Saturday, March 16, 2013
Budapest Then and Then: Jules Verne and Robert B. Parker
Passport to Peril
Hard Case Crime; New York (Dorchester Publishing Co.: 2009),
originally published 1951.
The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz
Bison Frontiers of the Imagination; Lincoln, Nebraska (Bison
Books: 2011), translated and edited by Peter Shulman.
Two authors, quite unalike. Two time periods, very different.
Two portraits of Budapest written 50 years apart.
Jules Verne is probably familiar to you. If not, gargling
the Internet will result in virtual reams of information.
Let’s begin with the more recent author, Robert B. Parker.
This isn’t Robert Brown Parker, who wrote a series of private eye novels about
a character named Spenser and a few westerns, one of which -- Appaloosa -- was
the basis of a 2008 motion picture.
No, I’m talking about Robert Bogardus Parker, a World War
2-era newspaper correspondent and undercover OSS operative. He is the author of
Passport to Peril, a post-war thriller republished in 2009 by Hard Case Crime.
My favorite Hard Case Crime publications are its “rediscovered
pulp classics.” There is a vigor in the prose of these novels that makes them
fresh and entertaining. Although their settings are 50 or 60 yeas past, they
don’t feel dated, but as though they were only recently minted. Another of
these HCC discoveries I rank highly is David Dodge’s Plunder of the Sun.
The hero of Passport to Peril is John Stodder, an American
traveling to Hungary. Like many of the heroes in Hitchcock films, Stodder is an
innocent caught up in evil events by seeming coincidence.
But Stodder isn’t quite so innocent. We learn at the end of
Chapter One that he is traveling under a fake name, using a Swiss passport made
out to Marcel Blaye. In that same chapter, we learn that Blaye is a real
person, and he has been murdered.
Parker tilts the reader’s expectations right off the bat, by
introducing doubt about the novel’s narrator, Stodder. Did he kill Blaye? Why is he traveling under a dead man’s passport? And
why is Stodder suddenly so desperate to escape the men stalking the woman with
whom he is sharing a train compartment?
These elements tip the narrative off the platform of the
train car and get the plot rolling. And it rolls fast. The pacing whips along, with
Parker introducing a variety of colorful and deadly characters.
Spies, doublecrosses, underground Nazis, and devilish Soviet
agents and Mata Haris.
Parker does a great job rollicking his characters along in
post-war, Soviet-occupied Budapest, which might be said to act as a character
itself, much in the way the city of Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels is more
than just a setting for the action. Stodder frequently compares the dreary,
blasted Budapest to the city and its sights he knew before the war.
Another view of Budapest appears in Jules Verne’s Secret ofWilhelm Storitz. This novel was apparently the last the author finished before
his death in 1905; it was remarkably altered by his son, Michel, before it was
published in 1910:
First, he changed the era in which the story takes place from
the late nineteenth century to the eighteenth. . . Michel had to comb through
the manuscript and replace nineteenth-century references and words and make
them all eighteenth-century ones. Finally, and more substantially, he changed
Verne’s poignant and highly original ending to a completely conventional “happy
ending.” (xiii)
In the 1980s, Verne’s original manuscripts were made public,
and the extent of Michel’s fiddling in the posthumously published books was
made very apparent. The 2011 Bison Books edition is the first authentic English
translation that has been made available.
Henry Vidal, the narrator of Storitz, travels to Ragz, a fictional
Hungarian town, to visit his brother and attend his wedding. So, like Parker’s
Stodder, Vidal is a traveler.
He leaves Paris by train to Vienna, where he boards a
steamship to travel the Danube all the way to Ragz.
Verne offers “a leisurely, descriptive ‘travelogue’ of Henry’s
trip down the Danube. Such travelogues are inserted into many of his books,
even though they might not have anything to do with the actual plot or
narratives. According to Verne scholar Terry Harpold, they are like musical
interludes in a Bollywood film.” (203) This interlude is particularly valuable
to readers who want a good picture of the place at period -- a description that might only be
surpassed if the reader were to get his hands on a contemporary edition of a
Baedeker for the region.
Verne’s Vidal describes his arrival at Budapest:
A magnificent suspended bridge crosses the Danube from Buda
to Pest. It’s the hyphen between the Turkish city and the Magyar one -- Buda
then Pest. Fleets of different crafts pass beneath its arches. The water
transport consists of covered canal barges, each topped by a jackstaff and
equipped with a large rudder with a bar stretching all the way over the cuddy.
Both banks are transformed into wharfs bordered by architecturally interesting
homes with towering spires and bells above them. (18)
Vidal devotes several passages to his explorations of
Budapest. This is a colorful, vivacious city that demonstrates a dynamic and
vigorous culture. This portrait is far different from the picture drawn by
Parker’s narrator, Stodder.
As Stodder’s adventures are made more dangerous by covert
Nazis and Soviet agents, Vidal’s voyage is haunted by a rude, ominous German.
In time, Vidal learns this stranger is the Wilhelm Storitz of the work’s title
-- a mysterious, brooding and dangerous man whose romantic advances toward
Vidal’s future sister-in-law were rejected. Storitz had afterward voiced
serious threats against the engaged bride and groom.
After Vidal’s arrival in Ragz, a number of inexplicable
events beset the wedding couple and their families. For example, an engagement
party in the bride’s home is invaded and ruined by an apparent ghost.
Eventually Storitz is revealed to be at the center of these
attacks. He remains at large and a threat to the community’s happiness, for
like H.G. Wells’ Griffin, Storitz has obtained a concoction that renders him
invisible.
The psychological terror Storitz renders the wedding couple
is in many ways greater than the physical damage he threatens. In both Parker’s
novel and Verne’s, evil is introduced by the presence of unwelcome foreigners:
Germans and Russians for Stodder; the German Storitz for Vidal.
Ragz, though an artificial creation by Verne, is presented
as a cheery, energetic community, similar to the Budapest visited by Vidal. But
the entrance of Storitz’s threats and terrors causes an atmosphere of dread to
settle over Ragz -- not so different from the scenes in Budapest described in
Passport to Peril by Parker.
Labels: David Dodge, Jules Verne, Passport to Peril, Plunder of the Sun, Robert B. Parker, Secret of Wilhelm Storitz
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
"Ghost Lanterns" by Alan B. LeMay
Originally appeared in Adenture magazine December 20, 1922. Available for free download from PulpGen.
Alan LeMay is probably best known these days as the author of The Searchers, basis for the remarkable John Ford film starring John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter. Another fine film was based on the novel, The Unforgiven, directed by John Huston and starring Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn. LeMay's work also showed up as the basis for a number of TV series episodes over the years.
LeMay's strong association with the western genre makes it surprising that he wrote outside the western field. An interesting example is "Ghost Lanterns," which appeared in Adventure magazine in 1922.
This is a nautical tale. Not surprisingly, it's climax turns on a twist ending in the O. Henry mode. The story focuses on the seven men on a schooner becalmed for three days off the coast of Brazil, out of sight of land. Men from the crew start disappearing at night. There is no sign of what happens to them, and no one is awakened by any sounds of struggle -- the men are just discovered as gone the next morning.
There is some nice build-up of tension in the course of this short story to reinforce the strangeness of the disappearances. Overall, though, the tale isn't particularly memorable, but it is well-written.
Of interest, however, are the glimpses of LeMay's eventual mastery of storytelling. He is particularly adept at describing his characters. For example . . .
<<
Of the seven of us Cap Dorkin was the hardest boiled. He was a short, square-built man of indeterminate age, with the fishy kind of eyes that show the whites below the irises.
>>
This is a brief tale that's diverting and provides some entertainment, and it offers a nice flavor of the mid-range type of tale that would fill in an issue of Adventure between the top-rank serials and longer stories by the high-profile authors, such as Talbot Mundy, Harold Lamb, and similar folk.
LeMay's strong association with the western genre makes it surprising that he wrote outside the western field. An interesting example is "Ghost Lanterns," which appeared in Adventure magazine in 1922.
This is a nautical tale. Not surprisingly, it's climax turns on a twist ending in the O. Henry mode. The story focuses on the seven men on a schooner becalmed for three days off the coast of Brazil, out of sight of land. Men from the crew start disappearing at night. There is no sign of what happens to them, and no one is awakened by any sounds of struggle -- the men are just discovered as gone the next morning.
There is some nice build-up of tension in the course of this short story to reinforce the strangeness of the disappearances. Overall, though, the tale isn't particularly memorable, but it is well-written.
Of interest, however, are the glimpses of LeMay's eventual mastery of storytelling. He is particularly adept at describing his characters. For example . . .
<<
Of the seven of us Cap Dorkin was the hardest boiled. He was a short, square-built man of indeterminate age, with the fishy kind of eyes that show the whites below the irises.
>>
This is a brief tale that's diverting and provides some entertainment, and it offers a nice flavor of the mid-range type of tale that would fill in an issue of Adventure between the top-rank serials and longer stories by the high-profile authors, such as Talbot Mundy, Harold Lamb, and similar folk.
Labels: Adventure, Alan LeMay, Ghost Lanterns, The Searchers, The Unforgiven
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Kim Newman's The Bloody Red Baron, 1995
There might be something to this alternative history thing,
I thought.
I still haven’t read widely or deeply in this particular
subgenre, but it seems to have caught my attention recently.
I’ve been entertained by two alternative versions of The
Great War simultaneously: I’ve been reading Newman’s follow up to Anno Dracula,
The Bloody Red Baron, while listening in my car to the audiobook version of
Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan and Behemoth. The latter two novels -- parts one
and two of a proposed trilogy -- are essentially entries in the steampunk arena,
in which I’ve read and enjoyed stories by James Blaylock, Kage Baker, and
others. Westerfeld’s tales about a lost heir to the Prussian Empire are
entertaining and interesting.
But I’m here to examine Newman’s novel. I don’t typically
stray into the horror field in this venue, but there is plenty in this book to
entertain pulp fans.
First off, the setting is World War I, the global conflict
against which innumerable air war magazines and characters based their
pulp-paper existences.
Second, alongside the literary vampires -- Lord Ruthven,
Count Dracula -- and the historical folks -- Churchill, Edgar Allan Poe (who
happens to play a particularly interesting role in the narrative), the
eponymous Manfred von Richthofen, British ace Albert Ball, German novelist H.H.
Ewers -- are plenty of recognizable pulp magazine characters, and characters of
interest to pulp fans, such as Conan Doyle’s Mycroft Holmes, Jules Verne’s
Robur, and H.G. Wells’ Dr. Moreau. In Chapter One, we’re introduced to a number
of fliers tied to Allied Intelligence, among them Kent Allard (who, after the
war, would be better known to pulp fans as The Shadow), Bigglesworth, and Jim “Red”
Albright (better known to OTR and comic book fans as Captain Midnight,
traditionally associated with WW2).
Comic book readers get their share of nods, too.
Shape-shifting researcher Langstrom (Man-Bat from Batman comics), Hans von
Hammer (the “Enemy Ace” from DC’s line of war comics)
Anyone familiar with Newman’s work knows he’s fond of
movies, and motion pictures supply plenty of characters, such as Louis
Feuilliade’s Judex, Fritz Lang’s Rotwang (Metropolis) and Dr. Mabuse, and
Robert Weine’s Dr. Caligari. Even Count Orlok, from Murnau’s film Nosferatu,
makes an appearance. (And so does Bela Lugosi!)
But this isn’t a peripatetic tale of strung-together cameos,
like an episode of Laugh-In featuring TV and movie stars poking their faces out
of a surprise window to spout a punch line. Newman’s novel is bold, fierce, and
frightening. Anno Dracula waded through Victorian gothic trappings dripping
with gore. The Bloody Red Baron is about nationalistic pride, the ego of
nations, the muddy and bloody horror of arrogant generals running a war in
which the soldiers and their strategies haven’t quite caught up to the advances
in the technologies of death. The destruction of civilization appears to be the
focus of the warring minds here, particularly as epitomized in Count Dracula.
Newman’s Dracula is remarkably repugnant here -- this is no
soft-focus romantic lead in the Frank Langella mode. Even Stoker’s Dracula is
less frightening. Newman showed us Dracula from a distance in Anno Dracula. But
here, he finally seems to have grasped the majestic evil of the character. As Richthofen
says, “He is a huge person. He has his own gravity. There is a mental pull, an
invisible fist. . . . To be in his presence is like being buffeted by strong
winds which threaten to tear one’s mind to fragments. This is not even his
intention, it is what he is.” This is the 20th Century man encountering the
alien psychology of the medieval barbarian warrior-prince, whose understanding
of Total War is as incomprehensible to us as our own world’s Technological War
would be impossible to comprehend by the historical Vlad Tepes.
Newman ably demonstrates his considerable mastery of
storytelling in this novel. It’s newly available in an edition from Titan Books
designed to tie it with its associated novels -- Anno Dracula, Dracula Cha ChaCha, Jago, Johnny Alucard, and so forth. Recommended.
Labels: Captain Midnight, Dracula, Edgar Allan Poe, Enemy Ace, Fritz Lang, Jules Verne, Kim Newman, Louis Feuilliade, The Shadow, Titan Books
Saturday, February 9, 2013
The Scientific Sherlock Holmes by James O’Brien
Certainly Holmes had a great influence on some of the well-known pulp heroes -- The Shadow, Doc Savage, G-8 and Captain Philip Strange are obvious examples -- and continues to exert his personality and quirks on contemporary characters in a variety of media, such as August Derleth’s Solar Pons, Preston & Child’s Agent Pendergast, Hugh Laurie’s Dr. House, my own Shalimar Bang, and of course Robert Downey Jr’s Holmes, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, and Jonny Lee Miller’s Elementary.
I’m not a Holmes completest, but I have a set of the stories
I dip into from time to time. I prefer the volumes published by Oxford
University Press, for their introductions and annotations by Richard Lancelyn Green and Owen Dudley Edwards, W.W. Robson, and Christopher Roden. I also have
a copy of Volume 2 of William S. Baring-Gould’s Annotated Sherlock Holmes.
(Someday I’ll grab Volume 1.) And I’ve been entertained by Leslie Klinger’s new
Annotated Sherlock Holmes volumes. It’s good to have a solid collection of the
Holmes canon on hand when the mood strikes.
The number of publications devoted to Holmesian scholarship
may outstrip that of literary scholars engaged in academic pursuits. (That’s a
guess on my part, not a deduction based on any real investigations.) But just
as one might suppose that no new topic on Shakespeare or his plays or poems
could possibly find its way into a dissertation from one of the world’s
graduate schools, new Shakespearean investigations continue to arise, improbably. In the same vein, studies on some facet of the Holmes stories continue to
appear.
An interesting one that recently arrived from -- suitably
enough for me -- Oxford University Press is The Scientific Sherlock Holmes:
Cracking the Case with Science and Forensics by James O’Brien.
O’Brien is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Missouri State
University. The present book springs from a presentation O’Brien made at the
1992 national meeting of the American Chemical society, “What Kind of Chemist
was Sherlock Holmes?”
True Holmes completists will likely have in other books or
papers a lot of the information O’Brien offers. For instance, there are brief sections
describing Holmes, Watson, Moriarty, and other important characters; a profile
of Doyle, plus chapters that illustrate the influences of Edgar Allan Poe and
Dr. Joseph Bell upon Holmes. But for the interested reader, the semi-casual
scholar, or the curious pop-culture fan, it’s nice to have some of this info
gathered within the covers of a single slim volume.
For example, O’Brien offers an area of forensic science
applied by Holmes -- such as fingerprints, footprints, handwriting analysis,
and cryptography -- and accompanying descriptions of how each is used within
specific stories. O’Brien also includes examples of how those techniques have
been applied in solving famous, real-world crimes, such as the Lindbergh
kidnapping, the Zodiac murders, and so forth.
O’Brien also gives space to Holmes’ dabbling in mathematics,
physics, biology, and other sciences, but the heart of the book is its examination
of the world’s foremost consulting detective as chemist. O’Brien’s particular
expertise comes into play in this section. (Poisons are such fascinating tools.) Besides exhibiting some basic
mixology skills applied at cocktail time, I’m not a chemistry expert by anyone’s
standards. But O’Brien’s explanations are readable and engaging, and even a
layman can gather some interesting information from his discussion.
O’Brien’s examination of Holmes’ scientific methods may not
suit every reader of the canon, but for those who have a
deeper-than-mere-passing interest in the habits of that eventual beekeeper from
Baker Street -- or simply a curiosity about how today’s fascination with
CSI-style forensics may have played out at the end of the 19th Century -- this
book will provide several hours of engaging reading. Recommended.
You can find O’Brien’s book on Holmes at Amazon by clicking
here.
The Oxford University Press Sherlock Holmes volumes . . .
Labels: Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, James O'Brien, Oxford University Press, Sherlock Holmes
Friday, December 21, 2012
The original science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, scheduled to return
Amazing Stories, the world's first science fiction magazine, opens for
Beta Testing of Phase 1 on Wednesday, January 2, 2013.
Fifty+ Writers Sign On to provide genre-related content!
And I'm pleased to say I’ll be one of them.
On Wednesday, January 2, 2013, I will be joined by more than 50 other
writers from around the blogosphere to help launch the Beta Test of Phase 1 of
the return of Amazing Stories.
Amazing Stories was the world's first science fiction magazine. Published by Hugo Gernsback, the Father of
Science Fiction, the magazine created the genre's first home and was
instrumental in helping to establish science fiction fandom – the fandom from
which all other fandoms have evolved.
The magazine itself ceased publication in 2005; in 2008 the new
publisher, Steve Davidson, discovered that the trademarks had lapsed and
applied for them. The marks were finally
granted in 2011.
For me, this is all one of those Six Degrees of Separation experiences.
Once upon a time I worked for a technical publishing start up, The Cobb Group,
which was eventually purchased by William Ziff, Jr., heir to the Ziff-Davis
publishing empire. Ziff-Davis had been the owner of Amazing Stories from 1938
to 1965.
Fellows I’d once worked with at The Cobb Group later started an
internet-based publishing business, Emazing.com, where I worked as Content
Director. And now, here I am, a blogger about pulps soon to be blogging for
that first science fiction pulp magazine in its new incarnation: Amazing
Stories. It might not be an exact circle, but I see the path as a sort of
wobbly ellipse. Seen from the ecliptic.
Back to Amazing Stories:
Phase 1 introduces the social networking aspects of the site and the Blog Team: more than 50 authors, artists, collectors, editors, pod casters, designers and bloggers who will address 14 different subjects on a regular basis – SF, Fantasy & Horror literature, anime, gaming, film, television, the visual arts, audio works, the pulps, comics, fandom, science and publishing.
Those wishing to participate in the Beta Test should request an invite
by emailing the publisher, Steve Davidson.
Steve’s launching the new Amazing Stories from the appropriately named Experimenter
Publishing Company in Hillsboro, New Hampshire.
Labels: Amazing Stories, blog, pulps, science fiction, Steve Davidson, Ziff-Davis
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Superman: Pulp hero
Okay, we've all read the comparisons between Clark Kent and Clark Savage, Jr., the men of steel and bronze, respectively.
Superman's boots are rooted in wood pulp magazines. No argument. Period.
Superman is a hero. He's the golden boy of black-haired, blue-eyed, cape-and-spandex-wearing comic book heroes. He's the oversized Boy Scout, as one or another super-villain has proclaimed.
At its core, the concept of Superman is undaunted optimism.
And by golly, he can fly. How cool is that? Sure, he can run faster than a locomotive, leap tall buildings, and pick and juggle automobiles. But he can fly. That's pretty darn cool.
How many of you, once upon a time, knotted a bath towel around your neck and zoomed through the house or around the yard, flying like Superman? (Nobody's watching. You can raise your hand.)
It's the flying thing. That's what is so magical about Superman. All the other stuff-- heat vision, X-ray vision, superstrength, giant arctic man cave -- is just gravy.
None of the pulp magazine heroes could fly. They had great cutting-edge technology that carried them airborne, but they couldn't fly like Superman. (Sorry, Ray Davies.)
The flying raised the bar for pop culture heroes. It encapsulates everything that is magical about Superman, that radiates that Kryptonian enthusiasm: Flying equals Optimism.
It's magic, really.
A lot of the magic has been diluted over the years -- Superman has been handled in so many different ways over the years, good and bad: killed, revived, rebooted.
There are highlights in the character's history that capture the magic. The Swan/Anderson art team is a highlight for me. It captured the magic.
I remember when the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie was released. I drove to Nashville with my high school girlfriend the first weekend it was out. We ran into some other school friends. The first showing was sold out, so we all bought tickets for the next show.
We all sat on the same row. My date said after the show, "When the credits at the beginning started to roll and the music was coming up, I looked along the row at all of your faces. You looked like kids at Santa's toyshop."
Superman. Magic.
Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, a couple of Scotsmen, are quite a scripting-and-arting team for various comic book companies. Sometimes I like Morrison's stories, sometimes not. But he's always inventive and surprising. Quitely is always just amazing.
They combined their powers for good on a DC comic, All-Star Superman. It doesn't fit into any particular continuity. It has all the familiar faces, like a comic-book equivalent of comfort food.
They capture the Superman magic.
The throwaway flares of cool ideas populate Volume One, which collects the first six issues, like unexplainable techno-stuff in a Jack Kirby Fantastic Four comic. The dynamic between Clark Kent and Lois Lane, between Superman and Lois, between Superman and Jimmy Olsen, between Clark and Lex Luthor -- wonderful. Magic.
Morrison and Quitely recapture the sense-of-wonder delight of the immense cast of characters built up during the Weisenger years of stories by Edmond Hamilton, EandO Binder, and others -- when some other super-powered whatsit would appear inexplicably out of the blue or the future or another universe, and be accepted as just another super-powered neighbor in the galaxy.
Best of all, with the undaunted optimism, what makes the Magic work best for Superman is his humanity. Morrison gets this perfect.
If you don't have a tear in your eye at the end of Volume One, you clearly have read nothing in your life besides The Spider.
All-Star Superman. Volume 1. Magic.
Superman's boots are rooted in wood pulp magazines. No argument. Period.
Superman is a hero. He's the golden boy of black-haired, blue-eyed, cape-and-spandex-wearing comic book heroes. He's the oversized Boy Scout, as one or another super-villain has proclaimed.
At its core, the concept of Superman is undaunted optimism.
And by golly, he can fly. How cool is that? Sure, he can run faster than a locomotive, leap tall buildings, and pick and juggle automobiles. But he can fly. That's pretty darn cool.
How many of you, once upon a time, knotted a bath towel around your neck and zoomed through the house or around the yard, flying like Superman? (Nobody's watching. You can raise your hand.)
It's the flying thing. That's what is so magical about Superman. All the other stuff-- heat vision, X-ray vision, superstrength, giant arctic man cave -- is just gravy.
None of the pulp magazine heroes could fly. They had great cutting-edge technology that carried them airborne, but they couldn't fly like Superman. (Sorry, Ray Davies.)
The flying raised the bar for pop culture heroes. It encapsulates everything that is magical about Superman, that radiates that Kryptonian enthusiasm: Flying equals Optimism.
It's magic, really.
A lot of the magic has been diluted over the years -- Superman has been handled in so many different ways over the years, good and bad: killed, revived, rebooted.
There are highlights in the character's history that capture the magic. The Swan/Anderson art team is a highlight for me. It captured the magic.
I remember when the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie was released. I drove to Nashville with my high school girlfriend the first weekend it was out. We ran into some other school friends. The first showing was sold out, so we all bought tickets for the next show.
We all sat on the same row. My date said after the show, "When the credits at the beginning started to roll and the music was coming up, I looked along the row at all of your faces. You looked like kids at Santa's toyshop."
Superman. Magic.
They combined their powers for good on a DC comic, All-Star Superman. It doesn't fit into any particular continuity. It has all the familiar faces, like a comic-book equivalent of comfort food.
They capture the Superman magic.
The throwaway flares of cool ideas populate Volume One, which collects the first six issues, like unexplainable techno-stuff in a Jack Kirby Fantastic Four comic. The dynamic between Clark Kent and Lois Lane, between Superman and Lois, between Superman and Jimmy Olsen, between Clark and Lex Luthor -- wonderful. Magic.
Morrison and Quitely recapture the sense-of-wonder delight of the immense cast of characters built up during the Weisenger years of stories by Edmond Hamilton, EandO Binder, and others -- when some other super-powered whatsit would appear inexplicably out of the blue or the future or another universe, and be accepted as just another super-powered neighbor in the galaxy.
Best of all, with the undaunted optimism, what makes the Magic work best for Superman is his humanity. Morrison gets this perfect.
If you don't have a tear in your eye at the end of Volume One, you clearly have read nothing in your life besides The Spider.
All-Star Superman. Volume 1. Magic.
Labels: Doc Savage, Frank Quitely, Grant Morrison, Superman
Monday, September 3, 2012
Outdoor Stories by J. Allan Dunn
J. Allan Dunn is a name familiar to any
pulp collector who has thumbed through dealers' boxes of
magazines—his name appears with some frequency on the covers of
Adventure, Argosy, various Street & Smith
publications, and Wild West Weekly.
One S&S pulp fewer fans may be
aware of is Outdoor Stories. Designed as a competitor for
Adventure, it existed only for 13 issues.
The three stories in this volume
capture Dunn's appearances within this short-lived magazine. Each
story displays Dunn's solid storytelling skills, and if one didn't
know they appeared in Outdoor Stories, each could have
appeared in Adventure without the reader knowing any
different.
The first tale, “The Lagoon at
Mareva,” (January 1928) is perhaps weaker than the other two. It
recounts the story of a young man gone out to the pearl fields to
make his mark. He gets taken in by some no-good fellows who attempt
to take advantage of his inexperience, but he sees justice done in
the end. And he gets a girl, too.
That glib description doesn't capture
how well Dunn build atmosphere and weaves details from local color
into the narrative, one of his particular strengths.
The following two stories—“New
Guinea Gold” (July 1928) and “Rama, the Rogue” (August
1928)—are superior to the first tale, perhaps because of their
greater length, which allows Dunn to build characters and situations
more carefully. The first recounts the adventures of two down-and-out
Americans who get tied into a gold-hunting trek with an unreliable
and underhanded explorer. Unfriendly tribes and far-from-civilized
cultural encounters resolve into a rescue mission and a quest for
bizarre vengeance. The inclusion of some coincidence worthy of Edgar
Rice Burroughs is one deficiency for this story, but overall it's
quite satisfying.
“Rama, the Rogue” gives us an
elephant hunt and characters and situations worthy of Talbot Mundy. A
domesticated elephant—outlawed after killing its keeper—is the
Rama of the title. That the keeper was deserving of his fate has no
bearing on Rama's sentence, and he may be killed by anyone who
encounters him in the wild, to which he has escaped. Dunn wonderfully
describes the love and loyalty between Rama and his first trainer,
who seeks to save Rama's life and redeem him before he can be
destroyed. Dunn tells his story very well, and it wraps up
pleasingly.
John Locke has performed another fine
publishing feat in compiling this volume. He provides an introduction
to Dunn, a history of Outdoor Stories, and a nice profile of the
magazine's editor. Locke's Off-Trail Publications again proves there
are plenty of forgotten treasures to be found in the chipping
rough-paper stacks of magazines published in the 1920 and before.
Labels: J. Allan Dunn, John Locke, Off-Trail Publications, Outdoor Stories, Talbot Mundy
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