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The Men's Adventure Library Journal
A Handful of Hell: Classic War and Adventure Stories
"These stories were being read by men who'd been there, done that. I had to have the personalities and the details right. They wouldn't tolerate having men like themselves overly glorified, or to have war made glamorous. . . ."
Aviator, diplomat, and historian, Robert F. Dorr was uniquely qualified to write for men's adventure magazines, bringing sweat-and-blood, nuts-and-bolts authenticity to his stories of risk, combat, and sacrifice. Best known today for his highly regarded historical works, Dorr's stories for the men's pulps also drew from jaw-dropping true accounts, as action-packed as any imagined by his hard-boiled peers.
In this tense, gritty collection, the master storyteller drops readers squarely into the action's fiery crucible, both in the cockpit and on the front lines. Each story includes full-color reproductions of the explosive vintage art from the stories' original publication by some of the greatest names in illustration. A singular collection in the author's vast bibliography, A Handful of Hell highlights the best of Robert F. Dorr's vivid, gripping tales of aerial conflict, battlefield heroism and action--some fact, some fiction, all adrenaline-fueled, white-knuckle adventure.
"Robert F. Dorr sets the standard for writing about aviation and adventure." -- Walter J. Boyne, author and former director, National Air and Space Museum
Aviator, diplomat, and historian, Robert F. Dorr was uniquely qualified to write for men's adventure magazines, bringing sweat-and-blood, nuts-and-bolts authenticity to his stories of risk, combat, and sacrifice. Best known today for his highly regarded historical works, Dorr's stories for the men's pulps also drew from jaw-dropping true accounts, as action-packed as any imagined by his hard-boiled peers.
In this tense, gritty collection, the master storyteller drops readers squarely into the action's fiery crucible, both in the cockpit and on the front lines. Each story includes full-color reproductions of the explosive vintage art from the stories' original publication by some of the greatest names in illustration. A singular collection in the author's vast bibliography, A Handful of Hell highlights the best of Robert F. Dorr's vivid, gripping tales of aerial conflict, battlefield heroism and action--some fact, some fiction, all adrenaline-fueled, white-knuckle adventure.
"Robert F. Dorr sets the standard for writing about aviation and adventure." -- Walter J. Boyne, author and former director, National Air and Space Museum
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 22, 2016
About the author
Robert F. Dorr
81 books41 followersAuthor of "HITLER'S TIME MACHINE."
Author (1955- ); Air Force veteran (1957-60); retired Foreign Service officer (1964-89).
Author of about 75 books on the Air Force and on military history and operations.
Author of the weekly "Back Talk" column in Air Force Times newspaper, the monthly "Washington Watch" column in Aerospace America magazine; the monthly "Front Line" column in Combat Aircraft magazine; the monthly "Washington News" column in Air International magazine; the "The Way It Was" photo feature in Warbirds magazine; the "History Mystery" feature in Air Power History magazine, and other stuff.
I live in Virginia with spouse and Labrador retriever, have grown sons, new iMac. "HITLER'S TIME MACHINE" was published in December 2014
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 26, 2016
If you were an American boy growing up from the mid-1950s into the early 1970s there’s no way you could have missed the strange phenomenon called “Men’s Adventure Magazines”. I used to buy my comic books at my Philadelphia corner drug store, which of course was known as “Doc’s” and whenever I picked up the new Fantastic Four or Spider-Man my eyes inevitably were drawn to the upper rows where the “adventure” mags were ranged. They always featured beautifully lurid covers of tough American Joes: 1. blasting the hell out of Nazis, Japs or Commies, or else 2. those same tough Joes being mercilessly tortured by the aforementioned bad guys, or even better, bad girls, who for some strange reason were always knock-out voluptuous beauties wearing hot pants and bras, or 3. knock-out voluptuous beauties in underwear or torn dresses being tortured by the bad guys, or 4. some hellish combination of all of the above. Sadly, all I could do was look from afar, because snot-nosed brats like me weren’t allowed to buy these mags, and we had to settle for the Fantastic Four.
Flash forward decades into the future, and now, thanks to the editing team of Bob Deis and Wyatt Doyle, I can finally find out what exactly was in that forbidden-fruit world on the upper shelf of the magazine rack. Their latest tome, with the perfect title A HANDFUL OF HELL, features exclusively the writing of Robert F. Dorr, and these stories primarily focus on the first genre of tale that I mentioned above: tough American Joes giving the enemy hell, and quite often having hell handed right back to them. In his charming and modest introduction Dorr tells us of his fascination with airplanes from an early age – he joined the air force right out of high school, but, sadly for him, a hearing impairment prevented him from realizing his dream of becoming a pilot. But Dorr took his love for military aviation and transmuted it into dozens of stories for the men’s pulp magazines of the 1960s and 1970s – some based on fact, but as he readily admits, always more or less fictionalized, and some made up from whole cloth, but always with a solid grounding in Dorr’s vast knowledge of military aircraft and procedures. In his introduction Dorr admits that he is one of those guys who can identify any airplane every made and tell you everything there is to know about every one of those planes. This deep knowledge of military aircraft and tactics gives his stories a reality that lifts them way above the run-of-the-mill pulp story. The action always feels real in a Dorr story, and the action invariably starts in the first paragraph and doesn’t let up until the end. These are not “New Yorker” stories delving into the subtleties of human relations (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), but straightforward stories of combat and courage, written for guys who had gone through World War II and Korea. A fantastic component of this volume is the cornucopia of original art – many in full color – from the magazines the stories originally appeared in, with artists like Stan Borack, Mort Künstler, Mel Crair, George Gross, and Earl Norem. I recommend this volume unreservedly for military aviation buffs, lovers of pulp war stories and pulp art, and anyone fascinated by that strange brief heyday of the men’s adventure magazine.
Flash forward decades into the future, and now, thanks to the editing team of Bob Deis and Wyatt Doyle, I can finally find out what exactly was in that forbidden-fruit world on the upper shelf of the magazine rack. Their latest tome, with the perfect title A HANDFUL OF HELL, features exclusively the writing of Robert F. Dorr, and these stories primarily focus on the first genre of tale that I mentioned above: tough American Joes giving the enemy hell, and quite often having hell handed right back to them. In his charming and modest introduction Dorr tells us of his fascination with airplanes from an early age – he joined the air force right out of high school, but, sadly for him, a hearing impairment prevented him from realizing his dream of becoming a pilot. But Dorr took his love for military aviation and transmuted it into dozens of stories for the men’s pulp magazines of the 1960s and 1970s – some based on fact, but as he readily admits, always more or less fictionalized, and some made up from whole cloth, but always with a solid grounding in Dorr’s vast knowledge of military aircraft and procedures. In his introduction Dorr admits that he is one of those guys who can identify any airplane every made and tell you everything there is to know about every one of those planes. This deep knowledge of military aircraft and tactics gives his stories a reality that lifts them way above the run-of-the-mill pulp story. The action always feels real in a Dorr story, and the action invariably starts in the first paragraph and doesn’t let up until the end. These are not “New Yorker” stories delving into the subtleties of human relations (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), but straightforward stories of combat and courage, written for guys who had gone through World War II and Korea. A fantastic component of this volume is the cornucopia of original art – many in full color – from the magazines the stories originally appeared in, with artists like Stan Borack, Mort Künstler, Mel Crair, George Gross, and Earl Norem. I recommend this volume unreservedly for military aviation buffs, lovers of pulp war stories and pulp art, and anyone fascinated by that strange brief heyday of the men’s adventure magazine.
Displaying 1 of 1 review