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Richard Blade #8
Undying World
A Train To Hell...
It was foolish to take a train to Hell when he should be following the blonde to Paradise, but what could Blade do? The destination sign said: HELL. Blade stepped aboard and the doors wheezed shut after him. The train left the tunnel and shot into space.
Collision. Wreck. No time to escape. Pain. Darkness. Nothing now. His last sob was one of relief. It was as it should be. Nothing was beautiful anymore.
Blade awoke as usual, after going through the computer. In Dimension X. But it was different from any previous mission. No one was alive here; but they were not quite dead either. Not robots. Just sleepers. But they were able to kill. They wanted to kill. All they needed were the orders from Jantor or Sybelline. But who were Jantor and Sybelline? And how could they be stopped? It would be Hell....
It was foolish to take a train to Hell when he should be following the blonde to Paradise, but what could Blade do? The destination sign said: HELL. Blade stepped aboard and the doors wheezed shut after him. The train left the tunnel and shot into space.
Collision. Wreck. No time to escape. Pain. Darkness. Nothing now. His last sob was one of relief. It was as it should be. Nothing was beautiful anymore.
Blade awoke as usual, after going through the computer. In Dimension X. But it was different from any previous mission. No one was alive here; but they were not quite dead either. Not robots. Just sleepers. But they were able to kill. They wanted to kill. All they needed were the orders from Jantor or Sybelline. But who were Jantor and Sybelline? And how could they be stopped? It would be Hell....
189 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published July 1, 1973
77 people want to read
About the author
Jeffrey Lord
249 books18 followersA house pseudonym used by multiple authors including:
Manning Lee Stokes
Roland Green
Lyle Kenyon Engel
Ray Faraday Nelson
Richard D. Nolane
Christian Mantey
Arnaud Dalrune
Yves Chéraqui
Gerald Moreau
Paul Couturiau
Amelina Defontaine
Didier Le Gais
Yves Bulteau
Raymond Audemard
Nadine Monfils
Patrick Eris
Nemo Sandman
Manning Lee Stokes
Roland Green
Lyle Kenyon Engel
Ray Faraday Nelson
Richard D. Nolane
Christian Mantey
Arnaud Dalrune
Yves Chéraqui
Gerald Moreau
Paul Couturiau
Amelina Defontaine
Didier Le Gais
Yves Bulteau
Raymond Audemard
Nadine Monfils
Patrick Eris
Nemo Sandman
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 23, 2019
This.
So in book six, Monster of the Maze, Lord L implants a crystal in Blade's brain so they can communicate while he is in Dimension X. This goes horribly awry; Blade almost goes mad. Lord L removes the crystal and vows to never mess with Blade's brain again.
So you may be wondering what this has to do with book eight, Undying World?
Well, Lyle Kenyon Engel decides to write a Blade story that fully uses the crystal that was removed in book six. You had one job...
Continuity errors suck, especially when you read a series all at once.
In this installment the story in Home Dimension was almost non-existent. Plug Blade into the computer and let's go. This is a departure from previous books.
The cover is ridiculous. Not a single lizard encountered. Mole-rats aplenty though.
And the title. Completely at a loss as to what it specifically refers to. Because everything in this world can die.
The only redemption is the ending, and it ends all too abruptly. The Orb People are intriguing, especially with what is teased about their knowledge. Blade gets yanked home, and the book ends in a couple of pages. Met that word count, end the book.
Not recommended at all.
So in book six, Monster of the Maze, Lord L implants a crystal in Blade's brain so they can communicate while he is in Dimension X. This goes horribly awry; Blade almost goes mad. Lord L removes the crystal and vows to never mess with Blade's brain again.
So you may be wondering what this has to do with book eight, Undying World?
Well, Lyle Kenyon Engel decides to write a Blade story that fully uses the crystal that was removed in book six. You had one job...
Continuity errors suck, especially when you read a series all at once.
In this installment the story in Home Dimension was almost non-existent. Plug Blade into the computer and let's go. This is a departure from previous books.
The cover is ridiculous. Not a single lizard encountered. Mole-rats aplenty though.
And the title. Completely at a loss as to what it specifically refers to. Because everything in this world can die.
The only redemption is the ending, and it ends all too abruptly. The Orb People are intriguing, especially with what is teased about their knowledge. Blade gets yanked home, and the book ends in a couple of pages. Met that word count, end the book.
Not recommended at all.
July 23, 2019
So this is the 8th Blade novel and easily the weakest so far.
The real-world wrap around is quite brief and consists of Blade's frustration at his impotence due to too many trips through the computer messing with his brain and the crystal that was implanted to transmit data home (but hang on wait a minute wasn't that removed in book 6.... eh?) So yes, series continuity not book 8's strong point. And neither is making sense since Blade's solution is to go back into dimension X.... because that's worked out so well thus far.
Dimension X this time starts out really interesting - we're in a modern technological society where everyone is frozen doing whatever they were doing when something froze them - having sex, talking, eating, performing experiments. These are the Morphi - electric powered people - who have a little device behind their ears that picks up basically wi-fi - I love this idea! There's a second race of boring barbarians who live in the sewers - the Gnomen. Sadly we spend far too long with these guys. There are two factions vying for power - Jantor the only sterile male and Sybelline a power hungry half Morphi and both try and get Blade on their side.
There is a third race the Selenes or Orbfolk who are super advanced and live on the moon and randomly interfere like sending the 'sweet bomb' that made all the Gnomen infertile. Again really interesting and yet we only encounter them properly in the last 20 pages.
So Blade gets put out to stud and knocks up 100 Gnomen women, although the only real 'love interest' is one girl Norn and while she loves Blade he's not really into her - but she gets kidnapped and suspended over a pit of starving mole-rats at one point in attempt to lure Blade out.
The Gnomen, led by Jantor go on the rampage raping all the sleeping Morphi women and ripping out the ear-studs of the men. Sybelline switches the power back on and there's a big civil war before the Selenes intervene take Blade onto the moon and then bomb the planet with a bomb that looks like a giant breast.
So while I like the concepts of both the Morphi and the Selenes these are largely ignored in favour of generic barbarians... one of who has the name Dork which amused me greatly.
Its really really misogynistic - I mean at one point we're even told of Blade "How he loathed women, all women" - Meg, the high class married woman he tries to seduce at the beginning is really catty. Norn is a clingy non-entity, Alixe the vixen lolita.... just no, and as for the evil Sybelline - meh. There's incest here too - Alixe (no more than 12) is the lover of her father Jantor and has been for two years... yuck (well at least she never seduced Blade, small mercy, or I'd be burning this one) and Sybelline's favourite lover is her son Wilf though he's really not that interested and seems to prefer Blade.
Blade does not come across well in this one either - he advocates the rape of the Morphi women and does a lot of hacking and slashing. About the only points in his favour are the fact that he doesn't fall for Alixe and does rescue Norn but really only because her love for him makes him responsible for her.
Writing is so so. It's not as hilariously bad as some of the other Blade books, but that's almost a pity. The story is far tighter and plotted than some of the other adventures but again not a good thing because its a poor plot. Oh and there are quite a few mistakes - the most glaring for me is the WTF bomb countdown - (for a start I think it's going up rather than down - weird but...ok) - We're told it can be stopped any time before 100 and we start at 30, then get counts of: 50, 40, 25, then 15... ummmm. Science, maths and general sense making really not applicable in the world of Blade.
Normally I have a bit of a soft spot for the Blade adventures but this one not so much. Although it does have some nice ideas they aren't utilised and are buried under a mire of misogyny and really sub standard barbarian adventure.
The real-world wrap around is quite brief and consists of Blade's frustration at his impotence due to too many trips through the computer messing with his brain and the crystal that was implanted to transmit data home (but hang on wait a minute wasn't that removed in book 6.... eh?) So yes, series continuity not book 8's strong point. And neither is making sense since Blade's solution is to go back into dimension X.... because that's worked out so well thus far.
Dimension X this time starts out really interesting - we're in a modern technological society where everyone is frozen doing whatever they were doing when something froze them - having sex, talking, eating, performing experiments. These are the Morphi - electric powered people - who have a little device behind their ears that picks up basically wi-fi - I love this idea! There's a second race of boring barbarians who live in the sewers - the Gnomen. Sadly we spend far too long with these guys. There are two factions vying for power - Jantor the only sterile male and Sybelline a power hungry half Morphi and both try and get Blade on their side.
There is a third race the Selenes or Orbfolk who are super advanced and live on the moon and randomly interfere like sending the 'sweet bomb' that made all the Gnomen infertile. Again really interesting and yet we only encounter them properly in the last 20 pages.
So Blade gets put out to stud and knocks up 100 Gnomen women, although the only real 'love interest' is one girl Norn and while she loves Blade he's not really into her - but she gets kidnapped and suspended over a pit of starving mole-rats at one point in attempt to lure Blade out.
The Gnomen, led by Jantor go on the rampage raping all the sleeping Morphi women and ripping out the ear-studs of the men. Sybelline switches the power back on and there's a big civil war before the Selenes intervene take Blade onto the moon and then bomb the planet with a bomb that looks like a giant breast.
So while I like the concepts of both the Morphi and the Selenes these are largely ignored in favour of generic barbarians... one of who has the name Dork which amused me greatly.
Its really really misogynistic - I mean at one point we're even told of Blade "How he loathed women, all women" - Meg, the high class married woman he tries to seduce at the beginning is really catty. Norn is a clingy non-entity, Alixe the vixen lolita.... just no, and as for the evil Sybelline - meh. There's incest here too - Alixe (no more than 12) is the lover of her father Jantor and has been for two years... yuck (well at least she never seduced Blade, small mercy, or I'd be burning this one) and Sybelline's favourite lover is her son Wilf though he's really not that interested and seems to prefer Blade.
Blade does not come across well in this one either - he advocates the rape of the Morphi women and does a lot of hacking and slashing. About the only points in his favour are the fact that he doesn't fall for Alixe and does rescue Norn but really only because her love for him makes him responsible for her.
Writing is so so. It's not as hilariously bad as some of the other Blade books, but that's almost a pity. The story is far tighter and plotted than some of the other adventures but again not a good thing because its a poor plot. Oh and there are quite a few mistakes - the most glaring for me is the WTF bomb countdown - (for a start I think it's going up rather than down - weird but...ok) - We're told it can be stopped any time before 100 and we start at 30, then get counts of: 50, 40, 25, then 15... ummmm. Science, maths and general sense making really not applicable in the world of Blade.
Normally I have a bit of a soft spot for the Blade adventures but this one not so much. Although it does have some nice ideas they aren't utilised and are buried under a mire of misogyny and really sub standard barbarian adventure.
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
July 28, 2015
Not to bad,for aBlade adventure
January 23, 2016
Richard Blade travels to new worlds and never fails to find danger and love. Good quick men's adventure read. Recommended
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews