The spirit of the pulps lives on in Hero Games' premiere fiction release, Astounding Hero Tales! Lost jungle temples, mysterious crime-busters, gallant air aces, and unspeakable cosmic horrors share the spotlight in this anthology of all-new stories by such masters of the fantastic as Robert Weinberg, Will Murray, Darrell Schweitzer, and David Niall Wilson. Astounding Hero Tales also boasts a previously unpublished weird mystery by Lester Dent, creator of Doc Savage, and a foreword and original dark crime yarn by legendary pulp veteran Hugh B. Cave.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Editor James Lowder is the author of several best-selling novels, including Prince of Lies and Knight of the Black Rose, and has helmed more than a dozen critically acclaimed anthologies. He s been a finalist for the Stoker Award and International Horror Guild Award, and is a two-time Origins Award winner.
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More About the Author
James Lowder has worked extensively on both sides of the editorial blotter. His credits include the bestselling novels Prince of Lies and Knight of the Black Rose, short fiction for such anthologies as Truth Until Paradox and Shadows Over Baker Street, and comic book scripts for DC, Devil's Due, Moonstone, and the city of Boston's First Night celebration. His work has been translated into more than ten languages, including Hungarian, Yiddish, and Russian. He's written hundreds of feature articles and book, film, and game reviews for such diverse publications as Dragon, Amazing Stories, Sci-Fi Universe, Milwaukee Magazine, and The New England Journal of History, and published role-playing game material for Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Marvel Super Heroes, and various other systems. As an editor, he's directed book lines or series for TSR, Green Knight, and CDS Books, and has helmed a dozen critically acclaimed anthologies, including The Book of All Flesh, Hobby Games: The 100 Best, and Worlds of Their Own. He's been a finalist for the International Horror Guild Award and the Stoker Award, and has won five Origins Awards and a silver ENnie Award.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great new pulp stories,
This review is from: Astounding Hero Tales (Perfect Paperback)
A collection of short stories written in the style of the classic pulps. featuring tough guy PIs, ordinary Joe boxers, weird occult menaces, and strange heroes. Excellent work, well worth reading. Of special interest to those who'd like a better feel for the range of stories and genres that fall under the "pulp" header.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Super Reader,
By Blue Tyson "- Research Finished" (Legion clubhouse) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Astounding Hero Tales (Perfect Paperback)
Although this collection is called Astounding Hero Tales, it doesn't really resemble Astounding magazine at all, and only a few of the stories are about what you would call heroes.
The subtitle is more accurate as a pulp collection this most definitely is. It perhaps suffers a little in being too eclectic and may not actually deliver what people might want by looking at the title, with th e combination of weird, detectives, westerns, and the odd hero tale, etc. The stories average 3.19, and you don't expect pulp adventure stuff to be super outstanding, by any stretch of the imagination, but they could have been a little better. Not something you need to go out of your way to pay trade paperback prices for, anyway. Astounding Hero Tales : 01 Death Was Silent - Lester Dent Astounding Hero Tales : 02 The Mask of Kukulcan - Will Murray Astounding Hero Tales : 03 Two-Fisted Crookback - Steve Melisi Astounding Hero Tales : 04 Wolf Train West - William Messner-Loebs Astounding Hero Tales : 05 Godmother - Steve Eller Astounding Hero Tales : 06 Missing Pages - Richard Dansky Astounding Hero Tales : 07 Running Thunder - John Helfers Astounding Hero Tales : 08 Playback - Patricia Lee Macomber Astounding Hero Tales : 09 A Lost City Of the Jungle - Darrell Schweitzer Astounding Hero Tales : 10 It Came From the Swamp - Ed Greenwood Astounding Hero Tales : 11 Slide Home - David Niall Wilson Astounding Hero Tales : 12 Out West - John Pelan Astounding Hero Tales : 13 Bandit Gold - Thomas M. Reid Astounding Hero Tales : 14 Kiss Me Deadly - Robert Weinberg Astounding Hero Tales : 15 The Forgotten Man - Robin D. Laws Astounding Hero Tales : 16 House of Shadows - Hugh B. Cave A private detective on the trail of a weapons ring gets into a fight with a man with a torch that has a blade on a string inside it. You can never trust a bloke with one of those, whoever you are. 3 out of 5 A man that a museum curator decides is strange asks for help in getting back a serpent artifact. Sensing a good deal, she learns that her first instincts were right. 3.5 out of 5 A bare knuckle fighter finds he can't help himself when it comes to his nancy actor threatre manager boss. 3.5 out of 5 A boy and his little sister head west, trying to ride the rails, struggling in the cold to catch a train. They are helped up by a strong fellow traveller, and soon find the railway police are rather more than human. Luckily their fellow traveller is not new to this, and a brilliant shot with guns with silver bullets .... it seems that his tanned face may once have worn a mask... 4 out of 5 Deity source woman sort by everyone from Pharaohs to the Thule. 2 out of 5 A boy learns magic from the ghost of his grandfather. 3 out of 5 A pommie aviator is shot down trying to shut down a German war operation in Mexico. He joins forces with some local ranchers who have had a herd rustled by the same mob. Stampede time. 3.5 out of 5 Zombie testimony. 3 out of 5 Sitting around in one of those old fashioned clubs talking about something a bit strange out there. 2.5 out of 5 The Salt Hook Slitherer has murdered five wealthy and disliked men. What is going on? 3.5 out of 5 Baseball bus escape big league promotion luck. 3 out of 5 A group of crims head for a town where they think the local rackets aren't sewn up. The locals there are way different to your average person, having scales and fangs and all. So, one of them knows a guy out East, where the pickings might be easier. New England way, a place called Innsmouth... 4 out of 5 A bloke coming back from the war has a mate who told him about a treasure map. However, there is a fiery redheaded sister, the City of Lost Souls, a dodgy sergeant, some ratzis and Pancho Vila to deal with on the way. 3 out of 5 New York's first female private detective tangles with a voodoo priest and, of course, zombies. 3 out of 5 A man's dead union mates join forces to bring a ghost gun to bear on those that murdered them, using him as their agent. 3 out of 5 The ghost of an old man's dead twin helps fend off a gang of attackers. 3.5 out of 5
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Framing the Pulp Heritage,
By Weston Ochse (Southern Arizona) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Astounding Hero Tales (Perfect Paperback)
What an excellent anthology. The pulp hero stories reinvigor a genre that saw its last days, perhaps, when Doc Savage was re-released to my generation in the 70s. Since then, there's been a dearth of such fiction and here, under one cover, I was able to relive many of the story types and arch types that stirred me as a young man. More than enjoyable, the anthology reframes a literary genre that served to define the concept of "idealized hero" interacting within the construct of "realistic" people and place. I'm very pleased to see this book on the reader's landscape. Some anthologies serve themselves, this anthology serves us all.
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