The Doc Savage Authors
from "Afterward" in Flight Into Fear (#188)
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from "Afterward" in Flight Into Fear (#188) by Will Murray At the end of 1944, Lester Dent penned a Doc Savage novel entitled "Flight Into Fear". His editor at that time happily accepted the story but rejected the title. The novel was published as King Joe Cay. When it appeared the following summer, Dent -- apparently miffed by the title change -- submitted a new Doc Savage story again called "Flight Into Fear'. And once more, the story was retitled for publication in Doc Savage magazine. This time, it was called Terror and the Lonely Widow. Lester Dent obviously thought "Flight Into Fear" made for a great Doc Savage title. But he got the message and submitted no more "Docs" under that name. So how does it happen that the 60th anniversary of the Man of Bronze is being celebrated by a previously-unpublished "Doc" adventure written by Lester Dent and entitled Flight Into Fear? The story behind this new novel is a fascinating albeit convoluted one. Lester Dent's writing career spanned some 30 years (1929 to 1959) and is roughly divisible into 3 10-year phases. The 1930s in which he was exclusively a pulp magazine writer. The 1940s in which he attempted to expand beyond the pulps while continuing to write his "Doc" novels. And the 1950s -- the final decade of his life (the post-Doc Savage period) -- in which he was a gentleman-farmer, businessman, and occasional writer. Each decade, it seemed, held its professional disappointments. But the 1940s ended on a doubly bitter note for the writer from La Plata, Missouri. The cancellation of Doc Savage in 1949 and the simultaneous unraveling of his fledgling career as a hardcover mystery novelist left Dent without a regular income or steady markets for his story-telling skills. And while he was relentlessly writing formulaic stories aimed at such slick magazine markets as Liberty, Colliers, and The Saturday Evening Post, sales were scanty. Fortunately, Dent was prepared for this market drought. In 1948 seeing that "Doc" was winding down, he launched Airviews -- an aerial photography service which supported him during the transitional post-Doc Savage period. Then his father died in June 1950 forcing Dent to undertake a responsibility he never wanted to assume. Running the family farm. Although he put off dealing with it for over a year, Dent -- who had grown up on farms and ranches -- found himself immersed in the kind of work-a-day farm chores he thought that he put behind himself forever. Yet he was determined not to let the family farm swallow him at the expense of his goals. Through his long-time New York agent Willis Kingsley Wing, Dent plunged back into novel writing early in 1951. He cast his eye on 2 markets -- the "slicks" and the hardcover book publishers. As for the pulps, they were shambling old dinosaurs in the new television age and represented a dead end for a working writer. Dent's first effort was a breakout mainstream novel Time Has Four Faces which focused on the schemes of a willful young woman bent on corrupting twin brothers. Houghton Mifflin saw in the proposed book a major novel by a unique voice and quickly put Dent under contract to complete it. By a happy stroke of coincidence, Dent was simultaneously contracted by Fawcett's "Gold Medal" line which had been showcasing such former pulp colleagues as John D. MacDonald, Steve Fisher, Bruno Fischer, and his former "Doc" ghostwriter Ryerson Johnson. He was asked to join their growing stable of paperback original writers. For Fawcett, Dent penned an unusual (for him) book called Cry at Dusk. Not quite a mystery but with adventurous overtones, it represented a departure for Dent. Especially inasmuch as the Fawcett formula called for liberal doses of sex. He self-mockingly called the effort a "boudoir chiller". Sex scenes were not Dent's forte. Fawcett kept shipping the novel back with instructions to add more sex. Grudgingly, he complied and the publisher -- satisfied with the result and eager to make Lester Dent a star in the exploding paperback field -- requested a follow-up. Dent proposed a story about a cynical knockabout named Dwight Banner who becomes involved in Balkan political intrigues and overthrows a corrupt dictator only to become a tyrant himself. Fawcett passed on the proposal. So Dent retooled his protagonist for a story set against the backdrop of the Korean War and heightened East-West tensions which he called "Death Sentence". Electrified by his powerful opening chapters, Fawcett contracted Dent to complete the book. Meanwhile, Dent was having trouble with Time Has Four Faces. He missed his first delivery date. It was the first deadline he had muffed in 2 decades of writing, he admitted ruefully. Unfortunately, he was never to finish it. The unexpected death of his mother in August 1952 knocked the motivation out of the prolific powerhouse as no event before had. He was in the midst of writing his second Fawcett novel (now called Kill a Red Lady) when it happened. Unlike Cry at Dusk, this was a story more to Dent's personal taste. A Cold War suspense book that harkened back to The Red Spider -- a 1948 Doc Savage which was buried by the final "Doc" editor. It was exactly the kind of thing he would have been writing for Doc Savage had the magazine still been going in 1952. Concerned about Fawcett's reputation with other writers for requesting automatic rewrites, Dent sent the draft which had just completed to his editor in case there were problems. And there were. Fawcett shot the story back to him with a long list of suggestions for revisions. Dent normally balked at rewriting his books. But he buckled down to do the job. Fawcett had huge hopes for Kill a Red Lady and for Dent's future with them. Finally in the spring of 1953, it was done. Dent's rewrite was greeted with great displeasure. But it was not entirely his fault. In the intervening months, Fawcett had come under sharp criticism over the sexual explicitness of their Gold Medal line. Dent -- preoccupied with his personal grief and out-of-touch with his editor -- had been unwittingly writing to now-abandoned guidelines. By mutual agreement, Dent and his editor decided that too much work would be needed to make the book suitable to the new publishing realities. Indeed, it would virtually have to be started from scratch. The project was shelved. For reasons of his own, Dent never attempted to market the manuscript again. After he and Fawcett parted company over Kill a Red Lady, Dent -- unused to rejections and still grieving -- lost interest in writing for some time. He returned the Time Has Four Faces advance, effectively abandoning that book as well. But in 1956, his writing ambitions stirred anew. 2 more novels were written. But only one sold. He returned to work fitfully on Time Has Four Faces in which Houghton Mifflin remained keenly interested. But Dent never managed to finish it. The highlight of Dent's 3rd decade of writing (if not the culmination of his entire career) was the publication of "Savage Challenge" in The Saturday Evening Post a scant yea before he passed away in 1959. Making the Post had been a cherished dream of Dent's going back to his earliest Doc Savage days. Although Lester Dent's final writing years were difficult ones, he continued to write to the very end. Upon his death, a notebook was found beside his hospital bed. In it, he had begun to write (in longhand) a new Post story -- "The Day of Crow Tails". In his own way, Lester Dent died "with his boots on". - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The events surrounding Kill a Red Lady all took place long before my (Will Murray) involvement with Doc Savage. Dent was finishing the book about the time I was being born, in fact. I first became aware of the existence of Kill a Red Lady during a 1978 research foray of the Lester Dent manuscripts. So when Bantam Books asked me to write a second group of Doc Savage novels, I naturally thought of that story and obtained a copy of the manuscript from the "Lester Dent Collection" housed in the Western Historical Manuscript Collection of the University of Missouri at Columbia. All of Dent's manuscript had been donated to that repository by Norma Dent in 1986. I had a dim awareness of the plot and wondered if it was convertible into a new Doc Savage novel. Up to that point, I had written "Docs" from complete outlines, unfinished plots, and novel fragments. The thought of having a finished novel to work from was a tremendous opportunity to create a new Doc Savage novel that was something more than a pastiche. Kill a Red Lady did not disappoint me. Unlike much of his later writing, it had the trademark Dent combination of vivid hardboiled style and quirky humor. White it was hopelessly dated on its own terms, that very quality made it perfect for the Doc Savage time period. The novel, of course, had its rough spots. The obligatory sex scenes would all have to go. The rest was very comfortable in the mold of the later Doc books. And as I read along, I realized that the specific motivation of Dent's original hero (Banner) could be grafted onto Doc simply my making this a direct follow-up to the events of The Red Spider in which Doc exposed the truth behind the Soviet Union's fledgling atomic bomb program and embarrassed the Kremlin. Make no mistake. A great deal of rewriting, pruning, and editing proved necessary. But I tried to do it with an eye to preserving as much of the original as feasible. In the end, the finished book is probably close to 90 percent the way that Dent originally wrote it. I added only 2 new chapters. One of my own and one taken from an earlier Dent draft of the story. Both were necessary to firmly establish the protagonist as Doc Savage. (I leave it to Doc Savage scholars out there to figure out which chapters those are.) I did make a point of taking out all references to the Korean War and other topical 1952-53 events so that the story fits into the Doc Savage chronology after The Red Spider but before the final Doc novel Up From Earth's Center. I prefer to let Doc's recorded adventures end where Dent ended them and not drag the Man of Bronze into the cynical 1950s. One amusing -- and ultimately unfortunate -- result of there being so many extant drafts of "Kill a Red Lady" was my discovery (months after I'd finished my rewrite of the original manuscript) that I had not been working from the actual final draft as I had believed. A comparison of the two showed me that the draft I had used did not greatly differ from the true final draft. And where it did, I was inclined to favor the earlier text. In essence, I went with the pure Dent draft of the story and not the obligatory Fawcett-directed rewrite. All I needed in the end was a suitable title. "Kill a Red Lady" seemed as inappropriate a title for a Doc novel inasmuch as the Bronze Man is pledged never to kill. So a new title was in order. Dent's earlier working title "Death Sentence" was perfect. Except that I had already penned a "Destroyer" (Remo Williams) novel under that title. True, there was a certain odd appeal to having authored (or in this case co-authored) 2 separate novels called Death Sentence under 2 different bylines. But I decided to spare possible future bibliographers the resulting migraines. So what to call it? The earliest working title "My Banner Is Blood" definitely didn't work. I brainstormed and made a list of titles. But none quite appealed to me. Then I recalled Dent's misadventures with the title "Flight Into Fear". Perfect! And here it is: A largely Lester Dent "Doc Savage" novel rescued from obscurity and carrying a title which I'm sure he would have heartily approved. What could be more fitting for the 60th anniversary of the greatest adventure of all time! -- Will Murray http://mdjackson.tripod.com/whatsupdoc.html "Why 'Kenneth Robeson' Doesn't Write Anymore" Michael Dean / July, 1997 Bantam Books decision to reprint all of the Doc Savage adventures as mass market paperbacks has created more Doc Savage fans worldwide than ever existed while the original Doc Savage magazine was still publishing. The popularity of the reprinted Doc adventures led to Bantam's decision to commission new stories to add to the Doc Savage lexicon. The first of these adventures to be published was Phillip Jose Farmer's Escape From Loki. Set during World War I, it told the story of how a young Doc met his Five companions for the first time (and all in the same day, it seemed!). Farmer opted to use his own name on the book, eschewing the 'Kenneth Robson' house name that had graced all the paperbacks and pulp stories. After Escape from Loki (#183), pulp historian and writer Will Murray -- who had written an afterward to a lost Lester Dent Doc Savage novel The Red Spider (#182) in 1979 -- discovered the outline to Lester Dent's unwritten Python Isle (#184) and decided to take a shot at writing it. Bantam initially passed on the novel but then came back and made Murray an offer for it. They also asked for 2 more Doc Savage adventures. Writing under the famous 'Kenneth Robson' byline, Murray wrote 7 Doc Savage novels. The last one published by Bantam was The Forgotten Realm (#190). After that, Bantam called a halt to the series. The problem was Murray was still writing them. "In the Fall of 1992, I hit a snag writing my 7th Doc novel The Forgotten Realm," Murray states on his webpage (http://www.execpc.com/~lw/dsfile/murray.html). "I had a very heavy schedule and couldn't afford any down time. I expected to be writing three Docs as well as the usual four Destroyers in 1993. I had to keep going. "I didn't want to start my next Destroyer early and lose the Kenneth Robeson mood. So in anticipation of my next Doc contract, I started three Docs -- The Infernal Buddha, The War Maker, and The Phantom Lagoon which was then titled "Hell Cay" -- putting them aside when I solved my problems with The Forgotten Realm. I figured these chapters would give me a head start on my next three Docs. "When Bantam chose to put the Man of Bronze on another infamous hiatus, I never got to finish those Docs although I did the next spring write the opening chapter to a fourth Doc -- The Ice Genius -- when inspiration got the better of me. "I don't know whether or not I'll ever get to finish these novels as well as the others I had planned including The Smoking Spooks, The Nullifier, Grotto of Spiders, and Terror in Gold. That's up to Bantam Books. But I remain optimistic." Murray posted chapters from The Infernal Buddha on his webpage. Unfortunately, Conde Nast (the company who owns the rights to Doc Savage) noticed the chapters and asked Murray to remove them. He removed them. "I hope Doc fans enjoyed these glimpses of unfinished Docs," Murray posted, "and excuse any early-draft flaws they found. "And if you'd like to read the complete stories, for heaven's sake don't tell me. Tell Bantam Books. I'm just the latest in a long line of writers who take pride in signing himself 'Kenneth Robeson'." the 1975 "Doc Savage" movie http://thepulp.net/docmovie.html Hollywood’s interest in Doc Savage has hardly languished since the character’s debut in 1933. But it wasn’t until 1975 --more than 40 years after he first appeared on news stands -- that Doc Savage made it to the screen. Numerous attempts have been made over the years to get Doc to the screen. In the 1930s or ’40s, the idea of a Doc Savage serial was floated but failed because author Lester Dent insisted on writing the script though he had no screenwriting experience according to Doc Savage authority Will Murray. Plans for a 1950s TV series died for a similar reason. In the 1960s, Doug Wildey (who created "The Adventures of Jonny Quest") roughed out an idea for a Doc Savage animated series. Millennium Publications’ "Doc Savage: Manual of Bronze" published in 1992 included a couple of preliminary drawings from this Doc project. Wildey had a pet peeve when it came to updating vintage characters to contemporary times according to Murray in a 2004 article in Comic Book Marketplace. Previously he had abandoned a Tom Swift cartoon project for this reason. “I hired a young guy named Dave Stevens,” Wildey is quoted by Murray. “At the time, he was a Doc Savage freak. I had never personally read Doc Savage. Dave explained who the characters were and what they did. I felt that Doc Savage had enough strength and I went ahead and did it in my off-hours. I brought it in to Joe Barbera (of Hanna-Barbera Studio, the producers of Johnny Quest) and said ‘What do you think?’ But he wanted to update it. The charm was gone.” Finally, under the guidance of George Pal who produced such science-fiction classics as "Destination Moon", "When Worlds Collide", and "War of the Worlds", Doc hit the big screen. Unfortunately, the completed film led Doc down the road of campy humor popularized nearly a decade earlier with television’s Batman series. Who is to blame (Pal or the studio) is uncertain. Either way, "Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze" was neither a popular nor critical success. Pal wrote the screenplay with Joe Morhaim using the pulps as only a passing guideline and imbuing Doc Savage with “psychic” powers and a strong urge to personalize everything. Doc’s aides fared worse with more comic relief than scientific talent. As fluff, the movie can be somewhat enjoyable. But most true Doc fans will be cringing in their seats. Actor Ron Ely swapped his Tarzan loincloth for the Man of Bronze’s riding pants in what was touted as the first of at least two films. In fact, the final sequence of the movie teased to the never-produced sequel "Doc Savage: Arch Enemy of Evil". Two scripts apparently were written for the sequel: one by Philip Jose Farmer and a second by Morhaim. It was the Morhaim version that was posted on the Web but has since been removed. In 1996, a pitch for a new Doc Savage animated series was made to Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks SKG’s TV division. Veteran comic book artist Frank Brunner drew several scenes based on the 1960s Bantam cover Doc for the presentation. The project never moved beyond the pitch. In 1999, rumors began circulating that a new movie might be possible with names such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Frank Darabont, and James Cameron attached to it. Warner Bros. went so far as to reserve Internet domain names for the possible movie. Troubles with the script and Schwarzenegger's election as governor of California appear to have stalled that project. Since early 2005, there has been talk of another possible Doc Savage movie project. As more becomes available on these latest rumors, we’ll certainly let you know. Sources: IMDB.com; Doc Savage: Manual of Bronze; Comic Book Marketplace; Eyes of Light: Fantasy Drawings of Frank Brunner; other Web sources. Updated: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 note: "non-adventure" material relating to the personal lives of Doc Savage and his group as well as a complete chronology of all the adventures (including those broadcasted by radio) are in "DS000_His_Apocalyptic_Life" at => doc pdf URL-doc URL-pdf and "DS000_Chronology_Of_Bronze" at => doc pdf URL-doc URL-pdf . Doc Savage: Arch Enemy of Evil http://books.google.com/books?id=ioeYos90eg4C&pg=PA146&lpg=PA146&dq=%22Doc+savage%22+%22the+ice+genius%22&source=bl&ots=llK3m6lN1l&sig=VlqIKKPAsfLqEboQOlooqprCrRI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GxJdUur8IJG-4AOPgYG4AQ&ved=0CFoQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=%22Doc%20savage%22%20%22the%20ice%20genius%22&f=false The following was excerpted from Doc Savage: Arch Enemy of Evil : … … … … … … … … Lester Dent: The "Revelator from Missouri" Almost 50 years after his death, Lester Dent remains one of the best-selling authors of the 20th century, a posthumous success story that was fueled by the revival of his work in the mid-1960s (i.e., Bantam Books' republishing of the original Doc Savage magazines in paperback format). Philip Jose Farmer dubbed him the "revelator from Missouri" while Will Murray called him "the lonely boy who dreamed". Many fans across the World called him "Kenneth Robeson" after the publishing house nom de plume under which Dent wrote. Lester Dent was born October 12, 1904 in La Plata, Missouri, the only child of a hardworking farm couple. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to a farm in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma and then to land in Wyoming. By most accounts, Dent had a lonely childhood on these farms. There were no children to play with and he went for months at a time without seeing his father. In Marilyn Cannady's Bigger Than Life: The Creator of Doc Savage, she explains how Dent created fictional playmates for himself and how he was able to transfer that talent to paper as a young adult. Norma Dent, his wife, has said that "Les was a writer before he really started to write". When Dent graduated from high school, he had planned to become a banker. When he found out that other professions paid more money, he chose to become a telegrapher. He met Norma Gerling whom he married and the couple moved to Oklahoma where Dent got a job with the Associated Press. Dent was making $145 a month working 3rd shift at the Tesla World when he noticed another telegrapher pounding away at a typewriter. Inquiring, Dent found that the man was moonlighting as a pulp fiction writer and making good money. Norma Dent said "Les was so excited. He had never seen that much money before and he thought he could write as well as the other fellow." Dent promptly sat down and wrote 13 stories, each of which came back from the publishers with a rejection slip. The 14th one -- Robot Cay -- was purchased in 1929 by Top-Notch magazine for $250. In the months that followed, Dent cranked out 20,000-word stories filled with good guys versus bad guys, the hero to the rescue, master criminals, pirates, cannibals, buried treasure -- in short, themes that would become essential to his later work. In December 1930, Dent received a telegram from Dell Publishing advising him to come to New York and work for $500 a month. Dent accepted the offer but took a leave of absence from the Tulsa World just in case things didn't work out. As it turned out, Lester Dent didn't have anything to worry about. He never went back to his telegraphy job. Instead, he cranked out story material for the pulp market at an incredible rate. In 1932, the editors at Street&Smith needed a writer to flesh out a superhero named "Doc Savage". They turned to the prodigious and capable Dent to handle the task. For the next 17 years until 1949, Dent breathed life into the surgeon-turned-adventurer. In the Bantam reprint format, Dent's comprehensive "Doc Savage" saga extends to over 21,000 pages and totals more than 7.7 million words. The titles alone are enough to send any potential reader's imagination soaring. Fear Cay. Resurrection Day. The Spook Legion. What are these stories? A look at all 181 titles show several themes that recur in Dent's work. 11 of the titles contain a reference to "devil" while at least 17 mention supernatural apparitions (witches, ghosts, goblins, etc.). 13 titles contain the word "death" and 22 incorporate a color. Of the latter, black is mentioned at least 5 times as are the metallic hues (bronze, silver, gold). Red comes up 4 times, green 3 times. Birds are in 7 titles and water in 20. Some of these categories even cross into each other as in The Green Eagle, The Devil's Black Rock, and Death in Silver. In 1940 the Dents left New York City and returned to La Plata as permanent residents. They build a house on Church Street that Dent himself designed. Norma Dent recalled that her husband was determined to live in a house that he created. To that end, Dent studied architecture and labored over his blueprints until he was satisfied. Glen Mansfield -- a friend of Dent's -- remembered Dent's interest in Science and all the gadgets that were installed in the house. "Les used to come into my electrical shop when he moved back here," Mansfield said. "he was always looking for something new to work into one of his stories." Mansfield said that Dent's home was equipped with a burglar alarm that was wired to the police station. "He really didn't need it because there was no crime here," Mansfield said. "Les just wanted to see how it would work." The Dents also had an electric-eye garage door opener -- another La Plata first in 1940. "People used to line up on the street to watch Les drive into his garage. That's how unusual all his stuff was," Mansfield said. Also a ham (amateur) radio enthusiast, Dent had his Packard convertible outfitted with a portable set. One day he bet Mansfield that he could raise England on the first try as they were riding around. "I took his money that day," Mansfield recalled. "It took Les 3 times before he got anyone in England." Although he continued his tremendous output of fiction, Dent managed to find the time and energy to take up photography, lecturing, sailing, flying, and traveling. He bought a 40-foot schooner and searched for sunken treasure off the Florida coast. He also started an aerial photography business and a dairy farm. It was these pursuits that occupied Dent after Doc Savage magazine was canceled in 1949. In 1959, Dent suffered a massive heart attack and died 3 weeks later at Grimsmith Hospital in Kirksville, Missouri. He was 54 years old. At the time it was noted that only Mark Twain (another Missouri writer) touched as many people's lives as Lester Dent. The Bantam Reprints: 1964-1990 In 1964 just 5 years after the death of Lester Dent, Bantam Books began to republish the Street&Smith Doc Savage pulps. To test the waters, Bantam issued The Man of Bronze, The Thousand-Headed Man, and Meteor Menace simultaneously. Several months later, 3 more stories were issued. Beginning in June 1965, 7 more stories were issued randomly with a story appearing every 2-or-3 months. In January 1967 with #015 (Murder Melody), Bantam established a bi-monthly release pattern. With the release of #023 (Cold Death), the pattern was stepped up to one book per month, a publishing cycle that lasted for 42 months. With 64 Doc stories back in print by October 1971, Bantam slowed down publication. They returned to the bi-monthly release schedule beginning with #053 (The Green Death). By July 1973, the reprints were coming 3 months apart and soon after, 4 months apart. A mix-up occurred when #077 (The South Pole Terror) was issued a month before #076 (The Black Spot). A second gaffe occurred when #081 (The Stone Man) was issued with the exact same cover for The South Pole Terror. Doc's priority at Bantam had diminished. Not uncoincidentally, sales were down since #067 (The Freckled Shark) [James Bama's farewell cover]. Only one Doc (The King Maker) was issued in 1975. 5 were issued in 1975 and 1977 respectively, 2 in 1978; 4 in 1979; and 2 in 1980. It would be technically correct to point out that in 1980, 4 stories were issued as 2 volumes for this was the year that Bantam began the Doc "doubles". This doubling practice lasted for 5 years and 15 volumes. In August 1986, the first "omnibus" was introduced. 12 additional omnibus editions followed, each comprised of 4-or-5 stories. The final collection #13 was issued in October, 1990. Bantam's commitment to reissuing the 181 Docs plus one never-completed-before story was completed after 16 years and 124 separate volumes. The covers were handled by at least 9 different artists. The most revered was ultra-realist James Bama. This rendition of Doc Savage was completely original and the standard he set in 1964 is still being used in 1993. Bama's "Doc" that was unveiled to the public on the covers of The Man of Bronze and The Thousand-Headed Man was quite far removed from the original Baumholfer pulp cover version 30 years earlier. This "Doc Savage" had a face that appeared to be 50 years old with a golden crewcut that converged into a prominent widow's peak. However, the body -- draped with a shredded khaki shirt -- was heavily muscled and looked as if it belonged to a 20-year-old power lifter. Some pulp purists have publicly denounced this version of Doc as blasphemy. Others feel it is a faithful rendition of Doc as described by Lester Dent. In any case, the fact remains that Bama's "Doc" introduced the Man of Bronze to a whole new generation of fans and enticed them to buy story-after-story, much as Walter Baumholfer's art had 30 years earlier. [StealthSkater note: It was when I first saw The Yellow Cloud cover in 1970 that triggered my fascination and led me along the Doc path for decades. Back then, this was a quantum leap for creative art. So in this case at least, the cover did indeed sell the book.] After doing the covers for #001 and #002, Bama did not return to the series until #007 (The Monsters). Beginning with #009 (The Mystic Mullah), he did every Doc Savage cover until #067. Merchants of Disaster, Resurrection Day, and Fear Cay are excellent examples of his eye-catching work. [StealthSkater note: Bantam did not follow the original writing order of the adventures. For instance, The Mystic Mullah (Batnam #009) was originally #023. An alert reader would find this annoying as the plot could get twisted if parts of it were built on an earlier adventure.] Bama returned to the series via reruns when 4 of his paintings were recycled into other covers. #082 (The Evil Gnome) featured an enlargement from Red Snow; #115 (Pirate Isle) used a reverse image of the cover from The Men Who Smiled No More; Omnibus #01 featured a cutout of Doc from The Phantom City; and Omnibus #04 reproduced the cover The Green Death. The artist whose longevity and fan-following that came closest to rivaling Bama's was Bob Larkin who did over 40 paintings beginning in July 1977. Larkin's first "Doc" was #089 (The Magic Island). While Larkin's covers were not always as finely tuned as those by Bama, they came closest to paying homage to the standard set in 1964. To be fair, it should be noted that many of Larkin's finest pieces (such as The Screaming Man and The Ten-Ton Snakes) suffered greatly from the tiny sizes allotted to them on the double volumes. Another artist for the series was renowned fantasy illustrator Boris Vallejo. The Vallejo era lasted for just 6 covers (about 1 year). For the most part, covers such as The Spotted Men, The Roar Devil, and The Boss of Terror were mediocre renditions of Doc and did not really showcase Vallejo's obvious talents as an illustrator. The Mountain Monster was perhaps his least successful cover, being far too similar to the depiction for Quest of the Spider. The most unappealing art to appear on the Banatm "Docs" was from Fred Pfeiffer who came on board in May 1972. In general, the Pfeiffer covers were a disappointment to fans accustomed to the Bama masterpieces. #070 (Spook Hole) was possible the worst Savage cover ever with The Land of Fear, The King Maker, The South Pole Terror, and The Crimson Serpent running close behind. One of Pfeiffer's nicer covers was for The Mystery on the Snow. The Vallejo covers helped sales somewhat. But it wasn't until the advent of Larkin that the series regain some equilibrium. Minor artists for the series included Hiram Richardson, Doug Rosa, Mort Kunstler, Jim Aviati, and Bama disciple Roger Kastel. In addition to doing the Jiu San/Black, Black Witch covers, Kastel also did a fine painting of Ron Ely that was used on a Marvel movie-related magazine cover and the back of a movie tie-in edition of The Man of Bronze. A Conversation with Will Murray Larry Widen: When did you first pick up a Doc Savage book? I assume it would have been with a Bama cover. Will Murray: My first awareness of "Doc Savage" came in the summer of 1966 when I was a collector of comics. Every week I would buy Marvels. And other stuff too. I was going through the shelf in a little variety store where I bought my comics when I came across the Gold Key one-shot with the Bama cover from The Thousand-Headed Man. Although I had never heard of "Doc Savage", I distinctly remember pausing and looking at that cover. For some reason it struck a chord in me in terms of forever remembering that I had seen it. I don't think I even looked inside. Maybe I had some inkling of the future. Or maybe I resonated with the art style I first experienced on Bama's Aurora monster model kits. Widen: Were you about 14? I was about 13. I know I was 15 when I bought my first "Doc". In 1968 I started buying paperbacks, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars books, H.P. Lovecraft, and TV tie-ins like It Takes A Thief and The Man from Uncle. I noticed the "Doc Savage" books. But I wasn't drawn to them at first because the ripped shirt made me think it was the paperback equivalent to those men's sweat magazines of the 1960s. You know, guys with sweat pouring off their brows fighting the Nazis with tommy-guns -- that kind of stuff. I think I also connected it with Gil Kane's super-violent His Name is … Savage. But back in January 1969 on a very snowy Friday night, I realized I had read all my new books. I just had this weird compulsion to walk through the snow about a mile to the variety store where I bought most of my books. I span the racks and saw the cover for Dust of Death. That was one of Bama's greatest covers. For some reason, it hit me differently than the others I had seen. Bama was hitting an artistic peak at that point. I think it was the hooded "Inca in Gray" that grabbed me because he looked like a super-villain. So on a lark, I bought it; rad it that night; and just loved it. It instantly resonated with me because when I was in the 3rd grade, my teacher let us read her set of 1930s editions of "Nancy Drew". So I had been exposed to the whole idea of "coupes" with "running boards" and people in "seersucker" suits -- all the flavor of that era. I didn't read Nancy Drew much past the 3rd grade. But I had a feeling for that time. After reading Dust of Death, I went to a bookstore near my high school and found Death in Silver (another great Bama cover). I think I also bought The Spook Legion or Mystery under the Sea. But I don't clearly remember. All I know is that started collecting "Docs" at that point. Widen: I love that story because it's almost identical to my own. We could switch places and I could tell you virtually the same thing. Even down to the fact that Milwaukee had a variety store that sold used comics and books. Those just don't exist anymore. They don't. But that's where I bought my books because at the point some of them were already hard to find. It took me a long time The Man of Bronze and even longer to find Fortress of Solitude -- the 2 books I most wanted. As a reader, I was forced to buy whatever I could secondhand. Some of them -- like Land of Terror -- I remember finding at Woolworths. Widen: Anything that had gone into reprints. Right. But even finding some of those was tough. I remember going a little further up the street from where I bought Dust of Death and finding a copy of The Annihilist in a funky old smoke shop and being very excited. Widen: Do you remember what it cost for a 45-cent edition of "Man of Bronze"? A lot. Because I got it from Howard Rogofsky. I think I paid $7.50. Later you could find them all over the place new and used. But in 1969-71, they were already becoming collector's items. Widen: But wasn't that fun when you found one? Yeah, it was great. And of course, the new ones were coming out monthly so there was the thrill of tacking down the old ones while buying the new releases. Widen: When did you start acquiring the original pulp magazines? In 1971 I began to find sources for pulps by mail. The thing that was a big shock to me was getting a digest-sized issue and seeing how different Doc was in the WWII-era stories. It was a whole different take on the character. I was fascinated. [StealthSkater note: not sure I understand this. As far as I know, the Bantam reprints did not change a word in any of the original stories. Only the cover art was "modernized".] Widen: When did you start writing about Doc Savage? There was a little mimeograph fanzine in 1972-73 called The Doc Savage Reader. I noticed that the fans who were writing about Doc then were grounded in the paperbacks and weren't reading the pulps (the young fans anyway). So I thought I would about Doc in terms of the exploits people didn't know about. The 1940s' stories that hadn't been reprinted. I wrote 2 articles for them -- "Reflections in a Flake-Gold Eye" and "The Girl Who Loved Doc Savage". People really seemed to like those articles. That was the first time I was published. I attempted a psychological view of the "mature" Doc and fans were electrified. … … … … … … Widen: After being published in the Reader, you worked with Bob Weinberg. I had met Bob at a New York comic book convention and learned he was doing a book called The Man Behind Doc Savage. I offered to contribute. Looking back on that, it was kind of forward of me as I'd only had 2 articles published. But I did 3 articles for him and it was the beginning of writing more on Doc. Somehow I got in touch with Norma (Lester Dent's widow) and we exchanged some correspondence. I was getting interested in the "ghost writers" because I had read Ron Goulart's Cheap Trills: An Informed History of the Pulp Magazine where Ryerson Johnson was quoted as saying he ghost-wrote a few "Docs". This was the first I heard of the unsuspected "ghosts" behind the scenes. Mrs. Dent probably wondered why I was prying into all that. But I was a fan and still in college and I was excited about my new Doc Savage discoveries. Widen: Your sincere interest probably helped build your relationship with Mrs. Dent. I had noticed some of the novels read king of funny and I was curious as to why. I didn't think it was a secret that there were other writers on the Doc Savage series. It was just part of the business of turning out "Doc Savage" every month. So Mrs. Dent and I exchanged some letters for a while and talked by phone. Our friendship grew over time. At first, though, she was hesitant about a lot of things. I was very hungry for information and I may have pushed for it before she was ready to dig it out for me. But over time, a real bond developed and it proved lasting. Later I became the literary agent for the Dent estate. When her health started to decline, Norma had some issues of mental clarity. I was in the habit of calling every Saturday for many years. Sometimes it was difficult near the end of her life because she wasn't always clear on things. I guess I was one of her lifelines in sense. One of the people who helped to keep her connected to the World. If I felt she was not in the clearest state of mind, there were people I could call to them know the situation. It's important for the elderly to have connections to the broader World than the world they are immediately in. She was in a nursing home for a long time. I've very proud of having been there for her as a person, as a friend, and not just a fan of "Doc Savage" and a biographer of Lester Dent. Widen: You were paying Mrs. Dent royalties from the new books you wrote. In my mind, there was no other way to do it. Not just morally but also legally. I was using unpublished Lester Dent material for the new stories. Of course, it would have been possible to sell Bantam Books one-or-two new Doc Savage novels based on Lester Dent material and then write non-Dent novels without having any obligation to Mrs. Dent. But that thought never crossed my mind. Widen: You were looking to use historic Dent material for the new stories. As soon as Bantam said they wanted new "Docs", I called Mrs. Dent and asked if there was anything lying around in her husband's files. I was looking for his old outlines, false starts, even a scrap of this, a fragment of that. I wanted her to have that money. But I also wanted to use Lester Dent's material. I wasn't interested in writing Will Murray "Doc Savage"s. In fact, this is a funny story. I had a conversation with my Bantam editor when we were first talking about these new "Docs". At the time I was writing four The Destroyers (Remo Williams) a year and Bantam wanted me to do four "Docs" a year. Casually I said I would probably have some of them "ghosted". She didn't bat an eye. I look back now and ask what was I thinking? I would have rather had The Destroyers "ghosted". I didn't grow up on the "The Destroyer"; I grew up on "Doc Savage". For obvious reasons I thought schedule-wise for the "Docs" I would have had to bring in other writers. As it turns out, I just loved writing them. Widen: How did the lost manuscript come to light? I discovered a reference to a lost story called In Hell, Madonna in the Street&Smith files at Conde Nest in New York in 1975. Mrs. Dent had no idea she had an unpublished Doc Savage novel in her possession until I told her about it. I remember going up to Syracuse University where the Street&Smith papers were held trying to find it there. There were no signs of it. I kept begging her about the manuscript and she dug it out after a while. But she was very closed-mouth about it explaining that she had to talk to her lawyer first. I was a college kid and terribly impatient. This was an unpublished Doc Savage! What could it be about? I lusted to read it. Mrs. Dent was a very smart businesswoman in the sense that as much as she liked me, she understood that you don't let something valuable out into the World until you safeguarded all the ways it might be exploited. It was very frustrating. It took about 3 years for me to get it to a place where it could be published. It felt like 10! Widen: In the meantime, you had already written Python Isle and were trying to get Bantam to publish that. Actually it was the other way around. This is when we come to the interesting part about In Hell, Madonna becoming The Red Spider and how it all goes together with Python Isle. Eventually Bantam reached the point where they were publishing the shorter digest pulp novels. It was a problem because paperback prices were going up while the Doc stories were getting shorter. Also the sales were down and probably hadn't been that great since Bama left. But my efforts to get people interested in publishing the lost Doc Savage novel led Conde Nast to make an offer to Mrs. Dent for the manuscript. Even though they technically owned the rights to it, Mrs. Dent had the only existing copy. They were willing to pay a certain courtesy amount. But it was a modest figure. Mrs. Dent and Condi Nast failed to come to a deal and things looked pretty grim. Then Bantam kicked in some additional money and that's when the deal closed. … … … … … … … … Widen: Was this when Bantam started reissuing the series in 1964? No, this was much later when they were cutting the movie and comics deals. Mrs. Dent had partial rights to the first 3-or-4 years of Doc novels if they were adapted. Conde Nast paid her for those rights. When she got a check for her part of George Pal's "Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze" movie, she bought a new car. That means a lot to her. It's not like she was getting rich. But she was in her 70s, her husband had been dead for 25 years, and she probably lived on a social security check. She never talked about money. But I'm pleased that helped support Mrs. Dent both emotionally and financially. Widen: You paid Mrs. Dent a royalty out of your own pocket when you wrote your books. Why didn't Bantam pay her? It's very simple. Bantam was contracting with me to write Doc Savages. I was contracting with Mrs. Dent who didn't own "Doc Savage" but owned outlines and unpublished manuscript fragments that I could turn into "Docs". I incurred that obligation - not Bantam Books. Widen: Bantam just wanted some new "Doc Savage" novels. The publishing business is much more casual than you'd think. Bantam had been reissuing Doc Savage stories for 20 years at that point and they knew I could write more stories because of the two that I'd written in 1980. They weren't really asking for more stories based on Lester Dent material. They just wanted new "Docs". It was more important that they keep publishing the series than what my source material was. That was my decision. Widen: So you and she became partners to produce the books you wanted to write. I had already discovered a fairly lengthy alternative opening to The Annihilist that was in Lester's files. I dug that out when Bantam wanted Python Isle and The Frightened Fish. Although it had parallel elements, it had very little in common with the published version of The Annihilist. This is what eventually became White Eyes. It ended up being a book that a lot of people told me was as good as any "Doc" ever published. I was very pleased with that one. The part that bothers me about White Eyes now is that it smacked of the death device in The Annihilist. I kept looking for a way to retain as much of that story as I could that Dent had abandoned and yet make it different. At that time I felt I came up with something good enough. But in retrospect I wish I could have taken it into another direction. One of my big regrets about the "Docs" I wrote is that after Mrs. Dent died, some fresh material came into my hands including a 2-paragraph plot idea from 1935 that was unique and very interesting. When I read it, I thought if I'd only had this when I wrote White Eyes, I would have used this instead of the "Blind Death" and had an ever better story with an authentic Lester Dent death device. Widen: Can you do anything with that idea now? Well, that material is still available to me for use in a future Doc story. Part of me wants to rewrite White Eyes with this idea. But that's probably not practical. Widen: After White Eyes, Bantam asked for more stories. They contracted for 4 additional adventures. At that point I had been ordering microfilm reels from the University of Missouri's Western Historical Manuscript Collection where Dent's papers are housed. In those reels I found fragments and ideas for stories he hadn't gotten around to writing. I also had a copy of The Jade Ogre outline from Mrs. Dent and that became one of the next 4 books for Bantam. My only regret is that the book is too long. It's 120,000 words -- the longest "Doc" every written. Someday I'm going to reread it and see if it holds up. [StealthSkater note: that is indeed a major criticism of Will Murray's "Doc" books. Way way too wordy and not Slam-Bam action like Dent's early Docs. Plus Murray's adventures often lead to things like a possible Doc female love interest (The Frightened Fish) being killed off instead of bringing her back in future adventures like Princess Monja (#001, #058, #117 ).] Then I turned the Cold War story Flight into Fear into a sequel to The Red Spider. In fact, at one point we talked about reprinting The Red Spider and Flight into Fear as a double edition but decided against it. The last 2 books I did were The Whistling Wraith and The Forgotten Realm. Dent had several outlines where he would go into a completely different direction. So there was a lot of material that went unused or semi-used that could be cannibalized for a springboard into another story. I also found a lot of Dent stories that were chopped up by an editor who would toss out stuff, essentially leaving it on the cutting room floor of the original Doc novels. The Whistling Wraith came out of a variant outline to The Vanisher. Then I discovered that in the original outline for the 1934 story The Phantom City, Dent had abandoned the last half about ancient Romans living in Africa. Also, the original outline for The Thousand-Headed Man had a totally different beginning. So I took the beginning of one plot, the end of another, and filled in the middle to make The Forgotten Realm. That gave me an excuse to pay Mrs. Dent a good percentage of the book. It thought I'd found the perfect length and plot structure in those 2 novels. Widen: You keep mentioning the outlines. Did Dent typically submit an outline to his editors at Street&Smith and then get the go-ahead to write the novels? That's how it worked although sometimes he just started writing first. If the go-ahead included changes, he would have to abandon some of the material and start over or do something completely different. When he finished an outline, he tended to jump right into the story and not wait. Sometimes he got into trouble that way. But in another way, it was good because he left so much unused material behind for me to follow. Dent little dreamed in 1934-35 that those wasted chapters would support his widow 60 years in the future. Widen: How did Joe DeVito come to do the covers to your books? That's an interesting story. I didn't know Joe at the the time and I remember at one point there was talk of Steranko doing the covers. Steranko wanted to do them but Bantam had already hired Joe. I had never heard of Joe then. And actually, Joe didn't do the first new "Doc" cover (Escape from Loki). Someone else did. Widen: That was Steve Assel. Right. Assel had originally painted Doc lugging a tommy-gun for the cover. But when Phil Farmer saw the cover, he made he reprint it and put a .45 automatic in his hand. That's why Doc's arm is held in a funny angle. He was originally cradling a tommy-gun. … … … … … … … … … … … … Widen: Doc Savage books have become quite relevant since the Iklahoma Federal Building bombing and the events of September 11, 2001. Lester Dent predicted some very chilling things that are happening today. Well, that's an interesting point. I never really thought of Dent in those terms. When I think of him as a visionary, I think of him writing about a Uzi submachine gun 40 years before they existed. I think of him writing about handheld communicators or modern airplanes that push the envelope of how fast you can fly, how long can you stay up in the air. I don't really connect explicitly those events with Doc Savage because they're more political. Certainly in the novels, the Empire State Building took its share of hits (especially in Repel and a couple others). But you'd have to tell me where you thought Dent saw things on this level. [StealthSkater note: in Chronology of Bronze doc pdf URL , Rick Lai gives the 1935-era background geopolitical information that influenced Lester Dent in his novels although he used fictitious names for the countries involved.] Widen: What I see happening in the subtext of those stories is that they reflect a United States government or World body of leaders that really aren't able to protect their people from catastrophic attack and it requires … … someone to stand up and operate outside the boundaries of what a government can do. Widen: Exactly. That I agree with because in the 1930s, Doc was a guy who would do what he to whether the United States Government approed of it or not. He was not outside the Law but sometimes he got into trouble for the things he did. I don't remember the special novels. But sometimes he would go ahead and take action even though Washington disapproved. In the 1940s he became more of an instrument of U.S. foreign policy and global power. Roles shifted quite a bit so he became in some ways the face of the United States as it was expanding into its post-War role. [StealthSkater note: it was the prevalence of WWII that made the Smith&Street editors force Lester Dent from writing Slam-Bam! action "Doc" adventures into those with more political intrigue. And I think that's when sales started going down. Dent always said his primary audience was the young teenage boy reading adventure mags on subway steps. Those would surely not be interested in more "cerebral" plots.] Widen: Even earlier though, I see him as a symbol of a government that's powerless when it comes to stopping a threat. And that's typical of most pulp houses. "Operator Five" was more of a template for 9/11. How we're being invaded and attacked by global enemies. Doc is a guy who can do what the government can't is also because he can go anywhere and because he's got millions of dollars and sophisticated aircraft and a team of highly trained people. [StealthSkater note: It was the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes that the U.S. Government turned to for salvaging a sunken Russian submarine armed with nuclear missiles. Hughes had the resources and the engineers to build the giant vessel that attempted the operation (the sub broke apart in the effort to raise it). And billionaire Ross Perot assembled his own team to rescue some American citizens who couldn't leave Iran during the time of the hostage situation.] Widen: When some super-villain wants to annihilate civilization in one of the stories, I have no trouble envisioning bin Laden, Saddam, or Hitler. I'm impressed with Dent as a visionary. I am too. About the only thing Lester Dent didn't foresee was the personal computer. Which he would have loved. Widen: What's the status of your new or unpublished stories? I've never given up on doing more "Docs". Bantam quietly let the license lapse years ago so they've been out of the picture for a while. If I would have known that was about to happen, I would have tried harder to convince them to do another "Doc". But I was busy and didn't stay in touch. I had just turned in The Forgotten Realm in December 1992 when I got the word that they weren't doing any more new "Docs". Joe and I were very surprised. But we didn't give up. We figured we'd try again in a year. But by then Bantam was cutting a lot of authors. They just wanted more sales than "Doc" could be expected to do after all these years. I had already started a new "Doc" called The Infernal Buddha using some Dent material. I had written several chapters of it along with The War Makers and another one that I called Hell Cay. Widen: Great title. Actually it's a Dent title. I later changed that to The Phantom Lagoon so that's probably the title I'd go with. But you never know, I might go back to Hell Cay. Later I took a stab at The Ice Genius and the idea I wished I'd had for White Eyes -- Terror in Gold. I never finished any of them. I also found a manuscript that would make a great "Doc". I'll probably call it The Miracle Man. It opens with the discovery that Christopher Columbus may still be alive and involves a group of strange people who seem to read minds. [StealthSkater note: Dent already used the "reading mind"/"controlling actions" theme in The Midas Man, The Mental Wizard, The Green Master, and one other I can't remember.] Widen: Is there anything else you're working on? At the very bottom of the pile of Doc Savages I might write one day are 2 stories that I had saved for last. One is a Ryerson Johnson outline for The Motion Menace that is completely different. So much so that I could use it to make a sequel to The Motion Menace => Death's Domain. I thought if I ever ran out of Lester Dent material, I'd do that story. There was another good possibility. 4 excellent chapters that were cut from The Derrick Devil. Street&Smith made Dent rewrite them because they wanted the story to go in a different way. I had an idea to build a "Doc" called The Smoking Spooks around that material. … … … … … … … … Doc's high-adventure dictionary from http://www.mindspring.com/~sheba/savage.html Aside from the exotic locales, beautiful babes, maniacal villains, and general rip-snorting adventure offered, Doc Savage books are educational too. Lester Dent was rarely satisfied to say -- for example -- that someone had attempted to stab Doc with a knife. No! They tried to impale him with a kris (or crease or creese) which -- as every well-educated adventure fan should know -- is a Malaysian knife or short sword with a serpentine blade. [The Thousand-Headed Man (#017) ] Abyssinia - Archaic name for Ethiopia. [The Thousand-Headed Man (#017) ] Alligator Garfish - A large freshwater gar of the central U.S. that attains a length of over seven feet and can weigh over 150 pounds. [The Crimson Serpent (#078)] Axis - The alliance between Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan formed in 1936 and in existence throughout World War II. Six other countries became Axis satellites: Albania, Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Romania and Thailand. [Mystery on Happy Bones (#125) ] Barkentine - A 3-masted ship having the foremast square-rigged and the mainmast and mizzenmast fore-and-aft rigged. [Poison Island (#079) ] Bayou - A sluggish stream that follows a torturous course through alluvial lowlands, swamps or plantations. [Quest of the Spider (#003) ] Blowgun - A tube of cane or reed through which a projectile, such as a poisoned dart, may be impelled by the force of the breath. [Quest of the Spider (#003) ] Cay - Also Key. A small, low island or emergent reef of sand or coral. [Mystery on Happy Bones (#125) ] Davit - A fixed or movable crane that projects over the side of a ship or over a hatchway, and is used for hoisting ship's boats, anchors or cargo. [Poison Island (#079) ] Dictograph - A telephonic instrument for picking up sounds in one room and transmitting them to another or recording them. [The Mystery on the Snow (#015) ] Indo-China - Archaic term for Southeast Asia. The SE peninsula of Asia comprising Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and West Malaysia. Since ancient times, culturally subject to Indian (Hindu) and Chinese civilizations. [The Thousand-Headed Man (#017) ] Ionize - To convert wholly or partly into ions. An ion is an atom or group of atoms when combined in a radical or molecule that carries a positive-or-negative charge as a result of having lost or gained one or more electrons. [The Red Spider (#182) ] Iron Maiden - An instrument of torture consisting of a case in the form of a person, with sharp spikes inside. [The Crimson Serpent (#078)] Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich (1890-1986) - Served 2 terms as foreign minister of the USSR from 1939 through 1949 and from 1953 through 1956. He helped formulate the Soviet policy of hostility to the West. [The Red Spider (#182) ] Pagoda - A Far Eastern structure resembling a tower of several stories that is often richly decorated and typically has projecting concavely curved roofs at the division of each story that terminate in sharp points turned upward. Usually erected as a temple or memorial. [The Thousand-Headed Man (#017) ] Patois - A dialect other than the standard or literary dialect. Also, illiterate or provincial speech. [Quest of the Spider (#003) ] Phosphorescent - Luminescence that is perceptible with characteristic rate of decay after the exciting cause ceases to act. Example: Phosphorus - a phosphorescent substance that shines or glows in the dark. [The Mystery on the Snow (#015) ] Pippen - A highly admired or very admirable person or thing. [Quest of the Spider (#003) ] Pirogue - A dugout canoe. [Quest of the Spider (#003) ] Polyglot - (n) One who speaks or writes several languages. A mixture or confusion of languages or nomenclatures. (adj.) Composed of elements of different languages. [Quest of the Spider (#003) ] Quetzalcoatl - (ketzlkohatl) - The powerful feathered serpent god of the pre-Columbian Aztec and Mayan cultures of Central America. Represented variously as culture hero, deity and creator, or high priest. He provoked the anger of another god and was forced to flee in a boat made of serpent skins, but promised to return. [The Man of Bronze (#001) ] Radar microwave - Radar is a radio device or system for locating an object by means of emitting radio signals usually in the form of pulses in an ultrahigh frequency and observing and analyzing the minute signals reflected from the object and received at or near the point of transmission in such a way that range, bearing and other characteristics of the object may be determined. Microwaves are very short electromagnetic waves. [The Red Spider (#182) ] (taken for a ) Ride - Gangster slang from the 1930s describing the act of forcing a rival into a vehicle, taking him to a remote location, executing him and dumping the body. Also, one-way ride. [The Mystery on the Snow (#015) ] Running board - A footboard on the side of an automobile or locomotive or on the roof of a freight car. Not seen much on cars designed after the 1940s. Sartorial - Of or relating to dress or to tailored clothes. [Quest of the Spider (#003) ] Stalin, Joseph (1879-1953) - Brutal dictator of the Soviet Union from 1929 until 1953. [The Red Spider (#182) ] Theodolite - A surveyor's instrument for measuring horizontal and usually also vertical angles that consists of a telescope mounted so as to swivel vertically in supports secured to a revolvable table carrying a vernier* for reading horizontal angles and usually includes a graduated arc or circle for altitudes and a horizontal compass. (*A sliding scale.) [The Crimson Serpent (#078) ] Thermite - A mixture of Aluminum and Iron Oxide which -- if ignited with a Magnesium starter -- undergoes a chemical reaction producing a high temperature (2400 oC). Invented in 1895 by German chemist Hans Goldschmidt. Used in incendiary bombs and industrially to prepare intractable metals. [The Thousand-Headed Man (#017) ] Thumbscrew - An instrument of torture for compressing the thumbs by screw. [The Crimson Serpent (#078) ] Tonneau - The rear seating compartment of an automobile. [#03 - 'Quest of the Spider'] Tracer bullet - A bullet that contains a tracer (a chemical composition) that leaves a path of smoke or fire when fired. [The Thousand-Headed Man (#017) ] Truth serum - Any of several hypnotics or anesthetics said to be useful in inducing a subject under questioning to talk freely. Usually referring to Sodium Pentothal. [The Crimson Serpent (#078) ] Ultraviolet - Beyond the visible spectrum at its violet end: having a wavelength shorter than those of visible light and longer than those of X-rays. [Quest of the Spider (#003) ] Voodoo - (n)(also voodooism) A religion originating in Africa as a form of ancestor worship, practiced chiefly by Negroes of Haiti and to some extent other West Indian islands and the U.S., and characterized by propitiatory rites and use of the trance as a means of communicating with animistic deities. (v) To bewitch by means of a spell or hex. [Quest of the Spider (#003) ] Wraith - An apparition of a living person in his exact likeness seen usually just before his death. Also, a visible apparition of a dead person. [Quest of the Spider (#003) ] List of all Doc Savage Books download the following Adventures at http://www.stealthskater.com/DocSavage.htm :
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