#Mack bolan

[lilithsaintcrow]

"Melville meant himself. You want to be careful what you wish for. Inspiration means breathing. Fish breathe by drowning."

[artbyblastweave]

Some food for thought: I don't know if you're already familiar with this, but there's an episode of Classic-era Doctor Who where the Doctor + companions travel to the Land of Fiction (a pocket dimension full of characters from myth, folklore & narrative fiction), and encounter a superhero drawn from a fictional 2000 AD comic serial, the Karkus. He *seems* like a parody of Liefeld-style antiheroes from the '90s - comically exaggerated muscles, death or corpse-related name, threats of graphic violence, carries a massive gun... except this episode, The Mind Robber, was written in *1968*!

That's actually only 6 years before The Punisher's debut appearance! And a year before one of the major inspirations for the Punisher, Mack Bolan. I've heard through the grapevine that Punisher is sort of a surviving example of a kind of ultraviolent muscleman vigilante pulp character who he's since eclipsed in the public imagination, so it wouldn't surprise me if the Karkus is a now-illegible riff on characters who were common at the time but didn't manage to survive into the modern media landscape.

[pressplay-if]

I LOVE T.REX!!! you dont know how much joy i got from listening to Get It On right after i saw the poll. what other bands/artists are you thinking of incorporating into your work? i love stevie nicks and fleetwood mack but i would love to see some david bowie references if thats also something you listen to.

i really love the IF so far and wish you the best of luck!!! <3

YAY OMG I'M STOKED TO HEAR THAT. Bolan was such a character (affectionate), and Get It On is Paul/Paulette Zima's intro song in my head lol

I FREAKING LOVE DAVID BOWIE I LOVE HIM SO MUCH SOOOO MUCH

I loved him even before I got into Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks. Which is not to say that I love him more, but I've loved him for longer. So yes, there will indeed be Bowie references (plural). Here's the other artists I am currently planning on/considering referencing in the intros: Tim Capello, Patti Smith, Blondie, Carole King, Carly Simon, Rod Stewart, Bon Jovi, Florence and the Machine. Of course, it's very specific songs by these people that I have in mind, but I won't divulge what those songs are bc it could be spoilery. I'm working things out as I go, though, but in essence, every chapter is going to have a lyrical intro to fit the story.

Small teaser: Chapter 3, which deals with the hospitalization of MC, will have a reference to "Free" by Florence and the Machine as an intro :)

[trashmenace]

The Executioner 10: Caribbean Kill by Don Pendleton

The Executioner 10 Caribbean Kill by Don Pendleton

Mack Bolan flies straight from Las Vegas to Puerto Rico, smashes his plane into a mafia compound and hits the ground running. After some jungle combat he rescues a sex worker who ends up being a federal agent, rescues a hostage, and raids a mansion to take out the local head. Along the way he recruits a mafia pilot 'Nam veteran.

Bolan learns of a Federal Government effort to have him snuffed out. The perceived enemy also expands, to include governments and corporation who profit from organized crime.

Available at Amazon

[chernobog13]

Actor Steve Holland, TV's Flash Gordon in 1954, posing as Doc Savage for the covers painted by James Bama for the 1960s paperback reprints of Doc's adventures. Bama dubbed Holland "the world's greatest male model."

Holland was also the model for The Avenger, when his books were reprinted in the 1970s, and Mack Bolan, The Executioner. His likeness appeared on hundreds of other paperback covers, from spy thrillers to cowboy yarns.

[markhodderauthor]

I just read for the #MyNovelLife challenge (rules in the comments): REPAIRMAN JACK No1: THE TOMB by F. Paul Wilson (from 1984, when I was 22). Influenced by the pulps, particularly the stories of Sax Rohmer and similar, this fun novel delivers a rip-roaring adventure with an occult “creature feature” twist. Repairman Jack is an excellent character—a freelancer who fixes bad situations, lives off the grid, is a hoarder, and who also collects Universal horror movies on betamax (yay!). He comes across as a more complex and likeable Mack Bolan type but with enemies that are FAR weirder than the Executioner’s. The action scenes are very good, well-written and thrilling. It’s a page-turner that had me grinning all the way through. One thing, though. Why on earth is it called THE TOMB? There’s not a single tomb in it!

[bookishpixiereads]

“The Executioner: War Against the Mafia” by Don Pendleton

⭐️ ⭐️ 

The whole experience of this book is wild.The book was originally published in 1969, but my used copy was published in 1972. It’s the first in a 642 book series.

There is a literal cigarette ad in the middle of this book! Flip through the photos on my post if you want to see it! It wasn’t even the brand of cigarettes that our main character smoked!

Mack Bolan is the Executioner. Bolan is an expert marksman during the Vietnam War to the point that his nickname becomes The Executioner. The first chapter, which honestly was the best part of the book, tells the story of how Mack’s father got behind in loan payments to the mafia who then proceeded to shake him down. A lot of very bad things happen that I don’t want to spoil because as I said its the best chapter in the whole darn thing, but its bad, and Mack is granted leave to come home and deal with the fallout. Then he seeks revenge on members of the Mafia - execution-style.  

I’ve never read something that was so obviously written for a male audience.  This is absolutely written for the male gaze. If you can’t tell by the title and the dime novel nature of this cover, this is not high class literature. And that’s fine.  Most of what I read is not high class literature. But this was just violence and sex.  

And the women in this book were only viewed as virgins or whores. There is no in between. And there is a lot of hypocrisy in the way he treats sex workers. And if have to read one more time about women’s “globular” breasts, I swear…

So much of this book is very surface level. You don’t get a lot of what Mack’s thinking, just a lot of him doing. Most of his internal dialogue is him debating the morality of what he is doing.

Sometimes it’s funny reading a book written in the 60s, because the author is trying to show off technology that was new for the time, but was NEVER pertinent to the plot. We are given a description over the span of a couple of pages about how the mafia has computerized their prostitution business and in detail, how it works. Does it come back later for this to be important? No, it doesn’t.

Not the worst book, but wild. 

[ninasbookshelf]

I'm tempted to vote in your genre poll, but I'm not certain which one is most accurate or what genre definitions are.

Is adventure kind of exclusively like Mack Bolan Executioner/Remo Williams Destroyer-type novels and then maybe Doc Savage pulps?

I was tempted to vote adventure because I do dabble in that area and also read sword and sorcery fantasy, superhero comics, plain text novelizations of superhero comics, RPG setting-inspired fantasy novels, and paranormal romance where the heroine does spend a lot of time mowing down rogue vampires and shapeshifters with guns and flamethrowers, which in my opinion could all come together in one big genre that could be called adventure.

I’m late to respond to this - I haven’t read any of the specific novels you mentioned, but from the brief descriptions i read online just now, it seems they are classified as adventure, but I don’t think the genre is limited to that specific type of novel. Totally up to you whichever you feel fits your tastes most. If it’s a mix of fantasy and non-fantasy adventure stories that you read, I’d choose the adventure option! It sounds like it’s a good fit based on the traits you described

(I hope this made sense lol)

[esonetwork]

'Levon's Trade' Book Review

New Post has been published on http://esonetwork.com/levons-trade-book-review/

'Levon's Trade' Book Review

LEVON’S TRADE By Chuck Dixon Rough Edges Press 192 pgs

A little over a year ago, Chuck Dixon sent us a copy of his novel “Levon’s Time,” the seventh in this series about Levon Cade, an ex-Marine who crosses paths with lots of bad people; much to their woes. We’d been aware of the series but hadn’t had the opportunity to check it out. The best way to describe Levon Cade is that he is pretty much a redneck cousin to both Jack Reacher and Mack Bolan. He’s a good man, a patriot, and a devoted father. Delighted with that book, we picked up volumes eight and nine as they were published. Becoming enthusiastic fans, we put on the breaks. Before going any further with this character, it was high time we went back and started at the beginning. Thus we attempted to purchase Volume One from Amazon only to discover it wasn’t available.

We dropped Dixon an e-mail to that fact and he was surprised. Come to find out, Amazon had screwed up, and book one should have been listed as available. He wasted no time in correcting that snafu. We in turn immediately ordered Volumes One and Two. And here we are with this review. Readers should understand, that regardless of my friendship with the author, my reviews are based solely on the book’s quality. If a book stinks to high heaven, we don’t review it. The world has enough junk in it without us adding more.

“Levon’s Trade” is a power-packed action thriller that hits the ground running. We’re introduced to Cade, a widower whose wife died of cancer and left him with a 7-year-old daughter named Merry (short for Meredith). She lives with her maternal grandparents who are suing the courts for full custody. They argue that Cade suffers from PTSD and is a danger to the child. Of course, the claim is bogus, but the grandparents are wealthy and will use that wealth to forestall the court’s verdict until Cade can no longer afford to contest them. In short, he’s in desperate need of quick cash.

This is where the plot intertwines with Job Bob Wiley, a rich construction entrepreneur whose daughter, Jenna, has vanished without a trace while on Spring Break in Florida. Tampa police come up empty in their investigation and an anxious Joe Bob believes his daughter has been kidnapped. Suspecting Cade’s mysterious military background might have included special ops, Wiley offers him five thousand dollars to go and find his girl.

From that point on, Levon Cade becomes a ruthless manhunter trained by the most efficient military force in the world, the U.S. Marines. In no time at all, he picks up the trail leading to several criminal networks made up of foreign immigrants who consider American law enforcement agencies amateurs. Not so Cade. He’s a one-man army they can’t stop. “Levon’s Trade” is lean in its prose, with Dixon never wasting a single word to tell his story. One scene races into the next until the gun-blasting climax explodes across the final pages. It’s a fantastic debut of a truly great action hero.

Do yourselves a favor, dear readers, don’t make our mistake and wait to discover him. You’ll only regret it in the end.  Now onto book two.

[vbartilucci]

Solid look at Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, a show that deserves more eyeballs on it.

I think it's a shame that Matthew Holness hasn't achieved the kind of fame that Richard Ayoade and Matt Berry (heck, even Stephen Merchant) have.

The sequel series, Man to Man with Dean Lerner is another perfect example of crafting a whole world that only gets referenced in the chat show's interviews.

Seek out The Reprizalizer, matt's later work which skewers the Men's Adventure genre (Mack Bolan) and still tells a tragic tale about its author.

[chrisabraham]

I was such a 15-year-old, hulking hairy dark haired helmet-headed, tiger-stripped, fanboi!

I met Don Pendleton in 1985 at a Mack Bolan Convention in San Francisco

[riflebrass]

A buddy sent me a video on Discord. Some guy was talking about illiteracy. A girl told him he didn't know what he was talking about because he's only 15. He told her to name 10 books. All she could come up with were Twilight and Game of Thrones. He kept interrupting her telling her to list specific books rather than series.

I got to thinking about the few books I've read over the years. For an extra challenge I tried to list books that were never adapted into or based off movies, TV shows, or video games and they had to be books I read completely.

I could only come up with 5 books. There were probably half a dozen of my grandpa's Mack Bolan books and other similar syndications I read back in my teens but I couldn't remember the actual title of any of them.

[trashmenace]

The Lone Wolf 3: Boston Avenger by Mike Barry

The Lone Wolf 3 Boston Avenger by Mike Barry (Barry N. Malzberg) 1973, Berkley Medallion

Ex-cop on the run Wulff heads to Boston with twenty pounds of heroin he scored in the last book. He survives an assassination attempt at a toll booth but loses the heroin to two thugs who run off with it. Wulff tosses a grenade at a memorial at a mob mansion, while the two thugs try to sell the heroin to a Harvard associate professor who sidelines as a dealer.

Wulff is captured by the local mafia who agree to let him live if he recovers the heroin. Wulff goes after the prof, who had turned himself in to the cops. Wulff chases the police and recovers the heroin, but finds himself in a dragnet closing in. His master plan to evade the police involves crashing his car in the woods, walking thirty feet into the forest, and taking a nap. Not sure why he didn't just pull over if it was that easy.

The prof goes home, Wulff follows, the mob shows up, people are shot, the end.

Goes hard into characterizations, which might have worked if the story did. None of the motivations checked out - Wulff, anti-heroin crusader, wanted to recover the junk, to the point of shooting cops over it, for ill defined reasons other that using it for bait, somehow. The mafia don wanted the junk gone, something about avoiding flooding the market and lowering prices, as if storing it or moving it to a different territory wasn't an option. Both of them seem to change their minds.

Wulff's man on the run bit didn't play well with the fact that the mafia knows where he is at all times, even knowing what route he's driving. Four different times the mob just shows up, only twice to try and kill him - if the mob's informant network is that comprehensive, they need better reasons why Wulff is still alive. For part of the story they want Wulff to take care of the Prof, which they can't do themselves for undisclosed reasons.

I liked the tone, the most nihilistic of the Mack Bolan clones, but the actual prose is atrocious. Not quite at Lionel Fanthorpe levels, there is constant repetition, with characters repeating things back to each other and repeating that they don't need to repeat things. Wulff himself is Jimmy Two Times. Probably wouldn't have crossed a hundred pages without the filler

There's a line of opinion that this is subversive satire, or that it's building up to a climax in book 14 that will make it all worthwhile but you have to read the whole series to get the whole effect. I think this is based on Malzberg's positive reputation as a science fiction writer. Whether there's a master plan that pays off at the end or Malzberg's phoning it in at a genre he doesn't respect, there's too much pulp and not enough juice.

From Amazon

[theactioneer]

Michael Herring Blood and Fire book cover (1997)

[all-action-all-picture]

Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan, The Executioner. Cover to Hong Kong Hit List (1987) by Gil Cohen.

Bolan appears to be holding a Beretta 93R (or Raffica) which has a foregrip at the front and explains the unusual way he is holding a pistol.

[markhodderauthor]

I just finished for #GarbAugust 2024 with @whatmeworry_reads, and for the #MyNovelLife challenge (from 1979, when I was 17 years old) FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC by V. C. Andrews. I can well understand why this book caused a sensation among pubescent girls but, really, they would have been better off reading something with more literary merit — a Mack Bolan, perhaps. I am astounded at how profoundly and melodramatically awful FLOWERS is. I mean that in two ways: the author puts her characters through melodramatic awfulness (I approve), but her melodramatic writing style is even more awful (I do not approve). The dialogue is ABSURDLY bad, the plot is full of holes, and the pacing is dire. Yet, for all that, there is something oddly compelling about this slice of ham. As it becomes ever more tawdry, so the need to keep reading it increases. I even made it through the severe second act slump. I’m glad I now know what all the fuss is about but, ye gods, I shall never again touch a V. C. Andrews. Much as I love trashy books, I have standards.