I've always been fascinated by the pulp stories of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, particularly the fantasies of authors like Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and C.L. Moore. I own several collections of stories from the glory days of Weird Tales, and I am proud to work in an industry and on a magazine that can trace its roots directly to America's moldering adventure literary tradition.

I have not, however, purchased any actual pulps, mostly because they can be crazy expensive and I didn't really know where to look. More importantly, the work of most of the authors I've followed has, in large part, been available in modern collections and paperbacks for much cheaper.

That all changed when my colleague Pierce introduced me to an author from his youth, Otis Adelbert Kline.

In his time Kline was considered an equal of Edgar Rice Burroughs (a titan of the medium), with several critics preferring his science fantasies over those of the master. According to his correspondence, Lovecraft viewed Kline as one of Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright's "favorites," which makes sense when you consider the fact that Kline was on the magazine's original editorial staff and eventually served as Robert E. Howard's literary agent. He was republished extensively in the 1960s (when Pierce read him), but he's all but forgotten today. You can dig up six or seven of his novels fairly easily at used bookstores and even through Amazon.com affiliate sellers, but Kline has a huge body of work that has not seen professional publication in nearly a century.

A hunt for more of his work sent me to the office Amazing Stories archive for the first time since I put together the Pulp Heroes d20 mini-game for Polyhedron back in 2001, and after photocopying short stories and novellettes for the better part of a day, feeling the crisp, flaky pages and smelling the age of the books, I'm afraid I'm hooked.

So tonight I bit the bullet and ordered a couple hundred dollars worth of photocopied pulps and a few examples of the genuine article. By the time I get back to Seattle I should have a nice, fat pile of Weird Tales reprints and originals, several copies of Argosy, and a few volumes of Thrilling Wonder Stories. I've got a long way until I've tracked down all of Kline's output, but the anticipation of doing so fills me with an almost childlike glee. (It's the obsessive-compulsion, I'm guessing, but I'll call it "childlike glee" to keep it clean.)

What's your experience with pulp magazines? I'm quite familiar with the big names in fantasy (Burroughs, Howard, Lovecraft, Moore, Kuttner, Kline, Smith), but I'd love to hear suggestions of lesser-known authors that are worth tracking down.