Utter the words “pulp fiction” and some people will think of the Quentin Tarantino movie, some will think of badly written hack work and some will think of the real thing: stories produced for the cheap magazines of the 20th century’s first half. What all three variations have in common is fast-paced, melodramatic storytelling that skids away from the curb in the first paragraph and doesn’t start tapping the brakes until the last.
But if you prefer pulp at a slightly slower pace, you might be interested in exploring the adventures of The Shadow, as told to Maxwell Grant. (Grant was a house name – most of the 325 Shadow novels were penned by Walter B. Gibson.) Nostalgia Ventures continues its revival/reprint series of Shadow tales with THE SHADOW: THE CHINESE DISKS / MALMORDO.
In the first novel, from 1934, The Shadow is still accumulating his large cast of supporting players. It also marked one of the few times a villain from the first story, “The Living Shadow,” makes a return appearance. The criminal in question is Diamond Bert Farwell, a master of disguise almost as ingenious as The Shadow himself. It’s a story about jewel robbery.
If Gibson’s style was slower than most pulpsters, he did pepper his tales with sudden bursts of violence, and The Shadow was willing to dish it out and not just take it. Still, the author didn’t write action scenes as well as many of his colleagues did, and that makes the novels seem that much slower.
From 1946, the second tale has an interesting backstory: His publisher was taking its own sweet time in renewing his contract, so Gibson wasn’t all that eager to begin a new novel. Deciding that they would sooner or later sign a new contract with him, he began piddling around with an idea on a Sunday morning.
The more he typed, the more pissed off he became at the way they were treating him, so he took out his frustration on his typewriter. Suddenly, it was 5 a.m. Monday, and Gibson discovered that he had written a 20,000 word novella in 24 hours. The irony is that publisher Street & Smith did not renew his contract and Gibson was away from the character for two years before returning in 1948 to write the Shadow’s final five adventures.
At $12.99 each, these volumes are a good price for pulp reprints, and Nostalgia Ventures is bringing them out one a month, so The Shadow is coming back with a publication schedule like the one he enjoyed at the height of his popularity. –Doug Bentin
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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• THE SHADOW: CRIME, INSURED / THE GOLDEN VULTURE by Walter B. Gibson
• THE SHADOW: THE DEATH GIVER by Maxwell Grant
• THE SHADOW: HIDDEN DEATH by Maxwell Grant
Related posts:
- The Shadow: Crime, Insured / The Golden Vulture
- Doc Savage: Fortress of Solitude / The Devil Genghis
- The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril
- Sun and Shadow
- A Test of Wills / A Long Shadow
