Tue 23 Nov 2021
Air Pulp Stories I’m Reading: MAX BRAND “The Flaming Finish.â€
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Stories I'm Reading[14] Comments
MAX BRAND “The Flaming Finish.†Short story. First published in Blue Book, August 1938. Not known if ever reprinted.
Even though I’d have to say that Max Brand is my favorite western writer, I haven’t read anything by him in quite a while. That’s why when I was going through some old pulp magazines last week, it really caught my eye when I saw that he had the lead story in the August 1938 issue of Blue Book.
It turns out that “The Flaming Finish†is of note because while Max Brand under his many pen names had already written hundreds of thousands of words for the pulp magazines, this was the first story he wrote for Blue Book. And while he was most noted for his western stories (see above), this is the first I’ve come across that’s been an aviation story.
It takes place during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), but it’s really a nostalgic tribute to those air pilots who fought during World War I, when aviators (true or false) had a certain camaraderie, if not outright chivalry or a code of honor used as the basis for their battles in the air against each other. When one such pilot in this story crashes to the ground and is captured, his opposite partner in the air returns him to his home base instead of killing him on sight, as he had every reason to.
I don’t know enough about the aviation pulps to know how long in time that stories celebrating this code of honor lasted, but I’d like to think this one was one of the final ones, and Brand made its length of only seven pages fly by. Pun intended.
PostScript: A blurb on the cover of the magazine announces this as the first of a “new series of air adventures” under the overall title of “Knights of the Sky.” I don’t know if the following all fall into that category, but here’s a list of the next few followup stories Max Brand did for the magazine:
Last Flight, The Blue Book Magazine September 1938.
The Return of the Man Who Was Killed, The Blue Book Magazine October 1938.
True Steel, The Blue Book Magazine February 1939.
Half a Partner, The Blue Book Magazine March 1939.
November 23rd, 2021 at 9:05 pm
I’m a little shocked it was this late in the game Brand cracked BLUE BOOK.
Brand’s gift for almost any kind of story in any genre was remarkable. By this time he was one of the top screen doctors in Hollywood honing those skills to write whatever was needed.
November 23rd, 2021 at 10:40 pm
Air adventure! Good stuff. Biggles of the 266th Squadron, to name just one.
November 24th, 2021 at 10:33 am
I’ve never read a Biggles story. Much more popular and well-known in the UK than here in the US:
“James Bigglesworth, nicknamed “Biggles”, is a fictional pilot and adventurer, the title character and hero of the Biggles series of adventure books, written for young readers by W. E. Johns (1893–1968). Biggles made his first appearance in the story The White Fokker, published in the first issue of Popular Flying magazine and again as part of the first collection of Biggles stories, The Camels Are Coming (both 1932). Johns continued to write “Biggles books” until his death in 1968. The series eventually included nearly a hundred volumes – novels as well as short story collections – most of the latter with a common setting and time.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biggles
November 24th, 2021 at 6:01 am
Had to read this after your article. A nice story. Like much of Brand’s work, excellent, evocative writing mixed with preposterous coincidence. A real regret for the last gasp of chivalry, passing from the knighthood of the air in WW1 to the mechanical, mass-produced death of anonymous targets that started in WW2 and still goes on today. In seven pages. Remarkable writer.
This story isn’t air adventure at all. Just a bit of human drama in the air and then the ground. Almost Hemingway, with a small ray of hope at the end.
Excellent recommendation, Steve. Glad you’re back to reading pulps.
November 24th, 2021 at 10:30 am
A nice two-paragraph review, Sai. Short, concise and better than my own effort!
November 24th, 2021 at 9:30 am
I seem to recall a few of David Goodis’ Air War pulp stories dealt withe the supposedly knightly fighter pilots of the Great War.
November 24th, 2021 at 10:28 am
Right you are. From an online bio of Goodis:
“Born in Philadelphia, Goodis graduated from Temple University. He published his first novel, Retreat from Oblivion, when he was 21. It was an ambitious work, a complex blend of history and psychology, but did not sell, and Goodis quickly abandoned academic literature for something that paid the rent — the pulps. He began selling stories to a variety of pulp titles and found that he had a facility for the work; he could produce story after story without a pause. He peddled hundreds of stories and novelettes in the early ’40s. World War II was on and, apparently arbitrarily, he became a specialist in air war stories for such aviation pulps as Dare-Devil Aces, Battle Birds, and Sky Raiders.”
http://what-when-how.com/pulp-fiction-writers/goodis-david-pulp-fiction-writer/
November 24th, 2021 at 12:06 pm
Steve, you had me at the mention of Max Brand. An oddball writer who would not lend himself to pigeon-holing in any particular genre, with a unique style that I love.
And your review did its job, inspiring at least one reader (me) to read the series.
November 24th, 2021 at 8:09 pm
Biggles adventures began as WW I flying adventures in the war but eventually the character became an agent of the Special Air Police, did some Secret Service work, flew in WW II, and continued to adventure in exotic settings to battle the Russians and others until Johns death without aging notably.
There were Biggles comic strip adventures, a series of children’s books about a flying Teddy bear named Biggles, and a film, BIGGLES ADVENTURES IN TIME featuring Peter Cushing.
Johns wrote numerous books both for juveniles and adults under various names including a Bulldog Drummond type flying outlaw character named Steely. His work also appeared alongside Edgar Wallace, Charteris, and Creasey in THE THRILLER.
Aside from G8 the American air pulps also had heroes like Dusty Ayres, Bill Barnes, Philip Strange, the Lone Eagle, and others and aside from those named popular writers like George Bruce, Arch Whitehouse, and Robert Sidney Bowen.
November 24th, 2021 at 10:55 pm
There’s also Dave Dashaway of the (ominously named) Strathmeyer Syndicate
November 24th, 2021 at 11:01 pm
Now you’re going waay back. I read a lot of kids’ books in my youth, but none as old as Dave Dashaway’s (circa 1913).
And I think you meant the Stratemeyer Syndicate…?
November 25th, 2021 at 6:01 pm
Faust was pretty much through with pulps by the time he cracked BLUE BOOK. Other than novelizations of his “Dr. Kildare” screen stories, which were promised to ARGOSY, his late ’30s-early ’40s fiction was appearing in slicks and the AMERICAN WEEKLY Sunday supplement in Hearst newspapers. I’m guessing the BLUE BOOK yarns were ARGOSY rejects that Kennicott purchased from Faust’s agent at a bargain price.
November 25th, 2021 at 9:24 pm
That’s probably awfully close to what actually happened. My thought was that BLUE BOOK was a step up between the other pulps and the slicks. I hadn’t considered the stories as rejects from ARGOSY, but I’m sure it could have happened that way.
November 27th, 2021 at 12:02 am
No post on this blog should ever have exactly 13 comments.