Pulp Literature Spring 2024: Issue 42

Red Planet Raygunne and the Answer to Everything by Mel Anastasiou pays tribute to Douglas Adams and the literary adventures that await our readers

Travelling with us are dragons in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains with ‘La Vitesse’ by feature author Kelly Robson, and ninjas in small-town Ontario and on the road to Tuktoyaktuk with ‘The Newtonbrook Ninja’ by Preston Lang and Jack Whyte Storyteller Award winner ‘The Ice Road’ by Trish Gauntlett.

Along for the ride are meddling ghosts and workaday zombie-hunters, with the opening chapters of Take My Hand by Mel Anastasiou, and ‘High Reward’ from Gabriel Craven and Mikayla Fawcett.

We pick up some friends, frenemies, and migrant orphans along the way, with ‘Masquerade’ by Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho, a new instalment of The Shepherdess by JM Landels, Raven Contest winner ‘Neverender’ by Krista Jane May, and ‘Octavier’ by Nat Kishchuk.

And rounding out the journey, we’ve got primal horror with ‘Flehmen Grimace’ and ‘Watercolours’, both from EC Dorgan, and a trio of sharp and glittering poems from Leanne Boschman, Patti Palmer-Baker, and Marri Champié, the winners of our inaugural Kingfisher Poetry Prize.

Kelly Robson grew up in the foothills of the Rockies and now lives in downtown Toronto. Her novelette A Human Stain won the 2018 Nebula Award, and her short fiction won the 2022, 2019, and 2016 Aurora Awards. She has also been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon, Locus, Astounding, Aurora, and Sunburst Awards.

Mel Anastasiou writes the Fairmount Manor Mysteries, the Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries, and the Monument Studios Mysteries. Winner of a Literary Titan Gold award and longlisted for the Leacock Medal, Mel is also the author of two illustrated thirty-day workbooks on story structure: the steampunk-themed The Writer's Boon Companion and The Writer's Friend and Confidante. For news on published and upcoming new works, visit her website, melanastasiou.wordpress.com.

JM Landels is torn between travelling the world to teach writing and swordfighting, and never leaving her idyllic farm in Langley, BC. Her debut series, fantasy bestseller Allaigna's Song: Overture and the sequels, Aria and Chorale, are available from Pulp Literature Press and most booksellers. You can follow her adventures with pen and sword at jmlandels.stiffbunnies.com