Solar Wind by Peter Jones

Solar Wind
by Peter Jones
Paper Tiger (UK) 1980

Peter Jones was born in London in 1951 and began illustrating sf paperbacks in 1974, while he was a student at St Martin's School of Art in that city. He quickly became one of the most successful illustrators of UK sf and fantasy books during the 70s and 80s; today he does a variety of commercial and studio art works under the rubric of his company 'Solar Wind'.

clockwise from the upper left: Scenaptic Manhunt, Dark Twin,The Warlock in Spite of Himself, The Chalk Giants 

Solar Wind, the book, is a collection of Jones's sf and fantasy artwork published during the interval 1974 - 1980. While the majority of Jones's commissions were for UK-based publishers like Granda, Futura, and Sphere, some of his works are going to be recognized by US readers, particularly those repurposed as cover illustrations for classic early issues of Heavy Metal magazine.

The Second Experiment

Jones's artwork during the 70s had a more consciously 'artistic' sensibility as compared to some of the other artists also providing book covers at the time, such as Chris Foss. 

Jones tended to avoid a hard-edged, representational approach of Foss's compositions, and instead relied on depicting the spaceman, swordsman, serving-wench, or spaceship in a more metaphorical, figurative style.

Inferno

The Fabulous Riverboat

The Robert E. Howard Omnibus: 'Kidnapped'

If you were a sf and fantasy fan during the 70s, then it's highly likely that you'll be familiar with the works for which Peter Jones painted book covers. But there are certainly going to be some titles that are new, and seeing Jones's artwork may lead you to investigate reading them.  

A World Out of Time (top); Infinite Dreams (bottom)

So for that reason, as well as for those who simply appreciate great sf art, picking up a copy of 'Solar Wind' is well worth the effort. Both hardbound and softbound copies in good condition can be had for very reasonable prices, and as with all Paper Tiger / Dragon's Dream art titles, the reproductions are of good quality.

The Venus Trap (Perry Rhodan)

clockwise from the upper left: Buy Jupiter, Nightwatch, Today We Choose Faces, The Best of Robert 'E' Silverberg

The Wizard of Anharite

To Here and the Easel

The Neural Atrocity

New Eden

Altered States advertisement

Altered States
magazine advertisement, 1981

Book Review: Armor

Book Review: 'Armor' by John Steakley

2 / 5 Stars

‘Armor’ (426 pp) was published in December, 1984 as DAW Book No. 605, with cover art by James Gurney.

At the time, the genre of military sf was just beginning to take shape and was hardly the highly successful sub-genre it is today. Indeed, prior to ‘Armor’, the only military sf novels in existence were (arguably) ‘Starship Troopers’ and ‘The Forever War’.

‘Armor’ sold extremely well, going through 44 printings at last count, and remains one of the best-selling entries of the entire DAW catalog.

Despite its status as one of the foundational novels for the modern military sf genre, it’s actually a very mediocre book..........

For all practical purposes, the novel can be divided into thirds.

In the first third, we are introduced to G. Felix, a seeming everyman who is recruited as a Scout in the interstellar war between the Federation and the insect-like ‘Ants’. Every foot soldier is issued one form or another of the eponymous armor, a high-tech battle suit that protects the wearer from all but the most lethal of attacks.

Felix is teleported (‘Dropped’) onto the planet Banshee as part of the Federation’s first assault on an ant homeworld. The high hopes for a Federation victory soon are dashed by the realization that the ants, which are 8 feet tall and protected by a strong exoskeleton, attack in relentless waves, straight out of the 1997 movie Starship Troopers. As Federation casualties mount, it is Felix who emerges as an effective warrior, due in part to his ability to involuntarily enter into a kind of depersonalized, fugue state that makes him temporarily fearless.

The book then embarks on its second segment, which shifts its focus entirely away from Felix, and onto the first-person adventures of one Jack Crow, a notorious interstellar pirate. This shift is so abrupt and awkwardly managed – it’s utterly devoid of any attempt to give the reader any sort of framing exposition - that it leads me to believe that author Steakley may have decided, in the writing of the book, to take another, unpublished manuscript he was working on, and to graft it onto the ‘Felix’ narrative.

The second segment relates how Jack Crow, fleeing a certain death sentence in a harsh alien prison, takes refuge on the remote planet of Sanction, whose less fortunate inhabitants dwell in the single slum village of Sanction City. The luckier residents of Sanction are workers at the top-secret Federation research station located a short distance from the City.

Relying on his notoriety and personal charm, Crow befriends the research station director and most of his staff, and soon becomes involved in an unusual project, one that is tangentially involved with the armor worn by Felix.

The third segment returns to Felix, who has attained legendary status for his ability to survive Drop after Drop onto Banshee. As this third segment opens, Felix makes yet another Drop, this time as part of a special operation to erect an impregnable fortress, one that will attrit the Ants into oblivion by sheer firepower. But as formidable as the base’s firepower is, Felix can’t help feeling that something, somewhere has been overlooked…..

This segment also features some awkwardly managed revelations about who Felix is, and how he came to be enrolled in the Federation army.

In the closing chapters, the two storylines – Felix and Jack Crow – come together, albeit in a contrived way. The book ends on a note of ambiguity.

Author Steakley’s prose style is the major weakness to ‘Armor’. It relies heavily on lengthy conversations that are written in what can only be termed a ‘wooden’ style. 

Then there are copious internal monologues that are intended to provide the reader with Deep Insight into the post-traumatic stress that wracks both Felix, and later, Jack Crow. These monologues are overwrought, crammed with stilted prose, and burden, rather than support, the narrative.

While the combat scenes, when they do take place, are reasonably exciting, the fact is, the narrative in ‘Armor’ is meant to serve as a platform upon which author Steakley endeavors to demonstrate that his book is not a War Novel, but rather, a profound examination of the effects of modern combat on the human psyche…..

My verdict ? ‘Armor’ gained a lot of its commercial success from being in the right time, at the right place, when publishing was just beginning to embrace the military SF genre. In the years since its release, more deserving military sf novels have been published (Christopher Rowley’s The Vang trilogy comes readily to mind) than ‘Armor’.

Showcase Presents: Doc Savage

Showcase Presents: Doc Savage
DC Comics, 2011

Doc Savage has been bouncing around the comic book scene since the 1940s, in the hands of publishers such as Gold Key / Western, Marvel, Millenium, Dark Horse, and DC. 

[Starting in December, 2013, Dynamite Entertainment - the comics company perhaps best known for its Deja Thoris, Red Sonja, and Vampirella ultra-cheesecake comics - was the latest owner of the comic book rights to the franchise, and has released color comics with writing by Chris Roberson and artwork by Bilquis Evely.]

Probably the best of all of these Doc Savage comic book incarnations are the eight issues Marvel released in 1975 - 1977 in black and white, magazine-size format, under its Curtis Circulation imprint.

These first of these issues of `Doc Savage' debuted in the Summer of 1975 as part of a tie-in with the movie. The movie of course bombed awfully, permanently scarring many Savage fans even unto the present day. Nonetheless, Stan Lee and Archie Goodwin kept the magazine going for seven more issues, into 1977.

Demonstrating the sometimes esoteric nature of licensing legalities, in 2011 DC - who owned the comic book rights to the franchise - compiled all the Curtis issues into this Showcase volume. 

Needless to say the words `Curtis' or `Marvel' are not mentioned anywhere at all in this book, not even within the ISBN credits. Indeed, unless buyers know the history of the Doc Savage comics, they would be correct in presuming that all the material in this volume originated with DC....

What you do get in this Showcase volume are 450 pages containing all eight of the Curtis issues, including the cover art and pinups. [The other, non-comic art features that appeared in the magazines are not included, however].

Note that these comics were all originally printed in black and white, and they reproduce very well here (even though the book uses the cheaper grade of `phone book' quality paper).

Although the Curtis comics were technically magazines, and therefore exempt from adhering to the Comics Code, writer Doug Moench wasn't too adventurous with the series. His plots mimic those of the Lester Dent novels, featuring evil villains equipped with superweapons; damsels in distress; journeys to lost cities; jungles filled with giant insects and dinosaurs; etc. The Fabulous Five are active participants in all of the action, rather than being relegated to sidekicks making occasional appearances (Monk even starred in his own brief solo series !).

It's the artwork, by John Buscema, Tony DeZuniga, Val Mayerik, and later Ernie Chan, that makes this volume well worth getting, as it remains among the best the franchise has seen, and among the best Marvel issued in the 70s in its magazine format.

If you are a fan of 70s comic books, Doc Savage, or just well-illustrated comics, period, then getting a copy of this 'Showcase Presents' volume is necessary. Copies in 'very fine' condition can be had for $20 or less, but I expect that the longer the volume stays out of print, the higher the prices will go, so it may be best to act quickly...... 

Bats by Doug Moench, Paul Gulacy, and Duffy Vohland

Bats
by Doug Moench (script) and Paul Gulacy and Duffy Vohland (art)
from Vampire Tales (Marvel / Curtis), issue 7, October 1974

Entirely wordless, these kinds of comics look like they're easy to pull off, when in fact they are heavily reliant on the skill of the artist......and this comic does a great deal with its seven pages, thanks primarily to some great illustration by Paul Gulacy and Duffy Vohland.

Also of interest in this issue, a review of four Pinnacle / Zebra paperbacks from long, long ago....I have never heard of any of these. 

But then again, if they were representative of the typical Zebra horror novel, I'm probably not missing much.....

Anyways, here is 'Bats'.....

Book Review: The Last Gasp

Book Review: 'The Last Gasp' by Trevor Hoyle

3 / 5 Stars

‘The Last Gasp’ first was published in 1983; the Crown / Doubleday hardback (top) features a striking cover by Michael Booth.

The Zebra Books mass market paperback edition (above) was published in March, 1985 (the cover artist is unknown). Zebra Books was at that time a major publisher of the ‘Men’s Adventure’ novel genre (think ‘The Survivalist’, ‘The Warlord’, ‘Depth Force’, etc.) and so the publisher marketed this book to that audience, rather than to an sf readership........such are the vagaries of international publishing and marketing.

Trevor Hoyle (b. 1940) was the pseudonym of the UK writer Trevor Smith, who published a number of standalone, and series (‘Blakes 7’, ‘The Q Trilogy’), sf novels in the 1970s and 1980s. He since has moved away from sf to focus on publishing novels that examine the darker side of the social order, and working-class life, in northern England.

‘Gasp’ opens in 1990 in Antarctica, at Halley Bay Station, where a young marine biologist named Gavin Chase is attending to some instruments. Chase is astonished to see a snow sled approach the station; on the sled lies a man, incoherent and near death from exposure. Chase brings the man into the station, where he is attended to by the medical team. When the man revives, Chase cannot converse with him, as the man speaks only Russian; however, before the man is evacuated, he scribbles a chemical reaction equation (describing the dissolution of carbon dioxide in seawater) onto a page of a notebook. Chase is mystified by the meaning of this act….what, exactly, have the Russians been researching at their outpost in the Antarctic ?

In the equatorial waters of the Pacific, marine biologist Theo Detrick finishes his latest measurements of phytoplankton populations in the warm salt water offshore of Canton Island in the Phoenix Island atoll. He finds the results disturbing, too disturbing to ignore: the population of the phytoplankton has steadily been decreasing. This portends disaster, for the phytoplankton are responsible for supplying most of the oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere………

Elsewhere in the Pacific, the research ship Melville is deploying a trawling net to sample the tiny flora and fauna lying just two meters under the surface of the water. Cheryl Detrick – Theo Detrick’s daughter – is astonished when the sampling net is submerged beneath an enormous field of red algae – a sign that the ocean ecosystem is being subjected to degradation…….

In Washington, DC, General George Nelson Wolfe and Lieutenant Lloyd Madden are heading a 'black ops' clandestine program, one conducted in partnership with the JEG chemical corporation. The program’s goal: develop potent new formulations for mass delivery of herbicides, including the highly toxic compound TCDD (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo para-dioxin). The purpose: to wage environmental warfare against the Soviets……..

As the later years of the 20th century unfold, all of these events will coalesce and bring about the greatest Eco-disaster in the history of the earth: the decline of oxygen in the atmosphere, and the gradual asphyxiation of every higher organism on the planet. Unless Gavin Chase and a small group of visionary scientists can alert the world to the coming catastrophe, all of Mankind inevitably will be taking its last gasp of breathable air………

With ‘Gasp’, author Hoyle is clearly trying to write the type of straightforward, didactic type of science fiction novel that Michael Crichton routinely produced in the 70s and 80s. This is not a bad thing; however, at 590 pp in length, ‘Gasp’ ultimately suffers from being too long and too unfocused. 

The myriad sub-plots and sub-sub-plots involve all manner of tropes taken from the thriller genre, including crazed, homicidal end-of-the-world Cultists; megalomaniacal military officers, who are happy to destroy the earth’s ecology if it means eliminating the Commies; greedy CEOs who are comfortable with carelessly peddling toxic chemicals for profit; super-computers at government installations whose data analysis points unerringly to the Coming of Doom; and a dwindling band of heroic and selfless scientists, who face a seemingly futile battle to alert the Powers That Be that time is running out.

What with the continual insertion of these sub-plots, the main narrative winds up becoming so diluted that most of the novel simply lurches along from one episode to another. 

In the final 100 pages author Hoyle finally seems realize that it’s time to restore some immediacy to the main plot, and does so with some entertaining – if contrived – mutant- and monster- action that would be right at home in the Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas video games. But after the meandering tenor of the novel’s first 490 pages, it’s a case of too little, too late to really enable ‘The Last Gasp’ to be a classic entry in the Eco-disaster sf genre.

What you’re left with is a book that requires considerable patience to negotiate…..but if you are a dedicated fan of the Eco-disaster genre, then this one may be worth tackling.

The Bus

'The Bus' by Paul Kirchner

The Hacker Files issue 2

The Hacker Files
by Lewis Shiner (story) and Tom Sutton (art)
issue 2
DC Comics, September 1992

In episode two of 'Soft War', we learn a bit more about why Jack Marshall so dislikes corporate types, and those from Digitronix, in particular. We also meet the members of the hacker collective that support's Marshall's efforts.....and the crisis taking place in the Pentagon's network takes a turn for the worse......

In the absence of any letters yet, Lewis Shiner devotes the letters column to an informative, 'I Was There' rundown of the history of cyberpunk....definitely worth reading !