by Gary Lovisi
However, not every man on Mars read the old paperbacks.
The worst thing to be on Mars was a brain-fried wirehead who did not read. There weren’t many of these, but there were a few. And there was nothing worse than a political or self-righteous wirehead with a brain full of pre-programmed political mush he actually believed to be his own thoughts and ideas! Most of these men were sent out to the desert where they stayed and thankfully lived alone. Many were believed to be undercover DOC agents. They were strictly monitored and exiled to a small ghetto on Northside. They were dangerous and not to be trusted—but they were more harmful to themselves and they existed in their digital dream world alone and lost.
Reading books, was important, but actually owning and collecting books was a pursuit which seemed to have died after the turn of the century and the advent of the Authority on Earth. Now, decades later, it had become a really big thing here on Mars. The personal connection between reader and author, the physical feeling of holding—and actually owning a copy of the physical book was a last remnant of personal power and freedom in a world with none left in it any longer. It was important. It meant a lot, in a world where nothing meant anything anymore. Those old books were glorious priceless relics from a time of freedom, independence and individuality. The men on Mars cherished them. To own them, to actually possess any of those great old relics, was a privilege, a sacred duty, an honor that each man felt deep down in his being. They had no religion to speak of, but they had the old paperbacks. And that was enough for them.
James Ryan had experimented with some of the novels on the vids, but like everyone else he knew, he found he just could not get interested in anything electronic or digital. To be truthful, he hated all damned entertainment software. He knew all of it was full of manipulation and revision. There was a certain feeling on Mars, a backlash really against digital media and all that was hi-tech, but since practical reality and pragmatic survival necessitated the use of this technology, it only came out in quirky personal things like clothing, food, and of course reading matter used for entertainment. Or so the men of Mars had surmised when they discussed their strange fascination with paperback books.
Ryan remembered it had all begun years ago, or at least his memory told him that now. It had begun when friends had seen his small collection of mystery and hard-boiled crime paperbacks after he’d first come out to Mars. That had been in the early days, two decades ago. Or so his mind told him. From that day on, the interest had taken hold of everyone. Now it showed no end in sight.
Ryan shook his head, wondering just what memories were real and which ones had been planted into his brain. It was perplexing. He knew he had been somehow programmed. There was no question of it. The paperback obsession was just too weird a kink to be natural even in one individual, much less all the Marsmen. He also knew he had better figure it out before it all came back to bite him. Because it denoted something serious. It wasn’t only this paperback obsession, it was the paperback obsessions of almost all the men on Mars.
Now that meant something big. But what?
Ryan couldn’t worry about it now though. He had other things on his mind. He had traded away most of that original personal collection over the years. He was now left with just the Elliott Chaze book, an old Gold Medal edition from the 1950s, what had once been called a “paperback original.” That meant it was not only a first edition but the first time ever that work was printed in any form. He knew from history that in the old days stories and novels would sometimes first see publication—or novels would be excerpted—in magazines. What had been known as periodicals. A lost hard-copy form now, he imagined.
Anyway, his Gold Medal paperback was in gem shape. It was the only copy of that particular book on Mars, and it was a legendary novel in hard-boiled circles. It was an honest-to-goodness actual book from the middle of LastCen. A total treasure! Even from that era back a hundred years ago scarce copies sold for a thousand dollars or more. But mostly it was a good book people just wanted to read, an incredible hard down-and-out tale of a small time hood and a brutal femme fatale bad girl who led him down the road to grim horror and deep destruction. Darkest noir at its very heart and soul.
Ryan had even thought once about reprinting it. Making some copies in the local print shop. It wouldn’t be too difficult to do and the expense was negligible. But somehow it seemed wrong for him to do so, almost a perversion, or something close to being unholy. He feared that might bring him too close to being like the people he hated—those who controlled, manipulated and changed everything. No, he didn’t want to become an editor or a publisher at all, and neither did any of the other Marsmen. Ryan’s desire was only for the original books, the true items that were sacred to him. It was the same with all the other men on Mars. Reprinting copies was out, it was actually loathed. So they never reprinted anything. Ryan knew it was illogical. Another indication of DOC programming, he was sure. They printed material all the time; newspapers, advertising items, notices, reports, tons of technical data. But never fiction. They never touched fiction that way. There seemed something special about fiction. It had Ryan puzzled but he didn’t have enough data to even create a half-baked theory about what it all might mean.
Early on Ryan had come up with the idea of having old paperbacks sent out to him from Earth. Crazy idea, and he did not know where he’d gotten it, but he seemed to remember he had a brother back on Earth who always bought up whatever old paperbacks he could find. There wasn’t much. Then his brother would send them all out to him. Ryan would even send his brother “want lists” of particular titles and authors to look for and purchase. The older the better. His brother sent the books out to him in bulk lots on the monthly supply ships. When he could afford them, or so the short notes his brother included in the shipments implied. The books were not easy to find, but they still showed up from time to time. So many billions had been printed and distributed all over the world for so many decades. Some of the older stuff actually went back to before the 1950s! That was over a hundred years ago! It was funny that Ryan couldn’t even remember what his brother looked like, but that long-lost brother still sent books out to him on every supply ship like clockwork. Ryan never forgot him and his shipments and he was excited because he knew a shipment was due soon.
Of course, a lot of it was incredibly delicate stuff, and expensive to ship out, and Ryan could only afford a small box of a few hundred paperbacks each trip. But that was enough. Now twenty years later, the arrival of new books had mushroomed into an incredible event in the social fabric of the men on Mars who read and collected the things. They were all readers. They each craved new books, more books, better books!
“A book-jones is a powerful thing to see once it takes hold of a person,” Toothless Joe had told him with a twisted grin.
Now Ryan was waiting on his latest shipment. The biggest and best one ever.
So was everyone else on Mars.
One of the miners of long-standing named Alvy got his attention. “Come on, Ryan, I’m dry, man. Read the Lawrence Blocks and Donald Westlakes, and that damn Richard Stark is a wow! I even read the Charles Willefords, now that guy painted some nasty dudes with his words; loved that Wayne Dundee stuff too, his Joe Hannibal is just tough enough, but I need something new. Something special. You know? I can’t get Fat Jake to part with Paul Cain’s Fast One and Seven Slayers, so what am I to do? Can I just borrow your Chaze book? I’ll be like, real gentle with it. You know how I am with books?”
Ryan looked at him closely, said nothing.
“I just want to read it, then I’ll return it to you, in perfect shape.” Alvy continued. “I won’t dog-ear a page, I swear. I won’t crease the cover. I won’t crack the spine at all. Rather crack my own spine, Man! I’ll even give you all my Lawrence Blocks and Loren Estelmans.”
Ryan shook his head no, but smiled nevertheless. Actually, it was an excellent offer for just one quick read. He knew Alvy was desperate. He could see it in his eyes. The guy hadn’
t had a “great read” in a long time.
Guys read a lot of books, most of them were okay, a lot were good, some very good, but when you got your hands on a book that was a “great read” that was truly something special. It could be life-changing. It was something to celebrate, to pass on by word of mouth to everyone you knew. It was the ultimate for a reader. It was a book that could change that reader. Every reader is always looking for the “great read” fix, that’s why they read in the first place!
Ryan knew like everyone else Alvy had a lot of what he’d call “good” or “okay reads”—but it was the great ones—great books—like great women—that made life special. It was a sad shame to see Alvy going so long without that great read he craved so much. That was a big thing to these men. To any reader. It would also be a good deal for Ryan because he would get his grubby hands on a lot of primo trading stock that he could move without much trouble. After all, he’d still get his copy of Chaze’s Black Wings Has My Angel back. Probably in pretty good shape, too. Alvy did treat his books with respect. But Ryan just couldn’t go through with it. Black Wings...why, it was the one book he had that he hadn’t even read yet himself! It was not Chaze’s only book, but it was an acknowledged masterpiece, even in its own lifetime. Ryan just couldn’t let it out of his hands. Not yet. Not until he’d read it himself and experienced it firsthand. It was a great one—and the great ones don’t come along every day.
Alvy understood, “Sure, man, I know. I’d do the same thing if I was in your place. It’s hard like hell even to trade books I’ve already read. I love them so much. I always want to keep ’em all. Something in me makes me a little crazy that way. You know? I like to read ’em again. You know? The real great ones.... They’re like....”
“I know,” Ryan said quietly, he understood.
“...yeah, Ryan. They’re like...my friends, maybe more, maybe family.”
Ryan smiled. For him the books were not only friends, they were his family, maybe even his parents. It was simple really. They’d been more mom and dad than his real mom and dad had ever been to him. More than the flesh and blood mom and dad who had left him and his brother when they were just infants. Deserted him. Deserted his brother too. Or so his memories told him now. He wondered off-hand, how much of that might actually be true. Maybe some of it? Maybe none of it?
Ryan looked at Alvy, he knew the signs. Alvy was going through reader withdrawal. Nothing new to read, no hard-boiled, no crime, no private eye stuff, no noir or bad-girl femme fatales, no tough-guy detectives, no bent cops, no kick-ass attitude. Nothing around at all. He was dry. It was tough booking days on Mars, for sure.
Fat Jack said, “Alvy don’t look too good.”
Manny brought Alvy a drink, sighed, “Hey, I got a copy of Mike Avallone’s The Tall Delores, Alvy. It’s even signed by Avo himself. At least I think it’s his scrawl. But I guess you’ve read that one.”
Alvy nodded, “Yeah, long time ago. Read all the Avo. All except....” His eyes brightened. “You wouldn’t have a copy of Death of a .300 Hitter, now would you?”
“His own-self bio? The one where he really opens up and spews a gut full? You kidding man! I wish! That old small press edition from 2020? Why that’s scarce as hell, man! Some people don’t even think it exists—like all those other rumored small press titles. I think it was because the print runs were so tiny. Only hundreds of copies printed instead of tens of thousands, or millions.”
Manny just laughed. He had also heard it didn’t exist, like all the other books said to have been published by that smallest of small presses out of Brooklyn, New York. Wherever Brooklyn had been.
Alvy sighed, the look in his eyes was sad to see.
Ryan said, “Rumor says only 500 copies printed, I’m sure even less sold. Rare as hens teeth, for sure!”
Fat Jack blurted, “I think I read somewhere there was this guy once on Earth that collected books long ago, and he said he had an actual rare ‘unsigned’ Avallone?”
A couple of the guys laughed. It was affectionate, however. They all knew about Avo—as he’d been called. He had lived a long life, and signed a lot of books for any of his loving fans with great pleasure. He was a good guy from the old days, from what they had all read about him. He’d signed so many books for his fans that it was said an actual unsigned Avo paperback might be rare. He was known as one of the kings of the paperbacks, having written hundreds of the things in the last half of LastCen.
Alvy ignored Fat Jack and turned back to Ryan.
“Look, Ryan, you’re our source,” Alvy said bluntly. “You got the connection. You gotta come through for us. I can’t take it being dry like this no more! I’m going out next week and I just gotta have a new stack of paperbacks I’ve not read before to take out with me!”
Tommy Buffer, who was known by all as a block-headed fool, and probably the only miner on the entire planet who did not read mysteries and hard-boiled crime stuff said, “Come on, Alvy, why don’t you just break down and read some science fiction?”
The moan of annoyance was loud and powerful.
It came from every voice but one. Tommy’s own.
“Oh Christ!” Alvy barked, “No way!”
“Science fiction?” Manny laughed. “Are you like, kidding us?”
“Well then, what about fantasy fiction?” Tommy added, trying to be helpful. But being the direct opposite.
Ryan just shrugged, it was a real shame to see this. Tommy being serious and all about what he was saying, offering guys to read science fiction and, even...ah...fantasy fiction. Unfortunate, too. For him.
But Tommy Buffer was nothing if not persistent and he continued to try to convince Alvy. “Come on man, after all, science fiction is the literature of ideas.”
Alvy did not appreciate any of it and just flipped Tommy off.
Tommy persisted prattling on about all the great ideas—never mentioning that every one of them had been proved so very wrong by present reality.
When he mentioned fantasy fiction, Alvy finally lost it.
“Give me a break, Tommy! Science fiction is a joke. Irrelevant with a capitol ‘I’. But Fantasy? Are you serious? I know all about that crap. Elves, ogres, fairies and all that unreal shit!” Alvy shouted, annoyed for real now, pushing Tommy out of his way. “I don’t have to stay here and listen to this. Be insulted like this. Who the hell would read that propaganda and garbage anyway? Sam Spade? Philip Marlowe? No way! Sure as hell not Mike Hammer? You hurt me, man, you really hurt me talking like that!”
Science fiction, fantasy and horror fiction of any kind, in any format did not go over well with the men on Mars. And even though it was a science fiction writer, the great Philip K. Dick himself, who foretold paperbacks would become future collectable artifacts in his classic novel, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, that didn’t change a damn thing. Anyway, most of the Marsmen felt Dick’s book was actually a future crime novel. In fact, Androids had more in common with hard-boiled fiction and noir than science fiction anyway. So there! The same could be said for Alfred Bester’s masterpiece, The Demolished Man, about a murder in a future society where all people were telepathic and there had not been a murder in 500 years!
Most of the guys felt what they called the Dick-head stuff was super good stuff. So was Bester. The problem with it was the men on Mars were now living in that future. It was a future all the old science fiction writers wrote so well about but had been so wrong about. They never dreamed it would come to pass the way it had. They’d had it all figured wrong. So science fiction was out now. It had become totally irrelevant—men on Mars considered it...boring!
Tommy Buffer left to go back to work alone. Despondent. Surly.
Nobody missed him.
Ryan finished his drink, bought a round, then got a call on his cell from Base.
It was from Buzz-Brain McConnell, he ran the supply depot. “Hey, Ryan? You there? Listen, the supply ship just got in. We’re holding a big package for you. From Earth!
&nb
sp; Alvy heard. He looked at Ryan carefully, anticipating, his eyes bright. His lips moist. He whispered, “Do you think it’s the books, Ryan?”
“Yeah, Alvy, I think it might just be the books.”
Well, that emptied the bar out right quick. Every miner and old hand followed Ryan down to the Base. Even Old Manny, hung up the “Closed- Gone Booking” sign over the window of The Book Snook. Overweight, even for Mars, he trudged behind, trying to keep up with the others.
“Remember, Ryan, I paid you last December. I have an option. I get first pick after you. I get any book I want, any book I can pick out, all for my own. My own personal book.”
“After I pick my five!” Ryan told Manny reminding him of the full deal.
“Sure, Ryan,” Manny said, defensive. “Sure, no problem. You take yours, then I’ll take mine. I’m not worried. I know I gotta get something good from that box. There’s gotta be.... What? Twenty? Fifty books in that box?”
“I don’t know, Manny,” Ryan said, walking quickly. Anxious now also.
Usually there were just a hundred or so books, the freight being so expensive, but even that amount would be enough to bring a smile to Manny’s fat old face. And Ryan’s too. He’d sell or trade the stuff away for cash and food and if done wisely, it could keep him flush with cash or credit lasting him months.
“Think there’ll be some more Ellroy? I like that guy’s stuff. What about that Daniel Woodrell? I hear tell his Give Us A Kiss is just too incredible! What about James Crumley? That Terrill Lee Lankford with Shooters? He’s sooooo good! Then there’s that punk noir, Dial 999 by the mysterious H. Raven, I hear that’s a keeper! I still got a jones for Hal Masur’s Bury Me Deep, his Scott Jordan is a hard-boiled lawyer better than Perry Mason ever was, or William P. McGivern’s Rogue Cop—now that was harsh but true. I also hear that Red Rain by Michael Crow is good, and that his second, The Bite, may be even better. I hear rumors that Crow wrote a third also. Anyone know who he is? Was, I mean. I mean, didn’t he write under a pseudonym? Stuff by any of these guys would fix my fix. Ed Gorman’s Jack Dwyer books are tough through and through, highly recommended. What about some of those S. J. Rozan, Charlie Stella, or Ken Wishnia books?” Alvy said, babbling now, his eyes aglow and all wishful-like about books he’d never read and author’s he’d only heard about. He had that glazed-eyes look, thinking, dreaming, mostly to himself. Each man was kind of immersed in his own thoughts and fantasies on that long hot walk to the depot.
