Paperback Fantastic is a three-book series by Justin Marriott, creator of the fanzine Paperback Fanatic, which came out in 2022.
Bill Cunningham of Pulp 2.0 did the covers.
Each of the three volumes focuses on paperbacks and comic books tied to the theme, and many of the paperbacks reprint pulp fiction, hence their inclusion here. All of them give brief reviews of paperbacks and comics, which can be a paragraph or up to half a page. In addition, there are many sidebar articles covering two pages on specific authors, characters, or series. The books are about 75 pages in an 8.5-by-8.5-inch format.
Vol. 1, Sci-Fi: We get a lot of pulp sf reprinted in paperbacks, including works and series by Edgar Rice Burroughs and others.
Vol. 2, Fantasy: This one includes lots of Conan and other works by Robert E. Howard, H. Rider Haggard, and Fritz Leiber.
Vol. 3, Horror: This time, it’s lot of ’70s paperback horror books, but I was surprised that H.P. Lovecraft was overlooked here. The closest was the inclusion of T.E.D. Klein’s Lovecraftian The Ceremonies.
Overall, this is a great series. I saw a lot of works I have gotten, and many I recall passing over in used bookstores that I now wish I had picked up. I’m not sure what we might get from Justin in the future.
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