Old School Horror 9: Tendrils, by Simon Ian Childer

The ninth, in an occasional thread, of blog posts celebrating those cheesy, sleazy old-school pulp paperbacks from the 70s and 80s, which are now mostly forgotten.  Yes, we’re not talking great art here but these books have their place - for better or worse - in the genre and I think they deserve to be remembered.

This time around, I'm looking at a novel that relishes being 'sick'...

cover scan of my copy - published in 1986 by Grafton Books

FROM OUT OF THE DRAINS

FROM OUT OF THE SEWERS

FROM OUT OF THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH CAME THE TENDRILS...

It started when a Hertfordshire drilling team struck something funny underground - a space where there should not have been a space.  'Hairs' where there should have been rock.

Then, suddenly, people were dying - eaten away by mysterious acid which gushed out of the ground.

But that wasn't the end of it.  Soon dozens of people were being killed.  Their insides were being dissolved, digested and sucked out until only the skin remained.

From across the boundless wastes of space - millions of years ago, the primitive black TENDRILS had made their way to Earth.  Now they were awake and looking for food - looking for meat to digest.  For the human race, it was to be a close encounter of a truly horrifying kind...

When a drilling company accidentally strikes an alien creature buried deep within the earth it responds by spewing acidic gunk that kills drillers and site protestors alike.  Nobody knows what the thing is and when it moves away, ever closer to London, it leaves a trail of destruction in its wake, reducing people and animals to brittle husks.  The only person who understands the gravity of the situation is a professor who lost his wife to the creature and, teaming up with a young reporter, he tries to stop more death.

Written by John Brosnan and Leroy Kettle (the SIC pseudonym is an in-joke, Brosnan also wrote as Harry Adam Knight - HAK), this slice of Brit horror from 1986 is an almost perfect example of paperback horror from that era.  Told with wit and pace, this has a lot of echoes with 50s horror pulp (you can almost imagine Hammer having a field day with it), with plenty of sex and gore thrown in. 

Using London and the Home Counties as key locations really grounds it and the little vignettes of the victims amp up the suspense and terror but, really, it’s the mayhem that makes this.  Gory, gruesome, funny and occasionally unpleasant (Robin the reporter has something very nasty happen), this races to a thunderous climax and then tops it off with a wonderfully downbeat ending.  

If you like 80s paperback horror, as I do, you’ll likely love it.  If you don’t then, well, I feel sorry for you.

* * *

John Raymond Brosnan was born in Perth, Western Australia on 7th October 1947.  He moved to Sydney in the late 60s and became active in local SF fandom, then traveled with fellow fans to London in 1970, where he settled.  Remaining active in fandom, he began writing non-fiction on SF, fantasy and horror films, most notably in Science Fiction Monthly and Starburst (where I first became aware of him - I wrote about the magazine here and here).  He was also a novelist and wrote science fiction and fantasy under his own name, before branching out into horror (and comics, with 2000AD), utilising several pseudonyms on the way.

* As Harry Adam Knight he wrote Carnosaur (1984) on his own and Slimer (1983), The Fungus (1985), Death Spore (1990) and Bedlam (1992) in collaboration with Leroy Kettle.

* As James Blackstone (in collaboration with John Baxter), he wrote Torched (1986).

* As Simon Ian Childer, he wrote Tendrils (1986) and Worm (1987, with Leroy Kettle).  Worm was published in the US as by Harry Adam Knight.

I haven’t read his sci-fi work, but his horror books fit the times perfectly and their streak of dark humour is reflected in the pseudonyms he chose, with Childer (SIC) and Knight (HAK) reflecting the material.  The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction described Brosnan’s horror work as the “written equivalents of exploitation movies…slightly self-mocking but quite exciting as SF horror.”  In his wonderful piece Torching John Brosnan, David Langford mentions amusingly that Harry Adam Knight “was praised as "The New Stephen King" in a Starburst movie column whose authorship I shall not reveal)”.

Also a respected film writer and critic, Brosnan wrote James Bond in the Cinema (1972), Movie Magic: The Story of Special Effects in the Cinema (1974), The Horror People (1976), Future Tense: The Cinema of Science Fiction (1978, with a foreword by Harry Harrison), James Bond: For Your 007 Eyes Only (1981, with Tony Crawley - himself a Starburst writer too), The Dirty Movie Book (1988, with Leroy Kettle), The Primal Screen: A History of Science Fiction Film (1991), Hollywood Babble On (1998), Lights, Camera, Magic! (1998), Scream: The Unofficial Guide To The Scream Trilogy (2000) and The Hannibal Lecter Story (2001)

He also wrote most of the film entries for The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1979), edited by Peter Nicholls and John Clute.

Some of his books were filmed, the first being Carnosaur in 1993, from Roger Corman’s Concord Pictures.  Beyond Bedlam (also known as Nightscare) was made in 1994 by Vadim Jean and based on Bedlam (notable only, apparently, for being Liz Hurley’s first starring role).  Proteus (1995) was based on Slimer and directed by make-up effects genius Bob Keen but its disappointing box office meant a sequel - which Brosnan wrote the screenplay for - was never produced.

Sadly, Brosnan battled both depression and alcohol abuse for many years.  He died of acute pancreatitis and his death was reported on 11th April 2005 (after friends became alarmed at his absence over Easter), though it might have been several days earlier.

For a few years now, I've been collecting old 70s and 80s paperbacks (mostly horror), picking them up cheaply in secondhand bookshops and at car boot sales and slowly building a collection.  My friend (and fellow collector) Johnny Mains once told me that charity shops sometimes pulp old books like this because the market for them is so small - I understand why but I think it's terrible.  We might not be talking great art here but on the whole, I think these books deserve to be remembered.

To that end, on an irregular basis (too much cheese isn't good for anyone's diet), I'm going to review these "old-school" horrors (and perhaps include some bonus material, if I can find it).

Previous entries in the series can be found at this link

Halloween Horrors (Old School Horror Paperback Covers)

It's almost Halloween, when all the ghosts and ghouls come calling (usually for chocolate), when the evenings are dark and the air smells of woodsmoke and the thoughts of us all turn to the idea of watching or reading something scary and creepy.

For my fourth Halloween post (previously I wrote about VHS cover art, behind the scenes special effects shots and Top Trumps), I've decided to stick with something I love, the cracking paperback covers of the 70s and 80s.  One of the blogs I follow is Will Errickson's Too Much Horror Fiction, where he posts some cracking scans (I've tracked down a few of the books because of them) and in a nice twist, he sought out The Happy Man based on my post about the Eric Higgs novel.  Looking at those old covers reminds me of being a young horror reader in the 80s when there was so much reading waiting for me to discover (along with the awful realisation that sometimes the artwork was the best thing about the whole book) and so much to be enjoyed.

These fit perfectly into my occasional Old School Paperbacks thread, blogs celebrating those cheesy, sleazy old-school pulp paperbacks from the 70s and 80s, which are now mostly forgotten .  They might not be great art, certainly, but they have their place - for better or worse - in the genre and I think they deserve to be remembered.

So with that in mind, enjoy this Halloween treat of covers that (on occasion) promise far more than they deliver...

New English Library, 1978 - cover scan of my copy

I first encountered this book at my cousin's - the back copy, amongst the film credits, calls Rick Baker 'the master of them all' for his make-up effects.

Sphere, 1978 - cover scan of my copy

This promises everything, doesn't it - ravening, gut-chilling worm-power (what the hell is worm power?).  As it is, I read this earlier in the year and enjoyed it well enough (you can read my review at Goodreads here).  And  in a nice touch, even though the technology didn't exist when this was designed, if you scroll up the screen with your mouse roller, the title text seems to wiggle.

New English Library, 1980 - cover scan by Will

My Dad had this edition on his bookshelf and it scared the living daylights out of me.  A few years later, around about the time the first Evil Dead film was being banned in the UK, someone at school mentioned how gruesome this book was and so, of course, a bunch of us read it.  As I recall, the scene in the school was considered the worst (we were all about 12 or 13 at the time) but, as an adult, I found the suicide at sea sequence much more disturbing.

New English Library, 1980 - cover scan of my copy

There is so much to enjoy about this - the font, the blurb, the woman, the horns, that skull.  Genius.

Pocket Books, 1981 - cover scan by Will

Brings new meaning to the term "chained to the photocopier..."

New English Library, 1982 - cover scan by Will

Mr Johnson was obviously on a winning streak, though this cover's not a patch on The Succubus, but I do love the way NEL have re-defined the word Homunculus (the Oxford English dictionary says it's 'a microscopic but fully formed human being from which a fetus was formerly believed to develop').

Futura Publications, 1983 - cover scan of my copy

I'm not entirely sure how this glorious cover (the screaming woman is lifted from the poster of the 1981 shocker Nightmares In A Damaged Brain) reflects a novel about killer jellyfish but I've read it (and blogged about it here) and quite enjoyed it.

Pocket Books, 1984 - cover scan by Will

Is it just me, or did you look at this picture and hear that little Bill And Ted air-guitar-riff?

Panther, 1985 - cover scan of my copy

Peter Tremayne is apparently the fiction writing pseudonym of the Celtic scholar and author Peter Berresford Ellis.  The hardback edition (which I can't find a decent scan of, unfortunately) features a lifted image from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Pocket Books, 1985 - cover scan by Will

This might well be a terrific novel (Kirkus reviews seemed to like it) but I think Village Voice might be overplaying their hand here.  As an aside, Campbell Black wrote the original novelisation for Raiders Of The Lost Ark in 1981 and The Intruder, which I blogged about here.

Signet, September 1985 - cover scan by Will

I'm not sure how it took three people to write this (Bischoff is a noted sci-fi novelist and scriptwriter) but it sounds like fun.  Here's the blurb - A college professor of medieval literature, drunk and desperate to liven up a dull party, performs a demon-summoning ritual, which, unexpectedly, succeeds. The demon, a four thousand year old half-human female, proves more alluring and mischievous than the professor anticipates, and proceeds to turn his life upside down.

Paperjacks edition, 1986 - cover scan of my copy

I reviewed this slim novel in an earlier blog post, which you can find here and liked it a lot.

Tor ,1987 - cover scan by Will

This is the kind of kiss where, in later years, they reminisce and laugh, saying "remember that time our teeth clashed?"

Arrow Books, 1987 - cover scan of my copy

John Halkin is, apparently, the pseudonym of an unknown British author who's most famous for writing the 80s "slimy" trilogy - Slime, Slither and Squelch - none of which I've managed to find reasonably priced copies for.  All look like cheesy fun as, indeed, is this one.  I read it earlier this year and you can find my review at Goodreads here.  The US had an alternate cover, which Will posted, though I prefer the UK one.

Guild Press, 1988 - cover scan by Will

Leisure Books, 1989 - cover scan by Will

A skull, shark teeth, some kind of weird eye - seriously, what's not to like?

Pocket Libary, 1989 - cover scan by Will

I love this cover and I think that's because the thing we initially think is the monster with a screwed up face might, in fact, just be a person who's been startled by the monster grabbing their shoulders from behind!

Tor Books, 1994 - cover scan by Will

Published in 1994 (but an honorary 80s cover, I'm sure you'll agree), this must have caught the tail end of the horror boom.  I first saw this on TMHF and managed to track down a copy (for much less than I thought) through Amazon US - I mean, what a fantastic cover (by Joe DeVito).


* Thanks to Will for the use of his scans

For a few years now, I've been collecting old 70s and 80s paperbacks (mostly horror), picking them up cheaply in secondhand bookshops and at car boot sales and slowly building a collection.  My friend (and fellow collector) Johnny Mains once told me that charity shops sometimes pulp old books like this because the market for them is so small - I understand why but I think it's terrible.  We might not be talking great art here but on the whole, I think these books deserve to be remembered.

Previous entries in the series can be found at this link

Novelisation Review 5: Dead & Buried, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

The fifth in an occasional thread celebrating old-school paperback novelisations from the 70s and 80s, which are now mostly forgotten.  We're not talking great art but these books have their place - they were a fantastic resource from a time when you couldn't watch your favourite film or TV show whenever you felt like it - and I think they deserve to be remembered.

This time, I'm looking at Dead & Buried, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, adapted from one of my favourite horror films of the 80s, which was released 40 years ago.

front and back cover of the Warner Books paperback, 1980 (cover scan of my copy)

The coastal town of Potter’s Bluff is small, insular and friendly, where everyone knows everyone else’s business and outsiders are easy to spot.  So when dead bodies start to turn up - burned beyond recognition - Sheriff Dan Gillis doesn’t have a great deal to go on, except that his wife seems to be tied up in it.  As the threads of his investigation start to come together, he realises his neighbours might not be everything he’d thought they were…

Based on the screenplay to the excellent film - though not, it appears, the shooting script - this is a decent attempt to create a suspenseful novel from a story that, I think, works best visually.  In the film, we see the characters and get a sense of the almost surreal nature of what’s happening, while Yarbro is forced to explain bits and pieces that don’t really work once they’re laid out.  Having said that, she writes well and the pace clatters along, with Dan taking the lion’s share of the POV - Janet, his wife, gets short-changed the most unfortunately, while others characters seem there purely to serve the plot.  The suspense set-pieces - such as the out-of-town family pursued through a deserted house - are very well done and there’s a nice creepy sense over the piece, that lingers well into the last quarter where everything appears to turn on its head (no spoilers here).  With a great eye for location - a small town with lots of sea mist - and atmosphere to spare, this is a worthy companion to the film (different enough to make it an interesting and intriguing read in its own right) and if you liked the movie, I’d very much recommend this.

* * *

Dead & Buried was released in 1981 (shown uncut, it received an X-certificate at the cinema but somehow ended up caught in the initial sweep of Video Nasties in 1983, the EMI video only being dropped from the list in January 1985), though I didn’t catch it until 1985, when I watched it with friends on Betamax.

At the time, I was intrigued by the cover art (the same as the poster and book), the taglines - “The writers of Alien bring a new terror to earth” and “A new dimension in horror” - and the link with Alien as well as the actors (I knew Melody Anderson from Flash Gordon and James Farentino from Blue Thunder).

Directed by Gary Sherman (it would be some years before I got to see his Deathline, which I also loved - “Mind the doors!”), the screenplay was written by Ron Shusett and Dan O’Bannon, based on one by Jeff Millar & Alex Stern but changed enough the original writers only got a ‘story by’ credit.

Lisa Blount in the middle of the ocular mayhem scene...

The film works very well, though it was beset by behind-the-scenes problems with the production company from the start and Sherman’s directors cut - he was  aiming for a more black comedy type feel - was apparently destroyed.  Interestingly, the problems with the production company led to a wait for the films distribution which meant the novelisation was released first.  A 'surprising success'*, its popularity meant 'many people presumably thought the film was actually based on the novel, rather than vice versa'.

Aside from the excellent set direction and strong acting, the excellent make-up effects from Stan Winston were a major draw for me, especially in the hitchhiker sequence where Winston performed the hands close-ups in place of the actor.  He utilised a lot of puppet work to up the gruesome factor and one scene in particular, featuring a nurse and patient, had us teens howling as we watched it (ocular trauma with a needle) and years later, even after the effect had been explained to me, I couldn’t watch it without wincing.  In fact, Winston’s excellent work only serves to highlight the problems, where the production company brought in a less competent team to create an acid effect that’s so bad you want the camera to cut away out of embarrassment, rather than fright.

It does have its downsides, of course but it remains creepy and effective, a genuinely good horror film that really does make you wish they still made them like this today. If you get a chance to see it, I would urge you to do so.

* quotes taken from the liner notes of the Anchor Bay DVD

* * *
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro was born on 15th September 1942) in Berkeley, California and attended San Francisco State College (now University).  She began writing professionally in 1961 as a playwright for a children's theatre company and switched to writing stories in the mid-60s.  Perhaps best known for the Count Saint-Germain novels, she has worked in a wide range of genres, from science fiction to westerns, young adult adventure to historical horror.

A ‘skeptical occultist’ for more than forty years, she’s been honoured by the Transylvanian Society of Dracula (the 1997 literary knighthood), the World Horror Association (2003 Grand Master), as a ‘Living Legend’ by the International Horror Guild and won Life Achievement Awards from the Horror Writers Association (in 2009) and the World Fantasy Convention (in 2014).

More details can be found at her website here

For a few years now, after finding out charity shops sometimes pulp old books because the market for them is so small, I've been collecting 70s and 80s paperbacks through secondhand bookshops, car boot sales and ebay.  I set up a thread for the horror titles (which you can see here) but novelisations were a rich vein in those decades, before the advent of home video, when viewers wanted to revisit the adventures of their favourite TV show or film.  I realise we might not be talking great art here but, on the whole, I think these books deserve to be remembered.

To that end, on an irregular basis, I'm going to review these "old-school" tie-ins with, hopefully, some background material on each one.

You can read the other posts in the thread here

Novelisation Review 4: The Six Million Dollar Man: Wine, Women And War, by Mike Jahn

The fourth in an occasional thread celebrating old-school paperback novelisations from the 70s and 80s, which are now mostly forgotten.  We're not talking great art but these books have their place - they were a fantastic resource from a time when you couldn't watch your favourite film or TV show whenever you felt like it - and I think they deserve to be remembered.

This time, I'm looking at The Six Million Dollar Man, by Mike Jahn, adapted from my favourite childhood TV series.

Star Books 1975 (2nd printing), originally published by MCA Publishing 1972
cover scan of my copy

To dictator, oil-rich sheik or Third World revolutionary, Arlen Findletter will sell weapons of nuclear destruction.  He's even ready to deliver a complete nuclear submarine if the bidder will wait until he's stolen it.  To combat this international bandit, the US sends its most sophisticated weapon, The Six Million Dollar Man.  Steve Austin's brief: Find him; locate the arsenal; stop him before it's too late.

After a mission to steal an arms dealers catalogue in Egypt goes wrong (the safe is empty) which results in the death of his lover, Colonel Steve Austin is resentful when Oscar Goldman wants him back in the field.  He escapes from Dr Rudy Well’s bionics facility and heads for a friends Caribbean holiday home, not realising the trip is being manipulated by OSI agent Harry Donner.  On Paradise Cay, Austin meets up with an old Soviet colleague, Alexei Koslov and Katrina Volana (Undersecretary for Special External Security) and soon finds himself back on the trail of the arms dealer, Arlen Findletter, with revenge on his mind.

I should make it clear that growing up, Steve Austin was my hero - I had posters from Look-In and the TV Times on my wall, I had the figure and I made the appropriate noises when I ran anywhere or jumped.  That was back in the mid-70s and having not seen the show for years (decades, even), I revisited it a couple of years back with Day Of The Robot (which is very slow) and didn’t particularly enjoy it.  Around the time I got that DVD, I also picked up this paperback though I’ve resisted reading it until now in case it was rubbish.  Thankfully, it isn’t.  Although it’s never going to be considered great literature, it wasn’t all that bad as ‘entertaining pulp’, full credit for which must go to Mike Jahn, the Edgar-winning writer who doesn’t get his name on the cover.

Yes elements of it are contrived - you can see where he had to stick to TV teleplay logic - and there are some telltale sexist elements - this was published in 1972 - but for the most part it holds together.  The paperback Steve Austin is much more brutal than the TV show version I recall (though, as mentioned above, I might have forgotten it), he kills one guard by throwing a safe at him and shoots many others.  His desire for revenge relates to a character we only see very briefly and he picks up with helicopter pilot (and fellow agent) Cynthia Holland and Katrina without too much trouble, whilst his relationship with Oscar Goldman is difficult, at best.  Koslov works well as a character, though isn’t used much but Findletter is an odd villain, mentioned a lot but infrequently seen and his big moment comes right at the end in the clumsy climax.  In a lapse of logic, having mentioned how seeing the Earth from orbit has turned Austin off the idea of nuclear weapons, it’s odd that he puts into motion events which lead to Paradise Cay being destroyed by a nuclear explosion (it’s explained away as “the crater was deadly now and would remain so for some time to come.  But years would heal it, water would fill it and some day fish would swim in it.”).  Otherwise, Austin is decently crafted, with more bionic attributes than I recall - it’s his left hand that’s bionic, he has all manner of kit hidden away in his legs and he has a CO2 powered gun in his middle finger - and a chapter gives us his backstory, including the amusing line “what took longer was what the doctors euphemistically termed Austin’s emotional adjustment.  In short, he was furious.”

Based on the teleplay by Glen A Larson for the second pilot, this is good fun, with a decent pace, nice touches of humour (“I'm sorry I had to violate your porthole!”) and decent sense of location.  It won’t be to everyone’s taste, obviously but as a good piece of pulp this reader with warm (if perhaps misguided) memories of the TV show enjoyed it.

* * *

Joseph Michael Jahn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on 4th August 1943 and studied journalism.  He spent the first decade of his career covering cultural issues then, in 1968, became the New York Times' first full-time rock journalist.  One of his first assignments was covering the Woodstock Festival.  He wrote several non-fictions books before switching to mystery/suspense fiction, eventually publishing fifty novels and film/TV adaptions, under his own name and several pen names. His first mystery novel, The Quark Maneuver, was published by Ballantine in 1977 and won an Edgar Award.  After writing the ten-novel series "Bill Donovan Mysteries", he began working on a memoir of the last century and a half of American history.

He wrote five Six Million Dollar Man books (becoming, aside from Martin Caidin, the most prolific writer of Steve Austin fiction) which are notable for combining the television series continuity with the bionic attributes of the original Cyborg novels.

* * *

Martin Caidin was born in New York City on 14th September 1927 and began writing fiction in 1957, publishing more than fifty fiction and non-fiction books as well as more than one thousand magazine articles.  Cyborg (1972) was his most famous novel and he wrote three sequels Operation Nuke, High Crystal and Cyborg IV.  He died in Tallahassee, Florida on 24th March 1997.

For a few years now, after finding out charity shops sometimes pulp old books because the market for them is so small, I've been collecting 70s and 80s paperbacks through secondhand bookshops, car boot sales and ebay.  I set up a thread for the horror titles (which you can see here) but novelisations were a rich vein in those decades, before the advent of home video, when viewers wanted to revisit the adventures of their favourite TV show or film.  I realise we might not be talking great art here but, on the whole, I think these books deserve to be remembered.

To that end, on an irregular basis, I'm going to review these "old-school" tie-ins with, hopefully, some background material on each one.

You can read the other posts in the thread here

Old School Horror 8: Death Tour, by David J. Michael

The eighth, in an occasional thread, of blog posts celebrating those cheesy, sleazy old-school pulp paperbacks from the 70s and 80s, which are now mostly forgotten.  Yes, we’re not talking great art here but these books have their place - for better or worse - in the genre and I think they deserve to be remembered.

This time, I'm looking at a novel that not only appears to switch genres halfway through but is a classic example of exploitation artwork (ie, misdirection!)...

cover scan of my copy - NEL paperback edition, July 1980

It was crazy but it was a story.

The five students who specialised in weird features for the college paper needed a story badly when they heard about alligators infesting the city's sewers.

With a stolen map of the sewer system they climbed down a manhole into an underground world of fetid pools and sludge-filled tunnels.

In a dark territory that played host to black rats and hideous reptiles their reporting mission turned into a nightmare as death sprang from the evil-smelling gloom ...

HOW MANY OF THEM CAN SURVIVE THE DEATH TOUR?

To start with, I'll address the elephant in the room.  This is called Death Tour and an alligator features on every single cover version there is (see more below).  If you're looking at this thinking "yay, a creature feature!" then, seriously, I'd advise you to move along now.

Still here?  Well that's an excellent decision because I picked this up expecting a creature feature and, far from being disappointed, found a lot to like.

Tom Marsh is a journalism student and member of a campus production group called Five-Star, whose regular feature Touring has become a hit in the University paper.  His partners-in-crime are Mary Malgren (also his girlfriend), overweight (and over-bearing) Cherry, Krevitch who does the photography but seems scared of his own shadow and the mentally impared Hunk who, it later transpires, isn’t a student at all but offered once to help carry their equipment and is now a member of the team.  A stock-in-trade of the horror novel (see also The Losers Club in IT), this little gang of outcasts works well together and we get some nice bits of history, later in the book, fleshing out their back stories.

The group is trying to work out which feature to work on next as Tom walks Mary home.  Clearly in love with her, their relationship is hampered by her father, a misanthropic alcoholic who controls her life and hates intellectuals (and plenty more besides) since his wife left him for a French teacher five years before, who expects Mary to be at his beck and call.  Mr Malgren (who has the great quote "The world is fine, but people stink") is the supervisor at the local sewage plant and, according to Mary, has just been bitten on the leg by an alligator, though he wants to keep that very quiet.  Tom realises this is their next assignment, attempts to butter Malgren up to get enough information on the sewers layout - and Mary secretly photocopies the plans - and then Five-Star launch their expedition.

Of course, nothing goes right and that’s not even counting the stories of people going missing in the tunnels.  Frightened by a turtle and “oversized goldfish” (a carp) in one of the holding tanks (more pet shop crazes, flushed away by their owners), they then derail an underground train before discovering they’re not alone in the sewers, as a shambling, white-haired troll who eats roasted rats seems intent on killing them.

The first half of the book enjoys a leisurely pace, taking its time to introduce the characters and their situation and works really well, especially their interplay.  Once they move underground, the pace picks up and Michael uses the locations and atmosphere well, especially the “things” in the water and the first appearance of the troll.  As the body count starts to rise (it’s obvious who the survivors will be from fairly early on, but at least one of the deaths took me by surprise), there’s a neat little twist that shifts the emphasis of the book and then we head off into proper horror territory, the victims pursued by a mad killer.  Brisk and to the point (the edition I read is all of 156 pages), this is good fun (so long as you don’t expect it to be a creature feature), populated by characters you care about and gleefully gruesome in its set pieces, while never outstaying its welcome.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

* * *
Not much is known about David J. Michael, even from the usual reliable sources (such as Will Errickson’s excellent Too Much Horror Fiction), though he published at least one other book, A Blow To The Head, in 1970 (reviewed favourably, as his first novel, in volume 30 of Best Sellers: From the U.S. Government Printing Office).  The New York Times Book Review liked it (check out the cover blurb - "Sheer, shuddering horror!") and the San Francisco Examiner wrote "Terrifying, it's a spine chiller" (on the back cover) while Kirkus were less complimentary, though our views on the first half are very similar.

The book is mentioned (along with a full-page reproduction of the Don Ivan Punchatz cover) in Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks From Hell and even makes an appearance in Stephen King’s excellent Danse Macabre (which I wrote about here) - when discussing Harlan Ellison’s excellent Croatoan, he calls Death Tour a “funny/horrible novel”.

Bobbs-Merill hardback, 1978

The novel appeared in hardback, from Bobbs-Merrill Co, in August 1978 and in Signet paperback (with the Punchatz artwork) in 1979.  New English Library, with cover art by Bob Martin, published the novel in July 1980.

Signet paperback, 1979

I wonder what Mr Michael did next...?

For a few years now, I've been collecting old 70s and 80s paperbacks (mostly horror), picking them up cheaply in secondhand bookshops and at car boot sales and slowly building a collection.  My friend (and fellow collector) Johnny Mains once told me that charity shops sometimes pulp old books like this because the market for them is so small - I understand why but I think it's terrible.  We might not be talking great art here but on the whole, I think these books deserve to be remembered.

To that end, on an irregular basis (too much cheese isn't good for anyone's diet), I'm going to review these "old-school" horrors (and perhaps include some bonus material, if I can find it).

Previous entries in the series can be found at this link

Novelisation Review 3: When You Comin' Back, Range Rider? by Charles Heath

The third in an occasional thread celebrating old-school paperback novelisations from the 70s and 80s, which are now mostly forgotten.  We're not talking great art but these books have their place - they were a fantastic resource from a time when you couldn't watch your favourite film or TV show whenever you felt like it - and I think they deserve to be remembered.

This time, I'm looking at When You Comin' Back, Range Rider, by Charles Heath, third novelisation from one of my all-time favourite TV shows, The A-Team.

front and back cover of the Target paperback, 1984 (cover scans of my copy)

When Daniel Running Bear discovers a local rancher, Bus Carter, is protecting grazing areas for his cattle by shipping wild mustangs to a pet food factory in Mexico, he enlists the help of The A-Team.  At the same time, Colonel Lynch has been sidelined to a desk job for his failure to capture the fugitives and General Bullen has sent the overzealous Colonel Decker to track them down.  After some LA-based adventures (including BA’s truck going into the San Pedro harbour), Hannibal and the team arrive in Arizona to confront Carter’s henchmen.  After kidnapping Carter’s niece, the team are on the offensive and utilise everything they can, including a train called Abigail and Howling Mad Murdock, whose alter-ego The Range Rider, will come to save the day with his trusty horse Thunder.

The A-Team mount up...

Another excellent novelisation (from a 2-part episode) of the (second) series, for me this is exactly what the A-Team was all about - there’s plenty of action, a lot of humour (between the team themselves and also other characters, such as a couple on Hollywood Boulevard who think Decker is George Peppard) and a decent resolution to the story.  The main characters (all clearly defined on the show by then) are well drawn but so too are the supporting cast, especially Jake the train driver and Carter.  The Arizona locations are well described, the train based action is gripping (and the shoot-outs are much more subdued, making me think this was written from the shooting script) while the pace is spot on, the story racing from one set-piece to the next.  In addition, there’s a nice gritty element to it, with the fate of the mustangs not being glossed over, as well as plenty of more adult references at the film premiere Face sets up (cocaine use and low cut dresses especially).  Well written, thoroughly involving, I really enjoyed this re-read to the extent I wanted to watch the double-episode as soon as I’d finished it.  For a returning A-Team fan, I’d very much recommend it.

* * *

The A-Team was created by Stephen J. Cannell and Frank Lupo, from a pitch made to them by NBC president Brandon Tartikoff who called it a combination of “The Dirty Dozen, Mission Impossible, The Magnificent Seven, Mad Max and Hill Street Blues, with Mr. T driving the car.”  Cannell had high hopes for the show but, as he told Debra Pickett of The Chicago Sun-Times, it was George Peppard who said it would be a hit “before we ever turned on a camera.”  First broadcast on 23rd January 1983 (29th July 1983 in the UK), the programme ran for five series and a total of 98 episodes.

When You Comin' Back, Range Rider? was first broadcast in the UK on 18th November 1983, following the US broadcast on 25th October.

Hannibal Smith was written with James Coburn in mind but George Peppard auditioned - urged on by his young son - and took the role, making it his own.  Faceman was written for Dirk Benedict but the network wanted a younger actor, so Tim Dunigan plays the role in the pilot, replaced by the erstwhile Lt Starbuck from the second episode.  Dwight Schultz was told his role as Howling Mad Murdock would quickly disappear until the network saw the public reaction to his character.  Mr T, part of the original pitch, played a key part in the series - in presence, catchphrases and merchandising - though his standing with the producers and the public caused tension between him and George Peppard.

I wrote an extensive nostalgia post about The A-Team, which you can find here.

* * *

A series of novelisations were published during the mid-80s, by Dell in the US and W H Allen (through their Star and Target imprints) in the UK.  The first paperback, The A-Team, wasn’t numbered (perhaps the publishers wanted to wait and see if it was successful before launching a series) but adapted the pilot episode, Mexican Slayride, while most volumes were built around two episodes (often linking them somehow).  The UK got all ten books in the series, while the US published six.  The first six were written by Charles Heath.

The A-Team (adapted from the pilot by Frank Lupo and Stephen J. Cannell)

Small But Deadly Wars (adapted from A Small and Deadly War written by Frank Lupo and Black Day at Bad Rock written by Patrick Hasburgh)

When You Comin' Back, Range Rider? (adapted from the eponymous episode written by Frank Lupo)

Old Scores to Settle (adapted from The Only Church in Town written by Babs Greyhosky and Recipe for Heavy Bread written by Stephen J. Cannell)

Ten Percent of Trouble (adapted from Steel written by Frank Lupo and The Maltese Cow written by Thomas Szollosi and Richard Christian Matheson)

Operation Desert Sun: The Untold Story (apparently original, the title page credits the novelisation to Louis Chunovic)

Bullets, Bikinis and Bells by Ron Renauld (adapted from Bullets and Bikinis written by Mark Jones and The Bells of St. Mary's written by Stephen J. Cannell)

Backwoods Menace by Ron Renauld (adapted from Timber! written by Jeff Ray and Children of Jamestown written by Stephen J. Cannell)

The Bend in the River by David George Deutsch (adapted from the eponymous double-episode written by Stephen J. Cannell and Frank Lupo)

Death Vows by Max Hart (adapted from Till Death Us Do Part written by Babs Greyhosky)

For a few years now, after finding out charity shops sometimes pulp old books because the market for them is so small, I've been collecting 70s and 80s paperbacks through secondhand bookshops, car boot sales and ebay.  I set up a thread for the horror titles (which you can see here) but novelisations were a rich vein in those decades, before the advent of home video, when viewers wanted to revisit the adventures of their favourite TV show or film.  I realise we might not be talking great art here but, on the whole, I think these books deserve to be remembered.

To that end, on an irregular basis, I'm going to review these "old-school" tie-ins with, hopefully, some background material on each one.

You can read the other posts in the thread here

Novelisation Review 2: The Professionals 4: Hunter Hunted, by Ken Blake

The second in an occasional thread celebrating old-school paperback novelisations from the 70s and 80s, which are now mostly forgotten.  We're not talking great art but these books have their place - they were a fantastic resource from a time when you couldn't watch your favourite film or TV show whenever you felt like it - and I think they deserve to be remembered.

This time, I'm looking at The Professionals 4: Hunter Hunted, by Ken Blake, adapted from the excellent UK TV series.

front and back cover of the Sphere paperback, 1979 reprint (cover scans of my copy)

Once again written by Kenneth Bulmer under the Ken Blake house name, this volume is based on the shooting scripts for three episodes.

The first is First Night, where an Israeli minister is kidnapped from the Festival Hall on the Southbank and, to avoid an international incident, it’s down to CI5 to find him.  After an action packed opening, we then see some dogged detective work (the kidnappers are tracked by a Polaroid picture they’ve sent), which works slightly better in the episode than it does here.  Great pacing, some humour and some nice observations on contemporary London.

Kathie Mason (Cheryl Kennedy) from "Hunter Hunted"

The second, eponymous episode has CI5 charged with testing the new laser-sighted 180 and Cowley hands it to Bodie & Doyle.  Whilst at headquarters, they encounter Kathie Mason, an ex-colleague of Doyle’s who’s interviewing to become a CI5 agent.  After a night at her place, Doyle discovers the gun is missing and it seems someone is out to get their revenge on him.  Brisk, involved and good fun, this cracks along with some nice dialogue, excellent set pieces (especially the demise of Doyle’s E-type)  and some good interactions between the agents.  I really liked the episode itself (especially Cheryl Kennedy as Kathie) and this does it justice.

The Rack is the final episode.  Following a raid on ex-boxer (now criminal and drug dealer) John Coogan’s mansion, he and his brother are taken to CI5 for interrogation.  The brother has a go at Doyle then punches him, in self defence Doyle retaliates and the brother dies of a ruptured spleen.  A tribunal (the ‘rack’ of the title) is then set up, wherein prosecution lawyer Geraldine Mather decides to take on the Action Squad and cut them down to size.  Briskly told, with good characterisation, this works well to flesh out Doyle and his feelings over perhaps (without giving away spoilers) causing the death of a man while Cowley has a great grandstanding speech on just why CI5 is so important (and, sadly, the words ring as true today as they did forty years ago).

All three are competently written (and Bulmer continues his fascination with Bodie’s ‘famous’ face and mobile lips) and feature some nice bits of poetic prose when describing a London that has mostly long since disappeared.  The action scenes are deftly handled as are the locations (judging by certain aspects - the constant rain in The Rack, for example - it seems they were written from the shooting scripts rather than seeing the episodes) and there are some smart little character pieces that flesh the dynamic duo out well (it’s mentioned again that Doyle paints).  Brisk, violent, occasionally amusing, I’m not sure how these would work if you’d never seen the programme but as an unabashed fan of the series, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Recommended.

The novelisation is "based on the original screenplays by Brian Clemens, Anthony Read and Gerry O'Hara" (taken from the title page)

* * *

from left - Doyle (Martin Shaw), Cowley (Gordon Jackson) and Bodie (Lewis Collins)

The Professionals ran for five series, from 1977 through to 1983, shown on ITV.  Brian Clemens, perhaps best known for The Avengers, created the series (which was originally to have been called The A-Squad) and became executive producer with his business partners Albert Fennell and Laurie Johnson (who also provided the excellent theme music) for London Weekend Television (LWT).  The first series was produced by Sidney Hayers with Raymond Menmuir producing the rest, with 57 episodes made in total.

Although the first series used a lot of studio-based filming (to the extent Cowley had a secretary), Menmuir did away with standing sets and the remainder of the series was filmed in real buildings and homes.  This lent a grittiness to the programmes and now, forty years later, provides a wonderful snapshot of a London that's mostly been lost to progress.  The series focussed on the exploits of CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5), led by George Cowley (Gordon Jackson) and centred around his two best agents, Doyle (Martin Shaw) and Bodie (Lewis Collins).  The two actors, whose initial abrasiveness towards each other led to their casting, worked well together and a lot of episodes included dialogue ad-libbed by them.

While earlier episodes (certainly series one through to three) saw a wide range of plots and scripts, with some good directors involved (Martin Campbell was both a main and second unit director), the later ones used more script devices as time wore on.  The final episodes were filmed in May 1981, by which time Collins and Shaw both stated publicly they thought the show had grown stale, though the final broadcast run ended in February 1983.

The series is repeated often on ITV4 in the UK and is well worth a watch, though the Network Releasing Blu ray restorations are your best bet.  These not only have great quality image and sound but thorough production notes (in book form) by Andrew Pixley.

The Corgi collection.  I had the bigger model (with figures) when I was a kid but didn't pick up the smaller version until a couple of years ago

* * *
From 1978 through to 1982, Sphere released 15 paperback novelisations (with seven of them also receiving hardback release), adapting 38 of the series' 57 episodes.  Ken Blake was the house-name covering all of these with Kenneth Bulmer writing the majority of them and Robert Holdstock contributing numbers 10, 13, 14 and 15.

(Henry) Kenneth Bulmer was born on 14th January 1921 in London and worked in the paper industry before serving with the Royal Corps of Signals during the Second World War.  Having been a fan of sf before his service, when demobbed in 1946 he began writing for fan magazines and his first novel, Space Treason, was published in 1952 (and co-written with A Vince Clarke).  Turning freelance in 1954, he wrote dozens of novels and comic strips, a prolific output he maintained throughout his career.  In the 70s, as part of the Piccadilly Cowboys group, he wrote across genres for various series (including The Professionals) under a host of pen and house names, whilst also publishing a substantial amount of work under his own name.  In addition, he edited nine volumes in the New Writings in Science Fiction anthology series during the 70s, succeeding John Carnell.

He suffered a stroke in 1997 which halted a writing career that saw over 160 novels (and countless short stories) published.

Awarded the TAFF in 1955 (a fund to send prominent fans to international conventions), he was the British Guest Of Honour at the World SF Convention in Cleveland, Ohio and made a life member of the British SF Association in 1974.  He married Pamela Buckmaster in March 1953, with whom he had two daughters and a son but they were divorced in 1981.

Kenneth Bulmer died on 16th December 2005.

for further bibliographical details, the SF Encyclopedia has a good entry on him and the Guardian has a thorough obituary

For a few years now, after finding out charity shops sometimes pulp old books because the market for them is so small, I've been collecting 70s and 80s paperbacks through secondhand bookshops, car boot sales and ebay.  I set up a thread for the horror titles (which you can see here) but novelisations were a rich vein in those decades, before the advent of home video, when viewers wanted to revisit the adventures of their favourite TV show or film.  I realise we might not be talking great art here but, on the whole, I think these books deserve to be remembered.

To that end, on an irregular basis, I'm going to review these "old-school" tie-ins with, hopefully, some background material on each one.

You can read the other posts in the thread here