By Author:
Bell, Everette
The Mourning Edge of Iron
Bova, Ben
The Rock Rats
Burroughs, Edgar Rice
A Princess of Mars
Cussler, Clive
(with Paul Kemprecos)
Polar Shift
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Di Filippo, Paul
Time's Black Lagoon
Hamilton, Edmond
Capt. Future's Challenge
McCaffrey, Anne
Dragonflight
High Adventure #94 edited by
John P. Gunnison
The past couple of years have brought the return to print of many great writers and characters from the old pulp magazines. In fact, there are probably more pulp magazine replicas and reprints readily available now than at any time since their long-ago heydays.
One of the characters who's come late to the party is Edmond Hamilton's Captain Future. I first discovered this sci-fi hero during the late 1960's, when Popular Library reprinted most of his yarns in a series of paperbacks. When Adventure House announced his return to print in their anthology series High Adventure, I was happy to return as well.
This issue reprints the third novel Captain Future's Challenge, as well as the original cover from the third issue of the pulp magazine. The series was targeted at teens, so the story, written in 1940, is a bit juvenile with characters drawn in strict black-and-white. Captain Future's stories were mysteries set in outer space and peopled with aliens from every planet in the solar system and beyond.
Every issue a new master criminal would emerge to jeopardize Earth, the galaxy, or the universe. Captain Future, with the help of the Futuremen, would work his way through the prime suspects until he uncovered the dastardly madman behind the horrendous threat. His team consisted of Grag the robot, Otho the android, and Simon the brain, who was literally a brain kept alive in a serum-case.
In this particular yarn the threat is the collapse of interplanetary travel, which would cripple the solar system's economy. Captain Future, aka Curt Newton, faces his ultimate challenge when his mind is removed from his body.
To be honest, my memory of the series was more wonderful than the reread of this particular installment. Fortunately the package helped keep things enjoyable. Adventure House did a wonderful job as usual, producing a pulp-size reprint with pages reproduced directly from an original pulp complete with all of the b&w line illustrations. The pleasure of reading the closest thing to a real pulp, complete with the original typos, helped transport me back to what—at least in repute—was a simpler, more romantic era.
Editor Gunnison also wisely included a second Captain Future yarn called The Birthplace of Creation. It's a short story and also happens to be the last story of the series. Written 11 years later than Challenge, it's not only a more enjoyable read, it also serves to show how much a writer can improve over a span of years. The contrast is fascinating and edifying.
Lastly, to fill out the page count, there's a nice Twilight Zone-like 4-pager by Raymond Gallun called Lunar Parasites.
High Adventure #94 is 112 b&w pages with a full color cover. It's available for $7.95 plus shipping from Adventure House, DreamHaven, and other pulpy etailers.
The Mourning
Edge of Iron
by Everette Bell
The Mourning Edge of Iron is a well-written sword and sorcery novella penned in the tradition of Robert E. Howard. Set in the desolate, unforgiving world of Cehennem, the story concerns the conflict between warring factions and their struggle for power. Bell's epic tale is drenched in battle scenes, ritual, and tradition. There's plenty of action propelling the story forward but it's nicely balanced with a rich backstory that frames the events and brings the characters to life. The world they live in is harsh, brutal, and relentless. The Xaharans, led by the warrior Molloch, reminded me a little of the Klingons in Deep Space Nine. Each race lusts for battle, eats disgusting foods, and enjoys cutting themselves with knifes and swords in the name of ritual and honor. It takes a talented author to draw you into a story about characters as ruthless and bloodthirsty as the Xaharans, but Bell pulls it off nicely. If you enjoy sword and sorcery adventure, you'll like this one.
One of Bell's short stories from 2001, Divine Intervention, can be read online here.
The Mourning Edge of Iron is a digest-size, 60-page novella. Cover illustration by Peter Bradley. It's available for $5 plus shipping from Yard Dog Press.
Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
Standing still is an illusion. In reality, you're either moving forward or you're in decline. Unfortunately for civilization on planet Pern, the slow descent into degeneracy has begun as the Dragonrider trilogy launches in this inaugural volume. McCaffrey has lovingly created a world of imaginative creatures, cultures, and characters. Each is richly defined as she explores their pasts, motivations, feelings, abilities, and roles in Pern's societies. It's an epic tale with its share of battles and plot twists as the main characters, Lessa and F'lar, overcome each challenge on their mission to save Pern from destruction.
The series is often categorized as being for young adult readers. I couldn't help thinking of the dragons as analogous to horses and the fascination they have for girls and young women. Combined with McCaffrey's penchant to delve into the character's feelings and emotions, this is fantasy and science fiction from a decidedly feminine perspective. McCaffrey's website provides a great place for more information about her many series.
The Man in the High Castle
by Philip K. Dick
Dick explores religious beliefs, political systems, culture, and meaning through the framework of alternate histories in this Hugo Award winning novel. The story takes place in 1962, in the former United Sates, where the Japanese and Germans are the victors of World War II. Most of the action takes place out West where the Japanese rule the land. The life of a powerful Japanese collector of the artifacts of old American history is entwined with the proprietor of an antique shop. In this reality, Jews are still hunted and killed, so they change their names and even their physical appearance to escape detection. A second alternate history is revealed in the controversial novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Here, the Allies have won the War. Dick uses richly defined characters and cultures in narrative form to explore perception, reality, and meaning. This novel is often cited as Dick's greatest work.
Polar Shift
By Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos
Clive Cussler is the Founder and Chairman of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA®) and author of more than 30 books. Polar Shift is part science fiction, part action adventure, and part spy story. Described as an adventure from the NUMA Files, this is the 6th outing with hero Kurt Austin. The epic-length story concerns a plot to seize control of world wide communications by disrupting the Earth's electromagnetic balance. Trouble is, the mastermind pulling the strings can't control the massive forces in play once the disruption begins. With a few minor changes this book would read like a script for a James Bond movie.
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The first story from the Barsoom series, this tale introduces John Carter, Tars Tarkas, and of course the Princess of Helium, Dejah Thoris. It's filled with all of the trademarked elements of a great adventure story by Burroughs: alien creatures, alien customs, friends and enemies, beautiful woman, and vast, untamed wilderness areas between the alien cities. As you might suspect, war is a way of life on Mars. It's one of the cultural foundations of all the alien races there. John Carter introduces them to some new ideas like kindness and friendship. These concepts are alien to the Barsoomian races but some individuals are beginning to understand their value...
This is the second book in The Asteroid Wars series. The first is The Precipice and the third is The Silent War. The asteroid belt contains hundreds of millions of tons of valuable, high-grade ore. The Rocks Rats is the story of the maverick miners and the conglomerates fighting it out for control of the belt and the profitable ore market it creates. Bova's tale paints a gritty picture of a wild frontier peopled with hard-working, independent space cowboys; manipulative corporate climbers, and mercenary killers. There's plenty of action to keep things interesting. Although the story moves along considerably from start to finish, there are plenty of unresolved issues left hanging to ensure you gravitate into the final installment.
Time's Black Lagoon By Paul Di Filippo
To me, The Creature From the Black Lagoon was the best monster that Hollywood brought to the silver screen in the fifties. Not that the original movie was all that great - and the sequels were progressively more disappointing. But I was really taken by the full-body costume and the magical underwater shots of the Creature in the original, low-budget classic. So I guess it was always the Creature's potential that got me. Sort of like watching Lost in Space week after week, hoping this week's episode would be good.
So it's not surprising that when I heard DH Press was publishing this book, I just had to read it. What I was hoping for was a story that recreated that feeling of wonder and terror about a mysterious, amphibious creature lurking somewhere in a long-forgotten, shadowy swamp. Unfortunately, Time's Black Lagoon is not that story.
Like the sequel movies, author Di Filippo takes the creature in some unexpected directions. He creates an interesting backstory about the creature and how it came to invade the swamps of those original fifties movies. With time travel, aliens, and research laboratories this tale has more elements of science fiction than horror.
It's a worthy effort, but I'm still waiting for this classic monster to live up to the potential it always seems to be missing. Top
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