Pulp Reality 2 - Published by Charles F. Millhouse

   2021; 208 pages.  Full Title: Pulp Reality 2: An Action & Adventure Publication.  New Authors? : Mostly yes.  Book 2 (out of 2, so far) in the “Pulp Reality” series.  Genres : Action & Adventure; Pulp Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

   The blurb on the back cover of this book sums it up concisely: “Ten new short stories from today’s leading authors and illustrators in the New Pulp genre.”  Which begs the question:

 

What exactly is the “New Pulp genre”?

 

    Well, Wikipedia has an informative page on the “old” version, labeled “Pulp Magazine”.  The link is here, and even though its heyday was before my time, it still sounds pretty good to me.  It is by nature a collection of short stories, but they can be in all sorts of sub-genres, most of which I like to read anyway, such as fantasy, aviation, horror, science fiction, detectives, war, etc.  Nevertheless, regardless of which sub-genre is used, the prerequisite is always the same: there must be lots of action and adventure.

 

    Sadly, pulp magazines have largely disappeared from the shelves of bookstores, done in by comic books, paperback novels, and most devastating of all, according to Wikipedia, by the “widespread expansion of television”.

 

    But the times they are a-changin’.  Thanks to Stormgate Press, and its publisher, Charles F. Millhouse, you can relive the reading joys your father (or grandfather or great-grandfather) experienced by picking up a copy of Pulp Reality 2.

 

What’s To Like...

    Pulp Reality 2 is an anthology with ten short stories.  They are:

01. New Flesh on Old Bones by Marlin Williams

02. NightVision: Murder After Midnight by Charles F. Millhouse

03. To Race the Moon by Brian K. Morris

04. Snow Chase by Bobby Nash

05. Patently False: B-Man Returns by Clyde Hall

06. Legend of the Fancy Cat by Amy Hale

07. Kings of the Crustaceous Period by Scott Donnelly

08. The Wind-Up Kid by Ron Fortier

09. Ghost From the Past: A Capt. Hawklin Tale by Charles F. Millhouse

10. Ace Anderson & The Curse of Dr. Atomika by Kellie Lynn Austin

 

    Each story is accompanied by at least one piece of eye-catching artwork, usually serving as the title page, plus the front cover image shown above, which I find simply stunning.  The paperback version, which is the only format available for now, measures 8½”x11”, presumably to mimic the traditional size of pulp fiction magazines, which per Wikipedia, was 7”x10”.

 

    One of the ten tales is told in the first-person POV, and one is a continuation of a story from the initial Pulp Reality publication.  There is a minimal amount of cussing, which I gather is also typical of pulp fiction.  A couple of the stories feature heroes who also star in full-length series by their authors, which I thought was a clever way to give the reader a "taste" of those.

 

    I liked that no two stories had the same setting/sub-genre.  We won’t list the details here – it’s more fun to discover these by reading the book.  The back cover claims the magazine is “packed with Pirates, Private Eyes, Aliens, automatons, villains and vigilantes”, and I can attest that’s accurate, albeit not all-inclusive.

 

    There are no “weak links” among the authors here; each tale kept me entertained and turning the pages.  Here's a few things, without spoilers, that really stood out for me, one per tale:

    In Old Flesh for New Bones, the breathtaking “feel” for sailing back in the swashbuckling era!

    In NightVision, the deep character-development of the hero, in only 20 pages.

    In To Race the Moon, the twist at the end of the story.

    In Snow Chase, how well the “then/now” timeline technique worked.

    In Patently False, the refreshingly new super-power.

    In Fancy Cat, much better than The Shining, plus tons of plot twists.

    In Kings of the Crustaceous Period, why eating crab legs may shorten your lifespan.

    In The Wind-Up Kid, the technologically-believable mechanical hero.

    In Ghost from the Past, the insight into the oddly fascinating Hawklin father/son relationship.

    In Ace Anderson, the eerie concept of zombies on a submarine.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  x.x/5 based on 0 ratings.

    Goodreads: x.xx/5 based on 0 ratings and 0 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    The British officer now stood at the railing.  His tall stature was topped by a Bicorne hat and traditional powdered wig.  “I am Thaddeus Beaumont, Captain in the King’s Royal Navy.”  He squared his shoulders.  Through a pair of close-set eyes, he stared down his long nose.  “Captain Gosson Lefleur, as gentlemen, it is my hopes that you and I may discuss terms of surrender.”

    “Mine or yours?”

    Beaumont frowned.  “Do not mock me, sir.  Surrender and you’ll be taken back to England for a fair trial.”

    “I’ve heard tales of the king’s fair trials.”  (pg. 19)

 

    “Thomas…”

    “Yes, I’m still here,” his father replied.

    “Are you up to being a distraction?”

    “And get shot at…?”

    “I don’t think you will.”

    “You don’t think?”  Thomas held a laugh deep in his throat.  (pg. 189)

 

The first rule of assassination, Snow reminded himself, was kill the assassin.  (pg. 89)

    There are a couple of nits to pick.  As noted in a review for the first Pulp Reality book, the large size of the pages can be cumbersome at times.  Nevertheless, I kind of liked it, since I got to experience the "feel" of reading a pulp magazine way back in 1900.

 

    And while 208 pages might sound like a pretty short book, 8½”x11” is the size of a sheet of copier paper.  This means you get a lot more words-per-page than you would from a mass market paperback with the same number of pages.  True, there are a few full-page ads for other pulp-fiction-related events and publications in Pulp Reality 2, but they were also present in my boyhood comic books.

 

    The main drawback here is the significant number of typos, punctuation misuse, and outright mistakes throughout the book, often to the point where it became a distraction for a grammar pedant like me.  Some of the stories were more error-free than others, which makes me wonder if the proofreading and editing was left up to each author to do.

 

    Nonetheless, if grammatical hiccups don’t unsettle your inner reading mind, and you yearn for tales where buckles are swashed and thrills are spilled, then you’ll find Pulp Reality 2 to be a delightful read.  And some more good news: Pulp Reality 3 is due out in the fall of this year!

 

    8½ Stars.  Opening lines are important in any tale, but especially in a short story.  My favorite one from this set of tales: Corporal James Powell never saw a were-panther before and in three more minutes, never would again. (from “To Race The Moon”).

The Holiday Collection - The Eclective

   2011; 142 pages.  New Authors? : For the most part, no.  Genres: Anthology; Christmas Fiction; Short Stories.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

   Nine talented indie authors were tasked with writing a short story with a  "December Holiday” theme.  For the most part that means Christmas, but it could also apply to Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and even the Winter Solstice.

 

    I doubt the authors were given any other guidelines.  The length of a short story is ill-defined, and here the longest one is just over 30 pages, while the shortest ones are a mere seven pages or so.  Two of the tales are written from the first-person point of view, the rest are in the third-person.  Each of the tales has at least one twist in it to keep the reader entertained.

 

    At 142 pages (so sez my Kindle), The Holiday Collection is a quick and easy read.  So if you’re looking for a bunch of fast-moving festive tales, this book may just be your cup of eggnog.

 

What’s To Like...

    The titles of the nine stories (and authors) in The Holiday Collection are:

  1.) St. Claws – Alan Nayes

  2.) Snow Whisperers – Lizzy Ford

  3.) Saving Grace – Julia Crane

  4.) O Christmas Cactus, O Christmas Cactus – M. Edward McNally

  5.) Fred’s Best Christmas – P.J. Jones

  6.) Fresh Snow – Talia Jager

  7.) Let’s Ride – Shéa MacLeod

  8.) A Very Shero Christmas – Jack Wallen

  9.) The Darkest Night – Heather Marie Adkins

 

    There’s a decent amount of variety to the tones of these stories, which was a welcome respite from the slew of Hallmark Christmas Movies my wife watches every December.  A couple of the tales have a somewhat “dark” tint to them, which in no way detracts from their holiday themes.  Among the others, one has a  romance theme, three felt “warm-&-fuzzy” to me, one left a lump in my throat, one was a innovative take-off of  A Christmas Carol, and one , believe it or not, was a sci-fi thriller.  My favorites were 2, 4, 5, and 9; but honestly, I enjoyed them all.  Your faves will almost certainly be different.

 

    You’ll meet some cross-dressers, empaths, talking snowmen, and a Jedi knight along the way.  You can help celebrate the Winter Solstice, see auras, and help thwart a “hit” that’s been put on Santa.  I only recall one music nod – to Katy Perry of all people.  There’s a brief author’s bio at the end of each story, and I liked those.  

 

    O Christmas Cactus, O Christmas Cactus resonated with me because it’s set in my present environs.  Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport (from which you get a lovely view of the harbor as you land) really is a rat’s maze to get out of.  And if the protagonist has trouble visualizing the famed Camelback Mountain nearby, he’ll have an even tougher time seeing the lesser-known “Monk of the Mountain” on the northern part of the camel’s head, who once a time, on a psychedelic night, turned his head and stared threateningly at me.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Blahniks (n., plural) : a high-end shoe brand.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  3.4/5 based on 32 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.70/5 based on 125 ratings and 11 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    He watched the big man open a refrig and pull out a cold beer and pop the top.

    “How’d you know my name?” Matt asked.

    “I know everybody that comes to St. Claws.  I’m the town’s founder.”

    “Whoopee-do.  Everybody?”

    “Yup.”  He poured a double shot from the Patron bottle.

    “My wife and boy?”

    “Jenny and Billy.”

    Matt eyed the man suspiciously.  “This is getting weird.  Where’s my tequila?”  (loc. 309)

 

    Garth Vader, Intergalactic Ambassador and Jedi Knight, walked up to them, carrying his tinfoil lightsaber in one hand and a carton of orange juice in the other.  Garth’s few strands of graying hair were gelled back and he’d even shaved his scraggly beard.

    Garth’s gaze swept over the room as patients quietly opened stockings and stuffed their faces with candy.  “I sense a change in The Force.”  (loc. 1086)

 Kindle Details…

    ANAICT, The Holiday Collective is always free at Amazon.  The Eclective has five other short story anthologies available for your Kindle, with the labels Celtic, Pride, the Apocalypse, Haunted, and Halloween.  All of those are likewise free right now.

Her boyfriend of two years had just given her the “it’s not you, it’s me … and my new girlfriend” speech, two days before Christmas.  (loc. 522)

    There’s not much to quibble about in The Holiday Collection.  Most of the stories have a small amount of cussing in them, which might come as a surprise for a Christmas-themed anthology.  One tale was cussword-free, while three others had more than fifteen instances apiece.  I don’t recall any R-rated stuff besides that.

 

    The editing was overall quite good, with most of the errors occurring in just one of the tales.  This makes me believe that each contributing author was responsible for his/her own proofreading.  Most anthologies have an editor-in-chief, and I wonder if that would have been helpful here.  One other author seemed to have trouble with the use of commas when dialogue is directed to a specified person; sometimes it was done correctly, sometimes not.

 

    All in all, The Holiday Collection was a short but pleasant read.  I’ve read other stories by most of these writers, and so the polished storytelling was not unexpected.  Kindle gives an estimated reading time of 2 hours and 48 minutes, although as usual, I broke that up into four or five nights to prolong the fun.

 

    8 Stars.  Sadly, it appears that The Eclective, aka The Indie Eclective has been mothballed.  They put out these six anthologies in 2011-12, but none since.  One of the authors, Heather Marie Adkins, put out three more anthologies, apparently all Wiccan-oriented, in 2016-18, but I don’t see any more of those after that.  I'm guessing that the career path of an independent author is a tough road to travel.

Stupefying Stories 21 - Bruce Bethke (Editor)

    2018; 213 pages.  New Author(s)? : Yes, all 9 of them.  Genre : Short Stories; Anthology; Horror; Fantasy; Sci-Fi; Time-Travel.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

    Are you old enough to remember The Twilight Zone?  No, not the 1983 movie, although that was great, too.  Rather, the black-&-white TV series that ran from 1959 to 1964.  Rod Serling was the host, and his opening and closing monologues were always memorable.

    I was a devoted viewer of the show, mostly because you never knew what to expect.  One week, it might be a Time-Travel episode, such as The 7^th Is Made Up Of Phantoms, where a modern-day tank crew returns to the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  The next week would bring a Horror story, such as Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, featuring an early William Shatner.  (Wiki it.)  Or you might get a Fantasy story, such as Jack Klugman beating Jonathan Winters in a billiards game in A Game of Pool.  Or some weird Science Fiction story, such as the episode with the unforgettable title of To Serve Man.

    The neat thing was, you could never guess what genre you were about to watch, or what the tone would be.  Some episodes were dark and scary.  Others were whimsical or poignant.  In a word, you could call them strange.  Or varied.  Or eerie.  The editor Bruce Bethke has his own word to describe such a diversity in tones and genres.

    He calls them Stupefying.

What’s To Like...

    Stupefying Stories 21 is comprised of nine tales, each by a different author, all of approximately equal lengths, that being about 20 pages apiece.  The titles, Kindle locations, authors, and teasers are:

Table of Contents (spoiler-free)...

01)  The Crippled Sucker (01) – L. Joseph Shosty

    Poker on the Polar Express.

02)  My Disrupted Pony (15) – Jeff Racho

     Get in and drive.

03)  Cog and Bone (25) – M. Lynette Pedersen

    Music and mortality do mix.

04)  Dew Line (37) – K.H. Vaughan

    Cold War chills in Canada.

05)  Tendrils Beneath the Skin (49) – Derrick Boden

    Here, have a little vine.

06)  The Phoenix of Christ Church (59) – Rebecca Birch

    A blitz in Time saves mine.

07)  Lenses (66) – Eric Dontigney

    Caught on film.

08)  The Search For Josephine (75) – James Mapes

    So you think your in-laws are different?

09)  Wayfaring Stranger (89) – Peter Wood

    The soul of ET.

    Stupefying Stories 21 is an incredibly fast and easy read, so if you have a book report due tomorrow and you haven’t even started to read anything, this is the one to choose.  You can easily finish it in a single sitting.

    All of the tales are well-structured and well-written.  I was pleasantly surprised that none of the writers were "weak links", nor did any of the stories feel like they were "mailed in".  Perhaps that merits a tip-of-the-hat to the editor, either for his selection of the writers or for demanding a certain level of quality in the entries.

    Only one of the stories is in the first-person POV (My Disrupted Pony).  There is just a smidgen of cussing, and I only recall one roll-in-the-hay.  I liked the concept of a reverse camera, and enjoyed being introduced to Lok’tus and Chickenpeckers.  Ditto for the music nods to Jim Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, and Beethoven’s Fur Elise.  They all resonated with me; and anytime you mention Jackson Pollock or throw in a bit of French, you’ve got me hooked.  Finally, I hadn’t thought about the (now defunct) DEW Line in ages; thanks for reviving that bit of nostalgia.

Excerpts...

    It had been two years since Reverend Hale had found her huddled on the front steps, cold and shivering in the bleakly gray December of London, 1938.  He hadn’t asked questions, which was just as well.  Mary had no answers to give.  Her last memories were of collapsing into a fitful slumber in 2012, beside the smoldering remains of the blood-stained rug where she’d found her brother, the contents of his skull painting her bedroom in a Pollock-painting spray.  (loc. 1281)

    He never expected to live an extraordinary life and took great comfort in the knowledge that his modest talents supported his modest aspirations.  He lived alone and, although he sometimes thought about marriage, he found women perplexing.  When his friends set him up on blind dates, he went and did his best to be charming.  He was occasionally rewarded with a second date, but never a third.  (loc. 1446)

“It’s like Waiting For Godot but with supply airplanes.”  (loc. 986)

    I’m a bit leery of mentioning my personal favorites from any anthology book, because everyone’s literary tastes are different.  Nevertheless, here are the ones that stuck out in my mind, in no particular order.

    The Phoenix of Christ Church.  Because I'm partial to time-travel stories.

    Tendrils Beneath The Skin and Wayfaring Stranger.  Because both stories ask tough, situational-ethics-type questions.

    The Crippled Sucker.  Because there are very few writers who can make playing poker on a train into a fascinating story, and that was the case here.

    Your faves will almost certainly be different from mine.  A reviewer at Amazon cited My Disrupted Pony as a stand-out story, and I certainly can’t disagree with that choice, or any other selection.

    8½ Stars.  I can’t think of anything to quibble about in Stupefying Stories 21, except for: at only 9 stories and 213 total pages, it was over far too quickly.  Another half-dozen tales would’ve been nice.  Then again, if that means adding a bunch of short stories that don’t measure up to these 9 in quality, I’d probably be griping about that.  Readers are a picky lot.