Customer Reviews

Doc Savage: The Polar Treasure and Pirate of the Pacific

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Too a large degree, the Doc Savage stories are an acquired taste. I was introduced during my tour in Iraq, when some blessed soul had sent, in a care package of books, several Doc Savage novels to my FOB. I recognized the name from my interest in pulps, and snagged them to read.

They're most assuredly something from an earlier age--jazz era racism and cultural attitudes jar with modern mores. However, the adventures that Doc and his crew go on are rowsing, exciting, and generally fun.

Additionally, Doc Savage is not a modern sort of hero--he has no flaws, admirable in all ways. A lad could do a lot worse then aspire to be like Doc Savage when he grows up.

For exciting adventures, led by a true hero, one needs to look no further than Doc Savage.

As you probably have read, this book contains two Doc Savage novels. I'll give my impressions without spoilers.

-- The Polar Treasure --

This was Lester Dent's 4th Doc story. Of the Doc stories I've read, this is easily among the most exciting. Dent really pulls you into the setting and carries you along with all of the struggles and triumphs of the heroes. I really like the way everything worked out in this book. I'm looking forward to reading this again down the road.

-- The Pirate of the Pacific --

This was Lester Dent's 5th Doc story. While I didn't like it quite as much as The Polar Treasure, it was still a thrilling adventure. The action never stops as Doc faces off against amazingly powerful and dangerous foes. I would recommend not reading the blurb on this story. It will mislead you. The focus of the story turns out to be much different than the blurb would suggest.

You've got two excellent stories in one book here, folks. If you like adventure, look no further. Lester Dent has some great tales for you. It was very hard to put this book down.

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 (#6 in their series), reprinting "The Polar Treasure" (June 33) and "Pirate of the Pacific" (July 33). We get the cover of "Pirate of the Pacific" as the cover of this volume, and both original pulp covers are on the back. These are the 4th & 5th Doc novels, both featuring Doc sub, the Helldiver.

"The Polar Treasure" features the first appearance of the Helldiver, a polar exploration submarine.

"Pirate of the Pacific" follows with another adventure with the Helldiver, being attacked by pirates.

Extras in this volume include:

"Restorations in Bronze", a brief note by series editor Anthony Tollin on restoring the artwork on this series.
An Intermission article by Murray, on the writing of these stories.

I started reading this series back in 1975 when Bantam was reprinting them. The Nostalgia publications of these books are even better. It is nice to see some of the original formating, including the artwork. The supplemental articles are good too. One thing I am not sure of though is the plug on the back cover that identifies Doc Savage's physical and mental abilities as a lab accident. This is not true. And, I'm not sure where that quote came from or why they would choose to reprint it on this publication.