K.W. Jeter

K.W. Jeter is best known for coining the term Steampunk, and being compared favorably, or unfavorably, to Philip K. Dick.

His career began with a couple of novels for Laser Books: Seeklight (1975) and The Dreamfields (1976).

His steampunk works began with an H.G. Wells continuation Morlock Night (1979), and continued with his Infernal Devices series beginning in 1987.

His cyberpunk novels include Dr. Adder (1984), The Glass Hammer (1985), Death Arms (1987), Farewell Horizontal (1989), Madlands (1991), and Noir (1998)

His horror novels began with Soul Eater (1983), and continued with Dark Seeker (1987), Mantis (1987), In the Land of the Dead (1989), The Night Man (1990), Wolf Flow (1992), and Kingdom of Shadows (2011).

Jeter also wrote media tie-ins through much of the 90s for franchises such as Blade Runner, Alien Nation, Star Trek, and Star Wars.  His most recent series is his self-published Kim Oh hit-woman books, some in ebook, some not.

Jeter has been releasing his back catalog in ebook, though it's a bit hard to navigate on Amazon with the stock photo covers and multiple short stories mixed in.  The links above are to the Kindle versions - sadly, most of his horror hasn't been reprinted.

The Dominion of the World: The Plutocratic Plot by Gustave Guitton and Gustave Le Rouge

The Dominion of the World: The Plutocratic Plot
aka The Billionaire's Conspiracy
by Gustave Guitton and Gustave Le Rouge
1899, Brian Stableford translation 2012

An example of high concept, poor performance.  American billionaire William Boltyn, seeking higher tariffs on Europe, enlists the aid of other rich American industrialists to build an invincible army.  Among them is a spiritualist and a Thomas Edison stand-in Hattison.  Hattison works on high speed trains and submarines, and later volumes involve an army of mediums and robots.

So I'm told.  There's sweet jack all in this installment.  The actual story is a timid love story about the mild courtship of Hattison's son and Boltyn's daughter.  When that gets too intense, there's some light comic relief in the form of a drunken butler.  And to bring the piece to a climax, a love triangle.

Hattison junior decides to marry a Frenchwoman and be more Frenchy.  Hattison Sr. gets mad and threatens to kill him, the end.  On to part two, which I will not be reading.  There might be psychics and robots eventually, but I could not read another page of this stuff.

There's a little bit of science fiction in the way of trains and submarines slightly advanced for their time, but other than the love story, we've mostly got musings about the difference between the American and French characters.  I'm biased, of course, but the Americans didn't get painted as too villainous, as opposed to the English, who are duplicitous colonists.  Americans are greedy, practical, inventive, and independent, while the French like art and having other people cook for them.

I can be forgiven for thinking this would be entertaining - I read Le Rouge's The Vampires of Mars, which was a lot more fun.  I will give Doctor Cornelius a try - it sounds like it has a Dr. Mabuse vibe to it.

Terror of Frankenstein by Donald Glut

Terror of Frankenstein
by Donald Glut
New Adventures of Frankenstein 2

Following the first installment, scientist Burt Winslow and his fiancee Lynn Powell go to England, where Burt works on a cybernetically controlled robot to hunt down the Monster.  The Monster is rescued by agents of OGRE, a terrorist organization of men in faceless masks who perform public massacres in their war against beauty.

This here's the stuff.  It's very movie serial and comic book inspired, doesn't take itself too seriously, but doesn't try to get cute.  Right in the sweet spot.

Collected in The New Adventures of Frankenstein Collection Volume 1, paperback from Amazon.

Phoenix: The Warrior

Phoenix: The Warrior aka She-Wolves of the Wasteland (1988)

In a post-apocalyptic wasteland populated entirely by women, Phoenix protects a boy-child and his mother, crossing paths with an adult man fleeing the sperm banks. This piece of art is exactly what it looks like on the posters, and more. Punky 80s women out of a music video brawl and shoot each other. A little social satire, with a cult who read from the TV Guide and pray for their TV sets to work. Also, bewbs. Except for Persis Khambatta, who is wearing more clothes than the rest of the cast combined.

Currently on Amazon Video

Sloane: The Man With the Iron Fists by Steve Lee

Sloane: The Man With the Iron Fists  (possible original title Fastest Fist in the West)
by Steve Lee (Michel Parry with Steve Moore)
1974 Futura, 1974 Pinnacle

There are only a handful of western plots.  This one has the "boy getting vengeance for his murdered family" template.  Only the boy's parents are killed by a crime circus.  And are raped and tortured for a looooong time, like a sixth of the book.  So we're off to a good start.

Sloane is rescued by a kung fu master and spends years becoming a master himself before setting out on a path of revenge.  Nasty, brutal revenge.

I tend to like westerns that are either brutally violent or gimmicky, and this one is both.  The showdown at the end reads more like a Shaw Brothers film than a spaghetti western, and Parry manages to do a decent job with the action - writing martial arts ain't easy.

Three books were written in the series, two published, and one is available for Kindle.  Michel Parry is better know to me as an anthologist, and I wish he had written more novels.

Available for Kindle from Amazon

Click here to read a sample