I started
learning how to surf in the summer of 1990. I’d go surfing on the weekends from
around 7:00 am to 10:00 am. After surfing and eating breakfast we’d hang out in
the yard, listen to surf music and either play backgammon or read books in the
sun. Surfing Samurai Robots was a big book for me read at the time. It was a big step away
from the “choose your own adventure” books I was used to reading. I was a
notoriously slow reader at the time and I think it took me most of the summer
weekends before I actually finished the book. I was really surprised how easy
it was for me to read and understand. It helped that the book had all the
elements that I was interested in; aliens, detectives, surfing and sci-fi
robots.
I still have
the Surfing Samurai Robots book. Actually I have the entire Zoot Marlow series;
Surfing Samurai Robots, Hawaiian UFO Aliens and Tubular Android Superheroes.
Last week I dusted off my copy of Surfing Samurai Robots and spent two days
reading it from start to finish. Twenty two years have gone by from the first
time I read it and even now I still dig the book. If you’re
interested in aliens, detectives, surfing and sci-fi robots then this is
definitely the right book for you too. Below is a break down of all three books, including a whole chapter from the second book Hawaiian UFO Aliens.
___________________________________________________________
Surfing Samurai
Robots
They have the agility of surfers and the loyalty of samurai. They are the Surfing Samurai Robots, the invention of America's leading industrial genius, Knighten Daise.
Zoot, an alien with a big nose from the planet T'toom, is exploring the mean streets of Earth to find out where all the surfing robots went. Be-fore he can say Philip Marlowe, he meets some Malibu dudes who want to know who adjusted their surfbots with a sledgehammer. As if that wasn't enough, his life's on the line to find the inventor's gorgeous daughter.
Is Zoot a good enough private eye for any world or just an alien doing a job an alien's got to do? It's a mystery that's science fiction, science fiction that's a mystery. It's a funny new book that introduces one of the hippest and most original characters of the Eighties.
Hawaiian UFO Aliens
At
last, exhausted and thirsty for a drink of fresh water, I crawled onto the
beach. It should have been daytime, but the black boiling clouds kept out the
sunlight. I lay on the sand, relieved that rain and blustering wind were all
I had to deal with.
I
walked up the soggy mess of a beach and came at last to the house. As was
always the case when Whipper Will wasn't around to remind them to lock it,
the back door opened easily without a key.
The
usual crowd was sprawled about the living room watching a Gino and Darlene
movie on TV.
"Hey,
dude," Thumper called to me from the far side of the room, which was a
compliment of sorts. I'd have guessed he was too busy with Flopsie (or was it
Mopsie?) to notice my appearance in the doorway. Everybody actually looked
away from the TV for a moment to acknowledge my existance. Hanger and
whichever red-head wasn't busy with Thumper got up and gave me a friendly
cuddle. You didn't have to be human to appreciate how warm and soft they
were.
Mustard
took a joint from his face and said, "Wet enough for you?"
"He
likes it wet," Captain Hook said. "They all like it wet in Bay
City." He never took his eyes off the TV screen.
The
captain was in one of his moods, so I obliged him with a low-grade zinger.
"Sure," I said. "That's why Bay City is near the beach."
Thumper
pounded the flat of his hand against the floor and shouted "Ahh-roooh!
Zoot is back!" The rest of them took up the cry. All but Captain
Hook. He was too busy watching Darlene jiggle across the TV screen.
At
my feet was a puddle of salt water big enough to do laps in. I waved at the
crowd, told them that I had to change, and walked along the dark hall to
Whipper Will's room. As far as I could tell, nothing had been touched. Nobody
had washed the laundry, that was for sure.
After
pulling out a flat waterproof packet and throwing it onto the bed, I peeled
off my short johns, padded into the bathroom with them and hung them on a
hook, where they dripped , parhythmically. I rubbed myself down good with a
towel. Feeling more like myself all the time, I went back into the bedroom
and put on my Earth clothes. The brown suit felt natural. I unwrapped the
sheets in the waterproof packet and put them into my inside coat pocket. The
trenchcoat and the fedora could wait.
In
the kitchen I found a glass that had not seen much action, and drank tap
water from it. I rinsed out the glass with a little soap and water and set it
in the drainer, where it was all alone except for a fork that might have been
clean. I was ready for anything now, so I went back into the bedroom and
hefted Bill out of the closet.
Even
in the dim light, Bill's silver body shown. I could barely hear a song about
surfing and young love that was playing on the TV in the other room. Rain
blew against the side of the house, went away, came back even harder. I
reached up and pulled the flypaper off Bill's head. He blinked and said,
"Bay City! Ya! Have a nice trip, Boss."
"I
had a nice trip, thanks."
He
computed that for a moment, then said, "How long?"
"A
few weeks."
He
nodded the way I might have. "What's the scam now?"
"I
need a driver's license. You know where I can get one?"
"My
meat, Boss."
"Wait
a minute." I put on my trenchcoat and my fedora, figuring that the
weather being what it was, wearing them did more than just put me in uniform.
I followed Bill as he waddled from the room and down the dark hallway. We
hurried through the rain and cold across the small garden where Will grew the
fruits for his yoyogurt and into the garage.
The
Chevrolet Belvedere was waiting for me, looking like the ghost of a car in
the gray air. Far away, thunder grumbled about how lightning got all the
publicity. I lifted the garage door, letting in uncertain light and a good
view of Pacific Coast Highway. A car swished by every so often, stirring up a
big lonely sound, but the street was more deserted than I'd ever seen it.
When I opened the car, it smelled musty and damp. I let Bill in the other
side and he sat near the window, his legs not quite long enough to dangle
over the edge of the seat.
"You
want the Department of Motor Vehicles, known to its friends, of which there
are few, as the DMV."
"I
want it, all right. I'm tired of waiting for the first cop with a little time
on his hands to pull me over and discover my terrible secret. Where's the
DMV?"
Bill
told me, and I backed slowly onto Pacific Coast highway. Rain suddenly
attacked the windows with hard spatters and we were off. Soon, I couldn't see
through the cascade rolling down the windshield. Driving was pretty exciting
there, for a while. Even Bill had a good grip on .pathe handrest. "Use
the wipers! Use the wipers!"
"What
wipers?" I was busy at the moment, trying to decide if the thing in
front of me was a truck or a sports car.
"Windshield
wipers!" His left arm telescoped toward me, reached for the dash, and
turned a black plastic knob. Immediately, a couple of arms came up on the
outside of the windshield and swept the water one way and then the other.
"Cool,"
I said. "How'd you happen to know about that?"
"Bubble
memory," he said, and tapped the side of his little ducky head.
The
DMV was a square yellow building with a parking lot on one side. The gray,
joyless day complemented it so perfectly, I wondered if, maybe, rain fell
there all the time. The building had no class, no style, its only
distinguishing marks being the words DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES in bold
block letters on the side, and a jagged chorus line of black marks drawn
along one wall.
"Graffiti,"
Bill said.
"Meaning
what?"
"Meaning
there's probably more action around here when the place is closed."
"I
just want a driver's license," I said.
I
had my pick of spaces in the nearly empty lot. I told Bill to wait for me in
the car. He got busy betting himself which raindrop would reach the bottom of
the window first.
Inside
the DMV building was a single room, lit too brightly with fluorescent tubes.
Following the Los Angeles tradition, the air conditioning was on, making the
room even colder than the air outside. Bored clerks sat in the cubicles
behind desks making notes on papers that would probably be filed in boxes
somewhere and never seen again. A lot of the clerks were wearing coats or
sweaters. One guy had a knit hat pulled over his ears.
English
and Spanish signs that hung from the ceiling told the multitudes where to
stand, which line to wait in, whom to see. No multitudes were there at the
moment, so I walked up to a counter that had an INFORMATION sign hanging over
it. Arrows pointed downward just in case anybody entertained thoughts of
standing in line on the ceiling. I stood tipy-toe so I could see over the top
of the counter.
Nobody
was standing on the other side so I called out, "Am I in the right place
to get a little information?"
A
bored man looked up from his work. His shoulders sloped, and his hair was
thin. But his white shirt was crisp and his tie didn't clash with it.
Astonishingly, his face drooped into an even more bored expression when he
looked at me. "What sort of information?"
"Is
this where I get a driver's license?"
"It
is if you're eligible."
"Am
I eligible?"
"I
don't know. Are you? Read the sign." He pointed to another sign, this
one taking up most of one wall. In English and Spanish it said that a driver
had to be so old, had to pass such and such tests, couldn't be crazy.
"Sure,
I'm eligible."
"Are
you a citizen?" He kind of sneered when he said it.
I
said, "I'd rather not shout. Do you have legs, or are you screwed into
that desk?"
A
few of the other clerks almost laughed. The guy I was talking to didn't like
that, but he stood up--just to show he could do it, I suppose--and walked
over to stand behind the counter. He was shaped like a bowling pin. Walking
to the counter must have been quite a workout.
"Ok.
I'm here now. Are you a citizen?" He glared at my nose, which, truth to
tell, is most of my face.
"The
sign doesn't say anything about being a citizen."
"No,
but you'll need a birth certificate anyway, to make sure you're over
eighteen."
"Of
course I'm over eighteen. Don't let my good looks fool you."
"No?"
"No.
When I was a kid, I had a little accident involving toxic waste and a bottle
of nose drops."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah.
It could happen to anybody." I speared him with my best stare. "It
could happen to you.
The
guy wearing the knit hat guffawed once and then caught himself. The guy at
the counter almost looked over his shoulder at him, but didn't quite.
"You
have a birth certificate?"
I
took the folded document from my coat pocket, unfolded it on the counter, and
waited. I'd done my homework and I thought I was ready for this guy. Him and
anybody else in that room, singly or in combinations. If homework were
enough.
He
looked at the document, turned it around, turned it over. He studied me
instead of the paper and said, "I hope this isn't a gag. The state of
California wouldn't like it."
I
was ready. I knew he wouldn't be able to make head or tail of the document
because on T'toom, never having seen written English, we still used the
letters of the local written language, which was called Gomkrix. But it really
was my birth certificate. I'd just have to fiddle with the date and place of
birth a little.
I
said, "No gag. It's my birth certificate from the Bay City
Hospital."
"It's
not in English."
"Show
me where it says the certificate has to be in English."
He
took the document and talked to one of the other clerks. They buzzed to
themselves while poking the document and watching me. I got tired of it, and
went to look out the window. The rain was so fine, it was almost mist. I
could see Bill's dark shape inside the Chevy.
"Sir?"
It sounded as if the word hurt him to say it.
I
went back to the counter and the guy said, "OK. Let's go through this an
item at a time." I spent the next twenty minutes explaining my birth
certificate to him, making up facts to match what was written there. I didn't
lie any more than I had to.
When
we were done, he looked like a man with a bad taste in his mouth, but he gave
me the written driving test anyway. He was not very happy when I passed, but
we went outside and I drove him around the block while he made marks on a
printed sheet on a clipboard. Bill sat in the back seat, thank Durf, not
saying anything. I must have passed the driving test too, because when we got
back into the building, the guy took my thumb print, my picture and forty-two
dollars.
As
he was writing up my temporary license, he said, "If you're from Bay
City, then I must be the Martian."
"Could
be," I said, shrugging. "I've never seen a Martian." Which was
also not a lie, despite Orson Welles. I picked up the temporary license and
my birth certificate. The guy watched me walk out the door and hustle across
the parking lot to the Chevy. Maybe he expected the Chevy to turn into a
flying saucer and take off.
If
he wanted to see a flying saucer, he shouldn't have been watching me. He
should have been watching the news.
|
____________________________________________________________________________
Tubular
Android Superheroes
This enjoyable romp picks up where Surfing Samurai Robots and
Hawaiian U.F.O. Aliens left off. For those not familiar with those two titles,
suffice to say that they are a mix of science fiction, detective noir and humor
that turns out to be quite enjoyable. The protagonist and narrator, Zoot
Marlowe, is an alien from the planet T'toom, a wet world whose star-travelling
natives learned of Earth via its radio broadcasts (they are too far away to yet
have received its television broadcasts), and Zoot patterned himself after
Philip Marlowe. He had, in the first novel, Surfing Samurai Robots, travelled to
Earth in his spaceship, and landed in near-future Southern California. He
befriended some surfers and helped them solve a mystery. Realizing his
assistance was needed, he stayed to provide further assistance. In this book,
Zoot is faced with the specter of a car dealer who has developed disposable
automobiles that dissolve at the press of a button, but who secretly desires
world domination. What ensues is pure comedy gold.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.