Blood Wedding

Vampirella #4

by Ron Goulart

A paperback book published by Warner books in 1978. It is a first edition, new from vintage store stock.

Genres: Horror, Pulp

140 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 1976

About the author

Pseudonyms: Howard Lee; Frank S Shawn; Kenneth Robeson; Con Steffanson; Josephine Kains; Joseph Silva; William Shatner.
Ron Goulart is a cultural historian and novelist. Besides writing extensively about pulp fiction—including the seminal Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of Pulp Magazines (1972)—Goulart has written for the pulps since 1952, when the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction published his first story, a sci-fi parody of letters to the editor. Since then he has written dozens of novels and countless short stories, spanning genres and using a variety of pennames, including Kenneth Robeson, Joseph Silva, and Con Steffanson. In the 1990s, he became the ghostwriter for William Shatner’s popular TekWar novels. Goulart’s After Things Fell Apart (1970) is the only science-fiction novel to ever win an Edgar Award.

In the 1970s Goulart wrote novels starring series characters like Flash Gordon and the Phantom, and in 1980 he published Hail Hibbler, a comic sci-fi novel that began the Odd Jobs, Inc. series. Goulart has also written several comic mystery series, including six books starring Groucho Marx. Having written for comic books, Goulart produced several histories of the art form, including the Comic Book Encyclopedia (2004).

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vampirella is an alien brought to Earth by forces beyond her control, and has to drink blood in order to survive. She falls in with Pendragon the magician, who becomes her (alcoholic) mentor, and eventually forms a romantic relationship with monster hunter Van Helsing. They are in continuing conflict with the evil Cult of Chaos, and have to face all manner of monsters, both human and supernatural and all stops in between. The stories are fast-paced fun, and never boring or offensive. Based on the famous comics character, the first couple of books more or less follow storylines from the magazines, but Goulart soon goes off into his own continuity. The books were obviously very hastily written, but are great quick, fun reads. There's no erotic content, despite the look of the covers, but considerable description of her appearance would no longer be accepted as correct. I bought the whole series at a science fiction convention one fine summer afternoon a decade after they were published from Rusty Hevelin, a friendly, lovely man who was a book dealer and well known as a fan, and that probably influences my memory of the series. The Vampirella books are elegant trash, and the first thing I think of when I hear the phrase "guilty pleasure."