Murdercon

by Richard L. Purtill

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385173342
• ISBN13: 9780385173346
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 181 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Pros and Cons

Richard Lawrence Purtill writes across the genres. That poses a problem though; most readers don't read across them. Few writers can change genres and bring their readers with them (C.S. Lewis was one of the few). Like it or not, there's a style change between fiction and non-fiction. In the card catalog days, readers may have voraciously devoured everything by their favorite authors, but now computers categorize by subject and topic more than by author, and this niche marketing, the bane of creativity, has both straight-jacketed authors by forcing them to write in successful (and derivative) grooves and beaten the reading public insensitive by cloning best-sellers (that most questionable category) over and over again. So it seems ridiculous that Dr. Purtill, the philosophy prof who has written and spoken widely on Tolkien and Lewis (these seen as a deviation from his usual duties of writing textbooks) is also the author feted as guest of honor at Mythcon and numerous fantasy conventions. This was simply due to an accident of birth; in the pre-computer days books only existed on the shelves in book stores and their lifespan was determined by the boom and bust publishing philosophy that swamped the market with new books and just as quickly put them out of print. Incredibly prolific, Purtill penned three fantasy novels for DAW sci-fi paperbacks, drawn from his annual trips to Greece for philosophy conventions and his love of and interest in Greek mythology. As well as a sci-fi novel and numerous short stories he published this mystery, again reworking his experiences into novelistic form: in this case a murder takes place at a fantasy convention. Reviewers of this book (which only appeared in hardback) almost always seized on the con atmosphere which, as anyone who has attended one knows, begs for fictional treatment, but the strength of the book lies in Purtill's philosopher heroine, Athena Pierce. Readers of Murdercon have long clamored for a sequel. The good news is that one is coming in 2007. Purtill has begun publishing "lost tales" in the Kaphtu series (as his DAW fantasies were retrospectively known) and finally the entire Athena Pierce series may see the light of day. Of course that creates a problem for niche marketing, but readers increasingly disappointed with "best-sellers" are more than ready to read across the genres.