The Missouri Breaks by Thomas McGuane

 

(pb; 1976: screenplay)

From the back cover

“Marlon Brando is a hired gun.

“Jack Nicholson is a horse thief.

“One of them is out to kill─and the other is not about to die.”

 

Review

McGuane’s screenplay is simple, offbeat, character- and genre-resonant, one that is true to the spirit of iconic Westerns, paced by its familiar-but-memorable character’s actions and personalities, especially its two leads (Tom Logan and Robert Lee Clayton).  While there’s a dark thread running through it, there is little onscreen violence, and its dialogue is often sly (especially between Logan, Clayton, and Lloyd). This is a great script for a movie that was mostly faithful to its written scenes. Worth reading and seeing, this.

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The PG-rated film was released stateside on May 19, 1976. Arthur Penn directed it from, as indicated above, a screenplay by Thomas McGuane and, according to IMDb, an uncredited Robert Towne (who may’ve edited the screenplay during shooting).

Jack Nicholson played Tom Logan. Marlon Brando played Robert Lee Clayton. Kathleen Lloyd, in her theatrical film debut, played Jane Braxton. John McLiam played David Braxton.

Harry Dean Stanton played Calvin. John P. Ryan, billed as John Ryan, played Si. Randy Quaid played Tod La Frambois (a.k.a. “Little Tod”). Frederic Forrest played Cary.

Sam Gilman played Hank Rate. Richard Bradford played Pete Marker. Hunter von Leer played Sandy. Virgil Frye played Woody. R.L. Armstrong played Bob.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master by Joseph Locke (a.k.a. Ray Garton)

 

(pb; 1989: movie tie-in novel. Prequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Master.)

From the back cover

“Freddy’s back, looking for some ‘soul’ food. And he won’t stop even when Kristen Parker─the last child of Freddy’s killers─takes a deep sleep that puts her six feet deep. Now the fiendish phantom is using other kids’ dreams to produce his victims─and to slaughter them in new and ingeniously gory ways.

“His blades are razor-sharp, and his bloodthirst can’t be stopped. Freddy Krueger is eternal.”

 

Review

Nightmare 4 is a worthwhile read for fans of the franchise who are looking for a well-written, if story-thin (blame the screenwriters and producers who rushed them) continuation of Freddy Krueger’s stalkings, with quite a few variations of how things happen. The ending is slightly tweaked but mostly the same (I’m guessing Locke/Garton worked from an earlier draft of the script). 

If you’re curious what was changed between this solid, mostly dreamtime sequel’s book and film versions, check the reviews on Amazon (there’s a nice person who thoroughly listed the differences). A few of the notable differences include: more waking-time interactions between some of the characters as well as more backstory for them, and Rick Johnson─prior to his kung fu nightmare demise─fights back against Krueger (he doesn’t in the movie). After Rick’s funeral, there’s a book-only scene with Dan, Debbie, and Mr. Bryson, their English teacher.

One of the things I liked about Nightmare 4 is how Krueger might be tied to Aristotle’s notions about positive/negative soul gates. I don’t remember if it’s in the film version, but it’s in Locke/Garton’s entertaining, fast-moving, and waste-no-words writing.

Nightmare 4 is a lean, ninety-eight-page read. It’s also out of print, so if you can get it for a reasonable price (the current price hovers between $50 and $80 online), you might want to consider picking it up if you’re even slightly interested in it.

Nightmare 4 was republished later in 1989 with its sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, in one volume, titled The Nightmares on Elm Street: Parts 4 & 5.

Garton, whether he’s writing under his real name or Joseph Locke, is a consistently excellent and entertaining horror writer, one who’s worth your time.

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The counterpart film was released stateside on August 9, 1988. Renny Harlin directed the film, from a screenplay by Brian Helgeland, Jim and Ken Wheat (both billed as Scott Pierce).

Robert Englund played Freddy Krueger. Tuesday Knight played Kristen Parker. Ken Sagoes played Kinkaid. Rodney Eastman played Joey. Lisa Wilcox played Alice Johnson. Brooke Theiss played Debbie. Andras Jones played Rick Johnson. Danny Hassel played Dan. Nicholas Mele played "Johnson," Alice and Rick's father.

Scream queen Linnea Quigley played “Soul in Freddy’s Chest.” An uncredited Renny Harlin played “Student in Classroom.” New Line producer Robert Shaye, billed as L.E. Moko, played “Lecturer.”

Masters of Time by A.E. van Vogt

 

(pb; 1950, originally published in 1942 and 1944 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc., for Astounding Science-Fiction magazine)

From the back cover

“Norma was a helpless victim of the masters of time; Jack, who loved her, went willingly into slavery, hoping to find a way to release her from bondage. Both of them should have been destroyed, yet somehow, gaining strength from each other, they managed to retain some measure of their free will.

“But was it enough to save both of them─and, more important, to save Earth from the monstrous fate that the masters of time had decreed for it?”

 

Review

Masters, a hectic-paced science fiction novel, is a sometimes fun if chatty book. In it, two humans─Norma Matheson, an ambitious, depressed woman, and her ex-college boyfriend, Professor Jack Garson─are pressed into war service by Dr. Lell, a self-proclaimed “master of time” alien and one of the Glorious. Lell’s tentacled Observer machines take humans from Earth’s past and present eras to fight the Glorious’ future conflict for them.

This is not one of Vogt’s better works. It has his trademark, constant twists and turns as well as sudden shifts in locations and perceptions, so many that it becomes overly convoluted, talky and hard to follow at times.

Readers who are sensitive to briefly less-than-“woke” language and typically-1940s-sexist attitudes might want to skip this one. Most of the male characters, including Jack, are condescending toward Norma and her “emotional” state, even as she finds a way (with help) out of her bad situations. As for the less-than-“woke” language, one of the alien villains (Dr. Lell) is briefly described having “Chinese” and “Negro” attributes in his unsettling features. This is not a surprising element in science fiction during this time (the 1940s)─it was sometimes lazy shorthand for adding exoticism to characters─but it is surprising that Vogt, usually better than this, fell prey to the negative, lazy stereotyping of his era.

What works in Masters is Vogt’s initial set-up, editing and pacing, before it goes into the melodramatic weeds for a while. It’s best not to think too hard about the pseudo-science time-travel dialogue spouted by various characters and try to enjoy the ride (if you stick with it). Its ending is an effective, impressive bookend that almost saves the book from its other excesses and unfortunate, antiquated attitudes, but not quite. While not a terrible read, it’s one I’d only recommend to Vogt completists. If you are a first-time reader of Vogt, I’d suggest Slan (1940), The House That Stood Still (1950) and Mission to the Stars (1952, a.k.a The Mixed Men).

Resident Alien: The Sam Hain Mystery by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse

 

(pb; 2015: graphic novel, collecting issues 0-3 of Resident Alien Volume 3 of the six-volume Resident Alien graphic novel series, published by Dark Horse Comics.)

From the back cover

“Dr. Harry Vanderspiegle is actually a stranded alien explorer hiding out in a sleepy town in the Pacific Northwest. His short time as a doctor in Patience, Washington, has kept him busy solving mysteries, though. With a few successes under his belt. Harry tackles another one after the contents of an old briefcase hint that a murderer could be hiding in town in plain sight-using an alias!”

 

Review

The intriguing, fun, character-interesting charm of the two previous Resident Alien graphic novels is in evidence in the third volume, where Vanderspiegle’s black-suited pursuers─thus far unknown to him─get closer to locating him, and his interest in a local 1960s men’s-adventure action writer (the cleverly named Rex Monday) leads him to dig into a possible long-ago murder mystery when an unpublished manuscript lands in his possession. This is a nice, well-foreshadowed continuation of The Suicide Blonde (when he discovered the writer’s books), with a finish that promises more relatively quiet excitement to come. Followed by Resident Alien: The Man with No Name.

Mentats of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

 

(pb; 2014: second book in the Great Schools of Dune trilogy)

From the back cover

“Gilbertus Albans has founded the Mentat School, a place where humans can learn the efficient techniques of thinking machines. But Gilbertus walks an uneasy line between his own convictions and compromises in order to survive the antitechnology Butlerian fanatics, led by the madman Manford Torondo and his Swordmaster Anari Idaho. Mother Superior Raquella attempts to rebuild her Sisterhood School on Wallach IX, with her most talented and ambitious student, Valya Harkonnen, who also has another goal─to  exact revenge on Vorian Atreides, the legendary hero of the Jihad, whom she blames for her family’s downfall.

“Meanwhile, Josef Venport conducts his own war against the Butlerians. The VenHold Spacing Fleet controls nearly all commerce, thanks to the superior mutated Navigators the Venport has created, and he places a ruthless embargo on any planet that accepts Manford Torondo’s antitechnology pledge, hoping to starve them into submission. But fanatics rarely surrender easily.

“The Mentats, the Navigators, and the Sisterhood all strive to improve the human race, but each group knows that as Butlerian fanaticism grows stronger, the battle to choose the path of humanity’s future─whether to embrace civilization or to plunge into an endless dark age.”

Review

Set immediately after the events of Sisterhood of Dune, Mentats shows the widespread fallout of the massive conflicts that have begun to tear the Imperium apart. The characters from the first Great Schools of Dune book are back, doubling down on their mixed-solutions resolve to save humanity from its worst aspects, many of which they embody or most touch upon from time to time─few people (human or otherwise) are innocent in Dune books, and Sisterhood is no exception. This is one of the strengths of the series, its relatability.

Like previous Dune books, there’s plenty of storyline/character set-up, drama, references to other Dune events and characters (past and future), dry and sometimes dark humor, and of course sometimes-horrific action, resulting from the clashes of polar-opposite characters and even friends. Mentats jumps into the action quicker than Sisterhood does (the benefits of having everything set up in the first Great Schools novel) and its end-twists are particularly effective, bordering on masterful and shocking. This is an excellent entry in the Dune series, one worth reading.

Followed by Navigators of Dune.

The Killing Gift by Bari Wood

 

(pb; 1975)

From the inside flap

“Everyone whispered there was something strange and ominous about Jennifer─that she had no real friends, scared people off somehow. But that was probably just jealous gossip, for Jennifer had everything other people coveted─beauty, money, success.

“Yet frightening things did seem to happen around her. Objects fell and should have broken─but didn’t. And when people displeased Jennifer, when lovers made her angry, she became possessed by a power she could neither see nor hear. All sound was swallowed. The air became heavier and heavier. And her deadly energy unleashed an evil so impossible it could not believed. But it must.”

 

Review

Gift is a good, entertaining, goreless and off-beat read. Wood takes what often winds up being a character-sketched, focus-on-horror-thrills genre storyline and─for the most part─turns it into a better-told, deep-character-paced novel that could easily appeal to readers beyond the horror/supernatural genre. Jennifer Gilbert and homicide detective David Stavitsky are especially well-written, relatable characters.

Gift would’ve been excellent if it had been better paced, with Stavitsky spending less time waffling about how to deal with Jennifer Gilbert’s terrifying powers, but the third-act lag-time scenes aren’t a fatal flaw. The end-twist, well-foreshadowed and character-true, is excellent though, and Gift is an impressive book, especially when one considers it’s Wood’s first novel.

Millions of Cats by Wanda Gág

 

(hb; 1928: children’s picture book)

Millions is about an old man who goes to get a cat for his wife but ends up bringing back too many─it’s a delightful book if you can overlook the dark, dumb-luck overtone of the book’s solution to the angry, fighting-cat problem. The artwork is great, unique and old-timey as well.

Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

 

(pb; 2011: first book in the Great Schools of Dune trilogy – sequel to Dune: Battle of Corrin. Prequel to Mentats of Dune.)

From the back cover

“It is eighty-three years after the last of the thinking machines were destroyed in the Battle of Corrin, and great changes are brewing that will shape and twist all humankind.

“Raquella Berto-Anirul has formed the Bene Gesserit School on the jungle planet Rossak as the first Reverend Mother. The descendants of Aurelius Venport and Norma Cenva have built Venport Holdings, using mutated, spice-saturated Navigators who fly precursors of Heighliners. Gilbert Albans, the ward of the hated Erasmus, is teaching humans to become Mentats. . . and hiding an unbelievable secret.

“The Butlerian movement, led by Manford Torondo, and rabidly opposed to all forms of ‘dangerous technology,’ begins to sweep across the known universe in mobs, millions strong, destroying everything in its path.

“Every one of these characters, and all these groups, will become enmeshed in the contest between Reason and Faith. All of them will be forced to choose sides in the inevitable crusade that could destroy humankind forever.”

 

Review

Sisterhood is a good, intense, entertaining, character- and plot-twisty and emotionally brutal read. Characters with series-familiar surnames and passions helped this reader be drawn into Sisterhood: Atreides, Harkonnen, Corrino, Idaho, Butler, etc., further linking the historical events of the Dune prequels with its source 1965 novel and the thousands of years that followed.

Sisterhood is set eighty-three years after the events of Dune: The Battle of Corrin, when the Imperium is still processing the horrors and emotional fallout of Corrin, by becoming philosophers, terrorist fundamentalists, craven politicians, and other roles that flesh out the by-now-familiar dynamics and passionate, violent escalations of the expanded Dune story-cycles. Manford Torondo is an especially vicious, vainglorious, and whinging piece of work, though none of the other characters are entirely virtuous─in short, most of the characters are worth rooting for or hissing at.

If you’re a Dune fan who’s enjoyed most of the other Herbert/Anderson expansion books, there’s a good chance you might enjoy this one, even if it does run a few short chapters too long.

Followed by Mentats of Dune.

Omen IV: Armageddon 2000 by Gordon McGill

 

(pb; 1983: fourth book in The Omen pentalogy)

Caveat: possible spoilers if you’re not aware of the events of The Final Conflict.

Eighteen years after the violent deaths in The Final Conflict, Damien Thorn’s body is dead, but his spirit and powers live on─this is because Carl Bugenhagen (who died in Damien—Omen II) was not able to pass on vital instructions on how to kill the Antichrist: one must stab Damien with all seven daggers of Meggido, in the shape of a cross, for him to truly die. Unfortunately, only one of the daggers─the one that ended his physical life─was used on Damien, so his infernal powers and mission were passed on to a new being. Father DeCarlo, present when Damien was killed in Final, knows this now and says as much in Armageddon─this is a mistake the brave old monk, even on his deathbed, means to correct.

The new person bearing Damien’s powers and hell-sourced drive is an unnamed seventeen-year-old boy (henceforth called The Boy in this review). The Boy, Damien’s dead-ringer-of-a-son, is a product of Kate Reynold’s animal-rough union with Damien in Final. The Boy is quietly tucked away at Pereford, a Thorn family estate─the same location where Damien lived in The Omen and Final.

The Boy is watched over by George, his old and loyal butler, and Paul Buher, seventy-year-old head of the Thorn corporation. Buher, seen and mentioned in Damien and Final, still grieves for the fallen Antichrist.

Buher’s mourning, anger, and sense of failure are exacerbated by The Boy’s attitude─he is a charmless, blunt, and arrogant child whose main mission is to destroy humankind to avenge his father’s death. The Boy, like Damien, brings about and spins terrorist attacks in the Middle East, and wants to kill the Christ child (who was born to gypsies in Final). Unlike his father, The Boy lacks charm and does not care about his role in prophecies: he is merely lashing out, living to inflict as much mass cruelty and destruction for its own sake.

This being an Omen story, bizarre and horrific Thorn-linked deaths occur. Among those hounded by the Antichrist’s son: Mary Lamont, a cultist who slew a child in Damien’s name in Final; Carol Wyatt, a reporter who begins snooping around Pereford; and Michael Finn, mentioned but not named in Final as the man who purchased the daggers of Meggido at an auction.

In Armageddon, it falls to Philip Brennan, US Ambassador to the Court of St. James, to stop Damien’s secret son. Brennan is kind, level-headed, not religious and can barely believe the wild stories about Damien, “the Thorn curse,” and Pereford, but as too-strange-to-be-coincidence events occur and the satanic death toll rises, Brennan is forced to acknowledge there may be some truth to Brother Francis and Father DeCarlo’s crazy tales even as others advance The Boy’s cataclysmic intent.

Armageddon─not a movie tie-in book─is a worthy sequel to David Seltzer’s Omen, one that not only matches the above-average, dark intensity of Seltzer’s story- and character-deepening source novel but answers the nagging question about DeCarlo and the monks being ignorant about the seven-daggers-to-kill-Damien requirement. From a reader’s point-of-view, McGill’s Conflict felt constrained, as if his creative hands were tied to the film’s choppy, hyper-focused storyline. In Armageddon McGill’s storyline flows better, there’s variation to its familiar set-up (even as it keeps true to established Omen elements, characterizations and themes) and it goes for broke in its raw, macabre finish, suitably ending on an abrupt, truly B-flick ending that somewhat mirrors Final’s.

McGill also brings more of the Omen’s inherent black humor to the fore (e.g., the fate of Damien’s corpse) as well as equally perverse, almost satirical twists and callbacks that elevate Armageddon, make it more fun and unpredictable (in parts). Followed by Omen V: The Abomination by Gordon McGill.

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A third film sequel to The Omen (1976), Omen IV: The Awakening, aired on TV/Fox channel on May 20, 1991. (The previous Omen films were theatrical releases.) Co-starring Don S. Davis (Stargate: SG-1, 1997-2007) and Michael Lerner (Elf, 2003), Awakening is not based on Armageddon.

Resident Alien: The Suicide Blonde by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse

 

(pb; 2013, 2014: graphic novel, collecting issues 0-3 of Resident Alien Volume 2 of the six-volume Resident Alien graphic novel series, published by Dark Horse Comics.)

From the back cover

“An alien explorer, stranded in the Pacific Northwest years for his home world, but he’s enamored with ours─especially when it comes to solving murder mysteries! Undercover alien, Dr. Harry Vanderspiegle seeks to clear the name of a friend who’s blamed for a college girl’s death, so he leaves the safety of small-town Patience, USA, to hunt for clues in Seattle. He doesn’t know that several federal agents are obsessed with Harry’s crashed starship and the possibility of capturing the compassionate extraterrestrial!”

Review

Like its previous graphic novel, Welcome to Earth!, Blonde is an intriguing, fun, short and character-interesting read, with a solid, possible murder mystery thrown into the mix. Dry humor again underlines some of the characters and situations as well as other nuanced emotional elements with story turns that are mini-twists and natural character progressions─a further indication of Resident‘s excellence (thus far). Things appear to be heating up for Harry although he doesn’t know it yet. Looking forward to the next entry in the six-volume series, Alien Resident: The Sam Hain Mystery.

The Final Conflict by Gordon McGill

 

(pb; 1980: movie tie-in novel, based on Andew Birkin’s screenplay. Third book in The Omen pentalogy.)

From the back cover

“Around the globe, drought, famine, and flood are striking down helpless millions. And everywhere there is trouble, Damien Thorne’s followers can be found─almost before disaster strikes─ready to offer aid to the pitiful survivors.

“Damien, the handsome, thirty-two-year-old head of one of the world’s most powerful corporations and certain to be president of the United States by the time he’s forty, Damien, believed to be the son of Satan, who is relentlessly reaching out to claim the Earth for the forces of darkness. . .

“Now is the time of prophecy, the beginning of the end for mankind. But where is the promised Messiah to save the world from ultimate evil. . .?”

Review

Final is a solid second book sequel to David Seltzer’s The Omen. Like its predecessor movie tie-in novel, Joseph Howard’s Damien—Omen II, it has the same virtues and play-it-safe drawbacks of its subgenre: Final is well-written, the characters and their relationships are well-sketched, its pacing is a deft, series-consistent balance of backstory, characterization, action, and horrifying death scenes. Despite that, the book adds little to the story or characters, although its tone is more perverse (e.g., Damien’s Black Chapel inside his Pereford house, where he was raised by Robert and Katherine Thorn), and McGill, when writing about one of The Omen’s satanic priests, calls him “Father Tassone” (Edgardo Emilio Tassone), Seltzer’s book-version name for the priest. In the 1976 film version of The Omen, Tassone was called Father Brennan.

One obvious thing─possibly an egregious flaw─is that most of the priests in the movie tie-in sequels (aside from Carl Bugenhagen, who died in Damien) think they need to stab Damien with one of the Crucifixion-hilted daggers, when they need to use seven, in a cross-like pattern. How did that vital information escape the priests’ attention?

Final’s ending has an abrupt, low-budget B-movie finish, appropriate when one considers the hard-cut, not-quite-choppy cinematic feel of Final. While not a standout entry in its series or subgenre, it’s modestly entertaining, a good writer toeing the line of his work-for-hire subgenre.

Followed by Gordon McGill’s Omen IV: Armageddon 2000, a non-movie tie-in, and related to the 1991 television movie (Omen IV: The Awakening) in series name only (their storylines are completely different).

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Final's film version, bearing the same title, was released stateside on March 20, 1981. Graham Baker directed it, from a screenplay by Andrew Birkin.

Sam Neill played Damien Thorne. Lisa Harrow played Kate Reynolds. Barnaby Holm played Peter Reynolds.

Rossano Brazzi played DeCarlo.

Don Gordon played Harvey Dean. Leueen Willoughby played Barbara Dean.