Showing posts with label Ballantine Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ballantine Books. Show all posts

Thursday, November 17, 2022

Kane’s War #7: Killer Cruise


Kane's War #7: Killer Cruise, by Nick Stone
March, 1988  Ivy/Ballantine Books

The final volume of Kane’s War is notable for one thing: the friggin’ perm Kane now sports on the cover. I mean check that shit out! I remember my brother got a perm in 1985, when he was 17. I was 10 at the time and even at that young of an age I knew it was a bad idea. So by 1988 perms must have really been out of fashion. Anyway, Kane’s perm wasn’t enough to save the series, as with this installment Kane’s War came to an end. 

I never did find out who served as “Nick Stone” on this series, but I stick with my theory that it was (at least) two writers who traded off on volumes. To wit, some installments of Kane’s War are 350-page doorstops of dense prose, sticking to realistic plots, with most of the sexual material occurring off-page. Other volumes are also around 350 pages, but with big print, plots that get a little more fanciful, and often quite graphic sexual material. Initially Killer Cruise seems to be one of the latter; it’s 348 pages but sports very big print, and in the first pages we’re reading all about Michelle’s Mullraney’s jigglin’ “thirty-eights” as Ben Kane checks her out. 

Michelle is a recurring character in the series, one of Kane’s two bedmates, the other being prissy British socialite Jessica. A developing thread in the series is that the two women are aware of one another; there’s some genuinely funny dialog here as Michelle makes fun of Jessica to Kane – and how Jessica throws herself at Kane. (Also as an FYI, Jessica does not appear in this volume, so her final appearance in the series must’ve been in the previous volume – which I don’t have.) But when Kane and Michelle get around to their inevitable tomfoolery, the author cuts to the next scene. The same will hold true for the few other sex scenes in Killer Cruise. This is very much at odds with the sleazy a-doings of the “Nick Stone” who did the big-print volumes, a la #5: Depth Charge, which was filled with graphic banging. So could there have been a third writer on the series? 

Speaking of “banging,” that word is used here as a sexual euphimism; I know it was well in use by the ‘80s but wanted to note it for any armchair etymologists. We get a lot of exploitative detail on Michelle’s ample charms (not a complaint), but when it gets down to the “banging” it’s all off-page. But as mentioned the author gets trashy in the dialog, at least, with Michelle mocking rich-bitch Jessica, pretending to call for her butler to “perfume my muff.” This sort of aggressive rivalry between the two women is new to the series…in fact I don’t believe Michelle or Jessica have ever been together in the series, but I could be wrong. Or maybe it happened in one of the volumes I don’t have. 

Another thing new to the series – which also makes me suspect a new author worked on this one – is the sudden focus on Cord Weaver. Kane’s former CIA contact in ‘Nam and current annoyance here in the Caribbean, Weaver has appeared in every volume. But always as a peripheral character; here he’s almost a supporting character, with several scenes focusing on him. In other words, it’s like he’s an integral part of Kane’s War now, whereas previously he was just a foil of Kane’s. We also learn that he’s relatively good-looking, and Michelle taunts Kane about him – Michelle does a lot of taunting in the book, coming off as a more vibrant character than in previous volumes. Perhaps more indication this one was written by someone new to the series. 

As usual though, Weaver is the one who brings Kane into the latest situation. The US and Cuba are looking to trade some prisoners, as a sign of thawing relations, but the USSR is not happy with the prospect. So Weaver asks Kane to consider transporting the US prisoners to the exchange point and provide necessary security. Clearly this isn’t enough plot for a 348-page book, so at the same time, in a completely unrelated plot, we learn that there’s a new cruise ship about to hit the scene, with a hotstuff Puerto Rican babe named Chita Vargas acting as the PR rep for it or somesuch. That’s her on the cover; the uncredited artist got some good direction, as Chita even sports an Uzi at one point. Ultimately the plot of Killer Cruise will be more concerned with Chita and her cruise ship, as terrorists hijack the ship while Kane is aboard, leading to a sort of nautical-themed Die Hard

It takes a long time for this to happen, though; to be exact, the hijacking doesn’t occur until page 123. Before that Killer Cruise is page-filling of the most egregious sort, going for more of a “happenings at the marina” vibe than any previous volume. And also Kane comes off as a bit of a lothario; as soon as he sees Chita he starts hitting on her hard. “I’ll charm your ass off,” he promises her, but Chita is initially frosty. Of course she ends up giving him the goods, but once again it happens off page. Curiously though Kane falls hard for Chita – at least for the convenience of the plot. When the hijacking occurs on Chita’s ship, Kane puts himself and his erstwhile companions (who can forget Ganja? And, uh, the others?) in danger, desperate to save her. Hilariously enough, though, Chita is barely an afterthought in the finale and Kane’s back with Michelle. 

The author tries to meld the two plots; the cruise ship hijacking is ostensibly by a group of Puerto Rican rebels, but the Cubans might be behind it so as to foil that prisoner exchange which is supposed to be the main plot. But it’s this nautical Die Hard that takes up the brunt of the novel’s action, with Kane and his pals going aboard the ship disguised as an emergency crew to evac the wounded. This entails Ganja carrying a stretcher with a “stretcher tube,” which apparently is a LAW rocket or somesuch. He blows up several people real good, and the main bit of gore in Killer Cruise is copious description of the blasted-up body parts on the ship. Indeed, Chita (who has come along for contrived reasons) pukes her guts out at the carnage. 

Once the hijacking is cleared up, it’s as if the author realizes, “Oh shit, this novel’s supposed to be about a prisoner exchange!” So off Kane and his pals go in Kane’s new boat, and we get a lot of stuff about this boat as they speed along and get in chases with rivals who are trying to foil the exchange. But after the cruise ship action it seems underwhelming. In fact, “underwhelming” is a fair assessment of Killer Cruise. As mentioned the author even forgets about poor Chita, who seemed to be “the one” for Kane; by novel’s end he affords her nary a thought and is looking forward to more time with Michelle’s “thirty-eights.” And honestly, who could blame him. 

And folks that was it for Kane’s War. Overall I found the series pretty tepid, with the novels too long for their own good. Yet at the same time there was a good attempt at melding marina mystery with men’s adventure – I mean the series was certainly better than an earlier attempt at this: Killinger.

Thursday, October 7, 2021

Kane‘s War #5: Depth Charge


Kanes War #5: Depth Charge, by Nick Stone
November, 1987  Ivy/Ballantine Books

When I began collecting Kane's War years ago I really looked forward to getting to this fifth volume; the plot, about an underwater luxury resort only accessible via scuba or submarine, really appealed to me. I could just see the Burt Hirschfeld-esque trash fiction yarn this setting might entail, with a bunch of jet-setters congregating in a plush locale beneath the waves for some wholesome sin. But one thing I’ve learned from reading so many men’s adventure novels is that the contents of the books often differ from the stories promised on the back covers, and such is the case with Depth Charge

While there is an underwater resort here, it’s largely unexploited and indeed the entire novel – up to the series’ usual unwieldy length of 280+ pages – takes place before the resort even opens! The resort, Neptune’s Palace, only opens to its guests in the final quarter of the book, but instead of the glitzy beach read I’d hoped for it instead turns into a Die Hard prototype, with terrorists attacking (and destroying!) the place before the festivities can even begin. Rather, the majority of Depth Charge is given over to the usual Kane’s War formula, with our hero getting in frequent waterborne scrapes with a variety of foes, while finding the opportunity to enjoy some explicity-rendered sex with his two female companions. 

One thing this fifth volume seems to confirm for me is that there really were two authors on Kane’s War, maybe more. Some of them, like the previous volume, are a bit more “straight” and feature small print, the author fully invested in capturing the “marina mystery” vibe. The odd-numbered volumes, like this one, are much more crude, especially in the sex scenes, and feature big print. In fact the closest comparison I could make would be to prolific men’s adventure writer J.C. Conaway, but there’s too much plot here for one of his works, not to mention too much action. Otherwise whoever served as this particular “Nick Stone” writes like he’s working for Leisure Books or Belmont-Tower in the ‘70s; he could care less about “realism” and instead wants to serve up a bunch of sex and action. The only caveat is the page length, which again makes the series a bit of a chore; if a hundred pages were cut out, Depth Charge would be a lot more fun. 

Anyway the story follows on from the previous four: hero Ben Kane is minding his own business in the Caribbean when all hell breaks loose. The opening is memorable; Ben and his “favorite playmate,” Michelle, are deep-sea diving and checking out Neptune’s Palace, which is soon to open. Someone cuts their air lines, but luckily Neptune Palace owner Paul Kavouris happens to be scuba diving nearby and gets Kane and Michelle into the resort before they drown. Here we get our first – and only, really – look at Neptune’s Palace. It’s a two-storey structure that looks like “a twenty-first century spaceship.” Kane’s charter line has gotten the contract to ferry guests to the resort, and he and Michelle wanted to come by this Sunday morning to see how the development was going. When they get topside they find Kane’s skipper out cold, courtesy a dart to the neck; we readers know that an assassin’s in the vicinity, his sights on Kane. This cutting of the air lines was just his first assault. 

But really this setup becomes unintentionally humorous; there will be multiple attempts on Kane’s life as he’s just tooling around the ocean, lending the novel the slapstick tone of The Naked Gun or somesuch. I’m certain the author had his tongue in cheek, though; I mean, Kane will be out cruising the waves with erstwhile colleagues Ganja and Miles, and some boat will come out of nowhere and start shooting at them, and pretty soon Miles will be blasting back at it with an M-16 he takes from the bulkhead or whatever. Reading this series you get the idea that firefights frequently occur in the Caribbean. The author tries to make it all somewhat believable, with a hapless cop at least making the pretense of trying to maintain law and order – and chastising Kane for his violent “American ways.” 

An interesting thing about this series is that it has the ‘80s-mandatory “team” focus, even though Kane is the titular character. While Kane is the main character, Ganja and Miles are part of his team and have their own subplots. Miles continues to be a cipher, and the author doesn’t do much to bring him to life; he’s monosyllabic and likes knives. There’s a definite “hmm” factor at work, too; Neptune’s Resort features two “mermaids” at the entrance, twin blondes (“they were natural blondes, too”), clad only in scuba gear, who welcome all visitors. Well, one of them (or both, the author doesn’t clarify) takes a shine to Miles…who goes out of his way to ignore her. Otherwise the mermaid bit is wholly unexploited by the author; as I say, the entire “Neptune’s Palace” setup comes off like an afterthought, with more focus on Kane’s waterborne firefights and the lame mystery of who hired the assassin that’s after him. 

This “mystery” angle is what makes me suspect J.C. Conaway was this volume’s “Nick Stone,” but as usual I could be wrong. Conaway always had a mystery angle in his books, and there’s one here, complete with even a Conaway-esque bit at the end where Kane assembles all the suspects and starts grilling them with full-bore exposition. But as I say, there’s a lot more focus on action here than any Conaway novel I’ve ever read, though the firearms detail is minimized. In other words, you certainly couldn’t confuse Kane’s War with the average Gold Eagle offering of the era. Nor is the violence much exploited; gunfights are frequent, but blood and gore is minimized. The same, happily, cannot be said about the frequent sex. As mentioned, this particular author is quite crude in that regard – enjoyably so. 

So the previous volumes have established the template which appears again here: each novel opens with Kane having explicit sex with either Michelle or his other “playmate,” British beauty Jessica, and then shortly after this escapade we’ll have Kane conjugating with the other playmate. So this time it opens with a graphic bang of Michelle, then that night Kane goes to a lavish party of the elite and has sex with Jessica. This will be repeated throughout the book, and as with previous books a third babe will gradually be introduced into the mix. But the sex in this volume is much more crude than previously – and I’m sorry to keep using that word, but it really is the best description:
 

 But this is just the tip of the veritable iceberg. Later on we have a bit where Paul Kavouris has sex with his mistress Rachel, a stacked redheaded widow who becomes manager of Neptune’s Palace (and ultimately will become the “third babe” Kane himself enjoys in the novel). This part is so randomly bonkers that I just had to share it: 


As mentioned Kane gets his turn at the wheel with Rachel, leading to even more bonkers filth: 


And this crude vibe extends to the entire book, complete with random exclamation points in the narrative. Again, the feel is very much of a Leisure offering from the decade before. But the sleaze can’t save the book, because too much of it is given over to egregious page-filling. Through Max’s somnambulic mumbling, Kane learns of an infamous assassin nicknamed “Feathers” due to his favored method of kills – feather-tipped darts. Ultimately this has Kane constantly cornering a local gaddabout named Sir Max and accusing him of being Feathers, or of hiring him. And yeah, that’s “Sir Max;” rather than the Hirschfeld-esque potboiler beneath the sea I was hoping for, Depth Charge instead concerns itself with stuffy upper-crust British types, like a notoriously “fabulous” old lady named Adelle. 

After the interminable attacks on Kane – I mean he’s even shot at while merely fishing with Kavouris – we get back to Neptune’s Palace, which soon will open to its first round of tourists…who happen to be those stuffy upper-crust Brits. The author brings the recurring characters here, with Michelle getting a job – it’s implied so she can ensure Kane doesn’t get too cozy with either of the “mermaids” – and Ganja also working in the place. But as mentioned any chance to exploit this exotic setting is squandered. Promptly upon Neptune Palace’s opening it’s hit by those titular “depth charges,” and pretty much the entire place is destroyed! I mean there’s no part where we see the various characters interacting with this plush underwater resort, complete with its view of the sea and its nude mermaids. 

Even the proto-Die Hard connotations are squandered, as the underwater action’s over quick and things go topside, with Kane and comrades blasting away at the villains. But this only leads us to that ultra-lame “climax” I mentioned earlier, with Kane assembling all the various one-off characters and grilling them to discover who would want to destroy Kavouris’s underwater resort. It’s all incredibly lame and almost reminds the reader of the climax of the average episode of Scooby-Doo. Even worse is this “Nick Stone” has no feel for drama; one of the new one-off characters is killed in the action at Neptune’s Palace, and the death is treated like an afterthought. 

That said, Depth Charge moves incredibly fast for a 281-page book. I’d love to know who the authors were who worked on this series; maybe it really was J.C. Conaway who wrote this one. I guess we’ll never know.

Monday, October 19, 2020

Kane’s War 4: Crackdown


Kane’s War #4: Crackdown, by Nick Stone
 
September, 1987  Ivy/Ballantine Books 

The fourth volume of Kane’s War seems to confirm my theory that this series had two different authors. Whereas the previous volume featured a vaguely sci-fi plot featuring a mind-controlling madman, not to mention really big print, this volume has the “realistic” vibe of the first volume, as well as the same small, dense print. Also there’s a ton of brand-name dropping, and elaborate scene-setting, this particular author really trying to capture the glitzy “beach read” vibe of an ‘80s trash paperback, even down to the explicit sexual shenanigans. 

And at 275 pages, Crackdown really does come off like one of those beach read novels; no idea why the volumes of Kane’s War are so damn long, but I assume it was a mandate from the publisher. As would be expected, though, the author has a helluva time filling up so many pages with what is just another entry in an action series; it’s like these publishers and editors didn’t understand that the shorter these books are, the better. The editors and publishers of men’s adventure in the ‘70s understood this, but it appears that by the time the ‘80s rolled around the intention was to make these books look like “real novels.” Thus Crackdown sort of stalls out for long portions of its runtime, but it must be stated that this author does a good job of capturing the “marina mystery” vibe Ivy/Ballantine was clearly aiming for. 

One thing this volume does retain from the ‘70s is the sleaze; Crackdown opens with a focus on T&A …actually, make that some uncomfortable T&A. For we meet Mike and Michelle Mulhaney, the father-daughter duo who have appeared in the series since the first volume, cast adrift on a stalled boat. And Michelle, a hotbodied brunette who is the casual bedmate of Ben Kane, takes the opportunity to get into a skimpy string bikini…even doing a “pirouette”…for her dad!! Very strange. Otherwise, all this occurs mainly so the two can witness a hijacking: the Mulhaneys watch as the boat belonging to Maria, a “light-skinned black” beauty pageant queen friend of Michelle’s, is taken over by some swarthy Cubans. The Mulhaneys wonder what’s going on, desperate to get their boat fixed so they can report this. Meanwhile we readers see that Maria and her galpal, a six-foot stripper named Shirley, are in for a rough time. 

The entire incidenct comes off like something from a men’s adventure novel of the decade before, as sleazy as can be. The Cubans take the captured girls to their yacht, which is filthy with garbage and refuse, and there proceed to rape Shirley. As I say, it’s all very ‘70s in its exploitative tone, as the Cubans rip off Julia’s clothes, exposing her “jutting tits,” and go about raping her in explicit fashion, after which Paco, the boss, jams a knife in Julia’s heart. It’s Maria the men are here for; Paco reveals to her that he has two keys of “la coca,” and he wants Maria, who happens to have a degree in chemistry, to help him with it. Maria is not raped, but chained up in a cabin that stinks of garbage and a backed-up toilet. There she will stay for pretty much the entire novel, which occurs over a few days. 

The Mulhaneys, when they get their boat fixed and get back to St. Thomas, tell Ben Kane about this hijacking, but our hero is more focused on getting in Michelle’s pants. The author, to his credit, delivers yet more graphic sex material here: “[Kane] guided his cock toward the damp entrance. With a mighty thrust, he rammed his slippery cock deep.” I mean, two points for the usage of “cock” in back-to-back sentences. One other thing that calls back to those ‘70s mens adventure books is the unrepentant wish-fulfillment of Ben Kane: he’s in his 40s, ruggedly handsome and virile, and lives on a retrofitted Chinese junk that’s basically a waterborne bachelor pad, as swank as you could imagine. As mentioned this particular “Nick Stone” likes to lay on the topical details, and the ship, the Wu-Li, has all these fancy accommodations that you could just expect some wealthy, unattached guy to create for himself. As I’ve mentioned before, this very much gives Kane’s War the feeling of the earlier series Killinger

And speaking of wish fulfillment…just a few hours after he’s with Michelle, Ben’s getting busy with his other casual badmate, hotstuff Brit Jessica! We learn this volume – it might’ve been mentioned before, I can’t remember – that Michelle is insanely jealous of Jessica. The two women are quite aware that each is involved in a casual affair with Ben, but whereas Jessica pretends to be “adult” about it, Michelle gets very worked up over the thought of Ben having sex with Jessica. However it should be mentioned that Ben spends much more time with Michelle in this one; it seems like each volume has traded off on which of the two will act as his “main girl.” Jessica really only factors into this opening part; her father is throwing a gala affair on their island, and Ben’s invited. There he runs into returning character Weaver, an intelligence spook who offers Ben a job – and Ben tells him to screw off. 

Unbelievably, the author turns out yet a third hardcore sex scene, so soon after the previous two, this time again with Michelle. At least he presages it with some action; Ben tries to get the drop on these Cuban hijackers who have been preying around this area, leading to a nicely-done action scene. But right after this it’s back on his Chinese junk so Michelle can give his bruised body a massage, leading to more whoppers like, “[Michelle] eased his shaft into her well-lubricated pussy…she began to ride him like a steeplechaser posting for each fence.” I don’t even know what that least part means, but I sure do like the sound of it! I quote this stuff in full because “Stone’s” usage of hardcore words is very out of touch with the otherwise-reserved tone of the narrative. In many ways the series is like something Lyle Kenyon Engel would’ve “produced” in the ‘70s; those books too would be written in a sort of highfalutin style, only getting explicit in the sex scenes. 

Curiously though, after this the sex stuff dwindles away…almost as if the author had some editorial mandate to include at least three sex scenes per novel, and decided to just get them out of the way as soon as possible. At this point the narrative gets more into the lukewarm espionage vibe of previous volumes; Weaver lets Ben know about Pritchard, a “triple-agent” Weaver suspects has now become merely a double-agent, working with “the Reds.” Somehow this is all factored into the Cuban hijackers subplot. Ben for his part gets involved because “Pritchard” turns out to be a guy he knew by another name, Carter, back in the ‘Nam…a guy who worked in intelligence and sold out Ben and his pals, setting them up for dead. He’s waited over a decade to punch the bastard’s ticket, and now he has his chance. 

Speaking of teams, Kane’s World is typical of ‘80s men’s adventure in that the focus is on teamwork, on a large group of characters that surrounds and assists the main character. It seems as if Ben Kane’s entourage is growing per volume, but this time his main crew is the same: Ganja, the pot-smoking black dude (my favorite character in the series, and sorely underused), and Miles, the cipher-like former SEAL. These three, as well as other members of Ben’s crew, get in frequent skirmishes with the Cuban hijackers, as well as Cuban soldiers who are led by Martinez, a nutjob who is working with Pritchard. Most of the action concerns Ben’s growing assortment of water craft, including a hydrofoil he now has which memorably features in a few sequences. There’s also a nice action scene involving Jessica, who happens to be on Wu-Li before some random Cubans attack; Ben gets her to fire off a flare so he can snipeshoot, and later Jessica also fires a machine gun. 

There are a lot of nice ’80-isms, too, like Miles – the Nam SEAL, remember – using “ninja darts.” I mean you just gotta figure the guy ordered them out of an ad in Ninja Magazine (damn I loved that mag as a kid – even had a subscription to it…probably some of the greatest cover art in magazine history, too). Ganja too carries around an assortment of knives, and in one humorous bit when he’s putting together his war gear he’s also sure to grab a bag of “Jamaican herb.” Miles didn’t seem to feature much in previous books, but this time he does a lot of the heavy lifting, even putting on scuba gear and planting explosives and tracking devices on the Cuban ships. Otherwise he’s almost somnambulant, leaving all the personality to Ganja. There’s also a funny part where Ganja responds to a question with “Yo!”, and Ben replies, “Cool it, Rambo.” 

While the action scenes are nicely-handled, they get to be a little repetitive, and it’s clear the author is struggling to meet his unwieldy word count. This is especially apparent when the novel seems to end around page 200, with most of the main villains dead and lovely Maria saved. But there are 70 more pages to go! The author fills this up with yet another Michelle-Jessica fight, but again Michelle doesn’t have much to get upset with, as the novel ends with her in Ben’s arms. But overall, as I think of it, this series really does have the vibe of the action movies of the day, definitely with a little Miami Vice sprinkled in, so far as the locale and boat-action goes. 

It’s just the length that’s killing the series for me. Regardless I’m looking forward to the next one, and have been since I discovered Kane’s War several years ago – it’s about an “underwater resort for the wealthy,” and that sounds like a cool setup to me. 

Monday, August 3, 2020

Slaves Of The Empire #5: Corissa The Vestal Virgin


Slaves Of The Empire #5: Corissa The Vestal Virgin, by Dael Forest
August, 1978  Ballantine Books

The Slaves Of The Empire lurches to a close with a fifth volume that’s just as befuddling as the previous four, Stephen “Dael Forest” Frances doing little to get his readers up to speed on the plot, the characters, or anything else. As I’ve said in I think every other review of this series, I get the impression that Slaves Of The Empire was written as one big book – one that, judging from this final volume, never even got a proper ending. Worse yet, Corissa The Vestal Virgin for the most part almost seems to be an installment of another toga trash series entirely, with the recurring characters of the previous four volumes reduced to supporting roles.

As we’ll recall, the main plot has it that a Roman noble named Hadrian (not to be confused with the future emperor) is building a city called Trebula outside of Rome while meanwhile he’s fallen in love with his slave, a Briton named Haesel. Haesel’s brothers and sisters have their own subplots, from dim-witted bombshell Mertice, who is caught in a lame love triangle, to Thane, who is a master craftsman. There’s also Redeard, who became a free man volumes ago and is now a successful businessman. The very least we get in the way of “resolution” in Corissa The Vestal Virgin is that some of these siblings are finally reunited: Haesel and Thane meet in Trebula, the first they’ve seen each other since they all were taken into slavery in the first volume. Surprisingly, Frances doesn’t much exploit the dramatic potential here, just leaving their emotional reunion to a scant few lines of off-hand text, but then again the series overall has been an emotionless, spiritless dirge that takes place in a vacantly-described historical setting.

As mentioned, it’s the new characters who really run the show this time, but even here the title is misleading: “Corissa,” the lovely young head Vestal Virgin (meaning she’s been in service to goddess Vesta the longest), only appears on a handful of pages. Instead the plot is about a scheming duo of senators who plan to pin the blame of a ruined crop in Romania (or somewhere, I forgot) on Vesta – particularly, that Rome has grown so dismissive of the once-important goddess of hearth and home that she has invoked her wrath by destroying these highly-necessary crops. Their proof point is the fact that the so-called “virgins” of Vestal are anything but, sleeping around with lovers and not taking their once-sacred duties in vain; whereas serving Vesta was at one time a spiritual calling, it is now seen by young noble women as a ladder to high stature.

Diocles and Litirum are these two senators (I might’ve jotted the latter’s name down incorrectly, but I’m too lazy to get the book out of the box to verify), and they take up a goodly portion of the narrative with their boring scheming. It’s a lot of back and forth with Maximus, the High Priest of Vesta (himself a wealthy nobleman who prefers the solitude of his library and looks on his “sacred duties” with boredom) and some dude who is the “Chief Augur.” You know those parts in old historical epics like Ben Hur or The Fall Of The Roman Empire where it’s a lot of British guys in period costume debating with one another in faux-“Shakespearian” accents? Well the entire Slaves Of the Empire series is pretty much just like that, this subplot in particular.

And still we focus on other Vestas instead of titular Corissa; one of them gets involved with a dude heavily into s&m, and he gradually talks her into some whipping. This last bit is probably the sleaziest the series has gotten, but even here it’s told with that disaffected, clinical tone so familiar of British pulp. I mean there’s no outright sex in the book, just a lot of talk about “love-play,” and the majority of the lurid stuff is told in summary. There seems to be a focus on whipping in this one, though; the novel opens with Maximus presiding over the sacred duty of sending off an “old” Vesta and replacing her with a new one. Here Frances skillfully sets up his theme of dwindling faith in the old ways: we’re told that once upon a time Vestas who shirked in their duty were seriously whipped before being cast out of the temple, but now it’s a formulaic procedure in which the whipping is faked for the audience, and the girl must pretend to scream and cry.

This though again brings me to the question of when all this takes place. At one point Frances reels off a list of the gods the Romans believe in, but they’re all the old ones, like Jupiter and such. In reality, by the time of the Empire, most Romans were into esoteric Eastern cults, like Isis or Mithra. This is actually how Christianity was able to spread; it was the new hip religion among rich Roman matrons, particularly around the era of Constatine, when a few of these same matrons “discovered” sites in Jerusalem which are still considered sacred today. But there’s no mention of any of that here, which again places the setting of the series in question. We do for once get a glimmer of period detail when Tiberius and Nero are briefly mentioned; there’s also mention of an upcoming aristocrat named Trajan, with the implication that he indeed is the future emperor of the same name.

We do get a resolution on the lame Alexander-Mertice-Melanos triangle that’s been going on since the first volume. As we’ll recall, Alexander is a foppish gadabout who prides himself on his “love-play;” he once owned Mertice, who fell in love with him, but he gave her away to Melanos, ie the noble tomboy babe Alexander lusts after. Last time it was set up that Alexander had some plan in mind for these two women. This time we see it, and it’s pretty despicable; through belabored means he kidnaps Mertice, placing her in a sort of silk prison for a few days. All as a “joke” on Melanos. He has one of his buddies visit Mertice every day, trying to get her in the sack; once she’s finally succumbed and is sufficiently worked up, Alexander comes in and drops the bomb that he’s behind her kidnapping. He tries to get her in the mood with his hands – Mertice being a virgin still – until Mertice not only reveals that someone’s already done this for her, but indeed that it was done better than Alexander’s doing it…and the person doing it was a slave! This we’re to understand hits Alexander right where it hurts: in his arrogant heart.

Otherwise we don’t even get to “main” characters Hadrian and Haesel until page 67. Their story seems to occur in the swingtown seventies, with Haesel again happily “lending” Hadrian to a rich older noblewoman whose money is important for the creation of Trebula. Meanwhile Hadrian gives Haesel her freedom, for once showing a spark of personality as he first treats her roughly, calling her “slave” and the like, before revealing that she is free, and also the new mistress of his house. But this sadly is where we leave them, so there’s no resolution to the overall storyline; we’re told that Haesel will still try to find Mertice and Redwing, implying that in future volumes this would finally come to pass.

Frances does spice the book up with lurid details likely gleaned from Daniel Mannix’s Those About To Die, in particular a long sequence, which suddenly detours into the style of a history book, which recounts the bloody entertainments of “the stadium,” aka the Flavian Amphitheater, aka the Colisseum. It’s all sick and wild, with lurid tidbits about Romans having sex in the stands while blood sprays in the stadium below, but it just seems to be lifted whole-hog from some other “nonfiction” book and placed in here. Even worse is it’s all relayed via summary, in a part in which Redbeard happens to do business near the stadium and briefly reflects on its horrible nature and background. 

This sudden focus on violence and sleaze plays out in the finale, an unexpectedly brutal sequence which has the two scheming senators succeed in their plot; Vesta’s “virgins” are blamed for the crop failure, and are summarily rounded up…some of them, like Corissa, while in bed with their lovers! So much for the “virgin” tags. Corissa pays the ultimate price, whipped for real and then friggin’ buried alive outside the Hearth of Vesta, all so as to appease the goddess. From here we jump to an arbitrary, WTF-finale in which Poppaea, a very minor recurring character who is not to be confused with the former empress, picks up some dude on the street and decides he’ll be her new plaything in bed.

And that, my friends, is the unsteady note on which Slaves Of The Empire comes to a close, leading me to believe that Frances likely had more installments in mind and the series was just cancelled – and he wasn’t asked to write a concluding installment when the books were brought over to the US a few years after they’d been published in the UK. I have to say though I’m glad to be done with the books – the best thing about them is the awesome cover art by Boris Valejo on these US editions. If only the actual novels were up to that caliber!

Thursday, April 25, 2019

Kane’s War #3: Death Waves


Kane's War #3: Death Waves, by Nick Stone
July, 1987  Ivy/Ballantine Books

It’s been so long since I read the first volume of Kane’s War I had to go back and re-read my review. Good grief, I had to bail on it halfway through – I must’ve had a helluva lot more free time back then. Well anyway, I don’t have the second volume, but as John Lennon said, it’s “nothing to get hung about.” This doesn’t appear to be a series with multi-volume storylines; in fact, I’m not even certain the same author wrote this one. Even though it’s the same exorbitant page count as the last one (nearly 300 pages!), it’s got massive print, and also the “marinara mystery” vibe of the first volume isn’t as prevalent.

Also, hero Ben Kane fares slightly better. As we’ll recall, he spent the majority of that first volume getting knocked out and recuperating in the hospital, and even dropped his own gun in the climactic action scene. That being said, Kane still manages to get knocked out and captured in the very first action scene of this installment, but afterwards he handles himself much better. So who knows, maybe it is the same author, just with a lesser word count, so less of a need to pad pages; as it is, Death Waves sort of rolls along and is much pulpier than its predecessor, featuring mind-controlled soldiers and a Bond-esque super villain intent on world domination.

One thing I’m not sure about is if the second volume introduced Kane’s latest girlfriend, Karen, but I’m guessing not; even though she’s introduced to us cold, as if we’re to understand she’s Kane’s latest steady woman, later on it’s explained that she’s come down here to the Virgin Islands for a brief vacation before she starts work on Mica Island, a closed-off retreat owned by mega-wealthy Ted “Link” Mica. But when we meet Karen at the start of the book she’s about to become something else – the latest victim of white slavers who are operating here in the Caribbean and who have kidnapped several other lovely young ladies.

What itself could provide the main plot of the book instead becomes the obligatory “opening action scene,” as Kane tracks down the missing Karen to a desolate island and decides to go in alone, no weapons or anything. But it’s a return of the clumsly bufoon from the first volume, as he’s knocked out and captured posthaste. We don’t get too much info on these white slavers – they’re mostly just presented as modern pirates of Middle Eastern descent – because soon enough attack helicopters land and soldiers in black uniforms get out and decimate them. Our “hero” stands and watches as some newly-introduced group of characters come in and handle the job he was supposed to do himself. 

What Kane finds most odd about the situation is that the black-uniformed soldiers operate almost like robots; there is no emotion, no reaction to getting shot, even. Even odder is the dude commanding them – Ted Mica himself. This, he casually explains to the freed Kane, Karen, and other hotstuff babes, is his security force, which he declares the greatest combat outfit in the world. He invites Kane and Karen to dine with him on his opulent yacht that night.

One thing retained from the first volume is the somewhat-explicit sex; Kane and Karen head back for Kane’s junk, the Wu-Li, and get busy posthaste (“One finger found her dewy crevice and he felt the warm slippery passage tightening, aching for him,” and the like). Later in the book Kane also scores with Jessica, the British beauty who figured so heavily in the first volume; as for his other casual bedmate, Michelle, she stays off-page for the duration, off on some trip for her dad’s business or somesuch. If you’ll recall, she was the one captured in the first volume, with Kane desperate to save her; this time Karen gets the honors, as of course it turns out Mica Island is a hellhole of brainwashed employees and, to quote the Eagles, “You can check out any time you like but you can never leave.” 

The schtick is that Mica Island is where the rich and powerful go to get cured of their various hang-ups; in just a short time it has become known for curing any addictions or other undesirable behaviors. Mica’s got a world-class psychiatrist at his disposal, but soon Karen, herself a behavioral specialist, detects something is up, as even this guy has no idea how Mica is curing people so quickly. But as mentioned this installment’s a bit pulpy; it’s clear from the get-go that Mica, that depraved genius, is beaming subconscious signals onto the island. I mean good grief, there’s a sign over all the beds demanding that people wear the provided headphones while sleeping. Mica and his people insist the headphones just play harmless white noise to aid sleep.

Meanwhile back in the real world Kane learns that all kinds of mysterious stuff has been going on at Mica’s place; none of the natives hired to work there have returned. Kane’s buddy Ganja (good grief how I wish I had a buddy named Ganja) tells him of one particular guy who took a job on the island to pay for his wedding, but suddenly sent his fiance a terse note stating that he was staying on for several more months. We readers have already seen this guy get the forced brainwashing treatment employees receive for not wearing those damn headphones at night. Ganja of course is back from the previous volume, as is the rest of Kane’s network of buddies and colleagues, including cipher-like Miles, another ‘Nam pal who I don’t think even appeared in that first volume.

At least this time we get to see Miles at work; he and Kane scuba dive onto Mica Island and scope it out, leading to the first of several action scenes. The action is very much in the blockbuster movie mold, not overly gory or even bloody, with Kane using his customary Magnum revolver again. This I felt was the action highlight of the book, with the two here to save Ganja, who has gone undercover as a new recruit in Mica’s security force. Oh and the sadistic security force leader is named “Major Frank,” folks. Surprisingly Ganja doesn’t get brainwashed, as he foregoes the headphones (as any sensible friggin’ person would do) and is instantly outed as a spy.

Curiously though the book sort of runs out of steam, no doubt due to the still-unwieldy word count. By this point not only is Karen brainwashed, but Kane’s learned that Mica intends to brainwash all the bigwigs of the world in his insane quest to ban nuclear weapons. In a belabored setup Jessica goes undercover on Mica’s yacht, with Chief Bukowski (another recurring character) posing as her security guard, and here they learn the brainwashing mechanism is stashed on the yacht itself. However, and folks I kid you not, Mica has a notebook with the workings of the mechanism, including a section headlined “how to reverse the brainwashing process,” and the finale turns out to be a race to get hold of this particular Maguffin. Worse yet, Mica disappears in the finale and another character tells Kane what has supposedly happened to him.

I do like the beach read vibe of the series, though it wasn’t as heavy this time around. In fact, very rarely did I get the impression this was taking place in the Caribbean. But I also like the large cast of characters; even Kane’s old CIA boss-enemy, Weaver, makes an appearance, and late in the novel we meet one of his operatives, a black guy named Brock, who seems primed to appear again. Anyway, this one, despite being an insane 280 pages, was a fairly quick read – and hopefully so was this review.

Thursday, March 21, 2019

The Jefferson Airplane And The San Francisco Sound


The Jefferson Airplane And The San Francisco Sound, by Ralph J. Gleason
June, 1969  Ballantine Books

Ralph Gleason was a jazz critic who covered rock from its earliest days, and was one of the fouders of Rolling Stone. This scarce papebrack documents the rise of San Francisco rock, with a focus on the Jefferson Airplane – indeed, 200 pages of interviews with all six members. Published in ’69, much of the material seems to have been gathered over a year before, as the Airplane is documented while recording what would become their album Crown Of Creation.

I love reading these vintage rock books and being reminded how rock music was once seen as a liberating but dangerous youth movement. In particular I like to see how groups and albums were viewed when they were new – you can always get a chuckle out of vintage Rolling Stone reviews that diss LPs that are now considered sacred. (I mean those jokers ran a negative review of Abbey Road!!! But to their credit they also ran a positive one.) It’s also interesting to see how groups that were once considered important have sort of slipped out of the public consciousness. I grew up listening to “classic rock” in the ‘80s, and while I knew all the “important” bands, I’ve gotta say, Jefferson Airplane wasn’t one of them. In fact I’ve only begun to appreciate their music in recent years. I mean back then we all knew the Beatles, the Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, etc, and you’d always see Grateful Dead t-shirts on the potsmoking teens in high school. But the Jefferson Airplane? Not really.

I’ve wondered about this, and if anything I think it’s the band’s politics that has gotten in the way. While most everyone knows “White Rabbit” and “Somebody To Love,” probably not too many average rock listeners could sing along to “We Can Be Together,” with its “up against the wall, motherfucker” chorus. Whereas the Beatles and the Stones just let the music speak for itself – other of course than a few random tunes – the Airplane wore their politics on their sleeves. And such things just don’t age very well. Hell, even John Lennon regretted singing “You can count me in” on “Revolution” just a few years after it was released. At least, that’s my assumption on why the Jefferson Airplane’s music didn’t resonate with my generation – at least with the people I knew, and we were all into classic rock. Hell, I was listening to the Who in ’89 when most of my high school classmates were listening to shit like Guns And Roses or Poison or whatever.

Ralph Gleason’s fat paperback documents the time before the Airplane let their politics direct the course of their career; in fact politics aren’t much discussed, and the focus is more on the music. The book captures them just as they’re coming off the success of Surrealistic Pillow and it’s more about them hitting the big leagues, getting beyond their local SanFran creds to a more national audience. And also there’s no sign of the fractional in-fighting that would ultimately break up the group. Singer Marty Balin gives no indication that he’d leave the band just a few months after this book was published, but readers gifted with future knowledge can already see seeds hidden in the interviews: guitarist Paul Kantner raves about Grace Slick, with whom he’d eventually have a child, and bassist Jack Casady says that he and lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen are the only ones on the same advanced musical wavelength; in a few years they’d split off to form Hot Tuna.

Gleason starts off the book with an 80-page dissertation on how rock music came to San Francisco; it basically started in October, 1965 with the Family Dog, a group of proto-hippies who were looking for a place to host a rock dance. Dancing is a key theme in these pages, as Gleason informs us of the plight of poor ‘60s kids who were prevented from actually dancing during rock performances – the goddamn pigs insisted they stay in their seats during the show. But seriously, from such minor things revolutions are born, so we learn how it was an uphill struggle to make possible something that today would seem so mundane.

I find it weird that Gleason does little to set up the Airplane; he just sort of introduces them in the narrative with random asides or references. Clearly he figured the readers of the book would know who the Airplane were and would be more interested in the group dynamics. But then that makes his free-ranging history piece even more puzzling, as it’s filled with material that has no bearing on the Airplane. He goes over the dizzying array of groups that formed in San Francisco in the ‘60s, many of them obscure. Some of them, like Petrus (which featured Jorma’s brother Peter) and Ace of Cups (an all-female group that Hendrix raved about), never even got their albums released (Jorma says that the Petrus album sounds “a lot like the first Jefferson Airplane album”).

After this opening, which encompasses everything from Ken Kesey’s acid tests to Tom Donahue and free-form radio to the Human Be-In, Gleason moves into the meat of the book: 200 pages of interviews with the members of Jefferson Airplane. These are very much in the mold of the Rolling Stone interviews of the day: very long, very “loose” in that they come off more like free-ranging conversations than actual interviews. And this book is so true to its era that Gleason even tells us each member’s Zodiac sign in the intro blurb that precedes each interview.

First up is singer Marty Balin, and in the intro Gleason states that this interview predates the others, taken shortly after the release of the first Airplane album. Balin covers the history of the group and how they need to get some national exposure and move beyond their Bay area fame, which of course they’d do with Surrealistic Pillow. I found the most interesting part of this interview to be Balin’s comments on then-drummer Alexander “Skip” Spence, who later went on to join Moby Grape and ultimately released the now-legendary solo album Oar in 1969:


Next is Jorma Kaukonen, a “viking Capricorn,” probably one of the most unsung lead guitarists in rock history. This dude really rips! But somehow his name just doesn’t resonate with people like the other greats – everyone knows Jimi, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, etc. Jorma should be added to that list. Anyway as expected this interview, which like the following ones takes place after the release of Surrealistic Pillow, is focused more on the playing of music, and Jorma’s folk days.


Next is Paul Kantner, who comes off too much the hipster in his interview, almost as if he’s trying to hard to be the “cool cat.” We do get random notes on how he likes to drive around in whatever city the Airplane’s playing in, and also as mentioned he has some glowing comments about Grace. Paul’s probably my favorite member of the group, if only because of his solo 1970 LP Blows Against The Empire, which is one of my favorite albums of all time. Unfortunately he doesn’t talk much about sci-fi or mystical stuff or whatnot, which is what I was expecting from his interview:


Now we come to Grace Slick, who comes off as witty and intelligent in her interview. It covers how she started singing, how her family wasn’t musically inclined, and how she became involved with the Great Society (ie the group she sang for before joining the Airplane). I’ve always felt Grace Slick has one of the best voices in rock music. Her solo LP Manhole is pretty cool, too – one of those nice-price scores I found in some antique store years ago, complete with the booklet featuring all her far-out illustrations.


Up next is bassist Jack Casady, perhaps the only guitarist as unsung as Jorma. This guy is definitely one of the greatest bass players of all time – even Hendrix thought so, as he used Jack (instead of his usual bassist Noel Redding) on “Voodoo Chile.” I recently got the remastered all-analog vinyl reissue of Electric Ladyland, released by Sony Legacy a few years back ($16 at Wal-Mart, folks – I actually bought a record at Wal-Mart!!), and it was like I’d never heard the album before, even though it’s one of my favorites (if not my favorite album ever). Good grief Casady’s bass on “Voodoo Chile” was isnane – it sounded like heavy metal blues circa 1968. I’d say Jimi, who produced the album with Eddie Kramer, recorded it just right – something Casady states is quite difficult to do with the bass:


Next we get to Spencer Dryden, the drummer who replaced Skip Spence and who himself would soon depart the group, to play with New Riders of the Purple Sage. Gleason considers him the most varied of the group members, at least so far as his musical experience goes, but I have to admit I wasn’t as interested in his interview. But for the hell of it, here’s a little of it:


Then we go back to Marty Balin, in a more recent interview than his first one, where he discusses the split with manager Bill Graham. After this we have an interview with Graham himself, and then, apropos of nothing, an interview with Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. This one’s shorter than the Airplane interviews, and though I tried to read it, I just couldn’t connect with it, because friends even though I’ve tried and tried I just can’t get into the Dead:


Anyway this book was interesting as a period artifact, but overall I’m glad I got it via Interlibrary Loan – I couldn’t believe I actually found it listed on Worldcat.org – and that I didn’t pay the outrageous price it goes for on the used books marketplace. I would’ve preferred more of a critical look at the Airplane’s music; instead, the book is mostly just a rundown of SanFran rock history followed by free-ranging discussions with the members of the group. Which is cool if that’s what you’re looking for.

Monday, October 29, 2018

The Ginger Star (The Book Of Skaith #1)


The Book Of Skaith, by Leigh Brackett
May, 1974  Ballantine Books

Two decades after her last published story featuring Eric John StarkLeigh Brackett returned to the character with this paperback original sporting an awesome Steranko cover.* It would be the first in a trilogy dubbed The Book Of Skaith, and unlike those pulp tales of the ‘40s and ‘50s, here Stark would be flung into the far cosmos, Brackett’s “Old Solar System” with its ancient Martians and whatnot now thoroughly discredited by those buzzkilling scientists.

Yet I wonder why Brackett didn’t persist, as Skaith, the outpost-esque planet which orbits the titular “Ginger Star,” is basically a stand-in for Brackett’s Mars, with a little of her Venus thrown in. More pointedly, the year before Lin Carter had begun publishing his own “sequence” of novels inspired by Brackett’s pulp novellas, Mysteries Of Mars, so if he could get away with setting tales on a now-discredited “Old Mars,” then why couldn’t Brackett? My assumption is she must’ve felt the only way for her work to be taken seriously was to cater to the style of the time, thus it was goodbye to her decadent Mars and psychedelic Venus, and more’s the pity.

But other than that…all I can say is, I’m very glad I read Brackett’s early work before reading The Ginger Star. Because the author who wrote this is a pale reflection of the author who delivered such standout novellas as “Enchantress Of Venus,” “The Moon That Vanished,” and “Sea-Kings Of Mars.” Whereas those earlier stories burned with a special kind of fire, filled with inventive ideas, fully-fleshed characters, and memorable dialog, this one is a tired, turgid trawl that endlessly repeats the same sequence of events. And shockingly enough, the characters here are practically ciphers; there was more character depth in Brackett’s pulps, all of which were half the size of this novel.

Without any exaggeration, here’s the plot of The Ginger Star: Eric John Stark will go somewhere on Skaith, meet a few cipher-like characters, exchange some exposition with them, then they’ll all get ambushed and someone will knock Stark out and abduct him. Stark will be taken along by this new group of cipher-thin characters, trading exposition with them, and then another group will spring from the woodwork, ambush them, and take Stark captive. This goes on for the entire novel. There’s even a part a hundred pages in where Stark vows to never be abducted again…which is a laugh, because he’s captured yet again not too long after!!

Or to put it another way…when I read Brackett’s pulp novellas, I was so enthralled that sometimes I found myself re-reading sections. But with The Ginger Star I found myself skimming sections.

I’m not sure how this could’ve happened to a writer of Brackett’s caliber. And certainly she returned to Stark because it was her main character – her Tarzan or Conan – so she must’ve felt some drive to go back to him after so long. In fact I’m sure she wrote the unpublished-for-decades “Stark And The Star Kings” shortly before this one, so it would appear she was planning to return to Stark for a while. And yet even that novella, cowritten with her husband, was subpar, especially when compared to her ‘40s and ’50s material, so had she just lost her mojo?

Regardless, I can’t really recommend this novel, as I found it a trying, tiring read, with little of the spark Brackett once so easily displayed. But for posterity, it goes like this – Eric John Stark when we meet up with him is headed for the distant world of Skaith, newly introduced to the galactic union, something which I believe wasn’t mentioned in those early novellas. But then, not much of those stories are mentioned at all, other than a bit more fleshing out of Stark’s background, in particular how he was raised by a sort of space bureaucrat named Simon Ashton, a character often mentioned but who only appeared in the first Stark novella, “Queen Of The Martian Catacombs.”

Ashton is central to this because he was last seen on Skaith, trying to bring the desolate, decadent, and dying world into the union, and after a couple months boning up on the planet’s culture and languages, Stark is on an interstellar voyage to find him. Not much detail on the space trip, by the way, but it doesn’t appear to last very long – another difference from those earlier yarns, where hyperspace travel didn’t appear to exist. Bracett is more concerned with the Robert E. Howard-esque setting of Skaith, which is fine by me – I’ve never much been into “hard” sci-fi that goes to elaborate lengths of explaining how things work.

When Stark arrives on Skaith it bodes well for the novel ahead; it seems like vintage Brackett, with this dessicated, ancient world and its mysterious people and Stark the mysterious newcomer everyone’s after. There’s a vintage pulp vibe when he takes on these sea creature things, almost holy monsters that the natives of course avoid due to superstition. Stark takes care of one of them with his blade. But sadly that’s about it so far as Stark’s bad-assery goes; he’s been whittled down a bit, same as he was in those mid-‘60s rewrites The Secret Of Sinharat and People Of The Talisman. Because from here on out it’s the endless cycle of Stark meeting some new people, traveling a bit, getting knocked out and captured, traveling some more, then getting knocked out and captured again.

There are interesting touches at the outset, though. Brackett initially seems to be doing a parable of the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, with an indolent group of hippies called the Farers who range around Skaith and get high off illegal plants. They’re like the children or something of the never-seen Lord High Protectors, who control the planet from their hidden fortress, the Citadel; a sadistic lot called the Wandsmen are in charge of law and order, apparently serving the whims of the Protectors. Stark runs into the Wandsmen posthaste, as well as their loyal Farers: in particular there’s a fully-nude, bodypainted Farer named Bayas who has an instant lust-hate thing for Stark, trying her damnest to get him killed. But ultimately she’s one of the main characters who is introduced, given lots of narrative space, and then abruptly dropped from the text.

I almost forgot – there’s a prophecy, of course. Some native witchwoman named Gerrith has prophecized that a “dark man” from space will come and lead the people of Irnan to freedom, and he’ll destroy the Citadel, mystical home of the Protectors…it does go on. And apparenty every single person on Skaith has heard of this recent prophecy, so now everyone wants Stark, who is of course clearly this figure from the prophecy. First Stark hooks up with Yarrod, a guru who commands a “pod,” basically real hippies as opposed to the plastic fantastic Farers in that they’re more into hivemind mentality and Oneness and such and not just laying around and getting high.

But this is just another of the many unexplored elements Brackett doles out; we get an offhand statement that these pods only live a few years, implying that the members all die, but instead we get in-fighting between resident tough guy Halk and Stark. Yarrod meanwhile has of course heard of the prophecy and saves Stark from some attacking Wandsmen and Farers; he and his people are from Irnan and have come here to try to find out how to escape the planet. They eventually meet up with prophecy-spouter Gerrith, however it’s the daughter of the woman who made the actual prophecy(!); the original Gerrith has been killed by the Wandsmen due to her “false” Dark Man prophecy.

Anyway this Gerrith is a smokin’ hot blonde and she ends up being Stark’s sole bedmate in the tale…not that Brackett really gets into too much. Gerrith tags along with Stark as he makes his seemingly-neverending journey across Skaith, as does Halk and a few others who don’t do much to make themselves memorable for the reader. And Brackett’s similar names don’t help much – we’ve got Gerrith, Gelnar, and Gerd, all in the same book (one of them’s a dog, by the way). She also rarely describes anything – gone, friends, is the evocative word-painting that was so central to Brackett’s pulp masterpieces. Gone! Action scenes, when they happen, also lack the blood and thunder of vintage Brackett, though Stark does make a few kills in the book.

Stark and company make their laborious way across Skaith, moving from the coastal area into a forest area and finally into a frozen area. The Lords live remote from the people, so remotely that they are considered supernatural beings by the rank and file. Their Citadel is guarded by the large mutant telepath Northhounds, canine beasts that apparently will be featured more in the second volume. Brackett ties in Stark’s oft-mentioned but seldom-displayed “wildman” history in that, thanks to his own “animal” cunning, he’s able to break through the telepathic hold of the Hounds and challenge their leader, thus becoming the alpha of the group. He uses the beasts to run roughshod over the Lords, who of course turn out to be spindly, weak old men.

Folks it was a plumb beating getting through this book. I’m sorry to say it. I love Leigh Brackett, you all should know that. I’m new to her work but by damn I rank her as one of my favorite writers of all time, ever. But The Ginger Star makes it clear that there was a huge difference between 1950s Brackett and 1970s Brackett. The author of this book comes off like someone desperately trying to mimic that earlier, superior author’s style, and failing miserably. Here’s hoping that the next two books are better.

*Steranko’s cover painting is actually of a barbarian character of his own creation, but the story goes that when Leigh Brackett saw his artwork – probably on the cover of Comixscene #5 (July – August, 1973) – she declared it the greatest representation of Eric John Stark ever, and was able to use it for The Ginger Star. Steranko went on to do the covers for the next two volumes, but as you’ll note Stark looks a bit different on them. Also it’s worth noting that on none of the three covers does Stark have the “sun-blackened skin” Brackett always made a point of mentioning.

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Slaves Of The Empire #4: Gracus The Centurion


Slaves Of The Empire #4: Gracus The Centurion, by Dael Forest
August, 1978  Ballantine Books

I wouldn’t recommend taking a long break between volumes of Slaves Of The Empire, like I did; it’s been years now since I read the previous volume, so I was a bit out of sorts while reading this one. As ever, Stephen “Dael Forest” Frances cares little about catching readers up on what came before; there is zero in the way of synopses of previous books, nor are recurring characters even introduced or described. As I’ve mentioned before, it seems clear that Frances wrote the five volumes of this series as one long book.

It must be said, though, that Frances’s rather large cast of characters is pretty memorable – there’s architect Hadrian, designing the new city of Trebula, with his love-conquered slave Haesel; Saelig, brother of Haesel, a freed slave who provides a sort of shelter for other slaves; Brotan, slave-farm owner who found happiness in slavery (the theme of the series); Thane, artistically-gifted brother of Haesel who now works for Hadrian; Mertice, dull-witted sister of Haesel, once owned by foppish athlete Alexander and now owned by tomboy Melanos; and seldom-seen Redbeard, Haesel’s other brother, yet another freedman who has become a successful businessman. And that’s just the “main” characters.

Gradually all of these characters are converging on Trebula, which seems to be Frances’s theme – that, and the aforementioned “happiness in slavery” angle. For again and again these characters thrust themselves into positions of slavery, whether willingly or not, and find happiness under the yoke. But they’re all headed for Trebula; Hadrian is already there, currently engaged in pleasing Valle, a wealthy matron whose husband could really help out Trebula or somesuch. Honestly this is one subplot I’d forgotten, but long story short Hadrian basically has to treat Valle, who lives with him, as a VIP and have lots of sex with her.

The only problem is, Valle is kind of old but refuses to accept it. We’ll be informed of salacious stuff like, “the halos and nipples of [Valle’s] breasts were painted ultramarine blue,” and then Frances will buzzkill it with the mention of the “lifeless sagging of her breasts.” Meanwhile Haesel, who we’ll recall was once a proud young gal who refused to bend her neck to the yoke of slavery, encourages Hadrian to screw Valle a bunch for the good of Trebula, and “happily” tells him stuff like, “I am my master’s slave and obey his orders.” Again – happiness in slavery.

Another recurring theme is how Frances adds more characters to an already-unwieldy pile of them. Last time it was Brotan, this time it’s Gracus, a 40 year-old centurion currently warfaring in Dacia (modern Romania, a helpful footnote informs us). Gracus, ugly as sin and a centurion thanks more to his stolid service record than any intelligence, is winding up his military career. He plans to retire to Rome and live with his brother Flacus, who is married to young Julia; along with their parents, they run a metal shop. Gracus picks up a female Dacian slave, a not attractive one with a long, very long neck, and gawky underfed limbs. He treats her miserably and guess what…she comes to love him, and vice versa.

Meanwhile as for Flacus and Julia – more new characters. Julia opens the novel; having recently lost her three-month old child, she now turns her still-swollen breasts to none other than Alexander, who suckles her in exchange for lots of money. It’s the new “in” thing among the wealthy althletes of Rome – suckling mother’s milk(!). Indeed Alexander later tells arch-enemy/lust-object Melanos, who had a child last volume, that she too should rent out her boobs (“I have always adored your breasts, Melanos.”), but this of course just elicits more verbal sparring between the two.

In fact the Alexander-Melanos stuff is probably the highlight of Gracus The Centurion. It sure isn’t the stuff with Gracus, whose sections are ponderous and too reminiscent of similar “happiness in slavery” routines from previous volumes. But Frances isn’t done; there’s an entire arbitrary part that goes on and on about various female slaves who have been put to use on Brotan’s breeding farm and are now being returned to their old masters in Rome. Ruined, haggard women all, their bodies beaten down by multiple births and miscarriages. Many of them just long for death, which leads to some poignant passages, where previously-wrathful owners, who sent these poor women to Brotan’s farm in the first place, start to feel pity and mercy for their returned slaves.

Speaking of Brotan, when we briefly hook up with the dude he’s had his pal Brotan, from the first volume, make him a slave collar, which Brotan happily straps across his neck for his mistress’s pleasure! All it needs is to have “Fido” on it. Meanwhile we have interminable scenes of Gracus and his Dacian slave making their way to Rome, even stopping off on Brotan’s farm, where another interminable, arbitrary scene has farm doctor Malen trying unsuccessfully to buy the Dacian girl, who is named Nitka.

Frances’s prose still has that clinical feel, indeed to the point that a sort of torpor settles over the book. Even parts that should be thrilling, like Hadrian and Thane hunting a loose lion in Trebula, or Alexander wrestling “a tall, coal-black Negro,” come off more so as ponderous. Frances as ever better excels at the bizarre stuff, like Brotan’s “owner” Vanus whipping him and making Brotan her “serving girl” for dinner, down to dressing Brotan like a fetching female slave. And the stuff with grown men suckling breastmilk is so prevalent in the novel that you have to wonder what the hell was going on in the author’s head.

Gracus The Centurion ends on a cliffhanger, unfortunately; finally tired of Melanos’s taunting barbs, Alexander plans to steal Mertice from her as a “joke.” Meanwhile everyone’s on their way to Trebula, so my assumption is the next installment, which was the last volume of the series, will see everything wrap up in that newly-built city. I’ll try to get to it a lot sooner than I did this one.

Thursday, September 21, 2017

People Of The Talisman and Black Amazon Of Mars


The Secret Of Sinharat/People Of The Talisman, by Leigh Brackett
No date stated (November, 1971)  Ace Books
(Original Ace Double edition, 1964)
(Also published as Eric John Stark: Outlaw Of Mars, by Ballantine Books, September 1982)

As mentioned in my review of The Secret Of Sinharat, People Of The Talisman also started life in the pulps, as “Black Amazon Of Mars,” before it too was expanded in 1964 as the flipside of this Ace Double. I’ve reviewed the original novella below.

Whereas The Secret Of Sinharat mostly stayed true to its original incarnation, with only a few changes here and there – though not all of them to the story’s benefit, I’d argue – People Of The Talisman is almost a straight-up rewrite, save for the opening pages. It’s also a little longer; Sinharat came in at a mere 94 pages, whereas Talisman runs to 124.

“Black Amazon Of Mars” was the last Eric John Stark adventure Leigh Brackett published until 1974 (The Ginger Star, being the first volume of the Book Of Skaith trilogy), though it appears to occur before the 1949 Stark novella “Enchantress Of Venus” (review forthcoming), and also before the unpublished-until-2005 novella “Stark And The Star Kings,” which was written in 1973 (review also forthcoming). This is mostly because Stark is still on Mars in the story, which is where we left him at the end of “Queen Of The Martian Catacombs”/The Secret Of Sinharat. He’s made his way from the deserts of the Drylands up into the snowy expanses of the Norlands. There’s no pickup from the previous story, but we’re informed that Stark has been carrying on guerrilla warfare with some of the Dryland barbarian tribes featured in the previous story, and a few times he mentions he’s been to Valkis – whereas it was made clear in Sinharat that it was his first time visiting that Martian city. 

When we meet up with Stark this time he’s in the rugged, snowy expanses of north Mars, on his way to the sequestered kingdom of Kushat along with a Martian friend named Camar. But Camar is dying, presumably from wounds in the guerrilla fighting. Camar is from Kushat, and apparently only a few people have ever left the city. Camar actually fled, having stolen the sacred Talisman of Ban Cruach, a Martian who saved Kushat around a million years ago, taking some sort of power from the Gates of Death, ie the unexplored, hellish region which looms beyond Kushat, the titular “Gates” being a pass through the black mountains outside the city. The talisman is a lens in a leather boss that Camar has hidden on his belt; Stark vows to take the talisman on to Kushat, as a favor to his dying friend.

But there’s more to the talisman than meets the eye; when Stark exploringly puts it on his forehead, he sees visions that appear to come from Ban Cruach’s actual experiences, all those millennia ago. The talisman is the fabled protector of Kushat; whatever it was that Ban Cruach found out there, the promise was that if ever Kushat was in trouble, the talisman would provide its people with the means of overcoming it. Given this, Kushat has never been conquered, and the superstitious Martians have given it wide birth. Now, without its protective talisman, the city is unprotected. 

Posthaste Stark is captured by “the riders of Mekh,” a barbarian tribe that roams the wilds outside Kushat. They take his few belongings – a recurring bit is that Stark is basically penniless everytime we meet him – but leave the cheap belt which was once Camar’s, and now rests on Stark’s waist, because it looks so worn and worthless. The barbarians take Stark to their leader, a badass warrior in black armor, who wields a black war axe and wears a black mask that appears to be inspired by samurai armor:

His head and face were covered by a thing that Stark had seen before only in very old paintings – the ancient war-mask of the inland Kings of Mars. Wrought of black and gleaming steel, it presented an unhuman visage of slitted eyeholes and a barred slot for breathing. Behind, it sprang out in a thin, soaring sweep, like a dark wing edge-on in flight.

This is the Lord Ciaran, ruler of the riders of Mekh, on his way to sack Kushat – something that’s never been attempted at this time of year, where it seems to be a gentleman’s agreement that no battles will be waged in the dead of winter. The expansion features a big gaffe of omission – sitting by Ciaran is an old pile of rags named Otar, a crazed old runaway from Kushat, and he is not introduced in the expansion as he is in the novella. Yet Stark abruptly refers to him by name. Clearly Brackett (or was it her husband Edmond Hamilton who did the ghostwriting for the expansion?) overlooked the fact that she’d edited out his intro from the novella. Not that it matters; Otar eventually disappears from both the novel and the novella.

One thing fixed up in the expansion is that here no one promptly assumes Stark has the talisman, as they do in the novella – they just demand to know if Stark knows where it is. He’s strung up on a rack and whipped, but breaks free thanks to his Tarzan-like abilities, getting the jump on some riders who think he’s passed out. He takes up a spear and lays into his captors – “He killed, and was happy.” Stark escapes on one of those lizardlike “mounts” which Brackett has yet to describe, and gradually loses the Mekh riders, ending up in Kushat.

This is another of those fallen Martian cities, though not so depraved as Valkis was in the earlier story. No one believes Stark’s story that barbarian riders are about to storm the wall that surrounds Kushat, and he also soon discovers that the rulers of Kushat are lying to their people that the Talisman of Ban Cruach is still here. A waif-like girl from the Thieves’s Quarter named Thanis argues with young soldier Lugh and company compander Lord Rogain(!) that she be given responsibility for Stark, as they plan to throw him in prison for his “lies.” Thanis takes Stark back to her apartment in the Quarter, which she shares with her brother Balin.

I mentioned in my review of The Secret Of Sinharat that some of Stark’s bad-assery had been whittled out, in the transition from novella to novel. The same thing happens here; to put it plainly, Stark gets laid in “Black Amazon Of Mars,” but he doesn’t in People Of The Talisman. This is due to the character revision Thanis experiences; in the novella she’s a sultry vixen who promptly throws herself on Stark, referring to him lovingly as “animal” afterwards, yet in the novel she is much more naïve and innocent, and has what amounts to a big brother sort of love for Stark.

The novel also features this incredibly goofy bit of coincidence in which Balin announces that he’s discovered Stark has the talisman, because not only did Balin know Camar, but he also recognized Camar’s belt!! We get a lot of insight into Kushat and the myth of Ban Cruach, perhaps a bit too much. There’s a massive statue of him in the city square and Lugh lies to Stark that the talisman is there. Stark’s story of impending invasion is only half-heartedly listened to, so soldiers man the wall. The siege of course happens a few days later, with Ciaran in his black armor marshalling his forces. Stark is crazed with vengeance, and gets in a brief swordfight with Ciaran.

Here comes the big shock – ruined of course by the title of the original novella – Ciaran is actually a she. Stark knocks off that ancient Martian helmet and is surprised when he finds himself looking into the face of a beautiful woman with black hair (she had “red-gold” hair in the novella, by the way). There’s a moment where it looks like her barbarians will abandon her, having discovered they’ve been following a woman, but Ciaran leaps into the fray and thus becomes a “goddess” to them. Stark meanwhile bands together some Kushatians, knowing the city is doomed, and leads them on a long escape through the tunnels beneath Kushat – this novel is very heavy on the atmospherics, lacking much of the action of the source novella.

Determined to help save Kushat, and also get his vengeance on Ciaran, woman or not, Stark leads his group into the Gates of Death, to find whatever power Ban Cruach found there. He ends up cutting off a pursuing Ciaran and capturing her, and succeeds in keeping his group of survivors from killing her – they can use her to barter for their safe passage. Meanwhile they explore the ghostly ruins in the Gates of Death. They are soon confronted by aliens who look much like the one depicted on the cover, and these aliens predate the human-stock “Martians” who now run the planet.

The talisman allows conversation with these stalking aliens, and Stark detects that there is something untrustworthy about them, despite their apparent kindness. They vow to help Kushat, as Ban Cruach made the same promise to them, so long ago – these aliens want to live alone in their own kingdowm, and Kushat was like a barrier between them and the rest of Mars. In a stupid moment they happily hand over all their weapons to the band of survivors, and off they rush to reclaim Kushat from the riders of Mekh – it’s all very rushed and sort of goofy.

But it turns out to be a “game;” the aliens have tricked the Kushatians, and the lights in the eerie city go out so the aliens can now hunt the survivors for sport. The talisman is revealed to be worthless, and one of the aliens smashes it. Eventually Stark runs into Ciaran, and the aliens have contrived it so these two could fight to the death; instead, they take up their swords, stand back to back, and commence to hacking and slashing. They escape, along with Thanis and Balin and a few other survivors, and Ciaran promptly vows to leave Kushat, taking her barbarians with her…as long as Stark helps her fight to reclaim her birth kingdom of Narissa; Ciaran, daughter of the now-dead king, was ridiculed by her people for being a girl who wanted to rule, but now she will return to Narissa and claim it for her own.

And here People Of The Talisman comes to its unsatisfying, rushed end. Having read the novella first, it occurred to me as I read this expansion that what appears to have happened was that Brackett, for whatever reason, toned down the pulpy fun of the source material and attempted to make it all more “straight” and “serious.” Gone is the fast-moving action of the novella, replaced with lots of scene-setting and needless tours of Kushat. It’s my understanding that Brackett’s sci-fi gradually lost this pulpish vibe as the ‘50s went into the ‘60s, so maybe these expansions were just reflections of that.

As with The Secret Of Sinharat, I read the 1971 reprint shown above. Here is the cover of the original 1964 paperback; it’s interesting that ’71 reprint cover artist Enrique “Enrich” Torres basically just redrew it, same as he did for his Sinharat cover:


On to the original pulp version – as with “Queen of the Martian Catacombs,” I found “Black Amazon of Mars” to be vastly superior to the expansion. “Black Amazon Of Mars” appeared in the March 1951 issue of Planet Stories, and you can find a scan of it for free download at The Internet Archive. Not only does the novella move faster – which would be a given as it’s shorter than the expansion – but the character motivations and climax are all superior, and Stark comes off as a stronger character. It’s also in even more of a Robert E. Howard mold than “Queen Of The Martian Catacombs,” filled with warriors in armor battling it out with swords and axes. Here’s the cover:


As with my rundown of “Queen Of The Martian Catacombs,” I’ll mostly go over differences here, so spoilers will run rampant. The novella starts off basically identical to People Of The Talisman, up to the point where Stark arrives in Kushat. As mentioned above, Stark gets lucky with Thanis, who is much more sultry here, less the innocent waif. There’s also none of the business of Balin having known Camar and recognizing Camar’s belt. But the novella does suffer from a strange tendency of various characters abruptly assuming, apropos of nothing, that Stark has the talisman of Ban Cruach and is hiding it from them.

But the main thrust of the story proceeds the same; Stark warns of the approaching hordes of Ciaran, and his story is doubted. He gets involved in the fighting during the eventual siege, and unmasks Ciaran as in the novel, but here she has red hair. Also in the novella it’s revealed that Ciaran is really “Ciara,” something not addressed in the novel. Despite her unmasking Ciara still leads her riders to a conquest of Kushat. In panic Balin flees through the Gates of Death, to find whatever power Ban Cruach left there. Alerted to this by a shrieking Thanis, Stark goes off in pursuit – and he himself is chased by Ciara and several of her barbarians.

The Gates of Death are guarded by a mummified figure in armor, holding a massive sword: Ban Cruach himself. Rushing past this figure, Stark encounters “the ice-folk,” the faceless, looming creatures of ice who live in this hellish, frozen area. They scare off Ciara’s men, and she proceeds alone after Stark. The duo fight the creatures but are captured, taken to an ice palace. Speaking telepathically, the ice-folk reveal that they were the original rulers of Mars, but Ban Cruach fought them back a million years ago, segregating them in this frozen section of the north – when they ruled Mars, the entire planet was covered with their ice castles, but Ban Cruach defeated them and gave the world to the current human-like Martians.

Ban Cruach did this, somehow, with his sword, the radioactive properties of which still in some mysterious way prevent the ice-folk from leaving their ghetto. They force Stark to get the sword, figure out how it works, and use it to free them so they can once again take control of Mars. This is the exact opposite of the goal of the aliens in People Of The Talisman. Stark refuses until the ice-folk threaten to freeze Ciara and Balin to death. Stark complies, and puts on the talisman, still hidden in his belt. With it he is granted the knowledge of how to use the sword.

The finale is a weird burst of near-psychedelic action as Stark waves the magical sword around, melting ice-folk and structures alike. The sword has a sort of microwave beam that wipes out anything in its path, and also protects Stark from the black light beams the ice-folk shoot at him. He also uses it to melt the ice that has nearly killed Ciara and Balin, and the three escape after Stark destroys the entire palace. The finale sees them emerging back into normal Mars, and here, unlike the clunky finale of the novel, Ciara does not vow to leave Kushat – indeed, it’s specified that she will remain there as ruler. There’s none of the business of her seeking to reclaim the throne of her father, either. She does though extend the same sort of offer to Stark – she asks him to stay with her, and Stark figures he will, at least for a while.

This was the last Eric John Stark story Brackett published until 1974, with The Ginger Star, being the first volume of the Book of Skaith trilogy – that is, if you aren’t counting the expanded versions of “Queen Of The Martian Catacombs” and “Black Amazon Of Mars” from 1964. However it would appear that Brackett, like her inspiration Robert E. Howard, didn’t write her Stark stories in chronological order, so that the second-published Stark yarn, “Enchantress Of Venus” (Planet Stories, Fall 1949), actually would follow after “Black Amazon Of Mars,” which was published two years later. I’ll be reading that one next, as well as the other stories collected in the 2008 Baen eBook Stark And The Star Kings And Other Stories.