The Polar Treasure

Doc Savage (Bantam) #4

by Kenneth Robeson (House Name), Lester Dent

Spurred by a clue from a blind violinist with a tattoo of a map on his back, Doc Savage and his Fabulous Five crew take a desperate journey to the frozen North on a Helldiver submarine in search of a missing liner named the Oceanic and rumored to contain millions and millions in gold and diamonds.

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

122 pages, Paperback

First published June 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

[Kenneth McKinley]

This one felt like a step backwards for me. The story had promise. I do love a good adventure in a polar setting, but this one was too hokey to really enjoy. Action scenes that were beyond impossible to actually happen and would Robeson please back off on the starry-eyed worshipping of Doc Savage. I don’t think I could take the MC licking Doc’s boots one more second. I get it. He’s not your average human. But can we stop swooning?

Here’s hoping to getting back on solid footing with the next one.

[Edwin]

Solidly and somewhat insanely plotted classic Pulp story with Doc Savage and his team competing with two rival gangs of thugs to locate a treasure that is lost in the Arctic from a map invisibly tattooed on a blind violinists back. The novel picks up speed in the last third after Doc loses his team and is forced to fend for himself against violent criminals, drugged Eskimos, and barehanded against a polar bear. Great stuff.

[Oliver Clarke]

Very silly, but never less than entertaining adventure for the Doc and his crew. In this one the Man of Bronze, as well as all the usual derring do, composes one the most beautiful pieces of music in the history of the world and gives sight to a man blind since birth.

[David]

The fourth book in the Doc Savage series, published by Street and Smith in June, 1933. In many ways the best one so far. Doc and his Fabulous Five are starting to develop personalities and traits. The feud between Monk and Ham starts to really take off with both men attempting practical jokes on each other. Doc and his aides dream up some terrific gadgets for their trek into the polar wilderness. Doc meets another beautiful girl (third in four adventures, each more beautiful than the last) and again pretty much ignores her. One wonders if Monk, Ham or Long Tom tried an advance on their long trek back to civilization. Maybe not with daddy on board the sub. Have to take a short break from Doc and company since Pirate of the Pacific is still in the mail.

[Philip Athans]

This was my favorite of the Doc Savage books so far. The story hung together well, there were fun plot twists… and more to say…

https://youtu.be/nHTu6C8ePq8

[Michael Sigler]

Oh, great... Doc is back to his unlikable, 100% perfectly infallible self again. The best this, the best that... he's better than literally everyone at literally everything. EVER.
Boring.
The last Doc Savage book was two steps forward for the series, but this is three steps backwards.

[Forrest]

The fourth Doc Savage tale (originally published in June 1933) is a big step forward from Quest of the Spider . The series at this point hasn't quite hit its stride, but I can feel it heading in the right direction. The Polar Treasure is an engaging yarn with plenty of humor and two-fisted, manly-man action. We get adventure in the ice pack off Greenland, a submarine with a most excellent name (the "Helldiver"), aerial battles, a massive fistfight scene involving both Monk and Renny, and Doc goes mano a mano with a polar bear. Whee!

But it's far from perfect. A villain who talks like Long John Silver won't exactly inspire fear in any reader over the age of nine (laughter is more likely). After the sixth or seventh time a chapter ends with a character mysteriously vanishing and presumed dead, that twist gets a little old. And I found the final chapters surprisingly flat despite their frenetic pace, perhaps because of the sudden appearance of some new characters and villains the story really didn't need. Still, it's one of the better early Doc tales, and a lot of fun.

[Duane Olds]

I like how every time Doc used his finger tip knock out chemical stuff, it would explain it like 'The bad guy with the gun suddenly felt a gentle caress upon his cheek, as if an angel from above came down and kissed him with velvet lips upon which a thousand soft unicorns slept. Then the bad guy fell instantly asleep, falling over the rail of the ship to his doom far below' or 'the bad guy sudddenly stopped dead in his tracks as Doc softly and swiftly touched his evil hairy cheek with the swiftness of raging horses, yet as soft and delicatly as a newborn baby made of the softest feathers swaddled in flower pedals. Then the bad guy fell like a ton of bricks to the floor where the other bad guys ran over him trying to escape the bronze tordano before them.'
All in all a good quick read...on to the next one!

[Dale]

Doc and the gang save the life of a blind musician who's the key to finding a treasure sunken in the polar icecap. I managed to get this far in the Doc Savage series before running into any particularly nasty racism. Dent must have been saving it up, because he does not like him some Eskimos. In addition to being savage and ignorant, a sentence doesn't go by without calling them greasy or smelly.

Things that Doc Savage is the best in the world of in this episode include world's best composer and world's best singing voice. Also, he can cure blindness and his skin repels water like a duck.

More reviews at Trash Menace.

[Travis]

A solid Doc Savage adventure.
Starts in New York then moves to north pole for the grand finale.
Doc is at peak superhumanly competent and 'smartest guy in the room' levels, while still showing a personality and a nice, dry sense of humor.

All of the famous five show up and each get a little bit to do. Not a fan of the stories where it feels like Ham and Monk are his only helpers.

Nice blend of mystery and action.
The cover image actually happens in the course of the story and is pretty freaking cool.

Ending is a bit abrupt, but otherwise one of the better books.

[Jeff]

Doc Savage and his men come to the aid of a blind violinist who has been targeted by rival criminal factions because he has the key to the whereabouts of a sunken treasure in the Arctic seas. As with the other Doc Savage novels, this plots sweeps you right along and has some great twists along the way. It's not great literature but it is great fun!

[Wayne]

Immense fun. The best of the four I've read!

[Kevin Findley]

A fun read, but some of the plot twists really stretched my ability to suspend disbelief. Here, Doc is attending the concert of a blind violinist who is performing one of the Man of Bronze's musical compositions. After the concert, Doc sees the violinist being kidnapped and quickly dives into his next adventure.

Two things made this tale stand out a bit from the average Doc Savage story:

The Helldiver is introduced here. This submarine is later featured in other stories and (if memory serves) even makes it into several comic books and the movie with Ron Ely in the starring role.

Doc's five assistants get to shine in their individual fields a bit brighter than the average. The author gives time to each man and how their efforts contributed to the success of the adventure. It's a nice change of pace compared to other tales where they are marginalized and occasionally no better than hostage fodder.

Not my favorite, but it is a solid read for fans of Doc, Pulp, or just a good adventure novel.

Find it. Buy it. Read it!

[Michael]

The Polar Treasure 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.

[Kurt Reichenbaugh]

A three-day weekend, approaching summer in the desert southwest, so what better time to read a pulp adventure set in the polar wilderness. From 1933, this is the 4th Doc Savage adventure. Most of the world, in the pulp world that is, does not yet know Doc as they will in later adventures. He still has to kill a few rats and goons in this one, though he'd prefer not to. The action is non-stop and each chapter ends with an exclamation point, propelling you to see what happens next. It really gets rocking and rolling in the final 30 pages. There is a nice scene in which Doc is chased through a seemingly abandoned cruise ship trapped in the ice. He has to dodge heads thrown at him, and wade through corpses to eventually find a "polar goddess" in the midst of savage "Eskimos" trying to kill him. Yeah, it's got its share of racism of the day, so you'll have to forgive that if you're going to read pulp from the 30s. A fast book for those of us who haven't grown up yet.

[Charles]

One of the earliest Doc Savage adventures and a mostly straightforward one without a lot of seemingly supernatural happenings. A blind musician is sought out by two groups of sailor thugs. They’d all been together once upon a time on a ship that was wrecked in the arctic. A vast treasure had been stolen and hidden and a map drawn on the blind man’s back. Doc Savage and his fabulous five are soon involved and fund a submarine to take them through the ice. Of course, it’s the bad guys who provide the sub.

There’s a lot of action but the story emphasizes the fact that Doc Savage doesn’t resort to firearms to settle differences much. He uses his scientific mind for invention. The finding of the treasure is anticlimactic but—if anything—it was only a McGuffin anyway to get the crew into action.

[Dan Mushalko]

This one gets a little sloppy -- but it's a pulp novel, and these buggers had to be whipped out and off to the publisher within four weeks of completing the prior novel. No mean task!

Considering that, the adventure itself is pretty innovative...although the ethnic stereotypes are more than jarring from today's perspective. Balance that with some real science (the submarine our hero uses seems a bit fantastical, but it's really a mirror of a real 1930s Arctic explorer's sub, which readers at the time would have known about).

If you can compartmentalize the sensibilities shock of the stereotypes, this is a breezy read. It won't edify you, but will pass the time if you need something you can finish in a day or two.

[Josh Hitch]

Pulpy goodness, cliffhanger after cliffhanger but of course Doc Savage finds a way. Nice setting and a solid story. More like a 3.5, it suffers like all the Doc Savage books from the Superman effect. Namely, that since he is basically impossible to really hurt or get away from, the situations can be ridicoulosly impossible and he will still win in the end. Love his crew of 5 friends and still think they would make a more intriguing series without Doc Savage.

Recommended somewhat, these are pulpy 30s stories. Reading them is like watching an old movie serial, so if you like that kind of thing then these are fun. Personally I like them but I only dive into one occasionly.

[Michael]

Reading Challenge: a book with an eccentric character. Doc Savage and his five companions are definitely eccentric. They are self-made millionaires who each specialize in a science such as chemistry, archaeology, electronics, engineering, and law. Savage tries to aid a blind violist see and ends up saving his wife and daughter who have been stranded in the Arctic for 15 years. Why aren't they dead? Maybe because the Eskimos have helped them. We also discover that the ocean liner the family had been on was carrying treasure, run aground, pirates had stolen the treasure, two pirate captains contested who owned the treasure, a map only revealed through x-rays was tattooed on the musician's back, and that Inuit was the language of learning in this novel. Roxey Vail, the daughter of the blind violinist Victor Vail, falls in love with Doc Savage. We are reminded that he cannot love a woman as it would be too distracting from his adventures. We are also reminded of Savage's two-hour routine for improvement, the institute where all criminals he captures go for rehabilitation, and the special mercy bullet shooting guns he invented. I thought this novel to be a bit dull and less exciting that the others. I am sure it was all formulaic when it was originally written.

[Eric Troup]

This is a fun pirate yarn, full of rip-roaring action and a pace that never lets up. In fact, I'd have given it a full 5 stars, but for the fact that its treatment of the native Arctic people leaves much to be dhesired. And I'm not even referring to their being called Eskimos. That's the least of the possible offenses here. But if you can get past that, and some ideas about recovery from vision loss that are a bit laughable given what we now know, this is a fantastic read!

[David Macpherson]

This was a really fast moving adventure with Doc and the gang saving a blind pianist, who they restore his eye sight, because that's what Doc does. It slows down when they are in a submarine heading to the polar regions to find a treasure. There is a lot of incident which can exhaust a reader. There is so much tentions and as soon as their is one vicotry, another problem shows up.

[Frank Carroccino]

Doc Savage and his mates go to the Arctic to search for a missing ship with a stolen treasure of gold. A blind musician and two sets of pirates round up the characters. Throw in drug induced Eskimo’s and a polar bear. Fast paced adventure.A lot of fun.

[Mark Desrosiers]

A mysterious tattooed man, that leads the fabulous five into the harsh climate of the Arctic. In search of a fabulous treasure of gold and diamonds, hunted by two bands of villainous crooks. Doc saves the day once again proving himself to be the greatest adventure hero of all time.

[Mark Bates]

The bronze wonder does it again. The thrills never end...kind of cornball stuff but I like it.

[Frank]

Another good Doc adventure that I read back in the 70s.

[Jay DeVine]

Good story. I love reading the dialogue, especially the criminals'. It's just so dated that it's funny.

[Devin Coryell]

4.25 / 5

[Russ Cross]

All I can say is that Doc Savage novels are my comfort food/security blanket. My late mother was a fan of the original pulps. Years later, I discovered the Bantam paperbacks in my local drugstore.

[Richard Larmer]

Not quite as well written as the average book in the series.

[Raime]

Blind violinists and their puzzling backs in a badly written silly treasure hunt on arctic ice.