Paul Malmont appeared on the New Pulp scene in 2007 with his first book, The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril.
This novel made used of several pulp authors as characters in a fictional adventure. The main ones were Lester Dent (the creator and writer of Doc Savage) and Walter Gibson (the creator and writer of The Shadow), but there were various other science fiction pulp authors who appeared, along with L. Ron Hubbard (later founder of Scientology).
Not being super knowledgeable about the lives of these two, it was hard to know how much was true or not. Lester and his wife are shown being inducted into a Chinese secret society in thanks for standing up for the Chinese. Gibson is shown having his own train car. Another individual, a black porter friend of Gibson, was shown writing for pulps aimed at blacks. As far as I know these elements are not true.
In the work, set in 1937, the two authors are pursuing their own mysteries. After attending the funeral of H.P. Lovecraft (yes, he died in 1937), Gibson comes to realize that Lovecraft was murdered will working on the antidote for a deadly nerve gas (that isn’t true). Dent is working a mystery in Chinatown. These two mysteries come to a head in Chinatown with a third character who is in many ways like The Shadow.
I found this a fun read and encourage others to check it out.
His second novel was Jack London in Paradise (2009), which is a historical novel about author Jack London. While I have a copy, I’ve not read it.
His next work was writing the Doc Savage series that was part of DC’s First Wave line in 2010. Like many fans after reading his first novel, we were expecting better. But many felt the characterizations of Doc and others were off. But as I wrote in my review of the First Wave line, I’ve never been certain how much was caused by editorial decisions and changes to Doc and his aides, and how much by not being familiar with writing for comics. He wrote the first storyline and was supposed to write more (at least the second), but his tenure ended after that first one.
Then in 2011 he came out with his next novel, The Astounding, The Amazing, and the Unknown. Harking back to the themes of the first novel, this “sequel” (the events of the first one are mentioned in this one, though the story is independent) set in 1943 focuses on a group of science fiction writers, including Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, L. Ron Hubbard, and others (including Dent and Gibson) doing secret work for the U.S. military. Known as the “Kamikaze Group,” they are looking for Tesla’s super-weapon, and have to contend with possible Axis agents also after the secret.
This group is actually based on a real group made of Heinlein, along with Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp, doing work in aeronautical engineering at the Philadelphia Naval Yard.
I don’t know what he may be working on next, but I would like to see another novel along the lines of Chinatown and The Astounding.
