Welcome to Volume Three, Number Four of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.
In this issue of Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine, Colin Deerwood’s long running 40’s pulp detective serial, Better Than Dead, Phyllis Huldarsdottir’s steampunk Cheése Stands Alone, and Pierre Anton Taylor’s crime fighting Just Coincidence, combine to give the reader their dime’s worth of Serial Pulp Fiction!
FYI: Available for readers of Dime Pulp who may have missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial, Dime Pulp Yearbook 21, featuring the novels (The Last Resort andBetter Than Dead) and the short fiction (Hard Boiled Myth and Gone Missing) of Volume One’s 12 issues, is joined by Dime Pulp Yearbook 22, featuring the complete pulp Western, On The Road To Las Cruces, continuing episodes of a detective story, Better Than Dead, the opening chapters of new serial novels, Just Coincidence and Cheése Stands Alone, the short fiction of Hard Boiled Myth and Polka Dot Dress, as well as Dropping A Dime’s pithy pulp observations. Volume Two’s 10 issues are available for perusal in their entirety by simply clicking on the links in this paragraph or on the menu bar above.
If you’ve made it this far, go ahead and follow the links below to reading entertainment with the serial contents of Volume Three, Number 4
Special Note: Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine has changed its posting schedule from monthly issues to once every forty-five days. Thus Volume Three will consist of eight issues (much to the relief of the overworked writers and production staff). Thank you for your understanding.
—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant
“Lackland Ask is the name. ‘Lack’ to my friends, ‘Don’t’ to those who think they’re funny. You might have seen my portrait on the cover of Black Mask, the crime fiction magazine. This is my story. It starts with a blonde. This kind of story always starts with a blonde.” Thus begins the seemingly non-stop, endless narrative of Better Than Dead in which women are not the only trouble although most of it, told with the wit and street savvy of Runyon and Parker.
In March of 1892, a Scotsman by the name of Arthur C. “Artie” Doyle was hanged by the neck until dead after being found guilty of a string of grisly murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel. At that moment, history veered off its presumed course and headed in a direction all its own in which the Great War never happened because the Kaiser was afraid of offending his grandmother, Queen Victoria, whose life has been prolonged by the wonders of biology. Her reign, known as the Pax Victoriana has lasted 180 years maintaining as many Victorian airs as possible while making accommodations to rapid advances in bio technology. Cheése Stands Alone poses a steampunk question, can Captain Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”) find her father, the antigovernment turncoat and radical, Commodore Jack “Wild Goose” Cheése. And furthermore, will her quest take her around the globe and through alternate world histories in the requisite 80 days or is it the beginning of a lifelong journey?
In Just Coincidence, a privileged young man with the unremarkable name of Wayne Bruce returns to the site where his father once had his business, a battery manufacturing plant, and where he often spent his childhood days hanging around the factory and the neighborhood. His return is haunted by the mysterious circumstances surrounding his father’s death and the vague feeling that his uncle is somehow involved. Appalled by the poverty and crime of the place he remembers fondly, he is moved to resolve the injustice of the socially marginalized and to wreak vengeance on those he believes are responsible for the death of his father. A personal coincidence brings together dark prince and dark knight joined in a fateful and tragic quest for justice.
Captain Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”), Airship Commander for Aerosud, a luxury liner airship company based out of Sao Paulo in the Empire of Brazil, who is searching for her father, Commodore Jack Cheése, an outlaw and anti-government rabble rouser. Professor Doctor Jean-Pierre Serre-Pain, proprietor of Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium, a traveling snake show, who has abducted Lydia to get her to pilot an illegal unregistered airship to HOAR (the Horn Of Africa Republic) on a mission of mercy in exchange for helping her find her father. Serpina, a young girl who serves as Serre-Pain’s assistant and snake handler who is also a psychic Vessel. Vlady, an older bearlike man also in the employ of Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium and some one that Lydia recognizes from her past. Commodore Jack Cheése, Lydia’s father, a former officer in the Admiralty’s Medical Corp and outspoken critic of the Clockwork Commonwealth, hunted by agents of IOTA (Investigative Office of The Admiralty). Chief Inspector Karla Kola, head of the IOTA team charged with capturing Commodore Jack Cheése and Lydia’s nemesis and pursuer. Pyare, a young man with dreams of being an airship pilot, and member of LBFDS (the League Bousculier Francaise Du Sud) helping Lydia and Serpina rendezvous with Serre-Pain and Vlady at an illegal airship. Pax Victoriana, a period of peace imposed by the Clockwork Commonwealth and its enforcement arm, The Admiralty, dating from the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign to the present for a total of 180 years which includes the TSR (Temporal Shift Realignment) of 56 PV (1893 AD) after which Commonwealth calendars where recalibrated to reflect Her Royal Majesty’s peaceful rule (following the devastation of the first Pandem and its resurgence 30 years later as Pandem II).
Chapter XX
Impatient, the phony Pyare urged them to hurry. “Why are you taking so long?”
Lydia handed Serpina her trousers ripped at the seam with a shrug. “Maybe we can repair them when they’re dry. In the meantime, I’ll wear your burnoose.”
Serpina gladly shed the bulky cloak. There was a gleam in her eye as she passed the sopping clothes to the man waiting outside the door. It was fear or desperation or both. Her lithe body still garbed in wide pleated trousers and a rough pullover blocked Pyare from closing the door completely.
“Someone might see you,” he protested, “think that you are burglars. Or worse, refugees!”
“We’ll stay out of sight,” Lydia spoke over Serpina’s shoulder.
Faux Pyare stepped back to gain a new appraisal of the two women he was aiding. A smile seemed to dissipate his sullen mood. ”Yes, yes. Remain inside. I will return shortly.”
Lydia watched imposter Pyare leg it across the overgrown courtyard toward the main house. She didn’t have to say it, the look Serpina gave her said she didn’t trust him either. Something had to be done. “Can you remember anything that he said that would give us an idea of what his plans were? He had a friend. He would take us overland. Something about the clans. What else did he say?”
“He likes to talk about himself. He feels he has to prove himself. An idealist besides. And handsome. Handsome idealists are rare in real life. I remember when he spoke of his friend and I pictured them sitting at a table plotting a revolution.” Serpina gave a bemused smile. “They were in a café. The Clumsy Rabbit on rue Gilles Lapin.”
“I don’t remember any of that.”
Serpina hesitated. “I don’t think it’s a memory.”
Lydia stared at the young woman. “Pyare?”
“I think so. . . .”
“How did. . . ? Did you two entangle?”
“He is very receptive for the brave front he puts up.” She smiled to herself.
“You’re communicating with him?”
“I sense an impression.”
“In real time?”
“That’s entanglement.”
“I know that! Are you entangled with me?” Lydia asked suspiciously.
“No. You’re not receptive. Your guard is up. Like someone with something to hide or repressing a terrible emotion.”
Lydia glanced around, desperate. She and Serpina were synced in their anxiety, it was written in their expressions. “We can’t stay here.” Lydia paced the small room examining the corners, the one window from which the red door of the outbuilding could be seen.
Serpina had pulled open the top drawer to the dresser. “Nothing.”
“It doesn’t look like anyone has lived here in a while. Otherwise we would have noticed their scent.” Lydia stood in front of the wardrobe. A small waistcoat with a hole in the elbow and white padding extruded. A frock hanging limply from a peg.
“I don’t think our new friend lived here. These are woman’s things, scarves, stockings.” Serpina said looking up from the second drawer.
Lydia had moved aside the frock. “What’s this?” Hidden behind the garment was a wide belt with a large ornate buckle. “It’s real leather.” She examined it taking it down from the peg. “What do think this represents?”
Serpina looked closely at the heavy round metal clasp depicting in profile a woman with flowing curls underneath a Phrygian cap and a bird’s wing at the temple.
“This could be precious metal,” Lydia suggested.
Serpina shook her head. “No, it’s cheap cast ore. They’re very popular at fairs and markets. That’s Frida the Fearless. That’s why the buckle has an ‘F’ on either side of the figure. Surely you know of her, the popular storybox heroine from the early years of the first Pandem. I’ve even seen old pulps of her adventures in some antiquarian stalls. People collect them.”
“I don’t pay any attention to any of that trash.” Lydia kept the belt in her hand as she cast her glance back to the small room and its furnishings. At the foot of the narrow cot was a gray overstuffed chair that was coming apart at the seams. A colorful banded blanket was folded over its back. She lifted an edge to her nose and it made her sneeze. Unfolded she held it out at arm’s length. “This will have to do,” speaking to no one in particular and wrapped it around her waist so that the hem fell just above her tall boots. She cinched the belt tight around the top of the blanket to hold it in place. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter XXI
Lydia led Serpina briskly down the cobbled lane of the old neighborhood in the opposite direction from where they had come with the false Pyare. They had to locate the real Pyare. Lydia kept the hood of her cloak close around her face. They’d met an elderly man pushing a velo and Serpina had asked directions to the café, The Clumsy Rabbit. He’d frowned at them suspiciously, especially at the taller Lydia and her unusual outfit. It was in a bad part of town he’d advised as he pointed the way.
The district they found themselves in was one of small tradesmen and yeoman mechanics. The streets were not paved but graded earth and gravel. The clangor of building and construction echoed in the square white washed walls of the warehouses and wide doored stalls. The scent of grime and smoke emanated from them and filled the air.
They were overtaken and passed by a few young men and boys hurrying in the direction they were headed. Soon they were joined by others hurrying toward some kind of excitement.
Where the crowd of mostly men, workers from the nearby business and factories, had congregated was a small nondescript two story building with a wide wood awning over the entrance and a handful of simple mis-matched chairs and tables announced by a sign depicting a rabbit with a crutch and a bandaged head hanging from the eaves, They had found the Clumsy Rabbit. So had the gendarmes.
Lydia kept to the fringe and peered in the direction of the activity. The police had detained four men lined up facing the side wall of the café. They were guarded by two officers while a third was shouting commands at the gathering crowd to stay back.
Serpina snaked her way through the jostling bodies and murmurs of speculation taking her to the front of the raucous crowd.
The men being detained were partially obscured in the shadow of the overhang as lengthening day worked to erase them. None of the men were Pyare. In the ever growing assembly Lydia was beginning to feel conspicuous. She and Serpina were the only women apart for an older matron talking loudly, gesticulating wildly, pointing agitatedly at the café where apparently she was the proprietress. Another officer, chevrons on his sleeves, stepped to the doorway of The Clumsy Rabbit and frowning, gazed out over the growing throng of onlookers. She noticed the two official magnovels parked to one side and a squat six seater squad halftrack blocking the roadway past the cafe into the warren of neighborhood homes and shops. The policeman at the door stepped aside as another officer pushed a man out into the light of late morning. It was Pyare.
Serpina returned with what she’s overheard. “They’re waiting for some higher official to arrive. They’re rounding up members of the League. This is one of their suspected meeting places.”
“And there is Pyare. From the frying pan into the fire.”
“That’s an odd thing to say,” Serpina commented.
“It’s an old folk saying where I come from. It makes more sense in Esporto.”
Pyare had joined the men in the shadows facing the wall. And another man was taken into the dark doorway of the café by the chevroned official.
“A prisoner transport has been dispatched to take them to the main prison in Oldest Orleans I heard someone else say. You can tell by the grumbling that these workmen are angry. They don’t like the police because it is an enforcement arm of IOTA, that the local officials do its bidding.”
“Pyare said that Leon had been arrested,” Lydia remembered. “But what is he doing here? He was supposed to take us to his friend who would help us get to Autre Lyon and Dr. Serre-Pain and Vlady.” At the mention of the man bear Serpina’s expression clouded and Lydia felt a pang of regret. Her actions had caused the change of plans for their journey to rendezvous with the illegal airship she was to pilot to the Horn of Africa. Her attempt to escape her captors had put her in danger of being apprehended by the agents of The Admiralty. If she had any doubts, the appearance of Karla Kola at the check point in Oldest Orleans earlier that morning had rendered them moot. She was now in alliance with those who had abducted her in the guise of helping her find her father, the elusive anti-Commonwealth provocateur, Commadore Jack Cheése.
Serpina spoke into the ear of a man in a welder’s hat who had come to stand in the crowd around them. The ruddy faced man looked alarmed and then nodded his head before he said something to a large coverall clad man who repeated it to the man next to him who passed it on to another man until the message made its way through those gathered to witness the police action and caused them to surge forward in anger. The gendarme charged with holding them back raised his white baton, but it was too late. A brick was lobbed at the officers guarding the detainees. They raised their pistols and fired over the heads of the seething mass.
Lydia and Serpina were carried forward by the press of bodies and had to push against the current to extricate themselves to the fringe. But it was over quickly. No one wanted to get shot. When Lydia searched the shadows where the suspected Leaguers had been detained, there were only three and none of them was Pyare.
In that instant of confusion, Pyare had disappeared and Lydia was not the only one who had noticed. The chevroned officer barked orders and two gendarmes set off down the narrow cluttered gap between the café and the adjacent building in pursuit.
“Come,” Lydia urged and Serpina followed quickly behind. Once at a distance from the police activity, they stepped up their pace. “This street parallels the alleyway. We might be able to head them off. Hurry!”
“But the police. . . .”
“We’ll deal with them if we have to.” Lydia was tired of passively waiting for an avenue of escape. She decided that she would make happen what needed to happen. It was crucial that Pyare get them to their guide who would take them across the Massif and to the hidden airship.
They reached a corner and strolled casually across the deserted intersection. A shout and the sound of something falling or breaking alerted them to look in the direction where two gendarmes exited the alley onto the street. The policemen circled each other confused as if they had had their expectations deflated.
Lydia and Serpina continued their casual stroll as if they hadn’t noticed them hoping for reciprocal invisibility.
“Stop! You Two!” The gendarmes trotted over to confront the two women. “Did you see anyone run past here in the last minute or so? A man, shaggy hair, a maroon topcoat?”
Lydia shook her head mutely and Serpina answered in the local dialect, “No, we have seen no one.”
“Your papers,” the one who was doing the talking demanded.
Lydia glanced at Serpina and gave a slight nod. Serpina reached into her shoulder satchel as Lydia considered how she would overpower them. They were suspicious but because they were dealing with women their guard was relaxed. Two moves, maybe three, and she would incapacitate the one demanding their papers. The element of surprise would give her the advantage for the other one as well.
“No, no, this can wait till later,” the second officer insisted. “We have to find the runner. The sergeant will skin us alive if we don’t bring him back!”
The officer who had demanded their papers looked annoyed but relented, taking in Lydia’s unconventional gear, pointing a finger at her, a broken finger if she’d have her way, and commanded, “Do not leave the area. I will return to confirm you identification!”
Lydia watched them scurry into the alley across from the one they had just exited. She held up her hand and motioned to Serpina. “Wait till they’ve committed themselves to the chase.” She hurried to the entrance of the narrow alley. “Since they didn’t find him when they came through here and we didn’t see him exit, Pyare must still be in there.”
Serpina picked her way through the clutter behind Lydia. “Yes, he is here, I can sense him.”
Lydia tried a door on one side and it was locked. She glanced around a rank of blue bio barrels. Pyare had eluded the police but where had he gone? Lydia and Serpina looked at each other and then up into the rafters of the roof overhang.
Pyare dropped to the ground between them. “How did you find me? I thought I had lost you for good.”
“No time for that now. We need to leave immediately!” Lydia pointed in the direction they had come, herding Pyare and Serpina ahead of her.
As they turned the corner out of the alley, the gendarmes were waiting for them, pistols trained on them.
“Well, well,” said the one as he moved to secure Pyare, “You were. . . .” He didn’t finish what he was going to say. Lydia sprang off the ground and launched a perfectly aimed kick at the tip of his chin, toppling him like a bag of wet sand. The other policeman turned his focus on Lydia and was about to shoot when Serpina’s satchel caught him a round house blow from behind the head. Lydia jammed the heel of her palm against his nose and levered his arm until the pistol dropped from his grip and clattered to the ground.
Pyare stooped to pick up the fallen weapons.
“Leave them!” Lydia warned, “If they catch us in possession of firearms we’ll spend the rest of our lives in the labor camps!”
“You’re right, but we have to disappear. Leon has obviously said too much. My contact, the guide who would take you through clan territory was one of those being held by the police!”
“We have no choice now but to run!” Lydia had no objection to running. She just wanted to be certain of the direction.
“We’ll have to cross the mountains on our own. I will accompany you to your destination.” He smiled at Serpina and she smiled back. “But first we have to locate my friend’s SLOTS.”
“You mean well be traveling by SLOT?” Lydia didn’t hid her displeasure. “Walking would be faster.”
“These are V models with magnetic torque. Very fast. Like a torpedo.”
Welcome to Volume Three, Number Three of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.
In this issue of Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine, Colin Deerwood’s long running 40’s pulp detective serial, Better Than Dead, hapless city rat Lackland Ask, hiding out from the mob in the country, runs into more trouble from a shotgun toting moonshiner and his star struck daughter, and has to wonder why everyone keeps mistaking him for a dead man.
In Lydia Cheése’s post axial shift world, the reader enters an unfamiliar historical realm peopled by historically familiar names. In Phyllis Huldarsdottir’s Cheése Stands Alone, biology takes the lead as the premier science and physics is just something engineers do. The world is steam powered and airships are the primary mode of intercontinental transport. The Pax Victoriana has lasted 180 years thanks to the machinations of the Admiralty and its intelligence network, IOTA.
In Act Two, Scene 1, part 3, of Pierre Anton Taylor’s Just Coincidence, a classic tale of vengeance gone wrong with overtones and correspondences from popular illustrated hero literature, Wayne Bruce is made an offer he shouldn’t refuse and meets his nemesis, Joe Kerr, in person for the first time. His response to being targeted in a drive-by is swift and original.
FYI: Available for readers of Dime Pulp who may have missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial, Dime Pulp Yearbook 21, featuring the novels (The Last Resort andBetter Than Dead) and the short fiction (Hard Boiled Myth and Gone Missing) of Volume One’s 12 issues, is joined by Dime Pulp Yearbook 22, featuring the complete pulp Western, On The Road To Las Cruces, continuing episodes of a detective story, Better Than Dead, the opening chapters of new serial novels, Just Coincidence and Cheése Stands Alone, the short fiction of Hard Boiled Myth and Polka Dot Dress, as well as Dropping A Dime’s pithy pulp observations. Volume Two’s 10 issues are available for perusal in their entirety by simply clicking on the links in this paragraph or on the menu bar above.
If you’ve made it this far, go ahead and follow the links below to reading entertainment with the serial contents of Volume Three, Number 3
Special Note: Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine has changed its posting schedule from monthly issues to once every forty-five days. Thus Volume Three will consist of eight issues (much to the relief of the overworked writers and production staff). Thank you for your understanding.
—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant
“Lackland Ask is the name. ‘Lack’ to my friends, ‘Don’t’ to those who think they’re funny. You might have seen my portrait on the cover of Black Mask, the crime fiction magazine. This is my story. It starts with a blonde. This kind of story always starts with a blonde.” Thus begins the seemingly non-stop, endless narrative of Better Than Dead in which women are not the only trouble although most of it, told with the wit and street savvy of Runyon and Parker.
In March of 1892, a Scotsman by the name of Arthur C. “Artie” Doyle was hanged by the neck until dead after being found guilty of a string of grisly murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel. At that moment, history veered off its presumed course and headed in a direction all its own in which the Great War never happened because the Kaiser was afraid of offending his grandmother, Queen Victoria, whose life has been prolonged by the wonders of biology. Her reign, known as the Pax Victoriana has lasted 180 years maintaining as many Victorian airs as possible while making accommodations to rapid advances in bio technology. Cheése Stands Alone poses a steampunk question, can Captain Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”) find her father, the antigovernment turncoat and radical, Commodore Jack “Wild Goose” Cheése. And furthermore, will her quest take her around the globe and through alternate world histories in the requisite 80 days or is it the beginning of a lifelong journey?
In Just Coincidence, a privileged young man with the unremarkable name of Wayne Bruce returns to the site where his father once had his business, a battery manufacturing plant, and where he often spent his childhood days hanging around the factory and the neighborhood. His return is haunted by the mysterious circumstances surrounding his father’s death and the vague feeling that his uncle is somehow involved. Appalled by the poverty and crime of the place he remembers fondly, he is moved to resolve the injustice of the socially marginalized and to wreak vengeance on those he believes are responsible for the death of his father. A personal coincidence brings together dark prince and dark knight joined in a fateful and tragic quest for justice.
Lydia watched from the shadows of a river willow above the expanse of the Loire marshes as Pyare negotiated with the stooped dark shrouded figure. He shook his head and waved his hands, showing fingers. The shrouded figure turned and walked away. Pyare held up his arms in surrender, shouting something, and the booter stopped. Further negotiations ensued. Then he raised an arm to summon them.
Lydia followed as Serpina hurried down from the copse where they had been hidden. Lydia was surprised to find that the booter Pyare had engaged as their guide was an old woman with lively dark eyes, her nose and mouth hidden behind the scarf that also enveloped her head. The dark eyes took the trio in with little curiosity and then turned immediately to disappear into the tall tangle of reeds and shrubs. Pyare signaled them to follow. Lydia exchanged glances with Serpina and scrambled after the guide through the low brush.
A stench of death and decay accompanied them along the barely visible track. The expanse of marsh was not uniformly flat. Small mounds and sandbars alternated with patches and bands of oozing oleaginous mire. Some stretches of the bog were safe enough to trod through although the wet clay clung to their feet and threatened to cement them in place. They had to move quickly and lightly, the sound of the suctioning mud reminding them of the fate that awaited them if they lingered. The old woman outpaced them, seeming to skim over the surface of the marsh, not waiting on them.
Lydia glanced back over her shoulder. Pyare was nowhere in sight.
Lydia caught a movement in the reeds out of the corner of her eye. Serpina had seen it, too. “Rats,” she breathed in Lydia’s ear, “Big rats.” They quickened their steps to reach a mound that rose out of the muck. Once over the top, the populated far bank their destination was now in view. Their mud clotted feet descended onto a broad marshy plain dotted with little islands of vegetation. Here the water visibly flowed and the guide stopped to examine the water’s edge until she found a number of partially submerged rocks which she lithely stepped across to firmer ground. They were to follow. Serpina went first, splashing quickly across, a look of satisfaction brightening her worried countenance. Pyare indicated that he would bring up the rear and had Lydia proceed ahead of him.
Scrambling across Lydia caught the shadow of something flitting over the surface of the water. she looked up, distracted, thinking that it was a large bird and missed her step, a foot plunging deep into the icy flow, soaking her thoroughly. She felt strong hands grasp her arm to help her onto the bank and met the determined look of the old woman and then past her at the object set against the lightening sky.
It was na SOB, a Single Operator Biowing. She had flown them herself when she had been stationed in the transport pool at the Commonwealth embassy in Greater Houllas, the capitol of the United Slave State Republics. They were used by IOTA for surveillance. She could tell by the SOB’s altitude that it was surveying a large area near the bridge crossings. And she knew enough about its telemetry that there was a certainty that their variances had been registered. The scanners would indicate their heat signatures as data sets, executing alignment searches for anomalies in the performing patterns, and relay the biofo to an entangled platform monitor, sometimes half a planet away.
The old woman was making urgent noises and pointing to the underbrush prompting them to take cover. Lydia glanced back over her shoulder. Pyare was nowhere in sight.
Chapter XVIII
Could it get any worse? Lydia glanced around, wet but alert. It was just Serpina and her and the old woman to guide them to the far bank. They had to keep going. But once they got there, without Pyare, they would have no idea how to continue. The look on Serpina’s face saying she understood their predicament, they hurried behind the old booter who did not once look back, lithely skipping from the marshy island to the wider rubble strewn shore and then up stone steps to the settlement that crowded the river’s edge.
Lydia paused at the top of the stone embankment to look back. There was no sign of the brash young man who said he had a plan. The old woman pointed down a long street crowded with homes and shops and set off in the opposite direction. They were on their own.
The sun had risen above the morning haze and sounds of doors slamming and feet thumping and scurrying as daily activity came into the light. Their rough work cloaks were not out of place among the passing populace, many riding or pushing velos, opening shops, setting up tables in the crowded narrow lanes. There was a queue for the java bar with its large copper kettles. And they were lost. Pyare was to meet up with someone who would then take them overland through the Massif. But who was he, and how could they find him?
“You are not the Pyare we are looking for,” Lydia spoke frostily. “We’ll just wait here until the Pyare we want meets with us.”
Serpina touched Lydia’s sleeve and nodded in the direction of the java bar where a man had detached himself from the throng of java juicers and was coming their way.
Lydia perceived the threat. He was of average height, perhaps a little shorter than her, a muscled dark face with a wispy chin beard, wiry in a cocksure manner. If she had to, she could subdue him, and as a reminder, the stiletto in the sheath of her snake skin jacket nudging a rib beneath the soaked burnoose. She kept him in focus as he walked past them and met his sideways glance. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him pause a few paces past them and then turn. Serpina stepped into the shadows of the nearby doorway.
“Hey, you two look lost,” he said approaching and eyeing them curiously. His knit faux-laine hat had earflaps and he was trying on a smile. “Maybe I can help you,” her leered on the word “help”.
“Do you know Pyare?” Serpina asked emerging from the shadows.
The man looked startled and then laughed. “I am Pyare! Why do you ask?”
“She means a different Pyare,” Lydia replied, suspicious of the man’s intent and his addressing them in standard rather than in the local patois. “A taller man, younger.” Their disguise as laborers was thin at best.
The man sighed, “Yes, that’s the way it always is, isn’t it? Always taller and younger.”
“Do you know another young man names Pyare?” Serpina tried.
“Ah, a love interest, perhaps? I wish I were that lucky Pyare.”
Serpina blushed. “You are not the Pyare we are looking for,” Lydia spoke frostily. “We’ll just wait here until the Pyare we want meets with us.”
“You are all wet!” dark Pyare said, pointing at her and shaking his head. “You are not from around here that is easy to tell. If you stand around too long, you will be reported for soliciting. Then what will you tell your tall young Pyare?” He laughed to show his big teeth.
“What would you suggest we do?” asked Serpina sweetly.
The man’s face brightened. “Ladies, please, let me assist you. I have a domicile close by, and a high speed heat extractor which belongs to my landlady but she will let me use it and we can dry your wet clothing.”
Lydia thought to refuse but it occurred to her that they had nowhere else to go and the man’s offer would allow them time to reconsider and reconnoiter how to proceed. Serpina had apparently come to the same conclusion. “So kind of you, and you are right, we are strangers here. Lead the way.”
Chapter XIX
Following the man who called himself Pyare down the narrow lane between the backs of houses and vacant lots, barking dogs and scrambling cats, feral or illegally kept as pets in violation of the Pax Victoriana Proclamation On The Interaction Protocols With Nonhuman Sentient Beings, Lydia spoke in a bare whisper her caution. “I don’t trust him but we have no choice. To remain in public will only expose us to discovery. Be alert to his actions and stay close to me. I can deal with him if he tries anything.” She set her lips resolute with what she was capable of as an assertion to Serpina.
The man in the knit hat and floppy flaps glanced over his shoulder at the sound of her voice and grinned. “Just a little further,” he indicated with an arm outstretched in the direction they were heading. Faces appeared in windows as they paraded by, a woman scrubbing a stairwell entrance to a doorway looked up briefly to pass a wrist across her brow and glance at them with questioning eyes. They halted abruptly in front of a square structure with white plaster walls and a red faux coral tile roof. A low barrier wall enclosed the dirt and weeds of the unattended yard. They followed him to the blue door where he stopped and rapped on it sharply three times.
“I live around the back.” He pointed to the moss covered flagstones making a path leading around the corner of the house. “Madame will likely let you use the expeller to dry your cloak and trousers.” A look of confusion flashed across his face. “I’m sorry. I do not know your names.” And he shrugged at the afterthought, “in case Madame asks.”
Lydia was about to speak her name when she remembered the false papers Leon had provided her. “My name is Odette and this is. . . .” She indicated Serpina as she realized that she didn’t know the name the young girl was using.
“Addie!” Serpina spoke up, smiling at her secret joke.
“Very well, Addie and Odette, Madame may require a small consideration for the use of her machine,” he said as the door creaked partially open and in the narrow shadow of the darkened room behind her, a woman in a bright headscarf frowned at them. The man talked rapidly in the local patois, gesticulating dramatically, pointing to the house and then to the two women in the rough brown worker’s cloaks, all the while smiling and bowing in abject supplication.
The woman in the doorway was not amused or convinced by the obsequious display and looked them over suspiciously. She spoke forcefully, pointing to the palm of her hand, and with a final word slammed the door.
A hookah on the self above the headboard dangled its ebony tipped hose over the side, a shapeless blanket crumpled beneath it.
The man who called himself Pyare tried to hide his disappointment by laughing. “Madame is a busy woman but she will allow the use of the extractor if you are kind to her. She is in a bad mood because people take advantage of her generous nature. You must be generous in return.”
He led them around the corner of the larger dwelling to a smaller square structure with similar white plaster walls and a dingy yellow door. An orange cat scampered away at their approach. He fumbled with the latch and then shouldered the door open. He laughed as he led them inside. “The door always sticks. I should complain to the landlord but then she’d ask for the rent.”
They were standing in a small square room with a barred casement window on one wall, an alcove with a mottled and stained uni, a large scorch mark on the wall behind it. A stale scent assaulted their noses, an air that had not been disturbed in a while with hints of burnt wood and charred organic matter over the pungency of sour mold. A mattress on a low frame was pushed against the windowless wall. A hookah on the self above the headboard dangled its ebony tipped hose over the side, a shapeless blanket crumpled beneath it. A large wardrobe stood against the wall next to the alcove. The stone paved floor revealed its previous purpose as a garden shed.
“If you will remove your wet clothing, I will stand outside and Addie can hand them to me. And if you have an appreciation for Madame’s generosity, now would be most useful.” He stepped outside and pulled the door closed.
“I think this is called getting in on the ground floor,” Lydia said shucking the wet burnoose. The extent of the soaking the mired pants had taken was obvious. She felt along the seam at the back. “And my rear has come apart.”
Welcome to Volume Three, Number Two of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.
In this issue of Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine, Colin Deerwood’s long running 40’s pulp detective serial, Better Than Dead, hapless city rat Lackland Ask, hiding out from the mob in the country, runs into more trouble from a shotgun toting moonshiner and his star struck daughter, and has to wonder why everyone keeps mistaking him for a dead man.
In Lydia Cheése’s post axial shift world, the reader enters an unfamiliar historical realm peopled by historically familiar names. In Phyllis Huldarsdottir’s Cheése Stands Alone, biology takes the lead as the premier science and physics is just something engineers do. The world is steam powered and airships are the primary mode of intercontinental transport. The Pax Victoriana has lasted 180 years thanks to the machinations of the Admiralty and it’s intelligence network, IOTA.
In Act Two, Scene 1, part 2, of Pierre Anton Taylor’s Just Coincidence, a classic tale of vengeance gone wrong with overtones and correspondences from popular illustrated hero literature, Wayne Bruce is made an offer he shouldn’t refuse and meets his nemesis in person for the first time.
FYI: Available for readers of Dime Pulp who may have missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial Dime Pulp Yearbook 21, featuring the novels (The Last Resort andBetter Than Dead) and the short fiction (Hard Boiled Myth and Gone Missing) of Volume One’s 12 issues, is joined by Dime Pulp Yearbook 22, featuring the complete pulp Western, On The Road To Las Cruces, continuing episodes of a detective story, Better Than Dead, the opening chapters of new serial novels, Just Coincidence and Cheése Stands Alone, the short fiction of Hard Boiled Myth and Polka Dot Dress, as well as Dropping A Dime’s pithy pulp observations of Volume Two’s 10 issues, and ready for perusal in their entirety by simply clicking on the links in this paragraph or on the menu bar above.
If you’ve made it this far, go ahead and follow the links below to reading entertainment with the serial contents of Volume Three, Number 2
Special Note: Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine has changed its posting schedule from monthly issues to once every forty-five days. Thus Volume Three will consist of eight issues (much to the relief of the overworked writers and production staff). Thank you for your understanding.
—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant
“Lackland Ask is the name. ‘Lack’ to my friends, ‘Don’t’ to those who think they’re funny. You might have seen my portrait on the cover of Black Mask, the crime fiction magazine. This is my story. It starts with a blonde. This kind of story always starts with a blonde.” Thus begins the seemingly non-stop, endless narrative of Better Than Dead in which women are not the only trouble although most of it, told with the wit and street savvy of Runyon and Parker.
In March of 1892, a Scotsman by the name of Arthur C. “Artie” Doyle was hanged by the neck until dead after being found guilty of a string of grisly murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel. At that moment, history veered off its presumed course and headed in a direction all its own in which the Great War never happened because the Kaiser was afraid of offending his grandmother, Queen Victoria, whose life has been prolonged by the wonders of biology. Her reign, known as the Pax Victoriana has lasted 180 years maintaining as many Victorian airs as possible while making accommodations to rapid advances in bio technology. Cheése Stands Alone poses a steampunk question, can Captain Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”) find her father, the antigovernment turncoat and radical, Commodore Jack “Wild Goose” Cheése. And furthermore, will her quest take her around the globe and through alternate world histories in the requisite 80 days or is it the beginning of a lifelong journey?
In Just Coincidence, a privileged young man with the unremarkable name of Wayne Bruce returns to the site where his father once had his business, a battery manufacturing plant, and where he often spent his childhood days hanging around the factory and the neighborhood. His return is haunted by the mysterious circumstances surrounding his father’s death and the vague feeling that his uncle is somehow involved. Appalled by the poverty and crime of the place he remembers fondly, he is moved to resolve the injustice of the socially marginalized and to wreak vengeance on those he believes are responsible for the death of his father. A personal coincidence brings together dark prince and dark knight joined in a fateful and tragic quest for justice.
Lydia stiffened. The men in the black hats had her worried. Then she saw the woman in the long black coat, blonde, taller than most men. Karla Kola. She felt a jolt of genuine fear. Serpina had noticed her alarm. She glanced to the rear of the old trolly and the back exit, the way out. She stood and inclined her head toward the gathering of black hatted agents and their blonde superintendent out the window. Serpina recognized the chief inspector and followed Lydia exiting the tram.
In their hooded work parkas they mingled with the merchants setting up their market stalls, keeping away from the officials yet uncertain in which direction to head. Lydia felt a presence behind her but before she could turn to look, a voice said, “Turn at the second arch by the vegetable stall.” It was Pyare.
He caught up with them in the shadows beyond the arch. “Quick, follow me,” and led them away from Place D’Arc toward the riverfront and the granite edifice of an old church. Once inside, they hurried toward the vestibule. Pyare led them behind the tall ornate altar with its oversized crucified figure. Pulling aside a large sideboard in an anteroom revealed an opening in the wall and plank steps leading down. Pyare handed Lydia his bacso torch as he dragged the big piece of furniture back over the hole in the wall. Once at the bottom of the stairs, Lydia could hear water dripping and the musty earthiness of what appeared to be the beginning of a tunnel assaulted her nostrils with caustic ferocity. Serpina sneezed, and Pyare led the way. After not a considerable distance, slogging and splashing through rivulets of dank water and ducking under creeping roots and vines dripping with moss, they were met with a clear bright light to assail their dim unaccustomed eyes. Steps had been carved into the earth on the incline up and at the top a screen of river willows gave out to a slight rise overlooking the wide mudflats of the Loire.
“Quite a few temporal hiccups happened in this period globally which why it is referred to by some researchers as the Doppelganger Era.”
Pyare addressed their perplexity. “The local superintendent of the police arrested Leon at AOTA’s request shortly after we had all met with him and agreed to the plan. He will tell them everything he knows in the guise of knowing all along that you were a fugitive and that he was planning to turn you in himself. He is the mayor after all.”
“Thank you. I think.” Lydia offered, still a little skeptical. “What of the original plan? Obviously that is no longer an option.”
Pyare grinned. “There is no plan except to get you out of the old city. And with AOTA this close you will have to find a refuge where you won’t be looked for. I have friends who will take you and Serpina up into the hills, and from there you will need a guide to cross the Massif Central and to the outskirts of Autre Lyons. But in doing so we must be aware of the Clans.”
“The Clans, what are the Clans?” She didn’t hide her agitation with Pyare’s nonchalance.
“You know, the people in the white robes, the Fourierists, the phalanges.”
“The only Fourier is know is the man whose heat theories from pre-Victorian times are instrumental to the development of the bug drive. We had a whole quarter on Joseph Fourier’s laws of energy conduction at the Academy.”
Pyare laughed. “No, this Fourier is the social philosopher. The clans are descendant from the phalanges of long ago, back, as you say, in pre-Victorian times but around here known as the Old Empire. Much of that history has been censored by decree of the Lord High Admiral and the Privy Council. Charles Fourier’s teachings have been suppressed and his followers arrested, You can imagine how they feel about strangers and interlopers into their redoubts in the mountains.”
“I have never heard of him. It is his relative who has world renown in the field of bioenergy.”
A strange look came over Pyare’s face and he shook his head as if to clear it. “It doesn’t matter, really, they are the same entity. A temporal slippage occurred in the mid-18th century when, as the result of a Little Bang event that had taken billions of years to reach this region of the universe, the Kandinsky bubble, named after the famed physicist who postulated the event, caused a temporal retardation that lasted almost a decade but meaningless in cosmic terms, and certain anomalies were essentially repeated. Charles and Joseph Fourier are the same person. The same essence merely entered the time stream further down the bank so to speak and kept the same surname but was realized as distinct entities in historical time, each with their own particular genius. Quite a few temporal hiccups happened in this period globally which why it is referred to by some researchers as the Doppelganger Era.”
Lydia blinked. “That’s the most outlandish story I’ve ever heard! Do you expect me to believe that. Here we are in this dire situation and you are spouting folk tales.”
Pyare blinked back and twisted his neck as if trying to straighten out a crick. “Yeah, I dunno. I guess I just knew it. Except I didn’t know that I knew it.”
Serpina sniggered and caught their attention. Pyare nodded his head in affirmation. “Of course! She’s a vessel!”
Chapter XVI
A Vessel? Lydia knew about vessels or had viewed a plasmavid documentary on one of her flights from Rio to Greater London. PVs were reserved for luxury class, all other passengers were afforded the standard public docubox broadcasts. What she could remember of the rather fantastic claims of the feature was that vessels were people with a quantum sensitivity
“You can read my thoughts?”
Serpina glared at her.
Pyare shook his head. “I don’t think she can read them. She can only send them to another. Also she can probably pick up frequencies of people she has synced with. She entangles with them. She feels what they feel at the same moment as they feel it.”
“How do you know this?”
Pyare shrugged. “I don’t know, I just do. She’s a vessel. They can do that kind of thing.”
“How do I know she’s not transmitting those thoughts to you?” Lydia looked at Serpina, her hands folded in her lap, eyes lowered.
“They can’t be her own thoughts. She’s a vessel. Besides we haven’t been in proximity long enough to be entangled.” He glanced at Serpina. “Have we?”
Serpina blushed, but Lydia wanted to know, “Then whose thoughts are they?”
“What does it matter. The Clans aren’t the only thing we have to deal with. There’s also the Boo.” Pyare pointed to the gray brown expanse of the mud flats dotted with clumps of dense vegetation. “They are treacherous to navigate. Full of sink holes and sand pits. There is no distinct path across. We will have to wait for the booters.”
“Booters? What are booters?”
“They are the people who live along the East Bank of the river in shanties in the shadow of the workers quarters of Old Orleans . They are scavengers and smugglers. Their nights are spent picking through the tourist trash in Oldest Orleans, especially after festivals and carnivals like the Victorianaisance. Some are musicians and perform in all night cabarets. What they do is not sanctioned and they can be arrested for not passing through the official checkpoints and showing the proper papers.” He pointed at the dark figures in the distance. “There are two of them now.”
“Let’s follow them!” Lydia leapt to her feet.
Pyare pulled her back. “If they see us they’ll hide, or worse, lead astray us into the deeper mud and we’d never get out. In the meantime we wait for the solitaries, the ones who travel alone. It will cost us, but there is no other choice.”
“Can we trust them? What if they betray us to the police?”
“They dislike the police more than you can imagine. They think of themselves as a free people, outside the laws of the regime. Among themselves, they are known as freebooters.”
Lydia stared out through the scrim of trees at the opposite shore and Old Orleans. She was somewhat familiar with the area from the tourist pamphlets that proliferated in kiosks at the airship ports, and had overheard airship staff chatting about their vacations in the region. The biowines were exceptional and the accommodations were extravagant yet very affordable. Oldest Orleans, the old city was the main attraction, and there was Old Orleans for the more adventuresome, all contained within the prefecture of Orleans which was the hub of international biologic industry hosting such large pharmacorps as Freud Werke and Jung Industries. And not to be confused with the Orleans of North America, Old New Orleans and the city state of Newest Orleans, an independent entity in the heart of the USSR and on the border of the backward swamp republic of Floruisabama.
Her gaze returned to Pyare and Serpina. They were not the companions she would have chosen for this misadventure, or any sort of adventure for that matter. She hadn’t in her wildest dreams imagined that she would find herself on the run from IOTA in the company of a double jointed mind reading teenage girl and an unsophisticated country boy with airship pilot ambitions. She as Doña Lydia de Belize Gutman-Cheése should have been attending galas, soirees, and salons at the Brazilian Court with her husband, Seignior Professario Cornado de Belize Gutman, on one of his infrequent visits to the Pan Rio enclaves from his research station at the headwaters of the Orinoco. But the infrequency of their time together could also be blamed on her very busy, until late, flight schedules as an airship commander.
Aerosud was one of the most fashionable and popular transport companies and consequently much in demand. She held her high status not only to her connections to the Emperor’s inner circle through her sister-in-law, but also as a competent no nonsense captain in Aerosud’s fleet of luxury liners. She’d become accustomed to the privileges that accrued in such positions despite her rather stormy pedigree. The Cheéses were renowned in the field of microbiology and medicine as well as for their outspokenness.
“To deal with this uncertainty principle I need to be predisposed. I am not particularly predisposed to you.”
She disliked tilling the soil of her past. It seemed to hold too many surprises. She had turned away in her thoughts and now considering the two of them, Pyare on his haunches peering out over the mudflats, and Serpina watching him with equal parts of fascination and infatuation.
“Serpina, I have a question.”
The young girl looked up hesitantly at Lydia who had taken her commander stance of fists on hips and imperious authoritative demeanor. “If you have to get to know someone before you can transmit to and from their. . . ,” she wanted to say “minds” but that didn’t seem precise enough, “their mental processes, why have you not used your skills on me?”
Serpina tried to hide her mischievous smirk. “The Doctor asked me not to,” and then with a frown, “And you have a challenging spin.”
“A spin?”
“Yes, some people have an up spin which is easy to tune in to. They operate on pleasant frequencies. Others have a down spin and are not always open to reception or transmission which makes their frequencies difficult to untangle. And others have strange erratic spins that are very unpredictable. You are a down spin with a bit of strange.”
“I assure you I can be very charming under the right circumstances. I belong to the Court of Brazil!”
Serpina laughed aloud. “You don’t want to be a charm spin. They are very unstable and subject to self-destruction.”
“But you could still transmit mental states to and from me?”
Serpina shrugged. “Yes, it can be done but it would be tiresome. It is not like tuning in to a music box broadcast of popular compositions by Gell-Mann. To navigate the various frequency fields takes skill, like a pilot, but unlike a pilot, it is a skill that cannot learned. It is intuitive. These frequencies reside in the subtle body. And there are other spins that interact with the ones I’ve already explained. There is the top spin which is a dominant mode but would not exist if it were not for the bottom spin. The bottom spin maintains a drone for the various spins to harmonize with while the top spin, because of its speed, is prone to wobble and must constantly readjust its orientation to maintain a balanced harmony. These anomalies are what is transmitted and received as cogent mental matter. The top and bottom spins can also reverse themselves which makes synchronization difficult and entanglement haphazard. To deal with this uncertainty principle I need to be predisposed. I am not particularly predisposed to you. Beside the fact that Serre-Pain, who overlooks most of my antics, said not to, and I do as he asks.”
Lydia was near speechless. First Pyare, and now Serpina, expounding from depths their surfaces couldn’t possibly mask. And for once she was intrigued. There was something reassuring about the words spoken by the two however unlikely their own, and she was gaining an insight into a self that she didn’t know existed. She had to know more.
“You are loyal to Serre-Pain, I understand. Is he a relative of yours? A guardian?”
Serpina raised her chin proudly. “Obviously the Doctor is not a relative. He is African. But he is my guardian. I was very young when he found me. I was lost. I had been with a group of refugees. They were sick and dying. They did not do so quietly and their agony was felt across all frequencies. I can’t recall my mother, only a unique tone I associate with her. When I hear that tone again, we will be reunited. The refugees I was with were all grouped together in a single house in what were called special lots. We had to flee because the house was set on fire and burned to the ground. Doctor Serre-Pain found me in a barrel in the rubble on the streets of Dusseldorf where I had gone to get out of the cold. He was passing by with Madame Ophelia and his Ophidiarium wagons. Vladimir was with them, too. Vlady is a transomatic. He sensed my presence and signed the Doctor to look for me. Vlady knew right away that I was a vessel.”
Lydia had been holding her breath. Vlady again. She softened her curious gaze at Serpina. “I too was a young girl when Vlady protected me and my mother from the clowns and the carnies. Although his name was not Vladimir then, and he still had a tongue to speak.”
Serpina’s face grew red, eyes narrowed. “Vlady is mine! You can’t come back and take him away. Look at what you’ve done. Now we’re forced to hide and run without them. And Vlady is not here to protect us!”
Pyare glance over his shoulder at the commotion. “Hey, quiet down, you two. Get ready to leave. I think I see a prospect.”
Welcome to Volume Three, Number One of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.
In the first issue of 2023, Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine celebrates Colin Deerwood’s long running 40’s pulp detective serial, Better Than Dead, at the beginning of its third year! According to author Deerwood, he had not started out to write a serial fiction but was merely writing descriptions of the actions portrayed on the covers of old pulp magazines. “They began as sketches, no more than a couple of paragraphs,” he said in a recent interview, “With few exceptions, never longer than a page.” Deerwood would be the first to admit that what had started out as an idle exercise has taken on a life of its own.
For Phyllis Hularsdottir, Cheése Stands Alone was a chance to make imaginative use of her degree in the Psychology of Speculative History and her interest in the multiverse theory of cosmology. “I wanted to posit a shift in the science world at a point in history where biology takes the lead as the premier science and physics is just something engineers do,” she replied recently to a query. In Lydia Cheése’s post axial shift world, the reader enters an unfamiliar historical realm peopled by historically familiar names.
Pierre Anton Taylor, known around the office as ‘Pete,’ revealed at a recent writers meeting that he thought that the post-war pulp heroes were unrealistic and had gotten too big for their spandex. “There is never a good reason for revenge, no matter what ghosts are haunting you.” His Just Coincidence is a classic tale of just such vengeance gone wrong with overtones and correspondences from popular illustrated hero literature.
Patton D’Arque made his debut in Dime Pulp with his two-part short story, Gone Missing (Dime Pulp, Vol. 1, Nos 2,3) about a couple of grumpy and dangerous ex-cops turned investigators. He returns with the conclusion of his two part short story, Polka Dot Dress, a tale of conspiracy, assassination, hypnosis, and a mysterious woman in a polka dot dress. “I had no idea how it was going to end until I got there because I actually thought I was going someplace else with it,” he wrote in a recent email. But as a famous poet once said, “Speculation is the brain’s bread and butter.”
FYI: Dime Pulp Yearbook 21 contains the novels (The Last Resort andBetter Than Dead) and the short fiction (Hard Boiled Myth and Gone Missing) of Volume One’s 12 issues, available for perusal in their entirety. If you missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial, clicking on the link at the beginning of this paragraph or on the menu bar above is a good way to catch up. Dime Pulp Yearbook 22, featuring all the fantastic serial stories from Volume 2 in their entirety, will be available before too long.
If you’ve made it this far, go ahead and follow the links below to reading entertainment with the serial contents of Volume Three, Number 1
Special Note: Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine has changed its posting schedule from monthly issues to about once every forty-five days. Thus Volume Three will consist of eight issues (much to the relief of the overworked writers and production staff). Thank you for your understanding.
—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant
“Lackland Ask is the name. ‘Lack’ to my friends, ‘Don’t’ to those who think they’re funny. You might have seen my portrait on the cover of Black Mask, the crime fiction magazine. This is my story. It starts with a blonde. This kind of story always starts with a blonde.” Thus begins the seemingly non-stop, endless narrative of Better Than Dead in which women are not the only trouble although most of it, told with the wit and street savvy of Runyon and Parker.
The violent event that occurred more than half a century ago is brought into focus in an assisted living home for an elderly woman whose memory of that time is blocked much to the frustration of an academic researcher and her partner who who see the old woman as the key to uncovering who was behind the conspiracy that changed the course of history.
In March of 1892, a Scotsman by the name of Arthur C. “Artie” Doyle was hanged by the neck until dead after being found guilty of a string of grisly murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel. At that moment, history veered off its presumed course and headed in a direction all its own in which the Great War never happened because the Kaiser was afraid of offending his grandmother, Queen Victoria, whose life has been prolonged by the wonders of biology. Her reign, known as the Pax Victoriana has lasted 180 years maintaining as many Victorian airs as possible while making accommodations to rapid advances in bio technology. Cheése Stands Alone poses a steampunk question, can Captain Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”) find her father, the antigovernment turncoat and radical, Commodore Jack “Wild Goose” Cheése. And furthermore, will her quest take her around the globe and through alternate world histories in the requisite 80 days or is it the beginning of a lifelong journey?
In Just Coincidence, a privileged young man with the unremarkable name of Wayne Bruce returns to the site where his father once had his business, a battery manufacturing plant, and where he often spent his childhood days hanging around the factory and the neighborhood. His return is haunted by the mysterious circumstances surrounding his father’s death and the vague feeling that his uncle is somehow involved. Appalled by the poverty and crime of the place he remembers fondly, he is moved to resolve the injustice of the socially marginalized and to wreak vengeance on those he believes are responsible for the death of his father. A personal coincidence brings together dark prince and dark knight joined in a fateful and tragic quest for justice.
Welcome to Volume Two, Number Ten of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.
Issue Ten of Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine, continues its crime spree with two new pulp fiction serializations, Cheése Stands Alone, a steampunk adventure by Phyllis Haldursdottir, and Just Coincidence, Pierre Anton Taylor’s play of brooding vengeance, as well as the continuing serialization of Better Than Dead, A Detective Story, by Colin Deerwood. And last but not least, Patton D’Arque returns with Polka Dot Dress, a dark tale of a lost memory whose recovery could point to a deadly conspiracy put into play half a century ago.
FYI: Dime Pulp Yearbook 21 contains the novels (The Last Resort andBetter Than Dead) and the short fiction (Hard Boiled Myth and Gone Missing) of Volume One’s 12 issues, available for perusal in their entirety. If you missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial, clicking on the link at the beginning of this paragraph or on the menu bar above is a good way to catch up.
If you’ve made it this far, go ahead and follow the links below to reading entertainment with the serial contents of Volume Two, Number 10
Special Note: Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine has changed its posting schedule from monthly issues to once every forty-five days. Thus Issue Ten will be the last issue of Volume Two for the year 2022. Volume Three will consist of eight issues, the first of which will post at the beginning of 2023 (much to the relief of the overworked writers and production staff). Thank you for your understanding.
—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant
“Lackland Ask is the name. ‘Lack’ to my friends, ‘Don’t’ to those who think they’re funny. You might have seen my portrait on the cover of Black Mask, the crime fiction magazine. This is my story. It starts with a blonde. This kind of story always starts with a blonde.” Thus begins the seemingly non-stop, endless narrative of Better Than Dead in which women are not the only trouble although most of it, told with the wit and street savvy of Runyon and Parker.
The violent event that occurred more than half a century ago is brought into focus in an assisted living home for an elderly woman whose memory of that time is blocked much to the frustration of an academic researcher and her partner who who see the old woman as the key to uncovering who was behind the conspiracy that changed the course of history.
In March of 1892, a Scotsman by the name of Arthur C. “Artie” Doyle was hanged by the neck until dead after being found guilty of a string of grisly murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel. At that moment, history veered off its presumed course and headed in a direction all its own in which the Great War never happened because the Kaiser was afraid of offending his grandmother, Queen Victoria, whose life has been prolonged by the wonders of biology. Her reign, known as the Pax Victoriana has lasted 180 years maintaining as many Victorian airs as possible while making accommodations to rapid advances in bio technology. Cheése Stands Alone poses a steampunk question, can Captain Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”) find her father, the antigovernment turncoat and radical, Commodore Jack “Wild Goose” Cheése. And furthermore, will her quest take her around the globe and through alternate world histories in the requisite 80 days or is it the beginning of a lifelong journey?
In Just Coincidence, a privileged young man with the unremarkable name of Wayne Bruce returns to the site where his father once had his business, a battery manufacturing plant, and where he often spent his childhood days hanging around the factory and the neighborhood. His return is haunted by the mysterious circumstances surrounding his father’s death and the vague feeling that his uncle is somehow involved. Appalled by the poverty and crime of the place he remembers fondly, he is moved to resolve the injustice of the socially marginalized and to wreak vengeance on those he believes are responsible for the death of his father. A personal coincidence brings together dark prince and dark knight joined in a fateful and tragic quest for justice.
Startled, at first Lydia didn’t quite understand the request, the policeman’s accent being of a rough sort. She was still struggling with the image she had of Vlady, but he was not known as Vlady then, he was Samson Trismegistus, the circus strongman who had carried her on his broad shoulder as if she were nothing but a sparrow, a three year old sparrow, and even then only offered silent protection to her, her mother, and the acrobat troupe from their rivals, the clowns and the carnival attractions. That was the reason behind Vlady’s mystifying and knowing smiles.
The short policeman emphasized his demand by speaking it louder and adding contempt to the twist of his mouth. “Your papers!”
Lydia stood, and realizing that she was in danger of being found out, echoed him questioningly, “My papers?”
The taller one leaned his narrow head toward her, “Are you under the influence of controlled substances?” Now they were both on alert. The short one had his hand out.
Lydia held up her own hand signaling she would comply and fumbled for her shoulder bag. There were only two of them, with her training and the element of surprised she could render them unconscious. She didn’t want to have to kill them, the viper stiletto nudging against her ribs. But that would only complicate things. Her Aerosud Executive Airship Pilot’s ID identified her as Lydia Cheése, Airship Commander, and if Doctor Serre-Pain’s words were true, the authorities within IOTA’s sphere of influence, as Oldest Orleans was, would be alerted to her fugitive status.
“I’m afraid that I don’t have them with me. How foolish of me,” she said appeasingly and gestured toward Place D’Arc, “but I’m with. . . .”
Now the tall one’s eyes narrowed, “A vendor? Where is your vendor’s permit?” And he nodded to his companion. “You will have to accompany us to headquarters so we can verify your identity. We have a plasmoviz there that will verify who you say you are.” The shorter one emphasized, “It is unlawful to be in public without proof of identity.” They each moved to encircle her to ensure her compliance.
Lydia had to act, and damn the consequences.
A voice hailed them. “Ah, there you are, Louise!”
The gendarmes pivoted, annoyed. A rotund man in an elaborate topcoat and purple gray tuglemust was approaching with his hand raised. “Louise, there you are. We thought we’d lost you!” He had the jolly confident smile of man who often got his way, the latest gasket frame eyewear giving him an almost comical appearance.
The tall officer gave a nod of recognition, “Lord mayor.”
The other one looked perplexed. “Do you know this person, your honor?”
“Of course! Don’t you recognize her? This is Louise Bouchdor. An honored guest of the Victoriannasence Festival.”
The policemen looked at each other and then at Lydia and then back at the mayor. “You mean the Louise. . . ,” said the one. “Bouchdor?” said the other.
“Of course,” said the mayor, “the porn box courtesan, nothing to be ashamed of. Her voice has titillated men the world over. I would ask her to give you a little trill but that would be very unprofessional.”
“So she is with you, your honor?”
“My party of guests. We were returning from viewing the entertainment by Madame Ophelia,” and he gave her a knowing look, “when she must have wandered off. The newly released bio-vintage is particularly pleasant this year, and perhaps unusually strong.” The mayor inclined his head conspiratorially to the officers, “Especially for fairer constitutions,” and they agreed with knowing smiles.
“Very well, lord mayor, if you vouch for her then we will be on your way,” the short one said magnanimously. He saluted Lydia with a little bow and a smirk, “Madame Bouchdor, always a pleasure.”
When the two patrolmen left to return to their rounds, the roly-poly man’s face angrily confronted her. “Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve jeopardized the entire plan!” He seized her by the arm with a surprisingly strong grip. “We must hurry!”
Lydia resisted, ready with a defense move. “Wait! Who are you? The mayor? Did I hear correct? You said I was a porn box courtesan?”
The mayor turned to her fiercely, “A mere diversion, I assure you. My apologizes if you are offended. That is of no matter now. Serre-Pain, and transporting he and his skills, is what is important. I am Leon. With the League Bousculier Francaise Du Sud. We are charged with getting the good doctor and his wagons to a rendezvous with an airship for which you are the pilot, if I am not mistaken. Lydia Cheése. daughter of the infamous Commodore Jack. A pleasure to meet you despite the circumstances. But we must hurry. They will have to report their encounter and will learn that Louise Bouchdor left Oldest Orleans a few days ago.” He led the reluctant airship commander down a narrow path between the towering walls of the old town. “This way,” he hissed.
A shadow separated itself from the stone wall around the next turn. Lydia recognized him as the money changer at the boot stall. He was clearly a confederate. Leon instructed him, “Take her to the cellar until we are ready to leave.” He gave Lydia a meaningful look. “I will return, with Serre-Pain.”
The young man motioned to her to follow unaware that she was looking for an opportunity to bolt. She was on her last nerve, and didn’t like the feeling of desperation that was creeping up on her. She took a breath, she would have to bide her time. The guide proceeded down steps under a narrow stone arch and to a large wooden door. When he shouldered it open, she could tell it was a wine cellar from the sour fetid air that escaped. He activated a small bacsodium lamp from inside and set it on a shelf by the rank of barrels. Lydia saw her chance and turned to leap back through the doorway. A large shadow crossed the threshold and a hand reached in to slam the door shut in her face.
Chapter Twelve
Lydia had the money changer by the throat, the viper stiletto to the point of his chin. “Open this door!” she growled through her gritted teeth.
The young man caught by surprise held his arms up in surrender. “Please, the door locks from the outside, there is nothing I can do!”
“You have the key! Give it to me!” she insisted, scanning his alarmed expression.
“No! No! The door is barred from the outside! I am in the same fix as you. This is what Leon wants.”
“To hold me prisoner? Why are you here?” Lydia had not let loose of his collar nor toned down her vehemence.
“To keep you company. You are not a prisoner. More of a guest of the LBFDS. And to keep you safe while Leon and the snake doctor come up with a new plan. The local security force works closely with IOTA. I have been shown a plasmovid bulletin with a description and a biosketch with a striking resemblance to you.” The money changer caught his breath staring down at the tip of the viper blade. “You are Airship Commander Lydia Cheése. I am a great admirer of your father, Commadore Jack. All my life I have wanted to be an airship pilot. Please, I mean you no harm, but we are here together until Leon returns.”
SONY DSC
Lydia relaxed her grip and pulled the stiletto back but ready to strike. “You expect me to believe you?” She took in the low ceilinged cellar in the amber glow of the bacso lamp and saw that there was no other exit, merely rows of wine casks, a low bench and a crude table set against a stone wall.
“I can offer you a drink,” he pleaded, “Dried fruit, dates?”
Lydia released him and pushed him away, sheathing the viper blade. “Well, this is awkward,” she admitted, eyes still alert for any means of escape. She fixed his awkward smile with a hard stare and resigned herself to the situation. She was locked in a wine cellar with a not unhandsome young man who was offering her wine and dates. It was almost comical. She was going to have to make the best of it. And not let down her guard. Any drink might be drugged, any food tainted. “Sit over there,” she motioned to the bench, “Where I can keep an eye on you. And I should warn you I have been trained in combat martial arts and can disable you with one blow. What’s your name?”
The young man let a relieved amused smile cross his face. “Pyare. And I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Captain Cheése, I much admire airship pilots. I myself have applied to the Admiralty Air Academy under the Affiliated States quota but unfortunately I did not pass the examination. I have studied aerodynamics and hydrodynamics, my understanding of reproductive drives is not great but I don’t want to be a drive engineer. I want to be a pilot!”
Lydia was disarmed by his earnestness. She remembered her own enthusiasm in the pursuit of a berth at the triple A. Becoming an airship commander had been her singular goal, and she came from a long family line associated with the Crown and the Admiralty. “You can retake the exam,” she offered and remembered that she had passed the exam on her first attempt.
Pyare shook his head. “I didn’t realize how heavily the historiopolitical weighed toward the final grade. I don’t understand what any of that has to do with piloting a double hulled luxury liner.”
Lydia had heard that complaint often, especially among the quota candidates, and especially those without a sponsor. As a citizen of the Commonwealth and sponsorship from Aerosud, her own appointment had been assured. The reason for the grievance had been explained to her by a young Panafrika officer, a woman like herself, who was quite cynical about it. “They want to make certain that you believe what they want you to believe, their version of history, the Succession, the myth of Pax Victoriana!” It was all nonsense as far as she was concerned. She had no patience with conspiracy theories. The irony was that her father was one of the leading theorists of conspiracies
“The Admiralty takes history and politics very seriously. Piloting a luxury liner requires more than just knowledge of the ferro-mechanics. Comportment toward the passengers, the crew, and ancillaries is also part of an airship commander’s job, and that is accomplished by a good working knowledge the politics of history.”
“I’ll bet you aced the WorldPol section of the exam,” Pyare said sullenly.
Lydia could have admitted that she actually had. “Just the fact that you say you admire my father is a strike against you. Even if you had passed the exam, you would have likely failed the IOTA background check with opinions like yours.”
“You don’t know what my opinions are!”
“If I’d venture a guess, I’d say you dispute the Succession, and judication of the GSC, the Global Supreme Council.”
“I don’t care about any of that!” Pyare was getting red around the collar. “Politics doesn’t mean anything to me. Piloting is what I want to do!”
“You could always get a commercial license,” Lydia offered by way of appeasement.
“No, no,” the young man shook his head, “No rigs or semirigs for me, nothing less than full flex certified dirigible!”
“Navair companies will not hire you without Admiralty approved training.”
“Why would an airship company care if I could name all the Slave State Republics in the USSR? Aren’t they all under sanctions as rogue states? ”
Lydia remembered an old history professor’s comment that the Northern Hemisphere’ west was a puzzle whose pieces were always changing shape. While the world was fracturing into numerous hostile states in the early years of the Pax Victoriana, the London Berlin Moscow Accords had forged a stable alliance that eventually became the foundation of the Clockwork Commonwealth. The old academic was well known for his pronouncements, particularly, “The Past will always revenge itself on the Future.”
“I speak Standard well enough,” Pyare continued his complaint, “I have skills, ambition. I would be a good airship captain! Just because I did not make the distinction between the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Tennessee. And what of the Panam Wars? Those border hostilities have been going on forever. Who can keep up? These are things in which I have no interest!”
Lydia nodded her understanding. “Yes, ROT and ROTN are two distinct entities withing the United Slave State Republics and I can see how they might be confusing. Nomenclature is political, it is the ownership of boundaries and superstructure. It is as necessary as knowing Euler’s Equation, or the workings of Bénard Cells or Fourier’s Theorem if you are to navigate the GCC, Greater Commonwealth Cooperative and prove your citizenship to the Crown and Pax Victoriana.”
Pyare snorted his contempt, “Pax Victoriana is a sham! There are still parts of the globe that have no intention of complying with the Jubilee Calendar Reset and resist the Crown’s Global Recalibration. As for peace, the wars may be smaller but there are more of them.”
“You have obviously been listening to ICER box propaganda and anti-globalists like my father. The JCR and the CGR are the basis for the Cooperative of Nations in which all geopolitical entities signed on as partners and that would include the APT, Artisan Protection Treaty of 55 PV, the CET, the Carbon Emission Treaty of 75 PV, the Hydrogen Helium Concorde, the H2C of the same year, the AFSP, the Antiseptic Food Safety Provisions of 80, The FAC, Famine Alleviating Commission formed in 90, and ACSA, the Admiralty Commonwealth Security Accords which were finally signed in 100 PV. The world is a much better place for the many. The few who have to suffer will always complain.”
Lydia was surprised by the irony that she had just parroted something spoken by the Lord High Admiral at her graduation from Admiralty’s Airship Officers Academy. She had accepted it without question. Why did it seem so hollow when she spoke it herself? “There are those who would willingly undermine the protection that the Pax provides for its global citizenry, whether it’s in the Empire of Brazil and its African Colonies or the unaffiliated Western Pacific polystates that run like a backbone from the Aleutians to the Isthmus, predators and thieves sheltered by rouge states who would fatten themselves on the spoils of a fractured Commonwealth if they could.”
“Ha!” Pyare replied accusingly, “You sound just like one of those police kiosk plasmovids. Spreading a biowashed version of history. If I can’t be a lithairian, I’ll settle for being a heavairian.”
Lydia shook her head. “You would be a heathen? You must be contemplating suicide. What if your noisy contraption runs out of petrol, and who can afford black gold but bandits and the super-rich, you will plummet like a large odiferous stone. Flight in a lighter-than-air is dignified transport whereas the noisome roar of internal combustion would vibrate you to a jellied mass. The internal combustion engine is an ICER invention that was never sanctioned by the Crown, especially after bioclean reproductive drives were developed. Even if eradication after the first global Black Mold Infestation led to the unexpected mutation of the biocide used to control it into a petrophage that essentially turned all the oil reserves in the Northern Hemisphere to ash, the wasteful application of the precious resources to an inefficient technology goes against everything the RCA, the Resource Conservation Act of 60 PV, stands for.”
“All that’s ancient history as far as I’m concerned. And who is to say that the BMI actually happened, that it was not a ploy by the Admiralty to extend its dominion over the dissident and defiant masses? No one is allowed into the Blank Forest Zones, the BFZ as you would have it. There are parts of the Northern Hemisphere that are still highly toxic, especially along the Baltic Estuary, and the North American Outback. Everything there has turned into a depolarized particulate cement landscape allowing no regeneration of any sort up from under its crust. It is uninhabitable and only fools and adventurers dare stray into the fringes with their wind driven sail trollies. The Lords of the Admiralty control all information and entry to the Access Restricted Zones. Yet where are the multitudes coming from? The north, the majority from above the 48th parallel. And no one is talking about this migration. Is it like the ICERs say, the world is cooling at its poles and if we don’t do something soon, the globe will be encased in ice?”
Lydia sighed, put her fists to her hips and gave her predicament another once over. What had started as an inquiry into her father’s whereabouts had turned into a kidnaping by a carnival snake doctor to have her pilot a humanitarian mission to non-aligned HOAR, the Horn Of Africa Republic, in exchange for a way to connect with the elusive and controversial anti-globalist, Commadore Jack, someone IOTA would very much like to get in their grasp, and the reason why she was wanted for questioning. And now she was trapped in a musty damp wine cellar with one of her father’s disciples, an ignorant country boy and ICER sympathizer. Men are such idiots. Was she going to have to set him straight?
Welcome to Volume Two, Number Nine of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.
In Issue Nine, Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine, Wayne Bruce continues the investigation into his father’s death in Act One, Scene 4 of Just Coincidence. Brooding in his penthouse high above the cityscape, he has come across evidence of fraud that might implicate his uncle. And as he reconstructs the last hours of his father’s life, the three hours prior to his demise remain a mystery.
It is the year Pax Victoriana180. For Airship Commander Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”), Victoriana rules the waves as well as the airship lanes. In the continuing saga of Cheése Stands Alone. Captain Lydia Cheése has fallen down the rabbit hole and finds herself in the clutches of a herpetologist by the name of Serre-Pain and his traveling snake show, Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium. If she is to find her father, the notorious Commodore Jack Cheése, she must bide her time and masquerade as the snake enchantress, Madame Ophelia.
NumberEleven of On The Road To Las Cruces marks the last chapter in this fictional retelling of the last day in the life of a legendary Western lawman. His death has left many things about his final hours unresolved. Verandah speculation and dark conspiracies have found fertile ground in the barren lands of the New Mexico Territory about who killed the man who shot Billy, The Kid.
And last but not least, Installment 21 of the 1940 detective story, Better Than Dead(Dime Pulp’s longest running serial), hapless confidential investigator Lackland Ask has to get out of town, and quick. With a price on his head put there by the mob, sought by the police and a gang of international diamond smuggler saboteurs, and now in the sights of the mysterious Thieves of Bombay, his only recourse is to make himself scarce.
FYI: Dime Pulp Yearbook 21 contains the novels (The Last Resort andBetter Than Dead) and the short fiction (Hard Boiled Myth and Gone Missing) of Volume One’s 12 issues, available for perusal in their entirety. If you missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial, clicking on the link at the beginning of this paragraph or on the menu bar above is a good way to catch up.
Dime Pulp continues its crime spree with two new pulp fiction serializations, Cheése Stands Alone by Phyllis Haldursdottir and Just Coincidence by Pierre Anton Taylor, as well as the continuing serialization of the pulp crime fiction of Better Than Dead, A Detective Story and the Western, On The Road To Las Cruces . If you’ve made it this far, go ahead and follow the links below to reading entertainment with the serial contents of Volume Two, Number 9
—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant
“Lackland Ask is the name. ‘Lack’ to my friends, ‘Don’t’ to those who think they’re funny. You might have seen my portrait on the cover of Black Mask, the crime fiction magazine. This is my story. It starts with a blonde. This kind of story always starts with a blonde.” Thus begins the seemingly non-stop, endless narrative of Better Than Dead in which women are not the only trouble although most of it, told with the wit and street savvy of Runyon and Parker.
In late February of 1908, a one-time drover, buffalo hunter, saloon owner, hog farmer, peach grower, horse rancher, US Customs inspector, private investigator, county sheriff, and Deputy US Marshal set out from his adobe home on the mesa above Organ, New Mexico accompanied by a young man in a black buggy on the journey to Las Cruces. He would never arrive. This is the story of that journey, a novel account of the last day in the life of a legendary lawman.
In March of 1892, a Scotsman by the name of Arthur C. “Artie” Doyle was hanged by the neck until dead after being found guilty of a string of grisly murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel. At that moment, history veered off its presumed course and headed in a direction all its own in which the Great War never happened because the Kaiser was afraid of offending his grandmother, Queen Victoria, whose life has been prolonged by the wonders of biology. Her reign, known as the Pax Victoriana has lasted 180 years maintaining as many Victorian airs as possible while making accommodations to rapid advances in bio technology. Cheése Stands Alone poses a steampunk question, can Captain Lydia Cheése find her father, the antigovernment turncoat and radical, Commodore Jack “Wild Goose” Cheése. And furthermore, will her quest take her around the globe and through alternate world histories in the requisite 80 days or is it the beginning of a lifelong journey?
In Just Coincidence, a privileged young man with the unremarkable name of Wayne Bruce returns to the site where his father once had his business, a battery manufacturing plant, and where he often spent his childhood days hanging around the factory and the neighborhood. His return is haunted by the mysterious circumstances surrounding his father’s death and the vague feeling that his uncle is somehow involved. Appalled by the poverty and crime of the place he remembers fondly, he is moved to resolve the injustice of the socially marginalized and to wreak vengeance on those he believes are responsible for the death of his father. A personal coincidence brings together dark prince and dark knight joined in a fateful and tragic quest for justice.
In March of 1892, a Scotsman by the name of Arthur C. “Artie” Doyle was hanged by the neck until dead after being found guilty of a string of grisly murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel. At that moment, history veered off its presumed course and headed in a direction all its own in which the Great War never happened because the Kaiser was afraid of offending his grandmother, Queen Victoria, whose life has been prolonged by the wonders of biology. Her reign, known as the Pax Victoriana has lasted 180 years maintaining as many Victorian airs as possible while making accommodations to rapid advances in bio technology. Cheése Stands Alone poses a steampunk question, can Captain Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”) find her father, the antigovernment turncoat and radical, Commodore Jack “Wild Goose” Cheése. And furthermore, will her quest take her around the globe and through alternate world histories in the requisite 80 days or is it the beginning of a lifelong journey?
In Just Coincidence, a privileged young man with the unremarkable name of Wayne Bruce returns to the site where his father once had his business, a battery manufacturing plant, and where he often spent his childhood days hanging around the factory and the neighborhood. His return is haunted by the mysterious circumstances surrounding his father’s death and the vague feeling that his uncle is somehow involved. Appalled by the poverty and crime of the place he remembers fondly, he is moved to resolve the injustice of the socially marginalized and to wreak vengeance on those he believes are responsible for the death of his father. A personal coincidence brings together dark prince and dark knight joined in a fateful and tragic quest for justice.
In March of 1892, a Scotsman by the name of Arthur C. “Artie” Doyle was hanged by the neck until dead after being found guilty of a string of grisly murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel. At that moment, history veered off its presumed course and headed in a direction all its own in which the Great War never happened because the Kaiser was afraid of offending his grandmother, Queen Victoria, whose life has been prolonged by the wonders of biology. Her reign, known as the Pax Victoriana has lasted 180 years maintaining as many Victorian airs as possible while making accommodations to rapid advances in bio technology. Cheése Stands Alone poses a steampunk question, can Captain Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”) find her father, the antigovernment turncoat and radical, Commodore Jack “Wild Goose” Cheése. And furthermore, will her quest take her around the globe and through alternate world histories in the requisite 80 days or is it the beginning of a lifelong journey?
The violent event that occurred more than half a century ago is brought into focus in an assisted living home for an elderly woman whose memory of that time is blocked much to the frustration of an academic researcher and her partner who who see the old woman as the key to uncovering who was behind the conspiracy that changed the course of history.
In March of 1892, a Scotsman by the name of Arthur C. “Artie” Doyle was hanged by the neck until dead after being found guilty of a string of grisly murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel. At that moment, history veered off its presumed course and headed in a direction all its own in which the Great War never happened because the Kaiser was afraid of offending his grandmother, Queen Victoria, whose life has been prolonged by the wonders of biology. Her reign, known as the Pax Victoriana has lasted 180 years maintaining as many Victorian airs as possible while making accommodations to rapid advances in bio technology. Cheése Stands Alone poses a steampunk question, can Captain Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”) find her father, the antigovernment turncoat and radical, Commodore Jack “Wild Goose” Cheése. And furthermore, will her quest take her around the globe and through alternate world histories in the requisite 80 days or is it the beginning of a lifelong journey?
In Just Coincidence, a privileged young man with the unremarkable name of Wayne Bruce returns to the site where his father once had his business, a battery manufacturing plant, and where he often spent his childhood days hanging around the factory and the neighborhood. His return is haunted by the mysterious circumstances surrounding his father’s death and the vague feeling that his uncle is somehow involved. Appalled by the poverty and crime of the place he remembers fondly, he is moved to resolve the injustice of the socially marginalized and to wreak vengeance on those he believes are responsible for the death of his father. A personal coincidence brings together dark prince and dark knight joined in a fateful and tragic quest for justice.
Lydia held up her own hand signaling she would comply and fumbled for her shoulder bag. There were only two of them, with her training and the element of surprised she could render them unconscious. She didn’t want to have to kill them, the viper stiletto nudging against her ribs. But that would only complicate things. Her Aerosud Executive Airship Pilot’s ID identified her as Lydia Cheése, Airship Commander, and if Doctor Serre-Pain’s words were true, the authorities within IOTA’s sphere of influence, as Oldest Orleans was, would be alerted to her fugitive status.
In late February of 1908, a one-time drover, buffalo hunter, saloon owner, hog farmer, peach grower, horse rancher, US Customs inspector, private investigator, county sheriff, and Deputy US Marshal set out from his adobe home on the mesa above Organ, New Mexico accompanied by a young man in a black buggy on the journey to Las Cruces. He would never arrive. This is the story of that journey, a novel account of the last day in the life of a legendary lawman.
Dime Pulp 