Book Review: The Warriors of Dawn

Book Review: 'The Warriors of Dawn' by M. A. Foster

2 / 5 Stars

‘The Warriors of Dawn’(278 pp) is DAW Book No. 135, published in January 1975. The cover artwork is by Kelly Freas.

‘Warriors’ is the first book in the ‘ler’ trilogy, with the succeeding titles ‘The Gameplayers of Zan’ (1977) and ‘The Day of the Klesh’ (1979).

Michael Anthony Foster (b. 1939) also wrote the ‘Morphodite’ trilogy and the standalone novel ‘Waves’.

‘Warriors’ centers on two major characters: a young trader named Han Keeling, and a young woman named Liszendir Srith-Karen. The latter is the descendent of a race of genetically-engineered humans called the ler. 

Created centuries ago, as the result of clandestine experiments into the genetic engineering of humans with unusual physical gifts, the ler rebelled against their masters and fled into deep space. Following initial bouts of suspicion and enmity, relations between human and ler have improved, to the point where the two races co-exist, albeit with bewilderment about each other’s racial eccentricities.

As ‘Warriors’ opens, Han Keeling and Liszendir are teamed up for a special undercover assignment: travel to the planet Chalcedon, where, it is rumored, the human and ler population has been subjected to periodic raids by a group of rouge ler. The origin and purpose of the rogue ler is a mystery, but the existence of such a group is so unprecedented, and so alarming, that the Federation is intent on investigating.

Han and Lisezendir embark on the weeks-long journey to Chalcedon, during which they develop an unusual, inter-species romance. Once on Chalcedon, however, things take a turn for the worse, as both find themselves held captive by the leader of the rogue ler - who, as it turns out, call themselves The Warriors of Dawn.

Han Keeling and Liszendir discover that the Warriors are intent on triggering a race war between human and ler, a war that will result in the defeat of the humans and their ler allies, and lead to the ascension into power of the Warriors. Unless the two can free themselves and contact the Federation, the peace between human and ler will be broken, and the resulting war will revive old hatreds and lead to the deaths of millions……..

‘The Warriors of Dawn’ is one of those 70s novels that was inspired by the tremendous success of Frank Herbert’s Dune. It belongs to that sub-genre of sf that deals, in an intricate fashion, with alien sociology, psychology, and language; such books dominated sf publishing in the interval from the late 60s to the late 80s. Examples include The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), the Helliconia trilogy (1982-1985), Courtship Rite (1982), A Door Into Ocean (1986), and The Shore of Women (1986), among others.

In the case of ‘Warriors’, this means that the plot is a perfunctory aspect of the narrative, which is focused on the interaction between Han, the human, and Liszendir, his ‘alien girlfriend’. There is much exposition – which frequently becomes tedious - on various aspects of ler society. Readers will need to prepare themselves for lengthy, didactic passages about ler music, ler religion, ler architecture, ler upbringing and child-rearing, ler language (termed ‘Singlespeech’), ler coutship and mating rituals, ler conflict resolution, etc., etc.

While I found the first half of the book interesting enough despite these expositions, the second half of ‘Warriors’ sees the addition of yet another plot thread , this one involving the ‘klesh’, a race of humans kept in servitude by the rogue ler. This plot thread doubles the book’s sociological and psychological content and made my reading a true chore.

It doesn’t help matters that the author insists on having his non-human characters speak in the sort of stilted, syntax-warping dialogue that is fondly used by sci-fi TV shows and movies. Here’s an example:

I have never done such a thing, never dreamed of it, never tried to set it in the story-block. But he - that thing was trying to kill you, you more than all the rest of us, for you had found it out, and it knew that only you could find its masters. Myself- so what is termination but the end ? Our regrets and pain are short; but to lose you is a price I will not pay.

Summing up, ‘The Warriors of Dawn’ will appeal only to a narrow audience: those with a particular affinity for sociological sf. All others will want to pass.

Dark Horse revives The Rook

Dark Horse Comics revives 'The Rook'

I didn't see this coming: Dark Horse comics this week released the first issue in a reboot of the Warren magazines' quintessential Steampunk hero, 'The Rook'. 

The Rook first appeared in late 1976, in Eerie No. 82 (March 1977 cover date). 

The story goes that in 1976, James Warren thought the time was right to bring back the Western genre, and cowboy heroes, to popular culture. He contacted Bill Dubay, formerly an editor at Warren, and Howard Peretz, an executive at the California toy company Package Play Development, and asked them to create a Western hero (Warren and Peretz apparently wanted to market toys and other collectibles based on the newly created concept).

After some contemplation, Dubay and Peretz came up with a character that combined both Western and sci-fi themes: a time-travelling cowboy called 'The Rook', whose great-great grandfather was an acquaintance of H. G. Wells's Time Traveller, and a chrononaut in his own right. Restin Dane, The Rook, was a young man of the 70s who inherited the time machine of said great-great grandfather, and proceeded to have all sort of adventures through time and space.

[This, of course, was years before the word and concept of 'Steampunk' were coined.]

The first appearance of The Rook drew a high volume of reader mail, and the character became a regular in the pages of Eerie. In 1979 Warren launched The Rook as a standalone title; it ran for 14 issues, until 1982.

In 1985 Harris Comics ('Vampirella') launched a four-issue miniseries, and that's all we've seen of The Rook....until now.

The Dark Horse comic is written by Steven Grant and illustrated by veteran Paul Gulacy. 

How is this first issue ? I have mixed thoughts. Grant's writing has the frenetic, incoherent quality that so defines the point of view of contemporary comic book editors and publishers: too much exposition and external narration are deadly if you're trying to gain the attention of the iPhone Generation. 

There's no effort in this first issue to orient the reader to the background of The Rook; hopefully this will be furnished in successive issues. But for now, at least, anyone lacking prior knowledge of the franchise - meaning practically everyone under the age of 40 - is going to conclude that this is simply a brand-new entry into the Steampunk genre, and yet another new title that will be struggling to compete on the already crowded shelves of the comic book shops.

However, on the plus side, Paul Gulacy's artwork is as impressive as ever, especially when combined with the elaborate software-based color schemes that are commonplace in today's comics, but didn't exist back in the 70s and early 80s. 

At this point, at least, The Rook has a better debut than Dark Horse's disappointing reboots of Creepy and Eerie. I'm willing to pick up the next few issues to see how things play out.

The Thing by Voss

The Thing
by Voss
from the October, 1979 issue of Heavy Metal

Book Review: The Talisman

Book Review: 'The Talisman' by Stephen King and Peter Straub

4 / 5 Stars

The Talisman first was published in hardcover in 1984. This Berkley paperback was released in November, 1985.

I remember reading this paperback in November / December 1985 and finding that The Talisman was a pretty good book. But its length – 770 pp – made picking it up and re-reading it no small decision, one I didn’t make until now.

So, how does The Talisman hold up when re-read thirty years later ? 

The answer is, pretty good, actually. It’s a better novel than most of those that King and Straub have written since the mid-80s…..

As the novel opens, it’s September 15, 1981, and twelve year-old Jack Sawyer is standing on the beach at the resort town of Arcadia Beach, New Hampshire, looking out onto the Atlantic Ocean. His mother, the retired B-Movie actress Lily Cavanaugh, has moved the two of them from their former home in Los Angeles into the nearby Alhambra Inn and Gardens. Lily is unwell, still recovering from the death of her husband – Jack’s father, Phil Sawyer- in a hunting accident.

Lily passes her days in a haze generated by cigarettes and booze, defying the heavy-handed efforts of her husband’s former colleague and business partner, Morgan Sloat, to sign over her share of the business to him.

Troubled and unsure, Jack can only wander the grounds of the off-season resort and hope that his mother’s condition will improve. In a deserted amusement park he meets the local handyman, the elderly 'Speedy' Parker, who hints that a great journey awaits ‘Travelin’ Jack’, a journey that will be marked by no small amount of danger.

According to Speedy, Lily Cavanaugh is very sick– perhaps dying – and saving her life rests on Jack's shoulders. He is tasked with journeying across the entire country to the West Coast of California.....for on the coast, he shall find the Talisman – a magical artifact of great power, an artifact capable of restoring his mother to health.

But the journey to the Talisman will be no conventional road trip. Jack learns that he has the ability to ‘flip’ into an alternate Earth: The Territories, a medieval world where magic and myth co-exist, and his mother’s counterpart – Queen Laura DeLoessian – is seriously ill, and losing her status as ruler of the land.

Morgan Sloat, too, has a counterpart in The Territories: Morgan of Orris, a sadistic tyrant who hopes to usurp the Queen, and turn the world into his own fiefdom. The only obstacle to his ambitions is Jack Sawyer, for unlike Morgan, Jack has the innate ability to unlock the powers held within the Talisman.

As Jack begins his long journey across America, and also across The Territories, he is pursued by Morgan and his minions; the latter include all manner of monsters – some in human form, and some that are not. But they share the same goal: stop Jack Sawyer from gaining the Talisman…….

Despite its length, The Talisman is a reasonably engaging read, one that brings out the best of each author. Although the first 90 or so pages are rather slow going, serving to lay out the backstory and the main characters, after that the narrative gains momentum. Only in the novel's final chapters, with one confrontation after another that goes on too long, does the narrative begin to flag.

What helps The Talisman succeed as a hybrid fantasy / horror novel are the locales and supporting characters Jack Sawyer encounters on his journey West.

An early set of chapters, set in the Western New York town of Oatley, takes the depressing atmosphere of a dying small town and fills it with supernatural threats, in a memorable way that calls to mind William Kennedy doing a horror tale. Anyone who grew up in a small town in Upstate New York will find much to identify with, in this segment of the book.

Then there’s a lengthy interlude involving the Reverend Sunlight Gardner’s Home for Wayward Boys in Indiana; the Reverend is one of the more memorable villains in fantasy / horror literature and this part of The Talisman is also quite engaging.

A section of the book in which Jack (with a plentiful supply of Uzis close at hand) traverses a Badlands filled with monsters, provides some genuinely entertaining action sequences.

Perhaps inevitably for a book of its length,The Talisman isn’t perfect; the less impressive aspects of each author’s writing styles can’t be entirely eliminated.

For King, it’s the inclusion of his stock Magical Negro character, here in the form of Lester ‘Speedy’ Parker, a nameless, blind (of course), elderly black man (of course), blues singer (of course). There also are too many of those mawkish scenes that King specializes in: scenes in which characters look at each other with distraught, tear-stained faces and say ‘I Love You’ before going on to confront whatever evil has been placed in their path.

For Straub, it’s the extended, tedious descriptions of phantasmagorical journeys and encounters – the kind that made the narratives in Ghost Story, Shadowlands, and Floating Dragon (in particular) regularly slow to a crawl - that show up a little too often in The Talisman.

But when all is said and done, The Talisman remains one of the better novels these authors wrote, either alone or in collaboration. It’s well worth picking up, provided you are in the mood for a long read.

(The sequel to The Talisman, 2001’s Black House, is a real disappointment – but that’s another Post for another time………)

Creepy Presents: Alex Toth

Creepy Presents: Alex Toth
New Comic Company / Dark Horse, July 2015

‘Creepy Presents: Alex Toth’ (163 pp) was published in July, 2015 by New Comic Company / Dark Horse.

Alex Toth (1928 – 2006) was a prolific contributor to comic books from DC, Dell, Warren, and Marvel during the interval from the 1950s to the early 80s.

This volume is the sixth in the ‘Creepy Presents’ / ‘Eerie Presents’ series of compilations of Warren characters and / or artists. These volumes are well-made hardbound books, affordably priced.

‘Creepy Presents: Alex Toth’ compiles all the comics Toth did for Creepy and Eerie, from 1965 to 1982. These comics span the horror / sf genre.

In his Forward, Douglas Wolk remarks upon Toth’s approach to graphic art, utilizing a style that can best be described as expressionistic or minimalist, relying heavily on composing his linework around contrasting blocks of black and white – an approach that was arguably well suited for Warren’s magazines. Toth frequently experimented with many aspects of the comic book page, trying out new arrangements of panels, new styles for speech balloons, and portraying characters and their actions in silhouette. 

While it’s true that Toth was quite original in the way he composed his art, it’s also true that he was not as skilled nor as accomplished a draftsman as other Warren artists, such as Bernie Wrightson, Russ Heath, Neil Adams, Paul Neary, Esteban Maroto, Alfredo Alcala, and Gonzalo Mayo. 

For a lot of his Warren pieces, Toth’s work has a rushed, almost crude quality to it, and his use of pop-art and op-art techniques – such as for the story ‘Ensnared !’  – come across as more of an effort to meet deadlines, and move on to the next paying assignment, than very deliberate and crafted efforts to stretch the boundaries of graphic art.

Occasionally Toth was able to produce some memorable artwork equivalent to that of the best comic book art draftsmen, particularly his ‘Gothic’ pieces such as ‘Proof Positive’, ‘The Hacker is Back’, and ‘The Hacker’s Last Stand’.

Summing up, there are other Warren artists who - arguably - deserve their own showcase in the ‘Creepy Presents’ series much more than Toth does. I can’t rate this as a ‘must-have’, unless you are determined to collect all the volumes in the series, or are a diehard fan of Toth’s artwork.

The Possession of Jenny Christopher

The Possession of Jenny Christopher
script by Doug Moench, art by Sonny Trinidad
from The Haunt of Horror (Marvel / Curtis) No. 5, January 1975

Marvel's black and white, horror-themed comic magazines were by and large a mediocre lot. Doug Moench was the [overworked] writer for a lot of these issues during the early- to - mid 70s, and his plots, unsurprisingly, tended to have a perfunctory quality. 

However, every once in a while he would display some offbeat, quirky originality that led to stories that were truly weird - stories that you wouldn't see in the Warren or Skywald magazines.

One such tale is 'The Possession of Jenny Christopher', which appeared in The Haunt of Horror No. 5, which was on stands in the Fall of 1974. At that time the fascination with demonic possession engendered by The Exorcist (1973) was still a major part of pop culture. 

It didn't take long for Blaxploitation cinema to do its own take on The Exorcist, in the form of the 1974 movie Abby, in which a young black woman is possessed by a demon from Nigeria.

It may be that Moench was channeling Abby with 'The Possession of Jenny Christopher', featuring Marvel's 'exorcist' supreme, Gabriel the Devil-Hunter, investigating a case of demonic possession in a black family living in a public housing project in New York City. 

The story has a downbeat, depressing tenor that is reinforced by its opening sequence of the trashed and decrepit confines of the ghetto.

This certainly was an offbeat and unconventional setting for a horror story, but Moench upped the ante with a very politically incorrect depiction of a possessed infant that spews racial vitriol....!

It's hard to imagine any comic at any major publisher getting away with this type of far-out, crazy stuff nowadays......which is why 'The Possession of Jenny Christopher' is a rare gem from the Curtis horror magazine era.