Richard Blade #39: Les Dieux De La Mort Lente (The Gods Of Slow Death)

Richard Blade #39: Les Dieux De La Mort Lente, by Jeffrey Lord

1983  Plon Books

The French adventures of Richard Blade continue with another volume that was, according to ISFDB, written by Richard D. Nolane. Once again it is hard for me to judge the quality of his prose, given the bland way the book has been translated into English; as Johny Malone speculated, this is likely because it was translated by AI and not a human. 

At any rate, this is one of the most streamlined Richard Blade novels ever: Blade goes to a patch of Dimension X called Winter, a frozen tundra with a fat red sun, and he fights ice pirates and wizards. It’s all very humdrum, A to B sort of stuff, but it is filled with a lot of memorable imagery. Also I must note that The Gods Of Slow Death breaks series protocol by only having Blade sleep with a single woman! Yes, I too was shocked. 

We have the briefest of openings in the real world, ie Home Dimension, where we learn that Blade has picked up an English girl named Ann (“…she was quite tall, with fair skin dotted with light freckles that further-accentuated her cheerful demeanor”), and though we are told she is “kissing Blade’s muscular back” in the intro, there’s no hanky-panky for our hero; he is called to the Tower of London for another trip. 

Nolane is not one for big setup or development; Blade is thrust into an icy world, but unlike the earliest volumes of the series he no longer arrives nude, but wearing armor and carrying a “saber” of an alien metal that can travel across the dimensions. Otherwise the story is identical in development to every other volume of the series: Blade meets a crew of warriors, introduces himself as a warrior from a distant land, and spends the rest of the book proving himself and then leading them in battle. 

I want to think that Nolane was inspired by Barbarella, as Blade immediately encounters ice-roving warriors who go about on sleds that sound very much inspired like the one seen in that film (and possibly the original French comic); I’m talking about the craft that was piloted by the dude who wore the shaggy outfit which when taken off revealed an even shaggier torso. 

Nothing like this happens in The Gods Of Slow Death (fortunately); Blade, near death from exposure, is rescued by these guys, then soon after they are in a battle with ice pirates. As expected Blade proves himself in battle, splitting faces and spilling brains with his saber. 

Abruptly the novel changes pace, coming off like Toga Trash or somesuch; Blade is captured, stripped down to loincloth, and sold to a slave trader named Demetrio. Here the sole female character in The Gods Of Slow Death is introduced: Neysa, a super-hot blonde daughter of nobility who happens to be bad-ass warrior to boot. She too is in the clutches of Demetrio, and Blade’s first “conjugation” occurs when he is ordered to arouse a similarly-nude Neysa…a scene that leads to her visiting his chambers that night. 

Ultimately it will pan out that Demetrio and Neysa are part of a plot to take down the titular Gods of the Slow Death, also known as the Star Gods; Nolane, taking a page from Erich von Daniken, introduces the concept that Star Gods visited Winter centuries ago and now rule from their remote, heavily-guarded mountain fortress. 

The “slow death” refers to the double-edged sword of serving the Star Gods. Certain vassals are chosen and graced by the gods with magical powers, but the cost is a slow death, with facial disfigurement being one of the chief signs of decay. Given this the vassals all wear robes and golden masks; as mentioned, Nolane does pile on some cool imagery in the book. It’s just all underserved by the blasé translation. 

Blade of course becomes part of the resistance, Neysa often fighting at his side. And as mentioned she is his sole bedmate. Nolane adds variety with the off-hand mention that Neysa is kinky, delivering a sequence that again seems like it could come out of a trashy toga ripper, complete with slaves watching Blade and Neysa get busy: 

And as with the The Aerials Of K’Tar, gender often switches during the sex scenes, making for an awkward read, and also there’s again that weird connotation of mentioning the “stomach” in relation to sexual urges. Maybe it’s a French thing. And on that note, I actually read some of The Gods Of Slow Death while in Montreal the other month, so it was all rather fitting. 

The vassals of the gods have total power over all, able to kill people with their minds and whatnot. However Blade discovers that he is immune to their power – a development that superior series author Manning Lee Stokes would have exploited for all its advantage, with Blade ascending to his own godlike status. Instead Nolane’s characters have a reaction almost as blasé as the translation itself, with one guy exclaiming over Blade’s power, but not much else really being made of it. 

Then again, this is a book that features the line, “Of course, wanting to avenge an ice cream seller might seem insignificant compared to the future of an entire world, but history was full of facts of this kind that had set in motion crucial events for its future development.” An odd statement for sure, especially given the fact that there is no “ice cream seller” in the book! 

The finale is pretty good, with Blade leading combined forces on the mountain fortress of the Star Gods, slaying their Star Disciples left and right. It gets very Von Daniken in the end, when Blade discovers a starship in the mountain, the home of the Star Gods, and fights a towering alien – but is promptly zapped back to Home Dimension, where we have a talky denouement in which Blade and J figure that the “slow death” was radiation. Also, we have the offhand mention that Blade (or maybe it’s Lord Deighton, the translation being unclear) has a pet monkey…! 

Overall The Gods Of Slow Death was entertaining, but again it’s tough to truly gauge it because I feel like I’m reading a pale reflection of the French original.