The Digest Enthusiast, Book Eleven - Richard Krauss, ed.

Interviews with Janice Law (Madame Selina series AHMM), Paul D. Marks (Bunker Hill series EQMM), and Jeff Vorzimmer (The Best of Manhunt).

Peter Enfantino summarizes 1954's final issues of Manhunt.

Vince Nowell, Jr. grapples with Beyond Infinity.

Richard Krauss spotlights Leo Margulies Giant of the Digests

Steve Carper dissects a Classic error.

Ward Smith quantifies Astounding's formats.

New fiction by John Kuharik, Vince Nowell, Sr., and Joe Wehrle, Jr. with artwork by Rick McCollum, Marc Myers, and Michael Neno.

Reviews of Homicide Hotel from Gary Lovisi, Tough 2, and Paperback Parade No. 104.

Plus nearly 150 digest magazine cover images, News Digest, cartoons by Bob Vojtko, first issue factoids, and more.

Cover by Rick McCollum, 160 pages, published by Larque Press.

The Digest Enthusiast--now in full color!--continues to be one of the very few magazines I read and one of my absolute favorite publications, bar none. This is a spectacular issue, and I haven't even finished going through it yet. Fans of the classic crime digest MANHUNT shouldn't miss this issue, with Peter Infantino's continuing series discussing the stories published there (I don't always agree with Peter's opinions, but they're sure fun to read!) and an interview with Jeff Vorzimmer focusing on his work on the great collection THE BEST FROM MANHUNT, as well as Jeff's other work with Stark House including the Orrie Hitt double for which I wrote the intro. Add in some fine reviews, a great article by editor Richard Krauss about Leo Margulies that brought back a lot of memories for me as both a reader and a writer, and plenty of other features, and there's no doubt that this new issue of The Digest Enthusiast gets a high recommendation from me!

Leo Margulies: Giant of the Pulps - Philip Sherman

Philip Sherman emailed me several years ago when he was researching a biography of his uncle, the legendary editor and publisher Leo Margulies. I wasn’t able to help him much, but because of that contact I knew this book was in the works.

Now LEO MARGULIES: GIANT OF THE PULPS is out from Altus Press, and it’s a wonderful volume for fans of the pulps, digest magazines, vintage paperbacks, and basically anybody who has an interest in popular fiction of the Twentieth Century. Leo Margulies had a hand in just about all of those areas.

There’s plenty of information in this book about the various publishing enterprises Margulies was involved in, and while I already knew some of it, there’s a lot of background I wasn’t aware of. The sections about Margulies’ early days in the business were mostly new to me, as well.

But since Margulies was Sherman’s uncle, this volume provides an excellent portrait of Margulies the man without glossing over his flaws, although to be honest there don’t seem to have been very many of those, most notably a temper that could be explosive at times. But in addition to his skills as an editor and publisher, Margulies seems to have genuinely liked writers and been close friends with many of them. Sherman also devotes some space to Cylvia Kleinman, Margulies’ wife, who worked in various editorial capacities on many of his publications.

Now, as for my personal connection with all this (because what writer can resist talking about himself and his work), I broke in at MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE, the longest running and most successful of Margulies’ digest magazines, about a year after he passed away, so I never had any dealings with him. But several years before that, while I was still in college, I submitted a story to MSMM, the first time I’d ever sent a story to a magazine. It came right back with a rejection slip, of course, but Cylvia, who was the editorial director of the magazine at that time, wrote a personal note on it thanking me for the submission and asking me to send them something else. It was quite a while before I did, and by that time Sam Merwin Jr. had become the editor, so I got my rejections from him. And finally acceptances, too, for which Cylvia signed the checks. I’ve always been glad that my first story was accepted by a genuine pulp editor and paid for by another pulp editor. I can’t help but wish that I had gotten to know Leo Margulies as well.

But I’ve digressed. LEO MARGULIES: GIANT OF THE PULPS is one of the best books on the pulp and digest era that I’ve read, and I give it my highest recommendation. I really enjoyed reading it.

Forgotten Books: Worlds of Weird - Leo Margulies, ed.

Normally, this collection would be a good candidate for a Forgotten Book anyway: a paperback original published in the Seventies, reprinting some great stories from the pulp WEIRD TALES, with a great cover, to boot. But it’s especially appropriate to remember this book at this time of year. Some of you already know why. For the rest of you, I’ll get to it in a minute.

But first, here’s the line-up of stories: “The Valley of the Worm” by Robert E. Howard (one of REH’s best yarns), “The Sapphire Goddess” by Nictzin Dyalhis (an obscure but often excellent author of fantasy, who published only a few stories), “He That Hath Wings” by Edmond Hamilton (a fine story by an author who is still underrated), “Mother of Toads” by Clark Ashton Smith (I’m not a huge CAS fan, but this story is enjoyably creepy), “The Thing in the Cellar” by David H. Keller M.D. (already an old-timer when WEIRD TALES was new), and “Giants in the Sky” by Frank Belknap Long (who had a long, productive career as author and editor for not only the pulps but also the digest fiction magazines). Pretty good stuff all around.

But there’s one other story in WORLDS OF WEIRD, and it’s the reason this is a good time of year to be talking about this book. It’s simply titled “Roads”, and the author is Seabury Quinn, best known for his long-running series in WT about occult investigator Jules de Grandin. “Roads” is a non-series story, and it’s also a Christmas story. You might not think so when you start reading it, but as you go along, you’ll be thinking to yourself, “Wait a minute . . . could this be . . . nah, surely not . . . yeah, it is!” I think it’s the best thing Quinn ever wrote, and it’s one of my favorite Christmas stories as well. If you don’t have a copy of WORLDS OF WEIRD, it’s probably too late to hunt one up and read “Roads” before Christmas this year, but if you have the book sitting on your shelves and have never read it, now’s the time to go dig it out. And read the other stories, while you’re at it. It’s a great book, any time of year.