Skyrocket Steele

by Ron Goulart

1st edition Pocket 1980 paperback, fine In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

Genres: Science Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published February 2, 1980

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]

This is one of Goulart's zanier and funnier farces. Set in 1940, it tells the story of the making of a science fiction serial epic, the eponymous Skyrocket Steele, which gets interrupted by aliens and Nazis and all manner of unlikely Hollywood hijinks.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just as I've basically lumped the 1st 28 Goulart bks that I've read together & referred all reviews to my one review of "Wildsmith", I read my 29th Goulart & it doesn't have a single bit of humorously dysfunctional technology in it - thusly making it significantly different from what I remember of the others I've read. Anyway, this one's basically a parody of hack SF serial writing in the 1940s & did have the Goulart trademark goofiness that I like & was pulp-readable in a successfully fluid way, etc, etc.. There's also a subplot of the 2 Hollywood script writers constantly referencing wch Hollywood figures are gay - wch seems more of a parody of the 1940s bourgeois than homophobic but it wd probably wear pretty thin to most people I know pretty quickly. Fortunately, that falls to the wayside eventually.

[Jim Mcclanahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not exactly deathless prose, but an entertaining little read. It's imbued with nostalgic snippets of the 1940s Hollywood scene, complete with name-dropping of luminaries of the day. The characters are pretty much just cardboard cutouts, but they move the story along without too much fuss. Real space ships and ray guns instead of just shimy props. Don't overthink it, just enjoy it.

[Andrew Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classical mode fiction, but from the 1980s, so a bit more intelligently written, though at the same time it is partly a pastiche, & part homage to an era (1940s).
It got the forth star for giving a good 1940s period feel, while also somehow not giving any sense of being dated. In the same way, he has managed to make the required female oriented humor required of the pastiche form without coming across as misogynistic, but simply juvenile.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

More Goulart Parody

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been a fan of Goulart's work for many years, from his original stuff to his his ghost work(think TEKWAR for one; I thought it was nice of Shatner to give Ron thanks for his "assistance" about four, five books into the series).

This one finds a young pulp writer, Pete Tinsley, in Hollywood to help a writer get out a Martian serial in 1940 and he soon falls for a young woman named Tracy Flinn that seems to have a knack that gets them out of trouble now and again.

As the story unfolds, Pete learns there's more going on than a few gangsters and Nazis mixing it up.

Entertaining piece of science fiction.

[Brett]

Science Fiction

[Sci Fi Bookery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Watch my full review here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63Asq...