Beachhead Planet

by Robert Moore Williams

Valthor looked down with mingled awe and terror at the scene below hom. Once this had been a vast network of mines; now it was being transformed into a gigantic hivelike complex deep beneath the earth.Thousands upon thousands of the little robot men were working with their picks and shovels. Directing them were grotesque two-headed monsters with deadly atomic guns. And wandering amid the maze were green-fleshed creatures who had once been human.And somewhere, unseen but ever-present, inspecting Valthor even as he stood here, were the all-powerful, all-knowing beings he had come to battle...

Genres: Science Fiction

190 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

The prolific author Robert Moore Williams published more than 150 novels and short stories under his given name as well as a variety of pseudonyms including John S. Browning, H.H. Harmon, Robert Moore, Russell Storm and E.K. Jarvis.

Williams was born in Farmington, Missouri and earned a journalism degree from the University of Missouri, Columbia. He had a full-time writing career from 1937 through 1972 and cut his teeth on such publications as Amazing Stories, Fantastic Adventures, Astounding, Thrilling Wonder and Startling.

In 1955 Williams cranked out The Chaos Fighters, the first of 30 novels he would write over the next 15 years. These novels include the Jongor and ,Zanthar series. His most unusual book, however, is one that is labeled as fiction, but is actually an autobiography: Love is Forever - We Are for Tonight (Curtis 06101, 1970). In this short, 141-page work Williams presents a description of his childhood and then discusses his experimentation with hallucinogenic gasses, Dianetics and 1950s-era communes.

Williams married Margaret Jelley in 1938 and they had one child. The couple divorced in 1958. According to the Social Security Death Index, Williams died in May of 1977 in Dateland, Arizona.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beachhead Planet is one of Williams' later novels; it appeared in 1970 but reads similarly to the fun potboilery pulp with which he filled many issues of Famous Fantastic Adventures a couple of decades earlier. It's a crazy mixed mashup of aliens and robots and a "simulated brain substance" that enhances our heroic quest. The evil Narks have launched an invasion, and it's up to Valthor to save the day. (Williams had great character names; Jongor and Zanthar and Fu Cong come to mind, and Mishi, Valthor, or Erasmus Brocknor in this book.) Despite the nifty cover by Jack Gaughan that shows a swordsman standing on a dragon's head, it's set in Colorado a couple of hundred years in our future... which I guess is kind of appropriate...? Or maybe...no... It's not great literature, but if you enjoy catching Svengoolie on the occasional Saturday evening it's right there waiting.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, ignore the cover art. Actually, don't do that: it's a Jack Gaughin piece and is pretty awesome. Instead, ask yourself what a painting of a swordsman/barbarian standing on a giant green gargoyle is doing on a book that takes place in Colorado, 2151 A.D. (Personally, I'd like to imagine that somewhere there's a sword-and-sorcery novel with a cover depicting a two-headed robot shooting down a helicopter by means of an energy weapon portruding from its forehead.)

Anyhow.

The synopsis reads like a distillation of the Shaver Mystery: a strange infiltrative menace from beneath the Earth is starting to take over the world by means of mind control. And then, just to make my life complete, after a chapter or two I realized that the protagonist is a sort of Doc Savage figure who suspects the presence of Lovecraftian beings from beyond the stars (nerd literature bingo!)

I don't know if the author was actually influenced by these sources, particularly by the Shaver Mystery, but many of the elements are there: infiltration, mind control, "detrimental robots", underground complexes, paranoia, and technology that defies conventional thinking, to say the least. (Robots whose two heads argue with one another? Mind control and bodily refashioning by means of a dip in a "simulated brain substance" goo? A protagonist that seeks answers by a meditative 'pwyll' to tap subconscious knowledge?)

I left the book feeling disappointed. Aspects of the book just didn't sit well. Two ancillary protagonists bicker in an obviously-mutual-love-interests way, and frankly the story is held hostage while they do. Much of the introductory chapters could have been done away with. The writing is pedestrian at best, and Williams has a tin ear for dialog. It fails to evoke a sense of menace or suspense.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange things are happening in and around the town of Golden Fleece, Colorado. An authentic 1800s gold mining town has been re-created for tourists. While a group of tourists are being welcomed to the town, a naked man comes out of one of the nearby mine entrances, running and screaming. He is killed by a tiny missile fired by a two-headed creature that also comes out of a mine entrance, setting him on fire from the inside. In the ensuing panic, the helicopter full of tourists is shot down by another such missile, killing everyone.

John Valthor, a man with unique abilities, and head of a very secret company, is brought in to investigate by Smith, a federal security agent. While they visit the town by the "front door," Valthor instructs two of his subordinates, Keth Evan and Mishi Greer, to find a "back door" into the town.

The subordinates are arrested by the local Sheriff, and taken deep underground, where thet are caged with other humans behind an electrified chain-link fence. Every so often, one of the two-headed creatures takes one or two of the humans away for unknown brainwashing. It involves being dipped in a vat of green liquid. When they come out, they are totally at peace with the new order of things, any physical ailments they might have had are gone (including already being dead), and they exude this green oil, kind of like green sweat.

Vathor finds Erasmus Brockner, the person responsible for the two-headed creatures. He created a race of three-foot high robots, with the intention that they do mankind's dirty and dangerous work, letting man retire to a life of total leisure. His mind was taken over by beings from another galaxy called Narks. Brockner intentionally made the two-heads as "wrong" as possible, having one head face forward and the other face backward, with one arm in front and the other in back, and the two heads always arguing with each other. Can Vathor wipe out this alien beachhead, or is Brockner too much one of "them?"

This isn't a bad little sci-fi novel. It belongs in that large gray area of Pretty Good or Worth Reading.

[Chris Browning · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 1953 film Robot Monster is on one hand a goofy, zero budget SF film where a man in a gorilla costume and a diver’s helmet pursues several people around a California ravine for an hour and a bit. It’s cheap and silly and daft. But if you watch it in receptive enough mood then it’s really not hard to read a bizarre psychosexual take on the film. The monster is mostly pursuing a twenty something woman in the film because it is attracted to her and kills all that opposes him. The weird thing is that this is explicitly explained to be the dream of a ten year old boy and said woman is in fact his sister. It’s obviously not a deliberate take but it’s one of those happy accidents that you often get with some pulp fiction: they’re written with such haste that often something from the creator’s psyche just peels off and sticks to the final product. It’s there in Ed Wood, it’s there in Harry Stephen Keeler, it’s there in Fletcher Hanks. And by god is it here in Beachhead Planet.

On one level this is a cheap and cheerful low grade SF potboiler. The plot - aliens try and create a “beachhead” (as in a position for all out invasion) in an isolated mining town and replace humans with (sort of) robots - is nothing new. However there’s some weird throwaway stuff about psychics and some Shaver like/ Von Daniken ideas about subterranean creatures and humanity being from another planet that are sort of weirdly scattered throughout to make it distinct. It’s those ideas that are indicative of how strange a book this really is

It feels in many ways like a pitch for a TV series: impossibly rugged and brilliant John Valthor runs some sort of experimental electronics lab in an incredibly lazily described 2051. We get a weird sort of plot dump where we see all the people who work for him, which all feel like dangling plot threads Williams would want to explore at a later date (he seems to have stopped writing in 1972 so we’ll never know if this was the case). We also get this every odd focus on how Valthor (already a better name than the hilariously named aliens the Narks get. Every time they’re mentioned by names I hear it spoken by someone from EastEnders) uses psychics and the art of “pwylling”. This latter idea is very indicative of how odd the book is, as about twenty to thirty pages before the book ends Williams finally remembers to explain what on earth this concept actually is. Anyway, Valthor and mismatched but loveable employees Mishi and Keth are called away to the town of Golden Fleece to do some investigating

The book almost literally starts like a TV episode. A helicopter of tourists (again, very lazy idea of what 2051 will be like) witnesses a man running out of a mine and being attacked by what appears to be a two headed robotic monster that constantly argues with itself and has mismatched arms. There’s some business with hornet weapons and the helicopter explodes. This would then be when TONIGHT’S EPISODE would come on screen and the credits would roll. It’s very strange, and the book often feels like Williams has imagined his story on screen and is writing a novelisation of that: it feels like it’s full of budget limitations and clunky sets which is very weird but kind of fascinating to read. The effect would be like writing a Doctor Who or Star Trek novel which is self aware about the lack of budget, but this book is absolutely never self aware

Anyway, the plot boils down to these two headed monster things (which in my mind look a bit like Trogdor the Burninator) and some tiny robot miners and the villainous, light based Narks. Why the Narks decide to invade Earth by getting a scientist to design all these robots for them isn’t explained because the Narks never get to have any dialogue themselves, but said scientist tries to sabotage their efforts by making the monsters all wrong. As plans go it makes very little sense and at times reminds me of being told the plot of a book or film by a small child who has either forgotten various elements of plot, and just skims past them. It’s a very strange way of plotting your book but it also makes it really striking because somewhere in all this dense confusion of ideas and bad writing, there’s a sort of clammy nightmare trying to get through

Another example: when Mishi and Keth are captured with other humans, they are all named after distinguishing features - Cowboy, Slack Suit, Prospector etc. There’s a moment where a terrified teenage girl is being comforted by a slightly older man which is described explicitly as being like “the protective arm of a father or big brother”. A touching vignette in an otherwise weird section of stilted dialogue and nightmarish killings by the two headed monster. Except the girl is also described as wearing “the shortest of short skirts” by Mishi and Keth a few pages earlier. And the man - Sideburns if you’re interested - is clearly described as “caressing” her. Was this slightly dizzying combination of pathos and sexuality deliberate? Somehow I really doubt it. But it also makes for a weirdly compelling read

It’s in no way a great book - the plot isn’t so much muddled as falling apart around you and the whole collapse of the Narks is very sudden and peculiar - but there’s a really strange sense of something “other” about it. Because it’s sometimes very funny in how badly written it is - a continuing description of a round faced man with a “square jaw” made me roll my eyes continuously - you’re occasionally tempted to making fun of it. But there’s a real earnestness to it, a real sense of Williams trying to write something very particular and peculiar that I think effectively kicks any accusations of irony into the long grass. This is his vision of the world and it may well be weird and strange and confusing and occasionally very, very funny, but it still absolutely his vision. And I kind of cherish that.

One final point: the cover has absolutely nothing to do with the book. It’s a great cover but feels like the artist had the plot described to him but they weren’t paying attention. I mean the book literally has as a central villain an argumentative two headed robot with mismatched arms, which I would absolutely *kill* to see as the cover. I guess the artist has their own wayward vision in much the same way Williams has. It’s kind of fitting that way.

[Marco Beneventi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nel 2151 l'antica cittadina mineraria di Golden Fleece in Colorado è stata ricostruita per permettere ai turisti di rivivere le antiche atmosfere passate, una disgrazia peró turba le frotte di gitanti, un giorno, un uomo, fuggito chi sa da dove, prende fuoco, subito dopo anche un bambino e poi un intero elicottero pieno di turisti, il tutto pare partire dall'arma di un orrenda creatura dotata di due teste che si rifugia subito dopo in uno dei cunicoli delle tante miniere abbandonate lì presenti.
Chi era? Da dove veniva? Cosa si nasconde nell'oscurità dei cunicoli? Ma soprattutto quel mostro era solo o aveva dei compagni?
A queste e ad altre domande dovranno trovare risposta John Valthor, un ingeniere elettronico e i suoi due aiutanti Mishi e Keth, invitati dal capo della società che ha ricostruito la cittadina per far luce su questi avvenimenti.
Li attenderà un orrorifico viaggio nell'oscurità delle miniere.

"Orrore alla miniera", scritto nel 1970 da Robert Moore Williams, è un romanzo incasellabile nella categoria della "Fantascienza d'invasione", un racconto che in alcuni passaggi si rivelerà anche a tinte horror.
Pur se non sempre entusiasmante, "Orrore alla miniera" risulta comunque una lettura piacevole, ottima la scelta di suddividere la storia in due narrazioni parallele, quella che segue Valthor, il protagonista e quella dei suoi due aiutanti, Mishi e Keth, scelta azzeccata che rende la lettura più movimentata e la capacità di Williams di produrre lq giusta tensione sempre in crescita sino al finale ben scritto, unica nota dolente è invece la poca caratterizzazione dei personaggi cosa che porta il lettore a non empatizzare con gli stessi.
Con una scrittura fluida e immediata questo romanzo puó considerarsi un prodotto ben riuscito, seppur non indimenticabile, di un filone che ha visto la sua fortuna proprio negli anni settanta.

[Edward Guillen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really unimpressive book. Don't expect the ending to shock you and make the whole experience worth it. If you don't like the first few chapters just put it down. There's aliens,robots, and humans but that's not enough to make a compelling narrative. What was more interesting was that it sounds like the time it was written in but that's about it. At least it wasn't as bad as confederacy of dunces but that's not saying much.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was written in 1970 and reads like something written then. But the story is surprisingly good if one ignores the errors in technology like hand-held atomic weapons. It is 190 pages of pulp but if you find it in a used bookstore, it is worth the $1 and the couple of hours.

[colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

read 07.22.84

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://gnomeship.blogspot.com/2016/09...