'Suburban Scenes: December' by Caza
from the May 1980 issue of Heavy Metal

Book Review: Snowman

Book Review: 'Snowman' by Norman Bogner

4 / 5 Stars

I remember reading ‘Snowman’ (Dell, February 1978, 221 pp.) when it was first published, and thinking that it was one of the better horror / adventure novels of the mid- to late- 70s. On a par with, if indeed not superior to, more widely promoted books such as ‘The Shining’, ‘The Stand’, ‘The Fury’, and ‘Jaws’.

On a 1966 expedition to Mount Everest, world-renowned climber Dan Bradford, and his Sherpa friend and guide, Pemba, narrowly survived an encounter with the lethal creature known as the Abominable Snowman. But no one believed his tale of a monster that roamed the slopes at the top of the world.

Now it's the late seventies, and in northern California's Sierra Ski Resort, a gruesome murder has taken place. Cathy Parker, the Resort's publicist, must move quickly to stifle news of the killing and avert a public relations disaster that could imperil the financial well-being of the Resort. Parker realizes that the entity behind the murder is not your ordinary serial killer....... and enlists the one man who really knows what kind of creature lurks in the snows of the high range.

Bradford, physically and emotionally scarred by the carnage he had witnessed in the Himalayas, is given the chance he has waited for: to mount an expedition into the Snowman’s lair and destroy the monster. But the hunt won’t be all one-sided: with the risk of avalanche ever-present, Bradford and his team will have to forego firearms and use unconventional weapons. And the Snowman is as smart as he is ferocious…..

‘Snowman’ isn’t a perfect novel; Bogner’s prose gets a bit too adventurous with the thesaurus (using the noun ‘cwm’ or the verb ‘bedizened’ !?). But more than 30 years after its publication ‘Snowman’ holds up as an entertaining read, and fully merits promotion as one of the better horror novels of the late 70s. The Snowman deals death in memorably grisly fashion, and the narrative moves along at requisite speed. The ultimate winner of the Man Vs Snowman contest is never a sure thing, and the novel’s final 30 pages are genuinely suspenseful. 

‘Snowman’ is long out of print, and those copies that are offered for sale have very steep asking prices. But if you come across a copy with a reasonable price tag, it's well worth picking up.

'Heavy Metal' magazine May 1980

'Heavy Metal' magazine May 1980

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The May 1980 issue of Heavy metal magazine featured ‘The Fourteen Year Itch’ by Michael Karnack on its front cover.

The contents included the final installment of Jeronaton’s ‘Champakou’; ‘The Alchemist Supreme’ by Godard and Ribera; ‘Suburban Scenes: December’ by Caza; ‘First Love’ by Perry and Bisette; and ‘Only the Plitch’ by Bilal, among others.

One of the better comics in this issue was another werewolf tale by Corben, ‘The Spirit of the Beast’, which I’ve excerpted here. 

Book Review: Ten Years to Doomsday

Book Review: 'Ten Years to Doomsday' by Chester Anderson and Michael Kurland

2 / 5 Stars

‘Ten Years to Doomsday’ was first published in 1964; this Jove paperback (158 pp) was released in 1977. The cover illustration is well done, but unfortunately the artist is uncredited.

When a Federation ship encounters an alien vessel in deep space, it is fired upon, and forced to destroy the alien ship in self-defense. It turns out that the alien ship is a scout for a vast fleet piloted by a race known as the Migrants, who are devoted to the destruction of everything in their path. The main Migrant fleet is only a decade away from encroaching upon Federation space, and the planet most likely to be the first in the sweep of forthcoming destruction is Lyff- a world where civilization molders at the medieval level.

Three Terran agents are sent to Lyff with daunting instructions: act covertly to provoke Lyffan civilization to advance to a point where it can offer a defense against the oncoming horde. And do it in just ten years.

At first the task assigned to John Harlen, Pindar Smith, and Ansgar Sorenstein seems hopeless: from bow-and-arrows to missiles in just a decade ? But it turns out that the people of Lyff have a remarkable ability to accept and improve upon new technologies, as well as an overarching religion that approves of advancement in all aspects of life. It may be a close call, but when the Migrant fleet enters the space around Lyff, there just might be a fleet in place to greet it…..

‘Ten Years’ is a humorous space opera, something of a parody of (or perhaps an homage to) the writings of Jack Vance. The Lyffans sport names like ‘Tchornyo Gar-Spolnyen Hiirlte’, and descriptions of Lyffan vestments use plenty of Vance-ian adjectives such as ‘vert’, ‘cadmium orange’, and ‘amethyst’.

Back in the mid-60s when it first appeared the story probably got a good reception, since this sort of light-hearted approach to SF was in vogue at the time. It’s a quick read, but there’s nothing in its pages that I can see modern-day readers getting excited over.

The Science in Science Fiction

'The Science in Science Fiction' by Peter Nicholls

Australian author Peter Nicholls wrote several very good books on SF during the late 70s – early 80s: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (with John Clute) in 1979; The Science in Science Fiction in 1983; and The World of Fantastic Films in 1984. All are worth picking up even though they are dated.

The Science in Science Fiction is a large trade paperback with a suitably eye-catching cover illustration by Chris Foss. The book is organized into 12 chapters covering various topics dealt with in SF: ‘Journey into Space’, ‘Aliens’, ‘The Limits of the Possible’, ‘Powers of the Mind’, etc. The book is liberally illustrated with monochrome and full color diagrams, film and television stills, photographs, and illustrations taken from book and magazine covers. The text is written for the layman, rather providing more hardcore exposition; nonetheless more technically trained readers will find information of worth within the pages.

Not surprisingly some of the material is dated, but for many topics – the speed of light, gravity, time travel, etc., which have not seen any major revelations since 1983- the text remains relevant. Nicholls often refers to SF novels and short stories in his discussions of various phenomena, so you may get some leads in terms of looking for good SF of the era.

If you are wandering the aisles of a used bookshop and see a copy of Science it may be worth picking up, if only to see how science and SF were looking at things in the context of the publication date (for example, there is attention paid to Ronald Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ scheme; Uri Geller and his spoon-bending antics; the film Alien; and other science pop culture artifacts of the early 80s).

I've posted some scans of some pages below (while I could not scan the full page for fear of breaking the book's spine, the scans do give a sense of the book's interior).

Killraven: 'Amazing Adventures' No. 28

Killraven: 'Amazing Adventures' No. 28 
(January 1975)

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‘Amazing Adventures featuring War of the Worlds’ No. 28 (January 1975) appeared on newsstands in the late Fall of 1974. 

This issue, ‘The Death Merchant’,  continues the ‘Death Breeders’ storyline started in the previous issue. The script is by Don McGregor and the art and colors by Craig Russel.

With new recruit Volcana (a female version of the Human Torch) in tow, Killraven and his crew make their way to the Martian redoubt of Chicago, where humans are kept as slaves. Any newly birthed offspring are consigned to a gruesome fate: as morsels for Martian palates (!) This was a rather shocking plot device for a CCA – approved comic in 1974.

As with previous issues of ‘Adventures’ only 15 pages are provided for the Killraven story, with a two-page reprint of an old Marvel comic serving as the backup feature. As a result, while Russel’s artwork is reasonably good, McGregor’s script tries to do too much in too few pages, and the plot suffers as a result. The narrative abruptly jumps from page to page without much in the way of transition, and the excessive text boxes and speech balloons littering almost every panel occlude the action.

The letters pages offer some interesting insight into Marvel’s economic and circulation issues as 1974 drew to a close: a Bullpen essay titled ‘War of the Ratings’ reveals that issue 25, ‘The Devil’s Marauder’, sold poorly enough to give the editorial staff pause. ‘Amazing Adventures’ readers are encouraged to write in with their critiques of the series so that the Marvel staff can improve the book and its circulation.

This sort of self-disclosure was quite rare for Marvel books. Unfortunately, the obvious choice for improving the title- increasing the main story's page count back to 20 pages, and hiring more artists to relieve the over-extended staff – seems to have been non-negotiable.

Below are two pages excerpted from the story, depicting some combat between Killraven and his team and the overseers of the Death Breeder facility.

 

Book Review: Technos / A Scatter of Stardust

Book Review: 'Technos' / 'A Scatter of Stardust' by E. C. Tubb

 2 / 5 Stars

‘Technos / A Scatter of Stardust’ is Ace Double No. 79975 (March 1972). The cover artist(s) are uncredited.

‘Technos’ is another installment in British author Edwin Charles Tubb’s ‘Dumarest of Terra’ series which, as of 2008, had reached 33 volumes. 

In this adventure Earl Dumarest, in quest as always for information about Terra, his birthplace, travels to the planet of Technos and its eponymous city-state. Technos is police state ruled by a paranoid  character named Leon Vargas, who shares power with a scheming, morally decayed group of councilors. It’s not too long after his arrival on Technos that Dumarest begins clashing with the authorities, but his resourceful ways attract the attention of councilor Mada Grist, who offers Dumarest passage off-planet…...in exchange for a minor act of assassination…...

As with the other entries in the ‘Dumarest’ series, ‘Technos’ is a competent, if not remarkably original, space-opera. Fans and followers of the series may want to have it in their collection.

‘A Scatter of Stardust’, the other half of the Double, is a collection of 8 of Tubb’s short stories, published from 1955 – 1966 in magazines such as New Worlds and Science Fantasy.

‘The Bells of Acheron’ deals with a forest of unique crystals located on the planet Acheron; the prospect of visiting the forest has the first-person narrator in a melancholy mood. With its rather florid prose, and emphasis on emotional responses to otherworldly spectacles, the story is very much of a pastiche of a Ray Bradbury tale.

‘Anne’ deals with the distraught survivor of a space battle.

‘Return Visit’ is a deal-with-the-devil story, in this case, the devil being a demon from another dimension; the human who has summoned the demon may be a little too cocky for his own good.

‘The Shrine’ is another Bradbury -inspired tale; in the far future, scattered Terrans come together for spiritual sustenance on a remote planet.

‘Survival Demands’ is about a telepath who knows too much about alien civilizations.

‘Little Girl Lost’ sees a young man obliged to befriend a scientist suffering from a dangerous delusion.

‘The Eyes of Silence’ deals with enforced isolation, and one man’s strategy for avoiding insanity.

In ‘Enchanter’s Encounter’ an arrogant psychologist confronts a would-be urban wizard; there is a clash between science and magic.

All in all, Tubb’s stories are competent, and were deemed perfectly acceptable for the era in which they saw publication. However, they make clear the rather staid, even insipid, character of SF short fiction in the years just prior to the advent of the New Wave movement. It may have been that Tubb was willing to write material with a more edgy tenor, but the editorial restrictions of the magazines of the late 50s and early 60s may have made selling such tales difficult, if not impossible.