Mace #4: The Year Of The Dragon

Mace #4: The Year Of The Dragon, by Lee Chang
No month stated, 1974  Manor Books

Joseph Rosenberger turns in another installment of the Mace series, and thank god there’s only one more Rosenberger volume to go. Seriously, The Year Of The Dragon is a straight-up beating of a novel, mercilessly pounding the reader into a lethargic stupor of boredom. Now let me tell you all about it!

Once again coming off like a Chinese clone of the Death Merchant, Victor Mace is a walking, talking cipher who blitzes his way through the opposition without breaking a sweat, let alone taking any damage. Mace, that “kung fu monk-master” as Rosenberger constantly refers to him, is up in Seattle looking into the disappearance of the Ming Do Chun, a Ming dynasty statue worth around five million dollars. A gift from China, in exchange for artistic gifts of similar worth from America, the statue went missing during its shipment to the US, and now Mace and his CIA fellows are working with “Red China” secret agents to track it down.

There’s even less character or plot development this time out than previously, which is really saying something. The Year Of The Dragon is hinged around three massive action sequences, and not much more. Mace rarely even speaks in the novel, with the “plot development” mostly relegated to his Seattle handler, Darren Crawford, and a group of Chinese agents whose names get confusing and who are even less developed than Mace. As usual it’s the villains who are more memorable, a hapless trio who through some hazily-explained ruse have gotten hold of the Ming Do Chun.

We know from page one that these crooks – Kirk Bogue, Harry Bothers, and Manny Zoe – have the statue, yet it still takes around 190 pages of small print for Mace and his colleagues to get it from them. The novel opens on the first of those three big action sequences, as Mace et al raid Kirk Bogue’s warehouse, where they think the statue is hidden. The ensuing action scene is practically endless, and sadly a sign of things to come, as Mace cripples and kills an army of thugs. And after all that, the statue isn’t even there!

Here we get one of the few dialog scenes, where Mace and the various agents sit around and talk about…well, not the case, as you’d expect, but instead about the imminent collapse of the United States, and how China ain’t much better. There’s some egregious right wing sermonizing here, with Mace basically stating that America should enforce martial law. That all of this radical rhetoric is coming from a “kung fu monk-master” from Hong Kong doesn’t seem very strange to Crawford and the other CIA agents, who basically just let Mace do whatever he wants throughout.

Rosenberger does work in some references to his other creations, though, with the Chinese rep asking for the assistance of the Death Merchant or the Murder Master (another Rosenberger creation, who featured in a three-volume series of that name for Manor around this time), but the CIA tells him they’re busy at the moment! But this little sequence, maybe a page or two, is about the only moment of levity in The Year Of The Dragon. Rosenberger seems to be in dead earnest throughout, which as usual makes for a pretty confounding read, as you wonder how any sane person could sit down and write crap like this in earnest. 

The second major action sequence has Mace and Chinese agent Lt. Ko mounting a nighttime raid on a freighter upon which they think the statue might be stored. Here’s the kicker, though – we readers know that it isn’t there, and yet Rosenberger delivers a 45-page action scene as Mace and Ko beat to shit and kill an endless tide of gangsters during their assault upon the ship! It’s all just a massive waste of time – and again, given the tiny print, you wonder why the hell Rosenberger even bothered.

The final action sequence is also the finale, as Mace et al launch an attack upon a foundry, and here at long last the Ming Do Chun really is being held. This final battle is even more taxing than those that came before. And again Rosenberger gets off on informing us all kinds of incidental details about various thugs who pop up out of the woodwork, take a swing or shot at Mace, and then get killed by him for their efforts. The same holds true for the few comrades of Mace who get killed in the assault; they die, Rosenberger documenting their death like it’s a big deal, and you have no idea who in hell they were in the first place.

However Rosenberger is truly in his element when it comes to the racist invective. Mace is once again called “Chink” so many times that you start to think it’s his name, and Rosenberger describes the Chinese agents as either “moon-faced rickshaw drivers” or “moon-faced laundrymen.” He unleashes his biggest ammo on the black characters: “black-as-tar North African coon,” “black boob,” and even “jungle bunny” are all terms used to describe what few blacks appear in the novel – and of course, all of them are thugs. And when they have dialog, Rosenberger writes it in all-caps pidgin English, so they come off like monsters straight out of some reactionary’s view of hell: “CHINK MOTHERFUKKER YOU! WE GONNA STOMP YORE ASS!” That’s an actual quote from the book, misspellings and all.

Again, I must thank the gods of Shaolin or whoever that Rosenberger only wrote one more volume of Mace. The finale of The Year Of The Dragon seems to lead right into this next volume, in fact, with Mace disappearing after the final battle and heading off for his next adventure – which I’m sure will be just as endlessly-detailed and tedious as this one was.

Joseph Rosenberger: The Man, The Myth

Here, thanks to a very kind contributor who would like to go uncredited, is an actual letter from the man, the myth himself: Joseph Rosenberger. (And also a huge thanks to that same contributor for sending me this photo of Rosenberger and his wife, Virginia, taken in 1984!)

The original plan was to run an essay on Rosenberger, but as it turns out, this letter tells us more about the man than any other piece could. Perhaps a little too much. It’s my duty to inform you that portions of this letter are incredibly racist, and will perhaps shed light on an aspect of Rosenberger’s image that might’ve been better left untouched. But then, given the paucity of any kind of info on the guy, I thought I should upload the letter anyway, with the racist terms expunged. Also, it’s my bet that those who are familiar with Rosenberger will not be surprised to read some of the sentiments he expresses herein.

But then, as the contributor told me (and as Rosenberger himself admits in the letter), JR was a heavy drinker, and “it’s readily apparent how he gets drunker as the letter goes on.” Note too how in his "rules for life" at the end of the letter Rosenberger states that he judges people as individuals, not by race, as if the previous pages of vile vitriol had been written by someone else. In fact, reading this letter I don’t feel so much anger over the ugly sentiments expressed – instead, I start to feel sorry for the bitter old bastard.

And finally, one more piece of data on Rosenberger: He passed away in Phoenix, Arizona at the age of 68, on December 2, 1993.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Death Merchant #20: Hell In Hindu Land

Death Merchant #20: Hell In Hindu Land, by Joseph Rosenberger
January, 1977  Pinnacle Books

Like I've said before, Joseph Rosenberger had some good days, and he had some bad days. Hell In Hindu Land must’ve been written during one of those bad days; it has more in common with Rosenberger’s execrable Mace series than it does with genuinely-good Rosenberger books like The Cosmic Reality Kill. Like those Mace books, Hell In Hindu Land is nothing but an endless trawl of fight scenes, on and on and on, to such a point that the interesting (and positively sci-fi) plot is lost.

Rosenberger wrote for Fate and other fringe science magazines, and he puts his “research” to use here. Richard “Death Merchant” Camellion’s latest mission sees him heading into the depths of India, where he is to locate an ancient Buddhist monastery which supposedly sits overtop a room filled with ultra high-tech devices and dead aliens -- ancient aliens, at that. And Rosenberger doesn’t shirk on his promise…even though it takes 150 pages, we do finally see those aliens, and the plot isn’t just written off with a Scooby-Doo type of a cop-out ending.

But in order to get there, first we must endure Rosenberger’s penchant for overly-detailed fight scenes. It’s frustrating because this is the first Death Merchant novel I’ve read that features endless fight scenes on the level of Mace. Parts of it even read like a Mace novel, with paragraphs and paragraphs of Camellion using obscure kung-fu moves to beat his enemies to death. But I say “frustrating” because the previous Death Merchant novels I’ve read have been more carefully constructed, less reliant on nonstop action and fighting.

Camellion hooks up with a team of Indian nationals in Calcutta, then flies with them out into the wildlands surrounding it. There they will make their way through treacherous country to the Buddhist temple. Camellion’s team is made up of Hindus, and Rosenberger is sure to remind us quite often that Indian Hindus just positively fucking despise Buddhists, and indeed part of Camellion’s team is made up of an Indian strike force which is looking forward to killing the (unarmed) monks so as to test out some new weaponry!

A KGB-backed commando squad is also on their way to the monastery; the reason Camellion’s been tasked with this mission is that both the CIA and the KGB found out about the place at the same time. We get the usual Rosenberger inessential bits from the Russian’s perspective…they know the infamous Death Merchant is with the other team, but like the pig farmer fools they are (in Rosenberger’s mind, at least) they discount Camellion, thinking he’s nothing more than a hunter who’s gone along for the trip!

This early in the series Rosenberger hasn’t worked out the later mainstays. There’s no mention of the Cosmic Lord of Death or auras or much other metaphysical stuff. However, earlier mainstays are gone – Camellion doesn’t put on a costume or impersonate anyone. In fact he spends the whole book in a Stetson hat, even getting pissed off when it’s later damaged in a firefight.

Also, there are no footnotes, which is a shame; instead, Rosenberger clunkily works his background detail into the dialog, so that it comes off as utter exposition. And what’s really bad is that he inserts these expositionary bits with no consideration of the scene at hand…literally, there are scenes where, immediately after a massive and gory shootout, Camellion and one of the Indians will converse about ancient astronomy! I mean, standing right there amid the bloody corpses!

Granted, some of this detail is interesting, and Rosenberger shows his Fate roots. Really though these blasts of exposition bring to mind the somewhat-similar Mind Masters series. And as mentioned the aliens and their technology do come in to play, though it seemingly takes forever to get to them. Hell, even when Camellion and team have finally infiltrated “the Room” beneath the monastery, with its weird and eternal blue light and selection of bizarre, alien machinery, Rosenberger spends more time on yet another action scene, where a traitor in the party attacks Camellion. Mind you, this is after a thirty or forty-page action sequence.

The aliens are dead, or at least in suspended animation, perfectly preserved in clear cases that can’t be opened. They’re the little gray ones of current popular myth, with the big black eyes and etc. Humorously enough, Camellion shows absolutely no interest in them, or amazement at the discovery. Instead he’s more concerned with getting a document out of there which apparently contains the sum knowledge of the aliens – a “book” of alien material which the monks have been working on translating over the past few centuries. Otherwise Camellion is unmoved, as if seeing the corpses of centuries-dead aliens is just par for the course.

Rosenberger unfortunately doesn’t delve into the other stuff supposedly there among the aliens, their high-tech devices which allowed them to manipulate energy and whatnot. But this I’ve found is typical of Rosenberger…lots of potential, little delivery. It blows my mind that the guy would be brave enough to come up with such crazy plots – I mean, imagine Mack Bolan coming across alien corpses – and yet not have the conviction to follow the crazy plots through. If you’ve introduced aliens into your tale, spend more time on them and less on endless action scenes. Action scenes which, per the Rosenberger norm, do little to excite the reader.

Hell In Hindu Land started off a loose trilogy, one which was continued in the next volume: #21: The Pole Star Secret. In this volume the head Buddhist monk informs Camellion that there are two other alien bases on the planet, the other being in the North Pole; Camellion ends the tale already planning a trip there. And I believe the trilogy concluded with #30: Shambhala Strike, though the final volume of the series, #70: The Greenland Mystery, was also about Camellion searching for a crashed UFO.

Mace #3: The Year of the Rat

Mace #3: The Year of the Rat, by Lee Chang
No month stated, 1974 Manor Books

Joseph Rosenberger returns as "Lee Chang" for another installment of the fight-filled Mace series, and let me tell you, these books are getting harder and harder to endure. For one, Rosenberger here drops the bell-bottom fury vibe which (sort of) saved the first two volumes, replacing it with the feel of just another installment of the Death Merchant.

Victor Mace, we learn in the opening pages, has taken extensive CIA training since the last volume and is now a secret agent working for the US government! Other than the many, many references to specific kung fu or martial arts moves, The Year of the Rat could easily be a Death Merchant novel. Just like Richard Camellion, Mace is a cipher who accepts his job without emotion and proceeds to kill everyone with even less emotion. Oh, and sometimes he wears a ninja costume.

But yeah, Mace is now basically an Asian 007; skilled in all manner of subterfuge and modern weaponry. Not that he uses modern weaponry, mind you. There’s an action scene (one of many) where Mace goes in with a Browning Hi-Power in a shoulder holster, and I spent the entire endless damn time waiting for him to blow someone’s head off, just due to the fact that it would be something different than yet another belabored martial arts sequence, but he never even took it out of the damn holster!

Well anyway, the “plot” this time concerns some “Red Chinese” who are infiltrating spies in through French Canada, Ottawa to be precise. Mace is hired to go up there and see what’s what. But as is typical with a Rosenberger tale, Mace’s cover is blown on like the first page, and it’s straight into the fighting. He has a mere two contacts, an American CIA guy and his Canadian girlfriend, and though Mace realizes one of them has set us up, Rosenberger doesn’t bother to tell us who it was until literally the last two pages of the book, well after the action has moved on from Ottawa.

And as for that Canadian locale, Rosenberger doesn’t do much to bring it to life, other than mentioning the odd building or street, or to feature a soon-to-be-wasted French-Canadian thug who speaks in stilted English. There’s also an assault on the Chinese embassy in Ottawa, but this too devolves into an endless fight scene. What I’m saying is, plot, locale, and narrative all suffer at the hands and feet of Mace’s endless damn kung-fu fighting.

Let me give you an idea of what the book is like:

Mace’s cover is blown. Fight. Fight. Fight. Shuto chop. “We’re going to spread this virus across the US, my Communist brothers!” Fight. Fight. Fight. Flying sidekick followed by Shuto chop. “The world is going to end in 1980 -- this is why.” Fight. Fight. Fight. Spinning back kick followed by Shuto chop. “My son, when one seeks to kill a rat, one must proceed directly into the nest!” Fight. Fight. Fight. Reverse monkey kick followed by Shuto chop. “We’ve gotta kill that Chink!” Fight. Fight. Fight. Roundhouse kick followed by Shuto chop. “That Chink’s killing us!” Fight. Fight. Fight. Explosion of getaway helicopter followed by Shuto chop. The end.

It wears you down. It seems clear to me that Rosenberger figured he had settled upon the craft for writing action fiction, and nothing in the world was going to budge his conviction. Fight, fight, fight, fight. Which would be fine, if every damn scene wasn’t written out to the nth degree, and if everything wasn’t so repetitive! A reader can only endure so many back-to-back fight scenes before he can take no more.

As usual though, the only saving factor here is Rosenberger himself, but this time he seems less unhinged than in the previous books. I mean, as far as the sadistic violence goes, he’s still there -- he as ever takes delight in describing every detail of the deaths of those who fight Mace. But this time he doesn’t do as much of the goofy stuff as in the first two books, like jumping into the POV of some hapless stooge, or churning out his patented unusual turns of phrase. There are a few instances to be sure, but not as many as I’d want.

Even the conspiracy/hidden knowledge stuff is toned down, other than a part where Mace tells his Ottawa contacts -- with complete conviction -- that the world will end in 1980, due to various “prophesized” events. I kept wanting to yell at him, “You’re wrong, asshole! Wrong!” Not that I usually yell at books, but Mace is so damn annoying…I mean he is never wrong, and blitzes through the book constantly correcting or belittling others. What I’m saying is, he’s a dick.

None of the characters spark to life, save perhaps for the Canadian girl who worries about her boyfriend and has the audacity to question how Mace is always right. (Of course, she turns out to be the traitor.) Mace’s CIA goon-pals are also ciphers; toward the end when Rosenberger writes that one or two of them died in the final melee, you have no idea who the hell he’s talking about. I mean, there’s nothing to tell them apart. And the same goes for the Red Chinese villains, each a clone of the other. Plus the constant barrage of Chinese names causes reader confusion -- and mind you, my in-laws are Chinese!

Anyway, I’m just bearing through these until I can get to the sixth volume, The Year of the Boar, which was written by Len Levinson. It will come as a definite relief after the fight-heavy monotony of these Rosenberger offerings.

An Intervew With Joseph Rosenberger

First off, a big thanks to James Reasoner and Mike Madonna -- when I read a while back that the Spring 1981 issue of the obscure mystery magazine Skullduggery featured an actual interview with the elusive Joseph Rosenberger, I mentioned it to Mike Madonna in our email correspondence. I had a hard time finding a copy of the issue in question, and told Mike that, given that James Reasoner had a story published in the issue, James might happen to still have his copy.

Mike asked James, who not only had the issue but also scanned the Rosenberger interview and sent it to Mike, who then sent it to me. After talking with both of them I'm going to take the liberty to put the interview here on the blog.

I've retyped it, as the interview appears in the magazine as a blurry Xerox-esque burst of typescript. And no, it does not feature a photo of Rosenberger! Be forewarned though that this isn't the most indepth interview you'll ever read, barely coming in at two pages. But it's something, at least, and as far as I know this is the only Rosenberger interview out there.

The interview is titled Sherlock Tomes, and it's conducted by Carl Shaner. So, here it is, copyright the Spring 1981 issue of Skullduggery:


Back in 1969, a fledgling publisher, Pinnacle Books, brought out War Against the Mafia, by an unknown author named Don Pendleton. It was packaged as Book #1 in the Executioner series and, although series characters were not new to the paperback field, The Executioner was different. So different, sales soared and, as they soured, Pinnacle and others launched literally scores of imitators. Over ten years later, most of the new breed of men's action series have died off. Not so Joseph Rosenberger's Death Merchant. Richard Camellion, the master of death, deception, and disguise, who works secretly for the CIA, has starred in over forty books, with no end in sight. He is a heard-headed pragmatist, and so is his creator, Joseph Rosenberger, as the following Skullduggery interview demonstrates.

Shaner: First of all, tell us about yourself.

Rosenberger: I'll be 56 in May. I began writing at about age 17. To date, I've sold more than 2,000 articles and short stories and, roughly, maybe 300 paperbacks under my own and a variety of names: Rosenfeld, Lee Chang, Harry Adames [sp], etc. Maybe 50 or 60 were non-fiction -- ghost jobs, mostly on Psi/paranormal. For almost seven years I roamed the world as a photo-journalist and finally settled down about 20 years ago as a one-location writer. To me, writing is a business.

Shaner: The Death Merchant is apparently designed to appeal to a different audience than The Executioner or The Destroyer, as Camellion is neither a crusader nor a superman. How much of this was your idea?

Rosenberger: The Death Merchant was entirely my own creation. The editors at Pinnacle didn't have a thing to do with it.

Shaner: Do your editors provide you with much direction?

Rosenberger: None. The editors do not provide any ideas. There is only one rule: Camellion takes on only the incredible tasks, missions that, if not successful, would result in loss of freedom in the Western world.

Shaner: The first novel, The Death Merchant, was a "war against the Mafia" story, and the impossible missions vein did not begin until later. Was this a natural development?

Rosenberger: That was the plan all along.

Shaner: Camellion claims to dislike the "Death Merchant" title. How do you feel about it?

Rosenberger: So-so, but I'm not crazy about "Death Merchant."

Shaner: Does Camellion have any real-life or literary inspirations?

Rosenberger: None.

Shaner: After ten years and over forty books, do you still enjoy writing the character?

Rosenberger: I enjoy the money.

Shaner: Have you ever used ghost writers on the series?

Rosenberger: No. I never will. I don't think any writer can take over another writer's series and do a good job, with the exception of the "comic" Nick Carter novels.

Shaner: What are your favorite Death Merchant books?

Rosenberger: I don't have any favorites. I try to make each book as good as possible, and feel, after the book is finished, that it was the "best." It's the mind-set by which I operate.

Shaner: Do you have any favorites among your other books?

Rosenberger: None. It's all commercial writing. Paperbacks, as a rule, are nothing but pulps in a different form.

Shaner: How do you rate other series characters?

Rosenberger: Some are good; others stink, in that the writers don't do their homework.

Shaner: How do you approach writing a typical Death Merchant novel?

Rosenberger: I sleep on it for months in advance, letting the "Overmind" work out the details. From an outline as I actually begin to write. Plenty of research.

Shaner: What other series books have you written?

Rosenberger: The first Kung Fu fiction series in print (Manor Books) -- until Manor tried to screw me. Result: a lawsuit that I won. I now own the series, even though Kung Fu is as dead as yesterday's cigarette. Titles: Year of the Tiger by Lee Chang, etc. There were four or five books altogether; then when I told Manor where it could go, Manor got another writer to do the series. The series fell apart after, I think, two books.

I also evolved The Murder Master for Manor -- three books. I told Manor this series would not work -- a black dude hopping in bed with chicks, secret Fed, all that kind of nonsense.

I have done one Nick Carter book, Thunderstrike In Syria -- only one, because the advances are low, because I don't have the time, and, mainly, because there isn't a byline.

Shaner: Who reads your books, do you know?

Rosenberger: All kinds of people, judging from letters, from priests to prostitutes, from scientists to truck drivers. People read fiction to relax and, on a subconscious level, to work out their own anxieties, but mostly to relax and enjoy the book.

Shaner: Finally, with the Death Merchant entering its second decade, where do you see Richard Camellion and Joseph Rosenberger going from here?

Rosenberger: Rosenberger? Who knows? I can always sell series. I've turned down five this year. Camellion will live as long as the books at Pinnacle show a profit. The bottom line in publishing is money.

Mace #2: The Year of the Snake

Mace #2: The Year of the Snake, by Lee Chang
February, 1974 Manor Books

I've been taking my time getting back into the Mace series. After reading the first volume, The Year of the Tiger, I felt about as beaten as one the opponents of hero Victor Mace. The action onslaught whipped me but good, and we have of course Joseph Rosenberger to thank, posing here once again as "Lee Chang."

Thankfully The Year of the Snake is slightly better than its predecessor. Whereas the first novel followed one single plot -- some Mafia thugs wanted to use a boat which belonged to Mace's uncle, and Mace kept beating them up -- this one opens things up a bit, but not much. Mace is now in New York City's Chinatown, called here by one Tong leader to handle the problems caused by the Blue Devils, another Tong...one which has connections to the Chinese mob. Not that the mob or its soldiers or anyone poses much of a threat for Mace, who again is presented as a superhero, incapable of being harmed, let alone defeated.

Rosenberger dispenses with character development or plot development, and it goes without saying that the reader gets little feel for Chinatown or its inhabitants. He does however sprinkle the narrative with a host of goofy characters and also doles out an endless array of WTF? metaphors and analogies. If a case were to be made that Rosenberger's novels were parodies of the men's adventure genre, then his Mace books would make for Exhibit A.

There is absolutely no way the man intended this book to be taken seriously, and the nonstop fighting is just the first clue. Rosenberger even manages to insert slapstick into the book, sometimes going in and out of the perspectives of various minor characters (usually right before they're killed by Mace), taking the opportunity to write in a goofy POV-style (ie, It was like, Death, man -- far out!).

And you'd never think that in a book about a kung-fu master Rosenberger would be able to indulge in his own metaphysical interests, but he does; in the obligatory flashbacks to Mace's training at a Shaolin temple in Hong Kong, his teacher even finds the opportunity to discuss how the Egyptian pyramids were "really" constructed, via esoteric sound-manipulation techniques!

But for the most part The Year of the Snake is just fight scene after fight scene after fight scene. It's my opinion that martial arts combat doesn't make for an easy transistion to print; it's much easier to read (or write, I'd guess) gun-blazing action scenes, but how many different ways can you write about one guy kicking or punching other guys?

As usual though Rosenberger steals the show. For one, his enthusiasm is contagious. Whereas the other writer might back off on the fights a bit and work on the plot, Rosenberger instead barrels full steam ahead. I can almost see him hunched over his typewriter: "All right! I'm gonna write another action scene!" And then pounding away at his keys as he launches Mace into another pages and pages and pages-long kung-fu fight sequence.

In another "you'd never believe it" moment, Rosenberger also delivers a straight-up sex scene, featuring a heavyset Chinese gangster and his black American concubine. The scene is written from the lady's perspective, complete with description on how the gangster likes to "service" her and etc, and what's hilarious is that Rosenberger writes it all exactly like one of his action scenes, with exclamation points ending every other sentence.

And again Rosenberger puts his all into the book. It's 190 pages of tiny print, each page packed from top to bottom with copy. In other words, the man never shirked on his writing duties -- no big copy, no "white space" for him. But as usual, a whole bunch could have been cut from the novel and it would have benefited from it. Especially Rosenberger's strange fetish for explaining incidental things -- usually in flashback -- that don't even need to be explained. (For example, how Mace planned to escape from "oriental" Chinatown into "occidental" Manhattan.)

Another staple of the Mace series is the endless battery of racial slurs. I'd say the only other book that might use the word "chink" more than The Year of the Snake would have to be a manual on how to repair medieval combat armor or something. As in the previous novel, Rosenberger breaks out the slurs while writing from the perspectives of various of Mace's enemies, but what's strange is that most of them are Chinese themselves. It would be like a white character blasting away at another white character while thinking to himself: "I'm gonna waste that honkey!"

But then, the politically-incorrect vibe embraces a host of ethnicities in The Year of the Snake, not just Asians. Again it could all be a sign of spoofery, but moreso it's just a sign of its times. Like many of its men's adventure brethren, The Year of the Snake is a kind of book that couldn't be published today.

Which admittedly makes for part of its charm, at least as far as I'm concerned, but still. You need more than a non-PC vibe and goofy analogies to make for a good book. The Year of the Snake just left me feeling as beaten and exhausted as its predecessor did.

Super Death Merchant #1: Apocalypse

Super Death Merchant #1: Apocalypse, by Joseph Rosenberger
April, 1987 Dell Books

I'm jumping all over the place in the Death Merchant series. After reading an early volume and then one from the middle of the run, I figured I'd see how our psychotic friend Richard "Death Merchant" Camellion ended up at the end of the series. Apocalypse, the one and only "Super Death Merchant," is the penultimate volume of the Death Merchant series, which, including this 400-page monstrosity, amounts to a total of 71 books...all of them written by Joseph Rosenberger; you have to respect the guy just a little for accomplishing such a feat.

Believe it or not, Apocalypse actually lives up to its title. This book has all the makings of a finale for the series, ending with hundreds of thousands dead in the Middle East and nuclear war declared between the US and USSR; but it actually takes place before Death Merchant #71: The Greenland Mystery (which apparently brushes aside the whole nuclear war ramifications of this volume). Actually it appears to me that Rosenberger was attempting a retcon of his character, as for the majority of the book, Apocalypse bears little resemblance to the earlier Death Merchant novels I've read.

For one, Camellion isn't the master of disguise he once was. Also, no mention of his reading "auras" and whatnot, and the Cosmic Lord of Death is given only minor mention. The first third of the novel comes off more like a Robert Ludlum spy story, with Camellion arriving in Greece and meeting with a variety of contacts.

The Soviets have kidnapped a Greek scientist who has supposedly cracked the mystery behind one of Tesla's many inventions -- namely, the control of the world's weather patterns. Surrounded by Spetsnaz commandos and KGB agents on one of the countless islands outside the Greece mainland, the scientist works against his will developing this ultimate weapon. Of course the Russians plan to use it against the US, without any concern over resultant damage to the rest of the world.

The first few hundred pages of Apocalypse are a slow-going affair. Rosenberger either recently visited Greece or consulted a mountain of travel brochures, as we get unending detail about Greece, its people, and their customs. Also endless meetings of various secret agents with lots of acronyms thrown around. The most shocking indication that Apocalypse is a "different" sort of Death Merchant is that there's no action scene until page 120! Even more shocking, there's an actual, bona fide sex scene before the action scene...!

The scene is certainly explicit, at least as far as Rosenberger is concerned, complete with graphic detail and dialog from the lady in question ("Do it! Do it! Do it to me!"). I couldn't believe it. Perhaps Rosenberger's new publisher Dell requested that he sex up the proceedings? Who knows. Anyway, the lady is Melina, a Greek agent who, moments after meeting Camellion, demands that they go to bed together. Weird and gratuitous stuff for sure. Rosenberger has a habit of using his books as forums for his own political and personal views, but in Apocalypse he even dispenses his own little nuggets of wisdom about women. For example:

The Death Merchant had also shared enough beds with the opposite sex to know that there were three kinds of women. There were those who appeared as cold as a dead fish but became wildcats in bed. Other women looked and acted sexy but were as frigid as a three-thousand-year-old statue. And the last category, were those women who exuded sex and, later in bed, proved it by having orgasms almost as fast as slugs can spit from the muzzle of a MAC-Ingram submachine gun!

There aren't too many authors who could (or would) compare a female orgasm to a machine gun.

As mentioned, the action doesn't even start until over a hundred pages in. Camellion is jumped by a group of Spetsnaz agents, and here the Rosenberger of yore returns. Every bullet's path is documented, every moment of the fight scene is detailed. He also indulges his bizarre penchant of naming each and every minor character Camellion kills.

From there the novel begins to resemble a regular Death Merchant novel; Camellion and his comrades engage in several more battles, in particular a very well done sequence where they are attacked in a safe house in the woods. This scene becomes grisly and darkly humorous when Camellion appropriates an armored truck after blasting its occupants to hell; he and his fellow fighters have to sit in the blood and on the destroyed bodies as they make their escape.

Apocalypse is 400 pages, and that's around 200 pages too long. After a brief tenure in London, Camellion sneaks into the USSR, this time posing as a scientist, complete with yet another female associate accompanying him. Remarkably, this involves another sex scene, though not as explicit as the one before.

The material here is pretty much a carbon copy of the material in Greece, with Camellion meeting inside agents; once again Camellion and his comrades are surprise-attacked in a safe house and must blast their way out. But Rosenberger delivers another good escape sequence, with Camellion commandeering a Russian plane and taking off. His certainty that Soviet red tape will prevent a hasty pursuit is proven correct; more opportunity for Rosenberger to rant against the idiocy of the "pig farmers."

As has been the case in the previous Death Merchants I've read, Apocalypse ends with Camellion and a team of commandos launching an assault against the enemy's fortress. This sequence, again well-done and gory, comes off like military fiction, with Camellion the member of a large group of British commandos and US Delta Force. Meanwhile the Russians have fired off the weather control device, which results in a hundred thousand dead in Turkey and more in Syria. After the lengthy battle sequence, Camellion frees the scientist, smashes the weather device, and escapes on a nuclear sub.

Here the novel races to its conclusion as Rosenberger synopsizes ensuing events. The world is of course outraged over Russia's actions. The USSR meanwhile does not comment. After an endless scene in which President Reagan renounces the Soviets on TV, complete with his showing documentation to prove their guilt, Camellion learns that nuclear war has been declared. Given that he's on a nuclear sub, he won't be headed to London for r'n'r, after all. Instead, the sub has been given battle orders.

Apocalypse ends with Camellion happy that the world is about to engage in nuclear war. He realizes he will finally see his dream come true: the USSR blasted into a radioactive wasteland. What a strange outlook for the hero of an action series. Or, for that matter, the author of an action series.

But as mentioned, this plot development was ignored in the 71st and final volume of Death Merchant -- consulting my copy of Greenland Mystery, which I'll read eventually, I see that the events of Apocalypse are relegated to a tiny footnote on page 152, which makes no mention of the declared nuclear war. Either Rosenberger changed his mind, or Dell didn't feel like turning the series into a post-nuke pulp...or, more likely, they just wanted to cancel it.

Death Merchant #36: The Cosmic Reality Kill

Death Merchant #36: The Cosmic Reality Kill, by Joseph Rosenberger
November, 1979 Pinnacle Books

Death Merchant #2: Operation Overkill is the earliest volume of the series I currently have; this 36th volume is the latest. Finding that earlier volume to lack the insanity the Death Merchant series is known for, I decided to jump ahead and check out a later volume. Usually I try to read these series in order, but ultimately it makes little difference, as each of them (with a few exceptions) are usually intended to be read as stand-alone adventures.

As expected, The Cosmic Reality Kill shows a Joseph Rosenberger more comfortable with his violent creation; little wonder, given that this volume was published seven years after Operation Overkill. That earlier volume showed little of the crazed shenanigans Rosenberger is known for, coming off like just another entry in Pinnacle's endless line of men's adventure books. But here we have the metaphysical/cosmic/nutjob overtones that fans of Rosenberger demand. But what's strange is, despite all of this...Rosenberger's writing here is actually better than in that previous volume. I figured as the years progressed he'd start churning out action-heavy junk like Mace, but instead he only places a few action scenes in this novel, and overall his writing is stronger.

I knew I was in for a good time when I saw the back-cover blurb: "Gnostics and Guns." The first page of the book was also promising, where Rosenberger thanks the publishers of the Principia Discordia for allowing him to quote snatches of the text. As a longtime fan of Shea and Wilson's Illuminatus!, I was familiar with the Principia and couldn't believe I was seeing it mentioned in a men's adventure novel...one written by a (supposedly) right wing-nutjob of an author, at that. I'm sort of an armchair researcher of comparitive religion, so The Cosmic Reality Kill appealed to me in every way: in it Richard "Death Merchant" Camellion tasks himself with killing Reverend Hannibal Frimm, "His Oneness and Onlyness," head of the Cosmic Reality Church, insane leader of a brainwashed legion of followers who spread across the nation.

Tapping right into the then-current Jim Jones scandal, the novel operates on America's sudden fear of religious cults. Frimm has amassed so many followers that he has camps spread across the US; he runs the Church from his base in Colorado Springs. His followers come from all walks of life and the Church's religion is an amalgam of Jim Jones's warped Christianity and the basic tenets of Scientology. But as usual with these sorts of novels, Rosenberger gives no reason why anyone would so willingly join the Church -- they must live in shacks, give away all their possessions, sex is basically forbidden (therefore, none of the sex-worship of, say, Shamballah, and more's the pity), and life is relegated to work on the land and worship. But then, people join such religions in the real world every day, so I guess Rosenberger doesn't need to give a reason, after all.

Frimm has his own network of security, headed by Brother Sesson, who considers himself the Himmler to Frimm's Hitler. Sesson's men are kids, really, untrained youths barely out of their teens who roam the grounds with machine guns, enforcing order. However the guns have concerned the government, who have infiltrated a few undercover agents. These agents have all ended up missing (melted away in Frimm's "Disintigrating Chambers").

When Camellion finds out that one of his old friends, a CIA-trained cult victim deprogrammer, has also gone missing while investigating the Church, he determines to kill Frimm and wipe out his organization. He's so pissed that he's going to do it on his own; this isn't a mission the CIA has hired him for, though the Agency is kind enough to loan an "off duty" agent to help him out. In a chilling moment, the Death Merchant determines to not only kill Frimm but all of his followers. Rosenberger, obviously realizing this would mean Camellion would become a mass-murderer, thankfully brushes this over as the novel continues.

The novel opens with Camellion scouting out a Church camp (in Fort Worth, Texas!). For some bizarre, unstated reason he wears a latex alien mask. After being discovered, Camellion blows away several "Frimmies," men and women alike. From there the novel settles into the same pace as Operation Overkill, with an action scene scattered here and there, but mostly Camellion doing some research and biding his time until the inevitable final assault on Frimm's headquarters. After an endless car chase outside Colorado Springs, Camellion hooks up with his CIA contact, Linders; together with Linders's girlfriend Janet they travel around in an RV. Throughout the novel Camellion's disguised as an old man, with Linders posing as his son and Janet as his daughter-in-law.

As Rosenberger is apparently known for, The Cosmic Reality Kill is filled with the author's own views, spouted from the mouths of his characters. Camellion hates religion and informs Linders and Janet on all of its negative aspects. Linders for his part is the guy who mentions the Principia Discordia, though oddly Rosenberger has it that Linders is making it up as he goes along -- a spoof of religion that has Janet in particular laughing until she cries, though I assumed she must've just been high. Speaking of Janet, Camellion spends the majority of the novel admiring her "female curves" as they travel along in the motor home -- that is, when he isn't telling her to fry him up a steak. (Seriously!)

The climax is well-rendered and gory. Realizing he's been used by the CIA to get a free mission out of him, Camellion turns the tables and has Linders call in a team of Black Berets for the final assault, all of it on the Agency's bill. They go in with tons of gear, helicopters that blast holographic images, and a few batches of LSD with which to spike the camp's water supply.

Camellion -- still dressed as an old man -- unleashes a host of weaponry here, including the Automag favored by the Executioner. But, again as in Operation Overkill, Frimm's soldiers come off as little competition for Camellion and the team of Black Berets. As mentioned, they're really just kids, so there's a grim, unsettling tone to the finale, as Camellion and team take special relish in blowing away Frimmie after Frimmie, Rosenberger always mentioning each of them by name, as well as their age, as if rubbing it in.

As for Camellion the man, Rosenberger still only yields few details, keeping the character a cipher. We learn that he likes steaks, for one. Also, he eats sardines with banana jello...! Camellion makes a few mentions of "The Cosmic Lord of Death," whom he apparently serves; it's his self-vowed duty to kill those who need to be killed in order to balance the cosmic scheme. He can see "auras;" he knows that he will survive this mission because he saw a "light green aura" when looking in the mirror. Given all of this, it would appear that the series could've just as easily been titled Death Messiah, with Camellion the fleshly incarnation of the Cosmic Lord of Death. (Or, more likely, he's just fucking nuts.)

Anyway, what's surprising me most is how much I'm enjoying this series. Even more surprising is that Rosenberger's writing isn't that bad at all, despite his bad rep. I guess like any other series author churning out a whopping four novels a year, the man had his good days and his bad days. The Comsic Reality Kill I'd say is mostly "good," only marred by a needless subplot in which a sheriff tries to track down Camellion. Also, Rosenberger doesn't shirk on his writing -- this novel features some seriously small print; if printed at a larger size the book would easily be twice as long or so. Obviously Rosenberger was putting everything he had into this series, which makes it even harder to believe that he did so for 71 volumes!

Death Merchant #2: Operation Overkill

Death Merchant #2: Operation Overkill, by Joseph Rosenberger
February, 1972 Pinnacle Books

Over the past few years I've collected a handful of Death Merchant novels, but just never got around to reading them. As a kid I had a few as well, but as mentioned previously, at the time (the mid-'80s) I was more into the gung-ho exploits of the Gold Eagle line of men's adventure novels. Since getting back into this genre I've kept meaning to read more of Joseph Rosenberger's work, but so far I've only read the first volume of Mace, which really sucked -- nothing but endless fight sequences and zero plot. But still I've remained interested in Rosenberger the man, who by all accounts was a crackpot.

So then when I came across a pristine copy of Death Merchant #2: Operation Overkill, for half off the cover price of 95 cents (!), I just couldn't pass it up. This is the earliest novel I have in the series; I've read that the first volume doesn't have much to do with the rest of the series. In it Joseph "Death Merchant" Camellion is hired to kill a bunch of mobsters, and so Death Merchant #1 apparently comes off like so many other early '70s men's adventure novels, just a lurid clone of Don Pendleton's Executioner.

This second volume already changes things up; the mafia isn't mentioned and Camellion is apparently a soldier for hire, so notorious that even the President of the United States is familiar with him. This time out the NSA has hired Camellion to look into the nefarious schemes of millionaire Cyrus Carey, who apparently has concocted a plan to kill off the President and his chiefs of staff and take over the US. Carey lives in his own little island off the coast of Maine, a veritable Howard Hughes. His lair is a fortress and he's surrounded by armed goons. His politics are so far right-wing that he's considered an American Hitler.

The novel opens with Camellion already undercover, infiltrating into Carey's network of supporters. But immediately he's found out; there's a mole within the NSA and Camellion's been fingered. After a gunfight Camellion escapes. His NSA contacts are a married couple and an attractive lady named Norma. These are the ONLY people who knew Camellion was undercover, which makes it pretty hilarious that it takes our hero the entire novel to uncover the culprit. Other than that Rosenberger presents Camellion as a cipher, always quick on the draw and deadly as any other men's adventure protagonist, but not the superhero he would become in later books.

I should mention here that, unlike Mace #1, Operation Overkill is not an endless series of fight sequences. In fact the novel's rather well-done, with few of the Rosenbergerisms one might expect. None of the bizarre analogies, no footnotes (which would become a staple of the series in later volumes), no overdone passages of gore. True, when action scenes do take place they tend to go on for a while. But they don't fill up the majority of the novel. And true, Rosenberger tends to end every few sentences with an exclamation point. But other than that the novel comes off as very much in line with the other men's adventure novels Pinnacle Books was publishing at the time.

The clearest indication of this is that Camellion has sex in the novel. The aforementioned Norma sets her sights on the Death Merchant early in the book, and succeeds in bedding him halfway through. The scene isn't very graphic, but it's there, which is important enough given the sexless nature of later volumes. Another indication of the times is Camellion's other NSA comrade in the novel, a black agent named Luther Jackson who is unconnected with Norma or the married couple (and therefore not the one who outed Camellion as a spy within Carey's ranks). Jackson is a jive-talking sharp dresser who appears to have walked out of Chet Cunningham's Hijacking Manhattan.

Operation Overkill opens with action but plays out on more of a suspense angle until the climax. In a way it's like the Penetrator series, with Camellion arriving on the scene, doing some digging, getting in a few fights, meeting a lady, and then finally working out his climatic assault. We know from page one that the Death Merchant must storm Carey's island fortress, but we wait until the end for him to do so. He and Luther Jackson make for a two-man team, SCUBA diving to the place and then assaulting it with Thompson subguns and explosives. It's a well-rendered scene, but Carey's goons make for little competition.

Camellion, as his name would indicate, is a master of disguise. He goes through the novel in a variety of disguises, usually posing as an old man. When visiting Carey's island near the end with Luther Jackson, Camellion even goes so far as to make himself black; in a hilarious prefigure of the notorious '80s bomb Soul Man, Camellion swallows a pill which darkens the pigment of his skin. He completes the look with wig, mannerisms, and speech. It's all pretty stupid and funny -- again, much like Hijacking Manhattan, only not as outrageous.

The Death Merchant lives up to his name here. He blows away countless goons and is so consumed with the desire to kill Cyrus Carey that he takes his time with it at the end of the novel, first blowing off the man's fingers and then trapping him in a locked vault where he will die a slow death. Ironically, Luther Jackson proves to be even more merciless -- in a somewhat shocking moment during their assault on the island, Camellion and Jackson corner an unarmed old man who's nothing more than a groundskeeper, and get info out of him. "Thanks," Jackson grins, and then blows the harmless old man away.

Rosenberger was also into the occult, something wich long has interested me in the series, but there's little of that here, other than Camellion's mention of the old novel La Bas. As for Camellion the man, Rosenberger keeps the details slim. He mentions that Camellion isn't handsome, but he isn't ugly, either. Indeed Rosenberger attempts to stress that Camellion looks rather ordinary. Also, no mention of the Cosmic Lord of Death, or any of the other metaphysical aspects of later books -- no auras or ghosts or anything. Again, the novel comes off much like the rest of the Pinnacle line at the time.

Finally, Rosenberger isn't shy about implicating himself with his creation. We're informed that Camellion's full name is Richard Joseph Camellion -- very similar to the full name of his creator: Joseph Richard Rosenberger. I find this personally interesting, as I have the same first and middle name as Rosenberger. Who knows, maybe I'm just another of the Death Merchant's aliases??

Mace #1: Manor Books Delves into the Kung-Fu Craze

Mace #1: The Year of the Tiger, by Lee Chang

Manor Books, 1973

The most thrilling, action-packed series ever published!

Hey, would Manor Books lie to you? You bet they wouldn't! (And besides, if you said they would lie to you, they'd probably send some guys over to have a little chat with you...) But here's one case where the hyperbolic cover blurb really does speak truth: the "Mace" series truly could make a claim for being the most action-packed series ever published.

But then, that's all it is. Action -- fight after fight after fight. Minutely-detailed scenes of lead character Victor Mace smashing apart mob scum, beating them senseless and killing them with single blows to various body parts.

Plot...what plot? Who needs a plot?

Here's the story. Mace, raised and trained in a Hong Kong Shaolin Temple, comes to San Francisco to visit his half-brother and his uncle. The local mob wants to use his uncle's boat; the Greeks are bringing in some heroin and the mob wants a "non-Syndicate" boat for the trade, to ward off suspicion. Mace's uncle refuses to comply. The mob puts on the pressure. Mace beats the shit out of them. Again and again and again.

That's it. That's the story.

Yes, we are in the hellish, sordid, and downright bizarre world of Joseph Rosenberger -- here posing as Lee Chang (you know, so this novel seems legitimate). Rosenberger is most "famous" as the sole writer of the Death Merchant series...80+ volumes spanning two decades, each book nothing but fight after fight after fight, with lead character Richard Camellion blowing apart his enemies.

Character...who needs character?

Mace is THE GOOD GUY. The mobsters are THE BAD GUYS. That's it.

Perfect in every way, trained since childhood to kill in a plethora of methods, Mace is more of an idealized he-man than anything else. On top of which he's so complacent as to come off like an arrogant ass; after a while I started to root for the mobsters, hoping they'd at least get a punch in. Or maybe a bullet or two. But no; Mace wades through this book as unstoppable as a Terminator. Nothing stops him, nothing fazes him. Therefore all dramatic impact is lost and the book becomes a tiresome slugfest, the literary equivalent of a Bruce Le movie. (Bruce Le, not Bruce Lee -- I'm referring to the lowest of the Bruceploitation clones, the guy who gave us such monstrosities as Enter the Game of Death.)

Year of the Tiger was the start of an 8-volume series. It appears in later volumes Mace becomes a CIA operative; here's hoping this opens up the stories a bit more. Because the story for Year of the Tiger is so narrow as to have tunnel-vision; you start to wonder why the mobsters don't just say "We fucking give up -- let's go get some other guy's boat for the trade!"

Later volumes branded "Mace" on the cover, but this first volume doesn't even feature his name. Instead, "Kung Fu" blazes across the cover -- capitalizing of course on the then-popular Kung-Fu TV series starring David Carradine. Manor Books never met a fad they didn't capitalize on.

Year of the Tiger is so based upon the Kung-Fu template as to be plagiaristic: Mace's name is similar to Carradine's Cane; Mace too was raised in a Shaolin Temple, only to leave it for San Francisco (same place Cane voyaged to); and just as the Kung-Fu show would feature flashbacks to Cane's training in the Temple, so too will Mace flash back to his own training...sometimes in the most odd of circumstances. (Though my favorite is when, after a massive fight with the mob, Mace flashes back to, guess what, another fight, one he fought during his childhood -- and it's just as endless as the fight scene we just endured.)

Beyond his usual bad writing, Rosenberger also specializes in poorly-researched "facts." Of them all my favorite is his explanation of the book's title. Mace speculates on the "violent" nature of the US, and decides that if there was a year for the US, it would be the "Year of the Tiger." However, Mace further speculates, "the last Year of the Tiger was in the 1800s." I guess Rosenberger didn't realize that the signs of the Chinese Zodiac revolve every several years; further, the next Year of the Tiger was 1974, the year after this novel was published!

But for all his banalities, Rosenberger pulls the most odd turns of phrase out of his head. Mobsters "so ugly Frankenstein would've pulled a double-take," narratives which take up the thoughts of the goon about to be killed: "He threw a punch. What the hell? Yeah -- why not!" Rosenberger also (unwittingly) takes the book into the metaphysical realm, often informing us how the mobsters go to hell upon dying beneath Mace's flailing limbs.

Every few pages there's another brain-wrecking Rosenbergerism, but this one's my favorite in Year of the Tiger, as Mace destroys yet another goon:

Instant death as the blood supply to the man's brain was cut off! The hood felt stupid when he woke up and found himself sitting in the middle of hell!

That line pretty much tells you all you need to know about Year of the Tiger...!