I’m thinking of those small paperbacks they used to sell in incredibly long series-es, with each book numbered so that you don’t buy one twice. The ones I remember were the two series The Executioner and The Destroyer. Hero with a tragic (yet manly) back story, which leads to his endless war against bad guys. With or without a small group of trusted sidekicks, each book he goes up against a fresh set of soon-to-be corpses.
The bad guys were always either a group that was already considered ultimately bad (Iranians in the early 1980s, the Mafia pretty much any time) or some group that could quickly be painted that way. Then you get into the lovingly described battles, ambushes, etc etc with great detail about weapons. Maybe one sex scene along the way. Struggle, battle, victory, end of book. Next volume, probably work for hire under a house name, comes out next month.
The Parker books by Richard Stark (aka Donald E Westlake) started out this way but gradually made it to hardcovers because the writing was so damn good. A lot of the Jack Reacher books are also the same thing but with better writing. But my impression is that apart from special cases, this specific marketing genre has shrunk down enormously from its heyday in the 1960s-1990s. Can anyone say if my perception is right on this?
I also have a theory about what has replaced men’s adventure novels — first person shooter games.
Does anyone have any thoughts?
by ActonofMAM