I walked into a seedy dive on the bad side of the internet, the kind of place where Nigerian princes are all willing to buy you a drink as long as you supply them with credit card and bank account information first. Wading through the rabble, I made my way to the bar.
I grabbed some real estate when a stool opened up, and was surprised to see a familiar face among the felons and grifters.
“Well, Lucas Garrett, as I live and breath. How are you?”
Lucas took his eyes off his drink long enough to glance over at me and shrugged noncommittally. Not to be deterred, I waived the bartender over with the hopes of applying some conversational lubrication to the situation.
“So, you happen to catch the last blog post?” I asked, because I am nothing if not demure. “Yeah, I saw it,” Lucas said, finding the ice at the bottom of his glass much more captivating than any conversation I had to offer.
“It was my most shared blog post yet!” I beamed, trying to lighten the mood. He looked at me like I was trimming my nose-hair at the bar. “You left out a lot of fine people,” he said.
“But I even had to get more bandwidth for my blog,” I said. “Besides, the article would have been HUGE!”
I could feel the disdain radiate from him like the heat off a desert highway. “And you call yourself a detective,” he said with a snort. I did call myself a detective, but I was painfully aware that no one else did.
“There are people creating great pulp stories out there.” He scribbled a list of names on a cocktail napkin and thrust it in my direction. “Go out there and finish what you started,” he said, throwing a nod towards the door. I sighed, pulled on my fedora, and headed towards the door.
Before I got more than a few steps, however, Lucas called me back. He held up an empty glass. “You wanna get this freshened up before you head out?”
***** Lucas Garrett is a sage of all things pulp and noir. You can find him on Facebook and visit him at Luc’s Speculations. **
1) Meteor House Press
Philip Jose Farmer was a legend in pulps who breathed life into fantasy and adventure stories before his death in
2009. Meteor House has taken his legacy and ran with it, creating new novels based on his work, and in some cases working with him before his passing.
Meteor House Press continues his Wold Newton Family series, which included Farmer’s take on the Tarzan and Doc Savage family lines.
You can find the Wold Newton lineage in The Evil of Pemberley House and The Scarlet Jaguar, books staring the Patricia Wildman character, a daughter of “Doc Wildman.”
The Press also publishes stories of Phileas Fogg as well as the series The Worlds of Philip Jose Farmer. If you want so sample some of the best pulp has to offer, you could do a lot worse than Meteor House.
2) Black Coat Press
While pulp and noir are considered American art forms, it is important to remember that they are not EXCLUSIVLY American. Noir is, after all, a french word, and no one makes that more apparent than the folks at Black Coat Press.
Black Coat brings to life the french pulp stories and noir tales that influenced their American counterparts. These stories there are home to characters such as Ethel King, the Female Nick Carter, Captain Cap, and the great Arsene Lupin.
Black Coat captures the flavor and adventure of the pulps while treating the reader to an exotic sensibility that is both welcome and unique.
If you think you know all there is to know about pulps, you have much to learn. And the folks at Black Coat Press have so very much to teach.
3) PulpWork Press
If there is one thing that PulpWork Press sought to capture with their line of Pulp-inspired books is a sense of FUN!
From Derrick Ferguson’s Dillon series about an adventurous soldier of fortune to the How The West Was Weird series, PulpWork Press is true to the mission they lay out for their readers.
The best of modern pulp fiction for today’s three minute attention spans.
And explosions. Lots of explosions.
From classic lost-world fantasy with Dire Planet to the cutting-edge fantasy of The Myth Hunters, PulpWork follows their edict of keeping things fun, moving them along, and blowing them up.
We should all aim so high!
4) Moonstone Books
Finding that perfect marriage of the Golden Age of Radio, Noir stories, Pulps, and comic books, Moonstone books picks up the banner and charges into the forefront of good story-telling.
With a stable of classic characters like Boston Blackie, Pat Novak for Hire, and The Phantom rubbing shoulders with new-world legends like Buckaroo Banzai and Kolchak the Night Stalker, the story possibilities boggle the mind.
Moonstone takes advantage of this embarrassment of riches with the best talent available. Names like Chuck Dixon and Tom DeFalco breath life into Airboy and G-8 while CJ Henderson, who recently passed, added a timeless voice to noir and adventure stories that can’t be easily replaced.
If classic characters with modern sensibilities are your thing, than step over to Moonstone Books today!
5) Protecting Project Pulp
As a pillar of the District of Wonders pod-casting circle, the bar is set pretty high for Protecting Project Pulp, and it’s a challenge they are up to.
With host Simon Hildebrandt at the helm, each week the podcast faithfully renders some of the best pulp of yesterday, as well as the occasional story of today, into fluid, exciting stories that helps by commute go a little smoother.
Utilizing the greats such as Jack London, Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard, Protecting Project Pulp not only entertains but educates, offering glimpses into the lives of the legendary authors as they present their works.
The podcast doesn’t take advertisers (at least so far) and is mostly a labor of love, so if you can, head over to Protecting Project Pulp and throw a latte’s worth of cash into the virtual tip jar, or better yet, become a donor.
After all, it makes a long drive so much easier to take.
