Review: Men's Adventure Quarterly #14: The Bigfoot Issue! - Robert Deis and Bill Cunningham, eds.

I’m no expert on Bigfoot and his cryptid cousins, by any means. I remember reading a comic strip when I was a kid where the characters encountered the Abominable Snowman, and it wasn’t played for laughs like the Bumble in RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER. In fact, it scared the crap out of me. But I don’t remember what the comic strip was. If any of you recall a comic strip featuring an Abominable Snowman storyline in the 1960-65 period, let me know!

Then there’s THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK, the Seventies docu-drama film about Arkansas’s Fouke Monster. One of my best friends had family in that area and visited often, and he swore the monster was real, although he had never seen it.

So I was ready to be educated about Bigfoot, making me part of the prime audience for the 14th issue of MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY: THE BIGFOOT ISSUE! From the talented editorial due of Robert Deis and Bill Cunningham, this volume leans more on non-fiction than some of the previous issues of this great publication. There are lengthy articles from well-known zoologist Ivan T. Sanderson, current cryptid expert Loren Coleman, and John W. Burns, one of the first authors to investigate the mystery that came to be known as Bigfoot. Also to be found in this issue are articles about Bigfoot’s appearances in movies, including the above-mentioned THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK, and other media. I had no idea there have been so many movies over the years featuring Bigfoot and his assorted cousins! Other articles detail Bigfoot’s several guest-starring turns on THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and THE BIONIC WOMAN, as well as the series BIGFOOT AND WILDBOY. I remember hearing about those episodes of THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and THE BIONIC WOMAN, but I don’t recall watching them back when those episodes were new and have never seen them since, so this was all new and very entertaining for me.

And of course, there’s some wild, men’s adventure magazine fiction about discovering and fighting Bigfoot-like creatures, and as always, I had a great time reading those yarns.

As for my own encounters with Bigfoot, I don’t have any. But about forty years ago, Bill Crider and I collaborated on chapters-and-outline for a men’s adventure novel involving a Yeti. Unfortunately, it never sold. Going back farther to 1969, I lived only a few miles from the nature refuge where the Lake Worth Monster, sometimes called the Goatman, had the whole area worked up for the whole summer. You can read about that here. I tend to be skeptical about such things, but you couldn’t have gotten me to go out to Greer Island that summer. No, sir. Since then, people I know have claimed the whole thing was a hoax and they know who was behind it. Could be. But I just don’t know.

To get back to MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY: THE BIGFOOT ISSUE!, this is another great issue of one of my favorite publications, and I give it a very high recommendation. You can find it on Amazon or buy it directly from the publisher.

(Apologies for rambling around a little more than usual. Seems to be the way my brain works these days.)

Movies I've Missed Until Now: Eddie the Eagle (2016)

Regular readers of this blog know that we enjoy inspirational, based-on-a-true-story sports movies around here, and 2016’s EDDIE THE EAGLE certainly fits the category, as well as being a Movie I’ve Missed Until Now. It’s the story of Eddie Edwards (played by Taron Egerton), the British ski jumper whose dream was to compete in the Olympics ever since he was a sickly little boy. A lot of things get in his way besides his own lack of talent, mostly the bureaucrats in charge of the British Olympic team and later the International Olympic Committee. Helping Eddie overcome these obstacles is his reluctant coach, a washed-up American ski jumper (Hugh Jackman) whose career never recovered from a falling out with his coach, played by Christopher Walken.

As you can see, this movie has a pretty good cast, and it’s well-made and moves right along. Evidently it’s only loosely based on what really happened, but that’s not a problem as far as I’m concerned. It’s an entertaining little film, not one of the classics of the genre, maybe, but I enjoyed it and think it’s worth watching.

Review: Pendergast: The Beginning - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

I know a number of people who are fans of the long-running series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child about eccentric FBI agent A.X.L. Pendergast, but I’d never read any of the books and with more than twenty entries in the series, it was another one it looked like I might never get around to trying.

But then while I was at the library I came across a large print edition of the latest novel, PENDERGAST: THE BEGINNING, which is obviously a prequel to the rest of the books. So I thought, as I often do, sure, why not?

This novel is set in the Eighties and Nineties and centers around Pendergast’s early days working in the FBI’s local field office in New Orleans, which happens to be Pendergast’s home town. He’s teamed with veteran agent Dwight Chambers, who serves as Pendergast’s mentor. He tries to, anyway. Pendergast, with his mysterious, somewhat sinister background and seeming mastery of just about everything, is not one to take a back seat to anybody.

They investigate a cold case that winds up leading them to a number of murders carried out by a serial killer who has the odd tendency of amputating his victims’ right arms. By the middle of the book, they’ve tracked down the killer and are barreling toward a showdown with him, when suddenly the whole thrust of the book shifts dramatically and what seems at first like a bizarre but relatively simple case takes on a whole new layer.

First of all, Pendergast is a great character. Not having read the rest of the series, I don’t know how much of the stuff that’s hinted at in this book is fully revealed later on, but I’m intrigued by him, that’s for sure. Preston and Child do a good job with all the characters, in fact, and their dialogue is pretty good. My only complaint about their writing is that it’s so slick and smooth it becomes a little bland at times, which is the same thing I’ve found in a lot of current thriller writers. Too many of the books sound like they could’ve been written by anybody, with nothing distinctive about the author’s voice. I don’t think Preston and Child fall victim to this sameness as much as some, but it’s there.

That wasn’t enough to keep me from enjoying this book quite a bit. I really raced through the second half to find out what was going to happen. And it’s a nice touch that the epilogue is taken from the novel RELIC, the first published book in the Pendergast series, firmly establishing the series’ continuity.

I liked this one enough I think I’m going to have to read more. Whether I’ll ever make my way through the entire series is pretty debatable, especially at my age, but you never know. If you’re already a fan, I’m sure you’ll want to read PENDERGAST. If you’re just starting the series, well, if I’m any indication, it works just fine as an introduction. It's available in e-book, hardcover, and audio editions. Recommended.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Gold Seal Detective, January 1936

I don't know if the cover painting by Rafael DeSoto on this issue of GOLD SEAL DETECTIVE was meant to illustrate the story "Rough-'Em-Up Radigan", but if it wasn't, it should have been! This is actually the first of five novelettes starring Rough-'Em-Up Radigan by Clark Aiken, who was really the great pulpster Frederick C. Davis. I've suggested before that we need a reprint volume called THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF ROUGH-'EM-UP RADIGAN, and I stand by that. Also in this issue are stories by Norman A. Daniels (once as himself and once as by David M. Norman), Paul Chadwick, Frederick C. Painton, Tom Roan, and Darrell Jordan. If you want to check out this issue, it's available on the Internet Archive. I've downloaded it myself, and I hope I get around to reading it in the relatively near future.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Star Western, August 1934

There was a brief discussion last weekend about whether the TOP-NOTCH cover I posted Sunday was painted by William F. Soare. Well, here's a STAR WESTERN cover we know was by Soare, and I like it quite a bit. Inside this issue are some fine writers, including Walt Coburn, Ray Nafziger, Cliff Farrell, and Robert E. Mahaffey. The lead story is a novella called "The Rider From Hell" by Robert Ormond Case. I love that title. Case is one of those writers whose name I've seen hundreds of times, if not more, but I don't recall ever reading anything by him. Come to find out, there's an e-book edition of "The Rider From Hell" available, and not only that, I already own the blasted thing! Maybe I'd better get around to reading it, huh? We'll see. 

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Arizona Guns - William MacLeod Raine

With some authors, you can be aware of their work for years, even decades, without ever reading any of it. That’s the way it’s been for me with William MacLeod Raine. If you’re like me and practically grew up in used bookstores during the Sixties and Seventies, you saw plenty of paperback Westerns by Raine. While he was never as popular as Zane Grey, Max Brand, or Louis L’Amour, Raine was prolific and a strong presence in the Western field for many years. Now, of course, he’s barely remembered, and based on ARIZONA GUNS, the first of his novels I’ve read, he deserves to be not only remembered but read.

Born in England in 1871, Raine moved to the American West ten years later and lived through much of the time period about which he wrote. Like Walt Coburn and another English immigrant, Fred East (who wrote as Tom West), Raine was an authentic Westerner with experience as a cowboy before he became a writer. ARIZONA GUNS was originally published in 1919 by Houghton Mifflin under the title A MAN FOUR-SQUARE. There were at least two paperback reprints under the title ARIZONA GUNS, which despite having a classic B-Western sound to it, isn’t appropriate at all. Not one bit of the novel takes place in Arizona, and the only connection is that one of the characters mentions having gone there.

Instead, nearly all the book is set in New Mexico Territory, in the fictional Washington County. If you’re sharp enough to realize that there’s a real county in New Mexico named after a famous president, you’ll have a pretty good idea where this story is going. Yep, this is another fictionalized version of the Billy the Kid saga, with the “Washington County War” taking the place of the real-life Lincoln County War. In Raine’s version, the young hero is named Jim Clanton. After growing up somewhere in the Appalachians and being involved in a feud there, Clanton goes west in search of his enemies who have fled the mountains. He winds up joining a cattle drive up the Pecos, fights outlaws and Indians, becomes friends with a cowboy named Billie Prince, meets up with his old enemies, makes new enemies, romances a couple of beautiful young women, and eventually winds up on the wrong side of the law. By this time, Clanton’s friend Billie Prince has become a lawman, making him the Pat Garrett stand-in for this story, and when Clanton is accused of murdering one of the local cattlemen, Prince has to form a posse and go after him.

Raine veers off from history in various places, so the story winds up being only loosely based on the Lincoln County War. Because of this, he’s able to throw some nice twists into the plot, especially where various romantic triangles are concerned. Romance plays a big part in this book, as was common in Westerns of the time period, especially the bestsellers authored by Zane Grey. ARIZONA GUNS reminds me quite a bit of Grey’s work, in fact, although it’s not nearly as flowery and melodramatic. Raine slips in a dark undertone to an otherwise happy ending, too, which sets it apart from Grey’s novels and the other popular Westerns of the period. The writing is a little old-fashioned in places (what else would you expect from a book written ninety years ago?), but it holds up well, the style tough and spare for the most part.

I’ve always liked Zane Grey’s plots, and when he finally got around to writing action scenes, he produced some corkers, but I also find it hard to wade through the long-winded prose in his books. If you’re the same way, I think you’d enjoy William MacLeod Raine’s novels, at least based on this one. I definitely intend to read more of them.

(This time, for a change, when I said I was going to read more by an author, I actually did. Since this post first appeared on December 12, 2008, I've read four or five more novels by William MacLeod Raine and enjoyed all of them. You can find several different e-book editions of ARIZONA GUNS/A MAN FOUR-SQUARE on Amazon for very affordable prices if you'd care to check it out.)

Review: Doomsday Mesa - Chap O'Keefe (Keith Chapman)

DOOMSDAY MESA was published originally by Robert Hale in 1995, making it one of the earliest Chap O’Keefe novels I’ve read. It’s available now in new e-book and paperback editions from Amazon. That’s a great title, and being a long-time fan of the work of Keith Chapman, the veteran writer/editor behind the O’Keefe pseudonym, I was looking forward to this one. It’s safe to say, I wasn’t disappointed.

Chapman spends a little time giving us the back-story of his protagonist Yale Cannon, who, as a young man of somewhat shady character with a reputation as a gunman, joins a wagon train heading west in the days before the Civil War. There’s a budding romance between Cannon and a young woman whose family is traveling with the wagon train, but unfortunate circumstances arise to split them up.

The story then moves ahead a couple of decades to a time when Yale Cannon, a decorated war hero and veteran Deputy U.S. Marshal, arrives in the town of Antelope, Colorado, to pick up a captured outlaw from the jail and take him back to Arizona to face charges there. Of course, things don’t work out that easily. There’s a war brewing between the local ranchers and a religious cult that’s been established on a nearby mesa where there used to be a gold mine. The ranchers believe the followers of the charismatic cult leader are rustling their stock, and they’re prepared to go to any lengths to put a stop to it, including breaking out the owlhoot Cannon’s supposed to pick up and hiring him to run off the settlers on the mesa.

That’s enough for a book right there, but Chapman packs several more plot twists into his book, including a connection to Yale Cannon’s tragic past. He weaves all these strands together until they finally result in an explosive climax and one final, very effective twist.

DOOMSDAY MESA is an excellent traditional Western novel with plenty of action and the interesting, slightly offbeat characters you’ll always find in a Chap O’Keefe novel. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and give it a solid recommendation for Western fans.

Movies I've Missed Until Now: El Cid (1962)

When I was a kid, my parents had a coffee table book about this movie that included a synopsis of the story, features on many of the actors, and stuff about the production of the movie, illustrated by lots and lots of still photos. How they wound up with this book, I don’t know. I think such volumes were sold as souvenirs in theater lobbies during so-called roadshow engagements, but my parents didn’t go see EL CID in the theater. I don’t think they ever went to an indoor movie theater in my lifetime, only the drive-in up the road a little ways from our house. But I read through that EL CID book many times, since I was already interested in movies and historical fiction. But I’d never actually seen the movie until now.

EL CID is about an actual historical figure, Rodrigo Diaz, who fought to unify Spain and protect it from Moorish invasion in the 11th Century. However, most of what we know about Diaz is a mixture of history, legend, and myth, with much of it based on an epic poem written only fifty years after his death. The movie’s script leans heavily on the legend and myth part, as you’d expect with Charlton Heston playing the character. Also as you’d expect from Hollywood in the early Sixties, almost every role in this movie about Spaniards and Moors is played by an American, an Englishman, or an Italian.

Anyway, as the movie opens, Rodrigo is about to be married to a beautiful young noblewoman played by Sophia Loren, but before the wedding takes place he gets mixed up in some political intrigue. Tragedy and exile ensue. Rodrigo befriends some Spanish Moors who are loyal to the king and gets the name El Cid from them. He works his way back into the king’s favor, and then more political intrigue upsets everything again. Sophia Loren’s character hates him for a while, then loves him again. In between all this scheming, lots of battles against various enemies take place, until finally an army of Moors from North Africa led by Herbert Lom invades Spain, setting up a final epic showdown.

Actually, it’s more like the soap opera stuff takes place in the intervals between battles. Anthony Mann is credited as the director of this movie, but I’d be willing to bet more than half of it was actually helmed by the second unit director, the legendary Yakima Canutt. I’m a long-time fan of Yak’s work as an actor, stuntman, and second unit director, and EL CID looks great. We get scene after scene featuring enormous sets and thousands of extras (most of them Spanish soldiers provided by Generalissimo Francisco Franco, who was not yet dead), and the movie looks great. I love big, elaborate spectacles like this, and there’s something very impressive about knowing what you’re seeing is really there and doesn’t exist just in some computer somewhere. I mean, special effects are great, but they’re not like a thousand guys fighting each other at once.

EL CID is a long movie, a little more than three hours. But I was never bored. There’s enough story to go along with the battles, and the cast does a good job. I’ve always liked Charlton Heston in everything I’ve seen him in. Sophia Loren doesn’t have much to do other than look beautiful, but she’s great at that. Herbert Lom, as usual, is a suitably despicable villain. I had a very good time watching EL CID. If you miss this kind of sweeping epic, as I do, and haven’t seen it, I give it a strong recommendation.

Review: Rex Brandon #1: Death Warriors - Denis Hughes

Sometimes I’m just in the mood for a jungle adventure. In 1951 and ’52, British author Denis Hughes wrote twelve novels under the pseudonym Marco Garon about Rex Brandon, a two-fisted geologist, explorer, and big game hunter, and his adventures in Africa. These were published by a British paperback publisher, and these days, the first six in the series are available as paperbacks and e-books from Bold Venture Press. They’ve been sitting on my Kindle for quite a while, so I figured it was time I read one of them.

The first book in the series, DEATH WARRIORS, finds Rex acting as an agent for the British and French governments. (I assume Rex is British, but you know, I’m not sure it ever says that in the book.) It seems that several years earlier, a geologist named Georg Traski located a deposit of a rare ore called irikum, which is more valuable for making nuclear weapons than uranium. But Traski disappeared somewhere in the jungle, and an expedition sent to look for him, led by another geologist and his beautiful daughter, never came back, either. Now Rex is going in to this dangerous area to locate the irikum deposit and find out what happened to the previous expeditions.

Well, you know with a set up like that, there are going to be plenty of adventures with wild animals (leopards, lions, and a rogue gorilla with an ear for music, in this case), despicable villains, and a madman or two. And so there is. Does it all play out about the way you’d expect? Sure it does. Is getting to all the expected destinations fun? You bet! DEATH WARRIORS has a lot of action, a stalwart protagonist in Rex Brandon, a couple of colorful sidekicks, and a beautiful, competent young woman. All the ingredients for a very entertaining jungle adventure yarn in the grand tradition. If you’re a fan of such things, like I am, I give it a high recommendation, and I look forward to reading the other Rex Brandon novels that are available.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Top-Notch, February 1936

I don't know who painted the cover on this issue of TOP-NOTCH -- Tom Lovell, maybe? -- but it's pretty dramatic. TOP-NOTCH was getting near the end of its long run by this point but was still publishing some very good authors. In this issue are stories by Arthur J. Burks, Major George Fielding-Eliot, William Merriam Rouse, Samuel Taylor, and Robert H. Leitfred. The other authors aren't familiar to me: Paul Randell Morrison, Edmund du Perrier, Hal Firanze, and Kurt von Rachen. Wait a minute, Kurt von Rachen was L. Ron Hubbard, so I guess I've heard of him after all. Controversial though he may be, I like Hubbard's pulp stories for the most part, and for all I know, those other guys were fine writers. So this is probably a decent issue. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Giant Western, June 1952

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my somewhat ragged copy in the scan. The covers aren’t in great shape, but the pages inside are really nice, just lightly tanned and very supple. I think the cover art is by Sam Cherry, but I’m not absolutely sure about that.

For a change, a story in a pulp billed as a novel actually is long enough to be considered one. “Nobody’s Neutral in Kansas” by Roe Richmond is about 40,000 words, I’m guessing, maybe even a little longer. It’s only sort of a Western, though, more of a historical yarn taking place in Kansas in the late 1850s and early 1860s and dealing with the violence there between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the lead-up to the Civil War. Rupe Maitland and his father and brother have come from the east and settled on a farm in Kansas, and they just want to be left alone instead of taking sides in the conflict. But then tragedy occurs, hostilities increase, and inevitably Rupe and his family and friends are drawn into the bloody clashes. Roe Richmond knew how to keep a story moving along briskly and his action scenes are excellent. The biggest problem I have with this story is how unrelentingly bleak and grim it is. Of course, given the subject matter, it couldn’t exactly be a light-hearted romp. Still, it makes for heavy reading. But worthwhile, I’d say. (As a bibliographic aside, there’s a story of the same title by Richmond in the December 1951 issue of REAL WESTERN STORIES, but it’s much shorter. I haven’t read it, so I have no idea if Richmond expanded it for this version in GIANT WESTERN or if he just liked the title and they’re completely different stories.)

I don’t recall reading much by Cliff Walter in the past. He was a prolific contributor to the Western pulps. His story “Montana Man” in this issue is about a colorful old mountain man and his encounter with some settlers. It’s written in a folksy, supposedly humorous style that fell completely flat with me. Didn’t like it at all and wound up skimming through it.

I’ve found Robert L. Trimnell’s work to be a little inconsistent, but when he’s on his game, his stories are really, really good. His novelette in this issue has a pretty generic title, “Gun For Hire”, so I was a tad bit leery of it, but it didn’t take me long to realize that this is a terrific yarn. Tough Texas cowboy Mike Morrow trail bosses a herd to Montana, and once it’s been delivered, the crew blows off some well-earned steam in a night of drinking and debauchery. Unfortunately for Mike, when he wakes up the next morning, he has more than a hangover to contend with. He’s been framed for murder, and he winds up in the middle of a war between two rustlers, one of whom happens to be a beautiful young woman with a fondness for wearing red silk shirts with nothing under them. (Yeah, it’s a little risqué for a Western pulp story in 1952.) Mike is blackmailed into working for the young woman, but mostly he wants to sort things out and keep her from getting into too much trouble. Trimnell tells the story in hardboiled prose that reminded me of 1950s Gold Medal crime novels even more than the Western Gold Medals. He even provides a small but effective twist in the big showdown at the end. This is one of the best Western pulp stories I’ve read in a while.

Giff Cheshire is yet another author who’s hit-or-miss with me. “Drivers’ Pass” in this issue centers around the conflict between a railroad spur line being built into a mining town and the freight outfit that hauls goods with mules and wagons. It’s an interesting, well-written story that suffers from a really rushed ending, but other than that, I liked it.

Inconsistency seems to be an unofficial theme of this issue. I’ve read plenty of very good novels and stories by William Hopson, but I’ve read some that were pretty bad, too. His story “The Blue Mule” wraps up the fiction in this issue. Which was it going to be? This story is narrated by the eight-year-old son of a horse trader and starts out like it’s going to be a humorous, Doc Swap sort of story. Then it gets more serious with the introduction of a bully and a new county attorney from the east. The plot meanders around as if Hopson couldn’t decide what he wanted to write about and comes to an inconclusive ending. I hate to say it because I like Hopson’s work more often than not, but despite the narrator’s engaging voice, this just isn’t much of a story and isn’t very good.

I believe this is the first issue of GIANT WESTERN I’ve ever read, and it’s very much a mixed bag. The Trimnell story is fantastic, the Richmond novel is very good if depressing, the Cheshire story is okay, and the other two stories I didn’t like at all. Don’t go running to your shelves to look for this one, but if you do have a copy, I highly suggest you check out Trimnell’s yarn.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: The Backwoods - Edward Lee

I was in the mood to read a horror novel, and having heard good things about Edward Lee’s work, I decided to try one of his. I knew his books have a reputation for containing a lot of extreme violence and a considerable amount of sex, so I wasn’t really surprised to encounter both of those things in THE BACKWOODS. It’s the story of high-powered Washington D.C. attorney Patricia White, who returns to the small town in rural Virginia where she grew up for her brother-in-law’s funeral. What she finds there are all sorts of sinister, dangerous secrets, including a clan of mysterious backwoods folks who practice an ancient religion of their own and a series of bizarre murders that have no rational explanation.

Well, those of you who have read very many horror novels will know right away where some of these plot elements are going, and I was somewhat disappointed that there weren’t more plot twists along the way. Lee does include some surprises in his story, though, and tells it in fast-paced, evocative prose that’s fun to read. I found enough to like here that I’m definitely interested in reading more of his books. Although it’s not for everybody, I’d recommend THE BACKWOODS to anyone who likes the novels of, say, Richard Laymon – which I do, quite a bit.

(As usual, despite the intention stated above, I haven't read anything else by Edward Lee since this post first appeared on December 7, 2008. The image above is from the Leisure paperback edition I read back then. THE BACKWOODS is still in print in e-book and trade paperback editions, as are numerous others of his books. I would say that I ought to check out some of them, but, well, you know how that seems to go with me.)

Review: Jubal Stone, U.S. Marshal: The Town With No Tongue - Casey Nash

U.S. Marshal Jubal Stone and Deputy U.S. Marshal Tanner Burns, who work out of Waco, Texas, are sent to a settlement in west Texas to bring back two prisoners. When they get there, they discover that no one in town is willing to talk to them except the two local lawmen. The citizens aren’t unable to speak—they’re afraid to!

That’s the intriguing premise of THE TOWN WITH NO TONGUE, the latest installment in the long-running Jubal Stone series by prolific author Casey Nash. I don’t believe I’ve ever run across this particular plot before, and when you’ve read as many Westerns as I have, that’s saying something.

THE TOWN WITH NO TONGUE has another oddball element to it, and that’s the appearance of a dime novelist who happens to be named James Reasoner. Well, “happens to be” is stretching things, since I knew Nash was going to feature me as a character in this book, along with my faithful canine friend Marlowe, and I have to say, he captures us both pretty well. Eagle-eyed readers will spot a couple of other familiar names, too.

This is a fast-moving, entertaining yarn with a couple of very likable protagonists. It’s actually the first book I’ve read in the series, and I’m going to have to go back and catch up on some of the others. THE TOWN WITH NO TONGUE, another strong entry from Dusty Saddle Publishing, is available in e-book and paperback editions.

Movie Review: Elevation (2024)

This movie came out in 2024, so I don’t really think it’s old enough to consider it a Movie I’ve Missed Until Now. In fact, I think I’ll just slap an arbitrary rule on here and say that a movie has to have come out before 2020 in order to get that designation. However, ELEVATION is, in fact, a movie I never heard of until I came across it recently and decided to give it a try.

During the pitch meeting for this movie, somebody is bound to have said, “It’s like A QUIET PLACE, only instead of being quiet so the scary monsters won’t get you, you have to stay above 8,000 feet in elevation so the scary monsters won’t get you.” That’s the plot, boiled down. A brief prologue clues us in that several years earlier, giant sinkholes suddenly opened all over the world and indestructible monsters came out to massacre 95% of Earth’s population.

Giant sinkholes with monsters coming out of them immediately makes me think of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and my first question is, “Hey, where’s the Mole Man?” Well, nowhere in sight in this movie. No superheroes come to the rescue. Earth gets its butt kicked, and the monsters have taken over the world except for a few colonies of survivors established above 8,000 feet.

Anthony Mackie and his young son live in one such colony in Colorado, but the boy needs some medical equipment to survive, so he sets off for Boulder with a scientist played by Morena Baccarin. She’s obsessed with finding a way to kill the monsters and believes that if she can reach her lab there, she’ll be able to do so. Unfortunately, Boulder is below 8,000 feet.

Most of the movie consists of them getting there and back, with lots of danger and adventure along the way. And it’s decently done, too. The special effects look a little crude now and then, but overall the movie worked for me. Mackie and Baccarin both do decent jobs. There are a few other characters, but the movie is really theirs to carry. There’s no sex, and despite the presence of scary monsters and death, very little gore.

I was going to gripe about how we don’t even get any handwavium to explain the plot, but then late in the movie there’s a twist that actually does explain some things while opening up other questions. I’ve seen speculation on-line that this movie was made as a pilot for an unsold streaming series, and the plot twist and a mid-credits epilogue make a strong case for that. I liked it enough I wouldn’t have minded seeing it continue. As is, it’s not exactly an overlooked gem, but it is an enjoyable hour and a half and I’m glad we watched it.

Review: Tex: Cinnamon Wells - Chuck Dixon and Mario Alberti

This is the second volume I’ve read from the set of six Tex Willer graphic novels I backed on Kickstarter. Chuck Dixon is one of my all-time favorite comic book authors, and ever since I found out he wrote some Tex stories, I’ve been curious about them.

CINNAMON WELLS, which has artwork by Mario Alberti, opens with a violent bank robbery in the town of the title. The local lawman is organizing a posse to go after the outlaws when Tex, who is a Texas Ranger, rides in. He joins the posse, of course, and off they go after the bank robbers.

Posse stories are one of my favorite Western sub-genres, and Dixon does some unexpected and enjoyable things in this one, rather than sticking with the standard plot. Eventually it’s just Tex and one prisoner on the trail of the gang. That prisoner becomes a reluctant ally when they encounter an unrelated threat. That leads up to a classic showdown and an epilogue that’s also unexpected but quite satisfying.

This volume has some interesting angles besides the story and art. As I was reading it, some of the dialogue seemed, well, unDixon-like. Curious about that, I went to the source, and Chuck confirmed that his script was written in English, translated into Italian for this story’s original appearance, and then translated back into English for this volume by someone else. So it’s Dixon’s plot all the way, but the words are only sort of his. Despite the occasional awkwardness, the script moves along briskly, and Alberti’s art works well for me, too. CINNAMON WELLS is a fast, entertaining read.

Chuck also told me this story was inspired by the many hardboiled Western movies starring Randolph Scott, a mutual favorite of yours, and the outlaw who’s both ally and enemy to Tex is modeled on actor Henry Silva, who played one of the villains in the Scott film THE TALL T. I love finding out this kind of background info, and my thanks to Chuck for answering my questions and allowing me to pass it along here.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Adventure, December 1, 1932

I've been quite a fan of Hubert Rogers' pulp covers. Here's another very good one on this issue of ADVENTURE. There's a fine lineup of authors inside, too, including Walt Coburn, Gordon Young, William MacLeod Raine, Lawrence G. Blochman, Paul Annixter, and Ared White. If you'd like to check out this issue for yourself, you can find it on the Internet Archive.  

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Two Gun Western Stories, October 1929

TWO GUN WESTERN STORIES is a pretty obscure Western pulp, although it managed to run for about four years during the late Twenties and early Thirties. I've never seen an issue of it. The cover on this issue is by Fred I. Good, an artist I've never heard of. It has some good authors in its pages, though: L.P. Holmes, Archie Joscelyn, John G. Pearsol, Raymond W. Porter, and Arthur H. Carhart. It also has some authors whose names aren't familiar to me at all: K. Carleton Unthank, Francis W. Hilton, and Gordon E. Warnke.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: The Hottest Fourth of July in the History of Hangtree County - Clifton Adams

A lot of Western authors have written Fourth of July novels. It’s a situation with plenty of built-in dramatic possibilities: hot weather, small town, lots of people crowded in, etc. I believe Harry Whittington’s well-regarded Gold Medal Western SADDLE THE STORM is a Fourth of July novel. Not sure because it’s been a lot of years since I read it. 

THE HOTTEST FOURTH OF JULY IN THE HISTORY OF HANGTREE COUNTY is Clifton Adams’ entry in this little sub-genre, and it’s a good one. The title itself is an ironic joke, because, as it’s explained in the novel, Hangtree County is only three years old. The book is set in Oklahoma in 1892, three years after the territory was opened for settlement. All the action takes place in one day, which places the novel in another sub-genre I like, books with a compressed time span.

Marshal Ott Gillman is getting too old to be a lawman, or at least he thinks he is. His deputy is another old-timer, even though he’s still known as Kid Fulmer, just as he was when he was a young outlaw in Texas before going straight. They make a good pair, both still more capable than they think they are, but this Fourth of July tests their ability to keep law and order because of all the outsiders coming into town for the celebration. Not everyone is in town because of the holiday, though. Some of them show up because of an old grudge against Marshal Gillman, and violence threatens to break out along with the festivities.

This isn’t a Grand Hotel sort of book with a lot of interweaving storylines, as Adams keeps the focus on Ott Gillman and the danger facing him, as well as several moral dilemmas the marshal has to grapple with. The pace is deliberate, even slow, for most of the book, but the occasional scenes of violence are sudden and brutal and effective. Anybody who thinks that all Westerns are just shoot-em-ups should read a book like this, which is almost all characterization and mood. Everything leads up to a very suspenseful climax.

(This post originally appeared in a somewhat different form on September 12, 2008. You'll hardly ever go wrong with a novel or story by Clifton Adams. He's one of the most consistent Western writers I've found when it comes to solid, entertaining yarns. This novel isn't currently in print, but his series about another lawman, Amos Flagg, written under the pseudonym Clay Randall, is available in e-book editions from Piccadilly Publishing, and I highly recommend those books, too.)

Review: Fair Blows the Wind - Louis L'Amour

I argued back and forth with myself quite a bit before I wrote this review. But I’ll get to that. Also, there are some minor spoilers scattered throughout this post, but no more than you find in a lot of book reviews.

First of all, look at this opening line: “My name is Tatton Chantry and unless the gods are kind to rogues, I shall die within minutes.” Isn’t that great? With an opening line like that, how can you not want to keep reading?

It’s the late 16th Century as this novel opens, and our narrator/protagonist Tatton Chantry (not actually his real name, as author Louis L’Amour alludes to often) is an Irishman who has already lived an adventurous life. He has traveled to the New World on an English trading vessel and is marooned on what will someday be the Carolina coast when Indians attack a shore party. While escaping from the Indians, he runs into a group of Spaniards and Peruvians who were also stranded there when their ship began to sink. Chantry suspects treachery from the Spaniards, falls in love with a beautiful Peruvian aristocrat, and meets another castaway who has been living on these barrier islands for a couple of years.

All this leads up to a long flashback that takes up about two-thirds of the book and tells us about Chantry’s life as a fugitive in England and Scotland (his father in Ireland was murdered, and the family estate was destroyed), his various meetings with various scoundrels, gypsies, friends, and enemies, and his efforts to make himself into a master swordsman. Eventually he becomes a successful trader and even a published author of novels, poems, and plays. Then he’s a mercenary soldier and fights in various wars all over Europe before circumstances finally take him to America and we’re back where we started. It’s a busy life.

Now we get to the arguing with myself part. I always feel like when a Western writer says anything negative about Louis L’Amour, there’s a perception of sour grapes. Sometimes it’s more than just a perception, although I honestly don’t think that’s true in this case. But I finally decided to forge ahead with it anyway.

The framing sequence in this book that’s set in the New World is terrific. By itself, it would have made a fine short novel. Tatton Chantry is a tough, likable protagonist and you can’t help but root for him. The flashback is a different story, no pun intended. There are some wonderful scenes in it, but a lot of it just goes on and on and serves very little function. Again and again, L’Amour sets up some plot twist or new storyline, and then totally ignores it for the rest of the book, leaving things unexplained. What’s Chantry’s real name? Why is his life in danger if he ever returns to Ireland? Who’s that mysterious woman? What about the guy who keeps popping up to pull his chestnuts out of the fire? Who’s he? We don’t know. L’Amour never tells us.

There are also numerous continuity glitches of the sort he was notorious for. Chantry has a bag of gold, then he loses it, then he has it again with no explanation. It’s day, then it’s night, then it’s day again, all while one scene is going on. L’Amour said he never revised his work, never even looked at it again after he wrote the first draft. Mistakes like that certainly seem to indicate he was telling the truth.

At the same time, the settings are rendered beautifully, the dialogue is always good, and the ending of this one is great. L’Amour doesn’t hold back on the epic showdown between Chantry and his longtime mortal enemy, and it’s very satisfying.

So my overall opinion of FAIR BLOWS THE WIND is about as mixed as you can get. It’s one of several books from late in L’Amour’s career I never got around to reading, and I’m glad I finally did. It’s mostly entertaining and kept me turning the pages, but it’s also a prime example of the things about his writing that bother me. I suspect that mileage may vary a lot from reader to reader on this one. Like all of L’Amour’s work, it’s been reprinted numerous times and is available in just about any format you can think of. The image above just happens to be the paperback edition I read.