The Wild Wild West: The Series

'The Wild Wild West: The Series' by Susan E. Kesler

Back before the term ‘steampunk’ existed, there was The Wild Wild West, created by CBS associate producer Michael Garrison to take advantage of the spy craze sweeping American pop culture during the mid-60s. Characterized as ‘James Bond on a Horse’, the pilot episode aired on September 17, 1965, and became a hit.

I remember watching episodes of The Wild Wild West when it was first broadcast, and later again in the mid 1970s, when the show was widely syndicated. While some episodes were rather pedestrian Western tales, and others adopted a tongue-in-cheek, satirical tenor, there were rare episodes with an genuinely offbeat, imaginative focus that showcased proto-steampunk, and sometimes horror or supernatural themes, too.

‘The Wild Wild West: The Series’ (250 pp) first was published by the Arnett Press in 1988. A 30th Anniversary Edition (below) was reissued in 2018 by self-publisher CreateSpace, with corrections and revisions, a better print quality, additional content, and more color reproductions. 

‘WWW:TS’ is a labor of love on the part of the author, fangirl Susan Kesler, who spent two years assembling the book, interviewing former cast and crew members, and gathering memorabilia.

Filled with (mostly b & w) stills, the book features season-by-season synopses of all episodes, with some synopses accompanied by ancillary text boxes that touch upon interesting backstories to a particular episode.

Other of the book’s chapters deal with the intrigues and politics of producing the show, and offer interesting anecdotes; for example, although the show continued to enjoy strong ratings as its third, and final, season ended, the network’s concern over the show’s violent content probably factored into its decision to cancel the series.

Other chapters touch on the personalities of Robert Conrad (Jim West) and Ross Martin (Artemus Gordon). As I expected, the 5’ 2” Conrad suffered from a Napoleon Complex that saw him and his stunt crew regularly risking serious injury in pursuit of macho undertakings, including after-hours brawls in a local watering hole. 

Ross Martin, for his part, envied Conrad's position in the leading man role, and regularly complained that in terms of the show’s scripts, the 'Artie' character just wasn’t getting the action with the chicks that he should’ve been getting ! 

Author Kesler recounts the circumstances behind Martin’s near-fatal heart attack in August, 1968, which kept him off the WWW set for nearly four months. According to an interview in later years with his wife, Olavee, Martin drank 25 – 30 cups of black coffee per day, and smoked 3 -4 packs of cigarettes per day, while adhering to a diet comprised almost exclusively of red meat -! This was not all that unusual an actor's diet in the Mad Men era.

Additional chapters / sections feature an overview of Ross Martin’s various disguises; ‘blooper’ photographs of the cast and crew; an account of a typical day on the set of WWW; memorabilia and collectibles; and capsule summaries of the two ‘revival’ episodes aired in 1979 and 1980.

The book closes with a poem written by Ross Martin.

WWW:TS is aimed at the hardcore fan, but others with a nostalgic bent, and those interested in 60s pop culture, may want to leaf through it as well.

Book Review: Hackers

Book Review: 'Hackers' by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois

4 / 5 Stars

‘Hackers’ (Ace, 239 pp., October 1996, cover by Sharmen Liao) was one of a large number of anthologies (‘Mermaids !’, ‘Demons !’, ‘Dogtales !’) edited by Dann and Dozois and released in the 1990s.

The entries in ‘Hackers’ all first saw print in various magazines (Omni, Wired, Playboy, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine) during the interval 1982 – 1994.

The collection leads off with Gibson’s ‘Burning Chrome’ from 1982, still – along with 'Johnny Mnemonic' – the touchstone cyberpunk tale. Tom Maddox contributes ‘Spirit of the Night’ (1987), about a team of hackers who get involved in what, at first glance, seems like corporate intrigue. 

‘Blood Sisters’ (1991) by Greg Egan, deals with siblings confronting a near-future wracked by the unregulated consequences of genetic engineering and widespread genetic disease; centered less on sf elements and more on emotional travails, it’s one of the less impressive stories in the collection.

Pat Cadigan’s ‘Rock On’ (1984) is a brief tale about a rock-and-roller seeking freedom from corporate and contractual obligations; it suffers from an overloaded prose style and a too-hard effort to be too-hip. Robert Silverberg’s ‘The Pardoners Tale’ (1987) is surprisingly good, coming from an 'Old Hand' sf author. ‘Pardoner’s Tale’ deals with a near-future Earth under alien rule, and a canny hacker who delicately takes advantage of the situation.

Alexander Jablokov’s ‘Living Will’ (1991) describes the efforts of an elderly man to achieve immortality via creating a personalized AI; there is a focus on the pathos attendant to aging. The premise doesn’t really mesh well with the hacker concept, and this is another of the anthology’s clunkers.

‘Dogfight’ (1985), by Swanwick and Gibson, is a classic early cyberpunk tale about an amoral street hustler who gets caught up in a high-stakes tournament involving a holographic video game about WWI fighter planes. It’s a great story, and a worthy entrant in this anthology.

‘Our Neural Chernobyl’ (1988), by Bruce Sterling, mixes terse, clipped exposition and dark humor in a winning format. It’s the utter antithesis of a New Wave sf story, and a ready example of the cyberpunk approach to plotting and prose.

Candas Jane Dorsey’s '(Learning About) Machine Sex’ (1988) is a mediocre entry. The plot centers on a burnt-out female hacker who must overcome male chauvinism and corporate greed on the way to self-acceptance. Its inclusion seems like a contrived effort to remind the sf readership that womyn have a place in the hacker culture, too. 

‘Conversations with Michael’ (1994), by Daniel Marcus, also features a female hacker as a protagonist , albeit one tormented by grief and seeking solace by the use of VR. This, too, is an underwhelming entry, as its focus on a humanistic element to hacking failed to move me.

Paul J. McAuley’s ‘Gene Wars’ (1991) is similar to Sterling’s ‘Our Neural Chernobyl’ in structure and tone. It’s a brilliant little tale about the genie of genetic engineering escaping the bottle. Neal Stephenson’s ‘Spew’ (1994) takes an ironic look at hackers in a near-future age of widespread Net Surveillance; its prose style is a little too overdone, to set it among the classic short stories of the cyberpunk genre.

The anthology closes with Greg Bear’s ‘Tangents’ (1986) which won both Hugo and Nebula Awards, and thus cemented Cyberpunk as the new genre of sf of the 1980s. Featuring a young, but naïve, genius for its hacker, and increasingly far-out developments triggered by explorations into VR, ‘Tangents’ remains a great cyberpunk story, and a fitting close to the anthology.

In sum, ‘Hackers’, along with Bruce Sterling’s ‘Mirrorshades’ anthology, represents one of the best collections of first-generation cyberpunk short fiction. All fans of the genre, and 80s sf, will want to have it on their bookshelf .

'Mime' by Will Brown
from Epic Illustrated No. 17, April 1983

I cheer as much as anyone when a mime gets abused....but this little strip comes with a final twist....

'Heavy Metal' magazine November 1982

November 1982, and the latest issue of Heavy Metal magazine is out, with a front cover illustration by Alan Ayers and a back cover illustration by Clyde Caldwell.

The Dossier section features 'Rok' Critic Lou Stathis anxious to demonstrate how hip he is to the emerging street music scene from NYC, and in particular, 'The Message' by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. 

Since the term 'rap' really isn't in use in 1982, all the hapless Stathis can do is remark on the '......stream of spoke-sung lyrics....' which apparently make 'The Message' :

 ".....the first black disco song for listening ?"

Ahh, how ill-prepared were those urban, white, Jewish, Rok critics as the phenomenon that would become rap began to intrude on their cultural consciousness.

Elsewhere in the Dossier, we have an interview with Michael Moorcock, reviews of works by Ian Watson and Peter Beagle, and reviews of new albums from the Cramps and X.

 

There are new chapters of Corben's 'Den II', Druillet's 'Yragael', another episode of Jones' and Wrightson's 'Freak Show', and the concluding chapter in 'The Voyage of Those Forgotten' by Christian and Bilal.

New in this issue are an episode of Findley's 'Tex Arcana', and William Michael Kaluta's 'Starstruck'.

As part of the promotional effort for the upcoming National Lampoon film 'Class Reunion', Wrightson contributes an eponymous short strip. 

Since Leonard Mogel, the publisher and president of Heavy Metal, was also the owner - publisher of National Lampoon at the time, the use of the magazines to plug one another was not entirely a surprise. 

Wrightson's 'Class Reunion' comic was in many ways better than the actual movie, which did poorly at the box office, an indication that the tremendous success of Animal House four years earlier could not sustain succeeding Lampoon productions.

Book Review: Ocean on Top

Book Review: 'Ocean On Top' by Hal Clement

2 / 5 Stars 

‘Ocean on Top’ (141 pp.) is DAW Book No. 57, and was published in June 1973. The cover artwork is by Jack Gaughan. The story first appeared as a serial in 1967 in Worlds of If.

‘Ocean’ is the first effort I’ve made since September 1974 to read a Hal Clement novel.

Back in ’74, I purchased the Del Rey paperback edition of 'Cycle of Fire', got about 25 pages into it, and gave up on it. It was one of the most boring books I’d ever attempted to read.

I decided to give’ Ocean’ a try mainly because of its brevity.

‘Ocean’ is set not too far in a future in which the Earth is ruled by one government, the result of various crises caused by overpopulation and dwindling energy reserves. The primary agency in this World Government is the Power Board, which is responsible for creating, distributing, and monitoring energy throughout the planet. 

Energy budgets are tight, and whenever it appears that someone - or something - is taking more than their allotted share of electrical power, the Board promptly dispatches an investigative team.

As the novel begins, the un-named first-person narrator (later on, we learn one of his nicknames is ‘Tummy’) is descending the Pacific near Tahiti, in a futuristic bathysphere. Our hero is investigating the previous descents, and disappearances, of three Power Board colleagues. It seems that there are impressive power readings emanating from the ocean floor far below, and the Board wants a closer look.

Tummy’s bathysphere is carefully concealed within the wreckage of a ship, so as not to alert any potential adversaries lurking on the ocean bottom. Once he touches down he is astonished to see fields of lights, hanging suspended from the sea floor, and below the lights, what seems to be an enormous tarp, constructed of some unique, quasi-transparent fabric.

Before long, divers come to view the wreckage. But ‘Tummy’ is astounded, for despite the fact that the sea bed is 5,000 feet down, the divers are wearing simple helmets, coveralls, and no breathing apparatus. By all rights they should have been instantly crushed to pulp by the tremendous pressure of the ocean above them.

What is going on here, in what should be the barren, perpetual darkness of the ocean floor ? Is this mysterious facility tied into the disappearance of the three Power Board members ?

Tummy will need to find out, and soon, because his bathysphere has a limited amount of air…..and the divers are taking a much closer look at the wreckage that camouflages his craft………

I got through 'Ocean' in its entirety. Like most (all ?) of Clement’s novels, the narrative is dominated by hard sf themes. There are extended, rather pedantic, segments in which the narrator elaborates on the mechanics and physics of living and working on the ocean floor. The dialogue can be wooden at times, and the plotting is merely a scaffold upon which the science can be expounded.

Compared to other sf of the era, ‘Ocean’ is devoid of much in the way of real suspense or dramatic tension. Towards the end of the novel the author introduces some interpersonal conflicts, but these seem like very contrived efforts to give the narrative some sort of impetus.

In summary, ‘Ocean On Top’ is a readable, if not particularly exciting, novel. Clement fans will want to have a copy, but others won’t miss much if they decide to pass on it.

Father Shandor: Demon Stalker in 'Tower of Death'
from Warrior (UK), Volume 1, Number 2, April, 1982

The second Father Shandor episode, featuring some excellent pen-and-ink work by John Bolton. 

The cross-hatching and shading used to depict the tower's stone walls on pages 4 and 5 must have taken Bolton hours of intricate penmanship to complete....

Book Review: 'Strange Seas and Shores' by Avram Davidson

3 / 5 Stars

‘Strange Seas and Shores’ was first issued in hardcover in 1971 by Doubleday / SF Book Club. This Ace paperback edition (219 pp) was published in August 1981; the cover artist is uncredited.

The 17 stories in this anthology all first saw print in various sf magazines and digests in the interval 1958 – 1967.

In his Introduction to ‘Strange’, Ray Bradbury notes that Davidson (1923 – 1993) crafted his short stories in the mode of the renowned Saki, O. Henry, and Chesterton. That is to say, Davidson employed surprise or trick endings in his short fiction, preferring to withhold the background detail of his plots at the outset, letting these details unfold along with the narrative, with the revelation / punch line coming in the last paragraph or sentence.

Many of the entries in ‘Strange Seas and Shores’ are five or fewer pages in length, so providing synopses of these tales is essentially the same thing as disclosing spoilers. Therefore, I will provide only broad outlines of the contents.

Some tales use quirky or satiric humor for their revelations: ‘Sacheverell’, ‘Take Wooden Indians’, ‘Paramount Ulj’, ‘A Bottle Full of Kismet’, ‘The Goobers’, ‘Dr Morris Goldpepper Returns’, ‘Yo-Ho, and Up’,  ‘Apres Nous’, ‘Climacteric’, ‘The Power of Every Root’, and ‘The Source of the Nile’.

Others take a grimmer tone: ‘The Vat’, ‘The Tail-Tied Kings’, ‘The Certificate’ (the best story in the collection), ‘Ogre in the Vly’, ‘The Sixty-Third Street Station’, and ‘The House the Blakeneys Built’.

Some of these stories have a ‘New York City’ sensibility to them, Davidson’s home throughout most of his life. In this manner they represent a sort of alternate approach to John Cheever’s examinations of NYC life in the postwar period. 

It’s interesting to observe that Davidson steadfastly adhered to the classical, or traditionalist, format for his short fiction, even as the New Wave movement overtook sf publishing. His writing is clear and unambiguous, devoid of stylish affectations, although this being Davidson, readers will need to prepare for an expanded vocabulary: ‘circumambulation’, ‘nostra’, and ‘ratiocination’, among others.

In summary, ‘Strange Seas and Shores’ is dedicated reading for Davidson aficionados; those others, who appreciate short stories in the ‘classical’ mode, may also want to seek it out.

'Zora and the Hibernauts' by Fernando Fernandez
Catalan Communications, 1984

Fernando Fernandez (1940 – 2010) was a Spanish artist who, starting at age 16, provided artwork for British comic book publishers in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 70s he was among the talented Spanish artists recruited by Warren to illustrate Vampirella.

From 1980 to 1982, he and writer Nicola Cuti produced the comic ‘Zora y los Hibernautas’ (’Zora and the Hibernauts’) for the Spanish magazine 1984.

Throughout 1982 and 1983, an English-language translation of ‘Zora’ was serialized in Heavy Metal magazine in the US.

‘Zora’, featuring copious female nudity (Zora and her fellow female astronauts all prefer to wear g-strings, and not much else), softcore porn, great artwork, and sf themes, was a ‘natural’ for the HM readership.

In 1984 an English-language graphic novel of  ‘Zora’ was published by Catalan Communications. Nowadays, those rare used copies of the ‘Zora’ graphic novel that come up for sale at eBay go for high prices.

Fortunately, the entire contents (as zipped .rar files) of the English language version of ‘Zora and the Hibernauts’ can be found at several file-sharing sites online, but beware of viruses and trojans - have Malwarebytes and Avira at hand.

After obtaining the zipped file, I recommend using the freeware app ComicRack to view the contents: download and install ComicRack, then right-click on the zipped file icon and select Open With → ComicRack; after a minute, ComicRack should open, with the cover page displayed.

The Bus

'The Bus' by Paul Kirchner

Book Review: 'Witchfinder General' by Ronald Bassett

4 / 5 Stars
 
This paperback edition of ‘Witchfinder General’ was published by Pan Books (UK) in 1968, two years after the hardbound version was issued.

Ronald Bassett (b. 1924) served in the British Navy in WW2 and in the Korean War, after which he took positions with several pharmaceutical corporations as a publicist.

In the 1960s and 1970s he wrote a number of historical novels, some of these built upon his wartime experiences. His ‘Dando’ series, about English army officers in the India of the Raj, was written under the pseudonym of William Clive.

‘Witchfinder General’ is of course best known as the inspiration for the 1968 film from British producer Tigon, starring Vincent Price. In the US, AIP released an uncut, uncensored version under the title ‘The Conqueror Worm’.

By the standards of the time the film was explicit in its depiction of nudity and violence, particularly the torture scenes, and this, combined with its downbeat tenor, turned it into a ‘cult classic’.

Despite its very low budget (at least once, Price covered the cost of providing meals for the cast and crew) the film, directed by 24 year-old Michael Reeves, had a genuine visual sense of the 17th century period used as its setting.

In general, the film adheres to the novel, save for some differences that I won’t elaborate on for fear of disclosing spoilers.

Bassett starts his story in 1643, with William Hopkins and John Stearne meeting while serving as conscripts in the Parliamentary army. In due course they join with female accomplice Goody Phillips, and embark on a sustained campaign of witch-finding across the landscape of the English Civil War.

Bassett’s description of the torture and execution of elderly women, the insane, and the mentally disabled as ‘witches’ remains unsettling, even by the more graphic standards of this modern age.

When compared to contemporary historical fiction, and the advent of 500-page tomes crammed with highly descriptive prose, Bassett is economical and to the point, yet still he manages to give his readers a believable sense of time and place:

A spiral of dirty, broken stairs climbed to his landing, the playground of hordes of ragged children who screeched and shuffled, raced streetwards to float paper boats in the puddles, or gathered to listen as a disabled and drunken veteran beat his wife with his crutch each noon-time. The small room boasted a tiny, filthy window, walls patched with damp and mildew, and the barest items of rickety furniture. He was in poorer straits now than he had ever been.

It is depressing to realize that not too long ago, Europe spent sizeable portions of several consecutive centuries in the grip of hysteria, subjecting innocent people to horrible deaths based on ignorance and superstition, deeds more often than not fueled by religious zealotry. This realization explains to some degree how modern groups like the Taliban continue to be embraced and supported by their fellow Muslims, and even illuminates the egregious ‘daycare molestation' trials that the swept the US in the 1980s.

'Witchfinder' has long been out of print, and while even marginal paperback copies are offered for  high prices, if you can find a copy for $10 (or even more), it's still worth picking up.