Descendency

Because it's saturday and I'm tired.

Here's another thing I've noticed about pulp. Pulp kinds of stories, that is, experimental, over the top, throwing ideas at you left and right, fast moving stories and emotional roller coasters. These still exist. Indeed, I think they're more popular now than ever before.

Some of them are so intentionally over the top (and clever enough to reference pulp) that they end up being labeled as "literature." Paul Malmont, as an example. Paul, my friend you are not literature. But that's okay, because when you write books where the guys who write The Shadow and Doc Savage hang out with the founder of Scientology to investigate the death of H.P. Lovecraft and its connection to a Chinese Warlord and a ten year old unsolved murder in China Town, I honestly don't care if people call you Jesus or the Devil because I'm still going to read that book. I have, and I enjoyed it enormously. In case you're interested, that's the Chinatown Death Cloud Peril. Also, it apparently has a sequel called the Astounding, the Amazing and the Unknown. I only just realized that, but is it going on my to-read list? You bet your ass it's going on my to read list. And it damn well better be on yours. Check that shit out, maaaaaan.

Another way pulp style, if not pulp publishers per se, exist to this day is as YA and upper MG. Those are fast moving stories, that take sheerest delight in being ludicrously over the top. I have things to say about the Hunger Games for instance, but since I have a slightly different topic for that, I'll hold off. So instead I'll just say- Alternate WWII where the Brits have genetically engineered monsters, the Germans have giant robots, girls dress as boys and are so dashing they get kissed by turkish rebels? I am so there, mofos. Come to think of it, the third one in that series must be out by now. I'm talking about Scott Westerfeld, and more specifically, his Leviathan series. We all know how popular upper MG and YA are these days, even amongst adults. I would argue that it's because those books throw caution to the wind, freely acknowledge the elephant in the room, and run with it like men and women insane. They are, in short, very pulpy in style. The big difference being only that classic pulp was on a super strict schedule, especially the popular ones. Walter Gibson used to write 2 novels *a month* and consulted on other projects. I mean, that's insane. And certainly these upper MG and YA authors aren't doing that, and there's surely a bigger marketing budget behind them, whether or not it gets used. But look me in the eys (or if you don't live near NY, look a picture of me in the eyes) and say "YA is nothing like pulp. At all. Ever. Never will be. You're nuts. For reals." I dare you.

Finally, pulp is, I think, probably a bit of an inspiration for many modern zines, both in print and online, though most zines seem to take the short story route rather than a serialized novel route, probably on the grounds that it would make it hard to follow- locking new readers out. Even so, authors line up to get so much as flash fiction in an e-zine, and if you look around, there are plenty of them.

With all these legacies of pulp hanging around, you'd think people wouldn't be so down on the concept of pulp, nor the word itself, which is unjustly equated to "low budget, bad writing, poor editing, throw away nonsense." It ain't. It ain't like that at all. And I would be a happy man if I could convince all's y'alls that pulp is not a dirty word.