Pulp Adventures #32

With the previous issue kicking off the fifth year of this revised version, Bold Venture Press put out the new issue of Pulp Adventures, #32 for summer 2019. Under a very nice cover (not by Norman Saunders) taken from a copy of True Detective in 1952, we again get a selection of new and old pulp stories in a variety of genres. In the area of classic pulp fiction, we get stories from a trio of great pulp authors, whose works are published along with the original interior artwork. From Charles Boeckman (1908-2015), whom Bold Venture has reprinted a couple of collections of works and has been included in past issues, we get murder mystery detective story, “The Death Dancer.” This appeared in Popular Detective in 1951. Adventure author Talbot Mundy (1879-1940) gives us “Roman Holiday,” which is a story about Christians and Romans, and gladiator games, set during the reign of Caligula. It appeared in Golden Fleece in 1938, which was a short-lived (eight-issue) pulp devoted to historical adventure. It’s front cover was used as the back cover of this issue. Sax Rohmer (1883-1953), creator of Fu Manchu, wrote various short stories. So we get “The Pigtail of Hi Wing,” a mystery tale set in Chinatown. It’s from Blue Book in 1916, though am sure it originally appeared in the U.K. first. We get a variety of New Pulp fiction: air adventure, detective, horror, science fiction, nautical adventures, and more. Lance Starr is a New Pulp air adventures in the style of Bill Barnes and others. There have been four collections from Airship 27, and Bobby Nash gives us another short story: “The Mystery of Island X!” Here Starr and his crew check out a strange volcanic island and work out its mysteries. This is my first time reading this character, and found it pretty good. William M. Hope‘s “The Spawn of Lilthu” is a Lovecraftian horror tale set in ancient times. David Bernard gives us a giant-insect science-fiction tale in “The Wicked Big ‘Monstah Ovah Bawstin’.” Adam Beau McFarlane gives us another Black Island Tavern tale in “Time and Tide.” He last appeared in issue #29. We get a science-fiction tale, “Stranded at Saturn,” from Jack Halliday. From Robert Walker, we get a different tale about an assassin in “A Snitch in Time.” As always, it’s a great issue and I look forward to the next issue. Bold Venture has been doing a good job of getting them out on a quarterly basis