BLACKTHORN - Thunder on Mars

BLACKTHORN

Thunder on Mars

Edited by Van Allen Plexico

White Rocket Books

225 pages

Why on earth would a writer/editor like Van Plexico want to take a 1980 Saturday morning cartoon television show and meld it with a classic Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy series? The answer to that perplexing question is found in this book, which by the way, is the result of that odd pairing.  In the introduction, Plexico tells of his love for an old Jack Kirby created TV series called “Thundarr the Barbarian” and how, for whatever twists of the muses, it seemed to plague his thoughts over the years.  Enough so that he decided to one day do something with the concept, adding a new and fresh spin to the plot.  It would be another few years for that final element of this eclectic brew would reveal itself to him when one day he started thinking of Burroughs legendary Martian series. 

Just like that the pieces were suddenly all there and when he mentally assembled them in his ever wondrous imagination, there he beheld the story of an American General who, upon his death in the Middle East, awoke to find his soul had been replaced in a brand new body; a body locked in the lab of a mad sorcerer on the planet Mars.  Yet more revelations arise when this character, General John Blackthorn discovers his spirit has not only traveled through space but also time as this is a Terra-Formed Mars of the far-flung future.

Within minutes of his bizarre awakening in his younger, stronger body, Blackthorn manages to escape the sorcerer with several other soul-transplanted fellows.  In their flight, he eventually meets the beautiful, dark haired sorceress Aria and the fur skinned humanoid creature Oglok of the Mock Men.  It is this trio, once met, that join forces to travel the amazing, fantastic landscape that is a post-apocalyptic Mars.  Their further adventures are chronicled by a half dozen of the finest writers in new pulp today.

Mark Bousquet, Joe Crowe, Bobby Nash, James Palmer, Sean Taylor and I.A. Watson spin exciting, fast moving adventures that pit Blackthorn and his allies against lizard men, battling robots and an ocean wide haunted valley from which no one has ever returned to name a few.  Each story is a well crafted pearl in a thematic necklace of classical pulp sci-fi and brings Plexico’s dream to vibrant life before our eyes.

It is abundantly clear that Plexico has tapped the mother-lode of adventure fiction with John Blackthorn and I can guarantee you we haven’t seen the last of him, or Aria and Oglok.  One can only wait in breathless anticipation to see where on the giant Red Planet their travels take them next.

ANTIQUES DISPOSAL

ANTIQUES DISPOSAL

A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Mystery

Barbara Allan

Kensington Books

230 pages
Available May 2012

Vivian Borne is an eccentric antiques dealer who lives in Serenity, a small Midwestern  town situated on the banks of the Mississippi river.  She lives with her daughters, Peggy Sue and Brandy.  Together Vivian and Brandy solve murders that in one way or another deal with the business of antiquing.  Which is the simplest way to describe this series, of which this book is the sixth and has been described by other reviewers as being a “cozy” series if anyone really knows exactly what that means.

As a fan of hardboiled detective fiction, I’m assuming “cozy” refers to those mysteries wherein the protagonist is a little old lady ala Agatha Christie’s popular Miss Marple books or the old Angela Landsbury TV show, “Murder She Wrote.”  In other words, not my particular brand of tea; I prefer a headier beverage literature.  Still, every now and then one desires to try something different.  I decided I’d take a chance with “Antiques Disposal.”

It is probably one of the smartest things I’ve done in a while.  Why?  Well simply because the book is so damn funny, I honestly couldn’t put it down.  And the characters!  Oh, my God, is there a more dysfunctional group then the Borne girls?  Remember I said Brandy was Vivian’s youngest daughter?  Well she’s actually Peggy Sue’s daughter.  Yup.  Echoes of “Chinatown.”  You see Peggy Sue got herself “in trouble” as a young, unmarried girl and left her baby with her mother to raise figuring it was best for the child.  Did I mention Vivian suffers from a bi-polar disorder and is on medication?  Never mind that Brandy herself has a daughter….oh, forget it.  Its way too complicated for me to keep track of after only one visit with this eclectic bunch.  The thing is the writing is so clean and precise, even though you haven’t read those first five books  (something I hope to one day correct) the reader just goes with the flow.  There is a charm and decency to these characters that immediately grabbed me and had me caring for them from page one. 

Look, here’s what every true mystery fan knows as a fact, series fail or succeed not on how brilliant the crimes are staged and then solved, but on how appealing and original the heroes are.  Don’t believe me, give this some thought.   Early fans of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson came to demand more stories from Arthur Conan Doyle to read more about them and not the mysteries they dealt with, those became incidental.  The same can be said of every solid mystery series from Sam Spade, to Nero Wolfe and Nate Heller.  In fact one of those famous shamus plays a huge part in this book’s climatic dénouement finale in such a hilarious way, I will not spoil it for you.  It’s just too damn funny.

Okay, if you really need to know the plot, here it is.  Vivian and Brandy go to a storage unit auction, wherein the person who owned the unit stopped paying rental fees on it and the manager is legally free to sell its contents to recoup his or her loses.  These auctions have become very common among antique dealers and I believe there is even a reality show based on the practice.  So our two ladies end up winning the bid, begin transporting the boxed contents to their home and cataloguing them; everything perfectly normal and routine.  Until they return to the storage facility for their second trip and find the manager dead in the now empty unit.  The very next night someone breaks into Vivian’s home, attacks Peggy Sue leaving her unconscious and nearly kill’s Brandy’s loveable little blind poodle, Sushi.

From this point forward, both Vivian and Brandy are on the hunt for the killer and how they go about it so entertaining, pages simply fly by.  Sure, I was playing along and looking for clues too, but honestly, it was the ride I was enjoying to the max.  Bottom line, if all of the Trash ‘n’ Treasures Mysteries are as wonderful as “Antiques Disposal,” then sign me up for the long haul.

Hey, even if you end up not liking the book, did I mention there are recipes for chocolate brownies in it?  Now how can you go wrong with that? 

THE ADVENTURES OF LAZARUS GRAY

THE ADVENTURES OF LAZARUS GRAY

By Barry Reese

Pro Se Productions

230 Pages

As much as most writers enjoy creating new series characters, eventually many of them, after writing the adventures of the same cast multiple times, start to feel the burden of familiarity.  Add to the fact that each new volume often builds upon the fictional cast from allies to recurring villains so that eventually the poor writer is saddled with a huge ensemble that he or she feels compelled to include in each new story.  These moments of repetitive angst seemed to be evident in Reese’s last volume of his Rook series.  For the uninitiated, the Rook is a masked vigilante created by Reese years ago as his entry into the new pulp community and was an instant success among fans; this reviewer included.

Still, by the sixth volume of that character’s exploits, the sheen of newness had faded and the Rook stories started becoming more about the supporting cast rather than the central hero.  Like Arthur Conan Doyle’s ultimate dissatisfaction with his own creation, Sherlock Holmes, Reese somehow to be struggling to keep the Rook afloat.  It was clearly time for him to move on to something new and with this collection, he has done just that in a most triumphant way.

Lazarus Gray is Reese’s new hero and is an homage to the classic Avenger series, wherein we have our mysterious leading man aided and abetted by a team of loyal assitants; in this case a trio.  Together they are known as Assistance Unlimited.  Although Gray’s creation was part of a shared world that included two other heroes, Reese clearly found his old muse with these new characters and has produced some of his best, most energetic and enjoyable fiction to date.  These stories move at a breakneck speed and are filled with memorable characters and well delivered action to match anything done in the days of the old pulps.

At the beginning of the volume, we meet  an amnesiac washed ashore on the beach of Sovereign City with a strange medallion around his name on which is embossed the words Lazarus Gray.  Within minutes of awakening, an assassin dressed as a police officer attempts to kill him, but Gray is more than a match for him and is the victor.  Perplexed at his background, he assumes the name on the medallion and sets about creating a new life for himself as a champion of the underdog, the lost and impoverished while at the same time investigating his own unknown past.

Along the way he acquires three unique followers: Morgan Watts, a once time crook, Samantha Grace, a blonde debutante with both brains and beauty and Eun Jiwon, a Korean martial artists. All three are fiercely loyal to each other and Gray for various reasons and always eager to go into battle with him.  Reese’s ability to define this trio and breathe life into them is deft and although they do represent classic iconic pulp figures, he also injects original personal touches that sets them apart in a truly refreshing way.

Having been a fan of the Rook series from the start, I had come to expect a certain level of quality from Reese.  That this collection totally blew those expectations out of the water was one of the best surprises this reviewer has had in a long while.  “The Adventures of Lazarus Gray” is by far the best work Barry Reese has ever produced and I predict will soon build an even larger fandom than that of his Rook tales.

One point does require mentioning and that is the last story in this volume appears in print for the second time.  It was first printed in “The Rook – Volume Six” and is a team up between the two heroes.  I have no problem with the publisher reprinting the story, but a notice of such should have been made in the book’s indicia.  Which brings about a minor goof because this story was clearly written before the others, although chronologically it appears last.  In this book Gray discovers his true identity as being one Richard Winthrop, yet in “Darkness, Spreading Its Wings of Black” we are told he was Richard Davenport. 

Finally let me add this book is a gorgeously designed package with a wonderful cover by graphic artist Anthony Castrillo and superb interior illustrations by George Sellas. So what are you waiting for?  Go pick up “The Adventures of Lazarus Gray,” you’ll be happy you did.  You can thank me later.

COLD VENGEANCE

COLD VENGEANCE

By Preston & Child

Grand Central Publishing

448 pages

One of my favorite new pulp series on the market today is the Special Agent Pendergast series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.  I’ve stated many times in past reviews, if Clive Cussler’s hero Dirk Pitt is truly a modern take on Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze, then Pendergast is as close to a real life Shadow as we are ever going to get.  What makes Aloysius Pendergast so unique is his expertise in both modern sciences and arcane mystical practices.  First introduced in the book “Relic” the gaunt looking agent with the silver tinted eyes became an instant hit with action-thriller fans and rightly so.

Over the years and in his multiple, totally mesmerizing adventures, the authors have parceled out stingy pieces of the character’s past life; most of which have dealt with his youthful days growing up in New Orleans.  Now the pair has launched a truly masterful trilogy which delves into the one of Agent Pendergast’s most intimate and heart-wrenching experiences, the tragic death of his lovely wife Helen.  With their opening volume, “Fever Dream,” we learned that her tragic death, while on their honeymoon safari in Africa, was in fact a coldly executed murder.  By the end of that book Pendergast and several allies, including New York Detective D’Agosta, had run afoul of a deadly group of pharmaceutical doctors hiding on a foreboding island in the middle of the Louisiana bayous.  In a climatic finale, Pendergast learned the man responsible for his wife’s death was in fact her own brother, Dr. Judson Esterhazy.

As “Cold Vengeance” begins, Esterhazy, aware Pendergast suspects him, attempts to assassinate him while on a hunting trip in the forsaken moors of the Scottish highlands.

But killing Pendergast is never easy and in the end the villain must flee, but not before revealing to the F.B.I. agent that the entire death of his wife was a ruse and that she is still very much alive.

Thus begins the cat and mouse chase that propels us through this second chapter.  Not only is Pendergast after Esterhazy, but he also launches an obsessive quest to find Helen.  As both paths continue to frustrate him, what he is unaware of is Esterhazy’s own desperation has brought him to an immutable conclusion; the only way to stop Pendergast is to cease running and lure him into a trap.  The frantic Esterhazy seeks the assistance of a shadow organization that has in fact been the manipulators of the past events and possesses a diabolic secret whose routes lie in the ruins of Nazis Germany.

Reading this books is addictive, so be forewarned should you pick one up.  You’ll soon be like this reviewer, hooked for the duration.  “Cold Vengeance” is a riveting masterpiece of suspense skillfully balanced with pulse-pounding action galore.  The only negative point is how fast one arrives at the cliff-hanger ending, which is pure torture.  The third and final chapter of this saga is entitled “Two Graves” and for this reviewer it just can’t get here fast enough.

FELONY FISTS-FIGHT CLUB

FIGHT CARD : FELONY FISTS

By Paul Bishop

(http://www.bishsbeat.blogspot.com/)

128 pages

Punch. Block. Counterpunch. Duck. Uppercut. Jab. Haymaker. Clinch. The staccato machine-gun lingo of boxing that taps across the brain like a dance choreographed by battling gladiators.  It is a ballet of flying fists, controlled mayhem performed by all manner of combatants with something to win, prove or defend.  Of the entire classic pulp sports genre, the boxing magazines were by far the most popular and prolific. Now a group of today’s finest new pulp scribes have come together to recreate the blood, seat and tears of those canvas arenas in a series of short novellas under the guiding hand of accomplished novelist, Paul Bishop.

Bishop has an extensive resume from his long career as a police officer then detective for the Los Angeles police department, television and movie scribe and finally mystery/crime novelist.  Recently he’s gotten into the new pulp movement and it’s clear by this tale just how much he loves the old school boxing tales.  This story has the atmosphere and feel of an old Warner Brothers black and white flick from the 40s & 50s and one can easily envision actors like Spencer Tracy and John Garfield in the roles of his characters.  It is that evocative of the time and setting; L.A. in 1954.

Patrick “Felony” Flynn is a young cop on the force who is also an amateur boxer, having been taught by a tough-minded Catholic priest in the Chicago orphanage he and his brother were raised in.  Coming out of WWII and the Navy, where he continued his pugilistic ways, he swaps one blue uniform for another in getting back to civilian life.  His goal is to eventually become a detective and member of the famous anti-mob unit led by Chief Parker and called “The Hat Squat.”  

Through a series of fateful events stemming from his boxing prowess, Flynn is recruited by Chief Parker to help stymie mobster Mickey Cohen’s plans to infiltrate the boxing world via his heavy-weight fighter, Solomon King.  If King can whip Archie Moore, the reigning champion, then Cohen will have established a foothold in the city as well as the sports community.  Something Parker obsessively vows to stop at any cost; including making Flynn a detective in his elite team providing he becomes a professional boxer and takes defeats King.  No small tasks any way you slice it up.

What follows is a thoroughly enjoyable, fast paced, knowledgeable yarn that was a pure joy to read start to finish.  Bishop never misses a beat; again, knowing his melody by heart and relishing every single sentence, paragraph and chapter like a superbly orchestrated fight strategy.  “Fight Card: Felony Fists” is a sensational opening to what this reviewer expects is going to be a truly amazing series that will revitalize a classic pulp genre in a bold new way readers are going to love.  Me, I in his corner all the way.

DOC VOODOO - Aces & Eights

DOC VOODOO
Aces & Eights

By Dale Lucas

Beating Windward Press

201 pages

Last year well known fantasy author Charles Saunders delighted the new pulp community by releasing his novel DAMBALLA, making it the very first pulp novel set in the 1930s to feature an African American hero.  Just this week that same book has been nominated for the Pulp Factory Awards of 2011 for Best Pulp Novel.

Of course good ideas often emerge simultaneously amongst multiple creators and this was the case here.  While DAMBALLA was making its big splash from its widely respected new pulp publisher, Airship 27 Productions, another hard hitting new pulp thriller was debuting from a little known outfit called Beating Windward Press.  This one also featured an African American avenger operating in Harlem, only this one was set in 1926, the heart of the Roaring Twenties.  Written by California based Dale Lucas, “Doc Voodoo” shares several iconic similarities with Damballa to be sure, yet there are also enough differences to define each hero as unique and original in the world of pulpdom.

The hero is a World War One veteran of the famous Harlem Hellfighters 369^th Infantry Division named Booker Dubois Butler Corveaux, a practicing M.D. known in his community as Doc Dub Corveaux.  Raised in Haiti and  having traveled the globe during his service years, Doc Corveaux is well versed in the Voodoo Religion and has become the physical agent of three  powerful entities who, when possessing his physical body, imbue it with supernatural abilities that make him virtually indestructible.  Thus in this state, he dons the garb of the Cemetery Man, black clothes, twin .45 automatics, magical clay bombs, a top hat and white painted face to resemble a skull. This frightening entity has assumed the mantle of Harlem’s protector and as we learn in this first book, she needs one desperately.

Two rival gangs are battle for control of the streets and the action is focused on a tough minded woman known as Queen Bee attempting to open a posh speakeasy called Aces & Eights.  Her opponent is a sadistic gang lord called Papa House who will do anything to ruin her plans even if it means unleashing a terrifying magic to corrupt the entire neighborhood and bring about untold suffering and misery.  Into this vicious contest comes the Cemetery Man, guns blazing, determined to thwart that black magic and save the innocent souls caught in the crossfire.

Dale Lucas is a superb writer with an eye for period detail. His research is meticulous and he knows New York from one end to the other, painting a virtual setting that is truly authentic for its period.  His command of slang and mood of the times pulls the reader into a world in flux, a world caught between the past horrors of the first world conflict and the heady exuberance of a social order challenging the mores of the future.

And like any classic pulp tale, the pacing is fast, the characters brilliantly etched and the action non-stop.  This is a true page-turner that will have you cheering with each new gun battle, from this new pulp hero’s first appearance to his last.  And Lucas wisely leaves the finale open ended for many more sequels, all of which we eagerly await.

“Aces & Eights” is as good a pulp actioner as any other there on the market today.  It’s one and only flaw is its packaging.  Most new pulp publishers are aware of the demands of the genre in regards to marketing.  True, one cannot judge the contents of a book by its cover, but then again, one can’t sell a good book with a bad cover.  “Aces & Eights” isn’t so much a bad cover as a non-existent one.  The tiny image of a white skull and a little color design manipulation do not make a great pulp cover.  I would argue this book would have won lots more attention had it sported a traditional pulp painted front, visually debuting Doc Voodoo in full regalia, guns firing away.  So please, Dale Lucas, if you do indeed have more of his wonderful adventures in store for us, give your packaging the extra attention it really deserves.

ERROL FLYNN - The Life & Career

ERROL FLYNN

The Life & Career

By Thomas McNulty

McFarland & Company, Inc.

369 pages

Yes, I know the title of this review column is Pulp Fiction and this review is straying off that thematic path.  I beg your indulgences, as this particular subject matter is near and dear to my heart thus influential in my own taste for action adventure literature. It will allow you a small glimpse of what shaped this reviewer in his youth.

Growing up in the 1950s, with the advent of television, I was a fortunate member of that generation that had access to old Hollywood movies in the comfort of my own living room.  Television was pretty much our story telling electronic babysitter and it was before it that I discovered the greatest cinematic swashbuckler of them all, Errol Flynn.

To this day I consider his 1938 “The Adventures of Robin Hood” one the all time great adventure romances ever made.  From the splendor of its Technicolor hues to the fast paced script and direction, the beautiful Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian, the dastardly charming Basil Rathbone as the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham and of course Flynn as the quintessential Robin Hood.  You can imagine a preteen young boy being mesmerized by such a tale of action and adventure all propelled by a brutally handsome rogue who, against all odds, would win both his cause and the hand of the fair lady.  It was heady stuff; the same stuff that all adolescent dreams are made of.

Over those formative years, I would soon come to enjoy and applaud Flynn in his other great swashbuckling sagas such as “Captain Blood”, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, “They Died With Their Boots On” and another personal favorite, “The Sea Hawk.”  That he was the idol of millions of young men around the world should come as no surprise to anyone who loves movies.  But like all fabrications, the older I became, the more fact, as delivered by the gossip rags, began to intrude on fiction and the real person of Tasmanian born Errol Flynn began to emerge in my awareness.  Learning the harsh reality that the actor was but a poor reflection of the heroes he portrayed on the silver screen was one of life’s bitter lessons to be learned.  Yet, despite these “truths” my fascination and admiration of his films never lessened.  After he passed away at a relatively young age in 1959, I often wondered who Errol Flynn really was.  Thanks to biographer Thomas McNulty, we now have the answer to that question in this remarkable, exhaustively researched book.

At last we have a complete telling of the man’s life, from his early days in Tasmania to his struggling school years in England and finally his return to the Land Down Under and the fateful meetings that ultimately led him to a career in action.  And as his personal journey zig-zags across the globe, so did Flynn’s love the sea and traveling.  We learn that throughout both his successes and failures, it was forever the siren call of the horizon that forever propelled him onward, always eager and curious to find that strange and exotic land beyond.  He was a self-taught philosopher, the talented writer and the cold and heartless womanizer all rolled into one complicated psyche.  He would spend his entire life trying to self-analyze and fathom that mystery until, in the end, he was resigned himself to truth that whatever answers exist, they are not revealed to us in this life.

As a biographer, McNulty accepts his responsibility to tell us the entire story of the man, not the screen legend.  He does so unerringly, often times clearly uncomfortable with the facts he is relating such the FBI’s voluminous files on Flynn and J. Edgar Hoover’s personal disdain for Flynn’s immorality.  Here are the stories of his alcoholism and even worst self-destructive drug addiction to heroin.  And yet this same lost soul remains a loving father devoted to his children.  At the same time McNulty dispels the countless myths and fabrications that were created by Flynn’s enemies while also denouncing the actor’s own tall-tales with which he often used as a shield against the ever intruding press reporters.  Here was a man who both desired and then despised his own celebrity.

“Errol Flynn – The Life and Career” is a truly amazing biography worthy of a place in any true film lover’s library.  Errol Flynn was arguably one of the greatest romantic actors ever to shine on that giant silver screen and his place in cinematic history has been shamefully underrated.  McNulty’s book goes a long way in correcting that wrong and argues soundly that more critical attention demands to be focused on this truly unique and talented man. Let’s hope the academic community is listening.

JUST BEFORE THE DAWN

JUST BEFORE THE DAWN

By Bonnie Kozek

Legacy Publishing LLC

177 pages

A while back I read a book called THRESHOLD that impressed me greatly.  It was modern day, grunge thriller written by a truly fearless writer.  Kozek’s prose, like her protagonist, Honey McGuiness, is not for the faint of heart.  Honey is a broken soul, abused constantly by her father as a child, tossed from one foster home to another; her life has been nothing but a constant swim through the sewers of society.  In that first outing, Honey, with the help of a selfless, naïve police officer, helped topple a corrupt administration and almost got both of them killed in the process.  By the book’s end, she was packing it up for parts unknown.

Which, as it turned out, became an out of the way burg called Pie Town.  As this sequel opens, Honey is working in a restaurant/bar in the small hamlet and slowly getting accustomed to the eccentricities of the colorful locals.  Still there is a recurring oddity about Pie Town, all its young people run off the second they finish high school, leaving the town to children and seniors.  But Honey isn’t a private eye and solving mysteries really isn’t her thing.  Getting by is and as a expert survivor who has taken the worst this world can dish out, she’s lulled herself into thinking Pie Town is a safe, boring corner into which she can crawl and disappear.

Sadly that assumption is the furthest from the truth.  Pie Town harbors a dark and unholy secret and when Honey is kidnapped by a psycho killer operating a sex cult in the nearby woods, she begins a descent into a drug induced hell that is both horrifying and mind-numbing.  Kozek doesn’t spare any of the details of Honey’s sexual degradation and continues to explore her twisted, wounded psyche every painful step of the way.  This book is one woman’s personal journey to that hell and the writing is as sharp and brutal as a razor blade.  It cuts…often.  Still, it is never sensationalized and believe me, that is incredible.  Oh, I am positive there will be readers and critics who will decry it as such, calling the shock-value a gimmick.  They’re wrong.  Like any exploration of the human condition, one has to peel away the layers to find then gristle and bone beneath.  That process is never pretty.  It is real.

And despite its in-your-face portrayal of abject cruelty, JUST BEFORE THE DAWN manages to find a glimmer of hope and salvation at its conclusion.  It may be fragile at best, but then again, in the real world, there are no guarantees.  Each of us gets by, if we’re lucky, with a little help from our friends.  Honey McGuinness is one of the most memorable characters you will ever encounter, if you’ve got the fortitude to take the trip.

Good luck.

CHICAGO LIGHTNING

CHICAGO LIGHTNING

The Collected Nathan Heller Short Stories

By Max Allan Collins

Thomas & Mercer

373 pages

Sixty three year old Max Collins has been at this writing game for a while coming onto the mystery private-eye scene with his 1994 Shamus Award winning “True Detective,” published the year before.  Since that monumental debut, Collins has gone on to produce several continuing series both in comics and prose; these include his comic book female P.I. Ms. Tree and the morally ambiguous hit-man, Quarry. The one fictional character Collins is most recognized for is Nathan Heller from his historical crime novels.   Heller is a Chicago based investigator who over the course of his career rubs shoulders with personalities such as Al Capone and Eliot Ness and worked on such mysteries as the Lindberg baby kidnapping and the disappearance of aviatrix Amelia Earhart.  His most recent Heller case was the critically acclaimed “Bye Bye Baby” wherein the fiftyish shamus becames involved with the death of Marilyn Monroe.  All of these books are excellent and worthy of your time and attention.

Over the years Collins, at the request of anthology editors, also penned short stories featuring Heller.  With the assistance of his research colleague, George Hagenauer, Collins adapted true crime stories and then wove his tough guy hero into their fabric so that the history and fiction elements become indistinguishable.  This volume has taken that baker’s dozen and for the very first time presented them in chronological order from the first which occurs in 1933 to the last set in 1949.  The settings range from Chicago to Cleveland and Hollywood.  Here is a sampling of what is included between the covers.

“Kaddish for the Kid,” Heller is hired to protect a retailer from a crooked union scam in reality a protection racket.  During a street shootout, his young partner is killed and the angry private dick goes after the killers with a vengeance.

“The Blonde Tigress,” has Heller investigating a trio of stick-up artists led by a female boss who tries to manipulate him into aiding her escape justice.

“Private Consultation,” has a well known Chicago doctor accused for murdering her daughter-in-law and her son hires Heller to investigate. What he uncovers is a sad testimony to a loveless marriage where none of the participants are innocent of wrong doing.

The Perfect Crime,” finds Heller in Los Angeles to help a friend. Before he can pack up and head home, he’s hired by the beautiful blonde star, Thelma Todd to act as her bodyguard. Miss Todd suspects mobsters wish to do her harm for refusing to allow Lucky Luciano to use the top floors of her famous restaurant as a casino.  When she is found dead in her garage from carbon monoxide poisoning, Heller knows the coroner’s accidental death ruling is pure bunk. He decides to extend his trip to catch a killer.

In “House Call” a caring doctor is brutally murdered while answering a night summons to aid a sick child.  This time Heller joins forces with the Chicago P.D. to hunt down the vicious killers and bring them to justice.

“Marble Mildred” tells the story of woman trapped for fourteen years in a loveless marriage who discovers a humiliating secret which she’d rather go to the electric chair rather than having it made public.  A tragedy Heller is helpless to prevent.

“The Strawberry Teardrop” is based on the case of Cleveland serial killer, the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run and how he was finally caught by the famous lawman Eliot Ness.

There is not a lemon in the batch.  Collins writing style is terse and economically efficient.  He uses words like a scalpel carving up the psychological motivations that induce people to do bad things.  All the while Nathan Heller is his surgeon, meting out equal doses of justice and compassion.  The title, “Chicago Lightning,” is gangster slang for gunfire and is only fitting as this book comes heavily loaded with pure pulp pizzaz.  Don’t miss it.

HUGH MONN - Private Detective

HUGH MONN –Private Detective

By Lee Houston, Jr.

Pro Se Press

176 pages

Genre blending has always been a staple of pulp fiction and there have been many sci-fi based private eye creations over the years.  Writer Lee Houston Jr. isn’t breaking any new ground with this collection. What is his doing is adding to it with a truly sympathetic character in Hugh Monn, a human residing on the planet of Frontera.  For background, we are told that there was an intergalactic war between isolationist who opposed species interaction and the allied worlds who favored it both for moral and economic reasons.  The isolationist lost although remnants survive in bands of outlawed terrorist.  Monn is a battle weary veteran of the campaign having fought with the allies.  Now he’s settled down in his one man private investigations business and the eight cases in this volume have him mixing with various humanoid species also inhabiting the city island of Galveston 2. Each is well done and adds in creating a fascinating supporting cast.

“Dineena’s Dilemna,” in which a disinherited son attempts to frame his cousin for the murder of his own mother.  Alas, private detective Hugh Moon is on the case and spots enough clues to free his client and bring the murderous heir to justice.

In “Shortages” Monn is hired by a docking outfit to solve the theft of merchandise from a highly secured storage facility. It looks like an inside job and evidence implicates one of the alien employees unless Monn can figure out how the thieves are working their operations.

In “Law and Order,” Monn is retained by a Felinoid lawyer named Mau to help clear her client from an armed robbery charge.  The problem is the store’s video tapes clearly show the defendant committing the crime. Moon has to prove that even the eyes can be deceived by digital chicanery.

With “The Siege,” Houston gives us his version of the move “Die Hard,” with Monn going up against group of ant-like terrorist secretly taking over a major business tower at the heart of the island where he resides. Super rifle in hand, the gutsy private eye takes on this squad of trained commandos single handed.

“Where Can I Get A Witness?”  Monn is hired to subpoena an elusive witness in a motor vehicle accident case.  In the process he stumbles over the case of popular female singer who mysteriously vanished decades earlier. What’s the connection being that disappearance and the old man becomes the puzzle he must solve before someone dies.

Then a paternity issue results in a kidnapping and ends with Monn trapping an embezzler who became too greedy, all in the story, “For The Benefit Of Master Tyke.”  This one gives us more of the detective’s character and sensitivity as he tries to keep a family from falling apart.  While “At What Price Gloria?” Monn helps an old acquaintance from an earlier case outwit foreign blackmailers and foil an assassination plot.

Finally the book ends with our hero attempting to have spend, “A Day At The Beach,” only to end up solving a brutal murder with the help of a few other beach goers.

What is particularly refreshing in these tales is that Houston wisely opts not to make his hero a hard-boiled, typically cynical type.  Hugh Monn is a genuinely nice guy who likes people and aliens alike and is sincere in trying to make his world a better place for all to live in.  He’s a good guy I liked meeting and hope to see him again real soon.

GIDEON'S SWORD

GIDEON’S SWORD

Preston & Child

Vision

380 pages

In 1995, thriller specialist Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child joined forces to write a best selling novel titled, “The Relic.”  In the process, they created one of the most popular action suspense heroes ever to appear on the printed page; FBI Special Agent Pendergast.  Although the book was a big success and later adapted to film, it was the creation of Pendergast that would be remembered. It has always been my personal belief that the character’s instant popularity surprised the two and they wasted no time in bringing him back in further adventures.  Enough so that with each new Pendergast book, his fame among action devotees continued to spread and today he has a huge, loyal following.

When the pair announced, last year, that they had created a brand new series hero and would be releasing his first book in 2011, the news spread like wildfire across the book world. Eager fans soon learned the new character was named Gideon Crew and the authors had clearly set out to make him as different from Agent Pendergast as they could.  We were also informed, via their website, that a major Hollywood studio had optioned the film rights from the galleys alone.  Obviously the marketing machines were moving in high gear.  The hardback arrived earlier this year to resounding critical acclaim and as of a few weeks ago the paperback edition which is what I’ve just finished reading.

Unless one has never read a Preston & Child Pendergast book, it would be impossible for anyone to read “Gideon’s Sword” without constantly comparing the two fictional heroes. What I appreciated immediately was how the writers set about breaking convention and actually giving this premier outing not one but two separate stories.  If the casual reader picks up the title based solely on the back cover blurb, he or she is going to expect to find a typical revenge drama wherein Gideon Crew goes after the people responsible for his father’s death when he was only a child.  This entire opening section of the novel serves brilliantly in defining our protagonist and giving us a complete origin history.  In a few chapters we learn who he is, what he has done with his life and where those choices have taken him.

But when that first plot is resolved effectively in the first quarter of the book, I found myself both surprised and delighted.  Suddenly the book seemed to take a detour down an entirely different road, one that led to the unknown and unexpected.  Crew is recruited by a unique organization in the employ of the government to become an independent spy.

The logic, according to this top secret “engineering” outfit is Crew’s own anonymity in the world of espionage is his greatest asset, one that will give him the advantage over competing foreign agencies.

His first assignment is to retrieve an important formula from a supposedly defecting Chinese scientist. But when that fellow is murdered upon his arrival in New York, Crew finds himself locked in a deadly race with a merciless assassin to retrieve the mysterious data.  Adding to the puzzle is no one knows what the secret really is.  At this point, Preston & Child do what they do best and that is amp up the pacing so that the story and action begin to accelerate exponentially from chapter to chapter until their over-the-top climax arrives, leaving this reviewer with finger blisters from turning the pages so fast.

“Gideon’s Sword” is a top-notch pulp thriller worthy of any fans attention and support.  As to whether Gideon Crew lives up to his predecessor’s well earned status among loyal readers is another matter.  There were many things I liked about Crew, but again this was only a first meeting and I’m going to reserve the thumbs up or down until at least one more book.  There is a rather important plot element regarding the character’s future that I’ve purposely avoided detailing here. It is one you need to discover for yourself.  I won’t spoil it for you.  Read the book and then we’ll talk.

GLAMOUR JOB

GLAMOUR JOB

By Doug Farrell

BookSurge Publishing

484 pages

Every now and then, I trip over a book that’s really hard to describe genre-wise and this is such a case.  It’s a madcap adventure that falls somewhere between fantasy, slapstick comedy and social satire.  That all these elements mix effectively and in the end produce a heady concoction of genuine adult delight is a testament to Farrell’s own imagination in brewing what he aptly describes as “A Fairy-tale for Grown-ups.”

The set up deals with a fairy war that occurred in another dimension wherein the goblin race lost and was forced to flee to our world, arriving in 1947, two years after the end of World War II.  Convincing certain human scientist to help them, the goblins invented special disguises that allowed them to go undetected in our world and for decades walked among humans, some even interbreeding with them.  Ultimately the same scientists who developed these sophisticated camouflages saw the potential for monetary wealth by using the same formulas to create beauty aids for human women.  They create Glamorine, a Chicago based million dollar cosmetic empire built on the results of these techniques and certain globin magics.

The book’s theme plays with duel definitions of the word glamour.  The first being a quality of fascinating, alluring, or attracting, especially by a combination of charm and good looks.  It also means magic or enchantment; spell; witchery.

The protagonist is super model and the face of Glamorine, Laurie Morgan, whose grandfather was one of the scientist who created the company.  As the story opens Laurie has become disillusioned by her near perfect life and is in the process of divorcing her loving husband, Nick.  Laurie is suffering from ennui unable to explain her own dissatisfaction and believes she’s become trapped in a dull, boring routine of existence.  No sooner is the divorce granted then she is contacted by a blue gnome name Hawley disguised as a little girl.  He warns Laurie that her life is in danger.  As if confronting an actual blue dwarf weren’t enough, Laurie begins to running into women throughout Chicago who looked exactly like her. 

As paranoia begins to set in, Hawley explains that there is a goblin revolution in the works.  After decades of living in secrecy amongst mankind, a group of goblin leaders have concocted a scheme to take control of Glamorine and replace its board of directors, including Laurie and her grandfather, with phony disguised goblins. Once they’ve achieved this end, they plan on poisoning the cosmetics produced to Glamorine to eliminate all of mankind and take over the Earth.

Needless to say having an army of vicious goblins out to do her in is more than enough motivation to snap Laurie out of her malaise and back into living at full tilt if only to stay alive.  Before the book’s conclusion arrives, she will have been held prisoner in an underwater complex below Lake Michigan, met and been devoured by a fire breathing dragon and allied herself with tiny pig-fairies only she can see.  “Glamour Job” is a rollicking tale that never lets up and is filled with satirical jabs at how we treasure a make-believe beauty that is simply an illusion devised by Fifth Avenue to milk millions from starry eyed little girls all wanting to grow up and become runway princesses.  But do be warned, this is only the first chapter in a trilogy and the ending does come somewhat abruptly.

We also note by the print date that “Glamour Job” is four years old.  All the more reason to seek it out as it might have flown under your radar.  Urban fantasy isn’t one of this reviewer’s most favorite genres, but “Glamour Job” has enough action muscle to sustain it for even the most jaded pulp reader.  If you are looking for something truly different and fun, you would be hard press to do much better than this book.

MERKABAH RIDER - The Mensch With No Name

MERKABAH RIDER

The Mensch With No Name

By Edward M. Erdelac

Damanation Books, LLC

218 pages

Perhaps the most popular sub-genre in the resurgence of new pulp fiction is that of the weird western. It seems everywhere one turns these days; another publisher is coming out with another anthology which combines the cowboy classic setting with all manner of bizarre and horrible trappings.  None is more effective and original than Edward M. Erdelac’s Merkabh Rider series.  In his first book, “Tales of a High Plains Drifter” we were introduced to the Rider, last of an order of Jewish mystics searching a demon infested west on the trail of his teacher, who betrayed and massacred the order known as the Sons of Essenes.  In this second volume, the Rider’s travails continue through four new adventures.

In “The Infernal Napoleon”, the Rider finds himself in an out of the way watering hole used by freight haulers.  Here, in this desolate way station he’s set upon by a vengeance seeking demonic dwarf who controls a satanic canon and is willing to destroy dozens of innocent lives to achieve his ends.  But in all things, there is a balance and the aid of a young Samson-like strongman may tilt the odds in the Rider’s favor.  The action is fast and brutal and sets the tone for the entire book.

Next is “The Damned Dingus.” During a train robbery by a group of dim witted varmints, the Rider’s unique Volcanic pistol is stolen. With the aid of the famous gunfighter, Doc Holiday, and an experienced deputy marshal, the Rider travels to an abandoned mine in the high country and encounters the savage menace of an invisible monster capable of ripping men and horses to pieces.  What is it the creature is protecting and what is its connection to his old teacher’s twisted plans?

Leaving Arizona, the Rider learns he has been labeled a wanted outlaw with a bounty on his head.  Fleeing into New Mexico, he encounters a band of Apaches battling an age old horror that dwells beneath the earth.  Here Erdelac takes a page from H. P. Lovecrafts’ canon in using the evil Old Ones from beyond the stars as the threat and only the Rider and his arcane skills can free the territory of the vile and corrupted She-Demon in the episode called appropriately, “The Outlaw Gods.” Before it is finished, the Rider will have led an army of Spanish ghosts in an epic battle across the astral plane.

Finally, still assailed by Queen Lilith’s invisible sprites that are draining away his life essence, the Rider is found by Kabede; a Merkabah Rider from a secret Ethiopian sect of the Sons of Essenes.  Kabede convinces the Rider that the answers to Adon’s diabolical plan, the meaning behind the so called Hour of Incursion, can only be answered by the Prince of Hell, Satan and they must travel to Hell in astral form.  Erdelac’s depiction of the various levels of Gehena are as evocative as Milton’s own “Paradise Lost” and deftly combine Judeo/Christian tradition with other prehistoric myths.  In the end, he weaves a complicated but amazing tapestry of mankind’s ongoing quest to explain the meaning of creation and the eternal conflict between faith and hopelessness.  By the end of this final chapter, the Rider and his new companion have set into motion actions which will either lead to their defeat at the hands of Adon and his minions, or a miraculous victory against the forces of alien damnation.  Calling this finale a cliffhanger is a major understatement.

“MERKABAH RIDER – The Mensch With No Name” is a terrific continuation of an exciting saga this reviewer imagines will culminate in a third and final volume.  This is easily some of the finest western/horror/action writing on the market today and comes highly recommended.  The Merkabah Rider is truly a pulp hero like no other.

HARDLUCK HANNIGAN - The Golden Scorpion

The Fantastic Adventures of

HARDLUCK HANNIGAN

The Golden Scorpion

By Bill Craig

Cover by Laura Givens

Ever since starting this column, I’ve reviewed many small independent books but all of them were in one fashion or another associated with either a publishing group or writers’ organization. They all had ISBN numbers, a website or link as to where their books could be purchased. Bill Craig’s offering here has neither, no ISBN, no website address and no page numbering. I can’t even tell you how many pages there are in this great little book.  This book exemplifies self-publishing to the maximum understanding of that process.  This book was written, assembled and printed by Bill Craig. Happily, I’m informed that all of Craig’s books are available at Amazon.

Despite the book’s amateurish production values, Craig is really a very competent writer who excels at fast paced action.  He is most assuredly a new pulp writer worthy of your attention and one of the most prolific working today.  The Hardluck Hannigan series is only one of several he has invented and continues to pump out at a rather remarkable rate.  Understand, Craig’s purple prose is masculine and he waste no time jumping into each book’s plot with little fanfare as to who these characters are or where they’ve been up to this point in their lives.

The Golden Scorpion opens with Michael Hardluck Hannigan in Cairo having just completed an adventure in Africa.  At the bequest of his Russian buddy, Gregor Shotsky, they go to meet an unscrupulous dealer in antiquities who has information on the whereabouts of an ancient mystical artifact known as the Golden Scorpion.  The Golden Scorpion supposedly is a powerful arcane weapon of some kind said to be buried deep in the sands of the Sahara.  Within minutes of meeting this fellow, Hannigan and Gregor are attacked by Tureg warriors, the merchant is killed and they escape with their lives and a new ally, a lovely American secret agent named Chas Ridings.

As I said before, the action never lets up and all too quickly we learn Hannigan is being pursued by a secret cult of desert warriors, a Chinese master criminal and members of the Illuminati based in England.  A great deal of Craig’s writing is reminiscent of Lester Dent’s classic Doc Savage stories in that Hannigan seems to be always accompanied by an eclectic group of aides made up of assassins, soldiers of fortune and brilliant scientists answering the siren song of adventure.  Throughout their madcap race across the burning sands, battling both human and inhuman foes, Hannigan and company press on while Craig occasionally drops information concerning their previous exploits that led to their current predicament.  It is both frustrating and intriguing at the same time.

The Golden Scorpion is a quick read that left me wanting a whole lot more.  If you haven’t heard of Bill Craig before, then you need to remedy that. He’s a damn awesome pulp writer who knows how to spin a yarn.

MODERN MARVELS VIKTORIANA

MODERN  MARVELS –

Victoriana

By Wayne Reinagel

Knight Raven Studios

440 pages

Several years ago, writer Wayne Reinagle burst upon the pulp fiction world with a self published tome that was the pulp equivalent of “Gone With the Wind.”  PULP HEROES – MORE THAN MORTAL was a giant white elephant of a clunker that was not well written and appeared to be stitched together by a fan boy who was irrevocably addicted to the classic pulp heroes of the 1930s & 40s.  Still, as badly exceuted as that book was, the poor mechanics could not disguise the genuine love and enthusiasm Reinagel possessed for these iconic heroes and how much fun he had playing with them.  You see, the audacity of the man is he put practically every single major ( & minor ) pulp hero in that one giant volume.  Here were Doc Savage, the Shadow, the Spider, the Avenger etc.etc., albeit all with new names to avoid legal repercussions from the rights holders, though readers knew exactly who each was.  Despite its literary flaws, the book is also important in that it was the beginning of Reinagel’s super saga that would invariably use every major literary hero and villain from both the 19^th and 20^th Centuries spread across an historical roadmap of herculean breath and girth.

Somewhere in all this Reinagel came to an unexplainable decision in regards to his pulp magnus opus; he’d inadvertently begun it in the middle.  After the subsequent release of MORE THAN MORTALS, he was plagued with plot threads that could only be rationalized by going backwards in time, rather than forward.  Thus the second book in the trilogy was actually the first chronologically: PULP HEROES – KHAN DYNASTY. It went back decades to give us the origins of the people who would ultimately sire the pulp heroes of the Great Depression.  Asserting his genuine talent, Reinagel’s prose is much improved with this book though it still suffered the same affliction as its predecessor; massive dumps of historical data were dropped helter skelter through the narrative even in the middle of some balls-out action sequences.  Again, Reinagel is not a man of moderations, he wants to give his readers ( & himself ) more and more.  Some times to the detriment of his tale.  Still KHAN DYNASTY was a major improvement and contained the portent of better things to come.

This reviewer is very happy to declare that literary promise has at long last been realized in Reinagel’s third book, MODERN MARVELS – VIKTORIANA.  Clocking in at an impressive 440 pages, it adds proof that the guy simply cannot write a short piece but it also loudly proclaims his arrival as a sophisticated storyteller.  This is the work of a craftsman who judiciously balances both action and characterizations and even though there are still many researched historical facts, they are kept concise and only used when propelling the action forward.  That this is the writer’s fastest paced, most colorful and grandiose book is blatantly obvious from the first page to last.

Once again, the author propels us backward to lay the foundation of heroic fiction in a brilliant twist that is pure nectar of the gods to any reader who grew up enjoying the fantastic literature of the 19^th Century.  The heroes of this volume are the writers who produced those amazing works all of us encountered along the road to maturity and adulthood; the English classics with a few mongrel relatives thrown in for good measure.

The plot is simple enough.  The planet’s are about to align in a unique positioning only witnessed every thousand years and two insidious fiends, Varney the Vampire and his stooge, a teenage Aleister Crowley, plan to use the stellar phenomenon to their own twisted ends.  They wish to open a hole to another dimension; one filled with demons eager to crossover and destroy the earth.  But to do so, Varney requires nine special magical tablets or else his insane plot will fail.

Guarding those arcane items are the most famous and courageous souls of their times; H.R. Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Bram Stoker, Nikola Tesla, and an aged Edgar Allen Poe accompanied by a teenage magician named Harry Houdini. They are led by an enigmatic, seemingly immortal beauty, Mary Shelly.   Now if that isn’t a Who’s Who list of the most influential writers in English Literature during the late 19^th Century, then I’d be at a loss to compile another.  The exuberant bravado of Reinagel is his fearlessness in employing this stellar cast and bringing them to wonderful life in his glorious adventure.  Their interaction amongst themselves, the romance between Haggard and the ever dangerous lovely Miss Shelley, the good-old-boys camaraderie between Doyle and Stoker is simply endearing and believable.

Wayne Reinagel clearly possesses one of the grandest imaginations ever unleashed on the printed page. His dreams and his fiction know no bounds when after adventure of the highest order and he delivers it beyond measure in this book.  Every one of his books is an experience with so many surprises in store for the reader but none have so entertained and delighted this reviewer as MODERN MARVELS VIKTORIANA.  Mark my words, pulp fans, your lives will be enriched for the better after reading this pure pulp odyssey by a truly one of a kind maser storyteller.  Bravo, Wayne Reinagel, bravo!

CHOKE HOLD

CHOKE HOLD

By Christa Faust

Hard Case Crime

251 pages

Christa Faust, Hard Case Crime’s only female writer returns with a brutal, hard hitting sequel to her first Angel Dare story, “Money Shot.”  Dare is a former porn star who in the first novel found herself mixed up with a group of Croatian mobsters running a sex-slave operation. By the end of that story, Dare had destroyed their organization, freed the captive girls and was on the wrong side of a sadistic criminal mob.

As “Choke Hold” begins, we learn Dare had gone into the government’s Witness Protection program and been given a new identity in rural New England. Somehow the revenge seeking killers learned of her whereabouts and by sheer luck she manages to elude them and escape, this time completely on her own.  Eventually she stops running somewhere in the Arizona desert where she becomes a waitress in a run down, out of the way diner until she can afford enough cash to pay for new counterfeit identity papers. 

Then the whimsies of fate intervene and into the place walks one of Dare’s old lovers, a former porn actor known as Thick Vic Ventura.  He is there to meet his estranged eighteen year old son, a mixed martial arts fighter who he has never met before.  No sooner do the two men greet each other then the joint is invaded by a trio of gun wielding Hispanics who shoot Ventura and attempt to kill his son.  By the time the lead has stopped flying, there are several corpses on the floor and Dare is fleeing out the back door with Cody Noon, Vic’s son, in tow.  He takes her to his mentor, a famous ex-fighter named Hank who is more than a little punch-drunk.

Dare begins to suspect Cody was the real target of the attack  at the diner and by the time she and Hank can fathom the cause, the boy is grabbed by several goons who work for a local Mexican crime boss.  It seems of the mob’s cocaine stash had been pilfered and Cody is the prime suspect.  Having promised Vic, as he lay dying, that she would protect his son, Dare feels obligated to save him, she and Hank, who has become enamored with her, head south on an ill-planned rescue mission.

“Choke Hold” is a chase novel that weaves its way from the barren Arizona badlands to the illegal fighting rings of Mexico and comes to a gun-blazing, bullet rain of destruction in the glitzy American Mecca of Los Vegas.  It is classic noir in that the characters, both good and bad, are lost souls without an ounce of hope between them.  Life has kicked Hank in the head so many times, he has serious medical issues, Cody is pursuing a naïve dream without the slightest idea of the dangerous world he inhabits and Dare is a tired porn queen on the lam from obsessed foreign killers barely able to keep one ahead of them from one day to the next.

Had there been some concrete resolution to any of these characters, the ending would have been a pleasant surprise.  Unfortunately from the first page to the last, “Choke Hold” is a one way trip down a railroad track to meet the oncoming train of death head on and thus offers up no surprises. 

Angel Dare is a well envisioned protagonist and in “Money Shot” there was progression in her development as a character.  That is totally missing in “Choke Hold” and thus questions the books very purpose for being, save to watch her run around being chased by killers.  Noir fiction is not easy to write and nearly impossible in a first person narrative when from the very first “I”, you know the hero will survive.  “Choke Hold” feels like a bad sequel and if there is to be a third Angel Dare book, here’s hoping it has a real finish.

STRANGE GODS OF THE DIRE PLANET

STRANGE GOD

OF THE DIRE PLANET

By Joel Jenkins

Pulp Work Press

263 pages

Writer Joel Jenkins is one of the most prolific, exciting and talented members of the New Pulp movement today.  Through his association with Pulp Work Press, an outfit he started with fellow writers Joshua Reynolds and Derrick Ferguson, Jenkins has produced some of the most amazing, fast-paced pulp adventures ever to hit print.  The originator of several series in various traditional genres, STRANGE GODS OF THE DIRE PLANET, is the fourth book in this homage to Edgar Rice Burrough’s classic Martian books.

Having not read the previous three, I really appreciated Jenkins’ understanding that new readers would need a little extra background exposition to bring them up to speed on where the action was taking place and who all these characters were; while at the same time moving the story along at a breakneck pace to satisfy those fans who had been along for the ride from the beginning.  That he accomplishes this wonderfully is no small achievement and a big reason I enjoyed the book so much.

Here’s what any new reader will learn upon entering Garvey Dire’s world.  Dire is a modern NASA astronaut who, by some cosmic snafu, had his space craft hurled through an anomaly that sent him back in time millions of years to a Mars inhabited by humans like himself and all manner of beasts and fauna.  Realizing this is a one way trip; Dire accepts his fate and sets about making a new life for himself amongst the female dominated tribes of the giant red planet.  Jenkins has created a truly exotic social background that is fascinating with paying scrupulous attention to what each of these customs means to the entire culture he has created.

On Dire’s Mars, men are in short supply so they are protected and treasured and it is the abundant female sex that handles the affairs of state, commerce and warfare.  Obviously this is a different world than Dire is comfortable with, especially when adapting he realizes he must accept polygamy and marry several women to assume an active role in this society.  Like Burrough’s books, Jenkins’ Martian civilization is crumpling and the population struggling daily against both the forces of nature and time to survive.

The crux of this fourth volume centers about a long kept secret of an occult group of fanatics known as the Technopriests and Dire and his allies attempt to uncover it.  There is bloodshed galore, non-stop action and great heroic characters battling against truly beautifully crafted background.  It also ends on one of the most dramatic cliffhangers this reader has ever encountered.  Over the many years since Burroughs created his interplanetary pulp classics there have been dozens of imitators who have attempted to recapture the magic he wielded but none has ever come as close as Jenkins with the Dire Planet books.  These books are rock!