what gives your pulp its pep?

[bubba smith]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

in other words' date=' pulp is just plain fun [/quote']

amen

[Guest steamteck]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I've always loved the fact that pulp never tried to cater to the anemic sensibilities of the literateurs and had no fear of being ridiculous. There is a certain zany sensibility to pulp that holds true irrespective of what pulp genre is being written' date=' be it adventure, hero, horror, space, sport, western, war, weird menace, ad infinitum. Even when the writers tried to break out of the genre limitations and rise above - and they did succeed occassionally - there was a dashing devil-may-care air about it.[/quote']

 

Astoundingly well put!

[CSgeekHero]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I'll throw in another word. Unpretentious. Which would be the word the rumpled super-genious might use as he's informing the jut-jawwed hero how to act around the cannibal leader so they can escape with their heads and catch up with the evil Nazis that have taken the powerful mystic crystal/eye/stone/amulet and kidnapped the hero's girl.

[Spence]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I'll throw in another word. Unpretentious. Which would be the word the rumpled super-genious might use as he's informing the jut-jawwed hero how to act around the cannibal leader so they can escape with their heads and catch up with the evil Nazis that have taken the powerful mystic crystal/eye/stone/amulet and kidnapped the hero's girl.

 

I love a straight forward good/evil plot

[drunkonduty]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

Gun fights from the running boards of cars speeding through the dark night.

Pin stripe suits with big shoulders.

Aviatrices.

Nazi ubermensch getting their well deserved come-uppance.

 

And another thumbs up for Tales of the Gold Monkey!

[DusterBoy]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

More to the point' date=' pulp deliberately and unashamedly seeks to entertain, with no pretensions of "art/literature" that preclude entertainment.[/quote']

 

Quoted for truth, and thus it will always be dissed and dismissed (prob with a sneer) by the literadors, who see "entertainment" as something trivial or to be regarded with horror, secondary to "virtues" such as irony, literary knowingness, education (usu with a sledgehammer), etc.

 

Nah - I'll go for an entertaining story first. Everything else is secondary, or maybe even tertiary. If I want to be educated/informed, I'll read non-fiction.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

Quoted for truth' date=' and thus it will always be dissed and dismissed (prob with a sneer) by the [i']literadors[/i], who see "entertainment" as something trivial or to be regarded with horror, secondary to "virtues" such as irony, literary knowingness, education (usu with a sledgehammer), etc.

 

Nah - I'll go for an entertaining story first. Everything else is secondary, or maybe even tertiary. If I want to be educated/informed, I'll read non-fiction.

 

 

I agree 100%.

[Prometheus]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I have to admit to the dissenting opinion: I've always felt that the best of the pulps are entertaining because they're well written. Robert E. Howard (my personal favorite) definitely had a "literary bent", and he brought it to a subject matter that make his stories especially enjoyable.

 

I mean, if all the Conan stories had been written at a third-grade level with pure titillation in mind, would they be any good?

[The Main Man]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

While that is certainly true, I think that the real point is that good pulp is talented writing purely geared towards entertainment, the consequences be damned.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

While that is certainly true' date=' I think that the real point is that good pulp is talented writing purely geared towards entertainment, the consequences be damned.[/quote']

 

Beat me to it.

[Peregrine]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I have to admit to the dissenting opinion: I've always felt that the best of the pulps are entertaining because they're well written. Robert E. Howard (my personal favorite) definitely had a "literary bent", and he brought it to a subject matter that make his stories especially enjoyable.

 

I mean, if all the Conan stories had been written at a third-grade level with pure titillation in mind, would they be any good?

 

It's the difference between quality and pretentiousness. Quality entertains; pretentiousness disdains entertainment in the name of art.

[Vondy]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I have to admit to the dissenting opinion: I've always felt that the best of the pulps are entertaining because they're well written. Robert E. Howard (my personal favorite) definitely had a "literary bent"' date=' and he brought it to a subject matter that make his stories especially enjoyable.[/quote']

 

There is a difference between solid writing that produces good entertainment and writing that thinks a great deal of itself and presumes to call itself literature/culture. Howard was a workmanlike writer, not a stuffed shirt literateur.

[Prometheus]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

There is a difference between solid writing that produces good entertainment and writing that thinks a great deal of itself and presumes to call itself literature/culture. Howard was a workmanlike writer' date=' not a stuffed shirt literateur.[/quote']

 

Absolutely. Black Colossus, what could be said to be Howard’s most formulaic plot, is one of my favorite pulp stories by anyone. That first chapter- hell, that first paragraph- just sinks its teeth into you and doesn’t let go.

 

The argumentative part of me just needed to make sure "good writing in the service of entertainment" made it into the discussion somewhere.

[Peregrine]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

The argumentative part of me just needed to make sure "good writing in the service of entertainment" made it into the discussion somewhere.

 

And why would we ignore the best condition?

[Lysando]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

(Near) continuous action , but also a big plus for me is exotic locations, and interesting situations. When I finally get my globetrotting pulp campaign going, that is what I will be emphasizing.

 

Also, with the pulp heroes, there was a sense that they were still basically human, not superhuman. You could believe that that sort of heroism could in theory actually be possible in the real world. Probably not in reality, but you don't have to suspend too much disbelief.

 

I've been known to play in superhero campaigns, but I always take my disbelief, fold it up nicely and put it on a shelf out of the way, before I play.

[Basil]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

Mystery, because the world is vaster and stranger than it can ever be.

 

When you finally ride the lifeboat in across the surf from the wreck of the ship that went aground in a place that should only be deep ocean, you face an nexplored mountain range cloaked in a deep forests and cleft by a huge river that could never not have a city at its mouth in any land on the map.

As you ride towards the rendezvous on the camels, an empty city rises before you at the margin of the mountain range that the Touregs will not permit to be mapped. Alabaster stairs are gleaming, seeming to wait for a galleys to glide into dock, though no sea has flooded this blasted erg in the memory of man...

A sabretooth tiger waiting in your hotel room when you get back from interviewing your client.

A mysterious detective agency, hunting for people, all connected in some way in generations unknown. Is the desperate, harried man interviewing you for a job, or suspect that you are one of the people he's looking for? And why did he tun on that device in the corner before letting you have a clear look at his face?

At the deepest layer of the dig, where Neolithic village gives way to a few scattered tools, an engraved plate in a script well-known to the half-Cherokee archaeologist, even though it is ten thousand years older than Sequoyah, and speaks of an era before the sea drank the gleaming cities...

 

I just now found this. You are right, THIS is what pulp is about! REPPED! :-D

[Narratio]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

Not one to disagree but can I throw in E.E 'Doc' Smith?

I mean... "Ravaging torrents of energy shattered the very ether as his mighty muscles flexed and sweat poured from his brow as he fought on, trying to hold the switches closed"

 

That's so far over the top in entertainment without literary pretensions it's probably leading the charge.

[Peregrine]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

Not one to disagree but can I throw in E.E 'Doc' Smith?

I mean... "Ravaging torrents of energy shattered the very ether as his mighty muscles flexed and sweat poured from his brow as he fought on, trying to hold the switches closed"

 

That's so far over the top in entertainment without literary pretensions it's probably leading the charge.

 

"Probably"?