Pulp Fiction Sperging

[Georgio Cocklord]

Thanks for the thread, Ive been meaning to get into hard pulps myself after just browsing through Lovecraft and Howard.
Also is Heart of Darkness considered pulp?
Also I dont think theres a thread for this but I would like to get into Warhammer lore. I came across stuff like the Last Church and descriptions of the Emperor and the Tau. I would like reading material, be it lore or short stories.

 

[PrimeRadiant]

It's The Shadow, you're not supposed to see him.

Speaking of Constantine, has anyone ever read Simon Green? He's a trash author par excellence, by which I mean he sucks but he's great.
In high school I read his Nightside books, featuring protagonist John Taylor who is totally not John Constantine and some of the worst written romance subplots I've ever read. Damn entertaining though. He has a talent for creating really interesting side characters.

His Deathstalker books are pure pulpish gold. Unapologetic space opera that doesnt take itself too seriously with an absolutely stratospheric bodycount.

 

[Jason Wynn]

If you into pulp horror at all, James Herbert put out some great stuff. The Fog is a must, as well as The Rats. Classic no frills horror.

As far as pulp fantasy, The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny is an interesting take on parallel worlds. The Darksword Trilogy by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman has some fascinating world building regarding living in a magocracy and the classism that abounds without getting too preachy about it.

I’d check out some of the old Weird Tales pulp magazines from the 20s and 30s as well if you’re into anthologies. Ton of good pulp authors to sample from. Seabury Quinn’s short stories are highly recommended

 

[Alexander Thaut]

Thanks for the thread, Ive been meaning to get into hard pulps myself after just browsing through Lovecraft and Howard.
Also is Heart of Darkness considered pulp?
Also I dont think theres a thread for this but I would like to get into Warhammer lore. I came across stuff like the Last Church and descriptions of the Emperor and the Tau. I would like reading material, be it lore or short stories.

I'd say Heart of Darkness is not pulp, but it's certainly adjacent in the sense that it comes from the preceding era and may have influenced plenty of pulps.

His Deathstalker books are pure pulpish gold. Unapologetic space opera that doesnt take itself too seriously with an absolutely stratospheric bodycount.

Deathstalker's on the list of stuff to pirate aquire and load into my kindle.

If you into pulp horror at all, James Herbert put out some great stuff. The Fog is a must, as well as The Rats. Classic no frills horror.

As far as pulp fantasy, The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny is an interesting take on parallel worlds. The Darksword Trilogy by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman has some fascinating world building regarding living in a magocracy and the classism that abounds without getting too preachy about it.

I’d check out some of the old Weird Tales pulp magazines from the 20s and 30s as well if you’re into anthologies. Ton of good pulp authors to sample from. Seabury Quinn’s short stories are highly recommended

Zalazny I've heard of.

I've got a load of the weird tales stuff right now. Currently, I've managed to get a big batch of Robert E Howard books for like 40% of the full price. (Included the centenary edition of complete conan works and 6 of the del ray volumes from the mid-late 00s).

Probably gonna be my big book purchase of the year unless I wind up running into a big batch of stuff at a flea market/thrift store/etc. Looking for the decent editions of stuff because I grew up reading 70 year old paperbacks and that shit sucks ass even if you appreciate them.

 

[Duiker]

Dumarest of Terra
by E.C. Tubb

If you are looking for some fun scifi pulp, then I recommend the Dumarest of Terra series, which went for 33 novels, each one is a pretty short read. Earl Dumarest is a mercenary desperate to return to his homeworld of Earth, but in a galaxy full of humans, Earth has become a distant memory. many even doubt humanity came from one planet. Space travel sucks, everyone, including Earl is usually broke, and he is hunted by an evil cabal of geniuses who wish to take over the galaxy. And, although it has strong vibes of a series that is 'monster of the week', the series does reach a conclusion and every couple of books adds to the overarching plot of him trying to locate Earth.

Also, I think we can all agree that the artwork on the covers of pulp novels was the best that book covers ever got.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

man, I've been eyeing various writers that are either influenced by or "adjacent" to pulps. Considering picking up Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar stories and Jack Vance's Dying Earth. I hear good things.

As for sci-fi, I dunno. Maybe a volum of LoA's American Science Fiction Novels from the '60s or Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions. I'm sorta trying to prioritize things based on my budget, the deal, and how scarce the book is. Considering picking up those '70s compilations of the best of c.l. moore and henry kuttner.

 

[LordOfZhbagva]

For pulp adjacent comics, I have to recommend Zagor. An Italian comic about a American gunslinger dealing with cowboys, indians, americans and plenty of supernatural stuff. The artwork is good, the stories are fine, the women are hot and the writers are intelligent. And the comic's been coming out since the 60's, so there's plenty of releases. I have fond memories of reading it when I was little.

 

[ChampFantana]

As much as I love Conan, he's just a bit too similar to Tarzan and John Carter. My true pulp favorite is a certain Puritan asskicker.

Solomon Kane is really cool, and he might just be Howard's best character. I've read the collected Conan stories and the Solomon Kane stories multiple times and Kane wasting Moslems, heathens and other unholy monsters in the name of God is just plain fun to read. The Solomon Kane movie was excellent as well, easily a more faithful adaptation of it's source material than Conan the Barbarian.

@Georgio Cocklord If you're looking to get into 40k pulp fiction, start with the Eisenhorn and Ravenor Trilogies by Dan Abnett. Check out Gaunt's Ghosts by Abnett as well. William King's Space Wolf series is also really good. The Last Chancers is just the Dirty Dozen in 40k, but it's still a lot of fun.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

As much as I love Conan, he's just a bit too similar to Tarzan and John Carter. My true pulp favorite is a certain Puritan asskicker.

Solomon Kane is really cool, and he might just be Howard's best character. I've read the collected Conan stories and the Solomon Kane stories multiple times and Kane wasting Moslems, heathens and other unholy monsters in the name of God is just plain fun to read. The Solomon Kane movie was excellent as well, easily a more faithful adaptation of it's source material than Conan the Barbarian.

@Georgio Cocklord If you're looking to get into 40k pulp fiction, start with the Eisenhorn and Ravenor Trilogies by Dan Abnett. Check out Gaunt's Ghosts by Abnett as well. William King's Space Wolf series is also really good. The Last Chancers is just the Dirty Dozen in 40k, but it's still a lot of fun.

imo Howard's characters would not be nearly as good in the hands of a lesser writer.

Speaking of pulps, I wound up finding my old barnes and noble John Cater 1-3 omnibus.

 

[Stasi]

Does anyone know of a good source for pulp and penny dreadful stories where the text has been converted into an easily printable formal (PDF, word, EPUB etc.)?

I want to print and hand-bind collections of stories into books as a little hobby project and the first roadblock is getting the source material in an acceptable format. So far the main sources I found are:

• Archive.org - huge collections but these are mainly original scans in PDF or machine converted/OCR which from my sampling are absolute dogshit. Getting these in a printable format would take a lot of work.
• Wikisource - good quality edited/reviewed texts but incomplete.
• Project Gutenberg - similar to wikisource, good format for stuff that is available but limited collection.
• Anna's Archive/piracy in general - easy to get EPUB/PDFs but only for the more popular stuff like Howard and Lovecraft that were collected into published books.

If anyone knows of others let me know, basically I'm trying to find a place to get printable texts without doing a load of editing and typesetting myself.