Disposable Lit Reviews

Zebra Books, 1987
270 pp.
ISBN 0-8217-1993-9
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I already commented at length in my review of Swampmaster: Hell on Earth on the pop-cultural Zeitgeist which resulted in the many post-apocalyptic men’s adventure novels series, so I’ll not rehash that here. Suffice it to say that these novel’s premises took the heightened background awareness of the possibility of nuclear holocaust and made it the backdrop of neo-pulp adventure scenarios in which men could be real men, women could be real women, cats could be real cats, etc.

The C.A.D.S. series is set soon after a Soviet sneak attack on Christmas day* resulted in a limited nuclear exchange, doing devastating but incomplete damage to each country. In America, the entire eastern seaboard is a smoking ruin; the President, thankfully out of D.C. at the time (stupid Russians), is desperately trying to keep the country together from his makeshift command center in New Mexico, despite having no communications network or infrastructure to speak of. Soviet troops, having been mustered in anticipation of the attack, are invading the U.S. on several fronts, and anarchist/separatist groups within the country aren’t helping things, seizing localized power in the chaos.

And the only thing standing between the ruins of America and total annihilation is… the C.A.D.S. team.

No, the humorous connotation of that name for a men’s adventure series isn’t accurate (don’tcha just expect a cover depicting scantily-clad lovelies being menaced by a Nazi butcher?). It stands for “Computerized Attack/Defense System,” although “computerized” doesn’t begin to cover it. These are essentially small-scale mech suits, each one loaded to the gills with tactical scanning equipment, an assortment of weapons, environmental controls, and jetpacks. Lead by Dan Sturgis, the team fights a defensive battle against the invasive Russkies.

The most surprising thing about this novel (fourth in the series), and by extension the series as a whole, is that there isn’t the standardized team roll call, which has been the norm for pulp literature from Doc Savage onward. The C.A.D.S. team is several dozen men (and one woman), slowly being whittled down by loss of suits and men, and though there are several distinctive “type” characters (the at-one-with-nature Indian, the cornfed Midwesterner, the woman doctor, the street brawler, the token Brit), the active characters are not limited to those with a type placard around his/her neck. There are enough C.A.D.S. soldiers that we’re not only seeing the same faces.

The second most surprising thing is that the novel isn’t an interchangeable episode in the series. Most open-ended series novels try to maintain a status quo of characters and villains, so that they can be read out of order without continuity consternation on the part of the reader. Here, though, no only is this a chapter out of an ongoing story (as attested to by the gradual but constant attrition of C.A.D.S. resources), but the novel itself isn’t bounded by a distinct plotline. There are several plot-threads at work here, and some of them reach their conclusion before others even get started. More than anything, it reminded me of a modern comic book series, in which several story arcs overlap to keep them from concrete beginnings and conclusions.

Here, for example, we begin just after the battle that ended the previous volume, with the C.A.D.S. team on the run from Russian reinforcements. We go through the capture of Captain Sturgis and a teammate, their torture aboard a Soviet sub and eventual escape, their sojourn with a band of Appalachian guerilla survivors (with an odd foray into a theme of New Age crystal healing), then back to base camp to regroup before another menace comes up: A mercenary military contractor planning to sell his prototype “flying tank” to the Russians in exchange for transport to a Soviet-controlled Pacific island. And along the way, Sturgis has to deal with love, loss, and the trauma caused to his teammate by having been anally raped in the Russian sub. (Not that common an occurrence for the good guys in such novels, is it?)

I suppose the idea of having this book not technically be a complete novel was a fairly good one for marketing, even if it leaves each volume a bit unsatisfying on its own. The series lasted at least twelve books, which was pretty good for the start-up adventure series of the time (those not connected to Mack Bolan, at any rate). There’s enough tech detail to satisfy the tech-geek, enough characterization to tell everyone apart without resorting to accents and overt cultural signposts, and enough explosions and deserved comeuppance to keep everyone happy.

Nathan Shumate