Book Review: Sword of the Nurlingas

Book Review: 'Sword of the Nurlingas' by Gerald Earl Bailey

4 / 5 Stars

‘Sword of the Nurlingas’ (180 pp.) was published by Berkley Books in January 1979. The cover artist is uncredited, but likely Wayne Barlowe.

This is the first volume in the two-volume ‘Saga of Thorgrim’ series, with ‘Sword of Poyana’, also published in 1979, the second volume. Whether the series was intended to feature additional volumes is uncertain, as these two books are the totality of author Bailey's output.

‘Sword of the Nurlingas’ is set in the province of Bod Dagh, which is modeled on medieval Scandinavia. Our hero, the son of King Thorgill, is serving a stint as foster-son to an elderly couple at the farmstead of Gilistead. Preoccupied with learning the skills of a warrior, Thorgrim largely is sheltered from the political intrigue unfolding in Bodo Dagh, intrigue advanced by the increasing ambitions of Jomunrek, the illegitimate son of Thorgill. 

As the novel opens a witch-woman in Gilistead awakes with an alarming vision of fire and violence, a vision that portends a cruel fate for our hero should he be found by the forces of Jomunrek. Gisli, the bailiff of Gilistead, arranges for Thorgrim to flee to the city of Chiavo, where he can find passage to the Eastern Lands and a degree of safety as a future as a member of the royal guardsmen of Bayan. 

Gisli bestows upon Thorgrim the magic sword of Lark, and the story of a prophecy…..one that may involve Thorgrim and the Spaehelm, a lost artifact of great power, albeit one that brings a curse upon its wielder. 

And so Thorgrim, callow as he is, is forced out into the wide world, with all its perils and promises. But with Lark in his hand, Thorgrim is not one to be underestimated, as his enemies soon will learn…..

‘Sword of the Nurlingas’ was something of a surprise. It’s a cut above the standard-issue Conan pastiche, as good as, if not better, than (for example) the ‘Thongor’ stories produced by Lin Carter. 

Bailey is a competent writer who keeps his chapters short and to the point. The cast of characters is expansive, but not unwieldy, and the narrative moves with alacrity. For his part, Thorgrim is not invincible, thus victory is never foreordained. At the same time, his willingness to use strategy and cunning when the odds are against him keeps the plot from getting too predictable and sustains an interesting narrative.

I finished ‘Sword of the Nurlingas’ with an eye towards acquiring the sequel. This is a late 70s sword-and-sorcery tale that is worth picking up.

An Ultimate Alchemist

An Ultimate Alchemist

(The Vagabond in Limbo)

Christian Godard (writer) and Julio Ribera (art)

Dargaud Canada, 1983

'The Vagabond of Limbo' (Le Vagabond des Limbes) was a French sci-fi comic that began in 1975 as albums de bandes dessinees, 31 of which were issued until 2003. Early strips also were published in a variety of comic magazines such as Circus, Tintin, and Pilote. 

Only two of the albums ever were translated into English; these were published by Dargaud's Canadian imprint. 

'What Is Reality, Papa ?' (Quelle réalité papa ?, first issued in 1980) was published by Dargaud Canada in 1981, while 'An Ultimate Alchemist' (L'Alchimiste suprême, first issued in 1979) was published in 1983. 

Each graphic novel is 48 pages in length and, being long out of print, existing copies are difficult to find.........and rather expensive.

The English version of 'An Ultimate Alchemist' was serialized in 1980 in Heavy Metal magazine, as ''The Alchemist Supreme', which is where I first saw it. Heavy Metal also serialized 'What is Reality, Papa ?' in 1981.

The protagonist of 'The Vagabond in Limbo' is Axle Munshine, who, accompanied by the gender-fluid boy / girl Musky, searches the galaxy for a way to bring a dream to life....... the dream being Munshine's ultimate fantasy woman, a nubile blonde named Chimeer.

In 'An Alchemist Supreme', Munshine and Musky land their starship The Silver Dolphin on a deserted asteroid which turns out to be the home of an old friend named Robson. Sympathetic to Munshine's plight, Robson directs him to the pleasure planet of Bousbbhyr, and a green-skinned courtesan named Frankchik.

With the aid of Frankchik, Munshine and Musky make their way to 'The Forbidden Perimeter', where, it is rumored, God himself - known as the Ultimate Alchemist - makes his home. And if anyone can bring Chimeer to life, it will be the Ultimate Alchemist........

'An Ultimate Alchemist' is first and foremost a more 'adult' comic than its contemporary bande dessinee, 'Valerian'. It's a much more humorous, even absurdist, treatment of the sci-fi theme, relying on a peculiarly Gallic strain of comedy to make its points. 

This means that for those used to Anglophone sci-fi, 'Alchemist' suffers from wordiness, and dialogue that (even allowing for the quirks of translation) comes across as awkward and contrived.

Where 'An Ultimate Alchemist' retains its appeal even after the passage of more than 40 years is the artwork by Ribero, who shows skill in rendering faces and expressions, lubricious aliens, outer space landscapes, and brothels and laboratories. 

If you are a fan of Heavy Metal and have familiarity with the French sci-fi comics of the 70s and 80s, then if you come across an affordable copy of 'An Ultimate Alchemist' it is worth picking up. 

Is the comic worth reviving for a modern audience, much as Cinebook has done with 'Valerian' ? In my opinion, no..........the ideal audience (of Anglophone fans of 70s and 80s sci-fi) for any reprinted series is rapidly graying, and 'Alchemist' is too idiosyncratic to hold the attention of younger sci-fi comic fans reared on the plodding humanism of titles like Saga and Descender.

( For an alternate review of 'An Ultimate Alchemist', readers are directed to this blog post. )

Spock lookalike contest, 1967

Spock Lookalike Contest

World Science Fiction Convention, 1967

photograph by Jay Kay Klein

Book Review: Warlord's World

Book Review: 'Warlord's World' by Christopher Anvil

2 / 5 Stars

'Warlord's World' (207 pp.) is DAW Book No. 168 and was published in October 1975. The cover art is by Frank Kelly Freas.

'Christopher Anvil' was the pseudonym of the U.S. writer Harry C. Crosby, Jr. (1925-2009) who began publishing sci-fi in the 1950s and continued on into the early 1990s. Anvil's best-known works are the 'Pandora's Planet' stories, about Earth under the rule of a race of lion-like aliens.

As 'Warlord's World' opens, our square-jawed hero, Vaughan Roberts of the Federation's Interstellar Patrol, is on vacation at the gambling palace of the Temple of Chance on the pleasure planet Tiamaz. Roberts encounters a swell dame named Erena who is being abducted by some heavies. In the ensuing fracas, Roberts precipitates an interplanetary brouhaha with the Tiamaz authorities, and Erena is spirited off to her home world of Festhold, there to be held captive by the odious Regent, Duke Marius.

Infatuated with Erena, Roberts schemes with his superior, Colonel Valentine Sanders, to free Erena and in so doing liberate her brother, Prince Harold WIlliams, from the control of Duke Marius. This is accomplished by an unusual technology that allows Roberts, from the headquarters at the Interstellar Patrol, to implant his consciousness into that of Prince in Festhold. 

Unwittingly equipped with this beneficent version of schizophrenia, Prince Harold / Roberts rouses from his drug-induced idleness to fervidly embark on a quest to overthrow the Duke, rescue Erena, and bring peace and prosperity to Festhold.......a rather tall order. But to Vaughan Roberts, all is fair and love and war............... 

Although it was published in 1975, 'Warlord's World' very much reads as a rather lame comedic sci-fi novel from the 1950s or early 1960s, similar to those (for example) written by Robert Sheckley. 

'Warlord's' prose style has the stilted, awkward character that was commonplace in mainstream sci-fi of the 50s, which, when combined with clumsy efforts at humor, means that the reader has to plod through these types of passages:

From the police cruiser came the warning: "You are sighted ! Decelerate at once to zero ! Stand by and open your hatches for boarding !"

From the patrol ship came the answer: "Interstellar Patrol Ship 6-107-J, on Official Patrol Business under Mandate Override Command Authority Paragraph 1064b, Subheading 44 p through z, relevant Emergencies to Patrol Personnel on Active Duty, Enabling Authority Subsections J through Q......THIS IS A RELEVANT EMERGENCY ! Stand by to render assistance on request." 

On the police cruiser, grim purpose dissolved into chaos.

"Holy - it's an I.P. ship !"

" Don't touch it !"

"Wait, now ! How do we know it's I.P. ? Just because they say - "

" - What's 'Mandate Override Command' ? I never heard of 'Mandate Override Command'. Did anybody here ever hear of Mandate Override Command ?"

'They're outdistancing us !'

"Standard regs say we've got to stop any ship showing in the inner ring. It doesn't matter if it's the Space Force !"

"Look, what's a 'relevant emergency' ? Did anybody here ever hear of a 'relevant emergency' ?"

"I'm telling you, you don't mess with the I.P. !"

"But how do we know for sure that it is the I. P. ?"

"Pass the message to HQ and let them figure it out !"

In its favor, 'Warlord's World' has brief chapters, many infused with a Ruritanian atmosphere, making it a quick read...........at least, when author Anvil stays away from trying to be humorous.

The verdict ? 'Warlord's World' was obsolete at the time of its publication and certainly hasn't aged very well in the ensuing 45 years. I would pass on this one............. 

Playboy Book Club advertisement, June 1980

The Playboy Book Club

advertisement in Questar magazine, June 1980

Things were pretty tame back then.

Among the racier selections are:

Phenomena: A Book of Wonders: observations on the supernatural

The Girls of Playboy: a rather chaste clunker first published in 1973

Bruce Jenner's Guide to the Olympics: thanks to Jimmy Carter, the U.S. did not participate in the 1980 games, lessening the value of this manual

Cruel Shoes: Steve Martin was the epitome of late 70s humor: very hip, very ironic, very sarcastic, very overrated

In the fine print: The Visual Dictionary of Sex, which was a distant also-ran title for those book clubs that couldn't get an agreement to offer The Joy of Sex.

Adventure and the Yacht Rock sound

Adventure by Rupert Holmes and the 'Yacht Rock' Sound

With the approach of Memorial Day, Sirius XM has revived its Yacht Rock channel, returning a soothing brand of 70s and 80s sound to the ears of its listening subscribers.

Among the more prominent artists on the Yacht Rock channel is Rupert Holmes (the stage name of singer-songwriter, producer, and playwright David Goldstein, b. 1947). 

In 1980 Holmes released his sixth album,  Adventure, the lead single of which was 'I Don't Need You'.

'I Don't Need You', which can be listened to here, entered the Billboard Hot 100 at slot 84 in the week of April 4 1981, and peaked at slot 56. It's a great example of Yacht Rock: well-crafted, well-produced, and made in the era well before Auto-Tune and Karl 'Max Martin' Sandberg transformed songwriting and producing into exercises in digital wizardry.

Here's a link to an interesting essay at the 'Picking Up Rocks' blog on the birth and development of the songs that typify Yacht Rock radio, with an in-depth review of Adventure.

The reviewer concludes:

........it is a truly seminal Yacht Rock-West Coast-Adult Contemporary-Soft Rock-Pop classic that deserves it’s due because, let’s get “1980” for a second, it’s just totally bitchin’.

You can't beat that sort of endorsement to kick off Yacht Rock season !

Book Review: Heatseeker

Book Review: 'Heatseeker' by John Shirley

3 / 5 Stars

'Heatseeker' first was issued by the small press publisher Scream/Press in 1989; this mass-market paperback edition (364 pp.) was published in the U.K. by Grafton in 1990. The cover art is by Chris Moore.

The 19 stories collected in this collection all first saw print in the interval from 1975 to 1989, in magazines, digests, and anthologies like Interzone, Omni, and New Dimensions. Accordingly, they represent Shirley's progression as a writer of the freeform, 'speculative fiction' material that exemplified the New Wave ethos, to the more defined prose of the cyberpunk era.

Rather than critique each of the entries, I'll state outright that the best stories in 'Heatseeker' are those with Shirley's singularly street-level sensibility, written with a clear and unadorned prose style and a willingness to depict humanity in its less-than-salutary moments:

'Under the Generator' is a 1976 story from Terry Carr's Universe 6 anthology that displays a Harlan Ellison-esque flavor in its treatment of the commodification of the process of dying. With its downbeat atmosphere, 'Generator' thoroughly rejects the humanism that, as of 1976, still persisted in the pages of Universe and other New Wave collections of the era. 

'Sleepwalkers', from 1988, showcases cyberpunk themes with its depiction of a group of junkies (the opening pages detail the process of cooking, and shooting up, meth) living in squalor in a bad neighborhood of a near-future Los Angeles. Needing money, would-be rock star guitarist Jules decides to temporarily rent his body to the Sleepwalkers Agency. Upon waking from his 'rental' period, Jules leaves the Agency 200 dollars richer.........but with an ache between his legs..............

'Six Kinds of Darkness', which appeared in High Times magazine in 1988, features a near-future New York City where the 'Hollow Head' drug den offers users a genuinely life-changing experience. The first page of the story is quintessential cyberpunk and, I would argue, an exemplar of how to begin any story, novelette, or novel in the genre.

'Wolves of the Plateau' (1988), from the highbrow literary journal Mississippi Review (!), places recurring character Jerome-X in a prison setting. A breakout attempt involving the collective use of inmates' wetware 'chips' may be successful......or a quick path to a group lobotomy.......this story is another example of Shirley's ability to take the tropes of cyberpunk and work them into something memorable.

Serving as a change of theme from the grim vistas presented in the above stories, 'Quill Tripstickler Eludes a Bride' deploys ribald humor in its tale of the eponymous hero's diplomatic mission to a planet ruled by a female entity with a decidedly........Freudian........ manifestation.

The remaining stories in 'Heatseeker' are less impressive. A number of tales fashioned around New Wave-era prose stylings have aged poorly: 'Tahiti in Terms of Squares', 'Silent Crickets', 'The Almost Empty Rooms' (which features a chapter titled 'Part III of Secondary Syntax'), 'Equilibrium', and 'Recurrent Dreams of Nuclear War Lead B. T. Quizenbaum Into Moral Dissolution'. 

'What Cindy Saw', 'The Unfolding', and 'The Peculiar Happiness of Professor Cort' are absurdist tales that didn't strike me as particularly effective, while the more structured narratives of 'I Live in Elizabeth', 'The Gunshot', 'What It's Like to Kill a Man', 'Triggering', and 'Ticket to Heaven' suffer from less-than-convincing denouements. 'Uneasy Chrysalids, Our Memories' tries to meld psychological drama with the concept of 'injectable memories', but is overwritten and difficult to follow. 

Summing up, as with 99% of anthologies, there are more misses than hits in the pages of 'Heatseeker'. That said, in my opinion there are sufficient memorable tales in its pages to justify the effort to acquire this Grafton edition from UK booksellers, particularly if you are a fan of cyberpunk from its early days in the 1980s.

Prez, DC Comics, 2016

Prez

Joe Simon and Jerry Grandenetti

DC Comics, 2016

In late July of 1973, DC Comics released 'Prez', a comic book featuring the nations 'first teen president'. Created by comics veteran Joe Simon, and illustrated by Jerry Grandenetti, the title only lasted four issues before it was cancelled.

This DC Comics graphic novel compiles all four episodes of 'Prez', an unpublished fifth issue, and a grab-bag of other titles (Supergirl, The Sandman, and Vertigo Visions) that featured the character. 

(It doesn't compile the super-Woke, super-cutesy 'Prez' series of 2015, which saw the character reinterpreted as a Woman of Color, with tats and a white mohawk hairdo.)

Although Simon and Grandenetti do not explicitly state so, 'Prez' is heavily derived from the 1968 film Wild in the Streets, in which a calculating young man named Max Frost leads a youth revolution that culminates in his ascension to the Presidency of the United States. Wild in the Streets was a satirical take on the hippy movement, and the 'generation gap', of the late 60s.

For their comic book excursion, Simon and Grandenetti replaced the Max Frost character with the more wholesome 'Prez' Rickard, native son of the quaint little town of Steadfast, Maine. Aided by Boss Smiley, kingpin of the 'establishment', Prez wins the presidency; however, beneath Prez's seeming naivety is a man with his own mind, and Smiley's hopes to govern the country by proxy are deterred. But there are a host of oldsters who have no intention of letting a teenager rule the country, and no scruples about removing him from office........

At the time 'Prez' first was published, Simon was 59 years old and Grandenetti 47, so they arguably were too distanced from the youth culture (and counterculture) that they sought to portray in their comic. 

This lack of familiarity is on display in the four issues of 'Prez', which rather clumsily try to mix the goofy tropes of the 'Archie' comics with efforts to lampoon prominent political movements and personalities. 

'Prez' is inevitably dated; for example, I doubt many contemporary readers under the age of 60 would recognize the depiction of star chess player Bobby Fischer as the neurotic 'Chessking':

It's easy to see why 'Prez' failed after four issues. The cartoony artwork and unsophisticated writing were not engaging to the older comic book readership, while at the same time, the book's treatment of the contemporary political landscape could not have been very appealing to the tweener readership of Archie comics. 

The 'Prez' stories that appeared in the Vertigo imprint in the mid-90s are more engaging than the original comics, but in my opinion, avoid doing anything truly imaginative or pathbreaking with the concept.

'The Golden Boy' from The Sandman issue 54 (October 1993) does a competent job in terms of recapitulating the Prez myth and its aura of youthful idealism. But the introduction of the 'Sandman' character, and the Goth girl 'Death', in the closing pages undermines the story by imparting a too-trite sensibility......I mean, a Goth Girl with a supersized Ankh amulet hanging around her neck guides Prez to Heaven.........?!

'Prez: Smells Like Teen President', from Vertigo Visions No. 1 (September 1995) is written by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Eric Shanower, one of the most acclaimed comic book writer / artist teams of the past 30 years. Brubaker gives the Prez mythology a postmodern 90s spin; the protagonist is a disaffected Grunge rock teen named 'P.J.' who may or may not be the illegitimate son of Prez. 

P.J. and his buddies set off on a nationwide road trip in the hopes of learning more about Prez and the likelihood that he fathered P.J. 

While Brubaker's script is competent, and Shanower's artwork impressive, the story remains predictable, as it simply coats the theme of youthful idealism with a veneer of gritty reality that would be expected of a Grunge-era storyline. 

'Smells Like Teen President' is most effective as an example of the progression of comic book mores in the two decades between 1973 and 1995, as its use of profanity and R-rated nudity would have been unthinkable for a mainstream comic in 1973.

Summing up, it's hard to conclude that DC's treatments of 'Prez' are very engaging. But to be fair, taking a concept that was most relevant in the tumult of the late 60s, and recasting it either as a 'teen' comic, or a more adult-oriented comic, in any succeeding era is a challenge. 

If you are a Baby Boomer, you like the comics of the early 70s, and you can find 'Prez' for under $15, then it may be a worthwhile purchase. But I can't see anyone in any other demographic finding the material to be appealing enough to justify getting it.

Three more from 2000 AD

Three more from 2000 AD

I stopped in at my comics shop last week and found some recently acquired 'vintage' 2000 AD graphic novels issued by Titan Books in 1983: Ro-busters Volume One and Volume Two, and Nemesis the Warlock Book One. They were just $4 each. 

As always, I like the larger format of 9 inches wide x 11 inches tall (when these comics get 'shrunk' to fit the dimensions of American graphic novels, some details get lost in the process).

Lots of great, Old-School black-and-white artwork in these compilations, from such talents as Kevin O'Neill, Mike McMahon, Mike Dorey, and Dave Gibbons !

Final Warning from Marvel Preview

Final Warning
by Lynn Graeme (story) and Frank Miller (art)
from Marvel Preview: Bizarre Adventures 2 (1980)

Even by my forgiving standards, the Fall, 1980 issue (No. 24) of Marvel Preview is pretty awful. The cover art, by Clyde Caldwell, is pure cheese, and the contents of the issue are even more trite and banal.

The sole saving grace in the entire magazine is a short strip titled 'Final Warning', written by the magazine's editor, Lynne Graeme, and illustrated by an up-and-coming Frank Miller. 

The strip has the cramped, low-res styling of an underground comic, which is probably why it works as well as it does.........