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Wednesday, June 07, 2006

My Pulp Fiction

I'm inspired by Liam's post on Pulp Fiction to post some of the pulp fiction I read while in college ... these books were frowned on by my English teachers as being either badly written or non-PC on a number of levels ...

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. Wikipedia has this on Heinlein (1907-1988) ...

Robert Anson Heinlein ... was one of the most influential and controversial authors of "hard" science fiction. He set a high standard for science and engineering plausibility that few have equaled, but also helped to raise the genre's standards of literary quality. He was the first writer to break into mainstream general magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s with unvarnished science fiction.


Conan the Barbarian by Robert E Howard. From Wikipedia, this about Howard (1906-1936) ...

Robert Ervin Howard ... was an American writer of fantasy, horror, pulp and historical adventure stories published mainly in Weird Tales magazine in the 1930s. Although Howard's readership was limited during his life, his works have become highly influential among writers and fans of the sword and sorcery sub-genre .... On June 11, 1936 at around 8 o'clock in the morning, after learning his tubercular mother was unlikely to regain consciousness from her coma, Howard settled into the front seat of his car with a borrowed .38 Colt automatic and shot himself in the head .... On the morning of June 11th, Howard wrote this poem, which was found typed on a strip of paper in his billfold in his hip pocket:

All fled—all done, so lift me on the pyre—
The Feast is over, and the lamps expire.

This couplet, once thought to be a paraphrase from Ernest Dowson's poem "Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae," is actually from a little-known poem entitled "The House Of Cæsar" by Viola Garvin.





At the Mountains of Madness by HP Lovecraft. Wikipedia on Lovecraft (1890-1937) ...

Howard Phillips Lovecraft ... was an American author of fantasy, horror and science fiction, noted for combining these three genres within single narratives. Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, but his works have become highly important and influential among writers and fans of modern horror fiction.


The Bowmen by Arthur Machen. Wikipedia writes of Machen (1863-1947) ...

Arthur Machen ... was a leading Welsh author of the 1890s. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy and horror fiction .... In this story (The Bowmen), written and published during World War I, the ghosts of archers from the battle of Agincourt lead by Saint George come to the aid of British troops. This is attributed (by some at least) as the origin of the Angels of Mons legend.


The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer. Wikipedia writes of Rohmer (1883-1959) ...

Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward ... better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. He is most remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu .... It was an immediate success with its pacy and racist story of Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie facing the worldwide conspiracy of the 'Yellow Peril'. The Fu Manchu stories, together with those featuring Gaston Max or Morris Klaw, made Rohmer one of the most successful and well-paid writers in of the 1920s and 1930s.


5 Comments:

Blogger Deloney said...

The first three books I remember owning as a kid (not counting picture books) are "The Stories of Edgar Allen Poe (edited for children, I think), "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London, and "Tarzan of the Apes" by Edgar Rice Burroughs..

6:08 AM  
Blogger crystal said...

Hi Deloney :-). I remember Burroughs - he also wrote some Martian books, I think, which I really liked.

7:22 AM  
Blogger Deloney said...

Did you ever go through a Sherlock Holmes phase? I never read those books when I was growing up -- I discovered them when I was in my thirties.

4:46 PM  
Blogger Deloney said...

Do you remember the very first movies you ever saw? I mean at a theatre, not on tv. My dad took me to monster movies in the afternoon on Saturdays. The last movie my Dad ever took me to was "A Hard Day's Night"...:-)

7:43 PM  
Blogger crystal said...

Hi Del :-). My mom used to take my sis and me and drop us off at the movies but never went with us. I think she just wanted to get rid of us for a while. We ended seeing some pretty scary movies, but they were not new releases, as the theater in Bermuda seemed to only get old ones ... the Purple Gang, the Attack of the Crab Monsters, Gorgo.

I didn't read Sherlock when I was a kid ... I think I read books about animals mostly, like the Black Stallion :-)

9:21 PM  

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