Steve Long Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 I'm sure plenty of you are interested in the pulp genre/era and have done your own researching and reading on the topic. What books have you run across that you'd recommend? The PH draft bibliography is already about 2,500 words long, but there's always room for more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanguard00 Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading I'm sure plenty of you are interested in the pulp genre/era and have done your own researching and reading on the topic. What books have you run across that you'd recommend? The PH draft bibliography is already about 2' date='500 words long, but there's always room for more. [/quote'] Any chance of getting the list so we don't cover stuff you've already added? I mean, Doc Savage, The Shadow, Jens Altmann stuff, etc, are probably already listed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starwolf Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading Phiilp Jose Farmers Doc Savage the apocalyptic life Philip Jose Farmers Tarzan the apocalyptic life The entire Doc Savage series Anything by Edgar Rice Burroughs The Phantom The Shadow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Long Posted March 31, 2005 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading Actually, I'd kind of rather not post the biblio yet, Starwolf -- it will be interesting to see what people recommend as a sort of mirror of their own taste. However, you can take it for granted that I have all the really obvious stuff, like actual pulp stories of the Shadow, Doc Savage, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading There's a whole publisher of modern pulp here. Not that I've gotten around to reading any of it yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tancred Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading Except for Edgar Rice Burroughs, I haven't read much pulp-era fiction (a sad deficiency that I need to correct). But there is one, quite IN-obvious book that I can highly recommend: Dydeetown World, by F. Paul Wilson. Technically speaking, it's not pulp-era; it's set in the future. (And one of the main characters is a clone.) But the feel is very gritty, Sam Spade like. It is written like a classic film noir. A REALLY fun read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading Nero Wolfe. Also, possibly Edgar Allen Poe - first writer of self-narrative detective stories (as well as horror). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanguard00 Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading Edgar Rice Burroughs ("Tarzan" series, some shorts), Robert E. Howard (various shorts), HP Lovecraft (various) "Zorro" books (various authors, but a bunch by Johnston McCulley) "Doc Savage" series (Lester Dent, mostly) "The Shadow" series (various authors) "The Spider" series (various authors) "G-8 and the Battle Aces" series (various authors) "Operator #5" series "The Avenger" series (Paul Ernst, I think) That's pretty much all I've read thus far. I went on a kick a couple of years back and bought up a bunch of collections and compilations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanguard00 Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading I suppose you could make "modern pulp" out of Mike Resnick's books (Santiago, Widowmaker, etc). Good 'frontier sci-fi' type stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanguard00 Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading Oh! Frank Miller's "Sin City" and Ed Brubaker's "Sleeper" comics both have excellent pulp characteristics. Very hard-boiled. Dashielle Hammet, too ("Thin Man" books, which are also good movies). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamrok Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading If you can find them, reprints of Seabury Quinn's "Jules De Grandin" stories are excellent examples of pulpy supernatural mysteries. Nowadays we remember Lovecraft as the most influential horror writer to come from "Weird Tales," but, at the time, Quinn was a lot more popular. I'll put in a reminder that no list of Pulp Heroic fiction would be complete without my avatar, "The Spider," Master of Men! If you're going to include "Doc Savage," you might as well go ahead and include "The Avanger." This is especially appropriate since "The Avenger #1" gave us the title for the last Hero Pulp Supplement, "Justice Inc." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agemegos Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes corpus, Professor Challenger corpus. Leslie Charteris: the early (pre-WWII) Saint stories. Edgar Rice Burroughs: Tarzan corpus, John Carter, Warlord of Mars corpus, Venus corpus, Tarzan corpus. Dashiel Hammett: 'Continental Op' stories, collected in The Big Knockover and other stories Lee Falk: Phantom comics. Alexandre Dumas (pere): The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo. Jules Verne: Around the World in Eighty Days, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea various hack writers: Ellery Queen mysteries. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barton Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading A favorite pulp "area" for me is Abyssinia (Ethiopia) 1930-1940. You can have facistists (both kinds Italian and German), adventurers, spies, gun runners, and even treasure hunters. A great book is from Osprey Publishing; Men-at-Arms Series The Italian Invasion of Abyssinia 1935-36 by David Nicolle and illustrated by Rafaele Ruggeri. A great book (short 48 pages) with many photos and beautiful illustrations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teh bunneh Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading I hope you'll be including a list of some of the great pulp magazines of the 20s, 30s, and 40s. Black Mask, Detective, and others gave most of the people in the pulp genre their start! Bill. (I'll post a better list when I get home and can look at my own collection). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamrok Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading I have several sets of encyclopedias from the era, and I think the "Worldbook" is probably the most useful, since it is a bit more focused on explaining things to kids than adults. These types of explanations tend to be a bit easier to digest for the modern reader, and tend to be a bit more colorful for the modern gamer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teh bunneh Posted April 1, 2005 Report Share Posted April 1, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading Many of the great crime/detective writers we know today got their start in cheap, disposable pulp magazines. Writers like Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, Jim Thompson, WR Burnett, and Raymond Chandler are names that any crime drama afficianado knows. Some of the great old detective pulp magazines of the 30s and 40s: These two are still being published: Alfred Hitchcock's Magazine (http://www.themysteryplace.com/ahmm/) Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (http://www.themysteryplace.com/eqmm/) This one still has a web presence, but it's not being printed anymore: Black Mask (http://www.blackmask.com/) None of these are around anymore (AFAIK), but many of the stories first published in them are still available in reprints and collections: Spicy Detective Underworld New Detective Detective Fiction Weekly Manhunt Detective Story Monthly Crime Detective And many more! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamrok Posted April 1, 2005 Report Share Posted April 1, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading A few primarily non-fiction items that have proven useful over the years: "The Giant Airships" volume of the Time/Life "Epic of Flight" series. Nice history of airships along with some very nicely done drawings. "Bloodletters and Badmen" by Jay Robert Nash. This is a very nice encyclopedia of criminals in American history, giving quick bios of just about any criminal you can think of, along with a nice accounting of their more infamous crimes. I love this book. "1927 Edition of the Sears, Roebuck Catalogue." Mine is a reprint from 1970, and not that difficult to find if you spend some time looking. This is the definitive place to start when looking for prices of ordinary items. "The Pulps" edited by Tony Goodstone. This is the book that really served as my introduction to the Pulps. It includes reprints of stories from a very wide array of pulps, along with photos of a nice selection of pulp covers. "This Fabulous Century 1920-1930" and "1930-1940" Nice sweeping overview of the events and fads of the these two decades (and other decades if you have the full set.) "American Heritage History of the 1920's and 1930's" Another sweeping overview, focused (if I remember correctly) a bit more on higher culture than the previous series. "Janes Encyclopedia of Aviation" This was the best thing I could find to illustrate the differences in the various models of propellor aircraft avalable at the time. If you can get your hands on a copy of the "World Almanac" covering the time of your game, those are an invaluable resource. My favorite feature is a chronological accounting of all major news stories of the year - this is like looking at a timeline with a magnifying glass - hundreds of stories are summarized. For the 1920's in particular: "The Lawless Decade" by Paul Sann. This is a pictorial look at the 1920's that focusses on the events that have made the decade legendary. "America in the Twenties, a History by Geoffrey Perretti" Very readable narrative of the decade that successfully weaves fun and fads with the major events of the decades. And, no list of books about this decade would be complete without mentioning Frederick Lewis Allen's "Only Yesterday." This is another very readable history of the decade written, in this instance, right at the end of it. This is another great resource for gamers more interested in social history than a strict accounting of facts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamrok Posted April 1, 2005 Report Share Posted April 1, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading One more: "The American Thesaurus of Slang" Berry and Bark (1942). Probably the definitive guide to slang from the Pulp era. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Long Posted April 1, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading Now that's the sort of stuff I'm talkin' about! -- thanx, Lamrok! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadyChaos Posted April 1, 2005 Report Share Posted April 1, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading The Amelia Peabody series of mysteries by Elizabeth Peters start out in late Victorian and are currently in WWI. Anyone who reads them will recognize a LOT of elements from The Mummy movies. The Last Camel Died at Noon actually is EP's nod to the H. Rider Haggard novels, complete with a lost civilization. The latter books in the series feature the protaganist's son, who acts as a British Spy against the Germans and Turks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted April 1, 2005 Report Share Posted April 1, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading I suppose somebody has already mentioned the old TV show "Tales of the Gold Monkey"? http://www.goldmonkey.com/index.html Rogues, spies, nazis, samurai, expatriots, what's not to like? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starwolf Posted April 1, 2005 Report Share Posted April 1, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading How about some Jack London: Call of the Wild, White Fang or Silver Chief. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beetle Posted April 1, 2005 Report Share Posted April 1, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading For a slightly more modern take than usual (50s-60s) you could look at the stories of John D. MacDonald, especially his short stories but also the early Travis McGee novels. Probably the easiest way to get his short stories would be to find the collections "The Good Old Stuff" and "More Good Old Stuff" from the 1980s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
st barbara Posted April 2, 2005 Report Share Posted April 2, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading I have alongside me at the moment a very interesting "period" resource called "The Ships and Aircraft of the U S Fleet" by James C Fahey. It is a boxed set of three small "chap books" about 50 pages each. Published 1978 by "SHIPS AND AIRCRAFT" 1265 Broadway New York City. The original copyright date is 1941. It goes into the ships and aircraft of the U S fleet from before World War II to about 1942 with details of size, when they were built, dimensions, machinery, armament, crew etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
st barbara Posted April 2, 2005 Report Share Posted April 2, 2005 Re: Pulp Reading To "Starwolf" Jack London Good one ! I might also suggest "Beau Geste" by P C Wren. Classic French Foreign Legion adventure ! (The film with Gary Cooper is fun too !) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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