Paperbacks from Hell [N.F. - Literature, Art]

In 1977, the launch of Voyager and the release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind kicked off a UFO wave. Carl Sagan’s TV series Cosmos focused our attention on the skies, and every respected scientist came down on one of two sides: either aliens were coming to help us attain enlightenment or they wanted to eat us. Or kill us. Or kill us first and then eat us. There were conflicting theories.

Horror novelist Whitley Streiber (Wolfen, The Hunger, The Night Church) wasn’t sure what the aliens wanted, but he managed to turn his own abduction story into a lucrative empire with books (Communion, 1987; Majestic, 1989), TV appearances, and eventually a subscription-based website. Strieber never proclaimed his extraterrestrials good or bad, but in Wetanson and Hoobler’s The Hunters (1978) it’s clear: the extraterrestrials will proclaim messages of universal peace and brotherhood to lower our guard, and then use the reanimated corpses of our loved ones to lure us into the open, where they’ll shoot us and roast us over a campfire. They’re probably neighbors with the aliens of Earth Has Been Found (1979), whose fart-propelled “xenos” abduct humans and impregnate them with eggs, from which parasites hatch and eat their way out.

Why would aliens travel all that way to eat us? Don’t they have food on their home planets? Well, what if they’re not aliens at all? Leave it to J. N. Williamson to reveal the truth. Brotherkind (1987) starts as your typical abduction story, with Sheila gangbanged on a UFO by a bunch of midget aliens who must use the power of their collective semen to overcome her DNA’s natural resistance. Also, Bigfoot joins in because he was hitching a lift. Returning home, she finds hypnosis, and love, in the arms of parapsychologist Martin Ruben, but the two are menaced by Men in Black. Rubin unravels the conspiracy: alien Greys have teamed up with Bigfoot and the Men in Black and Mothman to seed humanity with alien/human babies. P.S., they’re not aliens at all, but part of a hidden race that we used to call fairies.

Ever since Eisenhower sold us out to the Greys in 1954, our planet has become a one-stop shopping solution for every jerk with a flying saucer. Credit 106

Fortunately, Martin is able to melt the Men in Black and the Greys with the power of the rock band KISS, specifically their hit “Firehouse,” which he finds on an “acid rock” station. Then he simply refuses to believe in Bigfoot until his aggressive disbelief makes the ten-foot-tall manimal fall apart. Tragically, he cannot reach Sheila in time and her hybrid baby is abducted. The book ends with the author assuring us, as any good scientist would, that although the story we have just read is not true, it’s also not not true either. Now that’s science!

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Skeleton Doctors Are the Worst Doctors

Skeletons are the worst. They lurk inside our skin, waiting to jump out and use our computers, dance obscenely in graveyards, and wield enormous scythes. But even worse than a skeleton is a skeleton doctor. To be honest, I’m not even sure their licenses to practice medicine are legal.

I have never discriminated against anyone based on the quantity of their skin, so it was educational to read The Children’s Ward (1985) by Patricia Wallace and Allison’s Baby (1988) by Mike Stone and realize that, yes, in fact all skeleton doctors are fabulously incompetent and should immediately be turned into xylophones. Wallace explores the issue of whether a cursed California hospital ward previously occupied by the criminally insane ought to house an experimental pediatric treatment program. (Conclusion: Probably not.)

On the isolated hospital’s most isolated ward, four children are observed 24/7 by the head of the program, Dr. Quinn, who learns that all of their ailments, from brain tumors to paralysis to leprosy, are psychosomatic; the kids don’t need surgery, they need hugs. But hugs are in short supply as a physical therapist’s arm is yanked out of its socket, a custodian gets bisected by a power tool, a bad daddy shoots himself, and a ghost beats a mean mommy to death. Bad parents are getting punished, but by whom? It turns out that one of the kids is psychic, and the dark forces lurking in Ward D are amplifying her powers. We’re never told what these dark forces are, but the sound of wind chimes is heard whenever they manifest, so I imagine they’re spirits of long-dead Zen surfers.

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Skeletons may have their faults, but you have to admire them for working hard enough to earn advance degrees in pediatrics, obstetrics, and nursing. Credit 109