Doc Savage: The Devil Genghis by Lester Dent writing as Kenneth Robeson - Book Review #326

 

The Sequel to Fortress of Solitude.  John Sunlight has returned to conquer the world and defeat Doc!

I was happy with this story.  It relied on the reader being familiar with the previous story.  This was the first time an antagonist came back to haunt Doc's team.

I was happy that the other two characters, absent in the previous story, played an important part in this adventure.

I felt like I was reading a James Bond thriller, with all the travelling to distant places.

The story was great fun, especially how I could see the connections from this series to so many of the other franchises that are still around and based on this kind of story telling. 

The Doc Savage books are not terribly hard to find.  They were reproduced in paperbacks in the 1960's, 70's and 80's.  They can be found in used bookstores and on line easily enough.

Doc Savage: Fortress of Solitude by Lester Dent writing as Kenneth Robeson - Book Review #324

Back in 2006, a publisher called Nostalgia Ventures, Inc., created beautiful reproductions of the old pulp era adventures of Doc Savage.

Doc was the original template of our "modern" heroes Batman and Superman.  Indiana Jones is very much in keeping with Doc Savage.

I purchased lots of the magazines for a few years then drifted off.  I blew the dust off the books recently and picked up issue #1 which contains two "complete book-length novels," Fortress of Solitude and The Devil Genghis.

It was an interesting place to start a new publication of reprints.  I would have expected Will Murray, the consulting editor of the series, to start at the beginning.  Instead he chose these two stories, #68 and #70, when the series was well established.

John Sunlight, the antagonist of the books, marked a departure in the series.  It was the first time Doc suffered the bad guy to get away.

In Fortress of Solitude, John Sunlight stumbles upon Doc's secret hideaway.  Once he makes his way inside, he takes advantage of all the technology within for his own purposes. 

Up to this point the Fortress has not been revealed to the readers, only that Doc occasionally went there to think, learn, and train. 

The beauty of the Doc Savage books is that you need not read them in order.  Each story is self contained and the Doc Savage universe is explained in each installment with the first time reader in mind. 

That is, except for these two.

Book Report #65 - The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont

What a HOOT!

Being a lover of pulp fiction what could be better than a pulpy adventure involving the authors of some of the best known titles?  Walter Gibson (aka Maxwell Grant - The Shadow) and Lester Dent (aka Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage) find themselves ensnared in a mystery involving the death of H.P. Lovecraft, poison gas and Chinese warriors.

There is a wonderful rivalry between these two giants of pulp fiction which walks the line between fiction and fact and is used very cleverly to have them confront the peril from opposite ends.

Malmont did a fine job of including other up-and-coming luminaries of genre fiction of the time (1930's) into the story.  He also managed to include and make very important to the story, Lester Dent's wife and Walter Gibson's love.  Both these ladies played critical roles in pushing the story further.

Once you read this you'll want to dig up as many Doc Savage and Shadow books you can get your hands on.

It took a little while for the story to get going (a function of today's fiction market expecting books of a certain length) which I had to struggle through.  The book was divided into five "Issues" that were roughly the length of the magazines of the day, this was a nice nod to that era's fiction.  It would have been nice if each of these issues would have had stronger cliff-hanger endings but that is a very minor criticism of the work.

I could feel the respect, depth of knowledge and love of the pulps that Malmont brought to this first novel.  Which was confirmed in his tender epilogue.

Yup.  I'm a fan.

Visit Paul Malmont's web page HERE

Paul Malmont

Book Report #58 - The Spook Legion a Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson

Doc Savage.  There is no way I can begin to tell you about this legendary fictional hero.

Start at Wikipedia then follow the links from there for further exploration.  Get there from HERE.

I've read a few Doc Savage stories before and I've always found the narrative a bit stiff but I've always been able to set that aside as it being an example of the style from its time.  First published in April 1935, Doc, Monk and Ham try their best to stop a crime spree committed by invisible groups of men.

This book did not lack for action, but I nevertheless found the first half exceedingly dull.  The trio would chase after the crooks as they moved from bigger to bigger acts of robbery.  Unfortunately Robeson/Dent kept trying to thrill the reader by revealing the acts of invisible (Gasp! Invisible!) men.

The story did not get interesting until Doc and Monk were taken captive and made invisible themselves.  Once the boys were interacting with the "invisi-bad-guys" I was turning pages and looking forward to finding out how it all ended.

Lester Dent wrote most of the 181 Doc Savage stories, some are better than others, this one is only okay - good if you can get to the last half of the book, but you have to read the first half to get there.

The original magazine - April 1935