Black Jack Hogan - no, wait, I'm goddamn serious, that's the main character's name! Yes, Black Jack Hogan is an ass kicking troubleshooter carrying out secret ops for the United States of America. You know he's a true tough guy because his base of operations is a hidden monastery in the depths of Cambodia. Anyway, Hogan kinda-sorta may have possibly gotten himself killed on his last mission, except his soul wasn't... ready to depart but somehow got entwined with the soul of Brom, a barbarian warrior from another... who may have also kinda-sorta... not died... and... look... look... all you need to know is: badass modern day mercenary teams up with badass barbarian warrior to take on evil dictator from the real world and vicious warrior queen from the fantasy world. I'm so glad we could get through my usual pithy intro section without any confusion this time.
I believe it was the ever-awesome Paperback Warrior that initially put this novel on my radar. "The Time Warriors" is a sadly short-lived series by David North and published by the now-defunct Gold Eagle (they of Deathlands, Mack Bolan, et al fame) that chronicles the adventures of the aforementioned Black Jack Hogan and Brom. This novel, Fuse Point, introduces us to the concept of two warriors who can transport themselves through time and space in order to help one another in their own individual battles against the forces of evil. Readers are also acquainted with two dictatorial villains - the hilariously named Colonel Saddam (yes, we're in the early 90's, folks) and the evil Queen Raikana - both of whom have their own sinister plans to take over their respective worlds. Naturally, the only two dudes bad enough to rescue the President stop them are Hogan and Brom.
Something I found amusing here is North introduces the main character as 'John Hogan' at the outset of the novel and informs us that the 'Black Jack' is a nickname he earned during his brief boxing career, but the author seems to forget his original first name for the character about halfway through and refers to him as 'Jack Hogan' sometimes. Or maybe the first instance of 'John Hogan' is a typo or misprint. I don't know, man. I don't make the rules for these things. I just know that in my head as I'm reading this I'm going back and forth between Terry Bollea because of the character's name and Matt Hannon from Samurai Cop because of the silly-cool cover art whenever this character speaks and I kinda like it. There are several tongue-in-cheek references to wrestling peppered throughout the book, with the author describing Black Jack as having "wrestler's arms" at one point and even an impromptu wrestling match between Black Jack and one of Brom's brethren that Black Jack only survives by the skin of his teeth. David North might have been a Hulkamaniac, brother.
If you've read these kind of men's adventure novels before, you usually know you're getting workmanlike prose, and that's what we have in Fuse Point. You're not going to find anything particularly poetic here, but I will say the author is quite adept at handling the action scenes, be it the modern gunplay of Hogan's world or the Conan-esque sword and sandal stuff in Brom's world. The level of violence is definitely in the deeper end of the rated R section and there are naturally a few buxom wenches around for the Time Warrior twins to bed down occasionally. This is 1000% dude fiction and there's nothing wrong with that.
Overall, Fuse Point is a fun diversion and I'm genuinely looking forward to continuing the adventures of Black Jack and Brom in the near future. (Or maybe in the past?) Recommended.
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