The Devil’s Heart (Devil’s series #2)

The Devil's Heart, by William W. Johnstone

No month stated, 1983  Zebra Books

I actually loved the book. Even though the missed spelled words but what author don’t and the grammar was ok. 

 

-- From an actual Goodreads review 

Eleven years ago I read The Devil’s Kiss, the first volume in the Devil’s series by William W. Johnstone, and at the end of my review I promised that I’d move on to this second volume once I’d sufficiently recovered. Well, it didn’t take me that long, and it’s mostly because I read other Johnstone novels in the interim, but I’m finally now recovered enough to read this second volume of the series. 

And boy, I could’ve just as easily read The Devil’s Kiss again, because William Johnstone writes the exact same story! In fact, he even uses the same character names throughout, even though these characters are the children of the protagonists in the previous book! What’s more frustrating and confusing is that Johnstone bides his – and the reader’s – time for 300+ pages, not picking up the pace until around pg 228…and the novel is only 382 pages long. 

Actually, I shouldn’t say “only.” As with any other Zebra horror novel from the ‘80s, The Devil’s Heart is way too long; as I’ve speculated before, there had to have been some sort of requirement authors had to follow for this publisher. I mean it becomes painfully clear that Johnstone has an ending in mind, but has to waste nearly 300 pages until he can get there. If over a hundred pages were cut out, this would be a much better novel; I kid you not when I say that so many pages are repetitive, with characters worrying how or when something will happen, and some divine or evil force telling them to wait, and they wait, and then it’s the next day, and they wonder “when will it happen?” again, and the divine or evil force tells them to wait…I mean over and over, throughout the entire book! 

To get it out of the way posthaste, I read Johnstone’s horror novels mainly to see how perverted they are, and I’ll say up front that The Devil’s Heart, while sleazy and lurid, is nowhere in the league of The Nursery. And it’s also not as action-packed. The Devil’s Heart is seriously let down by the aforementioned stalling, which goes on, literally, for the entire book. From page one we know that Whitfield, the small town that factored in the first book of this loose “series,” The Devil’s Kiss, will be destroyed…and we’re reminded throughout the book that its destruction is imminent…and 300+ pages later we’re still waiting for it…and then it finally happens like on the very final pages. 

In the interim, we’re treated to a lot of sleaze and filth, but it’s muted when compared to The Nursery. This one is more along the lines of its predecessor, but even The Devil’s Kiss had more going on than The Devil’s Heart, mainly because this one retreads a lot of stuff from the previous book. It’s really as much a rewrite as it is a sequel. That said, I was happy to see that Johnstone slightly whittled back on the “Satanists stink because they don’t bathe, but forget about that while I tell you how hot their women are” schtick. Then again, we are told that they “reek” at points, so it’s still there…just not as OTT as it was in the previous book. 

So what’s it about? Well, it’s a little over twenty years after The Devil’s Kiss, which as we’ll recall took place in the late 1950s. Don’t worry if you didn’t read that book, though, as Johnstone essentially refers to it throughout the entirety of this book and tells us what happened. And the characters from that book are back – even hero Sam Balon, who died in the denouement of the previous book, is back in this one, as a deus ex machina force who shows up to voice vague warnings, suggestions, and other such stuff, appearing as a “ghostly mist” and basically telling all of his old pals they’re going to die in nine days. 

This includes Jane Ann, the young woman Sam fell in love with in the previous book, who now is in her 40s, married to a doctor named Tony King (a Satanist, like everyone else in town), and mother to a 24 year old named Sam, who is the hero of this book, and also of course the son of Sam Balon – so, yes, “Sam” is the star of this book, but it’s not the same Sam as the previous book. 

Warming to his theme, Johnstone has another progeny of Sam Balon, Nydia…who is named after her mother, the Nydia of the previous book…who also appears in this book, but as “Roma!” So the Nydia of this book is not the same Nydia as the previous one…but the old Nydia is here, but has a different name. Not sure why Johnstone didn’t just name the new Nydia “Roma,” but whatever. I’d say he was going for some sort of thematic content, but if so he didn’t execute it very well. 

For reasons of laziness, the “Sam” I refer to in this review is the new Sam, who presumably will be the hero of the next two books in the series (The Devil’s Touch and The Devil’s Cat). He’s basically the same as the previous version, with the exception that this one, obviously, is too young to have fought in Korea. But he’s a former Ranger and saw a lot of action around the globe; unlike his dad, he’s not a minister, but he’s plumb curious about Christianity. 

Then there’s Nydia, a raven-haired beauty like her mom…who, we’ll recall, is an ancient witch who has been granted immortal beauty by the devil and who spent the entire previous book trying (and succeeding) to bed Sam Balon. Well for the past 20 some years she’s hooked up with another immortal black magician, Falcon (who replaces the previous book’s character Black – but don’t worry, there’s another Black in this one), and they have a big estate up in the wilds of French Canada. Unlike her mom, this Nydia is not only a sort of good two-shoes, but a virgin to boot. 

Sam and Nydia meet each other in the first pages; Sam is visiting French Canada with his army pal, Black…yep, same name as the character in the previous book, but this Black is Nydia’s brother, and also the son of Sam Balon and Roma (ie the old Nydia). These characters all basically repeat the scenarios the previous versions of the characters experienced in The Devil’s Kiss. And meanwhile the survivors from the previous book, still living in Whitfield, also encounter the same tribulations as in the previous book, to a lesser extent – for the most part, the Whitfield characters only appear infrequently, and, you guessed it, their appearances are relegated to, “How much longer until the town is wiped out and we die?” 

The Satanists here are typical of those in Johnstone’s other novels; only in the Whitfield scenes do we see a few of the cultists, and they lack the sodomitic fervor of the Satanic reprobates in The Nursery. But despite which the cult members are worse than Satan himself – for, whether unintentionally or not, Johnstone gives us a Lucifer who is prone to yell in frustration, “Can’t I make a joke?” before huffing and puffing about the Almighty. 

Curiously, Satan and God are supporting characters in The Devil’s Heart, and there are several scenes where they will argue with each other. But the thing is, both figures are reduced in their appearances; Satan, as mentioned, comes off like a pompous blowhard, and God comes off as vague and absent-minded. It’s very bizarre, because Johnstone’s depictions of the figures do not correllate with the figures as they appear to their followers – the vague-minded God demands unwilling obedience from his flock, and Satan demands torture and vile acts from his (though, despite us often being reminded that it’s “acceptable to Satan,” the devil isn’t very crazy about homosexuality). 

The God-Satan arguments are just another way for Johstone to pad the pages. Satan insists that God made a promise back in the first volume that Whitfield could become Satan’s one day, but here God tells the devil that the place will be wiped out in nine days. “My team against yours,” Satan challenges, which should be all the indication you need that this isn’t Milton. And yet it seems evident given the goofiness of these exchanges that William Johnstone is not taking the book or himself seriously – he pulled the same trick in Wolfsbane. 

If you look at The Devil’s Heart as an intentional comedy, it’s a great success. For one, despite being a ghost, Sam Balon is able to interract with people and even write them letters; there’s a hilarious bit where he sends his son a handrwitten note from beyond, in which Sam Balon states that “it’s difficult for me to write,” and then goes on to write a four-page letter! 

This extends to the prose style, which trades off between actual quality writing and clunkers like, “Her ears had been listening” and “The feeling of foreboding suddenly became much more intense.” Or even, “Utilizing a hand-held handy-talky.” What’s weird is that there are flashes of actual introspection amid the banality, but Johnstone never sees it all the way through, either due to lack of awareness or lack of ability. Or, perhaps, lack of care – it’s debatable how much he cared for the horror genre. 

And you know how in horror novels where people take forever to realize they’re in a horror novel? Johnstone takes that conceit and runs with it for the entire friggin’ book…folks, from the get-go Sam and Nydia are having encounters with the beyond, from Sam receiving ghostly visits and messages from his father (and even the archangel Michael), and Nydia coming to grips with both her mental powers and the fact that her mom is an ancient witch…and despite this, the two continue wondering “How did that happen??” throughout the damn book!! Or worse yet, each of them will get divine flashes of knowledge – which is to say deus ex machina exposition – and then they’ll be like, “I won’t even ask how I knew that.” 

Really, it’s laughable given how stupid it is. And given the sophomoric nature of God and the devil, one wonders what these two are even fighting for! To his credit, Johnstone has the Satanic figureheads Roma and Falcon asking these very same things…but any profundities are glossed over quickly as soon thereafter we’ll have Falcon ramming his “inhumanly large” dick into some unwilling female, or Roma will be conspiring to bed Sam so she can sire a demon child through him, even though Roma knows the birthing of the demon will kill her. Hey, maybe this is where Danzig got the idea for the Samhain song “The Birthing!” 

Another Johnstone schtick is to have characters act polite and normal to each other, while secretly hating each other or knowing they are divinely-opposed enemies…yet pretending that nothing amiss is going on. This happens a lot in The Devil’s Heart, particularly with Sam being cordial with Roma while thinking “evil bitch!” to himself and the like. And Roma being nice and friendly while wondering, “I wonder if he has his father’s cock?” (Of course she eventually discovers that he does!) This is all well and good, but Johnstone does it for like the entire novel – people pretending everything’s normal to one another and questioning how and why all these strange things are happening, even though they know they’re in the middle of a war between God and the devil and are on opposite sides. 

Oh, and not content with Roma and Falcon being immortal black magicians, they’re also vampires! This isn’t even followed through on, other than either of them randomly displaying their fangs and drinking some blood. This also raises the question of how Roma could give birth to Black and Nydia – and, indeed, why Nydia is of a different age than Sam if she was also conceived by Sam Balon – but Johnstone as ever doesn’t concern himself with the partticulars. 

There are periodic sequences that recall the wildness of The Nursery, which by the way is probably my favorite horror novel, if only due to how wild and depraved it is. Especially a bit where Sam and Nydia with her “full breasts” get it on, in full-on sleaze detail, Sam taking his half-sister’s virginity…but then after they’re constantly plagued with doubt, that they’ve sinned in some way…leading to a crazy bit where Satan intervenes as a test and makes ‘em super horny for each other, complete with Nydia fondling herself as she pleads for Sam to take her, and Sam screaming, “Fight it!” 

But then there is grimness as well, and out of the blue stuff at that – like when Falcon rapes Nydia (off-page), after which Sam makes love to her but has to be gentle because she “hurts.” This is understandable, given that we’re often informed of how inhumanly large Falcon’s dick is. There’s also a lot of grimness in the finale, in which Jane Ann endures the fate she’s been awaiting the entire novel – frequent, constant scenes of the ghostly Sam Balon telling her that her end will be violent – and she’s raped by all and sundry in the town, multiple times, and then crucified. Again, absolutely no reason is given for why Jane Ann has to so suffer for her own (and Sam Balon’s) salvation, given how goofy and unserious God is. Imagine a soldier going off to die in a war that Kamala Harris started, and one might understand the pointlessness of the sacrifice.  

We get that recurring bit of “God’s Warrior” kicking ass on full-auto, but it’s muted compared to The Devil’s Kiss; though Sam uses his dad’s gun, a Tommy subgun, which is “mysteriously” left for him in his room. Cue another of those “How did that get there?” conversations between the constantly-befuddled Sam and Nydia. 

Speaking of our heroes, the novel ends with Sam acting as their minister, just as his father married himself to Jane Ann (again, the book basically retreads its predescessor throughout), and also Nydia is pregnant – but the question is whether it will be Sam’s child or a demon child from Falcon. After stalling for the entire novel, Johnstone brings in a ticking clock finale where Sam’s seed must beat Falcon’s seed, before it’s too late. 

Humorously, Johnstone has stalled for so long that he rushes through the stuff he’s been promising for the entire friggin’ book; he so runs out of time that the old folks from The Devil’s Kiss, the ones who stayed in Whitfield and are told in the opening of this book that they’ll die in nine days…well, their entire fate is summarily rushed through, and Jane Ann’s happens off-page, though we see her in the afterlife with Sam. A scene which, despite it all, actually succeeded in bringing a tear to my eye, as did the off-hand comment that God, after Jane Ann has suffered and still demands to forgive her torturers, knows that “He had chosen well.”

Johnstone ends on a cliffhanger, with a normal baby born to Sam and Nydia, but meanwhile an eleven year-old girl they’ve saved from Satanic sodomy (Janet) is an undercover demon or somesuch, and who knows what might happen next. The story continues in The Devil’s Touch, which I’ll read a lot sooner than it took me to read this one. 

Overall, The Devil’s Heart moved fairly well for its near 400 pages, despite its constant stalling…like a Pavlov’s Dog, I kept reading for another dose of sleaze and perversion, and while the book never reached the heights (or depths) of The Nursery, or even The Devil’s Kiss, it kept me entertained, and it made me want to read the following installment.

Doomsday Warrior #19: America’s Final Defense

Doomsday Warrior #19: America’s Final Defense, by Ryder Stacy

July, 1991  Zebra Books

Well friends, this is a bittersweet moment – it’s the final volume of Doomsday Warrior! I can’t believe it’s finally come to the end; this series has been part of my life for 14 years, now, and it’s hard to believe I’ve finally read the entire thing. 

Of course, it only took Ryder Syvertsen seven years to write the series, which is half the time it took me to read it, but honesty – as I’ve documented here again and again in the reviews – Syvertsen lost interest in Doomsday Warrior long before it ended. I’m happy to say that he drummed up his enthusiasm for America’s Final Defense; none of the “I’m sick of this” vibe is evident in this last book, and for once Syvertsen doesn’t rip off most recent volumes…instead, he gives a sort of microcosm of the series entire, serving up all the staples of previous installments in this final volume. 

Before writing this review, I went back and read my pedantic, overly-comprehensive reviews of the previous books in the series. And abruptly I remembered why I’d made them so comprehensive in the first place: because I knew the day would come when I got to this last volume of Doomsday Warrior, and I’d no doubt want to refresh my memory on the series before I wrote my review. The prophecy has been fulfilled! 

Seriously though, Ryder Syvertsen clearly intended this to be the finale, as he was gearing up for it in the final pages of the previous volume. Syvertsen has always played fast and loose with the chronology of the series; I see in my reviews that “2089 AD” was frequently mentioned as the date in the earliest books, and then later we were told that “2096 AD” was the date. We’re told in this final volume that the year is now “2099 AD,” and Ted “Doomsday Warrior” Rockson and his comrades often reflect on things that happened “ten years ago.” 

What’s curious is that Syvertsen frequently refers to those earliest books, but jettisons most all references to recent things – for example, in the previous volume we were told that Detroit Green was the official representative to the USSR, and Schertantsky had returned to live in the USSR. Also, Archer had retired to live in the countryside. All of that stuff is never mentioned once in America’s Final Defense; the “series reset” that ran through the series is here, too; when the novel starts, the entire Rock team is operating out of Century City, same as they were way back in the the first volume. No mention is made of Detroit having been a rep, or Archer having been retired. In other words, nothing has changed – even though everything changed in the most recent volumes. 

Well, one thing has stayed the same – Syvertsen, around the ninth volume, decided he was sick of the “USSR invading the USA” storyline of the earliest books and decided to focus on other things. Reading my reviews of the earliest volumes, I was surprised to see how many subplots were dropped as the series progressed, like for example the political stuff between Zhabnov, the depraved ruler of the conquered US, and Killov, the KGB personification of evil. All that stuff was brushed aside, as were the frequent cutovers to Russia where we could read about supreme ruler Vassily and his Ethiopian manservant/best friend. 

Another thing, which I copiously noted in my reviews, was the removal of all the goofy, purple-prosed (but exceedingly explicit) sexual material. The earliest Doomsday Warrior novels were ultra-detailed on both the sex and the violence fronts, but gradually both of these factors withered away…for reasons I’d love to know. I wonder if Syvertsen realized that kids were reading his series and purposely decided to make the books less explicit; or maybe he himself had a kid and didn’t want junior to start reading them and think his dad was a psychotic pervert. Or maybe the sex and violence had been forced on Syvertsen by the publisher and later on they had an editorial change…who knows. 

Whatever the reason, the removal of the dirty stuff is one of the things that remains consistent with this final volume; in other words, Syvertsen did not pay true hommage to his own series in that regard, as he did with practically every other aspect – seriously, America’s Final Defense is essentially every volume of Doomsday Warrior rolled into one, save for the lack of XXX sex, gory violence, and appearances by any Russian villains other than Killov. 

It also features a big return of the psychedelic aspect of the series; indeed, this is the most psychedelic volume since #3: The Last American, which I believe was my favorite volume of the series. As with that early volume, there are parts of America’s Final Defense that are like a blacklight poster in literary form – one can only imagine the incredible illustrations gifted modern-day artist Alexis Ziritt could do with this material. 

Another thing I noticed in my pendantic reviews is my frequent declaration that Doomsday Warrior was essentially an R-rated Saturday morning cartoon. Again, this is entirely true for America’s Final Defense, which brushes reality to the side with the same eagerness that previous volumes did. I mean folks in this one Rockson and team go up to space, again, and end up fighting ancient alien gods that have lurched out of Erich von Daniken, during the course of which Ted Rockson is imbued with ancient wisdom that makes him “a million times smarter than before.” 

As mentioned, Syvertsen only picks up a few things from the finale of the previous book – despite which we learn, fairly late in the game, that all this is occurring one year after the events of American Dream Machine. Otherwise the series reset is in full force, and after an incongruous prologue, in which the setting for the series is established for us – as if we haven’t been reading the previous 18 damn books – we have an action opening in which Rockson and his forces try to finally take out Killov in a running battle.  Another interesting thing is that Syvertsen describes all of the main characters, for the first time in who knows how long; topical details on what Rockson looks like, and etc.  Again, quite strange, given that this is the 19th volume! 

A lot of important series stuff is mentioned in passing – like how America has worked out an agreement with Vassilly in the USSR which sees both countries destroying all of their nuclear warhead stashes(!). In other words, the entire impetus of the series is over and done with, and Syvertsen didn’t even cover any of it in the narrative, which indicates how little invested he was in Doomsday Warrior at this point. Indeed, one gets the impression that he was more into his concurrent series Mystic Rebel (which I collected years ago but held off on reading until I finished this series), what with the focus on New Agey concepts. Oh and speaking of which, there are all these random asides in America’s Last Defense, like how shunning fat in your diet could have health implications, and also a big part of the finale involves Rockson’s understanding that both science and mysticism should be embraced – very, very New Age stuff, and I’m assuming the Mystic Rebel series is rife with that sort of thing. 

Rockson is nearly killed in this opening, and Killov wasn’t there anyway (it was an imposter!), and Rockson is flown back to Century City’s hospital…where Syvertsen introduces an entirely new character to the series, for some reason: Charity Birdell, a “buxom beautiful nurse” in Century City who hero-worships Rockson and sees this as her opportunity to screw him. We get a refreshing return of that ‘60s vibe, gone for so many volumes, when Charity has Rockson smoke a “chi-stick” as part of his healing process. Indeed, Rockson is instructed to take “two tokes twice a day!” 

But brace yourself: the Charity-Rockson conjugation happens off-page, despite Syvertsen dropping kinky details before it occurs, like for example “[Charity] nearly came in her panties” when Rockson smiles at her, and whatnot. (Also we get the goofy tidbit that Charity has tattoos of “all forty-six presidents” on her body, with one of them hidden, and of course Rockson finds it…!) Actually, Syvertsen was doing this in the most recent volumes, too, so it appears that he was fine with writing ribald dialog and such, but when it came to the actual tomfoolery he decided to cut to black…a decided change from the early books, which left nothing unexplored. 

This is especially strange as, again just like in the most recent books, Rockson gets laid a lot in America’s Final Defense. Shortly after being with Charity, Rockson hooks up with his “girlfriend” Rona, the statuesque mutant redhead babe who was the main female character in this series once upon a time, before being shunted off into the narrative woodwork. I think the last volume she actually featured in was #6: American Rebellion, where she was worshiped as a post-nuke Eva Braun, a sequence that is actually mentioned here in America’s Final Defense; again, Syvertsen (and his characters) frequently reminisce about previous volumes, all the sign you could need that the author intended this to be the final story of the saga. 

But ever since then, Rona has been shunted aside, only given a line or two of dialog and having off-page sex with Rockson…and the same is true, here. Rona has more off-page lovin’ with Rockson, then the two are dancing to Judas Priest in her room (we’re told a Judas Priest CD was “recently unearthed” and is now all the rage in Century City), but Dr. Schecter comes along to take Rockson away, and that’s all we see of Rona. 

As for Rockson’s other “girlfriend,” Kim, she doesn’t appear at all in America’s Final Defense. This is especially galling, as my fellow sleazebags will recall the awesome premise upon which previous volume American Dream Machine ended: Kim and Rona had agreed to “settle their petty jealous differences” and, just as the novel friggin’ ended, they went together to Rockson’s room to double-team him(!). Well, fellow sleazebags, this little incident is not mentioned at all in America’s Final Defense, and we are told that Kim is off in some other city, handling business for her father, the newly-elected president of the (Re)United States (and he doesn’t appear in this volume, either). 

I’ve long suspected that Syvertsen had no interest in Kim – perhaps she was a creation of Jan Stacy, Syvertsen’s writing partner on the first four volumes – and her lack of appearance in this book would indicate that. Looking back on my reviews, I see that, even in Kim’s infrequent appearances, she’s barely had any dialog and has not contributed much to the overall storyline. But at least she’s mentioned this time around. 

That’s it for Rockson’s love life – at least in Century City. As America’s Final Defense continues, he has sex with many other women, from an Amazonian queen (a recurring series staple character) to a French space-babe. This is all standard for the series; I only mention it so as to confirm that there is no resolution whatsoever to the Rockson-Rona-Kim love triangle, which was so important to the storyline many volumes ago. Again, Syvertsen has moved on and lost interest, so reading this 19-volume series in one go would no doubt make for a bumpy ride. 

Not to mention a repetitive one; it’s been clear for a long time that Syvertsen is totally aware that his books all follow a template, and by god he’s sticking to that template, and he does so here again in this final volume. So we have the inciting incident: Schecter informs Rockson that a massive asteroid was just discovered, and it’s headed right for Earth and will destroy Earth in three weeks…headed right into Earth’s orbit due to Earth’s orbit being affected by the nuke blasts a century before. 

There follows that annoying mainstay of Doomsday Warrior: the interminable “democracy in action” bit as the Century City council argues for and against Rockson and team going out to save the day. It’s all just so time-wasting, but Syvertsen goes on and on with it regardless, leading to the inevitable conclusion in which the vote is “No” (due to political infighting reasons), but Rockson goes off anyway. From there to the other staple: surviving the mutated flaura and fauna of this post-nuke world. 

It’s just as juvenile as previous volumes: there’s an unused spaceship not too far from Century City, so Rockson and his usual team plus a few redshirts are to go there, fly it into space, and then blast the asteroid so that its path is changed. So like I’ve said in every previous review, total cartoon type of stuff. And meanwhile Killov, in the Inca ruins where he’s worshipped as a god, comes across ancient documentation of this very asteroid, which once upon a time visited earth and imparted some of its alien knowledge here – there was a high-tech city on the asteroid – and he plans to go into space himself and get this ancient alien technology. All so he can kill Rockson, of course. 

The only loose ends Syvertsen is bothered with tying up concern the Glowers, those superbeings who have infrequently appeared in the series, most notably in the third volume. Rockson eventually learns that the “main” Glower, Turquoise Spectrum, has died, and after a very psychedelic “astral commune” bit, Rockson teams up with a new Glower pal, not to mention an “interdimensional being” named Pruzac Ephedrine, a “full-figured” and beautiful half human/half Glower hybrid. She features in a lot of very out-there, psychedelic stuff in the novel, particularly the finale. 

Rockson and team suffer one setback after another, with Syvertsen clearly just winging it as he goes along – I mean, the old NASA spaceship is surrounded by Amazons, who insist on the Rock team banging five women each in one night, but Rockson himself is chosen by the beautiful, green-haired Queen – cue more off-page sex. (“The green-head was hellfire in bed,” and etc.) But the spaceship is in poor state and can’t fly; no problem, because the Glowers whip up a new spaceship for Rockson, and with it they head into space! 

Syvertsen here really ties back to #14: American Death Orbit, with Rockson again hooking up with the “space Frenchies” he met in that earlier volume. And once again we get a lot of mention of those “space Nazis,” without actually seeing any of them. Rockson here gets laid again, courtesy a French space girl “barely out of her teens;” this is Rockson’s last conjugation in the entire series, and again Syvertsen leaves the sleaze vague: “[they] made passionate, gravity-free love” being the extent of it. 

The asteroid is called Karrak by Schecter, and Rockson lands on it in the finale, propelled by visions he’s been given by Turqoise Spectrum, who appears Obi-Wan Kenobi-style to Rockson when Rockson needs him. But Killov is here, too, leading to a bizarre bit where both Rockson and Killov deal with ancient alien technology, one of them to save Earth, the other to destroy it. In the process Killov transforms himself into a nine foot tall, three-eyed ancient alien warrior called Mu-Temm, and he also has an ancient alien device that allows him to “think away” any weapons that are used against him. 

There follows an endless battle between Rockson and “Mu-Temm” that just goes on and on, like the Rockson-Chrome battle back in volume #9. But Rockson gets the shit beaten out of him by this transformed Killov, to the point that Rockson actually weeps in frustration. It’s all very much in a Biblical motif, with Rockson the slingshot-baring David getting the better of Killov’s Goliath.  But it is clear again that Ryder Syvertsen was a fan of Total Recall; previous volumes indicated that he was inspired by the Schwarzenegger film, but this one really brings it home.  From visions involving a pyramid on an alien planet to even the image of Killov’s eyes bulging from their sockets due to the pressure of space, it is clear that Syvertsen was influenced by that movie. 

Then we get the most psychedelic sequence yet in the series, with Rockson going into an ancient pyramid, again following Glower visions, and being imparted with all that knowledge – his memory now even “going back billions of years.” When he comes out of it, he starts talking in mystical phrases that are so profound that Chen insists on recording them. It’s all kind of cool but just totally unlike what one might have expected this series to conclude on. SPOILER ALERT, but the finale of Doomsday Warrior sees Rockson, recovering from his sudden knowledge and intelligence increase, telling the others to leave the dead Killov on the asteroid (Rockson having strangled Killov to death)…and that’s it. We are not told of the voyage home; the story – and series – ends right there, with Rockson declaring that the asteroid is a dead place for dead things. 

Actually, it sort of ends there. We are treated to an epilogue in which Syvertsen strives for a sort of quasi-metaphysical vibe, but it instead comes off as vacuous. It’s a thousand years in the future and a nameless woman attempts to become one with an apple tree, then there’s some gibberish about “the man from the sea,” and the gist seems to be that the two characters are reborn, immortal enemies. It has nothing to do with anything that came in the series before, but then it’s possible I just missed the profundities Syvertsen was trying to bestow. 

And that, folks, is that – the 19-volume saga of Doomsday Warrior comes to a close. What a weird trip it was, too. To be honest, I’d forgotten most of the earlier volumes, so I’m glad my reviews were so pedantic. I can’t say I’ll ever read these books again, but you never know. In the end, I will think of this series in a positive light; it’s just too goofy – and the earliest volumes so outrageously violent and explicit – that you can’t help but like it. Yet at the same time, Ryder Syvertsen’s disinterest in the series was very pronounced in the later books, and one gets the feeling he should’ve ended it many volumes ago.  But clearly he realized that more effort was needed for this final volume; I particularly appreciated how he gave each member of the Rock Team a moment to shine. 

Next I need to get back to the C.A.D.S. series, another post-nuke pulp Syvertsen was writing at the same time. And also I’ll now get to his Mystic Rebel books, which judging from these final volumes of Doomsday Warrior, with their focus on New Age concepts, was probably more the sort of thing Syvertsen wanted to be writing. So maybe he was a little more invested in that series than he was in Doomsday Warrior.

Depth Force #9: Death Cruise

Depth Force #9: Death Cruise, by Irving A. Greenfield

September, 1988  Zebra Books

How have I gone four years without reading an installment of Depth Force? The most shocking thing is I actually remembered most of what happened in the previous volume before starting Death Cruise; as we know, Irving Greenfield starts every volume en media res, picking up immediately after the previous volume, with zero in the way of background detail to catch up readers who might’ve forgotten what happened…or who might not’ve picked up the previous volume at all. 

So I wasn’t too out of sorts with the big action-rescue operation that opens this ninth installment; bearded hero Admiral Jack Boxer is on a new experimental sub and dropping off some commandos to take out a nuclear facility that’s guarded by Arabic and Russian soldiers, but as usual Greenfield writes the action scenes in outline format, with nothing in the way of the hard-hitting action one might expect from the genre. In fact, most of it is, as usual, relayed from the perspective of Boxer as he gets updates on the commlink on the bridge. But the novel opens on the same apocalyptic image that the previous one ended on, with the mushroom cloud of the destroyed facility off in the distance. 

The “rescue” portion goes on twice as long, and takes up a lot of the novel. As ever the Russians are there, under the command of Borodine, Boxer’s Russian enemy-slash-best friend. Borodine’s ship is destroyed, so Boxer follows the maritme code and rescues the Russians. There’s a lot of stuff about these guys toasting each other and etc. And meanwhile Borodine is in trouble due to hypothermia and frostbite. Then Boxer’s ship gets messed up and they’re stranded in frozen waters, sure to die. They’re rescued by an American vessel that transports cargo and is commanded by a guy named Captain Axelord, who is a “coward” and also an old enemy of Boxer’s…a real enemy, I should say, not an “enemy” like Borodine. 

Axelrod refuses to allow the Russians on his ship given that they are enemies, not even backing down when Boxer enforces his authority as an admiral and thus the true commander of Axelrod’s ship. So Boxer has to put a gun to the guy’s head, which ultimately will take us into the soap opera stuff we expect from Depth Force. Axelrod is the son-in-law of a senator who also has it in for Boxer, leading to a court martial charge. Humorously the back cover copy is as ever incorrect – I’ve long assumed the people at Zebra didn’t even read Greenfield’s manuscripts – and implies that Boxer is sent on a mission due to being court martialed. 

Rather, the soap opera stuff is central to Killer Cruise. And that’s another thing. There’s no “killer cruise” in the book! So again I think Zebra just came up with titles and back cover copy and if Irving Greenfield’s actual manuscript matched it, so much the better, but no big deal if it didn’t. So there’s a lot of stuff about Boxer getting ready for a rigged trial in a kangaroo court, orchestrated by political enemies on made-up charges for a jury that’s predisposed to find him guilty – which was real relevant and topical to read about in 2024, let me tell you – but there’s also stuff about Boxer adopting this 17 year-old kid who, we get confirmation this time, was indeed the son of one of Boxer’s men who was killed in a previous volume, and this time the adoption is made official. This was always a mystery to me because I was missing the earlier volume in which this subplot was set up. 

Oh, and there’s a fair bit about Boxer and his latest flame, an apparently hotstuff lawyer named Francine who is representing Boxer in the adoption. Francine was in previous volume so has been around for a bit, and she lives in DC with Boxer’s former commanding officer Stark, who is recuperating from a heart attack or something. Boxer and Francine get it on a few times in the book, Greenfield as ever delivering his patented explicit sex scenes (“[Boxer’s] cum exploded out of him,” etc – and yes, Greenfield spells it that way). But the veteran men’s adventure reader – or hell even the veteran Depth Force reader – will know this is not headed for a happy ending, if you’ll excuse the lame pun. Because friends, Boxer is in love with Francine, and even asks her to marry him. Hmm…what do you think might happen? I seem to recall Boxer proposed to some other chick earlier in the series, one named Trish, and she got shot in the head and then briefly turned into a vegetable, before dying off-page, and rarely mentioned again. 

Now that I think of it, the titular “death cruise” might refer to Francine’s grim fate…or I could just be reaching. Basically, Francine is abducted by a pair of Italians and eventually smuggled onto a ship in the Mediterranean (or something, I didn’t catch the geography), where she’s kept in a room beneath the deck and gang-raped and sodomized by a pair of swarthy brutes…like for days and days. So much so that, when Boxer finally finds her, Francine too has become a vegetable, raped and defiled so much that she has lost her mind. She’s sent off to a clinic at book’s end and Boxer spends about half a second hoping she’ll be okay, but is more concerned with the novel’s “main” storyline, ie the storyline promised on the back cover…which per series tradition doesn’t even come up in the book until the final quarter. 

But before we get to that, Greenfield spends most of the narrative in a political subplot, with characters who will likely feature in future volumes. For one, there’s Lori-Ann Collins, the sexy executive assistant to the head of the CIA, but secretly a deep-cover KGB agent; Greenfield clearly lays the groundwork for Boxer and Lori-Ann to “come together” in a future volume. Her subplot here sees her ensnaring various bigwig officers in US intelligence while fending off the advances of her sadistic control agent. Lori-Ann’s material was also unexpectedly topical in that it had her outing one high-ranking intelligence guy for being gay, the knowledge of which could ruin his career…! 

There’s also stuff with some rich Texans Boxer hobknobs with as part of his planning to thwart the court marial attemps, including visits with President Spooner. All this is treated with Greenfield’s usual disdain for creating drama or suspense; the president for example just appears without any setup. Greenfield does try to cater to the genre demand for action, with Boxer getting in random fistfights, some of them comically egregious…like when he’s called a “commie” for ordering vodka in a redneck bar and beats up his accusers. Then later he gets in a scrape while defending his adopted son, Chuck, from a group of racists who attack Chuck and his black friend. 

Even the finale has the feel of a soap opera as Boxer “quits” the Navy so as to go after the abducted Francine, working with a former enemy named Bruno Morelli to track her down; another old enemy, Julio Sanchez, is behind her capture (not to mention that he’s also Francine’s former boyfriend, in a confusingly unelaborated subplot). As mentioned Francine’s rescued, but in a vegetable state, and novel’s end sees Boxer commanding another sub while racing out to find out what happened to his normal sub, which has disappeared on the assignment Boxer turned down prior to quitting the Navy. 

The climax is a retread of the previous volume, with Boxer depositing a squad of SEALs somewhere and our hero standing around while newly-introduced characters handle the action. Greenfield’s action scenes are so half-assed, there’s one part where a SEAL blows away some enemy soldiers in revenge for killing a comrade, and the guy screams “Die, motherfuckers, die.” Greenfield doesn’t even give the line of dialog an exclamation point! I mean even his cipher-like characters are bored with it all. 

As usual we end here on the final scene, with the next volume inevitably picking up from this scene and then spending the rest of the narrative following up the various subplots Greenfield has introduced in Death Cruise. I’m missing that volume, as well as the volume after it, but you know what? I really don’t care. At this point I’m still just reading Depth Force to finish off the volumes I do have.

Doomsday Warrior #18: American Dream Machine

Doomsday Warrior #18: American Dream Machine, by Ryder Stacy

July, 1990  Zebra Books

What can I say about this penultimate volume of Doomsday Warrior? That it’s incredibly stupid? That it’s the worst volume of the series yet? That it’s a sort-of rip off of Total Recall with a little Dune thrown in? That Ryder Syvertsen has clearly stuck a fork in the series and has entirely lost all interest in it? No matter what I say, I won’t be able to properly convey how ultimately terrible American Dream Machine really is. 

Well, one positive thing I can say is that it doesn’t rip off the previous volume, which itself was a ripoff of the volume before that. For this one, Syvertsen goes way back to the tenth volume to rip himself off; for, just as that tenth volume was an “imaginary story” that had no bearing on the overarching storyline, so too is American Dream Machine an “imaginary story” that, for the most part, has nothing whatsoever to do with Doomsday Warrior. This volume also has the first real appearance of Kim Langford in the series since…well, since that imaginary story in #10: American Nightmare, I think, with the additional similarity that the “Kim” who shows up in American Dream Machine is also an imaginary figure, same as she was in that earlier “imaginary story.” 

Turns out I was correct when I guessed that there’d be no pickup from the closing events of the previous volume, which as we’ll recall ended with Rockson and his team still not having reached a neighboring city, where they hoped to gather resources needed to rebuild a ravaged Century City. There was also some stuff about a bunch of new recruits Rockson had to train. Absolutely none of that is even mentioned here. When we meet Rockson, he’s flying a commandeered “Sov” fighter jet, soaring west to meet up with pal Archer, whom Rockson hasn’t seen “in three years.” 

Yes, friends, three years have passed since the previous volume; it’s now “around 2096,” we’re told (Syvertsen has also thrown in the towel on pinning down when exactly the books take place), and boy it turns out a whole bunch of stuff has happened since last time. For one, the US and the USSR has entered a truce, with all occupying Soviet forces having withdrawn from the United States(!), though we’re informed that there are still guerrilla bands of Russian fighters out there who haven’t gotten the message. Chief among them would be Killov, who we are told without question is still alive (though he doesn’t appear this time), and also Zhabnov, onetime ruler of Moscow who hasn’t been seen for several volumes; both men have a mad-on hatred for Rockson and are determined to kill him. 

Not only that, but we’re told that President Langford is now the official, uh, President of the reformed US, but he’s so old and frail he’s in a wheelchair now…and gee, the reader must only assume it’s due to fallout from the brainwashing torture he endured back in #16: American Overthrow, a subplot Syvertsen never did follow up on. Also, we’re told that Kim, Langford’s hotstuff daughter, is in the reformed DC with her dad, where she plans parties and stuff – and Rockson figures he’ll “never see her again.” As for Rockson’s other “true love,” Amazonian redhead Rona, she too is out of the picture, off in some other liberated city. We also get the random note that Detroit, the black member of the Rock Squad, has been assigned by Langford to be the Ambassador to Russia, and given that Premiere Vassily is now so old and incompetent, the USSR is actually being run by his Ethiopian servant, Rahallah (who also doesn’t appear – we’re just told all this stuff). So, Rockson muses as he flies along in his fighter jet, the world is essentially run by two black men: Detroit and Rahallah. 

But man, all this is well established at the point that this story begins…it’s news to us readers, but it’s been Rockson’s world for the past three years. Indeed, things are so slow now that mountain man Archer plain left Century City three years ago, bored with the lack of fighting…and Rockson just heard from him for the first time, having received an urgent fax from Archer that Archer needs help! So there are a lot of problems here already…I mean, Archer has ever and always been an idiot, his bumbling stupidity a constant joke in the series. How the hell did this dude learn how to send a fax? And for that matter, since when did he even know how to write? 

Beyond that, though…I mean Rockson receives this urgent “Help!” message, and just all by himself hops in this “Sov” fighter and heads for Archer’s remote destination. No backup, no “new Rock Team” (we also learn Russian guy Sherasnksy has gone back to Russia…but Chen and McLaughlin are still in Century City, at least), just Rockson going solo for no other reason than plot convenience. And even here we get the series mandatory “man against nature” stuff, with Rockson crash landing in rough terrain and then having to escape a giant mutant spider…just “yawn” type stuff after 18 volumes of it. 

The entire concept of Archer having been gone for three years isn’t much followed up on; Rockson and the big mountain man are soon drinking beer and shooting the shit in the bowling alley Archer now calls home(!). There’s also a new character to the series – the absurdly-named Zydeco Realness, an elfin “Techno-survivor,” ie yet another new mutant race, this one having survived the past century in silos, hence their small nature and weird manner of speaking. Also, Ryder Syvertsen has discovered the word “diss,” which mustv’e come into the parlance around this time (I probably learned the word from the Beastie Boys at the time); Zydeco’s people are obsessed with being “dissed,” and will take affront if they even think they are being dissed. Rockson has never heard the word before, and Syvertsen has it that it’s a word the Tecno-survivors have created themselves. 

The titular “Dream Machine” is a device the Techno-survivors have created for people who are about to die…sort of like that bit in Soylent Green where you could have like a sensory experience on your way through the out door. So off the trio go, riding over 50 miles of rough terrain – but wait, I forgot! Rockson actually gets laid…indeed, quite a bit in this novel. But again demonstrating the marked difference between this and the earliest volumes, all the sex is off-page…well, most of it. The few tidbits we get here and there are so vague as to be laughable when compared to the juicy descriptions found many volumes ago. But Rockson makes his way through a few green-skinned wild women, of the same tribe he last, er, mated with back in…well, I think it was the ones way back in #3: The Last American. 

It's curious that Syvertsen often refers to earlier volumes in American Dream Machine, more so than in any past installment; we are reminded of how long ago certain events were. But then he goes and makes the rest of the novel completely unrelated from the series itself. Anyway, I realized toward the end of the book that Syvertsen was indulging in this reminiscence because he must have known the end was near, as by the end of the book you know we’re headed for a series resolution. However I’m getting ahead of myself. As mentioned instead of any series continuity, we instead get a bonkers plot that rips off Total Recall to a certain extent…which must’ve been quite a trick given that the movie hadn’t come out yet when Syvertsen was writing his manuscript. Or maybe it was the Total Recall novelization, published in hardcover in 1989, that inspired him. Or maybe it was just a coincidence. Or maybe it was just the original Philip K. Dick story. 

So Rockson gets in the Dream Machine, which looks like a big metal coffin, and sure enough as soon as he’s under none other than Zhabnov and his forces storm in – completely coincidentally! – and they take everyone prisoner. And when Zhabnov discovers Rockson in this machine, he has the Techo-survivors turn the dream into a nightmare. For the next hundred-plus pages we’ll be in this nightmare world, which is where the similarity to previous volume American Nightmare comes in…just as with that one, this one too will be a “nightmare” with no bearing on the main plot of the series, with even Rockson himself a completely different character. 

That’s because he’s now “Niles Rockson,” a wealthy playboy living in a penthouse in NYC in the pre-nuke 1980s, enjoying a romantic time with hotstuff blonde “Kimetta.” None other than the dream version of Kim Langford, with the curious tidbit that, despite having been plain ignored for the past several volumes, Kim is now presented as Rock’s soul mate, the love of his life. Well anyway when the nightmare begins…Kim suddenly becomes a mean-looking tough chick (still hot though, we’re informed – with, uh, big boobs despite her small stature!), and the action has been changed to…Venus! 

Suddenly Kimetta is angry at Rockson, meaning the dream has changed but Rockson of course is not aware he’s in a dream; reading the novel is a very frustrating experience. And it gets dumber. Some cops come in and haul Rockson off for the crime of being a “playboy!” He’s put on a “prisoner ship” and sent off into space, headed for the artificial planet Esmerelda, which is a prison colony. Yet, despite this being a nightmare, Rockson – in the narrative concocted by the Techno-survivors at the behest of Zhabnov – still gets laid. A lot. Hookers are sent into his room each night, a different one each night, and every time it’s fade to black. One of the gals happens to be from Esmerelda, the planet they’re headed for, and since Rockson’s so good in bed (we’re informed), she treats him to “the Esmereldan position.” Demonstrating how juvenile the tone of Doomsday Warrior has become, Syvertsen actually describes this screwing-in-a-weird-new-position thusly: “It would be difficult to explain.” And that’s all he writes about it. 

We’re in straight-up sci-fi territory as Rockson is taken to this planet Esmerelda…where he learns he’s going to become a gladiator. And at least sticking true to the series template he’ll need to fight a bloodthirsty monster in the arena. It’s all so dumb…and, well, at least it’s dreamlike, with non-sequitur stuff like Kimetta – who now has become the daughter of the prison warden on Esmerelda! – giving Rockson a talisman that will protect him against this monster. It just goes on and on, having nothing to do with Doomsday Warrior, yet not being strong enough to retain the reader’s interest; Syvertsen’s boredeom with it all is very apparent, and this feeling extends to the reader. 

At the very least I was impressed with how Syvertsen just wings it as he goes along…given that all this is a “dream,” he’s able to change the narrative as he sees fit. But gradually Rockson starts to figure something is amiss with this world, and begins to remember “The Doomsday Warrior.” But again it’s very juvenile, with Rockson suddenly certain that if he escapes Esmerelda, he will awaken into his real reality. The finale of the dream sequence features some unexpected emotional depth, when Rockson realizes that his beloved Kimetta is “just a dream, too.” This leads to a sequence where the series gets back to its New Agey roots; The Glowers, those godlike mutants also last seen in the third volume, show up to save Rockson – who is near death from his experience. This kind of goes on for a bit, with the Glowers and Rockson’s pals using a Medicine Wheel to put Rockson’s soul back together with his body. 

Here's where it becomes clear Ryder Syvertsen has the end of the series in mind. Well, first we get more juvenile stuff where the Glowers bring out a massive ship made of ice and snow and upon it floats Rockson and team back to Century City – where the Glowers have called ahead telepathically. Rockson is given a hero’s welcome, and what’s more Rona and Kim are there waiting for him, and we’re told they’ve “settled their jealous differences” about Rockson, and have decided what to do about him – but will tell him more later. The main Glower announces that Killov is alive, and only Rockson can stop him, thus setting the stage for the next (and final) volume. 

But man…here comes the scene we’ve waited so many volumes for: that night there’s a knock at Rockson’s door, and he opens it to find both Kim and Rona there in negligees, and they laugh and push Rockson back on his bed, and the reader is promised the Doomsday Warrior three-way to end all three-ways. But friggin’ Ryder Syvertsen ends the book right there!! (I’m currently working on my own 200-page fan novelization of this sex scene.) 

As mentioned, the next volume is to be the last…but the series has been over for Syvertsen for a long time, now. That said, I might get to the last one sooner rather than later, for American Dream Machine seems to be leading directly to that next novel – meaning, the next one shouldn’t open three years after this one. 

Doomsday Warrior #17: America’s Sword

Doomsday Warrior #17: America’s Sword, by Ryder Stacy

January, 1990  Zebra Books

Boy, if you thought the previous volume of Doomsday Warrior was lame, just wait till you read this one! I’ve said before that Ryder Syvertsen was clearly phoning it in at this point; one can almost feel him hoping and praying that the series would get canceled so he could stop writing it. I mean all the dude does this time is basically re-write the previous book; America’s Sword is almost a carbon copy of American Overthrow, but again with the caveat that this one’s even worse. 

It’s a shame how Doomsday Warrior has experienced such a downward spiral. The first volumes were pretty cool, packed with gory violence and explicit sex. But around the midway point of the series Syvertsen must have lost interest or heart, as he began dialing back on all the craziness. At this point in the series the violence isn’t nearly as gory as before and the sex is all off-page. Even the goofy subplots have been dropped; for a while we had a lot of stuff about Ted “Doomsday Warrior” Rockson caught in a love triangle between Amazonian redhead Rona and lithe blonde Kim. All this is forgotten, with practically all female characters removed from the series – even the mandatory “native babe” Rockson will pick up on his post-nuke travels does not appear here in America’s Sword. 

But speaking of Syvertsen’s lack of interest…turns out I was right in my review for American Overthrow, where I guessed that none of that volume’s concluding incidents would be picked up in the next volume. I was more correct than I could’ve guessed. So as a recap, in the finale of the previous book Rockson had saved feeble old President Langford and his daughter Kim from the clutches of this sadist who was trying to brainwash them. Kim, once declared to be Rockson’s beloved, had disappeared from the series with nary a mention for the past several volumes, so this was the long-awaited reunion of the pair. But rather than build on this, Syvertsen never even gave Rockson and Kim a moment together; she was brain-fogged when Rockson saved her, then out cold later. As I recall, Rockson hoped Kim and her father would come out of it during the long trek back to Century City, and maybe they could talk then. 

But in true “series reset with each volume” fashion, America’s Sword takes place one month later and we don’t get one iota of info on what went down during that trek home…I mean, did President Langford regain his senses, something Rockson was worried about? Did Rockson and Kim rekindle their relationship? Folks, we still don’t know the answer to either of those questions. For indeed, America’s Sword opens with an overlong sequence in which an earthquake rocks Century City, and Rockson, sleeping in bed (alone for once!), is trapped in the rubble that was once his room, staving off rats and waiting to be rescued. 

We learn that a staggering twenty thousand people were killed in the quake and Century City is partially destroyed. But here’s how half-assed Syvertsen has become with his series: he never even tells us if Langford or his daughter Kim survived the quake! I mean of course they do, but still – he has Rockson desperately wondering if the two are among the victims, but Rockson leaves a few hours after the quake and never learns the answer. He doesn’t even ponder their fate during this latest trek outside of Century City. Hell, Syvertsen’s so half-assed that he also has Rockson concerned over Rona’s fate right after the quake …then Syvertsen makes the casual mention that, the night before leaving the city, Rona comes to Rockson’s bed and “they made love.” So, uh, I guess she did survive the quake! I mean, not only does Syvertsen neglect to even build up on any of his suspense, he casually dispenses info with nary a concern for drama – and Rona doesn’t even have any dialog! She’s literally mentioned in passing. 

So none of the questions concerning Langford or Kim from the previous volume are addressed or resolved. Instead, the big deal this time is that Rock and team must make an emergency journey to nearby Free City Pattonville (the setting of the previous volume, by the way) to get needed supplies to rebuild Century City. Even this plot will ultimately be dropped – spoiler alert, but we don’t even get to see Rockson and team getting the supplies, let alone returning home so Rockson can find out who survived the quake. Instead Syvertsen goes on two separate detours which make up the bulk of the novel. And my friends these detours are exact replicas of the incidents in the previous book! 

As we’ll recall American Overthrow featured this random part where Rockson and team came upon this volcano world filled with lava men, and many pages were devoted to the team learning the customs and etc…and then Rockson realized the entire damn thing had been a dream. Okay. In America’s Sword this scenario is repeated, except instead of a volcano world it’s a jungle world, randomly enough in the middle of the post-nuke US terrain, and Rockson and team marvel at the monkeys and other jungle animals here in the humid climate. They also meet up with the natives, though the difference here is that the natives are friendly…and also there’s no female dalliances for Rockson. I mean WTF? Syvertsen has so neutered his series that even the once-madatory “native gal sex” has been removed…Rockson and team merely eat and drink a lot as honored guests. 

But of course things take a more “thrilling” turn and they have to fight a giant rad-monster thing as part of the ceremony which is required to leave the jungle world. At the very least, this sequence doesn’t turn out to be a dream, but otherwise it is such a carbon copy of the lava world scenario in the previous book that I couldn’t believe it. I mean surely Syvertsen could have come up with something better than a lame ripoff of his own lame work? But he’s not done ripping himself off. Again as we’ll recall, American Overthrow proceeded to feature Rockson saving a city from a despot who was using a gas to control the minds of his subjects. 

Well…guess what happens in this one? Rockson comes across yet another city filled with seemingly-happy people, ones who are a little too enamored with politics, but of course it will turn out that they too are under a sort of mind control. And Rockson will have to save them. So yes, this book is a carbon copy of its predecessor. Anyway, the political activists here are “Republams,” and Syvertsen wears his politics on his sleeves in making fun of these latter-day Republicans…ones who worship Nixon and live for bureaucracy. But otherwise Syvertsen fails to exploit his own goofy concept; he doesn’t have the ability to bring it to life, or perhaps I should say the willingness. I mean he’s already written 16 of these goddamn books and he’s tired, folks. 

So we have weird goofy stuff like this radiated Nixon monument thing that glows in neon flashes and seems to have an animated Nixon statue inside it (Syvertsen is particularly dense in his descriptions here), and also Rockson himself is mind-controlled after being subjected to a Republam recruitment video. But it’s all just so goofy…I mean he and his fellows are brainwashed, but all they’re forced to do is file paperwork and type up paperwork. It’s just so ridiculous and G-rated, and Syvertsen’s so bored with it all that he has everyone saved by the deus ex machina appearance of other members of the Rock Squad. 

As mentioned, by the end of America’s Sword we have no resolution…to anything. Rockson and team continue on their trek for Century City supplies. No doubt next volume they’ll be back and the city will be completely rebuilt. Oh and I forgot to mention. In another elaborately built but unexploited subplot, Syvertsen has about thirty recruits being sent off with Rockson, to help with supply delivery…nothing is made of this and the recruits add nothing to the plot. Hell for that matter, Rockson breaks his ankle in the opening Earthquake section…and Syvertsen doesn’t even mention it again in the novel, with Rockson running and fighting and doing everything just as usual. 

Perhaps the only saving grace of America’s Sword is a cool bit early on where Rockson thinks back to his childhood days; we learn he’s from California, though he doesn’t know it by that name in this post-nuke US. If I recall correctly, this is the first we’ve had an actual flashback to Rockson’s youth, and we learn how his father taught him hunting and other skills. We’re also reminded how the Reds massacred his family, setting young Rockson off on the path of revenge. This latter is not developed in actual flashback narrative; we’re just informed that Rockson memorized the faces of the Reds who raped his mother and sisters and killed them and his father, and then hunted them down – this “Rockson’s revenge” scenario has never actually been fully told, so far as I can remember, but the story alone is more interesting than the majority of the actual novels.

Shade

Shade, by David Darke

May, 1994  Zebra Books

Yet another horror paperback I picked up some years ago but never read, Shade is a (sort of) latter-day Zebra PBO that is copyright Ron Dee. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like if Anne Rice herself was a vampire, this might be the book for you. The only problem is, Dee is a pretty clunky author, with a tendency for confusing sentences and vague description. That said, the novel is filled with depraved, graphic sex, so there’s that! 

Not sure why Dee even bothered with his “David Darke” pseudonym, as his name’s stated on the copyright page, and he also craftily mentions his own novels in Shade. But it looks like he was pretty prolific under either name, however this is the only of his novels I have (I think). He certainly tries to bring to life the world of sci-fi and horror conventions, but I’m assuming there must be some tongue-in-cheekery at play because, in Dee’s world, only total losers read horror novels, particularly vampire novels…and all of them dream of being vampires themselves. This I found so puzzling that I immediately had a disconnect with Shade; I mean vampires are cool in novels, but I’ve never read say Salem’s Lot and thought to myself – “Hey, I wish I was a vampire!” 

Dee calls this subset of horror readers “convamps,” ie vampire novel enthusiasts who congregate at horror conventions and pretend to be vampires themselves. Only, in the case of this novel they’ve been killing themselves at the conventions…all so as to become real vampires…all at the inspiration of the wildly popular horror novels of Scarlett Shade. The Anne Rice analog of the novel, Scarlett Shade – we learn on the first page, not to mention on the back cover – is herself secretly a vampire. What’s more, one that uses her vast network of fans for her own personal blood supply. Dee doesn’t waste any time bringing us into this sordid tale; literally the first 50 or so pages are comprised of various one-off characters having sex in fairly graphic fashion and killing each other in the process. 

And it’s so weird as to be jarring, because as mentioned Dee’s powers of description often fail him and the reader (at least this one) often has to re-read sections to figure out what the hell is going on. For example, the book opens with a convamp guy dressing up as Count Downe for a convention, the vampire protagonist of Scarlett Shade’s famous series of novels. Then a hotstuff gal comes over, the spitting image of Countess Showery, the female vampire co-protagonist of the Shade novels, and this dude can’t believe his luck. Then “Countess Showery” turns out to be his buddy, dressed in drag for the convention…and after a chuckle the two dudes look in the mirror, see themselves as the “real” Count Downe and Countess Showery…and start having sex! “He slipped inside her hot, tight hole,” and etc. Uh, okay… 

Dee is just getting started with the depravity. I mean Shade is kind of wonderful in how grimy it is. We get another one-off character, this one an unhappily married woman whose husband forces her to suck him off every night(!), and she too imagines herself as Countess Showery, also seeing herself as the “real” vampire-babe in the mirror. “Suck me, please,” instructs her husband, and next thing you know the unhappy housewife is imagining she has fangs and then she’s, uh…biting it off… 

Even crazier is an ensuing sequence in which a wanna be reporter named Teresa, who used to be a stripper (and who had casual sapphic flings with other strippers), gets the coup of interviewing Scarlett Shade herself. A hotbod beauty with long red hair, Shade has been reclusive for the past three years; we’re informed she went out of the public view once so many of her fans began committing suicide. Also, Shade herself supposedly has sapphic tendencies…so Teresa starts unbuttoning her top during the interview to show off her cleavage. This leads to a full-on lesbian sequence between the two, one which of course has an unhappy end for poor Teresa – Scarlett Shade has gleefully admitted to Teresa that she is a vampire, and cannot let the truth out. 

Our heroes, such as they are, turn out to be a pair of casual lovers named Phil and Connie. Folks these two were about enough to make me toss the book. A pair of more self-centered individuals you will rarely meet in fiction. Phil, who runs a genre-themed bookstore in Oklahoma, was witness to all sorts of horrors as a child in Czhechoslovakia, and lately he’s been having nightmares and headaches about it. Phil suffers from a lot of nightmares and headaches in Shade, to the extent that he starts to come off like a Southern Belle suffering the vapors. I mean this dude is pure prima donna in the book, just as annoying as shit. 

But Connie’s even worse. She makes jewelry, but also works at a WaldenBooks (remember those??), and she’s just gotten divorced (as has Phil) and she’s had casual sex with Phil, but she’s not sure…she kinda likes good-looking but going-nowhere wanna-be writer Gary. Connie’s had a few abortions in the past (Phil asks her exactly how many at one point and Connie throws a fit!!), and Dee ultimately uses this to reinforce the theme of Connie’s self-centeredness, that she actually “killed the life” that was growing in her (dangerous ground for a writer to tread upon in today’s world!). Oh and when we meet her, Connie’s dining at the Y with her galpal Vicki…the latter’s been pushing for a little lesbian action for quite a while. I mean seriously, there’s a lot of dining at the Y in Shade. 

So anyway, long story short – all these people, we soon learn, are victims of Scarlett Shade. Like Phil, for example. He briefly met the famous author at some convention, and now Phil’s having all those flashbacks and nightmares, and plus he’s got these bite-like wounds on him that only show up in the mirror. This I thought was the one novel element of Shade, though it takes forever for the reader to figure out what’s going on: Scarlett Shade uses mirrors in her vampiric pursuits, flitting in and out of them like a ghost and emerging into the lives of her victims. This is why all those one-off characters were seeing themselves as Shade’s characters in the mirror in the opening of the novel, it was Shade possessing them. 

Dee stuffs Shade with a lot of in-jokery. He mentions a few “out of print books by Ron Dee” at a horror convention, and genre personalities like Tim Powers and Edward Bryant are mentioned. Dee also namedrops several real-world horror novels in Shade. However he does not really bring to life the novels of Scarlett Shade, and why exactly they’d be so wildly popular is not very clear…cause they sound lame as hell. Actually we don’t know much about them, other than that there are several of them and they seem to occur in the past, with castles and whatnot. They’ve got titles like “Vampire Bordello” and stuff like that, and they’re billed as “erotic horror.” We do get the first chapter of one of the books, printed in almost unreadable italics, and it’s all so goofy that it has to be more in-jokery on Dee’s part. 

One of the highlights of Shade is the subplot concerning Teresa, the aforementioned reporter who has sex with Shade. So as it turns out, when Scarlett Shade terminally sucks someone’s blood, the victim wakes up in their coffin…and will be stuck there for eternity unless they can use their dwindling power to project themselves as a corporal being aboveground and suck a victim’s blood. Teresa is one of the few Shade victims who figures this out, and the most fun part of the book concerns her gradual aims for revenge. She also figures out how Shade uses mirrors. But even here Dee can’t refrain from the goofiness, with Teresa projecting herself in clothing similar to a TV reporter she loved as a kid: Kolchak the Night Stalker! 

Indeed, Teresa is so fun that it only makes you hate loser Phil and self-centered Connie even more. Gradually they too figure out what’s going on (that is, once Phil’s bothered to get out of bed), but it takes too many of the book’s 348 pages for that to happen. (Though true to Zebra tradition, those 348 pages are some big ol’ print.) The problem is, they’re not just self-involved but also stupid. Denial seems to be a trope of the horror genre (ie “There’s no such thing as vampires!” and such), and boy does Dee drive this trope into the ground. Despite their increasing torpor, strange wounds that only appear in mirrors, and increasing taste for blood, these two morons still refuse to believe that Scarlett Shade is really a vampire. 

It's hard to say which of the two is the more annoying. When he isn’t passing out or popping aspirin, Phil acts like a petulant child. Connie meanwhile ignores all mounting evidence that vampires exist, fully buying the story that these “convamps” are committing suicide…even though their bodies are drained of blood. Even when casual bedmate Gary “kills himself,” right after meeting Scarlett Shade, Connie still doesn’t put two and two together. Only after she’s had yet another dining at the Y session with her galpal Vicki does Connie realize something is going on…because Vicki loses control of herself and starts biting Connie “down there.” I say, there are some squirm-inducing parts in Shade. However it isn’t too outrageous, because Dee’s tongue is clearly in cheek throughout: 

Or even:

Dee has a much better plot with Teresa putting together an army of the undead to take on Scarlett Shade, but instead he puts more focus on Phil and Connie. Teresa is by far the more interesting character here; her discovery of how Shade uses mirrors trumps anything Phil and Connie manage to do. Unfortunately it’s Phil and Connie’s bumbling that makes up the lame climax; even in the finale Phil manages to pass out. But then the entire novel is preposterous, and it’s to Dee’s credit that he doesn’t try to make things “seriously.” In sum Shade is a sordid horror novel positively filled with kinky sex, only undone by its unlikable characters and Dee’s sometimes-confusing prose. 

Since finishing Shade I’ve started reading another horror novel I picked up years ago, one that turns out to have a very similar plot: Warren Netwon Beath’s Bloodletter, also from 1994. It too deals with the author of a wildly successful series of vampire novels who himself might be a vampire. However it’s vastly superior to Shade.

Wolfsbane

Wolfsbane, by William W. Johnstone

March, 1987  Zebra Books

(Original Zebra edition 1982)

Yet another thick horror paperback courtesy the prolific William W. Johnstone, Wolfsbane was first published in 1982; shown here is the cover of the 1987 reprint, which I lifted from Too Much Horror Fiction (where you can also see the original cover). I can’t make out the artist signature, but this cover, while super cool (and embossed in true ‘80s horror paperback style), has no relation to the story itself. This one is Johnstone’s take on werewolves, but don’t go into Wolfsbane expecting a typical werewolf tale. 

Instead, expect Johnstone’s typical horror novel plot: Satan comes to Smalltown USA in the 1980s. (I grew up in Smalltown USA in the 1980s, and trust me, Satan would’ve gotten bored quick.) Actually, Wolfsbane takes place in 1976, though the “shock twist” finale occurs in 1981. Otherwise it’s the same as the other Johnstone horror novels I’ve read, with the caveat that Wolfsbane isn’t nearly as twisted, perverted, or downright great as The Nursery. But on the other hand, it’s definitely better – which is to say sleazier – than Toy Cemetery. It just isn’t as sleazy as The Nursery. 

I say this is a werewolf novel, and technically it is, but Johnstone rarely uses the word in the book; instead he calls them “loup garous,” given that the novel takes place in Louisiana. But man, these creatures, when they do appear in the book (which honestly isn’t all that often), are hardly even described. Johsntone’s powers of description fail him greatly when it comes to the creature feature material; about the most we get is that the beasts are hairy and have hideous faces. Most of the time they appear in shadows, and there are other monsters besides the werewolves, like a witch and a horde of things that try to attack the protagonist during a memorable if brief sequence in the finale. None of them are much described. 

Otherwise, Wolfsbane was a lot better than I expected it would be. For the first hundred pages or so I was thinking to myself that it was a fine novel, with little of the rampant exposition or page-filling of Johnstone’s other novels. Unfortunately though, the book kept going. In fact, it kept going to almost 300 pages, and by novel’s end all that exposition and page-filling was out in full force. The novel actually got to be humorous with the lame page-filling, with interminable stalling in the third half as the hero, Pat Strange, incessantly traded barbed dialog with the villain, 90 year-old witch Madame Bauterre. That said, Wolfsbane does not feature any of Johnstone’s right wing sermonizing, but to tell the truth I wouldn’t have minded much if it did. In fact that was just the extra icing on the cake in The Nursery, which is seeming more like the William W. Johnstone horror novel that has it all. 

The opening seems to be inspired by the old Universal horror classics, with a werewolf loose in the bayou hamlet of Ducross Parish, in 1934. The werewolf is taken down by the townsfolk and the human corpse immolated and sealed up so that the creature will never rise again. Then the guy’s wife and children are kicked out of town. We move then to 1976, and that wife, the aforementioned Madame Bauterre, has returned to Ducross Parish. She will be the prime villain of Wolfsbane, a 90-something crone of pure evil…one who indulges in a few super explicit sex scenes that are actually stomach-churning. Johnstone clearly seems to be chortling to himself as he details, in graphic detail, M. Bauterre’s rape of a few captured men in the novel…it’s sleazy stuff for sure, but just extremely gross, with lots of detail about the old witch’s various, uh, “dry” bodyparts. 

But it wouldn’t be a horror PBO without a hotstuff heroine, and she comes in the form of Janette Bauterre Simmons, granddaughter of M. Bauterre and widow of a ‘Nam special forces commander. Janette seems to be the main protagonist as the novel starts, and I thought Johnstone for once was going to get away from his traditional “Vietnam vet badass” hero. But I was wrong, as Pat Strange – a Vietnam vet badass – is the true hero of the tale. Janette is atypical of the usual Johnstone heroine, though, or at least unlike the ones in the other Johnstone novels I’ve read: she’s determined, brave, and follows her own path. She sets the events in motion, deciding to visit her grandmother in Louisiana despite M. Bauterre’s order not to – and Janette soon figures there is some crazy stuff going on. 

Given the bayou setting, be prepared for a lot of hamfisted “accented dialog” stuff; ie “you rat” instead of “you’re right” and “lak” instead of “like.” Luckily neither Pat nor Janette speak this way, so we only have to endure this when it comes to a few minor characters. The opening has you prepared for the worst, though, with a lot of Ducross Parish locals gawking at the returned Madame Bauterre and going over the events of 1934. The only local character who has more of a part in the novel is Sheriff Edan Vallot, and Johnstone pulls an interesting trick here in that Vallot, the cop, is actually more believing of the supernatural than Pat Strange is. 

As for Pat, he’s of a piece with other Johnstone protagonists: yet another professional soldier in his 40s who is chosen to become God’s Warrior. It’s goofy but fun as Pat, when introduced, is gone to fat and living in a shack in South Carolina, having recently given up his warring ways. But for reasons he can’t comprehend, Pat abruptly stops drinking and begins working out and running ten miles a day(!), to the point that he’s a fit fighting machine when Janette shows up at his door one day. Of course, “God Himself” has chosen Pat to be “His Warrior,” to fight Satan in this latest installment of the “game” the two beings engage in. 

Oh and that’s another thing. Wolfsbane answers a question I’ve wondered about for a while: whether William W. Johnstone had a sense of humor. He clearly did, because there is a lot of humor in the novel; tortured, unfunny humor, but an attempt at humor nonetheles. This is mostly relayed via none other than Satan himself, who often appears (via his voice only) in the final third of the novel…and starts talking about his love of baseball! The devil’s voice comes from a “bubbling” section of the bayou and makes sarcastic comments throughout the novel’s climax, disparaging “Him” and taunting Pat. It’s all more goofy than actually funny, yet at the same time it could be evidence that Johnstone realizes his repetitive horror plots are shit and he himself doesn’t take them seriously. I mean folks the devil at one point actually says to Pat, “Who do you think I am, Barbara Streisand?” 

But the unintentional humor is more prevalent. As mentioned the book becomes almost tiresome in the second half with the egregious stalling. Actually this starts off even in the first half; Janette, in Paris, is attacked by a werewolf in her grandmother’s study, actually sees the beast revert to human form after being shot by a guard, and yet spends the next several chapters wondering if there is “more going on” with her grandmother. So Janette goes to Ducross Parish, where M. Bauterre bluntly tells Janette she should leave, but Janette stays behind, suspecting something is going on (remember, she was attacked by a friggin’ werewolf), and she even goes to the lengths of getting a nightvision camera so she can take photos of the hairy beasts that congregate in the courtyard at night. 

And all along her grandmother keeps appearing to her, telling her to leave, etc. It’s tiresome but only a taste of the tiresome events that will ensue. Pat comes into it because Janette just happens to come across an old letter from her deceased husband, the Special Forces commander, which mentions Pat Strange – and yes, Janette’s husband was indeed Pat’s commanding officer! All this is just the work of God, of course! So Janette goes down to find Pat Strange in his South Carolina shack…and the two immediately start screaming at each other…which of course leads to one of Johnstone’s OTT sex scenes. Again, not nearly as OTT as when the hero first had sex with his girlfriend in The Nursery (a scene which featured such unforgettable dialog as, “I want to suck you, Mike. I want to suck your cock.”), but still pretty OTT, with dialog like, “It’s called doggy style,” and “Cum with me!” And yes, it’s spelled that way, same as in The Nursery. 

Actually the two go at it all night long and into the next day, there in Pat’s shack, which doesn’t even have indoor plumbing. Johnstone leaves the ensuing boinkery mostly off-page, and only a stray mention of it here and there in the latter half of the novel, when Pat returns to Ducross Parish with Janette and stays with her in her room in M. Bauterre’s mansion. For Janette has brought Pat back with her as her guardian, and now it’s Pat’s turn to wonder if all those creeping shadows down in the courtyard are really werewolves and whatnot. Here the stalling hits us full force, as Madame Bauterre incessantly taunts Pat, only for Pat to taunt her back, the old woman getting angry at Pat’s uncouth language. It goes on and on, with “I could destroy you now, but I won’t” crap, only nothing happens, mostly because M. Bauterre is aware that Pat is “God’s Warrior,” thus he cannot be touched due to the rules of the “Game.” 

Pat’s investigation entails lots of driving around Ducross Parish and meeting the locals, including an old witch-woman who lives in the swamp. Johnstone also brings in a “family” subplot in that warring dynasties are involved with the werewolves, but this too just comes off like more page-filling. The sad thing is it takes forever for anything to happen. A few corpses pile up, clearly werewolf victims, but we have the usual horror trope where no one wants to believe it was a werewolf who did the killing. Again though Johnstone subverts the usual by having the sheriff be the one who suspects werewolves, and not Pat, who keeps searching for rational reasons. 

This too is another Johnstone schtick, the warrior chosen by God who not only isn’t religious but who also doesn’t believe in the supernatural. But also part of the schtick is God’s Warrior gradually coming to accept his lot – which of course means a finale in which he takes up a gun and shoots down a bunch of people. Oh I forgot, another Johnstone schtick is where the town is slowly corrupted by Satan, with the small group of heroes excised from the community; this happens so quickly and with such little setup and followthrough in Wolfsbane that it was actually humorous. But anyway, as God’s Warrior, Pat is able to gun down werewolves and such with nothing more than a shotgun and a “.41 mag.” Whereas the average person would need silver bullets or whatever, Pat’s divine blessing allows him to kill the creatures with regular bullets. 

But man, any hopes of Pat going up against a host of creatures are quickly dashed. Johnstone blows through the action like he’s running out of space…and I guess he is, given that he’s spent the past 250-some pages stalling. Again, it’s nowhere near the craziness of The Nursery, where that “God’s Warrior” gunned down possessed teens with nary a concern. Instead here Pat heads onto Madame Bauterre’s grounds – after enjoying a quick snack on her lawn! – and is quickly shooting at zombies and werewolves and other assorted monsters, none of which are described. Johnstone also has that goofy quirk of referring to various characters Pat’s gunning down by their names, with no reminders, and the reader has no idea who the hell they are. So that too adds to the unintentional comedy. 

The biggest miss here is the abovementioned part where Pat is chased by sundry monsters on the estate, but the description of them is vague at best. There was all kinds of opportunity here for true horror as Pat is chased by creepy crawlies across the estate. Also the final confrontation with M. Bauterre is a bit weak, with the old evil woman standing there patiently as Pat sets her up for a divine shotgun blast. But even worse is that Johnstone rushes through the monster-killing action, and instead goes for a “shock” finale where the devil plunges Pat into a deep sleep…and he wakes up on Halloween of 1981. Johnstone seems to be setting things up for a sequel, with Pat vowing to stay in Ducross Parish to ensure the devil never sets foot in it again, but I’m not sure if Johnstone ever wrote a sequel to Wolfsbane. It’s looking like he did not. 

Overall though Wolfsbane wasn’t too bad. It had a lot of stalling and padding, but there was just enough of Johnstone’s typical goofiness to make it fun. I mean I know I’m supposed to say he’s a horrible writer and all, but I’d rather read something like this than “serious” horror fiction.