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April 29, 2007

From the Extraordinary to the Impossible: Verne at the Theatre

This is a play, not a novel (Verne had several successful plays based on his prose works -- in fact, he made more money from his theatrical work than he did from his novels, thanks in part to the details of his contract with his publisher, Hetzel), and this particular work was considered lost for many decades.

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April 26, 2007

Jules Verne: Pre-Pulp Pioneer Extraordinaire

Verne's scientist-protagonists prefigure many of the heroes that later populated pulp magazines -- Doc Savage, Captain Future, and many of Robert Heinlein and Van Vogt's science heroes -- as well as later, pulp-influenced characters like Batman, the Challengers of the Unknown, Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, and others. In the following entries to The Pulp Rack, we provide information on Verne's work and how it helped to shape or inform later pulp fiction.

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April 20, 2007

Tug Norton, Detective: A Series from Detective Fiction Weekly

By Monte Herridge, who brings us another essay about a series character from Detective Fiction Weekly. Tug Norton is a private detective and creation of prolific author Edward Parrish Ware (1884-1967?). These stories are told first hand by Tug Norton: “. . . case of record in the archives of the Kaw Valley Detective Bureau, of which I, Tug Norton, am founder, owner and chief operative, . . .” ("The Queen’s Patteran") Norton notes that when business is dull, he entertains and instructs himself by studying his casebook ("The Devil Winks"). This is how some of the Norton stories begin, with him reliving the case he has looked up in his casebook.

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April 13, 2007

The Cheyenne Pool & The Youngerman Guns: Two Novels by Lewis B. Patten

Welcome to the Spur & Lock Mercantile and Sundries Emporium. Have a seat and pick up a stick for whittlin’. Please remember to bring your own whetstones, and don’t spit on the floor, but aim for the cuspidors, located ubiquitously about the store. And before you decide on a course of action or speech directed toward a fellow store-sitter that may result in strong words or fisticuffs, please ask yourself, “What would Roy Rogers do?”

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April 06, 2007

Charles Stilson's ERB knockoff: Polaris—of the Snows

Despite the Burroughs boom and the wide availability of Burroughs-inspired novels from Ace and other paperback publishers during the 1960s, I hadn’t read this story until recently. Many thanks to Brian E. Brown for making an inexpensive reprint available — apparently the first complete-in-one publication edition of this novel, which first was published in All-Story Weekly December 18, 1915 thru January 1, 1916.

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