The Sea Magician / The Living-fire Menace

Doc Savage Sanctum Editions #8

by Kenneth Robeson (House Name), Lester Dent, Harold A. Davis

Book by Dent, Lester, Davis, Harold A., Robeson, Kenneth

Genres: Pulp

128 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2007

About the author

Kenneth Robeson was the house name used by Street and Smith Publications as the author of their popular character Doc Savage and later The Avenger. Though most Doc Savage stories were written by the author Lester Dent, there were many others who contributed to the series, including:

William G. Bogart
Evelyn Coulson
Harold A. Davis
Lawrence Donovan
Alan Hathway
W. Ryerson Johnson

Lester Dent is usually considered to be the creator of Doc Savage. In the 1990s Philip José Farmer wrote a new Doc Savage adventure, but it was published under his own name and not by Robeson. Will Murray has since taken up the pseudonym and continued writing Doc Savage books as Robeson.

All 24 of the original stories featuring The Avenger were written by Paul Ernst, using the Robeson house name. In order to encourage sales Kenneth Robeson was credited on the cover of The Avenger magazine as "the creator of Doc Savage" even though Lester Dent had nothing to do with The Avenger series. In the 1970s, when the series was extended with 12 additional novels, Ron Goulart was hired to become Robeson.

Reviews

[J.L. Lamastus · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sea Magician was a blast to read. The Living-fire Menace was fun, but I had trouble keeping interest at times. Overall a good book.