December 26, 2018

JRR Letter To The Editor, March 12, 1974: "Anti-Abortion Stand 'Twisted Logic'"

The Wheeling Herald, March 12, 1974:
Anti-Abortion Stand 'Twisted Logic'

Regarding Thomas H. Dittmer's letter regarding the evils of abortion, I have only one comment: here again we have the results of stupid, bigoted thinking, of half-truths and twisted logic, the worst of which is a comparison of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to the tactics of Adolf Hitler.

Unlike Hitler, the U.S. Supreme Court has not ordered anyone eliminated. The U.S. Supreme Court did decide that a woman has a legal right to decide for herself whether or not she wants an abortion. This decision also meant that no individual (take note, Mr. Dittmer), nor church, nor organization, has the right to try to cram its belief down the public throat.

Mr. Dittmer, you wrote that "The right to life is the supreme right of God to give or to take away."

Have you talked to God lately, Mr. Dittmer? Did he tell you that? How do you know what God wants, other than what you have been taught by previous know-it-alls? In the Old Testament we read how God told the murderous Jews to treat their captives – "save the virgins" but kill the soldiers, plow 'em like fertilizer.

This sort of makes God sound like a sort of cosmic Hitler to me! Of course, God didn't say any such thing, but it was a helluva slick trick on the part of the Jewish leaders who could make their people believe anything – and they're still waiting for their Messiah!

You write, Mr. Dittmer, of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!" I suggest you practice what you preach and permit others to pursue this philosophy without telling them how to do it, without deciding for them what is right and what is wrong in the mind of "God!"

Personally, I find it odd how bigoted fanatics are always convinced how "God" is on their side and/or just "know" what "God" wants!

When you, Mr. Dittmer, and your know-it-all kind are willing to take care of the thousands of unwanted children (that would be born into the world if you had your way), when you're willing to put out hard cash for the cost of their birth, for their food, clothing, medicine and schooling, when you're willing to put your money where your big mouth is – you still will not have earned the right to tell other people how to live.

I would also suggest you keep the facts straight and quit twisting the truth to suit your own hell-fire-religion purposes. Tell it like it really is: that the United States Supreme Court is not forcing abortion on any woman: the decision only permits the individual woman to decide for herself. And don't give us the claptrap what the "American people" want, because poll after poll has revealed that the vast majority of Americans – and this includes Roman Catholics – approve of this decision, in spite of the lies screamed by the Right To Life minority, which isn't fooling Congress the least bit.

Congressmen, realizing how votes are buttered, aren't about to "amend" this decision, they know that eventually all crackpots turn to other noble causes.

Amen!

Joe Rosenberger
Buffalo Grove, Illinois
Rosenberger's letter prompted at least six letters in opposition. One of them, from Patricia Nichols of Mount Prospect, included this admonition (April 8):
I am tired of your name calling. In every letter you write you must resort to childish name calling. Your last letter had such adolescent words as "stupid, twisted logic, bigoted fanatics, crackpots." I wish you could state your ideas in an adult-like manner.
Jim Peterson of Hoffman Estates offered support for Rosenberger (April 22):
... I thoroughly enjoyed and concur with Mr. Rosenberger's letter.

On second thought, I disagree when he refers to some anti-abortion views as twisted logic. I see no logic at all in their arguments, twisted or otherwise. ...

Now let me get down to the point which really frosts me. Since it is unlikely that [two previous letter writers] are going to shop around for an abortion, why must you insert your collective noses into other people's business when they wish to obtain a legal abortion?

If you are so concerned about lives, and children's lives in particular, there is no end to the need for your services.

Two thirds of the people in the world (two-plus billion) are malnourished (don't get a proper diet, usually protein deficient) and one third of the people alive in the world today (one-plus billion) are undernourished (don't get enough of any kind of food).

Furthermore, since 40 per cent of the population of the underdeveloped world is made up of people under 15 years old, these children are usually the ones who comprise the bulk of the 3½ million people who die of starvation each year (3½ million is a conservative estimate).

Granted, it would be more convenient for you to help these people if they lived next door in Mount Prospect, but I'm sure you'll understand they haven't been able to scrape together the air fare yet.

October 3, 2018

Kung Fu (Mace) #1: The Year Of The Tiger

A Big Score of "H" on the High Seas –

but the San Francisco Mafia needed a respectable boat to make the transfer. Ho Li Wing and his fishing vessel Dragonwind were picked. Too bad they didn't realize Wing had a visitor from Hong Kong – his Eurasian nephew, Mace, who was a Kung Fu Master.

When the goons strong-armed Wing, Mace warned them. When they came on strong with Mace, he pulverized them and sent them limping away with a second warning.

Then they came up with an idea they thought couldn't miss! They kidnapped Wing's wife and daughter.

Too bad they didn't understand Kung Fu . . .

Joseph Rosenberger had published six Death Merchant books when The Year of the Tiger appeared in September 1973, under the name "Lee Chang". Rosenberger also debuted another series that year, as Murder Master, hit paperback racks in November.

There are eight books in the Kung Fu series, but Rosenberger wrote only the first five. Len Levinson wrote #6 (also as Lee Chang) and Bruce Cassidy wrote #s 7 and 8 (as C.K. Fong).

Rosenberger uses a similar template to his Death Merchant books. We begin with an action scene before stepping back to lay out the plot of the book (such as it is). There are several more fight scenes before the grand finale. Similar to the DM books, our hero (Victor Mace) has super-human abilities when it comes to fighting and each battle is described in the most intricate detail.

And yet even by those flimsy standards, The Year of the Tiger barely qualifies as a narrative. It's somewhat like a boxing match, with the lengthy fight scenes interrupted by the characters going back to their respective corners and not doing much of anything until the bell rings for the next round.

The San Francisco Mafia is attempting to convince Ho Le Wing, an honest local fisherman, to let them use his boat to make a deal for $2 million in pure heroin (often referred to as simply "H") in international waters. Wing's nephew Victor Mace is visiting from Hong Kong when the goons make their first move. Mace kicks their asses. The Mafia tries another tactic a little later. Mace kicks their asses. The stubborn Mafia tries yet again. Mace kicks their asses. Apparently, Wing is the only man above suspicion with a decent-sized boat in the Bay Area.

Throughout the book, Mace recalls his youth in Hong Kong, and his years of instruction with his master, En Sheng. There are far too many of these flashbacks and they eat up a lot of pages (one even includes a six-page fight scene!).

This is early in Rosenberger's action-adventure writing career, so his sense of humour (intentional and otherwise) is everywhere in this book, in his bizarre descriptions, off-beat analogies, and graphic depictions of violence. He also throws exclamation points around like confetti on New Year's. You might think he was getting paid by the exclamation point! They are everywhere! Even on short, boring sentences! Like this one!

There is not much in the way of social and political rants, but there is some criticism of the United States' gun culture and its simultaneous exploitation of and prudishness about sexuality:
[Mace] stood there thinking of how savage and barbaric the United States was, a truly wild country in which almost any man could purchase a firearm. Such a pity that the United States was still a pioneer nation, a violent nation, a nation still living in brutality, such as existed in its days of the Old West. ...

[A fascination with brute force] seemed to be a large part of American culture and one that frankly puzzled Mace. Most nations honored their intellectuals, their poets and artists, their philosophers and scientists, according them positions of reverence and respect. Not so in the United States, a paradoxical nation where people were honored not for the quality of their minds but for their ability to throw, or kick, or bounce a ball! A childish and immature nation, always preoccupied with the sexual function in a deranged sort of way: while men and women were prominently displayed stark naked in magazines and in motion pictures, "morals squads" still spied and snooped hi public rest rooms to ensure prim and proper sexual behavior!

Poor repressed Americans ... immature and untutored in the virtues of a sane and sensible life .. . not to realize that shame is but nature's hasty conscience ...
At one point, Mace recalls En Sheng telling him that the idea of turning the other cheek is "an unnatural credo put forth by the Western Christians, who have never comprehended the nature of man."

In "An Insider's View to the Death Merchant" that ran in the back pages of some of Pinnacle's other series (The Executioner, The Penetrator), Rosenberger claimed to have "originated the first kung fu fiction books" and to have worked as "an instructor in 'Korean karate'".

Joe Kenney reviewed this book in June 2010 when his Glorious Trash blog was not even three weeks old! He stated that Manor Books was "capitalizing ... on the then-popular Kung-Fu TV series starring David Carradine". Based on the scant information online and my own research, Rosenberger treated the truth as highly elastic when it came to his own background. He almost certainly did not teach "Korean karate".

In a short interview printed in a 1981 fanzine, Rosenberger says he wrote under the name Lee Chang. He may have outed himself as Chang at that time, but I find it next-to-impossible that anyone who was familiar with the Death Merchant series would not immediately recognize Rosenberger's rather unique style.

Early in the book, Joseph Rupert Rosenberger writes that one of the Mafia goons "had the unlikely name of Rupert Rosenbacker!" He did something similar in The Devil's Trashcan (DM #43), when one of Richard Camellion's buddies makes a passing comment about "a joker I know" named Rupt Rosenberger. ... I don't know what to make of this.

Etc.:

"Mace was a man who'd hit himself over the head with a sledge hammer just to keep in practice."

"Both men might as well have tried to stop a rhinoceros with toothpicks!"

"He had all the chance of a crippled turtle trying to outrun a bolt of lightning!"

"... making suki yaki of his face, egg foo yung of his ribs and chop suey of his guts"

"as slick as a puppy's nut"

"... stalked by something gigantic, venomous and incredibly malevolent. Blackness!"

"Uncle will be surprised that we've come to the dock to see him and Jimmy leave. Then again, he might not."

"Confusion is the little brother of misery and the twin of uncertainty; yet all confusion dies before the sword of facts."

"... two moving engines of destruction, two juggernauts of pure King Fu"

"They're dangerous! They're like two cans of nitro!"

"The man went down, gurgling like a waterfall, his brain a pounding kettledrum of approaching death."

"You're so damned bright that you think Sherlock Holmes is a housing development."

"... falling the remaining 15 feet with the speed of a meteor"

Big John Jenessio could barely walk "and when he did shuffle along his battered balls became a tubful of misery".

"... the ultimate aim of Kung Fu ... is to aspire to the high grades where one's understanding and practice of the art provide the entrance to the philosophical plane where the principles of the physical practice are applied to life."

Mace: "They didn't harm you in any way ...?"
Sue: "That man Vance. He even made us a pitcher of lemonade."

"I'll get those killers if it's the last thing I do!"

"There was a quietness about the two vessels that wasn't natural, a kind of waiting malignancy that seemed to be building to an unexpected spring ... waiting ..."

"A nagging fear kept growing in Ho Li's mind, spreading with all the rapidity of a cancer."

"Mace exploded over him with all the ferocity of a spreading cancer!"

"The Pacific Ocean was a friend to no man ..."

"... his malevolent mind trying to sponge up current events"

"... hideous shock ... his think machine did what it had to do! It died!"

"... his lungs wondering where all the air had gone! They stopped wondering a few seconds later."

"The savage burst blasted the body wide open, with all the razor-sharp efficiency of a knife slicing open a hot dog! Bone, blood and grayish ropes of bowel splattered like a spring shower all over the interior of the wheelhouse. The corpse dropped to the floor. It was one helluva way to perform an autopsy!"

"The certainty of what he had to go bloomed in Mace's mind like a large flower, each petal fragrant with honor and justice."

"... multiple-finger thrusts that were constant ripsaws of justice with hatred or retribution without malice"

"... the rugged hole gaped like some metal vagina, a long slit surrounded by curled and buckled plates"

"Their only mistake was that they didn't know the depth of Mace's training! How could they possibly have known that a Kung Fu Master, while whirling and dancing and throwing, is practically superhuman, the Nage seeming to travel along unfamiliar lines of space-time. Such a man becomes pure art, moving easily in the midst of ferocious blows and flying tackles, not by opposing but by joining. He deals with the strongest attack by Nukishomen-uchi, by embracing the attack, by drawing it instantly into a wide circle of concord, which joins him with the essential unity and harmony of the universe."

"... a feeling of sadness turning the turnstiles of his mind"

"Jimmy Wing, his eyes as big and round as two small saucers ..."

Rupe was "as big as a small house"

The ship shuddered "like a sick old man who wanted to be with Jesus, but didn't want to die"

"His left ear, having been half-bitten off in a fight, appeared deformed, and it was."

"Mace's years of training now served him well, his reflexes releasing themselves with a speed that could only be explained, to an average man, as an abstraction beyond infinity."

October 2, 2018

JRR Letter To The Editor, August 30, 1973: "Suggests A Bible Ban"

Chicago Daily Herald, August 30, 1973:
Suggests A Bible Ban

I was more than just a little amused when I read that the school board of Dist. 96 was considering a policy that would apply censorship to all educational materials used in the district's three schools.

I trust that Big Brother Censors will not forget the Tarzan books, since Tarzan and Jane were never "joined in holy wedlock." Damn it! Tarzan and his broad are living "in sin" – and this is a big no-no!

I also suggest that the Bible be banned, that perennially popular book of fairy tales which is filled with sex and violence. Not only is the Old Testament filled with descriptions of orgies, but even incest, in the form of Lot and his daughters, rears its ugly head, not to mention prostitution and homosexuality.

Tch, tch. Such reading is not good for innocent children.

On the other hand, good Christians and god-hucksters on TV tell us that we should follow the "Good Book" and live accordingly. Since "an eye for an eye" and a "tooth for a tooth" is mentioned in the eternal fairy tale that never grows old (only more boring), I submit that we should toss out our hard-working, over-criticized police and indulge in our own personal, "Christian" brand of justice.

We could also revert to a plurality of wives, some good old fashioned polygamy, since King David and other Biblical characters had more than one wife, not to mention the "in" they had with the Creator.

As I see it, all this would be moral and proper for the good Christians of 1973 because it was all very moral and proper and legal in Biblical days – and if the Bible was the word of God then, isn't it still – right now?

We know all this happened because the Bible says so, stating that "God was with King David and all he did." And old King David was one helluva swinger – and so was King Solomon, who chased teenagers! Whether or not he was "wise" is a moot question.

Shucks, if we followed the Bible, we could even go about beheading those who stray off the path of Christian "morality," since we are told that God bid Moses to "take all heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord against the sun." Well, the daughters of Moab should have behaved themselves and not have been Biblical swingers. On the other hand, what was good enough for Charlton Heston – I mean Moses! – is good enough for me. After all, Moses conned a lot of people. Ask the Israelis! A lot of these dumbbells still think a "Redeemer" is going to come down out of the clouds and save them. So far, their only "Redeemer" has been the United States, with its gun and ammunition!

Yes, if we are to censor books, if we are to ban them, if we are to toss out the sandbags of common sense and soar away to an idiot world on a balloon of stupidity, let's do it right: let's follow the "Good Book," or else ban that mess of pornography!

Naturally the Bible will not be banned because the censors and would-be book burners are bigoted Puritans sick with the illness of smug fundamentalism, sado-masochists who love dwelling on "sin," fools who would condemn to their silly hell anyone who persists in thinking for himself and refuses to conform to their crazy spiritual dictatorship.

Joe Rosenberger
Buffalo Grove, Illinois



















As you might expect, there were several angry replies. (I'm guessing that provoking or offending as many people as possible was Rosenberger's goal.)
She Staunchly Defends Bible

To Joe Rosenberger:

You suggest a Bible ban for various reasons, some of which are: it is filled with sex, violence, incest, homosexuality, etc. You call the "Good Book" an eternal "fairy tale" and cite cases from the Old Testament to make your point, then call this the "Christian" way.

True, the Bible does contain stories filled with the things you mention – and more – which only proves that it is NOT a book of "fairy tales." If it were the stories would be just the opposite – showing the "goodness" of man. But, since it is NOT a book of "fairy tales" it "tells it like it is," showing the true nature of man – not his goodness, but his sinfulness.

Obviously, you have knowledge of "things" contained in the Old Testament, but you do not know the God which is revealed therein – the God who loves us IN SPITE of our sinful nature which results in the things you mention, violence, sex, etc. You do not know the God who came to earth in the person of Jesus the Christ to redeem us from this sinful nature.

You quote from the Old Testament then say this is the "Christian" way, such as "an eye for an eye . . .". It would seem that your knowledge of the New Testament is very limited – possibly non-existent, for most of the Scripture you quote is from the Old Testament.

Here is an example of the "Christian" way: In the book of Matthew, chapter five, Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say . . . if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also . . ." He tells us not to resist evil with evil but to overcome it with love. Hence, the "Christian" way is not violence but love.

A brief reference you do give to New Testament Scripture is "A lot of dumbbells still think a 'Redeemer' is going to come down out of the clouds and save them. So far, their only "Redeemer" has been the United States, with its gun and ammunition!" If, as you say, our only 'Redeemer' is the United States, then truly we ARE lost and without hope – just take a look around you!

The truth, whether a person wants to believe it or not, is that the only Redeemer for mankind has come to earth (Jesus the Christ), is living now (in Heaven), and will return to earth one day! God said it in His written word (the Holy Bible), therefore it is TRUE and man's opinion regarding it will NOT alter this Truth one iota!

Patricia A. Johnson
Palatine
September 7, 1973


Bible 'Misunderstood'

A deplorable situation is created when an individual exercises his right of free speech in blatant ignorance, such as Joe Rosenberger did in his Fence Post letter appearing in this paper on Thursday, August 30. His ironic suggestion that the Bible be banned due to its pornographic content merely reveals his own narrow-mindedness and prejudice.

To be effective, or even credible, a critic must demonstrate that he comprehends the material he criticizes, or at least he must display a working knowledge of the subject matter at hand. Mr. Rosenberger shows us he possesses neither.

His obsession seems to be exposing the horrible sins of Old Testament characters, which, given the consistency of human nature, hardly surprises anyone. Any knowledgeable Bible student who "rightly divides the Word of truth" (II Timothy 2:15) can readily ascertain that the Old Testament was given to us so that we might profit from both the good and bad of our predecessors (II Timothy 3:16). While Mr. Rosenberger is hung up on recounting the sexual delinquency of the human race through biblical history, he entirely overlooks or avoids the pertinent Grace message in the New Testament (primarily conveyed in the Pauline Epistles) which reveals God's present economy involving mankind (Ephesians 2:8 and 9, Titus 2:11 and 12). Omitting perhaps the most significant portion of a work, in writing a critique, is hardly considered equitable to either the work or to the author.

Remember, Mr. Rosenberger, that book, which you apparently deplore so greatly, was one of the foundations upon which the American Democracy was laid, by men who believed firmly in their God and his word, the very same Bible. These men were hardly the type who would "soar away to an idiot world on a balloon of stupidity" or believe firmly in "a mess of pornography" as you have labeled the Bible. And they were quite tolerant of one's "thinking for himself," as evidenced by their foresight in establishing such a system as the one which currently allows both you and I to express our opinions.

Thomas and Paula Moore
Palatine
September 10, 1973


Bible Defended

In reply to Mr. Rosenberger's letter, "Let's Ban the Bible."

No, Mr. Rosenberger, the Bible will not be banned and not because of bigoted Puritans as you stated. By its own weight the Bible will remain in existence. Peter does remind us, "The Word of the Lord endureth forever."

What book down through history has been already burned, banned, ripped and scorned more than the Bible – yet has survived intact? Obviously, it was not only divinely inspired, it has been divinely protected.

Yes, it contains sex and violence, but God does not condone everything He reveals. As the author of truth He must tell all – like it is – and the Bible is full of warnings against human debauchery.

The Bible also contains, love, peace, joy, wisdom, beauty, justice and power. It's unfortunate that so many minds are unaware of its content.

As for Christianity – many people who dismiss the Christians have never personally examined the grounds for the Christian claim. They have never read through the New Testament documents, particularly the Gospels, with an open mind.

Mary M. Wells
Schaumburg
September 13, 1973

August 8, 2018

JRR Letter To The Editor, August 22, 1973: "Pornography Foes 'Crackpots'"

From The Chicago Daily Herald of August 22, 1973:
Pornography's Foes 'Crackpots'

Mr. William D. North of Arlington Heights is to be congratulated for his brilliant analysis regarding the paradox of "pornography," his dissection of the prevailing situation clearly and concisely giving evidence to the fact that "pornography" is what any particular person might think it is.

Unfortunately, every society in all periods of history and in every nation, has had its Watchers of Morals, those "saintly" morons who try to cram their own brand of Right vs. Wrong down the throat of their neighbors. Today, we see this brand of dictatorship not only in those completely hazy areas regarding "pornography," but in all subjects with which the Know-it-Alls disagree.

Abortion, for example. Completely ignoring the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court said it was any woman's right to decide whether or not she should have an abortion, there are those who are still screaming "sin" and "murder" simply because they do not believe in abortion; and they cannot be wrong in any moral pronouncement! This is another way of saying that they would deny the rest of society the very basic freedom of choice. In short, these damn fools would deny another person the right to his own belief!

It is the same crackpots who, in their frantic effort to make the rest of society conform to their own personal beliefs, are now making a big, useless noise about "pornography," the same breed of Nut who would have the police act as Censors – and who would probably have society read nothing but the Bible. My advice to the police is to ignore these crackpots.

Should censorship ever work, what would be the next logical step? Censorship of the free press, the same free press that exposed Watergate? Or perhaps they would decide how their neighbors should vote, or the religion in which their neighbor should believe. Since they are immune to all logic, they will quickly tell you that their religion is the only "truth faith!"

Medieval Europe saw this very thing happen, and for over 200 years the arts and sciences came to a complete standstill! Why? Because they, in the form of the Pope and other crackpots, decided that all anyone needed to know was contained in the Bible! It was this same believe-as-I-do-or-else that led to the Italian and Spanish Inquisition, in which millions of innocent people – even children – were torn apart with a savagery equalled only by the Nazi sadists in Hitler's Germany.

John F. Kennedy summed it up very well when he said: "Censorship is basically against human rights. The lock on the door of the legislature, the parliament or assembly hall, by order of the King, the Commissar, or the Fuhrer, has historically been followed or preceded by a lock on the door of the printer's, the publisher's or the booksellers."

President Kennedy forgot to mention the local crackpots who watch everyone's morals but their own!

Joe Rosenberger
Buffalo Grove, Illinois

July 4, 2018

JRR Letter To The Editor, March 20, 1973: "Abortion: Both Sides"

The US Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade was announced on January 22, 1973. Less than two months later, the Chicago Daily Herald printed six letters to the editor regarding abortion. Only two of the six writers supported a woman's right to an abortion. Joseph Rosenberger was one of those two supporters.
I am getting more than a little nauseated at these smug anti-abortionists, who, with their myopic little minds, fail to understand what the entire issue of abortion is about: namely, whether or not the individual woman should have a choice in the matter. Or have they conveniently forgotten?

Deciding on a point of law, not on a point of morals, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is the right of every woman to make up her own mind as to whether she should have an abortion. All this is in stark contrast to Roman Catholics and other religious groups, who have neatly cataloged all the "rights" and "wrongs" of the human race, and who have taken it upon themselves to dictate to American society their own special brand of morality.

Sometimes these know-it-alls, these next-to-God people succeed, and when they do we have explosive situations that exist in Northern Ireland, where "good people" are slaughtering each other (and their brats) because they disagree on the various routes that supposedly lead to that Eternal Social Security Land in the Big Sky; or Ireland proper, where the Church is so powerful that we find censorship of the press, to insure that those who disagree with primitive superstition can't express their views; or Spain and Portugal, considered two of the most backward nations in Europe; or Italy, where, until a few years ago, even divorce was illegal, all of which resulted in millions of couples merely living together "in sin."

Isn't it odd that while anti-abortionists also roar and rave about individual rights in other matters, they would take away those same rights and freedoms from others by imposing their own moral beliefs on all of society, by NOT permitting the individual woman to decide the moral question of abortion for herself!

More paradoxical is the fact that these religious crackpots never even whisper the other moral aspect of the abortion question: that they are free not to have an abortion. Of course, they couldn't anyhow, or they'd go to "hell" and sizzle forever like a piece of bacon in a too hot skillet!

And isn't it odd that while they scream about "religious freedom," they assume it is their "moral" right and duty to impose upon all of society their own special brand of right and wrong.

I suggest it's time for these big mouthed know-it-alls to practice their own beliefs, which is certainly their right, and leave others alone to practice theirs.

Just for the record, lest someone blame the poor Jews for my opinion, because my name is Rosenberger, let me state that I am not Jewish (I've got more sense than believe in "redeemers").

Actually I'm from another planet, doing a survey on the various religious and mythological superstitions of Earth creatures, and find it unique how hypocrites can scream about "religious freedom" when all they do is try to dictate their own framework of organized superstitions to the rest of society.

Perhaps it's the nature of the beast; perhaps it's because even intelligent people insist on clinging to any belief – no matter how ridiculous that belief is – that offers some hope of afterdeath security. Personally, I pity such fools.

Joseph R. Rosenberger
Buffalo Grove, Illinois

June 23, 2018

JRR Letter To The Editor, October 31, 1972: "Critic Explains Letters Stand ..."

Continuing the discussion from the last Letters post, Joseph Rosenberger wrote:
Critic Explains Letters Stand ...

It would seem that my criticism of the prayer vigil held at St. Joseph The Worker Church has stirred a tornado in a thimble; it has also brought a response which indicates that some people are not too well informed about their own faith, other than believing the official propaganda with which they have been brain-washed. I refer to Mr. Thomas F. Mahoney of Buffalo Grove, who, with typical crystal ball logic, has the "ability" to read hidden meanings in apparently any letter!

What Mr. Mahoney seems to forget is that religious freedom also means the option NOT to believe in "traditional" religion, the freedom to express one's opinion, and the legal and moral right to denounce what one considers ignorance and/or injustice, whether one be a deist, an agnostic, an atheist, a humanist or a rationalist!

If the "community" and one's "neighbors" would deny any person this freedom of choice, then the community and one's neighbors would be indulging in hypocrisy and ignoring the Christian concepts of justice in which they profess to believe.

If I were so narrow as to indulge in Mr. Mahoney's kind of reasoning, I would suggest that he's advocating "when in Rome do as the natives do"! Believe as everybody else believes, don't have an opinion, and for God's sake (no pun intended) don't rock the holy boat! I can only wonder: if Mr. M. had lived in Nazi Germany, would he have bleated "HEIL" with the rest of the sheep, simply to avoid "offending the community"? Would he have advocated the hanging of "witches," had he lived in Salem, Mass. in 1692?

As for my "patent ignorance of the positive emphasis" of Catholic education, I am more than familiar with this so-called emphasis, so much so that, as a professional author, I've written books both on Roman Catholic sexual philosophy and Roman Catholic education – and all from the Catholic viewpoint, too. Writing these books was simply another job, and I was well paid for the task.

I personally fall to find any "positive emphasis" in a moral credo that, among other things, would turn a woman into a baby-making machine by subjecting her to the rhythm system, which is considered a joke among medical men, who refer to it as "Vatican Roulette!" And woe to any RC wife who refuses to play the game. She is excommunicated latae sententiae – Canon Law 2350. This is the kind of "positive" teaching that evolved and was updated from the same "wisdom" that once taught, in the Middle Ages the craziness that a male fetus acquired a soul in 40 days and a female fetus in 80 days. St. Augustine said so, and this dictum was followed by the Church for three centuries. I can also assure the "community" that this is fact, since Jesuit friends of mine, teaching at Louis University, a Catholic institution, have told me so. Needless to say, they also considered it a joke!

Mr. Mahoney also indulges in the old fashioned Christian tactic used by Apologists: That of the false analogy. In this case, since I disagree with him, there must be something wrong with me. I must have a "peculiar problem." I would suggest Mr. M. acquire a good college logic (and a Roman Catholic Encyclopedia). Then again, perhaps he has read a few lay books on psychology and fancies himself a kind of "expert" in human nature. . .

Sorry, Mr. Mahoney, but I don't have any "peculiar problem" – financially, emotionally, or otherwise. In fact, I'm quite content and happy. I don't even have the problem of being bothered by narrow-minded people who don't even know the facts about their own religious heritage. But I don't complain, anymore than I become annoyed because a baboon has no appreciation of beauty, or because an aborigine is not conversant with the finer shades of courtesy or self-sacrifice. On the galactic scale, the human race is still young, and the limitations of the contending religious systems may be but the growing pains of humanity on its spiritual pilgrimage.

Joseph Rosenberger
Buffalo Grove, Illinois
On the same date – October 31, 1972 – two letters in opposition to Rosenberger's original letter were published:
... And A Catholic Criticizes Him

I am offering my rebuttal to Mr. Joseph R. Rosenberger's article entitled: "Catholic Sex Ed Needed" in our Catholic schools. I really pity your bigotry, especially since it comes from one of the "chosen people." I'm sure you don't speak for the rest.

Yes, Mr. Rosenberger, Roman Catholic authorities and Roman Catholic parents should be allowed to teach the Catholic faith to members of our church and to our children, and without any interference from an outsider. No, Mr. Rosenberger, we are not "demanding public funds to teach our faith." It's amazing how one reads into each debate on this issue only what one chooses to. Of the hundreds of subjects taught in parochial schools, whether that school be Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish, religion is ONE subject. We only appeal for aid on busing, which the public school children have; we request aid for the purchase of secular, I repeat SECULAR, books, which public school children have; we request aid for the purchase of secular science and lab materials, secular gym equipment, etc. etc., which public school children enjoy.

How can you call our church "ostrich-headed" in its attitudes on modern sex education. You have no idea whatever what goes on in our private schools. Our sex education program can match any similar program put out by the public schools. If you wish your children to know everything there is to know and then some, go ahead and teach them; no one is stopping you. You think you're qualified in so many other facets, you certainly should be capable of teaching them the facts of life. I suggest you pull YOUR HEAD out of the sand, stop over at St. Mary's, speak to Father Duffy. He will be more than happy to give you the material we use from grades 1 through 8, relating to sex education. Then, after you have read this material. see if you still call us "ostrich-headed."

Soon our schools will be in danger of over-educating our children in matters of sex and drugs. Soon our schools, both public and private, will employ so many techniques, in over-education, that our country will lead the world in unmarried pregnant girls; we will lead the world in hard-line narcotic users. Education along these lines is of great benefit WHEN applied wisely. Certain ages and levels of maturity are capable of learning in certain stages. The parents, not the schools, know which of our children are capable of learning what things. But it sounds like you wish to push the pendulum so far the other way we will over educate. And Mr. Rosenberger, there is such a thing as OVER EDUCATION. Don't show the child the dangers of drugs, but even show them how to prepare an injection of heroin on film, so in case that child wasn't sure how to do it, after the film he will be! So the children who had no interest in drugs before the film, now had the interest perked up.

Mr. Rosenberger, the GREAT AUTHORITY on prayer! You must know something beyond us. How are you so sure prayer is a joke and does NOT help. Prayer and faith have sustained countless of generations before you were born, and it will continue to sustain countless of generations long after your passing. Don't sell the power of prayer so short! It is people such as you who make fun of prayer, that are the first ones to invoke God's name during a tragedy.

Then, your "prayer" is usually the old "gimme-and-I'll-give-ya" type, such as "Oh God, if you let Billy pull through, I'll do such and such." This "prayer" is invoked in the emotion of the moment, and the barter is usually broken as soon as Bill pulls through. I'm not saying that this type of prayer is wrong. Sometimes it takes tragedy for us to find our way to God again. But I am saying that prayer can also be: "Thank you God for my life; thank you God for my parents; thank you God for my health; thank you God for my children; thank you God for this beautiful earth." And a prayer for you, Mr. Rosenberger, "thank you, God, for the ability to be in a free nation that allows me the right to write in a newspaper expounding my bigotry."

You remind me of the little boy standing outside the candy store window, wishing he were inside with the rest of us. Well, Mr. Rosenberger, come on in – we won't charge you.

Alice Wiles
Arlington Heights

P.S. What a giant step backward you and I have token from ecumenical goats. Shame on us!
And:
Sex Ed Letter
'Unfair Comment'

I would like to support Thomas Mahoney in his reply to Mr. Rosenberger's letter on sex education, and go one step further.

Should the Rosenberger letter have been printed in the first place? This is the second time in recent weeks that the Fence Post has published letters that had no other apparent purpose than to hold the beliefs and practices of a particular religious group (interestingly in both cases, Catholics) up to scorn and ridicule. That was the case in Mr. Rosenberger's letter and that a few weeks ago, quoting scripture texts out of context to question what the author believed were Catholic practices, which he objected to.

This is hardly fair comment on current events!

In these days when concerned people everywhere are trying to build bridges, letters which tend to divide or accent differences, particularly religious differences are out of order, especially on the editorial page of your (our) newspaper.

Harry J. Walsh
Buffalo Grove
Rosenberger's letter of October 31, 1972, prompted two more replies, which appeared on November 10. The first, from the aforementioned Thomas Mahoney:
Rosenberger's Stand Is Assailed

Mr. Joseph Rosenberger of Buffalo Grove apparently discerns in my criticism of his attack upon Catholic moral teachings implications of a constitutional dimension. In no sense, however, do I question his legal right to expound his ideas, however puerile. Rather, I point only to his lack of civility. The question is one merely of manners, not of First Amendment freedoms.

Mr. Rosenberger conjectures regarding my conduct had I been In Nazi Germany. Not having been there, I cannot satisfy his curiosity. In posing the question, however, Mr. Rosenberger appears to be suggesting an equation between his own potty-spirited attack upon a prayer vigil at St. Joseph the Worker Church and high-minded resistance to Nazi tyranny. Which nonsense suggests that Walter Mitty is alive and well, and living in Buffalo Grove.

I accept at face value Mr. Rosenberger's assertion that he has written at length on the subject of Catholic moral teaching. The fact remains nonetheless that his letters on the topic disclose only gross ignorance, both social and theological. In this field, as in others, writing varies considerably in quality. It is possible that bits and snatches of Mr. Rosenberger's prose rise above incompetence and achieve mediocrity; but I doubt it. Nor is it very important; the real point at issue here is Mr. Rosenberger's bad taste.

Mr. Rosenberger describes himself as a "professional author." How then explain his reliance upon infantile invective in lieu of reasoned discourse? The answer lies perhaps in the very looseness of the phrase, encompassing as it does root only skilled craftsmen but also hacks who churn out junk ranging from third rate advertising copy to pornographic novels. In any event a more precise appellation for Mr. Rosenberger is at hand. He states he has been "well paid" for advocating a philosophical point of view, which he personally deems detrimental to the intellectual development of his audience. This by definition is literary prostitution.

Charity, as I have previously indicated, compels sympathy for such a man. Surely we can rejoice with him, not only that he has learned acquaintances in academia, but that – and more importantly, since it clearly occupies such an exalted place in his personal hierarchy of values – he has been financially successful in life. But most importantly, in the aforementioned spirit of charity, we ought, like Gypo Nolan, to tell him we are sorry for his troubles.

Thomas F. Mahoney
Buffalo Grove
Gypo Nolan is the title character of Liam O'Flaherty's 1925 novel, The Informer, which was also made into a movie by John Ford in 1935.

Joyce McCabe adds her thoughts:
Local Sex Ed Controversy Continues

I am writing in response to Mr. Joseph R. Rosenberger's letter regarding the need for sex education in the Catholic school. As long as Mr. Rosenberger is liberal enough to believe that Roman Catholic authorities can teach the Catholic faith, it's a shame Mr. Rosenberger does not take advantage of the open house at St. Mary's once a year. If he did he would be aware of how advanced St. Mary's is. He would also be aware that not only do we teach sex education but also the responsibility which goes along with sex.

Mr. Rosenberger makes the statement, "How can two priests who never had children or had to worry about paying bills impart any advice regarding the sexual function." I can speak only for our priests who have 765 children, 1,300 families and more bills in a month than Mr. Rosenberger sees in a year. If this qualifies one to impart os [?] the sexual function, then our priests are qualified.

Mr. Rosenberger also feels that prayer will not produce a normal healthy sexual urge. I think that these children who are being taught sex education along with prayer and Christian life will put a much higher price and respect for the human body than those taught strictly just the physical function of the human body.

It appears Mr. Rosenberger speaks from ignorance when he states that the church neglects the needy. He should know the functions of Catholic Charities, Bishop's Relief Fund and individual needs churches provide for needy people. It has always been the policy of the Catholic schools never to deny a child a Catholic education because of lack of funds.

Maybe Mr. Rosenberger should accept people for what they are instead of a label. We do not wish to impose our religion on anyone.

Joyce McCabe
Buffalo Grove

June 11, 2018

JRR Letter To The Editor, October 12, 1972: "Catholic Sex Ed Needed"

Joseph Rosenberger writes a Letter to the Editor:
Catholic Sex Ed Needed

It was with a combination of pity and amusement that I read of the "Prayer Vigil," regarding chastity, to be held at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Wheeling, Oct. 13.

While believing that Roman Catholic authorities should be allowed to teach the Catholic faith to members of the Church (provided they don't demand public funds to do it), I should think that more progress could be made – both with young people and adults – if the Church would cease its ostrich-headed attitude and permit a program of modern sex education in its schools, instead of depending on pious platitudes formulated in the Middle Ages, during the days when certain Popes could "prove" the earth was "flat" . . . platitudes that were built around the premise that all sex, even between married couples, was – is – somehow frowned upon by the Creator of the universe!

Personally, I fail to see how two Franciscan Friars, who have never had to worry about paying bills, or children, or family or anything else in the every day world of making a living, can impart ANY advice regarding the sexual function. Nor do I feel that "prayer" will chain the normal and healthy sexual urges of a teenage boy or girl!

I trust these Friars, educated as they are in Church History, Catholic philosophy, homiletics, etc., will inform their listeners that modern sociological thought does not attach the exceptional value that a superficial, limited, and unscientific religious ethic sets upon it.

Most psychiatrists (and other professionals connected with the public welfare) consider absolute chastity a form of ignorance, their feeling (based on medical evidence) being that even partial chastity constitutes a blind denial of the legitimacy of the sexual acts and is nothing more than a vestige of the ancestral taboo that certain religions persist in teaching without producing any scientific or logical reason to justify it. As to those misinformed people who point to the Bible . , well, on that basis we should legalize polygamy, since many a prophet and king in the Old Testament had more than one wife. (Actually modern society does have a form of progressive polygamy, only we call it "divorce and remarriage!")

Of course, if people prefer to believe superstition and ignore modern science – that's their business. However, they should keep in mind that "prayer" has not helped any family that finds itself on the brink of bankruptcy because of too many mouths to feed. They should also realize that while the Church is a Santa Claus when it comes to giving advice, it's a miser that would put Scrooge to shame when it comes to shelling out hard cash to ANY needy family, or even permitting that family's children to attend parochial school without paying the necessary tuition.

Joseph R. Rosenberger
Buffalo Grove
Roselle Register, October 12, 1972
Six days later:
Sex Ed Letter Hit

Many people, I would suspect, are likely embarrassed for Mr. Joseph Rosenberger of Buffalo Grove, whose letter in the Fence Post (October 12) suggests that increasing sexual permissiveness is somehow the key to better mental health. Quite apart from the inanity of his thesis (and his patent ignorance of the positive emphasis Catholic education today places upon the sexual aspect of man's nature), Mr. Rosenberger's tirade against the religiously-based moral values of many of his neighbors is a deplorable exercise in bad taste.

It is a mark of the maturity of a community that its residents respect the religious convictions of one another, and in that regard Buffalo Grove is truly a fine place to live. Friendships easily and often cross religious lines, and inter-faith cooperation is frequently evidenced. Few people, fortunately, share Mr. Rosenberger's predilection for attacking the traditional moral teachings of any particular religious faith; and few also, I would hope, are so devoid of charitable sentiment that they would fail to sympathize with Mr. Rosenberger's own peculiar problem – whatever it may be.

Thomas F. Mahoney
Buffalo Grove
Roselle Register, October 18, 1972
This was not the end of the conversation ....

June 9, 2018

An Insider's View Of The Death Merchant

This "insider's view" of the Death Merchant—written by series author Joseph Rosenberger—appeared in the back of several Pinnacle paperbacks, including The Executioner #36 (August 1979) and The Penetrator #40 (January 1981). It covered six pages.

Rosenberger does not tell us how he came to create the Death Merchant series and although he includes a short bio of himself, much of what he claims may not be true. (I sent this to Joe Kenney and he posted it at Glorious Trash on October 16, 2017.)

***

An insider's view of the Death Merchant — A master of disguise, deception, and destruction . . . and his job is death.

DEATH MERCHANT
by Joseph Rosenberger

One of Pinnacle's best-selling action series is the Death Merchant, which tells the story of an unusual man who is a master of disguise and an expert in exotic and unusual firearms: Richard Camellion. Dedicated to eliminating injustice from the world, whether on a personal, national, or international level, possessed of a coldly logical mind, totally fearless, he has become over the years an unofficial, unrecognized, but absolutely essential arm of the CIA. He takes on the dirty jobs, the impossible missions, the operations that cannot be handled by the legal or extralegal forces of this or other sympathetic countries. He is a man without a face, without a single identifying characteristic. He is known as the master of the three Ds—Death, Destruction, and Disguise. He is, in fact and in theory, the Death Merchant.

The conception of the "Death Merchant" did not involve any instant parthenogenesis, but a parentage whose partnership is more ancient than recorded history. The father of Richard Camellion was Logic. The mother, Realism.

Logic involved the realization that people who read fiction want to be entertained and that real-life truth is often stranger and more fantastic than the most imaginative kind of fiction. Realism embraced the truth that any human being, having both emotional and physical weaknesses, is prone to mistakes and can accomplish only so much in any given situation.

We are born into a world in which we find ourselves surrounded by physical objects. There seems to be still another—a subjective—world within us, capable of receiving and retaining impressions from the outside world. Each one is a world of its own, with a relation to space different from that of the other. Collectively, these impressions and how they are perceived on the individual level make each human being a distinct person, an entity with his own views and opinions, his own likes and dislikes, his own personal strengths and weaknesses.

As applied to the real world, this means that the average human is actually a complex personality, a bundle of traits that very often are in conflict with each other, traits that are both good and bad. In fiction this means that the writer must show his chief character to be "human," i.e., to give the hero a multiplicity of traits, some good, some bad.

At the same time, Logic demands that in action-adventure the hero cannot be a literal superman and achieve the impossible. Our hero cannot jump into a crowd of fifty villains and flatten them with his bare hands—even if he is the best karate expert in the world! Sheer weight of numbers would bring him to his knees.

Accordingly, the marriage between Logic and Realism had to be, out of necessity, a practical union, one that would have to live in two worlds: the world of actuality and the world of fiction. This partnership would have to take the best from these two worlds to conceive a lead character who, while incredible in his deeds, could have a counterpart in the very real world of the living.

Conception was achieved. The Death Merchant was born in February of 1971, in the first book of the series, Death Merchant.

This genesis was not without the elements that would shape the future accomplishments of Richard J. Camellion. Just as a real human being is the product of his gene-ancestry and, to a certain extent, of his environment during his formative years, so the fictional Richard Camellion also has a history, although one will have to read the entire series to glean his background and training.

There are other continuities and constants within the general structure of the series. For example, it might seem that the Death Merchant tackles the absurd and the inconceivable. He doesn't. He succeeds in his missions because of his training and experience, with emphasis on the former—training in the arts and sciences, particularly in the various disciplines that deal not only with the physical violence and self-defense, but with the various tricks of how to stay alive—self-preservation!

There are many other cornerstones that form the foundation of the general story line:

* Richard Camellion abhors boredom, loves danger and adventure, and feels that he may as well derive a good income from these qualities. The fact that he often has to take a human life does not make him brutal and cruel.

* Richard Camellion works for money; he's a modern mercenary. Nevertheless, he is a man with moral convictions and deeply rooted loyalties. He will not take on any job if its success might harm the United States.

* The Death Merchant usually works for the CIA or some other U.S. government agency. The reason is very simple. Richard Camellion handles only the most dangerous projects and/or the biggest threats. In today's world the biggest battles involve the silent but very real war being waged between the various intelligence communities of the world. This war is basically between freedom and tyranny, between Democracy and Communism.

(The Death Merchant has worked for non-government agencies, but he has seldom worked for individuals because few can pay his opening fee: $100,000. Usually, those individuals who could and would pay his fee, such as members of organized crime, couldn't buy his special talents for ten times that, cash in advance.)

* The Death Merchant is a pragmatic realist. He is not a hypocrite and readily admits that he works mainly for money. In his words, "While money doesn't bring happiness, if you have a lot of the green stuff you can be unhappy in maximum comfort." Yet he has been known to give his entire fee—one hundred grand—to charity!

* Richard Camellion did not originate the title "Death Merchant." He hates the title, considering it both silly and incongruous. But he can't deny it. He does deal in death. The nickname came about because of his deadly proficiency with firearms and other devices of the quick-kill. (All men die, and Camellion knows that it is only a question of when. He has never feared death, "Which is maybe one reason why I have lived as long as I have.")

The weapons and equipment used in the series do exist. (Not only does the author strive for realism and authenticity, but technical advice is constantly being furnished by Lee E. Jurras, the noted ballistician and author.)

Another support of the general plot is that Camellion is a master of disguise and makeup, and a superb actor as well.

It can be said that Richard Camellion, the Death Merchant, is the heart of the series; but action—fast-paced, violent, often bloody—is the life's blood that keeps the heart pumping. This is not merely a conceptual device of the author; it is based on realistic considerations. The real world is violent. Evil does exist. The world of adventure and of espionage is especially violent.

The Death Merchant of 1971 is not necessarily the same Death Merchant of 1978. In organizing the series, we did use various concepts in constructing the background and the character of Richard Camellion.

Have any of these concepts changed?

The only way to answer the question is to say that while these concepts are still there and have not changed as such, many of them have not matured and are still in the limbo of "adolescence." For example:

We have not elaborated on several phases of his early background, or given any reasons why Camellion decided to follow a life of danger. He loves danger? An oversimplification. Who first called him the Death Merchant? What kind of training did he have? At times he will murmur, "Dominus Lucis vobiscum." What do the words "The Lord of Life be with you" mean to Camellion?

All the answers, and more, will be found in future books in the series.

Camellion's role is obvious. He's the "good guy" fighting on the side of justice. He's a man of action who is very sure of himself in anything he undertakes; a ruthless, cold-blooded cynic who doesn't care if he lives or dies; an expert killing machine whose mind runs in only one groove: getting the job done. One thing is certain: he is not a Knight on a White Horse! He has all the flaws and faults that any human being can have.

Camellion is a firm believer in law, order, and justice, but he doesn't think twice about bending any law and, if necessary, breaking it. He's an individualist, honest in his beliefs, a nonconformist.

He also seems to be a health nut. He doesn't smoke, indulges very lightly in alcohol, is forever munching on "natural" snacks (raisins, nuts, etc.), and uses Yoga methods of breathing and exercise.

Richard Camellion is not the average champion/hero. He never makes a move unless the odds are on his side. He may seem reckless, but he isn't.

Richard Camellion wouldn't turn down a relationship with a woman, but he doesn't go out of his way to find one. The great love of his life is weapons, particularly his precious Auto Mags.

As a whole, readers' reactions are very favorable to the series. It is they who keep Richard Camellion alive and healthy.

The real father and mother of Richard Camellion is Joseph Rosenberger. A professional writer since the age of 21, when he sold an article, he worked at various jobs before turning to fulltime writing in 1961. Rosenberger is the author of almost 2,000 published short stories and articles and 150 books, both fiction and nonfiction, writing in his own name and several pseudonyms. He originated the first kung fu fiction books, under the name of "Lee Chang." Among other things, he has been a circus pitchman, an instructor in "Korean karate," a private detective, and a free-lance journalist.

Unlike the Death Merchant, the author is not interested in firearms, and does not like to travel. He is the father of a 23-year-old daughter, lives and writes in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, and is currently hard at work on the latest adventure of Richard Camellion, the Death Merchant.

***

Note: Rosenberger wrote: "All the answers, and more, will be found in future books in the series." Nothing about Camellion's "early background" or "training" was revealed in the subsequent books.

May 26, 2018

JRR Letter To The Editor, May 29, 1972: "A Fetus Just Isn't An Infant"

Joseph Rosenberger did not limit his writing to action-adventure and adult books. I have discovered close to dozen Letters to the Editor, mostly written around the mid-70s, when he was living in Buffalo Grove, Illinois.

Rosenberger often ranted against organized religion in the early Death Merchant books and that is a favourite topic in these missives. He also uses somewhat goofy turns of phrase and is extremely generous with exclamation marks (there are 11 in the letter below)!

Several writers who knew Rosenberger say he held reactionary opinions and his DM books are certainly filled with unchallenged right-wing rants. However, Rosenberger was also adamantly pro-choice, as five of the nine letters I have found are in strong defense of abortion. His opinions – snarky and pompous and delivered with the finality of a court decision – often provoked letters in response, which is a nice bonus.

The earliest letter I have found (so far) is from the Chicago Daily Herald of May 29, 1972:
'A Fetus Just Isn't An Infant'

Mrs. Phil R. Dowd's recent letter condemning legalized abortion was a masterpiece of emotionalism, distortion, and just plain ignorance. In a manner similar to that used by proponents of public aid for private schools, Mrs. Dowd puts forth an appeal that is majestic in its rhetoric, but ridiculous and pathetic in its logic.

The only thing wrong with Mrs. Dowd's logic is that – apparently – she doesn't know what a fetus actually is (from a medical standpoint)! I rather gather, from her letter, that Mrs. Dowd is under the impression that a fetus is practically a perfectly developed human being, with all the faculties of adult reasoning, a sort of super-duper midget who sets up temporary housekeeping within the mother's womb – or doesn't Mrs. Dowd know that there is a universe of difference between a Fetus and a fully developed infant about to be born and that there is a very definite time limit in which an abortion can be performed. It is much more complicated than . . . say . . . cutting off a corn . . .

If I wished to indulge in Mrs. Dowd's form of fallacious reasoning and employ her deceptive logic, I would conclude that no human being should ever be operated on for cancer! After all, any cancer is a growing organism within the parent (host) body; too, a cancer goes through developing stages, just as a fetus does. How dare any surgeon give "pain" to any precious cancer!

Still using Mrs. Dowd's "pain" premise, I could also put forth the proposition that even births should be prohibited, since men of science tell us that the birth process is an extremely traumatic experience, as well as painful and emotionally disturbing for the new-born child. Of course, none of us remember the birth experience, nor is it likely that a fetus could interpret the termination of its low-level conscious existence.

Mrs. Dowd makes reference to a Dr. James H. Ford, who is apparently as confused as she is, or he wouldn't equate the very real problem of world over-population with the unreal nonsense that, if need be, the entire world population could be stacked "within a plot 30 miles square."

Fortunately, we don't live in a make-believe world, but in one that is very real. Certainly, the world could hold untold trillions of people if we wished to stack them like cordwood. Indeed, the eventual result would be "standing room only!" We can only imagine the standard of living under such conditions!

Unfortunately, neither Mrs. Dowd nor Dr. Ford offer a solution for the day when every single square foot of earth would be crammed with a bursting humanity! Abortion? Hell no! That would be "murder!" Of course, people might possibly stand on each other. Or, people might learn to breath in water, in which case we could overpopulate the oceans!

Mrs. Dowd also forgets another dark part of the problem that is seldom noticed – the crisis in morals. There is an ancient Chinese saying: "It is difficult to tell the difference between right and wrong when the stomach is empty."

People tormented by constant hunger, by joblessness, by fear and insecurity; people huddled together in overcrowded cities; people without education . . . helpless in the present, with no hope for the future – can such people be expected to develop a genuine respect for all the ethical niceties which admonish them not to steal, not to covet, not even to envy?

So we're having trouble in our cities now! What will it be like 25 years from now, if population continues to soar?

The facts are more than obvious: over-population reinforces poverty; poverty generates desperation, and desperation leads to immorality.

While legalized abortion is not the overall answer, it is a start, a partial solution, for unless population is stabilized, the children and adults of Tomorrow will find themselves in a world filled with undreamed of misery, a world of hunger and violence, a world of early death and complete immorality.

And all the well-meant, pious platitudes about "murder" and fetus "pain" by today's anti-abortionists, who would have their great-great-grandchildren inherit a hell on earth, won't change it.

Only hasten it!

Joseph R. Rosenberger
Buffalo Grove, Illinois

May 8, 2018

Super Death Merchant #1: Apocalypse

Deadly Forecast

A dark cloud hangs over the free world. Somewhere in the Aegean Sea, the Soviets are building the most powerful transmitter known to man. If successful, it will control the jet streams and turn the world's weather into the ultimate weapon of domination - a weapon capable of plunging the West into political and economic chaos!

In desperation, the CIA sends their top agent to locate the secret island fortress. But as Richard Camellion closes in on his target, a highly placed double agent prepares to betray him. For the Agency has decided that success must be bought at any price - even if it costs them the Death Merchant!

***

This is the final Death Merchant book in my reading project, but it was apparently published between #67 and #68. On two different front pages, Apocalypse is identified as "Death Merchant #68". But there was another book in the series that was #68.

Apocalypse has about twice as many pages (390) as the other books. However, the print is much larger and I have a feeling that the word count is probably similar to the late-series DM books which had 180-190 pages of very small print.

The plot of Apocalypse follows the pattern of every other Death Merchant book. It opens with an action/shootout scene. Then we get the background of the DM's particular mission. We switch to the bad guys' POV a few times for plenty of exposition. Camellion has a few altercations along the way, with maybe one or two dead ends that sometimes feel like they are included only to fill pages. And then, after many details about the planning of the final blowout, we get to the final blowout, with the requisite descriptions of the myriad wounds made by the flying projectiles and intricate descriptions of hand-to-hand combat.

The Russians want to control the world's weather patterns and they have kidnapped and forced a Greek scientist to assist them in finishing the work on a magnifying transmitter modeled on Nikola Tesla's notes. If successful, Russia would "rule the world" - and turn the United States into an uninhabitable desert. Camellion must find the island where the scientist is being held, and get him and his family out safely, while also destroying the transmitter.

The Death Merchant Has Sex—Twice!

Many 1970s action-adventure heroes — when they weren't gunning down bad guys — had wild sex with many beautiful, insatiable women. Not Richard Joseph Camellion. You could probably count on one hand the number of times Richard Camellion has been intimate with a woman in the entire series.

Which is odd, because in the late 1960s, Rosenberger slapped a Ph.D. on the end of his name and wrote numerous adult books filled with "case histories" of patients with various sexual kinks. He was more than adept at writing extremely explicit sex scenes. But perhaps he grew tired of that and when he moved into the action-adventure racket, he decided his main character would be asexual as possible (despite what is claimed about Camellion below).

The Death Merchant hits the sheets with two women in Apocalypse. The first is Melina Arnaoutis, who he meets in a bar (and who will later be revealed as a Russian spy):
It was how Ma Nature had put her together that intrigued the Death Merchant, who was far from being a stranger to feminine pulchritude. She had a slender waistline, a flat stomach, and, in the common vernacular, was well stacked, her well-shaped breasts apparently not imprisoned by a bra. When you see two faintly dark circles outlined beneath an off-white blouse, and pushing out against dots, you can bet ... the nipples are free and unconfined.

The Death Merchant had also shared enough beds with the opposite sex to know that there were three kinds of women. There were those who appeared as cold as a dead fish but became wildcats in bed. Other women looked and acted sexy but were as frigid as a 3,000-year-old statue. In the last category were those women who exuded sex and, later in bed, proved it by having orgasms almost as fast as slugs can spit from the muzzle of a MAC-Ingram submachine gun!
Rosenberger adds: "When a woman was built like Melina, only a fairy—and not the mythical kind that tapdances on the petunias!—could live in the same apartment with her and not want to play bedroom games."

However, Camellion is actually in no hurry to "play bedroom games". When Melina asks him if he wants "a quickie" after she showers, he turns her down, saying: "A wise man does not sample the food at a banquet. He slowly eats and savors each course." Also:
[Camellion] didn't want to be completely undressed until Melina had dried herself off and was in the bedroom. Melina was a gal who enjoyed sex in a shower. Camellion didn't. He couldn't enjoy a woman with water pouring down on his head. The only other thing that he didn't like about Melina was that she never shaved under her arms. Greek women never did.
The DM is an odd duck, to be sure. But he eventually gets down to business:
The Death Merchant sat down on her side of the bed, took her in his arms, and kissed her. Melina didn't resist. ... She moaned as he slipped a hand to her back to unbutton her halter, then removed the garment and for a time lavished kisses on her breasts before moving his hands to her shorts.

"You did that well," she said softly, watching him drop the shorts to the floor, "as though you've had a lot of experience."

"It's all a part of the trade," Camellion said with a straight face. "Manual 16-G-14F-K." ...

A few minutes later he was lying beside Melina on the bed, but not before he had surreptitiously looked around the bedroom to make sure no mirror was flush with the wall. ...

She began to make sounds of want, of urging, not words that could be understood but plainly expressions of rapidly mounting desire that was increasingly demanding satisfaction. ... [S]he began to gasp more loudly ... her emotions the result of primordial urges that had not changed in millions of years.

"Do it! Do it! Do it to me!" she pleaded, her long fingers clawing at him. ...

[Soon Camellion] felt his own universe explode and the floodgates open. ...

He remained with her, their rapture mingling, her low moans gradually subsiding, a reluctant admission that the Supreme Moment had come and gone.
The Death Merchant also has sex with a CIA agent named Karen Spreitler, who "had a sexiness about her that would stir any normal male":
Truly intelligent people, realizing that money is only a tool, do not make wealth the center of their lives. At the same time, they are quick to stoop and pick up a ten-dollar bill they might find on the sidewalk.

Richard Camellion was that way with sex. It wasn't that important in his life, but he wasn't going to ignore it when it was there in front of him. He was going to take advantage of it and enjoy himself. ...

It was Karen's hazel eyes that intrigued Camellion, intelligent, sensitive eyes quick to focus and in whose depths lurked strange enigmatic shadows. ...

Neither Camellion nor Karen had discussed sleeping arrangements. Looking at the large double bed, Karen said only, "It looks comfortable. We'll have a good night's sleep."

Whether she was telling him he could do more than merely sleep next to her in the same bed was a moot point. The Death Merchant's accomplishments did not include mind reading. He made his move a few minutes later, after he had removed his shirt and shoes and socks.
Does Camellion's Lifelong Dream Come True?

Early in the book, Camellion is in Athens, driving to the villa of a contact, when he has a sudden vision:
A quick flash of the future, as clear as a three-dimensional photograph, came to the Death Merchant as he was turning onto the asphalt drive. The 50-megaton hydrogen bomb would explode 1,200 feet over Athens. Instantly a million people would be vaporized by the heat that, for a nanosecond, would reach the temperature of the interior of the sun. Another million would be flash-burned; and as the mushroom cloud boiled upward into the blue Athenian sky, the 600-mph wind, spreading out from the epicenter, would kill hundreds of thousands more five to fifteen miles from the blast. The firestorm and radiation would follow.

It would be the same in Rome, Moscow, New York, London, Warsaw, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Leningrad, Chicago, Berlin, Tel Aviv, and in other major cities of the world.
The next paragraph begins: "As he was turning into the asphalt drive ...".

This seems to serve as foreshadowing, but (spoiler alert!) nothing even close to this scenario occurs in the book. However, the book ends with the strong hint that nuclear war might be about to be unleashed. Camellion, whose greatest desire in life is for the Soviet Union to become a vast wasteland of radioactive glass, "couldn't help but smile":
The only real enemies of the world were the enemies of beauty and reason. The Universe could not care less about billions of bipeds crawling around on a speck of "dust" that revolved around a quite ordinary star on the main sequence scale. The real ism involved Time and Cycles. Death had to feed on Life, and from Death always came Life. It was all relative. Like the man who won a dog named Hugh in a crap game and later lost the dog in a poker game.

You win a Hugh, and you lose a Hugh.. . .

A klaxon began to ring loudly throughout Hawkbill, and a voice called out over the intercom: "BATTLE STATIONS! BATTLE STATIONS! BATTLE STATIONS!"
A little bit earlier, we read about the horrific effects of the Russians' weather modification machine:
There are those times when Nature resents the interference of man—that puny and murderous two-legged obscenity who has the audacity to proclaim to the Universe that he—and he alone!—was made in the image of the Creator!

Nature becomes angry and rebels.

The very delicate balance of the thermosphere and the exosphere, formed above the planet over the billions of years, had been upset by the trillions of concentrated neutrons from the magnifying transmitter, the N-beam reversing the normal flow of the electrons in the ozone layer in the stratosphere, which begins six miles above the Earth.

A "hole" had been opened in the ozone layer, an aperture that was directly over north-central Turkey, four miles east of the tiny village of Artova. The instant the "hole" was created the effect was instantaneous and hideous. For only a second the "chimney," reaching from the damaged ozone layer to the surface of the planet, was only 2,710 feet in diameter. ...

If the men and women trapped outside had had only a few minutes, they would still have died horribly, but first they would have seen something that no human being had ever seen—something that hadn't occurred since the formation of the planet four billion years ago. All around them, extending from space to the surface of the planet, they would have seen an intense white illumination in which were scintillating flashes and swirls of color, intense reds, blues, greens, and violet, a Brobdingnagian aurora under even brighter lights in the sky, lights almost as brilliant as the sun now shining with full intensity through the hole in the ozone layer.

Human beings and animals had time only for short shrieks of agony as the hell-heat of UV burned them to death within seconds. ...

The people in houses, in barns, and in other kinds of buildings—especially those close to windows—were blinded. Screaming and dying more slowly from the intense heat, they were forced to endure the mental crucifixion of not knowing what was happening to them, or why. ...

The diameter of the hell chimney from space continued to expand at the rate of several hundred feet a minute. Within that large, round circle everything burned, everything died. ...

Pure panic and total awe was the result of the phenomenon, which people knew had to be pure destruction, pure hell, pure death. All normal activity, everything, stopped. Even communists dropped to their knees and started to pray, asking, begging, for forgiveness.

Within an hour, newswires all over the planet were aware of the Hideousness growing in Turkey. In Borne, the Pope prepared for the Final Conflagration. Scores of millions of people watched the sky, expecting to see Jesus Christ—in all His glory and surrounded by singing angels and stern-faced "saints"—coming down on a white horse.

Hundreds of people dropped dead from fright. Thousands rioted.

Hundreds committed suicide.
This is happening as the Death Merchant and his forces attack the Greek island. They receive a couple of updates during the battle. As they are told the ozone hole is 20 miles in diameter and "millions of people were dead", Colonel Burrell was "secretly wishing he could remember Nostradamus' prediction about the end of the world".

Once the hole's diameter expands to 300 miles, it begins shrinking. (When the rescued professor is asked why, he says, "I don't know.") In a matter of hours, the truth has come out and the Greek government admits the Russians had secretly used the island as a base of operations. President Reagan refers to the Soviet Union as a "bandit nation of sadists and paranoiacs".

The Pharmacy Ambush

A reader must suspend some (or a lot) of disbelief in reading these books — while countless slugs have come within a quarter-inch of Camellion's head and various parts of his body in this series, the only times he did catch a slug, he just happened to be wearing a top-of-the-line bulletproof vest — but one scene in this book was beyond ridiculous. Chapter 8 begins with Camellion doing some shopping:
He had only one stop to make before returning home, a health food store six blocks from Melina's apartment. Camellion had exhausted his supply of vitamin B6 capsules. Vitamin B6 was essential in removing homocysteine from the blood. Diets known to cause atherosclerosis, or "hardening of the arteries," were usually high in cholesterol and methionine. And methionine produced homocysteine. Vitamin B6 helped destroy homocysteine and prevent fatty deposits from building up in vessels and arteries. ...

The clerk, a young and dumpy woman with beautiful black hair, spoke very good English and was eager to help Camellion, who bought two bottles of 50-milligram B6 tables and a bottle of 250-milligram choline capsules, which helped destroy fat in the liver.

He left the store and started to walk west toward the FIAT Uno, sixty feet away. He was in front of the TV and radio store when he detected what appeared to be several inches of a sonics suppressor protruding from the bottom of the front window on the right side of a Nissan 200. ...
The average man might not have noticed the few inches of the rounded silencer, or if he had, he might have hesitated, taking time to wonder what the object was. The Death Merchant knew instantly that he was staring not only at the black muzzle of a silencer, but that someone was about to try to quietly put a bullet into him. Whoever it was almost did. The silencer went phyyyt phyyyt at the same instant that Camellion jerked himself to his right, directing his body to the space between the front of the Datsun and the rear of the Audi, which were parked in front of his car.

Ivan Berzin, a KGB Boyevaya Gruppa kill-expert, had pulled the trigger of the silenced Czech CZ75 pistol twice. The first 9-mm flat-point bullet tore into the space between the Death Merchant's left rib cage and his inner left arm. The second slug passed half an inch from the outside of his left biceps. ...

An unhappy Richard Camellion, crouched down in the three-foot space between the Datsun and the Audi, jerked up his left pant leg and pulled the .45 Detonics from the ankle holster. ...

Well, fudge! ... I'm fresh out of miracles. Now I'll have to do some hard thinking.
Okay. This KGB Boyevaya Gruppa kill-expert - one of the finest and most elite trained assassins on the planet, we are told, and one who is working with a team of at least three other assassins - sees his target coming out of a store in broad daylight, but he doesn't do his job.

Instead, he simply sits in the front seat of his car, holding his gun, and waits until Camellion gets close enough to notice the end of the pistol poking out of the car window. And even then he fires only after Camellion starts moving to his right and diving between two cars. ... Kill-expert, my ass. Berzin must be the most timid, indecisive assassin of all-time. (And what are the other two killers in the car doing? Reading magazines? Taking a nap?)

Who Is "Ralph Buntline"?
It had been agreed that the CIA would send one of its most experienced field agents into Greece. In this case, the operative would be Ralph Buntline, who would travel under the name of Richard Camellion. Grojean had not mentioned that "Richard Camellion" was a non-contract agent.

The how and the why had been next on the agenda. "Richard Camellion" would have to have a legitimate reason for going into Greece. ...

The CIA had a proprietary firm in New York that was perfect: Triangle Importing and Exporting Company, Inc.

Why couldn't Richard Camellion fly to Greece as a representative of Triangle? By so doing, he would be able to make contact with Joseph Pappas, who also had an importing and exporting business.
Rosenberger does not bring up this bit of information again. However: In The Soul Search Project (DM #62), someone asks: "Which of you is Richard Camellion?" The Death Merchant states: "That's the name on my baptismal record." (The narrator informs us that this is a lie.)

Camellion certainly goes to Greece as a Triangle representative and meets with Pappas. Is the Death Merchant's true name Ralph Buntline? Only the Cosmic Lord of Death knows for sure.

Etc.:

There is a character named "Julius George Hagberg". Rosenberger had a step-brother named "Julius George Fritz".

Cahill had "a face that looked as if it belonged to a man who did pushups without hands".

We learn (for the first time) that Camellion rarely drinks because "his uncle had died an alcoholic" and his father had been "a hopeless drunkard" for 30 years. Camellion was "afraid he might acquire the habit ... [He] knew the same weakness was in his own genes."

The slug "bored through the zygomatic (or cheek) bone, zipped through her nasopharynx, and went out the back of her head".

The Death Merchant was "exceptionally facile at shifting from one cognitive process to another ... Some men were like that."

The Death Merchant heard Pappas say something "in the pessimistic tone of a man who has been told in the morning that he has won a $5 million lottery, but learns in the afternoon he has incurable cancer and will have a grass cover and a granite pillow in six months".

"It is not likely that when Sir William Bond created Old Bond Street from a muddy country lane in 1686, he envisioned the city that would be London 301 years later." (That is true, it's not likely.)

"Per ratio of population [Athens had] six percent more taxis than ... New York"

An example of Rosenberger's bizarre habit of stating something and then immediately undercutting it by stating the opposite:
The KGB was not so paranoid that it attempted to bug the room of every tourist who might come to Riga. Just the same, the hotel was Intourist, the Soviet travel bureau. It was possible that every room in the place was bugged. In the Soviet Union the KGB used this system not only in Intourist hotels but also in such hotels as the Metropole and others favored by foreign visitors.
"Yeah, let's earn our daily CIA bread. It does beat writing bumper stickers for a living ..."

"He might as well have asked me to take a bath on top of a flag pole!"

"I think it's illogical to inhale smoke from a weed wrapped in paper, and pay money to do it."

"That's as ridiculous as saying that Joan of Arc's last request was for a match!"

"At that moment, he would have agreed that an ant could stack a ton of hay in half a minute."

"Sifting through the carefully indexed files of his mind ..."

Camellion is pissed and wants to tell his CIA boss, Courtland Grojean, to go fuck himself:
"I'm thinking of corals, hydras, jellyfish, and other Cnidaria, sometimes called coelenterata," Camellion said, sucking in his lower lip.

"I'm listening." Grojean forced himself to be patient. He had always considered the Death Merchant to be the Patron Saint of the Perpetually Strange and was never too surprised at anything he might say.

"Corals, hydras, jellyfish, and other coelenterata are asexual. No sex organs! No fun! In contrast, hermaphrodite or bisexual animals, such a worms, bryozoans, snails, slugs, and what-have-you, have sex organs of both sexes."

"So!" Grojean uncomfortably shifted his weight in the chair.

Camellion smiled. "If you were a worm, I could tell you to go have sexual intercourse with yourself. That should give you some idea of the odds against my going to Miskos without being paid to do so."
"Do you realize that the human race is made up of only passionate vegetables? Do you realize that if you placed a dozen tomatoes or a dozen cucumbers in a sack and shook them, they would have as much passion as we have—DO YOU? ANSWER ME!"

"Poor pig farmer. You overrate yourself. You think you're an idiot!"

"Colonel Clint Ambule flexed his tonsils."

"Racing in a crooked run, on a course that would make a pretzel look like a straight line ..."

"There were times when [Camellion] felt he was the only resident adult in a house full of psychotic monkeys. 'All of us are prisoners, more or less, of our early conditioning and religious training.'"

"Life is many things."

April 14, 2018

The Rosenberger Library: Action-Adventure

Joseph Rosenberger wrote and published more than 90 action-adventure books between 1971-1989.

The Death Merchant
.1. The Death Merchant (February 1971)
 2. Operation Overkill (February 1972)
 3. The Psychotron Plot (August 1972)
 4. Chinese Conspiracy (January 1973)
 5. Satan Strike (April 1973)
 6. The Albanian Connection (July 1973)
 7. The Castro File (January 1974)
 8. The Billionaire Mission (May 1974)
 9. The Laser War (August 1974)
10. The Mainline Plot (November 1974)
11. Manhattan Wipeout (March 1975)
12. The KGB Frame (July 1975)
13. The Mato Grosso Horror (September 1975)
14. Vengeance Of The Golden Hawk (January 1976)
15. The Iron Swastika Plot (March 1976)
16. Invasion Of The Clones (May 1976)
17. The Zemlya Expedition (July 1976)
18. Nightmare In Algeria (September 1976)
19. Armageddon, USA! (November 1976)
20. Hell In Hindu Land (January 1977)
21. The Pole Star Secret (March 1977)
22. The Kondrashev Chase (May 1977)
23. The Budapest Action (July 1977)
24. The Kronos Plot (September 1977)
25. The Enigma Project (November 1977)
26. The Mexican Hit (January 1978)
27. The Surinam Affair (March 1978)
28. Nipponese Nightmare (May 1978)
29. Fatal Formula (July 1978)
30. The Shambhala Strike (October 1978)
31. Operation Thunderbolt (December 1978)
32. Deadly Manhunt (February 1979)
33. Alaska Conspiracy (April 1979)
34. Operation Mind-Murder (June 1979)
35. Massacre In Rome (August 1979)
36. The Cosmic Reality Kill (November 1979)
37. The Bermuda Triangle Action (February 1980)
38. The Burning Blue Death (April 1980)
39. The Fourth Reich (June 1980)
40. Blueprint Invisibility (August 1980)
41. Shamrock Smash (October 1980)
42. High Command Murder (December 1980)
43. The Devil's Trashcan (February 1981)
44. Island Of The Damned (April 1981)
45. The Rim Of Fire Conspiracy (June 1981)
46. Blood Bath (September 1981)
47. Operation Skyhook (December 1981)
48. Psionics War (January 1982)
49. Night Of The Peacock (March 1982)
50. The Hellbomb Theft (June 1982)
51. The Inca File (August 1982)
52. The Flight Of The Phoenix (November 1982)
53. The Judas Scrolls (December 1982)
54. Apocalypse, USA! (March 1983)
55. Slaughter In El Salvador (June 1983)
56. Afghanistan Crashout (August 1983)
57. The Romanian Operation (November 1983)
58. The Silicon Valley Connection (March 1984)
59. The Burma Probe (June 1984)
60. The Methuselah Factor (September 1984)
61. The Bulgarian Termination (December 1984)
62. The Soul Search Project (March 1985)
63. The Pakistan Mission (June 1985)
64. The Atlantean Horror (September 1985)
65. Mission Deadly Snow (April 1986)
66. The Cobra Chase (August 1986)
67. Escape From Gulag Taria (December 1986)
Super Death Merchant #1 - Apocalypse (April 1987)
68. The Hindu Trinity Caper (July 1987)
69. The Miracle Mission (October 1987)
70. The Greenland Mission (February 1988)

Murder Master
1. Death Trap (November 1973)
2. Caribbean Caper (March 1974)
3. Operation Hooker (1974)

Kung Fu Featuring Mace (writing as Lee Chang)
1. Year Of The Tiger (September 1973) 
2. Year Of The Snake (February 1974) 
3. Year Of The Rat (June 1974) 
4. Year Of The Dragon (September 1974) 
5. Year Of The Horse (December? 1974)

C.O.B.R.A.
1. The Heroin Connection (December 1986) 
2. Paris Kill-Ground (April 1987) 
3. The Red Dragon Operation (September 1987) 
4. Nightmare In Panama (December 1987) 
5. Project Andromeda (September 1988) 
6. Belgrade Battleground (January 1989)

Shadow Warrior
1. The Hong Kong Massacre (May 1988) 
2. Caribbean Blood Moon (July 1988) 
3. Ninja Nightmare (September 1988) 
4. Hell Wind In Burma (November 1988)


Others

Assassination: Theory And Practice
(Writing as Richard Camellion, the fictional Death Merchant; non-fiction; August 1977)

Behavior Modification: The Art Of Mind Murdering
(Writing as Richard Camellion, the fictional Death Merchant; non-fiction; June 1978)

Nick Carter #125: Thunderstrike In Syria
(March 1979)

Geneva Force
(January 1989)