STEVE CARROLL WRITES

The following column originally appeared in Justin Marriott's PAPERBACK FANATIC #50 (sadly the final edition of this fine publication), which was published in August of 2025. You can buy a copy of it  HERE . That article has been slightly expanded upon for this blog. Anyone   who knows me or has been following my columns here in Paperback Fanatic knows   that I have a real soft spot for spy thrillers. While I can certainly appreciate the cerebral rewards of   reading some John le  Carré or Graham Greene, my tastes   have always drifted toward the more visceral and action-oriented end of the   fiction spectrum. Cold war in the shadows is fine (and well   represented by my   top pick), but give me a megalomaniac bent on world domination if possible with   a little sci-fi thrown into the mix and I’m in like Flint (pun intended). With   all that said, here is your manly man’s guide to my personal favorite picks for   top 10 best s...

The following column originally appeared in Justin Marriott's PAPERBACK FANATIC 49, which was published in November of 2024. You can buy a copy of it HERE . Do you remember a time just a few decades ago when it seemed like   almost every even moderately popular movie or television show regardless of   genre received a paperback tie-in   novelization? If you’re like me (and I   suspect you are), I grabbed those up whenever I saw them. Unfortunately, over   time most of them ended up lost, sold, or traded. Thanks to eBay, used   bookstores, and thrift/charity shops, I have successfully rebuilt much of that   collection from decades ago. As my recent columns for Paperback Fanatic have   clearly shown, I have a borderline   unhealthy obsession with the Kung Fu/Martial   Arts movie and paperback craze that ran primarily through the 70s, though some   lingered into the 80s.  This time around, I’d like to focus on some of the more pro...