The website of the greatest pulp fiction writer who ever lived
Hack started pushing the envelope in the Junior Ranger saga with this entry, which contained almost none of the outdoorsy adventure found in the early books and focused on hardcore graphic sex. Publisher John Kane was worried that it would alienate the readership so he insisted that Hack add a subplot about a butterfly collector lost in the park. Hack obliged, but had the Lepidopterologist kidnapped by a gang of roving hippie chicks and savagely raped.
Hack indulged himself on this book by bringing his well-known hatred of Santa Claus into the narrative. When Saint Nick crash-lands in the park, Ranger Joe takes over for him and finds the job so easy that he is appalled at how overrated a figure Santa is. So when he finishes the task and returns to the park, Joe summons an angry gorilla who owes Joe a favor to tear Santa limb from limb and then feast on his flesh..
It did not become the holiday perennial that publisher John Kane hoped for.
When his cover artist Jonny M.’s brother Joe, the basis for the Junior Ranger books, got struck by a skateboarder and his ability to take part in a hike he wanted to go on was endangered, Joe made such a fuss about it that Hack wrote this book to mock him. When it was published, it turned out that there were countless thousands of outdoorsmen who had endured similar injuries so that rather than becoming a laughingstock, Joe was lauded as a folk hero. Hack, by contrast, was widely mocked for his terrible writing.