Review of Doc Talos “Fortress”

FORTRESS, by R. Paul Sardanas and Iason Ragnar Bellerophon — review by Grace Ximenez This book is going to be enormously challenging to review. And this is far from my first rodeo…I’ve been reviewing books and films for over two decades, and have even reviewed works in the Talos universe (having done a review ofContinue reading “Review of Doc Talos “Fortress””

Omnipresent Sunlight: Doc Savage’s archenemy – Part 1

Much has been made — over many decades — out of the fact that across the original pulp run of Doc Savage magazine, only one villain came back to oppose Doc for a second time. That character, of course, was John Sunlight. He was certainly a unique and compelling character. In many ways he wasContinue reading “Omnipresent Sunlight: Doc Savage’s archenemy – Part 1”

Five first-person encounters with a man of bronze: I Died Yesterday

A few months back, I did a review of the story I Died Yesterday, but in essence it was more a discussion of my long literary love for the character Pat Savage, and how it reached one of its peaks in my reading of this short novel, which is narrated by her. In the contextContinue reading “Five first-person encounters with a man of bronze: I Died Yesterday”

Five first-person encounters with a man of bronze: Once Over Lightly

The fourth of five consecutive first-person narratives in the Doc Savage pulp magazine took place in the Nov./Dec 1947 issue. The previous issue had debuted the new title of the series, Doc Savage Science Detective, and this (though it would be short-lived), continued as well. The three first-person point of view stories to this pointContinue reading “Five first-person encounters with a man of bronze: Once Over Lightly”

Five first-person encounters with a man of bronze: Let’s Kill Ames

The third of five consecutive first-person narratives in the Doc Savage pulp magazine took place in the Sept/Oct 1947 issue. The first two had involved a look at the Doc Savage world through the eyes of a tough-talking, hard-edged “regular guy”, and then what would normally have been a background character: a rather unlikable two-bitContinue reading “Five first-person encounters with a man of bronze: Let’s Kill Ames”

Five first-person encounters with a man of bronze: The Monkey Suit

The second of five first-person narratives in the latter part of the Doc Savage pulp run was in July-August 1947. The story was called The Monkey Suit. The cover art, unlike the May-June issue, actually depicted the main Doc Savage novel, though it was once again a composition in the late-Forties abstract style. Author LesterContinue reading “Five first-person encounters with a man of bronze: The Monkey Suit”

Five first-person encounters with a man of bronze: No Light to Die By

Toward the end of the long run of the Doc Savage pulp magazine, author Lester Dent changed things up a bit. The stories from 1933 up to May-June 1947 were all told in third-person narrative. With that issue however, and across the following four installments of the magazine, the stories were told from a first-personContinue reading “Five first-person encounters with a man of bronze: No Light to Die By”

Doc Savage and The Shadow together – Part 4

With the fourth chapter of DC Comics’ 1990 story The Conflagration Man, the unique storytelling conjunction of the two great pulp crimefighters came to its conclusion. As it had done with each preceding chapter, it shifted from one ongoing series to the other, this time moving from Chapter 3 in The Shadow Strikes, to ChapterContinue reading “Doc Savage and The Shadow together – Part 4”

Doc Savage and The Shadow together – Part 1

Given that they were arguably the most popular fictional characters of their era, owned and produced by the same publisher, it’s strange that there were not more occasions when Doc Savage and The Shadow crossed paths. Certainly it is understandable in the sense that the primary writers of each, Lester Dent for Doc Savage andContinue reading “Doc Savage and The Shadow together – Part 1”

The Myth and Psychology of “Up From Earth’s Center” – Conclusion

At the end of Part 3 of this article, after exploring this story’s unique position as one of the final tales closing out the era of the hero pulps, as well as the narrative strangeness of the beginning and middle parts of the story itself, there was a portentous question remaining: was the Hell encounteredContinue reading “The Myth and Psychology of “Up From Earth’s Center” – Conclusion”