Search Results for: Ravenwood

Ravenwood: The Forgotten Occult Detective

The phrase “pulp fiction” has been misused long before Quentin Tarantino appropriated it. For the past several decades nearly all genre fiction of the first half of the twentieth century has been considered pulp when in fact many of its bestselling authors (such as Edgar Rice Burroughs and Sax Rohmer) were published in the better-paying slicks and not the downscale pulps. The writing in the slicks tended to be more polished in sharp contrast to the breakneck pace of the…

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Reading for a Good Cause: 32 White Horses on a Vermillion Hill edited by Duane Pesice

I’ve heard from several readers about a new charity anthology benefiting horror writer Christopher Ropes, 32 White Horses on a Vermillion Hill. Most recently Robert Adam Gilmour wrote, saying: There are no shortage of writers going through difficult times and I imagine you might get quite a number of emails for funding them but this involves two anthologies and some writers you are familiar with. His situation is horrifying enough that it has stuck in my head and I just wanted…

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Andrew Salmon Remembers Frederick C. Davis

A (Black) Gat in the Hand continues on with quality guest posts (something’s got to make this column work, and it sure as heck isn’t my writing!) this week, as Andrew Salmon holds forth on pulpster Frederick C. Davis. I knew I wasn’t qualified to write about Davis (though I did hold my own on Norbert Davis!). And since Andrew, author of the excellent Sherlock Holmes Fight Club novels, wrote the introductions to Altus’ Press’ Moon Man collections, I knew…

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New Treasures: Scourge by Gail Z Martin

According to the publicity material I have on hand, Gail Z. Martin is a bestselling writer… but that doesn’t mean I know which of her various novels have actually cracked the bestseller lists. There’s a lot of possibilities. She’s produced no less than four series in the last ten years, including seven volumes in the Chronicles of the Necromancer, four in the Ascendant Kingdoms series, three Deadly Curiosities books, and Iron and Blood, the opening book in a new steampunk series co-authored with her husband Larry…

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Discovering Robert E. Howard: Frank Schildiner on Solomon Kane

Martial arts expert Frank Shildiner has forgotten more about Adventure Pulp than I’ve ever known. His writings have included new tales starring  pulp characters Richard Knight and Thunder Jim Wade (if you’re a Doc Savage fan, you should check big Jim out). Solomon Kane is probably Robert E. Howard’s second best-known character after a certain well-muscled barbarian, and one which influenced Frank very early on. So, I turned to Frank for a look at the puritan sword slinger, as Black…

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An Open Letter to Amy Farrah-Fowler, Ph. D.

Dear Dr. Farrah-Fowler, Regarding your erroneous conclusion that Indiana Jones played no role in the outcome of Raiders of the Lost Ark, I can only express disappointment that your usual disciplined reason failed you in this instance. Let us explore your thesis and remove Indiana Jones entirely from the equation. The year is 1936 and the Nazis are exploring a sand-covered ruin of a largish ancient Egyptian city (Tannis, a major religious center, was comparable to Thebes) in search of…

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New Treasures: Brother Grim by Ron Fortier

I’ve been hearing a lot about Ron Fortier and his publishing house Airship 27 over the last 12 months. We’ve reported on a few of his titles here, including Barry Baskerville Solves a Case (which William Patrick Maynard calls “equal parts Encyclopedia Brown, Nate the Great, and Sherlock Holmes”), Joe Bonadonna’s space opera Three Against The Stars, David C. Smith’s occult thriller Call of Shadows, the TV-inspired anthology Tales from the Hanging Monkey, Jim Beard’s occult detective Sgt. Janus, Spirit-Breaker,…

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