1936 - Pulp Heroes
- Thread starter Blackrat
- Start date
James Heard
Explorer
Right now I've got him pegged as "literature," meaning he's not so much a genre writer as a writer who's got a distinctive style and crosses genres with it.Blackrat said:
In order his books are:
The Yearning: I picture this as a smarmy, half-pretentious first novel about growing up with a romance and lots of travelogue. Something that's truly hideous, but shows enough of the writer that he eventually becomes that real "Chester Powell scholars" sneer at anyone who can't quote from it.
One Hill Farther: An antiwar story, probably born from touring Europe and written more or less concurrently with the Yearning (which was probably born from snippets written from as early as Powell's teens), and hideously overshadowed by the antiwar stories written by older writers who actually participated in the Great War.
The Village: The book that made Powell famous, along with his timely starring role as a rugged savage opposite Maureen O'Sullivan. The worldly Powell, basically pies upon the posh and pampered of New York. The kind of book that everyone read that year and went "Isn't that clever?"
Up and Down: Powell's "capitalize upon the success of The Village" book. Short stories, covering many topics.
Haunted Safari: An action thriller set in deepest Africa, based upon Powell's adventures there.
The Supermen: The longest and most literary and unapproachable book Powell's written. Not the sort of book anyone picks up for a quick read. Powell's book most likely to be assigned for college reading classes in the future, covering many topics from social miladies, communism, Hitler, Midwestern farming, and the glitzy temptations of Hollywood. A very serious book.
I imagine Powell also has screenplays and articles in the New Yorker, etc, though he's not likely to advertise it or make a habit of it. Powell's not above writing for news, he's just more comfortable being the news.
James Heard
Explorer
I think I've finally figured out the character. I'm not so clear on the mechanics just yet, especially since we're apparently working out niches still a bit.
Blackrat
He Who Lurks Beyond The Veil
DrZombie said:
Sounds like a smuggler or a mercenary? I think we're coming to the limit of my comfort-zone in party size but I could still allow one more. So if you like you're in Dr.Z.
James. You need to check the years in Powell's background again. I think you made some mistakes? Especially the year he went to school and the year he graduated? Otherwise I just say this:
That's some background. Rat Likey!
James Heard
Explorer
Blackrat said:James. You need to check the years in Powell's background again. I think you made some mistakes? Especially the year he went to school and the year he graduated? Otherwise I just say this:
Just a typo: He doesn't graduate college in 1916, but in 1926.
1906: Born. A scorpio.
1923: Age 17, gets into Harvard
1926: Age 20, finishes college. Smart, as well as beautiful.
Goes to Spain.1927: Age 21, travels.
1928: Age 22, finishes writing The Yearling. Still traveling, probably begins to appear in movie parts when suckered into it by his now famous friends.
1930: Age 24, finally sells "The Yearling", quickly followed by "One Hill Farther."
1931: Age 25, his big break year - he appears in the Tarzan-esque action movie "The Savage", and soon after "The Village" appears in bookstores.
1932: Age 26, "Up & Down." Olympic medalist Weissmuller becomes Tarzan, probably owing to his more substantial physique.
1933: Age 27, "Haunted Safari"
1935: Age 29, "The Supermen" (which probably takes two years to write because its tremendous page count)
1936: Age 30 (at least at the end of October), the present
The trickiest part was picking a starting date where he wasn't too young to be a Lost Generation writer, but could come in at the end of the period without really participating (and being much older) and that opened up some opportunities for weird trivia like "dated Maureen O'Sullivan and starred in a picture with her before her big break." I wanted to make sure he could have done weirdly notable things for the day, like have circled the globe a couple of times and met Charles Lindbergh and impressionist painters in Paris for coffee, gone hunting in Africa with an older Hemingway, and gone to the Olympics in San Moritz, etc.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Voda Vosa
First Post
Named Lotka like his grandfather, Lotka Kirdov a smart young russian man was born in 1895 in Moscu. His life was centered in his studies. As Russia grew as a powerful cientific power in the world, Lotka finished his grade studies in biology and started working in the university of Moscu.
There, he met a man full of ideas, full of new theories, not about his science, but of an other sort. That mans name was Leon.
Lotka kept working in genetics and developed an amazing laboratory, one of the finest in all Russia. There, all sorts of inventions and new ideas where faced to tests, many failed, but some, some really worked!
It was a golden age for Lotka. But when life goes up as much as it could, it irrevocably, goes down. Stalín, took Russia government in 1924, after Lennins death. What once was a flourishing power, crumble beneath the dictatorial and dread rule Stalín putted upon Russia. Lotka managed to survive, reducing his experiments, and making what he was told. But as a friend of Leon Trosky, he was not to be forgiven. Fearing that he was the next in the list, as many of his friends were, Lotka fled to USA. He keeps posting with his few friends in Russia. Lotka would never imagine that the next year, 1937, Leon will flee to Mexico with Stalín assassins after him.
Now with a new life to be lived, Lotka Kirdov walks the streets of New York, he is a strange guy with a strange story to tell.
Still needs some work...
There, he met a man full of ideas, full of new theories, not about his science, but of an other sort. That mans name was Leon.
Lotka kept working in genetics and developed an amazing laboratory, one of the finest in all Russia. There, all sorts of inventions and new ideas where faced to tests, many failed, but some, some really worked!
It was a golden age for Lotka. But when life goes up as much as it could, it irrevocably, goes down. Stalín, took Russia government in 1924, after Lennins death. What once was a flourishing power, crumble beneath the dictatorial and dread rule Stalín putted upon Russia. Lotka managed to survive, reducing his experiments, and making what he was told. But as a friend of Leon Trosky, he was not to be forgiven. Fearing that he was the next in the list, as many of his friends were, Lotka fled to USA. He keeps posting with his few friends in Russia. Lotka would never imagine that the next year, 1937, Leon will flee to Mexico with Stalín assassins after him.
Now with a new life to be lived, Lotka Kirdov walks the streets of New York, he is a strange guy with a strange story to tell.
Still needs some work...
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