Category: Reviews

The Pulps: ‘Butler’s Nag’

Since the Westerns form the largest section of this anthology, the next story up is “Butler’s Nag” by Frank Richardson Pierce, which appeared in Western Story Magazine in 1925. The story is about an old cow puncher who had a fondness for a horse and later, in retirement, improbably finds him again and rescues him from a glue factory.

“Butler’s Nag” oozes with sentimentality. Although there is some slight suspense when it is unclear whether Butler will rescue his horse in time, several improbably devices appear to make sure everything turns out all right. The conclusion is downright anticlimactic.

The Pulps: ‘Old Pard’

While I’ve enjoyed this collection of pulp stories, I sometimes think it lacks balance: For example, it ends with an essay on hero pulps rather than an actual story, so we get tantalized with The Shadow and Doc Savage with none of their adventures, perhaps for reasons of copyright. And there’s only one war story. And H. P. Lovecraft is touted in the commmentary but his entry is merely a short example of his poetry. There are, however, several other stories from the stable of Weird Tales writers, which we’ll get to as we approach the collection’s end.

Also, the collection of Western stories is one of the largest, whereas we have only one sports story and one war story. I have nothing against Westerns; I just wonder about this lack of balance.

Anyway, our story for this round is “Old Pard” by J. E. Grinstead. Like some of the previous stories, I have little to say about it—it is another example of workmanlike competence characteristic of many of the pulps. This story is about a cowhand with a mysterious past and the young man he takes a liking to. Much of the story has to do with their outfit, the Y Bar, and its battle with some rival ranchers, who are rustling cattle by “covering” the Y Bar’s brand with their own hourglass-shaped brand. Altering existing brands in this way is a classic way of stealing cattle, but any reader who doesn’t know that might be confused: I read this story aloud to my wife and infant daughter at bedtime, and I had to pause to explain to my wife the issue with the brands.

As it should, the story ends with a big shootout when the Y Bar cowboys take the law into their own hands. There is, of course, not even a mention of the possibility of involving lawmen. Such rough and ready frontier justice is what one might expect from this genre.

The final reveal of Old Pard’s true identity is meant to be shocking but isn’t particulary. It turns out he is someone of note who has been living anonymously as a mere cow puncher, but this reveal has no impact because his former life has no bearing on the story. The final lines of the story are unfortunately weak because they ride entirely on this reveal, but the story before then gives some colorful details of running cows and a big action scene, so the flat ending barely matters.

The Pulps: ‘The Ghost’

After an all-too-brief sampling of sports and war stories, The Pulps delivers a larger collection of of westerns. As is proper, it opens with a big name, Max Brand, whom editor Tony Goodstone credits for the western genre’s transition from more realistic to more fantastic, larger-than-life stories. Brand (real name Frederick Faust) is one of those curious writers who disdain their own careers, wanting recognition for “serious” literary work but instead finding success in popular fiction. Brand wanted to be a poet but was instead a successful, prolific, and popular author of cowboy adventures.

“The Ghost” is an early example of Brand’s work, published in 1919 in All-Story Weekly and again in Adventure in 1929. According to Goodstone, Brand was a great lover of classical mythology and based the story’s titular antihero on the god Pan, though I admit I would not have guessed that without Goodstone’s guidance. The “Ghost” is a brilliant thief plaguing a gold-rush town. Although he never kills his victims, he robs them blind and then disappears into a box canyon. The townsmen hire Silver Pete, a gunslinger with a shady past, to track the Ghost to his lair.

Playfulness and trickery follows, with the Ghost finding devious means to get the upper hand. Most remarkable about his character, and causing the reader to root for him despite his thievery, is his insistence on never taking a life. This is particularly notable because the story takes place in a setting where authors usually depict life as cheap. Though the story’s resolution is enjoyable, it is marred by its requirement that one of the major characters carry the idiot ball.

The story certainly illustrates Goodstone’s claim that Brand heralded a transition from realistic to mythical western adventures. The setting is nowhere in particular, and the characters and events have a markedly unreal quality to them. Brand had not yet personally visited the West when he wrote this story, and he does not appear even slightly interested in verisimilitude or realistic details.

The Pulps: ‘The Flaming Arrow’

Although this anthology does feature one additional example from a sports pulp, that example is a recount of a real event rather than a work of fiction, so we will pass over it and move to the next section, which is dedicated to World War I military aviation. The military section contains only one short story, George Bruce’s “Flaming Arrow,” originally published in The Lone Eagle in 1934.

Our editor and guide, Tony Goodstone, points out that writers of this type of fiction were concerned primarily with the specifics of the aircraft they wrote about. Bruce’s story is an example of this: It very much cares about the Nieuport the protagonist flies and the Fokkers and Pfalzes he dogfights with. This is a great example of action fiction: Bruce balances out the technical specifics with exciting depictions of aerial gun battles.

He is, however, less concerned with military strategy, so even a lay reader will discover several implausibilities in this story. The plot revolves around Ace Avery, a skilled pilot, who receives a suicide mission—he is to fly solo into enemy airspace and bomb a factory where the Germans are developing a new, super form of mustard gas capable of wiping out a small country in one drop.

Questions abound: Why would destroying one manufacturing plant assure that the Germans couldn’t produce this deadly material somewhere else? Why don’t the Germans make some kind of arrangements to protect their formula after they become aware of Avery’s mission (which they do)?

More especially, why does Avery have to fly solo? Supposedly, this gives him better odds, but he fails the mission on his first run … so he simply tries again the next day. The Germans already know he’s coming, so he has no stealth advantage. Why not bring more guns? Why not, as was common in World War II, send additional fighters to protect the bomber?

We don’t get answers to these questions, but they aren’t important. What makes the story work is its combination of genuinely exciting action with the protagonist’s inner struggle. Despite his reputation as the best flying ace in the skies, Avery is a man unsure of himself, someone doing his duty but not particularly brave or at all cocksure, who merely found that he has an especial talent for handling an aeroplane. There is nothing original about his character, but he is likable, and since he is the only character that the story presents to us, “The Flaming Arrow” has a chance for greater psychological depth, such as it is, than most of the other pulps in this collection. It is a convincing portrait of a man at war even if that man’s particular mission sounds unlikely.

‘Rags and Muffin’ Reviewed on Reedsy

Excellent for fans of dark fantasy anime and manga, though perhaps jarring to those who only read western fantasy.

Jennifer deBie at Reedsy Discovery praises Rags and Muffin:

Broadly speaking, in western literature authors tend to populate their novels with characters the age of their intended audience. A novel full of teenagers going on adventures is meant for the YA market. A chapter-book full of pre-teens is aimed at middle grade readers. A novel full of women in their 30s and 40s is largely geared towards women in their 30s and 40s, and any readers from outside that demographic who buy and enjoy the book are a nice bonus for the author, publisher, and bookseller.

This is a book almost entirely populated by children, but please do not give it to children. These are child soldiers fighting a graphic war in a city waiting to swallow, exploit, and destroy all of the children it can sink teeth into.

This is not a book for children, or the faint of heart.

That said, D. G. D. Davidson’s Rags and Muffin, the first entry in his Deus ex Magical Girl series, is a complex sequence of interlinking narratives, following various members of the titular Rags’ gang as they go through a particularly perilous few days. While the kids’ adventures unfold, Davidson takes readers through a whirlwind tour of Godtown itself and the complex native religion, centered almost entirely on maintaining caste and worshiping powerful girls born from the union of a human and the native marjara, a race of cat people. These daughters, or hybrids, the only viable offspring from such couplings as far as we are told, are born with an innate connection to the Goddess and thus her power and are destined by their genetics to die before they reach adulthood, preferably after spending the majority of their short lives being worshiped in a temple as an incarnation of their Goddess on earth.

Rags, the Ragamuffin to her enemies and Miss Anne to adults, along with her gang of child-disciples, is on a mission to save her fellow hybrids from those who would exploit or enslave them for their power through a combination of acrobatic hand-to-hand combat and heavy artillery. This never-ending battle for the soul of Godtown is further complicated by the soldiers of the occupying Elysian Empire, would-be colonizers who enforce their laws with war machines called runebots, and an iron fist.

If all of that sounds complicated and potentially violent, the answers are yes, and very.

Luckily, Davidson is an able storyteller with a knack for describing his chosen world and crafting his characters. Sights, smells, and sounds are brought to life with startling clarity, as are every bruise, broken bone, and bleeding wound the children experience. The children themselves are drawn with unerring precision, each characterized by their own linguistic quirks and subconscious drives. This is an author with a true talent for bringing his work to life, even if the results are potentially jarring to an audience accustomed to western narratives, novels, and tropes.

However, readers with experience in eastern media, particularly manga and anime from Japan, will notice a more than passing resemblance between Rags and Muffin and several franchises from that quarter. Most notably certain “girls with guns” properties, like Shikabane Hime and Black Lagoon, as well as dark fantasy/urban fantasy series like Soul Eater/Soul Eater Not, Dance in the Vampire Bund, and Blood-C.

Head over to Reedsy Discovery to upvote the review, which will help me promote the novel! And buy your copy here.

The Pulps: ‘The Yellow Twin’

We’ve finished up the selection of adventure stories and are now into sports stories. Although this isn’t a brand of fiction in which I’m particularly interested, Tony Goodstone comes close to changing my mind by selecting some real standouts. The first, “The Yellow Twin” by Paul W. Gallico, originally published in 1928 in Fight Stories, is one of the best in this collection. Although its twist ending is predictable, it is a remarkably good story of heroism amidst overwhelming odds.

The story introduces us to Barney and Michael Cassidy, twin brothers who grew up in extreme poverty. Despite their thin, underfed frames, they discover they can hit, and they begin to make money for their destitute mother through boxing. Barney loves the ring and fights with abandon, but Michael is a more reluctant and cautious fighter.

Gallico tells his story like a historian recounting real events. Both for verisimilitude and to keep the pace steady, he intersperses his narrative with imaginary newspaper clippings, which also aid the story’s central conceit: Because of his cautious style and apparent inability to recover from a punch, the newsmen label Michael “yellow,” and this label haunts him through his brief career while his brother, lauded as a heroic pugilist, rises through the ranks—until tragedy strikes.

Like most of the stories in here, this one exemplifies the kind of solid, workmanlike story construction that once upon a time could make a man a living though never gaining him accolades among the literati (although some authors in this collection went on to win Pulitzers when they wrote outside the pulps). It is a reminder that pulp magazines often presented stories of strikingly good quality, not at all the dreck we’re led to believe they were filled with.

If “The Yellow Twin” has a downside, it is that it follows a shopworn formula. I will avoid giving away the details of its second half, but it does involve some dirty dealing in fixed fights, a high-stakes battle against a notorious champion, and a big reveal that the attentive reader will see coming from a mile away. But it is entertaining and satisfying anyway because of the skill with which Gallico handles these familiar elements. As Goodstone says in his brief commentary, its “treatment of courage, honor, and achievement make it a story which could as easily have been set in other surroundings—the West or a war-torn battlefield.”

The Pulps: ‘Manchu Terror’

This story by William P. McGivern, published in 1946 in Mammoth Adventure, inspired a magazine cover which in turn provided the cover art for this anthology. This is yet another adventure story that, like the vast majority of pulps, is competently constructed yet forgettable. Nonetheless, it appears in this collection as an example of a type, and it serves that purpose well.

The story involves some espionage and intrigue: The narrator, a regular at a bar in Shanghai, receives a parcel from the bar’s owner shortly before that owner is murdered. He soon after encounters an alluringly exotic beauty before he and she are both targeted by spies who are willing to kill them for the package our narrator carries. A humorous character introduced at the story’s beginning becomes key to the climax and resolution.

The construction is generally competent and, again, workmanlike, even if the tale offers nothing particularly original. The exotic setting adds flavor but has no particular bearing on the plot—simply change the names and the specific political situation, and this same story could be played out anywhere. It is in this anthology largely because it represents an example of adventure stories set in the far east.

Our editor warned at the beginning that the stories here were chosen to be representative rather than for quality. Although nothing in the collection is truly bad, this is another story that is not a standout.

The Pulps: ‘The Devil Must Pay’

This short story by Frederick C. Painton was originally published in Argosy in 1937. Built on the foundation of a colorful and forceful personality, its builds to exciting action and a redemptive “twist” ending that’s predictable but satisfying, if not set up as well as it could be.

The narrator is an angry man and unwilling sidekick of a gangster named Jack Gore. Jack once rescued him from muggers in Marseilles but then robbed him himself. The narrator then joins his gang in the hopes of one day either killing him himself or seeing him get his comeuppance.

After some further shenanigans, the story focuses in on a gun-running operation in Palestine. Light on geographical precision or local color, the story is heavy on action as Jack Gore’s convoy first saves a Bedouin village from raiders and then gets caught in a firefight with British soldiers. Outgunned, Jack and his dwindling supply of men try to hold out until the Arab rebels they’re supplying arrive.

This is a good workmanlike action story unremarkable except for its entertainment value. Well-written and with a fascinating character at its center, it is obvious that it belongs in this collection as a fine example of pulp writing.

Reedsy Review of ‘Rags and Muffin’: A Preview

I just received a book review from Reedsy Discovery for Rags and Muffin. The review won’t be live until February 8th, at which time I will link to it, quote it in its entirely, and also add it to the book’s metadata on Amazon and other locations.

This is an official, professional review, not as presitigious as, say, Kirkus, but more affordable (yes, I paid for it and yes, that’s a legitimate practice).

For now, I’ll just say that the review is quite flattering. It has a few minor but understandable errors, but it correctly perceives the influence of manga and anime, though the reviewer suggests, as comparisons, titles I’m wholly unfamiliar with. In fact, Cardcaptor Sakura is its most immediate inspiration from manga, but that’s hardly obvious. Most of the story’s elements are ones I developed independently, before I knew much about manga or anime at all, so many of the resemblances are coincidental.

I’ll give a teaser quote:

Luckily, Davidson is an able storyteller with a knack for describing his chosen world and crafting his characters. Sights, smells, and sounds are brought to life with startling clarity, as are every bruise, broken bone, and bleeding wound the children experience.

The reviewer correctly notes that this is a niche title—that it’s unusual to have child protagonists in a story aimed at an older audience. But so it goes; I have my niche and like it even if it’s a tiny one.

Speaking of which, I have a collection of Rags and Muffin short stories underway. I’d like to get that done before writing my planetary romance, circling back to Jake and the Dynamo, and continuing with Rags. An author’s work is never done.

The Pulps: ‘The Greek Poropulos’

Continuing where we left off with the stories in The Pulps, we move onto the the second story, “The Greek Poropulos” by Edgar Wallace. This is most notable for being an early story by a man who became a prolific and best-selling mystery writer. He is also in the book as an Example of an English writer whose work was edited and published in America without the author’s consent or possibly knowledge, a common practice in many of the early pulps according to Tony Goodstone.

“The Greek Poropulos” was originally published in 1910 but was reprinted in Green Book in 1933. The narrator is an Englishman who, with his wife Lillian, moves to South Africa for his health. Ridiculously naïve, he falls in with a huckster who first cheats him out of all of his money and then seduces his wife. Meanwhile, the titular Poropulos sympathizes with the narrator and attempts to help him, but the narrator is too thick-witted to recognize the charity. But as the story progresses and avoidable tragedy befalls him, our narrator ultimately wises up. In the end, everyone involved pays for his stupidity, duplicity, or other vice.

Diverting and well-written, this story is not especially memorable, but it has a few points that make it worth a read. First is its depiction of South Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century, and the second is the darkly comical stupidity of the first-person protagonist, who ultimately becomes wiser but sadder. Third, of course, is the famous author.

But the story, while good overall, does not quite work as well as it should. There’s a touch of mystery toward the end, but the twist is unsurprising and also largely irrelevant to the way the overall plot plays out. As a result, the final line, meant to be a sledgehammer blow, lacks its intended force.