With Extra Pulp

For a long time, the pulp magazines have had a bad rep. Trashy, cheap, inferior, mindless...all kinds of things have been said about them, when they are discussed at all. The oldest pulps, the ones prior to the time of Weird Tales and Amazing Stories especially, get the trifecta thrown at them: racist, sexist, and...well, not 'homophobic,' because the subject just didn't come up in the pulps. Society wasn't at the stage yet where that was a discussible topic. Discussable? I'm not sure on the spelling on that one; both get the red squiggly line.

Here's the thing, and I know this isn't a 'new' opinion, or even a 'retro' one; it's a thing that is growing in popularity. And that is, the pulps are superior to much of the 'literature' that is foisted on our kids today in schools and even in the bookstores and libraries. Controversial opinion? Sure it is; I've been reading a lot lately about how the pulps are from a backward time and everything since then is vastly superior. The only problem with that is, I don't see it. Sure, there are some modern authors I like (David Weber and Harry Turtledove being two prime examples), but the kind of stories I've been reading in the pulps just don't show up in modern writing very much. And that, my friends, is a tragedy.

I got interested in the pulps because I was reading some gaming blogs that were talking about the legendary 'Appendix N' in the back of the 1st edition DMG. From there, I also got interested in writing again, which is why I'm doing this blog. And that's when I started reading some of the old masters. Sure, I'd read Tolkien; who hasn't? And I had picked up some Burroughs for my son's homeschooling courses (any homeschooling program that has Edgar Rice Burroughs on its reading list is automatically superior to one that does not). But most of my reading in sci-fi and fantasy was modern, in the case of the fantasy, and post-Campbell for the sci-fi. I love David Eddings; he gets a bad rep today, but the Belgariad was the first epic fantasy I ever read, even before reading Tolkien. I received the first two books of the Belgariad and the first book of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series for my twelfth birthday from a friend. The Asimov...didn't do it for me. It didn't feel like what I expected science fiction to feel like. The Belgariad, on the other hand...I was hooked almost from the start, and I still read it regularly to this day.

But it wasn't until much, much later that I actually read fantasy that wasn't 'epic', derivative of Tolkien, or a D&D tie-in. I read Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms books because that's what I knew. I'd never even heard of Abraham Merritt or Lord Dunsany, let alone had any clue how foundational their writing was for modern fantasy, science fiction and horror. And I didn't even know that there was something out there I didn't know about, because I didn't hang out in used book stores, and I didn't know to look for them in the small-town library.

Now, though, I've been reading Burroughs, Merritt, Dunsany, some Clark Ashton Smith, and one Lovecraft story. I'm reading them in chronological order, because that's the sort of thing I do. So, I've read a ton of Burroughs; forty-two novels and short stories so far. I'm finally past World War I, so I'm looking forward to the Roaring '20s, which is still going to have plenty of Burroughs, more Lovecraft, more Dunsany, more Merritt...and more new guys I don't even know yet. And, since I'm also reading Amazing Stories, there will be plenty more, as well. I was considering doing Weird Tales readings as well, but there's only so much time available. Dammit.

There's something about the pulps that we've lost today. That sense of real heroism, people making a difference, and the values they held. We just don't see that these days, not in the majority of genre fiction, at least. And that's a shame.

Ironically, it wasn't the pulps themselves that made me realize this; it's that Laura Ingalls Wilder book my son and I are reading together. We're four chapters in, and so far, 'Pa' has demonstrated a yeoman's skill at hunting, animal husbandry, trapping, carving, whittling, bullet-making, fiddle-playing, literacy...oh, let's not forget architecture and excavation, since he built this house in the backwoods of Wisconsin and dug a cellar underneath it, too. And there's nothing special about Pa; he's just a typical pioneer, making his way in the world with his wife and three daughters. That was normal for that time period, and even by the time of the First World War, it still wouldn't be considered unusual. But today? The number of men who would be able to competently perform half of those things is vanishingly small. We don't need to, after all; pretty much everything we need is available at a big box store. Nobody needs to butcher their own pig, after all.

Still, it speaks of a time when we were truly different, and that time is lost to us for the most part. There are no home movies, no audio recordings. But we do have the writings, and there's a lot they can teach us. Yes, they had different social attitudes toward minorities and women. That doesn't negate the good things they did have. If any negative characteristic disqualified people from having anything to teach and pass on, then we're finished as of right now, because there ain't nobody who doesn't have some negative characteristic. Except my wife, of course.

There are people who are trying to bring back that ethos, that sense of a nobler purpose for mankind, and that sense of fantastic wonder that we are missing today. Men like Brian Niemeier, Jeffro Johnson, and Larry Correia, men who are determined to break the straitjacketed rules of fantasy and science fiction and bring back that joy once again. So, if you're searching for something different, something exciting and new, look to authors like these, who are opening up whole new worlds of wonder to explore.

And, when you're done with them, check out my own anthology of science fiction, fantasy, and other stories, A Universe of Possibilities. Hopefully, you'll find something you like there.