Penthouse magazine November 1972

Penthouse magazine
November 1972

It's November, 1972, and the top single in the United States is 'I Can See Clearly Now' by Johnny Nash.

Why not take a gander at the latest issue of Penthouse magazine ? 

The Letters pages offer some eccentric observations from readers, observations centered on the eroticism of amputees (?!). The missive below from 'H.M.S.' in Germany, would go on to be serve as an epigraph in K. W. Jeter's 1984 novel 'Dr. Adder'. How cool is that ?!

The Editorial page showcases the contributors to this issue. 

One of them is a groupie named Francie Schwartz, who traveled to England in 1968 and had a brief dalliance with none other than Paul McCartney:

Back in '72, the magazine was drawing in the kind of advertising that was to make it an enormous financial success during the decade of the seventies. Stereo equipment, cameras, and even pipes ! And if one advertisement for Akai brand stereo equipment happened to feature a nude blonde, well, so much the better !

There is much attention paid to actor and 'Superstud' Burt Reynolds, and the new film Deliverance, in which he starred.

The Pet for this month is the U.K.'s Angela Adams.

A feature article in this November issue showcases the newly published book, 'Gentleman of Leisure: A Year in the Life of a Pimp' (New American Library, 1972), about a New York City player named 'Silky' ! 

Authored by Bob Adelman and Susan Hall, 'Gentleman of Leisure' remains the quintessential treatment of the Game, and the pimping lifestyle. My review of the book is here.

There is a cartoon that I think is pretty funny..........

Another Pictorial, 'Watchbird', highlights a fetching young woman named Carrie Shusmith, who epitomizes the California Blonde look of the early 1970s.

And that's how it was in the pages of Penthouse, 51 years ago..........

Book Review: Fighting Slave of Gor

Book Review: 'Fighting Slave of Gor' by John Norman

0  / 5 Stars

I was in the mood to read something vapid. Thus it was, that recently I reached for 'Fighting Save of Gor' (384 pp.), published as DAW Book No. 376 in March, 1980. The cover art is by Richard Hescox. 'Fighting Slave' is the fourteenth Gor novel, of a total of 36 (issued as of 2021).

This easily is one of the worst 'Gor' novels I've ever read...........

The book's premise is another variant on the theme of having an Earth woman or man kidnapped by Gorean slavers, taken to Gor, and there kept captive until such time as they achieve emancipation into Gorean society.

The protagonist of 'Fighting Slave' is a man named Jason Marshall. In the opening chapters, set in New York City, we learn that Jason is a thoroughly modern guy who suffers considerably from sexual frustration, as his desire to ravage delectable young women wars with the need to be a 'sensitive' and caring man, who panders to them in the hopes of eventually acquiring some nookie.

Jason soon finds himself transported to Gor, where he winds up as a slave to a succession of domineering women who laugh at his Terran notions of the equality of the sexes. 

'Fighting Slave' is essentially an R-rated BDSM novel with a thin coating of Gor sociology. It's devoted to chronicling the degradation and humiliation of our hero at the hands of beautiful and imperious Gorean women. Early on, it's Mistress Gina, and a little later, the Mistress Tima, and after that, well, Mistress Florence. None of these Gorean dominatrices deploy clothespins, as of course, clothespins don't exist on Gor. But the mistresses do wear black leather, and wield the Gorean 'slave whip'. You get the idea..........

Even as he endures abuse by his sexually charged mistresses, Jason discovers that he can gain respect from these women by fighting in the arena, and the novel laboriously showcases this development as a necessary step in Jason's psychological and spiritual evolution into being a Real Man. Fewer than 25 pages of the novel actually deal with Jason's fighting endeavors in the arena. I won't disclose any spoilers about Jason's fortunes in the arena, save to say that the novel ends on an inconclusive note suggesting that some of the lead characters will participate in further intrigues on Gor.

Norman's prose is, if possible, even more stilted than that of the early novels in the franchise. For example, I encountered the phrase 'neuteristic personhood', which was so remarkably inane that I actually stopped reading for several moments to ponder how Norman could have come up with such nonsensical jargon. As with the other Gor novels, the action regularly is put on hold while Norman uses protracted internal monologues to showcase his theories about gender relations and sex roles.

I finished 'Fighting Slave of Gor' with my desire for vapidity satisfied. At the same time, I was amused to realize that, ever since the publication of 'Tarnsman of Gor' in 1966, Norman has been vilified by feminists (and enlightened male sci-fi fans) for promoting BDSM......and yet, in 2011, Erika Mitchell (aka E. L. James) published 'Fifty Shades of Grey', which essentially canonized Norman's concepts. 'Fifty Shades' became a best-seller, and was hailed in some circles for suggesting that modern, emancipated women might enjoy some bondage and domination every now and then. Go figure !

Taking everything into consideration, I'm going to give 'Fighting Slave of Gor' a score of 0 of 5 Stars. Only the truly desperate need seek out this entry in the franchise...........

Tribute to Tim Underwood

A Tribute to Tim Underwood

at Bud's Art Books (Bud Plant)

At the website of Bud Plant's art books, there are tributes to the late publisher Tim Underwood (1948 - 2023).

Underwood was a science fiction fan when, in 1975, he teamed up with Chuck Miller to found Underwood-Miller Publishing, a small press company dedicated to issuing quality hardbound books on science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Some of the most renowned authors in genre fiction, such as Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny, Stephen King, Karl Edward Wagner, and Harlan Ellison, issued their works with Underwood-Miller. 

Later, in 1995, Underwood went into business on his own and produced some memorable titles, including the 'Spectrum' series devoted to sci-fi and fantasy art.

For me, it was the Underwood-Miller books devoted to Stephen E. Fabian's art, that were great acquisitions for my collection.

Also a welcome entry in my personal library is the Underwood-Miller volume of Don Maitz's artworks, 'Dreamquest'.

The Tributes, from Arnold Fenner (editor of the Spectrum series) and Bud Plant, are apt appreciations of Underwood's contributions to the field of genre literature.   

The Awfulness of 'The Robots of Dawn'

The Awfulness of 'The Robots of Dawn'

I recently was looking through the November, 1983 issue of Penthouse magazine, which features an excerpt of the Isaac Asimov novel 'The Robots of Dawn', which was published in hardback in October, 1983 (and in paperback a year later).

In 1983, Penthouse was a major periodical, and to have a novel excerpted in its pages was a big deal. Asimov's book got star treatment, with a double-page spread featuring an illustration (very reminiscent of H. R. Giger) by the French artist Gerard Di-Maccio. 

Reading the excerpt brought home to me just how awful mainstream sci-fi was in the early 1980s, and just how mediocre the major authors in the field were at writing prose. Here's a paragraph from 'Robots':

Baley said, in a low voice. "If you mean as far as being Outside is concerned, I am not even aware of it. If you mean as far as our dilemma is concerned, I think I am as close to giving up as I can possibly be without putting myself into an ultrasonic brain-dissolving chamber." Then, passionately, he cried, "Why did you send for me, Dr. Fastole ? Why have you given me this impossible job ? What have I ever done to you, to be treated so ?"

Ultrasonic brain-dissolving chamber ? Holy shit, this is bad. It's pulp prose, that actually is  popping up in a 1983 novel that was published by Doubleday, distributed in chain bookstores like Waldenbooks, and a New York Times bestseller, to boot !

Here's another gem of Asimovian dialogue:

"Then let me answer your questions connectedly, Elijah, and don't bark them at me as though you expected to surprise me into telling you something I would otherwise keep secret." She said it without noticeable anger. It was almost as though she were amused.

First time in my life I've ever seen the adverb 'connectedly'. And didn't Asimov realize that by 1983, characters in novels no longer could get away with 'barking' ?

And here's a cringeworthy discourse on human - robot sex, which underlies the plot of the novel:

"He did so, and it was only when he was completely unclothed that I quite realized how close to human he was. Nothing was lacking and those portions which might be expected to be erectile were, indeed, erectile. Indeed, they were under what, in a human, would be called conscious control. Jander could tumesce and detumesce on order. He told me so when I asked him if his penis was functional in that respect. I was curious, and he demonstrated."

The entire six-page excerpt published in Penthouse is nothing but dialogue: stilted, wooden, contrived, Asimov trying to show us what a capable writer he was. And yet as awful as 'Robots' was, the novel was considered a major example of science fiction's emancipation into the realm of high-profile hardbound publishing. In 1984 was nominated for Hugo and Nebula awards.

I'm very glad that back in 1983, I didn't buy into the hype, and stayed away from 'The Robots'. I was well aware that sci-fi at that time was quite moribund. 

But things were starting to change, subtly, back in 1983. Change in the form of short stories by newer writers named Bruce Sterling, Greg Bear, and William Gibson, among others. 

I'm currently reading 'Crystal Express', a collection of Sterling stories published the 1980s, the same era of 'The Robots of Dawn'. His prose markedly is superior to Asimov's, even though Sterling was then in the early stages of his authorial career.

In issue 4 (1983) of his 1980s zine Cheap Truth, Sterling (writing as 'Vincent Omniaveritas'), had this to say about 'The Robots of Dawn':

I started with the intention of writing something about Isaac Asimov's ROBOTS OF DAWN. And then I thought, why do you want to do that? That old hack isn't the problem. Just another guy resurrecting the decaying flesh of ideas, plots, and characters dead thirty years now, pumping in a little '80's topicality (lame sex), and grabbing himself a whole bunch of money and a chrome rocket. What the hell? You give a guy a license to steal, you've got to expect him to use it. But who gave him the license? That's better, much more to the point.

First, though, look further. An endless stream of Dune books, leper books, Riverworld books, 2010-and-counting books, Majipoor books, magic blue horse books....help me, Jesus, I can't do it by myself. It can't be the books. Most are unreadable, some merely boring, and a few achieve the exalted status of a well-prepared cheeseburger.

Sterling was on target.

No one knew it at the time, but 1984 would see the publication of 'Neuromancer' and 'Dr. Adder', and the advent of cyberpunk and its authors, one of which was Sterling. Nowadays, when someone thinks of 1980s science fiction, they think of 'Neuromancer' and not 'The Robots of Dawn'. And that's right and proper............

National Lampoon November 1973

National Lampoon 

November 1973

November, 1973. I remember Thanksgiving of that year was unusually warm and mild, with temperatures up near 70 degrees. Usually in the part of New York state where I lived at the time, Thanksgiving meant temperatures of 40 degrees or lower, sometimes with snow on the ground. 

On the Billboard hot 100 chart for the week of the 17th, the No. 1 single was 'Keep On Trucking' by Eddie Kendricks. For the Billboard top 200 album chart, 'Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road' by Elton John was number one. 

The number five album in the charts is the third comedy album released by Cheech and Chong: 'Los Cochinos' ('The Pigs'). It goes to show that fifty years ago, comedy albums were a major part of the pop culture. 

Looking at the November, 1973 issue of National Lampoon, the magazine clearly is prospering, with a length of 104 pages and lots of advertising for high-end stereo equipment and record albums. That said, the Lampoon still was happy to run a full-page ad from the Johnson Smith company, a firm well-known to comic book readers of that era..........

For the Letters pages, the Lampoon editors display appalling taste by running a fake letter from none other than Dean Corll. During the early 1970s, Houston resident Corll was a serial killer of 27 young boys and men. Making fun of Corll's atrocities was a signal that for the Lampoon, there was no line it wouldn't cross when it came to sick humor............!

The theme for this issue was sports, so the comic section of the magazine offers up a satirical treatment of the hallowed TV movie Brian's Song. First released in 1971, Brian's Song, about the untimely passing of Chicago Bears player Brian Piccolo, was a pop culture mainstay of the early 70s, so it was a natural target for the Lampoon.

Elsewhere, George Plimpton gets satirized. He's mostly forgotten nowadays, but back in the 1960s and 1970s, Plimpton was a major sportswriter and media figure. In 1963 he finagled his way into playing football for the Detroit Lions, an experience he chronicled in his 1966 book Paper Lion. 

Next, the Lampoon offers up some 'specialized sports magazines'.

Talented artist Bernie Wrightson provides a two-page cartoon / illustrator celebrating, in gruesome fashion, 'Bat Day':

In her regular cartoon 'Trots and Bonnie', Shary Flenniken takes aim at the early 70s craze for Kung Fu and 'Oriental' philosophies.

The issue closes with a full page ad for the National Lampoon Radio Hour. Along with the comedy albums National Lampoon's Radio Dinner and National Lampoon's Lemmings, the Radio Hour, which ran as a weekly from November 1973 to the end of 1974, had as cast members such future luminaries as Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis, and John Belushi, can be seen as the forerunner of what later would be Saturday Night Live.

And that's how it was, it the realm of humor periodicals, fifty years ago..........

Book Review: The Fires of Lan-Kern

Book Review: 'The Fires of Lan-Kern' by Peter Tremayne

4 / 5 Stars

'The Fires of Lan-Kern' first was published in the U.K. in 1980. This Methuen paperback (272 pp.) was issued in 1984, and features striking cover art by Tim White. The succeeding volumes in the Lan-Kern Trilogy include 'The Destroyers of Lan-Kern' (1982) and 'The Buccaneers of Lan-Kern' (1984). None of the Lan-Kern titles ever were issued as paperbacks in the U.S.

'Peter Tremayne' is the pseudonym used by the prolific U.K. writer Peter Beresford Ellis (b. 1943). During the 1970s and 1980s Tremayne published a number of memorable Paperbacks from Hell, including 'The Ants', 'The Morgow Rises', Snowbeast', and 'Nicor'. Tremayne is best known for his popular 'Sister Fidelma' mystery novels, set in 7th century Ireland.

As 'Fires' opens, we are introduced to the protagonist, a botanist named Frank Dryden, who is - surprisingly enough - a passenger on the British nuclear submarine HMS Argo. As the Argo transits the North Pole, it encounters a strange anomaly, and the entire crew is rendered unconscious. When the crew emerges from their blackout, they are bewildered to find that the ship now is drifting off the Orkney Islands.

Once power is restored, the sub discovers there is no radio communication with the Fleet, or with any entity whatsoever. The sub's captain decides to make for a port in the Scottish islands. As the Argo closes with the shore, the crew are startled to see no evidence of civilization; indeed, the landscape is covered by jungles comprised of strangely colored plant life.

Dryden gradually realizes that the Argo has emerged from suspended animation into a future U.K., centuries after some cataclysm has destroyed civilization. This realization is not well received by the Captain, who insists on attributing the Argo's predicament to other, less likely, causes. When Dryden finds himself separated from the sub, he makes his way through what formerly was Cornwall county. There he encounters a race of bronze-age people who represent the tribe of the Lan-Kern. Dryden is given a friendly reception, and finds that life in Lan-Kern is in many ways superior to his life in what he thought of as the 'modern' world.

As salutary as living in Lan-Kern may be, there is trouble present, for the tribe of Lan-Howlek has been waging a campaign of raids on Lan-Kern settlements, visiting death and slavery on those unable to mount sufficient defense. 

Dryden is no warrior, but he realizes that there is no alternative but to ally himself with the people of Lan-Kern, and embark on a decisive campaign to defeat Nelferch, the vicious witch- queen of Lan-Howlek. And in so doing, he may discover the key to the mystery of what happened, centuries ago, to end the world he knew.....

'The Fires of Lan-Kern' is a very readable blend of science fiction and fantasy, with a smooth-flowing prose style that is to be expected from an author who writes 'for a living.' The future, post-apocalyptic Celtic society  of Lan-Kern is portrayed with some admiration by Tremayne. Len-kern, with its bucolic people and their culture, serves as a rebuke to the technologically advanced, but self-destructive, world that birthed the Argo.

The novel weakens in its final chapters, where the index of fortuitous escapes and timely interventions tends to drain suspense from the narrative. The major plot thread, as one might expect, is inconclusive, serving to prepare the storyline for the second volume in the trilogy.

I finished 'The Fires of Lan-Kern' comfortable with assigning the novel a Four-Star Rating, and an interest in seeking out the other novels in the series.

Book Review: The Portals

October 2023 is Spooky StORIES MOnth 
at the POrPOR BOOKS BLOG !

Book Review: 'The Portals' by Edward Andrew Mann

2 / 5 Stars

'The Portals' first was published in hardcover in 1974. This Granada / Panther edition (204 pp.) was released in the UK in 1975.

The novel is set in California in the early 1970s. In the opening chapters we are introduced to protagonist Cary Ralston, an attorney whose practice has provided him with a very comfortable lifestyle, including a home in Beverly Hills. On a trip to France, Ralston decides to attend an auction held at the estate of the late aristocrat Henri de Chantille, a man with an interest in archeology and philology. An avid collector of antiquarian books, Ralston bids on, and wins, a box of books from de Chantille's library. When back at his home in the Hills, Ralston pokes through the box, where he finds a massive tome written in a strange language. 

Excited by this discovery, Ralston peruses the book, and realizes that it dates from medieval times (or even earlier) and it may deal with various aspects of magic and the occult, as a previous owner has annotated the text with the words 'Mu', 'Necronomicon', and 'The Philosopher's Stone'.

Ralston arranges for Professor Nelson, an archeologist at the nearby University of California Los Angeles, to examine the book in detail. While Nelson is stymied by the arcane language used in the book, he does see some success by asking physicists and mathematicians to decipher the symbols used in what appear to be equations contained in the text. 

As work progresses on the book, eerie events intrude: Nelson has strange dreams of otherworldly places and entities. Could the book in fact be a 'portal' in the sense of unlocking the human subconscious, and allowing it to experience things from either the distant past, or the far future ?

When a gruesome murder takes place in Los Angeles, and the victim has links to the effort to translate the book, addressing the book's function as a portal becomes even more important. But as Cary Ralston and his colleagues are to discover, there are some Eldritch Secrets that best are left alone.......

Within the first few pages of reading 'The Portals' I began wondering if the book had in fact been written by the UK writer Colin Wilson (1931 - 2013) using the pseudonym 'Edward Andrew Mann'. This is because 'The Portal' is very reminiscent of Wilson's novels 'The Mind Parasites', 'The Philosopher's Stone', and the nonfiction 'The Occult'. There is much of Wilson's approach to prose in 'The Portal', including all manner of esoteric allusions to lost civilizations; the conflict between the Cthulhu Mythos's Elder Gods and Great Old Ones; and the doctrines of Theosophy, ESP, astral projection, and the hidden powers of the human mind, all components of Wilson's philosophy of 'New Existentialism'. Indeed, later in the novel Wilson's term 'Faculty X' is introduced. 

Unfortunately, 'The Portals' fails to do anything exciting with these tropes. Much of the narrative is static in nature, focused on lengthy conversations among the lead characters; it is understood that these conversations impart to the reader the tenets of New Existentialism. As a result, the book tends to present more as a treatise, rather than a novel designed for entertainment. And when in the denouement the 'cosmic horror' stated in the book's cover blurb finally arrives, it is underwhelming.

The verdict ? 'The Portals' seeks, through the vehicle of a science fiction / horror novel, to be a rewarding treatment of Lovecraftian and Wilsonian themes, but never succeeds in capitalizing on those themes in an imaginative or overly engaging way. It's deserving of no more than a Two-Star Rating.

At the library sale, October 2023

 At the library Sale, October 2023

Time once again to make my way to the regional library used book sale, the site where, in the past, I have been to add to my collection of PorPor Books published from the late 1960s to the late 1980s.

The patrons mostly are older people, although there is a considerable presence of families on the weekends, taking advantage of the large number of children's books available. The Dealers were present and accounted for, using their smartphone apps to scan covers and see if a particular tome has a high resell value:

For my part, I was able to find some vintage titles:

I can't say any of them come across as must-reads, but for just a buck or two each, well, why not check them out.

'The Best of Fredric Brown' relies on Old School short and short-short stories, and features a great cover illustration by Richard Corben:

'Menace Under Marswood', with a nice Darrell K. Sweet cover, seems promising, in that I liked Lanier's novels in the 'Hiero Desteen' series.

I'm not sure about this 1972 novel from Dean Koontz, but at 124 pp., it's a light lift. Cover art by Josh Kirby.

I decided to pick up 'The Cingulum' because I thought John Maddox Roberts's novel 'Cestus Dei' was a pretty good read.

I also decided to pick up an old Laser Books title from Gordon Eklund, with a cover by Frank Kelly Freas.

And then there's 'Servants of the Wankh', a vintage Vance title, part of his 'Tschai: Planet of Adventure' series. Back in 1979, when this DAW Books edition was issued, I probably wouldn't have picked it up, but as I've gotten older I've come to appreciate Vance more than I had back in those olden, dim and distant days.

Anyways, a nice way to spend a crisp Autumn afternoon !

Book Review: Squirm

 October 2023 is Spooky StORIES MOnth 
at the PORPOR BOOKS BLOG !

Book Review: 'Squirm' by Richard Curtis

2 / 5 Stars

Squirm was a low-budget, drive-in horror movie from American International Pictures released in the U.S. in 1976. It revolved around a rather contrived sort of ‘monster’, namely, the humble marine worms that live in the sand and sediments of the seashore. These so-called ‘clam worms’ or ‘bloodworms’ are relatives of earthworms, and are (unlike earthworms) carnivorous. They are harvested in great numbers and used as bait for saltwater fishing; you can buy them live and store them in your refrigerator until you go fishing.

This tie-in paperback was published by Sphere books in the U.K. in 1976. At 157 pages, it’s a quick read. I can’t tell if ‘Richard Curtis’ was a pseudonym or not, but the novel is based on the screenplay by Jeff Lieberman.

‘Squirm’ is set in Fly Creek, a coastal Georgia town. As the novel opens, in 1960, we are introduced to an eccentric named Willie Grimes, who earns a living from harvesting clam worms for use as bait. Willie discovers that applying electricity to the soil harboring the worms drives them into a biting, ravenous frenzy. But this can have consequences, as Willie and his son Roger soon find out..........

Fast-forward to the present day (i.e., 1976). Lead character Mick Gordon is on his way to Fly Creek to visit his girlfriend, Geri Sanders. A severe storm has left the highway blocked by debris so Mick has to hoof it into town, where he discovers the electricity is out and the villagers coping through patronage of the local watering hole. Meeting up with Geri and her family, Mick learns that some of the neighbors are missing, including Willie Grimes, who lives next door to the Sanders.

What Mick and Geri don’t know is that the storm knocked down power lines, and those lines are pumping voltage into the ground. Come nightfall, the earth will seethe with thousands of clam worms, intent on finding, and devouring, any human flesh within reach…………. 

‘Squirm’ is a competent enough tie-in novel. The fact that it’s based on a low-budget movie necessarily handicaps what the author can do, plot wise. So, for much of the narrative the worms necessarily remain off-screen, requiring considerable padding to the plot, and thus we get many scenes of people conversing, the odd popup appearance of a clam worm every now and then, and some manufactured domestic drama.

It’s only in the last few chapters that the action ramps up and the worms take center stage. In the film, these sequences happen at night (the better to conceal the contrived special effects), and there is a lot of jump-cutting from close-ups of actual, writhing clam worms, to ranged shots featuring mass quantities of what obviously are rubber worms. I won't disclose any spoilers, save to say that not all of the residents of Fly Creek are going to survive their 'wormy' ordeal come the morning light. 

The verdict ? Only those who are diehard fans of low budget films and the film Squirm are really going to want to seek out this novelization.