Ivar Jorgensen is actually Paul W Fairman. Pulp fiction writer from the 40s to the 60s. Also, apparently a fisherman. He was an editor for If, Amazing Stories, Fantastic and the Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. He wrote the short story “Deadly City” which they based the movie Target Earth from. His short story “Cosmic Frame” was the basis for the movie Invasion of the Saucer Men. And his short story “Brothers Beyond the Void” was made into the Twilight Zone episode People Are Alike All Over.
Ten from Infinity was his fourth novel and was published in 1963 by Monarch which was the paperback subsidiary of Charlton Comics.
Cover art by Ralph Brillhart
Written review below. Video review here:
I read the novel he published right after this one, The World Grabbers which came in second place on my best of 2023 video. I don’t have a dedicated video review of it since I read it before starting the channel but there is a blog post review of it. Hmm maybe I should go back and record videos for the reviews I did before the channel.
NYC: early 60s.
Dr Frank Corson- leg man and ER doctor down at Park Hill Hospital. He’s just an intern so he doesn’t have money yet.
Rhoda- leg owner. Girlfriend. Owns apt and car.
William Matson- man with two hearts and no ID who gets hit by a cab and taken to the hospital to be treated by Dr Frank Corson.
Les King- freelance news photographer who gets shot of Matson right after he gets hit. He smells a big payday with this story.
Senator Crane- pompous and egotistical senator who is angry he wasn't invited to the secret meeting.
Brent Tabor- spy. The man in charge of handling this ten-man alien fiasco.
John Dennis- Android number ten. Point man for the aliens. Hypnotizer who likes to make mannequin-like love to ladies.
The introductory chapter introduces us to the strange man known as William Matson. William was hit by a NYC cab while trying to cross the street. He is rushed to the hospital where intern Dr Frank Corson checks out his injuries. Ok, this is strange, this man has two hearts. Whatever my shift is over, I can’t stop thinking about my dynamo leg lady girlfriend Rhoda, I’m going home. Rhoda picks him up. Frank is just an intern. He doesn’t have a car and his apartment is a shithole. Rhoda doesn’t mind but it embarrasses the hell out of Frank.
We jump to spy guy Brent Tabor listening to Senator Crane throw a fit about not being allowed into the secret meeting. The PEOPLE voted for him; Tabor is just a government bureaucrat. How dare he not be allowed in. Senator Crane sneaks a secret tape recorder in the room of the secret meeting.
At the meeting Tabor debriefs the heads of various government organizations. They have found eight identical men who are now all dead. The men have two hearts, oversized kidneys and synthetic blood. We think they are of alien origin, and we fear there might be an invasion in Earth’s future.
As he listens to the tape we get a wonderful little monologue where he goes on and on about how the people chose him not these spies and military guys. He thinks they are fools for thinking it extra-terrestrial. Obviously, it’s the Russians. Tell you what, whether this book is good or bad I'm giving it one mark higher for portraying this politician as they truly are. Self-obsessed. Narcissistic. Obvious and basic.
“One thing you have to realize about the American public- or about any mass of humanity, for that matter- a thing of importance has to be presented dramatically. This, in a sense, was the duty of the elected public servant- to recognize this somewhat childish failing of the average intelligence and make allowances for it. You can do this of course, Senator Crane told himself, when you love the people.”
Dr. Corson is at Rhoda’s apartment but can’t stop thinking about the man at the hospital. He goes back and the man is there. Still the same still weird. And what would you do if you were a doctor and found an impossible anomaly in a patient? Invite him to come and live with you at your apartment of course.
We are now introduced to John Dennis. He looks and acts exactly like two-heart William. Dennis stops by photographer Les King’s place to buy the photo he took of Willam after the car accident. Les recognizes his face as not only the exact same in the photo but of a man who went missing several years ago. He sells him the photo and the man leaves.
Les King stops by the hospital. He wants Corson to team up with him as he thinks he has a big story. Corson is reluctant at first but also embarrassed his girl makes more money so he's in.
And there is our plot. Who are these mysterious identical men? Are they from space? Are they Russian spies like the Senator thinks?
The Ten from Infinity have hypnotic powers and lets just say John Dennis uses those powers to…further study the relations of human beings, in particular Rhoda. Hope you guys like awkward and uncomfortable android-like sex scenes because you’re gonna get ‘em.
And from here on out we basically just have the Senator trying to sandbag Tabor.
Tabor trying to hunt down the mystery men.
Dr Frank upset that his little Rhoda has become distant.
Rhoda absolutely emotionally torn from being logically disgusted but emotionally manipulated to passion. Not cool.
Not too much interesting happens in this one unfortunately. John Dennis appears here and there when he wants something. Tabor the spy investigates but there really isn’t any new discovery past the info drop in the second chapter. It wasn’t really that exciting but it wasn’t boring either. Pure middle of the road. The previous book I read from Fairman, The World Grabbers had a blurb on the cover that stated “A dramatic, suspenseful novel inspired by the popular TV show One Step Beyond.” And they really hit the nail on the head with that one. I was hoping for more like it with Ten from Infinity and though it definitely had that vibe it was one of the more average episodes.
One day while perusing the shelves at Bonnett’s Books here in Dayton Ohio I came upon a spine that said This Island Earth. I excitedly grabbed it. Was this a coincidence!? A novelization of the movie!? To my surprise it was indeed THAT Island Earth and it was the original novel that the 1955 movie was based on. One that I had watched many times as it was the movie that appeared in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Movie.
Video review here. Written review below.
This Island Earth was written by Raymond F Jones and originally was published as a three part serial in the pages of Thrilling Wonder Stories.
Part one was titled, “The Alien Machine” and appeared in the June 1949 issue.
Part two was titled, "The Shroud of Secrecy” and appeared in the December 1949 issue.
Part three was titled, "The Greater Conflict” and appeared in the February 1950 issue.
Raymond F Jones combined the three and filled it out to make a full-length novel and in 1952 it was published in hardcover by Shasta Publishers out of Chicago. I have the hardcover Shasta Book Club Edition, and it has this absolutely terrible cover here that makes it looks like a 1950s high school science textbook. I will say I do love the giant SCIENCE-FICTION at the top.
What a disappointment to go from the incredible cover art of those pulp mags to this almost plain cover. The painfully basic cover art did lead me down an interesting rabbit hole as I was curious to see who this Shasta was and what their other covers looked like. So, we’re going to take a little detour because I think this story is very inspiring especially to people like us and all other fans who want to participate.
Shasta was founded in 1947 when three science fiction fans from Chicago, Erle Melvin Korshak, T. E. Dikty, and Mark Reinsberg came together to release The Checklist of Fantastic Literature compiled by E.F. Bleiler, a comprehensive list of science fiction, fantasy and weird books published before 1949. The book records over 5000 titles. Which if you needed to be reminded, this is the 40s. Acquiring this kind of information would take years and the logistics are beyond my understanding. Imagine how much money was spent on stamps alone.
After they released their book and it was a well received success, they decided, well hell, we should keep going. Shasta then released a string of science fiction classics. Their next book published is in my top five favorite short stories of all time, Who Goes There? By John W Campbell with the iconic Hannes Bok cover art, who also happened to do the cover for The Checklist.
They released seventeen more titles. The first eleven had incredible artwork. Let’s just take a min and check it out.
Slaves of Sleep, by L. Ron Hubbard (1948) H.W. Scott
The Wheels of If, by L. Sprague de Camp (1949) Bok
The World Below, by S. Fowler Wright (1949) (what happened here??)
The Man Who Sold the Moon, by Robert A. Heinlein (1950) Hubert Rogers
Sidewise in Time, by Murray Leinster (1950) Bok
Kinsmen of the Dragon, by Stanley Mullen (1951) Bok
Space on My Hands, by Fredric Brown (1951) Malcom Smith
The Green Hills of Earth, by Robert A. Heinlein (1951) Hubert Rogers
Cloak of Aesir, by John W. Campbell, Jr. (1952) (short fiction collection) Malcom Smith
And what was number twelve? This Island Earth. Cover by Robert Johnson
And here the cover art really takes a dive. Maybe they weren’t doing so well financially and couldn’t afford to have top genre illustrators do their covers anymore?
We might as well take a look at the rest of the titles since there is only seven left.
Murder in Millennium VI, by Curme Gray (1952) Robert Johnson. Please fire this guy.
The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester (1953) Mark Reinsberg (one of the Shasta owners)
Space Platform, by Murray Leinster (1953) Isaac Heilbron. This one is YA. It has a passable cover for what it is.
Revolt in 2100, by Robert A. Heinlein (1953) Hubert Rogers. They threw some money into this cover. Heinlein must have sold well for them.
Science Fiction Carnival, edited by Fredric Brown and Mack Reynolds (1953) Ardi Ames
Space Tug, by Murray Leinster (1953) Malcom Smith. Another YA novel but with some fun and exciting cover art.
Empire of the Atom, by A. E. van Vogt (1956) Malcom Smith
So yeah, what an impressive little run they had. What makes it more special in my eyes is that these books were released out of love. A major publisher is probably more aware of what won’t and what will make money and lean into the latter. Which, there is something to be said about that also because those publishers lasted for decades. Some are still going. But I do love an underdog and really appreciate people with passion who make things happen.
I’m so glad that I stumbled upon this book and took a minute to look into who released it. What an exceptional random find. And of course, today the books are even more collectible than they were back then. Who Goes There? is up on ABE books for $500 2nd edition to $1500 1st edition.
And now on to THIS ISLAND EARTH
Joe Wilson is the purchasing agent for Ryberg Instrumentation Corporation. He stares out the window, depressed. He always wanted to be an engineer but now here he is an office flunky whose sole purpose is to order mechanical parts for hunky leading man Cal Meacham. Cal is a radio engineer, a pilot, a pacifist, and an honorable scientist. He thinks science should be used to make the world a better place, not to destroy or kill. I like him already.
Joe has ordered a new condenser from his usual supplier, but when it arrives it is much more powerful than the one he ordered. Even more odd, it came from a completely different supplier than who he ordered from.
Cal is blown away with how the condenser works. This technology doesn’t exist! He asks around the other departments at Ryberg. They have also gotten parts from this mysterious new supplier and likewise they have mechanics and power that seem impossible.
Some time goes by and from the same supplier comes an instruction manual on how to build and “interocitor.” What’s an interociter? Cal wonders. He takes his time putting it together and we are there step by step with all of the fun sci-fi and electronics jargon.
Once assembled we see that Cal has built a high tech communications device. A man appears on the screen. He congratulates Cal on building the interocitor and invites him to join his group of super scientists called, The Peace Engineers. Which is great, because Cal loves peace. The Peace Engineers mission statement is basically to work on cutting edge electronic, physic, and mechanical inventions but keeping them out of the hands of world leaders and the common people as they can’t be trusted with it. Sounds very James Bond villain to me but not to Cal and he is all in.
So right off the bat there are a few differences from the movie but nothing major. Joe isn’t Cal’s fellow engineer who helps him build the interocitor. There’s no hint of something alien at the beginning. Cal’s plane doesn’t glow green and malfunction. The unnamed-at-this-point man who appears on the interocitor is not Exeter and is completely human looking. The time frame of events is stretched out. In fact it’s like that in the whole book. We’re talking years for this whole plot to unfold.
A plane with no pilot shows up to pick Cal up and take him to just north of Phoenix Arizona. As he exits the plane he is met by a looker of a lady whose name is Ruth. Ruth works for The Peace Engineers as a psychiatrist ...but also a secretary/ personal assistant to Dr Warner, the man Cal spoke to on the interocitor. Cal does not recognize her like in the movie which is fine because that whole little interaction didn’t really make sense. Cal does have a hard time calling Ruth doctor though because she’s a pretty woman.
Cal meets with Dr Warner who tells him that this is an interocitor plant and he wants Cal to manage it. Being that they are working on an item that is not a weapon Cal is all in. At the facility he meets his old Swedish college roommate Ole. Right away Ruth and Ole tell Cal that something fishy is going on around this here interocitor plant but Cal is way too excited about science to listen. Then we get a huge chunk of this book where Cal is just running the plant. Exciting stuff.
Eventually we meet the leader of the Peace Engineers, Dr. Jorgasnovara. Cal instantly likes the man and completely dismisses the worries of his friends.
And there is our set up. I would imagine this is the end of the first part of the original serial, The Alien Machine. I loved it. It’s intriguing, suspenseful and mysterious. Who are these Peace Engineers really? What does the interocitor actually do? I also appreciate how drawn out the time frame is. It works better than the movie. Not that the movie is unenjoyable in the beginning. I mean, it has different story telling logistics. It HAS to move faster but with the novel you could slow down and fill in the gaps. Aside from the section where Cal starts running the plant, the novel’s pacing isn’t slow.
Unfortunately, here is where the book takes a bit of a dive.
Finally, Cal starts to become suspicious but there is a lot of back and forth. Unfortunately, that suspicion envelopes everything so it becomes a complete conspiracy. It’s the Peace Engineers, it’s Ruth, it’s Ole, and back and forth over and over. What starts off as intriguing becomes tiresome.
The rest of the book is almost completely different from the movie.
Cal and Ruth are married by the beginning of part two.
This Island Earth is explained. Jorgasnovara explains that his people are from another world and are at war with another. He likens Earth’s part in it all to how in World War Two the warring countries would enlist the help of the “primitive people,” the locals of various small islands, to help clear forests which in turn helped the troops of the good guys to win the day. So essentially Earth people are the primitives and our planet is an island strategically located on the battlefield. And peace loving Cal who thinks science should be used only for the advancement of his world immediately flips and signs on to help battle this alien race.
It’s a strange turn of events but I’m starting to see that Mr. Raymond F Jones had some political comments and now you’re going to hear about them. Which, you know, it’s his book, totally fine. Let’s hear what you got Jones.
I would surmise that maybe Raymond F Jones thought that people who believe in peace and not getting involved aren’t being realistic. This point was written in the plotline pretty well. It made sense, he made some valid arguments. No issue with this.
On the other hand, Raymond F Jones does not like the Union. There is no surmising from me on this point. It is loud and clear. At one point the interocitor production floor is sabotaged in the middle of the night. Cal immediately blames the union. The union doesn’t want money Ole explains, “It won’t matter how much you give them. They just have to strike periodically to show things are still done the democratic way around here, and they’re just as good as the next guy.”
Ok, not bad. It's subtle and fair. Let's hear what Cal has to say though,
"Don't blame the union," said Ruth. "They don't support this kind of thing. It's the crackpot morons who get in that are responsible for this."
"The union is responsible! said Cal. "It's responisible because it admits and upholds and goes on strike in behalf of the crackpots and morons. Each individual member of the organization is responsible for this as long as he votes and strikes in support of a sub-normal moron we need to remove in order to run a factory. There's no way on Earth they can escape that responsibility."
You like unions? You don’t like unions? You want to give your opinion in your novel? Whatever. My only stipulation is that it has to cohesively fit in the storyline and be a valid dispute. You can’t turn to the camera and give speeches. There was no compelling argument and the idea that because this interocetor union went on strike now meant the whole world would be destroyed is so outrageous.
Sorry. I don’t mean to harp on about this but not only is it mentioned over and over through the middle of the book, there is a whole chapter dedicated to it. AND spoiler alert, it wasn’t even the union that sabotaged the facility. The whole incident was created just so he could have Cal give these insane angry tirades.
As you can see we lost a lot of fun here and we are still at the plant with Cal while he tries to manage it. Yes, This Island Earth the movie is now out in space having the adventure of a lifetime and in the book Cal is trying to figure out how to triple production in a factory full of "petulant child-minded laborers."
I’ll just leave the climax detail here untouched. It is nothing like the movie and proceeds on the same trajectory and dies with a whimper.
Big disappointment here but only because I have the movie to compare it to. The beginning was so promising but at the start of the second installment it breaks down slow and steady until you get to the end and you are glad it’s over. There are enjoyable aspects to it so it’s not a complete disaster. I am glad I read it though and I am really glad that I bought this edition. After learning about Shasta I feel like I have something special here even if the story contained inside was middle of the road.
Ron Stillman is the pseudonym of fellow Ohioan Don Bendell. Born in 1947 and still alive according to my research.
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction states that the Tracker “stories are told in a maliciously exaggerated parody of the conventions of this sort of fiction.”
The Tracker series had eight entries. Bendell wrote the first six.
Written review below. Video review here:
Tracker Number Two- Green Lightning starts off just like I like it with a very sexy description of a leggy toned babe slowly pulling her stockings up her shapely legs and then…
shaving her mustache?
Turns out the babe is actually undercover hitman Miguel Atencio. He is in Cleveland for the Broncos/Browns game airing on Monday Night Football. Also in attendance is the president of the US. Which in 1990 would be George Bush the first. It never says it directly but the story takes place in the US in 1990 so I’m going to make that connection.
Miguel is hired by an “electronic oriental mafia”, (their words) Ryoku Rai Kyookai, AKA: the Green Lightning Society. And the most hilarious reasoning behind this task? He is to kill the president as he is too competent, and they need someone with less political experience in there.
In the crowd as his luscious alter-ego, Miguel notices number 80 of the Denver Broncos acting weird, looking up at the crowd like he's looking for someone. It's nothing, he decides. He takes out his grenade launcher but as soon as he does, number 80 reaches in the Gatorade tub and pulls out a rifle and shoots him between the eyes. Turns out, number 80 doesn’t actually play for the Broncos he is in fact secret spy Natty Tracker. USAF Major. Ninja in training. Quarter Norwegian. Quarter black. Quarter Sioux. Quarter Tonto Apache. Electronics and weapons expert. His backstory? Blinded when a drunk driver made him swerve off the road in his 1963 split window corvette. Along with being the ultimate soldier he is a tech wizz and created a pair of goggles that not only lets him see again but does all manner of high tech gobbledy gook. He is insanely rich from his electronic inventions but dedicates his life to killing the enemies of his country.
The President thanks him. He says, “how did you know?”
“Adam's apple, sir. Women don't have Adam's apples.”
“Well, I'll be damned.”
Haha! I thought this was the competent president.
At the end of first chapter we have Natty Tracker wondering who is the next scum bag he will be killing.
The second chapter starts with a description of a cute little five-year-old girl. And just like Mr. President George Bush’s son said, “Fool me once, shame on you…fool me twice? Won’t get fooled again.” It’s obvious by how over the top adorable and wholesome the little girl’s description is that we are about to get something gnarly. And we do. After we learn about her honey colored curly hair shining like the sun we read about her dad do something that should never be done. After the assault, while dad of the year is sleeping, the little girl comes in with a razor and slits dad’s throat. When the cops ask what happens she blames it on Mom. She goes into foster care. Same thing happens. She kills him also. She grows up. Becomes a serial killer of men who deserve it. She likes to bite their dicks off and keep them in jars in her library. On her last kill it happens to coincide with a man the Green Lightning is after also. They are impressed and want to hire her.
This book is all over the place. It takes a minute to get into the main plot which is Tracker taking on the Green Lightning Society. We have more introductory chapters of characters who are bit players. It’s like when you have a big todo list and a day off. You start one project but don’t finish and then do a little of everything on the list and by the end of the day nothing is actually done.
In the third chapter we are introduced to Reverend Clyde Ormand. A preacher in a South Carolina Church. He doesn’t really matter when it comes to the story but it’s insane so let’s go over it.
He is a coke head with a $500 a day habit. To help fund his habit, he sells it to junkies in town and some of his upper echelon parishioners. He gives a 15-year-old girl blow for sexual favors. His coke arrives from Columbia in hollowed out dead bodies that are shipped to his morgue. Once he takes the coke out of the bodies, he gives the carcasses to his brother's slaughterhouse where they grind the bodies up with the beef that goes out to the local grocery stores. One day the bodies stop showing up. A Japanese man shows up instead with a bag of coke. He says he is the new connection and shows the reverend a video of them killing the Columbian dealer by cutting off his head.
Finally, we are back to Tracker. He is randomly attacked by ninjas after banging his smoking hot Native American kindergarten teacher girlfriend. Luckily his neighbor is a house full of KGB agents assigned the task of keeping an eye on Tracker. The Russians want his tech and for that they need him alive so Tracker is aided by the Russians who snipe one of the ninjas from their window.
Too much Tracker for you? Good news. We have another character introduction. Back in Japan at the Green Lightning Society Monday morning meeting we meet a sexy female agent who after killing a traitor of the organization she is tasked with hunting down and hiring the serial killer lady from the beginning. The one who bites off dudes dicks. She plays on her desire to rid the world of men who have SA tendencies and tells her that Tracker is a dirty rapist. She’s in.
She picks up Tracker in a bar. But Tracker is a super man and knows something is up. He smooth talks his way into getting more info on who hired her and then turns her into the police. All of that brutal killer backstory and buildup and we get a nice dinner and a book ‘em Danno?
You know what this book needs? More ninjas. Tracker is back at home. Ninja attack. Again. This time they get him. They take him to an abandoned building, strip him naked and tie him up. Don’t worry though, Tracker has a fake finger which he unscrews and takes out his escape tools. After cutting himself free he throws a bomb at the ninjas and dives out a window. We then get a couple pages of a naked man fighting ninjas. Tracker commandeers a car which has a super-hot red head named Dee Light. Hmm. Also, released in 1990 was the smash hit Groove is in the Heart sung by bright red-headed looker, Lady Miss Kier. Is this the author inserting his Dee Light fantasies?? Anyway. They make a couple jokes about his naked body and how she’s checking out his dick.
"You're a little cockeyed"
He takes her back to his house and beeee—ohhhhh. (slide whistle sound here).
Outside it says there is an African American man. Screeching brake sound! In 1990 in a bonkers over the top action men's adventure book and they use the phrase African American?? This is a first. I didn't even realize that terminology was around then.
Tracker gets in his supped up car and heads up to the mountains so he can take the ninjas down on his turf. We get a big, long car chase action scene with rockets and helicopters.
At the mountain Natty heads up knowing the ninjas will follow. He toys with them. Steals their clothes at night. Kidnaps them one by one. Moves their fire in the middle of the night. He gets info about who hired them.
In Japan we meet the Green Lightning main assassin Ken Fuji-something. We are losing interest fast here.
He is 6'11 solid muscle. Karate and judo and all kinds of martial arts master. Ripped the head off of his father after being told by father he raped mom.
Tracker goes to Japan to fight him one on one. Decent punch and kick fight scene. Tracker wins. Gets info on who the boss is. Travels back to the US to bang Dee Light some more.
Back to Japan to find lady assassin.
The ending is him messing up the organization through their bank accounts and financial investments. Um. Ok. Haha!
Yeah, this book should have been wrapped up a long time ago. It’s very sporadic. Things happen for no reason. Characters are given lush introductions and then never appear again. The antagonist is the shady Green Lightning Society, but they are so mysterious they aren’t even in the book. I’ve seen better plot development in Saturday morning cartoons. It is hilarious though. And if it is indeed a parody like The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction site says then the author did their job. I don’t know though, it feels real to me. Like the author was trying to tap the Men’s Adventure main vein and inadvertently made something funny. It could go either way. I’m on the fence about it. That being said, I would one hundred percent pick up the others in the series. It has lots of 80s pop culture referenced; Robocop, Bo Jackson, Carl Lewis, Lawrence Taylor, Andre the Giant and if nothing else it was a ton of fun.
This story first appeared in the November 1933 issue of Weird Tales and was Catherine Lucille Moore’s first paying story. She went by the moniker C.L. Moore to hide her author side hustle from her day-time banker job. It also might have had to with the fact that she wrote the story there. In order to stay busy during a lull she was practicing her typing speed. From memory she started typing the poem, The Haystack in the Flood. After a typo stating that there was a red running figure, she was so amused by the visual that she asked herself, why was the woman running and who was she running from. And with that she dove right in to the opening line of Shambleau.
Written review below. Video review here:
Weird Tales editor, Farnsworth Wright kept a tally on which stories were most popular. Shambleau was the second most popular story to ever be published in Weird Tales. The first being A Merritt’s “The Woman of the Wood.” – note to self. Find that story. Third was The Outsider by H.P. Lovecraft.
Here is what our man H.P. had to say about Shambleau:
Shambleau is great stuff, too. It begins magnificently, on just the right note of terror, and with black intimations of the unknown. The subtle evil of the Entity, as suggested by the unexplained horror of the people, is extremely powerful—and the description of the Thing itself when unmasked is no letdown. Like “The House of the Worm”, it has real atmosphere and tension—rare thing amidst the pulp traditions of brisk, cheerful, staccato prose and lifeless stock characters and images. The one major fault is the conventional interplanetary setting. That weakens and dilutes the effect of both by introducing a parallel or rival wonder and by removing it from reality. Of course, a very remote setting had to be chosen for so unknown marvel—but some place like India, Africa, or the Amazon jungle might have been used…with the horror made more local. I trust your revisions may make Mrs. Moore’s second story as striking and interesting as this one.
—H. P. Lovecraft to Farnsworth Wright, 21 Nov 1933, Lovecraft Annual 8.38-39
And now that you’ve had a master’s review, here is a novice review:
The basic premise: Interplanetary smuggler bandit Northwest Smith is kicking around a small Earth colony on Mars waiting for his connection to arrive. The cries of an angry mob yelling Shambleau pursue a young woman running for her life. Though he is no crusader, he feels for the girl and decides to step in. The mob, angry and confused as to why he would want to protect a Shambleau, eventually dispersed. The girl is shapely and attractive with brown skin, cat eyes, small sharp teeth and what appears to be red hair under her turban. She doesn’t really speak any languages, Smith knows so when he asks her why the mob was after her there is no reply. Northwest decides it’s too dangerous for her on the streets and takes her back to his hotel room. He leaves her there while he goes out to conduct business.
He comes back drunk and surprised to still see her. In his drunken state he revaluates the situation and her banging body in spite of those weird cat eyes. She is flirty. He goes in for the kiss and is simultaneously turned and completely repulsed. He shoves her away, throws some blankets on the floor and tells her, that’s where she’ll be sleeping.
Something is odd about the girl. Why were those town people chasing her? He is starting to doubt his decision in inviting this girl back to his room. She sits in the darkness. Never eats. Eye’s him strangely. Yet, he doesn’t kick her out. Who or what is this strange woman?
And that’s the set-up.
H.P. wasn’t kidding when he commented on the atmosphere and tension. First off it doesn’t feel like a science fiction story. This is horror story straight to the bone. I read that when she first envisioned the character Northwest Smith he was more of a Western character, and that is what this story feels like in atmosphere. Yes, there are Venusians, and we’re on Mars but it has a western flavor to it. Northwest, an infamous smuggler with questionable morality, all dressed in leather, carries his blaster…eh hem, I mean his heat beam gun, sorry I didn’t mean to insinuate that this is Han Solo because… it is. The more pulp I read the more I see the “inspirations.” But there the Stars Wars ends, and the story becomes an ancient mythic horror story.
The woman is mesmerizing. She’s odd but not creepy at first. She was a victim and Northwest saved her life. What is there to worry about? Moore slowly builds that tension though. This isn’t some monster on the edge of the darkness hunting you. This is something that shouldn’t even be a threat, five feet from your bed. Staring at you when your eyes open in the middle of the night. This story will make you uncomfortable. The ending reminds me of how Karl Kolchak would reflect on the story at the end of every one of his episodes. It is an exposition reflection that hints at the nature of addiction. Having something almost kill you, bring you pleasure and the fortitude to walk away.
Caedmon Records released a spoken word version of Shambleau read by C.L. Moore herself in 1980. They knew what they were doing because they even got paperback cover artist Kelly Freas to paint the cover. It goes for around $25-$35 but there is someone selling a Near Mint for $90.
For Black History Month this year I wanted to put together this little article featuring some black vintage genre fiction writers. The bulk of the output is from the pre-90s era though some of the writers continue to produce even to this day. I'm am in no way an expert and just like anything else on this blog I am just an amateur fan who wants to learn more about the fiction that I love.
I left off Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines as I intend to do a whole article/video about the publisher Holloway House and I will cover them in depth in that one. I am also posting a book review and bio of Chester Himes in the next post so go check that out.
There is a video version of this as usual, and it is right here:
Born 1947 and died in 2006. She grew up in Pasadena California and attended the Pasadena City College and then later would take writing classes through the UCLA and once attended a Writers Guild of America West workshop taught by Harlan Ellison who encouraged her to attend the six-week Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop.
Her first story was published in 1971 for the Clarion Workshop and she sold another for Harlan Ellison’s anthology The Last Dangerous Visions which was not published until 2024.
In the mid-1980s she won Hugo and Nebula awards for her body horror Novelette, Bloodchild.
She published 14 novels including the Patternist Series about a secret history continuing from the Ancient Egyptian period to the far future that involves telepathic mind control and an extraterrestrial plague.
She also wrote the Lilith’s Brood series, a post nuclear war has all but destroyed humanity and an alien races comes in to save the survivors but in order to do that the humans must mix their genetic makeup and become hybrids like the aliens, losing their humanity. the Parable series and two stand alones.
References:
Jessnevins.com
wikipedia
Born in 1946 in Pennsylvania and died in Nova Scotia Canada in 2020. He graduated from Lincoln University in 1968 with a degree in psychology. In 1969 he was drafted to fight in Vietnam but instead relocated to Canada.
He is most well-known for his character Imaro, a warrior of the plains of Nyumbani, a fictional version of Africa. Imaro is often compared to Conan and Saunders has said how he was influenced by Robert E Howard, but Imaro was also a reaction to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan. Saunders said in an interview published in the journal Black American Literature Forum published by John Hopkins University press, “I think he was born when I watched a Tarzan movie and fantasized a Black man jumping up and beating the hell out of (Tarzan actor) Johnny Weissmuller,”
Imaro was first published as short stories in Gene Day’s fanzine, Dark Fantasy. The first Iamro story was reprinted in DAW books first, Year’s Best Fantasy Stories edited by Lin Cater. DAW owner, Donald A Wollheim then encouraged Saunders to put together the short stories in a fix up that would become the first Imaro novel. There were 5 entries in the Imaro series, the first three published by DAW in the early to mid-80s and then he brought the character back in 2009 for one novel and another in 2017. The Imaro series is steeped in African locations, history, people, folklore and tribes, each with slight adjustments to add to the fantastical fiction world of Nyumbani. Unlike other characters and racial themes in this article/video, Imaro’s struggle is a personal one.
He has another character named Dossouye who is a female warrior that appeared in a short story anthology called Amazons in 1979. Dossouye was based on the Dahomey Amazons which were an all female military regiment that protected the West African kingdom of Dahomey from the 17th century until the late 19th century. Three more stories followed in Marrion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress anthologies. In 1986 Saunders wrote the script for the movie Amazons based off of the Dossouye stories but in the movie the warriors were all blond, white ladies so, yeah, loose adaptation. In 2008 he resurrected the character with a fix up novel of the previous stories and a completely new novel in 2012.
He had a few non-fiction books centered around his home in Nova Scotia. One piquing my interest the most is a book called Sweat and Soul: The Saga of Black Boxers from the Halifax Forum to Caesars Palace released in 1990.
And while doing the research for this I stumbled upon another boxing related Saunders authored book, Damballa from 2011, which is a black vigilante pulp style hero. It’s 1938 in Harlem and there is a heavyweight championship fight between the US champion and a German challenger. Saunders based the fight off one of the most important fights in boxing history which was the rematch of the Joe Louis- Max Schmelling fight. In this book the Nazis are rigging the match for their guy to win but Damballa has figured it out and set to put a stop to them.
References:
Ny Times article by Neil Genzlinger
Blackgate.com
Airship27.com
Youtube:
Secret Fire Books
David Books and Comics
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 investigate 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.
The books of his that I was most aware of before doing this article were the Black Samurai series. This time under his own name and with a black protagonist hero named Robert Sand, an American GI stationed in Japan. He gets shot while trying to stop some baddies from attacking an old man. Turns out the man was a Samurai master who kicks the shit out of the assailants as Sand is passing out. Sand goes under his wing for Samurai training and within seven years he is a force of nature and also the first black man to ever take the oath of the Samurai. The Black Samurai series had 8 entries from 1974 to 1975 and was even made into a movie starring Jim Kelly.
In 1976 he started his Harker series about an investigative journalist named Harker who takes on corruption and crime. The series only had four entries lasting from 1976 to 1978.
He also had 17 standalone novels many influenced by his love of Japanese culture.
Horror novels- Book of Shadows and Poe Must Die
References:
Marcolden.com
Paperbackwarrior.com
Youtube:
David Books and Comics
Born in 1944 and died from brain cancer at the age of 62 in 2006. He joined the Air Force in 1964 and went to fight in the Vietnam War. Afterward he was veteran with a bullet scar in his neck. He lived in LA in Watts, the Crenshaw District and Inglewood. Joe wrote over 60 novels mostly put out by Holloway House whom he was also an editor for. He was also editor of Players magazine, a nudie magazine featuring black ladies which was the first of its kind. He was more a follower of the ideologies of Martin Luther King Jr than the militant aspects of 60’s black militant activism.
Joseph Nazel wrote a few series characters. One of them being: Black Cop under the pseudonym Dom Grober. Black Cop had four entries from 1974 to 1976 and stars a Vietnam veteran named James Rhodes who works for the LAPD narcotics division. The series seems to be a basic police procedural but with a black lead who has to not only deal with nefarious crime lords but racism within the department and out on the streets.
Iceman is a total men’s adventure series about a pimp secret agent named Henry Highland West. In his entourage are ass kicking, smoking hot lady sidekicks. In pulp hero staple style, he is uber rich, owns a million-dollar pleasure haven called the Oasis and with his own personal helicopter, travels the world annihilating evil doers including the usual suspects of the syndicate, South African slavers, and a Canadian extremist group among others.
He also wrote a lot of unauthorized biographies including, Richard Pryor, BB King, Langston Hughes (poet), Paul Robeson (professional football player, actor and singer).
It was difficult to find many black horror authors from the pre 90s era but Nazel was a name that kept popping up, mostly for the infamous Black Exorcist novel. The Black Exorcist was published in 1974 and then re-published in 1983 as Satan’s Master. It is about a Christian Reverend and a satanic voodoo priest battling it out for the people in the black community. It has lots of racial politics of the time battling it out on whether the best path is violence or love. But it also delivers in the horror aspects. You get zombies, mafia, voodoo, Satan, crime, sex, cults, possession and just plain old good versus evil.
Reference:
Paperback Warrior Blog
LA Times article by Emory Holmes
Jethrowegener.com
Jessnevins.com
Like I said I had a hard time finding black horror authors from before the 90s which is mind blowing because the post Stephen King explosion had every writer hacking out their bloated horror novel, so just by sheer numbers you would figure there would be some black authors. Maybe there is and I just couldn’t find them?
I did find this very interesting Glenda Dumas book titled, The Rootworker. Along with Joseph Navel’s Black Exorcist these seem to be two of the few horror novels published by Holloway House. I intend to make a whole video on Holloway House and was going to save this entry for that but we need the horror genre represented here so I’ll go ahead and mention it now.
There isn’t a lot of information about her but I believe Glenda Dumas is still alive. She put out a book called Visions of the Rapture and Unseen Realm in 2016 which according to her Authors Den profile is, “a book that describes how the Lord chose me to give an important message to His people. I was transported into the future and showed the Rapture by an archangel. I believe he was Michael, because he was extremely huge and Michael appears to have a major role in the end times. I must admit that he did not tell me his name. He did, however, show me how the Rapture will happen and let me know that most people are not ready to go up. This is a message that I need to get out.”
As for her 1983 novel The Rootworker, according to the back synopsis, it appears to be about a young woman falling in love with a man and her bringing him back to her small town in North Carolina where everyone in town, including her parents are in a secret cult that worships Satan called the cult of The Rootworker. There aren’t any reviews of the book online, so it looks like I’m going to have to pick up this book and rectify that.
Born in 1952 in Los Angeles, California and is still alive! He actually has a decent online presence where he is happy to chat about his writing, teaching the craft and isn’t averse to interviews. His first published piece of fiction was a 1979 collaboration with Larry Niven called The Locusts which was a Hugo nominee. Along with author wife Tananarive Due, they teach a course at UCLA called, “The Sunken Place: Racism, Survival and Black Horror Aesthetic.” His latest book was a Star Wars novel titled: Mace Windu: The Glass Abyss released in 2024.
He started out writing a science-fiction series with Larry Niven called Dream Park which had four entries from 1981 to 2011. Dream Park is an amusement park set in 2051. In the park, people can become characters in a live action role playing game. Similar to Dungeons and Dragons but you are essentially in a virtual reality. The story morphs into cyber-punk territory where the games are cutting edge technology, morphed into televised games and real murder and corruption going on in the background. This book inspired fans to create real world LARPing games based on the concepts.
His next series is the Aubrey Knight series which has three entries from 1983 to 1993. It takes place in a futuristic Los Angeles where ex-Cartel thug Aubrey Knight has left the gang to try and achieve his goals of being the null-boxing world champion. Null boxing is like MMA. The cartel sets him up for murder and Aubrey is sent to the Death Valley Maximum Security Penitentiary. There he kicks ass and fights for survival and freedom to enact his revenge on those who wronged him.
From a 2003 interview in Locus Magazine:
“When I wrote Streetlethal with a black guy and they put a white guy on the cover. My editor at the time was utterly mortified. Her editor-in-chief told me it was an art department decision, and the art department said it was marketing, and the marketing department said the truck drivers who put the books on stands would think it was some kind of 'Get Whitey', 'Shaft in Space' thing and refuse to handle it. No one would take responsibility. That's happened to tons of writers, black and white -- publishers wouldn't put a black character on the cover. Especially not a man. For Octavia E. Butler, I remember clearly when they would change her characters' race, would put green people on the cover, but not black people.”
Barnes has written over 30 novels and some screen plays for television including the reboot Outer Limits and Twilight Zone, Stargate SG-1, Andromeda and….Baywatch.
He doesn’t just write about kicking ass, he has many degrees in the martial arts including, a black belt in Kenpo Karate and Kodokan Judo. A brown belt in Shoenji Jiu Jitsu and lower belts in Tae Kwon Do and Akido. He is an instructor in Wu Ming Ta, Wu-style tai chi and Filipino Kalit stick and knife fighting. He also enjoys self-defense pistol shooting and Jun Fan kickboxing. And when he’s done kicking your ass, he can help you find your center again as he’s a Hatha Yoga instructor.
References:
Michaelaventrella.com (interview with Steven Barnes)
