Signs you’re about to read a classic pulp novel:
- Barely clad woman
- Quizzically comical space creature.
A note on the woman: I do not intend to read the book
thinking the entire time “This woman is practically nakey.” I’m inclined when I
read pulp science fiction to consider all of the characters fully clothed.
Also, I anticipate other pulp tropes to overtake her state of dishabille,
including:
- Sidekick character, likely of a non-human race, suddenly dropped from the narrative when its presence is no longer important to the plot
- Anachronistic elements of violence/mayhem involving a “futuristic” people still fighting with swords. George Lucas, pay attention . . .
- Fish-out-of-water human character growing gills so fast it’ll make your head spin.
Pulp novels, are, after all, romance novels for the
testosterone set. As a novice writer, however, I intend to read this particular
book – Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “A Princess of Mars” – by way of instruction.
They’re always briskly plotted, these novels, with a minimum of characters so
the reader doesn’t get lost in who’s doing what to whom.
This could be the genesis of another book blog, because
heaven knows the Internet needs another blog devoted to pulp novels.
Or it just could give me an excuse to post this:
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