Top Five Nasty Scary Good Pulp Fiction Writers
5. Gaston Leroux: The Phantom of the Opera has been adapted to film no less than fourteen times, and that’s not counting the screenplay I wrote for it in a marble composition book in middle school. It’s just a cracking story from a person unafraid of telling a cracking story. No histrionics are too shrill, no mysterious pits too deep, no tortured antiheroes too twisted for Gaston Leroux.
If you want to enjoy a pure unadulterated blast of Phantom magic, you don’t have to shell out for a trip to New York and theater tickets. Just open the book: The Phantom of the Opera is one of those books that reads like a movie. Like the next author in the list, Gaston Leroux’s original work tends to get overlooked after so many iterations, and many people feel that as long as they know the story, the book that got it started isn’t a must-read. That’s too bad. It’s like never reading Sherlock Holmes.
Why your college professor should love him: The eponymous anti-hero of The Phantom of the Opera is a disfigured outcast; a great example of pulp fiction’s love of the underdog. He’s balanced out by the typical, stunningly-handsome Prince Charming, but seriously, who’s really cheering for him?
4. Bram Stoker: If you haven’t read the original novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, pick it up. We suffer collectively from vampire burnout and the best way to rediscover the genre is to go back to the novel that popularized it. I stopped caring about vampire stuff when I stopped watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer sometime after high school and I hold no grudge against Twilight, even though I never really got into it. Meanwhile Bram Stoker’s novel has been gaining academic respect for all the wrong reasons: themes of sexual politics or death-fetishism or something like that. We’d all be better off if our classes just sat down and had a good old-fashioned gush about how much fun it is.
First of all, Dracula is chilling, even to people who have grown up their whole lives being assailed by iterations of the well-worn story. It’s the kind of book you both fear and look forward to reading in the dark of a windy night in an empty, creaky house.
Secondly, Dracula is one of those magical books that stays suspenseful even in successive readings. Obviously you should give it a healthy interval to forget some of the juicy details, so they can surprise you all over again. But the suspense is also largely a product of tone. With multiple narrators, it’s unsettling to see how no single character ever holds all the threads in his hand. Watching the protagonists painfully weave them together to draw the net around Dracula always leaves you with the sense that they were that close to missing.
When I was hunting for creepy fiction to read last Halloween, I stumbled across Stoker’s short story, “The Judge’s House,” which proves that Dracula wasn’t just a fluke.
Why your English professor should love it: Chances are he or she already does, but here’s a tip: when your class sits down to discuss Dracula, raise your hand and say, “Can we just talk for a second about how scary it is?” I had to call a friend in the middle of the night because of that book.
I think your 2nd paragraph about fun hits it right on the head: the cognoscenti confuse the words sober and serious, as if sober is in and of itself a useful cultural trait and serious only present if fun is not. The sober writers make you wait and wait and wait and any action or melodrama is handed out as stingily as the secret of Aztec gold. I think one would have to be ignorant to think “The Fifth Element” was not seriously constructed, no matter how silly the content – it has major league editing sequence seldom seen in film.
I am still amused by the thought of how “new wave” science fiction writers in the 60s tried so hard to suck the fun out of science fiction and therefore turn it into “serious” literature. Wine isn’t sweet and so it’s more sophisticated than soda pop which is the instant gratification and sugar rush so frowned on by sophisticates.
I think the reason pulp fiction is so much fun is that it had to deliver that rush and usually in 8 to 10,000 words. But sometimes you had real prose artists like Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft in the mix and so dumb redneck met high art in a place you least expected it. The lesson is therefore that good stuff, in this case good writers, is where you find it and not where you expect it to be.
In reality the idea that there is no science fiction as truly nuanced or layered as “Jane Eyre” or “Pride and Prejudice” is laughable. The serialized “Eyes of the Overworld” or “Dune,” both of which were originally in pulps, all alone could put paid to that notion.
However I would say that anyone who shut down their brain reading “Dune” in 1966 probably became hopelessly lost almost immediately. As for “Tarzan of the Apes,” Burroughs always had his tongue-in-cheek but it is not a novel one laughs through; you didn’t turn your brain off enough and let Burroughs suspend your disbelief which was one of his single greatest skills – that was the reason for his “You won’t believe this” intros.
Exactly so. I prefer “solemn” versus “serious,” but you’ve got it nonetheless.
Russell Baker nailed it some time ago:
I think sober was the better word in the sense I spoke: I always felt “Annie Hall,” though a comedy won out over “Star Wars” for Best Picture because it was still considered sober and therefore eligible for the title of “serious.”
“Star Wars,” though a seminal and highly influential film, was not considered sober and was therefore not serious. Although comparisons are a bit unfair to “Annie Hall” considering it did not have conspicuous opportunities to use such things as sound and special effects or editing, “Star Wars” nevertheless scores high marks in these areas and the artists responsible were clearly serious ones unlike “Logan’s Run” whose creative team seems to have been all hair dressers and salon designers.
Robert E. Howard.
An interesting selection of authors. I would include Seabury Quinn author of the Jules de Grandin series and the best Christmas novelette (“Roads”)since Dickens’ ” A Christmas Carol”. Also I would include William Dent who wrote almost 150 “Doc Savage” books under the pseudonym “Kenneth Robeson” Definately “popcorn” reading
You mean Lester Dent.
Which brings me to the greatest neo-pulp novel ever: “The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril,” by Paul Malmont, is both an affectionate homage to the masters of pulp’s golden age, and a crackling-good pulpy adventure in its own right. Do yourselves a favor and, as they say on those blog things, read the whole thing! You’re welcome.
re: Wilkie Collins’ novels, I believe the term is “penny dreadfuls”. On this side of the Atlantic they were known as dime novels. Folks at Stanford assembled an interesting site here: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/dp/pennies/home.html
Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft need to be included in any list of the greatest pulp writers. Both heavily influenced the other pulp writers of their era.
Aye to Lovecarft and Howard. Let’s not leave Sir H. Rider Haggard out of the mix. Alan Quatermain was one of my favorites.
Indeed. And let’s not forget two more members of their circle, Clark Ashton Smith and Frank Belknap Long.
cheers
eon
Unabashed larger-than-life storytelling like that takes guts, and in Burroughs’s world, only pansies cover their asses by claiming at the end that it was all “ironic.”
Just wanted to see it again.
Re: Collins, the term you’re looking for is “penny dreadfuls,” or “penny horribles,” which were less commonly referred to as “penny awfuls” (there are other variants on the term, too).
Today we call them– (1) serialized adolescent thrillers, (2) serialized bodice rippers, (3) serialized detective stories, (4) Obama speeches.
Jeez, Florida, don’t insult penny dreadfuls that way. They were all about fun, light reading. Obama speeches just don’t qualify.
Obama’s speeches always seem to cost a lot more than a penny. More than a dime even.
I’m curious why the serialized novel format hasn’t made more of a comeback. Most of our other reading has been shortened into smaller chunks – blog posts vs essays for instance. When you look at movies, seems like a good portion of the more interesting stories are being told today in cable series rather than feature length movies.
I’ve read The Woman in White and The Moonstone. Moonstone is much the better of Collins’ books.
I would add Cornell Woolrich to this list. I have all his novels (the 1980s Ballantine reprints, mostly) and while they’re not Great Art, they are Great Fun. Many of his works have been made into movies (The Bride Wore Black, Rear Window, Val Lewton did a fine film version of Black Alibi) , but Rendezvous in Black is my personal favorite, and it’s one of the first serial killer novels . WHY has no one ever made film of THAT novel? It’s very cinematic, and there’s a scene in a closed room on an ocean liner that remains the most intense page turner I’ve ever read.
I didn’t read Hitchhiker’s Guide until grad school (in English). I read it in between semesters when I felt I’d had “too much heavy reading.” Great break and loved it.
What…..
No Harold Robbins?
In all seriousness I would encourage anyone to give the short stories of O. Henry a shot. But that is only if you are in love with a well turned phrase.
Robert Asprin – Myth series: Laugh-out-loud funny. Pure pun and fun.
Jim Butcher – Dresden Files series: Cannot put them down. Do NOT crack these books unless you have many, many hours available. Read them in sequence, if possible. Do not have more than one to hand, unless you have the time.
I love all of the authors you mention, but like some others would put Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft on the list. A few more recent additions: Robert Asprin (Myth series), Clive Cussler, Karl Edward Wagner…never mind I could go on all day. Some might not like to be called ‘pulp fiction’ writers anyway. The funny thing is the current version of the genre is dominated by things like Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars or Star Trek books; formula novels to the max. I’ve never liked them in general, though there are a few exceptions. I tried Able Team and that sort too, never could get into them. I think the reason why Burroughs (and others) manage to keep one interested is because they’re not writing a formula. It might seem so, with plot devices used several times, but there’s a freshness to each story that makes it seem…earnest. Churning out book #211 of the Star Trek series doesn’t have that flavor. Which is not to say I have no respect for those who write formula novels. I’d do it in a heartbeat if I could get the job!
Agree with Robert E. Howard; I have over a dozen of his Conan the Barbarian novels. I would also add Sax Rohmer, a pen name for a British journalist who started the Dr. Fu Manchu series just before World War I.
#7 Florida: “….(4) Obama speeches.” This is supposed to be a fun thread. How about leaving the politics out of it, for a change.
I’m a big fan of E. Phillips Oppenheim, whose long career (1890s-early 1940s) included mysteries, suspense, comedy, and romance featuring gamblers, spies, secret agents, wealthy men around town, ladies in distress (and shady ones too) and two world wars. The Great Impers.onation is a classic, but he wrote many more novels (and short stories too)
… you can’t really explain a pulp novel’s greatness except with some variation on “It’s damn good fun.”
To be frank, I profoundly disagree with this statement, and the notion that pulp is incapable of “unlocking deep, serious emotions or reveal uncomfortable truths about the human condition or represent a significant period in history,” or that if they do, then it isn’t part of what makes it great. What I believe is that some authors are both excellent yarn-spinners and have something meaningful to say.
Robert E. Howard is a perfect example of this. Let’s take a famous story, “Beyond the Black River.” Taking it purely on its merits, it’s a fantastically-written story, perfectly plotted, expertly conceived and executed, with an incredible pace. However, it’s also an encapsulation of Howard’s many ruminations on the interplay and relationship between barbarism and civilization, the politics of colonization, the nature of man and beast, and so forth: it’s basically the story of America encapsulated in a microcosm. Several of the authors you mention on the list I would say are similar to Howard, in that they engage both on an intellectual and emotional level.
All this is not to say I disagree that there aren’t examples of good ripping yarns which simply are well-written pot boilers, just that I do not believe that is all they are capable of. For this group of authors, I’d say folk like Seabury Quinn, Lin Carter and Doc Smith are excellent examples of yarn-spinners. Howard, Lovecraft, Smith and others, on the other hand, have just as much business being discussed in seminars and theses.
Hannah, this is a great list, but a quibble: Conan Doyle should be on it!
All this being said, especially about the late and very lamented Douglas Addams – if you need a similar Guide / Monty Pythonesque take on life try this:
Mil Millington
http://ThingsMyGirlfriendAndIHaveArguedAbout.com
Think of it as … a couple’s version of the Dead Parrot Sketch seen from the man’s side.
Edgar Rice Burroughs rules!
50+ books, 1 plot, gratuitous violence, half-dressed (at best) heroes, more gratuitous violence, less than half-dressed (at best) femme fatales, yet more gratuitous violence, absolutely faithful heroes (despite the less than half-dressed femme fatales), a bit more gratuitous violence, radium pistols, swords, fisticuffs, and just plain fun.
Near 30 years ago I picked up A Princess of Mars, and while my bookshelves groan and threaten to crowd me out of my apartment, Burroughs remains my favorite bad reading habit.
Less ambitious in scope, but wet your pants funny: John Moore’s five modern paperback novels.
The Unhandsome Prince: a smoking- hot poor babe kisses all the frogs in a pond until she kisses the prince. Has sendups of the modern bar scene. And well, the babe uses engineering practices to get her frog.
Heroics for Beginners: An evil overlord meets his sensible match. All exits leave through the gift shop.
He’s not afraid to describe heaving bosoms, leather-clad dominatrix vixens, and long slow kisses that (oh, wait, that’s bull durham.)
Five books, one funnier than the next. They ought to be movies. According to opera people, at least one ought to be a comic opera, with two evil tenors plotting doom on the young lovers.
I got a complete set for Christmas from my Dad, b/c he thought I’d been entirely too serious this year past.
It’s been years since I have read Brad Stoker’s “Dracula,” but I do remember enjoying it greatly.
I agree with you in spades that Wilkie Collins is greatly under appreciated in the canon of fictional literature. He and Dickens were great friends, by the way. While I admired “The Moonstone” for its great detective story and the introduction of the forerunner of modern detectives in Inspector Ruff, my kudos would have to go to “The Woman in White” for its superbly intricate plot and verbiage so well crafted as to be beyond belief. Some of the sentences had me breaking out in laughter, others in awe of his prose. I have read most of the other Collins novels as well.
By the way, the “penny dreadfuls” were a popular way to introduce literature to the masses with their weekly serialized format. Much like the Saturday matinees during the Forties and Fifties. I believe that most of the Dickens novels were published in this format, so it is hard to look down one’s nose at this kind of literature.
As an aside, I do wish that TCM would broadcast the great movie on this novel starring Sydney Greenstreet.
As another aside, while my wife laughs at me about this, I was not the world’s best student. I hated homework and I didn’t like the rigidified structure of the classroom. I didn’t start out loving to read, but I was hooked into it by reading “Classic Comicbooks.” If I liked the comic, I read the book, and I read a lot of them after reading the comics. It’s funny you never hear about Classic Comics anymore, but this was a wonderful medium to get boys to read.
Anyway, nice choice of books. We each would add other authors who are our favorites, but your list is as good as any.
I’m like you, Carl, in the way that the “Classics Illustrated” comic books introduced me to a lot of great books. Some of my favorite “Classics Illustrateds” were Twenty Years After by Dumas, The Master of Ballantrae by Stevenson, The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter, The Pontiac Conspiracy by Parkman, The Knights of the Round Table, Robinson Crusoe and The Iliad.
Sometimes I didn’t get around to reading the original books til I was an adult, but “Classics Illustrated” helped plant the seed, and I’m very grateful to the producers of them. They got me more interested in good literature than my English teachers did. The “Classics Illustrated” artwork varied–sometimes it was very high quality and accurate, and at other times it reflected a little more of the sensationalism of other kinds of comic books. But all of my “Classics Illustrateds” that have survived are treasures to me.
Wait… Douglas Adams is pulp, now? Huh.
I guess if by pulp, you mean entertaining and popular, yeah, that’d work.
This is a pretty good list. I agree with the person who mentioned Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and I’d add Lovecraft and Hammett to it, too.
Karl Edward Wagner
Try J.S. Le Fanu. He wrote in the mid 1800s. Uncle Silas, Camilla, and The House by the Churchyard are his three best-known novels. He also wrote a lot of ghost stories that you can find in collections.
Uncle Silas is very scary (ingenue in jep from greedy uncle who wants her estate).
The House by the Churchyard is an early murder mystery. Pretty long, and will keep you occupied for awhile. You can skip one rather protracted comic interlude, early in the book, regarding a duel, based on a drunken misunderstanding between the parties, that never takes place. The murder in the book is a past event that comes back to haunt a little town in Ireland.
I loved the House by the Churchyard. Lots of brooding atmosphere. The initial opening scene which features a secret burial of a mysterious coffin in the village church crypt is quite a puzzle until the end of the book when all is revealed.
Jim Butcher – Dresden Files is fantastic!
Larry Correia has described his own books as “pulp”. He also admits a love for hokey classic monster movies and guns.
Look to the Monster Hunter series for current pulp, and the Grimnoire series for 1930s fantasy pulp.
How about Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann’s favorite, Mickey Spillane? I’ve only read a little bit of Spillane, but found it enjoyable.
And skewed somewhat over to women’s interests…
1. Twilight!
2. Elizabeth Chadwick’s “The Greatest Knight” (about William the Marshal)
3. Georgette Heyer’s Regency novels (her attempts at the Middle Ages are disappointing, but her Regency novels are funny and romantic and re-readable)
4. Thrillers by Robert Crais, Stephen Hunter (I hop over the long technical discussions here), Charles Finch, Ross Thomas, Thomas Perry and Ariana Franklin.
5. And what about Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels! His Esme Weatherwax is a character for the ages.
6. Gerald Durrell’s “My Family and other Animals”
7. P. G. Wodehouse…ANY of them!
Let’s not forget John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series. MacDonald started out writing pulp fiction and went on to write hard-boiled crime thrillers. I eagerly read my way through his Travis McGee detective novels 40 years ago and they still stand up today. MacDonald was a deft storyteller who not only filled his fiction with memorable characters but managed to inject a good amount of humor into the murder and mayhem.
This thread just dredged up the memory of many years looking forward to each Matt Helm update by Donald Hamilton.
Notable in his absence from discussion so far is Clive Barker. His short stories and novels of the strange just beneath the surface of normal everyday life, complete worlds trapped in an oriental carpet ocean ports in Minnesota.
Good grief! While I’m a fan of most of the writers mentioned above, hasn’t anybody read anything by Raymond Chandler?
“Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence.” — Ross MacDonald
I’m partial to pulp westerns of the Louis L’Amour bent. Though I’m also partial to pretentious westerns as well, such as the many novels of Larry McMurtry. Enjoyed this article though … will have to go check out Dracula again … haven’t read it since junior high
Elmore Leonard
I’ve always enjoyed Tom Sharpe. He’s vulgar, crude, and offensive – but very, very funny. He’s much better known in the UK than the US, I believe.
He started with a couple of books that skewered the apartheid system in South Africe (“Riotous Assembly”, “Indecent Exposure”), went on have a go at English popular culture (All the “Wilt” books), made a mock of the Cambridge University (“Porterhouse Blue”), etc., etc.
I just love his books.