Radioactive mutants vs. Nazi Communists

[Darzin]

When do the Nazis come in? I distinctly remember Nazis from the first book you read? Maybe Kim is A Nazi and she gets her Nazi pals to come to America, this takes care of two plot holes with just one implausible thing.

[MinDonner]

Nazis, and the Kim Mystery too, must make their appearance in Book 5, cos there's been no sign of em so far. Not even a hint of Nazi activity in actual Germany. I suspect that Ryder may have been less than scrupulous in his worldbuilding.

But for now, we are still in the subways below Moscow. And, for an interesting change, Chapter Thirteen gives us the POV of Archer, who so far has had very little to do other than get dragged halfway round the world for no reason cos his friend is famous.

Archer is not happy at being stuck in the subways, and keeps banging his head on the ceiling, then gets lost while looking for the toilets. Within minutes he is hopelessly lost in the labyrinth! He is scared, there are loads of creatures with glowing green eyes etc etc, and then he comes to "one of the wider chandeliered stations with several of the lights still working". After a hundred years, you'd think the bulbs would have gone by now. Or someone would have noticed that they'd left the lights on in the abandoned tunnels where the dissidents live. Anyway, conveniently Archer finds a flute just lying about on the platform, and picks it up and starts playing, "a slow anarchistic tune that would have warmed the heart of any Zen master of the late twentieth-century world", whatever the fuck that means.

However! What lurks in the tunnels is clearly not a Zen master, with all the musical appreciation that would entail - no, there is something else down there, that hates music! It had no name. It was forever. It was simply - it. But what does "it" look like?

It was round like a ball with seven arms, seven red eyes, seven legs, and seven stomachs - each growling to be fed. It had been formed long ago out of the radioactive pollutants washed into the Volga's churning waters, coursing through the megalopolis of Moscow. It had eaten an occasional lone boater then, long ago, before the sky changed colour, before the river ran red with blood. It had retreated into the subways and the sewers where the water ran a foul green.

But now it is time to feed! Archer hears the squishing sounds as it runs towards him (on its seven legs), full of teeth(?!), its seven clawed arms flailing like a (seven-armed) windmill. Side note: if it has seven stomachs but only one mouth, how does that work exactly? Do they have a sort of chain layout, like cow stomachs, or... no, I am overthinking this. Anyway, Archer shoots his crossbow at it but it has ARMOUR PLATING so most of the arrows bounce off. Oh noes!

But, one or two of them got through, so now it's the inevitable BEAST IS MAD passage:

It was mad now. Nothing had ever hurt it before. It had never known the meaning of pain. For the first time in its putrid existence it felt rage. It was beyond hunger now - it thirsted for vengeance.

Now we are treated to the pitiful sight of Archer "trying to be smart like Rockson", as he racks his tiny brain searching for a weakness. These deliberations, however, are shortly interrupted by the squishing noise coming from behind him, as "it" approaches with its eyes burning with the black glow of death.

Archer runs out of arrows! The thing laughs contemptuously and moves in for the kill! Archer backs away and stumbles on the platform! But what's this? A convenient eight-foot pole with a razor sharp tip, just lying next to where he fell? Monster jumps, Archer spears it with pole, blam. Monster dead, Archer covered with green blood, fight over. Rockson will be so proud!

Rockson's actual reaction:

"You look like you've been doing battle with an artichoke," the Doomsday Warrior said.

Archer nodded furiously. "Artechooke," he said, pumping his hands up and down to simulate the killing action of the spear. (:lol:)

"Jesus, you smell," Rockson said, holding his fingers over his nose.

At which point some old guy called Satchmo turns up and the whole seven-everythinged monster is forgotten about forever.

Satchmo grills Rock on his musical preferences and shows him the explosives that they have available. Rock thinks this will do just fine.

[kuroishi]

For a minute there I was genuinely afraid for Archer. :worried:

I don't remember if he appears in volume 6. Does the ninja fight happens in that one? Did he take part in it?

[Maithanet]

For a minute there I was genuinely afraid for Archer. :worried:

I don't remember if he appears in volume 6. Does the ninja fight happens in that one? Did he take part in it?

Well, for a minute I thought he was going to get eaten. Afraid for him would be much too strong though.

I think he's in book 6, does he die in that one? Because Rock has the generic black sidekick Detroit, and the generic Asian sidekick Chan (or something), and then several giant white friends, who are equal parts interchangeable and expendable. I remember at least one, if not two, dying at different parts.

Large swaths of this book just reads like an X-files episode. They introduce a monster or some kind, he terrorizes someone briefly, and then gets killed. I realize that monster of the week is a common thing in action/fantasy television, but I have never encountered a book which adopted a similar approach. It is just so...pointless to have so many monsters introduced and defeated in one or two chapters. I find myself wishing that some villian, be it Soviet/Nazi/monster, could actually survive a single encounter with the Rock squad, so that we might feel they are actually threatening.

No, Killov getting stabbed in the face and running off doesn't count.

[Jon AS]

"a slow anarchistic tune that would have warmed the heart of any Zen master of the late twentieth-century world", whatever the fuck that means.

Isn't Zen sort of the polar opposite of anarchy? You know, just like, conceptually speaking. Though I guess that mostly depends on your definition of anarchy.

Btw, why are there mutated monsters in Russia? I thought they were a byproduct of the nuclear devestation in the US.

[Lummel]

Btw, why are there mutated monsters in Russia? I thought they were a byproduct of the nuclear devestation in the US.

Probably migration. You know radioactive plains of America in the summer, radioactive sewers of Russia in the winter.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Someone probably illegally imported one as a pet, and then flushed it down the toilet when it became inconvenient. You know, there are irresponsible pet owners everywhere, even in post-nuclear-armageddon Moscow.

Or should that be glow-boom-boom or something? I'm not sure on the proper terminology here.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

No, kellus is still a doush. It's in Powerpoint, so it must be true. I just think Mord is currently more important than kellus. :P

[MinDonner]

Explosives at hand, dissident army at the ready, but only 150 pages in to the book - looks like it's time to complicate things up a bit, lest the missile base be destroyed before the allotted page-count is reached. And thus, Chapter Fourteen begins with the phrase "The best laid plans of mice and dissidents..."

Rock decides that it would be a good idea to test these explosives somewhere down in the subway, cos of course blowing random shit up in the middle of a large enemy city is in no way stupid or likely to result in your capture.

Colonel Dzeloski is on a sporadic dissident-hunting party, wearing his "special night vision glasses", and is thrilled at the prospect of catching the two escaped Americans. Several dissidents get crisped with flamethrowers in the excitement, and then eventually Rock and Archer are subdued with stun gas. All over in a page and a half.

But do the Russians sensibly put the two out of everyone's misery with a simple shot to the head? Bwahahaha. Nothing so prosaic! Instead, Rock wakes in a straw-strewn concrete cell, chained to a wall. Soon a guard (armed with a sword!) arrives with food, and explains where they are:

"Where are you? In the pits of hell. In the training rooms of the gladiators. You're going to be entertainment for the rich and powerful in just a few days. This is where slaves and troublemakers come to die." He looked Rockson over. "You look strong. You'll put a good show for the crowd before you get cut to ribbons." He started back toward the door, then turned. "Eat well, my American friend - you will need all your strength. Those who wash out on the first day of gladiator training are disposed of."

Yes. The promise of the cover has finally come to pass, and it looks like GLADIATORIAL COMBAT BY NUMBERS lies ahead.

Guesses as to how this all pans out?

[Jon AS]

Guesses as to how this all pans out?

Rock gets cut to ribbons, the rest of the books are some feverish vision he has right before he finally expires? Would explain Kim's disappearance. And possibly the Nazis.

[Stark Loyalist]

Did Rockson already insight a couple of slave revolts? Or is that in book six?

Will there be a stronger gladiator stealing bread from the weak that Our Hero must show up, and so win the loyalty and respect of his fellow inmates?

[MinDonner]

Well then. A scar-faced fellow named Keeper (he has forgotten his real name, he's been a gladiator for so long) takes our two heroes out to the training area to meet some guy called The Mauler, who will show them the basics. The Mauler is dubious at first - train Americans? But they are like wild uncontrolled beasts! - but then agrees to help Rock learn the duoblade, which is basically like Darth Maul's lightsaber but with, er, blades. Rock wonders if he can use it to "make french fries out of his opponents". So even ROCKSON agrees that "freedom fries" is bullshit. :lol: And we may see some cannibalism at last!

Here's a quick glimpse of the other sorts of gladiators present:

There were pygmies riding each other's shoulders, wielding samurai swords that cut the air with a whoosh before decapitating melons. (??) There were short, squat, hairy, almost apelike men who were practising strangling treelimbs or crushing enormous hollow steel globes with their bare hands. Mutants and strange races of all sorts filled the arena floor, mock fighting one another, even a few Amazon-like green haired women who slammed their axes into thick logs over and over, sending up clouds of sawdust. All were intent on surviving the ordeal ahead. They had to win their battles to live. A gladiator vanquished, beheaded, would mean a few more days of training, of life, sweet, horrible life for them.

Under a silvery Moscow sky that threatens snow - now, what? Last we heard, Rock n co were heading home after the Convention which was mid-June, and it can't have been more than a few weeks since then. Does it snow in Moscow in the middle of summer? - anyway, an unnamed guy teaches Rockson the basics of the duoblade, until THE BLACK MENACE arrives.

The Black Menace is 8 feet tall! He has ebony skin and a leopard loincloth! He has two rows of hooked teeth! And a third arm... sticking out the middle of his chest? And apparently he's been known to reach down in the middle of a fight and rip the head from his opponent with one snap of his jaws! (?)

But what, you may be asking, does all this have to do with Rockson? Of course, he is to be Rock's first opponent in the arena. In a week's time!

At this point The Black Menace makes a sinister strangling gesture in Rock's direction. Time to get practicing with that duo-blade! :uhoh:

[Lummel]

Yes. The promise of the cover has finally come to pass, and it looks like GLADIATORIAL COMBAT BY NUMBERS lies ahead.

Guesses as to how this all pans out?

Ah the cover never lies.

I guess the owner of the gladiatorial school will look like a youngish Peter Ustinov. Archer will be sent out to become the house slave of one of those rich and powerful communists that Ryder has been telling us about, the two of them will have a conversation about eating snails in the bathhouse with homoerotic overtones.

Rockson will lead a revolt of the gladiators. Rushing through the Russian countryside they will gather slaves to their cause including Archer. The Romans Soviets will attempt to crush them in a series of battles shot in technicolor and widescreen. The slave army, using a variety of cunning tricks, will hold them off until finally defeated.

The defeated slaves sit on the ground in a dell. The communist general, on horseback, offers the slave who betrays Rockson their liberty, all the rest will be cruxified along the Appian Way road to Poklonnaya Gora. Rockson sits silently, confident in his mutant powers. But suddenly the man next to him stands up and says "I'm Rockson", then another and another stand and say the same, soon everybody is on their feet shouting out that they are Rockson.

Rockson takes advantage of this confusion to run off, blow up the top secret comminst base and escape to the USA.

[MinDonner]

"Let the death challenge begin," Commissar Dubrovnik said over the speakers.

Maybe he is Croatian?

Chapter Sixteen opens with the famous celebrity gladiators (all with their special weapons and silk cloaks and whatnot) sneering at Rockson's pathetic chances - surely he will die swiftly under the unstoppable power of the Black Menace with his motionless face a visage of steel-hard death!

Rock enters the arena at the head of a ragtag assortment of other prisoners, all with rusty old weapons and no armour - looks like the first item on the bill will be a standard Slaughter the N00bs battle. The only one with a good weapon is Rock, who has secretly been sharpening his duoblade at night, otherwise it's just a bunch of peasants and farmers against the celebrities. Rockson solemnly tells his fellow slaves to help each other out - and though they protest that this is "against the rules", eventually he convinces them, seemingly on the grounds that his name is known throughout the world, and he has become a planet-wide symbol of rebellion. In your face, celebrity gladiators!

Dubrovnik has briefed the celebrities in advance of which slave they are supposed to kill, and of course the Black Menace heads straight for Rock. He lived only to fight, to destroy men's bodies, and Rock knows that speed is his only possible response to the overwhelming power of nearly four hundred fifty pounds of black death machine.

Now a bit more description of Rock's opponent:

The Menace had eyes that bore into one's head. The product of genetic experiments to produce a killer for the gladiator pits, he was, if you could consider an overdeveloped half animal murder machine art, a pinnacle of genetic rearrangement. Quite handsome really, with the jutting jaw and rows of wolf-like canines, and the third arm protruding dead center from his chest.

Rock gets in a lucky cut, Menace gets mad and snarls lame threats, they fight some more, but then Rock forgets about the third arm, "not having fought many men with three appendages" (:lol:) and Menace bashes him in the face with a shield. But Rock dodges the next blow cuz he so awesome! And then gets in another cut!

Elsewhere in the arena, nearly a third of the slaves are dead already, and Archer bashes someone's face in. The crowd are loving it, even though Ivan the Blood Letter, Nodov the Terrible and Rodor the Brain Smasher are already dead.

Rock and Menace continue to circle each other. Menace gets a cut in, then Rock kicks him in the bollocks, lifting him nearly a foot off the ground! :wideeyed: Rock's next cut takes his left ear off. That's it, he thinks, time to use "one of his tricks". Oh noes!

The trick, however, is remarkably stupid - he distracts Rock by displaying his teeth(?), then tries to shoot him with a secret explosive missile in the tip of his pike. Rock dodges, of course, and the missile instead takes out Qatar the Chest Opener. Damnit! Menace is MAD, now whirling all his arms at once like a cyclone of steel death, but Rock's mutant senses can gauge the speed and direction of all the weapons, and ducks under them and stabs Menace in the throat, ripping out his larynx and arteries!

Rock takes a moment to regret that the Menace was an enemy rather than an ally, as they could always use more sadistic three-armed mutants on the side of Freedom, then hacks him in the throat one last time for good measure.

The most feared of the gladiators had met his maker - and destroyer - in the form of Ted Rockson.

:fencing:

[Jon AS]

The only one with a good weapon is Rock, who has secretly been sharpening his duoblade at night

So if it's not usually sharp why is it called a blade?

The trick, however, is remarkably stupid - he distracts Rock by displaying his teeth(?), then tries to shoot him with a secret explosive missile in the tip of his pike.

Aha! Menace must be Chinese!

[MinDonner]

If anyone was paying attention (ie. nobody, not even me) you'd have noticed that I accidentally skipped over the whole of Chapter Fifteen (whoops). However, it is of no real importance beyond the general WTF factor, featuring as it does the non-Rockson earlier part of the Arena Show, as a graphic yet entirely redundant illustration of how eeeeevil those commies are.

Yes, the commies all sit around in their luxury seats, wearing fur coats (and possibly top hats and monocles as well, though this is not stated), lusting for blood. In true Concern Troll fashion, Ryder Stacy makes a big deal about how terrible this is, to want to watch bloody and gruesome deaths of innocent people, before going on to describe every drop of blood in lascivious detail. Especially in this case, where the first act is BEAUTIFUL NAKED WOMEN being TORN APART by VICIOUS WILD BEASTS. Those sick commie bastards, revelling in this awful spectacle that is lovingly drawn out over several pages! Every torn skirt, agonised scream, dismembered boob and devoured kidney is laid out for our prurient inspection. How could we be properly horrified (in a totally non-sexual way) without it?

Once all the girls have been eaten (another page or two of detailed description) it's time for the cripple fight. Bit of cognitive dissonance here - have a look at this passage:

Dwarves, cripples, armless, legless men - they came out hobbling and stumbling, some on carts with wheels. The wretched of the earth who would have been far luckier to have died at birth as had most such "inferior" mutations. These had had the misfortune to live - but now they would die.

...and remember that, in Century City, they have a policy of killing malformed babies at birth. And yet the dainty quotes around "inferior" suggest that Stacy was pretty uncomfortable actually standing by this eugenics programme he's advocating. Mutations are only good if they produce Ultimate Americans? Killing the disabled is only OK if you do it when they're young?

For added hilarity, these guys are armed with joke weapons like high-heeled shoes and wooden chairs. Much less talk of tender flesh and savage disembowelling this time round too, as dwarves are clearly less sexy in their death throes. But essentially it's the same, several rather dull pages where various blind albinos hit dwarfs with scythes, etc etc. Then some circus performers come out riding giraffes and suchlike, and the commies take this opportunity to go for a piss.

Story continues properly in next instalment!

[Maltaran]

How can there be torn skirts if the women are naked?

[Jon AS]

How can there be torn skirts if the women are naked?

This was the first (and only) question I had about this chapter.

[Jon AS]

Is it time for a "Stacy and women" thread?

[MinDonner]

Guys. Seriously now? You are expecting consistency? If Ryder Stacy wants to write about naked women having their skirts ripped off by ravening tigers, then that is exactly what he will write. I know that such a logical flaw will likely ruin the book for you pernickety types, but that's just the kind of wild and crazy artistes we're dealing with here. You can't put restrictions on art!