Book Review: Stellar 4

Book Review: 'Stellar 4' edited by Judy-Lynn Del Rey

 

3 / 5 Stars

'Stellar 4' (230 pp.) was published by Ballantine / Del Rey in May, 1978, and features cover art by H. R. Van Dongen.

By 1978 the 'Stellar' series was a success, validating editor Judy-Lynn Del Rey's belief that the sci-fi readership at large was tiring of the New Wave aesthetic, and well ready to embrace anthologies that provided content in a more 'traditional' style. 

As she states in a 1975 interview, at which time she was the sci-fi editor at Ballantine Books (and just two years away from founding the Del Rey imprint), 

Basically, I’m looking for stories…with beginnings, middles, and ends. A story that will entertain the reader, keep him interested, make him want to come back and buy more Ballantine books. I’m not interested in the purely literary works that are around, unless they have a good story. They have to have a plot.

These deep philosophical novels that are being turned out by students from philosophy classes, you know, it sounds terrific to them, but it’s the same old stuff to us. It’s not adding anything, it’s not telling a story, and the idea that if somebody manages to sit down and type out sixty-thousand words, and those sixty-thousand words deserve to be published―it’s ridiculous. 

My capsule summaries of the novelettes and stories in 'Stellar 4': 

We Who Stole the Dream, by James Tiptree, Jr.: the Joilani are a race of diminutive, grey-skinned, pacifistic aliens, with the misfortune to have been living on a planet colonized by Terrans. These Terrans have forced the Joilani into slavery, of a particularly brutal and inhumane nature. But the Joilani have a desperate plan to escape the planet and make for a distant sector of space where, if the star charts are correct, their homeworld resides.......

This story has a grim, transgressive quality that contains notes of splatterpunk (!), and I was not expecting to see it in a 'Stellar' anthology. But it seems Del Rey was willing at times to embrace such material. 'We' can be seen as an allegory for the American involvement in Vietnam. It's the best story in the anthology, and in my opinion one of the best stories Tiptree, Jr. (aka Alice Sheldon) ever wrote.

Animal Lover, by Stephen R. Donaldson: in 1978, Donaldson was riding high on the success of his 'Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever' trilogy, and obviously he had a good working relationship with Judy-Lynn Del Rey, hence his inclusion in 'Stellar.' This novelette is something of a surprise. It's set in a near-future, dystopian USA, where the government encourages people to conduct canned hunts on private nature preserves, as a way of sublimating violent impulses. 

One such preserve, the Sharon's Point Hunting Preserve in Missouri, has a disturbing record of high fatalities among its patrons. Federal Special Agent Sam Browne is sent on an undercover mission to find out what's going on at Sharon's Point.

'Animal Lover,' with its clipped, action-centered narrative, reads more like a men's adventure novel of the era (think 'The Executioner') than overwrought storytelling that characterized the Thomas Covenant franchise. I guess Donaldson deserves kudos for showing he can be versatile in his approaches to fiction writing.

Snake Eyes, by Alan Dean Foster: this novelette features Foster's Young Adult franchise characters 'Pip' and 'Flinx,' first introduced in his 1972 novel 'The Tar-Aiym Krang.' Pip is a miniature dragon, and Flinx, a human boy with burgeoning esp capabilities. 

The plot involves an alliance between Flinx and a prospector to recover rare jewels from an inhospitable desert on the planet Moth. Some calculating members of the Mothian criminal element want in on the action. There are some complications, but in the end, a happy ending.  

The Last Decision, by Ben Bova: the aging Emperor of the Federation is told that Earth's Sun is going to go nova, eliminating the home world of mankind. A young woman has a plan to save Earth, but the scientific establishment deems her plan unworkable. What will the Emperor decide ? Bova intended this story to demonstrate his allyship with feminism, but the story is very lumbering and overwritten. And, Bova never details how the plan to save Earth actually will work ! Constructing a story around a plot point that never is disclosed to the reader is just dumb.

The Deimos Plague, by by Charles Sheffield: testifying against the mob makes Henry Carver a marked man. Desperate to find a safe hiding place, he decides to emigrate to Mars. The only ship immediately available is the Deimos Dancer, a decrepit freighter needing a deck hand to tend to some 'special' cargo......a good story from Sheffield, ably plotted, with a twist ending.

Assassin, by James P. Hogan: the first half of this novelette is a well-plotted, technical account of an effort by an assassin to track down and execute a defector from the Mars colony. Unfortunately, the second half of the novelette consists of one long discourse on politics and economics, with some contrived, off-camera plot points involving matter transmission tossed into the mix. I was hoping for something better from Hogan. 

Summing up, I'm going to give 'Stellar 4' a Three Star Rating. The entries from Tiptree, Donaldson, and Sheffield are among the better examples of late 70s sci-fi, and make obtaining this anthology worthwhile.

Star-Lord (Marvel Comics Super Special No. 10)

'Star-Lord'

Marvel Super Special No. 10

Winter, 1979

 

The 'Marvel Comics Super Special' comic magazines ran for 41 issues, from September, 1977 (the famous 'Kiss' issue, allegedly using the band members' own blood in the printing process) to November, 1986. The Super Specials were one-shots, designed to be on newsstands for several months in duration, and intended to capitalize on newly released feature films. They also showcased newer comics franchises that Marvel was intent on promoting (such as the Pini's 'Elfquest').

 

By the start of 1979, with its willingness to promote 'adult' content and its use of process color on 'slick' paper stock, Heavy Metal magazine had thoroughly revolutionized comic book and graphic art publishing in the US. 

 

Marvel's editors were well aware that HM had captured a large segment of the comic book demographic, and were anxious to try and recapture that demographic. This was not an easy thing to do; for all the attention given to properties like the Chris Claremont X-Men franchise, compared to HM, Marvel's publications seemed staid and pedestrian.

 

Thus it was that late in 1978 / early 1979, Marvel issued a 'Star Lord' Super Special, reviving a character first introduced in 1976 in an issue of Marvel Preview. Marvel editor Rick Marschall, in his introduction to the Star-Lord story (titled 'World in a Bottle') clearly was messaging to the HM readership, boasting that the issue was a 'landmark,' offering '.....mature art, color as has never been seen in American comics.'

Unfortunately for Marschall, 'World in a Bottle' is hampered by virtue of being composed by Marvel's house writer Doug Moench. 

 

His script has the gauche, awkward quality of an adolescent struggling to generate content for an audience of adults. The script relies on a frantic, overloaded presentation of sci-fi cliches combined with overwrought narration. A pneumatic blonde chick named Aletha is provided to demonstrate the book's 'mature' sensibility, and for Fanboy Titillation Purposes.

 

The artwork, by Marvel veterans Gene 'The Dean' Colon and Tom Palmer, does as much as can be done in trying to leverage the best from standard CMYK printing. But this simply can't compete with the process color used in HM.

 

The backup story, 'To Sleep, Perchance to Die,' is written by Marc Darcy. It's another cliche-heavy storyline that falls short of the level of sophistication seen in HM.

'To Sleep' does feature some good artwork by Ernie Colon. But the coloration has a dated quality that fails to impress.

This issue of the Super Special closes with a two-page text essay by comics historian Maurice Horn: 'SF in Animation.' I can't say it's a topic that's all that exciting to me, but as always, Horn demonstrates his knowledge of pop culture, at a time when there was no such thing as looking stuff up on the internet..........

While Marvel should get some kind of recognition for trying to advance the caliber of its comic books magazines / Curtis publishing imprint with 'Star-Lord,' the fact is that the company needed something better if it was to favorably compare to HM. And that of course led to the release of the first issue of Epic Illustrated in 1980. 

Is 'Star-Lord' worth getting ? In my opinion, no. Even fanboys of the modern-day 'Guardians of the Galaxy' franchise likely won't find much to get excited about with this issue of the Super Special. 

Revisiting the Repo Man soundtrack

 

Last year was the 50th anniversary of the release of the film Repo Man, a great depiction of the New Wave / punk culture of the 1980s, and one of my favorite comedies.

 

To commemorate the anniversary, the free weekly tabloid Phoenix New Times had an interesting article on how the soundtrack for the film was assembled. 

 

The article features observations from the director, Alex Cox, and actor Dick Rude (who played 'Duke'). 

 

According to Cox,

 

Universal hated the film and didn’t want to release it, but their parent company was MCA, and when the [soundtrack] started selling well, the head of MCA Records called his opposite number at Universal and enquired, in menacing tones, ‘Is there a movie which goes with this?'” he says.   

If you are a Repo Man fan, the article is well worth reading !

 

And the soundtrack can be listened to here.

Book Review: Dance of the Dwarfs

  

Book Review: 'Dance of the Dwarfs' by Geoffrey Household

 

 

4 / 5 Stars

‘Dance of the Dwarfs’ first was published in the UK in 1968; this Penguin Books paperback edition (257 pp.) was issued in August, 1979. It was one of more than 20 novels written by the UK author Geoffrey Household (1900 – 1988). Most of Household's fiction was in the suspense and spy thriller genres, but a few titles ventured into science fiction and horror. 

According to IMDB, a low-budget 1983 film, shot in the Philippines, titled Jungle Heat, starring Peter Fonda and Deborah Raffin, loosely was based on Household's book. The reviews of the film are not complimentary (".....this puddle of cinematic up-chuck.....").

'Dwarfs' is set in Colombia in 1966. It opens with a Preface regarding the death of Dr Owen Dawnay, a British agronomist who ran an experiment station in a remote region of the country. While his death reportedly occurred at the hands of Marxist guerillas of the Colombian National Liberation Army, his diary has been recovered from the ruins of his home, and this diary sheds a different light on his demise. The novel then launches as a first-person narrative derived from Dawnay’s diary entries.

Dawnay is revealed in his unfolding entries to be something of an eccentric ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ character, with a keen interest in the ecology and fauna of the great South American tropics that lie within a day’s ride of his estancia. It is on one of his excursions into the jungle that Dawnay spies something very intriguing: bobbing up and down among the foliage are what appear to be ‘dwarfs.’

The area cattlemen, and Dawnay's Colombian mistress, are adamant that venturing into the jungle, even in the daytime, is taboo:

 

Now that we understand each other, promise me you will never go to the trees !

 

And when it comes to the 'dwarfs,' or duende,

 

It is forbidden to speak of them.

 

Despite these warnings, Dawnay is fixated with determining what sort of entity the ‘dwarfs’ are, and in so doing, puts himself into great danger. 

I won't disclose any spoilers, but I will say that ‘Dwarfs’ is an interesting mix of adventure and horror story. I found the novel to be slowly paced at its outset, but as you get further into the narrative, the plot gets more and more engrossing. Author Household does a capable job of positioning the reader as an over-the-shoulder companion to Dawnay's forays into the strange and unsettling immensity of the Colombian landscape, a landscape that is as much a character in the novel as the human participants.

 

(I do caution those who might be interested in reading 'Dwarfs' to be wary of other online reviews, as these give the plot away.)

When The Cars met Styx

 

This will draw blank looks from those under 55, but.........

Starting in the summer of 1978, The Cars began a nationwide tour in support of their debut album. One of the acts they opened for was Styx. According to 'The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told,' by Bill Janovitz (p. 160, Da Capo, October 2025),

They liked the guys in Foreigner, but Styx, not so much. “They were such assholes,” David says, laughing. "There were a couple of times I tried to say hello to them, and they just didn’t even want to say hello to me. We’re in a hallway, and I don’t know, they’re waiting to go on. We say, ‘Hey, how are you guys doing ?’ They completely ignored us ! And Elliot goes, [cartoonish voice] ‘Oh, nice to meet you !’ Then, as we observed them on the tour, they were just wimpy guys. They weren’t cool at all. I didn’t like their music either, but still. So we made fun of ‘em after that, especially Elliot. They were meek.”

Ric said, “I can’t fuckin’ handle [Styx]. All we did for two weeks after that was to sing to each other in fake-operatic voices.”

How can you not love The Cars even more after hearing this.......!

Book Review: Forbidden Acts

Book Review: 'Forbidden Acts' edited by Nancy A. Collins and Edward E. Kramer

5 / 5 Stars

'Forbidden Acts' (390 pp.) was published by Avon Books in October, 1995. This was a time when there still was momentum (as a publishing phenomenon) to the Paperbacks from Hell, especially for all-original story anthologies like this one.

The contributors to 'Forbidden Acts' include old splatterpunk hands like John Shirley, Philip Nutman, Nancy A. Collins, and Rex Miller, and more traditional horror authors, such as Karl Edward Wagner, Christopher Golden, and Douglas E. Winter. There are a bunch of newer authors, too, so you could say that 'Forbidden' has a good representation of both established and new talent.

Interestingly, 'Forbidden' stays well away from the splatterpunk label, preferring to present itself as a collection of tales focused on 'erotic' horror. Readers should expect content that is more or less pornographic, with a Special Sauce of bloodletting and degradation.........

My capsule summaries of the contents:

Introduction, by Joe Bob Briggs: it seems inevitable that Briggs - the good ole boy alter-ego of Nice Jewish Boy John Irving Bloom - should provide an Introduction to at least one Paperback from Hell, as by '95 he had cemented his position as an influencer for lowbrow pop culture. The problem with his Introduction is that in summarizing the stories, Briggs gives away spoilers. A bad move, on his part ! 

Light of Thy Countenance, by Alan Moore: by '95 Moore was enjoying considerable fame in literary circles as a comic book writer, and he was getting invitations to contribute to anthologies like this one. Unfortunately, instead of crafting a well-organized short story, Moore elects to give us an 18- page, run-on, stream-of-consciousness prose poem about how TV is the Deity of Modern Man. Yep, it's truly as bad as it sounds........why Collins and Kramer included this entry is beyond me. Maybe they were trying to be nice ?

The Contract, by Brian Herbert and Marie Landis: by the mid-1990s Brian Herbert was riding high on his rote commercializations of his late father's 'Dune' franchise. Here, he teams up with cousin Marie Landis. 'Contract' is about a Federation agent whose investigation of the status of a long-lost Terran settlement leads to fraternization with an attractive female colonist. It's a decent enough story. 

Blood Knot, by Steve Rasnic Tem: the first-person narrator has three daughters who may, or may not, be vampires. Or serial killers. Or..... it may just be all in daddy's imagination ! A standard-issue 'weird horror' tale from Tem, a tale that's too oblique to be successful.

Interrogator Frames, by Rob Hardin: following her time as the subject of decidedly unethical and immoral experiments, Rachel has become the sort of girl who really, really likes pain incorporated into her erotic activities. Can she find a boyfriend with the same proclivities ?

The Real World, by Brooks Caruthers: dissipated slacker Barry has a vivid hallucination about Hell; it's a place where the same group of hipsters perpetually are going to one party after another. And waking with bad hangovers. Or...... is it really a hallucination ? This story was overwritten and underwhelming.

Choke Hold, by Lucy Taylor: Angelo is a loathsome little punk who indulges in autoerotic asphyxiation. Needless to say, this story is not going to have a happy ending. It does have an undertone of snide humor that I found very appealing. One of the better entries in the anthology !

Blackpool Rock, by Philip Nutman: Darren Franks, an American who earns a living as an Elvis Impersonator, has a gig in the down-at-heels UK resort town of Blackpool. Darren doesn't like Blackpool very much, but things get even worse when he's kidnapped. 

Nutman is in good form here, with a well-plotted tale that mixes sarcastic humor with affection for the ramshackle outposts of British culture. Although it has little if any 'erotic' content and no splat, it's another of the better entries in the anthology.

Forgotten Promises, by Edward E. Kramer: teens get revenge on a malevolent teacher. This story's plot twist likely would ruffle political feathers, nowadays...........

Coming of Age, by Douglas Clegg: Scooter and Joe reminisce over the fun time they had as boys, back in 1960. Rather, Joe thought it was a fun time. And Joe now is in a 'special' hospital.......author Clegg obviously intended this story to be an exercise in pathos, but I detected a note of subversive humor. But maybe I'm just an uncaring and un-empathetic person..........

High Heels from Hell, by Mike Lee: the kids from the Smashing Pumpkins song 1979 engage in acts of sex and violence in the punk rock milieu of Austin, Texas. An interesting premise, undone by overwriting and rather thin plotting.

The Energy Pals, by Howard Kaylan: Kaylan, who is best known as a member of the 1960s pop band The Turtles, shows he can deliver a humorous story; in this case, a takeoff on the 'Power Rangers' craze of the 1990s. Good stuff !

The Agony Man, by Ron Webb: unconvincing tale of an art fart who likes to sculpt pieces depicting alienated girls, particularly alienated girls with a fondness for S & M.

Brainchild, by Rex Miller: in the first two pages of this story, a crack addict gives birth to a baby so horribly deformed that the doctors and nurses attending the birth spontaneously vomit and faint. Now, that's splat ! 

I laughed out loud at Miller's rub-it-in-your face attitude. The eponymous Brainchild is a homage to M.O.D.O.K. from Marvel comics. Miller asks the question: what happens when a man with a powerful intellect, trapped in a malformed body, gets horny.....?!  Another great entry in 'Forbidden Acts.'

Furies in Black Leather, by Nancy A. Collins: decadent excitement awaits Rolf at the hands of Mistress Alexis. And some splatterpunk, too !

You Hear What Buddy and Ray Did ?, by John Shirley: two thugz stage an orgy in a wealthy man's house; things do not end well. Definitive splatterpunk, no apologies or excuses.

Playing Dolls, by Melissa Mia Hall and Douglas E. Winter: fifteen year-old Laurie is a snotty teen who likes to torment her parents. And what better way to do so, then having sex with her boyfriend Chad while the parents are out of the house ? This story is too dumb to be very rewarding.

Facets of Solitaire, by Christopher Golden: in a particularly hellish version of New York City, a woman named Erika Raven has the abilities and attitude of the She-Hulk. Which can mean trouble for a drug-dealer named Morgan...........

The Picture of Jonathan Collins, by Karl Edward Wagner: Mr. Collins believes he may be immortal. Discovering the truth means subjecting himself to use and abuse (I mean the 'biting the pillow' kind).

This story, one of the last Wagner wrote, is unabashed gay porn. It's not something he and his friends and supporters liked to talk about publicly, but Wagner apparently supplemented his income by writing porn / sleaze novels. Whether he was as prolific as his contemporary Andrew J. Offutt, is unclear.............

Happy Couple, by Danielle Willis: the 'happy couple' are Elizabeth and Miranda, who live in junkie squalor. The physical degradation of drug addiction is well-communicated. 

Author Willis also published a 1996 short story, 'Tiffany's Shitty Night.' The title alone makes it a great story. If you've read 'Tiffany's' (it was included in a 1996 anthology titled 'Noirotica') let me know what you thought of it !

Mysterious Elisions, Riotous Thrusts, by Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg: Koja was a major figure in the weird horror movement that first flowered during the Paperbacks from Hell era. In this tale, a divorced woman's ex-husband comes calling, in the morphology of something very unpleasant. As often is the case with weird horror, the prose is overly figurative, and whether things are 'real' or not, is subjective. Still, 'Mysterious' has a kind of warped appeal.......

Stations of the Cross, by David Aaron Clark:  It's bad enough that Mistress Medusa has to work on Christmas Eve, but the day's visitor to the squalid 'dungeon' has an unsettling quality about him. This story is a dud; it's a plotless exercise in pornography, with splatterpunk touches intended to let the reader know that author Clark is a Transgressive Artiste.

Summing up, it's the contributions from Taylor, Nutman, Kaylan, Clegg, Miller, and Shirley that led me to grant 'Forbidden Acts' a Five-Star Rating. It can't be coincidence that these stories are infused with warped humor, and don't take themselves too seriously. I mean, at a certain point, being over-the-top edges (knowingly or unknowingly) into parody, and the best authors know how to handle things, and maintain their poise, when this ensues.  

For a different take on some of the contents of 'Forbidden Acts,' readers are directed to the M. Porcius Blog, although be warned, there are spoilers.

At the library sale October 2025

At the Library Sale

October 2025

Earlier in October it once again was time for the yearly library sale, held down the road in Charlottesville. As is traditional, I attended the first day of the sale, which is 'members only.' There was quite a crowd, as the book sale has become well-known to area residents, and Dealers.

 

Over the years, the Dealers have emerged as something of a problem. The book sale staff post rules and regulations for the Dealers to follow......

On the first day of the sale, Dealers are prohibited from bringing in smartphones and scanning titles to see their resell value. This means that the Dealers must 'guesstimate' the value of a book. So, they aggressively grab boxes of books, purchase them, and then stagger out to the parking lot where they sit in their cars, pull out their smartphones, scan their inventory, and see if they can make their margin.
 

It takes skill and commitment to stand elbow-to-elbow with the Dealers and thrust out an arm to grab a promising title, before they vacuum it up..........

Along with books, the sale also features a healthy selection of vinyl and CDs, puzzles, and board games. Poking around the LPs yields some pop culture strangeness......
 

Along with the hardbacks and paperbacks in the sci-fi section.........

............without fail, you can find some L. Ron Hubbard novels. These never seem to get picked up......
 

So, I was able to come away with some nice hardbacks and paperbacks, including some older Stephen King stuff:

This, all for $30. You never know just what you'll find, at the Library Sale.......!