STAR FIGHTERS by Robert E. Mills

Haaass! Haaass! The sound of Blorg’s stertorous breathing drowned out the gentle hum of the levitator that took him down to the city beneath the surface of dead Flaigon. Dwarfing the humanoid equerries who escorted him to the Forbidden City, the reptiloid lord stared vacantly at the door-panel in front of him. Since, for some unknown reason, the Dark Emperor had not probed his consciousness once he touched-down on the black planet’s surface, the lord of the Yss allowed himself the luxury of brooding over his recent misfortunes.

Not only had the mighty star-armada been demolished, thereby disrupting his plans for the conquest of the Primula galaxy, but that bearded man-ape, Rian, that hairy and disgusting piece of humanoid trash, had actually bested him in deep space combat. And the worst was yet to come: he must now answer for his disgrace and defeat to Ylang-Ylang, the only thing he feared in this life. It was a dark day for Lord Blorg and, as he left the levitator and strode through the eerie and self-illuminated corridors of black rock that led to the lair, the weight of fear lay on his body with the pressure of several dense atmospheres.

Lord Blorg. Dann Oryzon. Mr. Purpur. Villains and heroes in a galaxy some distance off, in a time uncertain, with questionable copyright status. Author Robert E. Mills dashed off a whole trilogy of sci-fi schlock in 1978 based on the success of Star Wars, and, in keeping with George Lucas' own style, we're diving in with book two of that trilogy - Haaaaas! Haaaaas!

Most of the fun here is comparing how Mills - not usually an SF writer, by the way - borrows from Lucas and how he brings in his own original ideas. The uncredited cover artist made some interesting choices as well, what with the Rebel trooper helmet. The best characters are undoubtedly Lord Blorg and the Dark Emperor Ylang-Ylang, who spend most of their page counts reveling in evil for the sake of it. Blorg is a four armed reptiloid Ysss from planet Sserp while Ylang-Ylang is a disembodied energy being of pure, you guessed it, evil. Ylang-Ylang wants to revive the ancient, evil Mordlings, of which he was one before ascending to his current state of pure energy evilness.

Mills manages some decent pulp SF scale with Ylang-Ylang's immortal quest for universal domination, even if he does seem to mix up galaxies and solar systems - our heroes are constantly liberating this or that galaxy named for single inhabited planets like Primula and Aquaea. 

Those heroes are pretty much a bunch of dorks, if you couldn't guess. Luke Skywalker is kind of a dork himself, so Dann Oryzon makes a fine young padawan in that mold, but space pirate Red Rian doesn't have half of Harrison Ford's swagger and sleazy charisma, and since this trilogy was written before The Empire Strikes Back and its shocking reveals (dig the back cover tagline though!) Leia character Lady Nila spends this entry dithering between Dann and Rian's love. Mr. Purpur, meanwhile, is an 8 foot tall cat person who (like poor Chewbacca in the classic Star Wars expanded universe novels of the '90s) mostly growls in agreement with his captain Rian. He definitely licks Rians more than Chewbacca ever licked Han, though.

Ween Leever, pride of Red Rian. Ween's middle name is Nerdeen.

Mills avoids using lightsabers or the Force, with his Jedi stand-ins being sort of generic New Age espers. There's dolphins, too, for that great '70s New Age vibe. Dann hails from Aquaea, a water world with twin suns, which makes his background totally different from Luke who of course was from a desert planet with twin suns!

The blog Schlock Value by Thomas  reviewed this title back in 2015, along with the rest of the trilogy. Thomas has a lot of the same ideas that I did reading this, but also wonders if maybe Mills was writing a low key parody of Star Wars and SF what with his Blorgs and Purpurs and Mordlings and so on. Thomas also points out some of the most hackneyed writing in the book, when hero Dann Oryzon gets conked on the head with a rock and spends about a third of the story unconscious! How's that for classic serial writing?

These wannabe Star Warsians earn themselves a 2/4 rating for some bright patches amid a ridiculous tapestry - it's not as bad as it could have been, but we're starting out with extremely low expectations. Viva Blorg!

Star Fighters is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Belmont Tower Books, 1978

ON THE TRAIL OF UNIDENTIFIED FURRY OBJECTS by Jerome Clark

Jerome Clark investigates the thing that came to visit Roachdale, IN in the summer of '72. Unsettling details like glowing eyes, lights in the sky, a penchant for leftovers, and (almost) no footprints to speak of make this one for the weird "hairy biped" records. Whatever it was, it killed the Burdine family chickens but seemed to leave humans well enough alone ... for now.

Reactions from local authorities were ambivalent. Clark quotes two skeptics, a town marshal and a conservation officer, alongside a neighboring sheriff who put out a bizarre BOLO for a "ten foot tall monster covered in fur." Sheriff Gary Cooper (yup) goes on to say the mystery creature could be a bear, or a badger. Clark describes a horde of rubberneckers descending on the town, the small panic among locals that developed, and also places the case in context alongside other Midwestern monster flaps that year.

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

Courtesy Fate magazine, Volume 26 - Number 8, August 1973.

THE TELEPATHIC DOLPHINS by Fred P. Graham

Fred P. Graham writes up some dolphin/ESP experimentation by Patricia Hayes and Ann Phillips of the Arthur Ford Academy of Parapsychology and Research. Flipper's Sea School has changed hands multiple times and is currently known as the Dolphin Research Center. Meanwhile, the Arthur Ford Academy lives on as Delphi University, a school for mediumship and spiritual studies.

Graham also quotes Dr. John C. Lilly for some background on potential dolphin intellect, and helpfully defines the intuitive PSI SCAN, codeveloped by Phillips and Jan Clema, and utilized by one Bill Clema on dolphin Terce.

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

Courtesy Fate magazine, Volume 31 - Number 7, July 1978.

SECRETS OF THE PYRAMIDS REVEALED by Robert K. Moffett

By now, it may have become apparent that doctorates carry substantial weight among the nonconformist schools of pyramid study. In fact, academic titles abound to a point where it is hardly paranoid to conclude that they are used for the purpose of impressing the reader with the author’s scholarship. But do they not also imply a promise that the scholarship in the books will be sound?

Perhaps a more accurate title would have been Secrets of Pyramidology Revealed? Author Robert K. Moffett teases us with a pointless introduction in a style that seems to have been de rigueur for skeptical works in the '70s: dressing up your critical work like it's just another mystery mongering meatloaf volume. Moffett mentions Karel Drbal and his razor sharpening pyramids, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, and Uri Geller - but none of these are relevant for the rest of the book. Moffett's actual text is about how we got here, to the pyramid mania of the '70s, through a history of the theories of the original pyramidologists. It's a crash course on writers like John Taylor and Howard Vyse (and their precursor John Greaves), fine tuners like Piazzi Smyth, and then bandwagon jumpers on up to the 20th century and the modern day. 

Moffett gives context on why specific writers were interested in certain aspects of the pyramids, and how oftentimes their facts and figures had less to do with the actual stones in the sand than with contemporary religious and political struggles:

At this point, Taylor was sure he had had a revelation, for this was a matter of keen topical interest.

The metric system, developed in France, had by this time spread throughout the Continent, and there was agitation both from the scientific community and export-conscious manufacturers to adopt it in Great Britain. But there was a strong British resistance movement largely based on religious grounds. The French Revolution, with its strong anticlerical bias, had aroused grave misgivings in Britain, and the metric system was closely identified with it. As originally proposed, the metric conversion had involved switching to a ten-day week. Genesis made it perfectly clear that the Lord endorsed the seven-day week. That, after a period of trial, the French themselves had abandoned the decimal week was immaterial. If, in this, the original thinking had been contrary to the Will of God, the entire system was suspect.

Now Taylor could perceive the true function of the Great Pyramid: It was not by chance that the pyramid used the British system of weights and measures. Rather, it was a compendium incorporating the original, Divinely inspired system which had survived in Britain. The Great Pyramid was a message passed down to modern times to strengthen the wills of the anti-metric faction.

The search for cosmic truths collapses inward! Moffett writes with a dry humor, respectfully conveying various crank ideas but occasionally popping an especially ridiculous balloon such as in the case of psychic gadfly Edgar Cayce:

In terms of both current popularity and sheer volume, the most important of the clairvoyants to have contributed to the story of Atlantis was Edgar Cayce who, despite the widespread belief in his ability to communicate across the barrier between this and the afterworld, hasn’t been heard from since his death in 1945.

Once we've completed our journey with Moffett from Ancient Egypt to 19th century Europe to 20th century America, we might be able to say we've learned something about human thought and frailty.

Tempo Books gifts us a few typos here and there, but at least they also give us a picture spread in the middle with lots of vintage images. Moffett, a class act, also gives us a bibliography:

Moffet has a few other books available, including one coauthored with (presumably) his wife - not the title you'd think though! Their shared author blurb says that "Robert and Martha Moffett are both editors as well as published writers. Mr. Moffett's introduction to the animal kingdom was as a snake farmer."

Pyramid Power now and forever! This title is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Tempo Books, 1976

MYSTERIES OF OUR WORLD by Peter Briggs

Not a mystery mongering text, but a solid pop-sci volume covering the cutting edge in earth science c.1969. Author Peter Briggs lays out the debates and scientific developments leading to our new knowledge of the world around us, from the ocean depths to the mountain tops, atmospheric heights, and beyond! There's a healthy dose of natural disasters, with volcanos and earthquakes making for engaging reading. Oceanic investigation is another exciting subject, with plenty of ships dredging and scanning and netting all around the seven seas - the Glomar Challenger is here, a few years before the Explorer would launch its now infamous secret mission. 

Reading on through Briggs' explorations, dense but smoothly flowing, it makes me think. We only just saw the announcement of the phasing out of "pocket" paperbacks, and here's a relic of that soon-to-be-bygone age: a portable, dependable, entertaining science primer, readable by anyone, anytime, anywhere, packed with references and sources - put out by a relatively sleazy/lowbrow publisher, even. Nowadays google is just as likely to give you a completely hallucinated "AI summary" for your search terms as a straightforward URL ... maybe I'm just being cranky, I don't know! Google also doesn't offer as many cigarette ads as vintage paperbacks:

Briggs appears to have been a prolific nonfiction writer - here's a spread of titles including Water, The Vital Essence, which Briggs references in this current text, and a title on the Glomar Challenger.

"And if California falls into the ocean/
Like the mystics and statistics say it will"

 

True to their rough and tumble image, Belmont Tower included a two page spread of mafia books as part of their nonfiction advertising. "You liked reading about volcanos, Billy? Well how about Lucky Luciano?"

This educational title is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Belmont Tower Books, 1969