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Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

6 Apr

In February 1974 something profound and inexplicable happened to author Philip K Dick that changed his life forever. Was it an illness, a psychotic reaction, or something truly mystical?

Today in pulp I look back at the exegesis of Philip K Dick...

Philip K Dick was both prolific and influential. In his youth he came to the conclusion that, in a certain sense, the world is not entirely real and there is no way to confirm whether it is truly there.

By the end of the 1960s Philip K Dick had published over 40 novels and stories, as well as winning the 1963 Hugo Award for The Man In The High Castle. But he still struggled financially.

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Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

5 Apr

Today in pulp I’m looking at the publishing phenomenon that was the Belmont/Tower merger of 1971.

Two pulp universes crashing into each other, with terrible literary consequences...

Tower Publications started out in New York City in 1958. Initially they were the people behind Harry Shorten’s risqué Midwood Books imprint. These were sometimes marketed as Midwood-Tower books.

Shorten had set up Midwood in 1957 as a rival to Beacon and Nightstand Books, distributing racy titles to railway and bus station newsstands. Lawrence Block, Robert Silverberg and Donald E Westlake all wrote for Midwood under various aliases.

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Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

2 Apr

Today in pulp...

I'm looking at Space:1999's Moonbase Alpha, and trying to answer a few questions:
- is it related to the SHADO moonbase from UFO?
- how did it travel so far in space?
- is Elon Musk really planning to build it?

Let's find out...

In Space:1999 Moonbase Alpha is a 4km wide settlement in the Plato moon crater. It's both a research centre and a monitoring station for the vast amounts of nuclear waste Earth has dumped on the Moon.

Sounds like fun.

Read 22 tweets

Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

1 Apr

It is the greatest frog-worshiping zombie biker occult horror film ever made. Possibly the only one. It's certainly like no other movie you've ever seen.

Today in pulp, I look back at the 1971 classic Psychomania...

By the early 1970s British horror films were trying to get 'with it' to attract a younger audience. So it wasn't surprising that in 1971 screenwriter Arnaud d'Usseau tried to create a biker horror movie.

d'Usseau had previously written Horror Express, an Anglo-Spanish sci-fi/horror movie loosely based on John W. Campbell's novella Who Goes There. Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Telly Savalas did their best with the material.

Read 18 tweets

Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

30 Mar

Today in pulp I’m looking at the work of illustrator Robert Jonas.

This means we need to talk about Penguin Books in America…

Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin, had started exporting his paperbacks to the US in the 1930s, but the cost (and during the war years the dangers) of sending books across the Atlantic didn’t really make commercial sense. A new approach was needed.

So he recruited Kurt Enoch, one of the founders of Albatross Books, and with the help of Ian Ballantine a new US Penguin series was launched In early 1942.

However, there was a problem…

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