G-8 and His Battle Aces
Entry updated 4 January 2020. Tagged: Publication.
US Pulp magazine, 110 issues October 1933 to June 1944. Monthly to April 1941, bimonthly thereafter. Published by Popular Publications; edited by Rogers Terrill and, later, by Alden H Norton (1903-1987).
All the novels in G-8 and His Battle Aces, each complete in one issue, were the work of one of the most prolific of all pulp authors, Robert J Hogan, who also wrote under pseudonyms the additional short stories which filled out each issue. Hogan, who wrote The Mysterious Wu Fang and other magazines as well, was under editorial instruction to send in his material as he wrote it, without any revision; the amount of editing subsequently necessary is described by Damon Knight in Hell's Cartographers (anth 1975) edited by Brian W Aldiss and Harry Harrison.
G-8 himself is the leader of a US fighter squadron in World War One which combats a wide variety of fantastic enemy menaces, including such recurring Villains as The Steel Mask. Only some of the novels were sf, primarily because of the superscientific Weapons deployed – these were usually created by the Kaiser's Mad Scientists. Otherwise they were standard air-war novels, and the magazine was not as futuristic as its companion, Dusty Ayres and His Battle Birds. The original magazine series is being progressively reprinted by Adventure House of Silver Spring, Maryland. [MJE/PN/DRL]
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