I am currently not a fisherman, but I was one when I was a kid. Perhaps fisherboy is a better word for what I was. We lived in Baltimore, right next to a subsidiary of The Chesapeake Bay. I fished quite often, and while I liked it, fishing never took precedence over reading and watching monster movies.

Though I am no longer attracted to the rod and reel, I still adore the Crunch and Des fishing stories of Philip Wylie.

It's sad. Crunch and Des are forgotten now, except by bibliophiles like me. At one time these short stories were astonishingly popular. Nearly all of them were published in The Saturday Evening Post, and people everywhere took enormous delight in them.

I didn't get around to reading about ex-boxer Captain Crunch Adams and his hungry-for-a-catch First Mate, Desperate, until years after I began reading Philip Wylie. I first took a notion to sample his writing after I read an essay about Wylie by the great Theodore Sturgeon. I began with a 1951 science fiction novel called The Disappearance, which was a study of a world that awakened one morning with one sex completely gone. It was ingeniously told in alternating chapters in which men found themselves suddenly without women, and with women waking up in world without men. The Disappearance is a profoundly intelligent SF novel, especially when one considers the time it was published. The Disappearance is one of the first novels in the genre that dealt with homosexuality in any sort of mature manner.

I made a point to read more Philip Wylie. I went through the SF first. Tomorrow!, a harrowing novel about nuclear war and its aftermath, is probably the best of its kind ever published. I think it was just a tad too realistic for most people at the time.

Wylie didn't limit himself to science fiction, although he is probably best known today for his work in the field. When Worlds Collide was made into a film by producer George Pal. It, and its sequel, After Worlds Collide, were collaborations with Edwin Bulmer. As I understand it. Bulmer was Wylie's editor and he came up with the concept, while Philip Wylie did the actual writing. When Worlds Collide is being prepared to be remade, with Stephen Sommers directing. I already hate it.

Other novels by Philip Wylie were adapted into films: Night Unto Night, which starred Ronald Reagan, and was one of the earliest movies by famed director Don Siegel; and Gladiator, which is reputed to be one of the main inspirations for Superman. Sadly, the film was a weak vehicle for comedian Joe E. Brown, rather than an honorable adaptation of Wylie's excellent novel.

Not only that, Philip Wylie was a screenwriter on some of our favorite movies, like The Invisible Man, Island of Lost Souls, and Murders in the Zoo.

Philip Wylie became notorious for his scathing indictment of then-current society, Generation of Vipers. This infamous nonfiction book spared no scared cows in the author's outraged contempt for the conventions of modern living. Wylie even spent a considerable part of the book denouncing that most celebrated of institutions, motherhood. Generation of Vipers may outrage you, you may disagree with the author, but you should read it. It was one of the most important books of its time.

In the 1960's, when the counterculture movement embraced Generation of Vipers as a volume that condemned the previous generation that they rejected, Wylie turned the tables on them by writing Sons and Daughters of Mom, a scathing look at the hippie movement!

God, I wonder what Philip Wylie would think of today's world? Thankfully he died of a heart attack in 1971.

This piece is about Crunch and Des, but I wanted to give an overview of the life and career of Philip Wylie. And he did much more than I've written about. He wrote mysteries, experimental fiction (try Finley Wren: his Notions and Opinions sometime), he was a Marine Biologist, an editor, and he served on the Congressional Committee for Atomic Energy. Philip Wylie was a multi-talented, unusually intelligent man.

I know of the Crunch and Des stories, but I didn't go out of my way to read them. My brother was a fisherman and I told him about Philip Wylie. I was always telling him about writers, and he sometimes cared and sometimes didn't. But when I said that Wylie had written a bunch of stories about a charter fisherman and his exploits, he had to read them.

With my help Rick obtained the Crunch and Des stories, and he read them before I did. They became his favorites. Rick read them again and again, and I eventually abandoned my beloved monsters and space ships to take a cruise with Crunch and Des. It's a trip I never regretted.

I'm not sure how many Crunch and Des stories Wylie wrote, but there were at least eight collections of them. People loved them and these stories were part of what made fishing so popular even today.

I emphasize again: You do not need to be a fisherman to enjoy these stories. But if you are a fisherman and a reader, you simply have to have them.

Some of the Crunch and Des stories are extremely funny, like the very first one. Its hilarious title is Widow Voyage. Many are lightly humorous, with delicate irony. Many have an ecological message. Wylie was well ahead of the curve when it came to going green. Others are sheer adventure stories. All of them are purely delightful.

Captain Crunch and Desperate keep their boat, The Poseidon, at the dock in Florida's Key West. The marina and its surrounding streets are described as paradise in the stories. Crunch is the biggest, the best, and the most honorable fishing guide in the area. It's like Eden, with Crunch as the benevolent God. Those that conduct themselves with honor are treated with respect and generosity. Transgressors are cast out.

Some fiction entertains us. Some challenges us to think. Some makes us laugh, or perhaps cry. The Crunch and Des stories are good for the soul. They will enrich your life and make you a better person than before. Satisfaction guaranteed.

Sadly, I can't tell you that the Crunch and Des books will be easy to find, or reasonably-priced if you do find them. Most people that have these books are either hanging on to them, or asking exorbitant You can still get the 1990 collection, Crunch and Des: Classic Tales of Florida Fishing, which was edited by Wylie's daughter, Karen Wylie Pryor. Most copies are still pretty high, but ex-library editions are affordable. This would be the very best place to start.

You know what else is sad? When I was young, older fiction was constantly in print. Most of what I bought were old science fiction novels that had originally been published long before. Often decades earlier. Now only the biggest names from The Golden Age of SF are available. Just as you're only likely to see things by H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard in bookstores. Few young readers care to read fiction written in times past these days.

One final thing: There was a brief Crunch and Des TV show that ran from 1955-1956. Thirty nine episodes in all.Forrest Tucker played Captain Crunch Adams. I know that the shows won't hold a candle to Wylie's stories, but I'd still love to see some of them. I've been unable to locate any. If anyone reading this can help me find some, I'll be in your debt.

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