Dreams Die First - Harold Robbins

"I have a contagious fungus," I said. "Sort of vaginitus of the hands."

Having gotten my Christmas duties done for the holidays, I found I had the whole day yesterday to do nothing but read another trashy bestseller from the typewriter of Harold Robbins. Dreams Die First, was the third book I started in the past week, and the first one finished. I don't know if that says more about my reading skills, my tastes, or just my state of mind for the holiday season, that I was able to knock this 408 page novel down in less than two days.

Pocket Books, September 1978

What I can say is that this is one of the more off the wall "bestsellers" that I've had the joy of reading. I've never read a mainstream commercial work of fiction before that has as many uses of the C-word in it for describing the anatomy of a woman's body. That and a plot that falls down all over itself with randomness and silliness; more so than the previous novels Harold Robbins novels I've read. Once again, this book must have had a place in a lot of bookshelves in the late 70's if the sales figures for Robbins's novels are to be believed. My question is, who exactly was reading them? Men, women, or horny teenagers?

The plot concerns an ex-Green Beret who decides, through the "help" of his shady uncle, to get into the publishing business. We meet our hero, Gareth Brendan, as he wakes up in his apartment next to a naked young man, with no memory of the night before. Gareth is unemployed and out of prospects. He tells us he's a Vietnam veteran who was forced to pull an extra year in the military to keep from bad mouthing the war, or something like that. Gareth's bio is sort of made up along the way, as if Robbins wasn't exactly sure himself. Gareth gets a ride from his loan-shark, referred to as "the Collector" to the unemployment office where he flirts with pretty clerk named Verita. Outside, Gareth gives his last unemployment check to The Collector, and is offered the possibility of a job by the Collector's boss, Lonergan. With no other means of support forthcoming, Gareth agrees to meet Lonergan personally after midnight that night. Until midnight, he'll spend the evening in Verita's bed giving her multiple orgasms.

Lonergan's offer to Gareth involves taking over an underground street rag named Hollywood Express that's fallen on hard times. Lonergan figures that he'll use the Hollywood Express for a money laundering operation. Gareth decides that he might as well turn the Hollywood Express  into a porno rag and make a lot of money. Oh yeah, and it turns out the Lonergan is Gareth's uncle. Oh yeah, and Verita is a CPA, but can't work as an accountant because "Chicanas" can't get work as Accountants. Oh, and Verita also has a law degree, but that isn't needed until later on in the plot. Also, Gareth is the son of rich mother living in Bel Air. Anyway, all that comes in handy as Gareth turns the Hollywood Express into a successful weekly porn magazine, with the help of some shady characters connected to a group "back east." Also, it turns out the boy Gareth woke up next to on page one of the novel is the son of a Christian guru type celebrity named Reverend Gannon, who is okay with all the hedonistic life-styles practiced by his son Bobby (who is gay) and his youth group, as long as they're cool with Christ in the meantime. The whole plot is a "seat of the pant's" ride with the distinct feeling that Robbins was literally making shit up as he typed. There is the insider's look at the business of publishing porno, a sex cult, tons of pure coke inhaled, Mexican drug lords, a gay "terrorist" organization, a Latino gang run by Verita's cousin, who also happened to serve with Gareth in Vietnam, and some shootouts, lots of sex, sex therapy, a couple of karate chops, some gay torture, and yes, by the end of the novel, true love overcoming all.

All the characters display the compulsion and self control of your average teenager, only with lots of money and  freedom with which to pursue their whims. Everyone falls in love instantly and has explosive orgasms throughout.

Now that I think about it, maybe all those readers back in the 70's were teenagers between Stephen King novels...who knows. As for me, will I read anymore Harold Robbins? Yeah, you can probably bet on it.

The Case of the Vagabond Virgin

Out of the more than 100 Perry Mason novels, I think I've read about a dozen. I've yet to be disappointed in them, forgiving the thin characters and the sometimes repetitive dialog. Instead I admire the puzzles and the twists, just like any other whodunit fan out there would. Oh, and not to mention the usually wonderful covers these capers came wrapped in.

Pocket Books, 1953

Published in 1948, The Case of the Vagabond Virgin is sort of a neat little case, in which Mason's client, John Racer Addison, picks up cute little hitchhiker, Veronica Dale (the vagabond virgin of the title) and winds up being charged with the murder of his business partner, Edgar Z. Ferrell. Veronica has a knack for making men fall all over themselves in fatherly devotion to the protection of her innocence, in spite of the fact that she's got this habit of picking up rides with strangers. Addison, a wealthy manager of a department store, is no different. He's a blowhard, pompous, arrogant, pushy, and a dunce when it comes to babes like the "virginal" Veronica Dale. Also in the mix is a sleazy little blackmailer named Eric Hansell, who seems to conveniently know just the opportunity needed to put the squeeze on guys like Addison. The case follows some pretty typical twists, involving forged checks, an impostor, confusing timelines, tricky business transactions, and a couple of dames who have no problem lying through their lipstick. And of course, the neat courtroom shenanigans that these books are famous for.

Mason has been around forever in books, movies, and television. I can't help but see Raymond Burr as Mason whenever reading one of the novels. Same with William Hopper as Paul Drake. But I'll admit that I have to force myself to envision someone besides Barbara Hale when it comes to Mason's assistant, Della Street. Hale never did it for me in the TV shows. Instead I'd rather picture a babe more resembling Modesty Blaise. It's an effort, but I'm up to the task.

Artist Robert McGinnis

Now this would be a Della Street no guy could ignore!

Scenes of the future that never was...

Collection of cool science fiction paperbacks that I've recently purchased. I love covers like these and wish there were more of them in my library. One of the most annoying things some booksellers do is paste their price stickers on them, which was the case with a couple of these. That's why the scarring on the cover of Get Out of my Sky. Thankfully, that didn't happen to any of the others. Paperbacks like these are wonderful old soldiers, that have survived decades in the desert, beaches, pools, winters, summers, planes trains and highways of America.

Away and Beyond - A.E. van Vogt

A.E. van Vogt is at his best in small doses. I've given some of his "novels" a go and typically bail on them before the halfway point. The problem, as has been well documented by way more scholarly types than myself, is that the novels are patch-worked up from previously published stories, often resulting in a confusing mess. Yes, moments of pulp glory will occasionally "pop!" (with exclamation points added just in case you're dozing off) but not to the benefit of a particularly enjoyable reading experience.

Jove/HBJ Edition - November 1977

His short stories are where he shines, glitters, pops and zooms at his best. You can usually get through them fast enough without thinking about them too hard. Which is a good thing. They don't stand up to critical scrutiny at all. There is all sorts of cool shit happening, but not a hell of a lot of it ever makes any sense.

I picked up this collection, along with a couple other vintage science fiction collections, for the measly price of a buck at a store closing down business. I'd read a few of van Vogt's stories in other collections, and outside of "Black Destroyer" and "Vault of the Beast" don't remember any of them. This collection opens with "Vault of the Beast" which I hadn't read in more than 30 years. I have to admit that the beginning of the tale really hooks you, where we meet a stowaway alien aboard a space freighter returning to earth. If you've seen The Terminator 2 you've got a pretty good idea of what the alien is capable of. And here in 1940 he's just as murderous in his mission to find a mathematician from Earth who can solve a riddle of the ultimate prime number, which will release a godlike alien trapped in a massive vault on Mars. Got it?

"The Great Engine" is about a war veteran who finds a piece of what may be part of an engine that propels a starship. There is government conspiracies in this one that get a little flaky, and something of a love story as well. "The Great Judge" is one of those tales that take place in a future Utopia where freedom of thought is frowned upon. "Secret Unattainable" is probably the best story in the book, told through a series of letters and correspondence about a scientist building the ultimate weapon for the Nazis in WWII. A.E. van Vogt has a tendency to shift POVs and scenes unexpectedly with jarring effects. Here in "Secret Unattainable" that habit is nullified by the epistolary method used. "The Harmonizer" is an alien plant, I think, but I wouldn't swear on it because I bailed out early. Maybe I'll go back and finish it. Same with "Heir Unapparent" where a galactic emperor has been poisoned by someone in his court. I didn't really care, so I didn't hang with the story. "The Second Solution" is reminiscent of "Black Destroyer" with a telepathic alien "monster" and her offspring stowing away on an Earthbound spaceship. There is reference made to a war with the Rulls, a wormlike like race of invaders wherein the ezwals, telepathic monsters like the ones on the spaceship, could possibly serve as allies and...oh, don't think about it too much...just dig the chase and bloodshed instead. "Film Library" is a "Twilight Zone" kind of story where short movies in 1946 somehow get switched for movies made in 2011. It's kind of fun, and ends with a scientific sounding gobbledy-gook explanation of how time is relative to a moment here and simultaneously somewhen else and...yeah, it's really not important. "Asylum" is pure pulp fever-dream with space vampires and horny babes, and bloodsucking and alien chases, and suppressed identity hoohaw that is pulled out of the air. It's long, but short enough to not fall apart.

That's the deal with this collection. A.E. van Vogt's books and stories are really easy to find in used bookshops. He remained in print well into the 70's. Maybe there was a lot of nostalgia for the pulp adventure and wonders of his his stories. Sophisticated readers today can appreciate their place in the genre's history. Other readers will be bored and unimpressed. You just got to be in the mood for them, and you'll have fun. Like candy, best in small doses.

Hot Blooded

Quick post today with a picture of some really cool books from back in the day when you could find a horror section at Barnes and Noble. I remember buying these as they came out, up to around Volume 8 or so. It would have been around then that the horror section at B&N got axed, and the only writers found were King, Koontz and Laurell Hamilton. Oh yeah, and the never-ending output of V.C. Andrews. I saw later that the Hot Blood books were reissued in trade paperback, but without the garish covers. My own favorite of this trio is Hotter Blood, mostly because this collection was made up of all original stories, unlike the first volume, Hot Blood, which contained reprints. Not that Hot Blood isn't good. It is. Stories by greats such as Harlan Ellison, Ramsey Campbell, and Theodore Sturgeon among others. My one gripe (a minor one) is that there are few stories from the women in the field offered up. That changed in the volumes to come.

A Hot Threesome

These collections introduced me to new writers in the field whose books I would then go seek out in various bookstores around town. Writers like Ray Garton, Bentley Little and Thomas Tessier. They also contained a spirit of fun about them, like mini-grindhouse flicks, without the sketchy freaks who sit too close to you...unless that's your thing.

CREEPY #29 - Sept 1969

Hands down, the best thing about this issue of CREEPY from 1969 is the cover by Vic Prezio.

CREEPY #29 - Warren Magazines, Sept 1969, cover by Vic Prezio

I really like the sexy, sinister with a hint of sleaze vibe going on here with Prezio's cover. I can just imagine plunking down 50 cents for this issue, then trying my best to keep my mom from finding it and throwing it out. Yes, back in the day, mothers had no problem throwing out our prized possessions. I remember finding a couple vintage paperbacks in the garbage that I'd taken from my grandmother's house on one of our trips, but that's another story. Since I was only in 1st grade in 1969 I'm fairly certain I had more interest in Hot Wheels than ghoulish chicks like the one shown here. That would come later.

The table of contents includes the cover story, "The Summer House" by Ernie Colon (art) and Barbara Gelman. Colon's art takes some limited psychedelic (for black & white) turns in a few panels, but nothing as cool as the cover happens in the story. "Angel of Doom" by Jeff Jones (art) and Archie Goodwin is a caveman/fantasy tale that's over and done and forgotten. These and other tales are kind of humdrum, nothing special until "The Devil in the Marsh" which is credited to Jerry Grandenetti (art) and Don Glut (story). I say they're credited in this particular issue, but I'm pretty certain the actual story is by H.B. Marriott Watson. Watson was an obscure Australian writer of mostly adventure and romance tales back in the late nineteenth century. Popular in his day he's pretty much forgotten now. I just happen to own a collection of his supernatural tales, of which "The Devil in the Marsh" is one. It was first published in 1893 and is pretty much the same story appearing almost 70 years later in CREEPY. I didn't see any mention of his name in the credit however.

Art by Keith Minnion (2004) in the Ash-Tree Press colletion

Art by Jerry Grandenetti / story by Don Glut for Warren Magazines 1969

All in all, it's an okay issue for CREEPY, but just okay. I don't think I'm alone in believing they got more daring in later issues, some of which I'll be sure to look at here. Still, there's nothing like opening one of these vintage mags and smelling the paper and digging the work produced for horror fans back in the day. And no pesky mother clucking her tongue at you, telling you how this stuff will turn you into a degenerate perv.

The Last of the Beatniks

It's been a slow couple weeks here in The Ringer Files but I managed to get in a pretty interesting read in John Trinian's The Savage Breast. Unfortunately it wasn't in a format found in a cramped used bookstore in a forgotten corner of town. But that's the purist in me. Instead I discovered it via e-book thanks to Prologue Books.

This was an opportunity to read something by an author I wasn't familiar with. I selected it from a handful of writers that were new to me. Some years back, after I was finished with college, I was into a Beat Lit phase thanks to one of my English professors promoting them in a scholarly tome that only his students read. The Savage Breast falls into this movement, in a way. It's a study of a young, wealthy, and appropriately impulsive young woman, referred to throughout as D.B. D.B. is bored, rich and probably none to bright, having gotten herself roped into a drab marriage with another young man of means named Gordon Fitzroy. D.B. has dumped Gordon in a whirlwind of drinking and hooking up with a bohemian crowd out of North Beach. Enough hints are dropped that it's the early sixties, but it could easily be the height of the Beat Movement judging by the semi-artistic pursuits of the characters, namely tempestuous composer Harry Dazier, who D.B. sees in a dive bar one night. D.B. and Harry fall for each other among the ruins. Harry, following the tormented artists creed, wants nothing to do with D.B.'s money. D.B. doesn't want her wealthy father's interference with her life. Gordon Fitzroy, D.B.'s husband, decides that he'll get even with everyone through a flimsy attempt at blackmail. And out there in the fringes is Harry's weird brother, Sandro, depicted on the cover above. And yes, he's handy with a whip.

It's an entertaining book, being not quite a crime novel, and not quite a beat novel. It has some interesting observations and moves like a pre-psychedelic artflick in the mind's theater. And, thankfully, there is no excruciating dialog that so often turns up in books of this sort. It's not the great lost beat novel, but it's a decent visit to the scene for a couple hours on a rainy weekend.