After the sheer, raw fail that was Out of the Ashes, I almost gave up on this project. Then, as I said previously, I was revitalized by an okay movie and came back. Now, I have given up on permanently, and am ready to move on to something good, as has been requested of my by both my mental health adviser and many of my non-existent readers. At least, something I thought was good.
Jerry Ahern is another pulp writer, and that already sends up warning flags after the...experience...of Ashes. However, unlike Johnstone, Ahern actually understands his genre. Pulp books are meant to be like comic books; each issue should be kept short and sweet, and focus on satisfying the reader more than anything else, whether that be by making them think or just making them smile as things blow up. While Johnstone was too busy pushing his political philosophy in Ashes, in Ahern's own flagship series, The Survivalist, he spends the entirety of every book doing his job; entertaining the readers. And it is awesome.
Like Out of the Ashes, The Survivalist follows the adventures of a former action-man after WW3 breaks out. Both main characters, Ben Raines and John Rourke, are watching their lives fall apart around them just before the war breaks out. And both return to being action heroes following the war. However, the main character is Ahern's first great success. Why? John Rourke is actually a very likable man. He usually reacts in an understandable manner to the situations around him, and responds accordingly. In addition, his character stays relatively constant throughout the story. And, since he's usually our viewpoint character, these all combine to make him worth reading.
In fact, one of Ahern's biggest strengths is in his characters. In Out of the Ashes (expect many comparisons between the two series as this review goes on), the biggest comic relief character was Ike McGowan, a rather unfunny and foul-mouthed Reb who Ben meets halfway through the book and who proceeds to stay on the sidelines for most of the rest of the book, so as not to outshine Ben himself. In the Survivalist series, that role is handled by John's sidekick, Paul Rubenstein. Amazingly enough, Paul is actually a very funny character. Not only that, but he's an actual sidekick for John, actually proving himself to be very competent and useful in John's adventures, as opposed to just a tagalong who occasionally gets John into trouble.
Even more amazing is Ahern's handling of the Soviet characters, who appear both as villains and allies throughout the novels. In the end, the Soviets win WW3 due to some sci-fi particle beam they have developed that acts as a fairly good missile shield. They end up occupying America, and a fair enough amount of time is spent with them as viewpoints to show some of their characters. And, to be honest, I was blown away. Ahern treats everyone from the Soviet Premier to the head of the KGB in America to the female agent who travels with John and Paul for a while as actual characters, instead of the caricatures Johnstone's villains inevitably became. It was positively mind-blowing for me.
Needless to say, I could spend all day heaping praise onto this series, but I haven't got the time (school starts soon, the house must be cleaned, etc.. In the blog, I think I'll do two of the books in succession (Issue #01: Total War and Issue #02: Nightmare Begins), both because they're so good and because, like any good serial series, stories are often told in arcs. Now, this series does morph rapidly into a sci-fi series (to the point where, at some point, I believe John, his family, and Paul get cryogenically frozen and continue their adventures in the future), but that really doesn't bother me. It's that good.
Expect the first update soon. And enjoy. I know I will. ;)
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Wow, dude. You're going back in time here. I used to read Jerry Ahern's [i]Survivalist[/i] and [i]Track[/i] novels back in the early '80s. He also wrote a series under the nom de plume of (I'm not making this up) Axel Kilgore called [i]The Mercenary[/i] which were also very very good.
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