When you write a fictional account of a real event, you better have the facts straight. With SNOWBOUND, Richard S. Wheeler is definitely up for the challenge. The story is based on not only a real person, explorer John Charles Frémont, but one of his darkest episodes in his life.
That episode can only be described as a disaster of epic proportions. For those unfamiliar, Frémont’s fourth expedition dealt with trying to find a railway route on the 38th parallel, but got stuck in the snowy Colorado mountains. It seems Frémont was definitely a man who could not be swayed from what he thought was a brilliant idea, even if it wasn’t.
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No, with that title, this column is not turning into some weekly affirmation. I’m talking about that red, sticky stuff that flows within us all: blood. I’ve got three books to cover this week that all have blood in common, and usually, there is a lot spilled. First up is a book where once I found out who the real author was, it really pissed me off, since his writing was central to my youth.
BALZAN OF THE CAT PEOPLE #1: THE BLOOD STONES by Wallace Moore — I grew up reading tons of science fiction — good and bad, did not matter. I found it funny that the bad stuff was always more fun to read. But I’ve never come across one that truly deserves the title of “worst book ever” in any genre. Sure, I’ve covered more than my share of stinkers, but wow, did I really hit bottom with this 1975 one.
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This week’s theme is simple: war. Books have covered this topic since the dawn of man, but this being a column covering books that, for the most part, have fallen by the wayside like so many bullet rounds, the three featured are all part of larger series. We’re featuring three types of war: One takes place during World War II, another during World War III, while the third deals with those secret wars that are staples in the men’s adventure genre. No one is going to confuse any of these with THE KILLER ANGELS, that’s for sure.
BOXER UNIT OSS #1: FRENCH ENTRAPMENT by Ned Cort — You know a better way to spend your time than reading this 1981 novel? Watch THE GUNS OF NAVARONE. Hell, who am I kidding? Even FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE is better than this tired excuse for writing.
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As I’ve mentioned before, I have long been associated with the world of comic book media tie-in writing, or what the layman calls “novelizations.” I wrote my first one in 1978, at a time when, as reading some of the material today might suggest, I had no business writing a grocery list, much less 50,000 words of story. But that’s neither here nor there, because in the very same series in which my novels appeared, there were nine other titles, some of which were pretty good.
Published between 1978 and 1979 by Pocket Books, these 11 books are known, collectively, as the Marvel Novel Series, beginning with the Spider-Man novel MAYHEM IN MANHATTAN by Marv Wolfman and Len Wein, and ending with my own effort, SPIDER-MAN AND THE HULK: MURDERMOON — an effort to read, that is … and that officially ends the self-deprecating humor.
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The gold I’m speaking of is Fawcett Gold Medal books — a line of novels that are highly sought after and well worth reading. They’re a who’s who of crime authors, with the added bonus of always having great covers. So let’s see if this is truly a gold mine or just fool’s gold.
ALWAYS LEAVE ‘EM DYING by Richard S. Prather — Another entry in the long-running series of Shell Scott mysteries is this early 1954 one. Shell is hired to find a girl named Felicity Gifford, who has hooked up with a bizarre cult run by a man named Trammel. Now, for anyone who has read Jonathan Latimer’s SOLOMON’S VINEYARD — aka THE FIFTH GRADE — take a wild guess who else has read it. That’s right: Prather.
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