Doc Savage- Man of BronzetHow delightful. Spoiler alerts near the end…tThe 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. tDoc 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as they could for the day and certainly spiked my interest in science even though the novels I read were 30-40 years out of date.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. tAs 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)tI’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.tSix 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 *** tThis 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. tOddly 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. tFinally, 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.
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.
What do You think about The Man Of Bronze (1975)?
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.
—Mary JL
This is the first of the Doc Savage paperbacks, which are not new books, rather they are compilations of the serialised Doc Savage stories from the pulps. Doc Savage is one of the archetypal pulp characters. basically better at everything than anyone else, although he does have a crew of above average companions, although none of them are his equal. Doc Savage gains his powers through a regimen of strict training and scientific wizardry (rather like Batman), than through any supernatural powers, like The Shadow.This is definitely a plot-driven story, rather than a character-driven story. In fact, other than setting the basic personalities of the main characters, there is almost no characterisation is this book. The plot, however, moves at a break-neck pace throughout, which is to be expected as this was originally presented as 20 or so weekly instalments. This does lead to some level of repetition. The plot is fairly typical of these stories, Doc and his crew are up against constant challenges and threats, often appearing in hopeless situations, until they overcome their adversaries in the final pages.
—Tony Calder
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 traveled 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?
—David B
