Pink Floyd playing soccer

Pink Floyd Playing Soccer
UK, 1970s

left to right: unknown; David Gilmour; Nick Mason; Roger Waters; Rick Wright

Book Review: Riot 71

January is Dystopia in England Month !

Book Review: 'Riot 71' by Ludovic Peters

2 / 5 Stars

'Riot 71' was first published in hardcover by Walker and Company in 1967; this Hodder Paperbacks version (223 pp) was released in the UK in 1968. 

While copies of the paperback version in good condition are hard to find and expensive when found, the hardbound edition is a bit easier to get hold of.

'Ludovic Peters' was a pseudonym used by the German-born, British writer Peter Brent. During the 60s Peters wrote six novels featuring the private detective Ian Firth; 'Riot 71' is the sixth (and final) of these novels.

'Riot' is set in the UK in 1971. Economic problems have brought deprivation and widespread unemployment, with the government helpless to do much about either. The presence of a large number of black immigrants is gradually becoming a source of resentment among working class whites, who see their already slim hopes of gaining jobs endangered by the presence of these 'interlopers'.

A cabal of white aristocrats, known as the Nordic Union, are eager to exploit this growing racial antipathy. As the novel opens, Gerald Hudson, the young, white leader of the Inter-Racial Integration Society (IRIS), is struggling to counter the Union's clandestine efforts to exacerbate racial tensions, but his efforts are complicated by the knowledge that the Union will not hesitate to commit murder to further its aims.

Ian Firth, and his doughty Welsh man-at-arms John Smith, selflessly agree to assist Hudson without seeking recompense. Firth soon discovers that the conspiracy set in place by the Union is complex, and extends into the higher levels of the government. But as England lurches ever further into racial violence and anarchy, can the efforts of Firth and his small team of allies avert complete disaster from overtaking the UK ? 

I finished 'Riot 71' thinking that the book would have been better served by being crafted as a standalone novel, rather than as an entry in the 'Ian Firth' series. Author Peters certainly has an interesting premise and doesn't belabor the narrative with kumbaya bromides, wisely allowing the violence to feed upon itself, with each party feeling they are in the right.  

However, the narrative suffers from regularly having to veer from its effective portrayal of a near-future UK wracked by bloodsoaked race riots to rededicate itself to relaying the actions of Firth and his allies, actions which often have a contrived tone more in keeping with spy or thriller novels. 

For example, one man is able to outwit and outfight a surprise attack launched by a team of thugs; villains launch into 'bwah ha ha !' speeches, after which their captives are imprisoned, rather than being immediately executed; and convenient blunders by the villains leave all manner of openings for Ian Firth and this colleagues to take advantage of. Add in dialogue that often is stilted, and I got the feeling that I had invested rather too much time into a novel that really didn't live up to expectations.

Summing up, I can't recommend 'Riot 71' as a must-have examination of a dystopian UK. To be fair, that may not have been author Peters's intention, but all the same, this novel represents a missed chance to be a memorable entrant in the genre.

Axolotls

Axolotls
by Caza
from Heavy Metal's Even Heavier Metal
1983

Those were the days.............in 1983, a surfeit of worthy material led Heavy Metal editor Julie Simmons-Lynch to publish an 'extra' issue above and beyond the monthly allotment. 

Such an embarrassment of riches...........!

Even Heavier Metal featured some fine entries from Jeronaton ('Between Shadows and Light'), Moebius ('Artifact'), Voss ('Pinky Warner and the Virgin Seekers'), Jimino ('For One Quarter'), and even a surprisingly lyrical, wordless comic from Liberatore ('Love Ain't Nothin' But Evol Spelled Backwards').

But the best entry in the magazine was Caza's 'Axolotls'. The color scheme pushed the boundaries of what even a 'slick' magazine could do back in those days. Despite its 'low res' character by modern standards, the genius of Caza's art is readily apparent..............

Book Review: Pendulum

January is Dystopia in England Month !

Book Review: 'Pendulum' by John  Christopher

5 / 5 Stars

‘Pendulum’ first was published in hardback in 1968. This Lancer Books paperback edition (288 pp) was published in June 1969; the cover illustration is attributed to ‘Stivers’.

The novel is set in the late 60s / early 70s in the fictional town of Pallister, England. Lead character Rod Gawfrey is in his forties, an upright citizen, and a successful real estate developer. Coming home one night from a restaurant visit, Rod and his family are appalled to find that a house party being hosted by their teenaged son Stephen has gotten out of control, mainly due to the presence of some party-crashing yobs. A confrontation between an outraged Rod and the yobs results in the latter departing; however, the leader of the yobs threatens future retaliation against Rod.

Even as Rod takes measures to bring the police into the dispute, change is overtaking his comfortable middle-class existence. There are widespread demonstrations by college students over the inadequacy of their stipends, and worrying signs of economic troubles looming in the immediate future. With a swiftness that Rod can scarcely come to terms with, within the span of less than a year the UK is transformed into a third-world country.

Rod finds himself adapting to this disaster, with a belief that things will ‘sort themselves out’ before too long. But Rod learns that his troubles are just beginning. For the void of authority has been filled by young people, whose gangs roam the landscape in packs of motorcycles, taking what they please and meting out violence to those who resist.

And a pack of motorcyclists have decided to set up house in Rod’s estate……....….

‘Pendulum’ is very ‘British’ in its depiction of the disintegration of English society and the ascension to power of rebellious youth. The populace are in the grip of passivity, carefully maneuvering themselves to avoid provocation of the yobs until such time as the government can reinstate normalcy: 'hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way'.

The classic ‘American’ post-apocalyptic trope in which a survivor (or band of survivors) access a cache of automatic weapons and reinstate order through the use of concentrated firepower and macho posturings is never entertained. 

Author John Christopher (the pseudonym of the UK writer Sam Christopher Youd) is perhaps best known for his ‘Tripods’ trilogy, as well as sci-fi novels like The Death of Grass and The Little People. His narrative in ‘Pendulum’ is characteristically understated and deliberate; the descent into fear of Rod Gawfrey and his family is carefully plotted, and the advent of violence and mayhem never contrived.

Summing up, ‘Pendulum’ is a slow-paced novel, but one that depicts in a convincingly realistic manner how the social and economic upheavals of late 60s Britain could logically lead to the breakdown of society. I recommend getting a copy.

[While the original Lancer paperback has a steep asking price, the hardbound editions, a print-on-demand trade paperback, and a Kindle version are readily available. ]

January is Dystopia in England Month

January is Dystopia in England Month !

It's time for another 'themed' month here at the PorPor Books Blog, when I focus on a particular sub-set or sub-genre of sci-fi (or other literature).

For January 2019, I'm going to be focusing on novels and nonfiction that depict England in a state of dystopia during the late 60s and early 70s.

Everyone is of course familiar with the dystopian England of the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange, but in fact, prior to the release of that film, there were a number of novels that were quite prescient in extrapolating the generational strife, and increasing economic malaise, of the late 60s into a hypothetical UK of the early- to mid- 70s.

Some of these novels, particularly the Angels from Hell series from Mick Norman (the pseudonym of writer Laurence James) have since become cult classics. Others, like the novels by David Gurney and Ludovic Peters, remain rather obscure.

So prepare for the vision of an England prostrated by a collapsed economy or an authoritarian government..........a crumbling, ruin-strewn landscape through which hostile tribes of bikers rampage and pillage, while erstwhile pillars of society wrap themselves in threadbare garments and ponder how to stretch their diminishing rations..........truly an England of hopelessness and despair !

Daryl Dragon 1942 - 2019

Daryl Dragon 
August 27, 1942 – January 2, 2019

Daryl Dragon, the Captain from 'The Captain and Tennille', died at age 76 of renal failure on January 2 in Prescott, Arizona.

Growing up in the 70s meant hearing the band's songs on any Top 40 station from 1975 to the end of the decade.

Some of their material could be insipid, if not cheesy, a classic example being their 1976 cover of the America song 'Muskrat Love'. But they also did some great pop tunes, and in my opinion they are remarkably superior to many of the acts dominating the pop charts nowadays. Back in 1975, after all, there was no Auto-Tune.

The Captain and Tennille were skilled live performers, as this video of them singing their hit song 'Love Will Keep Us Together' shows.

1973 Ford Pinto by Eric White

1973 Ford Pinto with Tanguy Sky (3 Women)

by Eric White

2011, oil on canvas, 40 x 60 inches

Book Review: Mute

Book Review: 'Mute' by Piers Anthony

0 / 5 Stars

Prior to 1979, humorous, or comedic, sf was a sub-genre of sf; its most prominent representatives were Robert Sheckley and Ron Goulart. Whether or not you considered either writer particularly effective, the fact remained that neither was successful in bringing their work to the attention of the larger pop culture landscape. It was safe to say that a small readership treasured the sub-genre, and things were not likely to change.

But of course, in 1979 the status of humorous sf did indeed change - drastically - with the publication of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by the British author Douglas Adams (1952 – 2001). Adapted from a radio serial Adams had presented on the BBC in 1978, the novel was a major hit in the UK, and in 1980 a hardcover version was released in the US by Harmony Books and became a bestseller as well. By the time a mass market paperback version was published in 1981, Hitchhiker had become a pop culture phenomenon, with many book purchasers consisting of people who were not sf fans.

Needless to say, mainstream sf writers in the US were very aware of the tremendous success of the Hitchhiker phenomenon. Unsurprisingly, more than a few of these mainstream writers quickly moved to take advantage of the interest in humorous sf. One of the most successful was Terry Pratchett, whose 1983 novel The Colour of Magic kicked off the remarkably successful ‘Discworld’ series.

[ I freely admit to having never read any of the above novels, or of being all that fond of the genre of comedic sf. ] 

UK writer Piers Anthony (the pen name of author Piers Anthony Jacob) wasn’t slow to get on the humorous sf bandwagon, issuing ‘Mute’ (440 pp) in April 1981 as an Avon mass market paperback. The cover art is by Ron Walotsky.

‘Mute’ is set in far future, and features as its lead character a misshapen mutant named Knot; he is gifted with the ability to subconsciously convince people to forget ever encountering him (this gives author Anthony the opportunity to insert smarmy in-jokes about attractive female muties being seduced by Knot in a 'deja vu all over again' sort of way). 

As the novel opens, Knot is a job placement officer on the mutie planet Nelson; there, he is visited by the beautiful Finesse, an agent working for the Galactic Empire. Finesse is accompanied by Hermine, a weasel who can communicate telepathically; and Mit, a hermit crab that can predict the immediate future.

(Yep………cute, talking animals…….)

After much arguing, Knot agrees to join up with Finesse, Hermine, and Mit to combat a Threat to the Entire Galaxy. The Empire’s Central Computer has determined that only this group of unique beings has much of a chance to set things right. 

Thus begins a picaresque series of whacky adventures that have our team of heroes traveling all over the galaxy and facing all manner of perils…………..

‘Mute’ is an awful novel. It’s so bad I gave up at page 133. I couldn’t take it anymore.

Here’s one example why: early in the book, the team lands on a planet that is a giant chicken coop. Knot makes his way into an area of the coop that houses roosters bred for cockfighting, and accidentally frees them. This gives author Anthony an opportunity to have his character make the following remark:

‘Loose cocks’, Knot said.

This kind of forced, cheeseball humor isn't the book's only drawback. Add in the fact that the majority of the narrative consists of lengthy passages of dialogue in which the characters stand around and say witty things (in between efforts by Knot to get Finesse into bed), and you have a novel that is beyond lame.

Perhaps inevitably given his prodigious output, many of Piers Anthony’s novels were duds, while others (like Var the Stick, which I recently reviewed here) are very engaging. But ‘Mute’ is in definitely one to be avoided.

Black Max Volume One

Black Max
Volume One
Frank Pepper (story) and Alfonso Font (art)
Rebellion, October 2018

'Black Max Volume One' (112 pp) was published in October 2018 by Rebellion (UK). It's part of the 'Treasury of British Comics' imprint which issues graphic novel compilations of black-and-white comics that were serially published in the weekly 'Boy's Papers' and 'Girl's Papers' issued in the UK in the 70s and early 80s. 

Most of these comics are unknown to American readers, and are peculiarly.....British..........in tone. Who else would devote a comic strip to the adventures of a fox ?! 

These Boy's Papers were printed on newsprint, so the resolution of the artwork appearing in them necessarily was less than ideal. It's also likely that the original artwork for these comics has since been lost, and what appears in these graphic novels presumably is scanned from well-preserved printed papers.

Which brings us to 'Black Max' Volume One. I first learned about this title from a July, 2017 post at the blog 'Blimey ! The Blog of British Comics'.

In 1971, perhaps inspired by the success of the DC Comics title Enemy Ace, the UK Boy's Paper Thunder began publishing its own WWI aviator strip.

Written by Frank Pepper and illustrated by Alfonso Font, 'Black Max' was inventive in incorporating a supernatural element into its narrative: a German fighter pilot named Baron Maximilien Von Klorr (aka 'Black Max') commands a team of giant vampire bats (!) in attacks on Allied fighters in the skies over Western Europe. Brave Britisher Tim Wilson emerges as Von Klorr's staunchest opponent, as man, machine, and bat clash in duels to the death.

Pepper's scripts were designed for a readership of adolescent boys, so you're not going to find overly deep narratives here, particularly in light of the fact that the series was released as three-page installments in each weekly issue of Thunder. But that is a good thing, because the emphasis with 'Black Max' is on constant action and cliff-hanger endings designed to entice the reader to look towards the next weekly installment. 

It's also very clear that, even in the early 70s, 'Black Max', with its high body count, was more 'adult' in tone than the US comics of the same era, which had to adhere to the Comics Code.

Indeed, American readers might want to think of 'Black Max' as something that might have appeared in Eerie or Creepy rather than the Marvel / DC lineup.

Spanish artist Alfonso Font is of course a legend among European comics readers, and in the US, where his work for the Warren and Skywald magazines in the 70s was well received. My review of the English translation of his 80s sci-fi comic Prisoner of the Stars (El Prisionero de las Estrellas) is available here.

His black and white work in 'Black Max' is excellent and, in the contemporary era in which so much of comic art is simple line art designed to be readily adaptable to digital coloring schemes, a reminder of what can be done with the skillful use of shading and cross-hatching.

The nice thing about this Rebellion compilation is that at 8 1/2 x 11 inches it retains the formatting of the original strips, and doesn't shrink the dimensions of this trade paperback in order to satisfy the American graphic novel market (i.e., 7 x 10 1/4 inches). 

Too often too many compilations of European comics are shrunk to fit that US convention, and for middle-aged readers like me, whose eyesight is not what it used to be, that can make reading difficult.

Summing up, if you're a Baby Boomer and a fan of those great Silver Age DC war comics and characters like Weird War Tales, Our Army at War  (Sgt. Rock), Enemy Ace, and G.I. Combat (The Haunted Tank) as well as Marvel with its Sgt. Fury comics, then you owe it to yourself to grab a copy of 'Black Max'. And with this compilation subtitled 'Volume One', there is the promise of more Black Max Goodness on the way from Rebellion...............!?

The Pulps by Tony Goodstone

The Pulps
Fifty Years of American Pop Culture
by Tony Goodstone
Chelsea House, 1970

What was to be called the Nostalgia Craze of American pop culture arguably began in 1967, with the release of the movie Bonny and Clyde, which sparked an interest in things of the Depression and the 1930s.

Canada Dry ginger ale advertisement, late 60s

Bantam Books nudged the appreciation for the 30s along a little further by buying the reprint rights to the entire catalog of Street and Smith's 'Doc Savage' character. The release of The Man of Bronze in October 1964, with an arresting cover by James Bama, sparked interest in the old pulp magazines. Three years later Lancer Books acquired the rights to the Conan stories of Robert E. Howard and began introducing this characters to an entirely new generation of readers. 

By the early 70s Berkley Books paperbacks dedicated to reprinting the adventures of 'G-8 and His Battle Aces' were sharing shelf space with the Bantam Don Savage titles. Berkley even copied the distinctive 'wave' styling of the Doc Savage titles for its G-8 books:

The Pulps, Tony Goodstone's overview of the pulp magazines, therefore was riding the growing wave of the Nostalgia Craze upon its publication in 1970. The Pulps was a well-produced hardcover book of 239 pp. The opening chapters provided a brief history of the rise and fall of the pulps, followed by a color section devoted to reprinting the covers of various magazines representing different genres. The bulk of the book was made up of reprints of actual pulp stories, and included examples of science fiction, western, mystery, spicy, and adventure stories.

Goodstone was interested in supplying his readers with a sampling of pulp fiction rather than showcasing the more well-known pulp authors; however, a story by Robert E. Howard did make it into the collection:

The reception given to The Pulps was, as best as I can tell, a reasonably favorable one. In his review of the book in the December 27, 1970 printing of New York Times, William Murray is not effusive in his praise, but because it brings back memories of his younger days, he is disposed to treat it rather more kindly than (for example) someone for whom the pulps did not induce nostalgia. 

He remarks:

Mr. Goodstone, evidently an expert in schlock, has done a pretty fair job of assembling these examples from the world of the pulps, which flourished during the first half of this century and really hit their golden age during the Depression. He has made no attempt to select the best material, but only the most representative and I think he has succeeded admirably. Also, the volume, in choice of paper, type and layout, comes fairly close to re‐creating the original format.

Murray regarded Goodstone's book and the subject of the pulps as the latest manifestations of the popularity of 'Camp'. 

My copy of The Pulps is a first edition, albeit one with some severe water-staining. However, copies in 'Very Good' condition can still can be found for under $20. If you are a fan of pop culture, Americana, and - obviously - pulp fiction, then grabbing a copy of The Pulps if you should see it on the shelf in a used bookstore is recommended.