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Professor Khan #2
King Khan
THIS TOWN’S GOING APE!
Professor Khan, learned ape, has traveled through time, fought psychic dinosaurs and shark-men, visited Atlantis, and battled across the sands of Mars.
He has seen it all -- until an arrow shooting out of the sky sends him to the strangest place yet…
Hollywood!
Professor Khan, learned ape, has traveled through time, fought psychic dinosaurs and shark-men, visited Atlantis, and battled across the sands of Mars.
He has seen it all -- until an arrow shooting out of the sky sends him to the strangest place yet…
Hollywood!
264 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2013
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72 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 25, 2014
When a mysterious arrow bearing a message in his handwriting instructs Professor Khan to go to Hollywood, he finds that a friend of his has committed suicide and his newest invention is missing...
King Khan is the fourth book in the Spirit of the Century series by Evil Hat. It's also my least favorite book in the series. I'll cover that bit later.
Professor Khan, with rich fop Bertie Blinkersly in tow, leaves London behind for Hollywood to solve the mysteries surrounding a friend's death and winds up in a battle for his last invention, the Improbability Bow. Helping him and Bertie Wooster, I mean Bertie Blinkersly, are the inventor's daughter Sylvia, a diminutive cop named Cross, and a luchador named the Blue Hornet. Sound good?
Meh. It was okay and had some good moments but it was nothing spectacular. It may have been that the previous books in the series were just too much fun and raised the bar too high. After the two Dinocalypse books and Khan of Mars, the Hollywood setting and the threat just didn't do it for me. Hell, you'd have to do a lot to top psychic dinosaurs and Martian apes.
Don't get me wrong. King Khan isn't a bad book. There are a lot of twists and lots of pulp action. There are also hopping zombies and a fair amount of humor, much of it due to the Bertie Wooster-inspired Bertie Blinkersly. It just had some might big shoes to fill after it's predecessors.
The Blue Hornet greatly added to my enjoyment of the book. It reminded me of the crappy movies they used to make starring El Santo, Mil Mascaras, Blue Demon, and other luchadors fighting werewolves and things.
The Blue Hornet and the possessed Shirley Temple were enough to add a half star. 2.5 out of 5 stars.
King Khan is the fourth book in the Spirit of the Century series by Evil Hat. It's also my least favorite book in the series. I'll cover that bit later.
Professor Khan, with rich fop Bertie Blinkersly in tow, leaves London behind for Hollywood to solve the mysteries surrounding a friend's death and winds up in a battle for his last invention, the Improbability Bow. Helping him and Bertie Wooster, I mean Bertie Blinkersly, are the inventor's daughter Sylvia, a diminutive cop named Cross, and a luchador named the Blue Hornet. Sound good?
Meh. It was okay and had some good moments but it was nothing spectacular. It may have been that the previous books in the series were just too much fun and raised the bar too high. After the two Dinocalypse books and Khan of Mars, the Hollywood setting and the threat just didn't do it for me. Hell, you'd have to do a lot to top psychic dinosaurs and Martian apes.
Don't get me wrong. King Khan isn't a bad book. There are a lot of twists and lots of pulp action. There are also hopping zombies and a fair amount of humor, much of it due to the Bertie Wooster-inspired Bertie Blinkersly. It just had some might big shoes to fill after it's predecessors.
The Blue Hornet greatly added to my enjoyment of the book. It reminded me of the crappy movies they used to make starring El Santo, Mil Mascaras, Blue Demon, and other luchadors fighting werewolves and things.
The Blue Hornet and the possessed Shirley Temple were enough to add a half star. 2.5 out of 5 stars.
December 5, 2017
Like The Khan Of Mars, this book was set in the Spirit Of The Century RPG universe. This is pulp heroes at its best and I liked this one even more than I did the aforementioned book. Professor Khan, a silverback gorilla with the mind and intellect of an Oxford-born scholar leads his student Bertie, an Englishman of a noble family to the United States. Why you ask? An otherworldly arrow written in Khan's handwriting from the future compels the duo to travel to the cesspool of sin, Los Angeles!
Khan meets up with the daughter of an old friend to find out that her father, a colleague of Khan's, killed by some diabolical villain. Hardly nothing of the crime is known and when cops show up, including a hard boiled L.A. detective named Cross and his partner, things get even more strange. Of a strange twist, chinese zombies attack the home of Sylvia and the battle is joined. The zombies are nigh on indestructible, even to the intellect and massive strength of Khan's 400 pound gorilla frame. The group decides to flee after detective Cross' partner is killed. What follows is a romp through L.A. and into Hollywood where the plot thickens. Strange devices and the crux of the thing, The Improbability Bow are learned about. Sylvia's father had made some amazing inventions in his time, such as a freeze ray, and shrinking gun and other things that boggle the mind.
The story takes us to a confrontation between the group and The Princess, an ancient Mexican mummy who searches for a gem stolen from her protection. Of course the Improbability Bow is made using said gem and further hilarity ensues. After meeting Max Devlin, movie director and the Blue Hornet, a mexican Tecnico and luchador, things get even stranger. The discovery of the alien intelligence behind all these evil deeds, resting within the innocent body of Shirley Temple just tops the cake, and the group must effort out a way to free the alien evil and destroy it, save young Shirley and save the world from unfathomable evil. They manage to find a way, as all true Heroes do. Huzzah!!!
Damn, this book was a blast! It was written impeccably well and was funny and serious and almost tear jerking and yet a book you can hardly put down. Well done indeed, Mr. Connoly!
Danny
Khan meets up with the daughter of an old friend to find out that her father, a colleague of Khan's, killed by some diabolical villain. Hardly nothing of the crime is known and when cops show up, including a hard boiled L.A. detective named Cross and his partner, things get even more strange. Of a strange twist, chinese zombies attack the home of Sylvia and the battle is joined. The zombies are nigh on indestructible, even to the intellect and massive strength of Khan's 400 pound gorilla frame. The group decides to flee after detective Cross' partner is killed. What follows is a romp through L.A. and into Hollywood where the plot thickens. Strange devices and the crux of the thing, The Improbability Bow are learned about. Sylvia's father had made some amazing inventions in his time, such as a freeze ray, and shrinking gun and other things that boggle the mind.
The story takes us to a confrontation between the group and The Princess, an ancient Mexican mummy who searches for a gem stolen from her protection. Of course the Improbability Bow is made using said gem and further hilarity ensues. After meeting Max Devlin, movie director and the Blue Hornet, a mexican Tecnico and luchador, things get even stranger. The discovery of the alien intelligence behind all these evil deeds, resting within the innocent body of Shirley Temple just tops the cake, and the group must effort out a way to free the alien evil and destroy it, save young Shirley and save the world from unfathomable evil. They manage to find a way, as all true Heroes do. Huzzah!!!
Damn, this book was a blast! It was written impeccably well and was funny and serious and almost tear jerking and yet a book you can hardly put down. Well done indeed, Mr. Connoly!
Danny
April 15, 2022
A fun pulpy romp through LA . Professor Khan's story continues from his trip to Mars as he seeks to return there and help a colleague who is in danger. All of this at the request of....himself? The story was fun and the references entertaining. Still, I wanted a conclusion of Khan's arch and this story didn't provide that. Still, hoping more come into the series from time to time.
December 23, 2013
I have always had a love for the Pulp Genera and was excited to get the chance to do a review of this book for Evil Hat Games. King Khan is based on characters and the world from Evil Hat Games award winning Spirit of the Century Role Playing Game. I have never played Spirit of the Century and I can say that even without that frame of reference King Khan stands on its own as a great Pulp Tale. It has so many great Pulp elements, A genius gorilla, a super science machine, a loose cannon cop, a cursed jewel, and it goes on. If you loved movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Rocketeer, or Captain America: the First Avenger, then this is right up your alley. It is also great for almost any reader level. I would have no problem handing this book over to my young nieces and nephews to let them read too, but unlike most Young Adult literature the characters are more than just one dimensional plot devices.
August 12, 2016
The plot was reasonable but the narrative style did not work for me. Too many short choppy scenes with miscellaneous point-of-view characters.
Maybe a different way to think about it is that none of the characters were interesting enough to carry the narrative. Professor Khan in particular is a good person -- well, a good ape -- but his defining character trait is that he's a persecuted minority and very conscious of his dignity. Most of the time he feels unhappy and awkward, and I think that's why we spend so much of the book avoiding his headspace.
I'm not sure if Prof Khan even makes any interesting decisions... For a while it looked like he would get to decide to , but if that's a decision he does a lousy job of making it: it's totally unclear why he decides the way he does, and in fact it's strongly implied that he wanted the opposite.
Maybe a different way to think about it is that none of the characters were interesting enough to carry the narrative. Professor Khan in particular is a good person -- well, a good ape -- but his defining character trait is that he's a persecuted minority and very conscious of his dignity. Most of the time he feels unhappy and awkward, and I think that's why we spend so much of the book avoiding his headspace.
I'm not sure if Prof Khan even makes any interesting decisions... For a while it looked like he would get to decide to , but if that's a decision he does a lousy job of making it: it's totally unclear why he decides the way he does, and in fact it's strongly implied that he wanted the opposite.
August 17, 2014
In the interest of full disclosure, the publisher provided me a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and balanced review. Having said that, I was enjoying reading it so much that I ended up paying for the Kindle version so I could read it on my electronic devices as well. When I saw that the author of the Twenty Palaces series had a new book coming out, I had to check it out. However, Evil Hat also sent me the previous book, Khan of Mars, so I read it first to get some background. I've never played the games, but I had no problem following the story and the characters.
Khan is a great character, and I've been a sucker for talking apes since seeing the original Planet of the Apes movies when I was a kid. Combined with one of my favorite genres and in the hands of such a good writer, this book is a fun read. If you like talking apes, pulp stories, Harry Connolly, or any combination of the three, this book is for you.
Khan is a great character, and I've been a sucker for talking apes since seeing the original Planet of the Apes movies when I was a kid. Combined with one of my favorite genres and in the hands of such a good writer, this book is a fun read. If you like talking apes, pulp stories, Harry Connolly, or any combination of the three, this book is for you.
January 25, 2014
There were a lot of individual parts here that I really liked - Professor Khan, obviously, but also newer parts of the world like the adventuring luchador, the Blue Hornet, and the Improbability Bow. It felt like they never really gelled together well on a thematic level, though. That's not something that's the fault of author Harry Connelly, either; he tells the story well enough, and the technical aspects of it are fine. Just not really my cuppa in the gestalt.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 23, 2013
Enjoyable pulp read. The flow becomes a little choppy toward the end, with very short chapters (one of which should perhaps have been in a different font), but Khan is an appealing hero and the setting and the little nods to people both fictional and real are nicely done.
May 27, 2013
A nice pulp novel for the first half. The end became a confused mess with a bunch of odd nonsequitars and do-so wrap ups. The other Professor Khan novel was much better.
December 3, 2013
this was a fun read, of course I'm a sucker for talking apes.
December 2, 2013
Khan is a fun character who is (thankfully) able to carry the plot of this book. don't get me wrong, I deeply enjoyed the story, but I think the last third was somewhat jumbled.
January 30, 2014
Some fun adventuring around in the pulp setting. It's not my bag, thus the three stars, but it's well done and full of the usual Connolly humor and imagination.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews