape, and man did they look and feel beautiful! Garish covers, bright colors, beautiful sexy women, stalwart male heroes. Wonderful images of a happier and freer long-lost twentieth-century America blasting their way into the eyes of the lucky beholder.
The five price guides Ryan would put up for auction next month. Marsport had a monthly collectable books auction broadcast over the POD. They might just bring him enough cash or credit to get him to early retirement. Those books were like gold on Mars. Actual hard copy reference books full of bibliographic information, were never published anymore. These were crucial and valuable. Ryan would hold the auction next month because he wanted to give all the miners and farmers out in the fringes time to get in their messages and bids. That’d mean more bidders, higher prices realized. That would also mean he wouldn’t get bush whacked by some lone crazy collector all upset that no one had told him about the auction. Kinda silly, but Marsmen were serious about their paperbacks. Things could turn deadly sometimes.
Ryan remembered the story about Jack the Whack. He found himself whacked just last year for holding out on returning stolen goods to the rightful owner. The stolen goods had been an impossible-to-obtain, rare set of Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones crime novels written by Chester Himes. The Marsport judge ruled the killing justifiable homicide, and then he promptly borrowed a copy of Cotton Comes to Harlem from the owner to read as part of the Court’s compensation in its decision on the case.
Ryan had the 348 paperbacks laid out on the table so everyone could see them. It was an impressive display. All covers were face up. They included a variety of items: two Bill Crider Sheriff Dan Rhodes novels, a John Eagle Expediter novel and the first book in the notorious and violent Butcher series. Both of these latter books also written under pseudonym by the prolific Mike Avallone. These were paperback originals (PBO’s) from Pinnacle Books, from old-time USA, way back in the glorious 1970s. They were almost 100 years old now and still looked unread. Their original cover price had been just seventy-five cents! That would change soon out here. There
were even more crime paperbacks from the 1990s up to about 2020 when paperbacks (as well as all manner of books in hard copy) had finally gone the way of the Dodo through government edict.
“Come on guys, give me some breathing room here, will you! You’re acting like a bunch of bloody lunatics,” Ryan shouted to the crowd.
“Hey, Ryan! I ain’t never even been to Luna, so don’t go callin’ me no lunatic!” a short guy with red hair named Komanski shouted back.
Marsmen might be a touch crazy, but the people on Luna, known as the Lunatics, in some cases had become actual lunatics. They were just plain screwed up and dangerous. A few had even become cannibals, for starters, secret members of a bizarre sect called The Last Ones. That didn’t help their image much. So to be called a lunatic on Mars was a heady insult. It could even result in a duel.
Komanski and everyone forgot about all that however, once their eyes fell on a copy of Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley. That was Mosley’s first kick-ass crime novel. There was also a copy of another Mosley title, an even harder crime book called Fearless Jones. He also saw the haunting Jack Ketchum crime thriller, The Girl Next Door, based on a true crime case as monstrous as anything real life could throw at a young girl. He also pulled out the three scarce Hardy crime novels, Popular Library paperback originals from the mid-1970s by Martin Meyers. Each of the three old paperbacks had cool Walter Popp cover art. These were never seen these days and were very underrated reads. Good stuff. The big redhead looked back to Ryan dolefully. It was evident he wanted those books very much.
Ryan said, “Sorry, Komanski, sorry guys. Just give me a bit of room and I’ll start to parcel these out to you very patient and long-deserving readers.”
There was a loud cheer.
Alvy laughed and said, “And don’t forget us serious collectors and scholars of the mores, values, and social systems of the late American twentieth century on Earth.”