Good Pulp Books?

A little past the pulp prime, but I'd recommend Casino Royale by Ian Fleming. If you dig that, there are several Fleming Bond books that are fun page turners.

Tim, you need to get your hands on some Leigh Bracket. Find a used paperback of The Best of Leigh Bracket from the 70s, it’s an excellent collection. I’ve read metric tons of pulp, Bracket is not only my favorite but she’s entirely underrated.

She actually wrote the first draft of Empire Strikes Back. George Lucas claims he had never read her work before doing Star Wars, but I call bullshit. She passed before Empire was released, but it’s believed that she created Yoda and had Luke and Leia as siblings in her script.

EDIT - Tim, PM me your address, I’ll send you mine. I’m upgrading to hardcover.

Robert E. Howard was one of the big three pulp writers for Weird Tales, along with Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. While everybody has heard of Conan the barbarian, Howard wrote some other interesting characters like Kull and Solomon Kane. He also wrote some good horror stories, like Pigeons from Hell.

A Rendezvous in Averoigne, by Clark Ashton Smith, holds a permanent spot in my bookcase. Smith wrote stories featuring the Cthulhu Mythos and contributed greatly to that pantheon. He also wrote pulp stories within several other settings, including Hyperborea, Poseidonis, Averoingne, and Zothique. Necromancy is a recurring concept in his stories. A Rendezvous in Averoigne is a good collection of his stories that offers samples of each of these settings.

Doc Savage and the Shadow are my favorites. But for sanity's sake avoid the Doc Savage movie with Ron Ely.

Harold Lamb wrote a series of stories about Khlit the Cossack that are pretty damn entertaining.

All the Tarzan books by Edgar Rice Burroughs are fun but the first two Tarzan of the Apes and Return of Tarzan, which to my mind are all one story split in two, are especially great. I think I got every book 26 or more of them for my Nook for like $3.

All the Conan stories by R E Howard are awesome.

All the Fafherd and Gray Mouser books by Fritz Lieber are great.

Short stories by Issac Asimov and Ray Bradbury are superb and can be found in the many anthologies published over the years.

If you want sort of noir pulp read Dashiell Hammett who wrote the Maltese Falcon among others.

repoman wrote: All the Fafherd and Gray Mouser books by Fritz Lieber are great.

Yes, and Lieber also wrote some fine horror stories and some interesting science-fiction. It's hard to believe that there hasn't been a Fafhrd and the Gary Mouser movie or tv show yet.

Most anyhthing from Joe Lansdale, especially Cold In July.

Shellhead wrote: Robert E. Howard was one of the big three pulp writers for Weird Tales, along with Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. While everybody has heard of Conan the barbarian, Howard wrote some other interesting characters like Kull and Solomon Kane. He also wrote some good horror stories, like Pigeons from Hell.

A Rendezvous in Averoigne, by Clark Ashton Smith, holds a permanent spot in my bookcase. Smith wrote stories featuring the Cthulhu Mythos and contributed greatly to that pantheon. He also wrote pulp stories within several other settings, including Hyperborea, Poseidonis, Averoingne, and Zothique. Necromancy is a recurring concept in his stories. A Rendezvous in Averoigne is a good collection of his stories that offers samples of each of these settings.

The El Borak stories from Howard are fucking rad too.

I've read a lot of Lansdale and Howard, but it sounds like I have more to read.