"TAKE CARE OF THAT SISSY, J. EDGAR!"
Settlers defeating savage Indians, the "revolting" rites of said Native Americans, scary slaves and Voodoo Queens ... despite the sexy cover art, this dreary volume has more in common with C.B. Colby's Strangely Enough! from 1940 than it does with any contemporary, cutting edged works on psi or the unknown. Pendragon's influence seems nil, with nothing much in the way of ESP or astral content. Instead, we get a bunch of time wasting chapters on weird guys from olden times and the aforementioned residue of Manifest Destiny.
The first chapter sets the tone, with Thomas Day embarking on a bizarre quest to raise the perfect wife from childhood. He adopts two orphans girls to this end. Steiger's writing is cutesy and glib, and you'd be forgiven for thinking Day was some random crank and not a major man of letters of the time! Day's story could fill an entire book, but Steiger boils it down to a quick, easy filler chapter, the first of many about a guy from way-back-when who did something weird.
Ma Barker's Bloody Brood provides that pull quote up above, one of the few exciting moments in this text. Another chapter on Victorian grave robbers is pretty good, but too many others are on the level of KING'S PIGS SQUEAKED THE NATIONAL ANTHEM. Fat guys getting custom coffins makes for a good time too, but not enough to carry the filler. There should be plenty of historical heft here with characters like Day or John Nichols Thom, but Steiger's glib treatment robs each story of any weight or context. The result is a boring slog.
As a final insult, Pyramid Books suggests we check out their other titles "listed in the back of this book" ... and then don't list any! Was everyone asleep at the wheel?
Pyramid Books, 1969
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