I've just finished "The Adventures of Fortune McCall" by Derrick Ferguson through Pro Se Press and I have to say it was great! Fortune is a character for the ages. Mr. Ferguson has chiseled a mean and lean character out of pure granite. It's clear he's taken inspiration from such obvious places as the classic pulps and gangster movies but Mr. Ferguson also draws from other places such as literary characters like Batman and cinematic characters like Lando Calrissian.
It's not a stretch by any sense of the word to envision Billy D. Williams as Fortune McCall.The book consists of four large scale "short stories", each about 35 pages or so.THE SCARLET COURTESAN OF SOVEREIGN CITYTHE DAY OF THE SILENT DEATH
THE MAGIC OF MADNESS
THE GOLD OF BOX 850
THE GOOD:
Fortune, along with his command crew of the HEART OF FORTUNE (his custom gambling ship), are very well developed characters with plenty of diversity to them. That diversity lends it self to a wide variety of adventures that take us through the dark shadowy underbelly of Sovereign City, to the pent house of the Palace Hotel and everywhere in between. Were introduced to new but still familiar characters, and situations that hint at future stories yet to come.THE BAD (If you can call it that):
Each of the stories is crafted from a "physical plot". The "rescue plot", for all but one, to be more precise. Now it could easily be argued that having to rescue someone or having to be rescued your self is a long time tradition of the adventure genre. I would tend to agree and loved each of them. I think it might be nice to see Fortune tackle some of the other "physical plots" in the next book like "Pursuit", "Escape", and "Revenge" although to be fair there were small amounts of each of those three elements present in this book.THE UGLY:
The book takes place in a major metropolitan area in or around the year 1935 and Mr. Ferguson doesn't shy away from some of the uglier elements of life back then. While they are subtle Mr. Ferguson includes elements of racism, classicism, and sexism in this book. I think this book and the stories within it would have been just as good if there was never an issue concerning race amongst the characters but the book isn't hampered by those issues either. Fortune and his crew are stronger because of facing them.This is a great book that any lover of pulp can sink their teeth into. In addition I'd say that if you've never read any pulp before this may be a great place to start because it's delivered to you as the reader in small easy to absorb doses story by story. You'll love pulp upon turning the last page and be bugging Mr. Ferguson and Pro Se Press for more.
Purchase it here.
