Monthly Archives: February 2017

Some Thoughts on a Pulp Speed Weekend

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My son didn’t have school yesterday (Monday) because the teachers had an in-service day.  So my wife took advantage of his vacation to take a day off from work to go visit her parents.  My son plays trumpet, and solo and ensemble competitions are coming up.  As my father-in-law is a trumpet player, there was instruction and practice taking place.

I didn’t have Monday off.  The university was education (or something that resembles it to the untrained eye) as usual.  This was a good thing.  It meant I had the house to myself all weekend.

So I wrote. I tried to write at pulp speed.  For those who may not be familiar with the term, pulp speed is writing at a rate at which you can support yourself as a writer, like the pulp writers did.  They rarely rewrote, at least more than once, and they wrote prodigiously every day. Continue reading →

Blogging Solomon Kane: “The Footfalls Within”

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Miskatonic University Press
Weird Tales compendium

“The Footfalls Within” was first published in the September, 1930 issue of Weird Tales.  It’s a pretty straight-forward story, but one that has some depth if you know where to look.  It seems to take place after the previous tale, “Wings in the Night” (reviewed here).  Solomon Kane has continued his eastward trek.

The story opens with Kane coming across the body of a young black woman.  The corpse is fresh, and there are marks where whips and shackles have torn her flesh.  It doesn’t take long for Kane to catch up with the slavers who killed her.  He sees a train of blacks being led away by a group of armed Arabs and other blacks who have allied with them.  They’re taking their captives to a slave market.  They’re also driving them hard, neither giving them rest breaks nor providing them with ample water.

When another young woman collapses and can’t get up, the slavers decide to skin her rather than give her water or put her out of her misery.  It’s more than Kane can stomach, and he shoots the man with the skinning knife.  This brings the rest down on him, but he kills several before they can subdue him.  The leader of the group, Hassim, realizes he can get a great deal of money from Kane after he learns his captive’s identity, so Kane is treated better than the rest of the slaves.  As they march, Kane is approached by an old man named Yusef, who has retrieved Kane’s ju-ju stick from where Hassim had discarded it. Continue reading →