Goulart, Ron: After Things Fell Apart

by Ron Goulart

Book Overview

Science fiction paperback with alternative cover of robots cleaning up is a satire featuring The Amateur Mafia, Lady Day Raiders, aging rock stars, etc. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• ISBN: 0441009506
• ISBN13: 9780441009503
• Release Date: January 1970
• Publisher: Ace
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.

Customer Reviews

His Best

AFTER THINGS FELL APART is the best novel Ron Goulart ever wrote. If you lived through the 1960s, you'll get it; if you didn't, this explains like few others do.

A Photographic Negative

In Ron Goulart's novel, _After Things Fell Apart_ (1970) an old man is being questioned by robots at the Nixon Institute of Oral History. He says: "I'm not Mrs. Silvermine... That is, I am but that was merely a penname. Bertha M. Silvermine, the queen of Spine-Tingling Horror. I was something in those days... Bertha M. Silvermine was the Uncrowned Queen of the Gothics in those days. And I was writing that crap at the rate of three a month." (34) It is hard not to make comparisons with Ron Goulart himself. The sheer volumn of his books is awesome. There are his stories of the Barnum System which include (but are not limited to) his Chameleon Corps stories and his Jose Silva stories. There are his Star Hawk novels (based on a Gil Kane comic strip). There are his stories of Max Kearny, ghost breaker. There are his Vampirella stories, over half a dozen short story collections, several kung fu novels, books in the Phantom and Flash Gordon series, and three Battlestar Galactica books (with Glen Larson). There is an array of nonfiction coffee-table books on comics and pulp magazines. I even recall a short series of stories from _Fantastic_ featuring a time machine and a rotound nineteenth century detective named Plumrose. This is not a complete list by any means. As you may have gathered, the quality of Goulart's writing is uneven. He rarely writes a book that is thoroughly bad, but he doesn't write many that are exceptionally good, either. And because he writes so many books, it is sometimes hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. _After Things Fell Apart_ may be justly considered one of Goulart's very best novels. It is set in the environs of San Francisco during a time in which, well, everything _has_ fallen apart. There has been a guerrila invasion of the Chinese, the government has collapsed, robots and machines are constantly breaking down, there are regular riots on the Golden Gate Bridge, the traditional Mafia is competing against the Amateur Mafia (no Italians allowed), drugrunning and prostitution is normal, back to nature communes are springing up, and Richard Nixon is still alive. The hero is a private investigator named Jim Haley who is hired to track down Lady Day, the head of a band of feminist assassins. Some of my favorite sequences in his quest were those on a ship where a gay western is being planned, that of G-Man Motel run by ex-federal agents who still report to the computers in Washington, and the escapades in the Vienna Woods lunatic asylum. Unlike many Goulart novels, the episodes seem to be planned around more of a plot than usual. In this case, the plot involves the relationship between Haley and Penny, an ex-Lady Day recruit. As the world around them is falling apart, they seem to be developing a love that is stable and solid. Early in the novel, Haley automatically grins at other characters. By the end of the novel, he is smiling at Penny. In his autobiography, _In and Out of Character_ (1956), Basil Rathbo

A Photographic Negative

In Ron Goulart's novel, _After Things Fell Apart_ (1970) an old man is being questioned by robots at the Nixon Institute of Oral History. He says: "I'm not Mrs. Silvermine... That is, I am but that was merely a penname. Bertha M. Silvermine, the queen of Spine-Tingling Horror. I was something in those days... Bertha M. Silvermine was the Uncrowned Queen of the Gothics in those days. And I was writing that crap at the rate of three a month." (34) It is hard not to make comparisons with Ron Goulart himself. The sheer volumn of his books is awesome. There are his stories of the Barnum System which include (but are not limited to) his Chameleon Corps stories and his Jose Silva stories. There are his Star Hawk novels (based on a Gil Kane comic strip). There are his stories of Max Kearny, ghost breaker. There are his Vampirella stories, over half a dozen short story collections, several kung fu novels, books in the Phantom and Flash Gordon series, and three Battlestar Galactica books (with Glen Larson). There is an array of nonfiction coffee-table books on comics and pulp magazines. I even recall a short series of stories from _Fantastic_ featuring a time machine and a rotound nineteenth century detective named Plumrose. This is not a complete list by any means. As you may have gathered, the quality of Goulart's writing is uneven. He rarely writes a book that is thoroughly bad, but he doesn't write many that are exceptionally good, either. And because he writes so many books, it is sometimes hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. _After Things Fell Apart_ may be justly considered one of Goulart's very best novels. It is set in the environs of San Francisco during a time in which, well, everything _has_ fallen apart. There has been a guerrila invasion of the Chinese, the government has collapsed, robots and machines are constantly breaking down, there are regular riots on the Golden Gate Bridge, the traditional Mafia is competing against the Amateur Mafia (no Italians allowed), drugrunning and prostitution is normal, back to nature communes are springing up, and Richard Nixon is still alive. The hero is a private investigator named Jim Haley who is hired to track down Lady Day, the head of a band of feminist assassins. Some of my favorite sequences in his quest were those on a ship where a gay western is being planned, that of G-Man Motel run by ex-federal agents who still report to the computers in Washington, and the escapades in the Vienna Woods lunatic asylum. Unlike many Goulart novels, the episodes seem to be planned around more of a plot than usual. In this case, the plot involves the relationship between Haley and Penny, an ex-Lady Day recruit. As the world around them is falling apart, they seem to be developing a love that is stable and solid. Early in the novel, Haley automatically grins at other characters. By the end of the novel, he is smiling at Penny. In his autobiography, _In and Out of Character_ (1956), Basil Rathbo