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Post by dem bones on Sept 11, 2009 22:30:16 GMT
'Leslie McManus' - Jackboot Girls (New English Library, March 1971) Blurb: Hitler's edict of "breed for Germany" went unheeded by the Wolverines. They had more brutal plans for their lithe and smouldering bodies. They wanted total victory over men.
The Wolverines belonged to an all-female S.S. battalion which operated according to the sexual, obsessions of its leader, Helga Schwartz. They were notorious interrogators whose authority to enforce their perversions went unchallenged by their cowering victims. With their women prisoners they were sadistically inventive. With each other they were uninhibited. With men they were vile, crazed, uncontrollable.
JACKBOOT GIRLS brings to light the dark depravity that was Nazi Germany.... As raved about by Franklin all over Vault Mk I ("I was struck by this bizarre sleeping sickness .... I'm 'convinced' that it's 'something' to do with Moffatt's inability to write a paragraph with out either putting every fourth word in inverted commas to denote 'slang' or the infamous italicised product placement. These mystical runes are used to excess here and perhaps cause the unsuspecting reader to lapse into a coma.", etc). Not sure if Jackboot Girls qualifies as horror, but it's Moffatt so the writing is certainly going to be horrible and the bad taste potential is stratospheric. I'm ALMOST looking forward to it.
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Post by marksamuels on Sept 11, 2009 23:17:05 GMT
 Dem comes up trumps again. Oddly enough this is just the sort of bizarre stuff that would be invaluable (for research) in my pulp novel NAZI ZOMBIES OF ANTARCTICA, which features an Uber-Amazon. Excerpt? Perhaps a little: “Allow me to introduce Waffen-SS First Leutnant Ursula Sturm,” Doctor Sturm said, “my daughter.”
What the hell is this freakshow?, Drexler thought.
Leutnant Ursula was six and a half feet tall. She looked like a Valkyrie. Her blonde hair was braided into twin pigtails. She wore the all-black uniform of the Allegmeine S.S. complete with knee-length boots. Her tight-fitting jacket was made of shiny leather and not cloth, as were her jodphers. The jacket scarcely seemed able to contain her abundant breasts. At her throat was fixed an Iron Cross, First Class, nestling upon the flash of cleavage that was just visible in a gap between the straining top buttons of her jacket. The lapels of her black leather jacket bore the insignia of the Totenkopf and of Drexler’s former rank. Slung across her back was a MP-40 submachine gun, standard issue. She had twin holsters containing Walther pistols strapped to both of her thunder thighs, and she carried a riding crop.
She was a crazed epitome, a warped ideal, of German womanhood. Beautiful, strong and tall. Doubtless too, she was fearless and without mercy.
Mark S. |
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Post by dem bones on Sept 20, 2009 11:40:33 GMT
Miss Thunder-thighs and her deadly water pistol are already an improvement on anything in Jackboot Girls, Mark. As so often seems the case with Moffatt's work, it's difficult to write anything about such a car crash of a novel that doesn't make it sound a whole lot more interesting than it is. After making surprisingly steady progress through the opening chapters, i thought FM had exaggerated the tedium factor, but the fact it took me three days to conquer the remaining 70 pages of bad sex and Jim's trademark *ahem* "philosophical" interludes tells its own story! At first it stays remarkably true to the blurb. By the close of Chapter one, our heroine, voracious lesbian Helga Schwartz, has so impressed Himmler with her talent for obtaining information from stubborn young women prisoners that he charges her with assembling a crack squad of female interrogators, the chief requirements for a Wolverine being that they're really fit, blonde lesbians, nympho's or dominatrices. Only snag is, Himmler is furious that Helga doesn't find him do-able and warns there will be a high price to pay for failure.
Next we meet Helga's lieutenant Frieda Weber and her "exciting breasts" on the trail of Munich's top Liberator. A Jewish shopkeeper is prepared to sell him out, but in return he wants a Visa and safe passage into Poland. Frieda can easily arrange for this, but such a deal is against the Gestapo's principles. Clearly some subterfuge is called for unless she wants to hand over the informer to the SS who will happily beat the info from him at no cost whatsoever. Frieda, being a glory seeker, goes down the selfish route, gets royally turned over, and turns to Helga to mop things up. The Wolverines soon have the Liberators' Fran Klopfer under lock and key but as she's not very attractive the gals have no interest in shagging her. After fruitless hours of half-hearted interrogation, Helga realises that this is a job for Lizabet Langendorf (sexual fetish: whipping girls), who ain't as choosey. After a brutal swishing, Lizabet returns triumphant from the dungeon ....
After which (p. 40), Jackboot Girls mutates into .... i dunno. An episode of WW2 sit-com 'Allo 'Allo! financed and directed by Max Mosely? Some unintentional light relief is provided by Captain Edward Morash of the Allied Forces. Being one of Jim's countrymen, it's no surprise that Captain Eddy is more torture-resistant and virile than any other captive, something he proves beyond doubt when he gallantly takes on Eva, Ilsa and Lisa - not that he has any choice in the matter - during a seventeen hour non-stop interrogation session. The final scene after the fall of Berlin is so utterly gross you can't help but marvel at its wrongness.
Most terrible of all: i know i'll remember Jackboot Girls long after most every decent novel i've read all year. And i've a terrible urge to get my hands on Churchill's Vixens ....
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Post by marksamuels on Sept 21, 2009 22:59:31 GMT
Oh no, don't say that Dem! I ordered a copy of "Jackboot Girls" and it cost me twelve quid!  (Also, it's not even arrived and all enquiries to the GPO have been met with "there's a strike on, mate."). Btw, Leutnant Ursula Sturm has just shagged a man to death on board a German U-boat carrying a cargo of Nazi SS Zombies (I'm halfway through Chapter 3). Mark S. |
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Post by dem bones on Sept 22, 2009 18:32:16 GMT
Never mind your measly twelve quid, Mr. S., it's my 75p i feel sorry for. Those festering old vultures in the PDSA want the skin off a mans back! I would say i hope you're not disappointed with Jackboot Girls when it eventually kicks down your front door but ....
Incidentally, I don't know if you have Boot Boys by the same author under his infamous 'Richard Allen' byline, but if so, when you get to the Black Magic bit - does that cemetery remind you of any place in your neck of the woods?
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Post by marksamuels on Sept 22, 2009 23:44:06 GMT
Never mind your measly twelve quid, Mr. S., it's my 75p i feel sorry for. Those festering old vultures in the PDSA want the skin off a mans back! I would say i hope you're not disappointed with Jackboot Girls when it eventually kicks down your front door but .... Incidentally, I don't know if you have Boot Boys by the same author under his infamous 'Richard Allen' byline, but if so, when you get to the Black Magic bit - does that cemetery remind you of any place in your neck of the woods? I strongly suspect my postman has nicked it! He's probably also nicked my author copy of Mammoth Book of Horror #20, which I'm also waiting for, and of which there's no sign. Does Boot Boys also feature coal cellars, raw fish and cold tea? Mark S. |
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Post by dem bones on Sept 23, 2009 10:13:07 GMT
Does Boot Boys also feature coal cellars, raw fish and cold tea? Mark S. Not quite, but he clearly had an eye to the local newspaper's reports of 'black magic' goings on. I'm sure your books have just been caught up in the backlog which is particularly huge in London. By dealers' standards, £12 is reasonable for Jackboot Girls. I reckon you'll treasure it! Oh, and may i be the first to say "congrats", "oh well done" and "oh very well deserved" on making the Very Best Of Best New Horror cut with The White Hands!  . |
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Post by marksamuels on Sept 26, 2009 22:58:16 GMT
OK, so I've read JACKBOOT GIRLS. I think the problem is that it's not uninteresting for what it is, it's just very, very bitty. It seems as if great chunks of the book have gone missing in between chapters.
At 108 pages it feels as if someone has taken half the book out. Don't know if that's actually the case, & I do have an overactive imagination. All sorts of hints and situations left unelaborated after being hinted at (I was sure Himmler would get it on with Helga Schwartz...).
We seem to jump through the whole Nazi era at too swift a pace & never get a handle on the Wolverine girls.
Worth picking up though, I think, if it's your thing. Not much in this vein around.
Mark S.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 27, 2009 8:17:33 GMT
You really need Justin, Steve (read him on Moffatt/ 'McManus's The Naked Light) or FM for this, Mr. S, but from my understanding of it, Peter Haining was ever encouraging Moffatt to try his hand at longer novels but it seems that, by the time he washed up at NEL, he didn't have it in him to go beyond 128 pages. I'm pretty sure Lawrence James used to edit out the most appalling racist content, so maybe Jackboot Girls is slightly condensed, but to me it's so typical of the authors' work i'd not be surprised to learn it was published as submitted. I hope the novel assists your research! My dealer friend told me that depending on condition, he'd knock out a Jackboot Girls for £10-15 and he's by no means as steep as many, so you didn't come out of it badly, and i'm DELIGHTED to get the Mark Samuels take on Jackboot Girls! Hope your Best New Horror 20 has turned up as well! |
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Post by pulphack on Sept 27, 2009 15:14:52 GMT
given that by the time this was written JM was spending a lot of time locked in his agents office with a couple of bottles until he actually got the thing finished, i'd say the missing sections were likely to be delirious dreams that he thought he'd typed up.
certainly by this stage he was unedited. the racism was rooted out early on by LJ, but then he handed him over to Mr Howell as he couldn't bare to speak to him, and as i was told it ended up with nothing actually being edited at all, just proofed - so the oddness of the text would never even have been noticed - as no-one at NEL could bear to deal with the old soak.
it wasn't that unusual, however odd it sounds. there is a sexton blake library from the fifties (allegedly - i've never found it) that actually doesn't feature the hawk-nosed hero at all. then-editor len pratt was nearing retirement and so fed up with his job that when a mss for a fleetway romance library got on the wrong pile, he passed it through unread. not long after, he took the cheque and bill baker took over.
never read this one, though i have got a soft spot for the churchill's vixens series having read a couple. they're a strange mix of prurience and sleaze the likes of which could only belong to that era.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 27, 2009 19:01:25 GMT
Thanks, pulps. Profuse apologies for overlooking you in the JM roll of shame! That was inexcusable!
i've read just about enough of Moffatt now to recognise the "missing bits" as something of a trademark. Where your common or garden author keeps a close eye on his or her plot-lines, Mr. Moffatt rarely troubles to do so, and they often disappear out of the window the moment some new perversion enters his head.
The Len Pratt anecdote has such an apocryphal ring to it that it really ought to be true and i'd love if someone could tell us what title to look for.
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(Also, it's not even arrived and all enquiries to the GPO have been met with "there's a strike on, mate.").
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