The Herod Men / Dark Planet (Ace Double 13805)

by Nick Kamin / John Rackham | Science Fiction & Fantasy |
ISBN: Global Overview for this book
Registered by TomHl2 of Beaufort, South Carolina USA on 8/22/2020
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2 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by TomHl2 from Beaufort, South Carolina USA on Saturday, August 22, 2020
Ace Double 13805 , released 1971. The book contains two novellas, bound together tête-bêche in mass market paperback – back-to-back, inverted, with two front covers and both titles on the spine. The novellas are listed here alphabetically by author; neither should be considered “primary.”

The HEROD Men, by Nick Kamin (1971). Planned death vs. unwanted birth in the Overpop Era.

Dark Planet, by John Rackham (1971). Step Two was the Space Navy's Siberia - until one man learned of a third step.

The book is in readable condition, but being nearly 50 years old, is a little brittle. Please keep it in the vinyl bookbag I have provided, when not reading it.


Journal Entry 2 by TomHl2 at Beaufort, South Carolina USA on Friday, September 4, 2020
The charm here is that the writing is so outlandishly dated.

The HEROD Men, by Nick Kamin (1971). The 60s sure must have been something, if this was publishable entertainment. KillCaptain Matter is an agent of HEROD - a police force whose role is to enforce birthrate reduction laws through summary punishment of violators. He is a violent man, with a fist roughly the size of a boxcar, and a strict vegetarian diet. His mission is thwarted by the equally ruthless group FROG – a religious cult built on a theology of sacred sexual intercourse. After they attempt to assassinate him under the guise of a car accident, he steps out of a motel shower and finds a maid has let herself into his room. He orders the “girl” to strip naked at gunpoint, for purposes of examining her for implants. She later develops into his love interest. I’m not making this up. This is a story like an Austin Powers movie, only not played for laughs.

Dark Planet, by John Rackham (1971). John Rackham is a pseudonym for English science fiction and fantasy writer John T. Phillifent, and this is one of his many stand-alone short novels published in Ace Doubles. Stephen Query was a falsely convicted Space Navy soldier, sentenced to a working penal institution named Step Two, on an unnamed planet. Pardoned by the visiting Admiral Evans, he departs on a small ship to return to the front. The ship is sabotaged, crashing him, Evans, and the Admiral’s stunning daughter Lieutenant Evans, onto the inhospitable planet’s surface. They are lost in the deep jungle, and soon their clothes completely rot away. What is the nature of love; is it more than sex? This seemed very much like a story from an earlier era -perhaps the 50s, with a few well-known Shakespeare references thrown in.

Journal Entry 3 by TomHl2 at The Bookbox of the Apocalypse, A Bookbox -- Controlled Releases on Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Released 3 yrs ago (11/17/2020 UTC) at The Bookbox of the Apocalypse, A Bookbox -- Controlled Releases

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

I'm adding this to Spatial's Bookbox of the Apocalypse to replace a book I have taken out. The HEROD Men is the one that qualifies as dystopian; consider Dark Planet a bonus.

Journal Entry 4 by wingGoryDetailswing at Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Sunday, December 6, 2020
I'm claiming this book from the Bookbox of the Apocalypse. I have to admit that the cover-art for The Herod Men would have grabbed me all by itself!

Later: dated, yes, but entertaining. "HEROD Men" introduces its protagonist as an un-self conscious (he strolls to his hotel's reception desk naked after a shower, only donning clothing when the desk clerk overtly ogles him) vegetarian assassin, on the hunt for people reproducing without permission and quite literally terminating them. It's not the most sympathetic setup, although in a world suffering huge problems from overpopulation, some kind of draconian measures might make sense. [But there are plenty of other options for a high-tech society, so this one seems overtly simple-minded.] The fact that the opposing organization, FROG, is composed mostly of religious extremists gained some sympathy from me for the HEROD folks, but in the end the number of sensible, well-intentioned, good-hearted characters is sadly low, and the overtly-controlling, violent, scheming ones way too high.

"Dark Planet", the shorter of the two works, also features character nudity - here due to the environment on the planet where they've crash-landed, which eats away their clothing and leaves them to struggle for survival for months. There are aliens, and a romance between one of the humans and one of the alien females, which - turns out pretty well, I suppose, though plenty of other things are going wrong in the outside solar system. I didn't enjoy this one as much as the other, though the final scenes of the party reaching a shelter in the nick of time reminded me of Ray Bradbury's evocative short story "The Long Rain".

Gotta love that campy cover-art!

Journal Entry 5 by wingGoryDetailswing at Little Free Library, Moran Rd in North Billerica, Massachusetts USA on Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Released 3 yrs ago (12/30/2020 UTC) at Little Free Library, Moran Rd in North Billerica, Massachusetts USA

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Guidelines for safely visiting and stocking Little Free Libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the LFL site here.

I left this book in the TARDIS-styled Little Free Library; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in MA here.]

*** Released for the 2020 D for December challenge. ***

*** Released for the 2020 What's in a Name challenge. ***

*** Released for the 2020 Science Fiction challenge. ***

*** Released for the 2020 Keep Them Moving challenge. ***

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