The men’s adventure magazines of the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies certainly published a wide variety of material, and while it wasn’t as common as some other genres, you could sometimes find tales of science fiction, fantasy, and horror in them. ATOMIC WEREWOLVES AND MAN-EATING PLANTS: WHEN MEN’S ADVENTURE MAGAZINES GOT WEIRD, the latest volume from the Men’s Adventure Library edited by Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle, collects some of the best of those offbeat stories, with the usual great cover and interior illustrations to go with them. With some of these, their MAM appearances were reprints from other magazines such as WEIRD TALES and GALAXY, but some were written specifically for the men’s adventure market.
My favorite story is one that wasn’t a reprint when it was published in a men's adventure magazine. “The Man Who Couldn’t Die” by
Gardner F. Fox appeared originally in the August 1961 issue of ADVENTURE, the
iconic pulp-turned-MAM. Fox, of course, is a legendary name in comic book
history and also wrote scores of well-received paperbacks in various genres.
This science fiction story is about a sociopathic criminal whose brain is transplanted
into a robot body so he can go on a space voyage outside the solar system in search
of habitable planets. Of course, what he decides to do instead is to become the
greatest criminal overlord the solar system has ever seen. But then, as you
might expect, things don’t turn out exactly as he plans . . . This is an
excellent, fast-moving yarn with a nice twist at the end. I really had fun
reading it.
Another well-known SF author, Theodore Sturgeon, contributes “The Blonde With
the Mysterious Body”, from the April 1962 issue of MEN. This one appeared
originally as “The Other Celia” in the March 1957 issue of the science fiction
digest GALAXY. It’s a wryly humorous, genuinely creepy tale about voyeurism.
“The Hunted” by Rick Rubin, from the October 1961 ADVENTURE, is a top-notch
story about humans on the run from robots bent on hunting them down. The twist
ending is a little predictable, but Rubin, whoever he was, does a really good
job of creating suspense and keeping things moving at a brisk pace.
In horror fiction, you don’t get much more well-known than H.P. Lovecraft, who
is represented here with his story “The Rats in the Walls”, reprinted from its January
1959 appearance in SENSATION. The story appeared first in WEIRD TALES in 1924.
Another horror tale that appeared first in WEIRD TALES (in 1940) is Manly Wade
Wellman’s “Song of the Slaves” from the April 1959 issue of CAVALIER. As you’d
expect from a Wellman story, it’s very well-written, and even though you’ll
probably see the ending coming, it’s still really effective and downright
chilling.
Elsewhere in this volume, you get stories about vampire bats, vampire tarantulas,
giant lizards, man-eating trees (by Robert Moore Williams, the veteran SF and
Western pulpster), devil worshippers, virgin sacrifices, crazed chicken
choppers (a truly weird but good story), mad doctors, evil Nazis (but I repeat
myself), and a really good Korean War/Civil War story that reminded me of the
great Haunted Tank comic book series. Add some fine essays and introductions by
Mike Chomko, Stefan Dziemianowicz, and editors Deis and Doyle, and you’ve got
one of the best volumes so far in the Men’s Adventure Library. I had a
wonderful time reading ATOMIC WEREWOLVES AND MAN-EATING PLANTS, and I give it a
very high recommendation. It’s available in hardback (with a bonus story) and
paperback editions.
8 comments:
I'm a big fan of yours, James, so it's a special honor to get such a great review from you. Many, Many thanks!
Ha! "The Other Celia" (as I remember it) as a men's sweat entry seems a stretch, if a welcome one!
A wide-ranging selection indeed, James! I've got Sturgeon's 'The Other Celia' in my copy of his A TOUCH OF STRANGE collection. He's certainly one of my favourite SF authors.
My favorite Sturgeon story is "It!", published in the pulp UNKNOWN in 1940 and the inspiration for The Heap, Man-Thing, Swamp Thing, and all the other swamp monsters. But I've never read a bad Sturgeon story. His work is consistently excellent.
His story in the first issue of IF was perhaps the worst I remember by him, and in that company it shone. Paul Fairman was a competent writer when he tried, but damn he sure didn't try too hard as an editor, ever.
"It", no punctuation, for the story...I was trying for a while to get WIKIPEDIA to get that through their editing process, since they chose to follow the Marvel Comics adaptation title in the entry they gave to the story and its influences, but I haven't checked back recently. Should probably do so now. It's not my favorite single Sturgeon story, but it certainly makes an impression and might be his best early story (though "Shottle Bop" and a few others are in the running). Nope, WIKI still has it wrong.
You're right, I looked up the story on Wikipedia to see when it was published in UNKNOWN and picked up the exclamation mark there. I first read it in one of those hardback Hitchcock anthologies, STORIES THAT SCARED EVEN ME. I remember liking that anthology a lot, although when I checked the contents of it just now, the only story from it I really remember is "The Road to Mictlantecutli" by "Adobe James", actually an obscure author named James Cardwell.
Indeed...I picked up on "Adobe James" and Warner Law and John Kefauver along with John D. MacDonald and Bill Pronzini and Joe Gores and Patricia Highsmith and other more "core" CF writers from going through the "Hitchcock" anthologies that Robert Arthur, then Harold Q. Masur would edit for Random House (and C. B. Gilford and Jack Ritchie and other AHMM stalwarts from picking up the Dell AHMM best-ofs alongside the Dell split-volume reprints of the RH bug-crushers) when I found them in the library from age 8 onward while looking for more horror-fiction anthologies. I think I first read "It" in one of the horror anthologies, but was glad to see it again in the AHP volume, and take in all these folks on the same footing, and getting my doors blown off.
Or, Keefauver, in his case.
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