Public Domain Pulp

John Q. Pulp’s Public Domain Visual Novels

John, John, John, and now: John

JAN 11, 2026

Yesterday I finished editing the second VN of the site — The Thirty-Nine Steps: The Visual Novel — now online and ready for reading.

The Thirty-Nine Steps VN preview

With this book choice, the astute reader may have noticed that the author is a certain John Buchan, whose first name has thus far dominated the site. First was Cup of Gold: The Visual Novel by John Steinbeck. Then the prose roundup for In Dubious Battle, also by him. And then the next prose roundup for a John Irving novel. With all this on the website of John Q. Pulp.

So why so many Johns?

John Q. Pulp

In the olden days of two months ago, in the advanced planning stages of the website, I had picked out a name for it: Public Domain Pulp. But I also needed a name for myself, which certainly wasn't going to be my real name. The prospective pseudonym I kept coming back to was John Q. Public, which seemed perfect: the site would become John Q. Public's Public Domain Pulp. An intentionally generic "everyman" name to emphasize the open source nature of the site and its contents.

But the obvious problem with John Q. Public was that it wasn't really a claimable name. Even if the John Q. Public Github username wasn't already squatted, the name's status as a placeholder would just be too overpowering. It would never be mine.

So a tweak would be necessary, but only a slight one. One that would still keep the tie-in with the website name. Thus, John Q. Domain Pulp.

John Steinbeck

As part of the planning, I also had to make the choice of first visual novel. As mentioned in the Public Domain Day 2026 blog post, John Steinbeck seemed the best option. His Cup of Gold had just entered public domain that very year (2025), and it was his first novel (thematically appropriate), and he was an author whose oeuvre I considered myself familiar with. I'd be able to speak with authority in the editor's notes. And for similar reasons, I chose him for the first prose roundup as well.

(Though I must say: after that one-two punch of Cup of Gold and In Dubious Battle, I may have to revisit some of Steinbeck's later works — the ones I remember being good — and see if that opinion still holds up. Perhaps for future prose roundups.)

So that's John #2. (Hey, this is like counting the Elizabeths in Cup of Gold!)

John Irving

Least but not last, there was Irving.

While visiting family for Christmas, I read a few new books: the aforementioned In Dubious Battle, since I wanted more context on Steinbeck's works; The Prince and the Pauper, since I wanted more context on Mark Twain's works (for reasons I'll explore in a future post); and then The World According to Garp. Not because I wanted more context on John Irving — I didn't even really know who he was prior to the reading — but just because the book had been on my to-read list for a while, and I happened to spot it in a used-book store.

The fact that he was yet another John was still just a coincidence — one I didn't even realize at first. I wasn't planning on writing anything about Garp — it was just meant to be a for-fun read — but then the book did everything in its power to annoy me. Hence the prose roundup. And it was only once I started writing that post that I noticed the John pattern.

And from there I got an idea:

John Buchan

Jumping forward to about a week ago, I needed to pick a title for the next visual novel. And at that point, I figured it only made sense to play into the John bit for the author. It didn't seem like it would be particularly restrictive — after all, there are a million famous John authors out there.

But as it turned out, the vast majority of the Johns fell into two camps. You either had the Johns too recent to be public domain:

…Or you had unreadable poet-philosopher Johns:

Everyone from the first list had to be ruled out by default: no public domain, no hosting. And as for second, the site needed was novels — standard, fiction novels — and ideally short ones at that. The books those guys all wrote would create VNs far too experimental for #2.

So I was left with an unimpressive list of the remaining public-but-not-"intellectual" Johns, from which I recognized none of the names. Rather than doing the smart thing and just dropping the John idea, I decided to take a shot in the dark, thereby selecting John Buchan. His most popular work at least seemed to be normal fiction, and at least looked short.

So I went into The Thirty-Nine Steps thinking Buchan was just some guy — some guy who had just written some pulp novel. And both of those things were half-true. But it turned out both the man himself and the whole context around his book were more interesting than they originally appeared:

The Thirty-Nine Rabbit Holes

For how light a book 39 Steps was on both pages and depth, it sure did require an annoying amount of research.

I'll avoid getting into the specifics of the book so as to avoid spoilers, but the upshot was: in order to properly write the editor's notes, I had to do an unexpected amount of digging into WW1-era Greek politics and also the Macedonian front of the conflict. And that was all interesting, but I had kind of hoped for a quick turnaround for the site's second visual novel. Instead:

Buchan

Buchan really left a lot in the air for the reader to puzzle out. And as the editor, I had to make sense of it all, which meant a lot of historical fact-checking. (Which, come to think of it, Cup of Gold sort of required too, but in a different way.)

The good news is that: I'm happy with the result, and even though I can't recommend the book on the basis of its prose, I can recommend it for getting to experience the book's insanity — implications that would make a good Talkernate History episode.

And that was all just the book. There was also Buchan, the man himself.

Again, I went into the reading thinking he was only just some obscure writer. But no: his writings are probably the least interesting part of his Wikipedia page. A page which for example includes a 700+ word section on his relationship with the Jews. (Entertaining stuff!)

Then there were his ten million different titles — always a delightful quirk of those wacky Brits. But at least one of them was actually a real office: he was Governor General of Canada. And not just for a stint — he held the position for years, apparently highly successfully (if the article is to be believed), going into the start of World War II.

I couldn't find a way to fit as many of these personal Buchan factoids into the editor's notes of the VN, but they were interesting nonetheless. And it was an encouraging experience seeing how much historical entertainment value could be mined out of an essentially randomly chosen author. (Even if I hope the next read requires somewhat less research work.)

It bodes well for the many hundreds of other "random" authors of the public domain.

Next Steps

I think I'll keep up the John bit for at least one more prose roundup. But after that, at least for the visual novels, an author with more name-recognition is probably in order, even though this Buchan pick went surprisingly well.

And in particular, I want an author writing in a setting that isn't Britain. Since the combination of all the Welsh countryside backgrounds for Cup of Gold and then all the Scottish countryside backgrounds for 39 Steps has me yearning for something more… American.

And I've got just the man in mind. Stay posted for it.

Bonus

I couldn't think of anywhere else to include this — there wasn't a good place in either the editor's notes or blog — but with 39 Steps leaning so heavily into the funny Scottish accents, it'd feel wrong to not link the drinking song from Whiskey Galore!: