Swampmaster: A Paperback Warrior Primer

In the late 1990s, author Jerome Preisler became a prominent contributor to the Tom Clancy spy-world of espionage and covert thrillers. Penning eight Powerplays titles using the Clancy brand, Preisler also wrote television tie-in novels in the CSI, Homicide and NCIS series. Preisler also authored the movie adaptations for Last Man Standing and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Before adding “NY Times Bestselling Author” to his name, he authored two early 1990s horror novels for Leisure, The Awakening and The Pact. But, nothing could quite compare to the three-book post-apocalyptic series that Preisler wrote under the pseudonym Jake Spencer. 

Swampmaster, billed as the “first in the mega-mayhem action series!”, consisted of three post-apocalyptic paperbacks written by Preisler and published by Diamond. Considering the timing of publication - all three novels released in 1992 - the post-apocalyptic pop-culture phenomenon had likely evaporated. With successful titles like Out of the Ashes, The Last Ranger and The Survivalist finding a loyal 80s fanbase, the 1990s began a decline in sales and readers. Nevertheless, the publisher and/or Jerome Preisler pursued the post-apocalyptic genre with this short-lived series. 

The series opener explains that America was nuked and what's left are marauders, mutants and a new government called The National Front. Opposing the sadists, racists and warmongers of The National Front is the Free States, territories that have succeeded from the government's tyrannical union. In one of the Free States, a swampy area in southern Florida, resides series hero John Firecloud. He's a Seminole, trained in the ways of the warrior by his father Charlie. Firecloud is proficient with archery and martial arts, two much-needed assets in this doomsday environment.

After Firecloud's village is attacked, Firecloud himself destroys an Apache helicopter with an arrow and disposes of seven heavily armed men. As his father is dying, he passes on a message of leadership to Firecloud, who will now be known as the impressive Swampmaster. Whatever that means. But instead of Swampmaster fighting hunchbacked, radiated ogres, motorcycle psychos and the number one villain of the book, The National Front, the author provides 120+ pages of a planned bombing in Atlanta. 

There are pages and pages of nonsense about a bomb in a briefcase, who's got the briefcase and a car accident victim. The novel's final chapters has Swampmaster team with two kung-fu dwarfs and a former female swat team member to fight a female mutant called Itchy Peg and her two inbred brothers. After Swampmaster is nearly boob-smothered by Itchy Peg and subsequently saved by the dwarfs, the foursome travel north to hijack a train full of carnival oddities so they can fetch a pilot that can fly an Apache helicopter. The end result has Swampmaster swimming through a bay to climb a fort in St. Augustine, Florida to liberate a scientist that potentially can aid the Free States. 232-pages of dull, unexplained trash-fiction that unfortunately leads to a sequel. 

A few months later, Hell on Earth arrives. This second installment begins with Swampmaster and his acrobatic dwarfs fighting a convoy of National Front troopers. There's a hilarious scene where the dwarfs handspring across the battlefield to draw fire away from Swampmaster. While this is happening, the author introduces a carload of mutants dressed as clowns that are slave mercenaries for the government. It is this sort of stuff that carries Swampmaster into the realms of the ridiculous. I'm not sure if it propels the action or unintentionally serves as a distraction.

The bulk of the narrative has The National Front creating a new military compound off of Long Pine Key in the Gulf Coast of Florida. It is here where they plan on utilizing remote control mutants as soldiers under the tutelage of a vile villain named Groll (who plays video games called Hitler's Legacy and Auschwitz). Of course Swampmaster wants to stop the remote control mutants and put an end to Groll's dastardly deeds. The finale has a captured Swampmaster forced into gladiator combat against a seven-foot tall mutant controlled by Groll remotely. While certainly not top-tier literary fiction, Hell on Earth was somewhat enjoyable and an increase in quality compared to the horrific series debut. 

The series third and final installment, Unholy Alliance, reverses any momentum that Preisler had with the prior novel. Instead, what serves as the series finale is arguably on par with the Roadblaster series written by Paul Hofrichter. In other words, it's a cesspool of literature that should come with a warning label akin to this: Contents inside may put you at risk of blindness, erectile dysfunction and lethargic bouts of coma-like fatigue. Contact your physician or nearest urgent care if you read past page 10. 

The set-up is that warring factions – The National Front and Free States – converge on an abandoned Disneyworld to duke it out. It's a fascinating concept, bad guys running around the most famous amusement park in the world while a war party featuring acrobatic dwarfs and a Seminole warrior are attempting to stop them. Just for giggles, the author throws in eight-pages of a savage black bear fighting a doomsday cowboy while a gladiator game ensues with motorcyclists mowing down human heads while a drooling, wheelchair-bound madman watches from Cinderella's Castle. 

How on Earth can you screw this up? It's an amazing, awe-inspiring premise that Jerome Preisler just shits away! It's like Peter North showing up on the set and having no idea where to put it. This should be an easy one, but instead the reader is subjected to pages and pages of gun porn, mindless conversations about Cuban cartels, pointless backstories on meaningless characters that become decapitated in just a few pages. 

This is absolute garbage. If garbage was alive and had a waste can that it put its own garbage in, this book would be the filth-ridden wallpaper adorning the can's inner aluminum shell. 

Thankfully, this series was trash-canned, thrown onto the back walls of garage sales worldwide, finding solace in its mere obscurity. Who is this lone hero Swampmaster? He's John Firecloud and he'll rain on your Macy's parade every single Thanksgiving. He's the guy who hid the chocolate bunny on Easter and told you asparagus tastes great. He only left you a quarter for pulling that bloody stump of a tooth out of your pink gums and John Firecloud is the guy who crapped in the work toilet and left it there to dissolve knowing you'd see it and never unsee it. 

You know what? Jerome Preisler did all of that too when he introduced the world to Swampmaster.

We Who Survived

Modern publishers like Wildside Press, Cutting Edge and Armchair Fiction have been busy preserving the literary works of Sterling Noel (1903-1984). The author's knack for espionage and crime-fiction saturates his body of work, evident with novels like I Killed Stalin (1951), Prelude to Murder (1959), I See Red (1955) and Few Die Well (1953). It was with great interest that I acquired his post-apocalyptic, science-fiction novel We Who Survived. It was originally published by Avon in 1959 and was reprinted for modern audiences by Wildside Press in 2017.

The 160-page novel is divided into two parts, Book I: The Storm and Book 2: The Escape. The division marks a significant turning point within the book’s narrative. The first-half is essentially a massive snowstorm, which I'll explain in a bit. As expected, it begins by introducing the characters, their place in time and the extreme circumstances that place these characters in peril. The second-half delivers as advertised, the eventual escape where the action is propelled to match the “will to survive.” Both sections are good, but action-adventure fans may enjoy the closing chapters more.

Noel's protagonist, scientist and former missile commander Vic Savage, conveys to readers that the Earth was rocked by third and fourth World Wars. The conflicts utilized nuclear weapons and most of what we know now as the United States is fragmented into districts or complexes such as St. Louis Complex or Roanoke Complex that encompass a significant amount of surrounding territory. Two to three states conceivably are absorbed into new complexes or districts. Likewise, new countries are formed, including The Republic of North America where Savage lives. The book takes place in the year 2203, with the opening pages forecasting a snowstorm for Savage and the rest of Earth's inhabitants.

The Earth has entered the first stages of an unexpected cosmic dust cloud that is freezing the atmosphere. When the snow begins its slow descent, Savage, under harsh criticism, predicts that the snowfall won't stop for 72-years. The temperatures will plunge, ranging from thirty-two degrees in the early stages to a deadly eighty-degrees below zero. Due to the water vapors in the upper atmosphere decreasing, they will eventually vanish completely, removing all of Earth's heat. This deadly combination will result in massive storms that erode the east and west coasts of North America leading to flooding, gale-force winds, snow drifts over 200-feet and the inevitable death of billions of people.

The opening book, The Storm, has Savage collaborate with a number of key scientists and their families to stockpile a Missouri farm complex called Harrow. With engineers, fusion scientists, medical personnel and a support staff, the group begins fortifying Harrow for the inevitable storm. Eventually, Savage’s prediction rings true and their complex is buried in 100 feet of snow. The bulk of the first-half is spent on the characters interacting with each other, establishing rules and regulations and building tunnels with ventilation to service themselves for the remainder of their lives. Eventually, the group begins to fragment into factions, feuding with one another to disrupt the everyday boredom. Savage, and his team, decide to leave the complex after a number of long, lonesome months. The goal is to head to the equator where temperatures may be warmer.

The Escape, the book's second-half, finds Savage and the team driving a large vehicle holding 30 people. All of the vehicles of 2203 run on fusion reactors, so the author throws a bit of a curve-ball at the characters. They must create "prehistoric" rubber tires for the vehicle and build snow mobiles complete with welding-torch styled hand tools that melt the snow and ice that would otherwise block their travel. But, like most post-apocalyptic novels, it isn't the extreme conditions that kill – it's the people.

While not a riveting, action-packed spectacle, We Who Survived is a serviceable post-apocalyptic novel that introduces some new elements to the genre. The snowfall, harrowing frost and the ice-tunnels are new to me. While The Coming Global Superstorm, authored by Whitley Strieber and Art Bell, contains many of the same scenarios, it was written and published in 1999. We Who Survived was unique at the time, and still is. 

Sterling Noel tended to write about nuclear reactors and nuclear energy in his spy novels, and he predicts the use of fusion reactors for everyday use. Furthermore, he predicts Facebook 40+ years ahead of it's conception. In an early scene, Savage and his girlfriend decide to be married. But, instead of the traditional wedding, the two appear in front of their computer’s camera and post a photo of themselves with a subtitle explaining they were getting married. They then post it to their friends and family through an app or device called DW-Three. Brilliant.

There could be some social context running through the novel. Noel's idea of characters ascending to the upper-surface could run parallel to the idea of a corporate ladder. Or, we all want to gaze down on everyone else, establish our own personal kingdom and be the envy of spectators. There are the unfortunate civilians trapped below and more fortunate, wealthy people “liberated” at the top. This idea of social class would eliminate the middle, leaving lower and upper class only. It could be a stretch, but I think Noel had more to say other than “Here is a catastrophe.” The shifting of wealth is significant. Savage and his group can ride free on the upper-surface because they have the money to plan ahead. Moreover, they have the ability to utilize expensive government equipment and the resources to own a huge farm. The lowly New York shopkeepers all freeze to death or drown in the ensuing flood.

We Who Survived isn't a gem you have to own. There are better post-apocalyptic books, but I think this paperback was really ahead of its time for 1959. It's a revealing look at our civilization and the fragile state of our planet. The social context is thick and illustrated by a characters that represent societal archetypes. The end result is an intriguing novel where the author, through his protagonist, warns us that the storm is coming.

Or, is it already here?

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Black Berets #01 - The Deadly Reunion

The Black Berets was a 13-book paperback series published by Dell between 1984-1987, a fertile time-frame for the men's action-adventure series industry. Dell was simultaneously publishing the post-apocalyptic series Traveler as well as the vigilante novels in the Hawker franchise. Therefore, it made sense for the publisher to include a team-based combat series in their catalog of offerings. The Black Berets was written by John Preston and Michael McDowell under the house name Mike McCray. Both authors were openly gay and authored a number of well-received gay-fiction novels. McDowell wrote movie and television scripts including Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Tales from the Darkside. After enjoying the aforementioned Dell publications, I decided my team-combat reading could use some fresh faces. Camouflaged of course.

Beak, Rosie, Cowboy, Harry and Runt were utilized by the CIA as a special forces squad during the Vietnam War. After the war ended, the group disbanded and began living their separate lives. Billy “Beak” Beeker is the authors' focal point, the group's leader who is introduced in the opening chapters as a Louisiana Native-American who teaches at a private school while minimally living on large acreage. In the opening installment, Deadly Reunion, Beeker receives a call from the team's old boss, Parker. After an eight year hiatus, he wants to put the band back together again.

The next chapters are dedicated to Beeker reluctantly tightening his bootstraps once again and recruiting the original team members. After partnering with cocaine-cowboy and flying ace Sherwood “Cowboy” Hatcher, the two travel across the country explaining the team's new mission, and the reader learns the backstory of each member. All parties are hesitant to join the resurrected team and are skeptical about Parker's historically-shaky allegiances. The motivation for the reunion is that Parker informs the team that a former Black Beret member has finally been found. After going missing-in-action during the war, this team member has been spotted in a Laos prison. He's not dead but barely surviving off of meek rations among years of torture and abuse. Parker wants the team to penetrate Laos and rescue the man.

Deadly Reunion is like a really good Fawcett Gold Medal novel. The team reunites for a secret mission in hostile territory to recover something with the geopolitics updated to incorporate Vietnam. There's even the old heist bit thrown into the narrative to capture that vintage feel. I had some doubts about another 1980s team-combat series but instantly fell in love with these characters and the solid writing. Unlike other high testosterone action-adventure series, the authors dedicated time and effort to tell a realistic story about Vietnam Veterans. Many of the team members find themselves lost after returning home, haunted by the combat nightmares. Lost love, poor finances, alcoholism and drug abuse are part of the Black Berets narrative, and I found that vulnerability to be a more realistic approach than the typical barrel-chested brawny heroes of the 1980s.

Overall, I just can't say enough good things about this opening installment. Compared to Able Team, Dennison's War and Eagle Force, The Black Berets seems to be solidly higher quality. I've already purchased the second installment in hopes the momentum continues. Stay tuned! 

Note: Author, editor and podcast host Paul Bishop has an excellent write-up on this series including each book's synopsis and vivid cover art. Check it out HERE.

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The Big Caper

Lionel White was a master storyteller who specialized in heist crime-noir. Several of his novels have been made into movies starring the likes of Marlon Brando and Glenn Ford. Director Quentin Tarantino credited White’s work as inspiration for his critically-acclaimed 1992 film Reservoir Dogs. I've been thrilled with every novel I've read by this author and I was excited to read what many consider one of his finest works, The Big Caper. It was published by Fawcett Gold Medal in 1955 and adapted for film in 1957. It is now available as a twofer through Stark House Press. 

The book stars a WW2 veteran named Frank who finds himself befriended by a crafty bank robber named Flood. One thing leads to another and Flood eventually proposes his boldest scheme to Frank. The idea is that a professional heist crew, featuring an arsonist, a safe-breaker, two drivers and two gunmen, will rob a large bank in the small Florida town of Indio Beach. The millions will be split up and this triumphant caper will be Frank's first (and hopefully only) criminal foray and Flood's last. But, like any good ol’ fashioned bank blow-out, there's a wrench in the gears that proves to be a fatal flaw: Flood's girlfriend Kay.

Flood's proposal is that Frank and Kay become merry citizens of Indio Beach months before the heist. The two are to fake it as a married couple and submerge themselves into American Suburbia. Frank opens a thriving gas station where he smiles and pumps gas and fixes the town's auto problems. Kay is the proverbial happy housewife and makes plenty of canasta and bridge club dates with the couple's friends. After a few months of successful socializing and law-abiding living, Frank and Kay learn to fake it so well that the whole farce becomes reality. The two fall in love with each other and begin questioning their motives to gain happiness through a criminal enterprise. In a clever twist, White asks readers to ponder the real definition of happiness. Kay grows to fear and despise the controlling Flood, and Frank becomes wary of the plan and its proper execution. The Big Caper spirals into a character study of everyday people placed into a viper's den of greed and criminal exploits - the very essence of crime-noir.

White's narrative settles into a routine, customary tour of small town life in the book's opening half. The storytelling is key with the author providing many vivid images of this tiny Florida community. There's an ensemble cast of characters that are supportive of Frank and Kay's role as happily married do-gooders. But, once the professional criminals hit town, the novel's second half becomes a ticking time-bomb as Frank and Kay countdown to their date with destiny. White is willing and patient to deliver the goods, but he primes readers with a plethora of possibilities on which directions Frank and Kay turn. It is this nervous anticipation that makes The Big Caper such an entertaining and pleasurable reading experience.

I just can't say enough good things about this author and his stellar body of work. What a remarkable legacy to leave behind for generations of readers to enjoy and celebrate. When compared to Lionel White's contemporaries, this author remains in the very top echelon of mid-20th Century crime-noir creators.

Note – Dan J. Marlowe borrowed this novel's plot for his equally entertaining 1966 novel Four for the Money. In it, a former card-sharp and ex-convict migrates to a small Nevada town and integrates himself into the community. He awaits the professional heist crew who he plans to assist in knocking over the town's casino for millions. But, he finds that his pleasurable small town life, and lover, might override his need for crime.

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Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 65

With Halloween quickly approaching, Paperback Warrior Podcast Episode 65 takes a deep-dive into the world of 1970s and 1980s horror paperbacks. We discuss the best and worst in vintage scary fiction with tons of recommendations and reviews. Listen on your favorite podcast app, at PaperbackWarrior.com, or download directly HERE

Listen to "Episode 65: Paperbacks from Hell" on Spreaker.

Parker #01 - The Hunter

Donald Westlake had been writing professionally for several years when his first book as Richard Stark debuted in 1962. The Hunter (later reprinted as Point Blank) was a monster success and launched a 24-book series over the next 46 years with several movie adaptations along the way.

As the novel opens, Parker is pissed. He was left for dead in a post-heist double-cross orchestrated by his own wife and the novel’s primary adversary, a loathsome weasel named Mal Resnick. Adding insult to injury, the backstabbing lead to Parker serving a stretch in jail. The heist itself is a mere footnote to the plot as The Hunter is really a story of betrayal, vengeance, and settling accounts.

Even in this earliest iteration, Parker is a fully-formed, stoic violence machine. He’s like a Terminator in the famous sci-fi series - always moving forward towards the target. The physical descriptions of Parker as a big man with giant hands who doesn’t need a gun to kill are vivid and paint an intimidating picture of the legendary anti-hero.

By the same token, Resnick is a fantastic villain who inspires revulsion in the reader as Westlake fills us in on his own back story. The short version is that he betrayed Parker to steal Parker’s wife and $80,000 in heist proceeds to repay a debt to the mafia, famously known as “The Outfit” in the Richard Stark Universe.

As an organization, The Outfit is the third leg of the stool making The Hunter stand tall as one of the best crime fiction novels ever. Syndicate bosses set up shop in a hotel serving as a high-rise safe house for the mobsters to plan and scheme without fear of violence or the law. It’s an innovative idea borrowed decades later in the John Wick franchise of action films.

The Hunter is also the first in a trilogy of interconnected novels followed by The Man with the Getaway Face and The Outfit. After the first three paperbacks, the series generally showcases stand-alone Parker adventures with a few exceptions toward the end. As such, the first three books in the series should definitely be read in order. This shouldn’t be a hardship as they are all masterpieces.

But start with The Hunter. Don’t sleep on this book. If you read the book decades ago, do yourself a favor and pick it up again. It’s a reminder of how good crime-fiction can be. Highest recommendation. 

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Violent Saturday

Arkansas-born William L. Heath (1924-2007) served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a radio operator during World War 2 before earning a degree in English Literature from University of Virginia. After selling several short stories, his first novel, Violent Saturday, was published in 1955 and later adapted into a movie. The paperback has been reprinted several times and remains available as a $5 ebook or free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription.

The novel opens with three mysterious men arriving in Morgan, Alabama (Population: 4700) on a train from Memphis. They tell their taxi driver that they’re from the electric utility company, but that’s clearly nonsense. They register at the town hotel as Mr. Thomas, Mr. Blake and Mr. Brown, but I wasn’t buying that for a moment. What brings these three serious men to Morgan?

I suppose it’s not giving away too much to say that the three strangers are planning to rob the town’s bank. As heist plans go, this one of well thought out and logical. There are some uncharitable descriptions of black people that wouldn’t fly in today’s world, but I’m incapable of feeling outrage over words used by fictional characters 65 years ago.

The core plot veers off course fairly early as the author introduces the reader to a wide cast of townies - way too many for my tastes - but I was determined to stick it out to get to the actual Violent Saturday part. The myriad of subplots involving the lives and loves of the locals were a real snooze and definitely distracted from the paperback’s enjoyment, and they unfortunately make up the bulk of the novel. The heist and its aftermath are both plenty exciting, but you need to navigate through a lot of nonsense to get there.

If this was the only vintage heist book available, it would be an adequate genre paperback. However, we live in a world where the novels of Richard Stark and Lionel White are plentiful and cheap. Given the vast and superior options at your fingertips, don’t waste your time with Violent Saturday.

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