I just got back from attending PulpFest for the first time. No, this  isn’t a gathering of maniacal orange-juice fanatics (Freshly Squeezed For Me or Fight!) PulpFest caters to a rather-different fan base: aficionados of the popular fiction published in the pulp magazines of the early 20th century.

Entertaining millions of readers from their start in 1896 until their demise in the mid-1950s, pulp stories ran the gamut from mysteries and detective fiction to war stories, adventure, romance, fantasy, horror, science fiction, and “spicy” tales.

Why were they called pulps? Because the magazines publishing them — bearing such names as Argosy, Black Mask, Weird Tales, and Amazing Stories — were printed on cheap, untrimmed wood-pulp paper. The more expensive periodicals of the day, such as Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post, were known as “slicks” or “glossies” for their higher-quality paper.

Never seen a pulp magazine? Never even heard of pulps? I bet you know more about them than you realize.

Here are some popular characters that debuted in the pulps: Sam Spade, Tarzan, Buck Rogers, Hopalong Cassady, Conan the Barbarian, Philip Marlowe, Doc Savage, Zorro, the Cisco Kid, Nick and Nora Charles, and The Shadow.

As you may have guessed, many pulp characters became household names not via the original magazine stories but after being adapted for other media.

Although I was born a decade after the disappearance of pulps, I grew up reading Doc Savage novels and Conan comics, watching Tarzan and Buck Rogers on TV, and listening to old Shadow radio episodes on records. Later, I came to enjoy classic films such as The Thin Man, The Big Sleep, and The Maltese Falcon — all starring detectives from the pulps.

And as I’ve previously related here, I have a special fondness for the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, particularly the John Carter of Mars series. I have a dog named Woola, his faithful companion. My license plate reads BARSOOM (the natives’ word for Mars). And my wife bears a striking resemblance to Carter’s wife Dejah Thoris.

Coincidence? Not on your life. Or mine.

My ERB fixation is what brought me to PulpFest in the first place. My friends and I from the Carolinas chapter of the Burroughs Bibliophiles volunteered to staff the organization’s table at the convention, which happens to be held near the town of … wait for it . . . Mars, Pennsylvania.

Although I’ve been a fan of these and other pulp characters all my life, I never thought I’d write my own fiction. I began my career as a newspaper and  magazine reporter — covering everything from city councils to congressional hearings — and wrote a succession of Very Serious Books on Very Serious Subjects.

When I made my turn to fiction in 2020, however, I found myself writing the kind of stuff I’d always enjoyed reading:

• Action-adventure scenes like Burroughs penned for John Carter and Tarzan.
• Swords-and-sorcery scenes like Robert E. Howard created for Conan and Solomon Kane.
• Puzzle-solving scenes like Isaac Asimov constructed for his I, Robot and Foundation stories.

Pulp fiction, in other words. How could I do otherwise? Its characters fill my head. Its ink flows in my veins.

Now, the literary magazine Sonder isn’t printed on ragged paper. But the Folklore Cycle story featured in its latest issue, The Giant,  is plenty pulpy. There are fistfights, and swordfights, and firefights  (of both the dragoon and dragon varieties). There are heroes battling monsters, and monsters who might themselves be heroes. There’s a mystery to solve. There’s a heart to mend.

Click here to visit a page on the Folklore Cycle site that features background material on The Giant and a link to the free-to-read story in Sonder.

I should also mention that the third full-length novel in the series, Water Folk, will also be published soon. As soon as the preorder link is ready, I’ll pass it along.

Haven’t read the first two books in the series yet? No problem. Just click on  the following titles to find all the buying options for Mountain Folk and Forest Folk. The best deal of all, though, is only available from our website: both books for the price of one!