Pulp Magazine Authors and Literature Fans discussion

I think The Destroyer qualifies as a pulp hero.
http://www.goodreads.com/series/40499...

The basic idea is that Remo, a dumb but honest cop, gets hijacked into a super secret, extra-legal organization to be their assassin. Chiun, a tiny little guy from North Korea, teaches him to be the ultimate killing machine. They get sent on missions by Smith, a humorless bureaucrat, & wind up saving the world or a good part of it in every book.

The series started in the early 70's & was still going strong the last time I looked, but further research shows it stopped at #145. It was time. I loved it until Richard Sapir died - around the mid 60's, although his name appeared on many of the novels after that. I kept collecting & reading them up to 100 or so, though. Sapir was a political columnist & he really helped Warren Murphy's goofy humor which is a bit too slapstick for me.

It starts with Created, the Destroyer & goes up to Dragon Bones, #145. Apparently there is a 'New Destroyer' series that is listed here as books #146 - #149. I haven't read any of those.

Has anyone else read & loved this series?

I read my first one last year and thought it was pretty good. I saw they are bringing it back in a limited fashion and thought I might try more of it at some point.

The only problem with trying to pick up with a series that has so much history to it is unless you go back and get the backstory, the author usually assumes you know the character's history and skips through a lot of it. Comic books and Star Wars novels have that same problem too :)

I've read a couple some time back; early ones like Bay City Blast, another one with Remo going up against killer children (can't remember the name) and yes, I'd agree with the pulp hero tag. They're worth picking up in used stores if the price is reasonable.

I think something like the Destroyer would be an innovative idea to bring back as an ebook subscription, as well. Weren't the original Destroyer books sold by monthly subscription? Do that through Amazon like a magazine and we could all experience the old Destroyers for the first time. Just a thought.

I just ordered #145 & #1 (146 in line) of the 'New Destroyer' on PaperBackSwap. I wasn't thrilled with any of the later Destroyer books, but I think 110 or so was about the last I read & that was a decade or more ago. I want to see where the series went & if it got any better with Mullaney.

Looking at Warren Murphy's page, I believe I've done him wrong. I always thought when Sapir quit writing with him, the series went down hill, but I now see that most of the books I thought he wrote solo were actually written by Will Murray. I just didn't notice the change. I guess I quit paying attention to the author because Sapir is often listed as an author & he's been dead for over 20 years.

Will Murray also wrote some of the Doc Savage books in the early 90's.

Elie wrote: "I think something like the Destroyer would be an innovative idea to bring back as an ebook subscription, as well. Weren't the original Destroyer books sold by monthly subscription? Do that through ..."

I never picked them up through a subscription, but that would be neat. I'd like to collect them like that, but I don't think I'd pay much. Maybe if they were $1 each or so.

I think that The Destroyer could have been like The Executioner series, and the publisher offered a subscription to any and all of their books, just like Hard Case used to. You paid a yearly or monthly fee and they'd mail the books to you, since they came out on a regular basis.

But none of them were sold exclusively through subscription. They were sold the same way Harlequin romance novels were (and in most cases were imprints of Harlequin). You could buy them in supermarkets, drug stores, magazine racks, and in regular bookstores.

I have some news about the series.

Last spring the rights to most of the Destroyers reverted to Warren Murphy. He and his sons have been putting them up on Kindle. Most of the books from Created to #49:Skin Deep are available, with many more to come. List Link

Tor published four New Destroyers in 2007/08, co-written by Warren and James Mullaney. They're still available at Amazon, in books and kindle, though I think one of the paperbacks is sold out.

Jim wrote: I wasn't thrilled with any of the later Destroyer books, but I think 110 or so was about the last I read & that was a decade or more ago. I want to see where the series went & if it got any better with Mullaney.

Jim Mullaney wrote #s 111 through 131. You're in for a treat when you read them, Jim. He was a very good ghost writer. He's been busy writing a new, solo series. The first book just went up on Kindle. I'm going to link to it in another forum here.

Warren Murphy is on Facebook. He's writing a new Destroyer which he'll put on Kindle. He hasn't said yet if it's a short story or novella or novel. It's the first new Destroyer story in almost three years, so I don't care about the length; I'm too happy I'll get to read another new adventure of Remo and Chiun.

I'm hoping if it sells well enough, Warren will start self-publishing new Destroyers regularly on Kindle and in paperback.

Thanks, Donna. Maybe I'll give one of Mullaney's a try. I just finished reading Dragon Bones #145, the last of the 'Destroyer' books, & Choke Hold, the first of the 'New Destroyer' books. Both were OK, no difference from the last ones I read, though.

Thanks for the tip. I just did a search and saw they were up on Kindle for a buck apiece. I shall have to begin checking them out

Anybody out there ever check out Blood & Tacos. It's a quarterly little book that Johnny Shaw puts out devoted to the pulp hero genre fiction like The Destroyer... it's fun and worth the .99 if you dig this stuff.

I've got Blood & Tacos number #. Got a great story in it by Chris La Tray. Haven't read the whole thing, though