I'm not sure I've ever heard of ALL STAR ADVENTURE FICTION, let alone come across a copy. But I'm also not sure why it's not better known and wasn't successful at the time, running for only seven issues. It had decent covers by J.W. Scott, including this one, and some fine authors. This issue features stories by Donald Barr Chidsey, J. Allan Dunn, Frank Richardson Pierce, Lemuel de Bra, Rollin Brown, and Arthur Hawthorne Carhart, all of them fine pulpsters who appeared regularly in the top magazines. Their stories here may well have been rejects from ARGOSY, ADVENTURE, etc., but they were probably still pretty good.
Considering the five authors in this issue of GREATER WESTERN MAGAZINE, all with new stories, apparently, it's a little odd who gets top billing on the cover: Rollin Brown. Now, as far as I know, Brown was a prolific, well-respected Western pulpster who ghosted for Ed Earl Repp as well as writing a lot under his own name. But deserving of top billing over Max Brand, Clarence E. Mulford (with a Hopalong Cassidy story, to boot!), and J. Allan Dunn? I wouldn't think so. The fifth author is Ralph Cummins, also a prolific, long-time pulpster but not a household name then or now.
Almost every time I see a cover from LARIAT STORY, I think, "I want to write that story!" This one is no exception. Someone beat me to it, of course. Authors in this issue include Dan Cushman, Lee E. Wells, Rollin Brown, Ben Frank, Richard Brister, and John A. Saxon.
I'll bet that cover caught a few eyes on the newsstands back in 1942, and with authors inside like Walt Coburn, Rollin Brown, Jay J. Kalez, and Bart Cassidy (quite possibly Harry Olmsted, but hard to say for sure because Bart Cassidy was a house name), I'll also bet this issue of LARIAT STORY MAGAZINE was well worth reading.
