In this day and age when becoming deceased can actually increase your creative output, (see Robert Ludlum), I don’t get excited about my former favs’ new titles too often. Savvy publishers are now pairing top selling authors of series characters with assistant writers, which is nothing new, but they’re both getting credit on the book’s jacket, which is. Lawrence Sander's final McNally title was credited to himself and Vincent Lardo alike, freeing Lardo to continue the series after Sanders’ passing while maintaining a touch of familiarity for the core audience. Clive Cussler’s titles have been shared with Jack Du Brul and others for a while now and James Patterson, what can I say? he’s become a brand name that up and comers, (like Andrew Gross for instance) are starting out as. It’s a shrewd tactic, if a tad cynical.
There are a few exceptions. Sometimes an afterlife collaboration can seem like a good idea. Or at least an interesting one.
Robert B. Parker was brought in to finish Raymond Chandler’s incomplete manuscript Poodle Springs , but a new Marlowe series, (thankfully), was not launched. I expected that to be the case with last year’s Mickey Spillane resurrection The Goliath Bone, (helped along by Max Allan Collins), but it seems there’s another incomplete Mike Hammer book that Collins has polished up and completed The Big Bang. The jacket touts the title as the last Mike Hammer sixties novel, which is, frankly vague. Are there some seventies, eighties (gasp) nineties Hammer false starts waiting to be completed? I dunno.
Lemme just get this out of the way: I’ve got nothing but respect for Max. You may not know his name, but undoubtedly you’ve come across his work before. Aside from his original prose titles, (including the pulp-faction Nate Heller PI series and his assassin Quarry’s adventures), he’s helmed comic strips like Dick Tracy and Batman and written his own comic books, (he’s the co-creator of the Ms. Tree series as well as author of several Tree short pieces and at least one novel Deadly Beloved), and the graphic novel The Road To Perdition which was the basis for the film. Not only did he write the source material for Perdition, he wrote the novelization of the movie and two prose sequels Road to Purgatory and Road to Paradise, which sought to reconcile the graphic novel and the film’s differences so that they worked as a whole.
That, friends, is a lot of work.
But he’s just getting started. Beginning with 1993’s In the Line of Fire, Max has been one of the biggest go-to names for that oft-maligned genre the Tie-In novel. Foregoing the shield of a pseudonym, he’s put his name on numerous film to book adaptations as well as television tie-ins, (recently, the CSI and Criminal Minds books).
Oh yeah, he’s also a film-maker.
When I encounter true professionals like Max, Lee Goldberg or Robert J. Randisi, (who’s penned no less than five hundred novels under his own name and some sixteen different pseudonyms), I feel uh, what’s the word? Lazy. Just plain lazy folks. For people like them, writing is a craft, something to be honed and delivered fast, sturdy, functional and ready to go.
Christa Faust is another true craftsman, who writes novelizations under her own name, (my favorite – Snakes on a Plane). Whether she’s working on a series character, like Freddy Kruger, or the recent men’s adventure Gabriel Hunt series, or delivering on one of her original creations, (she's responsible for Angel Dare whose debut was Money Shot and whose next is Choke Hold - look for it early 2011), has coined the Sperm Vs. Egg philosophy of writing, (do I need to spell that out? Fire away, basically). I think it's relevant. Which is not to say that there’s a lack of care in their work, but rather a healthy lack of caution and an unassuming confidence in their craft.
I think Hammer’s in good hands.
(Check out Craig McDonald's interview with Max in Rogue Males for a great and insightful look at his career and work.)
Jedidiah Ayres writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.
