Comic Book Review: Dark Mysteries Vol. 1

Comic Book Review: Dark Mysteries Vol. 1 by Various Artists This is another of the PS Artbooks softcover collections of pre-Code horror comics, collecting the first five issues of Dark Mysteries from Master Comics, published in 1951-1952. These comic books may have been read by the youth, but the shaping underwear ads indicate an older… Continue reading Comic Book Review: Dark Mysteries Vol. 1

Comic Book Review: The Best of DC #30: Detective Comics

Cover by Aparo.

Comic Book Review: The Best of DC #30: Detective Comics edited by Len Wein Detective Comics is one of DC’s longest-running comic book series, and indeed, they’re named after it. While it’s best known as the birthplace of Batman, over the years it’s hosted several other features involving some form of detection or mystery solving.… Continue reading Comic Book Review: The Best of DC #30: Detective Comics

Book Review: Way of a Buccaneer

Book Review: Way of a Buccaneer by Davenport Steward It is 1663, and young Wayne Thorp, late of Cambridge University, is assisting his father Captain Thomas Thorpe in a smuggling voyage to Spanish-controlled Panama. Unfortunately, their trading partner, Irish-Spanish minor government official Don Timóteo O’Bannion y Salazar, has decided he can make even more money… Continue reading Book Review: Way of a Buccaneer

Magazine Review: High Adventure #194: Wheeler-Nicholson Special

Magazine Review: High Adventure #194: Wheeler-Nicholson Special edited by John P. Gunnison This volume of the pulp reprints series has five stories by Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, who in addition to writing many fine pulp stories is important to the history of comic books. In 1935, he founded National Allied Publications, which published the first comic… Continue reading Magazine Review: High Adventure #194: Wheeler-Nicholson Special

Magazine Review: High Adventure #191: Action Special

This cover is unrelated to any of the stories within.

Magazine Review: High Adventure #191: Action Special edited by John P. Gunnison This issue of the pulp fiction reprint magazine has five stories from different action subgenres from five different magazines. Let’s see what’s in the grab bag! “The Jonah” by Bill Adams, first published in The Blue Book Magazine November 1935, is a sea… Continue reading Magazine Review: High Adventure #191: Action Special

Magazine Review: High Adventure #190: H. Bedford-Jones – Adventure

Magazine Review: High Adventure #190: H. Bedford-Jones – Adventure edited by John P. Gunnison This issue of the pulp reprint magazine collects three stories from the multiple typewriters of prolific author Henry James O’Brien Bedford-Jones (1887-1949). He was born in Canada, but moved to the United States in his teens and became a naturalized citizen… Continue reading Magazine Review: High Adventure #190: H. Bedford-Jones – Adventure

Book Review: The Empire of the Ants

Book Review: The Empire of the Ants by H.G. Wells In addition to his famous longer works like The War of the Worlds, Herbert George Wells also wrote a number of speculative fiction short stories. What I’m reviewing today is a collection published by Scholastic Book Services (and mostly sold at school book fairs) which… Continue reading Book Review: The Empire of the Ants

Book Review: The Argosy Book of Adventure Stories

Book Review: The Argosy Book of Adventure Stories edited by Rogers Terrill This collection of exciting tales of action and bravery plucked from the pages of Argosy, the long-running pulp magazine, is most notable for only choosing from those printed between 1946 and 1952, when the collection was published. Thus it had, at the time,… Continue reading Book Review: The Argosy Book of Adventure Stories

Book Review: The Book of Cthulhu II

Book Review: The Book of Cthulhu II edited by Ross E. Lockhart It’s spooky stuff month again, so I sat down with this thick volume (24 stories) of tales inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft for a couple of weeks. This is a sequel to The Book of Cthulhu that I reviewed earlier on… Continue reading Book Review: The Book of Cthulhu II

Book Review: The Pocket Companion

Book Review: The Pocket Companion edited by Philip Van Doren Stern This 1942 paperback anthology was designed for people who wanted a lot of reading in a pocket-sized book, so has a novel, short stories, articles, poetry and trivia. The closest thing to a theme is the connection between the British and Americans, now allies… Continue reading Book Review: The Pocket Companion