Sterling Noel (1903–1984)

Sometimes I just need to hit the pulp fiction shelf, and this enjoyable thriller filled the bill just fine. A couple of years after World War 2, American merchant marine Wright Hughey is sitting in an outdoor cafe in Marseilles, waiting out a tugboat strike, when he is mistaken for a local criminal by some other criminals. intrigue ensues! Although the plot of this romp becomes steadily less plausible as it goes along, nevertheless it is a good time for readers who go in for this sort of thing. Noel was a pretty writer, the action scenes themselves are believable and never get out of hand, and overall the action is understated rather than lurid. I looked up Noel, and it turns out he wrote several of these thrillers and a couple of science fiction works as well.

There is a 1956 English movie based on the book, called "House of Secrets:" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Secrets_(1956_film) (Warning: if you look at this web page, don't read the plot synopsis, as it contains spoilers for the book. That's if you think you will ever read the book, of course.)… (meer)

Published in 1951 and with a title such as [I Killed Stalin] I was not expecting a work of great literature which is certainly did not prove to be. It is pulp fiction, which was also an alarming anti-communist rant. I suppose I should not have been so surprised at this considering the year of publication and the start of the cold war, but I have read quite a few books from that year, but nothing quite like this.

It gains an entry into the encyclopaedia of science fiction on the grounds that it is an alternative history novel. The action takes place in the years 1956/8 and precipitates the third world war. Alexis Bodine a marine with a history of working under cover during the second world war is hired by an agency of the F.B.I (Bureau-X) to launch an assassination attempt on Joe Stalin. It is written in the hard boiled style of crime novels of that era and dances lightly over some factual details and plenty of plot holes. Alexis is a communist killing machine, the more the better for the safety of the world, but also thinks nothing of killing American compatriots who get in his way. There is a love interest even more ludicrous than the rest of this thriller/espionage story that barrels along until the ultimate assassination: I am not giving anything away because of the title of the book.

At very opportunity the author is disparaging about Russia and communism and I do mean at every opportunity, perhaps every couple of pages. It is much worse than the kind of rhetoric you might find in comic books of that era. The book is aimed at a young adult readership, the same readers who would also buy science fiction and it was published at the height of the Senator Joe McCarthy's red scare programme and so it is a reflection of it's times, however with all this taken into consideration it still feels over the top when reading today. I was pleased to get this one out of the way and so 2 stars.… (meer)

This is different than a other future ice age disaster novels I’ve read.

First, it compresses the action. There is no slow buildup and figuring out the cause of the ice age. The book – and the snow – begins on a Saturday in September 2203, and the cause has been figured out by Gabe Harrow, a world expert in climate: earth will pass through the debris of a nova. Reduced solar radiation will result in snow falling for a 72 year long period. Already, by the book’s opening, it’s been 27 days of rain and unseasonably cold temperatures.

Secondly, most of the usual expected scenes of mass death and chaos are restricted (but still dramatically rendered) to summaries radio and tv broadcasts. That is particularly true of the massive storms that are predicted to begin the newest glaciation of Earth and to last about a year and devastate coastal areas.

The story is presented as an account by narrator Victor Savage, formerly a missileman assigned to an orbital platform, with some notes from Harrow. The Harrow Group is formed to shelter in place at a farm near Fallon, Kansans and, after the storms die down, travel to the Atlantic Coast and, eventually, to the equatorial regions. Harrow’s prediction of a very long-term glaciation is ignored by the government. (I suspect, like the ENLAV in Fenton Wood’s Nightland Racer, it was inspired by the “legendary” design of a proposed Antarctic Snow Cruiser.)

The book’s main interest isn’t the various heated suits, nuclear powered snowmobile, nuclear powered cities, and nuclear “convertors” used as weapons, blowtorches, and to melt snow, but the psychological tension within the Harrow (later renamed the Savage) Group, particularly sexual conflict.

There will be a momma’s boy whose mother commits suicide because he’s taken up with the crazy, femme-fatale Georgia Lawrence, a mutiny, and a crazy servant who kills several people in the Fallon shelter on New Year’s Eve before the shifting of the glacier above them makes the group leave Fallon early than planned, Gabe who has to be drugged to leave Fallon since he’s despondent at the murder of his wife.

The group will go to the St. Louis Complex where a group of survivors, representing what is left of the national government, considers Harrow’s forecast treason, another group in Kentucky where some survivors will be picked up (adding more young girls/women for sexual intrigue). Eventually, after the mutiny, Savage (who was placed in command after Harrow’s despondency) institutes orders forbidding all sex and sexual enticement and removal of curtains from private chambers. This alienates from near everyone including his wife. Noel has some unexpected plot turns in the lives of some characters.

The book ends on something of a note of despondency after safety is reached in Brazil.

Savage notes that the casualty rate for the original members of the Harrow Group does not reflect well on his abilities as a commander. Sure, they picked up some survivors along the way, but more were left behind. Still, 100,000 people from North America and North-West Europe made their way to the equator, and the Group’s experiences probably weren’t any worse than other groups’.

There are some interesting background details. There have been two Chinese Wars, and the second resulted in so much radioactivity being released in the air that domed cities became necessary as did home oxygen supplies. Cohabitation before marriage is not only allowed, it’s mandatory. (Marge and Victor aren’t married at beginning of the novel.) There is also the matter of Howard, the group’s doctor and psychiatrist, recommended the “Gerber Therapy” for two young male survivors who may be developing an unhealthy attachment for each other. He also recognizes Georgia’s need to break up men’s marriages and attachments to other women.

Rather simple in plot, this book actually lingers in the mind and is a well-done thriller of people under psychological stress.… (meer)