This is certainly an odd cover by Ray Quigley on the May 1942 issue of WEIRD TALES. But it's eye-catching, so it did its job. There are some fine authors inside this issue, too: Seabury Quinn (with a Jules de Grandin story), Robert Bloch, Henry Kuttner, Robert Arthur, George Armin Shaftel, Greye La Spina, Malcolm Jameson, Dorothy Quick, and several I hadn't heard of: Weston Parry, Alice-Mary Schnirring, and Alonzo Deen Cole. There are interior illustrations by Hannes Bok and Boris Dolgov. I realize WEIRD TALES was past its peak by the Forties in the opinion of many fans, but I've enjoyed the issues from that era I've read. I haven't read this one, but I'll bet there's plenty to like in it.
This issue is a good example of why ARGOSY was a great magazine, even in the later years of its pulp run. Start with a good cover by Rudolph Belarski that promises action, and follow that inside with stories by E. Hoffmann Price, Theodore Roscoe, Murray Leinster, Robert Arthur, Charles Marquis Warren, Willliam Du Bois, and forgotten pulpster William Templeton. The only drawback, as usual, is that two of the stories are serial installments (Warren and Du Bois) and you're out of luck if you don't have the other parts. Well, in Warren's case you're not completely out of luck because his serial "Bugles Are For Soldiers" was reprinted as a novel, used copies of which are readily available. The title was changed, and I honestly don't remember which of Warren's Western novels it is, either ONLY THE VALIANT or VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. But I know it's one of them because at one point I had both the serial version and the novel version. And this will come as no surprise, I never got around to reading either of them. Warren is supposed to have been a pretty good writer. He wrote, produced, and/or directed a number of Western movies and TV shows, including GUNSMOKE and RAWHIDE.
"Three Big Serials Every Week!" boasts this ARGOSY cover, and that's exactly what makes this one of the most frustrating pulps. ARGOSY published a ton of great stories and novels, but if you're like me, you like to have all the installments of a serial at hand before you start reading it. Which means that for a lot of issues, I read the short stories and novelettes but never got around to the serials. I'm pretty sure I owned a copy of this issue many years ago, but I don't think I ever got around to reading any of it. I like this cover by Marshall Frantz, who did relatively few pulp covers but was a prolific interior illustrator. There are plenty of good writers in this issue: Richard Sale, Jack Byrne, John Myers Myers, Robert Arthur, Kurt Steel, and Louis C. Goldsmith. ARGOSY was at its best in the Thirties but remained pretty strong on into the Forties.
What a great cover by Rudolph Belarski on this issue of THRILLING WONDER STORIES. It's got everything: a space babe, a raygun, guys with knives, and a giant green Medusa. And inside are three stories by Henry Kuttner (one under his own name and one each as by Scott Morgan and Kelvin Kent), as well as yarns by Oscar J. Friend (writing as Ford Smith), Ross Rocklynne, and Robert Arthur. That's good stuff. This issue is available to read on-line at the Internet Archive.
And the people who ride the subway in New York think they've got it bad! At least they don't have an alien coming through a wormhole and shooting a ray gun at them. Or maybe they do, I don't know, I've been on a New York City subway car. I do know, however, that there's a mighty good line-up of authors in this issue of THRILLING WONDER STORIES: Henry Kuttner, Clifford D. Simak, Eando Binder (probably just Otto Binder on this one), Robert Arthur, Robert Moore Williams, and Maurice Renard, translated by a much more familiar name to me, Georges Surdez. I really like the SF pulps from this era. That's an Earle Bergey cover, by the way, although it doesn't really resemble the "space babes" covers he's more famous for.
ARGOSY was still a full-fledged pulp in 1940, as you can probably tell by this octopus-fighting cover by Rudolph Belarski. Despite Foster-Harris's name being on the cover, he's not listed in the contents for this issue in the Fictionmags Index. However, there are stories by Donald Barr Chidsey, Johnston McCulley, Borden Chase, Robert Arthur, Jack Byrne, Kenneth Perkins, and David V. Reed, so that's no shortage of good authors.
Another fine Norman Saunders cover graces this issue of SUPER SCIENCE STORIES. Inside are stories by Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, A.E. van Vogt, John D. MacDonald, Raymond Z. Gallun, Robert Arthur, and Neil R. Jones. I've read and enjoyed stories by all of them, although I haven't read much by van Vogt, Gallun, or Jones. You don't hear that much about Popular Publications' SF pulps, but this looks like a very good issue.
