Pulp Fiction!

English literature is my thing, the older the better. That doesn't mean I'm especially highbrow, however. Yes, I actually like Beowulf and Chaucer and Arthurian romances. But I also like old pulp fiction: Robert Howard (Conan! Kull!), Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan! John Carter of Mars!), H.P. Lovecraft (Cthulhu!), and so forth. However, I see this as no contradiction or incongruity. Why? Because, in my opinion, the pulps are the real successors of the older classics of the Western tradition. The Homeric epics, the Anglo-Saxon battle lays, the Middle English chivalric romances -- all of these were the popular fiction of their time, read and enjoyed by the population at large. But what we call high literature these days -- James Joyce, say -- is read by almost no-one at all for any reason, much less for fun. Instead, high literature functions as a cultural shibboleth, distinguishing the sophisticates from the plain folk. Ancient Greeks knew Achilles and Odysseus, just as Anglo-Normans knew King Arthur and Lancelot. But who in our wider culture knows Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker? Precious few! But they do know James Bond, Zorro, Sherlock Holmes, and Conan -- pulp heroes all. So pulp fiction deserves, I think, more respect than it gets.

Which all leads to this: I've long toyed with the idea of writing a pulp serial of my own. What about? I'm not sure, but I'm tossing around several ideas in my head. There will almost certainly be ninjas, however. Anyway, if I do, this'll probably be where it shows up. Be warned!