Book Review: Nukes

Book Review: 'Nukes' edited by John Maclay

 2 / 5 Stars

'Nukes' is a paperback chapbook of 92 pages, printed in 1986 by John Maclay, a Baltimore-based editor, writer, and small-press publisher. 

I usually don't review chapbooks, mainly because they always have small print runs and can be hard to find (and expensive when you do find them). But I decided to obtain 'Nukes', because in the 1980s, nuclear war replaced Global Cooling as the existential threat. The intelligentsia and pop culture, as I explain in this post about the Judge Dredd comic 'Apocalypse War', were quite preoccupied with the nuclear scenario, making 'Nukes' something of an exhibit in how writers from the horror genre approached the topic.

'Nukes' features four short stories, all written for this anthology, by established writers active in the horror and fantasy genres. My capsule summaries of the contents:

The House of Life, by J. N. Williamson: Amidst landscapes of death and destruction, the survivors of World War Three find themselves at a loss. 

I can't say I'm a big fan of Williamson's fiction, and this story did nothing to change my opinion. It's one of the worst stories I've ever read, coming across as a first draft pressed into service by 'deadline-itis'. There is much stilted prose, and awkward efforts at a 'poetic' syntax:

She only spun away in an encore to her vanished grace, manner frivolous and her face, when she turned, openly terror stricken.

Tight Little Stitches in A Dead Man's Back, by Joe R. Lansdale: this is the inaugural appearance of one of Lansdale's most memorable stories. It's about the travails of Paul Marder, a survivor of World War Three and a man who must deal with all manner of strange monsters spawned by the radiation. This easily is the best story in the anthology.

The View from Mount Futaba, by Jessica Amanda Salmonson: this features Tomoe Gozen, a figure of Japanese legend who is the recurring character in several of Salmonson's 'Naipon' novels. While Salmonson's Gozen saga is set in a fantasy version of medieval Japan, in this tale, our heroine finds herself transported to the aftermath of one of the atomic bombings of August 1945. Strong imagery of the dead and dying gives this story valid horror underpinnings.

And of Gideon, by Mort Castle: this tale combines two beloved 1980s tropes: the crazed Vietnam veteran, and the Bible-thumping Christian preacher (whose scriptural rhetoric conceals his deep moral failings), and tosses them into the post-nuclear wasteland. There is a splatterpunk sequence that doesn't lend much to the narrative, and some Bible-based blank verse passages (?!) that laboriously try to impart some sort of moral insight into the narrative. Needless to say, this story did not impress me.

The verdict ? While the editor deserves recognition for trying to do something interesting with the nuclear apocalypse theme, of his contributors, only Lansdale and Salmonson really came through with quality material, and thus I can't give 'Nukes' more than a Two-Star Rating.

Book Review: Planet of the Damned

Book Review: 'Planet of the Damned' by Harry Harrison

2 / 5 Stars

'Planet of the Damned' originally was serialized in Analog magazine in 1961. A paperback edition (135 pp.) was published by Bantam Books in January 1962. The cover artist is uncredited.

The opening chapter introduces us to the novel's hero, Brionn Brandd, a resident of the planet Anhvarian, and the exhausted victor of the grueling multi-event competition known as the 'Twenties'. As the victor of the competition, Brandd is looking forward to a life of leisure and planet-wide acclaim when he is visited by a former winner, Ihjel. It seems that Ihjel is an operative in the independent organization known as the 'Cultural Relationships Foundation', or CRF. 

According to Ihjel, a potentially disastrous conflict is looming elsewhere in the Federation, a conflict between the hardscrabble desert planet Dis, and its neighbor, the more affluent planet Nyjord. Tensions between the two polities have reached the point where an exchange of nuclear weapons is imminent.

The CRF has been working to defuse the conflict by discovering, and eliminating, a cache of  missiles secreted somewhere on Dis by the mysterious ruling class known as the magter. Unfortunately for the CRF, their effort has failed to gain much information about the whereabouts of the cache. 

Unless the missiles are discovered within the next five days, the Nyjordians will attack Dis and exterminate all life on the planet. Hoping to save Dis from its imminent fate, Ihjel has a proposition for Brion: join the CRF, travel to Dis, and do what an entire CRF detachment could not do: find the weapons cache.

Intrigued at the thought of traveling to another world and performing a life-and-death mission, Brandd agrees to accompany Ihjel. Joining them is a biologist from Earth, a swell dame, and a patent Love Interest: Doctor Lea Morees.

When the team arrives on Dis, they discover that their well-laid plans are for naught, and they will have to improvise. This will not be easy, for Dis is a Hell world of excessive heat, adversarial natives, and a local CRF office that is dispirited and defeated. Brion Brandd will have to call on all of his considerable physical and mental resources if he is to survive long enough to unravel the true nature of Disian society.........

'Planet of the Damned' is not one of Harrison's better novels, and deserves no more than a two-star Rating. Stylistically it obviously is modeled on Harrison's 'Deathworld' novels, which were quite popular in the 60s. However, compared to 'Deathworld', the action in 'Damned' suffers from slow pacing (Brion Brandd doesn't arrive on Dis until page 30). Harrison also relies on lengthy sections of dialogue for exposition, often using these dialogues as a vehicle through which he can pontificate to the reader about his personal insights into sociological matters. 

It doesn't help that 'Damned' is devoid of the satiric humor that made Jason dinAlt, the protagonist of 'Deathworld', an engaging character and animated the otherwise solemn narrative of that novel. 

Regarding the conclusion of 'Damned', I won't disclose any spoilers, save to say that the denouement gave Harrison the opportunity to provide an offbeat and imaginative ending, but he instead settles for a predictable resolution.

The verdict ? Even diehard Harrison fans are going to find 'Planet of the Damned' to be underwhelming. 

Return to Second Story Books Warehouse

Return to Second Story Books Warehouse

November 2023

It's been a couple years since last I visited the Second Story Books warehouse in Rockville, Maryland. So last week, on a mild Fall day, I decided to check out the warehouse. I prepared by including my portable urinal (below) in my travel gear.

While construction on I-66 has more or less been completed, an accident resulted in the slowing of traffic to stop-and-go levels. And then, when I got on the DC Beltway, construction in the vicinity of the Dulles Access Road meant even more delays. It took me 2 hours and 45 minutes to go from my front door to the Second Story lot.

Once inside I found a good selection of mass-market paperbacks, as always, just a buck or two each, and in conditions ranging from good to very good.

'The Godkeepers' is a 1970 noir novel; the author, E. Richard Johnson (1938 - 1997), was a well-regarded hardboiled crime writer.

'Earthwind' is a 1977 science fiction novel from Robert Holdstock, while 'The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde' is a 1970 compilation of stories from Norman Spinrad.

The warden of San Quentin prison provides a memoir of his time at the prison:

I was pleased to get an Alfred Hitchcock anthology from 1966.

'Super-Tanks', from 1987, is an assembly of sci-fi war stories.

I got a copy of the 1968 Ace Books edition of Heith Roberts' novel 'Pavane'.

Finally, I picked up the original 'Sabre' graphic novel from 1978 for $6. Old School goodness, from the Second Story Books Warehouse !

Book Review: Crystal Express

Book Review: 'Crystal Express' by Bruce Sterling

5 / 5 Stars

'Crystal Express' (278 pp.) was issued by Ace Books in December 1990. The cover illustration (fractals were very 'in' as a design theme in the early 1990s) is by Ian Entwistle.

This book is an anthology of short stories Sterling published over the interval from 1982 to 1987, in magazines and books such as Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Interzone, and Universe.

The initial five entries in 'Crystal' are stories set in Sterling's  far-future Shaper / Mechanist universe, in which mankind - split into two adversarial factions - tries to find a place in a galaxy dominated by alien races and their advanced technologies. 'Swarm' (1982), the inaugural story in the Shaper franchise, features an imaginative treatment of an alien hive society, while 'Spider Rose' (1982) pits the eponymous protagonist, who possesses a unique alien artifact, against malevolent Shapers. 

The 1983 novelette 'Cicada Queen' deals with political intrigues between the factions, with a project to terraform Mars hanging in the balance. The terraforming project is the topic of the 1984 story 'Sunken Gardens'. 'Twenty Evocations' (1984) uses a series of vignettes to recount the life and times of a Shaper named Nikolai Leng.

I find the Shaper stories to be interesting, if over-written, science fiction pieces. There are simply too many concepts, wordsmithings, and story beats competing for limited text space. 

That said, these stories are as good as, if not better than, contemporaneous material from more recognized writers like John Varley. The early 1980s were a relentlessly staid period when it came to 'hard' science fiction, with editors and publishers focusing on churning out duds from bankable authors like Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Frederik Pohl, and Asimov. So Sterling's contributions to the field certainly injected a degree of innovation into the scene.

Moving on through 'Crystal', there are three stories, although not labeled as such, that represent what now is regarded as cyberpunk. 

'Green Days in Brunei' (1985) is a very readable novelette, set in a near-future southeast Asia, where engineer and hacker Turner Choi is charged with reviving the national economy of an impoverished Brunei. 'Spook' (1983) is about a political operative sent to destroy an anti-globalist rebellion. It has a cynical edge to it that places the story in the harder-edged realm of cyberpunk, and thus can be said to lie in William Gibson territory. 

'The Beautiful and the Sublime' (1986) resides firmly in Sterling's more genial approach to plotting and characters. There are no casualties, but much drawing-room machinations by social butterflies who like manipulating the wealthy.

The collection closes with stories set in past eras. These tend to have a subdued, ruminative quality. 'Telliamed' (1984) is about an 18th century French 'natural philosopher' who triggers the final conflict between the Age of Myth and Legend, and the Age of Enlightenment. 'The Little Magic Shop' (1987) comes across as a Roald Dahl-ish story in its treatment of an age-defying entrepreneur named James Abernathy.

'Flowers of Edo' (1987) relates the adventures of two Japanese men coping with the disruption to their society caused by the arrival of new technologies and ideas from the West. 'Dinner in Audoghast' (1985) sees a group of dissipated merchants and traders, residing in what at that time was the prosperous city of Aoudaghost in 11th century Mauritania, confronting a prophecy of doom and desolation.

In his zine Cheap Truth, Sterling had this to say about science fiction in the early 1980s: "American sf lies in a reptilian torpor". It was a depressing, but accurate statement.

When comparing the short stories in 'Crystal Express' with those published by the more well-publicized mainstream science fiction authors in the 1980s, it's clear that Sterling and the cyberpunks were updating and improving the genre, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in larger ways. The contents of 'Crystal Express' can be seen as examples of the storytelling the cyberpunks used to revitalize science fiction. 

'Crystal Express' is deserving of a Five Star Rating. 

Why Is It Me by England Dan and John Ford Coley

'Why Is It Me'

by England Dan and John Ford Coley

1979

As Fall gradually turns to Winter, and the mellowness of the season comes fully to fruition, let's sit back and enjoy the smooth sounds of England Dan Seals and John Ford Coley and their song 'Why Is It Me'. Melodic guitar rock that will have you nodding along and subconsciously smiling. Thinking less about the world and its troubles...........for a little while, at least........

Penthouse magazine November 1972

Penthouse magazine
November 1972

It's November, 1972, and the top single in the United States is 'I Can See Clearly Now' by Johnny Nash.

Why not take a gander at the latest issue of Penthouse magazine ? 

The Letters pages offer some eccentric observations from readers, observations centered on the eroticism of amputees (?!). The missive below from 'H.M.S.' in Germany, would go on to be serve as an epigraph in K. W. Jeter's 1984 novel 'Dr. Adder'. How cool is that ?!

The Editorial page showcases the contributors to this issue. 

One of them is a groupie named Francie Schwartz, who traveled to England in 1968 and had a brief dalliance with none other than Paul McCartney:

Back in '72, the magazine was drawing in the kind of advertising that was to make it an enormous financial success during the decade of the seventies. Stereo equipment, cameras, and even pipes ! And if one advertisement for Akai brand stereo equipment happened to feature a nude blonde, well, so much the better !

There is much attention paid to actor and 'Superstud' Burt Reynolds, and the new film Deliverance, in which he starred.

The Pet for this month is the U.K.'s Angela Adams.

A feature article in this November issue showcases the newly published book, 'Gentleman of Leisure: A Year in the Life of a Pimp' (New American Library, 1972), about a New York City player named 'Silky' ! 

Authored by Bob Adelman and Susan Hall, 'Gentleman of Leisure' remains the quintessential treatment of the Game, and the pimping lifestyle. My review of the book is here.

There is a cartoon that I think is pretty funny..........

Another Pictorial, 'Watchbird', highlights a fetching young woman named Carrie Shusmith, who epitomizes the California Blonde look of the early 1970s.

And that's how it was in the pages of Penthouse, 51 years ago..........

Book Review: Fighting Slave of Gor

Book Review: 'Fighting Slave of Gor' by John Norman

0  / 5 Stars

I was in the mood to read something vapid. Thus it was, that recently I reached for 'Fighting Save of Gor' (384 pp.), published as DAW Book No. 376 in March, 1980. The cover art is by Richard Hescox. 'Fighting Slave' is the fourteenth Gor novel, of a total of 36 (issued as of 2021).

This easily is one of the worst 'Gor' novels I've ever read...........

The book's premise is another variant on the theme of having an Earth woman or man kidnapped by Gorean slavers, taken to Gor, and there kept captive until such time as they achieve emancipation into Gorean society.

The protagonist of 'Fighting Slave' is a man named Jason Marshall. In the opening chapters, set in New York City, we learn that Jason is a thoroughly modern guy who suffers considerably from sexual frustration, as his desire to ravage delectable young women wars with the need to be a 'sensitive' and caring man, who panders to them in the hopes of eventually acquiring some nookie.

Jason soon finds himself transported to Gor, where he winds up as a slave to a succession of domineering women who laugh at his Terran notions of the equality of the sexes. 

'Fighting Slave' is essentially an R-rated BDSM novel with a thin coating of Gor sociology. It's devoted to chronicling the degradation and humiliation of our hero at the hands of beautiful and imperious Gorean women. Early on, it's Mistress Gina, and a little later, the Mistress Tima, and after that, well, Mistress Florence. None of these Gorean dominatrices deploy clothespins, as of course, clothespins don't exist on Gor. But the mistresses do wear black leather, and wield the Gorean 'slave whip'. You get the idea..........

Even as he endures abuse by his sexually charged mistresses, Jason discovers that he can gain respect from these women by fighting in the arena, and the novel laboriously showcases this development as a necessary step in Jason's psychological and spiritual evolution into being a Real Man. Fewer than 25 pages of the novel actually deal with Jason's fighting endeavors in the arena. I won't disclose any spoilers about Jason's fortunes in the arena, save to say that the novel ends on an inconclusive note suggesting that some of the lead characters will participate in further intrigues on Gor.

Norman's prose is, if possible, even more stilted than that of the early novels in the franchise. For example, I encountered the phrase 'neuteristic personhood', which was so remarkably inane that I actually stopped reading for several moments to ponder how Norman could have come up with such nonsensical jargon. As with the other Gor novels, the action regularly is put on hold while Norman uses protracted internal monologues to showcase his theories about gender relations and sex roles.

I finished 'Fighting Slave of Gor' with my desire for vapidity satisfied. At the same time, I was amused to realize that, ever since the publication of 'Tarnsman of Gor' in 1966, Norman has been vilified by feminists (and enlightened male sci-fi fans) for promoting BDSM......and yet, in 2011, Erika Mitchell (aka E. L. James) published 'Fifty Shades of Grey', which essentially canonized Norman's concepts. 'Fifty Shades' became a best-seller, and was hailed in some circles for suggesting that modern, emancipated women might enjoy some bondage and domination every now and then. Go figure !

Taking everything into consideration, I'm going to give 'Fighting Slave of Gor' a score of 0 of 5 Stars. Only the truly desperate need seek out this entry in the franchise...........

Tribute to Tim Underwood

A Tribute to Tim Underwood

at Bud's Art Books (Bud Plant)

At the website of Bud Plant's art books, there are tributes to the late publisher Tim Underwood (1948 - 2023).

Underwood was a science fiction fan when, in 1975, he teamed up with Chuck Miller to found Underwood-Miller Publishing, a small press company dedicated to issuing quality hardbound books on science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Some of the most renowned authors in genre fiction, such as Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny, Stephen King, Karl Edward Wagner, and Harlan Ellison, issued their works with Underwood-Miller. 

Later, in 1995, Underwood went into business on his own and produced some memorable titles, including the 'Spectrum' series devoted to sci-fi and fantasy art.

For me, it was the Underwood-Miller books devoted to Stephen E. Fabian's art, that were great acquisitions for my collection.

Also a welcome entry in my personal library is the Underwood-Miller volume of Don Maitz's artworks, 'Dreamquest'.

The Tributes, from Arnold Fenner (editor of the Spectrum series) and Bud Plant, are apt appreciations of Underwood's contributions to the field of genre literature.   

The Awfulness of 'The Robots of Dawn'

The Awfulness of 'The Robots of Dawn'

I recently was looking through the November, 1983 issue of Penthouse magazine, which features an excerpt of the Isaac Asimov novel 'The Robots of Dawn', which was published in hardback in October, 1983 (and in paperback a year later).

In 1983, Penthouse was a major periodical, and to have a novel excerpted in its pages was a big deal. Asimov's book got star treatment, with a double-page spread featuring an illustration (very reminiscent of H. R. Giger) by the French artist Gerard Di-Maccio. 

Reading the excerpt brought home to me just how awful mainstream sci-fi was in the early 1980s, and just how mediocre the major authors in the field were at writing prose. Here's a paragraph from 'Robots':

Baley said, in a low voice. "If you mean as far as being Outside is concerned, I am not even aware of it. If you mean as far as our dilemma is concerned, I think I am as close to giving up as I can possibly be without putting myself into an ultrasonic brain-dissolving chamber." Then, passionately, he cried, "Why did you send for me, Dr. Fastole ? Why have you given me this impossible job ? What have I ever done to you, to be treated so ?"

Ultrasonic brain-dissolving chamber ? Holy shit, this is bad. It's pulp prose, that actually is  popping up in a 1983 novel that was published by Doubleday, distributed in chain bookstores like Waldenbooks, and a New York Times bestseller, to boot !

Here's another gem of Asimovian dialogue:

"Then let me answer your questions connectedly, Elijah, and don't bark them at me as though you expected to surprise me into telling you something I would otherwise keep secret." She said it without noticeable anger. It was almost as though she were amused.

First time in my life I've ever seen the adverb 'connectedly'. And didn't Asimov realize that by 1983, characters in novels no longer could get away with 'barking' ?

And here's a cringeworthy discourse on human - robot sex, which underlies the plot of the novel:

"He did so, and it was only when he was completely unclothed that I quite realized how close to human he was. Nothing was lacking and those portions which might be expected to be erectile were, indeed, erectile. Indeed, they were under what, in a human, would be called conscious control. Jander could tumesce and detumesce on order. He told me so when I asked him if his penis was functional in that respect. I was curious, and he demonstrated."

The entire six-page excerpt published in Penthouse is nothing but dialogue: stilted, wooden, contrived, Asimov trying to show us what a capable writer he was. And yet as awful as 'Robots' was, the novel was considered a major example of science fiction's emancipation into the realm of high-profile hardbound publishing. In 1984 was nominated for Hugo and Nebula awards.

I'm very glad that back in 1983, I didn't buy into the hype, and stayed away from 'The Robots'. I was well aware that sci-fi at that time was quite moribund. 

But things were starting to change, subtly, back in 1983. Change in the form of short stories by newer writers named Bruce Sterling, Greg Bear, and William Gibson, among others. 

I'm currently reading 'Crystal Express', a collection of Sterling stories published the 1980s, the same era of 'The Robots of Dawn'. His prose markedly is superior to Asimov's, even though Sterling was then in the early stages of his authorial career.

In issue 4 (1983) of his 1980s zine Cheap Truth, Sterling (writing as 'Vincent Omniaveritas'), had this to say about 'The Robots of Dawn':

I started with the intention of writing something about Isaac Asimov's ROBOTS OF DAWN. And then I thought, why do you want to do that? That old hack isn't the problem. Just another guy resurrecting the decaying flesh of ideas, plots, and characters dead thirty years now, pumping in a little '80's topicality (lame sex), and grabbing himself a whole bunch of money and a chrome rocket. What the hell? You give a guy a license to steal, you've got to expect him to use it. But who gave him the license? That's better, much more to the point.

First, though, look further. An endless stream of Dune books, leper books, Riverworld books, 2010-and-counting books, Majipoor books, magic blue horse books....help me, Jesus, I can't do it by myself. It can't be the books. Most are unreadable, some merely boring, and a few achieve the exalted status of a well-prepared cheeseburger.

Sterling was on target.

No one knew it at the time, but 1984 would see the publication of 'Neuromancer' and 'Dr. Adder', and the advent of cyberpunk and its authors, one of which was Sterling. Nowadays, when someone thinks of 1980s science fiction, they think of 'Neuromancer' and not 'The Robots of Dawn'. And that's right and proper............

National Lampoon November 1973

National Lampoon 

November 1973

November, 1973. I remember Thanksgiving of that year was unusually warm and mild, with temperatures up near 70 degrees. Usually in the part of New York state where I lived at the time, Thanksgiving meant temperatures of 40 degrees or lower, sometimes with snow on the ground. 

On the Billboard hot 100 chart for the week of the 17th, the No. 1 single was 'Keep On Trucking' by Eddie Kendricks. For the Billboard top 200 album chart, 'Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road' by Elton John was number one. 

The number five album in the charts is the third comedy album released by Cheech and Chong: 'Los Cochinos' ('The Pigs'). It goes to show that fifty years ago, comedy albums were a major part of the pop culture. 

Looking at the November, 1973 issue of National Lampoon, the magazine clearly is prospering, with a length of 104 pages and lots of advertising for high-end stereo equipment and record albums. That said, the Lampoon still was happy to run a full-page ad from the Johnson Smith company, a firm well-known to comic book readers of that era..........

For the Letters pages, the Lampoon editors display appalling taste by running a fake letter from none other than Dean Corll. During the early 1970s, Houston resident Corll was a serial killer of 27 young boys and men. Making fun of Corll's atrocities was a signal that for the Lampoon, there was no line it wouldn't cross when it came to sick humor............!

The theme for this issue was sports, so the comic section of the magazine offers up a satirical treatment of the hallowed TV movie Brian's Song. First released in 1971, Brian's Song, about the untimely passing of Chicago Bears player Brian Piccolo, was a pop culture mainstay of the early 70s, so it was a natural target for the Lampoon.

Elsewhere, George Plimpton gets satirized. He's mostly forgotten nowadays, but back in the 1960s and 1970s, Plimpton was a major sportswriter and media figure. In 1963 he finagled his way into playing football for the Detroit Lions, an experience he chronicled in his 1966 book Paper Lion. 

Next, the Lampoon offers up some 'specialized sports magazines'.

Talented artist Bernie Wrightson provides a two-page cartoon / illustrator celebrating, in gruesome fashion, 'Bat Day':

In her regular cartoon 'Trots and Bonnie', Shary Flenniken takes aim at the early 70s craze for Kung Fu and 'Oriental' philosophies.

The issue closes with a full page ad for the National Lampoon Radio Hour. Along with the comedy albums National Lampoon's Radio Dinner and National Lampoon's Lemmings, the Radio Hour, which ran as a weekly from November 1973 to the end of 1974, had as cast members such future luminaries as Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis, and John Belushi, can be seen as the forerunner of what later would be Saturday Night Live.

And that's how it was, it the realm of humor periodicals, fifty years ago..........