HURRICANE by Gardner F. Fox

I am just a dreamer

But you are just a dream

You could have been 

Anyone to me

After the frozen flop of Steve Cohen's Avalanche, it's time to gird our loins for some sure-fire disaster madness in the hands of master genre writer Gardner F. Fox, as he takes us into the eye of the storm in HURRICANE!

If you didn't get the message from the "heedless hedonism" on the back cover, already on page 17 a youthful penis is swelling! Yowzas! It's that kind of disaster story, with loads of bed hopping and adultery and sexy mamas bedding young studs ... and God bless Gardner F. Fox for his economy of storytelling. Where it took Steve Cohen almost 400 pages to push out too many undercooked threads, Fox manages three or four nice, concise narratives in just under 200 pages, and delivers some beautiful descriptions of the pitiless storm as it arcs towards Dunes Point, playground of the horny HENRY class.

Holy canoli!

There's neglected housewife Cornelia, finding succor in her son Roger's buddy Don. Meanwhile, her husband Trevor is entranced by "gypsy soul" Brenda, who's hoping to pin her new pregnancy on the wealthy lawyer! Scummy businessman Bob whores out his wife Leona to clients, but prospect Evan wants to make a lady out of her. Fox weaves some delicious webs of sin and deceit, and then Hurricane Hedda smashes them all to pieces! Fox's description of the hurricane is quietly confident, as a scientifically acccurate storm surge threatens our characters. It's a nice balancing act between techno thriller overkill and the too-loose, glib afterthought of Cohen's avalanche.

Leisure's back page ads include two of Fox's Kyrik sword and sorcery entries, along with plenty of options across fiction and nonfiction genres.

You are like a hurricane

There's calm in your eyes 

And I'm getting blown away 

Somewhere safer where the feeling stays 

I want to love you but I'm getting blown away

Leisure Books gifts us a few typos in this story, such as horny housewife Cornelia "buiding" young Don's penis inside of her. Stay classy, Leisure Books!

Hurricane is available as an epub at the official Gardner F. Fox library. This racy disaster drama blows down the house and rates an easy 4/4! Thank God for Gardner F. Fox!

Leisure Books, 1976

KYRIK FIGHTS THE DEMON WORLD by Gardner F. Fox

The tiger-men were many in number, but those very numbers appeared to hamper them. They could not throw their combined weight against the six, for the alleyway was narrow; they could only come in twos and threes, and Bluefang and Lalery's long dagger and Porthis' horn-handled battle-axe flew to meet them.

"Cat beings from Ulxnar," Myrnis whispered once, and was silent, though Kyrik's bellowings might well have drowned other words. For the warlock-warrior was in his element here, fighting flesh and blood enemies into whose meat he could bury Bluefang, tear its blade free to swing and cleave again. No reptilian horror from Moforgon's realms, these tiger-men, but semi-human beings that could die writhing and screeching on a sword-point.

Once more into the breach, once more, you merry mother grabbers! It's time for another bout of swords and sorcery with the mighty Kyrik, and thankfully our warlock-warrior fares much better here than in his last adventure against the Wizard's Sword. Those skinflints at Leisure Books keep things tight enough on their end - I only caught one typo, misspelling poor Kyrik's name at one point, and no blatant continuity problems like last time. Indeed, Kyrik Fights the Demon World is a slick little narrative, structured almost like a classic DnD game! Our hero and his Gypsy love Myrnis (she's truly Romany in this fantasy world, for what it's worth) fall in with a band of thieves who were tasked to retrieve five magical artifacts for the demon lord Moforgon, only to find that, of course, his dark majesty has even darker designs on our realm, and the artifacts are his key to total dominion over Terra! Moforgon is locked in a rivalry with fellow demon Eldrak, and our mortal heroes will have to navigate these demonic power politics if they're to survive ... Kyrik's love Myrnis has a secret ally though, in the love goddess Illis, who's temporarily possessed her!

More smokes!

Author Fox delivers some classic sword and sorcery action right from the start in this one, with Kyrik gifted a treasure map from a dying thief in an alleyway. Before you know it he's fighting a giant snake to retrieve the Bells of Salmalinda from the bowels of a ruined temple in the Doomday Swamps - and if that kind of cheerful nonsense perks you up, this is the story for you. Fox's worldbuilding is a mite goofier than Robert E. Howard's classic Hyperborea, but he succeeds in transporting us to his dark fantasy world with strong, professional prose, even if we can see the story guardrails guiding our heroes through to their epic showdown with Moforgon. It all culminates in a hellish fight through a demonic fortress projecting into our realm, with skeletal wraiths tearing through the walls and floors, bedevilments to resist, and evil priests to slay. The thieve's band is whittled down, with the gorgeous platinum haired (and purple eyed!) Lalery the obvious survivor - and rival to Myrnis for Kyrik's love-lust! Fox handles his characters with some subtlety despite their circumstances, which is appreciated. True to his title as warlock-warrior, Kyrik is more comfortable with dark magics than your average barbarian, so wizards had better beware.

The atmospheric cover art is by Ken Barr, and it does well enough for not having much to do with the story. Kyrik Fights the Demon World is available to read for free and to purchase as an ebook at the Gardner Francis Fox Library. This Kyrik adventure earns a muscular 3/4 rating for good, strong barbarian thrills!

Leisure Books, 1975

KYRIK AND THE WIZARD'S SWORD by Gardner F. Fox

Kyrik moved forward, knifeblade up to cut her bonds. The girl eyed him, then cried out. “I must tell you I am a witch. I have been put here by the people of a small fishing village as sacrifice to the demon that roams this part of the world.” “What do I care for demons?”

“You’d care about this one,” she told him darkly. “It slays and slays, it is like a mad thing, ravening here and there. They have even sent soldiers from Sokarjus to hunt it down and slay it.”

In the tradition of Conan! And a new tag on the blog, "flashing swords" for swords, sorcery, barbarians, and the days of high adventure!

Author Gardner F. Fox was a prolific master of the fantasy genre, as well as a titan of the comics industry responsible for many early tales of DC heroes like Batman and the Flash! Unfortunately, Kyrik represents the lesser of his sword and sorcery efforts, decidedly weaker than his well-reviewed Kothar series. Fox's full bibliography is available in ebook and vintage cover galleries at the handsomely curated website for the Gardner Francis Fox library:

One mark against poor Kyrik is that publisher Leisure Books didn't take much care with him - typos and misprints abound, as well as editing/continuity issues. On page 21, Kyrik's new companion Olvia remarks that the wizard Upanikol may share food with them if they can reach his tower. Unbeknownst to our heroes, Upanikol has just died in the middle of a dread ritual! Just later on page 27 however, Olvia is suddenly privy to the wizard's fate, saying they'll have an easy time finding food and shelter in the tower "since Upanikol died!" There's a fine line in pulp between the muscular prose of Robert E. Howard and the diffident recitations of his imitators, and Fox strays over that line a mite too often with Kyrik. Our poor barbarian boy has been trapped as a statue for millennia since his last adventure, only to bust out and rescue a mysterious witch-girl before getting wrapped up in the wizard Upanikol's unseemly machinations, alongside characters with names like Ammalauth-Vul and Harakan, monsters like the serpent Coroboran, plus other magically imprisoned warriors and haunts like the Boar's Tooth ... you know, all that kind of swords and sorcery stew, sometimes filling, sometimes a pale imitation of better memories. If you can dig lines like He rode a big roan stallion across the flatlands that lay south of the Hyakian Hills, you can roll with Kyrik.

It holds interest for the full 186 pages at least, and hopefully paid some bills for Fox. Kyrik can be read in full, absolutely free, at the Gardner Francis Fox library.

For mediocre barbarian thrills, Kyrik earns himself 2/4 stars.

Leisure Books, 1976