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Berserker
248 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 3, 2018
A reanimated Viking on the loose in Manhattan should be more interesting than this. Needed more Muppets.
May 7, 2019
I am currently reading Ready Player One along with the 372-pages-I'll-never-get-back book club (372pages.com) and so I need a fill in. I'm on letter "S" and...well...I don't know. I had this book. And I'm reading all my books, right? Good or bad, I paid my 25 cents and I'm gonna get my money's worth.
Frank Spiering owes me a quarter.
I'm torn between 1- and 2-star rating for this book because, you know, at least this has sentences in it. I mean, beyond the "See Dick Run" kind of stuff in Cline's book. In fact, this book benefited immensely from the contrast with RPO, at least at first.
But, what the hell, seriously. How stoned were writers in the late '70s/early '80s? And editors?
People would ask me what this was about and I'd say, "Well, apparently, a giant-axe-wielding four-eyed (but faceless!) werebear is stalking and killing all the Eskimos in Manhattan." But that way oversells it, as I could see by the glimmer of interest in their eyes.
The opening of the book has our hero, an Eskimo in Greenland who would be named "Christian" at some point, witnessing his father dying while seal fishing of what appears to be some horrible and rapidly moving disease. It kills all the seals, too, by the way.
When he gets back to his village, he finds everyone killed. Hacked to death in (rather improbable) states of gore. As I recall his mother is: a) naked; b) sitting in the family tent; c) missing her face. One can only imagine the machinations of the bloodthirsty monster that had him take his 9ft, 1500-pound frame into the tent, rape (presumably) the mother, then hack her face off and sit her upright.
So, we appear to have two agents at work here: A monster and a disease. The disease turns up a couple of times later in the book. It is never explained what the disease is, or why Axe-y McFourEyes needs it, except as a convenient way to orphan the hero, so he can forget his Eskimo heritage and be surprised when it comes after him again in Manhattan.
Again, I was in a very generous mood reading this book. Spiering devotes a remarkable amount of care to his peripheral characters, like the officious museum guard, the high strung hospital director and the guy at the pound who kills the unwanted animals by putting them in a decompression chamber and then throwing their corpses on a big pile.
But his main characters? Oh, boy. The Eskimo, well, he's an eskimo. Handsome. Good-hearted. A microsurgeon. But he's literally nothing else, which would make the "hero's journey" a little hard to grasp had there been one.
It's full of sloppiness, which is probably an editor's fault, somewhere. At one point, he has a paragraph describing Christian's blond, voluptuous soulmate lying next to him in bed, and the very end of the sentence (and subsequent paragraph) make it clear that she's been up for hours and isn't lying in bed next to him at all. He has to reach out for her.
This is jarring at a micro level. Jarring at a macro level is when his soulmate is brutally murdered (he thinks) by the werebear and within a few days, he has a NEW soulmate, an eskimo girl who falls in love with him in a matter of hours, much like the blond girl did. And who inexplicably suffers the same fate.
Emphasis on the "inexplicable" here. I have no idea what happened at the end. I have no idea why. I don't know if blondie was (somehow) in on it the whole time, or if it was a completely different threat disguised or did the werebear somehow turn into a blond girl, and was the main character immortal or just lucky and what was the deal with the necklace and how the hell do you end the novel with a long paragraph describing Christian's tortured soul and tag "Free." as the last sentence to the end of it and...
If Spiering is still alive (and he could well be!) I would like to ask him what he was thinking, but I sort of think he probably wouldn't remember.
The moral of the story is: Don't write a book based solely on a Frank Frazetta poster your buddy had up on his wall while you were hitting the bong.
Frank Spiering owes me a quarter.
I'm torn between 1- and 2-star rating for this book because, you know, at least this has sentences in it. I mean, beyond the "See Dick Run" kind of stuff in Cline's book. In fact, this book benefited immensely from the contrast with RPO, at least at first.
But, what the hell, seriously. How stoned were writers in the late '70s/early '80s? And editors?
People would ask me what this was about and I'd say, "Well, apparently, a giant-axe-wielding four-eyed (but faceless!) werebear is stalking and killing all the Eskimos in Manhattan." But that way oversells it, as I could see by the glimmer of interest in their eyes.
The opening of the book has our hero, an Eskimo in Greenland who would be named "Christian" at some point, witnessing his father dying while seal fishing of what appears to be some horrible and rapidly moving disease. It kills all the seals, too, by the way.
When he gets back to his village, he finds everyone killed. Hacked to death in (rather improbable) states of gore. As I recall his mother is: a) naked; b) sitting in the family tent; c) missing her face. One can only imagine the machinations of the bloodthirsty monster that had him take his 9ft, 1500-pound frame into the tent, rape (presumably) the mother, then hack her face off and sit her upright.
So, we appear to have two agents at work here: A monster and a disease. The disease turns up a couple of times later in the book. It is never explained what the disease is, or why Axe-y McFourEyes needs it, except as a convenient way to orphan the hero, so he can forget his Eskimo heritage and be surprised when it comes after him again in Manhattan.
Again, I was in a very generous mood reading this book. Spiering devotes a remarkable amount of care to his peripheral characters, like the officious museum guard, the high strung hospital director and the guy at the pound who kills the unwanted animals by putting them in a decompression chamber and then throwing their corpses on a big pile.
But his main characters? Oh, boy. The Eskimo, well, he's an eskimo. Handsome. Good-hearted. A microsurgeon. But he's literally nothing else, which would make the "hero's journey" a little hard to grasp had there been one.
It's full of sloppiness, which is probably an editor's fault, somewhere. At one point, he has a paragraph describing Christian's blond, voluptuous soulmate lying next to him in bed, and the very end of the sentence (and subsequent paragraph) make it clear that she's been up for hours and isn't lying in bed next to him at all. He has to reach out for her.
This is jarring at a micro level. Jarring at a macro level is when his soulmate is brutally murdered (he thinks) by the werebear and within a few days, he has a NEW soulmate, an eskimo girl who falls in love with him in a matter of hours, much like the blond girl did. And who inexplicably suffers the same fate.
Emphasis on the "inexplicable" here. I have no idea what happened at the end. I have no idea why. I don't know if blondie was (somehow) in on it the whole time, or if it was a completely different threat disguised or did the werebear somehow turn into a blond girl, and was the main character immortal or just lucky and what was the deal with the necklace and how the hell do you end the novel with a long paragraph describing Christian's tortured soul and tag "Free." as the last sentence to the end of it and...
If Spiering is still alive (and he could well be!) I would like to ask him what he was thinking, but I sort of think he probably wouldn't remember.
The moral of the story is: Don't write a book based solely on a Frank Frazetta poster your buddy had up on his wall while you were hitting the bong.
March 20, 2024
I couldn't possibly tell you what this novel was about, and I'm not entirely convinced that Mr. Spiering could either. It's a creature feature, but also a slasher, but also a virus story, while also being a medical drama, crime caper, and romantic drama? It's all of these things, yet balanced with such a startling lack of focus or purpose that it almost comes off as being NONE of these.
There's some solid writing in here, Spiering can certainly turn a phrase, but none of it amounts to very much. There are a few gnarly attack scenes and kill scenes, but it's shown in the literary equivalent of a strobe light, so I wouldn't say any of those horror scenes stand out. If Spiering had put as much effort into the horror and kill scenes of his novel as he did the romantic mental ramblings and soft-core porno sex scenes, we might have had a little minor classic on our hands here.
It's a cool story with a solid idea and some decent characters. However, none of it really comes together with any kind of cohesion or purpose. I'd have rather seen more of the gangsters, learned more about Bill, spent more time with history museum staff, or maybe met one singular police officer/detective investigating the 10+ brutal murders happening around Manhattan.
I'm happy to have it and to have read it, to have it added to my growing collection of horror novels from the 70s-80s/Hendrix's Paperbacks From Hell, but damn, was I hoping for a little more. An ancient Eskimo/Viking demon warrior thawed from the ice and set loose in 1980s Manhattan, hacking people to absolute fucking bits with a massive axe, sounds like maybe the coolest thing ever. This book really fails to capitalize on that potential. Recommended for other completionists, weirdos that want/need to get their hands on as much horror material from the 70-80s as possible, or others tracking down all the Paperbacks From Hell. Everyone else, your prolly good to skip this one.
There's some solid writing in here, Spiering can certainly turn a phrase, but none of it amounts to very much. There are a few gnarly attack scenes and kill scenes, but it's shown in the literary equivalent of a strobe light, so I wouldn't say any of those horror scenes stand out. If Spiering had put as much effort into the horror and kill scenes of his novel as he did the romantic mental ramblings and soft-core porno sex scenes, we might have had a little minor classic on our hands here.
It's a cool story with a solid idea and some decent characters. However, none of it really comes together with any kind of cohesion or purpose. I'd have rather seen more of the gangsters, learned more about Bill, spent more time with history museum staff, or maybe met one singular police officer/detective investigating the 10+ brutal murders happening around Manhattan.
I'm happy to have it and to have read it, to have it added to my growing collection of horror novels from the 70s-80s/Hendrix's Paperbacks From Hell, but damn, was I hoping for a little more. An ancient Eskimo/Viking demon warrior thawed from the ice and set loose in 1980s Manhattan, hacking people to absolute fucking bits with a massive axe, sounds like maybe the coolest thing ever. This book really fails to capitalize on that potential. Recommended for other completionists, weirdos that want/need to get their hands on as much horror material from the 70-80s as possible, or others tracking down all the Paperbacks From Hell. Everyone else, your prolly good to skip this one.
May 13, 2021
Basically a DNF as I ended up skimming the last 50 or so pages as a means to just get through this god awful novel.
I guess there is supposed to be a story here but it’s so muddled down with pointless side plots, constant (and repetitive as hell) sex scenes, stupid characters doing stupid things, and an absolute garbage ending that I don’t even know what the story was supposed to be about. Something about Viking spirits?
Berserker sat on my “want to read” list for almost 2 years, and it took me just as long to finally procure a copy. Talk about a wasted effort.
I guess there is supposed to be a story here but it’s so muddled down with pointless side plots, constant (and repetitive as hell) sex scenes, stupid characters doing stupid things, and an absolute garbage ending that I don’t even know what the story was supposed to be about. Something about Viking spirits?
Berserker sat on my “want to read” list for almost 2 years, and it took me just as long to finally procure a copy. Talk about a wasted effort.
September 29, 2022
Ok, so I watched the Northsman in 2022 and got into a Viking kick. Bought this book because of the title and thought it sounded good. Going into this book I was told by several people that I was not going to enjoy it but after reading it I beg to differ. I thought that the book needed more Berserker and more Viking scenes but the scenes that we do get are damn terrifying! Its such a short book and the first 100 pages had me on the edge of my seat! Then the last 100 felt like it slogged on just trying to fill time to get to the ending, which was a pretty decent and satisfying but also confusing. Lots of plot holes which left me with lots of questions when I was done reading this one.
August 2, 2014
This book made no sense, most of the time the protagonist was dreaming, or carrying on with his work.
The creature when it bothered to show up. Was in and out before anything would happen.
I just finished and have no idea what this book was about.
The creature when it bothered to show up. Was in and out before anything would happen.
I just finished and have no idea what this book was about.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews