Conan - Black Tears

The 1968 Lancer paperback collection Conan the Wanderer begins with “Black Tears”, a short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter. It was also featured in Orbit Books omnibus The Conan Chronicles 2. The story was later adapted by Roy Thomas and Ernie Chan in issue #38 of The Savage Sword of Conan. 

The story picks up right after the events in “A Witch Shall Be Born”. Conan is the chief of the Zaugir, an outlaw band of Kozak horsemen, a role he obtained by usurping their former leader Vladislav. Unbeknownst to Conan, the Zuagir have a traitor in their ranks, a former blood brother of Vladislav named Vardanes. Off page, Vardanes makes a deal with the rival Turanians to have the Zuagir ambushed on a mountain pass. 

The story begins with the Turanians lying in wait for Conan and the Zuagir to reach the pass. Once Vardanes reaches safe passage through the pass, the sky is filled with arrows as the remaining Zuagir are attacked. Thankfully, the Zuagir possess the fighting spirit to charge up the hill and crush the weak Turanians. Seeing the disaster, Vardanes rides off to escape the carnage. One enemy is left behind, a former acquaintance of Conan's named Boghra. Conan tricks Boghra into revealing that the traitor was Vardanes.

Conan is later drugged by the Zuagir and left to die in the desert. His Hellbent quest for vengeance against Vardanes wasn't widely supported by his men. After five days of riding, Conan stumbles upon a city rumored to be a myth, a place called Akhlat the Accursed. Dehydrated, Conan falls from exhaustion and is nursed back to health by two of the city's residents. They explain that the city has been cursed by a vampiric force that drains the life from every living thing. Supposedly, their religion states that a man will come to liberate the city, thus Conan is assigned a task. He must destroy the ancient enemy while also finding and killing Vardanes (who just happens to be in the city as well).

Parts of this story reminded me of Robert E. Howard's “The Scarlet Citadel”, especially the inevitable boss-fight in the city's underground tunnels. The stone statue part of the story was reminiscent of “Shadows in the Moonlight”, with a little bit of “Red Nails” thrown in with the inner-city stuff. I really enjoyed the story and found it to be a perfect companion to “A Witch Shall Be Born”. The descriptions of mountains, tunnels, and the “beast” were executed very well. I know some Conan fans really don't like Carter or de Camp's pastiche style, but as I've stated in numerous reviews, I find their work to be enjoyable. 

Depending on your timeline, this story is followed by “Shadows in Zamboula” or John Maddox Roberts' Conan and the Manhunters, which takes place in southwest of Turan.

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The Diamond Boomerang

There are a lot of vintage paperback authors that have military experience. I don't believe there is any authors we've discussed here that can match the experience and military level of Lester Taube. He began his military career in a horse artillery regiment. Later, he served as an infantry platoon leader during WW2 and participated in combat in Okinawa and Iwo Jima. During the Korean War, Taube served as a company commander and intelligence officer. During the Vietnam War, he was stationed in France and Germany as a general staff officer working in intelligence. Taub retired as a full colonel, moved to France, and began writing books. Based on my count, I believe he has eight total novels published. The only experience I have with him is his 1969 novel The Grabbers, which was later published in paperback by Pocket Book under the title The Diamond Boomerang. 

Dan Baldwin's tragic past is cleverly revealed in the middle of The Diamond Boomerang. Until that point, readers are left guessing as to the reasons Baldwin is drinking his life away. In the book's opening pages, Baldwin is in a North African bar broke and broken down. In first-person perspective, Baldwin looks up from the gutter he's been flung into and sees Tom the Trooper. Baldwin has a little nickname for everyone and everything. Thus, Tom the Trooper plays a big part in the book's engaging narrative.

Tom the Trooper offers Baldwin a mercenary job on a diamond heist in Southwest Africa. There is a large diamond cartel that controls seemingly endless fields of diamonds that spew out of an underground vein. The fields have so many diamonds that the cartel has to destroy or dump them in the ocean for fear of saturating the market and reducing value. Tom the Trooper, Ahmed the Arab, and Miss Steel Tits are in on the heist. After successfully placing the boat along the coast, the foursome evades the cartel's intricate security system and grabs the diamonds. Everything goes well. Until it doesn't. 

Like a great western story, the bad guys double-cross the main character and leave him shot up in the desert to die. In one of the best action sequences I've read in a long time, the foursome tangle with the security guards in high-speed chases, helicopter gunning, nautical escapes, and plain 'ole praying. But, the narrative unfolds when Tom the Trooper attempts to kill everyone to escape solely with the goods. Only, he didn't kill Baldwin dead enough. The author introduces an amazing little side story that puts Baldwin on death's door to fight with hungry vultures. Let me say for the record, I've never read a better story of a dying man fighting a vulture. That’s saying a lot considering I’ve read Robert E. Howard’s “A Witch Shall Be Born”. I read those pages twice just because it was so damned entertaining. If you read nothing else in this book, read the man versus vulture chapter.

The novel's first half is absolutely perfect and written in an unusual way with Baldwin telling the story in proverbs and bizarre analogies. Like these:

“Their miners are herded more rigorously than permanent members of a Georgia chain-gang, indentured longer than Greek whores in an Arab harem, and kept under closer observation than reigning movie stars.”

The book is saturated with this sort of thing, and either you will love it, like I did, or absolutely despise it. There probably isn't a middle ground. But, the second half of the book is a little more serious and on the nose. The second half is like a James Bond story as Baldwin meets the cartel leaders and falls in love with a woman connected to the whole thing. Baldwin then takes an assignment to find Tom the Trooper and recover the diamonds that he helped steal. This second half takes place in London on urban streets, swanky mansions, and high-rise apartments. It's a sharp contrast to the “soldier of fortune” storytelling in the book's opening half. I found that swerve slightly abrasive, but it still totally worked for me.

If there is that one book that symbolizes everything we love and adore here at Paperback Warrior – obscure, awesome books that no one has ever heard of – it is The Diamond Boomerang. It's probably the best book I've read this year and punctuates an author's name that I will search for in every dingy basement and dusty bookstore I find.

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Victims

Jack Pearl is a pseudonym used by Jacques Bain Pearl, a WWII veteran, an engineer, and a full-time novelist. He is one of those names that crime and military-fiction fans will drop from time to time, but no one really reads. Most of his books are out of print, and some have connections to various television franchises, which may complicate reprinting a majority of his literary work. After reading three of Pearl's novels, I quickly became a fan. He is a terrific straight-laced author that focuses on life in the military, law-enforcement, and fire-fighting. 

Paperback Warrior has a primer on Jack Pearl HERE and a lengthy feature for the 58th podcast episode HERE. While preparing for both of those projects, I was able to read synopsis' for a lot of his books. One that really intrigued me was Victims, a police procedural novel set on Christmas Day in New York City. The book was originally published in hardcover by Trident Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, in 1972 and by Pocket Books in paperback in 1973. Sadly, I believe the book is out of print now. But, you can read it for free on Archive.Org HERE. Supposedly the book was adapted into a film, but I can't locate any record of it at the time of this review.

The novel begins in a theater showing The Green Berets, starring the iconic John Wayne. During one of the firefight scenes, a man holding a shopping bag slips into a tiny room behind the theater screen. While he remembers his Vietnam War experience fighting the “Cong”, he gingerly drops the bag and presses a button on a transmitter that arms a bomb. Outside of the theater, he presses the button and the theater screen erupts into a wall of fire. Bleeding audience members panic in pursuit for the door holding burn and shrapnel wounds. The stage is set for a bomber villain.

Captain Archibald Bender commands a respectable bomb squad. At home over dinner, he is called by a local Sergeant and advised of the bombing. Through dialogue, readers learn that this is just another bombing in a string of domestic terrorism. The bombers are members of the Splinters, an independent black militant group of the Black Panthers. The bombings are a declaration of war on the whites. When Bender arrives at the station, Pearl introduces the supporting characters that will be assisting Bender in his investigation. 

Surprisingly, the book's plot isn't on the theater bombing. Instead, Pearl introduces one of the smartest plots I've read in a long time. A member of the Splinters arms a bomb on Christmas Eve inside a gigantic Macy's department store. But, in a mix-up I won't spoil for you, the bomber gift wraps the bomb to resemble a Christmas present. The idea was to drop it somewhere inside the store and allow it to detonate overnight. You see the Splinters don't want to kill anyone, they just want destruction. But, the bomber stooge accidentally places the gift-wrapped bomb inside a box of presents that are being gifted to the children visiting the store Santa. When little Donnie Evans sits on Santa's lap, he receives the little bomb. Donnie then leaves the store with his mother and carries the bomb back home and places it under the tree. Needless to say, Christmas morning for Donnie and his family will be a real blast. 

Through a string of wild events and accidents, Bender learns that a bomb is in Macy's. But, through the fast-paced interviews, interrogations, and procedural meetings, Bender still doesn't know where the bomb is and the time of detonation. The only person that can help Bender stop the Christmas bombing is the bomber himself. Pearl's introduction of the bomber and his conversations and assistance with locating the explosive device was simply brilliant. While the bomber doesn't actually know where the device is, he makes a deal with Bender to help find it. 

If you love Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels, then Jack Pearl's Victims is a must-read. The procedural investigation and the collaboration of other law-enforcement personnel was similar to an excellent 87th Precinct book. The character flow was superb and the plot development was one of the best I've read. This is a suspenseful crime-fiction thriller that has a promising opener, but then delivers on the promise by the book's fiery finale. Pearl can write his ass off, and it shows in the narrative's gritty details. The clash of races, civil unrest, and the mournful regret of Vietnam War veterans were all key elements that enhanced the story. It doesn't get much better than this. Victims is a high recommendation.

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Firebrats #02 - Survivors

Lots of married couples find it hard to live with each other. Some detest spending long periods of the day with their partner for life. Imagine going to work with your wife every day? Thankfully, Scott and Barbara Siegel aren't one of those couples. In fact, their marriage is so strong that it supported both of them living, loving, and working side-by-side. Beginning in the early 1980s, both Barbara and Scott Siegel authored books together under numerous franchises like G.I. Joe, Transformers, Dragonlance, Star Trek, and Dark Forces. The majority of their literary work is the young adult genre.

For years I've hunted for a four-book series by the Siegels titled Fire Brats. It's an odd title, but a familiar scenario. Two Americans attempt to live and survive in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear bomb attack. The books were published between 1987-1988 by Archway, a subsidiary of Pocket Books. At the time of publishing, the paperback market was ripe with post-apocalyptic titles like The Survivalist, Deathlands, and Doomsday Warrior. I've never seen a copy of any of these books out in the wild. The books are scarce, which drives up the second-hand costs. I've seen these novels fetch up to $50 on Ebay. But, archive.org has the last three series installments available to read online.

Skipping a series debut is typically frowned upon in this household, but in this case it was necessary. Jumping into Survivors, the second installment, I quickly get the gist of the series. Matt (male) and Dani (female) are teenagers that grew up in the small town of Fair Oaks. From what I gather through the characters' brief reflections, the United States was nuked by an unknown country and now its major cities and metropolis areas are piles of rubble. Dani and Matt were able to seek shelter underground, and as Survivors begin, they emerge four days later on a journey west. Apparently Dani's parents were killed, but Matt's family may still be alive in California, thus the series will follow their trek through the wastelands.

The two characters spend a night in an abandoned Burger King (in what may be Colorado), and then attempt to cross a large river on a homemade raft. The raft disintegrates and the two are briefly thrust into the raging river to become separated. Eventually, the two reunite and journey into the wilderness and find a cabin that is fully stocked with weeks of food. The place even has running water, farm animals, books, and a fireplace. This is paradise for Matt and Dani, so they decide to stay for a while.

The cabin's owner is an old man named Ordway, who surprises the kids with a pointed shotgun. He has dealt with a lot of bad guys since the bombs fell, so he immediately thinks these teens are out to rob and murder him. After marching the duo outside for an execution, Matt is able to fight the old guy. As a result, the kids wrestle his gun away and Ordway breaks a leg. After explaining they mean no harm, and that they thought the cabin was abandoned, Ordway loosens up and makes a deal with the kids. He'll train them on what they will need to know to survive in this new world. They will help him around the house for a few weeks until his leg heals. 

At 155 pages, Survivors mostly spends the bulk of the book on the two kids interacting with Ordway to learn how to make weapons, hunt, and what to eat in the forest (who knew you could eat tree bark?). The book's last 50ish pages introduces a small band of mean scavengers looking to capture/rape Dani and claim the house. The finale has the kids using slingshots and bows to defend the cabin while Ordway attempts to fend off the attackers with a broken shotgun. 

Despite being juvenile fiction, I found Survivors to be a lot of fun. It reminded me of the first Survivalist novel with the prepping techniques and education, but the quest and action is reminiscent of Survival 2000. Dani, Matt, and Ordway possess endearing qualities that make them lovable. The introduction of the bad guys was inevitable, and the final fight and pursuit was engaging and well-written. While the book lagged a little in the middle, it was a good intermission to prepare for a rowdy end. 

I look forward to reading the rest of the series and I'm grateful that someone took the opportunity to scan most of the books. They are long out of print and very few libraries or book stores carry them in their current catalogs. If you love the 1980s post-apocalyptic stuff, then Fire Brats is sure to please. In a similar fashion, you might also enjoy the dystopian 1980s series U.S.S.A., which seems to be equally hard to find and expensive. Archive.org has at least one of the series' three books.

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Conan - The Castle of Terror

Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp teamed together to author “The Castle of Terror”, a short story starring Robert E. Howard's Conan. The story was first published in the Lancer paperback collection Conan of Cimmeria (1969), which was later reprinted by Ace. Additionally, the story was featured in Sphere Books omnibus collection The Conan Chronicles (1989). The story was adapted into comic format in Marvel's Conan the Barbarian #105. That comic story was also collected in Dark Horse's The Chronicles of Conan Vol. 13: Whispering Shadows and Other Stories (2007).

What I enjoyed about this story is that the authors wanted to expand on Howard's “The Vale of Lost Women”, which was never published in the author's lifetime. This era of Conan's life begins after “The Queen of the Black Coast”, with the titular hero in the jungles of Kush. It is here that he becomes the tribal chief of the Bamulas, which is outlined in “The Vale of Lost Women”. Carter and de Camp further explore that concept in the beginning of “The Castle of Terror”.

In the story's opening pages, Conan is on the run across the flat prairies of Kush. It is revealed that Conan was the Bamula tribal chief for approximately one year. But, a harsh drought occurred in the region and the tribe felt that Conan was the reason for the hardship. Ousted from power and forced into exile, Conan now finds himself with dwindling supplies and chased by lions. At dusk, Conan stumbles onto a strange scene, a crumbled Gothic-styled castle atop a stretch of dead grass. The pursuing lions stop their pursuit and refuse to go near the old house. Hoping to escape the rain, Conan goes inside.

While Conan is seeking shelter in the house, a band of Stygian slave raiders is also seeking shelter from the elements. They too go inside the cavernous house. Inside, Conan has an experience of astral projection, seeing himself outside of his body. Spiritually, he's attacked by hundreds of ghosts before awakening from his trance. At the top of a staircase, Conan witnesses the slaughter of the Stygians by a hideous hundred-headed spider-like creature. Escaping the house, Conan is forced to kill the remaining Stygian.

“The Castle of Terror” includes Conan reflecting on the old stories he heard as a child about King Kull of Atlantis, one of Robert E. Howard's other characters, the prototype for Conan. Conan recalls the stories of Serpent People inhabiting the land prior to mankind, an element that plays into the Kull mythos, including the very first sword-and-sorcery story in the US, “The Shadow Kingdom”, featuring King Kull. Additionally, the idea of natives refusing to follow Conan across a type of forbidden or sacred ground was used in Howard's “The Black Stranger”, which later was morphed into Treasure of Tranicos. But, instead of natives, “The Castle of Terror” uses lions. Arguably, the Kull short story “Skull of Silence” has comparisons as well, complete with Kull charging into a monolithic black house reportedly haunted by a cosmic horror.

This may be one of my favorite stories by Carter and de Camp. I love the eerie atmosphere and its similarity to an old Hammer Horror or Universal vampire flick. The concept of weary travelers attacked by a supernatural entity in a dark castle is sometimes overused, but in this story it works really well. The descriptions of the house, the creepy atmosphere, and the sense of urgency placed on the character to escape the lions was perfectly crafted. It's a remarkable combination and a mandatory read for fans of dark fantasy and horror.

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Mistress of Orion Hall

We keep reading and reviewing the robust body of literary work by the talented author Jon Messmann. From men's action-adventure titles like Nick Carter:Kill Master, The Revenger, and The Handyman, Messmann was a total success story, contributing to hundreds of paperback titles while creating one of the highest selling adult-western series titles of all-time, The Trailsman. While he was busy entertaining red-blooded American men, Messman also authored romance novels and gothic-suspense paperbacks for the ladies. Using the name Claudette Nicole, Messmann authored more than a handful of these books for the top tier paperback publisher of the time, Fawcett Gold Medal. 

Cutting Edge Books have released nearly all of Messmann's romance, vigilante, nautical-adventure, and gothics, including The Mistress of Orion Hall. It was originally published by Fawcett in 1970, and has remained out of print until now. This new edition of the novel is available in both paperback and ebook versions with updated cover art. 

The book begins in an interesting way, the death of the book's title character, the Mistress of Orion Hall. But, this was simply an early flashback to “long ago” when a woman was killed in a massive mansion by men in shrouded hoods. Needless to say, the book quickly moves to present day Vermont by introducing the protagonist, a young woman named Lisa. 

Like any good gothic paperback premise, Messmann knows that he needs a reason for the young female character to inhabit a large mansion on a rocky seaside bluff. Lisa needs to be an unemployed nurse, teacher, or nanny, or a newlywed returning home with her dashing new husband. Oddly, this one is fairly simplistic. Lisa speaks Greek and her Aunt Maggie is reopening the family's long abandoned mansion in Cyprus. She needs Lisa to come and live at the mansion and become a language translator for the many guests destined to stay at the luxury house. 

The journey with Maggie to Cyprus is met with a number of deadly occurrences. First, Lisa is nearly killed on the ship trying to save her aunt from falling overboard during a storm. Once she arrives at the mansion, she is pushed over the cliff and nearly perishes on the rocky coastline. An auto accident occurs as well, leading Lisa, and Maggie, to suspect that the mansion is either haunted or someone is attempting to stop the house's grand opening. 

In some ways, this traditional gothic tale reminded me of Frank Smith's gothic titles written under the pseudonym Jennifer Hale. The idea of the main character discovering an old painting of a woman who looks just like her is a common genre trope. Smith used it as a main plot point in his 1973 novel The Secret of Devil's Cave. With the central mystery of who, or what, is stalking the Orion Hall inhabitants, Messmann carefully walks the balance beam of presenting a physical murderer or a supernatural entity. If you've read one gothic or read them all, the answer is always the same. But, kudos to the author for allowing some nautical action to play a big part in the book's finale. Interesting enough, when Messmann unveils the answer to the mystery, it resembles a plot he used for his 1972 action-adventure novel A Bullet for the Bride. 

Like most of Messmann's literature, The Mistress of Orion Hall is another entertaining novel that follows paperback traditions of the time. Whether it has aged well is in the eye of the beholder, but I found it to be on par with his other gothic titles. Cutting Edge Books has nearly all of them at affordable prices, so there is plenty to choose from. 

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Time Warriors #1 - Fuse Point

Before his death in 1999, David North did a lot of paperback writing for the Gold Eagle imprint, including four Executioners, two Super Bolans, two Heroes, and one Able Team. In 1991, they gave him his own time-jumping adventure series called Time Warriors that lasted three installments. The first novel in the short-lived series is called Fuse Point.

The novel opens with a chemical weapon human rights atrocity in an Iraq stand-in committed by a Saddam Hussein stand-in. It’s a well-written opening firmly previewing who our villain will be, consistent with the Gold Eagle paperback plotting style. We later find out that this Saddam is developing a chemical weapon that transforms the peaceful into psychotic, murderous loonies straight from 28 Days Later. If only there were a U.S. Government hero who could stop him…

And then we meet said hero arriving at a Bangkok Airport. His name is Black Jack Hogan, and he’s the strapping fellow who looks like Thor on the book’s cover. He’s a troubleshooter for a U.S. Government Intelligence agency — sticky situations only, please. He doesn’t even make it out of the airport before assassins dispatched by Saddam try to kill him. That’s the kind of life Black Jack lives.

During the attack, Black Jack sees an apparition of an ancient muscle-man with a giant curvy sword eviscerate one of the airport assassins. He initially writes it off to a mirage because he hasn’t read the back of the book. Dreams of the bearded warrior persist, and we learn that his name is Brom. Black Jack is able to summon Brom thanks to an experience our hero once had in Cambodia, where he was saved by Buddhist monks. Likewise, Black Jack is periodically transported back in time to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with Brom in battles against rival barbarians.

The two timelines are brought together by necessity. Saddam’s nefarious chemist is Dr. Nis, who is actually an ancient magician named Nis from Brom’s realm. Stopping Nis from destroying 1991 will, in turn, help Brom with his own Nis-related chaos in the distant past. A buddy, team-up adventure is born!

The author knows his way around bloody, violent action sequences and the plot certainly keeps moving. You’ll either love or hate the New Age mysticism baked into the plot, but you’ll never be bored. The story arc is fresh from the Gold Eagle lunchroom vending machine, but it’s a formula that worked well for over a thousand novels across dozens of series titles.

If you’ve got a hankering for a Conan-meets-Bolan collaboration, you’ll probably like this first installment in the short-lived Time Warriors series. You pretty much know what you’re getting from the cover in this competently-done, but inconsequential, men’s paperback adventure.

Note - Gold Eagle gave the same sort of deal to an author named John Barnes. Beginning in 1993, he was commissioned to write a trilogy of books called Time Raider that featured a similar premise as Time Warriors.

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