aka Joseph R. Rosenberger PhD; Joe Rosenberger; Jose Rosenberger; Lee Chang
Joseph Rosenberger is best known for the Death Merchant series, and for writing like a bigoted, drunken reactionary. To modern audiences his rants against the evils of communism such as the metric system seem like parody, but no, I'm afraid he's the real deal.
He's known for convoluted and sometimes poetic descriptions of physical violence (lines like "the bullet hole in his forehead made him look stupid for forgetting not to get killed") as well as the occasional mystical bent.
He claims to have written for the original Weird Tales, but if he did it was under an unknown pseudonym.
He wrote some non-fiction articles for Fate Magazine. One I read was a standard pole-shift, meteor strike cataclysm piece with a slight Christian angle.
Some other 60s non-fiction oddities of his include:
Smoke Without Panic: The Truth About the Smoking Scare (1966)
Bestiality (1968)
Sex Kicks of the Watchers (1968)
Confessions of the Pain Seekers (1969)
The Demon Lovers: A Psychosexual Study of Witchcraft and Demonology (1969)
The Young Deviates
His bread and butter for the next two decades was the Death Merchant (70 books plus one super sized special, 1972-88). Other series include:
Kung Fu starring Mace (5 books, 1973-4)
Murder Master (3 books, 1973-4): Blaxploitation fiction from the man who called Mr. T a bur-head. I'm sure that went over well.
He evidently wrote some non-fiction "how to kill people" type books for Paladin Press under the name Richard Camellion, the character name of the Death Merchant.
Shadow Warrior (4 books, 1988)
Geneva Force (one off 1988)
and one book of Killmaster Nick Carter, #125
Much more, including interviews, at Glorious Trash.
Joseph Rosenberger at Amazon
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