The Heavy Hand of the Editor (The Silencer, Book 11) by Cora Buhlert
Release date: January 29, 2020
Subgenre: Pulp thriller, Men's adventure
About The Heavy Hand of the Editor:
New York City, 1938: Richard Blakemore, hardworking pulp writer by day
and the masked vigilante only known as the Silencer by night, has faced
many a horror in his day. But few of them can match the terror of the
blank page. Especially since Donald A. Stuart, the upstart young editor
of an upstart young magazine called Stunning Science Stories, has
already rejected Richard's story "The Icy Cold of Space" four times.
Stuart demands changes that Richard does not want to make. Worse, he also holds Richard's story hostage. Unless Stuart permanently rejects the story, Richard cannot sell it elsewhere.
There are a lot of shady practices in the pulp business, but Stuart's actions are beyond the pale even for the wild west of publishing. And so the Silencer decides to pay Stuart a visit to put the fear of God into an editor who believes himself to be one.
This is a novelettes of 10800 words or approx. 38 print pages in the Silencer series, but may be read as a standalone.
Any resemblances to editors, writers and magazines living, dead or undead are entirely not coincidental.
Stuart demands changes that Richard does not want to make. Worse, he also holds Richard's story hostage. Unless Stuart permanently rejects the story, Richard cannot sell it elsewhere.
There are a lot of shady practices in the pulp business, but Stuart's actions are beyond the pale even for the wild west of publishing. And so the Silencer decides to pay Stuart a visit to put the fear of God into an editor who believes himself to be one.
This is a novelettes of 10800 words or approx. 38 print pages in the Silencer series, but may be read as a standalone.
Any resemblances to editors, writers and magazines living, dead or undead are entirely not coincidental.
Excerpt
In his time, Richard Blakemore, hardworking pulp writer by day and the masked vigilante known only as the Silencer by night, had known many horrors. But none of those horrors — the Scarlet Executioner, Baron Tormento, the Master of the Air, the vile Reginald Rumpus or even Old Sparky, the electric chair at Sing Sing prison — could match the horror he now faced: the horror of the blank page.
It was sitting in his Underwood typewriter, taunting him with its overwhelming whiteness, the whiteness of the Northern wastelands (“Must write a Mountie story for Jake Levonsky sometime”), the whiteness of the polar regions (“Howard Lovecraft, may the Lord rest his soul, may have been an hopeless reactionary, but ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ was a damn fine story”), the whiteness of the Venusian mists (“Not that anybody really knows what they look like”), the whiteness of ten pounds of prime quality cocaine (“Now that was a great bust, putting the Snowman out of business”). It sat there, waiting, beckoning, taunting him to fill it with words.
Normally, writer’s block was not a problem that Richard had to deal with. He was a pulp writer, after all, and pulp writers did not believe in writer’s block. Writer’s block was for sissies, for artsy-fartsy folks sipping absinthe in the cafés of Montmartre, while pretending to write the great American novel. Pulp writers didn’t suffer from writer’s block, because they didn’t have the leisure to. They were way too busy writing, hacking away on their typewriters to bring their yarns to the newsstands to entertain the masses.
But now it seemed as if Richard had contracted the malaise of the terminally artsy-fartsy. For though it was a quiet night and he was at home in his spacious mansion on Long Island, sitting at his desk, his trusty Underwood in front of him, he found that he just could not write.
His musings were interrupted by a knock on the door of his study. Constance Allen, Richard’s fiancée and the love of his life, entered, wrapped in a satin robe the colour of a good Bordeaux wine, that set off her figure and her titian-red hair to perfection. In her hand was a cobalt blue Fiestaware mug, containing Richard’s ten PM coffee. Edgar, the cat, followed on her heels.
After more than three years together, Constance could sense his mood even without words. So could Edgar, who meowed and jumped onto Richard’s lap.
“What is it?” Constance asked and set the steaming mug down on the desk, “Stuart again?”
Richard nodded. “That man is a bloody pain in the backside.”
Constance smiled. “You can say ‘butt’, you know? Or even ‘arse’. I’m not one of those wilting wallflowers from the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice who’ll faint at a single rude word.”
“Sorry,” Richard replied, “I’ve just trained myself not to utter any words I can’t use in print.”
He took a sip of coffee. It was good, the same heavenly blend sold at Chock Full ‘o Nuts lunch counters throughout the city. He instantly felt revived, though even an infusion of caffeine did little to dispel the terror of the blank page.
Constance sighed and settled down in one of the comfortable armchairs in his study. “So what has Donald A. Stuart done this time around?”
“He rejected ‘The Icy Cold of Space’ today,” Richard said, absentmindedly stroking Edgar’s black fur. The cat purred.
“Again?” Constance exclaimed, “It’s been — what? — three times now?”
“Four,” Richard corrected, “In the time I’ve spent rewriting this thing, I could have written two full Silencer adventures.”
“So what’s his problem this time around?” Constance wanted to know.
Richard sighed. “He hates the ending.”
“Again? Didn’t he already hate it the last time around?”
Richard nodded and sighed once more. “Maybe one day a story will be
written that Donald A. Stuart has nothing to nitpick about. But that day
lies in the far future and whichever writer will satisfy Stuart’s
demands, it certainly won’t be me.”
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About the Silencer series:
Hardworking pulp writer by day and steel-masked vigilante by night, Richard Blakemore a.k.a. the
Silencer fights both larger than life villains and ordinary crooks and keeps Depression era New
York City safe from criminal low-lives in these high octane adventure stories.
The Silencer is an homage to the heroic pulp vigilantes of the 1930s such as the Shadow, the Spider and Doc Savage and the writers who brought them to life.
- Book 1: Countdown to Death
- Book 2: Flying Bombs
- Book 3: The Spiked Death
- Book 4: Elevator of Doom
- Book 5: The Great Fraud
- Book 6: Mean Streets and Dead Alleys
- Book 7: Fact or Fiction
- Book 8: St. Nicholas of Hell's Kitchen
- Book 9: The Milk Truck Gang
- Book 10: A Valentine for the Silencer
- Book 11: The Heavy Hand of the Editor
About Cora Buhlert:
Cora Buhlert was
born and bred in North Germany, where she still lives today – after time
spent in London, Singapore, Rotterdam and Mississippi. Cora holds an MA
degree in English from the University of Bremen and is currently
working towards her PhD.
Cora has been writing, since she was a teenager, and has published
stories, articles and poetry in various international magazines. She is
the author of the Silencer series of pulp style thrillers, the Shattered
Empire space opera series, the In Love and War science fiction romance series, the Helen Shepherd Mysteries and plenty of
standalone stories in multiple genres. When Cora is not writing, she
works as a translator and teacher.
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