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Post by dem bones on Oct 30, 2012 8:58:56 GMT
Arthur Herzog - Orca (Pan, 1977) Blurb: THE KILLER WHALE The most feared monster of the deep. Massive jaws and savage teeth geared to a powerful intelligence, the killer whale is the only creature - apart from man - who kills for vengeance. If his mate is harmed by a man, Orca will hunt down that man to take his revenge in terror, mutilation and death ...How do you follow a masterpiece like The Swarm? Personally, i'd have considered my work on this earth done, but fortunately for us, the late, great Arthur Hertzog was way demanding of himself. Thirty pages in and Orca is already shaping up like the thinking man's Moby Dick/ a blatant Jaws rip-off. Since his divorce, Jack "I fell asleep during Jaws" Campbell, owner of Florida's Golden Beach Marina and captain of 50ft Tuna Trawler The Bumpo, is a rudderless, alcoholic, womanising wreck, until his college girl sister Annie drags him along kicking and screaming to the Seaquarium to watch the performing sharks & Co. Despite himself, Jack is enthralled by the majesty of the Killer Whales, with whom he has much in common. Like them, he's a wild animal, trapped in a world where he doesn't belong, and he also knows what it's like to have a bikini-clad babe riding his back. To all intents and purposes, they might be his brother and sister. The Golden Beach Marina is in desperate financial straits, and this all to do with the under-performing Jack who is usually too pissed to crawl from his bunk and round up potential clients. Even Gus Novak, the The Bumpo's fiercely loyal captain-in-all-but-name is threatening to jack in over unpaid wages and general disillusion. Something has to be done and when Annie and her boyfriend Paul Sutro excitedly inform Jack that the Japanese are offering 150 grand for the capture of a Great White, his sense of adventure finally overcomes his indifference to all things life. The crew prepare for a shark hunt. Meanwhile, somewhere in the Atlantic, Orca's mate is entering the latter stages of pregnancy ...
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Post by dem bones on Nov 12, 2012 20:23:11 GMT
Captain Jack Campbell and crew find their Great White off the coast of Newfoundland, but their hopes of bagging it are dashed when a local overseeing a diving expedition steers into their path. He's fortunate to escape with his life. Just as the shark is about to feast on him, a forty-foot Orca leaps on it's back, bites down and swims off with the upper half of its body. Campbell, on the gin again, has to be physically restrained from attacking the survivor and contents himself with hurling abuse at the lone diver, sexy University lecturer Dr. Rachel Bedford, as she emerges from the sea in her flattering wet suit. Rachel gives as good as she gets.
Campbell has already made up his mind to hunt the Orca, reasoning that if the Japs are prepared to pay $150, 000 for a mere shark, they're sure to stump up a fortune for a giant even by killer whale standards (see cover). The crew are appalled. Annie remonstrates "Jack, you're forgetting that whale saved a mans life!", but he doesn't care, it's not like the Orca did him any favours intervening on the creep's behalf. Why did it bother? "Maybe it just doesn't like sharks. Maybe it saw Jaws. Maybe it wants somebody to make a t-shirt with its picture on it." Makes no difference. He'll hunt it down and if the others don't like it they can fuck off back to Florida.
While they work on modifications to the shark container, Rachel pays a visit to inform Campbell that she's a killer whale specialist, she hates his guts, she hopes his mission fails miserably, and she currently has no significant other in her life, just saying, don't get your hopes up as you've no chance. He confirms that he is likewise unattached on account of his tramp of a wife leaving him. After another exchange of hostilities, Rachel is on her way. It can only be a matter of time before they're going at it hammer and tongs on the Captain's bunk.
Orca, oblivious to Campbell's designs for him, frolics with his pod (Rachel assures us that's the collective word for killer whales. "School" only applies to the non-killer variety). As yet none of the fab charts and diagrams that gave The Swarm its veneer of "authenticity", but chugging along nicely in every other department.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 14, 2012 12:46:31 GMT
Rachel ropes in Umilak, an elderly Native American chief without a tribe, to try appeal to Captain Ramsey's better nature and call off the hunt. Umilak explains that killer whales are sacred to his people who regard them as benevolent spirits. The massive orca, known as 'Hole in fin' or 'Nickfin', is held in the highest regard of all, as he once shunting an Indian canoe to safety during a storm.
Ramsey's better nature isn't open for business right now. The local Mayor, Robert Smith and Robichaud the boat repairer, are bent on earning some extra revenue off the back of his exploits. Robichaud is even willing to throw in a quickie with a buxom brunette named Jeanette to seal the deal. Rachel bawled him over just as he was about to get to know her, though in truth he was in two minds. For all her charms, Jeanette's backside is off-putting in its enormity.
The Bumpo takes to the seas. They catch up with the pod messily feasting upon a colony of seals. So engrossed are the whales in tearing the poor little bastards apart, that Ramsey's team have the giant orca securely trussed for ferry back to the holding pen before they realise anything is up. But - it's the wrong killer whale! As Gus hoists her alongside ship, with a terrible cry, bride of Nickfin (for it is she) miscarries.
A notched dorsal breaks the water. Panicking, Ramsey screams at Gus to release their captive back into the sea, but the winch has jammed and she's drowning. Nickfin is steaming toward them and he's in no mood to listen to explanations. He rams the boat. Anne sustains a broken leg. He rams the boat again. Wood splits somewhere below deck. Again. The net tears. His dead mate drops free, floats in the direction of their dead baby.
Red eyes of hate glare at Ramsey from the darkness. The Captain doesn't know it yet, but The Bumpo is light a crew member. Gus has been snatched from the deck and carried off in Nickfin's jaws .....
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Post by dem bones on Nov 15, 2012 19:12:55 GMT
My mistake! Lady Orca wasn't dead. But not to worry, she is now. Once he's done with Gus, the mighty Nickfin pushes his dying mate to the shore near Calm Cove, just as he had with the sinking canoe in happier times. Rachel soothes the beached whale into the final sleep with ambient music and readings from the Book of Job before the locals dynamite her guts all over South Harbor. Like Nickfin wasn't already pissed at the townsfolk, mankind in general and Jack Ramsey in particular, now it really is grudge match on.
He's out there in the bay. Watching Ramsey's every move. Waiting for his chance.
The locals are turning ugly. Dollar signs in their eyes, they were patting Jack on the back before he set out to kill himself a whale, but that was before it all went pear-shaped and Nickfin attacked the harbor, sinking the two fishing boats moored between The Bumpo. The townsfolk have taken up rifles and a decrepit cannon to use on the beast if he returns to wreak more havoc - the cover painting suggests he might be considering something along those lines - but they're insistent its Ramsey's fight, not theirs. He caused all this, and he needn't have any thought of sneaking off and leaving them in the lurch. Even Rachel feels sorry for him, especially when the killer whale eats his dog.
All the above baloney and am only on part four, THE FURY (p. 107 of 189), so if you have the novel for God's sake read that instead.
Somehow I got it into my head that Herzog's book was the original basis for the movie of the same name, but it seems like it was the other way around.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 19, 2012 18:32:42 GMT
Young Tim Drury has a hot date with Janet Parker, who has the reputation of being something of a tease. His friends reckon he's no chance, but bashful Tim is worried she'll actually put out for him. After the dance they take a blanket aboard a skiff in the harbour. Nickfin breaks up the party, on his way to setting the harbour ablaze and blowing up the marina.
The locals are understandably riled, and next night wait in ambush. The Killer Whale feigns injury. Thirty fishing boats chase him out to sea where he tires of the game and casually eats one of his pursuers. The Mayor is fed up with it. Soon they'll be living in a ghost town. His Police Lieutenant pitches in.
"Bob, like I said, why don't we call in the military?" "This isn't a Japanese monster movie, Al. You just don't understand what its like in the real world."
Anyway, those pesky 'Save the Whale' bleeding hearts would be sure to complain. Al has a better idea. "Accuse Ramsey of something .... or better still, work on his sister. She's shacked up with that hippie and that's fornication, and its against the law."
Eventually they decide the best way to galvanise the townsfolk is to play on their superstition, put it around that Ramsey is under a curse. Sure enough, soon all manner of village idiots are phoning him at Mrs. Pollack's guest house, saying that, now The Bumpo is seaworthy, they want him out on the ocean at daybreak. They attack the Pollack place with rocks and shout abuse. Paul Sutro has had enough. He walks out into the crowd dispensing peace signs - "nothing to do with me!"' - and this initially confuses the mob into letting him pass until they remember that if there's one thing they hate worse than Killer Whales destroying their town, its a hippie. The crowd disperse, but the night's drama is not yet concluded. As with all the buildings, the guest house is perched on thick wooden stilts to prevent constant flooding. Nickfin knows where Ramsey lives, and rams the stilts, causing the structure to collapse. The orca launches himself at Annie's wrecked room and comes away with her leg in it's jaws.
For Ramsey, this proves the final straw. He agrees to hunt down the whale, but he'll need a crew, his one remaining able-bodies seaman, Sutro, having decided over a joint that this whole whale-hunting enterprise ain't his bag and who wants a one-legged girlfriend anyway? He discreetly drags his battered body aboard a bus and disappears from the action. Rachel, all loved up, and the Injun Chief (who has a dark, Nickfin-related secret) volunteer, and Robichaud is blackmailed into joining them by the slimy Mayor and his toady, the lieutenant.
Armed with rifles, grenades and a harpoon gun, the four board the patched-up Tuna boat for what they all suspect will be its last voyage. The initial skirmishes are relatively tame, but that's only because Nickfin has already decided upon a venue for the final conflict - The North Pole ...
Not quite the thinking man's Moby Dick I'd hoped for and, unlike The Swarm, this wouldn't feature on a personal top twenty 'Rivals of the Rats' chart, but am still very glad to have made Orca's acquaintance. Bride of Nickfin's miscarriage and the seal massacre aside, there's little by way of gore, and the bad-sex interludes are perfunctory if rescued by some magnificently awful dialogue. That said, it packs plenty of action into just under 200 pages and held my interest right through to the traditional crushingly anti-climactic ending (a departure from the movie version). Very recommended to fans of this stuff.
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