Cyborg (The Six Million Dollar Man)

Cyborg, by Martin Caidin

March, 1974  Warner Paperback Library

(original hardcover edition 1972)

The beginning of the Six Million Dollar Man saga is a novel made up of many parts, as if Martin Caidin were running a theme around the bionic parts that make up his hero Steve Austin, the titular Cyborg of this novel. The first part of the 318-page book with its tiny print is like something out of Caidin’s Space Race novels, then the book becomes a Michael Crichton-esque sci-fi medical shocker…then it becomes a wild pulp yarn, then it becomes a Cold War thriller, and finally it settles in for an overlong “desert survival” climax that leaves the reader more exhausted than thrilled. 

The main thing, though, is how little Cyborg resembles the family-friendly Six Million Dollar Man. Only the original telefilm, which I reviewed ten years ago, comes closest to resembling this source novel, but having read the book I can see that a lot of it was changed, no doubt for budget reasons. Cyborg would have benefitted from a big screen treatment, but then if it had it might not have made as much of an impact on 1970s pop culture…there might not even have been a Steve Austin doll! And man, I still wish I had mine…the fake skin on his arm was so cool! Not to mention the red rubber Adidas sneakers that would always fall off and you’d have to search for them! 

Actually, I was wrong – Lee Majors’ portrayal of Steve Austin is the closest thing the series ever came to resembling Martin Caidin’s source material. Majors nails the character, which is to say he comes off like the distillation of every astronaut of the Space Race, from Mercury to Apollo: laconic to the point of being terse, so calm under pressure he could be comatose. And we are informed here that Steve Austin was indeed an Apollo astronaut, the youngest one in the program and the last to walk on the moon, in Apollo 17. 

As in his earlier The Cape, Caidin again unwittingly prefigures Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff in his detailing of Steve’s current job: test pilot for NASA. And yes, Caidin mainly refers to his character as “Steve,” unlike Michael Jahn, who called him “Austin” in the later Wine, Women, And War. Here Caidin gives us a lot of background detail on NASA and missions once the moon shots had been scrapped. 

I have to say that at this point I can safely state that I’m not a fan of Martin Caidin’s writing. He constantly tells instead of shows; his novels come off like lectures, given the wealth of detail and minutiae. Forward momentum is constantly stalled as Caidin eagerly dives into the weeds, usually with no consideration to what he’s doing to the narrative. It happens constantly throughout, and if this material had been gutted Cyborg would be a much smoother and more entertaining read, because as it was I really found it a chore. 

We all know the story, so I’ll skip all the details. Steve crashes out and is completely destroyed – both legs and his left arm are gone, as is his left eye, and a bunch of other stuff is wrecked. Enter OSO (which became OSI in the series), headed up by Oscar Goldman…much closer here to Darren McGavin’s portrayal in the original telefilm than the easy-going nice guy Richard Anderson would deliver in the ensuing series. Goldman is a figure of the shadow world, clearly duplicitous and not feeling the need to explain himself to others. 

Given his fame and his background – athletic and karate expertise, his service as a combat pilot in ‘Nam, etc – OSO wants to invest in Steve Austin…though, humorously enough given the famous name of the ensuing show, we are never told the exact amount they are willing to pay. Steve’s good buddy-slash doctor, Rudy Wells, helps talk Steve into the offer…and here, as in the telefilm, there’s a lot of grim stuff as Steve isn’t sure if he even wants to live. 

A little over a quarter of the way in, we get into the nitty-gritty of bionics, courtesy endless blocks of exposition. Interesting to note, the majority of the work is done by a character who did not exist in the series: Dr. Killian. Martin Caidin shows absolutely no understanding that he is writing a novel, with Killian and the other characters gabbing about bionic parts and how they work, even down to minor details the average reader wouldn’t care about. I mean Caidin’s grip on dramatic fiction is so loose that there’s a part where someone makes a minor comment about red blood cells, and Steve – confined to a hospital bed without either leg, his left arm, and missing his left eye – asks for more information about red blood cells, like how exactly they work and what they do and whatever. I mean, just put the bionic limbs on him and have him go crush someone, already! 

Boy, does Caidin really take his time here. Let it never be said that he rushes into the story. It goes on and on, with each and every part Steve gets being relentlessly detailed for the reader, usually via bald exposition. But he’s given bionic legs that allow him to run at incredible speeds (we’re just told he brakes all Olympics records), and a left arm that is equally superhuman (changed to his right arm in the TV series). Also, we are told ad naseum that Steve cannot see out of his bionic left eye – I mean this is hammered home repeatedly – but he can take photos with it. 

Caidin displays an unexpected pulpy flair with the augmentations to these bionic limbs, things that did not make it to the show. For one, there’s a compartment in Steve’s left leg with an oxygen tank for underwater missions, and also with a few changes Steve can turn his feet into fins. There are also handy little compartments on his feet for storing things. His left arm can fire poisonous darts from the middle finger – I’m assuming Caidin was showing subtle humor here by having us imagine Steve Austin giving people the finger as he kills them. He also has a steel skull plate and a radio transmitter in his rib. 

The bionics finally added and Steve having proven himself by saving some children from a burning bus, the novel suddenly turns into a pulpy sci-fi thriller as Steve is dropped into the ocean by the South American country of Surinam, to make a daunting underwater swim and take photos of some submarines the damned Russians have stashed somewhere. And for company Steve has a pair of cybernetic dolphins, one of which is an automated decoy and the other that Steve pilots, like his own one-man sub, and all this is presented to us on the level, as if it were of a piece with the grim, incessantly-detailed “medical science” tone of the first half of the book. 

Not that I was complaining, it was just so wild. But even here Caidin’s “tell don’t show” instincts conflict with the pulp, with our author bogging us down with hyper detail on ocean currents and whatnot. That said, when I started reading Cyborg I never expected to read about Steve Austin decked out like an underwater commando and piloting a robot dolphin. There’s even a bit of action as the Russians start dropping bombs – they’re in the middle of a battle, which has been staged as a diversion for Steve – and then frogmen come at him, but the action is more so relayed as chaotic than thrilling. We learn here that the Steve Austin of the novel – much like the Steve Austin of the first television season – is quite willing to kill if he has to. 

Sadly this is the only part of Cyborg that goes full pulp, and only if the entire novel were the same. Truly, it’s like something book packager/producer Lyle Kenyon Engel might have come up with – and I have a suspicion that both his Attar The Merman and John Eagle Expeditor were inspired by Cyborg, from the “dolphin commando” of the former series to the “look at my cool gadgets, dart gun, and my atomic one-man sub, which by the way is actually named The Dolphin!” of the latter. 

Clearly this entire sequence was too costly for a network budget, so it was removed. But for me it was the highlight of Cyborg, like a pleasant reward for us pulp-inclined readers for having made it through the previous slow-going half. True, Caidin’s fussiness prevents the sequence from achieving its full pulp potential, but overall it’s still entertaining, which can’t be said about the sequence that takes us through the final quarter of the novel. 

OSO used the sub photo mission as a warmup; now Steve is sent to the Middle East, where he is to slip into fictional country Asfir, teamed up with the beautiful but hard-bitten Israeli soldier Tamara. Caidin skirts with more pulpish material by introducing Tamara as she’s stripping casually in front of Steve, but nothing ever happens here; Caidin is much more focused on exploiting his own knowledge than he is in exploiting his female characters. 

The idea here is that Tamara, who is fluent in Russian – just like Steve is, somehow courtesy his time in the space race – is to pose as Steve’s wife, and they must be completely at ease with each other. Personally I thought she was trying to give Steve a hint, but as mentioned Steve Austin is very laconic and almost comatose, so nothing happens – indeed, there is only one sex scene in the novel, Steve finally giving in to the romantic wiles of his nurse, Jean Manners, but the sexual tomfoolery occurs completely off page. 

Steve and Tamara are here to steal the new Russian jet fighter, a MiG-27, so just like he unwittingly prefigured The Right Stuff, here Caidin unwittingly prefigures Firefox. It’s a taut Cold War thriller, but the only problem was that I had no idea why Steve Austin was needed for the mission. That is the central problem with the second half of Cyborg; it’s as if the first “bionic surgery” part has nothing to do with the second part, and Steve Austin could have been replaced by any generic Cold Warrior. 

I mean, at least in the underwater South America sequence it was believable that OSO needed a cyborg; Steve’s oxygen tank augmentations allow him to go underwater and sneak around a lot better than an ordinary scuba diver could. But here in the Asfir sequence, the bionics are almost completely forgotten. Only belatedly are they used, when Steve uses his bionic left arm to snap a guy’s collarbone while he’s in the process of torturing a captured Steve. There’s also a part where Steve uses that bionic left hand to smash some skulls, and I’m happy to report the dart finger is used a few times in the book. But still, any of this stuff could’ve been replaced by a standard spy gadget; why exactly a cyborg is needed is something Caidin can never fully explain. And why would OSO risk losing their huge investment on a suicide mission to steal a jet fighter? 

Even worse, the actual climax of the book is an endless trawl in which Steve and Tamara are trapped in the desert, trying to survive the elements and get to freedom. Good grief, friends, but it goes on and on. Again Caidin resorts to his “tell, don’t show” policy, making the turgid pace of the narrative seem even slower. It’s all grim and gritty, complete with Tamara’s instruction that their urine must be saved so they can wipe their lips with it to stave off complete dehydration, etc. 

Here, more than anywhere, it seems evident that Martin Caidin is shoehorning some other novel into Cyborg, as the desert trek has nothing to do with the rest of the book. That said, Caidin somehow uses it as an excuse for Steve Austin to realize he wants to live, even though he already came to that decision a few hundred pages ago. Also, it is stated at the end of the novel that Steve and Tamara have “found each other” – humorously, poor nurse Jean is just forgotten – and I’m curious to see if Tamara appears in Caidin’s follow-up, Operation Nuke, which was published the following year. 

Overall, Cyborg is a slow-going affair that only occasionally brightens up, and also there are flashes where Caidin will demonstrate emotional investment in his characters and they stop being expository automatons and show actual spark. These sequences indicate the novel Cyborg could have been, and I have to say the TV producers did a better job of uncovering the potential of the material than Caidin himself did.

Search (Search #1)

 
Search, by Robert Weverka

January, 1973  Bantam Books

I first became aware of the 1972-1973 TV series Search some years ago; it was a little before my time and did not last long enough to reach syndication, so I was unfamiliar with it. But the concept of the show sounded cool: a team of “Probes” who had a continnuous audio-visual connection with a control team back at headquarters. 

In early 2014 the complete series was released on DVD, and I spent an exorbitant amount of money on it; at the time, it was one of those “manufactured on demand” releases, so there was no cheaper price option. However the first true episode, a TV movie titled Probe, was not included in the set, so I had to purchase that separately…and it was another exorbitantly-priced manufactured on demand disc that I had to shell out for. 

Well, I should have saved my money, as Search was for the most part a stage-bound, slow-moving show, and it was a chore to get through what few episodes there were. Only toward the end of the run, when a new producer tried to up the action quotient, did things really pick up, but even then it was too little, too late. In fact, I don’t even think I watched the entire series all the way through – and I know I fell asleep while watching the tv-movie Probe, which this tie-in paperback is a novelization of. 

The show itself was to be titled “Probe,” but due to another program with that title it was changed to Search. This paperback tie-in reflects that title change, but the TV movie itself was titled Probe. Tie-in novelist Richard Weverka also penned another Search novelization, but I don’t have that one; I came across this one in 2013 in a used bookstore in New Orleans, and only now have gotten around to reading it. 

Despite being only 152 pages, Search is a slow read, sort of like the TV movie itself. Interestingly there is nothing in the way of background setup, same as in the movie version. We are introduced to our protagonist, Hugh Lockwood (as played by Hugh O’Brian in the series), who is already a Probe agent, working for World Securities Corporation. As a Probe agent, Lockwood’s job is “the search and recovery of things that are missing.” 

But what sets Lockwood (and other Probe agents) apart from your standard private eye is that he is electronically hooked up with a control room that monitors everything Lockwood hears (courtesy an impant behind his ear), sees everything he sees (courtesy a video scanner on a ring he wears), and also is able to monitor his health (ie his heart rate, brain functions, etc). And also the control room – mainly through the guise of head honcho V.C.R. Cameron (Burgess Meredith, of all people) – can talk directly to Lockwood, no matter where in the world he happens to be. 

The setup seems to clearly be inspired by the contemporary Space Race, with the Probe agents a globe-trotting variation on the Apollo astronauts, their bodies monitored constantly by Mission Control. But a sort of “James Bond for the space age” setup is ruined with the later revelation – almost casually dispensed by Weverka – that Probe agents are “forbidden” to carry weapons!! And reading this made me recall why Search the show was such a bummer. The Probe agents were reduced to automatons, literal “probes” who essentially did the bidding of Cameron and the other techs back in mission control. Not being “allowed” to carry a gun (even to defend themselves!) was like the ultimate slap to the face…and something, I seem to recall, that the second producer on the show realized was a huge mistake, as only in the very final episodes of Search did you see one of the Probe agents even carrying a gun. 

Weverka tries to cater to the setup of the show while not having Lockwood appear to be an automaton. Unfortunately he only suceeds in making Lockwood seem passive-aggressive. Cameron will give an order, and Lockwood will grumble under his breath, or pretend not to hear the order. But then, Lockwood is nagged at through the entire book (and series). One of the techs is an attractive young lady who has an interest in Lockwood – as most women do, we’re informed – and there’s a lot of stuff where she’ll mutter angrily when some girl’s “heart rate picks up” when Lockwood talks to her. 

So essentially, Search is almost like a play from Ancient Greece, with Cameron and the other techs like the chorus who push Lockwood through the narrative, making all his decisions, etc. But we’re told that Lockwood was “the last Probe agent” to have the ear implant put in, etc – and, by the way, there’s no mention of the other two agents who featured in the series, so the book is like the show in that it never occurred to anyone to maybe have all the Probe guys meet up for an adventure or something. 

Despite being a guy who is constantly obeying the voices in his head, Lockwood we’re to understand is still a firebrand, a rule-breaker who picks up the chicks with aplomb. We meet him in this capacity, hooked up with some babe on “his first vacation in months,” but in a foreshadowing of the nagging and hectoring Lockwood will endure throughout the novel, Cameron starts talking to Lockwood through his ear implant right before Lockwood’s about to do the deed with the babe, and our poor hero has to send the girl off so he can scramble for New York, to be briefed on an emergency case. 

The case is also an indication that this is a TV show with a TV show rating: Lockwood is to find some diamonds that were stolen by the Nazis in the war. His company has been hired by a South African diamond firm that has bought the rights to the diamonds, they just need to find the damn things, and so they’ve hired World Securities. As a Probe agent, Lockwood is the one who gets to head over to Austria and talk to the old lady who was last known to have these diamonds…which were given to her by none other than Herman Goering! 

Along for the ride is Harold Streeter, the dapper employee of the South African company that hired World Securities (John Gielgud in the movie). His is the “comedic relief” role, serving up the jokes while Lockwood is the traditionally stoic protagonist. And throughout we have Cameron and team yammering in Lockwood’s ear. Weverka does a good job of conveying the setup; he refrains from annoyingly referring to Cameron’s voice as appearing in Lockwood’s ear, and just leaves it as “Cameron said” or “Cameron asked,” etc. But of course in the show, whenever Cameron would talk to Lockwood, we would see Burgess Meredith in a lab coat back in Mission Control. 

The story is very uninvolving, and reading the book it reminded me of why I fell asleep while watching the tv movie. I mean this was probably 2014, and I still remember falling asleep. Lockwood and Streeter find the old lady, Frau Ullman, who got the diamonds from Goering, but Lockwood of course is more interested in her hotstuff blonde daughter, Ullie (Elke Sommer). So we get the bantering stuff with the lady back in control getting her panties in a bunch because Ullie’s heartbeat increases when Lockwood talks to her, etc. 

Action is sporadic; like here at the Ullman estate Lockwood and Streeter are shot at from afar. Here is where we also get more reminder that Lockwood is not a self-sufficient troubleshooter as is typical of the genre. He relies on Cameron and team to give him intel on the situation, intel on his enemies, and also ideas on how to escape or fight back. It’s cool for Lockwood and all, but at the same time it robs him of his heroic qualities. 

Note though that Lockwood doesn’t kill anyone, not in the entirety of the book (or the entire series itself, so far as I can recall). He mostly gets in fistfights, reminding us again that this is the novelization of an early ‘70s TV show. That said, Lockwood does (eventually) get laid, courtesy Ullie, who tags along with Lockwood when her mother goes missing. I half expected Cameron and crew to give Lockwood step-by-step instructions while he was having sex, but our hero “goes offline” and handles the job himself. But novelist Weverka goes offline as well; “[Ullie] was voracious in her appetite for repeated fulfillment” is the extent of it. 

There is an attempt at globetrotting, denoting your typical Budget Bond; from Austria Lockwood follows leads that take him to…Florida! Eventually he finds himself mixed up with a bunch of old Nazis, many of whom are also looking for those lost diamonds. But still there isn’t much in the way of action, just Lockwood knocking people out or getting knocked out himself. And so far as the latter goes, once again Cameron and crew come to the rescue, coaxing Lockwood back to consciousness and giving him tips on how to escape his captors. 

It’s a strange and unwieldy setup, and granted it actually worked better on film, where quick cutting to Cameron and the others would add more drive to the action scenes. But on paper, where it all has to be explained in words, it only serves to make Lockwood seem incompetent, and constantly needing the support of control. Again this takes me back to the Space Race connotations, as the astronauts themselves often complained that Mission Control treated them like automatons, there to push buttons. 

Also in the tradition of a TV show, it all comes to a head with exposition. Lockwood keeps getting ambushed, wherever he goes, and neither he nor Cameron are capable of figuring out who the (clearly obvious) traitor is. So for a climax we have the traitor outed, via dialog, while Lockwood just stands there. And even here in the finale he doesn’t shoot anyone or even hold a gun. 

Reading this Search novelization makes it all the more clear why the show was not successful. It’s too talky, too slow-moving, and the protagonist is stymied by the technology. Compare to the later – and much more successful – Six Million Dollar Man, which did a far better job of incorporating “gee whiz” technology and a competent, self-sufficient protagonist.

UFO #2: Sporting Blood

UFO #2: Sporting Blood, by Robert Miall

June, 1973  Warner Books

(Original UK edition 1971)

I’ve mentioned before how crazy I am about that ‘60s/70s ultramod Spaced Out vibe, as displayed in such ‘60s sci-fi flicks as Barbarella, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun. But in my mind the highest paragon of this ultramod “future 1960s” look would have to be Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s UFO, which was produced for UK television in ’70 and ‘71 and used many of the costumes, sets, and props from the aforementioned Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun (which was another Andersons “Century 21” production). 

To be sure, UFO is glacially paced, overly grim, and seldom if ever makes use of its colorful ultramod trappings. It’s almost as if all the colorful stuff was from the mind of Sylvia Anderson, from the silver “space age” suits worn by the characters to the purple wigs and miniskirts of the “girls” who worked at Moonbase. But Gerry Anderson sort of flew in the face of this, delivering a “grim and gritty” vibe that was more so just dour, with an often unlikeable lead character and plots that focused too much on loss, suffering, and despair. Only late in the series’ run, when many of the cast members had been replaced due to scheduling conflicts, did the producers bring more of a “fun” vibe to the show, but the earliest episodes – three of which are novelized here – are usually too “serious” for their own good. 

Make no mistake, though: I love the show, and could watch it over and over on permanent repeat, preferablly blitzed out on cheap blended whiskey. I’ve got the original DVD release but the discs are just gathering dust; I prefer to watch the high definition remastered episodes free with ads on Prime, and have watched the series through a few times over the years. There is something wonderful about this modtastic future that never was (the series takes place in the early 1980s), and I’d rather watch UFO than Star Wars or Star Trek any day of the week. 

The show didn’t make much of an impact in the US, where it played in syndication, but there was enough support behind it that the two novelizations Robert Miall had published in the UK in 1971 were brought by Warner Books to the US. However no changes were made to the text: we still have single quotation marks for dialog and British spellings are used throughout. This was the second of the two novelizations, and it’s interesting that Miall (of whom I know nothing) plants seeds for a third novelization at the end of Sporting Blood (the title has no bearing on the plot, by the way). 

This slim, 140-page book novelizes the episodes “Computer Affair,” “The Dalotek Affair,” and “Survival.” It’s worth noting that these are not comprehensive novelizations of the episodes; Miall leaves out scenes and often rewrites stuff to fit these three unconnected episodes together. But then, UFO was an episodic series to begin with; there was only the overall plot, of secret agency SHADO and its various high-tech craft waging an undercover war against aliens – all of it occuring in the “future ‘60s” of 1981 (or thereabouts – the show, as explained below, wasn’t always faithful to its own setting). 

The important thing to note is that the main appeal of UFO, the colorful ultramod setting, is not captured here by Miall. Rather, he has focused more on the “dour” aspects of the show, rarely if ever bringing to life the ultramod futuristic settings but instead focusing on the inner turmoil of the characters. He does at least cater the book to a male readership, with the main characters being the men on the show, and thus there is a narrative focus on the appeal of the shapely female SHADO agents (who themselves of course were another huge part of the show’s appeal). But then, there is very little racy stuff in the novel, with Miall never giving in to exploitation – I mean, the dude doesn’t even use the word “breasts” when describing Moonbase commander Lt. Gay Ellis (aka actress Gabrielle Drake – sister of singer Nick Drake): 

I mean that’s some serious restraint on the author’s part, friends. But then, Miall makes clear something the TV show only hinted at: the male agents of SHADO are damn horny, particularly given that they have curvy dishes like that sashaying around them in form-fitting catsuits and miniskirts…and there’s a friggin’ rule that prevents SHADO agents from becoming romantically involved with each other! In fact this is the plot of fist storyline “Computer Affair,” but then again it’s another instance where the show couldn’t seem to make up its mind, as there’s a lot of innuendo in the show that some of these agents were getting along in more than a professional fashion. 

Robert Miall treats everything with deadly seriousness; there is no camp here, no spoofery. We’re told the “girls” at Moonbase wear purple wigs, for example, but we aren’t told why. (Presumably costume designer Sylvia Anderson said the idea was the wigs were anti-raditation or somesuch…but then this begs the question why the men on Moonbase didn’t wear purple wigs!) Also the various SHADO vehicles are seldom described, and indeed Miall pulls an interesting trick throughout in that rarely if ever does he focus on characters who are operating these vehicles. Rather, the “action” is usually relayed from the perspective of whoever is commanding the mission from afar, watching viewscreens and sweating bullets in the hope that everyone survives. Again, the focus is on the grim and the dour, with very little in the way of fun escapism. 

Back to the glacial pacing of the show: it says something about how padded the average episode of UFO was that Miall is able to novelize a full episode in about 40 pages. I’m not sure how these three specific episodes were chosen for the novelization treatment, but Miall does a fairly good job of making them all seem part of a larger storyline, save for the issue that the aforementioned Lt. Ellis disappears from the text – because the actress was only in one of these three episodes, “Computer Affair.” Her disappearance from the rest of the text is due to a cold, it’s explained to us via dialog between SHADO honcho Colonel Ed Straker and his second-in-command Alec Freeman, and thus she must be quarantined from the safe and secure Moonbase. 

Speaing of Colonel Straker, he is the “unlikeable” main character mentioned above; while Striker (as portrayed by Ed Bishop), with his “bleached” white hair, is the character most associated with UFO, he seldom featured as the protagonist in early episodes, the three novelized here being prime examples. Only late in the series run, when Alec Freeman (George Sewell) was replaced by the uber-sexy Colonel Virginia Lake (aka Wanda Ventham, who would become the mother of actor Benedict Cumberbatch), did Straker take more of a Captain Kirk-esque place in the proceedings. In the earlier episodes, like the ones novelized in Sporting Blood, he mostly stays at his desk, barking orders, pushing his underlings, and looking dour. 

Another thing I want to point out is that not only was UFO episodic, but the episodes were broadcast way out of order from how they were produced; I follow this viewing order when watching the series. But even that viewing order conflicts with this novelization, which places “The Dalotek Affair” before “Survival.” Meanwhile for both the suggested viewing order and this tie-in novel, “Computer Affair” occurs first, yet per the Pop Apostle site I linked to above, “Computer Affair” seems to take place later than most other episodes, given references in the episode to the year. At the end of “Computer Affair” a character takes up a bottle of wine, looks at the label, and remarks, “1984, what a year,” or something to that effect. Clearly this means 1984 is in the past, so it must be at least ’85 (or they just serve really cheap wine at this particular restaurant – or hell maybe wines in this “future” have expiration dates!). Meanwhile “The Dalotek Affair” is stated as taking place in 1981. 

Anyway. The first forty pages of Sporting Blood are devoted to “Computer Affair,” probably one of the slowest-paced episodes in the entire series. In this one Alec Freeman is tasked with figuring out what’s going on at Moonbase, and ultimately determines there’s a blossoming romance between busty Lt. Gay Ellis and burly Lt. Mark Bradley (Harry Baird), one of the Interceptor fighter pilots on the base. Ellis happens to be white and Bradley happens to be black, but this is not a concern – in fact it isn’t even mentioned – for SHADO. Rather, it’s that this romance could conflict with duty and cause havoc. In fact race isn’t even mentioned in the book until the final story novelized, “Survival,” where Bradley is offered the opportunity to command Moonbase and is concerned his skin color automatically prevents him from this honor – a concern just as quickly dashed as it is raised. 

It's pretty slow going. Robert Miall proves posthaste that he is more interested in the inner turmoil of his characters, particularly that of Alec Freeman, than he is in catering to a sci-fi action vibe. The majority of this opening section keeps Freeman in center stage, which makes his sudden disappearance later on in the novel a bit bumpy for the reader. Here he flies in to Moonbase, ponders how friggin’ hot all these Moonbase chicks are, and then tut-tuts the burgeoning romance between these two young people who are trapped up here on a base separated from the Earth on a mission so secret that can’t even tell their closest family members about it. When another astronaut is killed during a fight against a UFO (the entire sequence as well from Freeman’s perspective, even though he’s safe and sound on Moonbase), it’s back to Earth for some computer-assisted psychological testing of Ellis and Bradley. 

Here we get some of the shrill and unlikeable Straker, who alternately bosses Freeman around and then worries over a UFO that’s landed in the wilds of Canada. Even the ensuing “Shado mobile” action is relayed from Freeman’s perspective. But humorously, just as in the actual episode, the Ellis-Bradley romance is passed off as being okay, and indeed the two don’t even kiss or anything…nothing more than an exchange of words…and also the two characters never even appeared in an episode together again! Miall even makes their romance less of a thing than the episode did; the episode ends with an Earthbound Ellis and Bradley in a restaurant, and Bradley’s the one who makes the remark on the wine bottle that’s dated 1984. Miall cuts this scene from the novel. 

This could be because the dates don’t jibe; Miall inserts dialog in the opening of the novel that “Computer Affair” takes place in November of 1981; Lt. Ellis makes the announcement that Mark Bradley was born in November of 1952, “twenty-nine years ago,” which would go against the “1984” reference in the actual televised episode. But then, Miall himself goofs; the second story novelized here, “The Dalotek Affair,” is set in April of 1981 – the date mentioned both in the episode itself and in this novelization – even though Miall has the story taking place after “Computer Affair.” 

Speaking of which, we are sort of thrust directly into “The Dalotek Affair,” not to mention we are suddenly given a new main character: Colonel Paul Foster, virile alpha male type who really was the closest thing to the show’s action lead. Memorably portrayed by Micheal Billington (who apparently was frequently short-listed for the role of 007), Foster when we meet him is commanding Moonbase in place of Lt. Ellis, who we are informed is still Earthbound due to a cold she picked up. Of course, none of this is in the actual episode. This story is my favorite of the three here, and the episode is good as well, if for no other reason than the majority of it takes place on the ultra-groovy Moonbase. This one concerns a mining combine called Dalotek which has insisted on getting to work on the moon, unaware – as is everyone in the world – that UFOs are a constant threat up here. 

But just as with Freeman, we here are often reminded how damn horny Foster is up on Moonbase, with all these chicks! And again all the groovy décor and escapism is ignored, Miall instead focusing on the dourness and the boredom of being stuck in this isolated base on a dead world. This is the closest the book gets to risque, though; one of the Dalotek people is a sexy babe named Jane Carson, and Foster is able to start something up with her even though she’s not on Moonbase and he has to drive across the lunar surface to see her. Miall changes a bit from the episode, though; in that, we know from the start that Jane does not remember Foster due to an “amnesia pill” she’s been given, and the entire episode is a flashback on Foster’s part. Miall ignores that and shows it all as it happens, but with a darker edge – in the climax, Jane does not know she’s about to be given an amnesia pill (so as to forget about SHADO and UFOs), and Foster, about to bed Jane, feels just a little guilty about it. I mean it’s basically a UFO roofie. 

Otherwise “The Dalotek Affair” is slight on the action front, as most every episode of UFO is. Again it’s more down to the turmoil and the arguing, with Straker in “one of his moods” and ranting and raving on Earth and Foster blaming the Dalotek people for causing various SHADO crashes on the Moon. It turns out to be an alien plot, of course – and here Robert Miall cleverly ties things together with the ensuing story, “Survival.” This one also stars Foster, and also is primarily set on the groovy Moonbase; the opening of the episode is very colorful in this regard, with Foster and a pal hanging out in an ultramod rec room and getting drunk before a window blows and Foster’s pal dies via decompression. Miall has it that this pal is the replacement astronaut for the one killed in “The Computer Affair,” and also the alien who shoots out the window was dropped by the UFO that inexplicably came and went in “The Dalotek Affair.” 

Regardless, here’s the goof – when the dead astronaut is given a space funeral, it’s mentioned that the date is April, 1981. Meanwhile Miall had “Computer Affair” as occuring in November of ’81. At any rate this one’s plot is a prefigure of the ‘80s sci-fi movie Enemy Mine, concerning as it does Foster and the alien stuck together on the harsh terrain of the Moon and having to work together to survive. Before that though we have an angry Foster going Earthbound for a bit to seek out Jane Carson for a little nookie – only to be turned down cold, as she has no memory of him. (An incident which, as mentioned, occurs in the beginning of the televised “The Dalotek Affair.”) Then he goes over to his girlfriend’s place for some off-page lovin’, and here we get Miall’s one reference to the show’s groovy décor, Foster noting the “psychostyle painting” in his girlfriend’s apartment. 

Another interesting thing about “Survival” is that it was the last appearance of Harry Baird as Lt. Mark Bradley; any appearances after this were just recycled footage. What’s curious is that “Surival,” both the episode and here in the novel, features a go-nowhere subplot where Straker, thinking Foster is dead, offers Bradley the opportunity to command Moonbase. Bradley accepts…and does nothing but send out a Moon mobile that will ultimately discover Foster is still alive…and Foster will resume command of Moonbase. Bradley as Moonbase commander is never mentioned again, either in the novel or in the show, and given that Bradley wasn’t featured in any other episodes (other than recycled footage, that is!), it almost gives the indication that the dude got pissed off and quit. 

Anyway, “Survival” is also slow paced, and the Foster-alien journey across the Moon isn’t just rigorous for them; it’s boring as hell to watch, let alone read. As I say, UFO was incredibly static and probably would best be appreciated after downing a few tranquilizers. But man it looks great…though as mentioned many, many times now, the “look” of the show is the one thing Robert Miall fails to deliver. That said, he clearly intended to write another novelization at least: Sporting Blood ends with Straker and Freeman discussing their concerns about a SHADO agent named Roper (and Roper’s wife), and they also decide to send Paul Foster to the seabound SHADO vehicle Skydiver for “three months.” These are direct references to the episodes “Flight Path” and “Ordeal,” and presumably these would have been two of the stories that Miall would’ve novelized in a UFO #3. 

Mission: Impossible #4: Code Name: Little Ivan

Mission: Impossible #4: Code Name: Little Ivan, by John Tiger

No month stated, 1969  Popular Library

After a one-year gap the Mission: Impossible series returned with this fourth (and final) volume. Walter Wager also returned as “John Tiger;” he’d written the first volume back in 1967. That one tied in with the show’s first season; Code Name: Little Ivan ties in with the fourth season. Series regulars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain were gone, meaning that their characters Rollin Hand and Cinnamon Carter do not appear in this book; instead, we have magician/actor Paris (as protrayed by none other than Leonard Nimoy in Seasons 4 and 5), and a female character named Annabelle Drue, a “sloe-eyed” beauty who previously worked as a model before becoming an IMF agent “three years ago.” This character is unique to Code Name: Little Ivan, and likely was a creation of the editors at Popular Library. 

For, page 12 and the back cover copy of Code Name: Little Ivan reveal that Rollin Hand and Cinnamon Carter did appear in Wager’s original text: Paris is mistakenly referred to as “Rollin” on page 12, and the back cover lists Cinnamon as one of the characters in the book. So it seems clear that these two characters were originally in the book, but had to be replaced when the actors left the show. And only the names were changed, as Paris acts in the same capacity as Rollin Hand – a noted actor who seems mostly into the whole IMF thing for the drama – and Annabelle Drue is described in the same terms Wager used for Cinnamon Carter in the first novel: a “leggy blonde,” etc. I’d imagine some editor at the imprint had to go through the text and change all mentions of “Rollin Hand” to “Paris” and “Cinnamon Carter” to “Annabelle Drue;” other than the aforementioned two misses, the editor did a good job. 

Wager again proves himself the best writer on this short-lived series, and not just because he’s clearly the only writer who actually bothered to watch the show. Once again his novel feels very much like an episode of the series, perhaps one with an expanded budget. While the previous two novels just seemed like generic ‘60s spy action, Code Name: Little Ivan is clearly intended to be a genuine Mission: Impossible story, following the template of every show: IMF “chief” Jim Phelps (described by Wager as an athletic “blond” man…who packs a .357 Magnum beneath his “expensively-tailored” sport coat!) is briefed via self-destructing tape and then goes about pondering the assignment and then putting together a team for the job. Here we get the tidbit that the Impossible Mission Force is comprised of “volunteer civilian daredevils.” 

One additional thing Wager injects into his version of Mission: Impossible is a sense of humor. I wasn’t too fond of this – the show itself is usually pretty cold and aloof – but fortunately it wasn’t too egregious. We aren’t talking pratfalls or anything, but we have a lot of goofy bantering between idiotic East German officials, with a bungling assistant who is the source of his superior’s wrath…and also a lot of the payoffs on the caper are done comedically, which doesn’t gibe with the series vibe at all. This even extends to the typically-cold IMF agents, particularly Paris, who often chortles to himself about “going too far” in his portrayal of an overly-patriotic Red Army officer. There’s also a little more “friendly banter” among the IMF agents than typically seen in the show; Paris, for example, is a bit egotistical, and Phelps convinces him to take the job by appealing to his egotism. 

Now that I think of it, Code Name: Little Ivan doesn’t veer too far from the constraints of the show; given some of the relatively implausible sci-fi scenarios seen on Mission: Impossible, I think the plot of this one could have fit right in. Basically, the IMF team must get into East Germany and steal a protoype Russian tank that’s made of a new alloy. As it turns out, though, there aren’t any big fireworks or really any action whatsoever; late in the novel there is a staged assault on a German military base, but in true Mission: Impossible style it’s all a fakeout, nothing more than Barney Collier hoodwinking the moronic soldiers with a sound effects tape. 

Wager has the mandatory opening down pat: Phelps shows up at a carnival in his unstated home city and proves his marksmanship skills to win a stuffed animal. After exchanging some code words with the proprietor, Phelps gets on a roller coaster – one that stops at the top so he, alone on the ride, can hear the secret tape that’s embedded in the stuffed animal. A secret tape which of course self-destructs after playing. From there to the also-mandatory bit of Phelps in his swank pad going over his IMF dossier to put together his team; here we learn that “Paris” was injured in a recent assignment and has not been stated as fit for duty by the medics, but Phelps figures Paris will take the job when he hears how impossible it is. 

And it truly is one for the “master thieves” of the IMF: they must steal an entire tank and sneak it out of East Germany. So they go about this in the usual caper way: Phelps and Barney pose as salesmen for “Lovely Lips,” a lipstick manufacturer(!), Annabelle is their hotstuff French model, and Paris poses as a KGB agent, with typically-sidelined muscleman Willy Armitage acting as his chaffeur. Willy’s presence was apparently challenging even for the screenwriters – how do you integrate a strongman into every single caper? – but Wager has it that he and Paris often work together as a pair, even though they are so physically mismatched. Of course, this likely made more sense with the original Rollin Hand/Martin Landau of Wager’s original text, rather than the tall and lanky Paris/Leonard Nimoy. 

Despite a brief 128 pages, there’s still a fair amount of padding in Code Name: Little Ivan, mostly due to the scenes featuring one-off East German characters. Also, the caper itself doesn’t unfold with as much tension as on the show. Wager does try to instill a little suspense in some spots, but it comes off as at odds with the show itself, where the capers most always went off without a hitch – even when they seemed to be going wrong, it would turn out to be yet another bit of “5D chess” by mastermind Phelps. Here we have sort of “tense” bits where the machine they plan to use to hide the tank starts leaking water from beneath the big “Lovely Lips” truck and Annabelle must distract the East German guard with some small talk; stuff like that. 

But otherwise there’s no action per se, unlike the previous two novels in the series with their car chases and shootouts. The caper goes down on more of a comedic nature, with Paris – wearing one of the show’s famous “rubber masks” – posing as a Ukranian tank expert and steering it for the awaiting IMF team. Spoiler alert, but just to note it for posterity: the way the IMF team hoodwink the Commies is they have a water-filled rubber replica of the tank, which they leave on the road while Paris drives the real tank into the awaiting Lovely Lips truck. Even here the tone is one of comedy, with an idiotic East German officer insisting one of his men to get on the “tank” the next day, only for the nonplussed soldier to claim the tank is sinking beneath his weight – because it’s a rubber replica filled with water. 

Wager does sort of replicate the moment where the villains realize they’ve been swindled – always one of the highlights of the show – but here, again, it’s mostly comedic, other than an off-page bit where two of the Commies shoot each other due to some IMF hijinkery. But that’s it; the two separate teams drive over the border to West Germany and that’s all she wrote for Code Name: Little Ivan, as well as the Mission: Impossible tie-in series itself. All told this was an okay series, with the caveat that the second and third volumes seemed to be novelizations of an entirely different show.

Harry O (Harry O #1)

Harry O, by Lee Hays

No month stated, 1975  Popular Library

A well-regarded private eye TV series I’ve never seen, Harry O ran for two seasons and starred David Janssen as a former cop turned P.I. in San Diego. I was born the year season 1 came out, so obviously didn’t watch it at the time. And I don’t believe it was ever syndicated, given it only lasted two seasons. In fact I think I only discovered the show a few years ago when I was looking up any and all crime-based TV shows of the ‘70s. Well anyway, even though Harry O didn’t last very long, it still managed to get a pair of TV tie-ins, both written by Lee Hays, and this being the first of the two. Curiously the “#1” only appears on the cover and nowhere else in the book, but Hays did publish a second novel the following year. 

This is an original story, so far as I can determine, and I can only assume it captures the vibe of the TV series (which I’m sure is on DVD, and maybe I’ll actually watch it someday). Hays follows what I’ve learned to be the setup of the show: Harry Orwell, who narrates the novel for us, is a grizzled ex-cop with a bad back, given that he was shot there by a perp some years ago (which led to his retirement). Now he lives off his pension in San Diego, occasionally doing private eye work while not fiddling with his boat, The Answer. He isn’t Joe Mannix by any means; Harry is not at all an action-prone private dick, and usually keeps his gun rolled up in a towel in his house. He won’t use it in the entirety of the novel. In fact, Harry won’t do much of anything in the entirety of the novel. He does manage to score, though, so at least there’s that. 

Speaking of which, it’s interesting that Harry O was published by Popular Library, who seemed to corner the market on private eye series paperbacks in the ‘70s – they published Cage, Hardy, Renegade Roe, etc. Maybe an editor there just had a serious jones for this genre. But at least this one wasn’t misleadingly packaged like an action series, as those others were. Which is a good thing, because it’s mostly action-free. Harry O follows the template of practically every private eye story I’ve ever read: cynical P.I. is hired by a sexy broad who seems to have ulterior motives and soon finds himself in over his head, embroiled in a convoluted plot. So in other words there’s nothing new here, and if the TV series was the same then all the critical accolades are confusing to me. Harry even has the mandatory fractious relationship with the cops, in particular a former captain who has a grudge against him. He also has the mandatory friend on the force: Manny Quinlan, a character who seems to have also been on the show. 

Hays takes adavantage of the San Diego setting with frequent trips to Baja and Tijuana. In fact, there’s a lot of scene-setting in Harry O, to the point that it’s a bit egregious. I’d also say it’s there so as to pad the pages, as Hays doesn’t give himself much plot to work from. We meet Harry as he’s working on his boat; he never sails it in the course of the novel, so maybe that’s another schtick from the show. And in true “burned-out private eye” fashion, Harry ignores the constantly-ringing phone over in his house, just wanting to work on the boat despite needing a job. The caller ends up coming to him, and true to the template it’s a hotstuff babe. While the novel isn’t explicit in the least, there’s still a lot of that casual ‘70s “male gaze” as it’s now referred to – Harry seriously checks this chick out, practically oggling her as she walks by him – breasts, butt, face, etc. And she of course just makes a flippant remark about it, which adds to the charm. 

Harry makes her some coffee; he’ll make a lot of coffee in the novel. If Harry isn’t making coffee he’s checking the coffee to see if it’s still warm enough to drink; if not, Harry will heat it up. This is pretty much the majority of what our narrator does in the course of Harry O. Anyway, the pretty young lady is named Mary Alice Kimberly, and she was sent to Harry by Harry’s cop friend Manny. Her story is that her husband, who wants a divorce she won’t give him, has taken advantage of some land she gave him in Baja, and Mary Alice thinks her husband plans something shady there – to the extent that he’ll kill her to protect his investment. Harry doesn’t really believe her story and she takes off. 

This is of course where the plot thickens. Mary Alice calls Harry that night and begs him to come over to the office of another private eye, this one a sleazebag who specializes in dirty divorces. Well he’s dead, courtesy a bullet, and of course Mary Alice says she found him that way; she says her husband probably killed him. But now she herself is on the run from the cops, so Harry will spend the rest of the novel hiding her from his former friends on the force while trying to clear her name. So far as Mary Alice is concerned, her husband Arthur is involved in some shady business, so Harry heads down to Baja to check it out – oh, and another recurring bit is that Harry’s car is always in the shop. But he doesn’t like to drive, anyway. I mean there’s a part later in the book where Mary Alice is driving him back and forth to Mexico, and she asks Harry if he’d mind driving for a while, and Harry initially demurs! I mean some kick-ass hero! 

The novel comes to life with the appearance of Sydney Jerome; with his “neat mod suit” and “girlish figure” he’s clearly intended to be gay, not that Hays actually states it. He’s the larger-than-life shadowy figure expected in the private eye template, employing his own henchmen and talking “like a character out of Dickens.” He offers Harry a drink (Harry drinks liquour, at least) and tells him he too is involved with the deal, and is also looking for both Arthur and Mary Alice Kimberly. The plot further thickens when Harry’s again woken up in the middle of the night by a woman, but this time it’s Billy, the former stripclub dancer who was married to the murdered sleazebag private eye. This part seems to go nowhere – lots of dialog about the couple that doesn’t matter to the plot but fills the pages – until it leads to unexpected developments. 

As Harry O moves into its second half, things become a bit more tense; Harry himself is now trying to clear his name of murder. And also he manages to hook up with Mary Alice, who per the template throws herself at him. However Hays keeps this entirely off page. But at least Harry’s boat factors into it, as this is where Mary Alice has been hiding. But when Arthur Kimberly himself finally shows up, he warns Harry not to trust his estranged wife and tells Harry that Mary Alice is a “nympho.” Regardless Harry spends a lot of time with her, shuttling back and forth to Mexico. Our narrator literally just sits around while Mary Alice does the heavy lifting of moving the plot; it now develops that Arthur and Sydney were involved in a heroin smuggling scheme, and Mary Alice intends to foil Sydney by dealing him sugar down in Mexico. And through it all Harry just sits there while she does all the plotting and planning. 

Even the finale is underwhelming. Again true to the private eye template, the “climax” is mostly comrpised of expository dialog while various characters explain what exactly has been going on. There’s no real action; at one point Harry actually goes to get his gun, but finds that the towel he rolls it up in is now empty. Harry finally figures out how he’s been swindled, but even here his approach to it is rather humdrum. Hell, if I’m not mistaken he even makes more coffee in the climax, or maybe checks the temperature of already-made coffee. But there isn’t a big finale; instead, the villain just waits calmly while the cops head for Harry’s house. And we leave our narrator where we found him, working on his boat. 

The back cover of Harry O features several blurbs from various publications praising the show. Curiously, half of them (plus the blurb on the front cover) are all based out of Chicago, so Harry O must’ve been pretty popular there, even if it was set in San Diego. Some of the blurbs even go so far as to say Harry O is the best private eye show in history. I don’t know, though. At least judging from this paperback tie-in…well, I’d rather watch Mannix.

The Invaders

The Invaders, by Keith Laumer

August, 1967  Pyramid Books

The Invaders was before my time, but I became aware of it at some point. I don’t recall the series ever being run in syndication, but it came out on DVD some years ago, and also the digital antenna channel MeTV was playing it at one point. So far the only episodes I’ve seen were the two directed by Sutton Roley (“the Orson Welles of television”), and while I enjoyed them, I mostly just watched them due to Roley. 

Running for two seasons, The Invaders starred Roy Thinnes (star of one of my favorite ultramod “future ‘60s” sci-fi movies, 1969’s Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun) as a man who had stumbled upon the fact that aliens were here on Earth, posing as humans and up to nefarious ends. It was sort of a Fugitive schtick with Thinnes’s character, David Vincent, constantly on the run and going from place to place to stop the aliens. This novelization, by veteran sci-fi author Keith Laumer, serves as the origin story that never was. In fact, the novel is all original, which surprised me; you’d figure David Vincent’s first encounter with the aliens would’ve been the subject of the pilot episode. But apparently it wasn’t. 

TV tie-ins were known for sometimes combining several episodes into one novel, a la the Six Million Dollar Man tie-in International Incidents, which I have but haven’t yet read. Laumer follows the same vibe here, with the caveat that none of these stories were actually produced as episodes. So while the first section of The Invaders details how David Vincent becomes aware of the alien threat, the ensuing plotlines have him operating in more of the “lone wolf in a new town” capacity of the series. It’s all very episodic, but Laumer does tie things together with a recurring villain. So I guess people who enjoy the show would want to seek this tie-in out, as it delivers the origin story that the show itself apparently never did. However Laumer does detour from the show in some regards; the aliens do not have the extra finger that their TV counterparts did, and also they don’t turn into smoke when killed. However their faces have a masklike sort of appearance. In many ways the aliens here reminded me of the ones that appeared years later in another TV series, War Of The Worlds. 

When we meet him David Vincent is just a roving engineer who goes around the country providing consultation services for various companies. We don’t get too much detail about him, just that he’s tall and rangy, and that girls often smile at him. It doesn’t hurt that he drives a Jaguar XKE. But the passing mentions of young women smiling at David Vincent…these seem to be Laumer’s attempt to put at least some women in the novel, because folks there aren’t any others. In all three “books” of The Invaders, David (as Laumer refers to him) only deals with other men; there are only a few female characters in the novel, usually secretaries, or in one bit a college co-ed. In each case we’re to understand these women respond to the raw animal magnetism of our stud hero, but none of their burning yearning is ever requited. David spends such an unintentionally humorous amount of time telling himself he doesn’t “have time” for these women that one could easily come to a whole different sort of conclusion. 

Well anyway, we meet David while he’s consulting at a factory, where he happens to notice a strange object, one recently created by the factory for a client. David, we’ll eventually learn, has come across several of these strange objects on his nation-wide trips to various factories. They are made of a strange plastic he has never mentioned before and, when he inquires of the various factories, he learns that the objects are always ordered by a mysterious company in California. His interest runs him afoul of Dorn, the bulky security chief of the factory. When Dorn pulls the mysterious object out of David’s grasp, David marvels over how Dorn’s arm is “hard as oak” and also hot to the touch. Not that David Vincent is a pushover; in later backstory-via-dialog we’ll learn he kicked some shit over in the ‘Nam, though he doesn’t like to talk much about it. 

But then David isn’t much for talking, and comes off as cipher-like, particularly once he sets upon his one-man mission. He has a friend at least: Lieberman, an old college pal who works as a scientist. David, fueled by his curiosity, sneaks into the factory, grabs the pieces of mysterious plastic, and takes them to Lieberman. The scientist gradually figures out that the parts fit together into what appears to be a disintigrator ray gun – what we’ll learn is called an “Eruptor.” David and Lieberman decide that only the authorities can help, thus call the local FBI office. Laumer develops nice tension here with the agents being rather terse and, like Dorn, having faces that seem like rubber masks. David instantly distrusts them. 

One thing I can certainly say about this tie-in as compared to the actual show is that the tie-in is much more violent. David makes several kills here, and they’re all pretty bloody. He learns that Dorn and several other similar men are indeed aliens, their human forms elaborate disguises, and this leads to a violent battle. David kills a few of the aliens in the fight, dropping a crate on one of them (and ripping him in half) and impaling another with the tines of a forklift. He also gets in some shots with the Eruptor, but in true Maguffin fashion it grows so hot when fired that it can’t be held any longer, so David drops it, no longer able to rely on it. 

A vague detail Laumer doesn’t elaborate on is that David works for “the General,” a character who is ultimately unseen. After this big battle David rushes back to home base, hoping to get the General’s feedback…only to learn the General is dead. Here the novel gets very clunky, as we flash forward three months and David’s become a proto-Bruce Banner, traveling alone around the country, totally off the grid. A one-man army in the war against the invaders. Why? It’s never properly explained why he must stay underground, why he can’t go for help – in fact, the FBI agents were willing to help him in the earlier sequence. But that’s the setup of the show, of course, and Laumer’s constrained by it. He does what any contract writer would do and just barrells on, hoping we’ll overlook the illogic. I didn’t, because I take notes. 

David in his travels has come to a small town, where he happens to see flyers for ISIS, a “UFO cult” that has spread due to the numerous UFO sightings of the day. David goes to that night’s meeting, where he meets Henry Thrall, a man who claims to be like David – just here to gawk at the crazies. There’s some interesting insight here on how UFO sightings of the era were seen; David feels that it couldn’t all be a hoax, or a conspiracy…but personally I think Gian Quasar is on to something. David feels that these “saucerites” might be a sort of front for the invaders, and though he plays his cards close to his chest he suspects he might’ve encountered a kindred soul with Thrall. In fact, Thrall claims that he’s aware of the truth behind it all – and asks David to leave the meeting and come back to his house. (Again, the “hmmm” connotations are pretty strong here.) 

But this “book” is titled “The Maniac,” so we know something bad’s about to happen. And, sure enough, Thrall’s “house” turns out to be an abandoned wreckage in which he keeps all kinds of weird stuff…including an “autopsied alien” which is clearly just some poor guy the psycho captured and accused of being an alien. Again, all of it a lot more twisted than anything that could get on TV in 1967. This leads to a crazed game of cat and mouse between Thrall and David, the former chasing our hero through the darkened ruins of the house. The sequence builds in intensity, complete with the surprise return of our recurring villain. Here Laumer (or whoever wrote the unproduced script he was possibly adapting – perhaps series creator Larry Cohen, who is credited in the book) opens the story with Dorn offering David a chance at immortality – if David were to help the aliens, in return they would give him superstrength and other superhuman attributes, like being able to run forty miles an hour. 

All these things the aliens of the “Great Race,” as Dorn refers to his people, are capable of doing. They also have weird regrowth powers; Dorn’s hand was burned off by the Eruptor, and he displays a new babylike appendage that is growing on the stalk of his arm. Soon he will have regrown a completely new hand to replace the lost one. I don’t believe any of this stuff made it into the actual TV show; I don’t recall the aliens having any of these powers, but then again I’ve only seen two episodes. There is very much a hive mentality to the aliens in this novelization; Dorn also refers to the “Survival Master” as being the leader of the invaders; but then, Dorn later states that the aliens aren’t here to invade so much as they just want to cohabitate with the humans. They’ve spent millennia searching for a suitable planet, and have finally found it with Earth. I’m not sure if any of this backstory made it into the show. 

The final “book” is titled “Counterattack,” and has David hooking up with another one-off character, a sergeant near an Air Force base who relays his own story of having encountered aliens. It’s once again “three months later,” meaning The Invaders takes place over the course of six months. David Vincent is still traveling around on his own; Dorn mentioned that “something” would be happening within three months, and David is determined to figure out what it could be. A chance reading about an upcoming “meteor shower” in the paper is all the clue David needs; soon enough he’s meeting with various scientists to get more info on what the scientists claim will just be a harmless meteor shower in the desert. David suspects – and of course will be proven correct – that the shower will be camouflage for an alien invasion. 

Again we get more action than a TV show could handle, with David and his new military pal blasting away in the desert with heavy weaponry as the “meteors” turn out to be clusters of alien pods which are floating down onto the desert floor. We also get a final dealing with Dorn, who as mentioned is the novel’s main villain; another difference, as I don’t believe the TV show had any recurring villainous aliens. Like most ‘60s shows it was no doubt episodic, as is Laumer’s tie-in, but he does a good job of tying the three separate “books” of the novel into one story. By novel’s end David Vincent is once again on the road, one man alone against the Invaders, and you still don’t understand why he can’t go to anyone for help. 

Laumer is very much in a “pulp” mode for The Invaders, going for fast action and description. There are accordingly a lot of clunky sentences and typos, but then the latter could be the result of poor copyediting by the publisher. (Ie “Forty wall bulb” instead of “Forty watt bulb,” etc.) Laumer wrote another volume…and also there was an Invaders series published in the UK, some of the volumes of which were brought over to the US under different titles. It all seems rather confusing and I haven’t much researched it, mostly because I was fine with just reading this one book. 

The Secret Of Bigfoot Pass (The Six Million Dollar Man)

The Secret Of Bigfoot Pass, by Mike Jahn

October, 1976  Berkley Books

Mike Jahn, who wrote the earlier Six Million Dollar Man tie-in Wine, Women And War, returns with another tie-in paperback, this one novelizing the famous Bigfoot episodes of the series. Actually I should make that the first Bigfoot episodes, as the creature returned in a later two parter. Anyway at 154 pages of big print, The Secret Of Bigfoot Pass comes off more like a novella, and Jahn does not go for the same sort of crafted approach as he did with that earlier tie-in. This one reads like what it is: a quick novelization of a goofy story. 

Whereas Wine, Women, And War almost had the vibe of a paperback produced by Lyle Kenyon Engel, with an adult or at least mature vibe, this one’ a lot more juvenile. But then I wonder if this is due to the edition I have; only after reading the book did I notice that it has “Special Scholastic Edition” on the cover. It’s possible that Jahn’s original edition was rewritten (ie “dumbed down”) for younger readers…but then no notice of this is given in the copyright, so I’m assuming this is just how he wrote it. Perhaps it just became increasingly evident to Jahn that The Six Million Dollar Man was more of a hit with kids than it was with adults, hence the mature vibe of that earlier tie-in being almost wholly removed from this one. 

Of course, this is true of the series itself, so Jahn is not at fault here. And in fact he does try to inject a little naughtiness; in the book Steve Austin meets a hot alien chick (seriously!) and Jahn goes out of his way to document the “meaningful” looks the babe gives Steve. However as expected absolutely nothing comes of it, and also there’s zero in the way of exploitation of the alien babe’s ample charms, other than that she’s pretty and wears a “comfortable jump suit.” Jahn clearly knows that kids would be his prime readers, thus he focuses more on Bigfoot and the various action scenes (all of which are bloodless). But again this could just be some Scholastic editorial tinkering; I haven’t been able to find anything online that would confirm whether this edition was edited. 

First of all, I love that this is titled “The Secret Of Bigfoot Pass.” How much of a secret are we really talking about here? Anyway the title is about as juvenile as the story: in this one, friends, Steve Austin meets up with Bigfoot, or “Sasquatch” as Jahn refers to him, not to mention a couple aliens who live underground. Speaking of which, Steve himself is referred to as “Austin,” one of the few holdovers from Jahn’s previous tie-in. And also again Jahn harkens back to the source novels of Martin Caidin, with Austin having a couple different bionic configurations than his on-screen counterpart. This actually factors into the finale, in which Jahn detours from the actual episode. But otherwise Steve here is the same as he was in the shows, and not the Caidin books…more of an affable but laconic country boy type. 

The part of the novel I found most interesting was the rundown Jahn gives of Steve’s background, likely taken from Caidin’s initial novel Cyborg. Here we learn that Steve got into the Apollo Program late, but still managed to command the final lunar mission, Apollo 17 – replacing the real world’s Gene Cernan (who isn’t mentioned). After that, Steve, trying to stay in the space program, test flew a shuttle design and crashed spectacularly. Here we get into the “we can rebuild him” stuff, with Jahn’s version of Oscar Goldman coming off like Steve’s original icy boss, as played by Darren McGavin in the first Six Million Dollar Man telefilm. Jahn makes concessions to the tone of the series with the note that, as time went on, Oscar became less icy, with he and Steve almost becoming friends. This is different than the show, in which Steve and Oscar call each other “pal” or “buddy” so often that you could make a drinking game of it. 

But wait, we were talking about Bigfoot. Let me briefly diverge on that. The Six Million Dollar Man was slightly before my time. I was born in late ’74 and was aware of the show, mostly due to my brother, who at 7 years older than me was the prime audience for the series. He had the Steve Austin doll with the plastic eye you could look through and the weird fake plastic skin on the leg and all that stuff, and I was fascinated with it. In fact I was obsessed with all of my brother’s toys, including his GI Joe doll with the beard that collected dust. My cousins also had the Maskatron, which I thought was even cooler than the Steve Austin doll. Also my brother had the space capsule, or whatever it was, complete with a space suit for Steve and this sort of operating table you could put him on. Well anyway I thought all this was great but I heard there was also a Bigfoot toy, but no one I knew had it. 

We’re talking here about the time right after the show had gone off the air, so I knew from my brother that finding a Bigfoot toy might be difficult – only many years later would I learn that the Bigfoot doll was hard to find to begin with. I also really wanted my own Steve Ausin doll and somehow my parents found one for me; I still remember the thrill I had when they came back with a new-in-the-box Six Million Dollar Man doll. Actually now that I think of it, this must’ve been around 1980, so the show had been off the air for a year or two. I’m assuming this doll must’ve been on clearance, or they just found one somewhere. Well anyway, I still wanted Bigfoot. Now there was this kid in my class (we’re talking first grade) named Steve Middleton who swore up and down that there was a Bigfoot doll at some store somewhere nearby. I pleaded with my mom and dad to look for it for me (no idea why I didn’t just go shopping with them), but they said there was no Bigfoot toy there – they’d looked and looked. 

I bring this up because this was the first time I learned that people could lie. When I told Steve that my parents couldn’t find the toy, he not only insisted the Bigfoot doll was there, but that there were dozens of them. And his tales would only become even taller. I was only six years old at the time, but I vividly recall that Steve Middleton was the first person who had so actively lied to me. And to this day whenever I think of the Bigfoot from Six Million Dollar Man (which is damn often!), I think of Steve Middleton. Actually I have another humorous story about Steve: later on, when we were in middle school (aka “junior high” if you’re in Canada or whatever), I always got amusement out of how he tried to get by in class. He never did very well academically, so he somehow came up with the idea of feigning interest in whatever the teacher was talking about. But I mean major interest: if the teacher said, for example, that the pyramids were a few thousand years old, Steve would bug out his eyes, gape in amazement, and wag his head back and forth. Of course he’d still fail the tests, but this feigned look of amazement only became more and more outrageous…sort of like his tall tales about the mythical Bigfoot toy he claimed to have seen.* 

Okay, we’re back; sorry for the divergence. I don’t belive I’ve ever even watched the episodes Jahn novelizes here, though I have the complete series on DVD – I stalled out at Season One. One can tell though that Jahn seems to have stayed pretty close to his source material; everything’s kind of threadbare, sort of like the low production values of the series itself. As usual it opens in the cheap showiness of nature (that way you don’t have to pay for sets), with Steve hanging out in a mobile command center in Northern California while a married pair of scientists set up some earthquake monitoring devices. Also here we have Oscar Goldman and a local scientist named Joe Raintree. When the scientist couple is mysteriously abducted, Raintree claims that Bigfoot took them – hence the big footprint left at the scene. 

However there’s no mystery for us readers. Jahn often cuts over to Bigfoot’s point of view, referring to him as “Sasquatch.” The opening is a bit slow-going as Sasquatch creeps around and Steve uses his bionics to run through the forest and look for the missing couple. This of course leads to the expected confrontation with Bigfoot, which goes on for a while and doesn’t have much bite to it; there’s absoltely no vibe here that Steve’s life is in danger. Everything’s very safe and cozy and by the numbers, with Steve even making quips as he battles the seven-foot beast. The fight ends with Steve accidentally ripping off Sasquatch’s arm – and discovering that it’s bionic like his own. 

From here things open up a bit, with Steve being captured and put in “electrosleep” so he can be monitored by a trio of jumpsuited aliens. Aliens who apparently look just like humans, with one of them, a babe named Shalon, apparently pretty hotstuff. As mentioned we get a lot of stuff about her making insinuating comments about Steve as she watches him on a giant monitor. Oh and meanwhile there’s an entire colony down here, and Sasquatch is a robot the aliens created to keep people away from their hidden base. There’s some hokey “science!” stuff with some sort of time scrambler device the aliens have created that lets thousands of years slip by in seconds, or somesuch, which makes your head hurt if you think about it too much. 

The gist of it comes down to the fact that the quake detectors have picked up a new earthquake that’s about to happen right here in the colony, but the aliens plan to divert it so that nearby cities take the damage. Steve screams at them that thousands will die, but the aliens don’t care. This leads to more running and fighting as Steve tries to prevent the massive quake and then also save the aliens from catastrophe. It’s a very bloodless and G-rated affair, and also the Steve-Shalon relationship is so scuttled that you wonder why Jahn spent the time building it up. In fact reading these novelizations you realize that the writers could likely turn in something better than the source material – given the time and inclination, I bet Jahn could’ve written a novelization of The Secret Of Bigfoot Pass that would’ve been entertaining even for adults to read. 

I mentioned the unique finale; one of Caidin’s creations that didn’t make it into the series was that Steve Austin had a metal plate in his head. At novel’s end, the aliens insist that Steve must be given amnesia so he’ll forget about them and their colony. Steve allows them to do this. It’s my understanding that Jahn’s conclusion is unique to the novel. After leaving, Steve turns around in the woods and speaks to the air – confident that the aliens are watching him (and we know they are) – and informs them that the metal plate in his head blocked their amnesia rays! Thus he remembers everything, and eagerly blabs about it to Oscar later that day. But man when one of the closing lines of the novel is Oscar’s “So Bigfoot is a robot,” you know we aren’t talking about a weighty piece of work here. Steve’s time with the aliens is basically brushed aside so that he can get back to his camping trip or whatever. 

Actually Jahn does include what seems to be a bit of mockery; when Steve first meets the aliens, he is so blasé about them that they almost take affront. Steve informs them they “ain’t the first” and that he’s met other aliens, casually going on about his various adventures. Not sure if this is in the actual episode, but the humor was nice here as it came off as Jahn spoofing the entire thing. And indeed Jahn’s own prose is so quick, the settings and characters barely described, that you suspect he just wanted to be over and done with it as quick as possible. That being said, The Secret Of Bigfoot Pass is at least a swift-moving read. 

*Steve Middleton’s feigned look of amazement made such an impact on me that I recorded a “song” about it many years later, in 1997. This was with my buddy Ken Zerby, who handles “lead vocals;” I provide backup on the chorus and play very rudimentary guitar. The “you’re a Commie!” bit midway through was our impromptu tribute to the ‘60s Fantastic Four cartoon.  You can hear it here if you’re bored.