PULP NOW: THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF THIBAUT CORDAY!
THEODORE ROSCOE
FOUR VOLUMES PUBLISHED BY ALTUS PRESS
I read a lot of pulp stories and am always delighted to see
publishers such as Altus Press and Black Dog Books reprinting affordable,
beautifully produced, collections from pulp masters. In particular this year, Altus Press has
given us four volumes in The Complete Adventures Of Thibaut Corday And The
Foreign Legion – featuring all twenty stories originally appearing in issues of Argosy Magazine between 1929 and 1939.
The fourth and final volume, The Heads Of Sergeant Baptiste,
has just hit the bookshelves and contains my favorite Foreign Legion story, The
Wonderful Lamp of Thibaut Corday – the best retelling of the story of Aladdin’s
lamp I have ever come across.
Theodore Roscoe, the creator of the old Legionnaire Thibaut
Corday, was a master pulp writer on par with my other favorite adventure pulp wordsmiths, H.
Beresford Jones and Talbot Mundy. Roscoe
had the ability to make the reader feel every grain of desert sand and every
ray of scorching sun. Flowing from Roscoe’s
pen, the Foreign Legion was never more romantic or glorified.
Each volume in this series is full of storytelling gems as
the old Legionnaire himself, Thibaut Corday weaves his spellbinding art in
small cafes over horded drinks and one-up-manship. But the true heart of these stories has the
reader waiting breathlessly for Corday to explain how the fantastic happenings
he has just described have a possible common and plausible explanation – pure storytelling
genius.
The Complete Adventures Of Thibaut Corday And The Foreign
Legion ( Volume 1: Better Than Bullets, Volume 2: Toughest In The Legion, Volume 3: The Kid And The Cutthroats, and Volume 4: The Heads Of Sergeant Baptiste) are a must for every pulp fan who thrives on armchair adventure from a
day when the world still held mysteries and all things were possible. Pick any volume and lose yourself in some of the best pulp writing ever ...
No comments:
Post a Comment