If you missed the last one…
This post is brought to you by Whispers of Ice and Sand: Space Westerns by G. W. Thomas. This collection of Space Opera tales features the sandy planet of Utukku where retired ranger Neely is searching for the lost artifacts of the Harlequins, aliens who seeded the galaxy with super-technology. What will he find on a savage planet where the locals will kill you and the other homesteaders will too?
Reading over my previous post on Science Fiction writers that wrote some Westerns, or Western writers who penned some Sci-Fi, I saw the list of those only mentioned was quite long. When I stumbled on Damon Knight and Judith Merrill slinging the horse opera I just had to go back and do the rest. So here you are, more writers who worked both sides of the corral fence for the Pulps. Often these are single stories, like they tried it once and didn’t like it.
Funny aside here: prejudice among Pulpsters for and against certain genres makes me laugh. I was re-reading Hugh B. Cave’s wonderful book Magazines I Remember (1994) which features letters written between him and Carl Jacobi over the decades. In one Hugh pokes fun at the Western, calling it a cliche-ridden and hopelessly Pulpy genre. This from the guy who wrote for Weird Tales and the Shudder Pulps! (Which the SF writers considered the bottom of the barrel.) I guess we all tend to love the ghetto we are in. Most SF writers considered writing for the Westerns hack work, though Clifford D. Simak and Chad Oliver would not agree. My experience is that most Westerns were written and edited to a degree that many Science Fiction Pulps could only hope to achieve. But as with all things, there are good and bad examples of both, and it depends what you are pointing at.
Pulps
“The Seventh Shot” (Ace-High Magazine, April 18, 1929) by Hal K. Wells . Wells was a Pulp generalist, writing Sports, Mystery, SF and Westerns. I could have included him in the Weird Tales post because he started in that magazine but his best stuff was in Harry Bates’ Astounding. For more on HKW, go here.
“Ain’t No Beggars” (New Mexico Quarterly, August 1940) by Jack Williamson. I have said in other posts that Williamson never wrote Westerns (and he from Texas!) but there is this one Westernish tale that he did for a literary magazine. That’s about as close as he got. Jack wanted to write fantastic literature.
“Return Without Scalps” (Thrilling Western, May 1943) by William Morrison (Joseph Samachson) William Morrison was a pseudonym but Samachson wrote various things from Captain Future, detective tales to Westerns.
“Guntrap Trail” (Masked Rider Western, November 1945) by Oscar J. Friend. Friend was an editor and he tended to write fillers for any magazines he edited. This mean the wrote SF for Thrilling Wonder and Horse Opera for Masked Rider. He used pseudonyms at times, writing his Mysteries under the name of Owen Fox Jerome.
“Peace Officer of Sundown” (Mammoth Western, January 1946) by William G. Bogart. I might be stretching things a little by including Bogart (like Laurence Donovan below) he wrote Doc Savage novels as Kenneth Robeson. These Pulp hero tales were almost SF at times (almost). His failed Doc novel “The Crazy Indian” ( Mammoth Adventure November 1946) is a Northern.
“Devil-Driving Dude” (Western Action, February 1948) by Eric Thorstein (Judith Merrill) Well, the much-lauded star of women’s SF tried a Western. She eventually moved to Canada (Toronto) but never went out West to Alberta to enjoy the cows. Merrill used the pseudonym for six Westerns (one Real Western Romance) and one Sports story between 1948 and 1950.
“Trail of Torment” (Western Action, February 1948) by Laurence Donovan. As with William G. Bogart, Laurence Donovan wrote many kinds of Pulp including Doc Savage. Donovan’s Docs were the most Sci-Fi of the bunch with classics like Murder Mirage (1936) with its spacemen in Stanley Park in Vancouver.
“Limpy’s Gulch” (Mammoth Western, July 1948) by Don Wilcox. Wilcox, like all the Ray A. Palmer gang, wrote Westerns, detective and SF for RAP. He tended to do two in an issue, one under a pseudonym.
“Fast Gun, Slow Death” (Mammoth Western, November 1948) by J. J. Allerton. Allerton was another. For more on him, go here.
“Nesters Die Hard” (Mammoth Western, November 1948) by Paul W. Fairman. This one was done as an author but Paul W. Fairman would later take over as editor in Ray A. Palmer’s place shortly after this. As an editor, he supplied all kinds of stories for different Pulps. Later as a ghost-writer he would pen such Lester Del Rey classics as Runaway Robot (1965) and Tunnel Through Time (1966). He would also do television and movie novelizations.
“Seminole Secret” (Mammoth Western, November 1948) by Charles Recour (Henry A. Bott). Another member of the Palmer gang.
“The Frustrations of Wang Soo” (Short Stories, February 10, 1949) by Wilbur S. Peacock. Peacock wrote for the Fiction House magazines (SF, Jungle, Western, etc) but here he has sold a story to a rival company. Short Stories was a magazine that lived by its title but published more Westerns as time went on. It was edited by Dorothy McIlwraith, who now had Weird Tales.
“Swing the Lariat High” (Western Aces, March 1949) by Norman A. Daniels. Daniels was another Pup generalist, mostly famous for his Mystery fiction, but he did write SF and Westerns too. He was a very busy man.
“Justice Rides the Winds” (Blue Ribbon Western, April 1949) by Lester Del Rey. Old Lester tried one. Another editor as well as a prolific author, I guess he had to know if there was anything in this Cowboy business.
“Scars” (Zane Grey Western Magazine, May 1949) by Theodore Sturgeon. Ted Sturgeon wrote a number of Pulp stories and later a novelization of the Old West, The King and Four Queens (1956). I assume for money, like his work in Hollywood.
“Destination Doubtful” (Mammoth Western, September 1949) by H. B. Hickey. Another Ray A. Palmer star.
“Peace Is a Fighting Word” (Mammoth Western, March 1950) by Francis M. Deegan. And another. (RAP really brought a lot of writers into the Western-SF fold with his Chicago based magazines. This did not include Richard S. Shaver, his big discovery.)
“Gunsmoke Fiesta” (Thrilling Ranch Stories, Summer 1950) by Walt Sheldon. Sheldon was one of those SF writers who didn’t specialize. He wrote Mystery, Western, whatever was selling. In his later career, he focused on suspense novels. He was a friend of Harry Harrison.
“The Sundance Kid” (Action Stories, Summer 1950) by Jay Drexel (Jerome Bixby) Bixby was never a Pulp machine but wrote selectively, including classics like “It’s a Good Life”. This is his one Drexel Western. (Drexel was his legal first name.) It appeared in Action Stories, another general Adventure Pulp that was going heavily into Westerns after years of more variety.
“The Killer” (Range Riders Western, April 1951) by T. C. McClary. McClary was a big Western writer but liked to write the occasional story or novel for Astounding, first for Tremaine and later Campbell.
“Brand of the Wild Ones” (Fifteen Western Tales, May 1951) by Damon Knight. One of SF’s sharpest critics, Damon didn’t mind a well-told Western. (The other sharp-tongued critic was James Blish, who did his slumming in the Jungle Pulps.) Knight wrote this tale shortly after “To Serve Man” (Galaxy Science Fiction, November 1950).
“Valley of Destruction” (Complete Western Book, August 1951) by Steve Frazee. Frazee is better known in the Adventure and Mystery magazines but he did tinker with Science Fiction, selling to John W. Campbell’s Astounding.
“Vinegar Joe’s Hair Raisin'” (Max Brand’s Western Magazine, March 1952) by Roger Dee (Aycock). Dee is well-remembered in short-short story anthologies like Fredric Brown. He wrote longer stuff for the Westerns.
“Draw Fast or Die!” (Fifteen Western Tales, January 1953) by Bryce Walton. Walton is another author as well known for his Mystery fiction, also like Fredric Brown as for his SF, but here he is doing a Western.
“You’re Marked, Marshal!” (Action-Packed Western, November 1954) by V. E. Thiessen. Thiessen may be best remembered for his Planet Stories tales but half of his work was in Westerns as well. (Sometimes it is hard to tell which he is writing.)
“King Lode Revisited” (Stories Annual, 1955) by Herbert D. Kastle. Kastle does a Space Western here but wrote straight Western and straight SF tales as well as Mystery.
“The Silver Watch” (Texas Rangers, April 1955) by James McKimmey Jr. An SF writer from the 1950s who started off in a fanzine published by Lilith Lorraine. He sold to Galaxy and Planet Stories but like John D. MacDonald moved off into Mystery writing.
“The Fort McKenzie Massacre” (Best Western, September 1955) by Noel M. Loomis. I could have put Loomis in the Weird Tales post but his best work is in Science Fiction and Westerns.
“Not Much More Than a Trigger” (Best Western, September 1956) by R. R. Winterbotham. Russ Winterbotham is one of those SF work horses that nobody seems to remember. Isaac Asimov met him once. They were like two sides of a coin with very similar outputs: one beloved/the other neglected.
“The Landlooter” (Western Action, May 1957) by E. E. Clement (Robert A. W. Lowndes) Lowdnes was another editor, writing filler when necessary. Most of his SF appears under pseudonyms as well.
“The End of the Time of Leinard” (Famous Western, April 1958) by Harlan Ellison. Before Harlan became that literary SF guy (some people seem to like him, right, Jack Mackenzie!) he wrote a large amount of high production stuff, this one a Western. 1958 was the last year of the Western Pulps. They hung on four years longer than the SF Pulps. Ellison might have written more Westerns but there wouldn’t be anywhere to publish them outside of the paperbacks.
Paperbacks & Novels
The Last Mammoth (1953) by Manly Wade Wellman. Manly Wade Wellman wrote both fiction and non-fiction about America (got nominated for a Pultizer). I would call them Southerns, as opposed to Westerns. This novel is a bit of an exception. It’s a fun Western about a cowpoke hired to kill a mammoth that is terrorizing a native tribe. It was sold as a juvenile but other than the age of the hero it’s just a good book.
The Dying Tree (1956) by E. C. Tubb. The English production machine known as Edwin Charles Tubb wrote in many genres though he is best remembered for his Space 1999 novelizations. Which is too bad because he is a great read. His Gregory Kern novels for DAW are pure Edmond Hamilton pastiche, while his Dumarest books borrow from Hamiltons wife, Leigh Brackett. Many of his novels were reissued as Linford Large Print editions, including his SF and Westerns.
Wild Horse Range (1963) by Louis Trimble. Trimble sold to ACE Books double paperback series, both SF and Westerns.
Hour of the Gun (1967) by Robert W. Krepps. Krepps, who wrote SF for Ray Palmer as Geoff St. Reynard, changed his career to serious paperback sales doing movie novelizations. This book is from the film starring James Garner about the Showdown at the OK Corral.
Jubal Cade: Brand of Vengeance (1978) by Charles R. Pike (Kenneth Bulmer) Bulmer seems to have only written book #11. He was a high production writer pumping out paperbacks in SF as Alan Burt Akers, under his own name and this Western.
Cimarron novels (1983-1986) by Leo P. Kelley. Kelley is the son of Weird Tales writer and Canadian, Thomas P. Kelley. Leo started off in the SF genre, writing novels with good ideas and more sex than previously allowed. In the 1980s, he switched to this series, which also has sex in it.
High Mountain Winter (1996) by Francis Hurst (Ardath Mayhar). Mayhar was the grand lady of SF writer, being born in 1930. She wrote in most fantastic modes including SF. This later book is obviously a Western.
Conclusion
No doubt I have missed some others who have that one Western in their back catalogue. The writing in several different markets was a necessity of being a professional Pulpster. The writers who never had to pen a tale of cowboys were often SF writers who had another line of work. For them, Science Fiction was a sideline. Take Isaac Asimov, for instance. He worked for eleven years at writing SF until he felt he really broke in. Did he spend any time worrying about Thrilling Western or Black Book Detective? Certainly not, though his father’s candy store would have sold these too. He was focused on John W. Campbell’s Astounding. And once he got there, he had become a professor in Biochemistry at Columbia. He later spent his time writing hundreds of non-fiction books. He didn’t try to survive on one cent a word. Which isn’t to demean him, or the pros who did. They were different choices.
A goodly majority of SF writers had day jobs (Simak and Jakes, advertising, E. E. “Doc” Smith was a food chemist, David H. Keller and Miles J. Breuer were doctors, Lovecraft was a revisionist, many were professional scientists and so on.) Others like Arthur J. Burks, E. Hoffman Price, Jack Williamson (until he became an academic), Edmond Hamilton, Hugh B. Cave tried to make it by typing words into stories. Some wrote Westerns, others like Fredric Brown and Anthony Boucher, Mysteries, and some like Otto Binder wrote comic books. The stories that resulted vary. I sometimes think the “hobbyists” produce better work. There is no need to get something out because the rent is due or you are hungry. I think Frank Gruber talks a lot about that in The Pulp Jungle. (Automat Soup made from ketchup and crackers.) He doesn’t talk about stories because a Pulpster forgot them as fast they could write them. That way the old details didn’t get in the way of the next one being hammered out at lightning speed…
Discover the classic Military SF series
Ha! I would never have guessed Merrill and Damon Knight wrote Westerns!