Category Archives: Pan Books

Pulp Friday: A Clockwork Orange

Posted on June 30, 2017 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

It has been a while between posts, I know. This site, as well as a number of other things in my life, has taken a back seat in order for me to meet a few pressing deadlines, in particular, working on a monograph for a English publisher on Norman Jewison’s 1975 dystopian science fiction classic, Rollerball.

While Jewison was not a great fan of science fiction he was impressed by two science fiction films, both of them made by Stanley Kubrick: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange, released in 1971 (although it was not released in Australian until 1988). It is this latter film that is the subject of today’s Pulp Friday post.

Published by Anthony Burgess in 1962, A Clockwork Orange is set in a near future dystopian England suffering from an epidemic of extreme youth violence and economic stagnation. The book’s teenage protagonist, Alex, narrates the story of his various criminal exploits and the subsequent efforts of the conservative state authorities to rehabilitate him, in a made up language Burgess called ‘Nadsat’.

Burgess’s own politics were conservative, with a streak of anarchism running through his thinking. He wrote A Clockwork Orange in three weeks, influenced by his views of the growing youth culture in early sixties England.… Read more

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Posted in British crime cinema, Dystopian cinema, Pan Books, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, Science fiction and fantasy, Vintage pulp paperback covers

Tagged 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Anthony Burgess, Ballantine Books, Norman Jewison, Pan Books, Rollerball (1975), Stanley Kubrick

Pulp Friday: The Man Who Fell to Earth

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

Like so many people, I was enormously saddened by news this week of the death of David Bowie, from cancer at the age of 69.

There is no need for me to replicate all the sentiments that have been expressed elsewhere about Bowie’s passing, except to say that for me, as for so many of you, his death has left a huge hole in my popular culture landscape and the world is a less interesting place without him.

I did want to do something on this site to commemorate Bowie, however. And what better way to pay tribute to the man who once said his perfect idea of happiness is reading, than through books. So, my first Pulp Friday offering for 2016 is dedicated to the wonderful David Bowie: a selection of paperback tie ins for The Man Who Fell to Earth, directed by Nicolas Roeg, released in 1976.

It was only when I was doing research for an article on the ‘David Bowie Is’ exception that toured Melbourne last year, that I discovered The Man Who Fell to Earth was a book before it was a film. The Man Who Fell to Earth was first published in 1961. It was written by US novelist Walter Tevis whose debut work, The Hustler, featured as a Pulp Friday post here in 2013.… Read more

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Posted in Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Pan Books, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, Science fiction and fantasy, Vintage pulp paperback covers

Tagged Candy Clark, David Bowie, Nicolas Roeg, Rip Torn, The Hustler, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Walter Tevis

Pulp Friday: witches, sorcerers & Satan’s disciples

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

Satan, witches, warlocks, demons, they were everywhere in the sixties and seventies and no more so than on pulp fiction covers. To mark Halloween, today’s Pulp Friday offering is a selection of covers featuring the lord of darkness and his various disciples.

It’s hardly surprising that Satanism and witchcraft featured so prominently in pulp. Not only did these books mirror then contemporary tabloid fascinations with black magic and witches, but the subject was an excuse for a bit of gratuitous sex and nudity. Especially sex. Devil worshippers, particularly Satan’s female disciples, were nothing if not sexually promiscuous, at least in the pages of pulp fiction.

The selection of covers below hail from the UK, US and Australia. They ran the gamut of key pulp fiction sub-genres: fiction (Dennis Wheatley’s To the Devil a Daughter, one of many occult themed books he wrote); history and so-called exposes (James Holledge’s Black Magic, ‘The world of uncanny occult rights, psychic phenomena, weird sex rities’); how to guides (How to Become a Sensuous Witch); television and movie ties ins (The Witchfinder General and The Grip of Evil, the latter part of a series of paperback spin offs based on the hugely popular early 1970s Australian television show, Number 96), and smut titles (Bride of Satan and The Cult of Flesh – ‘Violent debauchery in a Satanic Cult of Flesh Worshipers’),

Even Carter Brown, hardly the most salacious of pulp writers in the sixties, touched on occult themes in books like Blonde on a Broomstick.… Read more

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Posted in Australian popular culture, Ben Wheatley, Horror, Horwitz Publications, New English Library, Pan Books, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, Scripts Publications, Tandem Books, Vintage pulp paperback covers

Tagged Calvert Publications, Carter Brown, Dennis Wheatley, James Blish, James Holledge, New English Library, Number 96, Pan Books, Peter Haining, Ronald Bassett, Satanic pulp fiction, Scripts Publications

Announcing Beat Girls, Love Tribes and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950 – 1980

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Andrew Nette| 4 Comments

Regular Pulp Curry readers will be aware of my deep interest in pulp fiction. What you won’t know, is I’ve been working for a while now on a pulp fiction related book with another Melbourne writer called Iain McIntyre.

I’m thrilled to announce this book, currently titled Beat Girls, Love Tribes and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950 – 1980, will be published by Verse Chorus Press in October 2015.

The book will be the definitive look at youth and counter cultural pulp fiction from Australia, the United States and the UK. It will feature contributions from over twenty writers and includes reviews, feature articles and author interviews. These will cover all aspects of youth and counter cultural related pulp fiction, starting with juvenile delinquency and gang pulp in the fifties, Beats and bohemians in the early sixties, to hippies, bikers, musicians, Mods, punks, and everything in between.

The book will also feature a large selection of covers from the books concerned.

Some of the pulp writers we cover you might know. But there’ll be a lot more you probably haven’t heard of. One thing we can guarantee is that the words “guilty pleasure” will not be mentioned once to describe their work.

This is a book about mainstream society’s obsession with the notion of out of control youth, and the pulp fiction that capitalised on the fascination, fears and desires associated with it.… Read more

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Posted in Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Beat culture, Horwitz Publications, Monarch Books, New English Library, Pan Books, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp paperback cover art, Scripts Publications, Vintage pulp paperback covers

Tagged Iain McIntyre, Verse Chorus Press, Youth and counter cultural pulp fiction

Pulp Friday: the pulp of John D MacDonald

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Andrew Nette| 5 Comments

“He Sold His Soul For Another Man’s Wife.”

This weeks Pulp Friday is a selection of covers from the prolific US thriller writer, John D MacDonald.

MacDonald got his start writing for pulp magazines in the late forties, then rode the paperback boom that occurred in the fifties and early sixties. He was the author of over sixties books, as well as numerous short stories and articles.

He is probably best know for creating the fictional private investigator Travis McGee, who featured in 21 of McDonald’s books.

A number of his books have been adapted for film and television. His novel The Executioners was filmed as Cape Fear, starring Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum and Polly Bergen, in 1962, and again by Martin Scorsese in 1991. One of the McGee books, Darker Than Amber, was made into a film of the same name, starring Rod Taylor, in 1970.

The following selection of covers spans the late fifties to the early seventies and include many of the Fawcett Gold Medal editions of McDonald’s work, as well as the UK Pan paperback additions.

Enjoy.