Disposable Lit Reviews

Diamond Books, 1992
215 pp.
ISBN 1-55773-757-6

Out of Print
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Thanks to recombinant pop culture, the ’80’s saw a collusion between two genres of fiction: The men’s adventure series (which had already taken a distinct paramilitary turn since the swinging espionage days of the ’60’s and ’70’s) and post-apocalyptic fiction, as inspired by The Road Warrior and the nuclear brinksmanship politics of the decade. The new “radioactive frontier” was not only a great substitute setting for the Old West in which to set those uber-masculine fantasies of self-reliance and the forging of a new world by one’s brawn and wits; it also gave a sheen of romanticism to the prospect of utter societal annihilation. Men who couldn’t live without Middle Eastern oil and Colombian coffee could pretend for a little while that a savage new world would be a great place to live in and prove one’s self a Real Man. (Once again: Come for the reviews — stay for the socio-psychoanalysis!)

So there were a surprising number of post-apocalyptic men’s adventure novels, replete with rugged mavericks struggling to find order in a world beyond chaos (somehow, purple prose flourished in radioactive wastelands). Of course, after a few years, all of the most obvious scenarios for such heroes were well-used, and designers of new series premises had to start ranging a little further from the obvious.

The Swampmaster novels appeared in 1992, after the main wave of the genre had already crested and was now only running on downhill momentum; a post-Berlin Wall, post-Soviet world didn’t inspire the same kind of apocalyptic frenzy. But whoever “Jake Spencer” is, he/she/they were at least smart enough and cognizant enough of then-current events not to have the Soviets as the designated heavies.

The timeframe is roughly twenty years after “Revolution 2,” a nuclear-enhanced civil war of sorts in the ’90’s. Now roughly the lower half of the states are in the hands of the National Front Occupation Force, a white supremacist dictatorship. Now they’re just starting to move into the anarchy of Florida. Home of the Swampmaster.

The Swampmaster is John Firecloud, son of a Seminole medicine man and leader of the resistance against the NFO. And, true to form for pulp heroes and their descendents, he’s got himself a motley crew of lieutenants — a big white bruiser, a pretty Asian woman, a former Malay freedom fighter, a pair of dwarf acrobats (!), and the elderly black woman who once was his late father’s lover. Together, they lay ambushes for the despicable but stupid National Front forces, while avoiding the other dangers to be found in the Florid of the future — such as radioactive gators, or “White Trash,” the radiation-diseased rednecks that wander the state.

All of that, really, is background, and the plot for this particular novel is pretty thin. That’s another thing you find in too many open-ended novel series; they tend to stretch out the “good stuff,” as they don’t want to spend too many of their best nickels in any given volume. (The Swampmaster series lasted for three books. Shoulda spent more nickels when they had the chance.) Here, a full forty-three pages is given over to a single ambush of a NFO convoy, complete with plenty of equipment-specific detail and lots of introductory material for Firecloud and his bevy of sidekicks (presumably for the benefit of those who never read the first novel, which includes me). In a novel of 195 pages, that’s over 20% of the book before we even get to the plot.

Which is mainly that the NFO has hired Firecloud’s white foster brother, Bill Coonan, to track down this “Swampmaster.” Bill doesn’t know that John is the Swampmaster, but even if he did, we can’t be sure which side he’d side with, as there’s a very big rift between Bill and John explained as backstory.

And to fill in the other pages, there’s also a storyline about NFO scientists on a converted oil rig off the Florida coast using White Trash for experiments involving destruct-on-command soldiers and remote-control troops. Neither storyline really gets the full treatment, though; they end up seeming more like filler between the first and last pages; despite the potential for meatiness, neither one really gets meaty.

Is there a bright spot in this fairly lackluster book? Surprisingly, yes; a single character stand out. No, it’s not the Swampmaster; John Firecloud is far too stoic and contained to be interesting (and the fact that the cover painting makes him look like Lorenzo Lamas ain’t endearing), and the rest of his novelty-defined crew never rise above their one-line descriptions. No, the standout is Occupation Commander Joseph Forster Groll, the insanely evil and sadistic heavy who’s got a burr in his britches over the Swampmaster. And what makes him so memorable?

He drools.

No, seriously, he’s got Salivary Overproduction Disorder, causing him to wipe at his mouth with one of his omnipresent handkerchiefs all the time; when he gets at all excited, the spit really starts flowing, leading to plentiful visceral descriptions of long, yellowed strings of saliva. But it’s not just the gross-out factor that makes Groll stand out. His entire personality is based on deep-seated and displaced self-loathing, his devotion to grinding the world under his foot so that he will be demonstrably superior. And, like Hitler’s obsessive fear that he might himself be part Jewish which fueled so much of his hatred, Groll’s got some serious love/hate “issues” with geeks and freaks.

Which means, unfortunately, that it’s more fun to spend time with the bad guy than with the boring good guys. Which is pretty much how it always is, I guess. (Quick: Which character from Paradise Lost gets quoted more often?) But that isn’t a great central basis for a long-running series with fan appeal. The third book in the series was the last, and the whole franchise was quickly forgotten, excpet by people with somewhat bizarre reading habits like me.

(And for people who just won’t learn their lesson, the last seventeen pages of this book are devoted to a preview chapter of yet another new post-apocalyptic adventure series, The Last Rangers, set in 21st century Texas. As far as I can tell, this series also lasted only three books. If they ever fall into my hands, I’ll let you know.)

Nathan Shumate