Homework: It Came From The Pulp!
There will be no talking during this period of instruction.
It Came From The Pulp - Creature Features
Edited by Spearman BurkeStories about monsters with a retro feel. Tales in the vein of Roger Corman, Harry Harryhausen, Christopher Lee, Bob Wilkins, and so on. Giant killer kaijus! Genetic experiments! A creature feature of tentacles, gill-men, and were-beasts! Are those skeletons walking around? Oh my!
As a wee lad, I remember watching what my young mind referred to as “monster movies” with my dad. Our jam was Bob Wilkins Creature Features. All I can recall about the show are monsters, aliens with dripping syringe fingers, and enlarged brains bent on world domination. Here were entire worlds populated by vampires, swamp things, and were-creatures. Tentacled mutants spawned from darkness lagoons!
My dad used to love telling the story of the first time I saw a monster movie. I must have only been four years old. It was the original 1954 Godzilla film and I was hip deep into it. In the midst of an atomic mega-dinosaur stomping Tokyo into a mud hole, I fell asleep.
The next morning my parents awoke to the wailing cries of their only son. In my father’s mind, the movie must have given me nightmares. “That kid’s never watching monster movies ever again!”
“What’s wrong?” Dad burst into my bedroom like an action hero.
“I never got to see what happened to the monster!” Tears flowed like twin rivers down my little face. What was his fate? Did he win? Was Tokyo left a charred ruin? Was there no justice for Godzilla? “WHAAAAAAAAAHHHH!”
Thus a young boy’s love affair with monsters began.
But B-movies aren’t pulp! True, but pulp stories inspired the B-movie monsters and heroes that came after. So technically, it came from the pulp!
But if you want to go to the real source, here are some tales to get you started.
The Monster-God of Mamurth by Edmond Hamilton, from the pages of Weird Tales, and posted on this Substack last October.
“Beyond Lies the Wub” by Philip K. Dick. (But which is the monster?)
“The Hunters from Beyond” by Clark Ashton Smith.
The Doom from Planet 4 by Jack Williamson.
Monsters from Mars by Edmond Hamilton.
The Wall of Death by Victor Rousseau.
“The Devil Plant” by Lyle Wilson Holden.
“Lord of the Lamia” by Otis Adelbert Kline.
“The Desert Lich” by Frank Belknap Long, Jr.
“Black Destroyer” by A. E. van Vogt;
“‘Who Goes There?’” by Don A. Stuart (John W. Campbell);
and “Spawn” by P. Schuyler Miller, all available in this Baen collection.
To be clear, we’re not looking for stories written in a screenwriting style, but tales that evoke the themes and monsters of those eras. Fan fiction is not our jam. Leap off into something original inspired by all of this.
In the end, just write something fun!
It Came From The Pulp - Creature Features
Opens: 07/19/25
Closes: 09/07/25
Contracts: 09/20/25
Publication: 10/17/25
Seen all those movies! Read all those stories! Uh, what does that say about me, I wonder? Guess that's why I became a writer, huh?
What a fabulous idea.