Customer Reviews

Black Samurai 01

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Marc Olden was an African-American author who wrote forty published books.His very first book was titled Angela Davis and was a study of the controversial black militant.It was followed by Cocaine,an investigative book about the rise of cocaine abuse in America.While researching Cocaine,Olden made a number of contacts with the NYPD,DEA and FBI.Information from these contacts helped bring a sense of realism to his first fictional work,Narc.This book about federal narcotics agent,John Bolt,had eight sequels.Olden's best known series of books may have been about Robert Sand,an American G.I.who was trained for seven years by a Japanese samurai master.There were eight books in the series and all of them had covers that were brilliant studies of pulp fiction art.Olden himself was a martial arts practioner(he held advanced belt ranks in judo,karate and aikido)and brought a certain sense of realism to the fight scenes in his books.The first book tells how Sand was rescued from a group of racist soldiers by a Japanese martial arts master who would become his sensei.Seven years later,after his teacher is murdered,he goes on a mission of vengeance.Considering that this book is over thirty years old it's not as dated as you would expect.Probally because Olden didn't write it as if it were a blaxploitation movie.I really believe that Warner Brothers dropped the ball by not picking up the rights on these books.After the success of Enter The Dragon and untimely death of Bruce Lee they tried to market Jim Kelly as the next martial arts super star.They might have succeeded if they featured Kelly in a series of films about Robert Sand instead of putting him in films like Hot Potato.The charismatic Kelly would eventually portray the Black Samurai,but it would be in a Grade-Z production for Al Adamson.I recommend this book for all martial arts enthusiasts.