Today in pulp I look back at the early days of pulp Spanish sci-fi.
Let me introduce you to the Luchadores del Espacio!!
Luchadores del Espacio - Space Fighters - is a Spanish-language science fiction saga published by Editorial Valenciana from 1953-63. It's one of the early milestones of Spanish space pulp.
Spanish language science-fantasy had taken off in Argentina during the 1950s with Más Allá (Beyond), a local rival to Galaxy magazine. So the time seemed right for Editorial Valenciana to launch some original Spanish sci-fi stories.
Pascual Enguídanos was one of the writers who took up the challenge. Working under the pen names George H. White and Van S. Smith he put together La saga de los Aznar, one of the first Spanish space operas.
La saga de los Aznar Is influenced by both Greek myth and by Flash Gordon: Earth is invaded by aliens and Aznar leads the human survivors to a distant star system to rebuild their lost homeland.
Unlike other pulp sci-fi titles Luchadores del Espacio didn't rely on stand alone stories. Instead it took an episodic approach, with stories continuing over many issues.
Most Luchadores del Espacio stories were written by Spanish writers using English pen names. Sci-fi was still strongly associated with the United States, so publishers used house aliases to give the impression you were getting solid American pulp.
Luchadores del Espacio ran for over 200 issues, and a number of stories were reprinted in the 1970s. Over two dozen writers cut their teeth working for the publication.
Luchadores del Espacio may have been old fashioned space opera, but it helped pave the way for a boom in Spanish-language sci-fi as well as new magazines such as Anticipation and Nueva Dimensión in the 1960s and '70s.
So here's to the Luchadores del Espacio: sometimes all you need to write sci-fi is a bug eyed monster and a ray gun.
More stories another time...
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Today in pulp: the searing, evocative power of a well crafted opening sentence!
For this thread I will draw my examples from the greatest writer* in the English language: the Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe.
(*based on synonym use)
On death:
"Bellenger was dead when they found him. That Bellenger was dead was probably the understatement of the year. Bellenger was horribly, violently dead!"
On crowds:
"The crowd had to be seen to be believed. There are crowds and crowds but this was the crowd to end all crowds. Never, perhaps ever before in the whole of human history had there been such a massive congregation. Such a teeming of humanity."
Today in pulp I look at time travel. It's full of paradoxes but there's one we rarely explore: does it break the Law of Conservation of Energy?
Let’s investigate…
Time travel is a staple of pulp science fiction and it often involves a paradox: changing history, killing your grandfather, creating a time loop etc. Solving the paradox, or realising too late that one is happening, is half the fun of these stories.
Thinking about the nature of time is also fun. Does it exist or is it emergent? It is a local or global event? How many dimensions does it come in? Why is there an ‘arrow of time’? There are many possible answers.
"I wanted a mission. And for my sins they gave me one."
"Your mission is to proceed up the Nung River by Navy patrol boat, pick up Colonel Kurtz's path at Nu Mung Ba, infiltrate his team by whatever means available... and terminate the Colonel's command."
People who feel they have no voice can have a powerful creative spark, sometimes born of suffering or solitude. Mostly it's hidden, but in the 20th century it began to be admired, celebrated, and even perhaps exploited.
Let's look at the story of 'Outsider Art'...
Outsider Art, Art Brut, Visionary Art, Naïve Art: nobody has really settled on a name for artworks made by untrained artists which express a raw, energetic experience of the world. It's art from a different perspective, demanding to be heard.
Outsider Art began to be recognised in 1911 by Der Blaue Reiter group of artists in Munich. The group was short-lived but influential: fundamental to Expressionism and admiring of artworks created by people struggling with their mental health.