Showing posts with label John Sievert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Sievert. Show all posts

Thursday, November 21, 2019

C.A.D.S. #4: Tech Strike Force


C.A.D.S. #4: Tech Strike Force, by John Sievert
February, 1987  Zebra Books

I’m really taking my time with the C.A.D.S. series, about one volume every two-plus years. I had to re-read my reviews of the first three volumes to remind myself of the characters and what’s going on. This was a smart move, as with the others Tech Strike Force opens en media res, with our armor-clad heroes emerging from the depths of the lake they escaped in at the climax of #3: Tech Commando, with only vague explanation of what came before.

Ryder Syvertsen (aka “John Sievert”) as ever whittles down his large group of C.A.D.S. so that we only focus on a few of them. That being said, a few “regulars” are killed off this time, but I still had no idea who they were or what they’d done in previous volumes. C.A.D.S. honcho Dean Sturgis is still the star of the show, the Ted Rockson of the C.A.D.S. world, if only less heroic or memorable. He still pines for his wife Robin, but won’t get much done in the way of his searching for her this time around; in fact, Robin doesn’t even appear this volume, which is a series first. Instead Syvertsen sticks with Sturgis throughout, and the dude manages to do pretty well for himself in the female companionship area, bedding three babes in this post-apocalyptic hellhole of America, circa late June of 1998.

Sturgis and Billy Dixon, aka the redneck C.A.D.S. soldier, separate from the rest of the squad as it makes its way back to the C.A.D.S. HQ deep in the swamps of the Bayou. This opening quarter of the novel basically just continues on from the denoument of the previous volume, with the two getting in various skirmishes with pursuing Reds and ultimately getting in a firefight with them in Colonial Williamsburg, which we’re informed has been kept undamaged due to the love the Soviet Premiere has for it. Syvertsen as ever doesn’t strive for realism, despite all the “tech speak” in the dialog; for example, we’re told that the C.A.D.S. suits weigh four hundred pounds, yet when Sturgis’s is so damaged that he can’t use it anymore, we’re informed that he gets out of it and pulls it up into the belfry of the house he’s hiding in.

Unexpectedly we get into some dark stuff, which goes against the grain of Syvertsen’s typical Saturday Morning Cartoon-esque vibe. Sturgis and Billy are taken aboard a sub, where they are interrogated by America-hating Veloshnikov and KGB torture artist Revin. The Reds immediately deduce that Sturgis won’t break, thus set their sadistic sights on Billy, judging that Sturgis will break so as to keep his young charge from harm. But Sturgis won’t break, refusing to give info even as Billy is beaten, his fingers broken, and then is friggin’ sodomized off-page by Revin. Meanwhile Sturgis has himself gotten some intel, shown a map of post-nuke US by Veloshnikov. Here Sturgis learns that the vast majority of the country has been destroyed by radiation, thus the “America” he and his C.A.D.S. are fighting to protect doesn’t much exist anymore.

The two are saved by the remaining C.A.D.S. soldiers, Sturgis’s buddy Tranh having taken command of the squad. Syvertsen keeps referring back to the first volume, thus the escaping C.A.D.S. happen to run into a group of mountainfolk who are fighting some Reds. They turn out to be none other than the McCoys our heroes met back in that first volume, and now these people have set up their own sort of backwoods utopia, complete with food, weaponry, and even New Age crystal healing. This is all like something out of Syvertsen’s Doomsday Warrior in tone and vibe; one thing that’s different, though, is that when Sturgis has sex with Cat, the hotstuff McCoy babe whose virginity he took back in that first volume, it happens off-page. The same can be said of Sturgis’s two other conquests in the book; Syvertsen, whether intentionally or not, seems at pains to whittle down on the crazy purple prose of his typical work.

Dr. Sheila de Camp, the Smurfette of the C.A.D.S., doesn’t much like these New Age crystals, and in fact barges in on Sturgis and Cat mid-boff to complain about them. This just turns out to be another instance of Sheila’s resentment for the women who bed Sturgis, with whom she’s gradually fallen in love. Meanwhile back at C.A.D.S. HQ our heroes learn that “mutated swamp fever” has returned in their absence and wiped out many of the “swamp women” who have taken up residence here, including Dieter, the tall babe Sturgis had some off-page lovin’ with last time. Not to be concerned, though, as soon enough he’s banging another leggy swamp babe, Gloria – but again off-page. 

Syvertsen delivers some unexpected character development with Billy Dixon going nuts due to his rape back on the Russian sub; he pretends as if nothing happened, claims he remembers nothing of his captivity and torture, but he’s a kettle quickly approaching boil. He snaps one day and attempts to perpetrate his own rape, on one of the swamp women. While the other C.A.D.S. are ready to wipe him out, Sturgis instead is able to confront Billy in a fistfight, knocking his ass out but keeping him alive. Despite his misgivings Sturgis has to bring Billy along on their latest mission, despite his insanity; he’s running out of soldiers. However not much else is made of this by novel’s end, with the vibe that Billy’s quest for vengeance allows him to get past his mental troubles.

Speaking of callbacks to the first volume; if you recall, the C.A.D.S. ran across obese billionaire industrialist Pinky Ellis in that first one, the Jeffrey Epstein-type who went around in an armored limo and kept a bunch of sex slaves at his disposal. Well, the sex slave who made eyes at Sturgis in the first novel, Morgana, managed to escape Pinky, get to the President, and inform him that Pinky plans to give the Reds an experimental tank Pinky’s company was developing before the war. I figured this plot thread from volume 1 would be dropped, but Syvertsen clearly planned to get back to it, given the narrative spotlight he gave Morgana in the first volume. She and the President talk to Sturgis over the radio, Morgana finding the opportunity to tell Sturgis she hopes to meet him in the flesh someday – perhaps another dangling subplot to be played out in a future volume.

Now the C.A.D.S. must head to New Orleans, prevent the handover of the tank, and kill Pinky. So it’s back across the blasted United States for our heroes, who have had to repurpose their armored suits as the government is all out of E-Balls, and now they have to make due with regular missiles and whatnot. Syvertsen appears to be minimizing the godlike attributes of the C.A.D.S. armor, or at least not presenting them as so invincible as before. I assume this is an attempt at conveying some tension to the series, but regardless it’s hard to buy that these high-tech, computer-operated suits can even still work in this post-nuke hellzone.

Syvertsen still doles out unexpected and welcomed goofiness, like when the C.A.D.S. on their way to New Orleans run into a crotchety old Western author who lives alone in his decimated town, cranking out “the greatest Western in history.” Dying of radiation and determined to finish his book, the dude begs for more narrative time but isn’t given nearly enough. Instead we get the tiresome return of Carl the King, the Manson-esque serial killer who also last appeared in the first volume. He’s now declared himself King of Biloxi (wearing a paper Burger King crown as evidence of his royalty), leading the same group of escaped mental patients as last time. The C.A.D.S. make quick and somewhat gory work of them, but inexplicably Sturgis allows Carl and his inner circle to escape, presumably to return and annoy us again in some future volume.

Sturgis scores for the third time in the book with none other than Sheila de Camp, Syvertsen paying off the long-simmer hate-lust relationship he’s been developing between them since the first volume. This one’s done for more of a comical effect given that the two are instantly spatting post-boink, as Sheila wants to get her hooks in Sturgis and keep him for herself. Meanwhile Sturgis tells her this is just a casual thing and he can’t get too involved with one of his subordinates. It seems clear that this will play out in ensuing volumes.

Pinky Ellis is a more interesting villain, weasely and obsese and commanding his private army from the safety of his armored limo. His secret weapon turns out to be a flying tank that shoots lasers, and given that it’s up against a squad of guys in armored suits, maybe you’ll get what I mean when I’m always comparing C.A.D.S. to a cartoon. One of the C.A.D.S. soldiers stands out here: Joe Fireheels, nicknamed “The Survivor,” who refuses to go into combat in the powered armor, pleading with Sturgis to allow him to follow his instincts. Also one of the “main” C.A.D.S. soldiers is killed in the firefight, one we’re informed has been Sturgis’s close friend for years, but again I didn’t much remember him.

As ever Tech Strike Force ends as soon as this latest battle is over, Sturgis and soldiers destroying the laser tank and delivering Pinky a memorable sendoff – one that involves fire ants! – but Syvertsen leaves many plot threads dangling. I’ll try to get to the next volume a little more quickly, but overall this series still comes off like a pale imitation of Doomsday Warrior.

Oh and due to the holiday only one post next week – it will be up on Wednesday.

Thursday, March 23, 2017

C.A.D.S. #3: Tech Commando


C.A.D.S. #3: Tech Commando, by John Sievert
September, 1986  Zebra Books

Take Doomsday Warrior, set it a century earlier, remove the radiation-powered mutant heroes and replace them with soldiers in high-tech battle armor, and remove most of the gory ultraviolence and explicit sex, and you’d have C.A.D.S., yet another post-nuke pulp courtesy Ryder Syvertsen (which has taken me much too long to get back to). I had to go back and read my review of the second volume to catch myself up.

For, as with his (superior) other post-nuke series, Syvertsen picks up immediately where he left off, so that a reader new to C.A.D.S. would be S.O.L. It’s two days after volume 2 and hero Dean Sturgis is still trying to find his wife Robin; his armor is almost out of power and he’s hundreds of miles from his soldiers, back at their new base in Okefenokee swamp. Sturgis is attacked by a group of bikers led by one with a “semidissolved, pus-dripping twisted face” who apparently has returned from the first volume, but I’d forgotten him.

These biker scum get the better of our hero, whose suit is destroyed in the battle. Armed with his issued .45 and an appropriated subgun, Sturgis moves on to the old vacation-spot he shared with Robin, their pre-arranged meeting spot…only to find a note left behind by her the previous day! So all that for nothing; Sturgis has missed his wife by less than twenty-four hours. He basically shrugs and figures he’ll check here for her again next year(!). Meanwhile we eventually learn Robin is in Florida, hanging out with “mountainfolk” who fight the invading Reds. In a subplot seemingly lifted from the early volumes of Jerry Ahern’s The Survivalist, Sturgis and his wife are separated by the war and, while separately battling the Russians, try to figure out how to reconnect.

Sturgis has been given a new epithet courtesy Syversten – he is the “Tech Commando” of the title, often referred to as such, sort of like how Ted Rockson of Doomsday Warrior is often referred to as “The Ultimate American.” He proves himself slightly less than the average men’s advenure protagonist when, finally getting back to the Okefenokee, he almost drowns in quicksand; he’s saved by an old coot in an electric (and armed!) wheelchair who is named Boss Peppercorn, a new character very much in the vein of the oddball one-off characters who populate the Doomsday Warrior books.

Peppercorn also enjoys that other Doomsday Warrior mainstay: the plush, comfy home in the midst of all the destruction. His swamp pad is set up with all the creature comforts, and Sturgis knocks back a few beers with him as they watch the Reverend Jerry Jeff Jeeters, a “turncoat” televangelist in a shiny suit, do his schtick on TV. In realtiy Jeeters is a patriot, and his quotes are really “Biblical code” that, when deciphered, give viewers inside info on what the Reds are really up to. Jeeters is such a goofy character – not to mention a clear spoof of the televangelists who were so in vogue at the time – that one wishes there was more of him, but he has yet to engage with any of the main characters. 

Peppercorn helps our hero find his base deep in the swamp, and soon enough Sturgis is on the horn to White Sands, New Mexico, which has become the de facto capital of the new US, given that the President is there. A Cuban force has moved into Orlando – headquartering in Epcot and Disneyworld! – and Sturgis and his C.A.D.S. are to wipe them out before they can act on their plans to further conquer Florida. In the meantime Sturgis is gratified to receive another air drop of armor, weapons, soldiers, and other goods, though he’s pissed that, in the allottment of “nonradioactive cigs,” there’s “Not a Camel in the lot!”

Meanwhile those enslaved women who were freed last volume have moved into camp, lovingly referred to as Swamp Cats. Sturgis begins a casual sex affair with their leader, a statuesque babe named Dieter. In between (off-page!!) boffing the two talk to each other about their missing loved ones. The C.A.D.S. go off to free Orlando, Peppercorn and a legion of “Revengers” (ie American rebels) in tow. Despite the large force, Syversten as ever focuses on just the same few characters, in addition to Sturgis himself: Billy, the slackjawed yokel; Fenton, the bagpipe-playing Scot; and Tranh, the mystic Vietnamese who often flashes back to his days in the war.

The Epcot battle is a lot quicker than one would expect. In fact Sturgis and army make quick work of the Cubans, only getting a bit of a challenge from a swarm of Russian attack helicopters that swoop in. This leads to a memorable moment of Billy flying up in his armor and tearing into the helicopters, breaking the necks of the occupants and tossing out their corpses. Sturgis is a bit wild here, screaming for Commie blood; he too tears into an escaping ‘copter and strangles the commander with his armored hands – even after the dude has surrendered!

Given that this threat is so quickly taken care of, Syvertsen must come up with something else for the C.A.D.S. to do for the next hundred or so pages. So we are quickly informed of another potential invasion threat – the Reds are rebuilding the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel in Virginia in order to bring over more forces. More soldiers are airdropped in, as is a new doctor to help combat the “swamp fever” which has been killing off the troops (including the old doctor). It turns out to be hotstuff brunette Dr. Sheila de Camp, who as we’ll recall is the “brassy woman” who has a hate-lust thing going with Sturgis, which continues here; she constantly challenges him and scorns him, but secretly lusts for him because he’s “all man.”

In another of those curious, unintentional prefigures of the future I love encountering in these old books, a newly-arrived soldier informs Sturgis that White Sands HQ is “going out of control...because of all the refugees.” He reports that the President is barely able to hold it together, thanks to the influx of refugees who have caused untold crime and violence in White Sands. To say this very subject is a hot topic today would be an understatement. Given that Syvertsen also made September 11th a fateful date in a novel published in 1984, one wonders if the dude had a Carnac the Magnificent-type fluffy hat in his closet.

Syvertsen also has a recurring subplot with the invading Russian force, but these characters too lack the memorable qualities of their analogues in the Doomsday Warrior books. But there’s Supreme Marshall Veloshnikov, parading in front of his mirror in all his bullshit medals, fretting over the inability of veteran warrior General Petrin to take out the C.A.D.S. once and for all. Meanwhile Petrin, who commands his own army of armored soldiers, plays vintage video games with his men, pondering over the hidden meanings of Donkey Kong.

In the finale, which has the C.A.D.S. in desperate battle to destroy the bridge while also fighting Petrin’s armored troops, we see the big difference between Dean Sturgis and Ted Rockson. Whereas “The Ultimate American” proves again and again that he will do anything to free enslaved Americans, Sturgis chalks them off as collateral damage; the bridge is being repaired by American slaves who, we learn, are used as bait by Petrin, who is sure Sturgis will try to save them. But he doesn’t count on Sturgis’s “for the good of all” resolve – nor does he gamble on the joyful willingness of the slaves to die if it means Sturgis et al are victorious!

Tech Commando ends on the usual sort-of cliffhanger; the bridge has been destroyed, a few redshirt soldiers have died, and Petrin has now failed hugely, having sworn his life that he would stop Sturgis’s force this time. Meanwhile Robin’s still in Florida, fighting with those mountainfolk and Chris, the teen kid she found a while back and who has become her de facto son.

All told, while the book is certainly a breeze of a read, Tech Commando isn’t a knockout, and one gets the impression that Syvertsen treated his writing duties on this series more so as a work for hire affair, giving it none of the obvious love he gave Doomsday Warrior.

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Ryder Syvertsen, R.I.P.


I’m currently reading the 10th volume of the Doomsday Warrior series, and just came across the sad news (here and here) that author Ryder Syvertsen recently passed away, on February 24th of this year. He was 73 years old and a life-long New Yorker. Syvertsen was of course one half of “Ryder Stacy,” and wrote the majority of the 19-volume series, with Jan Stacy (who died in 1989) only co-writing the first four volumes.

Over the years I’ve tried to find a way to get in touch with Syvertsen; even David Alexander attempted to track him down for me, but had no luck – and if Alexander couldn’t find him, I certainly didn’t have a chance, given that Alexander was the person who took over Syvertsen’s C.A.D.S. series. I hoped to interview him and get his thoughts on the Doomsday Warrior series as well as his other men’s adventure books.

So then this is as good a place as any to post something I’d meant to include in one of my earlier Doomsday Warrior reviews: an audio interview with Ryder Syvertsen that Graphic Audio conducted in January of 2008. (Note: The interview takes place between 2:30 and 12:30 of the 20-minute audio file.) Syvertsen sounds like a native New Yorker for sure – interesting, too, that he never once mentions co-author Jan Stacy.

Syvertsen’s last words in the interview are “send me some letters,” so let’s hope some of his fans took him up on his request and contacted him through Graphic Audio. Even though I never met him, I will definitely miss Syvertsen; once you’ve read so many books by a writer you start to feel like you know him, and I regret that I never got to tell Ryder Syvertsen how much I enjoy his books.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

C.A.D.S. #2: Tech Battleground


C.A.D.S. #2: Tech Battleground, by John Sievert
April, 1986  Zebra Books

If you’ve read Doomsday Warrior and wish there was more of it, you owe it to yourself to seek out the lesser-known C.A.D.S. series, which was by the same authors. And like Doomsday Warrior, I suspect that C.A.D.S. was more so the work of Ryder Syvertsen writing alone, as Tech Battleground is identical in style to that more famous series, which Syvertsen apparently wrote solo after the first four installments.

In fact, C.A.D.S. is so similar that you could hunt throughout the text and replace the names of various characters with the names of characters from Doomsday Warrior. Colonel Dean Sturgis becomes Ted Rockson, Tranh is Chen, Fenton is McLaughlin, and Marshal Veloshnikov is Colonel Killov. Everything, from the breathless storytelling style to the OTT violence and sex, is here; the only thing missing is the mutant monsters of the other series, though in exchange you get robotic armored suits.

Another series C.A.D.S. is very similar to is Victor Milan’s The Guardians – make that very similar to, with the same storyline in the first volume of the C.A.D.S. team rushing to save the Vice President, now the President, after the previous chief of state died in the nuclear war. And just as in The Guardians, this new president, Williamson, now lives on a military base with our heroes.

But really the series is basically Doomsday Warrior with robotic suits. There’s even an analogue of Century City’s chief scientist, in the form of Van Patten, who has created a Light Wave Amplifier, aka the LWA, a “laser subgun” which will explode if it’s fired too much and goes into the red. But Sturgis, ready to go back out in the field and fight the Russianss five weeks after the war began, thinks it might just be the edge they need to take on the better-equipped invading army. Also, the LWA as described sounds suspiciously like the pistol shown on the lame covers this series was graced with.

Sturgis is also fired up to reconnect with Robin, the ex-wife he still loves. Robin is in fact still alive, and the last we see her she’s made her way into Virginia, trying to reach the rendevous point she and Sturgis decided on in the first volume. But, just like the Rock-Rona-Kim triangle in Doomsday Warrior, Stacy brings up potential fireworks here with the introduction of hotstuff Dr. Sheila de Camp, chief psychologist of the C.A.D.S. base in White Sands, New Mexico, who in a handful of pages goes from hating Sturgis’s guts to planning to get in bed with him someday!

Meanwhile, the Russians are continuing their takeover of the US, and there appear to be three central Russian characters who will be important in the series: General Bukarov, who is situated in the White House; General Petrin, commander of the C.A.D.S.-style Gray Suits and military man who does not hate the Americans and in fact respects their soldiers; and finally Supreme Marshal Veloshnikov, who operates from the nuclear submarine Lenin and hates America with a passion, due to the death of his wife and child in Saigon in 1972, thanks to a bombing raid by the US military.

Intel at White Sands has learned that the Russians are planning a mass attack on Charleston, South Carolina, with the possible intent of leveling the entire city. Sturgis proposes “Operation Tech Battleground,” which is just a goofy name for “Let my C.A.D.S. soldiers go out and fight them!” After pointless internal squabble and discussion, Sturgis’s plan is approved and he choses his soldiers from the hundred or so who make up the C.A.D.S. force, also known as Delta Commando. Just like in Doomsday Warrior, the team is made up of Sturgis’s never-harmed “inner circle” and a whole bunch of redshirts who will die.

Completely following the template of that other series, the plot goes on to having Sturgis et al roar across the nuke-blasted countryside and taking on all kinds of freaks before they get to their destination. Most interesting is an obese millionaire who travels around in an armored limo, escorted by a tank and trucks, who is named Pinky Ellis. The CEO of Exrell Corporation, Ellis apparently will factor into later volumes; he willingly sold arms to the Russians, making their takeover of the US a reality.

Ellis also has taken captive Morgana Pinter, a hot-trot blonde who is now his complete slave. When Sturgis and team run into Ellis on the road, the man berates Sturgis for still giving a shit about America and asks him to team up with Ellis’s own crew. It develops into a battle in which, of course, Sturgis’s team makes short work of the opponent, however Ellis escapes in his limo, Morgana still a prisoner, and given how he’s mentioned later I suspect he will return again someday.

In Tennessee the team meets up with the descendants of the Hatfields, who are still at war with the McCoys. Otherwise they are friendly country folk, and invite the squad to their well-fortified hideout in the mountains. After a big feast, that other patented Ryder Stacy element presents itself – the OTT sex scene. This arises in the form of Anne, aka “Cat,” a busty and attractive local girl who leads Sturgis away for some explicit shenanigans – a scene that features the unforgettable line, “She sat up upon him and took in his hot manhood into her love-opening.”

Sturgis succeeds in uniting the Hatfields and McCoys for an attack on the invading Russians in Charleston. This sequence, despite being the main plot of the novel, occurs around midway through and doesn’t last very long. Here Sturgis and team destroy Russian ships in a massive fight, with an appareance of the Gray Suits onto the scene. Petrin has been ordered to capture one of the C.A.D.S. suits, and after the battle Sturgis isn’t sure if his missing men are KIA or are MIA – their suits taken away to be studied by the Russians.

I should mention that, when the action goes down, the author(s) as expected really let the guts fly. Heads explode, organs are blasted out, and in several memorable instances the C.A.D.S. soldiers literally rip Russian soldiers to shreds, or smash them into pulp with their metal hands. All of which is to say, Rydery Stacy (or Syvertsen alone) is one of those men’s adventure authors who clearly understood that total and utter exploitation is mandatory for this genre, whether it be sex or violence. There is no pretense at making it all seem like a straight sort of “regular” novel.

More focus is given to the slow escape of the C.A.D.S. men, fleeing from the pursuing Russians after having destroyed their plans to level Charleston. We get another of those bizarro scenes where, hiding in the Okefenoke swamp in Georgia, they are waylaid by “swamp Indians,” cannibalistic and tattooed freaks who zap around the swamp in weaponized swamp boats and really give the C.A.D.S. team – the armored suits almost inoperative due to drained power – a run for its money. The authors deliver their usual memorable sadism with the revelation that the Indians abduct women and keep them in iron cages, expressly for eating purposes!

The Okefenoke stuff also has repercussions for future novels, as further in the swamp the team discovers an old mansion on an island that was apparently built by runaway slaves, over a century before. Sturgis decides to make the mansion a forward base for any future operations on the east coast. In a “why not?” bit in the very last pages, Stacy also introduces a reincarnation motif, with Tranh looking at the grave of a slave named Cyrus and announcing that he was Cyrus in his previous life.

Sturgis basically takes this in stride, but he has other things on his mind – after a quick boosting of his armor’s power, he takes off to reconnect with Robin, who should be within a few hundred miles. And there the authors leave us, until next time.

Overall Tech Battleground was fun, if too long – like most other Zebra publications – but didn’t really provide the same sort of entertainment you get from the superior Doomsday Warrior books.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Interview with David Alexander, Part 2


As promised, here’s the second half of my interview with David Alexander. Hope you enjoy!


You also worked on the C.A.D.S. series, published by Zebra Books under the name John Sievert, correct? How did you become involved with that series, and which volumes did you write?

I wrote the last few of these. My interest at the time wasn't in writing the series but in finding a new publisher, as I'd moved on from Leisure, and wanted to contract with a house that would give me broader scope for new and advanced projects. C.A.D.S. was, first, last and always, a "foot in the door" job that, as the description implies, would hopefully lead to bigger and better things. Unfortunately I learned before long that I’d blundered. When a writer accepts a project like C.A.D.S. with only vague promises of "being taken along," and similar catchphrases, that writer will more often than not wind up being typecast as something lower than a Johnny pump before the ink has dried on the first advance check.

Curiously, though, I'm frequently asked by readers about whether I'm planning a C.A.D.S. sequel. I seem to have inherited the mantle of C.A.D.S. authorship purely by being the last man standing, as the first two chroniclers of Dean Sturgis and company seem to have vanished without a trace.

C.A.D.S. was, like Phoenix, a post-nuke action series, only the series was created by someone else (authors Ryder Stacy). Did you approach it differently than Phoenix?

As the foregoing should indicate I approached it in a manner that was in many if not most ways diametrically opposite to how I approached Phoenix. Also, in complete candor, I don't consider C.A.D.S. as part of the cannon of my work. It was work for hire, conceived by others. I was just basically mopping up.

There’s a part in Z-Comm #1 where the hero assumes the covername “Coltray,” which happens to be the title of a three-volume series you later published under your own name. What’s the story behind that series?

Coltray was a specialist operative who worked solo but had ties to official law and intelligence agencies. Coltray was in some ways a one-man Z-Comm, although he generally assembled a team before going into action. The reason that the Coltray series had my byline was because I wasn't putting up with any more of the same house-name nonsense of the sort that had already given the world "Kyle May-ning."

I’m also curious about your work with Gold Eagle, for example the Nomad and Slam series. What was it like working with Gold Eagle? You mention on your site that they edited your manuscripts for Nomad (which you offer in the original forms on your site); what all did GE change, and why?

The Nomad ebooks I've made available on my website for free download are based on the original manuscripts of the four-book Nomad Miniseries that I proofread and lightly edited a few years ago. I plan to revise them in the near future to make downloads more compatible with tablet readers and whatever else is currently the latest and greatest. Working with Gold Eagle is the subject of mixed emotions, but there were some positives.

At any rate, the edits referred to seemed to reflect an attempt not only to Bowdlerize anything even remotely suggestive, but also to grind down any and all the edginess of the writing, wherever edginess was to be found. Beyond this there were totally off-the-wall and gratuitous emendations that seemed to have no rhyme or reason for having been made.

I countered each hatchet job on my Nomad manuscripts with faxed lists of stuff I demanded be changed back to the way I'd originally written it. Comparing those lists against the published books, I found that although some of my demands had been met, others had not.

Were there any other series you worked on, under your own name or a pseudonym?

Possibly. Fortunately or otherwise, I seem to have forgotten them like Nixon forgot the Plumbers in the basement.

In your Writing The Action Scene article, you mention performing an overview of the action-series genre before you began writing Phoenix. You further mention, correctly, that none of them were like Phoenix; which series did you read, and were there any you enjoyed? Did you maintain any interest in what was going on in the world of action-series fiction while you were working on Phoenix and your other series titles?

I enjoyed a number of things in the course of planning and writing the Phoenix series, but not all of them were action series. Other sources of inspiration were fiction and nonfiction books of many types, as well as movies. I liked Rolling Thunder, the '70s movie that they're still blogging about in which actor William Devane returns home as a Vietnam vet and discovers, somewhat like Ulysses at the conclusion of the Iliad and Odyssey cycles, that home base ain’t what it used to be, and needs some serious cleaning up.

The great line in that movie is, "You learn to love the rope." You can Google that and it still gets a zillion hits, just like for, "Say hello to my little friend." In many ways I thought of Phoenix as a character who also had to learn to "love the rope" in order to survive in post-nuclear hell.

I also found inspiration in Mad Max, which had some memorable lines among its riffs and hooks, such as, "He goes to water over a dummy," and, “Perhaps it was a result of anxiety,” which I still quote at times.

I know you have moved on from action-series fiction. What projects are you currently working on? How has your experience been in the world of eBooks?

In fiction I'm currently working on several things, including a project I'd put away some time ago and had believed, until I sought to read it again, that it was only a short proposal. It was, in fact, a fair-sized manuscript. I'd always liked its concept and still do. It seemed to cry out to be completed. As to ebooks, I think they’re obviously the future of publishing, but I also think that printed books will continue to play a significant role in it.

Which of your own books are your favorites, and why?

I've favored Machine Breakers. I wrote it as literary fiction that I hoped would also appeal to a more commercially oriented audience. Despite or because of the different approaches to narrative I took, including an invented language and casting aside conventional sentence structure, as well as using some techniques I devised such as one I call "chaosing," (which, as the term implies, is the deliberate introduction of chaos or noise into the prose narrative slipstream), the book has been remarkably accessible to a wide range of readers, despite my belief that it would appeal only to small number of them.

I'll go so far as to say that I've always considered it an alternative Phoenix story insofar as it's set in a dystopian universe, as well as in the immediate aftermath of a series of apocalyptic events, and the characters that strut and fret their hour upon the stage have also been warped and disfigured by war and technological innovation run amok.

Ultimately I try not to adore any of my efforts either from the past or those on which I'm currently working. I'm too oriented toward scrutinizing them for faults and defects. As Swift observes by way of Gulliver in the land of the Brobdingnagians, even the most seemingly flawless human beings show massive imperfections when an observer the size of a fly crawls across their bodies. That's also something like my point of reference to my own writing, and I think (at least hope) it helps me overcome my limitations and develop beyond them.

Still and all, I have to admit to holding Phoenix in a special place, though I probably couldn't say exactly why this happens to be so.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Interview with David Alexander, Part 1


Anyone who has read my reviews will know that I place the Phoenix series by David Alexander in the highest echelon of action series fiction. As I’ve mentioned before, the Phoenix series is available in one complete eBook edition, and Alexander also has many other books and novels available on Amazon as eBooks.

He also has a website, and a few months ago I wrote to tell him how much I enjoyed his work. After exchanging some emails, I realized Dave would make for excellent interview material, and so was very happy that he agreed to one.

Here’s the first part of the interview; in this one Dave focuses on his start in the writing world and the Phoenix series.


Tell us about yourself – how did you get into writing, and what were you doing before?

As a child I began writing spontaneously. I’m sure it’s a common development; just as children often like to draw, they also like to write. At any rate, when I was seven I was mentioned in a newspaper article for having written some poetic verse. I don't know if it was actually any good, but I can say that unlike others I was never coached or was the product of efforts to mold me into something my elders, instead of I myself, wanted. Just the opposite, in fact. I come from a working class family background where letters weren't and still aren't held in particular esteem.

What was your first published work?

Probably the poem that sparked the newspaper item, and certainly the poetry that followed which found its way into miscellaneous publications before I reached my teens. Truthfully, I had no desire to write prose fiction until later on. Prior to that my only aim was to write poetry. I still compose from time to time, but only when my muse speaks, or when, to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, "the fit is on me." I haven't felt compelled to compose for some years, but awhile back I did manage to write a considerable number of poems.

How did the Phoenix series come about?

Phoenix originated as a convergence between my early aspirations to write booklength thriller fiction and Leisure Books' interest in expanding into that market. I hadn’t set out to write a series, per se; that’s just what was offered. They'd previously had a success with a series whose title I forget and wanted to increase their presence in the marketplace.

The first Phoenix title sold well enough for the house to sign me for another two or three series installments. In the end I wrote five in all, with a sixth and final installment planned which never materialized.

Was Phoenix planned as an ongoing series, or did you envision it with a definite end in mind?

I certainly envisioned the sixth book as the series conclusion, but I hadn't envisioned a final book when I'd begun writing the series. At that time I hadn't a clear-cut sense of how far I'd be able to grow the concept and characters, as Leisure had originally committed to a single book only. I turned in an outline for the planned sixth but it never materialized. At this stage I may have already been in the process of writing the Z-Comm series.

The Phoenix series is more over-the-top than anything I’ve read. What were some of your thoughts while you worked on each volume – were you just constantly trying to top yourself, to see how far you could go? What scenes/volumes stand out most in your mind?

I approached writing the Phoenix books in a deliberate manner. Principally, I set out to create what might be called a post-nuclear apocalypse noir series, and tried to work out how the elements of noir might function in this context.

To address the second part of your question, I don’t really have permanent favorite parts of anything I’ve written. I might find myself idly reflecting on this scene or that, or this paragraph or that, from time to time, with appreciation or odium, or I might like or dislike some parts as I re-read an earlier effort, but that’s pretty much the extent of it.

What was the relationship like with Leisure Books? Did they play much of a factor in each book, or request any changes? Did you receive any feedback from readers?

As far as my words went, I had text approval, and I tried to insure that it was honored.

As to feedback from readers, there was its share, and I think mainly more positive than negative. One fan offered several hundred dollars for the set of original Phoenix manuscripts. I never sold it, though.

Phoenix #5 ends on a cliffhanger, with Magnus Trench still searching for his family. Why did the series end with this volume? Have you considered wrapping it up with a final installment?

As I've said, I'd done an outline for what would have been a final story in which Trench and his family were (in some way, shape or form) reunited (probably with some wicked twist, such as wife and child having become contams by this point, or Luther Enoch or John Tallon appearing to do a "Luke, I am your father" number on Trench junior, etc.).

But as I may have also mentioned, I've from time to time over the years considered precisely that – ending the series in earnest. The most recent "Phoenix moment" was a few months ago when, on pondering the phenomenon of doomsday bunker building and the warped mentalities of survivalists who actually seem to relish the prospect of apocalyptic catastrophe striking the United States, I jotted down some notes for a story where Trench and a group of good guys pit themselves against the last of post-apocalypse America's bunker cities, and the bad-asses who are dug in there.

One of my biggest personal "Phoenix moments," by the way, took place on September 11th, 2001, when I happened to find myself caught in the vicinity of the World Trade Center when the two planes struck. Throughout the ensuing chaos, I recall saying to myself, "What is this? – ‘Dark Messiah East,’ chapter one?" or "What would Trench do at a time like this?"

I'll add that reflecting on Phoenix number five's (Reap the Whirlwind) subway scenes kept me from attempting to take the trains, which turned out to be a smart move on that dismal day. Should I have had thoughts like these on 911? I don't know. But think them I did.

One thing it does point up is the way a character, or group of characters, once created, can tend to powerfully and lastingly root themselves to an author's consciousness. It's a phenomenon that's been commented on by writers other than myself, too, I believe.

While writing Phoenix, I see you also worked on some other series. One of them was Z-Comm, also for Leisure Books, published under the name Kyle Maning. What’s the story behind that one?

I wanted to do a more contemporary action series, which is how Z-Comm got going. The title stood for Z-Command, a unit of last resorts that took on missions too impossible for anybody else, and which of course always brought home the bacon. I was told, though, that I had to provide a house name for the series byline, as for some unfathomable reason I couldn’t still be just plain old me.

Now, if this were today, I'd have taken out a laundry marker and scrawled “David Alexander” on the editor's desk by way of response, but in those days I suppose I was more … temperate. So I gave Leisure the byline "Kyle Manning."

Note that the surname, as might be expected, is spelled with two n's, not one. The reason the series' book covers bear the surname spelled with a single n was revealed to me when -- on one of my visits to the Leisure office, during which I was shown the cover of the first Z-Comm book -- I noticed that one of the n's was missing.

"It should be Manning, with two n's," I’d pointed out to the editor, who apparently had thought I might miss this disparity.

To this he replied, "Oh, we can't afford the AA (which stands for author's addition or author’s alteration, requiring a second run through the printing presses) so from now on your name is May-ning."

Once again, were it today, I would have carved that extra n into the editorial desk, but that was then, not now, and "Maning" it remained.


In the second part of the interview, Dave talks about his contributions to the C.A.D.S. series, his work with Gold Eagle, and his current projects – posting here next week!

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

C.A.D.S. #1


C.A.D.S. #1, by John Sievert
November, 1985 Zebra books

Here's another series I was familiar with as a kid in the '80s, but given the uniform cover design of the books -- each with some sort of high-tech gun floating against a blank background -- I assumed it was a military sci-fi series. Little did I know that it was actually a post-nuke pulp, let alone that author "John Sievert" was a psuedonym for Ryder Stacy, aka Ryder Syvertsen and Jan Stacy...the creators/authors of Doomsday Warrior! Indeed, this series ran at the same time, and was nearly as successful, lasting an impressive 12 volumes.

It's my understanding that Ryder Stacy collaborated on this first volume, just as they did on each volume of Doomsday Warrior. So then there's the same dichotomy in C.A.D.S. #1, going from goofy action scenes with clunky writing (Jan Stacy) to New Age-esque character instrospection with great writing (Ryder Syvertsen). I've read that future volumes were written by Syvertsen alone, who handled the series up until volume #9, when it was taken over by none other than David Alexander! So then with C.A.D.S. we have a post-nuke series written by the three best writers in the post-nuke biz; what more could you ask for?

This first volume is very similar to Doomsday Warrior #1. It takes its time setting up the scene, introducing the characters, and getting the ball rolling, but once it does, it veers directly into the madness and the insanity. And, like that first Doomsday Warrior, C.A.D.S. #1 is just too damn long for its own good. The book is 400 pages, which is much too long for an action-series novel in my opinion. As a result the novel is chaotic, all over the place, jumping from characters to incidents with little rhyme or reason. In fact the central plot of the tale -- the untried C.A.D.S. team rescuing the President, who may or may not be alive -- is lost for the duration of the novel, while Ryder Stacy instead entertain us with their patented lurid thrills.

The book opens in the "future" of 1997, one in which the USSR is still around, and still engaged in peace talks with the US. However we learn that the Soviets, of course, are planning a surprise attack on the gullible Americans. While the US President and Soviet Premiere plan a new era of peace, the Premiere meanwhile backs the total destruction of the US, sending out legions of nuclear subs while swearing to the Americans that nothing untoward is going on. However in their secret Air Force base in New Mexico, the members of the top-secret C.A.D.S. project suspect otherwise, in particular their leader, Colonel Dean Sturgis, who is certain that nuclear war is imminent.

C.A.D.S. stands for Computerized Attack/Defense Systems, and basically they're seven foot-tall armored suits that fire "E-balls" (ie explosives), machine guns, flamethrowers, etc. Description is vague but apparently the suits look like those worn by astronauts, only black instead of white, complete with the same visored dome, only the C.A.D.S. ones are red. The suits can't fly, but they can take to the air in very high leaps, which we're told eventually runs out the gas supply.

In point of fact these suits, as described, are impossible constructions; we're informed that each suit-wearer has at his command enough power to destroy an entire army, with a nigh-endless supply of ammunition and explosives, not to mention fuel and etc. There's just no way a suit could hold all of that stuff and still afford the maneuverability and aerodynamic qualities Ryder Stacy detail here. But then, I'm overthinking. Like everything else I've read by these authors, C.A.D.S. #1 is basically an R-rated Saturday morning cartoon.

The suits come complete with a computerized interface which provides a plethora of intel, scanning and tracking realtime and reporting it back to the wearer. Also there's a sort of AI setup which, when activated, can provide the wearer with realtime battle strategy. But the main point of the suits is that they can weather the atmosphere of radioactive wastelands. Given the military-wide opinion that a nuclear war with Russia is forthcoming, the Air Force brass sees the C.A.D.S. as having the potential of acting as first-line defense in a post-nuke battle arena. However as the series opens the suits are still in prototype stage.

Around 200 soldiers make up the C.A.D.S. force, racking up practice hours but having zero actual combat experience. Dean Sturgis heads them up and acts as the protagonist, but as with the Doomsday Warrior books there are a lot of characters in play. Sturgis though is your typical men's adventure hero, a grizzled veteran who constantly runs afoul of authority and knows that the only correct way to do things is his own. He lives on the base in a perpetual bad mood, mostly because he knows that the world is about to end, but also because he's worried about his ex-wife, Robin, whom Sturgis still loves, and indeed has reconnected with. Sturgis has constantly put his career ahead of his personal life, but now, in his mid-30s, he's getting second thoughts, and wonders if he should say the hell with the Air Force life and just go be with Robin.

The nuclear war of course changes all this, but as mentioned it takes a long time to happen. The missiles don't hit until around page 100, and before that we have lots of character and scene-building, in particular lots of stuff with the President and his staff worrying over the possibility that "the Reds" might have something up their sleeves. The authors hopscotch among a huge cast of characters, playing it all up like a suspense thriller, with the occasional interlude of Sturgis and his comrades field-testing their suits. Then the Russians launch their attack, successfully blocking retaliatory strikes from the US while blasting the majority of the country to radioactive bits with a hundred or so nuclear hits.

But once nuclear war has been waged Ryder Stacy kick in with the OTT insanity we know and love from Doomsday Warrior. Seriously, we go from a novel about politicians fretting over possible war to scenes of mental patients shackling up their former doctors and "curing" them with sadistic methods of torture. The book, while enjoyable crazy, actually suffers from this, given the somewhat serious tone of the opening hundred pages -- the ensuing chaos seems to come from a different novel.

The Russians hit Washington, DC with a few neutron bombs; we're told these will kill people but leave real estate undamaged. This is the same thing the Russians did in Doomsday Warrior, and for the same reason -- they plan to take over the country, using DC as their own capitol. The President happened to be in the bunker beneath the White House when the bombs hit, and word is that he might still be alive, trapped down there. Communication of course is sketchy in the post-nuke US, and only the one message got through. Nevertheless it's enough for what remains of the US government to order in a team to find and rescue the President.

No better job could be suited for the C.A.D.S. force. Having survived the war unscathed, their base in the middle of nowhere, the soldiers put on their suits and break up into three large squads, each taking a different route through the blasted US, to reconvene in DC at an appointed time, where they will unite and take on any Russian defenses as they save the President. Sturgis heads up the main team; that is, after he's let out of the brig.

In a stirring scene, Sturgis, being informed that war is finally occurring, calls Robin (who lives in the middle of a city), and tells her to get out of there asap. Sturgis has fashioned a bomb shelter/cabin in the middle of the upstate woods, and he tells Robin that he will meet her there. But as he's flying away in a commandeered plane, going AWOL, Sturgis sees a nuclear blast on the horizon and knows the time has come, that war is here. He cannot abandon his soldiers. He turns the plane around, turns himself in to the guards, and as mentioned is put in the brig.

When Sturgis and his team set out across the US, the novel takes on more of an episodic feel. On the long journey to DC they encounter militias, mental patients, Cuban soldiers who pose as American GIs, bikers, Russian soldiers, and even the Soviet models of the C.A.D.S. suits. That's not to mention the scenes from the perspectives of the Russian invaders, who deal with the patriotic fervor of the unbeaten American survivors; as in Doomsday Warrior, there are many scenes where downtrodden American masses rise up and kill their better-equiped Soviet enemies.

The action scenes are frequent and fun, if (as expected with these authors) ungrounded in any kind of reality. Sturgis and his squad are wholly dependent upon their C.A.D.S. suits, which admittedly is the point of the novel but ultimately detracts from it. Sturgis, I'm betting, couldn't hold his own against most men's adventure protagonists, and indeed is rendered powerless without his suit. However those fearing a military sci-fi sort of thing need not be concerned -- the focus here is on OTT action, with Sturgis and his soldiers only using their suits to decimate less-equiped enemies, most of whom are drug-addled bikers or whatnot. In other words, there isn't much focus on high-tech nonsense or what-have-you. It's all as believeable as the old GI Joe cartoon, only with a lot more violence.

A definite lurid vibe runs through the novel. In particular with the opressors who arise in the wake of the nukes; there's a bit early on where a gang kidnaps the children of a small town and starts torturing them. The already-mentioned mental patients stuff is especially wacky and sick. And it wouldn't be a Ryder Stacy novel if there wasn't a goofy but explicit sex scene. After freeing a West Virginia town from Cuban invaders (!), Sturgis and his crew are treated to a barn dance. The local women throw themselves at the men; one of the local women, an 18 year-old virgin (of course), takes hold of Sturgis and forces herself upon him. Though he puts up a bit of a moral struggle, thinking about Robin, he of course gives in, and the purple prose ensues.

Robin also has her share of the narrative. Making it to the bomb shelter after all (Sturgis spends the novel not knowing if she survived or not), she deals with her sudden solitude as well as the drastically-changed world she now lives in. It seems clear that this is being set up as the running storyline in the series: Will Sturgis and Robin find one another? What makes it annoying though is that, toward the very end of the novel, Sturgis finally gets to that bomb shelter, he's not even a mile from Robin, and then he receives a distress call from his squad and has to leave! It's a total cop-out of a scene, and reminded me of the similarly-annoying stuff from the Last Ranger series (also apparently written by Ryder Stacy) where the main character kept looking for (and then losing) his damn sister.

Finally, the authors get to work in their trademark irreverent spirit, with lots of dark humor and subtle parodies of the jingoistic fervor common in men's adventure novels (ie, the jingoism that caused the nuclear war in the first place). In particular they demonstrate this in the finale when, to save the President, the C.A.D.S. team actually destroys the White House! The authors also as expected make the invading Russians appropriately despotic and decadent, hating the Americans so much that they're dedicated to killing every single one of them.

So then, another fun but overlong Ryder Stacy excursion into insanity. It wasn't as great as any of the Doomsday Warrior novels I've read, but then, not many books are.