More from @PulpLibrarian

Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

5 Feb

"Tired of reality? Escape into the world of role-playing games." In particular one whose corporate history is a wild mix of battle, quests and the fickleness of fortune.

Today in pulp... the story of Dungeons & Dragons!

The history of Dungeons & Dragons and its parent company TSR is complex, like the game. It's full of feuds, schisms, colourful characters, chance happenings and fabulous riches. Again, like the game. So where to begin?

Pulp fiction - especially Robert E Howard, Michael Moorcock and Fritz Lieber - was a huge influence on Dungeons & Dragons: monsters, spells, magic armour and complex class systems all feature in it, derived from the ultimate ur-text - Lord of the Rings.

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Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

4 Feb

The War on Drugs had at least one success. What it defeated was a compound that was a sleep aid, a party pill and a chemical warfare agent. A drug that showed that substance abuse and medicine could sometimes go hand in hand.

This is the story of Quaaludes...

The name 'Quaalude' is a pun, a marketing play on the phrase 'quiet interlude'. Developed in the US by Rorer and then by Lemmon as a sleep aid for the stressed, by 1983 production was stopped "due to the increasingly adverse legislative climate surrounding the product."

Quaalude itself is simply a brand name for Methaqualone. In the UK and elsewhere it was called Mandrax. And it was certainly popular: by 1965 it was Britain's most-prescribed sedative.

As the saying went "'Ludes and Mandies, prescribed like candies."

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Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

2 Feb

NatWest, Barclays, Midlands, Lloyds. Black horse apocalypse? Or vital tools of prosperity!

Today in pulp I'm looking at money. Lots of it...

Money is just a token, like a Panini football sticker. In itself it has no intrinsic worth. However it is desirable because, well, football!

Initially the value of all stickers is the same, because there's an abundant supply...

However as you fill up your Panini album the value of your existing stickers drops and the value of your missing ones rises. This is due to scarcity: the law of supply and demand starts to determine worth and value, rather than number of completed passed or shots on target.

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