Hostile Fire (Super Able Team #2)

Hostile Fire, by Dick Stivers

August, 1990  Gold Eagle Books

It’s not mentioned anywhere in or on the book, but apparently this was the second and final volume of a sub-series titled Super Able Team. So sort of like there was a “SuperBolan” series of extra-long Executioner novels, Gold Eagle also attempted the same thing for Able Team. But clearly it didn’t resonate, because it only lasted two volumes; there was also a “Super” Phoenix Force series that lasted four volumes. According to the copyright page, Hostile Fire was written by an author named Ken Rose, who also wrote some of the latter Able Team novels. He does his best to fill up the book’s unwieldy 346 page count. 

I discovered this one several years ago via the reviews on mackbolan.com, in particular comments around a gun Able Team used in the climax which “seemed more like the chainsaw from [the video game] Doom.” Not to mention “a crazy woman” who served as the villainess and who “likes to torture people.” So I picked up Hostile Fire, as well as the first Super Able Team, Mean Streets, which was also written by Ken Rose. I haven’t read that one yet, but no concerns because as ever there’s zero continuity. In fact, the members of Able Team aren’t even introduced or described…save for an errant mention that “Politician” Balancales has a moustache. So now finally I know that Balancales is the moustached one, “Gadgets” Schwarz is the gray-haired one, and Carl “Ironman” Lyons is the burly blond-haired one – and also Lyons is the one who usually acts as the protagonist in most Able Team novels. 

But not here; in Hostile Fire, Balancales is given the majority of the limelight, with Lyons’s part much reduced from the other Able Team novels I’ve read. As for Gadgets, he’s basically a supporting character, only contributing a few lines, though he does get to wield that unusual gun in the climax – a “handheld minigun” straight out of Predator. Technically it’s referred to as a “7.62 electric Gatling gun,” and it’s a dual-barrelled contraption complete with a power-source backpack. But curiously Rose does not much exploit the gore when it’s put to use; indeed, the novel is relatively bloodless, especially when compared to the earlier Able Team masterpiece Army Of Devils (still to this day possibly the best men’s adventure novel I’ve ever read). Another thing missing is the customary banter and rapport of the Team; in Rose’s hands, the three men almost have an antagonistic relationship, often snapping at each other. 

This could just be in this particular novel, though, because one of the themes is that Balancales goes through a sort of PTSD and starts reliving Vietnam, much to the chagrin of his comrades. Not that PTSD is ever mentioned; so far as Lyons and Gadgets go, Balancales has just “lost it,” what with his frequent declarations that Nam never ended and Charlie’s still lurking out there in the shadows and whatnot. For this reader, though, Balancales got to be pretty damn annoying, and I missed Lyons as the main protagonist. But then Balancales’s sentiments turn out to be true, as Hostile Fire ultimately concerns an army of VC setting up shop in the US, running out of Southern California and with an actual base in Oregon. In many ways the story is similar to the plot of The Hard Corps #1. 

With one difference: Hostile Fire is not an action onslaught. Ken Rose seems to be at pains to right a “standard” sort of novel, and there are only a few action setpieces. A lot of the novel has Able Team, with the help of local cop named Vong, investigating the situation and trying to figure out what’s going down. However, the final quarter-plus of the novel is comprised of a big action scene, as Able Team and a group of vets storm that VC base in Oregon. Other than that, there are just a few action scenes here and there, and none of them are of the page-filling variety. They are kind of unintentionally humorous, though, as Able Team will often break out “modified” weapons that they’ve brought along, and it gives the impression that they’re just overgrown kids trying out new toys. “Hey, let’s go check out that VC activity in California – the perfect opportunity to use my new modified M-16!” 

As a quick recap, Able Team is an “extralegal” squad working out of Stony Man. There’s not much setup here, and as mentioned no introduction nor description of the three characters. Rose doesn’t even do much to bring them to life, save for Balancales. The way it works is that Stony Man operates at the behest of the government, but separately from other agencies; there is the healthy disrespect of the CIA that is typical of a Gold Eagle publication. And, like many other Gold Eagle publications, the CIA ultimately turns out to have a hand in the shenanigans: namely, they are using a former Vietnamese general named Trang to ship heroin into California, the money being used to finance anti-communist struggles around the globe. But Trang has also brought along a ton of former VC soldiers, among them the “White Bitch,” a female commander known for torturing captives. 

When I read about this female villain in the mackbolan.com reviews, my gutter imagination was instantly piqued: I could only imagine some hotstuff Asian temptress in thigh-high boots stringing up the Able Team guys and having her way with them. But folks, not only is this a novel from 1990 but it’s also a Gold Eagle novel, so all my pulpy dreams were dashed. I mean if this setup had happened a few decades before in a Nick Carter: Killmaster novel, then sure. Here the “White Bitch,” whose name is Phom-do, is barely even described, let alone exploited. About all we get is that she wears a white uniform and has an “angular” face. There’s absolutely none of the exploitation one would expect, and per usual it’s all handled relatively “realistically,” with Phom-do just a sadist with a proclivity for torture, and nothing more. Hell, she doesn’t even get her hands on the Able Team guys. 

Action as mentioned isn’t as overwhelming as I expected it would be. More importantly though, the few action scenes have more the vibe of military fiction. Rose really rams home the “Vietnam never ended” motif, with Able Team venturing into humid Orange County environs and Balancales having flashbacks to ‘Nam. At one point they’re even attacked by VC with mortar. And yes, they are VC, complete with black pajamas and everything. The finale too has a military fiction vibe; it isn’t so much Lyons or Balancales or Gadgets gunning down the enemy in glory splendor as it is various fire teams going off to engage the VC. What I mean to say is the action lacks the personal touch you’d expect of action novels and instead concerns various “soldiers” going off into the fray – and these are literally soldiers. In one of the novel’s more interesting subplots, Able Team puts together an army of veterans who were tortured by Phom-do decades ago. 

But it all just lacks the pulpy touch I thought it would have. It’s 1990, it’s Gold Eagle, so all the pulp has been carefully erased. “Realism” is the key here, despite the fact that we have an army of Viet Cong operating on US soil, complete with a tunnel network. The only thing that has not been erased on the pulp spectrum is the racial angle: the phrase “Gook Town” is used repeatedly in the text, but it’s the local Asians who use it so that’s okay. Seriously though, the phrase recurs throughout the book, referring to the section of Orange County with a heavy Vietnamese presence; here too Rose plays out his “Nam never ended” theme, with Able Team walking around parts of “Gook Town” with street vendors hawking bowls of noodles and rock music blasting on cheap radios. That said, this must be the only men’s adventure novel that mentions Fine Young Cannibals and Milli Vanilli(!).

I always appreciate unintentional prescience in old novels – stray dialog or narrative that seems to predict our miserable modern world. Thus I was amused by this comment, by a CIA agent who is working on the heroin pipeline scheme: 

This seems particularly relevant today. (And let’s not forget about Europe!) Yep, the “Reds” sure have cut off our oil supply… 

Otherwise the writing is fine; Rose has a skill for moving the plot and doling out just enough personality for his one-off characters. Unfortunately the Able team guys come off like ciphers, especially Gadgets. Balancales gets too much narrative space, which is unfortunate because he really got on my nerves. And also the female villain could’ve been a lot more exploited, but at least she’s delivered a fitting comeuppance. At the very least Hostile Fire made me want to read Ken Rose’s other Super Able Team, 1989’s Mean Streets.

Able Team #5: Cairo Countdown

Able Team #5: Cairo Countdown, by Dick Stivers
April, 1983  Gold Eagle Books

Man, it’s been forever since I read a volume of Able Team. And I’m not even sure what the holdup’s been, as I have a bunch of them, mostly the ones that were written by early series mastermind GH Frost. But as any Gold Eagle veteran knows, if you read the copyright page you’ll see who the real author was, receiving a special acknowledgement in tiny print. While Cairo Countdown is clearly the work of G.H. Frost – same as the previous one was, even though it was credited to “C.J. Shiao” – the copyright page acknowledges Paul Hofrichter!

But folks there’s no way in hell this book was written by the guy who gave us Roadblaster. To make it all even more perplexing, back in 2011 G.H. Frost himself left a comment on my review of Army Of Devils (one of the best damn men’s adventure novels ever published – and then some!!), where he specifically mentioned this very novel:

In Cairo Countdown, I had written the closing scene as summary justice. The Muslim Brotherhood government infiltrator who had choregraphed the missile-assassinations of pilots, then the kidnapping and torture of an American serviceman, the Egyptian had kicked the American close to death -- so I had Lyons do a justice scene on him. 

When Lyons captured the Egyptian, he shot off his feet. “He'll never kick an American again.” 

More or less. I can't find my typescript of the novel. 

( Just now, I looked for my copy of the book. It's in a box somewhere. If I remember correctly, the published last page cuts off, as if the editor simply crossed out paragraphs. Look at the book, I think that's it. ) 

So the editor had decided to not renew my contract. At that time, there were many wars in the world. I wanted to go somewhere interesting, I wanted to finish my contract, take the payoff, and go – 

I wanted to finish the last books on the contract and take off for another country. So ... I hyped up with coffee, wrote hyped until I passed out, woke, wrote.

So I’d love to know how Hofrichter could’ve gotten the credit for Cairo Countdown. Either it was a publisher snafu or he did some “polishing” of Frost’s manuscript – but still, for the most part this book reads like Frost. I mean there’s a world of difference between the writing styles of GH Frost and Paul Hofrichter. Perhaps Frost’s mention of Gold Eagle wanting to fire him factors into this (even though he went on to write many more installments of the series), and Hofrichter was given credit for the book in some passive-aggressive scheme to keep Frost from getting any royalty payments – as I understand it, early in the Gold Eagle days the ghostwriters got a certain cut of this.

But as I say, this definitely is the work of Frost, or at the very least the majority of it is – there are even a few flashbacks to the previous volume, in an effort to develop some continuity. But this being Gold Eagle and all, “continuity” is mostly relegated to subplots concerning guns and stuff; last time Carl “Ironman” Lyons, the leader of Able Team, had a lot of trouble with his Beretta 93R when the 9mm bullets failed to take out his targets with the first shot. So now Stony Man – ie the government compound in which Mack Bolan, Phoenix Force, and Able Team operate out of – armorer Konzaki has developed a modified .45 that has a three-shot burst feature, same as the 93R did, but with the stopping power of a .45. Plus it’s also nearly silent. This is all shown, rather than told, in a fun scene where Lyons and Konzaki go out into the woods to test out a bunch of guns, sort of like the Gold Eagle version of a picnic.

From here though it’s straight into the action, and ultimately Cairo Countdown is an endless sequence of action scenes. Lyons’ pager goes off while he’s out testing his guns, and next we see him he’s arrived in Egypt with his Able Team comrades Gadgets Schwartz and Pol Balancales. And guys I still can’t figure it out, but Gadgets is the one with the moustache on the covers and Pol’s the one with the gray hair, right? We don’t get much description at all, nor any reminder of the series setup, but we do at least learn that Gadgets and Pol are Vietnam vets – first introduced way back in The Executioner #2 – and Lyons isn’t, thus there are a few parts where they appraise his performance in the field, saying he’s doing pretty good for a non-vet. (Lyons for his part also first appeared in the The Executioner #2, but he was a cop and had a wife and a kid at the time, and I’ve never seen them mentioned in this series, so that’s another mystery for me.)

There’s a Very Special Guest Star this time: Yakov Katzenlenbogen, leader of Phoenix Force, who acts as an intermediary between the CIA and Egyptian officials and Able Team out on the field. There’s not too much interraction between Katz and Able Team, and honestly the parts with him could be courtesy a different author, ie Paul Hofrichter, but they still read like the rest of the book for the most part. I was surprised though that not too much was really made of Katz’s presence, but seeing his name in print took me back to my childhood in the ‘80s when I was obsessed with Phoenix Force. For the most part though he just handles the dumb officials who try to prevent the guys in Able Team from getting too violent in their quest to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been blowing up US spy planes that run out of a secret base on Cairo’s airport.

But this ain’t no Robert Ludlum suspense yarn; within moments of arriving in Cairo our heroes are already on the move, getting in a protracted chase on the busy streets of the city, riding in separate taxis and following various terrorists. They’ve also got some local help, one of whom talks in outrageous slang and has more personality than the heroes themselves. Actually the Able Team guys are pretty cool – Frost capabably captures the easy-going banter the series would be known for – but they’re a bit lost amid the endless barrage of action. But it must be mentioned that the endless barrage of action isn’t nearly as ultra-gory as in the later Army Of Devils, even though Able Team again employs their Atchisson auto-shotguns; it’s just that more detail was made of the ensuing guts and gore in Army Of Devils.

Overall it’s kind of hard to review Cairo Countdown, because it’s just an endless action scene for the most part. Able Team hits various Muslim Brotherhood strongholds, running roughshod over Cairo within hours of their arrival. A fun part in the book occurs after one of these strikes; an exhausted Able Team enjoys a sort of catered lunch, with boxes of burgers, fries, and etc delivered to them on the street so they can grab a quick bite before kicking more terrorist ass! Late in the game a subplot develops that the terrorists have abducted a CIA operative, and the team is desperate to track him down and get him back before he can be tortured and killed. This entails at one point a nicely-done sequence where Able Team descends into the sewers beneath Cairo to assault an underground stronghold. But the agent is moved out of Cairo, to the remote village of El-Minya, where he’s held hostage within a heavily-fortified compound.

The novel climaxes with a big action scene, as Able Team manages to infiltrate the compound by cunning and by craft. The bit Frost mentioned in his comment occurs here; the main terrorist leader in this compound is blown up, and Lyons ties a tourniquet on the stumps of his legs to keep him from bleeding out. There’s no “He’ll never kick another American” line, and overall the vibe is more that the Team is happy the dude’s still alive so he can give them the needed info. This could be indication that someone did indeed edit Frost’s original manuscript, that person being Paul Hofrichter. But as I say, the majority of the book just reads more like Frost, so I guess it will have to remain a mystery. 

Overall though there was a bit of a bland feeling to Cairo Countdown, too much of it in the generic “terrorist of the week” vibe of many of these Gold Eagle publications. But then given that this one was published in 1983, perhaps it seemed more so “new” than generic at the time. It’s no Army Of Devils, though, which only indicates that Frost would get better and better. It’s certainly well-written, with a nice focus on the personalities of the main characters – Gadgets and Pol have a realistic banter that clearly identifies them as vets – but it’s just not as over the top as I prefer my men’s adventure to be. But then that could be because Frost’s manuscript was tinkered with, who knows.

Able Team #4: Amazon Slaughter

Able Team #4: Amazon Slaughter, by Dick Stivers
March, 1983 Gold Eagle Books

It’s been too long since I’ve returned to the work of GH Frost. His contribution to the Able Team series, #8: Army of Devils, is one of the best pieces of action pulp ever, a tour de force of madness and gore, up there with the Phoenix saga. Amazon Slaughter at times approaches that unhinged level, but not quite. It more than makes up for it with the high-quality level of Frost’s writing, which again is leagues above the genre norm.

The copyright page credits the book to “CJ Shiao,” but Frost acknowledges it as his own on his website. I think Frost, again working under an alias (“LR Payne”) also wrote the first and third volumes of the series (I don’t believe he wrote the second one, though – that was Norman Winski), but I haven’t read them. At any rate this fourth volume ushered in an unbroken set of installments Frost turned in for the series, though apparently he was removed from it; his comments on his blog and also those he left on my review for Army of Devils suggest that he didn’t quite get along with Gold Eagle.

Frost’s comments make it sound that GE was unhappy with his work, or at least the direction he was taking with the characters. This is just more indication that Gold Eagle never understood quality men’s adventure and just wanted to churn out the same old “terrorist of the month” shit…and more indication why you’d have to pay me to read the majority of the books they’ve published. Anyway, that has nothing to do with the book at hand, which is a piece of quality men’s adventure.

The Able Team trio (Carl Lyons, Gadgets Schwartz, and Pol Balancales) are sent down into the Amazon due to recent evidence of a plutonium factory somewhere in the jungle, in an uncharted region of the map claimed by Bolivia. We readers know that the factory is under the control of Wei Ho (fetchingly named “Death incarnate” on the back cover), a Chinese warlord who employs a Khmer Rogue assassin as his security chief, as well as an army of mercenaries from around the world.

Wei Ho’s army ransacks the native Indian population (the Xavante), decimating entire villages. They kidnap the healthy and force them to work at the plutonium plant, which itself is a death sentence, as every Indian they’ve forced into bondage has died from working around the plutonium. All of which is to say that there’s a lot of death and bloodshed and misery going on here, and Frost really builds it up, showing the horrors of the Xavante in gruesome and excruciating detail.

Able Team is quickly on the scene, voyaging down into the jungle where they hook up with a group of Xavante warrirors. I believe this must’ve been the introduction of the Atchisson assault shotgun to the series, as Lyons has one and must explain it to his comrades. As is customary there’s a lot of witty banter between the trio, with lots of ragging and good-natured putdowns.

Even better there’s a touch of the psychedelic, when Lyons smokes some sort of substance with the Xavante. Pretty soon he’s gone native, painting himself in the black goup the Xavante make from genipap, covering themselves in it to ward off insects and to mask themselves with the terrain. Lyon’s mind is somewhat blown, and more banter ensues as Pol and Gadgets try to determine how gone he really is.

A goodly portion of the novel in fact is given over to Able Team working with the Xavante as they journey deeper into the Amazon. There are a few firefights here and there, most notably one in which they attack a group of mercenaries while they’re hauling around prisoners. One of the escaped prisoners is a young Brazilian army lieutenant named Silveres, who after initial hostility starts to help the team.

Action scenes are rendered very well, even if none of them have the savagery of Army of Devils. Frost is really good at getting you in the heads of his characters, for example Silveres as he volunteers to swim off alone through piranha-infested waters to sneak attack a ship filled with Khmer Rogue and turncoat Brazilian soldiers.

Strangely we get Wei Ho’s backstory toward the very end of the novel, as Able Team receives intel on his history. While this chapter is enjoyable, documenting how Wei Ho turned his family’s drug and crime business into an empire, blackmailing powerful communists in China, it just seems so out of place this late in the game. Even stranger is that Wei is so quickly brushed off in the last pages of the book, not nearly given the villain’s farewell you’d expect of such an evil character.

And for that matter, the finale itself is rushed. Two of Wei’s top henchmen just disappear from the narrative, and instead Able Team and the Xavante launch a dawn raid on the mercenary camp. Again, it’s a gory scene, with lots of heads exploding and guts spilling, but still nothing on the level of Frost’s later masterpiece. And again unlike Army of Devils, Amazon Slaughter just rushes to a conclusion. There’s no wrapup or even any real resolution, just a bunch of dead Cambodians and mercenaries. It’s as if Gold Eagle lost some of the pages of Frost’s manuscript during the printing process.

But for all that it was still an enjoyable book. The rapport of the team really sets this series apart from others, with the Able Team guys coming off like the soldiers in Gustav Hasford’s Short Timers, ribbing each other with that same sort of dark and morbid sense of humor. Frost returned with the next installment, Cairo Countdown, even though it too was credited to another author (Paul Hoffrichter). I’ll be reading that one next.

Stony Man #83: Doom Prophecy

Stony Man #83: Doom Prophecy, by Douglas Wojtowicz
June, 2006 Gold Eagle Books

Able Team and Phoenix Force were canceled as individual series in the early 1990s, but lived on collectively as the Stony Man series, in which both teams would together take on the latest global or domestic threat. As of this writing there are a whopping 119 volumes of this series in print. Could you imagine reading all of them?? You'd probably put a bullet in your brain afterwards -- though, these being Gold Eagle books, by that time you'd be able to identify the bullet as say a 5.56x45mm NATO round with a 62 grain Steel Penetrator lead core full metal jacket.

Yes, friends, we are back in the world of Gold Eagle and its overwhelming love of gun-porn. Vast sections of this publisher's novels have often read like copy from a gun catalog. Gold Eagle is the last man standing in the world of men's adventure publishing, which is a shame, for in many ways their offerings are the worst of the genre. Whereas in my opinion these action series should offer escapism, Gold Eagle instead tries to make everything "realistic," with the end result being that their books are dour, bland, and boring affairs, filled with cipher-like "heroes" who, when they aren't killing people, just sit around and clean their guns.

The biggest surprise is that sometimes a Gold Eagle book offers a bit of promise, something different than the standard "terrorist of the month" gimmick. Doom Prophecy is a case in point. There are rave reviews for this novel over on mackbolan.com; the author, Douglas Wojtowicz, is a fan favorite. And to be sure he does seem to have fun with his novels, pulping them up with oddball villains and crazy threats. He's also relatively new to the Gold Eagle stable, but to date has already turned out 30-some books in various Gold Eagle series. He also has an obvious fondess for the characters and their world, so it's a good sign that there's at least one Gold Eagle writer who is willing to do something different than the norm. But to be sure, the reader must still be prepared for the Gold Eagle trademark of endless action sequences and weapons fetishizing.

The villains here are pretty great, the best part of the novel; they're much in the line of the sort of villains you would encounter in the pulpier 1970s examples of the genre. For one, there's a Vietnamese lady who, as a young girl, watched as her mother was murdered by a US soldier in 'Nam. Years later, attempting to gain vengeance, the girl was raped by the same man, now a high-ranking government official. And now, in the present, she is a self-styled "cyber prophetess" who has named herself Ka55andra, after the mythical oracle-spouting character Cassandra. She heads up a globe-spanning terrorist cell called AJAX, and is now finally bringing her plans of vengeance to fruition, while also sowing hell in general.

Even better are the various henchmen who work for AJAX. First and foremost there's Algul, a dude who not only wears a mask made of human skulls, but also a cape of human skin -- each patch of flesh adorned with a military tattoo, Algul having stitched it together from the hides of US soldiers he has killed. Oh, and he enjoys drinking blood. He also commands a legion of mud-encrusted zombies in all but name, shambling creatures who tear up out of the ground and attack en masse any who stand in their way, eating their flesh. Crazy stuff for sure. There's also a trio of assassins: one a dwarf, the other a tall and thin guy who compares himself to a boa constrictor, and finally a big biker dude whom Wojtowicz actually names "David Lee Haggar." And on top of that there's even a small army of ninjas, lead by a self-proclaimed "American Ninja" named Wilson Sere, who goes around with his gorgeous blonde Argentenian lover Terremota, an explosives expert.

I mean, all of these characters seem to have walked out of, say, Black Samurai #6: The Warlock. But for some strange reason, Wojtowicz does little to exploit the potential of the villains. All told, he only spends a handful of scenes with them, instead focusing the entirety of the tale on the bland and boring members of Phoenix Force and Able Team. I know this is a strange criticism, to blame an author for giving the focus to the stars of the book, but still. When your villains are this interesting -- and when there are so many of them -- I think it would be a bit more entertaining for the reader to actually read about them. Because as it is, the Phoenix Force and Able Team guys just put you right to sleep.

It's been about twenty-five years since I've read a Phoenix Force novel, so it was humorous to see that the same stock epithets are still employed -- Encizo is the "powerful Cuban," Calvin James is the "tall ex-Navy SEAL," Manning is the "big Canadian." Like we're reading the Iliad or something! Changes have occurred since my last encounter with the Force, though; Katz, the elderly Israeli leader of the team (who as I recall was a missing a hand, and, Army of Darkness style, would put various weapons in the empty socket), has apparently bought the farm and the team is now lead by McCarter, a former SAS soldier. A new character has been introduced in Katz's wake: TJ Hawkins, a vague nonentity who appears to be from Texas and is some sort of special forces type.

The guys from Able Team, as always, are a bit more colorful. Carl Lyons, the leader, is still prone to violent outbursts, and I know this is Lyons's "thing," but I wonder when this happened? In the Executioner novels I've read by creator Don Pendleton, Lyons is presented as a level-headed guy. But then, he also has a wife and kid in those early Pendleton books, and given that they're never mentioned in the Gold Eagle books, I'm guessing something must've happened to them, something that created the anger-prone Lyons of the Gold Eagle world. Anyway, throughout Doom Prophecy Wojtowicz keeps alive the Able Team tradition of witty banter amid the team members, showing their longstanding camaraderie, doing a great job of keeping the spirit of the characters alive.

Ka55andra initiates her mission and havoc breaks out across the globe. Able Team tracks down the aforementioned David Lee Haggar in the US and gets in some fights with bikers. Phoenix Force splits up, one half of the team going to Africa to take on Algul's zombie forces, the other half going to Hong Kong to take on Wilson Sere, Terremota, and the ninjas. And from there it's action, action, action.

That is, other than the scenes which take place in Stony Man headquarters, detailing the very 24-esque activities of the Stony Man "cyber team." It's like we're back in CTU and watching Chloe and the gang trace various threats while reporting on them to Jack Bauer in the field; my assumption is that Gold Eagle has added all of this tech warfare nonsense as a gambit to draw in the military fiction crowd. I mean, just look at that stupid damn cover Doom Prophecy is graced with. It might as well just be emblazoned with "Tom Clancy Presents."

But anyway, I do not exaggerate about the action onslaught. Every place Able Team or Phoenix Force goes, they are attacked. Over and over again. There's even a scene where Encizo and James catch a flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo, and even on the damn flight they are attacked by a team of ninjas! Wojtowicz can write a good action scene, and throughout he displays his knowledge of firearms and bladed weaponry. But after a while you want a little breather. And again, given that this is a Gold Eagle novel, the endless action scenes lack the nutzoid spark of a Joseph Rosenberger -- they are all relayed in a sort of real-world format, which I find strange in this post-9/11 world.

And now let's look at the gun-porn, a longstanding hallmark of Gold Eagle. Every time a person pulls out a gun, we get like four sentences describing it, no matter what's going on in the narrative. The characters themselves even discuss the various weapons, info-dumping blocks of detail about their rifles or knives or whatever. Hell, there are even scenes where, during combat, the heroes will taunt their opponents about their poor choices in weaponry -- in particular I'm thinking of a scene where a member of Able Team derides an opponent for using a gun "without a slide-action," or something to that effect.

Again, I realize it's stupid of me to complain about gun-porn in an action novel; it would be like buying a Harlequin Romance and complaining about all of the flowery dialog. But what has always most annoyed me about gun-porn is that it ruins any sort of tension or suspense. Just check out this scene, which occurs as a special forces soldier is attacked and overrun by Algul's zombies -- a tension-filled scene, mind you, which is suddenly ruined as Wojtowicz tells us all about the soldier's nifty gun:

Wild eyes rimmed with red focused on him and his team, and he brought up his Barrett M-486. The Barrett was an M-4 rifle that had been chambered for the new Special Forces 6.8 mm special purpose cartridge as an improvement over the smaller 5.56 mm NATO round. Grabbing the rail-mounted forward grip to stabilize it, he flipped the rifle to full-auto and fired through the gap between the door and frame of the downed aircraft, spitting a stream of SPC rounds.

Start taking notes, 'cause there's gonna be a quiz later:

Encizo backed his pair of Glocks with a 7.65 mm Walther PPK. While he was a fan of Heckler and Koch weapons, the excellent 9 mm USP wasn't as ubiquitous as the Glock, and finding spare magazines around the world would be more difficult. As well, the brand new P-2000 compact didn't share the Glock-26's record or reliability, nor the capability to use the larger USP's magazines.

And here's a third example, because everything comes in threes:

He picked up an M-3 submachine gun. In .45 ACP, the weapon was a standard with the US Army for a period of thirty-five years before being gradually phased out. However, being cheap and easy to build, it showed up in arsenals around the world.

There's stuff like this throughout the book. And again I realize, this sort of thing is not only expected but demanded by the core Gold Eagle readers. Wojtowicz proves himself a master of the craft, but it's just not a craft I'm crazy about. Actually the one thing I learned from Doom Prophecy is that I can't consider myself a "core" Gold Eagle reader. Elaborate gun and weapon detail just wears me down to the point where I start to hate life and just wish Flanders was dead. It's all just so blatant and annoying and, ultimately, pointless. I just kept wanting to shout, each time some dude would whip out a gun and we'd get endless detail about it: Who fucking cares??

But the hell of the thing is -- the core Gold Eagle readers do care. There are really people out there who want to read a few paragraphs explaining some Heckler & Koch submachine gun. And believe it or not, these people (whoever they are), will write angry letters when they see something incorrectly described about the gun. But for me this real-world focus just destroys the escapism, the lurid quotient, the fun of the genre. Rather than the fun pulp of say John Eagle Expeditor, most of these Gold Eagle books are just depressing, and ultimately forgettable.

That is, save for the ones by Wojtowicz. I have a few more of his books and they all look promising -- not to mention that they're all raved about over on mackbolan.com. As I say, he definitely knows what he's doing. He knows his core readers and he knows what they want, and he delivers. And as mentioned he has an obvious fondness for the characters. He also has a definite knack for coming up with memorable villains, as proven here with Doom Prophecy. Personally though I would've preferred more scenes from their perspective, or even more background on them. But I guess you can't blame the guy for making the stars of the book, you know, the stars of the book.

But then, I'm biased. I much prefer the original incarnations of the genre, from the '70s and '80s. And whereas I and other reviewers around the Web enjoy reading and writing about those men's adventure novels from 30 and 40 years ago, I'll bet you good money that no one will be writing about these current Gold Eagle books a few decades from now. They just aren't much fun. And I don't even blame the writers. All of the stock epithets, the gun references, the "real-world" attitude, all of that stuff I'm betting is mandated by the editors.

In a way, it's almost like Gold Eagle is committing willful suicide. Given the lack of marketing for the imprint, the minimal web presence, and the fact that the books are steadily disappearing from the shelves of bookstores and department stores (K-Mart, I've read, is just one such store that has stopped carrying Gold Eagle books), I'm guessing that parent company Worldwide Library is just letting these novels trickle out, doing little to improve or differentiate them, until the day comes when they can finally (and happily) announce that profits have dropped too much to continue publishing, and thus the adventures of "the Stony Man warriors" et al will come to a close.

Able Team #2: The Hostaged Island

Able Team #2: The Hostaged Island, by Dick Stivers
June, 1982 Gold Eagle Books

These early Gold Eagle novels are turning out to be much better than I expected. This one in particular comes off like an action-packed B movie, with an army of bikers taking over the peaceful island of Catalina, right off the California coastline. The three-man Able Team is called in to take care of the problem. Or, as team leader Carl Lyons succinctly puts it: "Kill them all."

The novel plays out very much like the '70s incarnation of men's adventure novels, with a lurid vibe and pulpish plot and villains. In other words, the imprint hasn't yet devolved into the nuke-of-the-month/Team America jingoism of later years. It does though uphold the Gold Eagle philosophy of, "Everything will be fine as long as you have a gun." It also makes cursory mention of the right wing bias that would also become so prevalent in later Gold Eagle offerings; when helicoptering to the island, Able Team is informed by their boss Hal Brognola that the civil rights of the bikers have been "suspended." IE, no need to worry about law and order or prosecution; just kill the bastards.

The writing however is quite good. The cover credits the book to Don Pendleton (who had nothing to do with it) and house name Dick Stivers, but the copyright page of the book credits authors Norman Winski and LR Payne. Winski published several novels over the years, but Payne is a mystery; the only credits to his name are the first three Able Team novels. I suspect the name was the psuedonym of a Gold Eagle editor who polished these early manuscripts to better fit the burgeoning Gold Eagle house style; what makes me suspect this is the last chapter of the novel, which has nothing to do with what came before, and seems to be written by a different author. In it Able Team basically sits around and waits to meet up with Mack Bolan. It just struck me as something an editor might add to the book to remind readers that the Able Team boys are part of a larger universe.

The takeover of Catalina is taut and well-rendered. The bikers are all well armed and, in a prefigure of Chuck Norris's Invasion USA, infiltrate the island in the dead of night and seal it off from the rest of the world. What makes the novel fun though is that the bikers act like bikers, and not like a commando force; most of them would rather tear across the streets on their choppers, get drunk, get high, and mess around with the local women. After killing the sheriff and making a call to the governor with their demands, the bikers imprison the island residents in a community center and bide their time until their demands are met.

A few islanders manage to escape and arm themselves, killing a few bikers and finding cover. But the brunt of the rescue of course goes to Able Team, who are quickly called into action, as the government wants to keep the takeover a secret. Winski does a fine job of juggling the three characters, meaning that the novel doesn't come off solely focusing on just one of them. Also, there's great rapport between the three, including a lot of enjoyable banter, even while the bullets are flying. This again lends the novel a B movie feel.

The Gold Eagle focus on guns also factors in when Able Team is equipped with their firepower for the mission. Their gun supplier lays out all of the equipment, going on and on about each piece. Literally paragraph after paragraph of firearm detail that will likely have gun-porn enthusiasts reaching for the Lubriderm. And of course following the old "rifle hanging on the wall" dictum of Chekhov, each firearm is shown in action as the novel unfolds. Winski excels in the action scenes, pouring on the graphic violence and gore.

The Hostaged Island has the one plot and follows it through to the end. Since the novel isn't long, it all works out perfectly. We know of course that Able Team will survive the mission, so Winksi plays up some truly dramatic scenes with the island residents and their constant danger. He even works in some great stuff like when the bikers keep getting nailed by this secret "commando team" (Able Team of course striking from and returning to the shadows) and so decide to take out their rage on the residents. This involves a plan to basically spray everyone in the community center with gasoline and set them on fire. Winski provides excellent revenge material as well; he makes these bikers truly evil, and all of them get their comeuppance in gory and spectacular ways.

I think this was Winski's only Able Team novel, but his contribution here was enjoyable enough that I'll look out for more of his stuff, in particular his three-volume Hitman series, which sounds like a lot of fun.

Able Team #8: Army of Devils

Able Team #8: Army of Devils, by Dick Stivers
October, 1983 Gold Eagle Books

Without a doubt, this is the most insane, brutal, sadistic, over-the-top gory book I've yet reviewed on this blog. It's great!! It goes beyond even the lunacy of Gannon or Blood Bath, which is shocking enough, but even more shocking is that Army of Devils comes from a most unexpected source: Gold Eagle Books. If more of their novels had been like this rather than generic, status quo terrorist-of-the-month stuff, then they'd be as hotly-collected as the earlier, more lurid examples of the genre. Because in reality Army of Devils is more like something Manor Books would've published a decade earlier.

"Dick Stivers" was a house name for the series; this novel was actually written by GH Frost, a man who wrote a dozen or so Able Team books, many of which are supposedly as insane as this one. When I was a kid in the mid-'80s I subscribed to Gold Eagle; every other month I'd receive a box of books. Able Team was always included, but I never read any of them. (They sure looked good lined up on my bookshelf, though!) Being such a fan of the publisher I knew all about them, though: a three-man commando team who usually responded to domestic terrorism threats, but would occasionally go abroad.

The Team is comprised of Carl Lyons, the leader and general alpha male, Pol Blancanales, and Gadgets Schwarz. It doesn't really matter though, as Lyons is the star of the book; the other two don't even show up until over halfway through, and even then mostly serve as back-up. This isn't a problem for me, as it allows Frost to concentrate on a protagonist and really build up the novel. Because quite honestly, Army of Devils is superbly written, with a level of character depth usually unseen in this genre; the action scenes are sadistic and brutal and insanely gory, but amid all of that Frost is still able to dole out exceptional dialog, narrative, and quiet moments of reflection.

But first the carnage. The novel opens with some of the most over-the-top stuff I've ever read, as Frost details the murderous rampage of a gang of punks one summer night in LA. Out of their minds on a variant of PCP which turns them into zombies, their only thought is to kill whitey. Yes, this novel preys on the fears of the conservative white male even moreso than the earlier Hijacking Manhattan.

These opening pages give the tone of a horror novel more than action, as the punks -- black and Chicano the lot of them, as Frost often reminds us -- kill with abandon, often in the most brutal of ways. And they truly do become zombies under the influence of the mysterious drug; unable to reason or talk, unable to feel pain. And the only way to kill them is to blow off their heads or sever their spinal columns! Just when you think this opening section has attained the peak of brutality, it goes even further, ending with another gang of punks killing the occupants of a broken-down car and then playing a quick game of ball with their baby...before finally tossing it out the window of their speeding car.

LA is set into a panic and Carl Lyons just happens to be on the scene, in town to provide a demonstration of an automatic shotgun to the LAPD. He's here with his girlfriend Flor, a pretty DEA agent who happens to be a sort of liason with Stony Man, the shady ensemble for which Able Team works. And who would believe that here we get an actual sex scene in a Gold Eagle novel?? Again, it's as if Frost has no idea who he is writing for, and more power to him. Beyond the shenanigans this is another well-crafted scene, with great dialog and introspection for the two characters. And Lyons himself comes off like a throwback to those earlier men's adventure protagonists, a hothead who's always about to blow a fuse.

Lyons hears all about the horror that was the previous night, and vows to find out what's up. He calls in his teammates and here the gory fun begins. The whole middle section of this novel concerns Able Team infiltrating a building filled with these drugged-up zombies, all of them armed and ready to kill. It's one hell of a gory ride, with the Team blasting apart wave after wave of zombie-punks, even hacking them up with machetes when they run out of ammo. In fact it gets to be so gory that eventually the Team finds themselves standing in ankle-deep blood!

Army of Devils comes off like Dawn of the Dead meets Assault on Precinct 13...or even like an NC-17 version of Death Wish 3 or Stallone's Cobra. If you have a fondness for those '80s action movies where middle-aged protagonists spend the entire film blowing away punks, then you owe it to yourself to check out Army of Devils. Just when you think he's topped himself, Frost rises to another peak and shocks you all over again. And again, it's not just a case of ultraviolence -- the man can truly write, even delivering some dark humor.

Every time I read one of these OTT novels I wonder how seriously we're to take the author. This is especially important when one is reading a Gold Eagle novel, a notoriously right-wing publisher. And Army of Devils does go out of its way to bash the "liberal media," the hippies of the '60s, the Black Panthers, and on and on. There's even a Geraldo Rivera-type who works for a "communist" public access show who suffers perhaps the goriest fate in the book, literally hacked to pieces by frothing, drugged-up punks -- Frosts's commentary on what the liberals deserve? There are also many instances where Lyons and his friends lambaste the liberal, tree-hugging attitudes of both the public and the media.

We learn early in the novel that the drug has been dispersed by a former Black Panther (of course, right?) who works with the CEO of a non-profit Hispanic American company. This non-profit guy is secretly a Communist agent and works to destroy the government (of course, right?). These two have amassed a veritable army of punks -- all of them black and Chicano, remember -- and juiced them with the drug, working them up into anti-white fits of rage. The idea is to foster a race war which will destroy the US. But the question is, where did they get this drug? The Team discovers there's more to the story than they first expected, and it all ends with a climatic battle with the Team in a helicopter going after a van which might be driven by CIA agents...a battle which ends in personal disaster for one of the Team.

Anyway, you can consider me impressed with the work of GH Frost. I'm definitely going to seek out more of his Able Team novels one of these days. This one comes highly recommended to all who want to see just how extreme the men's adventure genre can get.