reported by Susan F. Monroe, FictionFanatic.com

While thirty million readers a month read pulp fiction magazines during the first half of the 20th century, this past weekend at PulpCon 35 in Dayton, several hundred die-hard fans and collectors came together to celebrate the past glory of these historic publications.

Once sold for a dime or a quarter, rare pulp issues featuring a story by L. Ron Hubbard, Edgar Rice Burroughs or Raymond Chandler go for $500 to several thousand dollars at PulpCon. Often featuring attention-grabbing cover art and classic inside illustrations, the pulp fiction magazine has been transformed into mega bestsellers like "Battlefield Earth" and "Harry Potter" or Hollywood blockbusters like "Star Wars" and "Pirates of the Caribbean."

While the trading, selling and discussion of the pulp magazines was a major part of the 4-day convention, the big news was the announcement by Galaxy Press that they are going to release a new line of 80 books by best-selling author L. Ron Hubbard. According to publisher John Goodwin, "There is a strong resurgence of demand for the great writers who defined American fiction in the 1930s and 1940s in the pulp magazines. Even the Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collection Division has collected all the magazines featuring the Ron Hubbard stories. We are releasing 200 novels and stories again as part of our 'Stories from the Golden Age' collection."

John Gunnison of Adventure House, a publisher who reprints many of the original pulp magazines, believes the timing for the new line couldn't be better. "Many of America's most popular novels, movies and TV series owe their appeal to the fast action and sharp dialogue of pulp fiction. But the original great stories by Ron Hubbard, Robert Heinlein, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Raymond Chandler and others have never aged. They are there to enjoy whenever a reader wants to experience the magic that great fiction offers. The new Galaxy line will make many of these great novels and stories with their wonderful illustrations easily available for the first time."

The new line features over 200 novels and stories in 80 trade paperback editions using the original pulp cover art and inside illustrations will release nationally starting in Spring 2007. Hubbard wrote in all the major genres including adventure, mystery, suspense, western, fantasy and science fiction.

Website: Galaxy Press