Certain authors become known for certain viewpoints - often politics, (e.g. Clancy) but also other areas (e.g. Norman).
Are there any authors who publish works of one viewpoint under one name and works of a differing viewpoint under another?
I don’t know about “viewpoint”, but Ed McBain and Evan Hunter write in very different styles, so much so that when he wanted a book told in both styles, he co-authored it with himself.
Delicious!
There is also Donald Westlake, who has a series of caper novels about a group of crooks led by a mastermind named Dortmunder, and Richard Stark, who has a series of caper novels about a group of crooks led by a mastermind named Parker. They are dramatically different in tone (and genre) despite Westlake and Stark being the same person.
I was Ed McBain’s, Evn Hunter’s, Richard Stark’s, and Donald E. Westlake’s editor from the mid '80s through the end of the century (Mysterious Press/Warner Books). If you want to ask questions, do.
Only on the Dope!
I’m pretty sure Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels wrote in a very different style, although both were pen names of Barbara Mertz. I can’t be 100% sure because although I remember thinking that in the past, I no longer recall having read any Barbara Michaels books. Anyone else know both pen names?
The book is Candyland. First part is plain old story, written by Hunter. Second is a mystery, written by McBain.
Hunter writes fiction; McBain writes mystery. Both are excellent.
Holy crap! I’ve been a lifelong fan of the man. My mother was huge into McBain, and the first adult book I read was one of his. I’ve read all of him.
Give me a clue: What was he really like?
The styles of Richard Bachman and Stephen King. Bachman tends to be darker and more cynical.
My mother loved the Ed McBain et al. I’m a completist so I started to go back and read the 87th Precinct books in order. I couldn’t get past the retconning of the series. One character started off as a Korean War vet. Later he was a Desert Storm vet. I understand the reasoning but it just took me out of it.
Nice guy. Had a, shall we say, healthy self-esteem. His first Hunter novel, The Blackboard Jungle, was a huge best-seller and he never achieved that level of success again, which really bothered him.
He was an amazing writer, with a Mozartean deftness, requiring very little in terms of line editing, and of course plotted his novels so tightly you didn’t want to pull out a brick and make the whole building fall. He also insisted on lots of attention from the publicity and marketing departments, and was quite inventive at concocting crackpot schemes to increase his sales.
He hated Hillary Waugh, who usually gets credit for “inventing” the police procedural genre. Felt he deserved the credit. Always kept up with bestselling thrillers to see what more successful writers were up to, and compared their talent to his.
VERY serious about his profession. I saw him at his most intense during a coffee date with Westlake, where the two of them had a heavy discussion about the Screen Writers Guild, which was up to some treachery at the time, can’t remember exactly what.
Drove him crazy that everyone refers to the movie as "Hitchcock’s The Birds. To the point where he had characters in his novels refer to it. “Everybody thinks the actors just make up their lines! Who do they think WROTE the script?”
I always put in a lot of effort to stay on his good side, and he seemed to like me a lot. You had to remember, though, as Westlake once put it to me, “Evan is a Sicilian.”
Yeah, there’s no perfect way to solve that problem…writing a series over five decades and keeping Steve Carella perpetually 37.
It bothers me to reread Rex Stout novels from the '60s, because Archie Goodwin no longer wears hats.
What was the reason why he changed his name from Salvatore Lombino?
Like Governer Mario Cuomo and other Ital-Americans of their generation, Evan was convinced that WASP America looked down on the fine people of Southern Italy as lacking sufficient whiteness.
They have a point. I remember watching the 1951 Kirk Douglas film noir Detective Story and thinking the the evil “guido” character played by Joseph Wiseman looked like he came from another damn planet.. “Dirty wop” and “greasy dago” tripped off the lips of many U.S. citizens.
So rather than fighting the power, Salvatore Lombino of Manhattan became “Evan Hunter” of Connecticut, borrowing the names from his high school and college alma maters.
Tom Holt writes humorous SF and fantasy, like “Expecting Someone Taller,” and "Who’s Afraid of Beowulf. It was recently revealed that he’s been writing more straight (plot driven) fantasy under the name K. J. Parker for a decade and a half (while still writing Holt-esque stuff under his own name).
No kidding! I LOVED Expecting Someone Taller.
Heinlein published his best stuff under his own name, his “B” material as Anson McDonald, and his “C” grade stuff as Lyle Monroe, Caleb Saunders, and a few other pseudonyms.
Oh, is he out now? I remember finding out about it in the mid-90s, and being kinda sworn to secrecy about it. The KJ Parker books are well worth reading, I liked them a lot, but very, very different to the Holt stuff.
Ruth Rendell wrote under that name when she published her detective series and mystery/thrillers. When she wanted to do something more “psychological” she used Barbara Vine.