Author of adventure/thriller and horror fiction

THE ENEMY BELOW (1957)

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In a fit of virtue, I started switching from my bookstore to the library to get most of my reading. I picked up WAR IN THE BOATS by William Ruhe, which describes in detail his experience onboard a variety of submarines in the Pacific during World War 2. I got totally hooked, so much so I’m working on a short military thriller that will read like Horatio Hornblower meets a Turner Classic submarine movie and with a Michael Crichtonesque attention to technical detail, making you, the reader, a part of the crew seeing what it was really like fighting a war beneath the sea.

During all this research, I found an old movie, THE ENEMY BELOW (1957), which describes the fight between an American destroyer and a German U-boat during the War of the Atlantic. Robert Mitchum plays the captain with a score to settle, while we also follow the story of the U-boat captain, who hates the Nazis and is tired of the war.

Both men are very good at what they do, resulting in a clever cat and mouse game that culminates in a classic finish. Unlike THE VICTORS, which I reviewed yesterday, THE ENEMY BELOW doesn’t present the noble aims of war and then contrast it with the grim reality of violence and human nature. Instead, it holds up the horror of war and then contrasts it with small acts of human kindness that provide genuine hope for humanity’s future.

The film stretches reality as to the foresight the captains showed, as real captains during the war had much less awareness and certainty, but it’s a fun movie if you like war movies, and takes you inside a destroyer and a submarine, natural enemies of the sea.

Click here to watch the movie in its entirety on YouTube.
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THE VICTORS (1963)

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THE VICTORS (1963) is a war movie that takes its subject seriously but may be even more powerful as an anti-war film than the comedy DOCTOR STRANGELOVE, which came out the following year. It stars George Peppard, Eli Wallach and Melina Mercouri, and has an early film appearance by Peter Fonda.

The story, adapted from a collection of short stories titled THE HUMAN KIND by Alexander Baron, based on his war experiences (British, but changed to Americans in the film), follows several American soldiers as they fight their way across Europe in World War 2. Like the book, the film presents a series of short stories that tie together.

The film contrasts the grim reality of the war with seamlessly integrated American propaganda reels and speeches by President Roosevelt. The President is seen several times describing the war as a noble conflict, a war to end war, a war that will provide a lasting peace for our children.

Unlike other war movies of the time, THE VICTORS portrays the soldiers not as sacrificing heroes (though they could be seen that way), but as average guys doing their jobs while trying to stay alive. Most of the storytelling focuses on what happens during those long stretches of marching and occupation and carousing when the bullets aren’t flying. The soldiers are portrayed as entirely human and despite their flaws, very likable.

The anti-war element of the film is driven by the evident contrast between the war’s noble aims and its grim truths presented with an even hand and without sentiment. Despite the noble aims of the war, human nature is what it is. In one scene, White soldiers beat up a pair of Black soldiers. In other scenes, destitute and lonely women are sexually exploited by the occupiers. The soldiers are often unthinkingly cruel to other soldiers and the locals. They fight over women. These things are shown as a matter of fact and without moralizing, but the point is clear. The war got rid of Hitler (thank God) but people are people, and war will go on, making the notion of war itself seem futile.

Click here to watch the complete movie on YouTube.
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THESE FINAL HOURS (2014)

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THESE FINAL HOURS (2014) is a terrific Australian film that transposes the demise of humanity with the redemption of a single individual.

A redemption story. Yeah, yeah. We’ve seen that Hollywood formula a thousand times. But this isn’t a Hollywood film.

The film begins as an asteroid breaks Earth’s atmosphere and strikes the mid-Atlantic. Within hours, the spreading firestorm wipes out the Eastern U.S. and most of Europe. It’s spreading, one by one eliminating the continents, countries, cities and people as if they never existed. Earth is being scrubbed clean by fire.

Within 12 hours, the apocalypse will reach Australia. How would you spend your final hours?

In Perth, James has sex with his lover, who tells him she’s carrying his child. He can’t handle it. When the end comes, he knows it’s going to be horrific and painful, and he doesn’t want to feel it. When the end comes, he wants to be blissfully unaware.

He takes off, heading to a party to end all parties. Along the way, he rescues a young girl kidnapped from her father. He keeps trying to get rid of her. The last thing he needs is some obligation and wasted time when obligations no longer have meaning, and every minute is precious.

Besides that, James is a bit of a bastard. The woman he impregnated is not his girlfriend. He’s estranged from his mother. He flees the woman he loves because he’s scared. He only cares about himself.

Along his journey to the party, everywhere, it seems, people are reacting to their last day in a state of wild catharsis. Many are killing themselves. Many are murdering and raping others. Many are partying like it’s the end of the world, soaking themselves in drugs, alcohol and orgies.

James decides what’s really meaningless is all of that. He decides to help Rose, and in so doing, he realizes what’s truly important in life. How he wants to die. What it means to love and have empathy for another person. And in so doing, he gives us, the viewer, a powerful glimpse at a single shining moment of real humanity–making us realize, should the end come for the human race, it really would be a shame after all.

Terrific film that strikes a new path in a genre well trod by the same old themes. Highly recommended.

PHOENIX ISLAND By John Dixon

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I had the pleasure to meet John Dixon at the World Horror Convention in New Orleans in 2013. I’d already connected with him on Facebook, exchanging tips and views, and when I met him, I wasn’t surprised to find out we’d become instant friends. Dixon is a cool dude.

I’d read one of his books written for Permuted Press under a pseudonym and enjoyed it, but not his big debut, PHOENIX ISLAND, the novel on which the CBS show INTELLIGENCE was based. I finally did read it, and I’m glad I did.

Carl Freeman is an orphan who’s gotten bounced around to various foster homes because he’s violent. He has a pathological hatred of bullies, and when he sees bullying, he can’t stop himself from getting involved. Very strong and highly skilled at boxing, he dishes out harsh punishments that always land him in trouble and a new foster home. Then he goes one fight too far, landing him in so much trouble he may be sent to juvenile penitentiary. The judge offers him a choice. Jail or Phoenix Island, a boot camp-style rehabilitation camp for troubled youths. Stay there until he’s 18, stay out of trouble, and he’s out with a clean record.

But Phoenix Island isn’t what it’s supposed to be. Carl and the other kids are systematically brutalized by sadistic drill sergeants. Soon, they realize they’re not only outside the United States but also any laws protecting them. There’s a purpose to it all, in which Carl will find his destiny. Phoenix Island, it turns out, is ground zero for the future of combat intelligence.

PHOENIX ISLAND may feature a teen as its main character, and you might find it in the YA section at many bookstores, but it’s a brutal, hard-hitting book with huge appeal for adults as well as teens. F. Paul Wilson, creator of the REPAIRMAN JACK series, called it “LORD OF THE FLIES meets WOLVERINE and COOL HAND LUKE.” Like the novel’s protagonist, Dixon was a Golden Gloves boxer, and it shows in his writing. (He also plays chess like a boxer.) Jab, jab, jab–always keeping the initiative–and then POW. The pacing and crisp style of the book moves things forward, and the protagonist, while flawed, is almost immediately likeable so that you care what happens to him. Dixon keeps things simple, keeps them moving, puts his protagonist in almost impossible situations, and makes you care.

Recommended. The sequel, DEVIL’S POCKET, is coming August 2015.
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HORNBLOWER Series By C.S. Forester

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Every once in a while, a lucky reader encounters a series of books they just can’t read fast enough. These books aren’t read so much as inhaled.

That was the experience I had enjoying the HORNBLOWER series by C.S. Forester. Wow, what a ride. I plowed through the entire series of 11 books in no time.

I was drawn to the books after watching the great miniseries starring Ioan Gruffudd, which were based on three of the novels. The miniseries took a great deal of license with the books, making them quite melodramatic. When I picked up the first book, I expected some Victorian moralizing about how men who adhere to hard work, honor and duty can’t lose, while everybody else is lazy and villainous. Boy, was I surprised.

The books are taut nautical thrillers–very realistic and entirely gripping. The series follows the career of Horatio Hornblower, a man who is so self-effacing and doubting that he continually strives toward perfection, knowing England and its vaunted Navy, in a death grapple with France during the Republican and subsequent Napoleonic Wars, will not abide failure. He starts his career as a midshipman and ends as Admiral of the Fleet. Each book follows him at a different stage of his career, from midshipman to lieutenant to captain to commodore to a lord to admiral. He is at virtually every major event of the wars, minus its big battles such as Trafalgar, as Forester preferred to put Hornblower into situations where he could act on his own.

Hornblower’s successes are the result of continually paying attention, experience, innovative thinking and just plain luck, but as his second wife puts it, a fortunate man makes his own luck by optimizing his chances. He isn’t a superhero. In fact, he continually doubts himself and, being a melancholy sort and a bit of a pessimist, isolates himself from the company of others. His only real friend, Bush, with whom he serves through most of the series, is kept at arm’s length while they’re on duty.

The nautical aspects of the series are thoroughly enjoyable. I appreciate being treated as an adult by a novel, without every single thing explained to me. The books are packed with nautical terms and maneuvering to the extent they at times read like procedurals for wood sailing ships of the time. In my view, this only makes the storytelling that much richer. When the action occurs, it is completely realistic and therefore twice as gripping. The naval battles are edge-of-the-seat reading.

Published between 1938 and 1962, the series did very well–so well, there was a story circulating during Forester’s day that whenever his publishing company was showing poor profits, they sent a representative down to beg him for another HORNBLOWER tale.

Goodreads.com lists the entire series in chronological order here, which can be helpful to find out what’s next in line.

I’ve recommended HORNBLOWER to several friends, who all told me they already read it, so maybe (probably) I was the last to know. But if you haven’t read them yet, and you enjoy historical thrillers, definitely check them out. You’ll be glad you did.
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