Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1949

Ah, the wonderful cover art of Earle Bergey! I would have grabbed this issue of THRILLING WONDER STORIES off the newsstand if I'd been browsing the new pulps in 1949. And the line-up of authors inside certainly doesn't hurt: Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, James Blish, Murray Leinster, Cleve Cartmill, L. Sprague de Camp, Raymond F. Jones, and William Morrison. You can download a PDF of this issue here.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Fifteen Western Tales, January 1944

We have a tough-looking hombre, courtesy of Sam Cherry, gracing the cover on this issue of FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES. The collection of authors inside is pretty good, too: William Heuman, Philip Ketchum, Les Savage Jr., Tom W. Blackburn, Chuck Martin, Rod Patterson, M. Howard Lane, James C. Lynch, James Shaffer, house-names Ray P. Shotwell and Lance Kermit, and lesser known authors Frederick Bales and Joe Payne. They always counted the features in FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES, so actually there are only thirteen stories in this one.

Forgotten Books: The Sex Ladder - Anthony Gordon (Robert Leslie Bellem)

(This post originally appeared on March 6, 2007.)

Lawrence Block isn’t the only author getting his Sixties soft-core porn novels reprinted these days. I just read a brand-new Pulpville Press edition of THE SEX LADDER by Anthony Gordon, originally published by Beacon Books in 1964, just like Block’s LUCKY AT CARDS. And as in the case of Block’s pseudonym “Sheldon Lord”, “Anthony Gordon” turns out to be an author best-known for his mysteries, too – Robert Leslie Bellem, the prolific creator of private eye Dan Turner.

Unfortunately, THE SEX LADDER isn’t up to the same standards as LUCKY AT CARDS. Instead of a noirish crime novel like Block’s book, THE SEX LADDER is pretty much a run-of-the-mill, fairly sordid soap opera about a young engineer and his ambitious girlfriend, who will do just about anything to help advance his career, if you know what I mean and I think you do, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. It has none of the goofy charm of the Dan Turner stories or the other mystery and weird menace stories that Bellem turned out by the hundreds for the Spicy pulps during the Thirties and Forties. Bellem was a fine wordsmith and the writing here is certainly smooth enough, reading very fast, but it doesn’t seem to me that his heart was really in this job. There was at least one other Beacon Book by “Anthony Gordon”, DOCTOR OF LESBOS. I assume that Bellem wrote it, as well. There are a few listings for it on ABE, but Pulpville Press also plans to reprint it in the future. Despite my reservations about THE SEX LADDER, I’ll probably read DOCTOR OF LESBOS, too. That’s just the kind of guy I am.

(UPDATE: No, I never got around to reading DOCTOR OF LESBOS, and I probably won't. You can still find used copies of the reprint, but even they're too pricey for me. So more than likely, I'll do without that one.)

Classic Private Eye Novels: Case of the Vanishing Beauty - Richard S. Prather

The Shell Scott series by Richard S. Prather is one of my all-time favorite private eye series. I read nearly all of them when I was in junior high and high school and thoroughly enjoyed them. Recently, Wolfpack Publishing got the rights to reprint them and is reissuing the series in omnibus volumes. I just reread the first published (but not first written) novel, CASE OF THE VANISHING BEAUTY, for the first time in more than 50 years.

This one involves a beautiful blond client who hires Shell to have dinner with her, hints that something sinister is going on, but won’t give him the whole story; the client’s beautiful younger sister, who turns out to be missing (the “vanishing beauty” of the title); the beautiful target in a knife-throwing nightclub act (are you sensing a theme here?); a religious cult like so many others that show up in California-set private eye novels; and assorted gangsters and con-men, plus Shell’s police detective buddy Phil Samson.

Prather hadn’t quite hit his stride yet in the early novels, and that shows in a rather thin plot with few real surprises in it. But there’s plenty of snappy patter, some nice action scenes, and Shell himself, one of the most likable narrator/protagonists in the entire genre. For years I had a rule about not rereading books, but the older I get, the more I enjoy revisiting old favorites from time to time. I enjoyed CASE OF THE VANISHING BEAUTY. Prather’s prose is just fun to read. I’m sure I’ll be rereading more of the Shell Scott series.

Kill Gardner! - Ned Oaks

As this novel opens, Garrett Gardner is a bank robber, a veteran of several holdups that have gone off without any violence or real trouble. That’s all about to change in an outburst of violence that leaves both of Gardner’s partners in crime dead, although not before one of them double-crosses him and sets him up for even more trouble in the future.

For a while, though, it looks as if Gardner will be able to put his lawless past behind him. He takes on a new identity, marries, and settles down. But there are bounty hunters and private detectives after him, hired by a man who wants vengeance, and Gardner has to go on the run again. Then, in a very nice twist, this former outlaw winds up as the marshal of a small logging town in Oregon, only to run afoul of the ambitions of a brutal, ruthless timber magnate.

Ned Oaks has written a very good traditional Western in KILL GARDNER!, his latest novel, taking several compelling plotlines and mixing them together in expert fashion. Not everything turns out quite the way you might expect, either, which is always welcome. Garrett Gardner is a flawed but ultimately sympathetic protagonist, and Oaks keeps the story moving along in a brisk, action-packed fashion.

Full disclosure: “Ned Oaks” is the pseudonym of a friend of mine who has written half a dozen Western novels, but KILL GARDNER! is the first one I’ve read. I have all the others, though, and look forward to reading them, because this one is very entertaining. If you’re a fan of traditional Westerns, you should check out KILL GARDNER! and the other books by Ned Oaks.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Astounding Stories, November 1933

I don't know about you, but I find that cover by Howard V. Brown intriguing. Scans of this issue are available on-line. I may have to see if I can find time to read it. The line-up of authors is certainly a strong one: Murray Leinster, Jack Williamson, Arthur J. Burks, Harl Vincent, Wallace West, Robert H. Leitfred, Desmond Hall (writing as Ainslee Jenkins), and a couple of lesser-known authors, Stuart Jackson and Holloway Horn. You can find a PDF of this issue here. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Complete Cowboy Novel Magazine, February 1950

Now that's a close range shootout in this cover by A. Leslie Ross for COMPLETE COWBOY NOVEL MAGAZINE. The complete novel in this issue is by Cliff Campbell, a common house-name in the Western and detective pulps edited by Robert W. Lowndes, and I have no idea who actually wrote "Six-Gun Harvest". Could've been Lowndes himself, I suppose. There are only two other stories in this issue, by James A. Hines and Ward Raymond, and neither of those names are the least bit familiar to me. With all that yellow, red, and blue, though, and its dramatic composition, this is certainly an eye-catching cover.

Forgotten Books: The Whistling Waddy - Donald Bayne Hobart

Donald Bayne Hobart was one of the more prolific contributors to the Western pulps in the Thrilling Group during the Thirties and Forties, but his writing career actually started with a poem sold to SNAPPY STORIES in 1919, followed by other poems sold mostly to LOVE STORY MAGAZINE during the Twenties. He didn’t publish his first Western until 1928, a short story called “The Whistling Waddy Wades In”, published in the January 14, 1928 issue of ARGOSY ALL-STORY WEEKLY. He followed this up with “The Whistling Waddy Warbles On”, in the April 7, 1928 issue of the same pulp, and then tackled a full-length Western serial with “Two-Gun Magic”, published in three consecutive issues of ARGOSY ALL-STORY WEEKLY in July 1928.

While I don’t have the actual pulps to confirm this, I’m fairly convinced that the novel THE WHISTLING WADDY, published by Chelsea House in 1928, is a fix-up of those three stories. It opens with two fairly short sections in which drifting cowboy Solitaire Stevens (also known as the Whistling Waddy because he whistles a mournful air as he’s about to go into action) battles outlaw gangs led by mysterious masterminds known as the Eagle and the Ace. Those sections come from the two short stories. Then the rest of the novel concerns Solitaire’s clash with an outlaw gang led by a mysterious mastermind known as the Chief. Clearly, Hobart liked that plot and didn’t want to let go of it.

Those first two sections aren’t particularly good. Their length works against them—the plots barely get started before a big shootout wraps everything up—and they’re full of melodramatic hokum, even by 1928 pulp standards.

But either Hobart was getting better with experience or else he needed the longer length of a serial, because the rest of THE WHISTLING WADDY is pretty good. Still melodramatic and hokey—at one point, a character leans on a bookcase and it opens up, revealing a secret chamber—but Hobart keeps things moving along nicely. There are some well-done gun battles, some creepily atmospheric scenes, some good hardboiled dialogue, a few touches of welcome humor, and a traveling salesman supporting character who functions as comedy relief but also has an impact on the plot and is better developed than most such characters. The obligatory rancher’s beautiful daughter is tougher than most and matches up well with Solitaire.

The ending is a bit of a letdown that seems to be missing one final twist, but overall, THE WHISTLING WADDY is an entertaining traditional Western. It’s very old-fashioned, though, so if you’re not already a fan of Westerns from that era, it’s probably not best to start with it. If you can put yourself in the mindset of a reader from those days, though, as I can, you’ll probably have some fun with it. It’s never been reprinted, as far as I know, but used copies are out there. I’ve owned more than one over the years. The copy I read is the one shown in the cover scan.

Chelsea House, by the way, was the book publishing arm of Street & Smith and did hardback reprints of serials and fix-up novels like this one based on stories that ran originally in various pulps. Lots of good adventure reading if you can find them.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Super-Detective, June 1943

This is a later issue of SUPER-DETECTIVE where Jim Anthony, star of the lead novel, is a hardboiled detective and no longer a Doc Savage-like character, and the tale was written by W.T. Ballard and Robert Leslie Bellem under the John Grange house-name. I've never read any of this version of Jim Anthony, and I really ought to. I think one or two of them have been reprinted, but I could be wrong about that. Also on hand are Harold de Polo and three more house-names, Paul Hanna, R.T. Maynard, and Walton Grey. No telling who they were. The cover is by H.J. Ward, and I like it.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Cowboy Stories, November 1934

Great cover by Tom Lovell on this issue of COWBOY STORIES, and some fine writers inside, too: Philip Ketchum, James P. Olsen, Archie Joscelyn, S. Omar Barker, John Colohan, house-name Ken Martin, and some lesser-known writers, H. Fredric Young, Lee Willenborg, and Rand Rios. This one would sure catch a potential buyer's eye on the newsstand.