Tracker #7: Shock Treatment

Tracker #7: Shock Treatment, by Ron Stillman
April, 1992  Charter-Diamond Books

According to Brad Mengel’s Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction, Don Bendell wrote the first six volumes of the awful Tracker series, but was fired by publisher Charter-Diamond when he requested to be credited under his own name, rather than the “Ron Stillman” house name. Why anyone would want to put their actual name on such an execrable series is beyond me, but still, that’s one dickheaded move for Charter-Diamond to pull.

And yet, you won’t be surprised to learn that this seventh volume of the series, penned by some still-unknown writer, is one whole hell of a lot better than Bendell’s contributions. I’m not saying Shock Treatment is great or anything, but it didn’t make me want to go out and kick a few puppies, like Bendell’s novels did. In fact, the very reason that I couldn’t take anymore of his novels is what lead me to skip ahead to this installment, just to see how another author handled Natty “Asshole” Tracker.

In true “freelance author” spirit, this “Ron Stillman” quite clearly has never read one of the earlier Tracker novels and treats Shock Treatment as if it’s the first volume of the series. Tracker is much less of a dickhead, finally, and Stillman even makes him friggin’ human, if you can believe that. While Tracker’s still a one-man army with a tech-savy background (and a fighter pilot to boot), we learn here that, unlike in Bendell’s Tracker #1, Tracker was just part of a team that came up with his high-tech optical gadgets. 

Tracker’s godlike status is thankfully toned down; once again he’s truly blind, and uses his overly-described sci-fi sunglasses to see via SONAR and video inputs and other stuff. Stillman must’ve read a few issues of Popular Science, because the novel is filled with lots of incidental detail on Tracker’s software and how it operates. One neat addition is an “ATR” feature Tracker can activate, where the artificial eyes will constantly scan his surroundings for whatever it is Tracker is searching for. 

Another big change is the tone of the series. Gone is the stupid, sophomoric nature of the previous books, replaced with what at times comes off like a Hard Case Crime-esque vibe. Seriously! Tracker here isn’t an unstoppable commando who counts even the US President as a fan; he’s more of a shadow warrior, a covert operations type who prefers to stay in the shadows and only launches into action when necessary. Even the plot is more down-to-earth, with Tracker in Mountain City, Colorado, to try to prevent an old friend named Jeff Purdy from committing murder.

The first 30 or so pages are quite slow-moving, with Tracker sort of lurking around and stalking the citizens of Mountain City with his high-tech eyes. While this Ron Stillman is actually a pretty good author, he does tend to page-fill and wheel-spin, giving unnecessarily detailed background on various places, people, and things.  It gradually develops that Mountain City is a hardscrabble town, recently brought to its knees by a white collar embezzlement scheme which has left the citizens ready to riot. The local police appear to be nothing more than hired goons, bought off by the shucksters who committed the fraud, and Tracker’s come here at the request of Mrs. Purdy, who claims her husband, ruined due to the fraud, might attempt to murder one of the shucksters.

It’s all very mystery-suspense, with Tracker witnessing the assassination as it happens, but due to his fancy eyewear he sees that Jeff Purdy didn’t even pull the trigger. This is one element this version of Ron Stillman greatly excels at, something which always evaded Bendell – how exactly Tracker would benefit from his optical enhancements. Here he can see in infra-red to know that his friend’s pistol never even fired, and also he can detect another body in the next room. Not that this will help Jeff Purdy, who Lee Harvey Oswald-style has been immediately blown away (by the crooked cops, of course), so as to keep his mouth shut.

The action scenes are also more believeable. Tracker uses his martial arts skills to escape certain death, but instead of laying hordes of fighters to waste like in the Bendell books, this fight comes off as very realistic, with the murderous cops impeded by the enclosed space and Tracker using his wits more than his muscles. And Tracker’s escape is a taut sequence which sees him nearly blown away by the actual gunman, who escapes in a getaway car – which is then destroyed by a mysterious van that fires ball lightning!

Tracker himself is almost killed by the occupant of the mysterious van (whom we readers know is the James Bond-esque villain Doctor Shock), and after his own car is destroyed an even more taut sequence ensues in which Tracker has to scale across a canyon wall while the cops are shooting at him. It’s all very First Blood. But these cops are really just thugs, lead by the corrupt Lt. Boyd, whose mountain-sized underling Maggard now wants Tracker’s head on a platter, given that Tracker knocked out a few of Maggard’s teeth with a side kick. This elicits one of the novel’s many humorous moments, when Tracker later discovers one of Maggard’s teeth embedded in his boot.

Whereas the previous Tracker novels tried to be funny but just came off as dumb, there’s actually some genuine humor in Shock Treatment, like Tracker’s infrequent run-ins with a hot dog vendor named Gene. Stillman also delivers some nice, movie-esque banter between Tracker and an apparent femme fatale named Anne, dialog which to me has a bit of a Raymond Obstfeld ring to it. And speaking of that Anne – Tracker believe it or not isn’t a demigod here, and women don’t fall down at his feet! Stillman builds up a nice chemistry between the two, one that’s fueled by barbed insults and mocking put-downs, but utimately goes nowhere, as Anne, the only female in the novel, has just a few lines.

The crime fiction vibe continues as Gene, who turns out to be a smalltime crook who works for a guy named Mitch, takes Tracker to see his boss. Mitch heads up an organization that’s opposed to Lt. Boyd and his goons, and Mitch promises Tracker that he can help him uncover what’s really gone down in Mountain City. Stillman seems pretty adept at bringing the small-town underwold to life, and there follows more dark humor where Mitch and his goons place bets on Tracker and some goon as they fight in Mitch’s bar. But unfortunately this sort of thing gradually takes precedence in the narrative, so that more interesting aspects like Doctor Shock are given short shrift.

In fact, the latter half plays out anticlimatically; developed bad guys like Lt. Boyd and Maggard are perfunctorily disposed of (and not even by Tracker), and more time is spent on a group of inbreeds who attack Mitch’s bar at Boyd’s command. After all this is dealt with, Doctor Shock finally appears, and you wish he had shown up sooner – he turns out to be an egomaniac named Professor Moxon who has a group of “worshippers” who follow him around (Anne one of them), listening enraptured to his outpourings of wisdom. Here we learn the details of the Mountain City fiasco, which all turns out to have been the doings of a Howard Hughes-type named Clayton, whom Shock is gaining vengeance upon, Shock himself having suffered from Clayton's financial plottings.

Tracker’s even given the brush-off in the climax, reduced to sitting under armed guard while Shock fires up a massive lightning generator and destroys Clayton’s far-off retreat, Ultima. But rather than Tracker doing anything, it’s Shock’s own arrogance that does him in, and the lightning generator backfires and everything goes to hell. Shock and his cult fall to their doom, while Tracker gets involved in a protracted fistfight with some random thug. To say it’s all sort of unsatisfying would be an understatement – but still, good grief is it better than the earlier novels in the series.

It’s the same thing I said about Psycho Squad, but I wonder if this “Ron Stillman” was actually Simon Hawke, who wrote the Steele series, which was also published by Charter. Shock Treatment has the same focus on plot and character over action, the same “real-world” vibe, the same tech-savy details, and the same snappy dialog from its underworld characters. Another thing that leads me to think it might be Hawke is that the final few pages of Shock Treatment feature an excerpt from the novel Sons Of Glory, a Simon Hawke paperback original from Charter Books.

Whether or not it was Hawke, I’m pretty certain whoever wrote Shock Treatment is the same person who wrote Psycho Squad #2, as the two books are similar in many respects. I’ll be curious to see if this same author wrote the next volume of Tracker, which turned out to be the last.

Death Merchant #21: The Pole Star Secret

Death Merchant #21: The Pole Star Secret
March, 1977  Pinnacle Books

Picking up a few months after the previous volume, this installment of the Death Merchant is a direct continuation of Hell In Hindu Land, so you should probably read that one first. As we’ll recall from that novel, hero Richard Camellion discovered friggin’ aliens in India, and while there he was informed that there were two more spots on the planet in which these beings rest in some sort of stasis.

We reunite with Camellion while he’s en route to the second of these spots, which happens to be in the North Pole. Once again Camellion’s been given full control of the mission, with a nuclear sub and a squad of “Special Sea Commandos” (which I assumed were Navy SEALs, but turned out not to be) at his disposal. Unlike the previous volume Rosenberger takes his time building up the narrative, and doesn’t just throw you into endless action scenes; in fact it isn’t until around page 50 that we even have any action.

Given how mediocre Hell In Hindu Land was I assumed I wouldn’t enjoy The Pole Star Secret, but this turned out to be my favorite Death Merchant since #36: The Cosmic Reality Kill (which was the best one I’ve read). Like that later volume, this one at least attempts to tell a story, instead of featuring endless gunfights. But anyway Rosenberger develops an air of mystery as Camellion and his CIA and military colleagues grill a pair of Soviet scientists whom Camellion abducted from their weather research station in the North Pole.

The scientists claim there’s an underground world beneath the Polar cap, a place they refer to as Thuleandia. While the others are incredulous, Camellion informs them that the scientists aren’t lying, and further goes on to tell them in the most blasé of manner that in his previous adventure he met aliens called “Sandorians,” and learned that one of their ancient outposts was Thuleandia! The Soviets are here not only to explore this supposed underworld paradise, but to also conduct weather-warfare experiments. This latter point proves to be the central plot of the novel, rather than the aliens.

As usual Rosenberger goes all the way, filling 190 pages of small print with overly-described gunfights, bald exposition, and lots of technical data about nuclear submarines. But I have to say, none of it is terrible, like Rosenberger’s Mace stuff. Also the metaphysical element is back, sometimes to a humorous degree, with Camellion making mystical pronouncements to his dumbstruck colleagues, about life and death being just a dream and how the purpose of life is to lead to death, and etc. And once again Rosenberger has that bizarro element at play, like when in Camellion’s introduction he informs us that the Death Merchant is “dressed in a scarlet jumpsuit, black Wellington boots, and eating raisins.”

And also per custom Rosenberger populates the tale with a lot of redshirts who eventually run together and who you have a hard time telling apart. But as for the main ones we have McAlpine, the CIA contact, Colonel Hurdbetter, the leader of the Special Sea Commandos, and Earl Wolfe, one of the SSC dudes, who likes to use a crossbow. We also get occasional cuts over to the Russian perspective, as the Soviets have sent their own sub here, and after an early firefight between Camellion and team with the Russians, the “pig farmers” are all alarmed that the Death Merchant himself might be here in Thuleandia – apparently the dude and his exploits are so mysterious and infamous that he’s become a legend even in the USSR.

When the action finally does start it goes on for a while, as expected, but again, it isn’t terrible like some of Rosenberger’s other stuff. It’s mostly relegated to Camellion and the SSC team foraging through Thuleandia, which is a lush forest beneath the Polar cap, accessed via a “dry chamber” in a passageway in an underwater mountain. An artificial sun shines from the ceiling, and while the foliage is strangely lush and abundant, there is no fauna, or indeed any sign of life other than the Russian sub at the other end of the chamber. Camellion and team intend to make their way to the alien dome, which they must find – cue lots of detail on how difficult it is to navigate when in the North Pole, as all bearings show “north.”

The alien dome by the way appears to be made of stainless steel and measures 250 feet high and 150 feet wide. But that’s about all you’re going to find out about it. Despite tidbits dropped early in the novel, that the dome was created centuries ago by aliens and that maybe there are giants in Thuleandia, The North Pole Secret drops all of this stuff when, during a skirmish with the Russians, Camellion discovers that the dome is surrounded by an invisible force field. After confirming this, by throwing a grenade at the dome and watching as the grenade disappears, Camellion basically says, “Screw it; let’s head back for the sub.” Seriously! 

Given that actual aliens appeared in the previous volume, I wonder why Rosenberger didn’t deliver with his bizarre promises about Thuleandia. But then, given how casually the whole alien aspect was dealt with in Hell In Hindu Land, it was probably no great loss – I’m sure we all recall how Camellion in that earlier novel was like, “Huh. Aliens. Interesting. Now let’s go kill more pig farmers!” But once he realizes that the force field around the dome is too advanced for any of them to penetrate, Camellion decides to leave Thuleandia – and mind you this is after about 50 or so pages of endlessly-detailed gunfights, with Camellion blowing away Russian “slobs” and “goofs.”

But yeah, all the alien stuff is just dropped, and Camellion and team leave Thuleandia and concentrate on destroying the Russian polar station. The final 90 or so pages play out in typical Death Merchant fashion, with Camellion leading an assault on an enemy compound. First though we have a submarine battle, after which we get lots of egregious exposition on how great Lee Jurras and his weapons designs are (the book is even dedicated to Jurras). We also get lots of exposition on how Camellion and the commandos will survive the cold weather during the assault; the Navy men basically can’t think for themselves, and look to Camellion to explain everything, even what they’re going to wear in the frigid temperatures.

Also as is typical from Rosenberger, the climax features tons of redshirts getting killed, and you have a hard time remembering who they are. But of course it ends with Camellion being the only one who is right about anything, and successfully blowing up the polar station. The Thuleandia stuff is brushed under the carpet; Camellion has the sub commander blow up and thus block off the underwater entrance to the mysterious underworld, and that’s that.

As for the aliens, Camellion just sort of forgot about them for a while – the trilogy didn’t wrap up until the thirtieth volume of the series, The Shambhala Strike, which I’ll be reading next.

NYPD 2025

NYPD 2025, by Hal Stryker
May, 1985  Pinnacle Books

Betrayed by a misleading cover, NYPD 2025 is in fact a men’s adventure novel, one very much in the over-the-top vein of The Hitman and Soldier For Hire. And it’s just as right-winged, “Hal Stryker” serving up a future world in which the goddamn Liberals have taken hold of America…hell, they’ve even opened the country’s borders to immigrants!

One coud read NYPD 2025 as either a work of warped genius or a bunch of fascist drivel, and either reading would have sufficient evidence to back it up. At any rate what can be said is the book was intended as the first installment of a series, a series which no doubt was canceled due to the collapse of Pinnacle Books. Perhaps the world is a sadder place without a second volume of NYPD 2025, but at least we have this one, which despite being credited to a house name is copyright George Henry Smith, a prolific pulp writer whom I’ve never before read.

But if this novel is any indication, Smith was not only one heck of a right-winger, he also had a goofy sense of humor. NYPD 2025, despite serving up gallons of gore, has a positively humorous bent, and what with its colorfully-named and masked protagonists it comes off like an R-rated ‘80s cartoon. In other words, pretty much just like Doomsday Warrior, only without the postapocalyptic setting. It’s got the same over-the-top vibe that comes off like genre parody, but, like with The Hitman or Soldier For Hire, you suspect the author doesn’t intend it to be a parody.

Anyway, it’s 2025 and we meet our hero, Captain Zack (we later learn his name is Zack Ward, but Smith constantly refers to him as “Captain Zack,” which should give you an idea of the book’s tone) as he’s put on trial in Long Island, New York. Zack is a battle-hardened Ranger who has spent the past several years fighting in Central America. He’s been away from America for so long that the country is basically new to him (a convenient means for Smith to shoehorn in lots of expository dialog and description, all for Zack’s benefit of course), but we glean from all of this that newly-elected President Buchanan has banned warfare and thus Zack’s special forces team has been fighting down south on their own (“defending Mexico,” we’re informed). Zack is now considered a “war criminal,” and is to be executed asap.

The future world Smith creates is very hard to buy, and in fact the author himself doesn’t seem sure how far he should go. Sometimes NYPD 2025 comes off like a cartoonish satire, other times it appears to be in dead earnest. But either way it very much comes off like another pulpish future, that of Howard Rheingold’s earlier Savage Report. Only whereas Rheingold’s “future” 1994 was more of a positive nature, Smith’s is downright dystopian…I mean, the goddamn Liberals have taken over, and in a major way – there are no laws (except for those enforced upon the police, of course), the country’s borders have been opened to all and sundry, and “President-For-Life” Buchanan prefers to use the title “Mahatma.”

After more exposition Zack finally discovers he’s being held by goons of the PSP, the Producers’s Security Police, who work for SPA, the Solidio’s Producers’s Association. It takes a while until we learn that “solidios” are sort of holographic/interactive snuff films in which viewers can sexually interract with the stars via brain implants, or something like that. But anyway since there are no laws and all “art” is endorsed by the government, these multimillion-dollar solidio snuff flicks are not only legal but incredibly popular to boot. One of the major problems of NYPD 2025 by the way is that Zack is obviously disgusted by all of this, and he and his fellow cops will represent decency and morals and etc in their fight against such backwards thinking – but the thing of it is, it appears that the entire country is crazy about solidios and the ultra-liberal world “Mahatma Buchanan” has created!

Zack is saved by the sudden arrival of a masked group of people, lead by Judge Portia van Wyck, a black-garbed young woman who wears a “greek goddess” mask. Along with her comes Officer Murphy, a hulking Irish cop in a Keystone Kops mask, MacTavish, an equally-muscular Scotsman (can’t remember his mask), The Professor, a slim black man in a white mask who uses a Thompson submachine gun and quotes Shakespeare while in combat, and Ferret, a short guy who wears a ferret mask. These people claim to be the New York Police Department, and Portia is the acting judge of “the city-state of New York.” She’s here to take Zack…not to free him, but to put him on a trial of her own, as he is considered a war criminal in Buchanan’s America, and given that the SPA have brought Zack here to Long Island, he has fallen into her jurisdiction.

Here ensues a gory battle in which the NYPD and the PSP go at it, with Zack stuck in the middle. Heads get blown off, organs get ripped out, and lots of people puke up blood – in fact, there’s a fair bit of vomiting going on in NYPD 2025, Zack even tossing his cookies when later Portia shows him a solidio snuff film. Portia and Zach have an instant banter going on, and even though Portia claims she’s here to arrest Zack, he still finds himself siding with her as the lesser of two evils. Portia also proves herself merciless, as during the getaway she metes out her “sentencing” for two SPA goons by dropping them a few hundred feet out of their aircar. This action scene does sort of drag on, though, in particular a two-chapter sequence in which Zack merely attempts to cross over a ledge! But this is just the first indication of Smith’s skill at page-filling.

Portia, who turns out to be a gorgeous blonde (of course), later puts Zack on trial in her penthouse study/office. Strapped into a chair and served drinks by a robot on wheels, Zack defends his actions in Mexico and elsewhere. He’s a stone-cold patriot and was raised that way, and since he hasn’t been in the US for 25 years (leaving when he was still a child), all of this Liberal stuff is bizarre to him. Turns out this was all just a mock trial; Portia wanted to see if Zack would defend his beliefs, even if he knew he would suffer for them. Zack having proven himself, Portia offers him the job of Officer in Charce of NYPD Ten, Combat Operations Program – COP. This is of course the masked group of characters Zack fought against the PSP with, but in addition there’s also Fu, a Chinese guy who wears a Fu Manchu mask, and Andy Jumbles, a two-headed, four-armed android.

As for those masks, they go hand in hand with Smith’s unbelievable future world. Portia explains that they are “smudge masks,” made of a rubberlike substance that fits like a second skin. Beyond show they’re to filter out the “smudge” that pollutes the environment, thanks to the terrorist actions of the Luddites, a more militant version of the old technology-hating faction. The Luddites have destroyed all electricity and nuclear generators (their actions of course legal in Buchanan’s America), and now the country gets its power from coal. Thus, a permanent cloud of coal smudge obscures the city, and one needs a smudge mask to breathe. But anyway, Portia already has Zack’s mask – it’s a grinning skull, and she informs him that his team codename will be Captain Death.

Zack’s first case is the recent kidnapping of Indira Buchanan, daughter of the “Mahatma.” Sources believe that she will be used in a big-budget solidio snuff film, to be killed by the Slasher, most famous of the solidio killers. President Buchanan has fled to his ashram to meditate, which we’re informed is his standard response to any problem, so it’s up to the NYPD to handle the case, despite all of the restrictions placed against them. Zack’s plan is to infiltrate the solidio studios of Dynamic, producers of the Slasher films, as an extra, and to get in the graces of solidio superstar Foxxy van Pelt (“van” apparently a popular naming convention in 2025, or just a sign of Smith’s lack of imagination when creating female names). His goal is to use her as bait in drawing out the Slasher.

So begins the second half of the novel, which follows more of a procedural nature as Zack investigates his top three suspects on who the Slasher might be. They’re a strange bunch, from Reverend Everett Edwards (a mega-famous televangelist-type known for denouncing solidios), to Sandy Mondo (a tattooed, purple-haired newsreporter who, per the current trend, actually sings her reports to a rock backbeat), and finally Sheldon Gilbert, chairman of the Culture Defense Committee (an older guy who claims the solidios are perfectly legal and instantly deduces that Zack is a cop).

Smith serves up occasional action scenes, as Zack and Foxxy are attacked by hired goons, but man they’re just padding, like an endless sequence where the duo is chased by goons in another aircar. Foxxy, who at first is sickened by Zack’s “bloodthirsty” nature, of course soon becomes attracted to him, to the point where she’s sidling up on his lap and asking if he’d like to feel how “juicy” he’s made her. Smith skirts over the sex, just letting us know it happened – though he’s all over the more luridly violent stuff, like a detailed description of a solidio Portia shows Zack, in which the Slasher lops off some poor actress’s breasts and other delicate parts before beheading her.

Unfortunately the novel sort of grinds to a close; after Zack is nearly killed by more goons (and is once again saved by the appearance of Portia and the other members of NYPD Ten), he uses Foxxy as bait during the filming of the next big solidio picture and waits for the Slasher to show. Oh and I forgot to mention, the Slasher is a hulking individual who wears a purple turban and a yellow veil, which should give you yet another indication of the type of novel this really is. But the outing of the Slasher’s real identity seems to come out of Scooby-Doo (spoiler alert: it’s Gilbert, the old guy, which isn’t believable in the least), and Smith wraps up the Indira subplot very unceremoniously (turns out she ran away to pose as another Slasher, so as to kill Foxxy, so Indira herself could become a big solidio star…or something).

Smith definitely had this novel in mind as the first installment of a series. Many of the characters are set up with the potential of becoming regulars, in particular Sandy Mondo, who both provokes and propositions Zack when they meet. This is a good scene, very bizarre, as a fully-nude but tattoo-covered Sandy cavorts around Zack, bluntly asking, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to fuck?” Instead she serves to piss Zack off, who finds that this woman gets his goat more than anyone else ever has; it appears that Sandy Mondo is Smith’s take on the whole “shock jock” fad of the mid-‘80s, taken, like everything else in the novel, to an absurd degree. It also seems clear that she would’ve become a constant thorn in NYPD Ten’s side, had the series continued.

But NYPD 2025 ends with the series ready to take off – the President will no doubt cut funding given that Zack has punched Indira while arresting her, so Foxxy van Pelt announces that she’s quitting solidios and wants to join the force, funding them with her billions of dollars. However it wasn’t to be, and this novel was the one and only entry in the NYPD 2025 series. Smith by the way passed away in 1996, and I wonder if he even started on a second volume, or if Pinnacle went out of business before he could.

The Premar Experiments

The Premar Experiments, by Robert H. Rimmer
February, 1976  Signet Books

The victory novel of the sexual revolution! -- from the back cover

Robert Rimmer gained fame in the mid-‘60s with the publication of The Harrad Experiment, a novel about an initiative at Harvard University in which male and female co-eds roomed together; there was even a film version (starring a young Don Johnson!), followed by an unrelated sequel. (I’ve never seen either film, but I do have the LP soundtracks, for some reason…)

The Premar Experiments was Rimmer’s mid-‘70s followup to Harrad. Once again taking place in Boston, this novel documents a new Harvard experiment in which the “Harrad method” is applied to lower-class, multicultural students. They will live in communes, males and females sharing a new roommate every several months, both white and black (other ethnicities apparently don’t factor in). “Premar” stands for “premarital,” and through some reasoning I didn’t quite catch, Rimmer has it that if these kids live in an open sexual relationship with a new mate every semester, it will lead them into becoming better, more understanding adults.

I’ve never read The Harrad Experiment, but it’s my understanding it’s written in a simliar format, as the transcripts of the various students and “Comprars” (ie “commune parents,” the older leaders of each commune), only in Harrad it was journal entries. Which is to say, the entirety of The Premar Experiments is relayed like dialog, spoken onto audio cassette and later transcribed. In this way the novel almost comes off like James Robert Baker’s magesterial Boy Wonder – only a whole hell of a lot less funny.

You see my friends, Robert Rimmer is a True Believer. He’s also a True Socialist, and this novel could almost be subtitled “The Sensuous Socialist” or the like, to tie in with that whole ‘70s “Sensuous” paperback fad. The societal engineering perpetrated upon the naïve students who attend Premar is disgusting, and I’m not just saying that because I’ve lived in Texas for the past several years. No, the goal of Premar is to basically brainwash these kids into a sort of group mentality that shuns independent thought – indeed, at one point one of the creators of the program states that thinking for one’s self will not be one of Premar’s tenets! 

Anyway, getting away from the “elitist” confines of Harvard and Boston proper, the Premar communes are set up in Topham’s Corner, a fictional section of Boston’s Dorchester district, a lower-income area of the city mostly comprised of poor Irish-Americans. The spearhead of this experiment is Dr. Philip Tenhausen, who also was the creator of the Harrad program (and appeared in that novel as well). Tenhausen however is only a peripheral character this time, appearing here and there in other characters’s sections. The novel itself belongs solely to the students and their slightly-older Comprars.

There are a lot of characters, and they talk a lot. Again, the novel is made up their dialog only, but this is a pretty expressive and descriptive cast, so in effect the novel comes off like a series of first-person narratives by a variety of characters. One failing however is that most of these characters sound alike, all of them spouting the same rhetoric. And one of the major problems with The Premar Experiments is that it’s too damn long – 426 pages of densely-packed, incredibly tiny print in this mass market paperback edition. The early pages especially can be rough going, documenting how the program was initiated and the Comprars were hired; these pages are also very thick in the whole late ‘60s radical ethic, making the novel seem even more dated.

This is very true for one of the major characters: Bren Gattman, a “Hindu Jew firebrand” who is Abbie Hoffman in all but name. A 28 year-old know-nothing know-it-all (as Homer Simpson would call him), Bren is one of those characters you just can’t help but hate. But the thing is, Rimmer is obviously enamored of him, as Bren can do no wrong and knows everything there is to know about everything. A famous countercultural icon who bucks authority and fights the man, Bren is nonetheless a doctorate student and conjoins his own similar ideas for an inner-city commune with the Premar ideas of Dr. Tenhausen. Bren is asked to become a Comprar in the Topham’s Corner commune, but in order to become one, he has to be married; for reasons never properly explained, Comprars are required to be married couples.

Bren sets his sights on Ellen O’Day, weak-hearted daughter of famous Boston conservative Republican councilman Dancer O’Day. Rimmer shows his left-wing roots in the (thankfully few) sequences with Dancer, who blusters reactionary rhetoric like a straight-up cliché. Anyway Ellen truly does have a weak heart, such that at 25 she’s never left Boston, has never had sex, and is bed-ridden most of the time due to medical concerns that her heart might rupture. Despite this she is interested in the revolution movement and ends up meeting Bren after arguing with him during a lecture he gives at Harvard. A bizarre romance ensues, in which Bren successfully gets Ellen away from her domineering (and of course, wrong about everything) father and into the Premar program.

Rimmer plays a few tricks with continuity, jumbling up the transcripts so that they jump from “prelude to Premar” stories from Ellen, Bren, and others from three months or so before the program begins, to matching these alongside later transcripts from students who are actually in the Dorchester commune in the fall semester. At first I thought Rimmer was doing this to perhaps set up and play off little mysteries or reveals, but gradually it appeared moreso that he was doing it so that it didn’t come off as a huge info-dump early on with lots of backstory about how Ellen et al came to be involved with Premar. Of course, another (and better) option would’ve been to cut all of this backstory and just start right in with Premar already a reality, but whatever.

Anyway the Bren/Ellen storyline plays out over transcripts from later in the semester, from the kids attending the experiment. Apprently 48 kids are placed in the three Topham’s Corner communes, but Rimmer only focuses on a few of them. There’s a promiscuous girl, a corn-fed boy from the sticks who’s never even kissed a girl, an “angry black” guy (more on the black characters later), and a heavyset girl who lives with him the first semester – and indeed we learn it was her choice to start with him. Why? Because we eventually learn that her dad was friggin’ murdered by black youths in a robbery, and thus she wants to “prove” to herself that she doesn’t judge all black people for his death.

And meanwhile Bren not only gets Ellen to fall in love with him, but he also takes her virginity. Now Ellen has to cope with the fact that she’s in love with a Jewish firebrand who’s also sleeping with a black girl, Merle Blanc, the wife of Bren’s comrade-in-arms, fellow revolutionary Rais Daemon. The first few hundred pages of the novel play up on the Rais mystery; a native of fictional Caribbean island nation St. Noir, Rais is a hulking, dashiki-clad black man who has led riots in the US (where he was once jailed for attacking a police acquaintance of Dancer O’Day) and is now back in his homeland, but he’s supposed to be in Pemar, working as a Comprar with Merle.

Yes, friends, all of this Rais-on-St. Noir stuff is straight out of Island Paradise – and just as unwanted. Seriously, the Rais Daemon material has absolutely nothing to do with the novel proper, and comes off like Robert Rimmer attempting a “black radical voice” for large stretches of the narrative. We get long excerpts of Rais’s much-ballyhooed “Walk Before God,” a speech delivered behind bars and later published in various newspapers. We get long narratives from Rais’s point of view about various beliefs, political, religious, and etc, and of course how wrong they are – just like Bren, Rais Daemon knows everything there has ever been to know. Just ask him! And what’s more, writing as a black character gives Rimmer freedom to use all manner of racist epithets; he especially does this when writing from Merle’s perspective.

But when Book Two opens, about two hundred pages in, we discover that Rais has been hiding in St. Noir, where he’s fostered a revolution which inadvertently caused the crash of a 707, killing all 160+ passengers! All that is save one – Laura Stone, a white lady who was the only survivor, and who Rais came across while he was paddling his getaway boat away from St. Noir! But that’s not all – Rais has taken the girl captive, as a representative of all white society he’s against, and plans to ransom her, but meanwhile he’s caring for her (complete with disgusting description of how he’s cleaned her off, due to her menstrual period) and falling for her – oh, and Laura Stone, not that Rais yet knows it, just happens to be the sister of Bren Grattman!

Now we have the makings of a sure-fire melodrama. Too bad it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the novel. I mean, there’s even a part where Merle goes to St. Noir to find Rais, only to discover he’s sleeping with her kid sister, and when Rais informs Merle he’s heading off on his fishing boat with her sister and it’s time for Merle to go back to the US, Merle chases after him, friggin’ sticks her hand down his pants and grabs his dick, and screams “It’s mine! It’s mine!” as she slides along on her knees after him, still holding onto it as he walks away. So as you can see, Rimmer can in fact write trash when he wants to.

It’s strange, though, because the Rais/Laura storyline seems to be lifted whole-hog from one of those “Savage Desire” or whatever Romance novels that were all the rage at the time, stuff like The Savage Sands and the like, where a civilized woman is abducted from her home by some “barbarian” who eventually breaks down her ladylike and puritan values until she becomes a “fuck machine” – Laura’s words to describe herself, in fact, in a transcript of her own, which she puts onto audio tape on the island upon which Rais Daemon keeps her prisoner…though a willing prisoner. But this whole section is just so weird in that it has nothing to do with the novel and indeed could come off as a novel of its own, the snobbish and arrogant married lady in her late 30s who falls in love with a younger black man on a deserted island.

All of which is to say, there are moments of Trash Mastery here and there in the novel, but for most of it they are obscured by the societal engineering of the Premar initiative. And it truly is disgusting, as these kids are molded into perfect little socialists – football and other sports are eschewn, as the Premar board specifically wants to drum out competitiveness. The kids are ordered to record their thoughts every single day, and to listen to the recorded thoughts of the others in their specific group, so that there are no secrets and everyone knows what everyone else is thinking. They are also told what to wear, but for the most part they are ordered to show up for group events naked. They have to take baths together. Each day they have to take part in a “Human Values” class in which they go over the (Premar admin-mandated) reading list and discuss all in an open environment.

In short, they lose the ability to think for themselves. And due to the endlessly-detailed first-person narratives each of them leave for us, we see how they grow into these perfectly-adapted kids who…do everything Bren or Rais Daemon say. Seriously, the amount of hero-worship the kids have for these two losers is saddening (and again, one could say it’s moreso an indication of Rimmer’s own hero-worship). Every “transcript” from the Premar kids is filled with “Bren thinks” or “Rais says” and etc. Also, putting myself back in my teenaged mind…I can’t imagine why any kid would want to attend Premar. Sure, sharing a dorm room with a girl would be great and all, but still – the loss of individual freedoms would greatly outweigh the chance of scoring.

But Rimmer goes on oblivious, packing his pages with inordinate detail, even reams of exposition from Bren and Rais as Premar has an open night with the locals, welcoming Topham’s Corner into the rubric – and for that, Rimmer can’t even get his theme straight; Bren and Rais had a pre-Premar idea for something called Confamiliaum, a sort of merging of a community into one entity, and the final third of the novel jettisons the Premar stuff and focuses on “Confam,” as the duo (and their drones the kids) attempt to get the people of Topham’s Corner to unite with Premar into a single community. It’s all just so lethargic and boring.

The soap opera stuff returns with the appearance of Rais, who finally shows up at Premar, bringing Laura Stone along. One has to wonder why the Premar board would allow Rais to work as a Comprar, as he’s nothing but friggin’ trouble, and indeed in reality would put the entire Premar project at risk, given the publicity he receives due to the previously-thought-dead Laura Stone returning with this man who kidnapped her, a man whose baby she is about to have – that is, after openly staying with him in a rundown commune in Boston filled with a bunch of naked kids. But regardless, this storyline takes us into the homestretch, as Bren and Rais make an unlikely ally in Rocky Stone, Laura’s husband, who – while Laura is having Rais’s baby – decides to go ahead and help Bren and Rais fund Confamilaum, which of course the Topham’s Corner people are all for!

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the part where Bren screws his own sister.  While she's pregnant with Rais's child.  While his wife Ellen is in the hospital recovering from her latest heart trauma.  And not only does she not have a problem with it, everyone just shrugs it off as Bren helping his sister to "heal!"

In a way, The Premar Experiments is just as far to the left as the works of Joseph Rosenberger or Mark Roberts are far to the right. And it’s just as fantasy-based as the novels of those two authors. Reading this book from the perspective of a generation later, the whole thing just seems so stupid, wrong-headed, and doomed to failure. And, given that I was born in 1974, I would’ve been the generation Rimmer hoped would become the first full “Premar generation” or whatever. Now, my generation has its own problems, but I’d like to think that none of us when we were teens would’ve been dumb enough to willingly enter some school that would just remove all of our freedoms and etc. And I’m not speaking from some lofty perch; I grew up in a destitute town that would make this fictional Topham’s Corner look like New York City.

Ironically, I discovered The Premar Experiments due to an ad in the back of my mass market paperback copy of Cyra McFadden’s The Serial. It’s funny because both novels cover sort of the same things, but whereas McFadden’s is a spoof of these sentiments, showing how ultimately dehumanizing they are, Rimmer actually means it, man. Looking up more info on the book (which is scant) I came across the preview to a 1999 self-published edition on Amazon, where in a 1998-dated preface Rimmer stated that he still believes that a Premar program would be beneficial.

Also it would appear that Rimmer suffered the same literary fate as my man Herbert Kastle. Graced with hardcover editions and publicity early in his career, by the time the later ‘70s came around Rimmer was relegated to mass market paperback editions only; The Premar Experiments was Rimmer’s last hardcover, after which Signet published his novels as paperback originals. I’ve picked up some of these, and despite my issues with this novel I look forward to reading them; Rimmer does dole out some good prose, if you can get past the overt socialist/communist ethic.

Motive For Murder (aka Ryker #7)

Motive For Murder, by Edson T. Hamill
No month stated, 1975  Leisure Books

It doesn’t feature a series title or volume number, but this was actually the seventh volume of the Ryker series. Not that it much matters, as Motive For Murder works as a standalone novel, likely turned out by a writer new to the series – given the research of Justin Marriott in Paperback Fanatic #28, I’m assuming like him that Edson T. Hamill was just a Leisure house name.

But here’s the crazy thing – whoever actually wrote this was pretty good! In fact, Motive For Murder is easily my favorite Ryker novel yet. It combines the assholic “hero” of Nelson DeMille’s original creation with the goofy tone of Len Levinson's take on the character. “Hamill” has a good handle on character and action, and one could argue that his version of Ryker is even more of a dick than DeMille’s; as evidenced by how we’re introduced to our hero in this volume: “If there was anything Sergeant Joe Ryker despised more than homosexuals, it was long-haired hippies.”

This is just the tip of the iceburg, as in Motive For Murder Ryker beats up innocent people, threatens “friends,” and even puts children in danger in his effort to track down “The Cremator,” a homicidal woman who is taking young men home and torching them. She has killed three men so far (we meet her during her latest murder, as she sets fire to a guy by putting a candle to his long hair), and the cops haven’t gotten any leads in tracking her down. All that’s known from the precious few who have seen her is that the Cremator is gorgeous, fantastically built, and wears various wigs.

Ryker is still Ryker, but this volume almost takes place in some alternate reality: his fellow cops all have the same names as in previous installments, but act differently. For example Bo Lindly, the closest thing Ryker had to a friend in DeMille’s Night Of The Phoenix, here comes off like yet another of Ryker’s enemies, constantly mocked as an “Ivy League cop” by Ryker and the others. Lt. Fischetti is out to get Ryker fired, and this time Ryker’s partner is Tex Medley, a new character and junior cop who might as well be wearing a red shirt, if you catch my drift. Also, continuing with the alternate universe feel, we learn here that Ryker’s wife and son were murdered by the Mafia years ago, in retaliation upon Ryker, whereas in the DeMille books Ryker had no son and he was divorced, still getting in fights with his ex on the phone.

Ryker’s biggest archenemy in Motive For Murder is Creighton Straichey, a TV reporter who apparently has been hounding Ryker for years (though, needless to say, this is the first we readers have ever heard of him). Hamill delivers a few scenes where the two men come head to head, with Straichey determined to out Ryker as a fascist idiot, and Ryker always getting the last laugh. Some of the scenes are pretty comical, with Ryker confronting Straichey on the street or while he’s dining in a restaurant. However the ultimate outcome of the Ryker-Straichey confrontation is pretty dark, as I’ll mention later.

While Ryker is busy busting heads and confronting Straichey, Tex actually gets the first break in the case – he finds out from a witness that the Cremator was wearing a special lipstick, one that is available in only one place: Madame Olga Petrovia’s Instituit de Beaut, a cosmetics store in Manhattan. Almost fascistly run by the ancient Madame Olga (whose right arm is the immense Gerte von Tiffell), the place is obviously somehow connected the Cremator, but Ryker doesn’t connect the dots until much too late.

Meanwhile the Cremator continues her murders, and we see in one haunting scene that her kills can rake in innocent bystanders as well, like when she burns alive some poor message carrier and inadvertently sets an entire apartment building on fire. Hamill here proves his ease with killing off characters, as we read how a young wife and her newborn twins die in the conflagration. Oddly enough the Cremator actually sleeps with this victim, though her standard m.o. is to have the victim strip down, throw his clothes at the bottom of the bed, and jerk off onto the blue bedsheets(!!). Hamill doesn’t elaborate on why the Cremator screws this particular victim, though he does provide a fairly graphic description of it all.

Unlike DeMille, Hamill keeps everything rolling smoothly; the Cremator kills a few poor saps, Ryker butts heads and makes asinine comments (even getting thrown in jail at one point for harrassing a woman in an insane asylum!), and the city becomes increasingly agitated, thanks to Creighton Straichey’s broadcasts over the inability of the police to stop the killer. Hamill even delivers a few action scenes, like when Ryker is nearly offed by a hitman moments after leaving Madame Olga’s store (yet he still doesn’t put two and two together!). He also delivers a sex scene for Ryker, when Creighton Straichey’s wife Ondine calls Ryker over to her secret apartment and throws herself at him – a very funny scene, which sees Ryker still treating the poor lady like shit even as he deigns to let her blow him. (“You give good fuckin’ head,” being his sterling endorsement.)

But Ryker’s using of Ondine gets even darker in the novel’s finale. After a few characters have been knocked off by the Cremator (who of course turns out to be connected to Madame Olga), Ryker comes up with one of his dumbass plans; he forces Ondine to draft her teenaged son, Mervyn, to pose as a delivery boy so as to capture the Cremator’s attention. The climax plays out in Madame Olga’s store and here Hamill once again displays his ease with killing off various characters. In fact by novel’s end Ryker is so despicable – even still threatening a character whose life he has ruined – that you just have to laugh at the dark comedy of it all.

Anyway, I have to say I really liked Motive For Murder, and I wonder if this same author served as “Edson T. Hamill” for any of the other Ryker novels. About the only complaint I could make is his tendency to POV-hop, with character perspectives jarringly changing between paragraphs, but I’m thinking this might’ve been the usual half-assed “editing” at Leisure at work.

Drug Of Choice

Drug Of Choice, by John Lange
January, 1970  Signet Books

John Lange was a pseudonym Michael Crichton used between 1966 and 1972, for a total of eight novels, most of them paperback originals. I think this is the first Crichton novel I’ve read, and I really enjoyed it – however word seems to be that the “Lange” books are more pulpy than those bearing Chrichton’s name, and also that this particular novel, Drug Of Choice, is even different than the rest. But man, if all Crichton books were like this, I’d be a big fan.

This short novel, barely 200 pages, takes place right in the psychedelic late ‘60s, roping in everything from rock groups to mind control. Crichton’s writing is so economical that you barely notice it; the closest comparison I could think of would be Richard Stark. His skill with quickly setting scenes and introducing characters is pretty incredible, and you see how he used the Lange years to hone his writing style.

Our hero is Dr. Roger Clark, who works in the emergency ward at LA Memorial Hospital. His normal life is thrown off track one night by the appearance of an apparently comatose Hell’s Angel, who crashed out in front of a police witness and has been in a deep sleep ever since, with no apparent damage to his body. This is strange enough, but then Clark notices blue urine in the bottle beneath the biker’s bed. But the next morning the urine has changed to a normal color, and everyone thinks Clark is nuts. Then the biker wakes up, as if nothing’s wrong, and leaves in perfect health, with no memory of the previous night or even of the bike crash.

A few weeks later a similar case appears – this time it’s the beautiful Sharon Wilder, a famous actress. Brought into the hospital in an apparent comatose state, she too expels blue urine, and Clark of course begins to suspect something’s going on. And just like the biker, Sharon wakes up the next day in perfect health, with no memory of passing out or any other foul play. Indeed she begins hitting on Clark, asking him on a date – and takes him to bed that night.

But Clark wakes up the next morning with no memory of having spent the night with one of Hollywood’s most famous leading ladies. Sharon acts as if nothing’s odd, and asks him out again. She brings him into the jet-set world, and there follows a sequence where Clark goes to a party on a yacht one night and meets a variety of unusual characters. This portion for some reason reminded me of early Don DeLillo; in fact a lot of Drug Of Choice comes off as DeLillo-esque, with our protagonist experiencing missing time and other unexplained phenomena, all relayed in very cold, almost detached prose.

One thing Clark does learn is that Sharon’s on a special drug, a pill which he’s certain is what causes the memory lapses and blue urine. He goes about researching it, and Sharon as well. This latter research leads him to Sharon’s psychiatrist, Dr. Shine, who informs Clark that Sharon suffered delusions that some corporation was controlling her mind – a delusion, he says, that lots of Hollywood stars suffer from. It’s all very strange and very MK Ultra-esque. As for the drug, eventually Clark learns that it’s the product of Advance, Inc, a California-based corporation run by a certain Dr. Harvey Blood.

The novel continues on its weird course when Clark shows up to ask Blood questions – and ends up being asked if he wants to work for Advance! The corporation owns an island in the Caribbean, Eden Island (formerly San Cristobal island), in which they’ve built a modern and opulent resort. Blood not only wants Clark to begin working for them as a drug researcher, but also to visit the resort. And this isn’t the first he’s heard of it, as Sharon has also mentioned it – and indeed has told Clark she’ll be heading there in a few weeks.

That disconnected feel ensues as Clark next goes out with Dr. Shine’s secretary, who enthusiastically pops pills during dinner and then invites Clark home with her – and not only does he wake up alone in his own bed days later, but he once again has no memory of events. But due to his missing time he’s also missed his scheduled trip to Mexico (which his travel agent tried to talk him out of, telling him he should go to Eden Island instead)…and so, conveniently enough, he’s free to go with Sharon Wilder when she calls and asks him to go to Eden Island with her.

Advance, Inc comes off like a pretty interesting, if mysterious, organization. Founded by doctors with the express intent of using science for capital gain, the company has its tentacles in all avenues of society. Clark, researching them, discovers that they apparently got their start with the discovery of SVD, “shark venereal disease,” which they turned into a drug. From there they founded the resort community, which is claimed to be state of the art in all respects, and the answer to any vacationer’s dream. To get there though one must fly to Nassau, Florida, and then board a windowless plane, owned by the company, which flies passengers to the secret location of the island.

The novel goes further into weird psychedelia once the sunny paradise of Eden Island is revealed to be nothing more than a drug trip – and when Clark wakes up to find all his memories false, he’s further stunned to learn that he was awoken on purpose, as he’s now an employee of Advance! Apparently he signed a contract that day he visited Blood, and now they expect him to oversee the resort (which is a rundown shambles in reality), ensuring that the “customers” are not injured during their drug-induced vacation. When Clark tries to escape, Advance shows him that their drug (which has no name, and thus is just called the “drug of choice”) can be used to instill horrific pain.

It all continues to become even more joyfully weird with Clark placed in more psychic, drugged torment; eventually back in LA with Advance, he’s next tasked with picking the woman who will become Glow Girl. Looking to break into the rock market, Advance wants to promote a group that will sing about science and how beneficial it is; they’ve already recorded the LP (“Six Inch Incision” by Glow Girl and the Scientific Coming), they just need a suitably attractive girl to play the part of Glow Girl. Shortly thereafter, through more MK Ultra-esque means, Clark becomes a happy worker for Advance, and the novel just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

If there’s any problem with Drug Of Choice, it’s that it wraps up too quickly. I would’ve enjoyed seeing Crichton play out this creepy story a bit further. But as it is, Clark soon comes back to himself and begins plotting vengeance – something he finds very hard to do, given how cozy Advance is with the police and the government. Also the fate of certain characters, like brainwashed Advance drone Sharon Wilder, is left unexplored, however Clark does bump into Glow Girl in the final page.

For years Drug Of Choice was impossible to find, and the original Signet edition and 1974 Bantam reprint were super expensive (and still are). Luckily Hard Case Crime brought the book back into print in November, 2013, so it’s now easily available for those who want to check it out. And I’d recommend you do, as this is a very cool book, and so breezily and capably written that you’ll speed through it in no time. 

Here’s the cover for that 1974 Bantam reprint, which is my favorite of them all:

And here’s the 2013 Hard Case Crime edition, which stays true to the imprint’s painted-cover theme:

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.