Classic Pulp Stories Get Audio Revival

The SFFaudio Podcast often presents entire unabridged audiobooks, alongside in-depth discussions and read-alongs of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. The platform serves as an archive for both well-known and obscure genre fiction, making classic and often out-of-print stories accessible to a modern audience. "Corpse Girl's Return" by Eric Lennox was originally published in the August 1937 issue of *Eerie Stories*. This pulp magazine was one of the "weird-menace" titles of the 1930s, a subgenre known for its sadistic villains and stories of torture and titillating peril, often featuring female protagonists in distress. Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961) was a prolific poet and author of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He is considered one of the "big three" of the legendary pulp magazine *Weird Tales*, alongside H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Smith was part of the "Lovecraft circle" and contributed to the Cthulhu Mythos. "Who Are The Living?" first appeared in the July 1934 issue of *The Fantasy Fan* under the title "The Epiphany of Death," and was later reprinted in the September 1942 issue of *Weird Tales*. Smith's work is characterized by a rich, ornate vocabulary and a cosmic perspective. His stories often explore themes of the macabre and are set in fantastical worlds like Zothique, a dying-earth setting. Pulp magazines, so named for the cheap wood-pulp paper they were printed on, were a dominant form of entertainment from the 1890s to the 1950s. At their peak in the 1920s and 30s, the most popular titles sold up to a million copies per issue, offering lurid and sensational stories across genres like detective fiction, horror, and science fiction. The hardboiled detective genre, a staple of pulp fiction, emerged in magazines like *Black Mask* and *Dime Detective*. These stories introduced iconic character archetypes and a gritty, realistic style that would heavily influence the noir genre in film and literature.