Jeffrey Lord (1)

Action, Blood, sex and just about anything else you could want from teenaged male fiction from the mid 20th century. Much like Howard's Conan the Cimmerian but not quite as literate and calculating, Richard Blade is actually a unique character. The first in a long running series. The stories fly off the page almost as if they were taken from Heavy Metal Magazine. Blade is smart and witty, but still possesses that inner lizard brain quality. He likes to fight, loves the women and hates a show more coward. He is brash at times, calm at others but when a topless lass comes his way it all goes out the window. For pulp, the writing is pretty good. Not as corny as Doc Savage and flows much better. Not to take away from the Man of Bronze in the least. Roland Green, author of some of the Conan pastiche's penned a handful of these stories. I have the pleasure of having acquired the complete series in one purchase and will unabashedly plow through them much as Blade plows through his enemies. show less

This volume sees Blade and the computer on not exactly agreeable terms. Blade wants a life, but is loyal to Crown and country to a flaw. Sucked once again into Dimension X Blade now has the ability to retain his memories of adventure. He is thrown into a land akin to the Cathars and Mongols and of course he is divided by loyalty, sex and intrigue. There are a few elements which pop up in this story that might be deemed controversial. Overall it is not a bad read for pulp. Only the second show more book out of thirty seven we are starting to see dynamics that will shape Richard in future outings. The writer wasted no time in getting blade into juicy and hair raising situations. show less

This is the first volume in the 37 book Richard Blade series, by "Jeffrey Lord" (these books were actually written by authors Roland J. Green, Ray Nelson, and Manning Lee Stokes). One reviewer here has called this series James Bond in Robert E. Howard land... True enough and I would amend to include a healthy dose of Edgar Rice Burroughs for good measure!
Through the brilliant research and experimentation of the dwarfish (and somewhat sadistic) scientist, Lord Leighton, Her Majesty’s show more Government has quite by accident discovered the existence of a seemingly unlimited number of alternative realities (collectively dubbed Dimension X”). With inter-dimensional transportation to Dimension X made possible, MI6 is given the task of exploration of these varied worlds, with the ultimate aim of economic exploitation.
Enter Richard Blade, MI6’s very special agent (think a cross between James Bond, John Carter of Mars, and Arnold Schwarzenegger)! who in every book is transported to a new world within “Dimension X”. Blade is the pioneer chosen to blaze the trails to these new worlds! Accomplished with just about all weapons (apparently, as a hobby, he practices with ancient/medieval weapons and armor), tactics, basic engineering, and (of course) love-making, Blade is uniquely suited to the task!
The books are predictably formulaic: Blade is transported early in each book completely naked into a new and strange “Dimension X”. Each of the alternate Dimension X worlds enjoys some aspects of Earth and human history, twisted in odd and interesting ways. Romans, Mongols, Zulus, Ottoman Turks and even Planet of the Apes-like simian warriors: Blade encounters these and much, much more!
Once there, he has to live by his wits and talents. In each of the various volumes, he meets a lady/community/race in distress; and has to wrest leadership from a rival/enemy. Sometimes the authors keep the audience guessing, with the original lady or ally proving to be the villan of the piece; and Blade has to switch allegiances. But ultimately, he always achieves his goal of righting that dimension’s particular wrong; though sometimes leaving events not quite completed when he is whisked back by.
Very enjoyable, rousing and sexy!
I first read these as a teen, and would particularly recommend these for boys 15 – 19. Parents be warned, though: the sex scenes are prevalent and often kinky. show less

Seventh in the long-running Richard Blade men’s adventure series (thirty-seven English-language books plus as many as 150(!) more French-language books that continued the series after it stopped being published in English).

I’ve now read all of the first seven books in the series and they all follow the same premise: the Brits discover a means for sending a human into other dimensions so they send MI6 agent Richard Blade (very much in the James Bond mold) into a different dimension every show more book. They have no control over where he goes and only have a loose ability to bring him back while desired. They’re always experimenting with new computer equipment and so sometimes they can communicate with him and sometimes not. Sometimes he can resist being brought back to Earth, sometimes not. Because this program is extremely expensive, they’re always after him to bring back valuables from his visits; sometimes he’s able to do that, sometimes not. It’s not clear to me if they could send him to the same location a second time, but thus far they haven’t. Blade is always concerned at the start of each novel with how the journeys are affecting his brain (he gets a couple hundred electrodes jammed into his brain and body before each trip), but it’s unclear if they’ll ever do anything with this anxiety. Oh and the series is also notable because of its erotic content, which is not usually graphic, but is a bit more explicit than you find in most other men’s adventure novels.

All were penned by house name “Jeffrey Lord,” but supposedly the prolific Manning Lee Stokes wrote the first eight books, with Roland J. Green taking over the reins for the remainder of the English language books (save for one written by Ray Faraday Nelson). Sadly, I only own the Stokes books plus one random Green book (#29 in the series) so I have no idea how the premise of the series changes over time or how much the writing style changes from Stokes to Green. I enjoy the series (I read men’s adventure novels while riding my recumbent bike in the basement) and will pick up the rest of the series as I locate them.

Plot spoilers follow.

As with almost all the dimensions that Blade gets sent to, he travels to a “fantasy” setting with three rival city-states, two of which are in the process of being conquered by the third (guess my old international relations profs were right about a tripolar international system being the most unstable of all possible power configurations). As with most of the Blade novels, Blade befriends a physically deformed, lower-class man who provides him with information about the world and later supports him when the action gets going and becomes romantically entangled with an upper-class, semi-nymphomaniac woman whose social position is in jeopardy. I’m not kidding: the typical Richard Blade plot is that formulaic and this novel is no different. Here, Blade helps a living “goddess” escape her doomed city, befriending a deserting soldier with missing teeth along the way. They all end up on the island dominated by another city-state led by a high priestess/living goddess who is the first woman’s grandmother. This city is ill-prepared for war, mostly being a caste of effetes ruling over a large group of slaves who are kept constantly drugged and docile. Blade manages to mount a defense of the island, defeat the leader of the invaders in single combat on the beach, and helps the living “goddess” sacrifice herself for the good of the island. Oh and there’s a bit of mysticism here because she really is some kind of mystical being that serves the island’s volcano (or something like that) and we see a bit of what appears to be an actual magical ritual at the end of the book before Blade is wisked back to London.

I give this one 3 stars out of 5. If you’ve enjoyed the other Blade books so far, you’ll probably want to continue reading the series with this one, but it’s forgettable because it follows the Blade formula so closely and is pretty much run-of-the-mill. Not bad for the genre by any mean,s but not awesome either.

Review copyright 2010 J. Andrew Byers show less