Beck,
K. K. The Revenge of Kali-Ra.
Paul Malmont clearly loves pulps.
The
Chinatown Cloud Peril is one of the most fun books I’ve ever read. He revisits this territory in The Astounding, the Amazing and the Unknown.
Astounding
places fictional versions of science
fiction authors in a scientific mystery
adventure
some of them might have been glad to write.
Some of the characters are pulp authors who appeared in Peril (Robert
Heinlein, L.
Ron Hubbard, Walter
Gibson, and Lester
Dent, a fellow Missourian). Others are authors of the era when the old
pulps gave way to comics and sci-fi magazines (Isaac
Asimov, L.
Sprague de Camp, and editor John
Campbell).
A group of science fiction
writers, most of them scientist and engineers as well, are working for the Navy
to turn crazy ideas into reality in a proto-DARPA. They’re not producing a lot of results and
their leader, former Naval officer Heinlein, is feeling the pressure. They stumble upon the suggestion that
inventor Nikola
Tesla accidentally created a superweapon at Wardenclyffe, which is why the
tower he built there came down. Their
search for answers leads them on a twisting trail from the underground rivers
of New York to the heights of the General
Electric hierarchy. Red herrings about and these clever authors
don’t catch on to the biggest one in the book.
The character development is
interesting, too. Heinlein is feeling
left out of opportunities to make a real difference, but eventually gets an
inkling that his stories can make a difference.
The seeds of Scientology
are planted in Hubbard. I think the
strongest character development occurs in the fictional Asimov. He goes through something like a conventional
coming-of-age story. He starts as a
frightened youth, faces his fears and becomes a man. In addition, is a loner struggling in his marriage
who finds a way to bring his wife into partnership with him, having a passion
for her that matched the passion he had for his work. That is good stuff; it adds depth to a story
that is mostly and-then-and-then suspense.
For the geeks (that includes
me), there are appearances by fictional versions of many other people. Authors include Nowell
Page of The Spider, Hugh
Cave, aka Justin
Case, and Kurt
Vonnegut as an Easter egg. Actor Jimmy
Stewart lends his skill as a pilot.
Mystic and rocket scientist Jack
Parsons could spin off a weird tale of his own. Even Manhattan
Project physicists Robert
Oppenheimer, Julian
Schwinger, and Richard
Feynman make an appearance.
While I’m writing about an
homage to pulps, I’d like to mention The
Revenge of Kali-Ra by K. K. Beck. I
wrote a review of it that got lost in a hard drive crash (even so, I named it
one of the best
books I read in 2010). The story
focuses on fictional pulp stories featuring the villainous vixen of the title,
which may no longer be public domain and may be valuable because of a proposed
movie base on them. The scent of money
is in the air, bad characters pick up the scent, decent people are caught up in
the events, and mayhem ensues. Kali-Ra isn’t as good as Astounding, but it’s a fun read. Beck includes clips from ersatz Kali-Ra tales
that are full of the type of florid language one might expect, even hope for,
in pulp.
Paul Malmont also wrote The Chinatown
Death Cloud Peril.
If you’re interested in this
book, you may also be interested in
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