Doomsday Warrior #5: America's Last Declaration

Doomsday Warrior #5: America's Last Declaration, by Ryder Stacy
June, 1985 Zebra Books

The Doomsday Warrior series continues to ecschew the episodic nature of other men's adventure series, once again picking up immediately after the events in the previous volume, with hardly any background information provided for those new to the story. Rockson and his pal Archer, as we'll recall, have just flown a commandeered jet all the way from Russia to the Great Lakes region of north America, bailing out as the jet spirals to the ground, out of fuel. America's Last Declaration opens the very next moment, as the duo splash into the icy waters below and immediately must test themselves against the mutated flora and fauna of "the world of 2089 AD" (that recurring phrase back once again).

Previous volumes of this series have generally started off "normal," with Rockson and his fellow freefighters engaged in some sort of adventure or skirmish against the Reds, before freefalling into a sort of psychedelic vibe in the final half of the novel. America's Last Declaration reverses that. It starts off weird, gets goofy, and then finishes off with an otherwise "normal" action sequence as Rockson must defend Century City against an invading army of Russian-backed Nazis. But then, this is why I put "normal" in quotes...I mean, the Nazis, despite being removed from the original issue by a century-plus, talk and act just like their damned WWII brethren, with jackboots and swastikas and the works.

It takes a while to build up to that action finale, though. First we roam the wilds of the north with Rockson and Archer, who encounter everything from sea monsters to metallic, magnetic balls that seems to be alive. Those who read #3: The Last American will remember that awesomely out-of-left-field sequence where Rockson was briefly captured by the Amazonian tribe of men-haters, who nonetheless wanted to keep Rockson around for a little lovin'. Ryder Stacy must have felt they didn't fully explore the potential of this scenario, as they basically reenact it over the first half of America's Last Declaration; Rockson and Archer are captured by the Kreega, a group of French Canadian Amazons (of course, every single one of them are beautiful) who capture wayward men, use them for their seed, and then kill them when they are no longer potent.

Rockson and Archer are in no hurry to escape. Stacy deliver one of their patented sex scenes between Rockson and the leader of the Kreega, and once she's had her fill she gives Rockson to the rest of the tribe. I forgot to mention that these Amazons are protected by panthers, who are only controlled via psychic means by a pair of Kreega virgins. The whole sequence is like something out of a fantasy novel. Once Rockson's finally gotten sick of serving as a stud, he acts upon his plan of escape -- which of course entails seducing those two virgins, who easily fall into Rockson's manly-man arms.

Believe it or not, the novel only proceeds to get goofier. After escaping the Kreega, Rockson and Archer trek on down into the midwest, where they come upon a bona fide '50s diner, still up and running, complete with a flickering sign and checkered floor and everything. Vintage cars ring the parking lot and a gum-smacking waitress takes their order, serving up burgers and fries and shakes. Throughout this series Ryder Stacy have tread the line between spoof and outright comedy, and here they stomp right over the line -- the joke, in fact, is on anyone who takes all of this seriously.

Using his psychic skills to win big at poker, Rockson takes off in an alcohol-fueled '83 Buick Roadmaster (!), tearing out of town just as the locals start shooting at him. Here Ryder Stacy display their lyric-writing talents, as Rockson flips on a tape and a late '80s rock hit streams from the speakers. (By the way, I checked Graphic Audio's adaptation of America's Last Declaration, curious to hear how they would present this song -- only to find they outright cut the entire segment. So then, now you know: the Graphic Audio productions of Doomsday Warrior are edited.) But even though they've escaped the townfolk, Rockson and Archer are still waylaid by a motorized caravan of cannibals, a full-on Road Warrior-esque battle ensuing.

During this time, Premier Vassily is plotting his vengeance back in Russia, still smarting over the embarrassment he suffered at Rockson's hands in the previous volume. Rather than call in his own troops, Vassily goes to Germany, where the country has once again taken up fascism, endorsed by the Reds. Despite that he fears this "Third Reich" force might eventually turn upon the Reds, Vassily still decides to send them over to the US, using them as stormtroopers to finally root out and destroy both Rockson and his homebase of Century City.

Back in Century City for the first time since the fourth volume, Rockson hooks up with yet another Amazonian -- his redheaded on-again, off-again galpal Rona, who is as ever nuts about Rockson and instantly throws herself at him. Yet another Stacy-patented sex scene ensues, Rockson once again casting aside thoughts of his "true love" Kim, who doesn't make an appearance this time out. But soon enough Century City learns of the invading Nazis, and Rockson, as head of the armed services, must concoct battle plans. The situation is grim, as the Century City freefighters are outnumbered a whopping fifty to one.

Stacy, still building on their epic theme, weave in several plotlines that have gone unmentioned in the past volumes; for one, Lang, the young mutant freefighter who reminds everyone of Rockson, is finally returning to Century City, which he left all the way back in the first volume, scouting out for the diminutive Technicians and their particle beam weaponry. Now Lang is on his way back, all of the Technicians in tow, with tons of particle beam cannons and whatnot. Also, the psychedelic Glowers, who back in the third volume promised to finally help America, are also converging upon Century City in their solar-powered ships.

So, after Rockson and the Century City forces have given their all against the Nazis in a long and well-done battle sequence, using commandeered Red gunships, employing commando tactics and boobytraps, the cavalry arrives in the nick of time, and the Glowers use their omnipotence to basically destroy all of the Nazis. It's a scene almost straight out of Ralph Bakshi's Wizards, as the Glowers invoke their psychic powers and make the Nazis see their worst fears. The bastards end up blasting each other apart, and once they've decimated the majority of the Nazis the Glowers depart, leaving Rockson et al to mop up.

Meanwhile Killov, who has really been AWOL these past volumes, sees the battle in progress from his KGB headquarters (which is like twenty friggin' miles from Century City, despite which Killov's never been able to find the place!), and orders a bombing run. But Stacy weave those threads and the Technicians, with their awesome particle beam weaponry, have arrived on the scene...

So, as expected, this volume is all over the place, but still enjoyable. And again it ends on a cliffhanger, with Rona seriously hurt and Rockson going to her, again employing his psychic skills to put a sort of protective bubble around her as death itself comes for her soul. Rona by the way is a much better character than the bland Kim, whom Rockson loves; we're reminded that he and Rona came to Century City together as teenagers, and have been inseperable since, but despite this -- and despite Rona's dedication to him -- Rockson still considers Kim his "true love."

America's Last Declaration ends though with a possible questioning of this, as Rockson tells Rona he does love her, so I'm curious if we will see the development of a love triangle or something. But then, given that Rockson has sex with about a hundred women in this novel, it's not like it really matters who is his "true love."

Doomsday Warrior #4: Bloody America

Doomsday Warrior #4: Bloody America, by Ryder Stacy
March, 1985 Zebra Books

The Doomsday Warrior series continues to build into an epic, with this volume picking up immediately after the previous one. Little explanation is given in regards to what's going on; we meet Ted "Doomsday Warrior" Rockson as he's still making his way back to Century City with Kim, Mt. Ed, and the newly-elected president of the "Re-United States of America." Stacy doesn't bother much with setting up the backstory, which might be frustrating for someone new to the series, but works very well for those who have been in from the ground floor.

The previous volume went more into a New Age/psychedelic territory with the appearance of the Glowers, which leads me to believe that Ryder Syvertsen did the majority of the writing for that one. This volume however is mostly action, goofy action at that, and rendered in the clunky tones that are the hallmark of Jan Stacy. In fact I have the feeling Jan Stacy wrote this installment solo as, save for one or two brief instances, it lacks all of the psychedelic flourishes of Syvertsen. Whereas the first half of previous volumes was usually composed of goofy action scenes and clunky writing (Jan Stacy) before veering off into psychedelia and good writing (Ryder Syvertsen), Bloody America is pretty much goofy action and clunky writing from first page to last.

The title is also misleading, as the majority of the novel takes place in Russia! First though we have Rockson and crew up against a tidal wave of acidic spew which destroys all the flora and fauna in its wake, culminating in a clifftop battle with a hulking lizard thing that beheads Mt. Ed with one fell swoop (goodbye, Ed, we hardly knew ye). After getting back to the neutron-bombed site of the re-election committee from the previous novel, Rockson et al reunite with the "Rock squad," ie Rockson's regular team of Detroit, Chen, Archer, and McLaughlin, who of course survived the nuke attack unharmed.

When a Red recon patrol comes in, Rockson and Archer break off from the pack to serve as decoys so that the all-important president may continue on to safety. Rockson and Archer are prompty captured. Meanwhile Premiere Vassily, who as we'll recall is locked in war with insane KGB Colonel Killov, gets wind that the "Ultimate American" has actually been caught. Vassily believes that if he can get Rockson on his side, the two would prove to be an unbeatable force, and so defeat Killov. Rockson's saved from torture by the fortuitous call of the premiere himself, and posthaste he and Archer are flown in a stratosphere-climbing jet all the way to Russia.

Here we have what might be the only sequence written by Ryder Syvertsen; while on the cozy plane, Rockson mediates and has an out of body experience, taking an astral voyage down to the earth far below. Here he feels the calming vibes of the Glowers and the earth itself. After which the novel gets right back on track, with Rockson going through the motions of working out a treaty with Vassily, just waiting for the moment when he can break free.

Rockson wants to destroy the massive dome which sets outside of Moscow, from which Red technicians control killer satellites that can both fire ICBM warheads and also knock any opposing ones out of the sky (not that any other nation has any nukes left to fire). Rockson knows that the Russians now lack the technical skills to repair it, if it were to be destroyed; the Reds basically just work off of stuff made a century before, becoming lax in their dominance. So upon freeing themselves (of course, not before they can enjoy, in Ryder Stacy-patented explicit detail, the charms of some pleasure-girls), Rockson and Archer head for the dome, hoping to find a way to blast it.

Instead they meet "the dissidents," white haired Russian jazz-lovers who speak in jive (one of them claims to have learned English from jazz album covers!). The dissidents cary clarinets and tubas which are sound-based weapons capable of much destruction. Luckily they too are opposed to the Reds and become instant allies with Rockson. Once again though Rockson is captured and here Bloody America delivers on its back-cover promise: Rockson becomes a gladiator in Moscow's games.

The reason is skirted over; apparently an enraged Vassily wants to use Rockson as an example, forcing him to fight with other slaves against professional gladiators. Rockson gets two weeks of training, though, the weapon given him a "duo-blade" (that's it on the cover). Rockson even sees the opponent that has been arranged for him, a hulking three-armed African mutant who towers over even Rockson and who has a few hundred kills to his credit.

The ensuing games sequence, which comes straight out of Danniel Mannix's Way of the Gladiator, takes up a goodly portion of the novel, complete with maidens ravished by animals, mallet-carrying dwarves braining their opponents, and standard gladiator-on-gladiator combat. Rockson's battle with the African giant is well rendered, and leads to a finale that would've made Spartacus envious. After which Rockson again escapes, and again runs right into the dissidents.

Stacy keeps the ball rolling with more goofy action scenes as Rockson blows the dome, the dissidents blow up the Moscow prison, and then Rockson and Archer escape in a Red fighter jet. Somehow the thing's able to fly all the way over to America, before running out of fuel right over the Great Lakes. Rockson and Archer bail, the Glowers in a brief interlude realize Rockson is back in the US and again state that he's the only person able to hold off the coming darkness (another indication of Stacy's intent that this be seen as an epic, not just another action series), and we leave Rockson as he's parachuting to the soil, happy to be back in the US.

This installment was a lot of fun, and the gladiator stuff is a hallmark of the post-nuke genre, so it was about time Rockson got to fight in the arena. But for me the psychedelic aspects are the best part of Doomsday Warrior, and they were lacking here. To be sure, Bloody America still has the frenetic, oddball charm of the series, but the goofy action scenes just don't work for me...the battle scenes have zero realism, and I'm a guy who doesn't even want much realism in my action scenes. The ones here though are just too unbelieveable, which gives the novel a juvenile tone.

Not that it matters. I'm so caught up in this series that I'll be getting to the next installment soon; in fact I hope to read through the next 15 volumes within the year.

C.A.D.S. #1

C.A.D.S. #1, by John Sievert
November, 1985 Zebra books

Here's another series I was familiar with as a kid in the '80s, but given the uniform cover design of the books -- each with some sort of high-tech gun floating against a blank background -- I assumed it was a military sci-fi series. Little did I know that it was actually a post-nuke pulp, let alone that author "John Sievert" was a psuedonym for Ryder Stacy, aka Ryder Syvertsen and Jan Stacy...the creators/authors of Doomsday Warrior! Indeed, this series ran at the same time, and was nearly as successful, lasting an impressive 12 volumes.

It's my understanding that Ryder Stacy collaborated on this first volume, just as they did on each volume of Doomsday Warrior. So then there's the same dichotomy in C.A.D.S. #1, going from goofy action scenes with clunky writing (Jan Stacy) to New Age-esque character instrospection with great writing (Ryder Syvertsen). I've read that future volumes were written by Syvertsen alone, who handled the series up until volume #9, when it was taken over by none other than David Alexander! So then with C.A.D.S. we have a post-nuke series written by the three best writers in the post-nuke biz; what more could you ask for?

This first volume is very similar to Doomsday Warrior #1. It takes its time setting up the scene, introducing the characters, and getting the ball rolling, but once it does, it veers directly into the madness and the insanity. And, like that first Doomsday Warrior, C.A.D.S. #1 is just too damn long for its own good. The book is 400 pages, which is much too long for an action-series novel in my opinion. As a result the novel is chaotic, all over the place, jumping from characters to incidents with little rhyme or reason. In fact the central plot of the tale -- the untried C.A.D.S. team rescuing the President, who may or may not be alive -- is lost for the duration of the novel, while Ryder Stacy instead entertain us with their patented lurid thrills.

The book opens in the "future" of 1997, one in which the USSR is still around, and still engaged in peace talks with the US. However we learn that the Soviets, of course, are planning a surprise attack on the gullible Americans. While the US President and Soviet Premiere plan a new era of peace, the Premiere meanwhile backs the total destruction of the US, sending out legions of nuclear subs while swearing to the Americans that nothing untoward is going on. However in their secret Air Force base in New Mexico, the members of the top-secret C.A.D.S. project suspect otherwise, in particular their leader, Colonel Dean Sturgis, who is certain that nuclear war is imminent.

C.A.D.S. stands for Computerized Attack/Defense Systems, and basically they're seven foot-tall armored suits that fire "E-balls" (ie explosives), machine guns, flamethrowers, etc. Description is vague but apparently the suits look like those worn by astronauts, only black instead of white, complete with the same visored dome, only the C.A.D.S. ones are red. The suits can't fly, but they can take to the air in very high leaps, which we're told eventually runs out the gas supply.

In point of fact these suits, as described, are impossible constructions; we're informed that each suit-wearer has at his command enough power to destroy an entire army, with a nigh-endless supply of ammunition and explosives, not to mention fuel and etc. There's just no way a suit could hold all of that stuff and still afford the maneuverability and aerodynamic qualities Ryder Stacy detail here. But then, I'm overthinking. Like everything else I've read by these authors, C.A.D.S. #1 is basically an R-rated Saturday morning cartoon.

The suits come complete with a computerized interface which provides a plethora of intel, scanning and tracking realtime and reporting it back to the wearer. Also there's a sort of AI setup which, when activated, can provide the wearer with realtime battle strategy. But the main point of the suits is that they can weather the atmosphere of radioactive wastelands. Given the military-wide opinion that a nuclear war with Russia is forthcoming, the Air Force brass sees the C.A.D.S. as having the potential of acting as first-line defense in a post-nuke battle arena. However as the series opens the suits are still in prototype stage.

Around 200 soldiers make up the C.A.D.S. force, racking up practice hours but having zero actual combat experience. Dean Sturgis heads them up and acts as the protagonist, but as with the Doomsday Warrior books there are a lot of characters in play. Sturgis though is your typical men's adventure hero, a grizzled veteran who constantly runs afoul of authority and knows that the only correct way to do things is his own. He lives on the base in a perpetual bad mood, mostly because he knows that the world is about to end, but also because he's worried about his ex-wife, Robin, whom Sturgis still loves, and indeed has reconnected with. Sturgis has constantly put his career ahead of his personal life, but now, in his mid-30s, he's getting second thoughts, and wonders if he should say the hell with the Air Force life and just go be with Robin.

The nuclear war of course changes all this, but as mentioned it takes a long time to happen. The missiles don't hit until around page 100, and before that we have lots of character and scene-building, in particular lots of stuff with the President and his staff worrying over the possibility that "the Reds" might have something up their sleeves. The authors hopscotch among a huge cast of characters, playing it all up like a suspense thriller, with the occasional interlude of Sturgis and his comrades field-testing their suits. Then the Russians launch their attack, successfully blocking retaliatory strikes from the US while blasting the majority of the country to radioactive bits with a hundred or so nuclear hits.

But once nuclear war has been waged Ryder Stacy kick in with the OTT insanity we know and love from Doomsday Warrior. Seriously, we go from a novel about politicians fretting over possible war to scenes of mental patients shackling up their former doctors and "curing" them with sadistic methods of torture. The book, while enjoyable crazy, actually suffers from this, given the somewhat serious tone of the opening hundred pages -- the ensuing chaos seems to come from a different novel.

The Russians hit Washington, DC with a few neutron bombs; we're told these will kill people but leave real estate undamaged. This is the same thing the Russians did in Doomsday Warrior, and for the same reason -- they plan to take over the country, using DC as their own capitol. The President happened to be in the bunker beneath the White House when the bombs hit, and word is that he might still be alive, trapped down there. Communication of course is sketchy in the post-nuke US, and only the one message got through. Nevertheless it's enough for what remains of the US government to order in a team to find and rescue the President.

No better job could be suited for the C.A.D.S. force. Having survived the war unscathed, their base in the middle of nowhere, the soldiers put on their suits and break up into three large squads, each taking a different route through the blasted US, to reconvene in DC at an appointed time, where they will unite and take on any Russian defenses as they save the President. Sturgis heads up the main team; that is, after he's let out of the brig.

In a stirring scene, Sturgis, being informed that war is finally occurring, calls Robin (who lives in the middle of a city), and tells her to get out of there asap. Sturgis has fashioned a bomb shelter/cabin in the middle of the upstate woods, and he tells Robin that he will meet her there. But as he's flying away in a commandeered plane, going AWOL, Sturgis sees a nuclear blast on the horizon and knows the time has come, that war is here. He cannot abandon his soldiers. He turns the plane around, turns himself in to the guards, and as mentioned is put in the brig.

When Sturgis and his team set out across the US, the novel takes on more of an episodic feel. On the long journey to DC they encounter militias, mental patients, Cuban soldiers who pose as American GIs, bikers, Russian soldiers, and even the Soviet models of the C.A.D.S. suits. That's not to mention the scenes from the perspectives of the Russian invaders, who deal with the patriotic fervor of the unbeaten American survivors; as in Doomsday Warrior, there are many scenes where downtrodden American masses rise up and kill their better-equiped Soviet enemies.

The action scenes are frequent and fun, if (as expected with these authors) ungrounded in any kind of reality. Sturgis and his squad are wholly dependent upon their C.A.D.S. suits, which admittedly is the point of the novel but ultimately detracts from it. Sturgis, I'm betting, couldn't hold his own against most men's adventure protagonists, and indeed is rendered powerless without his suit. However those fearing a military sci-fi sort of thing need not be concerned -- the focus here is on OTT action, with Sturgis and his soldiers only using their suits to decimate less-equiped enemies, most of whom are drug-addled bikers or whatnot. In other words, there isn't much focus on high-tech nonsense or what-have-you. It's all as believeable as the old GI Joe cartoon, only with a lot more violence.

A definite lurid vibe runs through the novel. In particular with the opressors who arise in the wake of the nukes; there's a bit early on where a gang kidnaps the children of a small town and starts torturing them. The already-mentioned mental patients stuff is especially wacky and sick. And it wouldn't be a Ryder Stacy novel if there wasn't a goofy but explicit sex scene. After freeing a West Virginia town from Cuban invaders (!), Sturgis and his crew are treated to a barn dance. The local women throw themselves at the men; one of the local women, an 18 year-old virgin (of course), takes hold of Sturgis and forces herself upon him. Though he puts up a bit of a moral struggle, thinking about Robin, he of course gives in, and the purple prose ensues.

Robin also has her share of the narrative. Making it to the bomb shelter after all (Sturgis spends the novel not knowing if she survived or not), she deals with her sudden solitude as well as the drastically-changed world she now lives in. It seems clear that this is being set up as the running storyline in the series: Will Sturgis and Robin find one another? What makes it annoying though is that, toward the very end of the novel, Sturgis finally gets to that bomb shelter, he's not even a mile from Robin, and then he receives a distress call from his squad and has to leave! It's a total cop-out of a scene, and reminded me of the similarly-annoying stuff from the Last Ranger series (also apparently written by Ryder Stacy) where the main character kept looking for (and then losing) his damn sister.

Finally, the authors get to work in their trademark irreverent spirit, with lots of dark humor and subtle parodies of the jingoistic fervor common in men's adventure novels (ie, the jingoism that caused the nuclear war in the first place). In particular they demonstrate this in the finale when, to save the President, the C.A.D.S. team actually destroys the White House! The authors also as expected make the invading Russians appropriately despotic and decadent, hating the Americans so much that they're dedicated to killing every single one of them.

So then, another fun but overlong Ryder Stacy excursion into insanity. It wasn't as great as any of the Doomsday Warrior novels I've read, but then, not many books are.

Doomsday Warrior #3: The Last American

Doomsday Warrior #3: The Last American, by Ryder Stacy
December, 1984 Zebra Books

I can see how the Doomsday Warrior series could lead readers down the rabbit hole of obsession. Despite the goofy characters, the comic book vibe, the clunky writing, with this volume the series already elevates itself above others of its ilk, with a definite attempt at creating a sort of mythos. Embracing a spirit that is positively Nietzschean, author duo Ryder Stacy put their protagonist Ted Rockson through the paces in The Last American; whatever doesn't kill Rockson literally makes him stronger, and by the end of the novel he is a very different character from the one we first met two volumes ago. In other words, the authors aren't content to stay in the rigid "nothing ever changes" confines of the genre.

But then, the book's still pretty stupid at times. Ryder Syvertsen and Jan Stacy must've really traded off on the writing, because again there's that terrible dichotomy: one half of the book is clunky and addle-headed, with sometimes-lame writing and a hell of a lot of misspellings. The other half is pretty great, though, veering into psychedelic territory in a big way. From what little is known about the authors, they both were college students in the late '60s, so I think it's safe to say they were involved in the psychedelic scene. The first two books in the series got pretty far-out, but The Last American gets way out there, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

We meet back up with Rockson -- aka "The Ultimate American," aka "The Doomsday Warrior," aka "Rock" -- as he's out on a research mission with some scientists. The party is attacked by big mutant spider-type things and Rockson's hurt in the attack. Injected with venom, Rockson's near death and must be carried back to home base of Cenutry City. There he is asked by the doctors to use his own mind to fight the infection. This is just the first of the psychedelic touches in the novel, as we journey into Rockson's own mind as he heals himself. This is also the first touch of the Nietzschean spirit of the tale, as Rockson emerges stronger than before.

Meanwhile, the far-strung rabble of the American collective is planning to meet together for the first time, each city and village sending representatives to vote on a new president and constitution. Rockson of course is elected to represent Century City, and takes with him Chen, the Chinese ninja martial arts master. Also elected to go are an elderly professor and a middle-aged lady who is highly ranked in Century City's civic arena. So again we have another section where Rockson must test himself against the mutated environs of post-nuke 2089 America. The series is very repetitive in a way, with each book sort of following the same template.

And to further the repetition of previous volumes, we still cut back and forth between Colonel Killov, KGB master, plotting against his Soviet fellows, among them Premiere Vassily and President Zhabnov. Killov has become a full-on monster, a sort of post-nuke Howard Hughes; he doesn't bathe, doesn't eat, doesn't do anything but sit around and plot his vengeance as he pops various pills. Last volume Killov attempted to assassinate Vassily; this time Zhabnov sends assassins of his own after Killov. But the man has become death itself, and makes the reader anticipate the day when we finally have a face-to-face confrontation between Killov and Rockson.

Also appearing from the previous volume is Kim, daughter of the man who hopes to become the first elected president of post-nuke America. Kim as you'll recall was the captured beauty who gave her virginity to Rockson while the two were locked up in twin cages. They're in love and Rockson can't wait to see her again. However the only purple-prosed sex scene in The Last American comes from an awesomely unrelated-to-anything development where Rockson, on the trip to the presidential committee meeting, scouts ahead and comes upon a village of Amazon beauties.

The women hate men -- their bible is a pre-war feminist tract titled Man, The Enemy -- but they use them long enough to impregnate each of the women before killing them. Rockson comes upon a pile of (male) skulls and escapes, but not before one of the beauties catches hold of his hybrid animal as it charges away. Rockson fights her off and takes her to a remote spot, where of course they soon get busy. After which Rockson heads back for the rest of his party, the whole Amazon incident just sort of brushed off. Like I say, it had nothing to do with anything, but damn it was fun.

An unusual thing about The Last American is there isn't much action for the duration. Rockson doesn't even fight "the Reds" until toward the very end of the book -- as expected, the presidential committee is attacked by the Russians and a megaton warhead is dropped on the place. Rockson's hit by the blast -- again, it doesn't kill him -- and he awakens in the hut of a towering mountain man who calls himself Mount Ed. Rockson is burning to find out what happened to Kim; eventually he discovers that she and her father, both nearly dead from radiation poisoning due to the blast, were taken away by the mysterious Glowers.

Here the novel goes full-tilt into the realm of psychedelia. The Glowers are mutants who speak telepathically, meaning that their dialog IS ALL IN CAPS. Their glowing bodies are twisted so that the internal organs are on the outside. Their powers are cosmic, to such an extent that they can change reality and even suck the radiation out of infected humans. They travel about on land ships, the sails apparently driven by cosmic winds. When the Glowers first rescue Kim and her father, there's a frankly awesome scene where the Glowers power their ship on through the night, and their bodies glow against the vibrant hues of the post-nuke starscape; of anything I've ever read, this scene comes the closest to capturing the feel of a blacklight poster in print.

It's while tracking after the Glowers that Rockson has his only fight with the Reds in the novel. Cornered in a desolate patch of land, they're attacked by around 40 Soviet troops in these glider-type contraptions. One thing about the Doomsday Warrior series is it definitely won't appeal to those who like their men's adventure grounded in reality or accurate weapons detail. Ryder Stacy can't even get their own created weaponry correct; early in the book it's drilled into us that the Century City-created "Liberator assault rifles" only fire clips of 15 rounds, but during this scene it's repeatedly stated that Rockson is firing a clip of 50 rounds. Regardless, it's a fun scene, with the patented gore of this series's action scenes -- lots of guts exploding and showering to the ground as the various Reds are blasted apart.

The novel finishes on another psychedelic scene; the Glowers arrive and pick up Rockson and Ed. Due to their omniscience they not only know who Rockson is but also where they could find him. Kim, still in a coma, refuses to heal for some reason, and the Glowers know that Rockson can save her with his love. This entails an elaborate scene where Rockson mentally joins up with the Glowers's collective entity and they all journey into the pits of Kim's soul. We are far beyond the limits of the men's adventure genre here.

After saving Kim -- her soul was imprisoned in a time warp, it turns out -- Rockson comes out of the collective mind entity feeling more powerful, more in tune with the cosmos. The Glowers inform him that he is capable of telepathic powers, and advise him to cultivate his talents. Again, the authors are building toward something, with the series coming off like a post-nuke Dune, Rockson its Maud'dib. Another nice change of pace with this series is its heavy continuity; there are many references to the previous two volumes, which gives it all the feeling of an epic.

Anyway, I really enjoyed The Last American, and I'm happy that as of now I finally have all 19 volumes of the series -- and they weren't easy to find.

Doomsday Warrior #2: Red America

Doomsday Warrior #2: Red America, by Ryder Stacy
August, 1984 Zebra Books

This time out Ted Rockson, the Doomsday Warrior himself, must once again venture into the post-nuke wasteland of America to destroy a Soviet-operated fortress in which Americans are being brainwashed into Red soldiers. Honestly though, the novel, at least the majority of it, is a retread of Doomsday Warrior #1. It follows the same template as that previous volume, with scheming between KGB nutcase Col. Killov and American Premier Vassily for control of all Soviet forces, while Rockson meanwhile tests himself against the mutated flora and fauna of "the world of 2089 A.D." (I lost track of how many times that phrase was repeated in the novel.)

Pavlov City is the name of the place where sturdy American slaves are deprogrammed by the Soviet mind devices, turning them into hardcore warriors for the Red Army (as it's called throughout the book). As soon as Rockson finds this out (somehow, it's never explained), he takes up his "Liberator rifle" and "shotgun pistol," hops on his trusty hybrid animal, and leaves the relative utopia of Century City -- that is, after some purple-prosed sex with his Amazonian galpal Rhona. Here follows a stretch of survivalist fiction which again seems lifted from the previous book.

Rockson sneaks into Pavlov City but of course is promptly captured; while in prison he finds himself in the cell beside a gorgeous 18 year-old American girl named Kim who reveals that the next morning the Reds will take advantage of her before killing her. Given that she is a virgin, and also that fate has placed her in this cell beside "the Ultimate American," she begs Rockson to take her. And not only is she a blonde, she's a gymnast to boot, maneuvering herself around the cage for Rockson's benefit. Rockson falls instantly in love with the girl. Really, who could blame him?

Finally we have a big battle sequence as Rockson, through blind luck more than skill, breaks free and pulls a Die Hard on the Reds in their very fortress. He frees the Americans, arms them, and engages in a battle with the Russians, who nevertheless manage to trap Rockson and his army on the top floors. Just when it looks like the end, deus ex machina intervenes in the worst way, as Rockson's pals show up in a commandeered helicopter, blasting away Reds with their newfangled particle beam weapon (a gift from the mutated Technicians of volume #1).

After all of this, Red America gets pretty good. Once again it seems obvious that the two authors who comprised "Ryder Stacy" shared the writing duties. One of them focused on the battle sequences and the stuff with Killov, all of which comes off like a more violent version of the '80s Rambo cartoon (remember that??). These sequences suffer from piss-poor writing, with horrendous dialog and unforgiveable POV-jumping (the worst case being one paragraph that starts from Rockson's point of view but ends in Killov's!).

However the other author is very good, and excels in the more far-out stuff. In the previous novel, this author delivered the Technicians material, which was above and beyond the rest of the book. Here he improves on even that, with a crazed sequence involving a group of "Indians" who drive around the desert on choppers, speak in Beatnik slang, and worship a guru called The Ginsberg. All of this is well outside of the men's adventure norm, and all the better for it.

In this section we have meditation trips, more sex between Rockson and Kim (which veers stright out into astral-tinged purple prose), a ribald party in which the beer is spiked with psychedelic mushrooms, and a climax which is lifted from Beowulf (at least that's my take, as it starts with Rockson at the beer-hall, then has him fighting against a powerful creature and its dragon-like familiar). It is by far the best part of the novel, and makes one look forward to continue with the series, just to see how much more out-there this version of "Ryder Stacy" can get.

And again, the series spoofs the genre, with Rockson the "Ultimate American" no more than a monstrous freak who spouts patriotic, anti-Communist invective that Ronald Reagan would've been proud of. But the irony is that Rockson and his pals live in a utopia that is 100% communist, where all the people must serve the cause, sharing allotted duties, living together in complete communion. None of this is stated outright, of course, which only adds to the impression that it's all a subtle in-joke from the authors.

In a way this series kept alive the feel of the men's adventure novels of the '70s, with a self-mocking tone, twisted plots, and a lurid vibe -- there are at least three sex scenes in Red America, and they're all pretty hilarious. I just wonder if our authors can keep it up (so to speak) for another 17 volumes.

Doomsday Warrior #1

Doomsday Warrior #1, by Ryder Stacy
May, 1984  Zebra Books

Back in the mid-'80s the men's adventure genre got a new kick with the emergence of what I call "Post-Nuke Pulps," aka action series which were set in the nuclear aftermath of WWIII. Jerry Ahern's Survivalist started the trend, but I could never get into that series. I was familiar with the long-running Doomsday Warrior series -- the painted covers, each with a fist holding a different weapon, really stood out on the bookshelves -- but I was never able to track down volume 1. It was only a few decades later, after reading Justin Marriott's fab overview of the series in Paperback Fanatic #16, that I finally decided to find a copy.

The series takes place a hundred years after the damn Commies have blasted the US with several nukes. The country is now mostly a wasteland, some spots ruined for eternity, others becoming much different from what they once were. Several cities were untouched, pointedly avoided by the Russians, so that the invading forces would have nice places to live. Yes, the Russians have even taken over the country, ruling the populace with an iron fist. The Communist empire is ruled by Premiere Vassily in Moscow; his nephew controls the US from the White House. The true power however is the KGB, here reformatted into basically the Waffen SS: a bunch of sadists in black leather uniforms emblazoned with death's heads, their commander a sociopath named Killov.

I should mention that in an eerie coincidence we are informed that the Russians launched their attack on the US on September 11th. (September 11th, 1989, but still, that's a bit creepy in its own prescient little way, isn't it?)

Americans have become slaves of the empire, churning out threadbare product which is shipped back to Moscow, suffering hardscrabble lives in slums. But from various remote areas of the conquered US an army of "Freefighters" wage a guerrilla war against the Russians. These are free Americans who have evolved in the radiated stretches of the country; in true Marvel Comics fashion, the decades of radioactivity have effected superhuman change into the people who live in these places. The end result is that the best fighters all have the builds of professional wrestlers, beyond which they can run faster, jump higher, and survive more damage than the average human being.

These Freefighters live in a nigh-idyllic world of underground cities in which each person works dutifully for the future freedom of the American people, making their own food and medicine and weaponry. There are several of these conclaves, but the top one is Century City, located in the Rockies. This is a vast, high-tech community burrowed into the mountains in which the free Americans live a sort of "communist" life of their own, really -- more importance is placed on the city rather than the individual, and each citizen works at various chores for the good of the community. At any rate it's all very comic-booky, as we learn that Century City started a hundred years ago, when a bunch of traffic-jammed Americans got trapped underground following the nuclear blasts; here they formed a society, over the decades creating this virtual paradise inside the mountains, complete with indoor waterfalls and meditation rooms and etc.

Century City's military commander is Ted Rockson, aka "Rock," the toughest Freefighter of them all. A towering, muscle-bound presence with differently-colored eyes ("one violet, one aquamarine") -- not to mention a skunklike streak of white through his heavy metal-long black hair -- Rockson grew up on the wastelands before finding Century City. In fact he trekked across the radioactive wastes on his own, after seeing his family killed by a KGB deathsquad. Hence Rockson has become affected by more radioactivity than most, which of course means he is even more powerful than the rest. Rockson is the protagonist of the series and is your basic idealized action series leading man: charismatic, deadly to his enemies, beloved by the ladies. Known as "The Ultimate American," Rockson is a folkloric hero in this post-apocalyptic world.

This first installment mostly lays the groundwork for the series. In fact it starts off with what I'm certain is the outline "Ryder Stacy" used to sell the series. We learn how this post-nuke world came to be and meet all of our characters (and there are many of them), both the Americans and the Commies. During lots of bickering between Killov and General Zhabnov (aka the ruler of America), Rockson and his Freefighters launch several raids on Russian outposts. The Commies devise a mind-controlling device which allows them to locate the hidden American bases, and later on Rockson discovers new, devastating weaponry that has been created by mutated Americans far out in the wastelands, and he and a few handpicked men venture out to get hold of it.

The problem is, Doomsday Warrior #1 is too damn long. At nearly 400 pages of incredibly tiny print, it's so padded as to be monotonous. There are many repetitive sequences and incidental bits that should've been gutted. For example, there is an endless scene where a returning party of Freefighters describe to Rockson the ruined land they just trekked across, pages and pages of dialog...and then, mere pages later, Rockson and his crew trek over the very same terrain, with the same description employed in the narrative!

But even worse is the writing. Simply put, the writing here is often atrocious. I'm always nagging about POV-hopping -- where the narrative jumps between character perspectives with no warning -- and "Ryder Stacy" takes it to new depths here. The most jarring instance I can think of is when we're in the POV of Rockson as he and his Freefighters hide in a valley, preparing to launch a sneak attack on a group of Commie helicopters -- and then, in the very next paragraph, we're suddenly in the POV of one of the crewmembers on a Russian 'copter. I just cannot understand how a writer can POV-hop and not realize what he is doing. It completely takes the reader out of the fictive dreamworld and disrupts the reading experience. I mean, at the very least, drop a damn line or two, give us a little space between POVs so we can understand that you're changing perspectives...I mean, anything.

Where was I? Oh, right, the terrible writing. The dialog too is goofy and hamfisted, but this actually lends the book more of a comic book charm, at least most of the time. (It's hard to be critical with a book that contains lines like: "Look -- it's the Ultimate American!") Cliches however run rampant throughout. Characters who "run like bats out of hell;" tension "so thick you could cut it with a knife." Even secure doors which when unlocked "open as easy as pie." And yet -- this goofy writing actually goes hand-in-hand with the goofy concept of the series itself, so somehow it all works.

What's odd is that there are long stretches of very good writing in Doomsday Warrior #1, in particular the sequences focusing on The Technicians, that aforementioned mutated batch of Americans who have created a host of particle-beam weaponry. The descendants of nuclear silo technicians, these people think only in mathematical terms, which allows Stacy to go into some outer limits of thinking and dialog. It's my understanding that future volumes go into even further reaches, but like any first installment of a series this one plays it a little safe -- any pulp writer knows that you lure readers in with a more traditional first volume before getting whacky in future volumes.

"Ryder Stacy" was the psuedonym of two authors: Jan Stacy and Ryder Syvertsen. Both wrote men's adventure series under their own names, and I'm uncertain if they collaborated fully on each volume of Doomsday Warrior or traded off. I would imagine the former, as some parts of Doomsday Warrior #1 seem to be written by different authors; for example, the writer who penned the Technicians scenes doesn't POV-hop.

At any rate, this first installment was successful enough to launch an incredible 19 volumes. And despite my dithering it is good in spots -- these authors don't shirk on the ultraviolence, with each battle scene featuring lovingly-detailed gore and destruction, lending it a definite tongue-in-cheek vibe. There's also some purple-prosed sex. Justin's Paperback Fanatic article really sold me on this series and I gather from it that it just gets better from here -- and I'm hoping it does, because in my usual OCD nature I've gotten hold of most of the volumes.