Bionic Thread

[killercrab]

Not sure if we've got a SIX MILL thread here at the Vault revamp yet? I recall Dem posted one of the book adaptions at the old haunt. I'm a fan as a few of you know. I've got two of the Mayflower original Caidin novels ( which the series was based upon). Last week I picked up one of the tv episode adaptions - WINE , WOMEN AND WAR ( one of three pilots for the show in fact). I learned today that there was an episode that was banned in the UK - wherein Austin tackles the Brits in Northern Ireland. Definitely can't recall it ( not surprising eh?) - but I'm guessing it's from season 3-5. Anyones memory jogged by this?

Banned episodes of shows are real barometers of *then* current thinking. The Klan episode of THE PROFESSIONALS *another*. It's actually readily available now - though I don't think Bravo broadcast it in the last few years. In fact the Bravo repeats were still edited - a drug taking scene in an early one definitely cut when I watched it.

ade

[Calenture]

killercrab said:

Not sure if we've got a SIX MILL thread here at the Vault revamp yet? I recall Dem posted one of the book adaptions at the old haunt.

I thought it was me (I remember posting some sort of comic adaptation) but the old Vault post by Dem was called
Steve Austin: A man barely alive, etc.

...which was why the damn thing didn't come up in search result.

Anyway, if the man himself is around, he can move it.

[dem bones]

This is as far as we got with him before ....

Evan Richards - Solid Gold Kidnapping (Star, 1975)

Beautiful young Dr. Erica Berger has discovered a way to transplant memory in laboratory rats. To help Steve Austin find abducted diplomat William Henry Cameron, she becomes the first-human subject for her own experiment. She transplants into her own body the braincells of a murdered member of the gang who kidnapped Cameron. With a dead man's transplanted memories, she will help track down the criminals

It's been a slow week, so I guess this counts as a 'horror' find ....

killercrab

Hot damn !! - that's a GREAT find - I'm jealous!!

I've been after the original Martin Caidin CYBORG for awhile but it goes for high prices. THE SOLID GOLD KIDNAPPING without checking ( my dvd set is downstairs) - is an adaption of I think the third or fourth tv episode .

Thanks for posting Dem - fantastic...

ade

funkdooby

I used to love the Six Million Dollar Man when I was a young whippersnapper. Even had a t-shirt, as I recall, and of course the action figure with x-ray vision and bionic limbs. Didn't know there had been any novels, though.

killercrab

Well there are the tv adapted novels ( like above) and the original book CYBORG that inspired the series . There also appears to be some other original books - one called OPERATION NUKE I believe. I periodically scour the web outlets when I get on a bionic interest binge.

I used to also love the SIX MILL comicstrip in LOOK IN and naturally I'm a fan of Jaime Summers too aka the BIONIC WOMAN , who had her own drawn adventures with superb art by John Bolton. I still have all the issues.

One of the great things about TSMDM tv show was that it attempted to address the issues of being ultimately a frankenstein creation - this added a necessary depth that balanced nicely with the bionical action and it has a f**k off introduction too - ' a man barely alive ..etc'.

ade

demonik

Not what you're looking for ade, but -

Mike Jahn - The Secret Of Bigfoot (Star, 1977)

LEGEND FROM ANOTHER TIME

Battle Mountain had become the scene of highly important seismological investigations. But up there, close by Goldman's research team, a monstrous creature waited and watched - it was none other than Sasquatch, better known as Bigfoot, the mysterious being of Indian legend that roams the timberline. Could the time-worn legend have come true?
Or was there a more sinister explanation linking the beast's savage reappearance with the lone group hidden in the forests who displayed such a keen interest in Steve
Austin's phenomenal bionic powers? The answer lay buried somewhere in the mountainside. And Steve was the only person equipped to discover and exterminate it.

At least he gets to take on a monster in this one so I might even be tempted to start it one dark day. How lazy is that cover?

goathunter

These would be fun to read!

And yes, that's a very lazy cover!

Hunter

[andydecker]

They even published the Caidin novels and later the Jahn novels here in Germany, when the series never was on tv at the time.

Caidin´s novels were pretty good SF if memory serves me right, but the later novelisations were kind of blah as so often.

In later years I watched the eps and couldn´t understand their appeal. Well, most of american tv sf of that time is just awful. Why did they always do the slow motion thing? Wouldn´t it have made more sense to do this in fast forward?

[Steve]

I thought Col. Steve Austin had more of a presence on the old board, I'm surprised this is all there is. I was sure there was a list of the various books for a start.
Anyway, let's put that right now with a bit of a Bionic Bibliography that I've cobbled together;

'Cyborg' novels by Martin Caidin
Originally published in hardback in the US by Arbor House (dates of first publication given in brackets).

_{Boris Vallejo cover for the US Del Rey reprint of Cyborg}

Cyborg (1972)
Warner paperback, 1972 (reprinted twice in the US by Del Rey);
first published in the UK by W.H. Allen, 1973; Mayflower paperback, 1974

Operation Nuke (1973)
Warner paperback, 1974 ('Cyborg #2'); first published in the UK by W.H. Allen, 1974; Mayflower paperback, 1975

_{Warner Paperback Library editions of Cyborg & Cyborg #2: Operation Nuke}

"He was a wonder of scientific perfection - but it was lonely as hell at the top. All the resources of NASA, the Pentagon, and Government Money put the pieces of Lt. Col. Steve Austin's shattered body back together again. He came out of it more perfect than human. Better than new. A deadly, unstoppable weapon. Now all he needed was to find some human emotion in the tangle of plastic, wire and atomic metal that was fused to the remains of his flesh."

_{The Martin Caidin 'Cyborg' books, High Crystal and Cyborg IV, were published in paperback
as part of Warner's numbered Six Million Dollar Man series}

High Crystal (1974)
Warner paperback, 1975 (as #3 in their Six Million Dollar Man series); first published in the UK by W.H. Allen, 1975; Mayflower paperback, 1976

Cyborg IV (1975)
Warner paperback, 1976 (as #6 in their Six Million Dollar Man series); first published in the UK by W.H. Allen, 1977

_{Cyborg IV, W.H. Allen, 1977}

Not sure if there was a Mayflower paperback of Cyborg IV, was there?
The Mayflower editions had some nice painted covers by, if I'm not mistaken, Richard Clifton-Dey.

The Six Million Dollar Man TV tie-ins (listed by publisher)

_{Warner Paperback Library, 1975}

Warner 'Six Million Dollar Man' series (US)

#1: Wine, Women and War by Mike Jahn, 1975
#2: Solid Gold Kidnapping by Evan Richards, 1975
#3: High Crystal by Martin Caidin (see details above)
#4: Pilot Error by Jay Barbree, 1975
#5: The Rescue of Athena One by Mike Jahn, 1975
#6: Cyborg IV by Martin Caidin (see details above)

'The Six Million Dollar Man' books by Berkley Medallion (US)

The Secret of Bigfoot Pass by Mike Jahn, 1976
International Incidents by Mike Jahn, 1977

_{Star Books}

Star Books (UK)
Star published the following 5 titles;

Wine, Women and War, 1975
Solid Gold Kidnapping, 1975
Pilot Error, 1976
The Rescue of Athena One, 1976
The Secret of Bigfoot (retitled from 'The Secret of Bigfoot Pass'), 1977

There were also annuals published over here for 1977, 1978, 1979 & 1980


The Bionic Woman TV tie-ins

Welcome Home, Jaime by Eileen Lottman
Berkley Medallion,1976

Extracurricular Activities by Eileen Lottman
Berkley Medallion,1977

Star Books, UK
I gather these UK editions are the two Berkley books retitled.

Double Identity by "Maud Willis", 1976
A Question of Life by "Maud Willis", 1977

There were at least two Bionic Woman annuals (for 1977 & 1978), the second of which featured Maximillian The Bionic Dog!

Also Scholastic published a book in 1976, The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman by Joel H. Cohen, which I believe is some sort of biography of Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner.


As well as the comic strips in Look-in mentioned by Ade, Charlton Comics in the US produced 9 issues of a Six Million Dollar Man colour comic & 5 issues of a Bionic Woman comic, as well as about half a dozen issues of a black & white Six Million Dollar Man magazine.

I've got the last issue of Charlton's SMDM comic somewhere but don't have it to hand just now, however I do have scans of the first few issues (and most, if not all of the BW comics) which I'll try and do something with later.

Another spin-off was a series of spoken word albums for children from Peter Pan/Power Records in the States. I've got one of these (a Christmas special!) in MP3 format, and I might post a bit of that later too.

killercrab said:

I learned today that there was an episode that was banned in the UK - wherein Austin tackles the Brits in Northern Ireland. Definitely can't recall it ( not surprising eh?) - but I'm guessing it's from season 3-5. Anyones memory jogged by this?

I'm not sure, Ade... but while I was putting together the book list above, I came across some details of an episode which sounds very much like the one you mention.

It was an episode in Season 2 called "Outrage in Balinderry".

Set in the fictional Dominion of Balinderry, the story is set against the backdrop of the struggles between the Independent Balinderry Army, the IBA, and the Dominion Army.
Sound familiar?

There are more details here;
bionic.wikia.com/wiki/Outrage_in_Balinderry

[killercrab]

Thanks Steve for that expansive overview! I actually picked up one of the Bionic Woman annuals last year. We should also add that there was a SMDM poster mag too - at least that's what I recall - came out around the time that poster mags were all the vogue. >>


It was an episode in Season 2 called "Outrage in Balinderry".>>

That's got to be it - thanks! It is from season two - but an episode I've not got to yet!


I watched Lee Majors in KILLER FISH last night - it's rubbish frankly - though points for unconvincing piranha attacks of course...

ade

[glodfinger]

Reviving a very old thread here, but I recently managed to finish the first three Martin Caidin novels.

CYBORG is pretty good. Very pacey (although it helps that it is basically three stories in one: how he came to be bionic/an underwater adventure where he climbs inside a robot dolphin and deals with a Russian submarine base/ hi-jinks in the desert). There's a great deal of angst from Steve about how he's no longer human, which is something that was dropped from the TV show very quickly, and the level of writing is pretty high overall.

OPERATION NUKE: Interesting set up, with Steve infiltrating an organisation smuggling nuclear weapons around the world. Unfortunately the plot takes forever to get going, and for most of its pages it just feels plodding. The last 30 pages or so are great, with a terrific ending, but for the most part it's just dull.

HIGH CRYSTAL: Looked promising from the blurb on the back, with Steve investigating ancient ruins in Peru. Could they hold a power source from outer space? By the end of the book I didn't care. Like NUKE, it felt like a good idea ruined by poor handling. Maybe Caidin should have remembered that the stories were about someone with special powers. In this and NUKE the hero is more like a rather common or garden secret agent who has some rather jazzy false limbs. On top of this, the book leaves several plot threads flapping about, and the ending just feels rushed.

I've never even seen a copy of CYBORG IV, which was the final novel in the series. The one that they have at AMAZON is going for crazy prices, so I'll give that one a miss!

[killercrab]

I remember CYBORG being the better read too. Darker than the show ( though to be fair the various pilot episodes did focus on the frankensteinian aspects a bit). Not read High Crystal yet or the final book ( which I've yet to acquire) - maybe it had a low print run? Thanks for reviving this thread.

KC