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Some books change the world. They make you think, teach you something about yourself, and make you see the world with new eyes. They inspire generations, gaining immortality through their contributions to culture. They matter.

I don't want to talk about those books.

I want to talk about the yummy, yummy cotton candy books, where heroes are dashing, villains twirl mustaches, and the payoff is always worth the long odds. What makes for a good pulp novel? Why do we keep reading predictable, generic stories? In a field the critics and literati dismiss as garbage, what makes some schlock good and some execrable? And what are your favorite book series or sub-genres?


I'm drawn mostly to pulpy sci fi, especially vintage SF, milSF and A-Team style crime/hustle stories. Vintage SF is often cheesy or unselfconsciously lost in wonderment, more interested in far out ideas and crazy vistas than in character, plot or theme. I find it amusing when old novels described teams of engineers with slide rules navigating space ships, or computers the size of mountains. MilSF tends to focus on weapons and strategies and action. The characters I like tend to be sympathetic and rather direct. Hard men making hard decisions is the cliche of the subgenre, but still works when done right. And the stories about bands of mercenaries are just fun for the sheer wackiness of the characters. I know the writers are using the same formula from old heist movies and TV shows, but it still works...usually.

My Dad likes airport thrillers, usually about detectives or former special forces types. For whatever reason, I just can't find the appeal to most of them. For those of you who like mysteries and thrillers, what do you look for? What makes a thriller stand out?

What are your recommendations?

I've recently become a DM for a D&D group, and I'm finding that the Conan the Barbarian collection is really handy - Most of the stories are short, have a relatively simple structure, and a few interesting points that just scream to be put into D&D scenarios. There's some bits in there that make a modern reader either wince or roll the eyes, but there's still a lot of fun to be had there.

I also recently finished "Kings of the Wyld" by Nicholas Eames, which I liked a lot, I'm sure if I'd call it predictable or generic, but it is at base, heroic fantasy, though somewhat deconstructed. It's not a heavy, super-serious philosophical work though, so I think it counts.
Its basically about getting an old adventuring party back together after they all retired, with a lot of parallels to rock bands thrown in as well - IIRC, the tagline on the cover is "getting the band back together".
Very cool book, some great moments, great characters, and surprisingly deep in places - and again, perfect for DM theivery!

As to why we keep reading schlock - well, it's sometimes more fun to read something that is low-effort, that makes us happy, that is easier to understand than the morally grey, confusing world we live in.
Its like movies, I guess - yes, you can have a movie that is deep and harrowing and asks deep philosophical questions, but 9 times out of ten, I'd rather watch something that is fun escapism - I'd almost always prefer to watch Predator over Schindler's list, for example.

I just finished the ERB run of Barsoom stories. It's all cheesy action, foolish intrigue, and lame attempts at romance... but still a pulp classic.

I also love the "John Carter" stories.

The simple idea that at the end of every chapter you need to ramp up the action one more notch makes them hard to put down.

I liked some of the earlier John Carter stories but became a little jaded when I started to feel like it was the same story being told over and over again (I think it was the one where his son starts to head off on an adventure to save his woman for the book).


I've actually not read much of Conan despite having the book on the shelf; however I have delved into a load of the comics for Conan, esp the eariler ones (and am right annoyed that the licence changed from Dark Horse to Marvel and now they've pulled all the classics off Comixology - probably for some hyper complicated redoing of the copyright page on the front page or something before they all get put up again in who knows however long...).

I'd also throw The book of Jhereg as a fantasy adventure series into the mix and also Gotrek and Felix as good adventuring stories!

I just finished reading The House Under The Lake by Josh Malerman. I read it because I liked The Bird Box, and I hoped it would be as good. It wasn't.

It wasn't bad exactly, so much as there just wasn't a lot of... there there. It felt like a very short, insignificant piece of fluff: I hoped it would be a weird, mysterious supernatural story with some tiny elements of a first teen romance around the edges, but it was really a first teen romance with some elements of weird supernatural stuff. It felt like a YA book really, and that's not my bag.

I also hated that the characters decided early on that they didn't want to try to unravel the mystery. I am OK with maybe there being a mystery we can't comprehend or that is not explained exactly, much as with The Bird Box... but in this case, they just decided they didn't want to try. It felt dishonest, people are curious.

I didn't hate it and this sounded more negative than I intended. It just wasn't great, but at least it was very very short; I think I read it in about 3 hours tops.

I'm probably going to try that other Josh Malerman book before I made a final determination on if I like him or not.

No no no - if you are reading conan, go back to the start and read the original REH stories - he gets flanderised very quickly elsewhere.

As you may have noticed - Howard is great (conan, kull, soloman kane, etc), Fritz Leibers Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories are also good. I also have read a few of the Antares books by Alan Burt Akers, which are fun planetary romances.

Felix and Gotrek of course, i also like the kim newman GW books.

King of the Wyld is very good - try the sequal Boody Rose

I'll have to check out Antares for the planetary romance since I, too, enjoyed John Carter. I also enjoyed Conan, but think I prefer Solomon Kane just slightly. Unfortunately, I've had trouble finding a Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser story I liked.

There were lots of great pulp fantasy stories in the old Flashing Swords collections. There were many more comedic takes then than there seems to be now, satirical in the manner of Retief. It's a shame fantasy has become so serious and gritty.

Right now I'm reading a Star Risk novel that reads like a somewhat more bloodthirsty and less morally inclined A-team adventure. It's not as well done as others in the subgenre, and the characters haven't grown on me, but it passes the time quickly enough.

I'm also working my way through the Clone Republic series, about six books in, and it's some of the better milSF I've read recently. The background surrounding the clones is well handled in a way that just makes Star Wars Attack of the Clones look like pure garbage. I'd recommend the series to anyone who likes a mixture of intrigue and near-future ground combat.

Also just finished The Diary of a Murderbot, a charming, funny series with heart and an unbelievable steep price. Each book is about $12 for a novella sized text. I'd recommend checking the series out from the library because yikes, that's not okay.

I'm currently reading novels set in "Republic of Cinnabar navy" series By David Drake.

It is MilSF that basically puts the age of sailing ships in space. Drake bases his books on various historical real world events, but puts them in a far future space setting,

The space ships in the books actually have sails, but they are used to move from bubble universe to another and when a ship return to our own universe, the sails are folded to the hull and plasma thrusters are used for moving. Any greater distances are moved by slipping into a bubble universe (the Matrix) and back into our own.

Combat is done mainly by missiles with plasma cannons as backup. The plasma cannons primary function is to shoot incoming missiles, but when the ranges get closer, they are good at shooting ships too.

Fleet actions are usually about dozen ships of various size on each side. So no hundreds of ships like in the Honor Harrington series.

The planets where the stories take place are usually poor, backwater colonies where the main characters ship is usually sent to fight the war (compares roughly to south american countries during the sailing ship period with the main character being somewhat like a British sailing ship . So a sort of like the Master and Commander: far side of the world movie, but set in space)

Anyway, I'm a fan of David Drakes books (as might be guessed by my nick) and this series is great read.