Marc Olden was born in 1933 in Baltimore and died in 2003 in New York. He graduated from Queens College with a degree in creative writing and history. He had an affinity of Japanese culture and thus trained in martial arts earning advanced degree black belts in karate and aikido.
His first published works were two non-fiction books. One is a biography of Black Panther political activist Angela Davis and the other a study on cocaine in 1970s New York. Through his investigation work he was introduced to many real world DEA and CIA agents which led him to his first fiction series, Narc.
Narc was written under the pseudonym Robert Hawkes and was a nine-book series which lasted from 1973 to 1975. It was a Men’s Adventure crime series about a white Narcotics Agent named John Bolt who kicks ass, gets ladies and takes on drug dealers.
After the NARC series, I’m assuming that Olden was like, why the hell am I writing about a tough white guy when I could be writing about a tough black guy and throw in all of that wonderful knowledge I have of martial arts and Japanese culture? And thus Black Samurai was born.
Black Samurai had eight entries in a two-year span- 1974-75. There was a movie made in 1977 starring Jim Kelly based on the series installment we are reviewing here today. I have yet to see it but Brandon over at the channel Blaxploitation Fanatic says the movie is pretty terrible, and he has 213 videos on his channel about blaxploitation books, movies and music so I’m going to trust his judgement.
Written review below. Video review here:
Robert Sand is the Black Samurai. His backstory is at the age of 21 he enlists in the army. After his first tour of Vietnam, he is on R&R in Japan when he comes upon some drunk US soldiers harassing an elderly Japanese gentlemen. He steps in to defend the man and is rewarded with two shot gun wounds. While lying there bleeding, on the verge of passing out, he sees the old man go full on Mr. Miyagi on the drunk ruffians.
The old man is actually a samurai warrior who takes the kindhearted Robert Sand under his wing and trains him in the art of the samurai. Once he gets out of the hospital obviously.
After the death of his teacher, Sand works in the vigilante business for the former President of the United States, William Baron Clarke aka The Baron.
Thank you, internet (specifically Spy Guys and Gals), because you are not really given this information in this entry in the series. And to add insult to injury we are immediately thrown into an insane battle.
Let’s set the scene.
Sand quietly enters a dark living room. A saltshaker rolls on the table and falls to the floor. A squeaky shrill voice out of the dark proclaims, “I did it!”
“It could be a phonograph record on high speed.” He thinks. “Could be, but it isn’t.”
He is on high alert. His senses straining to comprehend where the voice came from.
Footsteps on wood. It’s coming from the table where the saltshaker rolled from. Into the dim light comes a small figure. Sand realizes, it’s a dwarf, in red leather jacket, pants and high heeled boots. And he’s ugly. Purple lips. Yellow teeth. “He looks like hammered shit.”
The two have a quick conversation. The dwarf is named Reinhardt. He knows Sand’s name, knows who he is and why he’s there. And the reason Sand is there in Paris, we find out during this brief exchange, is to speak with a man named Aumont. But Aumont is now dead squeaks the dwarf. And with that he screams “Now! Now!”
Doors open and shirtless burly black dudes with leopards on their heads charge at Sand. They have metal claws in their hands. They are swinging and slicing. In a very un-Samurai counterattack, Sand pulls out a .45 and blows one away. They keep coming. Reinhardt pulls out a bull whip and yanks the .45 out of Sand’s hand and then he whips again to wrap around his wrist.
The Black Samuria starts to sweat.
“Unbelievable! The thought flashed back and forth across the Black Samurai’s brain. It’s unbelievable, but the thought was a luxury right now. Unless he acted, he’d die. Killed by a dwarf and leopard men.”
And so begins Black Samurai no 6 The Warlock.
I was completely lost by the time we got to the second chapter but that’s all right. I didn’t pick up this book to hear about the injustice of the human soul in existential dread. I picked it to see shit like this bad ass Black Samurai fight flamboyant gay dwarves and black magic leopard men from Africa.
In chapter two it is all explained anyway. We meet the Baron, who is the former POTUS. He now heads his own vigilante organization, and the Black Samurai is one of his agents. We are briefed on Augustus Janicot aka The Warlock. He is an ex-concentration camp nazi now turned black magic cult leader that uses drugs and his power of persuasion to make good people do terrible things. He video tapes it and then blackmails them to get what he wants.
The video that the Baron has Sand watch is extremely gnarly with violent orgies and humans not old enough for orgies but are there anyway who also get cut up and have their hearts eaten by the drug induced blackmailee. Not cool at all thinks the Black Samurai.
The Baron has gotten intel that the Warlock’s next move is to kidnap a promising Vietnam politician and put him through the videotape ringer. But even worse, this Vietnam politician is married to the Black Samurai’s Japanese ex-girlfriend. They still deeply love each other but for reasons cannot be together.
Sand flips and heads off to Paris which is where we came in in the first chapter.
From here we get lots of back and forth with the Black Samurai and the Warlock. The Warlock is a super villain but with an outer appearance of just being a powerful and rich fun party guy. Not much happens here in the middle. Definitely not nearly enough samuraing.
We meet a woman who works for the Warlock named Synne. She is a very sexy black woman from the US who has matching silver hair and nails.
Also working for the warlock is an albino assassin named Percy Bone who happens to be a pederast. By the way, all of the bad guys are either gay or swing both ways and it is not in a flattering light.
Oh wait! One bad guy is a super macho South American cartel guy who is so straight that he beats women while fornicating. Yeah. Olden really goes above and beyond to make these bad guys, bad guys.
And then besides the gay little people assassins who the Warlock has an array of there is also a giant hairy wolfman guy. I don’t know if he’s really a wolfman or just a giant hairy guy. It’s ambiguous. Which is fun.
There is a big action scene with a pretty decent body count but I have to say, against the Ninja Master, it pales in comparison. Like if this was Brett Wallace there would have been 50 bodies. With Sand we get 30. Still good. Still bloody. Still hacking off body parts and grenades and body pieces flying through the air. I guess I was hoping for a little more blitzkrieg and he was a bit more reserved. Which makes sense because the Samurai were the proper honorable soldiers and the ninjas were shady assassins.
Coincidentally, I was reading Ian Fleming’s Live and Let Die at the same time and the similarities did not go unnoticed. The movie came out two years before this book was published so I don’t think it was a coincidence.
The narrative moves pretty quick but there isn’t a lot there. Not that there has to be in a book like this, but it does need a bit more action. It was just ok. It could have used more fight scenes, and I personally would have liked to see Sand using his .45 a little less and sword a little more. The Warlock does zero black magic or occult rituals or philosophical diatribes. He’s just a con artist. Once again, personal preference, I wanted some black magic. He just passes out drugs which hypnotizes people. Imagine the Thugee cult in Temple of Doom but without the atmosphere.
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