Blog Archives

Breath of Beelzebub by Larry Sternig appeared in the Winter 1946 issue of Planet Stories. It can be read here at Archive.org. I’ve noted in the past that drug-use, particularly use of hallucinogens, are so prevalent in pulp science fiction that it’s a wonder that it took rock music decades to fully catch up. Sometimes […]

I came across this article about men’s fiction that men account of 20% of fiction sales. I found a Publisher’s Weekly article on Hot and Cold Book Categories of 2015. That article showed a 12% decline in science fiction and fantasy from 2014 to 2015. I have been reading science fiction and later fantasy since […]

Savage Galahad by Bryce Walton appeared in the Winter 1946 issue of Planet Stories. It can be read here at Archive.org.  One of the occasional trope you’ll see in the pulps is a story from the Bug-Eyed Monster’s perspective. This can often be played for laughs, but even when it is, such as in the […]

Example by Tom Pace appeared in the Winter 1946 issue of Planet Stories. It can be found here at Archive.org. Sometimes you read a story that just fails to leave an impression. Sometimes you try to read the story again and find out that the reason it fails to leave an impression is that you […]

Nick Cole and Jason Anspach set themselves a series of difficult challenges with their latest release in the sprawling Galaxy’s Edge universe. The novel Imperator rips off the mask of the chief antagonist of the universe by telling his story largely in his own words. In telling his tale, it also pulls back the curtain […]

This week’s roundup of the newest fantasy and adventure releases features an escape from an enchanted library, the return of the South’s most capable general, a Special Forces raid on a North Korean nuclear facility, and a quartet of new epic fantasy series covering a range of settings from the mythological to high fantasy. Behind […]

  Fog of the Forgotten by Basil Wells appeared in the Winter 1946 issue of Planet Stories. It can be read here at Archive.org.  As my regular readers might know, Basil Wells’ Raiders of the Second Moon is one of my all-time favorite pulp stories. It seemed so easy to convert into a D&D adventure […]

Space Bat by Carl Selwyn appeared in the Winter 1946 issue of Planet Stories. It can be read here at Archive.org. Something that has not yet ceased to amaze me is the wide variety (dare I say diversity?) of women characters in the pulps. Sure, most of them are young and attractive (though that’s not […]