Interview with Van Allen Plexico
Q. You’re generally considered as one of the leading figures in the New Pulp Movement. So for those of us who don’t know, what is the New Pulp Movement?
A: New Pulp is a revival movement, starting about twenty years ago, to bring back the “pulp” approach and writing style to novels and stories: Strong characters, fast-paced action, heroic adventure, illustrations (sometimes), and excitement. It’s the kind of storytelling you see in, for example, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or the old Buck Rogers, Doc Savage, John Carter of Mars, or Conan the Barbarian stories.
New Pulp writers either write stories using those characters (when they’re legally available or licensed) or they create new ones in the same vein.
I was in on the movement from its earliest days, and have written nearly twenty novels and a lot of short stories in that style.
Q. You are famous for your crime novels and for your superhero saga, Sentinels: The Dark Crusade. But for the purposes of this blog, I’d like to focus on your sci-fi. So how about picking one of your sci-fi books to bring to our attention?
A: I would start with LUCIAN: DARK GOD’S HOMECOMING.
It’s a sci fi novel with elements of Fantasy, in the style of Roger Zelazny’s Amber or Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth books. The protagonist is very “Loki”-like, in the sense that he comes across as a villain at first, but you begin to appreciate and root for him as the story unfolds. He is the “Dark God” of a future pantheon of cosmic gods (in the Jack Kirby style of mythological gods as superheroes and supervillains, the way he handled Thor, Odin, Hercules, etc). Lucian gets caught up in a conspiracy among the gods and, being the god of mischief and evil, he of course makes the perfect fall guy to be framed for the crime. So the book is about how he sets out to clear his name, even as he has a price on his head and every other god wants to kill him! Along the way he meets up with and gets involved with a human woman, who is also being pursued across the worlds, and she helps him just as much as he helps her.
Q. There seems to be a large element of fun and adventure to a lot of your stories. Has this grown from an early enthusiasm since childhood? Have you ever borrowed from any ideas that developed at an early age?
A: Absolutely. My earliest influences were Marvel comics of the “Bronze Age”—the 1970s and early 1980s, mainly. I tend to approach story and structure the way those classic comics did, with lots of action, fast pacing and forward movement. I’m probably best known among readers and other writers for how fast-paced my stories are. I like to grab the reader’s attention and get things going immediately, and I rarely let up!
Q. Which stories/books/movies/comics were your first love? (Delete as appropriate or include them all!)
A: The first comics I read that utterly astounded me were the Avengers comics of Jim Shooter and George Perez. Along with Iron Man and a few others, that was what I consumed as a kid. I also read whatever SF novels I could get ahold of, including Larry Niven (Ringworld and his related books) and Frank Herbert (the Dune series). But by far the biggest influences on my writing have been the novels and short stories of Roger Zelazny. His Chronicles of Amber series, and pretty much everything else he ever wrote, infiltrated my writing DNA. It’s especially evident in the LUCIAN novel, but I tend to apply his approach to writing in most things I do: that prose-poetry approach, where the narrative should just flow musically.
One year at DragonCon, I was at my book-signing table, and a guy came up and pulled two of my books out of his bag. He said, “My friend told me you write just like Roger Zelazny, and so I bought these to prove him wrong. But—YOU DO.”
I hugged that man!
Q. Great stuff. Okay, for the next question: I recently watched the discussion on your White Rocket Podcast about The Mandalorian and I thought it might be fun to give you the chance to have a rant about what has happened to the Star Wars franchise in recent years. What have you been a fan of, and maybe not so much a fan of? What hopes do you have for the future of the franchise?
A: I loved Star Wars. Before it came out, all we really had was original Star Trek, the Six Million Dollar Man, and Space: 1999. Those were great, but they weren’t “mind-blowing vast sagas.”
When I saw Star Wars in 1977, it didn’t change my life—I was only 9! —but what it did was lay out the path my life would take. Everything I’ve done since then can partially be traced back to Star Wars in 1977.
Unfortunately for me, I haven’t enjoyed much of anything in that universe as much as I did the first movie. I’m not a huge “Empire Strikes Back” fan. I tend to describe the movies as “The greatest film of all time, followed by eight increasingly disappointing sequels and prequels.”
What the Mandalorian did was to restore so much of what I thought made the original movie great. It really does look like Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni sat down with that first movie and just made a list of all the things that were unique and fun about it, and they’ve been delivering those things back to us in Mando’s show. So I adore The Mandalorian and I appreciate how it’s kept the Star Wars franchise alive for me, when nothing else did.
Q. Tell us more about the White Rocket Podcast.
A: In the years prior to 2012, I had been a guest on a lot of podcasts, and I enjoyed talking about various topics—but I wanted more control over the format and the topics. So I got the equipment, got the software, learned how to use it all, and launched my own network: The White Rocket Entertainment Network.
We have four ongoing podcasts on the network:
The White Rocket Podcast is our catch-all pop culture show. I have different guests on there all the time, depending on the topic. We’ve had stretches covering the Mandalorian, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, various comics and superhero movies, book reviews, and just about everything else.
I also have a show about football (it pays most of the bills!), a James Bond show (On Her Majesty’s Secret Podcast), and the new “White Rocket Babylon 5 Review Podcast.”
Q. One thing I noticed while watching was the collection you had behind you. Have you read all of those books?
A: I have 12 bookcases here in my basement studio. I would describe it as, “I’ve read all of most of them and parts of all of them!” There’s a lot of SF, obviously, but also a bookcase of crime fiction (Michael Connelly; Donald Westlake; Jo Nesbo; Henning Mankell; etc) and a lot of history and politics (my day job). There’s also a ton of stuff like the Master and Commander series and the James Clavell “Asian Saga,” among others. A lot of them have been signed by authors I’ve met and/or interviewed or moderated convention panels for, over the years.
Q. For those of us who don’t know what Dragon Con is, give us a quick introduction. Then, for my question I’d like to ask what have been some of your most memorable experiences from the event.
A: DragonCon is the largest fan-run pop culture event in North America, every Labor Day weekend in Atlanta. I’ve attended almost every year since 1995, and have been an invited pro guest every year since 2008. I do a Reading and a Book Signing and have a table in their “Author and Artist Alley” area. I usually am on about fifteen discussion panels there every year. I also moderate panels and interviews with other authors (and in some cases, with actors like Bruce Boxleitner of Babyon 5), and occasionally host events like “Marvel/DC Triva Tournament” (that draws about 300 attendees every year) and “Starship Showdown.” It’s so much fun to get together with about 80,000 other fans in downtown Atlanta every year and have all kinds of fun.
I mentioned one of my favorite stories from there already, but there have been so many. One year I went to a panel with Harlan Ellison and Peter David, where they were supposed to talk about “Writing for TV.” But they discovered there was a piano in the room, so they spent the entire hour playing and singing showtunes. It was amazing. Plenty of people have heard them talk about writing, but I got to see them perform showtunes! Bizarre but true!
Through DragonCon I’ve gotten to know and be friends with so many great creative people that I never dreamed I’d even meet. It’s amazing. Just today I was on a video panel being recorded for this year’s con, alongside Dan Abnett and Graham McNeill of Warhammer fame.
Q. I noticed that not only have your stories been included in numerous anthologies, but also you’ve produced a couple yourself. What’s it like, putting out a collection of stories that you’ve discovered?
A: For those, I tend to come up with a topic, and then I go out and recruit authors I know are good, to produce new stories for the book. Examples include GIDEON CAIN: DEMON HUNTER (I wanted to flesh out the backstory of a Solomon Kane-style Puritan swordsman, so I went to Kurt Busiek and others and together we came up with a story bible for the property. Then I found writers who wanted to participate.
Same with PRIDE OF THE MOHICANS (“Let’s tell the stories of what Hawkeye and his father and brother were doing before the movie!”) and BLACKTHORN (“Imagine John Carter of Mars—but Carter is a modern US Army officer, and Mars is a far-future terraformed world!”)
I don’t do those as often as I used to—my novel writing takes up too much time!—but I do have a new edition of the GIDEON CAIN anthology coming out later this year.
Q. Before we go, tell us a little about your day job. You’re a professor, so I hear.
A: Yes, I am a professor of Political Science and History in southern Illinois. I always understood, growing up, that only a small fraction of people who write novels can actually make a living doing nothing but that. Being pragmatic, I made sure to hedge my bets by finding something else I enjoyed doing, that could pay the bills, while I write (and now podcast) on the side.
I love the interaction of working with my students, teaching them and helping them to learn, and to learn how to approach those subjects—to see how important they are. There’s also a storytelling aspect to being a History professor that I enjoy.
Q. Okay, for a final question: of all the books your written, which are you most proud of? (Or is it like choosing between your kids?)
A: It really is hard to say! I think each of them has something unique to offer. But I’ve thought about that before, to be honest, and I do have a couple of insights.
I think LUCIAN has one of my strongest premises (as described above). It was one of my first novels and I put a lot of time and effort into every word on every page. It came out better than I was even hoping it would; one of those rare occasions where things fall together at the end, rather than trying to fall apart!
My favorite novel is probably BARANAK: STORMING THE GATES, which is a prequel of sorts to LUCIAN. I was trying to capture something of the fun of the early Amber novels in it. Along the way, I realized it was veering from action and adventure to whimsy and humor to fantasy to intrigue and mystery to action again. I really enjoyed writing that one.
My two recent crime novels, VEGAS HEIST and the sequel, MIAMI HEIST, are also favorites, because I’d always wanted to do something in the vein of Ocean’s 11 or one of the Richard Stark “Parker” novels, and they both came together much more successfully than I’d even hoped they would. The first one won “Best Novel of the Year” from the Pulp Factory Awards in 2018, and the second has just won Best Thriller Novel of the Year in the Imadjinn Awards for 2021. It feels good to know the work is appreciated.
Congrutulations and thanks very much for the interview Van Allen Plexico.
Thanks very much for having me on!
--Van
You can check out Van Allen's blog here
connect with him on goodreads here
and on twitter here
his wikipedia page is here
and you'll find his amazon page here
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