Wed 7 Jan 2009
Reviewed by Marvin Lachman: ROBERT KENNETH JONES – The Shudder Pulps.
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Reference works / Biographies , Reviews[5] Comments
by Marvin Lachman
ROBERT KENNETH JONES – The Shudder Pulps: A History of the Weird Menace Magazines of the 1930s.
NAL Plume, trade paperback, 1978. Hardcover edition: FAX Collector’s Editions, West Linn OR, 1975. Reprint hardcover/softcover: Wildside Press, 2007.
In 1940, when I began reading everything I could lay my eyes on, there were countless pulps at my local newsstand. There was even, in the neighborhood in the South Bronx in which I grew up, a store that sold used pulps at three for a dime. Aware of the prices being asked for pulps now, I deeply regret not having invested-or at least kept those I had. Had I but known.
Robert Kenneth Jones’ The Shudder Pulps is designed for those of us who, for literary and-or monetary reasons, are nostalgic for the pulpa era. It is not designed as a complete history, but rather as an informal survey of the horror-weird menace type of pulp that was so popular in the 1930’s.
The stories of which Jones writes fell somewhere in between fantasy-science fiction on one hand and detective-mystery fiction on the other. While most of his discussion concerns magazines like Weird Tales, Horror Stories, and Terror Tales, some of the detective pulps like Dime Detective come in for attention as well. In an easy-going, anecdotal style, Jones describes the contents of some of the magazines, the publishing taboos, and gives us an idea of the economics of writing at the time.
Though many of the pulp writers of the thirties are no longer alive, Jones interviewed several of those available, e.g., Baynard Kendrick and Wyatt Blassingame, and has captured their reminiscences for posterity.
No book about the pulps would be complete without some discussion of the illustrations, especially the gory, funny, sexy covers. Jones has included more than seventy illustrations, mostly covers. Unfortunately, they are reduced in size and are in black and white, so that some of the original appeal of the covers is missing. Still, in words and pictures Robert Kenneth Jones has done an admirable job of recreating a time for which we rightly feel nostalgic.
January 7th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Bob Jones and I became friends and carried on a correspondence for about 20 years largely because of THE SHUDDER PULPS. In the late 1960’s I was a subscriber to Fred Cook’s BRONZE SHADOWS, a pulp fanzine. The magazine ran Jones’ article on the weird menace pulps as a long serial. When I read it I contacted Bob and encouraged him to revise and expand the piece and get it published as a book.
Eventually, after many rejections, he found a publisher willing to take a chance on a book which was obviously well written but of very little commercial value.
For many years we wrote long letters back and forth, mainly about the pulps, especially ALL STORY. I still have some of his letters discussing serials and stories. His enthusiastic comments resulted in me collecting ALL STORY and compiling a set of over 400 issues, many of which Bob sold me from his own collection after reading.
Unfortunately our long correspondence ceased when Bob Jones died an early death several years ago.
January 7th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Walker
Much deserved thanks to you for helping to get this book published. It certainly helped motivate me into collecting many of the pulps still in my collection today. Ron Goulart’s THE HARDBOILED DICKS which came along much earlier– in the mid-1960s, I believe — got me interested in detective pulps, but Bob Jones’s book helped widen my horizons, that’s for sure.
— Steve
January 8th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Steve, THE HARDBOILED DICKS also influenced me alot and caused me to collect detective pulps. Before Goulart’s anthology I only collected SF magazines. For some reason I didn’t think the detective, adventure, and western pulps were still around in sufficient numbers to collect. But after reading his ground breaking book in 1966 I realized back issue copies of these magazines did exist. I started off by buying Ron Goulart’s copies of Black Mask, Dime Detective, and Detective Fiction Weekly. Then I eventually went on to the other pulps like Adventure, Argosy, All Story, Western Story, Blue Book, etc.
I really do not think that Ron Goulart has received the proper recognition that he deserves for such books as THE HARDBOILED DICKS, THE DIME DETECTIVES, and CHEAP THRILLS.
When he was writing THE AVENGER paperbacks Ron did one titled RED MOON in 1974, under the Kenneth Robeson name. In it were some characters based on pulp collectors. Robert Weinberg and Bob Sampson were policemen and I played an elderly character by the name of Dr. Walker-Martin. For many years, some collectors actually thought I was a doctor.
January 8th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
If Ron was responsible for both you and I and our pulp collections — you more than me! — then he has a lot to answer for.
But more than that, he really ought to be a guest at one of the pulp conventions, as I don’t think you and I were the only ones whose interest in pulps were inspired by all those books on the pulps that you mention.
(Unfortunately he had to cancel out as a guest at last year’s Windy City show because of illness.)
The title of the Avenger book I was a character in was DR. TIME, along with “Cactus” Jack Irwin, as I recall. I also didn’t have a big part, being killed off after only one or two chapters. (I hope I don’t have this all wrong.)
— STeve
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:02 am
Ron Goulart gets the blame for many of our pulp collections, not the least leading me to Norbert Davis, Fred Nebel, and Frank Gruber among others. After going through about three paperback copies of The Hardboiled Dicks I finally tracked down a hardcover copy, and grabbed Dime Detectives the minute it came out.
If there is a Ron Goulart appreciation society then sign me up. I knew him first through science fiction, then his many ghosted books, and whenever I can find them those published under his own name. I was pleased to see his The Adventurous Decade was finally released in a more attractive coffee table book form. Ron gets the blame not only for my pulp collection, but much of my comic book collection as well.