Thursday, August 25, 2016

Operator #5 06 - Master of Broken Men

Master of Broken Men
by Frederick C Davis
Operator #5 06

Corinth Regency CR128 - Master of Broken Men by Curtis Steele, cover art by Robert Bonfils (1966)

Our villain, the titular Master of Broken Men kidnaps the top men in various fields and breaks their wills through various tortures and psychological gambits.  In at least one scene he wears formal dress and a gas-mask.  He's been hired by the Utopists, some kind of revolutionary group who has been fomenting unrest across the nation.

The Master has various primitive natives working as henchmen, because he likes to break down the white man's sense of racial superiority by having them bested by savages.  We've got boomerang throwing aborigines and a group of leopard cultist "blacks".

That part kind of struck me.  I know the term "black" was previously used to describe Indians as well as Africans - Little Black Sambo was from India - no tigers in Africa.  The "blacks" here are a confused mess, variously described with a mix of African and Indian characteristics.

A good villain, but plotwise was kind of a mess.

Audiobook available from Audible.


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