‘Honor Among Rogues’

I discovered a new collection of pulp-style short stories in Honor Among Rogues by Logan D. Whitney.

This small volume, 4- by 7-inches size, has six short stories set around the world from the 1890s to the 1940s in several genres: Western, aviation, action-adventure, and more. We even get two stories with the same hero. The cover is reminiscent of those used by Short Stories, which I thought was a nice touch.

The author cites several sources, many of them pulp authors. Each story has a short intro by the author in which he speaks of the main influences, and we get a map of the world showing where each of these stories is set.

The title story, “Honor Among Rogues,” is inspired by Robert E. Howard’s El Borak. An American outlaw, Benjamin Talon, leads a small group of British Marines into the Empty Quarter of Arabia in search of Iram. The reason why we soon learn.

We get a Western tale set in 1880s Arizona in “Gold Canyon Ghosts.” This one is inspired by the story of the Lost Dutchman Mine.

We are introduced to pilot Mitch Faraday in “Sky Wolf of the Amazonas,” set in the 1920s. Faraday’s plane has problems, and he is forced to land at an airstrip in the jungle. But he soon is made a prisoner, as it is run by a former German ace from World War I, thought dead. He is now operating as a kind of air pirate. Can Mitch free the other pilots and put an end to him? This is the first story with this character.

Mitch returns in a story set during World War II in “Hell Over the Hump,” where he is flying supply missions over the Himalayas. This will be the last story, chronologically, for this character. Hopefully, we’ll have more in the future.

“Curse of the Bone God” is set in the Coral Sea area in the 1940s, an area where there are headhunters and cannibals. Some go there in search of items valued by collectors. But will anyone return from this?

The Congo in the 1920s is the setting for “Wet Devil.” A French doctor working in the area must confront the titular wet devil, whatever it is.

I do have to make a few corrections. It’s H. Bedford-Jones, with a hyphen. And Lee Falk is the creator of The Phantom. George Olesen is just one of several cartoonists who worked on the strip much later.

Overall, I enjoyed this collection of stories, though certainly some I liked more than others. I look forward to seeing further works from this author.

I see he is coming out with a novel, Savage, inspired by H. Rider Haggard and Talbot Mundy, set in Tibet. It looks interesting, though I have no idea when it is coming. Another novel he already has out is Remnant, about an expedition to the Amazon to find a legendary creature.