Bad Books & Bear

I very much enjoy old book covers, specifically pocket-sized paperbacks from the 1900s. I know an entire century is kind of a cop-out but sometimes a book is newer than what I'm usually drawn to, but hey. If a book is in a protective plastic baggie and thumbtacked to the wall with one or more price tag stickers in the corner, it's probably going to catch my attention.

In those cases where I manage to get my grubby little hands on dusty old paperbacks with interesting covers, I get sucked in and find myself actually reading the damn things.

They are largely, as you might have guessed, bad.

"But," you say, "what if I want to read the bad book too but don't have any time for it?"

Well friend, since I've already read it already, I suppose I could just recount what it's about. Story time with Bear, how 'bout it?

"But," you continue, "a general summary won't suffice!"

...well fine then. I guess I'll just go through chapter by chapter and tell you what happened. Chapter summaries, will that do?

"But," you complain, "what if after all that I still want to read it?"

At that point you are no longer my responsibility, friend. It's your life and you're allowed to make bad decisions if you really want to.

"But—"

Ok look, if you want bad books so bad then fine. Fine!

Who's Your Dealer

That's a rather personal question, but ok.

My pals at Boat Cat Market have gotten their grubby little hands on a treasure trove of old paperback books, and since they know how much I love this shit, they point out terrible, terrible books to me from time to time.

The first book, I fear, will be from them. Any and all blame will lie squarely on the shoulders of Boat Cat and that market of theirs.

Why Bear?

Look I don't come into your house and start asking you personal questions. Learn to leave a little mystery, dammit.

After successfully hotboxing themselves in a cave in the middle of nowhere, they exit and watch the cigar-shaped spaceship with a little nubble on the bottom (oh god it’s modeled after the Hindenberg, isn’t it) glide over and anchor itself on “leathery foliage” (I hate it I hate that phrase why would you describe a bush as leathery I hate you I hate this planet so much I want it to die).

So, cool, they managed to attract its attention. What’s the plan now, Falsies?

Welllllll, dude can’t read the writing on the side of the ship, but somehow he knows that it’s undoubtedly Doralan, and that they’re definitely surveying the planet for Reasons. God, he just knows everything doesn’t he, what a Larry Stu.

So this space cigar-is-just-a-cigar lands and—

oh jesus christ lord help me

What comes down the ramp are what are described as, for all intents and purposes, three very tempting little red riding hoods with the faces of serious little girls oh my GOD they just had to be legal loli didn’t they fucking hell

Anyway the leader of the Little Red Jailbait exploratory party comes up to this motherfucker and is like, “why did you make smoke, you are not in serious peril, why would you waste our space-time like this, we are on a very tight space-schedule to space-investigate this space-planet. For reasons.” And then they decide Failboy is a worthless male and only talk to Linda from here on because matriarchy and decide that, guess what, both of you irritants are going to see The Lady Mother.

I do not yet know who The Lady Mother is, but I’ll just bet she’s another child-sized adult constantly asked why she’s not in middle school right now. Or maybe she’s a sentient sourdough starter, I dunno.

They hate him so much that Dick Falloutboy is shoved into the cargo hold with a bunch of dead specimens while Lovely Linda gets to ride in luxury, or so he assumes.

He takes a moment to worry about Linda’s self control when she’ll be SITTING IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO TENDER-FLESHED, WARM BLOODED BEINGS. (I am not going to go for any of the jokes just hanging right there, only acknowledge that they are hanging very low indeed.)

Then the worst happens.

Nickles gets hongry.

Nickles gets hongry and the only thing around for him to eat are dead space-specimens. He chooses a giant worm and debates the merits of dressing for dinner (e.g. getting nekkid) but decides that using a pocket knife to cut out a gelatinous cube of worm meat will be preferable to stripping and eating it like a feral fucked up space werewolf. Because that would be silly.

But whoops, this worm was for SCIENCE and dang it all he desecrated the corpse. He’s gonna get in trouble, oooooo! So like any genius asshole that doesn’t want to catch consequences, he makes it look like the thing got torn open by a rock during turbulence.

Brilliant.

Eventually they dock with the ship proper and Lindi Hop is sent to fetch him like he’s her pet or something. Honestly he probably is at this point. Why not.

His Mistress is flanked by two ladies in red eyeing him with curious disdain. Maybe the stank-eye was buggin’ him because Nickles looks out the window instead and what does he see? Not just rolling hills with gleaming pools of water, but also… a big ol’ spaceship! Looks like a Delta-class liner, probably got it from the scrap bin since Doralans can’t do any spaceship building themselves because of probably space sexism or something.

But they must needs see the Lady Mother, do they not?

They do. They do must needs see the Lady Mother. So that’s what they do. Girl’s got green hair and a huge ginger cat, which immediately tells Falsies to fuck off outa here. Rude. So Nicky just helps himself and sits on a whole-ass couch—

Oh. Yes. Did I mention everything in this captain’s quarters is tiny? Like, miniscule. Lilliputian. Because the ladies running the ship are child-sized. In case you’ve forgotten.

—and tells the Mother Lady that she speaks English real gud fer’ a backwoods space lady, did you go off’n getcherself somma that ed-yew-kay-shun on Earth cause you don’t got none ‘round your necka th’woods.

First, fuck you, second, yes she got a degree at Antarctica U, where she worked in a coffee shop because the werewolf canon is boring and sometimes you just want something cozy, you know?

Pondor (the giant-ass ginger cat) comes to his Lady’s defense and slashes the shit out of the motherfucker’s calf (I’d say it ruined his pants, but this dickhead is in shorts if you remember) and poor widdle Pondor gets yelled at and he fusses and complains but like, with words and N.F.’s all like A TALKING CAT!? surely not! And Mr. Pondor gets sent to bed without any dinner for being rude.

They talk about Mr. Whiskers’ pomposity while he’s out of the room and then call for tea and little cakes. The author takes a moment to mention the chubby legs of the stewardess bringing in the tea. It made me feel gross. It made me feel gross in indescribable ways.

Guard lowered by basic hospitality, Mother Lady Mother slaps down a tape recorder because when she gets receipts, she gets the full receipt and even those coupons that print at the end that you never actually use later. All she gets from it is hot garbage tho because Tweedle-Nick and Tweedle-Linda tell the biggest fattest fuckin’ lie to this woman and she eats it up with a spoon.

“Oh, we bravely stopped a Mannchenn Drive malfunction on our ship and barely made it out a-liiiive—”

And then she’s appalled that they would not only abandon a ship worth so much money because of one lousy little light speed drive that went into a bit of a tizzy and killed literally everyone aboard except these two (allegedly), but they would also forget its trajectory so there’s no hope of finders keepers!

“Our lifeboat? Oh no that sank into the mud after it let us get out and now it’s buried at the bottom of a big ol’ lake of mud so you couldn’t fetch it out of there unless you had speeeeecialized equiiiiipmeeeent—”

Well ding-dang-double-fuck, first she can’t go salvage the spaceship worth probably a bajillion-space-dollars that’s just drifting out there being claimed by no one except a bunch of wizened corpses, and NOW she can’t salvage the very expensive life-space-boat because these two idiots left the door open and now it’s who knows how many fathoms deep in space-mud…

“Also Linda’s uniform got dirty so she had to put on something left over from her old job, you know, like those promotional things with the logos stitched on them that you always seem to end up with in the back of the closet, that’s why she’s wearing Dog Star Line stuff and not the Epsilon Crucis uniform ha ha ha I can see how you might’ve thought something completely different but we definitely were on the same ship being heroic and were NOT marooned here separately months apart for our various unspeakable crimes.”

shifty eyes

Well fine then, that’s just great, guess the stupid dumb earthlings will just have to wait for their inevitable tribunal for misplacing two very expensive bits of company property with the Doralans now because Lady Mother ain’t leaving until her job is done and that’ll take like 7 months so…

Also the cat really hates you so you have to go away to somewhere else now, buh-bye!

And that was Chapter 3

Our intrepid bitch of a protagonist has finally decided to awaken and wouldn’t you know it, the bed’s empty. Or at least what functions as a bed. Guess Linda likes to hit it and quit it

Her name’s Linda by the way

So Nickles decides to padfoot around out the door and finds Linda standing on a ledge all Rafiki style, but dude does not completely erase his presence because she senses him which isn’t creepy at all and is like “Welcome to Fhloston Paradise Andares VI! But I hate that name so let’s change it.” The sun rose like a petulant teenager that doesn’t want to get up for 5am swim practice (why did it have to be every single day of the week, why also after school, why double practice on the weekends, why would you do that to me) and this sullen goth star eternally burning bathes everything in a kind of dull red that makes all the pools in the swamp look like BLOOD because it’s all edgy and shit like that

Now Knicky is like “so what do we do I don’t know the schedule around here do we eat or something you’re like, the catering officer after all” like an absolute twat and she tells him, “look my dude, you’re a fuckin’ werewolf, we gotta catch our food” and he’s like “what, nekkid??” and she’s like “yeah man shit’s muddy around here and all we got is the alien approximation of crayfish” which, like, what kind of horrors would alien crayfish substitute invoke, I am become frightened

You would be right to be frightened as well, because Linda got motherfukken bloodlust. Girl starts reminiscing about hunting sheep in a disturbing amount of detail and ohmyGOD why didn’t we see it before! Where were all the signs! Linda! Is a werewolf tooooooooooooooooooo

Anyway she got kicked off her ship to live on swamp planet because she made it look like there was a “mysterious illness” affecting all the ships cats because gorl can’t help herself when it comes to a late night snack

It— no. No, that fruit is hanging too low. Moving on.

The two space werewolves (because the book is about werewolves in space just in case you forgot) tromp nakedly down into the mud to hunt for bugs of the mud variety that are definitely not crayfish, and Falsies is super glad that he’s nekkid because it’s all hot and steamy and warm outside, so it’s good that THERE WAS ONLY HIS SKIN, HAIRY AS IT WAS, TO GET MUDDY

He’s. He’s hair. Hairy. A hairy werewolf. A hairy horny space werewolf.

Audible sigh. This is what I’ve chosen to do with my life. This is where I am. Telling strangers on the internet about an awkwardly horny space werewolf adventure. My mother must be so proud

Nekkies werewolf babe the first shows nekkies werewolf dude the who cares how to “fish” which is basically noodling for horrifying bottom-feeding face-huggers from a nightmare dimension. She breaks whatever serves as its neck and it rolls up into a wet hairy dead spider thingy the size of a football. Which they must now cook. Because raw nightmare fuel is nasty. Nekkie Falsen dreams of eating it with all the fixings of a crab or lobster dinner, but oh well

Existential Horror Happy Meal consumed, they share a cigarette because it was just. that. good. They wonder where they can find a tobacco substitute. They might as well look for something since they were left on this planet all on their lonesome even tho they served their entire careers doing space jobs (not Linda, she was too busy murdering the passenger’s cats whenever she felt peckish) (ngl, girl probably deserved to be marooned after all the murders and consumption of the evidence to cover up her crimes)

But what’s this?? Is there trouble on the horizon of this muddy paradise for Space Adam and Space Eve? (I am not shitting you, they actually call themselves that)

Yes. Yes, I’d say there’s trouble. Because approaching on the horizon is not a bird, not a giant flying reptile or giant flying insect, but a flying machine.

Oh shit it’s an airship!

“AN AIRSHIP,” SAID LINDA.

Linda I swear to god—

But wait! Maybe they’ll come to the aide of “distressed space werewolves men” and they prooooobably don’t know about our “family scandals” (why did you say it like that) and the Federation proooooobably hasn’t exactly publicized our “little indiscretions” so like… throw some water on that fire gurl we need smokey signales

“But what if they’re human” “bUt wHaT iF ThEy’Re HumAn— so what they won’t know why we’re here, we can just lie!”

And just assuming that she’ll agree with him and go along with it, FalseTeeth starts ripping up wet vegetation to get his smoke on and it’s all thick and viscous which are words I Do Not Like Using to describe anything other than molasses, and oh good golly gosh it works and the airship starts heading their away!

Except it’s not a blimp-type airship. It’s not “the Shaara” like they supposed, but it’s “Doralan” as if that means anything to anyone at this point, but go off

So anyway now they’re gonna get dressed and stuff so they can steal their ship

And that was Chapter 2

Alright, so—

Wait wait wait. Before I really get into this, I think I need to let you know I’ll be writing EXACT PHRASING FROM THE BOOK in all caps just like that, because lemme tell ya, there are some gems

Alright, so there’s this bitch Nick Falsen. So Nicky-boy here hates cats. Haaaaates them. They killed his mother or something. Or they could have. But for real tho, cats got him fired from his job as a space guy. Even tho he saved his captain from drifting out into space and gave him his air tank and probably got brain damage from it and everything. But nooooo, they kicked him out of space club and everybody hated him so bad that good ol’ capn’ saved-ass was able to talk them down from any number of horrible deaths and simply marooned him on a planet called Antares VI, which I do not give a shit about except that it’s not even colonized, so you know Nicky-boo is in for a tough time. He’s pretty much going to die anyway so fuck it, amirite?

So guy is narrating in his head about all this bee ess and makes sure to mention the Mannschenn Drive (hey, that was on the back cover of the book!), which I suspect might be important somehow… but anyway, blah blah blah a bunch of never-again-mentioned spaceship stuff and then they’re pulling up to the place where Nickles will be stuffed into a sack and thrown out the window, and the whole time he’s all moody and broody and “oh I could break out of here if I really wanted to it’d be so easy” but of course he doesn’t do that because he’ll obviously get immediately shot by two chiefs sporting PROJECTILE PISTOLS, OLD-FASHIONED WEAPONS, OUTMODED BLUNDERBUSSES FIRING METAL SLUGS and Ni-ni “knows what kind of metal” they’re made out of (silver, it’s silver, of course it’s silver, the goddamn cover talks about space werewolves) and he’d rather die of starvation and dehydration on an uninhabited planet than suicide by cop

Anyway he takes up what precious little time I have in this world to name and rank every single insignificant person he passes on his way to the boat and the ship’s cat Minnie (see I told you, he even tells us the name of a cat we’ll never see again!) she spits on him as he’s leaving because cat racism against werewolf men is a space-world problem I guess

So duder talks about how he’s a priiiiisoner on this boat and they’re even pointing pistols at him— ok wait, hold on, no, look, a pistol and a blunderbuss are hell and far gone from being remotely close to the same thing except they fire projectiles, but hey, I’m gonna keep imagining that these future space-men are making this dude walk the space-plank while wielding 17th century firearms that take half a minute to reload after a single shot

Anyway, nobody wants to talk to dead meat because why would you, and he’s all like “weeeh you could’ve given me some provisions or something weeeh” and they threaten to shoot his ass for getting lippy, and oh, did I forget to mention he was in shackles? I didn’t, but he did! Bitch waits until the last second to mention he’s been clapped in irons, come on man, that’s important stuff

So the Baha Men start playing and they kick Nickerino into a huge puddle of mud, jeer at him, and fly away, spotlighting him to blindness as a final fuck-you. Dude is ankle deep in mud wearing motherfucking shorts and sneakers and swearing up a storm until he realizes that’s not gonna get him unbanished and just kinda says fuck it I guess

So this pathetic wet cat (werewolf) of a man (alleged werewolf, actually) brushes his pale blond hair out of his currently useless eyes and tries to survey the area, which is pointless, because his night vision’s currently shot to shit

Bitchy Nicky McGee’s eyes eventually adjust to the gloom and the horizon is pretty much a straight black line. Because it’s nighttime. It’s cold and rainy and muddy and dark and this idiot is still in shorts because they’re comfy and easy to wear, and he’s like, “that motherfucker just would strand me on a muddy little island in the middle of a garbage planet, he totally would” but then he gets over it and TRIED TO REMEMBER ALL THAT HE HAD EVER READ like Mary-fucking-Bennet over here to see if there’s anything he knows about like, navigation and this particular planet and shit, but maybe not because who pays attention to that it’s not like it’s important or anything, and kind of remembers that the middle of the planet is all swamp or some shit like that

Nickles the Echidna sight/smell/hear/taste/touches the air around him and there’s like… smoke? There’s smoke. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and where there’s fire, well. Time to go. So he trudges through the swamp getting mud in his shoes while the rain makes his clothing stick to him but not in a sexy wet t-shirt contest kinda way, in a pathetic wet cat (werewolf) kinda way, and he thinks to himself, “oh! I should inventory my pockets” as if he didn’t know what was in his pockets? I’m surprised the space executioners didn’t do a pat-down since they were so very intent on not letting him have anything useful when they threw Nicks in the garbage

He finds out that he’s got A LARGE POCKETKNIFE OF THE TYPE FAVORED BY THE SPACEMEN OF HIS ERA (come on man why did you say it like that it’s so fuckin’ awkward) and it’s basically a Swiss army knife. There’s also a lighter and a wet pack of cigarettes. Useful! He marches forward, ready willing, and able to cut and/or punch out a bitch if necessary

So now there’s a hill with trees and shit and VEGETABLE GROWTH OF SOME KIND— very descriptive— and he smelled smells. They were promising smells, but not food smells. He could never forget that smell. It was a smelly smell that smelled… smelly. (woman, he smelled a woman) (because werewolf nose) and HE HAD FALLEN LOW—BUT NOT THAT LOW. YET. oh my god dude what does that even mean you are killing me here

So now it’s time to be sneaky. Gonna sneak sneak sneak around that hill and sneak sneak sneak up on the sleeping lady and realize that, geez, he’s sure been lonely lately hasn’t hhh—oh my god no what are you doing don’t do that you jackass

So Pervy McNickerson here tries to be cautious because the sleeping lady could potentially be “armed” and he doesn’t want to “startle her” because he’s such a good guy like that (and it’s not weird or anything that the smell of a woman would make him remember that he had a dick or anything like that) ANYWAY so there’s this cave right (oh god the innuendo is so bad it hurts)

For real tho, she’s camping out in kind of a fissure inside of a hill. And of course. He enters the cave. Without permission. So he sees her things and decides to go through her clothes—

I fucking hate this I hate it I hate it I—

And they’re similar to his from when he was a space guy, except these are for a— I shit you not— a catering officer because they get uniforms too, but this one has an animal stitched into it because guess what ya girl worked for the Dog Star Line ain’t that just a kick in the teeth, wolfboy

But now wolfboy is cooold so he tiptoes to the fire but aaaw shiiit it’s twig time baybee!

Step on a twig, girl’ll flip her lid

Then suddenly: NAKED WOMAN leaps out of her little huddle of blankets and she goes straight for the motherfuckin’ eyes as is her right, but ol’ long arms does that thing with his long arms where he holds her far enough away that she can swing and swing and swing and never hit him, because this is now a cartoon apparently

I do not want to tell you that Nick Dickleson intruded upon a sleeping naked woman and grappled with her, but those are the literal words. I will not write the literal words. They are not what you are thinking, but are written in a way that might sound like what you are thinking, and I don’t like it. All you need to know is that he flinched from the withering look she gave him but then he’s all like “bark bark, dog don’t eat dog, bark bark bark” and she calmed down? Because guess what motherfuckers—

No wait, I can’t tell you that yet

Yes, I’ve already read this book before, and I can’t tell you that yet it’ll spoil the surprise

A N Y W A Y

(oh jesus I just read ahead)

ANYWAY TAKE TWO

He gives her the ol’ up and down and “her flesh gleamed with a shimmering insubstantiality” whatever the fuck that means, but, cough, SHE COULD ALMOST HAVE PASSED FOR HIS SISTER oh please oh please it has been a while since I read this but please don’t let them fuck that’s eugh!

I… I don’t want to describe how he sees her but I must. Here’s a list:

prominent nose

short chin

thin vividly red lips

dark hair that is everywhere

no really he goes on about a happy trail that goes all the way to her belly button

small breasts

BELOW THE LEFT ONE WAS A THIRD, RUDIMENTARY NIPPLE

Jesus fucking christ

So anyway besides all that stuff she’s beautiful (what a dick) and she’s got a savage animal vitality that aroused him you keep that dick right where it is mister

She’s all like “who are you wolfboy, where you from” and he tells her his stupid name and tells her about his stupid job and the stupid ship where he did his stupid job and then told her all about how his stupid shipmates kicked him out and—

“Why didn’t they just kill you?”

Damn girl, go straight for the throat

As it turns out, our girl here has been marooned for sixteen weeks already, and before she became a maroonee she was DOG STAR LINE. PURSER. CATERING OFFICER AND MAID-OF-ALL-WORK ABOARD THE GOOD SHIP BEAGLE, as if that isn’t a little too on the nose, and she’s now all like “how come I didn’t hear your ship come in, that shit is loud as hell” and he’s like “oh it was, y’know, way over there, you probably never heard it before” like some kinda goddamn snob, sure ok man. She then proceeds to be severely catty about his fit ‘cause dude is trying to rock the “SOAKING WET WITH MUD UP TO YOUR ARSE” look and it ain’t working, but yeah, why didn’t you just take off your clothes to keep them out of the mud Pnicky? Why didn’t you do that? Huh?

Well she’s tired of looking at you all wet and pathetic like that, and she’s a catering officer so clearly she has to feed you, but you can’t come to the table like that all SOAKING WET WITH MUD UP TO YOUR ARSE like that, so just take ‘em off and I’ll getchu a tin of beef stew and—

Look, I don’t like where this is going, you don’t like where this is going, but go there we must. Commit to the bit

N.Falsies gets nekkid and warms up under the blankets like she tells him to, and when she comes back with some food I cannot for the life of me stop hearing Love Delicatessen playing in the back of my head. Needless to say, the food does not get eaten, my greatest fears are realized, and they do teh angery smex, but, y’know, all quick ’n’ dirty. THERE HAD BEEN NO FOREPLAY; THERE WAS NO AFTERPLAY, and they fell asleep like the tangled pile of pantyhose you ran through the washer without a delicates bag

And that was Chapter 1

Oh god is this really where I'm starting? This book? Of all the things I'm starting with this blog, 'regretting it' is already at the top of the list with 'shit'.

Alright let's do this shit.

Frontier of the Dark is one of the multitude of literary sins committed by A. Bertram Chandler. At least I assume he has committed many sins because he was rather prolific. The book is copyright 1984 and the dedication reads:

For Harlan Ellison, who made me do it

The cover painted by Attila Hejja looks like it would be a delightful space romp exploring new frontiers and things like that. The flavor text really tries to sell it to me by suggesting that there are people eagerly awaiting this book's released.

His long-awaited new space adventure! In space the moon is always full.

Sounds promising, right?

Then let's turn over the back cover and see what this "long-awaited new space adventure" is supposed to be about.

The Werewolf Effect The Mannschenn Drive was the gateway to the stars, but it had one unfortunate side effect: Traveling faster than light, mankind reverted to the bestial form of his own legendary nightmare—the lycanthropic horror that the full moon once called forth from the soul's depths, now no longer howling at the moon but soaring far beyond it...

Are... are you shitting me? Motherfucking space werewolves?

Sign me the fuck up!

Excerpt under the cut! Only read it if you hate surprises and want to have a bit more of an idea of what the hell this thing is. Otherwise just sit there and wait for me to tell you about chapter 1.

Intro | 1 | 2 | 3