If you missed the last one…
Contents
WHY GHOSTS MUST BE SCARY
CAN OCCULT DETECTIVES ACTUALLY BE SCARY?
THE GOTHIC HERITAGE OF THE GHOSTBREAKER
WHY WRITE HORROR?
HORROR VERSUS WEIRD MENACE
THE STRANGEST NORTHERNS: ALGERNON BLACKWOOD STYLE
THE HAUNTED ISLAND
FIRST HATE
THE VALLEY OF THE BEAST
ITHAQUA: THE WENDIGO AND THE WALKER ON THE WINDS
THE MONSTERS OF JIM KJELGAARD
THE FANGS OF TSAN-LO: MAN’S BEST MONSTER
WINDIGO
THE ROBOTS OF WEIRD TALES
I, ROBOT: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A MECHANICAL MAN
SCIENCE FICTION OUT OF MILWAUKEE
I, ROBOT: THE SCIENCE FICTION MYSTERIES OF ISAAC ASIMOV
THE SCIENCE FICTION OF FRANCIS FLAGG
CAPTAIN MEEK & DOCTOR BIRD
THE EARLY SCIENCE FICTION OF JOHN WYNDHAM
JOHN WYNDHAM’S PLANET PLANE & THE SLEEPERS OF MARS
THE MAN FROM YESTERDAY: A JOHN WYNDHAM MYSTERY
STRANDED ON A FEARSOME PLANET
ADVENTURES IN PUSAD
HYBORIAN TIMES
SPRAGUE DE CAMP’S EUDORIC STORIES
SCIENCE VERSUS MAGIC
CONAN AND THE CTHULHU MYTHOS
SWORD OF CTHULHU
THE PLANT MONSTERS OF HEROIC FANTASY
AFTERWORD: CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
WHY I READ AND WRITE PULP
BUY the Ebook here. Paperback version will be available very soon.
From “Why I Read and Write Pulp”:
I’ve been spending a lot of time amongst the Pulps lately. And it begs the question: what is the appeal of these old, flaking, brown books? One thing strikes me immediately, the collector’s mania that says, “I want them all!” Since Pulp magazines are no longer produced it is a finite proposition to own a “complete Weird Tales” if not a cheap one.
But this doesn’t explain everything. The idea of a rare magazine or comic sealed in plastic, unreadable, priced at, say, $1000.00, makes it no more interesting than a rare coin or a bearer bond. This is about owning a commodity, an investment, and in this respect I have no interest whatever. I know this as a fact, the same stories (and art) from that issue, when reprinted in a paperback or new magazine, are of equal interest to me. The state of being the original appearance is of only scholarly interest.
“Pulp” has become a pejorative in writing circles. If your writing is “pulpy” you are being accused of purple prose, melodrama, bathos, clunky Science, sexism, racism, outmoded ideas of romance or honor or any other number of sins. Unfortunately it doesn’t mean: fast-paced, exciting, vibrant, ass-kickin’ or fun. (Though all of these could be equally true.)
I’ve been trying to divine what attracts me to these musty old tales and I can’t grab a definite answer. Am I getting old? Nostalgic? Not likely, since these magazines appeared when my dad was in diapers. I never read a copy of Weird Tales from the newsstand as did Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight or Robert Silverberg. (I’ve fantasized about owning a time machine and owning a complete and pristine sets of WTs.) By the time I was born, and of a reading age, Science Fiction had suffered through the New Wave and was trying to figure out what to do next in the Disco Seventies. The proponents of the New Wave had wanted to divorce themselves from the Pulps and become more literary. Out went the space villains and ray guns, in came the social issues and sexual issues and art-for-art-sake writing. (Don’t believe me? Read Philip Jose Farmer’s “Riders of the Purple Wage” (1968) or Samuel R. Delaney’s Dhalgren (1975) Put your jim-jams on first.
Space Opera from RAGE m a c h i n e
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