Better Than Bullets: The Complete Adventures of Thibaut Corday and the Foreign Legion, Volume 1 Paperback – 19 July 2012

Back in the day, enthusuasts of pulp fiction had to scour specialist bookshops to find reprints or the odd heaven sent original magazine, and even then you would likely only be able to source the biggest names - Burroughs, Howard, Lovecraft, possibly Clark Ashton Smith if you were fortunate.Now that so many of the tales from the heyday of pulp magazines are entering the public domain, and with the rise of print on demand, these great stories have become much more accessible. This series of four collections of the Thibaut Corday stories by Theodore Roscoe is a prime example of stories that were once very hard to find, and can now be enjoyed once more.The stories are framed in a clever conceit - the narrator, an aged ex-foreign legionnaire, recounts a tall tale from his days in the legion, to a rapt audience in a cafe in Algiers or some similar spot. In this way the often outlandish plots become part of the persona Corday is adopting to entertain his in-story audience and allows the author to use him as a possibly-unreliable narrator and indulge himself in irony and black humour. Theodore Roscoe spent some time in French north africa and no doubt was entertained in a similar fashion by former legionnaires in exchange for a bottle of wine in disreputable back alley drinking dens. This first hand experience in the Legion's special corner of the world also lends the stories a strong sense of authenticity.Like all pulp authors, Roscoe was writing a lot for not much money, and the need to keep churning out stories means that not all of the Corday stories are equally good. The same can be said about Howard's Conan stories and Lovecraft's cosmic horror tales and isn't a failing of any of these authors, merely an unavoidable effect of the professional necessities of being a working writer for the pulp magazines of the time. However, like Howard and Lovecraft, the best ones are very good and even the lesser entries never fail to be entertaining.So, don your kepi, shoulder your Lebel and march off into the sands of the Sahara where true adventure awaits.....

I am a big fan of the old pulp stories: Doc Savage, The Green Lama, The Shadow, Cthulhu, Conan, etc, the old Republic serials and old adventure stories like John Carter and Tarzan. I was looking for something a little different from the period and found the Foreign Legion stories by Theodore Roscoe. I have had trouble putting the book down. Nice short stories, often with a twist in the tale. No supervillains, death rays or plots to take over the world. Just tales about men, courage and blood in the sand of North Africa in the early years of the Twentieth Century. I like the idea of an aged Legionnaire narrating these tales to friends over drinks. The narrative style seems natural and flows very nicely. I will definitely be buying the other volumes in this series. Just a pity there are so few. Vive La Legione!

This was a fun book to read, in the style of the old pulp magazines, the stories followed legionnaires, running from broken hearts, lust and greed. The stories had me chuckling and I found it a great read if you want to sit down and relax and read the writing of old. If you are looking for legion stories of valour, greed , loyalty, this is it. This book is not for those wishing to learn history or actual facts of the Legion Etrangere of the time. I hope you like it as much as I did, I find this writing a little more faced paced the Wren writings of Beau Geste etc... Cheers.

I am a sucker for old school pulp fiction. I think we've really lost something now that those old pulp magazines have folded and people just don't write that style of thing anymore.Theodore Roscoe wrote these Foreign Legion stories for the now defunct Argosy magazine, it was the sort of thing people used to read on the train and bus in the era before smartphones and ipods.The stories are fast paced and exciting, set in exotic locations and full of thrilling adventure and mystery, the sort of first rate escapism that I love. There is some definite influence from Beau Geste and that era of romantic French Foreign Legion stories but you can hardly blame the author for writing things that were popular, a man has to make a living after all. Being written in the 1920's and 30's there is not a shred of political correctness in these stories, no need was felt to have a "strong woman" character and the Africans and Arabs are portrayed as savages. I personally found it very refreshing.This is first class adventure story escapism from a bygone era, I loved every minute of it and I will definitely get the other volumes.

A few years ago I made a decision to forsake all current authors of fiction due to the fact that there is so much GREAT literature from the past that has, for all intents and purposes, fallen by the wayside.The adventures of Thibaut Corday in the French Foreign Legion before "The Great War" lives up to my highest expectations...Think of "Beau Geste" (by P.C. Wren) as told by Dr. Dogbody ("Dr. Dogbody's Leg" by James Norman Hall)... tall tales with an absolute ring of truth, written by a master word artist!The Thibaut Corday stories are what I would call "the pinnacle of pulp fiction." If you love adventure stories, love stories about the French Foreign Legion or just appreciate top of the line story telling; then this Theodore Roscoe series is for you!BTW: I agree with the previous reviewer that this book rates 4 1/2 stars. Since he gave it 4 stars, I thought that I would give it 5 in order to bring it up to 4 1/2.

(Actually, 4 1/2 stars if I could do it.)Thibaut Corday of the French Foreign Legion was a pulp magazine hero of the 1920s and 30s who resembles Arthur Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard and George MacDonald Fraser's Harry Flashman in that he recounts rousing military adventures in a near-magical "voice." The frame for each story has the octogenarian Corday telling of his youthful exploits in early 1900s Africa, which is full of rebellious tribes, desperate garrisons, seductive women, and hazardous journeys. Corday's narration is enchanting and immediate, and author Roscoe's writing is so skillful and evocative that he typically takes less than a page to transport readers to another time, another place. Roscoe's writing is so good, in fact, one is even tempted to overlook the outrageous unlikelihood of some plot twists. (That 's the only reason I don't rate this book a full five stars.)I first discovered Thibaut Corday in The Big Book of Adventure Stories (Vintage Original) and was overjoyed to discover later that Altus Press published all 22 of the stories in 2012. Currently, I'm reading each of the four volumes one-by-one in chronological order, and primed to send off for Volume II.

I've always been a sucker for stories about the Legion, and I'm glad to say that this series really tells it like it was. Roscoe clearly went beyond the call to know and understand the Legion and it's unusual breed of men. Every detail is pitch perfect and the visualization of the settings really puts you in the middle of the action. Theodore Roscoe is one of a handful of pulp magazine writers who clearly transcended the genre.