Full
disclosure: In January I began contributing a column on vintage SFF
and genre literary history for the Castalia House blog, at +Jeffro Johnson ’s
invitation. The below is my own thoughts
on Jeffro’s Appendix N project. I receive no payment from CH, nor
have I been asked or encouraged to promote Jeffro’s book beyond a friendly
thanks from the author for what little I’ve done to support his project and his hope that I’ll talk about it.
And I will.
I’ve been
engaged with what has come to be called #pulprevolution since long before it
became a thing. My ongoing mission[1] has been to learn more
about the roots of SFF, and to bring back some of the amazing aesthetic that was
dominant in the pre-Campbell era. Part of that is a matter of developing my own
writing – to learn from proven classics how it’s done. Part of it is to delve
deep and learn about the social and cultural contexts in which my mentors[2] were working.
So, when
I stumbled on Jeffro a couple of years ago[3] imagine my surprise – and pleasure
– to discover that he had decided to undertake a project:
