THE CONCLUSION OF PULP COMIC FAIRY TALE!

Now at long last, thrill to the exciting, fantabulous and awe-inspiring conclusion of PULP COMIC FAIRY TALE!

Don’t miss out on a single episode of this galaxy-spanning rollercoaster ride of intrigue, love and betrayal!

PULP COMIC FAIRY TALE – “is a stunning display of science fiction stereotypes and genre tropes” – Iasi Mov, Trantor Literary Review; “I laughed so hard coffee came out of my nose!” - Anson MacDonald, HK Luna Free Press; “Absolutely STUNNING! artwork” Frankrp Aul, Amazing Heavy Metal Stories.

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Pulp Comic Fairy Tale Chapter 9

Chapter 9 opens with this provocative shot from Galaxy.  You can see the whole thing, minus the final chapter (should be done today or tomorrow – just in time for weekend fun), here.

Notice the ticker at the top?  Skiffy Tube’s lineup is still a day late and an SF or two short, while TDTESSTWTOMD is one day closer…

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Pulp Comic Story NOT Being Sued by Fox

Hell, it would be great if some large media conglomerate decided to sue me in Federal Court – that’s BIG pr, man.

Lacking that avenue of promotional greatness, I’m forced to simply tell you that Chapter 8 of Pulp Comic Story (which has now been retitled Pulp Comic Fairy Tale – something I said I might do a while ago) is now available here.

***

A few other things while I’m thinking about it:

Fred Kiesche had to take a sledgehammer to my head to make me realize that his blog – which used to be called The Eternal Golden Braid is now called -

THE LENSMAN’S CHILDREN

***

I’ve been thinking about this for a bit: what would entice someone to read the classics if they weren’t already inclined to do so.

I’ve spent a fair number of words exlaining the ‘whys’ here already (do your homework you lazy, good-for-nothing) so let’s just assume (momentarily or otherwise) that they’re valid reasons.

Of course I don’t mean at the expense of contemporary SF.  I mean in addition to.  As a means of obtaining some grounding, some history, some appreciation, some respect for the people who all the awards are named after (yes dear, there are real people behind those award names and good reasons for naming those awards after them – The Hugo for Hugo Gernsback, father of popularizing the genre – the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, because JWC had a nack for finding and developing new talent within the pages of Astounding SF (and the other award of the same name for best novel, given out by SFRA) – Andre Norton for YA lit, given by SFWA because she wrote so many tales that introduced young-uns to SF – Arthur C. Clarke for Best UK SF, because he helped found the UK SF dynasty and because he was, you know, British – Cordwainer Smith, for rediscovering overlooked authors of merit – Damon Knight, SFWA Grandmaster award because Damon founded the org – James Tiptree – for works that explore gender, because SHE did just that - Philp K. Dick, for having so much of his original work published in paperback – Robert A. Heinlein, for so much excellence – Theodore Sturgeon, for excellent short stories – if it weren’t for those folks we’d be giving out awards named for something stupid like The Spaceship Award or The Raygun Award.

Many of those people worked very hard at what they did and (should) leave a lasting, honored memory. And they deserve to be read, along with all of their brethren and sisteren.

So what I thought was – how about if we poll the contemporary favorites and compile a referral list like they do at BMG for music (if you liked so-and-so, you ought to like whosiswhatsis too).

I mean, we already know that If you like John Scalzi, you’ll probably like Robert A. Heinlein too and If you like David Weber, you’ll probably like A. Bertram Chandler, but who else?

So let’s ask some contemporary authors the following questions:

1. Did you read SF before you were a writer?

2. Who were your favorites?

3. Who do you think influenced you the most?

4. Which of the classic authors do you think your work most resembles?

Maybe if we tell the kids this, they’ll give those classics a try.

Maybe John at SFSignal will ask this one…

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PULP COMIC STORY – CHAPTER 7 is online now!

I’ve finished chapter 7 and have tweaked the online presentation of the story just a tad.  Navigation should now be straight-forward and intuitive.

Here’s the opening panel for Chapter 7 -

 “Oh! Whatever shall I do?” cried the Princess.
“You boys have defeated every last one of my terrors. Boo hoo. Boo hoo.”
For some unknown reason, the brothers didn’t take the girl’s distress seriously.

You can see the entire thing here.

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Brought to You by the Letter ‘J’ (and Pulp Comic Story Update)

I’ve radically changed the presentation of the chapters so far.  You can still use the old link to get to the new version, or you can go here.  The only thing I’m not totally happy with in this version is I had to lose the comic book style font in the text (in order to get things to fit nicely).

Just as a quick throw-away:  this coming week on Skiffy Tube(TM), 11.something percent of programming is devoted to shows that start with the letter ‘J’.

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It’s Gonna Be One of Those Multiple Post Days…

SFSignal is now including my updates of Pulp Comic Story in their ‘free fiction’ section of the Tidbits.

A.  THANK YOU VERY MUCH

B. please email commentary as I don’t have a forum on that site – maybe I ought to add one? – but I DO want to hear what people might have to say.  No excuses in advance, but I do recognize that the text needs some editing, for typos and to nuance it a little.  When you’re trying to mix comic book narration and Grimm’s Fairy Tales style, you can easily get lost in a weird never-never land where the text says what you want it to say but doesn’t SAY what you want it to say.  Feel free to comment here also.

C. Jo Walton takes Heinlein juvenovels to task for their dystopian societies.

Huh?

Summary:  Starman Jones – poor sharecropping farmers/guilds. Tunnel in the Sky – overcrowding. Farmer in the Sky – overcrowding. Citizen of the Galaxy – slavery.  Red Planet, Between Planets – “imperial” Earth. Space Cadet – nuclear war. The Rolling Stones – no one ever goes near Earth.  Have Space Suit – Will Travel – Earth is stupid. Time for the Stars – overcrowding.  Star Beast – everyone is kowtowing to aliens.

Lack of resources, overpopulation and overbearing governments just absolutely LEAP OUT from the pages of these novels. Not.

Interesting that Starship Troopers, Podkayne of Mars and Rocketship Galileo aren’t mentioned in this survey of indictment.  Maybe S.T. was left out because we’ve been drowned in oblique criticism of that book by way of the (awful) movie – but let’s remember that in that testament to military rule, you don’t get a vote unless you’ve served, and every school child is abused by wounded vet teachers who deliberately display their injuries while brainwashing the kiddies.  And in Rocketship Galileo there are NAZIs on the moon!  Oh the horror!  (Maybe R.G. is the secret prequel to S.T.:  see, Hargreaves and the boys didn’t destroy the Nazi moonbase – they were captured and converted, the Nazis took over the Earth and viola – Starship Troopers.)

Perhaps it was word length that led to this piece by Walton.  You certainly can’t stretch ‘everyone needs a compelling reason to want to leave Earth’ into a full length entry. 

Sorry to say, but I think someone missed the point.  Those novels were not about the background histories/societies, they were about what people did after leaving them or breaking with them.  It’s called contrast.  The overall message is – be smart, be observant, don’t kowtow to convention and take responsibility for yourself.  In other words – Grow Up, because when you grow up, you leave childhood behind.

Lots of commentors stepped outside the box by mentioning non-juvenile works in support of this dystopian theory.  Yes, valid as far as the body of work is concerned, not valid when focusing just on the YA stuff.  But I’ll play the game.  In Time Enough For Love, Lazarus is ALWAYS leaving things behind.  He leaves a paranoid Earth to save the Howards from persecution, he founds new worlds so he can have ‘breathing room’, he leaves one set of descendants to start a whole new line.  At the opening of the novel he’s preparing to leave life.  Those things left behind are often dystopic – but not necessarily because they actually are.  We don’t know how they actually ‘are’ – we’re only seeing them through the eyes of a (prejudiced) leaver.

Let the dead past bury its own, as someone once said. These stories are not about how bad things are, they’re about how good things can be for people who beat their own drum.

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