Deadly Excitements: Shadows & Phantoms

by Robert Sampson

This volume celebrates yesterday’s pulp magazines and their heroes and heroines. Readers will acquaint themselves with such famous magazine titles as The Shadow , The Black Mask , Weird Tales , and others as obscure as Scientific Detective Monthly and the sensuous Scarlet Adventuress of dim reputation. And Erle Stanley Gardner’s tough White Rings; Toffee the dream girl; Senorita Scorpion, a quick-trigger blond from Old Texas; Oscar Sail, protagonist of a pair of ferocious stories. And mediums, bandits, cowboys, detectives, vivacious characters, fascinating and vitally alive.

234 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very nicely written overview of many of the pulp era books and characters both great and small. Good informative read. Recommended

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am going to write a placeholder review for all of Robert Sampson's books because I plan to reread them soon. Hands down, the best writer/historian the pulps ever had! Why? Because he loves the pulps but he's not "in love" with them - he can show you why they were great, why they were awful, why they were brilliant, why they were cheap, how they were poetic and how they were trash, and do it all while informing you AND placing the whole shebang in it's cultural context AND entertaining you. An amazing writer, I believe I need one more book by him to have everything he ever wrote on the subject (that's been printed in book form, at least) - you may not ever need to actually read many pulp stories and now you don't have to - Robert Sampson has and can condense their weird wonder down into this strange, printed form of a magic elixir (a mixed metaphor!?! why, that would have made me 2/3rds of a cent if I was a bang-em out, hack pulp writer!)

Seriously, these are some stunning books and well worth your time if you have any interest in the topic of the pulps and dime novels and genre history.