When I was a kid, John Steakley was an author I was immediately interested in for two reasons. He wrote cool, pulpy genre fiction with an emphasis on character dynamics … and he was actually from my home town, Cleburne, TX. In fact, his second novel Vampire$ was partially set in Cleburne, which was even more rad (to use a term from back then). He published that book in 1990, when I was in high school. Buildings that featured in the story, like the Santa Fe railroad depot, took on a new relevance in this place that, honestly, didn’t particularly interest me at the time. And as a wannabe sci-fi writer in rural Texas, knowing someone else from my neck of the woods had made that journey was inspiring. I kind of became fixated on Steakley.
Vampire$ was Steakley’s second novel, and, as it turned out, his last. He disappeared from public view shortly after, and he died in 2010 from liver cancer. It’s also probably Steakley’s more well known book because of the John Carpenter film adaptation (which didn’t really live up to the book’s adaptation potential).
But the novel that stuck with me the most was his first work, Armor (1984): a book clearly influenced by Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, yet differentiated by a two-part, two-character narrative, and an uptick in the military-technology angle. Even so, it makes no attempt to hide its affinity for Heinlein’s work.
For instance, in Armor, humanity is at war with an alien race simply called the “ants” by the soldiers that fight them, and Steakley establishes that South America is the first place attacked by the creatures. In Starship Troopers, Heinlein’s war begins when the Arachnids invade Buenos Aires.
At the beginning of Armor, the main character is Felix, a “greener” (or new recruit) about to do his first combat drop into battle as a scout. The planet in question is Banshee, a desolate wasteland, where the air is unbreathable and the water is poisonous, and the initial melee we witness is a travesty of epic proportions that only Felix survives. And it’s not due to luck.
It’s the “Engine,” Felix’s name for a sort of psychological trance that allows him to become “a wartime creature […] a surviving creature.” Basically, a part of Felix’s psyche that takes over to deal with all the horror surrounding him.
Felix is a pretty interesting character. He is the POV character for the beginning of the book (before we switch to a different character’s POV for the rest), with the third-person perspective keeping him at a distance. Felix is quiet and resentful, lamenting the futility of war, especially on an intergalactic scale. He’s fearful but relents to the Engine, allowing it to take charge with little resistance… a decision we can relate to, because we’d all probably wish to just surrender to some stronger part of our psyche if we had to live through this kind of nightmarish scenario day in and day out.
Books like Joe Haldeman’s Forever War do a good job of putting you in the midst of a futile, unending conflict, whose rules of engagement are nonsensical at best, but Armor adds to all of that with one amazing, haunting moment.
It comes at the very end of Felix’s part of the book, where he’s just returned from his first combat drop as the only survivor, exhausted and in pain, stunned by the horror and the violence he’s witnessed.
Back on the ship he hears the alarm tone that signals another combat drop is imminent, a desperate attempt by the military forces to try and repair the terrible loss they’ve just suffered on the planet below by throwing more soldiers into the meat grinder. Felix hides the tremendous relief he feels at knowing he won’t have to go back, at least not yet, and steps into the infirmary. They treat his wounds and wrap him in a thin body suit and he lets himself relax, which is when he figures out that the body suit is exactly the same kind he wears when operating his powered combat armor, or Black Suits.
It’s then that we—both Felix and the readers—figure out he’s not getting a respite at all. He’s going back to Banshee. Right now. Without any rest or down time. In spite of his wounds and exhaustion and horror, because—and this is the more horrifying realization—no one cares about any of that…
In the cubicle, the Black Suit embraced him. Dully, he made Connection and watched the dials respond. Then he sat and wept openly.
Heedless, uncaring, Banshee awaits.
He is a tool. A cog in a giant machine, where human lives become numbers thrown dispassionately into a conflict with nothing but the simple hope that a victory might somehow haphazardly manifest itself. Felix is human, he thinks and he feels … and no one cares. And so he turns to the Engine to survive…
This moment, for me, is awesome because you are totally in Felix’s POV, getting his thoughts in Steakley’s fragmented style as they happen almost in real time. You feel shock (as Felix does) when he is told he’s the only survivor of his combat drop. You feel relief (as Felix does) when he thinks he can rest now and recover and get a reprieve from the nightmare happening on the planet below. And you feel horror (as Felix does) when he realizes in spite of everything, he’s going right back down. That he is trapped in a reality where he will be sent back down over and over again, no matter what he says or does.
It’s like a prose kick in the balls, and it sticks with you.
Steakley had a penchant for characters, and his voice was a unique one. It’s a shame he wasn’t more recognized while he was alive. I’d always heard he was working on the sequel to Armor when he died. It would have been interesting to see how he would have followed up this story so many years later. Either way, his stark vision and commentary in Armor stands the test of time, and is something you should check out if you’re a fan of military sci-fi.
J. Barton Mitchell is an author and screenwriter living somewhere between Austin, TX and Santa Fe, NM. His new novel The Razor (whose genre he describes as “science fiction, prison-planet, action adventure”) is published by Tor Books. It was chosen by Amazon as one of the Best Sci-Fi Books of 2018. Connect with him at: www.jbartonmitchell.com
Interesting! I’ll have to tell my mom about Vampire$; she was born in Cleburne, tho’ the fam left when she was two-and-a-half, but she remembers it.
Armor is a flawed but very enjoyable novel. It is flawed because the only good parts are those with Felix. Even though you say Felix is the main character, that is not really true. The Felix story is framed inside of another story with Jack Crow (a name Steakley liked so much he used it in Vampire$ too) and Holly. The part that is so boring that everyone forgets it. Even though it is over half the novel.
There is a manuscript floating around online that claims to be the sequel to Armor (or as much of it was written). If so, Steakley did not get very far
The vampire in the movie was named Felix
“In Starship Troopers, Heinlein’s war begins when the Arachnids invade Buenos Aires.”
One quibble. The bugs didn’t invade. They threw a meteor at the city and destroyed it.
The text states that the Bugs smeared Buenos Aires, not whether that took the form of orbital bombardment or boots on the ground. Nor is it stated at all whether that was the first act of hostility in the war.
Armor is like Full Metal Jacket: two parts that could stand alone, but do subtly enhance each other. Though I agree: the second half of Armor is much less interesting than the first half.
Vampire$ is freaking genius, and I hope it gets a faithful movie adaptation one of these days.
This book meant a lot more to me than I care to admit. I haven’t picked it back up in a decade to see what holds up and what doesn’t, but when I’ve returned to it I always found more there.
The Armor II excerpt that’s out there is real. I don’t know how much more, if any, he ever wrote than that. It was posted to his website, back when it existed.
He had two other projects floating around. One was a novel called Gabriel I don’t know anything about that is rumored to have hit the halfway mark before he died. The second was a sequel to Vampire$, called Werewolve$. He completed an entire screenplay for it – he spent a few years as a screenwriter before turning to novels in the first place – which we know because he read the thing at a convention. The names Felix and John Crow aren’t used because the film rights to those characters were owned by whatever company picked up the rights after Carpenter.
I know he wanted to convert the plot of Werewolve$ into a novel, I don’t think he wrote word one. Sometimes I wish that screenplay would turn up so I could read it. Maybe hire someone to novelize it, but Steakley had a particular voice, and his writing was full of a raw sort of damaged masculinity coming to terms with itself, it’s hard to imagine anyone else getting it right.
No idea what the man was like personally. He always seemed like a wounded wolf to me on the page, and that’s what I remember more than any other detail.
I’ve read Armor a few times and always have a tough go because I get so outraged on Felix’ behalf; especially in comparison to Kent when you consider their battle effectiveness.
I never realized that Steakley only completed those two novels. I’m in the mood to re-read both now.
@6 Thanks for the information!
@2 I think everyone would agree that the Felix section is a lot more memorable, but I’ve come to appreciate the other part too over time… at least, I think I see what Steakley was trying to do, even if it didn’t totally work. It matters that there’s a whole society out there, that most people aren’t involved in the Antwar and know very little about it, and are more concerned with other people screwing them over—which is what most violence is used for. That’s very different from Starship Troopers (and from The Forever War too; we do get a very brief look at civilian life on Earth in that, but it’s more about the system in general breaking down). Jack Crow isn’t interesting, but his attempt to understand a person like Felix is, at least to some degree. And the moment when the two sections come together is pretty satisfying.
Note that Steakley reused both character names in Vampire$ – Jack Crow and Felix.
Absolutely and with no hesitancy or equivocation LOVE both of the John Steakley novels, Armor and Vampire$. I know the Carpenter movie wasn’t Carpenter’s fault but it was always a huge letdown to me. I had started to draw my own comic book adaptation when the movie was announced.
I didn’t find out about his passing until about four years ago or so. I was patiently waiting for Armor 2. Such a sad day for me.
I will always suggest to anyone who might be inclined to ask to read both of these novels.
I am someone who has read said script “Werewolve$” ErikHarrison. Back in the late 90’s early 2000’s I had the pleasure of meeting John during a informal production meeting in Dallas. The production company (James Gang) I was working for wanted John to commission him for a low budget movie project, basically have him rewrite the current script (though I don’t remember the production’s title.) For whatever reason, he had the Werewolve$ script with him at that meeting and let the principles read the script over the weekend. I was lucky enough to be in the right place, right time and was also allowed to read the script.
It stuck with me over the years and around 2004/2005, I reached out to John to ask about the availability of the script to be optioned. My wife and I had a production company at that time with partners in Los Angeles and had some financial backing for small budget projects. I had one email correspondence with John, then lost contact with him.
To this day, I still wonder of the possibilities on getting that script to production and on screen!! It was REALLY good!!
I’ve read that Steakley didn’t just model his Armor universe after Heinlein’s, he actually set the story in the same universe. Heinlein reportedly liked the story so much that he approved of the linkage.
I’ve always thought that Tom Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow is the best film adaption of “armored mobile infantry science fiction,” that sub genre that includes Starship Troopers, The Forever War, Old Man’s War, and of course Armor. I also see a lot of Armor in that film: The first big, disastrous drop, the repeated drops of the main characters (albeit, done in much different ways,) and the idea of the “soldier celebrity.”