Writing Update

Historically August has been one of my best months, but in recent years, not so much. My theory is that because we usually go to the coast in June or July, and I work so hard and produce so many pages down there that it wears me out for the rest of the summer. That seems to have held true this year, because my total for August was 352 pages, or just a little under half of what I did in June. Granted, June was my all-time best month, but still . . . I spent a solid week this month working on writing-related projects that didn't produce any new pages, and that hurt my total as well. But there's no doubt I've slowed down, and it looks unlikely that I'll hit 6000 pages this year, as I was trying to do. Of course, there's a good reason I've made it to 6000 only twice in my career: it's hard.

I'm not going to obsess about this, though. (Too late!) I'm not as far behind on my schedule as I've been at times in the past, so I'll just keep doing the best I can and go on.

Saturday Morning Bonus Pulp: Star Western, July 1949

STAR WESTERN was still turning out some excellent issues in the late Forties. This one has a good cover and features stories by top-notch authors Harry F. Olmsted, E. Hoffmann Price, Talmage Powell, Jim O'Mara, Arthur Lawson, and John Jo Carpenter.

Forgotten Books: Conan and the Emerald Lotus - John C. Hocking

As a long-time reader and fan of Robert E. Howard's work, a former member of REHupa, and somebody who has written introductions for several volumes of Howard stories, you might expect me to be a strict purist, somebody who doesn't like pastiches featuring Howard's characters and doesn't think such things should be written. Ah, but that would be rather hypocritical of me, considering how the majority of my career has been spent writing about other people's characters, including my own Howard pastiche (the El Borak story "Wolves of the Mountain" in CROSS PLAINS UNIVERSE).

So, as with most things, I come down pretty much in the middle on this issue. I have no philosophical objections to pastiches, it's just that most of the ones I've read based on Howard's work aren't very good.

For years, though, I've been meaning to read John C. Hocking's novel CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS, which has a pretty favorable reputation even among Howard's most devoted fans. I believe it was Morgan Holmes who first told me that Hocking's book is the best of the Conan pastiches published by Tor. I should have gotten around to it long before now, especially since the author comments from time to time on this very blog. All I can say is that I'm sorry for my procrastination on several levels, the most important of which is that it kept me from reading an excellent novel until now.

CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS is a rare thing, a fantasy novel with a strongly realistic tone to it. Sure, there's plenty of swordplay and sorcery, but the tale revolves around a powerful, highly addictive drug, the sort of plot element you might find in a hardboiled crime novel. It's been said that Howard merged a hardboiled voice with horror fiction to create sword-and-sorcery, and Hocking understands that even though he doesn't try to imitate Howard's style. He spins this yarn in brisk, action-packed prose with occasional touches of creepiness and dark humor. Conan, aligned with one of the sorcerers warring over the potent powder known as the Emerald Lotus, is the most admirable character in the novel, and we know what a bad-ass he is.

At the same time, Hocking gives us the sort of spectacle you expect to find in epic heroic fantasy, especially in scenes like the description of sorcerer Ethram-Fal's stronghold in the badlands of ancient Stygia. And speaking of badlands, there are hints of the Western here, too, in the battles between Conan and his enemies in rugged terrain that might well be Monument Valley, Utah. All of it leads up to an apocalyptic and very satisfying climax.

As it turns out, CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS is one of the most purely entertaining books I've read all year. Hocking knows his stuff and knows how to tell a fine story. I had such a good time with this I'm actually tempted to read some of the other Conan pastiches. But that might not be such a good idea, since I have a pretty strong hunch I've already read the best of them.

American Vampire Volume 4 - Scott Snyder

Even though I'm not the biggest fan of horror comics, I'm still reading and enjoying the collected editions of Scott Snyder's AMERICAN VAMPIRE, a comic that's almost as much historical fiction as it is horror.

Volume 4 collects three storylines from the comic. The first one, "The Beast in the Cave", is a Western, a prequel story that finds Skinner Sweet, who will later become the American Vampire of the title, and his adopted brother and soon-to-be nemesis Jim Book fighting on the same side as U.S. cavalrymen during the Apache Wars. As you might expect, a supernatural angle crops up and leads to plenty of bloody violence, although things don't really play out the way you might think they would. This arc has some nice artwork by European comics legend Jordi Bernet that reminds me of Joe Kubert's art.

The second storyline, "Death Race", has art by series co-creator Rafael Albuquerque and is set in California in 1954. The protagonist is a typical teenage delinquent and hot-rodder, only as usual things aren't what they appear. This JD has a secret that involves Skinner Sweet, and this four-issue arc features an epic chase and battle between the two of them.

A two-parter called "The Nocturnes" rounds out this collection and spins a yarn set in Alabama in 1954 that mixes doo-wop music, the Korean War, and a type of monster that's new to this series. The art is by Roger Cruz and Riccardo Burchielli.

All these stories were written by Scott Snyder, and the scripts are fast-paced, bleak, and occasionally punctuated by some very dark humor. I think there were too many flashbacks in "Death Race", which made the story a little hard to follow, but overall I enjoy Snyder's work and I like this series. I'm sure I'll continue to read these collected editions as they come out.

Celebrations in the Ossuary - Kyle J. Knapp

It's a cliche, but in this case it's true: I sat down to glance at this book and wound up reading the whole thing. As many of you know, Kyle J. Knapp was David Cranmer's nephew who passed away earlier this summer. That makes this collection of his poetry that much more poignant, but it's powerful in its own right. Proving, I guess, that maybe noir runs in the family, many of the poems here focus on death, loss, and struggle and have a decidedly dark edge, but that's balanced with vivid, beautiful imagery and clever wordplay that leavens the tone with a bit of humor. It's compelling stuff, no doubt about that. Highly recommended.

Tuesday's Overlooked TV Movie: The Blue Lightning

You've probably figured out by now that I'm a Sam Elliott fan. In this TV movie from 1986, he plays a private eye named Harry Wingate (good name for a PI) who's on the trail of a fabulously valuable opal known as the Blue Lightning. His search leads him to Australia, where he winds up tangling with a villainous former IRA gunman (played by Robert Culp), who has taken over a small settlement in the Outback. So, yeah, it plays a lot like a Western, but you don't think I'm going to complain about that, do you? I haven't seen this movie since it was new, but I remember enjoying it. The whole thing is posted on YouTube, so you can check it out for yourself, if you're of a mind to and have better Internet service than I do.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Fiction Weekly, April 4. 1936

DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY was an early favorite pulp of mine because I came across a number of copies of it, back in the days when finding pulps in used bookstores was pretty rare in this neck of the woods. I never had this issue, but if I had I'm sure I would have enjoyed it. The lead story is by T.T. Flynn, one of my favorite pulp Western authors. I wish somebody would reprint some of his stories from the detective pulps. Other authors in this issue include Cornell Woolrich, Carroll John Daly, and Richard Wormser. Sounds good to me.

Now Available: Dancing With Dead Men (Trade Paperback Edition)

For those of you who want to read my 300th novel but prefer a print book, the trade paperback edition is now available on Amazon. I've looked at the proof copy of this edition, and it's really nice. Livia did a great job publishing it. You can find it here.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Speed Western, September 1945

The cover of this issue of SPEED WESTERN is a good reminder of the fact that telephones existed earlier than what we sometimes think. The stories inside are by top-notch authors, too, including William Heuman, Laurence Donovan, and William R. Cox.

Forgotten Books: The Masked Invasion - Curtis Steele (Frederick C. Davis)

It occurred to me recently that big thrillers by authors such as Brad Thor and the late Vince Flynn featuring valiant American intelligence agents fighting apocalyptic threats to the country are just updated versions of the pulp novels starring Jimmy Christopher, Operator #5, America's Undercover Ace. The biggest difference is that Jimmy Christopher dealt with those threats at a faster pace and in about half the wordage of today's overlong thrillers.

I'm a long-time fan of the Operator #5 series. I've written before about discovering the Corinth paperback reprint of one of the novels, LEGIONS OF THE DEATH MASTER, on the spinner rack at Trammell's Grocery Store in the mid-Sixties and being won over instantly. Since Radio Archives is in the process of reprinting the whole series as e-books, I decided to start from the first and read the whole thing. It'll probably take me a while.

The Operator #5 novels were written at first by Frederick C. Davis under the house-name Curtis Steele. Later on Davis would be replaced by Emile Tepperman and Wayne Rogers. But the debut novel in the April 1934 issue, THE MASKED INVASION, is by Davis and was written to order because publisher Harry Steeger and editor Rogers Terrill already had the cover painting they wanted to use, which showed the White House being blown up.

From that germ of an idea, Davis spins a wild but compelling yarn about a masked supercriminal known as the Red Master using a new invention to cause all electrical activity to stop in New York City, resulting in massive blackouts that plunge the great metropolis into chaos. (This same gimmick was used in a number of pulp novels, including the Shadow tale THE BLACK HUSH.) When the range of this superscientific menace expands, it threatens the whole country, which is primed to be taken over by an invasion fleet during the Thirteenth Darkness. Only one man has a chance to stop this catastrophe . . . Jimmy Christopher, of course.

Despite his youth (he's in his early twenties), Jimmy Christopher is already the top intelligence agent in the country. As Will Murray points out in his introduction to the e-book edition, Jimmy Christopher is the typical clean-cut, square-jawed, G-man hero of the era. He's also an amateur magician and will stop in the middle of the action to perform a trick and explain it to his young sidekick Tim Donovan. He has a little charm shaped like a skull attached to his watch chain, and inside it is a deadly gas. He also carries a rapier in a sheath hidden inside his belt. He even has a secret identity, that of society photographer Carleton Victor, although it doesn't come into play much in this novel. Davis also establishes the tradition of always referring to him by both names, Jimmy Christopher. It's an odd stylistic touch, but it works.

His boss and the head of the unnamed intelligence agency for which he works is known only as Z-7. In addition to Tim Donovan, Jimmy Christopher is helped out sometimes by his father, a retired intelligence operative who has to be careful because a bullet is lodged near his heart, and his twin sister Nan, who sometimes masquerades as him. That's one of the weaker points in this series, in my opinion, but hey, unreasonably effective disguises are a pulp tradition, after all, so we'll cut Davis some slack on that.

As the dreaded Thirteenth Darkness approaches, Davis does a fine job of piling more and more trouble on Jimmy Christopher's head until it looks like there's no way he or the country can survive. And yet, in a great action-filled set piece that occupies the last fourth of the book, Jimmy Christopher finds a way to triumph. The last time I read this story was about 35 years ago, but I still remembered the wild climax and it was just as effective this time around. If this was a movie, some of the stunts involved would be right at home in a modern-day action summer blockbuster.

Despite the over-the-top apocalyptic plots and the occasional touches of pulp silliness, Davis somehow makes his Operator #5 stories at least a little believable. As much as I enjoy Norvell Page's crazed tales of The Spider, I have trouble completely suspending my disbelief when I read them. Davis's Operator #5 novels have that same hysterical edge, but they contain a touch of plausibility that the Spider novels don't. At times they're almost eerily predictive of our political situation now, nearly eighty years after they were written.

After being published originally in the April 1934 issue of the pulp, as noted above, THE MASKED INVASION was reprinted by Corinth in the Sixties (couldn't find a scan of that cover) and a short-lived outfit called Freeway Press in the Seventies. There was a more recent reprint from Wildside Press that's probably still available, plus the Radio Archives e-book edition. So it's not really a forgotten book, but I'm including it here anyway because readers of contemporary thrillers who haven't heard of the Operator #5 series might find something to enjoy in Jimmy Christopher's adventures. As for me, I love 'em, and I'm looking forward to reading more.