The Land of Terror

Doc Savage (Original) #2

by Kenneth Robeson (House Name), Lester Dent

WHO IS DOC SAVAGE?

To the world at large, Doc Savage is a strange, mysterious figure of glistening bronze skin and golden eyes. To his amazing co-adventurers - the five greatest brains ever assembled in one group - he is a man of superhuman strength and protean genius, whose life is dedicated to the destruction of evil-doers. To his fans he is one of the greatest adventure heroes of all time, whose fantastic exploits are unequalled for hair-raising thrills, breathtaking escapes and bloodcurdling excitement.

A VILE GREENISH VAPOR was all that remained of the first victim of the monstrous Smoke of Eternity. There would be thousands more if Kar, master fiend, had his evil way. Only Doc Savage and his mighty five could stop him. But the corpse-laden trail led to a prehistoric crater and mortal combat with the fiercest killing machines ever invented by nature.

Genres: Adventure, Pulp, Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Action, Pulp Adventure

155 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1933

About the author

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

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

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

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

Reviews

[Oliver Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This might be my favourite Doc Savage book yet. It’s super fast paced from page 1, with a tonne of New York based action in the first half and then an expedition to a dinosaur filled island in the second. Fantastic stuff.

[Kenneth McKinley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doc Savage and crew are back. Land of Terror, the eighth entry in Bantam’s paperback series, but the 2nd in the actual original order in which they were written.

The mysterious villain, only known as Kar, unleashes an evil green vapor called The Smoke of Eternity, which dissolves everything it touches. Doc and the gang do battle on a pirate ship anchored in the Hudson River and eventually to an unknown island in the South Pacific where dinosaurs still live in their own isolated ecosystem inside a volcano.

Sound fun?

I thought so too. But Robeson’s writing leaves much to be desired in this one. Yes, there’s the “Doc Savage-can-do-no-wrong” that can get nauseating at times. But where Land of Terror lost me was the guys were facing off against the dinosaurs in the volcano. Maybe it was the 1930s perspective on archeology that doesn’t line up with today’s knowledge. I found myself not buying much, if any, of it.

Still worth reading, but a weak entry in the series.


3 Wing Crunching Pterodactyls out of 5

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

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!

[Dartharagorn · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading "The Avenger" I thought I would give Doc Savage one more try. If you edit out the "Doc is the greatest thing ever bits" this would be fun in that pulpy way. Sadly that's not the case.

[Tym · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doc is more brutal and savage in this one and a bit less experienced which made for interesting reading. Plus I’ve always had a major soft spot for lost worlds especially jungles inhabited by dinosaurs.

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Doc Savage's second adventure (according to the serial publication date, rather than the novel series') is a lackluster one. It starts off interestingly enough, with an acquaintance of Doc Savage falling victim to a mysterious assassination, his almost completely dissolved by an unknown substance. While action packed, the story and characterization that follows is sleight, even by pulp fiction standards.

One weakness is that the heroes don't reach the titular Land of Terror until literally halfway through the book. The first half mostly involves Doc Savage and his crew dealing with thugs led by a shadowy villain known as Kar. Savage discovers their hideout, a cheesy pirate ship museum, fairly early on, but for some reason he ends up making multiple trips to this same location, rather than dealing with the criminals in one fell swoop. While there are some exciting set pieces (including the classic situation where a sidekick is trapped in a chamber slowly filling with water), it feels strange that Savage keeps returning there.

Things pick up when Savage and his friends finally end up at the Land of Terror (that's actually the name used for the island in the text). As the cover reveals, the place is a "Lost World" filled with aggressive dinosaurs.

There's some attempt to play up the "mystery" surrounding Kar's identity, but that plot thread is fairly limp. I suspect most readers paying a modicum of attention to the story will pick up on it.

One issue I noticed in the first story returns in the second as well: Doc Savage has too many friends. The bickering between the apish chemist Monk and the prissy lawyer Ham continues to entertain, but Doc Savage's other three traveling companions (Renny, Long Tom, and the Other Guy) still don't have any memorable (or even distinguishing) qualities, nor do they contribute much to the plot apart from serving as kidnap victims.

While not a bad story, this volume was uneven and merely OK. Hopefully the next installment is closer in quality to the first book.

[Solitairerose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Technically, the 2nd Doc Savage story this novel shows that while many of the elements of Doc were in place, there was still a little ways to go. The formula is already in place as a criminal has a fantastic device (this one if a mist that dissolves matter), is planning a series of crimes and Doc and his friends go into action to stop him.

As a pulp novel, the writing is quick, a bit clumsy and suffers from trying for a breathless pace, but often seems clumsy and definitely overwrought. This is to be expected from a pulp novel from the 30’s, and to want more means you aren’t paying attention to the genre. The plot moves at a brisk pace, with a lot of action, fun ideas, and a spotlight on Doc Savage himself, who is one of the first Super-heroes. The character interplay of Doc’s team is fun, albeit brief.

The mystery isn’t that much of a mystery, but that’s now why you read a pulp novel. You read it for the gimmicked pirate ship, the car chases, the fights, the volcano filled with dinosaurs and hearing about how incredible Doc Savage is. This was a lot of fun, even if it is ragged around the edges, creaky with age and with phrases so poorly written at times you shake your head.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

The search for a mysterious villain called Kar and the source of his deadly invention, the smoke of eternity, leads Doc Savage and his crew to a South Seas island so lost in time that dinosaurs still roam the place. There was something about the plot that I figured out early on, but I won't give it away. A fun read.

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, Lester Dent couldn't nail as nailed as this. A new chemical element capable of dissolving everything? Check. A land where time stopped? Check. FREAKING DINOSSAURS? Check. Renny riding a tryceratops? CHECK. Man, this one got it all.

Pulp hardly gets better than this.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Land of Terror is a "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 trying to find them again in the Bantam editions I read in my youth. I have found several of them in used bookstores and have bought several from online aftermarket bookstores.
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 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.

[Glen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dated, formulaic and insulting. Remember it was written before WWII.

[Benn Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun, action-packed pulp novel that's not without its flaws. It's kinda hard to believe Doc Savage doesn't figure out who the villain is earlier in the book, for one thing. Then there's Doc's five companions. Given how flawlessly perfect Doctor Clark Savage is, it's hard to understand why he really needs help from Monk, Ham, Johnny, Long Tom and Renny. They basically seem to exist for Doc Savage to rescue. I also have to admit that after awhile it gets annoying how superior Savage is. (But then, Savage seems to have been a prototype superhero.) Doc is so superior that after coming out of lake we're told the water does not linger in his hair or on his skin. (!?!) On the other hand, his skin does glisten with sweat later on... :T Overall, it's best to ignore the flaws and just enjoy the adventure. It does keep you interested.

[Ed Wyrd · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the 8th book in the Bantam paperback series from the late 1960s, but was really the 2nd Doc Savage story published back in the 1930s. The story is unusual in that Doc Savage is portrayed as this cold-blooded vigilante who is killing criminals, unlike later stories where he does his best to avoid directly being responsible for their deaths. He also uses guns quite a lot, again, unlike later stories where he actually eschews the use of weapons, feeling they make one too reliant on them. The story also feels as though one of the other house Kenneth Robesons wrote it and not Lester Dent, but I didn't research it to know for sure. Overall, probably one of the more forgettable Doc Savage adventures. Although, it is good for a few laughs when the gang is stuck on Terror Island battling T-Rexes that hop like kangaroos, angry carnivorous stegosaur, and giant beavers.

[Keith B · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 for nostalgia. The second DS novel written and it shows. Robeson was still establishing the characters personalities, and while the basics are there they are still different.

Doc is more ready and willing to take a life here and demonstrates a little more personality. No great mystery to the ID of the villain either, as it is pretty obvious. Fun to read either way though.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd give this 2 and a half stars. Not very good.

[Randy D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Land Of Terror is issue No. 2 of the Doc Savage series, published in the April, 1933 issue of Doc Savage Magazine. I was somewhat surprised as it started off with a great deal of violence … Doc killed five thugs in self defense, two of whom killed his friend, Jerome Coffern;  I've read several of these Doc Savage stories and I don’t remember him being that violent, but as noted earlier, The Land Of Terror was published very early in the series and Lester undoubtedly was still developing Doc's character.

Doc was going to meet his friend, Coffern for lunch, but he was hideously murdered outside his place of employment, and that’s how Doc became involved in this caper … one that involved the murder of a world renowned chemist, who was also his friend and former teacher, Jerome Coffern. The stage is now set for Doc and his crew to visit … The Land of Terror.

And visit it, they do … Johnny, the geologist and anthropologist, when he’s not busy escaping one of the prehistoric beasts who inhabit the place, is in complete awe of his surroundings; it is a scientist’s dream come true. But they quickly realize they are in a world where it is “survival of the fittest” in every sense of the words. They also remember why they went to this land of terror, which is a world that time forgot, located in a deep crater within a volcanic cone known as Thunder Island … to kill or capture the evil Kar, the deranged mastermind behind the hideous substance known as, “The Smoke of Eternity.”

Doc and his crew succeed in solving the mystery of the evil substance that was created by Gabe Yuder. They were also successful in destroying Kar and the infernal prehistoric region, The Land of Terror, deep within the volcanic cone of Thunder Island. This is probably the best story of the series and would make a pretty good action movie even in our day and time … Indiana Jones has nothing on Doc Savage. *****

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found a good not great copy of the 1965 first Bantam printing of this 1933 Doc Savage pulp novel at a thrift store recently. It had a wrapper around it saying it was $3.00 but the clerk ignored that and charged me .50 or a .25, I forget which. Heck, this was $3.00 worth of entertainment.
This was actually the second Doc Savage novel (though strangely the 8th in the Bantam reprint series - I don't know why they did them out of order). I wasn't used to Savage being so cavalier about killing the bad guys - he actually chops off the hand of one, letting him die of shock and loss of blood. But Dent explains that these criminals were all drug addicts anyway, and likely to die within a year. Of course, the lucky ones who survive get sent to a rehabilitation sanitarium where they will be cured of their criminal tendencies. Ah, the 1930s.
Speaking of getting things wrong, Dent postulates that the criminal mastermind (of a sort) in this story figured out how to split the atom, which, as Doc Savage already thought, did not cause an explosion, but simply caused anything touched by the process to disintegrate. That's the method of murder which brings Doc and his five followers into this case, which includes bank robbery, an old pirate ship filled with death traps, a south sea island volcano (rather different from the one Joseph Conrad put in Victory, the last book I read - or is it? Nobody went inside that one) inhabited by all the prehistoric animals anybody had heard of in 1933 because this area had not changed in millions of years, and a not exactly mysterious bad guy.
I love the old pulp action adventures. Dent would get better as he went on to write 159 Doc Savage novels, but this one was plenty frantic and thrilling.

[David B · Rating 4 out of 5]

A villain known as Kar eliminates his victims by employing something called the Smoke of Eternity, which completely disintegrates them. This gets the attention of Doc and his Fabulous Five, especially when one of the victims is an associate of his late father. The first part of the book is least interesting; the stories with urban settings often display a certain sameness, our heroes racing from site to site (Doc inevitably on the running board) for another round of fisticuffs in an alley or abandoned warehouse. Doc is especially savage in this early installment of the long-running series, yanking arms out of sockets and killing bad guys in a manner that contrasts sharply with the hero who will one day develop a form of brain surgery that eliminates criminal impulses and then establish a campus to rehabilitate villains. Things pick up when clues lead our heroes to Thunder Island, a land that time forgot somewhere in the vicinity of New Zealand. Doc punched out a shark in the previous book and here we learn that dinosaurs are not impervious to his charms either. This final act is tons of fun and features an example of a once-common trope of lost world stories: the apocalyptic volcanic eruption that seems to erase a mistake of time from the face of the earth.

https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com

[Dan Mushalko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although #8 in the Bantam Books releases of the Doc novels, in reality this was the second Doc Savage story to be printed...and it shows.

Doc's character is far from being fleshed out; this is definitely not the Doc Savage we'll encounter and love by the time the REAL novel #8 rolls around. The basics are all there: Doc's Sherlockian mental acuity, pinnacle of human strength and agility, and tightly honed senses. But the ethical code (the author said that Doc held the morality of Jesus) isn't there yet; in fact, Doc's body count is at least an order of magnitude higher than the evil villain's!

Still, the plot is engaging, with a scrappy adventure. There's a deep pop history feel reading it today (this originally came out in the Spring of 1933): "King Kong" was debuting in movie theaters around this time, and the last fifth of the book feels like the publishers asked the author to throw in some surviving dinosaurs to ride the wave of Merian C. Cooper's 8th Wonder of the World.

This is an important book for Savage fans, but skippable for those who only want to sample a character who starred in over 180 tales.

[Mh430 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the story's body count might remind you more of a Mack Bolan novel, this is indeed a Doc Savage tale. But a very early one where Doc hasn't made his no-killing vow yet and one in which the byplay between the aides is a bit rough and unfocused. Still, it moves along at a lightning pace. So fast in fact that you almost don't realise that there can be absolutely no mystery about who the obligatory hidden mastermind is. Or that the book's "Lost World" setting is barely utilized.

And since cynicism and (uncapitalized) pulp fiction have no common ground I'll just skip over the part where scientific genius Clark Savage, MD explains that there will actually be no explosive reaction when the atom is split :-) Still glad I read, reread, maybe even re-reread the story though!

P. S. Having Doc repeatedly refer to the five as his brothers in this one gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling right in my 86th floor. Why did he stop doing that?

[Derek Munyon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve read a few of these adventure pulp stories, listened to some of the old radio plays and they’re all so fun. I enjoy the simple, purely moral and heroic characters going on wild adventures all over the world. I would love to read even more Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Phantom, Zorro, all those old pulp heroes. That being said though, all these books are so bad. So poorly written with simple and stupid stories. Doc Savage makes all of his companions redundant and unnecessary because he’s perfect. You can tell it’s meant for kids from a very specific time. Despite all that, these are fun books that I’d recommend for anyone who even has had a slight interest in these goofy old stories. Just know the kind of story and characters you’re getting into, very simple, very silly.

[Clay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second Doc Savage novel published. If you've read any of the later adventures, you will see the rough edges in the characterizations, especially in Doc's personality. He comes off rather snippy at times, and he and the whole crew are not above killing a few of the bad guys along the way (though how they might get them out of the titular area would have been too cumbersome).

The story drags in the first half, going back and forth to the same spot, which got overly repetitive. Pacing picked up later. While the identity of the hidden mastermind behind the whole evil scheme can be guessed at pretty early, it is well disguised throughout (and maybe the reveal was novel back when these stories were first published).

[Duane Olds · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I didn't get was, if this Smoke of Eternity (what common criminal would think up a name like that?) could eat and dissolve anything then why didn't it eat and dissolve the capsule it was in? Much less shooting that capsule out of a gun? Seems dangerous to me, where is the bad guy union when you need them?

It was worth reading this for this literary gem alone, "Soon after, the matlike jungle became horny with great upthrusts of rock." Holy crap, the jokes write themselves with that one.

Oh well, on to the next one..

[John Duckett · Rating 5 out of 5]

While not the best of the Doc Savage adventures, this book, second in publication series is still an exciting read. You can see that the characters are still in development, as Doc is merciless in dealing out death to the villains. In the later stories he is adamantly against killing whenever it can be avoided. I have a hard time giving any Doc Savage novel less than five stars.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew who Kar was from the get go. Descriptions of dinosaurs were pretty interesting. Doc Savage was vicious in this book. And what happened to the pig?

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Doc Savage adventure read in 1975.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s campy and silly, and plagued with unnecessary exclamation points, but it’s far too delightful to be dismissed.

[Mark Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another cliff hanging Doc Savage adventure. I wonder if Doc is a cyborg maybe.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent read, but not my cup of tea. Pretty entertaining at points though

[Chris Maloney · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent tale of full of fantasy and discovery