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Mission: Impossible #3
Code Name: Rapier
book 3 in the series
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 15, 2024
Ah, a little palate cleanser to get that "run of good books" taste out of my mouth. Like pretty much everything on my "tv-movie-tie-in-novels” bookshelf, this one harks back to that string of spy TV shows in the mid- to late-'60s and is absolute garbage…but in a good way? I mean, bad BAD
BAD
in every sense — plot, writing, totally un-PC character descriptions — and yet somehow these stinkers remain a periodic guilty pleasure which I return to once or twice a year, (and I completely blame my parents for storing these in their garage for over half a century).
Nothing new here that I haven't covered in earlier, similar reviews — things like quoting the hell out of everything (e.g., computer "hardware"); the inability to refer to Barney (the sole black member of the team) in terms other than "the ebony electronics expert" or "the intellectual Negro;" and the fact that if you played a drinking game based on how often the word "minidress" popped up, you'd be wasted by chapter four. Can't believe that teenage me wasted a whole 60¢ on this thing…
One kinda neat thing, however: the first time we see Barney (and his "dark, intelligent face"), he's sitting at the controls of a "Link trainer*," something that meant nothing to me as a kid — and which I only noticed this time because in the mid-‘70s I actually had a job with Link’s art department in Binghamton, NY. So this book brought back memories of two separate nerdy periods in my life!
Anyway...absolute 1-star book, but adding a second for nostalgia value.
BTW, "Max Walker" is a pseudonym for Michael Avallone, who among other things wrote some of the equally bad "Man" and "Girl From U.N.C.L.E" books, as well as all four (FOUR??) of "The Partridge Family" tie-in novels.
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* While today these trainers look like cheap Woolworths kiddie rides, they in fact taught over half a million pilots how to fly between the 1930s-1960s.
Nothing new here that I haven't covered in earlier, similar reviews — things like quoting the hell out of everything (e.g., computer "hardware"); the inability to refer to Barney (the sole black member of the team) in terms other than "the ebony electronics expert" or "the intellectual Negro;" and the fact that if you played a drinking game based on how often the word "minidress" popped up, you'd be wasted by chapter four. Can't believe that teenage me wasted a whole 60¢ on this thing…
One kinda neat thing, however: the first time we see Barney (and his "dark, intelligent face"), he's sitting at the controls of a "Link trainer*," something that meant nothing to me as a kid — and which I only noticed this time because in the mid-‘70s I actually had a job with Link’s art department in Binghamton, NY. So this book brought back memories of two separate nerdy periods in my life!
Anyway...absolute 1-star book, but adding a second for nostalgia value.
BTW, "Max Walker" is a pseudonym for Michael Avallone, who among other things wrote some of the equally bad "Man" and "Girl From U.N.C.L.E" books, as well as all four (FOUR??) of "The Partridge Family" tie-in novels.
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* While today these trainers look like cheap Woolworths kiddie rides, they in fact taught over half a million pilots how to fly between the 1930s-1960s.
Displaying 1 of 1 review