Tag Archives: pulp fiction

Writing and varied whatnot

  By Nick Ahlhelm | April 22, 2013 - 1:32 pm | ,
Leave a comment

So as I write this I am about 9500 words into Rosie the Ripper. I actually hoped to be done by this point in time, but the book has been slowed by research time (okay, watching MMA matches) and a heck of a lot of stops and starts due to personal issues.

rosie the ripper

That being said, the book is coming along swimmingly as I have wrote a humdinger of a fight to open the book, set up the characters in play and worked my way towards the conflicts both in and outside the ring. I enter the field of fight fiction as far more of a fan than I have ever been a writer, but so far I think the book is coming together much as I hoped it would.

While I am working on that, I actually have another fight story of a different kind slowly taking shape. I have created the character Moses Stone for an upcoming Airship 27 anthology, though Moses is a man stuck in the very criminal-influenced world of 1930s wrestling. Moses may be one of my favorite characters ever as I get to combine some of my favorite things in storytelling in one great character. But more will come about him as that story gets closer to completion as well.

I have also started the planning stages on my next two superhero projects, one a sequel and one that will set a foundation of the shared universe the majority of my fiction takes place in.

A bit on reality and writing…

  By Nick Ahlhelm | April 19, 2013 - 8:35 am |
Leave a comment

As I write this, one Boston bomber is dead and the other is armed, dangerous and loose as a massive citywide manhunt seems underway. I think everyone up at this hour is following the story intently.

I do know that this kind of situation sometimes makes the kind of escapist fiction I write a bit harder. I like tales of grand heroes and terrible villains, but with them come a heightening of reality that makes it easy sometimes to forget the destruction that goes along with it. I have destroyed cities, toppled mountains and set up bodycounts in the dozens over the course of years of writing now. Sometimes it is hard to continue down that vein when the daily news makes it all too clear what the toll of such devastation can be.

"Deserted" has plenty of gunplay, John Woo style.

“Deserted” has plenty of gunplay, John Woo style.

At the same time, one thing I love about New Pulp and super powered fiction is that no matter how bad the world gets around the characters of that world, a hero always exists to right the wrongs and bring justice to evil. That is the bright point of any heroic fiction I suppose, whether it be my own Living Legends or the blockbuster Avengers film franchise.

At the end of the day, I just find that sometimes the world makes it hard to write a terrible villain out to blow up a city when it seems that all too real villains are hellbent on doing something similar. Of course, that is why the world gives us multiple genres.

For example, sports pulp. On Monday, I will give everyone an update on my current project, Rosie the Ripper.

On revisiting classic pulp

  By Nick Ahlhelm | January 7, 2013 - 10:43 am | ,
Leave a comment

A cover to Moonstone's version of Domino Lady by Matt Larson. You won't see me write this character in this form anytime soon.

I have written classic pulp characters before. Over at Pro Se Press, you can find stories by me featuring Armless O’Neil, The Eagle and Thunder Jim Wade. I have a Diamondstone the Magician story over there that might see the light of day someday as well. And I am currently working on another classic pulp hero, this time for Airship 27.

This will probably be the last time as well.

I love classic pulp characters just as I love old pulps. But I also have realized that interpreting old characters isn’t really what I want to do in my writing. I want to create, to imagine and to generate, and more often than not have felt hamstrung by just using some traditional pulp character. I have went through it every time I wrote any of the characters I listed above (except, strangely, for Thunder Jim Wade).

Now that is not to say you will never see me write or use any classic pulp or comic characters. I have several stories in the works that use old pulp characters in various ways and to various effects. But all of them take the original pulp hero out of their comfort zone either in location, developmental or even identity. You will see more of the Living Legends, public domain superheroes transposed into the modern world. You will see sequels to “Domino Reborn,” my tale of a modern day descendant of the original Domino Lady. You will see a mystery pulp-style comic hero transported to the 1980s in an upcoming short story and novel that still has yet to be announced.

But you won’t see them in their original settings. I am not the man to write it. The more I try to do it, the more I realize I do not like being confined in that way. I leave that to dozens of other great pulp writers to make happen. Pulp Empire even has a great anthology in the works called Pulp Team-Up that will use classic pulp heroes, often in first time meetings. I look forward to reading and editing it.

Meanwhile, I have a whole lot of other writing to do, all with characters that truly strike my muse’s fancy.

And maybe more Thunder Jim. We’ll see.

Prose: Pirates & Swashbucklers Volume II now available!

  By Nicholas Ahlhelm | October 16, 2012 - 3:20 pm | , ,
Leave a comment

After far too long of a wait, Pirates & Swashbucklers Volume II is now available! Featuring five new novelettes from Pam Bitner, Garrett Calcaterra, Teel James Glenn, Jason Kahn & Vincent Morgan, Pirates & Swashbucklers Volume II follows in the tradition of the previous volume released just over a year ago. Abounding with pulp adventures set on the high seas, you cannot go wrong with the pirate adventure in these pages!

Buy it now in print for only $11 on Createspace and Amazon!

The ebook edition is now available on Smashwords and Kindle as well!

Go pick up a copy today!

  • Copyright Notice

    Super Powered Fiction and all material on the site is copyright © 2010-2013 Nicholas Ahlhelm unless otherwise noted. Individual articles copyright © their respective authors.