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Vic: Event is the 6th novel in the action adventure series The Incredible Adventures of Vic Challenger.
Vic gets a clue to her lost love - finally. O, who runs a special military unit does her a favor and she reciprocates. It will just be a quick trip to observe and study the site of a powerful event. However, she is ambushed before she leaves D.C., and there is no let-up!
Bad guys, extreme weather, and killing machines that are not from around here (and are difficult to see and kill) - they all try to kill Vic! Not to mention the urge she has to settle down in Siberia! No people for miles, plenty of fresh meat and the mammoths - she feels almost like she is back 100,000 years ago and she likes it.
Vic’s easy trip turns out to be her deadliest yet!
Fast paced and unpredictable, action adventure in the tradition of the adventure pulps of the early 20th Century. If you like Doc Savage, The Avenger (Dick Benson), Nancy Drew, or Tarzan or any other novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs you will love Vic Challenger.
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“The Incredible Adventures of Vic Challenger” series is inspired by writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. Rider Haggard, Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle and H. G. Wells; and by characters like Nancy Drew, Lara Croft, Alan Quatermain, Doc Savage and his cousin Patricia Savage, and Dick Benson and his assistant Nellie Gray. The writing style has been compared to Burroughs and is also reminiscent of early action driven horror novels by Graham Masterton. The series is set in the 1920’s and considerable research adds to the “realism” You will find yourself effortlessly learning bits of history, some of which may amaze you. Vic’s travels are woven into the history of the time, so you may be asking yourself “Is this real?”
Vic gets a clue to her lost love - finally. O, who runs a special military unit does her a favor and she reciprocates. It will just be a quick trip to observe and study the site of a powerful event. However, she is ambushed before she leaves D.C., and there is no let-up!
Bad guys, extreme weather, and killing machines that are not from around here (and are difficult to see and kill) - they all try to kill Vic! Not to mention the urge she has to settle down in Siberia! No people for miles, plenty of fresh meat and the mammoths - she feels almost like she is back 100,000 years ago and she likes it.
Vic’s easy trip turns out to be her deadliest yet!
Fast paced and unpredictable, action adventure in the tradition of the adventure pulps of the early 20th Century. If you like Doc Savage, The Avenger (Dick Benson), Nancy Drew, or Tarzan or any other novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs you will love Vic Challenger.
=============================
“The Incredible Adventures of Vic Challenger” series is inspired by writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. Rider Haggard, Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle and H. G. Wells; and by characters like Nancy Drew, Lara Croft, Alan Quatermain, Doc Savage and his cousin Patricia Savage, and Dick Benson and his assistant Nellie Gray. The writing style has been compared to Burroughs and is also reminiscent of early action driven horror novels by Graham Masterton. The series is set in the 1920’s and considerable research adds to the “realism” You will find yourself effortlessly learning bits of history, some of which may amaze you. Vic’s travels are woven into the history of the time, so you may be asking yourself “Is this real?”
216 pages, Paperback
Published September 8, 2017
About the author
Jerry Gill
29 books4 followersI have written/edited/published for years but it was non-fiction, especially directories. The government decided to do some things that impacted my products, and spent years postponing proposed changes. My customer base was pretty much decimated. Oh well...life.
Wake up! When I was 10 or 12, I read The Eternal Savage by Burroughs (in two parts, 1914 and 1917). I immediately went looking for a sequel. There never was one. I re-read the book a few times and in 2013 decided I'd do the sequel myself. I re-wrote the beginning, sequel (#2), then #3, #4 as of February 2015. It will require 4-5 more at least to use the scenes already in my head.
Why Vic instead of a Victor? I have four fantastic hanai neices. Women have it better now than once upon a time but still people don't give them deserved credit. I wanted to create a character that wasn't a vampire or super hero, just the girl next door but with a goal and unwilling to let anything stop her. Vic remembers when life was stupendously savage, when actions we might today equate with extreme bravery were just daily life. Vic's motto: You don't need to be brave, you just need to do what needs done.
Obviously a great influence is Edgar Rice Burroughs. I liked all his work but especially his less celebrated books. I read most Tarzan books but preferred stories like Eternal Savage, Pellucidar novels, the Moon Trilogy, Beyond Thirty, Land of Hidden Men, The Oakdale Affair, Time Forgot books, and so on.
ERB was not my only influence, though, I remember trying to read a Hardy Boys book and never finished one. Tried Nancy Drew and loved it. One part of the formula for Nancy books is inclusion of real facts. For example I recently re-read Moss Covered Mansion and it had a fantastic description of visiting the Kennedy Space Center before a launch in the 60's. I try to include real facts without making it a travelogue. And although there is a sci-fi component to the books (and will continue to be) I want Vic to always do things that are possible. Often they are far from easy, and definitely not recommended as many of her actions are very dangerous - but always possible. On the website under references I give all the places where I dug up info for the books.
Nancy Drew and ERB had influential helpers. All those writers who contributed as Kenneth Robeson to Doc Savage and The Avenger were great influences, also. I read all of both series.I figure if my writing can bring readers even a tiny fraction of the pleasure I was given by those writers of yesteryear, it's worth anything I put into it.
Lots of information about Vic and the books are on the website http://www.vicplanet.com. References are listed, non-English vocabulary used in the books, discussion questions for book clubs, reviews, excerpts, trailers and more.
Each novel has it's own board on Pinterest. Just go to https://www.pinterest.com/glbwandvic/ You can follow me and Vic on Twitter if interested @vicaction I spend about an hour per day on Twitter. Twice I read through the most recent 100 tweets. I usually retweet several on many topics. It's not just Vic stuff. I follow back 99% of the time. I send thank you tweets to new followers. I send about 5-10 tweets myself. Some are quotes from Vic or others. Some are about coming books. Some are review quotes. Some are none of the above.
A fan set up a Vic fan group on FaceBook. It would be great if you joined. No cost, no work. If you ever want to talk about a Vic book or rellated you have a place to go. I have nothing to do with the group (I think it would be tacky to join a group for my own character) but I will try to always give advance notice of next book and such, discounts and that sort of thing. Nothing to lose, maybe something to gain. https://www.facebook.com/groups/14744...
Finally, a request to share. I'm told reviews help. Amazon uses them to determine what customers see when they search. When you read a Vic novel, please write a review
Wake up! When I was 10 or 12, I read The Eternal Savage by Burroughs (in two parts, 1914 and 1917). I immediately went looking for a sequel. There never was one. I re-read the book a few times and in 2013 decided I'd do the sequel myself. I re-wrote the beginning, sequel (#2), then #3, #4 as of February 2015. It will require 4-5 more at least to use the scenes already in my head.
Why Vic instead of a Victor? I have four fantastic hanai neices. Women have it better now than once upon a time but still people don't give them deserved credit. I wanted to create a character that wasn't a vampire or super hero, just the girl next door but with a goal and unwilling to let anything stop her. Vic remembers when life was stupendously savage, when actions we might today equate with extreme bravery were just daily life. Vic's motto: You don't need to be brave, you just need to do what needs done.
Obviously a great influence is Edgar Rice Burroughs. I liked all his work but especially his less celebrated books. I read most Tarzan books but preferred stories like Eternal Savage, Pellucidar novels, the Moon Trilogy, Beyond Thirty, Land of Hidden Men, The Oakdale Affair, Time Forgot books, and so on.
ERB was not my only influence, though, I remember trying to read a Hardy Boys book and never finished one. Tried Nancy Drew and loved it. One part of the formula for Nancy books is inclusion of real facts. For example I recently re-read Moss Covered Mansion and it had a fantastic description of visiting the Kennedy Space Center before a launch in the 60's. I try to include real facts without making it a travelogue. And although there is a sci-fi component to the books (and will continue to be) I want Vic to always do things that are possible. Often they are far from easy, and definitely not recommended as many of her actions are very dangerous - but always possible. On the website under references I give all the places where I dug up info for the books.
Nancy Drew and ERB had influential helpers. All those writers who contributed as Kenneth Robeson to Doc Savage and The Avenger were great influences, also. I read all of both series.I figure if my writing can bring readers even a tiny fraction of the pleasure I was given by those writers of yesteryear, it's worth anything I put into it.
Lots of information about Vic and the books are on the website http://www.vicplanet.com. References are listed, non-English vocabulary used in the books, discussion questions for book clubs, reviews, excerpts, trailers and more.
Each novel has it's own board on Pinterest. Just go to https://www.pinterest.com/glbwandvic/ You can follow me and Vic on Twitter if interested @vicaction I spend about an hour per day on Twitter. Twice I read through the most recent 100 tweets. I usually retweet several on many topics. It's not just Vic stuff. I follow back 99% of the time. I send thank you tweets to new followers. I send about 5-10 tweets myself. Some are quotes from Vic or others. Some are about coming books. Some are review quotes. Some are none of the above.
A fan set up a Vic fan group on FaceBook. It would be great if you joined. No cost, no work. If you ever want to talk about a Vic book or rellated you have a place to go. I have nothing to do with the group (I think it would be tacky to join a group for my own character) but I will try to always give advance notice of next book and such, discounts and that sort of thing. Nothing to lose, maybe something to gain. https://www.facebook.com/groups/14744...
Finally, a request to share. I'm told reviews help. Amazon uses them to determine what customers see when they search. When you read a Vic novel, please write a review
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May 10, 2020I love these Vic Challenger books. They are an homage to both the pulp fiction of the ear!y 20th Century and of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Yet, they aren't slavish reproductions of those things.
Instead, think of Burroughs 's work, especially "The Eternal Savage", as the jumping off point that the author Jerry Gill uses to launch his reboot of pulp fiction and the world of ERB for the modern reader.
It is 1922 and Vic and her best friend Lin Li are sent to Siberia by a government operative to investigate the Tungduska event of 1908. They find cryptids there who are a threat to all of humanity and so they must deal with the creatures immediately. Vic Challenger becomes a WWI era, American version of the character secret agent Carter from the Marvel television show named after its heroine.
What better description of her adventures than Gill's own words for describing the heroine's reflections on what she learned from the adventure:
"O (the government operative) entrusted her with a para-military mission! The Challenger-Li Expedition! No one would ever know. That did not dampen the tremendous pride she felt to have served her country and in this case, mankind! She even wondered, a bit sheepishly, if O might entrust her with future missions. Vic lost her homo sapiens innocence that man lives alone in the universe. She now knew there was other life, some unfriendly and dangerous. Vic wondered if that awareness would affect how she lived her daily life. For certain, it would give her a different perspective when she read stories of space aliens."
Yes, space aliens, and nicely done, in the style of Lovecraft, another pulp giant of the ERB era. This is book six of nine so far (I'm looking forward to using this phrase again when reading the next volume in the series.) And, I will be reading the next volume and plan to re-read them all. The series has nice continuing story archs that unfold in a way that keeps this fan interested.
Things I wonder about: Will the VC books be made into audiobooks? If they were I would snap those puppies up and listen to them all. Is the author thinking about doing something with Victoria Custer's (VC's birthname) brother Barney Custer, who also appears in "Eternal Savage" and in his own adventures in ERB's "The Mad King"? Or, are we likely to see stories staring VC's alter ego Nat-ul and to perhaps see her tapping into VC's 20th Century experiences and knowledge? There are a lot of directions the author can go with VC. Or, I'm perfectly happy to read further instalments of the series as he is writing them. I recommend all of the books in this series that I have read so far. Frankly, I never expected, six or seven years ago to be this interested in the continuing adventures of this character when the author approached me, through GoodReads, about sending me a review copy of "Double Trouble". I say thank you, again to the author. I am enjoying the books and am grateful that they fan the flames of my old love of ERB. I have been re-reading ERB.
I finish with my own, Go, Vic Challenger! And, "Never Give Up, Never Surrender." to the author from the movie Gallaxy-Quest.
Instead, think of Burroughs 's work, especially "The Eternal Savage", as the jumping off point that the author Jerry Gill uses to launch his reboot of pulp fiction and the world of ERB for the modern reader.
It is 1922 and Vic and her best friend Lin Li are sent to Siberia by a government operative to investigate the Tungduska event of 1908. They find cryptids there who are a threat to all of humanity and so they must deal with the creatures immediately. Vic Challenger becomes a WWI era, American version of the character secret agent Carter from the Marvel television show named after its heroine.
What better description of her adventures than Gill's own words for describing the heroine's reflections on what she learned from the adventure:
"O (the government operative) entrusted her with a para-military mission! The Challenger-Li Expedition! No one would ever know. That did not dampen the tremendous pride she felt to have served her country and in this case, mankind! She even wondered, a bit sheepishly, if O might entrust her with future missions. Vic lost her homo sapiens innocence that man lives alone in the universe. She now knew there was other life, some unfriendly and dangerous. Vic wondered if that awareness would affect how she lived her daily life. For certain, it would give her a different perspective when she read stories of space aliens."
Yes, space aliens, and nicely done, in the style of Lovecraft, another pulp giant of the ERB era. This is book six of nine so far (I'm looking forward to using this phrase again when reading the next volume in the series.) And, I will be reading the next volume and plan to re-read them all. The series has nice continuing story archs that unfold in a way that keeps this fan interested.
Things I wonder about: Will the VC books be made into audiobooks? If they were I would snap those puppies up and listen to them all. Is the author thinking about doing something with Victoria Custer's (VC's birthname) brother Barney Custer, who also appears in "Eternal Savage" and in his own adventures in ERB's "The Mad King"? Or, are we likely to see stories staring VC's alter ego Nat-ul and to perhaps see her tapping into VC's 20th Century experiences and knowledge? There are a lot of directions the author can go with VC. Or, I'm perfectly happy to read further instalments of the series as he is writing them. I recommend all of the books in this series that I have read so far. Frankly, I never expected, six or seven years ago to be this interested in the continuing adventures of this character when the author approached me, through GoodReads, about sending me a review copy of "Double Trouble". I say thank you, again to the author. I am enjoying the books and am grateful that they fan the flames of my old love of ERB. I have been re-reading ERB.
I finish with my own, Go, Vic Challenger! And, "Never Give Up, Never Surrender." to the author from the movie Gallaxy-Quest.
September 20, 2017
This book is sixth in a series about Victoria Custer, your average resident of the early 20th century. The difference is that Victoria has the avatar of Nat-ul, a 100,000-year-old cave woman inside her. Under the pen name Vic Challenger, Victoria has become a travel and adventure writer for her local newspaper. Actually, Victoria/Nat-ul travel to remote places of the world, looking for Nu, Nat-ul's lover from all those centuries ago. If she "survived" all these years, why can't he?
In this book, the search for Nu has taken a detour. O. the head of a secret government agency, asks Vic, and her friend, Lin, if they wouldn't mind taking a trip. Specifically, he would them to go the site of the Tunguska meteor explosion in Siberia. All they need to do is look around, take some photographs and ask some questions of any local natives. Simple, no? Vic is ambushed by unknown people before she leaves. The plane taking them to the site is almost shot down.
Once they arrive, they make the acquaintance of a local tribe of nomads. Joe, Vic and Lin's translator, married one of them; they have many stories about the night the meteor came to Earth. They also encounter very alien creatures. They look like a cross between a boulder and a giant clam that walks upright. The creatures track their prey by sound. A mouth tube shoots poisonous spines that paralyze the prey. Then the mouth tube attaches to the prey, people included, and somehow liquifies the prey from inside, allowing the aliens to suck out the bones, internal organs and skin, leaving little more than a puddle behind.
Vic and Lin discover a weakness of the aliens; they can't be allowed to survive. Can they, and a bunch of nomads, communicate with gestures and hand signals (Joe did not survive), and battle some very evil and carnivorous aliens?
This is an excellent novel. It has plenty of action, and does a very good job with the adventure and weird stuff. After six books, the quality of the writing has not diminished at all. This easily gets five stars.
In this book, the search for Nu has taken a detour. O. the head of a secret government agency, asks Vic, and her friend, Lin, if they wouldn't mind taking a trip. Specifically, he would them to go the site of the Tunguska meteor explosion in Siberia. All they need to do is look around, take some photographs and ask some questions of any local natives. Simple, no? Vic is ambushed by unknown people before she leaves. The plane taking them to the site is almost shot down.
Once they arrive, they make the acquaintance of a local tribe of nomads. Joe, Vic and Lin's translator, married one of them; they have many stories about the night the meteor came to Earth. They also encounter very alien creatures. They look like a cross between a boulder and a giant clam that walks upright. The creatures track their prey by sound. A mouth tube shoots poisonous spines that paralyze the prey. Then the mouth tube attaches to the prey, people included, and somehow liquifies the prey from inside, allowing the aliens to suck out the bones, internal organs and skin, leaving little more than a puddle behind.
Vic and Lin discover a weakness of the aliens; they can't be allowed to survive. Can they, and a bunch of nomads, communicate with gestures and hand signals (Joe did not survive), and battle some very evil and carnivorous aliens?
This is an excellent novel. It has plenty of action, and does a very good job with the adventure and weird stuff. After six books, the quality of the writing has not diminished at all. This easily gets five stars.
November 11, 2017
Truly remarkable storytelling. As I finished the story I knew that my life will not be the same again. I have fallen for this author's writing and cannot wait to devour the next book. The characters were truly inspirational and the storyline was compelling.
It is amazingly intense and the author prepares you for the journey for you to take alongside the characters really well. The characters and story development were perfectly done. This book was extremely well written and has fast become one of my favourites of all time. This book was full of many twists and turns that will keep you guessing what is going to happen until the very end. I devoured it in one sitting. Incredible work!! I absolutely adored reading this book and will be one clicking the rest of this authors work.
The way the author makes you feel everything that the character is experiencing is unlike any other.
I will definitely be recommending this author to everyone I know. Definitely one awesome book to pick up and I can see this author going from strength to strength.
It is amazingly intense and the author prepares you for the journey for you to take alongside the characters really well. The characters and story development were perfectly done. This book was extremely well written and has fast become one of my favourites of all time. This book was full of many twists and turns that will keep you guessing what is going to happen until the very end. I devoured it in one sitting. Incredible work!! I absolutely adored reading this book and will be one clicking the rest of this authors work.
The way the author makes you feel everything that the character is experiencing is unlike any other.
I will definitely be recommending this author to everyone I know. Definitely one awesome book to pick up and I can see this author going from strength to strength.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews