SO DARK FOR APRIL by Howard Browne, © 1953 by Howard Browne. First appeared in Manhunt. Reproduced by permission of the author. Appeared in The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction edited by Maxim Jakubowksi (Robinson, 1996).
WE ARE ALL DEAD by Bruno Fischer, © 1955 by Bruno Fischer. First appeared in Manhunt. Reproduced by permission of Ruth Fischer on behalf of the Estate of Bruno Fischer. Appeared in The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction edited by Maxim Jakubowksi (Robinson, 1996).
DEATH IS A VAMPIRE by Robert Bloch, © 1944 by Robert Bloch. First appeared in Thrilling Mystery Magazine. Reproduced by permission of A. M. Heath & Co. Ltd. Appeared in The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction edited by Maxim Jakubowksi (Robinson, 1996).
THE BLUE STEEL SQUIRREL by Frank R. Read, © 1946 by Frank R. Read. First appeared in Detective Story Magazine.
A REAL NICE GUY by William F. Nolan, © 1980 by William F. Nolan. First appeared in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. Reproduced by permission of the author. Appeared in The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction edited by Maxim Jakubowksi (Robinson, 1996).
STACKED DECK by Bill Pronzini, © 1987 by Bill Pronzini. First appeared in New Black Mask Magazine. Reproduced by permission of the author. Appeared in The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction edited by Maxim Jakubowksi (Robinson, 1996).
SO YOUNG, SO FAIR, SO DEAD by John Lutz, © 1973 by John Lutz. First appeared in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. Reproduced by permission of the author. Appeared in The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction edited by Maxim Jakubowksi (Robinson, 1996).
EFFECTIVE MEDICINE by B. Traven, © 1954 by B. Traven. First appeared in Manhunt. Reproduced by permission of A. M. Heath & Co. Ltd. Appeared in The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction edited by Maxim Jakubowksi (Robinson, 1996).
NICELY FRAMED, READY TO HANG! by Dan Gordon, © 1952 by Dan Gordon. First appeared in Detective Tales.
THE SECOND COMING by Joe Gores, © 1966 by Joe Gores. First appeared in Adam’s Best Fiction. Reproduced by permission of the author. Appeared in The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction edited by Maxim Jakubowksi (Robinson, 1996).
PALE HANDS I LOATHED by William Campbell Gault, ©1947. First appeared in Detective Story Magazine.
THE DARK GODDESS by Schuyler G. Edsall, © 1955 by Schuyler G. Edsall. First appeared in Mystery Detective.
ORDO by Donald E. Westlake, © 1977 by Donald E. Westlake. First appeared in Enough. Reproduced by permission of James Hale Literary Agency. Appeared in The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction edited by Maxim Jakubowksi (Robinson, 1996).
All efforts have been made to contact the respective copyright holders. In some cases, it has not proven possible to ascertain the whereabouts of authors, agents or estates. They are welcome to write to us c/o the book’s publishers.
I owe a particular vote of thanks to various authors and editors who provided invaluable assistance in tracing copyright holders and living relatives, and recommended particular stories. A bow of the fedora, then, to Max Allan Collins, Ed Gorman, Martin H. Greenberg, Gary Lovisi, William F. Nolan and Bill Pronzini.
INTRODUCTION
Maxim Jakubowski
There is no such thing as pulp fiction.
Sweeping assertion, hey?
And, I suppose, a perfect touch of controversy to open a volume which I hope you will find full of surprise, action, shocks galore, sound and fury, pages bursting with all the exhilarating speed and bumps of a rollercoaster ride.
Which is what all the best storytelling provides.
So long live pulp fiction!
First, let’s bury the myth that pulp fiction is a lower form of art, the reverse side of literature as we know it. Until pyrotechnic film director Quentin Tarantino spectacularly hijacked the expression, most ignorant observers and accredited denizens of the literary establishment relegated pulp writing to a dubious cupboard where we parked the guilty pleasures we were too ashamed to display in public. Pulp was equated with rubbish. Crap of the basest nature. How arrogant of them to dismiss thus what, for many, was a perfect form of entertainment!
What we have come to call, to know as, pulp writing came about from the magazines where much of its early gems first appeared: the colourful publications, so often afflicted with endearing but terrible names, which cheapskate publishers insisted on printing on the cheapest available form of paper, pulp paper; sadly this is another reason for the aura that now surrounds them, as so few have survived the onslaught of time and decay, and the rare remaining examples have become increasingly collectable, albeit all too often in crumbling form on the shelves.
Many of the names have gone down in legend: Black Mask, Amazing, Astounding, Spicy Stories, Ace-High, Detective Magazine, Dare-Devil Aces, Thrills of the Jungle, High Seas Adventures, Fighting Aces, Secret Service Operator 5, etc . . . to the nth degree. There were literally hundreds of such often live-by-night magazines with wildly exotic and frequently misleading names from their initial appearance at the beginning of the 1920s in America. And I would not pretend that everything they published was made of gold. Far from it. We are talking commercial fiction, mostly catering to the lowest common denominator. But then do our modern paperbacks have loftier ambitions and a superior hit-rate, quality-wise?
But what makes them stand out is the fact that the pulps had one golden rule which unsung editors insisted upon and good and bad writers alike religiously followed: adherence to the art of storytelling. Every story in the pulps had a beginning and an end, sharply etched economical characterization, action, emotions, plenty going on. The mission was to keep the reader hooked, to transport him into a more interesting world of fantasy and make-believe, spiriting him away from the drab horizons of everyday life (remember, there was no television in those very early days, or CDs or other modern leisure addictions).
This compact with the consumer might appear self-evident, and was indeed very much a continuation of the Victorian penny dreadfuls and novels written by instalments in newspapers and magazines by the likes of Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens and so many other overlooked pioneer scribes just a few decades earlier, but it is a tradition that has sadly since been lost to the trappings of Literature with a capital L and pretension. We now have partly forgotten the pleasures of old-time radio but at least the pulp magazines have left us with millions of words of splendid, lurid, cheap and exciting writing. And not only does this inheritance still afford much pleasure but it can also be said to have influenced many commercial writers practising their art long after the literal disappearance of the pulp magazines due to wartime paper shortages. The spirit of pulp continued unabated after the war and ended in the pages of the paperback books that took over the literacy baton in England and America. The 1950s were in fact a further golden age for pulp writing, with the exploding paperback market opening opportunities by the dozen as imprints mushroomed and thrived, providing fertile ground for the remaining pulp survivors and newer generations of popular writers, many of whom, particularly in the fields of mystery and science-fiction writing, would go on to better things and, eventually, to the respectability of the hardcover book. Many of these authors were also busy contributing to the renaissance of popular genre magazines now in digest format, with tales that often echoed or prefigured their novels, and are represented in this selection.