Frederik Pohl’s Danger Moon (Red Moon of Danger)

Frederik Pohl’s science fiction short novel Danger Moon was published in 1951. A variant of the story with the title Red Moon of Danger appeared under the name James MacCreigh.

Frederik Pohl (1919-2013) was an American science fiction writer and one of the major figures in the genre.

Steve Templin is a kid of interplanetary explorer. He’s just been offered a job by Ellen Bishop as a troubleshooter for a company called Terralune. They’re having a lot of trouble in their uranium mine on the Moon. Maybe there’s sabotage. Maybe it’s highly organised. Templin has to eliminate the problem.

Templin had been one of the first astronauts to land on the Moon, a decade-and-a-half earlier. He knows Ellen Bishop well. She’s the daughter of another space exploration pioneer. He isn’t keen on this new job but he’ll do it out out of respect for her late father, and out of respect for Ellen.

He very quickly has a run-in with man named OIcott. Olcott is very rich and very powerful. Templin encounters hi in Hadley Dome. Templin doesn’t approve of Hadley Dome. It’s the pleasure capital of the Moon. The normal laws don’t apply on the Moon. The pleasures of the flesh are freely available. And gambling. Especially gambling. Gambling is a big thing in Hadley Dome. Templin disapproves of decadence and lawlessness.

When he gets to the mine it’s obvious that there’s something peculiar going on. Sabotage certainly, but maybe something more. Maybe something connected to the Moon’s past. It might be the distant past or the recent past. The lunar colony had rebelled a few years earlier. Earth had been attacked. Cities on Earth had been nuked.

A mine shaft collapses. Seven of the eight men working the shaft escape safely. The odd thing is, there could not have been eight men there.

There’s also the attempt to kill Templin.

This is essentially a potboiler. Its biggest problem is that it’s not pulpy enough. A more pulpy approach would have worked better. There’s not enough substance here for a serious science fiction novel. There is the basis for a fun tale of adventure and mayhem but Pohl isn’t willing to embrace that approach fully.

Pohl does display a degree of knowledge of conditions on the lunar surface that was as accurate as one could be in 1951. This is a novel in which the low gravity plays a part, as do the temperature differentials between lunar day and lunar night and the hazards of working on an airless planet.

In 1951 both nuclear power and nuclear weapons were highly topical and both play a part.

Mercifully there’s no politics. The bad guys are motivated by plain old lust for power and money rather than ideology.

Steve Templin is pretty much a stock-standard square-jawed action hero. Ellen Bishop isn’t developed enough as a character to be a memorable heroine.

It’s a short novel with a fairly straightforward plot, with just a few minor twists.

Danger Moon is by no means a bad novel but it doesn’t have anything special going for it. It’s worth a look but it’s not in the same league as Pohl’s brilliant 1953 collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth, The Space Merchants, or his slightly later and very entertaining A Plague of Pythons.

This novel is published in an Armchair Fiction two-novel paperback edition, paired with Ralph Milne Farley’s 1939 science fiction novel The Hidden Universe.

Gaston Danville’s The Perfume of Lust (Le Parfum de volupté)

Gaston Danville’s The Perfume of Lust (Le Parfum de volupté), published in 1905, is a kind of lost civilisation tale (involving Atlantis) but not at all typical of that genre. This is definitely not pulp fiction or straightforward adventure fiction. This is much more arty and more literary. Danville had an intense interest in the latest psychological theories of his day and that interest is reflected in this novel.

Gaston Danville was the pseudonym used by French author Armand Blocq (1870-1933). He’s hard to classify. He had links to both the Naturalist and Symbolist movements, two literary movements that were bitterly opposed. There’s also some very obvious influence of the literary Decadence of the fin de siècle.

The Perfume of Lust has a setup that could easily have been used as the basis for a rollicking adventure tale but Danville had other fish to fry.

This is a story related at third hand. This is a story related by a man named Robert Toby to his friend Vincent Tricard who then related it to the narrator of the novel. The narrator is of course then passing it on to the reader so maybe it’s a tale told at fourth hand. Neither the narrator not Vincent Tricard are convinced that the story is true but at the same time they don’t dismiss the possibility. We have to consider the possibility that it’s a tall tale, or a dream, or an hallucination or that it’s all quite true. This ambiguity is never resolved. Perhaps we never can tell dreams from reality anyway.

Robert Toby is a passenger on the steamship Dauphiné. The ship is hit by a gigantic wave. It survives but it is left rudderless and drifting. Repairs are eventually effected and then things start to get strange. The ship encounters an island where no island has ever been before. The Dauphiné finds itself stranded in a large bay surrounded by reefs, unable to regain the open sea.

It appears that some undersea earthquake or volcanic eruption has brought the seabed to the surface and created a new island. The strangest thing is the city. It appears to be an ancient city that sank beneath the waves sometime in the distant past. It might even be Atlantis.

Danville’s interest does not lie in the story itself but in the effects the island has on the passengers and crew of the Dauphiné. Psychological, emotional, sensory, sensual and erotic effects. Danville emphasises the influences of scents and textures and sounds which provide a kind of sensory intoxication.

The passengers certainly have their erotic instincts aroused. Danville mostly describes their erotic experiments obliquely. This was probably not for censorship reasons (writers such as Pierre Louÿs were going much much further at around the same time). It’s more likely that Danville was fascinated by the erotic but not entirely comfortable with such things. There’s a very strange orgy scene in which the participants get very excited but they don’t seem to actually do anything.

In some ways this works in the book’s favour. It’s not simply about sex, it’s about eroticism and sensuality in a much broader sense.

There’s also a sense in which the Dauphiné’s passengers have found a king of paradise but it’s a paradise that might not be good for them and which might be taken away from them. There’s a brooding sense of doom and melancholy. The undersea seismic activity has not ceased. This island and its mysterious exotic lost city suddenly emerged from the waves but there’s no way to know if it will remain in existence for a week or a year or a century. There’s no way to know if escape from the island is possible. These uncertainties add a certain spice to the island’s pleasures.

This is technically science fiction, of a sort, but it’s a novel that might well mystify most science fiction fans. It found it oddly mesmerising. Recommended, but maybe not to everyone.

This is one of the many French science fiction, fantasy and decadent works that have been translated (or to use his preferred terminology adapted) by Brian Stableford.

Donald Hamilton’s The Ambushers

The Ambushers, published in 1963, was the sixth of Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm spy thrillers.

Donald Hamilton (1916-2006) was an American writer who worked in various genres but is best known for his spy novels. The Matt Helm books bear no resemblance to the Matt Helm movies (which are great fun in their own way). Matt Helm is a US Government assassin.

It’s important to note that it’s best to read the early Matt Helm novels in publication order. It’s certain essentially to start with the first book in the series, Death of a Citizen, which gives vitally important backstory information that explains Helm’s motivations.

The Matt Helm novels definitely belong to the gritty realist school of spy fiction. These are hardboiled spy thrillers. Helm is not James Bond - he’s much more ruthless. He doesn’t particularly like being a secret agent but he carries out his assignments with brutal efficiency. He is not a thug. He has complicated feelings about the job. But if ordered to kill he will do so without hesitation.

He also has a pragmatic approach when it comes to other American agents. If it’s necessary to sacrifice an American agent in order to achieve the mission Matt won’t like it but he’ll do it. They’re professionals. They knew the risks when they signed on. It’s a tough dirty game.

The Ambushers begins in a small South American republic. The ruling regime of President Avila is fairly corrupt and fairly vicious but they’re America’s allies. Helm’s assignment is to assassinate the rebel leader Santos. The rebels might well have justifiable reasons for opposing Avila’s regime but in the world of espionage and intelligence right and wrong don’t matter. The US Government wants Santos dead.

Helm finds himself with a secondary mission - to rescue Sheila. Sheila is an American agent. Her job had been to get herself into the good graces of Santos by getting herself into his bed. It all went badly wrong. Sheila did however discover something, something concealed in the jungle. Matt discovers it as well. It’s a nasty surprise.

There was another surprise for Matt. He certainly did not expect to see von Sachs among Santos’s cronies. His presence there may be connected to Sheila’s disturbing discovery.

Matt thinks his mission is over but his boss Mac has a new mission for him and he doesn’t like the sound of it. He has also acquired a partner - Sheila. Sheila is all messed up after having been held captive in the jungle for months. She was starved and tortured and it’s strongly implied that she was raped. The intelligence agency’s doctor figures she’ll take a year to recover, if she ever recovers. She tells Matt she wants to be his partner on the new mission. Matt understands. The last thing Sheila wants is to be treated like a victim. He persuades Mac to let her go along.

The objective is to kill von Sachs. First they have to find him. They have some leads - some people who may have been in contact with him. Matt has no way of knowing whether these people are von Sachs’ associates or his enemies. He therefore has no way to know if he should consider them to be allies or enemies. If they’re allies, they may have their own agendas.

So there’s plenty of potential for just about everybody to be double-crossed by everybody else. And in fact there are double-crosses aplenty.

Matt also has to worry about Sheila - will she crack up and let him down?

The Matt Helm novels are excellent hard-edged spy thrillers and this is a good one and it’s highly recommended although I do slightly prefer The Silencers and Murderers’ Row.

I’ve reviewed most of the previous Matt Helm novels - Death of a Citizen, The Wrecking Crew, The Silencers and Murderers’ Row. They’re all excellent.

Victor Rousseau's Eric of the Strong Heart

Victor Rousseau (1879-1960) was an English British writer who wrote science fiction and other assorted pulp fiction works.

His lost world novel Eric of the Strong Heart was serialised in four parts in Railroad Man's Magazine in November and December 1918.

Eric Silverstein is what would later be called a geek. He lives in New York, he’s wealthy and he’s a history buff. Everything changes for him when he cores across a sideshow attraction featuring a mysterious princess from an exotic land. Much to the amusement of the crowd she speaks in gibberish. Eric notices two things. Firstly her costume is Saxon from around a thousand years earlier and it’s totally authentic. Secondly she isn’t speaking gibberish - she is speaking Old English. Being a history fanatic Eric understands the language. The princess (whose name is Editha) is very indignant. She was expecting an audience with the king of this land.

There is a disturbance and the princess, aided by Eric, makes her escape. She just wants to return to her longship. It turns out she really does have a longship. Then something very odd happens - the princess suddenly becomes a knife-wielding maniac. Her two attendants make apologies for her and it is suggested that it would be safer for Eric to forget all about her. Editha sails off, to return to her own land.

Eric cannot forget her. Oddly enough, even though she is very beautiful, he does not have fantasies of marrying her. He thinks his friend Ralph would be a perfect husband for her.

Eric is intelligent but he has a few huge blind spots. He also underestimates himself. He has never been handsome or athletic. He does not see himself as the stuff that heroes are made of, while he thinks of Ralph as being very much hero material.

Eric knows his history and his geography. He thinks he knows where Editha’s land is. It is in the frozen Arctic, north of Spitzbergen. He buys himself a yacht and with two companions sets off to find Editha’s homeland. His two companions are Ralph and a fisherman named Bjorn.

This is a classic lost world story. Editha’s land has been cut off from the rest of humanity for a millennium. People there live as they did a thousand years ago. There are in fact two peoples there, one (the rulers) descended from the Dames and one (the slaves) descended from the Angles. There are two kings, but the Danish king rules. Editha is the daughter of the Anglian king.

In fact there are three people on this remote island, the third being a race of Trolls.

There are of course power struggles. The Angles have never been entirely reconciled to their subordinate status. The Danes are determined to maintain their superior position. Having two kings complicates things. There has been intermarriage. There are conspiracies aplenty. The arrival of outsiders increases the tension levels, especially when one of the outsiders puts himself forward as a candidate for the kingship.

There is also a sword with a legend attached to it. The man who draws the sword out of its rocky scabbard will be king.

There are conflicted loyalties and betrayals, not just among the islanders but among the three outsiders as well. Bjorn seem to have his own agenda.

There are people who feel they are chosen by destiny, and they can be thereby tempted to do desperate things.

This is a complex lost world. The story offers a lot of action and adventure but with some psychological twists. Eric is a man who is intelligent and resourceful but he has made a very serious error of judgment which could have momentous consequences. There is magic, although the exact nature of the magic is ambiguous.

The ending holds a few surprises.

This is an above-average lost world tale and it’s highly recommended.

Robert Moore Williams' Somebody Wants You Dead

Robert Moore Williams (1907-1977) was an American writer. He mostly wrote science fiction but dabbled in other genres and used quite a few pseudonyms. His short novel Somebody Wants You Dead is quite obscure. I haven’t even able to find a publication date for it. I assume it was published in a pulp magazine (possibly under one of those pseudonyms) and then forgotten until Armchair Fiction rescued it from obscurity.

There is a helicopter that plays a part in the story so it must have been written in the postwar period and the scene depicted in the cover illustration with a woman holding on to the running board of a car does happen in the novel so it had to have been written when cars still had running boards. My guess is that this novel dates from the late 40s or very early 50s.

Zack Grey is a private eye. He’s been employed by a man named Grimsby to find a girl named Ruth Shaw. Grimsby claims she’s an employe who suddenly disappeared, along with some important papers. Grimsby might not have been telling the entire truth. That’s not Zack’s problem. A job is a job. Now he’s found Ruth Shaw and she’s very dead. Murdered. Just before dying she handed Zack a key. Then two guys show up, one of them toting a submachine gun. They’re real unfriendly. Zack is lucky to get away. He figures it’s a cinch that they killed Ruth Shaw.

While this is happening Ruth’s sister Sally arrives at the nearby Rocky Mountain Lodge where she’s supposed to meet Ruth. Ruth sent her two hundred dollars and an oblong steel box, the kind you keep securities in. Sally soon has her own problems with two other goons, young punks. They ransack her room, threaten her and try to rape her.

There’s an escaped convict on the loose, there seem to be quite a few people looking for something that they’re convinced Sally has in her possession, there’s lots of killing and quite a bit of paranoia.

The author also throws in a few time-honoured clichés familiar from 1930s B-movies and from Old Dark House movies.

Zack starts to take a liking to Sally and she seems inclined to reciprocate but of course there’s no way he can be sure he can trust her. There’s also no way she can be sure she can trust him.

Zack is a fairly standard PI hero. He’s no genius but he’s no fool. He makes some mistakes.

I don’t think this novel can in any way be described as noir fiction. Zack is not a classic noir protagonist and there’s no real femme fatale. This is more a hardboiled mystery suspense tale. The plot is quite serviceable. There are some suitably nasty and ruthless bad guys.

The style is very pulpy, but you won’t get any complaints from me about that. There’s no shortage of violence. The dead bodies start piling up at the Rocky Mountain Lodge.

Somebody Wants You Dead is a reasonably enjoyable read although you would be advised not to set your expectations too high. This is no neglected gem. Recommended.

Armchair Fiction have paired this one with M. Scott Michel’s 1946 crime thriller The Black Key in a two-novel paperback edition.

Kris Neville's Earth Alert!

Earth Alert! is a rather bizarre alien invasion science fiction novel by Kris Neville which was published in the pulp Imagination in February 1953.

American science fiction writer Kris Neville (1925-1980) enjoyed some early success but his output slowed considerably during the 1960s.

I would guess that the setting is supposed to be about a quarter century in the future.

Julia is a slightly odd young woman who has just come into a great deal of money. She has some ideas about how to use this money but her first priority is to buy herself a husband. She’s confident that she’ll be able to afford one who will be satisfactory.

Then some odd things start happening to her. She cuts her finger rather badly and discovers that she can heal the would instantly. That’s rather puzzling. Even more puzzling is her new-found ability to walk through walls. She also discovers that she can learn things very quickly. She has a perfect memory. Given that she’s always been a very ordinary girl these abilities come as quite a surprise to her.

She also hears a man’s voice in her head. She quickly figures out that she is not going crazy. It’s a real voice. It appears that telepathy is among her new skills.

The explanation may have something to do with the space station currently orbiting the Earth. It’s an alien space station and nobody on Earth knows of its existence. It has a kind of cloaking device. It’s the spearhead of an alien invasion and the invasion should be successful thanks to the Lyrian mutants. They possess some very formidable powers such as teleportation and telepathy. And Lyrians look remarkably similar to humans.

The aliens are very disturbed to learn of Julia’s existence. No-one on Earth could possess the powers that she possesses. And those powers might well enable her to discover the invasion plans.

One of the mutants, Walt, is sent down to the planet surface to kill her. There’s no problem motivating him to do this. He has been taught since birth that the inhabitants of Earth are evil and are deadly enemies to the Lyrians. Walt is anxious to kill these enemies.

This is the basic setup. The novel then becomes a hunt. Walt has to find Julia in order to kill her. Julia has to stay alive until she can figure out how to convince the government of the danger. She doesn’t know the exact nature of the danger but she knows it’s real and it’s extreme.

The things that Julia doesn’t know (and there are lots of things she doesn’t know) are important, and there are also many very important things that Walt doesn’t know.

The aliens have a somewhat interesting weakness. Other than that the plot is fairly typical of alien invasion tales.

Earth Alert! is certainly pulpy but it’s weird enough to be interesting. There’s a certain amount of paranoia but it’s not the usual 1950s paranoia. It’s a more wide-ranging paranoia. It does tap into the flying saucer craze of that era. The space age was just beginning to dawn and the idea that other inhabited worlds existed elsewhere in the galaxy and might potentially be a threat had gained momentum.

Modern readers might consider that the outlandish elements such as telepathy and teleportation and invisibility make this novel fantasy rather than science fiction. In the 50s however paranormal abilities had at least a vague fringe kind of scientific almost-respectability. On the other hand the author seems to have limited interest in scientific plausibility. There’s some amusing technobabble. There’s also a certain goofiness to the story at times.

You don’t want to take this novel too seriously. Actually you don’t want to take it at all seriously. If you like your pulp science fiction frenetic and a bit silly it’s enjoyable enough.

Armchair Fiction have paired this novel with Poul Anderson’s enjoyable sword-and-planet adventure novella The Virgin of Valkarion in a two-novel edition.

I’ve only read one other of Kris Neville's books, his 1967 novel Special Delivery. Based on these two books I’d describe Neville as a writer of seriously offbeat but quite intriguing science fiction.

John Flagg’s Woman of Cairo

John Flagg’s Woman of Cairo is a 1953 spy thriller.

American John Gearon wrote eight espionage/crime novels between 1950 and 1961 using the pseudonym John Flagg. All were published as Fawcett Gold Medal editions.

This is pre-James Bond spy fiction but don’t jump to the conclusion that that means it’s dull. It isn’t. While it’s more a suspense thriller than an action thriller there is a perfectly adequate supply of action. The sex and violence are more muted than in the Bond novels, but both those elements are definitely present.

As in most spy fiction from the late 40s and early 50s the Second World War casts its shadow over this tale. Spy fiction had not yet become dominated by the Cold War. There are communist agitators in this story but they do not take centre stage. The Soviets play no part whatsoever in this story.

The setting is of course Egypt. The situation is very unsettled, and could become chaotic at any time. The regime of King Farouk is by no means stable. There are many factions jockeying for power behind the scenes. The British are nervous.They are horrified by the prospect of losing control of the Suez Canal (a fear which would lead to the Suez débâcle in 1956 which proved to be the end of Britain as a Great Power) and losing a reliable client state.

Hart Muldoon is an American intelligence agent, now retired. He no longer wants any part of the spy business but since he’s just had some very bad luck at the gambling tables the British are able to persuade him to take on a job for them. They’ve lost one of their bombers. With a full load of bombs aboard. They’d like it back.

A shady character named Jeremiah Grant may be involved, as well as a German named von Bruckner. The idea is for Muldoon to seduce von Bruckner’s mistress Gina. His first contact however is a pretty blonde named Sigried McCarthy.

Muldoon falls for Gina, which was not part of the plan. He also sleeps with pretty young French chanteuse Marianne Courbet.

Finding a lead on that missing British bomber turns out to be frustratingly difficult. A man with possible information is murdered in front of Muldoon’s eyes. He knows the bomber is near an oasis, but he has no idea where the oasis is.

Muldoon finds himself embroiled with three women, all of whom could fall into the dangerous dames category. Gina’s brother Guido seems pretty shifty, and there’s a handsome charming young Frenchman named Armand Trouvier who hangs around the women a bit too much. King Farouk’s security chief is taking an uncomfortably close interest in his activities.

While Muldoon is juggling his women Egypt moves closer to an explosion. It could end in revolution, an Islamic takeover or a military coup. Or Farouk might regain control. One of the many factions stirring up trouble is the Sons of Mecca. They’re religious fanatics but they appear to have surprising links to either Jeremiah Grant or von Bruckner, or both. Muldoon is puzzled by this. Most of all he’s puzzled why anyone should think that the possession of a single British bomber is important. It’s not carrying nuclear weapons.

Ian Fleming’s Bond novels upped the ante as far as sex and violence were concerned and added hints of sadism. Perhaps surprisingly Woman of Cairo has some moderately shocking violence, it has lots of sex (although not described graphically) and it has hints of just about everything that in 1953 would have been considered sexual deviation. And to be honest not just hints. It’s pretty blatant about it. This is a pretty sleazy book.

Hart Muldoon is also a surprising pre-Bond spy hero. He tries to seduce every woman he encounters (and succeeds with most of them). He gives one of the women a fairly savage beating without even knowing if she’s on the side of the good guys or the bad guys. And he commits two murders. In 1940s/early 50s spy thrillers it was acceptable for the hero to kill people but it had to be in self-defence, to save the life of someone else or it had to be absolutely essential to the mission and to national security. But Muldoon’s kills are cold-blooded murder, they’re not the least bit essential to the mission and they’re motivated by personal feelings of revenge and sexual jealousy. Hart Muldoon is very close to being an authentic anti-hero.

The women all have some depth to them. There are lots of characters (including several European expatriates gone bad) who have become morally compromised but there are understandable reasons for their moral corruption.

The plot is rather clever.

The historical background is fascinating and the exotic setting is used extremely well. There’s an atmosphere of corruption and paranoia. In fact this novel has just about everything you could want in a spy thriller. Highly recommended.

I’ve also reviewed three other John Flagg spy thrillers - The Lady and the Cheetah, Death and the Naked Lady and The Persian Cat. They’re very good and I highly recommend all three. And they're all in print!

Stark House have paired this one in a two-novel paperback with another Hank Muldoon thriller, Dear, Deadly Beloved.