"Time Warp" by the Cast of The Big Bang Theory

Happy 4th of July

In Case You're Interested

My column in this week's Ashland Beacon is a script for a new TV show about the inner workings of my favorite little newspaper. You can check it out on page 2.

On Tuesday, that edition moves to the archives and in the new issue, I'll have a special column about my 31st wedding anniversary.

A Father's Day Tribute in Pulp

Dad was a big fan of westerns, and he introduced me to many TV, cinematic and literary cowboys. On Father's Day, it seems fitting to honor him with a few good western pulps.

And for a slightly more humorous take on life with my father, you can check out this week's edition of  my newspaper column. It should be up for a couple of more days. It's on page 2.

 

Sunday Pulp

Summer always puts me in a pulp mood. While reprints are great, sometimes there's nothing like the feel and smell of crumbling pulpwoody magazines to scratch that itch. Now I just have to decide what to read. To carefully read.

New Columns

 

Over at Horror World, I devote my column to a review of Stephen King's new novel Joyland. Read it here, if you're so inclined. 

And my weekly newspaper column tackles reader mail. It's on page 2.

Now Reading

My Phantom Detective reading has been spotty, and prior to this I hadn't read any of Laurence Donovan's Phantoms. Donovan, a Doc Savage ghost, as well as the man behind the Skipper and Whisperer (first series) novels, has a pretty energetic style here, giving these Phantom yarns the feel of Doc adventures, hence the title.

Just Downloaded to my Kindle

Part of me is amazed that I can read classic pulps on my phone. We're living in the future.

Now Reading

I'll admit it--one of my guilty pleasures is The Suicide Squad by Emile Tepperman.

A New Review of Dead Sheriff: Zombie Damnation

This one comes from Tales from the Bookworm's Lair.

Current and Future Reading

For those who are interested in this sort of thing.

Reading Now

Reading Next

New Review and Possums, Too

Here's a new review of The Dead Sheriff.

And my latest column in the Ashland Beacon concerns The Possum Ranch...it's on page 2.

Happy Mother's Day

I'll be spending some time today with my wonderful mother and, if you're fortunate enough to still have your mother, I hope you can do the same. 

For a tribute to my own mom, check out my column in this week's Ashland Beacon. It's on page 2.

Doc Savage: Skull Island

Before I launch into this, I want to cover a couple of things, in case I review more of these new adventures of Doc Savage.

First, the books cost too damn much. $24.95 is a hefty tag for a trade paperback. There are probably some financial necessities at work here. They’re selling to a niche readership, so they won’t be moving Stephen King numbers. Also, everybody has to make money. I get it. I just wish the price was closer to $14.95, so I don’t have to do so much soul-searching (and wallet-searching) before I order.

Secondly, these new Doc novels are generally (with a couple of exceptions) way too long. One of the appeals of the original Doc pulp novels (and most pulp novels, for that matter) was the length. You could easily cruise through one in an afternoon or two. The best of Lester Dent’s Doc Savages was the literary equivalent of being duct-taped to a rocket and blasted to the moon. Again, I’m assuming publishing conditions demand a longer product to justify the price. I’m just not sure the Doc Savage fan is getting the best possible product.

Now that I’ve gotten my objections out of the way, I’ll tell you that neither complaint applies to Doc Savage: Skull Island.

This is an original novel by Will Murray, author, pulp scholar and agent for the estate of the late Lester Dent, Doc Savage’s original main scribe.

The novel in brief: Doc Savage meets King Kong.

The novel begins after the fall of Kong from the Empire State Building where, as we all know, Doc Savage operates from the 86th floor. Doc was out of town during Kong’s rampage, but returns during the aftermath, and it falls to the Man of Bronze and his crew to remove the great beast’s corpse. Kudos to Murray for the nice role given to Renny, my favorite among Doc’s men, who engineers Kong’s transportation out of midtown.

Doc reveals to his men that he has met Kong before, and that he and the big ape saved each others’ lives.

The rest of the novel is the retelling of that saga from 1920, when Doc, a veteran of the Great War, joins his father to search the seas for Doc’s grandfather, the legendary and near-mythological clipper captain Stormalong Savage.

To reveal any more of the plot would deny you the delight of this excellent adventure.

Murray has been writing Doc novels since the 90s, and this is easily his most ambitious and most successful. Unlike many of the Murray’s earlier Docs, this one does not feel bloated, nor does it suffer from the slightly disjointed narrative that has occasionally occurred, I assume,  from trying to make Dent’s original prose fit into a Murray novel.

Instead, Doc Savage: Skull Island reads like one of Murray’s Destroyer novels: loose, fast-paced, thrill-a-minute. If this is what he can do with Doc when freed from the constraints of following 80-year-old plots and discarded bit of Dent’s novels, then I hope Murray can find a way to produce more Doc Savage novels whole-cloth from his imagination.

Doc Savage fans will love the many bits of lore revealed over the course of the book, from family history to the name of Doc’s mother. Fans of adventure novels will cheer a story that reads like Clive Cussler with the boring parts removed. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Murray tried his hand at a mainstream adventure thriller in the near future. Doc Savage: Skull Island is that good. For King Kong aficionados, there are many nods to the 1933 film, and the action on Skull Island is worthy of Burroughs or Robert E. Howard.

I only have one gripe: the author is inordinately fascinated with Doc’s trilling sound, the one affectation of the original pulp novels that I’ve always detested. On the other hand, if you’re down with the trill, then this book is practically blemish free.

Doc Savage: Skull Island is mandatory reading for Doc fans, and well-worth the price. It should be the same for anyone who loves a good, old fashioned adventure novel.

Best News of the Week

From Variety: 
‘Iron Man 3′ Director Shane Black Eyeing Sony’s ‘Doc Savage’ As Next Film

Read the full article here.

Come back tomorrow for my review of Doc Savage: Skull Island.

Sabrina and Me

Just because it makes Monday a little better.

Links

My latest column for Horror Word is mostly about the writing of Dead Earth: Sanctuary. You can read it here.

In this week's column for the Ashland Beacon, I try to answer reader mail. It's on page 2.

Another Dead Earth: Sanctuary Review

A nice one, from HellBound Times.

If it gives you the urge to order the book, you can do it here.

Judging Dead Earth

The first review is in for Dead Earth: Sanctuary, courtesy of Hellnotes. You can read it here.

And since I've run the cover of the book several times in posts, I have opted to give you a photo of a kitten with an automatic weapon.

A Good Mail Day