Steve Holland: Paperback Hero

Michael Stradford served as the VP of A&R for Quincy Jones' Qwest Records, represented Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in both creating, producing, and overseeing content creation, and assisted in launching a film distribution platform at Warner Bros. Pictures. He has authored numerous books, including Black to the Movies and Other Pop Culture Musings and MilesStyle: The Fashion of Miles Davis. My first introduction to Stradford was an awe-inspiring 2021 book about model and actor Steve Holland, The World's Greatest Illustration Art Model. It was a follow-up to the author's first Steve Holland retrospective, Steve Holland: The Torn Shirt Sessions. 

The newest entry in the Steve Holland Library is Stradford's Steve Holland: Paperback Hero, which is in our wheelhouse here at Paperback Warrior. My office is wallpapered in hundreds of paperback book spines, of which, over half are probably sporting a painted cover of Steve Holland performing a breathtaking action pose while holding a gun, riding a horse, embracing a beautiful woman, or just gazing back at me with that “friendly but I mean business” stare. Typically, I buy everything with his face on it. The paperback rule of thumb is if Holland is on it, it's at the very least readable. It's like a signature of approval from the publisher, writer, and the character he embodies. 

Steve Holland: Paperback Hero is 212 glorious pages of colorful book covers indexed by genres like Spycraft, War, Westerns, Sci-Fi, etc. In Stradford's introduction, he explains that he has over a thousand Holland covers in his database, and a 45-page checklist averaging 42 titles per page. He estimates it to roughly 1900 titles sporting cover art that featured Holland. This doesn't include covers that couldn't directly be linked to Holland, but perhaps featured a likeness. Needless to say, Stradford is the world's foremost Holland historian. 

As a fan of vintage paperback fiction, I was thrilled to read Stradford's notes on the various series titles and novels. Each section features a few series titles and a summary of quantity, run length, and a brief description of the series. For example, the first section, Spycraft, features series titles like Coxeman, Nick Carter: Kill Master, and Man from O.R.G.Y. I was thrilled to see larger than life, colorful scans of the Killsquad series, featuring paintings by the legendary Bob Larkin. The artist is also featured in many of the pages, including four large panels of Conan paperbacks.

I love author Hammond Innes, but truthfully, I was drawn to the Avon paperbacks of the late 1960s. Those covers by Frank McCarthy are simply awesome, and Stradford focuses on that run specifically, with beautiful scans of the covers and a description of McCarthy's style. Another talented author, Jack Faragasso, is spotlighted in the Sci-Fi section, with a brief history and excerpts from an interview Stradford conducted. Some of Faragasso's cover art is featured here, ranging from Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon to Lyle Kenyon Engel's Richard Blade series. 

Fans of men's action-adventure titles like Fargo, Peacemaker, The Protector, Jason Striker, The Penetrator, and The Lone Wolf are in for a visual feast in the Tough Guys section. Artwork by the likes of Mel Crair, Ron Lesser, and George Wilson are featured in full-page panels. A surprise to me was Holland on a cover of Ian Fleming's Goldfinger, painted by Frank McCarthy. There is also a larger section detailing Holland's modeling for The Spider, complete with black and white stills used for the various paintings. 

Once again, Michael Stradford has provided an amazing, visual buffet of many Steve Holland paperback covers. The amount of full-panel book scans, diversified by different genres, really shapes the impact and historic clout that Holland made in the 20th century publishing business. It's uncanny how often he appears, but this volume details the artists and notable series titles that made it happen. Overall, this is another mandatory addition for any paperback reader and collector. Recommended! More info at stevehollandbook.com. 

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Star Trek - Ice Trap

Listen, you can journey down any internet rabbit hole and find heaps of Star Trek information regarding movies, games, toys, comics, and novels. I'm not going to saddle you with a bunch of information about publishers, series titles, and years. Ice Trap is the 60th installment in a series of Star Trek tie-in books published by Pocket Books between 1979 to 2002. These books feature the original series characters that debuted on NBC in 1966 – Spock, Captain Kirk (William freakin' Shatner), etc. - aboard the USS Enterprise. I'm not a Trekkie, but I've watched episodes here and there of all the Star Trek shows. So, a 1992 book that looks like a “Dirk Pitt in Star Trek” adventure appealed to me. Don't fault me on my Star Trek knowledge. I'm the most pedestrian fan of any casual Trekkie circle.

The crew of the USS Enterprise is assigned the mission to investigate a missing research shuttle on the frigid ice-crusted planet Nordstral. The planet serves the pharmaceutical industry by harvesting plankton for drug use. But, the research crew has gone missing and some of the industrial workers have gone mentally insane. With McCoy, it is Kirk's job to find the sources creating these psychotic episodes. On the flip side, Uhura and Chekov dig into the whereabouts of the research shuttle by conducting interviews with the planet's inhabitants, an alien race known as the Kitka. 

Most of the book's narrative and plot development consist of Uhura and McCoy working directly with Nordstral Pharmaceutical's guides across the icy tundra. The mystery lies in the fact that one of the guides may be a murderer keeping outsiders from the precious plankton. The investigation by Kirk and McCoy deals with the scientific aspect, but as the book gains momentum into the finale a hefty action sequence unfolds with the two trying to escape a flooding ship. Also, to add a horror aspect to the action, the novel introduces a giant underwater sea monster. Can you say KRAKEN?

The book's cover suggests the author is L.A. Graf. In reality, the Graf name is a trio of authors named Julia Ecklar, Karen Cercone, and Melissa Crandall. The perspectives in the book change numerous times within each chapter, so the abrupt character switches were jarring. I found myself re-reading pages to discover which group of characters I was in the midst of. This may have been a result of rotating authors writing certain parts, or it was designed that way. But, the effect wasn't enough to ruin the adventure. Ice trap was a lot of fun to read and placed me in a Star Trek mood for more installments of the series. If you love space travel or a good icy adventure, this one is recommended.

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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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