Interview: WIN SCOTT ECKERT 2025

Today I chat with author and friend Win Scott Eckert, as a part of my ongoing series featuring creative folks who will be appearing at Pulpfest 2025. Win is the editor of Myths For the Modern Age and three volumes of short stories featuring The Green Hornet, co-author with Philip Jose Farmer of The Evil in Pemberley House and The Monster on Hold, and author of Crossovers: A Secret History of the World, The Scarlet Jaguar, and the authorized Edgar Rice Universe canonical novels Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar, and Korak At The Earth’s Core. He has also written short stories featuring classic characters like The Green Hornet, the Lone Ranger, the Avenger, the Phantom, Sherlock Holmes, the Domino Lady, Honey West, T.H.E. Cat, and Irma Vep. Win is a member of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, holds a B.A. in anthropology and a Juris Doctor.

Hi, Win! Thanks for taking some time to chat. I know you’re busy working on the second book in your Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe trilogy, the Dead Moon Super-Arc.

WSE: Hi, Anthony! Yes, Pellucidar: Land of Awful Shadow.

We’ll talk about the new book shortly, but my first question is more general. You’ve had a wonderful career writing in the worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Philip José Farmer, the Green Hornet, The Avenger, Honey West, the Lone Ranger, and others. Talk to me a bit about your earliest memories of wanting to write these characters/in these worlds.

To be honest, I didn’t consider writing fiction until after I started my metafictional Wold Newton Universe site in 1997. My first forays were non-fiction (or rather, metafiction) essays which were writing about characters’ chronologies and family trees, rather than traditional fiction stories. It was only when Jean-Marc Lofficier suggested that I try my hand at straight fiction for his annual Tales of the Shadowmen anthologies that I considered it. This was in 2004.

What is your current writing process like? That is, are you a plotter, a “pantser,” etc.? Do you set daily wordcount goals? And has that process changed at all throughout your career?

I am not a “pantser.” I definitely outline, but at a high level. I know the beginning, middle, and most importantly, the end. Part of this is because it is generally required when writing for licensed properties (although requirements for licensed properties are on the spectrum of detail from “almost no detail, just a pitch” to a strict chapter-by-chapter outline). Even with a strict chapter outline, there is a lot of room for creativity as I actually write the chapters, as additional inspiration inevitably hits while I am writing. And sometimes the chapters end up getting moved around as I write, and so forth. So, the outline is not a strict contract, but rather a demonstration that I know where I’m going in the end, even if the path of getting there deviates from the outline. As for your other questions, when I am deep in a writing project, I do set wordcount goals. My process has not changed much in the last twenty years, with the exception that within the last five years or so I occasionally dictate some portions of a novel; it speeds up my writing, but I’ve also noticed that more errors are introduced which I sometimes fail to catch despite intense proofing, so I am a bit gun shy right now about dictating too much.

You’re on your third novel for the Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe (the first being Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar in the “Swords of Eternity Super-Arc” that launched the Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe (ERBU), and the second being Korak at Earth’s Core, the first book in your “Dead Moon Super-Arc”). I’d love to hear a bit about how you came to write for ERB Inc., and how you crafted your pitch for the “Dead Moon Super-Arc.”

Shortly before Christopher Paul Carey joined ERB, Inc. as Director (now VP) of Publishing, I pitched a Korak novel to CEO Jim Sullos, which was accepted. Once Chris joined, and outlined his plans for the ERBU, to be kicked off with the “Swords of Eternity Super-Arc,” it was a no-brainer that a Tarzan novel was needed for that launch. I reworked my Korak pitch into a Tarzan pitch which became Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar. After that, Chris and I still really wanted to do a Korak novel. I explained my idea to him in person at PulpFest, to which he burst out laughing, and said, “Let’s do it!”

Philip José Farmer wrote an article originally published in ERB-dom No. 57, April 1972. His ideas were worked into his mock biography, Tarzan Alive. The article has also been republished in my collection Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe (MonkeyBrain Books), Pearls from Peoria (Subterranean Press), and The Man Who Met Tarzan (Meteor House). The article is entitled “The Great Korak-Time Discrepancy” and deals with how Korak, the son of Tarzan, impossibly ages about eight-ten years between the ERB books The Beasts of Tarzan and The Son of Tarzan. Farmer proposes an explanation, and there is another branch of fandom that proposes a different explanation. You can read the article online here. The “Dead Moon Super-Arc” will present a third, in-universe explanation.

We also wanted to explore as-yet untouched (or relatively untouched parts) of Pellucidar, the hollow world at the Earth’s core, and decided that the Dead World and the Land of Awful Shadow would be great settings for this trilogy.

What challenges have you encountered in moving Burroughs’ classic characters forward in time and in expanding the ERBU while still remaining true to his spirit and Burroughs’ original timeline and characters?

Honestly . . . not many. The biggest challenge is ensuring that all the writers’ stories remain consistent with each other, with no contradictions. That is one of the big selling points of the ERBU: the novels, stories, and comics are consistent both in continuity and in character with what ERB wrote, but they are all also consistent with each other. It’s not difficult to portray these characters as honorable and heroic. Perfect? No, of course not. I had a good time portraying Korak as less than perfect, and yet still heroic.

Without spoilers, what can you tell us about the upcoming second “Dead Moon Super-Arc” novel, Pellucidar: Land of Awful Shadow?

Yes! It takes place mostly concurrently with Korak at the Earth’s Core (this was a technique Burroughs used; for examples, see the Pellucidar novels Tarzan at the Earth’s Core and Back to the Stone Age), in which it is mentioned that Rahnak and Kyrianji have set off into the Land of Awful Shadow in search of Rahnak’s mother, Suzanne Clayton. So, Pellucidar: Land of Awful Shadow is the tale of their adventure. Rahnak the Daring is the grandson of Korak, and thus the great-grandson of Tarzan! Kyrianji is a great Waziri warrior princess.

Along the way, they have many adventures in this weird Land of Awful Shadow as they struggle to get back to their friends and allies, including David Innes, with some important information. We’ll also get some insight into what happened to Suzanne (Tarzan’s granddaughter), who was mentioned in Korak at the Earth’s Core (her disappearance set off the events of that book).

It's a lot of fun because the book is probably eighty or more percent focused on characters I was privileged to create: Rahnak, Kyrianji, and Suzanne.

All the plotlines will come crashing together in the third book, Tarzan Unleashed. (You see … there’s really no way to “pants” this. 😊)

You also had a short story in the anthology Thrilling Adventure Yarns 2025, edited by Robert Greenberger. Tell us a little bit about that story and what inspired it.

It was an honor to be invited to contribute to that anthology, with such an awesome lineup of authors, and it was great to flex my short story muscles. My entry was a weird menace tale, bordering on occult, called “She-Devil of Paris.” It was very much a Sax Rohmer homage, and featured Irma Vep, the anti-heroine of a 1915–16 French serial in ten chapters called Les Vampires. (The Vampires are a criminal gang who terrorize Paris, not actual vampires.) But, as with most Rohmer stories, the main character isn’t really the one who appears more “on camera,” Irma Vep, but rather her antagonist, who in 1923 Paris is calling herself Astarte.

Finally, do you have anything else upcoming that you’re able to tell us about?

I do! After Tarzan Unleashed, I plan to write the fifth and final Secrets of the Nine novel, as yet untitled. You may recall that the fourth book, The Monster on Hold (cowritten with Philip José Farmer from his outline and including large sections of his prose), most of Doc Caliban’s plotlines were wrapped up. Caliban was the POV character, and Phil’s outline and plot did not include anything regarding Lord Grandrith. Therefore, we still have dangling plotlines regarding Grandrith going all the way back to A Feast Unknown, Lord of the Trees, and The Mad Goblin. Phil’s estate and agent have granted me permission to write a Lord Grandrith-centric novel (I’m sure Caliban will also make an appearance, but its Grandrith’s book) resolving all the plotlines. I want to be clear that we do not have anything in Phil’s files (“The Magic Filing Cabinet”) regarding a fifth book, so this will be solely by me. Believe me, I wish we did have notes or hints. The book will be published by Meteor House, with consistent trade dress, art, and design as seen on the other Secrets of the Nine books.

I also plan to finally return to Patrica Wildman and write more novella-length follow-ups to The Evil in Pemberley House and The Scarlet Jaguar. I’d like to write more Sherlock Holmes short stories, following up on “The Adventure of the Fallen Stone.” And I want to do a series of novels featuring Astarte in different time periods, from the Victorian era, to the 1930s, and perhaps even into the 1960s and ’70s.

Finally, Anthony, I want to thank you for the interview. It’s been quite a while since we’ve done this (2017!), and I appreciate it. I’m looking forward to seeing you at PulpFest 2025 / FarmerCon XX in August 2025!

It was my pleasure, Win! Always fun discussing writing and Phil and Burroughs and Star Trek and The Man From U.N.C.L.E and everything else we have in common. See you in a few weeks!

Readers, it is not too late to register for and attend Pulpfest 2025 (THE pulp magazine-focused convention in the Northeast) and the other three conventions it hosts: FarmerCon (dedicated to the works of Philip Jose Farmer), ERBFest (dedicated to the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs) and DocCon (dedicated to all things Doc Savage related). Check out the Pulpfest website.com/ for registration and hotel information!

Review of TARZAN: BATTLE FOR PELLUCIDAR

TITLE: Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar (Swords of Eternity Super-Arc #2, Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe)

AUTHOR: Win Scott Eckert

312 pages, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., ISBN 978194562269 (paperback, hardcover, limited hardcover, ebook)

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): Tarzan of the Apes, Jason Gridley, and the crew of the airship O-220 return to Pellucidar, the world at the Earth’s core, on a wartime mission to stop the Nazis from obtaining a powerful superweapon. But when the Lord of the Jungle’s murderous adversaries partner with the Mahars—Pellucidar’s routed reptilian overlords—and his adventurous granddaughter Suzanne goes missing on a reconnaissance mission, can Tarzan prevent the conquest and enslavement of all humanity in both the inner and outer worlds? 

Bonus Novelette: “Victory Harben: Clash on Caspak” by Mike Wolfer: Hurled through time and space from her homeworld of Pellucidar, Victory Harben plummets into peril when she finds herself on the island continent of Caspak, the Land That Time Forgot. Using skills learned from her friend Tarzan and the Stone Age land of her birth, Victory fights for her very survival against savage beasts and uncanny Wieroos, the winged humanoid terrors of Caspak. But that is only the beginning of her trials, as a strange visitor arrives with an omen of Victory’s role in the machinations of the Swords of Eternity super-arc!

MY RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

MY THOUGHTS:

Note: I reviewed this book via an electronic Advance Review Copy. The book will be published in October by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote 24 Tarzan novels (25 if we include Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins, which would now be considered a “middle grade” novel, I think, or 26 if we include Tarzan: The Lost Adventure, which Joe Lansdale completed from a manuscript started by Burroughs), and six Pellucidar novels. Burroughs virtually created the idea of fictional universes, linking his various series in ever-inventive ways to create a consistent whole. (See for instance the novel Tarzan at the Earth’s Core, in which the Jungle Lord visits the Hollow Earth for the first time.) Over the years since Burroughs’ passing, the Burroughs Estate has “authorized” quite a lot of novels featuring Tarzan, John Carter, Carson Napier, and other Burroughs creations. But only recently has the estate, through Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., decided to issue new works tied intimately enough to the detailed chronology and characterizations of the original books to be considered “canonical” (as compared to merely “authorized.”)

So how does one approach reading a new canonical novel that once again ties two of Burroughs’ most well-known series together, especially if that book is also the second title in a new “super-arc” connecting even more of Burroughs’ original creations? Must one read all of the Tarzan and Pellucidar novels before opening the cover of Win Scott Eckert’s Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar?

I am happy to report the answer to that question is “no.” I have read only a small handful of the original Tarzan novels and none of the Pellucidar series. Tarzan at the Earth’s Core is not one of the handful of Tarzan novels I have read. Despite these holes in my Burroughsian reading history, I loved this book and was fully engaged with the characters and plot throughout.

Win Scott Eckert has not only crafted a novel that is true to the character of Tarzan as detailed by Burroughs in the original novels (versus what we see in most movie/television versions), he’s given us a novel that is an excellent jumping-on point for readers who are new to Tarzan, to Pellucidar, or to both. There was not a moment in this book where I felt like I was missing out on vital information by not having read the originals. And even though this is the second book in the new Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe “Swords of Eternity super-arc,” one does not have to have read the preceding release (Carson of Venus: The Edge of All Worlds, written by Matt Betts) to jump into this one. Like Burroughs himself, the new ERBU writers are working hard to make every book accessible on its own. Eckert does this by having characters reminisce about previous exploits in just enough detail to fill new readers in without derailing the momentum of the current story, supplemented by footnotes letting the reader know where to go to read the original stories.

Eckert gives us the Tarzan I remember from the few novels I’ve read and from the DC and Marvel comics of the late 70s: imposing, multi-lingual, a strategist when called for and a brute force when appropriate, a man who loves his family and will do anything to protect them, a man who can fit with “polite society” but who always has “the beast” simmering under the surface. Here, he is the focal point around whom everything else orbits, the most compelling character in a cast of compelling characters. The best Tarzan writers understand how to use the Jungle Lord’s personal dichotomies to propel a story, and Eckert proves here that he is among the best.

Eckert also does a wonderful job incorporating the setting of Pellucidar into the novel almost as another character. I’m intrigued by the way time does/doesn’t move in the “hollow Earth,” and how the landscape and stationary sun and moon influence the way characters think and react. I really cannot wait to go back and read the Burroughs originals as well as the soon-to-be-rereleased (by ERB, Inc.) authorized sequels by John Eric Holmes, and all credit for that goes to Win Eckert. (Okay, perhaps a little bit of credit should also go to Mike Grell, whose hidden world of Skartaris in DC Comics’ The Warlord was my first and most beloved exposure to the “hollow Earth” concept and which was clearly inspired by Pellucidar.)

Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar is also as fast-paced as one would expect from a Burroughs novel. There’s a bit of slow set-up in the first few chapters as Eckert moves all of his chess pieces into place, but after that the action is pretty much non-stop. As with Burroughs, Eckert expresses characterization as much through action as through internal monologue. I read the second half of the book in one sitting. Burroughs wrote several books in which Tarzan and Korak fight in World War One, so it’s a natural extension of the brand that a still fighting-fit Lord John Clayton and his family members would be tapped to help protect England from the Nazi menace of the Second World War. Especially when the Nazis are on the verge of discovering Pellucidar and the mind-controlling abilities of the native Mahars.

Much has been made of the “Swords of Eternity” super-arc introducing a new lead character, Victory Harben, into the ERBU. In Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar, we get to see Victory at a much younger age and see the experience that transforms her life and brings her under the care of Tarzan and Jane in England. But Victory isn’t the only “next generation” character being added to Burroughs’ family trees. In Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar, Eckert introduces us to Suzanne Clayton (Tarzan’s grand-daughter, the second child of Tarzan’s son Korak and daughter-in-law Meriem) and to Janson Gridley (son of Jason Gridley and Pellucidarian native Jana). Suzanne follows closely in her father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, plunging into adventure without so much as a backwards glance, equally at home in the jungle as in a city. Janson doesn’t see much action but I loved the almost-sibling interplay between him and Victory (who is Jason Gridley’s god-daughter). I hope that as the new ERBU progresses, we’ll see more of both of these younger characters alongside Victory and Korak and Meriem’s son Jackie Clayton. While it has been well-established by Burroughs himself that Tarzan and his immediate family are very long-lived and essentially immortal (something the Jungle Lord ruminates about a lot in this book, which takes place during World War II), injecting new characters into the ERBU also follows Burroughs’ own tradition.

The main novel is followed by a bonus novelette, “Clash on Caspak,” which connects the current super-arc to yet another of Burroughs’ original on-going series: “The Land That Time Forgot.” I’ve never read the Caspak books, although I remember the movies based on them. Mike Wolfer does a great job relaying what makes Caspak similar to and yet unique from Pellucidar through Victory Harben’s eyes. The novelette advances Victory’s storyline that started in Christopher Paul Carey’s novelette “Dark Heart of the Sun,” giving us more hints about why Victory is being bounced through time and space and what role her mysterious tattoo might play. As I may have mentioned, I find Victory an intriguing character and can’t wait for her to star in her own novel (titled Fires of Halos and due out sometime in 2021, I believe).

Series Saturday: The Crossover Universe

This is a series about … well, series. I do so love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies. I’ve already got a list of series I’ve recently read, re-read, watched, or re-watched that I plan to blog about. I might even, down the line, open myself up to letting other people suggest titles I should read/watch and then comment on.

As regular readers of this blog will have noticed by now, there are a number of things I’m obsessed with: series, short stories, Dracula (and the rest of Bram Stoker’s works), King Arthur, Macbeth, novellas, book series published with a “trade dress” of some kind, television series that last only one season, making lists, redheads, pistachio ice cream (okay, maybe those last two are not quite as obvious if you haven’t been around me in person) … and crossovers. I love when characters from different shows/movies/books appear together in whatever form: full on crossovers, or wink-wink-nudge-nudge passing references.

But as much as I love crossovers, I have friends who love them even more. Friends who love them so much, they’ve written entire books chronicling them. In other words, they’ve written a series about crossovers between literary characters, including Dracula and King Arthur, from movies, television, novels, novellas, short stories and comic books. That combination obviously pushes a lot of my buttons.

The series is called Crossovers: A Secret History of the World. Volumes 1 (from the Dawn of Time to 1939) and 2 (1940 to The Future) were written by Win Scott Eckert and published by Black Coat Press in 2010. Win passed the very heavy baton to Sean Lee Levin, who wrote Crossovers Expanded Volumes 1 and 2 which were published by Meteor House Press in 2016. Crossovers published since 2016 have been chronicled by Sean Lee Levin in a Crossovers Universe group on Facebook.

There is some impressive scholarship and dedication that went into producing these books. The average length of each volume is 450 pages. That’s a lot of reading, viewing, checking sources, and cross-referencing. Every entry includes a synopsis of the crossover, indicates where the characters/settings/objects in the crossover first appeared, and identifies the creators of said characters/settings/objects.

This is not just a random collection of chronologically-organized entries featuring every crossover in existence. There are rules to this Crossover Universe that Win and Sean have curated, rules that help organize the entire idea and present a cohesive whole despite how disparate the source material and authors referenced are.

Win built the concept off of Philip Jose Farmer’s “Wold Newton Family” literary biographies of Tarzan and Doc Savage, where the idea was that Burroughs and Dent (and many other authors) simply fictionalized true events that took place in “the world outside our window.” Thus, the basic tenet of the Crossover Universe: if it changes the history we know or presents the world we know as technologically more advanced than it really is, it doesn’t fit in this particular CU. So first instance, there are very few costumed, highly-powered super-heroes in the mix, and what few there are usually have notations that in the Crossover Universe, those characters are not as powerful or as world-changing. There are a lot of “street level costumed crusaders” in the mix, though – from the Lone Ranger to the various iterations of The Green Hornet and Batman to more recent folks like Luke Cage and Iron Fist. This is vital to maintaining the basic conceit of the Crossover Universe: costumed crusaders in trench coats or martial arts gear might get a lot of notice at the local level, and may even become “urban legends” (I’m looking at you, Batman), but entire teams of gaudily-costumed flying, fiery, winged, giant super-heroes and their super-tech crafts would be way too much for the “world outside our window.”

Likewise, Kaiju are also effectively off the table as their movie rampages destroy whole cities, but there are notations that some smaller version of Godzilla, for instance, exist in the CU with less world-devastating events. And of course Skull Island and King Kong exist here. There are no full-scale zombie outbreaks, but smaller localized zombie events that are quickly quelled and pass into being urban legends have happened in the CU. Vampiric, demonic and alien convergences the entire world notices are out (sorry, Independence Day fans), but smaller vampiric communities (The Lost Boys), deals with the devil (too numerous to list) and hidden aliens (hi, X-Files) are all frequent reasons for characters to crossover.

What else is in? Prehistoric characters from Conan to Ayesha to Hadon of Opar. Historical fiction characters like King Arthur, Solomon Kane, The Three Musketeers, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Dracula. Famous detectives like Holmes, Miss Marple and Lincoln Rhyme are included, as are occult/paranormal detectives from Thomas Carnacki to Carl Kolchak to Buffy Summers and the Mulder-Scully team. Slasher flicks are rife with crossovers. And because it would be unprofessional not to mention it, one of my own stories is included: “So Much Loss,” taking place in 1897, in which Arthur Holmwood and Jack Seward, having moved in together and declared their love after the events of Dracula, mourn the loss of Lucy Westenra and team up with French occult investigator Sar Dubnotal to deal with one of Lucy’s unfortunate legacies. (The story also features a sneaky tie to the television series Lost, just for the heck of it.)

More stories featuring crossovers are published weekly. Not all of them fit the continuity established by Win and Sean; some of them purport to tell the “true story” of an earlier work in a way that doesn’t fit with the original works timeframe or facts while some repeat stories already told by others. There are, after all, only so many times Holmes can have met Dracula or Jack the Ripper “for the first time.” There are only so many times Mars can invade Earth before the general public begins to notice it’s not just mass hysteria. There are only so many disparate futures a universe can have. If the contradictions are small and easily reconciled, the authors engage in a bit of “creative mythography” to make them fit. If the details are just too incongruous, the stories are relegated to “exciting alternate universes.” The idea has always been to be as inclusive as possible while still keeping some organization to the whole, and Eckert and Levin succeed at making it all consistent.

Of course, anyone can create their own universe which characters crossover. Want more superheroes in your mix? Want none at all? Want to completely remove the works of authors you don’t like? Go for it, make it your own. I love reading different people’s takes on what is or isn’t in their particular head-canon of crossovers. But I have to give, and will always give, Win Scott Eckert and Sean Lee Levin for creating such a comprehensive, creative, and consistent Crossover Universe through these four books and Sean’s ongoing Crossover Universe Facebook page.

So You Got Bookstore Giftcards For The Holiday!

If you’re like me, you got a LOT of gift cards to various online, chain, or local bookstores and comics shops for the holidays. So I thought I’d offer up a list of books folks might like based on your interests. Some have been reviewed here, some have not. Links will be to publisher sites where possible, Goodreads pages otherwise. Support your local bookstores as much as you can!

And if you didn’t get bookstore gift cards for the holidays (what were your family thinking, really?), seek these out at your local library or convince them to order copies for their shelves!

If you’re a fan of:

The Beatles: you might like:

• Saint John Lennon by Roseanne Bottone and Daniel Hartwell.

Pulp/Adventure Fiction: you might like:

• Hunt The Avenger by Win Scott Eckert

• Kolchak: The Last Temptation by Jim Beard

• Greatheart Silver by Philip Jose Farmer

Horror, you might like:

• The Girl on the Porch by Richard Chizmar

• The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters

•   Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand

• Occult Detective Magazine #6 (the latest issue)

Fantasy, you might like:

• Desdemona and the Deep by C.S.E. Cooney

• Upon A Burning Throne by Ashok K. Banker

• Creatures of Want and Ruin by Molly Tanzer

• Ormeshadow by Priya Sharma

Science Fiction, you might like:

• Trans Space Octopus Congregation by Bogi Takács

• Simon Says by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

• Pimp My Airship by Maurice Broaddus

• Absolution (The Serena Darkwoood Adventures #1) by Charles F. Millhouse

YA (Various Genres), you might like:

• Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez

• The Usual Suspects by Maurice Broaddus

• The Gone Away Place by Christopher Barzak

• Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks by ‘Nathan Burgoine

Series to Read (various genres), you might like:

• Folley and Mallory by E. Catherine Tobler (steampunk, time travel, alternate history)

• Whyborne and Griffin by Jordan L. Hawk (Lovecraft Mythos, gay romance)

• The Frankenstein Series by Frank Schildiner (pulp adventure / horror)

• The Wayward Children books by Seanan McGuire (portal fantasy)

• The Tensorate Series by JY Yang (silkpunk fantasy)

I tried to concentrate on books/series that came out in 2019. This of course doesn’t scratch the surface. Hit me in the comments with YOUR favorite book published in 2019. Or your favorite book published earlier that you read for the first time in 2019! I’m always looking for suggestions!

Review of HUNT THE AVENGER

TITLE: Hunt the Avenger

AUTHOR: Win Scott Eckert

130 pages, Moonstone Books, ISBN 9781328916280 (Hardcover and e-book)

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): Out of tragedy, a hero is born! In the roaring heart of the crucible, steel is made. In the raging flame of personal tragedy, men are sometimes forged into something more than human.

A figure of ice and steel, Richard Benson is an avatar of vengeance—a chilled impersonal force of justice masking a cold genius and nearly supernatural power behind a face as white and still as arctic frost. His pale eyes, like a polar dawn, only hint at the terrible force evildoers heedlessly unleashed the day they created…The Avenger!

In the annals of Justice, Inc.’s battles against spies, crooks, and killers, only one malefactor has escaped The Avenger’s clutches not once, but twice—Baron Ulrich Blau-Montag, the half-man, half-machine known as the Iron Skull! But when Benson and his cohorts partner with the mysterious and saucy Domino Lady to hunt down the demented half-robot, and go on to clash with other supervillains, such as the Nazi spy Werner Konrad and a diabolical weapons dealer known as the Countess, a frightening pattern emerges…are they the creatures of a hidden puppetmaster? And is Benson the hunter? Or the prey?

MY RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

MY THOUGHTS: If you’re a fan of the original pulp magazine adventurers or the characters who have followed in their footsteps over the decades since the pulps died, you can’t go wrong with this mosaic novel by Win Scott Eckert, one of the best of the “new pulp” writers. Hunt the Avenger is a fun combination of three previously-published short stories bookended by two new stories that create a fast-paced narrative whole.

When Eckert writes about previously-existing characters like Richard Benson, he does his research. In this case, he fully immersed himself in the original pulp Avenger novels by Paul Ernst and the handful of official 1970s follow-ups by Ron Goulart, as well as all of the Domino Lady’s appearances. He understands the history and nuance of the characters and it shows throughout the book. That being said, readers meeting The Avenger and the Domino Lady for the first time via this book will not be confused or lost. Eckert doesn’t assume his readers are as deeply familiar with the characters as he is; he works in plenty of details (without info-dumping) to help new readers understand Benson, his Justice Inc. support team, their sometimes-ally The Domino Lady, and the villains being faced. (For the record, the book’s Frontispiece helpfully lists all of the canonical Avenger works.)

One of the reasons I find Eckert such a talented new pulp writer is that he respects the traditions and cadences of the pulp style without falling into the racist/misogynistic traps of the time. He retains key phrases from the pulps to describe characters (like Nellie Gray being described as a “porcelain doll,” and frequent references to the low-cut revealing nature of the Domino Lady’s outfits) but he also shows just how smart and capable these women are consistently throughout the book. Benson may be the title (and focal) character but the women in his adventures here are not just arm- and eye-candy. If the licensing could be worked out and his schedule allowed, I’d love to see Eckert write an adventure featuring the Domino Lady, Nellie Gray, Rosabel Newton, and perhaps the Shadow’s Margo Lane and Doc Savage’s cousin Patricia.

Of course, there are the by-now requisite winks and nods at The Avenger’s contemporaries. I may have missed a few but there are definitely veiled references to Doc Savage, the Shadow, and the Spider that will please fans of the interconnected “Crossover Universe” idea that Eckert and most of his peers work in. And there are nods to a variety of concepts originally introduced by the great Philip Jose Farmer as well.

Hunt the Avenger is only available through the publisher, Moonstone Books. I picked up the now-out-of-print hardcover edition. A check of the website indicates that the paperback is still available as of the writing of this review.

WIN SCOTT ECKERT - Interview

This has been a long time in coming, this interview with my friend Win Scott Eckert. I’m not sure how long ago I first became familiar with Win’s work, but it’s been several years at the least. He plays in the playground I love, that giant sandbox where everything in popular culture, from gothic heroines to modern masked men, can interact … and he plays in it so well. His recent stories featuring the Green Hornet and The Avenger stand out, and of course he’s learned the art of finding character connections from one of the greatest such sleuths, Philip Jose Farmer, with whom Win co-wrote THE EVIL IN PEMBERLEY HOUSE.  Here’s our long chat, with lots of illustrations:

ANTHONY: Win, thanks for taking the time to be interviewed.

WSE:  Thank you, Anthony.

ANTHONY: You’re most well-known currently as the lead “banner-carrier,” so to speak, of Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton Family concept. What was your first exposure to Farmer’s work and how has it influenced your own writing?

WSE:   My mind-blowing introduction to Farmer was his “pseudo-biography” Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, at the tender age of eight. I recently had the pleasure of editing an updated and definitive edition of the book, which is a companion to his Tarzan Alive. Both books follow the Sherlockian tradition, known as “the Game,” of treating their subjects as real people who actually lived (or… still live!). In my new foreword to Doc Savage, I abandon my usual practice of penning forewords and afterwords within the context of the Game (see my pieces in the recent Farmer reissues by Titan Books), and step out from behind the curtain, so to speak. The piece is an unabashed love letter to the book and to Farmer. Which is a roundabout way of answering your question about how it has influenced my own writing. Without Doc Savage, there is no Win Scott Eckert, author–for better or worse.

The definitive, hardcover reissue of Doc Savage is available from Meteor House. It’s a true labor of love, and I hope folks will check it out.

ANTHONY: You had the chance to collaborate with Farmer, completing The Evil in Pemberley House. I know you’ve written in other forums about how that project came to be. I’ve read the book and honestly can’t tell where Farmer ends and you begin, so I’d like to hear a little about the process of completing a novel started by someone else. What challenges did you face and how did you solve them?

WSE:   First of all, thank you for commenting that the transition from Farmer to me was seamless. I take that as the highest possible compliment. I had been reading Farmer all my life, and continue to reread his work, so undoubtedly I absorbed some of his stylistic tendencies through osmosis. That said, I was also conscious of many of Phil’s writing patterns and made sure to incorporate them into the prose when it was natural to do so, as I took over writing where he left off.

The process felt straightforward to me. Immerse myself in the chapters he had written. Study the outline for the remainder of the novel and flesh it out, where necessary. Consult the accompanying notes and follow them as closely as possible. Make judicious changes to bring small details in line with what had been published in his other Wold Newton works, particularly in Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (for the uninitiated, Farmer revealed, in the biography Doc Savage, that the real name of the man upon whom the fictionalized Doc Savage pulp novels was based was Dr. James Clarke Wildman, Jr.; The Evil in Pemberley House introduces us to Doc Wildman’s daughter, Patricia Wildman); in line with this, do not alter Phil’s words, except where absolutely necessary for continuity. This latter point is extremely important to me, and has also guided me when participating in bringing other previously unpublished works by Phil to publication, or when preparing manuscripts for reissue by Titan: do not have the audacity to rewrite Philip José Farmer. He’s a Hugo-award winning author and a science fiction Grand Master!

Once the polished outline was approved by Phil and his wife Bette, I proceeded to write, and sent bundles of chapters to them for their review and comments. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Evil in Pemberley House came out in 2009 and is now out of print although I believe Camelot Books may have a few copies left in stock of both the trade and limited editions. I’m writing a series of follow-up novellas. The first is The Scarlet Jaguarand is “volume II of the memoirs of Pat Wildman,” out now from Meteor House.

ANTHONY: Your short stories all feature classic pulp or adventure fiction characters, which means you constantly get to play “what if X met K…” Given free rein, what are your dream match-ups that you haven’t gotten a chance to write yet?

WSE:   I would love to take on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Avengers (Steed and Emma Peel). And of course Farmer’s own pulp hero analogues, Lord Grandrith and Doc Caliban, from his novels A Feast Unknown , Lord of the Trees, and The Mad Goblin. Interestingly, Farmer left a fourth novel featuring Caliban, The Monster on Hold, unfinished.

ANTHONY: And I know I’m not the only one hoping that someone, someday, will finish The Monster On Hold and bring it to print.  You’ve written tales of Zorro, the Green Hornet, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Midnight, and the Avenger for various anthologies, as well as a Honey West / T.H.E. Cat novel (co-written with Matthew Baugh). What’s your writing process like for these stories? I understand it all starts with being invited to participate, but how do you proceed from invite to publication?

WSE:   The “bible” is key. I come into these projects with a high degree of familiarity with the characters, but sometimes the publisher has a particular take to which the writers need to adhere, and that’s outlined in the bible. This is particularly important when there are several versions of a character to be addressed–or ignored, as the case may be. Adherence to canon, and honoring the character, is paramount (of course, even reasonable people can sometimes disagree on the definition of canon), and Moonstone shares these sensibilities, which is why I enjoy working with them so often on their licensed properties. For example, in the thirteenth Avenger pulp novel, Murder on Wheels, Richard Benson loses the ability to mold his face, and his hair reverts from shock-white to black. Moonstone felt that this removed perhaps the primary interesting feature of the character and mandated in the bible that the stories features the white-haired, white skin Benson with the moldable facial features–a decision I heartily endorsed. But this mandate also causes problems for some writers, like me, who also feel that adhering to canon means adhering to a realistic chronology of a character’s adventures. How to tell a story of Benson later in his career and also have him white-haired? I solved the problem in my first Avenger tale with a reference to the recent reappearance of his powers and white skin and hair. A few other writers also wrestled with this and addressed it in a similar way.

Another example is Honey West. The Moonstone version is an amalgamation of the eleven novels and the television series with Anne Francis, which ran for one season. Both have different supporting characters. The Moonstone bible takes the best of both. But I wanted to take it one step further. To guide writing the novella A Girl and Her Cat(co-written with Matthew Baugh), I worked up a Honey West timeline. This is the sort of exercise which helps me get centered for the writing process. Fortunately, the television series (and the Moonstone comic and stories) can be neatly placed in a gap between the ninth novel, Bombshell, which came out in 1964, and the tenth novel, which came out in 1971. Creating a timeline usually reveals gaps which can be filled in. For instance, in 1971’s Honey on Her Tail, it’s revealed that Honey and Lt. Mark Storm have not seen each other in several years. So we wrote their “goodbye” scene into A Girl and Her Cat. In the 1971 book, Honey has given up her private eye practice and is now a secret agent. While we don’t show that career change in A Girl and Her Cat (Moonstone doesn’t care for Honey’s secret agent phase), we do take Honey along the path of that transition.

By the way, Honey West and T.H.E. Cat: A Girl and Her Cat, is due out from Moonstone in January 2014 in a limited edition hardcover. It’s listed for order in the November 2013 Diamond Previews catalogue. The Diamond Item Code is NOV131140. It can also be ordered from Things From Another World at a nice discount!

ANTHONY: Well, I pre-ordered mine from Midtown Comics in NYC. And for those interested: apparently the Diamond ordering deadline is December 6th, which is just a few days away as I post this interview. So click those links, especially if you’re a fan of 60s spy/crime/thrillers with strong female leads!

Now, You’ve also annually contributed stories to Black Coat Press’ Tales of the Shadowmen series. Those anthologies are themed rather than focusing on a single character, so how do you choose the lead characters for those stories? How involved in character and plot choice are the publishers?

WSE:   Fortunately, even though each annual book has a theme, the theme is a suggestion rather than a requirement. So, I rarely feel bound by the theme and instead focus on which French characters interest me. The publisher, Jean-Marc Lofficier, is quite ready to suggest French characters, or characters created by French writers, but is equally willing to give the writers latitude, as long as there is some kind of substantial “French connection.” Jean-Marc has plot approval, of course, to ensure that the tale meets quality standards and comports with the generally understood canon of the characters–but again, he also gives the writers a nice amount of leeway.

I’ve had the opportunity to write several stories about Doc Ardan, Madame Atomos, and the Scarlet Pimpernel, among others.

ANTHONY: Sadly, you’re not in the current Volume 10: Esprit De Corps … But I am! (Sorry to highjack your spotlight for just a second there, but I couldn’t resist. Moving on…. Your Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World, Volume 1 and Volume 2, is a pretty exhaustive look at the history of literary interconnectedness that Philip José Farmer really popularized. In your researches, what connection between characters did it surprise you to discover? And are you constantly looking for new connections to make? (For instance, I recently read Jess Faraday’s The Affair of the Porcelain Dog, which has a number of Holmes connections including a lead character named Ira Adler, and Lester Heath’s The Case of the Aluminum Crutch, featuring a teenage detective named “Sherlock” Jones. You can imagine the paths my brain traveled in both cases.) And to piggy-back on that question: new crossover stories, including your own, are constantly appearing. How often, if at all, do you plan on updating Crossovers?

WSE:   There are thousands of crossovers noted in the books, and it’s very hard to pick out just a few highlights. Turning the question on its ear, the crossovers that really inspired me, captured my interest, and led me down the OCD path of creating a cohesive Crossover Universe, were those found in the writings of Philip José Farmer (such as the Sherlock Holmes-Lord Greystoke novel The Adventure of the Peerless Peer); the unnamed cameos of Doc Savage and the Amazing Five in Dave’s Stevens’ magnificent The Rocketeer (and The Shadow in the follow-up); Ron Fortier and Jeff Butler’s wonderful four-part comic series Sting of the Green Hornet; Cay Van Ash’s Fu Manchu-Sherlock Holmes novel Ten Years Beyond Baker Street; and David McDaniel’s fantastic Man from U.N.C.L.E. novels, particularly The Dagger Affair and The Rainbow Affair.

I’m sure I’m leaving many on the table, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind.

I’m always keeping an eye out for new crossovers, and taking note of them. That said, it’s a monumental task that tends to displace all other activities, and I’ve put aside the formal documentation of additions to the Crossover Universe for the foreseeable future, in order to focus on writing fiction.

This is a good a place as any to announce that Sean Levin, a fan and expert on both Farmer and crossovers, and a wonderful and talented guy, has taken over formally tracking and documenting crossovers. He’s following my Crossover Universe framework to a “T,” and doing a better job than I could have ever hoped for. So, there will be Crossoversvolumes 3 & 4 in the future, although I don’t have any further details or information to announce right now in that regard. These books are multi-year efforts, so stay tuned!

ANTHONY: Of course! You’ve co-edited three volumes of Green Hornet short stories with Joe Gentile (the third volume was also co-edited with Matthew Baugh), both from Moonstone Books. How do you break apart the editing chores?

WSE:   It’s very organic, a lot of back and forth. We had a lot of input into the bible, including settling once and for all on the 1960s television continuity as the setting for our books. On the first book, The Green Hornet Chronicles, Joe solicited writers and I took the first several passes at copyediting. Joe then took final passes; it was his baby, after all. For the second book, The Green Hornet Casefiles, I took the lead on author selection, although of course Joe had a lot of say. On the third book, I just had too much going on and suggested we bring in a trusted third, Matthew Baugh. Again it was organic. Sometimes Matthew took the first pass, and sometimes I did. Joe once more did final passes. I’m very proud of the work we did on those books, both in terms of the quality of writing and the proofing/quality control processes we utilized. In fact, the third book, The Green Hornet: Still at Large, won the 2013 Pulp Ark Award for best anthology.

ANTHONY: Congrats on that! Have you edited or co-edited any other anthologies recently? Are you editing or co-editing any other anthologies in the near future?

WSE:   I co-edited, with my good friend Christopher Paul Carey, the recently-released Tales of the Wold Newton Universe, for Titan Books. The book collects, for the first time ever in one volume, SF Grand Master Philip José Farmer‘s Wold Newton short stories, as well as authorized tales by other Farmerian writers.

I should add what a pleasure it was to work with Chris on the book and our introduction, which can be read online at SF Signal; he’s such a talented writer and editor, and I know he’s going places–big places.

I don’t see any editing projects in my future. If another “can’t say no” opportunity like Tales of the Wold Newton Universe comes along, I would have to rethink that answer, but editing anthologies requires a time commitment of Brobdingnagian proportions, and right now I’m focusing on my own writing.

ANTHONY: We’ve established how much fun you have working with all these classic characters. Are you working on a novel or series-recurring character of your own creation? (In other words, what does the near future hold for fans of your writing?)

WSE:   Well, I do plan on at least three or four more Pat Wildman novellas. These would bring Pat through the 1970s and into the early 1980s . . . which, not coincidentally, is about when the unfinished Monster on Hold occurs. The Doc Caliban tales take place in a parallel universe to the Doc Wildman / Pat Wildman stories (see my introduction to the Titan Books edition of Lord of the Trees and my chronology in the Titan edition of The Mad Goblin), but nonetheless there is a tight connection between the two universes. The Pat Wildman books, taking place in the Wold Newton Universe, will lead up to the events of The Monster on Hold in the Grandrith/Caliban Universe.

Of course, I should emphasize there are no firm plans–yet–for The Monster on Hold. But I do have a lot mapped out already. So, fingers crossed it will come together. In the meantime, I plan to have fun revealing Pat Wildman’s next adventures, and I have high-level ideas for at least the next two or three.

Matthew Baugh and I are also deep into mapping out a Honey West / T.H.E. Cat follow-up for Moonstone Books. It’s a caper taking place in Europe in the early 1970s and I can tell you it’s going to be quite sexy and fun. I really enjoy the creative jamming back-and-forth Matthew and I have on these books.

I’m writing a Pat Wildman / Kent Lane short story for Meteor House’s The Worlds of Philip Jose Farmer 5. And I’ve been approached for a short story for a licensed character anthology which is going to be super-cool. I can’t discuss that further right now, but I’m really jazzed about it.

I also plan on writing a Sherlock Holmes novella for Meteor House. It flows out of the already-published short story “The Adventure of the Fallen Stone” (Sherlock Holmes: The Crossovers Casebook) and will be called The Dynamics of a Meteor. The time-frame for this one is 1919, and will take place shortly after Farmer’s authorized Doc Savage novel, Escape from Loki: Doc Savage’s First Adventure.

And . . . I’m tacking my first comic book script, a Honey West tale for Moonstone. This one is going to fill in a pretty important piece of Honey’s history, and will be illustrated by the super-talented Silvestre Szilagyi, who has done some of the other Honey comics.

ANTHONY: Well, this conversation has wandered far and wide, and could keep wandering, so I’ll bring it around to my usual final question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to convince someone who has never read it that they should read it?

WSE:   Which brings us full circle back to the beginning of this interview. My favorite book is Philip José Farmer’s Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life. If you love 1930s and ’40s pulp heroes, fictional biographies, and metafictional mashups such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula novels (and by the way, both Alan Moore and Kim Newman acknowledge their debt to Farmer and the Wold Newton mythos), then this book (and the companion biography, Tarzan Alive) will be right up your literary alley.

 ANTHONY: Thanks, Win!

WSE:   Thank you very much, Anthony! This was fun.

You can find Win all over the internet: on his own website, on Twitter as @woldnewton, on Facebook, Pinterest, tumblr, Goodreads and Amazon and of course at most of the links embedded in the interview.

Note: If you’re interested in Meteor House, you can find my interview with publisher Mike Croteau HERE. And later this week, I’ll also be posting an interview with Black Coat Press publisher J.M. Lofficier, so be sure to come back for that!