Moonstone Books - Super Powered Fiction

Prose: Captain Midnight Chronicles

By Nicholas Ahlhelm | August 21, 2012 - 9:21 am | Prose

Originally posted at New Pulp Fiction:

Captain Midnight wasn’t really a pulp hero. He became famous through radio, a pilot hero with a codename and a crew called the Secret Squadron. But while the Shadow transitioned from radio announced to full-fledged pulp hero, Midnight never really made it into the pulps. He did make it pretty much everywhere else in the 30s and 40s, including comic strips, comic books and even a movie serial. Years after his radio show ended, he even returned as a television character.

But it wasn’t until 2010 that Captain Midnight finally got to live as a pulp hero thanks to the fine folks at Moonstone Books.

Captain Midnight Chronicles collects 12 stories of the pilot hero and his allies Chuck, Ikky and Joyce. Edited by talented comic and prose writer Christopher Mills, this Captain Midnight is a bit more streamlined in story focus than the classic character, but excellent by any right.

All twelve stories are solid endeavors without a stinker in the bunch. A few are weaker than others, but rather than focus on the negatives, this reviewer will instead pick out the stories I found to be the very best.

“Shipwreck in the Sky” by Robert T. Jeschonek probably isn’t the most straightforward tale in the collection, but it sure is one of the most fun. His tale focuses on the World War I and II legends of gremlins, creatures that tear apart planes in the air and brings them to life in terrific fashion.

“Fantastic Island” is only one of several stories that use long-time foes Ivan Shark and his daughter Fury, but it is probably the best. In just 17 pages, Robert Greenberger crafts a lost island culture, strands the heroes there, makes them fight for their life and allows for their escape. Midnight and Fury read incredibly well and Greenberger makes the most out of their love-and-war relationship (very much akin to the relationship between Valkyrie and Airboy—who guest stars in Chuck Dixon’s tale in this volume).

“The Dark of Midnight” is actually one of two stories in the book that involve time travel, but though a bit short, it handles the subject better than John J. Nance’s tale (somewhat surprisingly). In a few brief pages, General Tong proves to be a terrifying threat and the time-hopping subplot helps win the battle in a surprising way.

While those three tales stood out as the best, this reviewer cannot reiterated anymore that every tale in this book was solid, a rarity in any anthology. A few niggling formatting errors do occasionally distract while reading the book, but outside that one minor complaint the book is a gorgeous package well worth a purchase by any pulp fan.

It remains available in print through Amazon or Moonstone’s site or as a PDF ebook through DriveThruFiction. Highly Recommended.

Super Powered Pulp Prose: The Green Hornet Chronicles

By Nick Ahlhelm | April 8, 2011 - 7:37 am | Prose

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While their comic division was wholly focused on Phantom comics for most of the last few years, Moonstone Books has also spent some time slowly developing a line of great pulp fiction and superhero prose. Earlier this year, just in time for the recent Green Hornet film, they introduced their latest book: The Green Hornet Chronicles.

Edited by Joe Gentile and long-time Wold Newton chronicler Win Scott Eckert, the book features over a dozen and a half stories by writers famous from all over the realms of fiction. The stories range in quality from unspectacular to great—not unusual when one talks anthologies of short stories. Oddly, the Moonstone team seem to have only licensed the sixties television version of the character here. All of the stories are set in that time period with the variants of the characters made famous by Van Williams and Bruce Lee.

Will Murray opens the book with a tale revolving around the Black Beauty, Green Hornet’s famous car, which serves as a solid opener for the book. Greg Cox and C. J. Henderson follow it with two all right but unspectacular tales.

James Chambers uses the period setting quite well as he writes a story that heavily involves the hippie subculture in to his tale of a drug-dealing guru. Richard Dean Starr follows that up with an origin story for Kato. Thomas Brannan and James Reasoner continue the anthology with two more solid, if not overly notable, tales.

Howard Hopkins provides a new villain for the Hornet in the form of the Yellow Jacket, while Deathlands creator Mark Ellis tells a clever tale set completely around an Egyptian exhibit in the local museum. Rich Harvey then delivers a tale set around a corrupt cop and a numbers ring.

Writer Ron Fortier wrote dozens of issues of the Green Hornet comic for Now in the early nineties, which probably makes him the living person with the most Hornet stories in his repertoire. Perhaps it’s due to the quality of those stories that his tale in this volume seems a bit flat. It’s by no means terrible, but remains far from the strongest tale in the book.

The book takes a Green Hornet fan fiction writer and gives her an official Green Hornet tale in “Stormy Weather” by Patricia Weakley. The story actually revolves around a young woman with that title as her name, and proves to be a solid tale with stronger romantic overtones than the rest of the anthology.

Terry Alexander’s “The Auction” is a decent though unmemorable tale, while long time DC Comics editor turned novelist Robert Greenberger puts Hornet up against kidnappers in his story. Bill Spangler, another long time comic writer, delivers a unique mystery story revolving around a hidden cache of money set up in case of nuclear disaster. Mark Justice uses his tale to introduce another new villain, the Crimson Dragon.

Co-editor Win Scott Eckert writes probably the best story of the anthology, complete with his usual Wold Newton tie-ins to characters like Doc Savage and the Avengers. The story itself brings the Green Hornet in to conflict with the villainous Doctor Fang, clearly meant to be Dr. Fu Manchu under a false name. The villain proves to be a little more than that, but anymore details would just spoil a great tale.

Matthew Baugh delivers the final full length story of the anthology, an interesting first person narrative focused on a reluctant criminal.

The book comes to an end with a small snippet of a tale by Harlan Ellison® that would have teamed Phantom and Green Hornet. Unfortunately, he decided the story didn’t need to be written and gives us a four-page explanation of why he didn’t think it should be writing. It’s actually rather self serving in this reviewer’s humble opinion, and I personally would rather it not have been included at all. It feels very much like the book was solicited with Ellison®’s story (and perhaps Ellison® was paid for it), so they just included it in the anthology. Considering his explanation really feels like Ellison® spitting on the career of co-editor Eckert (and to a lesser extent Eckert’s mentor Philip Jose Farmer), I can see absolutely no other reason for it to be here. Of course, the entire essay required a full one page bio for Harlan Ellison® as well.

Despite those last few pages, the entire anthology is very solid. Every story features a gorgeous illustration by artist Ruben Procopio, many which need to be seen to believe. The book offers some great stories that should satisfy any pulp or street level superhero fan. Recommended.