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Doc Savage (Original) #1
The Man of Bronze
2 books ! MAN OF BRONZE & DEATH IN SILVER Kenneth Robeson
135 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 1, 1933
117 people are currently reading
1947 people want to read
About the author
Kenneth Robeson
918 books134 followersKenneth 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 237 reviews
November 28, 2009
Five nostalgic stars. My brother bequeathed 12 of the paperbacks to me when he left home for college. I was 9 or 10. I read them all and started collecting, in part because Doc was cooler than cool, and in part because I could score them for 50 cents a piece at Bonanza Books and Comics in my hometown. I have over a hundred on the book case now, and have probably read 40 of them (they are formulaic, so if you read too many in a row, they start running together.). I still take down one each year and forget that I'm 40+ and thick.
Great sampling of true pulp fiction. I've read other stuff from the period, and Doc towers over all of them. Also a neat glimpse of what a high-tech hero looked like 75 years ago. The language, cadence and plot development are very different. Lester Dent and the handful of other people that wrote under the Robeson name had to get their stories out in a short number of pages, so the writing tends to be much tighter than what we often suffer through today with our novels that can stop a bullet.
The series has been re-released in a more magazine-type format that gives you more of a feel for the originals.
Not sure that kids will "get" these any more, but the Harry Potter generation could do worse than making friends with Doc, Renny, Monk (my favorite, 'nuff said), Ham, Long Tom and Johnny. To borrow one of Dent's favorite words, they'll be superamalgamated.
Great sampling of true pulp fiction. I've read other stuff from the period, and Doc towers over all of them. Also a neat glimpse of what a high-tech hero looked like 75 years ago. The language, cadence and plot development are very different. Lester Dent and the handful of other people that wrote under the Robeson name had to get their stories out in a short number of pages, so the writing tends to be much tighter than what we often suffer through today with our novels that can stop a bullet.
The series has been re-released in a more magazine-type format that gives you more of a feel for the originals.
Not sure that kids will "get" these any more, but the Harry Potter generation could do worse than making friends with Doc, Renny, Monk (my favorite, 'nuff said), Ham, Long Tom and Johnny. To borrow one of Dent's favorite words, they'll be superamalgamated.
July 31, 2021
So what can a modern audience gain from reading Doc Savage? From my experience reading the very first novel of this epic series, "The Man of Bronze," I'd say quite a bit.
This 1933 Radium-Age age classic of lost race science fiction and adventure came at the birth of the new Golden Age as the working-class masses were enjoying new-found literacy while also enduring economic hardships, and soon enough, widespread death and tragedy from a new World War. Books were not just for the intelligentsia anymore, and pulp stories like "The Man of Bronze" used the art-form of the novel, along with some incredible illustrations, to bring to life some much needed inspiration into the lives of lower and middle class homes across America. What is the nature of this inspiration?
Well, Doc Savage is just some guy, you know? Just a "bloke." In his first novel, he is young and somewhat of a Cluster A personality--with an autistically brilliant mind but little interpersonal skills, being painfully shy around the opposite sex and preferring his own company to those of others, disappearing for long periods of time in his frozen "Fortress of Solitude" to play his own intellectual masturbatory games. He has no superpowers, but he is nonetheless a superhero. One of the first. This is not because he is special. He's no chosen one. He's not the son or daughter of Darth Vader or the Emperor. He's not marked with a zigzagging scar on his head, not the "Timeless Child," not destined to bring balance to anything, not some prophecy fulfilled. It is only through vigorous discipline and training that he attains such perfection of humanity both in body and soul, and it is through his own personal conviction that he dedicates his life for the betterment of the world. That means that he is an ideal, yes, but an ideal we can all aspire to as fellow "blokes" despite our own mental or physical disabilities.
Just as audiences "needed" a Doc Savage in the intervening years between World War I and the post-Vietnam era, so too does our collective global tribe need the simplistic symbol of innocence and good that Clark Savage, Jr. represented for the American people during dark times. For we are living in our own dark times in many ways. Though we are living amidst unprecedented wealth and technology, we are a very unhappy people. One doesn't need to turn on the news to appreciate this. How many of us know someone who has died from an opioid overdose or suicide? And this fundamental unhappiness is so systemic that it has infected our escapism. Our sports and entertainment does in fact serve as a mirror of the collective mental health of a society. Gladiatorial bloodbaths in the Roman Colosseum is a great example.
And so at the Tokyo Olympics, instead of our elite athletes of all races and genders proudly banding together under the moniker "We're Number One" with the kind of pride we see in even the smallest nation states represented in the global arena, we have people abandoning their teammates in a fit of peak because they made one mistake, and announcing to the world that America is a racist country, seemingly ashamed at their own opportunities for success and accomplishment.
Indeed, should anyone attempt to give Doc Savage a resurgence amidst our current state of national cynicism, there would be the temptation to gender swap the character, or race swap him, or misrepresent him as the chauvinistic residue of colonial patriarchy, or deconstruct him as a has-been buffoon who needs to pass the torch to more competent and representative personalities. The very descriptions of Doc Savage as a physically and mentally perfect specimen of humanity would trigger outrage in our current purveyors of modern entertainment, unnecessarily evoking images of Nazi ubermensch ideals. He is not dark enough, not damaged enough. He doesn't bare the scars of self-mutilation, and self-hatred, and selfishness. Shouldn't he have a drug problem, a beer gut, a couple of tattoos, smoke unfiltered cigarettes, have purple and matted hair, maybe a couple of razor marks on his wrists to be truly relevant and representative? And that is why I think modern audiences should read and appreciate the unadulterated original works of Doc Savage in their historical context.
For Doc Savage is the distillation of the timeless "good vs. evil" tale to the most simplistic level without the dubious crossing into questionable ethics that comes with identity politics and laissez faire cynicism. For example, in "Man of Bronze," our hero does not kill his antagonists. He tries to save them, give them a reason for seeing another side of things, tries to give them a new lease on life. One of his very first acts of courage is toward a sniper who is trying to kill him. The sniper, pursued by Savage, jumps into a lagoon and is attacked by a shark. Savage jumps in and wrestles the shark, putting it into a chokehold, so that the villain can escape with his life. The villain, impressed by this selfless act, questions his own choices, and decides to live a new life of integrity. Now that's some good Doc Savage right there!
Like another of my favorite heroes, Doctor Who, Savage also prefers to use his brains rather than brawn to overcome his enemies. The focus of this story is very much on the power of education and persistent personal study to accomplish your goals, a lesson we can all benefit from.
This first novel is not a very good origin story. It doesn't delve into the psychology too much of why he is the way he is, or how he came to do the things he does. All of the tropes and formulae of subsequent stories are already fully established--his office on the 86th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper, his "Fabulous Five," his ability to speak dozens of languages, his mathematical prowess, etc. But it is a good introduction to everything about the series that was once held dear for generations.
By no means is this a perfect novel. To call this "campy" is putting it mildly. Shark wrestling is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the over-the-top pulp action encountered in this entry that requires some serious suspension of disbelief. The fact that Doc Savage is so perfect in so many ways also lessens the stakes a bit. You never really get the sense that our hero is ever in true danger, at least not in this entry. And parts of it haven't aged well. For example, when one of the "Fabulous Five" encounters the princess of an isolated Central American tribe directly descended from the Mayans, he exclaims "A pippin!" The princess hears this and is embarrassed, and thus we supposedly learn she has been taught English. Really? English is my first language, and I didn't know what the hell a pippin was!
And of course, the writing is a bit pedestrian, but it was made purposefully this way to be enjoyed by all audiences no matter their age or education. Truly, "The Man of Bronze" was meant to be inclusive and accessible. For me, that adds to my appreciation of this book.
Despite the flaws, as a historical example of the scifi and thriller genres, this is a very accomplished piece of work, with non-stop action and pulpy goodness to keep you turning pages for a brief yet satisfying vicarious adventure.
So I propose we leave Doc Savage the way he is for now, and I encourage modern readers to experience him this way. Because I do think we need to get back in touch with old fashioned heroes crafted and delivered with that touch of innocence and national pride of less "enlightened" decades. At the very least, I think it's nice to just see where we came from. But if we can put ourselves into the lives of our ancestors who were inspired by these simple morality tales, we may appreciate what books like these were trying to accomplish, and maybe we could try to infuse our contemporary pathos with a little more of that childlike excitement, pride, hope, and wonder that can enliven our daily lives and our future.
SCORE: For already established fans of classic adventure, this book certainly earns the "Fabulous Five." But as an overall work of literature, I rate this three pippins and a bulky bronze bicep (3.5 stars rounded up!)
This 1933 Radium-Age age classic of lost race science fiction and adventure came at the birth of the new Golden Age as the working-class masses were enjoying new-found literacy while also enduring economic hardships, and soon enough, widespread death and tragedy from a new World War. Books were not just for the intelligentsia anymore, and pulp stories like "The Man of Bronze" used the art-form of the novel, along with some incredible illustrations, to bring to life some much needed inspiration into the lives of lower and middle class homes across America. What is the nature of this inspiration?
Well, Doc Savage is just some guy, you know? Just a "bloke." In his first novel, he is young and somewhat of a Cluster A personality--with an autistically brilliant mind but little interpersonal skills, being painfully shy around the opposite sex and preferring his own company to those of others, disappearing for long periods of time in his frozen "Fortress of Solitude" to play his own intellectual masturbatory games. He has no superpowers, but he is nonetheless a superhero. One of the first. This is not because he is special. He's no chosen one. He's not the son or daughter of Darth Vader or the Emperor. He's not marked with a zigzagging scar on his head, not the "Timeless Child," not destined to bring balance to anything, not some prophecy fulfilled. It is only through vigorous discipline and training that he attains such perfection of humanity both in body and soul, and it is through his own personal conviction that he dedicates his life for the betterment of the world. That means that he is an ideal, yes, but an ideal we can all aspire to as fellow "blokes" despite our own mental or physical disabilities.
Just as audiences "needed" a Doc Savage in the intervening years between World War I and the post-Vietnam era, so too does our collective global tribe need the simplistic symbol of innocence and good that Clark Savage, Jr. represented for the American people during dark times. For we are living in our own dark times in many ways. Though we are living amidst unprecedented wealth and technology, we are a very unhappy people. One doesn't need to turn on the news to appreciate this. How many of us know someone who has died from an opioid overdose or suicide? And this fundamental unhappiness is so systemic that it has infected our escapism. Our sports and entertainment does in fact serve as a mirror of the collective mental health of a society. Gladiatorial bloodbaths in the Roman Colosseum is a great example.
And so at the Tokyo Olympics, instead of our elite athletes of all races and genders proudly banding together under the moniker "We're Number One" with the kind of pride we see in even the smallest nation states represented in the global arena, we have people abandoning their teammates in a fit of peak because they made one mistake, and announcing to the world that America is a racist country, seemingly ashamed at their own opportunities for success and accomplishment.
Indeed, should anyone attempt to give Doc Savage a resurgence amidst our current state of national cynicism, there would be the temptation to gender swap the character, or race swap him, or misrepresent him as the chauvinistic residue of colonial patriarchy, or deconstruct him as a has-been buffoon who needs to pass the torch to more competent and representative personalities. The very descriptions of Doc Savage as a physically and mentally perfect specimen of humanity would trigger outrage in our current purveyors of modern entertainment, unnecessarily evoking images of Nazi ubermensch ideals. He is not dark enough, not damaged enough. He doesn't bare the scars of self-mutilation, and self-hatred, and selfishness. Shouldn't he have a drug problem, a beer gut, a couple of tattoos, smoke unfiltered cigarettes, have purple and matted hair, maybe a couple of razor marks on his wrists to be truly relevant and representative? And that is why I think modern audiences should read and appreciate the unadulterated original works of Doc Savage in their historical context.
For Doc Savage is the distillation of the timeless "good vs. evil" tale to the most simplistic level without the dubious crossing into questionable ethics that comes with identity politics and laissez faire cynicism. For example, in "Man of Bronze," our hero does not kill his antagonists. He tries to save them, give them a reason for seeing another side of things, tries to give them a new lease on life. One of his very first acts of courage is toward a sniper who is trying to kill him. The sniper, pursued by Savage, jumps into a lagoon and is attacked by a shark. Savage jumps in and wrestles the shark, putting it into a chokehold, so that the villain can escape with his life. The villain, impressed by this selfless act, questions his own choices, and decides to live a new life of integrity. Now that's some good Doc Savage right there!
Like another of my favorite heroes, Doctor Who, Savage also prefers to use his brains rather than brawn to overcome his enemies. The focus of this story is very much on the power of education and persistent personal study to accomplish your goals, a lesson we can all benefit from.
This first novel is not a very good origin story. It doesn't delve into the psychology too much of why he is the way he is, or how he came to do the things he does. All of the tropes and formulae of subsequent stories are already fully established--his office on the 86th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper, his "Fabulous Five," his ability to speak dozens of languages, his mathematical prowess, etc. But it is a good introduction to everything about the series that was once held dear for generations.
By no means is this a perfect novel. To call this "campy" is putting it mildly. Shark wrestling is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the over-the-top pulp action encountered in this entry that requires some serious suspension of disbelief. The fact that Doc Savage is so perfect in so many ways also lessens the stakes a bit. You never really get the sense that our hero is ever in true danger, at least not in this entry. And parts of it haven't aged well. For example, when one of the "Fabulous Five" encounters the princess of an isolated Central American tribe directly descended from the Mayans, he exclaims "A pippin!" The princess hears this and is embarrassed, and thus we supposedly learn she has been taught English. Really? English is my first language, and I didn't know what the hell a pippin was!
And of course, the writing is a bit pedestrian, but it was made purposefully this way to be enjoyed by all audiences no matter their age or education. Truly, "The Man of Bronze" was meant to be inclusive and accessible. For me, that adds to my appreciation of this book.
Despite the flaws, as a historical example of the scifi and thriller genres, this is a very accomplished piece of work, with non-stop action and pulpy goodness to keep you turning pages for a brief yet satisfying vicarious adventure.
So I propose we leave Doc Savage the way he is for now, and I encourage modern readers to experience him this way. Because I do think we need to get back in touch with old fashioned heroes crafted and delivered with that touch of innocence and national pride of less "enlightened" decades. At the very least, I think it's nice to just see where we came from. But if we can put ourselves into the lives of our ancestors who were inspired by these simple morality tales, we may appreciate what books like these were trying to accomplish, and maybe we could try to infuse our contemporary pathos with a little more of that childlike excitement, pride, hope, and wonder that can enliven our daily lives and our future.
SCORE: For already established fans of classic adventure, this book certainly earns the "Fabulous Five." But as an overall work of literature, I rate this three pippins and a bulky bronze bicep (3.5 stars rounded up!)
February 16, 2009
While not quite a superhero, Doc Savage is as heroic and capable as a man could be. Savage was meant to combine the physical prowess of an athlete with the mind of Holmes and the conscience of Lincoln. He was the antithesis of The Shadow, bright instead of dark, merciful instead of brutal, and world-famous instead of mythical.
If The Shadow's masked alleyway justice was the prototype for Batman, then Savage is the righteous boy scout is the inspiration for Superman. Savage even has an antarctic island retreat called 'The Fortress of Solitude'.
The Pulps have made a recent resurgence, and Doc's influence is being felt yet again. Though many fans might not realize it, many movies, films, and comics hearken back to him. Johnny Quest, Indiana Jones, Duck Tales, Alan Moore's 'Tom Strong' and 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen', Warren Ellis' 'Planetary', and The Venture Bros all take cues from the brilliant adventurer and his band of loyal friends.
This book is a bit of a mess, as the earliest example of the hero, but pulp makes no apologies for its weaknesses, and claims to be nothing more than rip-snorting fun. With so many stories coming out every week (Upton Sinclar was known to write 8,000 words a day, seven days a week for the pulps), authors had to attract and keep readers.
The Doc Savage books are renowned for their wide-ranging creativity, where no idea was unwelcome. The author was told to write what was most exciting, most unexpected, and inspiring. Savage shows this tendency in droves of far-flung ideas, though a reader might not realize just how revolutionary they were, since every single one has since been cannibalized and adopted authors of adventures and comic books.
Beyond the remarkable creativity, the books are crammed with description, metaphor, and detail. Though often laughably ridiculous, this thick literary gumbo is certainly filling. There is an invigorating freedom in these books that one misses entirely even in many modern adventures.
The authors took themselves very lightly, they were making a product and making a living, and they would never have rights or fame from pulps. The stories, even Doc Savage, were written under pseudonyms shared by many different authors in the same publishing house. Though your boss might know who was the most capable writer, the fans couldn't know you if they wanted to.
However, fans did come to recognize and empathize with their favorites, like 'Good Duck Artist' Carl Barks, the fans could pick them out by style, if not by name. Though we now know the men behind the pens, there was no guarantee when they wrote their enduring stories that they would receive any recognition beyond a simple paycheck.
Eventually, adventure serials like this one would go out of favor, replaced by superheroes, science fiction, and cartoons. However, the tropes, plots, and characterization of the pulps carried through into the new stories, and even if most Superman and Batman fans have never heard of Savage, the adventures they read or watch each month are not new. The Man of Bronze was overcoming them before world wars had numbers.
If The Shadow's masked alleyway justice was the prototype for Batman, then Savage is the righteous boy scout is the inspiration for Superman. Savage even has an antarctic island retreat called 'The Fortress of Solitude'.
The Pulps have made a recent resurgence, and Doc's influence is being felt yet again. Though many fans might not realize it, many movies, films, and comics hearken back to him. Johnny Quest, Indiana Jones, Duck Tales, Alan Moore's 'Tom Strong' and 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen', Warren Ellis' 'Planetary', and The Venture Bros all take cues from the brilliant adventurer and his band of loyal friends.
This book is a bit of a mess, as the earliest example of the hero, but pulp makes no apologies for its weaknesses, and claims to be nothing more than rip-snorting fun. With so many stories coming out every week (Upton Sinclar was known to write 8,000 words a day, seven days a week for the pulps), authors had to attract and keep readers.
The Doc Savage books are renowned for their wide-ranging creativity, where no idea was unwelcome. The author was told to write what was most exciting, most unexpected, and inspiring. Savage shows this tendency in droves of far-flung ideas, though a reader might not realize just how revolutionary they were, since every single one has since been cannibalized and adopted authors of adventures and comic books.
Beyond the remarkable creativity, the books are crammed with description, metaphor, and detail. Though often laughably ridiculous, this thick literary gumbo is certainly filling. There is an invigorating freedom in these books that one misses entirely even in many modern adventures.
The authors took themselves very lightly, they were making a product and making a living, and they would never have rights or fame from pulps. The stories, even Doc Savage, were written under pseudonyms shared by many different authors in the same publishing house. Though your boss might know who was the most capable writer, the fans couldn't know you if they wanted to.
However, fans did come to recognize and empathize with their favorites, like 'Good Duck Artist' Carl Barks, the fans could pick them out by style, if not by name. Though we now know the men behind the pens, there was no guarantee when they wrote their enduring stories that they would receive any recognition beyond a simple paycheck.
Eventually, adventure serials like this one would go out of favor, replaced by superheroes, science fiction, and cartoons. However, the tropes, plots, and characterization of the pulps carried through into the new stories, and even if most Superman and Batman fans have never heard of Savage, the adventures they read or watch each month are not new. The Man of Bronze was overcoming them before world wars had numbers.
September 26, 2013
There are some books that just can't be rated or reviewed objectively. At least not by me. So feel free to take this one with a grain of salt.
On any given Saturday when I was in late grade school and junior high you could at some point find me at the Paperback Bookworm. I'd be looking for SF books. Bradbury. Asimov. Heinlein. Ace doubles. Oh...and Bantam paperbacks of Doc Savage. For fifty cents you got a world of adventure. When all was said and done I had probably half the Bantam reprints.
Now it's been a long time since I was 12 years old. It's been a long time since I've read The Man of Bronze (though not THAT long). But it's just like yesterday when I crack those black Bama covers. Doc is a superman. The writing is turgid. The adventures are spectacular. And the villains get what's coming to them.
It's a recipe for pulp greatness. It's twelve all over again. It's hunting through shelves stuffed with musty old paperbacks hoping to find one you don't have. It's flopped on the bed hoping nobody wants to bug you.
It doesn't matter if the plot has holes. It doesn't matter if the characters are paper thin. It doesn't matter if the dialogue is hokey. Some books are always five stars.
On any given Saturday when I was in late grade school and junior high you could at some point find me at the Paperback Bookworm. I'd be looking for SF books. Bradbury. Asimov. Heinlein. Ace doubles. Oh...and Bantam paperbacks of Doc Savage. For fifty cents you got a world of adventure. When all was said and done I had probably half the Bantam reprints.
Now it's been a long time since I was 12 years old. It's been a long time since I've read The Man of Bronze (though not THAT long). But it's just like yesterday when I crack those black Bama covers. Doc is a superman. The writing is turgid. The adventures are spectacular. And the villains get what's coming to them.
It's a recipe for pulp greatness. It's twelve all over again. It's hunting through shelves stuffed with musty old paperbacks hoping to find one you don't have. It's flopped on the bed hoping nobody wants to bug you.
It doesn't matter if the plot has holes. It doesn't matter if the characters are paper thin. It doesn't matter if the dialogue is hokey. Some books are always five stars.
August 2, 2017
He's as strong as Superman, as resourceful as Batman, as clever as Brainiac-5. He is physically as impressive as Hercules and as mesmerizingly beautiful as Apollo. He swims faster than Michael Phelps and runs quicker than Usain Bolt. He's a brilliant surgeon/physician. He is Clark 'Doc' Savage Jr.
And he's completely ridiculous, larger-than-life, over-the-top alpha male. But this is grade-A pulp, and it's just too entertaining to be put off by the it's-just-too-much-of-a-good-thing greatness that is the man of bronze.
The novel is non-stop action and running around by Do and his crew (5 men, all the top of their field (archeology, geology, law, chemistry, engineering) only to be surpassed by their fearless leader, and all brawny to boot).
If you're prepared to take this not too seriously, it's a fun read.
favourite quotes:
p10. "Alongside Renny, Doc was like dynamite alongside gunpowder"
p56. "Monk emitted a great howl. Monk's fights were always noisy, unless there was a reason for them to be quiet. Like a gladiator of old, Monk fought best when the racket was loudest."
April 6, 2017
I love the idea of Doc Savage.
A man trained from birth to build his mind and body to perfection, in order to pursue a life of adventure and righting wrongs.
A man surrounded by top minds in numerous fields, each an expert in one or more areas of science or engineering or some other useful skill.
A team of adventurers, dodging bullets, thwarting schemes, battling monsters, wielding and facing all the bizarre scientific devices a 1930's pulp fiction author can devise.
But the author, Lester Dent under the pseudonym Kenneth Robeson, cannot write. His characters are paragons, perfect to the point of spoof. His imagination runs wild, but his sentences often make you read them twice. His stuff is fun, in short doses, but not fun enough to get me through a novel.
I read some of these long ago, and remembered them as sort-of comic books without the pictures. In trying to re-read as an adult, inspired by a Facebook friend's recent sharing of many of the great book cover images painted by James Bama, I find I just can't do it. I love pulpy stuff, but plenty of pulp writers managed to write grammatically and add some level of depth to their characters. Not so with this book.
So I will henceforth enjoy the cool cover arts. And I will spin my own Doc Savage adventures in my head, where they will be mercifully short and feature great special effects, and perhaps guest appearances by Indiana Jones and The Shadow.
But with God as my witness, I will never try to read one of these novels again.
A man trained from birth to build his mind and body to perfection, in order to pursue a life of adventure and righting wrongs.
A man surrounded by top minds in numerous fields, each an expert in one or more areas of science or engineering or some other useful skill.
A team of adventurers, dodging bullets, thwarting schemes, battling monsters, wielding and facing all the bizarre scientific devices a 1930's pulp fiction author can devise.
But the author, Lester Dent under the pseudonym Kenneth Robeson, cannot write. His characters are paragons, perfect to the point of spoof. His imagination runs wild, but his sentences often make you read them twice. His stuff is fun, in short doses, but not fun enough to get me through a novel.
I read some of these long ago, and remembered them as sort-of comic books without the pictures. In trying to re-read as an adult, inspired by a Facebook friend's recent sharing of many of the great book cover images painted by James Bama, I find I just can't do it. I love pulpy stuff, but plenty of pulp writers managed to write grammatically and add some level of depth to their characters. Not so with this book.
So I will henceforth enjoy the cool cover arts. And I will spin my own Doc Savage adventures in my head, where they will be mercifully short and feature great special effects, and perhaps guest appearances by Indiana Jones and The Shadow.
But with God as my witness, I will never try to read one of these novels again.
December 27, 2008
I discovered Doc Savage when I was 14 years of age and read him avidly for about three or four years. They are replints of the Doc Savage pulp magazine--The Man of Bronze was originally printed in 1933.
If you have ever read any pulp magazines you know what to expect--slam bang adventure, hack writing and little character development.
However, the orignal Doc Savage Magazine ran from 1933 to 1949--16 years. It captured it readers by being exciting adventure and nothing more.
Super-scientist 'Doc " Savage and his five assistants roam the globe finding lost cities, conquering villians and helping those in distress.
If you ever see one fo these in a used bookstore, you might want to read it to see what Doc Savage is all about. They are very short--almost all under 200 pages, and they are quick easy reading. Dated--but a lot of fun.
If you have ever read any pulp magazines you know what to expect--slam bang adventure, hack writing and little character development.
However, the orignal Doc Savage Magazine ran from 1933 to 1949--16 years. It captured it readers by being exciting adventure and nothing more.
Super-scientist 'Doc " Savage and his five assistants roam the globe finding lost cities, conquering villians and helping those in distress.
If you ever see one fo these in a used bookstore, you might want to read it to see what Doc Savage is all about. They are very short--almost all under 200 pages, and they are quick easy reading. Dated--but a lot of fun.
February 8, 2019
Of all the pulp era heroes few stand out above the crowd, Doc Savage is one of these. With his 5 aides and cousin he adventures across the world. Fighting weird menaces, master criminals and evil scientists Doc and the Fab 5 never let you down for a great read. These stories have all you need; fast paced action, weird mystery, and some humor as the aides spat with each other. My highest recommendation.
July 19, 2017
As a kid in the 1970s I would devour every Doc Savage paperback I could lay my hands on. This is the one that started it all.
May 16, 2017
Doc Savage, supreme adventurer, and his five science bros have their first of many exploits. Beginning with an attempt on Doc's life, the gang flies from New York City to an ancient hidden city in Central America as Doc traces his legacy left to him by his father.
My first Doc Savage pulp was a quick read and definitely worth the short time it took to tear through it. Savage is given his mission and his resources in this first story, effectively making it an origin story while still focusing on the formula plot. With some considerable modernization and revision, this would probably be a favorite. The concept of stepping into the shoes of a highly capable person (okay, really a pretty obvious Marty Stu) with nearly complete freedom to go out and right the world's perceived wrongs is escapism at its best, and the 1930's seem to be the right era for that. There were the predicted racial and gender issues that you would expect from a macho men's novel of the age, but it seemed like Dent made a concerted effort to create an educated and culturally sensitive hero in Doc. It's easy to see how he became a literary ancestor of Superman. The writing style itself is choppy and slightly juvenile, and I tended to not even bother remembering which of Doc's friends had which scientific specialties. Overall, fun stuff but not quite enough substance.
My first Doc Savage pulp was a quick read and definitely worth the short time it took to tear through it. Savage is given his mission and his resources in this first story, effectively making it an origin story while still focusing on the formula plot. With some considerable modernization and revision, this would probably be a favorite. The concept of stepping into the shoes of a highly capable person (okay, really a pretty obvious Marty Stu) with nearly complete freedom to go out and right the world's perceived wrongs is escapism at its best, and the 1930's seem to be the right era for that. There were the predicted racial and gender issues that you would expect from a macho men's novel of the age, but it seemed like Dent made a concerted effort to create an educated and culturally sensitive hero in Doc. It's easy to see how he became a literary ancestor of Superman. The writing style itself is choppy and slightly juvenile, and I tended to not even bother remembering which of Doc's friends had which scientific specialties. Overall, fun stuff but not quite enough substance.
September 25, 2016
The first Doc Savage story appeared in 1933 and the series ran in pulp and later digest format into 1949. Bantam reprinted the entire series in paperback with wonderful, iconic covers starting in the 1960's. Doc was arguably the first great modern superhero with a rich background, continuity, and mythos. The characterizations were far richer than was common for the pulps; his five associates and their sometimes-auxiliary, Doc's cousin Pat, and the pets Chemistry and Habeas Corpus, all had very distinctive characteristics and their byplay was frequently more entertaining that the current adventure-of-the-month. The settings were also fascinating: Doc's Fortress of Solitude, the Hidalgo Trading Company (which served as a front for his armada of vehicles), and especially the mysterious 86th floor headquarters all became familiar haunts to the reader, and the far-flung adventures took the intrepid band to exotic and richly-described locations all over the world. The adventures were always fast-paced and exciting, from the early apocalyptic world-saving extravaganzas of the early days to the latter scientific-detective style shorter works of the post-World War Two years. There were always a few points that it was difficult to believe along the way, but there were always more ups than downs, and there was never, ever a dull moment. The Doc Savage books have always been my favorite entertainments... I was always, as Johnny would say, superamalgamated!
April 23, 2011
I have to pick up a Doc Savage every now and then to remind myself how substandard the writing really is and how mechanically each story clings to a formula. The series tries to have it both ways: have a supercompetent hero figure and put that hero into extreme danger. It never quite works out--the reader never really buys that Doc Savage is actually in danger. And because each episode is strictly self-contained, there's no feeling of development or advancement. The situation self-resets every time.
If you have read one Doc Savage, you have very nearly read them all.
This was not the origin story I was expecting. The gang is already together and we see nothing of Savage's early days.
If you have read one Doc Savage, you have very nearly read them all.
This was not the origin story I was expecting. The gang is already together and we see nothing of Savage's early days.
March 10, 2021
This is pure pulp fiction - the first of some 200 Doc Savage stories written by "Kenneth Robeson" the pen name of Lester Dent and eventually others. Doc Savage is one of the original Superheroes, first appearing in 1933, prior to Superman, Batman and the rest. Doc and his five companions are on lifelong goals to seek out adventure and fight evil. This first Doc Savage novel finds them in a fictional Central American country named Hidalgo where there is a hidden "Valley of the Vanished", where Doc's father had been left a legacy of riches that Doc is seeking to claim and the villain of the story will stop at nothing to stop him. Lots of fast paced action and peril.
July 2, 2023
The Man of Bronze is the very first "Doc Savage" novel by Kenneth Robeson. Kenneth Robeson was the house name Street and Smith Publications used as the author of their popular Doc Savage novels. 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
I love reading these old pulp novels from time to time. I read about 80%+ of the Doc Savage novels when I was a teenager but that was a very long time ago. I have been looking for the book for some time because it is the origin story of Doc Savage and his crew.
In this one, Doc Savage and his men are in the thick of it again. The action is classic Doc Savage, filled with good old fashion adventure and with gadgets that always seem to be there when the hero needs them. You can relax and escape for a little while. A good read in the Doc Savage series.
William G. Bogart
Evelyn Coulson
Harold A. Davis
Lawrence Donovan
Alan Hathway
W. Ryerson Johnson
I love reading these old pulp novels from time to time. I read about 80%+ of the Doc Savage novels when I was a teenager but that was a very long time ago. I have been looking for the book for some time because it is the origin story of Doc Savage and his crew.
In this one, Doc Savage and his men are in the thick of it again. The action is classic Doc Savage, filled with good old fashion adventure and with gadgets that always seem to be there when the hero needs them. You can relax and escape for a little while. A good read in the Doc Savage series.
September 30, 2019
Can be hard to ignore the clunky writing often meant to simply pad the word count, but under that is a fun, wild ride through the broadest Depression era wish fulfillment imaginable. Doc and his manly team of manly men display their unstoppable manliness in fight after fight. It reads now like high camp, and I loved it—laughing out loud more than once.
July 29, 2011
I wish I had the hard cover, I got a stinky paperback version from a used book store.
I'm not going to lie, this book was in many ways completely retarded. I mean, I can buy into a guy being super smart and super strong due to 2 hours of strenuous mental and physical exercises undertaken every day since he was a child. To be so perfect that rain glides off his skin and hair, not unlike off the feathers of a duck? Come on! There's no way!
So I should of hated this... but it was still really quite good. Doc is really a one man show and as written by Robeson, can do absolutely no wrong. He has a team of 5 guys who are masters of their fields (but not as masterful as Doc!) that are basically kidnap bait and people for Doc to talk to in an effort to further the thin plot. The plot though, is fucking awesome, with a lost race of Mayans, assassination attempts, and Doc going bat shit crazy taking out dozens of guys in seconds when he's not masterfully figuring out medical treatments. So as silly and simple as it is, it's a damned fun, if quick read. I look forward to some more adventures.
I'm not going to lie, this book was in many ways completely retarded. I mean, I can buy into a guy being super smart and super strong due to 2 hours of strenuous mental and physical exercises undertaken every day since he was a child. To be so perfect that rain glides off his skin and hair, not unlike off the feathers of a duck? Come on! There's no way!
So I should of hated this... but it was still really quite good. Doc is really a one man show and as written by Robeson, can do absolutely no wrong. He has a team of 5 guys who are masters of their fields (but not as masterful as Doc!) that are basically kidnap bait and people for Doc to talk to in an effort to further the thin plot. The plot though, is fucking awesome, with a lost race of Mayans, assassination attempts, and Doc going bat shit crazy taking out dozens of guys in seconds when he's not masterfully figuring out medical treatments. So as silly and simple as it is, it's a damned fun, if quick read. I look forward to some more adventures.
July 30, 2018
One of the great pulp heroes that influenced the first generation of comic heroes. Doc Savage being a nearly perfect specimen of humanity, lacking in a tragic or traumatic past yet like Batman later, he molds himself through study and training in his Fortress of Solitude (later lifted wholesale for Superman). This is a fast paced pulp story paced well, with some clever bits, the only complaint being Doc and his men are too perfect, too powerful. Very much a product of the time, there are references to persons once famous but now obscure, which I enjoyed looking up for more background. I thought it a solid start, recommended if you like pulp storytelling.
August 9, 2009
This one started it all. I read about 20 of the series as a kid and even had a family dog named Doc in honor of Doc Savage. Pulp and brainless, but the perfect antidote when the need to read is there and not in the mood for 1000 page complexity.
May 21, 2023
Great pulp action in a lost jungle world filled with revenge, intrigue and mysteries. Perfect for what it was trying to be.
May 29, 2011
I read virtually all the Doc Savage series when they were reprinted in the 1970. Masterpieces of the pulp fiction genre.
April 7, 2020
It was summer, and I was young, and my family was at the beach, and I was reading. I’d blown through the books I’d brought with me, and listened to all of the cassettes I’d brought with me on my little Toshiba portable player, and I was in need of something more to read.
This being a beach rental house, there were beach rental house books sitting up on the shelves. They weren’t recent books. Neither were they good books. They were books that the owner of that rental probably didn’t want people to know they owned, old pulp novels, cheesy formulaic Westerns and cheesy formulaic romances. I steered away from the romances, and went with one that had a great meaty bull of a man with clenched fists and a shirt ripped in the finest Bill Shatner style.
The Title: Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze.
It was absolutely, deliciously, completely terrible. I was a teen who aspired to write, and reading Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze was the first time I realized that there was no reason in the world I couldn’t be an author, because if Doc Savage: Man of Bronze could get published, then I could get published. It wasn’t just the goofy plot or the silliness of the characters. It wasn’t just the utterly overwrought language, or the tendency to use exclamation marks! To describe everything! Because it was all so exciting!
It was that every single time Doc Savage is described, he's described using the exact same metaphors. He had “wide, very strong-looking teeth.” He was stronger than a gorilla. How strong was he? Stronger than a gorilla. A gorilla was not as strong as he, nor did a gorilla have teeth as wide and very strong-looking. His eyes were gold, and his skin was perfectly bronze, and no matter what he did or where he was, the author did not fail to mention those golden eyes above the wide very strong looking teeth of our bronze gorilla man of adventure and mystery.
To be entirely honest, I enjoyed this book immensely, and it’s clearly stuck with me for decades.
I found it online (it was originally published in 1933, and is out of copyright) and gave it a re-read recently, as part of prepping for a sermon in which it featured prominently. And yeah. It's still a campy, over-the-top hoot.
A three point seven five, because it makes me giggle.
This being a beach rental house, there were beach rental house books sitting up on the shelves. They weren’t recent books. Neither were they good books. They were books that the owner of that rental probably didn’t want people to know they owned, old pulp novels, cheesy formulaic Westerns and cheesy formulaic romances. I steered away from the romances, and went with one that had a great meaty bull of a man with clenched fists and a shirt ripped in the finest Bill Shatner style.
The Title: Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze.
It was absolutely, deliciously, completely terrible. I was a teen who aspired to write, and reading Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze was the first time I realized that there was no reason in the world I couldn’t be an author, because if Doc Savage: Man of Bronze could get published, then I could get published. It wasn’t just the goofy plot or the silliness of the characters. It wasn’t just the utterly overwrought language, or the tendency to use exclamation marks! To describe everything! Because it was all so exciting!
It was that every single time Doc Savage is described, he's described using the exact same metaphors. He had “wide, very strong-looking teeth.” He was stronger than a gorilla. How strong was he? Stronger than a gorilla. A gorilla was not as strong as he, nor did a gorilla have teeth as wide and very strong-looking. His eyes were gold, and his skin was perfectly bronze, and no matter what he did or where he was, the author did not fail to mention those golden eyes above the wide very strong looking teeth of our bronze gorilla man of adventure and mystery.
To be entirely honest, I enjoyed this book immensely, and it’s clearly stuck with me for decades.
I found it online (it was originally published in 1933, and is out of copyright) and gave it a re-read recently, as part of prepping for a sermon in which it featured prominently. And yeah. It's still a campy, over-the-top hoot.
A three point seven five, because it makes me giggle.
Read
October 6, 2024I remember seeing a "new" version of this book as a 12 year old in our drug store in Tennessee and almost gasping at the illustration and description on the back cover. I didn't buy it (didn't have the buck and a half at the time), and moved on, but never forgot the title.
Fast forward five decades, and hello, Internet! I tracked down a digital copy from my local library, and feverishly flipped into the beginning of the book. Preparing to read, I already identified which sources I could exploit to get the rest of the books in the series. Then I started reading.
Never have I been so disappointed.
This was so enthusiastically, but so poorly written. I read four chapters and then bailed. Life is too short.
Did not finish, and I have no interest in ever doing so.
Fast forward five decades, and hello, Internet! I tracked down a digital copy from my local library, and feverishly flipped into the beginning of the book. Preparing to read, I already identified which sources I could exploit to get the rest of the books in the series. Then I started reading.
Never have I been so disappointed.
This was so enthusiastically, but so poorly written. I read four chapters and then bailed. Life is too short.
Did not finish, and I have no interest in ever doing so.
March 28, 2018
I had higher expectations re-reading this one, based on vague recollections of loving it as a kid. The plot is a wild ride and a lot of fun, full of twists and bends. It's just that Clark Savage -- the prototype for Superman -- is just a little too perfect to be an interesting character.
June 13, 2022
The series that enthralled me as a child and was an important vehicle that advanced my love of reading.
August 15, 2012
Doc Savage- Man of Bronze
How delightful. Spoiler alerts near the end…
The Doc Savage (dozens and dozens of) adventures were published in the 30’s and 40’s in pulp fiction magazines. I had the great privilege to devour them when they were re-issued in the 70s as short novels. How my single mother of 4 boys, working double shifts as a waitress, kept me supplied with these novels is a mystery to me, but there’s a “Love of a Mother” story in there somewhere as new issues endlessly came out every few weeks and I believe I may have read them all.
Doc Savage is, for the time period of their publishing, a high tech superman, batman, or high tech Tarzan (all logically explained with the terrific sciences of the 30’s and 40s’). Since Superman, Batman, Tarzan all rolling in the dough for publishers, the publishers of Doc Savage needed their super hero. They went as much science fiction/reality as they could for the day and certainly spiked my interest in science even though the novels I read were 30-40 years out of date. They were still fancy enough to my fertile young mind to have developed a lifetime interest in science and technology.
As a teenager I actually did stop at times to look up words like “nabob” and in the novels I was bombarded with the whole “kick their butt” jargon of my father’s era and watched it fizzle as it failed to impress me coming from my older brothers. I liked it that “The Man of Bronze” (Doc Savage) rarely used violence except when it could not be avoided and even then he probably had some gimmick or gadget or exotic self-defense that drastically reduced any deadly harm. (When I was older I took judo to jolt my older brother out of that Kick your butt mentality)
I’m handing out 4 stars mainly on my emotional attachment to the early days of my reading. Could deserve more or less depending on your take but here are a few things that almost demand a kick down from 5 stars.
Six of his crew (The Robins to this Batman, each with some terrific scientific specialty) when going about on a chase to catch bad guys can catch a New York cab with two of the crew riding on the side boards (runners?) of the era’s automobiles. There are tons of these ‘era’ jargon… hip for the day type things that can still be enjoyed with tongue in cheek, but were advanced for their time.
POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT *** STOP HERE, READ THE NOVEL INSTEAD ***
This is the kick off novel for the Doc Savage series of novels. You learn how and why he is so remarkable and are introduced to his quarreling wizards of modern science who stick by his side loyally for action and adventure. The primary plot of this novel is to alert the reader (and future readers) where Doc’s extreme wealth comes from --- so he can have and use every modern and hardly been invented yet gadgets.
Oddly enough… if you can suspend disbelief or ignore the 30’s era jargon along with other set backs of this kind then this is actually a rather fun novel to read. Plot is thin, characters are cliché with Doc Savage being rather interesting most the time.
Finally, near the last third of the novel, you’ve been exposed to and explained about all the super magic advanced (30s) technologies and the story just focuses on story. Then even old and cliché as it may be it can be a page turner. I’ll let you discover Doc’s great wealth so that you’ll experience one of my favorite series and hopefully inspire you to burn through his dozens and dozens of other adventures.
How delightful. Spoiler alerts near the end…
The Doc Savage (dozens and dozens of) adventures were published in the 30’s and 40’s in pulp fiction magazines. I had the great privilege to devour them when they were re-issued in the 70s as short novels. How my single mother of 4 boys, working double shifts as a waitress, kept me supplied with these novels is a mystery to me, but there’s a “Love of a Mother” story in there somewhere as new issues endlessly came out every few weeks and I believe I may have read them all.
Doc Savage is, for the time period of their publishing, a high tech superman, batman, or high tech Tarzan (all logically explained with the terrific sciences of the 30’s and 40s’). Since Superman, Batman, Tarzan all rolling in the dough for publishers, the publishers of Doc Savage needed their super hero. They went as much science fiction/reality as they could for the day and certainly spiked my interest in science even though the novels I read were 30-40 years out of date. They were still fancy enough to my fertile young mind to have developed a lifetime interest in science and technology.
As a teenager I actually did stop at times to look up words like “nabob” and in the novels I was bombarded with the whole “kick their butt” jargon of my father’s era and watched it fizzle as it failed to impress me coming from my older brothers. I liked it that “The Man of Bronze” (Doc Savage) rarely used violence except when it could not be avoided and even then he probably had some gimmick or gadget or exotic self-defense that drastically reduced any deadly harm. (When I was older I took judo to jolt my older brother out of that Kick your butt mentality)
I’m handing out 4 stars mainly on my emotional attachment to the early days of my reading. Could deserve more or less depending on your take but here are a few things that almost demand a kick down from 5 stars.
Six of his crew (The Robins to this Batman, each with some terrific scientific specialty) when going about on a chase to catch bad guys can catch a New York cab with two of the crew riding on the side boards (runners?) of the era’s automobiles. There are tons of these ‘era’ jargon… hip for the day type things that can still be enjoyed with tongue in cheek, but were advanced for their time.
POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT *** STOP HERE, READ THE NOVEL INSTEAD ***
This is the kick off novel for the Doc Savage series of novels. You learn how and why he is so remarkable and are introduced to his quarreling wizards of modern science who stick by his side loyally for action and adventure. The primary plot of this novel is to alert the reader (and future readers) where Doc’s extreme wealth comes from --- so he can have and use every modern and hardly been invented yet gadgets.
Oddly enough… if you can suspend disbelief or ignore the 30’s era jargon along with other set backs of this kind then this is actually a rather fun novel to read. Plot is thin, characters are cliché with Doc Savage being rather interesting most the time.
Finally, near the last third of the novel, you’ve been exposed to and explained about all the super magic advanced (30s) technologies and the story just focuses on story. Then even old and cliché as it may be it can be a page turner. I’ll let you discover Doc’s great wealth so that you’ll experience one of my favorite series and hopefully inspire you to burn through his dozens and dozens of other adventures.
August 4, 2020
Wow! What a wild ride! This was my first introduction to The Man of Bronze, Doc Savage, and I'm so glad that I chose to start with this volume instead of jumping into the middle of the series! This was actually loaned to me by a friend who had commented that if I enjoyed The Shadow, I should really give Doc Savage a try. I like different things about the different series, but I really enjoyed the sense of high adventure in this book. And Doc's cast of cohorts makes the story even more fun. I recently bought a big collection of these, and can't wait to continue reading!
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UPDATE 8/3/2020
Read this as part of the Telephone Book Club. Dz. loved it. The beginning was a little slow for him, I think, as we set up the story and were introduced to the different characters (although I loved that bit!), but once we arrived in Hidalgo, he was completely hooked. It was a fun, pulpy ride. And we're both looking forward to reading more Doc Savage together.
--
UPDATE 8/3/2020
Read this as part of the Telephone Book Club. Dz. loved it. The beginning was a little slow for him, I think, as we set up the story and were introduced to the different characters (although I loved that bit!), but once we arrived in Hidalgo, he was completely hooked. It was a fun, pulpy ride. And we're both looking forward to reading more Doc Savage together.
May 19, 2013
An attempt on the life of Doc Savage—genius, crime-fighter, supreme physical specimen—takes him and his crew of loyal specialists to South America, where they will uncover the secret that Doc’s father has left in the care of the people of a lost civilization.
All criticisms of this book concerning its clunky prose and mechanical construction are entirely beside the point. No one should read a pulp adventure novel expecting anything more than a quick, fun read—and Lester Dent (writing as Kenneth Robeson) delivers one. Pulp authors worked fast and trod a well-worn path travelled by hundreds of other writers telling thousands of similar stories. However, only a small percentage is remembered today, and Dent surely deserves to be included among their number. I recently read that Shane Black, writer and director of the popular film “Iron Man 3,” has signed to make a new Doc Savage movie. At this early stage, who can say whether the film will actually make it into production, but is it possible that we are on the eve of a Doc Savage renaissance?
All criticisms of this book concerning its clunky prose and mechanical construction are entirely beside the point. No one should read a pulp adventure novel expecting anything more than a quick, fun read—and Lester Dent (writing as Kenneth Robeson) delivers one. Pulp authors worked fast and trod a well-worn path travelled by hundreds of other writers telling thousands of similar stories. However, only a small percentage is remembered today, and Dent surely deserves to be included among their number. I recently read that Shane Black, writer and director of the popular film “Iron Man 3,” has signed to make a new Doc Savage movie. At this early stage, who can say whether the film will actually make it into production, but is it possible that we are on the eve of a Doc Savage renaissance?
April 15, 2017
With this book, i revisited a bit of my childhood. The danger, of course, is that you can't go home again and in the case of Doc Savage, it is partially true. The writing style here is juvenile and at times, hard to read for it's pure awkwardness. But the plot is highly imaginative which was the reason, even as a kid, I kept coming back to this well time after time to drink in more of Doc's adventures. I'm not sorry that I re-read this book after so many years, and I will probably partake of another one in the series some time later this year. But unless you are a kid or have a strong hankering for Doc Savage and Associates, feel free to skip this book.
December 17, 2019
Straight up: This book is bonkers. I mean, Doc is the best at everything. He has a team of five friends who accompany him on his adventures, all of whom are the best in their fields, but they're not as good as Doc. Whenever they make a discovery during the course of their adventures, he's already figured it out, but he doesn't say anything, because he doesn't want to deprive them of it. He's the strongest, the bravest, the smartest, the most cunning, along with being the bronziest and the golden-eye-est. If this guy wasn't an inspiration for Superman, then I don't know what Siegel and Shuster were doing, because nothing screams "All-American Golden Boy" more than Doc.
The style of the book is ridiculous, too. Bullets are called lead missiles, every character is described by their appearance at least once a page (and, in the case of the female characters, every time they appear), and everything is declared breathlessly. Succinctly. With exclamation points! I'm guessing this is characteristic of pulp fiction, but I'm not familiar enough with it as a genre to say from personal experience.
Despite all that (and the rampant ethnocentrism and latent sexism), it's still a lot of fun to read. It's hard to take the story seriously, what with the characters and the style, but that seems to be the point. It's not meant to be a Great Novel, but a means of escape. It's not written for modern sensibilities, but so long as people can go in to it understanding it as a product of its time, it shouldn't be too bad. I'm not going to read the rest of the series (all 181 of them!), but it was a fun novelty read.
The style of the book is ridiculous, too. Bullets are called lead missiles, every character is described by their appearance at least once a page (and, in the case of the female characters, every time they appear), and everything is declared breathlessly. Succinctly. With exclamation points! I'm guessing this is characteristic of pulp fiction, but I'm not familiar enough with it as a genre to say from personal experience.
Despite all that (and the rampant ethnocentrism and latent sexism), it's still a lot of fun to read. It's hard to take the story seriously, what with the characters and the style, but that seems to be the point. It's not meant to be a Great Novel, but a means of escape. It's not written for modern sensibilities, but so long as people can go in to it understanding it as a product of its time, it shouldn't be too bad. I'm not going to read the rest of the series (all 181 of them!), but it was a fun novelty read.
June 6, 2019
So the way I happened across this book is quite strange . I thought I had down loaded Aldous Huxley Brave New World from Amazon prime into my kindle . The book arrived cover and all and I began reading it.
About 40% of the way in I started to ponder why the main character was described as a bronze man named Doc Savage and he and his chumps were off to Belize in search of some land her was owned . What? I thought. Where last the dystopian 1984-sequel novel I was promised .
A quick google search revealed I was not in fact reading Brave New World but Doc Savage the bronze man . A quick email and refund in hand I continued reading because well I was hooked enough at this point and I had to see what happened with Doc and his Crew.
Will they find the red fingered man? Who is trying to kill them ? Why is Doc bronze ? I was perplexed .
This book reads like a comic and is full of action , and somehow Doc just knows how to do everything . Whenever there was a problem Doc just whips out some awesome skill and deals with it - what a hunk.
Speaking of hunks you can tell this book was written in the 1950s I think I counted one whole female character and by gosh she was so forlorn . No action for the ladies in this one guys !
Any how I digress . What a wild ride . Glad I finished it . 👌🏼
About 40% of the way in I started to ponder why the main character was described as a bronze man named Doc Savage and he and his chumps were off to Belize in search of some land her was owned . What? I thought. Where last the dystopian 1984-sequel novel I was promised .
A quick google search revealed I was not in fact reading Brave New World but Doc Savage the bronze man . A quick email and refund in hand I continued reading because well I was hooked enough at this point and I had to see what happened with Doc and his Crew.
Will they find the red fingered man? Who is trying to kill them ? Why is Doc bronze ? I was perplexed .
This book reads like a comic and is full of action , and somehow Doc just knows how to do everything . Whenever there was a problem Doc just whips out some awesome skill and deals with it - what a hunk.
Speaking of hunks you can tell this book was written in the 1950s I think I counted one whole female character and by gosh she was so forlorn . No action for the ladies in this one guys !
Any how I digress . What a wild ride . Glad I finished it . 👌🏼
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