ERUPTION by Paul Patchick

Zebra Books present the most terrifying disaster novel of 1979! It's ERUPTION, in all its red foil. fire spitting glory! After the dry fart of Edwin Corley's The Genesis Rock, we're due for some real volcanic terror, and wouldn't you know it, author Paul Patchick delivers.

The first couple chapters are a little rough, starting with Dr. Jon Dana and his wife Katy having a quickie in first class on their flight to Hawaii! We know she's volcano bait the second we meet her. Then Jon takes some time after sex with his wife to look at his reflection and describe himself to the audience. They tour the big island, Jon exposits on volcanos to his perfect, unsuspecting family, and eventually Katy falls into Halema'uma'u crater.

This is all real rough and clumsy, and thankfully things smooth out after we're through Dana's tragic backstory. Maybe this would have been better as a flashback or just hinted at, but it's not Patchick's style to hint at things when they can be fully explicated instead, for better or for worse.

Once the story hits its stride it starts to feel like a classic '80s TV miniseries, like Shogun or The Thorn Birds, and lanky stud Dana could easily have been played by Richard Chamberlain. After the cheesy intro Patchick settles into a pretty realistic style of tracking Dana's life and career over the years, as he works in Japan and then the tiny, fictional Central American country San Cristobal - it's here that the titular terror of the eruption will occur, but we've got a long road to get to that point ...

Chamberlain from 1980's Shogun

In Japan the scale of the story really blooms, and Patchick successfully conveys the drama of scientific research, with real volcano history and the juxtaposition of ideals of pure knowledge set against our human frailty. Dana is mentored by elderly Japanese volcanologist Dr. Mochizuke, and there's a fantastic dual exposition dump/action scene where the good doctor quizzes his students on volcanic knowledge as they race their truck down a mountainside to warn the village of impending eruption. Patchick is warm with his characters, showing us our own strengths and weaknesses reflected back from them. As the years pass we start to fear for Dr. Mochizuke's life - not from any volcanological threat, but from the simple passage of time. Elsewhere in this beefy, 475 page epic, Dana woos a Norwegian lady scientist named Erika, and always the science of volcanos marches on.

Patchick nails this aspect of disaster fiction, as we get a crash course on volcanology and start to worry alongside Dana as to just what may happen if he isn't able to decode the earth's rumblings in time. Once he's dispatched to San Cristobal to investigate the sulking Black Tower crater, we're locked in until the climax. There's a goofy action scene where Dana captures some guerrillas using a high tech ground scanner, and then true to Patchick's style this comic book action is followed by some fraught moral wrangling as Dana reflects on his role in giving a propaganda coup to the regime of President Zamorro. The dictatorship, flush with American arms and CIA support and deep in planning an invasion of neighboring Honduras, is poorly poised to listen to any of Dana's warnings about the Black Tower's eminent eruption. Coke fiend Colonel Ramirez and the inept Zamorro make a sharp contrast to the dedicated General Sanchez from Kenneth McKenney's The Fire Cloud. Dana and his kids pass right over Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl on their flight down to San Cristobal, followed by a hit parade of real Central American volcanos until they reach the (fictional) villain El Torre Negro.

Dana also takes some time on this long flight to reflect on psychic frauds like Edgar Cayce and Jeane Dixon, and damns them for their easy jobs of doomsaying, while scientists like him have to weigh every real consideration and possible unknowns, risking panic or disaster through false alarms or inaction. Fuck 'em up, Jon!

The climax, when it comes, is depressingly realistic, with no room for action heroics. This being a Zebra Books production, there's a few typos and formatting errors here and there. The cover art is ultra generic but at least the shiny foil effect on the lava is cool. Patchick actually sued Zebra in 1983 for "failing to publish and promote his book, Eruption."

Some text of the case:

1. On June 27, 1983, Appellant Paul Patchick filed this diversity action for breach of contract against five named defendants: Kensington Publishing Corporation (Kensington); Zebra Books, Inc. (Zebra); Richard Curtis, Richard Curtis Literary Agency, and Richard Curtis Associates, Inc. (Curtis defendants); and other unnamed defendants. Patchick alleged that defendants failed to publish and promote his book, "Eruption." Patchick filed an amended complaint on October 6, 1983, naming the same defendants.

2. In November 1983 defendants Kensington and Zebra filed a motion to dismiss the action as to them for lack of personal jurisdiction, or alternatively, to transfer the case under 28 U.S.C. Section 1404(a) to the District Court for the Southern District of New York or to stay proceedings pending arbitration pursuant to 9 U.S.C. Sec. 3. Only these defendants had been served at the time their motion was filed.

3. Patchick attempted to serve the Curtis defendants in late 1983. Curtis's attorneys contested the adequacy of service on the grounds that (1) the person upon whom service was allegedly made, John Bradley, is not the managing agent of Richard Curtis Associates, Inc., and (2) the process server never mailed the summons and complaint as alleged in the affidavit of service.

4. On March 16, 1984, the district court granted defendants Kensington and Zebra's motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court held that Patchick failed to establish that Kensington and Zebra engaged in continuous and systematic activity within the State of California. The dispute over service of the Curtis defendants meanwhile remained pending. Patchick filed a notice of appeal from the March 16 order on April 4.

5. After appellant filed the opening brief, appellees Kensington and Zebra filed a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction on the ground that the district court's order dismissing some but not all of the defendants is not a "final decision" appealable under 28 U.S.C. Section 1291. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b). We agree.

6. If an action is dismissed as to all of the defendants who have been served and only unserved defendants remain, the district court's order may be considered final under Section 1291 for the purpose of perfecting an appeal. See, e.g., DeTore v. Local, 245, 615 F.2d 980 (3d Cir.1980); Leonhard v. United States, 633 F.2d 599 (2d Cir.1980), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 908, 101 S.Ct. 1975, 68 L.Ed.2d 295 (1981); Siegmund v. General Commodities Corp., 175 F.2d 952 (9th Cir.1949). In such circumstances there is no reason to assume that there will be any further adjudication of the action.

7. When, however, defendants remain in the action upon whom service has been made, we cannot assume that the action is final. Here, Patchick attempted to serve the Curtis defendants. Although the Curtis defendants have not yet appeared in the action or filed an answer to the complaint, Patchick has not conceded that service was improper. The action cannot be final until the service dispute is resolved by the district court in favor of the Curtis defendants or until the action is dismissed as to those defendants.

8. The appeal is therefore premature and is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

Perhaps this legal wrangling is why Patchick never wrote any other novels, or maybe he just had the one epic in him. Eruption earns a 3/4 rating for being a beautiful mess of a saga.

Zebra Books, 1979