Review: Peace at Any Price - Chap O'Keefe (Keith Chapman)

As regular readers of this blog know, I’ve been a fan of Chap O’Keefe’s Western novels for quite a while now. O’Keefe, of course, is actually Keith Chapman, who has been in the genre fiction business as a writer and editor for a long time. His novel PEACE AT ANY PRICE is set in Texas in the Reconstruction era following the Civil War, fertile ground for many great Western yarns over the years.

Actually, this one starts during the war, as ranchers Jim Hunter and Matt Harrison dissolve their partnership after their herd is rustled and their barn and bunkhouse are burned down. Jim supports the Confederacy and Matt the Union, so they each go off to join those respective armies, although unlike some friends who found themselves on opposite sides, their parting is amicable.

Instead of fighting in the regular army, Jim finds himself riding with a group of irregulars and involved in smuggling across the Mexican border. After the war, when Jim returns to the small town in South Texas near the ranch he and Matt established, he finds that Matt is back, too, trying to get the ranch up and running again—but Matt has also married the girl Jim was in love with. Jim can’t stay, so he goes off and gets mixed up with the smuggling gang again, but circumstances keep dragging the fates of the former partners together.

The plot and tone of this novel remind me of some of the classic Gold Medal Westerns from the Fifties and Sixties. Femme fatales, double crosses, and a gritty, noirish feel make it a very entertaining tale. And for someone who’s never actually been to Texas, O’Keefe really nails the Gulf Coast setting, including a humdinger of a hurricane that’s very realistic. PEACE AT ANY PRICE really races along and I had a fine time reading it. If you’re a fan of traditional Westerns, I think there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy it a lot, as well. It’s available on Amazon in paperback and e-book editions.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Famous Detective Stories, June 1954

The cover on this issue of FAMOUS DETECTIVE STORIES is by Norman Saunders, and he's by far the best known name involved with this issue. The lead novella is by Wilbur S. Peacock, a fairly prolific pulp author and editor, but the other stories are by writers I'm not familiar with: Norman Ober, Marc Millen, Gene Rodgers, and Wallace McKinley. None of these are known to be pseudonyms or house-names, but they don't ring any bells for me, either. The cover is okay, but I'm not sure if I would have gambled a quarter on this one if I'd seen it on the stands back in 1954. (I was alive when this issue was on the stands, but since I was only a year old, I doubt if I'd have been reading it anyway.)

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Gun-Swift Western, September 1938

This is a pretty obscure Western pulp. I don't know how many issues there were, since only one has been indexed on the Fictionmags Index. This is Volume 1, Number 5. Nor do I know who painted the cover. But the group of authors inside is a decent one: Ed Earl Repp, J.E. Grinstead, Hapsburg Liebe, Carmony Gove, and Clem Yore. Those hombres generally knew what they were writing about.

UPDATE: On Facebook, John Locke provided some information from the magazine AUTHORS & JOURNALISTS about GUN-SWIFT WESTERN and its editor/publisher (?) Z.S. Sklar. From the October 1939 issue:

Who Is Z.S. Sklar?

Col. John J. Boniface, who writes under the pseudonym of Wilton West and various others for the adventure magazines, sends us a heavy sheaf of correspondence which he defines as a serial entitled, "The Mystery of Z.S. Sklar."

The opening installments of this engrossing serial relate to the call of a magazine entitled Gun-Swift Western, of 19 Avon Place, Springfield, Mass., for manuscripts. The call brought a manuscript last spring from Col. Boniface under one of his pennames, Gordon Strong. Not hearing from the manuscript, the author wrote several letters of inquiry, which were never answered, although the letters were not returned. The Railway Express Agency, in whose hands the matter then was placed, had no better luck, reporting: “Unable to contact the party.”

THE AUTHOR & JOURNALIST, writing in behalf of the author, had a little better luck. In response to its inquiry, came a brief typewritten note: “Magazine has been discontinued.--Z.S. Sklar.”

Acting on this information, the author put the matter into the hands of the post office department. Though declining to take action, the inspector at Boston, Mass., informed him that other writers had complained, and reported that their manuscripts were later returned by the Double-Action Publishing Co., of New York. But Cliff Campbell of the D-A group reported when queried that he had no record of the yarn.

Final appeal was made to the police department of Springfield--and here the mystery not merely persisted, but deepened. Quoting from the letter of John L. Maloney, chief of police:

“While I have caused a thorough investigation to be made, I am unable to locate Z.S Sklar or the Gun-Swift Western magazine at 19 Avon Place, this city. Inquiries were made of the janitor of the above-mentioned address, which is an apartment block in the residential section, who informed our investigating officer that Sklar or this magazine company which you mention has never been located at that address. Inquiries were also made of the letter carrier who delivers mail in this district, who states that he has never delivered mail to Sklar at 19 Avon Place. He is not receiving mail at our local post office. His name does not appear in our city or telephone directory.”

Evidently it all never happened--but others who are in like position must join the author in wondering how come that the magazine did receive manuscripts at that address, return some, and contrive that others were returned through the Double-Action group. We hate to see a masterly and persistent job of sleuthing for a lost manuscript, such as that conducted by Col. Boniface, end up in a blind trail.

 
From the November 1939 AUTHOR & JOURNALIST:

 
Responding to the editorial in our last issue, relating to the mystery of Gunswift Western and Z.S. Sklar, Louis H. Silberkleit, president of Winford Publications, Inc., writes: “Gunswift Western was not connected in any way with the Double Action Group. It so happens that when the magazine was discontinued, the editor, who certainly did run his business from 19 Avon Place, Springfield, Mass., approached us for a job, and was hired. He asked if we would permit him to have his mail forwarded from Springfield to this office. We said yes. That's all we know about the situation.”

I'm always fascinated by stuff like this, and many thanks to John Locke for providing it.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Altar of Eden - James Rollins

A while back I read James Rollins’ novel SANDSTORM and liked it quite a bit. Since then I’ve been meaning to read something else by him, but his new books have been entries in his Sigma Force series and I’m a little obsessive about reading series novels in order, and also many of them have been longer than I wanted to tackle. I could backtrack to his earlier stand-alone novels, and I still intend to, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.

However, his most recent book, ALTAR OF EDEN, is not only a stand-alone, but it comes in just short of 400 pages, which is my entirely arbitrary and often violated limit for how long a book I’ll read these days. So I gave it a try and was glad I did.

As Rollins (whose real name is James Czajkowski) explains in an introductory note, he was a veterinarian before he became a best-selling thriller writer and wanted to write a book with a protagonist who’s a vet. Dr. Lorna Polk works at an animal medical research center in Louisiana and is called on to examine the cargo of a mysterious freighter that runs aground during a hurricane. This throws her back in contact with Border Patrol agent Jack Menard, with whom she shares a tragic past. They discover that there’s plenty that’s odd – and dangerous – about the animals on the wrecked freighter, and that discovery plunges them into an international conspiracy that threatens their lives and the lives of several of their friends.

The real strength of this book is its speed. Nearly the entire book takes place in a span of about twenty-four hours, with the action racing along through three distinct set-pieces. The way Rollins paces the book and cuts back and forth between the characters is very effective. The compressed time-frame means that some things happen maybe just a hair too quickly to be believable, but that didn’t really bother me. I’m not enough of a science buff to say whether or not all the cutting-edge science in the book is plausible, but Rollins certainly makes it sound like it is.

I really enjoyed ALTAR OF EDEN. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a big fan of a lot of modern thrillers, but based on what I’ve read so far, Rollins’ books are fine adventure novels. I’ll definitely be reading more.

(You're waiting for me to say that I haven't read anything else by James Rollins since this post appeared originally on June 1, 2010, aren't you? But I actually have. I read the novella TRACKER, which was the start of a new series related to his Sigma Force series. But I haven't read any of the full-length novels that followed it. In the meantime, ALTAR OF EDEN is still available in e-book, hardcover, and paperback editions.)

Review: The Albino Ogre - Anthony M. Rud (Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 3, 1928)

Pulp author and editor Anthony M. Rud is almost forgotten today, other than maybe for the fact that his novella “Ooze” was the cover-featured story on the very first issue of WEIRD TALES. I admire him because he worked in a number of different genres and was a pretty solid author in all of them.

His novella “The Albino Ogre” is the cover story on the November 3, 1928 issue of ARGOSY ALL-STORY WEEKLY, said cover being painted by Howard Brown. It’s a South Seas adventure, all right, just as the cover copy claims. The tale is narrated by an American named Spark Starke (terrible name), a former boxer who is on the run from a murder charge because he killed a guy (unintentionally) in the ring. He falls in with Denmark Ordway Treleaven, a British secret agent of some sort who is in love with Jessie Seagrue, the beautiful owner of a copra plantation whose beautiful redheaded niece Pat O’Hearn also lives with her. Got all that? Den Treleaven wants to save Jessie from the clutches of Pappas the Pink, a giant albino pirate/slaver who has his sights set on not only Jessie but also the plantation she owns. He enlists Spark to help him in this battle against Pappas, and Spark is more than happy to throw in with him, especially after some of Pappas’s minions try to wipe them out in a machine gun attack. Treleaven’s romance with Jessie is complicated by the fact that she’s married, and Pappas has kidnapped her husband and young son to use as leverage against her.

The whole thing is complicated and, yes, a little silly and melodramatic. But that’s in keeping with the times in which it was written, and Rud makes it work by giving the reader interesting characters and almost non-stop action. Chattering machine guns, savage natives with spears, captures, escapes, rescues, sneaking around the jungle, taking over ships, he throws all that stuff in, and as a long-time pulp adventure reader, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Pappas even gets more character development than most despicable villains, and I kind of wish we’d learned more about him.

Speaking of the times in which it was written, “The Albino Ogre” might well offend some readers with modern sensibilities, so consider yourself warned. I’ve never had any trouble accepting fiction for what it is and when it was written, so it didn’t bother me. There’s an inexpensive e-book edition of this available on Amazon, and you can find it for free on-line as well, if you know where to look. It’s the sort of story that H. Bedford-Jones did so well (although HB-J was a considerably better writer than Rud, if I’m being honest) and I had a good time reading it.

Review: Greylorn - Keith Laumer

Recently a friend mentioned the science fiction writer Keith Laumer to me, and I recalled reading quite a bit of Laumer’s fiction with enjoyment back when I was in high school. But I hadn’t read anything by him in many years, so I checked to see what’s available. As it turns out, there’s a free e-book edition of GREYLORN, a novella that appeared originally in the April 1959 issue of the digest AMAZING SCIENCE FICTION STORIES. It also happens to be Laumer’s first published fiction, according to the Fictionmags Index. So I thought sure, why not give it a try?

This is set in the future, naturally, when Earth is ruled by a one-world government and has sent colony ships out into the universe, none of which have ever been heard from again. Some sort of mysterious ecological catastrophe called the Red Tide has struck the planet and wiped out most of civilization except for North America. The government sends out ships to search for their lost colonies, hoping to get help from one of them, but these expeditions fail. As a last ditch effort, one more ship is sent out, equipped with a newly discovered faster than light drive, to try to find the last of the lost colonies. Its captain is Commander Greylorn, who invented the FTL drive and who narrates most of this novella.

Laumer raises the stakes even more by including a mutiny and the first contact with an alien race, a contact which quickly turns perilous. Greylorn has his hands full just surviving this trip, let alone succeeding in his mission and saving Earth.

GREYLORN is cleverly plotted and Laumer keeps things moving along at a nice pace. In some ways, such as the rather shallow characterization and the lack of female characters, it's reminiscent of the science fiction from the Twenties and Thirties, but I like the SF from that era so that doesn’t bother me. This isn’t a lost classic or anything (it’s actually been reprinted in numerous collections of Laumer’s stories), but I enjoyed reading it and it makes me think I should read more of his work. I own several of his full-length novels and maybe will tackle one of them in the reasonably near future.

Review: Twisted Bars - Max Brand (Frederick Faust)

Frederick Faust, better known as Max Brand, is one of those authors I’ve been reading for more than 60 years, and I suspect I’ll continue to read his work for as long as I’m around. TWISTED BARS, currently available from Amazon in e-book and paperback editions, reprints three pulp novellas: “The Duster”, WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE, November 2, 1929; “Twisted Bars”, WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE, November 16, 1929; and “The Duster Returns”, WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE, November 30, 1929.

Although they were published originally as individual novellas, these stories flow right from one into the next and actually form a novel. It’s narrated by a middle-aged cowboy named Baldy Wye, who works on a spread near the town of Christmas. When he hears that the notorious outlaw known as The Duster has shown up in town, Baldy indulges his curiosity and goes to see the famous desperado. The Duster has come to Christmas not to commit some daring crime, though. Instead, what he wants is to bury the ashes of his former partner, Hector Manness, in the local cemetery. Manness, mortally wounded by a posse, had asked The Duster to have him buried there. Unfortunately, the local minister is adamant that a criminal like Manness will never be laid to rest in the church’s graveyard.

The Duster sets out to change the minister’s mind, and the result is a dramatic story but one that’s almost totally lacking in action. That lack is a continuing problem in this book. There’s a bank robbery in the second story that’s very well done, and of course, everybody blames The Duster, but is he really guilty? In the third story, The Duster and the minister’s daughter have fallen in love, but in order to win her hand in marriage, he has to prove that he’s actually gone straight and given up his outlaw ways. There’s a twist that most readers will see coming, but it’s still effective and raises the stakes nicely.

The stories in TWISTED BARS are very well-written. Faust could turn a phrase with great skill, and he was one of the best at tormenting his protagonists and creating a lot of psychological drama. But most of this book consists of people sitting around and talking, and there’s very little of the action for which Faust is also famous. I think this is a very minor entry in his work, and if you haven’t read him before, I sure wouldn’t start here. If you’re a fan and just enjoy the way he writes, it’s worth reading, but don’t expect it to be in the top rank of his yarns.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Adventure, October 1948

A pegleg, a pith helmet, a pistol, a dagger, and a dead body! You don't get much more adventure pulp than this cover by Peter Stevens on, what else, ADVENTURE. This issue is also of interest because it contains the novella "Jewel of the Java Sea" by Dan Cushman, which I assume he expanded into the novel of the same title that Gold Medal published a few years later. Also on hand are Georges Surdez, Jim Kjelgaard, Max Kesler, and William Fuller, along with lesser-known authors Robinson McLean, Ian Lasry, and Richard S. Porteous, who wrote under the odd pseudonym "Standby". I don't own this issue, but if I did, Cushman and Surdez would be enough to prompt me to read it.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Famous Western, April 1940

I don't know who painted the cover on this issue of FAMOUS WESTERN, but some old friends show up on it: a stalwart cowboy in a red shirt, a good-looking redhead who's getting in on the action, and if you look closely, you can see an old codger peering out the jailhouse door. Is he wounded? I'm betting he is, although we can't tell for sure. There are only four stories in this issue. Two of them are by Anthony Rud (better known for mystery, adventure, and weird fiction, but he turned out some Westerns, too) and W.D. Hoffman, a prolific Western pulpster. The other two are credited to Mat Rand and James Rourke, two Columbia Publications house-names. I don't own this issue, but it looks like a pretty good one. 

Wayne D. Dundee RIP

I'm having a hard time processing the fact that Wayne Dundee has passed away. I knew his health was bad and so I'm not really surprised by the news, but at the same time, the idea of the world without that big galoot in it just seems so wrong. It seemed like Wayne would just always be around. Like Bill Crider, Ed Gorman, Bob Randisi, and Steve Mertz before him, Wayne was a great friend for more than 40 years. He went from being a fine author of private detective novels (seriously, if you're a fan of the genre, you need to read all of his Joe Hannibal novels) to being one of the best Western writers in the business. Early on, he was the editor and publisher of an excellent small press magazine called HARDBOILED; many of us who broke in during the Seventies and Eighties published in its pages and were proud and honored to be there. Years later, I was privileged to edit a number of his novels and always loved working with him. He could flat-out write and was a terrific storyteller. I was never fortunate enough to meet him in person, but we spoke on the phone several times and traded countless emails. He managed to be both a gentle giant and a genuine tough guy. Mostly he was my friend, and I'm going to miss him. As I told a mutual friend this morning, the circle just keeps getting smaller and smaller.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Starhaven - Ivar Jorgenson (Robert Silverberg)

I seem to remember reading an interview with Robert Silverberg in which he talked about reading stories by “Ivar Jorgenson” when he was a kid and later growing up to be “Ivar Jorgenson”. I can certainly understand that feeling, having been lucky enough to write as “Brett Halliday” after reading many, many books under that byline when I was younger.

STARHAVEN is Silverberg’s only novel under the Jorgenson name, originally published by Thomas Bouregy in 1958 and reprinted a year later by Ace as the other half of Edmond Hamilton’s THE SUN SMASHER, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. It’s the story of Johnny Mantell, a beachcomber and bum on the resort planet Mulciber, who has to flee from his peaceful existence because he’s unjustly accused of murder. He steals a spaceship and heads for Starhaven, a giant metal-enclosed sanctuary world where criminals of all sorts, even murderers, can find, well, haven. Naturally enough, on a world populated by criminals there aren’t any laws, so Johnny may have his work cut out just surviving on Starhaven.

Once he gets there, however, he finds himself taken under the wing of the benevolent dictator who runs the place. Unfortunately, he also finds himself attracted to the dictator’s beautiful girlfriend, and then there’s this sinister conspiracy in which he gets involved . . .

This is a pretty simple plot and could probably work as a straight crime novel or a Western with a few changes. But then about halfway through, Silverberg pulls a nice SF-nal twist. It doesn’t come as a big shocker, but it’s still effective, and there’s another good twist later on. And of course, being Silverberg’s work, the prose is very smooth and readable.

I’m going by memory here, but it seems to me that “Ivar Jorgenson” started out as a personal pseudonym for Paul W. Fairman but eventually became a house-name used in the Ziff-Davis science fiction magazines edited by Fairman, as well as a few other places. STARHAVEN may well be an expansion of one of Silverberg’s yarns for the SF digests; I haven’t been able to find out about that. I believe it’s gone unreprinted since this Ace edition.

I’m one of those oddballs who likes Silverberg’s early novels as well or better than his later ones, but that’s because I prefer my science fiction more action-oriented. STARHAVEN is an entertaining yarn, and taken in tandem with THE SUN SMASHER, they make this one of the better Ace SF Doubles I’ve read.

(This post originally appeared on June 11, 2010. STARHAVEN doesn't appear to be in print under either the Ivar Jorgenson name or Silverberg's real name. Which kind of surprises me. Reasonably affordable copies of the Ace Double containing this and Edmond Hamilton's THE SUN SMASHER are available from various sellers on-line.)

Review: Sharpe's Tiger - Bernard Cornwell

My history with Bernard Cornwell’s fiction has been odd. I read THE ARCHER’S TALE, the first book in his Grail Quest series, loved it, and never read any more of them. I read REBEL, the first of his Nathaniel Starbuck series, loved it, and never read any more of them. For a long time, I’ve been wanting to try what’s arguably his best-known series about British soldier Richard Sharpe, but I worried I’d read one and never get back to them. But you never know without trying, and since I own almost all of the series in one form or another, I decided I might as well go ahead and read the first one, SHARPE’S TIGER.

Actually, this is the first Sharpe book chronologically but not the first one published. After the series was well-established, Cornwell went back and wrote several books filling in the character’s early history in the army, beginning with Sharpe being a private during the British forces siege of the Indian city of Seringapatam in 1799. Sharpe, who was a thief before joining the army, is pretty much of a rogue, but he’s a great fighting man and has a core of decency to him. He runs afoul of a truly despicable villain, a brutal sergeant named Obadiah Hakeswill, and is tricked into committing a crime that gets him sentenced to a flogging of two thousand lashes, an extreme punishment that will probably kill him.

However, before the sentence can be carried out fully, Sharpe is picked for a vital espionage mission. He has to pretend to be a deserter, get into the besieged city, and rescue a captured British officer who has some vital intelligence that may mean all the difference between victory and defeat. Failing a rescue, Sharpe is supposed to obtain the information from the officer and then escape.

That’s the basic plot, but while it’s fairly simple, Cornwell layers in some twists and turns that are very clever and still sticks pretty close to the actual history while at the same time giving the fictional Richard Sharpe plenty of important stuff to do. I was really impressed by the way Cornwell manipulated his plot and characters in this novel. To be honest, I thought this book started on the slow side and I was beginning to wonder about the series’ sterling reputation, but when things kicked into gear about a quarter of the way in, I was really hooked and dragged along. I mean, Sharpe fights giant warriors, has to escape from a vicious tiger, and blows a bunch of stuff up. I was really flipping the pages to see what was going to happen next.

There are also epic, very well-written battle scenes, vividly drawn historical characters, effective touches of humor and pathos, good supporting characters, and a top-notch protagonist in Richard Sharpe himself. SHARPE’S TIGER is a terrific book, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. If you’re a fan of historical adventure novels, I give it a very high recommendation. It's available on Amazon in e-book, audio, hardcover, and paperback editions.

And now the question remains . . . will I read more of the series? I’m pretty sure I will, but as always, we’ll have to wait and see.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Dime Adventure Magazine, December 1935

Popular Publications had big successes with DIME DETECTIVE and DIME WESTERN, but DIME ADVENTURE MAGAZINE doesn't seem to have done nearly as well. Maybe the competition from ADVENTURE, ARGOSY, BLUE BOOK, and SHORT STORIES was just too much. But DIME ADVENTURE had some good covers, like this one (pith helmet alert!) by Hubert Rogers, and good authors, as well, such as Luke Short, Carl Jacobi, Samuel W. Taylor, and L. Ron Hubbard in this issue. Also on hand were lesser-known authors Alexander Key, John Amid, Donald S. Aitken, Gerald V. Stamm, and Arnold Jeffers. Admittedly, out of those last five guys I only vaguely remember seeing the names of Key and Aitken on pulp TOCs, and I don't think I've read anything by them. Looking at the listings of the other issues in the Fictionmags Index, that seems to be a trend: two or three well-known authors and half a dozen from the lower ranks of pulpsters. That may well explain why DIME ADVENTURE MAGAZINE didn't run as long as its fellow magazines from Popular Publications.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Trails, February 1948

This issue of WESTERN TRAILS features another fine, dramatic cover by Norman Saunders. As usual with the Ace Western pulps, this issue has two stories by J. Edward Leithead, one under his own name and one under his most common pseudonym Wilson L. Covert. I'm a big fan of Leithead's work and there are some other fine authors in this issue, including Walker A. Tompkins, Joseph Chadwick, D.B. Newton, weird fiction icon Kirk Mashburn, Cliff Walters, and Dan Kirby. I don't own this issue and haven't read it, but with that cover and author line-up I have no doubt that it's very good.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Kingdom of Blue Corpses - Brant House (?)

“Kingdom of Blue Corpses”, from the December 1935 issue of the pulp SECRET AGENT X, is one of the more oddball entries in the series. It’s very comic-booky (if that’s a word), with a master villain who calls himself the Blue Streak and wears a blue rubber suit, somewhat like a frogman’s outfit, emblazoned with a lightning bolt. His minions – every self-respecting master villain has to have minions, of course – wear black rubber suits that look even more like frogmen and drive around in a sinister black hearse. The Blue Streak’s weapon in his campaign of terror is an electrical cannon that fires lightning bolts, and as a side effect, the corpses of the people struck by it turn bright blue. No explanation is forthcoming for this side effect, but that’s all right. This yarn isn’t very rigorously plotted, even by pulp standards.

Which doesn’t mean it’s not a lot of fun, as Secret Agent X tries to bring the Blue Streak to justice in a series of extremely fast-moving, action-packed confrontations. As usual, “X” employs several different disguises, and his girlfriend/assistant, beautiful blond reporter Betty Dale, even gets in on the act this time, as “X” disguises her so she can take the place of a young woman he suspects of being involved with the Blue Streak.

The actual identity of the author behind the “Brant House” house-name on this one hasn’t been established, as far as I know. The first part of the story reads like it could be by Paul Chadwick, the creator of the Secret Agent X character and the principal author in the series in its early years. The style changes somewhat during the course of the story, becoming more terse and action-oriented, which has led some readers to speculate that maybe Chadwick started the novel and from some unknown reason, another author finished it. This seems possible to me as well, but at this point, we just don’t know. Whoever wrote “Kingdom of Blue Corpses” did a good job of keeping things moving, even if they don’t always make complete sense.

(Since this post originally appeared in a somewhat different form on May 28, 2010, "Kingdom of Blue Corpses" has been reprinted twice, once by Adventure House and once by Altus Press. The Altus Press edition includes several other Secret Agent X novels. In the comments on the original post, there was some discussion about who actually wrote this one. Some pulp scholars lean toward G.T. Fleming-Roberts, while others think it might be the work of Paul Chadwick. Based on my reading of the story at the time, I even suggested that Chadwick may have started it and Fleming-Roberts completed it. I honestly don't know the answer, but you pays your money and you takes your choice!)

Review: Lost Empire (Sam and Remi Fargo #2) - Clive Cussler and Grant Blackwood

A while back I reran the review I posted 15 years ago for SPARTAN GOLD, the first novel in Clive Cussler’s series about married treasure hunters and adventurers Sam and Remi Fargo. I never got back to the series, but reading that review again prompted me to do so. I picked up the second book, LOST EMPIRE, once again written by Cussler and Grant Blackwood and available on Amazon in e-book, audio, paperback, and hardcover editions. Cussler had several collaborators on the Fargo series, and I’m assuming they did the bulk of the actual writing, with Cussler contributing to the plots.

LOST EMPIRE is actually kind of a hard book to describe because it really has a kitchen sink plot. It opens with a ship sailing from London in 1864, jumps to Sam and Remi finding the bell from a sunken ship off the coast of Zanzibar, then back around the world to Mexico where the newly elected president of the country sends a sinister assassin after the Fargos. From there, the action bounces back and forth from California to Madagascar to Krakatoa (which is actually west of Java, not east, no matter what the movie title says). We get a bunch of running, jumping, swimming, car chases, fighting, and an underground encounter with a den of crocodiles that’s a pretty good scene. Not surprisingly, there’s even a cameo appearance by Clive Cussler his own self as he gives Sam and Remi a hand in their adventure. The whole thing revolves around a 19^th Century British secret agent, cryptography, a lost Confederate ship, and the origins of the Aztec Empire.

As I’ve mentioned before, Livia and I have a saying whenever we’re watching a movie or TV show where the plot gets so convoluted and silly that you have to just accept it for it is: “Sure. Why not?” LOST EMPIRE is a “Sure. Why not?” book. I guess the plot makes sense, but I don’t really know because eventually I stopped trying to keep up with it and just went along for the ride. The action scenes are well-done, the settings are colorful, Sam and Remi are very likable protagonists, and the villains are suitably despicable.

I’ve been told by several friends that the entries where Cussler collaborated with Thomas Perry are the best books in the series. Maybe I’ll skip ahead to them. The next book appears to be a direct sequel to this one, though, and I have just enough OCD to feel like I ought to read it. We’ll see. For now, I enjoyed LOST EMPIRE and am glad I read it, but it didn’t win me over completely. Take that for what it’s worth.

Movies I've Missed Until Now: Showdown at Boot Hill (1958)

SHOWDOWN AT BOOT HILL is another Western that I’d somehow never watched or even heard of that I saw recently. From 1958, it’s considered to be Charles Bronson’s first starring role, although I believe there’s some disagreement about that. But either way, it’s pretty obscure. Bronson plays a deputy U.S. marshal who shows up in a small town to arrest an outlaw. The ensuing shootout results in a dead owlhoot, but Bronson doesn’t care since he can collect the reward money whether his quarry is dead or alive. Unfortunately, he has to have proof that the man he killed is the same one on the reward poster he carries, and nobody in town will confirm that for the record. Because, you see, the dead man was well liked thereabouts and carried out all his crimes elsewhere.

Well, that’s an odd but intriguing setup, no doubt about that. What follows is a rather set-bound piece with a lot of talking and psychological angst (Bronson’s character became a bounty hunter because he’s short and was picked on) and a few bursts of action. The title showdown doesn’t amount to much, either.

Don’t get me wrong, though. SHOWDOWN AT BOOT HILL is an interesting and enjoyable little film. The black-and-white photography is excellent, the exteriors were filmed at Old Tucson, which is my favorite Old West town location, and Bronson does a good job. Veteran character John Carradine shamelessly steals the whole movie as the town’s doctor/barber/undertaker. He turns in a restrained, excellent performance, one of the best I’ve seen from him.

SHOWDOWN AT BOOT HILL is no lost classic, but I think it’s worth watching as an example of a 1950s psychological Western. And I’ll always watch Charles Bronson. I’m glad I finally caught up with this one.

Review: The Tripods #2: The City of Gold and Lead - John Christopher (Samuel Youd)

A couple of weeks ago I read the first book in British science fiction author John Christopher’s Tripods trilogy, THE WHITE MOUNTAIN. As you probably recall, giant machines inspired by the Martian fighting machines in H.G. Wells’ THE WAR OF THE WORLDS have invaded Earth and subjugated humanity by means of mesh caps they place on people’s head to control them. The world has devolved to a medieval, feudal society ruled by the Tripods. It’s unknown whether the Tripods are intelligent machines or simply vehicles for another race of invaders. Here and there are pockets of uncontrolled humanity who harbor dreams of fighting back against the invaders. One such group is located in the White Mountains (clearly the Alps) and the first book finds our heroes, narrator Will Parker and his cousin Henry (from what used to be England) and their French friend Jean-Paul, a.k.a. Beanpole, escaping to this enclave.

The second book, THE CITY OF GOLD AND LEAD, centers around an espionage mission in which Will, Beanpole, and a new character,  Fritz, infiltrate the Tripods’ stronghold, the title city, which seems to be located somewhere in Germany near the North Sea. Beanpole has to be left outside the domed city, but Will and Fritz make it inside. Once there, they discover the true nature of the invaders and learn of a sinister plan that threatens all of humanity. Then it’s up to one of them to escape and carry this vital intelligence back to the resistance in the White Mountains.

I enjoyed the first book quite a bit, although I had a small issue with the ending, and this one is even better. It does bog down a little in the middle, venturing into travelogue SF as Christopher (whose real name was Samuel Youd) provides an abundance of information about the city and the invaders who inhabit it. At the same time, there are some genuinely creepy scenes that are very effective, and Will is such a thoroughly human protagonist that you can’t help but root for him. There’s one more book in the trilogy, and the story expands to such an epic scope in this one that I’m not sure how Christopher is going to wrap it up in a single volume, but we’ll see. I should be reading the third book soon. (There’s also a prequel volume, but we’ll have to wait and see if I decide to read that one.)

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Adventure, July 1936

I'm not that familiar with the work of Charles De Feo, but he did a pretty good job on this cover. ADVENTURE always featured good authors and this issue is no exception. Inside are stories by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, Donald Barr Chidsey, William E. Barrett, Henry Herbert Knibbs, Commander Edward Ellsberg, Andrew A. Caffrey, and William S. Wells. Chidsey is one of my favorites, Wheeler-Nicholson and Barrett were always top-notch, and Knibbs is well-regarded although I don't recall ever reading any of his stories. The others I'm not familiar with but I'm sure they're well worth reading.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Dime Western Magazine, March 1952

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. I don’t know who did the cover art. Robert Stanley did a lot of covers for DIME WESTERN MAGAZINE during this era, but I feel like this one isn’t Stanley’s work. But as always when it comes to art, I could be wrong!

The lead novella, “Killers in the Canyon!”, is by John M. Cunningham, best remembered for writing the story on which the movie HIGH NOON is based. “The Tin Star” appeared in the December 6, 1947 issue of the slick COLLIER’S. As in that classic story, the protagonist of “Killers in the Canyon!” is also a lawman, but he’s not the stern, upright sort like Will Kane. No, he’s a reformed outlaw, and his old gang wants him to throw in with them again and help them loot some gold shipments. Our hero’s old flame, now married to one of his former partners in crime, wants him to turn crooked again, too, and she has some blackmail material to hold over his head and force him to do so. This is a fairly traditional plot, but it has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, Cunningham doesn’t do much with it except for scene after scene of people standing around talking. Yes, the prose is very slick and smooth, but I kept waiting for something to happen and it doesn’t until the last few pages of the story. Even then, the action is low-key and unsatisfying. Also, the title must have been slapped on by an editor at Popular Publications, because it has nothing to do with the story. I read all of this story and didn’t give up on it, but in the end it’s a clear miss for me.

Will C. Brown was the pseudonym of Clarence S. Boyles, the other famous writer from Cross Plains, Texas, and a classmate of Robert E. Howard although Boyles was a few years older and they weren’t in the same grade. Nor has his reputation and popularity endured nearly as long as Howard’s has, but even so, Boyles had a long and successful career as a Western pulpster and novelist under the Will C. Brown name. His story in this issue, “He’s Death on Nesters!”, announces its Texas origins right away with a reference to the Cap Rock, the escarpment that angles down across Texas and separates the state’s central region from its western one. In this yarn, the hard-nosed foreman of a big ranch confronts three nesters who have started a small spread on the edge of the big one, only to find that there’s more going on there than he expected. This story has a really nice voice to it, along with interesting characters and a well-done bit of action. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read by Boyles/Brown in the past, and this one is excellent.

Dee Linford was a prolific contributor to the Western pulps all through the Forties and early Fifties and published one novel, MAN WITHOUT A STAR, which was made into a well-regarded movie starring Kirk Douglas. I haven’t read the book, but I have seen the movie, which apparently wasn’t very faithful to the source material. A lot of people like the movie, but I didn’t care for it. But I digress . . . Linford’s novelette in this issue, “Sudden John’s Ghost Herd”, is a reprint originally titled “Railroads Are Hell on Cattlemen!” when it was published in the October 1940 issue of DIME WESTERN MAGAZINE. It’s part of a series Linford wrote about range detective Sudden John Irons. The plot is the well-used one about rustlers stealing cattle and blaming their crimes on the local Indians, but it’s well-written, has a great opening, some nice action, and a fine protagonist in Sudden John. I don’t think I’ve read anything else by Linford, but I enjoyed this one a lot and will be on the lookout for his work in the future. If you’d like to know more about him, there’s a great article on the Pulpflakes blog.

“Baptism of Fire” is a rather uninspired title for a gritty, well-written tale of the cavalry versus the Apaches written by Clifton Adams. The young officer in command of a patrol is looking for a fight with the Apaches because he wants to avenge the death of his older brother. Things don’t go exactly as planned. Adams was a fine writer, but he could be almost as bleak as H.A. DeRosso and Lewis B. Patten at times. This is a good story, but its downbeat ending meant that I admired it more than I actually liked it.

I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read by Robert L. Trimnell. His story in this issue, “Return of the Vargas”, is a modern-day Western and is narrated by an American veterinarian who is sent with a Mexican army escort into a former stronghold of Pancho Villa to vaccinate cattle against hoof and mouth disease. Old grudges lead to violence. This is certainly an oddball plot, but Trimnell was a good writer and things don’t turn out exactly as I expected, which is always a bonus.

Bennett Foster was a pretty big name as a Western author during the Thirties, Forties, and the first half of the Fifties. He wrote for the top pulps and also published quite a few stories in the slicks. His novelette in this issue, “One-Man Horse”, is a reprint from the March 26, 1938 issue of ARGOSY, where it was published under the title “Wedding Gift”. A young cowboy makes a horse trade with the father of the girl he’s in love with, and it has unexpected repercussions. This story is told in a smooth, folksy, entertaining style, heavy on the humor and romance, but Foster does get some action in, late in the proceedings. I don’t recall reading anything else by Foster, so I don’t know if this is typical of his work, but I enjoyed it enough I’d like to read more and find out. I own several of his novels. I ought to go ahead and read one.

That wraps up the fiction in this issue. My dislike of Cunningham’s novella, which takes up almost half of the page count, makes it difficult for me to rate it very highly, but on the other hand, the stories by Will C. Brown and Dee Linford are very good and the other stories are entertaining. So don’t rush to your shelves to see if you have a copy, but if the opportunity arises, you might find it worth dipping into. And of course it’s always possible you might like Cunningham’s story a lot more than I did. I always want to be fair about these things.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: The Sun Smasher - Edmond Hamilton

The opening of this novel reminded me a bit of the sort of set-up that Cornell Woolrich used in many of his stories. A young man named Neal Banning, who works as a publisher’s rep in New York City, pays a visit to his Norman Rockwell-esque hometown in Nebraska – but when he gets there, he finds a vacant lot where the house he grew up in should be. Not only that, but the neighbors are different and insist that there was never a house on the lot, that they don’t know Neal, and that the aunt and uncle who raised him never existed. Naturally, with his world upended like this, Neal goes to the police and tries to get to the bottom of what he thinks is a conspiracy, only to be locked up because everybody thinks he’s crazy.

Of course, in the hands of the master of space opera, Edmond Hamilton, things play out a lot differently from there than they would in a Cornell Woolrich story. Veteran readers won’t be surprised when a mysterious man shows up, breaks Neal out of jail, and tells him an incredible story about how he’s really the Valkar, the former leader of a galactic empire whose enemies captured him, had his brain wiped clean, and implanted false memories of his life as Neal Banning. Neal’s rescuer is one of his former followers who has finally tracked him down and now wants to return him to his home planet so his memory can be restored and he can lead a rebellion against the New Empire and restore the Old Empire to power. How’s he going to do that, you ask? Simple. Even though he can’t remember it at the moment, Neal is the only one in the cosmos who knows the location of a super-weapon called the Hammer of the Valkar, which will give whoever possesses it the power to rule the galaxy.

If all that doesn’t get your heart pounding . . . well, then, you probably didn’t grow up reading and loving this kind of stuff like I did. There were few authors better at it than Edmond Hamilton. Super-weapons, beautiful haughty empresses, spaceships with fins . . . sure, there’s a certain degree of silliness to it all, but I don’t care. I hadn’t read this novel before, and I found it highly entertaining. Hamilton was never much of a stylist. His prose is simple and direct and very fast-moving, although there are definite touches of poetry here and there, especially when he’s describing things like the vastness of space. This novel rockets (no pun intended) along to a twist ending that probably won’t surprise very many readers but is still quite satisfying.

The thing is, they still write stories like this, only now it would be a 500,000 word trilogy stuffed to the gills with back-story, angst, political intrigue, sex, and realistic-sounding science. Hamilton spins his yarn in less than a tenth of that wordage. You pays your money and you takes your choice, and I know that many modern readers would rather have the fat trilogy than the 110-page Ace Double. As for me, I’m gonna go smash some suns with Ed Hamilton.

(This post originally appeared on May 21, 2010. Since that time, there's been an e-book reprint of THE SUN SMASHER that's still available on Amazon. I need to read more by Edmond Hamilton.)

Review: Men's Adventure Quarterly #12: The Private Eyes Issue - Bob Deis and Bill Cunningham, eds.

I’ve been a fan of MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY since it began, and it’s a real pleasure and honor to have an article in the latest issue, #12, The Private Eyes Issue. My contribution is about detectives in Western fiction, and I hope it’s both entertaining and informative, but I’m here today to talk about the rest of the contents. Which, of course, are absolutely top-notch, as I’ve come to expect from editors Bob Deis and Bill Cunningham.

For starters, there are stories from two of my favorite authors featuring two of my favorite fictional private eyes: Michael Avallone and his iconic character Ed Noon, and Frank Kane and his equally legendary private eye Johnny Liddell. The Avallone story is “Make Out Mob Girl”, a Book Bonus condensation of the first Ed Noon novel THE TALL DOLORES, from the October 1962 issue of MAN'S WORLD. David Spencer, author of THE NOVELIZERS, provides a fine introduction to Avallone and his career, and Mike's son David Avallone contributes a touching essay about his dad. As a long time fan of Mike Avallone and his work, I'm really glad I got be his friend-by-correspondence for many years. 

Frank Kane’s “Party Girl” (KEN FOR MEN, May 1957) is a retitled reprint of the story “Frame” from the August 1954 issue of MANHUNT, the great crime fiction digest. This story was also reprinted in the paperback collection JOHNNY LIDDELL’S MORGUE from Dell. Both are really strong stories, and if you’ve never read any Ed Noon or Johnny Liddell stories or novels, this would be a fine place to start.

But of course there’s more. Honey West is probably the most famous fictional female private eye, and this issue includes the only Honey West short story, “The Red Hairing” by G.G. Fickling, actually the husband and wife writing team Forrest (“Skip”) and Gloria Fickling. This one appeared originally in the June 1965 issue of MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE. In addition, there’s an article about the TV series HONEY WEST featuring numerous photos of its beautiful star, Anne Francis. I was a fan of the show when it aired originally in the Sixties and am always happy to revisit it.

Walter Kaylin, one of the best authors who wrote for the men’s adventure magazine, contributes “I Had to Amputate My Leg to Save My Life!”, the tale of a private detective trapped by a mad killer, and it’s every bit as harrowing and gruesome as the title makes it sound. It’s also lightning-fast, compelling reading. Kaylin was a master, and this story is a good example of his work.

A story from a short-lived men’s adventure magazine actually called PRIVATE EYE features detective Adam Baxter in “Sing a Song of Sex-Mail”. It’s an entertaining yarn written in a fast-moving, breezy style. The story was published anonymously and I have no idea who wrote it, but I had fun reading it.

There’s also a non-fiction reprint from Alan Hynd called “The Case of the Murdering Detective” (CAVALIER, September 1956) about a real-life murder case from 1910 and the clever detective who solves it. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not much of a fan of true crime stories, but Hynd does a fine job with this one and kept me flipping the pages to find out what was going to happen.

New articles in this issue include the one by me on Western detectives that I mentioned above, a look at some of the latest Sherlock Holmes pastiches, both literary and TV, from Holmes scholar and fan Paul Bishop, and film critic John Harrison on detectives in science fiction films. Plus a feature on early Sixties TV series 77 SUNSET STRIP and HAWAIAN EYE, both of which were favorites of mine, especially 77 SUNSET STRIP. I never missed an episode back in those days. If you're the right age, you can hear the show's theme song in your head right now, can't you? I miss the Sixties just thinking about all this stuff!

I know I’ve said it before, but this is the best issue yet of MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY. You can find it on Amazon, and I give it my highest recommendation.

Movies I've Missed Until Now: Yaqui Drums (1956)

My dad was a fan of Rod Cameron’s Western movies, and we watched quite a few of them together on TV. I’m pretty sure, though, that I never saw or even heard of 1956’s YAQUI DRUMS. So when it aired recently on Grit, I made sure to watch it.

Cameron plays Webb Dunham, a drifter who rides into southern Arizona to take over the ranch that belonged to his late brother, who was murdered by the local range hog Matt Quigg, played by Roy Roberts. Along the way, Dunham happens to save the life of a Mexican bandit known as Yaqui Jack. Yaqui Jack is played by J. Carrol Naish at his scenery-chewing, Alfonso Bedoya-channeling best. Although he’s an outlaw, Jack pledges his loyalty and assistance to Dunham, so you know that sooner or later the two of them will team up against the evil cattle baron. The situation is complicated by a beautiful saloon singer who is Dunham’s old flame but is now engaged to Quigg’s son. On top of all this, we get Yaqui Jack trying to stage a revolution against the Mexican government with only a single Gatling gun and some Yaqui Indian followers.

This movie packs quite a bit into a running time just over an hour. It’s based on a story by old pulpster and paperbacker Paul Leslie Peil, but I don’t know if the source material was a pulp story, a novel, or a story that Peil wrote directly for Hollywood. It certainly plays like a novella from a late Forties/early Fifties Western pulp, though, which means I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. Cameron was getting pretty beefy by this point in his career but still had an impressive screen presence. Roy Roberts was always a good villain. And Naish is a hoot, one of the main reasons to watch this movie.

YAQUI DRUMS was made pretty cheaply, though, and it shows. There are a few good fistfights along the way, but the big epic battle at the end consists of half a dozen of Jack’s Yaqui followers shooting at some Mexican Rurales from inside the courtyard of a hacienda. Since there are also half a dozen Rurales, and we never see the two groups at the same time, I strongly suspect that the same riding extras played both the Yaquis and the Rurales.

Despite it being made on a shoestring and having an ending that’s not as dramatic as it might have been, I enjoyed watching YAQUI DRUMS. I certainly think it’s worthwhile if you’re a Rod Cameron fan. And I think my dad would have liked it, too. At least I hope so.

Review: The Wicked Streets - Wenzell Brown

I first encountered the work of Wenzell Brown in THE SAINT MAGAZINE in the Sixties, where he published a few espionage novellas about a secret agent named Mike Stranger. I don’t remember a thing about them except that I thought the sex scenes in them were pretty graphic for a digest mystery magazine in that era—which I, as a teenage boy at the time, certainly appreciated. I had no idea back then that Brown had had a successful career as a paperbacker, specializing in true crime volumes and juvenile delinquent novels.

But even though I’ve been aware of Brown and his books for many, many years, I don’t believe I actually read any of them until now. THE WICKED STREETS was published originally by Gold Medal in 1958 with a cover by Barye Phillips and has been reprinted recently by the fine folks at Black Gat Books with a cover by Howell Dodd.

The protagonist of this novel, if you can call him that, is Buzz Baxter, a young man from a good family who is definitely not a good guy. He’s left his home for the seedier parts of New York City, where he works occasionally as a jazz musician. His main line of work, though, is pushing heroin, a gig he got by turning in another pusher to the cops. That pusher, psychopathic knife artist Frank Nucci, is out of jail a lot sooner than Buzz anticipated, and now Nucci has a grudge to settle. This grudge endangers Diane Griscom, a beautiful teenage society girl who is in love with Buzz. He leads her along, but he’s really planning to use her in some sort of scheme aimed at her wealthy father.

Then another girl winds up naked and dead in Buzz’s bed, as they have a habit of doing in novels like this, and all his plans start collapsing. Nucci committed the murder, of course, but unless Buzz can cover it up, the cops will pin the killing on him. Danger closes in on all sides, not only for Buzz but also for the innocent Diane.

Brown does a good job in structuring the plot of this novel in a clever manner that continually ratchets up the tension on these characters. The writing is excellent and does an especially good job of creating a nightmarish world spinning further and further out of control. New York City has never been sleazier or more garish and threatening.

THE WICKED STREETS is another top-notch reprint from Black Gat Books and has made me realize that I’m going to have to hunt up more books by Wenzell Brown. In the meantime, this one is available on Amazon in both e-book and paperback editions.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: All Fiction Stories, June 1931

Frank McAleer's cover on this issue of ALL FICTION STORIES features a pith helmet, a Tommy gun, a spear, and a canteen. As far as props go, you can't get much more adventure pulp fiction than that! The lead story is by F.V.W. Mason, too, one of the giants of the genre. Also on hand are Harold F. Cruickshank, Jay J. Kalez, and lesser-known authors James Stevens, E.L. Marks, and Polan Banks. ALL FICTION STORIES was one of the Dell pulps, and while I haven't read much published by Dell, it was all good, and this one looks like it probably is, too.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Novel and Short Stories, July 1937

On this issue of WESTERN NOVEL AND SHORT STORIES, J.W. Scott gives us his version of the Iconic Trio: the Stalwart Cowboy, the Gun-totin' Redhead, and the Old Geezer. The Old Geezer is tied up instead of wounded, and the Redhead doesn't look particularly angry, but the Cowboy is definitely stalwart and wearing a red shirt, to boot. (Red shirts on Western pulp covers don't have the same meaning as red shirts on STAR TREK, by the way.) A fine bunch of writers can be found inside this issue, too: Eugene Cunningham, Harry Sinclair Drago, Larry A. Harris, Raymond S. Spears, and Ken Jason, a house-name but usually used by one of the top authors. I don't own this one, but it looks like a top-notch Western pulp that's probably well worth reading.