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)