Anthony Neil Smith

Introduction

"pulp fiction -- fiction dealing with lurid or sensational subjects,
often printed on rough, low-quality paper manufactured from wood
pulp." -- Random House Unabridged Dictionary

"Exploitation fiction grew out of pulp fiction of the 1930s and 40s.
It was popular "trash fiction" in the form of mass market paperbacks
in the 1950s and 60s, when genuine, sexually explicit material could
be seized as obscene. In the United States, material that went by U.S.
mail was subject to federal obsenity laws that greatly curtailed the
distribution of materials that were sexually explicit or featured
graphic violence. These cheap novels exploited violence, drugs, and
sex—especially promiscuity and lesbianism—but rarely delivered the
kind of salacious detail their cover art implied and generally tacked
on moralistic endings to satisfy critics who accused them of having
"no redeeming social value." "--Wikipedia

"postmodernism -- n : genre of art and literature and especially
architecture in reaction against principles and practices of
established modernism" -- WordNet

"Postmodern...a) 'any art that is conscious of the fact that it is, in
fact, art;' and b) 'any art that is conscious of the fact that it is,
in fact, product.' " -- Chuck Klosterman

"Postmodernism is...a reaction to, refusal and diffusion of, the
elements of modernist thought which are totalizing: which suggest a
master narrative or master code, i.e. an explanatory cohesion of
experience; the result may be:

1) a sense of discontinuity, of the world as a field of contesting
explanations none of which can claim any authority,

2) parodies of all sorts of meta-narrative and master-code elements,
including genre and literary form,

3) the challenging of borders and limits, including those of decency,

4) the exploration of the marginalized aspects of life and
marginalized elements of society."  --Professor John Lye, Brock
University (Canada)

"Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more
salted peanuts consumed than caviar." -- Mickey Spillane