Kalian Pendek Solves His Own Murder

Identity Seven
by Robert Lory
p. 1974


First off, I would like to point out that at no time in this novel does a many-tentacled nightmare creature wrestle with a bare-breasted buxom blonde, but such is the way with seventies science fiction covers! On with the review...

Robert Lory’s solo novel, Identity Seven, is a short science fiction/adventure novel that leaves more questions than explanations. It’s called Identity Seven, the codename for the protagonist in the agency he works for, Hunters Associated, but he is addressed throughout the novel by one of his fake identities, Kalian Pendek. Pendek has a real name and identity, but his memory has been wiped and all he knows is his life as a ‘hunter’ for Hunters Associated, where he plays the role of spy, bounty hunter, mercenary, soldier of fortune, etc. 

When the story picks up, Pendek is contracted to investigate the ambush and murder of Identity Six, a carbon copy of himself. He steps into the role vacated by Six, which includes being the subject of several more assassination attempts. Pendek must figure out who among many associates—some friendly, some hostile, any of them deadly—has been trying to kill him, and his search takes him to a bunch of fantastical places and through a number of skirmishes.

Pendek is alright as a hero, and the characters surrounding him—woefully underdeveloped in the style of classic science fiction, wherein the hero and his gal are pretty much the only ones who get any facetime—are more than acceptable for their parts. That is to say, if there had ever been a sequel to Identity Seven, I’d easily believe there was more to them than what little I saw here. One thing that stuck out to me was one of the minor villains (and briefly a suspect in the Pendek assassination plot) was a pirate who was unapologetically female. Lory didn’t give much detail about her, and she was defeated by our hero pretty easily, but in 1974, just to have a formidable foe be a woman was pretty impressive.

I couldn’t find much about Robert Lory. He didn’t specialize in science fiction; it seems he was more notorious for a Dracula series he wrote around the same time as Identity Seven. He seems to still be living and released a book just this year after a long absence. Sadly, he never did anything more with his Identity Seven characters, which is actually a shame because there’s actually a lot of potential in it. Identity Seven picks up seemingly in the middle of Pendek’s journey, and I could easily see more adventures in store, but I suppose they will have to be relegated to one’s imagination.