A Rough Edges Rerun Review: White Indian - Donald Clayton Porter (Noel Gerson)

Since yesterday was Thanksgiving, I thought it would be appropriate to take a look at a novel that has a connection to the Pilgrims, although it’s set somewhat later. WHITE INDIAN is the first book in what started out as the Colonization of America series. It opens in 1685, several generations after the founding of the first English colony in North America. Settlers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony have established an outpost known as Fort Springfield in the valley of the Connecticut River, but they have to worry constantly about Indian attacks, and with good reason. During one such raid by Seneca warriors, a young couple named Jed and Minnie Harper are killed, and their infant son is carried off by the Seneca chief Ghonka, who adopts the boy, names him Renno, and raises him to be a great warrior.

That’s just the beginning of this novel, which follows Renno to manhood. Like Tarzan, he comes to realize that he’s different from those who have raised him. Also like Tarzan, he’s the biggest, fastest, strongest bad-ass in the jungle – I mean forest – and eventually allies himself with the English while still maintaining his ties to the Seneca. He fights on the side of the English during clashes with the French, who are also trying to establish colonies in North America, and starts a long-running feud with a Frenchman who’s so evil he practically twirls his mustache. Like most of the historical fiction produced by the book packaging company Book Creations Inc., WHITE INDIAN and its sequels contain a heaping helping of soap opera to go along with plenty of colorful and sweeping action. Sometimes the historical accuracy was less than rigorous, but the editorial policy at BCI was “Never let history get in the way of a good story.” And BCI was definitely in the business of turning out good stories.

Now here’s the background of this series, for those of you who are interested. “Donald Clayton Porter”, the author of this book, was actually Noel Gerson, who was also the original “Dana Fuller Ross”. Gerson wrote a number of historical novels over the years, under his own names and those two house-names, as well as the pseudonym Bruce Lancaster and possibly others. His style is pretty unmistakable, no matter what name is on the book. His prose is a little clunky in places and sometimes he skimped on the action scenes, but he possessed the true storyteller’s knack of getting the reader to keep turning the pages. There’s also a mild edge of sexual kinkiness in many of his books, and it shows up in the White Indian novels as well. Renno has a habit of deflowering most of the beautiful English virgins he meets, and then his sidekicks among the colonists marry them and everybody is happy.

When the series began in 1979, following on the success of John Jakes’ Kent Family Chronicles and Gerson’s Wagons West novels as Dana Fuller Ross (both BCI series), it was known as the Colonization of America series, as noted above. But within three or four books, it became the White Indian series, and subsequent reprints of the early books carried that name instead. I suspect this was because someone at BCI or the publisher, Bantam, realized that readers were asking for more of those White Indian books, rather than using the more cumbersome original title. The series ran for 28 books, most of them featuring descendants of the original Renno (the longest-lasting hero in the series was also named Renno), and the books continued to appear until the mid-Nineties. Gerson wrote the first twelve, Hugh Zachary wrote #13 through #26, and BCI editor Paul Block authored the final two books in the series, which are collectible now because the series had pretty low print runs by that time. Zachary took over at least two other BCI series in mid-stream, THE AUSTRALIANS under the name William Stuart Long (originated by Vivian Long) and CHILDREN OF THE LION, published under the house-name Peter Danielson (originally George Warren). The Donald Clayton Porter name was also used on the stand-alone novel PONY EXPRESS, which I believe was by Gerson, and the short-lived Winning the West series, written probably by Gene Shelton, although Zachary may have contributed to it, as well.

As for my own connection with all this, I worked for BCI, too, and while I wrote six books as Dana Fuller Ross (the Wagons West prequels known as The Frontier Trilogy and The Empire Trilogy), I was never Donald Clayton Porter. I did one book as Peter Danielson, the final book in the Children of the Lion series. At its high point, BCI was a great place to work, with excellent editors, and the company turned out a tremendous amount of top-notch historical and Western yarns during the Seventies, Eighties, and early Nineties. If you’ve never sampled any of their series, WHITE INDIAN would be a fine place to start.

(This post originally appeared on November 27, 2009. I meant to read the rest of the White Indian series someday, but you know me. I haven't gotten around to it. I'd like to read the rest of Gerson's entries, anyway.)

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: King of the World's Edge - H. Warner Munn

Originally serialized in the September through December 1939 issues of WEIRD TALES, H. Warner Munn’s KING OF THE WORLD’S EDGE was a prime candidate for reprinting in the Sixties paperback fantasy boom sparked by Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and J.R.R. Tolkien. It features swordplay, magic, and lost civilizations. What else do you need?

Well, an Arthurian angle doesn’t hurt. There’s also a nice framing sequence in which a mysterious bronze cylinder is discovered in Key West following a hurricane, and inside the cylinder there’s an ancient document purportedly written by one Ventidius Varro, a Roman legionnaire posted in Britain at the time of Arthur’s rise to power. Like Jack Whyte’s Camulod novels and the movies THE LAST LEGION and KING ARTHUR, KING OF THE WORLD’S EDGE is set during the last days of Roman occupation in Britain, when most of the Roman soldiers are actually second- or third-generation Britons. Ventidius Varro is one of them. Cut off from Rome, these hold-out legionnaires align themselves with Arthur and the enigmatic mage Myrdhinn in order to oppose the invading Saxons and unite the various British tribes. After Arthur’s efforts are crushed and he himself is mortally wounded in battle, Myrdhinn places him in what amounts to suspended animation, hides his body, and then sets sail with a band of legionnaires commanded by Varro in search of a place where they can regroup and figure out a way to retake Britain.

Things don’t work out that way, however. Instead, Myrdhinn and the rest of these British adventurers wind up in a new world far to the west, across the ocean, where they are captured by, escape from, and wind up doing battle with various groups of native tribes. Along the way Varro becomes the staunch ally of a native leader named Hayonwatha, founds his own empire in the new world, and battles to overthrow the evil Mia, who have extended their grasp over the entire continent.

Part of the fun of a book like this is seeing the way Munn comes up with new explanations for all the history and legends of early North America, from Florida up to the Great Lakes, across the continent to the Rocky Mountains and down to Texas. Varro, Myrdhinn, and their friends wander all over and have numerous adventures. The pace is a little slow at times and the writing style is old-fashioned, but after all, the story is being told by Ventidius Varro in a letter intended to be carried back to whatever emperor is currently in power in Rome.

Though it lacks the storytelling power of a yarn by Howard or Burroughs, KING OF THE WORLD’S EDGE is an entertaining, inventive novel with quite a bit of action. Getting the book back in print from Ace was enough to prompt the never prolific Munn to write a sequel, THE SHIP FROM ATLANTIS, almost thirty years after the original. I have that one, too, and hope to read it soon. (I believe both novels were also issued in a combined volume called MERLIN’S GODSON, from Del Rey in the Eighties, but I have the Ace editions.)

Update: Don Herron informs me that there's a third book in the series, MERLIN'S RING, and refers to it as Munn's masterpiece. He also recommends Munn's historical novel THE LOST LEGION. There's two more books for me to look for!

(I'm sure it will come as no surprise to any of you that despite what it says above, I haven't read another word by H. Warner Munn since this post first appeared almost exactly fifteen years ago on November 6, 2009. Will I read more by him in the future? No way of knowing for sure, but at this late date, I wouldn't bet a hat on it.) 

Review: The Pirate and the Lady - Leslie Turner White

Sometimes I’m in the mood for a good, old-fashioned, swashbuckling historical adventure novel. THE PIRATE AND THE LADY by Leslie Turner White, published as a paperback original by Ace Books in 1961, seemed like it might be just what I was looking for. That’s my copy in the scan. The cover is by an artist named Chuck Smith, whose work I’m not familiar with.

The book opens in Cornwall, where the protagonist, a ship’s captain known as Black Anthony Bartholomew, works for the local magistrate, who also happens to be the kingpin of the smuggling ring that’s operating in the area. Tony is also the lover of the magistrate’s insatiable young wife, and that’s what ultimately leads to him being charged unjustly with murder and forced to flee to the colonies. During that voyage, he meets and falls in love with the daughter of an English nobleman who’s being sent to the Caribbean to put a stop to the piracy plaguing the area. The nobleman’s plan includes issuing letters of marque to British sailors so they can hunt down the French and Spanish pirates. This seems like a perfect job for Tony.

Unfortunately, he gets sidetracked to a plantation in Virginia owned by the brother of his former lover back in England. She’s there, too, and expects that she and Tony will take up right where they left off. Tony wants to get to the Caribbean, though, and be reunited with the fair Kathleen, and this leads to no end of trouble.

All this set-up actually takes up too much space in the book, but once Tony finally makes it to the Spanish Main, there’s buccaneering action a-plenty. Capture, escape, sea battles, daring plans, swordfights, even a great sidekick named Half-Arsed Jones. White, whose writing career started in the pulps, seems torn between spinning a breakneck yarn and writing a more sedate, respectable historical novel, albeit one with some spicy plot twists. It’s a combination that works more often than it doesn’t, thankfully.

Although THE PIRATE AND THE LADY looks almost like a romance, there’s actually not much domestic drama in it, mostly in the opening and then very late in the book. I enjoyed this novel quite a bit. It’s short, colorful, and reads quickly. The author, as Leslie T. White, wrote quite a few detective and adventure stories for the pulps before becoming a bestselling novelist as Leslie Turner White. The line “First Book Publication” on the cover of this one might be an indication that it’s an expanded serial or novella from the pulps, but if that’s the case, I couldn’t pin down the source. I think it’s just as likely that White wrote it as an original and then maybe sold it to Ace when it failed to sell to a hardback publisher. Either way, it’s a good yarn and well worth reading if you enjoy vintage historical adventures.

The Last Line - Stephen Ronson

I’m a little bit leery of any book where the protagonist is compared to Jack Reacher. That seems to have been an overdone trend in recent years. On the other hand, how many paperbacks did I buy back in the Sixties and Seventies with “In the Tradition of CONAN!” emblazoned across the front cover? (The answer: a lot.) So I didn’t worry too much about the blurb on THE LAST LINE, the debut novel from Stephen Ronson, and just plunged into the book. I’m glad that I did, because it’s a terrific thriller.

The title is a reference to the phrase “the last line of defense”, and that’s what narrator/protagonist John Cook becomes part of during the summer of 1940 when it appears that France is about to fall to the invading German army and everyone in England expects that Hitler will soon have them in his sights. Most people expect the bombers to show up any time, and no one really holds out much hope that the country will be able to withstand the Nazi onslaught for very long. So Cook, a middle-aged farmer and former soldier during the first World War, is recruited to become part of a planned resistance movement that will try to wreak havoc on the German occupiers. Cook has more skills than most at such things, having fought for British forces in Afghanistance following the end of the World War. He’s a lot more dangerous than he might appear to be at first glance.

The looming threat of the Germans isn’t all Cook has to contend with, however. A young woman is murdered on his property, and he’s the leading suspect in her murder. In the course of trying to clear himself of that charge, he uncovers two dangerous conspiracies that may or may not be linked. Children who have been evacuated from London to the countryside to protect them from the expected bombing have gone missing, and then there’s the matter of what’s being hidden in a locked barn on a neighboring estate. Tragedy, romance, and a lot of gritty, well-written action ensue.

You wouldn’t know this was Ronson’s first novel because he keeps the story racing along with the sure hand of a longtime professional. I’m not an expert on the location or the time period, but the setting and background certainly ring true to me. John Cook is a great narrator/protagonist, plenty tough and smart and sympathetic even though at times he’s not all that likable. The supporting cast is good and the villains suitably creepy. Not everything plays out exactly as I suspected it would, and that’s always good, too.

I stayed up later than usual to finish THE LAST LINE, and as I mentioned recently, it takes a really good book to make me do that. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and hope it’s the first of a series. It’s available in hardback and e-book editions on Amazon.

Hell Strip - Lee Richards (Lee E. Wells)

Art by Lu Kimmel

The year is 1851, and Texas Ranger Dave Fleming is gripped by gold fever. He resigns from the Rangers and heads for Panama, intending to make his way to California and find his fortune in the goldfields. Unfortunately, through a series of misadventures, Dave winds up stranded in that tropical hellhole and goes to work for Marie Hooper, a beautiful redheaded American who owns the biggest saloon, gambling den, and bordello in Panama City. He also makes a bad enemy in Krim Paletz, the owner of a freight line who may well be the mastermind behind the outlaw gang terrorizing the whole country.

Then another former Ranger arrives in Panama, an old friend of Dave’s named Ran Runnels. Runnels, a deadly gunfighter and manhunter, has been recruited by representatives of the American, British, and French governments to bring law and order to Panama, no matter what it takes. He immediately gets Dave to sign on as his second-in-command, and they set out to track down the leaders of Panama’s criminal underworld.

HELL STRIP is a terrific book, a fast-moving blend of Western, historical, and hardboiled crime in an unusual setting. The actual author behind the Lee Richards pseudonym is the old pulpster and paperbacker Lee E. Wells. I read one of Wells’ Rio Kid pulp novels some years ago and thought it was okay, but I wasn’t impressed enough to seek out any more of his novels. Clearly, based on this Gold Medal paperback from 1955, that was a mistake. It could be that Wells just wasn’t all that well-suited to write a pulp series character. That’s been true with other authors I’ve encountered. But he sure spins a great yarn here.

In addition to the intrigue and gunplay and strong, likable protagonist, there’s a well-done romantic triangle, some harrowing scenes in a Panamanian prison, and a vivid rendering of the exotic setting. Wells even gives the reader a slight plot twist late in the book that’s effective even if it’s not really surprising, and the ending is very satisfying. This would have made a great 1950s movie with Clint Walker playing Dave, Audie Murphy as Runnels, Rhonda Fleming as Marie, and maybe John Dehner as the sinister Krim Paletz.

Even though HELL STRIP doesn’t break any new ground other than the Panama setting, Wells did such a good job spinning his yarn that it doesn’t matter. I had a wonderful time reading this book. Somewhat surprisingly, there’s an inexpensive e-book edition of it available on Amazon. If you’re a fan of hardboiled Westerns, I give it a very high recommendation.

D'Artagnan - H. Bedford-Jones

I’ve been a fan of the Three Musketeers for a long time, ever since I bought the Whitman edition of the novel when I was a kid and read it. I read the Classics Illustrated comic book version, too, and over the years I’ve watched and enjoyed most of the movie versions. I really liked the BBC TV series from a few years back and that’s how I see the characters in my head now.

So when I was in the mood to read a swashbuckler recently, I picked up D'ARTAGNAN, a pastiche sequel to the original, written by one of my favorite authors, H. Bedford-Jones. It was published originally as a three-part serial in the pulp ADVENTURE in September and October of 1928 and reprinted several years ago by Altus Press.

Set approximately a year after the events in THE THREE MUSKETEERS, this novel is supposedly, according to Bedford-Jones, expanded from an unpublished manuscript by Alexandre Dumas. ADVENTURE plays that up on the cover of the issue containing the first installment of the serial. However, according to the Fictionmags Index, the only material by Dumas is a one-page excerpt from an article that has nothing to do with the book itself. No matter. D’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are back, protecting Queen Anne of France from the schemes of the evil Cardinal Richelieu, although D’Artagnan does most of the heavy lifting in this book, befitting the title. Aramis is wounded and barely shows up. Athos and Porthos are busy with other things for most of the first half, although they play major roles in the second half of the book.

The plot, which involves various rings used for identification, missing documents and letters, wild coincidence after wild coincidence, ambushes, swordfights, disguises, and a mysterious child, is almost impossible to summarize. All the political intrigue is so complicated that I’m still not sure I understood everything that was going on. But again, no matter. D’Artagnan and his friends gallop hither and yon and save the day. That’s all that’s really important.

Bedford-Jones’ prose is a little more flowery than usual, which I suppose is understandable since he was writing a Dumas pastiche, and the plot, as I mentioned, is downright murky. But the action scenes, and there are a lot of them, are great. The final climactic battle, in which D’Artagnan, Athos, and Porthos face overwhelming odds in a French tavern, is just terrific, the sort of thing that would have had me bouncing up and down in my chair in suspense and excitement if I’d read this when I was a kid.

The good stuff far outweighs the weaker bits in D’ARTAGNAN. I had a great time reading it. If you’re a Three Musketeers fan like me or just enjoy a good swashbuckler, you should definitely give it a try. It’s available in paperback and e-book editions on Amazon.

The Horse - James Ciccone

James Ciccone is the author of two critically acclaimed Western novels, A GOOD DAY TO DIE and STAGECOACH JUSTICE. His latest book, THE HORSE, is quite a departure from his previous books. Set mostly in Saratoga, New York, in 1863, it’s a historical/psychological thriller/horror novella centered around the world of horse racing.

The protagonist/narrator of this story is a horse trainer named Alexander Whitfield Holmes, who enters into a partnership with wealthy Charles Ogden Tripps to buy and train a filly named Lizzie W for the racing game. Things go bad between the partners, which leads to a horrific murder. The rest of the novella concerns the aftereffects of that crime as they spread out like ripples in the lives of several characters. It’s not a mystery—the reader knows right away what’s going to happen and who is responsible—but what we don’t know is how the various angles of the tragedy are going to unfold.

This story is deliberately old-fashioned in its prose—Ciccone does a superb job of capturing the texture and pace of 19th Century fiction—but harrowingly modern in its depiction of evil and the depths to which human beings can sink. It’s definitely not an easy book to read, although it becomes more so after the killing takes place. But it’s also very much worth reading because it’s one of the most compelling portraits I’ve encountered of a character who is both sympathetic and despicable at the same time. Because of the graphic violence, THE HORSE probably isn’t for everyone, but I found myself unable to put it down and give it a high recommendation. It's available in paperback and e-book editions.

Lysander - F. van Wyck Mason

LYSANDER is a historical adventure novel by F. van Wyck Mason published as a paperback original by Pocket Books in 1957 with a cover by James Meese. That's my copy in the scan. Mason was an old pulpster, of course, and this novel is an expansion of his serial “Lysander of Chios” serialized in ARGOSY in June and July of 1935. Set in the ancient world, it’s the story of how Lysander, the young king of the conquered island nation of Chios, sets out with a small band of allies to wage a guerrilla war against the Persian Empire. Daring exploits, tragedy, and romance ensue until Lysander and his friends find themselves part of Alexander the Great’s army and Lysander is able to fulfill the vow of vengeance he took. Mason packs plenty of history into his tale, which results in it being a little dry and slow in places. Mason the pulp yarn-spinner was great; Mason the mainstream historical novelist isn’t quite as much to my taste. But his books are still worth reading and this one is no exception. There are plenty of great battle scenes and Lysander is a likable protagonist. Not having read the pulp version, I suspect it’s better, but this is still a good book.

The E. Hoffmann Price Spicy Adventure Megapack - E. Hoffmann Price

Thank goodness for the Spicy pulps! I don’t know of a better cure for the reading funks in which I sometimes find myself, when I don’t have the attention span to tackle a novel and none of them I have on hand appeal to me, anyway. But a Spicy pulp yarn that I can read in half an hour or less . . . yeah, now that I can handle.

For a while now I’ve been working my way through THE E. HOFFMANN PRICE SPICY ADVENTURE MEGAPACK, reading stories between other things. Price is a long-time favorite of mine, one of those writers who could tackle almost any genre and do a good job of it. The stories in this collection certainly provide a wide variety in their subject matter:

“Satan’s Daughter”, SPICY MYSTERY STORIES, January 1936 – Ancient evil in a Middle Eastern archeology dig

“Pit of Madness”, SPICY MYSTERY STORIES, April 1936 – Devil worshippers in Paris

“The Walking Dead”, SPICY MYSTERY STORIES, November 1935 – Zombies (what else?) in the Louisiana swamps

“Every Man a King”, SPEED ADVENTURE STORIES, November 1943 – Political intrigue and civil war in 14^th Century Samarkand

“Revolt of the Damned”, SPICY-ADVENTURE STORIES, March 1937 – Drug smuggling and gang war along the California-Mexico border.

“Crystal Clues”, SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES, August 1936 – Hardboiled detective yarn set at a hot springs resort featuring hotel dick Cliff Cragin (which I first read as Cliff Clavin, which would have been a totally different story . . . but not necessarily a bad one).

“Night in Manila”, SPICY-ADVENTURE STORIES, November 1935 – A two-fisted Yank soldier goes undercover to bust up a smuggling ring in the Philippines.

“Murder Salvage”, SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES, April 1941 – Private eye yarn featuring Price’s series character Honest John Carmody tangling with murder and a stolen car racket.

“Triangle With Variations”, SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES, August 1935 – A man is murdered, and the man who’s in love with his wife sets out to find the killer.

“Scourge of the Silver Dragon”, GOLD SEAL DETECTIVE, December 1935 – A G-Man goes undercover to bust up an opium smuggling ring in California and Arizona.

“Drink or Draw”, SPEED WESTERN STORIES, December 1943, and “She Herded Him Around”, SPICY WESTERN STORIES, February 1941 – These are entries in Price’s long-running series of humorous, tall-tale Western yarns about wandering gunfighter Simon Bolivar Grimes.

“You Can’t Fight a Woman”, SPICY WESTERN STORIES, January 1939 – Starts out as a Romeo-and-Juliet/cattlemen vs. nesters story, becomes a chase the bad guys to El Paso story before circling back to the original plot.

“Short-Cut to Hell”, THRILLING ADVENTURES, January 1939 – A wagon train yarn featuring drifting peddler/tinker Saul Epstein, who appeared in three other stories by Price. Epstein is a supporting character in this one and I suspect in the other stories with him, as well.
 
Of course, some of these stories are better than others. Here are some highlights.

Despite being a novelette, “Revolt of the Damned” is a hardboiled, large-cast mini-epic about the drug trade along the border with enough plot for a full-length novel. It rockets along from character to character at a breakneck pace in a yarn filled with double-crosses, revenge, brutal murders, and an apocalyptic climax. This is just a terrific story, one of the best things I’ve ever read by Price.

“Murder Salvage” is the first of Price’s Honest John Carmody stories I’ve read. A private detective who got his nickname because he was a cop who got kicked off the force for not going along with corruption, he’s a good character and I’d happily read more about him. This particular story has a nice, twisty plot and good supporting characters.

“Triangle With Variations” has a good twist with the protagonist who’s in love with a married woman setting out to find her husband’s murderer so that he can pursue her in good conscience. Note that Price’s first published story, which appeared in the June 1924 issue of DROLL STORIES, is also called “Triangle With Variations”, but it’s a totally different story.

“Scourge of the Silver Dragon” is a solid action tale with a confusing but interesting bit of business in it: the sinister criminal mastermind and the type of opium that he’s smuggling are both known as the Silver Dragon. Plenty of good shootouts and fistfights in this one.

I read all the Simon Bolivar Grimes stories years ago, including “Drink or Draw” and “She Herded Him Around”, and even wrote the introduction to a collection of some of them, so I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t reread them this time around. But the Grimes series is consistently entertaining and well worth reading. If you haven’t tried them, you should pick up NOMAD’S TRAIL from Black Dog Books, the collection I just mentioned.

“You Can’t Fight a Woman” is interesting because, in addition to being a well-written, action-packed yarn, one of the characters mentions being from Cross Plains, Texas. I’m sure nearly all the readers of SPICY WESTERN STORIES read right past that, but it jumped out at me, of course, since Cross Plains was the home of Price’s friend Robert E. Howard, who had been gone five years at the time this story was written. A nice Easter egg in a good story. (Price, as you’ll recall, was the only person to meet REH, H.P. Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith in person.)

“Short-Cut to Hell” has a small romance element, but it’s really not a spicy yarn, which isn’t a surprise considering that it appeared originally in THRILLING ADVENTURES. But this story of a wagon train journey and the dangers along the way has a nice epic feel, and the character of Saul Epstein is a good one, serving as sidekick and behind the scenes manipulator much the same way as John Solomon in that series by H. Bedford-Jones. This is an excellent story and shows that Price could write a serious, hardboiled Western when he wanted to.

Overall, THE E. HOFFMANN PRICE SPICY ADVENTURE MEGAPACK is a top-notch collection full of fast-paced, entertaining stories. Well worth the time to read, and it makes me glad that I have several other megapacks of Price’s work on my Kindle, ready for the next time I need one of them.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: The Magic Carpet Magazine, July 1933

This pulp also contains a Robert E. Howard story, his historical novelette "The Lion of Tiberias". But also behind that J. Allen St. John cover, you'll find a superb novella by H. Bedford-Jones, "Pearls From Macao" (which Tom Roberts reprinted as an early entry in his Black Dog Books line, many years ago, the edition I read and remember fondly), as well as stories by E. Hoffmann Price, Seabury Quinn, Clark Ashton Smith, Warren Hastings Miller, and Geoffrey Vace, who was actually Hugh B. Cave's brother Geoffrey. This is just a spectacular issue of THE MAGIC CARPET MAGAZINE, a great example of why the pulps were so wonderful, and if you want to read it for yourself, Adventure House has reprinted the whole thing. High recommended.

Down the Coast of Barbary - H. Bedford-Jones

In 1730, Patrick Spence is an American sea captain whose ship is sunk by pirates off the Barbary Coast. Spence is the only survivor. He’s picked up by a passing British vessel and taken to Algeria, where he finds himself broke and stranded, with no prospects of getting back to America.

He makes a friend, however, a British clergyman who is in Algeria to study ancient ruins. For an elderly preacher, he proves to be surprisingly handy with a sword, too, if that’s not too much of a spoiler, and I don’t think it is since this is an H. Bedford-Jones historical swashbuckler and you know there’s going to be a lot of swordplay.

At any rate, Spence and his friend Dr. Shaw soon find themselves up to their necks in intrigue and danger as they get involved with a Moroccan nobleman who’s trying to seize the throne of that country and a renegade Dutchman who is also after the throne so that he can consolidate all the countries along the Barbary Coast and promote a war with Spain. Everybody’s trying to get their hands on a mysterious box that holds the key to the fate of empires. Oh, and there’s a beautiful young Englishwoman in the mix, too.

DOWN THE COAST OF BARBARY is a short novel by H. Bedford-Jones first published in the October 21, 1922 issue of ARGOSY ALL-STORY WEEKLY, more than 99 years ago, but as always with Bedford-Jones, the prose is only slightly old-fashioned and he keeps the action moving along at a very nice pace. The plotting is a little too muddled here and there, making it difficult to keep up with everybody’s motivations, and a bit too much happens off-screen, but the action scenes (and there are plenty of them) are spectacular and Spence is a very likable protagonist. This novel isn’t in the top rank of Bedford-Jones’ work, but it’s a solid second-tier yarn and is well worth reading. I was entertained from start to finish.

DOWN THE COAST OF BARBARY was reprinted in PULP ADVENTURES #24, published by Bold Venture Press, and, being in the public domain, is also available on-line here and there.

Fancy Anders Goes to War: Who Killed Rosie the Riveter - Max Allan Collins

Fancy Anders is a rich, beautiful blond socialite during World War II. She worked as a secretary in her father’s successful private detective business, and when he’s called back to active duty, she takes over the agency. Not as a detective, mind you, but simply somebody to refer potential clients to other agencies and keep the business existing in name only.

Now really, what rich, beautiful blond socialite is going to be satisfied with a set-up like that? Especially when a young woman who works in an aircraft plant dies under suspicious circumstances, and the man who owns the plant is an old friend of Fancy’s family? Naturally, Fancy decides to go undercover and join the millions of women who have entered the workforce with most of the men off at war. She’s determined to find out if the young woman’s death was an accident, as it appears at first . . . or murder.

FANCY ANDERS GOES TO WAR: WHO KILLED ROSIE THE RIVETER? is a book that seems to have been designed with me as the target audience. And since Max Allan Collins is one of the modern masters of the historical mystery, it doesn’t disappoint in the slightest. This is a highly entertaining novel, with a fast pace, a suitably twisty plot, and a great protagonist in Fancy Anders. The cover and illustrations by Fay Dalton just make it that much more appealing. I had a wonderful time reading this book and give it a high recommendation. And I’m happy to know that there are at least two more Fancy Anders tales in the works, because I’m looking forward to reading them, too.

Forgotten Books: The Eagles #5: Sea of Swords - Andrew Quiller (Kenneth Bulmer)

 

The series that was published as THE GLADIATOR in the United States (by Pinnacle) and as THE EAGLES in the United Kingdom (by Mayflower Granada) comes to end with this fifth volume, SEA OF SWORDS, which was never reprinted in the U.S. As a result, copies can be a little scarce and pricey, but I came across an affordable copy on-line and had it on hand before I started reading the series. Three authors alternated on these historical adventure novels: Laurence James, Kenneth Bulmer, and Angus Wells. When the fifth one rolled around, it was Bulmer’s turn in the rotation, after he previously wrote #2.

The protagonist of this series is Marcus Britannicus, a half-Roman, half-British nobleman and soldier who also fights in the arena as a gladiator, and when he’s not doing that, carries out secret missions for the emperor. Each book opens with Marcus battling in the arena and then flashes back to the main story, which is some exploit he had in the past. In the case of SEA OF SWORDS, the mission on which he’s sent takes him to the Carpathian Mountains (yes, those Carpathian Mountains . . . the ones in, you know, Transylvania) to rescue a beautiful princess from a crazed warlord who likes to . . . wait for it . . . impale his enemies. I hope that’s not too much of a spoiler, but honestly, after a long set-up that has very little to do with the rest of the book, it’s blatantly obvious what Bulmer is going for here. The question is, how well does he carry it out?

I’d say the results are mixed. In most of his work, Bulmer does a couple of things that bother me. He overloads his plots with so many characters that it’s difficult to keep track of who’s who. He also throws in so much technical jargon and minutiae about whatever he’s writing about, whether it’s the Roman military, sailing, or what have you, that the reader constantly has to stop and try to figure out things from context. I don’t like info-dumps any more than the average reader, but at times Bulmer’s prose is so obscure it’s almost like a foreign language.

However, at the same time, he’s very good at depicting his protagonists, his action scenes are great most of the time, and he comes up with some interesting plots. His books generally move along pretty well, and that’s the case with SEA OF SWORDS. Despite being a pretty brutal guy sometimes (he lives in a brutal world, after all), Marcus is a likable protagonist with his own code of honor. It’s always a pleasure watching him triumph over the bad guys.

On the other hand, the main story in this book is a little jumpy at times, skipping stuff that probably could have done to greater effect if so many pages hadn’t been spent on the framing sequence. But the biggest problem in SEA OF SWORDS is that Marcus’s vengeance quest, which formed the spine of the series in the previous four books, was wrapped up satisfactorily in #4, Laurence James’s BLOOD ON THE SAND. As a result, SEA OF SWORDS comes across as sort of an afterthought, as if somebody said, “Hey, we’ve got one more book in the contract. What do we do now?” Occasionally, it reads like Bulmer is trying to set up some other storyline that could continue, but nothing comes of it. Indeed, the whole thing comes to a rather bittersweet conclusion with this paragraph:

“Names rang in his head, names from the past, names for the future. Yes, there remained much to be done, many battles to be fought by the Fox in this grandiose world-shaking Empire of Rome.”

Nope, no more battles for Marcus Brittanicus, also known by his gladiator name Vulpus the Fox. Which is really kind of sad, because despite my reservations about this fifth book, I enjoyed the series overall and consider it well worth reading. It’s bloody and crude and lurid but also fast-paced and exciting. Completists will want to read this fifth volume, too, but just the four volumes reprinted by Pinnacle will suffice for most readers, I think. I have all the entries in another British historical adventure series called WOLFSHEAD that was also written by Laurence James and Kenneth Bulmer, and I hope to start reading those soon.

A Hack's Notebook - Ben Haas

 

I don’t recall the first book by Ben Haas that I read. I remember seeing Fargo and Sundance paperbacks, which he wrote under the pseudonym John Benteen, when I was in college, and I’m pretty sure I owned a copy of the movie novelization ROUGH NIGHT IN JERICHO, which he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Meade, even earlier than that, but I don’t think I ever read it. So it was probably sometime in the Eighties before I read anything by him. I know I started reading the Fargo novels then. The first one I picked up may have been VALLEY OF SKULLS, which is widely acclaimed as one of the best in the series. I know I loved it. I’ve read a bunch of novels by Ben Haas since then and enjoyed every one of them. I haven’t read them all yet, but that’s okay. That gives me something to shoot for.

Which is my long-winded way of saying that when I became aware Haas’s unfinished autobiography A HACK’S NOTEBOOK was published earlier this year, I had to grab a copy and read it right away.

I’ve been acquainted with Haas’s oldest son, the acclaimed sculptor Joel Haas, through the Internet for a number of years now. He’s provided me with some material regarding his dad’s work that I’ve published here on the blog. Joel edited A HACK’S NOTEBOOK, and the fine people at Piccadilly Publishing (who publish excellent e-book versions of many Ben Haas novels) brought it out in a very nice trade paperback edition. Ben Haas’s autobiographical manuscript comprises a little more than half the book and covers his childhood and adult life, providing a lot of details about his writing and his struggle to break in as a professional author, up to the point in the early 1960s when he’s finally starting to see some real success as a writer. It’s an intriguing, very readable mix of the personal and the professional. That’s a balance that a lot of author biographies and autobiographies fail to pull off, but not surprisingly, Haas—who could always juggle plot, character, and action beautifully in his novels—does a great job of it here, too.

Unfortunately, the manuscript ends at that point, so we don’t get to read what Haas has to say about his years of greatest success. But we do get fine reminiscinces by Joel Haas and by Ben Haas’s lifelong friend and occasional collaborator Jim Henderson, plus a selection of family photos and a complete bibliography of Ben Haas’s books. This is a really excellent volume and certainly one of the best books I’ve read this year. If you’re a fan of Ben Haas’s work or great action novels or 20^th Century genre fiction, or would just like a compelling look into the mind of a top-notch professional writer, A HACK’S NOTEBOOK gets a very high recommendation from me.

Forgotten Books: The Gladiator #4: Blood on the Sand - Andrew Quiller (Laurence James)

I meant to get back to this series of historical action/adventure novels set in ancient Rome sooner, but other books got in the way. However, I’ve now read BLOOD ON THE SAND, the fourth novel in the Gladiator series (originally published in England under the series title The Eagles). The author behind the Andrew Quiller house-name this time is the prolific Laurence James, who also wrote the first book in the series, HILL OF THE DEAD.

The protagonist of these books is Marcus Julius Britannicus, also known by his gladiator name Vulpus the Fox. As each novel opens, Marcus is the most famous gladiator in Rome, then the story flashes back to his earlier days as a Roman soldier and establishes his history as the son of a Roman centurion and a barbarian princess. Marcus is also motivated by a vengeance quest that runs through the series, as well as getting involved in various historical events such as the Siege of Masada and the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius.

The main storyline in BLOOD ON THE SAND wraps up that quest and also explains how Marcus went from being a soldier to fighting as a free gladiator sponsored by the Emperor Titus. It’s a fast-moving tale without an overly complicated plot, as I’ve come to expect from Laurence James. It’s also lurid, over the top, occasionally crude, and very violent, also hallmarks of James’s work. But he’s a great storyteller, and his books really keep the readers turning the pages. That’s certainly the case with BLOOD ON THE SAND. There’s also a nice, obscure in-joke involving Kenneth Bulmer, one of the other writers who shared the Andrew Quiller house-name.

This was the final Gladiator novel published by Pinnacle (that’s my beat-up copy in the scan), and with the wrapping up of several storylines it reads like the final book in the series. But it’s not. There’s one more, SEA OF SWORDS, written by Bulmer and published only in England. Copies of it can be hard to find, especially at an affordable price, but I came across one a while back and grabbed it. So I’ll be reading it, too, maybe in the reasonably near future.

Forgotten Books: Ride For Texas - William Heuman

Despite the excellent Frank McCarthy painting and the cover copy, William Heuman’s 1954 Gold Medal novel RIDE FOR TEXAS is not a Western. Rather, it’s a historical novel, set in 1835 and opening on the Mississippi River, as Joel Barnett, a fledgling lawyer from Kentucky, and two of his friends are on their way to New Orleans on a flatboat. Joel intends to set up a legal practice there.

Then a sternwheeler riverboat roars past them, almost swamping them, but as the boat heads on downriver, Joel notices someone floundering around in the water and figures one of the riverboat’s passengers has fallen off. He jumps in to rescue the person, of course, and in what probably won’t be a surprise to many readers, that passenger turns out to be a beautiful young woman. Joel quickly figures out, as well, that she didn’t fall off accidentally but jumped instead, hoping to reach the flatboat, because she’s in danger.

Before you know it, Joel and his sidekicks are helping the girl fend off a kidnapping attempt in New Orleans, after which they promise to help her get back to her home in Texas, which is still part of Mexico at this time, although revolution is brewing there because of the dictator Santa Anna’s mistreatment of the American colonists who have settled Texas. There’ll be a lot of danger and double-crosses and battles before they can reunite the girl with her father, though.

If you don’t go into RIDE FOR TEXAS expecting a high degree of historical and geographical accuracy, you can appreciate this book for what it is: a rousing, fast-paced adventure novel. Heuman’s knowledge of Texas seems to be about on the same level as that of a B-Western movie, but he can sure spin an entertaining yarn, a talent honed during a couple of decades as one of the top contributors to the Western pulps. I really enjoyed this book. Joel Barnett is a very likable protagonist, as are his friends and allies. The battle scenes set in San Antonio, as the Texans try to drive General Cos’s army out of the city, are excellent and probably the most historically accurate part of the novel. The ending is a bit downbeat because we all know what’s going to happen next, but on the other hand, we don’t know what the fate of these particular characters will be, so there’s that bit of optimism.

The best pulp novels centered around the Texas Revolution that I’ve read are BOWIE KNIFE and TEXAS SHALL BE FREE!, both by H. Bedford-Jones, originally serialized in ARGOSY and reprinted in recent years by Altus Press. However, RIDE FOR TEXAS is well worth reading if you ever come across a copy of the original Gold Medal edition, which is likely the only one there’ll ever be.

The Wrecker - Clive Cussler and Justin Scott

Several years ago, I started the first book in this series, THE CHASE, written by Clive Cussler, didn’t care for it, and didn’t finish it. However, several of my friends have recommended the later books co-authored by Justin Scott, so I decided to give one of them a try. THE WRECKER is the second book in the series and I liked it considerably more than the first one.

As in the first book, the protagonist is Isaac Bell, a detective who works for the Van Dorn Agency (clearly inspired by the Pinkertons). Bell is a pretty good protagonist, smart, dogged, tough but not a superman, and since he’s the son of one of the country’s leading bankers who didn’t want to follow in his father’s financial footsteps, he knows his way around the upper echelons of the business, society, and political worlds. In this book, he’s on the trail of a mysterious mastermind known as the Wrecker, who’s trying to take over the country’s railroads in a campaign of sabotage and terror. This book is set in 1907, and the threat to the nation faced by Bell and his cohorts from the Van Dorn Agency is very similar to the menaces tackled by Jimmy Christopher and Richard Wentworth thirty years later.

That’s not the only pulpish influence in this book. Justin Scott (who I suspect did the bulk of the writing and plotting, if not all of it) is the son of A. Leslie Scott, the great Western pulpster who created a couple of iconic Texas Ranger characters in Jim Hatfield (TEXAS RANGERS) and Walt Slade (THRILLING WESTERN, plus more than a hundred paperback original novels). One of Bell’s fellow agents is a former Ranger known as Texas Walt Hatfield, and every time he made an appearance in this book, I couldn’t help but get a big grin on my face at Scott’s tribute to his dad’s work. There’s one chapter where Walt Hatfield takes on a couple of saboteurs on his own, and it’s a great homage to a couple of characters whose adventures have entertained me for more than five decades now. (I read my first Walt Slade novel in 1965 or ’66, my first Jim Hatfield in 1967.)

There are a few things in this book I can quibble about. Like most thrillers written these days, it’s too blasted long, and because of that the pace lags at times. And for a crack detective, Bell seems awfully dumb in places, especially when it comes to figuring out the Wrecker’s true identity. Scott doesn’t keep that a secret from the reader for very long, but Bell takes forever to figure it out despite being practically hit over the head with clues. However, I’m willing to forgive that because of the great action scenes—and there are a lot of ’em—and the sheer sense of fun that runs throughout this novel. I’ll definitely read more of Justin Scott’s entries in this series. I enjoyed this one enough that I’ll probably pick up some of his solo novels, as well.

Forgotten Books: Casca #2: God of Death - Barry Sadler

Almost a year ago, I read the first book in the Casca series by Barry Sadler and really enjoyed it. I didn’t mean for so much time to go by before I got back to the series, but that’s the way it happened. I’ve finally read the second book, GOD OF DEATH, which picks up the story of Casca Rufio Longinus, former Roman soldier who was present at the Crucifixion and was cursed with immortality because of it. Wounds or illness that would kill a normal man can’t claim him, and he’s doomed to wander the world, always making his way as a mercenary soldier.

As in the first book, this one opens with a framing sequence in which Casca talks to the sympathetic doctor who discovered his secret. The story begins some 250 years after Casca is cursed. He falls in with a group of Vikings and becomes their leader (because nobody is a better fighter than Casca, of course), but eventually he tires of this and decides to sail off with some of his Viking friends and seek adventure. Where do they wind up? In what’s now Mexico, where he’s taken prisoner by Teotec warriors and brought to their capital city. Casca is surprised to find such a huge civilization in this land that was previously unknown to him, and even more surprised when he figures out that they intend to sacrifice him, to rip his still beating heart out of his chest on an altar atop one of their mighty pyramids. Casca doesn’t care for this idea, naturally, so he decides the best way to stop it is to convince his captors that he’s the living embodiment of their god of death.

From what I gather, long-time fans of the series have a mixed reaction to this book. Some consider it a favorite while others didn’t care for it. While I think it’s worth reading, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did the first book. Especially in its first half, GOD OF DEATH is slower paced and the plot just sort of meanders around. Sadler summarizes the action more than describes it, tossing away in a few paragraphs storylines that might have made compelling novels in their own right. The series just seems a little tired already.

However, the second half is much stronger, once the action shifts to the Teotec empire. The action is still rather skimpy until the last forty pages or so, but once things start to pop, it’s great. Sadler provides some big battle scenes that are excellent. The whole thing is over the top, but in a good way, and then to wrap things up, he hits some of the same melancholy notes that were so effective in the first book.

So while GOD OF DEATH may be a bit of a sophomore slump for the Casca series, it’s still not bad if you stick with it, and I’m glad I did. With any luck, it won’t be another year before I get around to reading the third book.

Forgotten Books: Young Kit Carson - H. Bedford-Jones

As you know if you’ve read this blog much, H. Bedford-Jones is one of my favorite pulp authors and indeed one of my favorite authors, period. I think he was at his strongest with historical adventure novels, so it’s no surprise that YOUNG KIT CARSON is a top-notch yarn that’s been out of print since 1941, when it appeared in the fiction supplement of a Canadian newspaper. A copy of it was discovered recently, and it’s about to be reprinted by Bold Venture Press.

The story is set in 1835, when Carson is 25 years old, a fur trapper who has worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company in the past as well as being an independent trapper. It opens in Santa Fe where Carson encounters the beautiful Marie, the daughter of a French-Canadian trapper and a Blackfoot woman. Marie is also known as Go Everywhere Woman, because she can travel among any of the frontier tribes with impunity, even the ones who are feuding with each other.

Carson and some of his friends are soon involved in a dangerous quest for a rare white beaver pelt, a talisman regarded by the Indians as possessing great medicine. A prophecy says that once the white beaver pelt is found, all the tribes will unite into one great army and scour the Americans from the frontier. This is exactly what the Hudson’s Bay Company wants, of course, so their agent, that French-Canadian trapper who is Marie’s father, is working behind the scenes to bring that bloody frontier apocalypse about.

Bedford-Jones never lets the action lapse for long, and he paints a vivid picture of the early West. In his hands, Kit Carson is a very likable protagonist and the supporting cast is excellent as well. The love-hate duel between Carson and Go Everywhere Woman that continues almost through the entire book is compelling, and I honestly didn’t know how it was going to turn out.

This would have made a good Forties or Fifties big-budget movie, with maybe Alan Ladd playing Kit Carson and not having to stand on a box for a change since Carson was notably short. The Indians even refer to him as Little Chief. There’s also an excellent role for Alan Hale as Kit’s sidekick. Such a movie was never made, of course, but it’s fun to think about.

And we have the novel itself, thanks to Camille Cazedessus, who located the copy of it, and Rich Harvey and Audrey Parente of Bold Venture Press who are reprinting it. If you enjoy historical adventure fiction, you really need to read H. Bedford-Jones, and YOUNG KIT CARSON is a fine example of his work. Highly recommended.

Forgotten Books: The Gladiator #3: City of Fire - Andrew Quiller (Angus Wells)

Moving on to the third book of the GLADIATOR series (or THE EAGLES, as it was known in the original English editions), CITY OF FIRE is the only one in this series written by Angus Wells, one of the prolific British paperbackers of that era. And that’s kind of a shame, because it’s an excellent novel and my favorite tale of Vulpus the Fox so far.

The famous gladiator Vulpus is really the half-British former Roman soldier Marcus Julius Britannicus. Sticking to the structure of the first two books written by Laurence James and Kenneth Bulmer under the house-name Andrew Quiller, CITY OF FIRE begins with a scene in the arena. This time Vulpus is fighting a tiger, and just when it looks like things are about to go really bad for him, the story flashes back and picks up the storyline where it left off in the previous book. Marcus is on a vengeance quest, hunting down and killing the men who planned and carried out his mother’s murder, but while he’s doing that, he also gets involved in some political intrigue that takes him back to Italy. Luckily for him, he wanted to go there anyway, and it’s an even bigger stroke of luck that the mission he’s given will provide him with a chance to kill two of the men he’s after.

But that’s where his luck looks like it’s going to run out, because where does his mission/quest take him? To the city of Pompeii, where nearby volcano Mount Vesuvius has started rumbling recently, although no one in the city takes it seriously. So . . . what do you think is going to happen? Let’s see . . . Pompeii . . . Vesuvius . . . You might as well go to San Francisco in 1906 or take in an opera or a ball game with Ellery Queen. It ain’t gonna end well.

But our boy Marcus isn’t going to let a little thing like an apocalyptic volcanic eruption stop him from going after the guys he wants to kill, and Wells does a fantastic job of capturing the chaos of that deadly natural disaster. The whole book is well-written, with vivid, flowing prose and plenty of graphic action, but Wells really shines in the last section. This is the first book I’ve read by him, but I was pretty impressed with his writing. Enough so that I ordered more books by him.

If you’ve read and liked the first two books in this series, you’re probably going to want to go on with it, and I give CITY OF FIRE a high recommendation. But if you haven’t read the series, don’t start with this one. It’s not absolutely necessary to read the books in order, but I think it’s probably much better that way.