Modern Pulp Adventure

Not the official mock-up cover,
but a man can dream...

It's been done before, but never quite like this. A G-plus discussion on the suitability of the pulp ethos for tales set in the modern world got completely out of hand over the weekend. Somebody threw down a gauntlet and Misha Burnett scooped it up with a call to keyboard arms:

We are looking for 21st Century Pulp Revival stories. Who’s we? Well, there’s me, Rawle Nyanzi, Kevyn Winkless, and Sky Hernstrom. There is also a good chance that, once complete, the anthology will be published by Superversive Press.

Take a read through the submission guidelines, and if you think you've got what it takes to show the word there's more to pulp than fast action and empty adventure, throw your hat in the ring.  I've already written a 4,500 word Karl Barber adventure, so you might just wind up having your work beta-read and amateur edited by me.  And the chance of that alone is worth taking a stab at Misha's project.

In all seriousness, this is an important project for the #PulpRevolution.  We talk a big game, stirring up hard v. soft pots, shouting "you're doing it wrong" at other pulp practicitoners, running serious analysis of why the old pulps worked, and so on.  What we don't have much of right now is proof that the concepts work.  We've got Rawle Nyanzi's under-priced Sword and Flower, my own Sudden Rescue, and the works of Brian Niemeier and Misha himself*, but churning out the works is a glacial process. 

Misha's elegant solution is to share the load.  If everybody throws in 2K to 10K words, we can pump out a collection much faster than anyone could an 80K book alone.  Not only does this give a unified title to point to show that the Pulp Revolution works, it also gives a single point of contact where readers can read a sampler of the different writers.  Not all will appeal to everyone, but everyone can find a few writers that they'll enjoy.  Even more, it's a way to showcase the depth and scope possible within the pulp revolution, even when it is constrained to a near-real modern world.

Misha's a treasure, and I have no shame in riding his coattails, because I know they are going more places than I could ever go on my own.  I'd like to ride your coat-tails, too, so be a pal and throw a work into the pile, won't you?

* The latter two really pre-date the birth of the revolution, but we're claiming them anyway and there's nothing you can do to stop us.