Pulp Appeal: Hap and Leonard (Guest Post by Matt Spencer)

Matt Spencer guest blogs for us over at Broadswords and Blasters!

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(Editor’s note: Matt Spencer is the author of several novels, including the acclaimed Deschembine trilogy, The Night and the Land, Trail of the Beast, and The Blazing Chief (forthcoming from Caliburn Press), as well as numerous short-stories and novellas. Find him online at https://mattspencerauthor.wordpress.com/, and on Twitter as @MattSpencerFSFH.) 

If there’s a modern author who qualifies for heir-apparent to the Golden Age of Pulp Fiction, keeping the form alive and relevant today, it’s Joe R. Lansdale. Far from a one-trick pony, Lansdale seems at home writing just about anything, from adventure, mystery, horror, sci-fi, Western, to mainstream fiction. The man refuses to pigeon-hole himself, and goes wherever the hell the muse takes him.

He sure makes it hard to pick favorites, that Crazy Uncle Joe, especially from the body-of-work of such a prolific storyteller who’s resonated with me so strongly and had such a profound impact on my…

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Serpent of Smoke (A Chuck Wendig Challenge)

Nothing like trying to write romance to remind me how bad I am at writing romance. Anyway, this was supposed to be a sword & sorcery/bodice ripper mashup (original challenge here courtesy of Mr. Chuck Wendig). It leans way more heavily on the former than the latter, and for that I apologize. As it is, it’s around 100 words longer than the 1500 mark, but I’m okay with that. This story does take place in the same ‘verse as the Liam the Black stories, but features all new characters. I’m interested to know what you think, so comment away!

Pulp Appeal: Egil & Nix

A different take on this week’s PULP APPEAL, I talk about one of my favorite recent(!) sword & sorcery series, Egil & Nix by Paul S. Kemp.

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I first came across Paul S. Kemp’s characters of Egil and Nix in the highly recommended Blackguards anthology put out by Ragnarok Press, and I have been sure to pick up their individual novels . Coming across as a couple of rogues of the first order, it is easy to see their pulp pedigree. In point of fact, it would be perhaps too easy to dismiss them as pastiche of Fritz Leiber’s rogues, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Cover to the first book.

Egil is a giant of a man, the sole priest of a god who lasted only a moment. Nix is the more roguish of the two, smaller of build, meaner of disposition, and fascinated by magic. Both are intrinsically flawed, whether it is the depressions Egil falls into as a result of having lost wife and child, or Nix, for being, well, Nix. During the course of…

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Pulp Appeal: Zorro

Cameron takes on one of the most endearing and long-lasting pulp heroes ever, Zorro!

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Millionaire playboy whose identity is known to only a few puts on a black costume and mask to parade around at night, ensuring that justice and peace is maintained as well as possible in the face of corruption, political meddling, and law enforcement incompetence.

No, not Batman. This is the story of Zorro, the fox, a thorn in the side of the early 19th Century Mexican government of California. But despite the parallels to the caped crusader, the story of Zorro more closely parallels that of the English hero Robin Hood and, more directly, that of Sir Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel, created by Baroness Orczy about 15 years before the first Zorro story was written. Because of the existence of Robin Hood, you can’t really say that Johnston McCulley, creator of Zorro, stole the idea of the masked hero with the noble alibi from Orczy, but the parallels are…

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Pulp Appeal: Elric of Melniboné

A few of my thoughts on that iconic fantasy anti-hero, Elric of Melnibone.

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art by Robert Gould

I can pinpoint exactly when I first came across Elric, the doomed albino sorcerer-king of Melniboné. I was a freshman in high school, and there, among the rest of the science-fiction and fantasy books in the school library were two collections of Michael Moorcock’s most famous creation. In retrospect, that is probably the best and worst time to be exposed to that particular character.

Elric is brooding and introspective, at the same time sickened by the traditions he stems from while simultaneously a product of them. Unlike other pulp heroes, who conquer and strive for a kingdom of their own, Elric is born into nobility and abdicates that responsibility. He is the product of a decadent race in their twilight years, having gone from a world-spanning kingdom to being reduced to a single island. He spends as much time entreating sorcerous entities as he does battling…

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