It’s basically just an ad for their reprints of L. Ron Hubbard‘s novels, but Galaxy Press has just launched a fairly clever new website which has clips from a purported 1950s television interview program called Elbows on the Table with Lawrence Carpetburner. Each of the, at the moment, four clips is a brief film in which Carpetburner interviews a character from one of Hubbard’s novels: Gunslinging Outlaw Suicide Lee Weston, Space Renegade Fanner Marsten, Infamous Pirate Tom Bristol, and White Russian Spy Varinka Savischna. Production quality is high, and the “history” page, explaining who Carpetburner is, is required reading before watching the videos.
Galaxy writes that “L. Ron Hubbard made a name for himself during the Golden Age of Science Fiction becoming one of the most publishable names in pulp fiction. He was also among the most prolific. We have now recorded a series of interviews with some of the most illustrious characters from these stories. The interviews are not only fascinating, as you will see, but we are sure you will have as much fun watching them as we had filming them! Be warned, the host, Lawrence Carpetburner is a somewhat eccentric character, but you really have to see it to believe it.”
Hubbard is now principally known as the founder of Dianetics, but before he got religion, he was a popular pulp fiction author who ranged across all the genres.