ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION. January 1967.  Cover by Chesley Bonestell.     Overall rating: 3½ stars.

POUL ANDERSON “Supernova.” Short novel. An inhabited planet is found to be in danger from a nearby supernova, and the Polesotechnic League sends the Trader Team headed by David Falkayn. In exchange for technology capable of saving their world, the Meresians are asked for a base for scientific study and, of course, a chance for profit. Politics follow. Mostly bland. (3)

HARRY HARRISON “A Criminal Act.” Having too many children may someday be a crime against society. [The penalty may be] legalized murder as the answer to the extra life created. (4)

MACK REYNOLDS “Amazon Planet.” Serial, part 2 of 3. See report to follow later.

H. B. FYFE “The Old Shill Game.” Robots shills are programmed to buy from robot vendors to increase sales. (3)

KEITH LAUMER “The Lost Command.” [Bolo #3.] A construction crew accidentally activates a semi-intelligent war-machine buried deep underground after the end of a war ended 70 years before. (4)

DAVID PETERS – Mind-Force Warrior. Psi-Man #1. Charter/Diamond, paperback original; 1st printing, October 1990. Ace, paperback, 2000, under the author’s real name, Peter David.

   Actually, [as far mystery fiction goes], this is a ringer, and maybe I shouldn’t be reviewing it here. You might find this book in the “action-adventure” section of your favorite chain bookstore. If that fails, you might want to check through the science fiction section before you find it, if you find it at all.

   Then again, the series that this is intended to be the first of might actually take off, like the endless series of Mack Bolan adventures or the Destroyer books that, now that my friend Will Murray is writing them, seem to be going as strong as ever.

   To get down to particulars, if you don’t expect a literary masterpiece, and are either a pulp or comic book fan, there is a better than even chance you even enjoy this. The year is 2021, a former high school teacher named Chuck Simon is the hero, and his trouble begin when the authorities learn that he has psychic powers that can kill. Telekinesis, mental telepathy, maybe even more.

   The problem is that Chuck is a Quaker, and he refuses the opportunity to become the government’s number one assassin, Things have downhill in the years from then to now. Constant air pollution, suspension of the Bill of Rights, a cashless society, cities infested with constant violence. (I think we can blame it on former President Quayle, whose statue is seen on page 104.)

   Not quite as bloody violent or militaristic as most of the men’s adventure series have become lately, this a book that can be read in a very short time. Since David Peters is in reality comic book writer Peter David — the Amazing Spider-Man, among other credits — you should not be surprised at the vivid, picturesque style of writing. You should also not be surprised at either the shallow characterization or the creaky turns of plot. Let me know: if I ever read another, do you want to hear about it?

   
      The Psi-Man series —

1. Mind-Force Warrior (1990)
2. Deathscape (1991)
3. Main Street D.O.A. (1991)
4. The Chaos Kid (1991)
5. Stalker (1991)
6. Haven (1992)

ELLIOTT CHAZE – Goodbye Goliath. Kiel St. James #1. Charles Scribner’s Sons, hardcover, 1983. No paperback edition.

   The entire staff of The Catherine Call hated the general manager, John Robinson, and wished horrible things would happen to him. When the city editor, Kiel St. James, finds Robinson with a letter spike shoved through the back of his neck, those wishes are fulfilled.

   The investigation into Robinson’s death is handled by Orson Boles, who favors a “lizard-green polyester suit” and cracker dialect for conducting investigations. St. James can draw out the more literate Boles, the two men having been friends for years in the small Alabama town they live in.

   Boles soon narrows the suspect field down to five. The major clue comes from finding Robinson’s much loved hat crumpled on the floor; closer inspection shows that it has a small hole that corresponds to the size of the letter spike, and is traced with blood, The blood type is not the same as Robinson’s and Boles’ investigation finds only five people on The Catherine Call who have the matching blood type. Kiel St. James is one of those, and is suffering from blackout spells.

   A subplot surrounds St. James and the state of his love life. His girl friend, Gretchen, is called out of town on business which soon turns into a permanent move out-of-state. St. James keeps bumping into cub reporter Crystal Bunt, “the newspaper’s all-weather, free-style “sex symbol.” St. James tries to hold out against Crystal’s efforts to get beyond his resolve, but doesn’t succeed. The love story that evolves is a pleasant addition to the standard investigation that follows.

   Chaze provides substance, to his mystery by allowing the characters to develop to a point where the reader can care about them, There is a small town charm to Goodbye Goliath that is enhanced by the authentic newspaper atmosphere the author presents.

   Chaze has worked for the Associated Press and as a city editor of the Hattiesburg American, and presently lives in that Mississippi town. Goodbye Goliath is his seventh novel, and an ideal one to curl up with in a comfortable chair.

   Finally, after two years a Pulpfest! Last year there was no convention because of the virus and I had not missed a show in a very long time. I almost went to Pittsburgh anyway in 2020 just to morosely hang out at the hotel but I couldn’t talk anyone else into driving out. But this year there was a convention and I swore I’d make it, pandemic or no pandemic.

   Since one of our group decided not to drive with us, there was only four of us and we therefore did not need the larger van. Driving out was nice weather, unlike the horror story driving back at the end of the show. We arrived at 3 pm on Thursday and found the dealer’s room to be busy with most tables set up for business. I estimate well over 300 in attendance and a hundred or so tables. I heard that attendance was supposed to be a lot larger but there was a 25% cancellation during the past two weeks as collectors either bit the dust or decided to not attend due to the pandemic.

   The dealer’s room closed at 5 pm and was immediately followed by a great pizza party hosted by many of the dealers. I then hung out in the hotel bar with friends where I drank five pints of beer. I firmly believe that drinking a lot of beer helps scare away the virus. Also it was free, due to my fellow collectors who also believe that beer is the staff of life. Thank you Matt Moring, Richard Meli and the veteran whose name I did not catch. Later on the bartender claimed he did not pay the bar tab, and he came to me for payment. But I told him I only drink the beer. I don’t pay for it. Plus he’s a vet. He should get free beer.

   The next morning I got up and followed my usual practice of getting rid of hangovers by eating a large breakfast and drinking plenty of coffee. I have to admit the hotel serves the best and largest buffet breakfast that I have ever encountered. It was delicious.

   Then into action when the dealer’s room opened at 9 am. Masks were recommended and most started off wearing them but as the day progressed, the masks came off. I told Matt it was like a scene out of Fritz Leiber’s “Coming Attraction” in the November 1950 issue of Galaxy SF. Social distancing was followed, but then we stopped worrying and concentrated on buying pulps and books.

   What did I buy? Well Doug Ellis had some great art for sale, especially cover paintings and interiors by Hubert Rogers. I almost bought some but I talked myself out of buying any since I have stacks of art leaning against my walls and bookcases. However history was made as my old friend Digges La Touche bought a cover painting from a paperback. In 50 years he has never bought art, except for one Barbara Cartland paperback cover. He always concentrates on buying masses of pulps, but no more I guess. I stop buying art and he starts.

   I also found some of the extremely rare and hard to find large issues of Everybody’s from the WW I era. Sai Shanker had an excellent article in the new Pulpster about the history of Everybody’s. The magazine lasted 355 issues and went from slick to pulp. He will soon publish a collection of the best stories from the magazine. Speaking of upcoming books, Steeger Books, otherwise known as Matt Moring, will be coming out with a collection of “The Campfire” letters from Adventure in the twenties. These books are must buys if you collect fiction magazines.

   As usual I had a table and sold some rare items. This time I had some duplicates of of the Manhunt Detective imitators. These digest magazines were published in the fifties and sixties and have sexy covers showing girls fighting or killing some poor guy. Cool! I’ve been collecting these digest since 1956, so I’ve been at it for 65 years. Time flies when you are having fun, and I considering collecting magazines to be a hell of a lot of fun. My wife thinks different.

   The Pulpster 30 was given to all the attendees and it was the best issue yet of all the 30 issues. William Lampkin is the editor and Mike Chomko the publisher. Copies are available from Mike Chomko Books and I give this magazine my highest recommendation. It’s large format, 8 1/2 by 11, 60 pages, and in color. Several articles were on The Shadow, including interviews with artists Jerome Rozen and Graves Gladney. Other articles dealt with the love pulps (escape literature for three million maidens), the debut of online newgroups dealing with pulps, the history of Everybody’s by Sai Shanker, Tony Davis on editor Dorothy McIIwraith, and a Darrell Schweitzer interview with Hugh Cave.

   PulpFest is known for the great programming and all the panels and discussions were outstanding. If I had to pick one above all the others I would have to highly recommend Laurie Powers’ “The Queen and Her Court: Great Women Pulp Editors.” It is obvious that Laurie spent a lot of time on this presentation which deserves to be reprinted in a print magazine or book. It is a great example of original pulp research and not just the rehashing of well known facts.

   Other programming was also noteworthy like the discussion on Shadow artists. This was supposed to be presented by David Saunders but he could not attend and Chet Williamson stepped in. I also liked Doug Ellis on Margaret Brundage and the discussion on Eva Lynd: Countess, Actress, and Cover girl. Eva Lynd was supposed to be the Guest of Honor but could not attend but she sent a very nice thank you film.

   This was also the first year of ERBFest. I hope these Edgar Rice Burroughs scholars and fans will return next year. As usual the presentation of The Munsey Award was a highlight of the programming. This year’s award was given to Rich Harvey who has not only published many pulp books and magazines, but more importantly, has been the organizer behind the annual one day convention, Pulp Adventurecon. There have been more that 20 of these shows usually held in Bordentown during November of each year. Congratulations Rich!

   The auction was held Saturday night and though there was no estate auction, many collectors contributed items of interest. Halfway through the auction an overpowering thirst descended upon me, and I adjourned to the bar where unlike Thursday and Friday, I had to pay for my own drinks. I forget which night it happened but the fire alarm went off, and we had to leave the hotel. Fortunately I had a full beer in hand and simply strolled out the door hoping that not too many pulps would be destroyed. Many other collectors had to get dressed and leave their beds. That’s what happens when you go to bed too early.

   I was glad to see that Blood n Thunder had not bit the dust. The Blood n Thunder 2021 Annual made its debut as well as Sam Sherman’s When Dracula Met Frankenstein. Both published by Ed Hulse’s Murania Press.

   Next year will be the 50th Anniversary of Pulpcon/Pulpfest. The first one was held in 1972 and I was there! I sure as hell wish all the other attendees were still around and we could have a panel discussing the good old days. But it’s getting down to The Last Man Standing and hopefully I’ll be present to talk about the way things were and what happened. In 1972 I was one of the youngest collectors present and now in 2021, I’m one of the oldest. My advice for a long life? Drink Beer and collect books, pulps, and art. It worked for me!

   Driving home on Sunday was a mess. Heavy rain and the nagging fear of water in the basement. But I dodged the bullet again and my basement was dry. My pulps and wife welcomed me home.

   I would like to thank the Pulpfest committee: Jack Cullers, Sally Cullers, Mike Chomko, Peter Chomko, William Lampkin, William Maynard, Tony Davis, Barry Traylor. I know I’m leaving out someone else and maybe Mike or Jack could list the correct committee in the comments.

   Windy City Pulp Convention is only a couple weeks away. I hope to see you there!

OUTSIDE THE WALL. Universal, 1950.Richard Basehart, Marilyn Maxwell, Signe Hasso, Dorothy Hart, John Hoyt, Joseph Pevney, Lloyd Gough, and Harry Morgan. Written by Henry Edward Helseth and Crane Wilbur. Directed by Crane Wilbur.

   No classic, but it’ll keep you watching.

   Richard Basehart plays Larry Martin, a convict just shy of 30, released after fifteen years in prison (do the math.) At loose ends on the outside, he gets a job in a TB sanitarium. A bit of exposition shows Martin to be tough and savvy, but lacking in social skills and completely at a loss with women — elements that will figure into the plot just ahead.

   About this time Martin sees newspaper headlines about a million-dollar heist of an armored car, the gang decimated in a shoot-out that left only two at large with the loot — and recognizes photos of head-perp Jack Bernard (John Hoyt) from the time he spent in stir. And as plot would have it, a few days later Bernard is admitted to the sanitarium under an assumed name, near death from TB.

   All this time, Martin has been struggling to establish a relationship with his co-workers, passing over pretty and pleasant nurse Celia (Signe Hasso) for greedy blonde Charlotte (Marilyn Maxwell.) When Charlotte lets him know she wants the “finer things” in life, Martin accepts a job offer from the fugitive Bernard.

   It seems Bernard is paying protection to his ex-wife Ann (venomous Dorothy Hart) and needs Martin to deliver it while he’s laid up. Ann only seems interested in how soon Bernard will croak, but it soon develops that she has a few nasty friends (including a sadistic Harry Morgan) who think Martin must be the other survivor of the heist, and their ticket to the hot millions.

   From this point on, Outside the Wall gets agreeably tricky and enjoyably violent. Helseth wrote the novel basis of the classic Cry of the City, and he has a sure feel for dishonor among thieves. He’s not helped at all by Crane Wilbur’s flat-footed direction, and neither are the actors, but Richard Basehart gives out with a neatly-played character — smart and tough among the low-lifes he grew up with, but lost and vulnerable with ordinary folk, and quite unable to cope with the decent woman who wants to save him.

   The result is a film that mostly misses its potential. But it comes close enough to stay with.

      All I ask is a chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.

   Carson Robson is a name I’m sure will draw a blank from everyone reading this, but back in 1942 he put out a record (a 78) that when my brother and I found it in our parents’ collection, we played so often that I think we wore the grooves off. 78’s being rather fragile items, we both agree that it finally somehow got broken, but while we had it, we loved it.

   And guess what? My brother went looking, and found both sides on YouTube. Isn’t the Internet wonderful?
   

      Carson Robison – I’m Going Back To Whur I Come From

      Carson Robison – That Old Grey Mare Is Back Where She Used To Be

DONALD STOKES – Captive in the Night. Coward-McCann, hardcover, 1951. Signet 1006, paperback, 1953; cover by James Meese. Crest #126, paperback, March 1956. Wildside Press, trade paperback, 2020.

   Hansen is Blair Hansen, and here is Algeria. Eight years earlier he was there with the American Army in intelligence. Now he is back, contracted by the fat shady man named Kuhn (think Sidney Greenstreet crossed with Peter Lorre and maybe Eric Pohlman) he first encountered earlier, to get the ore from Kuhn’s iron mine out of a Berber valley under the control of the rebels led by Messali Haji and his men against the French colonizers.

   Blair is there too because of Mari, a woman he knew eight years earlier who betrayed him.

   Even before he can see Kuhn, a woman tries to trap him and Hansen has to deal with two Arabs sent to see why he is there. He doesn’t get along much better with the police, the Brigade. In the best tradition he has walked into a hornet’s nest, one part Warner Brothers movie, a little Beau Geste, and more than a little Mickey Spillane thrown in with a touch of Post War realpolitik and cynicism.

   The local color is well done if laid on a bit thickly, and the tough guy stuff rings true with our “hero” tough as a rusty nail and just about as toxic.

   If you like your action tough and relentless, your heroes unsentimental sociopaths, the action unrelenting, and no one particularly innocent, this is the book for you. Reading it you can just about cast the movie in your head.

   It’s not always pleasant, but it is vividly written, tough minded, and for all the romance of exotic settings and high adventure as hardboiled as anything you are likely to read:

   It’s all basic Hollywood action movie 101, but not bad for that. The action moves at a pace, the dramas of several characters weave in and out of the plot including Mari’s adult daughter Celeste and her husband George, and our hero gets by on toughness and an unwillingness to die.

   The cover of the paperback edition from Fawcett Crest is a doozy too, the perfect evocation of the novel.

● PATRICK RUELL – Death Takes the Low Road. Hutchinson, UK, hardcover, 1974. Mysterious Press, US, paperback, 1987.

   A somewhat banal tale, but that’s the only thing that’s at all commonplace about this book. An almost Buchanesque tale of pursuit, the pursued (from the Highlands southwards) being one William Blake Hazlett, a University Registrar who may have a dark side to his life, and his girlfriend, Caroline Nevis, a determined young research student from the colonies (well, they were once!).

   Lots of pace, lots of action, lots of humour. Reminiscent of the later on form Michael Innes. Very enjoyable.

● PATRICK RUELL – Urn Burial. Hutchinson, UK, hardcover, 1975. Foul Play, US, hardcover, 1987.

   I wish I’d tumbled rather earlier to the fact that Ruell is Reginald Hill’s alter ego, Ruell being Hill’s less deductive, more active manifestation.

   Urn Burial concerns ambiguous local government man Sam Lakenheath and delightful fat girl archeologist Zeugma Gray. The scene is set on Thirlsike Waste, a remote and windswept area of Northern Britain where is disused research centre attracts strange people and stranger happenings.

   Mr. Ruell certainly has a talent to amuse and the even rarer talent of leavening the humour (and action) with sinister ingredients. The whole makes first class and riveting reading, and, as a bonus to those so inclined, the villains are of the archest and the natural is mingled with the supernatural. Super stuff.

● REGINALD HILL – A Pinch of Snuff. Collins, UK, hardcover. 1978. Harper, US, hardcover, 1978. Dell, US,paperback, 1984.

   Inspector Pascoe, imaginative, literate, sensitive; Superintendent Dalziel, ruthless, devious — quite a combination. even though they don’t always seem too keen on combining.

   The snuff in this investigation (their fourth, I think) is not at all what you might imagine, as our heroes become involved in the murky world of vice and porno films. And Mr. Hill is as devious as Dalziel and as literate as Pascoe in unraveling the mystery surrounding the filmed murder of one of the porno starlets.

   The author is rapidly becoming one of my favourites.

LOVE LAUGHS AT ANDY HARDY. MGM, 1946. Mickey Rooney, Lewis Stone, Fay Holden, Bonita Granville, Lina Romay, Sara Haden, Dorothy Ford. Director: Willis Goldbeck.

   This was the last of the Andy Hardy films before the 1958 reunion film, Andy Hardy Comes Home, and you certainly can tell the series had seen better days. Andy comes home from the war in this one, just before heading off for college as a 20 year old freshman.

   But since Mickey Rooney was something like 26 years old at the time, he looks absolutely ludicrous in a beanie, to say the least. And he’s also far too old to continue his usual juvenile approach to love and romance any longer, even though he’s serious enough about it now to be ready to pop the question to Bonita Granville. But as you can tell from the title,  it doesn’t work out, in a twist of the plot even more ridiculous then the sight of grown men wearing stupid little caps.

   Lina Romay may not set Andy’s heart on fire, but she does add a little spice to the proceedings. And while I haven’t been able to locate Dorothy Ford in any of my standard  references, in this movie she plays a coed who is about 6 foot 6 inches tall, and when she dances with Andy (who comes only about breast high), it is really something to behold:

   Overall, while I didn’t care that much for the picture, Judge Hardy’s patented father-to-son talk with Andy at the end of the movie is as good as ever (but ruined by the local station that interrupted it in mid-sentence for yet another commercial).