Goodman Games

Using the rules that finarvyn wrote over here, if you take out magic from the setting than pulp noir novels also technically qualify as Appendix N literature.

Actually, if you take out magic then you're really only left with two of his rules:
1) The hero usually isn’t a superman. He may be good at what he does and wins most of the time, but he doesn’t win every battle and doesn’t dominate every adventure. He can get knocked out or captured but the bad guys.
3) There is often a promise of great treasure, and this often motivates the characters although they don’t seem to keep it for long.

But those two criteria make the Rockford Files worthy of Appendix N, and that fact delights me!

I love pulp detective fiction and was thinking of the best place to post this kind of thread. And now you use my own words "against me" and encourage me to do it right here! You are awesome!

I'm going to post a few of my favorites, organized somewhat by date. I can expand the lists if anyone wants to know which books can be found in each series.

Finarvyn's Pulp Detective Appendix N: (to be expanded as needed )

• Dashiell Hammett -- The Maltese Falcon is dated 1929; there is a prequel called "Spade & Archer" (Joe Gores, 2009) which is decent but not as good as Hammett IMO.
• Robert E Howard -- A book called Graveyard Rats and Others is full of short story semi-mystic detective tales. The earliest is dated 1933.
• Raymond Chandler -- I have 9 Philip Marlow books, the first of which (Trouble is my Business) is copyright 1934.
• Mickey Spillane -- I think there are 13 Mike Hammer books; I only have a couple of them and didn't like them as much as some of the other authors. I, The Jury is from 1947.
• Ross Macdonald -- I have 18 Lew Archer books, the first of which (The Moving Target) is copyright 1949.
• Ian Fleming -- I have 14 James Bond novels; Casino Royale was done in 1953. By the way, if your only experience with James Bond is the movies, you are missing a real treat. The Fleming novels are outstanding
• Robert Parker -- the guy who wrote the "Spencer" novels. I found an omnibus edition with the first three books in it, and have no idea how many there are total. The first one (The Godwulf Manuscript) is from 1973.
• Rockford Files -- I have the first five seasons, I think there were seven or so plus some movies. Season #1 was from 1974.

Some others I wasn't sure what to do with: Lord Darcy (magical detective), Perry Mason (lawyer but similar to the detectives in many ways), Castle (tv detective who reminds me a lot of Rockford Files), The Glades (tv detective who also reminds me a lot of the Rockford Files).

More if I think of them....

Yes! They do change drastically by the time you get to Diamonds Are Forever. By that time the first movie was released and Fleming began to alter the character to mirror the way Sean Connery had portrayed him. I always like to recommend Moonraker because it was written before Diamonds Are Forever and it's a radical difference both to how the movies portray Bond and how the story unfolds; he doesn't get the girl (she gives him a kiss for complimenting her but is otherwise engaged to be married), he survives through sheer luck and happenstance, and his detective work is almost nonexistent (compared to the earlier books in the series).



There were six seasons. There is a pilot / TV movie which explains Rockford's criminal past in detail and after the series concluded there were several more TV movies in the 90s to extend a loose "history" for the character, despite the fact that the TV show never had a meta-plot and sometimes characters come and go from the series with little to no explanation.

The early movies actually sort of follow the book plot, also. Later movies are so different from the book that I think they paid Fleming for movie titles and rights to the charcters and really didn't have any interest in using his plotlines.

...is it possible they made the movies different as his request, so folks would "still have a reason" to read the books, thus keep them in print, and keep him getting paid...? Not to be too cynical about the thing.