Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Sky Fighters, July 1937

I said a while back that I ought to read some issues of the air war pulp SKY FIGHTERS. Well, I don’t actually own any. But I do own the Adventure House reprint of the July 1937 issue, so I read it. The cover is by Eugene Frandzen, who painted a bunch of them for SKY FIGHTERS.

This issue leads off with the novella “North Sea Nightmare” by George Bruce. I read another novella by Bruce last year and really enjoyed it. This one is set during World War I and centers around two young Navy pilots known as Goldilocks (because he’s small and blond) and the Bear (because he’s big and burly). Goldilocks is the pilot and the Bear is the observer/gunner in a flying boat that does reconnaissance patrols over the North Sea, looking for German ships and submarines. They come up with a daring plan for a raid on the bay where most of the German navy is based. That raid provokes an even more epic battle that may change the course of the war. I like the way Bruce writes, and there’s plenty of good action in this one. Goldilocks and the Bear are good characters, too. But I never found the plot as compelling as in the other story by Bruce that I read, and I didn’t like the ending. So while I still consider this a good story, I found it somewhat disappointing. I definitely want to read more by George Bruce, though.

Over the years, I’ve read quite a few of the pulp novels featuring the Lone Eagle, an American pilot/intelligence agent named John Masters whose adventures appeared in the pulp THE LONE EAGLE (later renamed THE AMERICAN EAGLE and AMERICAN EAGLES). The stories appeared under the house-name Lt. Scott Morgan but were written by several different authors, most notably F.E. Rechnitzer, who created the series. I always enjoyed the Lone Eagle stories because Masters was just as much of a spy as he was a pilot, and most of the novels had him operating extensively behind enemy lines as well as engaging in aerial dogfights. He often crossed paths with the mysterious and dangerous R-47, a seductive female German agent who became a recurring villainess. The first two novels in the series are reprinted in a very nice double volume from Black Dog Books called WINGS OF WAR, which is still available on Amazon in e-book and trade paperback editions.

I said all that to say this: this issue of SKY FIGHTERS features a Lone Eagle novelette, also called “Wings of War”, and it’s the only time a story about the character appeared anywhere other than in his own pulp. I don’t know what brought that about. It’s possible one of the Lone Eagle authors turned in a manuscript that was too short and the editors at the Thrilling Group just decided to run it in SKY FIGHTERS rather than asking the author to expand it. Or maybe the story was written to order at novelette length in order to publicize the Lone Eagle’s own pulp—although that seems an odd thing to do several years into a magazine’s run. (THE LONE EAGLE debuted in 1933.) Regardless of its origins, “Wings of War” is a good story, with Masters going undercover as a German soldier returned in a prisoner exchange so that he try to find out why the Germans seemingly have abandoned a vital area along the front. Masters suspects the wily Huns are just setting a trap for the Allies. He’s right, of course, but he discovers what’s really going on only after another encounter with R-47, and as usual, their meeting almost proves fatal for Masters. There’s plenty of action, a plausible if far-fetched scheme by the Germans, and a smashing climax. I enjoyed this story, and it reminded me that it’s been too long since I read one of the full-length Lone Eagle novels.

“Luck of the Damned” is John Scott Douglas, a versatile and prolific pulpster who wrote scores of aviation, adventure, Western, and sports stories in a career that lasted from the mid-Twenties to the early Fifties. It’s about a young pilot who’s convinced he’s jinxed, especially on his birthday. So when his commanding officer orders him to fly a dangerous mission on that particular day, he has to battle not only the enemy but also his own superstition. This is an entertaining story that I thought wasn’t quite as strong as it might have been with a different twist, but it’s still worth reading.

Robert Sidney Bowen is one of the big names in aviation and air war pulp. He wrote a lot of other things, too, including boy’s adventure novels and mystery and detective yarns. I’ve been reading his work for close to 60 years now and always enjoy it. Just a very solid, dependably entertaining writer. His story in this issue, “Fledgling’s Finish”, is no exception. A young pilot volunteers for a suicidal bombing run on a castle that’s the center of the German communications network. When his commander refuses to let him, he takes it on himself to make the effort anyway. Most of the story is written from the point of view of the commanding officer, which proves to be an effective and suspenseful tactic. I really enjoyed this story.

Joe Archibald’s specialty was humorous stories. He didn’t just write them for the air war pulps (although he did a bunch of them), he turned out humorous yarns for the Western, detective, and sports pulps, too. I’m not a big fan of his work, but sometimes I find his stories mildly amusing. That’s a pretty good description of “A Flyer in Cauliflowers”. This is part of a series featuring two American pilots named Ambrose Hooley and Muley Spink (the narrator). The plot concerns a prizefight between an American flier and a British pilot to determine who deserves credit for shooting down a couple of German planes. There’s also a captured German ace who escapes and has to be hunted down. As I said above, it’s mildly amusing and moves along fairly well, so it’s a readable story. Not much more than that, mind you, but I did finish it, which is more than I can say for some of Archibald’s yarns.

Hal White wrote dozens of Western, detective, and aviation stories for the pulps between the mid-Twenties and the early Fifties, but that’s all I know about him. His story “Fly High and Die” wraps up this issue. It’s about a squadron of fighter pilots who believe they’ve been cursed by a dead German ace. Anytime they fly higher than 8000 feet, something terrible happens to them. Of course, there’s more to it than that. The actual solution to the mystery struck me as a little bland, but overall the story is okay.

And okay is a good description of this issue as a whole. The Lone Eagle story is excellent, the Robert Sidney Bowen story is very good, and even though I found the George Bruce story a little disappointing, it’s still a good story and makes me want to read more by him. The other stories are mildly entertaining but forgettable. I probably won’t go hunting for more issues of SKY FIGHTERS, but if I come across any, I won’t hesitate to grab them, either.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: All-Adventure Action Novels, Spring 1939

ALL-ADVENTURE ACTION NOVELS was a Fiction House pulp and ran for only three issues in 1937, ’38, and ’39, not finding success even though it had good covers and some fine authors appeared in its pages. I don’t own any of the issues and have never even seen any copies, but I do own the Adventure House facsimile reprint of the third and final issue from Spring 1939. I read that reprint recently and really enjoyed it.

Although all five stories in this issue are listed as novels in the Table of Contents, we know what that means. They’re actually novelettes and novellas. The first one is “Drums of the Desert” by Thomas J. Cooke. It’s about an American adventurer in Egypt who has gotten his hands on the sacred flag of the Mahdi, which is worth a fortune. A schemer who knows about the flag forces a beautiful French girl to lure the hero into a trap, which winds up with him being the prisoner of a Taureg band. A deserter from the French Foreign Legion figures in the plot, too. It’s a well-written yarn with enough action to be satisfying. I don’t know anything about Cooke, except that he wrote eight stories which appeared in various Fiction House pulps. I have a hunch it might have been a pseudonym, but I have nothing on which to base that except a gut feeling.

A couple of brief discussions here on the blog and on Facebook made me realize I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by George Bruce, even though he was a major pulp author for a long time. He’s best remembered as a writer of aviation and air war yarns. His novella in this issue, “The Iron Man of Devil’s Island”, has an aviation element to its plot, but it’s also a prison tale, as you’d expect from the title. The two storylines—an American airliner forced by bad weather to land in the South American jungle and a former French flying ace from World War I escaping from Devil’s Island—run in parallel for a while before coming together. When they merge, it’s with a predictable twist that’s still very effective. Not as effective as the ending, though, which, as Maynard G. Krebs used to say, made me get all misty-eyed. It took me a little while to warm up to this story. Bruce’s style isn’t exactly long-winded, but he does tend to go on, and while I think a lot of modern writers take the whole “show, don’t tell” thing too far, Bruce goes to the other extreme at times. Overall, though, I really enjoyed “The Iron Man of Devil’s Island”. It drew me in and had me turning the pages and makes me look forward to reading something else by George Bruce.

Albert Richard Wetjen wrote South Seas stories about several different characters including Stinger Seave (who I teamed with G-Man Dan Fowler for a story in a recent anthology, DOUBLE TROUBLE), Shark Gotch (one of the great names of pulp fiction, as far as I’m concerned), and Typhoon Bradley. “Red Typhoon”, the Wetjen novelette in this issue, is actually an unacknowledged reprint of the first story in the series, “Captain Typhoon”, which appeared originally in the September 1931 issue of ACTION STORIES. It reads like the first story in a series, too, introducing us to Captain Typhoon Bradley, his brother Bob, and their search for a mysterious island that’s not on any of the charts. They have to team up with some shady characters in order to find what they’re looking for, and of course double crosses and action ensue. Bradley gets his ”Typhoon” nickname, another indication this is actually the first story in the series. One thing I really like about Wetjen’s work is that all his series are connected. Supporting characters from one, and even sometimes protagonists, will show up in a different series. He never seems to have done much with the concept, but it’s still a nice touch.

John Starr was a Fiction House house name. He’s credited with the French Foreign Legion yarn, “Riders of the Burning Sands”, in this issue. Based on the idea that a house name was often used to keep an author from having two stories in the same issue, I’d say the most likely suspect in this case is Victor Rousseau. George Bruce was a big name; you wouldn’t waste one of his stories by putting a house name on it. The Wetjen story is a reprint. Cooke is a possibility, too. But having read “Riders of the Burning Sands”, I’m convinced it’s by Rousseau. Stylistically, it reads just like him. It’s a good story, too, about an American who winds up in the Foreign Legion because of a misunderstanding and a murder, and how he has to survive not only a brutal sergeant but an attack by natives as well. Lots of good action in this one and a satisfying resolution.

Victor Rousseau appears under his own name with “Ruby of Revolt”, a story of political intrigue set in India. Rousseau, one of the early practitioners of science fiction before it was even called that, wrote tons of adventure stories for the Spicy pulps under several different names, and he was a top-notch storyteller. This involves an American working for the British Secret Service in India, trying to track down a magnificent ruby known as the Eye of Kali, which will determine who rules one of the country’s provinces and whether or not there’s a bloody uprising. There’s a beautiful, mysterious dancer involved, too. I don’t know if Rousseau ever read Talbot Mundy or Robert E. Howard, but starting out, this story reminded me of Jimgrim and El Borak. Then, halfway through, it takes a sudden, bizarre twist that brings in a science fiction/horror angle to the plot. It’s goofy, but Rosseau makes it work, probably because the whole thing races along at such a fast pace. Rousseau was no Mundy or REH, but this is a very entertaining story.

In fact, every story in this issue is entertaining, either very good or excellent, and I was impressed with ALL-ADVENTURE ACTION NOVELS. The reprint is still available on Amazon if you’re a fan of pulp adventure fiction and want to check it out.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Air Trails, July 1931

Frank Tinsley provides a dramatic cover on this issue of AIR TRAILS, Street & Smith's entry into the aviation pulp market. There are some top-notch writers in this issue, too: Raoul Whitfield, George Bruce, Arthur J. Burks, Robert J. Hogan, and the lesser-known Kirkland Stone, Warren Elliot Carleton, Kent Sagendorph, and Barry Thompson. I've read only sparingly in the aviation and air war pulps, but I've enjoyed what I've read.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Tales, December 1936

DETECTIVE TALES is another pretty solid detective pulp from Popular Publications. This issue features an action-packed cover by Tom Lovell and stories by Arthur Leo Zagat, George Bruce, Fred MacIsaac, Franklin H. Martin, and a pulpster better remembered for his Westerns, Tom Roan. Roan's yarn is called "Satan Covers the Waterfront", and I'll bet it's a good one.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Aces, October 1930

There's a nice dynamic cover by Rudolph Belarski on this issue of ACES. I haven't read a great deal from the aviation pulps, and I'm not sure why not. I always enjoy them when I do. This issue has just three stories, all of them novella length, by George Bruce, Joel Townsley Rogers, and Robert H. Leitfred, all well-regarded pulpsters, so I'm sure it was a pretty entertaining issue.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Argosy, November 7, 1936

"A Novel of Strange Adventure" says the cover blurb about the lead novel in this issue of ARGOSY, and it's got a strange but effective cover to go with it. The mid-Thirties was the best era for ARGOSY, in my opinion. This issue features stories by Donald Barr Chidsey, Cornell Woolrich, Richard Wormser, L. Ron Hubbard, Murray Leinster, and George Bruce. Martin McCall, the by-line on "The Last Crusade", was a house-name. E. Hoffmann Price used the name on the Matala series published in RED STAR ADVENTURES a few years later, but I believe that was the only time. So as far as I know, the real author of this serial is unknown.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: 5 Detective Novels Magazine, November 1949

A reprint detective pulp from the Thrilling Group. With a reprint magazine, you'd expect a pretty good line-up of authors, and you've got one in this issue: George Harmon Coxe, George Bruce, Ray Cummings, Paul Ernst, Steve Fisher, and Richard Sale. Lots of good reading there, I suspect.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Argosy, November 30, 1935

Have I ever written anything with barnstormers in it? I don't think so. Maybe I should, one of these days. I doubt if I could top George Bruce, though. He was one of the top aviation pulp writers. Elsewhere in this issue of ARGOSY are stories by Judson Philips, Murray Leinster, J.D. Newsom, Anthony M. Rud, and Arthur Hawthorne Carhart, all dependable pulpsters (and Philips and Leinster went on to long, successful careers as novelists, of course).