Showing posts with label Raymond Obstfeld. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Raymond Obstfeld. Show all posts

Monday, January 18, 2021

Dagger #1: The Centaur Conspiracy


Dagger #1: The Centaur Conspiracy, by Carl Stevens
September, 1983  Gold Eagle

This was the start of the short-lived Dagger series. How short-lived? There was only one more volume. This isn’t an indication that the series is bad; I think it’s just more of an indication that it was courtesy the wrong imprint. For “Carl Stevens” is none other than Raymond Obstfeld, and his series has more in common with John D. MacDonald than Don Pendleton; judging from this first volume, Dagger would’ve been more at home with Dell or Pocket instead of from the publishers of Phoenix Force, as it has little in common with the action-focused titles Gold Eagle was known for. 

At 221 pages, The Centaur Conspiracy is already a little different from the rest of the Gold Eagle line; there’s a lot more backstory than the typical series book, with Obstfeld carefully world-building. There’s also more of a focus on characterization, and there’s much more focus on snappy dialog. But one thing missing is the gun-detail typical of the standard Gold Eagle fare. Hero Christian “Dagger” Daguerre doesn’t even carry his own gun, and his kill count is a fraction of other series protagonists in this imprint. For that matter, many of the action scenes in The Centaur Conspiracy seem forced, as if grafted on to appease the publisher’s demands. This is not to say they aren’t thrilling or well-written, though, it’s just that they could easily be cut and the story wouldn’t suffer from the loss. 

Daguerre then is different than the genre norm; he’s not a vet or a former cop or anything. He’s a journalist, one who has an extensive background in combat reporting. Daguerre’s father was a hardcore military type and raised his son to be the next in line, only to be stunned when young Daguerre announced he wanted to be a reporter. But as mentioned Daguerre’s specialty is combat reporting, to the extent that he’s had extensive Special Forces training, firearms and hand-to-hand training, and has even seen a lot of action in the line of journalism. There’s a lot of backstory peppered into the narrative, one of the stories being how Daguerre saved a bunch of soldiers all by himself during some heavy fighting in ‘Nam. One mystery I had is that the back cover specifies Daguerre’s “youth,” but we’re informed he was reporting in ‘Nam over a decade ago. I assume we’re to understand he’s in his early 30s or somesuch, but Gold Eagle calling out Daguerre’s “youth” on the back cover copy seems an indication they were trying to separate him from the standard “older Vietnam vet” of the genre. 

Daguerre’s backstory isn’t just limited to war reportage, though; there’s also his time with Hearst-esque “Captain” Hannibal Kyd, a newspaper baron who gave Daguerre his first big job many years ago and became like a father figure to him. Kyd eventually factors into this first installment, entailing long backflash sequences in which we learn that his duplicitous nature caused a rift between the two men: Kyd sent a pair of reporters on an investigation case back in the late ‘70s, not telling them the mob was involved, and they ended up being executed. While all this stuff is well written, it doesn’t have much to do with the story at hand, and again is another indication that Dagger isn’t at the right publishing house. An even bigger backstory has it that Daguerre was engaged to a young woman named Cara, but over a year ago she was gunned down on the streets of Rome when a pair of terrorists were trying to kidnap someone. This too elicits a long flashback sequence. But it now occurs to me that this is a common element in Obstfeld’s series novels; even his post-holocaust The Warlord often suffers from too much backstory digression.  

But Cara’s death was a year ago, and we learn of the events in gradual backstory. When we meet Daguerre he’s parasailing in Mazatlan, on assignment in this tourist spot in Mexico to do an easy job on the vacation industry. Only he sees one of the guys on the boat below whip out a knife and start sawing at the rope he’s connected to. This is our immediate indication that Obstfeld will, as ever, be delivering a fast-paced thriller with the vibe of an action movie; Daguerre’s even spouting quips in the face of danger like your average Hollywood hero of the day. Daguerre manages to manuever himself so that he plunges harmlessly into the ocean, but later he’s attacked by the same guy in his hotel room. We get another indication here that this isn’t going to be your average Gold Eagle novel: Daguerre doesn’t have a weapon, and must use his wits and his skills to kill his opponent in vicious hand-to-hand combat, strangling him with a tie. In fact there’s a proto-MacGyver vibe to the novel, with Daguerre often creating makeshift weapons. This too harkens to The Warlord, particularly given the focus on bladed weaponry; Obstfeld is certainly not one for the gun-detailing you get in the average Gold Eagle publication. 

Another Obstfeld mainstay is a vivacious female character – as with the other main female characters in the Obstfeld novels I’ve read, Alexandra Kidd (daughter of Hannibal) is a spunky heroine who has sparkling dialog and a gift for acidic rejoinders…and of course the genre-mandatory hot bod. Her intro is memorable, coming on to Daguerre in the hotel lobby and talking about a cigarette burn on her foot. But Daguerre quickly learns that she’s the daughter of his former mentor; last time he saw her she was a teenager, and now she’s a hotstuff babe in her mid 20s and looking to break into the news game on her own. A running gag has it that she secretly stays appraised of her father’s activities thanks to a well-placed “contact” (aka her mother), thus she found out that Hannibal Kyd was coming down to Mazatlan to look for Daguerre. Alexandra, sensing a big story, came down here on her own to find out what the scoop is and to exploit it; she doesn’t believe Daguerre’s insistence that he’s merely here to cover a simple vacation story. 

Hannibal Kyd turns out to be the reason that guy tried to kill Daguerre; Kyd wants to investigate a mysterious travel agency that operates out of Mazatlan, one Kyd believes is involved in something nefarious, and he started spreading the word around town that famous investigative journalist Christian Daguerre was down here to research the place! Thus the frequent attempts on Daguerre’s life. Kyd is not aware that his daughter is down here, though, and things take a turn for the personal when the bad guys manage to abduct her. This leads to one of those MacGyver moments when Daguerre, who still doesn’t even have a friggin’ gun, goes into a toy store and buys some supplies, along with a chemistry set, and makes himself a pitcher of homemade tear gas. This is used to save Alexandra in a thrilling sequence which once again sees Daguerre using bladed weapons to kill his enemies, as well as delivering more action movie-esque quips. 

Eventually Daguerre learns the “travel agency” is up to something real nefarious; long story short, it’s a front for a PLO terrorist organization run by a sadistic dude nicknamed Centaur (due to a scar on his forehead), and the “conspiracy” of the title has to do with Centaur’s plan to smuggle terrorists across the border via the travel agency so as to carry out a major terrorist strike on the US. The terrorists, male and female, pose as simple “Mexican” laborers, hired by wealthy Americans who use the travel agency via word of mouth. In an entertaining sequence Daguerre and Alexandra (who of course have done the deed by this point, though the sex scene is pretty PG – but the fact there’s even one in a Gold Eagle novel is surprising enough) pose as a married couple and visit the agency, looking for a new maid. 

They cross the border and then pull off in the desert to inspect their “new maid,” who has been hidden by the travel agency in a secret compartment behind the trunk. It’s a young woman who claims to be from a desolate region of Mexico, hence her bad Mexican accent (Daguerre being fluent in many languages). Of course it’s all a ruse and she’s really a Palestenian terrorist. Daguerre ties her to the ground and interrogates her with a tarantula, but it’s up to Alexandra to save the day when the terrorist chick gets free, as expected. Centaur meanwhile appears sporadically in the novel, usually domineering over his cowed underlings; Centaur, whose name is really Nasil, is infamous for biting the tongues out of his victims…and feeding them to the “elite” members of his commando squad. Unfortunately his towering nature is a bit subdued in a climax that would be more at home in a Travis McGee novel. 

With much setup Daguerre ventures to Los Angeles, where Centaur now is situated, and goes about posing as a windsurfer. At length he gets on a boat inside which Centaur has stashed several wealthy American victims; Centaur’s somewhat anticlimactic plot centers around kidnapping wealthy Americans and blowing them all up. So Daguerre gets on the boat, starts to free some of the people, and is surprised by Centaur, who shows up, knocks Daguerre out…and leaves! It’s all very ridiculous as Daguerre stumbles back to consciousness and gives chase, eventually ending up on Centaur’s own boat and getting in a prolonged fight with him. Even the villain’s comeuppance seems more out of a summer blockbuster film than the typical Gold Eagle staple; it’s courtesy some spinning boat propellers. 

The Centaur Conspiracy ends with Daguerre and Alexandra forming a “team.” No idea if she appears in the second (and final!) volume, which judging from the cover takes place in Japan. Overall this one was pretty entertaining, if a bit overlong – a lot of the backstory was somewhat excessive and could’ve been shortened. But Obstfeld’s attempt at melding standard Gold Eagle men’s adventure with something along the lines of John D. MacDonald is to be commended; it’s easy to see, though, why the series didn’t last. 

Finally, I love how the back cover of The Centaur Conspiracy features a blurb from none other than “Dick Stivers” – yep, a nonexistent author. This almost leads to one of those philosophical ponderings: if a nonexistent author blurbs a book, does that mean the book itself doesn’t exist? Better yet is the page of reader comments at the very end of the book, with quotes from readers across the country on how great Gold Eagle is; all their names are given as initials, but an asterisk informs us that “full names are available upon request.” Like in case the FBI wants to investigate the legitimacy of these claims or something.

Thursday, March 14, 2019

The Warlord #2: The Cutthroat


The Warlord #2: The Cutthroat, by Jason Frost
January, 1984  Zebra Books

I shouldn’t have doubted Raymond Obstfeld. I found the first volume of The Warlord so poor that I put off returning to the series for a good long while. I shouldn’t have waited so long, because from the first page of The Cutthroat I realized that this was the Obstfeld who’d written Invasion U.S.A.. That sounds like an insult but I mean it as a compliment, because I loved that book.

And luckily, The Cutthroat is in much the same style as Invasion U.S.A.; whereas the first volume of The Warlord was, I felt, a ponderous and bloated bore, the second one moves at a fast clip and has the snappy dialog I expect from Obstfeld. This is proven in the first few pages, in which Eric “The Warlord” Ravensmith and his girlfriend, former courtroom artist Tracy, are in a boat above sunken downtown Los Angeles and Tracy randomly starts wondering aloud if Goldie Hawn’s still alive.

It’s a few months after that previous book, and California has descended even further into brutality and despair. Rather than socialism, full-on unbridled capitalism is the order of the day, and in random asides we learn that women have become chattel. Obstfeld takes this concept and runs with it throughout, as well as the idea that people are free to become whoever they want to be in this post-catstrophe California. A former information technology entreprenneur can become a modern Blackbeard, a former nightclub singer can become ruler of Hearst Castle – which itself is transformed into a Mos Eisley sort of trader’s den. So the theme of transformation also extends to the setting, with California getting a new image post-Halo.

And yet despite the wish-fulfilment, Obstfeld is one of those men’s adventure authors who wants to buzzkill the escapism with “realistic” stuff. So we learn soap and razors are at a minimum – not only is everyone nasty and grungy, but women can no longer shave their armpits or legs. Tracy however loves this, and finds it one of the “best things” about living in post-Halo California. (Obstfeld uses this phrase throughout, and it’s catching, the Halo being the psychedelic smog that now hangs over California.) Tracy’s also hacked her hair off so she’ll look more like a boy and not rapist-bait.

Maybe because it’s because I’ve been on a classic rock kick lately, but I wonder if Obstfeld’s opening is an action ‘80s inversion of the CSN/Jefferson Airplane track “Wooden Ships.” ‘Cause both the book and the song open with people on different ships approaching one another in a post-holocaust world: in the song they exchange smiles and food, but in The Cutthroat they shoot arrows and bullets at one another while trading action movie one-liners. Of course, it’s possible I could be reaching, and it’s also possible my reading might’ve been colored by the fact I recently got Volunteers on vinyl, first pressing in mint shape with all the inserts and everything…

Anyway I’m digressing as usual. It’s a masterful opening sequence, and better than the entirety of the previous book. Eric and Tracy are on a canoe heading out onto the sea, tracking Eric’s archenemy Fallon, who as we’ll recall kidnapped Eric’s adopted son with the intent of raising him as his own. Instead they run into a bunch of pirates. The Cutthroat is basically Pirates Of The Caribbean meets post-nuke pulp; it has almost nothing in common with the previous volume, which played it straight for the most part.

And indeed, Obstfeld only makes occasional mentions of the first volume; only rarely are we reminded how much of a prick Eric became in the final quarter. Here he’s more willing to save others, though he’ll occasionally give almost blasé “it’s everyone for himself” comments on the situation. He’s also had a huge personality upgrade, doling out one-liners and sarcastic retorts; another recurring joke is that he’s a walking encyclopedia, and knows the particulars of any subject, no matter how obscure.

Obstfeld has just as much fun with the villains of the piece. Chief among them is Rhino, sort of a ripoff of Two-Face from Batman: one side of his face and body is melted gray flesh from a failed attempt at crossing through the Halo, which turns out to be hazardous to all forms of life. Now he’s reborn as the captain of a pirate ship, his crew dressed like Rocky Horror Picture Show rejects and Rhino intentionally going over the top as a bad guy.

There’s also Angel, an evil Vietnamese babe with boobs that are “large for an Oriental’s, but firm and perfectly round.” Further, “her long dark nipples budded straight out like thorns.” We get to see all this because Angel casually doffs her top upon Eric and Tracy’s capture aboard Rhino’s ship. Angel and Eric have a little history: after a night of sex 14 years ago in ‘Nam, Eric “killed” Angel with a sniper rifle. Orders from Fallon. Angel now proudly displays the puckered bullet wounds between her big ‘ol boobs; she didn’t die because double-crosser Fallon warned her and gave her a bulletproof vest.

How or why exactly Angel got to California before the quakes isn’t much elaborated on, but I love my pulpy and depraved female villains so I won’t complain. I’m just happy she’s here. However Obstfeld doesn’t do much to capitalize on this aspect – Angel’s evil, to be sure, in the Nietzschean sense at least, and was known for eviscerating and mutilating people with a balisong knife back in ‘Nam. But otherwise there’s no exploitation of her sexy evil charms, and she just plumb wants to kill Eric. She also disappears for a large portion of the novel, along with Rhino, which kind of sucks, because they’re set up as such a wacky pair, and Rhino’s motley crew of sadistic rejects is equally fun.

Instead, Eric and Tracy are able to escape when Rhino attacks another ship. Tracy is shot in the hip and, surprisingly for the genre, we learn that she won’t be able to just walk it off. She’ll have a permanent slight limp. So again as you can see, Obstfeld isn’t afraid to let realism get in the way of his escapist fantasy. However Eric and Tracy are promptly captured by another group of pirates, this one led by a muscle-bound black dude who calls himself Blackjack. They turn out to be sort of post-Halo hippies who live in a partially-submerged skyscraper; the top floor turns out to be a greenhouse in which they grow their own vegetables.

Both Blackjack and Rhino are searching for “Alabaster’s map,” and of course neither Eric nor Tracy have any idea what it is. Ultimately we’ll learn that Alabaster was a government employee who knew where all the guns and weapons confiscated from Californians in the first volume are now hidden. Both pirates want these weapons for their own purposes, though Blackjack claims he wants the guns for defense of his skyscraper island fortress. Presumably the “cutthroat” of the title, Blackjack is a memorable character, though not nearly as much as Rhino is. He turns out to have been a pediatrician before the quake, but now he’s the pot-smoking leader of a group of battle-hardened pirates, many of whom worked in Blackjack’s old hospital.

Even though there isn’t much in the way of the action, the novel moves at a snappy clip, making the previous volume seem even more like a sluggish bore. Also it’s worth noting that this volume’s much shorter, which I think works to its advantage. The focus is more on character and plot, as Eric is able to convince Blackjack that his best chance of getting that map is letting Eric get it, as Eric’s already figured out that Angel double-crossed Rhino and knows where the map is. This is how Eric’s able to negotiate his freedom and safe passage out of here with Tracy.

Things pick up in the final quarter, in which the action moves to the transformed Hearst Castle, now run by the above-mentioned nightclub entertainer, BeBop; his goons patrol the grounds in black Hearst Castle T-shirts. It’s an everything-goes sort of place, but BeBop has a strict no-killing policy, as it’s bad for business. Of course, Rhino and Angel are here, so it’s only a matter of time until the fireworks break out. Obstfeld works up the suspense and tension as Eric, Tracy, and Blackjack plot Angel’s abduction. Even here though it’s done more on a low-key vibe, without the big action setpieces you usually get in post-nuke pulp.

The climax is similarly unspectacular, but memorable: Eric versus Rhino in a garbage-filled pool in Hearst Castle. This features the novel’s sole gore, as Eric begins ripping off strips of Rhino’s mutated skin. There’s also mortal combat between Tracy and Angel; like the reporter in Invasion U.S.A., Tracy is a strong female character who doesn’t let cliched “tough girl” posturing get in the way of being a fun and vivacious personality – Hollywood’s screenwriters of today could learn much from Obstfeld in this regard.

Obstfeld’s writing is great but he undermines himself periodically with strange digressions that are shoehorned into the narrative and come off as incredibly arbitrary. This first occurs early on, with a needlessly-digressive backstory on Rhino, up to and including his first sexual encounter! This sort of thing goes on throughout; characters will flash back on happenings long ago, no matter what dire situation they’re facing – like Eric, in the climactic brawl with Rhino, pondering how people need entertainment no matter how horrible the world is. And did we really need all the arbitrary backstory on the employees who once worked in Blackjack’s skyscraper headquarters? This sort of stuff, now that I think of it, is what ultimately ruined The Warlord #1, but at least it isn’t as prevalent here. 

Even though this volume almost seems like filler in the grand scheme of things – Fallon doesn’t appear and Eric doesn’t get anywhere in his search for his son – it’s still very enjoyable, and makes me look forward to continuing with the series.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

The Warlord #1


The Warlord, by Jason Frost
No month stated, 1983  Zebra Books

First of all, I want to apologize if I’ve been writing a string of negative reviews on here. I hope it should be clear to everyone that I love these series books and would rather read them than anything else. But I’m not going to sugarcoat things when the situation arises – sometimes I’m really let down, and by god, I’m gonna tell you about it when I am. And unfortunately, such is the case with this first volume of The Warlord, which was by the usually-gifted Raymond Obstfeld, writing under the name “Jason Frost,” which he also used to write the incredible Invasion U.S.A. novelization.

I really wanted to like this book. I’d been meaning to read it for a while, having picked up the six volumes of the series over the years. But I was really let down, and in a major way – to the point where I was skimming through stuff, something I never thought I’d say about an Obstfeld novel. As for the series itself, it’s hard to tag Warlord, as it was packaged like other Zebra post-nuke pulps, only the series occurs after a natural disaster rather than a nuclear one. Otherwise the series has all the trappings of post-nuke pulp: a threadbare society dealing with the ravages of a destroyed, dangerous world, one populated by even more dangerous survivors. Given this I’ve decided to label the series as a post-nuke pulp as well, even though technically it’s not. I have my lawyers filing the necessary paperwork.

The novel runs to 398 whopping pages and suffers for it. In defense of Obstfeld, my guess is he was handed this unwieldy word count and struggled to meet it. This means that the reader is barraged with unimportant, trivial information – usually egregious background info about one-off characters – throughout the book. It also means that the overriding drive of the narrative is ultimately lost in the clutter. The book wants to be post-catastrophe action but instead comes off like a bloated bore, one with uninvolving, unlikable characters.

It takes a long time for the catastrophe to occur. Instead we are slowly brought into the world of Eric Ravensmith, former ‘Nam Special Forces badass, now assistant professor of history at a college near Los Angeles. He’s a mountain of muscle with a livid scar that runs along his jaw. Folks, Eric Ravensmith is ‘80s Arnold Schwarzenegger in tweeds, and it’s a laughable image, but an image Obstfeld strives to convey. He’s married to former hippie Annie, a big-bossomed babe with whom Eric has raised two preteen kids, Jennifer and Timmy. Only later do we learn that neither of the kids are Eric’s biological children; in another of those long backstories we read how Eric came across the corpse of Annie’s soldier husband in the war, wrote her a sympathy letter, and then ran into her years later at an anti-war protest, after which they fell in love and got married.

Plaguing Eric’s idyllic life is the recurring nightmare that his old ‘Nam enemy, Colonel Dirk Fallows, will one day come after him. The novel opens with this event occurring, Eric waking up in his bed and realizing an intruder is in his home, sneaking up the stairs to kill Eric and then slaughter the rest of his family. Eric takes the guy out in a tense scene, one which sees almost buddy cop-esque humorous dialog between him and Annie, who takes the attempted murder of herself and her two kids pretty much in stride for a former tree-hugging hippie. And then we get a clue of what we’re in for, as instead of Eric breaking the bastard’s neck…we instead flash forward to two months later, and Eric’s in the midst of a court case against him and Fallows!

Eric is building a case that the assailant was under the employ of Fallows, a Shakespeare-quoting sadist from Eric’s Nam days. Back then Eric was in a top-secret unit called The Night Shift (Stephen King references run throughout the novel, by the way), which was basically an assassination and massacre detachment of the Special Forces. Fallows was the commander, and with his sadism, glee for killing, and prematurely white hair, he brings to mind the main villain in Avatar (I couldn’t believe that was the same actor from Crime Story, one of the best TV shows in history!!). Fallows took Eric under his wing, grooming him as his second in command, but one day Fallows went too far, and massacred an entire village, babies and all, crucifying the lot.

Turning in his commander, Eric succeeded in having Fallows put away for twenty years – but he’s just been released, eight years early. And Eric is certain Fallows is coming for him. Annie is aware of all this but is a bit too pragmatic about it…if I told my wife some dude who crucified an entire village was after me, she’d probably be out the door before I could finish my sentence. More Fallows-hired thugs come after Eric, including one unintentionally-humorous bit where one attacks him with nunchucks in a courthouse, having to resort to the wooden weapons to get around the courthouse metal detector. Speaking of Arnold, we get a prefigure of the famous line from Commando, two years later, when Eric bluntly states “I lied” to a man he’d promised not to kill.

The series occurs in a California rocked by massive earthquakes, and the first doesn’t happen until around 60 pages in. But Obstfeld hopscotches through a long patch of time in the opening half, with the action resuming two weeks after this big quake. There’s been mass death and destruction, and now the government’s going around to take guns from people, to stave off the violence or something. Eric gives up his pistol, but meanwhile he’s recently bought a Barnett Commando crossbow, which we’re informed has a pump action like a shotgun. Fallows is still out there, and Eric is certain his old enemy will be coming for him, quake-destruction or not.

Another massive quake hits; in this one Eric’s mom is killed (she’s a fellow teach at his university, and Obstfeld devotes more page-padding about her and her boyfriend). From this we jump to three months later, and we learn that Los Angeles has practically been destroyed, most of the coast is underwater, and California has broken away from the continent. (Sounds like a win-win for everyone!) A “dome of chemical gases,” nicknamed “The Halo,” surrounds the new island, courtesy various chemical weapons plants that were destroyed in the quake, resulting in “a super acid fog” that keeps the Californians in and keeps everyone else out. Yep, folks, all just like in King’s Under The Dome, only this was published decades before.

The Halo has basically psychedelicized California (well, only more so, I guess), with “gray-pink night and yellow-orange day” casting everything in odd new lights. Meanwhile Eric and family have barrickaded themselves on Eric’s college campus, along with other survivors; the outside world is referred to as “the Dead Zone” in another (this one credited) Stephen King reference. The place is run by the Council, comprised of a group of elected officials, and humorously enough it’s completely socialist in its makeup (well, this is California…), much like the post-apocalypse society in Doomsday Warrior. Eric is the Security Chief; he constantly butts heads with the dumbass Council, which refuses to grasp the dangers of this new California, at one point informing them, “You are a war council and I am your warlord.”

But they don’t listen, bullying him into taking a group with him out into the Dead Zone to trade with another community of survivors. Eric is against it but goes anyway. He takes along a small team of former students, each of whom is given inordinate backstory and too much dialog. None of them are likable. The trade turns out to be a ruse and, after a minor action sequence in which we see Eric’s crossbow in use against would-be brigands, the team returns to campus only to find destruction and death. The Council lied to Eric, sending him off on a wild goose chase so they could do the deal he warned them against; unsurprisingly, it turned out to be a plot courtesy Dirk Fallows.

Now young Timmy and Annie are gone, abducted (and we were treated to another Eric-Annie XXX boff which practically announced something bad was about to happen to the poor gal – complete even with some “I might die some day” dialog from her!), and worse yet little Jennifer’s throat has been slit. Eric is only briefly numb with shock. He gets nude and goes through a ritual he learned in his youth among the Hopi Indians (I forgot to mention he was sort of raised by them), emerging from the cathartic ceremony as “the Warlord,” the old Eric Ravensmith dead and gone, the new one “more Dirk Fallows than Dirk Fallows” (?).

I was hoping that this ritual would turn Eric Ravensmith into a sort of post-holocaust Rambo, but instead it just turns him into a jerk. Losing even the bare modicum of likable qualities he possessed before, Eric is more of a grump than anything. He takes off – that same group of kids in tow, all of whom volunteer for the mission – tracking down Fallows. Another campus resident, the lovely Tracy, follows behind. Tracy is another character given inordinate word count in the early half, a freelance newspaper artist who took a shine to Eric during the Fallows trial, threw herself at him right before the earthquakes hit, and now is best buds with Annie…and indeed is the babe Annie has suggested Eric hook up with “if anything ever happens to me,” in some of the most telegraphed foreshadowing I have ever encountered.

There follows a moment one doesn’t often encounter in the world of men’s adventure; while navigating through the post-quake wasteland, Eric and followers come across a mutilated young girl, clearly being used as a sex slave or something. Her “owners” soon arrive, biker-type scum who taunt Eric and team. Eric merely hands over the young girl, and continues on his way – no attempts at saving her and taking out the scum. Eric cares solely for his own interests at this point. This causes much frustration in the group, most of whom say they’re done with Eric at this point; even Tracy claims that, the way Eric is now acting, Annie wouldn’t even want him anymore.

Meanwhile, poor Annie is being held captive by Fallows, who tortures her and the reader with “I’m evil” dialog that goes on much too long. He keeps telling her all the bad stuff he’s gonna do to her. And meanwhile he’s going to brainwash young Timmy into loving him and thinking of Fallows as his father and making him hate Eric – Fallows assures Annie that this will be simple for him, as he’s been successfully brainwashing soldiers since ‘Nam. He’s got such hatred for Eric that one can’t help but see a jilted lover sort of angle at play, whether it was Obstfeld’s intention or not, sort of like the chainmail-vested Freddie Mercury-looking dude and his hatred-love for Arnold in Commando

Those biker scum came from a place now named Savytown, and Eric learns that Fallows has been through here. He tries to barter for information, only for it to be yet another Fallows trap. The long-delayed climax has Eric and Fallows having a brief face-to-face – one in which Cruz, Fallow’s herculean stooge, breaks Annie’s friggin’ neck. Our hero gets his ass knocked out, only to wake up in this goofy contraption that has him and Cruz hanging across from each other, dangling above flames…some sort of double-dish punishment deal courtesy Fallows, who is pissed at Cruz for disobedience or something. We get pages and pages of Eric and Cruz fighting to the death. Fallows doesn’t even stick around to watch, having left with new “son” Timmy.

The finale ignores all the Fallows stuff – Eric basically shrugs and figures Fallows has gotten too much of a lead on him(!) – and instead has Eric and crew going back to liberate Savytown after all. Indeed it must be such a simple chore that Obsfted flash-forwards through it, giving us a summary of the action. One thing we can be happy about – Eric leaves those annoying former students in Savytown, taking off on his own to continue the hunt for Fallows, and meanwhile Tracy follows him. Obstfeld ends the novel on the awkward note of Eric realizing there’s “something about” Tracy after all…whereas meanwhile Eric just saw his beloved wife’s neck snapped a few pages ago.

As mentioned The Warlord ran for five more volumes, and it looks like the rest of the books are shorter, which as far as I’m concerned, so far as this genre goes, is a good thing. I’m not giving up on the series yet and have faith in Raymond Obsfted, who is usually a very gifted, entertaining author – I still think there were some editorial/imprint constraints which prevented this first volume from being all it could be. But as usual, these are just my thoughts, and doubtless others out there will think this book is just fine. I just wish some of the fat had been cut from it.

Monday, December 30, 2013

The Executioner #46: Bloodsport


The Executioner #46: Bloodsport, by Raymond Obstfeld
October, 1982  Gold Eagle Books

It was strange reading one of Gold Eagle's first Executioner publications. Written by Raymond Obstfeld, Bloodsport seems less like that writer’s own work and more like an attempt at mimicking the style of Don Pendleton. From what Stephen Mertz has told me, this was no doubt intentional, given that in the earliest days Gold Eagle strived to retain the feel of Pendleton’s work.

It’s funny though because, other than a few stretches here and there, Bloodsport doesn’t come off much at all like the work of the guy who gave us Masked Dog and the awesome Invasion U.S.A. novelization. Throughout the novel, Obstfeld’s narrative will arbitrarily break off into Pendleton-style rhetoric about the evils of terrorism or the heroic nature of Mack Bolan; that is, when it isn’t indulging in Gold Eagle’s other favorite mainstay: gun-porn. Given that Obstfeld had already published a handful of novels by this point, my assumption then is that all of this is mostly due to some editorial manipulation.

Also since it’s so early in the series this installment has April Rose, the hotbod Stony Man PC lady who served as Bolan’s love interest and was later killed (in a Mertz installment, by the way), likely to the relief of fans everywhere. I’d forgotten how boring of a character she was. However April shares no time with Bolan this time out, instead hunching over a computer back in Stony Man HQ, “head Fed” Hal Brognola leaning over her shoulder all the while. Periodically the narrative will shift over to these two for some pages-filling, go-nowhere scenes as they worry about the Executioner.

Anyway Bolan’s in Germany when we meet him, cracking down on a blackmarket gunrunning ring on a US Army base. Bloodsport is unusually short on action scenes, but we have one here as Bolan and two young security guards break in on a fat sergeant and his underlings, a few hours before these men are scheduled to meet with representatives from German terrorist group the Zwilling Horde. Bolan blows a hole in the fat sergeant’s head and spends the rest of the novel posing as him – another penchant from the Pendleton era, with Bolan operating for the most part undercover.

The Horde is led by a pair of insane siblings: Thomas and Tanya Morganslicht (those German names just roll off the tongue, don’t they?). Tanya and a goon named Klaus show up for the gun-purchase from the man Bolan is posing as, and since the two never met the now-deceased sergeant no one’s the wiser. Bolan, with the help of the local Army base, fools Tanya into believing that he’s been found out, and blasting their way out (Tanya unwittingly firing blanks) they “escape.”

Bloodsport runs at 188 pages of big print, and most of it’s comprised of Bolan killing time with the Zwilling Horde as he tries to figure out what major threat they have planned. This is why he’s on the mission; that, and the handful of European Olympic athletes the Horde have kidnapped for some unknown reason. So then we have the obligatory scenes where Bolan must convince Tanya and her brother that he’s just a heartless “businessman” and is only willing to help out the Horde in exchange for payment.

The hostaged athletes are kept in a shack in the middle of the campgrounds that the Horde has taken over, deep in the German woods. There’s a martial arts master, an archery expert, a skier, and an attractive Czechoslovakian gymnast named Babette who of course would end up with Bolan in the final pages if it weren’t for April Rose. Bolan also has his chance with Tanya Morganslicht, who as you’ve no doubt guessed is beautiful herself. True to genre form the evil woman has raven-black hair whereas good girl Babette is of course a blonde.

In fact, the lack of sex is another throwback to the Pendleton era; when late in the tale Tanya makes her expected come-on to Bolan, our boy turns her down cold. Not that Obstfeld doesn’t have fun with the scene, having Tanya unbutton her blouse, show off her “ample breasts” as she propositions Bolan, and then slap around an underling who happens to stumble in on them. Bolan of course isn’t even attracted to the woman, despite her beauty, too disgusted by her sadism and evil nature. Jack Sullivan would’ve felt the same way, no doubt, but at least he would’ve still banged her.

Gradually Bolan learns what the Horde has in mind – they want to steal an experimental nerve gas called Yellow Rain and unleash it on playgrounds, killing “hundreds” of children! But for some bizarre reason, even after discovering this Bolan still bides his time, waiting until the 15 or so members of the group plan to steal it from a nearby base. Having told the hostaged athletes earlier that he’s really on their side, Bolan is able to spring them as they make their way for the base – the Horde having abducted these specific people so as to use their skills in the Yellow Rain theft.

Bloodsport ends on an action scene, as Bolan, armed with a Hechler and Koch G11, singlehandedly takes on the Horde. This sequence too seems to have been tinkered with behind the scenes, as tonally it’s at odds with the rest of the book, filled with these arbitrary sermons on the evils of the world as Bolan runs through the snow-filled woods. Also we’re denied a Bolan-Tanya confrontation; Bolan does get the drop on her, using her as bait, but Thomas ends the negotiations by blowing away his own sister. Thomas’s own death is nice and action movie-esque, with Bolan blowing up the van Thomas hides behind.

It wasn’t my favorite Gold Eagle Executioner by a longshot, but Bloodsport does have its moments, if they’re a bit lost amid the faux-Pendletonisms and the rampant rhetoric. The Prologue is especially laughable in this regard, reading almost like the transcript from a Rush Limbaugh broadcast. Also the gun-porn was pretty egregious here, with Bolan in his guise as a blackmarket arms merchant doling out huge chunks of firearms detail.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Masked Dog


Masked Dog, by Raymond Obstfeld
August, 1986  Gold Eagle Books

Raymond Obstfeld is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. Masked Dog isn’t as great as his Invasion U.S.A. novelization, but it’s a lot of fun, filled with vibrant dialog, strong characters, and plenty of suspense. It’s to the novel’s disservice that it was published by Gold Eagle, lending the impression that the novel’s just another SuperBolan or something. In reality it’s a melding of the suspense, spy, and horror genres.

“Masked Dog” is the code name of a CIA project that has been going on for the past decade: an agency scientist has been injecting a volunteer prisoner with a battery of experimental drugs that have removed all traces of fear from the test subject and have also granted him with superhuman strength. Gee, what could go wrong?? As you’d expect, the test subject, a pedophile pediatrist named Gifford Devane, has broken free and is now loose and looking for a little revenge.

Devane’s main target is a former rock superstar named Price Calender, who now lives a low-level life playing revival concerts and the like. Price worked for the CIA a bit in the previous decade; in a backstory that doesn’t quite ring true, we learn that Price got involved with the agency after a run-in with the law and in exchange for his freedom he agreed to act as a courier during his global tours. Price also eventually married a gorgeous lady named Liza R (no last name), a lady who turned out to be a Commie spy who insinuated herself with Price because he was a CIA goon and because she wanted to get to Devane and the Masked Dog program.

Liza R was a package deal; she came with a daughter from a brief, earlier marriage, a toddler named Rebecca who Price eventually adopted. But again, Liza’s marriage to Price was all just a ruse, and after an aborted attempt seven years ago to break out Devane, Liza carried out a running battle with the CIA, even using her own daughter as a human shield. (The end result being an errant bullet that shattered Rebecca’s knee, so that she now walks with a brace.) Price himself killed Liza…or so he thought. As Masked Dog opens, we learn that due to some commie subterfuge Liza’s death was merely staged, and now she is here with a fellow KGB operative, tracking down the loose Masked Dog.

Again, all this is backstory and it’s doled out gradually and masterfully in the narrative. Price is not your typical Gold Eagle protagonist by a longshot – he’s not a trained agent, and doesn’t even know how to handle a weapon. This is taken care of by Jo, one of Obstfeld’s typically-great female characters, a CIA agent who Baroness style was a woman of high society but grew bored of the jetset life and became a secret agent. Price and Jo have a great “meet cute” and Obstfeld really plays up on the comedy, banter, and relationship that grows between them. And when the expected sex scene comes, late in the tale, it’s unexpectedly explicit – yet another divergence from the typical Gold Eagle fare.

Obstfeld works up the tension and suspense; there isn’t much action in Masked Dog until the end, other than Devane’s brief encounters with old friends and the criminal underworld. Also graced with a quicker mind and photographic memory, Devane wants to advertise himself to the highest bidder as an assassin, so he announces that he will murder a famous East German dignitary, despite the massive amount of security which will surround the guy. Devane’s assassination too is carried out in more of a suspenseful nature than the pyrotechnics you’d expect, and Obstfeld makes it even more tense with Jo being caught in the fray.

Devane also has superstrength and can tear people apart. Obstfeld plays up the dark comedy with Devane coming off like a superpowered Hannibal Lecter, though without the serial killer aspect – his taste veers toward adolescent girls, and over the course of the narrative he catches a few of them, the ensuing grisly deaths only vaguely hinted at. But Devane gradually realizes that something is going wrong…his memory is clouding, he has lost his sense of taste, and it dawns on him that though he can’t feel pain, he can still be killed.

Obstfeld takes his time with the narrative, so that it all comes off as very character focused. All of the characters are given depth, save for maybe Liza R. I love pulpy female villains, but Liza R is just too inhuman, too much of a cipher. Obstfeld provides a backstory that attempts to explain at least a little how she could be so cold blooded (she was raised by leftist American parents who emigrated to the USSR but then abandoned her at a young age), but still she is too cold, too robotic. Obstfeld to his credit makes Liza thoroughly despicable; several times she “tests” herself to see if she might give a damn about her daughter Rebecca, finding each time that she doesn’t care if the little girl lives or dies.

Action scenes here and there liven things up…Devane’s assassination attempt of the German dignitary, or Devane’s scuffles with hoodlums. Suspense takes center stage throughout, particularly a tension-filled scene where Devane sneaks into Price’s empty home and poisons his cigarettes; throughout the ensuing scene with Price, Obstfeld keeps toying with us, mentioning the cigarettes lying there, Price picking one up and about to light it but then getting distracted. Then Jo shows up and the suspense really mounts – all told, a masterful scene. But just one of many.

The action heats up toward the end, like when Liza R and her KGB associates corner Devane, who manages to take out the redshirts and then engages in a duel to the death with a martial arts master, all while Liza coldly watches. The climax takes a page from Stephen King with Devane kidnapping Rebecca and stashing her in an empty fitness center, with Price venturing in solo and taking on Devane by himself. He’s easily outmatched, getting his arms and fingers broken by a nude Devane who swings from the shadows to torment him. All of this actually reminded me of the climax of Blade Runner, where Harrison Ford’s character was similarly tortured by his superpowered foe.

I guess the only problem I had with Masked Dog is it’s a little too long for its own good. The novel is over 300 pages and a lot of it could be cut. In particular the suspense of the climax is a little destroyed because, as Price sneaks through the darkened and creepy fitness center, Obstfeld somehow decides to inform us what the place is like during the day and what Price’s usual workout routine is like. But stuff like this is rare and for the most part the novel moves at an assured pace, really getting us to like its characters to the point where we are emotionally invested in the outcome.

Perhaps due to its publisher, Masked Dog didn’t make much of a dent, it appears…it only had this one printing, and like the other Gold Eagle titles of the time it was probably pulled off the shelves when the next bi-monthly shipment of Gold Eagle stock came in. It’s too bad, because this is a very good novel, one that should have had a larger audience.

And the cover by the way is a die cut, something I’ve never seen from Gold Eagle. Here’s the inner cover:

Monday, February 25, 2013

Invasion U.S.A.


Invasion U.S.A., by Jason Frost
October, 1985  Pinnacle Books

Who would’ve thought there would be a novelization of Invasion U.S.A.? A movie so stupid that it borders on genius, Invasion U.S.A. is probably the only Chuck Norris movie I can stand to watch – even as an action-obsessed kid in the ‘80s, I still thought Chuck’s movies were bottom of the barrel. I only watched them out of a misguided sense of obligation, given that for a few years I studied tang soo do in the Norris-fronted United Fighting Arts Federation.

However Invasion U.S.A. I actually liked; even as a kid I realized it was just so goofy and campy. Watching it now it’s mindblowing that the film was even released, as it’s almost surreally underwritten and underperformed; scenes aren’t set up or resolved, shit just happens for no rhyme or reason, the barest of plot elements are not described, and Norris waltzes through the proceedings with his standard blank expression (his only expression, actually), magically appearing to save people at the last second, like some micro-Uzi bearing Superman.

But the novelization is great!! Credited to “Jason Frost,” Invasion U.S.A. was actually written by Raymond Obstfeld, a seriously talented writer who’s churned out a plethora of novels, both series and standalone, starting in the 1980s. He even penned a few Executioner novels for Gold Eagle, a few of which I read back then (of course I didn’t know they were by Obstfeld), so I guess with this novelization I was sort of rediscovering his work. Anyway the Frost psuedonym is one Obstfeld used for the vaguely-post-nuke pulp series Warlord, so I wonder why he retained it for this novelization.

The movie was based on a story by Chuck's brother Aaron Norris and a writer named James Bruner, but the script is credited to Bruner and Chuck himself. My guess is that the script must’ve been a hell of a lot better than the actual film, thus giving Obstfeld a lot more to work with – or it could just be that Obstfeld wrote all of this himself, realizing the movie’s storyline was so bareboned. Obstfeld is known for inserting comedy into his genre novels, and there’s a bunch of it in this novelization, but have no fear it is very well incorporated into the story, so that it all comes off as fun and entertaining, not like some poser-produced spoof.

If you know the movie, you know the story, but again it is delivered here much, much better. Rostov, a crazed Russian commando who specializes in sowing revolution, infiltrates the US with a horde of multinational terrorist commandos in tow. Rostov is old enemies with Matt Hunter, a mysterious former CIA agent who nearly killed Rostov a few years ago, but had to let him live due to the usual politics bullshit.

The novel does a better job of explaining the Hunter/Rostov rivalry. “It’s time to die,” is Hunter’s oft-spoken threat to Rostov (and you have to love how robotically Norris delivers this line…and, well, every other line), and here in the novel we learn that this line is actually due to a sight gag; since he knows he must let Rostov live this time, Hunter takes out his knife and carves an “H” on Rostov’s wrist, right where Rostov wears his expensive watch, so that everytime Rostov checks the time he’ll know that soon it will be time to die.

Now of course Rostov has a burning-hot lust – uh, I mean hatred – for Hunter, and his first order of business before launching his invasion of the USA is to kill him. Cut to the rural sticks of southern Florida, where Hunter, retired from the agency, now wrestles alligators with an old Indian named John Eagle (unfortunately not the Expeditor). The attack comes much as in the film, with Rostov leading a squad of terrorists on air boats as they descend on Hunter’s shack, but in the novel it goes on longer, and better. Hunter actually fights back here, taking out several of the terrorists – and Obstfeld also does a superb job of filling us in on who many of these terrorists actually are, and how they came to be here.

Another thing better worked out is Rostov’s actual plan. In the film it comes off like Rostov just invades Miami and his thugs wander around killing people while the government does nothing. Obstfeld works it up so that Miami is just the entrance and Rostov sends out six-man terrorist squads to each state, where they cause much hell. We learn throughout the book of some of their atrocities, and Rostov’s ultimate goal is to sow an internal revolution so that America tears itself apart. In order to do this he stages racial killings (like sending terrorists dressed like Nazis into a synagogue), attempts to break open prisons, and even has his men impersonate cops and the National Guard, who then murder the citizens who think they are there to help.

Also Hunter’s one-man war on Rostov’s army is given a more realistic showing (comparatively speaking, that is). Instead of Hunter appearing just in the nick of time to waste the terrorists before they commit their latest evil deed, in the novel he follows clues, tracking down Rostov and taking on his various lieutenants in well-done action sequences. Along the way Hunter also must avoid the cops and the Feds, who attempt to track down this “vigilante” who is sowing further dissent in the already-chaotic mire that has overtaken the country.

Probably the biggest improvement of the novel is the character of the female reporter, Dahlia McGuire. If you’ve seen the film, then you certainly remember this completely useless character, who bears ultimately zero influence on the film, and indeed seems to only be there so the producers could put a female name on the cast list.

Dahlia sparkles in this narrative, and it’s a damn shame that her character wasn’t given any room in the movie. She has a direct influence over what’s going on, and her interactions with Hunter have much more depth. In the film there’s no depth between the characters, with Hunter saving her in his Superman fashion and Dahlia cursing him out in return, making her character seem pretty despicable. The novel fleshes this out, and there’s even a believable romantic development between the two, complete with the customary sex scene (nothing too graphic, mind you). But again, all of this was gutted from the movie…either that or it was never there in the first place, and Obstfeld added it all himself.

In fact Dahlia makes possible the conclusion…the film climaxes with Hunter wandering around in some business office, blowing away several terrorists before getting to Rostov, and you have no idea how the hell he got there or what’s going on. The novel explains. Dahlia pretends to set up Hunter, so the Feds and cops take him away. This also explains that otherwise nonsensical part in the film where Hunter is arrested while he’s sitting alone in a hotel room watching an old sci-fi flick – even here the character of Dahlia was gutted from the movie. But in the novel it’s her staged set-up which leads to the news announcement that Hunter has been caught and is being held in a hotel room; a news announcement that Rostov of course sees, and he takes the bait and heads for the hotel.

So now, the climax occurs in this hotel, with Hunter taking out Rostov’s goons one by one before dealing with the man himself. (He kills him the same way as in the film, though, blowing Rostov away with Rostov’s own grenade launcher.) But whereas the film ends right here, the novel continues on, giving us an actual wrap-up of what the hell happened to Rostov’s army and what the US is going to do to get a little vengeance. Adams, Hunter’s old CIA contact, informs Hunter that the government intends to form a strike squad, with Hunter as the leader, and the ending intimates that Hunter is going to take him up on the offer.

How about what isn’t in the novel? Well, for one the movie has more carnage – I think I read somewhere that the film has like a killcount of 160. The action scenes here are more smallscale – and by the way, Obstfeld doesn’t play up much on the gore. (Despite which there are actually more action scenes in the novel.) And unlike the film Hunter does not go into combat with a twin pair of micro-Uzis; Hunter does his fighting in the book with either a shotgun or a Hechler and Koch MP5 submachine gun. Some of the more infamous/goofy moments from the film are also absent from the novelization: there’s no scene, for example, where Rostov and his comrades blow up a bunch of peaceful homes with their missile launchers! Also no scene where Hunter saves a school bus of kids, tearing the bomb off their bus while driving – indeed, we learn in a news broadcast in the novel that a busful of schoolkids has been blown up. And most importantly, in the novel Hunter doesn’t have a pet armadillo!

But man, if the film had been like this novel, Invasion U.S.A. would today be considered an ‘80s action classic alongside Commando, a movie this novelization has much in common with – the same kind of one man army protagonist who doesn’t take himself too seriously, the same sort of near-homoerotic burning hatred between our hero and the villain, the same sort of snarky banter between the hero and the female character, the same sort of irreverent spirit mixed with over the top action.

In fact I almost wish someone would just buy the rights and remake Invasion U.S.A., only base it off this novel, and do it old-school style: a solid R rating, no cgi, tons of James Glickenhaus-style blood squibs, and a pulsing synthesizer soundtrack. But that would never happen; instead the remake would be PG-13 and loaded with bad cgi, and for the Matt Hunter role they'd get someone like Channing Tatum, a guy who has all the onscreen charisma of a rectal tumor. (Actually the tumor would probably have more charisma.) But he's young and "hot" and looks like he just walked out of an Abercrombie and Fitch ad, so the producers would snag him because he'd appeal to the target audience of girls and sexually-confused tweener boys who currently rule our entertainment world, and so the remake would do great at the boxoffice, and they’d follow it up with a sequel that would be even worse, and the cycle of bullshit would just continue twirling on.

Sorry, I got a little lost there. I’ll wrap up yet another overlong review by stating again how much I enjoyed this novel – and not just because Obstfeld even found a way to reference Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, having Dahlia read it. Just another indication of Obstfeld’s comedic skill, really, having a character reading a brainiac book in the novelization of an idiotic movie.