Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1940

There may not be any Space Babes of the sort he's known for on this THRILLING WONDER STORIES cover by Earle Bergey, but it's pretty eye-catching anyway. And the lineup of authors inside is more than enough to spark the interest of a science fiction fan: Edmond Hamilton, Manly Wade Wellman, Ray Cummings, Sam Merwin Jr., G.T. Fleming-Roberts, and Gordon Giles (Otto Binder). Those guys were dependably entertaining pulpsters. If you want to check out their work, this issue and many other issues of THRILLING WONDER STORIES are available here. 

Atomic Werewolves and Man-Eating Plants: When Men's Adventure Magazines Got Weird - Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle, eds.

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.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Unknown, March 1939

A great H.W. Scott cover on the first issue of a great pulp. UNKNOWN didn't last all that long, but while it was around it published a lot of stories that have become classics. This issue leads off with one of them, "Sinister Barrier" by Eric Frank Russell, and also includes stories by Manly Wade Wellman, Frank Belknap Long, H.L. Gold, Robert Moore Williams, and a couple of lesser-known authors, Mona Farnsworth (real name Muriel Newhall, who wrote a lot under several different pseudonyms for the romance and Western romance pulps) and A.B.L. Macfayden Jr., who wrote a handful of stories for ASTOUNDING and one for UNKNOWN (both magazines being edited by John W. Campbell, of course).

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Super Science Stories, May 1940

This is the second issue of Popular Publications' science fiction pulp, edited by Frederik Pohl. The cover is by an artist I'm not familiar with, Gabriel Mayorga. It seems a little too busy to me, but it's eye-catching, no doubt about that. And the line-up of authors inside is an all-star one: Robert A. Heinlein (writing as Lyle Monroe), Manly Wade Wellman (writing as Gabriel Barclay), James Blish, Raymond Z. Gallun, L. Sprague de Camp, Donald A. Wollheim, Ray Cummings, P. Schuyler Miller, Cyril Kornbluth (writing as S.D. Gottesman), and Willy Ley. Granted, some, if not all, of those stories were probably rejects from ASTOUNDING, but still, that's a pretty impressive group. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Astounding Science Fiction, January 1941

I like the covers Hubert Rogers did for ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION. This one is certainly eye-catching and effective. The lead story is the first part of a three-part serial, "Sixth Column" by Anson MacDonald, better known, of course, as Robert A. Heinlein. I haven't reread anything by Heinlein in years. I ought to. Other authors in this issue are Nelson S. Bond, Eric Frank Russell, Manly Wade Wellman, and L. Ron Hubbard writing as Kurt von Rachen.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1941

It's hard to go wrong with a cover featuring gorillas and ray-guns. This one is by Rudolph Belarski, and it certainly would have made me want to plunk down a dime and a nickel back in 1941. Inside are stories by some top-notch writers, including Manly Wade Wellman, Victor Rousseau, Ross Rocklynne, and Frank Belknap Long.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Weird Tales, November 1941

This cover by Hannes Bok seems appropriate for a few days before Halloween. I like the 1940s issues of WEIRD TALES. Great lineup of authors in this one: Edmond Hamilton, Manly Wade Wellman, Henry Kuttner, August Derleth, Frank Gruber, Clifford Ball, Robert H. Leitfred . . . These guys wrote some fine weird fiction.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Weird Tales, July 1940

I used to own this issue of WEIRD TALES and read it many years ago, but I'm afraid I don't remember much about it except the H. Bedford-Jones story. But elsewhere in the issue are stories by Frank Gruber, Robert Bloch, Seabury Quinn, Manly Wade Wellman (writing as Gans T. Field), and Frank Owen, so I'm sure there's plenty of good reading there.

Zombies From the Pulps!: The Song of the Slaves - Manly Wade Wellman

After Howard, Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith, Manly Wade Wellman is one of the most respected authors who contributed to WEIRD TALES, and he wrote a zombie story, too: "The Song of the Slaves" in the March 1940 issue.

Unlike the other stories in this anthology, this one is a historical yarn, set in the 1850s. Instead of the Caribbean or the United States, it goes all the way back to Africa, the land where voodoo originated. An American plantation owner has journeyed there to cut out all the middle men and capture a group of slaves to put to work back home. He does so, but the return trip doesn't go exactly as planned. And once he's back in the States, things certainly don't work out the way the planter had intended, as the song sung by the slaves during the journey haunts him and becomes more and more sinister.

This is a short but really well-written story that turns some of the genre's conventions upside down, and as a result it's a little ahead of its time, reading more like a story that could have been published in the Fifties or Sixties. I haven't read Wellman's work extensively, but everything I've read by him has been excellent, and "The Song of the Slaves" is no exception.