Tangled Web UK Review May 2007
The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by
Paul Malmont
pbk out March 07
(Vintage)
at £7.99
Every now and then, a truly unique book comes up, and this homage to pulp is
just such a one. To quote the cover, Paul Malmont offers us a "thrilling production".
And bearing in mind his early childhood in an army base in Taiwan, and sneaking
backstage into Chinese operas, he is admirably placed to give us an authentic feel of the
"Yellow Peril". Malmont is a copy director at an ad agency but has studied opera singing
and worked in summer stock theatre.
The plot centres around two real-life pulp writers of the 1930s – Walter Gibson,
creator of the Shadow, and Lester Dent who wrote Doc Savage stories. Aided by a young
L Ron Hubbard, at this stage only a writer of second-rate westerns, they uncover a plot to
gas the United States, centred on Chinatown. The plot rattles along, but in fact matters
little beside the growing pantheon of real-life personalities from that era in the United
States when, ravaged by the Depression, America turned to pulp novels for heroes and
got them in spades. The plot is constructed to show off all the required elements of pulp
fiction. Based on the tenet that "its real if it's a lie…If it's a pack of lies…it's a pulp",
pulp has to include "blood, cruelty, fear, mystery, vengeance, heroes, villains…" plus that
pack of lies - Yellow Peril, super-weapons, global schemes, hideous deaths and cliff-
hanging escapes." Gibson and Dent investigate the strange death of H P Lovecraft, who
had been working at a secret medical laboratory where odd zombie-like figures are seen.
Added into the mix is the story of Chinese war-lord Zhang Mei, the Dragon of Terror and
Peril, who inevitably finds his way to New York's Chinatown. There he threatens the life
of the two pulp writers, who also encounter the undead in the form of Lovecraft, before
the final denouement where the world is saved.
It takes a bold author to write about historical characters and imbue them with any
personality other than a bland one that can be adduced from historical fact. More so,
when they are part of recent history. Malmont goes at it full-bloodedly, making Gibson
and Dent the sort of pulp heroes that they themselves wrote about. So one can hardly
imagine them objecting from their graves. H P Lovecraft did die of cancer of the
intestine. It is not recorded that he returned from the dead to haunt the seamier side of
New York. Though again his literature might have suggested he would have liked to.
The list goes on. Aside from L Ron Hubbard, we also have, as the other sidekick, Bob
Heinlein masquerading as Otis B Driftwood. Some will recall that this was Groucho
Marx's soubriquet in A Night at the Opera. We are also regaled with a few peripheral
characters such as Orson Welles, Doc Smith (of Lensman fame), Chairman Mao, and
though not named, a pair of cartoon geeks who are clearly Seigel and Shuster
(Superman's creators for the uninitiated).
Lester Dent's own formula for pulp was, in the first 1500 words, to introduce the
hero, and swat him with a fistful of trouble; hint at a mystery or a menace; and introduce
the other characters asap. In the second 1500 words, to shovel more grief on the hero;
and produce a surprising plot twist. In the third 1500 words, to shovel even more grief on
the hero…and so on. By those standards, Paul Malmont has produced a rollicking, and
affectionately accurate rebirth of the classic pulp novel. And done it using those writers
who made it so readable when it first emerged on to the magazine news-stands to be
devoured by the eager American public.
(
Ian Morson
Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger)
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