03-29-2006, 10:56 PM
Ok, I haven't finished this one, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. It's a print on demand book. My first. It smelled funny when it first arrived. Wet glue. Icky. It's better now.
This is a collection of short stories from the 1920's, pulled from the pages of Adventure Magazine, one of the classic pulps. The stories are all written by Arthur O. Friel (1885-1959). Friel graduated from Yale in 1909, taught school, married and took a job with the Associated Press. In 1924, he wrote a non-fiction book called "The River of Seven Stars" about his travels through the South American jungles. Picture the classic pith-helmeted explorer and you've about got it.
He settled down to be an excellent, if less well know now, pulp fiction writer. Many of his published stories from Adventure were set in South American jungles, so his writings have a solid ring of truth in them. Even when he's making stuff up it sounds plausible. The first book of his I read was a paperback re-print of one of his novels, originally serialized in Adventure, called "The Pathless Trail". It's set in the SA jungle right after WW1. It's a great read with well defined characters and lots of action. A follow up novel, "Tiger River" was also re-printed. Both were paperbacked in '69 & '71 respectively, in the "Time Lost" series from Centaur Press. Both are great. I have most of his original hard back editions from the '20s now and I've liked everything I've read.
This book takes a couple of his minor characters from the abovementioned novels and expands on their adventures as rubber plantation workers in the early part of the last century. Their essentially story telling versions of adventures. "Let me tell you, senors, what happened to me up that particular river you mention." That sort of thing.
I've read the first couple, and I've seen one or two others before, but I'm thrilled to have them. It's tough to find old copies of Adventure that are readable. I've got a couple, usually with a story by Friel, but they crumble if you look at them too hard.
This book isn't really for everyone, and I'd highly recommend picking up "The Pathless Trail" to start if you're actually interested. Still, here's an online taste, if you care to peruse a short story:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.harvestfields.ca/horror/004/094.htm">http://www.harvestfields.ca/horror/004/094.htm</a><!-- m -->
This is a collection of short stories from the 1920's, pulled from the pages of Adventure Magazine, one of the classic pulps. The stories are all written by Arthur O. Friel (1885-1959). Friel graduated from Yale in 1909, taught school, married and took a job with the Associated Press. In 1924, he wrote a non-fiction book called "The River of Seven Stars" about his travels through the South American jungles. Picture the classic pith-helmeted explorer and you've about got it.
He settled down to be an excellent, if less well know now, pulp fiction writer. Many of his published stories from Adventure were set in South American jungles, so his writings have a solid ring of truth in them. Even when he's making stuff up it sounds plausible. The first book of his I read was a paperback re-print of one of his novels, originally serialized in Adventure, called "The Pathless Trail". It's set in the SA jungle right after WW1. It's a great read with well defined characters and lots of action. A follow up novel, "Tiger River" was also re-printed. Both were paperbacked in '69 & '71 respectively, in the "Time Lost" series from Centaur Press. Both are great. I have most of his original hard back editions from the '20s now and I've liked everything I've read.
This book takes a couple of his minor characters from the abovementioned novels and expands on their adventures as rubber plantation workers in the early part of the last century. Their essentially story telling versions of adventures. "Let me tell you, senors, what happened to me up that particular river you mention." That sort of thing.
I've read the first couple, and I've seen one or two others before, but I'm thrilled to have them. It's tough to find old copies of Adventure that are readable. I've got a couple, usually with a story by Friel, but they crumble if you look at them too hard.
This book isn't really for everyone, and I'd highly recommend picking up "The Pathless Trail" to start if you're actually interested. Still, here's an online taste, if you care to peruse a short story:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.harvestfields.ca/horror/004/094.htm">http://www.harvestfields.ca/horror/004/094.htm</a><!-- m -->