Pulp Books

The SPIDER fights bad guys. Real bad guys. No had-a-difficult-childhood bad guys. No want-to-steal-lots-of-dough-and-live-on-easy-street bad guys. He fights guys like th Living Pharoah, who comes up with a plan to recruit an army of lepers, and have them invade a fashionable Fifth Avenue department store and infect hundreds of innocent women shoppers with the dread disease, thus bringing New York City to its knees.

This is the fourth and final installment of the original "mini-series", but like the previous stories, it well stands on its own (and it is NOT a let-down, despite what buzz you may have heard). Just pure action-adventure, with The SPIDER saving the day.

Included are the ordiginal cover, the original interior illustrations, and the original stories from the back of the old pulp; the type has been reset for clarity.

Things look bad for Richard Wentworth. The Living Pharaoh, Tang-akhmut, controls the police force. Wentworth's millions are gone, his best friend is accused of murder, his trusted servant is tortured, his girl friend is kidnapped, and there's a $100,000 dead-or-alive price on his head. The SPIDER is about as popular in New York City as John Rocker.

But this is just a normal day at the office for Richard Wentworth. As the SPIDER, he naturally rises magnificently to the occasion. He struggles mightily, and with the help of some unlikely allies, saves the day. In a pulp series known for slam-bang action, this story stands out -- the entire adventure takes place in a single "dreadful" night.

"City of Dreadful Night" is part of the SPIDER "Living Pharaoh" mini-series, and it marks the SPIDER debut of author Emile C. Tepperman, who took over writing the series in mid-cliffhanger.

This is the series that raised the bar for pulp fiction reprints -- a quality bound publication, with the original cover, interior art, and pulp short stories featured in the November, 1936 issue of THE SPIDER.

The SPIDER'S normal practice is to ensure he gets credit for his bodycount of criminals by marking them with a vermillion seal of a spider upon their recently deceased foreheads. But, incredibly, a number of these evil-doers have seemingly returned from the grave, to form a veritable Council of Evil, dedicated to destroying The SPIDER. Almost as an afterthought, they want to pull off the biggest robbery in the history of the world, destroying much of New York City to ensure their safe getaway.

This is pure slam-bang pulp action at a mile-a-minute pace. It is the actual story for the October, 1940 pulp issue of THE SPIDEr magazine, with the type re-set for easy reading, the original cover, the original interior illustrations, the original rear-of-the-magazine filler story, and an "interview" with the author. This issue is introduced by one of the last writers to have appeared in the original pulps -- best-selling author John Jakes.

Pure slam-bang pulp adventure action here. THE SPIDER fights bad guys all across the country. The action is everywhere -- in the sky, in the capital, in the deep mines of Colorado. From a start-in-the-middle-of-the-action opening scene, until the very last page, the pace of pulp action never stops!

THE SPIDER is noted for slam-bang action. In this adventure, the action is there, as always, but there's a real mystery to the plot as well. Very interesting to see how THE SPIDER works his way through the confined-aboard-a-ship plot device.

Big-time Asian money-men seek to buy into the American political system for their own nefarious purposes. No, it isn't another Al Gore fund-raiser -- it's THE SPIDER battling the Cult of the Cobra, with the fate of the nation at stake.

This book was a surprise-- and a pleasant one. I love short stories for the fact that there's no room in them for the author to hide inadequacies and falterings in the plotline. This book underlines that point in dripping red marker: Tess Fragoulis' voice is strong, sexy and very, very sure of itself. Her mind is full of shadows and her eye sharp and cynical. Her imagery alone is worth 6 stars on 5. Take, for example, this passage from 'How to pick up women' :
"His fingers worked expertly as if he were tuning a short-wave radio. Every once in a while he would hit a foreign frequency, and only his tongue filling my mouth kept me from singing out loud in German, Romanian and Basque. That was the summer I became multilingual."

But not every moment is that intense. Fragoulis throws in delicious bits of humour as in her tale 'Fragments of the Acropolis':
"After we leave, my lover comments on how great it must be to be part of a community where people know each other and are bonded by their history. Where old ladies and young men greet each other amicably.
""Are you kidding?" I reply. They weren't greeting each other. The old ladies were chastising the young men for leaving the cafe door open because,"Old people get cold." The men shot back that if they wanted the door closed they could do it themselves. Then they made fun of my lover's earrings. Poor boy, WASP dreams dashed, becomes frightened of a culture where even old ladies don't take ... He looks over at me, worried."

'Stories to Hide from your Mother' is the sort of collection where it's hard to pick a favourite, they're all so satisfying. Buy this book if you like short fiction. If you like powerful imagery. If you like tight prose.
But please, take Fragoulis' advice and hide it from your mother.

Strange Tales #9 is a real pleasure and a treat! It largely lives up to its hype of being the spiritual successor of the original magazine, which once vied with the famous Weird Tales for readers. Alas, Strange Tales was murdered by the Great Depression in 1932. The stories in this new issue, with the weirdly sumptuous cover illustration by Jason Van Hollander, are led by two past master of fantasy, the late Hugh B. Cave, and the late L. Sprague de Camp. These stories do not disappoint! Cave's tale "From the Pits of Elder Blasphemy" is certainly worthy of the original 1930s magazine. Indeed, each and every story is so worthy. Charles Garofalo takes us on a junket to the gates of hell, J.J. Travis take a Depression Era train ride with a demigod, Friday Jones show us a gruesome, grizzly future when the inexpert fool with demonic forces, and Michael Fantina presents us with a seductive and deadly sorceress who is half human and half spider. Well worth the time and money!

Out of all of Sheri-D Wilson's four published books of poetry, my most loved is her second, Swerve. This work is purely transendental. It merges both her brilliant talent for rhythmical poetry , alive with action and sparks, and her obvious internal knowledge of the stage. The continual metaphors of this book show a dedication to the oral tradition in poetry, taking the reader inward in a burst of colorful motion, then spewing out the dynamics in gesticulation of the written word. Minds who claim that poetry is purely for academic stiffs, prepare to be taken where the lyrical sounds of a modern day female writer will take you, --the stillness in between pulse beats is only a momentary illusion--but swift enough to make the open minded among us dance with the power of poetry. Recommended to those looking to explore both poetry, and acting.

For an inexpensive, classic Poe gathering of tales, here's twenty-five stories which include his best, from 'Fall of House of Usher' to 'A Descent into the Maelstrom'. Three of the selected pieces make up the basis of both TALES OF THE GROTESQUE AND ARABASQUE and TALES OF THE FOLIO CLUB, making for a fine representation of his best horror works.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch