Wild Cat Book’s ‘Startling Stories’ Vol. 1

One of the earliest of the New Pulp publishers was Ron Hanna‘s Wild Cat Books. First using Lulu’s POD services, they put out some of the first New Pulp works I got when I returned to the pulp world. And one of their products was a revision of the classic pulp sf magazine Starting Stories. It actually went through two volumes of issues, and there were some big changes between the two, so I am going to look at each volume in separate posting.

Volume 1 ran six issues in 2007 and 2008, and were 8.5-inches by 11-inches in size. I don’t have issues #3 and 4, and they are no longer available on Lulu. Issues #1 and 2 are saddle stitched, and issues #5 & 6 are square bound. All issues had new fiction and art with only a little reprinted fiction during the run, as well as some non-fiction and reprinted art.

Issue #1 (2007) kicked things off with two stories set in “shared worlds” that other authors would be allowed to write in. The cover feature is “Captain Danger and the Space Rangers,” created by Tom Johnson. We get a quick write-up of Captain Danger‘s universe and the various non-human races that are part of Allied Command. The second story, “On Omega Station,” is set a port on the end of a spiral arm of our galaxy. The write-up here tells us of the various individuals, species, and locations on the Station. This one was created by K.G. McAbee. A third “shared world” is given a write-up, but no story. This one is The Space-Hawk Squadron, created by Wayne Skiver. Set in the far future, it centers around a special intergalactic police force of 100 individuals given winged battle suits, hence their name “Space-Hawks.” We even get a sketch of one.

Issue #2 (2007) gives us another Captain Danger story, this time written by K.G. McAbee. Tom Johnson contributes an sf tale along with a short non-fiction piece on a fossil. This time we get a reprint of an H.G. Wells tale, “The Star.”

As I noted, I don’t have issues #3 or 4, but both have new Captain Danger stories, by Ralph E. Horner in #3, and one by Wayne Skiver #4. I know Tom Johnson and K.G. McAbee are back in #4, but I have no idea what they did. Both issues appeared in 2007.

Issue #5 (2008) seems to mark a change in the series. Tom Johnson has moved on we are told, and seems to have taken Captain Danger with him. The other shared world series that were kicked off with the first issue seem gone as well (no idea if the other two appeared in issues 3 or 4). Now we get a short story by Barry Reese that ties into his universe of stories, but is stand-alone and “Lovecraftian.” Wayne Skiver provides an overview article on Doctor Who and a short horror tale. The main work in this volume is “The Curse of the Crimson Djinn” by Don Lee, which is a new story using the occult detective Ravenwood, which Altus Press reprinted the original stories and Airship 27 would produce several new volumes on.

Issue #6 (2008) has several new works. Wayne Skiver contributes the first of what was planned to be a new on-going series, “The Traveler,” but that would not happen. The Traveler is a man from the past who is mistakenly sent to the far future of the 180th century, where his mind and body is rebuilt, as well as his plane. The future inhabitants thought him a lost time traveler, and so rebuilt his plane as a time machine before sending him into the past. Barry Reese gives us the first part of a story of a new character, Doctor Metropolis. The resolution of this story would appear in Lazarus Gray, v2. K.G. McAbee gives us a tale of Gideon Caine  (not to be confused with Gideon Cain, the Solomon Kane pastiche).  We also get reprints by Frank Belknap Long from Weird Tales in 1951, and Murray Leinster from Astounding Science Fiction in 1959.

As noted, Startling Stories would be relaunched in a new format later in 2008 as volume 2, this time using Amazon’s CreateSpace POD, and is still available. I’ll cover that in another posting.