REMEMBER the Star Trek episode Balance of Terror from the Original Series? Sure you do. It was the one that pitted Captain Kirk against a Romulan commander, in a suspenseful game of cat-and-mouse warfare to see whose submarine, er, I mean, starship, could outmaneuver the other and avoid destruction. It was classic sea-opera stuff, er, I mean, space-opera stuff.
The episode was written by Paul Schneider and based on the 1957 submarine warfare film The Enemy Below, which itself was based on a novel of the same name by Denys Rayner, a decorated British naval officer who served in World War II. This fourteenth episode of Season One, while not without its flaws, is considered by Trekkies to be one of the best episodes in the entire series, to which I concur.
Now mind you, James Good's 1982 two-volume adventure series Sub Wars is no Balance of Terror, or for that matter, The Enemy Below, but his nautical plots do adhere expectantly to the same basic, cat-and-mouse formula that so completely surrounds the submarine sub-genre like water around a hull. On the other hand, Good's rudimentary prose, as gripping as it actually is at times, can leave you feeling like you've sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor.
For the record: James Good is a pseudonym, used this one and only time by prolific genre writer Irving A. Greenfield (1928-2020), who, under his own name also wrote the subsequent seventeen-volume submarine paperback series Depth Force, itself enhanced by terrific cover art while also being published by Zebra during the 1980's. Sub Wars can be considered Depth Force precursors, or preliminary novellas written to chart the publishing waters.
Sub Wars 1, Target Delta V, was published in paperback by Zebra in 1982. The cover art and design is quite striking in my estimation, but Zebra did not credit the excellent illustrator, and I have no idea who that person could be.
From the back cover:
"THE MEN: U.S. Captain Steve Cooper and Russian Admiral Leonid Gorshin were the very best their countries had to offer the field of nuclear submarines. They were professional. Expert. Confident. In control. But above all, they were rivals. So when the U.S.S.R. manufactured the biggest, sleekest most advanced submarine to date, Cooper grudgingly phoned his congratulations to Gorshin-- in Russian."
THE SUB: "The Delta V was the most complex and the most accurate nuclear submarine ever constructed-- and the Russians had her. She had the fiercest missiles, the deadliest torpedoes, and the most superior electronics. And just one Delta V could wipe out the entire U.S. defense system. There was nothing Steve Cooper wanted more than to board the Delta V, learn what made her tick. But if he couldn't capture her, his mission was to destroy the greatest sub ever made-- along with her Soviet commander... "
Sub Wars 2, Target Susus, was published in paperback by Zebra in 1982. The cover artist, who appears to be a different artist than the person who painted volume 1 (note the differences in how Captain Cooper looks on each cover, and the overall tone of each sub), was not credited here either.
From the back cover:
"THE COMMANDERS: "U.S. Captain Steve Cooper and Russian Admiral Leonid Gorshin were experts in nuclear submarines. Each knew how to fight, how to win and how to strategically play the game of war. But most of all, they knew each other's weaknesses-- and hated each other's guts!"
THE SUB STATION: "The Russians called it Project Potemkin, but to the U.S. it was SUSUS: Soviet Union Secret Underground Station. The vast undersea site housed a missile launching facility on the ocean floor, swung the nuclear balance to the Commies' side... and set Steve Cooper on his deadliest mission ever: destroy SUSUS and Gorshin-- even if it meant his own watery grave!"
DIVE, DIVE, DIVE...
[© July, 2020, Jeffersen]
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