Book Review: The Reincarnation of Peter Proud

Book Review: 'The Reincarnation of Peter Proud'
by Max Ehrlich

4 / 5 Stars

'The Reincarnation of Peter Proud' first was published in September, 1974; this Bantam paperback (278 pp) was issued in March, 1975, to coincide with the release of the motion picture of the same title.

I remember reading this paperback way back in 1975, but I could only remember the vaguest outline of the book when I decided to re-read now, forty (!) years later.....

The novel is set in 1974, in Los Angeles, where Peter Proud, 27, is a professor of anthropology at UCLA and a rising star in his field. 

Life seems to be working out very well for Peter Proud....except for the recent advent of the Dreams. There is a set of 11 of them, and they continuously repeat, night after night. Dreams of unusual vividness and clarity, dreams in which he is the inhabitant of the body of another man, in a time and place different from Los Angeles in 1974. Some of the Dreams are benign, while one is a genuine nightmare.......... a 'Lake Dream' nightmare in which the man whose body he is occupying, is murdered.

The Dreams, and the Lake Dream in particular, have come to dominate Peter Proud's sleeping hours, leaving him stressed and unable to rest. In an effort to address the Dreams, Proud finds himself seeking an explanation from a clairvoyant. From her, he learns that the soul occupying his body has been reincarnated time and again over thousands of years. And its most recent reincarnation is the young man who is murdered in the Lake Dream.

Peter Proud realizes that the only way he can exorcise the Dreams is to identify the young man who is the participant in them, and learn the circumstances of the murder. Using the few scant visual clues he can glean from the Dreams, Proud travels to New England, there to discover that reincarnation is not just an esoteric concept spawned by Eastern mysticism, but a real and genuine manifestation of the supernatural........

'Reincarnation' really doesn't fit into one genre; it's part psychological thriller, part detective story, with some occult and supernatural elements worked into the mix. As with Max Ehrlich's other novels, it's a very readable book that never gets too contrived, and delivers an offbeat, but satisfactory, ending.

I never saw the 1975 feature film based on the novel; most reviewers at amazon give it a good rating.

Summing up, 'The Reincarnation of Peter Proud' is one of the better 70s novels dealing with supernatural topics, and worth picking up.

Heavy Metal magazine Winter 1986

'Heavy Metal' magazine Winter 1986

January, 1986, and on MTV, the video for Sting's single 'The Russians' is in heavy rotation.

Heavy Metal magazine, having decreased from monthly to quarterly circulation, unveils its 'new and improved' Winter 1986 issue. Darryl Hanna is the cover subject, depicted on the poster for the upcoming film The Clan of the Cave Bear.

While most of this issue's content is not very memorable, it does feature the longest story ever printed by Jean-Michel Nicollet (using the pseudonym 'Sesar'). 

As with his July, 1985 Heavy Metal contribution 'Metropolis', Nicollet again turns to classic old films for inspiration........ this time it's King Kong that inspires a story titled 'The Great Kong', posted below.

Book Review: Montana Gothic

Book Review: 'Montana Gothic' by Dirck Van Sickle

2 / 5 Stars

I first saw this book at the 'Too Much Horror Fiction' blog and, based on the brief blurb there provided, decided to read it. 

‘Montana Gothic’ (254 pp) was first published in hardback in 1979; this Avon Books paperback was released in June, 1980. The artist who provided the striking cover illustration is uncredited.

The novel is organized into four Parts, each consisting of several chapters which progress through time, and are loosely linked by shared characters.

In Part One, it’s 1915, and Deke Morgan, grieving over a failed love affair, decides to move from Baltimore to Citadel, Montana (as best as I can tell, author Van Sickle uses fictional locations, or those of ghost towns, throughout the book), there to take over as the town’s undertaker. Morgan is depressed by the mud, cold, and isolation of small-town Montana. Then he discovers that the actions of the former undertaker have made the entire town loathe and detest the undertaker’s services……….

In Part Two, set about 50 years later, two cowboys – one a young man, the other an aged veteran – are working a small cattle herd in the wilderness. Within the cramped log cabin that is their refuge, they cope with the isolation and cold of the Montana Winter by playing cards and philosophizing.

In Part Three, also set ca. 1955, a mentally retarded young woman is caught up in a clandestine affair; her brother and father are left to deal with the consequences.

In Part Four, set in the 70s – 80s, a cowboy named Mavis Lambrook Herman roams the streets and sidewalks of Montana’s towns and cities, intent on staying true to the Code of the Frontier despite its obsolescence in the modern day.

I won’t disclose any spoilers, save to say that some of the characters in ‘Montana Gothic’ will be visited by tragedy and misfortune.

On the whole, ‘Montana Gothic’ was a disappointment. It’s devoid of supernatural or horror elements, relying instead on black humor to inform its expositions on human frailties. There is an earnest effort to make Montana the real ‘character’ underlying the events in the novel, but too often these efforts are related in a purple prose that quickly becomes tedious, and does little except pad the narrative.

It doesn’t help matters that Van Sickle’s handling of dialogue is less than impressive; for example, in the chapter ‘Winter Calf’, there are lengthy sections of conversation related in a labored ‘Homespun Frontier Wisdom’ dialect:

Montana, she ain’t fer sale, it’s free, but ya gotta love ‘er enough ta find it in yerself. She ain’t no whore.

This stuff is a pain to read. In later chapters, the conversations adopt modern forms of speech, but even here, Van Sickle’s dialogue is stilted and unconvincing.

My recommendation ? ‘Montana Gothic’ has its moments, but they are too few and far between to justify wading though the bulk of this novel. 

The Trespasser Part Three: Ruins

The Trespasser
Part Three: 'Ruins'
by Don McGregor (script) and Paul Gulacy (art)
from Eerie No. 105 (October 1979)

The Trespasser Part Two: Dusk

The Trespasser
Part Two: 'Dusk'
by Don McGregor (script) and Paul Gulacy (art)
from Eerie No. 104 (September 1979)

The Trespasser Part One

The Trespasser
Part One
by Don McGregor (script) and Paul Gulacy (art)
from Eerie No. 103 (August 1979)

Among the better features in the pages of Eerie in the late 70s - early 80s were the collaborations between artist Paul Gulacy and writers such as Doug Moench and Don McGregor. 

I've already posted the outstanding three-part serial 'Blood and Black Satin' by Gulacy and Moench that appeared in 1980, but the three-part serial 'The Trespasser', which appeared a year earlier, also is worthy of a posting.

Although the issues of Eerie from which I'm making these scans are 35 years old, dog-eared, and wrinkled and warped, with my scans set to 300 dpi / 1 MB each, hopefully the high quality of Gulacy's art is apparent despite the compromised paper quality.  

[I suspect contemporary readers may not recognize the actor that Gulacy uses as a model for the hero.....so for the benefit of those modern-day readers, that actor is James Coburn.]

Below is Part One of 'The Trespasser'.....Parts Two and Three will be posted in successive order here at the PorPor Books Blog.

Book Review: False Dawn

Book Review: 'False Dawn' by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

4 / 5 Stars

‘False Dawn’ first was published as a short story in several anthologies in the early 70s. A fix-up novel was issued in hardback in 1978 by Doubleday; this Warner Books paperback (237 pp) was published in April, 1979.

The novel is set ca. 2010 in the Sierra Nevada mountains of a post-apocalyptic California (the exact nature of the apocalypse is not detailed, but seems to have been a combination of eco-catastrophe, overwhelming pollution, and plagues). Civilization has collapsed, and small pockets of survivors scrounge for their rations amidst its ruins.

The widespread release of genetically engineered viruses has created a growing subpopulation of deformed, crazed mutants, who are forced to live in isolated communities. Others infected by the viruses retain their human characteristics, although they display some unusual traits, such as the ability to re-grow amputated limbs.

As ‘False Dawn’ opens, the heroine, a young woman named Thea, is surveying the scene of yet another atrocity committed by the Pirates, the most vicious band of wasteland raiders. Amid the corpses of the victims she finds a man named Evan, left for dead by the Pirates. Thea and Evan form a wary partnership and embark across the mountains for Gold Lake campground, where, it is rumored, a safe and secure haven for the dispossessed is located.

The remainder of ‘Dawn’ is essentially an adventure story recounting the shared journey of the two characters, who encounter a variety of perils – mostly at the hands of their fellow humans, but also from the elements and the mutated wildlife.

For a novel published in the late 70s, ‘Dawn’ was quite graphic in its depiction of violence and brutality, particularly for a novel authored by a woman; at that time, only male writers like Norman Spinrad (‘The Men in the Jungle’) and Piers Anthony (the ‘Battle Circle’ trilogy) had written sf novels with as high a quotient of explicit mayhem.

What makes ‘Dawn’ effective is the author’s failure to offer contrived notes of hope; the landscape through which Thea and Evan move is one in which any last vestiges of kindness and morality are fast becoming expunged by the relentless onslaught of both raiders, and ecological decay.

‘Dawn’ is a cornerstone novel in the post-apocalyptic sub-genre of sf. If you like your post-apocalyptia to have a ‘Mad Max’ and ‘Fallout 3’ flavor, then it’s sure to appeal to you.

(For another review of ‘False Dawn’, readers are directed to the 'Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations' blog.)