The Big Brain #1: The Aardvark Affair by Gary Brandner

 

(pb; 1975: first book in The Big Brain trilogy. Publisher: Zebra Books.)

From the back cover

“Before his birth, even before his conception, everything about Colin Garrett’s life was planned with a single goal in mind: to produce a genius child. The plan was so successful that the standard tests for intelligence did not measure high enough to rate Colin on their scales.

“But one thing the brain wasn’t smart enough to do was keep his mind power hidden from the Army.

“When serious trouble erupts at Aardvark, Colonel Jefferson (J.J.) Judd makes it his business to start the brain working again for the highest-level espionage operation ever conceived—Agency Zero.

 

“Judd tells Garrett that Aardvark is a soil reclamation project, testing ultrasonics and laser light to change the molecular structure of barren soil. And there people have become mental vegetables in the course of that testing.

“But you can’t keep a secret from a man with X-ray intelligence. Garrett knows one of those three is faking.”

 

Review

This 189-page “men’s adventure” book, the first in Brandner’s The Big Brain trilogy, is a fun, tightly penned, action-punctuated and oh-so-masculine spy-ish thriller where the titular, ultra-smart character (Colin Garrett) and his muscular partner-in-espionage, Beverley “Beano” Rocker, set out to discover who’s responsible for the sabotage of a top-secret government program (Aardvark). Their spiraling investigation takes them to (for them) unexpected places, with inevitable and well-placed, effective twists, and a solemn finish. While there are few surprises for genre-familiar readers in Aardvark, it’s an above-average thriller from the author of The Howling trilogy. Fans of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Ian Fleming’s James Bond series might especially enjoy Aardvark.

Aardvark is followed by The Big Brain #2: The Beezlebub Business.

Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen by Michael Avallone

 

(pb; 1981: movie tie-in)

From the back cover

“They call her the Dragon Queen, a woman of impenetrable mystery and unknown powers. . . Then someone makes the fatal mistake of putting her in jail for murder.

“Years later, San Francisco is paralyzed by a wave of the most bizarre killings ever documented, each more unspeakable than the last, each devoid of clues─at least to Western eyes.

“There is one man alone who stands a chance of outsmarting the elusive killer─Charlie Chan, detective supreme, Oriental genius. On him rests the fate of a city steadily being wiped out by the curse of the dragon queen.”

 

Review

This cartoonish, slapstick-silly movie tie-in murder mystery is a mostly fun and frenetic read, sometimes satiric, sometimes bizarre (beyond its cinematic-splashy murderer)─e.g., the recurring brick through Lee Jr.’s office window gag which continues long after it wears out its welcome.

Those who lack a sense of humor regarding changing social norms and era-related context, or are intensely racially political, may want to skip this one, beyond the questionable nature of its yellow-face casting. Chan, who speaks like a fortune cookie (the book explicitly says so) is not made fun of─though he makes fun of himself─and other Asian characters speak like normal American characters. Charlie is not high art, nor does it pretend to be; Avallone deftly moves through the story with masterful pacing, while maintaining sufficient character development and skewering-racial-stereotypes lightness.

Film buffs might enjoy the action-climactic tip of the hat to actor Warner Oland’s many Chan films, as well as those looking for a silly, if somewhat outdated, hourlong read that eschews racial politics for an innocent silliness, and a good reveal of a could’ve-been-almost-anyone killer.

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Its source/counterpart film was released stateside in February 1981. Clive Donner directed it, from a screenplay by Jerry Sherlock, Stan Burns, and David Axlerod.

Peter Ustinov played Charlie Chan. Lee Grant played Mrs. Lupowitz. Angie Dickinson played Dragon Queen. Richard Hatch played Lee Chan Jr. Brian Keith played “Police Chief.”

Roddy McDowall played Gillespie. Rachel Roberts played Mrs. Danger. Michelle Pfeiffer played Cordelia. Paul Ryan played Masten. Johnny Sekka played Stefan.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. by Michael Avallone

 

(pb; 1965; a.k.a. The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Thousand Coffins Affair: first book in the Man From U.N.C.L.E. series, based on the 1964-8 MGM Television/NBC show)

From the back cover

“In Utangaville, Africa, it took two days.

“In Spayerwood, Scotland, it happened overnight.

“In each town, the people suddenly turned into mindless, babbling creatures who thrashed about wildly, uttering weird, half-human cries─and died. Doctors were baffled as to the cause.  A sudden plague, some mysterious virus?

“But to the members of the United Force for Law and Enforcement, there could only be one answer: THRUSH had a deadly new weapon for world conquest.”

 

Review

After the horrible, mysterious death of a fellow U.N.C.L.E.* agent and friend (Stewart Fromes) and an outbreak of similar deaths in two obscure places, Napoleon Solo and U.S. government agent Geraldine “Jerry” Terry jet around the globe trying to stop the biological viral threat of the terrifyingly scarred villain Golgotha, a member of the worldwide terror group T.H.R.U.S.H. (Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity). This leads Solo and Terry to the dangerous German village, Oberteisendorf, where Fromes, screaming and insane, expired. Meanwhile, fellow U.N.C.L.E. agent Illya Kuryakin and their commander Alexander Waverly work elsewhere to further prevent the culmination of Golgotha’s machinations.

Avallone’s U.N.C.L.E.─an often-wry spy spoof, like the 1964-8 television series that inspired his original, one-off book tie-in─is a tautly written, action-oriented and silly (Napoleon is catnip for all women) read, entertaining with its waste-no-words, swift pacing. This genre-true entry, worth owning, set the tone and pace of the twenty-three U.N.C.L.E. novels that followed (none of them penned by Avallone, who felt betrayed when the publisher, Ace Books, did not hire him to write follow-up books in the series).

[*U.N.C.L.E. = United Network Command for Law and Enforcement]

Next book: The Doomsday Affair by Harry Whittington.

Friday the 13th Part 3: 3-D by Michael Avallone

 

(1982; movie tie-in novel, based on a screenplay by Martin Kittrosser and Carol Watson)

From the back cover

“He lies in wait. Patiently. Quietly. Ready to strike. As darkness settles over the forest, the victims enter his lair. And one by one they die!”

Review

The plot of the third Friday runs thusly: Chris Higgins, survivor of a failed attack by Jason a few years prior─an assault not shown in either of the two previous films─takes seven of her friends to her family cottage (Higgins Haven) near Crystal Lake. Jason, who is not specified by name until late in the book, takes umbrage at this and brutally dispatches those he views as invaders.

The blunt, giddily unhinged and no-nuance writing is appropriately choppy (given the rapid-style editing of the Friday movies), with head-hopping between characters (often within the same paragraph), the death scenes simile-laden, and the characters Friday-stock (though Avallone gives at least one of the characters a surname, Vera Sanchez). Much of Friday reads like A solid writer with a short deadline wrote a rough Ed Woodian slasher movie tie-in novel, with a focus on hyperbolic, darkly humorous dread and violence, e.g.:

“The hand twisted the cleaver in a vicious, merciless circle. Harold’s chest exploded in flame and agony. 

“His paunchy body toppled backwards, crashing to the floor.

“The meat cleaver jutted from his chest like a tombstone.” (p. 30)

. . .or:

“[Jason’s] mad eyes shone like fiery coals in the gloom of the porch.” (p. 152)

Is Friday worth reading? Yes, if the above passages entertain you. Not only that, the out-of-print Friday is an alternate version of the 1982 film on which it is based─it was written before canon was established within the franchise, and there are noticeable differences between the 1982 book and its source flick.

One of the big differences is Jason laughs, chuckles, howls and screams in the book, something he doesn’t do in the films. In the book, Loco is black, not white. The book also has a different ending, one that negates Jason’s chances of returning, unless he encounters Re-Animator‘s Dr. Herbert West (or somebody like him) or the Friday works that followed were prequels.

There appears to be a fun Halloween (1978) shout-out in the scene where Edna, husband-pecking future Jason victim, sees a figure moving between her windblown laundry on a clothesline. Debbie, one of Chris’s friends, reads a “shocker” by Sidney Stewart titled The Beast With Red Hands─this is a real-life, low-brow Robert Blochian thriller (judging by Amazon reviews), penned by Avallone under the aforementioned nom de plume, one of seventeen the prolific author used in his career.

If you’re entertained by low-brow movie tie-in thrillers that read like they were hastily written and edited or you’re a die-hard Friday fan, Avallone’s Friday might be a worthwhile investment.

Note: In 1988, another, presumably more canon-friendly book version was published, Simon Hawke’s Friday the 13^th: Part 3. Like Avallone’s Friday, it’s out of print and pricy, and is said to have its own minor variations (e.g., giving Edna and Hank more of a backstory, as well as Jason).

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The source/counterpart film was released stateside on August 13, 1982. Steve Miner directed it, from a screenplay by Martin Kittrosser and Carol Watson.

Richard Brooker played Jason Voorhees.

Dana Kimmell played Chris Higgins. Paul Kratka played Rick, Chris’s would-be boyfriend. Tracie Savage played Debbie. Jeffrey Rogers played Andy, Debbie’s boyfriend.

Catherine Parks played Vera Sanchez. Larry Zerner played Shelly, Vera’s “loser” prankster and Vera’s blind date─and previous owner of Jason’s now-iconic white mask. Rachel Howard played Chili. David Katims played Chuck.

Gloria Charles played Foxy. Nick Savage played Ali. Kevin O’Brien played Loco.

Cheri Maugans played Edna. Steve Susskind played Harold, Edna’s henpecked spouse. David Wiley played Abel, the Biblical doomsaying bum.