Goblin

Zine
Title:	Goblin
Publisher:	Nut Hatch & Entropy Press
Editor:
Author(s):	Sara Lansing
Cover Artist(s):
Illustrator(s):
Date(s):	June or July 1992
Series?:	yes
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	Professionals
Language:	English
External Links:	Entropy Press flyer
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Goblin is a gen 137-page Professionals novel in a series by Sara Lansing.

cover

flyer

The Series

Series order taken from a 1999 Entropy Press flyer. Note that the zine order (and content) differs from what is noted at Palely Loitering.

• Goblin (1992)
• Knife's Edge (1993)
• Operation Assegai (1995)
• Hellburner (1997)
• Deep Fire (1998)
• Hostage London (1999)

Summary

Summary from the flyer:

It has the mind of a Terminator,

Its body is a 65 ton tank. NATO's best can't stop it... And it's on the rampage! War as we know it is obsolete, and robots are coming. The proponents of the new technology of war are few and far between, and given little credence. But one man will not be ignored. Brigadier Sir Geoffrey Leighton, long-time Royal Army officer and advocate of 'technowar,' wishes to remove atrocity from war by letting machines do the work. But this concept does not please everyone -- and Leighton is top of someone's hit-list. CI5 become involved on a KGB tip-off, and narrowly avert Leighton's death at the hands of terrorists. In a political mandate, Bodie and Doyle are seconded to the Royal Army as Leighton's personal bodyguards during the Clansman '84 exercises in central Scotland. In the bitter cold of a snow-bound moorland, amongst war machines training for the real thing, Bodie and Doyle soon discover that the rumours are true... terrifyingly true. The first of the robots is already amongst mankind. On the first day of its test-run the worst-case scenario is realised and the Royal Army is not turning Goblin on the enemy, but facing it themselves. Goblin is working perfectly, but it hears a different master. All its codes have been changed, and the Army can no longer control it. Who has seized this perfect weapon? What terrible mission has it been programmed with? And more importantly, how can it be stopped? The MI5 man on the scene was Bodie's commander, in the mid-1970s, but when Colonel Wymark is injured the task falls to the CI5 men: hunt down Goblin's new puppet-master and stop the tank at all costs! Flying at the speed of sound in Harrier 'jump jets,' armed with the most sophisticated weapons in the modern arsenal, from gunships to cruise missiles—this is Bodie and Doyle as you've never seen them before. Sara Lansing is a long-time Professionals fan and serving member of the Royal Australian Army. This is her first novel in this fandom but by no means her first published work... discover fandom's answer to Tom Clancy!

AGE STATEMENT REQUIRED. Explicit sex, graphic violence and language render this a novel for mature adults. Hetero in orientation, this is a 'mainstream' thriller very much in the style of the screened series.

Comments from the Publisher Regarding the Zine's Content

From Kathy Keegan, the editor of Nut Hatch Press:

Lastly, I want to repeat a statement I made in FC - because so many of you chose to skip that issue, since it was a media zine, so did not see the editorial. If you didn't enjoy Goblin, please don't chew chunks out of Nut Hatch! We are not responsible for writing, editing or publishing, we only printed/bound and marketed. Why? Years ago, Entropy Express passed into the hands of JJ's brother, Mike. We also agent for other presses, and are not responsible for the content of their zines either! Goblin was liked and disliked in equal numbers. If you didn't enjoy it, you have company; if you did - you have company. Mostly, those disliking it are devoted "/" fans, finely attuned to B/D, who found it hard or impossible to enjoy an 'unfannish' book. Did we like it? Why? We thought the concept and writing were brilliant; the characterisation, we saw as so close to what we saw on screen 10-15 years ago that we had to like it!

Though we don't publish non-/, we can't find a way to rationalise criticising a story because it's straight, or because it's far closer to the filmed series than fandom. If you disliked Goblin, please, re-sell your copy to a friend who likes straight stories and/or series oriented plots and characterisations. And while you're passing it along, take half a second to reflect how far we've all wandered from the aired shows: so far, you couldn't like Goblin, which would probably have made a great episode, twelve years ago -- like Lawson's Last Stand, or Wild Justice...

Sorry to go so sober, but after some of the mail we've been getting, I had to say that.

Fan Comments

1994

Techno-thriler. Straight. Bodie and Doyle story, (although I was already well into it, before [I was warned]). It is difficult for me to say what I thought about it. I enjoyed

it, certainly I did, but I think it was in spite of it being a B&D zine. It was actually more a Goblin zine than a Professionals one. Indeed, on page 60, I was still wondering what Bodie and Doyle were doing in that story, whereas I was thrilled by the amount of technical details (weapon, transport and computer specifications), procedures and strategic manoeuvres described. But if the technical stuff was page turning, and the quality of writing carried you along nicely.

ALL the characters left me with a strange feeling of otherness. Not least of them, Doyle. In the military camp, Bodie fell into what looked like perfect military behaviour and thought. This, with his military background, could be explained, although his loyalty to militariness contrasts with the Bodie we see on screen.

But Doyle?? And it can't be claimed that it is the extend of the threat that does that: In Stake-out, the threat was comparable, and neither Bodie nor Doyle tuned into such military cogs. I'm not aware that Doyle did military service (I think it is voluntary in England, whereas it is mandatory in France).

Doyle was willing to shoot someone friendly he had no reason to doubt (his girlfriend) because a general he respects, but does not really know, wants the movements of civilians on the military base controlled? And Doyle being sad at the thought of maybe having to shoot her? I'm not saying that Doyle would have shot the general first, but I say he'd have been tempted.

The other bizarre incident, is, again, with Doyle and his girlfriend. Both had some time to themselves in the middle of a dangerous situation, still in the military camp. So they screw each other silly. And do you know what thought was foremost in their mind during this wild, irrepressible fuck? The one thing they couldn't forget? What they could not drive out of their minds was the fact that screwing is illegal in a military camp in alert. I had never figured THAT to be on the list of Doyle's priorities before.

That were the weird things I could pin down, but there were a lot of others that felt just like the same without I being able to explain why.

1998

The tank story is a gen novel called Goblin by Sara Lansing, a fairly pacey, very hardware based sci-thriller and it's sequel is Knife's Edge by Sara Lansing and Barbara Jones which is a pretty gorey occult thriller. They are both published by the Nuthatch, though not terribly typical of that press. (Aussie dollar currently 58c US, so if you're thinking Nuthatch, do it now.) The tank one is probably worth a read for novelty value if you don't mind gen, it's well written, but if you don't like action novels it will probably bore you silly. I did find out more about military helicopters than I ever felt a need to know!

The zine's called "GOBLIN". It's a novel by Sara Lansing.

I've only read about 20 pages so far, but since the very first page I have this horribly dreadful feeling, that this is a Gen-/Adult-story (*shudder*) instead of a slash story... :(

Since I *don't* read Gen-/Adult-Zines anymore (because I simply don't have the time for it and prefer to spend my free time with slash stories *only*) I'd be very very disappointed and very very angry to find out, that "GOBLIN" is a Gen-Story, *after* I've read it.

Can somebody *please* tell me, if it's a Gen-Story or not??? *beg*

Because if it's a Gen-Story I'll try to get rid of it as soon as possible again. :)

If not, I'm glad to have it and will read it further 'til the end.

Thank you so much...

...angry with herself, because it seems I've forgotten asking the dealer, if the zines were Gen or Slash in the first place... *Grumble*

I really hope, I didn't spent all my money for Gen-Zines... ACK!!! What a horrible thought!!!

It's gen. Or at least not slash. So is OPERATION ASSEGAI, from the same publisher, IIRC. I believe it's a gen press whose stuff is being marketed by Nut Hatch.

From what I've heard, it's a decent story; you might want to read it and _then_ get rid of it -- its value as a used zine won't decrease just because you got some eyetracks on it.