Richard Rohmer Recycles (Again)

Starmageddon
Richard Rohmer
Toronto: Irwin, 1986

Starmageddon takes place in a future past. We know this because the Office of the Vice-President of the United States is held by a woman. The president calls her a bitch, primarily because she never supported Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. It's the year 2000, seventeen years have passed since The Gipper initiated the program and – glory be – the thing works! Doesn't the VP have mud on her face!

Time, 4 April 1983

When an American general insults the South Koreans, the lady vice-president is sent off to do damage control. Air Force One has been booked by the Secretary of State, meaning she and her staff have to travel on a commercial airliner. Seats are booked on a 747 that will follow the very same route taken in 1983 by doomed Korean Air Lines Flight 007.

What could go wrong?

Plenty.

The captain is distracted by the vice-president, another pilot is distracted by the hot purser, and the first officer is legally blind. As a result, the wrong coordinates are entered into the navigation system and the 747 flies over a site where the Soviet Union is at that very moment testing its own strategic defence system.

Well, you can imagine.

Starmageddon is the twelfth book tackled as part of the Reading Richard Rohmer project. By now, I've come to expect a fair amount of self-plagiarism in the author's books. For the most part, this takes the form of passages, speeches, chapters and fictitious documents lifted from previous novels. Separation Two, the most egregious act of self-plagiarism in Canadian literature, is the most extreme example.

Starmageddon is something else altogether. Here Rohmer lifts and tweaks page after page from Massacre 747, his 1984 book on the Korean Air Lines disaster. Behold, fiction born of non-fiction:

Like a lumbering elephant, Flight 315 began to move down runway fourteen, accelerating rapidly toward the computer-precalculated speed of 196 miles per hour. When the speed was reached, the co-pilot called out "rotation"and the captain, both hands now on the wheel of the control column, hauled back smoothly and strongly. Instantly, the nose rotated up into the climb position, and the enormous aircraft, 196 feet between its blinking wingtip lights and 232 feet between nose and tail, leapt gracefully up into the black night. It was 2:02 on the morning of August 29.

— Starmageddon 

Like a lumbering elephant, Flight 007 began to move down runway 31L, accelerating rapidly toward the computer-precalculated speed at which the co-pilot would call for rotation. When the rotation came, the captain, both hands now on the wheel on the control column, hauled back smoothly and strongly. Instantly, the nose came up into the climb position, and the enormous aircraft, 196 feet between its blinking wingtip lights and 232 feet between nose and tail, leapt gracefully up into the black night. It was 12:24 on the morning of September 1.

— Massacre 747

August 29, not September 1. The flight and runway numbers are different, too. Again, Starmageddon is set in the future; albeit a future in which the lessons of Flight 007 are forgotten. Oh, people still remember the disaster, its a real topic of conversation, but that doesn't prevent this from happening:

At 5:53 the Soviet pilot reported: "804. I have executed the launch."
       In one second the lights of the rockets, as burning propellants thrust the missiles ever faster toward the target, had become mere pinpoints in the distance. The rockets headed unerringly for the brilliant navigation lights and the red rotating beacons of the target.
       Pilot 804 knew this his heart-seeking missile, if functioning properly, would have locked onto one go the river of intense heat that the target's huge engines pouring out into the frigid high-altitude air.

— Starmageddon 

At 18:26:20 the Soviet pilot reported: "805. I have executed the launch."
     In one second the lights of the rockets, as burning propellants thrust the missiles ever supersonically faster toward the target, had become mere pinpoints in the distance. The rockets headed unerringly for the brilliant navigation lights and the red rotating beacons of the target.
       The fighter pilot knew this his heart-seeking missile, if functioning properly, would have "locked on" to one go the target's huge engines pouring out a river of intense heat into the frigid high-altitude air.

— Massacre 747

One can understand Rohmer's temptation; Massacre 747 is one hell of a book, and it contains some of his very best writing:

The mortally wounded 747 cut through the night sky, illuminating it for miles around. With only one wing it slowly began to roll. It was like a comet. Its long, distinctive humplike cockpit and nose thrust ahead and clear of the ball of flame as if trying to run away, to avoid being consumed. Inside the roiling fire all was being engulfed or spit out by the explosion into the icy air. Bodies were torn apart. Blankets, luggage, seats, toys – everything movable or ripped away from floors and ceilings at the rear of the massive aircraft – were spewed out the hole where the tail had been.

— Massacre 747 

The flaming and mortally wounded 747 cut through the night sky, illuminating it for miles around. With only one wing, it slowly began to roll. Its long, distinctive humplike cockpit and nose thrust ahead and clear of the ball of flame, as if trying to avoid being consumed. Inside, the roiling fire engulfed all that was not spit out into the icy air by the explosion. Bodies were torn apart. Blankets, luggage, seats, toys – everything that was movable or had been ripped away from floors and ceilings at the rear of the massive fuselage – were spewed out the hole where the tail had been.

— Starmageddon

Who wouldn't want to revisit those images. Besides, it gave opportunity to fix that awkward sentence about the roiling fire.

Did anyone notice?

Books in Canada, May 1986

John Gellner, who wrote glowing reviews of both books for the Globe & Mail, didn't mention the self-plagiarism; as editor of the Canadian Defence Quarterly, you'd think he'd have noticed. But what interests me more is Irwin, which was then in its death throes. Did anyone there know that large portions of their big fiction offering where copied from a book being sold by a rival publisher?

Best sentence:

Pieces of the shattered engine blade penetrated the thin fuselage skin like a knife through gossamer.

— Starmageddon 

Pieces of the shattered engine blade penetrated the thin fuselage skin like a knife through gossamer.

— Massacre 747

Object: A 241-page hardcover in blue binding. The cover art by Peter Mossman reminds me of the very worst albums sold during my time at Sam the Record Man (1983-85).

Access: At eight, I count more copies in public libraries than academic libraries.

The hardcover first edition – there was no second printing – is more common than the mass market paperback. The only cover image I can find (right) comes courtesy of Toronto bookseller David Harris, who offers his copy for all of two dollars.

Worth every penny.

Related posts:

Recycling Richard Rohmer

Old Christmas Gift Finally Read

Dazzled

John Gray

Toronto: Irwin, 1984

Very much a fan of John Gray's Billy Bishop Goes to War and 18 Wheels, I was pleased as punch when, as an excitable young pup, I received a signed copy of Dazzled as a Christmas gift in 1985. Sure, the dust jacket offended, but it could be easily slipped off. The interior, however, proved a greater challenge to these blue eyes.

What is that? Helvetica? Fine when used in directions to the nearest washroom, but hard to take over 245 pages. And why is the type so grey? Some silly allusion to the author's surname? A comment on Irwin's anemic publishing program?

I've held onto this garish book for 24 years, determined that one day I would tackle all those faded, Swiss-designed letters. Today was that day.

It's a bit of a shame that I didn't make the effort earlier; I would've enjoyed its criticism of 'sixties culture. In 1985, that decade of peace, love and idleness was pervasive, and I responded with a youthful Sid Vicious-inspired sneer. Though I lowered my upper lip long ago, at about the same time I started shaving, I still enjoyed the novel's ranting:

The edge of the wedge was the Vietnam War, and the schism widened with subsequent revelations, theories and lies about the CIA, pollution, overpopulation, the miltary-industrial complex and the Establishment. The only moral thing for American youth to do was to Drop Out. Oh, some frothing fanatics formed radical groups like the Weathermen and blew up their university library, perhaps killing the Establishment librarian. Most America youth, however, struck a blow for peace, justice and ecological sanity by refusing to participate in the materialism and imperialism so central to modern life.

With typical Yankee ingenuity, American youth found what the youth of the world had always sought: a morally superior non-activity that required no knowledge, effort or skill. In short, they did nothing.

These are the thoughts of the protagonist, Willard, a parasitic, perpetual student whose lazy, hippy dreams are all but destroyed by a disintegrating marriage. He lives a dark comedy, told in a confessional tone that at times reminded me of Jonathan Ames. That said, I think it improbable that the American author has read Dazzled; the novel was never published in the States. In Canada Dazzled received one lone printing. "You'll never find this one," Gray writes on his website, "it went out of print almost the moment it was released."

There was no paperback edition.

Sixteen years passed before the next John Gray novel appeared. In the meantime, the need to shave increased in frequency, and the Martian John Gray invaded our bookstores (and, I'm betting, more than a few Venusian hearts), forcing our John Gray to write as John MacLaughlan Gray.

May we all devote ourselves this New Year to working towards a more just, more beautiful world.

Object: Barring the self-published, Dazzled is undoubtedly one of the ugliest looking novels ever produced in this country. I admit here that this harsh opinion may be influenced by the roller skating disco diva superheroine Dazzler, who was then being pushed by Marvel Comics.

I digress.

The Dazzled dust jacket is particularly susceptible to light; more often than not, spines have faded to a somewhat more palatable shade of pink.

About the author: Having twice seen Gray in person, I can attest that the blue tinted dust jacket photo does him a disservice.

Access: I'm pleased to report that there are plenty listed online. More good news: Near Fine copies can be had for US$5. Public library users outside Vancouver will feel let down; not even the usually reliable Toronto Public Library has a copy.

Correction: A reader kindly points out that the Toronto Public Library does have the book in its collection – three copies, in fact! My apologies for the error. I'll take this opportunity to sing a line in praise of the TPL: In my experience, it's the finest public library in the country.