I WATCHED THEM EAT ME ALIVE

I devoured I WATCHED THEM EAT ME ALIVE: KILLER CREATURES IN MEN'S ADVENTURE MAGAZINES last night in one sitting. The latest entry in the ambitious and much appreciated Men's Adventure Library, this slim volume packs a helluva punch in 103 pages. Edited by MAM masterminds Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle, this digest size/format book delivers vintage Men's Adventure Magazine covers along with five stories featuring animal attacks on humans. Deis and Doyle both provide interesting introductory material and then it's off to the land of killer crabs and vicious flying squirrels (among other dangers).

The stories feature the above mentioned crabs and squirrels as well as a randy gorilla, a mountain lion and a shitload of snakes (with a gator thrown in for good measure) as the final yarn. All of the stories follow a standard formula: start with an exciting action sequence in which the narrator is immediately imperiled, then flash back to explain how our protagonist got in this predicament, then back to present day for a thrilling climax. It's a great way to hook a casual reader from the get-go because if a reader was bored by any given story in a MAM, he'd merely flip the page and start reading the next story. This formula is a sure-fire method to keep male eyeballs glued to the adventure at hand.

The last two stories are the best. STRANGE REVENGE OF WYOMING'S MOST HUNTED GIANT PUMA is by MAM maestro, the late Robert F. Dorr and the tale vividly demonstrates why he was a master of this type of material. In this story, it's a man that's the bad guy while the mountain lion just does what mountain lions do. The Men's Adventure Library has previously published A HANDFULL OF HELL, a first rate collection of some of Dorr's best war and adventure stories and that volume comes highly recommended. You can order it at menspulpmags.com. Tell 'em I sent you and thank me later.

The grand finale, TRAPPED IN THE BAYOU'S PIT OF A MILLION SNAKES could just as easily have been dubbed the original "Snakes on a Plane", because that's exactly what happens in this totally gonzo story by the late Walter Kaylin, one of the best of all of the many MAM writers. This insane thriller pits a small plane, three men (the pilot, a prison official and a convicted killer) against a veritable army of cottonmouth snakes and a giant, snake eating alligator. Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? If this one doesn't make your pulse race, you're dead.

All in all, I WATCHED THEM EAT ME ALIVE just goes to prove the old adage about explosives coming in small packages. This one brings the dynamite in two fists along with a testosterone fuse of sweaty, desperate thrills as men battle killer animals to the death. Trust me, it doesn't get any better than this.