J. E. Macdonnell’s Come Die With Me

Come Die With Me, published in 1965, was the first of J. E. Macdonnell’s fourteen Mark Hood spy thrillers.

J. E. Macdonnell was an incredibly prolific Australian author. He wrote at least 200 novels, mostly naval fiction (he spent 14 years in the navy). If you like WW2 naval fiction then his stuff is very good even if it does give the impression that the Australian navy won the war singlehandedly!  He wrote in other genres as well and it was probably inevitable that in the 60s he would try his hand at spy fiction.

Mark Hood is a fairly typical tough guy fictional spy. He works for an international agency called Intertrust. It’s one of those agencies that everybody pretends don’t exist. It seems to be an unofficial informal partnership between several countries, including Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union. Its special brief is to prevent nuclear technology from falling the wrong hands. 

One thing that does make this novel notable is the level of casual brutality. And Mark Hood is much more ruthless and cold-blooded than James Bond. He’s even more ruthless and cold-blooded than Matt Helm. Spies cannot afford to leave witnesses and Hood is quite happy to liquidate such people even if they’re actually pretty harmless and even if they’re old shipmates!

Mark Hood is also a very enthusiastic womaniser. Some modern readers may need to head for the fainting couches when it gets to the bit where the heroine gets really turned on after seeing Mark kill a man. Hood is also an athlete and a racing-car driver. 

He’s an American educated in England and the author is trying to create as much of the fashionable cosmopolitan feel of the spy fiction of that era as he can. The Bahamas is a good choice for an exotic glamorous setting.

In this story it’s not the Russians who are the bad guys but the Germans. Yes this is yet another 60s spy story about followers of that Austrian painter chappie who don’t accept that the war is over.

With the author’s naval background it’s no surprise that this novel has a decidedly nautical flavour. The basic premise is somewhat original. The bad guys have stolen an American PT-boat (or an MTB as they were known in the British navy). But this is no ordinary PT-boat - it’s a nuclear-armed PT-boat. Its torpedoes have atomic warheads. And a new very secret very high-tech guidance system. Which is why the Americans are so upset. The British are upset as well - the PT-boat was stolen in the Bahamas - British territory.

There is of course a megalomaniac super-villain of the standard type, a man named Gauss, and he’s rather sensitive when it comes to aspersions on his mental stability. He has a loyal henchman, rather brutal but also a racing-car driver. Gauss has his secret headquarters, eerily reminiscent of the mountain retreat of that Austrian painter. Gauss is very much a sports car enthusiast, among his other hobbies.

He has a master plan of the usual type. It involves a lot more than nuclear-armed PT-boats.

There are two beautiful women in this story although Hood only gets to bed one of them.

There’s some decent action and suspense. The novel has a rather tough gritty feel and it definitely has its dark moments.

Come Die With Me isn’t groundbreaking but it’s a competent spy thriller and it’s recommended.

It should be noted that there’s a 1969 sexy lady spy novel with the same title, James Eastwood’s Come Die With Me.

Sax Rohmer's Grey Face

Grey Face is a 1924 Sax Rohmer potboiler and as to which genre to which to assign it, you’ll have to decide for yourself when you read it. And you should read it.

Rohmer wrote some gothic horror but he also wrote stories that seem to be supernatural (or paranormal) horror but turn out to have rational explanations. There’s often occultism and fringe science. Or esoteric religio-mystical stuff. Even science fictional elements. Even in the stories in which there’s a rational explanation there’s enough strangeness to qualify them as weird fiction. You just never know what you’re going to get.

That applies to Grey Face in a major way.

It starts with a guy named Carey who had been in military intelligence during the war. Now he works for Scotland Yard in a semi-official capacity as an advisor. And he’s had a couple of very odd memory lapses. One night he sits down to write an important report to the Commissioner, Sir John Nevinson. Three hours later he wakes up and the report hasn’t been written. He remembers nothing of the preceding few hours. The following night the same thing happens again. What worries him is that somehow he has used a whole stack of writing paper. He must have written the report. In fact the impressions left on the writing pad confirm that he did write the report But he has no idea what has happened to that report.

He has romantic problems as well. He is hoping to marry Jasmine, the daughter of eminent physician Provost Hope (who specialises in rather fringe areas such as hypnotism and psycho-analysis). Jasmine has broken off the engagement because he lied to her. The annoying thing is that he knows quite well that he did not lie to her and he cannot understand why she thinks he did. She also believes that he has fallen for the charms of the mysterious and notorious (and undoubtedly immoral) Madame Sabinov.

For her part Jasmine is being pursued by M. De Trepniak, an even odder bird. He is reputed to be Russian but nothing certain is known about him. He is fabulously wealthy but the source of his riches are unknown.

These romantic dramas are connected with Carey’s memory lapses, and with some strange experiments, and a jewel robbery and the theft of vital official documents. The connections are bizarre and more connections keep emerging, each of them even more bizarre. There is a mysterious Egyptian, an adept of the mystical arts. There are strange talismans. There is a murder. There is a vast conspiracy which may well have occult underpinnings. It may be linked to forbidden esoteric teachings. And did I mention that there are people who appear to be dead, but are not?

But of course none of this is certain. Everything in this tale is tantalisingly ambiguous.

No-one was better than Rohmer at creating an atmosphere of mystery and menace and decadence and moral depravity.

The plot is fiendishly complex but consistently intriguing. There is plenty of danger (both physical and moral) and breathless excitement. There are hidden rooms and secret passageways. There are cruel imprisonments. There are hoodlums and fiendish human monsters. There are inexplicable and terrifying illnesses.

There’s also a assortment of villains all of whom have given at least some consideration to the idea of double-crossing their accomplices.

It’s huge amounts of fun and it’s very highly recommended. One of Rohmer’s best.

Stark House have paired this novel with another delightfully overheated Sax Rohmer potboiler, The Green Eyes of Bâst.

I’ve reviewed a lot of Sax Rohmer’s work and I particularly recommend The Leopard Couch, The Dream Detective, Brood of the Witch-Queen and of course the Fu Manchu books such as The Mask of Fu Manchu.

Peter Cheyney's Can Ladies Kill?

Between 1936 and 1951 Englishman Peter Cheyney had a lot of success with his American-style pulp crime/spy thrillers. The fact that he had never been to America didn’t worry him. He knew the America of Hollywood movies and hardboiled pulp fiction and he knew that that was the America that mattered to his readers. Some of Cheyney’s books are set in the United States, some are not, but they all have a decided hardboiled flavour.

His most famous series characters were private detective Slim Callaghan and FBI agent Lemmy Caution. Lemmy Caution featured in a terrific series of French movies in the 1950s and early 60s with the great Eddie Constantine in the title role.

Can Ladies Kill?, published in 1938, was the fourth Lemmy Caution novel.

Marella Thorensen has sent a message to the FBI that she has vital evidence regarding serious Federal crimes and she wants a meeting with a Federal agent to hand over that evidence. So Lemmy Caution finds himself on her doorstep in San Francisco but there’s nobody home. He calls back later and there’s still nobody home. It’s a bit puzzling.

Berenice Lee Sam has also received a communication from Marella requesting an urgent meeting. Berenice hasn’t come home and her father has contacted the cops.

Then Marella gets iced. Literally. I won’t explain further because it’s too cool a detail to spoil. Her body is found floating in the bay. And then some guys in a Chevrolet open up on Lemmy with a machinegun.

Berenice is the daughter of rich Chinese businessman Lee Sam. Marella’s husband is Lee Sam’s lawyer. Something illegal has been going on, a racket in silk, and it involves Lee Sam and semi-reformed mobster Jack Rocca who has business dealings with Lee Sam and it involves Rudy Spiglia who is Jack Rocca’s chief lieutenant. The problem is that it’s illegal but fairly trivial. The information Marella wanted to pass on to the FI had to be much more important than that.

And there have been some adulterous goings-on involving some of these people. That might provide a motive for murder, but that also cannot possibly be the evidence Marella wanted to give the Bureau.

Lemmy has no idea what information Marella had but he’s convinced that it is the key to the whole case. Without that key all the other evidence may well be totally misleading. And without that key the theory Lemmy has come up with might well collapse completely. Lemmy’s chief virtue as a detective is that he doesn’t allow himself to be locked in to a theory no matter how superficially attractive it might be.

The plot really is fiendishly complex but Cheyney brings it all together successfully at the end. And the ending is a real sting in the tail.

There are several dames mixed up in all this and none can be trusted. Including Marella, and she’s dead. Berenice is very rich and very gorgeous. Dames like that are always dangerous. Lemmy figures that although she might be dangerous she’s probably a hell of a woman, and after he sleeps with her he knows she really is a hell of a woman.

There is of course no shortage of action. Lemmy is handy with his fists and with his Luger automatic but he has brains as well as brawn. He’s not the kind of detective who crawls around on his hands and knees with a magnifying glass looking for cigar ash. He does however spend a lot of time thinking. Lemmy doesn’t have much polish but he’s a likeable guy.

Can Ladies Kill? is highly recommended.

I’ve reviewed other Lemmy Caution novels - Never a Dull Moment, Dames Don’t Care and Poison Ivy. And I’ve reviewed several of the Lemmy Caution movies including Poison Ivy (1953).

Fritz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness!

Fritz Leiber’s novel Gather, Darkness! was serialised in Astounding Science Fiction in May, June, and July 1943 and published in book form in 1950.

Leiber had been part of Lovecraft’s circle of correspondents and Leiber was always more a writer of weird fiction than science fiction.

In the distant future the world is governed by a theocracy. The priestly Hierarchy enforces the worship of the Great God. The power of that theocracy is now being challenged by occult forces, servants of the dread archfiend Sathanis. Rebellion is being plotted by the New Witchcraft.

But in fact it’s all an illusion. The reader knows this right from the start. There is no Great God. This is a synthetic religion invented by scientists to just a dictatorship of scientists. Miracles are performed regularly, but by means of advanced technology. There are angels, but they are really ultra-light aircraft. The Hierarchy has sophisticated mind control technologies and powerful drugs at its disposal. The population is kept in an uneducated superstitious state and the religion of the Great God has never been challenged.

Now occult forces, labelled the New Witchcraft, are at work spreading terror and confusion. But this is an illusion as well. There’s nothing supernatural about the New Witchcraft. They just have their own advanced technologies.

So what appears to be either a clash between opposing religions of dark and light, or a clash between science and magic, is in fact a power struggle between two fake religions invented by opposing factions of scientists and technocrats.

The trouble starts when a priest named Jarles suddenly harangues a crowd with a blasphemous anti-Hierarchy rant. He expects immediate arrest and punishment but it doesn’t happen.

The archpriest Goniface is gradually consolidating his control over the Hierarchy, driven by complex ambitions which will be revealed more fully at the end of the story.

There’s mind control in this book as well, a subject that would soon become an obsession for both science fiction and spy fiction writers. In Leiber’s novel a man’s personality can be moulded into a new form, but the old personality doesn’t quite disappear. Which can cause complications. Jarles is an enemy to the Hierarchy, he is remoulded into a loyal servant of the Hierarchy but there is now a major conflict set up in his mind. He has become an unpredictable factor.

The way technology is used to mimic the supernatural are quite clever. The witches have familiar spirits, but there’s nothing actually supernatural about them.

There’s certainly satire here but religion is not Leiber’s target. He’s more concerned with aiming his barbs at political ideologies and most of all he’s concerned with the way regimes (all regimes) construct an intricate web of deceptions to give themselves legitimacy.

The technologies deployed by both the Hierarchy and its opponents rely on the falsification of perceptions. Some of the more terrifying weapons are no more than illusions. The power struggle between the Hierarchy and will at times become violent but mostly it’s a lengthy complex exercise in the control of mass psychology. Fear is the most powerful weapon of all if it’s used subtly and effectively.

The major characters are all motivated by fears and by their own illusions and self-deceptions as well as ambition and, occasionally, the most deadly motivation of all - misguided idealism.

Gather, Darkness! is complex intelligent science fiction by one of the masters. Highly recommended.

I’ve also reviewed other Fritz Leiber books - You're All Alone and The Big Time.

Kathleen E. Woodiwiss's The Flame and the Flower

The Flame and the Flower is a 1972 romance novel by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss.

I’ve read most genres of fiction but I must confess that I have read virtually no romance fiction. I do however think that if one claims to be interested in genre fiction one should sample as many genres as possible, and while this novel is clearly aimed almost exclusively at a female readership I thought it was worth taking a look at it.

This is considered to be one of the most important romance novels ever written. It more or less established a whole new sub-genre, the erotic historical romance. It is regarded as the first full-blown “bodice ripper” and the first modern steamy romance with much stronger erotic content compared to earlier romance novels. As the story unfolds bodices will be ripped and bosoms will heave. By the end of the 70s it had sold four-and-a-half million copies and it’s still in print and still selling steadily.

It’s also interesting in being quite controversial and it has many over-sensitive modern reviewers clutching their pearls. 1972 was a more enlightened time. It was a time when women were beginning to be open and honest about their sexual desires. It is the author’s honesty about such matters that leads to so much pearl-clutching.

It begins in the year 1799, in England. Heather Simmons is a well-bred girl but since her father’s death she has lived in poverty, grievously mistreated by her vindictive aunt. She thinks her luck has changed for the better when her aunt’s brother invites her to London where he assures her he can find her a respectable position in a school. Heather is rather innocent and discovers that her Uncle William and his associate Mr Hint are scoundrels. She escapes with her virtue intact but she leaves a corpse behind her. She flees, convinced that she will be pursued by the law and hanged as a murderess although she acted in self-defence.

Wandering in a state of confusion on the dockside she encounters two friendly sailors who assure her that the captain of the Fleetwood, an American trading ship, will be overjoyed to receive her. She is naïve and she thinks that taking ship for America might be the only way to avoid the hangman’s noose.

Captain Brandon Birmingham is indeed overjoyed to receive her and this time she does not escape with her virtue intact. It is important to note that he is absolutely convinced that she is a prostitute. He had asked his crewmen to fetch a whore for him. It does not for one moment cross his mind that she is anything other than a whore. He assumes that her unwillingness is feigned - that she is playing hard to get in order to increase his ardour. If one can avoid having a knee-jerk reaction to this scene then one has to admit that Brandon has no reason to suspect that she is in fact a naïve virgin.

As a result of this encounter Brandon finds himself forced to marry the girl. He is very unhappy about this. To complicate matters Heather is now pregnant.

Everything in this story hinges on misunderstandings, misunderstandings that could easily be cleared up if only these two people were not both so proud and so stubborn and so determined not to reveal the way their feelings towards each other are changing. Heather is determined not to allow Brandon to share her bed. He is determined that Heather will be his wife in name only - that he will give her neither the love nor the physical intimacy that marriage entails.

They hate each other, but it’s the kind of hate that can just as easily become love. And there is strong physical attraction on both sides. Sharing a small cabin on his ship they get to see each other at very close quarters. He cannot help noticing her luscious body. She thinks he is a monster, but a very handsome tall well-muscled monster and she is very impressed by his manliness. He is very manly indeed. Soon he is climbing the walls in sexual frustration but he still will not do anything about it even when she seems keen for him to do so. She is also climbing the walls in sexual frustration but will not admit that she wants him in her bed.

The author manages to make all this fairly believable.

There’s a mystery thriller plot here as well, which simmers in the background and eventually takes centre stage. There are several murders, wild accusations, some fairly decent suspense and some action.

It’s all very overheated and melodramatic but it’s entertaining. Brandon and Heather both have their faults and they’re complex and contradictory characters. They may not be immediately likeable but this is doubtless intentional - as their mutual affection grows and they learn to appreciate each other’s good points so the readers’ affection for them grows as well.

The Flame and the Flower is rather enjoyable. Recommended.

Malko 8: Death on the River Kwai

SAS L’Or de la Rivière Kwai, published in French in 1971, is one of just a handful of the 200 hugely popular Malko novels written by French former newspaper reporter Gérard de Villiers to be translated into English. That English edition, Malko 8: Death on the River Kwai, came out in 1975.

The hero of this spy series is His Serene Highness Prince Malko Ligne, Count of the Holy Roman Empire, Knight of the Black Eagle, Knight of the Order of Landgrave Seraphim of Kletgaus, Knight of the Order of Malta. This Austrian prince works for the CIA. He does it for the money. He owns a castle and castles cost a fortune to maintain. Despite his mercenary motivations the CIA regards him as absolutely reliable.

The jobs he does for the CIA are the tricky ones that require a certain amount of flair. They can at times be a bit morally murky.

He’s currently in Thailand investigating the disappearance of his espionage mentor Jim Stanford. Stanford is retired from the CIA but spies can never really retire. Their pasts are always likely to catch up to them. Stanford may have been killed or he may have been abducted. And, oddly enough, back in the States his sister is murdered.

The local CIA station chief has given Malko an assistant - his pretty Thai secretary (who turns out to be from an incredibly rich family). Tepin is efficient and helpful. She is a virgin. She makes sure that Malko knows this. Tepin intends to defend her virtue. On the other hand she can’t help noticing that Malko is terribly brave and handsome and he has such sexy eyes. But she’s a good girl.

There are plenty of leads but they just leave Malko more bewildered. Stanford had a beautiful Thai wife, a thriving silk business, a luxurious house and an impressive art collection. But clearly he had secrets. His wife is not saying anything. Her attitude is puzzling and she seems just a little scared.

He discovers that Stanford was a regular customer at a Bangkok massage parlour where he got special favours (very special) from a very cute masseuse. Malko gets the same treatment from her and he can well understand why Stanford was such a loyal customer. She introduces Malko to pleasures he had never even imagined.

Stanford also has a mistress, a Chinese singer/whore. Malko doesn’t get much useful information from her but she teaches him a thing or two as well. Malko finds that the most effective place to interrogate pretty female witnesses is in bed. Even if they don’t reveal useful information the interrogations are still rewarding.

The problem is that while he now knows that Jim Stanford was no Boy Scout none of this offers Malko any clues as to why someone would want to liquidate or kidnap him. Stanford chased women but there are no indications that he was mixed up in anything political. On the other hand, taking into account that his sister was targeted as well, he had to have been involved in something big and something sinister.

Meanwhile Tepin is starting to reconsider this whole defending her virginity thing.

A major strength of this novel is the female characters. They are of course dangerous and sexy but they also have complex and believably feminine motivations. Malko is smart enough to know that one of these women is the key to the mystery but he has no idea which of them it might be.

And after he’s been beaten up several times he’s sure he must be getting close to some answers.

Malko has a tendency to be careless. He gets himself into scrapes that could have been avoided. It’s not that he isn’t a good intelligence agent, but he is not an infallible super-spy.

There’s plenty of action, there’s a well-crafted plot with effective twists, there’s an exotic setting and there are those beautiful dangerous women. It all adds up to a fine spy thriller and it’s highly recommended.

I’ve reviewed five of the other English-translated Malko books - West of Jerusalem, Operation New York, Man from Kabul, Malko versus the CIA and Malko: Angel of Vengence. They're all very much worth reading.

Gardner Francis Fox's Warrior of Llarn

Warrior of Llarn is a 1964 sword-and-planet adventure by Gardner Francis Fox. Maybe Fox wasn’t the greatest writer in the world but I’ve read a lot of his stuff and so far I haven’t come across a single boring book of his.

It has a classic sword-and-planet setup. Alan Morgan is a regular guy living in the modern United States, except that for years he has heard a mysterious voice giving him enigmatic messages. And for reasons he can’t rationally explain he has become an expert swordsman. He believes that something important is expected of him but he has no idea what it might be.

In a sword-and-planet story there is no reason to stress about finding a scientifically plausible explanation for the fact that the hero suddenly finds himself transported from 20th century Earth to a distant planet (called Llarn). It’s a much-used trope in this genre and one of the conventions of the genre is that no explanation is required.

Fox always believed in getting straight into the action so almost immediately Alan is set upon by four horned blue-skinned men riding horned horses. And then a flying machine appears, pursued by four other similar machines. The first machine crashes and Alan rescues the pilot and disposes of the pursuers. The pilot is a very pretty golden-skinned girl.

You won’t be at all surprised to find out that she is a princess. Or that an evil usurper now occupies her father’s throne.

But Alan will soon meet a second princess. She’s a beautiful but evil princess. Or that’s what she appears to be.

There are several humanoid species on Llarn, some closely related and some distantly related. Some of them only came into existence after The War. This is one of those stories in which atomic radiation can do absolutely anything - it can create new species and change existing species but it can also create bizarrely non-human lifeforms. Lifeforms that are possibly not even organic. Maybe not corporeal at all. Lifeforms with extraordinary powers. Powers that resemble magic.

Sword-and-planet stories usually do not involve actual magic. That is one of the things that distinguish the genre from sword-and-sorcery. But they can involve highly advanced technologies that seem magical. This novel does involve magic but it’s not really magic since atomic radiation can explain anything.

I don’t have a huge problem with this. Sword-and-planet stories do not have to follow the rules of hard science fiction. And let’s face it, a lot of actual hard science fiction stories involve impossible technologies that might as well be magic.

What matters is that this is a well-written fast-paced action-packed tale, it has some hints of horror, it has some weird coolness elements and there’s a fine love story. There’s a brave noble resourceful hero and a proud noble heroine. And there’s an interesting romantic triangle. There’s action on land, in the air, at sea and in the gloomy dungeons of ancient castles.

The author understands pulp fiction. This is pure entertainment. Recommended.

A second book, Thief of Llarn, appeared in 1966 but Warrior of Llarn works just fine as a standalone novel.

Gardner Francis Fox wrote in multiple pulp genres. His sexy spy thrillers such as the Cherry Delight books (beginning with The Italian Connection) and the Lady from L.U.S.T. books (beginning with Lust, Be a Lady Tonight) are huge amounts of fun. His 1967 black magic novel The Druid Stone (which combines occult thriller and sword-and-sorcery elements) is truly excellent.

Thomas B. Dewey’s Hunter at Large

Thomas B. Dewey’s Hunter at Large is a 1961 crime novel which has been reissued by Black Gat Books.

Thomas B. Dewey (1915-1981) was a prolific American crime writer.

Hunter at Large is a revenge story. Mickey Phillips is a young police detective. He and his wife Kathy live just outside of town. It’s a bit remote but that’s what Kathy wanted.

Then two guys knock at the door and Mickey’s whole world falls apart. Kathy is brutally murdered. Mickey is shot and left for dead.

The killers make one big mistake. They don’t check to make sure Mickey is dead. He survives. Only just, but he survives. When he recovers he wants revenge. He quits the police force. This is a quest he must undertake on his own.

He has two clues to go on. The killers knew his name but obviously didn’t know what he looked like. They had been hired to kill him but obviously had been given only his name. And one of the killers wields a razor the way only someone familiar with a razor would wield it - someone like a barber. It’s not much to go on but in Chicago he gets a break - he recognises a mug shot. It’s a guy named Lou Roberts.

The chase will take him to Kansas City, Denver and Arizona. To resort hotels and abandoned mines. His problem is that he has no evidence and no idea of the motive for the crime. He just figures that somehow or other he will find both evidence and a motive. Because he has to. But first he has to find Lou Roberts.

Mickey is a trained detective and now that he’s off the police force he has plenty of time. He can afford to be patient. And he is patient.

Along the way he hooks up with a cute prostitute named Irene. He befriends her because he thinks she might be some vague sort of lead. He’s just using her for information but he becomes oddly fond of her. She’s not quite a Whore with a Heart of Gold but she’s rather likeable and he helps her out of a couple of jams and she’s never had a man do anything nice for her before. They don’t fall in love but they develop a certain quirky affection for each other. He thinks he can trust her, up to a point. He doesn’t think she would deliberately betray him but he has had to tell her a few things which she might let slip.

He will meet another woman who might provide a lead and that will get complicated.

There’s a certain amount of action but very little gunplay. Rather surprisingly and perhaps foolishly, Mickey doesn’t even carry a gun and there are occasions when a gun would have come in real handy.

There’s some reasonable suspense and the mystery plot is quite serviceable.

The central issue is whether Mickey wants justice or just revenge. That’s a question that Mickey has asked himself and he can’t answer it. He takes a lot of risks because he feels he has nothing left to lose. Maybe he’s seeking self-destruction. Maybe he can still find some reason to live, or maybe he can’t. You’ll have to read the book to find out the answer to all of those questions.

He’s an archetypal obsessed hero driven by a single passion but he still has some humanity left in him. He treats Irene kindly even though he doesn’t owe her anything because it’s in his nature to do so.

There’s a major twist which is to an extent foreshadowed which is perhaps a weakness.

This is not noir fiction but it’s a competent hardboiled mystery crime thriller and it’s recommended.

Edmond Hamilton’s novella The Starcombers

Edmond Hamilton’s novella The Starcombers first appeared in Science Fiction Adventures in December 1956.

Edmond Hamilton (1904-1977) was an American science fiction writer who wrote some fine space opera for the pulps in the 1930s and 40s. He was a major contributor to Weird Tales. In 1946 he married Leigh Brackett.

Sam Fletcher works for Harry Axe. Harry Axe runs a space salvage operation. They find formerly inhabited planets and salvage anything that might be of value, especially metals. It’s quite legal but it’s the kind of business that attracts operators who are perhaps a bit shady, or at the very least rather ethically flexible.

Sam Fletcher is the pilot of Harry’s scout ship. He doesn’t like the work but it’s OK as long as he stays reasonably drunk.

Harry’s wife Lucy has become a problem for Sam. She desperately wants to sleep with Sam but he isn’t interested. Lucy reacts the way a lot of women would react in that situation. She feels scorned, so she wants to get even. She tells Harry that Sam seduced her. Harry isn’t sure if he believes her or not but the seed of suspicion has been planted and now things are tense between Sam and Harry. Lucy has caused trouble, which is what she wanted to do.

Harry and his team have found a planet that is pretty much dead. There’s a huge cleft running through it, as if the planet had been almost torn in two. There’s no atmosphere but there are ruins of a civilisation and there’s enough metal to make a profitable haul.

Then Sam spots somebody. Somebody apparently human, or at least human-like - it’s hard to be sure when someone is wearing a spacesuit. The planet is supposed to be uninhabited.

What interests Harry is that the stranger’s spacesuit and helmet are made of an incredibly lightweight incredibly tough totally unknown substance. That could mean money - there are people who would pay big bucks to analyse that substance.

And then all hell breaks loose. The planet is inhabited by a variety of life forms, some humanoid and some very bizarre indeed. They live in that cleft, where the last of the planet’s atmosphere is to be found. They all want food. Food is in very short supply. Harry assumes that this will make trading easy.

All the species native to the planet are constantly at war. Harry thinks he can scheme his way out of anything but maybe this time he’s miscalculated.

Sam is not exactly a standard square-jawed action hero. He’s not a hopeless drunk, but he is a drunk. He’s cynical. He’s not outstandingly brave. What he does have is a burning desire to survive, which is odd since he gives the impression of being a guy who puts very little value on his life.

Whether Harry is a villain or just reckless and foolish remains to be seen.

The story is not short on action and danger.

There are a few moral quandaries that Sam will have to face.

This is space opera but with at least some substance. Recommended.

Armchair Fiction have paired this title with The Year When Stardust Fell by Raymond F. Jones in a double-header edition.

I’ve reviewed some of Edmond Hamilton's other fiction including The Avenger from Atlantis and Crashing Suns.

Who is Number 2? The Prisoner tie-in novel)

David McDaniel’s Who is Number 2? was the second of the original novels based on The Prisoner TV series.

Like the first novel, Thomas M. Disch’s The Prisoner, it appears to take place some time after the events of the TV series.

You do need to be familiar with the television series. But if you are a fan of the TV series it’s worth reading and it’s recommended.

My full review can be found at Cult TV Lounge.

Red Sonja 1: The Ring of Ikribu

Red Sonja 1 The Ring of Ikribu by David C. Smith and Richard L. Tierney is the first of six Red Sonja novels published by Ace. This first book came out in 1982.  Red Sonja had also appeared in a number of comic books.

This is not quite a spin-off from Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, or at least it is and it isn’t. A character named Red Sonya (with a “y” not a “j”) made a very brief appearance in Howard’s fiction. Red Sonja is however essentially a brand new character.

The setting is ostensibly Howard’s mythical continent of Hyboria. The great thing about Hyboria is that it encompassed many different nations with many different cultures so the fact that Red Sonja inhabits a world that is more medieval than dark age barbarian does’t matter too much.

Red Sonja is a mercenary who is hired by Olin, a king whose kingdom was stolen from him by the sorcerer Asroth. Recruiting mercenaries won’t be easy - even the bravest man is reluctant to face sorcery. But Sonja is broke so she accepts the offer.

We get a brief backstory on the heroine and it’s pretty conventional - she lost her family and her honour to bandits. She had an encounter with what she assumed was a goddess. Sonja was given the strength and skill of a great warrior but had to pledge never to give herself to any man who could not defeat her in combat.

At this stage it seems like this will be run-of-the-mill sword-and-sorcery with a large dash of girlpower. Sonja seems like a standard kickass action heroine, in other words essentially a female character who could just as easily have been male. It all feels a bit generic.

But don’t give up - this book gets better and better as it goes. It also gets a lot darker.

Olin’s army sets out to reclaim his city of Suthad and the terrifying nature of Asroth’s sorceries becomes more apparent. The army’s march becomes a march into Hell. Asroth conjures up monsters which is bad enough but it’s when Olin’s warriors find themselves battling against their own slain comrades who have been zombie-fied that morale starts to crack.

And disoyalty becomes a problem. Olin’s mercenaries were never keen to begin with and they soon abandon him. Even his own troops are increasingly wondering if their suffering are worthwhile - maybe they’re up against an invincible enemy, and maybe defeat will mean worse things than death.

One thing I like is that Asroth’s magic isn’t all-powerful. The monsters are not as formidable as they look. The zombie warriors are unskilful and vulnerable. It’s the gruesomeness and the disgustingness of the creatures and the fact that Asroth is able to keep creating them that creates fear, and it’s the fear rather the creatures themselves that is the enemy.

Asroth remains offstage for most of the story which makes him more menacing. And there are villains who may not be straightforward villains, and allies who may be very untrustworthy, and they make the story a lot more interesting. Duke Pelides had been a servant of Asroth. Now he has joined Olin, but whose side is he really on?

And there are the Stygian priests of Ikibru. They’re enemies to Asroth, but whether that means they’re good guys or just another faction of bad guys remains to be seen.

It’s all about a magical ring. Asroth wants it. The Stygian priests want it. Duke Pelides wants it. Red Sonja has it, but she doesn’t know what to do with it. She’s not a sorceress so she cannot unlock its full powers. But would it be wise to entrust it to either Olin or Duke Pelides?

Sonja has personal matters to worry about as well. Olin is in love with her and wants to sleep with her. And she is discovering that despite her vow she is still a woman and she has emotional and physical needs and she could easily fall in love with Olin.

The authors keep things moving along in a brisk fashion, the action scenes are handled well and there’s some very effective very visceral horror. And an excellent atmosphere of paranoia and doom.

This is a hugely entertaining novel. Highly recommended. Now I need to find more of the Red Sonja novels.

It was the positive review at Paperback Warrior that convinced me to buy this book.

Carter Brown’s The Wind-Up Doll

The Wind-Up Doll, published in 1964, is the sixth of Carter Brown’s Rick Holman mysteries.

Australian author Alan Geoffrey Yates (1923-1985) wrote more than two hundred novels and seventy-five novellas using the pseudonym Carter Brown. His books sold well over a hundred million copies. One of his many series characters is Hollywood troubleshooter/private eye Rick Holman. The studios, and the stars, employ Rick whenever they need a very very discreet private eye to get a star out of an awkward spot and avoid scandal.

Toni Astor is a rising movie star. She is twenty-one years old but really she’s twenty-one going on twelve. She was adopted by her aunt Naomi who steered her on the road to stardom. Toni is about to get married for the second time, to the latest pop singer sensation Larry Gold. Her manager has hired Rick to do some digging into the singer’s background. He just wants to make sure Toni doesn’t make a second disastrous marriage.

Rick gets to meet Toni’s cousin Lisa. The two cousins hate each other.

There have been some shady goings-on regarding the careers of both Toni Astor and Larry Gold. Both the film and music businesses are awash with crooked producers, managers, financiers and talent agencies and the careers of both Toni and Larry are complicated webs of dubious deals. And there are complicated webs of family jealousies and family hatreds.

And then the accident happens. A fatal accident. Seventy-foot falls into empty swimming pools usually are fatal.

The police are satisfied that it was an accident. Rick is not so easily satisfied. There are so many potential financial and personal motivations that might be temptations for murder. The problem is trying to make sense of those webs of personal and financial entanglements.

Toni is a nice enough girl but she’s immature and unstable and she knows how to make use of her considerable sexual allure. She certainly qualifies as a dangerous dame who should not be trusted too far. Her cousin Lisa and her mother Naomi seem just as dangerous and just as unpredictable.

Most of those involved in managing Toni’s career are either borderline gangsters or people who are accustomed to sailing very close to the wind when it comes to the law.

As you would expect in a Carter Brown novel there’s quite a bit of sleaze. There’s glamour as well and Brown knows that sleaze and glamour is always an irresistible cocktail.

The plot is nicely twisty.

And as you expect in a Carter Brown story the plot motors along at a brisk pace and there’s some fine hardboiled dialogue.

The Wind-Up Doll might not be great literature but it is great pulp crime fiction and it’s highly recommended. And the Signet paperback edition has a great Robert McGinnis cover.

I enjoy all of Carter Brown’s stuff but the Rick Holman books are rapidly becoming my favourites. Sex, scandal and murder in Hollywood always works for me. I’ve also reviewed one of the later books in this series, Where Did Charity Go?

John Murray Reynolds’ Golden Amazons of Venus

John Murray Reynolds’ science fiction short novel Golden Amazons of Venus was published in the Winter 1939 issue of Planet Stories.

John Murray Reynolds (1900-1993) was born in New York. In between serving as a naval officer and working as a ship broker he wrote a great deal of pulp fiction, including science fiction.

This was 1939, a time when very little was actually known about the other planets of the Solar System. The idea that Mars and Venus might not only be habitable but already inhabited was still quite plausible.

The setting is the far future. Some of the planets of the Solar System, including Mars, have been colonised. But not Venus. The first manned mission to Venus ended in disaster, The spaceship Stardust reached Venus and was never heard from again.

Now, a few years later, another attempt is being made. Perhaps the voyage of the spacecraft Viking will be more successful. Technology has improved and hopes are high. The Viking is more powerful and more sophisticated than the ill-fated Stardust.

Venus turns out to be very Earth-like and it’s inhabited, by several human-like species. The first encounter of the Viking’s crew with the scaly reptile-men (known as the Scaly Ones) is disconcerting but they also encounter a gorgeous blonde amazon warrior wearing a loin-cloth and a golden bra. She gets their attention. Her name is Closana. Inevitably she’s a kind of princess.

Her people are in a state of perpetual war with the Scaly Ones. Her people are mostly female since for some mysterious reason for many generations very few male babies have been born to them.

There’s another Venusian species as well, the Green Men. They’re slaves of the Scaly Ones.

The Viking’s crew get drawn into these struggles and they’re naturally on the side of the amazons. After all if you’re going to take sides you’re going to be on the side of the gorgeous blonde babes in the golden bras.

All these Venusian cultures are somewhat technologically backward, but they do have some technology. They don’t have cars or aircraft or radios or space travel but they do have guns. Not just projectile weapons but ray guns of some kind. They’re capable of building a submarine. They’re an interesting mix of vaguely medieval and 19th century technology with some more advanced tech. Which makes this fictional Venus a reasonably interesting world.

There will of course be battles, the Scaly Ones will lay siege to the city of the amazons and the good guys will get captured and threatened with torture. There’s an evil king. And there are important secrets that our heroes have not yet discovered.

As so often in science fiction there’s one culture oppressed by another and there’s the idea that the oppressed masses are just awaiting the signal to rebel. It’s the kind of wishful thinking that science fiction writers were prone to.

Golden Amazons of Venus is very much pulp science fiction but it moves along quickly, there’s danger and noble deeds, the heroes are brave and the heroine is beautiful and virtuous and there will be hints of romance. It’s enjoyable and it’s worth a look.

Golden Amazons of Venus is paired with Dwight D. Swain’s short science fiction novel Giant Killer in a double-header paperback edition from Armchair Fiction.

Michael Crichton’s Congo

Michael Crichton’s novel Congo was published in 1980. Like so many of his books it’s basically a techno-thriller. It has a contemporary setting. The technology is not futuristic - it’s the cutting-edge technology of the time. The science is not futuristic either although it would perhaps have been seen as being almost fringe science. Science that is not quite yet accepted as mainstream, or is slightly controversial.

As he did in other novels he goes to great lengths to give the impression that this is a sober factual account, almost an official report.

It begins with a high-tech company, ERTS, sending a mineral survey team to the Congo (or Zaire as it had become but Congo sounds more romantic). Whereas mineral surveys used to take months this company uses the very latest technologies and can do the job in a few days. These technologies include satellite imaging and sophisticated computer data analysis. They are set up so that they can assemble a team within hours and have them onsite within 24 hours.

They have competitors with equal capabilities. In this case it’s a German-Japanese consortium. The objective is diamonds. The key to finding the diamonds is to find the lost city of Zinj. And these are special diamonds, vital in computer technology and there is no other source for them.

ERTS’s team gets wiped out in mysterious circumstances. There is one puzzling piece of evidence - three seconds of footage on videotape. The footage shows what looks a bit like a gorilla. Which is crazy. Gorillas don’t kill people, and they certainly don’t kill people the way the members of the ERTS team were killed.

A new team will be detached, led by the ambitious and very driven 24-year-old Karen Ross. She figures she needs to bring along a primate expert. Dr Peter Elliott is on retainer to ERTS and he’s done controversial but brilliant work on trying to teach language to primates. He insists on bringing Amy along on the expedition. Amy is a seven-year-old gorilla very adept at sign language. It sounds like a crazy idea but Karen Ross suspects that Amy might indeed be a useful member of the team. The new team will be led by ex-mercenary Munro.

The expedition proves to be quite an adventure. Having missiles fired at you, being stalked by cannibals, finding a lost city, being and forced to withstand a siege and getting caught up in a civil war certainly qualify as adventures.

Crichton gets to deal with two science/technology areas that fascinated him. Firstly there’s the computer stuff which he deals with in exhaustive detail. Given that this is the computer technology of 1980 you might think that this would date the book but in fact (in my view at least) it makes it more interesting.

The other area is primate communication, which was a big thing at the time. Quite a few apes had been taught to communicate, usually by sign language, and the results seemed impressive. The animals seemed to be at the very least on the verge of mastering actual language. This will become a major plot point. There’s also some speculative stuff about animal intelligence.

Crichton was very good at using a race-against-time factor to build insane amounts of tension, and in his novels it’s always survival itself that is at stake.

The key ingredients are that lost city built by a long-vanished civilisation, gorilla language, gorillas apparently going on murderous rampages and diamonds and Crichton weaves them altogether with great skill.

There are also interestingly flawed heroes - Elliott, Karen Ross and Munro. They have conflicting agendas, they don’t know what each other’s agendas are and maybe they don’t understand their own motives completely.

A wildly entertaining novel. Very highly recommended.

I’ve also reviewed Crichton’s equally excellent The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man, Sphere and Binary.

Bryan Edgar Wallace's The Device

The Device is a 1962 Bryan Edgar Wallace spy thriller.

Bryan Edgar Wallace was the son of Edgar Wallace and was a moderately successful thriller writer in his own right. A lot of his books have been adapted in Germany as krimi films although the films bear little resemblance to the novels.

Cockston is a very successful crook, so successful that he has never been caught and although he has come to the attention of various European police forces no-one is certain of his real identity.

The Device begins with Cockston making a lucky discovery. He runs across a crazy old scientist doing bizarre experiments with mice. Cockston sees the potential for the device the scientist has invented. It could be the key to unlimited wealth and power. There are a number of organisation in various countries that might be very very interested in this device.

I’m not going to reveal the secrets of the Device but Cockston is very impressed by its effects on those mice.

Bill Tern (who also featured in Bryan Edgar Wallace’s previous novel) is a British counter-spy, presumably working for MI5. All he has to go on is a series of curious murders. Four people thrown from cars at high speed in circumstances that suggest that one person on his own could not have committed the crimes. The curious thing is that the murder method is identical in each case but there is absolutely no apparent link between the victims. On this case Tern has a partner - Inspector Quil of Scotland Yard.

And while there are suspects linked to each murder there are no obvious connections between the suspects. The only other clue is a pair of cuff-links but this clue makes the case more confused.

There are two women involved either of whom might turn out to be dangerous (you can’t have a spy thriller without dangerous women).

The bad guys test the Device and it exceeds all their expectations. Unlimited power is within their grasp.

It is now a race against time for Bill Tern and Inspector Quil. The British Government is keen to use the Army to solve the problem, against the strong advice of Tern and Quil. They fear that this could backfire very very badly. 

There’s definitely an assumption that if it’s possible to handle a crisis with cynicism and ineptitude the government will handle it that way.

If Bill Tern has a weakness it is women. He finds it difficult to think the worst of a woman once he has become emotionally entangled and he gets emotionally entangled rather easily.

The only gadget in this spy story is the Device itself but it is a pretty formidable one.

The bad guys are a mix of straightforward crooks, home-grown political agitators and agents of a foreign power. This is certainly a Cold War spy thriller.

Bryan Edgar Wallace might not have been quite the writer his father was but The Device is a solid entertaining spy novel. Highly recommended.

I’ve also reviewed Bryan Edgar Wallace’s Death Packs a Suitcase.

George Henry Smith's Witch Queen of Lochlann

Witch Queen of Lochlann by George Henry Smith was published in 1969. It’s an occult thriller that becomes a sword-and-sorcery adventure.

George Henry Smith (1922-1996) was an incredibly prolific author. He used many pseudonyms and to really muddy the waters there were at least two other George H. Smiths writing pulp fiction at the same time.

Duffus January runs an occult-themed bookshop and works as an occasional private eye focusing on cases with occult aspects. His latest case is typical. A girl named Morgan Lacy thinks she has been cursed by a witch. January’s job is to convince her that spells can only harm people if they believe in them. January does not believe that magic actually works.

But January is actually an odd complicated guy. He is terrified of all mechanical things. Especially cars. Cars will watch you and stalk you. January believes that he is an incredibly powerful wizard. It’s just that his spells don’t work on Earth. Magic does not work on Earth. But January is from Earth. He doesn’t believe in other worlds. On the other hand he does have a vague sense of being different. And when he gets his nails manicured he is careful to save the nail clippings. If they fell into the hands of a witch then the witch would have great power over him. Even though magic doesn’t work it pays to take no chances.

January has a magic sword. Except of course that its magic doesn’t work on Earth.

So you might be thinking that January is some kind of nut but the story will soon take a major turn and we will discover why he believes so many contradictory things.

Morgan Lacy is kidnaped by a rather odd couple. And then January meets Annis. She is Morgan’s half-sister. He discovers what is going on. Both Morgan and Annis claim to be the rightful Witch Queen of Lochlann, or at least such claims have been made on behalf of both girls. Lochlann is a kingdom in another realm totally separate from our world. It’s a kingdom beneath the seas, but not the seas of our world. It’s a world of Celtic goddesses and magic and witches. Of course January knows that this is all nonsense.

But of course it isn’t. And now he’s grateful for that magic sword.

He and Annis will have to get some help from the goddess Branwen. This involves a ritual. The ritual comes a pleasant surprise to January since it requires him to have sex with Annis. Living in a world of magic has its compensations.

Of course there are countless dangers to be faced. There’s a long sea voyage. There are monsters, some of them semi-human. There are fish-men. There’s another goddess to deal with. A bad goddess. Branwen is a good goddess.

The kingdom of Lochlann must be saved. Only the rightful witch queen can save it. It would be helpful to know which sister is in fact the the rightful witch queen. Duffus January knows the answer to that question. Or at least he thinks he knows.

The fact that Annis and Morgan are very beautiful rather charming young women complicates things. Whichever beautiful charming young woman he last spoke to tends to be the one that January trusts.

January does find out something. He had always had the feeling that he was really destined to be a mighty and noble warrior rather than a bookshop proprietor. In this new world he really is a mighty and noble warrior. And that magic sword now really is magical.

The way magic is handled is quite interesting. There are limits to what it can do. And even the most powerful sorcerer (or sorceress) can find his magical powers drained by overuse. So magic is not a plot device that allows the hero to solve every problem he encounters without effort.

The alternative world or magical realm in which the hero finds himself is heavily based on Celtic mythology and it’s brought vividly to life.

This is not a book that wants to be taken over-seriously. It’s a lighthearted sword-and-sorcery romp, but there’s a good story here, plenty of action, some romance and it’s all very enjoyable. Highly recommended.

This book reminds me a little of The Druid Stone which Gardner Francis Fox wrote under the name Simon Majors in 1967. I recommend The Druid Stone highly.

Mickey Spillane’s The Erection Set

Mickey Spillane’s The Erection Set was published in 1972. It’s one of his non-Mike Hammer crime thrillers.

It certainly has a memorable protagonist. Dogeron Kelly (always known simply as Dog) would have been heir to the vast Barrin industrial fortune but for one minor detail - he was born on the wrong side of the blanket. Instead of inheriting millions he stands to inherit a mere $10,000. And the family is going to make sure he doesn’t get even that - his grandfather’s will contains a morals cause. If he cannot prove that his life has been morally untainted he doesn’t get a dime. And Dog’s life has been far from morally spotless.

Dog served in the U.S. Air Force during the Second World War, as a fighter pilot in Europe. He took his discharge and remained in Europe and then vanished. There have been rumours of his colourful and varied activities but nothing concrete.

Now he’s back stateside, in Manhattan, staying with his old flying buddy Lee. And Dog wants his ten grand. Now we, the readers, know from the start that he doesn’t need a lousy ten grand. We knew that when Lee took a peak into Dog’s suitcase. Lots of money. Lots and lots of money. Lee is in a panic - where is Dog going to stash millions of dollars safely? Dog tells him not to worry. He’ll put it in the bank. Amazingly this is clean money.

We know that Dog is confident he’ll get his ten thousand. What we don’t know is why he wants it. We assume he has plans to revenge himself on his family but it soon becomes apparent that Dog’s motivations are much more complex and his plans much more devious.

Then he meets Sharon. She works for a media tycoon. Her job is to persuade men to make deals. She’s a kind of professional seductress. Oddly enough although she definitely likes men and seduces them for a living at 32 she is still a virgin. This is regarded by those who know her as evidence that the age of miracles is not yet past. Sharon has a link with Dog - years earlier her father had worked for his grandfather. That link buried in the past will be important.

Dog’s arrival in New York is the result of a decision he made which is going to lead to multiple murders and general mayhem. It’s a decision that is not related to his family or his inheritance.

Dog soon has people trying to kill him. Lots of people. Professionals. Dog isn’t too worried and we soon find out why. He is one very tough hombre.

If you’re going to have an anti-hero (and Dog certainly qualifies for that status) you have to make him interesting and Spillane does that effectively. He’s a very enigmatic individual. He’s a tough guy who kills when he has to and does so without remorse, and with considerable savagery. But he doesn’t want to kill.

And with women, in his own individualistic way he’s a gentleman. There are three important female characters and they’re all complicated but sympathetic. Sheila is dangerous because of her husband and she has a problem. Dog knows what it is and how to fix it, if she’ll let him. Lee’s friend Rose isn’t quite a Whore With a Heart of Gold but she’s a good-natured cheerful hooker and Dog thinks she’s a sweet kid.

Sharon is really complicated. Dog has never met a girl quite like her and he’s intrigued. She’s never met a man like Dog and she’s not sure if she’s horrified by him or crazy about him.

There’s a major twist at the end but it does make sense.

The Erection Set is top-tier Spillane and it’s plenty tough and it's highly recommended.

I enjoy Spillane’s surprisingly varied non-Mike Hammer output, ranging from the exuberance of The Delta Factor to the high-octane thrills of Day of the Guns to the brooding darkness of The Erection Set.

Fritz Leiber’s The Big Time

Fritz Leiber’s novel The Big Time was published in 1958. It’s the beginning of his Change War series which comprises this novel and and seven short stories.

This is a wild complex unconventional time travel story. Two warring factions, the Spiders and the Snakes, are trying to change the past in order to further their agendas. Those agendas are unknown.

Changing the past is possible, but extremely difficult. The Spiders might prevent the First World War by preventing the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand only to find that the war breaks out anyway six months later over some totally different issue. So then you have to change something else. And that might lead to other changes that you didn’t want. So you have to keep endlessly tinkering, and the other side (the Snakes) are tinkering as well to produce outcomes that you don’t want.

Soldiers are recruited from both the past and the future to make these changes happen. Mostly (but not always) they are recruited at the moment of their deaths and they undergo a kind of resurrection.

The novel takes place entirely in the Place. This is a kind of rest and recuperation centre that is outside of the cosmos (space-time). The Entertainers, including the narrator Greta, help the Soldiers to recover from their physical and emotional wounds. The Soldiers are provided with the things that Soldiers like when they’re on leave - basically booze and women.

Soldiers and Entertainers are Doublegangers (they can operate in the cosmos and outside of it) and Demons (they are more or less alive in both the cosmos and outside it). At least it’s better than being a Zombie (those whose timelines are entirely in the past) or an Unborn (those whose timelines are entirely in the future).

The staff of the Place comprises three men and three women, plus a vast supply of Ghostgirls. Three Soldiers arrive. Pairing off takes place and then things start to get weird and exciting. Finding an atomic bomb on the premises can do that. And they lose the machine that allows them to pass back and forth from the cosmos to the Place. That means they’re trapped. Everyone blames everybody else.

Leiber had a theatrical background and The Big Time is like a play that takes place entirely on a single set. Momentous things are happening, but they’re all happening offstage. Leiber focuses on the effects those events have on this small group of people.

Leiber is interested in what happens to the personality when somebody is totally unmoored from his own time. In this case of these people comes from a billion years in the past, from a long-lost lunar civilisation. Knowing that you entire civilisation disappeared into oblivion a billion years ago is not exactly easy to deal with. Another is from a billion years in the future - his civilisation his not yet even evolved to the point of qualifying as intelligent life.

And these characters are constantly shuttling back and forth between countless different historical eras, and when they revisit an historical era with which they are familiar it has changed anyway. Some of them have died several times.

All of this gives Leiber the chance to play around with some philosophical themes, something he was fond of doing.

This is not quite like any other science fiction novel. It’s not just the subject matter (which other authors have tackled) but the unique and unsettling tone. But then Fritz Leiber was not quite like any other science fiction writer. He had a very distinctive authorial voice.

The Big Time will play with your head, but in a good way. Highly recommended.

I’ve also reviewed Fritz Leiber’s novel You're All Alone which is also pretty wild stuff.

James Leasor’s Passport to Oblivion

Passport to Oblivion, published in 1964, is the first of James Leasor’s Dr Jason Love spy thrillers.

James Leasor (1923-2007) was a reasonably prolific British writer of thrillers whose output included ten Dr Jason Love novels.

It begins with a British agent (code-named K) in Tehran being hunted down and killed.

K’s superior at MI6, MacGillivray, has no idea what has happened to K. He just knows that he has suddenly disappeared and that he was trying to get a message back to London. But he doesn’t know what the message was.

Someone will have to be sent to find out what happened but that’s a problem. This is 1964. Most of MI6’s agents are in fact KGB agents. The only way to be sure that an agent can be trusted is to employ someone who is more or less an amateur. An obscure country doctor, Dr Jason Love, seems like a possibility. MacGillivray used him once before on a very small job, many year earlier. Love proved to be fairly sensible and capable of exercising some initiative. Love has no spy training but he’s an ex-soldier and a judo instructor. The fact that he’s a doctor might be useful as a cover.


And there’s something else. Love is obsessed with Cord motor cars (the Cord being a highly advanced American luxury car of the 1930s). And it just happens that a very very rare Cord indeed, a Le Baron limousine, is rumoured to have recently turned up in Tehran of all places. That would give Love an excuse to be poking about the back streets of the city.

Something odd has also happened in Canada and there is a possibly very tenuous link to K’s disappearance.

Love’s first stop is Rome where he meets British agent Simone. She is very annoyed when he refuses to sleep with her.

In Tehran Love does eventually find out what happened to K. He also finds out something else. It’s not a certainty, but it seems likely that his cover has been blown. Which would mean there’s a leak somewhere.

He also finds out what K had uncovered. It’s a major conspiracy that could have serious consequences for Britain.

The reluctant spy was a popular trope in British spy fiction in the 30s and 40s. It was out of fashion by the 60s but Leasor has come up with a convincing reason for reviving it. And Dr Love isn’t so much a reluctant spy as a somewhat bewildered moderately keen amateur. He’s bewildered but he’s not unintelligent. And he is resourceful. And given that he’s a former soldier and teaches judo he’s also quite capable of handling himself in unarmed combat.

This was 1964 and Bond Fever was approaching its height. The trick if you were a spy writer at this time was to capture some of the Bond glamour without making your spy a mere Bond clone. Passport to Oblivion does have some glamour and exotic settings and some action. Jason Love doesn’t have the fancy gadgets that feature in the Bond movies but he has a few simple nifty little devices. There’s some sex, but oddly not for Dr Love. The novel does however acknowledge the importance of sex as a motivation for spies.

Jason Love is a likeable hero and he gradually learns that spies have to be ruthless at times. He’s not fond of violence but having been through the war it doesn’t scare him and if it’s kill or be killed he’d prefer to be the one doing the killing. He treats it as an extension of his wartime military service. Sometimes soldiers have to kill, and sometimes spies have to kill. One thing in his favour is that he’s not excessively trusting.

The plot is solid enough, the conspiracy has some pleasingly wild elements and there’s some fine suspense towards the end. Thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended.

Passport to Oblivion was filmed as Where the Spies Are in 1966. The movie has a slightly more lighthearted approach which doesn’t quite come off.