FIRE MOUNTAIN by Janet M. Cullen-Tanaka

Oh to live on FIRE MOUNTAIN, with the barkers and the colored balloons ...

Rainier over Tacoma

"Due to its high probability of eruption in the near future, Mount Rainier is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world." You better believe it, this mutha's about to blow! 

Cullen says in her foreword that she wrote the story on a lark way back in 1970, and sat on it until 1979 when Zebra picked it for their burgeoning disaster line. Suddenly, Mount St. Helens blew her top in March of 1980, and some last minute rewrites were in order! The story had suddenly taken on new timely import, though Cullen's adamant that it's meant as pure entertainment. As such, things don't get quite as dire as The Nightmare Factor or The Black Death - there's some government fuckups and media fuckery but despite the vintage there's a distinct lack of post-Watergate malaise and the characters all seem strangely child like, babes in the pyroclastically demolished woods. Here's one of the novel's weaknesses, as we meet too many characters who are too poorly drawn to compel our keeping track of all of them! Thankfully some are pure disaster cannon fodder, and Cullen isn't shy about wiping out whole boy scout troops or protesting American Indians. However, we send too much time navigating the volcanologist scene with flat characters like Ilyana the beautiful Russian, hotheaded young Martiniquais St. Jean, and regular American schmoes like Andy and Howard. A volcanologist named David fares better, as he feels a mystic connection with Takhoma and draws closer and closer to his adoptive mother goddess as the pressure builds.

And the pressure is intense! Here's the novel's strength, as Cullen gives us some lovely passages on the incredible, mind boggling natural forces building within the earth, power on a scale that renders all of us minuscule. Like Meteorite Track 291 we're faced with our true insignificance amidst an uncaring, unceasing universe. Our characters can only dance and strut around like toy soldiers as nature unrolls its implacable order.

It's so lonely at the fair, but all your friends are there ... For moments of near greatness and some rarefied volcanic grit, Fire Mountain earns three sleeping giants out of four:

Zebra Books, 1980