Book Review: Swords Against Darkness IV

Book Review: 'Swords Against Darkness IV', edited by Andrew J. Offutt

4 / 5 Stars

'Swords Against Darkness IV' was published by low-budget paperback publisher Zebra Books in September, 1979. The cover art is by Luis Bermejo.

I have to confess that, after reading 'My Father the Pornographer', Chris Offutt's 2017 memoir about his father, every time I encounter a book authored or edited by Andrew J. Offutt my mind's eye surveys things in the context of Offutt's prodigious output of sleaze books, and his petty resentments against other authors and editors in the fantasy and sci-fi genres, and I wonder what role all of that plays in the composition of the book in my hand......

Anyways, like the other volumes in the 'Swords' series, this one contains both previously published and original stories couched in the world of 'heroic fantasy', or as Offutt refers to it, 'hf.' 

In his Forward, Offut states that the previous volumes in the series were grim in outlook, and thus, with volume IV, he was looking to include some tales that were lighter in tone.

My summary of the contents:

Mai-Kulala, by Charles L. Saunders: Imaro the African warrior ventures into the forbidding Ituri forest, there to experience Jungle Love. A competent story from Saunders.

At the Sign of the Brass Breast, by Jeff P. Swycaffer: in medieval Genoa, two thieves operate out of the eponymous bar. This is a comedic tale, and at times, I found it too cutesy.

The Reaping, by Ardath Mayhar: in the depths of a dank and dripping cave lurks an evil mage who can be defeated by no man.........

The Ballad of Borrell, by Gordon Linzner: an aging hero finds his past catching up with him. More reliant on dry humor, although it does have some rather bloody scenes.

Deux Amours d'une Sorciere ('Two Loves of a Witch'), by Tanith Lee: a precious tale of a lovelorn young woman who won't disclose the identity of the man she worships from afar. There is verse.....in French.......and lots of adjectives, and much descriptive prose.

Of PIGS and Men, by Poul Anderson: not a heroic fantasy fiction, indeed, not a fantasy tale at all, but an essay in which Anderson satirically casts Nordics as the victims of racial oppression. That Offutt decided to include this slight piece in the anthology tells me he was a bit uneven in attending to his editorial duties.....

Cryptically Yours, by Brain Lumley: written in the unusual style of an epistolary exchange, this tale is about elderly wizards confronting a conspiracy that seeks to have them all eliminated. Clever, inventive, and one of the best entries in the anthology. It was selected by Lin Carter for the DAW volume 'The Year's Best Fantasy Stories 6.'

The Dark Mother, by Diana L. Paxson: a Shanna the Swordswoman tale, and an effective one, at that. Our heroine must deal with some girls who have Bad Intentions.

Dedication, by Andrew J. Offutt: a 26 year-old would-be contributor to the 'Swords Against Darkness' franchise, named David Madison, killed himself before Offutt could make one of Madison's manuscripts sufficiently coherent to be publishable. Volume IV thus is dedicated to Madison (but doesn't include one of his stories).

Wooden Crate of Violent Death, by Joey Froehlich: a six-page, blank verse poem about some 'oystermen' who recruit a swordsman to do some killing. Editor Offutt claims he subjected this submission to 'eighty million' drafts. For all that, one of the verses in the poem is:

Along the river, the forests wept, their leaves falling like tears of autumn sadness

The Fane of the Grey Rose, by Charles de Lint: a 'Cerin Songweaver' entry. Our hero seeks to save a fair maiden. This story later was expanded into the 1985 novel 'The Harp of the Grey Rose'. It is sugary and insipid (de Lint uses the term 'aelf', a conversant is a 'speaker-friend') but strangely readable. 

After I finished 'Fane', I had to read David J. Schow's 'Bad Guy Hats', to reset the glucose balance of my brain. This is not something one should do lightly.........

Sandmagic, by Orson Scott Card: Cer wants revenge, and he'll go to any lengths to get it. This story's bleak setting, and quasi-splatterpunk violence, make it impactful.

The Edge of the World, by Manly Wade Wellman: a 'Kardios' tale that mixes sly (but never irreverent) humor with the sword-and-sorcery trope. Enjoyable. 

Summing up, there are enough good stories in 'Sword Against Darkness IV' to give it a Four-Star Score. Given that 'good' quality copies of the books in this franchise are fetching very high prices nowadays ($10 and up), if you can find the book for an affordable price, it's worth getting.

Judge Anderson: Satan

Judge Anderson: Satan

2000 AD / Hamlyn, 1996

'Judge Anderson: Satan' is a trade paperback published in the U.K. by Hamlyn in 1996. It compiles two stories from issues 22-24 of volume 2 (1993), and issues 1-7 of volume 3 (1995), of the Judge Dredd Megazine. 

The first story.' Driven to tears', deals with a Mega-City One evangelist whose actions threaten the rule of the Judges; Anderson sympathises with the evangelist, even though so doing brings her into conflict with her superiors. Writer Alan Grant presents a more tempered portrayal of Christianity than was customary in comics in Anglophone countries during the 1990s, and for that, 'Driven' is noteworthy.

The second story, 'Satan', also is written by Grant, and it's a loony tale. An asteroid crashes into Earth, causing death, destruction, and End Times existential crises.

It turns out the asteroid carried none other than Satan himself ! Liberated from imprisonment inside the asteroid, the Lord of Darkness displays immunity to even the most powerful of Mega City's strongest weapons. Adding insult to injury, it turns out that Satan is a gay man with red eyes and red lips and a simpering manner - !

[ Interestingly, Marvel Comics' big, 60-issue crossover series for the summer of 2024, 'Blood Hunt', features a villain called 'Bloodstorm', whose appearance seems to be modeled on the 1995 Satan............?! ]

In the face of such colossal Evil, only Judge Anderson, and her telepathic abilities, can stop Satan from laying waste to the entire world......

What makes 'Judge Anderson: Satan' a standout comic / graphic novel is the amazing artwork by Arthur Ranson, one of the most skilled artists to work for 2000 A.D. My overview of another of his Judge Anderson series, Shamballa, is here.

Whether its closeups of characters faces, or intricately rendered scenes of crowds, Ranson excels in ways that are rarely are observed in contemporary, 21st-century graphic art.

I want to point out that at 9 x 12 inches, this Hamlyn trade paperback is sufficiently sized to display Ranson's artwork to good effect, something of a rarity in contemporary graphic novels, which tend to be sized to 'American' dimensions (i.e., 7 x 10 inches).

If you are a fan of quality illustration and comic art, then these installments in the Judge Dredd franchise are well worth acquiring. One of the best ways to do this is the recently issued book, Essential Judge Anderson: Satan, available at your online retailers for a reasonable price.

The New Visions

'The New Visions' 

Introduction by Frederik Pohl

Doubleday, 1982

'The New Visions' was published by Nelson Doubleday / Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) in 1982.

This rather obscure little book, of only 87 pages, provides 46 paintings made by various artists for SFBC titles in the 1970s and early 1980s. Accompanying each artist's contributions is a self-penned bio sketch and portrait. Each painting is labeled with the title of the book for which it was commissioned.

The Introduction, by Frederik Pohl, is readable (there is an amusing anecdote involving artist Boris Vallejo), and provides an author's perspective on the value of cover art as a component in publishing.

As science fiction art books of the New Wave era go, 'The New Visions' is quite forgettable. Its 10 1/2 x 7 1/2 dimensions make it too small to really display the artwork very effectively.

Some of the contributors represent 'big names' in field of sci-fi art as it was in the late 70s and early 80s, such as Vallejo, Frank Frazetta, and Michael Whelan. 

However, many other contributors are lesser known, and their pieces aren't particularly memorable. 

Quite a few of the outstanding artists who were active at this time, such as Tim White, Chris Foss, Chris Moore, Peter Jones, Darrell Sweet, Angus McKie, and David Schleinkofer , aren't profiled, for the simple reason that they weren't commissioned by the SFBC to provide art. That means that most of what's pictured in 'The New Visions' is rather perfunctory stuff. Lots of emphasis on figurative styles, which, as of 1982, were still dominant in sci-fi illustration (although tastes were changing).

Had it been more conscientious in its execution and design, there's a possibility that 'The New Visions' could have been a good representation of the sci-fi art of its times, but it instead comes across as something hastily churned out by the Doubleday staff.

Those with an interest in sci-fi and fantasy art from the New Wave era are directed away from 'The New Visions', and instead towards Ian Summers's 1978 title 'Tomorrow and Beyond', which is markedly superior (and has copies in good condition available for under $20). 

Book Review: Critical Threshold

Book Review: 'Critical Threshold' by Brian M. Stableford

1 / 5 Stars

'Critical Threshold' (160 pp.) was published by DAW Books, as book No. UY1282, in February 1977. The cover illustration is by Douglas Beekman.

In the U.K., the novel was published by Hamlyn in 1979, with some amazing cover art by Tim White.

This is the second installment in the six-book 'Daedalus' series, which centers on the adventures of the eponymous starship and its crew, who are dispatched on various troubleshooting missions around the galaxy. It's not necessary to read the books in order, as they each are more or less standalone.

In 'Threshold' the Daedalus is sent to the forest world of Dendra, from which, for the past 150 years, no word has been received. What has happened to the descendents of the 1400 people who colonized the planet ?

When the Daedalus touches down on what appears to be the main settlement on Daedra, they make a troubling discovery: the handful of colonists are mentally unstable, wandering in a kind of catatonia. Their homes are dilapidated, their fields barely tended, their clothes and household goods crumbling and askew. Clearly, some disaster has overtaken the colonists.

The Daedalus's ecologist, Alex, decides to go on a mission to explore the immense forest surrounding the colony, in hopes of finding more colonists, and the reason for the disintegration of the colony. He is accompanied by the no-nonsense Karen, and an empath named Mariel. The team is lightly equipped, as the hostile fauna on Dendra are not particularly formidable. 

As the team wends their way through the strange and intimidating forest, their psychological and survival skills will come to be tested.......

'Threshold' is only 160 pages long but it seemed like a much longer read, mainly because the narrative consists of one long, interminable camping trip. Stableford uses the trip as a vehicle for lengthy internal monologues by Alex (the first-person narrator), as well as for didactic passages on topics such as ecology, sociology, and humanism. There is much digression on the subtle but growing impact of the sights and sounds of the alien landscape on the subliminal thought processes of our unprepared Terrans.

All of this exposition gives the novel a banal flavor, and indeed, the only real action sequence doesn't arrive until page 143, and it has a contrived note, as if Stableford had come to the belated realization that the novel badly lacked momentum and needed something to propel it over the finish line. 

While the Big Revelation for the distressed state of the colonists does get disclosed, and has some congruency with the book's theme of human arrogance as a bad thing, it also seems small reward for plowing through the narrative in the first place.

I finished 'Critical Threshold' content with giving it a One-Star Rating. For a novel written during the height of the New Wave movement it seems tame and unimaginative, a workmanlike effort, but not much more than that. 

At Bookshop on the Avenue

At Bookshop on the Avenue

Lynchburg, VA

Earlier this month, on a warm and sunny Springtime day, I decided to take a trip down to Lynchburg and visit 'Bookshop on the Avenue', at 3407 Memorial Avenue. 

This store is housed in a rambling house, with a warren of shelving extending from the attic all the way down into the basement. If you are tall, you are going to need to negotiate the interior of the Bookshop on the Avenue with considerable care.

There are sections of paperbacks in the mystery, western, and romance genres. 

The science fiction and fantasy section is in the basement and it's a sizeable collection. There are lots of hardbacks along with lots of paperbacks. Most paperbacks are in 'good' to 'very good' condition, and sell for $1.50 to $2.50. Although the majority of titles I saw on the shelving were printed after 1990, there is a good representation of older books (such as DAW yellow-spines), too.

Inevitably, the sci-fi and fantasy shelves have much material from Piers Anthony, Andre Norton, Terry Brooks, David Webber, A. E. Van Vogt, Mercedes Lackey, Jo Clayton, etc., I wound up getting a nice little batch of lesser-known, old-school titles in a variety of genres.

If you are in the greater Lynchburg area, and have an hour or two to spare, stopping by the Bookshop on the Avenue is well worth your time.

Book Review: The Castle Keeps

Book Review: 'The Castle Keeps' by Andrew J. Offutt

2 / 5 Stars

'The Castle Keeps' (191 pp.) was published by Berkeley Books in July, 1972. It features cover art by Richard Powers. It's one of the first non-porn, non-pseudonymous novels Offutt published.

'Castle' is set in the late 20th or early 21st century, in a dystopian U.S. marked by economic and ecological collapse. The rest of the world isn't doing much better, save for the clever and resourceful Israelis (for some reason, some of the sci-fi novels of the early 70s liked to posit that when everything went to hell, the Israelis would come out fine, as they do in the 1974 novel 'The Texas-Israeli War').

Violent crime is pervasive and afflicts both city-dwellers and rural folk. As the novel opens we are introduced to the main character, Kentuckian Jeff Andrews. Andrews is the head of a household of eight, and he has turned their communal homestead into a fortress. This is due to the ongoing depredations of raiders ('rippers') who seek to rob, rape, and murder any hapless family (the authorities, overwhelmed by chaos in the urban areas, have left the rural population to their own devices).

Andrews is a stand-in for Andrew Offutt himself (we are told that Andrews is a science fiction writer, and there is a sly allusion to his also earning income from penning 'sexbooks').

'Castle' is episodic in nature and chronicles various trials and tribulations both of the Andrews clan, and a family of city-dwellers, the Caudills, as they cope with the scourges of pollution, overpopulation, food shortages, social disorder, and the constant threat of Clockwork Orange-style 'ultraviolence.'

Most of 'Castle' is taken up with discourses in which Andrews / Offutt promotes libertarian ideologies, and decries the failure of 1970s America to adopt these ideologies, leading to the collapse of the country. The reader is made to understand - in at-times a laborious fashion - that Andrews, being a visionary and someone devoted to self-sufficiency, is adept at surviving (and thriving) in a world where many people are too passive to act in their own best interests.

In between his discourses, Offutt supplies some well-composed action sequences, in which the Andrews household indulges in shootouts with various degenerates. The novel's closing chapters see Andrews's son Scott journey to the city, where his homespun confidence, and facility with firearms, contrasts with the feeble skills of the young people with whom he falls in. There are some mildly salacious segments in which a naive Scott learns about how fresh city girls can be (and presumably gives Offutt the chance to winkingly insert some softcore porn prose, as only he can do). 

The novel ends with another exciting action sequence, and some messaging about how rural Kentucky folk can hold their own and best represent the nation's hopes for the future.

I finished 'The Castle Keeps' content with a Two-Star Score. Had Offutt provided a more focused narrative, devoid of pontification, the novel could have been an engaging look at a near-future, nightmarish America. But as it stands, I only can recommend the book to those readers who like their sci-fi accompanied by political philosophising....................

The Helltrekkers

The Helltrekkers

2000 AD / Rebellion

'The Helltrekkers' (128 pp.) was published by 2000 A.D. / Rebellion in December, 2023. It compiles the series that originally ran in 2000 A.D., progs 387 to 415 (October 13, 1984, to April 27, 1985).

'Helltrekkers' was a spinoff of sorts from the Judge Dredd universe; the story is an updating of the Wagon Train narrative of the American West.

Fed up with life inside Mega City One, a group of would-be settlers decide to pool their resources and make for the promised land; namely, The New Territories of the West, where freedom awaits. The only problem is, getting from Mega City One to the New Territories means crossing 2,000 kilometers of the Cursed Earth.......!

And the Cursed Earth is no happy place. It's infested with ravenous dinosaurs and homicidal mutants. Gruesome diseases can strike at any time. And the terrain itself can be lethal: 'dust devils' of radioactive dust; streams and lakes of impassable lava; and acid rain that can strip flesh from bone, all present challenges to our intrepid settlers and their convoy of 'Rad Wagons.'

The writing, by 2000 A.D. stalwarts John Wagner and Alan Grant, is basically an exercise in sarcastic humor, as they come up with inventive ways to whittle away at the 111 people and 28 Rad Wagons that exit Mega City One. Some sequences had me laughing out loud, while others have a tone of pathos that occasionally crops up amidst the uniquely British humor on display in 2000 A.D. I won't disclose any spoilers, but I will say that not everyone in Lucas Rudd's wagon train makes it alive and well to the New Territories.

The artwork is a mixed bag. The inaugural episode of The Helltrekkers was illustrated by Jose Ortiz, whose pencils can impart a gritty sensibility, without sacrificing legibility. However, every succeeding episode was penciled by Horacio Lalia, whose cruder style is not well-served by the low-res printing process of the original magazine, nor by the scans of those pages that (presumably) were used to provide the content of this trade paperback. Too many panels in 'Helltrekkers' are over-inked and underexposed and as a result, it's often difficult to make out what is being represented.

Murkiness is a problem with more than a few of these vintage UK comics (I observed it in the 2018 compilation of 'El Mestizo' comics). I can't help wondering if 'The Helltrekkers' would have benefited from being printed in a larger size, as its dimensions of 7 1/2 x 10 inches can't help but give the book a cramped presentation. 

I note that Rebellion took care to print its recent compilation of 2000 A.D.'s 'Summer Magic' on glossy paper, at a dimension of 8 1/2 x 11 inches.........

The verdict ? While fans of 2000 A.D. of the 1980s may find this compilation sparks nostalgia, it's difficult to see modern-day comics readers responding well to the grainy artwork and facetious humor and violence that characterizes the book (as well, I suspect some aspects of Helltrekkers, such as the Asian family, will draw criticism for being non-Woke). This is too bad, because 40 years after its first appearance, 'The Helltrekkers' has an irreverent sensibility that is refreshing compared to the overindulged narratives showcased in contemporary American comic books.

Frazetta Book Cover Art

Frazetta Book Cover Art

by J. David Spurlock

Vanguard Publishing, April 2022

'Frazetta Book Cover Art' (167 pp.) was published by Vanguard Productions, a firm dedicated to classic illustration and graphic art, with an emphasis on comics and cartooning. 'Frazetta Book Cover Art' is one of a number of Vanguard books about Frazetta's art. These books come in hardcover deluxe editions with slipcases and additional content, along with less expensive hardcover editions (which is what I purchased). 

All the Vanguard catalogue consists of well-made books, with sturdy binding and higher-quality paper stock.

'Frazetta Book Cover Art' opens with a 10 page chapter, written by Spurlock, that outlines Frazetta's career in commercial art. The following five chapters provide a chronologically-organized portfolio of the artist's covers for paperbacks, as well as a small number of hardbound books issued by the Science Fiction Book Club / Doubleday, starting in the early 1960s and going into the early 1990s.

The covers are given an entire page each, and are accompanied by remarks and observations on the pieces by Frazetta, and other artists and persons involved in the fantasy and science-fiction publishing enterprise. 

As best as I can tell from looking at the Frazetta entry in the ISFDB, every paperback that was published with a cover by Frazetta, is represented in the book. 

If you are a Baby Boomer like me, perusing the book and seeing those paperback covers is going to take you back in time to an era of fun and excitement. It's hard to imagine anyone but Frazetta having the ability to imbue reprintings of Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs stories and novels, first written in the 1910s to the 1940s, with a modern, dynamic, eye-catching sensibility. 

Trying to read those Burroughs titles nowadays, when I'm much older, is something of a chore, but there's no mistaking the way the Frazetta covers dramatized the contents of book like 'Thuvia, Maid of Mars.'

Some of the paperbacks presented in the book nowadays are rarities that command premium prices, so it's best to settle for vicarious thrills at seeing the cover for 'The Flesh Eaters'.

Who will want a copy of 'Frazetta Book Cover Art' ? Baby Boomers with a fondness for the paperbacks of their youth, as well as Justin Marriott's Paperback Fanatics, will certainly find the book rewarding. And while the book isn't an overview of Frazetta's artistic techniques, I believe it will be useful to those artists who are interested in commercial art and the design and composition of book covers.