Tagged: novel

Wold Newton series: The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

  • Uncategorized
  • November 22, 2011

Win Scott Eckert shared the following information with All Pulp.

For immediate release:

U.K publisher Titan Books has entered into an agreement with the Estate of Philip Jose Farmer to bring a large selection of Mr. Farmer’s backlist titles back into print.

Significantly, many of the books which are a part of the arrangement initially were published as standalone novels, but came to be considered part of Mr. Farmer’s ongoing Wold Newton Family cycle.

Now, for the very first time, these novels will be published and packaged as a formal part of a Wold Newton series.

First up is Mr. Farmer’s The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, a “secret history” novel revealing the hidden events behind Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. First published in 1973, the book is considered to be one of the first examples of elder steampunk.

The Other Log of Phileas Fogg is currently scheduled for release in May 2012, and will be available at major outlets such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Editions will include trade paperback and digital (Kindle & Nook).

Stay tuned to this space, Mr. Farmer’s official website, and Facebook (Philip Jose Farmer | Win Scott Eckert) for information on other forthcoming titles.

SEQUENTIAL PULP UNLEASHES THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF!

  • News
  • November 17, 2011
Art: Steven Gordon

Sequential Pulp Comics has released promo art for their 2012 release, CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF OF PARIS by Steven Gordon. The graphic novel is scripted by Mark Ellis and will be available in 2012 from Dark Horse Comics’ Sequential Pulp Comics imprint.

You can learn more about Sequential Pulp Comics at http://www.sequentialpulpcomics.com/.
You can learn more about Dark Horse Comics at http://www.darkhorse.com/.

DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT LAUNCHES WARRIORS OF MARS IN FEBRUARY 2012!

  • News
  • November 9, 2011

PRESS RELEASE

THE NEWEST HIT-SERIES IN DYNAMITE’S WARLORD OF MARS LINE OF COMICS!

Cover Art: Joe Jusko

November 9, 2011, Runnemede, NJ – After the incredible critical and commercial success of Dynamite’s Warlord of Mars, Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris, and Warlord of Mars: Fall of Barsoom series, comes Warriors of Mars #1! Before John Carter another earthman visited the Red planet: Lt. Gullivar Jones. Now these legendary warriors are brought together for the first time! When Lt. Guillivar Jones happens upon a mysterious old man with a beautiful carpet he soon finds himself transported through space and time to the planet Mars where he meets the beautiful Princess Hera and a ferocious tribe of Red Martians bent on capturing her! Warriors of Mars is written by Warlord of Mars: Fall of Barsoom writer Robert Napton, drawn by Jack Jadson, with covers by the legendary Joe Jusko and will hit comic stores February 2012!

“Gullivar was written first, but Carter cornered the market and became a legend,” says writer Robert Napton. “It’s Gullivar Vs. John Carter-let the battle begin! It’s a thrill to bring these two southern gents together on the same stretch of red turf and let them have at it. But it won’t be all blood and guts. There’s a story to be told. Many have heard of Gullivar of Mars, but don’t know who he is and how he’s a different sort of man from Carter despite being caught in the same otherworldly circumstances. This is one mash-up fans of pulp won’t want to miss.”
“We’ve found a smart and clever way to tie these two pulp heroes together and rescue Gullivar from relative obscurity and place him up on the dais among the greats,” adds Dynamite Editor Joe Rybandt. “We’re going to explore more of the eras of Mars with Gullivar, the past, present and future and Robert Napton has proven himself more than capable of spinning some excellent Barsoomian tales and we’ve paired him with a great new artistic find in Jack Jadson.”

Princess of Mars is an Edgar Rice Burroughs science fiction novel, the first of his famous series, which initially began publication in serialized form within the pages of All-Story Magazine in February 1912. It is also Burroughs’ first novel, predating his Tarzan stories. Full of swordplay and daring feats, the story is considered a classic example of 20th century pulp fiction.

Edwin Lester Arnold’s Gullivar of Mars novel, originally published as Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation in 1905, bears a number of striking similarities to Burroughs’ Princess of Mars. Both Gullivar and Burroughs’ protagonist John Carter are Southern United States soldiers who arrive on Mars by apparently magical means (magic carpet in the case of the former, astral projection in that of the latter) and have numerous adventures there, including falling in love with Martian princesses. Gullivar is a more hapless character, however, paling beside the heroic and accomplished Carter. Gullivar, in contrast, stumbles in and out of trouble and never quite succeeds in mastering it.

Robert Napton has written hundreds of comics. He is currently writing WARLORD OF MARS: THE FALL OF BARSOOM for DYNAMITE. In 2008, he adapted Terry Brooks’ DARK WRAITH OF SHANNARA as a graphic novel and wrote the new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.
Join the conversation on Twitter with #WarriorsOfMars

To learn more about Dynamite Entertainment, please visit: www.dynamite.net

Water for Elephants

Why are we reviewing this failed adaptation of Sara Gruen’s 2006 novel, Water for Elephants? Well, we like circuses and my wife enjoyed the novel. We think Christoph Waltz is one of the more interesting actors to watch these days and frankly, we just plain like Reese Witherspoon, who hasn’t made enough solid films the last few years. Then there’s director Francis Lawrence, whose Constantine I thought was underrated. With the box office disappointment out this week on disc from 20th Century Home Entertainment, it was time to give it a look.

This Depression-era story tells of Jacob Jankowski (Robert Pattinson), a would-be veterinarian whose studies at Cornell were cut short given the economy. He hits the road, as did so many others, but only he stumbled across the Benzini Brothers Circus, run by August (Waltz) and featuring his wife Marlena (Witherspoon). They need a doctor on the cheap and he gains invaluable practical experience caring for the menagerie being carted from town to town.

Jacob also gets a hard lesson in life as he watches August abuse both wife and elephant and Jacob tenderly fills the void for both. Things go awry when August learns of Jacob’s interference with his life and profession, setting up an inevitable confrontation.

There’s plenty of drama here, plenty of atmosphere and themes to explore, but the power of the novel is sapped by a labored film adaptation in the hands of screenwriter Richard LaGravenese and director Francis Lawrence. While he struggled to successful bring Constantine’s snark to film, ruined by the Americanization to accommodate Keanu Reeves, he did Richard Matheson a disservice with I Am Legend so the jury was still out on his skills. This third flawed adaptation proves the man is tone deaf to the beauty inherent in the prose. All three films call for unique settings and moods but rather than feast on a bleak 1930s America, this feels like a typical Hollywood vision of that time.

In adapting the book’s rich characters and psychological interrelationships, Lawrence comes up short, robbing every character of their depth. The attractive cast is also the wrong cast and doesn’t give them enough actual direction leaving Waltz in need of restraint and Pattinson and Witherspoon mismatched, lacking any real spark between them. He does his best work with Rosie the Elephant which isn’t saying a lot. Had the circus performers and crew been allowed to do anything in the story, it could have been a rich ensemble piece and more satisfying look at this life on the rails.

The Blu-ray edition, not sent for review, contains plenty of featurettes while the DVD comes with just a Robert Pattinson Spotlight (yawn), a by-the-numbers piece on Reese Witherspoon, and the most interesting piece The Traveling Show: From Page to Screen. There’s also an audio commentary from Lawrence and LaGravenese but I just couldn’t care enough to finish it.

For those interested, the Blu-ray comes with the above plus Working Without A Net – The Visual Effects of Water for Elephants; The Star Attraction; Raising the Tent; and, Secrets of the Big Top.

Cultivating The Gene Gardens

  • Uncategorized
  • November 2, 2011

Gene Gardens is a free weekly webcomic by Shawn Granger and Jorge Mongiovi. New episodes go live on
Wednesdays at http://www.genegardens.com/.

Time has almost run out on the small blue planet, and the human race has been split into two; the mutants and the clones. Nations regrouped and reformed, the United Americas and Asia Proper being two of the emerging super powers. The wars now centralize on the hoarding and stealing of DNA, the most prized commodity on earth. Countries frequently raid one another just to steal DNA samples and clones for breeding. In Asia Proper cities the bored youth have created neo-traceur gangs, organized from stories of free runners from the 21st Century. Two in particular are big in the capital Alliance, the Le Parkours and Yamakasi. Through their eyes we learn of hidden agendas, sublime plots, and schemes that may end up breaking this already fragile world.

Gene Gardens is a story about people surviving any way they can in a ruined world they didn’t create. It’s the human experience, cloned. Gene Gardens is like a Takashi Miike sci-fi graphic novel…if he did that sort of thing. Lots of gratuitous sex, over-the-top violence and crazy situations. This is definitely for mature minded people.

“I’ve been working on Gene Gardens since 2004 and then Jorge joined me in 2007,” says Granger of the project. “It takes us a while to get it just right. I have struggled with just the right vehicle to bring out Gene Gardens and finally settled on first publishing as a webcomic. It should allow for a more community interaction, which is one of the main threads throughout the Gene Gardens universe. I’m excited to see what happens. I also would like to put out chapters in digital form and maybe even print them eventually for fans who don’t want to wait for the Wednesday updates.”

New Gene Gardens pages are posted every Wednesday at http://www.genegardens.com/.

Gene Gardens is recommended for Mature Audiences.

GUEST REVIEW-CHARLES SAUNDERS’ DAMBALLA!

  • News
  • November 2, 2011
DAMBALLA!
A Review of Airship 27’s Damballa
by Andrew Salmon
We’ve all been thrilled and enthralled by Classic Pulp. It has influenced so much of pop culture today. However for all its ability to be of its time yet ahead of its time, there is one black mark in the history of the form – racism. Now I am of the camp that believes it is not fair to judge the work of decades past with modern sensibilities. The great pulp yarns of yesteryear were products of their time, written for their time and should be read as such regardless of their faults however offensive they may be.
The New Pulp movement, however, allows us to revisit those bygone days and tell adventurous stories based in the past yet geared for the modern reader. And, more importantly, affords us the opportunity to correct the mistakes of pulp’s forefathers.
Enter: Damballa!
All of the wondrous trappings of pulp are here in this incredible work: action, adventure, evil scheming Nazis and a hero determined to foil their plot to embarrass the United States, politically, in the boxing ring – the key component here is that Damballa is a black man.
Given the classic pulp elements present in the novel, it would have been easy for Saunders to just trot out a pulp archetype and just changed the color of hero’s skin but an author of his skill and ability would not be limited to taking the easy way out. Instead Damballa has deep, African roots and an intriguing origin and supporting cast, the surface of which has only been scratched by this first adventure.
Some of you may be thinking, ‘Okay, Damballa makes history as the first black pulp hero, so what? I read pulp to be entertained. Is the book any good?’ All right let’s get down to brass tacks and tackle some questions:
What is the book about? Is it pulp?
Let’s tackle that first one, shall we? Set in 1938, Damballa gives us a fictional retelling of the real boxing re-match between Joe Louis and Max Schmelling. The real life bout had both political and racial ramifications as the German, Schmelling, went toe to toe with African-American Louis at a time when the world was on the cusp of WW2 and the Nazis were keen on proving their racial superiority. In the novel, the fighters are Jackhammer Jackson and Wolf Krieger but the stakes are the same. Thing is, the Nazis are cheating as only they can and it’s up to Damballa to level the playing field before disaster strikes. What follows is an engaging action yarn peopled with characters of every shade of gray. One of the wonderful, telling, modern touches Saunders brings to the pulp form can be found in one scene where Damballa, no slouch in the disguise department, has to masquerade as a white man to enter certain parts of 1930s society unmolested in his quest to stop the Nazis before it’s too late.
Yeah, but is it pulp?
Damballa is a pulp novel and a very, very good one. Punctuated by short, staccato chapters, Saunders keeps the story moving while layering in wonderful historical details that recreate the time period to perfection. Within this framework he inserts memorable characters, crackling dialogue, mysteries and a compelling hero for the ages. By arming Damballa with a wealth of African lore and real science to go along with brains, brawn and physical ability, Saunders introduces us to a costumed hero bad guys do NOT want to mess with. And one adventure fans won’t be able to get enough of. The book features an atmospheric cover by Charles Fetherolf and moody interior illustrations by Clayton Hinkle – the end result is one of the best looking, best reading pulp books of the year.
Damballa is one of the shining lights in the New Pulp movement, a truly exceptional novel you cannot afford to miss.

TALES OF YESTERYEAR FROM PRO SE TO DEBUT AT IPULPFICTION.COM!

  • News
  • November 1, 2011

PRESS RELEASE

Pro Se Productions and Tommy Hancock, Editor in Chief/Partner in Pro Se and Author of the novel YESTERYEAR, announced today that a series of stories set in the YesterYear universe Hancock created in his novel would be debuting on November 4th from iPulpFiction!

www.iPulpFiction.com is the brainchild of Keith Shaw and is a venue where short stories, both Classic and New Pulp, appear as individual tales and can be downloaded and enjoyed at extremely reasonable prices. “This,” Hancock stated, “relationship with iPulpFiction is a natural fit for Pro Se, but especially for TALES OF YESTERYEAR (the name of the series of short stories from Hancock to appear on the site).  This is a chance to tell tales of the Heroic Era, the Golden Age of my cast of characters.  And the fact that they will appear regularly and be extremely affordable only adds to my excitement about this partnership.”

Tales of YesterYear will feature stories from 1929-1955 in Hancock’s YESTERYEAR Universe and will add insight to events in the first novel and coming tales, but also will work as stand alone Pulp adventures.  The first four stories to kick off this series are actually drawn from the novel itself, taken right from the pages of the fictional book that is the axis the story turns around.  “These tales,” Hancock explained, “are a great jumping on point and that’s why they showed up in YESTERYEAR.  You get the origin of the Heroes basically and some of the earliest stars in that pantheon. But many have requested even more tales from this part of the story, from this era.  So don’t worry, there’ll be all new never before published stories from the fifth one on in this series as well.”

The initial story, THE FIRST YESTERYEAR, introduces the series and will be FREE and available on November 4th.  Next will be MURPHY’S WAKE, probably the most popular tale of the YesterYear mythos thus far, the origin of The Night. This intriguing Pulp tale debuts on December 2nd for 50 cents!  January 2nd sees the release of ONE GOOD EYE introducing yet another hero at a price of 75 cents!  The fourth tale, FOR FLAG AND COUNTRY, goes live on January 27th for the fantastic price of one single quarter!

TALES OF YESTERYEAR revisits an era held dear by many Pulp fans and mixes in Hancock’s own characters with that period of history, weaving action, adventure, excitement and mystery into this familiar, yet new world of Heroes and Villains!

Pro Se Productions- www.prosepulp.com
iPulpFiction-www.iPulpFiction.com

Bobby Nash’s DEADLY GAMES! Kindle Edition Now Available.

  • News
  • October 28, 2011

[Official Press Release]:

Deadly Games! Author Bobby Nash

BEN Books is proud to present Deadly Games! a thriller by Bobby Nash on Kindle for the low price of $3.00. You can purchase the Kindle Edition of Deadly Games! through Amazon’s Kindle Store at http://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Games-ebook/dp/B005ZN8VPS/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1319820451&sr=1-3

The print edition of Deadly Games! is also available at https://www.createspace.com/3704764 for the low introductory price of $11.99.

About Deadly Games!:
Deadly Games! A madman’s death triggers the most deadly game of all!

They played the most dangerous game of all and death was only the beginning…
Six years ago, Police Detective John Bartlett and journalist Benjamin West were instrumental in the capture of notorious master criminal Darrin Morehouse. Their story played out in the media, rocketing both Bartlett and West into local celebrity status.

Today, Morehouse, still a master game player and manipulator, commits suicide while in prison. His death initiates one final game of survival for the people Morehouse felt wronged him the most. At that top of the list are Bartlett and West, who must set aside their differences to save the lives of Morehouse’s other victims and solve one last game before a dead man’s hired killers catch them and his other enemies.


Deadly Games! is a fast-paced action/thriller featuring action, suspense, murder, and the occasional gunfire from Author Bobby Nash, the writer of Evil Ways, Domino Lady, Lance Star: Sky Ranger, and more.

DEADLY GAMES!
Written by Bobby Nash
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 956 KB
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: BEN Books (October 25, 2011)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
ASIN: B005ZN8VPS
Lending: Enabled
Language: English
Related Categories: Fiction / Thrillers
Kindle Price: $3.00
 
The Kindle Edition of Bobby Nash’s novel, Deadly Games! is now available for $3.00. You can purchase the Kindle Edition of Deadly Games! through Amazon’s Kindle Store at http://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Games-ebook/dp/B005ZN8VPS/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1319820451&sr=1-3

The print edition of Deadly Games! is also available at https://www.createspace.com/3704764 for the low introductory price of $11.99.

Visit BEN Books at http://ben-books.blogspot.com/.
Visit Deadly Games! author Bobby Nash at http://www.bobbynash.com/.

EDITED TO ADD:
The print edition of Bobby Nash’s novel, DEADLY GAMES! is now available at Amazon.com. Direct link: http://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Games-1-Bobby-Nash/dp/0615553435/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319831122&sr=1-17

Juxtaposition: Two Books for Younger Readers with Words & Pictures

miss-peregrine-6617220Sometimes words and pictures come together in the same story. There’s more than one way of accomplishing this — comics is the most obvious, with the story told in a sequence of pictures and text (captions and/or dialogue), but there are other options — and books for pre-adults have typically made more use of pictures than those in the more adult portions of the library.

Remember: adults are dull and staid, and must not be upset or disconcerted by mere pictures in their very, very serious books. Children are more mentally flexible, and can handle the shock of the pictorial.

Teens are somewhere in between: they usually want to be adults, but they’re still young enough to question that dull stolidity, and still, sometimes, will gravitate to books with pictures in them. The two books I have in front of me today were published to be read by pre-adults of various ages — though I think the first had an older expected reader-age than the latter — and they’re chock-full of pictures. In fact, both of them are stories told through and about their pictures, in different ways — and, more interestingly from my point of view, neither of these books use the language and techniques of comics. They both use pictures as part of their storytelling, but come at it from different traditions, and don’t tell their stories from image-to-image the way that comics do.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is the more conventional of the two books; it’s a novel by Ransom Riggs (his first), illustrated by a sequence of real, mostly unaltered vintage photographs. (Riggs is clear about the “mostly unaltered” stipulation, since some of these are quite odd photographs, as with the cover shot, showing a hard-faced girl standing rigidly still a foot off the ground.) Those photos are part of the story in the most basic, literal way — every so often, a character talks about looking at a photograph, and then, lo! the actual photo appears on the next page.

(more…)

DENNIS O’NEIL: Poopface

dennis-oneil-7262329Mr. Grotty couldn’t open the comic book. He didn’t know how long he’d been trying because here, in Limbo, there was no day, no night, no sun, moon, stars, and even if there had been any of those things, Mr. Grotty would not have heeded them because they were all poopystupidpooplappers; this was certain because to Mr. Grotty, everything and everyone was either a poopystupidpooplapper, or it was worse.

The comic book – Justice League Number One, it was called, not that Mr. Grotty cared – had on its cover pictures of seven dopeysnargers who all looked like they were hurrying to get somewhere and Mr. Grotty neither knew nor cared where they were going. But he felt that he belonged there with them, if not on the cover, then at least somewhere inside the comic book. Because he had to belong somewhere, because if he wasn’t anywhere, could he possibly even exist? And if he didn’t exist, then he…wasn’t. And that was pretty poopy.

So he attacked the Justice League: pried and pounded and tossed and humped and jumped up and down on it, too. Nothing. He paused, first catching his breath and then wondering how he could have caught his breath if he didn’t exist and then, when his head either did or did not begin to ache, depending on whether or not his head existed, he considered his situation. He knew that he was in a novel and that would seem to indicate that he existed. But he also knew that the novel had not been published – had, in fact, been read by only four people, not counting the check-chasing poopface who wrote it, and three of those four had said that they thought changes should be made. And since poopface had not given any of the four print-on-paper, but instead had asked them to read the book off computer screens, did the book exist only as digital code, and was that existing at all? Worse: even if Mr. Grotty existed now, would he exist if the book suffered future changes? Couldn’t poopface push a button and cause Mr. Grotty to vanish without a trace? Then wouldn’t it the case that he had never existed, even if he had?

AAAAArrrrrgggghhhhh, Mr. Grotty commented.

Mr. Grotty spat on the Justice League. That didn’t help, either.

So it came down to this: he felt that he belonged with those dopeysnargers on the Justice League cover because he dimly remembered doing feats such as they did, and wearing similar clothing – in short, having another identity – when he was computer code, which is all that he could claim to be, even now, and in order to really exist, he had to join them, but he couldn’t because he couldn’t get the poopy comic book to open.

Finally, not certain whether or not he was exhausted, he sat on the cold stone floor next to the comic book, which seemed to be mocking him. He might have cried if he could have decided the crying status of maybe-non-existers such as he.

Poop, he either did or did not say.

RECOMMENDED READING: Cosmicomics, by ItaloCalvino.

Note: This column only copyright 2011 by Dennis O’Neil. All Rights Reserved. If you’re not a poopface, maybe some day I’ll tell you why.

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