Wifetheif
Experienced
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2012
- Posts
- 671
I know there must be. Some of us cut our teeth on Doc Savage or Conanan the Barbarian. My literary heroes aren't Hemingway or any of the Lost generation. My heroes are guys like Walter B. Gibson who wrote more than a million words a year for nearly two decades. Every TWO WEEKS he would churn out a Shadow novel. Typing so long and so hard on the old manual typewriter that his fingers would blister. As soon as the swelling went down, he beat out another novel. Lester Dent who wrote nearly all the Doc Savage novels had typewriters set up all over his house with works in progress. he would move from room to room a thousand words here, five thousand there and at the end of the week or month he had FIVE or SIX novels, nonfiction, or short stories ready to mail off to his editor! Norvell W. Page, who wrote the lion's share of the Spider novels dressed as his character to deliver his manuscripts in person to his publisher. There he was, slouch hat, inverness cape, fake colt 45s strapped to his waist making his way through down town Manhattan to his publisher's offices. I know I became a writer because of these guys. Actually, it was those guys and a nonfiction book that was so appalling I KNEW I could do better -- three years later award winning nonfiction book by me reviewed in USA Today (yeah me!) The point is that none of us write like that anymore. Even if we put in the hours, the equipment has changed, we use computers and keyborads and can spellcheck as we go. We also have access to the world wide web and don't necessarily have to spend hours in libraries looking up obscure sources or some random but vital bit of information.
I'd love to hear your recollections and inspiration from this type of literature. Erotica had its own magazines during the pulp era. They were called the Spicy pulps and a lot of famous authors including Robert E. Howard contributed to them under assumed names. If L.com was a pulp magazine, it would be a spicy one with elements of fantasy and science fiction, adventure, superheroes, westerns, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African travel and encounters. In closing I have to share this from Norvell Page from the Spider's fifteenth adventure, The Red Rain Death. An Asian crimelord named the Mandarin is poisoning tobacco all over the country so that when anyone lights up they die a horrific miserable bloody death as they cough up their lungs and bleed out. (Remember kids, smoking kills) In an age when everyone and his brother was a smoker, that was a horrifying prospect. The Spider's perpetual girlfriend and dish supreme is kidnapped in the first chapter. Here is how Page reintroduces her to the narrative in the penultimate chapter:
“Look Spider”
Slowly Wentworth’s head came up again, heavily swung to the parted curtains. A shudder swept over him. Beyond that curtain were two small alcoves whose fronts were steel bars. Soft Yellow light flooded those cells. In one, a huge furry animal squatted like a man on the floor. It lifted its head and evil red eyes gleamed, lips snarled back from yellow fangs. The beast straightened, rising to its feet so that it stood with hunched formidable shoulders. Arboreal hands clutched the bars, and the fearful strength of the ting made them shake.
“An orangutan, the Mandarin explained softly. “He is easily as powerful as the gorilla and much more human. For instance, they have been known to carry off native women. The women die ultimately, of course, but in the meantime…”
Wentworth’s dull eyes had opened wide with incredulous staring. In the other cell was – Good God! It was Nita! Nita was standing, gripping the bars also. Her lovely body was nearly nude, clad in the filmy garments of a woman of the seraglio. Upon her body, a little jacket that was open its full length barely covers her exquisite breasts. Low on her hips was girdle with a jeweled clasp from it depended a silken skirt of such extraordinary weave that it scarcely seemed to exist. It enhanced the subtle curve of her hips, glorified the shapely white columns of her limbs. The glorious chestnut hair hung to her shoulders, and the yellow lights made fiery gleams among its curls. But on her face was such a mingling of joy and pain as would tear the heart. Her red lips were tremulous. She reached supplicant hands between the bars, her warm round arms petitioning.
Yeah, you don't encounter the threat of great ape rape very often in today's novels and short story collections. They don't write them like that anymore for a whole host of reasons. BUT that is a story for another time.
I'd love to hear your recollections and inspiration from this type of literature. Erotica had its own magazines during the pulp era. They were called the Spicy pulps and a lot of famous authors including Robert E. Howard contributed to them under assumed names. If L.com was a pulp magazine, it would be a spicy one with elements of fantasy and science fiction, adventure, superheroes, westerns, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African travel and encounters. In closing I have to share this from Norvell Page from the Spider's fifteenth adventure, The Red Rain Death. An Asian crimelord named the Mandarin is poisoning tobacco all over the country so that when anyone lights up they die a horrific miserable bloody death as they cough up their lungs and bleed out. (Remember kids, smoking kills) In an age when everyone and his brother was a smoker, that was a horrifying prospect. The Spider's perpetual girlfriend and dish supreme is kidnapped in the first chapter. Here is how Page reintroduces her to the narrative in the penultimate chapter:
“Look Spider”
Slowly Wentworth’s head came up again, heavily swung to the parted curtains. A shudder swept over him. Beyond that curtain were two small alcoves whose fronts were steel bars. Soft Yellow light flooded those cells. In one, a huge furry animal squatted like a man on the floor. It lifted its head and evil red eyes gleamed, lips snarled back from yellow fangs. The beast straightened, rising to its feet so that it stood with hunched formidable shoulders. Arboreal hands clutched the bars, and the fearful strength of the ting made them shake.
“An orangutan, the Mandarin explained softly. “He is easily as powerful as the gorilla and much more human. For instance, they have been known to carry off native women. The women die ultimately, of course, but in the meantime…”
Wentworth’s dull eyes had opened wide with incredulous staring. In the other cell was – Good God! It was Nita! Nita was standing, gripping the bars also. Her lovely body was nearly nude, clad in the filmy garments of a woman of the seraglio. Upon her body, a little jacket that was open its full length barely covers her exquisite breasts. Low on her hips was girdle with a jeweled clasp from it depended a silken skirt of such extraordinary weave that it scarcely seemed to exist. It enhanced the subtle curve of her hips, glorified the shapely white columns of her limbs. The glorious chestnut hair hung to her shoulders, and the yellow lights made fiery gleams among its curls. But on her face was such a mingling of joy and pain as would tear the heart. Her red lips were tremulous. She reached supplicant hands between the bars, her warm round arms petitioning.
Yeah, you don't encounter the threat of great ape rape very often in today's novels and short story collections. They don't write them like that anymore for a whole host of reasons. BUT that is a story for another time.
