Showing posts with label William Fieldhouse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label William Fieldhouse. Show all posts

Monday, September 26, 2016

The Hard Corps #4: Slave Trade


The Hard Corps #4: Slave Trade, by Chuck Bainbridge
October, 1987  Jove Books

The Hard Corps returns in another action onslaught courtesy William Fieldhouse, who appears to have been like Joseph Rosenberger in that he figured out his own personal formula for writing an action novel, and by god, that was the formula he was going to stick to. As such, Slave Trade follows the same format as the previous three books, its barebones plot centered around a handful of massive action sequences.

Rather than the usual template of the Corps being hired for its latest assignment, this one opens with the team already on the case – and slaughtering with impugnity. As we meet them the Hard Corps has followed a group of bad-ass bikers to a club in a desolate patch of California. Team leader William O’Neal and second-in-command James Wentworth go in to interrogate the bikers, Joe Fanelli and Steve Caine providing unseen backup. As soon as Fieldhouse mentions that Wentworth is wielding his customary samurai sword, you know where the scene is going.

Sure enough, pretty soon the bullets are flying, the samurai sword is dicing, and the blood is spouting. While his action books mostly follow the same format, one can’t claim Fieldhouse shirks on the gore, with copious detail of limbs being hacked, intestines exploding out, and heads blasting off. The question only remains why our heroes are slaughtering these bikers. It’s because they are the enforcers of a new cult called The Fellowship of Ultimate Living which is based in Australia but has recently opened a branch here to the US. Led by a (supposedly) charismatic guru named Harold Glover, the cult has been accused of brainwashing its young members and even selling some of its prettier followers on the slave market.

But Fieldhouse, like many other pulp authors who have taken stabs at cult-villain tales, fails to convey to the reader why anyone would even want to join the Fellowship of Ultimate Living. Glover, the few times we see him, is a conman with a taste for sadism who doesn’t display any “guru-like” qualities at all, leaving the reader to wonder why so many young people have flocked to him. Rather, he mostly sits around with his muscle-bound henchman Thor and talks about selling guns, drugs, and women.

For that is the problem, really, with Slave Trade; it’s just a lot of talk, so far as the plot and threat go. We’re given to understand that Glover has his hand in the slave trade, drugging the good-looking women in his cult and selling them to the highest bidder, but none of it is presented to us. Rather, the entire novel is basically a few dialog-exchange sequences which link together massive, pages-filling action sequences. But Fieldhouse is one of the men’s adventure authors of the day who really delivered on the gore quotient – he’s almost up there with David Alexander – so one can’t complain when practically every action scene has heads getting chopped off and brains “pouring out.”

At length we learn that O’Neal and team has been hired by a group of parents whose teen children were caught up in the Fellowship of Ultimate Living movement and then subsequently disappeared. One of the parents is an attractive lady around O’Neal’s age named Carol, a widower whose daughter was apparently killed by the Fellowship – all that’s known is that, after she disappeared with the cult, the girl kept writing her mother for more and more money, until one day when Carol got a call that the police in Phoenix had found the girl’s dead body.

However, this doesn’t stop the sparks from flying between O’Neal and Carol – the Hard Corps team leader finds himself really liking to “behold” Carol’s mature-but-lovely form, which leads Slave Trade in a direction completely unexpected for a William Fieldhouse novel. Believe it or not, friends, this installment actually has a bona fide sex scene, as O’Neal scores:

Soon her head was buried in his crotch, her wide, soft lips licking greedily at the head of his cock. Carol took him in her mouth slowly, an inch at a time until her lips touched his taut balls. Carol held him in her mouth as she sucked eagerly at the length of his quivering prick. 

Before O’Neal could reach the brink, Carol straddled him and guided his throbbing hard-on between her thighs. O’Neal sighed with pleasure as he sank slowly into her chamber of love. The woman rocked gently, gradually drawing him deeper inside her. O’Neal braced himself on one hand and sat up to kiss Carol’s breasts. His tongue and teeth teased her rigid nipples as he drew on her breasts with his lips. 

Their lovemaking slowly reached a peak. Carol, no longer in control, began bouncing and bucking against O’Neal’s crotch. He arched his back to thrust himself along with the rhythm of the woman’s motion. Carol moaned loudly with excited pleasure as she climaxed. O’Neal held back until Carol reached a second orgasm before allowing himself to come.

Boy, they don’t call ‘em “the Hard Corps” for nothing! 

Otherwise the Fieldhouse template remains. Early on Fanelli and Caine pay a visit to new character Benny the Wizard, a forger based out of Seattle. As soon as Fieldhouse mentioned that Benny was nervous, I knew exactly where the scene was headed. And sure enough, a group of thugs storm into Benny’s place, demanding payment in blood for a bad set of forgeries Benny sold them. As ever, this leads our heroes to pull out their own weapons and slaughter the thugs, saving Benny’s life – and apparently assuming he won’t pull the same scam on them.

The novel’s next big action sequence has the Hard Corps staging an assault on a theater in which Glover is holding a massive rally. Given that in the beginning of the novel they massacred the entire biker gang which was serving as the Fellowship’s enforcement arm, this time our heroes are up against two-bit thugs, ones easily outmatched by our battle-hardened heroes. But as usual the gimmick with the Hard Corps is less about any tension or suspense in the action and more so about the unique and gory ways the protagonists kill their enemies.

The second half of the novel has the team going over to Australia, Glover having absconded there after this lastest massacre of his people in California. Once again though it must be mentioned that throughout this we never actually see the commune or get a glimpse of any of the people who so blindly follow Glover; rather, it’s just the Hard Corps killing one hired goon after another, with the occasional dialog exchange reminding us how evil Glover is, what with all his drug-dealing, gun-running, and slave-trading. To me this is the biggest failing of the novel, as Glover and his cult could've been greatly expanded on.

Instead, we learn here that Glover is planning a big meeting with a bunch of Japanese mafia bigwigs, hoping to sell them a large stash of guns or somesuch. In reality I realized immediately why these yakuza chumps were introduced – so Wentworth would have someone to swordfight with. And yes, that’s exactly what happens! Glover’s headquarters for the Fellowship is “hidden” in the sprawling expanse of the Outback, and our heroes eventually locate it after circling about the area on chartered planes.

In fact, a C-130 transporter plane factors into their assault on the headquarters, and given how arbitrarily it’s introduced I have to assume the element was foisted upon Fieldhouse by a Jove editor so as to cater to the already-commissioned cover painting. At any rate the Hard Corps fly right up to the veritable doorstep of the commune nd launch into another gory, pages-filling battle, this one featuring not only lots of shooting and knife-slicing but also an elaborate samurai swordfight between Wentworth and one of the yakuza. We also get a brutal brawl between O’Neal and Thor, and while Glover’s send-off is appropriately apocalyptic, it would’ve been more satisfying if we’d seen more of his sadism in action.

Slave Trade is filled with such endless action that it just ends right here, Fieldhouse apparently having hit his word count and thus not worrying about tying up any loose ends. Like what happens to all the cult members; it’s implied that they will be set free, and early we saw our heroes getting disgusted at how the imprisoned Fellowship brainwashees were treated, but it’s all very cursorily dealt with. The subplot with O’Neal’s romance with Carol is also dropped. But Fieldhouse can’t be faulted for realizing that he was writing, first and foremost, an action novel. And in that regard he suceeds greatly, as Slave Trade is filled with splashing blood and blasting brains and more inventive deaths than we’ve seen since the first volume.

And yet despite all that there is something listless about the novel, something sort of missing, and ultimately I didn’t find it as fun as the previous three books. Here’s hoping then that the next installment features at least a little more in the plot department.

Thursday, December 31, 2015

The Hard Corps #3: White Heat


The Hard Corps #3: White Heat, by Chuck Bainbridge
July, 1987  Jove Books

The Indian’s body convulsed wildly as high-velocity slugs crushed into his torso.

With an opening sentence like that, you know William Fieldhouse is back in the writing saddle. The Hard Corps return in an adventure set a month or so after their previous mission. We learn that the team has finally rebuilt its secret base in the state of Washington, which was destroyed in the first volume; now it’s time for some well-deserved rest and relaxation.

Then their CIA contact Saintly choppers in and bullies them into another mission: to go down to Bolivia and blow away a few cocaine-manufacturing plants that belong to El Dorado, which is the top cartel in South America. But Fieldhouse delivers more than just another “drug war” scenario, with the revelation that a faction of El Dorado is actually run by Weisal, an old Nazi, one who fled down here after the war with the hopes of raising a neo-Nazi army. Now too old and feeble, the old man has turned the rule over to his sadistic son, Erik, who while still being a Nazi is more concerned with creating a cocaine empire than any sort of new Reich.

Unfortunately, despite this novel premise the entire Nazi angle is abruptly lost, with only cursory mentions of swastikas flying over Weisal’s various encampments in Bolivia. In fact, Erik Weisal himself disappears for the majority of the narrative, Fieldhouse keeping his four heroes in center frame throughout. They’re the usual motley bunch, with Joe Fanelli all fired up for a bit of cheap sex with any woman he can find, morose Steve Caine content to just wander around the woods and perfect his silent stalking methods, James Wentworth just wanting to practice his samurai sword technique and do some reading, and team leader William O’Neal as stoic and bland as ever.

Reluctantly canceling their r’n’r, the Hard Corps head on down to South America, where they’re put in touch with their helper for this installment, a burly DEA agent named Garcia. We’ve already seen a few DEA agents get wasted by El Dorado goons, so Garcia is understandably driven to wipe them out. He puts the Hard Corps in touch with a locally-based gunrunner named Paddy Murphy, a walking cliché who escaped to Bolivia after getting in hot water in his native Ireland for selling arms to both the Irish army and the NRA. Paddy is greasy and fat and more interested in drinking whiskey.

But we know by now the rule in practically every Fieldhouse novel – when characters enter a bar, a brawl will soon break out. And right on cue one does, with some of Paddy’s upset customers coming to collect a refund in his blood. In steps O’Neal and his “mercs” (as Fieldhouse often refers to his heroes), who, despite not even liking Paddy, get in an extended fight with the goons, a fight that just keeps going on and on. Meanwhile Paddy doesn’t have much to offer the guys in the way of firepower, but it’s enough for the Corps to pull off the ambush they’ve been hired for.

The novel’s first big action sequence has the Hard Corps taking out one of El Dorado’s factions in this vicinity. The CIA order is just to make a messy hit, and this is accomplished with much gunfire and explosions and gory exit wounds. Fieldhouse as ever doesn’t cheat his readers on the blood and violence demanded of the men’s adventure genre, but this being the ‘80s, the once-mandatory sex element is of course nonexistent. Hell, there isn’t even a single female character in the entire novel. In that regard the Hard Corps series is very similar to something from Gold Eagle Books.

With their task done, the team figures they can go collect payment, but in the aftermath they discover that one of their victims not only was a high-ranking member of El Dorado, but also happened to be the son of a powerful man in Bolivia’s government. Realizing they won’t be able to escape – the government will obviously be on the lookout for military-looking Americans – they instead split up and fade into the woodwork of desolate areas of Bolivia. Fanelli and Paddy Murphy pair off, which is such a total setup on Fieldhouse’s part, given that we were informed earlier that Fanelli was a drunk and has been sober for ten years.

And guess what? Paddy insists they go to a bar. “One drink won’t hurt you,” he keeps pressuring, and next thing Fanelli’s drunk as a skunk and, you won’t be surprised, another bar brawl breaks out. This one lands Fanelli in jail, so we’re treated to an arbitrary but page-filling bit where the other members of the team pull a heist to break him out. During this O’Neal and the others have been approached by Raul, a young Bolivian Indian who begs for their help to take on a gang that’s been tormenting and pillaging his village.

O’Neal tells the kid to go to hell, but persistent Raul tracks the Corps down to their hotel next morning and informs them that their comrade Fanelli has been imprisoned. Raul offers to help free him in exchange for the Corps helping his village. This serves to take us into the homestretch, as the Corps ventures deep in-country, where they find a primitive village of old men and youth who have no weapons whatsoever. But Steve Caine, with his much-vaunted “Kantu tribe” training (per his time in the ‘Nam), teaches them how to make weapons with spears and whatnot. Fanelli, the demolitions expert, even figures out how to make explosives with bat shit.

More weapons are discovered buried near the village, put there decades ago by followers of Che Guevara and stored in gun oil against the elements. Again per the Fieldhouse method, as soon as the Hard Corps gets these guns, an El Dorado strike force happens to show up and a massive firefight ensues. Heads explode and guts splash to the ground. These guys work for Weisal, which finally brings the sort-of neo-Nazi back into the picture. When O’Neal discovers from Raul that this faction of El Dorado is run by a neo-Nazi, he decides to just wipe them all out – he’s always wanted to kill a Nazi.

The climactic battle features an ambush on Weisal’s forward base in the jungle, where Steve Caine again comes off as the most skilled of the team, hacking and slashing guards silently. True to the spirit of a lot of these ‘80s men’s adventure books, though, it all just keeps going and going, complete with O’Neal and team, out of bullets, even engaging various of Weisal’s thugs in protracted fistfights. And it keeps going, with Weisal blasting at the Corps with a hidden machine gun, and then coming at them again later with some sort of “armored wall” protecting him.

By this point you’d love like a three-paragraph description of Erik Weisal’s head exploding, but for some reason Fieldhouse denies us this and just ends the chapter with O’Neal about to kill him. And that’s that; the Hard Corps has suffered some losses (none of them have suffered personally, of course), but the job’s done so now it’s just to return to the States and collect payment.

So overall, White Heat does the job of providing ‘80s action and gore, with nothing like deep characterization or heavy plotting to get in the way. But Fieldhouse is a skilled action writer and keeps it all moving, even managing at times to give his characters some individual spark. And yet there’s nothing really novel about the series; it’s just another ‘80s men’s adventure-type deal, with none of the goofy charm of the first volume. So in other words, not bad but not great.

Monday, December 29, 2014

The Hard Corps #2: Beirut Contract


The Hard Corps #2: Beirut Contract, by Chuck Bainbridge
March, 1987  Jove Books

In this second adventure of The Hard Corps, our four mercenaries are hired to rescue a group of peacekeepers who have been abducted by Palestinian terrorists in Beirut. And you know what that means, my friends – a whole bunch of terrorists are going to die!

William Fieldhouse returns under the awesome pseudonym “Chuck Bainbridge,” in an installment that is wisely much shorter than the first. But unfortunately Beirut Contract isn’t as fun as that first volume, and comes off for the most part like an average slice of gung-ho ‘80s men’s adventure, typical of the sort of thing Gold Eagle would’ve published. While it’s all capably done, it just lacks the goofy spark of the first book.

This one stays pretty serious throughout, other than the banter between the members of the Hard Corps, which comes off as very Able Team-esque. They are hired by famous business tycoon Malcolm Banks to rescue his daughter, Georgette, and the peace-keeping group of college kids who were abducted with her in Beirut. This abduction takes up the opening pages, with Georgette first almost getting killed by masked gunmen who attack her and her security guard on the streets of Beirut.

Georgette is saved by a handsome Arab named Abdul, who leads her off to safety. Soon though we learn that Abul is actually the leader of the terrorists who just tried to abduct her; he has spirited Georgette away so as to win her graces and get an even bigger coup: all the members of Georgette’s peacekeeping group. Another bloody setpiece follows, as Abdul and his terrorists attack the bus the peacekeepers ride to a rally in Beirut.

These terrorists, while loathsome and cruel, are nowhwere as sadistic as the real-life terrorists of the modern day; Abdul and his group are overly concerned with how they will look in the eyes of the world, and constantly try to gain favor with the “liberal media” of the west. However the female member of the group, Fatimah, is chomping at the bit to kill all of them, and even goes before the news cameras without a mask to announce that they have abducted the kids. Their demands are a few million dollars and the release of various prisoners. Oh, and they also want a nuclear bomb. It never hurts to ask, I guess.

When he’s stymied by political red tape, Malcolm Banks hires the Hard Corps. We learn that they’re still rebuilding their compound in the woods, which was almost destroyed in the first volume. Also, Fieldhouse introduces his “heroes” in a pretty unsettling way: having Steve “Rambo” Caine murder a pair of redneck poachers who have wandered onto their land. These bumbling drunks, while despicable, really are not deserving of the violent deaths they’re given, but then, the Hard Corps are a bit sadistic this time out.

For example, Banks should know he’s in for trouble when, during his first meeting with the Corps at a bar, Joe Fannelli instigates a fight with someone, just because the dude complains when Fannelli turns the TV channel. This develops into a brawl in which the Hard Corps make mincemeat of hapless barroom drunks. What’s comical is that it all happens right after team leader William O’Neal specifies that they’ll need to be “subtle” on this Beirut job.

Once they get to Lebanon the Hard Corps are met by the leader of the security force that was hired by Banks. Our heroes continue to be contrary, basically blaming this dude for the abduction of the peace rally kids and the deaths of his own men. Then they start demanding a bunch of weapons. We’re also informed via egregious gun-porn dialog of why 9mm pistols aren’t as good as .45s or etc, and how exactly various guns can be modified.

Meanwhile Fieldhouse cuts over to the terrorists, who turn out to be a fractious bunch who may have traitors within their ranks. For example Abdul is certain one of them is working for the KGB. There’s also Fatimah, who comes off as a wildcat ready to bust caps in the hostages at a moment’s notice. Given her own self-outing on TV, the Hard Carps – thanks to their CIA contact Saintly – are able to track down Fatimah’s sister, Amalah, who lives outside of Beirut.

This leads to the novel’s first big action scene, as the Hard Corps first attempt to pass themselves off as locals, thanks to their old ‘Nam pal who has tagged along on this mission, Frank Haperstein. An American expat who may work for Mossad, Haperstein is able to pass himself off as a Palestinian, but the terrorists who surround Amalah’s home become suspicious. Sure enough, a massive-scale gunfight ensues. Fieldhouse does not shy on the details, with brains erupting and blood geysering.

All this is sort of rendered moot, because Amalah has no idea where her terrorist sibling Fatimah might be…and meanwhile, the friggin’ terrorists themselves end up killing off Fatimah! Once again a pulpy female villain is shuffled out of the narrative much too quickly; Abdul shoots Fatimah point-blank in the head when she threatens to make real on her promises to kill off the hostages. In a sad “how the times have changed” angle, the terrorists you see are determined to treat their captives well, so that the terrorists and their cause will look good in the eyes of “the liberal media.”

Some pulp writers deliver anticlimactic finales, but Fieldhouse isn’t one of them. Beirut Contract, as you’d expects, ends with a huge battle, in which the Hard Corps stage an assault on the remote location in wich the terrorists are keeping the hostages. Steve Caine once again comes off like a one-man army, sneaking past guards and slitting throats with his survival knife, and then hopping down into the house through a hole in the roof and blowing away the men surrounding the hostages.

Fieldhouse in all the action scenes hops from character to character, so you can see how Joe Fanelli kills people and how James Wentworth kills people. Brains erupt and blood geysers. The gore level is through the roof! And speaking of Wentworth, the samurai fiend manages to pick up a blade, appropriating some dude’s scimitar so he can hack and slash. In fact there is a preponderence of handfighting this time out; it seems like someone’s always getting the gun knocked out of their hand and thus must resort to their fists or feet.

Anyway, it all wraps up with no surprises – the Hard Corps kill everyone and rescue the hostages. Plus, they are happy that they’ll now have a few million bucks with which to repair their home base. Fieldhouse ends the novel with the contract fulfilled and the Corps heading for the airport, and while it is at times entertaining, Beirut Contract ultimately comes off as forgettable.

Monday, January 13, 2014

The Hard Corps #1


The Hard Corps #1, by Chuck Bainbridge
December, 1986  Jove Books

I was only marginally aware of the 8-volume Hard Corps series; I knew it was your typical team-oriented ‘80s men’s adventure series about a group of former ‘Nam soldiers who moved on into mercenary work. But then I read Zwolf’s great review of this first volume on The Mighty Blowhole (where he also kindly provided a scan of the unintentionally-funny inner cover) and knew I’d have to track the books down.

And just like Zwolf, I couldn’t believe how much I actually enjoyed The Hard Corps #1. Also like him I had zero expectations for the book, figuring it was going to be a Gold Eagle-styled troll of gun-porn and endless action scenes with cardboard characters. And while that’s somewhat true at times, the overall impact is pretty great – I mean, the book is pulpier and just plain more fun than those dour damn Gold Eagle novels. Also, it’s cartoonishly violent, with the gore level of say David Alexander or GH Frost, and that’s always a good thing!

As Zwolf noted, the series is pretty much identical to Phoenix Force; we’ve got five hardened warriors with various specialities and enough quirkiness to make them slightly more than cardboard cutouts. I’m guessing Jove Books must’ve seen how well Gold Eagle was doing with Phoenix Force and figured they should jump on the bandwagon. And if that’s true, they made a very wise decision by hiring William Fieldhouse to serve as their author, ie Gar Wilson himself.

“Chuck Bainbridge” was the house name for The Hard Corps, but it looks like Fieldhouse wrote the majority of the novels, with a British author named Chris Lowder coming in for the final few installments. This concerns me, as according to Justin Marriott Chris Lowder was the “Jack Adrian” who wrote the first half of Deathlands #1 before Laurence James came onboard as “James Axler” to finish it (and continue on with the series), and Deathlands #1 was so bad that I never even bothered writing a review of it. (But then, I think the Deathlands series in general sucks, each volume coming off like a lame ripoff of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger with an added layer of Gold Eagle-mandated gun-porn.)

Anyway, the Hard Corps is made up of five dudes who are basically psychotics; I mean, we’re informed that they loved warfare so much that after ‘Nam they basically suffered withdrawal symptoms and thus decided to go it as mercenaries. Now, several years after officially forming in 1975, they charge one million dollars per job and live on a sprawling complex deep in the forests of Washington state, where they are both self-sustaining and also have a massive arsenal with a few helicopters.

The Hard Corps is comprised of:

William O’Neal – Leader of the group, a Green Beret captain who climbed the ladder in ‘Nam due to battlefield commissions until he was in charge of the special forces unit called “the Hard Corps.” He joined the army despite the left-leaning beliefs of his parents and never looked back.

Joe Fanelli – A demolitions whiz from Chicago who constantly bucks against authority. Thrown in the brig and kicked out of the army multiple times, he eventually found his way into O’Neal’s outfit and proved himself as a courageous warrior.

James Wentworth – The second in command, a balding scion of several generations of military bigshots. Wentworth has Fieldhouse’s stamp all over him, as he’s enamored of Japanese culture and enjoys going into combat armed with a samurai sword.

Steve Caine – Basically, the Rambo of the group; that is, David Morrell’s original interpretation of the character, as seen in First Blood. Caine even has the “unkempt beard” Morrell’s Rambo sported in First Blood, and like Rambo he sort of “went over” during ‘Nam and lived with the Katu montagnard tribe, learning their jungle warfare tactics and how to kill silently and etc. In short, Caine is the most interesting character of the group, basically a ninja type who moves like a shadow and prefers bladed weaponry, despite being the best marksman on the team. Like Rambo he goes for a wicked survival knife, which he uses to cut up people real good. He gets the best scenes in the novel, in particular a bit where he sets up a plethora of fatal traps.

John McShayne – In his 50s and thus a few decades older than the rest of the team, McShayne is a veteran of Korea and serves as “mother hen” for the Corps, taking care of the base, munitions, supplies, and etc while the team is off on missions. A funny recurring joke has it that McShayne keeps all of the storage sheds locked due to his fear of bears getting into them.

This first volume basically plays out like Invasion U.S.A. meets your average ‘80s ‘Nam movie. Reversing the customary story of American soldiers in Vietnam, Fieldhouse turns it around and has Vietnamese soldiers invading the US! They’ve snuck over the US/Mexico border to kill Trang Nih, a well-known Vietnamese refugee who goes about the free world as a crusader against Communism. In charge of this Vietnamese strike force is the KGB-trained Captain Vinh, an infamous assassin known for his warfare skills.  Trang Nih has come to the Hard Corps for help, and just as he arrives in their secluded forest compound Vinh’s men attack.

The Hard Corps #1 is basically comprised of the ensuing battle between Vinh’s endless supply of Vietnamese soldiers and the members of the Hard Corps. Yet the book, the reader will notice, is 325 fat pages – of very small print! No doubt due to the editor or publisher’s request, the novel is rendered as an epic, when it would be much better served at under 200 pages. Instead Fieldhouse delivers long backstories for each member of the Hard Corps…even for Vinh and some of his underlings! It’s this stuff in particular that comes off like Vietnam fiction, given that so much of it is set during the war. And speaking of which, the ‘Nam sections with the Corps almost comes off like an installment of the Black Eagles – another Fieldhouse series, by the way.

But other than these elaborate (and usually arbitrary) flashbacks the novel sticks to its only plot: the Hard Corps versus Captain Vinh. The unit comes off like Phoenix Force meets Able Team, with the multi-skills of the former and the goofy chatter of the latter. One difference though is a lingering military protocol, with the lesser-ranked members of the Corps referring to O’Neal and Wentworth as “sir.” But at no point does the novel come off like military fiction, even though characters not once but twice poke fun at Rambo and the fantasy aspect of action cinema. Yet for all that the novel’s about as “realistic” as a Cannon film of the ‘80s…I mean, it’s all about an army of Vietnamese commandos launching an assault on a compound deep in the Washington forests!

And the gore level is through the roof – every time someone’s shot we read about their “steaming organs” blowing out or their brains wetly slapping against the nearest wall. Guys are blown up, gutted, decapitated, chopped apart, strangled, sliced and diced, impaled, and just plain shot, and each and every death is rendered in super-gory detail. In other words, it’s awesome! Almost as exploitative is the gun-porn, with reams of egregious detail doled out anytime someone whips out a gun, even if it’s some nameless gunman who just showed up long enough to get blown away.

As mentioned, the book runs 325 pages, and roughly 90% of it is comprised of various battles, with members of the Hard Corps taking out Vinh’s soldiers on their own or together. Somehow Fieldhouse manages to drop some comedy (mostly via banter) and even suspense into the tale, but for the most part it’s just an endless aciton fest. Stephen Mertz mentioned once that Fieldhouse was part of a “Rosenberger Circle” of writers, and that’s very apparent here – while the writing style is vastly superior to Rosenberger’s own, the action scenes do tend to go on and on, with a special focus on hand-to-hand combat.

But again, given the almost cartoonish level of gore, one can hardly complain…the book was almost like a writing exercise on how many ways a writer could describe a character getting killed. I’ve picked up most of the rest of the series, and happily it looks like future volumes are much shorter – meaning they can focus more on the carnage and less on the arbitrary and needless backstories.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

MIA Hunter #6: Blood Storm


MIA Hunter #6: Blood Storm, by Jack Buchanan
October, 1986  Jove Books

I’m really taking a trip down memory lane this time – I remember reading this installment of the MIA Hunter series shortly after it was published. In fact I have a vivid memory of watching my Commando VHS and, still in need of an action fix, heading into my bedroom to read this book! Other than that I have no memory of Blood Storm, whether I enjoyed it or not, but I can say with this reading I thought it was very good, definitely on par with the rest of the series.

But the biggest news here is that recently I’ve gotten in touch with Stephen Mertz, a genuinely great guy who edited the MIA Hunter series and wrote most of the later installments. Stephen has informed me who wrote each volume of this series, something I don’t believe has previously been known…in fact Stephen told me he had to dig through his files to find out, as even he wasn’t sure!

Thanks to Stephen we now know that William Fieldhouse wrote this installment. And an even bigger thanks to Stephen for letting me know that it was actually Fieldhouse himself who wrote the letter from Gar Wilson I received so long ago – Stephen told me that he recently spoke to Fieldhouse about it, and Fieldhouse remembered writing the letter to me!

William Fieldhouse is most known for writing the majority of the Phoenix Force series, and as “Gar Wilson” he was my favorite writer when I was a kid. But I hadn’t read a Fieldhouse novel since then, so I was anxious to see how I’d enjoy Blood Storm this time around. But then, Fieldhouse was the guy who got me into the men’s adventure genre in the first place, thanks to the 18th Phoenix Force novel, Night of the Thuggee, which I discovered sometime in late October 1985 at a Waldenbooks store. So I knew I’d at least find something here to enjoy.

I’m not sure if it’s due to Stephen Mertz’s behind the scenes editing, but Fieldhouse’s novel actually reads almost exactly like the previous installments. I’ve read six of these MIA Hunter novels so far, and one could easily be fooled into believing there was a real “Jack Buchanan” behind the work, as none of the volumes have been much different from one another so far as the narrative goes. Only in the minor details can you notice a difference: for one, there’s a bit more gun-porn here, likely thanks to Fieldhouse’s long tenure at Gold Eagle, and for another Fieldhouse is the first of any of these “Jack Buchanans” to give Terrance Loughlin a personality!

The plot of course follows the series template: Mark “MIA Hunter” Stone gets wind of yet another group of American soldiers held prisoner, this time in Laos. Stone gets his information from a group of Laotian freedom fighters and quickly puts together a team. In the first instance of continuity yet in this series, we learn that Hog Wiley was so injured in the previous volume that he’s unable to go on this mission. Stone settles upon an unruly replacement named Leo Gorman, an American merc who allegedly once had ties with an opium kingpin here in Laos – an opium kingpin who supposedly wants Gorman dead.

Gorman is a very entertaining character, foul-mouthed and prone to violent outbursts. He basically steals the novel from Stone and Loughlin, but the problem arises that Stone would have to be out of his mind to hire such an unstable character. Stone keeps giving the lame reasoning that they need a seasoned soldier on this mission and Gorman, despite his rampages, can keep a cool head in a firefight. This is proven when the trio are attacked by masked gunmen mere moments after their first meeting with Gorman, Fieldhouse providing a running battle that is only the first of many. But when Gorman and Loughlin get in a huge fistfight themselves, you’d think Stone would wise up and find some other merc for the job.

Blood Storm has a lot more going on than previous volumes. Fieldhouse runs two subplots in addition to the main one, gradually bringing them all together. In the first subplot a Thailand-based detachment of CIA operatives determine to finally track down Stone and bring him to justice. And in the second Gorman’s old opium kingpin boss discovers that Gorman is coming into Thailand – Gorman’s plan is to sell out Stone so as to get back in the kingpin’s good graces – and plans to kill Gorman and then capture Stone and his team, to ransom them to the government. In fact this last subplot takes up most of the novel, with the actual POW rescue occurring midway through and being a fairly easy task for Stone et al.

The majority of the second half of Blood Storm sees Stone himself captured – Gorman’s old kingpin boss ambushes them in the jungle and takes them all prisoner. Here the novel appropriates a sort of tortune porn vibe, with several unsettling scenes of the kingpin taking sick pleasure in torturing a bound Stone, beating his back with bamboo sticks, burning his toes and fingers, etc. Meanwhile an old friend comes for Stone, resulting in a total deus ex machina rescue, an action scene that ends with yet another martial arts battle, this one between Stone and the kingpin. It really goes on for quite a while.

As mentioned Fieldhouse brings more gun-porn to the series; a variety of firearms are named off, with manufacture and ballistics detail provided. Also there’s a huge amount of martial arts included – there’s almost as much kung-fu fighting in Blood Storm as the average volume of Mace. Stephen Mertz has told me that Fieldhouse was part of a “Rosenberger circle” of writers, and I can easily see that here, as the amount of hand-to-hand fighting is almost as overwhelming as the amount of gun fights. Luckily Fieldhouse's action scenes are a whole lot more entertaining than Rosenberger's. And he doesn’t shy on the gore, with plenty of exploding guts and brains.

In fact I was impressed with how much story Fieldhouse was able to put in here despite the wealth of action sequences. He brings to life the many characters and gives each of them colorful dialog – the reader will note that the heroes have developed a sudden tendency to curse this time around. (Speaking of profanity, there’s a profane amount of spelling and grammatical errors in this book!) Fieldhouse also delivers a few reversals and surprises, in particular the appearance of a particular character just in the nick of time.

But despite the plethora of action scenes, Blood Storm somehow doesn’t come off like an endless battle sequence, and overall the novel is an enjoyable read. In fact this turned out to be my favorite volume of the series since #3: Hanoi Deathgrip, but unfortunately this was the only installment Fieldhouse wrote.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

My letter from Gar Wilson

As I've mentioned in previous posts, in my youth I was obsessed with men's adventure novels. My favorites were the Gold Eagle stable, particularly Phoenix Force. I subscribed to Gold Eagle, receiving a bimonthly package of 2 Mack Bolans, 1 Able Team, 1 SOBs (later on though I received a Vietnam series instead, which I never read), and most importantly, 1 Phoenix Force.

Phoenix Force was by far my favorite. Usually I didn't even read the other books but I always read Phoenix Force. I also scoured the racks of the Paperback Exchange in nearby LaVale, Maryland for back issues, soon building up quite a collection.

The series was by Gar Wilson, a man who, in biographical sketches included with the earliest volumes of Phoenix Force, had once served in various armies and had even been a mercenary for hire. My obsession was at its peak from ages 12 to 13, and even at such a young age I still found something a bit off about this bio. But what I didn't realize -- something I didn't discover for a few decades more -- was that Gar Wilson didn't exist.

"Gar Wilson" was a house name, created by Gold Eagle; house psuedonyms of course being a standard in the world of men's adventure novels. But again, I didn't know this. All I knew was that "Gar Wilson" was my favorite writer and Phoenix Force was my favorite series.

At any rate, as my obsession was wearing off I was becoming more interested in sci-fi. I'd wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, so one day in late 1987 I sent Gold Eagle an idea for a Phoenix Force novel which in my mind combined action with sci-fi. I don't have a copy of my letter, but if I recall it correctly, the Force battled some terrorists who were plotting against NASA and ended up on a space ship headed for Mars. I think they even got in a fight on Mars.

I should mention I was thirteen years old when I wrote this. (And I was still going by the name "Joey!")

I sent off my handwritten letter and early in January of 1988 I got a letter back! A scarlet red envelope, containing a typed letter on the same colored paper. An editor from Gold Eagle telling me that, though they appreciated the letter, my story was not fit for Phoenix Force as it was moreso science fiction than adventure. They also informed me that a trip to Mars would take several years, something I'd failed to grasp at the time. (I still have a copy of this letter and maybe sometime I'll post it as well.)

But what really took my breath away was a single sentence, at the very end of the letter: "A copy of your letter has been forwarded to Gar Wilson."

And then, a week or two after that...another letter came in for me, same Nashville, IN return address as Gold Eagle's letter had come from (though post-stamped "San Diego, CA"). But with the name "Gar Wilson" above that return address.

An actual letter to me from Gar Wilson!

I've typed up the letter below, but it's hard to convey the thrill I got, reading through these three crisp, hand-typed pages. Complete with typos and white-out and "Gar's" signature; hell, I still get a thrill reading it.


Gar Wilson
Gold Eagle Books
PO Box 1035
Nashville, IN 47448*


Joey Kenney
PO Box 480
Fort Ashby, WV 26719

February 12, 1988


Dear Joey:

I received a copy of your letter concerning your story plot idea for a future PHOENIX FORCE book. I want to personally thank you for the story plot suggestion about Phoenix Force combating terrorists and winding up on a space shuttle to Mars. Judy Newton has already sent you a letter explaining why this idea would not work for Phoenix Force. I have to agree with her, but I’m writing to you because I don’t want you to be discouraged and give up any hope of writing stories in the future.

Your story is good, but it isn’t right for PHOENIX. The stories in Phoenix Force are in a contemporary setting. They’re taking place in the present. Since the space program is currently on hold…more or less…the idea of a trip to Mars isn’t apt to happen for some time. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t develop a story with the same plot, using characters you come up with on your own instead of Phoenix Force.

I also suggest you first study the accepted style for manuscripts for books (neatly typed, double-spaced, proper use of quotation marks, sentence structure, ect.) you also have to consider how long you want the story to be. PHOENIX FORCES are usually 250 pages (manuscript form) which is about 220 when printed in book form. Your story may be shorter or longer, depending on what you decide to do. Shorter stories might be submitted to magazines. To be honest, since you’re a relative newcomer without many credits as a published author, you’d probably have a better chance getting started as a writer by writing stories for magazines. That’s how I started. I wrote twenty short stories and novelets for

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detective magazines before I started writing full-length novels for Gold Eagle. Book publishers are reluctant to take material from anyone without a track record. Magazine publishers are more inclined to take stories from new guys.

I suggest you also go to the library and look for THE WRITER’S MARKET. It is a book, new editions come out every year, and it prints the various markets for writers. Book publishers, magazine publishers, ect. Look for the 1988 edition. It is a rather expensive book so I suggest you go to the library instead of buying a copy. Look for what magazine or book publisher would be most likely to print a story of the type you wish to write.

When you finish the story (book or short story or novelet), proof-read it for errors. Then send query letters to publishers. Write the letters in proper business-letter form (like this one) and give a brief description of your story (about one page total. Longer descriptions probably won’t be read because editors get a lot of material sent in and they’re more apt to read brief, neatly typed descriptions than long wordy ones). If a publisher is interested in your story, they’ll write to see it. Be sure to enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope with the submission of the manuscript. If a publisher doesn’t accept your material, they’ll mail it back to you and you’ll try to send it somewhere else. Oh, yeah. Make a copy of the manuscript and keep it for your own use, just in case.

Now, every writer gets rejects. I still get them. Gold Eagle doesn’t accept every idea I come up with for Phoenix Force either, so don’t feel bad that your idea wasn’t accepted. Editors are people and they have opinions just like everybody else. They’re not necessarily right or wrong, but they are the guys who take or reject material. If they reject something it doesn’t meat it isn’t any good, it just means they don’t think it will sell as a book. I’ve written stories which were rejected by one publisher and accepted by a different one the same month. Rejections happen. They’re disappointing, but it happens. If you really want to be a writer, you’ll keep trying.

Another thing, I suggest you research subject matter as much as possible.

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I write stories that take place in countries and cities I’ve never been to. I include dialogue in languages I don’t speak and subjects I know nothing about until I’ve done research on the material. The more information you can get on a subject, the better you can write about it. Knowledge is never a waste of time anyway.

Try to find out as much as you can about writing books or short stories before you try to submit anything. Do the best you can every time you write and NEVER CHEAT YOUR READERS. A fiction writer is a story teller. Those stories are suppose to entertain the reader. Everybody makes mistakes and everybody makes errors in stories occasionally, but if you always try to entertain the reader (as well as please yourself) you can’t go too wrong.

I’m writing a rather long letter here and I hope you aren’t bored, but I recall when I was thirteen and wanted to be a writer. I didn’t get any encouragement at the time and a lot of people thought I was just a geek dreamer. People said “you know how much competition there is” and “how many guys are trying to do that.” I won’t say it’s easy. It isn’t. Writing is a lot of hard work, time consuming effort and every writer I’ve ever known has had some big disappointments. Yet, it is very rewarding to see one’s material in print.

Another thing that’s very rewarding is knowing that folks are reading my books and enjoy them. When a reader takes the extra effort to write a letter to me concerning PHOENIX FORCE it is always appreciated, especially from someone interested in writing. If you decide to pursue writing, good luck and bear in mind it can be tough at times, but few things in life worthwhile come easy. Thanks again and good luck whatever you do.


Sincerely,

Gar

Gar Wilson



* Envelope stamped “San Diego, CA, 16 FEB 1988”

I'm not sure how many times I read this letter. My interest in men's adventure novels waned, but my passion for writing continued, and it was in fact from this letter that I learned about the Writer's Market.

And the letter was very inspirational; I followed "Gar's" advice and, after much struggle, succeeded in selling a few short stories, following his advice on how to break into the market. Though I've yet to get a novel published, I'm still trying, and currently have two manuscripts under consideration (neither of them would fall under the "men's adventure" rubric but I've got something in mind that might...!)

In early 2000, years after receiving this letter which still meant so much to me, I briefly became re-interested in the men's adventure novels I'd read as a kid; only then did I look up Gar Wilson. This is when I discovered he was a creation of Gold Eagle.

Ten years after that and I'm back again, reading these novels I enjoyed ages ago. And I'm still wondering who exactly wrote me this letter. It was obviously one of the series writers, but which one? The San Diego postmark is certainly a clue; does anyone know if any of the "Gar Wilsons" lived there?

Regardless, I just want to say "thanks" to Gar Wilson, whoever you are/were; this letter has always been and will continue to be one of my treasured posessions.

3/13/13 Update: A big thanks to Stephen Mertz, who has informed me that the above letter was actually written by William Fieldhouse! Fieldhouse was one of the authors who served as Gar Wilson, and the one most fans consider "the" Gar Wilson. Stephen told me that recently he spoke with Fieldhouse, who remembered writing the letter to me! What I find so great about this is that I now know that my favorite Phoenix Force novels were actually written by Fieldhouse, meaning that this "Gar Wilson" letter was really sent by my favorite author. Not only that, but it was thanks to Fieldhouse that I even got into this genre -- it was his Phoenix Force novel Night of the Thuggee that served as my introduction to men's adventure novels. I discovered it in a WaldenBooks store in late October 1985 when I was 10 years old, bought it, read it, and became an instant fan.