Pulp of the Week - Green Lama: Scions

The Green Lama: Scions  by Adam Lance Garcia

Adam Garcia's third Green Lama tale is a terrific addition to the saga. Scions (and planned future books) are published by Moonstone Books and feature the mysterious Green Lama facing off against a bizarre, monsterous, foe.

The story begins with the crash of a passenger ship into Liberty Island. All on board are dead, save one. Dead long before the crash at their own hands. A bloodbath of unspeakable horror. A portent of Lovecraftian delights to follow in this and other adventures.

The Green Lama is joined in this adventure by Jean Farrell, Lt. Caraway, Ken Clayton, and Gary and Evangl Stewart-Brown all get involved, Jethro Dumont puts in an appearance or two as does reporter Betty Dale (from the Secret Agent X stories). She also refers to fellow reporter Din from the Planet (she is the reporter in the Foster Fade stories) and to the Spider. Adam seems to be having a ball with the references and I found it fun, too.

For those interested in such things, there is a handy timeline in the back of the book that shows where Scions fits into the Lamaverse. One of the nice things about the Green Lama saga is that were only around a dozen original stories published in the pulps of the 1930s (unlike the hundreds of Shadow and Doc Savage stories which gives Garcia much less existing canon a lot of space to work in.

I will close by saying that Adam Garcia has another fun pulp tale and really gets the Green Lama and his supporting cast. I eagerly await future volumes. Enjoy this little excerpt of reporter Betty Dale speaking to Dumont's manservant, Tsarong:

    "When are you expecting Dumont back?"
    "I couldn't say Miss Dale, I am not his keeper."
    "Guess we're just gonna have to wait, then." She dropped down into Jethro's desk chair. She waved at the rows and rows of books lining the walls. "Does he read all those?"
    "Not all at once, and usually one page at a time."
    "Now that's interesting," she said, ignoring Tsarong's quip. "By every account, our friend Dumont is little more than an immature womanizer who won't crack open anything that doesn't have two legs and here he is with more books than the Library of Alexandria."

I give "The Green Lama: Scions" a 9 out of 10 and the cover is an awesome painting of Adam by Doug Klauba.

You can buy Scions in print here
 ebook here
4 wheels here



   

Pulp of the Week - Doc Savage #14

April, 1934  - The Monsters

The Monsters is another terrific yarn from the mind of Lester Dent. Eschewing the exotic locales of recent issues, Dent puts Doc right in the heart of America, in Upper Michigan. For those that have seen the Bantam cover it should come to no surprise that the novel involves giants. The cover painting by James Bama is one of my personal favorites. The hand wrapping Doc to crush him. As you can see above, James Bama took a bit of inspiration from Walter Baumhofer.

The ever-prescient Dent (or maybe history is repeating itself in our time) came up with this one: "Doc set up his radio apparatus. Working through a station on Long Island, which transposed his words from the ether to land-line, he got in touch with Renny." Land-line. Nifty.

There aren't a lot of new gadgets here, but the action is good, the story is good, and the writing is good. Dent captures the culture of fur traders well, just as he did with Tibetans or South Americans.

There is the usual bit of insensitive language, this time it's  regarding some traveling circus acts and a fur trapper named Bruno Hen who Dent calls a "breed," probably referring to a mixed race heritage.

The story plays out well with an airplane dogfight, shoot-outs, and huge explosions.

For this review I read my Bantam paperback 4th printing, July 1974. The pulp cover is by Walter Baumhofer and the paperback cover is by James Bama. They are both classic covers.

 

I give The Monsters an 8 out of 10.

Pulp of the Week - G-8 and his Battle Aces #1

This is the start of a new feature. Don't let the name fool you, there won't be one of these each week, but I will put them up from time to time.

G-8 and his BATTLE ACES

AN INTRODUCTION

Starting before the turn of the century, Argosy Magazine and Adventure Magazine led the way in popular fiction. Novels and short stories of all kinds filled pages of innumerable magazines on the racks. Then, in April, 1931 'The Shadow' hit. Followed by 'Doc Savage' in March of 1933. The era of the "Character Pulps" was underway and 'G-8 and his Battle Aces' joined the fray in October of 1933. There were many pulps, but 'G-8' remains one of the most popular after lasting 110 monthly issues.

G-8 was created in the years following the success of The Shadow and Doc Savage by writer Robert J. Hogan. There were 110 issues of "G-8 and his Battle Aces" published beginning in Oct. 1933. Hogan, a former pilot wrote all the G-8 novels and most if not all of the back-up stories. In addition, all of the covers were painted by Frederick Blakeslee. That is an unprecedented run.

G-8 is an American spy and flying ace during the Great War. His adventures mainly see him fighting the Germans under Kaiser Wilhelm II. He is a master spy; America's greatest and hated by the Germans for successful mission after mission. However - they have never seen his real face. He is fluent in German and with the help of his man-servant named Battle, a master of disguise. He is also a flying ace; one of the worlds greatest pilots. As far as we know, G-8 is his real name, we learn no other.



The G-8 adventures pit the man with no name against the Kaiser's most bizarre creations of super-science and the supernatural. G-8 fought a menagerie of bizarre villains: Herr Grun, an ape man; Man in Armor, a pilot in full armor plate that lead an army of corpses; Gorilla men led by Dr. Schlemmer; Herr Feuer, a firebug. There were also monsters like vampires, werewolves, and zombies. That list sounds like it could be an issue of Hellboy or a list of scenarios for Tannhäuser, AE WWII, or Shadows of the Third Reich.

I have read issues of the Shadow and more than half the issues of Doc Savage. For some reason I was never aware of G-8. Well that has changed. I will be putting the G-8 stories into my reading rotation.

The Bat Staffel - G-8 and his Battle Aces issue #1, Oct. 1933

staffel - Noun - German for 'squadron'

This premiere issue begins with G-8 already a master spy and the German's worst enemy. The story opens with a disguised G-8 intentionally getting captured in a bid to get to Herr Doktor Krueger, one of G-8s recurring villains. He is a mad scientist that creates a series of horrifying schemes to bring victory to Germany. This issue involves giant bats spraying a deadly gas over France. The gas dissolves its victim into a pile of dust. Krueger boasts to G-8 that an army of giant bats will breathe their deadly 'bat's breath' over all of France.

G-8 escapes Krueger's clutches and returns to his airfield with a new mission - to find Krueger's giant bat cave and stop the attack. G-8 recruits a pair of pilots that helped out when he was escaping Krueger's castle. He selects them to join his secret squadron.

The flying aces are Bull Martin and Nippy Weston, two Americans that stick with the master spy through the run of the series. Nippy is a short analytical pilot that dreams of being the next great stage magician. His plane is #13, showing that he believes you make your own luck and superstition shouldn't rule your life. Bull Martin is a former College All Star half-back. He is a big man and a fierce fighter. He fears no man, but he can be taken in by superstition. His Spad is #7 for good luck.

The story is a great mix of spy intrigue behind enemy lines, dogfights, shootouts, fist fights, and a ton of action. I quite enjoyed the story and am interested in reading more. The flying scenes are very well written; exciting and well described. The writer, Robert J. Hogan, makes it easy to keep track of the different planes and who is where in the battle. Not an easy task and he succeeds admirably. Additionally, G-8 and his men are distinct characters and their interplay is fun to read.

The mixture of war action and weird menace is very appealing to me and feels like a precursor to Hellboy, Tannhäuser, and the current crop of Weird War II games and fiction.

Needless to say, G-8 and his Battle Aces prevail, but not before Doktor Krueger escapes. There are 109 more stories and from what I've read, they only get weirder from here. Since much of this first novel sets up the series I am looking forward to a bit more story in subsequent issues.



Where can you find the G-8 novels? Vintage New Media has been re-publishing the run of pulp novels. They have selected issues available as PDFs. That is how I obtained this story. Some of the books were reprinted as paperbacks in the 1960's, but beware - there are different printings of #1 and and one of them is not the first issue.

I would like to thank Bill Mann for some information and for compiling his awesome G-8 and his Battle Aces Cover Gallery. Bill also publishes a line of Air War pulp reprints under his Age of Aces Books imprint.

© 2008 W. Peter Miller

Doc Savage Complete Pulp Run

Heritage auctions currently has a complete run of all the original Doc Savage pulps for sale.

Check it out here.