2022 End of Year Link Clearance (part 1)

Come the holidays, it’s time for me to post all the links I collected through the year. Bring the popcorn and settle down on the couch.

Paperback Writer

Gunshots in Another Room: The Forgotten Life of Dan J. Marlowe” (2012) by Charles Kelly

The profession of “paperback writer” is as romanticized, mythological, and distorted as any of the heroes and villains from those aged pulp pages. All too often they’re thought of as overpaid hacks, banging out novel after novel, yarn after yarn, raking in dough without concern for their words, without insight into their topics.

Charles Kelly’s groundbreaking biography of Dan J. Marlowe, a writer best known for his crime novels for Gold Medal—the first and most important of the paperback original publishers during its renaissance from the late 1940s through the mid-1970s—should act as a corrective to many of those rumors.

From the Editor’s Desk

Robert O. Erisman is probably not a well-known name in the pulp fiction field. He was a full-time author, who later became an editor with Martin Goodman’s Red Circle group of pulps. Known editorial credits include Marvel Science Stories, Dynamic Science Stories, Uncanny Stories & Uncanny Tales. He also edited Goodman’s western pulps as well. This was at the same time Stan Lee was editing Goodman’s comic line. Right time, wrong place. Still, someone whose opinions on writing command respect.

So here’s an article by him on writing fiction, published in Writer’s Digest, April 1941. Also reprinted in Ed Hulse’s excellent collection of advice for writers from pulp writers: The Penny-a-Word Brigade: Pulp Fictioneers Discuss Their Craft

https://www.writersdigest.com/be-inspired/notes-on-fiction-writing

We’ll believe it when we see it

News about the in-development Doc Savage movie becoming a TV series instead.   https://www.joblo.com/movie-news/doc-savage-movie-to-instead-become-a-tv-series-minus-dwayne-johnson

Horse Opera to Space Opera

It’s always puzzled me how some fiction fans manage to stick to one genre. All i want is a good story and believable characters. It doesn’t matter if it’s western, adventure, science fiction, fantasy, weird, horror, crime/detective/mystery, satire, thrillers or even, gasp, romance.  Though I have to say, the sports pulps I read always felt more formulaic than the other genres. (Though if someone did a best of the sports or romance pulps, I’d be there buying it.)

I also love stories in which genres blend, like Poul Anderson’s The High Crusade (aliens invade medieval Europe and vice versa). And that is what this exhibition did. Nice pics of a Buck Rogers toy gun.

https://www.thestoryoftexas.com/visit/exhibits/cowboys-in-space

To soothe the savage beast

I’ve always enjoyed MysteryFile’s eclectic blend of music, movie reviews, books and anything else Steve wants to publish. In the spirit of pulp adventure, I’m going to occasionally post instrumental music from around the world. I’m starting with this beautiful piece from the Issan region of Thailand, in the northeast. It features a lot of traditional Thai instruments including:

Phin Lute/Guitar
Khene/Mouth organ
Wot/Circular panpipe
Sueng/Plucked lute with 4 strings
Ranat/?
Wooden xylophone
Drums

P.S. : Personally, I find lots of music videos quite distracting. So i put on music and turn off the screen. You might want to do the same.