Last year, I kicked off an effort to increase my reading of old pulp magazines, with a particular focus on those issues celebrating their centenary (i.e., issues from 1923). I started the focused project with Volume 1, Issue 1 of Weird Tales, as that famed magazine began publication in early 1923, and all issues from …
Read the full post →“Pulp Centenary: <em>Weird Tales</em>, January 1924”
The March 20, 1923, issue has the expected assortment of long and short fiction, including two serial parts, filled out with a few short bits and the famed letters column, “The Camp-Fire.” The principal contents are as follows, with my comments. Novelettes “Bad Men Make Good Pickings,” by Frederick J. Jackson. A former Texas Ranger …
Read the full post →“Wednesday Pulp: <em>Adventure</em>, March 20, 1923”
I finished four books during this week, as well as one pulp magazine issue. Books The Hammer of Thor, by Carter Brown. Police Lieutenant Al Wheeler probes a disappearance and a jewel robbery, though soon the case expands to include embezzlement and murder. Interlocking alibis of the chief suspects set Wheeler up for a courtroom …
I finished two books during this week, as well as one pulp magazine issue. Books The Interlopers, by Matt Helm. Matt Helm takes the place of a murdered courier so that another agency can identify all the people making up the spy network for which the dead man worked, but Helm has an assignment of …
One of the best and most widely read of the pulps was Adventure, which started in 1910. The magazine’s content was aptly described by its title, and the reader can expect plenty of action. The March 10, 1923, issue has the expected assortment of long and short fiction, including one serial part, filled out with …
Read the full post →“Wednesday Pulp: <em>Adventure</em>, March 10, 1923”
I finished four books during this week, as well as two pulp magazine issues. Books Wednesday’s Wrath, by Don Pendleton. Mack Bolan reaches the third day in his final week-long sweep against the resurgence of the Mafia, but this time he is diverted from his planned target to tackle something much bigger in scope, with …
Street & Smith’s Top-Notch Magazine started as a magazine aimed at boys but soon changed to a general-interest adventure pulp, lasting from a start in 1910 until 1937. The March 15, 1923, issue is the first I’ve read, and it has the expected assortment of long and short fiction, including serial parts, filled out with …
Read the full post →“Wednesday Pulp: <em>Top-Notch Magazine</em>, March 15, 1923”
I finished two books during this week, as well as one pulp magazine issue. Books Towers & Tortures: A Double Dose of Dexter Dayle, by Dexter Dayle — a Ramble House collection that brings together two British “Piccadilly novels,” low-cost lending library thrillers by an apparently pseudonymous author. Neither novel in the volume is good: …
Read the full post →“Weekly Reader — February 26 – March 4, 2023”
The magazine begun in 1924 was by mid-1927 being published under the title shown above, though within a year it would be renamed once more, to its most familiar title, Detective Fiction Weekly, which it would retain until 1941. The September 17, 1927, issue contains the usual array of long and short fiction, including serial …
Read the full post →“Wednesday Pulp: <em>Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction</em>, September 17, 1927”
I finished two books during this week, as well as one volume of a multi-volume work and two pulp magazine issues. Books All Those in Favor, by H. Martin — a 1969 collection of business-related cartoons published by the American Management Association, this small volume reprints items that first appeared in several journals, including three …
Read the full post →“Weekly Reader — February 19 – 26, 2023”
