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Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

15 Sep

“Space is big. Really big,” as Douglas Adams observed. So why haven’t we seen any alien life yet?

Odds are a big universe must have some – or are the odds wrong? This is the Fermi Paradox, and today in pulp I’m looking at some of the novels that have explored it.

Don’t panic…

In 1950 Physicists Enrico Fermi and Michael Hart were chatting in the Los Alamos canteen when the topic turned to UFOs. Where were they? After a few calculations Fermi felt the probability of alien life was high enough; we just didn’t have any evidence ‘they’ were out there.

Frank Drake built on this in 1961. The Drake equation looked at the probabilities for how many stars and planets over what period could host life that could become intelligent and travel in space. Life on Earth meant the probability must be more than zero, but how much more?

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Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

14 Sep

Today in pulp... let me introduce you to Mark Hardin: The Penetrator!

Mark Hardin is a one-man strike force against corruption. Orphaned at the age of four he was brought up mean and hungry. He learned his fighting skills in Vietnam before returning to an America gone bad.

Actually The Penetrator is one of a long list of vigilante pulp heroes thrown up in the 1970s counter-counterculture backlash, along with The Destroyer, The Executioner The Iceman and The Marksman to name but a few.

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Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

14 Sep

Today in pulp I look back at an amazing but slightly forgotten British publisher: a company that made a virtue of necessity and an art form out of amazement...

Badger Books!

John Spencer and Co was founded in London in 1946 by Samuel Assael and specialised in publishing original fiction, normally written to order by freelance writers using house aliases. Like many pulp publishers they paid a flat rate for copy – up to ten shillings per 1,000 words.

Initially Spencer focussed on story magazines in digest and pocketbook form: Tales of Tomorrow, Out Of This World and Supernatural Stories focussed on fantasy and sci-fi short stories. But the digest market was beginning to decline as the post-war paperback market began to boom.

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Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

6 Sep

A bluffers guide to #ReadABookDay now follows...

"Yes, Mary McCarthy is a much neglected novelist now and that's a shame..."

"Gee it really is hard to argue against Emile Durkheim..."

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Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

5 Sep

Today in pulp I look at the history of the Wimpy Bar!

Oh it was the future once... #SundayThoughts

The Wimpy chain originally began in 1934 in Chicago. The name was inspired by the character of J. Wellington Wimpy from the Popeye cartoons created by E. C. Segar.