New Pulp Author Sean Taylor has created a new blog called Bad Girls, Good Guys, and Two-Fisted Action at http://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/

In his latest column, Bullets vs. Bonding, Sean discusses balancing action and characterization in pulp fiction with a few of New Pulp’s finest. Here’s a sample:

Anyone who is a fan of the genre knows how much pulp is defined by the action-oriented plots. That’s a given. We get it, and we’ve beat that dead horse so hard it already got back up for a few hard-boiled western sequel novels.

But…

Is there room for the characterization that is so often maligned in this fast-paced genre?

And if not, what separates the Angel Dares (from Christa Faust’s Money Shot and Choke Hold) from the Lance Stars (from Bobby Nash’s Lance Star: Sky Ranger anthologies) from the Rook (from Barry Reese’s series). Without character development, wouldn’t all these two-fisted, bullet-evading heroes and heroines just be generic replicas of other archetypes?

Well, to go straight to the horses’ mouths, I asked several of New Pulp’s leading creators.

You can read the rest at Bad Girls, Good Guys, and Two-Fisted Action at http://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com./

Artwork © Steven E. Gordon

Artwork © Steven E. Gordon

New Pulp Writer Martin Powell has shared some new promo art for the upcoming graphic novel of THE ETERNAL SAVAGE he’s writing, illustrated by Steven E Gordon. The Eternal Savage is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic book and authorized by ERB, Inc. to be published by Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse Comics.
You can learn more about Sequential Pulp Comics at http://www.sequentialpulpcomics.com/

THE GREEN LAMA UNBOUND
Written by Adam Lance Garcia
Published by Airship 27 Productions
ISBN 978-10934935-75-0
243 pages, $24.95

For much of the past year, I’ve had one person after another tell me that I should read this book. I resisted because nothing turns me off more than unceasing hype. Hell, I still haven’t seen Titanic for just that reason. That and the fact that the history books ruined the ending for me. The ship sinks, right?

Anyway, I finally broke down and purchased this book not long ago. It is a high-priced item, costing a little more than I usually like to plunk down for a paperback book, but the production values are typical Airship 27: which means the paper is high quality, the cover is engaging and the formatting is professional. So you could definitely argue that you got your money’s worth.

Now… about the story itself.

Let me start by saying that I don’t think this book is particularly revolutionary but it is a damned good read, especially for someone’s first novel.

Basically, Adam takes a mostly B-Level character and molds him into something more. Hell, the Green Lama is pitted against the hordes of the C’thulhu Mythos in this one! And Adam displays a deft hand at balancing action with characterization.

I particularly liked the supporting characters in this one: Caraway, Jean and Ken all stole quite a few scenes from the emerald-wearing hero. In fact, I’d say that the way they orbited the hero was quite well done and pretty classic, in my opinion. Even in the old Doc Savage series, Doc was pretty staid compared to the bickering of Monk and Ham.

There are several Easter eggs in the story that made me smile, especially the reference to the rampaging ape in the early chapters. It shows that Adam has a clear grasp on the audience who will be reading this.

If I had a complaint — and it’s a minor one — I think that Adam overdoes it a little on the Lama-speak and the C’thulhu words. Throw in all the German and Greek phrases, too, and I felt like I was skimming an awful lot. I’d tone that down somewhat in future volumes. I mean, we get it — that guy’s German. This guy likes to say “Ma-ni pad me” a lot. Too much of that stuff breaks up the narrative flow, in my opinion.

This book is a terrific, fast-paced read that features believable characters that you grow to care about. It’s a wonderful introduction to The Green Lama and definitely positions Adam Garcia as a leading voice in the New Pulp movement.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

So there I was, sitting at my desk, surrounded by the detritus of the editorial life, not being productive, listening to the voices coming from across the hall: a fellow editor and a freelance writer engaged in something about half way between discussion and argument.

Editor: It’s not the kind of thing we publish.

Writer: But it’s what I want to write!

But we don’t do stuff like that.

But it’s what I want to write!

Another volley of buts, both articulated and implicit, and the meeting ended with the writer still needing to find a way to pay his bills.

I was an editor for more than two decades; you know whom I sided with.

But…what was with the writer, anyhow? Was this an instance of an ego bloating up and strangling its host? Or – and here we enter The Region of Psychological Murk – was the writer subconsciously sabotaging himself so he wouldn’t have to face the possibility of failure?

Or did he have something?

I mean, the writers (and artists) are the creative ones, right? Shouldn’t they be allowed to go where their instincts take them, tugging readers, publishers and those rat bastards known as editors along behind them?

In a word: no. But this is a qualified no.

Begin with the implicit contract between publication and consumer. People have a right to the kind of entertainment (or information) they’ve paid for. Fail to provide it and they’ll fail to continue buying your product.

Now, the qualification on the previous but: What was stated in the preceding paragraph is not an insistence on storytellers repeating the old, shabby tropes, month after month, year after year until the sun cools. If they do, they’ll lose their audience as surely as if they weren’t delivering what the audience is paying for. The material has to be either current or somehow timeless and current is a lot easier. If it isn’t, the audience won’t be able to identify with it and they probably won’t be interested for long. Things change – things must change. (Sorry, you anti-Darwinists, it’s that kind of universe.)

I’m not advocating change for its own sake; that might be another form of ego-bloat. No, I’m saying that an altered world – altered technology, altered mores, altered institutions – suggests new kinds of storytelling that can be achieved without violating the premises of character or genre. Or writers might try delving into what already exists – finding elements already in the material that have been ignored and using it for the sort of story fodder that readers will find fresh and entertaining while, again, preserving character and genre. Or a writer might involve his fiction in subject matter that is new to it, but – yes, again – doesn’t wreck what the reader already likes.

Does all this squash self-expression? Not a bit of it. A long time ago, Raymond Chandler said that the trick to writing genre fiction was to give the reader what the reader wants while getting what the writer wants in, too. Chandler himself proved that it can be done.

RECOMMENDED READING: Ego: The Fall of the Twin Towers and the Rise of an Enlightened Humanity, by Peter Baumann and Michael W. Taft. This splendid little book delivers exactly what the title advertises.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases