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Dieselpunk Song of the Week - Mambo Number 5 by Lou Bega.

Actually based on a big band orchestra song from the 1950s by Perez Prado. Ie this one:

Art Deco Poster of the Week: Navigation Paquet.

ePulp Review of the Week - Ten A Week Steale by Stephen Jared.

Ten A Week Steale by Stephen Jared
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*E-Pulp Warning* All my e-reading is e-pulp focused so my reviews are written with e-pulp in mind. Reader beware :) *E-Pulp Warning*

Overall: 4 stars (Recommend).

Ten A Week Steale is a great little noir story set in 1920s Hollywood, authentically capturing the mood and the city as Steale does what hard-boiled men do. Hollywood is captured brilliantly by someone who obviously loves the genre and the setting and, although it's not the fastest or pulpiest story around, it's well worth a look.

Pacing and Action: 3 stars.

To be honest, the story probably wasn't written as a pulp story. At least not dialled up to 'Full Throttle' which makes 3 stars a little awkward. By the standards of any other genre this has plenty of fisticuffs and dames, villains and other action galore. But by pulp standards there's a lot of thinking and brooding and contemplating the nature of life etc. None of this detracts from the story in any way but it does lack that pulpy extreme.

Pulp Concept: 4 stars.

Steale isn't a Private Investigator cliche and the use of 1920s Hollywood rather than the 30s are both nice touches that give Steale his own road to walk. The back story also makes all of what happens completely plausible as the hard-boiled action ensues. It's classic era setting and the easy action tropes it allows all come together for a pulp concept that, while not ground-breaking, certainly does the job.

Then there's the setting. First class. The author clearly has a love for this era and this town and it shows from the details sprinkled throughout. You don't drown in it but the sense that you're wandering through these gaudy temples to the new demi-gods of their age is palpable. Fantastic stuff that begs to be explored further.

Character Development: 4 stars.

Related to the pacing this is a book that has plenty of character development and a fair bit of introspection and self awareness. Being noir-ish tends to do that :) The characters are well rounded, have plausible motivations and personalities and they are all indelibly tied to the world in which they exist and it works very well.

Production: 5 stars.

Have you seen that cover? Wow. Gorgeous. Eye catching, era relevant and professional. And that's a sentence you could use to describe the whole package. It's been edited properly and is a quality production all round.

Series Potential: 3 stars.

This is where I'm guessing the story was not originally intended as a straight up pulp story. While there's definitely space to produce sequels and create a series - and the author's familiarity with the setting BEGS for SOMETHING set in 1920s Hollywood - the story does little to set up a serialised status quo. While this isn't an issue for people not interested in the pulpier side of life, for those of us who are it's another indicator that, while a good read, it's not straight up pulp.

Wrap Up.

A good, entertaining story that anyone with an interest in noir or hard-boiled detectives should like, with an interesting twist thanks to the setting and atypical era. Not to take from this though, it's not the pulpiest story going, even if it is of the highest quality.

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Pulp Cover of the Week - The Shadow, Spring 1949.

Dieselpunk Song of the Week - The Mojo Radio Gang by Parov Stelar.

Art Deco Poster of the Week - The Chicago World's Fair.

ePulp Book Review - Tier Zero by Henry Brown.

Tier Zero by Henry Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*Pulp Warning* All of my reading and reviewing is skewed towards epulp. All reviews are therefore skewed to that end. Reader beware :) *Pulp Warning*

Overall: 4 stars (Recommended) - but drop a star if you're a pulp purist or think the politics may annoy you.

Tier Zero, though not the pulpiest read you're likely to find, is a good read in the vein of an old-school men's adventure paperback. It moves at a fast clip and has plenty of authentic military action and hardware to satisfy any enthusiast but the American politics can be a bit much if you're not that way inclined.

Pacing and Action: 3 stars.

If there's one thing this story does well it's the authentic use of military hardware and action. Clearly the author has some form of military background and the story benefits, conveying the use of hardware and what it's like to be on a battlefield, all while moving the plot at a rapid fire pace. Battle scenes are explosive, the characters know what they're doing, and what they achieve is built on a solid foundation of training, making much of what happens completely believeable. On the battlefield at least.

Where the story can bog down is with the politics. Maybe it's an American thing but, as an Australian, I found the political discussions a bit jarring. Long arguments full of assumptions I clearly wasn't privy to slowed the action down. It also sounded a bit one-sided so I can imagine that if you're American and you have a different set of political beliefs you may also be rubbed the wrong way. But, again, I'm clearly out of the loop of these discussions.

I'd also imagine pulp purists would find it a bit annoying. It does tend to suck the fun out of a story.

But this story isn't, per se pulp, more like a paperback from the 70s or 80s with a very strong retro vibe so if that's what you're after, you'll get it in spades. Less so if you're just after pulp or don't appreciate the strong political message.

Pulp Concept: 4 stars.

It's an okay concept but I think the author carries it a long way. Were it in the hands of someone who wasn't as comfortable with military characters it may have been a shallow read but the author is able to give the situation a lot of authenticity and depth. There's also plenty of material to mine from the subject matter so overall it's a fairly satisfying concept, mostly thanks to the execution.

Character Development: 4 stars.

Military stories are usually ensemble stories and the author does very well bringing together an eclectic group of people who still work together in an authentic way. There's plenty of inter group drama and very different personalities but they're handled very well, each character achieving some sort of depth. Some characters felt like they only existed to support the politics but overall it was very good.

Production: 3 stars.

Spelling and grammar were good. There were a few weird page breaks in the middle of the book and for some reason, every time I turned on my Kobo the bookmark was about 8 or 9 pages back from where I finished last. But this could be a problem with the Kobo as much as the book. Where the production is really let down is the cover which, while serviceable, does sell the story short. The content inside deserves better.

Series Potential: 3.5 stars.

There's plenty more story left in this series with ramifications for the protagonist that could be interesting to explore later. But at the same time there isn't a lot there to suggest there's more to come. The characters are likeable enough to sustain another sequel (I think this is the second in the series) but it could also finish there without too many problems.

Wrap Up.

Tier Zero is a well written men's adventure action story with an old-school vibe but there are some aspects that will mean it's not for everyone. However, if old-school men's adventure is what you're after then this is a good example.

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Just when you thought the editting was just about done...

You ever tried writing? Cause this is what you can expect. You've been editting and editting and editting for months and then you realise you have to re-engineer large slabs of the story and then you re-edit and re-edit and then you walk away and think 'you know what? I think I'm close to finishing this section off'.

A month later you walk back to your manuscript to do one final pass and this happens:

 

And trust me, this isn't one of the bad pages.

Page after page of this stuff.

<Sigh>

 

Stupid dumb compulsion to write stuff that doesn't exist anywhere except in my stupid dumb imagination... grumble grumble grumble...

Pulp Cover of the Week - Dusty Ayres and his Battle Birds.

Dieselpunk Song of the Week - High Hat by Swing Republic.

Art Deco Poster of the Week - Sinclair Oils.

Pulp Cover of the Week - Planet Stories

Dieselpunk Song of the Week - Happy Swingin by Shemian

Pulp Heroes FTW!

A-mazeballs.

These fantastic pulp/dieselpunk/atomicpunk-era inspired figures are part of an upcoming range of figures called the 'DC Bombshells collection'. Indeed.

And to top off the 'punking awesomeness - a post apocalyptic Wonder Woman!

Methinks that those two Wonder Woman statues will be on my desk in the near future. They are way too awesome not to be.

But here's my other question - will they be releasing any blokes in all their 'punkitude glory? Am I going to be able to get a Pulp Trinity to sit next to my Post Apocalyptic Trinity?

DC Comics, make it happen!!!!

Writer's Update - Oh so many apologies.

Apologies go out to anyone who has been checking in at the Aether Age hangar the last month because the updates have been... well, they haven't been. There just hasn't been any updates.

But I have a good excuse!

You see, four weeks ago I got this thing called a 'proper job'. One that pays consistently, on time and at a level that can fund my existence with food and shelter and other good stuff. It has been a while since such a phenomena has been a regular part of my life and it's been a very welcome change of pace. Very welcome indeed.

The problem was that, unbeknownst to me, the person I was replacing - and who was in charge of training me for the position - was sort of leaving in a hurry. A three day hurry. Three days in which he was sort of more interested in planning his holidays and attending job interviews at other work places. He was a nice bloke, but his mind was very much elsewhere.

Three half days of training later I was cast adrift on a sea of confusion and 'yeah, just work it out for yourself, the best way to learn is to be thrown in the deep end, etcetera etcetera' and the last month has been one big long attempt to stop drowning in confusion and frustration.

But I survived! And here I am, ready to get back to my now long-neglected-yet-highly-involved-hobby-slash-calling, writing strange little pulp stories with funny characters and bizarre sci fi dieselpunkiness.

Big breath in, big exhale out, and a sincere 'It's good to be back.'

So again, apologies to anyone who kept coming back for more pulpy/dieselpunky related stuff but from here on in I hope that everything will be able to get back on track, including some updates on a few short story projects I'm working on, as well as the impending release of my first wave of novels. But I'll keep those details for future updates.

See you soon,

The Author of this weird little blog,

Grant.

Dieselpunk Song of the Week - Hit That Jive by Gramatik.

Art Deco Poster of the Week - Driving Greece.

Pulp Manifesto: Archaeology of the Masked Hero - The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Been doing some research into the early years of pulp heroes lately. And by ‘research’ I mean reading classic adventure stories and watching old movies. Why? Because if you trace back far enough, along the long line of recent superhero movies, past the martial arts stars of the 90s, beyond the gung ho gun-packing 80s action stars, all the way through the silver age of comics, past the early genre films and movie serials, back into the golden age of pulps and right to the early years of the storytelling medium… way back there in the formative years of modern hero storytelling there were older stories influencing what people wrote, why they wrote them and how. I’ve always wondered what lay at the bedrock of contemporary hero storytelling and it was about time I found out. What I found was a bloke called The Scarlet Pimpernel.

I imagine there aren’t too many my age who know much about the Scarlet Pimpernel. I certainly didn’t. I’d heard the name a few times and had an inkling that the character was ‘swashbuckling related’ but beyond that I didn’t know too much. What I did know was that if you went back far enough along the superhero genealogy tree you got to Batman. And Batman was influenced by a series of pulp ‘dark avenger vigilante’ heroes like The Shadow, The Spider, The Green Hornet and, as Batman fans will know, masked vigilantes like the Lone Ranger and Zorro. What I eventually discovered was that you go one step further to reach the hero known as The Scarlet Pimpernel.

This is an actual Scarlet Pimpernel, a common roadside flower.

The Scarlet Pimpernel was written in 1905 by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. It was a tale about a mysterious hero who did his thing all the way back in 1792. This was during the ‘Reign of Terror’ following the French Revolution, a stretch of history where the tables were turned and the arrogant aristocracy suddenly became a hunted species. It is during this Time of Infamy (you have to say that in an old-timey radio serial voice) that, according to the story, the Scarlet Pimpernel became famous for sneaking into France to rescue aristocrats headed for ‘Madame Guillotine’. However, in order to maintain his feats of liberation the Scarlet Pimpernel had to lead a double life, one in which he pretends to be an aristocratic fop by day who is at the centre of London’s elite social life, but so bone lazy and shallow he is the last person anyone would suspect of being an infamous hero. Then, when no one is looking, he sneaks into Paris in disguise and makes fools of authorities by preventing the wholesale slaughter of the upper classes.

Yeah, if you’re looking for the origin of ‘fool by day, hero by night’, the Scarlet Pimpernel is where you stop your search.

The book (which started out as a play) was an immediate success and saw the Baroness churning out dozens of sequels for decades to come. It also inspired many a movie adaptation during the early years of cinema and successfully seeded the idea of the hero with a secret identity, a trope that still dominates a huge swathe of hero writing today. But for some reason the initial popularity of the Pimpernel has been unable to sustain itself up to the present. At least not the way The Three Musketeers or even the Pimpernel’s  initial clones, Zorro and the Lone Ranger, have been able to. For some strange reason you just don’t see that many Scarlet Pimpernel movie remakes these days. (The latest was a British tv series. I’ve seen it. It was okay. But far from awesome)

But, ignoring the untapped remake potential of the story, what can we learn about hero writing from The Scarlet Pimpernel? Especially, what can we learn about secret identity heroes? Just to keep things simple I’ll keep my list of things I’ve learnt to four.( I could talk a lot more about them all but then I’d end up with another 5 article essay ala my James Bond series):

1. Elitist Fantasies.

Some of the most fascinating elements of the story are related to the author herself. Orczy was a Baroness writing at the turn of the 20^th century, a time in which the European aristocracy was perhaps enjoying its last great fling before two World Wars decimated their influence across Europe. This is significant when you consider the subject motivation of the hero – he’s an aristocrat rescuing aristocrats.

I find this fascinating when put in light of some of the criticisms put forward about Batman. People who delve into the politics of Batman often claim that the character is a form of right wing, elitist power fantasy in which a rich American capitalist, sick of the way the legal system is failing to do what he thinks it should be doing, goes out on the town every night to beat on poor(er) people who he blames for everything that is wrong.

I’m not really sold on that particular interpretation. Batman doesn’t exactly have any rich friends that cast ‘his people’ in a good light, and his ‘richness’ only exists as far as it does empowering him to do all his ‘Batman stuff’, not for him to actively participate in ‘his world’ or fight ‘them’ from the poor regions of Gotham. But it is an interesting idea in light of both the source of ‘hidden identity heroes’ – The Scarlet Pimpernel – and the halfway house between them, Zorro. All three characters are wealthy, heavily into the symbolism of heroism, and always end up doing audacious things in order to save the day. None of them decided to join the police force and fight crime the old fashioned way. But how does this ‘hero must be rich in order to be empowered to fight crime’ trope effect how heroes in general are portrayed? Is this a lazy trope, and are there alternatives that haven’t been explored? Was that a significant part of the success of the rise of science fiction based super-heroes, freeing them from the need to have large bank accounts because the power was within their bodies instead of their inheritance?

I think it’s an interesting facet of the billionaire hero trope that becomes clear once you know their heritage. And once you know the rules, you can break them J

2. Ladies kicking it in pulp.

One of the most surprising things for me reading the story for the first time was that the story is actually told from the perspective of the wife of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Marguerite. This gives the story a strong sense of romance as The Scarlet Pimpernel is an unknown hero she longs for well before she learns that he is in fact her husband, a man she has quite a few problems with. The mystery of the character – and the subsequent romance and rumour projected onto him – are significant parts of both the plot and Marguerite’s motivation. In a funny way it also pre-dates the Superman/Lois Lane relationship, skipping over Batman to inspire the ultimate masked hero dilemma – the two person love triangle.

It makes me wonder why more Superman stories aren’t written from the perspective of Lois Lane. It’s a proven formula. Not only was one of the first pulp hero authors female but she probably cracked the cross-gender hero story well before superhero comics made it such a problem. Learn from your history or you will be doomed to repeat it…

(Note: not that the story is straight up fair on female characters. Some of the writing, read from a contemporary perspective, could at best be considered ‘quaint’. Other times it’s downright ridiculous concerning female gender stereotypes, a fact not helped by the thick layer of swoony romance)

3. A Status Quo of Injustice.

Another thing I noted reading the Scarlet Pimpernel was the interesting way 18^th Century France becomes the perfect setting for vigilante heroism. Mostly this is because it’s so different from your typical urban hero setting where it’s all about taking on crime. In the Scarlet Pimpernel the injustice is of a political nature, existing in another country that the hero has access to. France therefore becomes the ‘generator of injustice’ which in turn provokes so many different stories of vigilante adventure. Batman has Gotham, which is so full of character and meaning in its own right that great Batman stories pretty much write themselves. But other heroes suffer under a weak ‘vigilante concept’ because they don’t have that injustice status quo to draw on. So they all end up in Gotham anyway. Maybe what these characters need is a different form of injustice to fight, another location of injustice with a different form of injustice to differentiate them from their peers. The Scarlet Pimpernel had the French Revolution, Robin Hood had the taxation of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Doctor Syn had the taxation and press gangs of the Dover region, John Carter had the political complications of Barsoom, etc etc. Maybe the problem with some characters is that they need a similarly unique location and status quo of injustice to define them better. Maybe writers need to try harder to create them.

4. No swashbuckling!

The Scarlet Pimpernel has no sword fights! I know, right? Bizarre. Here I am reading one of the original swashbucklers and there’s nary a sword in sight. Plenty of deception and espionage, but no sword fights. Which goes to prove that swashbucklers, contrary to their name, aren’t about sword fighting. A buckler maketh not the genre. Having watched a lot of swashbuckler movies while reading The Scarlet Pimpernel it’s become clear to me that the swashbuckler genre doesn’t actually depend on sword fights to make it what it is, that’s just the inevitable result of the settings in which these stories are usually told. No, the actual foundation of the swashbuckler genre is… audacity.

That’s the common theme amongst swashbucklers films, or to be more precise, swashbuckler protagonists – they’re audacious. Cocky, verbose and daring, the cavaliers at the heart of these movies aren’t just fencing their way to victory but swinging around on ropes, climbing everything in sight (Fairbanks – that man was a climber), racing horses, disguising themselves in order to sneak past their enemies, and generally pulling off outrageous gambles in order to save the day. In the end it’s not so much what they’re doing that makes a swashbuckler movie, but how they do it. They do it with elan, guile and daring. They are audacious. That’s what makes a swashbuckler.

Blokes like this were the inspiration for the genre. But that doesn't mean writers can't go beyond them for more contemporary characters.

 From this I take it that you could readily make a contemporary swashbuckler story without the need to reinvent the sword. You just need an audacious hero who embodies the elan of those earlier heroes such as the Fairbanks, Flynns and Kellys of yesteryear. Give your protagonist a sense of honour to keep their actions ‘pure’, a sense of fun so they get into the spirit of what they’re doing, then unleash them on injustice in a modern setting. Voila! You’re tapping a past genre staple in a way that will probably be fresh and new to most contemporary readers.

Conclusion.

Reading The Scarlet Pimpernel as a research project has been really fascinating. Not only do I have a firmer grasp on the primordial underpinnings of most contemporary heroes but I also have a stack of new character and story ideas I’d like to explore. The story isn’t perfect, and there’s plenty to roll your eyes at sometimes, but seeing the hero genre taking form there on the page has made it easier to grasp what came afterwards. If you’re serious about your swashbucklers then I recommend getting a hold of the story and taking some notes. It’s a classic and free on the internet for anyone who wants it so there’s no excuses. You just need the audacity to try :)

ePulp Review of the Week - Dodge Dalton in the Shadow of Falcon's Wings by Sean Ellis.

The Adventures of Dodge Dalton in the Shadow of Falcon's Wings by Sean Ellis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

*Pulp Warning* All my e-reading is e-pulp related so my reviews are thus minded. Reader beware :) *Pulp Warning*

Overall: 3 stars (You might like it)

Although this story had all the classic pulp adventure elements it seemed to drag relative to other examples of the field. As a mainstream adventure story it does the job with plenty of the good stuff the genre has to offer but as e-pulp it seems to drag in an unnecessary way I found frustrating.

Pacing and Action: 3 stars.

This was a bizarre reading experience for me because while the story seemed to have everything I could want in a pulp tale it became really hard going by the halfway mark. The action was often described from a distance, the character perspectives were complicated by a timeline that would jump back and forth, even on cliffhanger chapter endings, and the characters seemed to be constantly reflecting on things and telling rather than showing. There also didn't seem to be any logical drive to the plot so things would drag out over chapters without any sense of where we were headed. The overall effect was bulky and wordy and I found it very frustrating.

If you're not especially pulp inclined then add another star as many of these things won't bother you. But I was expecting some high pulp and this wasn't really it.

Pulp Concept: 3 stars.

The pulp concepts were fairly simple with the stereotypical period setting and some whacky, fun pulp sci fi elements but the constant use of meta-style self referencing was a bit of a drag. I don't know if the writer was trying to say something or just so wrapped up in the pulps that his hero had to be a pulp writer as well but it caused some logic kinks that had me stopping to wonder if I was supposed to be reading something into this or not. Either way it slowed things down further and heaped on the frustration.

Again, if you're not pulp obsessed a lot of this won't matter but for me it was really disappointing.

Character development: 4 stars.

This wasn't too bad. The character is actually going on a journey and, while clunky at times, there ends up being a fairly solid cast of characters by the end. The story also plays some interesting kinks into the stereotype of the Doc Savage clone by making him a support character. It was an idea that had some interesting potential. But considering the protagonist's journey was the strength of the story it highlights that the style of writing was more your traditional prose writing than a more pulpy style or storytelling. Even if all the characters and setting etc were pulp sourced.

Production: 4 stars.

Good cover with its old-school adventure feel and good editting. One thing that stood out was the random use of some extraordinary words. Words like 'imprecations', 'bellicose', 'demesne', and 'coruscating' are all used and, thanks to my Kobos handy dictionary, I know they were all used in the right context. But they serve as a good illustration of how the writing style can be a bit flamboyant and dense at the expense of what is going on.

Series Potential: 3 stars.

I just don't see anything here that would warrant a series, beyond wanting more pulp to read. Although the setting and characters are certainly there and ready to go. And as there is already two stories in the series the ability to read on is available.

Wrap Up.

Certainly not my favourite reading experience of the past year but I think less fussy readers will get a lot more out of the story than I did. This story made me realise that, A, there is such thing as pulp snobbing and, B, I'm starting to do it while I read. I'm guessing this will make my reviews more discriminating but make it harder to look at myself in the mirror :(

Check this out if you need a quick Indiana Jones-style fix. But if you're a pulp afficiando there is better stuff out there.



Looking for more action-adventure e-pulp reviews? Check out my book list reviews at: http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/...

Or visit the best of New Pulp listopia listing at: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/26...

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