Customer Reviews

Melody of Vengeance (Doc Atlas Adventure)

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

 

 

Melody of Vengeance is Michael Black's tribute to the wonderful world of 40's pulp fiction. And the genre is still as much fun now as it was then. A fun, tongue in cheek adventure that keeps the modern reader riveted to the end.

Doc Adams is a fine figure of a man- brilliant, rich and muscles to spare. He is the keeper of justice, dedicated to researching the effects of his surgeries on convicted felons. He considers the side effects of the surgeries, which have included brain damage and worse, are only unfortunate effects of this important work. It is truth and justice, Doc style. He is helped in his mission by his trusty sidekicks- the lawyer, the henchman and the beautiful newspaper woman.

Doc's beliefs are totally offended by the activities of The Wraith, a masked man who takes vengeance into his own hands when he thinks the justice system fails. Although the people of the city feel they have a new hero, Doc feels that the mysterious man of vengeance must be unmasked and stopped, once and for all. But the kidnapping of a local businessman's daughter takes the time and attention of Doc and his gang. time clicks down as Doc tries to find the daughter before it is too late. But he soon find that the two cases may be a part of each other. Could The Wraith be a part of the kidnappers? As Doc's sidekicks work on eliminating the possible real identities of The Wraith. Doc tries to concentrate on identifying the kidnappers.

The prose is dead on accurate of the flavor of the original pulp fiction. Each character is a wonderful stereotype that plays his or her part to perfection. Romping through dead bodies, masked adventures and damsels in distress is a fun adventure for all readers. It leaves the hope that Michaell Black enjoyed the writing process as much as the reader enjoys the results so that Doc and his friends might continue their activites in future installations.

I enjoyed this story. Let me start with that. The plot was a good mystery and had some fun twists!

The reason I graded it down was the overdone imitations of Doc Savage, The Spider, and The Shadow (who was the inspiration for Batman). The premise, hinted but never baldly stated, is that Doc Atlas is the real-life inspiration for Doc Savage of the pulps! His two aides are the inspirations for Monk and Ham of Doc Savage's Fab Five.

I enjoyed the mystery and the plot twists, but the exagerated versions of the pulp heroes was a bit much. Doc Savage was an accomplished surgeon, but Doc Atlas gets shot, treats himself, and then proceeds to fight another villain who is in his gym? Sorry, that was just too much for me.

I did enjoy the book. But if I had choose a Doc Savage homage, I much prefer Doc Sidhe by Allston. That was an homage that followed the Doc Savage concept, but had a VERY original premise and could be enjoyed without being beat over the head with the Doc Savage comparisons!

If you are buying two books, get Doc Sidhe AND Melody of Vegeance. But if you can only get one, wait on this one.

This new pulp character will stand on his own two feet. The compassison between Doc Atlas and Doc Savage is too open to miss, but Atlas proves in the end to have life of his own. The Fab Five are reduced to two, and Doc actually has a social life and a girlfriend (who writes his pulp novels!) The character of The Wraith, with his ? calling card is obviously a Spider clone, but he also will stand on his own. Even the clone of Batman, (look close, he's there) would pass muster. To the author, Michael A. Black, as an avid pulp fan, I would say, write the next volume you hint at in the closing of the Melody of Vengeance, where Doc will meet a Tarzan clone! It will be a hit among us pulp readers! Quoth the Raven...

This story by Michael A Black is his attempt at creating a Doc Savage-style character. Supposedly, the idea is that Doc Atlas is the 'real' Doc Savage, and that his adventures were turned into the larger then life Doc Savage, but that just doesn't fly, however. Doc Savage and friends were all WWI veterans (which is when they met) and the heyday of their adventures was the 1930s and 40s. Doc Atlas and friends are all WWII veterans (which is when they met), and this story is set in 1947. Its not clear when Doc Atlas started his adventures, but unless he did stuff in the 30s, its most likely after WWII. (which I suspect is the case)

Doc has just 2 assistants, plus a girlfriend (which Doc Savage didn't have). One assistant is a lawyer like Ham, the other is physically like Monk, but its not clear what other talents he brings in. His girlfriend is a reporter who writes up his adventures (under a pseudonym) and publishes them in the pulp magazines. Interesting idea, except this was the twilight of the pulp magazines. Prehaps this is the origin of the idea that Doc Atlas is meant to be the model for Doc Savage. Doc Atlas also has a group of secretaries running his office, and some kind of computer. Missing is his special 'flearun' elevator from his Empire State Building headquarters to his Hudson River warehouse of vehicle (which forces him to get there on foot), as well as his 'special commissions' from police to aid in his work. This leads to a bit of time consuming effort to get to his warehouse, as well as Doc having to deal with uncooperative police (something Doc Savage rarely had to deal with).

Doc Atlas is more of a Doc Savage pastiche which the author decided NOT to place exactly in the same time period and be a total mirror of Doc. Also there are a few other pastiches as well. We see a character who is based on Bruce Wayne (tho a little before he started being Batman), another based on Edgar Cayce, the 'sleeping prophet'. There may be others, but it wasn't clear.

This story has him go up against a Shadow-style hero.

Overall a good story, but the author doesn't match the style of old pulps. Whether that was his goal or not is not clear, but some of the reviewers seem to think the style is the same and it's just not.

Readers may not be aware (and the book gives no info) that this is actually a reprint. This story was first serialized in Fading Shadows "Double Danger Tales" fanzine (issues #4-6 to be exact). There are a few other Doc Atlas stories that appeared in that zine:

"Gorilla Killer" appeared in #16, and was later reprinted in the book "Tales of Masks and Mayhem" v1 (now available from Altus Press).

"Desert Shadows" appeared in #34

"The Riddle of the Sphinx" appeared in #52. I think its a Doc Atlas story, but am not sure.

One issue I found was that the artwork reproduction wasn't very good. The publisher needs to work on this. Makes me wonder if this is POD.

Despite these issues, I'd like to see more of Doc Atlas.

I've always loved classic pulp adventure tales, especially the stories "Kenneth Robeson" (actually a pseudonym for several writers, predominantly Lester Dent) wrote about Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze, and the ones written by "Maxwell Grant" (also a pseudonym, mainly for Walter Gibson) about The Shadow.

Apparently Michael A. Black is also a big fan of these thrilling stories, and in his book Melody of Vengeance he hops feetfirst into the pulp sandbox to play around with all the cool toys. The result is more interesting than it is exciting, but is certainly worth a read, and Black tries some noteworthy things with the pulp tropes.

Melody of Vengeance pits the mighty Doc Atlas against the shadowy avenger of evil called The Wraith, Black's pastiche versions of Doc Savage and The Shadow. There are additional interwoven nods to The Spider, Batman, and other inspirational sources.

Black is a good writer, and the book reads well. What he really brings to the table is his treatment of the characters as if they exist in a real, adult world. There are elements of politics, realistic interactions between characters, and real human frailties. Doc Atlas is romantically involved with a woman he actually stole from one of his aides, and the relationship between that aide and the woman lingers in the background while Doc plays the non-attentive beau. There's even a scene where she and Doc are engaging in grown-up horizontal activities, and she makes him stop what he's doing because he's obviously pondering the case at hand rather than paying full attention to her. Intriguing stuff, and all too lacking in the original pulps, which were generally written with what seemed to be a ten year old's sense of what life is like.

But for what Black adds to the genre, he also subtracts from it much of what makes the genre what it is. Pulp stories are page-turners, exciting and full of heart-rending action, often filled with larger than life danger. Much of that is missing in Melody of Vengeance. The actual plot is ultimately a rather pedestrian detective story, and the pulpish heroes are brought so much down to earth that they become almost mundane.

I wanted to love this book, but wound up just liking it...sort of.

A quick review of Melody of Vengeance
By Michael A Black.
I really enjoyed this book. it has all the fun of reading one of the old Doc Savage adventures, but in a much more striped down and improved version.
For one thing, Black is a much smoother writer than Lester Dent, so we get none of the latter's frequently obscure character behaviour, stilted dialogue or peculiar use of syntax.
Of course the shadow of Doc Savage enthusiast Philip José Farmer looms large over any `Doc' pastiche. Like Farmer Black has whittled Doc's crew of five assistants down to the main, most popular, two (the fancy pants lawyer and the rough and ready ape guy.) And has included a foxy female journalist type as his lover interest. Who frequently end up in peril (thereby maybe going someway to justifying the old Doc's assertion that he reframed from romantic entanglements specifically to avoid this sort of thing happening.)
Despite what some other reviewers say Black's Doc Atlas is a more believable superhuman than his 1930's prototype. Doc Atlas is merely a very tall and muscular man, fantastically wealthy and raised from birth as part of a superman programme, who is also a brilliant surgeon as well as being an adventure and crime fighter. Perposreious as this admittedly still reads it fits perfectly into the frame work of this type of adventure story, and is roughly the essence of the original Doc Savage, without all that ridiculous `Knows it all... is an expert and everything' nonsense that used to sometimes creep into the original books.
A nice touch in the book ( again covered briefly by Farmer) is Doc's assistants growing unease about these enforced lobotomies that Doc keep insisting on performing on any criminals he captures.
As Jon Jordan says in his review, pace wise this story is a real page turner. With all plot threads nicely resolved by the end.
there are a number of other `Docs' that writers are experimenting with at the moment; `Doc Arden' in the Tales of the Shadow man series and `Doc Shidhe' are two that come to mind. But I think that Black has come up with a version that can stand on his own two feet. A more human Doc for the new millennium, albeit one still set in the nineteen forties. And one that look set to continue in what I hope will be a whole series of books.
the next one promises a clash between Doc Atlas and a Tarzan like character. ( Yet again... a subject well covered by P J Farmer in his `A Feast Unknown'. of which I'm sure Black will be aware, as it's quite a famous/infamous book.) I can't wait for his take on the concept.

There's a lot of great neo-pulp material being produced these days and this one had come highly recommended to me. Unfortunately, I couldn't really get into it. One thing about the pulps was that they were exciting reads... this one, even when describing things that should be exciting, was very pedestrian and (I hate to say it) boring at times. This doesn't mean it's a bad book... I quite enjoyed parts of the plot and it was enough of a Doc Savage adventure to keep a Bronze fan like myself entertained. But it could have been much better. Fifteen years ago, I would have rated this book higher -- but with so much stuff coming from companies like Airship 27 and Wild Cat Books, there's simply better books out there right now. If you're a hardcore pulp fan craving new adventures and you have some spare change, you should try this. But don't rush out to get it because your money could probably be better used elsewhere.

Good... but not great. I wish I could give it a 2.5 stars but I'll be generous and round up to 3.

This novel introduces us to the world of Doc Atlas, a "tribute" to Doc Savage. There's a not-so-fine line between paying homage and an outright rip-off, however.

We enter Doc's world in 1947, when he and his two faithful sidekicks, Vincent "Ace" Assante, a lawyer, and Thomas "Mad Dog" Deagan, a slow reader, are hanging out in Doc's posh abode high up in a New York skyscraper. Doc has a faithful secretary, Polly, and a newspaper reporter girlfriend, Penny. Assante and Deagan are obviously stand-ins for Doc Savage's Ham and Monk, but the patter between them falls flat. Likewise, Doc Savage was a superman capable of darned near anything and always inventing amazing toys. Women were always falling for Doc, unwelcome attention he shied away from. Doc Atlas, however, lacks Savage's charm and comes across as arrogant and cold. The story could have benefitted from Atlas and Penny making their first acquaintance and developing their romance, but instead they are ham-handedly thrown into the middle of a supposedly romantic relationship that's as engaging as a ball of lint.

The plot also suffered in several ways. Two subplots rubbed up against each other and introduced just enough characters to make it confusing. Despite all these complaints, I don't think the book was horrible. The author simply tried too hard to give a nod to the pulps of yore rather than taking the time to create his own world and fresh characters. He seems to have done all his research reading pulp novels instead of delving into a study of the time in which he set the story, lending a rather flat feel to the setting. Doc Atlas and his two sidekicks are such obvious renditions of Doc Savage and his most vocal, constantly bickering sidekicks that they are guaranteed to come up short in any contest. Though I like the idea of a modern storyteller delivering a pulp tale with a vintage feel, more research and originality need to go into the effort. There isn't much reason to pick up imitation pulp when the real thing is so easily available. Do yourself a favor if you're craving pulp and pick up Doc Savage instead.

I can agree with M. Piper "Paper-based Adventurer" about Doc Sidhe being a better book, but would say to buy it's sequel Sidhe Devil second and get this one third

Great book in the style of the fortys.Lester Dent would have loved it.Doc Atlas will keep you on you'r toes.