Tag Archives: pulp

What About Us?

Posted on December 29, 2022 by Gene Stewart

Literary writers often cherrypick tropes and topoi from pulp to spark plot, then fail to follow through. The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike is a good first third of a Stephen King novel, but he didn’t follow through on … Continue reading →

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Scrape It Off

Posted on April 4, 2022 by Gene Stewart

Influence on writers of cosmic, or weird, horror can and should be credited to H P Lovecraft’s work. Setting aside racism, his work touched on a cold existential view of mankind, Earth, the Solar system, even the Milky Way Galaxy, … Continue reading →

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Pulping Racism

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Gene Stewart

Racism has a pulpy core, softened by rot. The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer is a romp but oh the racism and oh the overwrought emotion, yikes. Yellow Peril stuff, saving ‘the White Race’ therefrom, and crammed with racial … Continue reading →

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“Lovecraft, Howard, and the Rest of Us, or: Is It Wong To Be Pulpy?”

Posted on March 6, 2018 by Gene Stewart

  Bailed out of DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON, 1931, with Anna May Wong and Werner Toland, which kicked off a TCM tribute to Wong, and this led to some thoughts about racism, pulp, and quality. Toland played Charlie Chan, most … Continue reading →

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Or Else

Posted on February 25, 2018 by Gene Stewart

Melodrama in Pulp stories focuses on conspiracy, unspeakable cults, and nefarious plots to control the world.  What strikes me is how accurate such excess can be. Look at trumpers; Putin’s oligarchs; gangsters; the Tongs; the GOP; white supremacists; survivalists; ISIL/Daeth; … Continue reading →

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REH, HPL, ERB, & Me

Posted on February 25, 2018 by Gene Stewart

  Started reading a collection of Robert E. Howard stories and must say, he was better than I’d recalled.  I’ve always liked his work, from Conan, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn and beyond.  The variety, depth, and the bravura … Continue reading →

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Victorian Now Literacy

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Gene Stewart

Why has 50 Shades of Gray sold like crazy despite everyone of any relevance condemning it as a badly-written, badly-conceived infantile book unworthy of attention? No one reads for style. Maybe a handful of us, sure, but mostly people read … Continue reading →

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Writerly Whining

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Gene Stewart

I’ve just finished fixing galleys of an anthology story made juvenile and riddled with errors by the editors, who evidently don’t know to from too from two, among other horrors such as inserted exclamation marks, italicized words that are also … Continue reading →

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“Murder Knife” as by Samael Gyre is up at BIG PULP

Posted on December 5, 2013 by Gene Stewart

Here’s the link: “Murder Knife” by Samael Gyre at BIG PULP

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