Pulp Books

I think we are in what will be viewed in later years as the Golden Age of pulp reprints and facsimiles. Girasol, Adventure House and Wildside, in particular, are grinding them out. Since the original issues are currently virtually unobtainable, for most of us these modern printings will be the only versions we ever see.

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE was the longest-running justice-figure pulp, published from February 1933 to the fall of 1953, and the character ranks third in number of published novels, just behind the Shadow and Doc Savage. What we have here is the very first issue of his pulp, with a novel, "The Emperor of Death," attributed to "G. Wayman Jones," whoever that was [D. L. Champion?], rather than the later usual house name of "Robert Wallace." Well, to summarize, it is quite dreadful from a literary standpoint, and quite different from the later novels in the series.

"Jones'" writing is careless and semiliterate, and misprints (common in the pulps) make it often hilarious, as when the Phantom jabs his gun into the "groins" of the bad guy. Presumably the actual typed word was "loins," but the passage is ludicrous in either reading. "Jones" is also largely lacking in imagination. In this particular story, unlike the usual justice-figure pulp plot, the identity of the master villain is known from the beginning. He's a college professor of economics, Hesterberg by name, usually referred to affectionately as "The Mad Red." His plans change from page to page as the author tries frantically to rethink the plot and come up with something interesting, but ultimately involve some gibberish about precipitating a world war by stealing and revealing diplomatic secrets, and simultaneously blackmailing various nations into sending huge amounts of cash to Soviet Russia.

This is a very different Phantom from the familiar "Robert Wallace" version. He's a heavy smoker and drinker, at one point gulping down five straight whiskeys before coming up with a new plan to "get" Hesterberg. All the plans he comes up with in the course of the action are completely crazy, and invariably result in a pointless standoff in which he holds a gun jabbed into Hesterberg's long-suffering "groins" while completely surrounded by members of Hesterberg's gang, with their guns trained on the head of the Phantom. The Phantom is also given to fits of near-hysterical anger or fear. Unlike the later Phantom, who always wore a disguise unless he was appearing as himself, playboy Curtis Van Loan, this Phantom wears only a black silk mask, and exists in a perpetual state of mortal terror that some bad guy will jerk the mask off, or knock him out, or hold him helpless, and unmask him. The idea of wearing disguising makeup under the mask itself has seemingly never occurred to him--- or at least not to the author.

Lately I have been reading the adventures of Secret Agent X, again mainly courtesy of Wildside. He is a character inviting very close comparison to the Phantom Detective. Like the Phantom, he is a master of disguise and impersonation, and seemingly needs only a minute or so to swap faces, voices, clothes and identities with anyone he has knocked out. There's one big difference: no one has ever seen Secret Agent X undisguised, not even his closest associates. [Actually, in one novel, the bad guy not only peels off the makeup to reveal X's real face, but even makes a plaster cast of it; don't worry, cast and bad guy soon cease to exist.] Later writers in the Phantom Detective series seem to have taken a cue from X, whose first adventure appeared in February of 1934.

Sorry, but this book was such a disappointment, the coverage of the different western pulps was too basic and there were several mistakes, the most blatant being the info about the Hopalong Cassidy pulps. Stating that they were written by Mulford using a pen name shows the author wrote without doing much research as everyone knows they were written by Lamour. He also states the pulp stories portrayed Hoppy as Mulford had created him and this is not right. In the stories he was the same type character as Boyd played him in the movies. Anyway, I do NOT recommend this book and my copy has gone into the garbage.

I was thoroughly disappointed with Satan's Daughter as an anthology. Despite the garish "weird menace" cover, there are only TWO horror tales in it (IIRC); most are western, adventure or detective yarns... Having bought this book unseen online thinking it was an all-horror anthology from the MISLEADING COVER, one can only imagine how bitter my disappointment was upon cracking open the covers.

The title story, Satan's Daughter, was itself a fine read, as was its companion horror tale, something about voodoo zombies on a southern plantation whose title escapes me at the moment. As to the rest of the yarns, I dislike any anthology that mixes genres on principle, and Satan's Daughter proves no exception, something the editors at Wildside Press might consider the next time they're putting together and marketing an anthology. If you put a horror cover on it, you will attract primarily horror fans, and they will NOT be happy to see you've "cheated" them by filling up your page count with stories from other genres. What kills me is that the publisher could have filled the book up with more quality "weird menace" tales by E. Hoffman Price, but deliberately chose not to!

Therefore, this book is for E. Hoffman Price completists only. Horror fans should look elsewhere, in particular the Girasol Collectibles series of super-high quality pulp reprints: HORROR TALES, TERROR TALES, SPICY MYSTERY STORIES... These will satisfy your cravings for shuddersome thrills from 1930's pulp writers far better than this book's boring mish-mash.

If I could give 2.5 stars (right in the middle), I would give that because...

This book is USEFUL if... Your idea of "study guide" is a book that throws at you a bunch of questions, exercises, fill-in-the-blanks, critical thinking questions, etc. Prior understanding of Egan is a requirement.

This book will NOT HELP if... You were expecting a "Cliff Notes"-type book that easily explains the principles in this book in easier-to-understand terms. (Although there are some "tips" scattered here and there.) If you don't understand Egan in the first place, I don't think this book will help you understand it more, because the exercises require an understanding of what you have already read.

Now, if there is an ANSWER KEY for this book, I think THAT would be a GREAT study guide!

The only reason I'm writing this review is because no one else here has commented -- let alone dare to contradict the editorial reviews.

One of the rules of this site regarding reviews is 'don't post spoilers'...this should also apply to blurbs. It may already be too late but if you do plan on reading this book, *please* do not read the back cover. It reveals details that don't come into obvious play until the denouement (although naturally signposted the whole way, as per any clever work -- and this book is very clever). Things that are much more rewarding to figure out for yourself.

Another note about the blurb on the back: '[This book is] is an exclaimation mark at the end of a sentence announcing the end of writing as you know it, and the beginning of something entirely new.' That might be appropriate to paste to the back of 'Ulysses', but Suzette Mayr is not James Joyce. Her decision not to use inverted commas for dialogue might be coincidental, but there is a definite 'Ulysses'-like moment near the end of the book (think the Brothel scene a.k.a. Circe) that feels less like a colleague's nod than an aspirant's first, jerky imitation.

Speaking of the dialogue, it is a strength of this book: simultaneously exaggerated and believable. One gets the feeling many of the exchanges in the book are little more than second-hand recountings on behalf of the author -- nothing new in fiction, of course, but this novel strives for a satirical stance and falls short because one can't tell with any of the given issues whether the author is being funny or not. Moments that border on hilarity suffer sudden fits of what certainly feels like preaching.

'Venous Hum' is a 'satire on sexual preference', according to the blurb, but what exactly does this mean? Who are we supposed to be laughing at? People who *have* a sexual preference? If not that, then perhaps specific sexual preferences? Should the reader then be laughing at lesbians? Or at the cliches of lesbianism? Unless one is a lesbian, this is all quite dangerous territory. By reading this book, which by its satirical nature establishes authority on that which is being satirised, one is trusting the author to make this danger an edgy and exciting experience; to share with the reader a sarcastic, perhaps unsettling but ultimately reader-friedly parody. Instead, 'Venous Hum' is often alienating and snide. At certain points I felt almost guilty for not being a lesbian, for not finding certain things funny. Is the target readership exclusively lesbian? Are my reactions to the overbearing lesbian themes that almost kill the germ of the story itself like an overdose of antibodies...a cliche?

A satire attacks cliches. Unfortunately, attacking cliches is fast becoming a cliche. This book lacks one of two things required to make a satire work: subtlety and/or silliness.

The magic-realism element is unbalanced, with far too much clunky realism (very little subtlety in the characters, symbolism and story development) and not enough magic (until the end, where the sudden-supernatural tries to answer all the reader's questions other than 'is this really necessary?'). This lack of equilibrium plagues the novel throughout and reduces the overall product to a farce -- which is where silliness could have been an asset. One rarely gets the impression that this book, or its author, is honestly as amused at itself as it wants the reader to be.


Even more fatal, however, than this lack of comedic definition is the presence of point-of-view problems. 'Venous Hum', through its almost amateurish PoV transitions, will teach a writer more about poV than a book that 'gets it right'.

A narrative that switches point-of-view between chapters is standard and unambitious -- but also comfortable and inviting. Doing the same within a single chapter (again, something for which Joyce was and is renowned) is viable but risky. Attempting over six different points-of-view within a single paragraph, paying no heed to segue or physical location and allocating a mere sentence to each point-of-view, is clumsy and confusing.

Later, there are switches of PoV to characters who are not at all integral to the story *or* the satire. I am not a fan of skimming anything I choose to read, but it wasn't difficult to glaze over these extraneous slips (some of which occur quite close to the climax). Although the roaming point-of-view does its best to trick the reader into being interested in all the characters, one decides early on *whose* story the author is telling, and any portions that fail to do so are subject to disinterest and impatience.

As an aside, I'll admit that my favourite character was a minor one and none of the main characters interested me other than as elements of the story, which suggests that Mayr is not telling the best story in her narrative universe, but certainly *could*.

But 'Venous Hum' gets two stars because 1) the idea of mixing lesbians, suburbia and vampires ('cannibalistic, undead vegetarians' -- which sort of implies that the characters are vegetative and have no life) is certainly original and at times works very well. The prose is tight and evocative, regardless of the loose structure...and 2) the entire middle part, a flashback which doesn't play too many games with PoV, is a great read. The clever moments throughout the book are less laugh-out-loud than a sardonic smirk, but there aren't enough such witty moments to justify the narrative flaws.

Vampires, lesbians, vegans and a high school reunion...I could have been sold on this book with that alone, but am glad I was not, because I wouldn't have gotten what I paid for.

Arsenal Pulp Press took a chance issuing Wigger, the short experimental book that they generously labeled "novel" on the front cover. Actually the book runs about 35 pages total, when you leave out the blank spots. What's left is a series of fragmented scenes or disembodied conversations involving characters whose names are largely interchangeable. The action involves drug taking, aimless talk, and anomic sexual activity between men, some of them street hustlers. Occasionally Braithwaite writes with verve ("Then these young guys walk by. They got this blow-dried 'We're all called Scott' look"), but most of the book wouldn't pass muster in a creative writing workshop. I don't feel I have to care about characters that the author doesn't appear to care about, and who don't care about themselves. Overall it has a slight value in displaying how utterly wasted some people's lives can become. By the way, the "Scotts" mentioned above trash a transvestite prostitute who picks them up, in the novel's one moving scene.

Douglas Fetherling, offers up a stale wonton in The
Other China: Journeys Around Taiwan.
His account of two visits to Taiwan, in 1991 and 1995, is
lacking in original information, insight or analysis. He also
stumbles badly in several references to that turning point in
modern Sino-U.S. relations, Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China.
At least four times Fetherling says Nixon "recognized" the
Beijing government, and in one case he says this recognition
came in 1979. How Nixon could recognize Beijing in 1979 when he
resigned is 1974 is not explained. An oriental mystery?
In fact, after Nixon's 1972 visit, the United States did not
break relations with Taiwan and did not send an ambassador to
Beijing until 1979, when Jimmy Carter, not Nixon, formally
established diplomatic relations.
The main weakness of the book, however, is not its factual
errors but its strangely distant tone. Given China's strong
personality, something titled The Other China should tell us what that
otherness is. But Fetherling fails to say what makes Taiwan
different from the mainland, or explain why the Kuomintang has
been able to preside over such prosperity on Taiwan after ruling
so disastrously in China.
Instead, we get a brisk lesson in current events, a little
history and superficial descriptions of buildings, cities and
the countryside, often viewed from the inside of a car. His most
profound insight is to describe the Taiwanese as being like

1950s-style "Buick-driving country club Republicans."
Fetherling is an established Toronto writer who has written
well on a wide variety of subjects. This book, however, smacks
of a rush job, produced quickly from what he himself calls his
"rough notes." It's rather like fast food - it goes down
quickly but you wonder what was in it.

For various reasons, there exists a general lack of travel guides describing Taiwan. This beautiful island, with its indefinite political situation, its extensive inroads travel opportunities, and abundant possibilities for expatriate employment is underrated and underrepresented by publishers of travel literature. Seeing Fetherling's book, "The Other China," I was excited to see another book written about this island I had not read. With so few options available for the traveler, it is unfortunately that the deficiencies of Fetherling's 1995 work far outweigh any of the positive attributes of the book.

"The Other China" is certainly not a travel guide in the fashion of Robert Storey's "Lonely Planet: Taiwan," and Fetherling does not pretend it is. However, with so few opportunities for readers to view first hand accounts of Westerners traveling in Taiwan, Fetherling has a duty, I believe, to inform beyond what his book seems to be: a purposeless and brief tract. Within its hundred pages, the book takes on many voices, though none are particularly clear. Primarily but only partly, the book is a collection of personal reflections on the minutia of his two visits to Taiwan. Fetherling wastes space on out-of-place attacks on the US' role in world culture and makes several China-is-to-Taiwan-what-the-US-is-to-Canada references. Also, the two-part book (based on a 1991 and a 1995 visit) seems to attempt to depict some sort of change in Taiwan between these two visits. Fetherling's all-too-apparent animosity toward the US and Americans generally convey a sense that this book is merely a vehicle for him to voice these sentiments to the reader. The above mentioned errors combine with several quips throughout the book such as "...I find my first brush with a Statue of Liberty in Taiwan about as distasteful as my initial encounter with dog meat in a food stall in Beijing" and "[t]he Taiwanese can't compete against the Americans when it comes to visual trash" to detract from his observations about Taiwan (page 54 & 44). I was surprised by Arsenal Pulp Press' willingness to publish a book containing glaring factual errors though hardly surprised by the clichéd anti-Americanisms.

Fetherling purports his book to be a travel narrative that benefits from the author's "personal experience and observation," or alternatively, a "confidential" report that "unmasks the secret life of Taiwan." This reviewer spent more than a year living in Taiwan and found nothing in the book above the level of trite travel observation. Whatever secrets Fetherling unearth in his scant amount of time either do not appear as secret or could be picked up by any visitor within a fortnight. Additionally, a handful of glaring factual errors detract from the book. It is hard to determine if the source of the error is poor research, a level of Canadacentrism that should embarrass Canadians, or an antipathy toward Richard Nixon, but Fetherling incorrectly attributes the formal 1979 embassy switch between Taipei and Beijing to Richard Nixon (page 12 & 33). Though Nixon's travels certainly opened the way for Carter's later decision, Watergate if nothing else precluded Nixon's ability to conduct foreign policy after 1974.

In light of these deficiencies, it is hard to imagine any value in this book. Ask yourself: are you traveling to Taiwan or do you have some interest in its politics or history? Look to another of the relatively few volumes written on Taiwan. Looking for an incomplete travelogue based on two short trips as a hollow premise to trash another nation and culture? Click "order" now before suppliers run out.

What a ripoff! First of all, of the 25 magazine titles featured, only 8 could be called "macabre pulps" in the generally accepted meaning of the term. (And if you count cover images rather than titles, the macabre pulp representation is even smaller.) And at most only five more titles could be considered pulps at all, even if you stretch the term to include some quasi-pulp publications. As to the rest, though most are fantasy or occult related, very few are in the "macabre" category, and none of them are pulps by any stretch! These include: seven post-pulp era digests published as recently as 1973, including one that contains no fiction; a fanzine; three standard size (8 ½ by 11) non-macabre magazines published during the pulp era, including two that contain no fiction; and a standard sized post-pulp era non-fiction magazine. The book's text is extremely skimpy, for the most part merely recounting some publishing information gleaned from the indicia of the magazines. If the author is an expert on pulps, you'd never know it from this book. For each title there's a listing of all the articles and stories, by author, which is OK, although for the most part these writers are probably best forgotten. The biggest problem with the book is that the text is artificially bulked up, with the checklists in large type and spread out across the pages. There are only 104 cover reproductions in this 111 page book, but because text and checklists take up so much space, many of the covers are reproduced quite small. (I know--this is like the classic complaint about the restaurant that serves terrible food--and in such small portions!) If the contents checklists had been printed in small type two or three columns per page (preferably in the back of the book), the cover illustrations printed in a larger size, more pulp titles added to the book, and the book's title changed to "Some Randomly Selected, Mostly Rare, Short-Run, Macabre, Occult and Fantasy Magazines Published Between 1919 and 1973," the book would still be a ripoff, but might barely be worth the Amazon discount price to the curious. This is the bottom of the barrel from Adventure House! If you want a good book on the pulp era, try their UNCOVERED, THE HIDDEN ART OF THE GIRLIE PULPS, which is chock full of pulp covers and has an extremely informative text by Douglas Ellis, or their reasonably priced Belarski cover collection.

I'd have to agree with the first reviewer. this one is not worth your time. i had very high expecations as i love this genre of illustration and graphic design... and there was hardly any content! i'm not even sure how they actually had enough pages to bind this book. the cover was the most exciting part. Look to some great titles like "UNCOVERED: the hidden art of the girlie pulps" and you'll be much more satisfied.

Being old enough to have been able to purchase the original Man's Story magazine,at local newstands,and for only a quarter an issue,I think that I can speak with some experience here...This is NOT really anything like the original...Yes,it tries to be...the stories are from the same formula,basicly pulpish damsel-in-distress tales centering on torture,historical or war-related settings,dramatic rescues ,that sort of thing...But there is really very little imagination involved...essentially,you read one or two of this kind of story you have in effect read them all..The original stories had the advantage of being rather"new"way back when,and catered to an audience that had grown up with pulp fiction..The old versions just took that fiction a few sweaty steps forward,made it a tad more fetishisticly erotic and,best of all,adorned it with some very very memorable artwork...The new versions try to update the formula,but fail miserably...For one thing there is a whole lot more of this sort of thing available now,it is more explicit,and can be had,by the gross on a pay-as-you-view(and read)monthly subscription on certain fethish web-sites...These websites offer superior artwork,and thier storylines are as good-and often better-than the stuff offered here..One of the real problems with Man's Story 2 is the artwork,which is,for the most part,almost juevenile..This in itself is enough to compare the enterprise unfavorably with both the original old quarter an issue magazines and the web-sites mentioned earlier...Another negative is the 9.95 pricetag...While one may not be fortunate(as I am)to own entire runs of original issues of"Man's Story"."Man's Epic","World of Men" and other golden age publications,one still can buy a monthly subscription,for about $25.00 or so,and get hundreds and hundreds of illustrated stories,while here,for one's money you get only a few badly illustrated tales...

I'm a big weird menace/pulp fiction fan, but most of the stories in this book read more like amateur, juvenile S&M crap than anything I ever read in the pages of TERROR TALES or SPICY MYSTERY STORIES. A few of the stories included are decent, like Hugh B. Cave's, but nothing really sticks out in my mind as being particularly memorable in this anthology... Probably because rather than reprinting the classics, publisher Fred Olen Ray has enlisted new authors to create pastiches; authors who don't have one-tenth the talent of the old pro's (men like like Hugh B. Cave). While sometimes you can tell the author honestly tried, most are mockeries without merit. Fred Olen Ray's single story, Pumpkin Guy, is lame (albeit brief) and has nothing to do with the weird menace genre... It appears to have been included solely as a marketing tool. In short, don't bother to track this book down; you'll only be disappointed.

You're better off buying the original weird menace pulps of the 1930s than this book, but that would cost a fortune, as original pulps can cost hundreds of dollars for a single issue. Fortunately, Girasol Collectibles, Adventure House and Wildside Press are all publishing affordable reprints and replicas of TERROR TALES, HORROR STORIES, SINISTER STORIES, EERIE STORIES, SPICY MYSTERY STORIES, SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES, etc., so we can all finally read and enjoy the true classics of the weird menace genre!