Clone Merchant

I never had a chance to review this, because I finished it just about the time I really started preparing for my move. I wish I could tell you more about INVASION OF THE CLONES, except it's a pretty darned good and action-packed slice of pulp set in Africa, where a crazed dictator (obviously based on Idi Amin) employs some former Nazis and a mad scientist in his effort to take over the entire continent. The Death Merchant, undercover as a member of the dictator's militia, which is run by an ex-SS officer, is captured in the opening chapter and taken to the compound's laboratory, where the scientist takes some of his DNA and later uses it to create five Death Merchant clones.

Siding with a band of revolutionaries, whom author Joseph Rosenberger doesn't always portray favorably, the Death Merchant and CIA crony Vallie West engage in several bloody battles as only Rosenberger can describe them. Surprisingly and disappointingly, the author makes very little use of the Camellion clones. It reads as though he was reaching the end of the book and thought, "Oh dear, I guess they really should make an appearance." The notion of the Death Merchant fighting five equally lethal versions of himself is not as dramatic or bizarre as it should have been, but I'm giving INVASION OF THE CLONES a thumbs-up anyway.