Zebra L.P. 1983

Zebra

L.P., March 1983

 

Recently I was looking at the MTV programming list for September 28, 1983, and down the list at number 13, I saw 'Tell Me What You Want,' by the hard-rock, New Orleans → Long Island band Zebra.

 

Zebra !!! I remember them. They had some good tunes, back in the early 1980s. Very much an 'air guitar-friendly' band. They were (and are) a dues-paying band. They formed in 1975 and released their first, eponymous L.P. in March, 1983.

 

I went and ordered the band's debut album, simply titled 'Zebra,' from Discogs, for about $13. Their song 'Tell Me What You Want, off the debut album, still rocks hard, over 40 years since its release. 

The other tracks on Zebra all are well worth listening to. 'Who's Behind the Door' also got significant MTV airplay, and tapped into the sci-fi craze of the era, with its allusions to benevolent aliens watching over mankind.

The band still tours; their 2025 schedule is here.

Book Review: The Rats

Book Review: 'The Rats' by James Herbert

 5 / 5 Stars

 

‘The Rats’ first was published by New English Library in 1974. This 27th printing was issued in 1990 by the New English Library / Hodder and Stoughton.

‘The Rats’ was the first novel by UK writer James Herbert (1943 – 2013) and a foundational novel in the genre that gradually would come to be known as splatterpunk. Herbert would in turn produce two sequels to ‘The Rats’: ‘Lair’ (1979) and ‘Domain’ (1984). A graphic novel, ‘The City,’ released in 1993, is based on the rats franchise but is sub-par.

Herbert, in a 2012 interview with the UK paper The Telegraph, stated that the inspiration for ‘The Rats’ was the segment in Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’ in which Renfield, the insane asylum patient, claims to have seen a small army of red-eyed rats confronting him.

At 189 pages of larger-font type, ‘The Rats’ has a simple plot; in the mid-70s a strange new breed of rat starts issuing from the darker, and danker, places in London’s East End. While rats normally are afraid of humans, these rats are quite vicious, and see humans as prey. Initially confined to the East End, as the plot progresses the rats expand their depredations to the city at large. The burgeoning rat plague is enabled by clumsiness on the part of the authorities, and the threat to the city only grows with the passage of time.

The protagonist of the novel is a school teacher named Harris; having grown up in the East End, his familiarity with the neighborhood proves valuable in efforts to control the rats.

There are several things that ‘The Rats’ does which make it stand out from the horror fiction of the early 70s, and those early days of the 'Paperbacks from Hell.'

First, unlike the majority of horror novels of the time, ‘Rats’ doesn’t use a meandering, prolonged buildup of suspense and anticipation before unveiling its horror content. In the very first pages of ‘Rats,’ the creatures are introduced, and bloodily so. The reader has the menace presented to them right from the get-go. There are no feints, no red herrings, no ambiguous visions, possible spectral phenomena, or Spooky Foreshadowings. Just clawing and scrabbling and biting vermin !

Second, the gore and sex in ‘Rats’ are more explicit and transgressional than in most other horror novels (with perhaps, the exception of ‘The Exorcist’) of the early 70s. In Herbert’s approach, there is no camera fade-out or dolly-back from the attacks of the rats; there instead are detailed descriptions of the mayhem visited upon hapless victims (which include an infant !).

Third, the narrative avoids doling out comfort or optimism. There are would-be heroes, but their efforts are fumbling, hesitant, and never a guarantee of success. What may be victories, may in fact be defeats. This existential, almost nihilistic quality to ‘Rats’ echoes that of the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead, and is foundational to splatterpunk; things will get much, much worse if ever they get better !

I agree with the review of ‘The Rats’ posted to the Too Much Horror Fiction blog: this novel introduces “…a new graphic sensibility in horror fiction.” A copy of this novel belongs on every horror fan’s bookshelf.

Fall 2025 is spooky stories season at the PorPor Books Blog

 

Here at the PorPor Books Blog, we like to celebrate the Halloween season by turning our attention from science fiction and fantasy media, to that of horror and the supernatural. So it is that for the Fall of 2025, we'll be taking a look at anthologies and novels in the horror genre.

 

Stand by for reviews about books about ravenous rats.....demon children.....Autoerotic Asphyxiation Gone Bad (you know you want to hear about that one !).....a UK garbage dump where something is burrowing holes in the ground....Truly, a feast of fear ! Bwaaa-haaa-haaa-haaa ! 

Book Review: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Book Review: 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' by Hunter S. Thompson

2 / 5 Stars

 

Hunter Thompson gained some degree of attention in the media landscape when, in 1967, he published 'Hell's Angels,' a first-person account of his hanging out with (and getting beat up by) the Oakland Hell's Angels motorcycle club. He was able to parlay 'Angels' into articles for mainline publications, such as his January, 1967 piece 'Life Styles: The Cyclist,' for Esquire.

 

But it was his series of articles titled 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,' published in Rolling Stone magazine starting in November of 1971, that turned Thompson into a pop culture icon. Using the pseudonym 'Raoul Duke,' Thompson related a drug-and booze-fueled trip that resonated with the counterculture-affiliated readers of the magazine. Thompson became a pervasive personality, with his writings, and writings about him, occupying considerable space in the public consciousness. 

 

The Las Vegas articles, and the accompanying illustrations by Ralph Steadman, later were compiled into a best-selling book published in 1972. A Warner Books paperback edition was released in December, 1982.

Regarding 'Fear and Loathing,' the story goes that in March 1971, accompanied by Oscar Zeta Acosta (who Thompson refers to as 'my attorney,' in the book), Thompson went to Vegas to cover the Mint 400 motorcycle race held just outside Vegas. Thompson's visit was funded by a $300 advance from Sports Illustrated magazine.

 

Thompson did a cursory appearance at the race (nothing really could be seen of the event, as it's entirely off-road and visually, consists of clouds of dust sprouting in the desert). Sports Illustrated rejected his manuscript, so Thompson and Acosta wound up getting hired by Rolling Stone to return to Vegas in April to cover the National District Attorney's Conference on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. 

 

The Mint 400 and District Attorney's events occupy most of the contents of 'Fear and Loathing,' along with what may, or may not be, true accounts of Thompson's confrontations with law enforcement in the Nevada desert. The prose of 'Fear and Loathing' has a rushed, hallucinatory quality intended to impart to the reader the sort of creative paranoia that was Thompson's stock in trade.

 

It's easy to see why early 70s hipsters took to Thompson. His constant bragging about doing all manner of illicit drugs, his snarky observations of political and social mores, his adoption of an existential, live-wildly-because-you-can-die-at-any-moment ideology, and his relentless promotion of himself as an iconoclast beyond all measure, resonated with the dawning of the 'me' decade. It didn't matter to his fans if some (or almost all) of what happened to Thompson and Acosta in Vegas was fictional or sensationalized, because it was all part of Thompson's carefully composed enfant terrible persona.

 

As the decade progressed, Thompson would use the formatting of his Las Vegas article to launch an entire franchise of 'Fear and Loathing' pieces for Rolling Stone.

 

I can only recommend 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' to Baby Boomers looking for a sip of nostalgia. I can't see it having much attraction for anyone under the age of 60. 

 

However, Hunter S. Thompson yet retains his iconic status in the popular culture; witness his appearance, as 'Jack Hunter,' as an NPC and 'gonzo journalist' in the 2018 video game Fallout 76 (below) !

 

It's hard to think of another personality from 50 years ago who has been immortalized in such a fashion.........

Book Review: The Mind Behind the Eye

Book Review: 'The Mind Behind the Eye' by Joseph Green

4 / 5 Stars

 

'The Mind Behind the Eye' first saw print in the UK in 1971 as 'Gold the Man.' This paperback edition (190 pp.) was the second DAW Book ever published, in April, 1971, and features cover art by Josh Kirby.

Author Green, born in 1931, has had considerable longevity as a writer, publishing novels and short stories up until 2020.

 

'Mind' is a strange little book...........

 

The premise certainly is offbeat: in 1981, Earth comes under attack from a race of aliens known only as the Exterminators. The attack involves dispersal of a biological agent into the atmosphere, and is unsuccessful. Earth wins a minor victory and expels the aliens from their forward landing base on Mars, but over the next 28 years there are successive attacks, each with a new biological agent. It is clear that the Exterminators intend to keep attacking until they find an agent capable of eliminating Homo sapiens from the planet, after which, presumably, they will colonize Earth.

 

Albert Aaron Golderson, aka 'Gold,' stands 6 feet 7 inches tall, weighs 240 lbs, is twenty-eight, a misanthrope, and one of only two super-geniuses on Earth, each genetically engineered to represent a new type of human being: Homo superior. 

 

Gold's Eastern Bloc counterpart is a man named Petrovna. As 'Mind' opens Gold learns that an Exterminator ship has crash-landed on the moon, and its solitary pilot, who has suffered brain damage, recovered from the craft. This pilot (we later learn his name is Soam-A-Tane) is a humanoid being 300 feet tall - ! The Coordinator of Defense, and Petrovna, have a daring plan that represents Earth's best hope for survival: the damaged half of Soam-A-Tane's brain is to be removed and replaced by a computerized 'command and control center,' nestled in the alien's skull and manned by Gold and a dour Slavic woman named Marina. 

 

In a sort of variation of the kaiju theme in Japanese sci-fi, and the 2013 movie Pacific Rim, Gold and Marina will, from their center behind the right eye of the witless Soam-A-Tane, manipulate the autonomic nervous system of the colossal body.

 

The giant is returned to his repaired ship and the ship flown to Mars, where it is emplaced in the landing complex abandoned by the Exterminators. A distress signal is triggered and in due course, the Exterminators travel across interstellar space to retrieve their stricken pilot. Once the pilot arrives on the Exterminator home world, the planet Bragair, Gold and Marine are tasked with spying on their adversaries and, if possible, relaying information to Earth that will aid defense forces in countering Exterminator attacks. 

I won't disclose any spoilers, save to say that as events unfold Gold will learn why the Exterminators are intent on colonizing Earth. If Gold is to save mankind from extinction, he will have to find a way to exploit this information and end the interspecies conflict.

 

"Mind' is arguably a sex novel (!) masquerading as science fiction. Author Green regularly intersperses sexual episodes (or, as he disingenuously labels them, "...the great human joy of sharing") indulged in by Gold in times past and present, into the narrative. Some of these sexcapades, such as one involving a black, teenage prostitute, or one involving the rape of a team member, may have been mildly provocative by the standards of fiction of the early 1970s, but modern-day readers likely will find them transgressive and most Un-Woke. 

 

While inserting sex into narratives was deemed a hip and trendy action in the days of the New Wave movement, what Green provides seems excessive, shading as it does into softcore porn. While such content may have been an effort on Green's part to humanize Gold, I suspect that in truth, the author figured some carnality would be irresistable to an audience of frustrated sci-fi nerds and geeks (let's face it, a commercial strategy that worked very, very well for authors like John Norman.......).

 

In the latter chapters of the novel author Green transitions into hard sci-fi, featuring quasi-pedantic discourses on stellar physics and chemistry. 

 

I finished 'Mind' debating over whether to give it a Three Star or a Four Star Rating, and settled for a Four Star. While the novel can drag at times and the 'erotic' passages came across as more than a little creepy, overall, the book has an imaginative sensibility that leverages the ethos of the New Wave movement, and for this, 'Mind' deserves credit. Readers looking for an eccentric, unconventional science fiction adventure will want to sit down with 'The Mind Behind the Eye.'

Books from Bud Plant

Bud Plant has announced that after 55 years in the comic book and graphic art business, at age 73, he is retiring next year.

 

In the 1970s, Plant played a major role as both wholesaler and retailer in the advent of the direct market (DM), which in turn revolutionized comic book retailing. I remember seeing his catalogs in the 1980s and 1990s, and finding them filled with stuff that was otherwise unavailable back in the era before online ordering. Nowadays his catalogs continue to have items that are of interest to fans of comics and graphic art.

 

Earlier this summer I ordered some items from the Plant catalog:

 

The lead item is a tome by 'Caza,' the pseudonym of Philippe Cazaumayou: 'Arkadi and the Lost Titan.' Published this spring by Humanoids, this is an English-language version of the graphic novel Le Monde d'Arkadi, published in 2024. 

 

The 'Arkadi' comics first were released as nine bande dessinees (Franco-Belgian comics) from 1989 to 2008 by Delcourt. 'Arkadi and the Lost Titan' compiles English-language translations of the nine comics into a very nice hardbound edition.

If you are a fan of comics and graphic art then stopping by the Bud Plant website is recommended, as some items are only going to be available for a limited time, depending on how readily the Plant enterprise is acquired.

Ozark Mountain Daredevils

'Following the Way that I Feel'

This is a gem of folk / country rock, off the 1977 album Don't Look Down. Written and sung by Larry Lee, it showcases the excellent musicianship of the band.

 

There are a number of great tracks on Don't Look Down. The CD is available at the band's website, while the vinyl edition can be had for very affordable prices from online vendors.

Re-read: Icerigger

Re-Read: 'Icerigger' by Alan Dean Foster

3 / 5 Stars

I posted a review of Icerigger (published by Ballantine / Del Rey in 1974) in April of 2012, and gave it a score of Three Stars. Recently I sat down with the novel for a re-read.

 
‘Icerigger’ is about a group of Terrans who crash-land on Tran-Ky-Ky, an ice world peopled by a race of humanoid felines called the ‘tran.’ For protagonist Ethan Fortune and his fellow humans, Tran-Ky-Ky is not a very hospitable place, but luckily, before they die of exposure, the survivors are befriended by tran from the city-state of Sofold. While grateful for the hospitality of the Sofold tran, Fortune learns that trouble is on the horizon: the city-state soon will be confronted by an army of rapacious barbarians known simply as the Horde. 

 

Historically, Sofold has acquiesced to the superior military might of the Horde and allowed the barbarians to sack the city of Wannome, yielding goods and females and the occasional murder, reasoning that it's better to live on your knees than die on your feet. But the young tran warrior Hunnar, a rising actor in Sofold's political landscape, is determined to resist the Horde.

Somewhat reluctantly, the party of Terrans decide to aid the Sofoldians in their do-or-die resistance to the Horde. Not having brought advanced weaponry along with them, it seems the Terrans are limited in their degree of assistance. But assist they must, if ever they hope to return to the Federation…..

In my 2012 review I stated that ‘Icerigger’ is “….a very capable sf adventure novel with ‘old school’ flavor. The icy world of Tran-ky-ky, and its cold-adapted feline race, are interesting creations, and Foster imbues his human and tran characters with varied personalities. Ethan Fortune and Skua September regularly find their wits and improvisational skills taxed by desperate combats and narrow escapes.”  This remains true upon re-read.

The novel does have its awkward moments. Dialogue never is Foster's strong suit, and in 'Icerigger' the reader has to confront these sorts of exchanges:

 

 "Brilliant !" Colette du Kane's voice was as easily deduced in the dark as her shape.

 

"And it will probably be rough," he concluded lamely.

 

"Two Einsteinian deductions in a row. Father, I don't think we've a thing to worry about. Not with a genius of this peasant's caliber along. Next he'll astound us with the knowledge that these two megalocephalic proteinoids mean us no good."

 

But let's be mindful that in 1974, Ballantine science fiction editor Judy-Lynn Del Rey was willing to overlook less than stellar prose in her efforts to promote traditional sci-fi narratives at a time when New Wave contrivances were front and center.

Summing up, upon a re-read 'Icerigger' retains its Three-Star rating and remains a worthwhile entrant in the sci-fi action genre, as it was in the early 1970s. If that's your cup of tea, then having this book on your shelf is recommended.

Book Review: Playboy's Stories of the Sinister and Strange

Book Review: 'Playboy's Stories of the Sinister and Strange' 

 

2 / 5 Stars

'Playboy's Stories of the Sinister and Strange' (217 pp.) was published in 1969, and features cover art by Gilbert Stone.

All of these stories first saw print in Playboy during the 1950s and 1960s. My capsule summaries of each entry:

 

The Mannichon Solution (1967), by Irwin Shaw: Collier Mannichon is a chemist with the Vogel-Paulson Research Laboratory. Burdened with a deeply unsatisfying home life, Mannichon is thrilled to discover a new compound with unusual properties.....a compound that could vault him into the echelons of the company's most estimable (and wealthiest) scientists. But as Mannichon is to learn, morals are in short supply in those echelons. A satirical story, with a twist at the end, from author Shaw.
  

 

The Dark Music (1956), by Charles Beaumont: the prudish Miss Lydia Maple has a fateful encounter in a wooded area adjoining the Gulf Coast.
    

Somewhere Not Far from Here (1965), by Gerald Kersh: soldiers engaged in a combat mission must surmount a daunting array of obstacles. A well-plotted, crisp, 'macho' tale from author Kersh.

 

The Investor (1962), by Bruce Jay Friedman: a man is hospitalized with an ailment related, in some inexplicable way, to the ups and downs of the stock of Plimpton Rocket Fuels. A unremarkable entry from author Friedman.

 

Ripples (1967), by Ray Russell: science fiction, featuring Ancient Astronauts.

 

 

The Dispatcher (1967), by Gerald Green: America finds itself afflicted with a strange plague: officious Army officers and enlisted men are showing up at random places and subjecting every procedure to military oversight. This troubles the first-person narrator, who, during his time in the service, remembers how badly the Sad Sacks messed things up. 

 

This story goes on too long to be entertaining. Plus, by '67, the Baby Boom generation had little affinity, and few if any memories, of the demobilization that accompanied the end of World War Two, making inane the story's messaging. 

Wise Child (1967), by John Wyndham: scientist Donald Solway has made a discovery that can remake the human race. But his wife is unenthusiastic about validating the discovery. This story is slow-moving, but pays off with a clever denouement that calls to mind Roald Dahl. The best entry in the anthology.

 

Welcome to the Monkey House (1968), by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: satire about a near-future USA where, in order to combat overpopulation, the government forces everyone to take anti-libido drugs, dampening ardor and the birth rate. A rebel named Billy the Poet aims to change things. An unremarkable tale from Vonnegut. I thought the pictorial in this January, 1968 issue, featuring actress Stella Stevens, was much more interesting:

Room 312 (1967), by G. L. Tassone: the Hotel Madison in New York City is just another forgettable, low-rent hotel peopled by transients. But clerk Charles Shelton has noticed something very special about room 312..........a funny story, rather than a sinister one.

 

 

The Golden Frog (1963), by Ken W. Purdy: Purdy had a lot of fiction and nonfiction pieces published in Playboy in the 1950s and 1960s, and most of these are not all that memorable. In 'Frog,' a carillon player witnesses something very strange and unusual. This story is too overwritten to be very engaging.

 

 

The Annex (1968), by John D. MacDonald: A labored allegory with a denouement that most readers will see coming well before the story's end. Not one of MacDonald's best efforts.

 

 

Summing up, the only worthwhile entries in 'Playboy's Stories of the Sinister and Strange' are those by Beaumont, Kersh, Russell, and Wyndham. The other 7 entries don't qualify as being sinister and / or strange, being more in the line of the sort of fabulist or fantastical stories that would resonate with fans of R. A. Lafferty and other practitioners of 'speculative fiction.' If that's not your bag, then you can pass on this title.

Heavy Metal magazine 2025

Heavy Metal magazine 2025

So here in 2025, Heavy Metal magazine has undergone another reboot, this time with Marshall Lees as CEO and publisher, and Frank Forte as editor. The initial issue was Kickstarted back in October 2024, and on sale in April. Now the second issue is available.

 

I held back from purchasing issue 1 until I could see what Fred's Heavy Metal Fan Page blog had to say. Fred liked issue 1, so I've gone ahead and added the magazine to my Pulls; not a trivial thing, as each issue costs $15. The magazine currently is scheduled for quarterly publication and each issue certainly is fat, over 230 pages (with essentially no advertising).

 

 

I just picked up issue 2 and it seems to be adhering to the course of issue 1, which is good. 

 

In issue 2 Forte provides an editorial in which he lays out his vision for the magazine. Although I have to roll my eyes at the use of the noun 'erotica' (let's face it, 'tits and ass' would be much much more accurate) I think Forte is heading in the right direction:

 

Those who want to get an idea of what's being published in Heavy Metal 2025 are directed to the post at Fred's blog. If you were disappointed with the much-ballyhooed Grant Morrison incarnation of the magazine, this newest edition of the franchise looks to be more promising, and I'm putting down my money for it.