Heavy Metal December 1983

'Heavy Metal' magazine December 1983

December, 1983, and in heavy rotation on MTV is the latest single from Genesis, 'That's All'. As Winter settles in over the dreary landscape of the factory town in upstate New York where I live, the latest issue of Heavy Metal magazine is on the stands.

The front cover  is by Chris Achiellos, and the back cover is by Daniel Horne. The advertising includes the latest offerings from the Science Fiction Book Club, as well as a deluxe paperback edition of Arthur C. Clarke's The Sentinel.

The Dossier starts off with an interview with filmmaker Michael Laughlin about his low-budget release Strange Invaders. This film has since become something of a cult movie, however, I have never seen it, so I can't tell you if it's worthy of accolades or not.

Next, the Dossier turns to reviews of books about George Lucas and Alfred Hitchcock.

 

 Ellen Kushner reviews recent fantasy novels and finds most are of mediocre quality.

The remaining pages of the Dossier are thin gruel, devoted as they are to underwhelming musical efforts, and anecdotes.

The graphical art content of the December issue is improved over that of the previous month. There are more installments of 'Tex Arcana',  'Ranxerox', 'The Fifth Song', and 'Valentina'.

There are some quality standalone stories in this issue, one of them being Schuiten's 'The Rail', which combines some great art deco-style illustration with some wordless action involving horny French train passengers, one of them a man with orange skin..... ?! 

I know, it sounds weird. Maybe because it's a Eurocomic. But I've posted it below.......

Propina incluida by Santos

Propina incluida
('tip included')
by Santos
from the Spanish edition of Metal Hurlant, issue 26

Book Review: Amazons II

Book Review: 'Amazons II' edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

4 / 5 Stars

‘Amazons II’ (239 pp.) is DAW Book No. 485, and was published in June, 1982. The cover artwork is by Michael Whelan. All of the stories were exclusively written for this anthology. It is the companion volume to 1979’s ‘Amazons !’, also edited by Salmonson and published by DAW.

In her Introduction, Salmonson provides a lengthy overview of the Amazon in history and legend.

The opening story, ‘For A Daughter’ by F. M. Busby, is an unremarkable tale about an Amazon who embarks on a quest for an appropriately studly man (!) to sire her offspring. Male chauvinism inevitably rears its ugly head.

Gillian Fitzgerald’s ‘The Battle Crow’s Daughter’ uses Celtic myths as background for its tale of a young woman married off to a boor for the sake of promoting comity between warring nations.

In ‘Southern Lights’, by Tanith Lee, Jaisel the Amazon finds herself obliged to seek shelter in a strange village high in the snowy wastes. There is an undercurrent of creepiness to the setting and plot that makes this one of the better entries in the collection.

‘Zroya’s Trizub’, by Gordon Derevanchuk, is a folk tale based on Slavic mythology; original in setting and place, with a nice plot twist at its end.

‘The Robber Girl’, by Phyllis Ann Karr, takes the heroine from the Hans Christian Anderson tale ‘The Snow Queen’, and sets her off on her own adventure.

‘Lady of the Forest End’, by Gael Baudino, is a humorous adventure involving an Amazon named Avdoyta, and her bumbling aide, the monk Monmouth.

‘The Ivory Comb’, by Eleanor Arnason, is another folk tale, featuring some quasi-scatological humor.

‘The Borders of Sabazel’, by Lillian Stewart Carl, is a rather ponderous piece about Amazons in uneasy alliance with some overly-macho male warriors.

‘Who Courts a Reluctant Maiden’, by Ardath Mayhar, features an Amazon who resolves to help a woman brutalized by an evil overseer. A good combination of whoop-ass revenge and satiric humor.

‘The Soul Slayer’, by Lee Killough, and ‘Nightwork’, by Jo Clayton, both feature Amazons addressing injustices committed by despotic males. Good action sequences, and worthy villains, make these among the better entries.

‘In the Lost lands’, by George R. R. Martin, sees Gray Alys the warrior-witch embark on a disquieting journey to the Lost Lands. The story’s bleak setting, violent tone, and carefully worded prose, make it another of the anthology’s superior entries.

In summary, editor Salmonson does a very good job in terms of eliciting quality material from her contributors, not something many DAW editors of the 80s were wont (or able) to do. ‘Amazons II’ is not just a good anthology about Amazons, but a good anthology of fantasy fiction, period.

Shadow Jack by Morrow and Zelazny Part Two

'Shadow Jack' by Gray Morrow and Roger Zelazny
from The Illustrated Roger Zelazny (Baronet Books, February 1978)

Part one is available here.

Part Two

Shadow Jack by Morrow and Zelazny Part One

'Shadow Jack' by Gray Morrow and Roger Zelazny
from The Illustrated Roger Zelazny (Baronet Books, February 1978)

Part One

The best of the five stories in The Illustrated Roger Zelazny is 'Shadow Jack', featuring the lead character from one of Zelazny's best novels, 'Jack of Shadows'.

With fine color illustrations by Gray Morrow, and an engaging plot from Zelazny, 'Shadow Jack' (which, as Zelany remarks in his introduction to the story, is a prequel to the novel),  is as good as anything that appeared in Heavy Metal, or the Warren magazines, in the late 70s.

Copies of the trade paperback and hardbound editions of The Illustrated Roger Zelazny are available for under $20 at your usual online retailers. Also available is the mass market edition of the book, which contains the entire story (albeit, printed in black and white).

I'm posting the entire 23-page comic in two parts. Part One is posted below; Part Two is here.