Not This Time, Richard.

For as long as I can remember the Co Op grocery on 8th St. in Saskatoon has had a "give one, take one" book shelf.  The idea is that you leave books you're done with and take others you think you want to read.  I went in there this afternoon and decided to take a look.  I got a little bit excited when I spotted some of my favourite elusive trash:  Death Merchant books.  But my excitement was short lived, as they were all books I currently have in my possession.  Still, I guess that means I'll have to keep my eyes open, in case any turn up.

Which ones do I want to get my hands on, you ask?  Just three really, namely The Castro File, The Vengeance of the Golden Hawk, and The Fourth Reich.  Those are the ones I haven't actually read, while some of the others I don't currently have I've either read, or don't want to read.  For example Blood Bath is one I just can't make myself read, as I suspect the racism quotient is especially high in that one. 

Not A Surprise.

The Death Merchant "postmodern pulp" novel series, written by the late Joseph Rosenberger, has come up on this blog more than once.  I have a perverse fondness for those books, even if they are bad by various objective criteria.  Not much is known about Rosenberger.  He was never an important enough writer to generate much press attention.  But we've been given a new look into the man, however limited it might be.  Joe Kenney, on his blog Glorious Trash, has printed a 1985 letter written by Rosenberger, courtesy of an anonymous contributor.  The article also has a picture of Rosenberger and his wife Virginia, taken in 1984.  

Much of the letter won't be a surprise if you're familiar with the Death Merchant books.  Rosenberger wasn't a pleasant person, and the racism found in the letter can also be found in the books themselves.   But the bits he reveals about his life are quite interesting, as is the glimpse the letter gives us into the goings on at Pinnacle Books, and the mass market paperback publishing business in general, in the early '80s. 

That Rosenberger apparently tried to sell the Death Merchant series to Gold Eagle makes me wonder what might have happened if he'd been successful.  What would a post Rosenberger Death Merchant have been like?  Presumably either a lot closer in tone and attitude to the Mack Bolan universe books Gold Eagle still publishes, or perhaps they would have pushed it in the black humour/parody direction of The Destroyer books. Then again it might have vanished like most of the other similar book series spawned by the success of The Executioner.  Whatever the case, I doubt Rosenberger would have been happy with the results.

Will It Please The Cosmic Lord Of Death?

I'm sure I've come across this page before.  Assuming I did it certainly didn't state we might see a new book featuring Joseph Rosenberger's infamous creation, the Death Merchant. I'd remember that.  I must say I'm surprised, as there can only be a tiny handful of people clamoring for new adventures featuring Richard Camellion.  I can't help but wonder about the legal status of this new book.  Dell was the last publisher to release Death Merchant books, and Rosenberger died in 1993.  So who owns the rights to the character?  Dell?  The Rosenberger estate, assuming there is one?  If the book isn't officially licensed, would the current rights holder think it worth the time to sue?  It's apparently being published by Kerodina Press, which sounds like it's a vanity press, so don't expect to see this in your local bookstore.  As for the title it doesn't really sound Death Merchantish.  It should be something like The Ressurection Strike.

Wannabe?

When I heard a report this morning about a young Chinese man who managed to get on a plane in Hong Kong disguised as an old man my thoughts soon drifted to the Death Merchant.  The Death Merchant, aka Richard Camellion, was the title character of a series of pulp action adventure novels written in the '70s and '80s by the late Joseph Rosenberger.  One of Camellion's regularly used skills was his incredible ability to create disguises, and he frequenly disguised himself as an elderly man.  Fortunately this real world disguise artist apparently only wanted to get out of Hong Kong undetected by the local authorities, not go on to kill a whole bunch of people.   Somehow I doubt this guy has ever heard of the Death Merchant, but you never know.  Weirder things have happened.

Afternoon addenda:  I decided to add a Death Merchant cover to make this post a bit more spiffy.  The book in question, The Psionics War, takes place partially in Canada, with Canadian troops aiding the Death Merchant against Soviets trying to kidnap an American scientist.

Heh, those horrible ole Death Merchant books I sometimes read can occasionally be educational. Book #51, The Inca File, deals with a mission to prevent Soviet scientists from recovering ancient Incan quipu, knotted strings used to record information, that contained all sorts of supercool Inca medical knowledge and so on. Quipu are real, and it seems some scientists have determined the Incas could actually record words with them, not just numbers. And to think I first heard of them as a teenager by reading a violent pulp novel....

I would imagine most people have something in their collection of interests that they have a perverse fondness for, that they like in spite of its badness. One of mine is the late Joseph Rosenberger's Death Merchant series of pulp novels from the '70s and '80s. The title character is Richard Camellion, a lethal master of disguise who was originally introduced as a killer for the Chicago Mob, but within a couple of books mutated into a mercenary troubleshooter for the CIA. Pinnacle, the folks who brought us Don Pendleton's original Executioner novels and a bunch of other pulps, published most of these, with Dell publishing the last few before Rosenberger gave up on the series, or Dell dropped it, or whatever caused it to end. I suspect something happened to him healthwise, as he didn't seem to write anything past about '89 or 90, and reportedly died in '93.

The books themselves aren't particularly great, especially since as the series went on Camellion began to kill anyone who got in his way, guilty or innocent. In one of the later titles, Flight of the Phoenix, I think Camellion and co. end up killing more innocents than the terrorists they're trying to stop. The right wing politics also got increasingly heavyhanded as the series progressed. On the other hand Rosenberger's use of sci fi elements in his stories could be quite fun even if lots of it is pure '70s pseudoscience like the Bermuda Triangle. After all James Bond has never had to stop Chinese troops from seizing an alien base hidden under the moutains of Nepal, as in The Shamballa Strike. This may have come from him apparently being a writer for Fate Magazine, if the footnotes(yes, for much of the run the books had footnotes of various sorts)are anything to go by. Continuity? Not something that Rosenberger was big on, as the Death Merchant starts out as a publically known figure, yet eventually only a handful of people know he's Richard Camellion. Then there's the goofy "connection with the Cosmic Lord of Death" stuff that begins to appear in the books. And if you're a military or aviation buff you'll get a laugh at Rosenberger's habit of the characters using equipment that never actually saw service. In other words much of the appeal for me is the over the top character of the books.

But what I find amusing is the prices some folks online seem to be trying to get for these books. I saw some book shop tonight that wanted 17 bucks for one. For a cheesy pulp paperback! Come on. These aren't high art, nor are they the kind of thing that actual collector types would be out there looking for, like they might for early editions of James Bond novels. Buying them again in recent years I've felt kind of silly buying certain ones for 3 bucks a piece. I can't imagine mail ordering one for 5 bucks plus shipping. I suppose there is someone someplace who will sell a kidney to buy these things, but it sure wouldn't be me.