To the Stars #01 - Homeworld

Science-fiction author Harry Harrison gained fans with his character Stainless Steel Rat in 1957. The character appeared in 12 total books. Additionally, Harrison wrote the novel Make Room! Make Room!, the basis for the 1973 film Soylent Green. My first exposure to Harrison's writing was Planet of the Damned, the first of two novels starring an Olympic-styled athlete that works for a peacekeeping interstellar agency. Anxious to read more of Harrison's novels, I selected the first in a three part trilogy titled To to the Stars. The novels were Homeworld (1980), Wheelworld (1981), and Starworld (1981). 

Homeworld is set in the 23rd century and explains to readers that tremendous gains were made in the areas of development and space travel. Earth's one-world government was able to journey out beyond the stars to other planets for cultivating, scavenging, and manufacturing. With the 20th century's economy a distant past, Earth now lives in two classes – the elites and the proles. 

The residents, like main character Jan Kulozik, exist on Earth in a privileged manner. They have the very best life has to offer with higher educations and a posh existence. Jan works as an engineer with an experienced background in computer networks, chips, and communications. He's a rich nerd from a generation of rich nerds. 

The proles are Earth's slaves, working around the clock in manufacturing, mining, serving, etc. But, people like Jan don't realize that in essence, they are slaves to their privileged existence. They aren't aware that this system is dominated by a deceitful government that firmly establishes the two levels of civilization. It's a class-based existence with no hope for anyone born as a prole. 

When Jan runs into an Israeli woman named Sara, he realizes that the government has lied. For decades the government has told its citizens that Israel doesn't exist. However, Sara is Israeli, and she educates Jan that in her country they are completely independent and free. Soon, Jan finds himself joining this resistance despite the fact that his brother-in-law is a prominent member of the government. Will Jan break the ties that bind and bring education to the people?

Homeworld is a fun book and mirrors many of the Dystopian-styled concepts that we've all read or watched. Jan's relationship with Sara is similar to Guy meeting Clarisse in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. I imagine that this series debut is setting up a more action-oriented sequel as the story goes completely off-world. While it is science-fiction, Homeworld plays like a cat-and-mouse spy game as Jan works small assignments for Sara's government. There's a cross-country skiing adventure through the snow to free a prisoner and a space mission to disable a satellite. These things help to distract from the tight, cumbersome narrative of Jan just dodging government surveillance. 

Both Homeworld and the other two installments were packaged in one omnibus under the title To the Stars. I'm on board to read the next installment to determine how Jan's adventures continue (considering the ending of this book). An off-world prison colony seems to be the next destination, but Harrison may throw something else in the mix. While I can't speak for the whole trilogy, Homeworld is definitely recommended. 

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Stainless Steel Rat #01 - The Stainless Steel Rat

One of Harry Harrison's most successful series titles was the Stainless Steel Rat. The first published Stainless Steel Rat novel occurred in 1961. The series ran through 2010 with a total of 12 installments. Loving Harrison's series To the Stars as well as his Brion Brandd hero, I decided I needed to explore another of Harrison's titles. As a newbie to SSR, I decided to read the series debut simply titled The Stainless Steel Rat.

In a far-flung future world, James di Griz operates as a smooth criminal traveling solar systems and planetscapes searching for the next heist. In many ways he's no different than any criminal found in the books by Dan Marlowe, Donald Westlake, or Lionel White. He's a cool operator with a penchant for highly stressful and highly productive payoffs. But, where does the rat thing come from exactly? Here's how Harrison cleverly describes the series title and structure:

“Some don't show their weakness until they are adults, they are the ones who try their hand at petty crime – burglary, shoplifting, or such. They get away with it for a week or two or a month or two, depending on the degree of their native intelligence. But sure as atomic decay – and just as predestined – the police reach out and pull them in. That is almost the full extent of crime in our organized dandified society. Ninety-nice percent of it, let's say. It is that last and vital one percent that keeps the police departments in business. That one percent is me, and a handful of men scattered around the galaxy. Theoretically we can't exist, and if we do exist we can't operate – but we do. We are the rats in the wainscoting of society – we operate outside of their barriers and outside of their rules. Society had more rats when the rules were looser, just as the old wooden buildings had more rats than the concrete buildings that came later. But they still had rats. Now that society is all ferronconcrete and stainless steel there are fewer gaps between the joints, and it takes a smart rat to find them. A stainless steel rat is right at home in this environment.”

The beginning of the novel has diGriz knocking over an armored car full of money. Just when he thinks he has perfected the heist he is nabbed by the cops. They appreciate his criminal mind so much, and his historical reign of terror, that they make him a free man in exchange for working for The Special Corps. This is a branch of the League (that's space law) that takes care of the troubles that individual planets can't solve. What better asset to the cause than a criminal?

The first assignment for diGriz is the investigation of a mysterious battleship that is being secretly constructed on a peaceful planet in a tranquil part of space. diGriz's attempts to stop the construction leads to a conflict with a female mastermind of equal dexterity – a sexy seductress named Angelina. She's in the midst of creating a unheard of revolution on a peaceful planet free from problems. When diGriz abandons the Corps to go after Angelina alone it sets off a wild series of interstellar adventures that are perfectly penned by Harrison. 

Anyone worth their salt can see rave reviews online for the Stainless Steel Rat series. I'm here to tell you that all of their applause and approval is justified. This novel is just delightful in its simple plot, furious action, hilarious political intrigue, and the introduction of a marvelous literary character. The Stainless Steel Rat rings a crime-fiction bell complete with genre tropes made bigger and more outlandish with spaceships and planetary travels. If this debut is any indication, then this series is going to be a fantastic reading experience. I'm distancing myself from reading them all back to back. Good things come to those who...well you know what I mean. Highly recommended! Get the book HERE.

Brion Brandd #01 - Planet of the Damned

Harry Harrison (1925-2012) was a critically-acclaimed science-fiction author who is best known for his 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room!, the basis for the 1973 film Soylent Green. In addition, he also gained fans and admirers when he debuted his Stainless Steel Rat character in a 1957 issue of Astounding. The character would appear in 12 total books through 2010. My first experience with Harrison is his 1962 novel Planet of the Damned. I discovered it when I located a 1975 Tor paperback reprint of the book complete with artwork that suggested this might be Nick Carter: Killmaster in Space. Is it?

Brion Brandd is the champion of his home planet Anvhar. To be considered his planet's champion, Brandd had to compete in a global competition called The Twenties. It's here that men compete in grueling matches of chess, poetry recitals, fencing, skiing, fighting, shooting and a whole lot of other exercises that test the mind and body. This is where readers first meet Brandd, locked into a final struggle with the last competitor. After winning, Brandd is taken to the local hospital to rest and rehabilitate. It's there that he meets an off-world stranger named Ihjel.

Ihjel explains to Brandd that the two of them share a unique psychic gift. Ihjel has developed this unique mental prowess as a way to gain the feelings or desires of anyone he meets. Brandd can utilize this to an extent, but will need to “Jedi up” to really learn how to harness its true power. This gift that Brandd has is exceptional when combined with his overall athleticism and intelligence. Who better to stop a nuclear holocaust other than a planetary gold medalist that can read minds?

In a one-sided conversation, Ihjel illustrates that the planet of Dis is populated by a race of very primitive people that behave in neanderthal ways. Their planet is a scorching firebed of hot sands with temperatures rarely below 100. It's an undesirable planet that is barely inhabitable beyond the race of people that have adapted to its harsh conditions.

Dis's neighbor is the civilized planet of Nyjord, a typically nice place filled with people who behave properly and know exactly which fork to use at formal dinners. Unfortunately, Dis hates Nyjord. In an early war, a small assortment of deadly weapons were left on Dis and now, after all of these years, the neanderthals have found them. Demanding Nyjord's unconditional surrender, the Dis people are set to annihilate their neighbors. What they don't know is that Nyjord has provided a 3-day deadline for peacekeepers, like Ihjel, to visit the Dis people and convince them that the idea of attacking their neighbor is a poor one. If they refuse to peacefully disarm, Nyjord will unleash a wrath of nuclear devastation and Death Star their whole planet.

Harrison's short narrative features Ihjel and Brandd teaming with a female scientist from Earth as they visit Dis in hopes of a peaceful resolution. But, as you can imagine, things don't go as planned. The Dis people immediately send assassins after the trio, forcing them on the run in search for allies and answers. While Nyjord presses a sense of urgency, Brandd begins to suspect that the Dis people want to live in peace and that their leaders may actually be hostile alien forces in disguise. Through investigations, Brandd searches for the weapons, gets laid and joins a team of Nyjord commandos as they battle enemy forces.

There's no doubt that Harrison is placing this interstellar war between neighboring planets as a representation of Earth's own Middle-East power struggle. In addition, the author utilizes the same formula as James Bond, a series of novels and movies that were already blockbuster hits at the time of the book's publication. The early 1960s hosted a spy-fiction sensation, and I can't help but think this is the science-fiction version of that. It possesses all of the same familiar tropes – international romance, a cache of nuclear weapons, trained killers and guns galore.

Whether you like science-fiction or not, Planet of the Damned moves at a brisk pace with an engaging story and capable hero. While it isn't mandatory reading, it's a solid, fun read that never left me bored. The character of Brion Brandd appears again in one additional novel, 1982's Planet of No Return.

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To the Stars #03 - Starworld

Along with series titles like Stainless Steel Rat and Bill, the Galactic Hero, Harry Harrison wrote a number of science-fiction and fantasy novels during his long and respected career. I've concentrated on reading the author's trilogy To the Stars, Homeworld (1980), Wheelworld (1981), and today's topic, Starworld (1981). 

The story so far is that Earth is completely ruled by the rich that have established a two-class one-world government administered by the United Nations. You have the rich controlling everything, including Earth's far-reaching “territory”, a series of slave planets that serve as manufacturing and service for the lower-class Proles. A whiz engineer named Jan figures out that Earth is hiding human history and is seized by the authorities and sentenced to death on a farming planet. All of this is captured in the first book, Homeworld.

In Wheelworld, Jan orchestrates an uprising on the farming planet to usurp an old woman's rigid authority. Her concept of being complacent and living to serve Earth with harvests of corn is overthrown by Jan's forward-thinking, liberal approach to do things in a more democratic way. Jan later discovers that his short uprising on Earth led a series of events that have forced Earth into a war with the only country not participating in the one-world government, Israel, as well as rebels from all of the slave labor planets. On the last page of Wheelworld, Jan joins the rebellion to take down Earth's power-hungry leaders.

Starworld is a buzzsaw filled with non-stop action as Jan and other patriots form a strategic plan to organize the rebellion into a fighting force. This fertile story-line incorporates a lot of different elements ranging from espionage to military combat. At the root of Harrison's riveting narrative is a dilemma facing Jan – he must learn to trust the man who murdered his sister (events that occurred in Homeworld). Enhancing the plot development is preparation for a spacecraft battle and overtaking a military base in the Mojave Desert. Jan also has a romantic relationship with a woman that plays a key part in the rebel's success.

Once you've read Homeworld and Wheelworld, you get the idea where this novel is heading. It's much more epic than the two prior installments and often places Jan in a minor role for some of the developing plot. While the military campaign and ultimate war seems like a grand spectacle, the novel is still less than 200 pages, so an org chart or notes isn't a requirement. This is lightweight science-fiction for casual genre fans. Recommended! 

Buy a copy of the book HERE.

To the Stars #02 - Wheelworld

Harry Harrison was a popular science-fiction author that created a number of memorable series titles and characters. His most popular works are those involving the Stainless Steel Rat and Bill, the Galactic Hero. While I haven't explored those titles yet, I did enjoy my first foray into the author's To the Stars trilogy, Homeworld, originally published in 1980. Needless to say, I continued my space-travels with the second installment, Wheelworld, published one year later.

This trilogy, which has nothing to do with another of Harrison's works called Deathworld, is fairly easy to understand and enjoy, so those of you loosely reading science-fiction should be tall enough for this ride. In Homeworld, readers learn that in the 23rd century, Earth is ran by a one-world government administered by the United Nations. The rich make up a conglomerate of authority that rules the proles, the other class of humans that simply exist as slaves in manufacturing and service. Earth's rich and powerful controls the outlying planets and moons, creating slave planets that simply manufacture goods to ship to Earth. The people on these planets live a life of labor, void of any knowledge of human history.

Jan (male), the series hero, is a microchip whiz that lives a life of luxury on Earth. He figures out the whole conspiracy that forces the proles into servitude and tries to stop it. By teaming with the Israelis, the only country that isn't part of the one-world government, Jan learns about the hushed human history, the plight of mankind, and the big lie fed to the world by “big brother”. By the end of Homeworld, Jan is captured, his sister is murdered, and he is sentenced to life as a slave on a farming planet. 

As Wheelworld begins, readers learn that four years have passed since Homeworld's final page. Jan is living on the agriculture planet Halvmork. Here's the deal on this planet, because it is an integral part of the story. The planet, which is much smaller than Earth, is off-tilt by a few degrees which creates one massive season every four years. On this planet, there is twilight on one side of the planet and temperatures hovering around 80s degrees for four consecutive years. Jan, and the other harvesters, grow corn during this time. After four years, the weather shifts on that part of the planet to 150 degrees and nonstop sunlight. So, after four years, Jan and the others await ships to arrive to take the corn back to Earth. Then, via mobilized transports (like large tanks), the entire population travels thousands of miles to the other side of the planet to take advantage of the four year period that is twilight and 80 degrees there. Cool, right?

This population of slavers has its own governing body, an old woman who is antiquated in her ways and butts heads with the forward-thinking hero. Jan is in a romantic relationship with the old woman's daughter Alzbetta, and the two want to become married but it is forbidden. This is a splendid side-story that propels the book's central plot. As the book begins, it is harvest time and the four years is coming to an end. The sun is beginning to shine and the forecast is heating up. But, the ships don't arrive, which is a major problem. 

Jan makes the decision to take all of the corn on the motorized trek across the planet. His reasoning is that the ships may arrive on the other side of the planet and the corn will be needed there. But, the old woman refuses to do this so Jan has to strong-arm her family to do the right thing. This creates a physical fight between Jan and a family enforcer, which leads to a riveting trial and execution thing at the book's end. But, the real pleasure of Wheelworld is the “wheeling” across the planet as the team fights through volcanic ash, huge crevices in the Earth, swarms of insects, and the human turmoil and factions that develop on the road trip. 

Honestly, Wheelworld can work perfectly as a stand-alone novel. It is a road trip adventure as Jan and the team work their way from Point A to Point B to avoid natural disasters. In some ways, the book reminded me of Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny as a futuristic obstacle course pressed for time. In the trilogy, this is really the hinge that gets from the Earth action in Homeworld to the Earth War story in Starworld. But, regardless of your approach, Wheelworld is a fantastic novel and a great reading experience. 

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Tender is the Flesh

Augustine Bazterrica is an Argentinean writer of novels and short stories. Her second novel, Tender is the Flesh, earned literary prominence in her country. The 2020 Dystopian work has received international praise as a powerful, stunning look at capitalism and industrialized farming. After being encouraged by a friend, I borrowed her copy to check it out.

In the future, animals have been contaminated by a deadly virus. Due to the health risks, most of the world's animal populations have been destroyed. Due to lack of animals, cannibalism has become legal. Body farms have been created that raise humans in the same way that cattle are raised today. These humans (called heads) are raised to consume, so they have no intelligence beyond the walls of the cage. Their vocal cords are removed and based on ethnicity, race, age and gender, humans are packaged into categories and sold. Human meat (known as special meat) is then bought by processing plants (slaughterhouses) where the entire organism is used for food or manufacturing. 

Marcos is a second generation employee of the meat processing industry. He acts as an account executive for "meat runs" where he reviews processes and procurement. After experiencing the loss of a child, Marcos goes into a deep depression and his wife moves out. This loss evokes empathy for the people who are slaughtered. Most of the author's narrative is devoted to Marcos contemplating the whole meat industry and its negative impact on mankind. 

After Marcos is gifted a woman, high human grade, he begins to look after her. Naming her Jasmine, Marcos develops an illegal relationship with her that results in a pregnancy. If the law finds out he had sexual intercourse with a "head," he will be slaughtered. In order to keep the relationship and pregnancy a secret, Marcos hides Jasmine from his home and starts a process of resigning from his work. Complicating matters is the death of his elderly father and a strained relationship with his nagging sister. 

Tender is the Flesh is inspired by several novels. In many ways it resembles the 1953 dystopia novel by Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451. In this book, the protagonist begins to question the government's strict rules and the importance of free will. Other influences range from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) and the 1973 film Soylent Green, which was loosely based on Harry Harrison's 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room!. More recently, the Japanese anime The Promised Neverland, originally released in 2019, is close to the premise of the story.

As much as I wanted to like Tender is the Flesh, I found it too reliant on graphic torture and death. The central story of Marcos becoming an enlightened citizen was lost in the dense atmosphere of dismemberment and gore. Frequently, the author details the human slaughterhouse, the processes, and additional bi-products of this savage society. In disturbing scenes, Bazterrica describes the brutal torture of puppies and the raping of an adolescent girl. These scenes exist merely for shock value and reminded me of the insane carnage of Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door (1989).

I appreciated the social warnings and the clear criticism of animal cruelty, corporate greed and capitalism. There are positive takeaways, but it requires a strong stomach and the ability to distance yourself from the violence. I found it distasteful and over the top. Read at your own discretion. Get the book HERE

Mike Ballard #01 - Brute in Brass (aka Forgive Me Killer)

Brute in Brass was a 1956 Fawcett Gold Medal paperback by Harry Whittington (1915-1989) published at a time when the prolific Florida author was at the top of his game. He probably was paid $2,000 for the novel with the promise of bonuses if the paperback saw multiple printings. In 1987, Black Lizard Books reprinted a handful of Whittington books including Brute in Brass under Whittington’s original manuscript title Forgive Me Killer.

Mike Ballard is a vice cop currently under investigation for corruption. This presents an immediate problem because he is also a bag man and fixer for a mobster nightclub owner with plenty of secrets. Mike’s got a girlfriend of sorts he set up in an apartment who’s not getting the emotional connection she desires. She wants to be his wife - anyone’s wife, really - but Mike likes the current no-strings arrangement.

Mike travels to a prison to see a death row inmate named Earl Walker who maintains his innocence of the murder that landed him on the electric chair waiting list. During the investigation, Mike was the only cop who didn’t beat Walker to elicit a confession, so he’s the one Walker begs to help save his life. Mike also has his eye on Walker’s comely wife, which is the real reason he agrees to help.

As you may have gathered, Mike is kind of a heel. But he’s one of those heels that you kind of like because he’s smart, tough and blunt - a good, but somewhat dirty, cop. He also evolves over the course of the novel to locate the decency within himself while solving a fascinating mystery and navigating a minefield of personal and professional problems.

Brute in Brass was another winner among Whittington’s 170 identified novels. The hero, Mike Ballard, is a badass fighter who should have starred in a series of his own.

Trivia:

There’s a theory that Mike Ballard was intended by Harry Whittington to be a series character - the key to a crime fiction author’s commercial success in the 1950s and now. He wrote a second Ballard novel called Any Woman He Wanted, but it was rejected by Fawcett Gold Medal.

The sequel was finally published in 1961 by second-tier paperback house Beacon under the pseudonym Whit Harrison. By then, any momentum toward making the protagonist a franchise was gone, and Whittington never tried again to launch a series of his own.

Any Woman He Wanted (Mike Ballard #2) remains available as a reprint from Stark House Noir Classics (HERE). Watch Paperback Warrior for a review coming soon. 

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Savage Love (aka Native Girl)

During the 1950s, Harry Whittington was so prolific that he employed a cadre of pseudonyms to keep his sales flowing to a variety of paperback publishing houses. His 1952 novel “Savage Love” was published under the pen name Whit Harrison and was later reprinted in 1956 under Whittington’s own name as “Native Girl.” It remains available today as a cheap ebook (free with Kindle Unlimited) under the original title and the pseudonym.

“Savage Love” takes place on the pre-statehood Hawaiian Island of Maui where Coles has just relocated at the urging of his friend Victor who is married to a “native girl” named Lani. From the first page, the reader can smell trouble ahead for these three when Coles, our narrator, describes Lani as a “goddess molded out of fiery golden flesh.” When he accidentally walks in on Lani undressed in front of a full-length mirror, the poor bastard becomes smitten and obsessed with his best buddy’s wife.

Victor owns a pineapple and sugar cane plantation and hires Cole as an overseer of the business operations. When Victor is attacked by a hostile employee, he is waylaid and consigned to rest and recovery under the care of the plantation’s domestic help. However, you’d hardly know the difference between Victor at work and Victor at rest as he is an advocate of the laid back island lifestyle. This enables Cole and Lani to spend some quality time together as Cole learns the ins-and-outs of the business.

As the narrative progresses, we learn more about Cole’s background and the real reason he was willing to leave his girlfriend and accounting career behind on the U.S mainland to start a new life on Maui. The temptation Cole feels for Lani is a white-hot lust coupled with the appropriate guilt and reservations that eventually lead to an explosion of violence and murder. Nobody writes a femme fatale story like Harry Whittington except for maybe James M. Cain. And “Savage Love” probably owes more than a little to Cain’s “The Postman Always Rings Twice” from 1934.

“Savage Love” is seldom cited as among Whittington’s best work, and that’s a shame. This book is a familiar fatal attraction story transplanted into an exotic setting with a Hawaiian temptress, but it’s also a satisfying piece of noir melodrama from a master of the genre. I’d put it up there with Cain’s “Postman” and Gil Brewer’s “The Vengeful Virgin” as among the best of this type. The fact that it remains available as an eBook costing you next to nothing should push smart readers over the edge to pick up this underrated classic. Highly recommended.

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A Woman Possessed

A Woman Possessed was a 1961 paperback by Harry Whittington, writing as Whit Harrison. The book is a crime noir paperback packaged as a sleaze novel for the original Beacon Books release. Fortunately, it’s been reprinted as a double by Stark House along with 1952’s Prime Sucker. The new edition includes an insightful introduction by pop culture scholar Cullen Gallagher.

As with the best of Whittington’s novels, he wastes no time getting into the plot. Convicted murderer Dan Ferrel is an inmate on a prison road gang swinging a grass sling to cut down the weeds along the steamy highway. Nobody else knows that Dan is expecting company. Namely, a woman named May who should be roaring up any minute in a blue car to facilitate his escape from the shotgun-toting guards.

Of course, the escape happens and Dan is on the run. May is smitten for Dan, but it’s clear that Dan is just using his psychological hold over May to manipulate her into facilitating his getaway. Dan has another woman on his mind - an old flame with whom Dan has a score to settle.

The second plot thread involves Dan’s brother, Paul. He’s the good kid of the family who is going to attend medical school and make something of himself. Paul just started dating a night club singer — always a disreputable profession in these books — and the songbird is pressuring Paul to join her in a heist, so they can be together with a little cash for a change.

The prison guard overseeing the road gang is Virgil Hawkins, and he’s a gun-crazy psychopath just looking for a reason to kill an inmate. When Dan escapes the road gang, Virgil takes it as a personal affront and takes vacation time to hunt Dan himself. This was a great storyline that I wish the author had further developed.

This is top-tier Whittington: Violent, exciting and compelling. The Beacon Books imprint also means sex scenes a few notches more graphic than the usual 1961 fare. There’s really nothing not to like about this one, and thanks to Stark House, you can read it without spending an arm and a leg. Recommended. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.