I learned of a recent New Pulp work by an author that I wanted to check out. The Python God is the first Thomas Adam Grey thriller by Duane Laflin. Laflin is a professional magician who has retired and now writes novels.

You may have heard about the recent statements made by Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, a man who combines all the best qualities of Dr. Jack Kevorkian and Alaric the Goth in one natty package. As reported by Variety on April 28th, the streaming mogul declared that the precipitous decline in in-person movie attendance which began several years ago and has reached near-catastrophic proportions in the years following COVID is easily understandable; indeed, it communicates a clear message: What does that...

Read More Read More

Cahena by Manly Wade Wellman (DMR Books, November 1, 2020). Cover by Lauren Gornik I’m hearing reports that Manly Wade Wellman’s final novel Cahena, out of print for nearly 35 years until DMR released a handsome new edition in 2020 with a striking cover by Lauren Gornik, is on the verge of going out of print again.

Good afterevenmorn! Well, I’m talking boycotts again, as there is a lot of it going around. And they are absolutely kicking up all kinds of dust. This is great – making your voice heard with the only thing these companies seem to understand; their bottom lines.

I finally picked up Boris Dolgov by David Saunders. It is a biography and art portfolio of Boris Dolgov (1910-58), who did a couple of hundred interior story illustrations for the pulps, mainly Weird Tales, and a handful of Weird Tales covers.

So, Paul Bishop is a friend of mine, and he wrote the very first post in Black Gate’s award-nominated Discovering Robert E. Howard. He talked about Howard’s boxing stories. Before those Pulps dried up, Howard wrote prolifically for them, with Sailor Steve Costigan his most popular creation.

The Birthday (Arcadia Motion Pictures, November 10, 2006) What are you doing right now? Whatever it is, stop it. Stop it and watch the Corey Feldmen vehicle The Birthday. Watch it. Right! Damn! Now! “Woah, Simmons,” you may be saying to yourself.

50 films that I dug up on Tubi. Enjoy! Under the Silver Lake (2018) Just in case you’re getting the wrong impression, Tubi isn’t all hidden schlock from around the world, there’s actually some proper* movies on there too.

I previously posted on an interesting pair of reprint series from the early 1970s, Fantasy Classics and Fantasy Reader, published by the short-lived small press Fantasy House. In addition to these two series, Fantasy House also published a pair of comic-book zines titled Infamous Funnies and Space Fantasies in 1973, both of which lasted only […]

  The sixth Tor Double not only includes the two title stories, Barry B. Longyear’s Enemy Mine and John Kessel’s Another Orphan, but also includes an excerpt from Gwyneth Jones’s novel Divine Endurance.  Divine Endurance was originally published in Britain in 1984 and in the U.S.

File this one in the “Why the F?” folder. Bambi: The Reckoning is a British indie horror flick directed by Dan Allen and written by Rhys Warrington. It marks the fourth disturbing entry in The Twisted Childhood Universe (TCU), which brought us Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey and is now turning Felix Salten’s beloved deer into a forest-dwelling force of vengeance.

The Library Lovecraftian was a short-lived series that came out from Ken Krueger‘s Shroud publications in the mid-1970s. Running only four issues, most issues had a single story. They came out at the same time that Fantasy House, which Krueger was involved with, was putting out the excellent Fantasy Reader and Fantasy Classics series, but […]

  How many times have you heard (or even repeated) the old adage, “Be careful what you wish for?” Of course it’s a cliché, a commonplace beloved of parents and primary school teachers the world over, but such chestnuts sometimes actually contain the distilled wisdom of the human race, and you ignore them at your peril, as is demonstrated (or not, maybe) in Victoria Elizabeth Schwab’s 2020 dark fantasy, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. It’s a spirited, stimulating read that...

Read More Read More

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix (Berkley, January 14, 2025) and Starling House by Alix E. Harrow (Tor Books, October 3, 2023). Covers: uncredited, Micaela Alcaino No, not that kind of house of ill repute (though I confess I thought the semi-salacious implication of the headline might get some of you to read a bit further, though of course not you who are reading this now, just all those others).

Here we have the third collection of the Ed Race series that ran in the back of The Spider pulp from Popular Publications. Also known as The Masked Marksman, this series ran for 55 stories from 1934 to 1943.

“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun.

Tim Waggoner, and his upcoming novel Conan: Spawn of the Serpent God (Titan Books, October 28, 2025) On a non-descript day I am intercepted on entering a coffee shop. It turns out to be a happy accident, an old colleague, eager to join me as I wait for my next interview to begin.

Meatball Machine and Meatball Machine Kodoku (TLA Releasing, 2005 and 2017) 50 films that I dug up on Tubi. Enjoy! Meatball Machine (2005) and Meatball Machine Kodoku (2017) It’s a double-header in more ways than one, as I settled down to watch a couple of films that bookend a period known to cinephiles as Gonzo Japanese Splatter.

  Both Poul Anderson’s No Truce for Kings and Fritz Leiber’s Ship of Shadows originally appeared in issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Not only did their initial publication occur in the same periodical, but both of those original issues sported covers painted by Ed Emshwiller.

One of the most entertaining aspects of working for Black Gate is hitting the road with Photog Chris Z to cover horror-themed events in the Midwest. Though many people think about Halloween during the fall months, there is an enormous subculture of vendors, artists, and fans for whom the spooky season never ends.

We recently got the 10th volume in Airship 27‘s Mystery Men (& Women) series of New Pulp characters. It’s impressive that this series is now up to 10 volumes, which is a great milestone.

Let me begin with two assertions, each of which is, in the immortal words of Vincent Vega, “a bold statement.” First: David Cronenberg is one of our greatest directors, and there is nothing he has done that isn’t worth seeing.

Good afterevenmorn, Readers! I have been out of the writing world loop for a bit, being wrapped up in my own personal stuff (it’s a terrible combination of absolutely no time whatsoever, “out of sight, out of mind,” and having my head in the clouds as I’m neck deep in the first draft of a book), so I’m quite late to the party.

This will be one of a few reviews of some of the “Big Book of” volumes edited by Otto Penzler of The Mysterious Bookstore and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, part of Penguin Random House.

Wow. It’s been over half a year since I did a What I’ve Been Watching. I’ve already forgotten some of the stuff I watched since then! But let’s tackle a few more recent favorites. And what I’m re-watching, as usual.

A wild light came into Frodo’s eyes. ‘Stand away! Don’t touch me!’ he cried. ‘It is mine, I say. Be off!’ His hand strayed to his sword-hilt. But then quickly his voice changed. ‘No, no, Sam,’ he said sadly.

50 films that I dug up on Tubi. Enjoy! Maggots (2017) Despite usually taking the piss out of bad movies, I do have respect for filmmakers that actually complete them and get them seen. This brings us to Maggots — a horror/comedy that gets a couple of things right, and a lot wrong, but again I just can’t get mad at it.

Originally published in January 1989, the fourth Tor Double included John Varley’s Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo and Samuel R. Delany’s The Star Pit. Printed in the a tête-bêche format, David Lee Anderson provided the cover by Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo and Tony Roberts was the artist for The Star Pit.

The only thing I like better than blowing a whole day playing video games, is playing retro video games. Of course I love movie-quality HD graphics, but little pixelated Lego-people give me a case of the warm fuzzies.

After reading the first Brock Stone, Arena of Souls (2014) by David Wood, I got and read the next two. These are Track of the Beast (2021) and Curse of the Pharaoh (2023). This ongoing series is set in the early 1930s.

Growing up in Southern California in the 60’s and 70’s was a movie lover’s dream. Late night and weekend television in those days was almost completely given over to old movies, especially on the Los Angeles independent channels: KTLA channel 5, KHJ channel 9, KTTV channel 11, and KCOP channel 13.

Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring #1, and variant cover by Daniel Brereton (Titan Comics, March 26, 2025) Sometimes a project and a creator are brought together in the right place at the right time. Titan Comics’ Solomon Kane mini series The Serpent Ring is one of those times.

A pulp author that I had seen Steeger Books reprint recently that I don’t know much about is Fred MacIsaac (1882-1940). Maybe best known for his Rambler Murphy series in Dime Detective, about a wandering reporter who solves crimes, MacIsaac has done a variety of stories in various pulps.

I continue to listen to audiobooks daily. They fit my lifestyle and let me get to a lot more stuff than I would if I just read. I mean, driving with a paperback in hand is quite the challenge! I just re-listened to the entire SPQR mystery series by John Maddox Roberts (who I have written about several times, including here).

Dorsai! by Gordon R. Dickson (Ace Books, January 1, 1978) In 1959, Robert A. Heinlein published Starship Troopers, one of the founding works of military science fiction as a genre. But that same year saw the serialization of Gordon R.

50 films that I dug up on Tubi. Enjoy! Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) Ah, the 70s. My formative years. Angry nature films were rampant around this time (much to my delight), and now it’s time for tarantulas to be miffed at our overuse of pesticides.