Mon 13 Jan 2014
Archived Review: WARREN MURPHY – Dying Space (The Destroyer #47).
Posted by Steve under Reviews[8] Comments
WARREN MURPHY – Dying Space. Pinnacle, paperback original, January 1982.
Here is the forty-seventh in the continuing adventures of Remo Williams, aka “The Destroyer.” And right there this probably tells you all that you want to know about this book. Either you’ve bought and read it already, or you have absolutely no intention of doing either one. Go on to the next review.
As for me, well, I’m somewhere in the middle. I think I have them all, but I also think I’ve read something like every seventeenth one. And only somebody who’s read them all could say for sure, but there must be hills and valleys, noticeable ups and downs within the series itself. So I don’t know, but I think this is a valley.
For openers, this one has a lady astrophysicist with a yen for booze and Italian soccer teams. It has a mysterious, advanced computer of her own design, and somebody (something?) named Mr. Gordons, who is a deadly robot and an implacable enemy of Remo and his Korean mentor, Chiun. There is also, almost incidentally, a Russian plot to poison the moon.
Apparently Mr. Gordons has been around before. He will also most assuredly be around again, as once again (WARNING: you may not want to know this ahead of time) he manages to escape total dismantlement and/or destruction.
Otherwise, nothing much seems to happen.
I laughed a lot, though. (To put that statement into proper perspective, I was supposed to.)
Rating: C minus
January 14th, 2014 at 1:00 am
As Steve says, either you love this stuff or you don’t. He admits to being in the middle, at least in 1982. I wonder if he feels the same 31 years later?
I have to admit that I gave up on all these type of series. I guess we can refer to them as men’s action adventure paperbacks. There are a ton of titles and actually THE DESTROYER series may be one of the best, with THE EXECUTIONER being the most well known.
There are just too many and I guess I got tired of the similar plots, action, and sex scenes. But I have a friend that I’ve known now over 40 years who loves these things. He has just all of the different series and has read them also. I was recently with him at a second hand bookstore that was more of a warehouse when we stumbled across a big chest that resembled a pirate’s treasure chest. It was in a little alcove and had a sign on it saying “Treasure Chest”.
Of course we had to open it to see the book treasures within and when we did, there were dozens of the men’s action adventure paperbacks. Someone considered these books to be real *treasures*.
My friend? He had them all already…
January 14th, 2014 at 12:44 pm
Walker
When you say “There are a ton of titles and actually THE DESTROYER series may be one of the best, with THE EXECUTIONER being the most well known.” I totally agree with you.
I used to own long runs of all of the men’s adventure series, but after a while the only one I found readable was THE DESTROYER, and I’ve sold off most of the others. There are readers who still collect them, and since mine were in mint/as new condition and I priced them that way, I’ve done OK investmentwise.
Would I read any of them today, even THE DESTROYER? In a word, no.
January 14th, 2014 at 3:55 pm
THE DESTROYER was one of those series that transcended the genre thanks to its creators, both good writes on their own (and successful ones — both taking full advantage of the boost Remo and Chiun gave them).
This is probably one of the few men’s action series I would read now if it was lying around or like the one I recently got as a free e-book (or perhaps one of the Nick Carter’s) and likely enjoy, at least for the laughs.
I never could get through a MACK BOLAN and a few series were worthy of Bill Pronzini’s alternative classics (the Chameleon at times rises to Harry Stephen Keeler levels of absurdity in print). Perhaps the best thing about these and their soft porn brothers is how many old pros and new ones got work thanks to them; Gardner Fox, Michael Avallone, Bill Ballinger, W.T. Ballard, Bill Crider(Nick Carter), George Chesbro (Chant),even literary icon Craig Nova (Nick Carter),science fiction and suspense novelist Barry Malzberg (the gonzo Lone Wolf series), and bestselling writer Martin Cruz Smith (the Inquisitor).
They were the pulps for a generation of writers even if you didn’t want your name on one. And at least one series, HARDMAN, is still worth reading, closer to Gold Medal series than Men’s Action in quality.
Before the argument starts I don’t think Nick Carter fully fits the genre, certainly not at the beginning, but toward the end it was hard to distinguish it from them — mainstay of a smaller publisher, written under a house name, garish illustrative covers, and soft core sex, everything that defines the genre (yes some major publishers got into the game and the EXECUTIONER series made Pinnacle at least into a bigger publisher). But even with a strict definition of the genre it provided a market that isn’t there today.
January 14th, 2014 at 6:54 pm
When a subgenre of the world of pubishing is a huge success for one company, it isn’t long before other publishers take notice and jump on the bandwagon.
Ace I think it was that first hit paydirt back in the early 60s, then Pinnacle with The Executioner series in the 70s. In the 80s it was the historical romance that was the big seller, although which publisher was first, I have no idea.
Of course the field of men’s adventure books wouldn’t have taken off the way it there hadn’t been a market for them. They must have sold in the millions.
January 14th, 2014 at 7:25 pm
Mack Bolan, THE EXECUTIONER is still around, I see them at bookstores once in a while.
The books were quickly written, cheap to buy, needed little communication with publishers, and production was minimal. No wonder publishers loved them.
Today its romantic suspense, vampires, pseudo history, pirates, and SEX IN THE CITY rip-offs, all soft core (and not all that soft)for female readers who read them voraciously in public though most of them are more explicit than the soft core titles writers like Block, Silverberg, and Westlake penned under various names, and those were read under the sheet with a flashlight.
Obviously the difference is those books were written for men, but I’m not sure I see why hard core sex for women is romantic suspense and hard core for men is pornography. None of the Men’s Action series including things like Coxeman and 0008 were ever half as dirty as the women’s books today.
January 17th, 2014 at 6:15 pm
David is right about the labeling of sex in men’s books and women’s books.
I read a DESTROYER novel every year or so. The early ones are better than the later ones. The only men’s action series I read in its entirety was THE LONE WOLF series by Mike Barry (Barry N. Malzberg).
January 17th, 2014 at 9:04 pm
I never tried any of these series. I guess I was too busy reading Burroughs, or Star Trek series novels, or Perry Mason, Shell Scott or Mike Shayne series.
January 18th, 2014 at 1:38 pm
I never got around to reading any of the Star Trek books, but other than that, Richard, I’m with you.