Showing posts with label Zebra Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zebra Books. Show all posts

Monday, March 4, 2024

Doomsday Warrior #18: American Dream Machine


Doomsday Warrior #18: American Dream Machine, by Ryder Stacy
July, 1990  Zebra Books

What can I say about this penultimate volume of Doomsday Warrior? That it’s incredibly stupid? That it’s the worst volume of the series yet? That it’s a sort-of rip off of Total Recall with a little Dune thrown in? That Ryder Syvertsen has clearly stuck a fork in the series and has entirely lost all interest in it? No matter what I say, I won’t be able to properly convey how ultimately terrible American Dream Machine really is. 

Well, one positive thing I can say is that it doesn’t rip off the previous volume, which itself was a ripoff of the volume before that. For this one, Syvertsen goes way back to the tenth volume to rip himself off; for, just as that tenth volume was an “imaginary story” that had no bearing on the overarching storyline, so too is American Dream Machine an “imaginary story” that, for the most part, has nothing whatsoever to do with Doomsday Warrior. This volume also has the first real appearance of Kim Langford in the series since…well, since that imaginary story in #10: American Nightmare, I think, with the additional similarity that the “Kim” who shows up in American Dream Machine is also an imaginary figure, same as she was in that earlier “imaginary story.” 

Turns out I was correct when I guessed that there’d be no pickup from the closing events of the previous volume, which as we’ll recall ended with Rockson and his team still not having reached a neighboring city, where they hoped to gather resources needed to rebuild a ravaged Century City. There was also some stuff about a bunch of new recruits Rockson had to train. Absolutely none of that is even mentioned here. When we meet Rockson, he’s flying a commandeered “Sov” fighter jet, soaring west to meet up with pal Archer, whom Rockson hasn’t seen “in three years.” 

Yes, friends, three years have passed since the previous volume; it’s now “around 2096,” we’re told (Syvertsen has also thrown in the towel on pinning down when exactly the books take place), and boy it turns out a whole bunch of stuff has happened since last time. For one, the US and the USSR has entered a truce, with all occupying Soviet forces having withdrawn from the United States(!), though we’re informed that there are still guerrilla bands of Russian fighters out there who haven’t gotten the message. Chief among them would be Killov, who we are told without question is still alive (though he doesn’t appear this time), and also Zhabnov, onetime ruler of Moscow who hasn’t been seen for several volumes; both men have a mad-on hatred for Rockson and are determined to kill him. 

Not only that, but we’re told that President Langford is now the official, uh, President of the reformed US, but he’s so old and frail he’s in a wheelchair now…and gee, the reader must only assume it’s due to fallout from the brainwashing torture he endured back in #16: American Overthrow, a subplot Syvertsen never did follow up on. Also, we’re told that Kim, Langford’s hotstuff daughter, is in the reformed DC with her dad, where she plans parties and stuff – and Rockson figures he’ll “never see her again.” As for Rockson’s other “true love,” Amazonian redhead Rona, she too is out of the picture, off in some other liberated city. We also get the random note that Detroit, the black member of the Rock Squad, has been assigned by Langford to be the Ambassador to Russia, and given that Premiere Vassily is now so old and incompetent, the USSR is actually being run by his Ethiopian servant, Rahallah (who also doesn’t appear – we’re just told all this stuff). So, Rockson muses as he flies along in his fighter jet, the world is essentially run by two black men: Detroit and Rahallah. 

But man, all this is well established at the point that this story begins…it’s news to us readers, but it’s been Rockson’s world for the past three years. Indeed, things are so slow now that mountain man Archer plain left Century City three years ago, bored with the lack of fighting…and Rockson just heard from him for the first time, having received an urgent fax from Archer that Archer needs help! So there are a lot of problems here already…I mean, Archer has ever and always been an idiot, his bumbling stupidity a constant joke in the series. How the hell did this dude learn how to send a fax? And for that matter, since when did he even know how to write? 

Beyond that, though…I mean Rockson receives this urgent “Help!” message, and just all by himself hops in this “Sov” fighter and heads for Archer’s remote destination. No backup, no “new Rock Team” (we also learn Russian guy Sherasnksy has gone back to Russia…but Chen and McLaughlin are still in Century City, at least), just Rockson going solo for no other reason than plot convenience. And even here we get the series mandatory “man against nature” stuff, with Rockson crash landing in rough terrain and then having to escape a giant mutant spider…just “yawn” type stuff after 18 volumes of it. 

The entire concept of Archer having been gone for three years isn’t much followed up on; Rockson and the big mountain man are soon drinking beer and shooting the shit in the bowling alley Archer now calls home(!). There’s also a new character to the series – the absurdly-named Zydeco Realness, an elfin “Techno-survivor,” ie yet another new mutant race, this one having survived the past century in silos, hence their small nature and weird manner of speaking. Also, Ryder Syvertsen has discovered the word “diss,” which mustv’e come into the parlance around this time (I probably learned the word from the Beastie Boys at the time); Zydeco’s people are obsessed with being “dissed,” and will take affront if they even think they are being dissed. Rockson has never heard the word before, and Syvertsen has it that it’s a word the Tecno-survivors have created themselves. 

The titular “Dream Machine” is a device the Techno-survivors have created for people who are about to die…sort of like that bit in Soylent Green where you could have like a sensory experience on your way through the out door. So off the trio go, riding over 50 miles of rough terrain – but wait, I forgot! Rockson actually gets laid…indeed, quite a bit in this novel. But again demonstrating the marked difference between this and the earliest volumes, all the sex is off-page…well, most of it. The few tidbits we get here and there are so vague as to be laughable when compared to the juicy descriptions found many volumes ago. But Rockson makes his way through a few green-skinned wild women, of the same tribe he last, er, mated with back in…well, I think it was the ones way back in #3: The Last American

It's curious that Syvertsen often refers to earlier volumes in American Dream Machine, more so than in any past installment; we are reminded of how long ago certain events were. But then he goes and makes the rest of the novel completely unrelated from the series itself. Anyway, I realized toward the end of the book that Syvertsen was indulging in this reminiscence because he must have known the end was near, as by the end of the book you know we’re headed for a series resolution. However I’m getting ahead of myself. As mentioned instead of any series continuity, we instead get a bonkers plot that rips off Total Recall to a certain extent…which must’ve been quite a trick given that the movie hadn’t come out yet when Syvertsen was writing his manuscript. Or maybe it was the Total Recall novelization, published in hardcover in 1989, that inspired him. Or maybe it was just a coincidence. Or maybe it was just the original Philip K. Dick story. 

So Rockson gets in the Dream Machine, which looks like a big metal coffin, and sure enough as soon as he’s under none other than Zhabnov and his forces storm in – completely coincidentally! – and they take everyone prisoner. And when Zhabnov discovers Rockson in this machine, he has the Techo-survivors turn the dream into a nightmare. For the next hundred-plus pages we’ll be in this nightmare world, which is where the similarity to previous volume American Nightmare comes in…just as with that one, this one too will be a “nightmare” with no bearing on the main plot of the series, with even Rockson himself a completely different character. 

That’s because he’s now “Niles Rockson,” a wealthy playboy living in a penthouse in NYC in the pre-nuke 1980s, enjoying a romantic time with hotstuff blonde “Kimetta.” None other than the dream version of Kim Langford, with the curious tidbit that, despite having been plain ignored for the past several volumes, Kim is now presented as Rock’s soul mate, the love of his life. Well anyway when the nightmare begins…Kim suddenly becomes a mean-looking tough chick (still hot though, we’re informed – with, uh, big boobs despite her small stature!), and the action has been changed to…Venus

Suddenly Kimetta is angry at Rockson, meaning the dream has changed but Rockson of course is not aware he’s in a dream; reading the novel is a very frustrating experience. And it gets dumber. Some cops come in and haul Rockson off for the crime of being a “playboy!” He’s put on a “prisoner ship” and sent off into space, headed for the artificial planet Esmerelda, which is a prison colony. Yet, despite this being a nightmare, Rockson – in the narrative concocted by the Techno-survivors at the behest of Zhabnov – still gets laid. A lot. Hookers are sent into his room each night, a different one each night, and every time it’s fade to black. One of the gals happens to be from Esmerelda, the planet they’re headed for, and since Rockson’s so good in bed (we’re informed), she treats him to “the Esmereldan position.” Demonstrating how juvenile the tone of Doomsday Warrior has become, Syvertsen actually describes this screwing-in-a-weird-new-position thusly: “It would be difficult to explain.” And that’s all he writes about it. 

We’re in straight-up sci-fi territory as Rockson is taken to this planet Esmerelda…where he learns he’s going to become a gladiator. And at least sticking true to the series template he’ll need to fight a bloodthirsty monster in the arena. It’s all so dumb…and, well, at least it’s dreamlike, with non-sequitur stuff like Kimetta – who now has become the daughter of the prison warden on Esmerelda! – giving Rockson a talisman that will protect him against this monster. It just goes on and on, having nothing to do with Doomsday Warrior, yet not being strong enough to retain the reader’s interest; Syvertsen’s boredeom with it all is very apparent, and this feeling extends to the reader. 

At the very least I was impressed with how Syvertsen just wings it as he goes along…given that all this is a “dream,” he’s able to change the narrative as he sees fit. But gradually Rockson starts to figure something is amiss with this world, and begins to remember “The Doomsday Warrior.” But again it’s very juvenile, with Rockson suddenly certain that if he escapes Esmerelda, he will awaken into his real reality. The finale of the dream sequence features some unexpected emotional depth, when Rockson realizes that his beloved Kimetta is “just a dream, too.” This leads to a sequence where the series gets back to its New Agey roots; The Glowers, those godlike mutants also last seen in the third volume, show up to save Rockson – who is near death from his experience. This kind of goes on for a bit, with the Glowers and Rockson’s pals using a Medicine Wheel to put Rockson’s soul back together with his body. 

Here's where it becomes clear Ryder Syvertsen has the end of the series in mind. Well, first we get more juvenile stuff where the Glowers bring out a massive ship made of ice and snow and upon it floats Rockson and team back to Century City – where the Glowers have called ahead telepathically. Rockson is given a hero’s welcome, and what’s more Rona and Kim are there waiting for him, and we’re told they’ve “settled their jealous differences” about Rockson, and have decided what to do about him – but will tell him more later. The main Glower announces that Killov is alive, and only Rockson can stop him, thus setting the stage for the next (and final) volume. 

But man…here comes the scene we’ve waited so many volumes for: that night there’s a knock at Rockson’s door, and he opens it to find both Kim and Rona there in negligees, and they laugh and push Rockson back on his bed, and the reader is promised the Doomsday Warrior three-way to end all three-ways. But friggin’ Ryder Syvertsen ends the book right there!! (I’m currently working on my own 200-page fan novelization of this sex scene.) 

As mentioned, the next volume is to be the last…but the series has been over for Syvertsen for a long time, now. That said, I might get to the last one sooner rather than later, for American Dream Machine seems to be leading directly to that next novel – meaning, the next one shouldn’t open three years after this one. 

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Doomsday Warrior #17: America’s Sword


Doomsday Warrior #17: Americas Sword, by Ryder Stacy
January, 1990  Zebra Books

Boy, if you thought the previous volume of Doomsday Warrior was lame, just wait till you read this one! I’ve said before that Ryder Syvertsen was clearly phoning it in at this point; one can almost feel him hoping and praying that the series would get canceled so he could stop writing it. I mean all the dude does this time is basically re-write the previous book; America’s Sword is almost a carbon copy of American Overthrow, but again with the caveat that this one’s even worse. 

It’s a shame how Doomsday Warrior has experienced such a downward spiral. The first volumes were pretty cool, packed with gory violence and explicit sex. But around the midway point of the series Syvertsen must have lost interest or heart, as he began dialing back on all the craziness. At this point in the series the violence isn’t nearly as gory as before and the sex is all off-page. Even the goofy subplots have been dropped; for a while we had a lot of stuff about Ted “Doomsday Warrior” Rockson caught in a love triangle between Amazonian redhead Rona and lithe blonde Kim. All this is forgotten, with practically all female characters removed from the series – even the mandatory “native babe” Rockson will pick up on his post-nuke travels does not appear here in America’s Sword

But speaking of Syvertsen’s lack of interest…turns out I was right in my review for American Overthrow, where I guessed that none of that volume’s concluding incidents would be picked up in the next volume. I was more correct than I could’ve guessed. So as a recap, in the finale of the previous book Rockson had saved feeble old President Langford and his daughter Kim from the clutches of this sadist who was trying to brainwash them. Kim, once declared to be Rockson’s beloved, had disappeared from the series with nary a mention for the past several volumes, so this was the long-awaited reunion of the pair. But rather than build on this, Syvertsen never even gave Rockson and Kim a moment together; she was brain-fogged when Rockson saved her, then out cold later. As I recall, Rockson hoped Kim and her father would come out of it during the long trek back to Century City, and maybe they could talk then. 

But in true “series reset with each volume” fashion, America’s Sword takes place one month later and we don’t get one iota of info on what went down during that trek home…I mean, did President Langford regain his senses, something Rockson was worried about? Did Rockson and Kim rekindle their relationship? Folks, we still don’t know the answer to either of those questions. For indeed, America’s Sword opens with an overlong sequence in which an earthquake rocks Century City, and Rockson, sleeping in bed (alone for once!), is trapped in the rubble that was once his room, staving off rats and waiting to be rescued. 

We learn that a staggering twenty thousand people were killed in the quake and Century City is partially destroyed. But here’s how half-assed Syvertsen has become with his series: he never even tells us if Langford or his daughter Kim survived the quake! I mean of course they do, but still – he has Rockson desperately wondering if the two are among the victims, but Rockson leaves a few hours after the quake and never learns the answer. He doesn’t even ponder their fate during this latest trek outside of Century City. Hell, Syvertsen’s so half-assed that he also has Rockson concerned over Rona’s fate right after the quake …then Syvertsen makes the casual mention that, the night before leaving the city, Rona comes to Rockson’s bed and “they made love.” So, uh, I guess she did survive the quake! I mean, not only does Syvertsen neglect to even build up on any of his suspense, he casually dispenses info with nary a concern for drama – and Rona doesn’t even have any dialog! She’s literally mentioned in passing. 

So none of the questions concerning Langford or Kim from the previous volume are addressed or resolved. Instead, the big deal this time is that Rock and team must make an emergency journey to nearby Free City Pattonville (the setting of the previous volume, by the way) to get needed supplies to rebuild Century City. Even this plot will ultimately be dropped – spoiler alert, but we don’t even get to see Rockson and team getting the supplies, let alone returning home so Rockson can find out who survived the quake. Instead Syvertsen goes on two separate detours which make up the bulk of the novel. And my friends these detours are exact replicas of the incidents in the previous book! 

As we’ll recall American Overthrow featured this random part where Rockson and team came upon this volcano world filled with lava men, and many pages were devoted to the team learning the customs and etc…and then Rockson realized the entire damn thing had been a dream. Okay. In America’s Sword this scenario is repeated, except instead of a volcano world it’s a jungle world, randomly enough in the middle of the post-nuke US terrain, and Rockson and team marvel at the monkeys and other jungle animals here in the humid climate. They also meet up with the natives, though the difference here is that the natives are friendly…and also there’s no female dalliances for Rockson. I mean WTF? Syvertsen has so neutered his series that even the once-madatory “native gal sex” has been removed…Rockson and team merely eat and drink a lot as honored guests. 

But of course things take a more “thrilling” turn and they have to fight a giant rad-monster thing as part of the ceremony which is required to leave the jungle world. At the very least, this sequence doesn’t turn out to be a dream, but otherwise it is such a carbon copy of the lava world scenario in the previous book that I couldn’t believe it. I mean surely Syvertsen could have come up with something better than a lame ripoff of his own lame work? But he’s not done ripping himself off. Again as we’ll recall, American Overthrow proceeded to feature Rockson saving a city from a despot who was using a gas to control the minds of his subjects. 

Well…guess what happens in this one? Rockson comes across yet another city filled with seemingly-happy people, ones who are a little too enamored with politics, but of course it will turn out that they too are under a sort of mind control. And Rockson will have to save them. So yes, this book is a carbon copy of its predecessor. Anyway, the political activists here are “Republams,” and Syvertsen wears his politics on his sleeves in making fun of these latter-day Republicans…ones who worship Nixon and live for bureaucracy. But otherwise Syvertsen fails to exploit his own goofy concept; he doesn’t have the ability to bring it to life, or perhaps I should say the willingness. I mean he’s already written 16 of these goddamn books and he’s tired, folks. 

So we have weird goofy stuff like this radiated Nixon monument thing that glows in neon flashes and seems to have an animated Nixon statue inside it (Syvertsen is particularly dense in his descriptions here), and also Rockson himself is mind-controlled after being subjected to a Republam recruitment video. But it’s all just so goofy…I mean he and his fellows are brainwashed, but all they’re forced to do is file paperwork and type up paperwork. It’s just so ridiculous and G-rated, and Syvertsen’s so bored with it all that he has everyone saved by the deus ex machina appearance of other members of the Rock Squad. 

As mentioned, by the end of America’s Sword we have no resolution…to anything. Rockson and team continue on their trek for Century City supplies. No doubt next volume they’ll be back and the city will be completely rebuilt. Oh and I forgot to mention. In another elaborately built but unexploited subplot, Syvertsen has about thirty recruits being sent off with Rockson, to help with supply delivery…nothing is made of this and the recruits add nothing to the plot. Hell for that matter, Rockson breaks his ankle in the opening Earthquake section…and Syvertsen doesn’t even mention it again in the novel, with Rockson running and fighting and doing everything just as usual. 

Perhaps the only saving grace of America’s Sword is a cool bit early on where Rockson thinks back to his childhood days; we learn he’s from California, though he doesn’t know it by that name in this post-nuke US. If I recall correctly, this is the first we’ve had an actual flashback to Rockson’s youth, and we learn how his father taught him hunting and other skills. We’re also reminded how the Reds massacred his family, setting young Rockson off on the path of revenge. This latter is not developed in actual flashback narrative; we’re just informed that Rockson memorized the faces of the Reds who raped his mother and sisters and killed them and his father, and then hunted them down – this “Rockson’s revenge” scenario has never actually been fully told, so far as I can remember, but the story alone is more interesting than the majority of the actual novels.

Thursday, November 10, 2022

Shade


Shade, by David Darke
May, 1994  Zebra Books

Yet another horror paperback I picked up some years ago but never read, Shade is a (sort of) latter-day Zebra PBO that is copyright Ron Dee. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like if Anne Rice herself was a vampire, this might be the book for you. The only problem is, Dee is a pretty clunky author, with a tendency for confusing sentences and vague description. That said, the novel is filled with depraved, graphic sex, so there’s that! 

Not sure why Dee even bothered with his “David Darke” pseudonym, as his name’s stated on the copyright page, and he also craftily mentions his own novels in Shade. But it looks like he was pretty prolific under either name, however this is the only of his novels I have (I think). He certainly tries to bring to life the world of sci-fi and horror conventions, but I’m assuming there must be some tongue-in-cheekery at play because, in Dee’s world, only total losers read horror novels, particularly vampire novels…and all of them dream of being vampires themselves. This I found so puzzling that I immediately had a disconnect with Shade; I mean vampires are cool in novels, but I’ve never read say Salem’s Lot and thought to myself – “Hey, I wish I was a vampire!” 

Dee calls this subset of horror readers “convamps,” ie vampire novel enthusiasts who congregate at horror conventions and pretend to be vampires themselves. Only, in the case of this novel they’ve been killing themselves at the conventions…all so as to become real vampires…all at the inspiration of the wildly popular horror novels of Scarlett Shade. The Anne Rice analog of the novel, Scarlett Shade – we learn on the first page, not to mention on the back cover – is herself secretly a vampire. What’s more, one that uses her vast network of fans for her own personal blood supply. Dee doesn’t waste any time bringing us into this sordid tale; literally the first 50 or so pages are comprised of various one-off characters having sex in fairly graphic fashion and killing each other in the process. 

And it’s so weird as to be jarring, because as mentioned Dee’s powers of description often fail him and the reader (at least this one) often has to re-read sections to figure out what the hell is going on. For example, the book opens with a convamp guy dressing up as Count Downe for a convention, the vampire protagonist of Scarlett Shade’s famous series of novels. Then a hotstuff gal comes over, the spitting image of Countess Showery, the female vampire co-protagonist of the Shade novels, and this dude can’t believe his luck. Then “Countess Showery” turns out to be his buddy, dressed in drag for the convention…and after a chuckle the two dudes look in the mirror, see themselves as the “real” Count Downe and Countess Showery…and start having sex! “He slipped inside her hot, tight hole,” and etc. Uh, okay… 

Dee is just getting started with the depravity. I mean Shade is kind of wonderful in how grimy it is. We get another one-off character, this one an unhappily married woman whose husband forces her to suck him off every night(!), and she too imagines herself as Countess Showery, also seeing herself as the “real” vampire-babe in the mirror. “Suck me, please,” instructs her husband, and next thing you know the unhappy housewife is imagining she has fangs and then she’s, uh…biting it off… 

Even crazier is an ensuing sequence in which a wanna be reporter named Teresa, who used to be a stripper (and who had casual sapphic flings with other strippers), gets the coup of interviewing Scarlett Shade herself. A hotbod beauty with long red hair, Shade has been reclusive for the past three years; we’re informed she went out of the public view once so many of her fans began committing suicide. Also, Shade herself supposedly has sapphic tendencies…so Teresa starts unbuttoning her top during the interview to show off her cleavage. This leads to a full-on lesbian sequence between the two, one which of course has an unhappy end for poor Teresa – Scarlett Shade has gleefully admitted to Teresa that she is a vampire, and cannot let the truth out. 

Our heroes, such as they are, turn out to be a pair of casual lovers named Phil and Connie. Folks these two were about enough to make me toss the book. A pair of more self-centered individuals you will rarely meet in fiction. Phil, who runs a genre-themed bookstore in Oklahoma, was witness to all sorts of horrors as a child in Czhechoslovakia, and lately he’s been having nightmares and headaches about it. Phil suffers from a lot of nightmares and headaches in Shade, to the extent that he starts to come off like a Southern Belle suffering the vapors. I mean this dude is pure prima donna in the book, just as annoying as shit. 

But Connie’s even worse. She makes jewelry, but also works at a WaldenBooks (remember those??), and she’s just gotten divorced (as has Phil) and she’s had casual sex with Phil, but she’s not sure…she kinda likes good-looking but going-nowhere wanna-be writer Gary. Connie’s had a few abortions in the past (Phil asks her exactly how many at one point and Connie throws a fit!!), and Dee ultimately uses this to reinforce the theme of Connie’s self-centeredness, that she actually “killed the life” that was growing in her (dangerous ground for a writer to tread upon in today’s world!). Oh and when we meet her, Connie’s dining at the Y with her galpal Vicki…the latter’s been pushing for a little lesbian action for quite a while. I mean seriously, there’s a lot of dining at the Y in Shade

So anyway, long story short – all these people, we soon learn, are victims of Scarlett Shade. Like Phil, for example. He briefly met the famous author at some convention, and now Phil’s having all those flashbacks and nightmares, and plus he’s got these bite-like wounds on him that only show up in the mirror. This I thought was the one novel element of Shade, though it takes forever for the reader to figure out what’s going on: Scarlett Shade uses mirrors in her vampiric pursuits, flitting in and out of them like a ghost and emerging into the lives of her victims. This is why all those one-off characters were seeing themselves as Shade’s characters in the mirror in the opening of the novel, it was Shade possessing them. 

Dee stuffs Shade with a lot of in-jokery. He mentions a few “out of print books by Ron Dee” at a horror convention, and genre personalities like Tim Powers and Edward Bryant are mentioned. Dee also namedrops several real-world horror novels in Shade. However he does not really bring to life the novels of Scarlett Shade, and why exactly they’d be so wildly popular is not very clear…cause they sound lame as hell. Actually we don’t know much about them, other than that there are several of them and they seem to occur in the past, with castles and whatnot. They’ve got titles like “Vampire Bordello” and stuff like that, and they’re billed as “erotic horror.” We do get the first chapter of one of the books, printed in almost unreadable italics, and it’s all so goofy that it has to be more in-jokery on Dee’s part. 

One of the highlights of Shade is the subplot concerning Teresa, the aforementioned reporter who has sex with Shade. So as it turns out, when Scarlett Shade terminally sucks someone’s blood, the victim wakes up in their coffin…and will be stuck there for eternity unless they can use their dwindling power to project themselves as a corporal being aboveground and suck a victim’s blood. Teresa is one of the few Shade victims who figures this out, and the most fun part of the book concerns her gradual aims for revenge. She also figures out how Shade uses mirrors. But even here Dee can’t refrain from the goofiness, with Teresa projecting herself in clothing similar to a TV reporter she loved as a kid: Kolchak the Night Stalker! 

Indeed, Teresa is so fun that it only makes you hate loser Phil and self-centered Connie even more. Gradually they too figure out what’s going on (that is, once Phil’s bothered to get out of bed), but it takes too many of the book’s 348 pages for that to happen. (Though true to Zebra tradition, those 348 pages are some big ol’ print.) The problem is, they’re not just self-involved but also stupid. Denial seems to be a trope of the horror genre (ie “There’s no such thing as vampires!” and such), and boy does Dee drive this trope into the ground. Despite their increasing torpor, strange wounds that only appear in mirrors, and increasing taste for blood, these two morons still refuse to believe that Scarlett Shade is really a vampire. 

It's hard to say which of the two is the more annoying. When he isn’t passing out or popping aspirin, Phil acts like a petulant child. Connie meanwhile ignores all mounting evidence that vampires exist, fully buying the story that these “convamps” are committing suicide…even though their bodies are drained of blood. Even when casual bedmate Gary “kills himself,” right after meeting Scarlett Shade, Connie still doesn’t put two and two together. Only after she’s had yet another dining at the Y session with her galpal Vicki does Connie realize something is going on…because Vicki loses control of herself and starts biting Connie “down there.” I say, there are some squirm-inducing parts in Shade. However it isn’t too outrageous, because Dee’s tongue is clearly in cheek throughout: 


Or even:


Dee has a much better plot with Teresa putting together an army of the undead to take on Scarlett Shade, but instead he puts more focus on Phil and Connie. Teresa is by far the more interesting character here; her discovery of how Shade uses mirrors trumps anything Phil and Connie manage to do. Unfortunately it’s Phil and Connie’s bumbling that makes up the lame climax; even in the finale Phil manages to pass out. But then the entire novel is preposterous, and it’s to Dee’s credit that he doesn’t try to make things “seriously.” In sum Shade is a sordid horror novel positively filled with kinky sex, only undone by its unlikable characters and Dee’s sometimes-confusing prose. 

Since finishing Shade I’ve started reading another horror novel I picked up years ago, one that turns out to have a very similar plot: Warren Netwon Beath’s Bloodletter, also from 1994. It too deals with the author of a wildly successful series of vampire novels who himself might be a vampire. However it’s vastly superior to Shade.

Monday, September 26, 2022

Wolfsbane


Wolfsbane, by William W. Johnstone
March, 1987  Zebra Books
(Original Zebra edition 1982)

Yet another thick horror paperback courtesy the prolific William W. Johnstone, Wolfsbane was first published in 1982; shown here is the cover of the 1987 reprint, which I lifted from Too Much Horror Fiction (where you can also see the original cover). I can’t make out the artist signature, but this cover, while super cool (and embossed in true ‘80s horror paperback style), has no relation to the story itself. This one is Johnstone’s take on werewolves, but don’t go into Wolfsbane expecting a typical werewolf tale. 

Instead, expect Johnstone’s typical horror novel plot: Satan comes to Smalltown USA in the 1980s. (I grew up in Smalltown USA in the 1980s, and trust me, Satan would’ve gotten bored quick.) Actually, Wolfsbane takes place in 1976, though the “shock twist” finale occurs in 1981. Otherwise it’s the same as the other Johnstone horror novels I’ve read, with the caveat that Wolfsbane isn’t nearly as twisted, perverted, or downright great as The Nursery. But on the other hand, it’s definitely better – which is to say sleazier – than Toy Cemetery. It just isn’t as sleazy as The Nursery

I say this is a werewolf novel, and technically it is, but Johnstone rarely uses the word in the book; instead he calls them “loup garous,” given that the novel takes place in Louisiana. But man, these creatures, when they do appear in the book (which honestly isn’t all that often), are hardly even described. Johsntone’s powers of description fail him greatly when it comes to the creature feature material; about the most we get is that the beasts are hairy and have hideous faces. Most of the time they appear in shadows, and there are other monsters besides the werewolves, like a witch and a horde of things that try to attack the protagonist during a memorable if brief sequence in the finale. None of them are much described. 

Otherwise, Wolfsbane was a lot better than I expected it would be. For the first hundred pages or so I was thinking to myself that it was a fine novel, with little of the rampant exposition or page-filling of Johnstone’s other novels. Unfortunately though, the book kept going. In fact, it kept going to almost 300 pages, and by novel’s end all that exposition and page-filling was out in full force. The novel actually got to be humorous with the lame page-filling, with interminable stalling in the third half as the hero, Pat Strange, incessantly traded barbed dialog with the villain, 90 year-old witch Madame Bauterre. That said, Wolfsbane does not feature any of Johnstone’s right wing sermonizing, but to tell the truth I wouldn’t have minded much if it did. In fact that was just the extra icing on the cake in The Nursery, which is seeming more like the William W. Johnstone horror novel that has it all. 

The opening seems to be inspired by the old Universal horror classics, with a werewolf loose in the bayou hamlet of Ducross Parish, in 1934. The werewolf is taken down by the townsfolk and the human corpse immolated and sealed up so that the creature will never rise again. Then the guy’s wife and children are kicked out of town. We move then to 1976, and that wife, the aforementioned Madame Bauterre, has returned to Ducross Parish. She will be the prime villain of Wolfsbane, a 90-something crone of pure evil…one who indulges in a few super explicit sex scenes that are actually stomach-churning. Johnstone clearly seems to be chortling to himself as he details, in graphic detail, M. Bauterre’s rape of a few captured men in the novel…it’s sleazy stuff for sure, but just extremely gross, with lots of detail about the old witch’s various, uh, “dry” bodyparts. 

But it wouldn’t be a horror PBO without a hotstuff heroine, and she comes in the form of Janette Bauterre Simmons, granddaughter of M. Bauterre and widow of a ‘Nam special forces commander. Janette seems to be the main protagonist as the novel starts, and I thought Johnstone for once was going to get away from his traditional “Vietnam vet badass” hero. But I was wrong, as Pat Strange – a Vietnam vet badass – is the true hero of the tale. Janette is atypical of the usual Johnstone heroine, though, or at least unlike the ones in the other Johnstone novels I’ve read: she’s determined, brave, and follows her own path. She sets the events in motion, deciding to visit her grandmother in Louisiana despite M. Bauterre’s order not to – and Janette soon figures there is some crazy stuff going on. 

Given the bayou setting, be prepared for a lot of hamfisted “accented dialog” stuff; ie “you rat” instead of “you’re right” and “lak” instead of “like.” Luckily neither Pat nor Janette speak this way, so we only have to endure this when it comes to a few minor characters. The opening has you prepared for the worst, though, with a lot of Ducross Parish locals gawking at the returned Madame Bauterre and going over the events of 1934. The only local character who has more of a part in the novel is Sheriff Edan Vallot, and Johnstone pulls an interesting trick here in that Vallot, the cop, is actually more believing of the supernatural than Pat Strange is. 

As for Pat, he’s of a piece with other Johnstone protagonists: yet another professional soldier in his 40s who is chosen to become God’s Warrior. It’s goofy but fun as Pat, when introduced, is gone to fat and living in a shack in South Carolina, having recently given up his warring ways. But for reasons he can’t comprehend, Pat abruptly stops drinking and begins working out and running ten miles a day(!), to the point that he’s a fit fighting machine when Janette shows up at his door one day. Of course, “God Himself” has chosen Pat to be “His Warrior,” to fight Satan in this latest installment of the “game” the two beings engage in. 

Oh and that’s another thing. Wolfsbane answers a question I’ve wondered about for a while: whether William W. Johnstone had a sense of humor. He clearly did, because there is a lot of humor in the novel; tortured, unfunny humor, but an attempt at humor nonetheles. This is mostly relayed via none other than Satan himself, who often appears (via his voice only) in the final third of the novel…and starts talking about his love of baseball! The devil’s voice comes from a “bubbling” section of the bayou and makes sarcastic comments throughout the novel’s climax, disparaging “Him” and taunting Pat. It’s all more goofy than actually funny, yet at the same time it could be evidence that Johnstone realizes his repetitive horror plots are shit and he himself doesn’t take them seriously. I mean folks the devil at one point actually says to Pat, “Who do you think I am, Barbara Streisand?” 

But the unintentional humor is more prevalent. As mentioned the book becomes almost tiresome in the second half with the egregious stalling. Actually this starts off even in the first half; Janette, in Paris, is attacked by a werewolf in her grandmother’s study, actually sees the beast revert to human form after being shot by a guard, and yet spends the next several chapters wondering if there is “more going on” with her grandmother. So Janette goes to Ducross Parish, where M. Bauterre bluntly tells Janette she should leave, but Janette stays behind, suspecting something is going on (remember, she was attacked by a friggin’ werewolf), and she even goes to the lengths of getting a nightvision camera so she can take photos of the hairy beasts that congregate in the courtyard at night. 

And all along her grandmother keeps appearing to her, telling her to leave, etc. It’s tiresome but only a taste of the tiresome events that will ensue. Pat comes into it because Janette just happens to come across an old letter from her deceased husband, the Special Forces commander, which mentions Pat Strange – and yes, Janette’s husband was indeed Pat’s commanding officer! All this is just the work of God, of course! So Janette goes down to find Pat Strange in his South Carolina shack…and the two immediately start screaming at each other…which of course leads to one of Johnstone’s OTT sex scenes. Again, not nearly as OTT as when the hero first had sex with his girlfriend in The Nursery (a scene which featured such unforgettable dialog as, “I want to suck you, Mike. I want to suck your cock.”), but still pretty OTT, with dialog like, “It’s called doggy style,” and “Cum with me!” And yes, it’s spelled that way, same as in The Nursery

Actually the two go at it all night long and into the next day, there in Pat’s shack, which doesn’t even have indoor plumbing. Johnstone leaves the ensuing boinkery mostly off-page, and only a stray mention of it here and there in the latter half of the novel, when Pat returns to Ducross Parish with Janette and stays with her in her room in M. Bauterre’s mansion. For Janette has brought Pat back with her as her guardian, and now it’s Pat’s turn to wonder if all those creeping shadows down in the courtyard are really werewolves and whatnot. Here the stalling hits us full force, as Madame Bauterre incessantly taunts Pat, only for Pat to taunt her back, the old woman getting angry at Pat’s uncouth language. It goes on and on, with “I could destroy you now, but I won’t” crap, only nothing happens, mostly because M. Bauterre is aware that Pat is “God’s Warrior,” thus he cannot be touched due to the rules of the “Game.” 

Pat’s investigation entails lots of driving around Ducross Parish and meeting the locals, including an old witch-woman who lives in the swamp. Johnstone also brings in a “family” subplot in that warring dynasties are involved with the werewolves, but this too just comes off like more page-filling. The sad thing is it takes forever for anything to happen. A few corpses pile up, clearly werewolf victims, but we have the usual horror trope where no one wants to believe it was a werewolf who did the killing. Again though Johnstone subverts the usual by having the sheriff be the one who suspects werewolves, and not Pat, who keeps searching for rational reasons. 

This too is another Johnstone schtick, the warrior chosen by God who not only isn’t religious but who also doesn’t believe in the supernatural. But also part of the schtick is God’s Warrior gradually coming to accept his lot – which of course means a finale in which he takes up a gun and shoots down a bunch of people. Oh I forgot, another Johnstone schtick is where the town is slowly corrupted by Satan, with the small group of heroes excised from the community; this happens so quickly and with such little setup and followthrough in Wolfsbane that it was actually humorous. But anyway, as God’s Warrior, Pat is able to gun down werewolves and such with nothing more than a shotgun and a “.41 mag.” Whereas the average person would need silver bullets or whatever, Pat’s divine blessing allows him to kill the creatures with regular bullets. 

But man, any hopes of Pat going up against a host of creatures are quickly dashed. Johnstone blows through the action like he’s running out of space…and I guess he is, given that he’s spent the past 250-some pages stalling. Again, it’s nowhere near the craziness of The Nursery, where that “God’s Warrior” gunned down possessed teens with nary a concern. Instead here Pat heads onto Madame Bauterre’s grounds – after enjoying a quick snack on her lawn! – and is quickly shooting at zombies and werewolves and other assorted monsters, none of which are described. Johnstone also has that goofy quirk of referring to various characters Pat’s gunning down by their names, with no reminders, and the reader has no idea who the hell they are. So that too adds to the unintentional comedy. 

The biggest miss here is the abovementioned part where Pat is chased by sundry monsters on the estate, but the description of them is vague at best. There was all kinds of opportunity here for true horror as Pat is chased by creepy crawlies across the estate. Also the final confrontation with M. Bauterre is a bit weak, with the old evil woman standing there patiently as Pat sets her up for a divine shotgun blast. But even worse is that Johnstone rushes through the monster-killing action, and instead goes for a “shock” finale where the devil plunges Pat into a deep sleep…and he wakes up on Halloween of 1981. Johnstone seems to be setting things up for a sequel, with Pat vowing to stay in Ducross Parish to ensure the devil never sets foot in it again, but I’m not sure if Johnstone ever wrote a sequel to Wolfsbane. It’s looking like he did not. 

Overall though Wolfsbane wasn’t too bad. It had a lot of stalling and padding, but there was just enough of Johnstone’s typical goofiness to make it fun. I mean I know I’m supposed to say he’s a horrible writer and all, but I’d rather read something like this than “serious” horror fiction.

Thursday, June 30, 2022

Kiss Kill


Kiss Kill, by Roy Sorrels
April, 1990  Pinnacle Books

For a book with a cover blurb by none other than Lawrence Block, Kiss Kill is very obscure these days, and likely went under the radar even back in 1990. I discovered it a few years ago, and only because I was searching for everything Pinnacle published in the late ‘80s, once the imprint was run by Zebra Books. This was also how I discovered the similarly-obscure Steel Lightning series. But it was only recently that I actually picked up a copy of Kiss Kill, given that I’ve been on a bit of a “cop thriller” kick. It sounded interesting, even if it was outside my safe space of ‘70s crime-pulp…I mean 1990 seems “new” to me, given that I pretty much live in the 1970s. 

But other than an occasional mention of fax machines, crack, or a character wearing a Batman T-shirt (those were incredibly ubiquitous at the time – in fact I remember a female comedian at the time saying that she didn’t plan to actually go see the Tim Burton film; she’d just see it frame by frame on the T-shirts of the people who passed by her on the street!), Kiss Kill could just as easily be set in the ‘70s. Actually, the novel is most reminiscent of the late ‘80s/early ‘90s revisions Nelson DeMille did of his Ryker and Keller books, ie The Smack Man and Night Of The Phoenix. Just as DeMille took the grungy midtown Manhattan of the original ‘70s books and updated it to the grungy Lower East Side of the late ‘80s, so too does Kiss Kill mostly occur in this downtrodden area. In fact Midtown and Times Square are rarely mentioned, with most of the action taking place along Third Avenue and environs. 

And this is truly a “New York” novel. Author Roy Sorrels is certainly familiar with the city, and brings it to life in all its tawdry splendor. I’m no expert on the city – again, the New York that exists in my mind is the one I read about in novels from the 1970s – but I was always under the impression that New York cleaned up its act by the ‘80s. Kiss Kill dispels that notion, and it would appear that 1989 (the year the events seem to take place) was just as tawdry as, say, 1974. It would appear that the city didn’t really clean up its act until Rudy Giuliani was elected in 1994, after which all those tawdry places became Disneyfied. Now that I think of it, Steel Lightning also took place in this same grungy, immediately pre-Giuliani Lower East Side. 

But let’s get back to how scarce Kiss Kill is, with so little detail available about it. There are only two reviews on Amazon as of this writing, the first just a rehash of the back cover copy, the other by a person saying it’s “the best mystery/suspense novel” they’ve ever read. Speaking of the back cover copy, what’s funny about it is that it sort of gives an idea of the plot, while being very misleading; it was certainly written by some editor at Pinnacle/Zebra who only gave the book a cursory glance. Here it is:


So there was no other info I could find about Kiss Kill than this, no Google Books listing with a Snippet View of the contents (no Google Books listing at all, in fact). Nothing to go by other than that back cover. In fact I kept wondering if the “lover” mention meant that the hero cop Duggan was gay; it’s my understanding that “lover” was a term used mostly by the gay underworld before all the straights co-opted it. (Humorously, as if somehow predicting my incorrect assumption, Duggan informs a character in the first few pages that he is not gay!) So I took a gamble and ordered a copy of the book – scarce as mentioned, but luckily not overpriced, at least not yet. It was pretty much what I expected, an overlong Pinnacle/Zebra book of the day (320 pages), with the embossed cover…and I admit, I was a little bummed when I discovered it was in first-person. As anyone who has spent just a little time here will know, I prefer my pulp in third-person. 

But man, I was not prepared for how much I would enjoy Kiss Kill. I mean I planned to take it to work and read it during lunch, or whenever I felt like leaving my desk…and I ended up doing that and also taking it home with me to keep reading it there. I finished the book in a few days. And sure, it has some problems…I mean the length is a major problem, as one can detect that Sorrels was given a big word count by the publisher and thus had to pad a bit, resulting in a little repetition. But other than that the book was pretty much everything I could want in a novel about a cop taking on a serial killer. Plus snuff flicks! 

There was also the mystery of the author. I could find nothing about Roy Sorrels other than that he’d published another fat Pinnacle paperback the same year, a horror novel titled The Eyes of Torie Webster. (In a cool bit of connectivity, Torie Webster is mentioned on page 98 of Kiss Kill, a “local newscaster” in New York – surely the same character as the titular Torie Webster of the other Sorrels novel, who per the back cover is a newscaster.) I found a FictionDB listing which misleadingly implied that “Roy Sorrels” was the pseudonym of a female author named Anna McClure. But as it turns out, it’s the other way around: per this 1985 UPI article, “Anna McClure” was the pseudonym Roy Sorrels, a literature professor, used for his Romance novels, which he started writing at the behest of his wife. It seems clear though that Sorrels found more success under his pseudonym, given that he only published these two obscure Pinnacle books under his real name. 

Now let’s take a look at the also-misleading back cover. Reading that, I got the impression that Kiss Kill would be about a bitter, lone (and possibly gay!) cop wandering the neon streets of Manhattan in search of a serial killer who preys on prostitutes, like a late ‘80s take on Without Mercy. As it turns out, the fact that Phil Duggan’s “lover” was killed in a shootout is incidental to the story at best, and only mentioned once or twice. And yes, the lover was a she – Duggan commited the “sin” of falling in love with his female partner, and they planned to marry, but she was killed in a shootout. Duggan, who as stated narrates the novel, is a 15-year veteran of the force, and when we meet him he’s already part of the Undercover Squad, along with a few other cops, and he’s already on a case: posing as a taxi driver as bait for a serial killer who is killing cab drivers across the city. 

What the back cover copy doesn’t make clear – and the copy is masterful in how it captures the reader’s interest but gets so much about the novel wrong – is that it’s Duggan’s new “lover” who is the first victim of another serial killer, and Duggan goes off the books to find the killer. Now, I’ll try to refrain from my usual spoilers here, but this isn’t a spoiler – we know on page one that Duggan’s woman, a former streetwalker named Mary, is dead, as the novel opens with Duggan providing her ID in the morgue. Indeed, we learn later in the novel that it was the newscast of Torie Webster that even alerted Duggan that the corpse of a torture-killed Jane Doe was found in an alley, and Duggan had a sixth sense that it was his missing girlfriend. 

From there we go back a few weeks to the various “meet cute” incidents in which Mary became a short – but meaningful – part of Duggan’s life. First he gives her a free lift while driving his cab, Mary running from some fat guy she claimed just hit her, though later we’ll learn she actually took the guy’s wallet. Duggan takes her back to her apartment, which is in an otherwise-vacant building, and ultimately turns down her offer of sex in exchange for the drive. (Mary being the character Duggan tells he’s not gay, by the way – she questions why he’d turn down a free lay.) Somehow Mary gets under Duggan’s skin and he keeps thinking about her, looking for her on Third Street and ultimately starting up a relationship with her, with Mary moving in with Duggan in his cramped apartment in the Village. 

The relationship is a bit hard to buy, but then falling in love itself is inexplicable, so I didn’t have too much of a problem with it. Mary however is a bit too flighty and flaky; she has a hard time remembering Duggan’s name and seems spaced out all the time, despite not being on drugs. She is also a supreme liar, telling Duggan a host of tall tales about her past. Duggan will have to sift through these lies when he investigates who killed Mary. Some of this plays out in memorable ways, like Mary – who by the way is only 20, or even younger – claiming that her dad was a famous wrestler, who would beat her unmerciful. Duggan tracks the man down in Jersey, only to find a rail-thin drunk who has gone to seed…a guy who lies just as much as his daughter did, and who also apparently raped his daughter. 

Mixed in with the blossoming Duggan-Mary relationship is the assignment Duggan is currently working on, the taxi driver killer. Sorrels thanks a host of cop-world figures at the start of the book, and it’s clear he did his research. The first half of Kiss Kill is a probing police procedural steeped in realism and detail. Sorrels populates the tale with grizzled cops working out of a Village precinct, peppering the narrative with their random oddball stories. It’s humorous stuff, but not nearly as egregious as the “cop tales” that made up Hellfire. And it’s very much a procedural, with no random action scenes; Duggan informs Mary that most cops don’t even take their guns out, and he personally never fires his .38 in the course of his actual investigation. 

But by page 100 we get back to the opening sequence, of Duggan identifying Mary’s corpse, and from here Kiss Kill takes a new tack, with Duggan investigating on his own. The detectives who got Mary’s case have no interest in finding out who killed some nobody street whore, and Duggan’s boss refuses to loan him to that precinct so Duggan can investigate it himself. It’s here that the Duggan-Mary thing becomes hard to buy, as Duggan informs us that only “idiot cops” fall in love with hookers; sure, they can take freebies every once and a while, as long as the sex is discreet, but only a fool would fall in love with a hooker. But Duggan is a fool, and he loved Mary, and he’s determined to find out who slashed her throat and dumped her corpse in an alley. So he tracks down the clues in his off-time. 

The back cover is accurate in this, as Sorrels well brings to life the street people of the Lower East Side. Duggan makes his way through an assortment of drug addicts, drug pushers, pimps, and whores as he tries to figure out who would kill Mary and why. The procedural vibe remains; despite his grief Duggan does not rush into the fray and takes his time tracking clues and evidence. There’s also a long discussion with the M.E. who autopsied Mary’s corpse, and we learn she had sex shortly before she was killed, was then chained up or handcuffed (apparently willingly), and then was sliced innumerable times by a blade so that she bled profusely, before her throat was ultimately slashed. 

A curious thing about Kiss Kill is that it isn’t overly graphic. Mary’s corpse – and the corpse of the second girl to be murdered – is not even described, and the few action scenes operate more on an emotional spectrum than a visceral one. The sex too is fairly inexplicit; there’s none of the exploitation of Mary or the other hookers Duggan encounters, and perhaps the most explicit scene in the book is a random bit midway through where Duggan has sex with a cop groupie who picks him up at a bar. Here we learn that Duggan, uh, “pulls out” before finishing, given that he’s lost interest in the whole thing. Duggan is a lot more emotional and introspective than your typical cop protagonist, not that this stops him from kicking a little ass. 

There’s a lot of that cool crime novel stuff I always enjoy, with Duggan infiltrating the criminal underworld and working his way around as he seeks his goal. We get a part where he buys a gun from a dude who sells crack to elementary school kids(!), and later on Duggan tangles with a pimp who goes around with a trio of rottweilers. All this stuff takes precedence in the narrative, but to his credit Sorrels doesn’t forget about the other case Duggan’s working, with the killer targeting cabbies. Again to his credit, Sorrels plays this out realistically as well, having buried clues early in the novel, clues which bear out with the uncovering of the killer’s identity. But with this disposed of, Duggan is free to pursue his own personal case. 

For a veteran cop who has seen it all, Duggan’s a little slow to figure out what happened to Mary. When another young girl is found dead in an alley – a girl Duggan’s met in his investigation – Duggan knows it’s the work of the same killer. Ultimately he’ll discover that it all has to do with the illicit world of adult films…and it isn’t until Duggan literally sees the videotaped evidence that Duggan realizes it’s snuff films in particular. Duggan has a contact who runs a newstand, and this guy tells Duggan that “back in ‘76” there was a movie released in mainstream theaters which claimed to be a snuff film, but was clearly fake – presumably this is the real-world movie Snuff being referred to. But now someone is doing the real thing, and Mary was the unwitting performer; the embossed cover art, then, is indication that at least someone at Pinnacle read the book, what with the “film strip” angle. 

Skip this paragraph to avoid spoilers; I’m only writing this paragraph in case others who have read Kiss Kill would like to discuss. Duggan finds the place that secretly made the snuff film Mary “starred” in, and it’s run by a hotstuff brunette who makes mainstream porn films…and who appears to have stepped out of a pulpier novel. Her name’s even Venus! Duggan, preposterously enough, manages to get a part in the latest mainstream porn film Venus is making, ransacking the place for evidence of snuff when no one is looking. At last he uncovers the videotaped murders of Mary and the other girl, but when Duggan gets the upper hand on Venus and the guy who “starred” in the two movies (ie the actual murderer)…Duggan calls in the police, and there follows a harried finale in which we learn that Venus and her colleague are given twenty-five years to life, “the maximum sentence.” While this I guess is believable given that Duggan’s a cop who upholds the law, I felt it was disappointing. I mean I wanted Duggan to waste them. 

Anyway, end spoilers. I can only say again how much I enjoyed Kiss Kill, I mean I was really caught up in it. Yes, some of it could have been cut, and there was a bit of repetition; for example Sorrels drops a wonderful phrase early in the book that Duggan’s nervous, and it feels like two kids learning to skateboard in his stomach. Unfortunately he repeats the same line later in the book. 320 pages of smallish print is a lot of words, and I could detect at points that Sorrels was trying hard to meet a requirement; the same thing that plagued those Steel Lightning books. I have no evidence but I’m certain Pinnacle/Zebra insisted on a big word count; just look at the bloated Doomsday Warrior books. But the fact remains that Roy Sorrels is a helluva good writer, so you don’t really mind – I’m almost even tempted to check out The Eyes Of Torie Webster, even though I haven’t been on a horror-novel kick in years. 

It's a damn shame Kiss Kill is so obscure, and that Sorrels himself is an unknown. I tried looking him up but couldn’t find anything; I even went on Facebook but had no luck finding him. It would be cool if some publisher brought Kiss Kill back into print, like Brash Books or someone. I highly recommend this one; it brings to life the crime-ridden, pre-Giuliani Lower East Side, features a host of memorable characters and dialog, and is narrated with just the right amount of literary aplomb – not to mention a good bit of dark humor. So then I totally concur with Lawrence Block’s succinct cover blurb: “Bravo!”

Monday, June 27, 2022

Doomsday Warrior #16: American Overthrow


Doomsday Warrior #16: American Overthrow, by Ryder Stacy
August, 1989  Zebra Books

Well folks with this sixteenth volume of Doomsday Warrior author Ryder Syvertsen clearly doesn’t give a shit. I mean I haven’t seen such authorial disinterest since the latter days of The Penetrator. Syvertsen is going through the motions, likely breaking out in a flop sweat as he tries to pad out the pages of this overlong 223-page novel…the sixteenth damn installment of a series he’s been writing since 1984, but for some reason people keep buying it so he has to keep writing it! You can almost feel him longing for the sales to drop so he can just stop already. 

To wit, American Overthrow is by-the-numbers Doomsday Warrior, offering nothing new to the series and drifting along on its own tedium…so lame that there’s even a “Bobby in the shower” dream sequence fakeout that only serves to further pad out the pages. The colorful gore and unbridled sleaze of the earlier volumes is wholly absent; indeed, the dream sequence has what amounts to the only sex scene in the novel, but Syvertsen glosses over any of the explicit detail. The plot is a rehash of previous novels, further evidencing the author’s boredom. Even the promised setup – that this time Ted “Doomsday Warrior” Rockson will go up against fellow Americans – is given short shrift, Syvertsen focused more on trivial details like endless treks through the nuke-ravaged wastes and battles with nuke-creatures. 

Humorously, there’s no pickup from the previous volume, not even a cursory mention of its events nor of how long ago they occurred. As we’ll recall, that one ended with Rockson presumably dead(!) in the climactic battle in Egypt, once again fighting the sadistic Colonel Killov, but American Overthrow opens with Rockson in the woods near Century City in his homebase of Colorado, on a hunting trip with his best bud Detroit. No mention is made of the previous volume’s apocalyptic final battle, how Rockson survived, or even how he and his squad made it back to America. The entire novel simply isn’t mentioned, and American Overthrow is one of the first volumes of Doomsday Warrior in a long time that doesn’t require you to have read the previous installment to know what’s going on. 

The only installment that is referred to is #3: The Last American, but only vaguely; we learn here that it was “three years ago” that Rockson attended the signging of the Constitution of the Re-United States, and that occurred in the third volume (I think…it’s been over ten years since I read it). I don’t believe this “three years” dating jibes with the other dates Syvertsen has arbitrarily strewn throughout recent volumes, and it’s just more indication that the author isn’t very invested in his saga. The important thing is that American Overthrow sees the return of President Langford’s daughter Kim, that blonde goddess who was once proclaimed to be Rockson’s “true love” before being abruptly removed from the series without any explanation; the last time we saw her was in #9: America’s Zero Hour. Actually the last time we saw her was in #10: American Nightmare, but that one took place in an alternate reality, so it wasn’t the “real” Kim. 

So anyway we have an overlong opening in which Rockson and Detroit are out hunting and get attacked by this mutated lizard creature. After this a messenger from Century City finds them and requests their presence back in CC asap – word has come in that a fellow liberated city, Pattonville, has been overtaken by a military coup. Three hundred miles away, Pattonville is the chosen city of President Langford and Kim, and Rockson feels pangs of fear. We’re informed that Rockson and Kim “had been lovers once,” which is a WTF? moment if ever there was one, as in those earlier novels Syvertsen made it clear that Kim was Rockson’s soulmate. However, any hopes for a quick-moving tale of Rockson gaining revenge are quickly dashed, as Syvertsen proceeds to waste even more time with yet another overlong sequence of Rockson taking on the mutated flora and fauna of this radblasted future. In fact he won’t even get to Pattonville until toward the end of the novel, and his reunion with Kim lasts all but a page. 

But then the women have been gradually removed from the Doomsday Warrior narrative. Rona, Rock’s other true love, the redheaded beauty who was once “one of the boys” and went out on missions with the Rock Team, is now relegated to “woman at home” status, literally only there to have sex with Rockson on the rare occasions he’s in Century City. Off-page sex at that! Whereas earlier volumes went all-out with the crazed purple prose, these days Syvertsen merely writes, “They made love for half an hour,” and that’s literally all we get for the Rockson-Rona festivities. I mean he’s bored as hell, folks. He also seems to want to write something other than post-nuke pulp, as now Dr. Schecter, the resident genius of Century City, has become the Q to Rockson’s James Bond, providing him with a trio of gadgets for the mission (namely, a breathing device that fits in the nostrils, a foldable heat-shield suit, and most Bond-like of all a mini-gun shaped like a medallion). 

His usual team whittled down to just Archer, Detroit, and Chen, Rockson heads back out into the wild for the long trek to Pattonville…cue even more of those series-mandatory “mutated flora, fauna, and weather” sequences, this time with acid rain and other horrors. Syvertsen pads more pages with cutovers to Pattonville, where we are taken into the plight of one-off characters who are either gassed or killed by the new ruler: General Hanover. The villain of the piece, Hanover is a self-styled modern Hitler, even outfitting his men in Nazi-like uniforms. The fact that Rockson for once will be facing off against fellow Americans really troubles our hero’s heart; indeed, Rockson is filled “with a Kierkegaardian brooding” over the entire mission(!). But despite all the setup Syvertsen fumbles the ball, as the Americans Rockson eventually goes up against have been brainwashed into zombies (or “gasheads”) by Hanover’s gases. 

The most egregious part of American Overthrow is a long sequence in which Rockson and team, wearing those heat-shield uniforms, fall into a volcano…and find themselves in the domain of “lava men.” Doomsday Warrior is known for trampling over any sense of realism, but this sequence in particular is goofier than a 1980s Saturday morning cartoon. Led by King Sulphur, this “fucking colony of volcanic beings” puts Rockson and team through various trials and tribulations. Rockson somehow finds the opportunity to conjugate with the beautiful Shi’sa, an “angelic living sculpture” who makes her interest in flesh-man Rockson obvious. This part is super-weird; it’s not explicit, more just surreal, as Rockson marvels over the warmth and underlying softness of this lava woman’s hot bod. 

But get this…after Shi’sa helps them escape, Rockson’s riding on his mutant horse “hybrid” with the rest of the Rock Team, passing by the volcanic fields…and Detroit tells Rockson that he, Rockson, has been asleep all this time! And none of the team “remembers” the events with the lava men. In other words the entire sequence was just a damn dream! And Rockson basically just shrugs it off and gets on with the trek to Pattonville. I mean good grief! Just as ultra-lame as you can get. But then Syvertsen only livens up when he comes up with something that captures his goofy interest…like later in the book when we’re told that President Langford, who has been drugged regularly by General Hanover, looks “as drugged out as John Carradine in Atomic Vampire.” I mean we’re told this in the narrative, not in dialog, but again it’s another instance of obscure 20th century stuff being referred to in a novel that’s supposedly set in a post-nuke 2090s. 

Even General Hanover fails to meet expectations. He’s set up as suitably supervillain, but instead he comes off like a tool; in Kim’s few scenes in the novel, we see she’s kept locked up in a plush room, and Hanover will come in a few times a week to have dinner with her. The bastard!! But really he’s plotting to make Kim marry him, or somesuch…I mean the series is totally G-rated now, you see, so Kim is more bored than anything. In fact she stabs Hanover with a fork and throws food at him and whatnot, so she’s feisty as hell, but ultimately she too is drugged and kept on the periperhy of the narrative. She fights Hanover more than Rockson himself does; when our hero arrives in Pattonville and tries to disguise himself as a zombiefied “gashead,” he’s quickly outed and put through a sort of gladiatorial contest. His last challenge: Death-breath, a monstrous mutant even bigger than Archer. But even all this stuff is pretty bloodless and boring. 

The finale is goofy too, with Syvertsen so bored that he creates a fake Schecter here in Pattonville: Dr. Mason, yet another scientist able to whip up inventions, in this case a gas that counteracts Hanover’s gas. The finale sees zombie Pattonville residents stumbling around with weapons and taking on Hanover’s loyal soldiers. And of course Rockson’s medallion gun comes in at the last moment. At least this time we get a resolution, unlike the previous volume: Rockson when last we see him is about to embark on the 300-mile trip back to Century City with President Langford, Kim (both of them recuperating from the drugging), and Archer. Rockson’s ordered Chen and Detroit to stay in Pattonville to help with rebuilding; given that there are only a few volumes of the series left, I wonder if we will see either of them again. Who am I fooling…next volume they’ll both probably be back in Century City with nary an explanation. 

About the only interest I got out of American Overthrow was Syvertsen’s unwitting prescience. I mean the main plot has to do with an illegal coup that has taken away the rightful power of the American people. “We’re here to carry out the return to law under the US Constitution. There can be no higher goal than that,” Rockson informs his squad in the climax. Rockson, where are you when we need you now? And as if that wasn’t “ripped from today’s headlines” enough for you, check out this paragraph describing old President Langford, at the very end of the novel: 


Man, that last sentence says it all…it sure does, Rockson. It sure does.

Monday, March 29, 2021

Doomsday Warrior #15: American Ultimatum


Doomsday Warrior #15: American Ultimatum, by Ryder Stacy
February, 1989  Zebra Books

I had a tough time drumming up much enthusiasm for this fifteenth installment of Doomsday Warrior. In the past I’ve said that this series was like an R-rated ‘80s cartoon, but at this point it’s lost the R rating, so it comes off just like a cartoon. A lame ‘80s cartoon at that, like Challenge of the Go-Bots or something. While I’ve applauded Ryder Syvertsens dismissal of reality in the past, American Ultimatum really takes things to ludicrous levels…which itself would be fine if there were more bite to the tale, as there was in the earliest installments. Now everything’s basically G rated. 

It’s three months after the previous volume and as ever Syvertsen picks right up on things without much setting up the scene for series newcomers. The book opens with a prefigure of the goofy stuff we’re going to be encountering throughout the narrative: Colonel Killov, now a “god” in Egypt (which is populated by Egyptians who harken back to Ancient Egypt), wields a sonic wand (the Qu’ul) which emits an antigravity beam…which he uses to raise the Great Sphinx and then carelessly smash it onto the side of the Great Pyramid. The assembled priests – again, all of ‘em decked out in Ancient Egypt finery – wince a little at the destruction but shrug it off given that Killov is the promised god who would fall to them from the skies, as he did in the memorable climax of the previous volume. 

All this of course harkens back to that “goofy cartoon” vibe I keep mentioning…in fact I think there even was an episode of G.I. Joe where the gods of Ancient Egypt actually appeared. And it is very ludicrous, in a (hopefully) intentional way, as if the few past centuries never happened and the Egyptians at heart are just worshippers of animal-headed gods…not to mention that there’s an entire caste of high priests who are privy to all this secret sci-fi weaponry the Ancient Egyptians possessed. But then Syvertsen’s already in another plane of reality, given his off-hand mention that the Sphinx has a nose. In reality it fell off (or was shot off by Napoleon’s men, per the legend) centuries ago. At this point though the element of outrageousness is just old hat, and there’s no bearing of “reality” at all throughout to ground anything…every reader knows the main characters will survive unscathed, and despite what happens in the climax the next one will open with them all safely back at Century City. 

Which is what’s happened this time, of course. We meet Ted “Rock” Rockson, aka the Doomsday Warrior himself, as he’s back in Century City, with no pickup from the previous book…the same sort of series reset that occurs at the opening of every volume. The year is still 2096, and we’re told Rock first arrived at Century City “as a teen” 25 years ago. Periodically Syvertsen will drop references to previous books, telling us how long ago they were – like that Rock flew a MIG “about two years before” (an incident that happened in #9: America's Zero Hour) – but I get the impression he’s just making it up as he goes. I mean it was 2096 in the last volume, and maybe the volume before that, but then maybe 2096 just happens to be an endless year, sort of like 2020 was (and 2021’s shaping up to be). I mean, I’m still trying to cope with how Rock’s still riding the same faithful ‘brid, Snorter, which he’s been riding since the start of the series…despite the fact that he’s lost the damn thing multiple times, with no explanation how he ever gets it back. 

It's almost kind of impressive how Syvertsen sticks to his series template no matter what, sort of like how James Dockery stubbornly did the same thing on The Butcher. Each volume opens with a brief bit of Rock in Century City, then putting his team together (pretty much always the same guys), then leaving Century City to endure some rigorous post-nuke flora, fauna, or weather, and then finally arriving at their destination where Rock will get lucky with a local gal before killing a few Reds. But man this is the fifteenth volume, and we’ve already seen all this happen, uh…let me get my calculator…fifteen times already. At this point it seems pretty evident Syvertsen is just going through the motions. There are none of the fun topical touches even in the Century City sections, other than a previously-unmentioned “Sky Lounge” built high atop the city, a restaurant which affords diners a view of the surrounding mountains. 

This is where Rock takes girlfriend Rona for dinner; it’s her birthday, and once again Rona will be cast aside in the narrative – after that other series template, a roll in the hay with Rock. Which happens off-page, comrades, another indication of the increasing blandness of the series. Gone are the over the top, purple-prosed boinks of the past. As I say, we’re in lame cartoon territory here. And also Rona continues to be minimized; she was once a main character in the series, but now she’s essentially “the girlfriend,” never allowed to go on any of the missions and always stuck back at Century City. This time her going on the mission isn’t even brought up, and last we see of her she’s “bawling” when Rock leaves her bed next morning. And once again Kim, Rock’s other girlfriend, isn’t even mentioned, so I’m sticking with my assumption that we’ll never hear about her again. 

The mission at hand is Rock has received a coded radio broadcast from Rahallah, the African servant of Premiere Vassily in Moscow, ie the ruler of the world. Rock and Rahallah met back in #4: Bloody America, when Rock and team made their way to Russia, and apparently he and Rahallah came up with an agreement that if they ever needed to talk to one another, they would broadcast a code that could be deciphered via a copy of War And Peace. So Rath, the security honcho at Century City, picks up the broadcast, and then there’s the belated realization that there are multiple copies of the book in existence. Thus Rahallah’s code – which is based on certain letters on certain pages – might not be decipherable. However the problem is quickly overcome with “the computer,” and the deciphered code humorously runs two pages…again, there isn’t even the barest attempt at any realism, and the juvenile tone of Syvertsen’s prose doesn’t help add any. 

Rahallah has learned that Killov is alive and well in Egypt, and has come upon some weapons of mass destruction; Rahallah learned this in a mystical way, having seen in a dream his cousin’s African tribe being wiped out by a falling mountain or something. Basically Killov has ancient Egyptian technology which allows him to levitate anything, and he’s throwing mountains and whatnot on various tribes that don’t pledge fealty to him. Rahallah himself will be going to Egypt to put together an army to stop Killov – there’s vague mention that Vassily is too busy with internal riots to send any Russian troops – and he begs Rock to come help him. 

For once Rock doesn’t take the full team; he whittles it down to Chen, Archer, and Sheransky, the latter due to his being Russian and all and thus able to help them steal a MIG and fly it to Egypt. Otherwise Sheransky kind of comes off like a bumbling fool, the red shirt who would typically be killed in an earlier installment. We get the usual “journey through hostile terrain” setup, and Rock and team’s theft of the MIG from a Red airbase is ridiculously easy. Even more ridiculous is that Rock has to quickly read the flight manual to remind himself how to fly the plane! And not only is he able to complete a quick takeoff, but he also manages to pick up Chen and Archer and take out a few fighter jets that are scrambled after them! The plane eventually runs out of gas, conveniently right over Egypt, leading to Rock and pals parachuting into the Nile and fighting a couple sea monsters. 

Eventually they come upon the “Neo-Egyptian Army,” which is decked out in ancient Egyptian finery and the warriors of which ride elephants with lasers on their trunks. (Cue Dr. Evil.) Their leader is even named Tutenkamen. Rahallah, who is among them, explains that it’s a crazy story, “as so many are in our post-nuke world,” which led to the Egyptians of a hundred years before becoming the ancient Egyptian flashbacks of 2096. Whatever; Rock is soon making eyes at lovely “coca-skinned” Neferte, who makes a priority of tending to him. Their inevitable shenanigans occur off-page, it pains me to inform you. More focus is placed on Rock and team learning how to ride those elephants. Then the village is destroyed in a sneak attack of “falling mountains,” courtesy Killov’s Qu’ul; the only thing that can stop Killov’s weaponry is even more advanced ancient Egyptian tech: the “Ra sticks,” which we’re informed are two “levels” beneath “the Cheops pyramids.” Indeed, they are in “the level beneath” the level in which the Qu’ul was discovered! 

But honestly, just try to go along for the intentionally goofy ride, ‘cause later on Rock muses to himself that “just before the Nuke War” a McDonald’s was opened inside Grant’s Tomb, where customers could purchase “The McGrant.” Killov manages to capture Rock, the first the two have been face-to-face in I don’t know how many volumes, but not much is made of it. Instead Killov takes Rock back to his headquarters, aka the Great Pyramid, and puts him on a “sacrificial altar,” threatening to crush him with a six-hundred ton slab of rock, guiding it with the Qu’ul. It gets real goofy here when a “mysterious figure” in a black cloak comes out of the shadows and puts a knife to Killov’s throat, ordering him to move the slab away from Rock. Killov does so, manages to escape…and the “mysterious figure” turns out to be none other than Chen, anticlimactically enough. 

It all leads to a massive battle between Tutenkamen’s men and the “Amun Army,” ie Killov’s Northern Egypt warriors. This takes place along the Aswan Valley, and Syvertsen tries to go for a Biblical finale, with a flood taking everyone out, hero and villain alike. Even Rockson’s fate is left in question. (As if!) We do however, unsurprisingly at that, learn that Killov survives…now with a burning desire to get revenge on Rockson and kill him. This is kind of goofy too, as what else has been fueling Killov all these volumes? Pretty lame. But then “pretty lame” aptly sums up American Ultimatum, surely my least favorite volume yet in the series.