Where the Bad Guys Take Your Breath Away. Literally.

Merchants of Disaster by Kenneth Robeson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As always with Doc Savage, the book was okay. Three stars.

For personal and biographical reasons, I have more affection for the series and the characters than the novels really warrant. The cool covers help, too. In truth, there's a little fun to be had reading these books--the "advanced" science from the 30's is kinda fun, and we usually have exotic settings (though not in this one), and there's an advantage to knowing the characters before you open the book. (Star Trek novels, for example, have the same advantage.) But you can tell these books are quickly written and barely edited. In a way, that's part of the charm. This is pulp fiction; that's how they're supposed to sound.

This particular novel has no supernatural trappings, no supposed werewolf or ghost or goblins. In fact none (almost none? not sure) of the books really do--they just tease something supernatural that ends up being explained another way, like Scooby Doo. But even that is skipped here. From the start, it's clear there's some sort of weapon being used by bad guys, and it's clear they're gonna sell it to other bad actors. That plot is not too different from many movies and tv shows out right now--just a straightforward action story with criminal arms dealers. It works fine, tbh.

They're short, moderately entertaining novels, and they give me a jolt of nostalgia when I read them, so even if I almost never give them a 4 (and never a 5) I keep picking one up from time to time. And I've got a couple more on the shelves, so eventually I'll get to those as well.

Just recommended for people who already read old pulp fiction. But anybody might try one, once.

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Where Doc Savage Just Called Them Monsters

The Monsters by Kenneth Robeson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This Doc Savage novel was, for me, somewhat more fun to read than many. I usually give a 3 for these books, but this had a more complete plot and somewhat better pacing.

Part of the charm of these novels, and one of the reasons I keep reading them, is that they're short--probably half the size of most novels--and so you get a complete story without a huge investment of time. I also like the settings, taking place all over the world in the 1930s, mixed in with some gee-whiz electronics-punk inventions. Another attraction in this one is that the danger is actually a monster, not just a Scooby-Doo fakeout. A number of monsters. That gives it more of a fantasy vibe, which I prefer.

You might wince a little, however. The whole series suffers at times--especially a few places in this title--from thoughtless racism. It's kinda shocking when you hit it, though it's mostly just a line or two, found in a few spots. You wanna ask if grandpa meant to be hurtful, because it doesn't seem like it. It seems more like his unenlightened mindset just leaks out. Intended or not, though, it definitely mars the book, making it hard to recommend to others.

Aside from such flaws, this offers lots of old-fashioned pulp entertainment. Pretty consistent action. And, as always, a cool cover.

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Where Doc Goes to Patagonia

Spook Hole by Kenneth Robeson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It was fine. Typical adventure. About as good as any other Doc Savage novel.

The number of times Doc's men have been captured and held and allowed to escape has got to be a record, but it's that kind of story. You've just gotta let it go the way it's gonna go.

I finally found one of the books with Doc's cousin, Pat, and it was good to have more than one female character in the story. She didn't get to do much, but it was an improvement over other titles.

So, something's going down on the waterfront; different bad guys fight each other over some scheme; Doc's guys get caught; everybody ends up in Patagonia, on an island; there's something dangerous in the lagoon; then Doc does some stuff and things happen yadda yadda yadda and you know.

Short pulp novel. It does the exact thing it was made to do.

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Where the Cover Is the Best Part, Again

Mad Mesa by Kenneth Robeson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's alright.

Not a bad book. I feel like the writing is actually better here than in many other Doc Savage novels; smoother, with fewer awkward phrases. More modern, maybe? And the story is about okay, though it's nothing amazing.

So it's kinda fun, with a straightforward crime to solve. This is the second Doc Savage I've read recently that has no supernatural angle even in the beginning. Well, maybe; a character thinks his identity has been changed, so that probably counts.

I keep thinking there will be a little more wonder or magic or excitement in these books than there ends up being. I'm reading through them like somebody eating their way through a box of chocolates, finding nothing too good or too bad, hoping for an amazing surprise that never materializes. Meanwhile--

It's alright.

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Where I Read All the Pages

The Mystery on the Snow by Kenneth Robeson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was unique (among the Doc Savage books I've read) in that it's a straightforward mystery without any trappings of the supernatural. There is no pretense of there being a werewolf or goblin or any of the other strange things that always turn out to have a natural explanation. Here, it's just a bad guy trying to steal a man's valuable mineral discovery.

It's otherwise pretty typical: somewhat entertaining; decent action; a bit of insensitivity and outdated language; an almost complete lack of female characters; everyday banter; a little gee-whiz science.

I liked that this one had all five of Doc's team, which makes it more fun, though I STILL cannot remember the difference between a couple of them. (In my head, Long Tom and Johnny are just Long Johnny.) :)

Recommended? Kinda. If you read Doc Savage, sure, read this one. If you don't read Doc Savage, there's no reason to start here.

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Where I Muster a *Little* Enthusiasm

The Flying Goblin by Kenneth Robeson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I mean, it's fine.

You know what you're getting when you pick up a Doc Savage book. It's pulp, so it's got action; it's got gadgets; it's got international settings; it's got fights and escapes; it's got cool covers. Sometimes there's a vague supernatural feel about it, sometimes there's SF-like futuristic technology, and other times it's more like a detective novel. But you gotta keep your expectations in check, because it's light on character and pretty light on plot. Mostly action.

That's all right. Still fun. Kinda.

This one is about a jailbreak and an advanced kind of rocket (the "goblin" of the title) being used for some unknown purpose, leading us from Sleepy Hollow to an ocean liner to a hidden lair in Switzerland. It works. It does the job.

TBH, I never really like a Doc Savage book, but I don't mean that as criticism. It's fine--nice for a change once in a while. It's more vibes for me than fun, so I pick one up every year or so.

Good news is I've still got about 150 of them left to read, so I'll never run out at this pace.

Recommended for readers of pulp.

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I Really Should Know By Now

Land of Always Night: by Kenneth Robeson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I keep trying Doc Savage novels, and keep liking them just a little... just enough...

The first half of this read like a pretty good action novel. It didn't last, though. Once we reach the Arctic, it's just regular pulp again, with plotless back and forth action.

You get to know the characters and root for them, and that adds a little interest to it. The covers are cool. People I like have liked these books. These inducements bring me back, hoping to find something more in the novels than really exists.

Didn't hate it. Didn't much enjoy it, either, except in parts, and at the end was only reading a couple pages at a time. Recommended for those who already know they like Doc Savage.

(FWIW--it's billed as one of the more popular of his adventures. Fair. I liked it better than some of the others.)

Post script--I bought this copy at a Doc Savage convention I attended with my daughter when she was writing a story and getting video for the event for a journalism class at ASU. The convention was fun. The people were cool. If you get a chance to attend one, I *do* recommend it.

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Not a review; more of a rumination, really...

Meteor Menace by Kenneth Robeson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A friend's older brother loved Doc Savage and loaned me a couple. That's how I was introduced to the series. I loved the covers from the start, but never really got into the stories. I tried, though. They seemed dated, back in the 70s, being about 40 years old at that point. Now they're twice as old, but somehow don't seem any more out of date. Not sure why I think that...

Every once in awhile I read another one. They're always kind of interesting, sometimes for the action, sometimes for the exotic settings, but more often because of a sense of nostalgia that hangs around the characters and the books themselves. There is also the amusement of seeing quaint science--radio-controlled airplanes and the like--treated like wonders. It's a window into 1930s imagination, and that has its rewards.

You can't expect too much from such novels. The plotting is almost always linear, with surprises that seldom surprise. Most of the time, the author(s) told the stories and recounted the action in the most straightforward way. Sometimes, the language rises above serviceable to quite nice, actually. Here is a somewhat overwritten (in the best way, as action stories should be) description of the titular blue meteor:

"It came up awfully out of the east. It might have been a thing spawned by the Andean mountain fastnesses. Only the faintest of ultramarine flushes marked its first appearance. But the balefire brightened with appalling swiftness, and there became audible the tiniest of whistling noises, which might have been the note of some distant, harpy piper. The sibilant note loudened."

I like passages like that, written in an Indiana Jones action adventure kind of way.

That's about as good as it gets, though. For a pulp novel, that's got to be enough.

This novel, like the rest, is meant to be a quick read, coming in at only about 40,000 words (since it was originally published in a magazine), but it's not exactly low-brow; the audience is men, mostly, the nerds of an earlier era, those who like adventure novels but are also interested in engines and electrical devices and Popular Mechanics-type technology. That's a near-miss for me; I'm not quite the right kind of nerd for that. That's why I still read a Doc Savage novel every couple of years and like it just enough to keep a few on my shelf and figure I'll maybe read another a couple years from now. (Some of the comics are, IMO, very entertaining. Maybe a better medium for Doc Savage stories, though I don't want to start any fights.)

Every lover of genre fiction--science fiction, fantasy, adventure--should read one or two of these popular pulp novels. Give it shot, just for grins. If you like it, you'll be glad to find there are about 180 other titles, and you can find lots of them on eBay real cheap. :)

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