Author: Tommy Hancock
HARD CASE BRINGS LOST NOIR NOVEL TO READERS!
GUEST REVIEW- SALMON LIVES ‘THE LIFE OF PI’!
FORTIER TAKES ON ‘HAWK:HAND OF THE MACHINE!
DANGEROUS ASSIGNMENT, THE OCTOPUS, CAPTAIN FUTURE, AND MORE! FROM RADIO ARCHIVES!
The Spider heard the first dread rumors in the secret councils of the Underworld. A keen-witted, ambitious criminal leader named El Gaucho — backed by a powerful army of brutal killers — was pillaging the West. Looting, ravaging, slaughtering wantonly, the master-mind of crime was ruthlessly following a plan which would make him King of America! Richard Wentworth — the debonair aristocrat who is in truth the deadly Spider, protector of the oppressed — knew that he must strike quickly, or die! For Wentworth, ever running a double risk, forced now to sacrifice a brave, dear friend to ghastly torture, faced a grim, new danger in the bounty-hunters who wanted to collect El Gaucho’s reward — its own weight of the purest gold for the Spider’s head! Total Pulp Experience. These exciting pulp adventures have been beautifully reformatted for easy reading as an eBook and features every story, every editorial, and every column of the original pulp magazine.
They came at night — the clouds of blood-thirsting, poisonous vampire bats — led by a strange man-thing who flew high in the black sky, directing their horrible slaughter. Blood was their desire, and they sucked it from the veins of helpless infants, from the white throats and breasts of frantic women, from the hands and faces of terrorized men. While the authorities doubted and dallied, one man — Richard Wentworth, that brilliant aristocrat who, as the dread Spider, strikes terror in the Underworld — realized that this was another of the devastating onslaughts of lawless genius. Never before was the Spider so badly handicapped. With his beloved Nita captive, his loyal servants out of the battle, himself unarmed and pursued by law and criminal, he must fight the greatest battle of his life when every chance seems lost and every hope is gone..! Total Pulp Experience. These exciting pulp adventures have been beautifully reformatted for easy reading as an eBook and features every story, every editorial, and every column of the original pulp magazine. As a special bonus, Will Murray has written an introduction especially for this series of eBooks.
Out of the East, eight centuries ago, the first Mongol Horde rode forth under the mighty Genghis Khan, and became the first ‘yellow threat’ to the West. Now a new one has reared, to which that ancient invasion stands as a mere escapade. High-explosives! Deadly bacteria! Poison gases! Flaming thermite! The greatest cities in the West lying in smoking ruins; invaders gutting the very heart of our nation! How can Operator 5, betrayed, condemned, hunted by his own countrymen, fight both them and the enemy? How can he save, from a subjection more horrible than death, the beloved land of his birth? Total Pulp Experience. These exciting pulp adventures have been beautifully reformatted for easy reading as an eBook and features every story, every editorial, and every column of the original pulp magazine. As a special bonus, Will Murray has written an introduction especially for this series of eBooks.
Curt Newton, Joan Randall and the Futuremen cruise into a strange world peopled with weird, pallid inhabitants, on the quest of a lost satellite which was mysteriously plucked from the sky!… the Ace of Space! Born and raised on the moon, Curt Newton survived the murder of his scientist parents to become the protector of the galaxy known as Captain Future. With his Futuremen, Grag the giant robot, Otho, the shape-shifting android and Simon Wright, the Living Brain, he patrols the solar system in the fastest space ship ever constructed, the Comet, pursuing human monsters and alien threats to Earth and her neighbor planets. The exploits of Captain Future, Wizard of Science, originally appeared in the pages of Captain Future and Startling Stories magazines back in the days before NASA’s manned space program. Captain Future returns in these vintage pulp tales, reissued for today’s readers in electronic format.
FORTIER TAKES ON ‘DINOSAUR JAZZ’!
ALL PULP REVIEWS by Ron Fortier
DINOSAUR JAZZ
By Michael Panush
Curiosity Press Book
316 pages
Saying I liked this book would be one of the grossest understatements ever to come from my pen. “Dinosaur Jazz,” by Michael Panush has leaped into the top three of my favorite pulp novels thus far this year. Yes, dear readers, it is that good, as I’m about to explain.
The back story goes like this. At the turn of the 20th Century, a massive island is discovered in the Pacific Ocean teaming with real dinosaurs. Not only dinos, but wooly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers share this savage land together; creatures from different epochs. There is also a race of barbaric humans the early explorers of the island call Ape Men. The island also contains half a dozen strange ruins completely alien to the world’s leading archeologist. Called Archeron Island, it is the setting for Panush’s tale of high adventure.
The narrative kicks off several years after the end of World War One. By this time colonists from around the world, especially Great Britain, have established cities along the island coast line and under the auspices of the League of Nation, an international administration sees to the day-to-day governing of this amazing land. Still there are gangsters and smugglers who have made a lucrative business from all the natural riches Archeron offers. The protagonist is Sir Edwin Crowe, a dino guide/hunter and the son of the island’s discoverer, Lord Horatio Crowe. Sir Edwin and his step-brother, an Ape Man named James and raised by Lord Crowe after his parents died, are content with their lives. Edwin had fought in the Great War and his haunted by the memories of those days.
Their idyllic existence is unexpectedly turned upside down when a ruthless American industrialist, Selwyn Slade, arrives on Archeron leading an army of mercenaries and a coterie of lawyers. Slade wishes to buy all the land upon which the mysterious ruins rests and will do anything to possess them. Then a rampaging army of Russian Cossacks and Mongols led by a sadistic former British General named Ironside appear in the jungles and randomly begin attacking some Ape Men villages while at the same time arming others with modern weapons and urging them to warfare.
Suddenly the land Sir Edwin calls home is about to erupt into battlefield that will leave it bloodied and scarred forever unless he can discover the truth behind Slade’s bizarre scheme and prove his connections to warlord Ironside. From the swank jazz clubs of Victoria City to the frozen wastelands of the Aspholdel Heights, Sir Edwin, James and their colorful band of allies will battle desperately to uncover the truth and sacrifice all to save the most amazing island in the world.
Rampaging dinosaurs, sexy torch singers, airships, Tommy Guns, cavemen, pirates and a oriental Dragon Lady; “Dinosaur Jazz” has everything a pulp fancier could want and it’s all mixed brilliantly into a tale that is both original and marvelously entertaining. It is the epitome of what New Pulp Fiction is all about and Michael Panush is a superior writing force to be reckoned with. Enough of my prattling, if you love pulp fiction, “Dinosaur Jazz” is required readying. Do not miss it.
Review – Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt
Peter Cannon Thunderbolt is back and Dynamite delivers it with style with a new number one that came out this week.
Dynamite has done a great job with taking old pulp concepts like Lord Of The Jungle and bringing them back with a new look and style, yet remaining true to the concept. Peter Cannon is no exception.
Issue one opens with the Thunderbolt battling a dragon. Experiments with nuclear testing caused a dragon to appear in the sky. It was subdued (for the moment) by the Thunderbolt and led countries to talks about nuclear disarmament. We flash forward two years later and Peter is looking miserable as he prepares to be interviewed on another talk show. The thunderbolt identity is known to the world. Peter did this to stop people from being hounded by reporters – now finds himself facing the challenges of celebrity and fame. Things didn’t go quite as expected and Peter seems to be searching for a way to overcome the distractions in his life.
Along the way, new and old acquaintances to the previous thunderbolt series make their appearances, foreshadowing future issues to come. The conclusion is unexpected and in a good way. Steve Darnall and Alex Ross managed to capture a lot of the qualities that made the character so intriguing, and manage to build an intriguing mystery to keep you coming back for more. Jonathan Lau’s Thunderbolt is impressive, but I think my favorite panel in the issue is peter, alone in his dressing, head down and drowned in shadow. In conveyed his personal happiness better than anything else in the whole issue. It’s the little storytelling things that make or break a good book and that little panel was a nice touch. A credit should also be shared with Vinicius Andrade for that as well.
Beyond the main story, Mark Waid introduces Pete Morisi Thunderbolt story never before published. A little bit of that Charlton fanboy in me squeed at reading this retelling of Peter Cannon’s origin. Who better to tell it then Morisi himself?
Originally, this story was going to be published for DC Comics in the Secret Origin’s anthology that Mark Waid was editing at the time. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the story never was published until now. In it you meet Peter Cannon, and get a great re-telling of his origin. You see him train and master the ancient scrolls to become the Thunderbolt. The hooded one, the man studying the scrolls before Peter was chosen for them, also appears and begins to become a thorn in Peter’s life, from his trials to the main plot of the first story.
Using his telepathy, the hooded one manipulates Lucifer Barnes into hatching a dinosaur egg and sets it loose in the city. As the thunderbolt, Cannon foils the plot and vows never ever to be that man again…until next time.
The final thing in here that’s kind of neat is the essay in the back written by Steve Darnall called Pete’s Dragon, which talks about the influences for the main story in the book which is a fascinating read.
You’d be very hard pressed to find a book this week worth the money paid for then with this. Two comic stories – including a Peter Morisi comic, a promising first issue and one of the amazing four covers for the book, all in all a great comic worth reading.
THE TOTAL PULP EXPERIENCE! WILL MURRAY’S PULP CLASSICS! AND MORE FROM RADIO ARCHIVES!
A shrill scream pierced the quiet night as the mighty Plutonic breasted the glassy waves. As if at a signal, countless passengers, young and old, men and women, were seized by an epidemic of frantic self-destruction. By water, fire, steel and lead they tried eagerly to hurl themselves into oblivion — into the greedy arms of Anubis, grim Egyptian deity of death! Richard Wentworth, who defended humanity in the guise of the dread Spider, recognized the suicide-mania immediately as an extremely cunning attack by the master-brains of the international underworld. Yet when his fellow men needed his protection more than ever before, the Spider lay gravely wounded, ruthlessly harried by Law and Criminal, while his beloved Nita, fortified by her courageous love, went forth to prove she was indeed the Spider’s mate! Total Pulp Reprint. These exciting pulp adventures have been beautifully reformatted for easy reading as an eBook and features every story, every editorial, and every column of the original pulp magazine. As a special bonus, Will Murray has written an introduction especially for this series of eBooks.
DISCOVER ‘ALIENS AMONG US’ FROM PULP EMPIRE!
AIRSHIP 27 LETS FLY WITH ‘BLACK BAT MYSTERY VOLUME 2’!