The Latest Pulp Posts!

These novels, deeply rooted in the pulp tradition, capture the essence of detective noir through their hard-boiled protagonists, morally gray worlds, and gritty narratives.

1. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (1939) Philip Marlowe, Chandler’s iconic private detective, navigates a tangled web of blackmail, murder, and corruption in Los Angeles to protect a millionaire’s wayward daughters. This debut novel epitomizes pulp noir with its terse prose, morally complex characters, and seedy urban backdrop. Its vivid depiction of a corrupt Hollywood, laced with sharp dialogue and a cynical worldview, made it a cornerstone of the genre, influencing countless adaptations and cementing Chandler’s legacy as a pulp master.

2. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1930) Sam Spade, a hard-boiled private eye, gets embroiled in a deadly hunt for a priceless falcon statue while investigating his partner’s murder. Hammett’s lean, unsentimental style, honed in pulp magazines like Black Mask, delivers a

By TJ Martinell

The original pulp fiction was meant as a throw-away form of entertainment. It was enjoyed via dime novels by the poor and cowboys isolated on wild west ranches. The term “pulp” referred to the cheap form of paper used to print those books, with the assumption they would be tossed aside once read. No one thought they would be taken seriously or remember.

Initially, that is what happened. There are countless pulp or dime novels that were written that no one can recall, authors whose words will never be evoked again.

To be fair, that fate is deserved. Pulp fiction’s poor quality is what inspired pencil-maker Edgar Rice Burroughs to throw his gauntlet down and challenge writers to do better. It goes without saying he succeeded in a way that perhaps he did not even anticipate. He and others paved the way for other pulp writers to explore genres that otherwise would have never existed outside of pulp.

I suspect that what made Burroughs and other pulp writers that followed