The History of Torture by Daniel P. Mannix

The History of Torture
by Daniel P. Mannix
1964, Dell

I got turned on to Mannix by a interview with Laurence James - https://www.stewarthomesociety.org/interviews/james.htm This and other titles of Mannix informed James' exploitation novels.

A little bit of pop psychology and criminology, but mostly just accounts of torture and execution from ancient Rome to present. I would have liked to see more outside of the western canon, but we get a little bit of Native America, Asian, and African torture methods.

Some highlights - sliding victims back and forth straddling a greased rope until they're sawed through. Peeling off the soles of the victim's feet, filling the pocket with corn kernels, sewing the skin back on, and making them run the gauntlet. Sliding hollow bamboo up the keister, followed by a red hot needle for executions without a trace.

From Amazon https://amzn.to/3WecRC5

Dray Prescot 1: Transit to Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers

Dray Prescot 1
Transit to Scorpio
by Alan Burt Akers (Kenneth Bulmer)
1972, DAW

English sailor Dray Prescot is zapped back and forth between Earth and the planet Kregan by mysterious means, where he goes through cycles of being enslaved and escaping, and rescuing and losing his beloved, the princess Delia. One of the most self-conscious of the Barsoom pastiches. We've got a an often nude Dejah Thoris stand in, an oversexed evil princess in love with a heroic swashbuckler ala Aura and Barin from Flash Gordon, and there's even a throwaway reference to Gor.

Takes a bit to get warmed up, and feels like a fix up novel of short story fragments, but some good adventure here and there. More Douglas Fairbanks than Conan.

Available from Amazon

Hardman: Atlanta Deathwatch by Ralph Dennis

Hardman 1
Atlanta Deathwatch
by Ralph Dennis
Popular Library 1974

Jim Hardman is a disgraced former cop who operates as an unlicensed private detective, along with other minor criminal hustles. He's teamed up with former NFL player Hump Evans, more than a sidekick but doesn't get full co-billing.

Hardman is hired by The Man, a godfather in the Black gangs of Atlanta, to find the killer of his secret white collage-aged girlfriend. This leads Hardman and Evans from the Black bars of Atlanta to rural redneck drinking holes to high priced lawyers and politicians.

The vibe sits nicely between Parker and Hap & Leonard, and the ride along the way works better than the plot, which for me kind of went off the rails a bit towards the end.

The language won't work for some modern audiences. Some of it falls in the category of "reflecting the gritty realities of 1970s Atlanta criminal underworld" while some is just outdated language. When half your characters are African American, using "the black" as a generic pronoun isn't very helpful. Mostly has its heart in the right place, but definitely from a White perspective.

Available from Amazon

TNT: The Devil's Claw by Doug Masters

TNT: The Devil's Claw
by Doug Masters
1985, Charter

A Middle Eastern power has a weather control device that he's using to destroy the Western world and turn the Middle East into a paradise. Our Irish journalist with mildly superhuman powers is on the case.

We get a teams of eight little people eunuch acrobatics murdering people with razors and fisting their mistress, a massive underground base, and technical genius who calls himself Charlie Brown and surrounds himself with nude models named after Peanuts characters. Despite these elements the story drags and only picks up at the end.

This is made worse, so much worse, by his mission in the first half of the book - to seduce a lesbian. And by seduce, well, this was originally French. The scene itself is completely lifeless, devoid of any salacious value, and didn't really affect the story much.

After this, TNT has to satisfy a 69 woman harem to keep the guards from being alerted. This is done in about a page, and I think I timed it at a minute 20 seconds per woman within the story, which would barely cover the logistics.

From Amazon https://amzn.to/3V27Fkf

Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests

Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests
by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller
2014, Little, Brown and Company

An oral history of the show, updated to before the Trump era. One interesting aspect is how show business has changed over these 40 years, going from petty, paranoid backstabbing to supportive collaboration. However, the less toxic the show got, the less compelling the book.

By the last third we're down to repetitions of "I was so excited when I got to audition" and "I was so sad when it was time to go." I haven't watched in the 21st century, so lengthy monologues on digital shorts and Stefon didn't do me much good.

The book seemed to push back on any criticism that SNL was a boy's club or far behind the curve on casting demographics. They spend a great deal of time talking about an opening where a Black actor runs back and forth to play multiple parts because there was only one in the cast. On the one hand it seems like they're acknowledging the issue, but given that the same gimmick was used by SNL and even Fridays in  decades past, it's more of an indictment.

Skip if you idolize the early cast members, I think Jane Curtin and Garrett Morris are the only ones that come out unscathed. I'm surprised Chevy Chase can still talk, his jawbone should be powdered the number of punches to the face he's earned.

My favorite story is from Harry Shearer. Garrett Morris had a regular bit as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Shearer also did Sadat and lobbied Loren Michaels to switch for that week's show. Loren seemed to agree, but didn't make the change and didn't tell Shearer, who only found out from the call sheet. Seconds before the sketch starts, Morris leans over to Shearer and says "Hey, you do a pretty good Sadat. What's he sound like again?"

A few interesting anecdotes sprinkled around, but a lot of the same ground covered at length. I think there was a solid hour of the audiobook dedicated to how Michaels manipulated insecure actors with daddy issues, which seems to be most of them.

From Amazon

Nightlife by Brian Hodge

Nightlife
by Brian Hodge
1991, Dell

A Tampa drug dealer gets his hands on a supply of Skullflush, a snortable green powder from South America that turns you into a were version of your spirit animal. He's opposed by our heroes: a dirtbag, his new girlfriend, and a warrior from an Amazon tribe trying to destroy the drug. Possibly the most Tampa any novel has ever been, the way Cloak and Dagger was with San Antonio.

Easily twice as long as it needed to be and doesn't get going until the last quarter, but fun once it gets started. Some wasted potential - it teases having a were-piranha mowing down DEA agents with a BAR and Uzi which doesn't come to pass and commits the unforgiveable sin of having an action sequence at an amusement park (Busch Gardens) without a sequence on an operating ride.

As with a lot of stuff of it's time it's more action than horror and had some cutesy one-liners, though not quite at Freddy levels. Something else about that period was the exaggerated efficacy of homemade weapons. A plastic bottle of rubbing alcohol will not explode like a grenade when lit on fire - believe me, I've tried.

From Amazon

Alan Partridge: Nomad by Rob Gibbons, Neil Gibbons, and Steve Coogan

Alan Partridge: Nomad
by Rob Gibbons, Neil Gibbons, and Steve Coogan
2016, Orion

Petty media failure Alan Partridge discovers a stack of letters and receipts that suggest his deceased abusive father took a trip to apply for his dream job at a nuclear power plant, only to no-show the interview. Partridge takes an ill-planned walking trip "in the footsteps of my father" to come to terms with his relationship with his dad, but mainly to commission it as a book and TV series.

I've enjoyed most of the Alan Partridge productions, and aside from the live shows all of them have something to offer, but I think the books are my favorite, as they consist almost solely of bitter ramblings. Minor quibble of it getting a titch cartoonish in places and being tied in with the mediocre movie.

Available from Amazon, the audiobook version is highly recommended

The Funhouse by Dean Koontz

The Funhouse
by Dean Koontz
1980, Jove Books

A teenage girl gets pregnant by her irresponsible boyfriend and she's afraid to ask her religious parents for money for an abortion. There might be a minor subplot about a deformed man killing teens at a carnival but there's no way I'm sitting through another couple hundred pages to see if that goes anywhere.

Novelizations work best when they're slim and there's just not enough movie for over 300 pages. The bloat is from the worst kind of padding - characters arguing and repeating lines back and forth to each other five or six time, followed by an internal monologue of how the conversation went, followed by characters reporting the conversation to someone else.

I've never seen The Funhouse and never read Dean Koontz, and this doesn't do favors for either. From what I've seen it's a dark ride, not a funhouse.

From Amazon

WWX Tag Team Title Final Fall

Startling Detective July 1936

Love Secrets of California's Rattlesnake Romeo by Deputy Sheriff Virgil P. Gray as told to Mark Gibbons

A philandering husband with a habit of seeing his wives drowned is investigated by LAPD. A two-parter, but I'll go ahead and guess they got him.

Spicy Western Stories July 1937

Polly of the Plains - The Devil is a Woman

We step into this serialized cartoon with a couple ladies escaping from quicksand only to be held up by Senorita Diablo.

Spicy Western Stories takes the final fall and claims the Tag Team Title!

WWX Tag Team Title Fourth Fall

Startling Detective July 1936

The Public Enemy and Night Club Suppression by Matt Leach

Editorial by a police captain taking the bold position that we should do something about crime.

Spicy Western Stories July 1937

Feud's End by E. Hoffman Price

Something something cattle rustling something. Had problems following this one, but there was a shootout during a stampede, with piles of writhing wounded cattle providing cover, that could have been something.

Spicy Western takes the fall, bringing each title to two falls each.

WWX Tag Team Title Third Fall

Startling Detective July 1936

Tragedy of the Night Club Beauty

Quick page on the brick beating murder of Florence Thompson Castle, the killer leaving the message "Black Legon [sp] Game" written in lipstick on the mirror. Unsolved at the time, they have since been attributed to serial killer "The Brick Moron" Robert Nixon.

Spicy Western Stories July 1937

The Waco Kid - A Murderer by Ross Putnam

A wanted murderer joins a rustling gang.

Startling Detective gets the third fall.

WWX Tag Team Title Second Fall

Startling Detective July 1936

The Chief's Chair

News briefs with commentary: Black Legion KKK splinter group in Detroit, advocacy for castration, harsher penalties for women murderers, studies from 88 years ago showing prison increases recidivism, KKK floggings in the South, takes credit for catching a wife killer, and the ramifications of executing a child killing minor.

Spicy Western Stories July 1937

Ace in the Hole by James A. Lawson

A hired gun of the "only shoots pistols out of people's hands" variety stumbles into a murder that is instantly resolved.

Startling Detective takes the second fall.

WWX Tag Team Title First Fall

Startling Detective October 1936

The Clue Club: The Mysterious Murder of Algernon Ashe

A bs solve it yourself mystery, which is solved by guessing which of the preselected suspects was the fattest. Not sure that would hold up in court

Spicy Western Stories July 1937

Hell's A-Poppin' by Carl Moore

Woman hating drunkard John Doe drinks himself blind in a saloon before getting involved in a range war or something between bouts of ripping off women's clothing. The shootouts felt more censored than the sex, to the point where I had to infer what was meant to happen.

Spicy Western takes the first fall.

WWX Tag Team Title: Startling Detective vs Spicy Western Stories

 

Long time champion Startling Detective faces off against Spicy Western Stories, three falls to a finish.

Near Dead by Stephen R. George

Near Dead
by Stephen R. George
1992, Zebra

Kind of a dark riff on Ghost. A workaholic man's wife and daughter were murdered by a satanic serial killer. He wants to get on with his life, but he's being haunted by his family's ghosts, who want him to stop their murderer. He teams up with a medium and works with the police and the world of the afterlife to catch him.

Went the thriller direction of a lot of post Silence of the Lambs horror. Tame, bloated, and way too much exposition about how the afterlife does or doesn't work.

Available from Amazon https://amzn.to/4cUKBtH

Man's Book, February 1973

Man's Book
February 1973
Vol 12 No 1

From the dying days of the Men's Adventure magazines before they went full porn. A couple of topless spreads and tons of ads. The texts were very short, maybe four pages worth each at most. Man's Book lasted five more issues.

Savagery in Action - They Prey on Homosexuals by Charles Beach

Broad overview of blackmail against gays.

The Incredible Raid of Italy's Kissing Daughters of Doom by Roy Harper

An Italian sex worker working with anti-fascists sneaks a bomb into a detention center to kill her beloved before he's tortured for information.

10 Weaknesses That Can Doom Your Love Life by L.O. Peterson

Pop sexology

The Monster Vampires Who Lived on Maidens' Blood by Chuck McCarthy

Quick story of Elisabeth Bathory. The torture deaths of her accomplices are a bit more embellished than I've seen elsewhere;

I Pay Off in Lust - Confessions of an Orgy Girl by Lola Bryan

The story of women hired by yacht salesmen to entertain potential clients.

Dance, My Darlings, to the Whip's Evil Song by Lotya Grez as told to Jim McDonald

A woman is forced to play the violin in a concentration camp orchestra while others are whipped.

The Truth About Aphrodisiac Foods 

They don't work and are dangerous. Gave a stat about heroin overdoses in NYC that works out to 800 a year - in 2021 there were 2668 overall overdose deaths, a 234% increase against just a 19% increase in population. Also mentions the "regulation" WWII era diet of 3000 calories a day. I looked up the study and it was more like 3600, but that may have been the baseline for soldiers in the field.

It's Raining Fire on Hell's Beach by Cpl. Ben Vetter

Brutal tale of rangers being decimated behind enemy lines in Italy. The highlight of the mag.

Night Hunter 6: The Labyrinth by Robert Faulcon

Night Hunter 6
The Labyrinth
by Robert Faulcon
1988, Charter Books

Dan Brady finds his kids. A good chunk of the book involves his son attempting to escape captivity from a country estate with not quite the terror and suspense of the Rescuers, the rest is Dan running around a small town and just bumping into things. Arachne started out as a massive occult conspiracy and by the end it's pretty much one guy, with more members of Arachne helping Brady than opposing him.

It's usually nice to have a series wrap up, but the ending was rushed and unsatisfying. Easily the weakest of the series.

From Amazon https://amzn.to/43HdHJC

The Rockford Files : The Green Bottle by Stuart M. Kaminsky

The Rockford Files
The Green Bottle
by Stuart M. Kaminsky
1996, Forge

Rockford is hired to find a missing aspiring actress, gets involved in the world of painted Chinese bottles and Hollywood wannabees, and is framed for murder. An engaging enough mystery with a little action, but like the series it coasts on charm, especially with Rockford's friend Angel trying to start a cat grooming business.

The book is nestled among the TV movies of the 90s, and a lot of it deals with Rockford grieving his dead father Rocky. We also get a little insight into his prison years.

Available from Amazon

The Incredible Hulk: What Savage Beast by Peter David

The Incredible Hulk: What Savage Beast
by Peter David
1995, Putnam

This novel takes place in a time period where the psyches of Hulk and Banner have swapped - the Hulk retains his intelligence while big and green, but when he gets angry enough he turns into a raging 120 pound nerd.

He's hounded by a new Hulkbuster squad as he and Betty try to live a normal life, Banner teleworking in IT and Betty working at a daycare. Betty becomes pregnant and gives birth to conjoined twins, one seemingly normal, the other a grey hulk. Doctor Strange assists with the separation, upon which the Maestro (a future evil Hulk) dimension warps in and snatches up the child.

With the assistance of Strange, Hulk goes to the future to face Maestro, who is building an army of alternative universe Hulks with the help of their now grown son.

I've enjoyed David's comics more than his prose. For me there were some pacing issues - a lot of domestic business and pregnancy drama, not much on the Hulk smashing stuff. It also felt very recycled, as if this was based on unused drafts of other scripts. We get Glenn Talbot's nephew as the obsessed military leader of the Hulkbusters acting much like his dead Uncle. The complicated pregnancy angle was done better with the birth of Franklin Richards (and a year later with the Parkers), and this version of the Maestro didn't differ much from the one "killed" a couple years before. 

Available from Amazon, audiobook currently on Hoopla, check your library.