Paradox Part One

Paradox
Part One
by Bill Mantlo (writer) and Val Mayerik (art)
from Marvel Preview No. 24 (Winter 1980)

By 1980, the influence of Heavy Metal magazine on Marvel Comics was undeniable. In the Winter, 1980 issue of Marvel Preview, the black-and-white comic magazine that Marvel used to introduce new characters to its readership, writer Bill Mantlo and artist Val Mayerik showcased 'Paradox', a sci-fi story that yearned to be seen as the type of edgy, daring material routinely showcased in Heavy Metal.

 Although Marvel Preview was not bound by the Comics Code, it also shied away from depicting the R-rated content that distinguished Heavy Metal. Which means that the PG-13 content in some segments of 'Paradox' gives every sign of contrived efforts to titillate...........sort of like the way Esquire magazine was regarded in comparison to Playboy and Penthouse in the 70s. 

When looked at 36 years later, however, Paradox has its appeal. Its hero, the eponymous Paradox, is a ballet dancer who specializes in routines performed in anti-gravity - obviously, in the words of a Lunar bureaucrat, Paradox is 'a bleeding fairy !' 

(Back in the early 80s,such comments weren't considered Politically Incorrect).

But the plot soon reveals that Paradox, with his parted-in-the-middle blow-dried haircut that screams late 70s - early 80 fashion, is in fact a ladies' man, and in many ways a takeoff on the Warren Beaty character from the 1975 movie Shampoo.

Throw in decadent aristocrats, a drug that turns people into human torches, conspiracies, and handy concealed wrist lasers, and you get a story that is, in many ways, superior to contemporary sci-fi comics like Saga, Black Science, and The Manhattan Projects.

Val Merik's art, while not particularly polished, is serviceable for a black-and-white magazine.

I'm posting the entire 'Paradox' story in two parts. The original print quality of the Marvel Preview magazine from which I made these scans is pretty dire, and needless to say the passage of 37 years also hasn't helped........but hopefully, at 300 dpi, the scans provide sufficient resolution to overcome some of these deficiencies...........

Book Review: Soul of the Robot

Book Review: 'Soul of the Robot' by Barrington J. Bayley

2 / 5 Stars

‘Soul of the Robot’ (206 pp) was published by Doubleday (Science Fiction Book Club) in July, 1974. The cover artist is Laszlo Kubinyi.

[A sequel, ‘The Rod of Light’, was published in the UK in 1985.]

The novel takes place thousands of years in the future. Earth has just begun to emerge from the Dark Period, the majestic ruins of which inspire awe and puzzlement. The landscape is divided into small kingdoms, some of which are loosely allied with the two major powers: the New Empire, and the Borgor Alliance. Most of the populace live as simple farmers or tradesmen, save the dwindling numbers of those who still possess the skills to use the advanced technologies of the Ancients.

As the novel opens, Jasperodus, the robot of the book’s title, comes to life in the small rural cottage of his creator, a middle-aged man with considerable talent in robotics. Jasperodus is unlike any other robot on the planet, being the beneficiary of an advanced ‘brain’ with the reasoning power of a human being. Far from agreeing to be the dutiful ‘son’ his creator had sought him to be, Jasperodus abruptly leaves the cottage to explore the world, and find his place in it.

The remainder of the novel chronicles the adventures of Jasperodus, as he gains in knowledge and experience, albeit through his willing – and sometimes unwilling – participation in various intrigues and travails at the hands of the politicians and princes ruling the Earth.

As his adventures introduce him to new ideas and concepts, Jasperodus becomes increasingly preoccupied with his own nature as a sentient machine. Is he truly self-aware ? If so, then is he ‘alive’ ? Or will he be forever denied possession of a ‘soul’ in the manner of human beings ?

As I read ‘Soul of the Robot’ I found the book to be very much in the style of a Jack Vance novel. Whether Barrington Bayley consciously intended this to be the case is unknown, but ‘Soul’ relies on a number of themes quite similar to those of the Vance-ian repertoire.

For one thing, the novel is set in a world very much like Vance’s Dying Earth; the Emperor Charrane of the New Empire is very much like the ambitious, but careless, aristocrats appearing in Vance’s stories. And with his misadventures and narrow escapes, Jasperodus comes across as a mechanical version of Vance’s hero, Cugel the Clever.

As well, the conversations between Jasperodus and other robots and humans peopling the novel have the formal, slightly stilted quality that is very reminiscent of the way Vance framed his dialogues.

Does the Vance-ian influence make ‘Soul’ one of Bayley’s better novels ? In my opinion, no. Too much of the novel is taken up with lengthy expositions on the Nature of Selfhood and how an artificial Being may presume to acquire such a status. These metaphysical discourses never sink the narrative, but they do drain its momentum.

Summing up, I can’t say that ‘Soul of the Robot’ is a must-have; however, Barrington Bayley fans may want to have a copy.

Northland by Eric White

Northland
by Eric White
oil on canvas, 72 x 36 inches, 2004

Book Review: The 7th Annual Best SF

Book Review: 'The 7th Annual Best SF 73' 
edited by Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss

2 / 5 Stars

‘The 7th Annual Best SF 73’ (255 pp) was published by Berkley Books in June, 1974. The cover artist is Paul Lehr.

Some of the entries in this volume first were published in digests and magazines (like Esquire, below), while others appeared in literary journals, or in other sf anthologies (like Orbit).

Reading ‘7th Annual’ is like diving into the deepest depths of the New Wave movement at the period when it was at its most influential. That said, there are a few worthwhile stories in this collection.

The anthology opens with a Introduction from Editor Harrison, in which he surveys sf in 1973, noting in particular the growth of the genre as a classroom subject; the increasing commercial viability of sf films, like Soylent Green; and the momentous decision by Esquire magazine to print its first-ever sf story (William Harrison’s 'Roller Ball Murder'). 

Unfortunately, most of the Introduction is a belabored exposition on what, exactly, sf is; here Harrison resorts to a Venn diagram, and some contrived mathematical expressions, to make his point…..whatever it is.

As far as the stories, well…………Harrison and his co-editor Brian Aldiss were no different than Damon Knight when it came to eagerly co-opting ‘literary’ works and presenting them as sf, a tactic whose earnest purpose was to convince the Literary World that sf – or rather, ‘speculative fiction’ – was no longer a puerile exercise in writing, but a matured Art Form of its own. 

Thus, ‘7th Annual’ contains ‘Ten Years Ago…’, a short-short story by the English writer Max Beerbohm that apparently was recovered from the back panel of a framed print (?!). Also included is ‘Sister Francetta and the Pig Baby’, a two-page sketch by a San Francisco playwright named Kenneth Barnard. And rounding things out are five poems, one by W. H. Auden, that in very faint ways, have some dim relevance to sf……….

The other entries:

Roller Ball Murder, by William Harrison: Harrison (1933 – 2013) was a well-regarded young novelist when, in 1973, Esquire published Roller Ball Murder, which of course was made into a memorable 1975 feature film. Despite the passage of 44 years, this short story retains its imaginative appeal, which many New Wave works have failed to do.

Mason’s Life, by Kingsley Amis: Harrison makes much of having an entry from Amis, who in the early 70s had considerable stature as a mainstream novelist. This is a slight tale of a man and his dreams.

Welcome to the Standard Nightmare, by Robert Sheckley: a Terran lout named Johnny Bezique confronts a seemingly perfect, invincible alien society. Like most of Sheckley's stories, this one relies on satirical humor.

Serpent Burning on an Altar, by Brian Aldiss: Less a short story, than a passage from what would be Aldiss’s 1976 novel The Malacia Tapestry. Aldiss reworks Renaissance-era Italy into a quasi-fantasy landscape; the characters spend their time flirting, and making grand pronouncements about life, death, and love. I can't say I was all that impressed with 'Serpent', but M. Porcius loved the novel.

We Are Very Happy Here, by Joe W. Haldeman: like Aldiss’s entry, this is another ‘chapter from a novel in progress’, in this case, 1975’s The Forever War.

The Birds, by Thomas M. Disch: two talking ducks (?!) confront eco-disaster. Its downbeat tenor keeps it from being trite.

The Wind and the Rain, by Robert Silverberg: a tale of eco-disaster; in the far future, people from the Federation return to the ravaged husk of Earth to attempt a reclamation. Its New Wave affectations – such as devoting an entire page to a listing of synonyms for the word ‘destruction’ – undermines its impact.

Parthen, by R. A. Lafferty: satire about Earth invaded by cunning aliens.

The Man Who Collected the First of September 1973, by Tor Age Bringsvaerd: while it was thoughtful of Harrison to bring stories written by non-U.S. or British authors into his anthologies, showcasing stories such as this one - about a man gripped by existential anomie – means that these efforts to acknowledge sf’s international appeal often were sub-par.

Captain Nemo’s Last Adventure, by Josef Nesvadba: originally published in 1964 by Nesvadba, a Czech author, this is a novelette about a man consumed with the desire to be a hero. It might be a clever satire of communism…….or socialism……..but it’s rather lame, even by the standards of early 60s sf.

La Befana, by Gene Wolfe: standard-issue oblique tale from Wolfe. It’s about humans condemned to servility on a hostile alien world.

The Window in Dante’s Hell, by Michael Bishop: in a future Atlanta, the deceased inhabitant of an apartment in a conapt is investigated by city bureaucrats. Bishop uses the sf element to frame a humanistic exploration of the loss of self-identity, and looming depersonalization………. very ‘in’ themes for the New Wave era.

Escape, by Ilya Vershavsky: on a gulag planet, Arp Zumbi is offered a chance to escape…..but if he’s caught, he will be tortured to death. Originally published in Cyrillic in 'No Alarming Symptoms' (Тревожных симптомов нет), a 1972 anthology of Vershavsky's short stories. The best entry in the anthology, sharpened by the less-than-overt allusions to the totalitarian nature of modern Russia.

Early Bird, by Theodore R. Cogswell and Theodore L. Thomas: a Terran fighter-pilot find himself stranded on a hostile planet. Another of the better entries in the anthology.

The collection closes with an Afterword by Aldiss, which starts as a tribute to the sf artist Karel Thole, but then veers into a self-indulgent philosophical treatise on ‘Wizards’ and ‘Plumbers’……..before returning again to Thole. The main value of this afterword is in reminding us that Thole was a gifted artist (looking over his works available at online portals is recommended).

Summing up, ‘The 7th Annual Best SF 73’ is a mixed bag. The entries from Harrison, Haldeman, Disch, Vershavsky, and Cogswell and Thomas are enough to justify picking it up if you’re a fan of the New Wave era. But I suspect younger readers (i.e. those under 40) will not find much here to engage them.

The Cage by Hermann Huppen

The Cage
by Hermann Huppen
from Abominations (Catalan Communications 1990)

The Belgian comics artist Hermann Huppen (b. 1938), who often signs his work as simply 'Hermann', is a renowned figure in the world of album de bandes dessinees (Franco-Belgian comics). 

Some of the comics he has illustrated in conjunction with his son Yves Huppen (Station 16 and Manhattan Beach 1957) have been formatted and translated for publication in the U.S. by Dark Horse comics, but unfortunately, much of his work has yet to be translated into English. 

An early effort at providing U.S. readers with an English translation of Huppen's work is this slim anthology of horror comics, first published in Europe in 1988, that Catalan Communications translated and released in 1990.

I've posted one of the four stories in Abominations, 'The Cage', below. 

The plot is related in a subtle but effective manner, one that rewards close attention to each panel. Add in Huppen's skillful drawing and coloring, and you have a memorable tale.

Book Review: Progeny of the Adder

Book Review: 'Progeny of the Adder' by Leslie H. Whitten

4 / 5 Stars

'Progeny of the Adder' first was published in 1965. In a calculated effort to cash in on the interest in All Things Occult occasioned by the popularity of The Exorcist, Avon Books repackaged the novel for paperback release in February, 1975. The cover artist is uncredited. 

The novel is is set in Washington DC, in the early 1960s. As 'Adder' opens, it's a chilly night in March, and world-weary homicide detective Harry Picard has been called to Fletcher's Cove on the banks of the Potomac River. The corpse of a young woman has been pulled from the river, and her throat has been slashed. When the autopsy reveals that the victim was exsanguinated prior to her death, Picard suspects that a sex killer is on the loose in DC. 

Within a few weeks, the corpses of an additional two women who expired the same way are discovered, and the resultant publicity complicates the lives of Picard and the DC police force. 

When some witnesses describe a 'tall man clad in black', who may have abducted at least one of the victims, Picard's investigation leads him to the DC demimonde and its ecology of call girls and out-of-town businessmen looking for late-night, illicit thrills.

But as Harry Picard is about to discover, the tall man clad in black is not a businessman with a lust for sadism and murder........but someone much more dangerous........

'Progeny of the Adder' is an effective novel. While the first half of the book reads like a police procedural, with the reader left guessing as to whether the murders are the work of natural, or supernatural, actors, at its midpoint the novel suddenly shifts into a higher gear and becomes an unabashed horror novel, one with a memorable lead villain and scenes of violent action and mayhem that do not spare the 'good guys'.

While 'Progeny of the Adder' apparently was not the inspiration for the January, 1972 TV movie The Night Stalker, it shares with that movie the theme of the supernatural let loose in modern-day civilization. 

In some regards, 'Adder' is more likely the unacknowledged inspiration for the Count Yorga movies of the early 70s.

Copies of 'Progeny of the Adder' in good condition are expensive, but if you can find one for an affordable price, this novel is well worth picking up.