SUM VII by T.W. Hard

Callow med student Bryan St. John tags along on a grave robbing expedition to Egypt, where a secret tomb is uncovered and a miraculously preserved body is whisked back to San Francisco for some outrageously unethical attempts at revival. This is 1979, not 1879, by the way, and spoilers abound, so beware!

Sum VII is unique, like no mummy ever seen before. His brains haven't been sucked out through his nose, nor have his other organs been removed and stored in jars per the standard Egyptian mummification process. In fact, his body is totally intact, and perfectly preserved ... as if he's in a state of suspended animation ...

Well, of course he is! And we know what's gonna happen, they're gonna wake him up and mayhem will ensue! To his credit T.W. Hard puts us through these predictable paces with a modicum of grace. The medical scenes having just enough techno thriller panache to carry us through the outre concept, and once ol' Sum VII is up and about Hard works well at portraying a person lost in time, savagely thrust into a world he never wanted. There's some technobabble gobbledygook that allows a computer to translate snippets of his ancient speech, but thankfully again Hard plays it just smart enough that it feels natural - it's all too little, too late for our modern day bunglers anyways, who find themselves one step behind the canny survivor. He's armed with intelligence, endurance, and mind powers that speak of something otherworldly. His mission? Go back to bed! St. John and the rest of the blinkered scientists eventually see the truth of his quest and oblige him. Farewell, traveler, you were ten times as three dimensional as any of your pursuers!

Some other editions

Sum VII sounds like a suitably dynastic name but author Hard plays cute with us - it's actually his specimen designation, standing for State University Museum, specimen 7 out of 7. It's a nice final wrinkle in this story of culture shock and future shock. Author Hard only put out a couple more titles, at least under this name, but he's hardly the worst writer to tackle paranormal fiction. Too bad.

A message from the ages

For a cliched concept pulled off with acceptable ability, Sum VII earns two out of four ancient alien ankhs:

Ballantine Books, 1979

COSMIC DEBRIS: Atlantean Crystal Headband

Over $100 total for three pieces of naff tat ... but money orders ship out within 48 hours, so that's service you can count on. Clarion Gems has no current web presence but a quick search shows many similar products available from individual sellers on sites like etsy as well as other established psychic hucksters, with the same inflated prices. Dr. Tassioulos leaves the price tag off his site entirely, requiring you to request an order form - a sure sign you're about to get rooked!

From Fate, Volume 43 - Number 12, December 1990.

ESP AND PSYCHIC POWER by Steven Tyler

The mysterious Steven Tyler returns with a text on ESP, running through the big names and big ideas of the midcentury psychic scene! This one is an odd duck, not quite a straightforward skeptic text like his UFO volume, Are The Invaders Coming? but not one of the myriad psychic hagiographies that cluttered the market back then (and now). Tyler goes over wannabe psychic detectives like the dual Dutchmen Peter Hurkos and Gerard Croiset, giving credence to the idea that they could possibly be receiving clues from the other side, though he's forced to admit they have their share of misses and Hurkos especially does not acquit himself well:

Even his devoted admirers became suspicious. The year before the Boston fiasco, Jeane Dixon had been discussing Hurkos with Dr. Regis Riesenman, a psychiatrist with an interest in psychical research. Dr. Riesenman had once brought Hurkos to Virginia to solve a grisly child-murder. Mrs. Dixon told him that Hurkos was headed for trouble. It was a safe prediction. A short while later Hurkos was arrested for impersonating an FBI officer and for carrying a small arsenal of guns. He was later freed and is still active today, giving readings on a circuit of spiritualist churches.

Psychic titan Eileen Garrett admits with some equivocation that law enforcement should probably not be relying on psychic detectives for reliable information. Tyler devotes considerable space to superstar psychic Jeane Dixon, and just as in Jeane Dixon: Prophet or Fraud? her supposed powers of prognostication don't hold up to scrutiny.

Tyler notes that Dixon's so-called prediction of JFK's assassination is "more intricate than inspired," based on continually rewriting her words from years before: her early '50s predictions of a blue eyed democrat "dying in office" becomes an assassination after the fact, for example. She also thinks the USSR had something to do with it, despite all real evidence pointing squarely at a domestic obscenity ... but that's nothing new for Dixon. Tyler also makes note of the obsessive doom and gloom of Dixon's predictions, stoking mainstream American fears over racial strife, labor strife, and all those goddamn crazy foreigners.

Some history of psychical research follows, with stuffy old Nandor Fodor, Eileen Garrett, and J.B. Rhine among others attempting to quantify the unknown under laboratory conditions. Tyler is bullish on what may yet result from their early probings of mysterious forces.

Highlights of the obligatory witchcraft chapter include W.I.T.C.H, the Women's International Terrorist Corp from Hell, though wikipedia lists the C as standing for Conspiracy, not Corp! Anton LaVey makes his usual slimy appearance, complete with a nude redheaded altar. Way to freak out the squares, Anton.

The final chapters detail how to develop your own ESP, which Tyler says is inherent in all of us. There's a little self help action at the end with using your new psychic powers for wealth and wellbeing - that's kind of silly, Steven! Still, altogether not a bad ESP primer from Tyler and Tower Books.

Tower Books, 1970

SHADOW OF THE BEAST by Gerald DiPego

We're closing out the year with some Bigfoot terror! Prolific screenwriter and author Gerald DiPego brings us this backwoods Bigfoot survival thriller, which despite the blurb falls far short of Deliverance but still provides some interesting grist for the Bigfoot mill. Modern author Grady Hendrix has an in-depth review which makes note that this is the rare Bigfoot novel that keeps the sex strictly between Homo sapiens, though it's just as sleazy or more so than something like The Beast or the infamous Nights With Sasquatch, chock full as it is of rape and abuse. DiPego himself doesn't list the novel on his website. You've been warned!

Our protagonist Ruth Cassen is an anthropologist from Illinois with a wild pet theory - that the extinct prehistoric ape Gigantopithecus actually survived into the present day, accounting for modern sightings of Bigfoot. Author DiPego borrowed this idea from real life anthropologist Grover Krantz, who spent the latter half of his career using his technical knowledge to bolster the existence of Bigfoot as a prehistoric survivor. The Giganto theory stands as the most dominant "scientific" model for Bigfoot, as opposed to spiritual or occultic explanations for the beast which seem to have eclipsed stuffy old pseudoscientists like Krantz nowadays. Cassen joins a trek into the Oregon wilderness led by sleazoid guide Jack Lillion, who never met a man he couldn't lick or a woman he couldn't rape. In a hypothetical film adaptation, Cassen could be played by Brooke Adams or Karen Allen, while Lillion is just the type of rotten SOB that Leslie Nielsen perfected before his overwhelming comic turn in Airplane! There's plenty of disposable supporting characters along for the expedition, though DiPego pulls a neat trick and cuts the party down to its bare essentials midway through, after one of them suffers an accident and the majority quest on over the mountain, leaving Cassen, Lillion, the photographer Barthes and teenager Henry to face the Bigfoot and themselves in the deep woods in the middle of a raging storm. Barthes is another sleazebag character, abusing his model girlfriend as he taunts her with his industry connections, while Henry is a confused young man who develops a crush on the good Dr. Cassen. Ruth is hard up for a decent man and guides young Henry into manhood, an arc which wavers between touching, silly, and uncomfortable - perhaps like the real thing.

DiPego can be sensitive while sketching character interactions, but most of the time he prefers to brute force things with his creeps Lillion and Barthes. You'll be begging Bigfoot to show up and take these bastards apart, and thankfully (despite the back copy playing coy with whether the monster will be real or not) we finally do get some Bigfoot action at the climax. DiPego clearly did his research and took the subject seriously for the sake of his story, and it's a nice touch when Cassen sniffs out a phony footprint owing to its arch: Krantz said Bigfoot lacked one! It's another nice touch when Cassen realizes that, far from some prehistoric throwback, these Bigfoot have evolved into the Homo superior. Of course we're meant to contrast the savage Lillion and Barthes against these gentle forest people, and reflect on the greed and stupidity that leads all of our characters into this futile quest. Results are so-so, and the narrative feels truncated and underbaked.

The cover looks like it should be a stepback, but it isn't. This copy belonged to the U.S. Air Force. For a technically well done but unpleasant and underwhelming thriller, Shadow of the Beast earns two faked footprints out of four.

Signet Books, 1984

EARTH'S HIDDEN MYSTERIES by Carl Cohen

Following up on Daniel Cohen's The Greatest Monsters in the World here's another young reader primer on the supernatural, by one Carl Cohen - no relation. This Cohen's book is far more scattershot, running through the Bermuda Triangle, Easter Island, the Mary Celeste, modern witches, UFOs, and the Oak Island Money Pit ... and that's that! Carl's not a patch on Daniel's writing ability, descending into kid's book treacle and uncritically repeating von Daniken's nonsense on Easter Island and spacemen. He even promotes von Daniken with the title of scientist, debating theories with other scientists! 

The urban legend of Oak Island is another example of rumor and myth being repeated ad nauseam until it takes on a life of its own. Fifty years after Carl Cohen tossed off a quickie chapter recycled from earlier writers, there's a long running reality show about the non-existent treasure playing on the History Channel. In the world of the paranormal, everything old is new again.

Nice cover art at least, and the UFO photos are delightfully bogus.

Xerox Education Publications, 1974

THE GREATEST MONSTERS IN THE WORLD by Daniel Cohen

It's the end of August at the Hotel Ozone, and the perfect time to review a paranormal pocket primer for scholastic readers courtesy mid-century pop-sci writer Daniel Cohen! All the stars are out tonight: Bigfoot and the Yeti, Nessie, giant squids and sea serpents, and Cohen gives them all grounded summaries in his smooth, unpretentious style. There are more than a few nice illustrations, including the diagram above of a shark rotting into a "sea serpent" and some funny looking 16th century snake drawings. Cohen includes an index, which isn't always a given with this genre!

Cohen was a member of CSICOP (nowadays known as CSI), the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and leavens his writing with the appropriate amount of skepticism while avoiding the tone of a debunker. He also avoids the syrupy tone that plagues inferior authors writing for young readers.

An Archway Paperback published by Pocket Books, 1977 (original pub. 1975)

 

COVER UPDATES: THE SECRET FORCES OF THE PYRAMIDS

Loverly painted cover of Warren Smith's pyramid power magnum opus. Courtesy Sphere Books, 1977.

FATAL EXPOSURE by Michael Tobias

Environmentalist/author Michael Tobias delivers a would-be searing sermon on ozone depletion and the fate of the planet, but things fall flat in FATAL EXPOSURE! We're off to a roaring start on an Antarctic expedition, as some scientists doing routine monitoring find a wasteland of death and suffering. As one little baby penguin shits and pukes itself to death right at the feet of Dr. Willard, we receive the message loud and clear: something is wrong! Tobias writes with a cynical but clear eyed attitude, rendering these initial horrors all the more striking.

Flash forward a few years later. That mysterious ozone phenomena has reappeared over Seattle! Once Tobias gets into the capital-P Plotting of the story, things get sticky. The horror and dread of the opening scenes are replaced with bathos and pure silliness: witness the tragic fate of a cameraman, knocked out of a helicopter, onto another helicopter, getting chopped into a thousand pieces and causing a crash, all above a rotten ocean of dead whales, fish, plankton, done in by ozone depletion! By the final 50 pages we've been reduced to stock survivalist scenarios as civilization breaks down in the PNW. It's just too much, a cavalcade of misery, stock conspiracy plotting, and wannabe Grand Guignol that leaves us feeling nothing but vague dissatisfaction.

For a strong start followed by nothing in particular, Fatal Exposure earns one UV ray warning out of four:

Dig that Art Deco cover art though.

Pocket Books, 1991

GENESIS by W.A. Harbinson

Very little fruit is forbidden

Sometimes we wobble, sometimes we're strong

But you know evil is an exact science

Being carefully, correctly wrong

Author W.A. Harbinson delivers us this "true story" treatment of the flying saucer phenomena, starting with the mystery airships of the 1890s, on through foo fighters and saucer crashes, cattle mutilations and saucer cults, culminating with wunderwaffe and secret Antarctic bases revealing the terrible secret of GENESIS!

It's all very clever and meticulous but eventually collapses under its own weight, as every bit of UFO trivia must be incorporated into the increasingly top heavy narrative. What's left is less of a story and more a bullet list, and once we grasp the structure the whole enterprise is rendered plodding and turgid. Major spoilers follow, so be warned!

Our antagonist, it turns out, is a mad scientist from the 19th century, the inventor of those mysterious airships. As the years rolled on, he perfected his flying machines, ultimately making the sociopathic choice to work for Hitler's reich to reach even greater heights. His flying saucer wunderwaffe predate the now common modern formulation of Die Glocke, but as we know Nazi UFOs were nothing new in the subculture. 

From money making schemes by
run-of-the-mill neo-nazis ... 

... to poorly thought out products by model makers!

Following the fall of Berlin, our mad scientist flees to New Swabia and sets himself up with some robotized Nazi slaves and a fleet of flying saucers. Complicating things, the US government is also engineering their own crude saucers, which is a nice touch that adds some depth - no wonder UFO reports are so varied and strange, if multiple culprits are to blame. By the by, our villain has also unlocked anti-aging treatments, and a good thing too because he's coming up on 120 now! The early atmosphere of paranoia that Harbinson stokes degrades into nihilistic boredom - what horrific evil will our villain unveil next? Ho hum.

We are no monsters, we're moral people
And yet we have the strength to do this
This is the splendor of our achievement
Call in the air strike with a poison kiss

Harbinson includes an author's note and source appendix after the story, drawing heavily on the unreliable Renato Vesco, Italian ex-NASA contractor who assembled a UFOlogical history in his Intercept UFO which parallels many of the tacks taken in Genesis. Harbinson admits that much of Vesco's narrative is unsupported but no matter, it makes a good tale. He recommends a swath of UFO titles as well as WWII texts and some psi titles. Ol' Brad Steiger sneaks in with his edition of Project Blue Book - one of his stronger titles due to simply being the released Blue Book papers. His inclusion shows how the high and low mix in UFOlogy, purported hard facts mixing with innuendo and fantasy.

Over the years Harbinson has expanded his Genesis into a series, titled Projekt Saucer. For an ambitious misfire, Genesis earns one wunderwaffe out of four:

Dell Publishing, 1982 (original pub. 1980)