THE SNAKE by John Godey

The rivers are full of crocodile nasties 

And he who made kittens, put snakes in the grass

The urban jungle's about to meet the real thing, when a fully grown black mamba escapes into Central Park! Author John Godey was hot off his smash hit novel The Taking of Pelham 123, and a gritty horror thriller about a killer snake in NYC must have seemed like another surefire success.

All the pieces are there, including a charming herpetologist lead who understands all too well how the rest of humanity views his charges. And Godey unfolds the opening action with admirable ease, giving us that wonderful frisson of impending doom as everyone is one step behind our newly escaped snake ... but just as with Maryk and Monahan's Death Bite, the pacing turns sluggish, like a snake resting up between meals, and we find ourselves yearning for a bit more of the ol' blood and guts. Godey is too reserved, too realistic at times, whereas Maryk and Monahan at least went delightfully overboard with their giant Island Taipan and its bloodcurdling bite. Godey's attempt at colorful drama, the Jesus People freakshow cult that shows up near the end, feels underbaked. And the rather obvious twist at the end is hardly "the ultimate in horror," as the San Francisco Examiner claims. All in all, we could have used a touch of Mr. Brown and friends' sociopathy from Godey's much celebrated heist novel.

Hardcover edition

That's not to say it's all bad - just not as great as it could have been. Godey delivers the requisite city politics and panic just fine, and his characters are all finely drawn and relatably sad sack in that wonderful '70s way. Too, his use of Central Park is masterful (we're given those maps for a reason). There's just something missing in the final tally, and it feels like a letdown coming from Godey.

Dramatic NEL edition

He's a lover of life but a player of pawns

Yes, the King on His sunset lies waiting for dawn 

To light up His Jungle as play is resumed 

The monkeys seem willing to strike up the tune

This game that we animals play is a winner, but The Snake struggles with a 2/4 rating! For a second opinion, Will Errickson over at Too Much Horror Fiction offers a more positive appraisal.

As we finish 2025, man is STILL the prey!

A Berkeley Book, 1979 (original pub. 1978)

MAPS OF THE UNKNOWN: Krakatoa, West of Java

Some maps and diagrams concerning Krakatoa's 1883 eruption, relevant to author J.V. Luce's discussion of the destruction of Thera in his excellent book The End of Atlantis. Krakatoa was famously misplaced in the 1968 Hollywood disaster flick titled Krakatoa, East of Java, but the fourth image of the Sunda Strait illustrates its true westerly position relative to Java ... glad that's settled!

Ash fall from the eruption
(Click to embiggen these horizontal images)

The Sunda Strait, flood zones, and the volcano west of Java 

Courtesy Bantam Books, 1978 (original pub. 1969).

STARTLING NEW RESEARCH FROM THE MAN WHO "TALKS" TO PLANTS, by Janice and Charles Robbins

Here's another piece from National Wildlife magazine, about former CIA interrogation specialist and polygraph innovator Cleve Backster. Backster was a pioneer in the movement to explore plant consciousness and ESP, and the authors mention previous coverage by National Wildlife from 1968. Backster would also feature in the smash hit 1973 book The Secret Life of Plants, by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird (themselves also former OSS/CIA men).

In this article, Janice and Charles Robbins describe some testing by Backster including plants recoiling at a murderer - a murderer of plants, that is, as Backster has a volunteer destroys one unlucky plant and then records the reactions of other plants to this person's presence. At the end of the article Backster describes another attempt at unmasking a real murderer via plant ESP that didn't pan out. Chicken eggs are also hooked up to the polygraph electrodes. Backster and the Robbins assure us that this is all very scientific and thorough.

More than fifty years later, sadly, lie detectors and plant ESP are looking a little less reliable than Backster's "slam dunk" claims. A recent New Age scam podcast with some mainstream cachet has featured plant ESP in an episode, but the subject is mostly confined to the New Age ghetto and the "human potential" hopes of yesteryear, when it seemed like all it would take is a breakthrough here or there to unleash all the power of the universe.

This article is also available to read and download at archive dot org.

From National Wildlife magazine, Vol. 9 - No. 6, Oct/Nov 1971.

COSMIC DEBRIS: Pyramid Water Bed

"We make no claims that our bed could make you live to be a thousand. That all remains to be seen. However, if our bed helps you to live a healthy life cycle of 115 years it is well worth the investment." And if you don't live to 115, how are you going to complain? The price tag alone is enough to give you a heart attack though ...

It's all backed by pyramid monger Dr. Patrick Flanagan, a man with a lot of experience in, well, let's call it "innovative" ways of unleashing pyramid power .

From Probe the Unknown magazine, Vol. 4 - No. 6, November 1976.

ON THE TRAIL OF BIGFOOT by George H. Harrison

From National Wildlife magazine and editor George Harrison (no, not that one) comes a shocking update on the hunt for Bigfoot! It's not the big man himself who provides the scares though, but rather the colorful antics of expedition leader Robert W. Morgan, who poses for paramilitary pics and says he plans to use drugged bait on Bigfoot and then track him with, specifically, a specially trained Labrador. Harrison ends things with the classic Warren Smith-style line "What do you, the reader, think?" and ponders if federal funding might not aid in the hunt. This article also references an older piece on the Patterson-Gimlin film and claims that Roger Patterson passed a polygraph test over the PGF's authenticity in the course of being interviewed by this magazine!

"Quit scarin' the neighbors, Bob!"

Nowadays George Harrison keeps us posted on how to understand bird plumage and mating habits, marking this vintage article as just one small piece of a long career in wildlife writing.

George H. Harrison, in an undated photo.

Robert W. Morgan meanwhile is quite the character, with a filmmaking career that includes the documentary Big Foot: Man or Beast? and the Bigfoot/hicksploitation horror flick Blood Stalkers and a stint as (he claims) an informant/two-fisted vigilante against mob drug running! Morgan's still alive and kicking today at 90 years old ... way to go, Bob!

Newspaper ad for Big Foot (1972)

Blood Stalkers (1976), which was never banned anywhere.

And a tip of the ol' hippo to Stef for the lead here ...
this book's a trip!

"On the Trail of Bigfoot" is also available to read and download at archive dot org.

From National Wildlife magazine, Vol. 8 - No. 6, Oct/Nov 1970.

STRANGE WORLD: Monsters Along the Mississippi

Click to embiggen

Monsters along the Mississippi ... and in Minnesota and Washington, too! It's another edition of Brad Steiger's "Strange World" column, with Brad recycling the Fremont, WI monster from his pseudonymous 1969 title The Abominable Snowmen, though he's off by one year on when it occurred according to his own original telling. Meanwhile, Warren Smith also used this anecdote in his own Strange Abominable Snowmen from 1970, and correctly dates it to 1968.

Everyone and their mother has written about the Minnesota Iceman, of course, and here Brad relays some of exhibitor Frank Hansen's evolving excuses/explanations for the creature. We're at the point where Hansen was claiming to have shot the monster dead himself in the Minnesota woods, which makes for a convenient cover story on why he's so reluctant to let the supposed corpse be properly analyzed. Nice sideshow zigzagging, Frank!

Brad finishes up with a 1970 Bigfoot expedition by National Wildlife magazine, headed by editor George Harrison. Harrison wrote his own account of this trip as "On the Trail of Bigfoot," for the October-November 1970 issue.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Clipped from the Santa Clarita Valley Signal, June 5th, 1972.

A SCHOOLMASTER STALKS THE UNKNOWN by Stewart McCulloch

This article by Stewart McCulloch details schoolmaster Alan Wilkins' series of Nessie sightings on July 18th, 1975. Originally from the London Sunday Express, it was reprinted in Nessie and Other Aquatic Monsters: Secrets of Loch Ness, a single issue magazine which lasted exactly one issue in 1977. More information about witness Alan Wilkins and his understated role in Nessie-dom is available at the Loch Ness Mystery Blog.

This article is also available to read and download at archive dot org.