Retro Pulp Tales [Hardcover]

Joe R. Lansdale (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With six-guns blazing and tentacles flailing, this nifty all-original anthology delivers impressively on the "pure storytelling" promise Lansdale (Flaming London) makes in his intro. The dozen authors manage to address serious issues while remaining true to their roots and the book's theme. Particular standouts are Al Sarrantonio's deliberately and successfully Bradburyesque "Summer"; Chet Williamson's "From the Back Pages," a delightful trail of breadcrumb hints leading to a sly and satisfactory end; and F. Paul Wilson's "Sex Slaves of the Dragon Tong," which more than any other story captures the real essence of the pulps. Tim Lebbon's "The Body Lies," a dark tale of a man who finds a giant buried in his cellar, is a great read but not at all pulpy. Other contributors include Kim Newman, Alex Irvine and Melissa Mia Hall. (May)
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From Booklist

The movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was contemporary pulp fiction that felt as though it was made decades ago. So, too, are the stories in this exciting new collection of "retro pulp." The contributors, including F. Paul Wilson and Bill Crider, were asked to write a story that could have appeared in the pulps, and they have succeeded spectacularly. The first story, for example, James Reasoner's "Devil Wings over France," catapults the reader back to an era when thrillers and speculative fiction coexisted happily. These aren't parodies or even homages. They're straight-up pulp fiction, energetically written and remarkably faithful to the genre. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 235 pages
• Publisher: Subterranean Press (May 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596060085
• ISBN-13: 978-1596060081
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,324,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over thirty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in eighteen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Hotep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror." He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Strong Collection of Pulp Stories, November 20, 2006

By 

Charles Glover - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Retro Pulp Tales (Hardcover)

Edited by Joe Lansdale, an authority on the subject, some of the most respected writers in the field weigh in with stories that pay tribute to the "pulps." 12 stories in all, written by: James Reasoner (a tribute to the aviation pulps), Chet Williamson (one of my three favorites, a mystery that unfolds as clips from personal ads in the backs of pulp magazines with a great ending), F. Paul Wilson (a Yellow Peril story), Alex Irvine (a Detroit gangland/police/pool hall story), Melissa Mia Hall (a tribute to the "Gidget" surfer stories), Tim Lebbon (a story about a giant), Bill Crider (an interesting and humorous alien abduction story. Crider writes westerns but used to write horror novels as Jack MacLane.), Al Sarrantonio (another of my three favorites, a summer story in the tradition of Bradbury but with a perfect Sarrantonio twist at the end), Stephen Gallagher (a story of a soldier haunted by ghosts from his past), Kim Newman (a story that ties with her Anno Dracula books and also her Seven Stars collection), Gary Phillips (an excellent war story in the Haunt of Fear or Weird Tales tradition), and Norman Partridge (the other of my three favorites, a very tight and suspenseful story of a group of people at odds with one another in the desert. This one was likely the best story in the collection.)

Each story has an introduction by the author detailing the type of pulps he/she liked and what inspired their story. Each story is new to this edition, no reprints here. Joe Lansdale gives an introduction at the beginning of the book but did not contribute a story. Some of the introductions are better than the stories they support. Overall, this is a very entertaining and very strong collection (a delightful romp through the very missed days of pulp magazines) and well worth the read.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rip-roaring, August 25, 2006

By 

RIJU GANGULY "perceptive reader" (India) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Retro Pulp Tales (Hardcover)

Rarely do such proclamatory nomenclatures hold good, esp. for anthologies, where the frequency of each author is bound to be different and thus it is more difficult to produce a rich harmonique. This collection features stories which make us understand what used to be the pulpy days, and long for them. Highly recommended.