QUEST OF THE DARK LADY by Quinn Reade

THE TERRIBLE SLIMY ONES! Author Ben Haas (writing as Quinn Reade) throws us into a dark, fractured fantasy world - our world, some 500 years after nuclear war has blasted us back into feudalism and spawned all manner of nuke mutants and hellbeasts. The Iron Lands stand as the last outpost of human civilization against a rising tide of slimy, gibbering death, and now that King Langax has taken ill it seems that this brief sputtering candle may be snuffed out. Unless ...

Unless the King's physician Delius can ferry the traitor Wulf, sprung from the dungeons alongside sexy brigand Reen, across the wastes of the Terrible East, in search of the Dark Lady. Who is she? Who can say, except that King Langmax spoke her name and nothing else before lapsing into coma. Now, the trio of doctor, swordsman, and robber must grope out into the unknown, and survive swarms of Slimy Ones, Formless Things, and the Gibberers (these last an especially nasty almost-human mutant strain). Now, they must survive their unknown, indecipherable QUEST OF THE DARK LADY!

Author Ben Haas (1926 - 1977)

Author Ben Haas was a steelworker who threw himself into writing, outputting a prodigious amount of titles over a brief career cut short by a heart attack in 1977. He mostly wrote westerns and Southern dramas, churning out genre staples to fund more highbrow work, and this was his only sword and sorcery title - too bad. More information about Haas is available at Lynn Munroe Books, and his canny notes on writing westerns have been posted at James Reasoner's Rough Edges blog.

Haas writes lean, with splashes of description that bring to life such horrors as the Slimy Ones, gigantic slugs that crawl into battle alongside the protoplasmic Formless Things and those freakshow Gibberers. Wulf and company's quest is fraught with tension, sexual and existential. Destiny and loyalty are fine words, but words they are, while Wulf and Reen's blossoming relationship faces challenges from the Dark Lady and her thuggish swordsman Koth. The ending is pleasantly ambiguous, our heroes having conquered in some manner, but with the future uncertain and their personal costs undetermined. Haas' subtlety here is artful, leagues ahead of the clumsy triumphalism that clutters the dregs of this genre.

His postnuke setting is also an example of my favorite subtype in swords and sorcery, with a pedigree ranging from Andre Norton to Thundarr the Barbarian. Only the pacing falters at times, with a little too much buildup at the beginning and then a climax that's over lickety split, though that's nothing new for this genre. His imaginative monster mashing, clean action, and piercing character work more than make up for any other failings, however.

Quest of the Dark Lady was reprinted by Belmont/Tower (with a variant badged as Pinnacle Books) in 1976 with a different cover by Jeffrey Catherine Jones, and the new promise of 16 pages of drawings and illustrations! If you remember Swords of the Barbarians you know what to expect: random medieval and classical bestiary stuff! Fun, cheap, and shameless, as as only Belmont/Tower could deliver!

Both covers by Jones do the job, in her usual strong but delicate style, even if as per usual the artwork is more evocative of genre than specific to details in the text. This title was also reviewed at the Paperback Warrior and the MPorcius Fiction Log, and we all agree it's pretty good stuff! MPorcius also notes Haas' cultured use of a work by Keats and how the author avoids the usual overused giant spiders, snakes, and goblins and trolls in favor of his own imaginative monster roster.

Wulf and company's Quest of the Dark Lady earns a nice 3/4 rating as an imaginative dark fantasy adventure.

Belmont Books, 1969