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Blob Monsters, Killer Alien Plants, and Feral Automobiles: July/August 2022 Print SF Magazines

Blob Monsters, Killer Alien Plants, and Feral Automobiles: July/August 2022 Print SF Magazines

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July/August 2022 issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Cover art by Donato Giancola, Eldar Zakirov, and Alan M. Clark

It’s marvelous to see a cover by the great Donato Giancola on Analog, of all places. Donato did one cover for Black Gate, our famous Red Sonja cover for Black Gate 15, our special Warrior Women issue. Analog‘s last cover was by NASA, the inside of a satellite or reactor or Easy Bake oven or something. This one is much cooler.

Shipping problems have delayed the arrival of this month’s F&SF, so I don’t have a copy in my hot little hands in time to do this article (again), but Tangent Online has the Table of Contents, so I can fake it. There’s lots of good reading in this month’s print SF mags, including stories by Jerry Oltion, Sean Monaghan, Bruce McAllister, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Rick Wilber, Will McIntosh, Michael Swanwick, Octavia Cade, Jack McDevitt, Paul Melko, Nick Wolven, James L. Sutter, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and many others. Let’s dive in.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Back Porch Pulp #1

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Back Porch Pulp #1

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

I did six Back Deck Pulp installments. If you don’t know what that was – I had a great back deck at my former house. I would sit out there and read a lot. Mostly pulp stuff, but other things too. And I would take a pic of the book/or rarely, on my Kindle); trying to include some of my yard, or deck, and my leg or knee (hey – it was just a thing). And I’d talk about what I was reading. Usually sharing info about the author.

They were fun little things to share what I liked reading. And often it was a plug for an upcoming A (Black) Gat in the Hand post. I’m in an apartment now, with a small concrete slab back porch. With winter, and then the brutal heat of June, now behind us, I’m getting out there to read a little more. So, Back Porch Pulp makes its debut as Back Deck Pulp’s successor. Enjoy!

JACK HIGGINS

Back Deck Pulp has been re-branded. Back Porch Pulp. I read a $1.99 Jack Higgins ebook, “Comes the Dark Stranger.”

I have 49 Higgins books on the shelves: I’m a fan. That one was ‘meh.’ Predictable and not that exciting.

I’m a big fan of his WW II historical fiction stuff. And the first dozen Sean Dillon books.

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Uncanny Futures

Uncanny Futures

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I have always loved stories that offer a glimpse of the future. Speculative fiction is a literature of ideas, and stories set in the future can explore an enormous range of possibilities — from dark chilling futures that serve as cautionary tales to bright futures that offer us much-needed glimmers of hope.

We here at Uncanny Magazine are in the middle of the Uncanny Magazine, Year 9: To Fifty… and Beyond! The upcoming year will bring our 50th issue, and while we are planning ahead for the future of the magazine… here’s a look at futures past! Uncanny stories, essays, poems, and cover art depicting the world of tomorrow… and beyond!

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Interzone Finds a New Publisher

Interzone Finds a New Publisher

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Interzone 292/293. Cover art by Vincent Sammy

Big changes are afoot for Interzone, the leading British SF magazine.

Long time publisher TTA Press has announced that the latest issue, Interzone 292/293, will be its last. The magazine has been sold to MYY Press. The new editor is Gareth Jelley.

The TTA era of Interzone ends with a bang — a big 192-page full color double issue, with new fiction from Rich Larson, Jeff Noon, Alexander Glass, Charles Wilkinson, and many more — plus artwork from Richard Wagner, Vince Haig, Vincent Sammy, and many others, the usual columns and goodies, and a Guest Editorial by Gareth Jelley, in which he outlines his plans and vision for the magazine.

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Random Reviews: “JackBack” by J. Scott Crawford

Random Reviews: “JackBack” by J. Scott Crawford

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Cover by Bob Eggleton
Cover by Bob Eggleton

“JackBack,” was the “Newcomer’s Corner” featured short story in the Fall/Winter 1997 issue of Absolute Magnitude. It appears it may not only have been newcomer J. Scott Crawford’s debut short story, but also, apparently, his last short story.

Set in a future Atlanta, Tyler Underwood is a security specialist who has been called to install a system for a celebrity who had chosen to live in Cummings, Georgia, which Underwood considers to be the most dangerous suburb in Atlanta, outside the Perimeter, the area of Atlanta in which he felt safe.  The story of his drive home is juxtaposed with the description of a sales call for JackBack, a car security system that ensures people are able to recover their stolen vehicles, which Crawford portrays as a major issue in his Atlanta.

Underwood’s story is about his attempt to get home from this installation. Driving a Jaguar, he knows that his car is a target for every carjacker on the road. When his on-line communications system shut down, his concern, possibly paranoia, kicks in as he tries to make it to an area he considers safe. As he drives, he focuses his attention on a Camaro that seems to be trailing him, making his drive home a race to safety, at least in his own mind.

Against this, the details of the JackBack story line provides support for the danger that Underwood perceives, at least so far as the maker of the JackBack device want to promote the need for drivers to make use of their services. While Underwood’s story focuses on his drive home, the JackBack story includes sections dealing with a sales spiel to a new car owner, a flashback to a previously retrieved car, and, eventually, a tie in to Underwood’s drive home.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Norbert Davis’ “The Gin Monkey”

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Norbert Davis’ “The Gin Monkey”

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

There will be more pulp Robert E. Howard this summer, but this week, it’s back to the Mean Streets I’m actually (semi-) qualified to write about. And I do know my Norbert Davis; and Dime Detective! This is my seventh Davis essay. And I’ve written two book introductions, with more coming. I’m doing what I can to drum up interest in the massively under-appreciated pulpster.

Black Mask originated, and then dominated, the hardboiled pulp field. In early 1923, Carroll John Daly brought Three gun Terry Mack, and then Race Williams to the page. In October, Dashiell Hammett (writing as Peter Collinson) introduced the more-developed Continental Op. Black Mask would focus on the newly created sub-genre, Joseph ‘Cap’ Shaw would become editor, and the magazine would dominate the mystery field for the rest of the decade. The field was emulating, and looking up at, Black Mask.

Dime Detective hit newsstands in November of 1931. The pulp would become Black Mask’s most enduring competition. In fact, Black Mask would be bought by Dime Detective’s publisher and the latter would outlast the legendary magazine. Stories would be parceled out between the two magazines, and there wasn’t much of a difference, other than which characters could be found in which one.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Thrilling Adventures from Robert E. Howard

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Thrilling Adventures from Robert E. Howard

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Two weeks ago, we followed Robert E. Howard out of our usual mean streets, and into the Shudder Pulps. Two-Gun Bob was our tour guide again last week, as we wandered into Spicy Adventures territory. Howard is a great guide through the pulps, and this week, Kirby O’Donnell takes us to the Adventure Pulps.

Robert E. Howard sold his first story in 1925, with “Spear and Fang” appearing in the July issue of Weird Tales. One of Howard’s first characters, written as a young teen, was a Texas gunslinger who roamed the wilds of Afghanistan and neighboring areas. Francis Xavier Gordon, who would be better known as El Borak (The Swift) was Howard’s attempt to get into the higher paying, prestigious pulps, like Argosy, and Adventure.

Unfortunately, that turned out to be an unassailable market for Howard, and he did not get his first adventure story published until late 1934. At the peak of his writing skill, he would, sadly, be dead in less than two years. And it wasn’t a more developed El Borak that got Howard into the market. It was a very similar, less complex character named Kirby O’Donnell.

My REH friend Dave Hardy has written two excellent articles on El Borak and Howard’s gunslingers of the Near East. The definitive essay on the topic is in the Del Rey El Borak and other Adventures collection. And you can find the other here at Black Gate, in our Discovering Robert E. Howard series.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Spicy Adventures from Robert E. Howard

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Spicy Adventures from Robert E. Howard

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Last week, we followed Robert E. Howard out of our usual mean streets, and into the Shudder Pulps. Well, Two-Gun Bob is our tour guide again this week, as we wander into Spicy Adventures territory. I’m kinda liking this REH theme, and I’ll see if I can’t follow up with a story from the boxing pulps, and maybe an Oriental adventure (which is not what we think of from that title, today).

In the early Pulp days, girlie magazines were known as ‘smooshes.’ The Great Depression hit them hard – just as with all the other pulps. And, they were under attack from civic and morality groups, as well.

In April of 1934, pulp publisher Harry Donenfeld, with editor Frank Armer (Donenfeld had previously bought out that struggling publisher, then hired him) created the Spicy Pulp formula with Spicy Detective Stories. Under the Culture Publications masthead, it took the type of hardboiled crime stories in popular pulps like Black Mask, and Dime Detective, and added in the racy elements of the smoosh mags. Picture Sam Spade leaving no doubt that he bedded a scantily-clad Brigid O’Shaughnessyy in his apartment.

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Random Reviews: “Sweeping the Hearthstones” by Betsy James

Random Reviews: “Sweeping the Hearthstones” by Betsy James

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Cover by Ruth Sanderson
Cover by Ruth Sanderson

Betsy James published the Seeker Chronicles trilogy of YA novels between 1989 and 2006, but didn’t publish her first short story until 2008. Three years later, in October 2011, her second short story, “Sweeping the Heathstone,” appeared as the penultimate story in the final issue of the late, lamented Realms of Fantasy.

Corrie is a sixteen year old orphan who was raised by the Roadsouls and turned over to Neely Sheeker, who needed help running her roadhouse near Carmony. For Corrie, the change comes at the perfect time, as she is entering womanhood and she views it as a reflection of that change in status.  Neely is a reasonable boss, concerned about Corrie’s well-being as well as her ability to do the job for which she was hired. Her biggest concern is that Corrie is discovering her own sexuality and appears to be a bit boy-crazy in a setting which gives her the opportunity to experiment in ways that Neely doesn’t consider appropriate.

Neely also gives Corrie her own room, one of the main features of which is an enormous hearthstone which appears to have been in place since time immemorial. The presence of the hearthstone fills Corries with a sense that there is something strange about it and she takes Neely’s warning that “you’d let the man under that stone feel you up” seriously, despite Neely pointing out that if there is a man under the hearthstone, he has lain there for over a millennium. …

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Weird Menace from Robert E. Howard

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Weird Menace from Robert E. Howard

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

My area of expertise is the hardboiled/Pi genre. But today, we’ll jump over to the ‘shudder pulps.’ In 1933, Popular Publications (Harry Steeger) switched the ailing Dime Mystery over to a new, weird menace format. This started a short fun of success for that pulp sub-genre. Popular jumped in with both feet, shortly after launching Terror Tales, and then Horror Stories. As the tone shifted from weird, eerie, menacing elements to torture, depravity and sadism, a public outcry arose against these shudder pulps and the sub-genre died in the early forties.

Robert E. Howard, always looking for new markets, succeeded in placing “Black Talons” in the December, 1933 issue of Strange Detective Stories. “Fangs of Gold” (a Steve Harrison tale) followed there in February of 1934. Another Harrison story, “The Tomb’s Secret, was in that same February issue, under the pseudonym, Patrick Ervin.

Assuming he was actually getting paid (something that happened with irregularity from Weird Tales), this was a good market for Howard. “Dead Man’s Doom,” the next Harrison story, was slated for the March, 1934 issue. And then, the magazine folded. The story wouldn’t see print until 1978 as “Lord of the Dead” in the Sukll-Face paperback.

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