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Post by David A. Riley on Apr 28, 2020 0:47:12 GMT
Regardless of the quality, the fact that he could manage this kind of insane schedule is utterly amazing. Has anyone ever done anything like this before or since?
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Post by andydecker on Apr 28, 2020 7:41:28 GMT
Regardless of the quality, the fact that he could manage this kind of insane schedule is utterly amazing. Has anyone ever done anything like this before or since? Good question. Maybe Walter B. Gibson, the father of The Shadow? Two novels a month for a time? Or maybe Yates aka Carter Brown?
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Post by jamesdoig on Apr 28, 2020 7:59:04 GMT
Regardless of the quality, the fact that he could manage this kind of insane schedule is utterly amazing. Has anyone ever done anything like this before or since? Good question. Maybe Walter B. Gibson, the father of The Shadow? Two novels a month for a time? Or maybe Yates aka Carter Brown? Frank Richards must be pretty close, or Kathleen Lindsay, who wrote hundreds of thrillers and crime novels under various psuedonyms for Wright & Brown and various other publishers from the 20s onwards.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 28, 2020 16:44:47 GMT
Good question. Maybe Walter B. Gibson, the father of The Shadow? Two novels a month for a time? Or maybe Yates aka Carter Brown? Frank Richards must be pretty close, or Kathleen Lindsay, who wrote hundreds of thrillers and crime novels under various psuedonyms for Wright & Brown and various other publishers from the 20s onwards. We can add Arthur J. Burks, "Speed merchant of the pulps" to the list. According to Robert Kenneth Jones, throughout the 'thirties Burks averaged just under two million published word a year. Adventure, mystery, science fiction, detective, weird, romantic fiction - if there was a market for it, Burks would write it, and then onto the next story, and the next ..... He was still going strong into his seventies.
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 29, 2020 8:44:58 GMT
Okay, so Fanthorpe and Glasby shared the Muller pseudonym. Which one of them did Alien? i.ebayimg.com/images/g/5q8AAOSwmmRdiQNj/s-l400.jpgI ask because I've seen some versions of the Gateway edition cover crediting Glasby (as with Day of the Beasts), and yet one seller on eBay is offering a version of the Badger paperback autographed by Fanthorpe. So which one is correct...? Gateway, and they miscredited Glasby, or the eBay seller/Fanthorpe himself (assuming the signature is authentic)? A third option is that it's a collaborative effort, two authors writing under the same pseudonym, like how John Brosnan and Leroy Kettle both wrote Slimer and The Fungus together as Harry Adam Knight.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 29, 2020 9:50:57 GMT
Okay, so Fanthorpe and Glasby shared the Muller pseudonym. Which one of them did Alien? Mike Ashley's Fantasy Readers Guide credits Glasby.
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Post by andydecker on Apr 29, 2020 9:57:44 GMT
Also if Gateway credits this as Glasby, this will surely be right. Glasby (or his estate) did quite a few Ebooks re-issues.
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Post by helrunar on Apr 29, 2020 12:49:04 GMT
Maybe Fanthorpe honestly couldn't recall if he'd written it or not and simply assumed he had?
I mean, if you're under the covers from 9 in the morning till 5 in the afternoon "writing" a complete "novel" every day for 30, 40 or 50 years... just what you did or didn't write must surely blur after the first five years or so.
I think we need somebody to compose a volume or chapbook concerning Lives of the Superhack(ette)s. And perhaps have a skit on y.t. featuring the loud groan that ensues when Mrs Hackette yells out "only 3000 words left to go luv... better finish up!"
cheers, H.
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Post by andydecker on Apr 29, 2020 15:12:53 GMT
Maybe Fanthorpe honestly couldn't recall if he'd written it or not and simply assumed he had? Or he signed everything which someone gave him, as long it was a Badger. I can't image that he knew who wrote what after a while.
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Post by Dr Strange on Apr 29, 2020 16:11:15 GMT
if you're under the covers from 9 in the morning till 5 in the afternoon "writing" a complete "novel" every day From what I've read online, he was writing the Badger stuff on top of having a regular daytime job - either as a journalist, van driver / warehouseman, or school teacher.
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Post by helrunar on Apr 29, 2020 20:55:07 GMT
Good god, Dr Strange. It's amazing Fanthorpe didn't wind up in the looney bin. Er, uh, I mean in a special hospital for the mentally disadvantaged.
Now I'm quite curious to play that recording of him recalling times past...
cheers, H.
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Post by kooshmeister on May 1, 2020 7:20:17 GMT
The IntrudersAlthough the cover blurb would suggest a plot similar to movies like Bert I. Gordon's King Dinosaur or Planet of Dinosaurs, the actual story has a much different setup, and the title is somewhat misleading, at least so far. Although like the latter film it begins with an exploratory spaceship suffering a malfunction which necessitates an emergency landing. Captain Velos and his navigator, Aster, are distressed when their vessel's engine begins weird clonking noises, so they wake the rest of the crew from hyper-sleep or cryo-whatsit. We have Dr. Plumbus, the physician, psychiatrist and biologist; Schafft, the mechanic and jack-of-all-trades inventor; and finally Kramer, the "rock man," who serves a variety of functions aboard the vessel from planetographer, photographer, and "recording expert," as well as geologist, the job that got him his nickname. The entire first chapter is just these five idiots deciding that, yep, the engine sure is making weird noises, and so Velos to crashland on the nearest habitable planet. This takes us into the second chapter, which is where we learn that Velos and his men are aliens, something that wasn't really hinted at in the first chapter, as reporter Val Stearman and his girlfriend with the incredibly unlikely name of La Noire are sitting in the car in East Anglia on Earth doing sitting-in-the-car things when they spot the crashlanding spaceship and along with Val's trusty .45, head off to investigate. What's a reporter doing with a gun, you ask? Well, apparently Val is some kind of former secret agent, and his handgun got him through some tough jams in the past and now he always keeps it in his car's glove box. Or something like that. The two groups meet. It turns out the aliens have visited Earth before and know English. Or at least Velos does. Convenient! As they get to chitty chitty chat chatting, it is discovered that the rough landing jostled loose a sample of a disease called the "Y" culture. The aliens are immune to it, but Earth life isn't. Oops. How're they gonna fix this? And where do the dinosaurs come in? Well, a few smallish details suggest that although this is contemporary Earth, it's in an alternate reality from our own, so perhaps there's dinosaurs. We'll see.
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Post by helrunar on May 1, 2020 14:14:45 GMT
Thanks for the fun write-up, Koosh! I hope you enjoy the book.
I thought the short story I read by the Rev, "The Drud," was a mildly amusing way to pass the time. There was nothing remotely surprising about any of it but that was OK for a short story. The only thing that was really odd involved a couple of details about the climax that were frankly absurd. These little oddments were not told or relayed in a way that remotely made any sense. But given that the Rev was simply transcribing what he saw on that afternoon's blankie screen, I guess that can be forgiven.
He did clarify in one of the interviews I watched that it took him 12 days of this (sitting under blankets talking the story into his tape player) to get through a "novel" which I think must have been the 50,000 word type thing, presumably such as the one you have in hand.
Happy May Day!
H.
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Post by cromagnonman on May 2, 2020 12:44:31 GMT
It is now abundantly clear to me that when he was small the Rev was actually Linus Van Pelt. The only wonder being that the Great Pumpkin didn't ultimately make it into one of his books. But who knows; when Shane's book arrives it may show that it did.
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Post by helrunar on May 2, 2020 15:31:23 GMT
Hilarious Richard!
Hope you and yours are keeping safe and healthy. And that you've been getting lots of great reviews and notices!
cheers, Steve
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