I read the second book in this author’s series-of-sorts (the books can easily be read separately, but they have overlapping characters and themes), The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown, before I read this one. In my review of that book, I said that in it, Malmont failed to do three things that I wished he had done: (1) make the characters (fictional versions of real writers) interesting to readers who didn’t know a lot about them already; (2) make readers want to run out and buy those writers’ books; and (c) let the characters engage in a full-out, no-holds-barred Adventure, like the heroes they wrote about (the book did have an Adventure, but it didn’t really get going until the second half of the book). In The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril, he does all three of those things—in spades.
The main characters in the book are two star writers of the 1930s “pulp” stories that were the breeding ground (as both this book and the later one explain at some length) of the genre that, in the 1940s, developed into science fiction: Walter Gibson, who wrote The Shadow stories, and Lester Dent, who wrote Doc Savage. Other characters include Dent’s beautiful and delightful (and adventurous!) wife, Norma, and Gibson’s magician girlfriend, Litzka; writers H. P. Lovecraft and L. Ron Hubbard; a might-have-been hero and/or villain from contemporary China; and some other surprise “guest stars” that I’ll leave the reader to discover. They all take part in what at first appear to be separate adventures, but eventually those stories coalesce into one great gee-whacking tale worthy of any pulp, complete with alternate endings for the reader to choose among.
It’s obvious that Malmont really loves these guys, in a way that perhaps he didn’t with the later writers who star in The Astounding. He made me love them, too. He also made me hunt up and order a reprint of one of the original Doc Savage stories, to see whether it was as good (and as full of science and history information) as he said. Meanwhile, I do hope he produces another adventure like The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril: it sure has all the Right Stuff!
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Turbot
Pulp fiction, fiction
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 17, 2019Verified Purchase
fabrizio uffreduzzi
???
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 5, 2013Verified Purchase
Draghidottone
Great!
Reviewed in Italy on October 1, 2013Verified Purchase
Claude Cattoire
Tout simplement génial !!!!
Reviewed in France on May 31, 2012Verified Purchase
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