I've never been a big fan of the ocean. I like sitting on the beach and looking at it, but that's about the extent of the appeal for me. I'm as big a landlubber as you're going to find. And the stories in the latest volume from the Men's Adventure Library Journal do a good job of explaining why I feel this way: there are things out there under the waves. Dangerous things.
Like all the books from editors Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle, MANEATERS: KILLER SHARKS IN MEN'S ADVENTURE MAGAZINES, is a beautiful production featuring dozens of great pieces of artwork, including covers and interior art from some of the best artists in the genre.
The stories, mostly fictional, are also highly entertaining. The situations vary widely, but all feature perilous, usually bloody encounters between humans and sharks. My favorites were "The Giant Shark That Guarded Rommel's Treasure" (FURY, January 1961) by Peter Fall (probably a pseudonym), which reads like an early Jack Higgins adventure novel in miniature; "E Mao Ariki" (ARGOSY, July 1968) a South Seas adventure yarn by the consistently excellent author Robert Edmond Alter; and "The Madman Who Ruled a Killer-Shark Pack" (MAN'S WORLD, January 1976) by Bret Harper, also likely a pseudonym, about a husband who finds a unique way of taking revenge on his cheating wife.
In addition, each story is followed by comments from a variety of shark experts, explaining what the author got right, got wrong, or made up entirely. These commentaries are informative and a lot of fun.
Overall, MANEATERS is a great collection. Reading it isn't going to make me more likely to go in the water--just the opposite, in fact--but I had a fine time with it anyway. You know, it would be a pretty good book to read while sitting on the beach. Well up on the beach, away from the water . . .
2 comments:
An attempt to post the link to this on a friend's Facebook page (he's a JAWS superfan), and the "community standards" algorithm decided that something about the words or image were a No Go. Perhaps others will be luckier, since I explained why there's little to be offended by to the no-doubt Long list for the human operators to clear.
Well, that's odd. I linked it in several places over there with no problem, at least so far. You never know with Facebook, though.
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