The handy intro to the Lionel Fanthorpe Appreciation Page complete with links to excerpts of examples of his masterful padding of books, whole paragraphs devoted to characters obsessively brushing their teeth, getting car maintainence or engaging in out of nowhere philosophical discussions.
Robert Lionel Fanthorpe entered into a publishing arrangement with Badger Books of England in the early 50's. Over the next decade and a half he proceeded to churn out book after book under many different pen names. The exact number of books is not known due to the fact that some of the pseudonyms were being used by other writers working for Badger at the same time. It is estimated to be 180+ books. Of these books, eighty nine are known to have been written in a three year period. That works out to be one 158 page book every twelve days...
Check out Excerpts from his work, and the Random Quote Generator.
The covers of his Badger Books publications! Plus a gallery devoted to covers from non-Badger Books pulications.
And, not on the site, but ponder these quotes from his most famous work,
Galaxy 666 considered to be the worst pulp SF book ever and there are quite af ew contenders for that position.
Oski was tickling his toy computer with the desperate fury of an accordionist trying to make himself heard at a space veterans concert, competing with three electro-tapes and a hi-fi color organ. He was scratching away at the computer as though it were a part of his own body that was particularly sensitive and had been invaded by fleas.
There was a particularly virulent flea on an odd little world round one of the less significant planets in Galaxy 297. It was known as a matchi. Ischklah looked at Oski for a second and grinned.
'You're scratching that computer as if it were covered with matchis,' he said.
'Ugh,' said Oski. 'Have you ever gotten tangled up with those brutes?'
'No thanks,' said Ischklah. 'But I knew an old space veteran once who did! He's still got the twitch!' -
The things were odd, weird, grotesque. There was something horribly uncustomary and unwonted about them. They were completely unfamiliar. Their appearance was outlandish and extraordinary. here was something quite phenomenal about them. They were supernormal; they were unparalleled; they were unexampled. The shape of the aliens was singular in every sense. They were curious, odd, queer, peculiar and fantastic, and yet when every adjective had been used on them, when every preternatural epithet had been applied to their aberrant and freakish appearance, when everything that could be said about such eccentric, exceptional, anomalous creatures had been said, they still remained indescribable in any concrete terms.-
"This crazy galaxy is the price that the universe pays for order. 666, eh? By the seven green moons, it was well numbered! There's something strangely capricious about this place. Just as our universe is a motivated universe, this one is motiveless. The real universe, the universe to which we belong, has purpose; this one is whimsical, fanciful and fantastic. This is a temperamental galaxy, an hysterical galaxy, a mad galaxy. This is an insane, freakish, wanton, erratic, inconsistent galaxy; it's a completely unreasonable galaxy. It's undisciplined, refractory, uncertain and unpredictable. It's a volatile galaxy, a mercurial galaxy. [...] It's a frivolous galaxy; it's inconsistent and inconstant; it's variable; it's unstable; it's irresponsible and unreliable."
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Topic: Lionel Fanthorpe: The Ed Wood of SF prose? (Read 1134 times)