‘Pulp Adventures’ #44

I recently obtained Pulp Adventures #44 from Bold Venture Press, dated Winter 2024. A delay from the prior issue, but it looks like they are working to get back on schedule. We get science fiction, detective, crime, and horror, along with reviews and non-fiction this time.

As always, we get a selection of new and classic pulp stories, a total of nine, along with some non-fiction works. We are back down to about 160 pages, which is still pretty good. This is the 10th year of publication for the new version of Pulp Adventures.

The cover for #44 is an original piece, done with AI, as is the back cover. So what? They are nice, and original artwork is expensive, which is hard for small presses. It ties to the featured story, the novelette “The Inevitable Conflict” by British author E.C. Tubb (1919-2010). This saw print back in 1954 in the British Vargo Statten Science Fiction Magazine.

It’s a strange tale of a man who learns he is to die by accident in six hours. But what is the source of this claim? And it is part of a larger threat to mankind? Can he both save himself and solve the mystery of this threat?

Philip Harbottle, who is the executor of Tubb’s estate, contributes an article on Tubb’s short story “Lucifer!,” which he solicited for a magazine he edited and which was adapted into the movie 57 Seconds.

For classic pulp fiction, we get the following. First up is a work by Judson P. Philips, also known as Hugh Pentecost. Editor Audrey Parente writes about what is his first published work, and why it’s not “Room Number Twenty-Three.” Audrey would know as she knew Philips and wrote a biography of him. We get a reprint of “Room Number Twenty-Three” from Flynn’s in 1925, as well as an intro by Philips from a 1950s collection of author’s first works. It’s a murder mystery, but where is the victim?

Others include John Russell Fearn, better known as the creator of the Golden Amazon, whose work “The Wailing Hybrid” appeared in Thrilling Mystery in 1938. A young man runs afoul of a mad scientist who has created a woman-plant hybrid that resembles a woman he saw at the circus. Can he get free from the fiend before becoming part of his next experiment?

From John Burke is “A Comedy of Terrors.” A screenwriter of horror tales discovers that his scripts are a little too inspirational for some. Philip Harbottle provides background sidebars on both authors. And finally from H.P. Lovecraft is his classic work “Dagon,” which first appeared in 1919.

For New Pulp, we get four works. From Veronica Leigh is “Burning Bright,” set during Prohibition, a detective is on a missing-persons case for a woman’s daughter. But finds there is much more to the case. Teel James Glenn provides a short Western story, “Notches,” about a bounty hunter and his targets.

Corky Savage has a horror tale about lost love, and more in “Worm Mother Revisited.” Stuart Hopen provides a different work: “Scaramouche: A Rogue in the Hen House” is an adaptation of a non-existent silent film, as covered in his forward.

Pulp research and author Will Murray takes a look at the original Untouchables TV series. And we get a review by James Reasoner.

It’s another great issue. I enjoyed several of these stories. I’m not much for Westerns, but I liked Teel James Glenn’s work. I already have the next issue, so look for that review soon, and the following volume is coming in November. If you’re not getting this one, you are missing out on some great stuff.