I Do the Rock

Tim Curry

1979 

What with all the eulogies and encomiums for the recent passing of UK actor Tim Curry (1946 - 2026), few have referenced his 1979 LP Fearless.

 

I was never a Rocky Horror fan; the Rocky Horror people were at the bottom of the food chain. But I do remember listening to the single from Fearless, 'I Do the Rock,' on WAAL FM radio in my hometown in upstate New York in the summer of 1979. 

 

Along with Mike Nesmith's 'Cruising,' from that same time in that same year, it had an irreverent, quirky, campy quality that made it stand out among the other AOR tunes on the station. Kind of like a more listenable Frank Zappa composition........

 

As for Fearless, well, I can't call it a gem of late 70s rock n roll, but it has a more listenable quality that so much of the stuff out right now on the Spotify Top 40. And there you have it......... 

Book Review: Compulsion by Shaun Hutson

September 2026 is ENGLAND AS IT WAS month at the PorPor Books Blog

  

Book Review: 'Compulsion' by Shaun Hutson

2 / 5 Stars 

‘Compulsion’ was published by Pan Books UK in 2002. At 497 pages it’s a thick chunk of a paperback, but the font is large, and the novel shorter in length than it would seem at first look.

I don’t usually review novels or short stories published after the late 1980s, but with ‘Compulsion’ I was interested to see what Shaun Hutson is doing with his post-horror / Paperbacks from Hell output. I found his 1993 serial killer novel ‘Deadhead’ to be reasonably entertaining, if not particularly imaginative, so let’s see what the case is with ‘Compulsion’……..

The novel is set in Kempston, 30 miles north of London:

With its estates of 1950s houses and flats, it was depressingly similar throughout its length and breadth. There had been the inevitable encroachment of Barrett homes in the early seventies and more modern houses had been erected for those who opted for the millstone of a mortgage. But for the most part, Kempston’s council residents dwelt in the same kind of accommodation their parents had known.

The antagonists are a trio of scummy juvenile delinquents: Carl Thompson, Graham Brown, and Donna Freeman. They lead a small group of juvies who delight in burglary, car theft, vandalism, and the occasional assault with an edged weapon. When not occupied with these pastimes, the juvies like to torture small animals. Brown is guilty of a number of violations carried out at the Howard Road Secondary School, but since he is a child, the School’s administrators are helpless to apply any sort of meaningful discipline.

The protagonists of ‘Compulsion’ are Veronica ‘Ronnie’ Porter, the administrator of Shelby House Residential Home, and its nine aged residents. At Shelby House life is reasonably pleasant, with staff handing out daily meds to the oldsters, while said oldsters are engaged in watching TV, doing crossword puzzles, listening to LPs from past eras, and playing parlor games.

When by chance Carl and Donna have a hot-n-heavy makeout session in the seat of a stolen car, whilst parked near Shelby House, Carl sees the Home and gets an idea: the residents “….must be fucking loaded.”

This observation sets in motion a campaign of terror, instigated by Thompson and his gang, against the tenants of Shelby House.

As the violence escalates the police are singularly ineffectual, as the vandals strike at night and even if identified, are shielded from prosecution due to their age. If Ronnie and the Shelby residents are not to be driven away from their home, they will need to mount a defense. A defense that will rely on payment in kind………

For me, ‘Compulsion’ was a less than engaging read. This mainly is due to the novel’s excessive length, padded as it is with labored exposition on the psychological and emotional states of the characters. As well, Hutson relies on a  clipped prose style; chapters are only three or four pages in length.

And most of the prose is related using a single-sentence diction.

Like this.  

Hutson intended this device to increase the novel’s suspenseful nature.

It might have worked in a short story.

But in a novel, it quickly becomes tedious.

Not until page 435 do the Shelby House oldsters settle on retribution and here Hutson does deliver some impactful splatterpunk. And the novel’s closing chapter ends things on an ambiguous note, one that avoids the traditional moral comforts one usually encounters in crime / suspense novels.

While ‘Compulsion’ has an interesting premise, I feel that dedicated crime / suspense authors (e.g., Max Allan Collins, Joe Lansdale, James Elroy, Ralph Dennis, etc.) could have done better with the premise. When all is said and done, I’m fine with giving ‘Compulsion’ a Two Star Rating.

Book Review: Believe in the Sign by Mark Hodkinson

 September 2026 is ENGLAND AS IT WAS month at the PorPor Books Blog

 

Book Review: 'Believe in the Sign' by Mark Hodkinson

5 / 5 Stars

'Believe in the Sign' (203 pp.) was published by UK's Pomona in 2006. Author Hodkinson is the owner of Pomona and has written a number of fiction and nonfiction books, many dealing with soccer (hereafter referred to by its English moniker, 'football'), and coming of age in the North Country.

'Believe in the Sign' takes its title from the Latin term 'Crede Signo', which is the motto of the Rochdale, UK football club, 'The Dale.' The book is a memoir of Hodkinson's youth, growing up in a Rochdale public housing project called Ashfield Valley:

The round started at Ashfield Valley, an estate made up of three-storey flats running alongside the canal. They were like something turned inside out and its guts put on show - corrugated edges, twisted metal, stones set in concrete. The disaffected were scooped up like cockroaches from all corners of town and let loose in the flats and on the landings: the unemployed, the sick, the single-mothers, the passing-through, the druggies, the dossers, the boozers, the thieves, the down on their luck. Tenants had to lie and say they lived elsewhere to avoid the stigma of Ashfield Valley; stores refused credit otherwise.

[ Notably, in his Acknowledgements, Hodkinson thanks Trevor Hoyle, whose novel 'Rule of Night' (1975) is the Ur-text of any Rochdale Bildungsroman. ]

Hodkinson's family was solidly middle-class and thus Mark was able to attend football matches at Spotland, the dilapidated stadium ('pitch' or 'grounds') of the Rochdale club.

'Believe' chronicles Hodkinson's devotion to The Dale over the interval from the 1974 / 1975 season to the 1979 / 1980 season, mixing accounts of matches, players, coaches, and sports journalists, with life and times in and around the city. Hodkinson's attachment to the club is genuine despite Rochdale's pitiable record in the Association Football Club (AFC); The Dale were regulars in the 'Fourth Tier', a classification given to teams that are not unusually competitive in the world of English football.

'Believe' is an interesting book, mainly in that it avoids the saccharine mindset that so pervades American memoirs of youth and sports, particularly the genre of baseball memoirs ('The Boys of Summer' by Roger Kahn, 'Praying for Gil Hodges' by Thomas Oliphant, and 'Wait Till Next Year' by Doris Kearns Goodwin, for example). Hodkinson doesn't shy from imbuing his memoir with a gritty, clear-eyed sensibility that is rarely present in American memoirs. For Hodkinson, devotion to The Dale was a means of advancement into the world of writing for a living, a rarified profession for a proletarian English boy coming of age in the 1970s.

While there are a few English idioms that went over my head: Stimoral gum, Cherry B (some kind of beverage ?), bobble hat, 'Moggy lad', and 'sent off', overall the narrative was comprehensible to me as an American. With its mix of humor, pathos, and deep down, indeed, Belief, 'Believe in the Sign' is an engaging read and deserving of a Five-Star Rating. 

September 2026 is 'England as it was' month

September 2026 is ENGLAND AS IT WAS month at the PorPor Books Blog

Here at the PorPor Books Blog we like to take a month off from reviewing and archiving sci-fi and fantasy media, and pop culture detritus, from days gone by and instead focus on something a little more off-topic.

For September 2026, we'll be taking a look at the UK as it was in the interval from the 1950s to the first decade of the 21st century. A country that, during that time, went to war in the South Atlantic, that endured economic troubles and social disruptions, but as always, treasured football. 

 

So we'll review books about the UK and its popular culture: football (of course), a novel about some unpleasantness with the younger generation, an American's observations on Albion back in '82 (when the War was on.....along with railway strikes, too !), and Nik Cohn's examination of life in the prole neighborhoods of the UK at the turn of the century.

 

Let's get our copies of the Eagle, some ice lollies, our holiday gear, and set off for Butlins, then !  

Book Review: The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan

Book Review: 'The Great Hunt' by Robert Jordan

4 / 5 Stars

August in Central Virginia means sweltering temperatures and an overabundance of mosquitos, thus, it's as good a time as any to sit indoors with the A/C running and read a lengthy, 714-page novel...........thus, I picked up the second installment in the 'Wheel of Time' franchise.

'The Great Hunt' first was published in November, 1990, by Tor books. It since has been reissued in multiple formats. I read the 'Hunt' volume included in the boxed set (volumes 1 - 3) released in 2019 as a tie-in with the amazon streaming series (airing late in 2021).

As mentioned, 'Hunt' is the second volume in what currently stands as 14 novels in the Wheel of Time franchise. My reviews of the prequel, 'New Spring,' and the first volume in the series, 'The Eye of the World,' are here.

'Hunt' starts off right where 'Eye' ended, with our protagonist (and Frodo Baggins counterpart) Rand al'Thor enjoying a respite from the violent confrontation with the (Sauron counterpart) Dark Lord Ba'alzamon, in the northern region of Randland known as the Blight. Rand and company are housed in the fortress city of Fal Dara, but things don't stay quiet for long, as the head sorceress of Randland (fandom's term for the world of the Wheel), a woman named Amyrlin Seat, has - along with a large retinue - arrived at Fal Dara. 

Amyrlin has come to decide whether Rand is indeed the latest incarnation of a savior-like figure, the 'Great Dragon,' who arises every hundred years or so to combat the machinations of Ba'alzamon, and save the world from tyranny. Complicating the whole Dragon narrative is the fact that past Dragons have tended to cause chaos and destruction, via massive bursts of psychic powers, in the course of their endeavors. 

Rand shrinks from any association with the Dragon, as he feels acknowledging he is the Dragon Reborn will make him a danger not just to his companions, but to the world at large. 

The first one hundred pages of 'Hunt' are rather plodding as author Jordan expends considerable energy reintroducing the large cast of characters and their various personal intrigues, as well as the backstory to the events in 'Eye.' 

Jordon is fond of exposition; for example, the reader is treated to detailed descriptions of the clothing, fabrics, styles, and accessories of the lead characters. There is considerable attention paid to tense conversations and mind games deployed among the fractious cliques of the 'Aes Sendai' sorceress clan. And Rand's constant bouts of self-doubt and apprehension over his fate as the Dragon, reminded me of the tedious psychodramas of the protagonist in the Stephen R. Donaldson 'Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever' fantasy novels...... 

This unnecessary exposition retards the narrative. Indeed, later in the book in the chapter titled 'Practice,' the reader must endure a lengthy passage, involving the female characters Engwe, Nynaeve, Elayne, and Min, that is a kind of slumber party at the School for Sorceresses. Excising these sorts of passages from 'Hunt' would have made the novel shorter and more engaging.  

Anyways, after page 100 the eponymous Hunt gets underway, as the malevolent Padan Fain conspires with the forces of Ba'alzamon to steal the mystical artifact the Horn of Valere, and make for destination(s) unknown. Rand and his comrades set off in pursuit, and this pursuit occupies the main plot thread in the novel. 

 

To me, the most interesting character in 'Hunt' indeed was the villain, Padan Fain. In marked contrast to the dithering Rand, Fain is self-assured and dedicated to his mission: any slights or insults Fain suffers will, he assures himself, be returned to the violating party with interest. While Fain may, for expediency, ally himself with Ba'alzamon, Fain has his own dark ambitions, and thus serves as something of a wild card in the overarching plot of the 'Wheel' franchise.  

As if to compensate for the slow pacing of the first 100 pages, the final 100 pages of 'Hunt' provide considerable action and suspense as Rand and company must deal with an army from across the sea, an army on a mission to ruthlessly conquer Randland in the name of a long-dead legendary hero. The novel ends on a high note that left me interested in proceeding to the next installment in the series, 'The Dragon Reborn.'

As with 'The Eye of the World,' if you're partial to lengthy fantasy novels with intricate world-building, then you likely will find 'The Great Hunt' rewarding. 

Deathlok M-Tech Marvel Comics 1999

Deathlok: M-Tech

1999

Marvel Comics

In 1999 Marvel decided to try and leverage the excitement surrounding cyberpunk by issuing an imprint, called 'M-Tech,' that took existing characters and presented them in a cyberpunk milieu. The three comics in the imprint were Machine Man (re-christened X-51, to try and draw in X-Men fans), Warlock, and Deathlok.

None of the titles sold well enough to survive a year. The M-Tech Deathlok appeared in 11 issues, from September, 1999, to June, 2000.

 

Being a fan of the Deathlok franchise, I am interested in showcasing the good and bad of the M-Tech incarnation of the character to any party who may be wondering if this limited series is any good.

 

[ My previous post on Deathlok's first appearance, in 1974 in 'Astonishing Tales,' is here; an overview of the compilation of that early run of Deathlok is here; Deathlok's 1983 team-up with Captain America is here; an overview of the 1990 Prestige format incarnation is here; and an overview of the 34-issue followup of that incarnation, is here.]

 

The M-Tech version of Deathlok was completely independent of the earlier incarnations, with this Deathlok being a cyborg containing the soul and personality of a deceased SHIELD agent named Jack Truman. 

The Truman Deathlok was intended to be a super-soldier in service of SHIELD, but predictably he was uneasy with any role as a utility man / assassin for the organization. Throughout the 11 issues there is much psychodrama on the part of Truman and his struggle to accept that he is part man, and part machine.

 

The initial issues of the M-Tech character see Truman fighting a rogue SHIELD force and leveling a good chunk of Las Vegas in the process. During this struggle, Truman / Deathlok utilizes a 'Tibetan Mind Trick' to transfer his consciousness into that of a boy named Billy Bailey........?! This idea is fully as lame as it sounds, and after issue 3 the Billy storyline abruptly vanishes. 

The major story arc in the series involves a new supervillain, dubbed the Clown, who is introduced in issue 4, as a hitman whose path eventually crosses that of Jack Truman.

One of the more high-profile guest stars in the series is Nick Fury.

Where the M-Tech Deathlok does well is with the artwork by Leonardo Manco. It has the super-detailed, stylized nature of 1990s comic book art, and is ably colored by Mark Bernardo, with letters by Comicraft.

For two issues, there is fill-in artwork, assigned to Matthew Smith and Eric Canete, with (in my opinion) less than stellar results.........

Casey's writing is the weakness of the M-Tech Deathlok. Aside from the above-mentioned Little Boy Billy Bailey plot device, and the regular references to personal angst and existential despair, the writing has an ad hoc, disjointed quality, as if Casey paid only partial attention to the series. The Clown character is introduced in issue 4 but soon recedes to the background, sharing story beats with the legacy (i.e., 1941) villain the Ringmaster. The rivalry between the two villains get resolved in the final issue, so things are not left dangling as they could be with some book cancellations.

For all of the intent on cyberpunk that underlined the M-Tech imprint, in Deathlok, the cyber aspects are at best an occasional motif, with Deathlok 'jacking in' every now and then to advance a plot point.

Summing up, the 1999 M-Tech edition of Deathlok never really does much with the cyberpunk concept and comes across as something of a missed opportunity. If Marvel's management had stuck with the series for another year, and there had been some concentration in terms of the writing duties, it's possible the series could have done better. But as it stands, it's best recommended to diehard Deathlok fans.

If you're going to investigate the M-Tech version then I recommend purchasing the 456-page 2015 trade paperback, 'Deathlok: Rage Against the Machine,' which not only features the 11 issues of the Deathlok title, but several issues of Cable and Uncanny X-Men that lay out the backstory to the life, death, and 'cyborgization' of Jack Truman. There also is a Kindle edition available.

 

Greatest Science Fiction Hits II

Greatest Science Fiction Hits II
by Neil Norman

GNP / Crescendo Records, 1980

 

Neil Norman had success with his 1979 LP, Greatest Science Fiction Hits, and reasonably enough, a year later he was back with Greatest Science Fiction Hits II.

 

You can listen to the LP here. 

 

Most of the tracks on Hits II are Norman's versions of known film and TV themes; there also are some compositions from Les Baxter, a pioneer of 'space' lounge music. As was the case with Greatest Science Fiction Hits, Norman is good at retaining the sensibility of the original music while giving it a bit of novelty in terms of his own arrangements. Probably the best track on the LP is 'Dr. Who,' with its marching beat and synthesizer melody.

 

As with first LP, Baby Boomers are going to be the main audience for this second of Norman's sci-fi records. It's all about the nostalgia of the way things were 46 years ago, when accessing genre media was a labor of love that required dedication on the part of the fan base......

 

All of Neil Norman's sci-fi recordings are available at the GNP/Crescendo website.

National Lampoon August 1976

National Lampoon

August 1976

August, 1976, and the top single in the land is from Elton John and Kiki Dee (sporting a fine 70s 'shag' hairdo): 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart.' In the second spot is 'You Should Be Dancing' by the Bee Gees, because disco music has the country in its grip - ! At number 7 is a Mellow Seventies classic from England Dan and John Ford Coley. 

 

Some good stuff on the chart, 50 years ago....

The front cover of the August National Lampoon promises lots of illicit thrills - 'Compulsory Summer Sex Issue !,' but the cold reality is that this issue is a dud........ 

 

Advertising-wise, we have a new album from James Taylor, In the Pocket, with the track 'Shower the People' soon to become another anthem of the Mellow Seventies Sound. Jethro Tull, another act that peaked in that decade, has their own new album out: Too Old to Rock n' Roll: Too Young to Die. And there are lots of cool Lampoon tee shirts available, showcasing regulars from the magazine's 'Funny Pages.' Back in '76, a full color tee shirt cost less than $6.50.

In the humor department, well, Lampoon cartoonist Sam Gross does some tasteless, offensive stuff with his portfolio 'Jammin' with Sam.'

Back in the days when singles looking for love and adventure used the Personal Ads in the paper (Tinder had yet to be invented), the Lampoon boys made fun of their own market value....

Also taking aim at the singles scene in New York City is Ellis Weiner's 'Looking for Ms. Goodbod,' a satire of the popular novel 'Looking for Mr. Goodbar' by Judith Rossner. 

Weiner's protagonist is a nerdy but sincere Jewish guy named Ronald Green, who plays the oboe and '....subscribed to the Penthouse Forum.' It's a pretty good piece, but at the same time, I felt Lampoon writer Chris Miller could have taken the premise and done something memorable with it.

The Funny Pages have their usual giggles, but do feature a rare contribution- 'Dementia Americana' - from underground comix legend Jim Osborn.
 

If all else fails, well, the Lampoon and 'Foto Funnies' do come through with some boobies !

So that's pretty much it for our August issue. Hopefully, the issues ahead for the remainder of the year are more rewarding.........?!