Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Fantastic Adventures, October 1942

I don't think J. Allen St. John's cover on this issue of FANTASTIC ADVENTURES is one of his best, but it's still pretty darned good and is intriguing enough to make me want to read the story it illustrates, so I guess it did its job. The whole issue is on-line here, along with lots of other issues of FANTASTIC ADVENTURES. Will I ever get around to reading it? Who knows? But there's a good group of writers inside including Robert Bloch, Nelson S. Bond, Don Wilcox, Ross Rocklynne, Leroy Yerxa, Dwight V. Swain (writing as Clark South), James Norman, and Robert Moore Williams (writing as Russell Storm). The lead novel is by house-name E.K. Jarvis, so there's really no telling who actually wrote that one.  

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: Fantastic Story Magazine, Winter 1952

The artist for this cover is unattributed in the usual online sources. The presence of a space babe in a skimpy outfit makes me think immediately of Earle Bergey, but something about this one seems like it's not Bergey's work. If anyone has any more information, it will be much appreciated, as always. Whoever painted it, it's a great cover and I really like it. FANTASTIC STORY MAGAZINE was edited by Samuel Mines at this point in its run, and the contents are a mixture of new stories and reprints. The reprints in this issue are by David H. Keller (one of the early big names in science fiction), Wesley Arnold (don't know that name at all), and Gordon A. Giles (who was really Otto Binder). The new stories are by L. Sprague de Camp, Mack Reynolds, Robert Moore Williams, and H.B. Fyfe. That's not a bad line-up, although hardly a star-studded one. The whole issue is on the Internet Archive, if you want to check it out for yourself.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Adventure Trails, February 1939

The third and final issue of this short-lived adventure pulp features a nice machine gun cover (I don't know the artist) and stories by authors who are almost completely forgotten these days. The exceptions are Rodney Blake (because he was actually H. Bedford-Jones) and Robert Moore Williams. The other stories are by James Dorn, Lon Taylor, R.A. Emberg, Paul Carney, Everett Holloway, and house-name Brent North. Several of these authors are well enough known to be mentioned on the cover, but the names don't mean anything to me. Which, as I've often mentioned, doesn't mean the stories aren't good. But a lineup like that may have something to do with why the magazine lasted only three issues.

UPDATE: That cover is by J.W. Scott. Artist ID by Sheila Ann Vanderbeek. Many thanks!

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ranch Romances, Second March Number, 1953

Kirk Wilson did only a handful of covers for RANCH ROMANCES, but the ones he did are all excellent, like this one. This appears to be a pretty good issue as far as the authors with stories in it, too: Dean Owen, Wayne D. Overholser, Frank Castle, Robert Aldrich (not the movie director), Harrison Colt, Cy Kees, Robert Moore Williams, and Clark Gray. The others could be hit and miss, but Owen, Overholser, and Castle are enough to make an issue like this worth reading.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Startling Stories, May 1948

Earle Bergey, of course. And behind his cover in this issue of STARTLING STORIES: Henry Kuttner, Ray Cummings, Frank Belknap Long, Arthur Leo Zagat, Robert Moore Williams, Paul Ernst (a reprint from THRILLING WONDER STORIES twelve years earlier), George O. Smith, and John Russell Fearn. Not all of those are favorites of mine, but it's still a lineup of solid, prolific, well-respected science fiction authors.

Martian Adventure - Robert Moore Williams

This blandly titled short novel is the other half of the Armchair Fiction edition of Edmond Hamilton's THE LAKE OF LIFE, which I read and reviewed a couple of weeks ago. I figured that while I had the book out, I might as well read MARTIAN ADVENTURE, although I've never been a big fan of its author, Robert Moore Williams. It originally appeared in the October 1944 issue of the pulp FANTASTIC ADVENTURES, when the magazine was playing up the fact that many of its writers were serving in the armed forces during World War II. So the by-line in the pulp is "Pvt. Robert Moore Williams".

In this story, quite a few people from Earth live on Mars, but they haven't conquered the planet, by any means. The native Martians still run things, and their entire criminal justice system consists of a forbidden zone known as Serenity. (Williams never explains the name.) Anybody found guilty of a crime, any crime, is dropped into Serenity and condemned to stay there for the rest of his or her life. It's a lawless land where only the tough and strong survive.

Unfortunately for the first Earth expedition to Mars, that's where their ship crash-landed, so by Martian law the Earthlings are doomed to stay behind Serenity's walls forever. Later expeditions establish an Earthling colony on Mars, and the settlers petition for the release of the ones stuck behind the walls, but the Willies won't budge from their custom. (The Willies are what the Earthlings call the Martians. Williams never explains why.)

That's all back-story from a couple of generations earlier. Our protagonist, two-fisted Bruce Harden, is the only Earthling ever to escape from Serenity, and he wants to break back in to rescue the girl he loves. In order to do so, he gets mixed up with an Earth gangster and a beautiful redheaded grad student studying Martian culture. Oh, and there's actually a lost temple in the middle of the forbidden zone where a fortune in loot is hidden. Williams mixes all this up into a fast-moving yarn with plenty of action.

There are some nice concepts and a few atmospheric, well-written scenes, but the problem is that Williams just isn't a consistent enough writer to really pull this off. A very nice scene can be followed by a really clumsy one. Some plot elements are never developed, and the coincidences strain credibility, even for 1940s pulp SF. In the hands of an Edmond Hamilton, a Leigh Brackett, or a Henry Kuttner, this could have been a great story.

But with that said . . . damn, some scenes, like the ones in the lost temple, are really good, and the pace moves along quite nicely. Those things make MARTIAN ADVENTURE worth reading, I think. That title, though . . . I mean, Williams even uses the phrase "Devil's Island of Mars". That's what I would have called this one.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ranch Romances, Third April Number, 1950

RANCH ROMANCES was published every two weeks and referred to the issues as the First Number and the Second Number for each month. Not many months lined up just right to have three issues published in them, but clearly April 1950 did, because this is the Third April Number, 1950. With another very good cover by Kirk Wilson, who did some fine work for RANCH ROMANCES. The best-known authors inside this issue are L.P. Holmes, Wayne D. Overholser, and Robert Moore Williams. Also on hand are lesser-known authors Pat Johns, A. Kenneth Brent, and Ennen Reeves Hall, with a reprint from THRILLING RANCH STORIES.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Fantastic Adventures, May 1942

I hate snakes in real life, but for some reason, put one on the cover of a pulp or a book and it always catches my attention. Throw in a scantily clad young woman with a spear, and I'm definitely going to notice a cover like this one by Malcolm Smith. Several of the Ziff-Davis regulars show up in this issue of FANTASTIC ADVENTURES, including David Wright O'Brien (once as himself and once as John York Cabot in a collaboration with another Z-D stalwart, William P. McGivern), Don Wilcox, Robert Moore Williams, and David V. Reed. Also on hand some pretty famous names: Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Nelson S. Bond, Stanton Coblentz, Ralph Milne Farley, and future comic book scripting legend John Broome. FANTASTIC ADVENTURES always had good covers and pretty good writers. I'm not sure why I haven't read more of them. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Amazing Stories, July 1943

Okay, I may be nuts, but the guy in this cover by Harold W. Macauley looks to me an awful lot like Ray Palmer, the editor of AMAZING STORIES. It wouldn't surprise me if Macauley used Palmer as his inspiration for this one. Many of the usual Ziff-Davis writers are on hand in this issue, including Alexander Blade (in this case, Howard Browne), P.F. Costello (in this case, William P. McGivern), Don Wilcox, Robert Moore Williams, and Festus Pragnell. I love this era of science-fiction, although admittedly AMAZING STORIES is on a slightly lower rung for me than PLANET STORIES, THRILLING WONDER STORIES, and STARTLING STORIES.

Raymond A. Palmer, editor of AMAZING STORIES

UPDATE: It is indeed Palmer on the cover. Here's the editorial from that issue, in which he talks about it. Many thanks to Dwight Decker for providing this. You can click on the image to read it.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Pioneer Western, December 1950

This is the first and apparently only issue of this Western pulp published by Avon and edited by Donald A. Wollheim. There was an earlier PIONEER WESTERN, a few issues of which were published by Popular Publications in the Thirties, but the two magazines aren't connected other than by title. I don't know why this version of PIONEER WESTERN lasted only one issue, but it couldn't have been because of the authors: William Hopson, Dean Owen, Will C. Brown (C.S. Boyles, the other author from Cross Plains, Texas), Roe Richmond, C. William Harrison, Walt Sheldon, and Robert Moore Williams. That's a really solid line-up of pulpsters. I like the cover, too. I thought at first the art might be by Norman Saunders, but this issue isn't listed on his website. Whoever painted it, I like it. There's also a comic strip story inside with art by the great Joe Maneely.

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: Amazing Stories, May 1943

I like the cover by Harold McCauley on this issue of AMAZING STORIES. It's hard to go wrong with a floating skull and a sexy redhead, even though she's probably evil. I mean, she's the "Priestess of the Floating Skull", which sounds pretty sinister. The author of this featured story is Edwin Benson, which was a Ziff-Davis house-name, so there's no telling who actually wrote it. Perhaps Leroy Yerxa, who also has a story in this issue and was very prolific, or Robert Moore Williams, also on hand under his own name. Other authors in this issue are Nelson S. Bond (with a Lancelot Biggs story), Ross Rocklynne, and Festus Pragnell, a name that's always sounded like a pseudonym to me but evidently wasn't. None of these authors are particular favorites of mine, but I'm sure I would have enjoyed this issue anyway, had I plucked it off the newsstand in 1943.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Startling Stories, March 1949

That's an Earle Bergey cover on this issue of STARTLING STORIES, of course, and I can see why Bergey's work moved copies off the newsstands while annoying some of the more serious-minded SF fans at the same time. However, I don't see how anybody can argue with the line-up of authors in this issue: Ray Bradbury, Jack Vance, Clifford D. Simak, Murray Leinster, Noel Loomis, L. Ron Hubbard (writing as Rene Lafayette), and Robert Moore Williams. I'm sure it was a very entertaining issue.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Planet Stories, May 1952

Another excellent Allen Anderson cover on this issue of PLANET STORIES. Why the War-Maid of Mars' raygun looks like an old-fashioned Western six-shooter at first glance, I don't know, but it's eye-catching, as are other, ah, attributes. Maybe Anderson adapted this from an unused painting he did for LARIAT STORY. Anyway, speaking of the War-Maid, I wouldn't mind reading that story by Poul Anderson. I'll have to check and see if it's ever been reprinted anywhere. The only other familiar names in the Table of Contents are Bryce Walton, Robert Moore Williams, and J.T. McIntosh.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ranch Romances, 2nd December Number, 1948

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. Since it’s a Christmas issue, it’s appropriate to the season, and anyway, the little kid on the cover reminds me very much of, well, me. I frequently asked Santa to bring me toy guns and cowboy outfits for Christmas. The scan is from the copy I read.

The featured novella is “Cowtown Cavalier” by Paul Evan Lehman. The protagonist, Ken Mason, is searching for the crooked banker who ruined his father when he winds up involved in a range war between a beautiful young woman and a greedy cattle baron, an express company robbery, and several murders. I’ve always thought of Lehman as one of those competent, reasonably entertaining writers whose work doesn’t leave much of an impression. This novella is a little above that level, because it’s actually a well-structured mystery in addition to being a good action Western yarn. There are a number of suspects, the hero does some decent detective work, and it winds up being a pretty satisfying mix. This may be the best thing I’ve ever read by Lehman.

Frank C. Robertson had a long, very successful career as a Western writer, both as a pulpster and a novelist. His short story, “Taming of Cat McCoy”, is a slight yarn about a bitter, ex-con bronco buster who finds love and redemption. But it’s very well-written and goes down easy. I just wish there had been a little more to it. I need to read more by Robertson.

Elsa Barker has an actual Christmas story in this issue, “Sheriff for Christmas”, which is about a schoolteacher who turns down a marriage proposal from the local sheriff because her father was a lawman and she’s afraid she’ll worry herself to death like her mother did. And sure enough, before the story is over, the sheriff who proposes to her does wind up in danger. I don’t recall if I’ve ever read anything else by her. She was a prolific contributor to RANCH ROMANCES, and her career goes all the way back to THE SMART SET in 1901! This is a pretty good yarn, predictable but well-written, and it has some nice Christmas spirit to it.

I haven’t been impressed by the science fiction and fantasy I’ve read by Robert Moore Williams (the genres for which he’s best known), but his short story in this issue, “The Trail Home”, isn’t bad. It uses the old plot of the outlaw who has gone straight and is trying to cover up his past, only to be forced by circumstances to buckle on his guns again, but Williams does a pretty good job with it and produced an enjoyable yarn.

“Duchess of the Salty Dog” is by an author I hadn’t heard of, Pat Johns. That’s probably because Johns (don’t know if that name is male or female) published only a few stories in RANCH ROMANCES and nowhere else. This one has an intriguing protagonist, a former saloon singer who gets involved in rustling and a dangerous ambush, but in the end I didn’t think it amounted to much.

There are two serial installments in this issue. I normally don’t read serials unless I know I have all the parts, so I skipped the first installment of “Desert Quest” by Dorothy L. Bonar. However, if it’s the final part, I’ll sometimes go ahead and read it, and since “Roll, Bright Wagons” by Isabel Stewart Way is a story about a traveling circus in the Old West (a subject that interests me) and wraps up in this issue, I started to read it. However, the character names got the best of me: Blaise Aregood (the hero), Twonnet Juvenal (the heroine), Gus Snavely (the villain—I guess Snidely Whiplash was out of town). Plus the circus is traveling through sheep country, and I don’t read Western pulps to read about a bunch o’ dang sheepherders! And the writing didn’t seem that good to me (despite Way having a long, prolific career as a contributor to RANCH ROMANCES and the other Western romance pulps, as well as an author of nurse novels), so I didn’t finish this one.

Rounding out the issue are the usual features and departments, which I skimmed except for a two-page poem by S. Omar Barker, “Cowboy’s Christmas Bride”, which like all of Barker’s work is humorous and well-written.

Most of the RANCH ROMANCES I’ve read are from the Fifties, when the magazine was part of the Thrilling Group, but in 1948 it was still published by Warner and edited by long-time editor Fanny Ellsworth, so the tone is slightly different, a little more emphasis on the romance part of the title than there would be later. However, the lead story, Lehman’s “Cowtown Cavalier”, could have appeared in any of the regular Western pulps of the era. It’s the best story in this issue, but the ones by Robertson, Barker, and Williams are well worth reading, too. All in all, I enjoyed this issue of RANCH ROMANCES quite a bit and am glad I read it.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Wonder Stories, April 1941

And the people who ride the subway in New York think they've got it bad! At least they don't have an alien coming through a wormhole and shooting a ray gun at them. Or maybe they do, I don't know, I've been on a New York City subway car. I do know, however, that there's a mighty good line-up of authors in this issue of THRILLING WONDER STORIES: Henry Kuttner, Clifford D. Simak, Eando Binder (probably just Otto Binder on this one), Robert Arthur, Robert Moore Williams, and Maurice Renard, translated by a much more familiar name to me, Georges Surdez. I really like the SF pulps from this era. That's an Earle Bergey cover, by the way, although it doesn't really resemble the "space babes" covers he's more famous for.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Mammoth Western, March 1948

I can't tell if this hombre's hat got shot off or just fell off, so I can't say for sure if it's an Injury to a Hat cover. But I can tell you that the cover is by Robert Gibson Jones, this issue was edited by Ray Palmer, and the authors who have stories inside include Dwight V. Swain, "Alexander Blade", Chester S. Geier, Robert Moore Williams, Paul W. Fairman, William P. McGivern, H.B. Livingston (who was really Berkeley Livingston), and Lester Barclay (who was also Berkeley Livingston). In other words, the usual suspects for a Ziff-Davis pulp. But it's a pretty entertaining group of usual suspects.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Amazing Stories, June 1949

This cover by Arnold Kohn has some obvious attributes, but what I really like is the crazed look in the horse's eye, right at the edge of the cover. Now that's a war horse. Inside, the lead story is by "Alexander Blade", who appears in this case to have been Richard S. Shaver, not a good sign. Then there's a story by S.M. Tenneshaw, also a house name, but the real author of this one isn't known. Robert Moore Williams and a handful of lesser known names round out the issue. I have a feeling that based on the fiction this may not be a top-notch issue of AMAZING STORIES, but I do like that cover.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Startling Stories, November 1948

The cover on this issue of STARTLING STORIES is by Earle Bergey--but most of you already knew that, didn't you? I know his work was controversial at the time, but I really enjoy it. And inside this issue are stories by Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Jack Vance, John D. MacDonald, A.E. van Vogt, Frank Belknap Long, and Robert Moore Williams. Edited by my old editor and mentor, Sam Merwin Jr. I like having that link with pulp history.