Showing posts with label Piers Anthony. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Piers Anthony. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Total Recall


Total Recall, by Piers Anthony
June, 1990  Avon Books
(original hardcover edition 1989)

While it didn’t make much of an impression on me when it was released, Total Recall has gone on to become one of my favorite Schwarzenegger movies, second only to Commando. In hindsight one can see it as the apotheosis of ‘80s action movies: a big budget, the biggest action star of the decade, gory violence, one-liners aplenty, good special effects, an incredibly dark sense of humor, and a positively hard R rating. After this Schwarzenegger and Stallone and the other ‘80s action stars went for a “kinder, gentler” approach in the ‘90s, so in many ways Total Recall was the end of an era, even though it didn’t seem like it at the time. 

I was 15 when it came out in the summer of 1990, but I didn’t see it then – either the commercials didn’t do much for me or I couldn’t get an adult or guardian to take me. It feels like a million years ago that Hollywood would churn out mega-budget flicks that were 90% targeted toward teens, but put an R rating on them, thus blocking out that target audience. I finally saw the movie on VHS shortly after it was released in that format, over at a friend’s house, but I recall not being able to get into the movie at all. In fact I had this eccentric friend – it was a group of us watching the movie, I remember – and at the climax he said, “I think this is the part where we’re supposed to be on the edge of our seats,” and then literally jumped onto the edge of his seat. Super stupid I know, but not only is this an example of this kid’s eccentricity (I think he went on to become an airline pilot), but it’s just something that’s stuck with me over all these years, despite how super stupid it was. 

Somehow my opinion changed over the years, watching the movie on TV or laserdisc…I had another weird/eccentric friend (I’ve had a bunch of them, honestly), and this one who was a major movie fan, particularly anything with Schwarzenegger or with copious gore. So as you can expect, he was in seventh heaven with Total Recall. He was really into laserdiscs and I seem to “recall” I watched the movie again in that format some years later and realized how good it was. In retrospect, it’s the action movie Terminator 2 should have been; while T2 was a massive hit, in hindsight you could see it as where Arnold’s movies would be headed in the ‘90s – softer, less darkly humorous, less violent. Total Recall is the complete opposite, and in fact it’s a smarter movie than Terminator 2, and smarter than most action movies, given its multiple layers. 

Everyone who enjoys Total Recall likes to engage in the “did it happen or didn’t it?” game, or even wonder if the entire thing was just a dream. There will never be a correct answer to this, as Paul Verhoeven pointedly directed each and every scene with “both realities” in mind. So you could just as easily argue that the movie is on the level as you could that it’s all a delusion, a “schizoid embolism” that gets out of control until the hero is lobotimized at film’s end (ie the flash of white before the credits). Or you could argue the entire movie is just a dream, given that it opens and closes with a dream – the last line even a winking reference to this: “Kiss me quick before you wake up.” But then, I’ve found that it’s just as easy to take the movie at face value, that it’s all really happening to Douglas Quaid, a mild-mannered (but herculean-sized) blue collar worker who finds out he’s a secret agent with an erased mind who holds the key to a planet’s survival. 

This I think is just one of the many things that makes Total Recall so entertaining. And the gore, action, occasional nudity, and super-dark humor doesn’t hurt. (“See you at the party, Richter!” is still my all-time favorite Arnold line, and it pops in my head at random intervals.) But it would be difficult to carry this “is it a dream or is it reality” vibe in a novel, and truth be told Piers Anthony seems for the most part to treat everything on the level in this tie-in, first published in hardcover in 1989 and then in softcover when the movie came out. Given that his book was published a year before the film was released, Anthony most likely was working from an earlier draft of the film; most notably, the protagonist is named “Douglas Quail” in the hardcover, but this has been changed to “Douglas Quaid” in the paperback to reflect the movie. (The Avon editors did a good job of changing almost all the “Quails” to “Quaids” in the paperback, but they did miss one – on page 58.) 

Quail was the name of the protagonist in Philip K. Dick’s story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” which “inspired” Total Recall. Verhoeven I believe is the one who changed it to “Quaid,” which is a more fitting name for a Schwarzenegger character. The script had been in development hell for some years, with a tide of writers, directors, and actors becoming involved with it, making changes, and then jumping ship. Once production began someone must’ve thought it would make sense for this new story, which was wildly different from Dick’s original (I was going to write “the original Dick,” but thought it would sound too sophmoric), to receive its own novelization. Piers Anthony somehow got the gig, and as mentioned this one even received a hardcover edition, meaning it received appropriate industry coverage in 1989 – even a review in Kirkus

I’ve never read any of Piers Anthony’s sci-fi, but I have read his Jason Striker series, and his Total Recall novelization is of the same caliber: a fast-moving plot with good description, but an occasional tendency to overexplain things, either through exposition or authorial lecturing, plus an inordinate fondness for goofy puns and malapropisms. The lecturing especially tends to make the story come off as a bit too stuffy and ponderous at times. To be fair to Anthony, he had his work cut out for him, trying to make sense out of this film; it’s my understanding that the third act of Total Recall was the most problematic in the development stage, and Anthony does his best to give more depth and explanation to what’s going on. Indeed, he works in a galactic threat in the finale; Mars and the rest of the solar system will be wiped out if Quaid doesn’t prevail. There’s also an entire storyline about the aliens who lived on Mars eons ago. But then again, perhaps this material was in the script Anthony was working from – it’s also my understanding that a lot was cut from Total Recall for budgetary reasons. 

If you have seen the movie, the book really isn’t all that different. In fact it’s a classic example of what a tie-in should be: it tells pretty much the exact same story as the film, only with minor changes, and also fleshes out the characters and the world a bit more. The question here though is how much of this extra stuff is Anthony’s imagination or stuff that was never filmed. For example, one of his most notable changes blows the most memorable moment in the film – a moment which was blown in the trailers, too. I am of course talking about the heavyset woman disguise Quaid wears when he enters Mars, which goes haywire and keeps saying “Two weeks.” The audience is just as surprised as the people in Mars in the film, but in the novel we already know Quaid’s in the costume; but then, in the novel we’ve also seen his trip to Mars, which we didn’t see in the film. 

And also to his credit, Anthony does cater at times to the idea that this is all a dream; Quaid, even though on the run, constantly questions things and wonders over how bizarre everything has become. But unfortunately in many cases Anthony will then go out of his way to over explain what’s happened, or why it’s happened, or how it could have happened; this is why I say he mostly treats the story on the level, as he seems to be at pains to work out every little detail and make it fit. Of course in dreams (or schizoid embolisms, I assume) things don’t always fit, so what could be seen as gaping plot holes in the film (ie changing an entire planet’s atmosphere in minutes) could also be seen as just the usual random events of a dream. Even here though Anthony will over-explain how indeed an atmosphere could change so quickly, so the book would be beneficial for those who do take the film at face value but want to understand how all of it could have really happened. 

The novelization also world-builds more than the film does. We’re not told what year all this is occuring, but we are told that the solar system has been colonized, and the 1980s are now considered “ancient” history. Interplanetary travel is common, and technology is so good that you can have real-time videophone conversations between Earth and Mars. We’re also told of things like “Venusian wine” and glasses that are cut from perfect crystals grown in zero-g. Anthony also finds the time to work some left-wing sermonizing into the text; we’re lectured on how gas-guzzling cars were finally banned (even though the government didn’t want to!), and it was about time because they were destroying the atmosphere and such. Indeed, getting rid of them allowed the ozone layer to “finally repair itself.” That one really took me back; I’d completely forgotten about the ozone layer panic, which was the early ‘90s version of climate change. Actually the world of Total Recall is the one we’re rapidly heading toward: a vaguely-socialist overpopulated hellhole of crime and poverty, ruled over by mega-corporations that are outside of the law. 

I’ve gone this far and haven’t mentioned the tone Piers Anthony uses throughout Total Recall. Just as the film was for the most part aimed like a heat-seeker for a young male audience, so too is Anthony’s novel. I hate to use modern progressive terms, I mean they’re just such passive-aggressive bullshit, but folks the “male gaze” is strong as hell in this book. And in fact, the only way we’re going to win this culture war is to appropriate the other side’s words, sort of like how us Americans supposedly took the insult “yankee doodle” from the damned British and wore it as a badge of honor. So yes, the male gaze runs rampant throughout Total Recall. We are told of the breasts and appearances of every female character we meet, with even ruminations on what their sex lives must be like. Mind you, this isn’t a complaint; I loved the unbridled testosterone of it all. I mean here’s just one example – a notable example, though. Here’s Quaid in bed with his wife Lori (Sharon Stone) at the beginning of the novel:


This my friends is an author who knows his readership is made up of similarly-horny men. Lori’s “impressive architecture” will be mentioned throughout the novel, even in sequences where she’s not even around. Here we have the novel’s sole sex scene, as Quaid and Lori enjoy a little roll in the hay before Quaid heads off for work. I found it difficult to imagine Schwarzenegger in such a scene, so it’s just as well there’s no more such material in the book; I recall reading years ago that his character was supposed to kiss Vanessa Williams in Eraser (1996), but this was cut, because per Williams it just “didn’t work:” 


Quaid’s still so turned on by his hotstuff wife that he almost considers round two, but knows he’ll be late for work. Here we have a bit more world-building than in the film: we’re informed that Quaid and Lori have been married for eight years, and she’s well above him in the social strata, a daughter of wealth who for inexplicable reasons fell in love with meathead Quaid. He assumes it’s because she was turned on by his muscles! And as you can see by the mention of the “dream woman” in the excerpt above, the novelization follows the film; Quaid has just awoken from a dream of Mars, in which he explored a structure with some beautiful, brunette woman (whose bust, we’ll eventually learn, is “fuller” than Lori’s!), and then he was separated from her and fell into a chasm. 

And indeed, the book just goes on to follow the film as faithfully. Quaid seeing the Rekall commercial on the crowded subway to work, going there himself, and freaking out before the implant can happen. From there the novel, just as the film, turns into an extended chase sequence, with Quaid’s former work friends the first who show up and try to kill him. Here we see one of the biggest differences between the film and Anthony’s novelization: the book lacks the ultra-gore of the film. While there is a lot of violence and killing, Anthony does not dwell on the sprays of gore and whatnot; the action scenes are more nondescript, along the lines of “Quaid shot down two of them.” In that regard, it would’ve taken someone like David Alexander to write a Total Recall tie-in that matched the ultra gore of Verhoeven’s film. 

But even here Anthony is at pains to explain things that the film doesn’t; Quaid is such a bad-ass, able to kill three men with his bare hands in a few seconds, because of his “hidden, alternate self.” Throughout we will learn that this “alternate self” will come to Quaid’s rescue when his survival instincts kick in gear, even imbuing him with a sixth sense at times. Ultimately this will of course turn out to be “Hauser,” the “real” Quaid, same as in the film. Anthony even explains around this: near novel’s end we’ll learn that Quaid’s full name is Douglas Quaid Hauser! I don’t believe this was stated in the film. Again, maybe it was in the script Anthony worked from. It’s just another example of his striving to make everything “make sense” in the book…otherwise the reader might question where the name “Quaid” came from, if “Hauser” was the guy’s original name. But this too comes off as clumsy, as why would all of Hauser’s old colleagues keep referring to him as “Quaid,” even when the cat’s out of the bag and Quaid is aware he’s nothing more than a “personality construct?” 

The trip to Rekall is another fun demonstration of the male gaze at work. First there’s the receptionist, who same as in the film is changing the color of her fingernails with a stylus, but unlike in the film she’s also topless: 


You’ve gotta love how Quaid instantly decides Lori will need to get a similar top! Quaid is not only much more introspective in the novel, he’s also more horny. Earlier, when getting on the subway, we had a bit where he hoped that the X-ray machine would go haywire and he'd instead see the nude bodies of the women boarding, instead of their skeletons. Now, for no reason at all, he even broods over the sexual proclivities of the frowzy Rekall scientist who is about to put him under for the memory implant (this, by the way, after he’s imagined “being in bed” with the nurse who set up the IV): 


“He did not care to be victimized by her imagination.” Awesome! That’s how you turn the tables, folks! Another of the key bits that make Total Recall’s second half seem like a haywire memory implant also happens here: the technicians are able to recreate the spitting image of Quaid’s mysterious Mars woman, who is “wanton…and demure,” just like the woman of his dreams. In the film, we see her face on the screen before the implant procedure begins, and eventually will learn her name is Melina (Rachel Tictotin). However in the novel, toward the very end, Anthony also explains away this seeming incongruity; Melina, despite the fact that she and Quaid are at the moment running for their lives, mentions that she once “did some modelling” for Rekall! But then again, this could be another facet in the entire “did it happen or didn’t it?” scenario. 

However Anthony is at pains to tie up any loose ends the film might’ve had, no matter how minor. For example there’s the part where Quaid, hiding in the slums of the city, is contacted by a mysterious guy who has a package for him. We’ll learn that this guy is named Stevens, and he was “pals” with Quaid back in the Agency, ie the sadistic government agency which runs roughshod in this future – the guys trying to kill Quaid are all agents of the Agency. Chief among them is Richter (Michael Ironside), who is depicted here almost exactly as he is in the film. The only character who seems different, for that matter, is Mars boss Cohaagen (Ronny Cox), who in the novel is described as being nearly as muscular as Quaid is. Well anyway, in the film this mysterious helper leaves Quaid a bag and takes off. In the novel, we see that Richter eventually gets hold of him and kills him. We’re also informed that Richter has killed off the Rekall office workers who tried to implant Quaid. 

As mentioned the package has the “fat lady” disguise in it, and Anthony explains how it works. This all was a surprise reveal in the film, but here we know Quaid has it from the get-go. And we see him try it out when he boards a passenger spaceliner bound for Mars, a scene which also includes Richter and his Agency minions searching the ship for Quaid – who walks right by Richter, in the fat woman disguise. But here in the novel the mask’s glitch is it keeps asking “Where is my cabin?” instead of “Two weeks.” We also learn here that Richter is a passenger on this same ship to Mars, but Anthony doesn’t describe the voyage itself; Quaid decides to take the trip “in stasis.” I don’t believe we’re even told how long the voyage to Mars takes. The reveal of Quaid in the fat lady disguise is kind of the same as in the film, only as mentioned the glitch that outs Quaid is “Where is my cabin?,” which his mask keeps asking as he disembarks the ship on Mars. 

And again from here on it follows the film pretty faithfully. Other minor changes would be that Tony, the Resistance member on Mars who was played by a pre-fame Dean Norris in the film, is not stated as being a mutant. As fans of the film know, Tony in the film had a seriously mutated face, and thus was the recipient of one of Quaid’s more insensitive one-liners. (Tony: “You’ve got a lot of nerve showing your face around here.” Quaid: “Look who’s talking.”) Here in the novel Tony just appears to be a regular human, as no mutation is mentioned. But I’m sure you all want to know about the most famous mutant in the film: the three-breasted lady, of course. Yes, she’s here, but curiously in the book she isn’t topless in her memorable intro: 


Dude, “farted and oozed.” WTF? Glad that wasn’t in the film! Melina comes off the same here as in the movie, though more of a deal is made out of how she is both “wanton” and “demure,” per Quaid’s request at Rekall – she merely poses as a wanton whore here in a cheap bar in the Venusville district of Mars, but in reality is a fiery member of the Resistance. The novel at this point really turns into a sequence of action scenes, but the most memorable bit is the visit by “Dr. Edgemar,” the Rekall rep who claims to be visiting Quaid in his mind and tells him all this is a “schizoid embolism.” This sequence plays out pretty much identically to the film, as does most everything else that follows. Only the violence is minimized; for example, that “See you at the party, Richter!” part in the film features Quaid memorably holding aloft Richter’s severed arms before tossing them away. Richter meets his fate with both arms intact here in the novel. 

By far Anthony’s biggest change is to the explanation of what happened to Hauser. Not only does Anthony provide a long backstory on who the Martians were, but he even includes a subplot that Hauser was not a double agent, as revealed in the film’s finale, but really a triple agent. The film has it that, as Cohaagen’s minion, he ingratiated himself into the Resistance, and then “Quaid” was created to truly get in their confidence and to bypass the mental probes of the mysterious mutant leader Kuato. Anthony however develops a whole new plot out of this: Hauser actually fell in love with Melina, who made him find the good in himself, and thus he tricked Cohaagen by going along with the “Quaid” gambit, all in the hopes of wiping out his mind and protecting Melina and the Resistance from the truth he, Hauser, discovered in the ancient ruins. 

And this is the other big change. When Kuato does his mind-meld with Quaid, we are treated to a long chapter that comes off like its own separate short story. This part is the most “sci-fi” bit in the entire novel. Hauser, when separated from Melina while exploring a massive pyramid on Mars, discovered a cavern built by the ancient Martians who lived here 50,000 years ago. He enters into a chamber which takes him on a mind-meld sort of trip into Mars’s past, were he sees the No’ui, ie the human-sized bipedal telepathic ants who once lived on Mars. A “star seeder” race, the No’ui looked forward to the future and realized that the humans would one day come to Mars, and so have prepared this test sort of chamber thing, and it all works out that now Mars can either be saved – the atmosphere turning into one like Earth’s – or both it and the rest of the solar system could be destroyed by an artificial supernova the No’ui also prepared all those eons ago. It’s all very unwieldy and hard to grasp, and comes off like an entire change to the storyline in the eleventh hour. The question is whether it’s all Anthony’s creation or was material excised from the film. 

And that really is the main problem with the final quarter of Total Recall. Anthony tries to develop this massive galactic threat, with his hero outed as a former sadistic agent who found redemption in love and now can save the entire cosmos. It’s just too much to keep up with, and feels ungainly, not helped at all by the massive amount of exposition. I mean Quaid explains – sorry, “mansplains” (remember, we’ve gotta co-opt those bullshit terms) – everything to Melina as they are running from Cohaagen’s goons. But we do get the stuff from the film, like the cool watch that projects a hologram, complete with even the goofy as hell part where Quaid fools the dumb soldiers into thinking he’s a hologram when he isn’t. Anthony seems to have his tongue in cheek while writing this scene; it’s very clear that the author himself thinks the whole sequence is ridiculous, but he dutifully transposes it from the script. 

But as mentioned the changing of Mars’s atmosphere is explained here (actually, over-explained); it’s just something else the all-mighty No’ui set up all those millennia ago, and Quaid’s hand is necessary to trigger it. There’s even more exposition here as he and Melina ponder, “Can an entire atmosphere change in only ten minutes?” But then that’s one of the few areas in which films trump books; this whole sequence can be handled by fast cuts and crazy CGI (ie the eyes bulging out of heads on the surface of Mars), but poor Piers Anthony has to make sense out of it all. Oh and something I forgot to note – one of the biggest clues that the second half is just a Rekall program is the Rekall tech’s off-hand comment, when Quaid is about to be implanted: “Blue sky on Mars – that’s interesting!” This line does not appear in Anthony’s novelization; in fact, the entire “it’s all a figment of Quaid’s mind” scenario isn’t nearly as on the nose as in the film, and really only comes up via Quaid’s own pondering. 

But then to me a big sign that it isn’t all a Rekall mind trip is because Quaid kills all his friends in the opening act, and his wife is outed as a secret agent – indeed, he further learns that he’s only been married to her for six weeks, which is how long Hauser has been Quaid. The Rekall salesman, who is just as sleazy in the book as in the film, offers the “secret agent” element as a bonus to the Rekall Mars trip, and further he insists that Quaid will not be able to tell between his real memories and the Rekall procedure upon his “return” from Mars. So then, killing his friends and finding out his wife is also an enemy would very much conflict with Quaid’s real-life memories…but then this also plays into the idea that a “schizoid embolism” is creating this new wrinkle in the Rekall program. Or it could also mean it’s all a dream, hence the opening and closing “blue skies” on Mars. 

In the end though, I think this constant questioning of what’s “real” only adds to Total Recall’s appeal. (Hey, that rhymed!) And also, as Alan Moore once asked, “Aren’t all stories imaginary?” But then to continue arguing against myself, at one point a sequel to Total Recall was planned, one that would use Dick’s Minority Report as inspiration. I’ve yet to find the script for it (it was written by Gary Goldman, who so revised the third act of the film that he received billing credit), but I’ve read that it features Quaid on Mars heading up a police unit of pre-cog mutants. So then if that film had happened, there certainly wouldn’t have been a question whether the events of Total Recall “really happened.” There seems to be no question from Anthony, at least; after Melina tells Quaid “Kiss me quick before you wake up,” Quaid takes her in his arms, and Anthony ends the novel with: “[Quaid] was through with dreaming; reality was much better.” 

Anyway, Piers Anthony does a good job of making sense out of Total Recall and conveying at least some of its manic spirit. His version of Quaid is just a little too ponderous, though, and the frequent bouts of exposition kind of take away from the fun. But Anthony definitely succeeds in making a 278-page book seem half its length. I wouldn’t say the novel is better than the film, but it certainly adds to it, expanding on the world and particularly on Quaid; it just lacked much of the movie’s blood and thunder. But then it also inspired me to watch the movie again, which I plan to do posthaste.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Jason Striker #6: Curse Of The Ninja


Jason Striker #6: Curse Of The Ninja, by Piers Anthony and Roberto Fuentes
December, 2001  Xlibris Books

The Jason Striker series came to an ignoble end in April, 1976, and for the next few decades our judo-loving, book-narrating hero was cast into limbo. Then in 2001 Piers Anthony and Roberto Fuentes self-published the series as three trade paperbacks; in the third volume they included the material they’d written back in late 1975 for the never-completed sixth (and final?) installment of the series. What’s interesting is that, other than being incomplete, Curse Of The Ninja is of a piece with those earlier volumes – just as clunky, arbitrary, and time-wasting. 

As we’ll recall, the previous volume ended with Jason Striker half-dead from a gallstone, abandoned on a wooden craft as it sailed down a river in the Amazon jungle. So then it only makes sense that this volume opens with a hale and hearty Striker competing in a judo tournament for the rokudan level of black belt! And familiar faces watch from the crowd, among them Thera Drummond (last seen in #3: The Bamboo Bloodbath) and Ilunga (last seen in #4: Ninja's Revenge). At first I hoped the previous two volumes had just been a dream, and that the series could continue on the enjoyable course of the first three volumes, but no; it turns out the judo tournament itself is the dream.

Striker wakes up in Miami, where he’s been living the past few months as “Caesar Kane,” a name he’s chosen for himself because – you guessed it – he has amnesia! Like the other novels, Curse Of The Ninja is written in first-person past tense, which makes for some pretty clunky narrative, ie “At that time however I did not remember who I was,” and the like. Anyway, Striker has somehow gotten to Florida, where he was found along the road (or something) by some dude who just offered Striker to sleep at his place until he got an apartment of his own. (And as for that gallstone, Striker discovers surgery scars on his abdomen, as if he’s recently undergone hasty, emergency surgery…)

But Striker knows where his priorities lay, and soon enough visits a judo dojo, compelled there by his dream; the people watching him in the crowd in that dream, of course, are now mysteries to his conscious mind, and he has no knowledge that he’s actually a judo master. But in the class he gets tossed around, still finding that he’s capable of doing things which seem fantastic. Of course, who gives a damn about all of this stuff anyway; it’s pointless, and we want to continue with the storyline that’s been developing since the fourth volume, if for no other reason than to see the damn thing through.

However, “plot development” is relegated to Striker’s dreams, in which we get flashbacks to stuff that happened toward the end of Amazon Slaughter but wasn’t actually detailed in that book. For example, we’ll recall how in the end of that fifth volume Striker and Dulce came upon a tribe of headhunters in the Amazon, and how these people were greatly impressed by Striker’s judo skills. In one of these dream sequences, we see that the tribe chief insisted that Striker sleep with his private harem of five women. A very explicit sex scene ensues, Striker finding out at the last moment that he’s expected to have sex with all five, one after another, or he might be killed.

And just when Striker’s spirits are flagging, so to speak, that mystical ki power hits him and he’s ready for action again! This sequence is very lurid and exploitative, with the last girl in the harem a prepubscent virgin! It’s just kind of, oh…off-putting. Oh, and afterwards, snapped out of his ki-madness thanks to the arrival of Dulce (who takes Striker’s mass-screwing in stride, even though at the beginning of the scene Striker was afraid to sleep with the harem, for fear of invoking a jealous Dulce’s wrath), Striker looks upon the harem and sees that the first four women are in reality all fat, old, and ugly…and he has to inform us how the child member has been harmed by his member (which we’re further informed is “in proportion” to Striker’s body, but still damn huge when compared to these jungle Indians).

I’ve really disliked this “Black Castle/jungle Indians” storyline which began in the fourth volume, mostly due to the way it’s been told, but anyway I hoped to get some resolution out of it, or at least the satisfaction that it had been building up toward something. But my friends, the authors instead fill endless pages with am amnesiac Jason Striker learning judo…a-and having super-explicit sex with a woman named Susan who might know who he really is…a-and roofing a house!! All that shit that occurred in the previous two books – Fu Antos and his Black Castle, Mirabal and his plotting, Dulce and her sacrifice to stay with Fu Antos, etc, etc – all of it is just brushed to the side, as if it never happened, so we can instead read all about “Caesar Kane’s” endless struggles in learning judo. And roofing houses.

Finally Striker takes a fall and hits his head and guess what, remembers who he is. This is unfortunately after too, too many pages have elapsed. Now he realizes that Susan was once a student of his, and apparently she’s been with him these weeks because she had a secret crush on him and so took advantage of his amnesiatic status. Or something. Anyway, Striker makes a brief phone call back home, talking to Ilunga – her short and unfortunately final appearance in the series – and decides to once again head down into the damn Amazon to wrap up this whole business with Fu Antos. And Susan, of course, offers to go along, even offering the services of her motor home.

And yet, even here the authors dawdle. Even as Striker heads for a final confrontation with his enemy, we get inconsequential stuff like Striker meeting up with on old judo pal, whose dojo they happen to pass by on the road. The closer we get to the finale, the less material there is, with the authors informing us in brackets of sections that were never written. But here’s the thing – the unwritten stuff sounds miles better than the shit they actually did write! This is especially true of the unwritten conclusion, which is presented in a synopsis, in which we learn that: “The Black Castle has been built on the site of ancient ruins; there is evidence of alien visitation from space, millennia ago. There are strange things here, and Fu Antos is reconstructing the secret science of these aliens, augmenting his own weird physical and mental powers fantastically.” These two sentences are more interesting than the entirety of Curse Of The Ninja.

The authors state that they stopped writing in December 1975, when word came from Berkley that the series was finished. They don’t make it clear if Curse Of The Ninja was originally envisioned as the series finale, but it works that way, for at least so far as the summary goes, Striker is nearly killed by Fu Antos, who magically strips Striker of his judo knowledge. However that overlong opening sequence comes into play here, because Striker – when he was “Caesar Kane” – became a judo white belt, and thus is able to remember enough of the martial arts to best Fu Antos in combat. Then the Indians rise up and destroy the Black Casle. As for what happened to Mirabal, Dulce, Susan, Striker’s people back home, and etc, none of it is answered – though we do get the inane information that Susan is in fact married and has been using Striker for “illicit adventure.”

But anyway the series concludes with a victorious Striker realizing that not only has he finally overcome the voodoo curse he gained in the previous volume, but also that the “scars” of his encounters with it and Fu Antos “will remain as long as Jason Striker lives.” To fill out the rest of the book, the authors include various articles they wrote for Marvel’s Deadly Hands Of Kung Fu magazine, as well as a few short stories featuring Hiroshi, the akido master who appeared throughout the series. There’s also other material, like stuff about Roberto Fuentes’s time as a Cuban revolutionary, as well as various proposals and etc, none of which I read.

But that’s that for the Jason Striker series. And what a strange trip it was. The first three novels, while at times goofy and clunky, were a lot of fun, like vintage ‘70s kung fu movies on paper. But then the next three volumes took a sudden and ultimately irreparable dive. Plotting, characterization, resolution, all of it was jettisoned, and really I can’t think of anything positive to say about these final three volumes. So then, I’d recommend if you do decide to someday check out this series, just stick with the first three volumes. You’ll thank me!

Monday, June 2, 2014

Jason Striker #5: Amazon Slaughter


Jason Striker #5: Amazon Slaughter, by Piers Anthony and Roberto Fuentes
April, 1976  Berkley Medallion Books

Taking place soon after the events of the previous volume, the fifth installment of Jason Striker continues the derailment of what was once a fun series. Our protagonist is still an idiot, coincidence still abounds, and unrelated subplots still spring up and go nowhere. Most unfortunately, the bell-bottom fury of earlier volumes has vanished. It would appear the damage was done, so far as sales went, as this was the last published installment of the series (that is, until the authors self-published the completed material of volume 6 in 2001).

Once again the novel opens on a character other than Striker; in fact Amazon Slaughter opens on a scene of torture-porn, as a ninja is strung up and flayed deep in the Amazon jungle by a crew of Brazilians lead by Fernando Mirabal, last seen in Ninja’s Revenge. The ninja is one of Fu Antos’s, who as we’ll recall now resides in the body of a prepubescent boy and is currently building a new Black Castle in the Amazon. The locals, however, are not happy about this, and thus try to get info out of the captured ninja, whom they torture in excruciating detail.

This leads to a pitched battle in which Fu Antos himself shows up, leading his ninjas (who we learn have yet to fully believe that this young boy really houses the soul of their immortal master) and some native Indians in an assault on the Brazilian encampment, an assault which Mirabal manages to escape. Striker doesn’t come into the picture until after all of this, as he lands in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, continuing on with his mission for Fu Antos, which he began in Ninja’s Revenge.

Above I mentioned Mirabal’s return from the previous volume; one enjoyable thing about the Jason Striker series is the small world it takes place in, with characters appearing and reappearing like a regular soap opera, but at times it gets to be too much. Take for example Striker’s first day in Rio. Bored and walking along the beach outside his hotel, he spots a very attractive and busty young woman. As Striker’s checking her out from afar, thugs pull up along the beach and attack her! And the lady defends herself with some judo moves that greatly impress Striker! But when more thugs show up, Striker rushes to the lady’s defense – only to discover it’s Dulce, a Cuban secret agent of sorts who met Striker back in #3: The Bamboo Bloodbath!

So again, the coincidence that smears this series already rears its head, so early in the book. Dulce, in a plot completely unrelated to Striker’s, just happens to be on the same beach as Striker’s hotel. After trouncing the thugs, the couple repairs to Striker’s hotel room, where the expected sex scene soon occurs. And here Striker discovers that Dulce is a virgin, which means that Striker has now taken the virginity of three women in this series. He should start handing out business cards.

But Striker’s still a dolt, and after some good lovin’ he and Dulce order room service, and blithely go about stuffing themselves with the overly-described local food. And wouldn’t you know it, they both pass out! Yep, the food’s been drugged, and only as he’s dropping to the floor does Striker realize they should’ve taken precautions when ordering the food, as surely the thugs from earlier would still be looking for Dulce. But anyway the authors take the opportunity to drop Striker and go into third-person, detailing Dulce’s plight as one of her captors (thugs in a Brazilian “Death Squad”) attempts to rape her, and she bites off his friggin’ tongue!

The sleaze element is very pronounced this time out, with even more torture porn as Mirabal takes a captive Striker on a tour of his dungeon. Here we have squirm-inducing bits where a beautiful young woman gets one of her teeth pulled out and an older man is nearly drowned. Then it’s Striker’s turn; Mirabal straps him into a chair and proceeds to electrocute him, grilling him for info on Fu Antos. But Striker turns out to be a regular Alex Jason, and uses his mystical ki powers to block out the pain of electrocution. His fortitude not only makes him a hero to the other prisoners, but also makes possible his escape, when local rebels break in to free him.

Meanwhile the scattershot plotting of the series continues, with arbitrary cut-overs to the ongoing war between the minions of Fu Antos and the soldiers of Brazil. This is completely egregious stuff, not to mention gross, in particular a needlessly-detailed and overly-long sequence in which a dwarf ninja sneaks into the Brazilian compound and hides in the camp latrine, lurking beneath the bench the soldiers sit on when taking their dumps, and waits all day while the soldiers come in and relieve themselves above him! All so he can be here when one particular colonel comes in, so the dwarf can jam a friggin' spear up the dude’s ass! (And of course the authors must inform us that the colonel loudly passes gas right before the ninja gets him with the spear – I mean, these authors are nothing if not thorough.)

But talk about scattershot – Striker’s freed from prison and not two pages later he’s just wandering around the friggin’ streets of Rio, just checking out the sights as Carnival rages around him! Some thugs are following him, but they’re quickly eluded with some clothes Striker finds and some dirt he smears on himself so he’ll look like a local! And because these authors have never really been concerned with streamlined plotting, soon enough Striker’s checking out some go-go dancing chick in the crowd, and she collapses into his arms posthaste and asks him to carry her to the local voodoo store. And Striker, who, you know, just broke out of prison, is happy to comply, and thus the novel breaks off into yet another divergent plotline.

And what a doozy of a plotline it is! My friends, my patience was sorely tested by Amazon Slaughter, as in the second half it spirals into a complete and utter waste of time. Lazy coincidence and plotting abounds; the go-go girl is named Oba, and for no reason she takes Striker to a voodoo ceremony. Now, earlier Striker took some food that was offered at the base of some religious statue – and guess what? Turns out these people are here to worship that very same god, who reveals via strange means (people fainting, the incense candle not lighting, etc) that it’s pissed at Striker! And Striker has to somehow appease the god, who no matter what will get revenge on Striker.

What just took me a paragraph to explain goes on for pages and pages and pages. And the authors aren’t done with all this voodoo stuff, as later Oba gives Striker even more egregious voodoo history – and since they can’t converse in the same language, she does it by dancing it out for him in pantomime!! Honestly it’s some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever read. And meanwhile it cuts over to these long sections from other perspectives, as on the one hand Dulce is caught by Mirabal, who doesn’t torture her, proves to her that he’s gay(!), and tells her he has mysterious plans for her, and on the other hand we get long and tedious warfare sequences between Mirabal’s soldiers and Fu Antos’s ninja.

Oh, and a penniless Striker tries to make cash by getting into a streetfighting tournament, where after taking on a grizzly bear he runs into an old martial arts aquaintance. Due to his skills Striker gets a crowd, and one of them’s a Death Squad sadist, and a huge melee ensues, with Striker and Oba escaping to some random dojo, where the resident swordsmaster graphically eviscerates the Death Squad stooges and Oba and Striker go into a backroom and have sex while standing up. This is easily the most explicit sequence yet in the series, with Striker informing us it’s his most powerful orgasm ever. TMI, Striker.

And meanwhile Mirabal loses a huge battle against Fu Antos, and the immortal ninja-child is about to kill him when Mirabal shows Fu Antos a photo of Dulce…who looks identical to Fu Antos’s centuries-dead mistress, from the opening chapter of Nina’s Revenge! Now, how in the hell did Mirabal know what she looked like?? No matter; Dulce, despite being of a different ethnicity, looks so much like his mistress that Fu Antos allows Mirabal to live, in exchange for the girl. When Mirabal informs Fu Antos that Dulce is in love with Jason Striker, Fu Antos vows that Striker will die, even if he is “friends” with the man.

This leads to a lame sequence where Striker and Oba (who still acts shit out for him via dancing pantomime) visit Brasilia, “city of the future,” and go to a fancy restaurant where they stuff themselves, dirty and unkempt from being on the road…and Oba passes out. Yes, the exact same situation as earlier in the novel, though this time a non-hungry Striker has merely pretended to eat(?), stuffing food into his pockets instead of his mouth(?!). Men come in, strip them down (Striker pretending to be unconscious), and arrange Striker and Oba in a compromising position, so that Dulce and a capoeira-fighting guy can come in and discover them…I mean, it’s so, so stupid. And Striker gets up, beats up the capoeira guy (who turns out to be Oba’s husband), and defends himself to Dulce, who decides to forgive him. Oh, and Oba was apparently a traitor, there to set Striker up, or something.

The authors plod on into the home stretch, with absolutely no consideration of plot development, mounting suspense, or satisfying resolution. Venturing into the jungle toward the Black Castle (neither of them knowing that Fu Antos now wants them for different reasons), Striker and Dulce go about an Adam and Eve sort of life, living off the flora and fauna and enjoying one another’s company in the cheap showiness of nature. It gets more and more tedious and baffingly-lame when Striker, my friends, discovers that he has a gallstone!! Now Dulce must care for him, practically carrying Striker through the jungle, finding coca leaves (ie, cocaine) for him to chew on against the pain.

The “climax” features a half-dead Striker who is somehow still able to pull off fancy judo moves on “jungle Indians” who attack them. These Indians turn out to be minions of Fu Antos, and in the snapshot-style finale Striker and Dulce are taken to the Black Castle. But Striker is by this point so screwed up that we only get elliptical rundowns of what ensues…Fu Antos coming at Striker with a sword, Dulce pleading for Striker’s life, and now Striker, the book cutting to present-tense in the final paragraph, alone on some “crude wooden craft” as it plies down the river, Striker at death’s door due to his gallstone, which needs to be operated on immediately. The end!!

One can’t blame Berkley Books for cancelling this series. One can’t also help but wonder what happened to the series. While the first three volumes were goofy fun, filled with the bell-bottom fury of ‘70s kung-fu, the fourth and fifth volumes jettisoned all of that, taking the series into unwelcome and uninteresting areas. Recurring characters from the first three novels were gone, replaced by deus ex machina ciphers. Apparently then the first three volumes comprised their own trilogy, and volumes four through six would comprise another; however the sixth volume never came to be…that is, for a few decades.

As mentioned above, in 2001 the authors self-published the material they’d written for this sixth volume, Curse Of The Ninja, and like a regular glutton for punishment I’ll of course be reading it.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Jason Striker #4: Ninja's Revenge


Jason Striker #4: Ninja's Revenge, by Piers Anthony and Roberto Fuentes
May, 1975  Berkley Medallion Books

The fourth installment of Jason Striker takes place “a few months” after the previous volume, but opens a few centuries in the past, with a detailed and entertaining battle between ninjas and samurai in 16th century Japan. The protagonist/villain here is Fu Antos, that immortal ninja master last seen in the final pages of #1: Kiai!; here we learn how Fu Antos eluded death, got vengeance on the shogun, and eventually achieved immortality.

In fact Ninja’s Revenge features more third-person sequences than any previous volume, so that Striker’s traditional first-person sections are greatly reduced. For example from the 16th century prologue we jump to the “modern day” (ie the mid-‘70s) as Hiroshi, kindly old akido sensei who himself was last seen back in that first volume, has journeyed to the US, where he seeks out Striker. Affronted by American rudeness, Hiroshi takes it upon himself to teach several Americans some manners, in what for the most part is a rather arbitrary sequence of Hiroshi politely beating the shit out of various jerks.

Eventually Hiroshi makes it to Striker’s judo dojo, where we see that Ilunga, black kung-fu mistress and former Kill-13 addict, is now co-running the place, an element introduced in the previous volume. But Hiroshi manages to piss off Ilunga as well, culminating in a brief fight in which Hiroshi uses his awesome mastery of ki, which entails Ilunga not only getting knocked on her ass, but also her long-broken nose being magically repaired.

Meanwhile Fu Antos, who now resides in the body of a prepubescent boy (as seen in the bizarre finale of Kiai!) comes upon a pollution-ravaged village somewhere in Japan. Putting on his ninja gi, Fu Antos storms the “dragon” which is polluting the water; in reality it’s an industrial factory with pipes that run into the local water supply, but apparently Fu Antos has been so segregated from the modern world that he’s unable to comprehend its real nature and thus thinks of it as a dragon. Here proceeds a strange scene in which a ninja boy with an immortal soul hacks apart armed thugs and puts a corporate executive under mind control, forcing the man to destroy the building.

From here we get another of those jumps – apparently all this Fu Antos stuff has occurred in the recent past – as we cut back to Hiroshi, who has connected at long last with Striker. Hiroshi works for Fu Antos (and indeed was the man who lead Striker to the immortal ninja back in Kiai!), and informs Striker that Fu Antos has now set up shop in “the wilds of the Amazon forest in South America,” where he plans to build his third Black Castle (the previous two having been in Japan, and destroyed over the centuries in various sieges). Hiroshi has been sent to draft Striker into helping out in the building of this castle, something Striker has no experience in whatsoever.

But before he can refuse, Striker is left with a bag of priceless diamonds, “payment” from Fu Antos, and Hiroshi disappears (that is, after he and Striker have laid to waste a Puerto Rican street gang called the Bastard Bones). Here the novel again goes on a bizarre and unexpected tack, with Striker now on a quest to convert the diamonds to cash. But Striker, our lovable idiot, is picked up by the trashy mother of one of his students, a brazen lady who shows up on his doorstep and asks him out – and Striker, after merely hiding the priceless diamonds beneath his clothes hamper, goes out with her.

With a chapter titled “Nympho” you know Ninja’s Revenge is a product of the ‘70s. And the lady lives up to the title, taking Striker home with her and screwing his brains out. Here the authors for once get slightly explicit in the ensuing sex scenes, rather than instantly fading to black. However none of it is erotic or even entertaining, and the woman is such an actual nympho that she wears Striker out and he escapes the next morning – only to run into the woman’s poor husband, who tells Striker he feels sorry for him, as the lady’s such a maneater.

Of course, Striker returns to find that his diamonds have been stolen. Here the novel descends into stupidity, and stays there for the duration. Hiroshi comes over, and using a friggin’ dowsing rod made out of a wire coathanger, playing it over a map of New York, he figures out where the diamonds have been taken! And he and Striker go there, to a secluded neighborhood of mansions, and infiltrate the place! And Striker gets in a fight with a bunch of thugs who happen to be in there, even though Striker’s not certain the diamonds are even there!

It turns out though that Hiroshi might’ve had the diamonds all along, and this whole encounter was engineered so he and Striker could play out Fu Antos’s enemies and show them who they’re messing with. Or something. Hiroshi disappears and now the novel sprawls fully into chaos. After another very, very long chapter about Fu Antos’s ninja past (a chapter which randomly drops in and out of Antos’s first-person perspective), Striker finds out that Luis, a Cuban gunrunning contact from the previous volume, has gone missing, possibly in Miami, and after receiving a garbled telegram about “monk’s treasure,” Striker deduces that he must go to Miami and look for a boat of that name!

This whole sequence is mind-boggingly arbitrary, beyond practically anything I’ve yet read in men’s adventure. My friends, Striker just takes off for Miami, walks around on the piers looking for a boat named Monk’s Treasure; an attractive young girl named Gloria hits on him, deduces he’s a “judoka,” and then asks him to go on a yacht cruise with her! And Striker complies! And on the yacht he starts teaching her and the skipper judo moves! And then friggin pirates attack the yacht and Striker fights them off, but the yacht is destroyed, and they all jump ship! And then sharks attack! And after the skipper dies Striker and Gloria make it to an island, where they build a makeshift hut! And then Gloria asks Striker to sleep with her, to help her get over the memory of her dead-of-a-disease fiance, who was a karate expert! And Striker takes her virginity in a somewhat explicit sequence! And then the girl tells him that “monk’s treasure” might refer to a famous temple in Miami! And then the coast guard or whatever happens by and saves them!

This entire stupid sequence goes on for a long, long time, and is so incredibly, jaw-droppingly unrelated to anything that it ranges from hilarious to rage-inducing and back to hilarious again. Seriously, Striker just goes to Miami on nothing more than a hunch, meets some random girl, goes on a yacht ride with her, gets capsized and stranded on an island, and takes her virginity! Then finally we return to the plot, with Striker now on the proper course for this mysterious “monk’s treasure.” To say the entire section is page-filler would be an understatement.

And it just gets dumber, and more coincidental. Striker happens upon some random dojo in Miami, and there he is challenged by practically the entire class, all of whom disrespect him for no reason. After trouncing them, including their muscle-bound leader, Loco, Striker is informed that these guys are all compatriots of Luis, Striker’s missing friend, and they suspected Striker of being his kidnapper! Yes, Striker just happened to walk right into a martial arts school run by companions of the man he’s seeking! Anyway he teams up now with a few of them and heads for the much-belated Monk’s Treasure, a stone castle erected at the turn of the century and now filled with various monks and kung-fu fighters.

After freeing Luis from his chains in a cellar, the group is making an easy escape…when coincidence rears its head again, and Striker spots Kan-Sen, the Demon Cult leader Striker thought he killed back in #2: Mistress Of Death! Kan-Sen as we’ll recall was the murderer of Striker’s fiance, and Striker’s still boiling at the memory. The authors skirt over Kan-Sen’s death by having Striker realize that he never confirmed his kill, that he merely assumed Kan-Sen was dead. This is easily bought due to Striker’s general stupidity, so no big deal.

Striker launches an attack, despite the fact that Kan-Sen’s surrounded by like a hundred kung-fu followers, as they’re all standing about the open grounds of the Monk’s Treasure castle. This fight goes on and on and isn’t very entertaining. It ends with Striker’s two companions perhaps dead, and Striker himself face-to-face with Kan-Sen, who reveals that they are now on the same side – Kan-Sen was freed of his Kill-13 addiction by Fu Antos, and it was Fu Antos who sent Kan-Sen here, to oversee the development of Fu Antos’s new Black Castle down in the Amazon. Also, Fu Antos apparently wanted Striker and Kan-Sen to meet, and engineered it thusly, for some unstated but no doubt nefarious purpose.

So Ninja’s Revenge ends on a cliffhanger, with Striker aghast at the thought of working with the man who killed his fiance. Unfortunately the reader doesn’t feel very compelled to instantly read the next volume, as this book was practically a joke, randomly jumping from one goofy plot to the next. All of the soap opera aspects of the previous books (Ilunga’s growing love for Striker, the various squabbles among Thera Drummond, Ilunga, Amalita, etc) have been removed, and Striker himself has been brushed to the side, so the authors can focus on arbitrary backstory about Fu Antos’s days in fuedal Japan.

But here’s hoping the next installment (which was the last to be published by Berkley) is an improvement.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Jason Striker #3: The Bamboo Bloodbath


Jason Striker #3: The Bamboo Bloodbath, by Piers Anthony and Roberto Fuentes
December, 1974  Berkley Medallion Books

For once sticking to just one plot (for the most part at least), this third volume of the Jason Striker series is another fun and lurid blast of bell-bottom fury. As expected though it jumps all over the place, featuring a hyena-masked villain, kung-fu fights apleny, an arbitrary trip to a drug-rehab center, and even a cameo by Fidel Castro!!

Picking up a month or two after the previous volume, The Bamboo Bloodbath (the title has nothing to do with the story, by the way) sees our lunkheaded hero Jason Striker slowly moving on after the death of his fiance, who was murdered by the Kill-13 addicted Kali cult in the final pages of Mistress Of Death. At any rate Striker’s main focus right now is preparing his team for a judo competition that’s coming up in Cuba, and per tradition the novel opens with Striker “running the line” as he takes on his entire class in a demonstration bout.

This series is very soap-operatic in feel, and this element soon rears its head with the reappearance of gorgeous blonde Thera Drummond, last seen in #1: Kiai!. Thera’s in a panic, as her father, famous millionaire Johnson Drummond, is in danger – turns out a kung-fu vandal known as “The Hyena” is going around threatening millionaires to give him their money, or else he kills them! And the Hyena’s record is pretty impressive, as he’s never been caught or even seen, and he always holds true on his word, killing his prey no matter how hard they try to hide or protect themselves. And if they go to the police or etc, it’s instant death.

Thera, now 18 and even more ravishing, as our narrator Striker often reminds us, is convinced that Striker is her father’s only hope against the Hyena. So off they go to the Drummond mansion, where Striker goes about fortifying the place, as today is the last day of the allotted time the Hyena gave Drummond to pay – if Drummond doesn’t deliver the cash to the designated dropoff point, the Hyena will show up after midnight and kill him.

I’ve mentioned before how stupid Jason Striker is when it comes to anything except the martial arts, and The Bamboo Bloodbath features one of the best indications of this yet; when barricading the mansion doors, Striker realizes he should have a weapon and thus sends Thera back to his dojo to get his pair of nunchucks(!). Striker then continues to make the mansion into a fortress, and not until hours later does he realize that not only should Thera be back by now, but also that he’s blocked off all the mansion’s doors and thus she can’t even get in!

Before this though the soap opera sparks really fly, with Thera again coming on strong to Striker and Striker finally giving it to her – that is, after Ilunga, the black kung-fu mistress of Mistress Of Death, shows up to ask a favor of Striker. Here the authors give us some soapy melodrama, with the two women getting in an actual kung-fu fight due to their jealousy over Striker (Ilunga lusting after him even though he’s white). Ilunga, who finds herself attracted to the “blonde goddess” Thera, actually grabs hold of Thera’s crotch in a submission/pleasure hold, and Striker stands watching oblviously, having no idea what special technique Ilunga’s using! Like I said, he’s a dolt.

Also funny is how Striker (and therefore the authors themselves) go to pains to explain every little detail about inconsequential things…like if Striker needs a match for something, the authors will inform us why Striker has a matchbook in his pocket, when of course goody two-shoes Striker doesn’t smoke. It’s this over-explaining that makes Striker’s idiotic moves all the more apparent, and thus lends the series an unintentionally humorous vein; Striker comes off like a pompous halfwit.

Ilunga goes her way, leaving Striker and Thera to continue with their plans for shagging. But as usual the authors provide an immediate fade to black when the sex scene occurs. Luckily they don’t shy from describing the violence. When the Hyena’s minions attack in the night, Anthony and Fuentes deliver a very good action sequence, one that retains the violent nature of other fights in this series, with the goons employing clawed weapons and the like. The fight with the Hyena himself is even better, mostly because the guy appears to have walked out of an issue of Deadly Hands Of Kung Fu; short and muscular, the man wears a rubber hyena mask, and also keeps an actual hyena with him, to aid in his attacks.

Striker actually repels the Hyena, who escapes into the night, and we’re informed that, once defeated, the Hyena backs down and never again threatens the person who has foiled him. Pretty convenient! Striker still wants to kill the bastard, though, and swears vengeance…but wait, he’s gotta keep training his team for that upcoming judo tournament in Cuba! Meanwhile the authors break over to a third-person section with Ilunga, where we not only learn that she’s hot and heavy over Striker, but also that she’s also been trying various means to kick her Kill-13 addiction.

The favor she asked of Striker, it turns out, was for Striker to look after Ilunga’s kid brother Danny. Caught up in the black power movement, Danny’s now run afoul of a very violent faction calling itself Blakrev (Coincidence Alert: Blakrev turns out to work for the Hyena, who is white!) and needs a place to stay. Striker, too busy with the upcoming tournament to babysit, tells Ilunga to take the kid to Mustapha, the Muhammad Ali-esque boxer last seen in the Martial Open tournament back in the first volume. But Mustapha turns out to be a member of Blakrev, and he sends the boy right back to the Hyena, who proceeds to brainwash him!

The free-flowing plotlines of earlier books returns as first we get a superfluous scene in which Striker visits a shady rehab center for teens, to see how they work, and then we move on to Cuba, where the authors document the tournament matches in what comes off as a miniature retread of the Martial Open event in Kiai!. Things pick up once Striker’s team is defeated and he’s on his way back to the States; attacked by drug runners who turn out to be working for the Hyena, Striker is reunited with Ilunga, who has come here under the Hyena’s orders – the secret Blakrev leader thinking he has her under his power, using her Kill-13 addiction against her.

The authors take us on a journey across Cuba as the pair try to escape the Cuban soldiers who are now chasing them. Striker’s a regular Alex Jason when it comes to “ki,” and he uses the mystic martial power to help Ilunga kick her habit – that, and they screw a whole lot. In a sequence reminiscent of John Eagle Expeditor #8, Striker informs us how he and Ilunga take every chance they can to have sex in the countryside as they attempt to elude their pursuers. But again these scenes are relegated to, “We made love again,” or etc. Come to think of it, Anthony and Fuentes are the only men’s adventure authors I know of who don’t objectify their female characters; we will be informed that Striker’s women have beauty and grace, but never do the authors dwell on their breasts or whatnot.

But Striker and Ilunga are captured nonetheless, and Fidel friggin’ Castro shows up, treating the pair to a private audience. Castro, due to reasons of his own, wants the Hyena’s drug-smuggling business destroyed, but he doesn’t want to get involved. So he offers Striker and Ilunga a boat, tells them where he thinks the Hyena’s secret headquarters are in the Florida Everglades, and sends them on their way. The authors make Castro a rather genial sort of fellow, by the way, even offering Striker a Cuban cigar – and Striker takes it, though of course he has to remind us ad naseum how filthy a habit smoking is and etc.

The climax of The Bamboo Bloodbath plays out in the Everglades, with Striker and Ilunga plying their way by boat to the Hyena’s secret stronghold…and only once here in the swamps does Striker realize that they don’t know where in fact the stronghold even is! I’ve said it a hundred times, Jason Striker is a dolt. But thanks to the sudden appearance of inside man Musapha, who turns out to be a regular Lando Calrisian, the trio are able to infiltrate the Hyena’s stronghold – though here once again Striker nearly blows it, brushing his leg against the sensor-rigged wall as he tries to jump over it.

The final battle is suitably climatic, but not nearly as thrilling or bloody as the one in the previous volume. Striker and the Hyena face off again, and here we learn that the Hyena is in reality some well-known senator or government person of some sort…in truth the whole “Hyena” bit is too contrived as we’re to believe he’s an extortionist, a superb martial artist, a seasoned brainwasher, a wealthy drug smuggler, a Black Power leader (despite being white), and a famous government dignitary!

Still though, the Jason Striker series is such a wallop of bell-bottom fury that you can’t really complain. And it looks like in the next volume the ninjas last seen back in the first volume will return.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Jason Striker #2: Mistress Of Death


Jason Striker #2: Mistress Of Death, by Piers Anthony and Roberto Fuentes
July, 1974  Berkley Medallion Books

The first volume of the Jason Striker series was a clunky Enter the Dragon sort of riff with a few bizarre moments, but this second one is full-on lurid pulp...already within the first several pages we have hero/narrator Striker brutally kicked in the crotch by a towering black Amazon; he wakes up in the hospital after groin surgery to find himself being seduced by an already-nude 16 year-old girl named Amalita, but they’re attacked by orange-eyed, drug-fueled "demons" who raid the hospital room; a fight which sees a bedpan used as a weapon (complete with gross descriptions of urine and feces splatting all over people), after which our hero screws the 16 year-old girl! Did I mention he took her virginity in the previous volume, back when she was only 15?? Man these '70s men's adventure series knew no limits, and that’s just how I like them.

One thing Mistress of Death shares with its predecessor is a shall we say loose approach to plotting. This book jumps all over the damn place, so that it comes off like a series of unrelated snapshots. The grounding theme is a new drug called Kill-13 which is basically like speed for martial arts fighters. Addiction comes quick and users are turned into orange-eyed “demons” who will fight to the death; currently they are carving out their own brutal kingdom in Striker’s still-unspecified home town, all of this occurring “a little over a year” after the first volume.

As for any pick-up from that previous book, there’s hardly any. Amalita is the only recurring character, and as we’ll recall she’s the niece of Vincente Pedro, Striker’s nemesis-turned comrade. Oddly enough, Pedro apparently died on the last page of the previous volume, but we are informed here that not only is he still alive but he’s married Amalita, and they now have a child – though Amalita makes it pretty clear that the boy is actually Striker’s. She also says that Pedro would have Striker killed if he ever found out.

Amalita has a fatal attraction for our boy, though, which turns out pretty badly for Chiyako, a cute Chinese kung-fu lady Striker meets soon after getting out of the hospital – and yes, Chiyako is Chinese despite having a Japanese name! Same for her father, Choji Kija; Amalita has come to the US with the man’s name, as a possible contact Striker could look up to help fight the Kill-13 menace. But this is actually a cheap narrative trick to tie together these various plots, as the old man turns out to have no knowledge of Kill-13 other than the easily-grasped understanding of how destructive it is, both to the user and to society.

Meanwhile we have a long flashback to Striker’s days in Vietnam, where he planted electronic homing signals for bombers…he was captured by VC and tosed in a camp…but he escaped by murdering a girl who turned out to have been there to rescue him…he ends up with monks who train him in kung-fu (suspiciously enough, none of this was mentioned in the previous volume during Striker’s long digressions on kung-fu)…the monks send him on his way and only later does dumbass Striker realize he left his bombing beacon with them! Sure enough the monks get bombed and all of them die, something which Striker rightfully blames himself for to this very day…but damned if I didn’t find it all pretty hilarious. I mean, isn’t that part of everyone’s standard checklist before leaving the house? Wallet? Check. Keys? Check. Electronic bomb-homing device? Check.

Anyway, Striker and Chiyako hit it off while the old man’s out tracking down Kill-13 leads. They end up making it on the dojo’s floor, Striker discovering after the fact that the girl was a virgin, thus bringing his score up to two. But soon it all becomes like a kung-fu soap opera as Amalita comes out of nowhere, engages Chiyako in some verbal sparring, and then the two go at it in a full-bore catfight! This whole sequence is bizarre, but nonetheless entertaining, as the two women fight, Amalita mercilessly so; she smashes a bottle and carves up Chiyako’s left breast, after which Striker finally does something about the whole mess and trounces Amalita, demanding that she return to her husband.

The snapshot storytelling continues as next we go into the long, third-person storyline of Ilunga, the black kung-fu “mistress of death” who nearly unmanned Striker in the opening pages. Her sob story has it that, having been raped so many times as a teen during her walks through a notorious park, she took up kung-fu as a means to get vengeance. Soon she became notorious herself, for hiding in the park and kicking would-be rapists in the crotch, destroying their manhoods!! Getting wind of the hot new Kill-13 drug, Ilunga checks it out as a means to give her more combat power. Soon she’s not only an addict but high in the city’s demon network.

Choji Kija implores Striker to not just consider Ilunga a villain, due to her sad tale, but when Striker confronts her it leads to the inevitable fight. And the fight leads to the inevitable seduction scene, as Ilunga, despite hating men in general, tells Striker as he pins her that she lusts for his “white prick!” I should mention at this point Chiyako’s been captured by the demons, who hold her for ransom, demanding that Striker join them or else. So Striker accepts Ilunga’s offer…sex for info: Ilunga knows where Chiyako might be held, but she wants some quality time with Striker in exchange. (The authors by the way never write any actual sex scenes, always prudishly cutting to the next scene.)

The next plot-jump has Striker venturing back down to Honduras, where he reunites with Vincente Pedro, who understands how nuts his wife Amalita can be, and also ensures Striker that Pedro’s son is not really Striker’s son. Together these two try to track down the Kali cult behind Kill-13, Striker finding out about the worship of the goddess after fighting Ilunga’s superior to the death back in the US.

One thing that becomes more clear with each page is that, when it comes to anything but the martial arts, Jason Striker is a complete idiot. The guy just bumbles around, making countless mistakes, and is even an idiot about things he should know about – when launching a raid on the demons’s Kill-13 factory (which is located inside a lost Mayan pyramid), Striker wonders if they can use grenades to blow the place up. Pedro has to inform him that grenades are solely “man-killing devices,” and would be no use in blowing up the facility. Remember, Striker was a Green Beret in Vietnam.

After this Striker breaks off on his own again, still searching for Chiyako. There follows this arbitrary, pages-filling sequence where an earthquake hits this part of South America and Striker holes up in an abandoned building, biding his time. This whole part is just a head-scratcher in how unecessary it is. Finally Striker gets the lockdown on the mysterious leader of the Kill-13 sect, a well-muscled Shaw Brothers type named Kan-Sen, who has Chiyako captive in his villa.

The action goes through the roof as Stryker attempts to sneak into the place (including yet another gross and arbitrary bit involving feces where Striker, ever the dumbass, trips while sneaking through the sewer lines and ends up swallowing some of the filth!!) but is promptly discovered. He takes on a plethora of demons, and after an induced whiff of Kill-13 he becomes a killing machine. The authors give this sequence almost a psychedelic edge, as a deranged and hallucinating Striker kills with abandon. The gore factor is also quite high, with Striker even ripping out intestines and hurling the viscera at his opponents.

However it all leads to a depressing finale, with our hero half-dead and saved by Ilunga, who has come down here to help him – she fights alongside Striker during the climax and to his Kill-13 addled eyes appears like Kali. Ilunga is now set up to be an important character in the series, which is cool because she’s definitely a Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu type of character. She’s also smarter than our narrator, given that she figures out how to destroy her competitors in the Kill-13 cult and corner the drug’s market for herself.

Anyway, this series, while goofy and haphazardly plotted, is still a lot of fun, mostly due to its heaping helpings of bell bottom fury.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Jason Striker #1: Kiai!


Jason Striker #1: Kiai!, by Piers Anthony and Roberto Fuentes
February, 1974  Berkley Medallion Books

I first learned about this five-volume* series in the early 1990s, when I scored a few issues of the awesome ‘70s Marvel magazine Deadly Hands of Kung Fu. One of the issues featured an article by Piers Anthony and Roberto Fuentes, talking about how they created the Jason Striker series (“Kiai! – How It Began,” Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, June 1975). I thought about tracking down one of the novels (a daunting task in those pre-internet days), but then read that hero Striker was a judo master…I mean, I wanted to read a series about a kung-fu master or something, anything but a judo master! I’d never been the least bit interested in judo, so I never bothered looking for any volumes.

Eventually however I discovered that the Jason Striker series was brimming with what I like to call “bell bottom fury,” ie that funky ‘70s kung fu vibe of Bruce Li (not Lee) and Jim Kelly (RIP!) films and especially Deadly Hands of Kung Fu itself. But this initial volume is a bit more “real world” than the series would eventually become, playing out more along the lines of Enter the Dragon. That’s not to say there isn’t a pulpish, fantasy element at play, but not as much as in future installments; tellingly though the last few pages of Kiai! do venture into outright fantasy, as a sign of things to come.

Anyway Jason Striker is both our hero and our narrator – later volumes feature third-person narrative for the scenes without Striker, but this one maintains the first-person style throughout. You’ll seldom find a bigger bump in the log for an action hero. Striker is a total square, so devoted to martial arts in general and judo in particular that he comes off like a bore; vast sections of Kiai! are devoted to detailing the merits of judo and the martial way and etc, etc. Striker doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke…hell, when at one point he takes an aspirin for a headache that won’t go away, Striker informs us that along with it he also takes a bunch of vitamin C “against side-effects!”

Striker, a 30 year-old ‘Nam vet, runs a judo dojo in some unspecified city. His small school is mostly made up of 18-21 year-olds, and his assistant instructor is a young hothead named Jim. Apparently it’s a cutthroat world, running judo schools; Striker informs us that a handful of other teachers are in his city, running their own schools, and they all vie with one another for dominance. But anyway as Kiai! opens a judo master named Diago comes to Striker for help – a while back Diago took a life while defending himself during a mugging, but the cops saw it as murder, and now Diago’s on the run.

But our hero Striker is a snivelling loser, and is reluctant to help Diago…because he doesn’t want to run afoul of the law himself! Striker regales us with all of his reasons behind this, filled with “martial honor” bluster and etc, but it all smacks of bullshit, and instantly puts you at odds with him. Instead Striker invites Diago to a match, with the unsaid understanding that if Diago wins, Striker will help him, but if Striker wins then Diago will leave. Striker, at great cost, wins, mostly because Diago does not use his infamous kiai yell – a nigh-supernatural martial scream that can unnerve even the stoutest of warriors.

Striker further proves himself a square when next he’s contacted by mega-wealthy entrepreneur Johnson Drummond; the man wants Striker to teach judo to his daughter. This turns out to be the gorgeous young Thera Drummond, a headstrong 17 year-old who is soon to leave for college; Drummond wants to ensure the girl will be able to protect herself against possible rapists. Thera meanwhile is game for any kind of sexual action, with Striker at least – she taunts him constantly, attempting to seduce him, even appearing for their private lessons nude.

Striker is not to be deterred, though – the honor of judo is at stake!! He’ll have none of this chicanery. Quickly he puts Thera in place; he has been hired to teach her judo, and teach her he will. And the young woman does learn quickly, to the point where she can easily defend herself. She also apparently falls in love with Striker, and says she’ll wait for him so that they can one day marry(?), and other such things that sort of come out of nowhere. But anyway this sequence soon ends and next Striker, due to a fighting match against an old student that goes wrong, ends up as the American judo rep in the Martial Open, to be held down in Nicaragua!

This proves to take up the majority of the novel. The Martial Open will see each martial sport go up against one another: karate, kung-fu, Thai kickboxing, regular boxing, and of course judo. Helming the Open is Vincente Pedro, so wealthy that he rules this portion of Nicaragua, and thus the Match will play out with no government interference. Also Pedro is confined to a wheelchair (thanks to an old judo injury, wouldn’t you know – and guess what, he now hates all judo practicioners!).

To be honest, this Martial Open stuff is a bit trying. Anthony and Fuentes do their best to make it all exciting, but it all comes off like an extended sports magazine feature, with blow-by-blow recaps of say karate versus kung-fu or whatever. In addition to Striker’s fights we read about all the other fights, which Striker either watches from the audience or later views on film. The fights aren’t to the death, though some fighters do die, but ultimately the contests lack the fight-or-die spirit more expected in the men’s adventure genre; they just come off like slightly more brutal karate tournaments. (Or, better yet, a less trashy UFC.)

Now, Striker might not want to harbor fugitives or take advantage of nubile young women who throw themselves at him, but he has absolutely no problems with screwing 15 year-old girls!! Seriously. As a way to destress, each night Striker skinny dips in the opulent pool on Pedro’s massive estate. And each night he runs into a similarly-nude young woman (girl, really) who makes it clear she is interested in him, though the two just swim and look at one another. Turns out this is Amalita, Pedro’s 15 year-old niece…a virgin Pedro is keeping for himself! Well, now we are really venturing into lurid territory.

It gets more lurid when Striker, due to Pedro’s command to all of the fighters, must take advantage of one of the many whores Pedro has made available. Striker, wouldn’t you guess, is not into the whole thing, and thus merely “puts in an order” for any girl, no concern for age or race or whatever – he’s just doing it because it’s an order from Pedro. A masked girl comes to him, and as they have sex Striker first realizes the girl is a virgin (well, not any more…), and secondly he realizes it is, of course, Amalita. Turns out she insinuated herself into Striker’s nighttime swims because she realized he was a “good man” who could free her from her bondage here on Pedro’s estate. But once again Striker turns away a person who comes to him for help; indeed, he’s more concerned about himself, now that he’s deflowered Pedro’s girl!

Complications ensue; word gets out and Pedro wants Striker dead. More belabored matches go down until it gets to the expected end: Striker fighting against the last man for the top honors. He’s up against Makato, iron-handed karate master, and the fight is a good one, made even better by the presence of Pedro as a judge. But, thanks to his skills as well as the ki powers of a kindly old karate sensei, Striker not only fights to an honorable draw but also wins Pedro over to his side – and plus, thanks to the ki, Pedro can now walk again.

The last half of Kiai! is a taste of the pulpier material that will follow. Striker is ambushed by Dato, an insane rival judo instructor who has mastered the delayed death blow. Dato dies in the attack, but now Striker is sure he has just a few weeks left to live. He decides to go to Japan to look up the ki master who gave Pedro the ability to walk again. Oh, and meanwhile he discovers that Jim and Thera are having an affair, and Striker sulks, but then Jim pleads to come along with him, so as to make it up to Striker. (But remember, Striker continuously spurned Thera’s advances in the first place…)

Striker and a few other martial warriors head up into Hokkaido, where they have been informed that only one man can save Striker: the legendary Fu Antos, a ninja warrior who is apparently immortal. Tracking through the snow they meet Ainu natives and later have a massive fight with ninjas, who burst from the snow bearing exotic weapons. (I spent a semester of college in Japan and can attest that shit like this really does happen there.) The fight here is better than any that came before, with lots of blood and ninja corpses…and poor old Jim buys it, too.

Fu Antos (in the "Kiai!" article the authors state this his name is a play on their own – “Fu” from Fuentes and “Antos” from Anthony) lives in an ancient castle deep in the frozen depths; he’s a withered old husk of a man, surrounded by ninja. Through supernatural sign language he instructs each member of Striker’s team to attempt to kill him. Each fails, usually ending up dead himself. Striker however succeeds, using the old man’s ki against him in a scene which I admit lost me; long story short, it ends with Santos gutted, decapitated…and his soul now residing in the body of a young boy!

Anyway here it ends, the reborn Fu Antos informing Striker that he has in fact saved himself, and he no longer need worry about the delayed death blow. Meanwhile Jim’s still dead, and so is most of the rest of Striker’s team, so we’ll have to see what happens next time. Sorry for the longwinded rundown, but there were so many plot changes in Kiai! that I wanted to ensure I had them all right.

Overall I enjoyed Kiai!, mostly because it captured that old-school kung fu vibe I’ve always loved, but I suspect I’ll enjoy future volumes even more. I’ve already started in on #2: Mistress of Death, and can confirm it’s definitely in the pulpier realm, with orange-eyed, drug-fueled street gangs, a black Amazonian kung-fu warrior, and a greater lurid quotient.

*Five volumes were published by Berkley Medallion; Anthony and Fuentes were halfway through writing the sixth (and planned final) installment when word came down that the series was cancelled. In 2001 Anthony self-published via Xlibris the completed section of volume 6 along with a summary of what was planned to happen in the unfinished half of the novel, with the unwieldy title Jason Striker Martial Arts Series Volume 3: Amazon Slaughter and Curse of the Ninja. The trade paperback also contains the “Kiai! – How It Began” article as well as other odds and ends.