Customer Reviews

Doc Savage #2: "Resurrection Day" and "Repel"

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Anyone familiar with Doc Savage will immediately recognize that these two stories are among the very best that Lester Dent (Kenneth Robeson was a Street and Smith house name) wrote. They contain some of Dent's best writing, although "Repel" starts as if Dent or his editor threw away the first two chapters. The novel starts in second gear and doesn't stop until the end. "Resurrection Day" really turns the Doc Savage conceit on its ear: Doc resurrects a "famous person" from the past to help with the current troubles of Depression Era America (although the Great Depression was never mentioned in the Doc Savage novels of the 1930s). Everything, of course, goes haywire and that's where the fun begins. If you're new to Doc Savage, you couldn't go wrong with this series.

These new Doc Savage and Shadow volumes get better and better with each issue. Not only are the two novels amongst the best in the series but cover reproduction of the original pulps is excellent and the bonus articles and material are worth the price alone. Highly recommend these to those who are long time Doc fans and those who have never had the pleasure of following the Man of Bronze on his perilous adventures.
The lead title is one of Doc's most unusual adventures where he has the pwoer to resurrect one person from history. Who will it be? The second novel features a villain second only to John Sunlight in the series, the deadly dwarf himself, as he struggles to gain control over a mysterious force of incredible power.

This 2nd volume of Doc Savage stories is a very fun follow up to volume one. I had never read either story in the past, so this was a set of entirely new tales for exploring. Doc Savage stories have varying levels of realism. Many stories are like Scooby Doo, in that there is no magic or incredible discovery. It is all a trick by a master criminal. But, lots of other stories take the view of "what if" and assume that something utterly fantastic is possible and follows it to its conclusion. These are two examples of "What if" science fiction.

Resurrection Day, the first story, asks a very good question (If you could bring one person back to life, who would it be?) and then spins a fun yarn regardless of who you think is the right answer. Imagine planning on resurrecting the wisest person in history and instead you resurrect an evil ruler from ancient Egypt! Then, finding out the treasure he has hidden away over the centuries requires you to solve traps and tricks, while being chased by a gang eager to claim the riches for themselves!

Repel is the second story, and actually my favorite of the two. Again, taking a page from then-modern science, we look at a "what if" scenario. If Gravity is a force, and nature prefers a balance, what would an equal and opposite force be? And what would happen if that incredible force fell under the control of a criminal genius?

Who would like this book?
Doc Savage Fans
SCIENCE fiction fans
Fans of action films; such as Indiana Jones, The latest Mummy films, etc.
Anyone who likes to read action that keeps moving from the first page to the last.

"Resurrection Day" is certainly one of the most rip-roaring of all the Doc Savage novels Lester Dent ever wrote and he truly was at the top of his game here. Of course, the premise of resurrection day surely has to be regarded as the most audacious, nay preposterous, of any Doc Savage novel. Subterrenean civilizations, invisibility formulas, matter transportation machines, mind reading devices . . . all of these I can accept in order to enjoy a Doc story. But Doc restoring life to a body that has been dead for centuries? Hoo boy, this one is a little too big to swallow.
Further handicapping this idea is the historical individual Doc chooses to resurrect. Doc is looking to bring back someone to life who would be a benefit to humanity. He apparently can choose from any figure in history, and he chooses . . . King Solomon?!?!? In the first place, it is questionable whether a man brought back from Solomon's time after living a lifetime in that era would be able to even function in the modern society of the twentieth century, much less give any kind of aid or benefit to that society. A man from those times would find themselves overwhelmed by a completely alien way of life and moral standards and would be just as likely to end up in an insane asylum as in a position of leadership. In addition, the Bible portrays Solomon as a vengeful, jealous and murderous tyrant, hardly the sort of philanthropic and wise spirit Doc is looking for. I'm surprised at Doc for making such a questionable choice for the person to be resurrected.
Furthermore, the premise of the novel opens up a whole area of philosophical speculation (i.e. what impact would being able to raise a dead man back to life have upon society and our way of life?), but being a Doc Savage novel, it chooses only to follow the action/adventure part of the premise and leave the more cerebral part unadressed. Dent was an inventive, but not much of a speculative writer, and so he may have tackled a subject to big for him here and revelaed a limitation of the Doc Savage series as a whole. There is no indication that I could find in this novel that Doc couldn't repeat the resurrection process again (all that is said about it is that the chemicals took a period of several years to incubate, which means that Doc could have again resurrected another individual in a decade or so), and so I think Dent opened a can of worms he was not ready to fully handle. I think Dent was saying to himself at this point "What can I do to make Doc even more of a superman? Ah, I know! I'll have him be able to restore the dead!" Maybe Dent learned his lesson from this novel, for he never again tries to give Doc such godlike powers, and in later years tried to downplay Doc's superhuman aspects and make him more human.
I hope I haven't given the impression that I don't like this novel. I do. But the outlandishness of the premise makes this tale a problematical one for any serious Doc fan or scholar.
"Repel" (also published by Bantam as "The Deadly Dwarf") offers a more straightforward Doc tale, although one no less fast-paced or full of extraordinary happenings. One of the more memorable of Dent's grotesque villians who has made an astounding scientific discovery prepares to bring the world to its knees. Although there is probably no evidence that Ian Fleming ever read Dent, methinks the James Bond villians owe a debt to the ones who first appeared in the pages of these pulp magazines.

Boy was I suprised to find out that the "Doc Savage" series of pulp novels are being re-released. Thru no fanfare just a simple google did I find out that NOSTALGIA VENTURES in Encinitas, California is re-publishing the pulps that I grew up with in the seventies (then published by Bantam Books). Every month they publish 2 books and put them out in one book in a nice over-sized format. The first 2 publications included a choice of either the origional cover from the pulps of the 30's and 40's like here or the bantam cover from the 60's thru the 80's. They started publishing these around the beginning of the year. Even though I own all 160+ adventures thru Bantam I find myself recollecting all over again. These new publications have extra stories and tid-bits about the origional writer Lester Dent, the villians from the stories, and quips from well known authors like Will Eisner( a true Doc Savage affianado). Even though I would like more covers from James Bama (the true reason I got hooked as a kid; his artwork) this new format works. They even added some illustrations thru out the stories. Doc Savage, you will learn, was created in the early 30's and led to the inspirations of others to create Superman and other superheroes, but with one big exception. Doc was born on earth and had no super powers, just brains, brawn, and 5 true friends who helped out in his adventures. New novels today, judging by their covers, owe something to Doc Savage. There is Doc Atlas, and another hero who's name I can't remember look just like Doc on the cover of their books. Amazon will usually put those books on the same page of the Doc Savage book under " people recently looked at". I hope this helps all you true Doc Savage fans. Nostalgia Ventures is also re-publishing the "Shadow" series of books from the 30's and 40's.

I'm pretty sure I read one or both of these stories when I was a teenager, but the pair of good old Doc Savage pulps brought me back to my youth, when I read the Doc Savage books by the cartfull (the Bantam reprints, not the original pulps). Enjoyably escapist, the things I most enjoyed were the added features written as companions to the stories. As I've moved on in years I have become more fascinated by the writers of the pulps themselves, and there is even a novel starring Lester Dent, his wife, and Maxwell Grant, the author of the Shadow novels called "the Chinatown Death Cloud Peril" by Paul Malmont, a fun modern version of the pulp novel. Mr. Malmont's book actually rekindled my interest in the pulps, the art of their covers, and the art of James Bama, who illustrated for Bantam in the sixties. These are good books for early teens looking to see what their grandfathers read for entertainment back in the day.

Nostalgia Ventures and Anthony Tollin have teamed up to do a comprehensive reprint of several Street & Smith pulp heroes. At present, they are doing double reprints of The Shadow and Doc Savage. Shortly, they will start new series reprinting The Avenger and The Whisperer. All have complete pulp texts (no edits or removals, like past reprints), tho reset so its easier to read, the original illustrations, reprinted covers (one is used as the cover of the book, but both original pulp covers are shown on the back), and several additional articles and additions.

Hopefully, they can succeed to reprinting all these characters in these new editions, they are all excellent.

While all the Doc Savage novels were reprinted by Bantam, for those (like me) who have these reprints, the reason for getting these new volumes is the chance to read the original stories (WITHOUT the editing that occured in the Bantams, including in a few rare cases a LOT of text), see the original illustrations and covers, and the great additional articles.

This volume (#2 in their series), reprints "Resurrection Day" (Nov 36) and "Repel" (Oct 37), which was reprinted by Bantam as "The Deadly Dwarf". We get the cover of "Repel" as the cover of this volume, and both original pulp covers are on the back. There is ALSO a variant edition with the Bama cover of "Resurrection Day" used.

For bonus info is a great introduction, giving info on the writing of the 2 novels.
An article about Lester Dent's treasure hunting expeditions.
An article about the changes that occured in the writing of "Repel".

I am thrilled to see Doc again in printed form. Vintage covers, addtional tidbits of information by Will Murray just add to the fun. However, these two stories leave a lot to be desired. Ressurection Day is way out there allowing Doc to have the ability to reincarnate a dead body and Repel has some excellent action but borders on a scientific improbabability of anti-gravity. These points taken into account, I still enjoy reading these tales and seeing original illustrations and nostalgic covers. The Will Murray afterward gives us an historical perspective on the life and times of Lester Dent (Doc creator). Even though you've read Doc before, this format allows you to rediscover Doc in a new light. Highly recommended!