Pulp Adventures #26

Bold Venture Press is back with another new issue of Pulp Adventures, #26 for the Summer of 2017. And we get another Norman Saunders cover. Was wondering if he’s return. As always, a mix of old and new pulp in a wide range of genres: mystery, western, horror, adventure, pulp hero and more. Some stories are almost a 100 years old!! From classic pulp we get the following: “The Doting Burglar” by Ben Hecht is a fairly interesting tale that appeared way back in 1917 in All Story Weekly. The author, whom we learn more from the blurb is as interesting. He was a journalist and writer from the 1920s until he passed in 1964. Like many pulp writers he also wrote plays and film scripts, and even lyrics. He got 6 Academy Award nominations. “Murder Is Fascinating” by Benton Brader stars his detective character Need Creegan, and appeared in the back of a Phantom Detective pulp in 1946. The author contributed many stories in the back of Thrilling pulp magazines, including several serialized characters. But am not certain if Need Creegan appeared more then once. Western tale “Birthday Bullets” by Richard Brister comes from Double-Action Western, published by Columbia, one of the lesser pulp publishers. Brister was apparently fairly prolific, putting out about 300 stories in the 40s and 50s. From A. Merrit, better known as the author of such works as The Moon Pool, whom I’ve posted on before, we get his short story “The People of the Pit” which appeared in All-Story Weekly in 1918. From H.P. Lovecraft we get a couple of short works. First a short (one page) poem, “Despair”, from 1918. And then the very short story “The Terrible Old Man” from 1921. This story is notable as the first use of the fictitious city of Kingsport. For New Pulp we first kick off with a new Brother Bones story from Ron Fortier: “Then and Now”. Brother Bones, the Undead Avenger, has appeared in a trio of books from Airship 27 and several short stories with other publishers. And hopefully soon in a new movie! Michael Kurland provides a new story with Professor Moriarty: “The Picture of Oscar Wilde”. Kurland has written several novels and short stories staring the Professor, collected in 3 volumes so far. At some point I hope to review these. “Black Mastiff” by Stanley C. Sargent takes inspiration from works of Lovecraft and his circle. The author has published other similar works. “Lillian” by John E. Petty is another tale that makes use of various Lovecraftian elements. The author is a lecturer in film and wrote the intros to Bold Venture’s Zorro collections. “Monster in the Maze” by Adam Beau McFarland is a strange little short story, that mixes in pirates and Greek legends. To say more will ruin it. As always a wide selection of stories. You might not like everything in every issue, but there should be something you’ll like. This one has several I liked. And I think the sidebars on the authors is important. It seems these, especially for the original pulp stories, are getting better with this issue and hope this continues. I think this is important to help people understand the wide range of genres and authors out there. I look forward to the next issues as always.