New at Amazing Stories Magazine

We interrupt the Works in Progress series to let you know . . .

My latest contribution to Amazing Stories Magazine, "1933" is now available online for your perusal. Learn all about the Hero Pulp Explosion! You'll find it here, at the Amazing Stories Magazine site:

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P.J. Farmer, Grand Master Award winner in 2000, launched a popular string of novels and essays postulating that a meteorite that landed in Wold Newton, England, in 1795 radiated a band of nearby travelers, whose mutated genes formed the basis for the birth of all the heroes and villains who populated the pages, film, and radio waves of during the 19th and 20th centuries.
 
Whether you are a Wold Newton follower little matters. It is a matter of documented fact that during the year 1933, publishers detonated a population bomb that eventually lit the fuse that exploded the Wold Newton notion in Farmer’s imagination.

In 1933, Street & Smith published the first issue of Doc Savage Magazine, cover dated for March. Following Doc’s appearance on the newsstands, pulp magazines featuring The Phantom Detective, The Spider, The Avenger, Thunder Jim Wade, Jim Anthony, The Whisperer, and a host of others began to swarm the racks that once had been dominated by general fiction publications like Argosy, Adventure, Blue Book, and a few others
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Read more at the Magazine . . .

Moving slowly in the fast lane

There are a number of things I wanted to wrap up before August flew into September. But looking over the past 30 days, I think I've been on the road more days than I've been home.

Still, quite a bit happened: I attended PulpFest, the family and I had a short vacation, I traveled for work, and just during the past week, I've accomplished a number of things.

The boys and I took in the Samurai exhibit at the Frazier History Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. This was really an excellent exhibit on arms and armor and Samuari culture. All that info will be very helpful for a story I'm working on.

I also wrapped up a 3000+ word essay for The Big Book of Bronze # 5. Jay Ryan compiles this Doc Savage-focused fanzine annually, publishing it to coincide with the Arizona Doc Con.

Plus, I submited a contribution to the 100th mailing of PEAPS, the Pulp Era Amateur Press Society. For 25 years PEAPS mailings have gone out quarterly, with contributions covering scholarly reviews of pulp magazine authors or works, or bibliographic topics, reviews of recently read pulp-related books, reports on pulp conventions, and on and on. A sample of a PEAPS contribution from 2003, Warren Harris' Back Numbers Can Be Easily Procured, can be viewed at efanzines.com by clicking here. My contributions, when I was an official PEAPS member, were titled T'rilling Action, conflating Doc Savage's idiosyncratic response to a mystery (trilling); the word Thrilling from the titles of a series of magazines known as "the Thrilling group" (Thrilling Adventures, Thrilling Baseball, Thrilling Detective, Thrilling Football, Thrilling Love [!], Thrilling Ranch Stories, etc.) published by Standard Magazines; and the word Action, which was used in the title of many pulp magazines, including Action Stories, Action Adventure Stories, Action Detective Magazine, Action Novels, Action-Packed Western, and so on.

I'd intending completing the draft of Three Witches, a short novel, by Friday. Didn't happen; but this week I did complete the two big battles that form the climax of the story. I need to write out the denouement, which may result in another thousand words or so, and then I'll set to revising and tweaking. I plan to release Three Witches as an eBook, and I've already prepared the typography for the cover. Once I start revising, I'll also get the cover art into shape, lining up each step to get Three Witches closer to publication.

When Three Witches moves into the revision stage, I'll jump back to finishing the novel I'm doing with artist Mike Fyles, Space Detective. (Mike's art at the top of this post is a sample of what he's been doing on this project. I think his stuff is just dynamite. And really, what's not to love about a Studebaker?) This, really, is long overdue. But taking a break from it has recharged my batteries to complete that novel-length story.

Last but not least, I've been kicking around emails with Jim Beard, author the The World's First Captain Action Novel, Riddle of the Glowing Men. We've been building a world and characters for a series of stories that should prove to be a lot of fun. Jim anticipates we'll have this ready by late 2013. It's good to know there's always more fun and excitement ahead--it makes the work go much more easily!

Jungle Tales Vol. 1 in print and performing well

My first story for Airship 27 has enjoyed a nice launch!

"The Devil's Nest" is a Ki-Gor story published in Jungle Tales Volume 1, which is now available as a print edition from Amazon.  (Click here for more info.) It arrived in print format just about one month ago.

According to Barry Reese's informative New Pulp Best Seller List, the anthology--which also features stories by Aaron Smith and W. Peter Miller -- debuted at Number 5 on the top 10 list for June 25.  It's dropped off the list one week since that time and now, but Barry's most recent list (for July 23) has Jungle Tales hanging on at the 10 spot. I think that's pretty good, considering the competition, which includes a new Hard Case Crime release (False Negative by Joseph Koenig) and the most recent Doc Savage adventure (The Infernal Buddha) penned by Will Murray.

Part of the appeal of this Ki-Gor collection is, I think, the Tarzan Centennial. Pulp fans are in the mood for some fresh jungle action, I think. Dinosaurs and jungle action--what's not to like?

By the way, the dandy black-and-white illo accompanying this post is by Kelly Everaert, who provided the very nice interior illustrations for the book.

I have some other Ki-Gor projects in the works. I'll let you know when the news is ripe.

Many thanks to those who have bought and read Jungle Tales Volume 1!

A Quiet Night in the Dark in La Plata, Missouri, 1942

My story for the Two-Fisted Tales of LaPlata, Missouri--a print anthology published by Mark Lambert for the 2007 Doc Con in Lester Dent's town--is now available for both Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook.

Lester Dent is known today among pulp magazine and popular culture fans as the primary creator and writer of the character Doc Savage, hero of a monthly magazine published by Street & Smith from 1933 to 1949. Doc Savage -- Clark Savage, Jr. -- was the precursor to later popular heroes like Superman, Batman, James Bond, and Dirk Pitt. Dent's energetic prose for the Doc Savage stories always was published under a Street & Smith house name: Kenneth Robeson. So he was surprised when his editor informed him that Kenneth Robeson was the name of an actual person. And in "A Quiet Night in the Dark in La Plata, Missouri, 1942," a surprise visitor shares with Dent an astonishing story that leads to deadly consequences in his quiet rural home.

My buddy, Chuck Welch, who runs some web sites devoted to Doc Savage, wrote: "A fun story that captures the signature snappy prose style of Lester Dent."  I take that as high praise.

You can find the Kindle version here.

You can find the Nook version here.

For those folks who have other eReaders, I plan on having the story available at SmashWords soon.

Meanwhile, enjoy!  Thanks for your patronage. Feel free to post comments. And if you like this story (or Pretty Polly), please post a review at Amazon to let other folks know. (I don't think you can post reviews at B&N, but I may have simply overlooked that feature.)