Death's Deputy

by L. Ron Hubbard

When people start to mysteriously die around him, fighter pilot Clayton McClean knows the deaths are somehow inexplicably linked to him in this unforgettable tour de force of action, suspense, mystery and the forbidding unknown.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy

158 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1940

About the author

With 19 New York Times bestsellers and more than 350 million copies of his works in circulation, L. Ron Hubbard is among the most enduring and widely read authors of our time. As a leading light of American Pulp Fiction through the 1930s and '40s, he is further among the most influential authors of the modern age. Indeed, from Ray Bradbury to Stephen King, there is scarcely a master of imaginative tales who has not paid tribute to L. Ron Hubbard. Then too, of course, there is all L. Ron Hubbard represents as the Founder of Dianetics and Scientology and thus the only major religion born in the 20th century.

source: Amazon

Reviews

[James Mourgos]

Fun little classic novel I picked up with the Premise that Death itself grants those who want some luck to be impervious to death and yet those around him drop like flies. Clay is a pilot for the Canadian Air Force, helping Britain fight off the Nazis and one day he nearly dies in a crash. However he miraculously is cured by a doctor and he falls in love with a stray by the name of Laura who he meets somewhere in a park in NYC. After a horrific plane crash where everyone else dies except him, he realizes this is more than coincidence.

Short and sweet fiction though this 1970 reprint does have a few typos here and there. Ignoring that it's a quick enjoyable read. Recommended.

[Dormo]

As with Fear, Hubbard trolled me with an epic plot twist at the end.

A good, quick read.

[Einzige]

I came into this based on the recommendation of Alec Nevala-Lee the author of Astounding which looks into the history of the pulp magazine of the same name that was so central to science fiction of the 1950s. In his book he describes Death’s Deputy as Inventive, vividly written, and enriched by what feels like Hubbard’s real interest in the subject—qualities that so much of his other fiction lacks.

This is in part true but I get the feeling that this is an opinion of a writer who has waded through an immense amount of Hubbard’s pulp fiction as part of his research into writing his book. That is because it is certainly correct that in this story you do see a bit more of a personal interest which wasn't as present in Hubbard’s other works as he was an adventure writer at heart rather than a scifi or fantasy writer. However its inventiveness and vividness is something that can only really been in in the context of Hubbard’s more lacklustre pulps.

Ultimately It has a fun idea but really but doesn't really attempt to move beyond its pulp confines.

[Per]

https://archive.org/details/UnknownV0...

[Erik Graff]

This is early L. Ron Hubbard. I'd heard of him first because his most infamous book, Dianetics, was discussed by Time and Life magazines in reference to the cult-like aspects of Scientology during the seventies. Then, quite by coincidence, I acquired an old copy of one of the pulps which had the book featured on the back page as a "Science Fiction Book Club" offering. Indeed, the book had made its first appearance in Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction (5/50). That intrigued me, so when I found an old copy of his novel, Death's Deputy (1940), I picked it up to get some sense of what Hubbard was all about.

All I learned from this excruciatingly boring novel was that Hubbard could be a lousy writer. Having read a great deal of science fiction and fantasy by this point in my life with more concern for price than for quality, I placed it in the lower quartile for readability.

The only other Hubbard I've read was some collection of his early short stories, title forgotten. It was also terrible. I never got around to his pseudo-psychoanalytic Dianetics, but I did befriend the daughter of one of his colleagues from those days, a co-founder of Scientology who quit when he realized that Hubbard was serious--not so much about his new "science" as about bilking the hoi poloi--and the tax benefits of course. There he found his true calling...